Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Cleared Hot Episode 88 - Jason Gardner

Episode Date: July 10, 2019

Jason Gardner is a retired Navy SEAL Master Chief with 30 years of service, all inside of Naval Special Warfare.  His career spans Desert Storm, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  He is the recipient of the Silver Star, 2 Bronze Stars, the Purple Heart, and many other awards. We discussed raising our children, a lifetime spent in Special Operations, the pros and cons of a life in military service, life after service, war crimes, and leadership.  Enjoy

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Dotwarragons.com forward slash cleared hot on your phone or tablet or more details on how to participate. That is podcast. dot war dragons.com slash cleared hot. Go check it out. I think you're going to have some fun. On to the episode for today. Episode 88 is with a long-time friend, Jason Gardner,

who shares the same background that I do, but I would say he took it much farther than I was capable of taking it. He recently, very recently, far more recently than I had remembered. For some reason, I thought he'd been out of the military for much longer than the 90 days that he has been out. Before that, though, 30 years as a Navy SEAL. same path that all seals take at about the same age that I started he began his journey as well too were both from California a lot of things in common he came in long before my day and saw

I don't want to say action that's not the right term so he saw service in the gulf war time period in Somalia pre-9-11 post-9-11 and rose all the way through the ranks of e1 which is the rank that everybody starts out on the listed side of the house in the Navy, all the way to an E9. So he is a retired master chief, all of his time in spec ops, in naval special warfare, 30 years of service to this nation. We talked about that service. We talked about the training pipeline. We talked about standards.

We talked about raising our children, specifically our daughters, the pros and cons of a life and military service, things to maybe watch out for leadership. And laughed our asses off. at dolphins being sexually attracted to divers. It's not a big deal. If you want to know what I'm talking about, you can have to listen to the episode. I'm going to shut up and let him start talking.

Episode 88 with my good friend, Jason Gardner. Okay, coffee. West of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. What would you like to start with? You know, I'd like to kick this off with something that I wrote recently and posted on Instagram.

And it's a promise to my daughter. And it's basically laying out the methodology that I want to apply in raising a young woman. So I think it would be kind of interesting to go through each bullet point on here and then unpack them a little bit. I love it. How old is she? She's eight. So mine just turned 11. So we're pretty much in the same boat, I would say.

Right. Right. And there's things that like people, our society as a whole, I think we pretty much get how to raise competent young men for the most part. And I don't think we're doing it right for how in general we're raising our daughters. So here goes. First one is just, I will love you unconditionally, always no matter what. And that's just a general thing I think that applies to all of your kids. It doesn't mean that I'm going to give you a bunch of money and you can live in my basement until you're 30,

but that means that every decision I make regarding you is coming from a place of love and admiration. Okay. I will not pamper you. This will forge a resilience that will help you conquer all of life's obstacles. And that's one of those counterintuitive things about parenting where you want to kind of solve all your kids' problems. and then you're not training them to go out and be competent adults. You're creating, I look at it as you're creating future problems if you tackle all of their problems for them when they're young.

Because they have to go through that critical decision-making process, which, I mean, I'm sure we'll talk plenty about our old job, but how many times were you saddle with a very difficult decision or complex decision-making process and people were just sitting around watching you, who probably knew the answer and said, figure it out? Yeah, and then they let you fail. Yes.

In a controlled environment, hopefully. Yep. And it's important to do that with your kids. Let them skin their knees. You know, I'm not advocating putting your kid on a half pipe skateboarding for the first time with no helmet, but they need to be out there and... Owning a skateboard is okay.

Owning a skateboard is okay and probably a good idea. Let me see. So where do we go from here? I do not intend to raise a princess, but rather a warrior with fire in her heart and ice in her veins. My daughter is, she's a beast, and it is a challenge. I don't want to tame that, that fire that she's got in her belly. I just want to kind of push it in a positive direction as much as I can without suppressing it.

My daughter is, so I have three kids, two boys and a little girl. She's actually not that little. Like I said, she's two years away from being a teenager. Every time I think about it, though, I just think of this little thing that I was holding for the first time. And all of my kids, wildly different personalities. How many kids do you have? Three. Okay, so two boys and a girl?

Yep. We have the exact same split then. My oldest son is much more reserved. He's very, I would say introverted, but I don't say that in a negative manner. He just reflects a lot and he thinks. my middle son is completely extroverted. The things that come out of his mouth are wildly, socially inappropriate. Often does not stop him from saying them at the most inopportune times.

I just often shake my head and kind of laugh. And then there's my daughter who, quite frankly, I think is the toughest of the three of them. You know, she came out of the gates running. She's always wanted to be with her brothers doing what her brothers are doing, even when she was too little to do it. So she's getting skinned up and bumped up. And I think, let's see, the last time I was in the emergency room with her, she had broken her arm because she was riding. It was either a skateboard or a bike, of course, while being towed by a golden retriever with a leash, which some angular differences occurred there.

So she ejected from that and then caused some angular differences in her arm and was just asking the people in the emergency room for yogurt and ice cream. You know, and just so wild, so powerful. and I don't want to change it either, but she's like a flamethrower. You have to make sure you don't point the flamethrower at the friends and family. You've got to be kind of careful with the latter. Yeah.

Like I love the flamethrer. I wish they would give me a flame drawer, but point it in the right direction. Like sometimes maybe just use a lighter. You don't have to go full liquid gasoline. Right. And so that's what I'm talking about to extent. I don't want to put that out.

I just want to get it aimed in the right direction. And then teach her some throttle modulation. Yeah. Going on with a flame throwing that fire in her heart. And then just, you know, not raising a princess, I don't want her to be pampered. In my mind, there's nothing you can't do, no job or goal beyond your reach. And period. I think we're at a time now with a lot of jobs where there really shouldn't be any bars to people going into that job as long as they can maintain the standard.

And if my daughter wants to be in the infantry, good for her. You better be able to carry a 60-pound ruck and hike and keep up with everybody else. All the other, you know, all the other social things that we've got to figure out we can grow into all that. But I think that's important for our little girls. Like if you want to fight fires, if you want to be a police officer, whatever you want to do, you can do it. I get asked about often given our background about women in the SEAL community, which, when did they change the policy? It was about four or five years ago? I think they solidified it.

It's very recent. It's very recent. And so for people listening who may not be aware, the vast majority of special operations for a very long time was exclusively male only. They started unwinding that to include in the SEAL teams. And it is the entire time that I served, you had to be an adult male and meet the criteria. to give even a try for the pipeline. And so now it's been solidified that it is open to both sexes. And there has yet to be a candidate, correct?

There was one. In pre-training, though, right? In a pre-training or even like in a pre-training. And then she just decided it wasn't something that she wanted to do. As do many men. Exactly. And so she went out. So I think NSW was very careful.

in establishing like, hey, here is our standard for all comers. Don't care what your race is, your religion is, your orientation is, none of it doesn't matter. This is the standard that matters. And we really kind of hurt ourselves, I think, moving forward with integration of the sexes into different jobs when we had two sets of standards based on your sex. That's, yeah, that's the path to hell. It is. Yeah, because then people are like, well, this isn't,

There is one standard. There should be one standard to be a fireman or a police officer, and we're going to figure out what that is, and then there you go, you go forward. Well, in all the environments that you're probably talking about, firefighter or law enforcement or our old job, the execution of your job, the environment that you're facing up against

or the people that you're facing up against, they really don't care what sex you are, and the result is going to be the same. And so that's the answer I give people when, because I get asked all the time on my thoughts, because it's usually couched through the vehicle of diversity. What do you think about diversity? What do you think about females in the SEAL teams?

And I say the same thing every single time. As long as there's a standard and it's published and it's never deviated from, I could care less. I could absolutely, I serve with every ethnicity, religious belief, background from rednecks to Silver Spoon kids could care less. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter until you start sucking and you can't meet the standard. And then we have a problem. And we talk about the standard, not the fact that you grew up on. squirrels from Alabama.

And I'm not sure that that's what happens in Alabama. I've heard some things, but it's got to be based in the standard. An objective published standard is my stance on all that stuff. And so, you know, that's what NSW laid out. And that's just an example of something that I want for her, irregardless of whatever she wants to do, it's like good to go. You can do anything you want to do as long as you can meet that, that job Christ here or standard.

Let's see, moving along here. I will challenge you so that you can stand confidently, confidently on your own two feet, independent and strong. I don't want her to get into a situation where when she leaves my house, she's dependent on somebody else because I think that sets her up to be in unhealthy relationships. I want her to be in a relationship where she's not, it doesn't, it isn't some kind of weird codependent thing where she can't make her own money or for whatever reason is relying on a person other than what, you know, is healthy for emotional relying when people are in relationships.

And I think that'll set her up for the most success, is that she's actually challenged and can get over these obstacles and then whoever she chooses for a partner, it's she's coming into it's an equal partnership and she can leave that relationship in any time. Yeah, I think having your own identity is key. If you find your, and I'm so far from being an expert on any of this stuff, but I suspect if you enter into that or somewhere along the way lose your identity of self, again, you're back probably on the path to help because then everything is intrinsically tied to somebody else. You lose that sense of individuality or your own sense of purpose. it's not the place to be for sure it i'm going to sidetrack a little bit here but it's something i've been considering lately um when you talk about struggles with like post-traumatic stress or um

any of that stuff any of the stuff that we've seen from our job and our experiences and then i can tell you how i overcame a lot of those obstacles how i pushed through dealing with all the stress and self-medication and all that stuff. And I don't know if my advice is more valuable than say like a doctor who's looked at a bunch of studies but hasn't had any of the experience that we share. Or even like a lot of first responders or police share. And I think they get overlooked quite a bit. Everyone looks at a soldier and says, oh, okay, well, obviously they've seen horrible things. But like if you're riding an ambulance and every night you're going out on car accidents and you're seeing these horrible, sad tragedies, that exceeds what we ever saw in our

career by an exponential margin. Probably, yeah, to the power of 10 at least. And on a daily level versus going out the door every two days or every three days or the weather sucks. So you're sitting there playing Xbox for a week. And we're on the other side of the planet. So there's a separation there. Yeah. Like we come back from deployment and you're like, oh, okay, I can relax they come home and they're in the same neighborhood or community where all that stuff happened and and it's just it's an it's an interesting thought um going forward because i know that when i'm traveling around speaking especially to first responders and i go through like hey here here's some of the obstacles i had to come over coming back from deployment and here's how i got around

a lot of that stuff that it's received very well uh it's because of the person that that that it's coming from. I think those communities look at each other with the level of mutual respect. I mean, you can't argue with the fact that to become a medical professional, right, you got probably, I actually don't even know how much schooling it takes, but let's assume it's well over a decade beyond high school.

So you do it. I have to assume that a good doctor is going to have a huge aggregate amount of knowledge. But like you said, if you don't have, it's the experience piece. It's the only reason why people listen to us when we get up and we speak. It's because of the experience that you're bringing to the table and they'll listen to you because of it.

But there is value, I think, to the medical, professional side of the house as well. Oh, there has to be. And it would be, it probably be kind of interesting at some point if someone teamed up with a doctor and the two of them were going around. That would be the best way to do that because one could break through the barrier of the butt sniffing contest and then the other one could just kill you with the knowledge. Yeah. So moving right along here. I will set the example on how to treat those you love so that when you choose a partner, it will be someone who lifts you up.

Okay, this is just this is leadership this is parenting. This is everybody. My kids are watching me 100% of the time. They're watching how my wife and I interact when we disagree. And so it's it's important for me to be cognizant of that every time I'm with my kids, how I react to people in public, how I react to negative news, how I treat, treat people, treat them and treat my wife, because that's how they're going to probably wind up choosing partners

and how they, you know, get along based on the example that we're setting for. It is amazing how easy is to forget that they're watching you like that too. I find myself exactly the same way. And again, this comes up when I speak to when it's like leadership characteristics, control of your emotions. So important because everybody is watching and listening to everything you say and they're going to mimic, and I always use the example of kids. I'll hear my kids say something, and I want to just, where did you learn that from

on the school? And I'm like, God, damn it, I need to go look in the mirror because that's, yeah. And it's so funny, too. I can set a great example, great example, great example. I'll fall short of what I want to be, and of course that's what they're paying attention to. It's like, 2,000 blue chips. I'm like, yep, I'm doing great, and I mess it up.

I'm like, damn it, that's the indelible mark that I leave. And one thing that I remind myself to, one of my favorite quotes on standards is, you know, because people talk about, you know, here's the written standard of our organization. Right. Or even in boot camp, right? Honor, courage commitment. It's on every goddamn wall and every naval facility everywhere. Yeah.

But it's what you tolerate in your presence. That's your actual standard. Not what's written on a, you know, a piece of paper or what's on a wall. It's as a leader, if you are out to dinner in public and your kids are with you and you see a man disrespecting a woman or pushing a woman and you don't address that, like, that's your standard. If you lose your cool and you have an argument with your wife, you know what I mean? And you set that poor example, that's your standard. It's very, very, very difficult, but so critically important. Yeah, that was, that line you just said, I've heard a guy we both know named Joe put that out

at a commencement speech for the chief's initiation or the day guys were going to be. getting pinned. Yeah. And he was quoting a master chief who's pretty famous in our community that put that out. And it's absolutely right. It's difficult. It's so difficult, especially if you're really good friends with the people that you work with.

You went to the same Bud's class or business school and you have the parallel pipeline. But for whatever reason, you're in a leadership position and they do something dumb. You're like, eh, he's only 15 minutes late for work. Yeah. And then you don't realize those, the E5 is over there looking at you. And he sees the guy come in and he's like, oh, 15 minutes late. It's the standard. Why am I bothering to come in on time?

Is the next thought? I know. You know how I know that? Because I've been that E5. Yep. Yeah, that's a good thing to keep in mind. And then it's terrible. You know, when you have to, like, severely discipline someone that's a really good friend.

Yeah. And then you're, but you've got to look at it from an organizational viewpoint, like, what's the best for the enterprise and the best for the enterprise is. And it's actually the best thing for that person. too because you're not helping them be a better person if you're letting them cut corners or you know just have behavior that that doesn't cut it it's best for them and the enterprise yeah it does it does suck though to have to sit down and tune up a buddy in the near term and in the near term it's difficult and it's like it everything that's good seems to be

pretty dang difficult yeah surprising how that is yeah uh okay i will invest my time and energy in you so that when I am gone enough memories of me will be with you in your heart to keep forever that that's just about paying attention to living in the moment and I want to get my kids around the fact that have discussions like I'm not going to be here forever at some point I'm going to die and so what does that mean to you and I want you to just take all these lessons and stuff and remember all these experiences and time we had together and push that forward and try and share it. Do you find you struggle living in the moment at all? Yes. I do terribly. It's like leg day every day. It has become only recently that I've even started paying attention

to it and I've had time to be introspective to where I'm like, wait a minute, I feel like I'm always in a hurry to get to the next place and I just need to settle down. What do you think that comes from? Because I suspect almost everybody with our background struggles with living in the moment or appreciating the moment because it's such a, you look back at the career, it's such a goal oriented, lifestyle, task oriented, problem oriented. Okay, we did this target. What's the next one?

I did this career, wicket, what's the next? There's never an arrival point. And I'm not saying that there should be, but I think it's certainly, it tailors the way that you approach the world. I've had the last, so I've been out for six years now, just over six years. And I have come to the realization that there were some amazing things from our old career. And there's some hugely negative ones as well. I see them in myself.

And I'm just purely just looking at how I interact with the world around me now. But there's some definite negative consequences that come from not only the training that we went through, but the application of that training in real life, too. It's funny that you mentioned that because J.P. Danel and I were having a conversation about the other day. And he said, I really, both of us are struggling to be present in the moment. And I haven't really like unpacked why that is, if that is, A, because of our experiences or B, because of our personality types that drove us into the SEAL teams.

That's a great question. I don't have an answer to it either. The first thing I got to tackle is starting to be like enjoying myself in the moment. The other thing I really need to work on is like carving out an hour. And then doing whatever my kids want to do instead of what I want them to do with me. Yeah. It's like, hey, what do you guys want to do? You know, because sometimes they just want to throw the ball or run around and play tag or whatever.

It's crazy, too. If you really want to scare yourself, just think about how little time you actually have left to be an influence on your kids. Like my, I'll have the freshman in a sophomore in high school starting next year. They spend more time with other people than they do with me every day now. and in three years, you know, potentially my oldest son will be gone, and then the year after that, my middle son, and my ability to impact their life is probably already relatively low. Like if I've messed it up, it's pretty much messed up now.

And if, I mean, you know, obviously try to do the best that I can, but it's terrifying to realize that as a parent, your influence, I mean, they're now around their teachers more, they're around their social groups more than they are me. And it's frustrating at times. And there's a filter that they're putting on everything you tell them, because you're the parent. Yeah.

I think it's, do you have other adults that are like in, like mentors are involved in their lives? Because sometimes that'll help. For sure. You know, I look back in my own life. I had a couple teachers that I were definitely mentors,

athletic coaches, you know, people that are helping you dial in that mental and physical aspect of performance. And they all have all of those as well. And activities that they like doing so they can challenge themselves and pursue those things. but yeah i just when i really want to scare myself i'm like oh god i have almost no impact on my kids

anymore and that's one of those things where i heard somebody on another discussion where they were talking about do do the math on how much time you have left with your parents and then that makes you want to kind of slow down and hang out with your parents and talk with them more yeah it's it's it's getting finite and there's somebody that you know and that's I bump up against my own struggle of struggling with being in the moment. I've catch myself all the time physically present but mentally thinking about what I need to do next. And it's just, it's like, it sucks, especially when you realize it. Like, oh, yeah, this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing.

A lot of the times it's tied to this damn thing, right? Yeah. My phone, so I'll just turn that thing off or, you know, try to get rid of it when I'm spending time. Like, I just shelved it and ignore it. But it's a struggle. I suspect, like I said, a lot of guys from our previous career struggle with that. And I just, I don't know.

I don't know what the cause of it is. The conversation is great, though. Because there's people that are listening to this that are realizing as we're speaking, hey, wait a minute, I do that too. I suspect any high performing male or female first responder, probably even at the highest levels of business, I suspect they probably all struggle with that as well. Yeah. And that probably comes with just like trying to keep your eye on the target on what's coming next,

because you got right now under control until right now is out of control or what have you. Until you realize you're out of time and no time to enjoy it right now. And I'm like, damn it! Journey before destination. Iris had to remind me about that yesterday. Yeah. And we were driving over a glacier. Such a beautiful park.

It was amazing. Yeah. Amazing place. Have you read that to your daughter yet? Yes. And she just kind of stared at me, but I'll keep firing it up. And then the last part is stand tall with your shoulders back.

This world is yours for the taking heart. Basically, chapter one out of Jordan Peterson's book. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean, honestly, I think that advice applies to both male and female,

but it's a very powerful example, for sure. My daughter is, I mean, she's different than my voice. I have to watch my tone of voice more, try to make sure when I'm talking to her, I'll take a knees,

so I'm on this. You know, it's, and only because I've messed all those things up and I see the reaction. Like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Please forget to dad raise his voice at all. Get over here, sweetheart. Come here, really. I'll hold you forever. You're never allowed to get more than 20 pounds.

Yeah, it's, uh, what a challenge, man. What a struggle. I think, uh, I wish more dads would put time into thinking about their daughters like that and building them into the, the woman that would come at the end of that journey. And so since I, posted this Instagram, I've gotten a ton of feedback. People are printing it out.

It's just something to think about. I get disturbed when guys will say stuff like, oh, what are you going to do when your daughter starts dating? Are you going to clean a gun in the living room? It's the dumbest shit I've ever heard in my life. It's so strange because if I, I need to set the good example now, so she makes a good choice later on who she thinks. And the person that she brings home is somebody you'd rather give a handshake and a high five

to at some point. Like, clean the shotgun at the table. Okay. So then when they leave the room that I'm in, my influence is gone. Yep. And they're going to be off doing whatever. It's like, don't be so dumb. Yeah.

Like, can we play varsity ball, please? Yes. Chess, not Shackers, asshole. Yeah, you and I have the same thoughts on that for sure. I, uh, yeah, it's, it's weird. And, you know what? They're like, well, hey, when she brings home whoever, And it's like, hey, how are you doing?

Help me come split some firewood. Yeah. Let's hang out. And then now actually kind of a cool opportunity and now influence another young person. And obviously there's going to be some parameters set, but looking at a positive thing and not weird. That and the realization that at some point,

you have to let go of the reins. I mean, unless you want to be super weird, I guess, and your daughter's still living with you when she's 30 and she can't have anybody going on. And then the best thing to do is a parent. is to basically fail as a parent and you just need to be backing up as far as safe and letting them get out there and be competent adults. I got no problem feeling as a parent. I think I've made them all. It could write a book. It's God, it's challenging. And it's a different book for each one of my kids.

And right now we're having, you know, my son's 15 and a half. There's some interesting choices you can make 15 and a half when your buddies get their driver's license. Like I said, my sphere of influence is like kind of geographically where I'm located when he's physically there. And yeah, we're waiting our way through that. It's an unsettling time for me for sure for two reasons. One, I just have this inherent fear of anything happening to my child, of course, that I can't control. And two, I remember what it was like at that age and the choices that I had presented to me. The choices that you made.

I know. I can't believe I'm really lucky that I didn't make any mistakes that I couldn't recover from. That's the biggest thing that I'm trying to help. What I want to be there to help my kids for is I and I have, I try to have the just extremely honest and open conversations. I tell my kids all the time, listen, I'm not smarter than you. I have some more laps around the sun and I saw a few things. And by the way, we don't have enough time in your life for me to go through the mistakes that I've made. Yeah. But if you would listen to me a little bit, I might be able to help you from making about half of them. Yeah. You're going to make the other half. But just it's, I mean, and I'll talk to him,

I understand the temptations. I understand the social pressure. I've lived through all of that. My goal as a parent is to help you navigate your way through this point until you get to a place where you're more solid and who you think you are, hopefully with the morals and integrity and, you know, and all of those things. And because I can't do it for you.

But I've been there. At least please let me help you from making every mistake in the book because I did. Yep. And all three of my kids have a different recipe to have that conversation and communication. It's a challenge. To say the least. Yeah, you're going to have some fun time. Because your daughter's eight and then you have a son, seven, and then I got a 24-year-old son.

Oh, you get a nice gap in there. He's, my oldest boy is going, he's going through a lot of the stuff that I did at his age. And, um, were you already in teams when you were 24? Oh, yeah. But, um, a lot of the stuff that he's doing right now is stuff that I was doing at his age, absolutely. And then I just keep that in mind when we have discussions and say, hey, consider this, think about this. I mean, let's be honest, right? We're not that unique.

My kids are going to do the same dumb shit that I did. To a slightly different degree, even the most creative and innovative human being is not incredibly different from the other human being next to them. We are all going to struggle with it at some point. What I find interesting is that most people don't want to talk about that. They just would rather focus on the other aspect where I think more growth comes from, hey let me tell you about this time where I was a total jackass and maybe somebody can learn from this. As long as they don't try and one-up you,

which I feel like my dad would tell me stories like that and I was like, oh, let me see if I can. Also, the community that we came from doesn't help with that either because one-upsmanship is basically a job prerequisites skill. Well, we might as well dive into that too. I'll let you, you got to describe your career because I will completely murder it. So I'll let you walk through it at whatever level that you want to.

Went to Buds in 1988, started in June, had a summer hell week. Week, I know. It wasn't a... 155 was the last hard Bud's class. That's not true. 212 on record is the last hardest one. Checked into Team 5. I left 5 and I did three deployments, no, or four deployments.

And the first deployment was at the Gulf War. We wound up being like 10 months long on an ARG. Then we just boarded tankers there. Then did a couple of spec ops deployments where we just went over to the, to Philippines or wound up being, they just shut PI down. So we went to Guam. A couple guys were killed in a car accident. So I did back-to-back deployments.

Came back to the States for a week. And then went back overseas. At the time, as a young man, I was single. You know, when I was back in San Diego, you had to be like an E-5 before you could even live out in town. So I didn't bother to move into the barracks. And I was just trying to be gone as much as I can. And when I was back, I was living in my van in the parking lot.

But I was gone all the time. It was great. I loved it. I tell people pre-9-11 seal teams, you had the choice between two things on deployment. One was drinking and the other one was exercise. And you could do it in any order you wanted in as much as you want. And it was everything that I ever thought the seal teams was going to be. Yeah.

At least in that world. you nine eleven i was like oh my god you're paying me to do this and you're going you know at the time where we're going to paycom into the pacific theater where you're just like oh i got to go to australia darn it yeah go to time oh and you're going to pay me extra per diem money while i'm there to help me be a jackass in a bar somewhere yes i will spend my entire month per diem check right now yeah uh shoot so then i got real lucky because back in the 90s there wasn't a lot of combat and I didn't really see any combat in the first Gulf War, but then I got into Somalia in 95.

We were there. Which when, if people wanted, I mean, you can dig into it as deep as you want, but you did a great job of talking about that on Jocco's podcast. Yeah, I'm not going to go into the details. Hit that. But for people listening, they should go listen because the stories, I just love, because I think the first time I ever saw your face was at the end of one of those shows where you were talking about, it's only two or three men alive that could have made this shot.

I wasn't one of them. Perfect line. I stole that from lethal weapon where Mel Gibson's talking about what a badass he is. And he goes, I shot a guy at 1,000 yards, two, three people in the girl make a shot like that. And I'm like, yeah. I'm going to put another twist on that because it wasn't me. Which full disclosure, I've missed an amazing amount of sniper shots. Most guys do.

You know, like the Canadian guy that shot somebody at like two miles or whatever. I guess it was like the sixth time he shot at the guy and finally hit him, because there were, round was going subsonic and they were just, a guy sitting on a ridge line, they're like, oh, it hit there, oh, it hit there and just work it up into them. The longest shot I ever took, it took me five or six rounds to get it there because I was 400 yards past the dope I had on the rifle. So I was shooting at

dirt fields in front of the guy trying to figure out my adjustments and then it's crazy Kentucky windage that I had to walk all the way up to it. That was at 1600 or 18? 1821. Dang it. Nice. Was Big Nips up with you? Ah, he was. Yeah. He was.

Yeah. And yeah, I was like, well, that's well beyond the dope for this rifle. However, comma. Let's party out. Let's start dialing in a mill scale over. That's what it was. I'm literally just holding it over and just like, kind of the same thing.

I didn't hit the guy I was aiming at. Yeah. But you got one of them. I did. And they dove off the roof of a building. One head first, so it could have been a two-fer. But yeah, and then I've, God, I've missed so many sniper. I've missed some slam dunk shots.

Like, oh, this should just be one and done and, like, what happened? I always blame it on the gun, is what I do. It's the gun, the windage, my position. Who kicked my gun? It's obviously off. Someone spun my windage knob, which is not beyond some people. Yeah. Sneaking up and dialing your windage over.

Yeah. Yeah, it happens. Let's see. So, long story short, did 30 years in the teams. Well, you had broken service, though, right? So in Somalia, where'd you go after that? After Somalia, I went over to Buds, and I was working in second phase, but then I broke off into the advanced training, so I was doing dive maintenance, dive soup,

and the advanced applied explosives course. And then I got out in 98 because my son's mother was just like, hey, you're, you know, know, I want you to do something else so you're around more. And then we got out and it just didn't, didn't work was the right thing for us to separate. Did you stay in San Diego during that time? I did. Okay. Yep.

I was in the, and luckily I stayed in the reserve. So I was drilling with SEAL Team 5 reserves. So I was current. So when the whole divorce was settled and I was like, you know, I'm not, I'm not happy out here. I'm going to go back in. And it was simple. paperwork drill. I went to...

Yeah, they probably flip a code in the computer. Pretty much. Went to MEPs. Because I was, you know, in E6, I was in the front of lined at MEPs going through. So I was done with that in like three hours. And then I was over at 32nd Street and TPU for eight days. That's not bad at all. No.

I've heard some horror stories. Guys have had to fight, and I was at that time where the teams were underman for E6s and all that. And then it was super lucky because it was August of two. 2001 when I checked into the trade at as one of the sniper cell guys. And then everything, you know, everything just kicked off for us, our community after that. Yeah, slightly fortuitous timing for sure. You know, good or bad.

And then that's something that we're struggling with to figure out what is, what right looks like with how many combat deployments and just this, the workups, the deployments, how much is healthy and, and what isn't. I've asked a few people this question. Do you think that they should limit combat exposure for people? No. You think it should be the individual's choice? Well, no.

I say that in the, meaning does it get to a, so my theory on post-traumatic stress, one I don't think it's a disorder. I think it's a natural reaction, but people deal with it in different ways. I usually use like a cup analogy. Everybody has a different size cup and a different volume, so you can tolerate so much before it spills over,

but with hyper-realistic training, with counts, you know, all of the stuff that we had the benefit of, you can start draining it out before it spills over. But I think at some point, everybody's going to spill over. And I think the individual usually struggles to recognize in an of themselves. And I'm just curious,

I'm curious if it would be a good thing to limit how much combat an individual can see. I know it would hamstring the experience of the community a little bit, but I'm not saying one combat deployment, but I'm saying maybe 10, 12, 13, Maybe you ought to go into a training capacity and start passing that knowledge on so you can function as a human being outside of that role. Because I've seen some people who went deep into that deployment cycle and they struggle outside of that world. I think if the National Mission Force guys don't have a built-in break and they're burning their candles at both ends, nonstop. Literally and metaphorically.

I think it's not healthy for those guys. I think with just the way that the numbered teams progress, and that's, you know. There is a huge time difference component in that. You're right, for sure. In that... You're talking 90 to 180 days off at max at that national mission force versus 18 months to two years sometimes.

You do have some decompress, recompressed cycle. And you're forced out. Like, the most a guy can do at a team just right when he checks in, maybe he can do three deployments. Four deployments is an outlier. It happens. but then you have to go somewhere else because they have requirements for, you know, the training departments or our selection course or at units, guys have to go somewhere else.

Then when they come back, they're in a leadership role that, you know, maybe you can pop right into the next one, but that is going to maintain you only being at a team for one, maybe two cycles, say if you're an LPO and then you lead up for chief. So that's built in there now. I think, I felt like there was a, there's been studies on combat effectiveness and it's like in straight combat, people are really good for the first, it takes like them 10 days to get up on step. Then they're really good. And then right around 30 days, they're just done. They're either, they've turned into monsters or they're just self-complacency too. Yeah, and complacency is another big one.

I'd see that all the time. Like first, you know, like you said, I would, I would say that, anecdotally, first 30 and last 30 are probably the most dangerous, right? Because first 30, you got to get up to speed, get checked in with the environmental, is get that pace and flow, probably reset your schedule. And then by the last 30, you see those guys who say you're on a six-month-or, they're doing okay, and they're like, they're finding positions of cover. And then that last 30, they're just standing in the middle of the street, not actually, well, maybe they are smoking a cigarette, depending on who they are.

But you just see the company, you're like, oh, we got to get this guy out of here. To include myself, probably. And I know there was an op we did in Afghanistan. It was late in the deployment. We always laid to hammer down on the Taliban. Started getting hot. We're in our fighting position. We can see a guy 1,000 yards away up on a rocky knoll pushing a PKM out.

And we're shooting at him with the 300 win-mag and missing because of the wind. And he keeps pushing it out. And they were taking the high ground all around us. But we're like, ah, he's a thousand yards out. took off our body armor and helmets. First off, PKK at 1,000 yards on the receiving end, sucks. It's a belt-fed 300 windbag. Yeah, they're just stitching it in,

and then there were like five positions like that, and we all took off our body armor, and that's on me because I was the guy that said, I should have been the guy to say, hey, guys, put your helmets and body armor back on. And was that when we weren't carrying enough water, because we thought we would get enough water, and we just suffered.

Two in the afternoon, we ran, out of water on this high ground position. It was 112 degrees out. Yes. And there would be no water until dark because we weren't going to be able to walk down or get resupplied until then. It just was terrible. It's a level of suck that I wish more people could experience

because it would recalibrate their suffering scale. And I think they'd be a little bit more tolerable of traffic. Exactly. But then, you know, I assess myself when I freak out in traffic and I'm like, why am I freaking out? I'm in an air-conditioned car right now. It's all good. If you put a quarter of inch of glass in between me and another human being and they cut me off,

I will say some shit that I would never say in an elevator. That's my litmus test of whether or not I'd be in a total dick. If we were in an elevator and it got stuck, would I say, what I'm saying to this individual right now, I absolutely would not. I don't know what it is about a quarter of an inch of glass. Yeah. Or the internet, for instance. That one I do a better job up because I just see, I'm like, I see the negativity.

I usually try to just mess with them by complimenting. They're ridiculously uneducated comment. Like, thank you so much for educating me. Your response was life-changing. I'm going to reconsider who I am. I appreciate your time. And then they just twist. I don't know if they see that coming or not,

but I take great pleasure in that for sure. Well, anything that you type out online is never going away. You keep that in mind. That's a tough one. Do your kids have cell phones yet? obviously your 24-year-old does. Yeah. So your 8- and 7-year-old probably don't yet, I would assume.

So my, actually all three of mine do now, and that is something I reinforce to them constantly. There is a huge, and I say this anecdotally looking at my kids, they struggle with the concept of real-world consequences to a digital action. Uh-huh. And we've already dealt with it at our house of just a screen grab, of a message getting forwarded of it just, and I keep trying to tell them,

Like, imagine you have an opportunity at a job that you've always wanted. And you work your way through the process and you get to the point where you're doing interviews and the interview person slide something across the table. And they say, did you write this? They're not going to ask you, did you write this when you were 14? You know, it just try to keep that in mind because it lasts forever. How often on the playground did you have a disagreement with somebody and you said, I'm going to kill you?

Four to five times in a minute? the time. If you type that stuff, you're going to have someone sledging your front door. Yeah. Yeah. The number, and I tell my kids this too, like you are growing up in a more difficult time than I am. If I had a written record of the shit that came out of my mouth, I would never be employable. No. I would, nobody would ever want to talk to me or because I was an idiot. as everybody is, isn't it a pre-adolescent teen? I said some of the dumbest,

meanest, hurtful things possible. And I'm glad that it was only coming out of my mouth to a small group of people, which was probably then immediately forgotten. And if somebody is still pissed to me right now, I apologize. I was, in fact, an idiot. Yeah, me too. But to have a record.

If you would like an apology for everyone I came in contact with between 15 to 19. But imagine somebody's screen grabbing that, and then instead of being able to maybe put it down and not having it. They could just go back and look at their photos. And that would drive. The consequence difference for that to me is just huge. I try to reinforce that to my kids all the time.

It's a tough one. Yeah. Because they live. Even for adults, I don't think a lot of adults get it. Yeah. Yeah. They certainly don't. Just based off of the interaction,

making a total broad blanket judgment here, yes, and unqualified to do so. But it seems like people don't really think through a lot of the stuff. So here's a good question for you. phones in this internet, good or bad? I think the access to information is great. The ability to access information is great. I think the inability to determine what information perhaps would be legitimate or valid is probably not great.

I like the fact that everybody has the opportunity to have a voice. And I think that that should be maintained, but perhaps we should look at giving some people dial-up speed and other people should get broadband. You should all have access to the information, but if you literally can't control yourself, I'm going to put you back on the AOL dial-up. Yeah. Because I'm not saying your opinion is not valid, but it seems to me at least looking at most of the interaction I see on social media, or even the news for that matter, it makes it seem

like fringe things are super common. Like the great thing is like Antifa riots. If you look at the news cycle, they're on all the time. But then if you look at where those things are occurring, they're very geographically isolated and they're not occurring in most of the United States. It's really, I'm not saying it's not a problem, but it doesn't seem to be as big of a problem as it

would be if you just constantly are absorbing that information. And, I mean, it's dangerous. This is why I quit watching the news. Yeah. I stopped. On deployment, last deployment during the election, remember discussing the news with

a fellow seal of ours and he just goes, bro. you got to stop watching the news. I'm like, what do you mean? And he goes, it doesn't matter. He goes, you will be so much happier. And so I'm like, you're out of your mind. And then, but I thought about it.

And then I started experimenting with not paying attention to it. And I noticed that I was a lot happier because if I see an anti-fah riot, I have a physiological response to it that I really don't need. And it's not going on. Really anywhere near me in the final assessment, it doesn't. I don't care. Yeah. You know, and if something crazy happens, someone will tell me.

Yeah. So I quit watching it because they're just there to either get you spun up, whether it's you're conservative and it's Fox News or you're leaning to the left a little bit and it's CNN. Both of them are playing to your cognitive biases and they're telling you unrealistic stuff that's just going to make you mad. and polarizing everybody. Yeah, it seems like it's just, I find for myself I land in the middle on almost every issue. And I have no problem where anybody lands.

I'm totally supportive of people believe whenever they want to believe. I'm not a fan of when it starts creeping into my life. That's when I'll start pushing back a little bit. But believe what you want to believe. But what I see on the internet at least is that the very vocal minority takes up the majority of the bandwidth. And it's exhausting. It's so, I don't need to see any more posts about Trump's election in 2016.

Please. I mean, the dude's already running again for 2020. And my feeds are just, it's bomb. And it just, what it causes for me is I know I pay less attention and then that makes me worry a little bit. Because if I were a smart person and I wanted to maneuver, I would try to distract somebody and then make a move. Yeah. You know, so there's, I think there's a pro, there's a pro and con to it, but I think it has to be controlled. One of the biggest things I see with my kids' usage of digital tools is they have a difficulty managing and metering their time.

They will go, they'll disappear into the Ethernet for a day if you let them. Oh, I'm just watching a YouTube video. Oh, you know, I'm listening to a music video, but I'm watching it. It just sucks them in. And it's got to be managed. On the positive side, though, these long-form discussions like you and I are having now, they're great. because when I'm out doing something, like I'm mowing the yard

or building in the garden or something like that, I got my headphones on. I'm listening to an audible book or a podcast. Yeah. And I actually, it's making me so much better because I'm having these positive, I'm listening to a positive discussion and I may not disagree with the people that are thinking,

that are discussing, you know, having whatever discussion there are, but it's making me better. And yeah, you're learning, the ability. That's why I love the audible-only podcast for me, because I can do anything I want to, to include driving. Yep. We'll say I've been distracted a few times yelling at the radio,

which it's really weird. They don't seem to listen to me when I yell at them on a podcast. It was recorded months earlier. Yeah. What are you talking? Not that I would ever do that. It's why I need really dark-tinted windows is what I've determined. It's harder for people to see your poor behavior on the road. That it's, it, I was late to the podcast game.

I didn't, I've only been listening to him for a couple of years. I had no idea that that resource was out there. And then now that I found it, I can't remember the last time I actually listened to the radio, like radio, radio, radio in my car. I feel like it's been a year for me. Yeah. And, um, I'm, I had no idea. I'm two years with podcasts, too, give or take.

Yeah. It's, it's great that and then listening to audible and just doing that and actually doing something productive with my time. my assessment that overall these technologies phones and the internet are good it's just we have to figure out how to employ them right you know you look at the the arab spring which was overall a good thing and it was made possible because people could have almost a shared consciousness via these these phones and i think in a place that like to suppress information right and that's these you know the North Korea's of the world or whatever,

they're going to get fixed when there's available unfiltered information. Yeah, I agree. I mean, that is certainly one thing that you can't argue, the ability for any person to become basically an anchorman of their own news show. I mean, it's amazing how much stuff I've, you know,

something will just pop up on my phone that you'd never hear about, like, oh, wow, just because somebody posted something and then it catches, and the next thing, you know, it's leading the news. Yeah, for sure. Post 9-11, where'd you go? Because we didn't get very far.

We post-9-11. You checked in in August? Yeah, I went over and did an augment with SEAL Team 7 in 2005 to Ramadi, right, as that was starting to ramp back up and get crazy, you know, and hit its apex in 2006. Then, following deployment,

went to PACOM while Ramadi was going off, which was really difficult for us. I'm going to say, how would you describe? that. Well, so Pekom, you're talking about Philippines? No. We were in Guam.

Oh, sorry. Okay. But, like, we were in Thailand for like two months. But then hearing in real time all the stuff that Task Unit Bruiser was doing in Ramadi and guys are coming into quarters in the morning going, hey, they just got the first Carl Gustav kills in NSW. And you're like, and it was real easy to lose focus. It was real easy to start to resist.

them and you know one of the guys that was over there from the unit kind of saw that that I was losing focus on the mission there and he sat me down he goes man you guys are trying really hard you're doing a great job keep it up I know this is a thankless mission I know that you know this there's no there's no personal glory involved in the mission in paycom other than you get to ride elephants and you go get to visit beautiful places and see cool things, but you're not going to get a combat award out of it. And it's difficult to rank against guys who've been to combat when you're looking at getting evaluated against them. However, then you have to put that in front of yourself and

look hard and take pride in what your job is in the moment. And then after that discussion, and the guy, he finessed me real well because he didn't say, hey, I can see that you've lost, you know your motivation here and you're getting frustrated those guys are doing over there he just reinforced hey i know this is a this is a thankless mission but look at look at this place you guys get to visit you're staying in a four-star hotel and uh recalibrated me and then i took you know took pride and then once that pride came back that resentment against the guys that were over there doing well that that it pushed it out and went away and so That was good.

Came back from that. Went back over to, no, I stayed at SEAL Team 3 because I could and wanted to go over to Iraq on the following deployment. So I took a step down from being a platoon chief to an ops chief, but was in one of the troops that was slated to go to Iraq. And then I got promoted to senior chief. So they shifted me over to SEAL Team 7, where I got a troop. senior enlisted advisor slot and then wound up going to Afghanistan in 2009 for what was just like the most amazing deployment of my career super kinetic what months were you there in 2009 we got there in February of 2009 and left in October yeah I got you you you you were

team one went and then you guys to play guys remember coming over and talking to you guys yeah because we I got there in like March of 10 right in the fighting season It was glorious. Yeah, it was a good, and that was my first deployment after leaving the East Coast. So it was just a total shift in mission set, total shift of different experience levels. I had a different caller device on at the time.

Yep. Yeah, it was an interesting deployment for me, for sure, because I switched from enlisted to officer. It was awesome. Yeah, you know, when you're out during the day, you're mixing it up, it's just good to go. There's not many ensigns they get to walk around with a 300 windmang and two javelin missiles on their back.

No. And then just start sending those things. And the Army General and Kandhar said, when you run out of those, we'll just send you all of them from down here because nobody's using them. Nice. It was glorious. That was great. Yeah, you're definitely killing flies with a sledgehammer with a javelin missile.

I mean, that's one way you could look at it, I guess. Oh, man, we wish we had them, you know? And then... That's where it came from. It was out of necessity because they, you know, it's more like chess than checkers. You make a move, they make a move. Sometimes their moves are better and sometimes they're worse. But, I mean, how many times did, especially in probably Iraq or Afghanistan,

they could shot it with 556. And they understand that if you just back up a little bit, they can rain 762 and your 5, 5,56 is ineffective. Well, then we switch to 7-6-2, and so they back up a little bit further. And then the next thing you know, nobody's got anything, and there's just a heat-seeking fire-and-forget missile over there. It works. Or like it was nice in Afghanistan because we were the first ones to field the scar heavy.

And so a good month of operating before they realized that the 5-5-6 circle didn't apply anymore. Correct. Because they were standing out at 600-yard. and some high winds thinking they were safe and then, whack. Yeah, that scar heavy. You go. I actually had,

we had scar heavies too. I had issues with mine, uh, cycle. It wouldn't cycle. And I'd clean the hell out of that thing. I just, uh,

you know, and it was still early on, I think in the iterative cycle of that, but it just, it was okay. I mean, it certainly worked, but I definitely had my more jams than I've ever had with any other

platform. Huh. And I have no idea why. Weird. Yeah. We, uh, we had some guys that were inadvertently loving their gas piston and that was

causing problems. for them because you're supposed to leave it dry. But nonetheless, it was 30 caliber versus 22 caliber. A great chess move, too. Like you said, it sits there. Not only did they realize they're inside of whatever field of range it might be, but they had probably no idea what it was that you were shooting at them. So you probably had a few months worse.

Yeah, exactly. Where they didn't realize that. And then the word got out and it was a bigger loop. And then, like, in Iraq in 2016-17, our guys would go up to positions with the Iraqi army, and they had the Crow system, which is the remote control system on top of our mind-resistant vehicles. And, you know, there's a 50, Maudeu up there with a computer screen that the gunner's looking at, and he's just running a joystick, sees a guy at 1,200 yards, hits the laser button, the computer automatically does the elevation,

and then he sends a burst and takes them out. It's terrifyingly close to playing Xbox. It, yeah, I feel like they almost use the Xbox controls on purpose. I had the same feelings. It, uh, man,

it's almost on that fringe of maybe this is a touch too detached. Which I don't know if there's pros or cons to that, but it's like, wow, you're just, you mean, because there's no real, you're looking at this digital,

screen, you're interacting from a digital perspective, and it's terminating in the end of life, which I have no problems with, but at the same time, I mean, I don't know. These are things that I think about when I'm staring at the ceiling when I can't sleep. When, you know, it's got to be the same for a pilot. It's, it's got to be the same for, they say it's the same for a sniper even, because you have that piece of glass in between you and what you're actually doing. Now, I've never been an experience where I shot a guy that was like, from you to me, away and I'm sure that's completely different and we'll stick with you a little bit longer. I don't think so.

No. You know, um, if it's gonna. I found it to be much more rote. It's black white. Yeah. I mean, where we talk to look where every team guy knows, when you encounter a target, where do you look first? Yeah.

Hands, right? And hands threat, shoot. I mean, it's so fast. Whereas when I look back at a lot of the, especially, that 2010 deployment, you're watching people for a long time, trying to give them some opportunity. Are you displaying hostile intent or are you not? Is this a normal pattern of life?

What are you doing walking to high ground right now? What is a fighting age male doing with a knapsack on, walking to this uninhabited high ground? I'm going to give you a little bit of time. You know, you actually have more time to think about it and watch than you do if you come around a corner an immediate threat. You're processing that just from a rote perspective. It's easier to dehumanize them when they're further away, though.

And by that, I mean it's like, It's not the same as you're taking a human life as maybe when someone's like right in front of you. Yeah. You know, I guess I would have to vary per person. I had fortunately or unfortunately experience them both and I don't, I didn't find it to be too different. Okay. But who knows? It's always been a distance for me.

That aspect of it hasn't been a factor. What's, you know, I've had to deal with or been the most upsetting is when I see, you know, innocence and kids get hurt. Yeah. That's kind of the things that I carry with me and then makes me appreciate my own kids even more. Yeah. The kid one has been difficult for me. Watching my kids and just like watching them play or watching them interact reminds me often of things.

things that I saw happen with kids of their age or things that decisions that I was forced into, I guess I can't really say it was forced into us in a position where I had to make a decision around kids of that age. And it, and it reminds me of it often. It's definitely something I don't know if I'll ever be able to completely put down. But I would say that's more of a burden than the actual physical act of taking a life for sure. There was a, when we went into Marja,

and this was in 2000. In 2009, the Marines cleared it in 2010. We were their first unit to go, or group of coalition forces to go in there ever. And I was on a rooftop on an eastern blocking position and it was four square blocks. And one of our platoons was pushing north to clear up to what their defensive position was going to be.

And I was on the rooftop and I was watching across a field and I could see a guy maneuvering on our people. And it's one of those days of like, I can see him between a tree, now he's behind the other tree, now he's got, and he's walking with an AK, and he's moving, you know,

across my field of view, and then he's got like a 15-year-old son that's trying to come along with him, and he keeps having to push his boy back. He's, you know, like, hey, get out of here, go back, and then goes up. And then his son comes back.

And then he keeps maneuvering, gets to a point. Now he's shooting his gun. So I hit him with a 300 one maggot, rolled him right over. And he went out of my field of view because, you know, I could only see him from the waist up. But then, you know, then I watched his son for a little bit just freak out because I just killed his dad right in front of him.

Yep. And I was like, man, that sucks. Now, later in that deployment, I'd completely hardened off. And I mean, I've been like, yeah, whatever. But early on, I had some empathy still. You think it's a good spot to arrive at when the empathy is gone or a bad spot? No. Yeah, I agree.

And that's why I really feel for the Army when they do these year-long deployments are not good because you're going to do one of two things. You're going to turn into a monster or you're going to turn into a monster, or you're going to turn to someone that doesn't ever want to go outside the wire. I also find their mission, you know, of just living among the populace and basically like, hey, this is where you live now, make it better.

That's a very shitty goal. Like there's, if you look at the job that we had, you're usually going out on like named objectives for an individual. You either come back with a person or not, success or failure. And then you can move on to the next thing. These guys who were out there for a year with no,

precise objective, no metric for, are we doing a good job or bad? And they're just eating shit every day. Like that's, that job is to me so much more difficult than the job that we did. It's got to absolutely. And it's got to mess with your head too. Like you said, imagine the lack of empathy you would have at the end of a 12-monther. And that, and that's your job. You know, it's just to stabilize an environment by your physical presence. Every time you go out, someone's getting blown up by an IED. Maybe you don't see the enemy in over a month and you're like, these, civilians know who buried these IEDs. They're out here and they, you know, get to the point where they get some,

it just makes it hard for us to win any hearts and minds when that is going to make you kind of pissed off at the civilians. Yeah. In the area. Well, and then there also is the aspect of oftentimes the civilians are, in fact, enabling and helping the people who are burying the IDs. I mean, there's that aspect as well, too. It's, yeah, challenging for sure.

So 2010, where'd you go after that? Because I know we were at Trade at the same time, which is where I medically retired out of in 2013. Yeah, you and I were in Ops together. And then I, so I came over to Trade at after my Afghanistan deployment and asked to go to run Land Warfare training and got that. And then moved into the Ops position when I made E9. Yep.

Came back over to Land Warfare because another E9 came in and took Ops. And then after that I went to SEAL Team 5. I did the Operations Mass Chief of SEAL Team 5, deployed to a crisis response element that we have in the Middle East. It was a pretty straightforward mellow deployment. There's no combat there. We were just ready for stuff. We did have elements that were in Yemen,

and Yemen fell basically while we were there, so that made it interesting. those guys dealt with it, we just did, you know, backside logistic support for first Sinaw falling in making sure those guys got out of there and then when it all went down. And then came back, became the command master chief of CEL Team 5, was paired up with a fantastic CEO and a real enjoyable two years at the command tour there. And then we deployed right when Iraq was coming unglued again. And we had guys.

involved with the clearance of Mosul and we were in I mean I got to fire a Carl Gustav as a command master chief at the enemy that doesn't get any better than that that's pretty rare too sherry on the top of the cake yeah that is pretty rare and it was like go we go out to the you know I'd go out to visit the guys to see where they're at and they're out at the flot and they're like hey man there are some people over there you want to fire our Carl Gustav um yes that's a rhetorical question Flot is forward line of troops, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, the Carl G. Damn.

I didn't realize it'll peel off the lining of your lungs if you get a little hot and heavy with that thing. Too many rounds in a day. Yeah. When I went to NICO, which is... I went there too. They went through everything, and there was one time when I was in the PACOM, when I was deployed to the Pacific Theater, where we were working with the ties, and they're like, hey, they need to fire 60 Carl Gustav rounds.

And so I'm the only Carl Gustav RSO, and when you're the range safety officer for the gunner and the shooter, you're right in the overpressure backblast. What would you describe the sensation of a Carl G for people listening? Because I honestly find it difficult to describe. So there's the gunner, there's basically the ammo bear loader, And then what you're saying is, is the RSO, the RSA, the RSA, the range safety officer is right on top of those two people. So you're all in this puzzle piece together.

You're all sharing in the joy of the depressed trigger. And you're offset to the side a little bit, so you're eating more of the overpressure. And it's like just getting thumped right in the sinuses or, um. It's hard to describe. Because you can feel it in your chest. It rattles your brain. And it's, it's just like right next to being next to a. breaching charge, I guess.

What does the manual say? Like, no more than three in a day. I know. And I wound up RSO in 40. And the last 20, I'm like, I can't do this anymore. I'm going to, they wouldn't let us just blow them. So I expended the last 20 shooting them myself and having one of the ties load for me. And then was nauseous and had a headache.

Yeah, because you were concussed. Word searching and all the other problems. You probably had a moderate to severe concussion. if not more than one. Yeah. At least they're smart about that now, though. They're looking at making shields, so when guys practice shooting them,

that diffuses the blast. Diffuses the blast. But they put blast meters on it, and they're like, yeah, that's really bad for you. They put G-shock meters on some of the bundle parachute systems that we were jumping when we were testing, and after we continuously broke them

by exceeding their maximum, allowed usable G-Force, they just took them off and said, we're not going to actually test this anymore. Mind you, if a fighter pilot ejects, I believe, twice and has that G-Force, 100% disabled, you're out. Wow. Yeah. And then we just kept breaking them,

and they'd said, we don't need to do this test anymore. Yeah. Your stories with the dang, you know, jumping in that term, or just the added level of complication that free fall brings to. the whole equation. That was the single worst jumping experience of my life.

I still am mad at that individual. It, yeah, that was by far the most dangerous thing that we were ever going to do that night. And that was the school bus to get us to the drop off so we could walk to work. It was like tertiary, ancillary portion. And it was, I mean, I don't know how close I came to dying on that jump. I'd never want to do something like that ever again. And, yeah, that'll go down.

history is the worst jumping experience that I think is humanly possible. Probably. Just biting off of vomit, soaked gloves. Oh, man. So you, I mean, I didn't realize we were talking upstairs. I didn't realize you've only been out for like 90 days. Yeah, April 30th was my last day. I had a bunch of terminal leave built up.

Yep. And so. How did it feel on your last day leaving? Well, 30 years is enough. Like, I cleared my locker out. And that was like taking a 20-pound rucksack off. Yeah. No more meetings.

I mean, here's the deal. At some point you promote out of all the fun stuff, and that's right around when you leave being a troop SEA, however, comma, my experience as a command master chief was great because I was so proud of the nine platoons we had at CEL Team 5, and they were such great guys that it was a good experience. and then in the command master chief Rome you're kind of like the ops master chief has to be the hammer a little bit

and you get to be more kind of a grandpa kind of figure as a CMC so that was good but you know what I can turn this stinking cell phone off at night when I go to bed which I couldn't before you know because I would get texts at 3 in the morning because someone's kid was sick in the hospital or someone was got a DUI and they were in jail

or something happened overseas and I got to get my ass into work. Yep. And, yeah, I was very liberating to just be done with that. And I'm, it's good. It is good to go. I wish the best for the community. I try to keep tabs with how everybody's doing, but I've got other stuff going on.

I'm really excited about this whole next chapter. I gave up on the tabs, I think about a year, a year into, being out. We were still living in Chula Vista. Yeah. You know, but like I struggled watching the news when I first got out because I was just pissed. I mean, you go from a job that sometimes would make the news to watching news you can't impact. Super frustrating. One of the big things, you know, it's funny. The teams are good at a lot of things. One thing they're really good at is making you feel like you as an individual are critical to success for the organization. When the reality is, the organization is going to be just fine. They're going to find somebody with

a heartbeat and a pulse. And the second you get out, guess what, the team's going to keep doing their mission. It was tough the realization like yeah they're just fine without me. I at my retirement brief I talked about or at my speech what I laid out was this concept of a pain train and like I went through buds to earn my ticket to get on the NSW pain train name of special warfare pain train and that like when I joined there were just these huge beasts of men that were were We're running things, you know, guys like Mark Crampton and Steve Hines. And just amazing. And then they'd get off.

New guys would get on. We've lost buddies. But they're still a part of that culture and that train moving down the track. And over the years, I've watched a train get bigger. It's equipped better. And it's way more effective. The combat power of a seal platoon today compared to what we were in the 90s is not even comparable. Can you imagine dropping a seal platoon from the 90s into Iraq somewhere now in 2019?

They would get demolished. They wouldn't even know how to wear a night vision. Yeah. Oh, shit. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. I mean, it took two years to get guys to wear their night vision. I remember when we finally had nods for everybody and guys still weren't wearing them.

Yeah. Well, you know, some people don't. don't like to be able to see at night. I know. And when you lay it down in that simple of terms, it sounds stupid, but at the time,

guys are like, I'm not wearing those. I'll just pull them out and look at them or whatever, and then they're tripping over everything. Yeah, falling into holes, which, of course, elicits insane laughter out of me,

so I'm combat ineffective because I'm crying, laughing. I mean, is there anything better than one of your buddies almost dying? And you're just, blah!

Every stinking offset, patrol in Afghanistan, I would take a digger because we'd be coming down a hill or up a hill and you'd have to jump across one of those weird little trenches that comes out of nowhere. So you'd have to jump across it, a little canal in the side of a hill. And then I would just eat shit and be laying there catching my breath. And then in my field of view, I'd see someone hover and lean over and say, hey, you need a hand up. Get away from me. I'm going to get up on my own.

Never speak of what you just saw. That, you know, I'm actually glad. A lot of the things that I, that I remember for my career, it's just, it's some of the funniest stuff. One of the funniest things I ever saw was when my buddy's running full speed through a courtyard in Iraq at night and got closed line by a clothes line. Both feet up, flat on the ground. I was balled up against a building, tears streaming down my face. just completely combat and effect because I feel like I was chosen in that moment to witness

that I don't think many people get to witness a clothesline a dude sprinting and he was so pissed that I saw it. It was the best. I laugh about it still. Every time I fall down or something, the first thing I do is look around to see if anyone saw it. I might have a broken arm, no factor.

Did anyone see that? Is anybody going to remember this and or bring it up at a time that is not good for me? Yeah, there's, God, there's some unique aspects to that community for sure. What was your most rewarding tour? Boy, that's tough. Personally, like, my deployment as a troop SEA to Afghanistan because of all the combat we saw. Yep.

But what was the experience level of the guys that you took over there? About everyone in the leadership positions had tours to Iraq. Yep. And so they had an amount of combat exposure, and then a lot of the guys had, I would say, 50% of the guys had deployed to Iraq already. So there was, you know, by 2009, we've been getting after it for a little bit. Yeah.

So it was pretty good. A lot of the new guys, it was their first deployment. They had no idea because their perspective was like that, how great they had it. And they just flat out amount of combat that we had. but was it pretty stacked and then our unit level training our workup had shifted because jaco had come back and it was a lot more challenging and that really set us up for success too yeah but overall that being a command master chief was just that was such a fantastic experience and it was

it lined up that across the board there were just great people at seal team five yeah and that that's just the stars lining up because the the personalities of a team can shift drastically inside of two years. One cycle is great. The next cycle you get new leadership and maybe they're not as good and then all the smiles turn to frowns. It's one thing I caught, I mean, I'm sure you get asked questions all the time, people who want to be SEALs or people in the SEAL community.

I call it chasing the dragon. Uh-huh. They look at something that had just happened like, oh, I need to get over there. So what should I do? Where should I go? And it goes back to, I don't know the answer to that. You might just need to sit back and let the stars align for you because some of the most unhappy people that I would encounter were ones that were always a day late and a dollar short. They chased the dragon and chase the dragon.

So they're trying to make these moves to get ahead of it. Whereas the guy who just kind of sat there and focused on his job and the stars lined, the next year, you know, he's dropped into the middle of a gold mine. Sure. I mean, you've got to be out in the dance floor if you're going to dance. Yeah. It's also hard to describe to people the lulls. the books, the TV shows, and the movies, it's all things blowing up and bullets whizzing by your head.

If you were to look back at your career 30 years, what percentage of it do you think you actually spent in combat? 1.7. Yeah, I was going to say it's like 1% if not less. The rest of it is training or dealing with administrative idiots like we did at Trade Ed, who were drinking with guns at the airport. Yeah, yeah, all those crazy and then throwing up

and throwing the bag of puke at a guy. If you're going to do one, you might as well do the other. I mean, you're screwed anyway. So, but yeah, and I, you know, the misconceptions that are out there because of all those mediums, it's all those things focus on it, the shoddy object, right? Boom. Crack, crack. Yeah.

I was looking back at my career, it's probably one percent. One, I mean, think about that. So say, say for you, it's 2% of a 30-year career. Yeah. That's a lot. So now when you do that kind of math, it's even, it's probably. less than 1% yeah because we did the math on our troops in contact for my Afghanistan deployment and um you know because they'll open and shut a tick which is

firefight for everybody listening troops in contact so it was uh like 320 hours for the deployment it's like a week yeah so maybe you add another a week at a half a week to that yeah because that was my most intense deployment and there you have that's the and so think about it A week and a half in a 10-month deployment of the stuff that is 100% debase of books, TV, shows, and movies. Yeah. It sets it. And I constantly, I never try to talk anybody out of it who has a desire. I just try to talk to them in terms of being realistic with their expectations.

Because if you go in and you think you're going to play Call of Duty, you might be extremely unhappy. Yeah. And then if you put in perspective that you're going to be working for the most, part with just a great group of people doing great stuff. They give you great gear. Shooting by its nature is a lot of fun from my, my lands. Blowing stuff up is fun. All the, everything we do, diving is cool.

It's all cool. And then you're just around on that one. I don't. Whoa. Yeah. Fuck diving. Skydiving. I'm in on.

Four hour exhaustion dive on a dragger. I'm completely out. You're absolutely right. staring at your attack board going, where are we? That's if you're lucky enough to have the attack board. Yeah. On those dives, I would always, I'm like, oh, I'm the buddy tonight on a four-hour dive. I guess I'll just hold on to your elbow and try not to keep track of time and squeeze it.

One, two, three. How do you even describe that evolution of people? Just go underwater for four hours. One of two people will have a stopwatch, a compass, and a depth gauge. That's your TV show for the next four hours. the other person has nothing. And if you want to entertain yourself, you can hum or count how many times you kick.

And it's dark. And it's dark. And then there's that phosphorescence of things shooting by. I don't know how many times I have been the driver, which is the guy navigating on a dive, knowing damn well that my partner is on the right-hand side and getting slammed by something on the left. And I just refute,

I'm like, that didn't happen. I'm not even going to look. As of the phosphorescence is going off in the water, I'm like, I'm not going to look. because I just... Did you ever work with the mammals? Yes. Oh, how horrible was that?

I never got picked to do with those guys. I watched a mammal have a sexual experience with one of the divers, and it was not a winning participant. It was not consensual in any way, shape, or form, and the handlers were just like, get away from the dolphin. And the thing's like on its back, just, ah! No, I mean, okay, so how would you even describe? These are anti-

There are mine dolphins, but also anti-combat swimmer dolphins, right? So imagine you as a human in your wetsuit with your breathing apparatus and your buddy, and you're out now playing a game of tag with a porpoise that is going to dart you as hard as he can in the side with his nose. That's his job, and your job is to try to be sneaky. And then apparently he might also be sexually attracted to you, which adds a component. I'm just so nodded. Yeah, we worked with them a couple times,

and it was disturbing. I would go to a pier and just hold on to the, I would just talk my buddy. I'm like, hey, dude, here's what we're going to do. We're not going to do the dive. We're just going to go, and we're going to hold onto the pylon underneath the pier. And if we feel like we're going to be okay,

we'll crawl along the mud to the other one, and we'll get as far as we can go. Yeah. Screw all the rest of the, otherwise you're just going to get slammed. There's no hiding from the dolphin, because you have no idea where it's at. Yeah, and then you hit it, like, oh,

Oh, no. Yeah, I'm not a fan. The diving aspect for me, I'm out on. Like, I like ice and drinks, and that's about the only kind of water I like anymore. Yeah. I like thunderstorms and rainstorms, assuming I'm watching them from under, like, a tin-story or a tin roof building, because they sound amazing. But I just wouldn't go diving if you picked a leisure activity.

I like free diving for, like, if I'm spearfishing or getting lobster out at San Clemente Island or, you know, whatever, that kind of aspect. but you're right, I'm not going to go do a contour dive for fun. Yeah, contour dives. There was a team guy that would do that, remember him? Didn't he die? He did. Yeah.

But he was fired up about it, and he ran a really good combat swimer course over at Team 3 back in the day. Hey, if Combat Swimmers is your hobby, you're probably going to be pretty good teaching it. Here's a blast from the past that I guarantee you won't remember. I made my first investment purchase from you and Frank. Oh my goodness. On the SEAL Team 5 Grindr. That is crazy. Dang it.

Yeah, a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah. I heard you talk about that on Jocco's podcast. You're like, I was going to get out and work in the financial sector. And I was like, ding, what? I remember it? Yeah.

I'm glad I didn't follow that. You know, I don't. Not me. I have been out for saying. six years now, I would honestly describe my life in many ways to be a mess because I don't know what I do for a living. I know what I don't want to do for a living or what I wouldn't be good at and it would be that type of stuff. I would do poorly in a purely office setting environment and I would do poorly in an environment where the challenges don't change for me. That's which is

why I do some podcasting stuff. I do speaking stuff. I still do the skydiving stuff and just it shifts. And it could be one day and one thing. Like that, for me, there's stress involved with that, for sure, you know, if you're self-employed. But at the same time, I kind of like the fact that it shifts around for me a little bit. I know I would have done really poorly had I gone down that route. And it becomes a lot more interesting. So you're completely done with the wingsuit stuff? I go.

So from a skydiving perspective, jumping a wingsuit. Flying close to the ground. Flying close to the ground in a base jumping perspective. after Alex passed, it is hard for me to justify the risk to reward for that. I think there is a huge reward for me that comes from doing that,

but I'm certainly not the smartest guy, but I'm also, I'd like to think I'm not the dumbest either. I watch people in Vegas enough time rolling dice, and they're on just this incredible run, and eventually a seven comes up, and it takes a lot of time, you have to be extremely current, which also takes a lot of time.

So there's a lot of things that I would have to devote to be able to do that safely, and I can't really do that anymore from being up here in Montana just because the ability for me to jump is much less. So I can't justify it from that perspective either. So I think as far as base, jumping goes, it's probably shelved.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Which, you know, and I've already found other activities that provides for me a lot of what wing suiting does, you know. I would never tell Jocko that jiu-jitsu has replaced that for me just because he would enjoy that too much. And I try not to please Jocco because he needs to constantly live in a life of pain to get after it.

No, but that's been cool. I added that. I've been to do that for about a year, which is, it's been awesome, similar, but, you know, different in different ways. But again, constantly changing. I just, I found that for me, that's what I like. And I think that comes from our old job, too, guys. Yeah. You see a lot of guys get out.

They become entrepreneurs. You know, they want to create their own ecosystem and solve their own problems. I think a lot of that comes from the background in training as well. Rogan, I think it was when you were on Rogan and you guys were talking about, he was saying that he actually is able to get in a flow state. Yeah, a flow state where it's almost like meditation for him. I'm not there. I'm still spazing out pretty heavily with Jiu-Jitsu when I'm rolling.

I think that's to be expected. And I might have said this to him too when we were talking because I had only been at it for a couple of months. And like I've literally been at it, I think, for a year now. Yeah. I can spouse that with the best of them. Yeah. It's, I think everybody does that. Uh-huh.

But I think from what I've seen at least and from what I've talked to people who are at, I mean, he's been doing just for like 20 years. His experience is just, I think, so wildly different than ours. He's thinking about, he's thinking about other stuff. I'm thinking about I can't breathe. Right. Or can I please have my arm back, sir? Yeah.

Like, I'm trying to think about that. There's no meditation happening for me, maybe one day. Yeah. But in a wingsuit, I tell you what, or just skydiving in general after over 20 years of doing it, I guarantee you I'm thinking about way different things, if anything at all, than somebody who's on their first year of jumping.

And maybe that's the key is just being able to turn your mind off for a little bit. But you've got to have enough experience to be able to do that. Sure. Or you're going to die. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that comes with the experience. Yeah, for sure.

What was your most challenging tour while you were in? The most challenging would have been just, staying focused on the Pake, you know, when I was deployed to PECOM as a platoon chief to the Pacific Theater because everything else is going off. Everything else is going on and everybody wanted to be somewhere else and we needed to focus on what we were doing. It was right in front of us that that wasn't sexy and it wasn't all that. You're not going to get a lot of glory out of it.

You've got to turn your ego off and just grind it out. Yeah. I think, how about you? for me my most rewarding actually was going I would say professionally it was when I was a second phase buds instructor and being able to actually teach and realize that these are people that are going to be my peers later on and that realization and then I would add to that the 2010 deployment I did after leaving buds because a vast majority of the people I went with were students yeah and the experience level was low and I watched them develop

into the seal operators that I think that they had wanted to be. They started off, I mean, you understand there's oftentimes restrictive or what can appear to be restrictive, not necessarily ROEs, but it's called theater guidance. You know, they had just gotten rid of night raids. Yeah. You know, they wanted boots on the ground, BDA, which is, it changes the way that you think about things because I can't, I'm not going to walk over there to get that boots on the ground. BDA, it's not going to happen.

BDA is a battle damage. assessment for people listening. Operational tempo or a mission set that, you know, may not be what they were necessarily thinking about. And so you can watch these guys going to this environment where they're a little bit hesitant because they don't want to get in trouble. You can see that in the back of their mind governing their decision-making process, which is governing their actions.

And then towards the end of that, having watched them developed and learn how to operate inside of that and then just their teeth are getting sharper and sharper and sharper. And to be able to help facilitate that and have them come to you with questions. and to be able to take the experience that you have and impart that on them and watch them do way better than you would ever be able to do, that was probably the most personally rewarding. You had some great guys in that troop.

Because there's some of them right now that have promoted up into different leadership spots, and I've always felt when I measure myself like these guys, when they were a platoon chief, and then I measure who I thought I was as a platoon chief, they're so much better than I was. And, you know, you're one of the platoons, the platoon chief in the LPO,

both those guys are doing great stuff in NSW and promoting up and are just fantastic leaders. Yep. You know, I, I'll just avoid saying any kind of nickname or whatever other than pig nips, and we know him, and he's doing great too. Yeah. It's a great nickname, by the way.

It is. And it stands for exactly what people would think it stands for. Yeah, what a bunch of characters, man. You think there's... Just good people. Yeah. Dang. Yeah.

And, you know, also, some not good people. I know. And I just try to just stay on the... There's definitely everybody. There's a bell curve. And just because someone wore a trident doesn't mean they're a good person. And that applies to everything in life. Correct.

Yeah, it doesn't matter what uniform you wear or... Use caution. and judging people based off of their accomplishments or what they're what they're wearing on their uniform because it doesn't I mean I encountered very few but there are certainly some that were there for the ability to manipulate people later on with what they did or didn't do yeah challenging for sure what do you think uh what do you think is the most powerful thing you're taken away from the 30 years in spec war a real appreciation for what the guy standing on my left and right can do and what a What a good team, when they're working together correctly under good leadership, how, how like unstoppable that absolutely is. That's the term I was going to pick, too. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I think one of the most common things I've heard from people when they get out

is that they miss the guys. I think for that reason, for that appreciation of the left and the right. and then the vast majority of time, the very good leadership that we were around. And you're just, you're part of this, you are a part of this crazy huge machine that's basically unstoppable and you're just a cog in it. But to be a part of a team like that, you know,

it's humbling and it's really, really cool because the potential is just crazy at what you can accomplish. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about the notoriety and the popularity of the community these days? The fact that it's very difficult to not find seal something somewhere, not always for a positive reason either. I don't know.

I mean, I wonder, here's the deal. The quality of the new guys coming through right now are way better. And I don't know. Had I been trying to come through today, would have made the cut because they're just, everybody's an incredible athlete. Now, for some reason, we still have the same attrition rate in the CLE team. And we just have, um, you know, what is it? Just our quitters are in really good shape. And unfortunately, the only metric we can take people is for their physical standard, although the best team guy in the field that I have ever known,

Tony Afratti is the best one and he he was like absolutely not an exceptional athlete. He was more like a sloth than a F1 car. And just walk you down. Yeah. And just he could put it in second gear for his entire life. And a tactical freaking genius and unshakable in the field and just awesome. And so we, but how do you measure for that? I don't, we haven't figured it out.

There's no test for him. He's a white dwarf, for sure. So like going back to the movie, was the movie a good idea, act of valor? And I kind of think that it was. Because I think that our brand has gotten to the level where we're attracting such talent

that that's a good thing. What did you think of the acting, though? Acting was terrible. That's what made it so good. That's what made it so good. It was like real. I need to keep doing this here in the near future, but I started a review series called Tactical Assholes,

which there's no end to the amount of movies I could review. No. The number one request I get is Active Valor. It's like, listen, the tactics were okay, except for the dude, like, holding his hand out of the water to catch the sniper shot that apparently wasn't heard as the bullet went supersonic.

Like, they completely forgot about all that aspect. It's like, well, the tactics were pretty good, and I'm not qualified to discontalienable. guys acting, so I'm going to just go ahead and shelve that particular movie. Plus, there's so many other Steven Seagall ones that could occupy my time. Yeah, and the only thing with Active Valor is they made it seem like they're the only SEAL team in the whole planet. Those eight guys, that's it.

One place to the next, the next, which is just, it just makes a good movie and you have to let go of it, and that is what it is. That'd be a good career for people. Where we may have lost our way a little bit in NSW is we got somewhere around 2006 or 2006 to 9 we had so much money and there was a sense of entitlement that we had that was ridiculous and and this is a big generalization but I'll go ahead and make it we turn into a bunch of divas for a little while where guys expected to have a rental car for every dude to be able to spend $700,000 on a training block and you know just get the best of everything

and that that's a that's a weakness and it it resulted in a bunch of discipline problems for us and I think a bunch of other stuff but it's I think we're dialing that in now because we're in more of a resource constrained environment and that's that's where it went too far but you know you always got to find that balance moving forward and I think community's done it there was a lot of discipline problems in 2009 2010 because we were sitting at some of the same tables watching these guys come in for their for their boards Yeah, and I forgot that was during that same time period. We had a big, big, big spike.

And there were, you know, people were discussing, like, is it because they're wearing platoon patches? Or is it this or that in some of it's cyclical? And some of it was a result of some of the sense of entitlement that was going on at the time. But I see that is getting dialed back. I see, at least from my perspective, guys are doing a better job, you know, treating their support at a SEAL team like teammates and not like... Endangered servants. Yes.

Yep. Yeah. You think you have any negative aspects that you have to unwind or work your way through post-military service? Yeah. You think it left a mark on you? Yeah, it did. But everything, all this adversity has forged me to make me who I am today. And so, so like I can't problem solve with the 45 where you used to be able to.

You know, now there's none of that. There's like there's none of the, there's no problem that can't be solved without the proper application. The firepower. Yeah, firepower. And you've got to learn to let go of that. But all that stuff I'm working through as a. result of listening to long-form discussions like this being introspective and just trying to be a better person than I was yesterday. Some days I pull it off and other days I don't, but my trajectory

is headed in the right direction. One thing I've discovered about aging is that the ramifications of any negative activity like are immediate and not like they were when you were younger. So like I, well, I quit drinking, but before when I'd have like three beers or four beers, I'd feel it the next day where it wasn't a factor when I was younger. I wolfed down a couple slices of pizza and I feel it the next day. And so I've just had to be more disciplined. Aren't you messing around with the keto diet? I did keto when I was overweight for a while and now I've morphed into basically a paleo-style diet

where I'm trying to just like avoid carbs and processed food. and doing some intermittent fasting, 36-hour fast once a week. And I turned 50 this month or just last month, and I feel as good as I have in a while. I just, I have to be careful about the choices that I'm making with what I'm eating and whether or not I'm exercising enough

and watching inflammation. But I don't want to get into a position where I'm saying, well, I'm getting old. Because then that just becomes an excuse and next thing I'm riding around Walmart and a scooter. I would choke you to death if I saw you at Walmart and a scooter. Yeah, but like now, like I'm at the airport and I'm making a decision between the escalator and the stairs,

and unless I'm hustling to make a flight, screw it, I'll take the stairs and steal a workout, you know? Yeah. I do a pretty heavy paleo diet too, but also with refined carbs. Yeah. It's pretty sweet. Basically eat whatever I want. I can't do that anymore.

I'd be eating chocolate cake all day. you just got to really be active after that. That's true. The tough part on that is when you pair a chocolate cake with carrot cake, then you just fucked because you're just going to take a nap. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh,

yeah. What about, do you think there's anything negative on, on your service? I think that some of the principles that made us successful at our old job have the potential to be taken too far. I think that balance is important. Like being present in the moment.

Like we discovered that and that's a struggle. Like being present in the moment. And for me personally, recently in the last few months, one thing that I bounced up against that I wish I would have recognized earlier is the realization that, you know, having it in your mind that you can never quit or never show weakness or never give up can drive you to places where you don't actually want to be. but you're so used to being around people and never it's like okay it's hard i'm going it's

painful i'm going to keep going that can be taken too far because you can get yourself to somewhere in life that is completely unhealthy and it it uh that's just something that i have noticed and it's it's you just got to find the balance you know the proper application of that can allow you to do things that would make other people scratch their head in awe and wonderment but the improper application of that can get you to a place where I think you might blow your fucking brains out. Yeah. Yep. And I feel like, so when is it okay to quit is a common question out there?

And I, you know, maybe if, hey, if you're just a little bit uncomfortable because it's cold out or something, you need to power through that. But, you know, if you're trying the same thing over and over and you're not, it's not working, then, hey, quit beating your head against the wall and try and flank whatever problem you got or shift your focus. Which is tough, right? I mean, probably my biggest fear from our old job, like you said, you fall down, you probably break your neck.

Your first thing you're doing is making sure nobody that you worked with saw it. That's of primary importance. We'll put the body back together later. Did anybody see what just happened? Yeah. Because you don't want to expose your underbelly. No. Because the SEAL Teams is a goddamn piranha tank and there's always somebody looking for a drop of

blood so they can feast on you. And it's, you know, so it's coming from a. a life of entering that as a very young man, just like you did, and spending the vast majority of my adult life and that. It's just something that I'm going to try to be much more cognizant and aware of, the dangers of some of those things that can potentially allow you to do amazing things. The weapons cleaning is when the heaviest heckling would go on. And so you're around the weapons cleaning table and you're heckling and then sometimes I'll forget that my wife isn't another team guy and lay into her with a good zinger.

and it has consequences It's bad and it's not fair And it's not cool Or even you know like one of my kids And then I'm like ah The key has never The way we used to Talk to each other

I often thought if we were to take a platoon And put him in like IBM in the cubicles And just watch what would happen that first week And you were forced to interact with people that worked at IBM And you just treated them the same way that we used to treat each other It would be bedlam But it would be, I think we would win them. We needed subtitles because it was all coded.

Because like when you ran into someone you haven't seen in a while, there was the traditional trading of the insults. Yeah. Which if you looked at what that translated to is like, hey, buddy, I love you. Where have you been for a while? It's like, what's up? Dickface? There it is.

Yeah. Where you been? Oh, did you quit? Like, yeah. Bring up, hey, you guys, you got clothes lined at one side. Bring up the most embarrassing thing you saw him. do, but that was our... And the subtitle would be like,

hey, man, I haven't seen you forever. I'm so happy to see you. But it would be like, oh, hey, remember that time? That you sucked. I remember it too. Yeah, if you're not... Man, you got to be careful

with some of the zingers that we used to throw out there. It's pin drop moments for sure. In the rock... I was in a jujitsu class. It was near Memorial Day. And I truly feel that there is a community of people that is just not made fun of enough,

and it's veterans. And so I'm more than willing to do it. And it makes people extremely uncomfortable because they don't know what, I forget what they were talking about, Veterans Day or whatever it might have been. I don't remember exactly what I said, but the awkward look on the eyes wide open on people,

I was like, yes, that's exactly the response. I was looking more. If teen guys weren't there, they'd like, blah, just dying laughing, dying laughing. Yeah, Bill Burr had a little skit where he was making fun of veterans that made me laugh pretty hard. Apparently didn't go over well,

It's like, hey, guys. Like, that's a whole community of people that is just ripe to be made fun of. Yeah. A team guy could get up if he had good delivery and just talk about his life and the teams and just kill it. How do you stop seals from patrolling through the jungle? I don't know. You hang mirrors in the trees. Oh.

Or hair products. Yeah. For sure. Boobie trap hair product. Oh, man. For sure. One last thing. What are your thoughts on...

I don't want to talk about Eddie Gallagher because I'm not necessarily... He had tried by a jury of his peers. That worked itself out. That was always my response when people asked me. War crimes. Thoughts? Just kind of broadly...

You know what I mean? Because people have hit me up all the time. What do you think? What do you think? And my blank response was, I didn't know the man. I didn't serve with the man. I wasn't there. He needs to go through.

But at the same breath, I also... If I had made the, take his name out of that, take the fact that he was a seal out of that and just say, this is what happened. I can say yes. I understand that. And I'm not saying he did all of those things, but I'm saying if an individual had done all those things, I can understand how it happens. Absolutely.

And there's a standard that we have to maintain. Yep. And if the enemy behaves in a manner that's completely savage, that doesn't mean it's okay for us. to behave that way. We need to be able to... That's a tough bridge for some people to cross. I know. And especially when you're in it all the time,

your potential for how far left and right you can creep grows and grows and grows. So real strength is in remaining calm. Losing your temper is a weakness. And then how we apply violence on the battlefield needs to be measured to what makes sense and what's ethical. I agree, regardless of what your enemy chooses to do towards you. No, because then if you're going to go down, down that road, then you're not any better than

they are. And your, you're in an account of the motions are taken over there. So there, we have to have some kind of standard and ethics that we're going to operate behind and, and, and a way, you know, this is something I've been thinking about, is there a polite way to apply violence or a way that you apply violence? Because the end result is that people are dead. Now, I would say the only way to politely do that is as fast and expediently as possible. Thank you. And so you're not looking at suffering.

You're just looking, here's the most efficient way to do it. You're an enemy combatant. You're going to get shot when you're no longer. a combatant and you can't and you can't fight anymore than then I got to show you some mercy because that's the right thing to do. You know, if I'm the Japanese soldier sitting on the other side of a glass panel with Unit 731 up in Manchuria watching a mother get gassed, that is a type of violence that is kind of like kind of unsatten, maybe seems to have a mother. a little bit of malicious intent, but what's the difference

between a pilot dropping a bomb on civilians? It's kind of, I guess, how it's applied into what end and what your intent is behind it. I think the intent piece is huge, too. Yeah, it was something

I obviously spent a lot of time thinking about just given it in the news cycle consistently. It's hard to describe to people and explain to them that you can totally understand how an individual could slide that far. And again, I'm not talking about Eddie at all. I'm just talking about in general an immersion in that environment

and how far you could actually let yourself go. And still, at the end of the day, probably be a very good person. If you can come back from that brink. And at the bottom line is we weren't there. Yep. So it's hard to know exactly what happened. Yeah.

And the specifics of that exact case, I mean, I'm talking more at like a broader level. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. But I think it's good that we have a process. It's good that we have a process that's laid out and we can go through it to check ourselves

because they can't just give us a blank check to go do whatever you want when you're on deployment. So we have a process to work through, to assess all that stuff, to try and stay within the boundaries so that we are honorable and everything that we're doing. Yeah, I agree. What are you looking forward to most in your civilian life? Post-military. Being able to predict where I'll be in a month. Like right now is great because I can actually make plans and say,

hey, I am going to do this, spend time with my kids. It's nice being a dad later in life that my kids will have the benefit of my time where I'm not gone as much anymore. And I can make plans to get out and see the country and spend time with loved ones. and actually some predictability. Hell yeah, man. Well, let's end it on that because you deserve that for sure. 30 years in.

I mean, whatever. I would have done 30 in a day, but it's fine. Hey, well, people say that all the time. It's like the reality was I was having a good time in and getting out scary. It is, but I tell you what, man, there's nothing but opportunity in front of you and you've earned every bit of it. Absolutely. Thanks for taking the time to be on.

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