The Tucker Carlson Show - Rob O’Neill： Near-Death Experiences, Top Secret Area 51 Helicopter, & the Disgusting Push for War

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00:00:30.580 How'd you get into this?

00:00:32.080 Into the Navy?

00:00:33.280 Yeah, I mean...

00:00:35.080 It was one of those things where a time in life where it's just time to leave town.

00:00:40.100 If you ever want to make God laugh, tell him your plan for life, and then something changes.

00:00:44.020 That's for sure.

00:00:44.660 And it's even like going up to Bin Laden's bedroom.

00:00:46.180 It was never planned to be that way.

00:00:47.480 It just happened.

00:00:48.640 Like, life happens around you as you're planning.

00:00:51.040 I joined the Navy.

00:00:52.240 It was time to leave town.

00:00:53.440 I had a bad relationship with a girl.

00:00:54.960 My plan in life was college basketball, MBA, and then work with my dad as a broker.

00:01:01.120 And I had a bad relationship.

00:01:02.860 I got dumped, and it's like, I got to leave.

00:01:04.840 And the easiest way out of Butte, Montana is to join the Marine Corps.

00:01:07.540 Butte is not the same as Bozeman.

00:01:09.560 No.

00:01:10.140 No.

00:01:11.020 I don't think people understand that.

00:01:13.640 Bozeman is beautiful.

00:01:15.060 It's got Yellowstone.

00:01:16.300 Yeah.

00:01:16.560 Even though Yellowstone's in Wyoming.

00:01:18.360 You know, the show made everyone go to Bozeman.

00:01:20.360 Of course.

00:01:21.220 Bozeman's beautiful.

00:01:22.060 There's great food, really good coffee.

00:01:23.420 In Butte, Montana, you will get your ass whooped.

00:01:25.340 Yeah.

00:01:25.620 Like, it's a mining town.

00:01:26.680 And they're proud of that.

00:01:29.420 The biggest.

00:01:29.820 I think it was the biggest.

00:01:31.280 Yeah, it was.

00:01:31.840 Yeah.

00:01:32.060 I think it got electricity before Chicago.

00:01:35.200 And it still has the oldest Chinese restaurant in the country.

00:01:39.400 The Pekin.

00:01:40.480 And this is funny.

00:01:41.780 So the guy that owned it, his name was Danny Wong.

00:01:44.080 His son, Jerry Tam, owns it now.

00:01:45.920 Best Chinese food.

00:01:46.620 You only need a menu.

00:01:47.680 You go in there, and they just serve you.

00:01:49.500 But after Danny Wong, they named the street behind it, after him.

00:01:52.800 And I don't know why, but they named it Danny Wong Wei.

00:01:55.380 Wong Wei?

00:01:56.960 It's like, are you messing with him after his death?

00:01:59.900 We too low.

00:02:04.620 But yeah, it's just, it's a wonderful town.

00:02:23.920 Really good food.

00:02:24.580 And they don't quite realize how good the food is there, how good life is there.

00:02:27.700 Like, I have friends back home that, because I have an odd job now.

00:02:31.300 I'm not really sure what I do.

00:02:32.400 But I have friends that have a nine to five.

00:02:33.960 Like, they go to work, they have lunch with their buddies, they go home at five, they

00:02:37.060 see their kids, they're with their wife, and I'm jealous of them.

00:02:39.040 Like a normal life.

00:02:40.660 It's a cool town.

00:02:41.740 Yeah, it really is.

00:02:42.320 But it's an old-fashioned town.

00:02:44.260 Yeah, it is.

00:02:45.880 I've actually brought, when I was at SEAL Team 6, I brought about 20 dudes up there to

00:02:51.200 skydive.

00:02:51.700 We sold off a skydiving trip for high altitude, and then horseback riding, and mules, and

00:02:56.080 stuff like that.

00:02:56.600 And they got along great with them.

00:02:58.900 I told the Butte guys, hey, there's a difference between being a tough guy and being a technical

00:03:04.140 fighter, so let's just all get along.

00:03:06.320 You don't punch him, you don't punch him.

00:03:07.780 Let's just have a drink.

00:03:09.480 And we did.

00:03:10.200 It was a blast.

00:03:10.920 There was one fight, but it ended a little amicably.

00:03:13.400 So you wanted to be a broker?

00:03:15.180 Yeah.

00:03:15.820 Yeah.

00:03:16.100 I just, I thought I would, it just, I didn't know anything about it.

00:03:18.980 But my dad did it.

00:03:19.820 He looked good in a suit, and I liked his house.

00:03:21.500 So you didn't dream of fighting wars?

00:03:24.760 No, no, no, we weren't a military family.

00:03:27.760 It was, you know, I'd seen Full Metal Jacket and Navy SEALs, but there was, it was never

00:03:32.240 going to be me.

00:03:32.980 I did have two friends that wanted to be in the Marine Corps growing up, and they were

00:03:37.840 two years older than me, and they were the reason that I went to join the Marine Corps

00:03:40.500 because I saw them when they'd come home.

00:03:42.120 And I had one dude that joined the Army, and he gave me great advice when I just sort of

00:03:47.500 decided, he just said, get it in writing.

00:03:49.080 And that's good advice for life.

00:03:50.320 Like, you know, we can, yeah, I love when people say, let's do business on a handshake.

00:03:53.540 It's like, fine, I'll shake your hand after you sign the contract.

00:03:55.840 Well, so you went to join the Marine Corps, but wound up in the Navy?

00:03:58.540 Yeah, because the Marine recruiter was at lunch.

00:04:01.520 And I wanted to be a Marine because I wanted to be a sniper.

00:04:04.980 And the, but the recruiter was gone, the Navy guy was sitting right there.

00:04:08.820 And he was wearing his khakis, he was a chief, and I didn't know what a chief was, but he's

00:04:11.940 a senior dude in the enlisted ranks.

00:04:13.680 And I went in there, just because my Marine friends told me that the Marine Corps is actually

00:04:17.480 part of the Department of the Navy, it's just the men's department.

00:04:20.100 And so I went to ask him, where's the Marine, if anyone will know, you will.

00:04:22.980 And like the Army guys are here, Air Force guys are here, Marines just not there.

00:04:25.900 And he said, why do you want the Marine Corps?

00:04:27.660 And I said, I want to be a sniper.

00:04:28.540 I'm a hunter and Marines have the best snipers in the world.

00:04:30.720 Carlos Hathcock, like I said, full metal jacket.

00:04:33.160 I can do that.

00:04:33.700 It looks cool.

00:04:35.060 And he said, look no further.

00:04:36.180 We have snipers in the Navy.

00:04:37.860 You need to be a Navy SEAL first.

00:04:39.260 He brushed over that and gave me a contract and I signed.

00:04:42.860 I didn't know what a SEAL was.

00:04:43.600 I didn't know how to swim.

00:04:44.560 Was this at a recruiting center?

00:04:45.980 Yeah, it's still there.

00:04:47.260 I go in there when I go back to Butte, Montana and talk to the recruiters now just to see

00:04:50.440 if anybody wants to be a SEAL or even, you know, maybe I can tell them that Marine boot

00:04:55.040 camp is going to be great or join the Army, be a Ranger, be awesome.

00:04:57.540 Just to, it's just a good, it's a good way to grow up.

00:05:01.680 Wherever you are in this country, you can go join right now and be on a bus, three hots

00:05:04.840 and a cot.

00:05:05.320 You'll be, you'll be part of a brotherhood somewhere.

00:05:07.760 And I mean, just being a Marine would be cool, but he just wasn't there.

00:05:10.360 But I look back on it now and I tell my daughters that if that, the butterfly effect, if that

00:05:15.620 Marine recruiter wasn't at Arby's at 1130 on a Wednesday, you wouldn't be alive because

00:05:19.240 I would have joined the Marine Corps instead of the Navy.

00:05:20.620 But I joined the Navy and he showed me the videos of what Navy SEALs are after I signed.

00:05:25.800 And I remember I went to get my mom.

00:05:27.300 I brought her in and said, check this out.

00:05:28.880 And she didn't say it, but she admitted later, like, there's no way in hell you're going

00:05:32.360 to make it through.

00:05:32.820 The only one who believed in me was my dad.

00:05:34.660 Wow.

00:05:35.160 And what year was this?

00:05:37.420 1996.

00:05:37.860 1996, I, yeah, I joined in 1996.

00:05:41.360 So I left in 97.

00:05:42.940 So what was going on in the world in 1990s?

00:05:44.400 Nothing, nothing.

00:05:45.300 No, I joined in 95.

00:05:46.200 I went to bootcamp in 96, January 96, nothing.

00:05:48.740 And that's part of the mystique was, I can, I won't make it through SEAL training, but

00:05:53.360 I'll live in San Diego.

00:05:55.460 I'll go to a ship on the fleet for four years.

00:05:58.060 I'll come back to Butte and I'll hang out at Maloney's Bar and tell sea stories like that.

00:06:01.080 Like, I'm not going to make it.

00:06:02.000 Nobody makes it through SEAL training.

00:06:03.740 And that was almost the mindset of a failure.

00:06:05.860 So you're a teenager at this point.

00:06:07.440 Yeah.

00:06:08.260 And I, you know, I, I learned how to swim.

00:06:10.940 I knew I wouldn't quit, but it's, it's not on the ocean.

00:06:15.100 No, the entire state's landlocked.

00:06:17.120 Yes.

00:06:17.560 Right.

00:06:18.400 I could, I mean, I could, I could keep myself alive, but I didn't know any strokes at all.

00:06:22.420 I actually ran into a buddy of mine who swam at Notre Dame.

00:06:24.560 One of the few swimmers from Montana, cause I still had my ID from Montana tech.

00:06:28.640 They had a pool and I had a couple, I actually had a couple of weeks before I left and I ran

00:06:33.180 into him at the pool and he goes, uh, don't take this the wrong way.

00:06:36.520 I, I, I, I'm happy to see you in the pool.

00:06:39.120 I've just literally never seen you in the pool.

00:06:40.600 What gives?

00:06:41.560 And I said, I just joined the Navy.

00:06:42.520 I'm going to be a SEAL.

00:06:43.120 And he goes, oh, not like that.

00:06:44.180 You're not.

00:06:44.580 And he showed me the breaststroke and the side stroke.

00:06:46.460 And then I practiced that.

00:06:48.260 And I was good enough to pass the screening test to get into SEAL training, but that's,

00:06:52.320 I mean, that test is easy.

00:06:53.500 So the first test is a swim test.

00:06:55.140 Yeah.

00:06:55.340 Well, it's a, it's a, it's a 500 yard swim, uh, 42 pushups, 50 sit-ups, eight pull-ups

00:07:02.320 and then a mile and a half timed run.

00:07:03.940 Like it's really easy.

00:07:04.820 But when I went there, when I went to bootcamp and took that test, there's, we're sitting

00:07:07.940 at bleachers, there's 250 dudes on these bleachers.

00:07:10.380 And I remember thinking, well, what makes me special?

00:07:12.840 There's no way I can make it.

00:07:13.860 And out of that 250, two of us passed the test.

00:07:16.300 And then when you pass that test, then you might get orders.

00:07:19.260 And then out of that two of every 250, 85% won't make it through training.

00:07:23.960 So it's, it's a really, but, but it's a mindset at a certain point you need to.

00:07:27.740 So from the day you got on the bus as a teenager, like, you know, you're in the, you're in the

00:07:32.920 Navy.

00:07:33.260 Yeah.

00:07:33.920 How long was it from then until you got your Trident?

00:07:37.020 I think, well, it'd been a year, uh, bootcamp, no, a year and a half.

00:07:40.800 Uh, bootcamp was nine weeks.

00:07:42.460 I did a two week, a school where basically the Marines taught me how to wind a bobbin

00:07:46.420 and use a sewing machine.

00:07:48.000 Uh, they call it showing is a big part of it.

00:07:49.920 Uh, no, no, just, uh, you had to get a rate, uh, for a job and then like boats is made or

00:07:54.000 photographers made, or I was an air crew survival equipment, man, just because that's the shortest

00:07:58.020 one to get me to, to San Diego.

00:07:59.900 So I did two weeks in Millington and then I went down to an April that would have been

00:08:03.500 96.

00:08:04.160 I checked into, to Bud's class 208 classed up there.

00:08:07.400 And, and, um, then we graduated in December, but I got, I got some good advice by a guy

00:08:12.000 by the name of Tom Donovan, who is an admiral now, which makes me feel so old.

00:08:16.080 He might be a two star, but he was fresh out of the Academy and the Naval Academy has a

00:08:19.720 really high rate of guys make it through because they screen him so hard in Annapolis.

00:08:23.480 And, uh, his dad was an admiral and I remember seeing him and, and he doesn't even remember

00:08:27.440 saying this, but I ran into him in the cages one, one day.

00:08:30.540 And I was like, wow, this is crazy.

00:08:31.680 Like I'm scared, but you're like in charge.

00:08:34.080 Like, you gotta be really scared.

00:08:35.060 He looks at me and goes, the fuck are you afraid of?

00:08:37.320 Why are you, why are you scared?

00:08:38.400 I'm like, I don't know.

00:08:39.840 He said, don't be afraid.

00:08:41.000 Just, these are just normal dudes.

00:08:42.520 Just make it, make it one evolution to the next.

00:08:44.820 And he was a student like me, an ensign.

00:08:47.520 Great.

00:08:47.980 He, I mean, there, there are guys that, uh, when we did hell week, he personally, there,

00:08:51.720 there's like at least 20 Navy SEALs that owe their careers to Tom Donovan.

00:08:55.440 Cause he got them through, like, just like motivating them as a student.

00:08:59.540 So in 96, 97, you're, you know, trying to become a Navy SEAL, which is, you know, the

00:09:05.660 most famous of the American war fighters.

00:09:09.120 But what do you think you're going to be doing?

00:09:11.380 I didn't know.

00:09:12.620 Um, did you think about it or are you just so focused on?

00:09:14.960 No, I, well, I was focused on the training because I wanted to make it through.

00:09:19.520 I had, uh, I keep bringing up hell week cause that's allegedly the hardest part when you

00:09:23.660 wake up on Sunday and you're, you don't sleep till Friday.

00:09:25.620 You're awake the whole time running with boats on your heads and doing evolutions, cold,

00:09:28.380 wet, sandy, miserable.

00:09:29.040 Like by Wednesday, every part of your body that's touching cloth starts to bleed because

00:09:33.240 of the salt water in the sand.

00:09:35.280 Uh, but I had, uh, an instructor.

00:09:37.160 I don't know why he said, I don't know why he was, he didn't need to be motivating, but

00:09:40.540 he said right before hell week, you're about to go to war for the first time.

00:09:43.660 And the enemy is all your doubts, all your fears, and everyone, you know, back home that

00:09:47.600 told you, you weren't good enough to do this.

00:09:49.020 Keep your head down, keep moving forward.

00:09:51.120 You'll be fine.

00:09:52.340 One, one, uh, one meal at a time.

00:09:54.460 He said, um, another, he said the first day of training was, I know you've read the books

00:10:00.360 and probably seen the movies regardless of what you've been told.

00:10:03.360 However, this course is not impossible.

00:10:05.080 People graduate.

00:10:06.060 Look at me.

00:10:06.720 I'm living proof.

00:10:07.640 So I will never ask you to do anything impossible, but I will make you do something very hard

00:10:11.320 followed immediately by something very hard followed by something even harder day after

00:10:14.920 day after day for eight straight months.

00:10:16.260 And that sounds like a lot to get from now to graduation day, but don't think about it

00:10:19.520 that way.

00:10:19.860 That's not how you achieve a long-term goal.

00:10:21.760 Do it like this.

00:10:22.720 Wake up in the morning on time, make your bed the right way, and then brush your teeth.

00:10:25.400 That's three wins.

00:10:26.400 You just started your day with three victories.

00:10:28.180 Make it to the 4 a.m. workout on time.

00:10:31.320 And when I'm beating, you don't think about the pain.

00:10:33.300 Concentrate on your next goal in life, which is breakfast.

00:10:35.720 After breakfast, your next goal in life is lunch.

00:10:37.320 After lunch, it's dinner.

00:10:38.680 After dinner, do everything you need to do to get back inside that perfectly made bed.

00:10:42.100 And because you took the time in the morning to make your bed the right way,

00:10:44.600 regardless of how bad today was, and it'll be bad, tomorrow's a clean slate.

00:10:50.080 Tomorrow's a fresh start.

00:10:51.660 And when you feel like quitting, which you will, do not quit right now.

00:10:54.340 That's emotion.

00:10:55.320 Quit tomorrow.

00:10:56.580 If you can keep quitting tomorrow, you can do anything.

00:10:59.200 And just that's the mindset that I needed that because I went there scared.

00:11:03.140 It's like, well, I'll just quit because it's almost like a fear of the unknown.

00:11:07.220 Like, I'll just quit because it's easy.

00:11:08.240 Or watching other guys quit, like a loud mouth or a big tough guy or a college football player.

00:11:12.560 Or he quits, it's like, well, shit, if he can't make it, I can't make it.

00:11:15.060 And that's like sympathetic quitting.

00:11:16.780 Just let him go.

00:11:17.940 No one's better than you.

00:11:18.900 Just because you're from Butte, Montana or from West Palm Beach or from Long Island

00:11:23.540 doesn't mean someone from Chicago is better than you.

00:11:26.340 And people, like Butte, Montana, we're almost in a bubble.

00:11:29.700 Like the other side of the continental divide is you got Seattle, Portland, San Francisco.

00:11:34.320 There's got to be better athletes than me or something.

00:11:36.200 But don't believe that shit.

00:11:37.440 You can do anything.

00:11:38.600 Just got to keep the right mindset.

00:11:39.420 How many guys quit?

00:11:40.620 We had a big class.

00:11:41.740 Out of our 227, we graduated 33.

00:11:44.120 That was big.

00:11:45.220 Two classes before us, they graduated seven.

00:11:47.960 There was a class that graduated zero.

00:11:50.320 Like, they call it the class that never was.

00:11:52.000 They got down to so few that like, well, you're all done.

00:11:54.340 Got to go to the next class.

00:11:55.880 But then the older you get, it's funny.

00:11:57.880 You get, every Navy SEAL always says, my class was the last hard class.

00:12:02.700 Because they're easy now.

00:12:04.040 And they're like, what do you mean?

00:12:04.800 I'm like, well, we graduated two.

00:12:05.900 They made us fight it out.

00:12:07.180 Just bullshit.

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00:13:02.960 But it's the camaraderie there.

00:13:06.260 You meet the people.

00:13:07.860 The sense of humor, the dark sense of humor.

00:13:10.520 And misery loves company.

00:13:11.880 We say that all the time.

00:13:13.260 One guy that I met during Hell Week, you're cold and wet and miserable the whole time.

00:13:19.440 But every day, at least once a day during Hell Week, they send you to medical.

00:13:23.300 They check you out.

00:13:24.000 They look at your eyes because you're going to be delirious.

00:13:26.300 Freezing, you're shaking.

00:13:27.520 And then as soon as you're done with medical, you have a dry uniform and dry boots, dry socks.

00:13:32.420 And as soon as you put them on, you're right back in the water.

00:13:34.620 Like, it just sucks.

00:13:35.760 And I was trying to tie my boots one time, and I couldn't.

00:13:38.600 My hands were shaking so bad.

00:13:39.780 And I look at my buddy, and I go, hey, Barker, can you pee on my hands?

00:13:45.100 And I meant to warm them up, right?

00:13:46.560 And he's freezing.

00:13:47.220 He just goes, well, yeah, if you're into that.

00:13:49.020 I'm like, no, I'm not.

00:13:50.420 That was funny.

00:13:51.960 But I mean, just the dry sense of humor and the camaraderie.

00:13:54.480 That sense of humor, yeah.

00:13:55.300 But that's what you need.

00:13:57.640 When we were going after Marcus Luttrell, we were awake for about three days.

00:14:00.680 We're on top of these mountains in eastern Afghanistan, and we're exhausted.

00:14:04.440 And I looked at my guys, and I said, this is why training is so hard.

00:14:06.900 Because if we were going to quit right now, where the fuck are we going to go?

00:14:09.960 We're just here.

00:14:11.740 And that's why you've been through the training.

00:14:14.300 And then combat's way worse.

00:14:15.420 Even being at the SEAL teams is way worse than SEAL training.

00:14:18.000 That's just the initial welcome to the Naval Special Warfare.

00:14:22.800 Did you have any sense of that when you completed training?

00:14:26.640 Did you have a sense that, I'm going to do shocking things for the next 10 years?

00:14:32.460 No.

00:14:32.560 When we finished SEAL training, the last part is 40 days, maybe 30 days on San Clemente Island,

00:14:37.700 where they say no one can hear you scream.

00:14:39.600 You go out to this training site, and it's no time off.

00:14:42.820 Then when you get done with that, it was a Monday, and we're graduating Friday.

00:14:46.000 And I remember the instructor saying, all right, go to admin and go to dental.

00:14:48.560 Get your service record, your medical record, because you're checking into SEAL team, too.

00:14:51.140 And I'm like, well, shit, what does that even mean?

00:14:53.420 What do you mean I'm done?

00:14:54.760 This shouldn't end.

00:14:56.060 Now you've got to go be a SEAL.

00:14:57.060 So good luck.

00:14:58.340 Did they give you any sense of what that would mean?

00:14:59.960 No.

00:15:00.520 No.

00:15:01.180 I picked two, eight and four, because they were on the East Coast.

00:15:04.680 And I wanted to go to two, because they were in Bosnia.

00:15:07.060 And that's the closest thing to combat.

00:15:08.360 And I thought I wanted combat.

00:15:09.560 That's before I went to combat.

00:15:11.380 And they're in Sarajevo.

00:15:12.960 Kosovo's popping off.

00:15:14.080 We'll get in there.

00:15:14.900 So I went to SEAL team, too.

00:15:16.000 And then, I mean, they don't really teach you anything in SEAL training.

00:15:20.120 Then when we got to the team in my era, then it was SEAL tactical training, a 13-week course,

00:15:24.820 where they finally teach you how to do stuff.

00:15:27.080 And then you go to a platoon, which is 16 guys.

00:15:29.140 And that group works together for a full year, getting to know standard operating procedures

00:15:32.520 and how, you know, tendencies.

00:15:34.120 And then they sent us overseas.

00:15:35.540 So my first deployment was in the summer of 1998 on the USS Austin.

00:15:39.980 We went to the Mediterranean.

00:15:42.420 You know, there was, we heard about Al-Qaeda.

00:15:44.380 They were in Albania because there was some sort of an exercise, and they threatened them.

00:15:48.100 And I had just finished sniper school.

00:15:49.980 I'm kind of jumping around here.

00:15:50.900 I had just finished sniper school.

00:15:51.880 So I was on a rooftop with a range car, you know, out to 1,000 yards looking at this place like,

00:15:57.920 okay, I made it.

00:15:58.420 I'm a Navy SEAL now.

00:15:59.200 But there was nothing.

00:16:00.260 It was, you know, before 9-11.

00:16:01.340 So I thought I was high speed.

00:16:02.580 In Albania.

00:16:03.320 Yeah.

00:16:04.520 Yeah.

00:16:04.900 But I mean, if you're locked.

00:16:05.760 I'm not sure most Americans understand we sent SEALs to Albania.

00:16:08.600 What are SEALs doing in Albania?

00:16:10.820 Well, you got to figure that part of the woods, the Adriatic, and you got all kinds of Al-Qaeda guys

00:16:15.180 in Kosovo, Bosnia.

00:16:15.860 So they're going to be in Albania, too.

00:16:17.920 I mean, of course it makes sense, and it's a heavily Muslim country.

00:16:21.560 But I guess my question is, did you understand just how large the landscape was?

00:16:28.960 No, because we were just basically training.

00:16:32.100 We spent a lot of time with the Special Boat Service in the UK, a lot of time with the German

00:16:36.220 comp swimmers, Norwegian Jaegers.

00:16:37.820 Those are badass dudes.

00:16:39.120 Really?

00:16:39.280 Yeah, they're really good.

00:16:41.900 But they don't get involved because their government sucks, but they're studs.

00:16:44.960 I talk about skiing and rock climbing, never seen anything like it.

00:16:47.020 Plus the best looking dudes in the world, got to be honest.

00:16:50.120 The Norwegian.

00:16:51.120 Yeah, they're studs.

00:16:52.160 They're really good.

00:16:53.500 Telemark skiing, there's nobody better.

00:16:56.420 And so combat skiing, rucksacks, guns, and all that crap, like carrying the old M14s because

00:17:00.840 they work better in cold weather.

00:17:01.900 But we were training just because contingencies.

00:17:06.040 Like we don't know, you know, rush is gone, cold war's over, nothing's going to happen.

00:17:10.400 So we're basically going to be safe.

00:17:11.720 And when my time came up after four years, I just, I knew the guys and I'm like, I'm 23.

00:17:18.880 I don't want to go home now.

00:17:19.820 I want to stay with these guys.

00:17:21.000 So I reenlisted just to stay with the guys at SEAL Team 2.

00:17:23.540 What year was that?

00:17:24.200 That would have been 1999 or right around 2000.

00:17:26.960 No, 2000.

00:17:27.580 Jocko reenlisted me on a Humvee in Kuwait.

00:17:31.220 But I reenlisted because I knew the guys.

00:17:33.460 And then 9-11 happened and I'm like, well, I can't get out now.

00:17:37.120 And then I ran into a dude from SEAL Team 6 at Navy Exchange on, I was taking a leadership

00:17:45.420 course at Damnic, which is near Oceania in Virginia Beach.

00:17:48.580 That's where SEAL Team 6 is.

00:17:49.700 And I'm taking this course and I went over to the Navy Exchange, which is a mall in my

00:17:53.340 uniform with the trident and the camis.

00:17:54.780 And there's this dude in there with flip-flop shorts, a beard and long hair.

00:17:57.660 He's kind of eyeballing me because he knew I was a SEAL.

00:17:59.840 And I'm like, well, that's a SEAL Team 6 guy.

00:18:01.420 And that arrogant fuck, I'm going to find out what that place is like.

00:18:03.920 That's the only reason I went to SEAL Team 6 is that guy was mean mugging me.

00:18:07.060 Wow.

00:18:07.620 But that's, again, that's how, you know, life's decisions, the smallest decisions.

00:18:10.320 So 2001, you've been in five years?

00:18:12.540 Yes.

00:18:12.820 Did anyone, you know, shoot anyone during those five years?

00:18:18.420 No.

00:18:18.880 There was rumors of one guy might have got a kill in Bosnia, but the only guys who were

00:18:23.280 shooting would have been Somalia right around 1993 and then 91.

00:18:29.020 I don't think SEALs even did anything in Desert Storm.

00:18:30.620 And then you had Patia Airfield in Panama in 1989.

00:18:33.400 And those dudes are just legends because they got in a gunfight and some guys did a combat

00:18:37.020 swimmer op.

00:18:37.600 They swam over to, instead of blowing up Noriega's boats, I guess they were told to unscrew the

00:18:42.520 screw on the back of the boat.

00:18:43.840 Typical American, let's just be nice about being mean.

00:18:46.840 Just unscrew it.

00:18:47.600 Just blow the damn boat up.

00:18:49.060 But those guys were just legends and nothing until we just finished a 40-day thing in Kosovo

00:18:55.200 or 30 days and we're sending out emails and then the towers were hit.

00:18:58.760 Where were you when that happened?

00:18:59.700 Germany.

00:19:00.080 I was a Stuttgart.

00:19:01.660 What were you doing?

00:19:02.780 Just a deployment.

00:19:03.760 We had a unit over there.

00:19:05.060 So we'd go over there and we would stage out of Germany.

00:19:07.660 So we went to Lithuania for training, went again to Norway over to Scotland and we did

00:19:11.580 training around there.

00:19:12.340 Kosovo was the real world stuff and then back to Germany because that's where all of our

00:19:15.220 stuff was.

00:19:15.640 We deployed to Germany.

00:19:16.840 It's called the UConn.

00:19:17.780 So European Command.

00:19:18.960 Special Forces are over there and SEALs go over there.

00:19:21.300 And then we had a place in Rota, Spain too.

00:19:23.840 But that's where deployments were and that's all you do.

00:19:25.560 You're not, like I did, when I was on the deployment with Jocko and Drago and Scott

00:19:31.540 Padge and Steve Drum, we, the one mission we did was we took down a Russian tanker full

00:19:37.400 of smuggled Iraqi oil and there was no resistance.

00:19:40.720 I mean, like we were taking away steak knives because there was a weapon, like just bullshit

00:19:44.100 mission.

00:19:44.660 Where was it?

00:19:45.420 That would have been in the Persian Gulf.

00:19:46.740 They were smuggling oil.

00:19:47.520 So we just, we hopped on that, drove it to Oman and we made headlines and we thought we

00:19:50.200 were high speed.

00:19:50.960 So that would have been right around 2000.

00:19:52.740 What did the Russians say when you boarded their ship and stole it?

00:19:54.840 They didn't have a choice.

00:19:55.860 We just, we came in with a helicopter.

00:19:57.260 I was a sniper in the helicopter and our guys fast rode down and they, our guys just took

00:20:00.280 it.

00:20:00.340 We're good at that.

00:20:01.580 There was, but no, no, we're anticipating resistance, but I don't think they had any

00:20:04.680 guns.

00:20:05.420 So, but that was like at the time.

00:20:07.240 Were they annoyed that you stole their ship?

00:20:08.540 Yeah.

00:20:09.260 But we were doing stuff like that.

00:20:10.400 Like people were smuggling dates and we would take down these little Dow boat, dates, like,

00:20:14.580 all right.

00:20:15.200 Dates like the fruit?

00:20:16.100 Dates.

00:20:16.720 They're smuggling dates.

00:20:17.420 So let's go save the planet.

00:20:19.580 Literally Navy SEALs taking down boats with dates.

00:20:22.220 That's it.

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00:21:29.420 Remember in 2020 when CNN told you the George Floyd riots were mostly peaceful, even as flames

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00:21:44.520 They're constantly telling you, everything is fine.

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00:21:53.160 Move along and obey.

00:21:55.320 No one believes that.

00:21:57.240 Crime is not going away.

00:21:58.640 Supply chains remain fragile.

00:22:00.940 It does feel like some kind of global conflict could break out at any time.

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00:22:46.800 So you go from that to...

00:22:49.380 Well, the 9-11, and it's just...

00:22:50.460 How soon did you realize, like, this changes everything?

00:22:53.700 The second, the minute the second plane hit the tower, the South Tower.

00:22:59.440 And we just assumed, because we were already overseas, they're just going to keep us here

00:23:02.260 and we'll go to Sudan, because that's where a lot of Al-Qaeda is.

00:23:04.440 We didn't know, we didn't think Afghanistan, us.

00:23:06.680 But someone knew somewhere.

00:23:07.800 So, but we stayed over there for another month, and then we went back and then redeployed.

00:23:11.760 To where?

00:23:12.780 Well, we were heading over to invade Iraq.

00:23:15.660 I was on a boat, it was in 2003.

00:23:17.500 We were on with Marines, they're going to go through Turkey.

00:23:19.760 But then something happened in Liberia.

00:23:21.780 So they sent the Marines off, and then we turned around and had to swim into Liberia

00:23:25.060 to do hydrographic reconnaissance for the Marines to come in and save people out of the embassy.

00:23:31.380 And, I mean, that was a different...

00:23:33.620 That's a different place to be, too, because it's a civil war.

00:23:38.200 Liberia is named after liberty, and then Monrovia is the capital named after President Monroe,

00:23:41.320 because they sent us...

00:23:42.700 I was there then, that year, 2000, summer of 2003.

00:23:45.480 We, you know, the most dangerous thing we were thinking about was sharks or saltwater crocodiles.

00:23:50.880 When we got there, the people loved to see us.

00:23:52.480 They thought we were liberating them.

00:23:54.040 No shots fired, but there was a civil war going on, like cannibalism.

00:23:57.480 So it's kind of an awakening, but we missed the invasion of Iraq and then turned around,

00:24:01.380 and then I went...

00:24:01.700 In Liberia?

00:24:02.560 Yeah.

00:24:03.020 Did you see General Butt-Naked when you were there?

00:24:05.060 No.

00:24:06.100 He was a major commander.

00:24:07.600 Yeah, no, I didn't even...

00:24:08.960 I'm not familiar with that at all.

00:24:10.080 General Butt-Naked?

00:24:12.260 It describes his uniform.

00:24:15.500 So you're in Liberia, wow.

00:24:16.920 Yeah, when they're invading Iraq.

00:24:18.120 So they're already in Afghanistan.

00:24:19.440 They're invading Iraq, and we're in Liberia, which is just weird.

00:24:23.140 But, you know, yeah, that was that.

00:24:25.700 And then went back, and then I screened for SEAL Team 6, went through selection.

00:24:28.820 Then my first deployment to Afghanistan was 2005.

00:24:32.040 Went to Jalalabad, right around the time that Turbine 33 was shot down, Red Wings, the lone survivor.

00:24:38.900 Why did you...

00:24:39.780 What is SEAL Team 6, and why did you want to be in it?

00:24:42.120 SEAL Team 6 is the National Mission Force, and so they were designed to rescue American hostages at sea.

00:24:47.780 If a cruise ship gets...

00:24:48.820 Like, so Delta Force will do the airplanes and stuff, and then we'll do the water on paper.

00:24:53.980 And that's just where the best SEALs go, because half of the guys that get selected to try out don't make it.

00:25:02.260 These are Navy SEALs, like experienced Navy SEALs, usually five or six years in the SEAL teams, and then they try out for SEAL Team 6.

00:25:10.800 And it's just a hard selection course.

00:25:12.460 There's a lot of close quarters battle, a lot of drills designed to make you fail, and just to see how you handle failing.

00:25:20.740 Because they don't really care if you succeed.

00:25:22.640 They want to see how you handle failure.

00:25:23.720 So it's not about physical fitness.

00:25:25.140 No, well, you do at least a 10-mile run every morning, and then you get into the training.

00:25:29.020 And like skydiving, high altitude, high opening jumps, that's when you jump out of a plane, and you can go to a spot 11 miles away under canopy.

00:25:35.880 Like even looking down at your GPS, you can't feel any wind, but you're going 90 miles an hour.

00:25:40.580 It's a crazy experience.

00:25:42.540 Jumping at night, jumping bundles, jumping tandems, jumping gear, testing stuff out.

00:25:48.640 And that's scary.

00:25:49.840 I mean, when you can't see anything, but you know you're at altitude, you know you're at 25,000 feet.

00:25:55.180 Like you think you're looking at Tucson.

00:25:56.360 Oh, wait, that's actually Phoenix, because I'm so high up here.

00:26:00.140 And then, you know, like even on a 25, we would do 25,000-foot halos, so high altitude, low opening.

00:26:04.660 And it's weird.

00:26:06.160 We were wearing the old-school altimeters with the dial and watching it get to zero.

00:26:11.340 And knowing you're not going to hit the earth because you've got another 13,000 feet to go, it's a crazy feeling.

00:26:15.480 But it's so dark, you can't see it.

00:26:16.700 You've got to trust your—

00:26:17.720 How long is the fall in a halo?

00:26:19.060 For that, it would be about two minutes.

00:26:20.940 Normally, when we jump at 13, it's about a minute, depending on what you're doing.

00:26:25.520 If you jump a tandem, you have to set a drogue chute, like a six-foot drogue chute, to stay at terminal velocity with everyone else.

00:26:31.280 We're jumping a bundle.

00:26:32.560 What's a bundle?

00:26:33.160 A bundle is a huge barrel that weighs about 400 pounds, and it's full of extra gear.

00:26:38.940 So it'll be radios, batteries, bombs, bullets, just stuff that guys can't carry.

00:26:43.160 So the bundle master jumps all of it, and then you break it out and you hand it out when you get down there.

00:26:46.800 And some guys like it because it hits—like when you're jumping at night, under night vision, you can sort of see the ground.

00:26:54.160 But you can't—like you want to flare when you get to the bottom, and that turns the back of the parachute down so you can stop.

00:26:59.900 But if you flare too high, it needs to eat again, then it'll just drop you from 10 feet, so you kind of judge where you want to do it.

00:27:05.800 But the bundle will hit the ground first, and you hear it hit, and then it just kind of pulls you down.

00:27:09.700 But the entire time, the bundle's trying to kill you on the way down.

00:27:12.540 So you're connected to a 400-pound barrel?

00:27:15.300 Yeah, with a 10-foot tether, yeah.

00:27:16.520 I mean, that sounds unappealing.

00:27:19.200 It is.

00:27:19.980 And it's one of those things.

00:27:21.060 I did it just because I wanted that call.

00:27:22.820 I want to say that I'm a tandem master, a bundle master.

00:27:25.360 I just want that qualification.

00:27:26.820 What can go wrong when you're jumping with a 400-pound barrel?

00:27:29.140 A lot of stuff can go wrong.

00:27:30.660 Everything from when you start, you've got to set your drogue parachute.

00:27:35.300 If that doesn't set, you have to know it by feel that you're now going faster than everyone else, and you've got to get it set out there.

00:27:41.400 You've got to get that thing out there.

00:27:42.580 Then once you're falling with it, I've had an occasion where when I pull, so when you pull, like little things, like remember to cross your legs because you don't want to snap your nuts off because you've got this thing.

00:27:52.720 Little things?

00:27:53.520 Little things like that.

00:27:54.680 Details.

00:27:55.160 In my case, anyway.

00:27:56.300 But once that pulls too, then you've got to check your canopy, make sure it works.

00:28:00.560 You've got all nine cells up there, make sure the brakes work, and then you do a little test.

00:28:04.820 But I've had it before where only half the parachute opened, and then it's in a dive, and I'm in the middle, and this thing's spinning violently.

00:28:11.640 The 400-pound barrel is spinning violently?

00:28:13.500 Yeah, and I'm in the middle of it, and this driftable force is pulling me to the – I had a line twist behind me, so it's pinning my head to my chest, and the cutaway for the bundle's right here.

00:28:23.780 And I'm lucky I pulled on a high-altitude jump at 10,000 because normally you pull at 5'5", and I actually burned about 7,000 feet in the spin if I would have –

00:28:32.420 And so I remember saying to myself, if you ever want to see your daughters again, you've got to get this now because it's – like I can hear it, and the ground's coming.

00:28:40.740 I pulled it.

00:28:41.520 The thing shot off.

00:28:42.260 It's got a parachute on it, so it landed in former Browns Field.

00:28:45.000 I landed by myself under this 400-foot canopy, and my buddy Phil came out to me.

00:28:49.480 He didn't see the malfunction, but he came out, and he goes, you look like you just saw a ghost.

00:28:52.680 Are you okay?

00:28:53.580 And I said, somebody needs to change that.

00:28:57.140 This high-speed canopy with that low-speed cutaway has got to change because we just changed the new parachutes, these high-performance parachutes.

00:29:04.000 Someone's going to die, and a year later, Lance Vaccaro died of the same malfunction because they didn't fix it, and then they fixed it.

00:29:09.160 It's like, why didn't you fix that?

00:29:10.720 What happened to him?

00:29:11.580 Same exact malfunction except he pulled a 5'5", and he couldn't get the – he couldn't get it out, and he smacked into the ground.

00:29:16.800 And, like, some of my buddies went out there to him.

00:29:20.080 They had a – they criked him with a pen, like a writing pen.

00:29:23.580 They cut his neck and put it in there, tried to get him to breathe, and he died out there.

00:29:27.660 And that's in training.

00:29:29.600 Training – and this is during war.

00:29:30.880 Like, he – I don't remember what year that was, 2008 maybe.

00:29:34.100 But, yeah, I mean, the training's dangerous.

00:29:36.900 But it has to be done because, well, we do all that.

00:29:39.760 We do all the jumps, all the wind tunnel time, indoor skydiving, because that one jump that you need to nail the exit, you can't.

00:29:46.000 Like, Captain Phillips.

00:29:47.240 Like, everyone there had been in the tunnel, had done the jump.

00:29:49.720 That's just because you've got to nail that exit.

00:29:51.440 When you leave an aircraft, especially a C-17, you're hitting the relative wind at first, so 130 knots.

00:29:57.680 So you're actually hitting that wind straight until it transitions you to go down.

00:30:01.700 So when you jump out, especially with a rucksack, it's going to pull you, and if you mess with it, you can flip.

00:30:06.740 And then you don't – if you pull on your back, your canopy can come out in a horseshoe and wrap around your neck, and people have died that way.

00:30:12.140 So you've really got to nail an exit.

00:30:13.380 So we trained that much for that one jump.

00:30:15.560 How many jumps are you doing?

00:30:17.000 I've had over 1,000 probably.

00:30:18.600 1,000?

00:30:19.060 Yeah.

00:30:19.340 That's not a lot either.

00:30:20.460 Like, some of our instructors, 20-some thousand.

00:30:24.060 Because we hired civilians, like Arizona Arsenal out in Marana, Arizona, best skydivers in the world.

00:30:31.220 So we started to hire the best in the world to teach us this, like the best fighters, the best skydivers, the best shooters, the best drivers, just to teach us how to do what they do.

00:30:38.400 And they taught us how to do exits and learn how to fly canopies.

00:30:41.100 You have over 1,000 jumps?

00:30:42.400 Mm-hmm.

00:30:43.180 So that's multiple jumps a day.

00:30:44.740 Yeah.

00:30:45.040 Well, I'd go out there a lot.

00:30:46.140 I would do about eight trips a year to Arizona for two, three weeks at a time just to skydive.

00:30:51.440 How often are you skydiving when you're out there?

00:30:53.380 Every day.

00:30:54.080 Six a day.

00:30:55.100 Six jumps a day.

00:30:56.000 Maybe more, depending on your attitude.

00:30:58.260 Like, guys would save for 10.

00:31:00.220 Or guys just wanted to get back to the Trident Bar and Grill where Nelson Miller owns that place.

00:31:03.480 It's just fun to hang out.

00:31:04.480 Did you lose your fear of jumping out?

00:31:07.240 Yeah, there was never a fear of jumping.

00:31:09.240 It was, the first jump is like looking through straws.

00:31:13.260 Like, you really lose your periphery, but then it starts to get easier and easier.

00:31:17.380 And then, so jumping is not, I mean, when you're strapped to a bunch of stuff at night, it's definitely sporty, but it's not fear.

00:31:24.280 It's like, I know how to handle this.

00:31:25.360 And I'd rather, like the Army jump static line where you connect to the thing and you jump at 2,500 feet or whatever.

00:31:31.200 Like, I don't want to be connected to the aircraft I'm jumping out of.

00:31:34.080 No, no.

00:31:34.380 I'd rather have time to, I've got a minute to work any high-speed malfunction or low-speed malfunction.

00:31:39.320 I can solve it.

00:31:39.920 But that's low.

00:31:40.460 I mean, 2,500 feet doesn't give you a lot of time to react.

00:31:43.000 Well, that's why, that's like the 82nd Airborne.

00:31:44.660 Like, they're just throwing hundreds of people out at once in like vehicles and stuff.

00:31:48.360 Like, that's ranger stuff.

00:31:49.380 Like, we can take an airfield.

00:31:51.520 And ours is high-opening because we can ideally jump in and then float without anyone seeing us.

00:31:58.100 And I've had friends do that.

00:31:59.300 I had, one of my really good friends is, he led the jump to, into Somalia to rescue Jessica Buchanan.

00:32:05.560 And they jumped, I think, 17 dudes in 40 knot winds that, like, we wouldn't have jumped in training, but he did that.

00:32:12.200 And they led it and they killed, like, 22 terrorists and rescued both hostages.

00:32:15.660 And that, again, that's just because he was prepared.

00:32:19.160 His team was ready.

00:32:19.900 Like, they did so many training jumps that we can do this when we need to.

00:32:24.300 You said that training for SEAL Team 6 was heavily psychological and they make you feel like a loser.

00:32:30.540 They make you fail on purpose.

00:32:32.000 What does that consist of and what's the purpose?

00:32:34.820 They just want to see how you handle failure.

00:32:37.600 And even when we're training later when we get into SEAL Team 6 in a debrief, even after a combat mission,

00:32:43.840 on a debrief, I would say, okay, what did you screw up?

00:32:46.180 I don't want to sit here and listen to how awesome you are.

00:32:48.300 What did you fuck up?

00:32:49.220 Tell me.

00:32:49.800 And we'll learn from that.

00:32:51.200 So they purposely get you into situations that you can't pass.

00:32:55.100 To see, just to see, like, when they ask you what were you thinking, your answer should be, I'm an idiot.

00:33:01.920 That's it.

00:33:02.720 Deflate it.

00:33:03.140 Don't get in an argument you can't win.

00:33:04.540 But the guy that starts to explain, well, here's what happened, blah, blah, blah.

00:33:06.840 You know, thanks for the debrief.

00:33:07.800 You're out of here.

00:33:09.060 Like, I don't want to hear your excuses.

00:33:11.780 Just, you're an idiot.

00:33:12.560 Now, learn from it.

00:33:13.060 So sometimes when people sell products on TV, you know, I love this product.

00:33:16.880 I use this product.

00:33:17.820 There's the question in the mind of the viewer, does this guy really use the product?

00:33:22.100 Does he really love the product?

00:33:23.520 Would he keep the product at home?

00:33:25.020 Ask my dogs.

00:33:26.320 Yes!

00:33:26.940 Now, we are in a garage.

00:33:29.460 I'm going to tell you where it is because, again, this is prepping.

00:33:33.040 But this is my garage.

00:33:35.020 There's a gun safe.

00:33:35.780 And this is a part of my stockpile of Ready Hour.

00:33:39.500 Completely real!

00:33:40.820 The second I put it here, the second Ready Hour sent it to me, I felt peace of mind.

00:33:46.220 Because no matter what happens, we're not going hungry in my house.

00:33:49.600 I moved a lot of fishing gear out of the way to keep it in my garage.

00:33:53.220 And ever since it's been here, I have felt the peace of mind that comes from knowing my family's not going hungry no matter what.

00:34:00.780 LastCountrySupply.com.

00:34:02.100 LastCountrySupply.com.

00:34:03.460 It can be in your garage along with the peace of mind that comes with having it.

00:34:07.240 So what would they make you fail?

00:34:09.260 House runs.

00:34:10.080 That's when, in a kill house, like when a hostage rescue team comes into a house, you'll see it in action movies and stuff, where they just come in here and they clear the whole area.

00:34:18.140 There are definite steps, distances, movements, and angles based on covering each other's backs in fields of fire.

00:34:24.440 So each, like one man goes here, two men goes here, three, four.

00:34:27.580 And they just, they make it really, really difficult target identification.

00:34:33.160 Like they'll, stupid paper targets where someone's pointing something at you and you shoot them, all of a sudden it's just a cell phone.

00:34:37.860 So that's a safety violation, you're probably fired.

00:34:39.700 Or they'll have something holding a hostage and if you shoot the wrong, well, if you shoot the wrong person, you're out.

00:34:45.560 But just little footwork stuff or too far off the wall, too far, over penetrate, long hallway, stairwell.

00:34:52.360 Just, you screwed something up, you didn't go by the, by the standard operating procedures, but they'll let you keep going.

00:35:01.360 To see if you, like when you first take a step into a room, are you the person who comes into a situation and makes a mistake and then realize worrying about that mistake right now is not going to help?

00:35:12.520 I have a job to do and we'll talk about that later if we live.

00:35:15.320 Or are you the person who comes into a situation, makes a mistake and then you can't stop thinking about that mistake?

00:35:20.320 And even though you're moving this way to clear that corner, you're dwelling on this mistake and because you can't stop thinking about that mistake over here, that's where you make a bigger mistake and that's where they get you and then you're fired.

00:35:29.040 So it's make a mistake, get over it and then keep going on.

00:35:32.600 And the house run can be another 20 minutes and you're still thinking about that first entry point that you screwed up, but you got to get that out of your head.

00:35:40.160 How do you do that?

00:35:40.900 You just, just get over it.

00:35:42.960 It's, I mean, it's as simple as just stop thinking about it.

00:35:45.640 That, that no longer matters.

00:35:47.260 That, that we're just here.

00:35:48.860 Your failure no longer matters.

00:35:50.160 Nope.

00:35:50.640 Because, I mean, everyone's still alive.

00:35:52.120 I screwed up.

00:35:52.700 I came in with the wrong foot.

00:35:54.560 Whatever.

00:35:55.980 So they make you feel incompetent.

00:35:58.880 Yes.

00:35:59.720 Like every run.

00:36:01.060 And at the end of it, you're, you get debriefed on, on how bad you, and like the whole, like a green team, we call it the selection course.

00:36:08.160 Telling, just telling everyone how they screwed up and then, then you get, then everyone gets punished for it.

00:36:11.420 And then as soon as you're done getting punished, you're right back in there again.

00:36:14.280 And then, and the whole point is, can you get over it?

00:36:17.360 I mean, that's, that sounds harder than running.

00:36:20.640 It's hard.

00:36:21.080 Um, and I've seen dudes that when they just freeze, they, they, they screw up too many things and they just freeze.

00:36:28.420 Yeah.

00:36:28.600 Because it's a perfectionist who gets into this business anyway.

00:36:32.600 Like who wants to be a Navy SEAL?

00:36:34.000 Only someone who wants to test himself, be the best.

00:36:37.860 Right?

00:36:38.360 Yeah, I think so.

00:36:39.200 Yes.

00:36:39.860 Someone's got something to prove.

00:36:41.780 Exactly.

00:36:42.200 And they want to be the best.

00:36:43.300 And then, I mean, it's even, it's even unique going to SEAL Team 6.

00:36:45.880 It's not, everyone knows that SEAL Team 6 is a different animal.

00:36:47.900 Like a lot of the Navy SEALs you see out there now weren't at SEAL Team 6.

00:36:52.240 Uh, and they know that.

00:36:53.680 And, uh, they, I mean, a lot of people don't talk about it.

00:36:55.540 That, that is the best command in the world.

00:36:58.520 Though, I mean, those are the guys that they call when Osama bin Laden pops up, SEAL Team 6.

00:37:03.600 So, how do you, I mean, how do people fail out?

00:37:07.400 I mean, these are all SEALs with-

00:37:08.740 Just usually safety violations.

00:37:10.560 Um, like I was talking about with the wrong foot or shooting the wrong target.

00:37:13.780 You can have minor safety violations or majors.

00:37:16.460 If you get a major, they're going to boot you.

00:37:18.020 But if they like you, they might keep you.

00:37:19.500 Like if they personally like you.

00:37:20.980 If they hate you, you're in a bad, you're starting off on a wrong foot.

00:37:24.380 There's, there's a point during the screening process where they just hand your picture around to the guys that have made it.

00:37:29.760 And if you get too many thumbs down, like I've seen this guy and I don't like him.

00:37:32.320 You're not going to, you don't even get to try.

00:37:34.220 Like it's a, it's a good old one.

00:37:35.640 Really?

00:37:36.060 Yeah.

00:37:37.100 Yeah.

00:37:37.400 You want to-

00:37:38.140 What percentage is the attrition?

00:37:40.080 50 percent.

00:37:41.000 When I went through, half the guys didn't make it.

00:37:43.340 And you knew them all, I assume.

00:37:44.500 Oh, I knew all of them.

00:37:45.080 And it was just bizarre because one minute you're having breakfast with your buddy, then you go to the, and I, there were guys I had breakfast with and I never saw them again in my life.

00:37:52.160 They did, they did something wrong.

00:37:53.180 They're out.

00:37:54.000 They would walk around with, um, the instructors and they're all SEAL Team 6 guys, these instructors.

00:37:58.120 And they've been through this course.

00:37:59.040 They'd walk around with, uh, like two airplane tickets back in the day when you'd have paper tickets.

00:38:03.260 They'd be like, all right, we're not, we're not done until two of you guys go home.

00:38:06.220 So we're going to keep training until two of you guys fail.

00:38:08.760 Like it's, it's a, it's a tough course.

00:38:10.840 How long is it?

00:38:11.540 Nine months.

00:38:12.600 Nine months?

00:38:13.280 Yeah.

00:38:14.020 Does anyone fail out at the end?

00:38:15.760 Not usually.

00:38:16.480 When you get through the initial part of close quarters battle, they, they keep you around the, the, the initial down in Tennessee or not in Tennessee in, in, in, um, in, um, Arkansas.

00:38:25.840 Where the hell are we?

00:38:26.400 Mississippi.

00:38:27.360 If you make it through that and jumping, they'll usually keep you around because you've proven you can do that stuff.

00:38:31.040 Plus they spent a lot of money on you.

00:38:32.540 And so they might keep you around, but you can get shit canned at any time too.

00:38:35.740 When you're, um, at the command, if you screw up, they can, we can.

00:38:40.140 So you graduate, you become part of SEAL Team 6.

00:38:42.980 Yeah.

00:38:43.400 You made it to the top.

00:38:44.240 What do they do with you next?

00:38:46.020 They split us up into squadrons and they're just, you, you go from, um, being a, a, a number team to a color team.

00:38:52.360 So like I was at SEAL Team 2 and then I went to SEAL Team 6 Red Squadron.

00:38:55.680 So I was at Red.

00:38:56.820 And, uh, it's even funny out in town.

00:38:58.320 Like you see some of the local groupies and they would talk to SEALs like number or color.

00:39:03.460 It's like, first of all, fuck you.

00:39:04.660 But second of all, red.

00:39:06.980 Are there better colors than others?

00:39:08.460 Uh, no.

00:39:09.420 Um, it is funny that, no, when you get to that level, everyone is, is at, on the same level.

00:39:14.840 So there's different, um, different attitudes, uh, personalities, um, like Red Team was known

00:39:21.680 for training way too hard.

00:39:23.180 Gold Team was known for telling people to F off.

00:39:24.860 Like you can't tell us what to do.

00:39:26.000 And Blue was awesome.

00:39:27.060 Uh, when we finally started Silver, this is kind of funny that, so, cause Delta was going

00:39:30.660 to go to four squadrons.

00:39:31.380 So we went to four squadrons and the rumor that Gold Squadron started was, uh, yeah,

00:39:35.540 I heard the next one's going to be a Silver Squadron.

00:39:37.880 And that rumor just started and it turned into Silver and we, we finally asked Gold, why,

00:39:41.620 why did you keep saying it was Silver?

00:39:42.820 And they go, cause Silver's not quite as good as Gold.

00:39:45.380 Second place.

00:39:46.160 Yeah.

00:39:46.740 But no, uh, I did one deployment with Silver also and the guys are just, uh, the best of

00:39:51.940 the best.

00:39:52.380 How many are there in SEAL Team 6?

00:39:53.920 About 200, I think at any time.

00:39:55.040 And that was a unique place because I was, I was excited to get out of bed because every

00:39:59.560 day I could go to work with people who were better than me.

00:40:02.080 And we all thought that way.

00:40:04.120 We all acted that way.

00:40:05.560 And nobody ever undermined it any undermined anybody else.

00:40:09.000 Like if someone was out shooting me, like in a speed drill, I would, I'd go up to him

00:40:13.340 and say, Hey, why did you switch your holster to here?

00:40:15.560 What, why did you put that pouch over here?

00:40:17.380 What do you, what, what time do you wake up?

00:40:18.680 And what do you, what workout do you do in the morning?

00:40:20.080 What do you eat?

00:40:20.820 I want to find out what you're doing to make, what made you better than me today and try to get

00:40:24.920 better.

00:40:25.120 And then, and then we'd help each other instead of like trying to steal their job or whatever,

00:40:27.900 we'd help each other.

00:40:29.100 And then when we, I mean, at that level, when we first started going to Iraq, cause I'd only

00:40:33.360 seen Iraq on television, suicide bombers everywhere, car bombs going like I, I, the first three

00:40:39.160 months in Iraq, I was like, are we missing something?

00:40:42.240 Cause we're really good.

00:40:43.780 Like we're, this isn't even close.

00:40:45.420 The enemy's not even getting a shot off.

00:40:47.100 We got to a point where, um, we stopped blowing up doors and stopped talking to each other

00:40:52.820 and went quiet, went silent.

00:40:54.020 Like we, if we were silent, we were faster.

00:40:56.540 And we got to a point where we, uh, instead of blowing up a door and waking, instead of

00:40:59.680 landing a helicopter right on the house, we'd land way over there, walk in, pick the locks,

00:41:03.440 break the glass quietly, go in.

00:41:04.960 We would have competitions on who could touch more terrorists while they were sleeping.

00:41:08.740 Like walk up to them and you'd like to test their vest for a suicide vest.

00:41:12.940 And then you put your hand on their lips and go, shh, shh, shh.

00:41:15.380 And you wake them up.

00:41:16.000 And then they shit their pants.

00:41:18.360 And then what happens?

00:41:19.720 You arrest them.

00:41:20.440 Unless they have a suicide vest on them.

00:41:22.280 They, they, they find out if the 72 virgins are real.

00:41:25.440 When was the first time you saw someone killed as a SEAL?

00:41:28.300 Um.

00:41:29.420 Do you remember?

00:41:29.840 I want to say in Ramadi, uh, I didn't, you know, because we dropped bombs on people in

00:41:37.220 2005.

00:41:37.720 And then I went to, uh, Iraq in 2000, late 2005.

00:41:41.980 And that's the first time I killed someone.

00:41:44.100 Me and, uh, actually the sniper from the Captain Phillips mission, we got our kills at the exact

00:41:49.640 same time.

00:41:50.280 What, what happened?

00:41:51.180 We, we were doing a, um, a combined hit with, it was SEAL Team 6, Delta Force, and the special

00:41:57.760 air service.

00:41:58.220 So we got a good crew coming in and we're splitting up this, this, uh, like SAS has this, Delta's

00:42:03.600 got this, and here's our target.

00:42:04.560 And we crept in.

00:42:06.080 We had just started that tactic of, of not going on white lights, not moving fast, going

00:42:10.120 dark, not talking.

00:42:11.360 Like when, when I see people at war just screaming, go, go, go, all that bullshit.

00:42:14.980 It's like, shut up.

00:42:16.020 Why aren't you just yelling?

00:42:17.040 Here we are.

00:42:17.640 Just shut up.

00:42:18.680 And like, if, if you point this way, I'll assume you see something and we can just read

00:42:21.620 off each other.

00:42:22.360 So we went into this house, four of us.

00:42:24.640 One of the guys was from the SBS, special boat service.

00:42:26.460 And we're walking down this long hallway, four of us.

00:42:28.960 And this dude came out with an AK and he could have killed all of us, but he couldn't see

00:42:33.400 us.

00:42:33.880 So he went back in the room and then we hit the room and killed him.

00:42:37.000 Then we came outside as the whole town started to light up and me and the, um, sniper went

00:42:41.240 out and we, we did this cross pan thing on a building.

00:42:43.780 And as like, when you're crossing, like I'm covering here, he's covering there.

00:42:46.240 And you can wave and take your corner or whatever.

00:42:49.000 But these two dudes just popped up, two Al Qaeda guys.

00:42:51.020 I blasted him.

00:42:51.580 He blasted him.

00:42:53.040 And I go, oh shit, I just killed that guy.

00:42:54.520 And my buddy goes, I just killed that guy.

00:42:55.980 I'm like, what do we do now?

00:42:56.820 I guess we do one of those bounding things and find more Al Qaeda guys.

00:43:00.380 But it was, it was almost like, uh, the first kill wasn't, uh, it, it didn't bother me.

00:43:06.480 It was more of a, okay, now I'm part of the club.

00:43:08.660 Cause now I have friends that have kills.

00:43:09.860 Now I have a kill.

00:43:10.400 So, and then the, you know, the floodgates opened and everyone started killing people.

00:43:14.900 When was it?

00:43:15.600 It was 2005.

00:43:16.480 Uh, 06 and 07 was when it really got hot.

00:43:19.200 And then over in Afghanistan.

00:43:21.000 Did you, but did you, that night after you'd killed somebody, did you think about it?

00:43:25.020 Uh, not really.

00:43:26.260 Um, I, no, I mean, it was just a kill.

00:43:28.600 It was, um, everyone's, everyone's trying to get there.

00:43:31.460 Everyone's trying to do it.

00:43:32.300 So I'm just part of the club.

00:43:33.080 It didn't bother me at all.

00:43:34.340 And again, just working with these guys, I, I thought I was different mindset.

00:43:37.900 So it didn't, and that guy still doesn't bother me.

00:43:39.840 He had a gun.

00:43:40.300 He was maneuvering on us.

00:43:41.040 So whatever he was, he was definitely Al Qaeda.

00:43:43.260 And then, you know, we, we just did that and we were really good about it.

00:43:46.060 We, we, the more latitude that we had as far as collateral damage, the, the fewer innocent

00:43:51.920 people got hurt because, because we're the good guys and we're not going in there to murder

00:43:55.600 people.

00:43:56.460 And if you, if you, if you give me that, then, but then, I mean, it got to the point right

00:44:00.940 before I got out there, if you're in a gunfight and there's a cave, I remember one, there

00:44:04.440 was a cave.

00:44:04.820 We're trying to call it hellfires.

00:44:05.820 And the boss is 200 miles away said, we're not saying there are women and children in

00:44:10.680 that cave, but we can't prove that there are not.

00:44:12.600 It's like, what are we even doing here?

00:44:14.520 But we got good at it.

00:44:15.860 Um, every night we're going out and we, um, uh, General McChrystal decided that we should

00:44:21.360 be hunting, um, Sunni terrorists.

00:44:23.380 That's what Al Qaeda, they're Sunnis.

00:44:24.800 And they were terrorizing the, uh, the locals.

00:44:26.840 And that's kind of where I got an affinity for locals because they got to deal with us.

00:44:30.140 Then they got to deal with Al Qaeda.

00:44:31.200 All they're trying to do is get on with their lives.

00:44:32.560 Like most people in a combat zone are not combatants.

00:44:35.500 They just want to live.

00:44:36.400 Of course.

00:44:36.960 And so they deal with Al Qaeda in their house.

00:44:38.360 But so then we would go to their house and then we, that's when we got into interrogations,

00:44:41.380 try to find the bad guys and root them out.

00:44:43.000 And we were given the latitude to, if you've, if you see, I'll kill them on, kill them on

00:44:46.640 site.

00:44:47.360 How would you know who they were?

00:44:49.060 Uh, well, I mean, usually if they go to their guns or they, uh, they sleep outside with guns

00:44:54.860 buried, you can kind of tell they're bad guys.

00:44:56.360 And, you know, if they don't have guns, we don't, we don't kill them, even though we,

00:44:59.620 we know they should be.

00:45:00.880 But again, we're the good guys.

00:45:02.140 So we're not, we're not trying to do that, but they'll usually hop up and fight, you know,

00:45:06.320 or then the trees are on the, you know, get shot at from rooftops and things like

00:45:08.880 that.

00:45:10.320 But interrogating them was, was actually funny.

00:45:12.400 I mean, how do you do that?

00:45:14.300 Um, the way I started to do it, cause I never had training.

00:45:17.180 We just learned on the job.

00:45:18.800 And so what I would do is I would take my interpreter and like have him stand here and

00:45:22.440 put the Al Qaeda guy right in front of him.

00:45:23.840 So they can't look at each other, but I talked to him and he talks to you.

00:45:27.540 And then you tell me what he says and I'm, and I'm going to be very direct.

00:45:30.520 I just going to ask, uh, who's the man of the house?

00:45:33.340 How many guys are here?

00:45:34.180 What are their names?

00:45:34.740 What's your name?

00:45:35.860 And then let them go.

00:45:37.180 But, but then like I've run in.

00:45:38.720 Why do you ask that?

00:45:39.600 Uh, cause if there's seven, usually it's like a rule of threes.

00:45:42.900 Like if there's a seven dudes, there's going to be 21 women, 16, God knows how many kids.

00:45:48.560 So the, the guys are the bad guys.

00:45:50.120 And so, uh, if there's seven dudes, five of them are going to be, they live in the house

00:45:53.740 and those two are, they came in from Jordan.

00:45:55.240 That's Al Qaeda.

00:45:56.140 And just separate.

00:45:56.880 And then you arrest them and bring them back to, you know, prison and stuff.

00:45:59.340 And they can interrogate them there.

00:46:00.240 So you look for the, you look for contradictions.

00:46:03.840 You ask them all separately.

00:46:05.060 Cause the two guys are lying.

00:46:05.960 They don't know who the guys in the house are.

00:46:07.120 They don't know their names or how many people are here.

00:46:08.840 The five guys that live here do.

00:46:11.100 And then, then the one that I really liked was like the 12 year old kid, the boy, the

00:46:15.440 oldest of the children, because you could, you could prop him up, like dust him off and

00:46:19.820 say, all right, finally, I'm talking to the man of the house.

00:46:21.460 What's going on here?

00:46:22.120 Who are these dudes?

00:46:22.780 And then he just, yeah, I am the man of the house.

00:46:24.620 Well, these two are assholes.

00:46:25.540 I was like, all right, cool.

00:46:26.560 So, or even bring them in a place where they can't see him, like put them behind a sheet

00:46:30.800 or something.

00:46:31.420 And I'll bring these guys in and you just point to the, like a, like a lineup on TV.

00:46:35.720 And then those, those are the bad guys and they don't know who the kid is.

00:46:38.560 And then you just roll them up that way.

00:46:39.940 And I mean, it sucks.

00:46:40.720 Cause then you send them to prison.

00:46:41.600 They're out in 30 days and you're fighting them again.

00:46:43.640 Where, where, where was the prison?

00:46:44.880 Abu Ghraib, usually in Iraq.

00:46:46.700 And then Bagram, we'd taken there.

00:46:48.640 We sent a few guys to Guantanamo.

00:46:52.000 You know, that was, but at the time too, it's almost like it, it's, we, we were

00:46:56.540 at a time where we're just fighting for the guy next to me.

00:46:58.260 The overall plan, like Bin Laden's a ghost.

00:47:00.300 We're never going to find him.

00:47:01.420 Like I would even joke with dudes I was interrogating.

00:47:03.580 Like, uh, who's the man of the house?

00:47:05.140 Whose house is this?

00:47:05.840 Where's Osama Bin Laden?

00:47:06.780 And I'd see terrorists laugh at me.

00:47:08.000 I'm like, I don't know.

00:47:09.180 Like, I know you don't know.

00:47:09.940 I don't know either.

00:47:10.480 I just figured I'd ask.

00:47:11.880 But like, I've run into, um, English speakers where, um, like, like he didn't need the interpreter.

00:47:19.020 And he'd say, I know the deal.

00:47:21.320 I remember one guy said, I go, you know the deal?

00:47:24.120 He's like, yeah, I know the deal.

00:47:24.940 You're going to send me to prison.

00:47:25.780 I'm going to get out in 30 days.

00:47:26.740 I'm going to kill your friends again.

00:47:27.700 And I said, so you've dealt with Americans before, huh?

00:47:30.300 And he's like, yeah.

00:47:30.780 I'm like, did they look like me?

00:47:32.600 Like with the beard, short sleeves, tattoos.

00:47:35.000 Do they look like me?

00:47:36.160 I'm like, yeah, you didn't do, you never dealt with us.

00:47:38.720 We're not here on accident.

00:47:39.720 We're here for you.

00:47:41.320 And then again, watch Al Qaeda shit their pants.

00:47:43.620 It's pretty funny.

00:47:44.900 I mean, what a heavy life though.

00:47:47.240 Yeah, well, it was, but everyone was doing it.

00:47:49.800 So it seemed normal.

00:47:51.040 Did you ever talk about it?

00:47:52.560 I mean, you're just, the people you're, the guys you're working with sound like smart

00:47:57.900 people.

00:47:58.480 I mean, they're screened for intelligence and self-control and like, they're not shallow

00:48:03.980 people.

00:48:04.500 No.

00:48:04.820 Right.

00:48:05.220 No, they're deep thinkers.

00:48:06.120 I can tell.

00:48:07.300 But just be like everyone around you is doing it.

00:48:10.860 So it seems normal.

00:48:11.540 It was not uncommon to see a guy at the team that just made headlines around the world and

00:48:16.680 say, hey dude, you just made headlines.

00:48:17.900 It's cool.

00:48:18.020 You want to go to the gym?

00:48:19.360 Like, just blow it off.

00:48:20.880 When my buddy rescued Richard Phillips and I, we were on the ship and I said, this is

00:48:26.000 obviously before the, can you explain the Richard Phillips story for those who don't remember?

00:48:29.260 Yeah, it was, the Maersk, Alabama was a ship carrying crate around the Horn of Africa

00:48:35.780 and Somali pirates had started taking the ships as criminals because the insurance company

00:48:42.000 is always paying the ransom every time.

00:48:43.820 So it's going to be a lucrative business and they captured the Maersk, Alabama and Richard

00:48:50.580 Phillips was a captain in order to save his crew because there was a fight on board.

00:48:54.580 He got in a lifeboat and then the four terrorist criminals got in a lifeboat and then they

00:48:58.460 went off to sea because he was going to just send them out, but they took him as a prisoner

00:49:02.060 because they could sell him to Al-Shabaab or whatever they're going to do.

00:49:04.320 So, and eventually the USS Bainbridge, a destroyer started towing it.

00:49:10.700 So they're towing this around, not sure what to do with them.

00:49:14.440 They got terrorists inside there and an American prisoner.

00:49:17.080 I mean, even to the point that he jumped out once and he was looking at the Navy, like,

00:49:20.940 are you going to go hot?

00:49:21.940 Like, you can go shoot now because I'm in the water and they didn't even shoot.

00:49:24.320 Like, you're putting his life at risk because if they get him back, so they tied him up

00:49:28.560 and all that stuff.

00:49:29.040 And then that's when they called us.

00:49:30.460 And I was, um, it was my birthday, Good Friday, April 10th.

00:49:34.280 And I was at my daughter's Easter tea party at her preschool and I'm getting her cupcakes.

00:49:38.440 I got a pink plate and I walked over to, she's four years old and I got a message that you're

00:49:42.200 going to get them now.

00:49:43.500 So I had to kiss my daughter, like look her in the eye.

00:49:45.680 Like that's the hardest part too, of combat.

00:49:47.460 Look her in the eyes and kind of realize this could be it.

00:49:51.520 This could be the last time we ever see each other.

00:49:53.820 You know, and there's a huge difference between kissing your kid goodnight and kissing your kid

00:49:56.640 goodbye.

00:49:57.020 And she was always there.

00:49:59.120 Like she was four during that when she was one after a lone survivor.

00:50:02.620 She was seven going after bin Laden, but he's saying goodbye to her, giving her a kiss.

00:50:06.540 And then, uh, um, well, I, we had a set amount of time to get to work.

00:50:11.540 We don't, we've been selling it since 1980, but we'd never done it.

00:50:14.780 And I have about an hour to get selling it, selling that we can be wheels up at a certain

00:50:18.940 time and we can be anywhere in the world in 24 hours.

00:50:21.000 We've been selling it to like JSOC, the army and the white house.

00:50:23.980 And you got to figure the Obama administration had only been in office for a few years.

00:50:27.020 So there, this is very serious, but the funny part of the story was, uh, I was ahead of

00:50:32.660 schedule and I stopped at a seven 11 on the way there's a seven 11 outside of the base.

00:50:36.300 And I got a log of Copenhagen, a carton of cigarettes and as much cash as I could out of the ATM.

00:50:41.640 That's the spirit.

00:50:42.220 Cause I knew we're going to be jumping on the East coast of Africa, but there's never a perfect plan.

00:50:46.840 We might not land where we want.

00:50:48.340 I'm the lead jumper and I might, we might not end up where we want.

00:50:50.900 If I land in a semi-permissive environment, I might be able to barter with the locals with the

00:50:54.740 tobacco or, um, pay my way to safety with cash.

00:50:58.300 What brand of cigarettes?

00:50:59.320 Um, I bought parliament lights.

00:51:01.480 Parliament lights.

00:51:02.820 Yeah.

00:51:04.160 But, uh, but I was in there to get it.

00:51:05.800 And there was one dude, there was one dude in front of me and he was buying a USA today.

00:51:10.020 And the headline was about Richard Phillips, about the mission we're trying to do.

00:51:14.380 I'm right behind him and he slammed it down on the counter and kind of announced to the whole store,

00:51:18.740 man, I sure wish someone would do something about this.

00:51:22.260 And I'm behind him recognizing the irony and looking at my watch and I tap him on the shoulder

00:51:26.920 and he turns around and I go, buddy, pay for your shit.

00:51:28.400 And we will like, I'm not even kidding.

00:51:30.740 Like the national security timeline is squarely on your very broad shoulders.

00:51:34.340 Did you make it within?

00:51:35.060 Yeah, I made it in time.

00:51:36.020 And then, uh, 15 hours and 46 minutes after, um, I got the message.

00:51:39.940 We were in the Indian ocean with 103, 103 guys, full head count.

00:51:43.060 And then, uh, a day and a half later on.

00:51:45.060 How'd you get in the Indian ocean?

00:51:46.300 We jumped out of the C-17.

00:51:47.460 We flew from Oceania, refueled.

00:51:49.060 And then, uh, I led the jump out and we had a dude behind me that, um, he wasn't a SEAL

00:51:54.380 and he didn't have any skydives, but he was a communicator.

00:51:56.940 He set up the radio so we could talk to the White House.

00:51:59.060 But then we're like, we might need better communication when we get down there.

00:52:01.660 So I'll handle this.

00:52:03.120 And I went over and kind of kicked him and said, Hey, he was changing plans, homie.

00:52:06.920 Guess who gets the skydive?

00:52:08.440 And he's like, Oh no, I didn't join the Navy to be a SEAL.

00:52:10.740 I don't want to skydive.

00:52:11.540 And I was like, you're half right.

00:52:12.460 Have a nice jump.

00:52:14.020 And so we-

00:52:15.000 You told him on the plane that he was jumping out over the-

00:52:17.120 Oh, you're going to strap up to my buddy here and he's going to jump.

00:52:19.140 Well, that was a funny story too, because I'm on the ramp.

00:52:21.720 We just launched the boats.

00:52:23.020 I'm, I'm the lead jumper.

00:52:24.080 I'm the first guy to bring the guys down.

00:52:25.700 And I turn around at the, at the end is this poor kid doing his first tandem.

00:52:29.520 And I, before I jump, I'm in a great mood, right?

00:52:31.980 Cause I hooked him up.

00:52:32.860 I was a, I'm a tandem master.

00:52:33.960 So I'm doing the personnel inspection on him.

00:52:36.080 He's just the radio guy.

00:52:36.960 He's a radio guy.

00:52:37.640 And I could have ordered him to go, but I'm like in a good mood.

00:52:40.880 And I'm like, dude, chicks pay for the shit on the weekends.

00:52:42.880 And that water's like 90 degrees.

00:52:44.160 This is gorgeous.

00:52:44.720 It's going to be so fun.

00:52:45.320 And he's scared to death.

00:52:46.640 So I'm getting ready to jump.

00:52:47.660 And I turn around and I kind of give him a like thumbs up and I'm getting nothing.

00:52:51.780 And my buddy who I connected him to, his head comes around and kind of gives me a thumbs up.

00:52:55.700 And then this kid looks back and they're like in each other's intimate space.

00:52:58.980 And the last thing I heard my buddy say was, well, don't look at me, bro.

00:53:01.320 I don't know what half this shit does anyway.

00:53:03.200 Before he jumped him.

00:53:04.520 And then we had, so we jumped in.

00:53:05.820 So the kid actually went out the plane?

00:53:07.180 Oh yeah.

00:53:07.820 He stayed scared the whole mission.

00:53:09.420 Well, yeah.

00:53:10.060 Yeah.

00:53:10.860 But then it ended on Easter.

00:53:12.560 So you land in the water.

00:53:13.560 Land in the water.

00:53:14.480 Sink the parachutes.

00:53:15.820 We sent four boats out.

00:53:16.980 So we hop on the boats and we go to the USS Boxer.

00:53:20.340 And then we put the snipers on the Bainbridge.

00:53:21.920 And then we were coming up with plans.

00:53:23.340 Because no one had thought of a lifeboat being towed by a destroyer.

00:53:27.060 So literally everyone come up with a plan and we'll write them down and we'll come up

00:53:29.880 with the top five.

00:53:30.580 And as we're doing that, the snipers got a good look.

00:53:33.360 They were looking at him for a while and they got the shots and they just took it.

00:53:36.860 And yeah.

00:53:38.340 And one of the stories, I don't know if it's true because I wasn't with him, but his story

00:53:42.080 is awesome.

00:53:43.160 One of the snipers, there's an obstacle at SEAL Training called the Slide for Life, where

00:53:48.240 you climb this structure and then you slide on top of a rope all the way down.

00:53:51.180 And we always thought, what's the application, the reality of it?

00:53:55.940 When are we ever going to need this?

00:53:57.300 Yeah.

00:53:57.600 That one guy needed it that one time when he crawled down to rescue Richard Phillips.

00:54:00.960 So he crawled down there.

00:54:02.460 And again, this is his story.

00:54:03.460 He said he pulled his pistol and he's getting ready to go in that small hatch in the back.

00:54:07.220 And just being an arrogant Navy SEAL, he's like, this is the only time I'm going to rescue

00:54:10.540 someone.

00:54:10.940 I got to think of something cool to say.

00:54:12.060 What do I say?

00:54:12.800 SEAL team here to get you out, whatever.

00:54:14.240 He said he went in there and now he's in this lifeboat covered.

00:54:18.420 They've been using it for a toilet for five days and it's in this hot African sun.

00:54:23.800 And now there's three dudes laying in it with their heads blown off.

00:54:26.420 And he said, he looked at Richard Phillips and the first thing he said was, I'm going

00:54:29.840 to need therapy after this shit.

00:54:31.940 That's what I say.

00:54:34.420 I'm going to need therapy.

00:54:35.880 Did he?

00:54:36.580 I don't know.

00:54:37.300 And I don't know if he had said that, but the story is awesome.

00:54:38.820 So it's, was there, I mean, to crawl into a, you know, a latrine filled with guys who

00:54:47.460 had their heads blown off, pretty heavy thing to see.

00:54:51.320 It is.

00:54:52.040 What I was getting at though was when, when my buddy did that and I, I talked to him afterwards

00:54:56.640 and they did a really good job in the movie, the sniper shoot and they just, they put their

00:55:00.420 bipods up and they leave.

00:55:01.380 I talked to my buddy and I said, you realize that you've just done the most important thing

00:55:04.940 in the history of the SEAL teams.

00:55:06.480 And his response was, cool, can we go home?

00:55:09.960 How long did it take you to get home?

00:55:11.240 About two weeks.

00:55:12.740 We went to Qatar and hung out at the pool for two weeks.

00:55:16.480 Karaoke night, R&R.

00:55:17.940 What a weird life.

00:55:19.400 I don't know.

00:55:20.120 Yeah, well, because we never, because we'd never done that mission before.

00:55:23.500 We'd been selling it since the 80s.

00:55:26.000 And that actually reminds me of the mindset, because, you know, getting to SEAL Team 6,

00:55:29.900 the mindset, those snipers were sleeping in their own beds on a long weekend.

00:55:34.820 And their guns did not need to be sighted in for the most difficult shots of their lives,

00:55:39.940 but their guns were sighted in for the most difficult shots of their lives.

00:55:42.920 If they would have, if they would have, they didn't get complacent.

00:55:47.120 Complacency kills.

00:55:47.940 Complacency is caused by success.

00:55:49.760 Too much success and you have a tendency to say the worst thing you can say when you're

00:55:52.720 running a team.

00:55:53.200 Well, this is the way we've always done it.

00:55:54.840 Those guys could have said, I'm going to sight my gun in on Tuesday.

00:55:57.320 I can drink beer all weekend.

00:55:58.860 And that's a shortcut.

00:55:59.840 That's being complacent.

00:56:00.780 And they weren't complacent and it saved the man's life.

00:56:02.980 Those shots, I mean, they're shooting through a window in two moving boats.

00:56:07.960 You know, there's some serious, and if they miss, they're going to kill him right away.

00:56:12.320 Like, if you miss this shot, he's going to execute, and it's on you.

00:56:15.640 I mean, that's a lot of pressure.

00:56:17.460 How do you hit something when both the object you're standing on and the object the target

00:56:25.480 is standing on are moving?

00:56:27.040 They've done it 10,000 times in training.

00:56:30.520 Muscle memory.

00:56:32.300 Shooting at movers, walkers, cars.

00:56:35.080 Shooting in wind when someone's walking, like having a moving target in wind.

00:56:38.740 So it almost looks like you're shooting behind him, but you know the wind's going to take

00:56:40.860 it into him.

00:56:42.480 Anticipating what the sea state is like, and you're leading them.

00:56:46.580 I didn't take the shot.

00:56:47.600 It was just awesome shots.

00:56:49.280 They were, yeah, they were pros.

00:56:50.820 Really good dudes.

00:56:52.160 So how long between that mission and?

00:56:55.420 Bin Laden?

00:56:55.960 Yeah.

00:56:56.240 Two years.

00:56:56.960 What'd you do for that two years?

00:56:58.540 As soon as Captain Phillips was done, we went over to Afghanistan, and I was on the base

00:57:03.980 when Bo Bergdahl walked off.

00:57:06.400 And so we tried to rescue him.

00:57:07.960 That's a weird story too.

00:57:09.780 Because I, wherever you are, be there, be present.

00:57:13.600 And I happen to find myself on all these major missions just because I was available.

00:57:18.060 I've had Army guys joke with me.

00:57:19.540 They said that I'm the Forrest Gump of the Navy, only I'm not as good looking and I can't

00:57:23.340 run as fast.

00:57:24.420 I'm not sure how to take that.

00:57:26.340 But Bo Bergdahl walked off.

00:57:28.480 Because the way that we would work overseas is we say-

00:57:30.480 So who is Bo Bergdahl?

00:57:31.500 Bo Bergdahl was the guy that the Taliban grabbed him and they held him for five years.

00:57:35.520 In Pakistan.

00:57:36.360 And then the Army flew in and traded out those five Taliban guys for Bo Bergdahl.

00:57:40.260 So he was a POW, but he walked off because he was an idiot.

00:57:43.420 Right.

00:57:44.260 And the way that we would work-

00:57:45.680 He walked over to the Taliban.

00:57:46.740 He walked out just because he was going to start a new life in the mountains.

00:57:49.540 And he, it's one of those things where just because you don't think you're at war with

00:57:53.140 someone doesn't mean they're not at war with you.

00:57:54.860 Well, exactly.

00:57:55.540 When he walked off the base, I went into the Tactile Operations Center with a coffee and

00:57:59.400 they said, yeah, this dude just walked off the base.

00:58:01.260 And I was like, what do you mean he walked off?

00:58:02.920 He said, yeah, we intercepted this phone call from the locals calling the Taliban.

00:58:06.580 They said, we found this American soldier.

00:58:08.700 Do you want him?

00:58:10.060 And they said, the Taliban said, what do you mean you found him?

00:58:12.400 They go, they said, we found him on the side of the road taking a shit.

00:58:15.440 And the Taliban's response was, yeah, we want him.

00:58:17.320 And he'll never shit right again.

00:58:19.440 And that, like that dude was held for five years.

00:58:22.140 And I've been asked before too, should he, should he do jail time?

00:58:25.380 It's like, no, he needs therapy because he's been punished.

00:58:27.620 Yeah.

00:58:28.020 He realized he made a huge mistake.

00:58:29.900 Whatever happened to him?

00:58:30.860 Do you know?

00:58:31.040 I don't know.

00:58:32.040 He's in, I think he got court-martialed.

00:58:33.920 I don't, I don't know.

00:58:35.000 I should look that up.

00:58:36.200 Wow.

00:58:36.660 So you went to Afghanistan.

00:58:37.860 Yeah.

00:58:38.100 After the Indian Ocean.

00:58:39.500 What was that like?

00:58:41.280 It was the same.

00:58:43.100 It was summertime.

00:58:44.440 So they don't really fight in the winter.

00:58:46.560 They do the spring offensive and they fight all summer.

00:58:48.160 And we'd just been authorized a few years prior to actually fight the Taliban because we were fighting just Al-Qaeda as a tier one unit.

00:58:54.420 And then they authorized us to Taliban so we could fight anybody.

00:58:57.640 And it was just, I mean, same stuff, looking for, you know, targets that weren't as important as our government tries to make them.

00:59:04.680 They like words like shadow governor and here's the spider web of this, you know, this leader.

00:59:09.860 It's like, or you mean a farmer.

00:59:12.480 Like where's Al-Qaeda?

00:59:14.240 Well, they're in Pakistan.

00:59:14.800 Why aren't we in Pakistan then?

00:59:16.380 Why weren't we in Pakistan?

00:59:17.360 Well, I don't know.

00:59:17.800 We were running sources in and out.

00:59:19.380 And then the agency was right there.

00:59:20.720 My actual deployment right before the bin Laden raid, I was running several outstations working with the agency.

00:59:26.680 And the bin Laden team was there and I didn't know them.

00:59:29.780 And it was, I used to give the agency shit.

00:59:32.820 I was like, the biggest problem with the CIA is they make too many cool movies about the CIA.

00:59:36.420 They're not that cool.

00:59:37.980 But the bin Laden team was there and they were that cool.

00:59:40.180 And I just didn't know it.

00:59:40.920 And then I met them later.

00:59:42.220 Were they really?

00:59:42.940 Yeah.

00:59:43.300 They lived up to the hype.

00:59:44.280 When I met them at first, when the commanding officer, SEAL Team 6 came in with a team of women and said, the reason you guys are here, this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden.

00:59:52.680 And they explained to us how they found them.

00:59:54.000 I was like, okay, this is their tier one unit.

00:59:56.140 This is a good team.

00:59:56.800 But the whole time they were there, because we got back from Afghanistan like in February or March.

01:00:03.420 My second to last deployment was like my 12th deployment, I think.

01:00:07.020 And then we went to Miami for diving.

01:00:11.720 We were still thinking Somali pirates and the mothership.

01:00:14.500 Like we're going to make up tactics how to dive in currents in the middle of the ocean so you can hit an anchored ship.

01:00:20.120 And plus, we're in South Beach.

01:00:22.420 Like we just finished war and we'll train all day and then we'll go out, have fun on the patio with happy hour with our friends.

01:00:27.520 And then we got recalled to Virginia, just the senior guys.

01:00:31.920 And when we first got there, they said, this is real.

01:00:36.700 This is not a drill.

01:00:38.220 We found a thing and this thing is in a house and it's in a bowl in these mountains and in this country.

01:00:44.760 And you're going to go get it and you're going to show it to us.

01:00:48.120 And we're like, cool, what's the thing?

01:00:49.120 Can't tell you.

01:00:49.680 Okay.

01:00:50.480 Which country is this?

01:00:51.240 Can't tell you.

01:00:51.560 How are we getting there?

01:00:52.080 Can't tell you.

01:00:53.380 How much air support we got?

01:00:54.520 None.

01:00:55.000 Okay.

01:00:55.840 That's an answer.

01:00:57.340 And then we assumed it was Libya.

01:00:59.480 Qaddafi, the Arab Spring, whatever that was, was happening.

01:01:02.100 So this is April of 2011.

01:01:03.640 We assumed, okay, we're going to fly off some Ospreys off a flat top.

01:01:07.840 And they don't want to tell us because Ospreys have a shady track record they've crashed before.

01:01:11.660 Yeah, I've noticed.

01:01:12.120 So we're going to go there, get them and bring them back.

01:01:13.620 That's got to be it.

01:01:14.220 So we were actually training for that.

01:01:17.080 And, oh, they said also you're not taking any Air Force guys.

01:01:19.900 So if you used to carry a radio, you're the radio guy.

01:01:21.940 If you used to be a corpsman, you're the medic because we're not bringing PJs or CCT.

01:01:26.880 And so we're adjusting our gear for about a week.

01:01:30.140 And even other dudes from other color teams were coming up to us like, hey, the super secret mission, what is it?

01:01:34.140 And I'm like, I don't know.

01:01:35.440 And they're like, come on, you can tell me.

01:01:36.960 I'm like, I honestly don't know what it is.

01:01:39.340 And then they, on a Friday, they briefed us again and said, all right, go home, be with your kids.

01:01:45.240 Come back Sunday at about 5 a.m.

01:01:47.700 And we're going to leave.

01:01:48.300 And we're going to drive you to a place and read you in.

01:01:50.500 How many men, by the way, had kids, would you say?

01:01:53.380 I think all of us.

01:01:54.720 Wow.

01:01:55.680 Maybe one of the guys on the mission didn't.

01:01:57.460 Maybe two.

01:01:58.500 I could be wrong.

01:01:59.180 But most guys were family men.

01:02:00.540 Most guys were in their early 30s.

01:02:02.920 Married.

01:02:04.460 And then they were briefing us.

01:02:06.920 This is actually a funny story.

01:02:09.500 Come in on Sunday.

01:02:10.680 And I remember asking, who's going to be there at the read-in?

01:02:13.200 They said, well, the vice president, secretary of defense, secretary of the Navy.

01:02:16.380 It's like, Jesus.

01:02:17.900 But they're going down the list.

01:02:18.900 And they said, CTC pad will be there, blah, blah, blah.

01:02:20.620 And they kept going.

01:02:21.200 And I didn't say anything.

01:02:22.480 But CCT pad is a counter-terror pack Afghan.

01:02:26.280 If we're going to Libya, that doesn't make any sense.

01:02:29.520 No.

01:02:29.820 So I went home.

01:02:30.660 And then we came back.

01:02:31.400 They split us up.

01:02:31.960 This is a funny story.

01:02:33.040 They split us up, four dudes in vans.

01:02:34.800 And we're driving down to North Carolina.

01:02:36.780 My boss is next to me.

01:02:37.800 My two buddies are driving.

01:02:38.800 And I told them exactly that.

01:02:40.240 CTC pad.

01:02:41.140 And I said, this isn't Qaddafi.

01:02:43.340 They found bin Laden.

01:02:45.120 And my boss looks at me and he goes, that's exactly what I was thinking.

01:02:48.580 So we're just calmly discussing it.

01:02:50.320 And my buddy driving, as bad as it sounds, he looked me in the rearview mirror and goes,

01:02:54.140 man, O'Neill, if we kill Osama bin Laden, I will suck your dick.

01:02:58.220 Just like that.

01:03:00.300 Rude.

01:03:00.940 But three weeks to the day, we're standing over his body.

01:03:03.220 And I went, hey, now's as good a time as any.

01:03:05.480 He's like, oh, hell no.

01:03:06.580 I'm like, you said it.

01:03:08.160 But then we went down to the thing and the team was there and we weren't joking anymore.

01:03:12.460 We're all serious.

01:03:13.000 And they said, yeah, this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden.

01:03:16.040 And the head targeter explained, she must have talked to us for three hours about how she found him to the point where it's like, okay, we just believe you.

01:03:24.580 I don't need to know anymore.

01:03:26.700 I don't need to know how the sauce is.

01:03:27.580 I trust you.

01:03:28.980 We're going.

01:03:29.780 So let's train up on it.

01:03:30.780 Can we go now?

01:03:31.360 What was she like?

01:03:32.300 Just cool.

01:03:32.980 As cool as you can imagine.

01:03:34.140 Just an awesome professional.

01:03:36.340 Like she's the reason that when I was saying, okay, this is the real tier one CIA, she was like that badass.

01:03:43.240 The team was badass, but she was like in charge of it.

01:03:45.100 She even came with us to Jalala bed.

01:03:46.860 Really?

01:03:47.100 She stayed with us the whole time.

01:03:48.360 Yeah.

01:03:49.100 Just didn't go to ABED with us.

01:03:50.400 She stayed at the talk in JABED.

01:03:52.360 But we trained for a couple of weeks just on the exterior, because I don't want you to tell me what you think is inside.

01:04:01.940 Like if you tell me there's definitely going to be a right turn, there's going to be a left turn.

01:04:05.080 So it's like almost when we go to a target, I don't want you to tell me how many men, women, and children you see.

01:04:11.300 Tell me how many people you see, and I'll figure out who they are when I get there.

01:04:13.860 Just let me do that.

01:04:14.900 So we trained on the exterior.

01:04:16.100 We came up with the perfect plan.

01:04:17.180 We talked about contingencies.

01:04:18.560 The youngest guy in the room one night said, well, the helicopter could crash in the front yard.

01:04:23.120 Let's talk about that for 30 seconds.

01:04:24.460 And that's what happened.

01:04:26.040 And then we went out west to, well, we would stand around this table at night talking about it.

01:04:32.420 And this was in Jalala bed?

01:04:34.920 No, this is in North Carolina.

01:04:37.380 Someone who made a two-scale model of his entire place.

01:04:39.660 And SEALs are funny.

01:04:41.640 We have a good time.

01:04:42.560 And guys were joking.

01:04:43.820 And I'm usually the guy telling a joke or whatever.

01:04:45.640 But I said to the guys like, hey, you should take this a little more serious because this is a one-way mission.

01:04:50.520 Like, we're not coming home.

01:04:51.320 This is it for us.

01:04:52.860 You know, we're going to get shot down.

01:04:55.100 There's going to be a fight.

01:04:56.140 And if anyone's going to blow his house up when we're in It's Bin Laden, we're going to run out of fuel.

01:04:59.420 Like, take this serious.

01:05:01.080 And then we went out west to Nevada, and we met the helicopters.

01:05:05.320 And we turned a corner, and we saw these things.

01:05:07.000 And everyone's kind of laughing.

01:05:08.000 And I remember someone said to me, why are you laughing now?

01:05:09.720 And I go, well, there's a better chance we're going to live because I didn't know we were going to war on Transformers, these helicopters that they got.

01:05:15.480 So we trained on them for a while.

01:05:16.520 What were they?

01:05:17.460 Stealth.

01:05:20.740 Helicopters that no man invented.

01:05:22.700 Like, these things.

01:05:24.120 I can't even describe them.

01:05:25.660 They're just awesome.

01:05:28.360 And we were training with them.

01:05:29.980 What makes them different from a convention?

01:05:31.260 I don't know.

01:05:32.080 It's got to be the angles of the outside, the structure, and the paint.

01:05:38.420 Had you ever seen one?

01:05:39.180 No, no one had.

01:05:40.060 The president didn't know about them.

01:05:41.640 The president didn't know about them?

01:05:43.120 Yeah, when they were talking about, what are they going to do?

01:05:45.920 Are we going to bomb the place?

01:05:47.560 And the Air Force said to bomb it, we've got to put 22 JDAMs on that house, 2,000-pound bombs.

01:05:52.480 Like, you'll never know he was there.

01:05:53.540 And then I guess the chief of staff of the Air Force said there's one more option.

01:05:57.720 And he told them about the helicopters, and that's when we went out to train with them.

01:06:00.340 So the president didn't know that his own military had these.

01:06:03.780 Yeah.

01:06:04.700 And he was cool, too.

01:06:07.040 There was no partisan politics on this mission.

01:06:11.240 This is the right thing to do.

01:06:13.440 When we first presented a plan, two helicopters, 32 minutes, and then fly out, you might run out of fuel, so they were going to run over the Hindu Kush.

01:06:21.800 Like, we've got to get back to Afghanistan.

01:06:23.840 If we get compromised, it's going to be because of the local police.

01:06:27.660 It's like if someone invaded near West Point, it wouldn't be cadets going after them.

01:06:31.760 It would be the cops.

01:06:32.880 The sheriff, yeah.

01:06:33.420 And then we're in a weird spot because I don't want to kill cops.

01:06:36.100 I don't want to kill Pakistani police.

01:06:37.240 They're just doing their job.

01:06:38.100 We're here without their invitation.

01:06:39.860 So what we said is we'll hardpoint it, and then you need to send someone to Islamabad and negotiate our release or whatever because we're not going to surrender or whatever, but that was our plan.

01:06:49.820 And I guess Barack Obama, again, looked at the chief of staff of the Air Force and said, what do you need to rain hell in Pakistan?

01:06:54.900 My guys are not surrendering to anybody.

01:06:56.700 Good for him.

01:06:57.300 Which is some South Chicago politics right there.

01:06:59.020 It was awesome.

01:06:59.400 So we got a guerrilla package.

01:07:00.320 We got more helicopters, more stuff juiced up.

01:07:01.980 And I don't even know what we had overhead, but, I mean, when we finished and they launched F-16s, I know we had something up there that convinced them to turn around.

01:07:10.820 But these helicopters, was anyone aware that these existed?

01:07:14.200 No.

01:07:14.260 No one knew about them.

01:07:15.940 I mean, these are helicopters.

01:07:16.640 So the U.S. military can just, like, have a—I mean, it takes a lot to build a helicopter.

01:07:20.440 That's very weird, don't you think?

01:07:21.360 Well, I mean, and I can't get too much into it because—

01:07:23.500 No, right.

01:07:23.980 To the extent you can.

01:07:24.740 They're like, you're not even allowed to talk about what you think you saw here.

01:07:28.640 Like, there's some serious shit going on.

01:07:30.720 When you say they were out in Nevada, where in Nevada?

01:07:33.220 Well, I can't say that either.

01:07:34.040 Yeah, but I think we know.

01:07:34.880 Yeah, we probably know.

01:07:36.060 Yeah.

01:07:36.760 Near Vegas.

01:07:38.900 That's where we stayed.

01:07:41.060 That's crazy.

01:07:42.420 Yeah.

01:07:42.480 I mean, it was—it gave me faith in what we can do if we need to.

01:07:48.300 I just find it very—not to—I never thought I'd be focused on the helicopter.

01:07:51.520 No.

01:07:51.680 Like, who cares?

01:07:52.560 But—

01:07:52.600 Well, and it was—

01:07:53.600 But that's the weirdest thing I've heard in a long time.

01:07:55.480 Yeah.

01:07:56.000 And then you got to figure the pilots had never heard of them.

01:07:58.060 And so they got to practice for, what, five days?

01:08:00.060 And then they're flying us into Pakistan.

01:08:02.280 Those are the heroes, the pilots.

01:08:03.660 How do you get a machine like that from Vegas to Jalalabad?

01:08:08.660 That's—I think they probably put it in a C-17, flew them over.

01:08:11.740 And then when they put them together, they're too—like, they're in the middle of an airfield with—they're covered during the daytime.

01:08:17.000 And then there's bright light shining out so no one can see them.

01:08:19.860 They would put these things in the hangar so, like, Chinese satellites couldn't see them.

01:08:23.680 They're pretty serious.

01:08:25.660 What it's like to ride on one?

01:08:27.460 It was comfortable.

01:08:28.640 It was quiet.

01:08:29.680 And it was just cool.

01:08:31.780 We had—there was more room in that.

01:08:33.860 They look kind of like a 60s.

01:08:35.620 Because there's no engine, right?

01:08:36.820 It's just all anti-gravity.

01:08:38.380 There's something up there.

01:08:39.160 Yeah, they're flying by magnets.

01:08:40.380 Yeah.

01:08:40.560 But no, they were cool.

01:08:42.280 And it was—it was—it was comforting because, I mean, once you take off and cross the border, they tell you that you're in Pakistan.

01:08:49.200 It's like, okay, now we're going to find out if this works.

01:08:52.580 And then—then again, the mindset comes in, like, worrying about a missile is not going to stop it.

01:08:58.480 So I'm not going to worry about it.

01:09:00.460 You know, if, like, you're worried about anything in life that your worry doesn't affect, why are you wasting your energy?

01:09:04.340 Yeah.

01:09:04.500 So what I do, and I learned as a sniper, was count.

01:09:07.660 So I would count from zero to 1,000, 1,000 to zero.

01:09:10.080 And I would just get that in my head, you know, counting—changing the cadence up, just counting, you know, looking at the watch.

01:09:14.600 We had 90 minutes to get in there.

01:09:16.340 Cairo.

01:09:17.100 Cairo, the dog, was sitting next to me.

01:09:18.920 The Malinois.

01:09:19.800 No easy—no ordinary dog.

01:09:21.340 There's a book written about him.

01:09:22.480 His handler, Chesney, was right here.

01:09:24.260 Good dog.

01:09:25.040 He's the best dog.

01:09:25.960 He was the best dog I've ever worked with.

01:09:27.800 Cairo's the best.

01:09:28.600 What made him—

01:09:29.200 I don't know.

01:09:29.980 He was just a—he was smart.

01:09:32.000 He was just a good boy.

01:09:32.880 He'd been shot before, in the chest, in a gunfight.

01:09:37.880 Wait.

01:09:38.320 Yeah.

01:09:39.000 And when a dog gets shot, he's just dead.

01:09:42.680 And we got—it was a really weird gunfight a couple years before.

01:09:45.880 We were doing vehicle interdictions.

01:09:48.580 Taliban and Al-Qaeda were figuring that we were coming after them at night, so they would start driving their motorcycles right around dusk to cross the border of Pakistan.

01:09:54.300 And then we just started hunting them on their motorcycles.

01:09:57.160 And if you've never hunted men out of a helicopter on motorcycles, you have not lived.

01:10:01.200 You take pig hunting.

01:10:02.520 That's nothing.

01:10:03.700 Hunting guys on motorcycles.

01:10:04.820 So we got in a fight one night where we found the low ground.

01:10:07.660 And we ended up in the low ground.

01:10:08.700 We had to split it up.

01:10:09.540 And I had to flank some guys up here.

01:10:11.020 And these guys went down there.

01:10:12.240 And there was—we could hear my guys in a fight.

01:10:14.540 And they said, hey, we got a friendly wounded in action.

01:10:17.300 And I asked, who is it?

01:10:18.960 I wanted a call sign.

01:10:19.760 Because, you know, if you tell a call sign, you don't know who it is, but I know exactly who it is.

01:10:22.860 And they said, Cairo.

01:10:24.500 And I'm like, fuck, he's dead.

01:10:26.660 He got shot in the chest and the arm.

01:10:28.540 But the guy with him, who was actually the point man on the Bin Laden raid, got to him and, like, shaved him and put a chest seal on him.

01:10:36.280 The pilots came in under fire and pulled him out.

01:10:38.740 No way.

01:10:39.260 And the surgeons were waiting for him.

01:10:40.520 And they saved him.

01:10:41.600 So Cairo lived.

01:10:43.000 And he actually—

01:10:44.040 Like the pilots landed under fire to save the dog?

01:10:46.680 Yep.

01:10:47.360 You know, that does make you love America.

01:10:49.200 Yes, because he's one of the guys.

01:10:50.160 Yes.

01:10:50.540 We're his pack.

01:10:51.940 Other countries don't do stuff like that.

01:10:53.140 And so he went on trips with us again.

01:10:54.800 And he actually got PTSD.

01:10:57.260 Because we'd be on targets.

01:10:58.440 And we'd tell him to go in a room.

01:10:59.480 And he'd kind of, you sure?

01:11:00.820 Like, yes, that's your job.

01:11:02.120 Get in there.

01:11:03.100 But then he went on the Bin Laden raid.

01:11:04.500 And he was—

01:11:05.040 So why do you—part of my ignorance, why do you bring a dog on a raid?

01:11:07.940 He can smell him.

01:11:08.580 He can find him.

01:11:10.120 People hiding.

01:11:10.700 I've had him open secret doors for me.

01:11:12.980 Like, get on their hind legs and push something and it opens in a castle.

01:11:15.700 Just weird Afghanistan.

01:11:16.940 stories.

01:11:17.700 They'll chase people down.

01:11:19.160 They'll corner them.

01:11:21.740 Just like finding a grouse.

01:11:23.560 Yeah.

01:11:24.320 Yeah.

01:11:24.900 And they're amazing.

01:11:25.520 Well, even at Cairo, I read stories that he had some $20,000 titanium teeth, which is bullshit.

01:11:31.320 He had one tooth because of a gum disease.

01:11:33.020 He was there for his nose.

01:11:34.720 And his job was—

01:11:35.460 He had one tooth.

01:11:35.960 He had one tooth.

01:11:36.880 He was just a good boy.

01:11:38.680 But on the—yeah.

01:11:39.860 And he was with us always.

01:11:41.320 He was one of the dogs that could—

01:11:42.940 When we were overseas, we would have, like, the stadium seating with leather couches to watch—when we're not working, watch TV and everyone can sit there.

01:11:49.780 And once you take their vests off, they're just part of the pack now.

01:11:53.200 So you can pet them.

01:11:53.980 You can play with them.

01:11:54.640 And they want their ball more than a treat.

01:11:56.640 Of course they do.

01:11:57.060 But then they'll do stuff, like, if they're up on the same level as you and put upon you, you've got to push them off because they're trying to get up there—because, like, his handler is his dad and you're an uncle.

01:12:06.240 Yeah.

01:12:06.440 And if they start doing that paw shit, they're trying to get up the chain of command.

01:12:09.200 They certainly are.

01:12:10.660 They're trying to dominate you.

01:12:11.620 But then you've got to be careful because he doesn't have a muzzle on.

01:12:13.980 If you piss him off, maybe he'll bite.

01:12:15.760 But Cairo never would.

01:12:16.800 None of the dogs ever bit.

01:12:17.800 Well, one dog probably did, but he was just a good boy.

01:12:20.300 He never would do that.

01:12:20.960 He wouldn't even try to challenge for hierarchy.

01:12:23.940 He was just awesome.

01:12:24.780 Just a great dog.

01:12:25.600 That book's amazing.

01:12:26.580 The Ordinary Dog is amazing.

01:12:28.160 And they can find people anywhere.

01:12:30.380 Yeah.

01:12:30.800 You're not hiding from him.

01:12:32.040 And you're not going to outrun him if you score it.

01:12:34.920 Because, you know, it's better to send a dog to get him than to just shoot a guy.

01:12:38.420 He'll bite him and then we'll arrest him because you don't know—he might be running because he's afraid.

01:12:42.700 I'm not under Bin Laden.

01:12:43.440 And this is not a culture in Afghanistan or Pakistan where people keep dogs at home, right?

01:12:48.020 No, they hate dogs.

01:12:49.040 But they have dogs.

01:12:49.900 They have them.

01:12:50.680 Like, one of the hardest things to get used to is the 30 dogs that are barking as you roll up on a house.

01:12:54.940 They're just out there barking all the time.

01:12:57.400 But they're not pets.

01:12:58.260 No.

01:12:59.220 But our dog—that's cool to watch our dogs with those dogs because they don't give a shit.

01:13:03.600 Like, I'm so much better than you.

01:13:06.280 I didn't even pay attention to the other dogs.

01:13:08.340 Really?

01:13:08.920 Uh-huh.

01:13:09.420 Like, I'm the one wearing a vest.

01:13:10.840 I'm carrying extra magazines.

01:13:12.000 You're nothing.

01:13:13.280 They carry extra magazines?

01:13:14.500 They carry magazines.

01:13:15.060 They wear a flag and he had his red man patch, yeah.

01:13:17.140 And so I was sitting next to Cairo.

01:13:19.980 He was asleep on the—and it was a funny conversation just to what—because—not conversation.

01:13:24.560 I was looking around the helo flying into Bin Laden's house just to see how my guys were handling.

01:13:29.020 We could get shot down.

01:13:30.820 How are you guys dealing with this?

01:13:31.960 And one of my friends was asleep.

01:13:33.300 He put his headphones on.

01:13:34.480 He was asleep.

01:13:35.080 And I kid you not, what I said to myself was, you're asleep literally on the ride to Osama Bin Laden's house.

01:13:41.800 Like, you have ice in your veins and I actually see why women find you attractive.

01:13:45.100 That's badass.

01:13:46.300 That is badass.

01:13:47.040 And then we banked to the south, 10 minutes out.

01:13:50.460 And it sounds Hollywood, but I was counting still.

01:13:53.900 And I don't know how I remembered the quote, but I said, 556, 557.

01:13:57.600 Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended.

01:14:01.480 And it kind of sunk in 10 minutes from Bin Laden's house.

01:14:03.680 Like, holy shit, this is the mission.

01:14:05.400 This is the team and we're going to kill them.

01:14:07.020 Holy shit.

01:14:08.220 And then, like, the air crew guy who never gets credit.

01:14:10.740 He reached over and opened the door two minutes out.

01:14:14.080 Like, the crew chief's job was to keep the helicopter flying and open the door.

01:14:18.040 That's it.

01:14:18.640 But how important is that?

01:14:19.820 What if we couldn't have figured out the door?

01:14:21.760 Like, just sitting in a helicopter can't get out.

01:14:23.620 And if we got hit with a missile, he's got a family too, and they'll miss him.

01:14:26.520 But no one ever mentions him.

01:14:28.040 He's a hero.

01:14:28.620 He opened the door.

01:14:29.300 He was the first step of us getting into Bin Laden's house.

01:14:31.720 Who are the pilots?

01:14:32.980 Not by name, but who do you get to fly a machine like that?

01:14:36.320 They are Task Force 160 at the Night Stalkers.

01:14:39.060 Talented?

01:14:39.620 They're the best in the world.

01:14:40.740 The Army helicopter pilots are the best helicopter pilots in the world.

01:14:44.460 And we got the best four.

01:14:46.240 And we're lucky we did because the flight lead saved everyone's life on the first helicopter by crash landing it in the front yard.

01:14:53.180 How did you crash land a helicopter like that without killing them?

01:14:55.660 When he told me, I'm not a pilot, but he told me when they were coming into fast rope, which is when you hover 30 feet, 20 feet, whatever, ropes come out, snipers are watching, guys just slide down.

01:15:04.420 They're going to separate to where they're going.

01:15:06.780 And we're going to drop some guys off and Cairo outside.

01:15:09.900 And then my team's going to the rooftop.

01:15:11.080 We're going to hit them that way.

01:15:12.120 But as soon as he started to hover, he realized he couldn't hover.

01:15:14.680 Like there was an updraft.

01:15:15.880 Some with the fences were different than the ones we were training on.

01:15:19.140 And it was a little bit warmer than we were used to.

01:15:22.420 So they're not going to get that much lift.

01:15:23.960 And he said an inexperienced pilot would have powered it up and rolled it and everyone would have died.

01:15:28.620 But he realized in the blink of an eye, if he can turn it and put the tail on the 15-foot fence and pin the nose, everyone might live.

01:15:35.860 And he made that decision quicker than I just explained it.

01:15:37.940 And he just smacked it into the ground.

01:15:40.540 And then our pilot was bringing us to the rooftop.

01:15:43.420 Was anyone injured in that?

01:15:44.500 Yeah, but not like at the time.

01:15:47.560 They have bad backs now.

01:15:48.920 They're spying stuff.

01:15:50.780 But nobody got hurt right then.

01:15:52.760 And then plus the adrenaline was pumping.

01:15:54.100 I'd imagine just getting dropped off in a crashed helicopter in the front yard of the number one terrorist in the world.

01:16:01.200 And you don't know what the resistance is going to be.

01:16:03.440 And so our guy lifted up, but he saw them and then put us down.

01:16:06.300 And he knew they couldn't hover.

01:16:07.600 He probably couldn't hover, but we didn't know they crashed.

01:16:09.760 So he kicked us out.

01:16:11.140 So now we're outside of Bin Laden's house looking at a 20-foot wall on this end.

01:16:14.120 I can see his house.

01:16:15.200 And I remember just thinking, I guess we start the war from here.

01:16:17.580 We know what we're doing.

01:16:18.120 There's a door right over there.

01:16:19.660 Let's go blow that one up.

01:16:20.480 So we went to the northeast corner where there's a double door.

01:16:24.960 And I called a breacher up.

01:16:28.120 A breacher is a methods of entry guy.

01:16:29.800 He's going to get you in.

01:16:30.900 He'll pick that lock.

01:16:31.900 He'll break that glass.

01:16:32.540 He'll blow that door.

01:16:33.640 So he decided to put a seven-foot charge of C6 on the double door, which will open anything.

01:16:37.880 And he blasted it.

01:16:39.180 And we tried to go in.

01:16:40.020 And it opened like a tin can, but there was a brick wall behind it.

01:16:44.000 And-

01:16:44.380 Why was there a brick wall behind it?

01:16:45.360 Fake door.

01:16:46.100 He just made a fake door.

01:16:46.940 Oh, smart.

01:16:47.580 And the breacher turned around.

01:16:48.580 He goes, fake door.

01:16:49.200 This is failed breach.

01:16:50.160 This is bad.

01:16:50.740 And I said, no, this is good.

01:16:52.320 That's a fake door.

01:16:53.300 Nobody does that.

01:16:54.200 He's in there.

01:16:55.300 So now we know this door opens over here.

01:16:57.240 It's a carport.

01:16:57.960 So we got to go past his house to this double door that we knew opened because we'd seen it open.

01:17:02.300 And the other, we heard them saying dash one going around, dash one going around, because we assumed they took fire and they're doing a racetrack and they're going to re-engage.

01:17:14.140 But they were saying dash one going down.

01:17:16.660 So we didn't know they crashed.

01:17:17.740 And we said, hey, this is so-and-so.

01:17:18.700 We're going to blast the carport.

01:17:20.280 And they said, no, no, no, don't blast it.

01:17:21.480 We'll open it.

01:17:22.500 And before that could even register, the double doors opened and a thumb came out with a glove that we recognized.

01:17:27.180 And it's like, okay, it doesn't matter.

01:17:28.920 I don't know why they're in there, but it doesn't matter.

01:17:30.880 They just are.

01:17:31.800 They're in there.

01:17:32.920 And that's a point in life.

01:17:34.640 Like sometimes it doesn't matter why.

01:17:36.260 That's exactly right.

01:17:36.760 It just is.

01:17:37.540 And the clock's ticking.

01:17:38.260 I told you yesterday about the football team.

01:17:39.800 When I talked to the offense, like it doesn't matter why it's second and 15.

01:17:43.120 It just is.

01:17:43.920 And you can complain about it, but the clock's ticking.

01:17:46.780 We got to make a move.

01:17:48.540 So then there was already, and this is a weird thing about rules of engagement too.

01:17:52.120 One of my guys was outside of the house and he'd shot through the window at, I think, a bar.

01:17:57.180 One of the couriers and his wife jumped in front of him.

01:17:59.300 So he shot her too.

01:18:00.800 And he looked at me.

01:18:01.980 This is how fucked up the rules of engagement are.

01:18:03.980 He goes, this is a SEAL Team 6 guy.

01:18:05.200 He goes, she just jumped in front of him.

01:18:06.980 I just shot her.

01:18:07.480 Am I going to be in trouble?

01:18:09.000 And I go, dude, who cares?

01:18:11.260 Let's go find Bin Laden.

01:18:12.180 Then we'll worry about rules of engagement.

01:18:13.760 But why is that in your mind right now?

01:18:15.160 Because your leadership is so poor that you're thinking about going to jail right now.

01:18:19.340 So then we got inside the house.

01:18:21.220 These are all guys from the other helicopter.

01:18:22.780 They're going down a long hallway.

01:18:25.700 And I hopped into a room because like if, you know, I hope you're never in this position.

01:18:28.960 But if you're in a gunfight in a house, get out of the hallway.

01:18:30.920 It's just, that's just good business.

01:18:32.500 So I'm in this thing and I'm looking for bombs because he's going to blow this house up.

01:18:36.800 He's got to be a martyr.

01:18:37.480 And one of the guys behind me just said, helicopter crashed.

01:18:42.440 And I said, because we had extra helicopters.

01:18:44.340 So I thought, they were 45 minutes behind us.

01:18:46.740 They weren't south.

01:18:47.480 So I thought we just lost two helicopters full of my friends.

01:18:50.200 And I'm like, my God, what helicopter crashed?

01:18:52.140 He goes, bro, our helicopter crashed in the front yard.

01:18:54.260 I think he walked right past it.

01:18:56.100 You didn't even notice that?

01:18:57.080 No, I didn't even notice it.

01:18:58.060 But now it makes sense.

01:18:59.040 Okay, now that's why they're in here.

01:19:00.340 And then even the sniper who was with Cairo running around, he saw the tail on the fence.

01:19:05.780 So he's running around and the tail was right there.

01:19:07.700 And his response, he came over the radio and said, all right, guys, be on alert.

01:19:11.860 They're ready for us.

01:19:12.480 They have a training mock-up of our super secret helicopter in the front yard.

01:19:17.180 And then there was silence.

01:19:18.280 He thought it was Bin Laden.

01:19:19.620 They're training on it.

01:19:20.400 Yeah.

01:19:20.840 And the boss came over and goes, no, jackass, that's ours because we crashed.

01:19:24.580 And he goes, that makes a lot more sense than the shit I was just saying.

01:19:26.840 So these are the conversations.

01:19:28.020 And it's crazy to think that guys still have their sense of humor.

01:19:31.640 But then I'm just, and I'm behind my guys and I'm watching them.

01:19:34.600 And it was just so cool.

01:19:35.440 I'm just so proud of them.

01:19:36.700 Like we could die at any second and it's not even phasing you guys.

01:19:39.700 You're just doing your job.

01:19:40.680 Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

01:19:42.120 No one's freaking out.

01:19:43.180 Just you're escalating as necessary.

01:19:45.980 You know, you're, you're, you're kick the door, try the door, kick the door, go mechanical,

01:19:49.640 go explosive, boom.

01:19:50.900 And then the woman told us, you're going to run into a stairwell and you're going to run

01:19:55.600 into Khalid Bin Laden.

01:19:57.120 So the head.

01:19:57.760 Who's Khalid Bin Laden?

01:19:58.680 His son, his 20 year old son.

01:20:00.620 And she said, and she ended up being a hundred percent right on everybody in the house.

01:20:04.300 This was the CIA target.

01:20:05.580 Yeah.

01:20:06.400 Woman.

01:20:06.840 Sorry, not chick.

01:20:08.700 I doubt she'd care.

01:20:09.820 I don't think she gives a shit.

01:20:11.380 But yeah, he was right there and he hopped behind a banister and we got eight dudes going

01:20:14.940 up the stairs that kind of turn, they go up and turn back and they're separated by just

01:20:20.380 a banister and they're both armed.

01:20:21.780 They're both grown men and they want to kill each other.

01:20:23.520 And so instead, normally I'd pick some guys back and move them out of the way.

01:20:27.100 Cause in an urban environment, if they start throwing grenades, but I'm, we're going to

01:20:30.260 die.

01:20:30.560 So I want to see how this goes down.

01:20:31.720 I got to see this.

01:20:32.840 And he just whispered to him because we're quiet.

01:20:34.960 We don't, we're not saying anything to each other.

01:20:36.200 So we confuse the shit out of them.

01:20:37.300 And, uh, he whispered something along the lines of come here, come here in Urdu and

01:20:41.140 Arabic.

01:20:42.140 And he said his name twice, Khalid.

01:20:44.100 And, uh, Khalid leaned over.

01:20:45.720 He's got a gun.

01:20:46.280 He leaned over and goes, what?

01:20:48.440 Blasted him right there.

01:20:49.180 How did he know how to say, come here, Khalid in Urdu and Arabic?

01:20:52.840 That's how smart he was.

01:20:53.640 He just knew he would need to know how to say that.

01:20:56.280 Just certain things.

01:20:57.240 Like I was kind of arrogant that when someone tried to teach me how to say, drop your gun,

01:21:01.520 I was like, I don't need to know how to say that.

01:21:02.800 I can say it like that.

01:21:03.720 I'll just shoot him.

01:21:04.220 He'll drop his gun.

01:21:05.300 But this guy learned it.

01:21:06.300 And like, he just was smart.

01:21:07.800 And that saved, I don't know how many lives.

01:21:09.500 Cause if we turn that corner with an AK, I don't care how much body armor you have on

01:21:13.480 at that range with a 7.62.

01:21:15.680 Yeah.

01:21:16.000 But he killed him.

01:21:16.480 And it was right.

01:21:16.700 And I remember walking over his body thinking, okay, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen.

01:21:20.100 And I was right for about seven seconds.

01:21:21.920 And then I saw Bin Laden and that was cooler.

01:21:23.820 But we went to the second floor.

01:21:26.140 I'm about seven or eight.

01:21:27.260 I forget the number back and guys start to split off.

01:21:29.200 Cause you've got unknowns.

01:21:29.980 There are people in here, rooms over there and there.

01:21:32.740 So they're clearing that.

01:21:33.540 And then we're down to two guys now.

01:21:35.040 It's the point man that killed Khalid and then me.

01:21:37.800 And the way that works is he's looking up and I'm looking back.

01:21:40.860 And I have, you want to have not control, but you want to let the point man know you're there.

01:21:44.760 So either hold his leg or hold his shoulder.

01:21:46.560 And he's feeling that and he's always looking forward and wherever his eye goes, his gun goes.

01:21:52.460 So he's looking at the top of this curtain and he can see people moving behind it.

01:21:56.680 And so he starts to pimp me.

01:21:58.720 Doesn't know it's me, but he knows it's one of his shooters.

01:22:00.960 And he just starts saying, we got to go now.

01:22:02.360 Come on, we got to go.

01:22:03.420 We got to go.

01:22:05.100 Because he's saying those are the suicide bombers, but we can beat him.

01:22:07.860 But we have to go right now.

01:22:09.260 And for me, it was just, it wasn't bravery.

01:22:11.360 It was like, he's right.

01:22:12.480 I want four.

01:22:13.400 I want, I'll take two, but it's going to be just us.

01:22:16.160 And I, and I, I just, we're going to blow up now.

01:22:18.520 I'm tired of thinking about it.

01:22:19.540 And I just squeezed him and he went up and there's a curtain at the top of the stairs,

01:22:23.660 not a door.

01:22:24.560 And he moved the curtain and there was these two women there.

01:22:27.240 And he assumed those were suicide bombers.

01:22:29.200 So he just jumped on them, which is most courageous thing I've ever seen.

01:22:33.100 He jumped on them.

01:22:33.640 He like tackled them to absorb the blast.

01:22:35.780 So the guy behind him could get a shot.

01:22:37.300 Like it's crazy.

01:22:37.940 You can't say that man's name.

01:22:39.120 No, but he should have a medal of honor.

01:22:42.440 Someone knows who he is and it's not hard to figure it out.

01:22:45.200 And just be, and simply because he went this way, I turned left and there's been a lot

01:22:48.520 in standing there.

01:22:49.080 What was been on doing?

01:22:49.860 He, he had his both hands on a mall, uh, his wife and she was shorter and he was tall and

01:22:55.620 he was maneuvering.

01:22:57.260 Um, he was skinnier than I thought.

01:22:59.620 His beard was kind of gray, uh, taller than I thought he'd be skinnier.

01:23:03.340 I remember skinny, but I, I, I was looking right at him and that's his nose.

01:23:06.000 I've seen that nose a thousand times.

01:23:07.240 He said, he look at you.

01:23:08.240 I think so, but it was dark and it was, he's a threat.

01:23:10.920 I got to kill him.

01:23:11.380 And the way you kill a suicide bomber is shoot him in the mouth or in the head.

01:23:14.740 Uh, so I shot him twice in the head and then once more on the floor because all they need

01:23:18.140 to do a suicide, I've dealt with suicide bombers and it is terrifying and it's permanent and

01:23:22.540 it's loud, it's scary.

01:23:23.900 And all they need to do is have like a negative and a positive.

01:23:26.100 They just got to touch the leads.

01:23:27.340 So they, they, they can do that like this and there's go, boop.

01:23:30.080 And then everyone blows up.

01:23:31.800 So, and I, well, I was even giving some shit about that.

01:23:33.940 Like, why just shoot him in the face for a positive identification?

01:23:36.100 It's like, well, shoot him in the chest.

01:23:37.780 People live for a couple of seconds after you shoot him in the chest.

01:23:39.880 You want to kill him.

01:23:40.800 He needs to go down.

01:23:42.200 What'd you shoot him with?

01:23:43.280 Uh, five, five, six.

01:23:44.440 Uh, hollow points, 77 green.

01:23:47.720 H and K 416.

01:23:49.720 How long between when you identified him and shot him?

01:23:53.480 Probably a second, maybe a second.

01:23:56.560 Like the saying we had is, uh, you have a second to convince me not to kill you.

01:24:01.560 And he didn't do it.

01:24:02.900 And that was his bedroom?

01:24:04.060 Yeah.

01:24:04.740 What was his bedroom like?

01:24:05.720 Uh, big bed, king bed.

01:24:07.740 I think, uh, he and I think they were him, his daughters and his wife and young son were

01:24:12.820 all in there.

01:24:14.080 I think it was two daughters.

01:24:15.780 I think.

01:24:16.940 At the time when you shot him, they were all there.

01:24:18.680 Yeah, they were all there.

01:24:19.360 Well, it was the daughter that actually said, finally, it was that's shake Osama.

01:24:22.680 You got him.

01:24:23.080 That's before we did the Geronimo call.

01:24:25.020 Cause we, uh, this is cool.

01:24:26.540 We had a dude from another squadron who had been teaching himself Arabic.

01:24:30.040 So he was already deployed with blue squadron and we were red squadron and we flew over

01:24:34.320 to Jalalabad.

01:24:34.800 He was there.

01:24:35.220 And because he taught himself Arabic, we're bringing you.

01:24:37.440 Cause you're a shooter.

01:24:38.540 Seal team six, you're coming.

01:24:39.760 So congratulations.

01:24:41.200 So he was the one that was speaking Arabic and even his buddies were giving him shit

01:24:44.300 because we had stopped going to Iraq and we're just in Afghanistan.

01:24:47.460 It's like, why are you still studying Arabic?

01:24:48.840 Exactly.

01:24:49.240 You don't need it.

01:24:49.920 Well, it's like the skydive.

01:24:51.320 I might need it once.

01:24:52.820 And, and the, the daughter was trying to say it wasn't him.

01:24:55.340 She finally said, yeah, that's him.

01:24:56.220 That's shake Osama.

01:24:56.840 You got him.

01:24:58.100 His daughter said that.

01:24:59.200 His daughter said that.

01:24:59.820 And then, uh, when we came over the radio for God and country, Geronimo EKA.

01:25:03.600 And that wasn't, we didn't, uh, we got shit for that too, because we said, we used the

01:25:07.260 word Geronimo as a pro word.

01:25:09.500 We didn't name him Geronimo.

01:25:10.860 That would be an insult to chief Geronimo.

01:25:12.580 It was a pro word in honor of chief Geronimo.

01:25:14.900 Instead of saying, Hey, I'm in Bin Laden's room and he's dead.

01:25:17.980 You say Geronimo EKA, meaning Geronimo means I am with Bin Laden right now.

01:25:21.960 And you have different pro words.

01:25:23.120 Instead of saying, Hey, I'm at the front gate.

01:25:24.300 You say something else like orange.

01:25:26.440 How did the kids and the wife respond?

01:25:28.720 Um, they were shocked.

01:25:30.140 They were surprised.

01:25:31.260 Then they were scared.

01:25:32.420 Um, they were the same as every target.

01:25:34.480 Um, they huddled in a corner and, and, you know, you, you try to calm them down.

01:25:38.560 Uh, try to reassure them.

01:25:39.920 You're not going to get hurt now.

01:25:41.080 Just sit here.

01:25:41.720 And then when you're leaving, you say, all right, stay here until the sun comes up.

01:25:44.820 Uh, we do have aircraft.

01:25:45.760 So don't go outside until Pakistani military gets there.

01:25:48.340 Then you'll be fine.

01:25:49.660 We're taking him.

01:25:51.040 Is he the only person you took?

01:25:53.980 We left everybody else there.

01:25:55.180 What else did you take?

01:25:56.940 We found a bunch of intel.

01:25:58.520 We didn't know if he was running Al Qaeda, uh, but he was, he had a, it might've been two

01:26:02.740 or three, uh, offices.

01:26:05.180 So we took the, they had the old school towers, um, for a home computer.

01:26:08.520 So we crushed those, took the hard drives out.

01:26:10.520 We found a bunch of CDs and a bunch of papers and, um, anything electronic or written.

01:26:15.860 We just, we just threw it in a bag and brought it back.

01:26:17.640 And then, then we spread it up with the, uh, Intel analysts when we got back and they

01:26:20.920 went through, I didn't really go through anything.

01:26:22.140 I've heard rumors of missions and porn and all that stuff, but I think the porn might've

01:26:26.360 been there because they were, um, they embedded missions on that.

01:26:32.640 So if someone looked at it, they would just see porn, but not the mission they're trying

01:26:35.500 to send, I guess.

01:26:37.160 And again, that, that might not be what happened, but that's what someone told me, but I didn't

01:26:41.160 go through any of the, uh, Intel.

01:26:43.820 The inside of his house, was it like the house of a rich guy?

01:26:47.500 No, it was, it was, it was kind of standard.

01:26:49.460 Like, um, I think he might've been the only one with a bed bed.

01:26:52.240 The rest of them had like floor mats just kind of like everywhere over there.

01:26:54.980 And then, you know, there's animals and trash that they burn and it's not a, I mean, there's

01:26:58.540 a garden, they were growing their food and three-story house, but it wasn't, I mean,

01:27:02.180 it looked like the outside.

01:27:03.780 It was a stone inside.

01:27:04.740 There wasn't a lot of decoration.

01:27:05.780 There was a couple things hanging up, um, you know, Korans on shelves and shit like that.

01:27:10.040 But how did it smell?

01:27:11.720 I don't really remember.

01:27:12.840 It's when I got in there, it smelled like bombs going off because my guys had breached a

01:27:16.320 few times.

01:27:16.880 So it smelled like a training area.

01:27:19.000 And, but, and again, it was one of those things where you're just kind of taking a snapshot.

01:27:21.740 I remember saying like, you remember this because this is going to be it.

01:27:24.540 Like this is going to blow up.

01:27:25.460 Just remember this.

01:27:26.620 And then, you know, I killed Bin Laden.

01:27:28.420 We got Bin Laden and I was just standing there.

01:27:30.580 I'm going to go take a picture.

01:27:31.640 And one of my guys came up to me and he goes, Hey, are you good?

01:27:34.080 And I said, um, what do we do now?

01:27:36.600 Cause we're still alive.

01:27:37.980 And he's like, now we find the computers.

01:27:39.620 Every night we do this hundreds of times.

01:27:41.020 Right.

01:27:41.800 And I said, yeah, you're right.

01:27:42.600 Holy shit.

01:27:43.060 And he said, yeah, you just killed Osama Bin Laden.

01:27:44.780 Your life just changed.

01:27:45.440 Now get to work.

01:27:46.860 And I knew what work was.

01:27:47.780 So we, we got to get him in a body bag.

01:27:49.140 Got to find the intel, bring him his body outside, blow up a helicopter, call in another

01:27:52.680 helicopter, and then hopefully live for 90 minutes and get back to Afghanistan.

01:27:56.360 Did you take books?

01:27:57.320 Possibly.

01:28:00.620 I was more working on the computers.

01:28:02.780 I was in the, um, I imagine, I'd imagine they took pretty much everything they could.

01:28:07.720 How many people were killed in the raid?

01:28:09.860 Four.

01:28:10.240 Um, one, two, three, four, five.

01:28:12.440 Five.

01:28:12.900 Yeah.

01:28:13.040 We killed, um, the courier, the other courier, his wife, Khalid, and then Osama.

01:28:17.660 What happened to his, Osama Bin Laden's body?

01:28:19.900 Well, when we got back to Bagram, we flew him to Jalalabad.

01:28:24.140 We showed him to the woman that found him.

01:28:26.920 We showed him to the CIA target.

01:28:28.280 Yep.

01:28:28.540 She was there.

01:28:29.020 She wanted to see him and she saw him, said, I guess I'm out of a job and left.

01:28:33.460 That's it?

01:28:33.980 Didn't even stick around.

01:28:34.760 She said, yeah, she's kind of looked down like, I guess I'm out of a fucking job.

01:28:37.300 She was the only reason we were there because of her.

01:28:39.960 And she gave up her life to find him.

01:28:41.400 She was so cool.

01:28:42.500 No husband, no kids, 20 hours a day, only on this.

01:28:45.520 And once she saw him, that's it.

01:28:46.940 Like when I saw her later, I said, cause every, no one at the agency believed her really,

01:28:51.600 like 70% maybe.

01:28:53.460 And when they got back, she said that everybody got awards and I didn't even get a parking

01:28:57.380 spot.

01:28:58.860 Yeah.

01:28:59.220 But we, we showed, um, she sounds like a hard case.

01:29:01.380 She's badass.

01:29:02.240 She's like, if anyone knows her, hire her.

01:29:04.520 Like, I'm not going to say her name or what she looks like, but yeah, hire her.

01:29:08.180 That's an employee.

01:29:08.620 Do you have any idea what happened to her?

01:29:09.680 No, I don't.

01:29:10.700 I mean, I've heard, no, I don't know.

01:29:13.460 Probably on wall street or something.

01:29:16.160 She should be.

01:29:17.880 But we, yeah, we brought him back to J-Bad.

01:29:19.620 We showed him to Admiral McRaven, um, who was awesome.

01:29:23.300 Uh, and he, you know, we, yeah, we had a, just a moment looking at him.

01:29:26.960 And I remember he put his hand on my neck, kind of like that.

01:29:28.820 It was like a really, uh, just a cool team thing.

01:29:31.200 Like, here's the boss.

01:29:31.920 Here's the guys.

01:29:32.480 There's Bin Laden.

01:29:33.560 What was, what was Bin Laden wearing?

01:29:35.220 He had on a, I think it was like pajamas, like white pajamas.

01:29:38.840 Might've been gray.

01:29:39.800 Uh, it's kind of hazy.

01:29:40.980 Yeah.

01:29:41.460 For me.

01:29:41.820 But then we brought him to Bagram, um, laid him out.

01:29:44.640 Uh, they were doing the DNA tests and this was a weird time for me too, because we're

01:29:49.400 still in our gear.

01:29:50.060 We laid out all of our intel.

01:29:51.480 The smart people are going over that.

01:29:53.160 The TV was on and, uh, they brought us breakfast sandwiches.

01:29:57.140 And president Obama with a red tie came down the red carpet.

01:30:00.780 And he said, tonight I can report to the people and to the world.

01:30:03.340 The United States conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda.

01:30:07.160 I hear president Obama say Osama Bin Laden.

01:30:09.880 I looked at Osama Bin Laden and I thought, how in the world did I get here from Butte, Montana?

01:30:15.080 And then I had a bite of the sandwich.

01:30:16.640 I mean, this is the best breakfast sandwich I've ever had.

01:30:18.700 And then they did that.

01:30:19.600 And then we had, we handed him on and, oh, and then we were looking at the TV and we're

01:30:23.380 just like, say it, that no one was hurt.

01:30:25.380 You got to say it, say it.

01:30:26.940 And he finally said, no Americans were hurt.

01:30:28.140 I'm like, thank you.

01:30:28.620 Cause our parents were now watching this back home.

01:30:31.860 And they'd figured out by this point.

01:30:33.100 At this point.

01:30:33.800 Yes.

01:30:34.100 Cause we, well, I called my dad before I left on the mission.

01:30:36.520 I couldn't even tell him what we were doing.

01:30:38.180 I called him in my gear, in Jalalabad.

01:30:39.860 I grabbed one of the phones in one of the B huts and I called him and I would call him on

01:30:43.440 missions before.

01:30:44.620 And I would just say, Hey, got to go to work, whatever.

01:30:46.540 And he would always say, I wish I was going with you.

01:30:48.560 And I would say, you know what, dad, I wish you were too.

01:30:50.800 And this one, I called him and I just was saying, Hey, you know, thanks for teaching

01:30:53.900 me how to be a man.

01:30:56.440 I got to go to work.

01:30:57.200 And he said, I wish I was going with you.

01:30:59.560 And I said, well, I'm with some really good guys.

01:31:01.280 Don't worry.

01:31:02.340 And then I left and he was at home and I'm getting a little emotional now.

01:31:05.280 He was at home in a Walmart parking lot.

01:31:08.700 And he sort of realized that we're going somewhere important.

01:31:12.500 He didn't know I was overseas.

01:31:13.440 And he went into Walmart and he ran into his sister, who's a registered nurse.

01:31:17.580 And she saw him.

01:31:18.420 She's like, and she, my dad says, uh, he was his two favorite words, uh, apoplectic and

01:31:24.240 catatonic.

01:31:25.480 And she said, what's going on?

01:31:26.780 And he goes, I don't know.

01:31:27.520 I think, I think something's going on.

01:31:29.280 And then we got back and he saw the TV and said, holy shit.

01:31:31.480 Cause my dad always thought that I was on the big mission and, and he, he, he's going

01:31:36.540 to think that was it.

01:31:37.160 And he was, I even called my mom.

01:31:38.920 I'd been joking with my mom, my entire life, even in high school, I would say, don't worry

01:31:42.660 about me, mom.

01:31:43.360 I'm here to do something important.

01:31:44.680 I'm going to be safe.

01:31:45.480 Don't worry.

01:31:45.940 I'm here to do something important.

01:31:47.220 And I called her from Bagram and I say, Hey mom, you can start worrying.

01:31:50.280 Cause that important thing, I think, I think it just went down.

01:31:55.040 That's amazing.

01:31:55.880 And then we handed him to the army and they, they, they flew him out to a ship and threw

01:31:59.800 him over, over into the ocean is what they told me.

01:32:01.860 Uh, not only is that an amazing story, you did an amazing job telling it.

01:32:06.560 Um, how long after you killed Osama, did you get out of the Navy?

01:32:13.120 My, uh, end of obligated service was January of 12.

01:32:17.520 So I could, I was going to get out then, but then, uh, on August 6th of 11, uh, extortion

01:32:22.740 one, seven was shot down.

01:32:23.800 Yes.

01:32:24.340 And we had 31 Americans on board and some Afghans and we lost a lot of guys from seal

01:32:28.680 team six on that.

01:32:29.380 I knew pretty much everyone on that helicopter.

01:32:33.340 So then I, I was definitely going to get out cause I want to see my daughters get married

01:32:36.480 and the unfortunate truth.

01:32:38.640 So what, I mean, that changed your perspective.

01:32:41.520 Yeah, because, uh, it can all, everything that is, everything that's ever mattered to

01:32:45.300 you can end with one bullet.

01:32:47.220 Yeah.

01:32:47.980 And a bullet never, never lies and it needs to be right once.

01:32:51.780 So, but then we also had to backfill those guys because we lost a troop of seal team six

01:32:57.100 guys.

01:32:57.300 So I went to a different squadron to deploy one more time.

01:33:01.860 And my, my thought process, my thought process was, um, I came in through the front door.

01:33:07.160 I'm going to leave through the front door.

01:33:08.580 So I'm going to go to war one more time to prove that I didn't just come here to kill

01:33:12.080 bin Laden.

01:33:12.740 Right.

01:33:13.100 I'm going to do one more deployment.

01:33:14.160 So I, and actually bin Laden wasn't the last guy I killed with that gun.

01:33:17.160 I went overseas again and, um, um, I went with silver squadron.

01:33:20.740 We had a winter deployment, um, gotten a couple of fights, but it was winter in Afghanistan.

01:33:24.900 So not a lot.

01:33:25.680 My, my, actually my last mission was an L ambush, which, uh, is the oldest tactic in

01:33:30.900 war.

01:33:31.960 The only time I've ever done is when you set up an L and someone either walks or drives

01:33:35.380 right into it and you got them in two ways.

01:33:37.000 So we were able to do that with a, with a vehicle.

01:33:39.680 We were watching a vehicle, uh, start in his village, drive around a mountain in Afghanistan.

01:33:46.740 And then they were, they were waiting for Americans to ambush and Americans didn't show up on Monday.

01:33:50.960 So they went back to their house.

01:33:52.140 They did it again on Tuesday and then we're watching them now.

01:33:54.480 And then Wednesday and Thursday.

01:33:56.180 And then I remember watching him saying, if they do it tomorrow on Friday, their day of

01:33:59.940 prayer, they're definitely going to do it Saturday.

01:34:02.160 So if they do it tomorrow, we're going to set up on them Saturday.

01:34:05.040 So they did it Friday.

01:34:06.280 Now we're going to set up on them.

01:34:07.600 And this is the winter.

01:34:08.640 It was a car and no one else is driving this road.

01:34:11.360 So we just, we inserted, we set up on these rocks, put some snipers up.

01:34:14.760 So we have an L ambush and we're going to wait for them.

01:34:18.200 And everything, everything that can go wrong will, no matter what you're doing.

01:34:22.120 The mission was so simple.

01:34:24.100 We're, someone is going to be in a plane watching them.

01:34:26.860 And then they're going to give us a green light, yellow light, red.

01:34:30.100 And that's when we're going to pop out.

01:34:31.700 And even, I was even telling the army when we're selling them, like, yeah, I'm going to

01:34:33.960 pop out and I'm going to stop the car.

01:34:35.040 And he's like, well, what if he doesn't stop?

01:34:36.260 I'm like, I'm going to shoot him.

01:34:37.960 This is pretty easy.

01:34:38.680 I'm just going to tell him to stop.

01:34:39.440 And then if he doesn't, I'm going to kill him or the snipers will.

01:34:42.080 So we set up there and naturally their car wouldn't start.

01:34:45.280 So we're, we actually took out cigars and lit them up waiting for them to try to figure

01:34:48.740 out how to start their car.

01:34:50.560 So they're on this other side of this mountain.

01:34:52.140 We're waiting over here.

01:34:53.040 Car won't start.

01:34:54.400 Like, I don't want, I almost want to walk over there and help them put it, put it in gear

01:34:57.560 and jump it.

01:34:58.060 And then I'll run back to the rocks.

01:34:59.120 But then we're waiting on them and we're starting to get the calls and a van full of

01:35:04.160 women and children drives right past us.

01:35:06.140 And it's like, what was that?

01:35:07.900 Like, where did they come from?

01:35:09.540 Like, imagine if we weren't well-trained and we just lit up an entire family for no reason.

01:35:13.240 So a van drove by and then these dudes finally drive up and we set, you know, we step out

01:35:16.920 and I tell him to stop and he didn't want to stop.

01:35:20.040 So we killed him.

01:35:21.740 Him and the, like, they tried to get out, cut their RPGs and we killed five of them, I think.

01:35:24.840 And that was it, the last mission.

01:35:27.220 With the same rifle you used to shoot Bin Laden.

01:35:29.280 What happened to that rifle?

01:35:30.100 Then I brought it back and I asked them if I could keep it and they said no.

01:35:34.640 So I had to, I turned the gun in and I don't know if someone else got it.

01:35:38.280 I don't know if they hung it up somewhere.

01:35:39.300 I don't know what, I don't know.

01:35:40.260 You have no idea what happened to the rifle.

01:35:41.560 I kept the firing pin though.

01:35:42.780 So I have that, but they kept the gun.

01:35:45.400 So they might've given it to some, one of those radio guys that is going to skydive for

01:35:49.540 the first time and just happened to be carrying the Bin Laden gun.

01:35:51.840 That's pretty funny.

01:35:52.900 Did you tell him this is the Bin Laden gun?

01:35:54.540 Everybody knew.

01:35:56.340 Yeah.

01:35:56.500 And even the gunner's man, he was cool.

01:35:57.520 He let me keep the firing pin.

01:35:58.660 But even the gunner's man, I was like, easy.

01:35:59.940 Come on, dude.

01:36:00.280 Let me keep the gun.

01:36:01.540 I'll give you $10,000 for the gun.

01:36:02.980 What kind of gun was it?

01:36:03.880 H&K 416.

01:36:05.280 Good gun.

01:36:06.240 Never had an issue.

01:36:06.980 Never had a jam with that gun.

01:36:08.520 So you come back from your last appointment to Afghanistan and then?

01:36:12.120 Well, then I get done and I have, I had a bunch of terminal leave, they call it.

01:36:17.160 You get 30 days of paid leave a year and I hadn't taken any.

01:36:21.480 So I have like 90 days of leave where I can still get paid, which is good because now I

01:36:26.280 have until August to figure out how to get a job.

01:36:29.400 Um, cause it's weird to leave the military without a degree because I know guys now that

01:36:33.680 would, they'd rather go to war than fill out a resume because war makes sense.

01:36:37.100 The resume doesn't.

01:36:37.940 I don't know what shoes to wear with a suit.

01:36:39.500 Crap like that.

01:36:40.200 So I, I, uh, I had to learn what to do.

01:36:43.780 Uh, and it just, I'm fortunate that I can tell a story.

01:36:45.960 I'm fortunate that I can, uh, manage stress and solve problems.

01:36:49.220 I got on the speaking circuit.

01:36:50.740 I don't, I don't, again, just being present, uh, got offered with leading authorities out

01:36:55.320 of DC.

01:36:56.480 And the first speech I gave was to, um, I think 2000 airline pilots.

01:37:00.980 And, uh, I had no experience speaking, never taken a class.

01:37:04.280 And I remember being backstage, looking out at this audience.

01:37:07.400 I'm like, I called my agent.

01:37:08.660 And I'm like, Hey, uh, I've been to combat, but am I going to faint when I get out on stage?

01:37:12.460 I have never been looked at like this.

01:37:14.200 And she said to me, uh, here's what you do.

01:37:16.260 Here's the key.

01:37:17.040 Three glasses of red wine right now, not two and not four.

01:37:20.520 That was her prescription.

01:37:21.480 Three.

01:37:21.760 And you'll be fine.

01:37:22.480 And then I didn't have them, but I walked on stage and they were pilots.

01:37:25.680 So there was a lot of Navy guys, a lot of Marines in the audience.

01:37:27.760 And one of the Marines, former Marines, he kind of heckled me and that clicked like,

01:37:32.000 Oh, they're friendly.

01:37:32.720 Okay, good, good.

01:37:33.660 This is a fun crowd.

01:37:34.720 And so I gave my first speech like that.

01:37:36.040 And then just, uh, and speaking is just, uh, you can't really market.

01:37:38.760 You just, if you're good, someone in the audience hears you and hires you.

01:37:41.400 That's exactly.

01:37:41.720 So it's like I did one in November and then two in December and then five in January and

01:37:44.700 then 10 in February.

01:37:45.900 And I just started speaking and then, uh, helped guys transition.

01:37:50.160 How was your transition?

01:37:52.020 I mean, it was difficult because, you know, I don't necessarily miss the missions, but

01:37:56.680 I miss the guys.

01:37:57.580 Of course.

01:37:58.120 The skydive trips to Arizona.

01:37:59.320 There's nothing like those.

01:38:00.200 I hang, you know, skydiving with 30 of your best friends, going out to dinner when you're

01:38:03.340 done jumping, talking about the, how close that jump was and then jumping the next day.

01:38:07.080 And, and, you know, I miss that.

01:38:08.940 I miss the workouts, the morning stuff.

01:38:10.740 Cause even at SEAL Team 2, we, every Tuesday, rain or shine, we had the two mile ocean swim.

01:38:15.780 And I'm talking like February in Virginia Beach is not fun to do it, but the bus ride to

01:38:20.500 get there is hilarious just because every, it just sucks.

01:38:23.240 And we all know we're just going to take a big bite of this shit sandwich, but we're

01:38:26.040 all in it together.

01:38:26.680 Let's go swim.

01:38:27.580 I miss that.

01:38:28.700 Yeah.

01:38:28.980 If I never do an ocean swim again, that's fine.

01:38:30.820 But I do miss that bus ride.

01:38:33.140 What, what is PTSD?

01:38:36.420 Uh, PTSD is real.

01:38:37.840 And it takes for me and a lot of my friends, a lot of my Marines, um, a lot of SEALs, some

01:38:44.260 of them don't have it, but the, the, for, for me, it seemed like a seven year thing.

01:38:47.780 Like right around the seven year mark, it starts to sink in what you were doing.

01:38:51.400 Seven years.

01:38:51.900 Seven years out of the Navy is when it started to hit me.

01:38:54.600 Really?

01:38:55.200 And that's just, um.

01:38:56.540 Had you ever had any symptoms of what you would now describe as PTSD when you were serving

01:39:01.460 in the Navy?

01:39:01.760 No.

01:39:02.540 Or for the first seven years out?

01:39:03.800 No.

01:39:04.320 No.

01:39:04.580 Interesting.

01:39:04.940 Yeah.

01:39:05.380 It just, it just seemed like that's what we were supposed to be doing, but then, you

01:39:08.440 know, you get older and you realize that, you know, I was in houses killing people in

01:39:12.380 front of their families.

01:39:13.280 I mean, even to the point where you're like, okay, I did kill that guy in front of his

01:39:16.080 two sons.

01:39:16.560 Now, did I get rid of a terrorist or I make two new ones?

01:39:19.420 What are they going to do when they get older?

01:39:20.600 What are they doing now?

01:39:21.420 Now that they're in their twenties?

01:39:22.900 I mean, they're not going to forget me killing their dad in front of them.

01:39:25.560 Uh, the, the guy that I killed in front of his wife, he's not, and I killed his

01:39:28.200 brother right before I killed him in front of his wife.

01:39:29.840 They're, they still remember that they still hate my guts.

01:39:32.160 So you start to think about, I mean, I'm convinced I never killed the wrong person,

01:39:36.480 but also I started to think, could I, could I have talked them out of that?

01:39:41.240 Cause the one guy that I talk about, I, I try to talk him out of getting his gun.

01:39:44.280 Like he got up and was trying to kick me.

01:39:45.960 What, what, where was this?

01:39:47.160 What happened?

01:39:47.360 It's in Ramadi, Iraq.

01:39:49.240 We, uh, we just went into a house and as soon as we went in to the, it was a big, like

01:39:53.280 Saddam mansion type place.

01:39:54.660 As soon as I went in, there's a guy with a gun.

01:39:56.060 So I blasted him.

01:39:57.700 Then other guys were coming in.

01:39:59.380 There's an open door here.

01:40:00.220 And I, I did a one man entry, which you shouldn't do, but I went in there and there's a guy

01:40:03.520 in bed with his wife and I'm standing above him and, uh, he's, I can see a gun and he's

01:40:08.620 right there and he's waking up and he like, he threw a kick or something.

01:40:11.360 And I remember thinking, okay, he just woke up, give him a courtesy 10 seconds.

01:40:16.140 Cause he, that's, he's groggy.

01:40:17.940 And then he starts looking at the gun and I was like, no, don't, don't do that.

01:40:21.200 Don't do any went for it.

01:40:21.960 I killed him.

01:40:22.320 And then I put a white light on him and his wife now sees him.

01:40:26.120 And so she screams.

01:40:28.100 And then I'm like, man, why?

01:40:29.600 And then later I started to think, you know, why did I shoot that guy?

01:40:31.980 Well, because he went for his gun, but why did he go for a gun?

01:40:34.060 Well, cause I'm in his room at two in the morning.

01:40:35.800 And then you start thinking, why am I in his room?

01:40:37.620 Well, George Bush had a problem with Saddam Hussein.

01:40:39.320 So we invaded Iraq and that's why I just killed that guy.

01:40:41.480 And again, everything that ever mattered to that dude doesn't matter anymore.

01:40:44.840 Cause I just took it all away from him.

01:40:46.140 So that, and that just starts to, you know, that you can, that can eat you up sometime.

01:40:50.240 Me anyway, some guys don't have a problem with any of it.

01:40:51.980 And he was, he was a terrorist.

01:40:53.240 So whatever, but you still think about it.

01:40:55.060 And the, the thing that I bring up too is if I had met that dude in Paris over coffee,

01:40:59.100 did he know a joke?

01:41:01.100 You know, that's, that's the weird shit.

01:41:02.440 And then for me, it's PTSD is, is anger, like a quick anger.

01:41:06.600 And then, um, hyper awareness.

01:41:09.080 Like even if I'm downstairs making a sandwich in my kitchen, I gotta be looking at the doors

01:41:12.520 just to make sure no one's coming in, you know,

01:41:14.700 yelling at the wife for not locking the door, arm the alarm.

01:41:17.960 Here's the shotguns.

01:41:18.760 Here's how it works.

01:41:19.340 And she probably doesn't need to know all that, but that's just, that's part of it.

01:41:23.180 Because one of my sayings is it's a large planet, but it's a small world and people can get here

01:41:28.500 really, really quickly.

01:41:29.160 And we've done it to them and, um, they can do it to us.

01:41:32.320 And it's one of those things that it's so dark and bad.

01:41:34.400 And I know what people are capable of doing to each other.

01:41:36.480 And I don't want to see it again, but you know, if they come here, I mean, I'm ready for them,

01:41:41.500 but, uh, you get an October 7th type thing in this country.

01:41:45.020 People are not prepared for what they might see because it's, people are, people are worse

01:41:49.820 than animals as far as violence.

01:41:51.100 We can do some of the most horrific shit to each other.

01:41:52.940 That, that, that gets to me to the point where like I do, uh, Ibogaine now, uh, I do psychedelics.

01:41:57.680 I'm actually going back down with a company called Ambio in a couple of weeks to do Ibogaine.

01:42:01.680 I do it once a year just because when I, when I start to get a short temper, uh, or, or

01:42:06.520 just like, if I, if I have to have green noise on to sleep, so I can't hear what's going on

01:42:10.860 in my head, it's just time to get back into the psychedelics.

01:42:13.320 And then what the psychedelics do is they get, they get me, they get me structured.

01:42:17.520 So, um, there's like a four, four or five month window for Ibogaine that it works.

01:42:22.120 And that's when you're supposed to structure yourself.

01:42:24.120 So like, um, for me, it'll be the, um, barefoot walking in the grass at least five minutes after

01:42:29.860 you wake up and before you go to bed and then meditation, yoga and working out.

01:42:34.100 I mean, you got to work out, just get, get that, get the endorphins going.

01:42:36.980 But Ibogaine helps you get back in that.

01:42:38.280 And then once you're in that system, then it, uh, you can stick with it.

01:42:40.920 So that's, that's how it helps.

01:42:41.860 But yeah, PTSD can be anything I've, I've, you know, I've seen guys, um, try to drink

01:42:47.060 their way out of it, which is horrible.

01:42:48.820 Cause it's like, uh, I've had friends say, yeah, I'll take a drink of alcohol to get rid of

01:42:52.120 the pain, but then I gotta have one more drink of alcohol to get rid of the pain.

01:42:55.140 And then I'll wake up the next day while I have a hangover, but you know, we'll get rid of

01:42:57.300 it, another drink.

01:42:57.980 And there's a vicious cycle in there and then, but the alcohol doesn't help.

01:43:01.520 The psychedelics do.

01:43:02.640 And that's why they're not legal here because it works.

01:43:04.820 And I don't know why they won't help the veterans with that.

01:43:06.480 I think they're working on it now.

01:43:08.100 Um, I know there's a, there's a company also in Texas called Veterans Exploring Treatment

01:43:11.260 Solutions and they partner with Ambio and we get veterans and first responders to Mexico,

01:43:14.960 but we should have it in New York at the VA.

01:43:16.800 We should have it in Virginia and California.

01:43:18.600 Veterans should be able to get Ibogaine administered medically.

01:43:22.120 And that's how they do it in Mexico.

01:43:23.360 It's a doctor.

01:43:24.060 You're on a heart monitor.

01:43:25.200 They watch you the whole time.

01:43:26.320 And, um, it just, it gets in your brain.

01:43:28.600 It shows you stuff and it really, it kind of cleans out the closet.

01:43:31.840 It's, it's terrifying.

01:43:34.080 Ibogaine is DMT is not, it's awesome, but, uh, it, it, it breaks everything up and then

01:43:37.900 it kind of pushes it out for, why is it terrifying?

01:43:40.540 Because, uh, it opens your mind.

01:43:42.640 Like when people say you use 30% of your brain, it's like you use 30% for tennis and then a

01:43:46.680 different 30% for chess or for whatever.

01:43:48.660 But this one opens all of them and it all talks.

01:43:51.560 And so stuff that you've suppressed, uh, trauma as far back as your childhood, it'll show it

01:43:56.480 to you, um, that you wanted to stop thinking about.

01:43:59.300 And then you have to deal like it, you have to deal with it.

01:44:01.680 Like the medicine shows you things and you can tell it.

01:44:04.800 I don't want to, I'm not ready to see that right now, but if it keeps, like for me, it's

01:44:07.820 demons.

01:44:08.860 If it keeps showing you stuff, you have to deal with it right now.

01:44:11.840 Demons?

01:44:12.300 Demons.

01:44:12.600 Like, like black gum, yellow teeth demons.

01:44:14.680 Yeah.

01:44:15.180 Just staring at me, um, at first.

01:44:17.840 And then it gets rid of them.

01:44:19.060 But what do you think those are?

01:44:20.260 I don't know.

01:44:21.160 Um, I don't know.

01:44:23.760 It's hard to say.

01:44:24.440 I mean, it's just an evil face, but it's a bunch of them.

01:44:26.980 Uh, and then with your mind working, if, if, if you're.

01:44:30.080 Do you think they're real?

01:44:31.600 Yeah.

01:44:33.340 I think so too.

01:44:34.060 I do.

01:44:34.400 I think, I think there's, there's real evil in the world too.

01:44:36.640 And guys like me that were never supposed to be killing people, they're going to, they're

01:44:40.100 going to taunt me a little bit, but when your mind gets creative.

01:44:42.300 What do you mean guys like you who were never supposed to be?

01:44:44.360 Well, I wasn't supposed to be a, uh, uh, a killer.

01:44:46.820 I was supposed to be a chef.

01:44:48.180 I was supposed to be a stockbroker.

01:44:50.280 Um, so, I mean, I'm, I have a big heart.

01:44:51.800 Like I'm, I, I, I don't want people to go to war.

01:44:54.280 You know, I don't want people to be shooting each other.

01:44:55.880 I don't want bombs dropping on innocent people.

01:44:57.860 Yes.

01:44:58.320 Um, but, but when you went under Ibogaine, as creative as you can get, you can start thinking

01:45:02.380 of horrible shit.

01:45:03.400 And because you're in, you're in a state, you actually see it.

01:45:07.420 You can see it.

01:45:08.280 It's, it's a vision of like, like awful, awful shit.

01:45:12.160 Uh, and so you have to deal with that.

01:45:13.660 And, but it goes back and forth and the medicine kind of like guide you.

01:45:17.280 And, um, the coolest thing it said to me was, uh, the only people who go to hell are people

01:45:21.280 who think they deserve to.

01:45:22.640 So it's a, it's a healer, but it's just, it's, it's really scary.

01:45:26.120 And then there's a 24 hour period where you're just, it's like a really bad hangover.

01:45:31.120 You're depleted.

01:45:31.580 So you get a bunch of IVs and stuff.

01:45:33.160 You do a Reiki massage, which is an energy massage.

01:45:35.020 And then they give you, um, 5-MeO-DMT, which is the God molecule.

01:45:39.640 And you go to, you go wherever heaven is and you see it for, you lose track of time.

01:45:44.680 Uh, the first time I did 5-MeO, I asked them when I was done, how many days have I been asleep?

01:45:49.120 And they said a minute and a half, because you'll lose track of every, like you can't

01:45:52.280 describe it.

01:45:52.780 And I've heard other people talk about psychedelics.

01:45:55.140 You can't, it's the most beautiful, um, time lapse.

01:46:00.200 Like you lose track of time and I get, I feel like I'm being lifted by my stomach and there's

01:46:05.020 like, there's family everywhere and a maternal voice.

01:46:08.760 And it was telling me I was home, but in a language I didn't understand, but I could, I

01:46:12.900 couldn't understand it, but I knew what she was saying.

01:46:15.040 And like my grandmother, my dead grandmother was there and she was just saying, we're not

01:46:18.720 waiting for you.

01:46:19.300 We're just here.

01:46:19.980 Like, like we're here now.

01:46:21.580 Like, and it sounds crazy right now, but it's, it's, it's, uh, it doesn't sound crazy.

01:46:25.400 It'll really, it, it really, uh, opens your mind to what next it's.

01:46:31.280 I mean, everyone that's done it too.

01:46:32.260 Like I went through with, I'm talking Sergeant Major and, uh, uh, Delta Force guys, uh, 30 years

01:46:39.240 in the army and they finished this Ibogaine Reiki DMT.

01:46:43.460 And they, they told me to give a message to Amber Capone.

01:46:46.680 Um, she just, she runs vets, uh, Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions.

01:46:50.320 Please tell Amber that she saved my life because I was going to kill myself next week.

01:46:53.940 This was my last shot at doing something for myself and it cured him.

01:46:57.600 It's cured, uh, heroin addiction overnight.

01:47:00.500 Like dope sickness.

01:47:01.580 Like I, I heard a story of a, a woman that was addicted to heroin and she did Ibogaine, didn't

01:47:05.760 have any visions, just slept.

01:47:07.060 And she said, I don't think it worked.

01:47:08.620 And they said, well, are you dope sick?

01:47:09.680 And she goes, no.

01:47:10.240 And he goes, no, it worked.

01:47:12.500 So now just set your patterns.

01:47:14.380 So it's, I mean, every veteran that's seen combat should, shit.

01:47:17.780 Everyone that's had any trauma in their life should, should get a shot at Ibogaine because

01:47:21.080 it's a, it's a life changer.

01:47:25.000 What are the symptoms of PTSD?

01:47:26.620 You said anger and paranoia.

01:47:28.940 I'm paraphrasing.

01:47:29.660 Yeah, just awareness.

01:47:30.440 Awareness, hyper-awareness.

01:47:31.700 Over-aware.

01:47:32.960 Yeah.

01:47:33.200 Like I can't concentrate on the show cause I'm always looking at the door and then the

01:47:36.960 anger.

01:47:37.280 I mean, that's, that's not me.

01:47:38.380 I don't like getting angry, but I'll just, I'll get really pissed off at him.

01:47:40.920 Where do you think that comes from?

01:47:42.560 Yeah.

01:47:42.920 I, it's, it's just gotta be all the, all the stuff that we saw because even, you know,

01:47:47.100 shooting people is one thing.

01:47:48.620 Not all of them bother me.

01:47:49.960 A couple of them bother me just because you kind of, what if I did it differently?

01:47:54.700 But then, you know, you see other dead people, you, you have friends like the, the worst

01:47:59.040 conversation is when someone would come up to me and say, Hey, did you know Scott Neal?

01:48:03.660 What do you mean?

01:48:04.140 Did I know what happened?

01:48:06.080 You know, did you know Robert Reeves?

01:48:07.480 Yes.

01:48:08.100 What happened?

01:48:09.520 You know, just, did you know?

01:48:10.560 It's like, I knew no, what happened?

01:48:11.840 You know, did you know Neil Roberts was the first one I heard Fifi, the guy that fell

01:48:15.400 out of the helicopter, um, red team, um, in Afghanistan.

01:48:19.160 And I, I, yeah, I knew him.

01:48:20.260 He's, he, he's the first seal I met.

01:48:21.520 He brought me, he, we went to Arby's my first day cause he was an older guy and he brought

01:48:24.800 two new guys to Arby's to tell us what seal team two was like.

01:48:26.800 Yeah, I know him.

01:48:27.500 I knew him.

01:48:27.960 So just losing friends and, uh, knowing their families, it's just, it's, I think it's a

01:48:32.020 lot.

01:48:32.160 I mean, and it's like anything, like just the older you get, the more shit you start to

01:48:35.820 realize.

01:48:36.540 Of course.

01:48:37.100 But there's, I mean, there's a lot of dramatic stuff.

01:48:38.520 Even like, I remember, um, a house I went into in Iraq and we're going into two, three

01:48:44.080 in the morning.

01:48:44.660 I went into the wrong house and the only people inside was a woman and her, her young daughter.

01:48:49.380 And I'm standing, they came out of the room to look at me.

01:48:51.700 Here's some dude with a green face and a gun getting mud all over the white carpet, wrong

01:48:56.780 house.

01:48:57.120 And I remember looking at him just thinking, I understand why they hate us.

01:49:00.780 Like, I wouldn't want to wake up to this guy in my house.

01:49:03.020 No, not at all.

01:49:03.540 And just thinking, what did I, did I traumatize that poor young girl for nothing?

01:49:07.480 So just shit like that.

01:49:08.760 Maybe I'm too sensitive, but we, they asked a lot of us.

01:49:11.960 We did a lot of stuff over there.

01:49:14.120 What are you haunted by?

01:49:15.300 Um, is it, are you more haunted?

01:49:20.320 Well, I can see probably haunted by everything.

01:49:21.800 Why wouldn't you be?

01:49:22.580 But are, what is it the killing or the seeing?

01:49:25.560 No, it's, you know what it is.

01:49:26.640 It's, it's, it's haunted by stuff that's probably not going to happen, but I'm anticipating it.

01:49:31.080 The, uh, the October 7th style attack on a gun-free zone in Arizona, when suicide bombers

01:49:36.100 go to an elementary school, um, when the sleeper cells activate and they, they're cutting heads

01:49:41.160 off somewhere, that bothers me.

01:49:42.600 It doesn't bother me if they come after me.

01:49:44.040 I can handle them.

01:49:44.680 I got them.

01:49:45.500 Yeah.

01:49:46.000 And I'm so morbid.

01:49:47.160 Sometimes it's like, well, if they get me, at least that's an ending finally.

01:49:49.880 But, uh, no, I mean, I'm not, you know, I got shotguns like we said yesterday and whatever.

01:49:53.560 But just thinking about, I don't want, I don't like the idea of innocent Americans getting

01:49:57.160 killed here just because, uh, political, uh, ideologies left our borders wide open and they're

01:50:03.660 here and they haven't forgotten about us.

01:50:04.980 They, they've always said to us that, uh, you know, the Americans have the clocks, but

01:50:09.100 we have the time and they're not going to forget.

01:50:11.160 They, they hit the World Trade Center in 93.

01:50:12.560 They came back in 2001.

01:50:15.460 So that, I mean, that, that bothers me.

01:50:16.960 And it's almost like the idea of something bad happening bothers me.

01:50:20.340 And it probably never will.

01:50:21.480 Like you shouldn't be worried about stuff that won't happen, but that's, that's part of my

01:50:24.340 PTSD.

01:50:24.680 It's, it's always struck me as weird that combat veterans kill themselves, which they do.

01:50:30.740 They do.

01:50:31.320 Of course, we're much higher rate than non-combat veterans, but you know,

01:50:34.840 they survived and some of them really beat the odds to survive.

01:50:38.680 Yeah.

01:50:39.120 And then they went up killing themselves.

01:50:41.300 Why?

01:50:42.780 I think that, I think again, it's the, um, they can't live with the guilt or a lot.

01:50:47.920 I know some guys that killed themselves because they had traumatic brain injury and they can't

01:50:50.320 live with the headaches.

01:50:51.240 Yeah.

01:50:51.620 Ibogaine cures that too.

01:50:53.380 I mean, guys need a shot at this.

01:50:54.580 They don't need to be taking all the, uh, the pills the VA gives them.

01:50:57.160 What do you mean the guilt?

01:50:58.940 Um, I think just, we're just talking to some guys, like some of the, some Marines I know

01:51:03.900 from Fallujah, just, just the, the killing, the watching guys get killed.

01:51:07.040 It's like, uh, could I have saved my friend?

01:51:09.140 Could I, like, I'm fortunate.

01:51:10.180 I, I, I don't think I've ever killed the wrong person.

01:51:12.540 I've actually never seen one of my friends hurt in front of me, which is crazy going

01:51:15.940 into that much combat, but some guys have some guy.

01:51:18.420 I mean, I was talking to guys that were trying to put their buddy back together when he was

01:51:21.980 blown in half, like his best friend, like just that guilt.

01:51:25.460 Um, I don't, I, I'm tired of living through this.

01:51:27.680 Is there guilt over killing?

01:51:30.180 Not, I don't even think even guilt.

01:51:31.700 I do think about that one guy every day, but he, again, he was a bad guy, but could I

01:51:36.220 have talked him out of it?

01:51:36.920 Like, was it worth it?

01:51:38.020 Probably, probably, maybe not, but, um, the unknown.

01:51:42.320 And then just wondering, you know, again, wondering how did that affect, uh, them?

01:51:46.340 How did that woman that the dog bit, you know, bit her arm or whatever?

01:51:50.100 Yeah.

01:51:50.340 And just, just, I mean, because again, why are we here and why are we doing this to this,

01:51:55.300 this group of people right now?

01:51:56.920 And it was, it was never the, uh, weapons of mass destruction.

01:52:00.380 And now I'm fighting for the guy that came in the room behind me, the guy who's in front

01:52:02.940 of me.

01:52:03.200 That's who I'm fighting for.

01:52:03.980 We're going to win.

01:52:04.440 Yeah.

01:52:04.740 And Americans win every, every fight toe to toe, but what's the reason we're here?

01:52:09.420 You said this, this hit you and it commonly hits people.

01:52:13.500 I think you said seven years ish, years after they're safe and living in some leafy suburb

01:52:18.860 with a pretty wife and like, everything's fine, but they're not fine inside.

01:52:23.020 How many conversations did you have in all the years you were in all these 12 deployments

01:52:27.040 or whatever about why you were there, about the meaning of taking another man's life?

01:52:33.380 We didn't talk about it at all.

01:52:34.460 Um, not when we were in, it was, it was just the job.

01:52:37.460 The only person that brought it up was one of our personal trainers.

01:52:40.720 Cause we had these trainers that will, you know, do everything from strength coaches

01:52:43.560 to helping you stretch a bad back type stuff.

01:52:45.600 Yeah.

01:52:45.880 And I remember he said, uh, every one of you guys has changed.

01:52:48.560 You just don't realize it.

01:52:49.420 Like every single one of you guys, you're not the same as you were when you checked in

01:52:52.820 here for selection.

01:52:53.580 Like you guys are all different now.

01:52:55.160 And it was just because of the, because of the missions, whether, whether they admit it or

01:52:59.120 not.

01:52:59.360 I mean, it's, it's a, it's a lot was, we were good at it.

01:53:02.600 Well, well, undoubtedly, you know, the best.

01:53:05.460 Yeah.

01:53:05.820 I just think it's interesting that the U S government or your officers, I mean, why is

01:53:11.540 it left?

01:53:12.060 Why is it left to your personal trainer to note something that obvious?

01:53:15.660 And I don't, I don't, um, I don't think they have interest in, in, in, in mental health

01:53:21.820 or even helping you separate because you're not sticking around to do the job they needed

01:53:25.700 to do.

01:53:26.380 I did.

01:53:26.760 And then they might be getting better now, but I doubt it that they're certainly not

01:53:30.560 doing psychedelic work.

01:53:31.480 What about the moral questions?

01:53:32.960 Like how many people you served with were like, you know, faithful believers in God?

01:53:38.160 Um, a low percent, uh, maybe 5%.

01:53:43.260 Wow.

01:53:44.100 But the, the further we're out now, more guys are going back.

01:53:48.340 I've noticed.

01:53:48.840 A lot of Christians, a lot of, I'm Catholic and I'm going back to church now.

01:53:51.680 I didn't go to church.

01:53:52.300 I don't, I, the only time I went to church in the Navy was at funerals and it, and it

01:53:56.460 doesn't make any sense.

01:53:57.280 You think I would have been better with Jesus doing that?

01:54:00.120 And even when they would bring a pastor out to pray before a mission, we're like, whatever,

01:54:03.420 let's go kill these fuckers.

01:54:05.060 But now it's kind of like, all right, maybe take a rap off that too.

01:54:09.380 Fair.

01:54:11.020 But, uh, yeah, it's, um.

01:54:12.440 I guess I'm making a point, which is, it seems like they're treating you like animals or machines.

01:54:18.200 They're not considering the effect on you.

01:54:20.660 That's just, sorry to say that, but that's the way.

01:54:22.400 No, they, they, I mean, they cared about a professional development.

01:54:24.840 They cared about us going to sniper school.

01:54:26.300 They cared about us doing training, but I can't remember.

01:54:29.260 I mean, they, okay.

01:54:30.360 They started to get good with retreats.

01:54:32.000 I remember they would do some retreats.

01:54:33.480 Like you get to take your, they would pay for you and your wife and kids to go to like

01:54:36.720 Great Wolf Lodge and do the water park.

01:54:38.320 And, and they would have classes about like, it was more marriage counseling.

01:54:41.440 Cause we're all nuts anyway.

01:54:43.700 Um, so they did, they did, they, I don't want to say they didn't do anything, but they,

01:54:47.200 they certainly aren't keying on.

01:54:48.860 It's almost like if, if someone's got a psychological problem, then do we, do we trust them to be

01:54:52.900 the lead jumper on that jump?

01:54:54.540 Do we trust them to be the one man, you know?

01:54:57.480 Um, did you see people go crazy?

01:54:59.660 Yeah.

01:55:00.460 I saw, I saw people freeze.

01:55:02.800 Um, it, it's a different animal.

01:55:04.880 What does that mean?

01:55:05.440 Freeze?

01:55:06.620 Just freeze.

01:55:07.500 Like if someone shoots an AK-47 at you in a house, it's really loud and scary.

01:55:12.020 I can't imagine.

01:55:12.660 And I've seen guys just stop.

01:55:13.980 Um, it's, it's not, I mean, nothing on them.

01:55:17.460 People react differently.

01:55:18.940 I, I just say, I was just dumb enough to go after them, but some, some guy, I mean,

01:55:22.660 and some guys quit.

01:55:23.440 Some guys, I, I'm not doing this anymore.

01:55:25.100 As soon as, well, after Neil Roberts fell out of the helicopter, a lot of poster child seals

01:55:29.540 hit it, beat it.

01:55:31.340 What, can you tell that story quickly?

01:55:33.060 I, I'm not familiar with it.

01:55:34.180 Um, that's when they were going after Al Qaeda, Operation Anaconda.

01:55:37.500 Yeah.

01:55:37.740 And, um, it was mainly, it was like the 10th mountain, some army infantry, Delta and SEAL

01:55:43.940 Team 6.

01:55:44.920 And they were trying to put SEAL snipers on top of a mountain called Talker Gar.

01:55:49.500 And they went, and they're being flown by TF-160, the best pilots in the world.

01:55:52.220 Al Mack was actually flying the best pilot in the world.

01:55:55.400 Um, Razor Zero 3 is his book.

01:55:57.280 He's stud.

01:55:57.720 He's, he's so cool.

01:55:58.900 I had a shirt made that said, I know Al Mack.

01:56:00.600 Like he's a badass, but, and he saved everyone's life.

01:56:03.020 But when they were inserting, they started taking fire.

01:56:04.640 They got hit with an RPG.

01:56:05.480 And Neil was on the, on the, um, the, the ramp.

01:56:09.260 He was going to be the first guy off.

01:56:10.220 He's carrying a saw, squad automatic weapon, belt fed machine gun.

01:56:13.280 And he fell out.

01:56:14.640 And he fell so hard.

01:56:15.740 He actually bent, we have the gun.

01:56:17.060 It bent the barrel.

01:56:18.420 So he's without a gun now on the mountain.

01:56:20.960 The helicopter takes off without realizing he fell out.

01:56:23.220 So now Neil's by himself with Al Qaeda.

01:56:24.960 And they, they did him dirty.

01:56:26.700 He, he fought, fought for a while, but he, he ended up getting killed pretty bad.

01:56:31.020 And then they came back in to get him.

01:56:32.500 And that's when, um, uh, Britt Slavinsky and, um, Chappie was, um, John Chapman, CCT guy,

01:56:39.760 who they were both awarded medals of honor.

01:56:41.580 John Chapman should have been awarded two medals of honor for what he did on the mountain.

01:56:44.080 He actually ended up, they ended up fighting it out close quarters, uh, like inside bunkers.

01:56:47.960 They found Neil, uh, they ended up, they left John Chapman.

01:56:52.380 Rangers went up and got him later.

01:56:53.820 Really shitty fight.

01:56:54.640 But Neil was the first, uh, casualty that everybody knew and loved.

01:56:58.680 Like he, like his, his O course time.

01:57:01.460 He was the fastest obstacle course runner at Buzz is on his headstone.

01:57:05.160 So he was the first one that died.

01:57:06.420 And that's when a lot of guys started.

01:57:08.060 Like when we started training after that fight, everything that we'd been trained on change it.

01:57:14.060 Cause you're not going to do that stupid shit.

01:57:15.460 You're not going to stand up, pirouette and say center peel.

01:57:17.960 You're going to get the fuck down because these bullets are coming right here.

01:57:21.220 Uh, so change everything.

01:57:22.780 Now we're going back and we're fighting in the mountains with guys who've been fighting their whole lives.

01:57:26.300 To the point where like, I, I, I remember fighting guys where saying to my guys, as we're getting ambushed, this is going to end one of two ways.

01:57:33.160 We're going to die or we're going to win.

01:57:34.860 That's it.

01:57:35.260 And save one bullet for yourself because you do not want to get captured by these guys.

01:57:39.280 So it's, it's, it's very intense.

01:57:40.820 I mean, I'm, I, in one fight I was in, I ran into a, a guy that looked like me, red hair, red beard, shooting a bell fed machine gun at me, yelling Allahu Akbar.

01:57:48.860 And that realization is okay.

01:57:51.600 That's a Chechen.

01:57:52.940 And those dudes are very serious.

01:57:54.800 That's Al Qaeda, like a hundred percent Al Qaeda.

01:57:57.280 And you, you, you're going to have to kill him or kill yourself because it's on.

01:58:02.540 And, um, yeah, that, I mean, I was on a border bombing.

01:58:05.440 Did you kill him?

01:58:06.220 Yeah.

01:58:06.520 With, uh, the air force.

01:58:08.120 We ended up getting, um, we got ambushed for a full hour.

01:58:12.460 I'd actually, um, I'd heard about from Vietnam guys.

01:58:17.420 They used to wear their, we used to wear a gear in lines, like third line, first line, second line, third line.

01:58:21.660 Uh, first line gear is on your body.

01:58:23.500 It's the most important shit you have.

01:58:24.560 So it's on your belt and your pockets.

01:58:26.360 Um, so your second line's your second most important.

01:58:28.460 So like bullets, grenades, and water.

01:58:30.320 Third line's your least important stuff in a backpack, like foot powder, extra socks, sleeping bag.

01:58:34.020 Like the reason you carry it that way is so if you're running for your life, you can start getting rid of it.

01:58:38.280 Third line, first, second line, you can sprint.

01:58:40.380 And I never heard of anyone doing it, but I dropped it and had to go to my radio guy because we're getting ambushed on this mountain.

01:58:45.760 It was just a horrible day.

01:58:47.320 Um, and I told them to call, you know, we got to, I can see this checkpoint up top where the leadership is.

01:58:52.300 I want to bomb them first.

01:58:53.120 And they said, well, we don't have any, uh, air, there's no air support.

01:58:56.260 We got nothing.

01:58:57.460 So we had to lay there and take fire as they're surrounding us.

01:58:59.860 And, uh, they got close.

01:59:00.900 Like, I mean, tracers flying in between my hand and my face, like in between two tracers is five real bullets.

01:59:07.880 Zip.

01:59:08.820 Where you're almost thinking like, um, now is it, is it going to hurt when I get shot in the face?

01:59:13.260 Or do you feel it?

01:59:14.540 Or do you go to heaven?

01:59:15.080 Or what's, what happens when you like, that's like airburst RPGs and stuff going off.

01:59:18.760 And finally he'd snap me out of it by saying, I got one.

01:59:20.840 I got a jet.

01:59:21.340 And I said, cool, hit that checkpoint.

01:59:22.980 And he said, I can't because the batteries just died.

01:59:25.740 And I'm a big believer in not micromanaging.

01:59:28.100 And I said, change the batteries.

01:59:29.580 He said, I can't, I'm not carrying the spares.

01:59:31.820 Remember you are.

01:59:33.520 I'm like, oh shit, it's in the backpack.

01:59:34.960 I dropped a hundred meters that way.

01:59:36.900 Now I got to run and get that damn thing as they're shooting at me here.

01:59:39.800 And that, you know, got the batteries and threw them to him.

01:59:41.680 And he called it, I think it was a B one.

01:59:44.440 Cause he said, bombs away two minutes out.

01:59:46.220 And like two minutes out, what did the space shuttle drop these things?

01:59:48.220 We need them on us.

01:59:49.120 And then you just hear him sizzling and like bacon.

01:59:50.800 And then we just start bombing the side of this mountain and they start running back into Pakistan.

01:59:54.240 And we pursued him into Pakistan and bombed him for three hours because we could, we had positive identification troops in contact so we can bomb them.

02:00:02.800 But then we get back and Pakistan, we killed 11 Pakistani soldiers and I don't know how many Al Qaeda.

02:00:07.700 And they started saying an unprovoked ambush, Americans started bombing Pakistan.

02:00:12.240 So the boss I talked to said, well, here's the deal.

02:00:14.980 Cause I was a ground force commander for that.

02:00:16.180 And he goes, well, you're either going to get a silver star or you're going to Leavenworth.

02:00:20.120 So we'll let you know.

02:00:21.480 It's like, when?

02:00:23.140 I have to wait three weeks to find out if I'm going to jail now.

02:00:26.160 But yeah.

02:00:26.620 Did you get the silver star?

02:00:27.540 Yeah.

02:00:28.080 That was my first.

02:00:28.760 I got two.

02:00:29.140 But I mean, again, with those, it's not, it's almost like I'd give the silver star back to not have that memory.

02:00:38.320 Yeah, no, I, I bet.

02:00:39.720 So when you're tormented by what we refer to as PTSD, like, what are you thinking?

02:00:47.380 I wouldn't say tormented.

02:00:48.420 It's just more, it's just the awareness and the, just, just thinking thoughts that I don't need to be thinking.

02:00:55.660 Just knowing what, if, if, if someone got to someone I loved, what they would do.

02:01:02.680 And I don't like thinking about that.

02:01:04.540 So it almost, again, not tormented, more of a protector, like an overprotector.

02:01:09.140 Yes.

02:01:09.720 And, you know, just make sure, you know, make sure everyone has guns.

02:01:13.020 So that's a lot to go through, you know, in your forties, you know.

02:01:17.220 Well, and to consider like, I just joined to get out of town.

02:01:20.680 It's like that, it's like that poster of the dude chucking a grenade and says, I just joined for the college money.

02:01:26.620 So given everything you've just told us for the last two hours, how do you feel when you're, you know, driving in your car, looking at your phone and you see some political figure saying, hey, let's have a war with country X?

02:01:38.260 Well, a good indicator is if anyone's referred to as a war hawk, they've never been to war.

02:01:44.640 And they just love the idea of the military industrial complex.

02:01:49.940 They're going to get paid.

02:01:51.380 Their friends are going to get paid.

02:01:52.420 They have no skin in the game.

02:01:55.420 And they've never been up close when, I mean, getting bombed in a house you're in has got to be the worst thing ever, buried alive in that heat.

02:02:03.200 And they just love doing that because we'll get a contract to build more bombs.

02:02:07.860 And just the threat, I mean, as long as I've been alive, there's either been war or a threat of war.

02:02:12.580 And if you keep people afraid, we'll slowly give up our liberty.

02:02:15.800 The Patriarch sounded great on 9-12, but a week later, it's like, wait, what are you watching?

02:02:19.800 Why are you watching us now?

02:02:21.480 Did you guys ever talk about that?

02:02:22.800 No, because it was red, white, and blue and apple pie.

02:02:25.720 Like, we're Americans and we're the good guys.

02:02:27.220 When you were in the service, like the whole time, you never.

02:02:29.500 No, I didn't question Iraq.

02:02:31.340 It's like, I wanted to go.

02:02:32.420 Like, let's get, get me in there before this ends.

02:02:34.960 When did you start rethinking?

02:02:38.020 About seven years.

02:02:39.020 You're the most famous trigger puller in the war on terror.

02:02:44.180 I think that's fair to say.

02:02:46.540 So, and a lot of positive reinforcement because people are impressed by your bravery and amazed by all the things that you saw.

02:02:52.440 And you are kind of the Forrest Gump of the war on terror.

02:02:54.280 I think that's true.

02:02:54.920 So, but at what point did you start to question, like, what was that?

02:03:00.100 Yeah, it was seven years.

02:03:01.800 I know after Iraq, after we pulled out, started to pull out and ISIS was formed.

02:03:05.360 It was like, at first for me, it was more of a, we never should have invaded, but we also shouldn't have left.

02:03:11.060 Yeah.

02:03:11.420 Like that.

02:03:12.000 And then you got that, that line, that convoy of ISIS coming in from Tikrit.

02:03:16.960 It's like, bomb them.

02:03:18.200 We have A-10s.

02:03:19.420 That's ISIS.

02:03:20.100 Kill them all.

02:03:20.620 But they didn't.

02:03:21.480 And then ISIS turned into ISIS.

02:03:22.800 And, you know, it's all part of the Islamic Jihad.

02:03:25.300 It's all the, you know, ISIS.

02:03:26.520 And even though they're different sects, Hamas, Hezbollah, and all those, everyone down to the Houthis.

02:03:30.420 It's all, you know, but then they're, but then they're fighting us because we're there.

02:03:36.000 Guys were leaving countries like Jordan and Syria to go to Iraq because, well, we can fight Americans.

02:03:40.700 And I got nothing else going on.

02:03:42.500 Just, it's easier to kill them there than it is to get to Afghanistan.

02:03:45.620 Oh, of course.

02:03:46.280 And so we're just fighting to fight.

02:03:48.400 You know, we forgot about WNB, but a couple of months into it.

02:03:51.020 And then it turns into a surge and it turns into, well, we got to kill ISIS.

02:03:56.420 Well, we got to kill Zarqawi.

02:03:57.580 Well, we got to kill, you know, it's first it's Hussein, Uday, and Kusei.

02:04:00.400 And then it's Zarqawi.

02:04:01.740 And then it's, now it's ISIS.

02:04:02.900 And then it's Baghdadi.

02:04:03.720 And then you got Qasem Soleimani from Iran.

02:04:06.820 And then you got the Iranian influence everywhere in Afghanistan.

02:04:09.460 You know, they're all in Pakistan.

02:04:10.820 Al-Qaeda is working with Iran.

02:04:11.840 The Sunni, the Shia are all together.

02:04:13.140 It's like, it's, you know, it's a mess.

02:04:16.520 And, well, I mean, hopefully now it's going to get better.

02:04:19.260 I mean.

02:04:19.880 Yeah.

02:04:20.000 Well, that's always, you know, that's always the hope.

02:04:21.860 We're commanded to hope.

02:04:22.800 If the bombs in Iran worked, great.

02:04:26.320 I mean, you know, Iran's one of those things where I don't want them to get a nuclear weapon, for sure.

02:04:30.480 For sure.

02:04:31.180 But then I was also saying, if you're going to bomb them, you better be all in and be right.

02:04:36.140 This intel cannot be wrong.

02:04:38.060 And they hit them and it's like, well, I mean, and again, I wasn't necessarily, I definitely didn't want a land war in Iran.

02:04:43.500 But if you're going to, now that you hit them, now I'm 100% in with you.

02:04:48.520 Because it doesn't matter why we're here.

02:04:49.860 We are.

02:04:50.260 Did it work?

02:04:52.060 Because you're betting a lot on that.

02:04:53.540 And if, yeah, I don't want troops on the ground there.

02:04:56.500 What would that look like?

02:04:58.400 Well, I mean, it will look like everything.

02:04:59.720 We go in, we kick someone's ass, but then we decide a nation build.

02:05:01.940 And that's where they get us.

02:05:03.440 No one's going to mess with us.

02:05:05.380 But our, like, the Marine Corps is not there to build schools.

02:05:08.500 Marine Corps is going to break stuff, kill people.

02:05:09.820 And then the way we handle Iran is great.

02:05:12.900 Punch them in the face and tell them no.

02:05:14.860 And then leave.

02:05:16.660 And that's, or destroy the whole country.

02:05:18.860 That's it.

02:05:19.860 But this whole nation building, we've proven.

02:05:21.920 I mean, it didn't work in Vietnam.

02:05:23.720 We're still, we're still in a conflict with Korea.

02:05:26.200 What happened in Grenada?

02:05:27.120 What happened in Panama?

02:05:27.980 What did we do in the first Gulf War, second Gulf War?

02:05:30.280 Afghanistan, you know.

02:05:30.980 We got Bin Laden, but he was in Pakistan.

02:05:33.440 You know, why are we giving money to Pakistan?

02:05:35.980 If they're harboring terrorists, you know.

02:05:38.300 It's very complex.

02:05:39.400 Why are we doing that?

02:05:40.120 I don't know.

02:05:40.700 I don't know why we give Egypt all that money.

02:05:43.420 They built a wall.

02:05:44.220 They won't let any Palestinians in.

02:05:45.520 Well, we're doing it at the request of another.

02:05:47.340 I mean, we're not doing it for Egypt, right?

02:05:49.780 We've been asked to do that.

02:05:51.660 Of course.

02:05:52.720 But, like, why do you think we went into Iraq?

02:05:56.600 Where you almost got killed?

02:05:57.860 Yeah.

02:05:58.840 I think because Saddam Hussein said he was going to assassinate George H.W. Bush.

02:06:04.140 And George H.W. Bush, you know, loves his dad and never let that go.

02:06:07.740 Yeah.

02:06:07.920 And I had friends that were flag officers in the Pentagon a week after 9-11, and they were already planning the invasion of Iraq.

02:06:14.460 And some of these officers were like, why?

02:06:16.420 What are you talking about?

02:06:17.100 They had nothing to do with this.

02:06:18.720 Why are we going to invade Iraq?

02:06:19.520 And we shifted all of our assets to Iraq instead of Afghanistan.

02:06:23.000 We should have been fighting Al-Qaeda here, find Bin Laden, kill them, and then hopefully that's it.

02:06:27.020 But now we're in Iraq, bogged down.

02:06:29.620 No, and I mean, even taking down Baghdad, it's like, well, what's the, what are you going to do next?

02:06:35.280 Well, the, you know, they'll rise up and then they'll start their own government.

02:06:38.740 And we were saying, well, what if they don't?

02:06:40.740 Well, they will.

02:06:41.180 But yeah, but they might not.

02:06:41.920 What if they don't?

02:06:42.480 Yeah, but they will.

02:06:43.020 No, they won't.

02:06:44.380 And then they didn't.

02:06:44.940 And it's chaos.

02:06:45.760 Oh, they didn't?

02:06:46.800 No.

02:06:48.460 They're in there robbing the museums.

02:06:51.260 But it's almost one of those things too, like the devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

02:06:56.960 Yes.

02:06:57.280 These people have been under a dictator and maybe they need a softer dictator because they're not ready for democracy.

02:07:02.360 Obviously.

02:07:02.820 And even in Afghanistan, you think the people in the Shuriak Valley want our style of democracy?

02:07:07.700 I've talked to farmers.

02:07:08.720 I've eaten rice out of the same bowls these guys and had a probably Taliban guy saying,

02:07:13.120 why would I send my son to school when I can teach him on a farm?

02:07:16.560 He doesn't need to sit in a school.

02:07:18.040 Why would you build this one?

02:07:18.820 We don't want that shit.

02:07:20.320 Because it's different.

02:07:21.420 And we don't do any research.

02:07:24.160 We don't know the history of places.

02:07:25.960 We just think, yeah, we'll go over there and they love U.S.

02:07:28.920 I'd love to break it to a lot of the politicians.

02:07:30.600 Most people don't like the United States, and especially in that part of the world.

02:07:34.420 Wait, there was no research done?

02:07:36.860 No, there were officers that thought Iraq and Afghanistan were the same.

02:07:42.060 Officers thought that?

02:07:44.040 Oh, yeah.

02:07:44.680 What's the difference?

02:07:45.280 We're going to one or the other.

02:07:46.040 It's like, there's a huge difference.

02:07:47.840 Like, if you run into a dude from Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan, he's a foreigner to them, too.

02:07:53.080 Big time.

02:07:53.460 He's a foreign fighter.

02:07:54.140 He looks nothing like them, by the way.

02:07:55.780 I ran into one dude, and I think the only reason I didn't shoot him is because he made me laugh.

02:07:59.860 He didn't speak English, but his t-shirt said, I'm not kidding, it said,

02:08:04.060 it's not a beer belly, it's a fuel tank for a sex machine.

02:08:07.260 I mean, yeah, he didn't know what it said, but I thought it was.

02:08:11.780 Where was this?

02:08:12.480 That was in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

02:08:13.720 It was one of my first missions in Afghanistan, in a house, in the city.

02:08:18.000 And he had no idea what it said.

02:08:18.840 No idea what it said, and it was awesome.

02:08:20.560 Give him a quick gut punch and tell him his shirt's funny.

02:08:24.540 So, but you think there were, you know that there were officers who thought Iraq and Afghanistan are basically the same?

02:08:29.660 I had an officer, I told you about the El Ambush.

02:08:32.240 When we were selling, you had to sell your mission.

02:08:33.840 Here's what we're going to do.

02:08:34.760 Here's who's there, blah, blah, blah.

02:08:35.780 I was selling this to him, and I said, we're going to insert here, and we're going to set up an El.

02:08:40.760 And an officer said, what's an El?

02:08:43.640 And I said, an El is the second thing they teach you after you join the Army.

02:08:47.940 The first being, there's your bed, this is an El Ambush.

02:08:50.920 And he goes, who invented it?

02:08:52.760 And I'm like, Sun Tzu, I don't know, the art of war, man.

02:08:56.100 An El.

02:08:56.960 I'm going to hop out and stop.

02:08:58.040 He's like, what if he doesn't stop?

02:08:58.980 I'm going to kill him.

02:08:59.800 Why am I talking right now?

02:09:01.420 It's an El.

02:09:02.540 It's not hard.

02:09:03.120 And yeah, but I mean, they don't do, not all of them.

02:09:06.420 I've worked with great people, but there are people that are making decisions that shouldn't be making decisions.

02:09:10.180 Like I said yesterday, once you stop carrying your own luggage, you shouldn't be in charge of anybody.

02:09:14.820 You're just surrounded by, and it gets political.

02:09:16.940 Like you get to that level, like a captain in the Navy or a colonel.

02:09:20.780 Now they're just trying to make admiral or general.

02:09:24.300 So they're doing the politics.

02:09:25.660 And if you don't do the politics, you're not sticking around.

02:09:27.740 So then you're thinking about my next star.

02:09:30.220 When am I going to go work for DynCorp?

02:09:31.920 What's my political thing going to be when I get out?

02:09:34.080 So it's just political as shit.

02:09:35.440 And then the guys below them, they're just yes men.

02:09:38.380 And they're going to tell you what you want to hear, not what's real.

02:09:41.200 They don't want to tell you the truth because you might actually know what's going on on the ground.

02:09:43.960 Go talk to some E4 Marines.

02:09:45.160 They'll tell you what's happening.

02:09:45.820 And we're not winning this war right now because we're out there building schools or giving people a shit ton of money to embezzle.

02:09:53.120 And they're saying they're building a school, but they're buying a house in Qatar.

02:09:55.920 Like you go to Afghanistan where they don't know what time is.

02:09:59.220 They don't know how old they are, but give them a briefcase full of cash and see what they do with it.

02:10:03.780 The corruption, I mean, it's horrible, but they don't think ahead like that.

02:10:07.060 Because they think everyone's just like us.

02:10:08.980 People are different.

02:10:10.720 Do you think that those wars had a corrupting effect on the United States?

02:10:13.480 Well, no, I mean, I think the invasion of Afghanistan was good.

02:10:18.320 I think we had, I mean, but we're right back where we started.

02:10:21.060 Yeah.

02:10:21.240 Bin Laden's gone.

02:10:21.720 A lot of Al Qaeda's gone, but they're going to get replaced.

02:10:23.540 The almost 30 training camps over there, terror training camps in Afghanistan again.

02:10:28.040 God knows what's going on in Iraq.

02:10:29.820 I mean, that's-

02:10:30.140 How does that make you feel?

02:10:31.100 You fought in both?

02:10:31.880 You killed Bin Laden?

02:10:32.860 I mean-

02:10:33.880 No, I mean, it's fulfilling because we were able to prove that if you're a bad guy, we have people that will come find you.

02:10:42.740 We proved it.

02:10:43.740 And we cut the head off Al Qaeda, the snake.

02:10:45.440 They know that we can do that, so it was worth it.

02:10:48.780 We took a lot of Al Qaeda off the battlefield.

02:10:51.280 I think we slowed down their ability to attack this country for a while, but they're getting close to coming back.

02:10:56.940 Like, you say we're hated in a lot of the world and don't know it.

02:11:00.480 Why are we hated?

02:11:03.140 You know what?

02:11:03.660 It's almost a jealousy thing because we are the most powerful country.

02:11:06.820 And we just proved with what we did in Iran that, like, we can-

02:11:10.000 China and Russia are watching.

02:11:10.920 Like, we can fly pilots over you.

02:11:13.300 You'll never know though they'll hit you.

02:11:14.540 They'll be home the next day.

02:11:16.580 Like, they'll leave from the middle of the country anywhere in the world.

02:11:19.300 And you can't-

02:11:20.440 There's nothing you can do about it.

02:11:22.300 So I think a lot of them are jealous in that aspect.

02:11:24.360 But we're also the big, dumb, tough guy in the bar that doesn't know he's tough until he has to be.

02:11:30.640 So, I mean, in the Middle East, just because we're there.

02:11:33.220 And, like, forward defense, I know that the world's a safer place with a strong United States.

02:11:39.140 And the forward defense and alliance solidarity is great.

02:11:41.660 The carriers are awesome.

02:11:43.360 But, you know, just people get sick of us.

02:11:46.080 You know, we're still in Germany.

02:11:49.300 It's only been 80 years.

02:11:50.400 Yeah, right.

02:11:51.680 What are we doing there, by the way?

02:11:52.900 Do you know?

02:11:53.240 I mean, I've been there.

02:11:54.000 It's fun.

02:11:54.580 We're going to Oktoberfest.

02:11:55.540 That was awesome.

02:11:56.120 Yeah, it's great.

02:11:57.660 I don't know if it's been great for them.

02:11:59.840 But did anyone ever explain, you know, you're at the highest levels.

02:12:03.660 Anyone ever say, you know, we're in Germany for this reason.

02:12:05.580 We're Japan for this reason.

02:12:06.300 No, we just had a unit there.

02:12:07.420 And we can forward stage out of there.

02:12:09.460 So we can be somewhere like Bosnia quicker.

02:12:12.140 We can fly to, you know, we stop in Rammstein on our way to Iraq and Afghanistan.

02:12:16.340 So we can get there quicker.

02:12:17.260 We get Air Force bases over there, too.

02:12:18.440 I mean, we have a great relationship with the Germans.

02:12:22.220 You must, you deal with a lot of, you've met a lot of politicians.

02:12:24.960 I know that.

02:12:25.580 You worked at Fox for a while, always politicians there.

02:12:28.640 Did anybody ever apologize to you?

02:12:30.700 No.

02:12:31.920 There's nothing.

02:12:32.680 No.

02:12:32.960 And I don't know if there's anything.

02:12:34.300 What do you mean?

02:12:34.700 They sent you, I mean, you sign up for the SEALs, you know you're going to risk your life.

02:12:39.620 That's on you.

02:12:40.400 I think that's fair.

02:12:41.760 But what's on politicians and policymakers is to only ask you to risk your life for really good reason.

02:12:48.880 I think that's fair, too.

02:12:49.700 Yeah, it is.

02:12:50.140 No, no one really has said anything.

02:12:51.280 George Bush wrote me a handwritten letter, which was cool, just thanking me for it.

02:12:56.100 Because I said that that quote, freedom itself was attacked this morning.

02:13:00.580 So he thanked me for remembering his words.

02:13:02.020 That was cool.

02:13:02.420 Well, I mean, I don't think an apology is necessary because at the time, I wanted it more than anything.

02:13:08.140 Yeah.

02:13:08.560 I mean, seriously, 9-11 happened, let's invade everybody.

02:13:11.620 I'm ready.

02:13:12.120 Let's go fight.

02:13:12.580 Everyone felt that way.

02:13:13.960 Just, I mean, again, as time goes on, maybe there, a lot of them are thinking, well, we did make a bad decision.

02:13:19.940 But at the time, everyone was ramped up.

02:13:21.540 We had Democrats voting for war.

02:13:22.800 Oh, they love war now, though, so I don't know why they said that.

02:13:25.100 All but one, Barber, Lee of Berkeley.

02:13:26.700 I mean, you live still in a world surrounded by people who had jobs similar to yours.

02:13:32.920 Yeah.

02:13:34.560 Are they rethinking their views or rethinking what they went through or what it meant?

02:13:40.020 They're rethinking their lifestyles.

02:13:43.140 Like, I was always impressed when some of my friends told me they quit drinking.

02:13:47.940 Yeah.

02:13:48.160 They left out the part that it was because they did Ibogaine.

02:13:50.900 Yeah.

02:13:51.160 I said, oh, you quit drinking.

02:13:52.160 That's great.

02:13:53.020 Well, I did Ibogaine.

02:13:53.760 And so they're rethinking their lifestyles and getting into more healthy stuff.

02:13:58.420 Yeah.

02:13:58.620 But I haven't heard a lot of my friends talk about Iraq the way I talk about Iraq.

02:14:03.320 They don't, I'm not sure if, I mean, we went in there just because there was a vendetta.

02:14:09.720 There was nothing tactical about that.

02:14:12.620 Does it make you wonder, like, there are all these theories about bin Laden, who he was really working for.

02:14:18.760 Was he behind, actually behind 9-11?

02:14:21.320 Was that really him who you shot?

02:14:25.120 Do people ever say that to you?

02:14:26.180 Um, yeah, I've, I had someone tell me it was a body double that I shot.

02:14:30.080 And I, my response is, well, I killed the guy that was in bed with bin Laden's wife.

02:14:33.880 So either way, he had it coming.

02:14:35.640 But it was, oh, 100% him.

02:14:36.980 That was definitely him.

02:14:38.980 You know, even meeting the CIA people before we went, like, I was convinced because of the, especially that one woman that was, it's him.

02:14:45.460 Definitely him.

02:14:46.080 All the stuff we found, he was definitely still running Al-Qaeda.

02:14:48.620 But how the hell did he live in Pakistan for 10 years?

02:14:51.000 Had to be with the ISI, the Intel service had to, had to be monitoring him.

02:14:54.600 Because I think they have vested interests in keeping Al-Qaeda a little bit out bay, which is good for everyone because, you know, you don't want Al-Qaeda getting their nuclear weapons.

02:15:03.520 But they're a massive recipient of U.S. aid.

02:15:06.120 Yeah.

02:15:07.020 But they're basically our enemy.

02:15:08.820 Well, I mean, we were funding the Mujahideen in the 80s and bin Laden was a part of that.

02:15:14.240 Because the big enemy was the Soviet Union.

02:15:16.420 So let's fight them in Afghanistan and start pumping money in there through Pakistan.

02:15:19.100 So they've been involved forever.

02:15:22.240 What was the role of opium in all this, in Afghanistan?

02:15:24.860 You know, that was kind of dumb because all we're doing, I mean, heroin's bad, but you're taking away someone's livelihood.

02:15:33.200 So what are they going to do if they can't grow opium?

02:15:34.880 They're going to fight you.

02:15:36.140 They're going to be Taliban.

02:15:37.400 Why do you care?

02:15:39.020 Stop worrying about the opium.

02:15:40.340 Let them grow it.

02:15:40.780 Who cares?

02:15:41.620 But that became a major thorn in our side because we're worried about opium.

02:15:45.280 How about we just kill the Taliban and Al-Qaeda?

02:15:47.620 Who cares?

02:15:48.240 What about female literacy?

02:15:49.900 Was that a good reason to go to war?

02:15:51.400 No.

02:15:51.940 For war, no.

02:15:52.660 That's more, I don't think, that's for...

02:15:55.040 I'm just joking.

02:15:55.740 Well, I'm just saying...

02:15:56.360 You always hear people say, well, the female literacy rate's got up and it's like, okay.

02:15:59.740 No, that's on them.

02:16:01.780 Take care of your own house.

02:16:02.700 I don't...

02:16:03.080 Yeah.

02:16:03.380 If your women can't read, I'm not coming to shoot people over that.

02:16:06.860 So you never thought of that as you broke into someone's house?

02:16:09.500 No.

02:16:09.880 Your girls can't read!

02:16:10.920 It's almost like, well, we want women to vote.

02:16:12.620 I'm like, why?

02:16:16.240 I'm joking.

02:16:16.840 Yeah, sort of.

02:16:18.240 I'm half joking.

02:16:18.900 I'm not.

02:16:20.140 But...

02:16:20.220 Wait.

02:16:21.760 Sorry.

02:16:23.260 Were the guys...

02:16:24.180 Did you ever talk politics?

02:16:26.640 Not really.

02:16:27.480 Because I remember I would read political books before 9-11.

02:16:32.380 Especially on the ships.

02:16:33.320 I remember reading like Sean Hannity's books and I read Alan Combs' book just to try to

02:16:39.500 get both sides.

02:16:40.320 That's kind of where I got my politics.

02:16:41.820 Like, well, this is crazy.

02:16:43.020 That makes sense.

02:16:44.320 But no one was really interested in that with me.

02:16:46.040 I couldn't get anyone to play chess either.

02:16:48.500 But yeah, I've always been political.

02:16:51.320 Not political, but trying to pay attention.

02:16:53.560 Yeah.

02:16:53.820 And I honestly believe the media was telling us the truth for a while until, again, COVID

02:16:58.480 or whatever.

02:16:59.360 Yeah.

02:16:59.980 You don't believe that anymore?

02:17:00.960 No.

02:17:01.120 No, that was a scam.

02:17:03.440 So last question on a happy note.

02:17:06.200 So you basically made the case without saying that a lot of the flag officers, senior military

02:17:10.540 leadership, not impressive.

02:17:12.760 And that's very obvious to me.

02:17:15.920 Who is the most impressive senior officer you've known?

02:17:19.320 Bill McRaven.

02:17:20.220 Wow.

02:17:20.560 Admiral McRaven.

02:17:20.960 That didn't take long.

02:17:21.620 No.

02:17:21.840 He always has been.

02:17:22.720 I knew him.

02:17:23.300 Can you tell people who he is?

02:17:25.180 Admiral McRaven was in charge of Joint Special Operations Command when we took the bin

02:17:29.480 He's the one that sold it to President Obama.

02:17:33.040 He's a SEAL Team 6 guy.

02:17:35.140 And he just, he'd always, I think he was, I think he was an admiral the whole time I was

02:17:39.020 in the damn military.

02:17:40.340 But every time he showed up, he was, he looked and sounded like an officer.

02:17:44.800 And the way I described, like, he looked like a SEAL.

02:17:46.840 He sounds like a SEAL.

02:17:48.020 He's got, he's really sharp.

02:17:50.060 Like, and I shouldn't badmouth all flag officers because he's included.

02:17:53.280 He's just a badass.

02:17:54.280 He knew it.

02:17:54.800 Really good at everything.

02:17:55.540 And the way I would describe it is like, I understand why Al Qaeda was afraid because

02:17:59.120 like 23 Bill McRavens just came in your house at night to get you.

02:18:02.100 And that's scary.

02:18:03.240 So, but just, he was, he was just sharp, sharp as a tack.

02:18:06.720 And he.

02:18:07.260 Honest?

02:18:07.540 Oh yeah.

02:18:08.460 Yeah.

02:18:08.740 He, I mean, yeah, he's, he's the guy.

02:18:10.400 Like it, it, it doesn't take, it didn't take me a second to answer that question.

02:18:15.040 How did it, how did he get to that?

02:18:17.020 How did he become an admiral?

02:18:18.500 I don't even know how that works.

02:18:20.400 I, you know, obviously got to take command of different places.

02:18:22.820 So, you know, run a platoon at a SEAL team, run operations.

02:18:26.380 You get promoted to an executive officer, then a commanding officer, which is an 05 level.

02:18:30.520 Have a command move up to like the group level.

02:18:32.460 So you got like a couple of different groups and like dev group being one of them, SEAL team

02:18:35.720 six commander there.

02:18:37.080 And then just start getting stars.

02:18:40.220 So he was, he was the second four-star admiral ever.

02:18:43.380 I think Admiral Olson was the first one, great officer too.

02:18:46.660 We were, I was fortunate.

02:18:47.960 My SEAL officers were, for the most part, really good.

02:18:51.880 Like Jocko, he was, he was one of my guys.

02:18:54.540 No, I was one of his guys.

02:18:56.000 And he was a dude that I learned, what I learned from him is I've, I've never seen him lose

02:19:00.140 control or yell.

02:19:02.060 But what he was really good at when you screw up is, man, I expected so much more out of

02:19:06.540 you.

02:19:07.460 Oh, yeah.

02:19:08.660 I'm never going to let you down again.

02:19:10.260 That he was incredible.

02:19:11.080 So he re-enlisted me in Kuwait and then, yeah, I've worked with some, I've been fortunate

02:19:14.620 to work with really good officers.

02:19:15.860 But McRaven best.

02:19:16.720 Yeah, by far.

02:19:18.840 Rob, thank you.

02:19:19.740 Of course.

02:19:20.140 Thank you for having me, Tucker.

02:19:20.920 I appreciate it.

02:19:21.300 This has been fun.

02:19:25.940 We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day.

02:19:29.860 We know the people who run it, good people.

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02:19:37.120 We have real conversations, news, things that actually matter.

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The Tucker Carlson Show - July 03, 2025

Rob O’Neill： Near-Death Experiences, Top Secret Area 51 Helicopter, & the Disgusting Push for War

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