Jocko Podcast - 257: You Have to CHOOSE to Get Stronger. "Tip of the Spear" with Green Beret Ryan Hendrickson

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

0:00:00 - Opening0:08:10 - "Tip of the Spear" with Green Beret, Ryan Hendrickson3:07:32 - Final thoughts and take-aways.3:20:06 - How to stay on THE PATH.3:37:01 - Closing gratitude.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 257 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. The president of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Silver Star to Sergeant First Class Ryan Michael Hendrickson, United States Army for exceptional gallantry in the face of the enemies of the United States of America with exceptional valorous conduct as the engineer sergeant of special operational detachment. Bravo. SFODB 7220 advanced operations based North Special Operations Task Force, Afghanistan. On 23 February 2016 during Operation Freedom's Sentinel in support of Resolute Support Mission 4. On 23 February 2016, members of the 5th, 8th, and 10th special operations, Kandak tactically advised by SFODA 7223 and SFODB 7220 conducted clearing operations in order to deny a known Taliban safe haven.

Sergeant First Class Hendrickson led a team of National Mine Reduction Group NMRG soldiers ahead of the main effort to clear routes of improvise. explosive devices, IEDs, clearing 15 IEDs in the process. While conducting movement to the first compound of interest, a member of this element struck a tripwire IED. The element immediately took cover. However, there was no detonation. Sergeant First Class Hendrickson's team was then immediately ambushed by heavy enemy machine gun, small arms, and RPG fire from approximately 15 meters away.

Sergeant First Class Hendrickson immediately directed his NMR team to place suppressive fires on the enemy while providing detailed terminal attack guidance, which enabled an F-16 close-air support platform to conduct a strike on fortified enemy fighting positions, danger close to his position. Sergeant First Class Hendrickson assessed that his element needed to maneuver away from the enemy's position to ensure the safety of his position. his NMRG members. He quickly led the element to bound back to a friendly position. By creating additional distance between his team and the enemy, air assets were able to successfully neutralize the enemy during a second air strike. After the smoke cleared following air-to-ground engagements, Sergeant First Class Hendrickson immediately began clearing a path for friendly forces

by leading his team to clear several complex IEDs. designed to target friendly dismounted elements. During exfiltration, the element was re-engaged by heavy and effective enemy PKM-RPG, sniper, and mortar fire, which resulted in multiple U.S. and partner force casualties. Sergeant First Class Hendrickson directed Afghan commandos who were pinned down and separated from the main element to maneuver to and gain cover behind his position.

Under heavy enemy fire, Sergeant First Class Hendrickson directed friendly elements to a nearby compound where the casualty collection point CCP was established. After conducting headcount, Sergeant First Class Hendrickson realized that two partner first members were missing. Sergeant First Class Hendrickson organized a team to locate and recover the separated and potentially wounded friendly forces. Sergeant First Class Hendrickson had to be held back numerous times while air support conducted additional attacks on enemy positions. Once the air to ground engagements were complete, Sergeant First Class Hendrickson selflessly maneuvered the recovery team under enemy small arms fire to retrieve the missing friendlies. Upon reaching the two missing soldiers, they discovered that the soldiers had been mortally wounded. Sergeant First Class Hendrickson then utilized a ladder as a litter to help carry the wounded soldiers to the CCP while his element continued to engage enemy forces with suppressive fires. Sergeant First Class Hendrickson's actions prevented the Taliban forces from recovering the bodies of friendly forces, which ensured all partner force members were accounted for, leaving no one behind.

Sergeant First Class Hendrickson's actions are in keeping with the finest traditions of military heroism and reflect distinct credit upon himself. The Special Operations Task Force, Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Special Operation Component Command, Afghanistan, special operations, special operations, joint task force, Afghanistan, and the United States Army. So, obviously, that is a Silver Star citation from an incredibly hard mission. And this particular individual, this Special Forces soldier, Ryan Hedrickson, he had already been through hell just to get on that mission. And luckily for us, he has written a book about his experiences, which is called Tip of the Spear. and it is an honor to have him with us here tonight to share his story. Ryan, that was a doozy of a mission. Thanks for coming on, man.

I really appreciate you guys having me on here. Yeah, that was awesome. Well, it's good to meet you. And we'll dive into that, some of the details around that, what you did there. Because really, that's, you know, like I said, you already have been through a hell of a lot just to be on that mission. in the first place. You've been, well, we'll get there. But yeah, let's start at the beginning.

And, you know, I read your book, and it's called Tip of the Spear, the Incredible Story of an injured green berets return to battle. And I always like to start at the beginning. So let's start at the beginning. Let's see what made Ryan Hendrickson. So you start off here in the book. I grew up in the unincorporated California town. of Fall River Mills nestled between the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountain Ranges in rugged Shasta County.

And then you, and I always have to say this, I have to jump around in the book. I'm not going to read the whole book. You have to buy the book if you want to get the whole story. But I'll fast forward through a bunch of the highlights. This is always a good way to start. Life pretty much sucked because my mother, who delivered my sister and me into this world, was hooked on drugs and alcohol. Dad sent her packing. My dad was a Vietnam vet who did two tours as an aviation crew chief before returning to the Pacific Northwest and eventually Northern California,

following his honorable discharge from the U.S. Army. During the Vietnam War, my dad's primary aircraft was the DH3 Otter with the 54th aviation out of Vung Tao, but he constantly found himself flying into combat in a Huey. Military helicopter formerly known as the Bell U.S. UH-1. It was in a Huey that my father experienced the true horror of war as an M-60 door gunner using the deadly firepower at his fingertips to rain down death on NVA troops and Viet Cong. So your dad was in NOM. How many years did he do? Did he do like the two years like, hey, I was in Vietnam. I did two years and got out. Do you stay in longer? What do you do?

Well, yeah, he actually did two tours in Vietnam. So a total of four years in the Army, but he did two back-to-back tours in Vietnam. As in two years straight? Mm-hmm. Dang. Yeah, well, there was a break because he came back for R&R and then went back. So, you know, kind of a little break, but yeah, he did, he did his two tours over there. And what, what do you know anything about his decision-making process on that?

His, so what we have talked about, his decision behind wanting to do multiple tours in Vietnam, It was number one, he loved the people. And number two, it's combat. And combat's addicting, extremely dangerously addicting. And that was kind of when he was over there, he's like, hey, I can go back to wherever northern California or Oregon, or I can sit here and just keep getting after it. Yep. And the choice was pretty obvious for how old was he? He left out of high school.

He volunteered for the Army at high school, which. Do you know what year it was? 1966. Oh, dang. I think. Yeah, around in there. But then he got out. Mm-hmm.

So he did two tours, two years straight with a little break. Do you know why he got out? I'm not extremely sure the decision-making process behind him getting out. I just, as he told me, you know, back in those days, being in the military wasn't like it is today. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, getting out. and moving on with your life or whatnot like that. It's just the military wasn't popular at the time.

It wasn't a prestigious thing for, you know, like today, us serving. It's, you know, it means something. And back then it's like, no. Yeah, well, if you went in in 66, so they needed two tours and Nam, so he's, we're talking, yeah, this is 1968, 1969. Yep. The war's freaking. Everyone's against it.

You guys moved around a bunch Redding You say this about your dad Before Wendy, and that's your sister Before Wendy and I came in the world though My dad was a guy who liked his beer You'd get drunk And if you happen to cross pass with him in the wrong way

You would most likely be at the losing end of a fist fight He worked hard at logging Putting in crazy 12 hour days But he partied even harder When the logging industry was booming and money was good coming in, he was blowing a healthy portion of his dough on booze. And you go into some detail here, he was just sort of blazing a pass of destruction. One night, he's like drunk and basically feels like his life is kind of going nowhere.

Yep. And he's, well, I'll go to the book here. While driving in his drunken stupor, my father thought about, what his life had become. His options had slowly dwindled down over the years. With no hope and no future, he believed he was facing his last choice to end it all. Dad pulled his truck in front of Uncle Steve's house. Right as he shifted into park, a man appeared in front of the house and walked up to the driver's side window.

Dad hadn't seen him leave the house so he didn't know how or why this man had approached his car. My uncle lived in the middle of nowhere. Larry Hendrickson, the middle-aged man dressed conservatively had a smile on his face. My father had never seen this man in his life. How do you know my name? He asked. The man ignored the question. Larry, you're out of chances, aren't you?

He asked. This time, my father was too stunned to answer. It doesn't have to be that way, the man continued. Jesus has a better plan for you and your life. In front of my uncle's house that night, my father found God. after that his hellion days slowed to a trickle that didn't mean he didn't get pissed off at the cards he was dealt in life especially after he had just polished off another six-pack but my father like everyone else i've met including myself was on a journey so that sounds like almost a mystical

situation like where'd this dude come from yeah so talking out or talking it out with my dad and it's it's one of the most powerful stories um but yeah he was uh so he threw the truck in the park and he was going to bring my sister and I to my uncle's house tell my uncle to take care of us then he was going to go shoot himself in the head and that's I I don't know I mean you know I am religious and I believe you know I believe that God has a plan for everybody and I that that was just the plan did did this guy did we ever see this guy again I don't think yet we ever did I was young so but I don't think my dad ever did No.

Crazy. Yeah. So you guys move around for a while. You say we lived out in the woods in a house that had no running water due to damage pipes and limited electricity. So the place was cheap. Your dad got hurt. And then he gets healed up. And you say it was clear that he couldn't even afford a home with running water or steady electricity.

His only option was to have us move in with his mother. who lived in Colton, Oregon, 100 miles to the south. Colton was even smaller than Birkenfield, but my grandmother could help provide the necessities of life while my father got under his feet and attended a Bible college. He wanted to become a preacher. Fast forward a little bit.

After my father got ordained as a preacher, his first pastorate was at a small church in Lincoln City on the central Oregon coast. He seemed happy, and we as a family were happy, although we were still poor, it didn't matter much because life was good. My dad being a preacher didn't lift us out of poverty. Actually, just the opposite happened. We had to live in a tent for several months while we waited to move into the upstairs of the parsonage.

Tent living wasn't bad, but it did get embarrassing when other kids saw our living conditions and teased me at school. All right, let's get down to brass tacks. How big of a tent was this tent? I would say Alaskan tent, Afghan Alaskan tent. And now I kind of feel bad about writing that in there because I've definitely lived in an Alaskan tent with about 15 other dudes. And so we actually had it pretty nice. Yeah. Right on.

Well, that's a positive attitude, man. I like it. You continue on here. After the tiny church in Lincoln City couldn't afford to keep its doors open, we were forced to pack up and move again. This time we settled in the sleepy logging town of Lowell, Oregon. 20 miles southeast of Eugene and populated with 1,000 residents. My dad did his best to keep us in one spot until I could finish high school and move on with my life. I guess having four years in one place is why I say that low is my hometown.

I was always active as a kid, preferring to wander around the foothills of the Cascade Mountains or play sports rather than sitting on my butt watching movies or doing nothing. I'm sure I was hell for my dad to raise, but he instilled in me the idea that I should set the rules for my life. not let life set rules for me. At Lowell High, I gave everything I had to our football and wrestling programs. I was never the most talented athlete, but every coach said I was the toughest kid they had ever trained. That was when I first heard the saying,

that boy's too stupid to quit. A backhanded compliment for sure, but I wore it like a badge of honor. How good were you at wrestling? I was mediocre. career. Uh-huh. And so, but I-

Did you start wrestling in high school, or did you wrestle before that? Eighth grade is when I started. Yeah, so I was never- So you're going against kids that were wrestling since they were in whatever, first grade, kindergarten. Yeah, I was never a rock star at it or anything like that. But I picked it up quickly and I just kind of, I don't know, it was wrestling in my mind.

I know people will have their own opinions about it, but it's probably one of the toughest. I guess sports out there as far as physical fitness, endurance, and whatnot. And that also leads into, you know, Jiu-Jitsu and Greco-Roman and freestyle and whatnot. But it also, what it did for me was it kind of, I already had that work ethic, but it kind of like, I mean, you have to get tough. Or you're just going to get slaughtered on that. And that's embarrassing because I've had it happened before. What weight did you wrestle at? So I wrestled, I started off at 1, 120, whatever it was, 120, whatever, yeah, something like that.

Yeah, and then my senior year, I cut weight down to 142, which was, yeah, pretty hard, but I was running from the 151 weight class because the kid there was just a beast. And so I cut weight down to 142, basically running from somebody and went to the state and then, you know, did okay. Okay. Well, damn, if you went to state in Oregon, that's freaking legit. Yeah, it was during the Guttis period and stuff like that. So we had a pretty, Oregon was nationally known for wrestling with, you know, like the Gutschis brothers and whatnot like that. That's awesome, man. Here's a little story. One day as we were kicking around my future, you're talking about your dad, he told me a story.

There were two old men sitting on their porches staring out into the abyss. They didn't know each other, but they had one thing in common. They were waiting on death. I leaned in closer. Dad could always tell a good story, but this was different. He meant business. One old man was miserable. He had let life's chances passing by, and now thoughts of opportunities long gone were replaced with haunted ideas of what could have been.

The other old man was totally fulfilled by the life he had lived. He had done everything there was to do, and now he could sit back and relish his golden moment. and wonderful memories because he had lived life to the fullest. So there you go, son. I wish I would have done this or that statements are a prison of misery for the mind. You want to go through life and be perfectly content with the life you've lived. You want to do everything there is to be done. Right or wrong, you do it and never regret a decision you made.

This from a man who'd been off to war, fought for his life, seen the world, given life, taken life, loved, and had his heart broken. He had made mistakes, taken chances, and failed and succeeded many times. Good or bad, I can sit back and reminisce on my life and feel good about it. He said, when God tells me it's my time to go home, I will leave this earth fulfilled because I've done it all. And I want you to feel the same way. So let me leave you with this thought.

What kind of old man do you want to be, son? Freaking good guidance from pops. Yep. Yeah, that is pretty much, that guidance right there is pretty much led, you know, half of the decisions I've made in my life whether or not I look back and I'm like, wow, I can't believe I'm alive from that. Most of what he said right there is the reason why, you know, I can look back. I'm like, wow, that was, that was really dumb. Let's try this again. So, and that's sort of what made you guys start talking about you going in the military.

Mm-hmm. I know you, you check with an Army recruiter. You didn't even think about the Navy. No. At first. So the, basically how it went down was, my teachers basically said, hey, you'll graduate if you join the military. You are, you are D-U-M-Dum. Like, you need to go do something that the military will force you to.

So, all right. So the Air Force, they looked at my test scores, and they're like, no. Sorry, man. You're real cute, but no. the army they actually didn't in the mid-90s they didn't need anybody it was crazy so they had like Patriot missile program and there was like a six-month wait to get in and then the Marines came in and I got so angry and mean and I was like man you're scary I'm like I don't want to be a Marine you're scaring me and then so the Navy recruiter I mean he might as well had on like a Hawaiian

T-shirt or whatnot but you know you want to you want to be an F-14 Tomcat pilot like Tom Cruise like yeah you want to be a Navy SEAL like Charlie Sheens yeah you want to go to exotic ports and see exotic women and yeah he goes cool man sign here is all right I didn't I didn't fly an F-14 Tomcat that was a neat one oh man so so then you went to boot camp and look there's so much you cover this stuff in the book which is which is cool um but I'm going to jump through jump past some of that stuff you go on here you finally get to see being on board a ship with 900 other sailors and Marines all mail in this deployment was a major culture shock and not for the faint of heart especially for low enlisted sailors like me working 16 hour days and doing

maintenance duties like keeping the deck department and equipment in good condition loading and unloading cargo shining brass busting rust because of salt water and painting bulkheads walls and passageways the same battleship gray sucks what little free time I had was spending my coffin rack trying to get some much needed sleep. Tell us about a coffin rack. What's that all about? Coffin racks, yes. So when people talk about quality of life in the military, I just say if you've never lived on a ship that was commissioned in the 60s, then I don't think you really understand what bad quality of life is.

So coffin rack. What was worse? The tent that you lived in or a shipboard? Oh, ship. Oh, by far. Yeah, and the Marines had it even worse. Oh, yeah. They were, I think they were stacked like six high down in the Marine birthing base.

They're five high. Yeah. Well, I did two deployments on amphib ships. Yeah. And both of them were built in like 1960, something like that. And they were built to transport troops over to the Southeast Asia. Yeah. And so you were supposed to be on them.

When they were originally built, they're supposed to put Marines on there for whatever, a four-week trip. And then you'd get off and go do your work. Well, by the time the 90s rolled around, like what you're talking about. talking about here we were going on six six month deployments yeah and and yes I stayed in the as a seal was staying in the birthing where where the Marine stayed and so yeah there would be David we had the old school canvas racks the canvas strung between metal pipes yeah and then a little cheap freaking mattress on top of that and yeah it was just and you there be four or five

high I think usually we would kind of adjust our our living space As seals, we'd kind of like, we'd do some work in there. So maybe it wouldn't be quite as bad, but get some. Coffin rack. Sorry, I cut you off. No. Yeah, people don't understand, but your entire life. So I've done, I was on, you know, the USS Report, which was LPD 12, amphib, boiler, super old.

And then, you know, the Guam, I did some time on that. And then the Camden. Well, the Camden was commissioned in the 70s, so it was super, it was just this great upgrade. But yeah, the Shreveport, we were in the Persian Gulf probably 10 months in 98. And then, yeah, it's your coffin rack. Like you have that thin mattress. And then you open up the, what the mattress sits on is basically a lid that you open up. And now you have your area where your clothes go and, you know, everything.

else and it's just this tiny like it's it's a coffin but even a coffin has more depth than a coffin rack does on board a ship and so yeah that's that's your entire life and when you're in deck division and you're lower enlisted i mean we were stacked four high and and so it was and then you got you know you have your little uh curtain close the curtain and you know try and get some sleep or whatnot and maybe kick the rack of the guy next to you and he's being too louder Yeah. But you know, you know all about it. Yeah. No, it's, it's, that's what's always surprising is, you know, when guys are going through seal training and you know, even if you, even if you just hear about that, you think, well, that doesn't sound like a good deal. I might be wet, cold and sandy right now, but that sounds like maybe I don't want to go do that. This was, I thought this was interesting. So fast forward a little bit. At the time, the USS Cole was bombed. I was on board my second ship, the USS Camden. We were then.

12 hours of Yemen. When the distress calls came out, we sailed full steam ahead through the Straits of Hormuz and along the USS, along with the USS Donald Cook. We would be the first American military personnel to arrive and assist the coal crew in saving the ship and pulling bodies from the wreckage. I'll never forget the smell of burning human flesh when I stepped on board the coal. For the next week, we teamed up with coal crew members to keep the ship from sinking and recovered the remains of all 17 heroes killed that. day. I had witnessed the first salvo in what would become known as the war on terror and our rescue and recovery effort with the USS Cole would impact my life in the years to come. Yeah, you definitely, being on a Navy ship, you feel very untouchable by the enemy for sure,

and especially in the 90s. So that must have been a shocker. I mean, it was a shocker for the world, but for you to actually go there. That's crazy. Yeah, seeing that, I remember when we We're on the, we call them Liberty Boats, but, you know, there were the barges taking us over to the coal and just looking at that massive hole in the side of it that had just been blown in there about 18 hours prior. It was, yeah, it's pretty intense. It's, you know, you go from untouchable to all of a sudden you can be touched. And so, and yeah, it would set the path for, you know, my, you know, basically what I did in special operations and whatnot as. the Green Beret and the enemy trying to kill me and that, you know, the, um, the zip in the crack and you're not untouchable anymore. And so, yeah, but that was the first, um, first little idea I got of what, of wow, you know, people, they, they do want to kill you. Yeah. And that's

a weird feeling. Yeah. Yeah, it takes a little getting used to. Spring in 2001, you get out. You get out of the Navy. Um, you'd gotten married and, and, you'd gotten married and, and, you, again, there's all kinds of good, some good life lessons learned in this book. Very good life lessons in this book. So you get married, you get out of the Navy, you actually married a girl that was in the Army.

And so you get out, you try a bunch of different jobs, you end up as a bartender, which Echo supports. September 11th happens. And now you're feeling like, you know, hey, maybe I want to go do something.

something in the meantime I got to read this little section one day in early 2002 I received a phone call out of the blue hi is this Ryan Hendrickson yes who's this it's your big sister Chris remember me barely I thought our family had been separated when I was still in diapers I had two older half sisters Paula was five years old and Chris was eight years older I also had a half brother who's 10 years older than me and lived with us periodically his name was Robbie both my dad and his first wife were heavy drinkers. One night she swept up my older siblings and disappeared. I had memories of them, but I was so young, I didn't really have a grasp of what had happened or who

they were. And now this phone call came out of the blue. So that's, that's kind of crazy. Yeah, yeah, that was, uh, that was something else. And she wanted to contact me because she, she basically said, like, you won't remember all the bad stuff. So I'm going to start off with you. But it was when um is when um is when that uh what is it not ancestry DNA but whenever they're building your family trees or whatever yeah like the genealogy type thing yeah so that's actually when everyone you know started getting connected back again and and um it was it was yeah it was it was crazy but my dad and i we made a trip down to new mexico to see him and that was the first time he saw his kids in years years since you know um and then we just

You know, we started kind of building the bridges back. And, you know, I learned just how, you know, my dad, like, he lived a hard life, you know. And so I heard some of those stories. And but that's that's the one thing that, you know, the people that are out there and they say, ah, you know, people, people never change. Or you're not going to change once a loser, always loser, or something like that. And I were looking at my dad and I can be like, I, I, I, I, I, 100% disagree with you. And you knew your dad as this guy that was kind of, you know, on such a good path in life and was steering you in the right direction.

And then your older half sister had stories that you almost seem like a different, yeah, she was talking about a different guy. Well, I remember, she said, hey, have you talked to dad lately? And I was like, yeah, I talked to him all the time. He's a preacher. And she goes, no, no, no, Larry Hendrickson. I was, yeah, yeah, he's a preacher. She goes, it's impossible.

Wow. I was like, no, it's not. Wow, that's crazy. Now, during this time also, you stayed in the Navy reserves, which means you were doing your one weekend a month or whatever. And then we go back to the book. Then an unexpected opportunity came up. As a naval reservist, I could attend basic underwater demolition school

at Naval Special Warfare Training Complex and Coronado, California. Bud's a six-month-long training class was part was the first part of Navy SEAL training. So if I ever wanted to become a SEAL and member of the Naval Special Operations Community, basic underwater demolition school is where I had to start. My wife Sarah knew that being part of special operations had always appealed to me. Now this opportunity was sitting right in front of me. I had undergone training as a rescue swimmer in the Navy. So I had assumed I had the swimming part down. When I was approved to attend the six-month Bud's course, visions of becoming a SEAL dance to in my head. I quickly found out how tough it was during the first phase of training, a pre-Buds

training course that lasted around three weeks. From there, I went on to phase one, which consisted of eight weeks of grueling exercise and conditioning topped off by Hell Week. Typically, more than half the recruits wash out. Shear fatigue and sleep deprivation cause every candidate to wonder what his limits are. The non-stop beating that our bodies took from some of the hardest training the military has, followed by long stretches of being cold, wet, and miserable, with no time to recover, took its toll. When my body broke down from a leg injury and severe pneumonia, I was dropped after three months of training. I could have tried again after I recovered, but I couldn't bring myself to go through all that shit again. Yeah. So what was that like going through

buds or attending buds? Yeah, buds was, I mean, I was class two-four-two. I have to say we were a beat down class. That's just my opinion. You know how they have the classes where some of them are, oh, man, that's, you guys got secured early from Hellwick and whatnot. And then next classes, man, you guys are a beat down class or whatnot. Well, we had a beat down class. And it was intense.

Everything that they talk about it, yeah, the only thing I could tell any listener who wants to contemplate that route is do it, because it's an experience that. that you'll never forget. They will make sure you will never forget it, 100%. What was the worst part, you think? For you, because, you know, different guys, they dislike different things. What do you think was the worst part for you?

For me, the worst part actually, once I got pneumonia, I couldn't breathe. And so when we were doing drownproofing and whatnot like that, I just, my nose would just start, you know, opening up. But I would, I would, I would have to say anything Like on the water Fine

Under the water I don't I don't really like that I'm not a very big fan of that So when We'll go back to the book here For the first time in my life I experienced a major setback Becoming part of an elite unit

Was something I wanted with every inch of my being But I couldn't make the cut Which prompted a series of questions Why did I fail why wasn't I good enough how come my body broke down was I that weak I had no answers and I came up with every every poor me excuse in the book you'd think that for a guy who has raised the way I was excuses would be the last thing on my mind but they were my crutch I slowly but steadily turned myself into a victim if only I didn't grow up in a broken family if only the world and

everyone in it weren't against me that just wasn't about buds but me not making it through brought my buried demons to the surface. So even at this point, you know, you don't make it through buds and you kind of blame all these, you know, hey, it's all because I was raised this way. I had these, you know, my dad, my mom wasn't around and you kind of make those excuses for yourself. Yeah, I buried, I buried myself in excuses. And it, it became very easy to do that. it's very easy to to make somebody else the issue instead of looking deep inside and in saying,

hey, man, just, you know, if everyone can make it, then it wouldn't be buds. And so instead of understanding that, you know, I did. I took the, it was, it was more, it was almost more entitlement than it was victim as like, well, this isn't fair. Why, why didn't I make the cut? And the thing is, I could have rolled back, but I don't know. How far did you make it? All the way up to the end of the first phase. So it was, yeah, it is basically, they wanted me to go back to day one of phase one.

And I was just like, and, you know, I just, I didn't have it in me. So, but yeah, it's, you know, it's one of those things I look back on, you know, and I do, I don't ever regret anything, but it is one of those things where I'm like, yeah, you kind of, you kind of fuck that one up, you know? So. Yeah, well, you know, when you say you had a beat down class more than other people, it's like, I'm going to tell you, the classes are beat down classes. Yeah, they are.

They are beat down classes. You're going to get beat down. You know, I was over there a few months ago with one of my friends that still works over there. And, you know, he was like, there's, there's whatever. There's like a hundred helmets by the bell. And he goes, every single one of those guys is a stud that wanted to be. He didn't say every single one of those guys is a total stud that showed up here thinking they were going to be a seal and they rang that bell, man.

And he goes, I go, it's crazy. He's like, it's crazy. That's the way it is. It's a crazy process. It's a crazy machine. Yep. So now you and Sarah, she's done in the Army. You're now out of the Navy.

and well, here we'll go to the book. Everything was perfect. So you go to Minnesota, and that's because that's where her family's from. Yeah. So you go to Minnesota. Everything was perfect except for one major problem. I could not overcome my immaturity and my sense of being a victim. When I refused to take responsibility for my actions, I drank, partied, and ran my marriage into the ground.

I used whatever excuses I could find. So you're just on a bad path at this point. Yeah. I was on a years-long bender. Like, I don't think guns and roses go to hell up with me. You get the idea that you should go back in the military. You obviously don't want to be in the Navy. Your wife was in the Army, so maybe you're thinking the Army's a bad idea.

So you go back and check the Air Force. You go here. I looked at Air Force Special Operations Combat Control and jumped feet first into training. I buried myself in every aspect of the course until a medical review of my record showed I had taken depression medication while in the Navy. A lot of people need prescriptions, antidepressants, and depression ran in my family. Antidepressant medication and counseling helped me through a very dark period of my life. But this detour came back to bite me. The Air Force decided that I was not medically qualified for special operations and put me in a job where they needed bodies.

I was told I would become an ammunition specialist or ammo troop. So you, did they, had you already enlisted when you, did you, did you, did you, had you already enlisted when you were going to try for, for, uh, CCT? Yes. Yeah, I was already, I mean, I was already a couple months into the training. Oh, you are actually in the Air Force. Yeah. Going through CCT training.

Yeah, I was at air traffic control school. Dang. And then they told you no. Yeah. I mean, that, the depression medication, you know, it had helped me out through, you know, some events in my life or whatnot the one time I did it. And, and but back in those days, and I'm not making excuses for it, but back in those days, you know, the go-to for counselors or whatnot is here, take this, take this, take this. And so I was like, okay, I'll take this.

Was that when you were in the Navy? So then you were taking a Navy prescribed thing and they told you no, even though you were taking something that was prescribed by the Navy? Well, I had gone out for civilian counseling. Oh, okay. Yep. But I had reported it all, you know, like you're supposed to. And, but yeah, it was, I mean, it's just back in the days when it was easier to medicate than to actually, you know, kind of face your issues and fix them, man up and do the right

thing. It's just easier to take some pills and go to, go to the spirit world, I guess. but yeah it it came back and got me so but you know it's um every you know there's a there's a path for everybody in life um and and i firmly believe that you know the way my life panned out um i it was this this is the path that was going to happen way before i was i was ever born i believe i'm you know god had this path laid out and you know i was going to take a some bumps and bruises along the way, some big ones. But, you know, now, you know, to the point where I'm at right now.

So, you know, I still make my mistakes. I'm a man, but, you know, I think I'm doing a lot better at, you know, building up people around me instead of tearing them down, like, one of the destructive paths I was on, you know, in my life. Yeah, no, that's one of the best things about this whole story is when you look at something, you took some major, you know, like, but right there, right, those two things. You didn't make it through buds, and then you try for Air Force combat control, and you don't get that either. Like, those are two things that people, like, that could be the last straw.

One of those things could be the last straw. I mean, and you've already been through the hard childhood. So any of these things could be something that could completely derail someone's life, and yet you're sitting here. So, well, let's continue. Let's continue telling this story of your path. So you get stationed in Idaho. you're an ammo guy, you end up going on deployment to Qatar while you're in Qatar, you're loading up aircraft that are going and dropping bombs.

Oh yeah, they were Winchester every night they'd come back, Winchester. What year was that? 2003. Okay. You get divorced. Now you go to Iraq in 2005. You're in Kerkuk. And you say this, Iraq was the first place out.

I was exposed to U.S. Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. These bearded, shaggy-haired men seemed to play by their own rules. We would see them walking by, and later that night when the rest of us were hanging out after dinner, the stories of what we thought we knew about these guys would spill out. You end up in the gym one time. You're lifting, and a guy says, you know, hey, can you spot me? And you look over, it's this green beret. His name is Johnny.

Days later, he introduced me to guys on his team. one guy in particular, a dude named Gary, was in the Air Force before going into the Army. This got the wheels in my head turning. What if I tried to become a green beret? Could I do it? Do I have what it takes? My failure at Buds was never far from my mind

when I contemplated my future. One thing was for sure. I did not want to be an old man sitting on my porch wondering about what might have been. So you go to Iraq. When you get back from Iraq, You take some leave. You go to, dude, you're, you freaking get after.

You were talking earlier about, like, you're not leaving, not leaving any, any stone unturned. You do some serious traveling. You go to, you go to Vietnam. You go to Ho Chi Minh City in the May Kong Delta. And you got all really cool stories about all that stuff in here. You come back from that. You're in Idaho.

And, again, you know, you're kind of drinking. you're not feeling like your path, you're on the right path. You go on a trip to Europe. You end up going to Korea. Yeah. You end up going for, was that a one year deployment to Korea? Yes. And this is still an Air Force deployment.

You're over there doing what an ammo specialist does. Yeah, and playing rugby. And playing rugby. You go, while you're over there, you go to, you go to, you go to Bangkok. So you go to Thailand, you go to China. to Cambodia. I mean, you're, bro, you, you were getting after this. Were you doing military travel? Are you doing civilian travel? So that was, that was for my leave. So the 30 days of leave or whatnot like that. But, but yeah, so Vietnam, that was civilian, backpacking around

Europe. That was civilian. Everything was civilian traveled. And it was just trying to, I don't know, I think, I don't really know if I was running from things more than, you know, I was just trying to figure out, you know, who I was because I had no, I had no direction. You know, I had my time in the Navy, time in the Air Force, divorced, which, you know, I'm surprised she made it that long. She's a fighter, but it is what it is. So I ran that one into the ground. And I think I just buried myself in everything that I could possibly do just to kind of like keep my mind off of the fact that, you know, I was turning into, I was turning myself into a loser, basically, you know, and it was becoming easier and easier to give up. And I still, I had that, I had buds in the back of my head the

entire time. And it just, I don't know, as I really had a, I guess a come to Jesus moment when I started realizing that giving up was becoming almost natural because I was the entitled victim. Everything was someone else's fault. Um, in Korea, you end up with a girl named Jessica, which is not a real name, but you end up with a girl you call Jessica in here. And you're just partying and you're boozing and you and Jessica are, I mean, this is like the couple that we all knew when they were, how old are you at this point? Uh, early 20s. Yeah. So this is like, you know, the couple that's fighting and yelling at each other.

And then all of a sudden, you know, they're, you know, they're going to the club. It's just like, you know, I can, I can, I can. I can see that scene. Yep. And of course, you guys decide you need to get married. Yep. Which ends up in a pretty quick divorce. And at this point, you write this in the book.

I needed a win, a big win. I was never the type to give up, but with two blown marriages, a failed attempt at becoming a Navy SEAL and a feeling that I hadn't found my calling in life, I was just settling and letting life run me ragged. I needed to reset my failures with a major victory. That was when I decided that there would be no more losing. It was time to start winning again. At the time, the Air Force was overmanned in certain jobs, ammo being one of them.

The Army had a shortage of soldiers in certain career fields. So the Air Force was offering a direct transfer to the Army. One thing my dad had told me years earlier kept nagging me. If you don't try, you'll never know. and if you never know, it's because you didn't try. The answer was clear. I wasn't going to live a life of regrets, even if the high risk of failure was there.

After clearing my head, I decided to jump head first, eyes closed into the unknown. That's, you know, you want to talk about there being a plan, the fact that the Air Force was overmanned and the Army would just do a direct transfer. Yeah, it was insane because I was going to the, the to the S-1 or the personnel office, whatever, to update some stuff for promotion. And there was this

poster on the wall. And it had this guy in two uniforms. Half of them was an Air Force uniform. The other half was, you know, Class A's Army. It said blue to green. And that's, and it all kind of fell within the same time frame as, you know, I need a victory. I need, I need something because right now, you know, I am 100% heading down the path that I probably won't be able to recover from if I keep, you know, because everything's an excuse, everything's everyone else's fault and entitlement and victimization. And I was, I still wasn't far enough down the path to where I couldn't recognize that I totally become a victim of life's, you know, shitty circumstances. And so I was still able to see like, all right, you need a victory.

You need something. You got a whole lot of zeros going. You know what's weird is whenever I talk of vets and people, especially when people get out, I'm like, when you get out of the military, you need a new mission. You need to have something else to focus on. But what's weird about this is you are in the military, but the mission that you had, whatever that mission was, it like wasn't bringing you the satisfaction. you didn't feel like it was what you should be doing.

You know, you knew that you had more to offer. And so you're traveling around. You're looking for, you're looking for the mission. Yeah. And you just couldn't find it. And so then what, it's the same thing that happens when guys get out and they don't have a mission and all of a sudden they just go down path of least resistance and a bottle, the pills or whatever.

And it ends up bad. You were still in while you were having that go on. And luckily, they had this opportunity to go in the army. Man. So you went to Army boot camp and you talk about that in here. Was that a little bit of a gentleman's course? Have you heard the term gentleman's course before? I have.

Yeah. Okay. Was your boot camp like a gentleman's course, which in the military of gentlemen's courses is basically there. It's basically you're there to actually learn. It's not like this beat down thing. You're going to actually learn stuff. You get treated like a human. You're not getting treated like a, like a new guy.

piece of shit, whatever. You're getting treated well, and you're there to learn. That's a gentleman's course. For instance, I went to Officer Candidate School with all the other people coming out of college that go to Officer Candid School. That's not a gentleman's course. Like you go and you get all the full benefit of people yelled and screaming at you. But for Warren officers or limited duty officers in the Navy, they go to a gentleman's course where, hey, here's how you wear the uniform and here's, here's, what here's how you write these reports it's like a nice transition yeah sounds like yours was

somewhere in between you kind of had to go to boot camp a little bit but they were being cool to you so yeah infantry basic was that there was two things that happened there number one so i had i had done the the prior service uh course that they had for us in new mexico which was supposed it was supposed to suffice as you know that was the phase one of infantry Basic, then you go to AIT. When you say infantry basic, is that boot camp? Straight up boot camp. So you went to his class in New Mexico.

How long was that course? That was a month. And then... Okay, a normal Army boot camp is what, 12 weeks? Yeah, I think. So they gave you a little short in course. Were they cool to you or were they yelling and screaming? So New Mexico, they can't really yell and scream.

A bunch of, you know, they're a bunch of guard guys that were kind of, which, no offense. I mean, definitely. but they were just there to check the boxes on us. So they're there to actually transition you. Okay, this is the way it works in the Army. Here's how you wear your uniform in the Army. These are the roles of responsibilities. So it was.

It was a gentleman's course. Yeah, that was. And then I get to Benning for infantry. And apparently I didn't get the memo that I was supposed to wait for AIT. So I started basic with everyone else. And so the drill instructor, he came up to me. He's, hey, man, not like, you're not supposed to be here. And I basically told him, like, hey, I need this.

You know, I need something to bury, completely just focus everything I got on it, bury all of my efforts into a cause. And I loved it. Like, I loved it. And he's like, hey, you know, you're going to have to play the game then. I was like, I'll play the game. I got nothing but time. So it was awesome.

I loved it. And so I would think for a private going through when I went through, they probably would say it was not a gentleman in this course. But for me, going through basic, you know, our inventory basic and whatnot. And all like that. It was exactly what I needed at that point in time. Every day was awesome. And it just kept my mind off of everything that I just went through, everything.

So, but still didn't fix it. It just kept my mind off it. You end up, so you go through that infantry basic, you go through AIT, you go to Airborne. Then you start the 18X, which is when you're going into special forces and you're not exactly sure which specialty you're going to get. They call it 18X. And you go to this 18X prep course and you say this 18. 18X prep course was extremely hard and pushed me to my limits. I'm talking non-stop physical training 12 hours per day getting beat down.

The intent of the prep program was not only to get a soldier ready mentally and physically for selection, but also to weed out the week. So how long is that prep course? It depends, but our 18X-Rae, the prep course for selection, I think ours was a month, so four weeks. And then from prep course, you go to special forces selection. Yes. So prep course is literally just to get you ready. Like hard PTs and they're trying to get you in good physical shape to be ready for special forces selection. Yes.

Or to help you understand that this isn't really what you want. And so they don't blow a bunch of money training you. They can just send you over to the 80 second really quick and move on with life. Got it. So now you get to special forces. I'm gonna go to the book. This was do or die time. An 18 day gut check to pull out all the stops. There was no way I would accept failure because I didn't think I could handle another fuck up in my life. This was most likely my only chance and I was gonna make it happen. Everything that I'd been through all the

hard work I'd put in everything led up to this point selection. As soon as we stepped off the buses at Camp McCall it was game on. We started with the usual Army PT test a readiness assessment also known as the Army physical fitness test to my surprise some soldiers showed up for a shot to be the The best failed the first PT test and were gone on day zero. Fast forward a little bit. Time was flying by for me and I was killing it. Regardless of whether it was a 10 mile run along sandy backwoods roads, a 10K rucksack march with 60 pounds on my back, a 12 mile land navigation course, rifle PT, log PT with

telephone poles or the dreaded team week events that broke the will of most of the trainees. I was speeding through. As excruciating as everything was, I was amazed at how well I was doing. the 18x prep course lived up to his name. So you're kind of getting after it, doing good. Yeah. We were constantly on the move, 18 to 20 hours a day, whether it was a ballbuster PT session or hustling from one event to the other,

shut-eye came in snatches and meals were always on the go. Not getting enough food for me, not getting enough food for the number of calories. I was burning took its toll after the first week, but I didn't care. While the lack of calories depleted my energy and strength, that combined with my lack of sleep, was all part of the mentally and physically breaking down a trainee.

So you're not eating very much, which is one thing that I always was happy that I ended up in the Navy and going to Buds instead of any of the Army courses where you don't get to eat, man. Yeah, the Army seems to, they really like the whole you don't need to eat thing. Yeah, the Navy focuses on you don't need to sleep. And also you don't need to be warm, which, look, Ranger School and freaking S.F. school. You don't, it's not like you're warm or cuddly there either. No, no the, uh, just beat down.

We just, we're not under the water and that was good. Uh, as the days turned into weeks, our bodies were breaking down still I pressed on as we neared the end. The final major obstacle in my way was a long rut march. We weren't supposed to know the distance of the final trek, but every selection class got the scoop from guys are gone before. We'd be going 25 to 30 miles. Turned out you guys went more than 25 to 30 miles. Again, I'm jumping. You give some really cool information, and that's why people should get the book. Fast forward a little bit.

After hitting the finish line, we gathered in a large conference hall to hear who got selected and who didn't. I could barely put one foot in front of the other, but at least I walked in under my own power. Those left standing after the dust cleared looked like they had spent years as POWs. Most of the guys hobbled and limped their way into the conference hall, beaten down and on edge. As I took my seat, my tired head was filled with. Questions will all this physical and mental effort be for nothing? Did I give it the best I could do I have what they are looking for? After a wait that seemed like days the selection cadre entered the hall to call off the roster numbers of the guys selected I was roster number 049 out of 185 as he went down the list he reached those in the 40s

I held my breath and closed my eyes roster number 049 selected I melted into my chair as the relief spread over my body. Out of 185, only 50 or so men were selected a little more than one out of every four. I was one of them, but I wasn't there yet. I still had more hurdles in front of me. Out of the 50 of us who would advance to the qualification course, less than half would become green berets. Those concerns didn't matter to me at that point. However, for now I savored my accomplishment.

I was on my way. So you do this freaking all this training of selection. and how long is selection, 18 days? Yeah, it varies. There's some three-week selections and whatnot, but yeah, I had an 18-day selection. And then even if you pass everything, you can still just not get selected.

Yes, there was a lot of those guys who they said, hey, thank you for coming out. You're just not what we're looking for. Good luck. Damn. So you're sitting in there with your freaking fingers crossed. Yeah. Yeah.

Dang. Yeah. Do you have any idea what they're like, what is the kind of thing where they're saying that this guy's not, not for us? So the. Because I would be pissed. Yeah. Some of the lessons that I've learned and some of the things that, you know, I can, I think make a good operator regardless of what special operations unit you're with is a guy who's always looking for work. You're never stagnant.

Look for work. A guy who's always willing to carry the heaviest shit. Look for work, carry heavy stuff. And then the guy who, he just, regardless of how bad it hurts, smile. Because you're making memories that you're just, you're not, you can never recreate it ever. So look for work, carry heavy stuff and smile. Yeah, that's very good advice. We used to actually, we used to tell guys, you know, especially when I was running training, that was one of the things we tell guys is look for work.

even in a tactical sense. Like, hey, you're sitting there with your weapon pointed down the ground. Bro, look for work. Go find something to cover. Go find something. Hold security somewhere. Look for work. Make something happen.

And that's right in there. I mean, that's almost the same thing as carry heavy shit. Yeah. Don't be the guy that's trying to shirk that. Yep. If the 240's on the ground and everyone's moving to a different weapon system, grab the 240. Because I can promise you one thing. It will not be the heaviest thing you'll carry in common.

combat. Training can't touch a combat load. Yeah, no doubt. So from there, you go to the Q course and I guess en route to Q course or part of the Q course, the Q course is like a whole bunch of things racked up together, right? Yes. Is that right? So you do Sears School, you do C or C school, you go to language school, which you did Spanish. Yes. And, and, well, this was kind of funny. You're like, before selection, I was given a language aptitude test. My score determined the difficulty of the language I would learn. Well, let's just say that Ryan Hendrickson's test results were modest at best,

and I would not be learning Arabic or Mandarin Chinese. Oh, no. No, no, no. So, and you also said this. You would joke with your friends where you're taking Spanish. I can barely speak American, let alone Mexican. Yeah. Yeah, our teacher did not like that.

So then you go to Robin Sage. Robin Sage is this famous Green Beret exercise that you do at the end of the Q course over a period of three weeks. We would plan in full train, advise, and assist a resistance movement that on some level back to the United States and was seeking to defeat the occupying repressive forces in Pineland, which is a made-up place in western North Carolina. This would be by far the most realistic military exercise to prepare men for what we'd actually encounter while deployed. when times were hard and I needed to pull strength from somewhere anywhere, I would see someone in the course who I had thought, who I thought had no business being there,

someone who was riding the coattails of others, performing only when the spotlight was on him. I would pick these guys out and think I'm not going anywhere if this guy is still here. I'm better than this shitbag, and I will outlast him no matter what. Then that guy would fail or quit, and I would target someone else.

I knew that I was better than. I would use their weaknesses to make me stronger. In a crazy way, I fed off their failures. Be bad, good, or indifferent. This was the mindset I used to keep pushing myself. Just, I mean, for me, when people were quitting, I was always like, damn, what a loser. I guess I had a little bit of that.

And there was a couple people that surprised me when they quit. There was one guy in my bud's class that was like, he had gone to Buds before. He was an E5. He was probably like 25 or 26 years old, which seemed pretty freaking old to me and like mature because I was still like not. And I'm thinking, oh, he's got this stuff off.

And he would give me advice. Like, hey, you need to, when the instructors do this, you know, and you need to keep this mind, I was like, okay, you know, it sounds good. And then it's freaking first night of hell week, he quits. And I was like, what? What's your problem? But the same thing, I was kind of like, all right, well, I'm definitely not quitting this freaking loser.

So then for 84 weeks, that's 20 months from start to finish, my tired and broken body performed at levels. I didn't think were possible. I pushed myself to my limits. And through to the end, life had dealt me some major blows. And no one knew better than me that I dug a hole for myself that was damn near impossible to get out of. Despite how much I had fucked things up, I had pulled myself out of the pit, started something, and, seen it through it to the end, leaving nothing behind. I'd given this everything and I had succeeded. Now I was a green beret ready to write the next chapter of my life. Damn. That's already like one full

book right there. Just needed one victory. Yeah. That's it. Damn. And I like what you said earlier. You know, you were talking about your dad being like able to turn himself around. And that's the same, you know, it's the same story for you too. You know, you're going from a horrible spot where you've racked up some failures and then you just get it together, get focused, and you win. You start winning. Fast forward a little bit. Okay. Here's the Sergeant Major talking. You're checking in. Okay, you're the new 18 Charlie I've been waiting for. I'm assigning you to ODA 7215. I knew the seven stood for seventh special forces, the two for second battalion, the one for Alpha Company and the five for fifth team in the company. I knew my job as an 18 Charlie.

Talk about what an 18 Charlie is. So 18 Charlie is a demolition expert on an ODA. And we, you know, we have the different MOSs like the 18 Bravo weapon weapons expert, 18 Echo Coms, Charlie, demolitions and also construction. But stateside, you are a special forces supply guy. It's really great. Is it technically engineering, right? Yep. Yep. So that's what the Charlie is.

Yep. And then, you know, the Fox, Intel and, you know, teams ironed Zulu and whatnot like that, and Delta medical. So, mm-hmm. So you say this, and this is a weird thing, because you don't think, when you think engineers, you think building and constructing, and this happens in the Marine Corps, too,

engineers becomes the people that handle IEDs. So I knew my job as an 18, Charlie wasn't for the faint of heart, while patrolling in enemy-held areas of Afghanistan, I would find myself up front, the tip of the spear, one might say, with three to five Afghan counterparts who specialized in counter-IED operations and were very good at finding them. We would be exposed to Taliban snipers

or any run-to-mill dumbass wanting to take a shot at us. The worst part of being the man up front was that I would be the first soldier to encounter the IEDs. I'd rather be in a firefight with the Taliban any day of the week than deal with IEDs, which were a nasty but very effective way to, fight a war. One of the senior, one of the more senior guys in the back corner spoke up. You got a lot to learn in a little bit of time. Sit down and listen, but most of all,

keep your mouth shut, keep your eyes open. This will be a fire hose. And you get, man, you do a good job in the book of talking about the team and checking into the team and you're a new guy and you go through all that stuff. But we're going to skip through that and people need to buy the book to get that information. I'm going straight to Afghanistan. You're heading toward an outpost The outpost is called the Alamo, which is always a good sign. Yeah, I'm not sure what happened there, but I don't think it ended up very well. So here you are. Oh, shit.

Not only was I my first mission as a green beret, but I was walking into a live combat situation because you guys had heard gunfire. This wasn't a video game. Real 762 caliber of bullets would be flying. This caliber of bullet would easily rip a hole the size of a silver dollar through a man's torso and tears internal organs to shreds. We wore a body armor that gave some protection to our chest and upper backs, but when a bullet penetrated the chest cavity, nine times out of ten, you were dead.

I was driving the lead vehicle when our convoy arrived at the last stopping point, around 1,000 meters from the alamo. A call came over to vehicle, radio communications, all vehicles stop. During our pre-mission brief that morning, I remember being told that we would have to make a mad dash over a one kilometer of open ground to reach the safety of the alamo, so we needed to be prepared for that the Alamo was surrounded by a U-shaped ridge line a finger-like natural rock structure that ran toward the Helman River then the call came over the radio all vehicles move I hit the gas on my RG 33 mind resistant vehicle and

started covering ground within seconds a Taliban machine gun crew started sending rounds our way I heard pings from the bullets hitting our truck thank God the RG 33 was armored sprays of dirt and dust from incoming bullets engulfed our vehicle My sense is shot up to overdrive and adrenaline pump through my veins. Even though I was scared, I had never felt so alive as I concentrated on keeping the heavy vehicle moving forward. Then crack, we'd been hit. The front windshield split in a hundred different directions like a spider's web. Crack, crack, two more rounds hit my windshield.

I didn't know how many more rounds this windshield could take. Drive, my captain yelled from the front passenger seat. We got to get to fuck off this open ground. I jammed the gas pedal to the floor board and push the RG 33-2. its limits. An RG33 weighs around 38,000 pounds, so maneuvering such a large bullet magnet over a thousand meters of uneven rough terrain was no easy task. I managed to rumble to safety through the Alamo single entrance gate and into a large

courtyard. The other two vehicles arrived safely as well. Almost as soon as my RG33 stopped in the courtyard, I jumped out and ran to the nearest elevated position in the compound. I toggled the selector switch on my M4 carbine from safe to fire and started sending rounds down range toward the enemy. For the next few hours, we exchanged sporadic gunfire, but I have to admit that it was hard to think clearly.

Adrenaline had really taken over my body. At that point, training kicked in, and I reacted with muscle memory that had been honed through hundreds of hours spent training for combat. When my first battle experience was over, I couldn't get my hands to quit shaking. My nerves were tingling as well, but I felt good.

The question of how I would react when bullets were flying had been answered. That evening, some of the guys looked at the damage on my vehicle. We could see where the rounds hit even though bullets hadn't made holes. But the indentations were everywhere. Damn, one more round hitting your windshield and it was gone.

One of my teammates said, you'd have been fucked up. You got that right, I said. Looks like you got your CIB, bro. Joked another buddy, which is the Combat Infantryman's Jet badge that they're telling you, yeah, you just got it.

So there's your welcome to combat. Yeah, that was day three. Day three, and that happened. and it was awesome. It was awesome. I mean, it's hard to explain it, but it was so awesome that it, you know, it's addicting. You know, combat's, it's a rush.

So that's, and I got that day three, yeah. Yeah, that's a good welcome there. It's, I remember the first time I went into, I don't know if it was an RG 33, if it was one, I think it was an RG 33. What was that? There was one other vehicle. I forget.

the name of it. So they had, um, so the Matt, the Mac Vs, um, the RG 31s. They also have the, um, MATVs or the MATVs or the Mats. I think it was a 33. Um, but I remember driving through Ramadi. I'd probably been in Ramadi for like a month at this point. And all the, all of my transits would either in a Bradley, which you can't see anything or in a Humvee, which you can barely see and you're all freaking having to scan. So the first time I rolled down route Michigan and an RG 33 sitting at like 15 feet with the white lights on and the big giant bulletproof windows it's like the coolest thing ever you're like I'm good I can see it and you can look around and you can like really pay attention so that's that's it that's a good feeling

as opposed to Humvee where you're just waiting to suck start an IED and die yeah yeah so now you guys are doing rotations out at this place the Alamo it's like a forward operating base yeah it was a It was a cop. That's basically we took over a compound. Old chicken, farm, goat, cow, whatever compound and turned it into basically where we were going to conduct operations, engage in Taliban forces along the Helman River. You say I learned quickly that 90% of a deployment was sheer boredom,

followed by 10% of heart-racing terror and excitement. Each rush of combat left me craving more. There was something about the kill or be-killed. aspect of fighting that gave me a high, a high that was dangerously addicting. During my first three months in Afghanistan, my detachment saw combat and got caught in several intense firefights, but we didn't take any casualties. The rest of the men of Alpha Company, second battalion, however, 2010 was proving to be one hell of a deadly deployment. Two men on a different detachment were killed in action, including one of our Air Force

counterparts and more than a dozen were wounded. Normally a deployment to Afghanistan resulted in four five wounded guys and maybe one fallen soldier, but our company more than doubled or tripled that amount. One afternoon, our team leader approached me to tell me that a friend of mine named Jason had been killed in action that day in a different part of Afghanistan. Jason died in a V. Jason died when his vehicle hit an ID, he said. Damn, man, this shit sucks.

Are you going to be okay? I absorbed the emotional blow. Yeah, I'm good, I said, even though my chest was closing in. I hadn't known Jason that long, but we had gone through a large portion. of Special Forces training together back at Fort Bragg. It's through training that you really get to know someone. I knew I could always count on Jason for help. There were times I felt like I was a fish out of water

coming over from the Air Force to the Army, but Jason took the time to help me whenever I got hung up on whatever part of training I was stuck with. Jason was someone I looked up to. I admired how everything was easy for him. He was smart in great shape, a super dad to his kids, an amazing husband to his wife. But just two months into his first deployment as a green beret,

he was dead. In the past, I had heard about guys from a different battalion or unit dying in Iraq or Afghanistan, but this was the first time I knew someone personally. Death in combat was not just something I saw on the news. Now it was personal. Jason was my friend, and this was the ugly reality of war. I tried my best not to think about Jason's death too much, which was difficult. I knew full well that Afghanistan was not the place to mourn the death of friends.

there would be plenty of time back in the States to think about that and try to come to terms with it. I still had a job to do to make sure no one on my team stepped on an IED and a promise to fulfill to myself. I would do whatever it took to make sure my teammates returned to their families in one piece. In 2010, though, Afghanistan was not getting safer and the real fighting had yet to begin. How long had you guys been on deployment for at that point? So when Jason was killed, I think we both got in the country at the same time. And so that would be two months. And how long were your deployments at this point?

They varied, but most of them were nine months at that point. So you're only two months into a nine-month deployment. You've already, your battalions lost a bunch of guys. Your companies had guys wounded and killed. your friend gets killed. Going back to the book, when summer was coming to a close, my team along with other ODAs from our company,

was tasked with entering Chutu Valley. Can I say that right? Yep. From different locations and clearing out the Taliban to a central point, which would send the bastards running for the mountains. Working against us, however, was the fact that this was not a covert mission.

Everyone up and down the valley knew we were coming, which gave the Taliban ample time to place IEDs and prepare for us. So you go, you talk through some of the planning. And finally, you guys go to execute this mission. The date was September 10th, 2010. Each of us was carrying a different equipment, carrying different equipment for the mission. Besides my body armor and M4 rifle,

I was toting a 60-pound assault pack on my back filled with ammunition demolition material, food, water, extra batteries, and whatever else I would need for three days. My average fighting weight was 200 pounds, but with body armor, weapons, ammo, and my assault pack, I probably tip the scales at 280.

Two 80s being generous. Yeah. You say during our final pre-mesion checks, I had time to let my mind wander. What will be out there waiting for us? Do they know we're coming? How hard will it be to find IEDs? How will I react when the bullets start flying? All these questions plagued my mind as I was watching the river flow in the light of the

moon until it disappeared into the darkness. This seemed like a good moment to take out a small pat of paper from my assault pack and write a quick note for my family in case the way. worst happened. Dad, Wendy, Paula, Chris, and Robbie, I hope I made you proud. If you're reading this note, I did not make it. Death doesn't really scare me because I'm doing what I believe is right and just. I guess that's really all you can ask from a man. Death comes to everyone at some point in life, so there's no use fighting it. When it's your time, it's your time, and there's nothing you can do about it. I believed I live as good a life as possible and I'm asking you not to stay sad very long.

Very soon you will be joining me in heaven and we will again be together. I'll keep the beer cold for you all. I love you. Ryan, I don't know why I chose to write this note. Maybe it was the fact that I was a new guy and had no clue what would happen on my first patrol that far from the Alamo. Maybe I had seen too many war movies and figured this was a good idea. Maybe deep down I really believe that this mission was destined to have a terrible outcome. Whatever the reason I chose to write down exactly what I felt at that moment because I wanted my family to hear from me one last time if the worst happened. I folded the note, placed it in a Ziploc bag so it wouldn't get damaged if it got wet

and stuck it to my right arm, stuck it to my right arm front uniform pocket where, God willing, someone would find it and pass a letter along to my family. Did you have the proverbial bad feeling about this op? So, you know, looking back now, and I remember, you know, sitting there, and I got to thinking, everyone up and down the valley knew we were coming, and the first set of villages were deserted. And so, you know, as you well know, super bad sign. And I don't, to this day, I don't know why I decided to write that note. Again, it could just be too many war movies.

I have no idea. But. Did you save it? Mm-hmm. I do. I got it at home. Dang. But, yeah, it just seems.

Didn't you think you were jinxing yourself? So I do worry about that a little bit, but. Because I never wrote, I would get that, like, no, I'm not writing that. Nothing's going to happen to me. I'm good. I just had this, I don't know, I just had this weird feeling. Plus, you know, being. being up in the front, it's kind of like, oh, man.

And I don't know. I just think, you know, getting caught up in all the emotion of everything and you're amped up, you're ready to go, you're ready for the green light and everything like that. And it's like, all right, let me bust this out, man, because I just really don't know. So, yeah, it was very uncertain what we were walking into. Yeah, the freaking IEDs are crazy. you know you're going into an IED thick area. You know you're the first guy.

And even if you're not getting an IED, you're the person that's walking into an ambush. Oh, yeah. You're going to get a shot in the face. Good times. So finally you get the call from Ben. Let's move out, guys. We slowly trudged our way toward the village of Sartutu in the distance.

Sartutu is made up of several mud hut compounds. And my group was tasked with clearing one of the sections. Keeping strict noise and light discipline, we scanned the hillsides and the riverbank for any movement. I kept my thumb on my weapon safety selector ready to switch it to engage to kill the enemy. Taking fire from the Taliban was a risk we all knew as possible, but the more likely scenario was experiencing a catastrophic IED explosion resulting in the loss of limbs and broken bodies. All the team members were fully aware that one wrong step could change their lives forever. My job was to make sure that did not happen. These insidious bombs could be hidden anywhere buried in the ground hung in trees, stashed in cooking pots inside the carcasses of dead animals within car trunks or under clothing with the infamous strap-on suicide vests.

While they might have been built with fertilizer and discarded spare parts and looked like a junior high school shop class project, I never underestimated the lethality of these homemade bombs. All it took was a handful of high explosives, a few inches of copper wire and a battery. Detonation could be triggered by compression, the weight of a soldier or vehicle passing over the explosive charge, remote control with cell phones, or an electrical circuit from a distance. The Taliban were limited only by their imagination, which was limitless when it came to killing Americans. Moving up, we intercepted a radio transmission from the Taliban, indicating that they knew we were on the move and could see us. At first, the news made my heart race. My palms got sweaty as my arms as my eyes darted. around looking for anything slightly abnormal. I felt I was starting to see things that really

weren't there. Were my eyes playing tricks on me or my ears? It seemed like I was hearing all sorts of things when we stopped to get our bearings. The guys called this hypervigilance and told me that when danger was imminent, your senses rose up several notches to high alert status. Fueling the hypersensitivity was an overwhelming desire to stay alive. The village was deserted when we entered. One thing every SF guy knew was that when you entered a village and it deserted, you better figure that you're in for a big fight or a village full of IEDs. In our minds, IEDs were a coward's way of fighting, but no one could deny that they were extremely effective. We had to clear each compound or home, so we advanced slowly and deliberately looking for anything suspicious or out of the ordinary that could conceal an IED. We were professional soldiers. Details matter. A slight discoloration of the dirt.

A suspicious pile of rocks, an abandoned water pail, a tree that had been tagged with a marker, a disturbance in a mud wall, or a lone person walking quickly directly toward us. Anything mattered. But we didn't see any people or anything questionable, even though I assumed every doorway and window had a pair of eyes looking at me and my buddies. After we hit our first planned stopping point, the team broke up in a smaller elements to cover a bigger area in and around the village, including a World War I-like trench that ran a jam. to the Helmand River, one of the Taliban's favorite positions to fight us from. Each element was made up of two or three green berets and a handful of Afghan fighters assisting us in clearing the village. My element consisted of myself, our team sergeant, Lance, and six Afghans, one of whom

was Nick, our interpreter. Nick wasn't the man's real name, but everybody who supported our team was given an easy-to-remember nickname for the ease of communication. Our job alongside the Afghans was to clear the first set of compounds running parallel to the river. Once the compounds were clear, we would move on to the next set. As I approached within 15 meters of the first compound, I watched for everything and anything. From movement in the compounds to variations into terrain where I was stepping, I stopped and turned around to check on Lance, who was behind me with several Afghans.

He gave me a nod, meaning I could keep moving with the Afghans and check out the first compound. I motioned to Nick to come closer. Tell your guys to move up and clear the compound, I said. Keep your fucking eyes open. We both knew what that meant. Sweep the courtyard while watching every nook and cranny for a rifle barrel waiting to open fire. Nick turned and relayed my direction to the handful of Afghan soldiers. Instead of moving, they stood there like statues.

As precious seconds passed by, it became clear to me that they were not going to move. What the fuck I thought? Do they not understand what I need them to do? Are they too scared to go? I whispered to Nick. What's the problem? It's too dangerous, Nick replied. No shit.

Of course this was dangerous. This was what war was all about. I knew they were scared. I was too. I figured they wanted the Americans to go first because they felt we had better weapons and knew we were better fighters. I kept my cool and refrained from losing my temper, but I was pissed.

This is your damn country. So fight for it. I turned around to have a war. with Lance when out of the corner of my eye I saw Nick moving toward the front of the compound about 15 meters from me where a wooden door into our first mud hut was slightly ajar what's he doing why is he walking into an uncleared part of the compound without Afghan soldiers leading the way he was my damn interpreter not a fighter I knew better than to yell out to stop him since that could have invited a firefight even though the Taliban

were on the move tactically it was best to assume the enemy did not know where we were and to remain relatively undetected for as long as possible in case Taliban fighters were inside the compound and waiting to spring a nasty surprise. Lance grabbed me by the arm. Get Nick away from that door. This wasn't the place or time for an Afghan rambo. Even though 15 meters wasn't a lot of ground to cover, each step was a gamble in Taliban-controlled area. I carefully but quickly moved up to Nick and grabbed his arm. Nick, don't move. Bro, we need to move back to Lance's position and regroup.

This is uncleared ground. Nick looked at me. We're going to back away slowly, I continued. I want you to place your feet over my boot prints and slowly move with me back to Lance. If you stay in my steps, you'll be okay. Nick did not want to retreat. We can still get our guys inside the compound.

He said, no, the time is not right, I reiterated. We need to get reorror. organized. The firmness in my voice told Nick that I meant business. He started to move back from the compound and retreated slowly as well, and I retreated slowly as well, making sure I had my M4 ready to rock in case someone in the compound moved around the corner and opened fire on us. My eyes were sweeping the compound as well as looking where I placed my feet. I took one slow step after another when boom a deafening explosion pounded my eardrums at this at the same instant a hot searing brighter than midday flash of light enveloped me the blast shattered the

silence across the valley sending birds into the sky as they flap their wings and screeched the concussive explosion knocked me to the ground like a blind side hit from a line black linebacker. In an instant, I landed on my back just outside the compound entrance. The foul ammonia smelling air clogged my lunds and choked my breathing. I instinctively rubbed the grit from my eyes and waited for the dust to settle, trying as hard as I could to breathe, but I could only manage the barest of breaths. I fought for air as I fought for air a yellow, brown cloud swirled around me. I couldn't see my hands in front of my face because of all the death. in the air. I shook my head and yawned a couple times trying to squelch the high pitch ringing my ears,

but that didn't work. Then I opened my mouth to scream for Nick wanting to make sure he was okay, but nothing came out. The thickness of the dust with the overwhelming smell of ammonia saturated the air and made it impossible to yell or to take a full gulp of air. I'm not sure what just happened, but if I don't get fresh air, I will suffocate. In those first few disorienting moments, I didn't feel any pain, so I had to be okay. I tried to stand, but then I fell back over in a heap. Damn, I tried again, but I couldn't stand up. What the fuck?

What's happening to me? I was having trouble thinking clearly. Then in a moment or two later, I suddenly realized what had happened. I had stepped on an IED. Damn. When you were going through that compound to grab Nick, there was still, this was still, there had been no compromise yet. It was just silence.

Yeah, there was no compromise. It was that the quietest, I think I'll ever remember any environment being was that's the scene. Just incredibly creepy and quiet. And you're trying to step in the boot prints that you made when you went to get Nick. So are you walking backwards? So kind of sort of. You know, all of us know that you never turn your back or your side to the unknown. And so past the breach point is the unknown.

So we have the breach or the doorway or whatever you want to call it. And so what it happened was I was trying to move back. But then you know how when you're the very last man in a patrol, you're constantly doing the, whoops, sorry, you're constantly doing the back look. Well, that's kind of what I was doing, making sure that my M4 was. ready to start putting rounds into the compound. And yeah. And it's still like the sun wasn't up yet.

The sky was getting light. But the sun wasn't quite up yet. So, you know, it was, yeah, it's just the perfect, perfect storm. It's like that time where you're not sure if you're better off with nods or off nods. Oh, yeah. Like that moment of the morning. Yep. Yep.

Within about 10 minutes, you're taking your nods off and storming them. Yeah, it was that. that perfect moment of zero-vis. Back to the book, I suddenly became aware of the pain. It was slowly creeping in like a snake squeezing his victim to death. I reached down for my left leg and wiggled it. The leg was still there, bloody but still there. When I tried to move my right leg, however, the pain was unbearable.

Waving the sand and dust away with my hands to get a better view, I could see my right combat boot was bent at a weird 90-degree angle. It was like my combat boot made a T at the end of my leg. It didn't seem possible that my leather boot could be twisted like that, so I grabbed my right leg behind my right knee and lifted to get a better look. As I raised my right leg up a tad, my right foot flopped off to the side of my leg. Oh shit. The only thing connecting my foot to my leg was stringy, bloody, red muscle tissue and ragged skin.

What was more disturbing was seeing the stark white bones poking out of my leg. I was amazed at how glistening white they were in contrast with my hair. bloody leg. Oh God, this was bad. I'm hit. I'm hit. I'm hit. So what's crazy about these situations is when there's an in your these IED environments. No one can move. Like you can't just go, oh, my buddy's hurt. I'm going to go help him. That's the wrong move. You have to, you have to actually freeze and not move. Yep. Where there's one, there's five. Yeah. And you find out later that this was a little bit of a, well, not a full low order detonation, but there was probably 20 pounds and only seven or only like a third of the IED went off.

Yep. Otherwise, you wouldn't be here right now. No, there would be, they could have put what was left to me in a plastic bag if the whole thing would have went off. These guys, they do, and again, you know, you do a great job describing the stuff in the book. I mean, there's one part where you say, I hear the team sergeant Lance yell, don't move, Ryan, and you yell back, where the fuck do you think I'm going? Because you're sitting there wounded.

Second stretched by like hours. I'd never been in so much pain or felt so alone. It was like I was the only person in that village. I lay on my side in the dirt waiting for the bright light. Everyone says, you see, before you die. Lance was the closest American to me, but I knew he couldn't rush to me because I had walked into an IED-filled area. chances were that he would be next and then what? And in that moment, it was impossible to think clearly.

This is it. I'm going to die in this shithole village in Afghanistan. As I lay there for what seemed like hours, I prayed harder than I had in years. This was serious. I felt like I was on the cusp of eternity. I'd always heard there were no atheists in foxholes, and I guess they were right. I was a Christian who had accepted Jesus Christ into my heart years ago, but I had strayed from the path of righteousness since then to say the least,

Nonetheless, I made peace with God and figured he understood. The mistakes I had made in my life came back to me, but so did the things I had done right. I asked for forgiveness for my sins and for the people I had hurt. In the state of mind I was in, I felt this could be my last chance to make things right. Suddenly I felt a calm comb over me that I couldn't explain. The pain lessened as I felt like I was fading into a deep sleep. I thought of some of the good times I had had in my life. Fourth of July barbecue was loved ones, watching the fireworks without a care in the world,

traveling around the world and all the amazing experience that brought me. But most of all, I was thinking about my family and how much at that moment I missed them. I hoped I had made my family proud, but I also felt a strong sense of nagging guilt for letting my team down. No Green Beret wants that to happen, but it did. I fought back tears because I felt like I had failed my team. Five minutes or so after stepping on the IED, I knew I was hanging on for dear life. I could feel myself slipping away. I'd heard so many say that your life flashes before your eyes just before you go, but that wasn't happening.

I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Stay awake, Lance yelled. Don't pass out, Ryan. We're moving. And you, I skipped over this part, but you had been trying to get a tourniquet on yourself and you, like, couldn't get it done. No, yeah, I couldn't get it done because I, so I pulled one of the rookie mistakes where usually on your kit, you rubber band the tourniquet on. Correct? Mm-hmm.

Well, as, you know what, if that's security, I'm going to double secure it. I'm going to use zip ties. Oh. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Oops. Oops. Damn.

Fast forward a little bit. I felt a slap sharp. I felt a sharp slap across my face and another and another, each one harder than the last. What the fuck? I opened my eyes and I found myself lying still in the dirt of this pissant village. My teammate George screamed, stay away. make, Ryan, keep your eyes open. So he's just slapping you trying to.

So is this all just blood loss? Blood loss, but I think more of it was shock. And I don't really understand how shock works, but I know it could kill you. And so there was some blood loss there, but it was, you know, everything that had built up to, you know, George slapping the crap out of me. Um, that was, I, I, I think I dealt with a lot of shock what was going on because, I mean, it's, you know, stepped on an IED. Yeah. Uh, and then, dude, they give you some morphine and you get hive.

So it turns out you're allergic to morphine. Yeah, it's not a good time to find out. Uh, eventually, and again, you got to read the book, but eventually Kyle, who must be a hoss lifts. Kyle couldn't move fast enough because he lifts you up. He's buddy carrying you. Kyle couldn't move fast enough because it was body arm. in gear along with 200-pound man over his shoulder.

LZ was long ways away, more than 500 meters. The team took turns carrying me while keeping security high. The Taliban knew I was hit because our Afghan interpreter monitoring their radio traffic could hear them celebrating and laughing about hitting me. So they get you to the LZ. They get you extracted. And then the next thing you know, you're showing up in Taryn Kot. in the hospital.

You get pissed because they're going to cut off your shirt, which is one of your freaking lucky shirt. My lucky Oregon Ducks football shirt, yep. But they end up cutting it off. And again, you do a great job talking about the medical team and the doctors and nurses and the staff that freaking takes care of you and keeps you alive, gets you stabilized.

And then from there you go to KAS, more surgeries they're trying to clean you know trying to clean it out and and then it's over to Germany you end up in Ramstein and then at Longstool I mean then again I'm I'm just jumping through a bunch of stuff that you got to read the book because you know it's it's it's all it's all part of the story what you're going through I mean yeah I'll pull one little quote you say so I'm out on patrol trying to find IEDs. My damn metal detector wasn't working, so I closed my eyes and stomped around to clear the route.

Boom. Found one. Mission success. You say here, I've been to Germany many times during my military career, but this time it felt different because I was fresh off the battlefields of Afghanistan. I finally felt safe when the aircraft landed. No longer a dangerous part of the world, I could finally relax or so I thought.

What I didn't know is that now I'd have plenty of time to actually think about everything that had happened to me. I would also have time to cry over my friends who didn't make it home alive the ones placed into coffins for the one-way flight to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware A grim trip that no one wants to take I'd have time to think about the family's torn apart because of war either because they lost a loved one or their soldier was coming home with a mangled body Never to be the same again That was my situation as well I knew I was never going to be the same again

All right Again jumping ahead here where you end up at Brook Army Medical Center, BAMC, Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Fast forward after I woke up from my 15th surgery, an unexpected visitor stepped in my room where I was resting. My father, somewhere between me getting blown up and getting to Germany, my dad was notified about my injuries, seeing my father standing next to my hospital bed in a sweat-caped cowboy hat, purse on his head, and cow shit likely still on his boots, gave me a much-needed sense of normality and safety. This was a major surprised.

Dad, it's good to see you. My father gave my leg a long look. Then he gave me the usual tough but correct opinion. Well, I figured if you played with fire long enough, you were going to get burnt. Looks like you stepped on a doozy. Glad you're alive, son. From his demeanor, one would think I'd suffered a little more than a scratch. For the first month of my time at BAMC,

my father never left my hospital room on the seventh floor. It was like he felt the need to be there for me observing, protecting, and taking everything in. my oldest sister Chris, who is my half sister for my dad's first marriage, was also there. And you talk about the, um, just the doctors and the nurses and the healthcare providers that are there and what they're seeing every single freaking day. Yeah. How hard that is on them. Um, you get your, your lead doctor, a guy named Dr. Sue.

And he comes in and you're talking to him. The status of my right foot and leg was still uncertain. I would lose the rest of my low would I lose the rest of my lower leg or was it worth trying to keep the damn thing Dr. Sue never sugarcoated anything even though at times I wish he would I'll never forget one conversation we have we have enough tissue to do a limb salvage surgery he said we'll do our best to reattach your foot and lower leg but there are no guarantees because your leg is in bad shape we're giving it a 10 to 15% chance for success And if that doesn't work, I asked, we'll have to amputate. But look on the bright side.

If this works, we will rewrite limb salvage medical history. Well, that was a ray of hope. So do you think we should go ahead? Yes, I do, but this will be a long, painful road. It could be worth it in the end. So what do you think? I thought for a moment, this was a big decision. While I still have my leg, I still have options.

But at the moment, but the moment I have to cut it off, there's no going back, I reasoned. You've been telling me that this will be the hardest thing I've ever done, but if successful, doctors will use my case to redefine limb salvage. Hell yeah, I love a challenge. Let's do it. Like, paint a picture for me. What's connecting your right lower leg to your rest of your body? So at that point in the hospital, I had this, it was called a X-Fix.

It looks like this giant bird cage. Mm-hmm. And there's like 20-some-odd rods that they screw into your bone. Mm-hmm. So my, so, you know, obviously you need your, you need your tib, your tibula. Mm-hmm. But the fib, they weren't really worried about it. And they said, ah, the fib doesn't really do much for you.

So we're just going to let that free float. So, okay, fine. But the tib, so basically what they did was they lined up the tibula the best that they could through the surgeries, screwed all of the rods into my bones, you know, upper and lower. And I had rods going into my toes. It looked like something out of a saw movie. But and then, yeah, they just, they secure everything together with just all these rods going into your leg.

And then the halo devices that attach to the rods. And then, yeah, the only way you can really grow bone is through friction and just beating the crap out of yourself in physical therapy and whatnot. So, you know, I had about two inches-ish of tubula to grow back. And so I was, yeah, I was already to do some beat-down sessions, you know, in physical therapy to get that bone grown. So when, like, when it happened, you described there's just like basically a piece of meat keeping your leg.

How about nerves? Did the nerves get damaged? Yeah, so even right now I have, I probably have half nerve function in my leg. And then there's, you know, parts of my leg that I just don't feel at all. And then there's other parts that are hypersensitive. And then it's crazy. But, but yeah, my right leg is skin graft. The bottom of my foot is skin graft.

It's, yeah, it's pretty, it was pretty intense. but medical technology. Where did they graph the skin on your bottom of your foot? So I have this dream. From? I have this dream that I want to be able to kick somebody in the face because it's from my ass. Oh, okay. And then I could, yeah.

Does that, because I'm thinking, is the skin that's on the bottom of your foot? Is that? Like, does it develop calluses and everything now? No. No, it's, it's, it'll never go past the newborn stage. Damn. Yeah. So there's, yeah, when I damage it, it's bad.

So this, so this whole procedure was a, was like a freaking bottom of the ninth, like, just last ditch effort. Hail Mary, I guess. We'll go football. We'll go hail Mary scenario. Yeah. Well, to save my leg, it was. But for the surgeons, because I, you know, I remember Dr. Schu's saying. And I mean, flat out, he's like, if it doesn't work, it's not like you had a leg anyway.

So, you know, you just move on. So for them, it was an excellent opportunity to advance, you know, technology with limb salvage and whatnot like that. And, yeah, 2010 was an excellent year to do it because there was a lot of dudes getting blown up. Lots of dudes. Man, that's crazy. This is cool. Your command sergeant major, who you call Brian. Brian was a man of his word, someone who put his men before himself.

He understood those under his command and took personal time to do what he could to ensure each and every man was taken care of. He was a tough leader who would crush you if you were wrong, but he would go to hell him back to defend any of his men. And you go into the book here. One thing among Green Berets is the willingness to do anything to get back in the fight. I was no different. toward the end of his visit, I asked Brian the one question that had been haunting me for weeks. I don't know what my future holds, but I will not let this injury beat me. I fully intend on being a green beret and deploying again.

If I can get myself healthy, will you send me back into the fight? Brian looked at me like I had two heads, then glanced down to my right leg. He knew that he knew what was in the heart of every green beret, but he had to drop some common sense on me. You're lucky to be alive, Ryan. Let's figure out how to get you walking again. You've got a long road ahead of you, relax and take it easy. That wasn't exactly the response I was hoping for, but hell, I knew I'd be lucky to walk unassisted one day.

So maybe the chances of returning to active duty as a green beret were a little far-fetched. All it took was one look at my blown up leg and everyone knew this was something that just wasn't going to happen, but I wasn't giving up. Brian had my back, but when I asked anyone in the hospital the same question, I heard It's cool the way you feel, Ryan, but you would be limping and in pain for the rest of your life. Leave the fighting to the young, healthy guys. You've proven yourself enough. But before he left, my Sergeant Major surprised me.

Brian leaned in, looked me in the eye, and made me a promise. Ryan, if you can get medically cleared, I will send you back to Afghanistan. Yep. Check. That's awesome. I don't think he quite realized, you know, what was... I talked to him. We still keep in touch now.

And it's, you know, it's, hey, man, did you, do you guys think I was going to, you know, come back? Man, it's, I mean, no. Yeah, I can't imagine. He was just trying to, you know, hey, hey, hey, cool. Yeah, I know you want to come back. If you can get healthy, you come back. But really, he's thinking, I hope this guy walks again. Yeah, it was.

And not, you know, because I, they did medically retire me. And I had to, you know, fight back on active duty. So, but yeah, it was, it was one of those situations. And I remember, I remember I had, I forgot who he was. He either, I don't know, but one of the doctors, he said, hey, look, man, it's, it's good to have goals. It is. But your goals aren't realistic. You're setting yourself up for failure because you're not going back.

Like this is the doctor told you this? Not Dr. Shoe. But one of the other doctors. Yes. Another doctor. that was a part of my therapy and whatnot. And I understood where he was coming from. It's expectation management, you know.

And he said, my biggest concern is that you set these goals up for yourself. And when they don't happen, you can't recover from, you know, not achieving your goals, especially as a wounded guy, because we all do. It's, you know, I don't think there's a single military member in the United States. States armed forces that got wounded and didn't want to get back in the flight as quick as they could. I mean, there probably is, but I don't know. I don't think so. Yeah, I've never heard of one. So, but yeah, you just expectation management. You got to understand like you can want it and it's a good drive. But man, it's you're, you know, you're in the bottom of, or you're in the bottom of

the ninth, just like you said. So it's like you need to, you need to do some. management expectation here because like start thinking about other things start you know what are you going to do with your life out of the military and stuff like that and I understood where he was going with it because unfortunately a very bad statistic even you know 2009 10 11 12 was wounded dudes dying you know committing suicide and whatnot and so they had to manage expectations with guys because got it yeah so I understood it um the other thing that you're right about in here is the like you're on all these different drugs obviously for painkillers and stuff but it seems like that's just kind of sent you in like real super

emotional you'd be like laughing then you'd be crying sound like that was just freaking crazy yeah yeah the the drugs i was on i mean methadone for one oh my gosh it's i don't quite know what it would be like to be a zombie but i'm pretty sure i got a good idea from that drug yeah methadone is a hell of a drug so and that's what they used to get people off of heroin and you're just you they had you on it for pain obviously yep so crazy uh there's another got another got another got another quote in here from the old man we might have to get the old man on the podcast says uh you know because you were you were kind of like rock bottom you're all freaking emotional about everything and he says look son you got dealt a bad hand but this is a speed bump in life

if that's all. How you handle this situation and pick yourself up will determine how this affects you later. As bad as it seems right now, as dark as the times appear to be, never forget that with time, you will heal and look back on this. Please don't allow yourself to look back and feel ashamed about how you dealt with this. Take control of your life. Own this situation. Turn it into something good.

Learn about yourself in a positive way. and I promise you in the end, you will be a better man. Dad's pep talk meant the world to me. I lay in my hospital bed that night and vowed I would never become a victim of life's circumstances. I would use this situation to make myself even stronger. I would face my demons, which I had held close for many years, and defeat them. For years, I had used my difficult childhood as a crutch. After my father and mother divorced, dad had married two more times and always seemed to find the bad ones.

I did not trust women or really anyone for that matter, which I blamed on my past. Before I became a Green Beret, I had two failed marriages and had left a path of destruction behind me. But I always found ways to rationalize my behavior. It was never my fault. I'm this way because I grew up poor. I'm this way because I had a shitty childhood. I'm this way because life's not fair. Everything was always someone or something else's fault.

I did not have control over my life. Life controlled me. Even though my dad had raised me right, there were some things you just had to learn on your own, the hard way. The saying what doesn't kill you makes you stronger seemed like the story of my life, but it didn't just happen on my own. I had to make the choice to become stronger. That's when I determined I would use this near-death experience to make myself a better man. This will not beat me. I will be the man I was raised to be.

I will take control of my life and finally be responsible for my actions. Even with this my come-to-Jesus moment, I knew life wasn't going to get any easier. As a matter of fact, the hard work was just beginning. I'm going to take some ownership of what's going on. Yep. Your dad told you to own it. Yeah, I actually, a lot of people don't understand this when I say this,

but stepping on that IED actually saved my life. Yeah. And expand. So the path that I was heading down, I was going to a point to where I couldn't return from. Just life controlled me, a victim of everything. I was just running, you know, I would destroy people around me instead of building them up. I was not a good person. And even with the victory of becoming a green beret, I still hadn't, I still hadn't faced any of my issues.

I was just, I was constantly running from issues. And there was always, I mean, there was always something, I was just, I was weak. It was easy to, to blame somebody or something or use the excuse of, I mean, you name it and I came up with it. instead of taking, I mean, I'll use it, you trademark it, but instead of taking extreme ownership of your life, I, you know, I allowed life to own me. And it did, and it did. And it wasn't until I stepped on that IED

that I was actually able to get control of my life again. What were the biggest things you, what was like the core issue that you were running from? What like was pent up in you that made, you that you think like steered you in these directions where you would be being a tear people down like what do you think made you so kind of destructive I hated myself I wasn't happy I didn't know how to like myself I didn't I you know I always tried to live this other people's lives thing and in you know I mean you see it today it's it's rampant where people they try and

be something that they're not they they don't have their own identity and I had no identity because what I was as a person was ugly and destructive and I didn't like myself at all. And so I technically I was always running from myself. And the easiest way to do it is to take a good situation, turn it into shit, blame everybody else for it, tear people down around you, and then move on to the next. Lately I've been thinking about this. It's real easy when you got an opportunity, when there's an opportunity for you. you to do something and you either fail or you're scared to try.

One of the easiest things to do is say, well, that's not cool or that's not important or that's not for me. So it happens on every level, right? It happens on every level when, you know, oh, you're not great. You're not a great runner. Well, running. Here's a classic example in the SEAL teams. Running, right?

Just running. Like, go on for run. And people that weren't good at running would be like running breeds cowardice. Meaning, yeah, you know, we're never going to run. And it's a funny thing, you know, but that's like a little bit of an example of what we do as people of saying, oh, well, school doesn't matter. Right? When I was a kid, right? School doesn't school stupid.

That was me all day long when I was going to high schools. School doesn't matter. Why? Because I didn't want to try. You know, I didn't want to put forth the effort. It's like, oh, so therefore it doesn't matter. And it's something that we do all the time. And people do it with, you know, like hard work, like starting a business.

Hey, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not into all that material stuff. When really they just don't want to work hard. Yeah. So they cut it down. And they actually will detract from people that are working hard. And you could say this about, really about anything, right? And it seems like that's sort of, that's sort of, it's not exactly what you're saying, but it's something that I've been thinking about lately as I look at my life and I'm like, oh, you know, oh, yeah, that doesn't really matter.

I'm like, oh, wait a second. Does that really not matter? Or am I just, am I just throwing that thing out because it's something that I don't want to do or I'm afraid of or I'm calling it not important because, oh, oh, really? Okay. Well, let's take a look at that. Let's take a look at that. You look puzzled. No, no, no.

That's interesting there that because that's like a level deeper than like what's happening. that's like kind of like Okay so you know what sour grapes right you heard that before Sour grapes that expression so it's kind of the same wait expand on sour grapes so I know your definition okay so sour grapes is like it's almost like jealousy almost but so this is where the expression came from I found out where there was this fox and he saw some grapes hanging on a vine kind of high up and he's like oh I'm going to jump up and eat those grapes so he jumps up and he can't jump high enough so he's like all right whatever

whatever, and he tries again, still can't jump high enough. He tries one more time. He's like, I'm going to get them this time. They look delicious up there. He jumps up, he can't get them. And he's like, ah, those grapes are probably sour anyway, you know? That's it. And leaves.

So it's kind of that, right? It's definitely kind of that. Yeah. Definitely kind of that. I don't want it. You know, I like that. Yeah, it's not important. Yeah.

Sour. And if you let that, if you, if you continually do that, if you continually to kind of shun and turn your back on everything that is a challenge, you know, like you could have done this like, you know, being this freaking special operations, you know, after you, after you didn't make it through buds, you'd be like, yeah, being in special, being the military is stupid, right? You could have done that. You could have done that all day long.

Being the military is stupid. Those guys are freaking idiots. I don't want to be like, you could have gone into that mode and you just turn your back and then you turn your back on something else. And pretty soon you look around and there's, you're a. you have nothing left, right? There's no, that you've turned your back on everything. Yep, it becomes a lifestyle, and that's when it's dangerous.

And we've all seen people today that they have shunned away from anything that is, that they could possibly fail at because of the fear of failure, that they, I mean, they've made that their life. They are that person now. And that's, that's hard to come back. from you know what I really like about what you just said I really like the fact that

you just because you know everyone talks about lifestyle in like a positive thing like oh it's a jiu jit-suituit lifestyle or it's a healthy lifestyle or it's a what and you're like oh there's another lifestyle it's called denial and making excuses that's a lifestyle too and it's a shitty one that leads to bad places that's interesting the tearing other people down thing where you know how you say it out loud and it's like well why would anyone do that like it's like it's obvious not to do that. But I think when like you're in it and you say, yeah, you hated yourself, right? Where even that's another one where it's like, how can you hate yourself? That doesn't even

make sense, right? It's, oh, that's some like expression, right? But in a way, it's like literally true where if you, if you don't like yourself, that makes you feel a certain way. And it's a bad feeling, we'll say, put simply. So what kind of relief can you get from that bad feeling is if you make other people seem less than and it kind of like relieves you of that feeling just a little bit you know but not fully not even close to fully so you constantly got to do it to feel better about yourself essentially yep it is um it's it's a serious problem we we see it in our country all the time right now i think that's actually what made me start thinking about this because i'm talking about oh running is but you're what you're talking about it's the same thing when

you look at another person and instead of going, damn, that person's really accomplished a lot, that's awesome. Instead, you say, well, I'm not going to be some kind of career guy that's chasing a promotion or, yeah, they just want to get all those qualls so they can look good. You just throw all kinds of hate at them. Yeah. But the person that you really hate. Those are the excuses I'm talking about is you make up your own demise. You make up your own excuses as to why that is not your path into.

basically you demonize that person to make yourself feel better, even though 90, screw it, 100% of the time, it's because you are afraid to fail. Yeah. Yeah, and it's weird when you start looking at like chunks of people that look and say, oh, that lifestyle's bad. And it's like, okay, What are you really mad about someone that's working hard and trying to be in good physical condition and trying to learn and trying to grow? Like there's people that look down on all those things, which is kind of crazy when you think about it. Yeah. Yep. All right.

Hey, tell us about the, what do you call the IDO brace or is it IDEO? Like, do you, how do you say that? Yeah, it's it. So I call it an ideal. Ideal, okay. But yeah, basically it's, uh, it, uh, Ryan Blanick, he, he created these things. And, um, it, um, it gives me a calf and, you know, push out, you know, I can, I got plant, uh, I think, whatever one goes down. I don't know, but I, yeah, I'm, I'm sitting here trying to talk smart. It's like an exoskeleton type brace that you wear that makes up for whatever deficiencies you might have. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And so it gives, you know, that basically it's, it gives you your life back. And that's what allows you to keep your leg.

That's what allows you to not have to go through the prosthetic is because now you have this, this, I'm not even going to try and say the name, but it's long. Oh, the, you mean the intrepid dynamic exoskeleton orthosis? That's what I was going to say. I understand. Do you wear, do you have to wear that thing all the time? So I've actually gotten to a point now to where I've rebuilt back my leg to where I only use that if I'm doing anything physical. Like gym, I'll have my idea on or deployment.

I'll wear the idea or whatnot. But here, no, I came here without it on. I didn't. And you were walking around. I mean, you walk in totally normal, walking upstairs, downstairs. I mean, it's awesome to see. Yeah. And yeah, until you get caught on that one thing.

It's, that's funny. And that's because you have no nerves or, do you have like drop foot? No. I, I, I don't have drop foot. It's kind of naturally as fused itself at the, the L. Okay. Got it. So, but, you know, you can catch yourself and, yeah, it's, it's, I think it's funny.

What is drop foot like down? It's when the nerve that makes you lift up your foot gets damaged. And so your foot just kind of hangs. Yeah. Yeah, it had naturally fused at the ankle joint, so that nerve is gone, but it's just, the foot just stays at an L. Andy Stumpf has a certain amount of drop foot. And from when he got shot, he, like, lost some, you got a bunch of injuries, but he got some nerve damage. And so his foot doesn't respond really the way he wants it to.

And he makes some pretty funny jokes about that. It's kind of funny. So the Army wanted to medically retire you at this point. And then they offered you kind of something called continuation on active duty, which means you basically, they're still going to give you your paycheck and you're going to do some kind of an admin job for your ticket to 20. Yep. Yeah.

So I was medically retired. And then I applied for the waiver, which was the continuation on active duty waiver. And I got picked up for that. How many years had you been in at this point? Total, Air Force, Navy, and Army? 12-ish. Yeah, something like that. So you, now, is that a document that you like signed? Do you accept that or did you fight it? The medical retirement?

Well, the medically retired, medical retirement, you obviously fought. Yeah, I mean, that was, so I was medically retired and then I came back on to active duty through a waiver. Got it. So they medically retired you. And then you came back on, when you came back on, did you have that limited duty thing? the continuation on active duty. Is that how you came back on? Yeah, and basically what it is. So they do it for Greenberry,

Seals, Raiders, all kinds of stuff. If they spent that kind of money training you up, we can find something for you. Yeah, absolutely. No, it's an awesome program, and it's a good way to take care of people. Yep. Then you find out about this program called Thor III.

Yeah. So tell us about that. Thor three program. So I think the SEALs, I think you guys kind of have something similar, the return to fight program. Yeah, we got awesome people that are just doing everything they can to keep guys ready. And if they get hurt, to get them back in the fight. Yep, it's awesome. Yep.

So it's basically that we call it the return to fight or the road to war program or whatever. And, man, it's hard. I mean, they bring these guys in from, you know, they were physical trainers for, you know, hockey teams or whatnot. like Paul, he was, he worked, he was on Tito Ortiz's group and Paul did all of the athletic training for him. So yeah, you're not really going to tell him like, eh, it's kind of hard. It's like, oh, that's cute. So and, and I just, I knew, you know, I had gotten myself back to seventh group, but I had a dead man's profile. So I knew for me, for seventh group to waive big army, profile, I would have to tear up dudes in the Thor 3 program. And so I just, you know, I was on this

path of, you know, I was getting, I was racking up victories in my life. And so the Thor 3 program is, it was tough. It was extremely hard, but guys that had never been hurt before, I was just, you know, with all the physical events and everything like that, just leaving them in the dust. But, you know, they weren't really fighting for anything I was. I was trying to get back to war. Dang. And then you end up pulling it off, man. Yeah.

Yeah. Here you go. After a few months of working with a Thor 3 program, building up my body and rehabbing my sore right leg, impressing my PTs on how far I'd come. My command gave me some great news. I was good to deploy. When Seventh Group would take full responsibility for me, my waiver was signed. I was jacked from the moment.

I got the word from Brian that if I could get healthy enough, he would send me back. I had only one goal in my head to return to combat. This was why I'd put in all the hard work. I didn't want to be cooped up in some cubicle reading reports and looking at the clock, counting down the hours until I would call today. I wanted to be conducting missions with the guys doing what I was trained to do, taking the fight to the enemy. My company had already left for Afghanistan, but once I got the medical waiver signed

by seventh group lead surgeon, I was on the next flight out, April 2012. I would be deployed to the Pangewe. Is that right? Panjua. Panjwa district in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan, known as the birthplace of the Taliban. Times couldn't have been tensor in the area. So there you go, man.

Yeah. Yeah, I got my wish, returned to war. And then I got sent to the most heavily IEDDed area in Afghanistan in 2012. Bro, this is freaking, all right. We go. You get sent to the most heavily IED place. I was reading this. I was like, all right, I'll just read it.

So here we go. You're on a really hard patrol to get to where you're going, to get to the target area. You're the freaking point man again. By the way, the last time you were a point man, you got freaking blown up. Yeah. You start clearing this compound again.

Again, this is like deja vu. Back to the book, we were barely underway when one of my Afghan Special Forces soldiers and I detected our first IED in a partially collapsed outside wall of the first compound. There it was, buried in the dirt and surrounded by rubble from a break in the wall that was likely caused by a previous IED blast or an RPG strike, a nice little IED. All you had to do is trip the sucker. All you had to do to trip the sucker was step on the pressure plates that connected the positive wires to the negative. Once a circuit was completed, boom, the charge went off and your life was changed forever.

Welcome back to Afghanistan. The Taliban had figured we would take this route because it was a shortcut into the compound. I have to admit that finding my first IED since nearly losing my life, especially a nasty one like this, produced a whole range of emotions. My heart was racing, but I had to keep it together because my team was watching. Really, you have to admit that you had some emotions. Bro. First, I slowly pushed the dirt away, exposing the corners of the pressure plate. I steadied my hands and searched for the arming wires.

When I uncovered them, I traced the wires to a battery pack hidden behind some rocks. Then I disconnected the power source and clamped surgical clamps to the wire. My surgical clamps were attached to a 50-foot nylon cord so I could get some standoff or safe distance before pulling out the pressure plate. After moving the team back, I got my 50 feet of standoff and gave the cord. A pull the pressure plate came flying through the air the first step was complete But the IED was not completely disarmed I then attached my cord to a plastic yellow jug buried beneath the pressure plate and returned to my 50 foot withdrawal distance after a tug of war match with the jug I was finally able to yank it out of the ground crap This was a 15 pound IED more than enough to kill you or blow off both your legs How come I didn't just safely blow up the IED? Which is exactly what I was asking the normal

Procedure is when you find a freaking IED, you put some explosives on, you blow that thing up. Blow in place. Bip. Yep. Usually when I come across an IED, I exposed part of the pressure plate to verify it was natural explosive. Then I would place a half block of C4 on it and blow it in place. But we were trying to track down the IED makers in our area. I decided to disarm the IED instead of blowing it up because of the increased pressure we were getting to collect evidence, which was key to finding the culprits. With this first IED out of the way, I breathe, the deep sigh relief, things had gone well and it almost felt like I knew what I was doing.

Better yet, I gave my teammates a warm, fuzzy feeling about my capabilities and showed them that I could be an asset rather than a liability on the battlefield. Why did I deal with the IED instead of directing one of our Afghan counter IEDs to get on it? You could call me stupid or crazy, but I wanted to get some IEDs under my belt. Okay. I mean, you're not stupid, so I guess we're going with crazy. And I guess you want to get some IDs under your belt is better than getting IDs under your foot. Yeah. I think my mindset at that time was very, I mean, could have been pretty deemed as pretty reckless, but I just, that was the first one I came in contact with and I was going to own it. Yeah.

That's just kind of, that's the choice. I made. If I was to go back, I would stick half block C4 on it and move back. And that's what you're doing, man, ID after ID, cash after cash. Every time we'd go out on a mission, one thing was certain is the sun coming up in the morning. We'd run into some sort of explosive device made to kill or maim us. And you know, I skip through the part where you kind of like were checking back in with the team and these guys are thinking, hey, can this guy really do his job? And he's already, how scared is he going to be? How bad is his leg? He's out here with a freaking brace on his leg.

What kind of, you know, so you had to kind of push through all that. I kind of skipped through it, but it's a really interesting part of the book as well. Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing is I've heard people's reaction to it. They're like, oh, well, that's just so messed up. And I was like, it's not. That's special operations. When you go out to the team, being in war isn't a make a wish foundation kind of thing.

Like, oh, you know, here's our make a wish foundation. Green Beret, we're going to take them out on some missions. No, people can die. And so I understood completely. Like they knew what had happened to me. Most of the team was on the battlefield that day in the helman, saw my leg. And so for me to get back out to the team in the most heavily IED area in Afghanistan at that point, I don't blame them. I'm like, what are you doing here, dude?

Like you have no business being out here, but you got to prove it. Another cool, I'm not going to read the whole section, but you're talking about like what? you're looking for and one thing you said is you'd you'd be looking and you'd be thinking would I put an IED there if I was a bad guy that was kind of the perception you looked at everything with oh yeah I get asked this question a lot about um how do I find IEDs and they're like oh you have a mind detector mine detector doesn't really do anything for me I look at so I I take a breakdown of the battlefield or the objective that we're going on to and then I look at okay so the easiest avenues of approach, there are going to be IEDs there. If you got a 12-foot mud hut wall and there's a

break in the wall right here and then it's 12 feet again, there's going to be an IED there. And then I also, so before I even use my mind detector, I get ground sign. Ground sign tells me everything. And then I verify it with my mind detector. And then, I mean, I've, I've definitely come up to like breaks in the wall and whatnot. And I don't even use my mind detector or anything. I just put a a C4 there, get back. Yeah, because there's going to be one there. And so. How much of, how much do you think, like, one thing I was always paranoid about was like,

oh, they've got the fake IED there and did this in Ramadi a lot. Like, oh, there's a wire and whatever, and someone goes over to disarm it and they step on something else and get blown up. Yep, the decoys. Yeah. Oh, the decoys are nasty. Super nasty. And that goes back to that, you know, that saying that we've all had.

And I guarantee you guys probably said it in Ramadi. was where there's one, there's five. You know, where there's one, there could be 10 or what, but where there's one, there's going to be secondary because when that guy hits one of them, then the rescue team's going to come in and they're going to start hitting the secondaries or we're going to use one as a decoy,

and then we're pretty sure we can funnel with this decoy here. Now I can funnel the troop movement this way. And then it's all IED. Yeah, and my point in bringing that up is like, it's a it's it's it's not checkers it's not like oh there's an obvious place there's an iED it's chess where it's like oh there's one there but that means they're probably thinking we're going to move over there so the place we really need to watch out for it so the Taliban are super good at that crazy good at trying to anticipate troop movements and then iEDs you're carrying

on with the deployment months go by and at one point you're in a little bit of a firefight and you step into basically a shit ditch. And it's filled with shit. It's filled with human sewage, which sucks because it stinks and it's gross and all that. But the real problem is you got your foot, which is a bunch of skin grafts is in there. And this is after a long patrol,

so you already got blisters and whatnot because you got freaking baby skin on the bottom of your foot. Yeah, open blisters. So that is a problem. Yeah, I mean, we got a bit of a tick, and every warfighter knows cover and then return fire, violence of action, everything like that to, you know, get control the situation again. And so I remember, you know, we're engaging, you know, different targets. And I was, you know, my adrenaline was really high. but it still is man something really stinks here I was like what in the heck is this and I just and then

finally once you know it's like all right we got aircraft on station which means bad guys are gone so then I start to kind of get a sense of my surroundings and as a shit trench and I was up to my calves and so all of the open sores that I had where my skin grafts were just human feces going and yeah. So you get an infection and you're worried like you're going to get sent home but it turns out they don't send you home.

Yeah. Go ahead. No, yeah, my team, you know, when we got back, you know, I basically, I had to tell our Delta, you know, because it was bad and he's, man, you need to go to CAF. And then when I got to CAF, they basically said they're like, okay, you're done in the PANJUA, we need to monitor you. we don't you know we're not sure if you're going to redeploy back to the states or not I knew if

if I redeployed back to the states that was a death wish as in and I don't mean literally but as in the command will know that this gamble that they took to let me go back to war it didn't pay off and I would never see combat again and so I uh I found work um I carried heavy shit and I made myself an important part of that. And this was the first time in my life. And so again, it sounds really weird, but stepping in this knee deep, or I'm sorry, calf deep in human feces

led up to the first time in my life instead of saying, poor me, this happened to me, why did I jump in that one trench and everything like that? I owned it. And I went and I found work and I made myself this valuable asset

on calf load and health helicopters to send supplies out to the guys in the field, you know, and still in combat. And I made, you know, made a name for myself as always getting these guys of stuff they needed and whatnot like that. So I found work. And yeah, and that was the first time that, like, that was a major victory for me of taking control over something that I very easily in the past, what a straight went into victimization. So that you're, how long are you doing that job for? I was doing, that for probably the last three months of the deployment. And then you do, you end up healing up decently and there's one more, there ends up being a

mission and the mission is to go set up. There's a big mission going on, but you're going to go with the command element. You're going to set up a command post on the top of a hill. And that means you're going to get inserted and you're going to have to walk two kilometers, but with 3,000 feet of elevation gain. And it's a tough mission. It's physically tough mission. You have some other strap hangers with you.

One of those guys wants to quit. One of the other guys, you guys end up having to carry other people's gear on that. But you do it. You do it. You do a good job. You're healed up. And luckily on the mission,

you know, it's a relatively peaceful mission. Yeah, we were supporting. So the seals and a bunch of ODAs, we were clearing this valley together. It was a joint mission. And in the command element, last mission of the deployment, command element wants to get boots on the ground. Say they did something. And so, yeah, we were going up to Hilltop 2000. And guys, you know, one guy, he just flat out, I mean, sorry, but quit.

And I was like, I didn't think you can do that in combat. Yeah. This is not training, bro. There's no training time out here. And then another guy's body just failed him. And so we were carrying all this stuff up to the top. But I'm not big on Spotlight Ranger kind of stuff, but I knew for sure that I could solidify my career as a Green Beret. If the colonel and the command sergeant major all saw me as a beast, even though my body was, that was another time when I learned like your mind quits.

way before your body will, way before your body will. And if you have, if you, if you put this drive, you, you have this goal you want to reach. And that goal is more important to you than your mind, um, giving up on you, then you will be able to see how much further you can actually go once your mind has told you you're done. I, sometimes people like, oh, what do you do when you get, look, what do you tell yourself when you're, when you don't want to do something? And I'm like, I don't tell myself anything because my mind is the one.

Like, I'm just going to go. I'm going to go keep doing what I'm doing. Like I don't have these negotiations with myself about like, well, you should really. No, I'm like, shut up. Keep going. There's the answer. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's hard until you make it a lifestyle. Yeah. Yeah. That's the positive lifestyle we're looking for. You get done with that mission. You know, a little while later, you go back to America. When you get back to America, you're actually going to the normal seventh group rotation, which Seventh Groups A-O is South America.

Yep, South Central America. South and Central America. So you end up doing some, do you call them deployments if they're short? What do you call those? So we have CNTs or J-Sets. And I know Seals, you guys do J-Sets also. Yep, we do. You also do CNTs, the counter-narcotic.

Yeah, okay. So it's the same thing because we, I remember all of my deployments down South Central America. There was always seal platoons there. So you do some of those shorter trips and you go to El Sal, you go to Columbia, you go to Peru. And then I think you were getting ready to deploy to Guatemala and all of a sudden things change. Yeah, they had, they requested. So Bravo Company, second battalion was heading back to Afghanistan short on guys. And, um, So I saw my inn right there, and I started creating, you know, ways of finding my way over to Afghanistan somehow. And that was, and that was all it took was I just, I gave him the sales pitch.

And the original answer to your sales pitch was, cool, you can come, but you're going to be not, you know, not, not a shooter. Yeah, I was going to be riding a desk and managing, um, uh, just sources. Right, right. Yep. So you're doing that. That's your plan, is to go over there. You show up. And about a month after you're there,

you get approached by the ops sergeant, who says a new mission just got dropped in our laps. You want a piece of the action? Yep. And you say, yep. And so you guys start planning this mission going to the book here. The way we drew things up, the Taliban would see the Afghan commandos

heading into the village and fire. at them knowing for certain that the Afghan soldiers would turn and run away like they had many times before. Once a bunch of Taliban assholes started shooting, however, that would be all we needed to call in close air support assets overhead, which would give the Taliban a healthy taste of American firepower. The insurgents would know in a New York minute that the Americans were in the fight, and that would change the battlefield in a hurry.

And then you say, on paper, everything read well. And I put a nice little exclamation point by that. Because as we know, things that look good on paper don't always turn out the way you expect them to. Nope. You proceed into this. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. You're now executing the mission. I could see our first target compound, which was about 100 meters up the path, still had a long distance to clear.

And again, this is after you insert on the mission. When you get done playing the mission, you go insert on the mission, you're moving, you're moving to this first area that you're going to clear. and the path started to narrow and rows of dormant fruit trees swallowed up the ground as we patrolled deeper into the orchard. I reminded myself to concentrate on significant details that were almost impossible to see under night vision and then pop. What the fuck was that? We all hit the ground unsure of the loud snap we just heard. Was it a gunshot snipers in the area? We waited for a shitstorm of bullets to rain down on us, but nothing happened.

Then I noticed that jawweed. Is that right? Yep, Joweed. Joweed and I were tangled in some type of line, almost like fishing line. Holy shit. We had hit a trip wire, IED, that didn't explode. How did I miss that? As Joweed carefully investigated the trip wire against his chest without any quick movements,

I determined that the Taliban had tied the wire that ran from the set of explosives hidden in a mud wall all the way to a tree on the opposite side of the path. The wire had been tied at chest level, not the usual ankle height, a cleverer. move on the Taliban's part. They knew we would be looking at our detectors to clear, which meant we would be looking down at the dirt and walk right into a chest level trip wire. Why didn't the IED go off? The best exclamation I could come up with was that when the Overwatch element laid waste for five minutes firing everything they had into the orchard, fragmentation from one of

the mortars had hit the IED and disabled it. Luck was on our side. So there you go. You're walking through this freaking orchard. You hit a trip wire. and for whatever reason, probably the preparatory fire that had been fired by your team had disrupted the IED.

Yep. We had cleared another 15 meters of path when I saw movement in an open field near the first compound. I turned to Abe, and Abe is one of your guys that you had with you, one of your Afghans that you had with you, and that was when all hell broke out.

Before Abe could respond, the night was lit up by a barrage of gunfire coming from the compound, Outer wall first it was a zip zip zip followed by the crack of seven six two Calibur rounds flying past our heads these rounds which ripped holes in the darkness Look like a laser light show with tracers streaking across the night sky next came an explosion from an RPG being fired at us then more automatic fire we'd walk directly into an ambush Shit with my heart beating out of my chest I hit the ground and started returning fire the Taliban

The Taliban had set up a complex ambush ambush and the trip wire IED was supposed to start the whole thing off One of their PKK machine guns let out a burst of 20 meters, a burst of fire 20 meters from our position, a distance so close that it was almost like I could grab the flame coming out of the end of the barrel. Jawid, Abe, and Buzmala. How do you say that? Bzmula. Bzmula jumped into the ditch while Kahn. Khan, okay, just Kahn. While Kahn darted back and took cover behind a tree.

I hit the deck and lay as flat as I could in the middle of the dirt path. Bullets kicked up and rock and gravel fragments all around me, stinging my skin. When bullets hit the ground around me, splintering fragments sprayed everywhere. I could tell some fragments struck my body armor's protective plate. I engaged the flames, figuring that where there were flames, there was a gun, and where there was an AK-47, there was a fighter. Ryan, your strobe light, my buddy Zach yelled over the radio. They have NVGs.

They can see your strobe. Damn, bro. What were you thinking when you heard that? I need to get this off my helmet. I need to get this IR strobe away from me. And our JTAC couldn't see me because we had got caught up in an L-shaped ambush. And so he wasn't sure where the PKM was. And that's, you know, so I took it off my helmet and I threw it as close as I could to where that PKM was at and then just hit the deck again and started engaging muzzle flashes.

And could the J-TAC once you through the IR? Could he see it? Could the J-TAC see it? So it was kind of funny. So I said, you know, you guys have visual on the IR and yeah, and go, okay, they're over that direction. He goes, what? I don't know. Going back here, there's one guy that starts peeking out and you actually end up killing this guy.

The third time he came out, he took more time when the previous two tries attempting to a better a shot off at us. It was like he was daring me to light his ass up. I knew I had him. I locked in with a clear shot and let go a 10 to 15 round burst from my M4. I watched him drop. His body lay still on the ground. It felt good to kill him, but I couldn't relish the moment too long. We were still pinned down. Our main element, which was about 25 to 30 meters behind our position, put as much firepower on the enemy as they could, hoping to keep their heads down long enough for U.S. aircraft to start dropping bombs. I knew from the many fights I'd been in before in this country that a call for air support had been made within seconds of their attack.

In the meantime, Frankie's position let loose. This is one of your other teammates. But the Taliban were well protected behind mud walls. Unless they stepped out to the open, like the guy with the RPG launcher, there wasn't much we could do without an airstrike. At the same time, I was aware, given how close we were to the enemy, that being killed by friendly fire was a very real worry. Yeah.

So you're 15 to 20 meters away from these bad guys? Yes. The first P.KM. And just so anyone that's wondering, 15 to 20 meters is not a long way when you're going to try and drop bombs. Yeah, there's danger close. And then there's calling in on your position. And it's, yeah, it's a little dicey. This is getting a lot dicey.

Yeah. Yet as our situation deteriorated by the second. I knew that without bombs on target, Jowid, Abe, Bismula, Khan, and I would all die. This was about to turn into a body recovery mission, and it would be our bodies that would be taking home. Within a couple of minutes, the decision was made for us when our Air Force JTAC called in a 500-pound bomb

just 20 meters from my position. This was considered a danger-close strike. I don't even know if that's considered danger. That's called on my position. Yeah, especially 500 pounds. This was considered a danger close strike, but one that would give us a fighting chance of making it out of the orchard alive.

The call went out over the radio, and then I heard Air Force J-Tax's voice in my earpiece. Ryan, we're dropping close to you, man. Keep your fucking head down. After receiving the radio transmission, I relayed the information to Abe, who told the others to get as low as they could. There wasn't enough room in the ditch

So I grabbed Khan and pushed him into the trench While I stayed on the footpath I ordered them to hunker down and prepare for the blast Since we weren't firing back at the enemy The volume of fire on our position picked up So now you guys are hunkering down because you're expecting this bomb And now the enemy's thinking they got an upper hand Overhead I could hear the rocket motors of the F-16

Ripping through the sky As the fighter jet came inbound I received one last warning over the radio Bombs away man stay low I lay as flat as I could on the path, holding my hands over my head and planting my face in the dirt. Then I slightly tilted my head and opened my mouth to give the overpressure or shockwave a place to exit. All I could do was wait for the blast. When the bomb hit, the overpressure from the explosion sent grass, dirt, gravel, dust, and tree branches flying in our direction.

I waited for the big chunks of mud of the mud compound to land on me as well as bits of earth and other debris. Thankfully, I was spared from the hunks of mud wall hitting me, which was. would have broken my back. Instead, I was covered with dirt, leaves, and branches. But the concussive force was so great that I felt like my skeleton. It just walked out of my body, turned, slapped me in the face, and reentered my body. I tried to stand up. I kept falling.

I almost felt like I was drunk. Yeah, if you have a 500-pound bond go off. Freaking, you're rocked. It's like you just got, like, when you see someone get knocked out in the UFC, that's what you just got hit with. Yep. only not just to the jaw, but to the entire body. In all my time in Afghanistan, I'd yet to experience a concussive explosion of that magnitude.

It took a good minute to regain my senses. Just as I was figuring out what happened, I heard my guys screaming over the radio. Ryan, are you good? Ryan, answer your fucking radio if you're alive. Their voices sounded like someone was yelling down a long tunnel trying to get my attention. I got my bearings. Fuck, that was good. That was big, but I'm good, man.

I answered. I couldn't believe what had just happened. How big of a bomb was that? 500 pounds, brother, you just ate a big one, man, and I'm still alive. I thought I had come away without a scratch until I felt warm liquid coming out of my ears from the monstrous blast. Damn, that was close. There was no time to worry about the ear drip because I had no idea if the enemy was still moving around or all tapped out. I took a moment to shake the cobwebs out of my head.

Then I checked on my guys to ensure they were good. After everyone was accounted for uninjured, I had my guys fall back. to the closest position, which was 20 meters behind us. Once we were back with the main element, our J-TAC called in another strike, which would ensure that if anyone was still moving in the compound, they were sure to be dead. Damn.

That's freaking psycho crazy right there. He's dropping a 500-pound bomb at 20 meters. Like I said, that's... I mean, we'll have to ask a good deal, Dave Burke, and see what the, you know, what the error box is on that. Yeah. You know, were you a J-TAC? Mm-mm.

I was a J-Tac and like 20 meters is tight. Yeah. That's a tight one. But they do it. That's what they do. You know, they got GPS guided musicians and they do, they do drop them right into a spot. Yeah, they actually had to switch out aircraft or switch out platforms to drop a non-fragmentation producing like a concussed. Oh.

Wow. Because of how close we were. And it took like five minutes to get bombs on target. And anyone who's been in a tick before, five minutes, really long time. Well, salute to your J-TAC because that's a ballsy call right there. Yep. He's a freaking legit.

Yeah, I remember him saying. He was like, man, if I, if I would have killed you, my career is done. I was like, thank you. Don't worry about your bro. Yeah. Yeah, the dude's amazing. Save my life. Oh yeah, for sure.

That's crazy. You know, that's when I was a J-TAC, when you had to call Danger Close, you have to give your initials. I don't know if they still do this, but you have to give your initials saying, like, I'm signing for this bomb. This is on me and you need to drop this bomb.

And you like, they would be authenticate with you, or J-TAC initials or something. I forget the actual calls, but they take Juliette whiskey, drop it and then boom. So you, You now you go, you go, you clear this compound. The sun's starting to come up. It's kind of settled down.

The situation's kind of settled down a little bit. The sun's start to come up. You're feeling good about that because now it makes IDs easier to find. Then you start moving to another compound. And once again, you're just like finding IDs, tripping IDs. And still just moving from compound. compound clearing more IEDs as you enter these other compounds there's there's not any movement or anything you say during the rest of our clearance I encountered

more than 20 IEDs mm-hmm I personally blew up 15 before I ran out of C4 explosives we marked the rest overall we located more than 50 IEDs four 170 107 millimeter rockets multiple booby traps and a complex bunker and tunnel system this This particular part of the village lived up to its reputation as a hotbed for Taliban fighters. The Taliban had reinforced bunkers spread throughout the village, many connecting with tunnels. That's freaking psycho. I mean, running into 50 IEDs, clearing them all.

Yeah, it's, yeah, the ones we couldn't clear, we just had to mark and bypass. It was, yeah, that village was super nasty, super nasty. So then there's this little discussion. between the Afghan force leader who after you guys clear these places, the goal is, hey, the Afghan stay there to, you know, prohibit the Taliban from coming in and taking over. So there's a little bit of a discussion because, you know, American forces are going to leave.

Like, okay, we did the hard part and we cleared everything. Now you stay there and occupy and build defenses and set up claymores and, you know, secure the area and hold on to it. Well, they don't want to do that. And so this discussion is happening. And while this discussion is happening, which, by the way, your team leader says, the Afghan says, the American should say, not my Afghan soldiers. You're better equipped to fight the Taliban. And the team leader says, if this was Texas, I would agree with you, but we're in Afghanistan.

This is your country. I'm here to help you, but not win your battles. So as this little discussion is going on, one of your Afghan, one of the Afghan commandos, comes up to you and with with the interpreter and says there's 15 to 20 men moving our way yep and you know the discussion still going on a few seconds later the Afghan commander tugged on my shirt sleeve to get my attention again the men are heading this way we need to do something because I don't think these are villagers from the area he said I went back to my team sergeant was more direct we need to get out of here we have fighting age males moving in our direction I'm

grabbing my guys and getting into positions to move out. The team sergeant nodded. Fuck this. He said, I'm done negotiating with these guys. Let's move out. He had barely finished this sentence when the first shot whizzed by my head with the all too familiar zip followed by a crack. We were immediately in the fight for our lives.

Rounds were coming in all around from automatic machine gun fire. A series of RPG explosions took us by total surprise. Everything turned into total chaos in an instant. Everything was happening so fast. It was impossible for the human brain to comprehend it. Instinctively, I knew I was sprinting for cover, but for a split second, I felt frozen in pandemonium of everything happening around me

while my brain scrambled to make sense of the attack's ferocity. Now I was moving quickly, screaming instructions and returning fire to an enemy I could not see. Round sprayed everywhere. Hitting compound walls like a garden hose watering down a dusty road. Just then I heard Abe grunt as if he was hurt. That's one of your Afghans. But for some reason it didn't occur to me that he could have been hit I darted toward a ditch that paralleled the dirt road

Running through the village after diving for cover I peered out cautiously but I couldn't see any of my guys or where we were taking fire from Bullets were tilling up dirt all around me as we tried to stay as low as possible then I noticed that three commandos in the ditch 10 meters from my position Had drawn the attention of a Taliban machine gun crew that had zeroed in on them I waived for the three Afghans to move to my position which would give them more cover, but they were too scared to move. I knew that if they didn't get their asses in gear and start moving, they were going to die. I don't know what possessed me, but I climbed out from my ditch and sprinted into their position, praying to God that my adaptive leg would hold up. I reached the first commando and grabbed the very first thing that I could get a hold of, his hair.

I yanked him up and pulled him back to my ditch, hoping the other two would follow. They did. As we ran, dust kicked up and more rounds impacted around us. I slid into the ditch like I was Legging out a triple then I reach back and drag the three scared shitless commandos down with me We had company in this part of the ditch Frankie was providing aid to another wounded Afghan Frankie you okay man I'm good brother how about you? Yeah, I'm okay you see Abe or anyone else? Not yet man I moved closer to a small mud wall that paralleled the ditch this wall provided decent protection from enemy fire And allowed me to look down the dirt road where I saw an Afghan soldier lying motionless I brought up my rifle scope to get a better look.

Frankie, I think that's Buzmula in the middle of the road. Bro, I think he's dead. My heart jumped straight to my throat. One of our guys was killed. Fuck, where's the rest of my team? Frankie and I were the only two Americans in that ditch. I scanned back down the road where Bismula lay. I knew Abe was next to him before the ambush kicked off, but I could only see Bismula.

I hoped Abe wasn't hit too. What I could determine was that we had two wounded Afghan commandos and Bismula lying in the middle of the road. I figured Bismula was dead, but until I had my hands on him, I couldn't be 100% sure. I knew I needed to get to him, but the amount of live fire coming in was too heavy. The radio crackled again, and then I heard a heart-stopping message in my headset, loud and clear. Eagles down. Eagles down. The phrase Eagles Down was code for Americans wounded or killed. The fight had just taken the worst possible turn.

There were Americans wounded or killed somewhere on the battlefield, but I didn't know where. We needed some air support in a hurry. How much time has passed in what I just read? And I skipped a little bit of stuff, but this is all a few minutes? No. I remember we were basically screaming for air support, and they couldn't.

because the Taliban with the tunnel systems, they were in our lines. And they couldn't drop because they couldn't distinguish who was who. And so, yeah, it became a fist fight at that point. Here's the understatement of the year coming from you back to the book. Bro, this shit is bad. I said to Frankie, no sooner did the words leave my lips than I heard one sound that gives every green beret chills an explosion from a mortar round, which landed 30 meters from us and shook the earth.

I hit the ground and turn toward Frankie. Shit, I yelled. They got a mortar tube up. We need to move before we get hit. So for anyone that doesn't know anything about mortars, when you shoot mortars, you don't hit what you're aiming at on the first shot usually. You have to do something called bracketing, which means you fire your first shot and, oh, it goes long.

So you back your distance off a little bit. You fire your next shot. It's probably going to be short. And then you split the difference and your next shots are on target. So when you're getting mortared, if you sit there, they're going to bracket you, they're going to find you, and they're going to get you. Gunfire is one thing. If the enemy is close enough to shoot at you, you're close enough to kill him. Mortars are different.

They can be two or three kilometers away and engage you with deadly fire, and by the time you figure out where they're coming from, it's too late. Another explosion hit the compound to the left of us. Too close for comfort. That was our cue. Time to make a move. Frankie and I engage Taliban targets as much as possible trying to keep their heads down with return fire, which would give us a little time to pick up our wounded Afghans and move back. Crack, a round hit directly into the wall above my head.

Crack, another round, too close for comfort. Crack and another one. Then two more rounds hit the mud wall in front of us. A sniper had our position dialed in. Every time we stuck our heads up, he sent rounds our way. To make matters worse, the Taliban were dropping mortars closer and closer to our position. One of the Afghan commandos besides us spoke a little English. He pointed to his radio and said he heard the Taliban had our position and we're trying to capture us.

Hearing that word struck fear in my heart, I nudged Frankie again. The Taliban are trying to flank us and cut us off from the rest of our guys so they can take us. It's time to move, brother, I shouted. First things first, how do we avoid getting shot by the sniper? I saw a protected area near a compound, a couple of hundred meters from us where I recognized several Americans, including our medic Joe. Frankie, I see Joe. Let's move to him. So you guys gather everyone up and you finally like are able to get over to this other position where Joe is.

Joe is your medic. He's working on guys. You get there all blood, moans and cries for help. State of shock could be seen on the commandos faces. We knew we were in a real shitstorm. So far we had one dead Afghan commando, two wounded Afghans, three wounded Americans. We were missing five Afghans, including Abe and Bisman. Mula, who are your two guys.

Yes. And still no air support. At that point in time, once we were able to get back to the CCP, well, the first CCP, we were able to start dropping bombs on the targets, probably 45 minutes into the tick. And then they came up out of tunnels and engaged us at that first CCP, which means we had to find another CCP. How are you doing for ammo?

We're handing mags off. Yeah. So you're in this first casualty collection point, CCP. So for those of you that don't know, this is when you're in a bad situation and you've got casualties. You want to get to a point where you can gather all the casualties together. So you can, number one, provide security. Number two, provide medical attention. And then number three, try and figure out where you're tactically can get them out of there.

So you're in this CCP. I looked around for Jaouid and Khan. Jaouid was sitting up against the wall trying to catch his breath, Grabbing Dost, our interpreter, I asked him if he knew where Abe was. Jaweed shook his head. No, I haven't seen Abe. Just then I saw Frankie Khan and two Afghan commandos carrying Bismula from the road to the CCP. Bismula is alive, but he can't feel his legs, Frankie said.

Thank God we got biz, but where's Abe? I asked, a puzzled look came over Frankie. No one has seen Abe since the firing started. Bro, he's still out there. Fast forward a little bit. Now that we had most of our friendly forces back in one location, our aircraft could start engaging targets. Up first was the white two-story former school building,

and these are things you explain. These are areas where you're taking fire from. After 45 minutes of intense fighting, we finally dropped our first bomb. As the F-15 jets screamed across the sky and extremely close to our position, the first bomb dropped. The white building was reduced to wooden debris

in a nanosecond, instantly killing the sniper inside. Fast forward a little bit. At that point, we had two wounded Afghans, three wounded Americans and now two dead Afghan commandos. 300 meters to the right of the compound was another mud hut compound with tall walls for protection and a large open field big enough for helicopters to land in. This was going to have to work because we needed to get going. We picked up and quickly moved to our new location and started calling a dust off,

which was our call sign, our radio call sign for medical evacuation. So now you move into this bigger compound and you're preparing to get helicopters in there to get the wounded and dead out of there. You go over to Bismula. I calmly asked him if he knew where Abe was. Abe was next to me when we started fighting, he said, and then he jumped into the ditch near the footbridge at the last compound we cleared.

Okay, now I had a starting point, but we couldn't move or go near that area of the village. The enemy was too well dug in. Every time we poked our heads above the near road, we got lit up by the Taliban. Somehow I had to get Abe. I was not leaving him behind. I had an Afghan commando pointing to the footbridge,

saying another commander was there with Abe. That meant two wounded guys now, which also meant I would need more help. Our Air Force J-Tac said he had a plan to keep the Taliban's head down while we sprinted for the footbridge. I'll call the Apaches to fly in front of your movement and shoot the shit out of everything ahead of you guys.

I like the way that sounded. A little cover and move with the helicopters. At the same time we were putting together our two-minute game plan, the team sergeant stopped us. We can't risk you going down there to get those guys. He said, too much enemy fire. Well, we're not leaving them behind, I said. My team sergeant wasn't happy with my answer, but he knew what we had to do. I spoke up again.

If we leave without them, we could have a mutiny on our hands with the Afghans. We have to go. No one gets left behind. The team sergeant looked at us knowing this was something that Moss, happen okay we'll go he said this was going to be an American led recovery operation why the Afghan commandos wouldn't go recover their own guys was beyond me if an American had been left behind we would go to hell and back for our to get our brothers out dead or alive the J-TAC interrupted the discussion stating the Apaches were

inbound to do a gun run on enemy positions we needed to use cover this cover as our chance to move here they come everyone ready the J-Tac asked it was go time The sounds of the large caliber bullets echoed off the compound walls as the Apaches opened fire, blanketing the area with 30 millimeter rounds. Frankie, our J-TAC, our team sergeant, and I sprinted down the road toward the area where we assumed Abe and the missing commando were. As we ran like hell in the direction of the footbridge, we took on small arms fire, but nothing compared to what it could have been if those Apaches weren't helping us.

The closer I got to the footbridge, though, the more I prepared myself for what I might sea leading up to the bridge the terrain shifted upward slightly making it hard to see what was in the ditch i was almost to the footbridge when i looked down there float floating lifeless in the water at the bottom of the ditch was abe his body was sprawled out with a blood soaked bandage around his pelvic area abe had attempted to stop the bleeding himself but i knew that pelvic wounds were almost impossible to treat without proper medical help abe had bled out so much that the muddy water in the ditch had turned bright red. My friend was dead and I could not save him. A Taliban sniper had perfectly placed three rounds into his pelvis. Oh, Abe, they finally got you. As I got to his body

in the ditch, Frankie was providing covering fire while the team sergeant and I attempted to pull Abe out. Lifting a lifeless body out of a six-foot muddy ditch was especially difficult. Adding to the difficulties was the fact that Abe's body was covered in blood, which made him extremely slippery to hold on to. We couldn't get a good grip on him and struggled to carry his body up to dry ground. I became more and more drenched in Abe's blood and even got some of his blood in my mouth, a taste that's forever etched in my mind. Finally, after giving it everything we had, we freed Abe from his watery grave, but the smells, the tastes, and everything about that moment still haunt me to this day.

Kind of, it's, I mean, not only does it say a lot about the American soldier, and the American fighting man that you four go down to recover the body of these Afghans also obviously says a lot about the Afghans who don't go to go and recover their own people. But that's, you know, to me, it's a lot of it's just like it has to do with the value of human life that we have as Americans. Like we see we value human life more. And the bond that we have is so strong. And it's just, it's a, it's a real tribute to the American soldier that you're going, you're risking your life and your friends are risking your lives, your lives as Americans to go.

And basically you know that these guys are dead. I mean, that's your suspicion. Yeah. But you're still not going to leave these guys behind. No one gets left behind. You get, you get Abe out of the trench and you, you basically, you find a ladder. that that you use as a stretcher you put them on this thing on this ladder you carrying him into the compound as you're carrying them into the compound there's Afghan commandos that are just standing there watching you struggle back to the book don't just stand there fucking help us I screamed at the commandos but they stood there like statues we continued on the landing zone to wait for the helicopter I was carrying I was helping carry Abe carry Abe on the makeshift gurney when I saw the helicopter

hovering over it, it finally hit me. My buddy was really dead. My heart sank. When the helicopter touched down, I helped load Abe onto the last flight he would ever take. I reached out and grabbed his lifeless hand as the helicopter lifted off from the ground to take him away. Yes, Abe was gone,

but we had recovered his body so that his family could give him a proper burial, a true warrior's funeral. If the Taliban had recovered his body, they would have desecrated it. Instead, we did right by him. as American fighting men and women we have one belief we will fight and die for no one gets left behind yeah and you know in the book you go into a little bit about both abe and bismula who you knew

well and their backgrounds what kind of guys they were you know the the what they had volunteered to do right and you know like as i'm sitting here calling you crazy for wanting to go back and find iEDs if you're if you're part of the afghan team guess what guess how long your deployment lasts forever right so these guys are out there hanging it out there and you know you had that bond with them and then you stayed true to that bond yep what was the what was the i mean you know obviously shortly after this you you end up getting the rest of the team out. What was the total losses for that day? That day we ended up with four Americans, WIA, eight Afghans, KIA, and 12 Afghans, WIA. So it was pretty bad day. How big was the force going in?

We have conflicting reports. The last report I remember seeing is we killed over 400 Taliban. Now aircraft killed over 400 in Taliban. We, you know, personally probably, you know, 10, 20 at small arms, but that's still a pretty big force. But over 400. How many guys did you have total? How many Afghans? How big was the Afghan Commando Unit? We hundred and, I think about 120 Afghans.

And then an ODA and an ODB. So about 25 Americans, about 120 Afghans. How much longer? were you in country after that operation? That had actually just started the deployment off. So we still had another, I think, I'd say five more months. And what was the, what was the rest of the deployment like? It was, it was back to just trying to, trying to chase, you know, chase that elusive combat again, but nothing, nothing came even close to touching Boglan. And did they, did they throw you back in?

Because your original purpose on that deployment was more of work in the Intel side. Yep. Did you get moved back into that? And that's kind of what you spent most of the deployment doing? I did. Yeah, I was moved back into the intel role of it. And I would, you know,

I would constantly try and create work and find myself on missions and whatnot. But yeah, I was back, you know, doing those reports. I'm going to fast forward a little bit to your heading home. When our 2016 tour of duty was over in July, our team bordered a C-17 at Bogram Airfield and flew west until we landed at Eglon Air Force Base near Pensacola, Florida,

following a fuel stop at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. We basically hop from the dangers of Afghanistan to tranquil Florida within 24 hours, the quickest I ever returned home. I still had Afghanistan dirt underneath my fingernails. I didn't realize that I had suffered traumatic brain injury. during the firefight where the 500-pound bomb had landed just 17 meters from my position. Binge drinking on weekends became the norm for me. Fast forward in a little bit, including consumption of a lot of beer at home.

I could easily clear 12 to 15 miller lights in an evening. And, you know, again, it's really good because in this book, you go through some of the details of what's happening when you come home from deployment. You know, you have that kind of... What is it a little empty feeling that we get something like that and you're trying to fill it up you're trying to figure out You know what this is how to how to adjust back to Being in Florida or wherever you're gonna be So you're doing you're doing the path which is easily available to us when we come home which is drinking fighting

Causing problems The little road rage activity you're with Dawn. And are you married to Don at this point? No, we got married in 18. So you got your girlfriend, Dawn, and you're, like, driving, and you're with Dawn. And I'm going to go to the book here. The dude suddenly turned into, this is, oh, yeah, he cuts you off, right, driving,

and you get your road rage on, and you follow him. What kind of vehicle are you driving? I was driving Tundra. Okay, check. So you're driving your Tundra. this dude suddenly turned into a driveway and ran into the house. I slid into the curb and put my truck in park. I was about to run after him when Don grabbed my arm.

What are you doing? She asked, are you going to chase him down, beat him up, and then what? What if we've got guns in the house? What makes you think he doesn't have them? This is stupid. What's going on with you right now? She had a point. I let out a huge breath of air, which dialed back the adrenaline surging through my body.

Fuck this. I mumbled as I got back into the truck. I eased away from the curb and turned homeward. For the next 10 minutes, neither of us said a word. My mind was locked on this thought. You need to get your temper under control. Damn it, I was a green beret. That meant I was a professional.

And flipping the switch between civilian life and being in a war zone was the professional thing to do. Yet here I was acting like a bully if someone did something I didn't like. I took some active measures over the next few days and weeks. I opened up to my friend Mike Valc. How do you say his name? Yeah, Velk.

I opened up to my friend, my friend Mike Valk, Tyler, and Frankie about some of my struggles. It turned out I wasn't alone. After sharing my innermost thoughts with Frankie, he said he was going through the same issues as me. Finally, someone gets it. And this is where you started kind of getting control, although nothing happened overnight. I slowly got my shit under control. My anger issues at times were still an open question, but I started to focus on what triggered me, which helped me ratchet my aggression way down.

Um, yeah, I kind of, I kind of, uh, spoiler alerted on the, on the marriage thing. But luckily, I didn't spoil much because in a very romantic fashion, in an Applebee's parking lot. Yeah. You asked, uh, Dawn, if she would marry you. Yeah. Uh, you got married. Um, you get cleared. You do another seven month deployment to Afghanistan in August of 2018, ends in March of 2019.

You say in the book here in a month. few words. My last deployment to Afghanistan was boring and cold. You detail some of these missions. You also say that boring has tons of upside for coming back with all your limbs, which is good. And you did make it home from that deployment with all your limbs. But and you did make it home. And obviously, as we know, not everybody does. And I want to close out this book. You know, you detail some more information. But I want to call it home. But I want to call it. close out the book in the actually in the acknowledgements when you address the fact that not everyone comes home then you say last I want to point out the men who epitomize heroic

courage and whom I look up to for strength Ben Harrow mm-hmm will Liles and Levi Rogers yes those guys are wounded yes Levi he he he he was in a max pro or a rg that hit an iED um everyone died but him in it so that was chief rogers um ben was my team leader uh when i got hit and then on the 2012 deployment he stepped on an ied lost both of his legs and then will liles um he was one of my friends that i went through the course with and um this basically the same time frame that i stepped on my ied he stepped on his and lost both of his legs. You say these three men are the definition of what it means to overcome astronomical odds

to go through hell and back, only to come out stronger on the other side. I will forever be grateful for the lessons I learned from them, as well as their strength and determination in putting aside their catastrophic injuries to show me the true value of life. They remind me that no matter what life throws at you or how bad you think you have it, You can always pick yourself up off the ground and kick life in the ass. For the men in heaven keeping a watchful eye on us, I salute you. May God hold you close and give you the comfort you all deserve.

Until we meet again, I will do my best to live the life you all embodied while you are here still walking among us. so that's the like I said this is a powerful book and we're reading a very small percentage of it I definitely recommend go out get this book read the full story I mean it's just powerful and it's a powerful tribute you know that powerful tribute at the end to all these guys and it's just it's just amazing when you think about the sacrifices that have been made by the service men and women in this country has been just we should net we can never ever allow that to be forgotten and I think this book is a is a personal account of some of those sacrifices what so what's going on now so I actually um I retired from the army in a in January of 2000 or 2020 and was that was that

20 years? Yeah, 21 and some change. And then within a week, I was back in Afghanistan as a contractor. So I gave my time about, or gave myself about five days to celebrate retirement. Then I was back at it. And that's what you're doing now? You're doing contracting? Yes. And you continue to go, how long are you going on deployments now? So these are four-month deployments. coronavirus had a little something to do with the last one, so we stayed longer. But the next one I have coming up is that'll be a four-monther, and then we'll kind of re-address, you know, what's going on in Afghanistan and whatnot like that. What you talk about in the book, but I didn't read through it.

At what point did you start writing the book? So the book actually, it started off as therapy. And when I came back from the 16 trip, the road region incident was one, but there was there was multiple other ones. But and and so I actually, you know, I remember going to a therapist, Army, you know, counselor therapist, whatever they're called. And he was kind of going down his list. And I remember asking him, it was like, what's my name?

And I saw his eyes had to go up to the top right hand corner. And I was like, I'm done here. So I started, you know, our chaplains and group are very close with us. And I remember talking to one of them just, and my biggest issue was like all three of us, we could be sitting at a bar, drinking a beer and talking about, you know, things and what we deal with and whatnot like that. And then you go home to your family, you go home to yours, and I go home to mine, and it's dead air.

It was talked about, but nothing was really like taken. off your chest. And so our chaplain, he's like, have you ever thought about writing? Said, no, I haven't. I majored in, you know, English in like the third grade or something. No, I've never thought about writing. So the 2017 deployment, so I went to Afghanistan, 16, 17, 18. And then back in 19 or 2019 and 20, so pretty much since 16, I've been in Afghanistan every year. And And in the 17 trip, I just remember just needing to just get stuff off my chest. And I remember I was, you know, I was in my little living area, and I just opened in my laptop and just started typing and typing.

And it just, and it felt good because I was, I was taking, I was taking these, these, I'll call them items, but I was taking these items that had been bothering me for years or been, or, just anything. And I wasn't just talking about it and it was dead air not to be, you know, having to be readdressed again, but I was putting it on something else that was tangible, a word document. And so I could come back to that word document anytime I wanted. And it actually felt like, you know, I was taking this off of my chest and I was putting it somewhere that was actually tangible. Now it was something and it felt great. And that's, and that's when I said, Oh, writing therapy.

Gotcha. Makes sense now. And then from that came the book. Yeah, you know, it's a, I always talk about using detachment is, is what you, you have to do that as a person. You have to get, you have to detach from your emotions. You can't get all, look, I'm not saying you need to leave all your emotions totally behind, but I'm saying you have to detach from them somewhat. And what's cool about writing.

And this is, I was trying to figure out what you. you meant by this so it's just dead air and I was like oh wait a second I get it when you write something down you are you are actually detaching from it right you get to see those words are coming out they're going somewhere else and now you're looking at those words and so it gives you a an actual physical form of detachment from the thoughts that you have from the feelings that you have from the emotions that you have and then you can read them you can read them from a distance and you can understand them better and then as you continue to work through the writing that you're doing and it it's another way to reprocess it and had you ever i i actually

don't think i think i guess i have heard the term writing therapy but like i guess it's a thing huh i never heard about it before until that point yeah but did you just make that up yourself or had i i think i've heard so when i had when i started typing um writing therapy that was that was purely what I just thought it was. But I think I've heard of it before. Like I do think it's a thing. Yeah, I think it's a thing, too. We're going to have to find out.

If not, we're going to have to trademark it. You should trademark it. Maybe that's why I've just been writing books all the time, just providing therapy for myself. And so then what did you do? How did you get the book published? So I went, yeah, that was kind of a funny situation. So I basically had all of these notes,

or not notes, but I had all these pages of my life, 500 some odd. And I had a couple, you know, I had reorganized it to kind of like the organization in the book and had a couple people like Frankie and Mike read it and they were like, this is me. Like, yeah, that's, that's me. And so I said, you know, you should make this a book. And so, you know, I did the Google and you get these, you get these assholes that'll take you for your money.

So I lost about five grand with a fake ghostwriter or whatever. I was like, man. So finally I got a hold of, you know, my buddy said, hey, just Google military authors and send them an email. And I can't remember how many, but this lady named Lynn Vincent, she's here in San Diego, but she contacted me back. She said, hey, you know, I got a guy that, yeah, he'd take a look at it for you. So Mike Yorky, who's another San Diego guy,

I sent it to him, and he's, you know, He read it. He's like, yeah, this needs to be a book. And so Mike and I painstakingly, sentence by sentence went back and forth over, you know, Florida to San Diego over the period of a year creating a document to send to the DoD for review. DoD review went through. Good to go. No redactions. And then Mike had a good buddy of his who's an agent, Greg Johnson and Greg he was able to yeah he he sent the proposal yeah to Hachette book group and they were like yeah so that's that's basically what got that started I yeah I was I was in Afghanistan most of the time but it's yeah I still I still couldn't believe it in the first time my I was in

Afghanistan when my book released July 7th of this year and I remember this uh This kid came up to, I call him a kid because, you know, I'm 42 and he's a young private. And he said, hey, can I ask you questions, sir? I was like, yeah. He goes, did you write a book? And I was like, no, I didn't write a book. And he goes, huh, that's funny. And he held the book.

And he goes, because this kind of looks like he was like, give me that book, you little son of a bitch, you know, like I'm not here to promote a book. I'm here to do a job. And then I was like, well, let me see that book. And that's the first time I ever touched my book was. while you're on the ground in Afghanistan. Dang. Yeah.

So what's the future hold? Another deployment. But my wife and I, actually, strangely enough, we are going down the adoption route now. Oh, right on. Yep. So IED kind of made it to where having kids is going to be an issue, but adoption is not. So we're starting that whole process right now, and it's very murky. So we're, but, you know, we'll, we'll.

We'll get all that done and hopefully within the next year we'll open up our home and give, you know, give a little one a great life. That's awesome. Yep, that's what we're going on. And yeah, I just, I don't know, other than that, just kind of living life and riding the lightning and slowly trying to build up people around me making up for years of destructiveness. So, man. Look, I've had you over here for three, over three hours. People can find you. Where can they find you?

So I actually have a website. It's Ryan M. Hendrickson.com. And then they, yeah, I'm on Instagram at Tip of the Spear, RMH. But yeah, the website that has the links to everything. So it's Ryan M. Hendrickson.com? Yes. Right on, man. Awesome.

Echo, you got anything else? No, I don't actually. That's a shocking moment. Yeah, kind of. That's a shocking moment. Any closing thoughts, closing thoughts, Ryan? Yeah, I mean, we talked a lot about my dad,

but it's, you know, the guy's a hero and some good advice, you know, definitely that has helped change my life around. And then, you know, like we were talking about with Dawn, my wife, you know, we had we had dated since 2008. And, yeah, in 2018, when we got married, it was kind of like, like, hey, I'm going to tell you what's going to happen there, guy. We are getting married before you go back to Afghanistan. Like, man, what if I say, no, she's like, you're not. We're getting married. Like, this is happening.

So, okay. So, but yeah, she's a stud. And I'm blessed. So, but there's, yeah, there's a lot of people that have done some, you know, amazing things in my life. And I do, you know, I think a lot of these different organizations out there, like the Green Bray Foundation, and I know the SEALs have one and the Marines have one, but they really do. One of the things that I would have to say that I'm most proud of because I see it from my dad is my dad got closure on the Vietnam War, seeing how I was taking care of. and the military has done a very good job at taking care of us, you know, of guys that we come back, change forever. And there's still a lot of work to do, but I just, yeah, it's, it's good, it's good. And I definitely, I, you know, I'm proud to, you know, I'm proud to be a soldier. I'm proud to serve my country.

And I'm proud of everybody that has. And I just, I think we're on the right path. So awesome man. Well, thanks for coming on here to to you know share this story and it's quite a story. And obviously any much more important. Thanks for your service. Thanks for your sacrifice in in the Navy in the Air Force and in the Army. Thanks for being out there. Thanks for keeping evil at bay. Thanks for protecting your brothers and your comrades. And most of all, thanks for protecting us in this. great nation. Appreciate it. Greatest nation on earth.

Amen. And with that, Ryan Hendrickson has left the building to go and carry on and live the best life that he can. And it certainly seems like we should do the same. Agree. Echo, any recommendations, suggestions on how we can live the best life we can. What do you got? I would say overall there's a lot of things we can do.

So it might seem like an obvious one, because we talk about it every single time. But I'm going to say it again. Oh, yeah, I'm going to say it again. You seem like you are. Anyway, we're working out. I suggest, or should I say recommend reading to? I was about to say, we don't really talk about reading that much,

but technically we do talk about reading a lot. Well, we're reading. I mean, I'm literally reading all the time. That's what I'm saying, yeah. So, yeah, so boom, we're doing a bunch of things. We need improvement things, not we need generative, not degenerative. For lack of better way. Someone's been reading the thesaurus.

Anyway, while we're working out, we take a beating. Your body takes a beating. I just got over bursitis quickly, by the way. Again, by the way. I narrowed down what causes my bursitis and my heel. Weakness. Let's say the limitations of my body. that.

Okay. From time to time. We don't want to worry about our joints while we're taking those beating with our workouts. It's part of life, but we don't want to worry about that kind of stuff. So good news. Jocco fuel. So we take our supplementation for our joints, which is, I'm just going to start with

this, which is joint warfare, super cruel oil, boom, it'll sort your joints right out. So you don't have to worry about them. Also, immunity, right? That's a big thing. Getting sick. Like these are things that like we don't want to have to worry about. Joint immunity. So for immunity, we got vitamin D.

Also, cold war. Take these. Yeah. If you don't want to worry about immunity. Definitely take these. Yes, sir. Also, what do we got? Discipline.

Supplementation. Kind of, kind of like a not even really a supplement. I mean, technically supplementation, but. You want to go kind of lifestyle. Lifestyle. Lifestyle. Like kind of a lifestyle thing. Lifestyle.

And actually now that we're, now that we're thinking about. You know, the way Ryan used the term lifestyle, it could be used negative. Yes. Because I'm thinking now, if you think about the joint warfare is a lifestyle. Crill oil, super krill is a lifestyle. Yeah. Oil. Yeah, fully.

You should make vitamin D a lifestyle. That should be part of your life. It's the way you live. Cold War, the way you live. Why would you, why would you not do that? There's not, there's no reason to not be living this lifestyle. There's zero reason. This will make you better.

Yeah. That's that. Same thing with the desk. Yep. Yeah, it's true. So discipline is one of those when you first came out with it. I was like, cool. Like cool. I'll take it. But you didn't really, sometimes. You didn't really understand. I didn't really understand. I am a full understanding at this time, I think. So yes, that is a lifestyle. So this one has three methodologies of deployment for lack of better way of putting it. Boom, discipline powder, pre-workout. That's my, I'm saying my little routine, my little lifestyle, if you

Pre-workout is the powder. Discipline go, the pills I don't take. Just don't have to. Well, that's me because I'm going to talk and I need that little... Different lifestyle, exactly right. Need a little hitter. But the discipline go cans, energy drink. That's just like a...

Real energy. That's like a treat. Look, I don't want to group this in with energy drink because we know what that means. It's actually we know what that means. This isn't an energy drink. It's real energy. A healthy energy. It's definitely healthy.

Somebody asked me the other day, like on the social media platform, is this healthy? Imagine being asked if it's healthy, and I get to say, yes, it is. It's actually healthy. Yeah. Also, I'm sure you had that feeling, kind of like Tim Kennedy had when you asked him if he was allowed to shoot his guns in his backyard. Oh, yeah. Remember when you asked him that?

He's like, I'm not even to justify that question within answers. Kind of like that. You kind of feel that only because you know, though, but here's a thing. That's a good question. But it is a good question. And also, it's a good question because the chances that you go through the effort to actually make something and spend the time and effort and money to make something that's actually good for you, the chances of that are rare. Yeah. But we did it.

Did it. Did it. And it is done. Also got molk, which is also good for you in 47 different ways. One of them being protein, the other one being tasty. Yeah. So this, so I have a thing. Right?

In my household, lifestyle, whatever. With the kids, they don't get dessert during the week. Desert only on the weekends. So every once in a while, like when the smashing pumpkin malt came out, I make a big deal out of it, you know, do this thing. I say, hey, you guys want to taste this or whatever. This can be like the dessert, but not today. It's like a Thursday or whatever.

Tomorrow. So I build the hype. You see what I'm saying? Next day they're all excited. Ooh, we get to. try that new thing you guys got or whatever so I make it up give it to them of course they love it but you got the extra hype and then on top of that it's like good for you see what saying so I trick them so now in the future hey this is a long game we're playing the long game

over here in the future I'll make them think I'm in a better mood than normal during the week I'll be like hey and I'll be the good dad give them dessert during the during the the week and they get the health benefit I'm actually giving you a solid 94 grade on that whole thing good job man long term that's tight I like that I like how you played that whole thing you played the psychological you played the human nature you know you a we could call it manipulation but we won't because you're doing something that's good for them for everybody I see what you I like it exactly right so yes thank you go Charles Jocko be little my son knows Brian Littlefield's

actual name refers to him by his first and last name when he's when he's taking more or drinking milk eating the uh all right here's a little inside tip the milk bars like he'll send me the samples you know so have you got the latest ones yes i got a few of them my son ate them and and that's part of the reason why he'll be like hey call brian littlefield to call them and tell them to send more or tell them thank you or all this stuff anyway so yes thank you guys for for creating this this is helping us on many many levels if you want to get any of this stuff. You can get it at origin to main.com. You can get it at the vitamin shop nationwide. You can actually get it on Amazon Prime. And if you're in Florida, if you're in Florida, go to a

Wawa in Florida and just go clear out the shelves. Just go clear them out. Why? Because of Go. Discipline Go and the can is there. We're trying to, it's beyond infiltrate. But we start, we have to start, We have to start with infiltration. It starts in Florida. So if you're down there, go to Wawa, clear it, clean out the shelves. Clean them out. And then we'll get you the whole East Coast.

Then we'll be out West Coast. And pretty soon we'll be everywhere you go. You'll be able to get some, you'll be able to get that little hitter. And it's doing good. That's the thing. It's doing good for us, for all of us who drink this.

It's doing good for us. Yeah, yeah. because you can land in Wisconsin, hopefully, in a little while and be like, oh, cool, I'm going into any store and I'm going to get some go. Yep. Yes, true. So yes, origin, mane.com, speaking of which, has Jujitzou geese made in America, by the way. Other clothing items made in America, by the way.

Also American denim and boots made in America again, by the way, which is a big deal. Oh, it's a real big deal. As far as economy. far as like what you're what the craftsmanship what you're actually wearing like the whole deal as far as rebuilding the economy and the manufacturing capabilities of our nation yes it's a big deal and you can help out you can help that you can help that go to origin main dot com if you want something get something speaking of getting something if you want jocco has a store called Jocko store.

This is a discipline equals freedom store. This is what it is. Really? Okay. Also, it's a good store. Oh, I see where you're going to. A discipline equals freedom store, which is good. Very punny.

Anyway, you want to represent while you're on this path, and the path is not easy. Some of us choose to represent while on this path. Feels good. This is where you go. jocco store.com. Get a shirt, jacket. Uh, hat. Christmas is coming up.

We got gift cards on there even. Yeah, I'll tell you what, here's what's going on with this. Let me give you a little heads up. Christmas is coming right now, COVID, the whole nine yards. There is a shortage of aircraft. There's a shortage of shipping personnel. I'm talking about in the entire world. We're not going to be able to ship what needs to get shipped.

So if you want to, if you want stuff, don't wait. Don't wait. Order it now. Yeah. That's the facts. Yeah, that's what I would say too. And I'm not just talking. I'm talking about Jocco store.

I'm talking about origin. I'm talking about Amazon. I'm talking about wherever you're getting stuff sent from, order it early. Let's be ahead of the power curve. Don't get behind the power curve. This ain't the kind of year where you're going to be like December 22nd ordering my wife's gift for Christmas. Don't let it happen. Yeah, I got to keep that in mind, by the way, now that you mentioned it.

But yeah, good tips for sure. So, but on the store also, like I said, we have gift cards. So you don't got to worry about shipping for that kind of stuff for the gift card. Just get it virtually. Oh, it's like a digital thing? Yeah, you get the code. You get a boom, boom, boom, easy money. Yeah.

But if you're training, you understand what I'm saying. Also, what else we have is our Jocco's T-shirt club. Okay. Oh, this is a good club. This is where you can get, like, if you're, you know, you can get a little bit more, how should I say, layered, creative, lighthearted sometimes shirts. They're kind of like monthly one of a,

And once we sit, once we pass the month, we're not selling those anymore. So if you're part of the club, you get these kind of these shirts. If you, if you're in the club and there's a shirt that came out before, can you get that shirt? As of right now, no. Okay. Okay. As of right now. But you never know.

Every once in a while, it's kind of like, man, now that one, down was really good. So let's, you know, bring it back or what it was. Maybe. I don't know. But as right now, afraid not. Sorry. So yes. It's a subscription-based situation.

So yeah, it's a joccoct t-shirt club. So look into that. If you want that, that's cool. If you want to support and you want to be on the path while representing. Good way to support that one. Very much. So, yes. So jocco store.com.

Also, subscribe to this podcast, if you haven't already, which is, I don't know. It always feels weird saying not subscribe, but whatever. So yes, you are, if you want to subscribe, just know if you didn't know that you can subscribe. There's other podcasts as well. You can leave a review. Yeah, other podcasts. We got the debrief, which is. Already inside this threat you're not going to worry about

Subscribing to that one but we also have the jaco unraveling Jocko unraveling podcast Daryl Cooper and I talking about All kinds of crazy stuff all kinds of crazy stuff on that Grounded podcast which we owe Warrior Kid podcast which your kid For is coming out so we're going on that one We got a YouTube channel

If you want to see what Echo Charles does In his spare time then you can check out the YouTube channel. You can see what Echo Charles looks like. You can see what Ryan Hendrickson looks like because we put the whole podcast on there and a bunch of short clips of the podcast, which according to Echo Charles are shareable.

Yeah, shareable. Shareable. Yes, and we can, you know, obviously we're going to, you know, in the spirit of brevity, I think I use that right, we're not going to go into why that's so valuable. Maybe we could. And we don't need to.

But yes, little excerpts. You want to share it with your friend. Boom, you share the excerpt, all good. And let's face the fact. Some of the excerpts have explosions, have fire, have smoke, have all kinds of things. That echo lasers. Just those kind of things. If you're into that kind of stuff, which one of the people that are speaking on this podcast right now is into.

Yes, sir. Maybe you need to. Yeah, so yeah, YouTube channel, look at that one. Subscribe if you want to. Also, psychological warfare. If you know what that is, that's an album with tracks of Jocko helping you through moments of weakness if they may arise in your life, which I think for most of us, they do from time to time. So boom, check. Just check that out. And if you want some visual representation of that, then you can go to flipsidecanvus.com, owned by my brother Dakota Meyer, where he makes awesome stuff for you to look at to keep you on the path.

We got a bunch of books. You mentioned reading earlier. I also concur that reading is important. First of all, tip of the spear, Ryan Hendrickson, this book. It's a great book. All kinds of good guidance. I gave you 10% of it, 5% of it today.

So check that out. About Face by David Hackworth. I wrote the forward to that. Leadership strategy and tactics field manual. You got the code, the evaluation, the protocols. You got the discipline equals freedom field manual. Look, what are you going to say?

Is it lame to say like, this is a good book, gift book? It's kind of lame to say that. But it's also the truth. Yeah. It's not lame to say that. The truth is, the truth is, this is a, this is a book you can give to somebody as a gift, and you don't feel like, you don't feel like, oh, I was, I was wandering by the bookstore.

And, oh, I thought you might like this. Like, this isn't that book. This is a book like, hey, I got you this. And people are like, check. So get it. This one goes freedom field manual, the new edition. Way the Warrior Kid, one, two, three. And guess what?

Way the Warrior Kid, four. Once again, if you want to get this book for Christmas for your kid, You need to order it like now. Way the Warrior Kid 4, Field Manual. Mikey and the Dragons, that's a good one for the kids. Extreme ownership and the dichotomy of leadership. The OG books written with my brother Laif Babin. We have a consulting company called Eshalon Front where we solve problems through leadership.

We have EF online where you can actually ask me any question you want. And I will be sitting there virtually on a computer. live talking to you and answering your question. So go to eFonline.com for that. We've got the muster 2020. This is the only muster that we're doing in 2020. If you want to learn about leadership, if you want to get granular information

about the principles that we talk about all time, come to the muster, Dallas, Texas, December 3rd and 4th, Extreme Ownership.com for details. EF Overwatch, if you want to hire someone that understands the principles that we talk about all the time, that has experienced, tested leadership experience, from the military, we'll go to EFoverwatch.com. If you want to help service members active and retired,

their families, gold star families, check out Mark Lee's mom's charity organization. Mama Lee, it's called America's Mighty Warriors, and it's at America's Mighty Warriors.org. You can go there if you want to donate or if you want to get involved. And listen, if you're into misery, personal self-inflicted misery,

misery and you want more of it you want more of my unremarkable remarks or you need more of echo's chaotic commentary then you can find us on the interwebs on Twitter Instagram which echo will only refer to as the Graham and on Facebook echo is at echo Charles I am at jocco willink Ryan Hendrickson you can find him tip of the spear on Instagram tip of the spear R-M-H on Twitter. He's Tip of the Spear 42. Facebook is Ryan Hendrickson, and he's also got Ryan Hendrickson.com.

And thanks once again to Ryan for coming on, for sharing his story. What an incredible story. And obviously, thank you, Ryan, for your service and for your sacrifice and for taking care of your comrades on the battlefield and taking care of all of us and protecting all of us.

And thanks to all the military personnel out there in every branch of service in the army navy the air force the marine corps and the coast guard thank you for doing the same protecting us and that also goes for our first responders here at home police law enforcement firefighters paramedics emts dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service all of you thanks for protecting us here at home and everyone else out there like Ryan said in his book, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But that doesn't happen on its own. You have to choose to get stronger.

Take control of your life. Take responsibility for your actions. Something I call taking ownership, extreme ownership. And yes, do that. Go out there every day and get after it. And until next time, This is Echo and Jocko. Out.