Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - The Raid, The Record, and The Lawsuit | Rob O'Neill | EP 429

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Rob O'Neill is a retired Navy SEAL with more than 400 combat missions, deployments with SEAL Team Two and SEAL Team Six, and participation in some of the most high-profile special operations of the last two decades. He served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and has spent years navigating the complicated transition from service to public life. In this conversation, Rob joins me for an unfiltered, long-form discussion about his career, the brotherhood of the teams, and the personal cost that comes with telling parts of his story publicly. We talk at length about Operation Neptune Spear, the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, and Rob's perspective on how the official debrief differs from his lived experience. Rob explains why he believes portions of the record are incomplete, discusses actions taken by members of the assault force after bin Laden was already dead, and why those details matter to him years later. These are Rob's firsthand accounts and interpretations, shared in full context and without editing for sound bites. We also dig into Rob's ongoing $25 million defamation lawsuit, how it came about, and what it's like to defend your name after a lifetime spent operating in silence. This isn't a hit piece or a hero narrative—it's a three-hour conversation about memory, loyalty, accountability, and what happens when the story doesn't match the mission. Today's Sponsors: Montana Knife Company: https://www.montanaknifecompany.com David: Buy 4 cartons and get the 5th free when you go to https://davidprotein.com/CLEAREDHOT  

Okay, got to red smoke. Oh, west of the smoke. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on one minute, man, dude, we have to start with, I have to correct the record. Anytime anybody has ever asked me whether or not you and I have crossed paths. Yes, we have.

I apologize for not remembering that I took you for your first hand. Yeah, see, because I was talking to Lauren Manley, our mutual friend. Yeah. And she said, yeah, I was talking to Andy, and he said you never. met. I'm like, oh, we met. And, uh, those are a blur. It was my first tandem. So the way that it works, as you know, you go to the tandem course, you need to get jumped as a passenger. Yeah. And the way the course were, and by the way, the squadron went to Norway on post-appointment leave. I thought, I'm going to go get my tandem call, which is not as good of a deal. So, yeah,

so it's such an awesome school. The school's incredible. I love that. But yeah, so to get introduced, you were my, uh, you were the guest instructor, you were my first tandem guy. And I remember thinking because I knew you had a lot of different styles of jumps, a lot of base jumping, a lot of canopy work. Yeah. And so I honestly, I mean, I'm pre-team leader, Seal Team 6, but I'm like, I don't want to do the passenger. But I felt good you were there.

Nobody wants to be in the baby bajor. But no, do shit. I'm going to learn the canopy ship, but just going out, it's like, I think he said, put your thumbs in here. I believe you said, do the Terry Schiavo. As a passenger? Yeah, the Stephen Hawking, depending on the audience.

But then even when we pulled, then you were, I mean, you're explaining it. I know how canopy works, but it's like, this is just not. Not good. And then you hit the center. It's, uh, yeah, those courses were some of the most fun I ever had. Instructing or just going through it? Instructing. AFF or teaching the students like in selection who weren't free fall qualified

at the time when they were coming through, that, that is exciting. You either trust your skill as a jumper or you don't because you got to let go with a student and it can get, it can get Western. Yeah, I was an AFF instructor and the first time I had someone a lot faster than me. Like, you got to catch them. Yeah. And this isn't the wind tunnel. No.

And you're on the ramp. And usually like, hey, in the course, why did you guys talk about having an instructor on each side? And now it's just me out here with my lonesome. And I actually, I finally got to the point where I would have them dive out and I would poise out in front. I would just hold onto their chest strap. So I would let them do their first jump on hell. Oh, really? But you got to.

I would just, because I don't want to get head shook at the, because I used to do that to people. Ready, set. Just kidding. As they go, ha. Oh, shit. Yeah, so I would hook their chest strap with my finger and just pull until I knew they were coming and then poise out. But it takes a while to get to that point where like, listen. Because they're going to Z that exit.

Oh, it's glorious, though. I mean, that's what gopros are for. Yeah. Yeah. I was the first time I did a skydive was in, I went through the Yuma course. We didn't have it in the pipeline. Okay. And I wasn't really paying attention.

I mean, it's paying attention. But the one that was more important than I realized is they said, if I'm flying at you and my tongue is out, it means you're backsliding. Yeah. And my first jump, I thought it was awesome. I'm just like, oh, this is sweet. He's excited at his tongues out. I'm like a thousand miles an hour backwards. The most common mistake in free time.

Yeah, because you don't feel like you want to kick the wind. Yeah. I guess. Yeah. I enjoyed doing the tandem course. I would say the tandem course leveled up my jumping ability probably more than anything. If you can jump a person with equipment, a rucksack of any size becomes absolutely laughable. I think the tandem course is awesome.

And the Deland course was great as far as canopy skills. Yes. Because I think we did so many hayhos. Well, the bin Laden was going to be a hayhole. Everybody knew that. Really? Yeah. I did not know that.

Oh, yeah. It was definitely going to be a hayahu. How were they going to get you into Pakistan? Or were they going to try to get you hunt? Before we knew where he was. Before we knew, we assumed it was going to be a cave jump. Because they didn't tell us shit. A cave jump?

Well, we were, did you jump in Miranda on like the Nixon runway and shit? Oh, yeah. Yeah, because there's going to be on. Like, that's why we were all transitioning to put the gun underneath the attackboard shit because we're going to be shooting under canopy, Jason Bourne style. We were prepping for that. I think I've seen a movie that opens with it. We didn't ever going to happen, but that was like the only way we're going to find Ben Laden.

We didn't know he was in Abbottabad. So we did a lot of jump. We had a dude jump at Painter Poles and the little giant. I remember giving a JNPI to dudes. Dan Corbett, Dirty Dan Corbord, who's fearless team guy, red team guy. He had like 10 months in a Serbian prison, that dude. Yeah. I remember he had the wall locker on him, and I was giving him a JNPI for a night jump.

And I'm like, look, I know that your saddle's on, and I can see your chest straps sort of going through stuff. Yeah. I can't confirm this parachute's going to even come off your back. Yeah. He's going to jump and he did. That's one of the coolest things I think about development groups. Yes. Is the developing of the TTPs.

We, way back in, what was it, 2002, a small group of us started testing the TTPs for high mountain stuff because we were looking at putting in, it wasn't for anything bin Laden rate and we were just looking at trying to figure out ways to get in security forces to try to catch or stop squatters from going off target on things that were really hard to get. So we were looking at putting in just a security force, and we went up there. And we ended up putting guys on tandem systems that weren't tandem qualified, like full on getting wavered from the CEO. Like, this is what we want to do.

We want to set the drogue for non-tandum jumpers. So they have bigger canopies. That makes sense? It made sense. I don't know if the jumper is strapping on a tandem system for the first time without being qualified. You give him a rough go, though. Like, hey, by the way, here's how. Oh, I mean, we talked about some stuff.

Yeah. This is like the same thing, but then you got to do some other shit. Yeah. It's, uh, at that time, I was already a tandem master. So I'm sitting like, how hard can this be? But then you're looking in the eyes of some of your friends. You're like, not everybody. Not everybody's excited about jumping.

No. I was, I loved it. I'm not as good as you are. I didn't do the base jumping. I would have liked to. I got into, we went to, we went to Morana quite a bit. You want to hear a good tandem terminal story? I have one for you when you're done because this one, yeah, go ahead.

I had a jump. big Mike Coletta. That is a large man. He's big. And, and, um, today's episode is brought to you by Montana Knife Company. Yes, right. You know who these people are. They're in Montana.

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They drop blades on Thursdays and Saturdays. Those go pretty quick. But you can always go to the website. The blades they do have, stock are going to be there and don't sleep on their apparel as well. I will say this in about two weeks one of their jackets is going to be coming out. I may or may not have absconded with one in the helicopter. Holy cow, unbelievable. Be on the lookout for that in the future. Montanaknife company dot com. Back to the show. We decided instead of, I think you're going to set drogue at 7 to

to slow down to 5.5. I was big at the time too. I was pushing 230. He's about 270. Yeah. Big. Oh, damn. You're close to Max weight of that system. Yeah. And I said, so, just for people who are listening, you set a drug when you jump tandem to slow down to the other people's terminal velocity, whatever the fuck when they're flannel in their bellies. Yeah. But you got to know because you do throw it and then you look. You're going to know what it feels like to not have a drogue set, but you want to know, you know what it feels like.

So you do tantam termination. You know the shit I'm just explaining. And it's like, that's how you know because your face is smeared because you're reentering orbit. We had Steve Curtis jump with us. I know Steve very well. And he can jump on. He's pretty good on his head.

Yeah. So when we jumped, the way I describe it is it looked like. Clark Griswold when he greased the bottom of his thing and just fire. We were going down fast and I know Steve had a tough time keeping up with us. Vertically. Yes. We're just hauling ass. Like it's going.

And I told Mike earlier, I'm going to set the drogue at 7.5. Sorry, it's where we had, 8.5. Slow down to 5. And I put the thing out. We slowed down. I set or pulled out the canopy.

And it was a complete bottom skin opening. I packed it fucked up. And when we opened, he slipped some discs in his neck. and I shit my pants to the point of it wasn't a shart I filled my socks

and now we're whatever I look up two of the insoles had blown out like they're flapping and I said to Mike hey we gotta I got a bad

I got bad news his parish is broken oh so that's first mistake you never tell the passenger and so he turned around with his broken neck and said

if you cut this away my head's gonna fly off and I said okay we'll just do it and like there's steam following us from what I just did and we came into

the damn night right tet tetrahed you smoked in. I don't think I unhooked anything. And he said, yeah, so that's my last jump of the day. And I said, cool, can I borrow your boxers? Because these are going in the dumpster.

Yeah, bottom scheme openings can be. There's a motherfucker on a ten for you. So while I was in the course as a student, God, I remember the things you remember, I remember the first day when they were checking log books. And I think I had somewhere between, I think, five to 700 jumps when I went to the tandem course. I think 250 or 200 was the minimum.

Yeah, 250. But you're like, you know, you're looking at people's logbooks. You're like, hey, your last 100 are all with the same pen. And I'm not going to make any assumptions here. But I'm thinking we gun decked it. Yeah. And it's like, dude, do five and switch the pen. So my partner, who I ended up in your partnered up by height and size largely,

we go and I went first as the tandem terminal as the team. I get on the front for our tandem terminal. We exit and immediately start tumbling. No drogue out. So as this passenger- Oh, you're the passenger. I'm the passenger. Oh, shit.

Oh, I get it. He's gun decked. Oh, yeah. So as a passenger, I like, I come out of like position one, right? I'm like, okay, cool. Get stable. I'll stabilize this. Go back.

We start tumbling again. I open up again, stable. I go back. He has said his drug yet. No. He never did. I reached back as the student in front. and grab the drogue and set it for the TI,

because we were smoking through the altitude. Yeah, you're going to hit the ground eventually. Or you're going to have a cypress fire at like 200 plus miles and hour. Yeah, okay, that's worse. So we get to the ground. Oh, my God. There's a lot of shit that can go wrong here. All names will stay out of this story.

Oh, God, I got a known name. We, afterwards, I'll tell you. We get to the ground. And I was like, hey, man, just so you know, I set the drogue. And his no bullshit response was, I'm glad somebody did because I sure did. That's actually the best response you could have. So he was aware of it.

I'm glad somebody did. Yeah. And at that point, I'm thinking, what was your plan? Like, is this just, we're going to have ground rush till Cypress fire?

And then that's a bad opening. I don't even know. I don't think you would survive. A reserve opening with two guys going terminal? Yeah, which would be over 200 miles an hour. No, you're going to break something.

You're going to break something. Or the system. I don't know. It would be a combination of both, but it would be horrible. That's bad. And I'm glad someone did because I wasn't going to. Did he freeze up or what happened?

Was it like mental? I didn't talk to him a lot after that. Well, no. I switched partners. Did he get booted at least? No. Hey, let him go do it again. There was one of the few.

And you know the deal too. He's lucky you were his passenger because you had experience with that. I mean, but it's not like the tandem term was her first jump. He'd been stable. He, well, he's a drover. But that's the thing. With the drogue, if you think about it with a tandem, most people will get it out within early tandem masters, you'll see.

They're like barely out of the aircraft and then they're snatching that thing. The more experienced tandem masters, they'll ride through the hill. Oh, you get stable. And it's like, you're pitching at about 10 seconds. But. Well, you should be able to just do anything. It can get stable. Correct.

Should be. Yeah. So, yeah, he was, he was just a little earlier on. That was the only time as a student, I went to the course leader. And I was like, I need to speak with you privately. Yeah. Well, and you know the deal too. As a student, because it's not, I mean, at that point, you're already at a

squad and it's not like you're going through a selection course, but you're also, you don't want to air out your fellow. There's like there's a lot of stuff you can work through together. It'd be like if you were in selection of green team and you'd go to the cadre, I'd be like, hey, you guys didn't see this, but I want to share this. Just let you know for safety's sake. The course director at that time was a good friend of mine and I was just, I just needed to let him know that if he made me continue to jump with this person, I was going to kill him. Well, see, and based on his answer and the fact that he gunsacks and jumps, like, he's a good, He sounds like a good dude.

It's like, just wasn't quite ready for that one. I'm not, I don't know what it was. Okay. They put him back up with an instructor and did another one. Good. As they should.

Yeah. Maybe some wind tunnel time. Yeah, they did not do that. He did his second tandem terminal that day and I think then just progress. But it was, yeah, that course will,

that will level you up in your ability. Beyond, after that course, you don't have a, you don't have a, you don't have a, you, how'd you like the bundles?

I remember my first thought, I was the first guy out on our pass. And I had hooked up to the bundle, you know, the ramp wasn't down yet. And you have just these little straps that you're holding on to. And then the ramp comes down, you know, and the camera guy's backing you out and the bundles over the edge.

And the first thought that I had was, why do I make such poor life choices? Yeah, same thought. Yeah. I had that thought when I first day at boot camp, I first day on the ramp of the bundle. And then as soon as you, you know, you go out over the top and, you know,

you get to wait until it gets vertical and let go. You see people shopping cart on videos and just getting jointed out by their belly. Yeah. Which is wild. they'll tell you up down, left and right that they didn't do that. You'll ask them to debrief. We just do this all the time in the course too. Talk us through your exit.

Oh, it was great. I rode the bundle out. Got vertical. Of course, the instructors are sitting there like, tell us more. And then you hit play. We have the video right here. And then they're in the airplane with a full arm extension three feet from the ramp. You're like, hey, bud, let's work on the cognitive recall here.

But after that, loved it. Yeah. The first one, though, I just didn't think it was a great idea. No, it's questionable. And people have asked. I had a malfunction that almost killed me. I didn't. On a tube?

Yeah, on a hayho. Yeah. Because it was during the transition from the old school cutaway to the low performance canopy to the high performance canopy with the low performance cutaway. Yeah. And I had two insoles on the left side didn't inflate, so it dove. Hmm. Yeah, so like the one side, whatever, maybe the left side started eating and it just started

pulling me in. Do you pack your parachutes with your eyes open? No, here's the thing. I just realized I had too bad openings. And that was, yeah, that was a dive where I burned about $7,500 trying to cut it away because my head was pinned in the line twist. It could have been anything. Could be the exit. I mean, it couldn't fuck shit up.

But then I had the, I said if I ever want to see my daughters again, I have to cut this away. I cut it, it landed in Farm Around's Field. And I landed. I saw one of, well, a troop came up and he's like, what, see, you just look like you saw a ghost. And my first response is, we need to change this or is going to kill somebody. And then Lance died a year later. Yeah. Same fucking malfunction.

But he didn't do a hay-ho. It's a... I mean, it's dangerous, but like... I was going to say, tandem is awesome, but that is not a junior varsity evolution. And that's why they need to send them more experienced people. And I think people, and anybody listening to this,

if you're in the pipeline and you want to do this, just wait till you actually have the appropriate amount of jumps. It will save your life. And for people that follow seals too, and you want a dog at home, I'd recommend a shepherd, not a melon wall. They're awesome on Instagram. But you need to be awake with a melon while at least 22 hours

today. Or you can get a mini-doxin like I have, and they're better than all of them. Love. Approved. Yeah, they are. I mean, his name is javelin, of course, named after the heat-seeking fire and forget missile. And he's the most amazing dog ever. And I can carry him around, much like you camp at the Shepherd in Malamaw, but it takes far less. Yeah. Yeah. Javlin. I would have named him Lamar after the guy who threw a javelin far in Revenge of the Nerves. Yeah, but I'm trying to get another one, an all-black one, and named him Carl Gustav. My wife is slightly resistant. I love the two names too

and I love the meaning behind it because a lot of people won't get that. No. And well, her issue is I don't want to be yelling Carl out in the open and people because these dogs don't listen.

Their recall is amazing. Their adherence to what, he'll literally sit there because we call him Hobby for sure. I'm like, Hobby, come here. He's just look at me. It's like, no,

not coming. His recall is amazing. He just doesn't do anything. He's the most stubborn dog I've ever had, but also the probably the biggest sweetheart I've ever had too. So yeah, for the record,

We actually have met. I apologize. Yeah, no, it's good. I'm going to assume that it was inspirational. I, uh, no, I do. No, I'm joking. I wanted to, no, I'm being serious. I wanted to see the difference.

I was watching where your turns came. What altitudes? Because you did it, I don't know how you do it when you're just doing tanim, but you did it by the book school house and you did like the 1,000, 750, 500. You're supposed to do that to demo to the students. Or 755, something like that. Yeah. You're supposed to do that to show the student.

I mean, you hit the sandpit. Yeah. Which you should as a CL Team 6. operator after you see the accident and I do a shitty pack job I mean I can we can show you some video of people not hitting the I know the peas yeah yeah I worked with a lot of guys who they actually hated jumping they would do it because it was required but they you could tell in their eyes it was not something they were passionate about yeah which is fine that's fine but they're doing it yeah yeah was the other way I loved it ever since oh I love jumping yeah ever since I actually got my civilian

qual first down in San Diego and ever since I got that I had been just in love with it Montana sucks for jumping, by the way. There's no DZs here. You're already up at altitude. Yeah, but there's actually nowhere even to jump. They do the Lost Prairie Buggy for a weekend per year. Other than that, that's it. You got to get to Arizona probably. Yeah, but I mean, I love it, but do I love it that much at this point? How many jumps you get? 80, 500, something along those lines. That's good. So I could take years off and do like a classic skydive. I'm not going to do anything technical, like a wingsuit or base jumping, but yeah, it's... Well, you've done every continent. That was a couple years ago, right? Three years ago in January. Like earlier this month was the three-year

anniversary of it. Were the Anaki running the DZ in Antarctica? No, there was some, it was, we were near the alien base. You know, we didn't have the clearance of fucking people. There's space lasers there. My God, why, why are people falling for this? Because they watch TikTok. And it's fun, though. You got to admit at night, take a sleeping pill, trying to go to sleep, watch a little, go down a rabbit hole, see some cool shit. I mean, your definition of fun is clearly different. than mine. It's fun to see what people believe in. And then just to bait people a little bit. I had to get myself off the sleeping pills on deployments. Like I ended up because they're addictive for one. No, I mean cannabis, like a gummy. So, yeah, probably better than Ambien, I would say.

Oh, Amiens can be a nightmare. Literally. Yeah. I didn't realize until many years until we were using it, that it's a hallucinogen, not a sleeping pill. Oh, yeah, it is too. And I also realize there's a very important reason to take your Ambien after the C-17 refuel. not before. Guys have done that before and they're wandering around Ramstein toothbrushes in their hands, like no pants on. So HB was my first team leader at Gold. Great guy.

And he's probably one of the best examples of enlisted leadership that I've ever had. At nighttime, his routine was Pop 2, read until he would fall asleep, but he would have two more ready to go. That was in a single night. That's a varsity level varsity. I don't know. It didn't affect his performance at all, though. No, that's just, I mean, let's be honest.

They weren't controlling. I mean, it was literally like, how much do you want? So people would start with one, wake up in the middle of the night, take another one. Yeah, I couldn't sleep right after deployments for weeks after that getting off of that stuff. So I finally had to remove myself. If you can get, yeah. Yeah. We would send our interpreters across into Pakistan and they'd come back with big, it was a big box called Zulp.

ZOLP for Zolp, which is the, that's the name for it. Really? Fucking, Pakistani. Zolp is like a nickel of pop. That's good for a winter deployment. I guess. God damn. I'm sure that was definitely made in a FDA-up factory.

Definitely safe. Those Pakistani doctors are known for being very, very safe. I bet. What do you want to start, dude? How do you want to enter in the... There's a lot to unpack. Where do you want to... I'm comfortable with anything.

You tell me. Where do you want to kick it off with? Montana. Montana's amazing. Yeah. How'd you end up here? Let's interview you for a second. My ex-wife was born and raised in Great Falls.

Cool. Her father was at the Air Force Base, which I think was it. Yep, Malmstrom. They moved to California. He was in the financial industry banking at the time. And like most people from Montana that I have met now, there is always this poll. They want to go back. So we never went back and visited Great Falls because my ex has a, what would it be here,

aunt who worked for the Calispell City School District. So this is where we had somebody who knew something about the area. So we came and we started visiting here for a couple years in a row, had the chance to buy an investment property down by Lake Mary Ronan. And that was kind of our entry. And we spent a month there in December. I think it was in 2016. And it was, there's a picnic table outside about this size.

And I would sweep the snow off of it every morning, like six to eight inches of powder. The kids were outside all day long. Oh, snowman for the kids. It was insane. And then we went back after that. to where we were living in San Diego out in Otai, which is out in eastern San Diego. And I could spread my arms out and touch the stucco

between the two houses, you know, and there was like six versions of the same house but paint a different color in the doors on this side. And I remember we just sat down at the dinner table, like, what are we doing? And why? And our oldest son was getting ready to go into eighth grade. And I had the experience of kind of going blind

into a high school and I didn't want that for him. So I basically said, if we're gonna do this, we need to do it now to get into into the social circle so he can have the better on ramp. And we sold the house like three months later. No shit. Yeah. And never looked back.

Great decision. Got up here decided we didn't like each other that much. Huh. So that particular portion didn't work out. I put a little wrinkle in a marriage. Yeah. But I'm never leaving, dude. This place is amazing.

Oh, yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. And Butte's nearby. Butte's different. The way that I described butte best is I brought my wife, Jessica, to Butte many times. And then I brought her to Big Sky. Went to the Yellowstone Club and she was out on the balcony.

Oh, those are almost identical I'm from it. But yeah, it was so funny. She didn't even realize she was saying it. She's out there on the back because, my God, Montana's beautiful. This is nothing like Butte. It's like, well, fair. Yeah, also you should look at the yearly dues for the Yellowstone Club and the average price of homes. So, yeah, I mean, Bute is known for mining, I believe.

Oh, yeah, opening up, open pit mining is super fun site. Now, the Berkeley pit is almost 6,000 feet deep full of toxic water. Yeah, and the Yellowstone Club is known for celebrities. and opulent wealth. Yes. So yes, there's two different. Yeah, they're a little different. It's just funny the way she put it.

But it's not a very pretty town. There's really good food there. They put gravy on everything. Yeah. You think you'll ever get her to Montana or is she not interested? No. No. We're East Coast.

Really? Yeah. I love the Northeast. Okay. Huh. Did you join the military from? Out of But, yeah. Okay, so from Montana?

I was playing college basketball in Montana Tech in Butte, Montana. And it just happened one of those days that a lot of 19-year-olds get, it's like time to leave town. I gotta fucking get out of here. And it was, um, had you traveled much before that? No, no. No, I had seen the ocean. We did do like some Disneyland trips. I think we went to Florida once. But I had two Ben, two bins. Ben was one of them. Jim was the other two guys I grew up with who were Marines. They left Butte Central the same day, went to boot camp together. And they were always going to be Marines. And when I needed to leave town, I was like, well, I've seen full metal jacket. I know two Marines. I've seen him on leave. They look cool.

I'll do that. And so I went to join the Marine Corps. because, I mean, and I tell people that now, like if you're just over it at that age, you can get out of town, three hots and a cop, man. Went to join the Marine Corps, and he wasn't in the office. And the office is still there. He was out to lunch, literally, and Chief John Judy was sitting right there. Because, of course, the offices are right next to each other. They're right there.

And I went in there, though. It is a true story that Ben and Jim, two Marines told me the Marine Corps is actually part of the Department of the Navy. It's just the men's department. Accurate. And I went in there to ask him if they're part, he'll know, where's the Marine? And he said, why do you want the Marine? I said, I want to be a sniper.

He said, look no further. We have sniper. In the Navy, you've got to be a seal first. And he brushed over the seal part. And I figured he's a professional recruiter. Why is he going to lie to me? And I didn't know how to swim. Yeah, that could be problematic.

Yeah. And then they showed us a video. My mom came down with me. And she told me later, like, there's no fucking way you're making this. She didn't tell me that face to face. Yeah. But behind the scenes, it was, there's not a chance. But I still had my Montana Tech ID.

They had a pool. I'd go there every morning at five and try to swim. I didn't, like, when I first got there, I knew how to keep myself alive. But I'm standing. Didn't know any technique. And I'm like, all right, I'll just 25 meters. I'll swim down and back and swim a thousand.

See how it feels. And everything was fine with my plan until I entered the water. And I'm like, this is bad. And then Mike Driscoll came in to work out. And he went to Beutson, but he went on to Notre Dame and he swam there. And he said, what brings you here? And I said, I joined the Navy yesterday.

I'm going to be a seal. And he said, not like that. And he showed me the breaststroke and the side stroke. And I got to work on that. And then I ran into Jim McBride again, who's retired Marine officer. And he was one of the Marines. He just finished air crew.

taught me more. Yeah. And good enough to pass the test to get in boot camp. That was about it. Well, was it a 500-yard? 500-yard swim, I think. 500 yards. Did you go to Great Lakes?

Yeah. Yeah, I think probably is a year. Yeah, I did the test at the same place. But I was amazed at the test because I checked, I got there at that bleachers and the U.S. Navy Seals poster. The one that's kind of cheesy, but also awesome. Yeah. And I'm looking around like, oh, God, I'm never going to make.

Look at all these people. You get in the water, two people pass to swim. Yeah. And I mean, I don't know. if you remember, but the barrier to entry to pass that test, I think it was maybe eight pull-ups. Six? Yeah. I think it was eight, six? So it's called seven. We're both right. You do seven, you're getting into butts. Well, and then I think 50 push-ups, 50 sit-ups, it wasn't- 42 push-ups, 50 setups. That's what I mean, this is almost 30 years ago for me, but yeah, the barrier

to get to the initial training pipeline is not like the hurdle. It's not even, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, morning workout. Because you do a mile and a half run in boondockers and arteries. But people fail. It blows my mind. Over 90% fail on that test. It's crazy. And I used to go do the test.

It was Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'd do it every week. Just to get a workout because you're, I mean, rice and gravy, Navy boot camp learning how to fold shirts. Yeah. And then like one of the weeks,

the one of the, I don't know if the seal chief was fucking with me. He goes, I see you here twice a week. You realize if you fail this once, like we're not sending you to butts. It's like, oh, okay. Well, in theory,

you should be getting better. How was the swimming in buds? Did that, did you have any time? No. I thought that would be the reason they kicked me out because I didn't really know how to swim. But they pulled the, we'll give you a California swim buddy and go just guide and just kick. And that's what we did. And I didn't fail any swims. And, you know, it was always, it was a race at the end. But yeah, it was, it was good. And I like, I didn't mind the swims because no one can really yell at you. Yeah. And for people listening, the guiding is actually, I would say it's equally as important as the swimming. And what it means is the pair, which is swimming the, what is it, underwater combat recovery stroke. The underwater combat, underwater stroke.

So technically, I think by the letter of the law, your wrists have to stay underwater. So you're extending. And you can't do the crawl. Yeah, and you come back. Yeah, you cannot take your hand over. But you're facing each other. And I think you've got to be within six feet, the stupid swim buddy rules, which makes sense for conceptually. But yeah.

But one person has to navigate, even though you're going down the coastline towards the hotel down. Convex, concave, all that shit. Yeah. If you look like a porpoise all over the place, you'll fail. You're adding time. Yeah. Yeah, it's point A to point B. Yeah.

If you got a guy who can swim, that's fine. And once you learn how to keep your hips up and kick glide, you know, just with your kicks. Yeah. You know what they should do, crazy, because they're getting better, smarter with nutrition and training is swimming lessons. I know so many seals that didn't really know how to swim. They have them. They have them. They have now.

They were starting to get them when I left two. because they'll identify it, I believe, in the pre-training or the P-TRR, yeah, P-T-R-F Physical Training Rest and Recovery. Rest and relaxation. I don't know if there's a lot of that. No. But I think they bring in swim coaches now.

So if you're struggling with that, they should. Yeah. And it's a lot like the obstacle. They could use a pull-up guy, too. You would think that the- long arms. That's another one training for Buds.

I already signed the contract. I'll go down at Clark Park. They got monkey bars or fucking horizontal ladder, whatever we call it. I don't know. And then I got on there. I'm like, okay, so that's zero. Jesus, I got to do some back work.

Yeah, for sure. God, I was such an interesting. But I mean, the test is not that hard. No. Just got, you got to be doing something. You know what was wild when I went back as an instructor is the number of students that quit on the first day. At buds. In first phase.

Every. The first day? Like the PT? The first PT? Within hours. Why? I don't know. Fear?

It's got to be fear. I don't know. I don't think anybody has ever gone to training thinking I can't wait to quit. I assume that they all go with a mentality that. they're going to graduate. But within an hour, you will have your first quitter in every class. And honestly, I don't have any data to support this. But anecdotally, I would say...

You don't need data support shit. Tell me the story. I would say 20 people quit the first day, which doesn't make sense. Because I want to know what did you think was going to happen. What did you sign up for? We had a guy quit in his dress whites checking in. That is the most efficient way to do that. Yeah, we got into the classroom.

Everyone's in their dress whites, a little AR airman O'Neill. with one little ribbon and the instructor comes in as a joke. All right, who wants to quit? One guy, I do. And it's got it because he wanted to get off the ship he was on. Yeah, but aren't you going to go back to another one? Probably. You'd think.

And you're going to have less choice in where you go because you're falling directly into the needs of the Navy. Yeah, well, and they're not going to give you any breaks. You obviously had somebody pull some strings to get you off a ship to get you here. Dude. But in that respect, too, a lot of guys that made it were second classes because I'm not going back to that fucking shit. People don't realize, and I did a Marg, I did a Margie of Ucombe, a strike. No, Marga Strike, you come in a morgue. I went on the boats.

And sailors work harder than a lot of people in the middle. I would tell younger SEALs, I don't want to see you fucking with the scullery or with the, with the dudes prepping chow or the guys on watch because they're working harder than you. You go down there and you play Xbox. Yeah. We're not fucking with these Navy guys. They're legitimately, because it's like eight on, eight off before I was a watch or some shit like that. It's a life that I think I did 14 total days and 17 years in the Navy.

And it is, that reminds me of this. seen from a few good men when they're wearing the whites or whatever. And the woman in the back said, Jesus Christ, Kathy, you're in the Navy for crying out loud. All he can say is nobody likes her very much. You did 14 days on a ship? Total. Dude, I mean, it was it, the Nimitz was most of it. That's not even on a ship. That's on a carrier. I know. But, dude, I was like the guy that I'm, like, pulling people aside, hey, I don't know how to find my way out of where I am. Because this hieroglyphics on the bulkhead, I don't know how to read this. And second of all, what's a bulkhead?

Well, I can find my way out from under a ship by seeming. Yeah. I don't know what a level and a deck are. I mean, I'm talking deep opening doors and just seeing people that probably haven't seen the sun in months and just slowly closing the door and wandering around. Then I ended up on the superstructure. And then that's a different kind of getting in trouble. Oh, yeah, yeah. Why are all the caller devices way showing?

I'm like an E5 at this point in a flight suit with just my, you know, my freaking bird little leather patch. Just like, I think I need to get out there. You ever seen the dudes come up from the engine? room? Yeah. Yeah, they come up, don't say shit, they're all covered in oil or whatever. Yeah. And they eat their child and leave. And I remember talking to some of the sailors, like, look at those, dude. And all they said was, yeah, they always fuck up to washing machines. So, crazier, I actually have spent 30 days on a sub. I don't have sub time. I've been on a sub. That was, it was, I mean, it was the Kamehamea,

we were out in Guam. It was my second pre-9-11 deployment. So we were just doing, what do they call it, MSLO, MSLI, Mass Swimmer lockout, mass swimer lock-in. It is actually, Yeah. When you're doing it, so you're submerged, sunset, they flood the tank, which can nerds and people out. It makes sense of why we do a lot of this stuff we do in training because you need to keep your shit together. The claustophobia is really an exercise in breathing. It is. Oh, and if you get stressed out, was it an MRI or cat scan, whatever?

Bloods is not for you. Yeah. But dude, they would crack open the back once they equalize the pressure. And you're looking out and you can just the color of the sunlight and you can slowly see the prop spinning of the sub. And they're like, yeah, just go up. And then they trail a buoy. And they're like, come on back down here. Like, this is kind of awesome.

Seeing something that size submerged. It's wild. Yes. We did, they needed to do one evening. Of course, I was one of the newer guys still. They had to do essentially a personnel recovery. So they launched two of us out of the bed, just two of us. And it's nighttime in the middle of God knows where we were, somewhere off the coast at Guam.

Beautiful. Deep. Yeah. Marion's trenches out there. Crack a green chemlight. with a rubber band and I would put it on my finger and just launch it up into the air. They're like, just keep doing that

and we'll flash a light at you when the sub is lined up. So it's just me and a dude in pitch darkness and we're sitting there. That's eerie. What was eerier is when they lined up and you start seeing this huge black mass moving underneath you and you're like kind of putting, we're on open circuit, right?

So we're watching it happen. And the coolest thing was to submerge and let it just pass right underneath you. So you're just like hovering in place. That's awesome. is this up. And then you just do a front flip into the chamber and grab a hole of it on the way by. It was,

yeah. It was like, is this the largest shark ever that's going to come just eat me ass first? But because I'm like, you know the deal. Out of the water, we are the ones who are the most vulnerable. Everything that lives in the ocean can just tear your ass up.

You will get owned by anything out there. That was a memorable experience though. Just me and another dude up there. No, that is cool. That is. I haven't seen that. I mean,

even on a ship attack, like when you're on your final attack leg and you're, you can hear the barnacles on a ship. That's intimidating. That fucker's just there. And then it gets dark and you feel like you should be up against it, but you have to keep going. And you hear it closer.

And going. And everything around you, the shark. And all I'm doing is counting my kicks. I had the best. You were talking about your trick on the ramp with the holding this thing. Yeah. My best trick is a dive soup.

Because as a dive supervisor, you have to get them purged. Yeah. So you're going to go pure O2, exhaling out your nose to nitrogen. And you got to make sure you're good to go underwater. So you can't really talk. You're waiting for the dive soup.

soup. And then when you get under water, I'm just explaining this. When you get under water, you're kicking. Bubblous makes no sound at all. So you're just in your own mind. So before I would send guys on like a two hour turtle back and a four hour dive and say, okay, everything looks good. Hey, real quick, rising up and push them in the water so they get us saying, I have the tiger for four hours. Yeah. That's a good move. Dude, those dies. Because you sing, you just sing the whole time. And then you yell at your butt. I remember. I remember dives where I had Britney Spears song stuck in my head. I don't remember the song, what I do. And then you hum it. And then if you can get

your dive buddy. Get your buddy doing it. You can catch him. Yeah. God. Why did we do the things that we did? I don't know. I mean, I think, well, because you can do side scan sonar with a sub and you can find out

everything that's going on. And if you need to, if you need to disable a ship, hit it with a hellfire or something else. But I think we're doing it because when the EMP hits, you need to know map and compass. It's so it's crazy to see other people don't. They don't shit. Imagine the GPS turn off. I would be okay with it.

I was a point man for years. I love terrain navigation. I love celestial navigation. All of those things. Drain navigation is the best. Yes. Just like literally the lens that accompanist or whatever you use and that's the peak. Yeah,

you can line it up with the topo map. You know exactly where you're at and you just walk. I mean, I loved it. Yeah. In the modern era, no, in the modern area of people's car play shut off and their GPS shut off,

it would be pretty wild. They don't know how to start fire. Yeah, I guess they probably don't. Well, living in New York, too. I've explained to my neighbors. I mean,

I live in a liberal community, fair. I mean, they're not crazy. I was explaining to them to like the Second Amendment. And I said stuff out here, which you got to remember with the whole socialist, communist, communist, whatever argument. I was like, to be safe with your family, you know, and you need to know your family and your

community and your local, like school boards, local, blah, blah, blah, that's bullshit. And then you have guns and have emergency food. And they said, someone says something like, well, you have emergency food. What if you run out? And I said, well, I'm obviously going to come eat yours. Don't let one entity own all the guns, including the government. Do you guys understand this? Second Amendment type shit?

just explaining like just the community aspect. But if like if the power goes out in New York, like near the city, 200,000 people are going to die in a week. It would be chaos. Chaos. It would be, I forget the quote, but it's basically your night, we're at any point in time we're nine meals away from chaos, which I think is true.

Famine. Yeah. And it would just start fring. Society would start fring. What, when you talk to your community and their thoughts on guns, what are they against? No, no, no, no. They're listening.

They listen. Yeah. But are, is there. position, are they against guns in general or they just want the good guys to have guns? It seems like they want the good guys to have the guns and they're really, really against mass school shootings and that's their answer to everything. Who isn't? I'm against them.

I can immediately support the Second Amendment and say you shouldn't shoot up a school. Even on the right, I've been attacked for saying my preference for home defense is a pump action shotgun. That's my preference. I like it. I mean, I keep one in the chamber, but if something, like, I'm not, I don't anticipate a SWAT team coming to get me because I didn't pay the taxes. It's some dude trying to break in to steal jewelry. So even if I have one in the chamber, I might let him hear it.

Because nothing sounds like that. And when I was like entering a house in Iraq, if I heard a pump action shotgun, I'm going to find another way to enter. That's just a good deterrent. Maybe he'll leave. And I don't need to kill him. And then like the far right guy is like, you big pussy, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, if I kill someone in my own house, you know the cleanup that I have to do in order to make sure I don't go to jail? Like, I want to deterrent, man.

Guns are good. It's interesting to me when people will critique a tactical assessment. And it's not like you're trying to write an instruction. No. For other people, you're talking about your own personal choices. Through the lens of a career of having to make those choices and people say, Rob, you're a pussy. Meanwhile, this person has never been in a tactical situation in their life. I have been told I've obviously never been in a gunfight.

Okay. So I know, I've been in a couple and this is why I choose this way to do it. I'd rather not be in a gunfight. If I don't have to shoot anyone ever again, that's awesome. I've lived a pretty good second half of my life. Yeah, I would really like to live there. of my life avoiding violence of any kind. So do I.

I've been to war a lot and I don't want to see any worse. Yeah. I mean, my favorite activity is basically play wrestling with my friends and doing Jiu-Jitsu, but the last thing I want to do is actually put my hands on somebody who I have to, for real, do that. It's like, no, I get, I like. Well, you have to win.

Yeah. And it's like, I don't actually want to hurt anybody. I've gone through enough of my life where hurting people was not expected, but at least on the menu, if required. And I've had enough. Yeah, me too. I hear you. So.

Well, with the Jiu-Situ, too, I was going to get back into it. I'm getting so old. I just got it in a chess now. I mean, they're basically the same except for the, well, I don't, I'm pretty sure. Complete lack of similarities, but. If I'm walking down the street though and I run into a grand master, I can kick his ass. If I see a dude working coffee, but he happens to be a Brown Belt, he'll fuck me up. Yeah.

Brown-Belt's going to fuck just about anybody. That's the difference right there. You know, now that I have to stretch out of bed, when I get out of bed, I just like to play chess. You just got to find the right training partners. I know. I found Jitsu when I was 40. And I figured out a way now. Actually, no, I think I found it when I was 41 because I've been at it for about seven and a half years.

You can do it? Yeah. You feel different getting out of bed, though. Yeah. My favorite meme from COVID was it was a guy standing up out of a wheelchair for the first time. And it was like, jiu-jitsu athletes after two weeks off. He's just like, ah. His body was finally recovering.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, man. I was rolling with team guys and I was tired of breaking pinkies and shit. That's, again, that goes to the training partner. You got to find the ones who are not idiots like us. That's the problem. There can only be one idiot like that on the mat. If there are two, they will find each other and they will fight almost to the death.

And that is actually how it's not sustainable. That's exactly right. God. Okay. Let's just go, let's go modern day backwards. Lawsuit. Where are you at? Talk to me about the 25 million.

Right now, I'm in a lawsuit for defamation of character. And it's the anti-hero podcast. And what went down is basically them calling me in a very, very hateful tone of fraud and a liar for two straight years. And they've been making a living off of it. They've been making the living off of calling out veterans. And they've done it to me. I think I was first. And I did respond back when I was drinking heavily.

Shouldn't have responded the way that I did. What was the response? No, just I didn't see it now. I'm curious. I think it was something along the lines of, I don't even. even know you, bro. Yeah. Something like that. And then whatever, back and forth. But they've been added after me. And whenever they use my name, the clicks go up. And then they did it to Tim Kent. They did it to Jocko. They did it to Chris Kyle, God rest of soul. They did

to Marcus Luttrell. They did it to, I think they did it to Dakota. And what, I mean, whether this Tucker guy likes it or not, he will be known as the guy who made money off of trying to ruin veterans' lives. So let's, let's parse this here for a second. I'm curious. What are your thoughts on or should there be the ability to call other veterans out. Well, yeah, but not not that way. I think of phone call. So that's what I'm saying, but I agree with the phone call. I think if you are connected with the person, I think that the first move should always be to go directly. Yeah, I agree. When you and I, we talked briefly on the phone, shit, probably about a month ago when we were setting this up. And I think, I'm pretty sure I told you, my biggest concern in all of this

is the external view of the veteran community. And how it erodes. The biggest question I get now is, how do I know who to trust? And that's actually a really hard question to answer because there are public examples. And I don't want to harp on Tim too much. I think Tim is a,

he's one of the nicest people that I've ever been around. Me too. But at this point, the volume of information around what he has been, in his own words, not what other people were saying, yeah, is at a point where it's like,

man, the conclusion that I am coming to that the evidence points to is that you lied repeatedly. Why you did so, I leave that to you to make up your own mind. But a phone call, I don't know it fixes that one. And most of those things that were said were actually public facing. So how do you address that without being public about that? I'm not trying to compare the two situations. It's not my problem. That's what I'm saying.

And I'm not trying to compare the two situations. I'm just, I'm thinking out loud, should there be a mechanism? because vets, unfortunately, are probably the only people that can sniff out the BS. Oh, no doubt about it. Call out other vets. I think it's the how. The how definitely needs to change. How do we do it?

Because when the end state of people, let's say, coloring outside of the lines is public, does a private phone call solve that? Or does the response actually have to be public to? And I don't necessarily have an answer to this. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I don't think it necessarily needs to be public, especially, like when they're comparing to me,

it started with Tim Kennedy with a Bronze Star without valor. Yeah, it was a slick BS versus BV. But a lot of people don't realize there is administrative award for a Bronze Star. And then the V means you're in combat. And he didn't have a V. And that's where the arguments started. And I don't know all the stories he told, to be fair. I've met Tim a few times and I like him personally.

Yep. And he's a Blackbellin Jiu-Jitsu. One UFC fights. I'm taking his award. That's how we started. Bronze started with V. I have four of those with V. Same.

Don't give a fuck. That's what the argument starts. But then we start saying, Tim's a fraud, Robo. Just like Rob O'Neill, it's like, hold up. Yeah. Four brown stars are about two silver stars that don't come with Valors. It's assumed gallantry. Like another one, Val, another one.

Shit like that. When they start lumping me in maliciously saying they're all liars, that's, I mean, you're broad-brust stroking. It's not calling Rob O'Neill and saying, hey, here's the issue. Yeah. And again, I'm not trying to compete. You know, I've never been asked about what happened in the room by anyone there except the point, man.

In a bod-bed bedroom? Well, give me like a few more minutes. We'll get to that. I'm just saying. I'm just saying that's a very important question. Oh, I know. And trust me. I'm not saying you didn't do your research.

Yeah. Hey, I've interviewed people too, man. Yeah. No. The veteran public facing positives and negatives, that's, there has to be a way to. And again, I don't have the answer to this. And so separating the two because what can happen is that, and I agree with you on this, you can develop a following.

let's say, and the first ones, you have a history of you find something and you talk about it and it's true and it grows, right? So then you find something else and you talk about it and it's true. Maybe your business bottle even shifts. So that's what, you know what I mean? Then it becomes that. Then you're looking for more salacious. You're looking for more controversial. And then you get one wrong, right?

I don't know. And this is where it just gets lost. And people are like, I'm so tired of seeing vets attack each other. What do we do? Which vet's telling the truth? Which one's not? And I don't have answers to any of this. I'm just trying to paint the picture of what I see in front of us.

And it's rough. Well, when I checked into Red Squadron in 2004, Wyman Howard was a CEO. And I'll never forget, I mean, we're standing against the wall, fresh out of Green Team, don't know shit about this place. And I remember him saying, you know, talk to the entire squadron. And I'm flying the wall amazed at this level. And he said, you know, when we all retire, if we work together, we'd all be millionaires. but that's never going to happen. And that's where it needs to be stopped

because people working together would get rid of some of the bullshit questions that come up for some reason. And I don't know where the stories, some of the stories is built on each other. I don't know where they come from. But there's a better way than just saying, this guy's a fucking fraud, kill him.

Or not kill him, but ruin his life. Like you think, I mean, Tim Kennedy had a lot of, and are they better off? People that pointed it out. I don't know. I don't know. And for Tim, I think he has done more net positive

than net harm. question. The problem with, in my opinion, which counts for nothing, the problem with the situation with Tim is that he won't own it. That's, if you, if he would own it off the bat, it would have been a better call. It would have. And I mean, if you look back at the first video, he basically at the end said, you know, fuck you guys, the anti-hero guys. I'd heard that too. I didn't see it. I saw I watched it. He made the video and it's like, dude, you went after the messenger instead of the message. And then when he did try to own it, I forget the exact verbiage, but I unintentionally, I would like to take unequivocal responsibility.

Yeah. And he didn't. And I understand why, because I think there are probably cascading legal consequences from that. He might be in risk from his publisher, from a book, you know, things of that nature. Did I get approved the book? That's my advice for anyone writing a book. If you've talked to someone in the military, get it approved. Yeah.

I mean, that is an approach. That is. I get it. I mean, that's what I did. I was like, I had, well, my book came about funny because my father's convinced that I do everything. It has been. Like he's convinced.

He's still in But Montana, right? Yeah. Here's the point. When I joined the military, I was in the delayed entry program and G.I. Jane was coming out. Demi Moore just been down there to check it out. We were at home and there was a Life magazine depicting Buds and inside was drownproofing. And my father said, see, that's you right there.

I can tell that you by your calves. He was facing. Dad, I'm literally not in the Navy yet. Yeah. Like I'm not. That could potentially be me in an evolution one day, but I, like, I saw you yesterday. And this article was written last month. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's funny. No, what was the first question? Because I was making a point about my father. I don't know if there was. I was talking about how owning it. Yeah. So anyway, sorry.

So getting a book approved. When I got to Buds, I remember I'm in my whites again, same fucking day. Someone is up at 602 yelling at someone else that just finished the 5.5 nautical mile swim or whatever. I'm like, what am I doing here? And my dad said, keep a journal for sure. Because someone's going to want to read your book one day. And I remember, I'll keep a journal.

who the fuck's going on to read my book. Yeah. But then I had a journal. It's like, well, I'll just get this approved. It did. That's kind of how that came about. Yeah, I've heard, uh, hoarse. I've heard horror stories in stuff sliding through like, uh, train on greased rails when it comes to.

Seriously. I was surprised, um, how fast it was for me. Yeah. They took out, uh, they took out one number and they made me say, uh, Army Special Forces instead of a, a different unit. Interesting. I wonder what that could possibly be. Because I was impressed with them.

There was a time. Because they're amazing. When I ran into Delta the first time was that what not ran into. Michael redacted. Sorry about that. I remember seeing them, and I think I'd work with them at the command, but then I saw them in Biop

over Baghdad International on a deployment, and they were getting out of Littlebirds. And I shit you not. I was thinking, fuck, that's Delta. I hope I meet the guy that kills Bin Laden,

because they're going to get that fucking mission eventually. That's, and I was impressed with those dudes. Those guys are awesome. I don't give a fuck who you are. When you step off a Little Bird after a gunfight,

you're a cool motherfucker. Yeah. No, I did cross-training workup in deployment with A Squadron? They're fantastic. Fantastic. And they had the best job on I write.

The VIs, are you shitting me? That's your job? You're going to hunt people off a little bird with a machine gun? Yeah. Sign me up. Yeah, there are a few job. Talk about jealousy. Jesus, I wanted that job.

So where do you think the lawsuit goes from here? Hopefully to court. They're trying to get it dismissed right now. They want it dismissed before discovery. I don't. I want to go to court. They're trying to move it to federal court, but all three defendants are in,

or all the defendants are in Florida. It doesn't need to go federal. We're going to keep it in New York. We move to you. keep in New York. How do you think the discovery process would impact that? If they wanted to subpoena, let's say, everybody that went up to the third deck. Um, they, if they, they could subpoena everyone. Well, I mean, they could. I didn't think they wanted. There's no reason to. Yeah. The two people, the first two people in the room saw what happened. The third guy in the

room, it told, he said he didn't see what happened. And the third guy in the room was not the number three man in a stack. He was the point man of a second stack. Really? Yes. That's where the confusion comes in. How did he end up the point man of a second stack? Was there a distance between the first time? And I need to clarify also, just for people listening. This lawsuit is not about proving who killed bin Laden. It's about malicious defamation of character. They don't need a subpoena anyone to see how mean and rude and taking,

trying to make it live enough ruining me. What's the bar the burden of proof on that for your lawyer? Probably the lawsuit. If they read it, they would see how much stuff I have depicted over the, even the past year, which has statute of limitations. Okay. Just malicious, jealous. So it's essentially...

It's about your, you're, You're being a dick and you're going to stop. You're making money off to faming me. I've told the story about my daughters who are in college now that were, and I'm not disparage. That's what they say now too. What about the veterans who didn't come home with their kids? I'm not saying anything about them.

I'm saying my kids, my four-year-old daughter at her preschool at Rollingwood Elementary, I was at her tea party on my birthday, Good Friday, April 10th. She's not currently at the school, is she? Not anymore. I was going to say, because I'd be like, Michael, make a note of that time because we are bleeping that out. But no, no, this was 2009. Okay.

So I'm into class. Make sure you're not doxing your own child right now. We've done some security stuff for that too. Four years old, my birthday, we get a call. Got to go, rescue Richard Phillips. Give her a kiss, leave for war. From her, okay. Three-year-old, my other daughter, I got to leave to go on the Bin Laden raid.

Haven't even told my wife where we're going because we just got back from deployment. And I'm telling her I got to go. Now, this is a one-way mission, the bin Laden raid. We're going to die on the way in. Get blown up when we get there. This is it. I got to tell her goodbye. She's three.

She told me to wait, went upstairs, put Mr. Elephant and a pillow in a hello kitty carry on and said, well, however a three-year-old can say, you're going to take me on vacation when you get home. Okay, now they're in college, and they're proud of me, and they have TikTok. And everywhere, everything they've ever been proud of their, your dad's a fucking fraud. He's a fraud. He's a liar and a fraud. Do they get that in person or online? They get it online.

But then they call me at night. They can't sleep. They've been proud of me their whole lives. That, I'm stopping that. And I say you get a defamation lawsuit for people listening. It's not about who killed bin Laden. How much of, you're taking pleasure and maliciously defaming me. How much of the responsibility, and again, this is a way upstream question, how much of the

is, I'm not saying you're responsible, but your actions or decision to come forward with who you are in the book and putting your name out there, if you hadn't made that choice. My name was out the second I pulled the trigger. And I heard the conversation. Out into the military worlds or the civilian worlds? Here's how it started. Even on the second deck, I ran into Will Chesda in the second deck with Cairo. And he asked me who got him.

I heard other guy who got him. They said, Nisro. And one of the answers I heard was, oh, great, we're never going to hear the end of this. Because I tell stories. I fucking talk. So people were asking. And then we get back and there's a, we go to the CB's. There's the internet stuff like that on the flight over.

People are, you know, we got Virginia. We got some guys in D.C. We got Coronado. Hey, don't tell anybody. But then you get back. And it's like to your bartender. Don't tell anybody. So my name's out.

Someone that was a fellow at the White House. all to say, hey, we heard it was you. Yeah. James out. Well, that's out, but that's inside of at least the bubble. I'm talking like... I didn't, I didn't release it then. Yeah.

We're going to be the best friends forever. It doesn't matter. Yeah. And there was just, just getting back, it just, there was, there's butt hurt. People were buttered. Like, we went out drinking the night we got back. Yeah. I'm not saying that, though.

What I'm saying is publicly coming out and acknowledge you out. Well, I mean, later on. Like, I stayed in the Navy. Yeah. I went to J-Soc to put it in, I wanted to be a master chief. Yeah. But then really bad shit started happening. I went to J-Soc to put in a warrant package.

I'm still going to stay in for 30 years. Yeah. Did you get out as an 8? Yeah. I'm down there J-Socc and then extortion went down. Obviously, everything morale can. Yeah. We were having some issues at Red Squadron.

And it was being at J-Soc didn't help that I wasn't around the command. Biss was going around, starting a lot of shit, going to see the Mass Chief every Monday morning talking about me, saying I'm signing a book deal, going to D.C., Like I went up to DC I was dating a girl. I was separated getting divorced. And I get a text on a Saturday night, I get a text saying you'd be back in Virginia Beach Monday morning at 7 for like a reprimand. Because best tattletailed on me.

What were the problems that Red Squadron was having? They didn't like, well, they didn't like the, the way the Bin Laden thing went down at the end started shady. It was almost like a draft, I heard. Like they pulled like the senior most people and everybody kind of took a step down. Like the skipper became like the troop commander. And for before the raid or for the ones who actually went on the raid. I had heard the way they... Because I'm talking after the after-fetchers I could talk about before.

Well, I'm just... I had heard that the way they picked the people to go on the raid had... Seniority. Had some lasting impact on the camaraderie of Red Squadron. Maybe perhaps people felt like they deserved to be there, but they weren't chosen. Morale was the lowest. I remember it being at Red Squadron. Before?

Yes. Because of that, do you think? Because of the, a lot of the structure with the senior leadership. and I'm not trying to badmouth the senior leadership. The style was way too micromanaging. Yeah. And we used to get into, I'm sure you saw it. When officers come in, they've got three years.

The enlisted guys are running the show, but then the officers know they need to do a lot of shit so they're really going to start burning people out. And that was going on a Red Squad. I'm not trying to pick anyone out. Just with the leadership, they started to, they start. And then, so you get, we're all back from a deployment. I was in J-Bed.

I was running the outstations. We get back, we're in Miami. Some guys are out west in Vegas or whatever. doing your first post-deployment good deal trip. And then we get recalled. They recalled ones and twos, some threes. And for people listening, that's a rank structure, one being the highest inside of the team,

whether it be skipper, you know, the troop level, team level. So, yeah, the senior personnel. Yeah. Yep. And so they pull us in, I think there was 28 total. It was alternates. So I think it was a 23, 22, 23 team and then some alternates. Yeah.

But we're at the new building, which I don't like the new building. I don't like the old building. I've never been. You're not missing out. It's just, it's like a skiff. the whole second deck to skiff. So you got to go to that end of the fucking mile long building or that end to go upstairs to walk a mile

to your team room, shit like that. But they call this into a conference room behind the conference room and lock the door so no one else can come in but these 28. And these are all CL Team 6 guys. So what's going on? And then you come out and well, I can't tell you. And I don't care if you're trying to be cool or not.

So morale takes it hit there. Guys pull themselves off of the trip because they're not telling us what it is. It started out with, we found a thing. No, they started out with, something about cables under the ocean that we're going to go repair. That is like an S&D. Yeah.

There's a cover story to get us out of town. And then they said, okay, we found a thing in a house and a bowl in these mountains and you're going to go get it. What's the thing? Can't tell you type of shit. And so dudes didn't think it was a real mission. So like they had ruts being run in Guam or L.A. and shit like that. So they pulled themselves off.

But morale was really taking a hit. Yeah. This is before they've been laundered. Okay. Before we get into the raid, I want to make sure. the publicity with your kids, if you hadn't had put your name out publicly, do you ever sit back and wonder the difference that would be for your family? I was at a point where my name was out enough that I decided.

Well, there's a difference between your name being out and somebody coming forward and saying something. Yeah, but there's also a difference between admitting they know who you are or putting your head in the sand and saying, well, they'll never know because I didn't say anything yet. Yeah. That's where I was at. And people know. This, this, I have to, I mean, I'm not even going to get into the, they've moved a lot since the bin Laden rate. My kids have.

And it's been bad. Like, not fun. If you hadn't been as public as you have. Well, if I wouldn't have been picked for the bin Laden raid, I would probably be a master chief at San Diego right now and they'd be fine. Sure. But also things like, you know, the Esquire magazine and stuff like that. If you chose not to participate in things like that, the street.

See, that was a different reason for that. No, my whole point is, though, but like the choice to exist publicly is a choice. Do you ever, I'm not arguing. against the defamation. What I'm saying is the biggest... Being a public figure. Being a public figure and the choice to do so,

even though in the military circles, your name was out. I was at trade at the time when the operation went down and I'll tell you the name of the master chief afterwards, but he was a previous red guy. And your name came up.

I mean, this was within days. So yeah, in the military for sure, but that's different than being a public figure. Yeah. It's... Yeah. It's, do you ever think about... If you can,

could go back in time, I guess the question is, would you still decide to be a public figure based around that particular operation? Not that your career is defined by that, but it's probably what you're doing. No, my career is defined by that now. Would you make the same choice? As far as public figure, your desire, not desire, but you're stepped into it. I would have changed. I would have made a lot of different decisions. What would you have done differently? I would not have provided the top cover in the after action report that I did. Don't jump ahead. We're getting there. You're asking. We're getting there.

Look, I'm not unhappy that I gave a squeeze to the point man going upstairs when there was no one behind me. I'm not unhappy when a troop chief behind me before I went into Bin Laden's house said, let's clear the garden. I said the garden's fucking good. Let's go in Bin Laden's house. I would have kept doing that. I wouldn't have given as much top cover, though. Doing what happened after the Bin Laden raid, I remember saying into myself, I'm going to regret this. This is going to come back to haunt me.

Okay. It has. What do you mean by top cover? I can explain to you what happened because the big thing they talk about is an after action report. I have heard or read that there exists cell phone

audio recording. Yeah, I've heard there might be two, but I know the commanding officer recorder one. So, and for clarity, before you even started talking about this, I have never been on an operation that was at that level of... Neither had I. So what I'm saying is, like, the AARs, I have done... Well, that's the point I was making.

They're like around the fucking table. Like, you know what I mean? Because they were like super low level. And if we really needed something to focus on or like change something we would sit and talk about. I've never done something like this structured. That's what I'm saying. Before we get the brief to the Ranger Colonel, let's get our shit together. Yeah. There's a debrief and then there's probably the A. So the boys got together, talked about the first the first debrief was over Bin Laden's body and Jalalabad. Okay. So we got back. I was on the 47 and this is how weird it was. I mean this is a I'm in a new area now. Like we get off the bird. I uh,

I had a piss bottle in my pocket. I didn't want to use the new diapers they gave us in the flight end because I just never used them. Same reason I carry the old school nods, not the quad nods, because I've jumped with these. I know they work.

I know where the battery goes. I'm not going to fuck with new knots. Way less heavy too. Yeah. So I also had a diaper, but I'm just used a piss bottle. I'll remember to throw it out. I forgot to.

Just I chop in line with the piss in my pocket. Cargicle pocket. When we get back, we land, I'm going to put the pisser at the back. There's a trash can in the back of the hangar where we part the helicopters and there's these mechanics from TF160 pointing at him.

Me. That's the guy that got him. Throw the thing away. The other bird comes back, running to the point man. We have a discussion over here. And then Bin Laden's bodies over here. So we go over that.

And the ground force commander said to Bill McRaven, Admiral Bill McRaven, do you want to meet the guy that killed him? He brought him over to me. He put his hand on my back on my neck like this. And it was like almost a fatherly yet uncomfortable. Yeah. Looking at Bin Laden,

he says, your life just changed forever. Where was the ground force commander? He was right next to me. No, no. Oh, no, in the, yeah, he wasn't in the room either. Yeah. I mean, it works. Which, for any ground force commander out there?

He better not be in the fucking room. I was going to say. See, one of the best ground force commanders I've ever had. And again, this goes to the theory, not the theory, the practice of a debrief. When we were in Iraq in 07, the best summer of my life, by the way, and we're hitting target, target, target, follow on, following, follow. And we're waiting. The sun's going to come up. I need to call in the birds, but we got, you know, the GRG, things like whatever.

And then my troop commander's right here. And so, here's the deal. Blah, blah, blah. We're at this building now. we're going to do his flex here, hit this bill, and I looked at him and go, shit, sir, you're in charge. And he said, oh, make no mistake. I'm not in charge.

I'm responsible. You're in charge. Don't fuck me. Meaning go do what you have to do and then tell me what I have to know. That's an after action. I don't know any guy's going to do an after action. It's like, that's exactly how it went down. Perfect.

Everyone's safe. Yeah. I've done hundreds of them. And everyone listening to this who's been in the military has two. And you know an after action report when something could be incriminate. You don't just throw it out. for them to record. Would you in the poor man talk about away from Ben Loved Body?

He asked me the two questions. The two questions anyone from that team has asked me about the room other than an email I got from Biss later. And he asked me where the fuck was everyone? The one man asked? Mm-hmm. Okay. And then he said, was he hit when you went in there? So he had taken shots.

He took a shot. Okay. And was asking you whether or not he was hit. When I saw him. When the debrief went down. Yes. What was the difference between those two? The difference was the shot hit him on the top of the head.

And then what we said was, and then I went in and he was circling the drain. That's the story. That's clean. Clean. Meaning there's no questions. That's their debrief. Is that what happened?

No. I'm prepared to tell you what went down, and I've never told anyone before. We'll get to that. But so, okay. This is an exclusive. first off you might want to give it to somebody else because I'm kind of a retard I don't know if you've read the good news is I'm a retard one here's a little retard and here's the thing too like I'm not I'm not a provocateur right never thought that

and I think actually one of the first things I told you on the phone is like dude I don't care who killed been like I believe I said I don't either yeah but fuck because what this means is in the official debrief the truth wasn't told which another way to put that is, somebody somewhere lied. Yeah, possibly. Well, if the truth wasn't told, I'm going to connect the two on that, right? If the story that was told in the official debrief

is not what happened on the ground, then... It was kind of close. Yeah, but you know, as well as I do, that doesn't mean anything. Well, at a debrief, it really doesn't either. Unless that debrief is used to paint the official narrative moving forward.

Possibly, yeah. The good news is, though, in the debrief, the appointment for the second sack, who was three men in the room, everyone, him and behind doesn't need to be subpoenaed because they didn't see it. And what some guys saw, they just, they, they didn't see what they think they saw. When, when people are on TV admitting they shot bin Laden while he was dead and the appointment was always in front of me, they didn't say how far he was in front of you. So what actually happened? When we were, I was eight guys, well, now, I need a backup. Talk me through, yeah, talk me through. Yeah, because I

I skip the garden because I agree with you on that. I feel like the garden was probably a visual sweep. I think the guys who crashed in the fucking front yard cleared the garden on the way. We're going to give that one a visual pass. And I'd love to hear, because I don't know what happened on the helicraft from the crash. All I know is we fast roped a ton training to the point where I was like, we got to stop. 10. 10.

The only person to fast rope on that mission was the pilot. Good God. Yeah, he put it down and like he could go out of the, yeah, nickel. When I do, when I walked in, we had a failed breach on the northeast corner because it was a double door. But Breacher put 7.06 going to open it. Blasted it at brick wall. But that's good. No one puts a fake door, so he's in.

I was going to say that is an interesting indicator. But that's learning by failure. Because I think there was even a conversation. Failed breaches is bad. It's like, no, this is good. That's a fake door. No one fucking does that. He's definitely in there.

But now we, because we were put on the outside because the helicopter pilot saw the first one go down. And my team was supposed to go to the roof. But then he came down to get out. And so me, piss bottle in pockets. I remember stepping my right foot out looking at Bin Laden's house thinking, well, I guess we start the war from here. No problem.

I mean, we didn't need the preparation. We've been to CQB forever, but since we knew the exterior, I know goddamn what we can hit that one. Fail, whatever. And I heard something about dash one going around. They were saying dash one going down. Oh. And I don't want to get too much into the tactics, obviously.

I mean, this part of the story's cool because we're going to, we came over the radio saying, hey, we're going to blast the carport. And same guy. Clear the Garden said to one of the snipers, the sniper, the sniper, the sniper, that actually rescues or Phillips. He goes, oh, we're trying to go silent. And he goes, really, buddy? We just crashed a helicopter in the front yard.

Silence is going. It's kind of one of those funny conversations. Yeah. Also, the C-7s are not quiet. No. Then, though, we're going to blast it. He said, no, we'll just open it. So they open it.

And the thumb came out. And it's like, I remember thinking, okay, I don't know why they're in there, but that doesn't matter. They just are. Yeah. And that's important in life. It doesn't, sometimes doesn't matter why you're here.

You just are. Yeah, you can talk about that later. Later in the debrief. So, and I remember... Was the initial plan, just like I'm trying to get a better understanding of how you guys plan this. And again, I don't want to go into the tactics of how anybody clears anything. But were you guys planning on deliberate, slow mechanical movement? No, fast because we had to get out.

We had 32 minutes on station. Really? But, I mean, we could refuel with some of the 47s we brought in. But are we talking like full-on hostage rescue running in the air on fire? Well, no. So I blended the two. Yeah, a hybrid, if you will. Yeah. No, we were going to drop off snipers, machine gun, Cairo, cheese, and then interpreter.

I still don't know who that fucking guy is, but he had a gun. He spoke fluent. Erdu. Then we were going to go to the rooftop, fast rope. And then we had a system rig where actually zero, zero one. Trauma Force commander hopped out, put the rope around his back, and then we fast up onto the balcony. We're going to shoot through the window that we think is going to be there. Oh, interesting. And then the first team is going to fast rope, take the guesthouse. Come in. We're going to hit him that way. The classic Oreo. Right.

The delicious center is not as. Delicious for those on the inside. It gets hot in the delicious center. But then they crash landed. And so we're out here. The pilots saw them put us out. They thumb comes out. And now they're already clearing.

Yeah. And that was cool for me because it turns out I got a front row seat to watch this. And I'm literally taking snapshots in my mind because this house is going to blow up. And we're going to die. And I got to remember. And with the whole thought process too because people say, why weren't you scared? It's like, what an ending. I'm with my boys, man.

I went there with my friends. Was there intel that it was rigged? Or just the assumption based off of the high... No intel. It was assumed. Yeah. Which is not a bad assumption. No.

But again, looking back, though, the only one that really martyred himself was the fucking Khalif. Was he the dude in the outbuilding? Yeah. Wasn't that, what's his name? Al-Mazri? I don't know. Al-Mazri.

The Khalif from Isis, he blew himself up. Oh, yes. But other guys like Bin Laden didn't. It's like, I call that the, uh, they get more heaven if they recruit guys to go blow themselves up. It's, I call that Amway for Allah. Yeah. Yeah. But so he didn't blow himself up, but we thought he would.

So when we go in, though, there's a, the crew went over to the guest house. That was business crew. So him and the guy from Blue Squader over there. How much time would you say is it elapsed in this? I mean, it's easy to, like two minutes, maybe? But what stuck out to me is I went to the front. There's a window going into one of the bedrooms. And one of my guys, really close friends, had taken shots, but the woman jumped on him and she killed her too. And I remember him saying something along the lines of shit.

I just killed the woman. Is this, are we, something along the lines are we going to be in trouble or is this bad? And I remember, I remember. Talk about that shit later. See, that's what I remember thinking like, how fucked up are our lawyers and our rules of engagement that were on the bin Laden rate? Tier 1 operators are wondering if they're going to jail. Yeah, because, I mean, actually, after they leave the barrel, if you're going to jail or not, is that's going to sort itself later on? Yeah, you got to work your way through the problem.

Yeah. Not advocating shooting women anybody. I'm just saying in the moment, you need to complete the objective. It already happened. Yeah. And it wasn't like he was shocked. It was brought up. Yeah.

But then other guys went in. So it's a long hallway, and there's doors off to the side. So I go in there in the hallway, I get out of the hallway. And there's a dude from the other bird in there. And that's what he said something. And he said something about helicopter crash. It's like, what helicopter crashed? He said something like, well, ours did.

Like you walk right past it. We crashed. And I remember watching dudes just being proud of them. Because I'm looking for bombs too. I'm thinking the thermal barrack will be hanging down. Excuse me. And what did it look like on the inside? Standard house.

Standard house and Iraq. No indication of the stuff that you were looking for? Nope, not until the second deck. Okay, so at the first deck, okay. At the first deck were you thinking like, oh, damn, maybe there is less risk? When I, yeah, I stopped. I didn't see any charges. There was nothing there, no guns, except for the, I mean, the dude.

Yeah. And then I remember watching guys go through breaching problems. I remember one dude in particular. You know him. I don't want to say his name. He's not public. Watching him go, I'm in Osama bin Laden's house. Looking down a hallway, there's a barricaded door to get to the stair while the Intel

chick told us would be there and Khalid will be there like and I'm watching this dude he's now going through the problems I've watched him work at CL Team 2 when I was with him through making charges coming up with tactics yeah you know check the door kick the door hit the door hoolly sleds like solving it on the fly and he's working it and I'm watching I'm watching it's working it I'm like I'm so fucking proud of this dude and working that without like I remember it's stupid to think of awards and I'm like this is some Navy crush shit I'm watching this is bad this is history proud of these dudes bam it's open now we go So I'm like eight dudes back and worth that stairwell.

I saw it go down, but not as some people were closer to it, but it was where the point man whispered to Khalid. And I heard him up the stairs. Yeah, because she said you will run into Khalid bin Laden. And he will be armed and he will be his last line of defense. And she was so cool. She being the woman that found bin Laden. I think I said chick earlier.

Sorry about that. She said, you will run into Khalid bin Laden. He's like 20 years old. He's his last line of defense. And if you want a shot, if you can ace him, you'll get a shout at the big guy. It was the way she told us. So it's interesting way to describe that. That's how she talked.

Yeah, fair enough. Cool. And so then they were separate. I'm looking sort of up. And normally in an urban environment, I'm like seven dudes, eight dudes in front of me. I'm going to back up because they're going to, I'm going to back up. But I'm like, we're going to fucking die anyway. I got to see what they do because we're very good at being quiet.

Now that yelling shit, none of the clear stairway. Yeah. And so that's what I meant. Like so. And I don't think people understand how surgical those elements can be. People don't understand. You can go from so loud to being whisper quiet. There's no.

yelling. There's no running unless you need to. It's body language. Body language. Yeah. Like that's it. You can tell that person is going this way because they're oriented. And also, you know who your friends are through the way their shadows move. I can't get people to understand that. You can tell who they are by the way they walk. Oh, 100% from a distance. Yeah, or the way they carry their gun or the way that they are. Yeah. It's that you know, yeah. And at that level too, that's another thing. The CQB at the CL Team 6 level is, is just different. Like when I, well, I've never explained to anyone there was two trains. up the stairs.

Was it wide enough for it? They were just behind us. So on the second floor, the point man said, I think he said, come here, come here in two different languages. And Khalid got confused

and boom, he blasted him. And I did step over, Khalid. And so we get over and I was like, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. I wouldn't have thought of that. I would have tried to pin the bottom or something

or give him a fake and gone high. I don't know. But he killed him. It was awesome. and then we get to the second floor, and that's when you did split up. So does the staircase continue? Staircase goes kind of up,

straight. So, because when I'm back here, point man goes here, shoots, everyone splits and then I, and I've been asked, why didn't he follow his shots? Well, because that's another level. That's the third floor and he's by himself. And if you take a shot and follow it, that's suicide. Yeah. I mean, you can, but I'd wait. I'd give it a pause.

Unless there was an incredibly compelling reason to do so. Taking a shot at what you think you see behind a curtain and it moves is not a compelling reason to do one-man entry on a third floor. I would agree, especially if you were to trigger. something that could have consequences for everybody else. Plus, if he goes up there, gets hit now, we've got a wounded man. We're not up there. So he basically, he wraps and he's holding now in the third deck. It wasn't a wrap, it was more turn on to it.

It said, here, and he shoots, and then I'm behind him. I came up as two men. And at this point, the second deck is being cleared. And there's offices. I remember the right. I don't think I ever made entry later. I came back down. I didn't go to the left.

I went to the right. Later. Yeah. But now we're down to two. And it's a, I mean. Where's the other train? What did you mean by that? They're clearing.

Okay. So the train, the majority of the bodies are sweeping through the second day. Just got to close the second. Then we're going to make entry. But he took a shot and he could see movement. There was a curtain there. And it almost looked like a military blanket, a green blanket, but a shower curtain. And that's what we can sort of see back.

I don't know how it was backlit, but he could see people moving. But did it just open to a large room? I kind of went to the bedroom off to the side when we went up and in. And he was just saying, he didn't know it was me, but he knew it was this guy because I gave him positive whatever. And I'm not guiding. He knows what he knows what we've been. war with this guy a lot. He already shot. I'm here. And he's like, we got to go and I'm like, all right. And I can see it right now. And on my part, it definitely was not bravery. It was,

this is where we run in, he's going to blow himself up. Okay. And I'm going to feel, I mean, it's like, I might survive this. I'm going to feel it. I'm tired of thinking about it. Let's fucking do this, right? So we did that. And he goes up the stairs and he moved it and the girls are right there, his daughters. And there's suicide bombers. Got to be, right? So he moved him, there's been a lot in standing there. Amal's right in front of him. How much time did you have up there with just the two of you? It, seconds, if that. Because as we enter, I shoot him. It was enough time to see his tongue come out and I hit this head was fucked up. And I saw his son Hussein, too. And the humanity of it came through. It's like, this kid has nothing to do

with this. Yeah. Move him back and I turn in there here. Okay. So they turn. And now it's two trains. And this is a, this is not chaos, but this is now an extremely dynamic room. Two trains have entered. And it got to the point when we, because one of the most dangerous things in CQB, ship takedowns, parallel trains. Yeah. And then you can clear back. But if you clear forward, what, and we got to, I mean, we're doing everything.

This is in training. We're doing everything from, it's a chemlights under the door to you knock because it's a safe word. But it came down to, all right, don't worry about pointing your gun at someone even if you're on fire. the new rule, don't shoot someone who looks like you. That's a super good rule. But it's so simple, right? Instead of the barrel waving the cliff, just don't shoot him. Like, oh, my bad.

Don't shoot the person that looks like a spaceman. But now, so I just killed bin Laden right here, moved him all who'd been hit here. The other train comes in. Now guys are shooting bin Laden. I need to go get a picture. I pour water on his face. Someone point blank shoots him in front of me.

And I go, what the fuck was that? we got to identify this guy. Now I ask people. I've never told that story before. And there's a little bit more that I will save for the Bible on the stand. If that happens in front of you,

are you going to debrief that? Guys come in there blasting me and one guy fucking shoots him in the face in front of me. I'm not telling that story. We need to make this work. This is a bad situation now. And I've been leaving breadcrumbs

for this for 10 years now. That's a tough question, man. I'll be honest with you. I lean towards telling the truth. That is the truth. No, that's what I mean in the debrief though, too. Because the reality at the time, it didn't matter. We're going to be best friends forever and no one needs to know this happen. It's still a lie, though. No, I didn't tell it either. There's also lying by omission. Whatever. It's a debrief. I didn't tell that part of the debrief. This is the truth.

I understand that. What I'm saying is you knew that what was being said in the debrief wasn't the truth. And I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to assess blame. That's not what I'm trying to do. But you asked, what would I do in that situation? And again, this is a hypothetical, right? Fucking easy for me because we're sitting in Calispell, Montana. And I don't have the pressure. You understand literally the global optic that is going to come from this. So I understand.

No, you know what's crazy is not really the global object? I mean, obviously. Eventually. Like you realize this is going to be global news. Let's put it that way. Well, but at the time being in that, like everyone's special. Yeah. So I don't really take credit, not credit, but you don't take, you don't appreciate how special.

Like, we were surprised at shit when we were. get back to the CB's place and on Yahoo, you'd see C-L-Team 6 kills Osama bin Laden. That was surprising. Yeah. Would I do that differently now? Fuck, yeah. I would do it differently. If I could go back and do the debrief differently, you'd goddamn right.

I would. And if you wanted this on tape, fine. And again, I wasn't talking. But also with the argument that I was four-man, I hope they played the debrief. Yeah. That blows me being the foreman completely out of the water. I don't know if you're saying you weren't the one talking gives you the cover. I'm not trying to get cover.

I'm not trying to get cover. cover. And I'm not saying... This top cover should have... I was going to take that to my grave. This doesn't matter. This team got him. So going back to your question, though, I would have... I want to believe that I would have told the truth to include the guy walking up point-blank, because here's the reality. He shouldn't have done that in the first place. Fuck, no, he shouldn't.

And I understand... But also, I should be getting blamed for being the guy that did it. I agree with you. I'm a lot taller than the guy that did it. I, uh, we're talking about you can tell people who are there by the shadows in their walk. You know, goddamn well, I did not canoe bin Laden. Yeah. The, uh, I understand why not only somebody would do that, but also shoot his dead body after

20 years of sustained combat. Now, to be fair there too, I don't have a problem with that. I just need to identify it. What I have a problem with is someone doing it. And then years later, they say that's what I did try and take credit for. That is not the case. I'm a fucking team leader. I just watched a guy who's not a team leader miss the shot of his life.

I'm not going to put that in a deep. brief either. Why? Why would, why does that need to be historic when no one knows what happened in the room and no one's, no one's, no one's going to say. The AAR should never be released. Right. Fair enough. It should have never been released. So why not tell the truth and the whole truth?

I wish I would have. No, I mean, this was. So let's say, let's, let's spin this out because I'm just curious. What do you think the reaction would have been from the military if in the debrief you had said, then yeah, this guy came up point blank. when we were getting ready to take a picture, shot him in the face multiple times, and multiple team members shot bin Laden dead on the ground, which I'm going to be honest, too, I don't have a problem with it. I don't have a problem with it.

Yeah. Based on people being 11worth for murder at war, I'm not taking that chance with my best friends. I'm not taking a chance. Plus, no one's ever going to fucking know as long as we keep the story straight, which we did not. At the J-Soc level, don't you think we should be better than that? I also don't think we should have fucking tattletails at a J-Soc level, which we do. you don't have to worry about tidal tales if you tell the truth. In a, well, I mean, fair enough, fine.

But in a debrief like that, you've never told the commanding officer on the record exactly what went down, that's it. For clarity, I've never done a debrief like this where the commanding officer gave a shit. There's this level of operation you were on and then under the table. This entire team knows exactly what happened.

There was no question. When they hit record, we gave them top cover. There was no question. when we were all standing around bin Laden's body with Admiral McCraven there and zero one there and everyone there the guy that cleared the garden there there was no question and then we've recorded a debrief like we do 100% of the time today's episode is brought to you by david the industry leader in protein bars there's two different type of bars i'm going to talk about today first there is the gold which is actually in this gold wrapping i have these in the studio these are my go to right after jiu jiu jitsu in between episodes or just when i want to get a high protein snack 28 grams of protein 150 calories zero grams of sugar. So that equates to a 75% calorie from protein. The highest protein to calorie ratio of any leading bar on the market. Each of these bars has an indulgent doughy texture, studded with satisfying chunks and airy crisps. I can attest to that. Chocolate chip cookie dough peanut butter, chocolate chunk, salted peanut butter, fudge brownie, cinnamon roll, blueberry

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Just check out their store locator and find a location near you. Back to the show. The biggest problem is... Well, there's no problem. I'm telling it what happens. No, no. I'm not, I'm not saying a problem with you. What it, what this can be construed as is that we lied before, but now I need you to believe us because we're telling the truth. And I don't, and that leads into the bigger question. No, no, it's, it's, I've, I've told the same story every time.

No, no, I'm not talking about your particular story. I didn't get to that detail of that. Yeah, I'm not talking about your particular story. Again, I'm talking about the legitimacy of the debrief, which is what things like, McRaven is going to make his decisions based off of or information. You know what I mean? Like, fuck, man.

Well, you know, this story is at, in the Navy SEO Museum in San Diego on, like, it's a, it's a display, this exact story. And it was actually cool because McRaven's voice, he, uh, moderated and he said, and when I talked to the point man after when he jumped on the suicide bombers, why would you do something like that? And he said, I didn't want the guy behind me to die. Very honorable. I mean, I would wish I had the stones to do that.

And I'm, and I, and I will advocate for is a medal of honor for him. Yeah. And I have before. He jumped on fucking grenades that didn't go off on the bin Laden raid. That's pretty impressive. Yeah. I mean, you wonder whether or not, Monsour is another example, right? Grenade hits his chest and falls in front of him.

What I have the stones to do. I would say right now, no. I mean, I would like, I would say, I hope so. I hope so. That's it. It's like the same thing that we would ask ourselves. How are you going to respond the first time you get shot at? I'll let you know when it happens.

You want to tell yourself you're going to be super brave. I remember the first time. I got shot at. I didn't even know I was getting shot at because I was in mop level four. Are you shitting me? Oh, that's Iraq. Yes. Because we're going to get, we're doing mustard gas now. Yeah, we're doing like kembio. I'm like on nods mop level four and we get off the helicopter. And guys are like, oh man, we just got the living shit shot out of us. And I was like, I didn't even know. It's like what? Fighting in mop level. And that's, I ripped it off almost immediately because I was going to suffocate to death. I would rather get biological weapon. At least I'm out of the shit. So what would you define the top cover as that you

provided. Where did the shot go from the number one man? Is that what he was worried about? I don't know what he was worried about. I don't know. I mean, I don't, I mean, it's almost the common understanding that other dudes are going to shoot in London, too. Yeah. Yeah. And that, whatever, the top cover is fine because you don't need to know what happened. And then it's going to be fine. And that's the mission. I don't have a problem with that. But then it's, it's, the debrief turns into this, a business point in himself in history. I'd love to get the debrief from the guy he was with from Blue Squad and what actually happened at the guesthouse, too. What, uh, I don't know if I've, and again, this military,

that's for them to tell. I wasn't that? Yeah, this military operation rises to a level of again, something I've never been a part of. Yeah. Well, and the shitty thing, too, is like with the rest of the team, like, they didn't see it either. What, uh, why do you think there is such a difference in, and the difference seems to occur at the, at the level between the second floor stairs and the third? It seems like it. I haven't fully read through business book. I've read through portions of yours as well. I haven't read both of them in total. But it seems like there is, there's a very parallel track up to a point and then it kind of diverges. And that...

Well, his book was based on the after-action report. And then he got sued and lost. Well, he got sued and lost for writing it in the first place, right? Not the accuracy of it. Still lost. Yeah, but what was he... You know what was he? You know what was he...

I mean, I'd prove mine. It got approved. Didn't get sued. Didn't lose. It was approved, but there was no way anybody approving it could check it for factual accuracy. Well, I mean, nobody can't. There's one other guy that's in the room. I mean, there's a couple other guys. What I'm saying, though, with Bissus, though, too, I don't think his, he didn't get sued because of factual inaccuracy. He got sued because he never got it cleared and had permission to write it.

So, yes, he did lose that, but we should be clear on what the grounds were that he lost. Yeah, it wasn't for accuracy of the details that he was putting in. It was for the fact that he wrote the thing in the first place. Yeah, and he got sued lost? Correct. That's a really, large check to write. Fuck. I want to help. Dude. I mean, not too much, but that's a lot of money.

I don't understand. Numbers that large. Was it true that Bill McRaven asked him to apologize and they wouldn't sue him? Is that even true? You'd have to ask him. I don't know. I haven't talked to him. Yeah.

So the deviation, though, seems to be going up from the second to the third floor. Yeah. What do you think he saw, which would make him? How much time after the events that you described did he arrive to even be able to see anything. I couldn't. It's got to be seconds though. Okay. Because I do when I'm looking, I can see it right now. And it's, I can see going in the room. I can see Binlan standing, tall, skinny, uh, dead, moving the wife. And then I can see the uniforms. I, guys are in. I remember specifically seeing, I'm not going to say his name. He's out. Uh, the third guy,

uh, point men for the second train come in. I know exactly who he is. And he didn't know what happened in the room. So everyone behind him doesn't know what happened in the room. I've never seen a military operation where nobody can agree on the details. It is fascinating. You know what's awesome? Well, now they can't even agree if it's bin Laden. I've heard it's a body double. You stop it right now.

You know the, my, I had a comeback though. I can only go so far. Yeah, yeah, this is because I'm sure. My, my, I was so over it when I got asked that. We heard you got a body double. I said, look, I shot a guy who got out of bed with bin Laden's wife. Either way, he had it coming. If it's not, if it's a body double, bin Laden's going to kill him.

Yeah. I mean, I think if you even look like a close approximate, if it was a midget that looked like bin Laden, I think he might have eaten one. You know? I think it was a midget that looked like bin Laden. I'm shooting him on general principle. I would have to agree. I mean,

that's a scary looking midget. Nothing against the aforementioned short people. So then you're done with this. And we're going to put him in a body bag. And the realization starts to hit, like, we might live. Fuck.

We might live. Let's say SSE this shit. And then I went downstairs. I ran into cheese with Cairo. And he asked, it was funny. We were amazed at how much shit was there. I went into,

one of the bedrooms in the second deck and pulled out a like a big London Bridge type bag that when we first started getting we thought we were so cool. Yeah. Sealed Team 6 gets the open those up and it's all it's a vacuum sealed raw opium but I thought it was rib eyes. It looked like steaks. Really? Yeah. And then just like fuck they're funding. This is these are drugs. And then you find like old school towers for computers and shit. Break those. Take hard drives and discs and and it's like, fuck, they were running it from here. So just started to gather shit and then back upstairs, grab the body, four of us.

Actually, the point man and I brought, from me and the point, not the point man behind me, we brought him downstairs to the sniper who rescued Richard Phillips. And we were talking about, me and the point man, talking about the shot on the way down and then we drop him off to the sniper and we're like, hey, this is your guy,

and he's like, you fucking shit, and me, let's get the fuck out of here. So, I mean, it was quick. It's not like a... Yeah, it's not an extended period of time. Well, we got in line, we're going to leave now. And it didn't matter. It really didn't matter.

Yeah. Why? I mean, so was the point man just worried that he had winged them all? I don't, I just don't understand the need for the top cover. I don't know. What was the agreement you guys came to? We're in Pakistan. We're in, it's a title 50.

Yeah. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know if there's going to burn us. Yeah. And from people listening, Title 10 and Title 50 are different at 40s. I'm not saying you missed a shot. I'm not going to say that. It sucks.

That's an important shot. You're supposed to hit that. and a mall get shot. This is, and by the way, make this decision quickly because the rest of history is basing everything on this. He was good with that? Was it his idea or was it a combination?

He was talking. Yeah. And it was sort of, we agreed. Fuck, man. But I mean, and like I said, like shit in the room, if they want to say what happened, if other guys want to say what they saw,

I don't have a problem with that, but I'm telling you what happened. And I'm not comfortable. I wanted that top cover forever, man. I'm happy to die with that knowledge. It sucks. fucking sucks. What changed your mind about talking about? Constantly getting harassed. My daughter's not losing sleep. A fraud, a liar. It's like 53 awards, 16 years of Navy SEAL, never took

short duty. It was involved with all kinds of combat operations. I'm not a fucking fraud. And if there's a problem with the room and you're at Delta, give me a shout. I'll, come see you, man. Whatever. I'll explain it. And if we can't come to an agreement, fucking 16 year old kids who are thinking about joining the Navy and now aren't because I don't to put up with the shit. It's like, you don't need that shit in the, in the public space. We, I mean, this conversation should be had. Yeah.

I mean, I'm fine with it. It's the truth. I don't know what would have changed in the debrief. No, in the debrief at all, though. What does it change? I mean, it's just. The point man's like, dude, I took a shot. And first off, people hearing this like, oh, my God, a woman got shot.

I'm like, listen. Well, they don't care now. Well, and then they shouldn't care them because honestly, a man or a woman, like a lawful enemy combatant is based on a lot of things. What's between your legs is not one of them. It's your action. this hostile act, hostile intent. Didn't we just say something happened doesn't matter?

Yeah. That's what happened. Doesn't matter. Then why changed the debrief? It just happened. We changed it. It was clean. Like every other debrief.

Like in Iraq, when we hit a mosque with three straight Carl Gustavs, we kind of left that out of the debrief. What do you think the 0-1 and McCraven would think about the debrief being modified? Well, I mean, zero-one was there. And then afterwards, like, I mean, even with your, Not yours, sorry. Even with the, I didn't mean you. You bastard. Yeah, right.

The after action, like, with me being the four man, right after that, getting on the C-17, 0-1 pulled me and the point man aside, and he had whiskey and we all took a shot, three of us. And it's like, well, that's general rule, general order number one. You can't drink in Afghanistan. The commanding officer just had a shot with us. That's illegal. Why wasn't that the debrief?

You know, it's like, why was there just two of us? Why was I the four men having a three-man drink? I mean, you're stretching here a little bit. Usually having a drink with a skipper is not going to be in a debris of any kinds. I'm saying stuff that happened that's like this certain thing. I wasn't the foreman. I didn't canoe bin Laden. Yeah.

We changed the story. So it was clean. And it's over. And guess what? USA apple pie. We killed bin Laden. 9-11 is avenged. Or is it?

Until people raise questions. And that's the problem. Yeah. They could have asked me. Instead of going on a two-year diatribe. How has nobody ever sat down? I mean, you've done a bunch of podcasts.

How does nobody ever ask you? They've asked me about it. I told the same story. I told them. Oh, you were saying before, though, that you had never talked about or nobody did. Well, I don't talk about that part. Yeah.

I left the breadcrumbs. Point Man takes a shot. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Amal's hit. Yeah. It's like, just put them together. No, it's O'Neill Canudam. It's like, no, I didn't.

One guy said I did and then it caught traction. How did bin Laden look? Was he haggard? Yeah, he was tall and, um. How old was he when he died? Michael, can you look at a... I'm about 60. I wonder if he actually knew how he was.

You know what he looked to me was confused. And I had read something Amal wrote later that she said something along the lines. He said something to her along the lines of they're not here for you. They're here for me. 54. Well, let's be honest. It's very hard to determine age in Afghans. Oh, yeah.

I think I've seen one. We were doing interviews for security. No of these dudes fought with them was against the Russian. Tell me that 25 years old. Did it look like it had hung on him? Like he was... He looked 105. Just grayed out.

Oh, yeah. Well, no, Bin Laden with the guy. Yeah. No, Bin Laden. He was gray. I wouldn't say grayed out. I saw him then and I saw him afterwards, like in J-Bet and stuff. Yeah.

I saw him take the picture. I was eating a breakfast sandwich on the last... When they were taking pictures of him for the DNA and stuff in Bath. I mean, assuming at that point, they probably... Well, it depends on how close the shot was the visual identification. Well, it was him. Yeah. The pictures exist.

I heard from a congressman that they're in a file cabinet, Langley. The pictures have been loved. And then we have some too. My gloves are in the ones on target. I still have those gloves. Yeah. I mean, I have no empathy for the man at all. I don't either.

I wonder. And again, the reason to ask about what he looks like, like I wonder what 20 years of running and hiding does stress-wise to the body. I had heard rumors that he was telling his kids not to get involved in the family business. I don't know if that's true, because I think Hans is alive. I think he's still running training camps, like 27 of them in Afghanistan. Did they ever determine how long he had been in Abbottabad? No, I think he said five years.

I don't know. I'm curious where he had been along the way. Did they ever put, because I'm assuming the woman to agency, obviously people were looking for this person. I wonder if they were able to retroactively determine kind of the breadcrumbs along the way of where he went from Torabora to ending up all the way. I don't know. They didn't tell us that, but I'm sure they did.

It'd be fascinating. But I heard they busted him from a phone call that the courier. Not Al-Wa-Waki. Al-Walki was an American. We killed in Yemen. Abu Akhmet, no. A Kuwaiti. Okay.

He called his mom, and someone smarter than us was listening to that. And she asked where he was. He said, I'm working with the people from before. In the documentary, Zero Dark 30 that I saw, they caught him from the courier. I thought that was a good movie. I don't fucking know I wasn't there. You tell me. How accurate was it?

I didn't like the tattoos or the pop collars. And then when they were throwing horseshoes. They had humor in it that was similar. Also hard to describe how much humor we have even while on target doing our job. There was a conversation similar to when I found out they crashed. When the guy in the room said, yeah, helicopter crashed, you walked right past it. It's registered. That's how they got in here.

And one of the snipers from outside saw the tail from the bird because the pilot rested it on the thing. So the tail's exterior. The sniper's doing laughs with the dog. Yeah. And he came over the radio too and said, hey, they're ready for us, man. They got a training mockup of our super secret helicopter in the front yard. And someone said, no, jackass, that's ours. We crashed.

And he goes, yeah, that makes a lot more sense. And the shit, I was just saying. But in the movie, it says something. Yes, it does wake me. Yeah, wait a minute. That is something like that in the movie, something like the helicopter crashed. Because, yeah, I saw that. Was that on purpose?

It's like, that is some shit that a team guy would say on target. Oh, 100%. Because the human never leaves. I think you actually have to have it. Otherwise, your brain would explode for non-kinetic reasons based on some of the stuff the day asking you. Never lose your sense of humor. Well, I think we know some people who have and it changes them as people. It's too bad. It's, uh, no, uh, I think war does that. You're not as biggest fan, I think it's safe to say, but Brent was sitting in that chair. Yeah. And, uh, he was

talking about some of the team leaders that he knew and they became older, angry men and they didn't used to be. And, uh, I can see that. Well, I wonder about it often. I don't know. I've seen I've seen dudes I knew team team two that went to the troop chief level at gold. And I mean, for obvious reasons. Yeah. It's not the same. I mean, they asked a lot out of us, man. They did.

And I don't know if it's possible for it not to change you. I do. The trainers, Hutch. He was working on my back one day. And he came from the Carolina Panthers. Yeah. And he's like, oh, you've all changed every single one of you. So he's not going to war.

He's just working on us, right? Yeah. He notices the. And dudes did, man. They got disgruntled as fun. I don't know how you couldn't, especially, I mean, I don't. Well, and it's normal. We're out to just killing people every night, every night.

Well, not even that. Even when you don't or you're like, why do we keep running into the same people on the same target? Why are these people getting catch and release? Like, we're fighting the bureaucracy? I've had al-Qaeda just tell me that in English. They're going to send me to Abu Ghrave. I'll be out in 30 days. Fuck.

That's why you change a debris fray fucking there. I don't think he made it to Abu Ghraib. Rob, I'm going to tell you, man. I don't know if there's ever a good argument to change the debriefing. Just saying. I'm not saying I don't understand why it happens. But the American people want to believe that it wouldn't. Yeah.

I think that's the issue. Because they want to believe that people at the level that you were asked. Well, they've never heard the debrief. Why doesn't matter? Because it speaks to the person who is speaking in the debrief. Fair enough. You can ask him why he said it. I don't think they'll ever get that chance.

Do I wish I would have said? Okay. Yeah, I wish I would have. And I remember thinking I'm going to regret. at this, but we're just going to stick with this. These are my best friends. This is not going to be animosity. Like, we just did this and we're going to go to every seal reunion until we're 100 years old if we don't drink ourselves to death before that. That was the attitude then. But that doesn't make something that is wrong. Right. We can pick apart morality all the time.

That's what happened. I'm not, and again, I'm not trying to place judgment or have a morality conversation. I mean, I have no judgment about it. I'm just saying from people who don't understand the world that we came from, it's going to be hard for them to make the leap of like, yeah, but why? You know what I mean? Looking out for your buddies. Unforeseeable future. I mean, imagine having this conversation with the point man's in jail because I said,

well, he shot him all. I mean, could have happened? No, but would it? Maybe. I don't know. I'd rather take a chance. Is there anything wrong if he was in jail for shooting somebody that he shouldn't have? I mean, you have the number one guy in the world.

Motherfuckers are walking by and blast him in his face. That might be jail time. there's definitely that I would say yeah and and it's between shooting a mall or people people shooting a dead enemy combatant in the face multiple times like yeah one of those is way more well that also happened and maybe we should put some top cover on that too

yeah fuck man yeah it was I mean I had my hands here to take a I just dumped my analogy on his face and then he gets fucking canoed that's rough man it fucking sucks yeah and it sucks but again too I guess what you don't want to see how justice is served, but it is. Well, most people would say they want to see justice served justly. Well, when they say, too, it's like, well, did you agree with burying him at sea?

No, I wanted to fucking hang him from the Brooklyn Bridge. They said to bury him at sea. Who do you think made that call? Because that wasn't on one who doesn't know their. That's the body double shit. That's where it starts. They stuffed him into a sea bag and he lives in Soho. You know, he's got a Machiaado stand down in Soho.

I've been asked, how do you know they buried him at sea? He's not in a bucket of beta nine to see him. I'm like, I don't. I didn't see him throw him in. We handed him off to some army guys. They took him. I don't know if he's buried at sea. Fuck.

I didn't care. I mean, yeah, at that point, you're tasking and responsibilities have been completed. We were supposed to die last night. I don't give a fuck. Every day is a blessing. We went on a one-way mission, man. We lived, all of us.

No one was hurt. Oh, by the way, at the debrief, too, we would have noticed if someone got shot, they would have mentioned it. When did you start changing your thoughts about the one way? Like, after he was dead and you're thinking, like, fuck, we might get out of here? When did you start having a hope that it was going to be a two-way versus a one way?

When we brought him outside and put him at the foot of the sniper, we heard Geronimo at that point. I was actually with cheese when they said Geronimo. That was the first time we actually connected on a high-five. Talking about clumsy white guys. Yeah, tough under nods though, depth perception. It is. But luckily. There's like a lot of missis bumps.

Yeah, yeah. I remember he did. Cheese made the sound from like Little John was really popular then. Yeah. High-five and I heard it. Yeah. How worried were you guys about a Pakistani businessman? Oh, well, that was the worst part because now we got to fly out on a 47.

Because we gave the body to Ann Arbor to the Chalk 1. So they took that out and they went to a mountain to refill on another 47. Which now, when we're talking about heroes, no one mentions that the Army and Blue Squad and rescued Red Squad on the Bin Laden raid. They came in and rescued us. So we're outside, we don't have, and we don't have CCTV. We don't have fucking anybody. So we got to call him in.

We know how to do it. I'd rather have an Air Force guy. For sure. And we've got a motherfucker over here tweeting, right? So this dude's outside tweeting about, you can. read them still. Tweeting. What?

Why would they be doing an ex- A Pakistani was? Yes. Because I look at this dude and you can read himself. I'll find it for you. And I'm thinking, all right, we're in Iraq.

Please tell me it says something like shit going down, hashtag abat. Why would they be doing? If X was anything then, what it is now, we're fucked. But I remember thinking, hashtag abata.

Hashtagabata. Hashtag. Yeah. Hashtag ST6. That would. Oh, God. But I remember. looking at bin Laden's house, we've got to call in. You know, we almost fucking blew that helicopter

down, too. Yeah, we got a time fuse on a thing. This guy's, this guy's over here tweeting. I'm looking at him thinking, if we're in Iraq right now, there is. Oh, my God. First off, where's the proper spelling? I mean, take your time. Get it out properly. So, So Hyb, Athar. I guess so? I feel like he broke this story. I'm giving him credit right now. But when I looked at him, too, he's got a, his face is lit up with the phone. I'm thinking in Iraq, I'm shooting him because he's going to be setting up an IED. But then it's like, you know what? They have no fucking idea we're here.

And then the bird comes in. I'm talking to the sniper again. And we're like, how much time fuse? When's that going off? Like 30 seconds. Oh, we got abort it. Fuck, we aborted the 47. It turns.

This blows up. We almost took down a goddamn Chinook comes back in. And then we get on that thing. And then we get in there. Now we're leaving. I'm sitting next to the sniper. This is actually a cool story. I'm with him.

You know him. I don't want to say his name. He doesn't want it out there yet. When he rescued. Captain Phillips. That was the most important thing. I even afterwards, when we're on the ship, we were on the boxer. And I said something like, you just did the most like important thing in CL team history. And his response was cool. Can we go home? Like that? Like just fucking kill a guy. So when we got back, he's getting shit. Like I'm not the poor me, whatever. Fuck it.

But he's getting shit from specifically his team leader who didn't shoot trying to fire him because he came and smelling like booze. Like we got back home, we went out drinking because he just rescued Richard Phillips, whatever. And I always go up to him and say, hey dude, don't listen to this shit. I take my dip out. Take one of mine. You're a hero. Don't listen to this fucking bullshit. This is a noise. You're a hero. Whatever. Give me a dip every time. Whenever that shit would come up. We're riding out from the bin Laden raid. I got my shitty

old school nods on and Copenhagen came in front of me and said, take one. Now you know what it feels like. I'm like, okay, and then a blue team guy from New York was there and he goes, who got him? Like I said, I did. And he said, on behalf of my family, thank you. I'm like, holy fuck, what is going on here?

And they were leaving on a bird but they are going to scramble F-16s we sold them because they're our allies. And I'd heard room, now they didn't. Are they? Let's put, well, first off, I'm not an expert in geopolitics. And again, my opinion only counts for me. I'm going to put an asterix. Yes.

Next to the allies portion of that. See, not me, because if my, I want my taxpayer, if my taxpayer dollars aren't going to Pakistani jets, I want them to build up al-Shabaab, because that's what we're doing. But, yeah, so now we're leaving, though. And I had heard, after. I ran into some of the pilots. They actually had some stuff above us and they had F-15s.

And something, this is just cool, I hope it's true. Something along the lines, the F-15 pilots let the F-16 pilots know this is a bad idea for you. But we don't know any of this and we're just, we know 90 minutes

and we just all started our watches and we're just sitting on this bird. Just to get down in J-Bet. 90 minutes gets us across the border. And we thought like we might have to fly as far as the fuel can get us and run. And we're in a spot too. I mean, think about the shit there.

If we land in Abbottabad, Pakistan, something bad happens, like, I don't know, helicopter crashes. Like, West Point, their version is there. It's not going to be fucking cadets. It's going to be local cops. And I don't, I didn't go there to kill local cops. You have no idea what's going on. They're working the beat.

And so this is a lot of shit going on. So we're flying out on a 47, not as stealth as the stealth birds. Which, by the way, not to interrupt you, it is fascinating to me. When all this stuff came out publicly, I had only heard of those helicopters. I didn't know about them. And then to see a picture there, and it was just kind of like glossed over. It was actually probably like the biggest secret of the operation. I don't think the president.

Sitting there, poorly destroyed, by the way. I know they used the tools that they could. All we have is federal barracks and do you know that within. China. 36 hours, those things were lifted and shifted. And it was, I'm like, oh my God, dude, that is one of the closest held secrets on the front page of global newspaper. And nobody's talking about it. I know.

Except for the Chinese who are like, excuse me. Just me. Just like him now. That's weird. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. No, no. It's all good.

Yeah. But yeah, the flight out then is just start to watch the familiar wine of the, we've all been in the jokes. 47s, yeah. 47s, yeah. I love those things. And I love when people say, I've said to me too, uh, so that's a pretty slow helicopter. I mean, that's the fastest helicopter we have.

Yeah. That's two of them engines, hauling ass. Some of the best sleep I've ever gotten is in the passenger seat of a high luxe facing rearward in a 47, just with a crew chiefs like, hey, you can't get. it in there and I'm like understood. That's like you can't put your, you can't put your sleeve bag on top of the Connix box. All right.

Sure. I just took too ambient. I'd better. Yeah. I have 10 minutes of usable time to get up there and then you need to leave me alone. Oh yeah. I don't want to be falling off this thing. I don't want to limp away from this.

Yeah. That's in long 90 minutes, man. Was it over largely the route out, I'm assuming it's probably over not populated areas? I think it was point A point B. Straight line. I think it was just haul ass, pedal the metal. We started our watches. And Chesney told me he was listening to A Great Day to Be Alive by Travis Trit.

We actually told Travis Trit that pretty fucking cool. Because he never listened. She never listened that song again because he was on it. I think when Falco was killed and he was running Falco. And he couldn't listen that song. And it's fitting because now I got Cairo. We're leaving 10 minutes. Fuck yeah.

20, 30, 40, 50, 60 minutes. Right. I started thinking about a no hitter, top of the seventh, home team. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to jinx this. 70, 80 minutes. Got to get to 90. And then no shit, I've actually told Al Michaels this.

I started thinking, face to face, I started thinking about the greatest sporting event in the history of this country, 1980, Lake Placid Olympics, hockey. Team USA is a bunch of college kids who don't even like each other. I love this movie that's made. Fucking amazing.

Russians, obviously, the greatest hockey team ever assembled, haven't lost since the early 60s, every gold medal. This team has no business being on the ice. Yeah, the Russian team definitely not genetically modified in any way shape or four. They're not on any injectable chicken. breast or... But I started thinking about the end.

Third period, now they're winning. Yeah. Oh, the clock. God, God. That scene of the movie. And, uh, yeah. But if you go to YouTube, you can hear that crowd too. We can fuck this up 10, 9, 8, 5. And then you hear five seconds left.

Do you believe in miracles? And then did the pilot came over the radio. All right, gentlemen, for the first time in your lives, you're going to be happy to hear this. Welcome to Afghanistan. Fuck, man. That's first high five. No high fives.

When we heard it was Bin Laden. Nothing when we're shooting, nothing blown up. We finally get back. High five. now we're going to be best friends forever. Why do you think he came apart? Why do you think the best friend idea? I have thought about it every day.

It's got to be some sort of professional jealousy. I know at that level, at the Tier 1 level, I know that guys who didn't get picked for the mission were extremely jealous. I'm at a Tier 1 unit. I guess I'm not at a Tier 1 unit. They were jealous. It was really hurt.

Experience in time are real things, though, man. Imagine being on the stairs to Bin Laden's room and Bin Laden dies, and you don't like the guy who did it. maybe it's jealousy. I mean, I remember my first, I was working for HP at Gold Squadron, my first year. I got handed a sledgehammer. Oh, yeah.

And I'm like, guys, I know how to use this for my days at Team 5. But then you watch them move through the house and I'm like, okay, this is different. And they're making decisions. And you have to take the time to learn how to read body language and get to know your people. My first run after Green Team with Red Team, they were gone. I didn't see them. Did you have the thought in your mind? I don't know if I'm capable of doing that

because that's what I had my first round too. I thought I was so good at CQB after Green Team because that's all you do. Also, for clarity, you were. It's just a different level. You jump at first and then a CQB for nine months. Yeah. A different level.

Well, I'm saying. A level that people... Out of Green Team, you were good at CQB. You were probably better than 99% of people. Easily. Yeah, then you go up to the squadron. Forget about it. So I understand.

I never... The cool thing about my career is I never got out of the new guy cycle. So I was an E6 and then got commissioned and got out as an O3. I'm like sausage maker the whole time. You know what I mean? Because first of all, I was at gold as an E5. Like, there's no better job. There's no better job than being an E5, the youngest dude in old class.

That's like lottery shit. I know. And they're like, here's the sledge. Don't kill us and don't do anything dumb. I'm like, I don't know if I'm capable of doing either of those, but I'll do my best. And so, and then I left there. I had made E6. I got to Buds.

I was the newest instructor, like, not even the LPO. Just a professional new guy. Just a professional new guy. Then I get commissioned. I'm an 01 right back down to the bottom of the ladder. And I got out. I made 03 like two months before I got out because every two years you get advanced. Yeah.

Yeah, automatically. So my second, yeah, my last deployment in 2010 was with Team 3. I was in 2002. No, I left on that deployment as an 01. My troop commander goes, here's your lieutenant bars. and borrow my lieutenant commander ones when you need to go to the meetings. Oh, that's fine. And I made, yeah, I made 02 on that and then 03 right before I got medically retired.

I never got out of the wheels of the machine. Oh, that's fucking awesome. What was it like the first time someone said, sir? It was hilarious. That is funny. The first time I ever got saluted, I was driving on to, it was, I had, because I was at buzz. And I went to no additional training.

I got this package saying, hey, you got picked up for the LDO program. So I went over to the NAB Bayside to the exchange and found a Filipino woman and said, I need officer uniforms. And I don't know what that means. But I need them all. Well, still know. So I put my khakis on the first day after my commissioning sermon. I'm driving on the base.

And this kid salutes me at the compound, driving onto the buds compound, just the gate there that's off the silver strand. And I audibly started laughing. Well, yeah. I don't know how it happened. Because he looked at my ID. He's like, morning, sir, I'm just like, I drove into work,

went over to a buddy of mine who was an E9 in first phase. I'm like, do I have this shit on right? Oh, that's funny. He was like, actually, no. No, no. Bell buckles upside down. It was flipped the other way. Oh, that's awesome.

So it did, it was hilarious. Oh, the khakis, yeah, that makes sense. Because you were in the six, you didn't know what khakis were? No. Huh. I know, I went to the, I literally went to the Navy exchange because those women.

Well, every day, the prices. I mean, well, that. and those women know more about military and the uniforms than we do. The field of heroes run the Navy, especially that. The supply side and then the NEN-EX. Dude, so they decked me out. Yeah. And I'm walking around like, do I have this thing?

I have this shit on right? It was weird, man. First time I made senior chief, I went to the, Damneck, went through the gate. Yep. He said, have a good day senior chief. I did a U-turn and I wanted to hear that shit again. What's up, homie? Let's hear that one more time.

I could never handle the salute thing, man. That's got to be weird. That just doesn't make sense. the uh getting saluted god here's a so i i think i would have stayed at the command for as long as possible it wasn't really my choice to leave so i got hurt in that deployment in 2005 with a squadron and i remember that yeah i had made an agreement with the uh because we turned over with gold that was my first deployment yeah in java the squadrons at that point weren't their own command so it wasn't a co what did they call me he was just the o i c yeah it'd be uh uh uh gold lead yeah who i think

was the same 01 on your... He was. That's what I'm saying. So I... You know that dude too in his defense. I knew him at SEAL Team 2. Yeah. He was planning the bin Laden raid since before 9-11.

Like that was his thing. Yeah. Seriously. Like that was always his thing. It was to the point of like, this is just ridiculous. Like I saw him on the weekends. Like he's planning this shit before 9-11. He's a little touched.

I would say DefCon 3 autism. Something. Not nuclear, but like he's approaching... I never had a problem with him personally. I've also never seen executive officers or junior officers bad mouth an officer in front of enlisted guys like that. Yeah. He was fantastic for me. He was the officer detailer when I was getting ready to get out and they said, we're not submitting this because your medical record was like seven pages.

They're like, no. The doctor wouldn't sign it. I'm like, uh, I have plans just so you know. And my EAOS is on like Monday. This was a Wednesday. I call up the OD teller. Didn't know who it was. He answers.

I'm like, dude, I need help. I had a year extension within like. Oh, really? 30 minutes. I've had nothing but great experiences with him. No, so am I. I mean, I've worked longer hours. I've never was his roommate.

I've heard it's difficult. I'm sure. But anyway, so I was, it was like... Does he got it like a two-star by now, isn't he? He's got to be. He's on a rocket ship to the top, I'm sure. Well, he's got three silver stars. Yeah.

Isn't necessary for promotion, but it looks good to a board. Oh, it's not necessary for promotion, but let's just say you're really competitive with the other packages. I see the Ground Force Commander on the Bin Laden radio. Yeah. So after that deployment anyway, I was going to go down to air ops for about six months just to take some time off because we had been going back to back to back to back. And it was actually far less kinetic than what you guys built into in six, seven and eight. It was just earlier on. I don't think the enemy had really figured out what the hell was going on or put together like a counter strategy. But I was going to go out to the air ops because I love jumping. So I'm still on crutches. I get flown back. The squadron is still overseas. And the E9 of the command, asked me to come up at CMC to the third deck, the old third deck building, which was right across from admin. I'm on crutches. He's sitting there in his khakis. And he's like, you know, you haven't done enough. So we're going to put you back into the rotation cycle. And I was like,

Master Chief. And I'm not proud of this. I said, basing this off of what I see on your uniform and your rack, I've done a hell of a lot more than you ever have. How do you like that? He immediately stood up and started yelling at me the knife cutting hand. Oh, he brought up the blade. So we discussed, yeah, he was pissed. But I was like, listen, man, you're sitting here telling a guy

who is on crutches that I haven't done enough and I can look and visually identify what you have and haven't done which I can still respect you as an E9 but this is the deal that I made with my squadron. He's like, no, fuck you. Wow. So that's why I ended up leaving because I couldn't get the downtime that I needed

to actually just recover, work on my marriage, the only bill it was available was butts. He was disgruntled about the Blackwater thing. I don't know what he was. So he was really pissed because he said that. He mentioned people by name that went to Green Team, did a pump, and then went to make Blackwater money. Which is what not what I was trying to do.

Well, he didn't care. He made guys in my Green Team really was there instead of doing it overseas for tax exempt. You like the end of the story. Let's go. So years later, we're in a meeting. And I'm an officer at this point. Oh, yes. You don't even need to finish a story yet.

It's the only time I looked at someone. I'm like, you can go ahead and call me sir. Yes. That is exactly what I wanted to hear. So that shit came full circle. I literally got the hairs just stood up. That's so awesome. Full circle.

I shut him down in an ops meeting and he got pissed. And I forget what he called me. I think he just said. Whatever. And I'm like, actually, it's sir. It's sir now. And he turned a shade of red that I don't know if it exists on a color palette.

That's the kind of revenge I'm talking about, like years in the making. This is literally, I'm not kissing your ass because I'm in your new studio. Top five stories. I've heard at that command. Dude. Seriously. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I shouldn't have said what I did.

Yeah, you should have. Fuck him. I'm literally hobbling down the, I mean, you could hear my foot on that stupid linoleum hallway. I could take a normal step and then it was flat because I had drop foot. I had hemipelagia for a year, which is basically paralysis of the leg. Like, I haven't done enough. Like, dude, I'm not saying I've done anything.

But, like, but like, fuck, man. What do you want from me? This place doesn't have to be a wood chipper. No, but it is. Well, I asked, like I said, I went to the, the seal museum in San Diego, which is, which is great. And it's, that's a spot too where team guys should be able to go if we have to hash anything out. It's cool. The VR, the virtual reality thing there.

I've never been. Oh, it's, I was, I snuck in, like, by myself. I did the virtual audit alone. I put the thing on and it's like this wind. And I'm looking at this team guys right here. I'm like checking out their gear. Really? Yeah.

And then we're in a helo like a black hug. And then we do a free fall jump into VBSS. Like it's really cool. Like you can see it. Like I can do a JNPI on these fake guys that are next to me. Okay. But then I'm at the museum. It's awesome.

But then it's like, hey, why isn't there anything about Richard Morsenko here? Because we're really bad at that. It was BlackBolt. Why? I would have, I never met it. I would have loved to have a drink with Richard Marcinco. And to hear... I met his daughter.

I don't recommend drinking with her. No. She an animal? She can be unkind. Growing up with him? Why's that? Hard to say. Never met the man.

I saw him once. Never met him. But I think we should have been able to go into SEAL Team 6, but they blackballed them. Yeah. Yeah. We should have the Bin Laden team in the team rooms right now telling the shooters what goes on. Which version? What should they tell?

Whatever. I don't get fun. Tell them about Green Jim and how you got it or slice or whatever. And then 100% always tell the truth. in your Jeevish, no matter what happens. I think you should, man. I think you should. Maybe it's done.

It's done. It's done. It is what it is. Yeah. And like I said, I say that without judgment. And I understand that there is no pressure on me to say that because we're decades removed, right? Like, I get it. It's, uh, I don't know how to put a bow on that situation.

There's no fucking bow on this. No, I don't mean like the situation itself as to how people can arrive to a place like, let's just put it to bed and move on. Well, I would be happy to do that. Yeah. But then I got this podcast coming down my throat. every day for 40. My wife's getting pregnant miscarriages. It doesn't matter what I feel. How are they affecting my family? This is fucked up what you're doing. And that's how you get a

$25 million lawsuit for defamation, not for a debrief. How long does that process take? My lawyers are working right now. Did they give, is this like a two-year thing? I just, I know the speed of law is not fast. I know that their lawyer wants, is dying to get it dropped. He's dying for dismissal. He does not want to go against me in court. Do you think it's a good look either way when or lose? They didn't need to do this. Now they're getting sued. This didn't have to happen.

And guess what? You can, to Tucker, man, why don't you make a live enough shit you did? All we know about you is you got shot by somebody. They do, Delta does a better job of, I'm not going to say quiet professional,

but they talk less. Well, Brent Tucker's the face of Delta force, whether I like it or not. Yeah. There's this. I will say there's less there's less out there in the public domain. Maybe that will change over time. You know what, too?

I tell you what, speaking of Delta, it'll be interesting. Are we talking about airlines or? Well, see? I have a history with that. Are you allowed to fly on them yet? I think so. I'm not going to. That was bullshit.

Stupid. It was stupid. I mean, was a stupid on my part? Oh, fuck yeah. Yeah. But it was, to me, it was fun. Again, drinking at the time. Thought it was funny, not funny.

It turns out if you drink too much in tweet, it can be not as funny as it sounded at the time. And then you realize when you're hung up. over. Ooh, that was stupid. How'd you get a handle on it? I began. I did Ibegain three times. How bad was it before you did the I begin? Oh, horrible. The way I describe it, and to my wife especially, is I would get demonic. It wasn't a bad drinker. It was a straight fucking evil that came out of me. Did you realize it at the time? No. No, and I was surrounded by yes, man. I was surrounded by people who can benefit off me being drunk. Wow. Money. Ooh. I

I think being surrounded by yes men ever is super dangerous. That's something else. Oh, yeah. You're just in an echo chamber. No, I don't want to be told yes all the time that I'm right. That's stupid. I want to be told them wrong. That's how you learn.

That was one problem with getting out of the seal themes is I thought I could trust everyone. And you can't, really. People have their interest in mine. What was it that got you to explore IBG in the first time? Was it one thing or a combination of things? It was the alcoholism. It was running into team guys that had quit. drinking that were very successful. Their marriage was great. They quit drinking. For years,

they didn't tell me how. I'm like, that's great. You quit drinking, man. I'd love to. And then they said, oh, I did psychedelics. So I got into psychedelics. I went to Ibegin. The first time, it was fantastic. Okay. And the way I Begin works is once you go through it and then the 5MEODMT, it resets you and it's going to stay with you for me for three months. And that's when you need to adjust and get your new schedule down. For me, it's a meditation, rosary yoga. working out and then start your day. For me, the first time was so good that it was like, cool, I'm cured. I can have a beer.

I let alcohol back in. How long from the I-B-Gene experience to letting it back in? Six months, five months, maybe five months. I have no experience with it, but I've heard from people it is powerful and it just changes your relationship with the substances. You know what? For disgruntled veterans who are just addicted to hate, I would love to help them get Ibegain. It is a go there and you just, it's better.

It's peaceful. time I went into take it serious. I needed a third time. It's the realization I can't ever drink again, which is great. I mean, trust me, I mean, there's fuckups in my past that I can try to explain. It's like, I was drunk, man. Yeah. And I'm not now. And that's it. And my, you know, my kids are better. My family's better. But the Ibegin did it because the I begin, it goes into, it, it opens your mind to a point that you're seeing stuff that you suppress. And it's a, it's a, it's having, it's going to be a part of my life forever. I'll go back. Maybe not as soon as next summer. But it's a, it's a, it's a

vacation now because I'm familiar with it. The sweat lodge is incredible. The food is phenomenal. What country did you go to? Tijuana. Okay. Ambio life sciences, I'm convinced they plucked these Michelin star chefs from Mexico City. They probably did. And they gave them, I'm sorry? And they gave them their own menu, they own kitchen, no one fucks. You get this Michelin star meals. Sweat lodge, great, IVs, Ibogaine is just, it's going to be a bad dream for 10 hours. And you just need to know that you can guide it and you just, you don't want to fight it. You just need to be open and welcome it. Does it feel like 10 hours

or does time perception change? Both. The last one, it started off the punch in the face and then let me sleep for the last five hours. Oh, damn. Well, I went in there

with an attention because I see demons every time and demons, like I stare at them. You have a weird, it's a weird, not everybody hallucinates either. There's been heroin addicts that slept the whole night were complaining about it,

but then they weren't dope sticks, so it worked. And, but for me, like, it was weird. Like, I had one of the times, like, they lay you down, there was five of us in a room. mostly green berets, one dude from Delta.

And what you do is you take the pills, the red pills, which is cool, because you're going to see the... Very Matrix. That's why they did it. And you're going to... So, like, you take your pills and there's your bed. We take them outside of a fire ceremony when the sun's going down, the Coronado Island. It's gorgeous.

Take your pills. You're all bullshit. You have a, like, a burn list. Here's what you're going to do. And you don't need to tell anyone, but guys are in such a mood. Like, I'm going to tell you what's wrong with me. And it's always funny to hear, like, a green beret, because you start laughing out and his fucked up problems because you're describing what I do.

And then you do it. up there with the, I'm going to ask this demon what his name is and why he's here. Every time I've seen him, he shows up with a white face and red eyes at black gums, yellow teeth, and he's pissed off. He's always right here. I'm going to ask him his name. What do he wants? So we went out there and like you sit down to the Delta dude. He's out. He's having a, it starts earlier for him. And I think your mind takes a snapshot of the room because once you put it on and start hallucinating, you can sort of see everything in the room. Oh, like a see-through VR mask. Yeah, you think it is. And so then I'm back there. I'm waiting for this demon. I look over. Start having a

conversation with the dude, the Delta guy. I'm just having a, it felt like a five, 10 minute conversation. I want to get more into it. I pull my mask up and he's not even looking at me. I'm just talking to someone that ain't there. So the demon comes in. Now, this time he's not ugly. He's blonde hair that slick back with bright teeth. And he said, I'm not that bad. He was alcohol. I'm not that bad, right? And it was like, something in the medicine attacked him. And I sort of came to and the nurse was wiping me off with a blanket. And he was the Delta guy's like, yeah, you're fucking something up underneath that blanket or whatever. We get back down and I'm laying there. The demon's gone. I want to sleep.

And I hear him go, what? And I look at him. I go, what? And I take him off. I go, what? He's looking at me. He goes, I can't hear anything with that mariachi band playing behind you. And I go, what? And that's the kind of shit you're seeing. And it's just, and it's your mind doing it. So like for me, the fork in the road, the bad's on the left and the goods on the right. And like, good, it's like I see my maternal grandmother. And with the bad, I'll see bad shit. And then if your mind wants to get creative, you can let it.

And the, my hallucinations are so vivid. Like if I want to imagine I'm skinning someone alive, I can. It gets bad. It gets dark. But you can tell it stop. I'm not ready. And it'll stop. But if you don't. And even one of the, like, one of the problems that I begin is I've seen guys,

I want to leave. I'm leaving early. Like at 9 a.m. you get, like, you start at sunset. And 9 a.m.m. they're going to give your IVs so you can be done. And one of the dudes left and he's going to leave. And then we're talking a 28 year Sard Major Green Beret. Like, he is not a new guy. And he's done.

And he went down to his room and then later we all came back and went to the comment. He came up and said, I can't be in a room one. I'm fucking terrified. And then that's why they take your phones away because you're going to what's called a gray day, which is this weird hangover. It's not a hangover like a headache. It's, uh, I'm drained. Just like exhausted. I made the worst decision again of my life.

I'm going to feel like this forever. Like people, they take your phones away because people were making calls to people who were recommending to kill them when they see them. But then, so you get a sleeping pill, not a pill, you get a little natural concoction after a raking massage, which is crazy. Next level energy. Yeah.

Where they're pushing the energy out. I don't know how that shit worked. I'm a big energy guy now that I've been to psychedelics. Do you collect crystals? I have one. I don't collect crystals. I know my daughters have asked me, hey, what time was I born? Like, fucking stop.

I have a friend, Greg Anderson. I'll link you guys up. he's a collector of the finest crystals. The finest crystals. He sends me them. I give them to my wife. She puts them near her. I like one that you can rub because I don't smoke cigarettes.

Perfect. Trust me. I'm sure he has the answer for you. But you get your sleep, you wake up, and then you do 5Migo DMT, which is. So I began. Tote venom? Yeah. It is.

Yeah. Ibegaine is a plant-based medicine. This is a stodewate, both natural. This is a psychedelic, that's a medicine. This is the, five-amio is the most intense psychedelic you can get. And it fucking starts off right away. And no one has, I've heard one person explain it. I forgot what he said.

Joe Rogan couldn't explain it. Yeah. He says basically like being shot into the middle of the known galaxy through a portal you can't describe. It's a kaleidoscope where you can see behind yourself. And once you get through, the first part is a stratosphere. You got to get through it to get to space and it's rough. And if you don't submit, if you don't tap out and just say, hey, I'm here for this. You can breathe.

Then you hit the stratosphere and it just opens. I heard, I mean, you know what it felt like? It felt like I was busted. Like, you just got caught. Like, oh, shit, every bad thing I've ever done, you know. And then you hear, I heard this maternal voice like you're here, you're home. And that was my grandmother again. And it was something along the lines of, uh, we're not waiting for you.

We're just here. And it's almost like you can see the bad guys over here. And it's not a forgiveness. It's an acceptance of we're all doing what we're supposed to do. And the medicine, it's a maternal voice. and it was fucked up. It said to me, the only people who go to hell

are people who think they deserve to. And it was getting at, it was getting at, it's nothing against Jesus' forgiveness. It is, you need to forgive yourself. I've heard that, that's like, what, about a 10-minute ride,

but it seems longer? I, the first time I did it, I hadn't had an I-begain yet, I brought my wife to watch me. Yeah. And I did it, and I asked her how many days was I just out?

And she said it 45 seconds. What? I saw everything. Whoa. It is, but I love it now. Like, it's my favorite. I'm scared shitless of it. Take it easy, psycho.

You should have just seen your eyes. You're like, it's my favorite. No, that's the fear. I'm scared of it. Because you get ready for it and you know what you got to do because you got to sit up and you're going to, they do it and you take your big hit and another one and you hold it and you count to 10 and they bring you back.

And then you just go into it. Now, when I did it, when I do it in Mexico, the guy, now I didn't make any movements, but I don't know. I don't know. And the guys who were going crazy. there was an Air Force guy there that, oh no, sorry, Army guy, another Greenbra, that went nuts. And I didn't think he liked me. Like, we were there for four days.

I didn't, I just, for some of this guy doesn't like me, that's fair. And, like, she's always making his face. Like, he doesn't like me. When he told me after, like, when he got done with, he was screaming, crying, fighting. We're lucky the dude administering it was a black belt. So he could keep him. He could just keep down. Not, I'm not doing anything.

He's keeping him. The guy woke up and he came over and, like, he hugged me because I was right there. And he was just saying he had before. I couldn't smile. I was just trying to smile. I couldn't. blown up and shit. And he was like, this is the first, like literally the first day. This is the, the page is turned. The Sardin Major, no shit when we're driving back to the airport. He said,

call Amber Capone when you can. She runs vets. Yeah, Marcus and Amher. They're great. Yep. And he said, you tell her she saved my life because I was going to kill myself next week. This is my last chance. Isn't it crazy that you have to go across an international border to do that currently? I know they're looking at it. And I, it should not be looked at. This is proof that there is no, there's no money in secure. I almost think... This is a cure. I agree. And I have two thoughts. One, I think all exit from the military should actually be handled by an NGO. Fuck the Taps program for seven days. It doesn't work. I know not to work core friends do a job interview. Got it. Yeah. And it's like,

turn people over to an NGO for 90 days. And almost, especially from a soft background or if you're exposed to a lot of trauma, that actually might be a necessary step in your evolution to transition from one into the other. It would help. I think it would. I think it would do... It could be something as simple as a nice bed to sleep in, a cold plunge, a gym, and a fucking hot tub. Yeah. Ibegain helps. Like, there's, it works. I only know of one person who didn't have an experience like you have described.

Otherwise, it has been resoundingly successful for the people that I know. And the guy who it didn't work for ended up taking his life later on anyway. Yeah, I mean, it's just too much. I mean, but this is definitely, this should be the, I mean, look at this disgruntled that shit, the vet bro. I mean, if a lot of just got together and just did Ibegain, like, it's, Like, I've heard stories of the dude's team guys that threw the bad grenade, a suicide watch and hated. And then he goes, I began.

Let's be clear, the grenade was good. He threw it in a bad spot. Grenade was fine. The grenade function as designed. If you looked it up in the manual, it's very... Unfortunately, that thing actually probably clacked off right inside the three to five second mark. Yeah, it did. Yeah, that's a tough one.

But again, too, and these are... And I know the team leader well from that because I do too. Through selection with him. And he told me what happened. I'm like, man, again, Like, I know him too. A phenomenal fucking guy. Oh, he's fantastic.

Hasselhoff is what we call it too. Oh, fuck, I know. I love that dude too. I heard a rumor that one of the, I posted a picture with him in it, and I don't think that's true. But I heard he just hates my guts to be. I don't, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. A lot of guys took pictures until they posted that I'm in. Yeah. What? Hawth was awesome. I remember I heard about the, uh, the movie American sniper when it first came out. Because like, it came out after the bin Laden raid. Okay.

So everyone was curious about us. And they're like, yeah, the deadliest sniper in a U.S. history. I'm like, no, I know a guy. Yeah. He was getting the couple every night. Yeah, he lays, he laid some people down. Oh, my God, did he? His rotational average was atypical.

I was with him and I saw that. I don't want to get too into detail, but I remember saying, why did you do that? And he goes, I just never done it that way. I mean, our job selects for some weird people. Talking about myself when I say that as well. My wife says I was, about me, I was never supposed to be a seal. I was supposed to be like a chef or something else.

Very Stephen Segal. I should, well, I also cook. Nicely done. No, no, but like the sociopathic narcissist are attracted to special forces. And there's a lot of them there. I thought I was. I thought I was for a while because it didn't, everyone's killing people, but didn't bother me.

Later it started to. Yeah. Well, I also think the why behind that situation, and I don't know about your experience, but very often you're given super limited information with a very tight window of time to make a decision. You know what I mean? Like it's not like we're sitting around watching somebody for 72 hours as they live their life. You know what I mean? And have interactions with people. You come around a corner like, ah, you know, like you get the weird thing is though you get the rest of your life to think about that.

But in the moment, it's a motherfucker. Yeah. In the moment, it's binary. Because that's all of our training. That's all it is. So fast. I was a sniper and I was asked, what's the furthest kill I have?

And I think it's 10 feet, maybe. I didn't, I stayed in, typical. Did you use a holdover on that? I had a joke. Actually, my holds were high. My holds were up here to hit him. I was, because you go to a recchi or assault. And there was a joke.

Someone said, well, you're a sniper, when he goes snipers? I said, well, because I was working with Hoff. I'm like, snipers are going to kill more people. But I have a feeling, assaulters are going to kill more famous people. Joking. Probably. Yeah.

What, how was your transition out of the military? It was, it was difficult. You, just because, well, okay, you brought up the, the, that article in Esquire. Yep. That wasn't about, that was about, I, I, wasn't a poor me health care. It was that someone should do something about the health care. So I wrote an article through Phil Bronze. I still didn't know if my name's going to come out, a physical.

So I'm going to write the shooter article to get the attention through Phil Brunstein because what we're going to do I've got an entire lobbying effort set up through Heather Podesta one of the podestas pretty fucking big name in DC We release the article go right to Harry Reid's office. He's the Senate Majority Leader of the United States we're talking to him about health care He's offering a position for someone like me to fill we need this gap that if you don't do 20 years you get something That's what it's about it's about lobbying to change it I'm an E8 I'm a senior chief at seal team 6. I'm very aware I'm not getting getting a retirement, I don't give a fuck, I'm trying to help. But then here's your spin you yet.

Any else too stupid and no, he doesn't, no, not the case. Yeah, as you say, most people understand the exit retirement qualifications when they sign on the dotted line. You would think. I was trying to make a change. That's the same reason for advocacy for Ibegin. What, uh, we were talking about the, uh, camaraderie mentality and red before the operation. How was it after when the guys who were able to go on the op came back?

Horrible. Um, when we get back. Resetment, probably. resentment like a motherfucker. And then stupid shit would happen. We went to give the debrief to Secretary Gates on the third deck of the new building, I think. One of them.

And then Al showed up from Red Team. Been a Red Team for 19 years. Red Team for 19 years. Mass Chief. They wouldn't let him in. Which is insane, by the way. Yeah. They wouldn't let him into the debrief for Gates.

We weren't on the mission. It's like, you know, he wasn't fair because he had worked for 19 years. But as a courtesy for morale stake in the future, let him in. No. We get down to Kentucky to see the president He goes down to see the 101 first

He's got back from deployment top cover He a lot of people who caught top cover weird He came in to see the team We're waiting for Obama and Biden to come in I'm in the front row with the team right here Fuckface from TF160 Comes over in front of me and throws me a salute And I look at the entire team

And I'm like, could have done without that And again, you know team guys This is how the sewing circle bullshit well, he's doing this. He's writing a book. I heard, I went over to Silver because we lost extortion we need to backfill.

I went as a teammate with Silver because we realized a lot of Amoscentia Red Team. So we go over there. They're having meetings about me writing a book. I just signed a $17 million a book deal. That's a good advance.

No one gets that advanced. I'm over in Afghanistan. Bin Laden wasn't even the last guy I killed with that fucking gun. My last mission was an L ambush, which is fucking awesome. Yeah, it's very old school seal. Only L I've ever done.

That's a good story. But yeah, back to it's like book deal. O'Neill, like, this is someone else who might be writing a book. The whole, admit, nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations. He's writing a book. I'm not. I'm overseas saying, I came in through the front door. I'm leaving through the front door.

I'll go back to war. Bad move on my part, because now they're back here. This whole fucking spin up the animosity about O'Neill gets saluted in front of T.F160. This is how the animosity starts. I swear I read something somewhere, and I'm not saying this report is accurate, but I think it essentially said that you and Biss were arguing about your books that you were both going to write in the cage area. That's bullshit. Yeah.

It was never brought up in the cage. KJ. I was never going to write a book. I didn't write a book until like 2017. Okay. I didn't write it when I got out. That was someone else that did that. I was,

when I met my wife, her company hired me for a speech, I gave a speech to, I didn't even mention Bin Laden. Yeah. It does not like I got out to tell the bin Laden story. You know,

I don't fault people for writing books as long as they color inside of the lines of their, of the truth and their experiences because people have earned the right to do what they want to with their experiences. It's not for everybody. You don't have to write books

that are all worse. stories. You can do a lot of different things with that. So I don't begrudge people for writing a book. I don't either. I wish I'm glad that George Washington had had an author with him when he crossed the Delaware. It's nice. We have a story in there so we know what happened. Yeah. I mean, that's, I mean, I want everyone in the bin Laden to tell their story. I mean, if they don't want to, but there was a lot of different angles. I think his time goes on as we get more time from it. I think that will probably happen. I would hope so. I hope so. I think the historical record. I want to hear the damn Venezuela off.

Yeah, damn, dude. Now, talk about professional jealousy. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face that whole weekend. Like, I'm walking around just like, dude. The only time I'd felt that feeling was when I watched, when we were in Afghanistan, we watched Blue Team jump into Somali to rescue Jessica Buchanan. I was jealous for that too. Like, fuck, man.

Do you think that from the decision makers that there's any chance, and don't get me wrong, like, I love the Cag guys. do you think in their decision-making matrix when they're determining who to decide to give it to in the J-Soc umbrella that they look at things like Neptune Spear and the outcome of that and the public nature of that

and they go, you know what? Not this time. Probably. I don't envy Wyman Howard, but he took over the job right after the Bin Laden to see you. I mean, he got shit from everybody. You'd have to think, I mean, I'm not saying it should or shouldn't,

but you'd have to think that that factors into it in some way. Yeah, maybe. I mean, what? Why did we get to Bin Laden raid and Delta didn't? Maybe McRavenor was in charge. I think it had to do with, I think you guys owned Afghanistan at the time. Well, that was smart front.

I think, I actually think that was the reason. Well, we were really good at keeping Afghanistan when everybody wanted to go to Iraq and also keeping people at the White House. Scott Moore would say, like you get in touch with him. I did the, but I don't want to say the name, but I worked there in D.C. for a while too. And it's like, what did you do today, sir? He's like, I walked around the White House, spraying my musk all over the place, knowing with the State Department of White House all that shit, eventually when

Lodd Pops, they're comfortable with SEAL Team 6. Yeah. And the outstations, too. I mean, there's a difference between carrying a gun in Iraq and the type of gun you carry the mountains. Oh, for sure. Take that space gun apart. You don't need all that shit.

Houses and pounds. I agree, man. Silver. So you went from silver. I went from red to silver. Red to silver. Silver to out? Silver to out.

I extended. My EOS was January of 12, but extortion obviously is down. And then I extended six months. I'm going to deploy as a team leader. I got lucky there. Team leader got hurt. They needed one. I want to leave.

I want to get away from this. Like going to war will be the best way to get away. And I'm still not upset with that decision. When they started Silver, did they do a blend of all the squadrons? Yeah. Yeah, they brought all the dudes in. Okay.

And we went over there and I was in Fob Shank for the winter. What was the L ambush? Well, there was a group of Taliban dudes that lived in the small village right next to this mountain. They would wake up every day. drive around it and go on a road that no one else took. This is a winter in the mountains. And they'd go to like a road and they were away to ambush and no one would show up.

And then they would do it again. We call this establishing a pattern of life. Right. No shit. So, you know how our day start? You wake up, this sun will be down in two hours. Get your coffee. You have a vampire schedule.

And it's like, yeah. Am I going to go to the gym or are we going to go on an hop? And it's like, well, here's what's what's been happening. We watch it. We're like, all right, just keep an eye on them. So the next day, nothing at night, winter in Afghanistan. And he did it again. It's like, okay, well, tomorrow's Friday.

That's their day of prayer. If they do the same shit on Friday, they're doing it Saturday. So we watch them on Friday. They do it like, all right, here's what we're going to do. So we go to sell it because you've got to sell everything to the Army. We go to an Army officer and say, okay, here's what they've been doing. And what we're going to do is we're going to insert here. Not even a long offset.

We're going to walk to this thing rocks right here before the sun's up and we're going to set up an L. And his first question was, what's an L? And I said, well, shit. They should know. I said, sir, that's an L ambush is actually the second thing they teach you in the Army, I think, is that's your rack and this is an L. Yeah. And he goes, well, explain it. Well, there's a, there's a basin of a maneuver.

Yeah. And he goes, Sun Tzu, I think, when he wrote to Art of War 10,000 years ago. Fuck, dude. It's like one step above battle drill one alpha, which is fired and maneuver, yeah. Shoot and maneuver. Wow. And they're communicating. Anyway, we talked him into it.

So we actually brought victory cigars. we're going to smoke these dudes smoke cigars. So we send this thing and behind a rock pile and then there's other rocks where the maneuver can hide and then we put snipers up here. So there may be 200 yards from the X which for a sniper

you wanted it in which nostril I'll just see if I can hook that up. So as simple as a plan can be all we want you to when you tell us that they are in the car and they start it and you can see RPG straight up. Just go ahead and give us a green light and then when they get around the mountain give us a yellow

light and then when you say red we're going to see him we're going to pop out so I'm briefing the officer that and he's like okay so um you're going to pop out yeah we're going to stop what if he doesn't stop I'm going to fucking shoot him I don't understand what I'm explaining to you so they let us go we do that we're out there and we're setting up and it uh they call us the car can't start the car will start typical mission there this car wouldn't start to the point where I wanted to put my shit down run over the mountain teach him how to put in second pop it this is this is whatever finally starts like okay we're antsy We had the cigars lit and we're smoking because we've been there so fucking long.

All right. So we're going to put these down in ambushes. We're, this is a road no one uses in the snow in the winter in Afghanistan. This fucking minivan comes driving and it's all women and children looking out. The fuck are they doing here? Afghanistan. That fucking sucks over here.

That shit happens. So we didn't light up them. And then all of a sudden that we get back, the car comes at red light. So we hop out, line of death guy comes here. I'm in front of this dude. And he said,

he's English, I'm assuming it was bad because all he said was fuck, fuck, fuck. And he puts it in reverse and he starts spinning out. And I'm from me to you away. And I'm like, get out of the car, dude.

And I'm kind of looking. I'm like, I'm knowing the snipers are just itching to go hot. I'm like, you need his, boom, head explodes. This guy hops out to the trunk.

We light all these dudes up, RPG and kill all of them, I think four of them, maybe five of them. And then we get the cigars we walk up to them. Afghan comes up with an RPG with a bullet,

a bullet hole through it. Ooh. Mr. Rum, Mr. Rom. I'm like, just take it out of it. You don't pick up unexpended ordinance. You're an Afghan.

I'm happy he wasn't trying to fuck it. Yeah. But then literally we're in a Boston Red Sox hat. That's it. Thanks for coming. You're done. What were you going to do when you got out? I didn't have any idea what was going to happen.

I didn't know if we were going to sell. Maybe something in consulting. Consulting, maybe we sell sunglasses. I had a couple guys that were going to come with me. But once we got to the point of no return, other dudes heard what we were doing and started giving them shit. Like, I'm just going to re-enlist. Like, I'm just going to re-enlist.

Like, all right, I'm on my. own. So I got out of my own and just through connections in DC, San Francisco, and New York, I just started to meet people that ran businesses and I started to come to the realization that the skills we not have been top of what we've learned because you can get tactics to a certain level then when you start inventing them. When you start seeing what your opponent's doing, how do you adjust and make sure the people coming up are readjusted to the adjustments, how the most, the way we're doing it right now is the safest, most of the most of the most efficient way to get from point A to point B. If we come up with a faster, better way,

combat clearance, fine. Everyone has to know it. Then we'll do that. And then we always follow our rules every single time to a T. And what I would tell my guys is don't die because you got bored. I've pulled missions off before in Iraq where we're tracking a dude on a phone who happened to be an IED maker. Boom, boom, daytime. Hit, fuck this guy. Phones off. Phones off. Phones on. Across a bridge. Done. We're out. You're such a pussy. Why are we cutting this off? We're that close and we couldn't go get him because you got scared. That's our SOP, man. We don't cross the bridge for an IED maker. Two days later, I see the guys in the gym, right? That dude we went after. What was his name again? I don't know. All right. What are your kids' names? Don't die because

you got bored. She's like that. So we're inventing the tactics. So I learned through effective communication. When you're done saying, what you're saying, stop saying it. People liked it. I got introduced by someone else to leading authorities, which is a speaking agency. She's got me through the door with her name is Amy Holmes. She was a contributor at box at the time. She got me in there just through people that she went to college to like Princeton with one of the guys' wives. I got in there, told the CEO, the CEO, not the whole story, but I'm from CEL Team 6 and then we came up with, well, let's come up with five stories and five examples and do that. So for the first two years of speaking, I didn't mention Bin Laden.

How has it been being probably the most recognizable seal name out there in the modern era? Weird. I still don't expect. to be recognized. It's not normal. I mean, I haven't had a bad experience in person. The closest was actually a former red lead, a former officer that ran. Really?

Yeah. And the interaction was he went to a speech and he bought one of my books and he took notes in the front of my book how shitty I was. And then through the speech, no, listen, though. Yeah.

Through the speech, the notes changed. It's like, well, you're a good speaker. And he did blah, blah, blah. And he waited in line for, like an hour for me to sign a book. And he got up there and he looks at me and he goes, stand, I don't know, he goes, stand up. And I go, can I help you? And he puts my book down or opens it to read it.

And it says like former Echo Zero One and I go, fuck man. I go, did you buy, did you buy my book? And he goes, yeah. And I go, did you just wait in line an hour to tell me this? And he goes, yeah. And I go, and do you feel better? Yeah, was that a good utilization of your time? Thanks for buying my book.

I don't know what to say. I mean, it's weird, man. Our community is, the brotherhood is a term that I have heard countless times while I was in. Brotherhood is more overused than warfighter. Well, I tell you what, man, they will also, they will go out of their way to tear you down at times too. I'm sure you've gotten in. You have a podcast. Oh, and here's the thing, though.

For me, it's easy. I never did shit, right? Like, I spent the minimum amount of time at the command required after selection. the command, that's when we were the happiest when we were all working, but we didn't do shit. Yeah, it's like I tried to do a good job and not kill myself or anybody else I wasn't supposed to. Well, that's a good job. That's the definition of a good job. And so I didn't do anything high level. I never did anything super high speed. And I'm just honest about that. I'm like, guys. Now, isn't that awesome to be honest? Yeah. Don't even remember anything. You don't have to worry about the spaghetti noodles of hold on a sec. I don't, can I say this. Can I say this?

It's like, dude, I just tell people. And so I can give people my opinion. Well, that's where I'm at right now with a lawsuit. That's why I told you the truth. It is weird. Yeah, and I'm sure there are people at the command are like, take Andy's name off the wall. And it's like, you can do that? Because I actually will never go back. Oh my God.

Can I not come to a stumb mustard I never fucking go to? I don't, wait, I don't want to go get drunk with 50 years. We're probably going to beat each other up. Okay. I'll just hang out with my kids then. I'll be fine.

And it's all the thing. Dude, I was a Navy SEAL. I was. I was also a high school student. I don't go around saying I'm a professional 13th grader. What do you want to do with the rest of your life? I want to hang out my kids as much as I can.

And I've had a second chance because I have my Navy daughters. And now I have my kids, my new family. This was cool. I had one of my college daughters home with my wife now, who's her stepmom, and my youngest daughter. And I had to stop them. I said, look, don't, I'm not just emotional. I'm going to cry because I'm a been to combat guy.

But I need to thank the three of you right now because I've heard so many people say that have grown children, I would give anything I have all my money to go back and have one day with you as a two-year-old, and now I get that because I see you and her and I see her and you all made this possible. I get to relive it, so I want to spend every day I can with my kids.

That's what it's all about. That's all that matters. We lost a lot of time with our kids. I mean, and it was normal. How many Christmases do we miss? You know what's funny? On my rotational cycle, never missed one. Yeah, we turn up with gold all the time too.

I always wondered why if I threw one of those fucking rags across the wall, it would shatter. Just clean up your catch rags guys. Jesus, goal team. You know I'm telling you. I'm not going to tell people how to party, all right? They can live their life how they want to. I love turning over with goal team, man.

Sometimes it was literally the 47 lands. I see Rob Reeves, high five, he's out. What fuck was that? He was a good dude. He was the best. I think because, you know, it was in, I mean, obviously swim buddies and buds. Green team is top five, bottom five. Obviously, always in the bottom five.

Top five. Rob Reeves is number one. I turned over most of my departments to him when I left, the squadron. Super. God damn, fucking extortion, dude. Extortion was of who were the best guys you ever worked with. They were all on extortion. That was my troop.

I'm not going to say I would have been on that helicopter, but that was the troop that I started and was two troop. So, I mean, it was obviously many years along the line. Who knows where the career would have progressed. But if I had stayed on that track. You're on that bird. Might have been for sure, man. You know, Lou was at, Lou Langless was at Turbine 3-3.

So that's Marcus LaTrell, lone survivor, bird the good shot down. And he said, he didn't say it to me. But when he was, he said, I'm going down to the village and I'm going to try to find out. about that. He stopped and said, I just, I never want to die like that. And he died like that.

Jimmy Hatch told me the same thing without a conversation you had with him on the mat as well. Jimmy Hatch is the one of the, again, top five. Yeah. I'm going to run out of five. That's two.

Jimmy, there's three Jimmy Hatchez. You know, to be fair too. You know, it was hovering close the top five. Fucking Biss. I've heard he's been a spectacular operator. I heard the same thing about you. I heard by technical perspective.

That fucker, when we would do shooting competitions in Green Team Man at Red Team, there was two dudes I'm thinking I'm going to probably lose to him. And then I don't know if his name's out, but short a fucking phenomenal shooter. Yeah.

But it was that was like, that was cool about CEL Team 6. I would wake up like, I'm excited. I get to go to work with people who are better than me. And when we're like shooting, it's like, okay, you got to tell me about your pouches. You move that one.

What did you do? And what time did you go to sleep last night? Did you work out of the range first today? I got to know what you're doing. That's what it was like. Yeah. That's why a lot of this shit doesn't make sense. Jimmy Hatch, there's three of them.

So there's Jimmy Hatch, before he was unconscious for a week at the jump team when they decked into a stadium. Then there's the Jimmy Hatch after that. Then there's the Jimmy Hatch after getting basically his leg blown to shreds. I see blood and a fentanyl lollipop. And that's back when fentanyl's cool.

Too. In his rubber room experience, I've known all three of those jimmies and I tell you what, man. Jimmy's fantastic. He's great. I had him on too. We talked for hours. Funny that shit, too.

Yes. He used to write. Did he talk about the newspaper? the inter-squadron newspaper he wrote? He would write it and I knew who it was. No one knew. He called it the, he got to ask him.

He had a newspaper he put out. And he actually asked me, he says, I like the way you tell stories. So I'm going to, can you contribute? So we would do this newspaper. Because he liked me from one thing. I was talking about a debrief. And I was a battlefield and terror.

Sorry, I was a tactical questioner. Yeah. And the thing was, you know, we learned to. It's like, I'm going to talk to al-Qaeda right here. The turst back here. I don't rapport. I'll talk to him. You tell him.

You tell him. You fucking time. to me. And I was doing a debrief like, yeah, blah, blah, blah. And he said, we're going here. Turns out he's fucking lying. Like, they lie to you. And so, he thought that was funny. Then we started doing the, not that, what's the name of that thing? It's funny. But yeah. So he printed out, leaving the team room?

Just leave it around. Like flyers. And so you'd read about the fucked of things in Red Squadron. Like, uh, we, did he get busted? One of them got busted because the bird, bird flu was huge in Iraq. And someone brought a bunch of, this is a horrible story. Someone brought a bunch of chicks. Like chickens. In a pillowcase from Target.

And it's going to be funny to release them in the fucking in Al-Assad, in the big barracks. Technically that is funny. But not their bird flu. So, oh, God, I forgot how horrible the story is. So the Master Chief saw it. And said, look, come on. Get rid of these fucking chicks. So a guy went out with the chicks and just started beating them on the ground, killed all the chickens.

Okay, morbid. The Master Chief found out. He's like, I didn't say to do that. Jesus, you fucking psycho. So then I think Jimmy got busted over Easter putting peeps in the Massachusetts gear. Because he wanted him on target to go for something and all of a sudden he's got the chicks. But now I think it was Jimmy in there putting him in. Then Massief walks in.

It's like, who I'm not, yeah. It's not as funny in this moment. No, and I don't think, I've got a fucking silver tongue. I'm not talking my way out of this. I'm stone cold. Like, all I can say is that's not my hand. Fuck. But yeah, Jimmy's man. And skydiving with him is probably, he's probably the most fun to skydive with.

He's out of his mind. He's a crazy person. He was crazy before he started hitting his head at a high rate of speed. And he's a liberal. I love him he would say that too. Well. Well, he's liberal and like a good way. He's not crazy. I mean, liberal and conservative. I don't even think people can agree on what those terms mean anymore.

No, not anymore. Because for conservative people, then there's, you're not conservative enough. Then there's liberal. And then there's, you're not liberal or progressive enough. And then people in the middle who try to have some semblance of thought. depending on what category the question may be. They're just like whatever, you're the forgotten people. Yeah, seriously.

Oh, I'm trying to have a conversation, forget about. I mean, you're the one living in the blue state. Yeah, I'm actually, what I'm saying now, because that dude Mondani got elected. And what I say to people, I'm an optimist, okay? I heard you campaign for him. Oh, yeah. No.

No. But what I am telling people in New York is I want it to work. I want common to work like it never has before, which means it never has worked before. They're going to find out. It's horrible. I just hope that it, let's say it does work or it doesn't. Let's just pay attention to the test results so we can stop saying it's never been applied. Well, even now they'll say, well, it's never been worked properly.

And there is no communist country, really. It's like Cuba's not doing well. Yeah. I mean, look at China. They show you good shit. They say they're the future because they have driverless taxi cabs. We have those too. Yeah, the propaganda machine specifically.

Oh, it's insane. It's insane. It's insane. I heard they have really good helicopters now, too. I'm telling you, man. when I saw that, I was like, oh boy. Well, you know, I think, too, on the ground, the pilots said they could fly it out. Yeah.

I'm not an expert in aerodynamics. Why do you think they just didn't bip the thing with a 500-pounder? They didn't want to. Well, probably all the people inside. Okay. I mean, that's a compelling reason. It is. Yeah.

But if we're going to do that, just bomb the fucking place in the, bomb in the first place, I'll be a buzz instructor right now. Was there ever a thought of a kinetic strike without sending boots in the ground? Yeah, that was one of the five options to hit him with 22 J-Dams. That's why they didn't do it. 22. That's what the Air Force recommended. And then when they were in the brief, they said, well, that's all we got.

And that's, I guess when the Air Force chief of staff said something, well, Mr. President, there's one more option. He didn't know about the helicopters. I guess. I wasn't either. And that was a cool story, too, hearsay. But nowadays, hearsay seems to be good enough. He was, we told him the plan.

It was two helicopters, two birds, 32 minutes on target, blah, blah, blah. If we get compromised, we're going to hard point it. And send someone to Islamabad to negotiate. to negotiate. That's our plan. And I guess he said, okay, well, what do you need to rain hell on the Pakistanis?

Because my guys aren't surrendering to anybody, which is pretty dope. That is pretty dope. That's like, that's as nonpartisan as you can get. Yeah. How do we bomb them? They're not fucking surrendering.

If you win the lawsuit, do you think that it will stop the interactions that your kids are having? I hope so. I hope it stops all the brovet interactions. Well, it sounds like the people reaching out to your kids aren't the brovets, though.

It seems like, you know what I mean? They're not reaching out, but it's on their timeline and it shows up. And they know who Brent Tucker is. And they've heard the horrible things he said just based on the fact that he doesn't like that I make money. There's nothing to do with who killed bin Laden. And now why don't they want to go to court with me? I want to go to court.

And they're going to spin this. Watch, watch him spin it into something. I want to go to court. I'm telling the truth. I stay out of the courtroom shit because I don't know anything about the law. I got my jurist doctorate by watching suits during the pandemic. That's about it. I mean, it turns out I'm running.

a tiger farm. Yeah. How good was Tiger King? How great was this country? When all we did, we all watched Tiger King and everyone got along. It was a fantastic show. I tell you a great place to weather the COVID was here. I bet.

Oh, my God. I mean, they very seriously for about six weeks. And then after that, what are we doing? People started peeking their heads up and it's like back to Jiu-Jitsu. Good. I was in Nashville. And what we came up with to stop the spread was at Old Hickory Golf Club. They didn't put the pins in.

So no one could touch the same pin. And we're like, can we ride the same car? I guess. Well, you're outside. Yeah. Well, then we had a, I think during 2020, my foundation, had an event, Specward Transition Foundation, Special Operators Transition Foundation is a foundation at Old Hickory Golf Club.

And Kid Rock played. He was in my wedding. He's playing there. Lee Green when played. We had, who the house was there? There's a couple big, anyway, we're out there on the desk, we're in the middle of COVID. And my father-in-law said, all right, if nobody here gets COVID, it's not real.

and nobody got it. So I don't know what we were doing. That was a weird timeline. That was weird as shit. Like, we looked back like, did that happen? Are we in a simulation?

It happened. I wonder what people's memory of it will be if something like that happens again. That's one of the main things. I hear people say, well, it's a social experiment. Which my response is,

I think they took it too far because now I don't think people would comply. And if it did have the fatality rate, they were saying it was, we'd be in trouble. They didn't have, look, if something is a pandemic and you need to get tested for it,

instead of just bleeding out your eyes and ass, it's not real. I don't know if the science backs that up, but... But I mean, it's like, you wouldn't have been a sound though. Like, I'm over there. I'm in Nashville, Tennessee, tipping the chick at food line

who's wearing all this shit, 20 bucks, because thanks for braving the storm. When no one knows what it is, it's basically a political way to get mail-in ballots. I mean, that is certainly a-take. It's certainly a-take.

It's certainly a-take. In this country, the goodness is we don't arrest anyone who deserves it. also a bold statement. I mean, it's true. I mean, Bill and Hillary just blew off Congress. Imagine if you do that. Yeah, and you know what they said?

I don't have anything to talk to him about. Well, it's fair, but all they said was, well, we're standing up for democracy. Can we at least use a new argument? Yeah, I'd be honest, man. I don't have an understanding of how a lot of the stuff works at those high levels like that. Like, did they put them off forever? Did they delay and they're going to go some other time? I think that they're just banking on the fact we as a public are going to forget about it.

That's why all the laws get passed over at holidays. Yeah. That's how we got the Fed, which is not federal, but they got a brand new castle built. It's like the fourth branch of the government that's not federal. It's just bankers. Yeah. I mean, we got some improvements to make for sure. I mean, we definitely have some room for improvement.

I mean, even Glenn Beck is calling for Pam Bondi to be fired. He said, I remember a year ago, he said, I'm going to give her a year and there's no rest. Yeah. And then we'll be talking midterms. The next three years are going to be interesting. I don't know. Well, if the Democrats take it, we're going to be doing

impeachment for two years. I mean, we would have to get to that point first. I'm like listening to a man talk about we need to have Greenland trying to figure out what's going on here. I saw the Babylon B put out President Trump with a look on his face. Oh, shit, I meant Iceland the whole time.

Even if it was, let's just, okay, let's say, of course, that's obviously a joke, but either one of those, like, what are you talking about? Greenland is an incredible ally. We have full access to the country as it is. They are a member of NATO. I think he's pushing NATO.

That's actually where I lay. Because I think it's like Europe is not strong. And we really don't have any. I mean, alliances change, but necessity does not. And if, I mean, this is me. I don't get briefed anymore. Fuck Europe. We got Greenland.

We're good. and then Europe can become the Islamic Republic of whatever they want to call it. But we're not fucking sticking around for that. I feel like there are options in between that and not having Greenland that could be explored. I imagine so. You know? I believe you have painted the outliers well. I think that's the that's the Reader's Digest version of what's going.

Maybe. But I don't know what's going on either. I think Greenland's cool. I think Greenland's cool. I also think it's a sovereign nation. Owned by the Dutch. Who cares who owns it? You know who doesn't own it?

We don't. Correct. Yeah. And again, they're an ally. I do think he is, it's either pressure or an attempt to break NATO. I think that actually makes more sense. I mean, look at the way the guy negotiates. It wasn't about the drugboats.

However, Delta Force is going to kidnap the president. I mean, that's pretty fucking cool. That's a good negotiation right there. I think you won. It's an interesting play for sure. Yeah. I mean, he's definitely doing outside the box stuff, knowing he doesn't have a third term. But at this point, who fucking knows?

I mean, our Constitution would say we know. Yes. However, if J.D. Vance runs and he's his vice president and then J.D. Vance wins and all of a sudden he resign. Guess who's president again? Will I hit me with that scenario one more time? So hold on. J.D. Vance could run. Oh, if he was his VP. And then J.D. Vance says, you know what? I'm not ready for this. I'm going to resign. Rob, how dare you for even put it in sense like that into my mind? Fuck. I know. You're going to be getting all kinds of good shit off this. Oh, my God. But Trump would be like 140. I almost wonder if sometimes he's just trolling people. I think there's a 100% true aspect of that.

Because you've got to figure, look at all that. I mean, he had a really good life before he ran. Yeah, from a monetary perspective, for sure. You know that I went to his office before he ran and he wanted an endorsement. I explained to him like, look, I'm new to the private sector. I know what's going to happen. For me financially, it's probably not a good move. Yeah.

But then I got in touch with later. I said, you know, you're going to win this thing. And he said, how do you know? I said, I speak to 10,000 people a week, and I never asked them who they're going to vote for, but I do ask them who their neighbor's going to vote for. You're going to win. Interesting.

Because no one's going to never. It's an interesting way to approach that, actually. No one admitted at first they're supporting Trump. Suicide. Yeah. I mean, professional suicide. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what goes. Oh, never, a dull moment, especially.

I heard in like September, we're supposed to, I love rabbit holes. We're supposed to lose gravity for seven seconds, like in September. Okay. What are you reading and where? No, that's just, that's the, that's the ambient talk at night. No, I saw it. So this is you talking to yourself.

You actually don't have a source on this. No, this is the rabbit hole. I know this isn't real, but that's the, remember, the spaceship? No. The comet around the sun, Atlas, whatever.

Oh, I remember watching a documentary of people killed themselves because I thought they were going to board it. The comet that went around the sun. It's going to be a mother ship. That was all a couple of five months. What? You didn't hear that story? I'm going to tell you right now.

You and I have very different internet search histories. You didn't hear about the Atlas comic going around the sun. No. It was a mother ship. No, there wasn't. Can we look that up? Am I crazy? Yeah, hold on.

What was it called, Tommy? You know? Atlas Rea. Yeah. Listen, I'm not saying that people weren't talking about this, but I'm certainly saying it wasn't real. They were talking about it. I actually heard one of the funniest jokes I've ever heard a stand-up comedian made about that comic. Three-Eye Atlas.

So that was it. We're going to end. The world is going to end. Now it's, I mean, I've heard rumbles of the gravity. It's not going to happen, obviously. It's just the rabbit hole shit I like to read sometimes. It takes my mind off of bullshit. I mean, other bullshit.

it. Is the world flat or round, Rob? Oh, man. Gun to my head? Yeah. Well, let's assume we don't have to get to that point. We can just answer. I'm saying the world is round. Okay. It's a globe. What would you say on a debrief? The moonland. Fuck you. Another guy said the moon was round. I'm just going with it for the sake of the team. No, you know the theory? That's for going down this whole. I heard it, but now I like it because the moon landing with the lack of infrastructure and a camera on the moon like that you really did that before we had wheels on the bottom of a fucking suitcase you know you can see some of the moon landing

stuff up there I know but here's my theory so when they come back I heard it so it's not my theory yeah they're like Neil Armstrong buzz all and they're sitting there they don't look like they're at an interrogation it's because someone said the way that this dude spun the conspiracy is they got to the moon they saw was actually there and said we can never fucking tell anyone what's up here. They got back. We need a studio now. Interesting. That's cool, though. I didn't come up. I like that theory a little bit more actually. I don't want to say we didn't land on it. I want to say we did. We definitely landed on it. I'm not sure we did as much shit as we claim we did. Well, that I mean, that's fucking side by side they have. How they fit that

in the lunar module. I don't ask questions like that. Yeah. Well, some questions are best left. No shit. God. This is the danger of the internet. You can find anything that you're looking for. And that's, maybe that's why I've never seen a point, and I didn't pay attention to politics a lot, I have never seen a point in society though where people are arguing over truth. We can't actually even determine what is the truth. That's true. And I don't know where that leads, actually. Well, right now, it's not even truth. It's your feelings. How does it make you feel? Who cares? That's what I'm saying. Feelings, fuck feelings. Yeah. I mean, they have their place, but not probably in policy or, you know. Well, a certain demographic's been voting based on feelings.

And a lot of that turns into communism because it sounds good. Yeah. Some of those people actually believe, though, you know, when I, I, I'm glad we live in a place where people can believe some wild stuff if they want to. I am too. But there should be a written test before you're allowed to vote. Or an oral test, I'll take. I don't think that's in the Constitution. I know, but it really, you know what?

We need to trim a little fat off the Constitution some point. I don't think it works like that. It seems to the Second Amendment. I guess if you cut out the Second, then it'll get rid of school. But the Second Amendment hasn't been cut out yet. We just been arguing. We cannot touch the Constitution, period. Not the first 10 for sure.

It would fracture the bill of rights. Absolutely. A lot of people don't understand that, that it would actually fracture and destroy the framework of the Constitution. It's possible. I think they need three quarters ratification, but fucking good luck with that. When you can't get people to agree on,

what does three quarters actually mean? Math is racist. You know that. I don't know that for clarity. That was Rob O'Neill that said that. I don't believe math is racist. We don't watch the same news. Alice, I do live in New York and I hear weird shit.

We could watch the same news. I refuse to believe that math is racist. No, you haven't heard that. Math is racist. No, I've heard it. Yeah, I don't believe it is either. I believe math is the truth. Yes.

Okay, now we're back to a little line. But people don't like the truth. Yeah. Where do you want to leave people, man? We've been out for shit. You know what I would like to tell people, which is exciting. I just started a semi-speaking agency because I've been in spots too where I'm speaking, but I can't make it or whatever and they want something similar.

So I started the operators collective. I was hoping you were going to call it the semi-speaking agent. Fuck, that's way better. SSA, very close to SSE. We can do, not agency. You can find an E. Yeah. But yeah, we're going to, we do keynote speeches, but what I've noticed people like is like a fireside chat panel type thing.

Like we're talking about before this. Dude, the best experiences I've, like literally it was just in New York. It was positioned as fireside. It was incredibly well attended. And we went well past the allotted time. because people can ask about this is what I'm dealing with. What are your thoughts on this? Like presentations are great, and I've been to some good ones.

I've been to some ones that suck. But that interactive nature, we're like, hey, I have this problem right now with this team. What are your thoughts? Powerful. It is. And so we have mostly SEALS, Dakota Meyer, Medal of Honor recipient, Marine, a couple of civilians. So we're doing that. And just a way to try to my Rolodex help other guys out just to try to build up outside work.

Like we said, the transition is not easy. And then I have my own podcast, the operator podcast that I do that you should come on, sir. You should, cool. I'm gay. I wanted to say, sir. That's why. I mean, you're obviously invited. It just was like, I haven't, I haven't taxed sir on anything today.

So that was, that was your sir. I tell people, listen, I was a limited duty officer. Let's go real heavy on the limited and light on the duty. It was always, yes. It was always nice when the LDO wrote in, though. It was like, I can, I can talk to this guy. I was in my camis one time. Same building on the ops side over on the NAB.

And a chief that I did. didn't, I had never met him before. And I'm just sitting there. I mean, I didn't have as much gray when I was in. So I'm sitting there, butter bar. And I was talking about something that she was like, he's like, sir, we got this. It'll be, you know, give it some time. You'll get enough experience. And, you know, we got this from here. I saw him a few days later, my khakis. Yeah, there's that. Check these out. So, uh, how you been? I said nothing. He, I just watched him. He was like, shit. I saw an E5 do that to Jocco. Oh. Jocko came out because Seaman Admiral.

Yeah. So he's E4 because you get E4. Cap E5, cap to O1 through Seaman Admiral. So now he come, Jocko comes out in his cam. He's to check in a team two. E5 sees him, calls him Anson all day. Anson, ensign, insin this, and that. And then Jocko came in, khaki's the next day.

And all of a sudden, it's sir. Yeah. Be careful, judging a book bite's cover. Don't do it. I have said that for a long, long time. My thing started as a young seal. One deployment. Pre-9-11.

One hump jump. I fucking know everything. I'm trying to find. fake Navy SEALs. That's my thing. I'm Don Shipleyant to fuck up. Seal Reunion East Coast, my first one with the deployment, and I see an old timer, seal team had. I'm like, I'm going to fuck with him because he's a fake. And I asked him when he went through Buds. And he said, well, I went through Hell Week in 1944. And I said, we didn't have Hell Week in 1944. And he said, well, we did on Omaha Beach. And I was like, you know what? I'm never going to pick a fight,

ever again in my life because I don't know what someone knows. And that guy just fucking mentally destroyed me. It was a very solid response from him. Still, I think I wanted to say, and so what are you having to drink forever? Because I'm buying all of them. Here's just my credit card number. Just keep it. I'll update it when the expiration date flips over. Yeah, I'll see if the bank will let me get a raise my limit.

Are you carry on or checked luggage? I am checked luggage. Then, do you, are you familiar with Montana Knife Company Blades? Fuck yeah. I know a guy I can give this to. They can take it home from it. They make a tactical series. So Dana White was given one of these and almost cut his finger.

off. I'm going to assume that you know how to take a knife out of a plastic sheath. Well, we're going to see that. Now that is... It was one of their most trending videos, actually. It was when Dana went and was like, ooh. Yeah, the pressure's on me. I'm feeling the microphone on my chin. Yeah, it's not that bad. Oh, wow. Yeah, just use the thumb on top to help push the a kinex off. Oh, God, don't cut yourself. Where is the... Let me see it. Let me see it. Let me see it. No, whatever. Which one will lose it? So put your pinky in the little circle. You know, just for the sake of not cutting myself. Here you go. Just. Just. Just. Ah, look at that.

And then you can finish it. Okay, Jesus. You put pressure on me, Anna. Oh, my God. Those things are badass. That's part of their tactical series. Yeah, Tommy, I mean you just send this to me in New York, if you don't mind. I think it's illegal in New York.

So whatever it is New York, I'll be sending him a New York compliant knife. I have a feeling I'm going to lose this one in the lake. Yeah. Whatever he got was definitely inside of. whatever regulations you have. I'll just keep in Montana. Yeah, perfect. Well, cool, man.

I know you got to get to the airport. Yeah, I got to fly. Thank you for reaching out and thank you for making time. Thank you for having me. This has been a lot fun. Seriously, thank you. For sure, man. Yeah, first guest in the new studio.

I'm liking. That was my prerequisite for coming. I was like, is it brand new? Yeah. I mean, it was unspoken, of course. Immediately invest tens of tests. That's why I waited so long. Hell yeah.

Thanks, man. Thanks, man. Thanks, buddy.