Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - episode 1: the untold moments from Special Forces

Episode Date: October 1, 2025

In this episode, we’re answering your questions and sharing our honest thoughts on Special Forces episode 1! From moments you didn’t see on camera to how we really felt, we’re giving you the full, unfiltered experience. Let us know what you think and tell us your favorite parts! So excited to be watching alongside all of you :) We’ll be doing this every week, so keep an eye on my Instagram for the question box with all your questions. See you for episode 2! Love you guys! Shawn & Andrew ▶ Guys. https://www.Dupe.com really is that simple. No account, no signup. Just type “dupe.com/” before any product URL and watch the magic happen. ▶ Go to https://www.kachava.com and use code EASTFAM for 15% off your next order. Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. Did you watch it? Do you know what I'm talking about? We're reality TV stars now? I don't think we're reality TV stars. We're on reality TV.

So if you don't know, Andrew and I did a show called Special Forces on Fox, and it just premiered. And we are here to debrief not only the experience, but to walk you through episode one and what all you didn't see. Here's why we're so obnoxious and we'll continue to be obnoxious

about talking about this and sharing content about this and stories and making videos about it is because... It was freaking awesome. It was awesome. It incorporated a lot of things we love. It incorporated a lot of things

that we want to do more of like working with the military, something we've always loved doing. We've done the Green Beret event and challenge for the last several years. Blown with the Blue Angels. Yeah. worked with the Navy SEALs.

It also incorporates the health and fitness interests for us. And so it's kind of like a culmination and peak moment in a lot of ways for us there. But also, inevitably, what I've seen from Sean is people use these big things that she has done, like the Olympics or Dancing with the Stars. And that's all that they ask about. So we're hoping that if you do care about this, at all, which we're not asking you to care about it. But if you do happen to care about it, maybe we'll be able to answer some of your

questions, give you a behind the scenes look. That's really why we started YouTube in the first place. And it's kind of a fun extension to do on the podcast, it's to share behind the scenes and give you the full story that you might not see on TV. Because there's a lot. There's a lot to share here. And then when we bump into on the street, maybe we'll have more to talk about. So this is going to be fun.

Okay. So let's take them back, babe. We filmed this show in Morocco, North Africa. That's right. Mid June? Yep. Ended June 18th. End of June 18th.

And what you didn't see and what they didn't show like the lead up of was. So we found out probably three weeks before the show started. And we went through psych tests where we had to get online with these professional psychiatrists who worked directly with shows that are... dangerous. Yeah. And it was probably an hour to two hour Zoom with the psychiatrist where they ask you so many things. Like have you been in legal trouble before?

Have you ever hit someone? Have you, do you have mental health issues? Did I go through postpartum depression? How did I deal with it? Like they're truly trying to see if you are mentally stable enough to take on such a challenge like this. But it was so fascinating because this is a whole business and an industry of like. reality TV casting and so from our perspective it was like we're talking to a psychologist and they're

trying to figure out and learn about us like do you work for the show or do you work for our best interest like do I tell you the truth here or like yeah are you like a therapist who's actually trying to expose anything that we might need to deal with personally or are you trying to expose something that the show can then use and ask us about and say hey you mentioned that you went through this really tough time in life and this is going to be a dramatic moment for TV. How many times did they ask us if we've ever wanted to kill someone?

Legitimately multiple times. There was a couple parts of the psych evaluation. One was the interview with like an actual psychologist on Zoom. And so it's like a very casual conversation. He's asked you these conversations and you're like

kind of let your guard down which my whole thing going into this was I'm just going to be fully honest. And I'm not going to try to play the game or like try to hide this or that or construct this you know what I'm saying I was just like I'm actually going to answer this because I'm curious what I'll learn about myself yes in the process so you had the interview interview and then I think it was a follow-up to the interview it was so long like an online experience that we had to do 340 questions dude and it wasn't like hard questions but there were questions I'd never been asked like

have you ever been bullied have you ever been bullied have you were bullied somebody was the last time you physically hit somebody you were thought about killing someone and then like 50 questions later no but have you ever thought about killing different iterations literally of that same question or have you ever thought of doing harm to yourself have you ever thought of and it's like you're like it was so direct it was almost uh alarming yeah where i was like whoa i don't i mean when was the last time i thought like like i don't know we all have bad thoughts so then you're like freak what's happening i don't know like it's the last time you thought about what i'm no no whatever the question what i was like yeah i mean have i ever

Are you depressed? I don't know. Have I been, I don't know. Have you ever struggled with insomnia? Do you dream at night? It was like so much intense psych eval stuff that we had to go through. And then we just didn't hear anything. Yeah, there's no follow up to that.

So then. We did also, the day before the show filmed, we did another online test, which was like a personality profile, which showed like, hey, you're really community oriented or you're really self-driven. You really, like, it kind of exposed personal motivations almost, which was fascinating. And they had us all take it and we all sent screenshots into the producers. And you're like, again, how are they going to use this for the TV show? But going back to like our three weeks at home before we flew to Morocco.

So we went through these like psyche vows. We had to do a fitness exam. But it was like self, it wasn't something you had to pass or not. I think they were just gauging. Like a benchmark. Yeah, where you would be. And it was like holding your breath underwater, swimming, running a mile, doing pull-ups, doing push-ups. We did a whole main channel YouTube video on that.

It was actually a blast. It was me being ridiculous for 10 minutes is what the video is. But, yeah. They sent us our boots. Oh, my gosh. Which was a whole thing. Because those suckers are uncomfortable. Yeah.

Those suckers are uncomfortable. Well, okay. So, yeah, because we're not. we did have a connection at Fox and at the production company. So the way TV works is like the network will work and buy TV concepts from a production company who kind of like run the show and they own the IP of or I actually don't know how that legal aspect of it works. So we had done pre-screening calls with the production company and they're like,

hey, we're going to have to get you some stuff. You also have to do the fitness test and they put us in touch with a psychologist. They were kind of like the point person. So they sent us these boots. and they're like, it'd be great to break them in. They said wear them in, or no, we had a friend who said put them in water. Put them in water. During these three weeks, it just so happened that we had our green berets event.

So we flew out and did our event with all these green berets who are really close to us. And so we, like, in confidence, tell them we're going on this show. Yeah. And they were so excited. And they were, like, giving us tips us to get through, like, special forces training. Yeah. It was pretty sweet, to be honest. We wore our boots there to try to break in, and they thought it was absolutely hysterical.

They're like, dude, your boots suck. Yeah, so we got the inside scoop, and we ended up then starting to find boots that would be helpful. Because we've heard it was very physically taxing the show. And so we knew we were going to be wearing the boots a lot. We knew we're going to have to be doing running challenges on our feet a lot, climbing all the different things. So we wanted to make sure that, like, you know, as a football player, cleats was always like a pivotal, important piece of equipment to have. It's like if your feet are

hurting, you're not in great shape. And anyway, so we ended up buying 30 pairs of boots. It was ridiculous. And let me just say none of them were comfortable. They were all pretty much the same. Oh my gosh. And we had to get boots within certain parameters. You know, they had to be military boots. They had to be certain brands. And all the sizing was really off. Whatever. We ended up finding boots. The sizing was whack. So we ended up ordering so many because a size 12 with this company would be like a size 15 in this company or a size 9 in this. And so we could not figure out. I think we both ended up using the original boots, which is comical. Oh my gosh. And fast forward, our boots broke, which was a huge thing in the middle of one of the challenges, whatever.

So we're breaking in the boots. We're also in those three weeks. I bought like super, super heavy ruck, is it rucks? Yeah. Oh my gosh. And I was trying to ruck because our production was saying the two things that usually are the hardest on people is water, which I was terrified of. So I kept trying to practice holding my breath. Every time I took a shower, I would like try to hold my breath and time it or I would

go hold our breath in our water or the rucksack because every single piece of equipment on the show is universal, meaning we all had to carry the same amount of weight no matter the challenge, which was a drastic disadvantage to me. And we had an idea. Some people said it was 40 pounds sack. Some people said it's 30. Dependent upon if it was wet. So I got a 60 pound rucksack.

Yeah. And I was rucking with 60 pounds because I was like, I'd rather get so used to super heavy. Yeah. And it be that rather than like the other way around. And put this in perspective. It's me at 225 pounds with a 60 pound rucksack. And Sean at not even half that with a 60 pound rucksack.

everybody has the same equipment no matter how big small fit or not you are. But honestly, that's pretty accurate. Yeah, it's accurate for the military. Yeah. And it was funny. Well, we'll get there.

We'll get there a week. Okay, so that's the first three weeks. Tried up our training, get ready, get prepped. Then they sent us a packing list. The packing list is like two pairs of underwear for the girls. Two pairs of underwear, two bras, toothbrush, toothpaste.

hair tie and that was like it in your boots and your boots and they said one luxury item which was a personal item like a picture or a book and so which again was trash i took a i took a journal you took a bible and they took them from us yeah yeah everybody else got the luxury items so we had no books and also are like so you can have a medical exemption uh yeah because it was in our suitcase when we picked when we exited but you what we found out was some people took their medical kit and like really used that generously and so they were like oh i have to have this for i have to have my sleeping supplement and i have to have this supplement and that so some people came in with like a massive bag of yeah we came in with nothing yeah because we were intimidated from the get-go

we're real followers and we didn't want to stand out or give them any reason to yell at us or say you think you're different or better even with the boots it was like we tried to find boots that looked exactly the same as the original pair they'd sent us because we didn't want to have yeah different designs and them isolate us out well we didn't want to jeopardize like the actual integrity of the challenge like we take challenges very seriously where we don't want to like cut any corners yes so we're like if we're going to do this we're going to like freaking do this yeah the only thing I desperately wanted was to smuggle in um my electrolytes so bad because theirs were so yucky but it was fine but we also didn't know if we were going to get electrolytes literally

any question we would ask so we had to go through our agent who had then asked the production company who would then have to ask fox who would then have to ask then instructors like the DS who were running the course and so it's like every question we asked like are they going to have electrolytes on the course it's in the it's in the desert they would be like ah maybe we can't tell you and you're like that's an important thing like we're going to need to have they really tried to get a give take away every luxury though in the sense of even like information or knowledge or preparation so that you were truly immersed yeah so go ahead so we get on the flight going to africa and it is top-notch experience throughout so we have luxury i didn't

know this existed but they have handlers that you can book i guess for any trip you go on at the airport where they meet you at the curb they'll take your suitcase then they'll walk you behind a special security person or security entrance and then they'll take you to like the lounge and then they'll like ask you do you want to be first in the plane or last in the plane they can drive you plane side get you on the board and then we're flying first class they really propped us up which was insane and we're like I think on the way back we flew air france and you're like doing wine pairings with this five course meal and you're like wow I am I'm living the high life they make you feel like you're just on top of the world yeah

before they just pull the rug out from under you. Contrast you with the absolute savagery. I want to say, so going into this, we did have a lot of conversations about the time away from our kids. The absolute hardest part about this was this idea of when you are immersed in the course, you have no contact to the outside world.

So you don't have a phone, you can't call your kids, you can't call your family. That really was a hard thing for me to digest, and that's why we almost didn't do the show. If we made it to the end, we would have been gone from home of like 11 days and that is way longer than any time we've ever been away from our kids so I set up a meeting with a child psychiatrist here in

Nashville that I adore I had a lot of conversations with her and I was fully expecting her to tell me like yeah like it can have some lasting impressions and whatever and she was like Sean you have to do this which was shocking to me so then it put me put it back on us and she said she said No, the kids will be fine. Yeah, and they said, she asked about our setup and what our plans were, and she's like, this sounds like absolute heaven for your children and, like, a great way for them to grow. Yeah.

We had my parents watching our kids. Andrew's mom flew in and helped to watch the kids. We had a babysitter who's like our kid's best friend, aunts and uncles came in, cousins, they had a different activity every day, they got to go to the lake. It was literally summer vacation for them, and I don't think they even knew we were gone. Another reason we almost said no. By the way, we had been asked to do other reality TV challenges. We won't name them, but it's like...

We've always said no. It's like four or five weeks away from the kids with no contact. And so one of the reasons we said yes was because it was a shorter duration compared to other shows. If we made it the whole time. Yeah. And it could have been super short if we didn't. Honestly, our work with the military and just our... our eagerness to help in any way in that sense was high.

So like the concept of the show of getting to know these people, building empathy through like trying to understand what they go through was high. We also love challenges like we were talking about. But we almost said no too because, well, initially they just wanted Sean. And then they almost used me as like a bargaining chip. Like, well, Sean, what if Andrew did it too? And so then it was like a really interesting conversation. one with now we're both leaving the kids but two is this something we want to spend our time doing

together would this be beneficial beneficial or detrimental to our marriage we ended up we were like came in as soon as they offered us both to be in a show uh we were like so pumped and then we were like we got to watch the show so we know what we're getting into and we started talking to people and we started watching the show and realizing that there is a psychological component to this and we were we got worried at one point and almost said no yeah like very close to saying no because we thought they were going to toy with our marriage and like try to use that as a like what if they plotted us against one another yeah but after talking to other people have been the show they're like no the instructors and the produce the production and fox really yeah they want the show to be

almost like a redemption yeah oriented show and you could see that and how they portray the characters largely you know of of the people who have been on the show it's like we want to bring out the best in you well and we'll get towards this we'll get to it towards the end but you guys had a lot of questions about how like it felt really scripted and how real was it so i i don't know how to like get you guys to trust me when i say this but i've done a lot of reality tv shows i've done the apprentice dancing with stars um the challenge and i have been on scripted reality tv where it portrays itself like it's like in real life and like fine but actually when they're editing it they're putting a storyline to it or they're like driving you towards a

certain direction to say certain things this show is not that we were barely in any interaction with a camera you are going through this course with you'll see on the show we're all wearing like these black necklaces those are microphones so we wear microphones 24-7 oh my gosh and then the show is essentially filmed by security cameras when we go out on challenges there's one crew that will come with us but they're not allowed to talk to you you're not allowed to ask them questions you can have no interaction they're dressed in full army gear their cameras are like camouflage so it doesn't even look like there's a crew there but there's no interaction they're not allowed to have interaction with the outside world of any kind, including that means, like, the camera guys on set.

So, yeah. Well, not on set. It's not even a set. It's literally the desert. Yeah, yeah. And it's a high level production, too. So, like, you see that there's cameras in the barracks, but what I was so taken back by. Like security cameras, you mean?

Yes. Not, there's no people. Like, there's no, okay, and we're on. It's like, it's just filmed by security cameras the whole time. And when you're doing the challenges, there is like a handheld kind of camera crew that you, you can no is there but there is they are told no interaction so i try to ask them questions like hey do you have a water and it's like no forbidden you'll get yelled at also there's not a lot of opportunity because you're kind of in ranks the whole time looking at the instructor so there's not a lot of

chance for opportunity and if you tried to take one they just shut it down immediately or there's like um you'll see us like when we repel out of the helicopter or jump off something if we're wearing a harness, there's a security guy or safety guy, sorry, safety guy, who is always like the last person to look at you or to like touch your harness or like make sure you're safe. But again, they're not allowed to say anything to you. You can't ask them questions. They won't even make eye contact. No. They're literally just there trying to make sure you don't die. Yeah. You ever fall in love with something online like a dining table or a pair of sneakers and and then see the price tag and think, nope, not happening.

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You're buying bar stools over here? Yes, for the new house. And Doop doesn't just work for furniture. It's fashion, shoes, jewelry, basically anything you've got your eye on. They even have a trade program where designers and real estate pros can earn commission. Doop.com make shopping simple. No accounts, no signups. Just type dupe.com forward slash before any product URL and let the savings roll in. Don't pay more than you need to. Start saving today with dupe.com. We're going to answer all the questions that Sean got from Instagram. A couple other things that are worth noting. Did we get paid? Yes, we did it get paid. Is it like bonkers? No, it's not like insane. But it's not incentivized pay. So every single person gets paid the same.

same exact amount before it ever starts. Does that make sense? So like you could literally show up for one second and like you get paid the same amount as anybody else who like finishes or wins the course. Which there's no trophy. There's no title. There's no nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Which that incentive I was like just eagerly involved in the whole thing from the get go. But at the at some point you do realize like wow, I'm really putting my safety and health at risk for no, like, why am I here? That thought struck me a couple times. I don't know if it did you too. Yeah, a couple times.

But I also want to debunk this hole as it scripted or produced, whatever. So when you fly, when we flew to Morocco. Which we didn't know was in Morocco until five days, four days before. Like, we were like, is it going to be jungle? Is it going to be desert? They did not tell us. I didn't even know if they knew. Oh, we also had to do a bunch of.

of like physicals here with doctors to make sure we were physically fit, make sure we didn't have any heart issues or like whatever. Pretty extensive medical stuff. Yeah. Okay. So then we get on the plane, get off the plane. We get there two days before the course starts. Okay.

So if you made it to the end of the 10 day course, you would have been there 12 days. Those two days is where anything that looks tailored, finesse, where we have our makeup on and we're sitting side by side. in a dark room doing interviews. That's where we do all of that. So you sit in a room basically for two days straight doing like your headshots and your pictures and your interviews that you see cut in between the like challenges and the actual real life course.

Still staying in bougie hotels, still eating great food. We did do. So we jumped out of helicopter in episode one. We'll get there. But like we were watching with some people that are like, oh, did they like teach you how to repel? And the answer is no, but they do... In those two days. They do almost like a, it's almost like a benchmark test to gauge your skill going in

and make sure that there's no detrimental safety issues. So like we did a quick ropes test. Yeah. And we're getting, so the two days, you're like getting shuttled here and there to do the interviews, to do these tests, to meet with whoever. It's like a busy two days, but we did the ropes thing. And then we did a scuba test real quick of like, how are you underwater? are you can you use a scuba mask and they teach you what that's like in case of emergency that

you do need to use one but it's like five minutes it's not extensive you're not learning a lot and even i asked a question of like a logistical thing on the rope and they were like can't tell you like we just want to make sure that you're not going to be an absolute liability to yourself or others yeah but anyway go ahead it's like bare bare minimum so those two days are like anything prepped scripted that you would ever see on the show it's like back fill. The second night we're there is technically when the quote unquote course starts. That's when all contact with the outside world finishes. You have to hand over your phone. You hand over all of your luggage. We put on one outfit. They said put on like athletic clothes that make you feel

comfortable. And then everyone disappears. Someone comes like checks your bags. Make sure that you don't have any other personal items snuck in. They have these little like envelopes that you put everything in. and then you put your suitcase away and they're like all right these are the things we're taking on to the course that's it nothing else and you're like all right game on so then they tell us what our call time is I think our call time was 5 a.m.

And they said at 5 a.m. you have to be up and ready and they come and get you just like a normal person. Oh shoot you also did one last gosh right before that night you do one last physical and psych exam there is an actual

doctor on course with us that you don't really get to interact with and a psychiatrist. So they sit you down 24 hours before this course starts and they introduce themselves and they say, I'm going to be your psychiatrist. I'm going to be watching you the whole time from the security cameras. I'm going to be taking notes. We will have to do an exit interview. I will be in contact with you for four months after the show ends. It's like all those crazy stuff. Which all feels so dramatic. And also previous contestants we've talked to you're like, I think I have PTSD from the show. And you're like, that's dramatic. It's not.

And the whole process of like, what do you mean? And we're going to have to do a debrief-esque, exit interview. You're going to be in touch. You're like, that's too much. We're doing a couple workouts out there. And then, I don't know if you notice this, but the vibe when you met the doctor before the show versus when he was on the show was like, again, there's no eye contact. No.

It's not supposed to be a comforting, welcoming environment at all. It's like. Like if you ever needed a doctor while the course was going on, you would have to like submit a request almost. And he might come 24 hours later. He's not asking you how you are. It's literally like a wall. You're like, I think I have pneumonia.

And he goes, are you fine? Well, yeah. So I think I'm fine. The medical thing was kind of a game too because you didn't want to go see the doctor. Because if you did and you actually had a big issue, then he would say you're done. Yeah. And that was like one of the only ways you get off the show besides voluntarily withdrawing. So you're like, I don't want to see the doctor.

Also, the doctor is not always available. You can go see him maybe a couple of times a day. But he's always watching. Like, they're literally. It's very safe, but very dangerous. I don't know how to describe that. Anyway, go ahead. Okay, so the morning comes 5 a.m.

Someone knocks on our door. They take us and they say, get on this bus. And that's where the beginning of episode one starts. You see all of us on this bus. We have our microphones on now. And the course has officially started. From the time that the bus doors close, the course has started. That means no more interviews, no more phones, no more luxuries.

You can't ask to go to the bathroom. You can't stop at a rest. Like, there's nothing. And logistically, we flew from Nashville to New York to Paris to Marrakesh, where we did the first two days. To Warsazat. Then the night before we drove to Warsazat, which is like four or five hours. And then that morning on the shuttle, we go from Warsazat to an hour outside of that, wherever that was. In the middle of the desert.

Like where there were ruins, it's not civilized. Like, it's the middle of the desert. So then now we're on the show live. This is like what you would see in the episode is us on buses. So then we're driving through like the mountains. All of a sudden we're coming up and we see these ATVs with like masked guys and guns and explosives and fires. And they start shooting at the bus screaming. They pull the driver out.

The driver goes running. Like, it's acting to a certain extent, but also, like, super believable. And at this point, like, vibes are high. Honestly, we just met everybody else on the show because before then they keep it real button down. Like, you're not supposed to interact with anybody or even leave your hotel room because they don't want you bump it into other recruits. And so now we've met. Now we met.

And we're like, oh, it's nice to meet you. He's crazy. We're here. With your background. Oh, you're an athlete too, whatever. And so then the bus capture happens. And you're still like, this is a show. Yeah.

You're like, oh, this is funny. And they're like slamming your head down. You're like, okay. Yeah, and it's like, obviously they're not, they're like shooting. Babies. Yeah. And it's like, oh, what a fun TV thing. And then.

But then it kind of starts escalating. As soon as a bag goes over the head and they shove your face down on the dirt and then tie your hands behind your back. That was one of several times they tie your hands like you're getting arrested. And they start yelling at you. You're like, okay, vibes are a little less high. Getting a little crazy. But like, this. This is cool.

Right. And then I remember I was the very last person to be picked up off the ground. So they're 18 of us. And they're trying to arrange like what groups you're in, trying to figure out who you are because they put bags over you. And I remember I was probably on the ground for 45 minutes. Like zip tied with a bag over my head face down in the ground. They're like, do not move.

And if you move, they will yell at you. So then you're like, okay, well, I'll try not to move. Like I'm going to respect them because that's what I'm here for is to like learn and do the right thing. And then they put us into two groups. We're still bagged. They shuffle us to these two separate areas. Now, I can tell, like, I'm in a line shuffling.

Again, if you watch the episode, you'll see this, but you don't know who you're with. Again, we've just met these people. I remember it was a tall guy, but it wasn't you. And I don't even know if you're with me anymore. They have you walk in single file line, as you say, in the show, with their hand on the shoulder in front of you. You can't see anybody.

You have this canvas bag, which is not like a... It's a heavy canvas, sweating balls in there. You can't see anything. You could see at the very bottom, but you can't. It's like just shoes you're seeing. And my arms were freaking fatigued. Because you're walking for like 20 minutes, tripping over the person in front of you.

You didn't walk that long? I got shoved in the back of a car. You got in a car right then? I got in some sketchy truck where like I couldn't sit up. I was like, I was literally. Right out of the bus? Yes. What?

I don't know. I do not know what kind of vehicle I was in. It must have been a razor or something like that. I would not sit up. What? We shuffled, walked for a long time, and you're like, you know, you're so close that you're tripping on each other. And then you're breathing hard, you get and yell at.

That's interesting. I didn't know that you guys didn't. No, we were in the car for 30-some minutes. What? And I still had the bag over my head. Oh, my gosh. I was trying not to panic with in the car because I was like, how long am I going to be here? Again, they don't tell you anything.

I can't believe. I can't wait to learn more about your experience because obviously. So you shuffled to your first location? Yes, which was in a riverbed. so we got put in cars and drove for about a half hour because we were driving to where we were because we went straight to the helicopter yeah so they drive us for about a half hour still bagged to pull us out of the cars um shuffle shuffle shuffle we probably shuffled for five minutes they lined us up and then that's when they start taking individual bags off and i'm i was the second

to last in line so i was hearing one by one who was with us and it wasn't you i was like what not not ander not andrew and i could tell you weren't next to me and i was like he's not here Yeah. So this is also one of the parts from the show that we had watched that I remember. And it's like, oh, they pull the bag off. They ask who you are. Maybe they say something rude. And you're like, okay, this is crazy. Now I know that whatever they film here will be on the show. Yeah. And it's like, you kind of have like this awareness of, all right, I got to have awareness that this is going to be filmed. But then they like freaking yank that bag off your head. My freaking face. You were trying not to giggle. I know. Because it's still a TV show. point and I'm like ah entertainment fun their intensity is real oh my gosh anyway go ahead now they did the same thing to me pull mine off I was smirking smiling because I when I'm uncomfortable or when I'm in situations like that I'm just a giggler I'm like a uncompy giggler and smiled person and billy was like wipe that smile of your face and then he's like this is my last warning I was like oh god so I found out also that we were not together because

Well, I wanted to look to the lesser right, but people are already getting yelled at. So I was just like looking straight ahead. And then they stopped asking for people's names or backstories. And you're like, well, that was not 18. Yeah. And then you're like, okay, interesting. This is the first unknown.

Yeah. Like, we did not know we were going to split up. What happens next? And they didn't split up. They didn't split up Jesse and Eric because there are three duos. There was a mom and daughter, Teresa, and Gia. Jesse and Eric are married. They're friends of ours and us.

Jesse and Eric stayed together on the first split up Teresa and Gia got split up and you and I got split up Yeah So then they take the bags off our heads And they say like turn in a single file line And they take us To this like mud pond

It was like ours was like manmade It was like a mud pond And they put us through like a half hour They call it beasting Where ours were like tuck jumps, burpees Situps, Army crawls For a half hour straight And it was like, it was pretty intense.

I was, Mark Estes was leading our group, and I was behind him. And they just said, if you don't keep up with him, you're out. And I was like, okay. Oh, geez. I remember when you didn't know Mark's name, you're like, some guy was leading the group. Yeah. And then we all get to know each other really well. But ours was in a riverbed, and I think we had to go face down first.

And they called it, it's a bee sting, like B-E-A-S-T-I-N-G, not B-E-E. Not a bee sting. It's a beast. Like you're a beast. They're dominating you pretty much. Anyway, but the crazy thing is, like as athletes, before any game or competition or practice, you do a whole warm up. It takes 15, 20 minutes.

You get your body right. Your muscles warm, stretched out, mobilized, all the things. This was my first realization of this is so different because now we're doing high-intensity exercises and movements with no... Preparation. Yeah, and so, like, your body just responds differently. And there's no water stations or nutrition stations. It's like you're inhaling dirt.

And it's not, like, pretty. It's like our very first part of our course was, like, you had to crawl through the pond. And they were like full head under, full body, roll over every time. If you're not, we do this again. Yeah. And we just kept doing these, like, circles. It was like crawl, jumps, burpees, push up, sit-ups. and we're going to keep going

until everyone complies. And you had a lot of people in our groups who weren't used to the physicality of this. And so it was just a very humbling first experience of like, let's get in line. So we did that and they line us back up and now we're covered in mud. I remember my clothes were literally falling off me

because they were so heavy. And then they just say strip down and change into your clothes, your army clothes. Yep. and boots too. They give you like a black stuff sack that just has all these other clothes

and they're like change put your old clothes in that same stuff sack and you don't see your clothes again so there's a couple of people that wore like Gucci shoes and glasses and all these fancy things Eva was wearing her Rolex watch

her diamond rings her diamond earrings and she was like yelling at the staff to be like staff is what we called the Instructors the Foxy Rudy Cube

Billy. She was like yelling at the staff. She's like, can you please hold my Rolex? And they were like, no. Yeah. That's, that's concerning. I mean, that easily could have gotten lost. And it's also super muddy and they don't freaking care. Also, I got asked last night, there's a clip of my face getting slammed in the mud or he kind of pushes me forward when I'm on from my knees. And they're like, did they like give your preface? Like, hey, just so you know, we're going to be touching you like this and forcing like this and make sure you get your face all the way in the mud. No, there was no, like, there's no pre-production or off-camera prompting. No.

I did, though. I mean, I was thinking about how I could have held myself up from there. But you kind of, like... It's a submittal process of like... Yeah, I knew what they wanted. Yeah. And it's like, okay, well, I guess it's the athlete in me where it's like, I'm just going to do as I know my coach wants me to do,

not exactly as I could do, I don't know. Well, in a big part of the whole course, so the whole course, the 10 days, the challenges, the bee stings, the everything. It's 100% designed by the four instructors. Yeah. So they are coming in as instructors of Navy SEALs, RECON Marines, SAS, SBS, and they're designing this in the best way they know how and what they would do in their real life.

And then the production crew is just from afar filming it. So the production crew doesn't step in and be like, oh, can you do that again? It's literally they have to stand back and just film as it happens. Yeah. And we are understanding that we are now

in the special forces world. It is not our world anymore and it is our job to submit and do as we're told to learn from them the best that they're willing to teach. And I guess if there's any gamification, it's like I fully realized

we are in this mud pit, we're all going to get muddy. Yeah. So I might as well just die in now. So it's like... Don't fight it. Yeah. That's kind of how I felt.

So then we're stripping. We're changing. to our uniforms, we're learning kind of the military gist that probably took five minutes and then our group went straight from there

and we ran we had to like run in a line for probably half a mile to where the helicopter was and we show up and there's a helicopter they like are screaming at us to get in our harnesses

by the way the helicopter lands 50 yards in front of you You're in the desert The blades are just blasting dust at your face And they're like look at it Yeah You're like I can't open my eyes Oh my gosh

Yeah there's rocks flying in your face It's not comfortable but anyway So they're yelling at you to put on your harnesses And so this is where Our 20 minute educational session before the show started Comes into play You literally have to just like do it yourself

Put the harness on yourself Yeah put the helmet on yourself that's when the safety guy will like quickly come by and just like look at everything to make sure it's fine and then that probably took three minutes we turn and run directly on the helicopter so like you were first group I was first group wow so we run straight on the helicopter it goes up they did groups of four at a time so it'd have been like four people going and in Sean's group and then four or six people left behind yep and I was the third to go And they, like, literally, they go up a couple hundred feet and they're like, okay, number 10, which is my number, you're up.

And they hook you in and say, when I say, go, drop. Probably 10 seconds later, Billy looked at me. He's like, go. So, like, it's, there's no production to it. And it's, it's so intense because it's loud. You know there's cameras. You know you're doing a TV show. You know you get one shot.

but you don't know how to jump out of a helicopter and you're like okay this is just the whole ingredients of this feel so crazy right now so I was like there's a little extra adrenaline or edge or nerves about the whole thing because of the context it was in so you do it so my whole group did it got through it I'll never forget being on that helicopter that was kind of a janky helicopter yeah and I remember Billy was on the helicopter with me and he looked directly at all four of us that were on there and it was the first time I saw like an intensity of him yes they had been yelling at us but it was a different kind of intensity and he like locked eyes with us and he's yelling because it's so loud he's like if they

lose control of this helicopter you watch me and do exactly as I say and it was it was a different tone and it was in that moment I was like oh my gosh I don't think he's 100% comfortable with this helicopter. Wait, on that note, because again, they do a great job at trying to be as safe as possible. But some stories that we've heard about the show is in a repel situation in previous seasons, the wind was so high that it blew one of the people into the wall and they shattered their legs. So then you can't see it on camera because they're hiding it, but this guy had a broken leg the

whole time was on crutches when there wasn't filming. It was a crew member who was testing the, yeah. And they did another episode, I think, somewhere in, like, the Asia region. Vietnam. And one of the production members got bitten by a snake. Poisonous snake. And there was no anti-venom. There was another story where I think something with the weather or, like, technology issues,

one of the workouts ended up being six hours long or like the route. And it was not supposed to be like maybe 45 minutes. They got rearranged because I don't know if it was weather technology, but like, so there's just certain variables like being in another country with, you can't bring a U.S. helicopter to Morocco. So it's just like a Moroccan helicopter with Moroccan pilots with Moroccan weather, whatever their standards are. Not speaking English. They're trying to cover all the safety elements, but you just don't know what's going to come your way. So people do get seriously injured. And you could tell moments when the DS were like, hey, be like, be vigilant.

Yeah. Because this is dangerous. And do exactly the same. Yeah. So we finish, all my whole group finishes repelling from the helicopter and they, we trek up this mountain side to the top of a mountain ridge. I can't believe this. Where there was literally zero shade.

Zero. Like middle of the desert, zero shade. And we just sat down and they said, wait for our next call. So no cameras. DS are gone. Meanwhile, we're down in the riverbed, just changing our clothes. We're watching the helicopter. Like, wow, this is sick.

They do a couple laps. We're like, what's going on in the weather? Maybe it's the wind is too harsh. They can't do the thing. We don't know what the challenge is, but like it looked like there was some issue going on. And we're watching the DS then go out by themselves and they start murdering to themselves. And we ended up sitting in the shade of this mountain in the river for, two or three hours and it got to the point where like the DS were just coming up to us they were so

upset and they were like throwing us water we ended up getting some like local Moroccan sandwiches that they gave us and clearly the schedule was not going like they wanted to so again at this point I'm like ah this a cute TV show we got muddy and now it's a hard workout for sure my body feels weird but now we're waiting for a couple hours and this isn't that hard. This show is not going to be that hard. Then, after a couple hours, well, you tell your side of the story

of what you're done. So the full side of our story is we sat on that ridgetop in the blazing sun, 120 degrees. Zero shade. In the middle of the desert was zero shade. We sat up there for five hours. We're down there.

Yeah, because you had to watch us. Because there was some like miscommunication. Something happened with the crew. again the DS and the staff the sergeants are trying to run this course but they're at the mercy of like making they have to make sure a camera's there as they're doing it and something

happened to where it was bad weather some of the videographers had to go take a break so they're just like okay you're just going to sit here and so we baked in that sun for five hours because then we had to watch all of us do it and we're down the river bed looking at them sitting on this ridge

just in disbelief they're like oh my my gosh, we're down here in the shade, getting food and water, and they're just baking. But what happened, it's almost like if you've ever been at the airport and the pilots and the staff get clocked out and have to take a break. There's something like that with cameras where there was like schedule didn't pan out. Maybe we started to earlier or something, but they end up having to take like a two or three hour break before starting again. So then finally, we get tap on the shoulder. We go put the harnesses on. We get blasted in the face by the dust. We get, you yell that we're online they're like giving you live instructions and like it was similar to

the NFL where if you hear something one time they expect to you remember it and execute perfectly they're not like giving you constant reminder so they're like hey here's your partner here's what you're going to do chopper lands blades are still going we run up they're like keep your head down we're freaking keeping our head down we get up in there it's hot as balls in that helicopter there there's one camera in the in the corner of the helicopter and we get up there Like a GoPro camera. Yeah, yeah. We get up there and they're like, all right, time to go.

So it's Nick Young and I drop down, which is so sick. I honestly thought I crushed it. It's crazy to look back on the footage and you're like, oh, yeah, I ended up failing that mission because I swung underneath a little bit and I guess I could have had more pace out of there. But we had to drop from the helicopter and then run to like a rendezvous point, which I didn't really show. And so it's Nick and I down there.

We're like debriefing. It's like so much adrenaline and you're pumped. but still I'm like well the helicopter wasn't a tough physical challenge so this is a fun TV show and whatever whatever and then my first realization of how dangerous it was when Eric and Jesse jumped out subsequently from the helicopter they're going to have to show this at some point because it was I can't believe I didn't put in the episode so scary Jesse's running down the hill to the rendezvous like on the ledge of the hill and we're across that like across them on the other side on the ridge shop watching this I am down looking at them from 20 yards below and

Eric comes in, and I think Jesse tripped and then slowed down enough for Eric to bump into her, and it looked like he tackled her, but they're right on the edge of this cliff. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, if they fall down this cliff, it does not end well. No. So then I'm like, oh, this is super serious and people get hurt. Oh, and Jesse, like, hit her nose. Yeah, it looked like she broke her nose. The DS come, and Q's yelling at us, like, that was dangerous.

You didn't listen to me, whatever. Q was legitimately scared. So then we're sitting there. I see Sean now. we're like almost parallel or even with each other on separate ridge top and i see where they've been sitting this whole time like oh my gosh and then it took probably an hour hour and a half for the rest of my squad to get down which is where the five hour like a three hour five hour difference takes place because a chopper had to circle do the four come back pick up more recruits come back up

dropping off whatever it's like it takes a while so then now we're all sitting after the helicopter they do a little debrief thing of like you failed this is what you can could have done better that's all on camera that you can kind of see bits of and then we sat around for a little bit again and I'm like this is so easy I thought this is going to be hard but then they have us meet up on this like rock hill and it was my first time really in the terrain of morocco where it's like really slippery rock what they call it scree is what I call it but it's like it's like little pebbles almost it's like super slippery so like when you step it like slides it's almost like sand but little rock yeah so then they're giving us instructions and like people are

trying to stand in the same place but it's too slippery to even do that and they're like all right you got to run down the bottom of his valley this is a relay race challenge don't lose you don't want to lose and they're like we're going to meet here and give you new instructions so then you sprint down this hill it's super sketchy several people sprinting at the same time so it's a race now between two teams sprint down the mountain to these two houses Yeah. And they're like, do you see that house? Okay, great. Or this is the house you're going to go to. And they don't, it's not very clear. And so we finally get to the house. They give us another set of instructions like, are you going to have to carry this stuff to that point. Good luck. By the way, the TV does compress the timeline quite a bit. So obviously like the three or five hour break, you don't really get a glimpse of. The pause after the helicopter, you don't really get a glimpse of. And the instructions in the house, you kind of get a glimpse of in the show. in the first episode but they make it kind of look all continuous

it was sick to see like the overhead map and the little lines they added but then each teams make it to their houses so there's a house on the right and a house on the left and there's this rock hill in between steep

very steep steep steep steeper than stairs like steep and in each house in your house for your team you had barrels and like big water jugs.

Yeah, forget what you call them. And in our house, we had sacks, like sandbags. It all came up to, each house had 800 pounds of that that needed to be moved up the mountain as quickly as possible, racing each other.

It's probably 100 yards to get up this steep slope. Is that right? And then 100 yards from the top of the slope to the drop point. They did not, they made the helicopter thing seem like the most crazy challenging thing on the show but this freaking relay race and that nighttime workout which we'll

talk about destroyed it was so hard it was really hard because you're carrying this really awkward barrel for us up this super slippery slope you have to like it it was like there would be five foot cliffs and so you'd have to like throw the barrel over your head keep it there try to try to prevent it from rolling down the hill figure out how to climb up go to the next point you're slipping you're crawling. You're trying to race. We had no water. So for the last, we had water while we were waiting on Sean's team. But for the last four hours before this, zero water. Don't know why. There was a mistake made. Where? Someone said something after the relay race and they're like, oh, shoot. That's not good. So we're sucking in Saharan dirt. Just coat your throat and mouth, which again,

no warm up. These conditions, my body did not respond well. I get to my first drop. point and I'm like oh that was hard and then I come back and ask the team like hey is there anything left and they're like yes a bunch and I'm like oh it's not just a one and done which is another thing to keep in mind they tell you to this relay race or these challenges you have no idea how long they last or what's next or the full picture of the idea so someone asked me last night hey do you feel like you went too hard on the physical challenges I was like no no because everyone's going balls to the wall. Because of the pressure and the intensity of the instructors,

they're wanting balls to the wall always. There's no like, let me take this one easy because I know another one's coming. It's like balls to the wall no matter what. So we're going up and down. There were two times I remember feeling like like my lung capacity was redlining. And this was the first one.

Oh my gosh. I got into my third or fourth hill and I was like gasping for oxygen. Like in so much physical pain, I was like, am I going to pass out? Am I? Yeah. Meanwhile, Johnny Mansell is on the slope convulsing

because the conditions are so tough. He was about to have a heat stroke. To Sean's credit, the pass converge at the top of the hill and so you're both on the same path, both teams. I'm hauling as fast I can. I will glance behind me over my shoulder

and I see Sean hauling A. And she overtakes me and blast right by me and I'm like, oh my gosh, this chick is a freaking machine. I will say, like, our team was very strong. We had a lot of, like, really strong people. But it was because of the five hours sitting on the ridge top and, like, a bunch of things where I was trying to pick up

some slack Johnny was about to literally die I was really concerned for him um dang yeah it was just kind of a cluster so and I was terrified of getting yelled at I ended up probably doing five or six laps up the hill this is when you see people's different physical capabilities too we're like oh wow okay and then you're like I got to make up for it which is also hard yeah yeah so then our team's finish everyone is like redlining literally redlining literally red line lining oh my gosh and they line both teams up and they're like screaming at us all this stuff and they're like this team barely won our team your team you know was pathetic or like whatever they you know all the words they say and because you guys didn't win they say you have to run back to

the what they call it compound yeah base barracks which i literally wanted to cry for you guys so we see like johnny get in the car and he keels over like literally out of commission i cannot tell you how discouraged i was when they told us we had to run uh they finally did give us water at this point yeah but it was almost too late where like my body was in shock i actually think you guys would have ran a lot further had you been given water earlier they realized no water was a mistake and so then we had like several people super struggling on our team because of that i don't know how to describe what it does to your throat to have the dust and the heat like that but it's terrible so then we start running and you have

ds foxy who turns out like this guy does ultramarathon like all the stuff in Antarctica and he's like keep up for fun so i'm like all right well we got to go balls to the wall so we start running the group of recruits kind of get strung out and dispersed and uh wasn't jessie right up there with you the whole time crushing yes that girl can run yes she was a And then we heard murmurs as we were running because it was, they ended up doing like a walk run. So we'd run maybe for like a quarter mile walk for 30 seconds. You also are running with your Bergens or your backpacks on, which are, no, we hadn't been issued them yet. Correct.

Sorry. Correct. So we hear up someone pulled their number. It ended up being Brittany. And so you're like, yeah, I totally get it. After that relay race, I thought I was going to have to tap out. was coming into it, zero chance I was going to leave that show after that relay race. Again, the helicopter, I was like, oh, that's a cute show.

The relay race, I was like, oh, my freaking gosh, what did we do? So I think it's real. We get to the compound, and it's like everyone's trying to gather their pieces back together and, like, reassemble their pride. But who did you bond with the quickest from your team? on the first day. Because I remember in my first, you know, 17 hours with the helicopter and the ridge top, you're already like trauma bonding and trying to find like your people that like you can look at

for comfort and whatever. Yeah. It was me, Brie and Gia who like clung to each other immediately. Bree was my girl on the first day. I would say Nick was the funny guy. You could see on the show he was clowning the whole time until that relay race. Teresa and Christy and I had a great conversation as well so yeah I felt like it was Christy for you you guys were both very like at Christy Rampone Olympic soccer player we know it really well but

they like helped each other through that first day so you guys run back to the base we're already at base by the time you guys get back and then we hear our first recruits oh gosh and they're like to the parade square so we were maybe back for three minutes before we hear that and then they're like you see the the compound that we're at we all stand there's a little white rocks with our numbers on them. You stand behind them. You're getting yelled at. And then they give us her burghins there.

Yeah, I would say the next two hours are, it's almost like an orientation, but with serious structure. So like they give us our burghans. They meet us back into the barracks. They show us how the burghans work. This is where they give you your rules of like you can never be alone. When you go to the bathroom, even in the middle of the night, you have to wake someone up. You can never take your microphones off.

Your burghans have to be packed a very specific way. and it has to weigh a certain amount of pounds. And if it's below that, then you get penalized. Yeah. So, like, they said, we could check the weight of your Bergen at any time, any day, and it better be 40 pounds. Here's your canteens. It has to be filled to literally the flush with the top at all times.

If it's not, then you get penalized. You have to have your whole uniform in this manner with the compass here, the whistle there, the belt here, shirt tucked in, you know. bed has to be a certain way your your second change of clothes can never be worn on the field it can only be worn we had a dry kit and a wet kit is what they called it so our long sleeve shirts in our pants we had two pairs of each say we go out and we get put in the dunk tank we have to come back into the barrack take that pair of clothes off lay it on the drying racks outside which are just pieces of wood but if we get called two minutes later we have to put that stuff back on so like you're constantly changing and trying to manage your time And as they're doing this orientation, it's random and like one person would come tell you five minutes of stuff and then go away and then like you hear another person yelling and you're like, all right, I got to listen. Also, very quickly, like when they were saying all these detail oriented things, you realize you don't want to be the one that let the teams down because like we got penalized at the beginning because Nick was laughing and the DS penalized us for that before we even changed it to the uniform. But then you're like hearing all this stuff. You're like, okay, I have to do all this. this way because if not, then everyone suffers as a result. So as far as like the reality TV show layer, it almost doesn't matter because you're so focused on like do as do as I'm told here so that people don't physically suffer in a way that's super serious as we just learned from

the relay race. People I got asked what we were issued like what was in our Bergen. In our Bergen, we had a metal set of like a bowl fork and spoon. for eating and a coffee cup so so we got that we got two pairs of the outfits you see us like working in so army pants and a shirt and a hat uh we had a sleeping bag and a small pillow think like a infant pillow that you put in a crib um boots and socks and they gave us uh yeah they gave us we we talked about the boots that we made sure were really functional but then they also gave us like dry brute boots. Same style of boots, but meant to be changed into when you get into the barracks so that your

boots can dry. Which we're also like, oh, ha, ha, wet boots, whatever that means. And then we find out, and it's like, oh, I'm so glad to have bright boots. In the barracks, also there's questions of, you know, what you see on the TV with the cots. They're like, did you actually sleep there? It's like, yes. You sleep this close to the next person.

You have like a little, what do you call it, shoe locker between you, and then you're sleeping on cots, and you have a sleeping bag. Was there a pillow? Yeah, it was like a little pillow. A little square pillow. Sleaving bag and a pillow. And then that's where you are. And anytime someone left, they would take the cot, take the shoe locker.

We'd all kind of do like a rating of supplies. So like go through the person's box and say, all right, well, they left this, that, and the other. I'm going to take their pillow. Yeah. And then there was a little medical box in the barracks where it had toilet cleaning supplies. Blister bandades. Which came, which were necessary. Bro.

some electrolytes which we requested from the doctor um like athletic tape that's about Vaseline in Vaseline yeah yeah yeah but okay so that's like the next two hours then we're getting really close to like nighttime so we go they say dinner's ready um the food was I would say it reminded me of training camp so it really wasn't bad for me that is also insane are gymnastics training camp for the Olympic team? Yeah. That's insane, Sean. I know.

That's what they fed you? Yes. It was very, very simple. Oh, my gosh. So breakfast every day, we would have, like, bread rolls, hard-boiled eggs. We either had chia seed pudding or oatmeal, but it was, like, made with water, not with milk and no seasoning, no, like, very, like, very bland. Strawberry preserves, and then powdered coffee. I don't know how else to describe the food.

other than slop like literally it was slop it was here you are getting it was prison it was prison in the NFL and it was like almost intentionally hilarious how bad the food was no it legitimately was stale the bread was stale the bread was stale and there's no like you had salt and I don't think we even had pepper you had salt and that's it so you'd have salted eggs for breakfast and you'd have salted carrot soup and then you have salted oatmeal. It's like, dude. It really didn't bother me at all.

But they, yeah, yeah, oh my gosh. I forget what we had for dinner that night, but anyway. Yeah, so we had dinner. And then by that time, it's probably like 10 o'clock. And we're like getting ready for bed. We aren't sure. Like, is it over? It's been a very, very long day.

We've probably been doing stuff by now. We look up at five. All day. Yeah. Yeah, 20 hours. So, we. start doing the whole like one by one we would shower the shower was outdoors it was just um like a water tank with like a hose pretty much yeah bonding in the barracks this whole time was

high because now we all had like this traumatic like the first relay race was brutal for everybody so we're all like laughing like oh my gosh can't believe this and i saw johnny doing that and this person wouldn't stop talking and we're all like viving it was fun we finally decide it's time to go to bed it's like now 1 30 a.m and i would say we all climbing bed around 1.30 and fall asleep. No kidding. The show said 11.30. It was later than midnight.

It was later than 1 o'clock. No, it was the middle of the night. Like, we stayed up late because of it. So it was probably like 1.30 that we all fall asleep. No kidding. 30 minutes later, they come busting in. And they say, be ready in the square in five minutes. So now we're all like showered and in pretty much our bra and underwear or like boxers.

because that's what everyone was sleeping in because it was so hot and they're like, you better be dressed to the tea like we taught you and out in the square in five minutes. So we're all panicking. Oh my gosh.

Get dressed, run out, find our numbers, stand on them. And they're like, get ready. Time to work out. We have to jump in and out of an ice bath, crawl. The water was not that cold for the record. It was not like freezing.

It wasn't freezing, but it was probably like 70. But the desert temperature goes from 120 and to like cold at night so probably like 60 70 outside so then getting in a colder bath it wasn't an ice bath but it was cold comparatively speaking so you'd have to get in and out of the water army crawl do tuck jumps burpees push-ups sit-ups we probably did it for 30 40 minutes and then we're lined back up and all I remember is seeing Andrew out of the corner of my eye

and we are both convulsing I've never felt this in my life I think it's just from like fatigue and being tired and being woken up. And then the water and the desert air at night being cold. But I have never been that cold in my life. I was literally like, could not stop shivering. No. Like, yeah.

Usually like you can, I could tighten up. Like if I'm cold on a ski slope or something like that, I can stop shivering. No. My body, so I did not say this whole orientation, us clown in the barracks. I'm flat on my back. And it was red lining. I think I had a heat stroke. Yeah.

I was about to have a heat stroke, and it's like, my regulation physically was not in good shape, which is why I thought I was going to have to tap out because I'm not going to make it past day one. It's about 120 degrees, by the way. Then we thought we were going to sleep. We didn't. Then we do this workout, get in the water, it's cold. And my just, like, you know when you're sick and your body gets hot, cold and you can't regulate it or it doesn't do it, it's normal thing? Like, that's what was happening.

I literally was just, I can't stop. It was awful. Oh, my gosh. So then they're finally like, okay, go back. to the barracks and they never say never in the entirety of the show they never say like good night or see you tomorrow it's always like just be ready yeah it's a game they would always leave you with just be ready but we did figure out by day two or three that you knew the day was over when the lights would go out in the barracks and so yeah and they would they would say before bed

when you're going to sleep put your microphone this is the only time you took it off Can you take it off for showering? I think they did let you take it off for showering. But you had to put it right back on. But yeah, they're like, put it on your shoebox next to you. Because they have to change out the battery in the middle of the night. And you kind of knew the day was over when the lights shut off. But the lights would shut off at different times every night.

So 1.30, 2.30, 4 a.m. We'd get lucky one night at like 11 p.m. And that was the first day. It was. I will never forget that first night I was so tired just from like being on and adrenaline

I'll never get one of the mic people coming in Christy gram phone was on the other side of me you were on one side of me I'll never get her laughing at this the next morning she's like I thought you were like dying I couldn't get you to wake up but I forgot to put the mic on the shoe rack next to me

he couldn't get me to wake up really and he was just like so then Christy had to get out of bed and she's like trying to wake me up. Oh my gosh. And finally I wake up and I'm in such a fog. And my mic is like caught in my sports bra and I'm still not awake. And I'm finally just like, can you just help?

Can you just help me please, please? And this poor guy in the pitch black in the barracks is like desperately trying to help me get. But not talking. Nope, not allowed to talk to you. So I technically broke protocol even saying can you help me. Was there anything you were shocked by after watching the episode compared to real life? A couple of things that strike me. are one how much they like upplayed the helicopter which was intense but not the hardest thing

it was like the chillest thing the whole day and they downplayed the relay race and that workout because i just don't think it was like can be shown on tv as to how hard it was which is interesting yeah what makes good tv a helicopter like a relay race probably the helicopter the added slowmo and like graphics was super cool where it's like wow that was intense um and then the addition of other people's audio too. It was like super insightful because you're like, oh, yeah. I'm only thinking about my experience,

not as much as other people's. And then also, lastly, the cameras in the barracks, literally it's like a GoPro. And you're like, oh, maybe they'll use this footage, but it looks like a highly professional camera in that post edit where you're like... It's nice.

And they're pulling audio from here and there. And then like how they distill. Honestly, I would say they portrayed... In episode one, everything and everyone very accurately. I don't feel like they portrayed anybody different or the edits made anybody look different than they were in real life. But it's definitely like distilled too, which is just fascinating. Because like, you know, moments of conversation that are a little more drawn out but have a climax at this point when that person says something. It's just so different when you put it on a TV edit than in real life when you're like having this large conversation.

Yeah. But anyway, questions. on to your questions questions submitted on social media for episode one let's dive in all right do they really only give you the most basic instructions before y'all do things like repel yes maybe 30 seconds worth not exaggerating there's no like helicopter safety course there's no repelling they we did the day before that quick test of like i guess initial skills but there's no instruction because they say we can't teach you anything it's going to be pretty raw out there yeah there's no instruction no they just reinforce from day one this concept of

you do exactly as you are told and that's not just for safety but also learning discipline but you learn very quickly if you listen intently to what they're saying they're trying to help you succeed okay and they do do give you the visual walk through of the DS doing it themselves but there's no real like explanation of how they're doing it so you're like trying to pay attention as sharp as possible um can you go more into what you are allowed to speak on and not allowed to prior to airing we just can't tell you how far we made it they did give us approval like if you listened to our previous episode to give like an overview of the activities we did yeah but not the ultimate outcomes or like what activities there were there were because like we've now talked to

everybody and we know what all challenges. Someone said, I can't wait to watch, but I'm surprised they let you say you made it to interrogation. You don't know that. We're telling you we know there's interrogation. Yeah. We know people who went through interrogation. Do you feel like you couldn't

cheer each other on too much or show affection? We wanted to respect the course is what we talked about. It was not a, we realized this was not for Sean and Andrew and this is not like our gig. This was the special forces gig the instructor's gig

and so we wanted to respect that and uh we did at night kind of debrief and we would kind of like encourage each other like hey let's keep going because we were in cots next to each other so we would kind of be whispering and we also really enjoyed spending time

with the other recruit so we tried to really not make it about us at all yeah yeah is there any time you get to eat or use the bathroom We technically had breakfast, technically, technically had breakfast, lunch and dinner. So we had the same breakfast every day around like 5 a.m.

Sometimes we'd get lunch. It would usually be while we're out on like a challenge and it was like literally a tortilla with chicken, if you could call it that. Sometimes, yeah, lettuce sandwiches on stale bread. You're like, what? And then we would get dinner varying times each day. but you knew you would get dinner and it was like very bland like a boiled chicken stale bread some veggies of some kind yeah i lost 17 pounds on the show

started at 225 came back sub 209 it was crazy were there any co-stars that you connected with right away are ones that you didn't vibe with co-stars i connected with right away because we were split up into team. So on my team, the first day, connected with Bree and Gia really quickly. But also, I loved my whole team the first day. Mark Estes was great. We had the Nashville connection with Mark, Randall, Jesse, and Eric. Oh, Randall was on my team. He was amazing. Randall's the best. So we all kind of vived over Nashville. Yeah. Christy. Yeah, on your side. But then like back in the barracks, everyone. Like Jesse and Eric, obviously,

we're really close with Christy Rampone, Nick, Rovey, Chanel. Yeah, Rovey is Nashville too. That was another shocking thing, too, is everyone's experiencing the thing equally, but who they chose to feature and highlight,

like they almost didn't mention a couple people that first episode where you're like, wow, we're all doing it together. That's surprising. What are the necklaces you're wearing? And are the men leading it as intensely in person

as it shows on TV? More intensely. Way more yelling. Way more F-bombs. Yeah. And the necklaces are our mics. There is no on-camera, off-camera personality for the DS. They were yelling the whole time.

Did any of your castmates drive you crazy? I mean, were their style differences? Yes. I'll leave it at that. Someone said when he pushed When Q pushed you into the mud That was crazy Yeah

It gets freaky or just get ready Honestly episode one I think is gonna be like the most chill Tame Yeah Two pairs of clothes and so much mud How? Oh yeah

We did talk about how to wash your clothes And everything Yeah So we got two uniforms The first one got destroyed by mud because that first relay race and the workout at night so we come back all muddy

because we're army crawling over the rocks and mud it was so brutal and you can't just change into your other pair of clothes and go to bed yeah there's like chores to do it now you had to wash your meal kit

you have to wash your clothes so they had this trough with running water that had a pump from it and you just like have to run the water over your clothes and like ring it out and then hang it up on the drying

rack and hope that was good enough yeah but then after you wash it and you're hanging it up and it's soaking wet if you got called back out and so you put your dry set on if you got called back out two minutes later you had to go grab your wet kit and put the wet kit back on yeah which was awful brutal so i pretty much kept my wet kit on the whole time because i didn't want to have to deal with that no yeah was there a medical team nearby at all times they were present they were not a feature though and you can't just like go check in with medical whenever so like they're watching very closely yeah um if there's blood involved you have to be seen by the medic and they had different role so they kind of showed this on the episode but they had a toilet duty so they had to like

by the medic no no sorry they had a dude to recruit so anytime you want to see the medic you had to talk to the duty recruit duty crew had to go talk to the ds who would then talk to the medic Yeah. That was kind of the process. But anyway. And they also had a toilet cleaner. And who else would they have? Was it just two?

We had to wash dishes. Everyone's dishes. Oh yeah. We were the dishwashers the whole time, Sean and I. Who is your favorite DS? Hmm. You grow to respect. You start off loathing all of them.

And then I think I grew to respect all of them for sure. But like friendship-wise, I think, I would like to continue to get to know of Foxy. They're all so nice, believe it or not. We got to hang out with DSQ and DSRudy, like personally in L.A. after the show, which was awesome. Foxy is just this mystery man who has a great sense of humor. So, yeah, I'd love to get to know him better. And you can tell Billy's like, OG.

Yeah, hilarious too. He would play these jokes on you. Like, you'd literally be hanging. out of the helicopter and he's so serious and he'd act like he was dropping you and he'd be like he's like chill out so he's like funny in a terrifying way yeah that makes sense but you can also tell he has like the most clout yeah by the other ds anyways yeah uh what was it like sleeping near everyone oh yeah people ask like what if someone snores you're like well shockingly i'm a very light sleeper except for that first night and nobody snored yeah you're also so exhausted from the day's

activity i think everyone slept well except for jesse who said she never slept but uh who surprised you the most the person who crossed the finish line you got to wait and see uh where can i watch if i miss the first episode things on hulu or you can record it on youtube tv is what we did but did you die because again it was all fun in games until the first physical challenge and then I was like oh this is not reality TV this is this is a real deal so he's brutal explain the helicopter repel would it have been possible to completely fall to the ground

yes we were our own break does that make sense yeah again with no experience so as soon as you jump out of that helicopter if you're not breaking with your own hand you're going straight to the ground 200 feet you see it with Britney's repel yeah like she got in a pinch and no one's bailing her out

there's no way to they're like you're on your own so what was your why gain appreciation and empathy for what the troops go through um get to do

honestly obviously it's like an amazing once in a lifetime experience to do the TV show, to do this in a different country, to do all these crazy stunts, you're like, it was a no-brainer as soon as Sean and I found out we could do it together. So it's like, what a fun experience and memory to have together and what a cool environment to do it in. It's been a very long time since I competed. Didn't know if I was capable of being competitive anymore, what I was capable of tapping into. I had three kids really wanted to see what my where my red lines were um what is the shortest amount of time you slept in a night was it four four or five hours at first night right four yeah because we

probably went to bed by no sorry zero hours what are we talking about oh yeah zero hours zero sorry obviously yeah the shortest amount of time we slept is zero stay tuned oh my gosh well What is the longest you slept? Probably seven. Yeah. Rare. Yeah. Sorry.

I'm trying to give spoilers. I know. Do you think it helped having your spouse? Yeah. Yeah. Being able to go to sleep next to my husband was a comfort. And there was less preoccupation of what's going on at home. We were able to be present wholly with each other.

comfort push the depth of knowledge definitely i think give us a different understanding of how capable and how well we can navigate any given situation who won the fight me or brie obviously episode two i can't wait for that one um are we feeling any PTSD i tell you i tell you what the first six hours after I got done I was in a really bad place I'll explain more why but I was in a really bad place

and I do think it took us two weeks to fully decompress six weeks to really put it behind us you said 10 days does that mean you made it to the end no the course is 10 days we didn't say we made it 10 days um how many times did you shower i think all of us tried to shower we tried to rinse off once every 24 hours but i mean i probably shower oh yeah we won't

give that number away then but what you did see johnny you didn't want to shower too much and it was short showers because when there's a bunch of people that use your one shared shower. Then also, Johnny's in that shower, as you can see on episode one, and gets yelled that that the DS needs to see them. So you're like, you don't know what's going to happen or when. And so you always want to stay ready. You don't ever want to be in that super urgent situation where you don't have your

kid in place and then everyone's going to have to do a penalty workout. So it's like, it's a really fine balance and strategy of like when you do personal things or when you let your guard down. Because if you let your guard down and they throw something at you, it's like misery. How far would they let you go until they intervened with helping to save your life? Well, wait till you watch

the next episode. You'll see. The very last, the very last inch, I would say. When you need compressions? Yeah. What was Sean's feedback from the staff? I mean, Johnny almost had a heat stroke

and they did nothing. I know. They did nothing. I mean, they're trained to like bring it back from the dead, so I think they're ready to see you kind of fall over and they're like, I think it might be time.

They also don't ease up on. Johnny's out there convulsing. He's like, you've got to keep going. They are, it's ruthless. What was my feedback from the staff after repelling from the helicopter because they didn't show it? That I failed.

I got stuck. Yeah, China almost didn't weigh enough to repel. They don't intervene medically because they're waiting on you to medically withdraw a person. much it's like if it hurts that bad VW like withdraw yourself if not keep going so it's like a cat and mouse game like you can get medical attention all you got to do yeah literally and then you would black out and they'd like oh wait I got to help yeah um was it scripted at all

no like zero percent zero I think maybe the only script you could possibly claim is like the instructors knew, the instructors had a schedule that they knew they were going to follow. Did not share with us. No. Were we able to drink coffee? Yeah. Powdered coffee every morning. Well, no, it was available breakfast, lunch and dinner.

We almost didn't want to drink too much of it. One, because it was super hot outside, too, because you didn't want to lose any electrolytes or water because it's a diuretic. Going to the bathroom, we had these toilets that Anders talked about, the metal bins that you poop and peed in that everyone could see. or if you're out on a challenge, we had no toilets at all. So you had to literally just go somewhere. You ever notice how some people just look like they've got it all figured out?

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Were you worried about getting seriously injured? Not until the relay race. And seeing Johnny almost die. And then it was like, oh, yeah. I think that was both of our biggest fears on the show. It wasn't like heights or drowning or even though those are our fears. Our biggest fear was like, getting really hurt.

Yeah. I can't imagine you doing that without me or me doing that without you. So I'm so glad we got to do it together. It would be, it's hard to even accurately describe it on this show. I can't imagine trying to tell each other what that experience is like because we really went through it together and what a bond. So yeah. Thank you, Fox.

Thank you. And thank you all for tuning in. We're going to do a lot of videos, like I said, just because there's, It was such a momentous thing in our life. We shared the special forces show test on our main channel. Did an episode on this last week. We'll continue to do episodes. Let us know and comment or DM us.

If you have any specific questions, we'd love to answer them and we'll get to as many as possible. But that's all we got. Thanks for listening. I'm Andrew? Number 10. Till next time. Out. Out.