Jocko Podcast - 173: Fighting an Uphill Battle: The PATH w/ Medal of Honor Recipient, Ron Shurer

Episode Date: April 17, 2019

0:00:00 - Opening 0:03:10 - Ron Shurer.  Medal Of Honor. Life, battle, Lessons. 2:34:29 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:41:17 - Support: How to Stay On THE PATH. 3:07:40 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 173 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Sure analyzed the wound. Wallin was bleeding from his neck. So he pulled out gauze and started examining the wound to assess the damage. Wallen's airway looked fine. There was no vascular damage.

The medic could tell that the wound wasn't life-threatening, but the blood was still flowing. You're going to be okay, he said. wrapping gauze on the wound. He began exerting pressure to stop the bleeding. Are you sure, Wallen asked? Yes, I'm sure. The fire was nonstop. Scher didn't think it could get much worse.

Until he heard a frantic call from Walton on the radio. Bear, Morales, and C.K. had been hit, and they needed Scher up there fast. Did you hear that? Wallen asked. Yeah, I heard it, sure, sure said. His bleeding was minimal. I'm good Wallen said go get them getting to Walton's team though posed a great risk a medic is taught not to put himself in any unnecessary danger he has to stay alive so other soldiers can live but it had reached a point in the battle where he had to go so sure grabbed his bag and headed into the fire and that is a passage from a book called No Way Out a Story of Valor in the Mountains of Afghanistan by an author

named Mitch Weiss and it tells the story of the men of operational detachment Alpha three three three six it's a special forces ODA team going after a high value target in the shock valley in Afghanistan but when they got on the ground for this mission they were In a bad tactical position, they were outnumbered, they were outgunned, but they did have one thing that could not be beaten, and that was the will to survive and the bonds of brotherhood that could not be broken. And on top of those things, there was incredible courage on display from all the men of the team, above and beyond the call of duty, and one of those men. the medic Ron Scherer fought not only against the enemy but fought to save the lives of his teammates and it is an absolute honor to have Ron here with us tonight to share some of the lessons

from that day in Afghanistan and from the rest of the things that he's been through and live through on his journey through life. So Ron, thanks for coming on, man. No, thanks so much for having me. I've honestly been a fan of the show for a long time. And, you know, when you guys offered, kind of weird to think about coming on, but it's definitely a pleasure. Well, man, it's great to meet you.

And, you know, we'll get to Shock Valley. But, you know, let's figure out a little bit about. who you were, where you came from, how you grew up. I know one interesting fact to start this thing off is that you were born on December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day. Yeah, it was born December 7th, obviously a few years later than 1941. But yeah, I grew up with that and for some reason my parents always thought it was a good idea to get me news articles or other reporting from Pearl Harbor and says like a six or seven year old, hey, read this. I don't know why, but yeah, it always just, you know, was something that we talked about as part of my birthday.

Happy birthday, let me tell you about Pearl Harbor, son. Exactly, yeah. And was your grandfather in, your grandfather served? My grandfather did serve. He was in the Navy, so he was in the Pacific for several years. He, I'm trying to remember. he was on the smaller aircraft carriers that they had around the Pacific so he's on several of those aircraft mechanic yeah and you know dodging kamikazis for sure and other things I got a bunch of

books on in Q from World War II sailors in World War II it's those books are absolutely insane and what those guys lived through was horrific I I look at that and maybe this is just me I don't know how you feel. If given the option of being in an engine room on a on a destroyer in World War two hot sweating and by the way, kamikazis like you said or torpedoes are going to slam into you at any time. There's nothing you can do about it versus storming the beach. I'll storm the beach all day long like that's me.

I don't know. Oh, 100% I would rather you know in you know land warfare combat like if you're going to shoot me, I get a chance to shoot you back and maybe this will work out my way. Maybe it works out your way. But when you throw water in and all those other pressures, like, no thanks. I'll pass. Yeah, I know I owe it to those sailors to cover some of those books, man. Those are those books. But, you know, with your with your grandfather, I mean, just to live through that, I can't even imagine coming back from that what your normal life is like after you've lived through World War II as a, as a sailor in the Pacific theater. Oh, man. Crazy.

Yeah, my grandfather, he served in the Pacific. My great-grandfather was in World War I, shooting artillery at the Germans. So we have family history. And we have some family history. He goes back all the way to the Civil War. It gets a little, you know, a little more like cousin level and everything out there. But, yeah, we've been fighting wars for this country for a long time. And then both your parents as well?

Both my parents were in the Air Force. That's where they actually met was in the Air Force. And yeah, we've just had that family history of service. So that was pretty normal. And where were they stationed? Where did you spend most of your childhood? I think like most military kids, you know, kids. I was born in Alaska, but then moved to Illinois.

I don't really remember any of either of those places. First place I remember is Mountain Home, Idaho, which is just a tiny... A little place about an hour south of Boise. And then from there, I kind of will call Washington State home because I spent fourth grade on growing up in Washington State. Okay, so a big chunk of time there. Yeah, my dad ended up retiring in, I want to say, 91 from the Air Force. And then we just kind of stayed there afterwards.

And you were the only child. Yeah. So that means those birthdays were especially heavy, right? It was like pure celebrating. I got four kids. I know you got two kids. I got four kids and you know, you can have a birthday and you don't even, am I a bad parent? I don't know.

Yeah, probably. Yeah, because a birthday, oh, are we doing anything for my birthday? I don't know. When's your birthday today? Oh, okay. Anyways. My wife blows it out for our kids' birthday. She's great at that.

I just kind of go along for the ride. Yeah. And my wife does a much better job than I do as well. I'm the person that's looking at the whole situation. and saying, what is this stuff hanging up for? Oh. What did I get him for his birthday? Yeah.

And then, so going to school, were you playing sports? What were you doing? What was your gig in school? I played the usual sports growing up, you know, soccer, baseball. What I really kind of gravitated towards as I kept growing up was your endurance sports. So I started, my dad was doing triathlon, so I started. doing that. Oh, your dad was doing triathlons, huh?

Yeah, he did the, he did many trathons. He did the Canadian Iron Man a couple times. And so I kind of grew up watching that. So I started with the trathons in high school and then pretty quickly switched over to just cycling, road racing, cycling. And I don't know, I think, I think those, you know, four or five, six hour days on a bike got me ready for military training. It's just pure pain on a bike, right?

Right. I've never raced a bike before, but I know guys that race bike, and it's just pain. It's just how much pain can you take, right? Yeah. Just you're a long stretch of road and you just keep on riding. And apparently you've gotten some kind of crash. Biking? Well, several times.

Well, I know that there's a little disruption in your plans because you get done with high school and you want to join the Marine Corps or you get done with college, you want to join the Marine Corps. Okay. So, yeah, I went to Washington State University, was getting ready to graduate in the spring of 2001. And so started talking to a Marine Corps, an officer recruiter, went through that process. How did your mom and dad feel about that? They were. Because, let's face it, Air Force is one side of the spectrum. Marine Corps is on the other side of the spectrum.

At least, at least I was going to, I was talking about the officer side on there. When I later said, hey, I'm joining the Army enlisted, then they just lost it then. They were like, what are you doing? You just – but, yeah, so I was getting ready to graduate Washington State, start talking to the Marine Corps and went through the process. Basically, that was accepted through the Marine Corps program to go to OCS starting in October of 2001. That's awesome. But the Navy Medical Board had seen what I thought was a flag on my medical records from being hit by a car in 1995. And so I never spent a day in the hospital back then with pancreatitis, which usually would be considered or related to drug abuse, alcoholism, just something serious.

or you have some serious medical condition. And so because of that, they told me no in August of 2001 that now we're good. We don't need anybody. So yeah, kind of got left out to dry there. And then... So then what was your plan? From there, I started a graduate school in economics.

What did your original degree in? It was business economics. Did you get that degree, but you knew you wanted to go in the military? I mean, you, you, you, or did you, or did you, get done with your degree and say, oh, no, what am I going to do now? Maybe I'll go on the Marine Corps. A little bit of both. So service was definitely always a part of our family life growing up.

And so it was definitely in the back of my mind. I need to give back, do something for the country. Never quite knew what. And then trying to go to OCS. It just seemed like something to, to do for a while and give back. And then when that didn't work out, I started graduate school to use that as kind of a reset time.

I figure out, okay, that's not working out. Now what can I do? And it was a few weeks into that that 9-11 happened. And then we had to revisit the decisions again. And so then what did you do once September 11th happened? So I was in graduate school for, for economics and I'm spending that first year continuing with education and just watching watching it on TV and just didn't feel right to just sit there and watch it.

So try to figure out what what made sense at that point to do and then for some reason the listing in the Army sounded like a good idea. So that summer of 2002, I went down an Army recruiter. And, of course, at that time, they were like, sure, we'll take it. We can scratch that. We don't care what medical conditions you have. Just signed this over here. Now, did you know you wanted to try for SF at that point?

They talked to me about going in with S. contract and it definitely sounded interesting but I know part of me just didn't feel like like oh that I could be an SF guy because I mean I grow up just like everybody you're watching Rambo you're watching other things like that's what a green beret is like I certainly don't don't fit that mold but so they talked about that but I was like well let me get in let me get some experience in the military and then we'll go from there. So I signed up to be a medic who did basic training. I'm forgetting the name right now. Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and then went off to Fort Sam Houston and then went to airborne school. And along that way, I got, I ended up

getting myself a Ranger contract to try to go to the 75th Rangers. So at some point you realized, all right, I'm going to step up and try and go to a little bit more special operations type. Something got in your head at some point. Yeah, something got in my head. And if I remember correctly, I think it was orders to Korea. I think that was the first thing that came through. Like, let me see what else I could do. So I talked to the recruiters, got the Ranger.

I don't know if it was a contract at that point, but I got that set up. So it might be different now. But after airborne school, any infantry guys or medics or whoever's trying to go to the Ranger, you'd go out the next day, wait on the little lines out there at airborne school, and they'd come by,

they'd look through your paperwork, pick you up, and then take you over. So they come out, they start flipping through everybody's stuff, and they get to mine and they start looking at my paperwork, which is still the same paperwork from trying to do the Marine Corps OCS thing. And so it's, of course, a disaster. It's not physically qualified, but then there's, like, lines through that and waivers and arrows

and just nonsense. But they look at that and they're like, well, you're not physically qualified to be here. And so they just kind of drop my paper. paperwork, took everybody else and left me standing there. So I now had to revisit what to do again. So I ended up spending a few weeks sitting there, airborne school, just kind of being a little, you know, whatever they needed done that sucked.

They'd make me do while I waited on new orders to go somewhere. So yeah, I did that for a little while and I finally got orders up to Fort Bragg to go to the 44th Medical Command. And so while I was, you know, packing up all my stuff, head up to Fort Bragg. And fortunately, my medical records got lost along the way. Did you say fortunately? Unfortunately. I mean, I'm a specialist in the Army, you know. I don't want to lose stuff and show up, but it got lost along the way.

Yeah, bummer. So got my medical paperwork redone. None of that. Wow. None of those waivers or anything. Got all that situated. Reported to my unit on, I think it was a Thursday, some Thursday in August, that had been 2003 at that point.

And that's because those Army, the medics, schools are a long time, basically. So at this point, you'd been through boot camp, army boot camp, and then you went to to be a medic. How long is the training to be like an infantry medic? The medic course was four months. Yeah, okay. So I, yeah, I did basic.

I did the medic school. And then, yeah, an airborne school. And then that interim time while they try and figure out something to do with me. And so I showed up to my unit and went after you in process in August of 2003. you know that first day we do PT then the first sergeant calls me in like hey what do you want to do with your your life plan on putting in an sf packet try this try something else again and and again the thing that's what's driving you to do that like did you see some sF guys did you talk to some sF guys did you watch rambo again what was the uh what was the persuading factor i don't know i think it was a mixture of a lot of a lot of

of different emotions and like I had nothing to validate my feelings because I was just some specialist in the army but I was like I think I'm pretty good at this stuff so let me let me try and push myself a little bit harder and try and find something else to do so I I put in for sF there's a guy named Travis Mills you ever heard of Travis Mills he's an awesome guy but he he was on the podcast and and he's a he's a quadruple amputee and he's like the got the the damn spirit of a freaking like the ultimate human being warrior but anyways when he was growing up he played varsity football and basketball whatever he played every sport he broke all these records he was this big strapping guy told like a total stud

just just a total stud and you know I asked him I said well you know how come you didn't try for Ranger or something. He's like, or why don't you try for special forces? He's like, I didn't think I could make it. And there's like this thing where like for me, I'm one eighth of the athlete and the physical specimen that Travis Mills is, but I was just dumber. I was just dumb enough to say, oh, I think I can make it through this training. Bring it on, you know. He was too smart to say, you know, he was too smart. He was too humble, really, too humble. Because I had some level of arrogance. I mean, I think there's a difference between, because that happens on a fairly regular basis. You know, special operations and special forces has this kind of mythical buildup where people start to think, well, I don't know if I can actually make it through that. It's got to be so hard. Whereas I'm always looking to people like, oh, you were a wrestler, or, oh, you played football, varsity football in your high school, or you swam on the swim team or whatever, you'll be

fine. Like, you can do it. But people build it up to that mythical level that you don't think. you can make it. So the reason I was asking that is because it sounds like you made a transition from, I don't know if I can do that. And then once you're there and you're looking around, you're going, you know, I think I can actually do that. You got, you either got dumber. Let's go with that. Yeah. Or you just got more, you know, little, and that's what I think it is. I think it is, you know, you see, you see yourself in comparison with everyone else is there.

And you go, okay, cool. I'm, I'm hanging with these guys. I can probably make this happen. So, no, that's cool. That's cool. Yeah, and so, I mean, so now we're talking that fall 2003, so Afghanistan's role in Iraq is going. At that time, the unit I was in, it was a medical support company. They weren't even supposed to deploy. I think the calendar had them going in like 2005. So I like, oh. You're like, that's a lifetime away.

I came all the way here to not go anywhere. So I put in for selection, we got those medical records redone. So I could go. So I went in January of 2004 to selection. And we can obviously talk about that more. But when I came back, then my unit is all in desert camouflage uniforms. And like, you guys gone somewhere? And they're like, things changed.

In those three weeks you were gone, we're going in like four weeks. Oh, dang. So you went to special, so they send you, do they send you like TAD to special forces selection? Is that what happens? Like temporary, they don't transfer you there permanently. They just send you for a- Correct. For the three-week selection process, you just get temp orders over.

You do your thing. If you get selected, then you wait for orders to go full-time to the Q-course. And then that initial selection is just like a beat down. Yeah, three weeks. You know, probably not that different than most selection. for different soft units around the world. You're going to walk in the woods with heavy bags, get lost, and then we're going to make you carry heavy stuff.

And I remember logs, a lot of logs that needed carried, apparently. They didn't belong over here. They belonged over there. How'd you doing that? Did you feel all right? I mean, honestly, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. So I obviously passed. I got selected, but I didn't feel like I was where I wanted to be for that process.

It definitely beat me up more than I thought it should, and it helped reset me. So I spent the next couple months when I was getting ready for those orders, really resetting the way I was training was getting myself mentally prepared for it. And so once I got to the phase two of the course, I thought that was. How old were you? You were a little older because you did college and... This was 2004, so I was at that point, 25. Dang. Was that older for...

Maybe 26. The group that was going through? Not for special forces. I was definitely one of the oldest guys at basic training when I was going through. But for special forces, it tends to be those older guys who've been in the The Army for a little while, have seen stuff, got some experience, and then decided they wanted to explore some different routes. So you come back from the initial selection course

and all your guys are in Desert Cayman, they're getting ready. So did they end up deploying quickly? They deployed a couple weeks later. Dang. Do they deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan? They went to Iraq. Did they run the cash in Baghdad? Some of them were, they're out east doing,

I want to say they were doing prisoner. you know, Detainee operations or whatever. Out there at some of the prisons. But luckily, my company commander pulled me in in their office and basically said, yeah, you're on these orders. But if you want to go pursue something else, I see some value in that.

So if you want to go, you can go. So your company commander took care of you and said you can go to the Q-course. Yeah. That's awesome. You know what's cool about that is that guy just leaves a good impression on you about the army. You know what I mean? I always think that when I was a young enlisted guy and somebody could either, you know, maybe screw you over as a hard term, but, you know, some could either, like, look out for you

or just kind of let the big green machine do its thing. And when someone actually looks out for you, it just gives you such a much better appreciation and connection to, you know, like I had guys that looked out for you. for me when I was a new guy and I was that that just heightens your commitment to the team you know that there's people like that whereas the people that try and you know you're just going to do this anyways needs of the Navy that's what they say in the Navy they say needs of the Navy yeah those are the needs of the Navy so well and you're going to get some and so after my company deployed basically our our battalion had four companies two deployed to stayed behind so we kind of

fell under the two that had stayed behind. Got it. And there were some people over there who had that attitude of, you think you're better than us. Like, I don't. I'm just trying something different. And so they made life interesting for a little while. But we got through it.

And then, so what did you change differently about your training? When you learned from selection, like, okay, I need to work on hump and a rock more or whatever. What were the big things that you learned you needed to work on? More weight and moving.

faster. I mean, not to, it's pretty simple, really. I mean, I'm not a big guy. I'm five, six. At the time I went to selection, I think I was about 135 pounds. So you put on that weight and it's it's a lot. So I put on some more weight. I just got a little more used to to moving with that. Because you got to carry, it doesn't matter if you weigh 220 pounds or 120 pounds. You got to carry the same weight. Right. Yeah, the packing list is what it is, the minimum, wait for the day is what it is. Doesn't matter if you're six foot three or five foot six. You're just going to go get some. And then how was a Q course? QRs itself, I thought was a really, really good course. I thought it did a great job getting

you ready for things I had no experience in. So it's all changed around a little bit since then. But so for me, when I showed up, you know, through a small unit tactics portion, basically learn how to, you know, be an infantryman, which from being a medic, I mean, I had the basic training experience, but I didn't know anything really about that. So he spent about a month and a half, actually learning how to move with a small unit, you know, just the basic military drills, break contact, initiate ambushes, those things. And then from there we started the medical course, which for SFMedics is a year. Basically just learning every single thing they could teach us in a year.

Of course, trauma medicine was heavily enforced. And then just all the weird and random diseases you might see around the world. I actually met my future wife during the medic course. And so when I'd go see her on the weekends, I'd pull out, you know, medical manuals and be like, all right, start, you know, start grilling me on these things. And so she'd pretend she had whatever random disease you could get from around the world.

It was pretty fun date nights, you know. I don't know why she put up with it, but she did. and so where were you when you where is that chunk of the course take place because that's that's 18 delta right yeah going through the 18 delta course um all the sf the cue chorus was all all based at 4 Bragg so i was already at fort bragg so really i just had to move across post when i started and then are they when you're going through 18 delta are they still are you still doing tactical physical evolutions or is it like really starting to get focused on classroom, really focused on the medical aspect of stuff.

There's a lot of classroom stuff because they got a lot of, they got a lot of stuff to teach you, but they also do a great job of pulling you out in the woods and I can't remember all the different segments of the chorus, but you have a combat trauma lanes. You have just so many different portions where you get used to, you know, trading people out in, out in the dirt. And I remember, sorry, I think I started that course in August, September of 2004. And so, you know, rolling through the winter. And I still distinctly remember being out in the woods in January when it's like 15 degrees and you're the patient. And, you know, like somebody's working on you, you know, to practice and you're like, please do it faster so I can get out of this.

Because, you know, how do you treat a patient who's wounded? You have to expose. Remove his clothes. So they'd be going through stuff and they'd be like, you know, do you feel this or do you feel that? And like the patient's saying yes, but no, I don't feel that because my feet are frozen right now. But so it was a great course.

We did two one-month blocks where you go out to hospitals around the country and work in the ERs or work with anywhere in the hospital. Obie, just different aspects. Go to the local fire houses, ride on the ambulances, get those experiences. Yeah, the medical training and the SEALs used to go to 18 Delta, R. CLEEN. used to go to 18 Delta. They don't anymore. Now they have a separate course. Okay.

But the training that they got and the training that that that course provided is just awesome training. I mean, it's legendary awesome training. And who knows how many lives have been saved because guys went through that block of training and were just so good. And at doing all this stuff under a poncho at night, stopping bleeding, working on, you know, healing people with all kinds of inclement weather in the dirt like you said all that stuff there's the training that they prepped our medical guys for was phenomenal yeah i was super impressed having been a medic before and then kind of stepping it up a level like that it was it was really

really nice to see where we're going to take a year we're going to really take our time teach you everything you need to know from the ground up. Yeah, and just continue to build those basics, you know, from starting early on with, you know, classes, sticks and rags. Like, okay, everything else is going to be great. We're going to teach you that stuff, but, you know, sometimes literally just a stick in a rag, you can stop a lot of stuff. You can save a lot of people as long as you've had that experience.

And then, of course, moving on later to use, like, hemostatic agents, you know, to like quick, clot or something to really stop like, okay, this is easy now because I had to stop it last week with literally go find a stick and cut up, cut up some clothes. T-shirt. Now you're giving me actual materials. Like, okay, I got this. Going back to the Q course, the initial kickoff of the Q course, was there anything that

you had major issues with? What do you mean? Like when you were going through, not selection, but through the Q course, was there anything that you were like, I'm not going to make it through this? I'm going to fail this. I'm not good enough at this. Like for me, I wasn't really good at anything. I was like everything that I did,

because basically every week going through seal training, you get tested on, you get a timed run, you get a timed swim, you get a timed obstacle course, and then there's usually some kind of a water evolution that they're going to test you on, whether it's underwater not tying or life-saving or breath hold or whatever.

They've got these evolutions for you, and they're stacked up. And that's one of the big, biggest pressures that that I felt going through was if you for me like to to pass a four mile timed run which when I went through the the runs were not four miles they were however long they happened to be that day they might be 3.8 they might be 4.6 no one knew soft sand high tide and I failed one run because I decided I was going to pace myself and that was not smart and after that one run that I failed I just had to go as

hard as I could for the whole time. I'd set a sprint as hard as I could and then I'd pass. And it was kind of the same thing for everything. Like I just had to go hard. But, you know, I was worried that, oh, I might fail another swim. I might fail. Was there anything where you were thinking to yourself, man, if I don't, if I don't pay attention, I might not make it through this training?

I'll say any of the, any of the time we're out in the woods doing infantry stuff because I just, I didn't have that experience. I worked my butt off, trying to learn, trying to pick up, follow the guys. Like, okay, that guy has been to Ranger school. He's done this. He's sort of done to combat deployment. Let me hang out a little closer to that guy and see what he does when we're setting up a patrol base, those kind of things. Honestly, I think, like a lot of people, I have that two sides of the coin on me.

like I have that little bit of dumb arrogance. Like I think I can do this, but then I also have that. I don't belong anywhere near these guys. Like, these guys are, you know, they've been there. They actually done that. What have I done? So I was always trying to find that balance internally of, yeah, I can do this or, or no, I can't. I guess that's a big difference between when you go through seal training,

pretty much everyone's going through training is not been not done anything before so even because you might have been in the regular Navy but even most guys haven't even been the regular Navy most guys are just you go through boot camp you go through prep course and you go show up a buds and that's it that's what you do

so there's no you're not looking at anyone going out this guy this guy's done stuff before anything like that and also you're not doing anything in basic seal training you're just there's no tactical there's just barely any tactical knowledge being taught at all.

It's like carry this boat on your head for a long time and it's going to hurt a lot. And then when it hurts a lot, keep going. Right. And I mean, SF definitely has that aspect too. Like if we find the right people, we can train you at any point on what we want you to do. But we just got to make sure, you know, you're not going to quit on us. And I don't know, I think just along the way, I was just, I was too stubborn. to quit.

I definitely wanted to all the time, but I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction. Yeah. And so then you get done with that, you get done with a Q course, you get done with 18 Delta, and then

when do they give you your green beret? So for us, I ended up finishing the entire Q course in May of 2006. So I had done selection in January of 2004, had a couple month break while I waited on orders, started the Q-course proper

in June of 2004, and then May of 2006 when I graduated. Dang, that's a long pipeline, isn't it? It's a long pipeline. That's... That's zero recycles. That's zero getting injured. That's just what it is.

All the other jobs are... They teach you the job at about three months, whereas the medic, they teach it in 12 months. So everybody else can be that much shorter than our pipeline. But so it was May. That's when I got the Green Bray.

I graduated the Q course. Got my orders over to a third group. Were you married? Did you get married yet? So I graduated the Q course in May of 2006. Right? Yeah. And so I got that couple week break.

before reporting to my unit. My wife and I got engaged then. So I reported over to third group towards the end of June of 2006. And they say, hey, go over to third battalion. They're going to get you slotted. Third battalion's like, hey, go to Charlie Company.

And I show up to Charlie Company 3-3. And there's nobody there. Like, am I the first guy here? Like, what's going on? And there was one guy in there, and he was like, oh, everybody's on block leave because we're going Afghanistan in a couple weeks. So I went home, told Miranda the situation. And so we didn't get a quickie marriage, but we didn't want to have to try and plan while I was gone. And then there's also those aspects of, you know, the military doesn't give a damn about some girlfriend or a fiancé.

or anything. Girlfriends don't count. And so we, you know, we decided, you know, she wants, you know, an actual wedding ring, an actual dress, you know, these few things, can we get them done? We got it done. So we got married and then I'd. So you didn't do a quick wedding, but you got married in two weeks. But it was like three weeks.

That's awesome. It was, you know, it wasn't like a lope runaway kind of thing. Because we'd been together a year and a half at that point. So, yeah, it wasn't quick, but it was pretty quick. That's awesome. You know. Did your family, how did you tell your family? That text message?

At that point, it texts really were that big because you had to type so many buttons, you know, to send a message. So we ended up bringing her parents, my parents. Oh, that's awesome. They actually came down. Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, we actually went where do you do a non-quickie? quick marriage, Vegas.

So we all kind of met up there. Oh, so. So you did a Vegas wedding? And we're still going, I mean, what, this summer will be 13 years strong. That's awesome, man. So, yes, we got married. Did you request permission from your sergeant to get married? I did not.

I didn't even meet him. He went on to let you out of the compound. I just went on because nobody was there. So they just put me, as soon as I showed up, I went right back on leave. kind of got married and then it showed back up, did some training, and then met a bunch of guys for the first time and deployed for seven months with him. Dang. And what was that first deployment like? The first deployment was, compared to my second appointment, it was fairly tame that

fall 2006 into 2007 timeframe in Afghanistan. We were, We were working with the Afghans, you know, doing that stuff, then partner with them, train them, take them out on missions. I don't know, we just ended up in Gardez, Afghanistan, and for some reason it was just hard to find trouble then. I mean, obviously things have been flow in different areas. And but just at that time, we really couldn't find too much work. So were you guys, you guys were training up these Afghan National Police

and to build relationships with them and then you'd go out and do some kind of missions with them but the AO that you were in was relatively tame at the time yeah so yeah we work with the army and the police just training them up trying to get them ready to take over their country because that's the SF mission is to train you up so you can do the job and I can go home

you know obviously all SF guys want to be the guy to go in and you know, blow up the doors and go in and clear it all yourselves, but as a mission is to get somebody else to go do it for themselves. Yeah. Yeah, that's, for those you that don't know, that is the tenant. That's the mission of the special forces, of the Green Brays, is to work with whatever nation you're in, you build up their forces, you help them, you train them, prepare them,

and then you advise them out on the battlefield, and hopefully with your goal of allowing them to eventually not need your advisement anymore. That's what the primary mission of the special forces is and well in the SEAL teams we end up doing that as well. You know we, I don't know, I'm trying to think

of when we actually started getting tasked with that, but you know, that's what we do now too. You know, we probably, we lean towards, you know, direct action and special reconnaissance. That's kind of where we lean towards, you guys lean more towards, you know, training up guerrilla forces. But there's a lot

of crossover and all of us do everyone else's job to the best of our ability. But did you feel like the deployment was, like, what was your satisfaction? What was your personal satisfaction level of that deployment? I think like most SF guys you've just gone through a long train up. You've got all this experience. You're wearing to go.

And I deployment. I mean, it was a good trip, but it was a little quieter than I think most of the team. would have liked. If you're going to be gone and you're going to miss your family for seven months. So would you guys, would you take them out to hit targets?

And there just would be, you'd capture your bad guy or yes or no, but they weren't putting up resistance. Yeah, we did villages. We would go, we caught plenty of bad guys. Just they, at that point, I don't know,

I think it was this kind of at a weird point in the war where the bad guys really they could quickly spot this is SF and they didn't really want too much to do with us

so they just you know we'll pass today we'll find we'll find another unit to attack but yeah it just

yeah we caught guys they just always went pretty pretty quickly I mean we got in we'd get into a you know a couple

just a couple contact over there but it was yeah overall it was just a kind of a quiet area at the time was it wintertime so we showed up there in August of 2006 and we stayed until March of 2007 so yeah it was that winter when you kind of have that lull anyways of the wintertime yeah and like you said I mean things just go up and down cycles go up and down people the enemy gets agitated or they get beat down and they take a tactical breath for a few months or whatever and then you come home from that deployment and You're so then what happens what's the life of an SF guy when you come home from that deployment? You're gonna start a workup to get ready to play again? Yeah, we already knew when we were going again Basically the at the time there was three battalions they ended up standing up a fourth battalion in the group.

So kind of two battalions would be on the next rotation. One would be down. And so it just happened that my battalion had two back to back, so to speak. So we had seven on and seven off and then seven on again. So we knew right away soon as we got back when we're going. And then do you try and cram in a quick workup into that time period? Of course. So, you know, you got back.

So you got to first refit, get everything resituated, make sure. Make sure, you know, all the stuff he broke is fixed. Kind of, you know, take a little bit of time just to decompress and then start the train up. And, you know, we got a few new guys in on the team. I've got a new team sergeant. We got a new team leader, a couple other new guys. And, you know, just getting everybody ready, getting on the same page. Honestly, the team surgeon we got then Scott Ford, he was great coming from.

He'd come from some training, he'd come from some different SF teams that had been over to Iraq in Afghanistan and had been there early on in the war when it was a lot. So he put us through a lot of training, got us much more prepared than we were prepared for the first trip, but we were even better for the second one. and yeah we finish up that training do a little bit more how the boys like that when you had the the the new team sergeant coming in and he's all fired up to push you guys hard in training was any pushback from that uh of course all of us are you know sf guys and a little bit like you know even though he's teams are he's been around forever like oh who's this new guy coming on the team trying to tell us all what to do like But, you know, it didn't take very long to see, like, okay, he's got all this great experience.

And the training that he's putting us through was definitely getting us, getting us ready. And how much support do you guys get for training? So do they, do, are you going through organized training? Are you guys running all the training yourselves? It's the company does coordinate some stuff, but most of it's just at the team level. So, you know, the team sergeant's kind of. in coordination with the team leader is kind of guiding the team

where they want them to be, but then, you know, as SF is broken down, you have your weapons sergeants who are supposed to be your weapons experts. You have your engineers who, you know, handle the demolitions and those things. Your communications guys and your medics. And so

depending on the day, it might be my day to teach. So I'm going to get two days this week to just put everybody, through a mini medical course, get them ready just in case, you know, something happens I can't get there or something happens to me or something like that. So everybody, everybody is a subjectmatic expert and just kind of tries to, tries to lift that whole whole team up to be the best. They can be, there's no, obviously each job is the best at their job, but you want to know

as much as you can about everything. So that way, you know, when things go wrong, and at that point it was kind of still theoretical to me, but yeah, when things went wrong, okay, I can handle this. And then you guys already knew when you were going to deployment, and did you know where you were going on deployment as well? I don't remember when we found out what our next mission was.

I can't remember if it was early on or it was late on. I think it was fairly early on in our buildup that we knew we were going to be working this time with the Afghan Commandos, which was a fairly new thing at the time. It was right around that time that the SF teams had just started. We're going to go through selection for the Afghan army. We're going to get the best we can. We're going to train them up and we're going to start building these Afghan commander battalions

and they're going to be the SF of Afghanistan. So I can't remember exactly when, but we knew we were going to be partnering with those guys to do a little bit more of this trip. So your expectation was that things were going to be a little bit hotter on the second deployment? Correct. Did you believe that as like one cruise wonder, a guy that don't have done one deployment?

Are you like things are going to be hotter? Or were you just thinking, hey, it's going to be the same as last time? I think we all thought it was going to be a little bit more this trip just because my first trip, it was you kind of had a little bit more of a region that your team was. So it just depends on what your region is doing. Got it. Whereas the commandos could go anywhere.

The commandos, they were still fairly new, so there wasn't that many. So over the course of my second deployment, we spent time in eastern Afghanistan, we spent time down in Kandahar. We spent time just going wherever they needed another battalion because, like I said, there wasn't very many. They were training them up. But it takes a little while to get guys trained up. So you go on deployment, you show up there and you start working with the commandos. How was your relationship with the commandos? How good were the commandos as you trained them?

They were much better than, you know, a non-selected force. I think that's just, you know, as to be expected. You're still going to have those, you know, variances in your troops. but definitely felt more comfortable. So they were fairly capable crew? They were better. Check. Understood.

And so you're out there working with these guys? What types of missions were you doing? Just basically going after high-value targets? Yeah. Yeah, we would get Intel on a high-value target. target we'd you know trying to again going back to trying to train them to do the job for their country so we'd work with their the team leader for the team would start working with the you know the command level over there okay this is the objective how how do you how would you take it and then

they would kind of coordinate yeah on a battle plan um for me you know i'd make sure their medics you know, we're training up, getting ready. And then, you know, when it came time for an actual mission, then each one of us would have a squad or maybe a few extra. Which is how big as an Afghan commandos squad? They're built around the same premise as an army, you know, light infantry units. So you'd have, you know, nine, ten dudes. just depending on what kind of squad you had with you on any given day.

And so then you would be running your squad of Afghan commandos. Once you're out in the field, you would, whatever, whatever, just from a, you're no longer just the medic. You're now a little squad advisor for these Afghan commandos. Yeah, the, the medic piece is always there for 18 Delta, but, you know, best medicine in a superior firepower. So if we can, if we can, if we can go in, we hit him an overwhelming force, everybody's good, we win, we talk about how tough we are, and then we go home.

And so, yeah, the primary role is to, you know, advise that squad leader on how things are going. And then, you know, we also bring all the other assets that the U.S. military comes with all that, you know, whether it's helicopter coverage or aircraft coverage, so we can, we're, we're we're getting those, you know, that extra intel that we can then push to these guys and be like, hey, this is going on, this is not going on. Let's fix this. Yeah, no, for me, I think I just wanted to kind of bring that out because it's pretty cool when you think about it. You know, you're a, you could be this young soldier and you're out there and all of a sudden you're working, you're an element leader. You go from just being a medic or just being the demo guy or just being the communicator.

All of a sudden it's like, hey, you know what? Now you're doing that thing, but you're also going to be advising, which oftentimes means you're actually leading this squad of commandos and you're making sure that they're making the right moves. So that's a very cool aspect of the job, in my opinion, you know. Yeah, it was when you could see them getting better, it was definitely very rewarding. And as you see them start to take more initiative and start to to, you know, be up front with you. like, okay, that's cool to see because I've been working with this guy for a while. And I remember one mission we were doing down in Kandahar. We ended up getting infilled and we start looking at our GRG,

the grid reverence or our little map to see where we are. And we're looking at it and it's 1 a.m. 2 a and whatever it is, and we're like, I have no idea where we are. We're not on this map. so well we hear some gunfire and like I'll just go that way you know so so I have one of the interpreters with with me went by blade because they all want to knock about their real names in these situations but you know I'm like blade hey let's get this let's get the trip let's get moving towards gunfire and see what happens then we start moving we're doing

our thing. And at one point I looked back and Blades right there on my shoulder. He's doing his thing. Like, like, where is everybody? And they hunkered down kind of a couple terrain features back. Like, we got to go get them. So, but so you start there. And then, you know, over time, the gap shortens a little bit to, you know, ideally where they're leading. Yeah. What was the. top tempo like how often would you guys go out and and hit targets uh it would vary from time time but with that that training and advising piece we we weren't going out like every night because like we got to take these guys from from ground up on mission planning and everything so we're

going out several times a month to uh on bigger missions and then other little things as they came up. And when you, so it starts off, these guys are not wanting to get anywhere. They're not wanting to get shot at. If there's rounds fired, they're hiding a couple terrain features away. And then you're slowly progressing them, building a relationship with them, getting to know them, they realize that they can actually do better. And that process is going on. And you arrived, this was in 2007. You guys had arrived in October in 2007. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. And then, and then, then you're doing one, two, three missions, getting these guys trying to push them each time

to do a little bit more, to take on a little bit more responsibility. And this is just sort of the way it is. And then what kind of training are you doing? On top of that, when you're back on base, you're running them through immediate action drills. You're teaching them out of shoot, move and communicate. That's basically what's going on. Yeah, teaching those basic infantry skills, take them out to the range, teaching them how

to clear buildings, teaching them, you know, just all the things you need to continue to reinforce. And then, like I said, once you got a mission, like, okay, then we're going to start going through those tape drills and we're going to build out a little village here as best we can with our budget, which was, you know, tape. And start building that stuff out. So that way, like, okay, we're going to fill here, expect to walk this way, start, you know, go into those choreograph rehearsals.

to get everybody get everybody ready. So now as you guys got ready to go into the shock valley, what was, did it seem like just another mission? Did it seem like, oh, this one seems like it's going to be a little bit heavier? What was your assessment of it getting ready to do it?

There were definitely a few red flags that came with this mission, but there's red flags. flags with with with most missions like they give us a gun and in training for a reason like they don't ask you to go to tickle fight with somebody like we you're always expecting something but but you know it was just it was you know we'd gone after high value targets before um we had intel he's over here we had intel on what to expect so you know was our, the plan that we ended up going with,

nobody was super excited about. The idea of infilling at the bottom of a mountain and then walk up, that does not sound fun. Yeah. But it comes to the point where, you know, like, hey, this is the mission. Yeah. All right. Cool.

We're going to do this mission the best we can and we're going to. And what, why did you guys have to insert at the bottom of that hill? I think the decision was made that, you know, the Afghan command was still being a little bit new. Like, they knew how to fast rope. We had done that stuff, but how many people do we want to risk injuring on that? And then just, you know, if there is resistance, you know, what's going to come of that? and I mean, I try not to get too caught up in, well, maybe it would have been better if we didn't fill it in on top. Maybe we would have caught an RPG to the 47 right away.

You can't play that game. You can't play that game. I've played that game with myself, and it's not a good game to play. Now, it doesn't mean that you don't look at it and you go, oh, yeah, okay, here's what we saw. This is why we made the decision. This is something that you, my brothers that are out there that could be in a same thing, situation where you going to make that decision consider how it worked out for me right and and you know this is well a couple a couple weeks ago was 11 year from that uh battle but I was actually talking to

some SF guys not too long ago and they're like we still talk about that mission we still talk about the the good which was the teamwork the you know the everybody coming together get this get this job done as best we could and we talk about the the less ideal parts as well as well well and make sure that we don't learn for somebody else's mistakes. Don't repeat those. And I think that's the great part about SF is you have that humbleness like, hey, we did not do this right. Yep. Please learn. We did this right. Please learn.

Yep. And yeah. And again, the other side of that is like you could look at this thing all day and say, well, you should have gone and fast roped on. And like you said, you take an RPG into one of those helicopters and there's nine dead guys or whatever. And you go, okay, well, I guess that wasn't a good plan. Right. So you can make the best, you can make a horrible decision, and it can work out well. You can make the best decision. It can work out horribly.

So whether that, that's like a, that's the way it is. So what you do is try and learn from it and look at what you did and say, okay, well, what could we have done better? Could you tell from the, the imagery and or the maps of the area what that terrain feature was like? Because I'll tell you what. I was in getting ready for this podcast, I read a bunch about the operation. And I kept reading steep terrain and, you know, this, that, and the other thing.

And then, and I kind of calculated in my mind, you know, what that looked like in my mind. And in my mind, it was pretty bad. It was like, okay, it must have been pretty challenging. Then I went and looked at actual footage because there's a bunch of actual footage because you guys had a combat photographer and you had a bunch of overhead cover.

I saw that terrain. Brother, I could not believe it. I was, I was saying, oh my God, like, as bad as everything sounded, it was 10 times worse. When I saw that terrain, I was like, I can't believe that this, that these guys did this. I agree. And I don't just mean that from like, I can't believe you inserted there. I was saying, the fact that you guys went up there, everything that you had to do on that operation, because the terrain was so steep, I couldn't believe that you guys got out of there. I mean, it was just crazy.

Like, you know, I mean, you get used to, you see the predator imagery beforehand to kind of get a feel. You've seen satellite imagery. You get used to seeing that stuff. And you kind of, you learn to build in that variance of this is what it looks like there. But I know it's not going to be like that. And so you kind of, you build in your right and your left limit. It's like, this is kind of what I think I'm going to see. Yeah.

And it was still a little bit more than at least for me, what I was expecting. Yeah, it was no joke. It's a borderline cliff. I mean, it is steep. And anyone that's listening to this, you can go on YouTube and you can Google Battle of Shock Valley. And you'll start to see what I'm talking about. It's some heavy, steep terrain with a damn fortress on the top of it. I couldn't believe that either.

I was like, oh, that is a fortress. How many Afghan commandos did you have with you? We inserted with right around 100. of them. And then so my team, you know, so I go through it in my head. About 12 dudes when you add it all up. We had about 100 commandos. And then we had another SF team that was kind of further down in the valley trying to act as a blocking position down there.

And so, but our main assault force, I mean, yeah it was about 12 dudes that kind of were that main assaults yeah on it so so you guys you look at the plan everyone's kind of like hey it's going to be steep it's going to be tough this is what we do let's go get some yeah we made we made some uh like accommodations for that like given what we're doing today obviously you always want your secondary but you know if If that Beretta doesn't walk up the hill with you today, like we understand. We got to cut some weight here and there.

So you guys paired yourselves down a little bit, got a little bit lighter. We did pair down. What body armor? We still went with the plates, still with, still with the helmets. And when you're doing those pre-combat checks with your, your Afghan commandos,

that was always, the fun part is, they're super motivated to be there. And I remember one time where, Going through pre-combat checks with a 240 gunner. So we've got a belt-fed machine gun. You carry this. This is your job.

I start going through and I find, you know, the first M-4 mag on it. I'm like, all right, dude. I mean, you don't carry an M-4, but I get it. And we ended up finding, I think, eight or nine M-4 mags on this dude. Like, carry more 7-6-2 for the belt-fed. Like, I appreciate, though, you know, you want to be ready, but focus it. Focus in where I need you, buddy. That's kind of crazy.

So you guys, so how many helicopters was it that was bringing you all in there? It must have been a big package. And did you go in all at once? Like one giant lift? It was, yeah, one lift. Dang. It was a couple of Chinooks, a couple Blackhawks. Everybody going in.

And then, like I said, there was another team that kind of infilled down there with a smaller commando package and we had you know some medical QRF and stuff up in the air a few other things

you know so we definitely had what seemed like enough going in so you land in there and how long does it take before you realize like well okay this is this is

we took a big bite well I'll I'll highlight so I was the first guy to get on the Chinook, so that went the last guy to get off, you know, you know, just having that responsibility, make sure everybody gets off, gets up safely. And so we hit the, don't we hear the go and everybody's getting off. The helicopter so incredibly slowly. And I'm at the front, so I'm in the back of the line. I don't know what's going on.

I'm just yelling at Commandos, like, get off of this. helicopter now, like the more time we're sitting here, the more... Yeah. If there is a bad guy watching us, we're just giving him more time to watch us. So it's just taking forever. And I finally get to the back of the Chinook. And I look out and I'm like, oh, we're like 15 feet off the ground. The valley that we're in is just so rocky and so such horrible terrain.

Even there, like, they didn't land. Like, oh, okay, this is why. It's taking so long. So like everybody else in front of me, I very carefully, you know, sit down, try and shimmy off the back. So I'm not breaking a leg before I even start. Off to a good start. Yeah, it starts strong. So we get off the schnooks fly away, and then you just kind of get that cold, quiet of an Afghan valley.

you know there's that little bit of ice in the water there you know it's just you don't want to use the cliche like it's too quiet but scooby-dews in the house but but yeah we just got we get out there how far did you have to patrol up the valley before you were you know perpendicular to the target building um or the target castle because that's what it looks like. I mean, it, you know, in hindsight, and you know, you're seeing up there,

like, I mean, they had fixed fighting positions ready to go. For sure. They were. It looked like a castle. They were set.

I would guess 400 meters, 600, somewhere. We got, basically we infilled just basically trying to use angles just to make sure, like, we're not that far away.

So if we have some element of surprise, we don't waste at all. but not so close that you know we're already in it before we get off so yeah it wasn't that far so you weren't on the ground very long before you started to you start you took fire from these guys from the castle yeah

I couldn't tell you how long before the castle started shooting at us it could have been five 10 15 minutes I don't think it was that long so I was in the the trailing element basically because I was the only U.S. medic on the ground there. I had my Afghan commandal medics, but I was the only a team medic there are, you know, SF, you were supposed to have two of this job, two of that job, too, the next. Unfortunately, the other medic on the team had been hurt on a previous mission, and then while he was recovering from that, he was in a vehicle rollover, which didn't help.

So he got pulled out. So, yeah. It's all you. I'll still do it. So, yeah, it's 10, 15 minutes, maybe at most. We start walking up there. You can see the lead assault force starting to work their way up. And, yeah, everywhere, it's super steep.

On both your left and right as you're kind of looking at it. it and they find one little area where you have those kind of terraced like farm terraces kind of working up and that's where they'd figure out okay we're going to work our way up there and so you can see them starting to make progress up the up the mountain and then I distinctly remember I saw one dude dressed in blue you know blue just Afghan guard sprint across the top of the hill with with a rifle. And I don't, I mean, I don't think he's the dude who started shooting at us,

but I saw that, and then within a few seconds, everything just kind of opened up on us. And, yeah, the day started. Yeah. One of my little sayings is always take the high ground, or it'll take you. And this was just a situation

where you guys do, you guys do not have the high ground at all. You guys are literally in a valley. How long was it before you took your first wounded? It was pretty quick. So we start taking the fire. My first job is my squad, my Afghan Commando Squad. So I started getting them situated.

There's not much cover in there. It's just smaller rocks, bigger rocks. With that elevation and at various points, both sides were kind of shooting at us. So I started getting them situated. and then very, very quickly, I heard the first call for a medic. One of the Afghan commandos had been shot. Luckily, it was a fairly minor wound.

So I ran over to him, started treating him. And while I was working on him just assessing the situation, that's when I remember watching many RPGs coming down, but one RPG in particular come down, hit right in front of our lines that the guys were starting to form down in the in the in the in the valley and then I hear the calls for Ron coming down and so I know right away like Ryan Wallen had just been hurt like I just know that right away because before every mission Ryan would come take his squad of the day and stand in front of me

and hold them and be like, this is Ron, something happens to me, find Ron. And then you get the next one, this is Ron. Something happens, find Ron. Good insurance policy. And so they, you know,

when they're not calling for medic, they're just calling for Ron, like, okay, I know his squad that is. So, yeah, kind of did that quick math, like, okay, this guy, he's fine. He's, he's, really not going to live or die based on anything I do.

Suck it up, grab, he had a saw. Like, grab your saw, start shooting back. Good luck. And ran over towards, we had that next call. And like you had read earlier, I find Ryan plating pretty profusely from neck. And, of course, now you've got a neck injury. And you got to go through those. quick calculations like normally how do you stop bleeding lots of pressure I'm like well I can't choke

him to death no tourniquette's going to work out here so yeah just that kind of started the my day of improvising like trying to figure out how to how to get pressure and I don't even remember exactly what I did did you get shrapnel in the neck is that what was? Yeah you just caught chrapnel I had several shrapnel wounds and in there but you know you're just doing those quick quick assessments. Okay, there's no bubbling, which means it's bright and hit airway. You know, it's bleeding a lot, but not bleeding that fast that I think it caught a karate or something like that. So a pretty lucky neck wound. Yeah, if you have to catch some shrapnel to the neck, he did it pretty well. So, yeah, as I was working on him, everybody's trying to just figure out what's going on. Was the

Mindset, we're still assaulting this thing. Oh, yeah. Dang. You just trumped me in mental attitude because I would have been, oh, we just got launched. By the way, you said we got launched many RPGs. When I get launched many RPGs at me from an elevated position, I'm done assaulting that target. We're going somewhere else.

And I got a wounded guy. I got two wounded people? Yeah, we're not going any further up this hill. We were shooting RPGs back at them. We had, I legitimately could not tell you our Afghan Commando's real name, but he just, he knew his name was Joe Pesci. That's what we called him. Yeah. He looked like Joe Pesci.

He was, he was our Afghan commander RPG guy. And so he was kind of like looking at all of us and looking at the mountain and pointing up there and pointing at his RPG and like, hell yeah, dude, launch him. Go get some, Joe, make it happen. And so, yeah. Let's see some good fellas right here. Yeah, so Joe Bessi started shooting back So we start giving back as good as they were But so yeah, all that's kind of starting to go on

You know, working with Ryan trying to figure out what am I You go back and get my squad, what needs to happen And that's when I hear on the radio the call from up on the mountain that multiple guys were now wounded. I'm pretty sure the call was that, you know, the three guys at that point were wounded. So I basically told Ryan, you're good, have a nice day, and grab my stuff, just started working towards the mountain. our team sergeant Scott Ford and one of the weapons guys, Matt Williams, they started organizing a response force to get up there and start flexing a little more muscle up on the hill.

So they're organizing that. My focus is, hey, I need to go. So, you know, we hit the mountains, start working, starting my way up, the same tariff. features that I talked about before. And, you know, it is climbing hand over, you know, hand over hand. You're literally climbing. Get up to the next terrace. Figure out how much are we being shot at right now.

Where is it coming from? Where's the next place I can go up and just start working our way up? As we went up, you know, the other support element kind of got with me. And we all just started taking that terrain together. It took a while to get there. I don't know, they put out their estimates, but I don't know how long it took me to get there. Got up to the little outcropping that had become, you know, where the command element was, and sort of processing the situation that we had, right as I'm looking at it, I can see one of our interpreters,

CK, he appears to be KAA. Two of the team guys were down with different wounds. And so I started just trying to go through the fastest, you know, triage that I can to figure out what I need to do. And, I mean, honestly, even at this point, we're, I don't think the call's made quite yet that we're done for the day. But it was going to be called very soon. Yeah. After that. So, yeah, trying to remember the full sequence.

I mean, it was a busy day. So I think I started working on Dylan first just because he looked the worst off. He had a gunshot wound to his right arm and then another one to his hip pelvis area. His arm wound. I joke at him now because he's, he's fine and it's okay to joke about getting shot after the fact but you know joke with him

that you know that one bullet that hit his arm uh it was it was just a uh lucky bullet for him but it went through his his um for you know speaking words is tough sometimes his uh his rifle strap it went okay sling it went through his sling cut cut that then went through his arm and then he He chose to keep his pistol on that day, but at the time we were still kind of running a pistol on the front of your body armor. And so it had actually lodged in between his plate and his pistol. It hit the inside of his pistol. Just slightly different angles on that bullet. Yeah.

So his arm wound was basically just a very minor blade. Didn't worry too much about that. But it didn't take me long to figure out his other wound was going to be literally a pain in the ass for him all day. Figuratively for me. But it was, you know, you could just see the way it's bleeding. And it's just, you know, those very small wounds entry. So I made the, made the, you know, I'd say dumb call for just a few moments.

I don't even know how long it was. I didn't want to roll him anymore than I had to to see what was going on. So I, for a little bit, took my helmet off, set it to the side so I could just roll him just to see the downside wound, how bad was it? It didn't end up being that bad. So I'm going to roll him back over.

Hopefully I put my helmet on my arm. away or I think maybe somebody yelled at me. But so just started working on trying to figure out how to get pressure on there. You'd mentioned we had the combat cameraman out there with us. By that point, his camera had already been shot. So he just became an extra set of hands for me to help. So I'd be like, okay, let me go triage the rest of these guys real quick. just hold pressure here for me.

I'll be back in a second. And, you know, I say I'll be back. Like, the area we're working in was not that big. It was maybe 20 meters across. And it's just that slight slope you get on a hillside before it falls off the cliff, so to speak. And everybody's just tucked up in there. Hanging on that tiny little bit of the slope trying to not fall off. and not get shot.

And the guys had been shot where they on that slope and they got shot, were they pushing up a little bit? Were you somewhat safe in that shot where you're in that spot where you somewhat protector where guys still get, I guess they weren't because you still guys were getting shot. No, guys were still still getting shot the whole time. So we're basically, you're just trying to use that tiny bit of an angle to minimize how much you can be shot at.

There was no place where you were safe on there at all. If you kind of picture like from that little outcropping where we were, if you're looking at the main village, it was almost like a hockey stick kind of in front of you is the way the mountain kind of wrapped around. So you had that long wall kind of. on what I'm considering my left, but then it still wrapped around. So the whole village,

if you got a little bit of cover from this side, you were exposed to the other side. The other side still had you. And then there were some people on the other side of the valley who were shooting in us too, but it was much, it was insignificant compared to other problems we had. Was your mindset at this point totally focused on

just working on the guys? Did you go into that mode like of, okay, this is what I got to do? Or was any party you going, this is not good? Was there any party that was saying, hold on a second, look at what's happening situationally,

we're surrounded, they have the enemy has the upper ground. I got three wounded guys. What calls being made? What was like your tactical assessment of what was happening? Or were you just straight up working on guys trying to save their lives?

From my perspective, it was straight up working on guys. at that point trying to get my commandos and leading them anywhere that was over for me I would find them hours and hours later

and they were like they were still down in the valley just hanging out trying to use a little bit of cover and they all kind of saw me and they were like we thought you were dead a while ago like welcome back

and you're like thanks for the support appreciate it Yeah, thanks. So like I said, we were working on closing those gaps with them, but... Fully there. Sometimes the other band still broke. But so, yeah, I was mostly focused on just trying to treat these guys.

And, you know, you need to convey information to the team leader, and you need to tell the guy, you're... Yeah, you're fine, buddy. Don't worry about that. So at one point, you know, I'm telling Dylan, you're... You're good, dude. We walked this off. And then kind of looking over the team leader, being like, no, seriously. He needs to go now.

We need a Kazivak right now. He needed to go a while ago, but now we'll be fine too. And he's hearing both those things. I didn't really think about his perspective on it. But, you know, later he's like, yeah, I was hearing it all. I'm like, sorry about that. That's a rough way to hear things. So you had three guys wounded in that position as well?

So there was the three kind of, the two Americans initially critical. And the one, again, and I, so I started working on Dylan, went over to Luis, saw what had happened to him, Luis Marales. And he had been shot through the thigh and through the ankle, both on the right side. and luckily it didn't hit any of the major vessels but it like with his his thigh it just ripped it in half like you could look all the way through his thigh it looked like you'd cut up in a fish

and you were gutting it so while he wasn't he didn't hit a major artery it's just so much tissue damage that this could still form compartment syndrome could still kill him many different ways so I start working you know assesses him and you know just doing those first sweeps like I'm not trying to do anything definitive yet it's just like let me figure out what all's going on and then I'll come back through so after seeing Luis I still felt like I owed CK an actual check this is the interpreter the interpreter

he was he was dead but I still owed him like unless I know what killed him maybe he's still alive So I went up, did a check on him. He'd been shot just behind the left ear. And, yeah, it was an unsurvivable wound. Yeah, so I checked on him. And then, you know, we just, unfortunately, with as little cover as we had for anything, like, he couldn't take up space where we had cover. So we just kind of had him off to the side a little bit.

but exposed to the elements because, you know, unfortunately, the living guys didn't have enough space. So after checking on him, I kind of go back through and obviously this entire time we're still getting shot at. You can still feel those spoles gone by. You could still feel the dirt kicking up. You know, there's just everything's so tight in there and so little space. Like I'm trying to kneel over these guys to do the best I can for them. And as things are just falling on us, trying to cover them, as things, you know, just rocks are coming down, explosions are happening, just trying to.

Yeah, because at some point they start calling in for fire. Is that happening yet? The calls for fire came in. They started pretty quickly. Zach Reiner was our Air Force combat controller that day. He got the Air Force cross very deservedly. So, you know, all of us are alive because of all the stuff that he called in that day. He's dropping bombs danger close, dropping 2,000-pounder.

I mean. He's dropping the stuff. Again, you know why I'm talking about this as if I knows what it looks like? Because you can watch these videos and you can see the bombs hitting and massive hitting that castle. and massive bombs hitting that castle. And even the bombs that hit that castle, they do damage. But that castle was massive. Crazy.

You know, we ended up through the course of the day, one of our Afghans broke his leg. The wood framing on a building, they got blown up, broke his leg. So we got to deal with that. You're getting just all the other wounds that are coming with those. Because massive debris is coming down on you guys from. those danger close hits, bomb drops, and, like, debris is coming down on you guys because you guys are below it down a cliff. Right.

At one point, I don't remember exactly where in the sequence of events. Basically, like I said, we kind of had that wall on our left that went straight up, and there was a building there, and they were getting in that and starting to just shoot down at us. And so that had to go away. So Zach ended up calling in a strike hit that. And I don't go hunting too much for footage online, but I don't have seen it through the military side. You can actually hear the pilot come on the radio

after he drops that one. He's like, I do not feel good about that one. Yep. That's how danger close it was. It was so danger close that the pilot comes on the radio afterwards and says, he goes, that was real close. I don't feel good about that one. meaning you can hear the sickness in his voice thinking how you know do we just kill our own guys

he just killed everyone and of course for us you know we're covered and we're getting covered in debris we're getting just rained on stuff but we're like thanks too you're like totally insane so at what point did you guys decide okay we got to get out of here uh or were you still thinking hey maybe we'll just continue this assault up to hell at that point we were pretty much we're pretty much done at point. So Scott Ford of the team sergeant, he comes in. Like I said, he was, you know, right there with us moving up the hill, bringing on those extra guys. And he started, like, I'm working on trying to keep these guys alive. And he starts working that, let's get them out of here piece. So our lead element had actually made the edge of the village. Like,

I think they got into at least one building. And so they're starting to, you know, we got that foothold. Like we made it, guys. We won. But so he makes that call. Okay, we got to pull those guys back to start getting this. Which is actually incredible to even have gotten to that. And to be honest with you, if things, now that I'm, you know, I'm talking about how much I

would have just, you know, bailed out of there. Once you get a foothold in that situation, now it's, you know, it's going to be CQC us against them. Like, you actually have a pretty good chance, you know. You know, well, you got a hundred commandos or we get them up that hill. You get a foothold in that building. It's like, okay. Or in that castle, we can start taking it out.

So that's impressive, man. Props to you guys, for sure. Yeah, unfortunately, as bad as it started, for quite a while through the day, it kept getting worse. Like, it never stopped. We started to get some lulls after we'd done so many airstrikes. but so the side of the mountain that I went up a little bit later in the day like it was just no man's land you didn't go over there if you wanted to not be dead

so the logistics of trying to get an actual fighting force up even though we had a foothold yeah it just became an untenable position so you know I'm working on these guys I'm I'm trying to get some kind of hemorrhage control, bleeding control on Dylan. You know, with Luis, I did quick treatments on him, got his wound bandaged up as well as I could, so that way just with all that trauma, he didn't end up, you know, still dying on me on the mountain just from some something. I started working on Dylan and said it, based on what he was describing to me,

like I didn't see the point of like, you know, in the medical, they teach you like, oh, you can, you know, you press on a pelvis down and then you squeeze it. And then that's how you'll see if it's broken or not. Like I didn't see the point in doing that to him. Just where the wound was, like something in there is broke. He's not going to benefit from me jumping up and down on it on it. to find out, like, good, dude, your pelvis is broke.

Sorry about that. So, but he was also describing, like, oh, my foot doesn't feel like it's straight. Like, nothing feels like it's lining up, right? And it wasn't because we'd find out later, the bull had gone through his formal head. So shattered that. Did a bunch of damage to the pelvis itself.

So I'm just seeing this, and I'm like, looking at what I, I can physically see. I don't think it hit an artery, but if it hit the pelvis, and it's been a while since I was a medic, but, you know, I remember having those numbers in my head, like, okay, a pelvic fracture is going to cause this much bleeding. And a femoral fracture is going to cause this much bleeding. And it's trying to process those things. Like, okay, he's not, he's not bleeding out, but he's still going to bleed out on me. So, it was so high up

you couldn't put a tourniquet on it it couldn't really do anything so it just came up the idea that I had cell ox a hemostatic agent it was designed to stop bleeding

I had a powder of that so what I did is I just kind of started pouring that on the wound and then taking my fingers and shoving it into the wound because the wound was so small

entry wounds are you know not big So I just started shoving that in there, trying to get as much in as I could, just repeating that process over and over until I felt like my had enough. I don't know. It was just scientific. Just kind of gut call shoving fingers in your buddy to be like, hopefully this will help. Then wrapped them up as well as I could.

And so while I'm doing this, that's when the lead element started to get back towards us. And they were going to help us start to get these guys out of there. And within moments, minutes, whatever it was, of them getting there, that's when we took our next American casualty, John Walding, had been hit right leg just below the knee, basically just amputated his leg right away. It was hanging on by a little bit, but it just amputated it. So the hemistatic agents that are out there, they've gotten better now, but at the time it was, you know, you have to hold pressure for five minutes.

Otherwise, maybe the clot will break, and then now he's going to bleed inside there, and you'll never see it. So start yelling at somebody, get a tourniquet on him. They do. And, you know, he's just stacked up, you know, taking up more real estate for us. So our team sergeant, Scott, he's trying to figure out, okay, now we have, you know, another casualty. So we had it another negative and we lost a positive because now that's a dude who can't help move. And so, you know, at that point, he's very, I know at this point it's very clear. We're done with the mountain.

We just need to go home. so you know we're still still working on them I know I know I was working on Dylan and Scott ends up

getting shot for the first time in the chest plate and so I run over to him at this point check him you know hesitate to say he's fine

but he's fine the chest plate did its job he's obviously going to feel that for a few days. So I go back, keep trying to package up these guys a little bit more. And we're just, you know, it's tough not to gloss over like minor wounds. Like, you know, this guy just got more shrapnel wounds. Like, quick check, you're fine, move on. One of our commandos at some point in all of this, another one of our commandos got shot in the head. And he dropped instantly.

I'm like, well, that dude's 100% dead. But later, pull him back over and like, no, he's actually still alive. He just decided to take a little nap out there on the edge of the, on the amount. But, you know, there's weird things bullets do. It had dented his head, but it didn't kill him. So we're just, you know, continuing to just accumulate. these problems. And so working,

Scott ends up turning around to say something to us. And that's when he got shot again, this time in the left arm. And it almost amputates his left arm, but nothing compared to the visual image that Johns had. And I think it was the same bullet Was it a bullet right after on a burst?

I can't say for sure, but it was at the same time that he got shot in the left arm. I got hit in the head. And so I'd had my helmet back on at this point, so I got hit in the head. And so I'm working on Dylan, and I'm trying to ask him, like, am I all right? Like, I don't know.

But, you know, trying to do butt sweeps or trying to figure out, I have so much blood. Oh, you can't even tell. Everywhere. I don't know if I'm bleeding. So I'm asking, you know, I'm asking him when I'm working on. Like, how am I?

Am I okay? Can I keep going? But he's like, yeah, you're fine. I don't know. I remember exactly what he said, but it conveyed. Yeah, you're fine. So I grabbed a churn and get ran. It's just a flesh wound.

Yeah, I mean, the helmet The helmet did its job So it wasn't Didn't do anything to me It felt like I got hit With a baseball bat And like just how I described It feels like what you would think

It would So I grab a tourniquet Run out to Scott Put a tourniquet on his His left arm There's just We're full There's nowhere to put people

luckily he's of of the serious injuries we were accumulating he's the only ambulatory guy so basically he self-evacuates down the side of the mountain that we had come up and you know where the fire was continuing to get worse but there was there was some guys Seth Howard and Matt Williams they're doing good work over there and so basically he kind of got down there and they see him with his arm and they're like we'll get you we'll get you taken care of so they worked him down down the mountain on that one side but that really only only worked for him because he could move everybody else is is not that mobile so Dave Sanders is kind of coming through and he's trying to figure out a route for us.

And so in my mind, like what I just consider behind me now, there's basically the cliff kind of just goes straight down. But like any cliff, there's a little terrace over here. There's a little terrace over there. So he's exploring that route and he comes back up and it just comes to the simple. He's like, this will work. and we're like, is everybody going to, can these guys do it? And he's like, they probably won't die.

Well, that's. It's better than where we're at right now. That's, that's a good plan. So, yeah, I got this one section of one other article I pulled out. This is, it's somewhere around here. And again, it's like, but I just, this left a really good picture in my mind of what was going on and kind of the, the, how critical the situation is. Walton, Captain Walton was the element commander. He's the, and he, this is, this is talking about him, and he's got some quotes in here.

But this is from the Stars and Stripes, which is like a military newspaper overseas. And it says, Walton feared his force was on the verge of being overrun. With the insurgents nearing his position, Walton reached for a grenade and called in a massive danger, close strike, expecting it could take out. his entire team they were all prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice he said the bomb dropped and then he saw an image he would remember forever from that fight sure's body draped over the injured men he'd been working on through the fight in that moment the strike that we had called in on our own position detonated just above us and blocked out the sun as the dust settled Ron

was the first thing that I saw on top of his wounded teammates protecting them even to the end when we had all fully accepted that we were going to go down fighting. Ron Scher was still thinking of others. Yeah, like, I mean, like he says in there, it definitely got to the point where like, okay, this is, this is the day. I don't know how everybody kind of just processed that. I know for me there was a point where I just said a quick prayer, just asking God to help my wife, Miranda,

and our son who at the time was a couple days shy of three months old, just make sure they're cool with what's about to happen. and then just go back to work and just, you know, taking it in little chunks. It's too big to try and think of over the course of the day. I mean, I had the four U.S. critical three other U.S. wounded to KIA, about 13, 14, 14, 15, Afghan commandos interpreters wounded. And so, you know, in just terms of those numbers, that's too much to deal with. But if I just, you know, this is the worst thing going on right now.

I'm going to deal with this and then come up for air, look around. That's now the worst thing. So I'm going to go over there and I'm going to deal with that. And so, you know, just keep taking it in little chunks, keep working through it. And then at some point you started working towards, okay, we've got to get these guys down. We're going to start lowering these guys down. So Dave Sanders, figure. it out, okay, this is the least bad option.

So I just started getting everybody ready to go. Kind of started with, of these guys who were up here, Luis has a really bad injury, but he's stable enough. I gave him a fentanylollipop, so he's not feeling too bad. like you're going first so we got him i'd just do a double check on on the guy and then go over to the edge of the cliff and start working them down as and depending on how bad their their wound was like louis could help himself a lot so like i'll just get him ready get him over the edge and

uh dave and uh why am i forgetting our combat camera guys named mike carter they'd kind of take them the rest of the way down the hill. And then I'd go back up to anislo position. All right. Next serious one was Dylan, okay, getting him ready. He had, I got an IV started on. I got a few different things going. I got everything as ready as they could.

Sent him over. All that stuff was ripped out and just mangled by the time we got him to the bottom. But, well, it is what it is. That's now what we're to deal with later. So then it came time to, got over to John Walding, started doing an assessment on him, just through the variances of battle and everything. His tourniquet had been placed or populated, which is vessels sometimes will relax or tension or tense up.

just so he was at that point he was actually building quite profusely um so we had to make some adjustments on his turner get him restabilized uh just had him hold his leg just give him something to do and you know we started lowering him down the hill and as we're we're kind of finishing that up like all of the ambulatory commando and interpreter casualties they're kind of working their way down and through all this as well. Seth, Howard, and Matt Williams had kind of mentioned earlier, like they came through right behind us,

just kicking off everybody else that hadn't got the message. It was time to go, or like CK, who had been killed. They got him off for us. The Afghan commander, who we, you know, just didn't really have, a great plan for.

We got him off and we just got everybody down, started setting up another casualty collection point down there at the bottom of the hill. You know, the whole way you're climbing down, stuff still exploding. You're still getting shot at.

But by the time we got down to the valley again, it was we had a little bit more cover. It was, you know, everything that day was just this sucks less than that so I'm going to I'm going to do I'm going to do this so at that point you know got everybody off got to go through recheck everybody now because we've now moved moved all the patients long since out of most of my supplies so then it comes down to well

you do need a bandage but he needs it more but you're gonna be fine without one and just kind of keep making those calls how long did it take for Kazavak to show up so

we'd never really got like a dedicated to Kazevac to come in that day we had some Blackhawks that were supporting the mission up there and those pilots were awesome.

They're like, there's wounded. We're going to come in. It's hot. They're fine with it. They know what's going on. So they came in, we got the first group loaded up and out, and then they came in again, got the next group. So basically we got all the critical

and all the non-ambitory people out of there. And then everybody else is just, you just got to walk. out of here. There's no nothing else going to come for you. It was at some point around this time when I'm down down in the valley working

is at that point that I can notice my arm is starting to hurt a little bit and I just look at my arm, my arm's there, it's fine, whatever. Just you know, if you bang your elbow on something,

just kind of shake it out and you move on with your day. It was later that night, you know, get back to the base after we went and saw the wounded guys going to take a shower, I noticed I had cut on my arm and bruising around my elbow. And I was like, that wasn't there earlier. Went and found my uniform and it's got that bullet hole in it. And I was like, oh, I don't have any idea. At some point you took around. When that went through.

Yeah, it was one of those days, like, as bad as it was, you know, you adjust an inch this way. I mean, I think we'd done the math before. And it was like we'd come up with like eight inches or something. If the enemy just could move a bullet eight inches over the course of the day, like move this bullet one inch this way, move this bullet this way. Everywhere they would have. They would have just killed everybody. Like one of the guys got shot through his camel back. You know, first that, it hit like he had a flare in the back there.

He'd done that. But if you just inch that, like Dylan who had the bullet skim between his armor. and his gear. You moved that. But that's how combat is. Millimetres and inches. You train. You get as good and proficient as you can,

and then you hope for a little bit of luck as well. You guys, and I know you lost two, well, you lost your one interpreter killed. C.K. And then one Afghan soldier killed. Yeah. But none of the Americans were killed. No, none of the Americans.

That's like completely, that's a miracle. It's incredible. Yeah, Bob Baradine, he was the Afghan first sergeant. He was on that SF team that was in the blocking down the valley. At some point, they came up to kind of help us do that final policing up of everything and he was he was he was a great first harder for them he was leading from the front like you should and he caught around just below that chest plate it is a yorezvina keva it doesn't much matter um but he dropped and that was it so as as as rough as the day was and as much as you kind

to go through after the fact, like, what could I have done better? What could I've been here a little faster than that? Shot that guy a little bit quicker. The only two KAs, there was just, there was nothing to be done for. So I eventually got comfortable with it all because of that. And then what, when your team, what did they even do with your team now? You guys come back, you got all these counts. Did they stand you guys down?

They send you home? What do they do with you? No. So after we got everybody, all the wounded guys out, eventually we kind of regroup. We go down back to the infill point, get on the helicopters, leave.

We ended up landing at some fire base. I don't even know where it was. We don't know if we're going back. There's another SF team there. We still got a lot of commandos. So we're like, Are we going to go? I linked up with the medical support that was there,

refit my bag, got everything ready to go again. Like we were going to go right back, but we didn't, which was probably the right call for that day. So then we ended up going back to Jalalabad, which is where we were operating out of at the time. A couple of the wounded guys were there, so we went and saw them. A couple of the wind guys were already at Bogram. We took care of them.

We got a senior, you know, listed guy, Carl, became our new acting team sergeant. We just went about a better day. I mean, we still did another mission a few weeks later. It's just funny remember. One of the guys, Dan Plants, he's now Sergeant Major out there. That was his first mission with us. And of course, he's like, are they all like this? And of course they are.

Some of them are worse. Welcome aboard. Stand by to get some. Dang. And then how much longer was that deployment? You guys did a few more operations with your. new team sergeant you guys went up how did you feel going back out uh obviously that that fight was was different than anything we'd faced before you know when when we left whatever it was six

weeks later that was that was my last combat deployment so I didn't face anything like that again but it was when we went back out I mean we were ready to go again and I remember on that that next mission we went out on. We're going through the village and our interpreters are just, you know, they would talk with the bad guys on walkie-talkies. Sometimes they'd just talk shit back and forth through each other. And so at one point they were like, oh, these were the guys that we just, I think these are the guys we just messed up a few weeks ago.

Like, let's get them. And then a Kiowa came in and did a run and took out of the way. a few in there like second thought let's let's call today uh you know a draw and that was that was the end of that day but so yeah I mean it was definitely a day we'll never forget and but I'm just glad that you know the team came together they got the job done we didn't accomplish The mission, we didn't find the bad guy, we didn't get to bring him back, but, you know, some days the win is, is just, we got everybody that we could out of there alive. And, you know, we certainly gave him worse than we got that day. Yeah, the estimated enemy killed was like 150 to 200.

and that ended up being the most decorations, highest decorations handed out for a single day battle since the Vietnam War was for this, for this operation that you guys went on. And then, so when you came home, what made you decide, because you ended up getting out of the Army, what made you decide you were going to get out? I ended up getting out May of 2009, so just over a year. Later, it was a lot of different factors.

Like I said, my older son was actually born in January of 2008, so I came home, saw I'm born, and then went right back to Afghanistan, and then, you know, we had other missions in this mission afterwards. So that, you know, that priority factor starts to go in there. Another part of it was just, I think I always felt like there was something I was supposed to do that seemed like as good a thing to check a block with as I could think of. There's so many different factors that come in that. There's not a day that goes by that I don't still miss the team. I still wish whenever I hear they're out there, like I wish I was there with them. I wish I was still doing it, but, you know, I felt like I'd done whatever it was I was supposed to do. And, you know, I think it's tough for any special operations guys, CEO, Green Beret, Ranger, whatever.

At some point, you have to hang it up because time is going to, it's a young man. You're going to hang it up whether you want to or not at some point. Yeah, it's that game. So I felt like, you know, I'll go out on my own terms, so to speak. Yeah. And then how did you end up getting into the Secret Service? Like what made you look at that and think that seemed like a good call? So I think I started applying for them when I had about six months ago in the military.

What piqued your interest on them? So full disclosure with them, I, federal law enforcement just seemed like a good next transition. So I shotgun blast out, you know, the FBI, the Secret Service, the DEA, marshals, air marshals, everybody. And very quickly on, I really just liked the personality that came with the Secret Service. The attitude that the people had, the dedication of the job, the focus. In a lot of ways, you know, like SF, like, you know, you have a super important mission. Sometimes you have all the resources you need.

Sometimes you don't. You're still going to figure it out. You're still going to make it work. I really like that personality that came with it. So while everybody showed interest in me, I kind of focused there and ended up getting hired. Then a couple months after I got out of the Army. And then what's that onboarding like? You go through like a boot camp scenario with them?

Because they must take kids out of college, right? You're supposed to have, I can't remember what the book answer is, like three years of real world experience after college. Okay. So from my class, you had a mixture. Some people had military backgrounds. Some people had law enforcement backgrounds. Some had one was a lawyer.

just any different background. So is it like a gentleman's course boot camp scenario? For the most part. You know, coming from the SF background, like, I don't know who we need to kick out, but you got to kick out somebody, right? Just to make sure that everybody else who's here knows, like, you know, it could happen to you.

But we had a good class, so everybody, everybody got through. And, but it was, I'll say it was about three months of training in Georgia at the federal law enforcement training center, kind of basic information on the criminal investigator training program, just basically. Legal, law stuff, how to handle evidence, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, the basics every law enforcement person needs. And then you continue on with four more months at the Secret Service where you learn. the two aspects of our agency, both the financial crimes investigations and the protection aspect. Most people don't know about the financial crimes investigation of the Secret Service. They don't think about that arm of it.

Well, and that's, I mean, that's why it was created. President Lincoln signed the Secret Service into existence to fight counterfeiting because at the end of the Civil War, I can't remember the statistic, like two-thirds of the currency in the country was counterfeit. You can't rebuild when half of everything is fake. So he signed that, and it was soon after that, you know, he went to a play, didn't work out for him. But then it was 40 years later that we kind of took over the full-time protection of the president. And of course, that's our main mission now. Well, while the majority of people in the agency are out there keeping the financial system secured and intact,

obviously the number one mission is the president, the vice president, other heads of state or heads of government that come in to the country. We protect them. And, you know, obviously there are all no fail missions. Like you cannot let something happen to the president. Or if you have some country come in that maybe nobody's, you know, nobody's ever heard of this dude. Well, we still can't let random street violence happen to this guy or something.

So you just, there's that whole spectrum that you have to work around. So you get done with the training and then where did you, where did you get stationed? Did you go to the president's detail or did you go to the crime fighting part? So the typical career path is, is you go out to one of the field offices around the country and fight crime for a little while. So when I got, got the offer, they offered me a couple different cities to start in. Phoenix, Arizona sounded like the best option. So I took that. Well, yeah, my wife and son moved out there right away.

We bought a house. You know, while I technically live there, I was off a training for several months and then joined them as soon as I finished up. And I spent basically the next four years in Phoenix from May 2010 to May 2014 doing whatever financial crime or computer crime. So financial crime includes what? You have your credit card fraud, your counterfeiting. I need to get your number because credit card fraud people are all about coming after me.

It's like open access. And when I talk to people like, yeah, it happens. It's happened to everyone. That's like the main crime right now. When I say, hey, there's credit card fraud of me. He says, yeah, that happened to me two weeks ago. It's happening to everyone now. Yeah, it's happened to me.

Yeah, it happens. Dang. Okay, maybe I won't call you. It's one of those things. I mean, there's so many different levels to it. Like, you can, you know, there's the prudence that, you know, you'll see the things. Like, oh, check a ATM to see if you see a skimmer attached to it, which is great advice. It's definitely something, you know, if something looks weird on an ATM, don't use it.

But you go to a store, I mean, even like Target, it's or these bigger stores. Oh, yeah, that's right. They had the massive. You get hacked. You didn't do anything wrong. Like you use the machine. The machine was secure, you thought, but at some back level. So there's those two aspects of the crime that we end up chasing now because there's a person who stole all the card information.

But they're almost never the person who's using it. They sell it to somebody else. So you got to pick which side do I want to chase today. Do you want to figure out who stole it or do you want to figure out who's using it? And it kept you pretty busy. And then eventually you get called back to D.C. Is that where you got stationed next? So I'm stationed in D.C. now with the counter assault team for the Secret Service.

It's... Which is like the coolest job, right? I mean, in the Secret Service. Let's be straight up, right? There's nothing cooler than saying I'm on the Counter-Assault team of the Secret Service. It does sound cool, yes. And what it really means is sitting in the back. of a vehicle somewhere for long periods of time in a motorcade or something?

Yeah, with the full body armor on everything. So you're uncomfortable. You're miserable complaining about it. Like, why did I sign up for this? And there's like 8,000 pieces of security that someone would have to overcome for you guys to get the call. But someday. And it does sound cool. So we got that going for us.

But what I loved about that, just like with SF, is to be there. You have to volunteer. You have to go through selection process. You got to go through another school. We washed out between selection and the school itself. We wash out about half, maybe a little more. How tight are they on shooting in that school? Standards are much higher than the general.

Secret Service. Because you might be taking shots around the president. You don't want to throw that round. No pressure. Yeah, it adds a little extra level to the law enforcement. Every round counts. aspect. Obviously, the military, you know. Most rounds count. Most, most rounds count. You can't just fire indiscriminately. But, you know, if he's generally in that area, that's why they gave

me more than one bullet. Whereas, you know, the Secret Service, yeah. I got, I got in trouble one time during CQC training for putting down cover fire in a building. I was like, you know, someone was trying to cross the hallway. And I'm like, okay, I know there's a bad guy. I'm just to start shooting at him. And, you know, the instructor is like, chalking. What were you doing over here? And I was like, where? And he's like in this, you know, you're holding this hallway. And then you just started shooting.

And I was like, I was putting down cover fire for the guy that was moving. He goes, he's like, I get it, but you're really not supposed to do that in CQC. And I'm like, okay, fair enough, you know. But if the guy come around the corner, it might have worked. Yeah, he wasn't coming around the corner when I was cracking rounds at him. Exactly. So you're, so you're, and so you're just, that's, do you go on, is there a rotation that you're going on for that? Are you like on all the time?

Or do you three months on, three months on? Do you just are you just in a certain area and that's when you're live? So they break us down into we call them, we have teams and then two teams make up a company. And then so we have basically four different elements. So one's on training, one's on your days, one's on your evening, one's on your meds at all time. And so, yeah, your downtime is to train and then the rest of the time you're not protecting. protecting the man or, you know, president, vice president,

other people as need. Support. Just always working. And at some point during, during that job, you got, you, you went to the hospital and figured out something

that wasn't going too well. I'd say to the least. So, you know, if you kind of go through the, the full story, what was that late spring, early summer of 2016, I kind of started getting a little pain in my right hip,

a little pain in my back, but of course, I have some pain. I was running around with Kit for the Army for six and a half years. You know, at that point, I've been doing it with the counter-assault team for two and a half years. just, you know, you're not supposed to do that to your body. It's not good for you. Everybody knows it.

So I was actually in California hiking with the Obama family in Yosemite doing a father's day weekend trip with them. And my hip was hurting, my back kind of seized up. I'm like, oh, this is not right. but I go see my doc, he's like, just stretch some more. Like, or stop doing your job. Like, well, I'm not going to stop. So I'm going to stretch some more. Pain all kind of kept getting a little worse,

a little, you know, just a little more annoying as I went. Since the doc didn't give me a good answer, let me try a chiropractor. Got some relief for a little while from that, but it just kept getting, getting a little bit worse and so he came up with the

differential diagnosis to use medical terms that he was like you probably tore some cartilage in your hip at some point and I was like I don't remember doing that and he's like well as active as you are can just happen sometimes

so we do an MRI in February of 2017 and then the next day waiting on results I still fly out to, I actually flew out to San Diego to do, to do some more work. And that afternoon after I got here, he called and he was, you know, telling us well, you have a few different, you use the word lesions. He didn't want to say tumors, but he's like, he got a few things going on your hip that are not normal. I need you to go talk to this doc, like as soon as you can. He didn't,

didn't even tell me what the what that doc did but like okay he's at this hospital he's this doc i google him like anybody would i'm like oh he's an oncologist like so this like of course that call is bad but you know now we're getting more information okay this is really not good uh i took the red eye back home and next day get a cat scan and that's when they find a tumor is just everywhere. What they decided was the primary tumor was about the size of a little bigger than a baseball on my left lung. And by that point, I started thinking, like, with all the work that I've been doing,

like, I'm just getting out of shape. Like, my run times keep getting a little worse, but at no point did I think that's what it was. So we find out, like, through that MRI, like, I'd actually, I had a, fracture on my pelvis. So I had a baseball on my lung and a fracture in my pelvis and still working. So, yeah, we go through the process of trying to figure out what's going on, find a doc, don't really care for him, fire him. Go find another dock at Jones Hopkins.

We really like we're still working with him. Yeah, we've been fighting for just over two years now. And then on top of that, your, well, as I mentioned, you guys, your ODA team got something like, I don't know, 12 or 13 silver stars amongst them. It was 10 silver stars, three or four bronze. Oh, the Air Force Cross for the C2. Cross. And you were one of those, you were one of those silver stars. Yes, I was.

And they, the government or, yeah, the military, basically, I forget what year it is, maybe 2015 or 16, they started doing a service-wide review of all of the awards that had been handed out or awarded to see if they all kind of matched up. up and were where they should be. And I know actually three of my guys who had been written up for bronze stars, they got advanced or they got raised to silver stars. But they reviewed your award as well.

And they came to a conclusion that it should be upgraded. And how did you find out about that? So I of course, had a hard heard about the review process that the Secretary of Defense had ordered, never gave it a second thought, just was going about my, my day-to-day life. I mean, honestly, I think, like, most soft guys, like, just to add a boy, and here's your next mission. That's all any of them expect or want or anything. So in August of last year, I get the first call on my home phone.

You know, we still have a, it's part of that triple play package. You know, they get you with the home phone. Like, I don't want a home phone. They're like, it costs more to not have it. The landline? Yeah. Cycle. Yeah, so somebody calls.

They left a voicemail on that. Does it even call a voicemail when it's on the answering machine? I don't know. But they called and left a message and they claimed that they were from the Pentagon. And they said we needed to talk to Ron Scher. And I was like, this is, it almost sounds legit, but it's definitely a scam. I'll call them back. And just.

Speaking of credit fraud fraud, here we go. So I call him up and they're like, we need to set up a call between you and a higher ranking DOD official. And so I'm like, who? Who? And they're like, we can't tell you. Like, why we can't tell you. I'm like, well, that doesn't sound right. So go to send me an email from your official.

Dot mill to my Secret Service email. Launch it over there. We'll just to verify who you are. Because you say you're from the Army. You're at the Pentagon, you're G1. I get calls from them all the time. You know, the IRS is always calling me, saying, I'm about to be arrested. So they sent me to the message confirming who they were.

And so I'm just not going to tell me why. And they're like, no, well, that's cool. I got a family vacation. I'm taking next week have this person call me after that. But like I mentioned, we're in. in this cancer battle. And so just before we went on that trip, I started getting some new pain. So we do some scans.

We find out I got a little bit of stuff growing. And we make a plan to deal with that as soon as we get back from our trip. So I go on my family vacation. We come back and we start radiation basically the next day, just trying to get control again. And so this person in the Army, they start calling me. Again, like, hey, we're going to set up a date for this person to talk to you. And it's like, okay, cool.

Do you have any idea right now? Or are you just? No, my wife and I were trying to, like, brainstorm. Like, I knew about the review process. Did that even click in your head? I think at one point. So with the email, like the, the, not sub-delined, but like your name, and then this is my job, is how important I am. Oh, blah.

Oh, yeah, the signature line. The signature line. Yeah. I see that and I see what it is. So I Google that because I don't know who this person is or what it is. You're an investigator? So I started going down that chain. And at one point, we actually found out that they're in the long process of the Medal of Honor.

They're one of the many tears. But my wife and I kind of look at each other and, you know, just kind of chuckle it off. Like, that's ridiculous. But so we're like, well, maybe, maybe, you know, I... You get a witness for somebody or whatever. I got a witness for something. I signed up for the... You know, the burn pit registry that's out there, like I'll sign up for that.

Maybe it's something to do with any of these numerous things. So the day that I'm supposed to get the call, I'm teleworking that day, because I might just finish up some radiation feel awful. And so I get the first call from the military saying, are you going to take your call later today? Like, yes, I'm good. Then one of my friends ends up calling Miranda and says basically,

standby for Ron's boss. And so he gets on the line to talk to Miranda, and he's like, is Ron good for a phone call today? And she's like, yes, Ron's fine for a call. Is this the call that we've been talking to other people about? And he's like, yeah. You know, like, why are you calling? We just can't process.

Like, why is he now calling us? So he's like, are you good for your call? Like, yeah, we're good for our call. The Army calls me back again. You good for your call? I'm like, yes, I'm still good for my call. I'm going to run out of battery, though, if people keep calling me, the check if I'm good for my call or not.

So a little while later, boss calls back again, and he's like, your call is canceled. like why are you canceling my call and you know just trying to run through all the scenarios in your head like what why are you doing anything with this and he's like trust me it's good and it's like I don't trust you but but okay I have no choice in this matter so he ends up calling and he's saying next Tuesday I need you to come into the White House with Miranda, and you need to talk to the boss of the president's detail. That makes even less sense than anything that's been happening so far. So Tuesday, it's September 4th. We end up, he comes by, our house, gets us, brings us into the White House complex,

and we go over and we start in the boss of the president's detail. We start off in his office. And so he meets us in there. He's like, you know, hi, Ron and Miranda. Thanks for coming in. Really appreciate it. John Kelly wants to talk to you guys. So, of course, Miranda and I are kind of looking at each other, like trying to do, like,

enhancing those like in kind of where we landed is like, okay, I think I'm going to get upgraded to a cross, which is an amazing honor, and I think the Secret Service found out. And since John Kelly, the chief of staff at the time, you know, former general, we had that connection. Like, he's going to, he's going to bring me in and tell me. So we spend some time in that boss's office, and they bring us into the waiting room in the West Wing itself. And so we're sitting there, just continuing to wait. And then John Kelly comes by and he's like, hey, Ron, hey, Miranda. Thanks so much for coming in.

I just want to talk with you guys for a little bit. And so he's like, follow me back to my office. So we start following him down. So we start following him down. Miranda doesn't know the White House. So she's just tagging along. Like we're walking down the hallway, and I think we pass Sarah Huckabee's office. And she's like, oh, look, like, she's just, you know, getting kind of starstruck by the office and all the things.

But in my mind, I'm like, you know, I don't want to interrupt the chief of staff to the president. But I'm like, sir, your office is that way. Like, do you know where you work? But I'm just along for the ride. So we walk down the hall, we make a couple turns, and then he makes that left into what I know is the Oval. And so I get to that threshold. I see the president sitting at his desk.

And as soon as I hit that threshold, I can see there's cameras. So the video and there's still cameras just going crazy, just White House internal stuff. Just clicking away. And at that point, it was definitely like, Oh shit. This did not go. Today kind of got out of hand.

So the president gets up. He shakes her hand. You know, you did not expect to see me today, did you? I'm like, no, wasn't planning on it. I honestly can't remember everything, you know, just the usual platitudes. Thanks for your service. I heard you were in Afghanistan. Like, yeah.

And he was like, did you know you're getting looked at for Afghanistan? I'm like, no. He's like, well, I just want you to know. I just approved you to get the Congressional Medal of Honor. And honestly, at that point, it all just kind of went to white noise. I couldn't. I don't know what else he said afterwards. We have the pictures, and you can flip there, and you can see the moment where he tells,

because I have a definite, what the, are you, saying and my wife is starting kind of that happy happy cry but yeah so we had had no no idea that it was getting I mean I knew generally things were getting looked at but I have no idea that my packet would stand out or not stand out or or anything yeah we got out of there the the the boss that had basically found out it was, you know, government efficiencies. Like that day I was supposed to get the call. They kind of went down the hall and like, does this guy work for you? Like, I've been emailing you from a Secret Service email address for weeks now.

But so it was at that moment. They were like, does he work for you? And they're like, yeah, he works for us. And he's here in D.C. And he has a White House pass. He can walk in a little White House in a time he wants. So they coordinated that. They made sure the counter-result team for that day.

They were all, you know, Marine Green Beret, some more Army and another Marine, just all Army guys who all kind of got it. And then they found out, like, as I was finding out. And so went and saw them. And, you know, the whole thing was just super surreal, trying to figure out why me, why, why not why any of it. I remember, soon after that, the colonel from the Pentagon, she called, she's like, so you've obviously now talked to him, you know, you know why we're being

secretive now, like, yeah, and then she said a lot of stuff about, like, you know, how the process is going to work. and other things. And at the end of it, I got to the point where I was like, ma'am, I don't remember a thing you just said, but I don't have a uniform.

And, like, I don't know why that. Because you've been out for seven, eight, nine years or something like that? May of 2009 is when I got out. So this is, I mean, that's nine and a half years. Yeah, next month will be 10. So, it was nine and a half years since I got out. So, yeah, it was the last thing that I thought was,

was coming. I mean, I'm obviously super humbled by it, but it was definitely the last thing I thought would come my way. I still remember feeling almost guilty calling my teammates to let them know. So, like, hey, can you

come to D.C. on October 1st? Because I'm getting the medal honor, and I felt like I had to apologize to them. Like, the team was amazing that The team did everything. And a lot of these guys, you know, kept going for years and years after I got out. Like, I don't know why I'm getting this.

Well, it's awesome. And I'm sure they all thought to themselves, well, maybe the fact that you saved my life and kept me alive might be the reason. So, yeah, that's an unbelievable, awesome story. And it sounds like there was definitely some good, smooth government operating in there as well. In the end, they worked out. It worked out to be a pretty good secret. Yeah, it's pretty awesome that they kept it from you.

They kept in, you know, after we stepped out of the Oval, you know, John Kelly is like, I'm sorry, I had to pull a trick on you. Yeah, he's like such an honest guy that he felt guilty about that. Yeah. Like such a good guy's out of him, really sorry. I had to do that. It's okay, sir. I forgive you.

And then how, when you go talking about the cancer a little bit, but when you go in for radiation, when you go in for chemo, like I, you know, I've known people that have gone on chemo before. It's like crushing physically. So with my treatments, we're in a reassessment phase right now to figure out what we're doing. But for the last couple years, I've been on, it's a, okay, it's super far out in the weeds,

but it's a targeted therapy for my very specific kind of lung cancer. And so I take one pill every day and, you know, it's got me two years down the road. So there's ups and downs with it. Some, you know, definitely some side effects. I think generally speaking, it's better than what you think of is chemo. Got it. I know it's pissed off a lot of keyboard warriors and the sergeant majors out there in the world. Like I didn't shave for the ceremony and it was like, well, it's because I had a rash from my treatment.

So I physically couldn't shave at the time, but some people took offense. Like, sorry. Really? I want I want I want and it was you know I that's awesome just that's only in America could you say oh that guy got the medal of honor you might want to shave next time that's that's professional jealousy at its finest right yeah and so I made it try not to chase down too many of the people but a few of them are like oh just so you know like this is why have a nice day and And then what are you doing day to day now? So are you still, are you working right now? Secret Service, do you have to put any time with them? Are you on like some medical leave right now?

Did you stay in the Secret Service? Yeah, I'm still still with the Secret Service. A few people have asked me now with the matter. Like, is the Secret Service just a cover? Like now, that's what I do. I have to admit that when I was talking to my wife, you know, my wife has been talking to your wife. And I said something along the lines of like, oh, you know,

We'll talk about using the Secret Service. And my wife said, and my wife said, Brits. She isn't like fully comprehend American government like an American does. But, you know, I said, you know, we'll probably talk about, you know, him being in the Secret Service. And my wife, of course, literally says, but isn't that a secret? So, yeah, could cover, a cover for your covert operations that you're now conducting. Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's, so once I was diagnosed a couple years ago, I just switched over for being operational counter assault to when I'm going to say operations again, but now I'm in the operations section. Got it, got it. So I just send emails to people and I'm a keyboard warrior myself now. Like, you are not working hard enough. Work harder. Send. And you might want to shave while you're working harder, by the way. Yeah.

And then you got your wife and your kids and how old are your kids? Our boys, our older son Cameron, who said it was three months at the time of the battle. He's 11 now. And our younger son, Tyler, he's eight. So, you know, my wife has, you know, multiple full-time jobs. You're trying to keep those kids, you know, where they need to be, when they need to be there. like with the Secret Service, I can't remember the exact day count, but the last year I was fully able to travel and everything. I traveled like 130 days or something and, you know,

at least so like the military time deployment's like, you're going to leave in August. Like, okay, that's in the future. I know when it is. You're going to be gone for seven months. Whereas you know, the Secret Service were dependent on people. Like, does the president want to go over here. If he does, we're going. Guess what? It doesn't matter what we had scheduled next week. It's going to happen. So, you know, in that 130 days doesn't sound that bad. It's two days here, three days there, a call at 8 p.m. tomorrow morning, you're on a plane at 6 a.m. Get packed. So, you know, she's been, she was amazing at balancing all of those things that came. came with a job and then I threw in a monkey wrench with the whole,

I have cancer everywhere. It's making more about me now. So, because the kids were, what was that, kindergarten in third grade, I think, were the ages. I had diagnosed, like they were just starting to get a little bit easier. And, you know, she's kind of come out for air, like, hold on. I need to challenge you a little more. Sorry about that. Well, it sounds like, and I met her today, seems like awesome, awesome woman, awesome family.

And I mean, just an incredible story from everything that you've done and what you've been through, what you're going through. And the perseverance that you're shown is just perseverance that you showed. And the perseverance that you continue to show is just, it's awesome, man. And probably as good a place of any to try and wrap this up. but you know man thanks for coming on and and really thanks for thanks for giving an example to everyone of you know how to how to train how to fight and how to live it's it's awesome well I appreciate you saying that and you know I'm not just you know saying this because I'm on your show like I I've been listening to your

podcast for a long time I I've listened to many different episodes but there's one in particular where you, you know, you do the book views and a man's search for meaning. You did that one, I think like two or three months after I diagnosed. And that was, I mean, I like to think I'm a determined guy and like I can focus through stuff. But, you know, the cancer battle is definitely very different than an army battle. Like, again, we get discussed earlier. Like, if you can shoot me, I can shoot you. We'll see. This is that kind of behind the scenes unknown enemy. And so just, you know, hearing about like that book.

And then I immediately went out and got the book, read it. Like just stuff. So, you know, your podcast is definitely, you know, not only on those long, boring nights where you can't sleep because this hurts or that hurts, like something to listen to, but it's definitely been very meaningful to me in those respects. So I really appreciate it.

hopefully hopefully was somewhat you know interesting today oh man no it's it's awesome and we'll keep doing it echo speaking of the podcast speaking of um

you know taking the fight to the enemy seen and unseen sure yeah big time I know you like to you know give us some ideas sure some some help along that path yeah I have a question first okay

So when you got hit in the arm that time that you didn't realize it or whatever, like what was that? Like a ricochet or something? Just the bullet, dude. Yeah, but like, what was, you know, what happened with it? I mean, it's the tiniest little scar. You can barely see it. It was like it just barely grazed you kind of thing. Yeah, it grazed.

I mean, when I got the uniform off, I mean, there was cut. There was bleeding. There was bruising. Like I said, I couldn't tell you. So much stuff is going on that like, boom, yeah, you get hit, but then it kind of gets blended in with all the rest of the chaos kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, so much with the airstrikes and stuff that we've been talking about, like stuff was, stuff was just hitting you. Yeah, yeah. Falling on you.

Stuff was, it was just stuff was always going on. It's crazy. So. You just sort of get shot, you know? Dang. It's crazy. Yeah. You know what else is crazy?

is I just, you know, like, Echo doesn't ever write anything down during these things. And you made that statement, like, probably like 45 minutes ago. But Echo has just been sitting there thinking like, dang, what happens? Can we expand on that? Yeah, you just sort of says. When my time comes, I got that question. I'm coming at you, wrong. Well, yeah, you sort of wonder because you just sort of mentioned it, you know?

Like, oh, kind of like on your book, Terminator 1, the first one, where they kind of recover from the shootout and then they're under the bridge. and the guy, Sarah Connor goes, hey, like, what's up? You know, he goes, oh, yeah, he got me right there. And he just sort of glosses over it. She's like, you got shot? Like, oh, what's up? That's how I was feeling with you.

You know what I'm saying? Well, luckily, it was, I did he a shot, but luckily, you know, for my sake and for the other people, just not knowing when it was, it wasn't worse because. No big deal. Let me keep going about. about the job. It's crazy, man.

Millimetres and inches. Millimetres and inches. But yeah, so yeah, if we're staying on the path, speaking of which, okay, let's start with origin. Origin up in Maine, American Made Company, American Founded Company. Just an American company, I think.

It sums it up nicely. But they go deep with American Made, though, that's the thing. True. So anyway, so you're doing Jiu-Jitsu, which we all are. You want a ghee, you get it from origin. All Made in America. New ghee out, by the way.

Out. A real good one. Have you used it yet? Yes. I know you're kind of off the jihitsu for a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Got a little dinged up in the knee area. But you used it.

Yes. Good. Assessment. Solid. Legit, as we say in the industry. Yeah. Yeah. Also, Rashgarden's on there. Even the, you know, the existing geese.

are good, are exceptional actually. They're the best in the world factually made by Jujitsu people in America with American made products. How much combatives did you do? How much rolling did you do? We did a fair amount and then at some point, like I mentioned when that the two teams hardened showed up and kind of reset the way we were training, we did a little less rolling and he found some guy just outside Fort Bragg.

He was like, I just been in fights in, I think he was from Miami. He's like, I've been in fights in Miami for years and years. He was really good at it apparently. So we did a little less rolling with him because he, you know, he kind of brought up the point like with all the stuff you're carrying, if you end up on the ground, that's not a good day for you. Yeah. Well, if you end up on the ground, then you better know what you're doing,

even with all that stuff on. Yeah. Yeah, he kind of taught us a different way, you know, fighting it. If you get on the ground, yeah, get back up as quickly as you can. I always say, like, the primary purpose of jih Tzu and self-defense situation is to get up and get away from them, not to put a triangle on him or put some kind of a, you know, pull guard. Pull guard on the guy. Like, yeah.

That's not smart. Negative. No, and the other funny thing is, like, I was, you know, I was talking about jih Tijuana and all that. stuff but like in the SEAL teams people would get really into combatives which is cool I'm down with being into combatives I am totally into combatives I'm totally into MMA and Jiu-Jitsu and wrestling and boxing and Muay Thai and whatever else I can find that is effective but if you have a choice between being really good at shooting your guns and being really good at arm-locking people if you're in the if

you're in the military it's better to be good at shooting your guns now Luckily, I'm here to tell you you can get good at both. Yes, sir. Prioritized being able to shoot really well. Yes. Most of my workouts now with the whole cancer thing are just walks. But maybe I'll check out one of these geese and just walk around the lake and we'll look weird at all. Get you geese for your kids too.

Because your kids should be doing jiu-jitsu. That's for sure. Yes. Agree. But also on there, they have other apparel items. Fashionable. We don't use that word Don't like the word

He doesn't like the concept I get it But the fact remains Pete he knows Pete Roberts Founder of Origin He knows a little bit About fashion

Pete my partner up in Up in Maine He's got like a little He's got a little fashion sense To you know what I mean A little sprinkle of it Which I have zero So there's a contrast there

You know Pete will talk about Color What are you're gonna say like that Yeah color is good Yeah Yeah as long as it's black Yeah, or gray, I get it.

Yeah, so anyways. Anyway, also supplements. What? Best kind of supplements, joint supplements, apparently. When we were young, we're about the same age I've estimated. When were you born? 78, so I just turned 40. Yeah, so you're one year younger than me.

Unless, back when we were young, we thought, what, protein supplements, right? Creatine. Remember when creatine came out? Everyone was like, oh, yeah, that's the creatine. I drank so much of that stuff. No, as it turns out, it's not even as important. Not even nearly as important as joint supplements. So, Jocko, of course, makes supplements.

Jocko Joint Warfare for what, anti-inflammatory stuff, glucosamine conjoined. Super Creole oil. Crile oil, very important for your joints. Keeps you in the game, even at our age. I am tripling up on joint warfare right now to help the recovery process of my day. Oh, yeah, man. The joint wear and the krill oil combo, whatever,

Remember, when you're consistent, I mean, you could stay consistent, so I get it. But I have experience with inconsistency. So when I get consistent, man, it's like you're on this, like, road. Like, you know, you get dinged up or whatever. But like you go, it's like, they heal up so quick. And I don't want to make like, oh, you're like, what's the guy, the X-Men guy, who heals himself? Wolverine. I'm not necessarily saying you're like Wolverine, but you feel like you kind of are Wolverine.

Like you, when you get, you know how like it, me anyway, when I get hurt. or like dinged up, I'm like, dang, how long am I out now? You know, a week, two weeks, whatever. Like with this, I don't even worry about it. You're just in the game. Just in the game consistently taking it. So I dig it is what I'm saying. Well, since you mentioned Wolverine, I'll say that with my, you know,

SF and then cancer, like we spent more time, my wife and I talking about the possibility that that phone call was somebody going to enroll me in the Deadpool program than with any medals. We legitimately had conversations. Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah, giving everything. You know, yeah, you might be a good candidate for this new program we're putting together. My little daughter, she watches those, what is it, Avengers.

Is that what it is? So she watches that stuff. Does that have Wolverine in it? No, right? No, that's X-Men. X-Men is Wolverine. Okay, well, she watches those things. Sure.

But the other day, and she's also kind of culpable, right? Because she's nine and she kind of lives. She's a little bit numb bubble. You know what I mean? And she's nine. But the other day, I started this whole thing with her where I was kind of telling I was like, yeah, you know, because I was saying, oh, my knee, I was like, you know, my knee it'll heal up quickly.

And I said, and then I said, then like I got the little idea in my head of something creative to play a game to play. And so I said like, yeah, you know, it's weird, sweetie, because whenever I get injured, it heals up really, really fast. It's really weird. And it's always been like that. Well, not always. And then I started saying, well, you know, one time it's really weird,

but I had this weird memory of like when I was in the Navy and I went to the doctor and then I didn't remember things for a while. And I remember like them putting things in me. And her eyes were so big. She was so stoked for about another minute. And she thought I was over. Because I started up, when you start on, when something comes from them, right? So it was her that said like, oh, how,

long are you going to be hurt for? So she initiated this whole conversation. So that gives me a massive advantage in this trick I'm about to play. Because I'm playing the trick based on her reality. Right. Yeah. It's not like you just came out of the blue with some trick or some conversation. No, it's part of what she randomly asked me on it. You know, I wasn't just sitting there plotting on it. Yeah. Kind of. So that's kind of like your thing, how you make like when you, when you come up with a plan or correction to a plan or whatever like how you lead people and I see what you're doing when you do it but it still works by the way so you lead people to think that they made the plan yeah you just did that to your daughter yeah practiced on her yeah yeah that's how I see it I get it now I get it fully yeah

check nonetheless supplements mulk as well additional protein see I still don't neglect the protein don't get it wrong I just find the joint supplements to be somebody asked me on Twitter if I was on growth hormone because of the way I looked. And reasonable though. I said, it was actually supposed to be a derogatory comment because it was one of those little clips that someone put up of me talking about something and then someone with the shot came in and said that why would I listen to this guy who looks like he's been on growth hormone his whole life.

Right. And and I just replied back like, I've never been on any kind of growth hormone. moan unless you count steak. So anyways, I have fun. Fun on Twitter. Yeah. That's how. Twitter is Twitter is, I know you have Twitter.

I don't use Twitter that much. I'm trying to try to figure out an Instagram thing. Yeah. Twitter just still doesn't make sense my brain. Instagram is also can be fun, but Twitter is basically just a bunch of one-liners. It's just a bunch of one-liners. That's all it is. One line zingers, and it's just 24 hours a day.

If you want to sit there and make one liners all day long, you know, that's what you can do with that thing. That's a good way to put it. It's just one line. And what's, what's lame about it, or good about it, depending on your perspective, is if you and I are having a conversation and you say something, and I zing, like I hit it. That took a little quick thinking. With Twitter, you could actually sit there and look at it for 12 minutes. You could look up words in the dictionary if you wanted to, and you could sit. say, oh, this is going to be really witty.

And you can plan it out. You can do some research and then you can respond. And for all anyone knows, you just looked at that and just threw it out there. You just got the notification. Yeah, you just saw it. And I'm just throwing out this advanced shot back at you. Whereas the reality is that's not what happening. So it's a really interesting.

Now, I will say sometimes because I go on the Twitter and I reply like a lot at once because I don't sit there and look at Twitter all the time. So then I go back and I just reply really fast. So a lot of times I will do things that are, you know, just like boom, boom, boom, boom. And occasionally I make mistakes. You know there's someone on Twitter called the, there's a Twitter thing called the grammar police. Yeah. What do you mean like an account or just a phenomenon?

It's an account. Okay. I used and I was an English major. Ron, I know you're an economics guy. Okay. You're in the numbers. I'm in the letters. So I put your.

And again, I'm tweeting at 47 tweets a minute. I'm just boom, boom. And I used your Y-O-U-R instead of Y-O-U-R-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-A-R-E. You miss my mess up-est-A-P-R-E. And so then, and so then up pops, like, probably an hour later, up pops, grammar police. Oh, yeah.

And it says, and it's really, I actually love the, way they do it. They don't they don't they don't they're not disparaging to you. They just say for your information you used the wrong your the proper you know the proper grammar in this scenario would have been to use YOU apostrophe R.E thank you and please correct yourself next time signed grammar police so I like the grammar police that's a good account yeah dang so it's an actual like account account like a person it's not a bot somebody somebody's somebody Well, it may be a bot. It may be a bot, but it's a grammar police account.

You can follow them. I should probably follow grammar police. I'm going to. What are the pictures they share, though? Just, screen shots? Twitter doesn't need pictures. Twitter. I thought you said to Instagram.

I mean, I guess Instagram, you could just, they could have blown up a picture or an image of my incorrect, you know, usage of. Or it would just slide in the comments, right? Because you wouldn't really, you didn't need a picture for comments. So it'd be like, oh, yeah, you post your, you know, thing. And then they just slide in the comments. but they should know that hurts because like I was an English major. Yes sir. Yes, sir.

It's the only way you'll learn though. So there you go. We got to eat some warrior kid milk for your kids, Ron. When you were a kid, did you ever drink strawberry quick? Yes. Did you like it? No. Okay.

What about chocolate quick? Yes. Did you like it? Yes. Okay. All right. There you go. Well, for me, strawberry quick was kind of like a big thing for me.

I was a little kid. The fake strawberry flavor is so hit and miss. Yeah. Well, you dig it. Either one, if you happen to like strawberry quick, basically are this kid's protein drink tastes exactly like that.

It's delicious. It would be, it's delicious to me. It wouldn't be delicious to you. I guess you'd spit it out. I wouldn't spit it out. I'd be polite. I'd still drink.

I'd be like, oh, this is good. Thanks for. I see what you were doing there kind of response. Yeah. Yeah. So you'd be cool about it. Well,

your kids hopefully they have better taste buds than you they definitely do whoa this stuff is amazing so anyways that's warrior kid milk and it's doesn't have any sugar and it's actually good for you it's got protein and vitamins and probiotics it's awesome so anyways that's that also jaco at the store it's called jaco store that's where you can get apparel jaco apparel because he's so fashionable yes well you know you see the dichotomy in this don't you and try go on there the thing is it's like it's not even fashionable but here's the thing i snuck i had to sneak in covertly and insert elements sprinkles of fashion okay Pete Robert's style not quite that hardcore but you know like put it is like Zoolander

yeah you're mine everybody I'm like Zoolander in your mind the so so Jocco's design right it's like his thing it's like not even design the font he uses is like computer font literally not so it's like OCR whatever So he's like, yeah, discipline equals freedom. You know, we'll put it on a shirt. I'm like, cool. So I look at it, I'm like, okay, I dig it. But at least I made the shirt like this shirt material.

It's like, you know, a blend and all this stuff. It's not like some cheap, what do you call it, like a boxy, rugged. I don't call it anything. I call it a shirt. Yeah, see? And that's my point right there. See what I'm saying? So the designs are going to be super basic, non-fashionable.

But when you get the apparel, you're going to be like, oh, this is really wearable. stuff is really nice. That's what I predict you'll think, you know, if, if history is any indicator. But anyway, t-shirts on there. We got some lightweight hoodies on there, which jocco, are you even down for the lightweight hood? Because so far, people, everyone know, every single person who was like siding with jocco, in real life, I'm not talking about internet.

Ciding with jockel saying, yeah, hoodies are for like when you're cold. You need a heavy hoodie. Otherwise, why are you even wearing a hoodie? Just wear a shirt, right? Everybody, you know, everybody who has. Okay, let's talk about something. Just ridiculous the lightweight hoodie have changed their mind every single person Dave bird human beings oh good deal Dave yeah oh heck yeah last night is like I was wrong

Yeah this hoodie is outstanding oh yeah factually I already knew that that's why we did it But in lightweight hoodies but t-shirts that rash guards for jiu-jitsu and other things and life man You know some women stuff hats all the some cool stuff I think it's cool people to seem to think it's cool going there. If you like something, get something. Chocco store.com. Ron, how'd you like that? How'd you like the tea?

It's really good. Definitely. Wait, it's the best tea you've ever tried. It's better than strawberry quick. It's way better than strawberry quick. I definitely would drink this. Strawberry quick. I mean, if it has the extra benefits

of the probiotics and the protein, maybe I'll drink a little extra. Okay. Yes, sir. But if it's just strawberry quick now. Ron has been drinking. drinking jaco white tea with pomegranate anyways sort of like organic by the good thing about it is it it after you finish this can you can deadlift 8,000 pounds and that's that's proven that's

proven that's a as a former 18 delta medic i can help you run through the test and you'll see it's 100% uh make sure you're subscribed to the podcast if you don't subscribe to it already which is kind of ridiculous. You know, yeah. I mean, depending. Oh, oh, and I just read a review. Yeah. A guy said, um, he was going through like his top five podcasts and the and then our podcast came into his world as this is the podcast that I most subscribe and unsubscribe to. Okay. And he says, I subscribe to it because it's got great information on leadership and human nature. and history and war, he goes,

but I unsubscribe to it because they spend a lot of times on some episodes talking about jujitsu, which I don't do. And this wasn't a review on iTunes. This was a review that he wrote in a blog and tagged me in it on Twitter. His own blog?

His own blog? Because people tag you in their blog so you'll read it and repost it. This is great. So I read it and I just commented back to him. I said it sounds like you need to start doing jujitsu. You can thank me later. So there you go.

Whoever that guy was seemed like a nice enough guy, but didn't want to do the jiu-jitsu. That's that. So yeah, subscribe. And don't forget about the Warrior Kid podcast. Yes, sir. Oh, my daughter has a question for. The Warrior Kid podcast?

Yeah, we'll go over it later. Okay. We'll pass it on to Uncle Jake if you would. But yeah, so yeah, that's a good one. Warrior Kid podcast is, Have you ever listened to Warrior Kid Podcasts with your kids? I have not. No.

It's what it is, the basic principles of life. I try and convey it in a way for kids that they can understand it, that they can appreciate it, and that they listen to it. As you know, I'm always quoting you with my kids, like discipline equals freedom. Right, right. Do the right thing, and then I'll let you do more. Yes. And you know what?

It doesn't matter who you are as a dad. Your kids are not going to listen to you as much as you want them to. So it's good if you come at them from another angle. The other angle is Uncle Jake who can tell him about discipline equals freedom. So anyways, Warrior Kid podcast, check that out. And don't forget about that Warrior Kid soap from Irish Oaks Ranch.com. Aidan's making soap. He's a kid, but he's got his own business and he's making soap on a rope right now.

Yeah, I'm using that. A little piece of 550 cord. A little piece of paracord. Yeah, yeah, it's good. So we've got that going on. And then you got YouTube. Subscribe to YouTube so you can see Echo's legit videos. And if you want to know what Ron Scher looks like.

Very handsome, by the way. Then you can watch this complete episode on YouTube. You can also see Echoes advanced videos. You know, it's a lot of time and effort into him. Yes, sir. Which means that he puts a lot of time and effort into him. There you go. Yeah.

And some of them. are good. Some of them he puts a little too much time and effort into. You know, okay. Cool. Just saying. Yeah, yeah, I dig it. What else? Psychological warfare. If you're having issues, a lot of issues or just a few issues on the path, you know,

moments of weakness where you don't want to get up as early as maybe you think you should. And you don't feel like it. That's what it is when you don't feel like it. This is a little bit of help to push you through. Any moment, diet stuff, wake up stuff, workouts. skipping workout stuff. That was a big one for me back in the day, by the way.

Despite this little album. Skipping them leg workouts. Not anymore, though, right? No, sir. No, no. Not the arms workout either. So anyway, you get this album called Psychological Warfare.

Little tracks on there of Jocko telling us, helping us through our moments of weakness. Really easy. 100% effectiveness, my experience. Cool. Check out Flipside Canvas. It's my brother, Dakota Myers.

Dakota, He is taking cool Images and putting him on Canvass vinyl in America here And sending him to you if you want them You know he has a straight-up jaco series now? Good. Yeah, the series. That's so epic Anyways check that out support Dakota into what Dakota's doing

You know flip-side if you want if you want custom stuff just hit Dakota up on on on top Twitter because Dakota's like the nicest person you seem pretty nice too Ron but Dakota's really nice yeah and he's always want to help out so yeah there you go check it up Flipside canvas.com also on it on it dot com slash jocco by the way go there that this is where you can get your fitness gear whether it be for home you got a commercial gym whatever you like also some good what would you call the elk bars snack food yeah healthy snack yeah it's like You hate to even throw the word healthy. Yeah.

The stigma, like the cliche, like buzzword. You think you're eating chalk. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, there's a lot of good stuff on there. Onet.com. Get something from there to, yes, keep you on the path and in the game, as it were. A bunch of books. I written a bunch of books.

Mikey and the Dragons. That's for younger kids. Way the Warrior kid. That's for medium-aged kids. Mark's mission is the follow on to that. The new book three of Way the Warrior Kid is coming out. It's called Where There's a Will. It will be available.

It should be available right now. How you like that? For pre-order on Amazon. Discipline equals Freedom Field Manual. Extreme ownership. First book I wrote with my brother Laif Babin about combat leadership and how you can apply it to your business and to your life and the dichotomy of leadership,

which is the follow-up to that book. which is also about leadership, but it gets granular on those principles and on being a balanced leader, which is the best kind of leader to be. Eschon Front, that's my leadership consultancy. What we do is solve problems through leadership. It's me, Laif Babin, J.P. Danelle, Dave Burke. Good deal, Dave Burke. Flynn Cochran, Mike Sorrelli, Mike Bima, and Jason Gardner.

I just realized Jason Gardner doesn't really have a nickname. Yeah. It's a matter of time on that one. Go to Aslanfront.com if you want us to come and help you work through whatever issues you have in your organization. We'll do it with leadership. The muster coming up May 23rd and 24th in Chicago, September 19th and 20th in Denver, December 4th and 5th in Sydney, Australia. These are leadership conferences, events, gatherings. I'm sticking with musters.

Yeah, so it's a muster. That's what we call it. We call it the muster. and if you want to come to it, you've got to register pretty quick. All the ones that we've done, these are 7, 8, and 9 this year, all of them have sold out.

So these are going to sell out as well if you want to come get there early. I won't be able to help you. If you contact me a week prior to the event and say, hey, I really wanted to go, can you throw me a couple tickets? And I know you for, I went to high school with you or whatever.

I can't help you. You can't come. Don't be mad at me then. EF Online. That is our online training for leadership, for people that can't come to the muster, or you've got a big company with 28,000 employees, and you want them all to get trained in the leadership principles

that we teach at Eschalonfront. Go to eFonline.com, and you can get your whole organization aligned and running in the right direction. And we've got EF Overwatch as well, and what we're doing with EF Overwatch is taking proven leaders from spec ops and from combat aviation

and putting them into civilian jobs, civilian sector leadership. And don't always think you've got to hire somebody that knows everything technical about the situation. Hire someone for their leadership capability. It's easier to teach them the industry than it is to teach someone leadership.

So EFoverwatch.com, that's what you need. It's you need leadership. And if you want to connect with Ron. He's on the interwebs. He's kind of young on the interwebs. You're not super advanced. I'm trying to learn, especially with Instagram.

So I'm trying to still dip my toes into that. The toes are being dipped. Get that connection with the people who feel connected to the story at all. Yeah. It's awesome. If you do go on Twitter, it's Ron underscore 396 for Instagram,

which apparently is Ron's Ron's going to be the gram. He's in the gram. That's your main one. That's my focus. That's your focus. Okay. He's got the mission focus. And that is Ron underscore Scher, S-H-U-R-E-R. And then

we also, Echo Charles and I are on those as well. And we're also on Echo is at Echo Charles, and I am at Jocco Willink. Echo, you got anything else? No. Thank you, Ron. You're the man. Ron.

Congratulations. Wow. Any closing thoughts, Ron. So again, thank you guys so much for having me today. Whenever I come to talk about myself, I love talking about my love talking about my myself like I think most SF guys do. I'd rather, you know, my wife says that, you know, I became a green beret and it's the quiet professional. You know, you just go out, you do the mission, you don't talk about it. And then I moved over to the Secret Service, which is, you know,

has that kind of tagline, like standing on the sidelines of history. Like, I want to do cool things. I want to be there, but I never want anybody to talk about me or look at me or do any of that. But I appreciate the chance to come here today because, you know, when I got the metal, you know, as part of processing it and trying to figure out what did I want to do with it. You know, like right now from the global war on terrorism, we've been fighting for 17 straight years, like Green Berets, you know, that's where my heart is. Like they've been just out there getting it on. the entire time.

It's mind-boggling to me that I am the only living recipient right now representing that group. Robbie Miller, who was in Alpha 3-3, he was on the same deployment as me. He earned the Medal of Honor in January of 2008, barely taking the fight to the enemy, but unfortunately he was killed. He was the first Green Bray in this war, and now I'm the second, but I'm the first who can actually get out there. and share my story not so you can be like,

hey, Ron's awesome. Ron's just another dude on a team who had an okay day and a bat in a horrible day. So I can tell people that stories like that are going on constantly. And, you know, I'm just, I'm here to represent those guys who don't care. Do you, you know, you could give them,

give them an award, not give them an award, give them a pat on the back, they don't care. They just, they believe in the mission, they're out there doing the mission, they're missing birthdays and anniversaries and all those things for this country. And, you know, that's why I'm here, is just to remind people about those guys, not so much myself. And, you know, to be able to, you know, just share a little bit of that story. and then, you know, also to, you know, say thanks to my family for being so supportive. It's, you know, I mean, I'm, you know, I got a medal because I was, you know,

taking care of other people, but I have a huge support structure behind me. My wife, Miranda, like I said, was quizzing me through the Q-course. Those were our, maybe not our first date, but by the, Like week two or three. I'm like, okay, you're in the circle now. Now you got to help me because I can't give up a whole. I want to see you for a weekend, but I can't give up a whole weekend. And that's funny.

So just the support that she's given from then to now to having a baby or being pregnant with some green beret who's overseas. He comes back, sees the baby born. Like, all right, good luck with that kid. I got to go back and take care of people. so the amount of support that I've had there and then my kids just putting up with all this stuff too and just to be able to say thanks to them on a bigger front. I appreciate that.

And, you know, I touch on it a little bit with my cancer story. I definitely don't want to be, I don't want it to be some, like, sad story. Like, oh, this guy sucks to be him. yeah, I'm like, or anything. I just share it just because I know there were other people out there who are getting diagnosed with cancer, and they're getting those phone calls. And I remember that first call I got where it was like, you know, there's nothing you can do today.

And he meant like it was like a Friday afternoon. I just found out the day before, and it's going to the weekend. But that crush of that, well, there's nothing. you can do like what do you mean and so you know if i can just put out that story that there's always hope there's always more you can do and you know the cancer fight is not like combat where you get to go punch somebody in the face or shoot somebody in the face and and have that like the the cancer fight is you know getting up and eating when you don't want to eat it's the last thing in the world you want to do or you got to work out well let's just go for a walk you know like just

just those things so I just want to you know have a moment to be able to anybody who's being affected by that just say you know you're you're not alone it's tough it sucks however you got there doesn't matter don't worry about I don't I try not to worry for myself why I got it but it's just it's just the next challenge keep putting your one foot in front of the other and yeah that's life awesome man well um once again uh thanks thanks for coming on man it's been awesome meet you and thanks to zach your buddy zach who kind of linked us up and it was cool that he reached out to me and it it took us a long time to make this happen with everything that's going on in your world and i'm glad we're able to do it so thanks for coming on and absolutely my pleasure obviously thanks for your

for what you did for this country and you know not just for what you did for the country while you're in the military while you're in the Secret Service but also like right now setting an example for everyone for everyone that's out there for me for everyone to to follow and know that we can step up our game that we can go on we can do better and we can fight harder and that's what I see when I see you and thank you Thanks for doing that for me and for everyone else. And obviously thanks to everyone else out there in uniform. That is defending our flag and our country to those that are serving, to those that have served.

Thanks to all of you out there. Thanks to the police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers border patrol secret service first time mentioned for the secret service and all the other first responders thanks for keeping us safe here at home and for everyone else out there remember that you might have to fight uphill you might have to fight against a hardened enemy that has more guns and more people than you you and even in those situations. Remember the path of Ron Scher and the rest of Special Forces, ODA 3336.

Remember to stand by your brothers. Remember to pick up that weapon. Remember to put one foot in front of the other and remember to keep getting after it. And until next time, this is Ron Scher and Echo. And Jocko. Out.