Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 217 - Aaron Howard

Episode Date: January 24, 2022

Facing charges from military prosecutors, Aaron Howard, a decorated combat and veteran Navy SEAL has maintained his innocence, passed a pair of polygraph tests, and was found not guilty of all serious charges by a jury of his peers, yet is still facing a destroyed career of service and loss of medical benefits — benefits he and his family urgently need after combat injuries including a traumatic brain injury (TBI), missing facial bones, PTSD, and more. On October 30th, 2020, Aaron was discharged from the military, losing his qualifications, awards, medical retirement, and his GI bill benefits. Aaron currently has an appeal pending at the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals in an attempt to clear his name and overturn the general court-martial verdict.

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Interesting episode for you today. My guest today is named Aaron Howard. He is a former United States Navy SEAL. I actually put him through buds. And his story is a very difficult one to tell. He was tried and found guilty under the UCMJ or the Uniform Code of Military Justice and currently has an appeal to attempt to overturn his conviction. The story is his to tell, which I obviously allow him to do so inside of the episode. And I would do it extremely poor job of actually trying to describe it. So you're going to have to hear it for yourself. And what you're going to know is probably for the first time in the history of the podcast, I had to bleep some stuff out. And people are going to ask why. So I'm just going to go ahead and front load it.

There's two reasons. One, there were what I would consider to be a few sensitive topics or terms that were brought up. And I'm pretty sure if you did a deep and robust Google search, you would find them to be open source. But I am not going to put anything on a platter for anybody that I consider to be sensitive. And secondly, names were used. And I'm not, I don't have an issue with anybody using names. But some of those people are still active duty in the military. And I believe that both parties should have at least the opportunity to speak if they want to.

So in order to allow Aaron to tell his story in the way that he chose to, I believed out the names of all active duty service members because they don't have the same opportunity. And it's just safer for all parties. And with that, I'm going to let you get into it. Episode number 217 with Aaron Howard. Enjoy. I'm looking at danger close now.

Like right now we're podcasting. That's how it is. You're going to have to get way fucking closer to that mic, though, at all times. Yeah, you've got to keep it close. Hi. Sweet. If you want to lean back, look at this. You can go all the way back.

It's just weird, man. Like, I figured, like, the seats are kind of like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's weird, man. It's like, it's like, it's like, swing it around. It's fun. Yeah. And no, no, no, no worries. Thanks for being here. I'm in, uh, I mean, whitefish, not calluspell.

You're in calispell, but you're staying in whitefish. Calip spell. I've heard it several different ways. Calip spell. Yeah, it, uh, I tell you what, man, it's a hidden gem. I've lived here for July 1st of this year. be five years. The cat has been out of the bag with Montana for a long

time. It's obviously a huge, beautiful state. Because of Yellowstone? Even before that. I mean, in this... Where's the Dutton Ranch at? You know, that actually exists in Montana. Really? And they filmed for people who like Yellowstone, don't know this, maybe turn it off, but

they filmed most of the first two seasons in Park City. They would only come up to Montana for the ranch scene. And I believe that Utah did something with their tax credits. So now they film the entire show in Montana. So is that actually somebody's ranch? Yeah, it's an actual ranch. There's actually the small little guest ranch that shows up in some of the earlier episodes is a VRBO like guest ranch during the year when they are not, which I have no association or connection

with everybody. I'm not going to kick back from that. But yeah, if you want to go to the Dutton Ranch, apparently you can VRBO that thing. Really? The small section of it. Okay. Like the bunk house? Like you can stay in the bunk house. Oh, I don't even know if it's the bunk house. I think. I think it's like this even smaller, like, little outhouse. You know, you always hear people talking about like, man, I want to go to Montana. Montana is cool. Montana's great.

It's a last man country or, I guess nowadays person country, like the last known frontier. You always talk about it, but you never hear anybody who's from there. I'm not from here, so I'm talking about it from a... Or living here. Actually, it's like, I'm going to Montana. I'm like, what are you doing Montana? I know there's Yelston in Montana. I don't know Montana's awesome.

But I've never been to Montana, never thought it'd be to Whitefish, Montana. Whitefish is kind of bougie. I was hungry when I got the plant. I was like, man, I'm starving. What can I'm going to eat? And I was like, there's a McDonald's. Huckleberry. There you go, man.

Tafferies. Which actually, the staple of Montana. I've never had any. So I'll have one of these after and then consider myself a true local. Well, I know. I was like, hey, I was just like, here, enjoy our free huckleberry tapie. I was like, so I took a bite. I was like, it tastes like taffy.

Yes. Yeah. But it's funny, too. It's like my first, well, I guess kind of, you know, the woe was me interaction flying here. It's like, you know, I woke up early. I thought I was going to miss my flight. Then my flight was delayed. And then we sat on a tarmac for an hour out of DFW to Denver.

They're from Denver. We're standing on tarmac for another hour. I get here, they're like, we don't have your bags. So I was like, that's cool, man. Do they at least know where they are? Yeah, 9.309. I got pick them up. It got rerouted with myself and a couple other people.

Fuck, that. Have them deliver them to you. No, because that's just going to be another. I see what you're saying. Murphy follows me everywhere, man. You know what it's just like. And so then I get all this stuff. and I finally like, okay, well, I'll Uber.

So I can't get any service in the airport right there. What provider do you have? I got Verizon. But I also have an iPhone 10. That's the problem. NCIS still has my regular phone, so if they can give me back my phone. They still have your phone? Well, the command has my phone now, so somebody from the command, and we'll get into that. Somebody from the command

checked out my phone, took my phone from NCIS, and they said my phone and computer right now. They're supposed to give it back to you after five years. It's been five years. What's that five years based? off of? Dude, I have no idea. Is it a security, is it like a security thing or is it?

We'll have to. It's whatever the fuck they want to do kind of thing. Five years is just a general number. Okay. Just to make you think that you'll never get it back. But from what I know is five years is just the rule of law, but they can do whatever they want to, man. And we'll get into that.

It's just. Where do you want to start? Where should we begin, Mr. Howard? So, you know, from walks of hatchet, Texas. Yes. Why'd you want to be a seal? I didn't want to be a seal. What the fuck did you go into Bud's dad?

So people always ask me that. I was like, what made you want to be a seal? And I was like, you know, of course I watched all the movies growing up. You know, I love John Claude Van Dam. Who doesn't? I know. He's the reason I got my black belt at karate at 14. I got a little video of VHS.

Carate, no big deal. I didn't think anybody, but I was like, none of my family and nothing. And I was like, I like the thing John Claudevindan forget me here for this day. Like, my whole family's watching me. I'm like, I was a kick in the face because they helped me. You, motherfucker, we brought you here to class every day old JVD didn't do shit for you. Noxum Cal, you know. But so I didn't want to be, I don't.

I always knew about it and everything, but I was never like really intrigued by being a seal. Like that's what I'm doing when I grow up. I had no idea what I want to do growing up. Yeah. I was just a kid in high school who got in fights, sold drugs. and then when I was a senior, I got a DWI and a lot of other things. So went to a concert, 311 concert down in Austin, Texas.

311. I might have to find some of that music and splice it in for the intro. I know, man. I still listen to them today, too. I got my kids listen to him. It's like, it'll never die. It'll never die. Thankfully.

Limbiscuit all day. Dude. Apparently, somebody was telling me he lives up here. Oh, Mr. Durst, for those who don't know what we're talking about. I thought it was in Jacksonville. Who knows? Let's be honest. There's a very good chance he's in Florida.

It's a very good chance he could be in Ohio, too. But he's out of his fucking mind. And those people live in Florida. But the thing is, too, is they always come back and they still try to rock, and they do rock hard. It's just they're older. They rock less hard because of their age. Well, a limp biscuit or something. Well, like, say Metallica forever, like they keep rock into their 80s.

But some of like Grand Funk Railroad is, like, bro give it up yeah you have to like nobody wants to hear you nobody wanted to hear you then nobody wants to hear you now so true so i got it i got it so back to that 311 concert and everything i got a dw i possession of marijuana with intent to distribute criminal you know just curfew you know minor possession they threw the book at me yeah and so it was like got my car towed they threw me in jail you know spent the whole time there and my dad was out of town that weekend and it was just my mom so i kind of finagle my mom to let me go out and, you know, partay. Yeah.

17, 18, yeah, two weeks before I graduated. So, but she didn't always go out and party and get arrested and a lot of stuff. But anyway, I got a cool judge who was a wife of a master chief. And she was like, you got two options. Option one is, well, you're fucked. Option two, you can enlist into any military branch you want to, and I will expunge it from your record. Just bring me your, you know, enlistment papers.

Like, sweet. Of course, after that, I go and to, you know, sit down. First one I'll go to, I want to be a Marine. I want to be in the infantry, you know. I walk into the school. I walk into the recruiting office, and there's two dudes, shaved heads, Indian style, right next the recruiter's desk, nose touching the wall. And here I come sitting in, you know, I want to be a Marine.

And, of course, they look away and also in the Marine. Yeah, how they are. Turns out of, I just start yelling at him. They put their nose back on the wall. Like, I'm good. I don't want to be a Marine. Good day, sir. I'm going to go find the Air Force.

So I went to the Air Force Because in Texas It's a strip mall You got Army, Navy Air Force And then Coast Guard's like at the very end Bro, when I joined in Santa Cruz, California It was a fucking strip mall

And I had to walk past all the other recruiters To get to the Navy one And so I finally went to the Navy one This guy's like, yeah, talk to me He was like, so what are you going to be? I was like, I don't know Take the ASVAB All that bullshit

But first, you know, before you take the ASV We got to do you know sign up is those stuff So, okay, so I went back, told my dad, X, Y, Z is what we got to do. Take the ASVAB. I get a 37. For people listening, that's not a high score. No, that's not caring about anything you're going to do in live score.

That's not a 37 out of 36. No. So I get a 37, and then they want to talk to me about it. So he's like, okay, well, you can't do anything in the Navy except for be undesignated. So I'm like, well, what is undesignated? He's like, well, you get to pick your own rate. You have no job, so you get to work with, you know, the ITs, or you get to work with the OSs.

So we lied to you. Yeah, you want to lie to you. Oh, you get to weld all you want to get to weld. I'm like, oh, that's cool, man. You know, pick your own job, you know. Well, then when I was talking my dad was like, well, what about EOD? And he's like, your son can't do anything right now until he gets a different Azab score.

And so, and so I sign everything and, you know, my dad's right there, but he's like, okay, well, last thing is, you know, before you go from Mexico so we got to take a piss test. Of course, go back to the opinions. Boom. You piss positive. And my dad just looked at a piss positive for weed right in front of my dad, you know, 18. He's just like, can't even get my son into the, you know, the military? Fuck.

So I was like, he's like, well, two weeks, come back, test you again. Came back two weeks, test me again. I was clean. Shipped off the boot camp. And you know how that goes with boot camp. It's just like, I'm stintzling my underwear. Whitey-toddies that are, you know, first they were like, five sizes is too big.

Yep. They wash them, and they're five sizes too small. Folded like a knife cutting edge. Skinny, fat, fat skinny. I still fold my shirts

that way. I do too. Because it's so easy. And they conveniently fit in a drawer. And it never wrinkles. People have no idea what the fuck we are talking

about right now, but you and I do. I know. This is like, and so I remember I went to the debt program. Delayed entry program for those listening.

It was okay, you can wake up, you know, an hour, two hours early, and you can run underneath the bridge and go and work out with the seals or recruiters. So I was like, I'll go do that.

I'll try that out because. And so I went in there and I couldn't do three pull-ups. I couldn't do five. And so I did three and I was like, five. He was like, you didn't do five. Go back. I went back. Dreams of trying to be anything special was crushed.

So then finally graduated and then was undesignated. So I went to a ship. Went down to Pascagoula, Mississippi. Got a house in Biloxi, undazzing seaman, you know, what was it, Seaman Howard, I was, and then with deck division, get underway, here's a needle gun, oh, fuck.

Go over there, not skit, and then if you don't know what needle gun is, it basically looks like, you know, a microphone, whoever with a little three little prongs, it's... You're basically chip and paint, right? Yeah, that's it. Painting, chip and paint, paint that, paint more. And so I was like, well, this sucks. So I got to retake the ASVAB.

and I met this guy, man You know, honestly It's like even thinking about it now I was like, I don't know why I would become a seal Somebody was like Hey, we need SARS swimmers So they had SARS swimmers Post around the show

I was on a frigate So a frigate it was 211 people That's full crew That's with the Hilo, Coast Guard, everybody And Oh, I was talking to a diver, man Because there's always like divers, divers, You know, divers over the side

Don't throw nothing over the side X, X, Z. I was like, man, being a diver would be cool because he came up wearing camis they don't do nothing all day and all they do is work out and eat stuff all day I was like I'll be a diver and I'm looking more into it

I was like nah he's like dude don't be a diver if you don't do something special go into it and I think it was just some basic conversation but nothing with ever seal and so I saw a bunch of stuff you know posts around the ship and which frigates are declass or decommission now

so um 435 feet long USS John O'Hall I was on and uh I was like I'll be a SAR swimmer, but knowing that nobody before me passed SAR school. So that ship, the John O'Hawall didn't deploy for like four or five deployments because they couldn't have anybody pass SAR school.

Jesus. So, yeah, so I was like, I'll pass, I'll go. And everybody's like, what can you pass? I'm like, well, it depends on the test. I guess. So I was like, send me away. So they sent me to Pensacola, Florida. And here I am in the SAR school and stuff.

And, man, it was. Sarah stands for search and rescue. I swam more in Sars school than I ever did in Buds. Really? Well, I mean, that is probably their number one job requirement. And it would make, we would do like a test. Then after test would be like an 800 yard or 800 meter buddy toe where I had to do that. It was brutal, man.

Like I swim a lot in Sars school more than more than buds. Yeah. Because you know, buds, you go out and just do a two-mile ocean swim. Was it Tuesday or Wednesday or some shit like that? Hey, what is it? Four Mile Time runs on Monday, swim Tuesday, obstacle course Wednesday, something like that. Something like that. Yeah.

I don't know if it is like that anymore or not. Yeah, I couldn't die. I never saw you out there when he put us through blood, so I'm sure you probably still don't know either then. I mean. What? You always skate out. Hey, four-mile time run, we're stumped.

I don't know. He just left. Why the fuck what I need to be there? I'm just messing with me. That's exactly. But you have to delegate. As a leader, you have to delegate the authority to the junior people you're trying to train. Seek responsibility.

Take responsibility. So long story short, I passed our school. school. It was fun. And then I was in the good graces of the CEO because I basically, I guess saved, because everyone got fired. Every CEO got fired after that because nobody would pass SARS school because you need a SARS swimmer. Yeah, otherwise you're non-deployable. You're non-employable. So I passed it and all of a sudden, you know, I saved this CEO's career. And so he was just like, holy shit, whatever you need let me know. And from then on, he was like, you are mainly the Star Swimmer, they pulled me out of deck division, and literally all I did was I slept and I did

Sarstow. So I do like with Sar, like Man Overboard drills, like man overboard. Like get my fins on. I get my wetsuit on. I get my gigantic mask on. Jacques Cousteau model of everything. Yeah, everything. I was Kim Life, like a Christmas tree. And I get out there and they, you know, put the yellow yard lowering line, whatever on me. I'd swim out. They'd bring me back and that was it. That's literally that's all I did. On deployment, came back. So your life got better. I guess a little bit. On the ship it did.

As I'm saying, ship life was an improvement. Ship life wasn't bad, man, on a frigate. Because you knew everybody. It sucked, but you knew everybody. So, I mean, honestly, looking back on it, man, I had a fun time when shit. I had some good friends. And I got friends that still keep in touch with me today, and friends that were by my side when I got accused of this bullshit.

Yeah. And so I wanted to go to both. I went to VBSS training after that for the ship, like the ship's VBSS, because then I was doing like AFL lookout. and for lookout, which is different watch stations you have, is undesignated. So after start school, they're like, hey, you know, you're going to VBSS school. So I was like, sure, which is, you know, visit board search and seizure. Excuse me.

And we did that on that deployment, too. We busted, you know, those dowels down there with cocaine. Yep. And that was pretty cool. I was like, that's cool. And we had Seals. There's like two Seals teaching that class. I forgot their names, man, but they were teaching that VBSS class.

And like, hey, you should try out for seals. I was like, sure. Active duty seals were teaching it? I don't know if they were... They probably get DUIs. Well, from what I know, DUIs don't get you kicked out of teams. Neither DWIs or stuff like that.

Well, it might get you a little different duty station. Maybe. It depends on the leadership, let's put it that way. So there's guys that have like three or four DUIs. Depends on your rank sometimes, too. It depends on who you know. Politics, cards are dealt and everything like that. So I was like, yeah, I'll try out for buds.

And I was like, so what do you got to do for buds? we need a 50 on your ASVAB. I'm sitting with the 37, so I was like, so I need to study. So I did the whole studying thing. They let me go up to, I was in Jacksonville after that, because I was in Katrina too, right before Katrina came. And so I was in Jacksonville, and I went to, I think it's Kings Bay, Georgia, retake the test, came down, made like a 53. I was like, yes. So then I met my officer. He was an incident. He became my division officer for deck division, and he wanted to go to Buds. So it was kind of, kind of fell in the place, man. I started working out with him, working out, doing it, and I was like, I'll go to Buds, took the screener.

I was a kid, or I was a guy who had the, I got to get Bates Lights, man. I got, that's what they wear. They wear Bates Lights. So I wore Bates Lights, wear boots. I'd be running on the beach. Everybody would be out there in their swimsuits, and here's me full Cammy's on the beach in Jacksonville. Like, yeah. But now if I saw somebody doing that, I'm like, this guy's got something wrong with his mind.

He's mentally unstable doing that, like, which. I mean, you could look at it like that, or you probably increased your likelihood of graduation. Well, I probably have injury if running with base lights on my feet and stuff Like, just destroying your feet Part of Bud's is injury. It is. B-U-D-S-S-S-S-S-A.

But isn't part of Buds also kind of managing it? Like you are the gray man, but you're not the gray man because you know when to skate and when not to skates. Yeah. So it's kind of like... There's an art form for sure for navigating your way through because you do want to

you want to perform well enough that you hit the radar but not hit the radar in a way where they're actually going to pay attention to you too much. Yeah, that's the same as Green Team, but you're automatically on the radar. Well, yeah, especially since it's a one-to-run ratio most of the time. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I think when I was there, I think it was like three to one. So, like, when I was in the room, there was like three instructors just looking at me. Yeah. That's a tough one. That's a pressure cooker that a lot of people have a very difficult time handling. And especially if people don't like you or if there's, you know, the gossip club or something. Because, you know, they send out an email.

What do you think of this guy? You know, he's a shit bag. Well, he ain't coming this year's green team. But we'll get to that. And we're bouncing ahead, skipping forward. That's fine. But went to Buds. Well, did that, passed everything, went off the Buds, class 2,66.

Yep. I think I started off, not Endoc, but before Indoc, or Endoc with like 300 something people, graduated Hellwake with like 56. Yeah, that's about right. Something like that. Got a bunch of rollbacks. Yeah. And I think we finally graduated with like 36, 37 after Pool Comp.

Yeah, sounds about right. So, yeah, and that was my Bud story. And after that is with the Hill Team 1. and did a couple deployments there, got linked up. It was definitely, after leaving the fleet, I was in the fleet for about a year and a half. So definitely leaving the fleet, going to Buzz and the whole thing, and then checking in the Team 1 and the crew,

those guys, the Team 1 came back, where they just came back from Iraq. And so here comes to me, a brand new guy throwing right into the, you probably heard they call themselves the good old boys, and I was in still Team 1. This is probably 08? This was 0-7. Okay.

Yeah, 07,08. Okay. Yeah, so, you know, a couple of guys you had on here were my new guys. You had my Master Chief on here, too. Yeah, you know what I mean? So they all bat Leif and all those guys. So I checked into that, and I checked into, you know, Eddie was my older guy. And so it was definitely being brought up around those guys.

It was definitely a learning experience, man, because they did expect you to perform, you know? Here I come in here, all loud and everything. And they're like, bro, no, here's your 60. There's the ammo. go out to Nilead, you know, after we do all, after we do the Goggins, you know, course, the 60 course, then we come back inside out of prep ammo and do IAS, all that shit, and know your place, know your role. Yep.

And so it was definitely learning and experience. You had to grow up fast, man. But it was fun, so. So team one. And then what year did you decide you wanted to screen and go through a green team? Oh, it's like when you're getting the teams, man. That's the first thing people talk about. I was like, damn neck.

It didn't used to be that way. be honest. I didn't know shit about it until right before I had screened because when guys would go screen if they were unsuccessful, well, actually, it didn't matter, right? Because there's two paths. Unsuccessful or successful. Either way, they never fucking came back. So West Coast guys, when they left, God, I swear, and I might be wrong on this, but I swear they used to send them to SDV. So some people like SDV. And I'm not saying anything negative about SDV, but the guy who ends up at SDV via negatively selecting it green team

did not volunteer to go to SDV. You know what I mean? So it could be the most amazing thing in the world, but they're landing in a place which was not their desired end state. But you never heard shit. You never heard anything about it or what they were actually doing. And also when I was growing up in the late 90s or not growing up, well, actually I was growing up in the late 90s. Damnneck wasn't doing anything either.

I mean, they were busy and they were still training at the level that they were at. but the opportunity for real world operations was almost zero. So I think it was very different. And so it wasn't like that when I first got in. That's definitely a shift that I saw even in my time in. Yeah. But the thing is, too, is like guys that's going screen, even if they screen or they go to selection,

they go to Green Team, they come back, they looked at as a green team failure. Like, he wasn't good enough to make it a Green Team. He's my LPO. But then you also get some guys that are like, well, I've been to Green Team. What do you know about? Steel Team, what do you know about CQC or I made it through jumping?

You know, I made it through Moraine. What do you know about jumping? We did this in Green Team. It's like, okay, then why don't you teach us? And also, Green Team is still just a selection. It's not like this, as you know, this dossier of new tactics and shit that they open. It's much like Buds. These are the very basic building blocks with which later in your career we're going to expect you to be able to create amazing things with.

It's tactics that you should already know, but you need to perfect them to be there. Like, not really so much perfect them, but you need to. You have to show proficiency. You have to have more essay. Situational awareness. Yeah. Yeah, Green Team was like the opening of the door. There's a lot past the door tactics-wise.

There's a lot just to get the Green Team too. Fuck, yes, there is. Which is this very political, very, and you know people right now are like, oh, you're saying, like, I guarantee you, Dev. Sill Team 6 is watching this podcast right now probably, or whenever they're watching, they're like, oh, my God, he said Green Team, and they're going to come out. They're going to say something. I've said it before.

I think. Yeah, but they, every time that I say something, they come out with leaking, classified information. I think I've been accused now five or six times of leaking classified information. By who? By the command. By Sale Team Six, by the Massachusetts.

And I'll get to that. And I keep skipping around because it's like, this is the first time I've ever talked about it on air. Like, I've talked about it, like on a couple podcasts. This is the first time I'm actually sat down one-on-one with somebody because people, this goes against their genia. This is politically, it has something, it's, it's, has something sexual in nature. And it's like, but it doesn't.

Like, people see catfishing nude pictures. Oh my God, like, I'm going to stay away from it. You know what I mean? Like, it takes time for somebody to realize, like, right now for me to come on here. It's like, you probably heard when you first, like, holy shit. Like, this guy is getting accused of sexual naked pictures, boob pictures and stuff. Like, I don't want to be a part of that. I'm not saying you were.

I'm not saying you weren't. That's how some people's mindsets are. Yeah. Yeah. And I've reached out to several, you know, congressmen, congresswomen, everybody. They're like, we can't get involved with that because it's sexually orientated or sexually something to do with sexually. I'm like, that hasn't. Are these individuals sexually active? No, I don't know.

Point being like, I would say, I mean, I have no math to support this. Nor am I a statistician. But I think the vast majority of human beings are probably sexually active at some point in their life. it I mean it can be an uncomfortable topic depending on on who you're talking

about it with but when you reached out to me my initial thought was what fuck is this you know what I mean like I try to I try to have

zero judgment about it when I look at that stuff and just more curiosity about or is it or did you get a spam call you like man it's Howard

he's catfish me no I had to look up what cat fishing is I still don't know what cat fishing is but

so full disclosure I looked it up before you reached out. Because my kids used the term. Yeah. And this happens to me all the fucking time when I spend time with my kids. I'll have to, like, put in my notes of my phone terms that I have to fucking look up after

they leave because, God forbid, I'm going to ask them. Yeah, I'm not going to be, look like an asshole in front of you guys. I'm like, motherfucker. What is that? They played that show. I didn't know there was an MTV catfishing show. And they played that one. There is?

When I was in the brig, they played that constantly right there in front of myself. Catfishing. That and Harry Potter. I read every single Harry Potter anyway. Some could say that would be a good utilization of your time. So right now I'm saying Harry Potter is pretty awesome. What's better? The books are the movies.

Books are always better. And we can get in the Game of Thrones to that too. Peter Dink is, you know what I mean? So anyway, 2014 is when I wanted, 2013. Okay. Take that back. 2011 is when I wanted a screen for Dev Groo. Okay.

Because we got this, our SCA came in. Senior enlisted advisor. which he came in from Red Squadron, and we got, oh, my God, we got this guy from Damnick. He's a senior chief. He's going to teach us and take us and do great things. Red Squadron, holy shit. Come to find this guy's a total jerk off.

But anyway, he kind of talked us into, you know, hey, you guys should screen for DevGrew. So we screen for DevGrew, me and a couple other guys go out to DevGrew. I pass the whole initiation, the whole psych work and everything, where they bring you in, they sit down. and you know how it is the selection process you got the chief shot there

and you got the Yelman chick Are you talking about the screener? Initial screener Yeah, the classic horseshoe shaped Desks or not just tables and you're in the middle and like the little What would it be like a seventh grade desk

With like the little fold down In fucking dress balloons And it's just DGGDDG And you're making sure Like the whole time you spent The whole time making sure your ribbons are right You gotta make sure

Your insips were up to date and everything And so you're like cool so you're sitting there. Nobody says anything, but you got probably the same person who interviewed you, the same person who's interviewing me, sitting over the end. Nobody, no other senior chiefs or anybody's talking. It's just that one civilian lady. And she's like, your stuff's not in order.

What do you know about your, you know, sailor's creed? Man. So my experience heading there and your experience heading there, I'm going to say, are very different. It's 100% different. So I didn't find it to be when I went through. And again, I can only speak, and I try to be very clear about this with my military experience I have a data point of one so I didn't find I I just submitted a package through my chain of command pre 9-11 it was all email traffic and they

showed up for the physical screener and then the second thing I did well not the second because you to take that fucking bubble test which might have been the first thing that we did bubble test the psych test I remember only one question from it. And of course you can't say yes or no. It's strongly disagree on one end to strongly agree on the other. And then it's like disagree, neutral. It's like, is the pole vault your favorite televised event? It's the only question. Yes, I remember that. That is the only question that I walked away from that with. And then when I went to my screener, it was eights and nine. So senior, well, actually, probably seven, eight and nine. So what would be in the Navy terms of the goat locker,

the chiefs, E7s, E8s, E9s, chief, senior chief and master chief. But they were from, from each of the squadrons and it was actually it was pretty back and forth with all of them. I received zero admin questions and it was more questions about mistakes I had made in my career up into that point. Allah losing my Trident

a few weeks after receiving it. You know, somebody you had on here recently took my Triton away before so it was like the second time of the Trident away. But yeah. So it was very different. I would describe it as anything but political and I was gone from the command well before you went through.

I mean, I'd been gone for eight years. So it's interesting to hear the difference in experiences. It is. It's definitely different, man. It's all political, 100% political. Anybody says it's not as lying because they now, obviously, they probably did it when you were doing it, but now they sent out an email with everybody's name who's on their screening.

And I got it when I was in there, and they sent it all around the command, everybody. Anybody who has access to giant, sipper or whatever because you know how they have your little AOL chat line to get your inbox

is like you know 222 screener like they're gonna do it this year for the guy's screening do you know Aaron Howard do you know Andy Stump tell us what you think

this guy I think they did do that somebody would be like that guy sucks I don't want that guy here because he made me look better at you know

the O-Core whatever you know so they'll get that and be like oh okay well this guy sucks and then they won't get you or they'll be like oh I like this guy

so they'll do that but then too is when I was in there going to that screener the second time well the first time in 2011 2012 I got dropped I made the shawls and had a blow on blue like the last day of shawls I had a blue on blue it's going too fast I was hot rodding it and you know hosses rescue and with sims yeah with sims yeah blue on blue for people listening means you shoot one of your own people yeah and so they somehow they came in this way miscommunication you know dual entry and I came in hot rod and there was an active shooter in the middle, and here I come, making calls,

and I'm just making through shawls. And sure enough, one guy comes this way, and there's an active shooter, and I bust around a corner. And you're just like, fuck, man. You hear the rafters, you know, the tower is fucking, the blah, blomblous. And you're just like, the whole, the rest of the run,

you're just like, you know, unsafe and just in the back, just kind of going to the foot, like, I'm getting dropped. Chicken or steak, window or aisle. Exactly. Exactly. Or pretzels. Yeah.

That's rough, man. Sure enough, and I came back two years later. I went back out 2014. Screen again, almost got dropped the very first day again. Really? Well, so you know how you can draw on buds? You can draw cartoons. Like instructors, and we always draw cartoons stuff,

and we always make cartoons of whatever. So they're like, this is the time you can, you know, you can draw cartoons with us and stuff. You know, green team, it's just like buds. So, of course, there's this one instructor that comes in, blonde hair, but, and everybody who knows. what I'm talking about is this dude, man, had the biggest red nose. He looked like your Yeti cup.

Huge. I mean, like, there's no getting around it, man. It was gigantic. And so I'm like, and he was loud. He was always complaining, always bitching. And I ended up being in the squadron with this guy. And so he came in and I was like, I'm going to draw a cartoon about this guy. So I got a picture of Johnny Bravo.

I got a picture of Santa. I got a picture of Rudolph. And so I drew Santa. I traced it. I mean, it was immaculate. I went back to my barracks room right there on base. So it was a masterpiece. It was a masterpiece.

I took my time. And I drew Johnny Bravo with the biggest red nose. I mean, and I sharpied it in. So I had the blonde hair and everything. This guy doesn't look like Johnny Bravo, but get the ideas. And I had Santa right there next to the sleigh and Rudolph with no nose. And Rudolph was doing like this. And Santa was like, hey, you know, won't you go out to this guy who I'm talking about?

So won't you got my sleigh tonight? Because this big red nose was lit up. And so I'm going to guess it wasn't received very well. So I turned that in and, you know, the comics. And then there's this guy on the East Coast that we became good friends. He's like, bro. I was like, dude, look at this picture, man. They're going to laugh.

Instructors are going to love me, man. They're going to be like, your sense of humor is immaculate. It's on points. Oh, man, dude, you know, first round draft pick in the teams and the squadron. So he's like, bro, you know that he has a fake nose. I was like, I did not know that. He was like, yeah, I guess he was down there jacking with something. random stray dog.

And it bit his shit off. Bit his nose clean off. And so... Yeah, it probably wouldn't take a comment like that well. His nose, it looks like you took Plato out and put it on his face. That's what it looked like. That's rough. It is pretty rough.

But you think that they could do better. And then an hour, like after that, dude, I mean, almost an hour, I'd say, the door to the hape, have you been to the new compound and stuff? No. Never said foot ever. So anyway, you know, you know the old building? Yep. The Marcinco building.

Like right across from there, they built a new. you know, high building for Green Team students, everything, new auditorium, all that shit, called ST. But, uh, and so he comes kicking the doors, things open. He's like, Howard, you know, you're fucking dead and screaming all kinds of shit and fuck you and blow who the, he gets in my face. And he's like, who the fucks are you? pushes me and everything.

I'm like, holy shit. Well, after that, man, like, they tried to drop me from that. He wanted me out of Green Team. Yeah. Because I made it. I was like, well, didn't you say that? And like, they brought me up there. I got a counseling shit and everything for drawing that cartoon of him because I heard his feelings.

From then on out, man, they were always talking shit. Like, every single one I'm talking shit. But I made it. But even though they were talking shit, I still made it through. Yeah. It sounds like you were definitely a wanted man at that point. But if your performance is up to the standard or exceeds it, it'd be very difficult. But I've seen, but that's the thing is I've seen them drop guys just like that.

Like for no apparent reason. Like, because you get the bottom five. And that's where everybody gangs up like a bunch of chips. leader's like oh I'll put him on the bottom five today and next I know it's like oh you know you're on the bottom five later so when they would do that every weekend do a bottom five and I don't know if they did in a green team class too but oh let me see here I remember doing peer peer evals here evaluations I don't think we did it every week I think they solicited for it when we did it anonymously I put my name on the eval sheet every time though because my theory is you should stand behind what you say sure But what you're describing is real for sure. It's not the selection course at every place I've ever been going through Buds and then going back as a BUDs instructor. It is pure-ish. There's about a 10% I think that where it can come off the tracks and people can find themselves for right reasons or wrong reasons.

that zone of you might actually get shit can for things that you're not going to find anywhere in doctrine, if that makes sense. 100%. It exists in buds too. You can get on the instructor's radar for reasons. Most of the time I would say in my experience, when I watched it happened, it was for I'm glad the students ended up on the radar. But let's say they never quit and they never failed, but they didn't graduate.

But it's kind of hard to end up on the radar on buds because basically if you just... It depends on what you do. That is true. That is true. I got to give them that. Depends on what you do. That is true. Yeah.

So, but it's like, I remember you putting us through buds too, the whole class, six, five, and stuff is... Kick that sucker in front of you. When you and Dave Castro were like, we were in there with, you, you, Drago, all those guys. Second phase. That's when I first learned about CrossFit. And I remember you being up there and explaining CrossFit on the Whiteboard. I'm like, what the fuck is this dude talking about? Exercise, bro.

It's like, we're going to do friend today. This is our X-axis, the Y-axis of your fitness. And you're out there doing that. Like, what is he drawing all the stuff when you got the buckets that are never filled with water in the classroom? They are never filled with water. It's a weird world, Ben. It is a weird world. I don't think we got, we didn't get jocked up because we made bets.

We were bed in class. And I think we had that one kid who ran four miles in like 20 minutes. Yeah. It took that bet, and I was like, four miles. And he did it. And he's like, if I can do it with his shoes on, kind of finally, it was a track. a tracks car ship. So he said it's been getting jocced up.

That would be the guy who you'd want to put all your chips on. Yeah. But then we also bet like, you remember instructor Kraft? You remember Kraft? Yeah. Or we bet him that he had to go get in the dip tank. If he lost the bet, well, he lost the bet and ran out there and jumped, but there was no water in the dip tank.

Split his whole face open. Yeah. And as the class, you're going to pay for that. Even though you won the bet, the students should have filled the dip tank. Well, students should fill a dip tank, and then you got Drago run around there, just screaming at you for no reason. Takes all sorts of different kinds. Do you're in Green Team. So I'm in Green Team.

Make it through. Make it through. Day one, it's called, you know, winning hearts and making friends. There's books about it. I know, the draft comes out. You know, in the Dream Team, like, what squadron you want to go to? I'm like, oh, man. Oh, they didn't even ask us that.

I know what squadron I'm going to go to. I'm going to be with all my buddies. You know, they call a squadron. Like, shit. they call it out and all of a sudden they're like Howard you know Blue Squage I'm like

Fuck that's the one squad I'm gonna go to because they had a reputation Of being assholes It did? Yeah Fuck man shit has changed Like nobody wants to go to Blue Nobody wants to go to Blue

They used to have the reputation For the most epic Christmas parties ever Like the Christmas parties At the Command Got shut down Forever because of the epic nature Of their parties

Really? Like As a hypothetical And I for full disclosure, I was not there for this, but I've heard many legendary tales about this incident. The team room tables, right? Massive. Covered in just fucking handle bottles of liquor. They used to have a secret Santa. And let's just say that, you know, diversity of ethnicities and some of the Santa presence were very pejorative in nature and going directly after the ethnicities of said peoples.

They're not even SSNs, the sexualities, the family, everything. All of it. No holds bars. So apparently somebody grabbed a full, unopened beer can and threw it at the dude who had given him their present. And it hits him squarely in the cock and balls, which doubles him over. He stands up after recovering with a dildo-headed golf club and just starts teeing off on all the bottles in the middle of the table. to the point where like the fucking team room was ruined like beer cans inside of computer monitor screens and shit like that took him like 48 hours to clean the mess up and then that was it that was the reputation they had what i made through Yeah, I didn't see that

And the guy who I just drew the big nose about Was in that squadron too And he's going back to that squadron So I'm like, this is going to be an interesting time, man Because I've always I've always been told that I got the resting bitch face I'm like I've been told that too

I'm like okay I've never been I don't I have never naturally been like a super high Or a super low person It's kind of just like let's cruise through it Yeah people are like Well it's tough to read you

I'm like, well, I'm just fucking checking shit out. I don't know what you want me to be. I'm not like an animatronic character. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? I'm like, I don't know. What's your sign? I say yes. I'm a Scorpio.

You know, like I don't like Long Walks on the beach. I'm a donkey. I don't like Waterburger. I'm from Texas. I'm just like. Yeah, it takes all types. It does. I find that it's easier to navigate most things if you avoid extreme highs and lows.

I find like the kind of basically just baseline neutral is actually serve me quite well. It might irritate other people, but it's not. intentional. And it's hard to find, it's hard to, if you're trying to get into that mindset, it's hard to be like that too, because I think it's just natural for me, man, just to be like, I do get high strong, but other than that, I'm just like, yeah, it's not funny. So I'm going to sit here and pretend to laugh. Yeah. You know, so anyway, I go to blue, so with the Christmas party and stuff, story, the team rooms aren't like that anymore. Team rooms, they care more about how much money can they spend their team, was like, we spent,

there's a budget, right? So it's like, I couldn't even get at Steel Team 6. I was like, I want more PT shorts. We can't. We don't have any money. Well, that's because you just spent $9,000 on five different restoration hardware couches for a team room. You spent like, you know, $10,000 on a gigantic bones flag rug. You know, we can use that money to go train. And that's where it kind of broke me off from the squadron stuff and from some of my peers too because and we'll get to that. But I go to Blue Squadron and everything is good to go. You know, I'm a new guy. I'm like, holy shit. Then they try to find out what. So is this 16 now? Because to you're 14. Okay, 14. So you,

first went in 12. Yes. Okay. And I went 14. So this is October. We graduated October. So this is October, November of 2014. I'm like, boom.

Still team six. I made it. I'm here. I'm here. You know, it's great. I'm like, I did it. Honey, we're here. You know, it's great.

Because you finally hit the pinnacle of your career. Because when I was, through my generation is like, Damnick or not. Either if you go to Damnick or look at this a badass, you stay on the white side, you kind of just either going to the motions, you'll never, you know,

climb the next ladder of your potential. It's a really dangerous. mindset actually. It is. You know, I look, a lot of people talk a lot of shit about seals who never saw combat. Or it's like, they didn't see enough, right? Like, there's always some, there's always

some way to put down your peers, right? So it becomes this, well, how many fucking dudes does you kill? Like, can you think of a more meaningless fucking metric ever? Like, knock that shit off and be like, what are you talking about, man? We were, we fucking served in war time. Like, hold on. Do you remember? Like, the instructors that put me through buds,

Guess how much combat they saw? Probably maybe one or two. Zero. Fucking goose egg. Because they happened to serve at a time where post, you know, Vietnam, Grenada, Somalia, which had a total of four seals there. You know, and fucking 9-11.

I looked up to those guys and still do to this day. And they didn't see any fucking combat. But they put me through that training. And I remember going through training and looking at them and being like, holy fuck. These are the guys that I want to be. And now for people who say, well, if you didn't go to, if you didn't go try to go to the East Coast, like you're just mailing it. It's like, fuck you, dude.

Like, first off, the East Coast is so, well, the East Coast weather-wise is inferior in every way to the West Coast. I say this having grown up on the West Coast, of course. But I also hate my fucking windows sweating at 5 o'clock in the morning because it's 300% humidity in 95 degrees. But, dude, that command on the East Coast is populated with and supported with by the dudes who are at the, white soft, whatever you want to call it, and I don't mean that negatively at all, but you have to fucking have both. And it's not the right place for everybody. I'm sure saw this. Some people can shoot really good in the teams and other people suck. It's like when I looked behind the curtain of Oz, which is Siltim 6, it's just another old man blown smoke up your ass. But that's behind

every curtain that I've encountered in my life. But the thing is, though, is most people haven't seen behind that curtain. It's true. I got thrown into the curtain and I ripped the curtain down. The curtain got ravelled up into me and I'm sitting here rolling around and they're just like, you know, caught with their dick in their hands. I guess it's old saying that you can say is just like, holy shit. But there was guys at Damnack still to the day that have never seen combat, but they're

at the command. And the thing is too is like, I remember when I got there, it's like, you know, going to combat deployment and you talk about it. But the guys that when I was a new guy at, you know, still Team 6 at Blue They're like, well, you haven't deployed or been to combat with Dev grew. You haven't deployed and been to combat with Silt Team 6. I'm like, combat is combat. No matter how you look at it, leadership changes, but some guy trying to kill you

and you try to maneuver or flank or do your best tactics, stick to the basics to not get killed and protect you and your buddy's back and win the firefight. But that mentality got there right now is like, well, we're at damn neck. Fuck the white side. But then when you go to the wide side, it's like, fuck damn, fuck damn neck. We're not damn neck. Like when the half shells came out, that's what we're. when the first time the half-shows came out was,

is our generation, and everybody wanted a half-shell, because Damnick had a half-shell. Everybody, I had the fucking Starship Trooper helmet with the fucking... Oh, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I still have that thing. But you would know, you would know people from DevGrew, and they'd give you half-shell,

and you show up with the half-shell, or you show up with your sleeves cut off on the wide side. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? You're not fucking... We're not Dev crew, we're not Damneck. So, put your shit back on. Put your fucking bug helmet back on your, you know, Spaceball's helmet back on. and go out to Nilean and do iads and eat Caesar's shitty food who's still there. Is he really?

Still there. Ex-bro, ex? Ex-bro, ex? It's always the same thing you show up as cold cuts, no matter what. The first million you eat is cold cuts. Yeah, for sure. And this is like, God. It's an unhealthy divide.

It is. I don't know how you fix that. You can't fix that, man. With the leadership and everything that's so divided right now and the way it is, you won't be able to fix that, man. Even if you do try to fix it, You might just fix it just a little bit for a little short amount of time, but it'll come right back because nobody, at the end of the day, nobody really cares.

I mean, like, for instance, the leadership is so bad, man, right now, like, you put me through buds, right? You don't remember, you don't remember put me through buds. I remember your class. You don't remember how I was in Buzz. You know what I mean? But you, and you do leadership seminars and stuff too, right? So you do, so what do you do with your leadership? What do you talk about at your leadership seminars when you do leadership?

Like I know you just have one with... Basically just like make shit up. Sounds good. I go on Google and like just like, you should do a good job. I know. I know. I was about to be like, I know what you go. But what do you actually say?

You know what I mean? Like what do you believe what do you think, what do you believe that you think that you're doing? I know you're a leader. You went from a list of the officer. So what do you think as a leader, what do you think that you're trying to portray? What do you want to get out of doing these seminars? I want to pass along knowledge. that I was fortunate enough to gain from other people.

You know, my experiences in the SEAL teams were very formative in my life. Is it just from the SEAL teams or life in general? Well, now that I have time away from the SEAL teams, right? So when I first got out of the military and I would speak, it would be much more SEAL team heavy because that's the context that I was in the lens that I was largely viewing the world through. Sure. You know, I had spent more time in the military than out at that point.

now I have the ability where I can take you know to me first you got to define leadership so you know depending on what the the audience is I try to you know at least find the terminology that's going to resonate with them but then I break it down largely into the fundamental the fundamentals of what we're looking for from a leader inside of the seal community and then the actual characteristics that we should be in theory screening for now again I can lay those things out to any organization. And oftentimes, I think it makes sense and it works because they're probably hearing a lot of the same stuff, but it's from an external source, right? Because you can't be in a profit and your own land is a pain in the ass. I mean,

you could have a banking industry as an example of an industry I've spoken in. They could have somebody internal to their Fortune 500 company come up and say exactly those same things, and people just be like, what? What happened? Are we done with the slideshow? And then I'll come up there and say largely the same thing, probably a different, way of getting to the end state or different words or carry myself differently or deliver it differently and it resonates. But it's very basic shit and it, the seal community did not create it. It was instilled in them at some point and I think it was probably more instilled in people who have a profession of arms, probably back from the times of the fucking Romans and Greeks. Like,

it's not a rocket surgery. But now I have the ability to take the lessons as I learned in the military and apply them to a more entrepreneurial, capitalistic setting as opposed to just being military-based. So, Kevin, so are you doing it? So, and as a realist, and somebody's asked some blunt questions, so you are doing it obviously for money as well, too, correct? I mean, you have to. Correct.

I don't volunteer my time. Actually, I take that back. If you're, if you're, if you're, I do volunteer my time often if it's like a government agency. Like, I've done stuff here locally with firefighters or efficient, like I will always bend over backwards to do it. But for me to, but I do, I charge a premium for the service. Anything you're good at it, you shouldn't do it for free, especially if you're civilian-wise.

When's the last time you went to a Bud's graduation? I've never been to one other than my own. When's the last time you talked to a Silpatoon? Like I actually sat down and talked to a Silpatoon recently. I never been invited to. So it's not something that I could spearhead my way into. It would have to be something that I would have to be invited into that setting. Well, as a leader, why don't you push yourself into trying to get into that?

I get the asset making money and trying to do Fortune 500 companies of making, but I'm not trying to this in the bad way or look at anything too. I hear a bunch of guys talking about leadership and what they did in the SEALs and back when I was in this or back when I did that as a SEAL or officer and this is what you should do as life and what should do in your company or as a CEO. So all those things you just described, I do not do. I tell zero stories other than what I am talking about mistakes that I personally made, the lesson that I learned from it.

And not only the lesson I learned from it, but what leadership around me at that time, how they were able to help course correct me and what they did to do so. And I'm not saying that you, I'm just giving an open broad thing. Yeah, for sure. I'm just talking about like, in general.

And so, and then you look on TV and you see stupid shit like pulling out of Afghanistan or now with these seals trying to use a religious exemption to get out of the COVID shot and stuff. Which is tough to jump from the outside. side. Maybe some of them are... It is tough to judge.

On that, though, on that, though, I see both sides of it, and I'm not, you know, I don't judge, men it. But then again, it's like, whoever it is, at the end of the day, Uncle Sam owns you. If, it's, so why don't you do a religious exemption on the flu shot or the, you know, what's that little shot you put in there? Your skin bubbles up. Oh, that's a test. I think that's the tuberculosis test.

Regardless of the fact is, it's like, if they didn't say it's mandatory, say, hey, you've got to take this COVID shot to deploy, people would take it. I remember trying to deploy, and they're like, you're not up on dental. You have to get a dental cleaning or you're not deployed. You don't see me being like, but then again, it's like I see both sides. Yeah, and it's a tough one because I don't know any of those people nor are their circumstances, so I can't pass. Exactly. Neither can I.

So that's what I'm saying. It's like, it's like it's your body, your choice. But then again, it's like, you sign that dotted line, dude. So it's like, where do you go from there and how they navigate it? I don't know, man. Yeah, I'll be curious. So why don't, I mean, as a leader and stuff, too, should seek responsibility to take responsibility. So you know a lot of people, too.

I know it's wrong. Why don't you email and talk to the seals and enlighten this generation? You know what I mean? Because I think that to some extent, didn't you, didn't, and I'm going to say it. I'm not saying, I'm not doing any hey motherfuckers here or anything like point fingers, but like, Jockle, for instance, he failed me in leadership and he needs that responsibility. In some aspects, you failed me in responsibility and leadership because look at what the leaders are doing. Now, leaders that, like, Jocka put through JOTCII are leaders that did what they are doing to me,

what they did to Eddie, what they're doing to Keith, and what they're doing to, like, several other seals that had even been hit the radar that is beyond fucked up more than my shit or Eddie's shit that I found out about. Why don't y'all put yourself back in the community, talk to a buds class, enlighten future seal leaders. You always talk about what I did in the seal teams, how I did this, how I did that. Well, why don't you pass that knowledge on to the seals coming up? Why don't you pass it on to us?

Why don't you speak at a still graduation? Why don't you talk to a seal team? Well, I've never been invited. Well, why don't you reach out and I'm not saying that. There's plenty of reason. I mean, it's a fair point. It's like, hey, man, you know, I'm Andy Stumper. I'm Jock.

Hey, man, I would really like to speak about this to enlighten future officers because officers that I've had, I've had several good officers, but then I've had shit officers. And they've gone through Jocco's Jocci. They've gone through Bud's 265 class. Do you think that a Trident or a course that you go through is what defines you as a human being. No. Okay. So I would be careful leaning on those things. You know, because at the end of the day, you could go through, let me tell you right now, you could be a shitbag officer, and I know of

them. And it wasn't Jocko's Jotsie course. I think at the time it was Laf's. But they know how to navigate those systems, and they do the absolute minimum possible, and they show you the absolute minimum possible so they can skate through that system unknown. And it doesn't change them. So yeah, they were a graduate of the course, but it doesn't change the person at the end of the day. And I'm not saying, I'm not saying that it's totally all failed and wiped out. I'm just saying Like, I'm just really, I guess, taken back by the leadership that I saw that an officer, a flag officer ripped up my uniform, a flag. Yeah. You know, not an 04, not an 05, but a captain of Sill Team 6, Bravo Zero 1 shredded my uniform.

Like, that is shitty leadership, wherever you look at it, hands down. It's a shitty person. And we have proof. Yeah, but I think... A captain. For sure. And so what is a captain? Is that 06?

06 flag officer, yep. That's what everybody wants to shoot. I thought 07 was where the flag officer started. No, it's a captain 06. Okay. Flag would be a one-star admiral in the Navy for people listening. Unless I'm wrong. So I from knows the captain's the first flag officer and then it goes to...

Either way, we're talking one pay grade. And they're at an elevation in the rank hierarchy. It's pretty fucking high. Hitting captains like hitting chief for list almost. I guess he got seated chiefs and keeps going off from there. I would be cautious from what little I know of the experience you had exiting the military. It sounds like it's horrendous. I exited within 15 minutes after a 17-year career shut down.

And I get it, but what I'm saying is that flag officer, the captain who tore up your uniform. Yep. Okay. Okay. That's indicative of that person. You know what I mean? And this is one thing that I think, and I try to talk super openly and honestly about this. The best leaders that I ever served with that I've ever been around in my life were in the SEAL teams and the worst ones that I've ever had any exposure to, to include fucking firing them on the battlefield. We're in the SEAL teams. But neither of those groups of people represent the community as a whole. You know what I mean? Because there are going to be people who have more. amazing experiences than negative, and they'll be like, this fucking SEAL teams are perfect, and they're not.

And then there's going to be people who have more negative experiences than positive. And they're going to say, or could say, the leadership in the SEAL community is completely and utterly fucked up, but it's not.

It's the leaders that are fucked up that are the problem that need to be addressed. Leadership is a tool. You know, it's like your M4. Leadership's a tool. There's people that can fucking do amazing splits with an M4

and people who barely know the working end of that fucking rifle. No, I agree with that. The thing is, like, you've got those guys who can build a rocket ship, but they don't know how to fly it. Correct. Which I couldn't do neither or. Yeah. But it's why, if preaching on it and saying the Seals is this and Seals is that, why not go back to your roots and help out the Seals and Help Out the Future Leaders and Help Out,

We all have problems, of course, so medically, family-wise and sit. But still, it's like, you talk about it and you talk about the Brotherhood, like, Long-Live the Brotherhood, which, okay, this isn't. I'm not a particular fan of that term, to be honest. And again, it's like, and there's a lot of people like, oh, fuck him. He's talking about brotherhood. Just keep an open mind here with what I'm saying. It's like, there is no brotherhood. You have your cliques.

You got your three or four friends who stick by you through no matter what. But there is no brotherhood. Like, all seals don't look out for each other, man. And I found out the hard way. Like, for instance, and I'm not trying to bash on any of bodies, any of your friends, reliability, trustworthiness, anybody's. And I know how people are very sensitive these days and people take stuff as I don't really give a shit.

It's like, if you were getting a pinch right now, put yourself in my situation. If you, any stuff were getting a pinch right now, do you think people would be laying, throwing rose pedals out for you as you walk from the courthouse? You think everybody would support you. No. You think they did, you have, you see who you can.

It's basic, basic tactics. What is it? He who flanks first wins the fight. He who has a high ground does this. Well, I set up in a, L. Ambush. They kind of pinned. It's fucked up.

I guess you can see it. But then again, it's like, I had to do that to see who was on my side because I was getting blasted from all areas. So I basically slept in L. ambush to see who would squirt. And sure enough, everybody squirted. As soon as I got accused, I was a leopard. I mean, it was just like, there is no brotherhood.

The friends I've known for 16, 17 years went to combat with multiple times. You know, I love you, bro. going to Danny's and dancing up on the bar with your fucking shirt off and crying over the pictures and I fucking like getting in fights and PB and then doing all this shit and all of a sudden is like hey man can you testify for me I can't man I got a family I'm about to make chief like I had a really good buddy who isn't you know I've known for a couple years but I also had another buddy who I knew for you know 17 years and when I asked them to testify for me they said no one said because you know I just had a kid and I'm about to make chief and I don't want to get involved

I was going to say the same thing. I got a family. Before I came on this podcast, before I got on a flight, somebody called me, hey man, they think I'm rating right now. Like,

they think I'm going to come in here and rat and spill the beans. Who's they? People from the command, teammates. They still, my number hasn't changed. And so they called me,

some of my teammates, two of them, is like, hey, man, nothing was personal. Like, we didn't know what was going on. And just remember,

man, and they always ends with nothing was personal, and I have a family. Well, when you mess with my kids, it becomes personal. I had a family, too. When you mess with my career, it does become... Career, it's not so much, but when you mess with my family, it becomes personal.

And it's just like, whatever you said and whatever you testified for, that's on you, man. Like, I'm trying to clear my name because if you Google of my name right now, Aaron Howard, Navy Seal, it comes up catfishing, sexting, whatever, you know, cyber hacking. They made me seem like I was some kind of Edward Snowden, you know, Julius Sond. I always tell him about those guys. It was ridiculous the way they painted me. Yeah. That people don't even know about.

Like the, whatever, we all know, whatever's put in the news, whatever's in it, is just bullshit. The very first couple Navy article times, articles came out were legit and they were actually truth. And those reporters got fired for writing about my case. And Carl Prined it, and he just rewrote that one that, you know, the Black Raffle Copy Company that he did for me. And so now that we got that and all this stuff out with leadership stuff, 2017 this was let me take it

to go back in time let me get our DeLorean go back in time yeah well it helps to break it down sequentially too yeah so

enough catching up on stuff that so 2017 man I'd say around September time frame my kids were

going to be born in November I had twins on the way and so we were going to get ready get deployed do all the whole

workup and stuff and I get brought in by my you know master's chief, my troop chief, and the command mass chief. And they wanted me to deploy early.

At this time, where the squadrons separated into their own commands? Yeah, they've been like, they got blue, red, gold, silver. So when I was there, they were just squadrons, but it was all underneath one umbrella. And that's why I asked. So, okay. So they moved out of the old compound with a more single bit, and they got that whole new compound. It's just, it's infinite hallways.

Like, you walk in there, it's just a hallway. It's just a long hallway, man. You're like, what the fuck? I had a skateboard. Why wouldn't you? It's as it wasn't a one wheel. Well, I had a hoverboard too, I'd hoverboard around. Awesome.

Have you seen the video of Mike Tyson on a hoverboard? No, I have not, but... It's worth Google. Let's just say he doesn't ride it well. I feel very, not very well about accusing Mike Tyson of anything because it's like. I feel like I can outrun him. I think I can outrun him. I think I can outrun him, but I don't think I can out dodge him.

It's very, very true. I don't want to be on Mike Tyson's bad side. But I would like to fight Jake Paul. But anyway... Yeah, that's a whole different rabbit hole. He can, knocked out or not, if you put me in front of them, I'll start swinging it. Sure. Hey, we can make money.

I don't do it for money, put it towards a charity, but that will never happen. But anyway, you could say you built up a Navy SEAL from Steel Team 6. If you wanted to. People would be underwhelmed to what that actually means, though. He's a hand-to-hand combat expert, which nobody in the teams knows how to fight except for maybe like 5% of people. Except for the dudes who actually pursued in their own off time. Exactly. We don't know how to hand-to-hand combat knife fight.

The shit is you on TV is not true. But anyway. Accurate. hallway of death hallway of death actually you described it as infinite hallway it is infinite hallway just keeps going

it's like and you may can go another hallway but so my kids are about to be born and they wanted me obviously going on this deployment and so I was like hey no I'm not going to the appointment

my kids are going I will go on the second half deployment so I'll stay back you know after a new year go out well who's my troop chief who you probably know who you probably know who he is

I don't have a like a relationship with him or much interaction with him at all Yeah, so there, and then there were, there's no need for much of interaction, but they and was the master chief of Silt Team 6 that time. He was my squadron, master chief, and he was this, you know, the command match chief after that with my incoming troop chief. And so I told them that I am not going on deployment, man.

I was like, I want to be here to see my kids born. I will come after deployment. like do we, would we have some office and stuff lined up? Sure. Like, is it anything that I need you be on? Like, will I make a difference? Granted, I was a breacher, you know, tandem, but last time we've handled, last time we even pushed a bundle to combat, I don't think ever. I know the CAD guys have one time, like in the initial invasion of Afghanistan, but yeah, that's a use with extreme caution, if ever. Jumping is. Now, anytime you have jumping brought up, it's extreme caution. As it should be. Shit's dangerous. It is. And then they don't know what to do with the parachute. they just drop a JDAM on there, and then they freak out about money. Like, we can't do it because we just spent... What's the cost of a G-d-D-M? What's the cost of 33 parachutes?

Less than a J-dam, I bet. Well, that one op that, you know, when it went on, they jumped in and they left all the parachutes there. It's like, well, what are we going to do with these parachutes? And the whole higher echelon was just, I just can't believe we spent that much money. It's all about money there.

It's all about money at that command. Like, if you, the more money you spend, the more and you waste it, The more eyes they get on, it's like, holy shit, you know, you just spend all that money on jump. That, to me, seems like it would be a justifiable expense, though. Like, you, I mean, fuck. The budget there, I'm sure you can move left or right a little bit and figure out a way to cover the cost of 33 MJNs. You know, you got all kinds of money.

You got the deployment money. You got, you know, anyway. But I told him, I'm not coming. So when I said that I'm not going to appointment, I will stay back. You know, I'm like, well, you can't do that. You'll be labeled a traitor, a coward. And yeah, no, you're deploying. I'm like, I'm not deploying.

Like, did you have any conversations with them about it leading up to this? Like, hey, my wife's pregnant. They knew my wife's, they knew my, they knew she was pregnant. They knew that. They knew every, I was transparent with them fully. Like, you have to be. Like, if not, then it throws a wrench out of the thing because, you know, I was, you know, Tannen a bun, I was a snout.

I was all that thing. And taking one person out of a fire team does affect the whole team, right? For sure. No matter who it is. They knew it. And they didn't like it that stayed back. So I was like, y'all preach and everything about family and stuff. But for some reason, when I say I'm staying back because I want to see my kids born, y'all just blow a gasket.

Sure enough, they left, I stayed back, my kids were born. I was labeled, I got threatened with court martial. I got threatened with being a traitor. I got threatened to be with a coward. They were just pissed at me. It's always been pissed at me. How are things up until that point? Like, how did the, we're talking about like a three-year run, it sounds like, at the squadron before that?

About a four-year run. Yeah, how are things going? Fine. I mean, I'm not the best. Still? I'm not the best jumper. I'm not the best shooter. Definitely not the best sniper because I've been with guys that, you know, one or two shots

and they get somebody on me. It's like, pachshu. Oh, dude, I can run through a magazine like a motherfucker on a bolt action. That's what I'm saying. It's like, we're not a Navy-Sill sniper. You're not a master sniper. It's like. If you want me to hit it first round, then just give me one bullet.

But you gave me a little magazine with five. So I feel like I need to use them all. And I'm going to shoot all around until I hit you. It's like everything was fine. I thought everything was fine because, you know, I got the teammates, you got, we're deployed. You know, we're going to Easter parties with each other. We're hanging out with family members. I didn't ask, like, I'm saying, they put me in for sale of the year.

Like, I didn't ask to be put in for sale of a year. And I got picked out of the whole squadron. And by any means, I am not the most squared away. I had the least military bearing out of everybody, like probably besides one person who. he was getting pinned to chief and he didn't get a haircut, so he went downstairs and cut his hair in a bucket. And they came back up and his whole hair was chunked out, and he put in a ponytail.

I mean, I kind of respect that, but. 100% respect that, man, but. I thought there was nothing special about me, man. And I think, you know, the TLs that I had at the time hooked me up. And now, what I know what I'm now is, and I got promoted to chief, you know, I did the LPO, the whole of the shit, and then, you know, chief, whatever.

So what he's talking about for people listening, is there's mandatory career wickets that you have to hit to send both the officer and enlisted rank. So enlisted rank at E6, you're going to do your LPO leading petty officer, which is a mandatory have to make E7. Like your record's getting

swept off the table if you don't have it. And plus, if you do your LPO in the white side, it counts. But if you do your LPO, you got to go, if you go to Damnake, you got to do Damnex LPO. You've got to be their LPO. So I got to be a different? Yeah, so you've got to be a squadron LPO to make Chief.

If you didn't do it in the white side You could do in the white side, but it didn't count. Gotcha. So, and I hate saying the term white side. If you're not damn neck. It's a common term, though, and I know you don't mean anything negative by it. Yeah, I get it. The regular teams, you know.

Tier three teams, I guess you can say. That sounds worse, but yeah. It's all the tiers, the tier one is money. But anyway, I thought everything was fine, man. Like, everything was good to go. Like, I had no clue. And when I stayed back from deployment, I was like, Okay, well, if they come at me, which somebody told me, is like, man, this command will take, ask everything from you and give you nothing return.

So just be careful. And they were, everything was fine, man, from what I thought. And then after I said that, and I stayed back, they left. Within two weeks, all sudden, I get hit with sexual harassment allegations. I'm sitting on the couch. It's like 5.30 at night. I get a phone call. my squadron has already deployed.

And so I'm staying back with my, you know, twins, three-week-old twins. I'm sitting here. I get a phone call, and they tell me to come into the command. I'm like, I'm not an alert. And the squadron is deployed. I was like, one of the things that happened,

like somebody died or they need me for, I don't know what's going on. That's the only other option I can think of. So sure enough, I'm like, I got to go on the command. So I drive up to, and I lived about five minutes away from the gate. I live over there in Redmond stuff. So literally, it was like right there.

And so I did the whole thing, and you go through 15 gates until you get there. And I pull up to the high bay, man. Swing that mic in front of your face. And, yes, instructor's stump. It's who you're instructor. That's a J. That's a J for Jock. But I go into the high bay, man, and I got one of my, you know,

I got a troop chief there, and I got an old troop chief. there and he's like hey man I was like what's going on and like well we can't tell you they never told me what was going on man I was like pulling teeth and finally they like hey we talk to you and go upstairs so go upstairs and I go into the conference room at I walked out of infinite hallway get to the conference room open the door and there's a captain in there and then there's a master chief in there and then they wouldn't let the troop chief that was with me go in there because I was like hey can he be in here with me what's going on they're like no we can't so walk in it's a The table just, I mean, a little bit longer than this

and it's got the chairs and TVs and stuff, just the empty conference room. And they just start asking me random fucking questions, man. Like, are you a tandem bundle master? Have you ever jumped anybody? I'm like, what is this about? And he's like, we'll get to that.

And I'm going to go on and drop there. Captain, they sent a captain to do a PI. So if you know, a preliminary inquiry is basically where the CEO picks an officer out of who has no legal background. That's like telling me, hey, I need you go investigate this guy and see the details. I have no legal background.

I don't know anything about legal. Nothing. You know, you have the right to me in silence. It's about, like, all I know. So they pick a random person with no experience, but he's a captain, to investigate me on allegations of sexual harassment. But he never asked me anything about sexual harassment. They just go on this rant about, have you ever eaten at Chipotle?

Fuck yes. Like, and I can pull it up right here on my computers, like, everything at Chipotle. Like, what's it like tandem in somebody? I'm like, what's going on here? May I ask what's going on here? And I always got the response of, we'll get to that. I'm like, okay. And so as I'm sitting there, man, like they got these stacks of paperwork and stuff.

I'm just like, what's going on? Finally, after pulling teeth for like an hour, they slide me an MPO, which is a military protective order, the same as a restraining order or something like that. It's like you're being accused. And I'm not going to say these, I'm not going to say the girls' names on here as much. People know who they are. Like, and we'll get to that. Like, I've been to actual victims therapy groups.

And these girls are saying that they're victims when they're not. And when time does come and my case does get overturned, these victims, these girls, it's, it's, it's, they're doing a disservice. people who were actually victims. But anyway, I was like sexual harassment from who? And they said, you know, this girl right here. I was like, well, what is she saying I'm doing as far as sexual harassment wise? And they couldn't tell me. They never told me what was going on.

They never, that's all they said. After like three hours of me sitting there, it's not like 8.30. That's all I got out of that entire thing. And I was like, well, what happens next, man? Like, what you just, I just slowly sat in here and you and this other clown, Cap other clown who I don't want to give the justification of name and his name is that

nothing was going on and so the MPO saying that you know stay away from this person from you know for 30 days XYZ so I looked at the MPO and I'll pull it up for you I looked at it and I was like look at it looked at it and I was like look to the date

it had expired by a year so they gave me the MPO December 7th 2017 and it expires January 7th, 2017. So it already, it's expired by a year. The CO didn't sign it, nobody signed it, and they gave it to me. I took that, and I was like, what the fuck is this? I'm getting accused of sexual harassment.

It's now 8.39. I get kids, so what do I do? I called a squadron buddy of mine, and he's like, bro, meet me here, and we'll talk about it. So this is now like 9 o'clock at night, and I drove over. over and met him at the track supply right by my house and he's like dude get a lawyer man like doesn't matter get a lawyer defend yourself especially because now that was the time of like me too was like almost not as pinnacle but it was still pre on the radar for sure 100% on the radar and so I was like okay well I'll get a lawyer absolutely well I'll go talk to a lawyer first so I went

and talk to a lawyer and he's like dude this MPO's expired you know this is garbage like they can't do that like because the next morning i found out who this girl was and of course i looked up on the command phone book and i was like it's a nutrition at the command i don't know that i know that she's at the command but i don't know her like that so i call obviously i look up on the command phone book and i was like called her and i was like hey who are you and why are you accused me of this like what did i do to you sexually like i i know you from like the west coast i know you from now here and of course I go do like the, you know, the crowd freeze, and I go do the hot cold tubs because of the command,

I got this whole therapy setup where you could do. Yeah, they were building that as I was leaving. Yeah, you can do, you know, everything you need to, you know, needle, whatever, chiropractor and stuff. So, of course, I did that. And she was always over because of where she worked, but it was no, it was all, no, like, interaction with nothing, man. It was just, you know, strictly work,

platonic professional and everything. It's like, well, they're saying that you're doing this to me. Who's they? Which is, well, I was like, who's they? Anyway, I hung up. So, right after hung up, she calls the corner deck. The legal office says, hey, you know, Aaron Howard just called me and he just violated this MPO. And that's when, you know, shit went south.

It was like, p. Did you realize you were violating the NPO by calling her? Yeah, but I wasn't violating the NPO because I was like, I'm not the brightest man or the brightest crayon in the box, but I know this is invalid because it's expired by year and nobody signed it. So I guess I took it on my own initiative to make a phone call. should I have, you know, sought legal advice before I did that? Sure. Me calling her, was that the right idea? No.

But I was so angry and I was emotion. The woe is me thing. It was like, I didn't give a fuck. I'm going to call her. I'm like, who the fuck are you? Excuse me of this. So her response was they are saying you're doing these things to me? Yeah.

The thing is, too, is like, I keep everything, like, since that happened, since I talked to my buddy, he's like, dude, record everything. And so, of course, I record her conversation. I record the conversation I'm about to talk to you next. Everything that we try to use in this court martial record, the judge was just like, nope. Everything, we couldn't use everything. Like every evidence that we had, he just, whatever, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because it was still Team 6. Everything was classified, like everything. But what people don't know is my case was open to the public. You can get on, do a follow request right now, Freedom of Information Act, and pull up my entire case. And anybody who talks to me, I give them my case, I give them my transcripts.

I give them all the notes with everybody's name. I'm not like in the article it says like stuff's been leaked and everything. I'm not letting. I'm giving people stuff because it's all open source. All everything is not classified. It's all open to the public. So and they leaked my name first. So like Aaron Howard, Siltim 6, you know, operator accused of sexting salacious nude pictures with, you know,

nipple piercings and all this random shit, which is if you look at all the Navy Times articles and all the articles, they change each time. So it was like the first one was sexting and salacious The next one was like You know raunchy pictures And the next one was like You know Impersonating a person

Then it was catfishing And so it was like changed four different times Because there was nothing there And so After I call that The lawyer and stuff I came back

It was it was a Wednesday Came in a Friday And what I didn't know I didn't have experience with lawyers at that You know You go overseas and you're doing an offer You know a gunfight goes out

and you got to do a shooter statement or something. It's like the only interaction I have with a JAG or like NCAS and stuff like that. And so I came the next day and the first person I was approached by was and he's like, hey,

did you get a lawyer? Oh, he wasn't on a deployment? No, he's never finished deployment. He's never fully finished deployment. He's the most risk adverse. He has more blue and blues than anybody does at the command. And I am hey,

motherfucker and him because he put me in jail and he lied on the stand and there needs some be an accountability. from leadership. Him and... He needs to hold himself accountable. He needs to hold himself accountable. Aux 6 who shredded enlisted

person's uniform needs to be held accountable. And we'll get into all this stuff too. I know people are saying that always leaking names and stuff, but like we were talking before, is nothing's classified. Names aren't classified. They tried to make their names classified in my case, but it didn't work out so well. So...

I came the next day. talk to a lawyer like hey did you get a lawyer I was like yeah and why he stayed back from employment I don't remember just probably because he's always looking for a good deal

or something like that he's like why I was like well because I'm getting accused of sexual harassment man and y'all brought me in here and gave me an MPO and y'all are saying a violated the MPO but the MPO was never valid

because it wasn't signed it's expired and there's just you know what I mean and you even spelled the you know girl's name wrong so it's invalid even the lawyer

talked to said it was invalid but when you talk to a lawyer and obviously like yeah I want you to be a part of my case and retain you they're going to notify the command oh hey I represent Aaron Howard

and so he sent that email out and that's how they got found that got a lawyer and after that man it just started getting fucking weird like that same day a couple hours later

comes to me again. He's like hey man he wants to talk to you which is you know, he's match chief of still team six and like about what he was like well he just wants to talk to you so obviously he came down from you know and pull me into the squadron master chiefs at blue squadron's office and he's like what's going on you know I was like we talking about he's like well why did you get a lawyer you know there's rumors you got a lawyer and stuff I was like because you're accusing me of sexual harassment

I was like, well, you know that you just, you know, deserted a deployment. And it's like, yeah, because he's a coward. And I'm getting it from both. And I had this recorded, too. It's like, and I wanted to use this in my trial. And there's the whole basis of the, you know, UCI, which is, you know, a lawful command influence. But we couldn't use this recording because a judge was like, no, like everything with evidence, he just ruled it out. Is it because you didn't inform them that you were recorded?

It's just because of UCMJ, uniformed clinical, just the judges, it's a, they, they, do whatever they want to. The military law, they do whatever they want to, man. It does. You saw it in, you know, Eddie's case. You saw it in Keith Barry's case. They do whatever they want to, man. If you get rolled up into the UCMJ or you get accused of something, that's it, man. Either you fight

for your life and you go broke and you keep fighting or you're going to prison. And that's the truth of it. That is true. There's no gray area and the UCMJ doesn't work. It doesn't. Do you think you'll ever be able to allow those recordings to see the light today. My only concern would be that, and again, I don't know the legalities of recording conversations with people. So in Virginia, only one person has to have consent recording.

Can that be the person who is doing the recording? Yep, I am consent. Even if it's on a government installation that prohibits that? Well, the thing about it is, too, is like, what's not recorded on government installation? So I pulled all this stuff that has been recorded. They record everything there. And so we did a Brady discovery, you know, and we got all that stuff. Like, there's everything. They have cell phone, you know, cell phone sniffers in there. Yeah. And, but also isn't that part of the deal working for the government?

It is. But the thing is, too, is like, you can record, but not in non-record. Like, I never recorded in a skiff, I guess you can say. I guess, well, I guess the match chief's office was a skiff, but it's not really classified because they know that I recorded it. I told them that I was recording it. And we brought to the judge saying we had these recordings. So it's like.

Yeah, I just don't know the legalities. And the thing is, too, is like, they can say that, like, right now they're like, oh my God, well, he recorded stuff in the command space and stuff. Well, who doesn't have their phones in there? You have Nipper computers in there. Which is a non-classified internet. Which I've seen people order Domino's from the quarterdeck. Nipurk, like, you know, sell Team 6 quarterdecks and Nashkaran.

How may I help you, sir, ma'am? Oh, yeah, can you get a large pizza? Like, I've seen people do that. I've been a watch. Yeah. So it's like, don't tell me about leaking classified stuff. You know what I mean? Or you're not supposed to have stuff in the recorded.

You're supposed to put on airplane mode, but dudes have Apple watches and the Android. And you're not going to not have your phone in there. But I had, you know, on a recording device, just a plain old college recording device. If it's legal, I don't know. If it's illegal, I don't know. Well, come after me, and I'm going to throw the whole book of everything I have, and then we'll go toe to toe because now I'm in a civilian court and I can use this. Are you sure?

I don't know. I guess we'll find out if they think I'm doing it. So I don't know. I don't know where that stuff nets out, man. Neither do why, because what I've learned is they can do whatever they want to, man. If they think I'm doing it, they're going to come after me and they're going to put me through the ringer. So, I mean, if they want to come after me, that's fine. It's just going to open the door up to exposing their bullshit.

That's it. I mean, that's why I try to say, well, we're getting off. I don't know. I don't know, guys, if they come after me, I'm going to open the book up and be like, hey, well, here's, you know, if you show me yours, I'll show your mind. Well, this is everything that now I can show everybody. And congressmen have this, too. Like, congressmen have this. Like, I had a congressional inquiry, and I sent them all this stuff.

And, you know, so, I mean, if they say I can record, then I'm going to record. Okay. So I'm like, all right, well. So where to go from there? And so after I, he's basically says, well, you know what that looks like when you get a lawyer? I'm like, well, no, he's like, kind of makes you look guilty. Like, how does it make me look guilty? He's like, well, if you weren't guilty, you wouldn't get a lawyer, you have none to hide.

That is, that is one of the more poorly thought out arguments. But people think that. It's a poorly thought out argument. And he did that. And I was like, well, he's like, are you in handcuffs yet? Like, no, he's like, his NCIs come knocking. knocking at your door. I'm like, no, and of course you got chuckles over here, but like, well, they should have. And so it's like, it's like, well, why did you get a lawyer? I'm like, well, because

y'all are accusing me of sexual harassment, man, and what else am I supposed to do? And so he was like, all right, well, we'll figure it out, and then I left, and that was basically the gist of that. It was like, they were mad at me for getting a lawyer. They told people I'm guilty for getting a lawyer. And they did. After that, I basically kind of hung out because my deployment, my squadron was deployed, but yet a couple guys stayed back, like trickled here, and they're like, no, but don't bust my balls for staying back for my kids being born if you're going to stay back too. You know, it's kind of a hypocrite kind of thing to say, hypocrisy, which they did. And so from then right there, man, it was just like weird because I'm like, well, I just got

accused of sexual harassment and then do I go home and disrupt what's going on? Because I just dude, I just had kids born, you know, old lady's sitting right there, and it's just like there's a lot of things going on in a process, man. And I made some decisions with my, with, with her and our kids and stuff that should I have been transparent and told her and stuff? Absolutely, man. But I didn't because I was justifying that I had to put the command and the situation before my family. because if I couldn't take care of myself, how can I take care of them? So how not crush this and give this 100% of my devotion but keep the peace?

It's like controlling the chaos. Like, do I want to introduce this new chaos to somebody who just had, you know, giving birth to twins and stuff? And that's no excuse, man. Like, I should have always, I should have been transparent and I should have told her. I should have by didn't. And it caused problems and stuff too, you know, trot.

But then again, it's like, well, I'm trying to justify it by saying that I'm protecting her, my family by dealing with this. and totally neglecting my family and everything because I was like, if I can focus on them and stop this, this accusation and stuff and keep this secret and keep it fine, I don't introduce new chaos. I can take care of my kids. And you know that mindset too is it's like I didn't want to bring work home.

And that's not an excuse because something like this, I could have had more support and I could have different grounds, but I kind of boxed myself in by not telling the one person I should tell and I didn't tell. I kept it a secret for a long-ass time. Yeah. Because I was trying to fight it myself, man. Nobody makes perfect decisions all the time, man.

And I was trying to fight, and I'm not trying to say I'm some kind of white night or something like this. Like I'm trying to do this for the better good. It's like, at the end of the day, I should have told her. I should have been transparent, but I didn't because I was trying to. I had so much going on, man. I was just like, well, I made a decision. I stuck with my decision. And when I make that same decision again today, I would because look where I'm at now, man.

I'm still fighting and they still have me down. As much shit they put me through, I can spend every day with my kids. And that's something they can't take over me. I can be a dad. That is my full-time job. Are you and your wife doing okay? I don't want to get the... We'll talk about that off the line stuff, man.

So it's like it's... I'm not talking about that stuff right now. But as far as that, and it obviously costs them, you know, ups and downs and everything, man. So... But long story, long story short, is people out there in teams that be transparent with your significant other, be transparent, you know,

man up, because it could go better. It will go south. Of course, you can take the initial wave, but be transparent, and it will... You'll have somebody that to support you. Yeah. know. But I didn't know what it was going on, man. I was like, what the fuck is going on, man? I'm getting cute. Sexual harassment? Like, the only person I've ever sexual harassment with, like,

that I've wanted to is obviously, you know, significant other. It's like, you mean, it's kind of, I'm not saying actually a sexual harassment, but you know what I mean. I don't know what you're saying. I don't know people think that's like, holy shit. But anyway, it was just weird after that, man, and then nothing happened. And then all of a sudden they're like, well, you got a DRB coming up. It's a disciplinary review board. Yeah. And it came from a match.

It's out of nowhere. It's like, hey, standby for disobeying, you know, the MPO and stuff. I was like, okay. But the sexual, they never brought anything about sexual harassment after that. It was just the MPO. Excuse me. And so a couple months, like this was December, January goes by and they're trying to figure it out. I'm just lingering around.

February comes, that's, you know, January comes. I have my DRB the second week of January. And of course, they're picking people who they want to be on the DRB for me violating this NPO because that was the whole premise of it is that I violate this NPO. They said that I was the only person ever in the history of SIL Team 6 ever to disobey the CO, to violate an MPO. Disobey the CEO? I have a hard time believing.

I had never heard of an MPO until today, so I can't speak on that one. Yeah, I was just like, so you're telling me out of the whole, that I'm all, anyway, I was like, okay, whatever. So they brought me into the DRB and it was stacked. They had like, I had 15 Master Chiefs on there. And then I had a chick on there. The reason why she was on there is because she was, and I had people on VTC and stuff too that would deploy, like my headshot stuff that were deployed. And the reason why she was on there is because she's an expert in polygraph tests. So before this, they were like, well, if.

you didn't do this sexual harassment stuff, because they didn't tell me anything about catfishing, I didn't know anything about nude pictures, or nothing was ever explained to me about any of this stuff beforehand. It was all sexual harassment, and I violated the NPO. But they never told me what was going on with sexual harassment, but the NPO was, like, the biggest thing.

And I'll show these emails right here that, I mean, I could pull out verbatim saying, like, you know, B, just pissed. He's pissed at Howard got a lawyer. pissed that you got a lawyer and I got my right that's why I got my computer out here to show you the actual transcripts

Oh all this stuff came out in the court proceeding? Yeah, this is all their mouth from the trial and this is all request So when you get accused of something I have the right to see you know stuff from the accusers

The constitutional right to confront your accuser But the thing is too is you think you have that But they don't give you everything So obviously I ask for all their Sipper computer information They're all their emails, all their text messages, and we got it all.

They fucked up, and they wanted to give it to redacted, but they sent me an unredacted in my, that's what I'm saying, this whole classified leaking shit. They send me all this stuff in my hotmail. So I'm like, I was known to be one of the most secure servers. It is, man. That's why I still have it. But, yeah, it's almost like, this is all a joke, man. I was like, they're accused me of it. So I go to DRB.

well before that they wanted me to take a polygraph test for the sexual harassment but they never told me what I needed to ask a polygraph before came out with this questions to give the polygraph guy so I go to this polygraph guy who by the way polygraph two sitting presidents and I was like man I've never taken a polygraph test before and they don't teach us how to defeat nobody is taught how to defeat a polygraph test they never taught me how to defeat a polygraph test I don't know how to defeat a polygraph test I don't know how to defeat a polygraph test. Are you trying to say you're not Jason Bourne?

I'm trying to say that. Steel Team 6, Navy Seals aren't as up and uppity-dubys people think that we are. They're not horrible people. No, all I am is I'm a better shot the most and, you know, shittier than all. Yeah, they're normal people. Yeah. And so you're just telling me, go that, here's a gun, there's a target, go do your thing. That's it. But anyway, and so they wanted me to take a polygraph test. So I went out and paid $500 to get this thing, polygraph, tested and I passed. Coming to find out is that we have our own polygraph test guy at the command that they could done for free and that they brought in to try to explain the polygraph test.

So I take the polygraph test, I pass it, I give it to my squadron master chief, and I give it to the command master chief and thinks that I'm, I made it up. So he gave me all this whole list of what the asses guy about sexual harassment stuff and I passed it, but he thought that I generated myself. So they're like, well, go take another one. Okay, and they gave me a new set of questions, called the same guy, go take another polygraph test, pass that one. Come back, bring it up. That's the last thing you ever heard about polygraph test ever until my DRB.

So they bring this chick in. It's supposed to be a polygraph expert to talk about, you know, how me passing the polygraph test is, you know, evidence enough for me to be clear to these allegations of sexual harassment, which I still don't know what I sexual harassment for. So we get in there I got it's a long It's like And put another table right there Yeah I'm in blue squadrons

You know Conference rooms So you got all the pictures And all that VD all that shit like that And so it's It's like this You got match chiefs lined up

All right here All right here And it's a big fucking deal And I'm sitting in here And I'm talking He's the command SCA Which is a senior list advisor If you're a command

And he's a SWET guy So if you are a command SCA at Steel Team 6 That means you're not at your job and you can't be trusted because that's just a filler spot for somebody i don't think by a doctrine that's what it says it's not but that's what people put there for it's for people who can't be a team leader or who because they had people from the fleet that were scea you know they had yelmans that were scees it's just basically somebody there to have good morale like hey guys guess what we can

grow mustaches today you know this month it's mustache monday i'm like oh okay you know come to the seal team six is barbecue we're going to have cell team swag to pass out which is another thing that pissing me off at the command of the squadrons all the swag that but anyway so i go in there and he's like they rate this whole book and he's like you know what you're in here for i'm like i don't know and then they give me this whole paperwork man of like just all kinds of shit from the the the i i'm from what they had going on i'm like what is all this paperwork and i'm flipping through it it's got like cell phone numbers it's got like pictures it's got like a bunch of other stuff. I'm like, what is this stuff?

And they're like, you know what you're in here for. I'm like, well, I mean, obviously because I violated an MPO that, you know, is not really legal. It's the sense. Should I have violated? No, but am I legally justified to? Absolutely. But then again, it's like I went against a chain of command. And so, they never tell me, I'm asking what is this for? And then I got the guy next to me. He was a, he was a Red Squadron Mass Chief. And he's, I don't want to say. say his name, but anyway, he was right there next to me. He's like, it looks like you're pretty guilty to me. And they never, they never let me ask a question until I said, what is she

accusing me of? And they couldn't tell me. I was like, I have a right, and because I was going back and forth, I was like, I don't understand what's going on. So am I being accused of sexual harassment? Like, well, you're being accused of getting naked pictures from somebody that finally came out and I was like, what? And they would never tell me. And they asked me if I'll plead, Guiltor, they kept asking me if I pled guilty or not guilty. I know it sounds like I'm not given much information, but there was no information because they wouldn't tell me. They were just basically sitting around staring at me and talking about how I violated MPO.

And it's basically me listening in on a goat locker or a wardrobe conversation about what S.O.C. Howard did, you know what I mean? And so finally, I was like, well, is she the accusing girl coming in here and going to tell me to have a right to face my accuser? and they said no. And I was like, well, why not? And like, well, because you don't have that right. And I was like, okay, well, I have a lawyer.

And he says, and then they went on about the lawyer. Like, well, why did you get a lawyer? That makes you look bad. That's guilty. Guilty people don't get lawyers. You got a lawyer? You're guilty. If you had nothing to hide, you wouldn't get a lawyer.

I was like, how are y'all coming at me for defending myself? So three of these people that were on my DRB, were under investigation that had charges on him the command SCA who started one of this whole thing one of the ring leaders he had charges on him

for I think it was like I can pull it up I have his charge seat right here that it never he was going through the whole charges he had charges press on everything through the court martial system and they threw that on the table and made him command SCA

but when we brought that up they still swept it on the table it's like whatever so he has I have his warrant I have his charge sheet and everything right now, but yet they put him on a DRB to tell me that I'm a piece of shit for sexually harassing some girl

that they won't tell me what I was sexually harassed her for. And they're busting my balls for violating this MPO. Then after that, they try to slide in that I had an upsec violation. So all they do in the UCMJ is they just keep throwing allegations at you,

sidebar, and they keep stacking it up. So when I was in my DRB, I had sexual harassment, I had an NPO violation, and now I had up sick violation for leaking classified information because I said I was in Texas doing a breaching trip with CAG guys. In my conversation with other guys on our chat list, they pulled that and they're like, he's leaking classified information by telling us where his location's at.

Just some other shit to try to squeeze me, I guess. I know it doesn't make sense but it doesn't make sense to me still and all people listening are like what the fuck is he talking about because I don't know they just throw shit in there for no reason so after DRB's done and it just goes by

they're just all the DRB is just yelling at me and call me a piece of shit and I was like well I want a court martial and I want to face my accuser because if she's saying of sex or rasping what did she say I did long story short is that I go outside they're like get out of

here. So I go out of the conference room. I sit down our squarge of space. I'm in there for like two hours. It's like yeah, sexual harassment charges getting dropped. The offset getting dropped, but you're going to Captain's Mass for the Violating the MPO. So they dropped the sexual harassment stuff right than there and the offset stuff right

than there because they knew I was right. I was like, what is she saying? I'm, did the 5Ws? Who, what, where, and when why? And they couldn't tell me. And so they were just like, all right, so you're going to go to Captain's Mass for the DRB. Or not for the DRB, for the MPO. MPO. So I'm like, all right, so I go to Captain's Match for the MPO.

This whole thing's breaking up, and the whole time they're just like, just go in there and Mitch you violate to the MPO and you'll get to stay at the command, or the worst thing is worse, you'll go away from year, and then you'll come back. Well, during that time frame, all this stuff that have my computers, they were talking about taking my, talking about taking my pay away, and, you know, take my try it in the way, and they were going to send me off. So I was like, I'm not going to say I'm guilty for something I didn't do. So I wanted you to plead guilty to violating a military protective order that was based around a sexual harassment charge that was being dropped.

Yes. Interesting. So I go in there. My head shed was pressure me to do this. Go in and say guilty. You'll get a slap on the wrist. We got your back. We got your back.

We got your back. That's all I kept hearing. I go on to the captain's mass. How do you plead? Not guilty. Well, I found you guilty. Boom, leave the command. You know, it's up to you to come back. You lost trust. Nobody in the history of Steel Team 6 has ever violated an MPO, ever disrespect to the CEO, whatever, whatever. And that was in January. I leave. Not the command. I leave the captain's mass. And so after that, from January until May, I met the squadron still. So they told me, I'm out of the command. You're gone. We're kicking out of the command. Excuse me.

So during that time frame, from January, 2018 now, until May 2018, I just linger around my squadron space, man. Nowhere to, nobody talks to the command, everybody in my squadron is gone. I just float around in there, man. I walk in there. Nobody's in there. I get on a computer. Try to see what's going on.

Am I going here? Am I going back? Does anybody have my back? Nobody respond to me. I get this long thing from my school. quadrant this was months go by man five months all until may i think about april is finally when i heard something's like hey you're going to trade it over on the east coast you know over there do cqc like okay well i can do that i can manage that and come back but you know once you leave that command

coming back to that command is slim to none depends on who you are in my experience and who you know yeah they're probably tied but but now too it's not even who you are and who you are and who you know it's like if you're out of there you're out of there because the leadership stuff's changed like my it's it's all politics man and so I finally get worded that I go over there and check in well they didn't want me over there because they heard that I violated and word you know the community spreads fast man it's like wildfire and so it got to them fast man and they didn't want me over there and they were going to put me in like mobility or something for two years but they never would give me orders

so finally I kept begging and begging me orders where's orders I'm getting this thing done with they finally got me orders I went to check in and the master chief there was like we don't want him here so then I didn't have orders so I went back to the command

and talked to the shit he's like nothing for you man sure enough I finally get orders again to go back to trade it and I'm doing the whole check out process about you know the first two weeks of May, I'm doing the whole checkout process

like I turn all my guns all that bullshit walking all that shit signed on the whole command and I walk up and get my final checkout an admin and they're like, hold on a second

and I hear from the back because he's not supposed to go anywhere coming from a guy who's under investigation right now for I got to pull up for what he did

but there's something ridiculous to another, you know, peer. But my XO, the new XO of the squadron comes in after that is like, oh wait, come with me, man. And so I'm walking with my ex-O back to Blue Squadron from admin on the second deck. And we go all the back to the squadron space.

I'm sitting there, walk into a L'EE's office. You had a B.O.C. He was on here. So I walked by the B.S. And they tell me that I am being investigated by NCIS right now. And I need to get a lawyer. That's what they told me. I was like, didn't y'all just bust my balls for your lawyer?

And now you're telling me I should get a lawyer? well I already have a lawyer and I had no clue that I already had a lawyer and so that's just how much she was out of the clue but then again he screwed me over too and so when I went back in there I was like okay so finally they're like well NCS was to talk to you

tomorrow at 9 a.m. I'm like okay so I go to NCIS at 9am on NAS Oceana I'm in the squadron space so I go to NAS Oceana this was May 2018 and I had one of the squadron guys drive me over there I walk in the you know I had my phone and everything on me walk in there, sit down,

agents are in there, is like, you know what you're here for? I'm like, no, I'm not saying anything either. So like, okay, so literally got up and walked out. Then I get told that I am being accused of sexting, and I am being accused of salacious photos. And I have no idea what the fuck is going on. So they told me this after I leave.

So finally, after I leave, they're like, well, we have nowhere to go on. So they put me over, hey, I get to, a random text at like 3 p.m. He's like, can you show up tomorrow and talk to this chief and this is your new station now? And so they put me over NAS Oceania, which is a jet base, which owns damn neck. They own Steel Team 6. They own the annex.

Yeah, Silteam 6 is kind of like what renting it. Like it's... I don't know how the land agreement works. But technically it's... All I know is the CEO of Oceana is over the CEO. of Dev grew. He owns that, dude, because... Probably, I'm sure that property, at least, it falls under their purview.

If, yeah, well, no, it falls under... So if I'm attached to the N.AS Oceana, I am now their properties, and that gets into where that... You'll see what I'm talking about when I get into that. So I go over to NAS Oceania now. I'm now Navy Steel over at NAS Oceania. And I just made chief...

I just did my LPL, found out I was making chief, did the whole thing, so I'll go over there, and as soon as I check out, man, my next paycheck, all my special pays were gone. All my sale pays were gone. As soon as I left that compound, they took away everything, which is illegal. So it took away all my special pays. Dive, jump, demo, AIP, you name it, they took it away.

Chief rank, took it away. Gone. They gave my chief to a guy, gave my chief to a guy who just got a DUI, D-W-I, the same time I was going with. through this. And so that's the thing about the leadership is, man, is that it's who you know and politics and stuff like that. So you got a guy who's, I just got accused of something that kicked me out, all this stuff, and I'm now over at NASO Sheena awaiting what's going to happen next. But then you got a guy who, during the same time I was doing, goes out and gets a DUI,

blows double a legal limit, speeds through a residential neighborhood, gets pulled over, it gets thrown in jail, goes to court, it misses several training trips because of it, and then has to get put a, those things on your steering wheel. Oh, like the mobile breath laser? Yeah, you got to blow into it. Yeah. Did that.

Went to prison, couldn't drive on the base for a year. He goes to captain's mask with the, he's like, that's fine, man. Nothing's wrong. Nothing's going to happen. They kept in the squadron,

promoted him. He's still there. Nothing ever came of it. They let him drive on base, too, to the birdnet gate. And we tried, I was like, how is that not UCI? But,

or fair, but then again, it's like, what can you really do about it except for bringing it up and bitch about it, like I am because it's not going to change because there's so it's like this like DC man it's the swamp it's just the leadership there is absent but uh so I go to anyosciana man and all my pay is taken

away I'm now first class again and I'm just sitting here at any association at first lieutenant in this shop out the middle of nowhere man and I didn't get real merely first taste of being back in the fleet because I didn't know what was expected man because the next day like well hey we're putting up these tents for the O Club. And so I'm like, what's the O'C? Okay, the Officers Club. So basically, when I was at N.S. O'Sciana, they put me in First Lieutenant, which was a trash detail unit.

I drove around every morning, every lunchtime, and far left, around the entire base, and picked up trash. I cut down trees. I dug ditches. I cleaned the wardrooms. I cleaned the O Club. You name it, I did it. And I wore a little vest doing it.

The first day that was there, the first. day that I actually worked, man. We were putting up stuff in front of the chapel, like tents and stuff. And, of course, I have the least military bearing at Scruff. And this warrant officer comes over, man. Warned officer, and he's like, shitmate. This angry black dude, man, just screams. Shipmate, shitmate.

He goes the fuck is saying shit, man. I was like, sucks to be this people. A nerd getting yelled at. And I was saying, he's like, you there, shitmate. I turn around. And he's looking at me. He's like, come here, young man. He's like, what is wrong with this?

picture right here. I'm like, I don't know, man. I don't know, sir. He's like, where'd you get that belt at? You're not Navy regs. Your hair cut is trash. You need to shave. Your boots are unbloused. You know, basically I came like, I just came from the compound over to a blue jacket manual base. And he was like, yeah, you're fucked up. And so he gave me the whole book. But then the next day, he goes, hey, come here, man. He's like, where did you get one? Hey, give me one of those belts, man. I don't know you were a Navy SEAL, man. Can I get one of those belts?

I don't think he's taking... Is it just like a Riggers belt? Are you talking about? No, it's this awesome brown belt that gave us. You can't find. So I gave him a belt, man. After that, they looked out for me there, man. I do give them that.

I was treated with more... The fact that it was a seal or not, man, is like... I was true. The master chief that was there and the seal was there did look out for me and they did help me out. But the thing is that the command fucked me about... I was picking up dead animals, man. I was shoveling dog shit, like, with my trident on and everything,

which is, it's degrading, but then again, it's, like, the regular Navy does it all the time, and that's why I didn't take a, I took offense to it at first, but then again, it's, like, these people were doing the same thing I'm doing, because they had people that were getting accused, and that's where they put him at. So if you've got accused of Norfolk or something or whatever, you're going through the whole jihadistocet or whatever,

they throw you over at First Lieutenant to do various tasks. Like, and I'll show you some videos, stuff for me taking out trash and it's pretty humiliating man and so from may until october november of 2018 i was there man no contact from the command no nothing nothing from the lawyers nothing from nc i s nothing i literally just went there picked up trash dug ditches painted buildings painted sidewalks blew down you name it i did it man and always shoveling the drains they were big about the drains getting clogged them out there's shoveling leaves and dirt and shit out of the drain all day.

And I miss some good friends over there, man. I met some good guys who, that you see what they do to them, man. What they do to young kids, young sailors, men, women, and female in the UCMJ is just, it's wrong, man. Like, if you get accused of something, you're done. Like, they will put you through the ringer and you're done. And when I was in the brig with some of these guys that are like 20, 21 years old, they had no option, but because they don't have the money.

to get out civilian lawyer. You get stuck with a JAG who all he cares about is promoting. And the first thing they do is like take a plea deal. Like, this looks bad, man. Just take this year and this bad conduct discharge and it'll be over with in six months. And you got some guys who don't know anything about it like, okay. And they're totally innocent of it. Someone are more guilty, but then again, it's like they have no other option.

And that's why I'm a big proponent of getting, you can't get a real, of the UCMJ and people like will change it but you can't really change it's going to take a big force to change the UCMJ because so many people believe into it because not many people know about it but you should take away all jags man I think you should take away all defense jags should be gone because you do not promote as a defense jag you remote by prosecuting cases that's where you make your money as you do a jag 18 months and you prosecute for however long you want to but they should get rig of the jags they should get rid of the jags they should get rid of the judges and they should get rid of the jury.

It should be a civilian jury. It should be a civilian judge. And they should give you per diem to get a civilian lawyer. Because if you go with just a JAG, you will go to prison. Facts. What would you put in place of the UCMJ? I wouldn't put nothing in place to UCMJ, but I would mimic it and I would mirror it to the civilian world.

You have a civilian judge who's unbiased who knows nothing about the military system, whatever. You have a civilian lawyer who can defend you. Prosecutors can say the same. But the judge, the judge. the judge was a former prosecutor probably prosecuted the same case been up because of the same lawyers it's all well one thing i would change is separate the prosecutors and jaggs because they're all in one building prosecutors on the first deck defense on the bottom defense cannot go into the prosecutor's

second deck but the prosecutors have free rein to go all over the fences office me and my lawyers were sitting in the fence jags office and my prosecutor came walking up and on down in there talking about plea deals from other places, places, classes with my JAG. Like, it's, it's just, I don't even know how to explain it in the right way, man. It's just, it just needs to be revamped.

I wouldn't, you can't take out the UCMJ, but I would take out the JAGs, and I would take out the judges, and I would take out the jury, make it civilian. Have to keep it as fair and unbiased as possible. Because you're not, it's not fair, man. It's not.

Anybody who's gone through it is not fair. Eddie can tell you that. Keith can tell you that. Other guys can tell you that. Their stories? Like, I have no right to tell their stories for them or mention it. But then you've talked to them. It's like the UCMJ is fucked, man.

It's just, it's, you got to take out that. But will it ever happen? Probably not. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's safe to say anything is 100% fucked or good. You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree with that. It's tough.

Believe me, I understand where you're coming from with your experience. I'm not sure burning the bridges. and burning the boats is the solution to it. However, I don't have another solution to offer either. I touched the UCMJ very infrequently throughout my time in the military. I think I had one interaction with NCIS, Jags, the same thing, like ROE briefs or any time. There would be a question about something that happened on Target. But other than that, I mean, I certainly didn't have the level of exposure that you did.

So, I mean, it's tough for me to make any recommendations. I'm not saying like burn bridges and stuff, man, but there definitely needs to be a change. And it's going to take a bunch of people, powerful people to do it. And right now it's just not on, it's not a priority in, I guess, America or even the military right now because you worry about it. You see what's going on right now. It's definitely not a priority. To make that a priority, something significant is going to happen. And it's going to take, it's going to take like a bunch of us talking about.

Like I know I've talked to a couple of guys about it's like, why don't you get all of us on one podcast and talk about how we all. could come together as, you know, leaders or whatever to do this. But then again, how are you going to implement that to change it, which, how are you going to change it, man? From what I've saw, what I've experienced, it's going to take some serious firepower, man. And even then, it's going to be under scrutiny and microscope. So where did they get these pictures from that they were accusing you of either being on the receiving end of or sending?

There are no pictures. There was never one picture. Never one. I thought you said that they were in the paperwork that you were looking at at your DRB. There was a bunch of pictures. Of screenshots of like text messages and stuff. Nothing naked, nothing blurred. It was like, it was like screenshots of like, you know, how you do your phone, it's got the text thread.

Yes. It'll be like that. Or it'd be like pictures of training trips, like, but they're blurred out. But there's no naked pictures. It was just, yeah. And I'll show you. There's, it was, you know, we couldn't even see it was just a blurred picture of like a screenshot of something. And they got them by doing a poll off of your phone or where did they get the?

So they didn't get. anything, man. So when they, when October of 2018 came around, they were like, and called me like, hey, Bob, like, what's going on? Making sure everything's all right, man. Like, we came back and nothing was found.

Everything's good to go. And I have that conversation recorded too. I'm like, okay, everything's good to go. And then I don't hear anything. I don't hear anything. And then about 2019, I think February is when I first got charged. Like, hey, you're being charged with X, Y, Z. and that's from NCIS

that came from the command so NCIS actually did their job on this and I hate to give them credit but they actually did their job on my case just nobody listened nobody cared because when the agent got up there and said that we didn't

have a warrant because we couldn't get a warrant because we didn't have probable cause that he did anything we never saw one naked picture these girls never they have I have their testimony We never seen any naked pictures There was not one, did you send any naked pictures from Aaron Howard?

No, did you send any? No, did you receive any? No. The NCS agent said the same thing. I never once saw any naked pictures. There was no naked pictures. They found me guilty of playing baseball, man. Like the actual sport, or is that a fucking code word for them?

I don't know. It's a safe word. Jesus. Baseball. Curveball. But no, yeah, no, they found me guilty of playing baseball, man. So when they charge me, and I'm going to pull this up right here, man.

I'll tell you about what they charged me with. So this is one of the motions that I wrote up, or that my lawyers wrote up, Michael Wynton and stuff. And so they charged me with, you know, SOC, Aaron Howard is charged with the following nine specifications of Article 134. So they're nine, so if you look at it, they'll charge you with something,

but they'll just reword it. It's the same thing and just bam, bam, bam. So they charged me of requesting and receiving nude photographs under false pretenses, encouraging the sending of photographs under false pretenses, requesting nude photographs under false pretenses, impersoning another person, indecent conduct, three specifications. So right there is indecent conduct they charge me, but I'm also charged with indecent conduct times three,

so three subcategories. So add three more charges onto these eight charges, which carry their own sentence, too. That's how they do it. They shotgun you. And it's like impersonating an official and, you know, three counts. But. So these charges came from NCIS. These charges came from not NCS.

Well, yes, NCS, but they also came from the prosecutor. The prosecutor, see, that's where I'm confused at. The NCIS didn't charge with this. NCS can't charge. It's the prosecutor and the government charging you. So NCS... Probably gathers the information? Yeah, but NCS never gathering information.

NCS didn't interview one of these girls until two weeks before my trial. And so they... Which is obviously after they sent. So NCS did their job as far as me and saying, we don't have anything, but it was the command. It was... It was...

Because initially, NCS is like, this is not in our realm. We don't investigate stuff like this. There's no crime here. There's no crime for sending, receiving naked pictures, especially when they did it in consent if there were naked pictures was there one. So when they charged me with this, so this is just one of the charge sheets.

I've had four different charge sheets, and each one of them had, they one line it and write a new charge. One line it, right a new charge. So it literally looked like my four-year-olds did my charge sheet. It was absolutely disgusting. It was unprofessional. And so when they charged me with this, it's like, what am I facing here? And then coming to find out is each charge?

charge was five years. And what people don't know is I was facing life in prison, man. So they had eight charges, but then if you look at the three specifications, each one I was 11 charges, but then they took those off. And so I was actually only charged with nine charges. Still 45 years. 45 years, which would put me at what am I 30? Be 37 something years. Like, I'm not good at math. Man, what am I 36 now? What's that plus 45, 80? It's like 114. Yeah. It's 37 years. Let's not rely on the dude to go to 32 in the ASVAP to do the F. I still became a Navy SEAL. So if I can do it, you can do it.

Maybe in your 80s, 70s or 80s. You just won't be smart. But 45 years, man, that's what they wanted. It was 45 years for this. That's life in prison for me. Like I'd get out at 70 something. What would I do it's 70 years old? You know?

Because she asked for 45 years and a dishonorable discharge for what? The prosecutor did? Yeah. So the way they're, charged this is like cap so these girls so the nutritionist nothing of her her old testimony was we impeached all three of them and their testimony got thrown out but the judge still used them so how is that possible because it's corrupt and rigged that's how is it possible how is it not that's the question is it's it's it literally was like a scripted play man when you walked in there everything was already set

signed they already knew what they wanted to do when they want to do it so for what they charged me at, and what these girls accused me of is they, the girls didn't accuse me of this. The command accused me of this. These girls went to command and said, hey, this happened. And they accused me of it because they also accused a bunch of other people, but they leaned heavy on me too because I got a lawyer. I stood my ground. I said, this is, you know, stupid. And these girls are stupid. And I didn't do this. And I was fighting back. So I made an easy target for them to be like, let's just railroad him. Well, who are these girls? Obviously the nutritionist.

Two of them I have no idea. I've never even met to these girls. And I've never even met to these girls. One of them was on the West Coast and one of them worked for the command as a S. As a cyber intel person. She was the girl who made your f***, who made your stuff, who, you know, snooped on your Instagram. We even found out that she had three different cell phones that she was texting these other two girls. And she gave the NCS agent fake phone numbers.

Well, wouldn't they have to show it? a record of you at somehow being in communication with these girls? Yep. And there was nothing on there. We gave them all that. They didn't care. They have my phone records. So when NCIS...

Wouldn't that be the end of it, though? If you can show that there is no communication that you've ever had with these people that... Exactly, which was what we did. We proved, but they got me with Article 134, prejudice to good order and discipline. Back to the MOP. No. Back to me, bring it because I brought them to court martial. I went against the grain, and they railroaded me for that.

I said, I want a court martial. Go fuck yourself. Let's rock and roll. And they said, all right, floodgates open. They throw millions of dollars into it. And I'm one person trying to just defend myself. And that's what they do is they will grind you down and beat you down and throw charge after charge after charge to make it until you break. That's what they do.

And they will keep coming out. They still are coming after me. This morning, I got a call from damn NSWDG quarterdeck. Hey, you can't say this on there. How the fuck did they even know you were coming out here? here. Dude, you just tell one person or, you know what I mean? Well, that's on you, fucker.

That was Opsack leak on your side. My Instagram, my Instagram is monitored. My Facebook, when that Sarah Carter article came out about me on Fox News. I didn't see it. I sent you everything to prep. You didn't send me anything, by the way. Ladies and gentlemen, that's what a leader does is you send them much as they asked for paperwork, and then when you send it to them, they just were like, no, whatever.

I will look through my emails right now. You never sent me an email. Do you look in your spam and junkbox? Yeah. Dude, let's do a search right now. I'll pull my fucking laptop out. Do you think I was catfishing you? Dude, I didn't...

I didn't know what the fuck it means. I didn't send you anything, man. I was going to say, I didn't see shit. Because they lost my backs. But anyway, the command was accusing me, not these girls, because I didn't know these girls. So here's how... How did the command know the girls? Because one of my ex-O was banging one of these girls.

The nutritionist has been around for a while. the third girl, I have no idea, man. Like, I've never seen this girl ever in my life. Two of them, like, I have no idea. Here's how they, the girl, so two, here's how one of the girls, it was one of the girls who was the main antagonist because she thought she was in love with the seal from Seal Team 6. and so this is how this is how they went and approached the command

these girls is so right now you and me are talking right and so tonight I get back to my hotel room over there Whitefish after I get McDonald's which is the only thing to eat in Montana it's not actually true but I give you some other recommendations where I'm at subway

and I get back to the hotel room and then you get an hour later you get a phone you get a text message saying hey Andy it's Aaron It's my new number. You know, and you're like, okay, cool. But you never text me on my number that you had before to say, did you get a number, man? And so, anyway, you just roll with it.

But I'm like, Andy, man. Like, I really liked how you looked in that clear hot podcast t-shirt and beanie and stuff, man. Who didn't? Who didn't like how I looked? And I remember how you were talking about CrossFit from second phase, you know. Can you see me a picture of your dick? And you're like, is that how that shit works? I don't know.

but apparently it does apparently you go to prison for it but anyway it's uh and then you're like okay it's kind of weird whatever and you know and then it takes me a second to find anyway but i look i get it you get it whatever you're like okay nothing to do it so you text me in the morning hey man let's go to breakfast so we go to breakfast and you're like hey aaron fucking you see that dick pick i sent you man i'm like Andy dick pick you sent me a dick pick i didn't get no dick pick I pick up my phone. No nothing. Wait, man.

You didn't text me from your new number saying that, you know, you don't see my dick? I'm like, no. You obviously embarrassed by, holy shit. I send my dick is out in the world for people to see. FBI is Andy Stump, man. I send my dick out to a random number. I need to investigate. That's it.

That's what I went to prison for, for something I didn't do. Because you sent out a grown man. your genitalia to a random number that you have no idea who it is, and it's out there for people to see. And so you initiate an investigation to NCIS or the command, and they want to know where Andy Stump's penis is at and who asks for it. That's a very weird story. That's my case.

Now, I do it with a chick. Some chick got one of these girls got a text message saying, hey, it's the command nutritionist. Oh, hi, command nutritionist. Oh, my God, I haven't talked to you in like 20, when we're reading it. So somebody basically was, what you're saying is that you believe that somebody was pretending to be you. No, somebody was pretending to be the command nutritionist to text this girl on the West Coast. Hey, and this whole thing was about body scanning and all this stuff.

It is very weird, man. Long story short is that somebody was. pretending or nobody was pretending or something was going on man that hey i'm the command nutritionist hey girl i haven't talked to you in you know two years oh my gosh this is my new number ha ha let me see a picture of your butt you know uh ha ha hey did you really ask for a picture of my butt no oh my god let me go talk to nc i s and that's how that's literally how it goes somebody pretended to be this nutritionist, asked this girl to see her butt. She said, and mind you, these girls in their late 30s, early 40s, said, okay, San Diego

to Virginia, the picture gets sent. But how are you inserted in the middle of that? Because when that girl went up and started asking questions, like saying, hey, my butt is out there, whatever picture is out there for the world to see because somebody's pretending to be a nutritionist, they went and started going to each of the squadrons and stuff and asking and interviewing people if they knew about it because apparently this has been going on for a while

because I heard a story about the Gold Squadron Match Chief who was doing this and he got busted back in like 2011 Yeah, but how do you, I mean, can't the phone number be traced to the device? Yeah, yeah. So they

tried to say that it was my router that they got, boom. Like your internet router? Internet router to my house. That was the biggest thing is that they said that they had my router because I was using a texting app and the texting app

captures your IP address from whatever device you're using and they keep control of it. So when you subpoena, you know, the phone and stuff, like, oh my gosh, like, okay, well, we know his IP 1.4.2,3, whatever, is linked to this, to this and that and it shows it goes back to his phone.

And so that's when you have to subpoena the internet company like Cox. Get his internet records. Get my phone. phone records, get my, like, first thing in investigation, first thing you should do is get their electronics. So they weren't getting this stuff. So literally, my lawyer was like, take your stuff to NCIS and give it to them.

So I loaded my stuff, NCIS, here you go. They never looked into it because they couldn't get a warrant because they didn't have probable cause because they never saw one picture from the girls and these girls weren't cooperating with them at all. They would never turn their cell phones over, nothing. It was the command. It wasn't these girls. It was the command pursuing these charges.

I was, the leadership pushing the charges on me, man, because I defied them. I was the only one in history ever to defy a CEO at Steel Team 6. I was the only one ever to defy an MPO. I told them I'm staying back from deployment. I got sale of a year because I was stepping over. If you get stay of the year, you're automatically supposed to be promoted to the next rank. So I was made chief.

So according to the OpNAV, if you make that, I made chief. chief, I was supposed to be promoted to senior chief because I made sailor a year for the squadron. They put me in Sailor the Year for the Command. So if I put in for the command, automatically it promotes the next, according to the Navy Opnav. But they said that they found the texting app that was being used to text this girl pretending to be the nutritionist.

They said linked back to my home router in Virginia Beach. How could they know that without doing the electronic pole? Because they do the cell phone pings and stuff. They do the tower pings and all that stuff. And they pull the records from, so they're saying, hey, this app, this texting app is being used. So they subpoena the texting app company. They give them the records of the number that's being used. They do the search number.

It comes back. Boom. They do it triangulated, all that crap. Cell phone towers, it comes in. Hey, this right here, and they narrowed it down. They said it was my address, my IP address, my router. I said, no, it wasn't bullshit. So they got my router.

Wasn't my router. I've had that same router. The prosecutor and the government, when we were in trial, my lawyer, Michael Wineson asked for the full subpoena from Cox internet. And the prosecutor would only give the first three pages. There was 10 pages. The last four pages had the actual warrant and subpoena on there that showed that that wasn't even my IP address.

that the prosecutor copied and pasted, they made up their own IP address. They still have my router there. And see, they have my router. They have everything in mind, man. And we came back and it wasn't my router at all. Yeah. And so it was like, well,

we need a Cox expert to come here, the Cox internet person to come here to testify to give their whole thing. I need a cyber expert to explain it. the government didn't have a cyber expert to come and explain all this stuff that I'm trying to explain to you that I have limited knowledge of

I just know they triangulate and the expert didn't come the Cox lady didn't come because she was like it is not up to us to figure out y'all's cases we have it it's not mine like it's not his but it's up to you to investigate that she didn't come and testify

so it was all there was just crumbling man and we're like we got this one even when the prosecutor said that not the prosecutor, but NCIS said that it wasn't me that they couldn't get probable cause of the warrant. We thought that we had, you know, signed something delivered, but

it just kept going on from there. So, when I finally got charged, I didn't know what was going on because they were, I was getting yanked back and forth, man, and I didn't know what was going on. It was just basically a bunch of back and forth what's going on.

And, you know, my home life was, you know, not so well as far as a career and stuff was not so well. And so finally, my first motion hearing came in, and it was the end of December, 2019.

It was August 2019. It was my first motion hearing or accused them of unlawful command influence. And so basically, when I got accused this to kill the command a B.

sent out an email saying, because I was asking people, too, to help me out, man. And I was asking people for the, testimony and I was trying to say all this stuff when I got charged. Well, we have all the emails right here that he sent out to the command saying that if you help out Howard, you won't be at the command.

So either choose me or not choose me, choose the command or choose Howard. And obviously all my teammates chose Howard or not chose Howard, chose the command. Because nobody helped me out, man. Nobody would testify for me or anything. We had a subpoena every single one of my teammates to come testify because they wouldn't. And so during that time frame, let one of these girls that were accusing give a PowerPoint presentation, man, an 84-page PowerPoint presentation to the entire command about why she thinks I'm guilty, what's going on with the case, and what she would do.

This was one of the girls that was having a command, was having an affair with my ex-o, and she was the lead sobber sb-sked girl at the command. And apparently she's a victim. So why would you have a victim give an all-hand speech about what her thoughts are on a case that's ongoing right now,

which is illegal? And he did that. He did that. And she did that. Let her do that to the entire command. Even after the email, he held a all-hands meeting with, you know,

tack Devere on two Blue Squadron and said, you know, don't help out Aho, that was my nickname, don't help out Aaron, don't do nothing, like choose the command. X, Y, Z, he sucks, he's piece of shit, he's going down. And we have all that shit right here. And so that went down, and then we had our first motion hearing

is when I found out that I got awarded, you know, award Bronze Star and stuff for the deployment beforehand, found that in the trash can. They threw that in the trash can, they took away all that stuff. So it's like the fact is that award ceremonies or award ceremonies. Like, I don't, whatever. Yeah. But don't disrespect me about throwing away in the trash can.

You know, that's kind of like, it's fucked up. But so they did that. They did all that stuff. So then I had my first motion hearing where I laid it all out where they took my money away at the beginning because I was not getting paid shit. Took my rank away. Through my Bronze Star away. They were sending out emails saying don't, you know, help out, you know, Aaron Howard. They had all hands.

So we had it all laid out. We're like, we're good. This is definitely 100% by the book A Lawful Command influence, which is if that happens in a trial, it's supposed to be case, you know, signs to deliver, but in that case, it didn't. The judge did say he found UCI, 100%.

That's when the article came out. Navy Times about, you know, sexting, slatious, and stuff, and all that bullshit. And so they did find it, and so now it's like, it's up to, you know, if we, the judge finds out that we proved our point, it is now. up to the prosecution to defend that. So now it's on, the burden of proof is on them.

And so they literally, they came back with like, yeah, they said they didn't do that. And the judge was like, okay, boom, hit the hammer. That first motion was gone. And there's no jury in this. It's just a judge. It's just a judge. It's literally like this. The military judge.

It's people who I call up subpoena. It's the prosecutor. It's me. You know, there's no jury. Jury doesn't come until you actually have a foreign trial, which was what I thought I was going to get the best bang for my buck is going with the jury, you know. of my peers, which it wasn't. So that got thrown at the window, and then, like, a month or two went by,

and my lawyer, Michael Winesda called me, was like, excuse me, hey, man, we just got stuff that, you know, your jag is being threatened. And this is going to take like five minutes, but I want to read you, this is the motion hearing that we had, that we're the, this is the first time that we had two sitting judges that we brought to the stand to cross-examine. them. And you're not supposed to do that, but we did that. We had to do that because they were influencing my case. The main JAG of the entire JAG Corps of the Eastern Region C-board was

influencing my case, and they were linking my case to Eddie's case, and they were using that against me, and we were putting that in there, too, and our cases had nothing to do with each other. Yeah, it couldn't seem to be farther apart. During my whole trial, half the jury the whole time thought they were dealing with Eddie's case. And my lawyer still was like, are we with his case or is this the Howard case? Because that was going on at the same time with mine. You know, and I'm not, it's not any of my place to even talk about their stuff. But, uh, just swing the mic over as you, uh, there you go. As I'm still not used to this thing, man. But I just want to read you this motion, man, because this is really, explains a lot without me explaining it, man.

So this was the 2nd of October 2019 And It's about a five minute read So if just bear with me You know so I read the charges or whatever So the fences allegedly occurred from July Through September 2017 You know and now since they took away chief

I'm now S-O-1 it's like S-1 Howard's military defense Council mentioned in this motion unless otherwise noted was in my JAG. Civilian defense, here we go. It says on July 23rd, 2019, a civilian employee of Code 67

emailed military defense counsel requesting information to access defense counsel's official Navy email account. So before this, as we found out that they were meddling in my case. So Code 67 is like,

it's the technology, operations, and planning. I still don't know what it is. It's where you go and be like a computer nerd or geek, whatever, on the East Coast. Something like that. So that's where Chaplac went, and people don't know that is that the prosecutor that was prosecuted in Eddie's case, they, when he got found out, when they found out that he was spying on their email and stuff like that, they shit canned him.

Well, he got shit can to the East Coast, and then he tried to get on my defense team to help be part of my defense. And I was like, yeah, man, come right on board, man. Like, I want your representation. I was like, no. But it's just that's So Requesting information to access Defense Counsel's official naval email account

Specifically the civilians stated in his email Can you please send the following information For all users who receive the email On their Navy account So as we were writing the first motion On Because they were writing me shitty evals They wrote me fake e-vows and stuff

And in there I put I was in Africa And they said that I was leaking classified It's the first time I could accuse of leaking classified information. And when I said Africa, Code 67 got involved, the commands crap got involved. And they literally did a full on, they raided my JAGs office, took his Navy computer and everything, man, because they thought I was leaking classified information by saying Africa. And so the defense counsel, my JAG was freaking out, man. So on July 23rd, 2019, civilian defense counsel and military defense counsel concerned over what a data scrub of military defense counsel's

email account would entail and about what client confidentiality in general raised the issue to the military judge in the email to all parties, requesting a rules for court martial RCM 802 conference and stating what's going on. It was brought to my attention that the Navy is attempting to remotely search my JAGS, computer files, and emails looking for potentially classified information. We are unsure of the limitations of these searches. We are concerned that this may impact the Howard case and my JAGs, other cases at various levels. It also raises ethical issues for both of us. So when I did that, they wanted all my

Jack's case files on me, which until they wanted his computers. They wanted all his files of all his clients. And we're like, no, they also wanted my lawyers, my Quentin's computer, his phone, his stuff, everything. He was like, no. Because we, I said Africa. And that's literally what started this reaction. And that's why I filed this motion right here, because by me, Me saying Africa, it led to me being, it led to the firing of my JAG because I said that. And they thought I was leaking classified information. But long story short, is, man, is that Code 67 and the OJag and stuff were mailing my case, Captain.

Is Code 67 a military group? I don't know what they do, man. I've never heard that term before. Neither have I until now. It's a, it's a, it's a, I'm assuming it's to where they go to scrub. all stuff like that and do

Intel it's in the East I think it's up there in Langley somewhere I don't know

where it's at man it's nerd thing so I still don't but long story short is is man is that we got

judges and we got captain who was the head of the Jack Corps on the East Coast who

basically said that because the first motion we filed he said that is it ethical the

follow in motion. It might not always be the right thing, but is it really the ethical thing to do is the follow motion into defense. And they told my JAG to show restraint in my case, you know, don't do this, don't do that. And he held it. And he also said, look at the Gallagher trial. And they just keep on going on that. And they basically influenced my case. It caused me to fire my jag. And I had to bring in a Marine Jack who did a phenomenal job. But he basically, my jag was good at first but when he got pressured

by all the powers it be he looked out for himself and he ran which but he didn't really run though because I fight he took one for the team because if I didn't fire him it'd be a biased thing because he now

was the one who wrote this motion against the command against the jag against the you know cap and stuff for meddling in my case they were saying that

and again it's hard there's so much stuff here, man, I'm trying to town. But they held an all-hands meeting. Kappa Kappa Kuh. Held a all-hands meeting with all the jags after this motion was filed because we accused him of UCI. I'm accused two sitting judges of UCI, which is unlawful.

They didn't like that and they pushed back. They pinched my jag and they said, you know, either represent him or get fired. I fired him in front of the judge and I got a Marine JAG brought on. After all this was down, I mean, they went through all my emails. They went through all his emails. We brought them in. We brought Captain B. And those two other judges to sit down and testify.

We even, the own judge, that I had, we made him testify. And we tried to get him recused from the case because he was best friends with Captain B. Who was meddling in my case? Who is the charge of the entire Jad Corps, man, on the East Coast?

And basically, no. This whole thing. just went to the way where this motion and my first motion was supposed to completely stop my case, man, because it was just ridiculous. So after these motions were said and we tried to recuse the judge from the case, we didn't have a trial date coming up and we were still asking for things from these girls and from the command.

Like you can do a baron request, which is basically, or it's a Brady, it's a Brady request, asking for all the stuff against people who are going to testify against you. So when I brought all my teammates, 15 of them up there to testify to talk about, because there's emails going back and forth about, you know, being pissed about me getting a lawyer, being pissed about me getting a lawyer, and all these guys were talking to me, and we all had the chats from it. And so I wanted them to help me out. So I was like, well, if you're not going to help me out, I'm a subpoena your ass.

And we did. We brought them all up in there, and they all crumbled, and they all cowered. and they were all pointing fingers at each other. And so when they came up and testified, man, like we're supposed to testify for this, and we're supposed to testify for my teammates on this motion hearing before my trial date. So this was the last motion that we filed

before my February trial date, which was February, is the second week of February of 2020. And so this was supposed to be a game. on like this was a science that delivered my cases overturned but it wasn't even after we had all my teammates stuff testify so trial came around and I know I'm not I'm trying not going that's why I want to read all this man because this is a lot of stuff to process without me trying to explain it first when the trial came around we had I went up there and testified and I gave my entire testimony I told them like it is you know this is XYZ what I saw what happened and when they I'm sitting there

after I get done Well, that mic closer to your face. After I get done, testifying, man, I'm like, okay, good to go. You know, I had reporters in there. I thought they were going to report on that, and they didn't report on anything. Like, there was my trial with people that was packed, but it was only on the prosecuting side. Like, the people that always stood by me were the people from first lieutenant,

the trash detail unit. And so when I went up there and testified, man, you know, you've got to be real careful what you say, because anything you say can be flipped and twisted, but it's not hard when you tell the truth. And so after I testified, man, it came around like, hey, you got a court date, you know, you're doing a general court marshal. They didn't give me a special court marshal, but they gave me a general,

which is like felony trials, man, which is for, like, the dudes that choked out that dude and, you know, the Green Beret. That's what general court martial is for, not for spoofing and catfishing and stuff. And so when they charged me, I went to trial and stuff. It was a week-long trial, and, you know, They were supposed to, I asked for an enlisted jury. You know, you're supposed to get like some enlisted people with some officers. That can't be all officers, can't be all that.

So as for enlisted members, so things like two-thirds are supposed to be enlisted. They're supposed to be, you know, officers. Well, they got this new thing now called the bingo system where I didn't get to pick mine. They, you know, they raffle them off from the system. And it prints out the name of all these people who you do voir dire for, which is, you know, voir dire is where you bring the jury members in there. jury selection and stuff. All of them thought it was the Gallagher trial, man, the whole time.

But we finally shut that down. I was like, no, this is what's going on. We finally selected who we wanted to. They ran their names to the bingo system, and then it reshuffles them. And so it's like a pick and choose kind of thing. Well, if you move this jury member on, and this jury member gets put up here, but then the prosecutor gets to take out two of your picks

and put two of their picks in, it just a constant shuffle. So I was supposed to have enlisted people on there, which I think I had two match chiefs on there, and the rest were all officers, man. That ratio seems askew. I got fucked. How many total jurors?

I had 12. I think 12. No, I had either 9 or 12. I don't know it seems like the three different, but I think I had 9 or 12, man. I didn't really look at the jury members because they're like, don't supposed to look at them or anything. So I was literally sitting there like this.

And I got fucked, man, because during that whole time, the prosecutor who I had, man, was, she's not a nice person. So, she was a brat within the state because she, her and the judge, they did,

her and the judge where they went to lunch together, she was talking to the jury members when you're not supposed to. When the jury members went back to deliberate, she was back there talking to them. She gave the jury members

their computer, her computer. The judge's phone was going off during my trial, man. That dude was burping during my trial. He didn't care. Like, a felony. You're putting me in for life, man, and your phone is ringing on the loudspeaker. He's in my trial.

The prosecutor asks every five minutes for a break. She goes in and talks to the jury members. How was she allowed to do that? Because the judge, he was supposed to retire, but he stayed from retirement, post-pointed retirement just to do my case. And they're not supposed to do that, but they got away with it. They did whatever they wanted to. They were sitting there shooting the shit before my case, like,

My jag, when I had the Navy Jag, was over there shooting the shit with the prosecutors. They're just over there shooting. I'm like, dude, what are you doing, man? Like, why are you over shooting shit with the people and put me away for life? That's how they do it. They all know each other. It's a small criminal. They all know each other.

One way or another. Like, all the defense wants to go to prosecution side. All the prosecutors want to be a judge. She wanted to be a judge. He wanted to be a prosecutor. And the judge, I don't know what the judge was just a corrupt asshole, but... Is he retired now? Yeah.

He, like, does something at Walmart or something like prosecuting theft or something. something but he's retired and so when we when I when the trial started and I brought some my teammates over there like and they were right we pressed him on them writing me fake e-vows because they were writing me fake evals like they said I was in charge of ordinance during this whole time because I wasn't getting the eval when I was over at first lieutenant of the they were just making me eval and give it to me I'm supposed to sign it through the command through any association so they were writing me your fake evils. They were putting stuff like

in charge of a million dollars worth of sensitive equipment like optics and all that stuff like the armory and everything. And you know if you something goes missing on there and they go back to see who lost it or who was in charge of it. Well it comes back to me because they put on my email that I'm in charge of ordinance

which is what they tried to do. And I called them out on it. It says like in charge of all these sense of equipment and everything. I was like I didn't do that and sure enough a pair of nods went missing. Who was in charge of the nods and the ordinance? Well it says right here Howard was, and so they came at me for trying to say I lost nods. And that's when I caught them right in those e-vows, because they were putting stuff on there,

like, trained 50 people during this time frame. I was like, no, I didn't. And then they put on their knock down 25 hornet nest to prevent anaphylactic shock and save lives around people from NAS Oceania. Did they have to eventually cop to having written fake e-vails? We caught them on the stand. They all admitted on the stand, and they per-every single one of my teammates in Al Malicia purged themselves.

on the stand, committed perjury, false statements, fall, everything, that's why people say I'm ratting. Everything that they did and all the finger-pointing and snitching and stuff, they did to themselves, man. I have it all in the transcript, and I'm just going to give it to them. I'm not protecting you for a whole you dog, but yeah, they admitted to it, and nothing happened. Nothing happened.

And those are my e-vails that went on my permanent military record, man. Did you sign them? No. How can they go on your record, then? Because they put them in there anyway, man. It doesn't matter. It has to be signed, though. Does it?

I'm pretty sure it does. I don't know. It has to be, but it doesn't matter. I mean, it would be. They could, if the M. What is it, MPO or MOP? MPL. If the MPO is not signed, right?

And it's not valid. How could an e-val go in unsigned and be valid? I mean, it has to have your John Hancock on it. It has to, right? My understanding. I'm not an expert in the fucking evaluation system for clarity, but. Exactly, man. Like, they do whatever they want to, man.

That's how deep it is. Like, they do whatever they want to. Are you sure they put it in your permanent record? Yeah, man. They control out, they put it, and then they control out deleting my permanent record. That's the thing. They put it in there, they took it out. They had control it myself.

So when I got out of the matrix, they controlled out, deleted everything from me. What do you mean by out of the matrix? Like out of the military? Out of the command, out of dev grew. Because you go on a dev room and you're just like all, like I'm at SEL Team 6 it's so badass I'm in the Matrix

like I'm getting all these sweet trips as RMTs these ruts and all this stuff and you know you get your government card you're in the system and then once you're out off the train it's like

bloop control all delete they deleted my files they delete everything from me it's like I never even exist at that command I feel like that shit

has to exist somewhere like a bupers my bag does I can still badge in right now that's like in my badge but uh they ask for everything but my badge

which is weird everything about my thing is weird, man. Well, how did it end? What was the termination of it? Of what? I'm getting care of the commander. So you're at the trial. So I'm at the trial, so I'm at the trial, man. And then long story short is all the stuff they did and everything, man, is that they found

me guilty of Article 134, prejudice to good order and discipline, which is I could wear this beanie in my guacamoles. And I just brought prejudice to good or discipline because I'm not following our rules. You know what I mean? And that is punishable of court martial. It is a general catch-all. You don't need any evidence for Alka-134. Zero.

It's all accusations. Did that come with a discharge? No. So when they found me guilty, they kept me because they were like, hey, I was going through an entire medical screening before that, like, medical retirement and everything, man. And you're not supposed to be kicked out. Regardless of the fact that you're not supposed to accept or kicked out an aviway

going through this medical process. Yeah, the P-E-B, N-E-B process. Yeah, that's, you're supposed to be kicked out. be purely wanted, but that's the only thing you'd be protected of. And I was protected. I thought it was protected. And the jury's like, hey, we found you guilty of Article 134, you know, 30 days in the brig, busted down to E5, but we retain you. So I'm like, okay.

So I'm still in the Navy. So after that, after they said that, it's immediately boomed to the brig, man. Like, after they read the verdict, you stand up, they handcuff you in front of your family, chain me and everything, man. Like, it was embarrassing because I just, got found guilty of something I didn't do. Like, back to the baseball thing. They found me guilty of playing baseball because this,

whoever made this, whatever's going on, this screen name was Swing Fast. And the command was like, oh, that must, that's a baseball terminology. Because Swing Fast must be a baseball. Aaron Howard is known as a baseball player. Well, how am I known as a baseball player? I never played baseball. I played T-ball. I guess you can say I play baseball, play T-ball.

but because there was this guy, and I'm going to rat him out right now. So I did go to high school with him. He's still an active duty Navy seal, and one of these girls knew the East Coast, a guy who I went to high school with. I was a year behind him in high school. And he, I have his testimony.

Right now, right here, signed testimony under law affidavit signed. He's saying that I played baseball in high school. high school. He played baseball with me on the varsity team. He did this. I'll play games. So this whole thing was based around I played baseball too. I know it sounds weird, but and so I brought my yearbooks. I brought my credit card. I had my dad there and everything testified. And I was saying I didn't play baseball. I never swung a bat. And they still found me guilty of it because he testified saying that I'll play baseball with in my school. We flipped through yearbooks, he didn't even play baseball in high school. So right there, his testimony got me

convicted. He lied to me. How did it get you convicted, though? Because they used his testimony against me, and if they found me guilty of Arc 134, they found me guilty of everything, man, basically. Because his testimony. But what does you play in baseball in high school had to do with being found guilty? The screen name? Yeah, because the screen name was swing fast, and they related to a baseball because he was talking to one of these girls, the girl on the West Coast, about something, man, and something came up with baseball. And the screen name was Swingfast. They said that that is a baseball name.

And they said that I'm known as a baseball player. That's literally how it went, man. I know it doesn't seem right. And it's like, this is ridiculous because it is. I don't understand it still. And I got convicted of Article 134. I didn't get convicted of any of the naked stuff because there was no naked picture. The girls went up there.

I didn't send naked pictures. I didn't receive naked pictures. I didn't see a naked picture. Did you see Aaron Howard? Did you know who Aaron Howard was for this? No. What's crazy is every article that was written about it referenced those things, though. I know.

But there was no, I'll show you after off my, and there was nothing, man. Nothing. So you go to the brig. So, yeah, so I stand up and they handcuff me, man. My ankles run up to my hands, chain me up, six people around me. off the go. They were supposed to give me medical screening beforehand, mandatory, but they didn't. They just hauled me off to the brig, man.

They didn't ask any medical conditions, nothing, literally got in, drove me to Naval Consolade Abric, Chesapeake. It was now like, I think like 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. or something like that. Go in there and pull up in the van and get out, unhandcuff me, I'm right there, they drive off. Next time I was like, you're here at the brig, whatever. Get naked. Got butt naked, lifting my shit up, turn around, bent over, cough. Then you're sitting there waiting.

They give you, I didn't have, whatever you go to the brig with, you're supposed to come out of the brig with. So all I had was my uniform. And so they were giving me used clothes. The command was supposed to pack me a C bag, put the regulations of all my stuff, but they never did. So I'm in there wearing somebody else's stuff until I get my own stuff. And they throw me in solitary confinement, man. And that's where I sat for 18 days of my 30-day sentence. And the first seven days, man, was the worst, because.

I was on some heavy, heavy antidepressants, man. Yeah. Like, venifalaxin, like 150 milligrams, that stuff is, you know. And I was on propanol, I was on Adderall, I was on Adderall, I was on Concerta. And knowing, us team guys, big go home, man. Like, I was taking, you know, venifalaxin. I was taking three or four other antidepressants on top of that. I was taking nighttime shit.

I was taking Ambien. So I had a handful of pills in the morning, handful of pills in the evening. I was doing this for a couple of years, man. because all that shit was going on and they threw me in their cold turkey within my medication and I was and I wrote several my parents did and I did

we wrote several IG complaints man about this and coming off if anybody has ever been on ventiflexion or anti-heavy depressive it's hard to come off that man you got to wean yourself off like I was taking heavy doses of that and just to come off of it you start

feeling real weird man like you have bad side effects of all that stuff. And they threw me in there and they wouldn't give me medication, man. So I was throwing up I had diarrhea.

I was like headache. I was crying. I was on the floor and they wouldn't give me food, man. They would literally give me bread and an apple. And I was literally sitting there and they wouldn't turn the lights off.

I had the lights on 24-7 sitting in there in solid air confinement just sitting there, man, just throwing up for seven days. Like, fuck. It's like, it's like I've never done heroin

or I've never been alcoholic, but imagine throwing them in there and just saying, get sober. That's what they did. Dude, I was in there shaking, having tremors.

I was banging on the door. I was like, bro, give me my medication. Can I call my dad? Can I do this? Can I call my family, my lawyers?

And they just looked at me, man, just like, nobody from the command came or nothing. I was literally just sitting there throwing up, had like, I was shaking.

I don't know if it was a seizure or not, man, but I was fucked up. And then I couldn't eat after that. It was bad, man. And so, they kept me in there weren't supposed to keep me in there

they kept me in there for 18 and it was finally the 19th day they let me out in General Pop because the other still in there that just got in choke and the Green Bray was in there with me too

and he left and then I went to General Pop and you know when I went to General Pop it was General Pop man he walked in there he's like you know

hey yo white boy come here you know it's like what's up man it's like what you in here for boo pics what I go over here hey yo man

what you're in here for you know butt picks what and then I finally tell him like what the fuck and I'm trying to explain

it to you right now and it's confusing and like a lot of stuff is because it's still confusing to me and I was finally in a good spot man to where I was

finally happy to some extent because my career ended so fast and jump a dime then when the article came out People start hitting me up again.

I'm like, man, I just got to a good place in my mind where I'm not talking about the stuff. I'm finally kind of smiling again. I'm getting back into chitzu and all this stuff. And then finally I was like, hey, you need to reach out to Annie. That's when I reached out to you. And I was like, I don't know how well I'm going to explain it to him or to people. Because it's so hard, man.

It seems like it's very layered. I think that's the, it's not like each individual thing is difficult, but it seems like there's a lot of layers to the onion. There's more, it's a lot of layers. And it gets deep, man. and for me to try to explain it, it's hard, man. And I am writing a book. And so, like, well, what, so you're, what kind of discharge?

So I didn't get a dish, so the discharge that they gave me was, see, man, even that, even that's so controversial, because when I went to the brig and got out of the brig and stuff like that, the brig, the brig is a brig, man. It's, it's prison. You go in there, you know, all day, every day, just cleaning and doing something and playing dominoes and making fun of other people.

But then again, it's prison. It sucks. But I think there's a guy who stole a pie thing and got put, anyway. There's some stories I can say it's pretty funny. But when I got out, man, it was, again, like when I was in, the command kept coming after me because they wanted to ad set me, administrative separation board, which for that is, man, that's a kangaroo court. Like, the admin set should not have that much power.

They have more power than the court marshal and the court systems do because when I, I didn't hear anything nine months went by after i got out nine months went by finally of 2020 and october of last year is when finally october 30th is when they booty me out so i didn't hear nothing and i go to my ad set board so my ad set board we got notified nine months after i got out of prison so why did they keep me in for nine months to this whole ad set board so finally i didn't hear nothing either i went back to first lieutenant it was nothing but then finally they wanted me back at the command So they try to bring me back to the command to work at the command over at shipping and receiving. I was like, you just accused me of all this stuff.

Y'all found me guilty of Article 134, none of this stuff. But now y'all want me back at the command? So they brought me back to command. I made a big stink about that. I wrote IG complaints. I think I've written 10 IG complaints. And the only IG guy on the West Coast shut them down, or NSWG, and shut them all down within 10 days, man. He's a rat.

He's a snitch. He's just, hey, here's all this stuff I did. command he'll go to command and be like look what he's saying y'all did and the command and be like oh we didn't do that he's like okay your IG complaint is unfound sorry I mean all my IG complaints got got X got X'd yeah because there's just too much so I go to ad set board which is a kangaroo court so they're supposed to pick three people we first we try to get it moved from the command because they wanted that to command they wanted that to command they want to make an example but before that they want to do a trident remote

trident board review board take my triton away So I'm like, okay, I'll play this game. So come to find out is they wanted me to do a public try to review board. The CEO, who was my squadron, or CEO at one time, wanted to do a try to review board for me live. And he was going to sit down a link to everybody globally who had access to this link, giant sipper, whatever. Why? To make an example to humiliate me, I guess. That's the only assumption I can have.

to take my tritin away. And I told him, no, I am not coming to the Triton review board. I'm not obligated to go. And they said that if you don't come, we will press charges. Okay, I didn't go. They took my Triton anyway. They took my Triton when they first accused me because they took my try to pay away.

Yeah. And I was like, well, you can take my triton. So they took my triton away. But I was like, I'm not going to go and sit in the auditorium and have you videotaped me getting my Trident taken away to everybody on the globe. So if you had access to a giant, the janitors, the nutritionist, the strength and conditioning people all have sipper and giant access, they could have watched me get my trident taken away, which is fucked up, man. I've never heard of that. Neither have I.

And they wanted to, and I told them no. And so the next day, sure enough, I came in. So they brought me back to the commander for that. They're like, you have to be here. And I was fighting tooth and now to go back to NSAA. because they were treating me better. I showed up to work and I went home and everybody left me alone. You know what I mean?

The people were supporting me. And I came in the next day, okay, I'll come to shipping. I'll work over here with my trident on. And they walked up to me and said, if you do not take your triton off, and if you wear it again, we will press charges against you. They always said that. We will press charges against you. I left it on. I was like, okay, well, take it off me.

Like, you're not going to take my triton off. In reality, I can just go to the next. and buy another trident, you know what I mean, but it's the principle of the matter. And so we finally got the Adn-Sept board. You know, my lawyer's like, bro, just take that off. Just play the game. And so the AdSet board, it's supposed to be people who know nothing about the case who know no involvement of whatsoever.

So they picked these three guys. And I am going to call their... Commander... I forgot this other SWIC guy where the three judges at my panel for this administrative separation board to decide to either retain me in the Navy or kick me out of the Navy after the jury,

justice, UCMJ, you know, found me to stay in the Navy. They're like, yeah, I found you guilty of Article 134, but you're staying in the Navy. But the command's like negative because ad set board trumps

justice, which is fucked up because they use that to kick people out. So, and they were going to use a Y, uh, uh, uh, LNC, a legalman, chief lady, who was part of the whole prosecutor thing to prosecute me at the

ad set board. And she has no legal experience. But they were going to use her. And she was doing this the whole time. And my lawyer's like, no, kick her off. She has no business doing this. Kick those other three off. And we want to move this to Pensacola or to some other place that has no.

The ad set board. So people can't influence the case. They said, no. so we go and we go to the building over there where it's over the other side of base and we walk up in there man and it's this prosecutor who works at the command

I think his name was hasn't prosecuted or done any legal work in like eight years he's got the command because he's like oh I represent Steel Team 6 and that's they put it on the e-vow it's all about e-vowls how well you look on your e-vows that's how you get rank and so

he was doing the one prosecuting the case, not the original prosecutor, but him. It took those three clowns 30 minutes to what took a four-year investigation to find nothing. They found me guilty in 30 minutes. They didn't want to hear

our argument. They didn't want to say we already find a guilty and they recommended other than honorable discharge and they kicked me out. And after we did voir dire on them, have you ever, you're not supposed, have you ever been to a DR, have you ever been to an ad set board as a you know, panel member. Yes, for what?

Well, one of the guys at Gold Squadron tested positive for steroids and cocaine. What was your outcome? We kept them. Okay, go to . What was yours? We had a guy test positive for marijuana. So what was your outcome? We kept them.

Same thing with the other one. So right there is there's bias in there. It's like, okay, well, you kept these guys, but why are you kicking me out? And so we asked for the entire record, like the trial transcripts from the ad set board and the command told us that they can't do that because they have no way of transferring over the stuff to a nipper computer to send to us in an email. And so I was like,

that's a lie because I've had you assholes burn call of duty on Giant so I can play it overseas on the computer when I'm supposed to be looking at targets or something else, you know what I mean? It's like don't tell me that you can't transfer everything you just did onto a disc to us. We're supposed to have that.

And we've never got that, man. We still haven't got that transcript because we're going to use it. But I record everything and my lawyers record everything. And what they didn't see is I had a GoPro recording the whole thing. So it's like... So where do you go from here? So what I go from here is like, well, before that, man, when they kicked me out, again, I waited a couple of days. But they never told me that I was getting like I was out of the neighbor.

You were supposed to get a 10-day notice, right, to get you prepared for your life, your transition, coming up from the admiral down. So they brought me in on a Friday. This was like a month later after my ad set board. Brought me on a Friday at like 2 p.m. to go over my DD-214 and everything. So I go in and the computers weren't working and they're like, well, that's fine, man. We'll get my DD-2.

I got out 10 days, right? Like, no, today's your last day. So I was like, what do you mean today's my last day? Like, today's your last day in the Navy. So literally, October 30th, at 2.15 p. I got there at 2.15. 21? 2020.

Last year. 20. Okay. They're like, here's your deed to 14. Bye. And I drove off there 15 minutes later out of the Navy. They never gave me my final paycheck. They never gave me anything, man.

I literally drove off that base. 17 years gone. Everything gone. No money. No pension. No medical. No nothing, man. Driving home to my kids.

Like, what do you do with that, you know? I don't know. I've never been doing something like that. People like you have to have a plan. You got to do this. What about people who get out? What about people, depression? What about suicide?

Well, try getting your shit canned in 15 minutes after you got told you could stay and then driving off that base. And now you have no way to pay your mortgage, no way to get food, no stable paycheck, no insurance, no nothing. The command wouldn't even let my kids stay on the base, the daycare right there. Influence the daycare. Damn that daycare, not to have my kids on there. I tried to add them on the waiting list for two years man and I was finally time to come around

they said nope we can't have you on here they wouldn't let my kids so I'd have paid $2,100 a month to go to this other school and then now I had to pay for that without a paycheck I had to pay for all the medical stuff my mortgage and it was it was a lot to I didn't really process it until something significant happened man that Christmas something happened and then the following year you know of say not of 2020 March of 2020 something significant happened to me that made me start realizing that

I should be more transparent with certain people too but then again it's like what do you do man like I did what I knew best is after certain things happened after that is I went down that rabbit hole man I did

and I still am not really back from it because people talk about depressed and people like, I've talked to some people like, oh man, depression, like there is a, there's a renowned psychiatrist and a psychologist who, I was listening to one of their, I'm not going to say their name because I don't want to get, I don't want to get sued by them or anything, but, and they could, but I'm making like $5 and maybe a McDonald's gift certificate that I got from Whitefish. But, and they said something about depression, that depression is curable. It is. You just got to find the right way to,

cure it meet the right people do the right things and i called bullshit man because and i shouldn't have done that but i was in a different place but i was persistent i sent emails sent emails like how am i going to get a hold of this person because this is a big person emails phone calls emails you name it finally got a hold of the receptionist and i was like i call bullshit this is who i am whatever whatever i just asked for 10 minutes they gave me that person gave me 10 minutes i told them that Depression is, and I am not by any means, man, an expert. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a psychiatrist, but I am depressed, and I live in depression, and it's not

curable. It is, you have to learn to live with it as a part of you, and you have to have a way to make it sustainable, because everything, this is just me, and everybody has a different way, but everything triggers me. Certain things, I might not be depressed for a year. and then a smell or trigger me, a taste or trigger me. And I have a flashback. It'll make me think of it and I'll get back in that slum.

Maybe for a day, maybe for an hour, but I will always be depressed, but I will live with it. Like, it's just certain things will trigger me. That's just me, though, man. And so where I go from here is since I didn't get a year in jail or a year in prison and I didn't get a, you know, discharged at the court, I don't have the right to an appeal. So I go to an Article 69, which is I have to request an appeal, which my appeal goes right back to the same courthouse that I got prosecuted at.

The same prosecutor, to the same paralegals, the same judge. So we did that. And it came back within like almost a year. your, you know, accusations were unfounded. And the person who looked at it and reviewed my appeal was a lieutenant J.G., fresh out of academy. And of course, he's not going to put his career on the line and say, yep, case overturned. So, okay, well, let's file another appeal. So we just filed another appeal.

And I just got that back recently. Same courthouse, same in Norfolk, everything. we found your arguments, you know, no, false, no. It was literally two sentences. And so now I was like, all right, well, what do I do now? And he was like, my lawyer, Tim Palletorre was like, well, we followed to the Navy and Marine Court of Appeals, get it out of their hands. So that's what I just did a month ago was followed up to the Navy and Marine Court

of Appeals, sent them every single thing that I had, sent all the congressmen, everybody's name, all that stuff, man. And so whatever happens from there, it happens from there. But I know it's out of Norfolk's hand, out of the Navy's hands. It's looked at by, I think, four different judges. I think two of them are civilian. I can't be sure, but it's civilian people, new eyes. It's close to a blank slate as it sounds like you're going to get.

It is. It's going to be the fairest I get out of all the look I get. And so how long that takes? It takes years, man. I think. Fuck, dude. That's a hell of a story. but I mean that's just that's that's that's just in a nutshell man like there's so deep into it and I can go on to it and I don't want to feel like I get in a rabbit hole and talk about stuff that people won't understand man there's just so much what are you doing with yourself in the time between here and back from that court of the pills being a dad man that's one thing that's the best thing that came out of this man is being a dad because not only does it make me a better person it makes me smile man and it keeps kids keep you honest man they do like

like, yeah, it's just like the other day, another day there was a couple months ago, it was just like, you try to be sneaky around a kid, you want to show them, experience some stuff, so I was, you know, watching the movies I like to watch so I had Deadpool up there playing these. My kids are four. Classic children's movie.

My kids are four, man. So they're watching Deadpool, it's just like, heads getting cut off and cussing and everything. I'm just like, yeah, sure enough. A couple days later, I get the look. They say they watch Deadpool with you. I was like, the PG-13 version. I was like, no, they watch you.

I was like, okay, well, I guess we have to watch something else. And then when we watched the other night, we watched aliens, where Sigone and Reaver was fighting the queen. Dude, these kids are going to have fucking nightmares. No, they don't. That's the thing about it, too. They're just like, oh, let's watch aliens. But then the biggest thing is I've been watching Predator, where they fight Arnold. And, bro, when they take that mask off, they're like, let's just watch Predator.

Predator. When his face opens up. I know, it says, like, you're one ugly motherfucker. I'm like, let's kind of mute that real quick. But I'm just being I'm doing the case man I'm being a dad I'm trying to make ends meet

And I'm going to school So I'm going to this Trade School man This universal technical institute And basically Working on cars It's high school shop class man Yeah

Am I gonna be a ranch Turner or cranker No but It's three hours a day And I mean I was digging around in a hot rod engine Learned how to take a transmission Underneath it

I was like This is pretty badass You know Yeah Fuck it's actually a good skill to Well, it is a good skill, too. And the thing about it is like, I learned that my mind is like, it's like it's a puzzle, man. And it's like I'm tinkering stuff and I'm learning something new.

But it's just keep my mind busy. And I'm doing jihitsu, backing jitsu and stuff like that. So it's trying to keep my head getting help, talking to people, man. Yeah. I mean, so it's tough to say anything, right? Because you're, I hope that your case is continuing to be ongoing. And of course you have that appeal in. So until that resolves itself finally, it would be, it would be, it.

it'd be tough for you to talk about it, maybe in a bigger picture. But for somebody listening to this, who has no experience with the military, which they're going to have a hard time following a lot of this stuff, which is fine, what would you say to them? What would you want somebody to take away from this conversation? I don't even know, man. Like, there's nothing you could take away. It's just I want just to open your eyes, just to listen.

if you're a leader, listen. If you want to be a leader, listen. And look at the bigger picture. People get tunnel vision or whatever, toilet paper rolls. I guess look at the bigger picture, man. There's a lot more going on than what people are saying. Just because somebody can't accuse of something, and even though in the military system they get found guilty,

there's always two sides of the story, man. And from dealing with the UCMJ and stuff is, it's 50-50, man. And I know they'll do anything to get. get a conviction no matter what. I guess the biggest takeaway I can say is be a teammate, be a friend, be somebody that don't run. You know, I don't know, man.

It's hard for me to say, you know, I don't know what's a takeaway because I've never been asked that. I guess to say, listen, open up your eyes. Like, there's always two sides of a story, you know. Don't be so quick to judge a book box covered because I know a lot of people are right now, like look at that shit back talking. well why am I a shit bag? Talk to me.

But they won't. Oh, I can't believe you had them on there. Well, why not? Well, because I heard this. You know, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's. And I'm trying to explain it the best I can, man, because there's just so much crap that goes on in here. I think even for people to, like, even for the appeal people look at it,

it's going to be like, what is this? You know, because I did send this to civilian prosecutors, my lawyers that we knew, and they were like, what is this? Is this a joke? Like, this is one, it's not a crime. but they wanted me to be a felon. And so I guess to say, just listen, man.

Yeah, man, I don't know. Yeah, and well, I mean, have you ever, we've been at it for shit, almost three and a half hours. I mean, if you ever had this, it's tough, right? You're probably going. I've never had this because I'm trying to explain to you. We didn't have any prep time for this. I was like, I'm going to come in here, roll with it.

Well, even from somebody, so we did, it was one month under 17 years in the Navy. and what I can tell you is my experience in the SEAL community was way different than yours. Mine was good. It was great, man. It was good. But when I picked by, like, and when this happened, it opened my eyes, man. Because you got to look at, right now, people listen to this active duty.

Look at the person to your left. Look at the person to your right. Look at your teammates. Can you sit there and say that they'll all have my back. They'll have my back. You know, ride or die, the brotherhood. You know, let's get some. All that whole, you know, voice changes.

all that stuff. But will they be there for you when the shit got out? Maybe in combat, maybe when bullets are flying, but if something else comes down, do you think they're going to be there for you 100%? They weren't for me. Guys, I knew for 17 years, some 20 plus years, poof. And I get the same thing.

It was nothing personal. I have children. Don't wrap me out. Well, I have children. It was personal. And I'm not going to rat you out. Everything you said is in my, trial testimony that I am giving to

Jags, lawyers, congressmen, congresswomen, people, podcasters, you name it and your name is going to be in there. You know? Fuck, man. I couldn't do this, man. I couldn't come out here.

I couldn't fight some of legal battles without the help of Eddie and Andrea, without Sean Gallagher, without the Pipeater Foundation, without Drago, without his wife of Rachel, the Navy Seals Fund. they came to my side, man. Like they were there for me.

Like, Drago, when somebody told me that, hey, somebody's looking for you, and I haven't seen Drago since, you know, second phase. Yeah. And somebody was like, Drago's looking for you.

I got that warm sensation of like, I am fucked. Like, why is, like, why, first off, why is Drago looking for me? And you hear stories? I'm hiding my toasters. I'm hiding my books

because you hear stories about toaster kills and stuff. Like, fuck, man. Like, I need to get out of country. But I was like, how? When he takes trips just to go to war. But then I get a phone call. You know, it's, it's Drago.

He's like, Adam, what's you doing? Like, who is this? Drago. I'm like, hey, man, I don't know what happened. What's going on? But I'm sorry, dude. I didn't do it. He stayed next to me in the Bud's barracks, man.

So he would, I thought he was getting me for. He found out it was me, man. Because I literally stayed next to him. That's when he was living in the barracks. I'd wake up every morning I'd kick his door and he'd come out and who kicking my door

and but he also would go and you know go to inspection and stuff and that's when y'all come in there and check our rooms and stuff well drago would come in after we left and he'd come in and brush his teeth and then he splatters over the mirror

and he'd unravel a toilet paper for no reason take a shower like a ox in there but then he'd be the one to clean our bat like to inspect our bath like what you're doing I live with a bunch of pigs he's like you motherfucker I'm like drago

you did there's like no I and they would pick what you're doing. He's like, get out that makes sugar cookie, you know? Listen, you just can't win as a student. That's the lesson to me learned there. I know. But with the Navy SEALs fun, man, and Drago and Piper Peter fund, dude, I couldn't. Yeah.

I couldn't pay from, you know, some bills. I couldn't pay for this trip to come out here, man. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's good, man. So anybody, I can say, I guess, take away is look into their foundations and help, man. Yeah. It's, it's. Yeah, I mean, I don't know what I can do. to help other than, you know, offer the platform for you to speak openly.

But I definitely appreciate you taking the time to come out. I mean. Yeah, thanks for having you, man. It seems like it's a, I guess it's a risky subject, man, because people see it and says as like sexting or nude pictures, but there's no nude pictures, man. There's not one but picture anything, man. You know, fuck.

And that's just, that's the top cover of it, man. I mean, there's some layers and layers and layers that if I, we need to talk, I can talk to you offline. It's hard to explain, man. Well, and some of the stuff I would, I would hold back until you have the official proceedings and allow themselves to play themselves. And that's why, that's why I was like, I was going to see new stuff. I was like, I don't know how to. Yeah, it's fine. So, because I was like, I don't mean, they want to come after you or something.

Like, no, but. God, I hope so. They wouldn't enjoy that. It's like, I know your tactics. They're clear the corner. Yeah. They wouldn't enjoy that. Yeah.

Dude. But they, but, but, but, but, but during that time. The time frame, man, it's too. It was just like, I was getting death threats and rocks to my window and I got the patch. You know, somebody threw rocks to my window and keyed my car, my trash game. I got it all on a ring video, man, but it's like I can't go and accuse these guys. Like, these are guys from Steel Team 6 doing this. I'm like, okay, well, how do you know that?

But my patch was on the wall with a knife in there and all that shit and the rat. And, like, I'm not ratting on your body. If you want me to rat on things, I'll start ratting on people. But it's like, why? What good does that do? You know what I mean? You dig your own grave, man. But like I said, thanks for having me out here.

I wish we could have rolled. I mean, usually you can roll anywhere, man. I guess, but why would you roll anywhere other than mats? Why not, man? Jiu-jitsu is everywhere. Yeah, but it fucking hurts on gravel. I guess unless you play in top. Now, dude, thank you for the time.

Thank you for unpacking all that. And I hope it makes a difference for you, man. I hope it does too, man. I know it's confusing for people listening stuff too, man. It's confusing for me and it's hard because I haven't really talked about it like this in a long time. and I'm trying to give you the best analogy that I can. Yeah. I appreciate it.

I try to make it make sense. Yeah, man. So hopefully I get my bags tonight. I have some stuff to brush my teeth with the morning. Fair enough. On that note, that could be the longest podcast I've ever recorded. Went by fast, though. It did.

Cool. All right, brother. I appreciate it, ma'am. Thanks.