Jocko Podcast - 241: There Will Be Pain. Life is Rough. Lessons From Being Shot 27 Times. "Perfectly Wounded" with Mike Day

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

0:00:00 - Opening 0:08:15 - Mike Day. "Perfectly Wounded" and shot 27 times. 2:50:24 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 2:58:06 - How to be capable and STAY ON THE PATH. 3:15:52 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 241 with Echo Charles and me Jocker Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I was the number one man on the door in my train, which meant I would be the first man into the room. Missions often included debates as to who would get to go first. All these guys were fearless and liked to train hop to the front of the stack, the most dangerous place to be first into a room. Seals love to fight. We all want to be the first into the fight,

and every seal is willing to accept the greater risk, especially for his buddy's sake. I had no apprehension about the possibility of my own death. My concern was for my platoon mates. While I can't speak for everyone, their actions this night proved they all felt the same way. Clarkie and I looked at each other. He smiled back at me.

We had practiced this maneuver a thousand times and had successfully done it on hundreds of missions just like this one. There was no rush of adrenaline or anxiety. We were composed, relaxed, and professional. We would simultaneously breach our respective doors and go to work clearing the rooms of enemy fighters and other potential threats. We launched on the signal,

a mutual wave of our rifle barrels. I breached the door to my room. It swung open to the right. I followed the door in as it opened, looked down the right wall, and saw it was clear. As I pivoted off my right foot to move down the left wall, I had the sensation that my body was being slammed

with a dozen sledgehammers. My entire body was now in the room, and the men behind me in my room clearing train were attempting to follow me in. The room was small 12 feet by 12 feet. My night vision goggles illuminated the darkness and I saw in clear view four of our targets aiming at me. All of them armed with automatic weapons and all of them firing at me. That right there is an excerpt from a book called Perfectly Wounded by a retired seal named Mike Day.

And I knew Mike when he was a young SEAL. He was maybe 10 classes ahead of me going through basic SEAL training. He started his career at SEAL Team 3. I started my SEAL career next door. I don't know, 50 meters away, 100 meters away over at SEAL Team 1. We crossed paths on what was my first deployment. We'd see each other around from time to time. He was always very cool to me.

From what I could tell, always cool to everyone. Nice guy. No ego. No attitude. And on the day that Mike writes about in that book, those insurgents that were shooting at him, they hit their mark. And not just once, not just twice, not just three or four or five or ten. times, but 27 times.

27 times. Mike was shot 11 times in his body armor and 16 times in his body. And you have to keep in mind, and this is a strange thing, but one single round or one single tiny piece of fragmentation can kill you. So to receive that many shots and survive is, well, it's some kind of miracle. And then to go beyond that, because the story doesn't end there, but to receive that many shots and actually fight back is beyond a miracle. And that's exactly what Mike did.

He fought back and he won. And it is an honor to have Mike here today to tell us about his. experiences, his life, and his lessons learned. He's got a bunch of them. So Mike, thanks for coming on, man. I appreciate you guys having me. Yeah, getting you out here. I know we're in the middle of, middle of COVID right now. You've been driving across country. I know you just got done with the total lottery challenge up in Utah. I wish I could have grabbed you there so you'd have to come all the way down here, but now you're telling me you're going to try and look to surf a little bit, which is awesome.

Well, I'm trying to. That looks like the surf's going to be picking up in Virginia since I'm not there. We've got a hurricane coming up to. That's the way it works, isn't it? You should have been there yesterday. Well, hey, man, I want to jump into this. Your book is, first of all, it's just, I mean, everyone, obviously I'm not going to read the whole book. I'm going to read some of it.

Just go and get the book right now. the detail that Mike goes into, this is a historical document about being in the SEAL teams, about being in combat. And then what's, in addition to that, the life stories that you bring to the table are important for people to understand, understand how people grow up in different situations, what it does to them, and how to get through those hard situations because you definitely went through some hard situations. So I'm gonna jump into it man Jump into this book and kind of talk about your past and how you grew up and it starts off like this he looked huge like a damn monster She was screaming and fighting back which only made it worse I was frozen in terror he bent her arm over his knee and like a twig cracked it I watched him break her arm

He yelled at me go get me a glass of water and I ran to the kitchen, filled a glass, and ran back to hand it to him. He drank it, then smashed the glass on a nearby table, and held the broken shard like a knife. He went after her again with this newly created blade. I jumped on his back to stop him. I think that's what finally snapped him out of his uncontrolled rage. I flew off him as he swung his arm, and I landed on the ground on my back.

He spun around to attack his unknown aggressor and realized it was me. I clearly remember seeing his expression dissolve from rage into one of guilt and shame. This is my earliest memory and my first encounter with a terrorist. It was 1976 in New Jersey and the terrorist was my father. His victim was my mother. I was five years old. That's your earliest memory? The skill teams were easy.

He made it easy. Yeah. This is, I believe, pretty prevalent in our society now. A lot of us have just terrible parents. And one of the best books I've ever read is The Body Keeps a Score. And he says in that book, the largest medical issue, the largest medical problem we have in this country is childhood trauma. Because you learn what you are in the first seven years.

You know, for me, luckily it wasn't to the point. where I became more of a victim and worried about what things were going to happen, my response was just a fight. So when I get scared or angry now, I fight when I get scared. A lot of people, when they get scared, the fighter flight is to cower. You can see in a lot of gun fights with people that aren't trained, one of the most prominent places to get shot. Somebody that doesn't know what they're doing is in their forearms and their hands.

It's because they're cowering. And when we get triggered, people know that. You don't jump around a corner to scare me because I'm going to smack you upside the head. That's my response. I don't flinch. My response is to go forward. And, you know, my father ingrained that in me. Then I got in the SEAL teams, and that was ingrained in me.

And that night in that gunfighted, there was no thoughts. That was all reaction. That was all muscle memory. I was terrified. I went through a terrified, a little bit of terrification. That's a new word. And once I got past that, it was just angry. And then everything was automatic.

You go on here in the book, my parents divorced not long after my father broke my mother's arm. My mother would soon start dating and eventually marry Tom, a black man, a rare union in the 1970s. My father held racist beliefs and my mother's marriage to a black man inflamed my father's racist sentiment. The divorce included a custody hearing. I was young, but I can distinctly recall someone in court, a lawyer, possibly the judge, asking me strange questions about Tom. Like, have you ever seen Tom naked? Have you ever seen Tom and your mother sleeping together?

The focus of the custody battle, which should have been my father and his treatment of us, was instead trained on me, an innocent bystandard. Interracial relationships were not the social norm in the 1970s. I'm sure the court knew my father beat my mother and us kids, but they still awarded him full custody regardless. My hunch is that the courts were so biased at the time that they decided my younger brother and I would be better off with a wife-beater and abusive father, be raised by an interracial couple.

All speculation, but I mean, the 70s were kind of like that. Yeah, and where was this? This was New Jersey. Still New Jersey. And they're still married, and I got two brothers, one's in the Coast Guard from that marriage. And he's a rescue swarver. Oh, not a rescue. He's a crew chief on the birds that go out that carry the rescue swimmers.

So how old are you at this point? You must have been six years old or something like that? Yeah, right about that, about six. I'm thinking, you know, when I picture you, I don't picture the old bastard that I see in front of me right now. I picture this young kid with blonde hair and, you know, blue eyes. There's a picture of me in there. Yeah, yeah, no, that's when I opened out, I was like, oh, yeah, I know this guy.

Not this one. Yeah. So I'm sure you're looking at me thinking the same thing. You know, my dad was driving around his hometown. We haven't changed that much, really. Have I shaved this? Yeah, yeah. No, you don't look that much different,

except for you used to have the freaking, the blonde locks, bright blonde locks. I do miss them. No, what I'm thinking, you know, there you are in court, this little Aryan kid, and the judges are looking at, you know, the interracial couple. And like you said, I mean, you said it's a, what did you say?

It's an assumption. But to think of any other reason why they would decide to send you with a known child abuser is, it's hard to come up with a different reason. Well, that's another reason why this book's really good. I don't think anybody be able to pick that up. Nobody gets for this life without trauma. And it's a lot more prevalent than I think we understand child abuse and usually look at the child trafficking. going on right now. There are just some really bad parents, really bad people out there, and people are going to

suffer trauma. You've got to build the resiliency. It's training. They helped us build the resiliency we required to do what we did in the SEAL teams, and it's just training. If you sit on the couch and eat Twinkies all day and watch TV, anytime something other than that comes up that causes stress, you're just not going to be. you to be able to handle it.

You've got to train to be able to handle stress. Yeah, and then, I mean, the, that sounds awesome. That sounds awesome. But the reality is, I mean, you're probably this small percentage of people that can get out of a situation like this and move in a positive direction. I don't know what the percentage is, but obviously there's some percentage of people

that go through these traumatic experiences as kids, and they end up, you know, they end up in jail on drugs and whatever else. Yeah, I mean, there's something along the way that made you There's not a whole lot of difference between me and 80% of the prisoners here in California. I just had the proper opportunity at the right time. Because if I didn't join the Navy, I might be. I'd be running MS-13.

I'm going to come after me. The amount of. of seals and this sounds freaking horrible to say. Look, there's some guys that are saints in the seal teams for sure. But the amount of guys in the seal teams, if you just took a broad cut of the seal mentality, there is an element of the criminal mentality in there. Like, oh, if you want to join the Navy,

we know where this is going to end up. For sure. Well, we have to deal with criminals. Yes. I mean, a lot of people think that when we go to war, I'd venture to say that 75, percent of the people that we're dealing with are not ISIS or Al Qaeda. They're just a criminal element that are profiteers off of, off of the current, I mean, look what we got

going on in this country. Whatever mayhem is going on. Yeah. They, they, they, they don't, they don't care. They're just like, hey, I can make some money off of that. Yeah. Look at it at the religion in this country. You know, we've got how many Christians and then what level are they practicing? You know, it's the same thing with Muslims. Yeah, they're Muslim, but are they really practicing? Are they really going to follow what they think is right? Or are they going to take the path of least resistance,

which is what humans will do? You continue on here. Fast forward a little bit. My father was a sailor. When the Navy issued him new orders, we moved to Pennsylvania from New Jersey. After the divorce, my father remarried. Our new stepmother soon became pregnant, giving birth to my first half-sister.

Two years later, she gave birth to my half-brother. Trauma attracts trauma. It has its own distinct language and behaviors. We would be raised by two people who'd been severely traumatized as children. My new stepmother was a natural fit for our family. She too had a history of childhood abuse, both physical and mental. I don't know much about the early years of her life other than her parents would lock her in a closet for long periods of time. She was put up for adoption and taken in by a loving couple.

My stepmother would grow up to be both victim and perpetrator. She would alternate between coercing my father to beat us and slapping us around herself. She and my father would get into their own fights too. She would fight back even though she had no way of winning. He was 6'2 and weighed 240 pounds. One of the worst beatings I ever endured was when I was eight. My brother and I had gone out on a winter day and pelted a car with snowballs. The driver was pissed as it, but if he'd known the price we were about to pay for our transgressions,

He may have given us a pass. We ran to our house with a driver of the car chasing us. He knocked on our front door and told my parents what we had done. My father and stepmother had a friend over at the time. They were all drinking. My parents were outraged. Our father sent us to the basement, an ad hoc torture chamber of sorts where he made us strip naked before tying our hands to a pole so we were facing each other. He whipped us with his belt so hard after another 15 minutes he'd worked up a sweat. All the while my stepmother and her friend sat on the base. steps sipping their booze urging him to beat us harder and longer when he was done my brother and I were both badly bloodied and bruised my father's violence escalated as we grew he would smear toothpaste on the nylon belt when he whipped us so we would sting as it cut and bruised us I'm not sure where he picked up this technique but it worked his routine was to bring me into the basement and make me drop my pants so that my bare ass was available he would wind up and rip into my bare back With that belt holding onto my arm as I twisted in a circle trying to escape. I recall a week that was prefaced with him telling us I know that you will be bad kids this week

He beat us bloody and then he went back to work This was some crazy stuff. He was so nuts. He set his alarm for 4 a.m. to wake us up and beat us for no reason whatsoever before he went to work We got beat and we went back to bed hardly a typical morning routine for a first grader my childhood was a real life horror movie I couldn't escape. It was terrible about that. A lot of people have worse. I got out of it. A lot of people don't.

Yeah. Where this ends up, you say finally at the age of 12, after years of enduring his drunken rages and endless beatings, I decided to fight back. One night I found him passed out drunk on the couch. I knew that he was passed out because the crotch of his blue jeans was darkened

from having wet himself. I grabbed a baseball bat and walked back and forth for about five minutes debating my intentions until finally I mustered up my courage. And with an overhead axe swing, I drilled him hard on the chest with the baseball bat. It felt great, a totally empowering rush. I didn't kill him, but I sure surprised him because he immediately woke up from his booze-induced blackout with a look of total confusion that quickly turned evil. He looked at the bat in my hands and realized that that was what just bounced out off his chest.

I knew by the look in his eyes he was going to kill me. He chased me upstairs to my room where I jumped out of my second-story window into a thorny rose bush. I looked up to see my enraged father stick his head out only to pull it back in. I could hear his pounding footsteps from outside as he ran downstairs. He was determined to hunt me down, chasing me through the woods around our house in the dark. He couldn't get through the thick underbrush, but I was too terrified to slow down. He never caught me. I spent the night at a neighbor's house, and the next day when I returned home, he had forgotten all about it.

In 1983, my father was transferred to Miramar near San Diego, California. That's where he totally lost it. He was drinking, causing problems at work, had been arrested several times for defeat, defecating in the aisles of stores. Some mental health professionals describe this peculiar public display as elimination disorder. It's a behavior that's been identified in several serial killers and manifests out of extreme anger at someone or something. I was 12 years old when my stepmother received word that my father would be medically discharged from the Navy and institutionalized with schizophrenia and a host of other psychiatric conditions. He would spend the rest of his life in an inpatient facility or an assisted living environment. My father has since died.

He was very sick and really broken. He did a terrible job as a parent. However, I know now that he did his best, that he did the best he could. I don't hold any harsh feelings toward him. He really sucked as a father. Dang. So, I mean, it's just, it's beyond, I mean, he had like legitimate, serious mental issues. Well, his father was worse than him.

He just wasn't the one that was able to break the cycle. I think he tried to. It just ate him up. I mean, his father used to chase him, his brother and his sister around with butcher knives and threatened to kill him. he never actually threatened to kill us. I mean, but that thought's always there. His father used to actually make that threat. I never met my grandfather.

And was your grandfather already dead or was, quite honestly, I don't know if they just kept us from him or if he was, or if he had passed. I met his mother, you know, looking back on that as a kid, it was strange. She was broke. Just a broken. Just a broken woman?

Just strange. Just not normal. I mean, go over for Thanksgiving dinner and everybody's eating Kentucky fried chicken, which I don't want to complain about it. I mean, you got food, but I'm not going to complain with having food, but it was just, it was not a normal atmosphere. You could just feel that it was weird. I mean, and his sister grew up in a psychiatric ward.

she went in when she was really early, really young. So I don't know what kind of what was done to her. Some serious darkness there. I mean, we got that going on now in the world. It's pretty prevalent, you know, just shitty parents that abused their kids. Don't know how to be parents because they were abused. It's really not an excuse. I mean, my kids tell me, well, I've got old kids.

You've got a 20-year-old and a 29-year-old. and they've always told me we wish he would spank us rather than yell at us and I was like it's because you never would smack you might change your mind if you've got got an ass open going on here I was about 12 or 13 years old and my stepmother

became our legal guardian and seized her newfound freedom by dating a guy in a local in a local rock and roll band named Beachy and hosting parties at our house our home quickly turned into a constant party with its own in-house band and all the characters that came with it people,

strangers would sit around my house all day getting drunk and stoned. On one particular occasion, my stepmother was partying with Beachy and his band of losers when she tried to smack me. I caught her arms, spun it behind her back, then swept the legs out from under, dumping her on her ass. That episode got me and my brother sent to Maine to live with our maternal grandparents who we hadn't seen in years for that summer. My half siblings were still young at the time. I still remember looking over my shoulder and seeing my half brother lying in his crib and my half sister lying in her bed as I made my way out of the house. That is a funny thing about trauma because that's the only thing I remember those two.

I mean, I talk to them now, but it's as if they weren't even in the same house with us. I don't remember them. Were they getting any different treatment? I don't remember them. That's wild. And so you were like 12 or 13. I don't know. You were, what team were you at?

Two? Was it team two? Was it team one, team two, team. My brother did like eight years at team two. From when to win. Sometime after 2010. I was gone. What year, I was gone?

I got out in 2010. Yeah, I retired in 2010. He was in the teams for like 10 years. That's awesome. But just no memory of them. None at all. That's so wild. The only thing I can remember is looking over my shoulder when I was walking out of the house.

Now, I can tell you this is what I think. think about memories. Like, I don't go back to the town where I grew up very often. And so I don't, because I don't like fight, when I say very often, I mean for 10 years at a time, right? And I don't see all those people that I kind of grew up with. So I don't fire those memories. Right?

I don't fire those memories very often. So they just like fade. And I'll go back there and see someone. They're like, oh, yeah, I remember when you did this. Oh, I remember that girl? Remember this and this thing over here? And I'm always like, I feel bad because they're telling me vivid stories about my own childhood. And I just don't remember it.

I think it's because I just don't, didn't fire those. You can read studies on people's memories, especially in stressful situations. And like I said, my citation is not accurate. They gave me credit for saving six women and children that were supposedly in the same room. I was in a gunfight with four dudes with automatic weapons. They'd all be dead. The guy that saw that, looked past one of our guys that had been shot. and killed to see the six women and children in a totally different room didn't even see

the guy laying in the doorway. You just saw the six women and children and superimposed them in the room that I was in. They'd all be dead. Hundreds and hundreds of rounds were fired in that room in a matter of minutes. So now you're heading up to Maine. That fall, my brother and I moved to Maine from Virginia Beach to live with our mother and her second husband, Tom. It was only after we arrived that I learned about how my stepmother and father deliberately

and systematically tried to alienate me and my mother. my brother from our mother. She showed us a box filled with years worth of Christmas and birthday cards. It had been returned without the check. She'd written for us. My father and stepmother had cashed them all and kept the money for themselves. Despite this, I feel the same about my stepmother as I do about my father. She survived my father's violence and did the best she could.

I don't hold any harsh feelings towards her either. Tom and my mother never hit us. They were patient and did their best apparent some severely abused young minds. If the courts hadn't been so biased, we could have skipped the. seven years of abuse and lived in Virginia Beach all along. But as I would learn, everything happens for a reason. Never one made it through buds. I made it through eighth grade and entered Green Run high school where I lasted until my

junior year when my wrestling coach caught me smoking pot in the school bathroom. This caused my exposure. Was that a public school, Green Run? Yeah, it's hard to get kicked out of that one. It's actually, it was actually called Gang Run. It's hard to get kicked out of that one. Shortly after being expelled, I had a run in with the police. A cop busted me with a bag of weed.

At the time, any amount over an ounce was a felony. The cop grabbed a bag and said, is this an ounce? I said, yes. He opened the bag, grabbed a pinch, and chucked it onto the street. Then said, is this an ounce now? No, I replied. That cop saved me from a felony charge and may have even saved my life. I'd like to find that guy one day and thank him.

There was a good cop trying to take care of this freaking knucklehead kid. I was like 14 or 15 years old. So from, so you get down. I spent almost 30 days in jail now. That's where I learned how to play, what was it, Pinochle? Learned how to play a bunch of card games. Oh, man.

So then you end up in. Spades. I learned how to play spades. Spades. That comes in handy on the, on the ships once you're in the Navy. You ended up in the job corps, which is like, you know, you're doing vocational training.

that doesn't seem to work out too great. 1988, you got a neighbor, retired Navy diver who tells you, you're going to end up dead or in jail if you keep this up. You should join the SEAL teams instead. They'll pay you to do all the things you're doing to get in trouble right now. He was giving good advice.

Accurate statement. He totally saw it. He totally saw it. His kids were crazier than me. Oh, man. You know, there's that attraction of violence, man, and just mayhem when you're a kid. Well, it wasn't violence. It was just, you know, tying ropes in one tree and lowing another one and sliding down it on handlebars

and just jumping over ridiculous jumps on our bikes, you know, smashing frames on our bikes and just stuff I won't admit to. So you head down and you're going to join the Marines. I did. I tried to. And then you got rejected by the Marine Corps for having a GED. And I actually met a guy that was a recruiter back then. That wasn't 88 or 89.

And they had a restriction. You had to have a high school diploma. A GED wouldn't get you in. Which my guardian angels knew. I'd have done four years in the Marine Corps. I would have got out of it. I couldn't have done that. There's no way I could have done that.

Yeah. I mean, I like working with them. But pre-9-11, the Marine Corps was a lot different. Yeah. I mean, we didn't get along too well pre-9-11. Yeah, the Marine Corps is a completely different environment. Yeah. And, and...

I mean, they do what they do. It's actually more dangerous than what we do. Yeah. And their day-to-day life, freaking more Spartan life, you know, especially if you're an infantryman, like, that's... Patrol to contact? Yeah, go get some. Wait until someone shoot you. It's,

I go get them. It sucks. I like to wait until they're asleep. That's the goal. You wrap up here saying, my childhood was not exactly idyllic, but it's what happened to me, and I'm very grateful for all of it.

The wounds of my childhood trauma served as the foundation of some truly excellent resiliency training. That's a very positive way of looking at this, Mike. Resiliency is a conditioned, respond to physical and emotional trauma and stress.

It's a never-ending process. of understanding, endurance, evaluation, acceptance, and application that continues to help me get through some very difficult situations. Childhood trauma, especially the kind perpetrated by parents, can be some of the most damaging because it can cause children to feel unlovable. Some children who feel unlovable can become unlovable adults, and some of those become unlovable parents, thus repeating the cycle. The unlovable live lonely, tragic lives. if my hurts, mistakes, but whippings and insights can help you overcome yours, then this book has value for both of us. Hey, I'm not the only one with mommy and daddy issues.

Jack. Yeah, I got some codependency shit going on. You know, I tell people, I mean, we all got insecurities. And I like, Navy SEALs got insecurities? It's one of the most insecure people I know are Navy SEALs. They're like trying so damn hard. Yeah, yeah. I always laugh.

I can't let anybody know. I'm weak here. I always laugh at the teams if someone says, hey, you know, Mike, Mike Day's really good at a parachute. Someone will chime in the back.

Yeah, but he's a slow runner. You know, like, I am. Yeah, exactly, but somebody's going to let you know.

Yeah, but running breeds cowardness. So, always. A bunch of cowards. And so now you go to boot camp to Buds. After signing on the dotted line, I spent the next six months working out,

doing my best not to get in trouble until I finally boarded the bus for Meps and facility in Southern. in Virginia. Meps is the way station for all new military recruits. There I found myself part of an interesting blend of Americana, one that included all shape, sizes, colors, and temperatures of young men and women who were leaving the civilian world, getting their first taste of the U.S. military.

You know what? That's an accuracy because I went to Great Lakes. Well, there you go. I did have a writer with me. I missed that one. That was all dudes up there. All the women were going to Orlando. What about Meps?

Yeah, Meps was right. Even at Meps? Even at Meps. Yeah, they were sending all. the women at the time to Orlando. Everybody goes to Great Lakes now. That place sucks. What is MEPs?

I heard that before. Military. Military entry processing station. So you actually enlist and you wait a period of time before you go. They just snatch you so you don't go out. Go do something else. Like a halfway house kind of situation. Well, you're not under any kind of restriction or any kind of order

or under the UCMJ yet. you sign a contract, and they give you a date that you're going to leave. So I was only on the MAPS for like six months. I've talked to kids that have been 18 months. They hit some kid in high school, you know, waiting for them to graduate. Get them young. I was 17 years old when I joined. Anywhere else to go?

I found this funny, and this is also probably why you say that the Marine Corps wouldn't worked out great for you over a long period of time. You say, I never in my life wanted to quit anything more than I did Navy boot camp. Miserable. Bro. Yeah.

I mean, there's... Folding underwear. Oh, and Great Lakes, too. January. Oh, January 4th. Five feet of snow, 30 below. Man.

I hate the cold weather. I'd rather sweat. You end up... You said, I think the company commander saw some potential of me and knew that I was bored because I kept volunteering to wake up at 4 a.m. to do what most people dreaded. They decided to give me some extra responsibility. The divisions recruit, the divisions recruit master at arms. When I was going through boot camp, I got made like a squad leader or something. I got fired from that one. Oh, bummer.

I talked about that in the book. The guy wiped a bugger on my pillow, and right as the company commander was walking in the door, I punched him. Yeah, so that, so you got rolled back graduation week of boot camp and then I get well, I got rolled out of in Buds out of 166 and the 168 and I got rolled graduation week of 168. Just the irony of that. Then you may both make me cry before you went to Bud's so you get rolled back in in in boot camp, which I didn't even know there was such a thing as getting rolled back in boot camp. It was only one week though, which was cool. Oh, that's right. Because where you go? Great Lakes or?

I went to Orlando. But you still had to do that stupid passing review, all that marching garbage. Well, nobody was coming to visit me for graduation. I got into that fight because he put a bugger on my pillow. I did knock him out. I had knocked that kid out. Well, he was not a kid. I was a kid.

He was a lot older than me. And so I didn't have to do the passing review. They just made me like a parking lot of attendant. I didn't want to do it anyway. Yeah. All that practice. Yeah. And we were in a Nazi company, too.

All the flags. Remember those stupid flags for? I don't even remember what they were for. Bro, I actually. Best marchers, best, you fold your underwear the best. Yeah, this is no. Like, I have very limited memories in boot camp. I hated it.

Yeah, I know that I hated it. But I don't remember a lot about it. I remember, like, the highlights of it. Probably the biggest. I remember just. You don't remember shoveling snow. No, I definitely don't remember. It's not in Orlando.

I remember sweating. I remember like sweat, big giant pools of sweat. I don't know how to have it on there. I remember the space shuttle took off while we were standing out there. Like there was a space shuttle launch and we had to sit there. Yeah, I was like, oh, that's cool. But don't remember much from boot camp. So you go from there to C-School and then you get orders, get orders to go to the USS Carl Vinson.

Yeah, my first set of orders were to the Carl Vinson via Nuke C-School, nuke machinist mate, C-School. God. So basically for everyone that doesn't know, that means hello regular Navy, no no buds, no seal teams. And I got to watch those guys go through school there that was at the same place. I was going through A school. They were a bunch of zombies, like 12 hours of class. Oh, it's free.

They had a night class and they had a morning class. I don't want a nuke. Yeah, that's a freaking hard job, man. It's a freaking hard job. I got kicked out of high school. They wanted me to be a nuke. Yeah. Whoever was running your career, Corp, consulting was not.

I'm doing a great job, dude. They should have beeline you straight to the freaking buds. But then you, this is kind of crazy, though. You, like, requested Captain's Mass. No. I just went to his office. So you didn't even, so that's even better. You didn't even request Captain Mass.

You just said, I'm going to go talk to the old man. Yeah, kind of like, you know, group two, you know, what was her name that was up there for, like, longer than anybody was in the SEAL team, the secretary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I talked to the secretary, and I was like, I got a problem with my orders. I had my orders. And I don't know.

how I got in there, but she let me get in there. And I think the guy was just amazed at some E2 who's coming to his office, some boot. I'm like real boot. That's insane, dude. And I told him, hey, look, I passed the test for the screening test for Buds. There was 50 of us, only like 10 of us passed. I was told I was going to get this on my contract, and this is what I got. He was like, do you understand that you're not supposed to be doing it this way?

That's kind of how the comment. I was like, I kind of played in between. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't. can care because there was no way I was going to nuke sea school so whatever I had to do I was going to I was going to do it and then the dude was cool and just said all right and he took care of you I got beat a little bit but I'm beat not like buds I mean did you ever try to count how many push-ups you didn't one day in buds no and you get up to a thousand did you ever I tried really you know I need to lose count yeah I never even thought about the 282's hitting or 72

hitting the back of the head. Forget what number you're on. I drove the chowl once, and this guy didn't make it through. He was such a big teddy bear. Cruise just couldn't run. And we were late for chow. And I had a Volkswagen Beetle. I was like, oh, we'll go get chow.

Class was already gone. So now we're fast forward into buds. We're jumping into buds. This is this first phase? No, it's cool, man. So this is this first phase? This was, I can't even remember. But the brakes went out on the thing,

and the cross intersection at 75. Yeah. So I crash into that thing because my brakes go out. I only hit it at like 25, 30 miles an hour. Both of us hit the windshield, starred the windshield. Windshield's out in the middle of 75 as the Bud's class and the instructors drive by us. And like, oh, God, 1,500 eight-count bodybuilders that weekend.

Damn. That weekend, both of us. We cheated. Yeah. You pay for it. Yeah. Sometimes you can't buy threes. Sometimes you can't buy five.

You can't do 1,500. Did you just stand out of the first phase outside the first phase office or something and just sit there and do them? It was first phase, said, yeah. It was right by the bell. How do you, was it like, did you do like $750 a day or something like that? No, we just, when nobody was looking, we just, I counted. Sometimes they sat in front of us, we'd count by once. As soon as they left, we were like, 500 and 500.

Five. Did you have any idea what you were getting into when you went to Buds? Like what comprehension level did you add? I basically, yeah. I heard it was going to be hard. And that's kind of a mindset I've always gotten out. And it works. I don't know if it worked for other people,

but I always think it's going to be worse than it really is. So a lot of times it's just hard to get started. Like how good of it, I know you only were in high school for a couple years. But how good of a, How good, well, did you, I know you wrestled. I played football, I wrestled. When I grew up, I played all sports, soccer.

I boxed a little bit. Hence the knockouts. I remember I was knocking myself out playing football. I was, I was vicious. Just getting after it? I played basketball. Never really scored a point. My coach would just say, go foul that guy.

That was me. So, but you had some good athletic background. Yeah. I like playing sports. Yeah. So you, but you had no knowledge of buds like, hey. None at all.

Did you do, did you, did you think about, like I was, I was talk about, you know, when I was quote, getting ready for buds,

no idea what to expect. I just knew that you ran a lot and you swam a lot. So I ran a lot and I swam a lot. But I would do, you know, four sets of pull-ups and be like, all right,

you know, that was a good workout. And it just had no idea that you were going to get to buds and you were going to do hundreds of pull-ups in an hour, like more than you could count. Well, they do. Don't expect you to be able to turn a 14-mile run when you show up.

Yeah. It is progressive. Yeah. I think they're even getting smarter about it now. They're definitely getting smarter about it. But I should up. And guys are, the guys are getting smarter about it. I guess that's my point.

Some of them abuse it, too. What do you mean? You can only keep me in the water for 10 minutes because the water is 58 degrees. they know that when do you think that chart became a thing after us are you being serious

like do you think it is after us because I it is after us yeah I mean they would just it was no freaking rules it seemed like they probably looked at the student body

as a curve and if somebody went in the hypothermia I might need to take them out now I remember that part I remember them walking down the line and being like you could hear him like

Hey, I thought this man, he's getting wrong. They shine the flashlight. Yeah, like, this guy's getting high pain. But if no, if you didn't hear that, then it's like back in the water. And they would just keep you doing that until someone started getting hypothermia. Maybe two people started getting hypothermia. And then they'd be like on to the next evolution. There wasn't no graph that they were following.

No, but they do now. I think it's good. There's good and bad to it. I wish the students didn't know it. That's part of the game. Not knowing. And you also met your wife while you. You were in fourth phase, so the old fourth phase was you were there basically standing by to class up.

I don't know, I don't know what they call it now. Fourth phase, I think. It's still called fourth phase. So you were there. Which is weird. Okay. And that's when you met your future wife. And then rolling into first phase, drownproofing.

You call rescue swimmer, life saving. Yeah, so I did work with the writer, so some of the stuff is changed a little bit. The whole process of going with this. What is that word program that you've got to use when you're editing? Sometimes some things just get by. Like, man, I can't figure it this program. Yeah, plus when you look at something over and over again, you're just going to miss stuff. It happens.

Well, and when you work with this today and stuff that they think is interesting. is I'm like I don't want to talk about this Jack So there was something The guy I worked with Felt was interesting

And you get the proper terminology Because to me Drownproofing was We didn't lose many people to that Yeah drown proofing Drownproofing was pretty easy You'd lose a few guys Yeah

You used a few guys in not tying Lose a few guys in The underwater swim The underwater swim We did lose a few guys In life saving Because life saving saving was a

interesting. Because it was a subjective thing where they could look at a guy and be like, hey, this guy, we don't like this guy. They're just trying to drown you. Yeah. And then they're going to drown you

when they don't like you because they have that power. And do the whole waist push and go down there and tug on their shit and make them comply. It's a scrap for sure. It is.

I mean, that's what they teach them. You don't let them grab onto you. You got to get them away from you and sometimes you got to hurt them. But man, a good punch to the gut. You know,

that'll calm them down. They definitely. They're going to live. There were some guys that they just weren't going to make it. You know, like a guy that they didn't like or whatever had a bad attitude or they thought it was a punk. He wasn't going to get out of the water. Those people have a history too. It's not just one evolution.

It's a repetitive poor performance. Yeah. I think it seems like there's, are you think they're stricter about that now where there's less subjectivity? Or you think it's the same? Well, I would just have to say that I know there's some things that have changed. And a lot of guys would be like, oh, I think Buds is easier. But the attrition rate's the same. Yeah.

So they're not making any more seals. No. I mean, even with a class that's twice the size, I mean, we would start with like 125 guys to get 20. Now they're starting with, what, 200 something? Yeah. I think they start with 165 and they still get whatever 20% of that is. They're still only getting that.

It's still 75, 80% of attrition. So it's still, I don't think. it's any easier than it used to be. No, I've gone down there. I talk to friends that are down there. They're like, no, it's not easier. The other thing that's... One of evolution might be different.

That's, like, for instance, when I went through, we had twin 72s. They're not as buoyant as the twin 80s. So it was a little bit harder to tread water with those damn tanks because they're steel and they weren't as emboient. You know what else they wear, like, lightweight boots now, not jungle boots,

not old school jungle boots. That was a difference, too, that when I was going through It was everything was in boots. Yep. They were getting ready to transition to the shoes. So the times were different. And it almost didn't translate, you know, going from boots and then lowering the times because you're in sneakers.

It was almost hard. Yeah. I just know we wore boots. And then when I eventually picked up what they started wearing, I was like, oh, that's way nicer. Yeah. They were issuing us those garbage new balance, which gave me shin splints. Oh, just the running shoes. Yeah.

Like, when you, they didn't, my legs were better off in boots than running in sneakers. The sneakers hurt me more. So, what, a 7-10 pace? That's not bad. And boots. Yeah. But the thing, that's the other thing that's, what is it, deceiving. The thing that's deceiving about buds is they go, hey, it's only a 32-minute four-mile time run.

That's an eight-minute mile when you first get there. You go, oh, that's, I can be latin all power. Yeah, but you just did a two miles swim this morning. You just did a two miles swim and then you did it. And then it's five miles, just five miles to go to chow three times a day. Yeah. You run five miles every day just to eat. Yeah.

And not to mention that four mile timed run ain't four miles. I don't know what they do now, but I know there was times where I run as hard as I could and I wouldn't be able to, I would be like barely passing. Well, they do that to every class. They have that one run that's long. So everybody fails. It's a mind game. Psychological warfare. We were doing the five mile time run.

And that extra mile was so much harder exponentially just to put out for that much longer, just one mile. And they actually had to get rid of that because it was injuring people and a lot of people were failing it. That's what they were pinging me on trying to get me kicked out. But I brought a watch. I was passing. Yeah. So how did that happen? So you brought a watch because that's another thing that's hard is you don't, you're not allowed to have a watch.

And we were running in UDTs. So you're what phase is this? Do you remember? This is third phase, which was die phase back then. And so you failed one run? He was failing me on all of them and everybody behind me. Okay, so you had a beef with an instructor with, we're not going to mention names, but he was the phase officer. He was the dive phase officer. And you know the game that used to be played during room inspections. I mean, you were going to get a failure. You're going to get went to Sandy. And he was in front of me and he was like, why do you have? all this stolen equipment in your locker. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about.

So he's talking about like extra knives, U-T's and CO2s garbage. Right. And I was like, I don't have any of that stuff in my locker. I was just up there. And the conversation just got to the point where he was like, well, one of the two things is happening. You're lying or I'm lying? I was like, well, it's not me, so it must be you.

But it wasn't like a disrespectful thing. I was answering a damn question. I was just answering his question. He said one of the two things is happening. What is it? I was like, well, it's not me. It must be you. Damn.

E2. Damn. Narcissistic lieutenant at the time. That's freaking crazy. You had like, you had more balls than me going through buds. That wasn't balls. I was just answering a question. I don't know, man.

I don't know if I would have said, it ain't me. I guess it depends on how you said it too. It was not coming from a place of disrespect. Okay. I was just totally answering the damn question. You were just like, I am not lying. I'm not lying. It's you.

You asked. I'm answering your question. So he didn't like that. And so now he kind of had it out for you. And then he sicked that guy we were talking about earlier on me. So he started just harassing me. You know, third phase was a lot of classroom. You know, dive physics and all that garbage.

But every break I was getting wet and Sandy doing pull-ups, doing push-ups. She was just beating me up. And then he started failing me on the runs. And I talked about it in the book. I think I actually name him, the guy named Doc Flynn. Oh, yeah. I went and told them, I was like, hey, look, I brought a watch. They're failing me.

I mean, I'm passing these things by like two minutes, and they're failing me and everybody behind me. That's kind of a weird move because you were breaking the rules. Well, I had to. Yeah, I know, but that's a weird move, man. That's a weird move to be like. I always done it, though. I went and talked to the commanding officer.

Yeah, dude, like I said, you got more balls than I had. I just didn't know any different. Yeah. I wasn't doing it because I thought it was having balls. It was just, I don't know how else to get out of this. I'm going to fix this. So you're not allowed to bring a watch And you brought a watch

You timed yourself Yeah I tied it to the You remember the buckles on the UDTs Yeah I tied it to a piece of like 550 cord And hung it down there Cool And so you pan

And how did you single out Doc Flynn As the guy that you would trust He was just one of the guys in the phase That really never beat us up For no reason He seemed like a fair dude Yeah, I mean, there was two kinds of instructors there. There was guys hiding out that never really did anything.

And then there was guys that back in those days, too, there wasn't a whole lot going on. But guys that were operational that just needed a break. So, you know, some of them just beat us up just because they thought they were the gatekeepers. You know, kind of like going to some of these army schools. I'm the gatekeeper. We have to have an nutrition rate. And I'm going to make sure you go through something as hard as I used to or I did. Because their fish story is Buds was a lot harder when I went through.

and this guy was a skinny little punk but he later got administratively separated for something else he'd done so karma's a bitch yeah so then but Doc Flynn was like all right cool and then he ran the next run

and he said I'm gonna run I'll run the pace and if you finish in front of me you pass Doc Flynn legit so he ran it and this was a five mile time run which they got rid of he came across the finish line and you know what happens when you're the cutoff guy.

How many times can you be the cutoff guy every damn time? Yeah, no, that's one of my LPO's who you know. You know, when I used my first LPO and I was like coming out of buds, I'm asking him Bud's question. I was, were you ever in the Goon Squad? And he goes, I was the cutoff for the Goon Squad. He's at every single run. He was the cutoff for the Goon Squad.

You know what? That was the only time I got into the Goon Squad too the whole time through Buzz. was all in those timed runs. And what I was good at was winning that first race. So you could get secured from the Goon Squad? So then what happened? Well, he came across the finish line, and when you're the cut off for the Goon Squad,

you get sent to the water. That's where you wind up when you fail that run. He comes across a couple minutes after we finished and we're getting hammered. And he was like, what's going on with those guys? And he was like, well, they all failed. And Flynn was like, I just did it. I just passed it

They're like two minutes in front of me But it It got hidden because I went to a A review board And still got rolled back Dang I got rolled back That was graduation week

And I got rolled back To Drager Face At least I didn't have to do the open circuit Garbage again Yeah and this was when Dive phase was third phase When I went through A year or two later

Dyer phase was second phase because they would still get rid of a lot of guys during dive phase yeah to me i thought it was the hardest phase die phase yeah yeah i think i think that's why they moved it to that well we lost more people there you don't lose people in lane warfare yeah yeah you got to be pretty stupid i think we lost two guys you got to be pretty stupid yeah one of the guys was a good dude i think he did something that they didn't like and they got rid of him he was an officer too personality difference. That all happen.

Crazy. It's a pretty critical community. It self-regulates, though. It works. It does indeed. And then where are you at? SQT? Did you go through, you went through STT, right?

At a team? Well, it was kind of a weird one. It wasn't SQT like it is now. It was kind of thrown together. At the team? Because you went to Team 3. Yeah, but they cooperated with the other teams. So I went through whatever they called.

I think it was called STT at the time. And it was just because we had training sales at each of the teams, and they would run it. Yeah. So we were meshed together with Team 1,35, and it was kind of ad hoc. And then they jammed us into the platoons, and the platoons pretty much took care of us.

We didn't have our Tritons back then either. Guys show up to the teams now with the tridents. We actually had a different NEC when we should, what was it, a 5320? 5th, yeah. And then it was up to your platoon to decide when you got it. They started giving the guys tridents in SQT so they'd show up to the team. Guys were taking the new guys that showed up with their tridents and making them, painting them blue for a nerd.

But they still kind of kept up the tradition. Like you can go back into platoon huts now and now the platoons with the new guys. So like you don't get your trident. Even though it's been put in your admin record, we're not going to give it to you until we say it's, and then they'll have like the fish tank or you. You've seen one of those Pac-Man frogs. I've seen a Pac-Man frog with all the tridents in it,

and they've got to keep the frog alive. Oh, that's legit. It's a fun community. Yeah, and there's, you know, you talk about some of the fun in the community. Best college I ever went to. Yeah, some of the fun of the community, which is called hazing.

Zero tolerance. It never happens. Yeah. Yeah. See, that's a good thing about hazing, especially, well, probably now also. I know there's a zero tolerance and it doesn't happen, but if you don't get hazed, they don't like you. They don't trust you.

So if you get hazed, they're like, okay, this guy's all right. So it's like a privilege. Thank you, sir. Can I have another? There ain't enough of you to hurt me. Not enough of you. One of the things you said here is you're getting your bird and this all sounded good. I just brought back memories.

The commanding officer was the last guy to pounded my trident. He had a big grin on his face as he approached. He pulled the trident out of my body because this is after you, when you get your trident, you know, well, we just have quarters too. Yeah, at quarters, you get your trident. And then the first, you know, I don't know who pain. That's actually I think it was my platoon commander. But anyways, the whole team freaking lines up and pounds that thing into your chest. You know, that doesn't hurt.

Yeah. I mean, well, okay. Maybe it didn't hurt you. It hurt me. Well, I mean, I mean, the punch, but you don't actually feel the prongs after the first time. Yes, you don't feel the prongs after the first eight. You know. You're bleeding.

But then, but then guys start pulling it out and like, oh, it's a little crooked, Jocko. And they get you again. That hurts worse. But what I like, yeah, this is got like those little nubs on the end of them or the little widgets attached to? Yeah. When you pull it out, you can feel it pulling your... Yeah.

You feel your chest coming out. But you say your commanding officer, he pulled the trident out of my body, straightened it like he was fixing it a bent nail. Then he placed it on my chest and slowly pushed it back in. That hurts worse. I was going to say, that's freaking good times from the old man right there. That's back in the days where the back 40 was... Where attitude adjustments were made.

Yeah. Now you're going on peace time deployments. You say this. My peacetime deployments took me around the globe. Asia, Middle East, Egypt, Kuwait, Japan, Korea, Guam, points beyond, and in between conducting joint country to country training on my deployment to Bahrain. We patrolled the Persian Gulf enforcing oil embargoes. We would board oil tankers that were in violation of various infractions. Most of the time, the infraction was that they didn't identify themselves because the radio didn't work. We would catch tankers bearing the Iranian flag, Phil, with Embargoed Iraqi oil. All sorts of shenanigans going on. So would you do four deployments? Eight.

What'd you do in that first run at Team 3? Four. And the first one was Southeast Asia. That was like right after the Gulf War. Would you go to the PI? I went to the PI. Yeah. So then I think your next...

That war happened so fast. We couldn't get there. Then you end up your... It looked like you were going to go to Buds and be an instructor. Yeah. But you actually had orders. You had orders to buds and then what, what?

How did you hear about the leap frog tryout? I was just by chance. And I only had like 30, 35 jumps. That's insane. I had no idea what I was doing. That's insane. I mean, those guys at that time had thousands of jumps. Well, there was some guys on that team that had, what was that program?

We used to have our own, well, we still do, the original freeball program that we had. Oh, just the military free fall that was out. Like three something, 3M, 3T. I can't remember what it was. But it was our own program out there at El Centro. It's El Centro, yeah. So a lot of those instructors were on the team with me. Dwight Settle, Andy Crownhammel, you know, Glay Jackson.

They all had a couple thousand plus jumps. Yeah, those are the guys I'm talking about. Like, they were freaking. I had 30. So you decided, hey, what the hell, go get a bunch of jumps in? I had no idea. I was going to make it. Yeah, I think I got like 45 jumps tryouts with the.

cool parachute. And then you ended up making it? Yeah. That's freaking crazy. Clay told me he could teach a monkey to fall out in an airplane if he had enough bananas. That was his, because I didn't think I was going to make it. I thought I was going to butts. And I really didn't want to.

The jump team was some of the most fun I had, probably one of the most dangerous jobs I had until combat. Yeah, the jump team at that time, man, they were pushing the envelope hardcore. Yeah, we had some injuries. We had a death when I was on. on the jump team. I remember I was doing like my, whatever, my jumps to get my gold wings when I first got the team. Like I didn't have tried it,

but they sent me down to the freaking brown field to go get some jumps, and the jump team was jumping, and they did like a down, I'd never seen a free fall person in my life, never seen a free fall jump, and I landed and got my shoot all packed up or whatever, and then in come the leapfrogs,

and they did a down plane. They were going a thousand miles an hour, or as far as I could tell. And they were so close to the ground. And I could hear them say break. Yeah. And I was like, holy shit. This is insane.

We had a guy shoot himself. He broke too low and went into this stadium, which at the time was Jack Murphy. That was a long time ago. Yeah, it was. And he hit like four seats and ripped him out of the ground. Those things are bolted into the ground into concrete. and he walked away from it. Yeah, Tommy Marquis.

Did you know Tommy? Yeah, yeah. You could hit that dude upside the head with a bat. What a beast, man. He's gone now. He was a good dude. Couldn't hurt him. Yeah, I know.

That's what I mean. He was just a monster. And nice is there too. Yeah. You got this little section here. While we were falling towards the earth, so you guys are doing all kinds of crazy jump. And while we falling toward the earth,

another guy and I had to crawl out from underneath canopies to Clear airspace. So you guys were doing crew relative work. You're all freaking wrapped up. I can't say exactly how fast we were falling as we were, as there were fully and partially inflated parachutes, but even slowly falling out of the sky can be deadly. I was still recovering from the tear of my first cutaway when my second happened a few days later.

Me and another guy got tangled up and caught in a helicopter spin. The deployment bag retraction system on the tops of our parachutes had somehow gotten tangled together. We were twirling around opposite each other, falling. He was looking directly at me and I at him and we yelled back and forth at each other. Cut away. No, you cut away. Like the world's most high-stick game of rock paper scissors, he won and I cut away.

He's a good longtime friend of mine. He's a big pussy. He should have cut away. He was scared. I don't even know how that happened. How you guys got all wrapped up? Oh, I mean, I know how the rap happened, but where our parachutes got connected. connected to each other was ridiculous.

So those are canopy relative work parachutes. Usually when you open a parachute, there's a trailing pilot shoot. Well, on those, because you're doing crew, you don't want that stuff trailing. It has a retraction system on a three-ring retraction system. It pulls it up to the top skin of the parachute. And that's what got connected on both of ours. It was a wrap. We were doing like eight-man stack rotations.

Guy peels off the top and flies all the way to the bottom. that's how it started and you get into a rap with like five, six dudes, some get shot out and some get wrapped up and everybody broke out of that and we were just stuck and it was that on film? No, because you know what, back then

there was no such thing as a little GoPro. Like a GoPro. I mean, guys were still taking, I think I remember going from Paul Robinson was one of our camera guys And he had this ginormous, freaking, when he opened his parachute, hold his head, pull his head down because he had all this weight up there, you'd break his neck.

They used to jump. It wasn't film. So I think we had a high eight, which is a pretty large camera. It's not a GoPro. Any clown can jump a GoPro. So, they had blow tubes on the camera. You had to take a picture. Oh, that was like, you had a reticle.

That's how you, uh, fire. Oh, no kidding. You would have to start the camera before you went out, but the still camera, because they would have a video and a still, and they had a blow tube. You'd have to blow into the tube to take a picture. And then you had a reticle here.

I remember seeing guys jump those little reticles, so they do where to aim. Crazy. Yeah, you guys were pushing the envelope back then with the jump team. You did three years there, and then you go back to the teams. And where did you go?

You went to the East Coast. I went to Team 8. What year was that? 99. Check. And you, and that was Kosovo. Yeah, I was going to say, you rolled on there. NATO was allied with the ethnic Albanian forces,

and we were tasked with working with NATO to assist them in apprehending suspected war criminals and keeping an eye out on the movements of various warring factions. Kosovo was a real-world test. We would do 72-hour special reconnaissance missions and rugged terrain full of natural man-made threats. We did 25 SR missions in six months,

averaging about one a week with one day of prep, three days on and a debrief on the other end. It was a kick in the butt deployment. And conventional forces don't react to anything inside of 72 hours. Yeah, I'll tell you that. It's better than sitting around. Yeah, that's still, I mean,

at that time doing real missions was awesome. Well, we thought that was the game. For sure, for sure. Or Camp Bond Steel. Freaking get that. The restrictions that they had on the guys out there was ridiculous. I mean, they had to put rigors tape over their magazine will. They had to put rigors tape over their magazine.

Who? Everybody that was out there was supposed to do that. We didn't do it. I mean, it's not unusual to have, I mean, they had a dude that had an AD at the front gate with a 50 cow. But that's their clearing process. At the end, they pull the trigger. Yeah, yeah. Why do you got to pull the trigger to clear and save a weapon?

Well, at least you got it. I hope he had a point in a safe direction. He did. Okay. We'll take it. You ever seen a 50 cow sheet 10 feet in front of you? It's pretty impressive. So that's 99.

Come back from that point. Again, I'm skipping a bunch of stuff here. Really cool information about what those deployments were like. That's why people got to buy the book to get some of those details, jump in head a little bit. reported to Naval Special Warfare Group 2 training detachment on September 8th, 2001. New instructor role, be there for two years. That was the week, 9-11 happened.

Yeah, I was going to say September 11th, so you just check in to trade at? Nobody wanted to go there. Of course not. When did you... It's the model now. When did you... What were you teaching? I kind of bounced around.

I got over there, did all the air stuff. at first. Then I did land warfare and CQC. I just kind of bounced around all over the place. Yeah. I mean, Trita has become such a great place to develop seals. I mean,

it really has. And back in the day, like when you and I first got the team, I know no one wanted to be in training cell. And I did. The old guys did. The old warrants and stuff. Yeah, they did.

The old master chiefs. That's when Masters, you couldn't figure out what a Master Chief did in the SEAL teams. Yeah. I'll tell you, I got some good advice. from some of those old master chiefs and worn officers that would say like hey if you want to learn this stuff you got to go teach it and i was lucky enough to go into training cell at seal team one spent a couple years there and it was i did i learned i was trying to figure out the other

day i made some estimate like 50% of what i learned in the in the entire teams was was working for whatever it was three years or two two and a half years in training cell at seal team one and watching 10 groups do the same thing 10 groups do what best teaching teaching the the junior officers that are going through STT, how to do an eye ad, like how, what to react in these different situations, then watching them and seeing the mistakes they make. That was 40% of what I learned.

Another big chunk of what I learned was when I was at trade at later on, you know, same thing. You're teaching guys, you're watching them do it, you're seeing the mistakes they make, you're putting them through drills, you're seeing the same platoons, go through the same training evolutions,

what the leaders do, what mistakes they make. So yeah, going into training cell and training detachment is a great step. It's a great system now because guys go, they get there an E5 and then they go there, they make E6. And when they're a platoon LPO, they just got done teaching this stuff, man. They're ready most of the time. Well, yeah, they're getting there a little bit faster than we used to also. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a little more formalized the way it all works now, which is freaking good for them. Well, I just left trade it. I was a contractor there. Well, when I left the CARE Coalition after seven years, I went to teaching military freefall, had an injury, and then went to CQC Salk. Yeah. And it was interesting seeing guys that when I was the platoon chief are now like leaders. They're guys at E6s when I was a platoon chiefs.

They're now master chiefs. And some of the new guys are doing their platoon chief slot. It was fun to watch them go through. And I was terrified too when I was doing my platoon chief slot. You know, like I said, we have our insecurities. I didn't want anybody to get hurt. I want to make sure I provided everything that the guys needed. They used to tell me when I started them,

micromanage, hey, chief get out of my back pocket, because you can't manage all that crap. Quite honestly, there were guys that were more experienced that were junior to me when I was in charge. And you just got to know when you know what you know and what you don't. Let the people that are more experienced,

you know, take those reins. Yeah, and you've got to be, you got to have the confidence in your leadership that you can go, oh, you're, hey, you've done this sort of thing before you run it. No factor. No problem. Good to go.

It's micro-managing hurts. Oh, yeah. It's a disaster. A lot of hours. So then you get done with Trade Ed. You go to Team 4. You're, you're, you go on deployment. Where'd you go?

Baghdad? Yeah. You go into Baghdad. I know you got into some. Team 4 at the time was actually, they had nine details. Okay. was huge. It was nobody,

nobody in the SEAL teams wanted to do the PSD. Yeah. So, yeah, for people that don't know, one of the major taskings that the SEAL teams got in 2005,

it's, I think it started in 2004 and 5 was to protect the senior leadership of the new Iraqi government. Everyone, well, well, not everyone, but a whole bunch of people

wanted to kill those guys. And the people that got the job to protect them was the SEAL teams. So that's what you did. And then of course there's a whole... I got out of doing that. Well, there's a whole lot of things that are wrapped up in doing that. Because if you're proactive about it, that means we're going to go try and capture bad guys or kill bad guys that might be trying to target our people.

We're also doing intelligence gathering. We're going out and figuring out who's trying to kill these people. That's a great setup. That's what I did. Yeah. I didn't do the actual inner ring of protection. I was far out of ring looking for threats that were going after. targets within those PSDs.

Yeah, yeah. And we had nine. And they all, every one of those politicians, I want my Navy SEALs. We don't want to work with you people. Yeah, that was a harsh, a harsh one, harsh pill to swallow for a lot of guys. I got lucky.

It started right after I left, and it ended before I came back. Well, I think it all got turned over. There's actually military units that's what they do. Yeah. And they got turned over to them. Yeah.

You did have some good times on that one. Here we go. We were speeding down the road and slid to a left turn as soon as we made the corner. I nearly smashed into a makeshift roadblock. We must have been moving too fast as we caught the roadblock construction crew off guard. We still had their, who still had their AK strapped to their backs. The friends had all taken up positions on the right side of the road and had their weapons trained on us, ready to shoot as we sprinted around the corner. In a split second, the construction crew found themselves in a very awkward position pinned between us, their friends,

and their friends who wanted to shoot us. In the confusion, we managed to get the jump on them. The lead Humvee was equipped with a mini gun. Those things are awesome. We never got them. I know. I have to use a certain level of reverence when I say that because it is so awesome to have a mini gun on a homer.

And the gunner had the reflexes of a mongoose, 40 feet away, the targets and their rifle-wielding friends. I had a front-row seat to the action when the gunner opened up on all of them. I had not seen a mini gun in live combat before, so I was a little surprised by what happened next. By the way, there's nothing mini about a mini gun. It's a pedestal mounted six barrel rotary machine gun that chooses many as six thousand rounds of 760 by 51 every minute. And the bullet is about the size of a AAA battery.

Bullets spit so fast out of the Gatling style rotating barrels that it looked like a red laser beam and sounded like the mating call of some bizarre prehistoric bird. The first volley of bullets hit one guy in the chest As he practically vaporized in a burst of red mist As this was going on about 50 yards up the road And another enemy fighter popped up and fired an RPG Directly at the lead Humvee the one that was firing the mini gun I couldn't see the RPG but I saw the humvee 10 feet in front of me lift up drop back down with a crash and catch on fire the gunner didn't even flinch He just kept on shooting in 30 seconds the 25 or so ambushers including the RPG trigger men

had all been killed and were all red piles of flesh spread over the street. When it was over, we secured the area, salvaged what we could from the still-burning Humvee, and then destroyed it with a thermite grenade. The mini-gun turned 25 human beings into shredded flesh in less than a minute. That was quick, I thought. And then I felt weird because the next thought I had was, that was awesome. Awesome, because we did not get killed and because of the power of the mini-gun. This was the first time I had seen people in the process of dying,

but it was not the first time seeing dead people. My life and training had prepared me for these situations. My constant inoculation of violence and stress made what would have been grotesque and unbearable to many an acceptable situation to me. My trauma had conditioned me to accept the unacceptable. That's what war does. It changes the way you view the world. I found no pleasure whatsoever in killing the enemy.

However, this was an outcome of war. Everyone at some point was someone's child, but that thought is lost in war. the most profane aspects of war is that it depletes the humanity from humans you pretty much forget about everything you believe you're not thinking about that when you're in a gunfight

theology religion political whatever politics dude's trying to kill me I'm going to work on him you get home from that deployment and then then you did

Is that when you get rolled into doing a platoon chief? Yeah. Do your workup, how was the workup? Well, the workup prior was pretty interesting because I interfaced with all the guys that were going to be in the platoon when I was a platoon chief. I remember breaking one of the guys' nods right before an op. He didn't know it was going to be his platoon chief.

He kind of chewed me out. I was like, dude, don't put your stuff on the ground. I won't step on it. I did feel stupid about that, though. But the workup is, you know, pretty standard. We were on an 18-month cycle, I think, on that one. I think it was 18-month cycle. So it's a year-long workup, you know, broken up into the three parts, you know,

pro-dev, everybody going to schools. And ULT, just doing all the standard CQC, South, Air. Did you guys know that you were going to Iraq when you formed up? We were kind of the bastard children, too. Everybody was looking for the shiny object. And at the time, that was some task force. We got what was thought to be the least of the shiny best deployments, which was Fallujah. And the guys that were there weren't doing anything.

But we worked different. We worked Intel different than they did, and we were really busy. I did 140 DAs on that deployment, which is. Talk to guys in the SEAL teams to do 100 DAs on the deployments unheard of. And then on top of that, teaching medical classes to the military units that they're, you know, second and fourth Iraqi army brigade and teaching tactics and how to patrol and trying to work with the MET teams. It's, you know, when you run a target for your regular job, it's kind of hard to come and be a MET team in Fallujah proper and run a military unit, especially when they don't speak English. Yeah.

Their standard of work is not what... No, it is not. And I was one of the hardest things for us to get to was when we first got there, we had these expectations that they were going to get to the level that we were, at least close, and that's just not going to happen. You've got to see, okay, this right here, this is what we want them to be at, but right here's got to be acceptable. This is kind of the way it was over there.

Yeah, you've got to definitely adjust your standards in a real big way. Yeah. But it's kind of cool because I'm thinking about, You know, your previous deployment where you were kind of gathering a lot of intel and stuff like that. And then you roll out because, as you know, we drive our own operations. And if you can make, if you can find intel and you can put it together, you can put up a target package, let's go hit it. You know, that's, you know, to get that, to get a bunch of DAs done like that, it's not the sexy thing to do. The hard part is getting the target packages put together.

The fun part's going out and hitting them. Yeah, most team guys, I just show me what door. I don't even care. Just show me what door. it's a lot harder to get the information so you're on this deployment you're doing all these DAs and now we're going to get into April 2007 northeast of Fallujah when the shooting stopped I was still on the floor lying on my left side so this is picking up where we started this whole this whole podcast out when the shooting stopped I was

I was still on the floor lying on my left side. I pushed myself up to my knees. I don't remember hearing any of the gunfire, but now the sounds began to register in my ears. The two men who had stacked up directly behind me in my room clearing train were our Iraqi scouts. The second man in our train took a round to his chest plate and it knocked him clear out to the foyer.

Ironically, that round may have saved his life. He'd originally been within an arm's length behind me as we'd entered the room. The third man in my stack had been shot as he entered the room. An AK-47 round smashed through his bulletproof chest plate. He'd fallen dead in the doorway. The chance factor was insane. Once fired, a bullet can be unpredictable.

The internal milling of a gun's barrel causes bullets to spin in flight. Some bullets will begin to tumble through the air at low speeds, while others are designed to tumble and cartwheel after hitting a target, which can cause some brutal damage. It's likely that we were all hit by the same type of bullets at nearly the same time, shot from the same gun, but the damage to each of us was significantly different. The balance of my room clearing train,

five or six other guys hadn't been able to get in the room because of all the volume of fire. I moved from my knees and stood to my feet. It felt like there were 200 pounds on my back. I took off my helmet and used the white light on my damaged pistol to survey the room. One of our other Iraqi scouts entered the room. He had been behind Clarkie and followed him into his room.

The bullet that hit Clark bypassed all three of the Iraqi scouts stacked up behind him. These three made it into Clarki's room and had gotten trapped in the back of the house when the shooting started. The scout had been part of the original group of 10 recruits who had been with us since the first day. He spoke decent English and gave me a report. One seal killed in action. One Iraqi scout killed an action. Two detainees and six women and children.

At this point, I actually didn't even realize that they had left. It didn't register yet. Yeah. This is, you know, when we started getting reports about what had happened during this, you know. And I just remember thinking this is just, hey, this is just pure insanity, you know. And a lot of guys felt guilty for leaving me in there. But I can, I mean, I had to talk to a lot of guys. Like, hey, we didn't do anything wrong that night.

Nobody saw me go in there. You guys followed protocol that we would always follow. You didn't blow up the house because you didn't have a full head count. You did that right. You know, so everybody did everything right. I don't know, NSW sometimes with a knee-jerk reactions that we would have to try to make everything as safe as possible, which we're good at. But even if you do something, everything's right, bad things can happen. You just can't minimize all the threats to the point where there's no more threat.

You just can't do it. And you can also do really dumb things and make big mistakes and everything turns out. Perfect, you know, and you can do everything perfect and things can go wrong. Perfect plan goes to shit in the first 30 seconds, right? Rewinded in a little bit. This is what you said. It was surreal like something out of a movie. Time slowed down almost to a stop and everything happened in super slow motion.

Almost as if I were watching a scene unfold frame by frame. Second scene like minutes. A slow motion torn of bullets flew at me. I could clearly see all the bullets coming out. me I had total auditory exclusion there were no sounds I had never been shot before so I had no idea how it felt in this strange slow-motion scene I had a mental conversation with myself hey am I actually getting shot right now it occurred to me that those sledgehammer smashing all over my body will bullets

hitting me one after another it was in this moment that I said my first real prayer God please get me home to my girls my wife and two young daughters were halfway around the world in that instant I felt them and they felt me. I felt like a bullet-dodging character in the movie The Matrix, only it wasn't dodging any of the bullets. They were hitting me. My rifle was shot out of my hands.

Bullets whizzing past my head, hammered into the men entering the room behind me, even as I continued to penetrate down the left wall. Nobody else in my train would be able to make entry as all four of the enemy continued to fire directly into what is known as the fatal funnel, the dimly lit doorway in which I was standing. The enemy bullets triggered my rage and drove me to act.

It was then that my body became my mind and took over. I suppose that's what habit is. When the body overrides the mind and acts without specific instructions from the brain, my right hand instinctively reached down for my secondary weapon, a pistol. My hand was on autopilot as it unhooked the rubber strap. I'd fashioned to keep my pistol secure. And with a fluid forward push and pull, the very same motion that I had done 100,000 times.

training my weapon release from my holster. I aimed my pistol and engaged the enemy fighter directly opposite me down the left wall. He was glaring at me with his weapon throwing rounds directly at me. I returned fire four or five rounds from my weapon and caught him in the face and chest as he stared at me. His head jilted back.

I saw the life leave his eyes like a light going off. I knew he was dead as he melted into a pile in front of me. I landed next to the dead man on my left. Years of training and muscle memory without any direct orders from my brain lifted my arm, arched it and aimed my pistol at a young male figure, maybe in his early 20s. As he stood up and moved toward the doorway, I was still on the floor when I watched him pull a hand grenade from the front of his vest and pulled a pin. My right hand pointed at him, my index finger squeezed the trigger.

I saw the bullets exit my pistol and spin clockwise as they flew toward him, leaving a green vapor trail in their wake. I watched my bullets punch into one side of his head and exhaust of blood and brain matter instantly exiting out the other side. I shot him dead as he attempted a suicide mission to run out in the foyer with a live grenade where my fellow seals and Iraqi scouts had stacked up attempting to enter the room. My rounds dropped them in his tracks. As he fell forward, I saw the grenade release from his hand and rolled toward me. Then it detonated. This is crazy.

One of our newly arrived seals from Team 10. So these are the guys that just showed up. This is probably this kid's first op. Yeah, but he was to platoon chief. Oh, okay, so he was good to go. One of the newly arrived seals. Night though. It's still a rough first night.

Their first night. One of the newly arrived seals from Team 10 was outside under the carport, looking into the room's only window when he saw my bullets enter the enemy's head. He watched as the enemy fell. The ensuing grenade blast shattered the window, spraying shards of glass into my teammates' face. This was his first mission in Iraq. New way to start a new job. Grenade blast knocked me unconscious.

When I woke a few minutes later, I was fully lucid and lying on my left side, looking across the room at two men. both were firing their weapons over my head out the window directly above me. The grenade blasted twisted my helmet, rendering my night vision goggles unusable. The light from their muzzle flashes and the dim glow of the gas lamp in the foyer were enough to clearly illuminate the men standing no more than 10 feet away from me. I heard no sounds. It was totally silent. I was in a very bad place in the middle of a gunfight. If the enemy caught a glimpse of me glaring up at them, all it would take for them to finish me off with both of them to point down, pull their triggers and unload high, velocity bullets into me. If I could clearly see them, then they could see me too. For an instant,

I thought about playing dead, but in that same millisecond before the thought could be fully evaluated, my anger rejected it outright. I'd never been so angry, a feeling of determined, ruthless rage. It seemed to be stored up somewhere deep inside me and something just snapped. In that moment, my rage consumed me, my world closed in, and nothing else mattered to me but destroying the two men standing still in front of me. I would fight back and kill them before they killed me. Another crazy thing about this is there were some holes in me that don't line up. I got to get two holes in my back. You think they shot you when you're unconscious? That's the only thing I can come up with. I had two rounds in my back that shattered my right

scapula and there's no holes in the body armor. So I think they took the pistol and shoved it in there. and then they shot me twice in the butt. The only way I could have got shot in the butt is someone stood over top of me. I don't know why they didn't put one in my head. Should have looked at the helmet more. Maybe they tried to shoot me in the head and the helmet just got in the way.

But this round right here, four months after the incident, this is around your wearing around your neck. It's a nine-mill round that I got shot in a butt with. And I didn't know about it, that it was still in me until I went to a procedure to get a stint pulled out of my bladder four or four and a half months later and they took an x-ray of it and came back in the x-ray tech was like hey you know there's a bullet in your hip that's how I found this bullet but the way the hip is

you know that that arch right there so it was right there and it from 2007 to like two years ago I was in a chiropractor and he took some x-rays and it had moved and he took a side profile and it was literally at the surface of my stomach. And then we had, I had some medics cut it out. We thought it was going to take like five minutes. I'll show you the pictures. Got a video of them cutting it out in the back of the suburban.

Oh, there you go. Proper dinner break. Proper surgery. Back to this, I didn't know it at the time, but I was lying unconscious on the floor. While I was lying unconscious on the floor, my sealed teammates were outside the door of the room trying to get a shot at the enemy.

Two of our Iraqi counterparts were the only eyes that saw me enter the room. In the chaos that ensued, they were unable to communicate my location to anyone. The volume of fire coming from the room through the door and out of the window was so excessive that there was no way anyone else was getting into the room. The team decided to pull everyone back and call an airstrike to neutralize the target and me with it. As the team pulled back from the house, Connor, my other SEAL teammate was shot and wounded by one of the two remaining enemy fighters firing over my head and out the window.

While I lay on the floor, my teammates worked their radios calling for the status of each other, and what was going on in the house I heard nothing as the remaining elements of my assault team departed the house and moved to a safe dropping distance from the target I was lying on my left side with my pistol still in my right hand just like before my arm reached up and aimed at one of the men standing in front of me and my finger pulled the trigger I couldn't hear the gunfire but I felt my hand jump rounds exited my weapon and I watched the projectiles fly in slow motion as they punched into his body Small holes burst open in the fabric of his shirt where my bullets entered. His face contorted into a bizarre combination of surprise and pain, more surprise than pain. In less than five seconds, I ran a magazine dry, completed a magazine change before the two enemy fighters figured out I was still alive and I was shooting back at them.

My bullets drew their gunfire away from my departing teammates. Their full attention and bullets were then directed back at me. The enemy fighters were now both so close to me. I remember the stunned look on their faces as they pointed their weapons back at me and fired. Around from one of their AK-47 struck the bottom of my pistol and dislodged my guns magazine. My pistol jammed and I felt the gun's grip crumble in my hand.

Another enemy bullet sailed clear through the foot of my magazine. I opened my hand slightly to release the shards of broken plastic that were once my pistol grips. The grip seemed to absorb the shock shattering like an armor plate. I was fortunate to have this type of weapon. any other model would have been smashed to bits or been shot out of my hands. My palm was now pressed against the gun's internal springs. The bullets that struck my pistol caused my weapon to malfunction.

I squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. I quickly cleared the malfunction with a tap of a, on the bottom of the magazine to firmly reinsert it into the pistol, a rack of the slide, then squeezed the trigger. I had done this tap, rack, bang, malfunction, drill so many times that it happened automatically all the while I was still being shot at from no more than 10 feet away an instant later well before the human brain could process what and how it had happened my hand aimed the pistol at the other man standing across for me my finger squeezed the trigger I saw the rounds twisting as they exited my pistol flying toward him and entering his body then around tunneled into

his face I emptied the magazine to both men as they crumbled on the floor in front of me I loaded my last magazine into my damaged pistol I was lying on my left side, leaning against the man who I had first shot when I entered the room. I pushed myself up with one hand and reached behind with the other, placing my pistol against my dead enemy's motionless body and fired several more rounds. Seconds later, all four enemy fighters were silent. Their dead bodies lay in pools of their own blood and piles of spent bullet casings. A metallic odor felt flooded the room.

Blood and urine leaked from their bodies onto the floor. I knew I had been shot. I felt heavy like there was a few hundred pounds sitting on my back. It was difficult to breathe. The fight was not over, and the worst battles were yet to come. Crazy gunfight. My left thumb was almost shot off, too. I had around go through this joint right here.

I didn't figure it out until later, after I got up and walked around, tried to take my gloves off. but I put that pistol in this left hand and reached over and shot somebody like this my thumb was like almost hanging off the only thing was holding on was my glove I mean look how lucky I am though still got it just won't bend

crazy yeah the the weapon functioning I mean you still have the magazine I did go back after about five months and I was like hey I want that pistol you know we already cleaned it up and put it back in circulation so somebody else was using it and I was like, I want that pistol. Did you ever get it?

Nope. Dang. No. Yeah, I was thinking about this. You know, we started off. When I started off, I was talking about how, you know, you can get shot. One person gets shot. One person can catch a little tiny piece of frag, like the size of a freaking,

the size of a pebble. Yeah. And kill them. Yeah, you pop the formal artery or you pop an artery up here. That's what happened to Clark. He had one around. basically just go right through his neck right here. It was just hit that artery.

It was quick. I mean, when I found him, you still had a smile on his face. Sitting an upright position. He was 27 years old at the time. Got a shirt on. That was his second deployment. I needed to secure the building myself, so I moved to the foyer with its glowing lamp

and then to the room directly beside where my gunfight had happened. There were six women and children all sitting in the far corner screaming and crying. I pointed my white light at them and yelled shut up. None of them spoke English, but they all became silent. That's also the room where I found Clarkie. He was just inside the doorway, sitting down with both legs spread out in front of him, resting upright and leaning back slightly on his rucksack. Clarkie's trademark smirk was frozen on his face with his lips curled in a smile. He looked so peaceful. He'd been killed instantly by a round that had come out of my room. I tried to move him from the view of the front door, but he was too heavy. Clark Shredler

was 27 years old. It would take over a decade for the magnitude of Clark's death to penetrate me. My tears now are often spontaneous, triggered by a fleeting memory, a mixture of accumulated losses, or just a random thought. At that moment, though, I couldn't stop and grieve over Clarkie. I needed to secure the building and protect my teammates. In another room in the back of the compound, I found two enemy detainees. Our Iraqi scouts had made entry into this room, discovered the men and cuffed them. I checked their flex cuffs and put one of our Iraqi scouts in place to guard them. I positioned our other Iraqi scout at the front entry with specific orders to shoot anyone who tried to come into the house. I knew that I was shot up. I walked around and cleared the house with my damaged pistol.

Each time I turned my head, I could feel my radio earpiece snag on my body armor. I plugged my earbud in and keyed the radio to ask for a status in the house, but no, but my radio had been shot. It still had a tone but no signal. My radio was smashed and I needed to contact the team. I tried to swap out my radio with Clarkies, but my gloves were slippery from all the blood. I just started to pull off my left hand glove when I saw that my thumb was barely attached to my hand. It flopped into my palm. There was a bullet hole through the glove. I must have been shot in the thumb when the enemy shot at my pistol destroying my gun's grips. I decided to leave my gloves on. Eventually I managed to switch out my radio for Clarkies. I moved back into the room

where my gunfight had happened. I felt safer there as I knew everyone and it was dead. It was there that I made radio contact with the rest of the team. Hey, this is Mike. I'm still in the house. It's secure. We've got four enemy killed in action. One Iraqi scout killed an action.

One seal killed in action. Two detainees and six women and children. Oh, man. They called a QRF that, night. Took them hour and 15 minutes to go like five miles. Five miles. When did they activate the QRF when they probably when they started backing out of the house? As soon as we always initiated the QRF as soon as a gunfight started. As soon as there was a tick, we would initiate QRF. So they would get ready and then we could launch them. But back then, I mean, that area was so

we went after this target one other time. We got IDed on the way in. Yeah, and those are some of the cool details that you put in the book, which, like I said, that's why people have to buy the book if they want to get the rest of it, because the background behind it, you know, you explain the efforts that you guys had made to hit this target. It was a terrible area. Pretty much one way in, one way out,

unless you wanted to do like an extra 75 kilometers to get. And if you didn't get lost back there, because, I mean, the maps weren't accurate. I mean, your greatest threat over there wasn't getting into a gunfight. It was going to and from. That was your biggest threat. We got IED, I think, six times on that deployment. And, you know, when that happens over and over again, they start looking, who's here every time?

And I was one of the guys. Okay, Mike's possible. One of the two possible ID magnets. Because every time we get IED, one of you two is there. Or both of you are there. Actually, we're both there for all of them. How many seals did you have with you? How many seals were on this op?

Our normal force We could take a little bit more If we had birds But a normal force And a half of it had to be Iraqis And we don't give them mods and radios So you have to make

Corrections for that Like we have to drive the vehicles So it would be like 22 guys But that would include a terp You know, half Iraqi force Occasionally we brought this Marine That had a dog That never found anything

but a pistol holster. He did say that dog might have got baked in a car. I mean, it gets warm out there. Like 22, but we go out with six on Vs. There's only four seats, well, five. You got the gunner, but the way we work, six people in a vehicle, you're only getting four people that are actually going to work,

maybe three, inside. Yeah, so. I have worked with other units where they leave, everybody gets out of the vehicle and only the gunner stays. I didn't like that. No, that's not our plan. Say he does that.

We don't like that plan. The, man, for you to, like, just go back into a full-on team guy mode of, okay, here's what's going on. I'm shot up. I got to finish clearing this house by myself, get the house cleared, do an assessment, set security,

and then contact the team and say, hey, it's Mike. Target secure. I was there. I don't believe it. Freaking legit, man. I was definitely in shock. I did miss a room.

I missed the stairs upstairs to the prayer room upstairs. So they had to clear that. I missed it. But I de-conflicted the front door. They came in. They reclared the house because I had to pull the guy off the front door that I told shoot anybody that came through because they were taking fire from me outside. You know, when the neighbors know that you're there.

some people like to shoot at the window at you which was a lesson that we learned early on because who doesn't like to blow up a door but sometimes you don't have to blow it up sometimes you just turn the doorknob sometimes that doorknob works and when you blow up a door the whole neighborhood knows you're there

people take pop shots out of you freaking awesome man awesome work I also got an AK round that's where I got the idea for this necklace. The guys found when they took my body armor and AK round fell out of it

and it's slightly flat on one side and it's got rifling on it. So that's how you know that it actually came through a rifle barrel. But that one hit me inside of 10 feet and it's completely intact. I mean it's like barely flat on one side. I can't explain that one either.

But I did get shot in the right places. I know guys that got shot in a femur You hit bone It changes everything And I only had two bones Hit my left thumb And my right scapula I did have a round

Go up with the inside of my right thigh Which is probably the one the doctors Are the most amazed about Because if you know about The kinetic energy It's not the energy that's being pushed In front of the bullets What's being pulled

And all the cavitation And how it ruptures organs And ruptured blood vessels And arteries That should have popped my from oral artery. Because that ran from my knee, right above my knee, all the way up to my inner thigh. And that was definitely an AK round because the hole in my leg, it looked like someone took a cookie

cutter of an AK round and cut it out. And the gunshot wounds healed weird. They started off small, and then they got bigger as they healed, and then they shrunk. I didn't have any bad exit wounds. everything went through me. I got a bad accident wound out of my right armpit that blew out. But it's kind of actually hard. You know, I'm claiming 27, and it's the best of my knowledge.

But, you know, the one that went through my left thigh might have been the same one that went through my scrotum. I don't know. But I'm not going to ruin a good story. Hey, bro. I say we round up. And quite honestly, those ones that hit the body armor, I was more aware of the ones

at the body armor. I had no idea where else I'd been shot until I pulled my glove off. I knew I'd been shot in the chest and back. I could feel it. I mean, I had a bunch of broken ribs and I had a contusion on my right lung. So when I called those guys,

I was like, you guys got to hurry up, I can't breathe. I think I got a sucking chest wound. You know, they pulled my body armor off and there's two holes in my back. And they tried to get a reclusive dressing on it. an old one that we used to use and they couldn't get it the stick.

So, luckily it wasn't a sucking chest one. Yeah, and you got shot with Green Tip too, right? Yeah. They took my body armor after that, whatever company does the investigation and they took it apart layer by layer. So the other layer body armor is spalling.

It's that black stuff. It kind of looks, I don't even know how to it just, it's the stuff that holds everything together. So it's a ceramic plate. There's multiple layers. Plus, I had to carry her on, and at the time we were doing the soft armor, hard armor, the 4 alpha with the soft. I can't imagine getting shot in the chest with standalone 4 alpha, armor piercing protection without that soft armor. It's going to break every one of your damn ribs.

Every damn one. I only had, I think, four broken ribs. I mean, you just, you pop a rib out every once in a lot. It sucks. freaking horrible, man. You get that top of your breath and you can't, someone's stabbing me. No, you don't want anyone to make you laugh or cough or anything like that. But yeah, the weird thing about Green Tip is that if you don't know anything about weapons. It actually penetrated more through the body armor than the AK did. Oh, yeah, I totally believe that. So Green Tip is

American and and 556. Yeah, five, five, six. It's what, it's kind of the standard round for America. We got a bunch of other ones, I know, but Green Tip is kind of the standard round. for let's say an Army infantry unit. And so you might wonder how does Mike end up with Green Tip in his body or in his body armor? And the answer is they recovered the weapon. Yeah, there was all this guy's equipment to include his name, his LBE,

his load bearing equipment with his magazines in it, still had his name on it. They had his night vision goggles. They had his pistol. They had a bunch of this guy's stuff. And it was from what we figured out, an ambushed out in Ramadi, Army unit in Ramadi. So an army unit in Ramadi got ambushed.

They captured this guy's equipment, and then they put it to use. And they put it to use on you, man. And the green tip was the only one that penetrated through the plate and made entry into the soft armor. It got about halfway through all the plies on the soft armor. You mentioned the green tip, like, that it's standard, but what's special about green tip as opposed to?

It's 5.6. It's the standard ammunition that we use. We had a lot of problems with it in different places, like Somalia. What a terrible place to the area. Women and children is shields, but the green tip was such a hot round, meaning hot that it moves so fast that sometimes it just goes right through people

and it doesn't get the, a lot of the damage. from a bullet happens after it passes through. And it's the cavitation and the cavity it creates behind it. It's really not what it does in front of it. But the green tip's so fast it doesn't create that cavitation. It just cuts through stuff. But it's also armor piercing, right?

Yeah, it's fast and it's small. So if it's made, it is. Yeah, it punches through armor a lot as, you know, this. It's not supposed to punch through 4A. Yeah. Well, who knows when I got hit with the green tip? because I had three rounds in the chest. And if you look at the body armor, it's already,

it degradates with each one. They're only going to say, yeah, this will save you from one round. That's what they'll tell you. After that, we don't know what the hell it's going to do. Because if it's, I mean, if you take one in the 10 ring, and that damages everything, you know, maybe that does more damage equally all the way around, but I got hit like here, here and here. And maybe the green tip wasn't the first one.

Or maybe it was the first one before the AK hit it before it was so degradated that it was useless. I'd hold one of those plates in front of my face and let you shoot 9 mil into it all day. It doesn't make a dent. It doesn't even make a dent. You can barely find the dent from a 9-mill and that stuff. Yeah. I mean, pistols are just a lot weaker than rifles are. And then you have that argument, too.

What round or shot placement? Well, I'm shot placement. You're all shot placement, huh? Yeah. And if you're not good at shot placement, then just put a lot there. You know, can't tie knots, tie a lot. Went in down overload. Going back to the book, 15 minutes after I'd called the team to let them know I'd been shot, the MEDAVAC landed.

I had to say that because that's freaking awesome. Jack asked if I need any help as we walked together to the bird about 150 yards and all. I felt heavy and slow as we walked together over the freshly plowed field. I put my left arm over his shoulder to steady myself as I moved. Jack instinctively reached up. up and grabbed my hand, which almost ripped off my dangling thumb. Jack, let go my thumb. Connor, my seal teammate, who was wounded in the arm exiting the house,

jumped on the bird for the short flight to the hospital in Baghdad. He was another one of our team's medics, and I thought that's why he was with me. I didn't know that he had been shot until we were in the hospital together in Bethesda, Maryland. That was a new guy on his first deployment. The flight medic was very efficient, crawling all over me to cut off my clothes and gear to get to my wounds, inserting his knee into every bullet hole in the process. In his defense, there wasn't much he could touch

that didn't have a bullet hole punched out of it. My SEAL teammate Chris Till had been assigned as my casualty assistance officer and would accompany me all the way back home. Chris was standing next to me with a satellite phone. You have to call your wife, he said. I refused it first, but then I remembered that my next of kin must be notified

within 24 hours of an incident. Brenda was back in Virginia Beach shopping with the girls when she answered. Hey, I said, I don't have a lot of time. I'm coming home early. I got shot, but I'm fine. I've got all my limbs. My face is fine.

And the doctor said, I'm going to make 100% recovery. I'll see you soon. I handed the phone back to Chris, and the medical team stacked me on the plane. I must have passed out because my next memory is waking up in the United States at Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland. Talk to a good 50 people that talked to me in Launstall. Don't remember. remember him yeah I mean one of those people is uh was was Admiral Craven yes so that's cool and and you guys knew each other you guys knew each other from team three yeah I was my first three

commanding officers were mctyne McNally and McRaven a free three mix uh yeah you do you do that and and you you talk about that visit from from the Admiral again Well, that was from, I think I did some plagiarizing from his book. Yeah, he's got a book out called C Stories, and it's one of the stories in his book is, you know, visiting a guy that just been shot 27 times. So, but yeah, you put it in this book as well. He's a good dude. I mean, some people might think he's got some sway political views right now, but, you know,

I watched him take care of people, and that's kind of how I judge people. Yeah. It's like if you care about people and you take care of them. Yeah. And you're not doing shit to feed your own ego or your own agenda. I mean, you've got to have your own agenda. I got mine now. I mean, it's part of the reason why I sold a book.

I want to go surfing all the time. That's all I want to do. It's a pretty interesting story. I guess, from your perspective, blessed to have this story and be able to talk about it. You know, yeah, it's a very few people be able to pick this up and not find something in it that They're going to be able to relate to in their own life bro You got shot 27 times, you know, and you did your job I mean it's freaking That's the least interesting thing in that yeah, I think

But but just yeah, you put the whole story together and Yeah man, it's powerful and and like you said, there's all kinds of stuff for everybody and and you know I'll get into some of it But a lot of it is is you trying to explain how you got through this stuff and you know how you got through your childhood trauma and what that trauma turns into and I mean we'll get into some of it but that's just a whole other reason about you even if you even if you're a hippie that doesn't want to read a single thing about war okay skip those parts because you're still going to get something out of the rest of it well my publisher when we were working through this we're like Mike does this say a Navy SEAL book or a self-help book and I was like

leave it ambiguous I don't care what you call it I don't care what you call it you know and I'm pretty good in the PTSD section. Trailing after you're pumping at your door. I have a PTSD. There's a PTSD section. No, your books are number one in war biographies. Oh, okay. Your books do awesome.

I don't, I, in the PTSD section? No, not PTSD. Oh. In the PTSD section, Vander Kolk. Body keeps the score, which is one. Okay, but that's the book that you talk about. Yeah, that's one of the, everybody should read that book. A couple things in there.

If you understand your trauma, your childhood trauma, then your behaviors are predictable. You know, so if you understand that you become the person that you're taught to be in for, inside of the first seven years, and you know what your reaction is going to be to it, then it's predictable and then you can work on it. My trigger is I don't like anybody poke me in the chest. and when I got scared, I don't cower. Sometimes I might over push back. I don't like to be called names.

I mean, I got cursed out by a little 22-year-old kid in Starbucks a couple weeks ago. And I had to ask him, I was like, boy, how old are you? He's like, I'm 22. And this kid's flipping me off because I wouldn't put on a mask. And I was like, you wouldn't be talking to me like this if we were outside. But, you know, I think that's a, a problem with a lot of people in this world right now.

You know, the keyboard bullies, and they get behind the wheels of their car, and they act like a bunch of assholes. You know, a lot of people just don't know that if you could get punched in the face for being as rude as you are, you wouldn't do it. Yeah. We've got a society, it's just so rude now. Every time you get in your car, it's a damn NASCAR race, people cutting you off. And, I mean, I've kind of slowed down.

I was that type A driver. in a rush to get everywhere, even though I didn't have a schedule. Well, so you talk about, like I said, you talk about some of this trauma and whatnot. And here's a little sample of sort of how you start looking at this stuff. I would spend the next 18 months training guys, shuffling papers and administrative duty at my new command.

So this is now you're, I think you're back at trade debt again, right? Yeah, I went back to work inside of five months, about four and a half, five months. And I was in that course that we talked about. earlier that communications course yeah my physical good way to call my physical therapy team became an important part of my recovery in life my team was made up a doctor's nurses physical therapist chiropractors and clinicians who specialized in all type of care most importantly this group

understood seal culture seals 10 toward the extreme we think if one repetition is good then 500 must be great i was blinded by my own bias and it wasn't the first time or the last one day long into my recovery. I confided to my nurse that I may have been experiencing symptoms related to PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. I had been sitting in my truck listening to a radio talk show when the expert being interviewed began describing the common symptoms of PTSD. The voice spoke in a calm, matter-of-fact tone, talking about the autonomic nervous system and how sleeplessness, constant irrational fears, and hypervigilance are often normal and predictable responses to trauma.

I listened to a stranger's voice described me to me. And I was both relieved and confused. When I told the nurse who was a friend and someone I trusted, she smiled and chuckled. Good to hear, Mike. We all thought that you actually enjoyed what happened to you in that room.

She seemed to understand that being profoundly affected by my experience of war was normal and not being altered was abnormal. This was the first time that I considered the concept of emotional, invisible wounds and that I had them. I have come to understand that if the experience of war does not profoundly alter you in some way,

then you may actually have a problem. When the doctor said that I had been perfectly wounded, it seemed like a metaphor for my life. I had been beat up just enough not to kill me. And through the process, I earned the perfect scars of wisdom to survive my next thrashing. I still had no idea how the events of my childhood influenced my thoughts and behavior. I'd become very good at compartmentalization. My self-awareness grew as I uncovered layers of trauma. I later found that my childhood wounds had prepared me for a career in the SEAL teams,

but they also became my most haunting ones. Ironically, it took being shot 27 times to uncover my original wounds, the ones that I never considered or knew I had. Yeah, so you know, you start looking at what's going on. And this is cool. It's got to read this, bro. Because it's a one-page chapter called The Enemy Within. I fully accepted all the hazards of my chosen occupation.

Being wounded was no big deal to me. At no time during or after, I was shot did I ever think I was going to die. I was provided the best medical care available and was sure that my physical wounds would eventually heal. The real battle began when I returned home. The war in Iraq was straightforward. I was expertly trained and had the unconditional support of a community of like-minded, highly-motivated, highly motivated professionals. Professionals. As a seal, I'd been institutionalized. In a sense, I knew the culture, the people, the rules, and the objective. After leaving the military and returning home, my life became

a confusing, frustrating, and stressful mess. I was a prisoner who had been released from the institution into a strange new world. There was a distrustful cynic slowly working his way inside me. His voice sounded like my own, and each day he became more convincing. I was surrounded, isolated, and desperate. This enemy knew all my weaknesses. He was relentless, and he eventually overpowered me. This enemy was me. So a couple things I want to say on the PTSD.

At that point, it really wasn't PTSD, at least clinical, because I haven't had any dreams about it. I don't mind talking about it. It doesn't bother me. It bothered the people around me more than it bothered me. more of a hindrance that I had to live in a recliner for three months. It bothered my kids because they'd never seen me get hurt or sick. It pretty much was my first injury ever, other than broken fingers and toes. I did pinch up for moral nerve that put me down for about

two, three months at one point, doing a PT thing. But that was really my only, my first injury because the fingers and toes don't count. I don't count. But would it? But what is? that happened to me at this point. Well, I want to talk about what I call false anxiety first. Just bad health, eating terrible, dehydration, drinking too much. Your physiology, when you're in that state of health, feels like anxiety. The increased heart rate, the sweaty palms, the whole physiology that goes along with anxiety because of bad health.

It's your physiology reacting to what people are dumping in their bodies. My particular issue, and what I think health care should be, is individual evaluation of each person to adjust their medical care for that. Because I watched for years, people take medication for a migraine. And then the migraine doesn't go away, but they get another symptom. So here's another medication for the symptom. Eight medications later, the guy's telling me, I still got a migraine, and I can't remember what I did 15 minutes ago. I'm taking eight meds for it. I had in your stomach you have flora, bacteria that breaks up the food so your intestines can take the vitamins and nutrients in.

And I had no good flora in my stomach. So my body physiologically couldn't even break down the food. So when I got tested, my urine, my stool, my blood, and they also used epigenetics, which says your epigenetics, your genetics say that your body will consume. and you utilize certain types of food because of your genetics and where you're from. We see a lot of guys in the seal teams, everybody's on keto. Well, how do you know keto is good for you? You might be hurting yourself.

Or, hey, the Greeks lived for a long time to eat a Greek diet. It might not be the one for you because your genetics don't, I mean, it might work, but it might not be the optimum. So I went on to fix mine. All I had to do was take antibiotics for a week and then I rebuilt it with,

diet, you know, just probiotics and... This is to repair your gut floor. After you did these tests, they study everything that's coming out of you. They go, oh, yeah, this is what you need. So my body couldn't even give me those nutrients because it wasn't physiologically working. And I was completely B deficient, D deficient, had all kinds of spikes and heavy metals. Was this while you were still in or is this after you retired and you started working for the CARE Coalition? It was when I was working for the CARE Coalition.

I'd been there for probably six, a little over six years. So you retired in 2010. Yeah. And where did you spend your last, so this incident happened in 2000? Where did you spend your last three years? At DeLittle Creek. And you were, so I taught that course. Got it.

And then I was the operations officer, which was the worst job I ever had my baby. And then you, but so then you retire out of there and you get this job at the CARE Coalition, which is working, special operations care coalition. Yeah. Where are you located when you're doing that job? Well, I'm still living in Virginia Beach, but the job changed. When I was initially hired for that job, I had all the NSW and Marsok guys. And that is wherever they were. So Marsock is on both coast.

So I'd go to Lajune once a month. I'd fly out to San Diego once a month to meet the guys out there, NSW and Marsok. And we were putting guys in if we could find a quality of care that was sufficient. We would put them somewhere, you know, where they were from so they can hang out with their family. So you're, when you're in that job, you're an advocate for all these wounded guys. Correct. Non-medical case manager. Non-medical case manager going, okay, and this guy's, this kid will tell you, hey, you know, I'm having problems with my ex-girlfriend and I need to help with that.

I mean, just I need, I want to get back home to my family or whatever issues that they're facing. Is that, is that right? Was I ran guys through their, they were going through a medical retirement board. I was the advocate for that, and I was the interface between them and the Pellos, the physical evaluation board, liaison officers, which weren't really good at what they did. So I did VA disability. I did wellness trips. There was a lot of care that, you know, paraplegic doesn't care that it's a test, a test medication or a, test treatment, they just want to walk again.

And, you know, sometimes our medical system's not going to facilitate that, so others will, so we would facilitate treatments outside of network. So it was my job, as I described it, was to improve somebody's situation. And I did everything from babysit for people to, you know, medical retirement boards. I mean, I was a better social worker than I was a seal. You talk about some of the cases, you talk about, you go through this, you talk about some of the people that you helped out. Holly was one of my first clients. When I met her, she was only able to lie in bed and scream at the top of her lungs.

It was scary. Holly was raised in Port Angeles, Washington, enlisted in the Navy after high school. She joined the military to create a future for herself and her family. When I met her, she was still the breadwinner for most of her family. She had become an independent duty corpsman, which is the highest enlisted, medical care provider in the Navy. She had graduated the program and become an Arabic linguist. Hospital Corman Chief Petty Officer Holly Crabtree was assigned to work with the

SEAL team as they conducted various operations in Iraq. It was April 15, 2010. I just joined the CARE Coalition and Holly was nearing the end of her deployment. She was out doing a medical civilian affairs operation when she was shot. The bullet pierced her helmet, fractured her skull, and settled behind her off. She was not expected to live. Her crew realized that she was expectant and coded Holly's condition as hope trauma. She proved everybody wrong.

Holly would not give up or stop working. She would have to relearn how to talk, walk, even swallow. I watched her do it all. It was both sad and humbling, but most of all, it made me very proud to know her. Holly has since made an impressive recovery and is medically retired after 13 years. years of service. I had another guy. He's in there.

Sam. Same thing shot in the same place. Both, did he have to relearn everything as well? Yeah, and they both stroked, paralyzed him on the right side of their body. He's working in a program right now where he goes after child pornographers and traffickers, which is a huge problem in the country right now. Like, what, 500,000 children go missing every year in his country? That's insane. I mean, I'll show you real slavery that's happening right now.

As you're doing this stuff with other people, this is when you're starting to realize that, you know, you should get checked out yourself. Am I getting that right? Like in the timeline, like this is when you start going, hey, man, I should get these tests. Well, the only reason I did these tests was because I was having issues and people around me are like, you got to go get help, go talk to somebody. and I refuse to. And the reason why I went with this doctor was because it was the least invasive and all he had to do is talk to him on Skype. He wasn't even in the same state. And to when honestly, I kind of half-assed it, and it worked.

I've seen other people go through this to include people in my own family. and everybody's issues could be different. Mine was bad gut floor. I've seen people that have had H. Plari, which is a parasite, which is pretty prominent, which would the symptoms really look like you're having issues with thyroid. So your initial reaction would be,

well, you're having these issues. I'm going to take you to endocrinologist, and then we're going to make you take these medications so that we fry your thyroid. when the whole time it was just a parasite that you could just stop eating sugar and kill it and fix it. And that's what health care should be.

Health care right now is completely reactive. They don't treat the source of the illness or disease. They just treat the symptoms. There's like 250,000 people die every year because of medical mistake. And we were listening to these people. They almost killed me too. With potassium.

Almost had a heart attack because I had an overdose of potassium. When another seal who'd been shot in the eye right next door to me was almost overdosed. Ryan Job was overdosed when he went in to get surgery, just plastic surgery. And then they tried to lie about it. Yeah, and that was a civilian hospital. It was. That wasn't the military. That was a civilian hospital.

Medicine's not an exact science. Everybody's body's different. And that's why it should be evaluated individually because I'm pretty narcotic resistant. I wake up in the middle of surgeries. You got to give me more narcotics to knock me out if you want to do a surgery. I'm here. I'm going to wake up and fight. Good luck getting somebody to do surgery after you make these statements.

I'm not going to get hurt anymore. I don't think. I hope. So you're learning a lot about that. You're also doing all, like you said, you're doing awesome stuff with some of the people, setting them up. You know, you're doing hunting trips. You end up climbing Mount Reneer. Ryan Joe climbed that blind the year before I did. Yeah. Yeah. You say this about that. You say, our climb had been on a Ryan Job. Another Navy seal had been wounded in Iraq by a sniper and

injury that had left him totally blind. I had met Ryan once at Mike Montsor's Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House, which I think we were saying today. That was the last time I saw, the last time we saw each other before right now. It's a good party. Yeah, it was good times. In 2008, Ryan Job climbed to the summit of Mount Rainier Blind. A year later in 2009, he died as a result of hospital error. Most people know Ryan from the books, American Sniper and a warrior's faith. He was the character Biggles in the film American Sniper.

On my way down, I closed my eyes once and gained a new profound respect for Ryan. and Job, I couldn't take 10 steps without opening my eyes. There's some bad parts of that, man. You're tied to a damn rope, too. I hated that when we did that in the SEAL teams. The cold weather training? Yeah, I actually never did cold weather training. Yeah, I hate it.

I hate it. Yeah, I mean, I was in some cold spots, but I never, you know, I got snowed on plenty. I froze plenty of times out in the sleet in snow, but I never did the cold weather, the actual cold weather training. Team 2 guys, the old team 2 guys used to love that stuff Oh yeah for sure when I got there When I got to team 2 You know I was hoping that I would get to be able to do that But it was already that program was no longer like SEAL team 2 was that

It's all different yeah You end up going to You end up checking out some kind of I guess what is it called alternative medicine treatment? Alternative options Oh yeah I went full hit and I went to a place that was, I mean, I like those things. I like the mindfulness practices. I should get back to meditating regularly.

It does help. But I was introduced at this place to, you know, shooting with a recurve, you know, walking those paths, you know, made with rocks that Indians used to do. So they teach a bunch of mindfulness practices and they were teaching transcendental meditation. And I think that's the part you're getting to where I have. It sounds like it was like, I mean, the first thing it happens, you're doing this stuff. Some acid trip or something, but there's no drugs involved. You're looking at a chair and all of a sudden the chair turns into human bones.

And then you guys are going down to do some, some therapy with horses. And then I'm going to go to the book here while the other participants went to the pen with the instructor. I stood outside the corral. When I turned and looked at an instructor's face, it was like some type of Hollywood special effects scene. I was staring at him when his damn face morphed into an evil demon. I froze, terrified, and trembling. It felt like every cell in my body was vibrating violently. I just stood there, closed my eyes, and prayed, God, please help me.

I was sure these people were going to hurt me. When I opened my eyes, everyone was gone. I needed to get out of there. I saw the group standing in front of the corral, and I said as calmly as I could, hey, guys, thanks for everything. This has been really good, but I need to leave right now. The instructors tried to talk me out of leaving, saying that it wasn't safe for me to go. And I stood there thinking, well, it's definitely not safe for me to stay here with the demon dude.

I tried to hide it, but I think one of the instructors may have known that I was freaked out. One of the female instructors gave me a ride back to my cabin. I made her use her GPS. So I knew where she was taking me. When I arrived back to the cabin, I grabbed my bag, chucked into my truck, and immediately started driving back to Virginia Beach. That was like fully real in your head. And I did a bunch of research after that happened to me.

That's when I started, I had trouble sleeping after that and started doing research. And it's an event quite a few people have. Well, you, I thought it was interesting. You immediately went and got a drug test, a full drug test because you thought maybe you had been drugged. I thought I was drugged. I actually had to stop at a car accident on the way out there. That's right. Yeah, you stop at a car accident.

And so you kind of knew that you couldn't, you weren't on drugs because you were doing normal things. Uh, well, I get into it. Well, no, no, wait. Let me, let me, you, you said you, you knew you weren't insane. Yeah. Because that's why you thought it was drugs. That's what it was. Because I was able to still be objective.

That's when you know you're crazy when you can't be objective. Like, am I crazy? Like, if you're, if you're just completely denying the fact that you might be crazy, then, you know, maybe you are. You got to actually investigate it. That's a scary test, dude. Um, I don't know if I pass. That's that old time.

But I mean, all the research I did on it, it happens to a lot of people, prominent people, educated people. And I say in the book, you know, I either saw it happen because I have some people that are like, hey, you just have the ability to see evil. It was a temporary psychotic break, which hasn't happened since, which I've tried to. Like, man, I don't make that happen again with meditation because I think it was the meditation that did it. I popped open different parts of my brain that I never used. But I cover my ass in there. Yeah. So people don't think, hey, oh my God.

The other thing is the Kundalini Awakening. Yeah. Which I had to go check that on. I watched some YouTube videos to figure out what a Kundalini awakening look like. And it's like a yoga, like you just, we, it says a weird, like spiritual trip, I guess. Yeah. And I would say I might confuse people I were. I wear this ring, but I would say I'm a recovering Christian.

Don't like religion. I'm a spiritual person. I know there's a God. I just, he hasn't, she hasn't, whatever it is, hasn't talked to me yet. So I don't know who's right. What was there like, 10 religions on this rock? There's more than that. I guess because that bad trip, you decided you were going to still keep getting after it.

There was Elliot Miller, another awesome seal. he'd been through some some TBI like treatments he was he was wheelchair bound for a long time was really overweight so he went to that program at Carrick yeah I did the fundraiser for yeah yeah so you so you did this you end up doing this um you end up trying to figure out how you can raise money and and the way you figure out you can raise money is uh is by doing a triathlon I did a half iron man Half iron man So I tried to do a full

That's when I was training for that That's when everything came down Yeah so you end up doing the the short one I'll call it short I mean it's freaking long I guess 13 miles and whatever It is short It's short for a triathlete

Doing two in a row It was exponentially so much harder That I induced diabetes Because I didn't know enough about nutrition Did you induce diabetes Before the first one No

Or while you were training for the second one For the full Iron Man. So you do the first one and everyone's all happy. You raise $135,000. Folks at Iron Man contact you and say, hey, you're great. You got us a bunch of publicity and it's awesome. It's because Chris Pratt did it with me too. Chris Pratt did it with you.

I'm sure they wanted to get some of that. I didn't know who he was. It was like Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh, that one stupid movie with a talking wrecking. They're good movies now. I like them. I'm a fan of Chris. Yeah, no, he seems like a great guy.

I haven't met him. But then this happens. So they tell you, hey, you can do another, you know, we'll sponsor you or whatever. You can do it. And so you start now training for this. And here you go. I was totally exhausted and burned out before the half Ironman. Now I was training for double the distance.

After the race, the first race, the word spread about what I was doing. And new donors came to my crowd rise page to support me doing the full Iron Man. But I was at a point where I just could not do my job anymore. I was totally burned out. And the Ironman fundraising and training did nothing but add to my stress. Everything started to escalate in my mind. I could feel something was on the verge of breaking. The stress of work, training, and financial obligations were all becoming too much.

I couldn't sleep. Becoming edgy and difficult to get along with on the best of days. 45 days before the Kona race, I emailed the Iron Man folks to thank them for the opportunity and backed out of the race. I contacted every donor and offered them to return all their money. I was a mess. At work, I would get urgent calls from shrinks who would say stuff like, come get your guy. Some of my clients would scare the medical staff.

And the doctors knew if they called the police, all hell would break loose. So they called me instead. I would have to go defuse the situation. These evolutions were exhausting. And looking back, they were all well beyond my area of expertise. I would do the minimum reporting at work, then try to sleep or play video games, and attempt to distract myself from the constant fear of something bad happening. I was trapped without an escape route.

Stress accumulates and it was all piling up inside of me. I had no financial help and I'm not one to ask for any. I was sure that I was going to get fired from my job. This was only the second real job I'd ever had in my life other than being in the Navy. I felt embarrassed and ashamed and emasculated. I would not leave my home for days on end. I avoided talking to people, even turned off my phone. Brenda was troubled.

She knows me so well. She was gentle at first asking me if I wanted to talk to someone. As I became more isolated and combative, she reached out to my friends and coworkers. They joined with her and together they all hounded me to get help. In a year, I'd gone from training to do an Ironman triathlon to not being able to get off my couch. I was in a dark, dangerous place. My life had become unbearable. There was guilt.

But I think the real culprit was shame. Guilt and shame are very different and controlled my thoughts and behaviors in distinct ways. Guilt was about what I had done or in my case what I hadn't done. Shame was about who I was, or at least who I thought I was. I felt like a prisoner being brainwashed every day. My mind seemed to be stuck on a one-track narrative that became darker with each episode. Every minute of every day, there was this weird repeating internal monologue that opened with guilt, which created a feeling of shame. I would fixate on things that supported this monologue, like bailing out of the Iron Man, which I was sure disappointed the donors, the treatment facility.

My clients and my family my inemic efforts at work reinforced my shame That's when all the what-ifs began chiming in what if I get fired from my job? Will we lose the new house and all my money? What if the people who donated to my fundraiser think I'm a fraud because I didn't do the full iron man? These thoughts would lead to embarrassment which deep into my feelings of shame I was trapped in this desperate repeating irrational monologue that sounded all rational to me I personally knew people like Dan, Mark, Holly, and Tyler who had far worse injuries than me and far more stressful lives and who were all managing themselves well. But for some reason, I just couldn't put things in perspective. I was locked in an irrational, disproportionate, escalating mental prison.

I sat in my truck. I had researched how to do it exactly where to place the barrel and how to angle the gun. I had practiced it with a cleared weapon and pulled the trigger. I didn't want to leave a mess for someone else to clean up. I would not do it in my truck so someone else could use it the bullet would go through my heart There would be an instant of pain and then I would be gone I would do to myself with one bullet what four enemy fighters Failed to accomplish with 27 I stared at the black gun in my hand I'd used one like this to kill before I was numb and sad confused and tired I had cried alone so many times my downward spiral had come to its final resting place at the bottom was hopelessness

The built-up stress, the lingering effects of trauma, my psychological deficits all colluded to create a condition of hopelessness. My mind worked trying to come up with an explanation to justify my final act to my two beautiful daughters. Years ago in that room at that compound, the thought of not being able to see their faces again terrified me. Images flashed in my mind, holding my daughter's little hand in her own as we sat together the way the girls would wrap their arms around my neck and hug me.

Their soft little voices called out, oh, dad. Their smiling faces repeatedly flashed in my mind. There was the disproportionate feeling of guilt and shame that relentlessly stalked me. I felt trapped in a life layered with overwhelming stress, endless responsibilities, meaningless tasks, and toxic people of whom I felt I was the most toxic. It was all my fault. I felt I was my own worst enemy. This time there was a bullet in the chamber.

I was beyond contemplation. My mind was made up. I mentally paced pack and forth, working up the courage the same way I had when I hit my father with the bat. I was getting out of my truck when my phone rang. I looked down at the number. It was Scott Heinz, my boss. I picked up the phone in one hand and held a gun in the other. I let it ring, not wanting to answer.

I couldn't do it with Scott calling, so I put down the gun. I answered, hey, Scott, what's up? And Scott says, Mike, I want you to take the next three months to chill out. I'm going to pay you. Relax. Take your time and find a new job. I'll help you out however I can. You're beyond burned out.

You did amazing work, but there's a time limit for how long you can do this job, and you maxed it out. My boss and good friend had just given me the hope I needed to climb out of the very deep hole I'd found myself in. In that instant, I could not have answered my phone for anyone other than Scott. Scott had seen it all before. He knew that I was surrounded by wounded, sick, and injured people all day. Scott also knew that many of the people who I'd been meeting with every day for years, including patients, their family members, veterans service members, and hospital staff were struggling with depression.

It's like an alcoholic tending a bar you can only hold out for so long. If you're around depressed people all the time, you become depressed too. I suspect that some of you reading this may now think that I'm crazy and write me off. You come for coming this far with me for the rest of you who have ever been depressed or suicidal I can tell you that while I fully believed at the time that I was thinking rationally I know now that I was not my irrational thoughts had started repeating themselves the world will be better off without me I don't care anymore I just want out of here I'm a horrible person my future will just be filled with more of the same stress These thoughts seem totally rational and true in my compromised state

but I had no idea that my thinking was compromised. What scared me the most about these thoughts and the entire experience is what happened to me just a few months later. Brenda, in her desperation to help, convinced me to visit a physician who had a protocol to treat depression and other conditions.

I resisted at first, of course, but finally agreed to work with a guy, if only to get Brenda and everyone else off my back. that's why I did it. Man, you get, it's interesting, you know, you talk about the, like now you can look back and see that you weren't rational. Oh, yeah. But at the time, there's just, you know. It's a chemical imbalance.

I mean, it's, more people are coming aware of it now, the gut brain access. I mean, the gut is probably a smarter brain. than the one in our skull. It can't operate properly unless you put proper nutrients and vitamins. And this doctor is also really big into the EMF, electromagnetic fields, you know, how we're affected. I mean, we had radio antennas over in Iraq and Afghanistan. You could put popcorn kernels in it. Popcorn.

What do you think that does to your skull? what do you think that does to your skull and your organs and your cells we already use resonance as a weapon you can use microwaves to make people sick well yeah I was a radio man unfortunately

I loved the job but I mean sat all all those antennas man I was constantly you're a young guy getting we took the what was that thing called the batwing yeah the vehicle antenna for the satellite and we figured

Well, one of our new guys put it on the radio with a switch. So this OIC is running around. He looked like Inspector Gadget, you know, with the helicopter. And he had that batwing hanging out over top of his head. I don't think sat transmissions are very healthy. But frequencies, you know, resonance. We can use it as a weapon. It could be used for the heel at microwaves.

They've been used a lot to make people sick. So you go through all. that you kind of get this doctor doctor Beck sort of put you on a path like a new mission of you're gonna clean up your diet you're gonna stay away from these situations the Bluetooth limit your limit your exposure to Wi-Fi and all this stuff which is hard oh yeah for sure EMF is hard so I pretty much blew that off so what did you mostly what did you mostly fix your diet mostly it was diet got my gut back right so that it

because the way that works your gut prepares the food for the intestines for the intestines to do what they do and if the stomach doesn't work then it just is going to pass through and the intestines are not going to be able to pull the nutrients and vitamins and I don't take any medication now I am taking Mitch's smashing greens

I started off with this doctor put me on a stuff called green juice from Organify so it's It's got all the, you can have in one shake, all the nutrients, you know, with one scoop of protein and one scoop of greens. That's all you need. Pretty, I mean, we could live on algae. And you look at all these school lunches that these kids were getting.

Not now because of COVID, but, I mean, they would feed them crap. They're actually making them sick. They're not helping them. Yeah. I mean, like Doritos with, like, crappy hamburger meat on it. Yeah. Yeah. If it's even hamburger meat.

Yeah. If it's hammered to me, it's not high grade. I can tell you that. So you get done, so you go on this protocol and you say this. It took about two months and even then I, um, I would shop for all the foods,

meticulous repair the meat, measure all the meals, keep the detailed food log. I'm sure the process was gradual, but one day I woke up and felt like the black cloud that I had been hovering over me with for years was gone. I was able to function to move and think, think clearly.

The fog had lifted and the, and the constant negative internal monologue inside my head stopped. I felt strong, clear, and confident enough to get up and start moving forward. Grab my phone, opened up my contact list, and started sending text messages and making calls. I needed a new job. And that's when you ended up going to trade it. Back to trade it as a contractor. I went back to teach in military free fall where a prior injury,

I had three events where I couldn't open my main parachute. because my right scapula would seize up my whole back and my hand went and works. I had three high-speed malfunctions. Went to reserve and the last one ripped my peck off my connects between your arm. Did you get surgery? Yeah, they reconnected it. But it was a slap tear.

The whole peck came out of right here. Dang. So then I went to the CQC and Salk. Yeah, which is awesome. Because the TTPs changed. Because of me. Yeah, that's perfect place for you to go and teach me. What better person be teaching about how to handle close quarters combat that someone didn't do what I did?

I mean, we still teach that, but there's better ways to do things. Different tactics you can use in different situations. You can't just do the same thing every time. And then how long did you stay there for? Because you're retired now from that job as well, right? Yeah, so what is it, 2020, quick, 18. I was probably at trade-up between those two jobs for about three years. Okay.

Awesome. And I just left that last October, I think. It's a cool thing that the teams do, bringing older guys back that have experience that some of the younger guys might not have, especially someone we've experienced like you, and bring them in there to teach and pass on those words, man. That's freaking awesome that we do that in the teams. Well, I learned a lot there being an instructor, like you were talking about earlier.

you know, watching 20 different groups come through. People do different things, different ways. And like, man, that was really stupid. Man, I wish I would have thought of that. You ended up getting some tattoos. And this was cool. You know, Mike Martin, who's a Master Chief team guy that was in Vietnam, who had gotten out of the got out.

Got out. Got out. Got out. Got out for, like, a long time. Well, he was at training cell at Team 3 when I got there. Yeah. He'd gotten out for a long time. Then he'd gone, rejoined the Navy.

Went back through buds. I don't think they made him do like real buds. He's like one of a few people that went through like a gentleman's course of buds, you know. We had a retread in my class. It didn't make it.

Was he a rechred Vietnam vet? I believe so. Really? He was terrible. Dang. That's kind of crazy. Well, he passed away last year on the motorcycle ride.

And I'll tell you what. He was only 62. Bro. we were I was he was gonna come on the podcast and and like I was lining up with you know one of our mutual friends and and we're just you know just trying to find the date and boom yeah I was freaking so bummed out that was the first Navy SEAL book I haven't read many but Navy SEALs don't read Navy SEAL books even though there's so many of them so many jokes I was just hanging out with black rifle and I was like hey you guys want to sell books in here you know all the military

books. It was like, yeah, it's a good idea, but we'll have to reinforce the shelf for all the Navy SEAL books. I'm like, you're an asshole, dude. Well, I was sitting down with the black rifle guys up in Montana, and it was me and Dudley, the archery guy, and then Jack Carr was, what's his name, the other owner, small? It was Evan. It was Evan. That was who was there. Because the other guy got hurt. I thought he got hurt up there in Montana. Matt got hurt, so he couldn't come. But anyways, we sit down and and you know Evan makes a joke about seals writing books and did it to me too

and then of course I looked at him and I was like because I mean it's a funny joke yes but then we are actually sitting with two seals that have written books I was like oh this is really embarrassing I go real funny Evan they're a great group of guys they're definitely doing their job paying it forward for sure man

for sure I mean I was really bummed out when I said well first of all when I found out that you went to the total archery challenge there and I just did I don't know why I didn't put two and two together well I didn't find out until after you left montana yeah so I was like but then the other thing I didn't know is I knew I knew that they were doing something with uh with the wounded warriors but I didn't know what they were doing I didn't really grasp it again I just didn't pay enough attention but I could I should have gone down there for that looked freaking awesome what that rolled into a huge archery event afterwards so we there was 25 of us I was one of two guys it wasn't the amputee there was

There's a dude there that didn't have a right arm. Yeah, I saw videos of him. You fight that thing. Yeah. He's a good thing too. Yeah, dude. And shit at like 108 yards. Yeah, there's something real cool about archery that, uh, that has a lot of similarities,

you know, to the old job, you know. I like shooting a bow better. Yeah, I do too. I like shooting a bow better. The main reason is because it's quiet. It's like there's no like little shock. It's just nice and quiet. You can do it in your yard.

And it's harder. Actually. Yeah. It is harder. Well, it's definitely harder at range. And then you can pick up a recurve. I haven't done the recurve thing yet. That's cool.

Is that what you're like primarily shooting as a recur? These were compounds, but I've got a couple of recurves, and it's all distinctive. Yeah. Yeah, you just aim and. Well, you can't aim. There's no sights. Well, let me rephrase that. Kentucky windage and go.

It is totally Kentucky winage. Oh, good. Yeah, there's a couple guys that were trying to do some long shots up in Montana with the recurves, man. Yeah, it looks fun. Looks fun. I don't know if I got a lot of work to do on the compound before I decide I'm going to make it even harder You just turn up the juice on that thing Man

Yeah so one arm guy's hitting stuff at 108 yards how hard can it be That's freaking awesome He's only got one arm It's freaking awesome man Just freaking awesome Lopez Um getting close here but you know you say this

It may seem strange but being shot 27 times then having a hand grenade flow up next to me was one of the best things that ever happened to me. It was the start of a personal revolution that continues today and hopefully will go on until I take my last breath. I say revolution rather than evolution. As a result of my experience, I have tossed out and or abandoned every bias, relationship, belief, and dogma that has blocked my self-awareness and joy. Again, I'm reading this stuff because I know that there's people, I mean, people talk to me all the time about what they're going through and you know what you say here i think is really important i burned through a number of therapists some were good most didn't have what i needed to help me

understand how the traumas of my childhood shaped me as a person and how those same traumas make some of my behaviors predictable at times i had to be pushed into seeing therapists and doctors by people who loved and cared about me i don't know if i can ever thank these people enough for not giving up on me when i was so rude and resistant toward them. I say all of this so you know that, at least for me, there has been no magic pill, quick fix, or one-size-fits-all solution to finding peace and joy in my life. These things have come to me slowly over the past decade as I grew in self-awareness and courage.

I suspect your personal peace, if that's what you're searching for, maybe gained much the same way. Yeah, you know, I think that that, uh, just letting people know, like somebody thinks, oh, I'm going to go see a therapist and it doesn't work out because that therapist doesn't have what that particular person needs. And then they go, oh, see, I can't be helped instead of saying, oh, you know what, I got to try some different people. Well, it's societal to.

People think that they, you know, it could take you years to get into a terrible mindset, that page training telling yourself doing all the things that make you believe the things that you're telling yourself and then you hit rock bottom or what you think's rock bottom and you're like I'm going to go to this fix I'm going to go to this one week program you know it took me two years to turn into this disaster area and I think I'm going to go to a one week program that's going to fix it and a lot of these programs that I watch when I was at the care coalition it does help but there's no follow-up so there's an improvement while they're there because everybody's you know feeding them good food, teaching them the things that they can use to, you know,

relieve stress. And they do that while they're there. And then they go home and then just fall back into the same routine, training themselves to get further into that hole. I mean, that's what medicine is right now. People get sick. They think that they can take a medication that's going to make the sickness go away. You're not even addressing why you're sick. You're just hiding the symptoms. I was going to say hiding the symptoms. I mean, like earlier, I said, I actually induced diabetes. And it was because I didn't know enough about nutrition.

And the only thing I knew about nutrition is if I was hungry or not. And my favorite restaurants were the ones that gave me the most food. I didn't care what it was. I mean, eat an extra large pizza of myself, gallon ice cream, and a 12 pack of beer. That's the winning path. Maybe not. Definitely not. It's funny too because we all know

Even since we were little kids You are what you eat But we know it but we don't practice it And then you got the FDA with that stupid food pyramid You know, you've got people now Oh my stuff's FDA approved I'm like, so what? Corrupt organization

Go eat five loaves of bread Like they told you to. No wonder everybody's fat Yeah Can you say pre-diabetic? Oh and then they take medication I mean, type 2 diabetes, all you got to do is change your diet. It goes away.

I did it. I induced it with cliff bars, gatorade. I wasn't eating Twinkies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You were thinking what seemed like it's cool. Yeah, and I was also being trained by an ultrathoner. And they're dumber than we are. Who goes and runs 100 miles.

She kicked my ass, man. And I just didn't know enough. about nutrition and I was just dumping carbs and sugars in me and every time I stood up I was almost passing out that's diabetes freaking crazy soon as I fixed it it went away here's another little section that I think people should hear I have a way I have way more stress and uncertainty in my in my life today than I ever did in the SEAL teams or when I was suicidal the difference is that I now have a new resiliency portfolio of people tools and skills that allows me to effectively manage stress almost effortlessly. While I do have bad days and very bad days, they don't control

me or impact my outlook on life. I'm also keenly aware that most of my troubles are self-inflicted. If you are honest with yourself, you may find the same as true in your own life. Adversity is either a privilege or a tragedy depending on how you respond to it. Choosing to be a victim of the events and circumstances in my life would have been the real tragedy. What if we all view adversity as an opportunity for personal growth to define our life's purpose and to help others? The reality is that we can, but we can't do any of these things as victims. If I am to evolve, which is my life's mission, I can't be a victim. Even if my problems are the result of someone else's actions, I found it easier to find myself than to rely on the perpetrator to repair the

damage. Well, that's what a lot of victims do. You're a victim because you're blaming somebody else and you're expecting them to fix it. And there's just nobody's coming, you know, they're not going to fix it. Yeah. So you might as well just take the blame. Take, take the ownership and solve the problem. After everything that I've come through, I'm grateful.

I think that the gratitude and service are, I think that gratitude and service are inseparable. The more I serve, the more grateful I feel that I can still serve and care for my family, my warrior brothers and sisters and continue to be of service to all of you. These days, I spend my free time hunting for perfect surf and spending time with great friends. I set up a nonprofit to help shorten the distance to recovery from trauma and depression. We join with people who truly want to help themselves. We offer these adventurous souls, a community of the right relationships and a portfolio of resiliency skills and tools. And what's the name of that?

It's a little bit of forward thinking. I'm just on the arrow right now. I'm putting in the paperwork. It's called Warrior Tribe. And the focus is going to be a little trauma metal on this. And I want to get into at-risk youth. Yeah. Freaking awesome, man.

The kids that were like me that are one decision away from winding up in the In the federal prison system. Yeah, or winding up on a great career in the military or some other path. It only takes one decision. I got lucky, you know. You know what? I just want to close it out with what you close this book out with. Joseph Clark Schwedler.

It comes in waves now and again. There's an overwhelming feeling of disbelief that gives way to frustration. then my eyes usually well up It's been going on for years now I've lost so many people it takes a toll Clark was the kind of man you want your son to grow up to be He was smart driven had a great sense of humor Was tough but thoughtful and responsible

He was a born leader and he made us all better people After missions we'd be tired but Clark he would be working out So we'd work out too He was like a Swiss army knife He was our navigator, our intel collections guy, a team leader, sensitive site exploitation officer, and one of our Iraqi army combat advisors. He picked up everything fast and became great at whatever he did. Clark's dream was to be a Navy SEAL. He was a Midwestern kid from Crystal Falls, a northern Michigan town of 1,469 people.

He was a senior class president, played high school football and basketball, and ran truce. He did two years at Michigan State and joined the rowing team. Knowing Clarkie, he did it because the workouts were grueling and he wanted to stay in shape. He followed his heart, abandoned college, and enlisted in the Navy to fulfill his dream of becoming a seal. Clarkie got to live his dream and did what he loved to do. Every time I saw him, he had a smile on his face. What gives me peace is knowing that if I died doing my life, he did my life. job as a seal I would have no regrets and I know Clarkie felt the same way for those of us

who have lost friends and family members in this war the losses connect us while we may be strangers we know each other well there is a surprising comfort in being together in this painful club we don't have words to describe the depth of our grief but we don't need them because we can feel each other's sorrow there's a saying time Heels all wounds. It doesn't. It only makes them slightly less painful. I may again meet up with Clarkie on the other side of this life, and I'm looking forward to it.

They just put some new stars and paws on the naked warrior in Virginia Beach. I didn't even know about the dogs that passed. I think one of them was a suicide. Died by suicide. A terrible place to be, but since I've been there, I know I can't get there again. and that was one phone call from one person that stopped me so I almost didn't answer that phone yeah and I think um obviously the lesson there is uh well it messes a lot of people up the secondary tertiary effects I told uh our nutritionists about it who helped me out with the guys that I was

assigned to told her what I'd almost done and she was like do you know how many people that would hurt. I never considered that. I thought I was doing people a favor. That's how irrational I was. But I've been around families where there's been a death by suicide and it's terrible what it does to the people that are left behind. It's a they don't recover from it. Well, you know, I, you know, this, this kind of tribute that you wrote there in the end to Clark is awesome. But, you know, you You know, from my perspective, there's no more powerful tribute than you can make than doing what you're doing right now. You know, trying to help other people out, trying to live a good life, take care of family, and really sharing all the things that you've been through and how you made it through them with other people. And I think there's nothing better that you could do to truly honor Clark's his sacrifice.

And I do want to make it clear, too, that I am still seeking a continuum of care. I'm recently looking at a program called Save a Warrior, which a handful of guys have gone to. The last three years of my life, probably be a lot better book. The stuff that I've been dealing with is last three years, and the fact that I'm able to manage it is pretty incredible to me. But I don't know. I think some people think, oh, I've had my ass handing me up into the this point, nothing else is going to happen. I mean, shit's still going to happen. And I've just been able to get to the point where no matter how bad I got my ass handed to me, I somehow

fixed it or somebody helped me fix it. And I just had that mindset now. I don't care if the rest of you turn into the zombies. I'll figure it out when it happens. But your point, your point in saying that you're still, you still are on the path of you still know you need help now. Yeah, I think I think everybody does. There was a point in my life where I would have said, now I'm fine, but there's always room for improvement. That's an easy way for someone to say. You don't have to say you need help, hey, there's room for improvement.

Yeah, that's a better team guy way of saying it. Because a team guy never wants to say, I need some help. But if you say to a team guy, don't you want to get, don't you want to improve? 99% of team guys say, hell yeah, I want to improve. And another thing with that, too, it takes you a while to get to a bad stuff. that one-week program is not going to do it. A continuum of care, and that's working out, good diet, you know, taking care of the things that lower the stress hormones.

It's not just one thing. It's a lifestyle change. You can't expect to be well if you're taking down a fifth every day. And I'm not going to be a hypocrite. I probably drink too much beer. But I also take in all the nutrients and vitamins that I need to before I drink too much beer. Well, hey, man, look, we've been going at it over three hours right now. Where can people, people can find you, Instagram?

Yeah, my Instagram handle is Mike Day, 53, 26. My social media is a train wreck until I hire somebody. I don't know what I'm doing. And my website, I have a website, my daughter, who used my GI Bill to get a graphic design degree, did my website. It's perfectly wounded.com. Okay, so that's where people can find you. Any other closing thoughts? No, I just, there is no easy button.

Nobody's coming. Nobody's going to take care of you better than you can take care of yourself. It's, I can't say enough. There's not an easy button. You trained yourself to get yourself to a certain point. That's your mindset. That's training. and if you just look at it like that

if you can train into a bad mindset you can train out and if you are hanging out with a bunch of depressed people or people that are like-minded that that are negative you're going to catch it I mean we used to kill that stuff in the SEAL teams there's always one guy

that bitched and complained about everything and if you didn't stop it then his buddy started bitching and complaining and then it was like a damn disease the negative thoughts and negative actions are not going to fix and a fit that Jack Daniels every day doesn't fix it eventually you're going to have to still deal with it right all man those are those are freaking good good guidance right there and uh man thanks for sitting down here thanks for talking with us

thanks for coming all the way out here um thanks thanks for everything you did for the teams and for the Navy and for America and man the example you set for you know for people not not just for what you did in the teams but like the example you're setting right now being putting yourself out there explaining how to overcome things it's freaking awesome man I appreciate it I don't like giving advice I'll try to live by example you know it was came back from black rifle those people you know amputees still going through surgeries and their lives are so much harder just to get up out of bed, you know, a paraplegic. What a pain of the butt that is, but they still fight through it, and they were living by example.

And when I was at the Care Coalition, it did kind of help me for a long time. I'm like, well, can I complain when, you know, Dan Kynosson's double above the knee ampute. Taylor Morris is a quad amp, and I've never seen the guy be upset. So it is, it is inspiring to see people that we assume have a worst, deal, which is a hard thing for people to get across too. Like, I don't have the right to feel this way because that guy's worse or that girl's worse, which is not true. You know, everybody's issues are their issues and they have to be addressed, even though

you don't have the worst deal. You know, be happy you don't have the worst deal. You don't have to fix that one. Yeah. You might not have the worst deal, but it's your deal and you got to deal with it. Awesome, man. Appreciate it, brother. Thanks, guys.

And with that. Mike Day has left the building. Awesome to see him. And that ends up being yet another excuse removal podcast. What does that mean? Meaning it's kind of hard to make excuses when you get done talking with Mike Day, who's been through a lot and he's not making excuses. So, well, Echo Charles.

Yeah. Yeah, that's. it's almost like you can kind of just refer to that every single time you know something's going wrong for you and probably others too we'd be like well at least i didn't get shot 27 times you know it's true statement my thumb almost ripped off yeah it's weird you can keep or that he can keep his head straight when he looks down and be like oh yeah my thumb's almost off as well you know yeah i i said this i said team guy mode yeah and i don't use that term lightly but just from reading it and talking to him about it using full team guy mode which is when you're just like all right I'm going to make things happen right now just you know so yeah 20 did well speaking of excuse removal what do you think we can do to help ourselves and each other remove some excuses and stay on the path stay capable of course you're not gonna well we all

have our challenges, right? Like how you guys were saying, like people's challenges are more or less or whatever, but they're ours. We have our, that's what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're my challenges or our challenges. Anyway, so we're all going to have our challenges,

but we want to stay capable. Yeah. I think. So with capability comes exercise, I think. Well, you heard Mike mentioned about a thousand times of working out, right? Staying in shape, eating good food. Eating good food.

Supplementation. Supplementation is a thing. Very helpful thing. Anyway, so yeah, supplementation. Jocko has fuel by way of supplementation. Jock fuel. So what kind of supplementation for your joints? It's a big one.

Keep your joints in the game. My kids saw a guy do a backflip. It was a big muscle guy. And he was doing a bunch of other stuff. And there was a kid involved in the video. And he was doing so. And my daughter, you know, she's curious. She's seven.

everything the guy did, she was like, hey, dad, can you do that? And the answer was yes, every single time. And she would be like, hey, prove it. So I'd have to like prove it, you know? And there was like a rope in it too. So I didn't have to prove that part of it. And she was like, he was doing like a bunch of stuff. And I was like, it was the list was going on and on.

And I was like, I was doing good at first. But after a while, I started to get nervous. Like, bro, this guy is pretty capable. He started getting outside of your realm of capability. It looked like he was about to, you know, because he just kept doing stuff. And I looked at him, I was like, he was in good shape. One of those athletic shapes, too, muscle guy. I'm like, okay, all right, all right.

And then finally, the last thing he did was this backflip, sort of the finale of the video, like saying, thanks for watching, and he does a backflip. And I remember back in the day, I could do a backflip, straight up. What do you call it a tuck? I think it's called. You know, the kind of backlip in length. Yeah.

So, but I'm like, oh, man, if I were to bust out a backflip right now, because, of course, she wants to see her right now, I'd probably hurt myself. But if I warmed up a little bit, I think I could do it. Right on. I'm surprised you didn't go for it at the pool's edge and say, hey, listen, P. I can do it. But I'm going to do it over here by the pool just because I'm cold right now.

See, this guy warms up a lot. Yeah, that's all right. That's actually what I said. I was like, yeah, he's warming. Of course, you know, she's like, okay. So now every once in a while she'll be like, hey, just warm up. Do it before your workout. And I'm like, I got to bust out to excuse.

It's been about 10 years since I did it. And you can get hurt. you don't do it correctly. So the last thing I need is for me to double down and get injured in front of my daughter, you know, kind of blow her whole image of me. But she knows I can do it in the pool. She already knows that. So I don't think I could get away from the pool thing.

Nonetheless, if I practice when she's not looking, like in the pool or whatever, I'll pull it off. But here's the thing. I'm a little bit older now. So my joints could take a beating if I wasn't on the supplementation. That's one of the things I was thinking about as I'm explaining to her Like I could pull it off just need to up your joint warfare I might have to you know just to first you know For a safety sake as it works

Nonetheless yeah so take the joint warfare just in case somebody else you do a backflip For sure tuck whatever sure not inside the pool or other things Let's face it you try to climb a rope or something like this Should just get hurt but if your joints are good you're good Also krill oil super krill oil and also that vitamin D. Yeah. Get on that vitamin D.

Mix a little vitamin D with your cold war. Yeah. Immunity system. Strong. Yeah, boost the immune system. Also, mouk. Yeah. I was going to say, don't forget about discipline,

Discipline go. Discipline powder. We've got all kind of discipline. Yeah. A little bit of that, when you need that little accelerant. Yeah.

To kind of ignite things. Try it out. You might like it. Yeah, and the jaco Palmer, both powder and the cans. I think it's sort of the leading flavor. It was the tropic one, but I think, yeah, I think that kind of it's set in stone. I think in my sour apple, apple sniper. Yeah.

I'm out right now, by the way. JP NL's custom signature. JP. DENL, signature line. Sure, signature line. Well, it doesn't good deal, Dave. It's good, too. I've tried, you know, I try, obviously I tried the, uh, the sour apple sniper.

And it's really good. Yeah. It's going to, it's really good. It's really good. Yeah. And, and yes, Dave Burke. Good deal. Yes.

He also has a flavor coming, a signature flavor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those are interesting too because you get like, especially. This is going to be orange. Yeah. After burner orange.

Yeah. You, um, these energy drinks, the RTD cans. You kind of. And I kind of forget this from time to time too. I'm like, okay, I need an energy drink, but it's not just an energy drink. You get the discipline and you don't get like for real chemicals. Yeah, yeah, you don't. So, yeah, there's no sugar in it.

It's sweetened with monk fruit still tastes good. And but what's even next level is that it's pasteurized. So there's no chemicals that keep things stable, which we had to go through a long period of of testing and to find the place and to make the, drink the way it is. So yeah, check that out. Yeah, it's like a, um, it'd be a disservice to call it a health drink, even though it essentially is a health drink. You know what I'm starting to feel over here is that when we do a podcast like this where you don't say much during that podcast portion, maybe that sort of builds a pent up conversation in your head where, where, where you want to

converse with me about stuff. Oh, that, yeah. And it seems like you had, lot it out a whole kind of topic here that we were going to go into or that you are going to go you know I feel it too but and you know now that you mentioned that you're right you're actually in real life you're right and here's what's crazy that's a long podcast that's three hours right so I'm thinking okay cool we just did a three hour podcast and I'm like echo you know we'll just kind of burn through people kind of know what's up they want to support the podcast they're going to get the game they know to go to origin main.com we can just kind of let them know sure but then we're talking about backflips that's what we're talking about

about. You know how like, okay. And see, then what I do is I screw up because then I bring it up. I should just keep my mouth shut. Be like, yep, backflips cool. Yep. RTD. Yep, good. Warrior Kid, Mulk. Get it. Yep. Mulk. Yep. But I don't. I, I, I, I, I take the bait. I take the bait. It's kind of bait because. It's 100% bait. Well, okay, so we're all at home, you know, a lot of us. I mean, you know, some, some of us are going out a little bit more than others, but like, I'm one of the people who I'm at home a lot. So I talk to the same four people in my family varying levels of age, you know, and maturity levels. So after a while, it gets repetitive.

So when I see you, you know, once a week, I'm like, hey, man, let's talk. Let's face it. And that's not, that's a common thing. Like, because sometimes we can go straight up two hours before we've been press record because we're, you know, whatever, whatever. And when you think about it, I'm just realizing this just now. Like, we kind of rolled in. We're kind of all business.

Yeah. So you're correct. You don't like that. You've got a whole sort of like excess of conversations floating around your head that just need to come out. I don't. All in the tank. I'm over here with just zero.

I'd be just as soon like read off the stuff. You tell them where to go and we leave. I'd be down with that. I understand. Okay. All right. Well, hey, let's speed it up.

But hey, let's, you know, bear with me, if you will. So yes, discipline, can, powder, all that.

Good for your brain. Good for your body. Keep it, keep yourself on the path. And capable, by the way, milk extra protein in the form of a dessert. Eating dessert,

like what? Ice cream or Snickers, bars, For dessert, I guess that's not really a dessert. That's more of a candy board, but like a cake, a bunt cake. But don't do that. That'll take you off the path.

Yeah. Jocka white tea. Don't forget about that. Organic. And you can get all this stuff at origin, main.com. Or you can go to the vitamin shop right around the corner, if you got one around the corner from you. You can go check it out there. And then we also at origin, main.com, we make all kinds of stuff for you to wear on your body.

Yeah, sure. Things that you can. wear when you are doing jujitsu like jiu jizu like rash guards t-shirts if you're not doing jiu jih T-sue you still need to wear something on your body where wear a t-shirt you probably need something on your legs sometimes wear some origin jeans wear some origin boots if you need something on your foot they got your whole body covered apparently your whole body covered beanies do and and here's the thing this is you've kind of throw it in there in the end like it's no big deal everything that I just said is 100% made in America without compromise.

You're supporting America. You're supporting local people that are making things happen. Our people. Bringing back this industry. Bringing back manufacturing to America. So go to origin, main.com. Get yourself some of that stuff if you need to cover up your foot.

Sure. Or other places. Also speaking of clothing, let's just say clothes, apparel if you were. Actually, apparently seems more like a, like a, like a, it's a bit much. It's a bit much. We'll just say close.

How this? Okay. Speaking of which, Jocco has a store called Jocco store. Some new things on there, but this is the place where you can get discipline equals freedom, good, get after. You know, representing while on the path with closing from Jocco store. So go to jocco store.com. Discipline equals freedom shirts, hats, jackets. You know how a lot of times I say like oh this is ours sure

But let me ask you a question is my new t-shirt up yet yes all right Good yeah t-shirt is up yes some people have noticed it too oh and they know and they text me You know Jack Daniel Hill yeah so he texts me he was like hey hope you're doing good Hey that new shirt is awesome and it's not like he texts me every day too so it was like a thing so so uh after many years of planning because I've been wanting to do this for you. How many years if we have been planning that t-shirt? Three years I've been planning this t-shirt. So it's a t-shirt on the front of the t-shirt. It says two words, hardcore recondos. You all know where that comes from. If you don't,

don't worry about it. You'll figure it out at some point. And on the back, it's got the, it's got phonetic letters. The phonetic letters it has on the back, are November Fox Trot Sierra And if you don't know what those mean Don't worry about it Don't worry about it If you do know what those things mean

Then you'll probably be When you see me You'll be seeing me wearing that t-shirt Get some hardcore ricondos Yep that one is there Jocco store.com If you see anything else on there Hey man get it

Good way to represent While on the path While supporting Also If you want to get the book Perfectly Wounded by Mike Day

We got it on the website Jockop Podcast.com And the sections where the books are You see it Books from the episode We got you there Just click through there It'll take you to Amazon

You can buy it Boom straight from Amazon Also Subscribe to the podcast If you haven't already On your iTunes Or Stitcher Google Play

You know wherever you listen to To podcasts You know Subscribe and easy One click boom Easy money And there's not just this podcast. We also have the unraveling podcast, which is going to have its own, what's it called, its own feed at some point.

Right now we're kind of dual broadcasting. Get people in the game a little bit. Make sure that you know it's out there. But eventually we'll break that off. So look for the Jocko Unravelling podcast. We got the grounded podcast. We got the Warrior Kid podcast. We got Warrior Kid soap from Irish Oaks Ranch.com.

You can get soap so that you. everyone you know can stay clean we got a YouTube channel this is where Echo puts tons of special effects into two-minute videos and then puts no special effects in a three-hour video a lot of people a lot of people don't agree with that but that's what Echo's doing and according to him that's the way it should be so whatever also have an album called psychological warfare where I will tell you some little things to do to get through moments of weakness, which we've all got little moments of weakness. Attack them.

That's what I'm saying. If you need some support attacking you support by fire position, press play. Listen to some psychological warfare. If you need a visual signal for overcoming a moment of weakness, go to flipside canvas.com, Dakota Meyer. He's making all kinds of cool stuff. Also made in America to hang on your wall

and remind you that you need to stay on the path. Got a bunch of books. Obviously, Mike Day's book, perfectly wounded. We got the code. We got leadership strategy and tactics field manual. We got Way of the Warrior Kid, one, two, and three. We got way of the, we got Mikey and the Dragons. We got Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual.

We got the dichotomy of leadership. And then the OG book, Extreme Ownership, written by me and my brother Laif Babin. We also have a leadership consultancy called Eschalonfront where we solve problems through leadership. Go to Ashlandfront.com for details. And also we have an online training program. And I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to do some Jocko Live events on EF Online.

Jocko Live events. So if you missed the World Tour that I did, if you missed a World Tour that I did, where I went around America talking to everyone. meeting everyone. I'm going to do some of those on the internet. So you'll be able to tune in live, ask questions. I'm going to do those through EF Online. No date scheduled yet, but it's coming. And by the way, you don't have to wait because if you want to talk to me, go to EFonline.com and I'm there answering questions. The whole team's there. You can interact with me right there. So check that out. Also, if you want to see us in person, go to, you can go to Extreme Ownership.com and come to our muster, which is a leadership conference. Next one is

Phoenix, Arizona, September 16th and 17th, December 3rd and 4th is going to be in Dallas, Texas. They've all sold out. These are going to sell out too. If you want to come, get there early. And of course, we also have EF Overwatch. If you need leadership in, your organization we have connections from the military that understand the principles we talk about go to eFoverwatch.com if you want to support if you want to support service members around the world go to america's mighty warriors.org it is mark Lee's mom mama lee and she is doing her best to provide for people in the military their families gold star families all over the world

You can go there and either donate or you can get involved. And if you're a glutton for punishment and you want to hear more of my cretiness contentions or perchance, for some strange reason, you'd like to hear more of Echo's risible reflections. Then you can find us on the interwebs on Twitter, on Instagram, and on Facebook. Echo is at Echo Charles. And I am at Jocko Willink. And of course, Mike Day is at Mike Day, 5326. And speaking of Mike, thanks once again to Mike for setting such an awesome example, not only for his deeds on the battlefield, but for the example he sets in life,

putting the word out there, explaining what he's been through and how he has gotten through it. And to all of our other military members of the past, present, and future. Thanks to all of you as well for also setting an example of service and sacrifice and for allowing us to live in freedom and To police and law enforcement and the firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and the dispatchers and the correctional officers and the border patrol Bortak Secret Service and all the other first responders thanks to each of you for your service as well and thanks for keeping us safe in our times of need and to everyone else out there we know life is rough and we know there will be pain and whether that pain is at the hands of an abuser or at the hands of an enemy or at the hands of

nature or time or disease there will be pain but with a man like Mike day as an example you can overcome. You can get through it. You can drive on and you do that by getting up every day and getting after it. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.