Jocko Podcast - 276: DRAGO. Rebelling Against Communist Poland, to Patriotic Navy SEAL

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

0:00:00 - Opening0:04:44 - Drago.3:04:15 - Final thoughts.3:09:29 - Hot to stay on THE PATH.3:27:41 - Closing gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 276 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. Archival publications of the Institute of National Remembrance, Poland. Court name. Court of the Pomeranian Military District B. Judge, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Sobisky. Court file number redacted

Prosecutor's office file number redacted Security service file number redacted Case examination date 1981 1214 case conclusion date 1982 1982 1228 Case description

File in the criminal case against redacted name suspected of printing and distributing leaflets containing false information. That is crime based on Article 48, Section 3 of the decree of December 12, 1981 on martial law. Detained temporarily on February 11, 1982, based on the decision of the military prosecutor's office, February 12th, 188. The accused acting together and in consultation with redacted name produced brochures for distribution which could cause civil disturbances and which contain false information on activity of authorities of the People's Republic of Poland in the period of martial law and calling upon civilians to oppose the authorities and to organize an illegal underground organization. that is crime based on Article 48, Section 3 of the decree of December 12, 1981 on martial law. Based on the ruling of the Court of the Pomeranian Military District, redacted name is sentenced to three years of imprisonment and three years of loss of civil rights,

a charge to be paid on behalf of the state treasury in the amount of 4,200 PLN. Reimbursement of one-third of the costs. of court proceedings. So that is a document from a book. The book is called Camp Posey, and it's written by an individual called Naval, who is a member of the Polish Grom Special Forces. And the document is from the case against a man whose name is redacted in the document. His name is Thomas Zeran. Thomas was born and raised in communist Poland. And he made a stand against the authoritarian communist regime and was sent to prison for his actions, sent to prison for speaking out against the evils of communism.

And he ended up in prison. Communist prison. And I guess I need not talk about the condition of communist. prisons because we've discussed them on this podcast before but it goes saying goes without saying that those prisons are not for the fainter fart but luckily Thomas Zeran possessed an incredibly strong will and he survived prison and he made it out of prison and eventually he made it out of Poland and eventually he made it to the United States where he eventually joined the Navy and became a seal. This is also where Thomas

Zeran took on a new name, a nickname, Drago. And this is where I was lucky enough to serve alongside him on and off the battlefield. And this is where we became brothers. And it is an honor to have him here tonight to share his story with us. Drago, welcome. Thank you. It's awesome to be here on your podcast. I follow it for a long time and eventually thank you for inviting me and it's an honor to be here. Yeah, somebody on something reached out and said, well, why don't you have Drago on? And I was like, any time, Drago wants to come on. No, no factor, of course. So this is like one of the craziest stories, as far as backstories go,

not just for joining the SEAL teams, but joining the military in general. I mean, it's pretty straightforward what happens to most American kids, right? Oh, I want to be a soldier. They join the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps. That's what they do. Man, your story is about as crazy as it gets for backstores.

I guess it is, but maybe not crazy, but it's different. And just even from a, well, Let me just bag out a little, but when I came to America, I came with a bag of clothes and 10 Phoenix, the German, it's like less than 10 cents in my pocket. So everything I have, everything I own, I owe it to America, to you, to American people. So I promise myself that I will be the best citizen that America can have. I'll do everything. to be as good citizen as I can be. So, yeah, beginnings were very hard,

but, like, no, there's nothing unusual. You can't, don't speak English. I didn't come here with expectations like, hey, give me a job and make tons of money, and I just wanted to work. I just wanted to leave a free man, and that was given to me. So that promise, I try to,

I still keep it deep in my heart that, yes, I'm successful. I've succeeded, but there's so much more to do for America, for our country. And that was my goal, be the best American citizen America can have. So let's take it back a little bit before you get over here with less than 10 cents in your pocket. So you're born in Poland. Is that right? You're born in Poland? Yes, I was born in Poland.

What did your parents do? My father was communist. He was a professor. He was a teacher. Then became a party member. They joined the Polish. It's not communism, more socialism. They're very the same.

We can talk about the differences later. So my father was a party member. My mother was a teacher. She was an elementary school teacher. So when I was born, my father was already starting his career with political communist Polish Communist Party. Now is that is that something that you know if you're if you're living in Poland and you see the Communist Party on the rise, your dad looks around and says, hey, you know what?

I kind of got to I kind of got to go with the flow and get with this party if I'm going to advance my career in life. I think that's what it was. But you know, he came from very poor family too. So the opportunity they gave it to him say, look, if you just close your eyes on some moral aspect of socialism and just followed our doctrine and you're going to be successful. And he fell for it. He went.

He became very successful. Eventually he ended up in Warsaw in the, pretty much in the top communist government as one of the directors of ministry of art and culture. So he was successful. But it sounds like your mom wasn't quite as on board with looking away. from some of those immoral aspects of communism? Neither my mom, neither my father's mom. I remember that was big rift in our entire family.

I remember as a little kid, maybe six, seven years old, visiting my grandmother. And I mean, my father's mother, my grandmother, yeah. And she always was telling me, communists are evil. They are devils. Socialists is evil. Socialism is evil system.

And I always had an image. of socialist or communist as a guy with the big tail with the big horns breathing fire. I remember I even asked, my grandma, they breathe fire. And my grandma, yeah, they are worse and they, the more their people quietly on the sides. And they are just really bad as evil. So in my mind was always communism, socialism. That's pretty evil system. It is.

And I remember my father tried to protest, mom, look, I'm not. evil. I'm not really, I'm your son. I'm looking at him. If you saw your soul to socialism and communism, if you're part of these murders that are quietly happening in Poland, so you are evil and I don't even want to consider you to be my son. That she was very adamant about it. So for me, I always remember before going to bed, we were my grandmother, teach me how to pray. So I was praying. I remember we always closed the prayer. God, please help but take all the communists and socialist out of Poland. So I just kind of grew up with it, and there's never different.

And the roof between my mom and my father, I still remember. I think it was, I don't remember what age it was, but we wanted to go to church. My mother wanted to go to church on Sunday, and I still remember my father standing in front of the door, say, we cannot go because I'm going to lose my job. We cannot go, I'm going to lose my job. We are not going to church.

The church, that the communism and church and socialism and church are not compatible, and we're just not going there. So my grandmother was visiting at the same time. So my mother left, he couldn't stop her. My grandmother passed me to the window to my mom. It was on the first floor. And we still went to the church. But that was pretty much constant, right eventually that marriage fell apart. My father went with the communists and socialists.

I stay with mom. My brother, my younger sister, stay with mom. So that was very difficult, too, for us, because at that time in Poland, it changed now, but at that time in Poland, if your parents divorced,

you as a child, were stigmatized. So you were a divorcee. There's actually that parents were saying, hey, you don't go play with this guy because his parents just got divorced. He's just divorcee. There was a kind of derogatory name in Polish that we were caught.

So they actually can't toughen me out because I end up actually beating up some of these guys and they left me along. They were not my friends, but they never bothered me again. So that worked. So what, you're going to school every day? Is this like normal, is that what's happening in Poland?

This is in the late 70s, huh? Or the 70s? That was in 1968. Remember, I'm 60 years old. So I was born 15 years after Second World War. So I was born with, less this time distance that we have between our beginning, between September 11 and today,

and this is still so fresh in our minds, right, September 11th is like happened yesterday. So I was born just 15 years after the Second World War. So I was still playing the ruins and the broken houses. There were some people who are still finding bombs, unexploded bombs and explosives. Kind of interesting. So are you going to school?

Is that normal? Are they state-run schools? Is there communists? Are you being taught communism in the schools? Oh, yes, absolutely. I have actually a couple notes I found from my notebook from school. That was elementary school, like later classes, like seventh grade, about communism and socialism. Yes, you were indoctrinated from the very beginning in socialism and communism.

And the things are very funny there because the government, the socialist government, they feel like they need to have a total control. And they have to, but otherwise people will just, people are. don't subscribe to slavery. So socialism is not really that good systems. They don't want it. So they, I remember they forced us in fifth grade. I was in fifth grade elementary school. And we had to learn Russian. I was not really, I was never the best student. And then they throw the Russian on me. I was like, for the fuck, we had to learn the shit. I don't want to learn it. And I'll kind of open up in my, in the class. I say, look, I'm Polish. I don't want to go and learn Russian language.

I don't want to learn it. I don't feel like I'd rather learn English or learn German. Oh my God, I had no idea what's going to happen. But next thing I was pulled out to principal's office. My mother, she was a teacher in different school. So they called the police, the secret police came in. They picked my mom. They drove her to principal where I was already waiting there.

Scared shit was. And they say, so what happened? teacher explained that I am anti-socialist, apparently I don't like socialism, and I am also objecting to Russian language indoctrination. So my mom is all in tears. She's scared all shaking. Then they drag my brother into it, drag my sister, they had no idea what's going on. So we sit up there or there, and they were very clear. I still remember that if it happens again, these kids will go to orphanage, that government will make them good citizens if you cannot do that. So this is your last warning. And so I had to wise up a little bit. I'd never change

my attitude. I was always outspoken. But I remember that fear that my mom lived for the, I think, the rest of our lives until the rest of the time when we're still growing up and the state could take the kids away from her. So that's, the other interesting part of it is that, Like today, I have an 11 years old, 12 years old daughter, 11 years old son. I'm looking over them like, oh, I don't let them go anywhere where I can see them. They can play, but I have to be always able to go and assist if something happens. What didn't happen in Poland? In Poland, I remember, I was 7, 8 years old.

I was driving across the town, thinking bus, crossing the streets, going somewhere else. And it was like, there's no big deal. All the kids, they were just 10 miles away from school where we have to commute, and we were just commute. It was like no big deal. My mom just bought me a ticket, so every time I got into the bus, if I could, because they were so crowded, you just have to pull yourself in,

and sometimes the door don't close, so you're just holding yourself in it, your legs are sticking out, but you're just going to school. So that was kind of, yeah, there was, like, I don't know, it is because we felt, we did feel safe. my mom apparently feels safe about it. And maybe this is because there was no internet at the time.

So some of the crime that happened was not very transparent. It was not very readily. The information about it was not readily available. So people didn't know something bad happened. So I remember going to kindergarten. So I was, I think I was five and a half years old. So we had to go from our home. I took my younger brother.

So he was around me three and a half. and by hand we are carrying the house shoes in another hand the house shoes what's house shoes slippers because in kindergarten you cannot wear those shoes that you wear those shoes that you wear outside

you have to have a sleeper so it has to be clean everything so we get the slippers in our hands we're going to around the school around the street across the street actually a friend of mine got killed on that street by the motorcycle so but it was like not a big deal so when you go across the street

you look left you look right and make sure nothing is there and we just walked across the city so we just walked to a kindergarten by ourselves being six and a half six, five years old. So today, I think I was going to jail for letting things like

that happened to my kids. But at the time, that was very common in Poland. That's nothing at the usual. So you get this experience in fifth grade where you basically say you don't want to learn Russian. They crack down on your mom, your brother, your sister.

Yes. Did you at any point, were you so, were you so, you saw what happened between your mom and your dad, you'd been told your whole life that communism was evil. So did you just kind of suppress that a little bit to keep from getting taken away from your mom? I did, but maybe not intentionally. Really at that time, I was not political. I was just like, I would just annoyed that I have to have the language. that my grandmother tells me those people are not really good in the good things in Poland.

They oppress Poland. So why do I have to learn their language? So there was nearly not so much political, but the state was very political. The state was very, they were very cautious with citizens. They wanted to control, and they did control almost every aspect of social life. That's what socialism is. And so that didn't really, the political part came later. I started learning about the mortars, the political murders, the oppression of socialism. And then what I became a little bit more aware what's going on.

Then reading about the people disappearing from the street and never heard from them again, then I became a little bit more, then I became more aware. And so then in late 70s, in Poland had so much, so ill. enough of these lies. Because what happened is we had the empty shelves. There was nothing to eat. And you can't buy food. You can't buy clothes.

You cannot buy food in Jure. But all you hear, how great is in Poland in socialist system. If you look at America, people are sleeping on the street, and they, you know, we had no access to an information. They show those tents or they show those shags where poor people sometimes stay. They show the worst thing about America. So that was just people knew that this lie. So they got so fed up that eventually,

don't matter what that socialist press said, people didn't believe. They say that this is brown. People think, hey, no, they're lying. Even if it was brown. This is how they had enough. It had to explode. And that thing was accumulating.

First, the people lost the faith in the government. they lost the faith in the truth, the truth, the lies they're being told, they stop paying attention to it. So at the end, no matter what they say, people didn't believe. They had enough of it.

And it exploded in the Solidarity Trade Union movement where people just raised up and say enough is enough. We had enough of socialism or communism. When you're growing up, you talked about fifth grade, you're in eighth grade, you're in ninth grade, you're in 10th grade, and I know we're going to end up talking about this.

At some point, you learned how to fight. Like, not just what you learned how to street fight, and you learned how to fight on some level. Did you, what did you train? Do you train taekwondo? Did you train boxing? What did you train? I started with boxing, just regular boxing.

And I remember, you know, being just my mom growing up, and my younger brother and sister. So sometimes I had to fight for my brother too. It's quite often. And so the boxing was important for me to kind of like codify what I already knew to just learn maybe this technical skills now. And it were great. I mean, I really liked it.

But then again, so my brother got beat up at school, I think because we're divorcees. So there's people just. So I was remember, I was saying. and I said, well, I need to go to school. Then I just packed my stuff. I went to school. I found the big guy.

The guy was like huge. So I just knock him out. And knock him out so bad that this guy show up with his mom later in the evening in my apartment. And it's like, his mother, like, see this? Your son did that to my son. He can lose his eye. I mean, I look at the guy from like behind the corner. I was like, holy shit.

The guy has no eye. He's like a big swollen egg. And so my mom just guys coming in. And she's like, look at me. I'm like half of his size. And this guy is huge and he's crying. So it's like that guy bid your son. I was like, yeah, yeah.

You see what he did to him? So if your son that big let him happen to that, I think he deserves it. Why don't you just guys leave? So, yeah, they left. Was there a boxing gym? Was there a boxing gym? Yeah, there was like an official program or something?

official program, yes. Actually, there was the police club. I didn't know about that time, but the clubs like this were on usually by the police. So, yeah, I belong to, they call it Guardia. So, yeah, I belong to this club, but when I nailed this guy, I broke my hand. I didn't know it.

So that put me, and so some of my friends went on their first boxing matches and stuff, I just had to stay home, and then we just moved to different towns. But there was my start was with the boxing. I liked it. Get involved. solving the eventually with Taekwondo.

And that's kind of fun story too, because my attitude was a bit different. And the Taekwondo they practiced in Poland at that time there was two different type of Taekwondo. ITF, WTF. So we did ITF, there's like no covering or anything. You just go and look it out. So went to the first Polish championship.

And I didn't know about it. They put this thing on me. I was like, I have to fight with that? But okay. So I just keep knocking these guys out. just keep progressing. So I get it, every time I finish my fight, I say, you have minus points for being brutal.

Your fight is brutal, you can do that. So, I mean, it was funny. And the final fight, final fight for the first place, I knocked the guy out. And so the guy is laying there. The guy, the judge comes to me, say, like, you're being disqualified from the program. I mean, not quite disqualified,

but he's the winner. So then, you know, they announced, okay, this is a winner is saying, so right here, the guys are laying there fast out. So I was like, okay, well, but anyway, I guess I was not very, my fight was not very sportslike because I got a lot of vessels and booing after. I went to take my second place, and then kind of ended up. And then, you know, the prison came in and actually they helped me a lot in prison. I'm glad that I was able to help other political presidents. as a friend of mine who actually I've met again when I visited Poland recently.

So since I didn't have anything to do up there, just sit and we just, just, you are so dirty, I'm so dirty, let's go train. So we're training, and he said, look, what you did to me help me later survive the beatings that I got from the guards and all that stuff. So. So you were, before we get to being in prison,

So now it's the late 70s. Now at some point you made a decision that you're not, you're not going to comply with communism. You're going to fight against it. Yes. The initial, I didn't even know how to, but the first thing actually when it's, when it started making me aware what's really going on in Poland was I started listening to Radio Free.

Europe and the voice of America and BBC. This station, you could go to prison for listening to it. So I remember my mom was in panic. Oh my God, I can hear you. Get more pillows over your head. Get more those big blankets so the neighbors don't hear. She was in fear. She could go to prison for that.

So I was listening to BBC. So how old are you? At that time, I think I was 12, 13, 14. So I was getting all that And I was getting more interested in what's going on This is when I learned that You know that the socialists are actually Quite killing people who are inconvenient to them

Or those people disappear Like we don't know where this guy is He was very outspoken about socialism And he just disappeared So I was learning about it I was learning also about the murders The extrajudicial murders Committed by judges in Poland

who subscribe to socialist ideology. So that's where it started changing in me. I say, this is wrong what's going on in Poland. How did those murders take place? Usually we just, I tell you how it could happen because nobody knows, but I tell you what happened to me eventually. So I was working from the gym, we're working out, just do some fights, and can I get the police,

pulls in, say, hey, just grab you by the hands, pulling the car, and just go. That's it. And that's it. And then just they drive me. I say, like, where are we going? I say, well, where we go? Once we made that, it won't let any more matter to you anything. It's like, oh, fuck. So I'm already thinking like, hey, so if we get out of this guy, I'm going to kick this guy out,

I'm going to do this. They're going to shoot me. They're going to kill me, Mosque. But at least I'm not going to go down quietly. And, but they just drove around the town, just dropped me off in the other part of the town. I had to walk back home for a few months. So that's just like intimidation, letting you know what they can do if they want to? Yes, yes.

How old are you when that kind of thing starts happening? That started happening when that happened after I was released from prison. But before that, this is how these people disappear. They don't like you. You are outspoken. You can not, we either comply or we just destroy you or your family. That's how socialism works. and so I experienced that how they disappear people after I get out of prison.

But before that I was not aware. I just knew that people were just there and that they were not there any longer. Or they committed suicide or they followed the stairs. It was just something that was waking up in me. That this socialist system is basically. very oppressive and you can't leave as a free man when in oppression like this. I remember actually at that time was also downing on me that there's different countries. They have different systems that are free.

I learned about America. I remember in Warsaw, every time I was in Warsaw, I always liked to go to U.S. Embassy because they have those beautiful cars, those big cities that are those images. You know, it's like I can pick the fence. I can see like, whoa, look at this car. You know, and then I was like the images that have all those, like a glass things on the fence where we can read about America. I was like, why Poland cannot be like that?

You know, why this is so awesome. I remember every chance I had. So this is like when I look at American flights, something like taking my heart. It's like, this is so free. This is the freedom. And I always from then on, I always cared. So whenever something happened in Poland, I was like, we need to change. We need to be like America.

So that's where my view started maturing. So how old were you when you started to actually do something about it, that you, you know, what you eventually get arrested for at what point? And was it, was it other kids? Was there some kind of leadership network of people that were leading solidarity? Do you join the Solidarity Movement? What did that look like? When it crystallized, I remember the first strikes happened.

People were hungry. I said, we want food and freedom. So they organized strikes. This is where like Walessa came in the picture. He was the problem and eventually became the leader of solidarity, the trade union movement in Poland. So my mom got involved and I got involved. I got involved with my friends up there on the different level.

my mom was involved in school, and this is how it went. And so then we start, there was really not much to do at the time because the solidarity was doing everything. There was the first trade union. There was the first movement in Eastern Bloc country that was independent from socialist regime, from socialist Communist Party. So that was, I was just like, I couldn't read enough

what was being published. What really happened in 19, when the communism and socialist came to Poland after Second World War on the Stalin's bionettes, that's we start learning, you know, about the atrocities, about the mortars, about the freedom

that we didn't know that we are not freed sometimes. But when we learn about how other countries, how it is being done in America. So that's where I start actually maturing, it start growing. And 19, so that was right before the, it was before the marshal. It was late 1970s when, especially when the Pope came to Poland. And he, like, rise people up.

He said, look, you can't live on your knees. You need to raise up, you know, basically. His message, he didn't say it directly, but his message was like this, or was taken this way. And people raised up and kicked the socialist ass out. So the they had seen, I mean, the communists had seen this kind of thing happen in other Eastern block countries. I mean, Hungary had happened.

So they kind of. They followed that. So they were nervous about that. So they end up declaring martial law. They do martial law to try and try and suppress the solidarity movement. Yes. They lost control. They knew it.

And there is no way to putting this genie back. I think something that happened with Trump here. So you can't put it back. unless you unleash violence. So they realize that they cannot go back to what it used to be. People won't trust them. People don't trust them.

They know they are a liar. They know that everybody knew they were liars. And thieves, too. So they decide eventually, we had enough. We are losing control. And if it continues, they will hang us.

These people hate us really for what the socialism done to these people. they will prosecute us. So they impose Marshall. And I remember, I was on the phone with a friend of mine. He was in Austria and midnight. Click. As we're talking, quiet.

I say, what a fuck? No connection. So then people started coming, hey, they just shut down all the TVs, all the radios. There's no communication. The telephone lines didn't work. They shut down the communication. entire Poland. And I think 15 after midnight, they started rolling in. So I was at the solidarity headquarters at the time at midnight when they came in. So they just broke the door.

They round up everybody who was there. They haul us on the police station. And then they only hold those people who hold prominent leadership positions. So that night they arrested, I have different estimates. They are from 25,000 people. on the law side to 65,000 people arrested that night. They were not criminal arrests. Basically, the way they explained to us, those people are not arrested. They're sitting in jail, but they are interned.

We intern them for their safety, because we want them to be safe, and also they were potentially dangerous to the state. So they were not really dangerous. It's not like they did. something they were potentially dangerous to the state so we didn't jail them we just intern them they have a good living conditions we provide them food it is so ridiculous now when I'm listening to what I say and it is so sounds so weird but

that was the fact then that was that the way we perceive that reality that was quite normal oh well you know martial Ode in jail 60,000 people one night, we need to do something. This is why eventually we, and a couple of my friends, start building them, say, we cannot just sit and idly and watch it. What we're going to do is sign the shutdown of the communications. We're going to create our own. So we're going to create our own network.

And we start printing and then just walking. There was pretty naive the way we did that. But we didn't know that I'm any better. So we just print what happened. We print the names of people arrested. So the families know that these people just didn't disappear. Yet they're just sitting in prison now. Eventually, so we stopped distributing that in my city where I was at the time growing up.

And that's how it started. So we functioned for a while until we got caught. Of course, it was not very difficult because they were prepared for that. And that's how I ended up in prison. Eventually they start publishing the lists of some of the people they they in turn basically put them in prisons So you get you get arrested they come to your house? Do they find you at school? Did they find did they grab you on the street? Actually they got me of pretty much of the street. I was working on the point where we were printing it to pick up more of the Our newspapers that we printed out and as soon as I walked in

Knock on the door the code we have so naive and the doors open and there's like three guys run up from the upstairs. It was on the, like a stairway. Like five guys jump out of that room and just put there. I had like 10 guns in my head. It was like a police standoff. It was the gun from every side. It was.

And so I got handcuffed and holloway and get in prison. So in jail. And here goes. The other story, they, this is something I had no idea. I didn't know that I can have a lawyer. You could, but they just ignore that. So it really mattered. Besides, it was martial law, so it was a bit different.

So I got to jail. They said, okay, so did you do it? I said, no. Did you do it? No. Did you do it? No. So, you know, got a little bit bit bit bit bit bit bit bit bit bit bit bit bit bit.

But that's stuck by my thing. No, I didn't. I don't know. So what about these papers? What do you find in your house? Because they went to my house later. They searched my house. My mom later told me that they just demolished my house.

my apartment, my home. I mean, I live with my mom that's so they demolished her apartment. I said, I was the still kid. And so I said, well, just found them on the street. It's like how you find them on the street. It really doesn't matter because I got the three years prison sentence right of the bat.

So I remember the funny thing is like they got me from, we're going to the, from the present to the court. So I took my boots away. So you take their boots? I said, why do you take my boots? and this guy, the cop comes out and he has this guy kicks

so he cannot run away, he cannot kick with a better feet. I say, well, I do kick with a better feet. So they beat me up for that. And I went to the court, I said, look, I was beat up. I said, like, we don't care. Basically, I was there with the judge, but I say, we don't care.

It didn't happen. So what's the prison conditions? Present conditions for me at the time, I didn't know any better at. I said, like, present authority always has to be bad. but again you're always hungry right you have no rights you can't see oh there's another funny thing because when I went up there they say you can't you cannot lay down you cannot you have to just sit

on those stools all day long and just at the table as a coarse rough table and from meal to me just wait there when the call comes in you go to you'll go to you go to you go to you go to you go to you go to lay down in the bed so I'm just trying to be in a like I'm still scared. I'm new to this environment. I'm sitting by it's like, fuck, I ain't going to sit here all the goddamn day long. But I'm going to lay down see what happens. I just lay down. Just came in just kick the shit out of me outside. So I'm coming back to the cell. I say, now I'm beat up. I can have a seat on my eyes. So I say, fuck it. I don't think they're going to beat me up again. Now they know I have a legitimate reason to lay down. I can't see it.

So now they can't do it again. So I can repeat three times finally like to say, I guess they say like, fuck it, they ain't going to sit. I ain't going to be laid down, so just left me there. So I had no problems, but then there's one of those criminal guys, because we'll keep becoming criminals. He said, fuck, ain't that tough. I'm tougher than him, so I think I can earn my way to fucking too. I don't want to sit all day at the table, just on the stool, no bagress or anything.

So he laid down in bed and his bed up there across. And it was my right, it was not my bed, because there was like four beds, but it was like 15 of us. that so we sleep on the frost but I say like fuck it could try to kick me out of that so so he lay down on the bed and same story just you can hear a screaming the beating out of this well he comes back all black and blue and he doesn't get to bed he goes to the table and he's seen he was like okay well I'm not having enough and I will sit so it turns out he wasn't quite as tough as you well I don't know if they said that about toughness I just he

he was not prepared for the beating so so he was like well I don't really need I'd rather put that with sitting on the stool in front of the table than deal with these guys. So eventually they had, and I was so naive, I had no idea. They told me, hey, those old prisoners, like, you know, if we can make the hole in this wall to this other cell, we can have a sugar and some other food, because these guys have a lot of stuff.

So I say, oh, fuck it, I do it, you know, I'm just climb under the bed and start burning this thing. So I made a hole maybe like this big, but then go far because of course, you know, that's like there's no tools or nothing. Wait, what were you trying? What were you trying to? I tried to break the hole in the wall to the...

Using what? Using the... Using the, like, the, from the stool that you see it. Okay. The leg, you take them apart. So you took the stool apart and you had the leg and you tried to get through a concrete wall? Yeah, it was not really that hard, actually.

It was not maybe that concrete in the beginning, but eventually I got to the concrete. about that. So it went nowhere. So I got pulled out, somebody pulling me by the legs and, you know, get the good cakes and stuff. We put out the cell. So here it is, then, bag, this is not the principal with the warden. So you have a lot of problems with you, you know, you're going to go.

You do it again. We're going to go and put you in isolation. And they call like a tiger cage. So it was a cell. And within the cell was a cage, just like in the zoo. I just put you there. So I say, okay, whatever. I'm not going to be punching the walls in the holes in the wall, okay.

Because I was so stupid. I didn't know any better. So then every day for like 15 minutes we're allowed to go outside and walk. There was like a room maybe half size of this with the high walls, where they say guards working on the top of above you. And the funny thing is that it was made of these, concrete posts with the slit inside, we've seen them in Iraq

and this reinforced concrete slab was slide in between the posts, one on the top of another. So I said, well, I was in, take one that I remember. I was just for demonstration, I was breaking those in half. So I thought that I heard the voice of the guy who was in the case with me.

So I said, I need to communicate with him. Let me take a look. I didn't mean to break that shit. I would just go, just like, get a quick word, jam, and just kick that shit. So I thought just make you move some of this mud from in between those cracks, between these slabs. That fucking thing fell off.

And just there's cold two slabs about just fall down only. You can see the alarm is going on everywhere. I was like, what the fuck I do now? So I end up in the tiger cage. The time just sitting there. That was not the one time. There was the final time. But the second, the other time, they put me in the prison with the broken windows.

It was wintertime, and they gave me no blanket. So I was just laying on those woods for, I think it was a week. So it was, it was okay. I was freezing, but there was nothing that would kill me. And, you know, like, I'm looking, watching some of the TVs here about the prison in the United States. I was like, fuck, you know, at that time, I would trade my life in Poland for prison here. Because I would be fed. I have medical attention.

I had a TV. I would have a gym maybe possible even. And how can you live better? I mean, what else can you do you want from life? You have everything provided to you. You know, you don't have to fight for anything. So that's how... So how long did you end up staying in prison?

There was three years prison sentence, and they released us, I think, close to a year and a half or after a year and a half when John Paul II was coming to Poland again. So they tried to make a gesture. So, okay, we start releasing political prisoners on amnesty. And I noticed they started releasing us and the prisons start shrinking. Because, you know, after the case was done, my case, I was sentenced to, got my sentence,

they ship us to Russian border. We were in prison called Hrub Yeshuf. Basically, you can through the window, we can see the river and can see the Russian territory next. next to it. So it's kind of like unnerving because at that time there was a reality of invasion. I mean, we were afraid that the Russians will come in to take, to put some order there because I think it was the communism and socialism was falling apart. So they, we knew that if the Russians come in, we're going to get killed. So we were thinking, like, we're going to get killed anyway. If they come in, this is what we need to do. We had like

a plan to actually know how to bridge the bridge, not the, the bridge like we know as a seals now, but how to get through the wall, how to get this, we're just getting the equipment down. So they may be kill some, but maybe they don't want to kill everybody, but we cannot just sit here in prison and just wait for it to be slaughtered. So there was that thinking at the time in present. So yeah, so we were in this, that's actually a couple other things came to my mind too. I didn't even think about it.

So they beat us up. but remember I had some issues with, oh, okay, so we went on the hunger strike. So, okay, we are on hunger strike. We want status of political prisoner. They were some head of, in socialism, I don't know if you guys knew, but in socialists, there are no political prisoners. There are, but they are sitting for something else. They are stealing the milk from somebody's door,

or just insulting the neighbor, or just being. mean to somebody. So they put you for something else. They always claim political prisoners not in socialism. We don't have that. Everybody until the marshalo, who was locked up for political activities, was locked up pretty much for something else, for some criminal offenses. They could generate it. So yeah, that was something that when they, so they sent us to Hrubiosho, they kind of isolate the political prisoners there from the general criminal population. So just like pretty much Glock. And they,

so we decided to go on the hunger strike. And the way they broke, our strike was, in Poland they said there is a law that after two weeks, if you don't eat, will forcefully feed you. So what they did is like a vacuum pipe. So the time I said, God damn, I think you're coming to my stomach.

And so they put this thing in your throat and they just put it whatever the mixture they gave you there. And I remember, I didn't know it was that bad. So I said, I'll fight these guys. So finally they overpowered me. They hang up me to the chair. But when they tried to put this pipe again, I just broke the fucking chair. So they broke the different chair. This time I couldn't break out of it.

And they actually forced it. I'll learn how to deal with it. So, yeah, it's like no big deal. Just go ahead, put it my foot in it. But the way they broke it is typical socialist way, but sneaky. So they got to, especially the older guy, say, look, you see this big pipe? And I had to shove it back down your throat in your stomach again and put it in. Why don't you just take it yourself?

Just drink that shit and go to yourself. So they're like, hmm, that that's pretty painful. So I just like, okay, as soon as you just take a one sip, it's like, wow, you just broke your hunger strike, you just ate on your own. So now we're going to transport you to another prison. The guy that may have a chance most likely to go to this prison cell. He was just handcuffed, put in the transport and drove away somewhere. So there eventually was only a few of us left. And the call came from the church that this is pointless. The socialists, socialists will never admit they hold politics. prisoners and you just waste your health in to stop it. So we did eventually we stopped that. And I totally forgot about it until I went to Poland and met this guy. He said, hey, do you remember the hunger strike here? I have the calendar here.

This, this, this. You need to do it. I was like, shit, yeah, I remember now. So how long were you on the hunger strike for? I think there was three weeks. We did it before the cow came in to stop it because they were going nowhere. Yeah, I need to look. He gave me that calendar.

I don't have it here, but I'm looking to it. This is interesting, actually, because there was things too that we did in prison. I can't sing word of shit. I'm not a singing person at all. But I was singing like a motherfucker in presence as those political songs that are from Polish past, from Polish history. They were very patriotic songs which socialists really hated. So we, in prison, there was at 8 o'clock in the evening. I believe it was 8 o'clock in the evening.

We just opened the windows on the whole side, an entire prison population from the, even these criminals do join in. But they get beat up and shut down very quick, and they squashed them, but not with us. So we kept singing it. They were so loud that nearby town they could hear, and actually that priest was coming and praying in front of the prison. So, yeah, guards hated it because, you know, they were, they're up to one cell, they beat up people up, they throw them and close the windows up.

As soon as they leave, their windows got open again, and people are singing on the cell, so that's so much they could do. Yeah, that was funny. Actually, I need to send it, I send it to you, because I have a, there was so bad, I guess, for them. I didn't have any family at the time, just my mom. So they sent a letter to my mom complaining, say, hey, come here and do something, your son is not listening. And actually I was showing to my wife, Rachel, say, look at this here, because I knew that I had that. And then I just by accident, I found it. So I had this document saying that saying to letter from prison to just command help because I'm not listening to socialist guards.

Was there any guards or any government officials that were like sympathetic at all? Or did they just, they just had to tow the party line? They had to tell the party line, but there were some of the guards that they were not so vicious. So they just not, they listened. Sometimes, there was even, we were able to smuggle the camera into the prison. I'm sure that some of the guards knew about it. And there are some pictures floating. I think I've seen some of the pictures from the prison at the time.

And some of them, like, you know, during Christmas time. we had this nurse say like, well, can you send us some alcohol? No, we can not have alcohol, but we have this alcohol to clean the skin. So I said, well, let's, you know, why we just, yeah. So we just put the rope down from the first floor. She came out just a big bottle of this skin cleaning alcohol. Just put it out. You had a party in the prison.

Can it get better than that, right? I remember in communist prison It was actually It was really Bad if they caught you with this So you So you end up getting released When the Pope comes back again

They do this gesture They're going to let you out of prison Right And then are you going Once you're out of prison What are you doing? Trying to find a job first So I need to do something

I mean my mom cannot She's in a hard time She has a hard time too And I cannot be on her sitting and living on her from her money. So I'm trying to find a job and you can't because everything is controlled. The government owns everything.

They own the job. So I remember after struggling for a while, I still continue my training. So this is what I described earlier after the training coming out from sometimes in the evening. It depends wherever we train. There was police pulled in. They pulled me out and the car, drive me around,

me for a while and just throw me on the street. So this is when I said like, you know what? I can continue like this. This is something that I eventually end up dead. And they did actually, we find out later that, not later, I found out around the same time that one of my fellow prisoners was suicided. Then another one, I was like, I'm not going to wait, maybe long. And then my images of America came in.

Yeah. So this is where I went and I say, I need to go get some help. I went to American embassy. This is what's happening. I need help. And hell, yeah, it's like, sure, we need this, this, and within three weeks, I had the, I think within three weeks, I had a visa out of Poland

to Germany, to the United States permanent. The funny thing is that I also had to, because I was still in the age, that conscription age, so they had to go and sign up like, okay, I'm not going to go to join Polish military. I'm not being sold by the military or anything. I remember I walk into this office and, as I say, I'm leaving Poland.

I need you to sign this here. So this fucking sergeant, just look at me, say, you look pretty strong. You know, people like this should serve Poland under this Polish fucking, this Polish symbol, this Polish eagle. I said, dude, ain't even a Polish eagle. That motherfucker, you and your Russian body stole the crown from that eagle. That eagle doesn't have a crown on his head.

So that's your eagle, but it's not mine. I'm not serving out of this motherfucker right there. But he were the scientist. I just left. I remember I was leaving that building. Then motherfucker was still screaming and yelling. I'm telling how bad we are. It's how the bad folks people are.

And I came to Germany. first in the little center that the United States created for us, for refugees. I learned about America. We had the people coming teaching us about America. And eventually I remember, so where would you, do you have any preferences where you come to America? I remember I was always called in Poland. I was so called that actually we couldn't buy the good clothes. So my mom put the newspapers in our, sometimes in our jackets.

So just like, just don't tell people, don't anybody because then I'll be bad on me. just have those newspapers inside that will keep you warm. And they did. They would actually did the trick. So I was always cold in Poland. And then

so when they asked me, I was like, well, everywhere where it is not cold. I mean, if it is hard, it's perfect, but just not where it's cold if you can. So it's like, what do you think about Memphis?

Do you know what I think about Memphis? It's like, no, but I know that Elvis Presley was from Memphis. I knew that. Okay, okay. We are looking for the place in Memphis for you. And that's what I came in.

That's when I landed in the United States with a 10 Phoenix in my pocket and bag of clothes. So how long has it been since you left Poland? How long are you in Germany for? I was in Germany maybe three months. Are they teaching you any English there? No, there was no time for there. There's mostly like, you know, the legal stuff.

What do you need to do, how you go about getting the English classes, how you leave, what the laws are, how to be good a member of society and productive. So we tried to learn on our own. I just remember both myself the English dictionary and that I lost somewhere on the way too in the flight. But that was really good because because finally when we came to like a normal world,

everything was clean, everything was bright, everything was nice, people were nice. And it's like, that's the world. I think that's what America is going to be there. So I was really excited just to come to America at the time. What year is it? It's 1984 beginning. I left 1983, like December 1983,

and this is like beginning in 1984. So you get on a plane or you by yourself or is there other people with you? There were some other people with me. there was a group of people, refugees from the communist socialist state, but we were going to different locations. So some of them we didn't even know. Once we get on this big jumbo jet, it was like, I didn't even know who these people were, where they went. So eventually I land in New York, and I remember I just wanted to see this statue of Liberty.

It was like so great, you know. and yeah. Is anyone escorting you? Is anyone... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there was like... We didn't come on our own. I mean, when we came in,

there was probably people waiting for us. Everything was provided. They helped us to our destination, Memphis. I remember this is where I get my first apartment. They helped me get the apartment, my first job. And I was so excited. I remember I never knew what the air conditioning is, right?

So I was watching the movies from America in Poland when I was young. And I see those boxes in the windows. I thought they're just a box you can put in the milk inside, you know, because in Poland it's so cold. You just put outside the window your food, your milk, your stuff. I say, this is so cool. They are so smart. You know, why in Poland don't have this, we could have this box behind the window.

We could put more stuff in it. But then as I was learned, there's actually, there's not the boxes for food. It's just air conditioning. So this is something that keeps your house cool and, healthy. But I remember, so when I moved into my first apartment, I couldn't contain myself to tell my mom, say, I call my mom, say, mom, I'm living in the apartment and with climatization, with air conditioning. She's like, what air conditioning? I say, it blows cold air on demand, if you want. She said, oh my God, how much do you pay for it? Can you afford these

things? I say, no, yeah, it comes with apartments. So, yeah, it was so. I mean, that change was so drastic. I remember going to the store first time, grocery store. In Poland, it was very simple. Just grab whatever was left on the shelf and just run with it before somebody grabbed it from you. It's like, here you walk, you see the cereal. First, I didn't know what the cereal was.

What's this? Oh, this is like a cereal of this. I don't know what it is, but I take one. But then you look at these boxes, they're also looking cool, so nice. We'll try this one. Maybe I try this one. So I have like 50 boxes of the cereal. Then it was so the abundance of everything.

Something I could not get used to it for a long time. I always end up trying to buy maybe like five, six dollars groceries. I end up with like $30, $40. And I thought, damn, I spent all the money again. Because my first paycheck was, I think it was like $40 a week. So I remember, but of course people, I wouldn't be able to make it without Americans helping me. So they, I remember that's $40, usually by the end of the week, because I had to save money to pay for apartment.

It was like $180, I think, for apartment, electricity and everything. I had maybe like, I ran out of money at the end of it, so I just have to wait for my paycheck. As soon as I got a paycheck, it's more cereal, more food. You know, people were bringing me food too. So again, I would not survive, you know, the Americans helping me. Who were the Americans that were helping you? Was it a religious group? There was a religious group.

St. Grace Luke Church in Memphis. And these people are Christians. And they have so many people. And I think I feel obligated. I need to do something to maybe reciprocated now. Kind of late. But these are awesome people. And they are still there.

They still actively support people coming to America, help them settle down. I would never succeed if not their help. I was very lucky. The funny things is too that I didn't speak English. So they bought me a dictionary. And so I'm just trying to learn as much as I can. I remember one of the families, like older couple, older couple, pick me up. and say, okay, we're going to drive you here today,

show you this around Memphis and this. So as we drive, actually, this is it. Then, they gave me the dictionary. So, because they were helping us. It was just that couple of hours. I think it was designated to help us. So they gave me a dictionary, and I'm trying to show it. I'm using it, and I'm really trying to learn.

And I see this black guy walking on the street. So I'm looking at dictionary, say, this is black man, right? So just look and say, and the dictionary says, this is N. So I say, hey, this is something. It was like,

someone crashed the car. Oh my God. No, no. Why do you say that? Would you learn that word? I say, the dictionary you gave me right here. So I have the dictionary here today with this lady

still scratched that word and say, black man. You know, I didn't know any better. I mean, for me, I grew up in Poland. There was no, no, there was just only white people there. So I didn't know about animals, how animosities. When the first black person I've seen, I was maybe like 16, 17 years old.

I said, this is so freaking cool. I never seen a guy with its color of the skin. So me and my buddies were like circling around. This guy, I'm sure this guy said, what the fucking weirdos? But they were like, holy shit, he's really black. You know, I didn't know it. But there was never any sinister feelings. It was just curiosity.

And I said, well, I want to be friends with them. You know, let's invite these guys to our club. And actually we did, that they show up. So we gave in the Polish names. One was Yashu and one was something else. And we became friends, you know. So that was the first black people I've seen. So do you go to any classes to learn to speak English or was it just experience?

No, no. At the time, I was working already. So for the church providers like short, maybe, I think it was a one-month class of English where we attend. You know, it's hard to learn. Was it hard to learn? It was hard for me. as you can hear it now, 30 years later, but yes, that was, it gives us some basics maybe, but I remember, you know, like pronunciation, good God, that was killing me.

Thank you. There's no TH age word in Polish, so thank you for me to say. It was like, I couldn't, I could just could not say it. I was spitting. I was just butchering the word. Finally, friend of mine comes in and say, hey, just, no, fuck it, just say, thank you, very quick. say F instead of the H. That won't even hear the difference if you say it fast.

So I'm sure I did, you know, and I said, I remember there was some meeting somewhere where there's a, I think there's a priest or somebody who brought the cookies. So I grabbed the cookie and I was like, I tried to struggle with this, should I say this guy from behind, like, thank you. So it's like, look, it's like, fuck you, you know. And it was like, got quiet. It was like, that's not right.

They say something wrong. This guy was like, whoop, disappeared behind. And finally, one of the older gentlemen comes in. What he is trying to say is, and he looks at me and say, thank you. I say, thank you. I work on it hard, and so I'm better now. But I'm still, like, you're going to ask my wife.

There are words that I'm not allowed to say in public. So, like, sometimes like, hey, take my phone. Can you put the phone in your purse? It's like, don't ever say that loud in front of anybody. Let's just say my bag or something. So it's challenging for you to say purse. Purs. Okay, yeah.

Or a hamburger. So things like don't do. I have like a little list of words that I'm not allowed to say, especially around my wife. So I'm doing that. So what was the first actual job that you got once you're on the ground, you're in Memphis, you got a, you got an apartment. It has air conditioning. Yeah. What's the first actual job?

The first job was in the dealer, was in church. I was basically mapping the church, cleaning the toilets. And there was something to get me through, getting me familiarized a little bit with America, with English behind my belt. And so basically I was working part-time as a janitor. And this is where actually I start actually picking up English more. I remember I had a bucket mop in one hand and I have a little cartoon in my back pocket.

And Joe is going to the store. And Joe is going to the store. Joe is going to the store. It means that he is going to go and buy some groceries. I basically like in Polish. So I was translating it. And so I read more cartoons. I was speaking more and more English.

And eventually I think they decided I'm good enough to, ventures find like a different job. So the church helped me to get the job with Oakley Kese Ford first time in Memphis. And I was- Oakley-Keezy Ford. Yes. Okay. That sounded like a Polish word actually. I thought you had a relapse on me. We come back to it later, especially when I had to translate Polish to English and back. So in Iraq. So I got the job up there. My job was to pick up the phone, and they already knew that this is a guy who doesn't speak English, but he knows the numbers.

So they say, okay, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. So I would just write it down. I say, thank you, click. I run upstairs, and I picked the part. There was 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, and brought it up. So the cars from different dealerships or whoever needed that part was coming into the door and picking it up. And I was just the guy who just take the phone call, get the number, get.

the parts. I was working really hard, but goddamn those numbers, I just kept mixing up, so there was guys coming up and like two hours later here, fuck, we just got the wrong part. This is not the part we wanted to. The mechanic says that we just gave him a wrong part. So they come to me, it's like,

hey, you know, you're working so hard. We see it. We don't want to fire you, but, you know, you just need to get better, but do you know anything about cars, European cars, maybe? I was like, yeah, you know, I had no idea, but yeah, yeah, Because there is an opening in another dealership,

and they are looking for mechanics for Saab, Porsche, and Audi. Maybe, I don't know if you would want to go and try that too. You know, that's... I said, yeah, absolutely, yes. I know everything about the cars. How many people, when you were in Poland, how many people did you actually know that actually owned their own car?

I personally didn't know anybody who owns the car. I know some people who knew some people who owned the car. about it. And now you're, okay, so you're a car expert at this point. Because he was a communist, he was allowed,

he owned the car. There you go. So, but that was the, that was the expertise that I had. I know somebody who,

who knew somebody with the car. So I went for the interview. My English was so broke. I hadn't, like, even I didn't know what I was saying. But I remember that,

that, so they brought, there was like, they needed a mechanic for Paul. Porsche Audi and sub. And so they brought the foreman from the Porsche first. He looked at me and I know there's like blah, blah, blah. And we can have a guy that doesn't speak English.

So the Audi mechanic came in. He talked to me for a while. I tried to say my best, but he's like, I can see him can't head. And then the sub mechanic comes in. This big guy like motorcycle gangster and walks in. like looks at me I take him, I need slave come with me

as I started my career I became good, I became good. This guy, I owe him so much. He was running without the motorcycle gangs and he I remember he was a very proud

guy and but I was able to actually talk him into look Jimbo from Jimbo. Look Jimbo, I can't speak English very well, but I need to learn this thing. I have these manuals for Saab. If you can read it loud to me, I can record it. I can listen at home and I can

match the words with the recording. I thought he will kill me first time. He said, you're motherfucker, I am reading shit. I don't even know how to read well. But then I've talked him into it and he says, so we're sitting in his kitchen. He'll keep, he I kept reading that manuals and I know it was hard for him. I could see it, I could tell it was hard for him, but he did it for me. So we become like really good friends. And very often, you know, he came back, drooling up there, laying under the car. So say, hey, Jim, are you working?

I say, yeah, he's working right here. I'm just helping him out right there, you know, to the management. So he's like, okay, if somebody comes in, just kick me, I'm going to sleep. I say, okay, he's sleeping there. Great guy. Actually, this is the first time that I was exposed to American way of eating, too, because So I remember saying, you know, you need to come over here. We'll have a steaks and we'll just have a steaks and say, okay.

So I show up and that's a big ass, I think two steaks. No, three steaks was his girlfriend. So there's big as three steaks are like, fuck, we're going to be eating it for a month. I mean, so who else is coming here? He said, no, just three of us. I said, what are the steaks? Yeah, you can have. have one. I mean, the one is for you here. He's going to pick whatever you want. I was like,

I mean, that entire steak? You say, yeah, what's wrong with that? I said, dude, I'll be slicing it and slicing it just so that thing would last me for a month in Poland. And I just didn't know that you can eat a steak like that. Just buy the slab of meat, you cook it and you eat it. I was like, what the fuck? And I love steaks. I'm addicted to steaks now. So that was I was exposed first time. Like, yeah, you eat a steak, you eat a steak. You don't just paper slice it like this. Because in Poland, you know, I didn't mention that.

I just come back very quick to it. The socialism, what did to Poland is that once became me very resilient to hunger. Because I was going hungry to school quite often because my mom, you cannot buy food for more than two three, four days, especially bread or something. So if my mom didn't get up early in a half, I'm three o'clock, 3, 34 o'clock in the morning and stay in line, which is sometimes around the block, to buy a love of bread, I had no breakfast.

So sometimes she was in line, right, for a couple hours, but then they sold out bread before she could get it. I was hungry to school, going to school. But my remedy for it was, I just find out there was richer kids, especially those parties, party members' sons. They have always food, they have really good food. So I just beat them up and I took their lunch. And I ate their lunch, and I said, like,

want to eat lunch, you bring two sandwiches next time. So I had there's so much supply that actually I was like a Robin Hood because I was like the poor little guys that I knew up there and I was like, okay, you bring the sandwich to this guy, you bring a sandwich to this guy and you, to me. And if they didn't, we just took their lunch and we just ate their lunch. They usually they brought their lunch. They worked. So how long are you working at the, what was it, the sob dealer? At the Saturday I worked for quite a few years. And I think it was to the point that the war, then I became U.S. citizen too. So for me, it is still, it is the biggest accomplishment for me. People think, you made to the seal training, how does it feel about it?

I tell you how to be American citizens. I tell you how to be American. I'm free man. That's the biggest accomplishment I made. That's not the SEAL teams. I'm very proud of the Trident. I'm very proud what I did in the SEAL teams, but it is not my biggest accomplishment. I always, always look at this American flag and I'm American. I'm not Polish-American. I am not something American. There is no hyphen in front of this American. I am an American and I'm proud.

And so, yeah, that's... So you mentioned the first Gulf War, but then you, at what point, because I know you got into parachuting at some point. Oh, yeah, I was... How did that happen? Yeah, at the time, I said, I met a girl who made the parachute job.

jump. She told me, well, you know, it's like, you need to try it at least once. I said, I said, I tried it once. There was before the war, before anything. So I say, well, I just call the drops and I say, hey, can I make a parachute jump? Say, sure, come on over. It was in Memphis. So I came and said, how can I make the parachute jump? Well, you have to sit through the classes. It will be tandem jump. I say tandem jump. Okay. So I sit for the class, you know, that he explained me what to explain, what to look, we end up and jump. Fuck, I was hooked. So I said, like, can I do it again?

It was pretty expensive, but, you know, being single at the time. Yeah, you can do it again. So I do one more time. So I'm like, can I jump by myself? Like, not right the way, but you have to go to the classes. So tell me about it. So you have a class. Most likely, like, on the weekend.

Then you go Monday you come. You do one jump, maybe two jumps. Tuesday, Wednesday. Within two weeks, you get this enough just seven jumps. It was AFF, accelerated free fall at the time. And so you made enough jumps, then you can graduate to jump on your own. I say, where can we start? I say, we can start actually this Thursday.

I say, no, Friday. I say, okay. So Friday I came, I had all the classes. We made three jumps. Saturday, I made the next four jumps. And I was, I think Saturday evening, I was jumping on my own. So, three days. I was hooked.

So, yeah, I was skydiving. Actually, this is funny because in Memphis, we jump from very high altitude, usually 12,000 feet, sometimes from 15, 16,000 feet. So I accumulated a lot of freefall at the time. So I decided to go myself for the AFF Jam Master course. I say, I become the jam master. I will be teaching skydiving. And I did.

And actually, I did extremely well. I remember when in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the time, the only issue I had again with my language, because, you know, is you have to do class. You have to do class, you have to be very thorough. So if you miss something, the instructors, usually there was the USPA commission people, they're very experienced skydivers. They pick up what you miss in the brief, and they did that errors in the air, which you didn't

breathe or you said it the wrong way. You told it the wrong way. So we had an agreement. We were always partner-up with one of the guys, and we had an agreement. If I ask you a question, you answer it correctly. So I don't have to, because if you answer them correctly, I have to retage you because these people are watching, if I don't catch your error, your wrong. answer, then they will go and do it to me in the air. So we are okay. So we are with that agreement.

And, you know, there is a point in the skydiving tool and you teach people eventually say like, so there is an altitude that you have to make your decision. You either cut away the malfunctioning parachute if you have malfunctioned and open reserve or you ride it to the ground. So I think that that was 2,000 feet. By 2,000 feet, you don't have a good parachute and you need to make the decision to cat away as a new jumper. And, and. and open your reserve. If you didn't do it by this time, most likely you just should be riding it to the ground.

So we go through it and say, I look at this guy and the Z-Commission is listening there. So, okay, now tell me what is your hard dick? This guy looks at me. So like, what? I was like, you know, tell me about your heart dick. I say, I can't tell that. So now I'm getting mad at that's like,

you motherfucker, don't fuck with me. What's your heart dick? And he says, what do you mean? What do you mean? And I said, you know, the 2,000 foot hard dick. I don't have 2,000 foot hard dick. I was like, I was like,

to punch this guy, I look up there in this hall. They're laying under the tables and lacking so hard. I was so focused that, you know, it's a 2,000 foot hard deck. Deck, deck for me. It was kind of like the same thing. So he didn't tell, he said nothing about 2,000 foot hard dick, but eventually, yeah, but I graduate from this course,

even regales this hard dick. And yeah, so I was skydiving by this time. But it seems like coming from Poland, coming from not having food, from being in prison, from all these things that are going on, it seems like when you get to America, you've just got this drive just to live and make things happen and you're going to free fall and you get it done in four days

and then I'm going to become a Jumpmaster and you're working as hard as you can. It's like you have this open freeway in front of you for the first time. You can be whatever you are able to be. You know, I can say whatever you want to be, because I want to be astronaut. I'm 60 years old. I ain't going to be astronaut out with me.

But you can be whatever you are able to be. There is nothing to stop you like different countries. What's your background? Who is your mom? Are you communist or are you belonged to a socialist party? So we can help you. But if you know, you cannot be in this position. You cannot go to college even if you are not part of the socialist youth organization.

So for me, yeah, there was like the entire world open. I could be whatever I was able to be, and there was nothing stopping me. So even more makes me stick to my war. I want to be the best citizens. I want to make this country the best can be and contribute to it. So that's where the first Persian war came out. And I just became U.S. citizen at the time. So I was like, okay, I can't build the jobs for these people.

I'm not rich enough. I don't have resources, but I can fight for them. So this is my country. I'm going to go and sign up. I had no idea how to do it. I remember in post office I seen those draft cards sometimes that you fill it up. So I say, I went up there. I filled it up.

I sent it out. I packed my shit. I was living with other skydilers at the time. So they said, what's going on, where are you going? I'm going to war. I just sent out my papers. And this is the first Gulf War. First Gulf War, right?

So it's 1991. Yes. The first Gulf War kicks off. Yes. You want to go fight. So you go down to the post office. You grab the, what's that thing called? The Selective service.

Yeah, yeah. You fill that out. You send it in. Pack my shit. Your bags. Pack your bags. And that's right. Anytime now.

So, well, nothing happens. The guy's like, Drago, you know, I don't think this is the right the way to do it, but you're sure you want to go and to war? Man, there's a war going on up there. I say, yeah, yeah. I mean, you have to help. I came here with nothing and everything I have. I owned America to this country. I need to do something. And the best way I can do is going to fight for my country. So, yeah, I'm waiting on the ventilated. Sorry, but this selective service doesn't apply to you. You are too old. So I was already 31 at the time, going 30. too. And so I say,

I find my, I will find my way into that war. So somebody said, hey, why don't you go to recruiting office? I said, sure. I went to the army. In Poland, army is everything. This is like army. Are you talking about army air forces? For me, at that time, everything was army. So I got to army and say, okay, this is me. I would like to join military. I would like to go to war.

it's like okay what do you want to do I say I fight there's like no no no like jobs or something you have any skills I say

no not really but I will doubt do whatever you tell me to do you know I just want to go to war I will when the war is over I'll go back to my normal life but I think just for the duration of the war I would like to join the military

they say okay well let me see look at my documents and tell me what to bring so I bring all that stuff. They did all the work. Say, so, okay, so we put you as an infantryman. I think it was infantrymen and stuff. And I say, absolutely, thank you so much.

I'm ready to go anytime. And then as seals show up in our drop zone, they were doing demonstration jump, leapfrocks in Memphis. So we started talking about it. We jumped a few times together. I said, they are such cool guys, you know. And so they, yeah.

But before they joined the Army, why did you try the Navy? Just go and ask recruiters about seals. I was like, seals. What's the seals? Yeah, but the Navy, there's cool guys, you know. I'm jumping. They call themselves seals. So I'll just go and ask, hey, I went the next door.

I said, like, I'm applying here for Army, and they have all my paperwork. But I met some friends who told me to ask about the Navy. And I'm just asking about the Navy. Who those friends are? I said, well, like, they're calling themselves seals. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know, you can be a seal. It's like, but you need to get those paperwork

from these guys, we put you in the Navy, and you're okay, and then we'll just put you in the Navy. You will be a seal then. I say, okay, so I went on next door. I'm going there, so can I have it? They were pissed. They did not like it, but, so anyway, I got my paperwork, I show up there,

they looked through my papers, and they're like a gentleman. Well, you know what? We can guarantee you the seal. There was a diaper program at the time. We cannot guarantee to you because you are way too old. You are even too old to qualify for the seals. But if you sign this paper here, you join, you go to boot camp, that will make you a seal.

That's no doubt about it. Oh, yeah. So I say, I'm sure, you know, that's okay. I say, okay. But now before you become a seal, you need to get a job. You can have select the job in the Navy. At that time, there was no seal rating. You remember that there was a.

You go to boot camp, you get to A school, get a job in the Navy, and then if you're lucky, you are assigned to go to SEAL training. So I said, well, I don't know much what I want to do. I'm parachuting something with, how about being parachute regar? So it sounds good to me. I had no idea what it was. It stuck me in this field for like as an E5 for years later. But I said like, okay.

So yeah, absolutely. Make me see a, make me a, at the time I was dating a girl too. So they say, okay, but if you want to go to that school, to PR school, you will have to leave this week. You will have to leave on Thursday. We'll put you in the delay entry program. And I think you'll be sworn on Thursday. We'll leave on Friday. I think that was like short notice.

So I call my girlfriend, hey, we need to get murdered right now because I'm going to the Navy. I'm just like, what? I'm living to the Navy. I'm leaving this for this weekend. So we went to the judge. we got like, Stan, we got married very quick,

and then I showed up in depth, got sworn in, and after the day, I left to boot camp, and didn't become, there was no intention to make me a CEO. But, you know,

for eight of the time, I didn't really care. I just wanted to join military. I want to contribute to the effort. I am American. I want to fight for my country. So whether being the parachute rigor, or whatever,

I just made the best out of it. But as the opportunity shows up, I say, why not to be? a seal. I try it. And I did. I passed all the tests. So that was in boot camp? They do that day where they go, okay, if you want to try for SEALs, you need to go take the test right now. Yeah, there is a, there's like a day that

actually there are different jobs. There's people that are coming and telling about their jobs. So there are SEAL, EOD motivators show up and he talked about it. I just couldn't sit in this fucking chat. Just get out and just, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to go. So. And now your Are you 32 years old at this point? At this point, 32 years old, I think. What the hell kind of physical conditioning did you do throughout your life to get to get there and be in good enough shape?

Because they don't even let guys go to Buds when they're 27 or 28 or something like that now. I guess I got beat up a lot. I just got conditioned by that. Did you work? Were you working out this whole time? Not really. I didn't know how, I didn't know that the physical demands of the SEAL teams at the time. I was just like,

what about just in life, though? What about just in life, like when you were, when you were working at freaking sob? Cakeboxing, tech one though. Yeah, that's,

that was just basically what you were. Dude, you're a mutant. You're a freaking mutant. Well, I just kind of consider myself lucky that, you know, I was able to,

and, you know, the test is really not that difficult to pass. Yeah, that's true. It's still, it's still something about, you're preparing, fail, but. Yeah, so,

so, so just so people know what you're talking about, you say the test, isn't that hard to pass the bait the seal test that we used to get to get a chance to go to seal training yeah was like I think it was you had to do it's some minuscule it's like 50 pushups in two minutes 50 sit-ups in two minutes yeah 11 pull-ups 10 pull-ups 11 11 pull-ups and then a mile and a half run in 11 30 and a mile and a 500-yard swim yeah yeah yeah so something like that my struggle was with the swim which I couldn't swim very well so but I took it I got it you know I passed it

so I'm so happy I'm like oh yeah this is so cool and then I fucking got the kidney stone a kidney stone yeah oh that's right because you're freaking old man yeah yeah yeah so the kidney stone and and I remember they that was so freaking painful I mean I never had I was never beat up so hard they was so painful like this, but that was so painful that I remember they gave me that medicine, I think it was demoral, it's like it didn't work at all. I say that I need something stronger because I just, I'm about to go crazy. That pain is so hard, so they gave me a morphine, just like it went away.

But I remember it was funny thing, because the first time with this job, I had no idea what it was. I was laying in the bunk in the boot camp, and as this pain came in, I just fell off the bed. And so the time the lights on, and within like three minutes I had this pool. sweat right under my nose all dripping. I'm on my force. This medic comes in. Hey, are you

okay? It's like, fuck, do I look okay to you? I can't move. So they got me to hospital. I passed it, but that was not the worst thing. The worst thing is like telling me, well, you know, you're going to this medical thing. We're about to give you the medical examination for seals, but you had just had a kidney stone. You have to weigh the air. It's like,

fuck. But, you know, my mindset was, I want to fight the war in any capacity. I'm honored that I have that privilege to go and fight for America. So for me, this really matter. So I said, yeah, that's okay. And so then I went to A school. And the A school I met, Resident Peace, Les Barrios.

I don't know if you knew him, but. So Les Barrios, he was a motivator in Millington when I was going to my parish school. I said, look, I passed the test. I can easy pass it again. but I had this kidney stone and I cannot I just want to be a seal so it's in a way maybe there's some maybe paperwork can be done if you just look at say a paperwork yeah I think can just go get your medical record from your from your medical office bring it here we take a look at it so I ran up there I said what magic you

will come up with I'm sure there's some paragraph or some regulation that were allowed to bypass the stupid kidney stone so I brought this record and it's like, that's right right there, right there and it's like, I want you to leave the room here. I'll just call you in a second.

And I could hear rip. It's like, so he calls you back. So the kidney stone, where is that? I was like, right. Oh, so he likes, I don't see any.

I said, I don't see any either. You sure you had the kidney stone? It's like, you know, maybe not. Maybe I didn't. Okay, well, you didn't. And I graduate from A school in Millington. I think one of the second top. You know, everything from boot camp, I graduated,

a top recruit in this whole batch. I got military excellence award. I was like a very first recruit, actually, the top recruit from that badge graduating. A school, I graduate, I believe, the second, with the second highest score. So I had things going on for me And then I was waiting for my orders

He said okay, I send it out for it Hopefully it gets approved And sure three months later Got my orders to Budz So that's the rest of this The rest of it is a history You show up at Buds What was there any major challenges for you?

Was like you said you were not a great swimmer How were you on the rest of the water stuff? Well, the problem was that I could swim only on one side and I never swim with the mask on. So, you know, they dump you in the pool and say, okay, I want you to swim here. There's a side stroke. Side stroke.

This is how you do it. But you'll be swimming all the styles that it will tell you to do. And I was kind of okay with it, but when they put them, put the mask on after the first couple laps, I thought I'll pass out. I mean, I was like hyperventilating. I was blacking out.

I see the black spots in front of my ass. I'm about to die here. But I say like if I stopped, they kick me out. So I ain't stopping. I know that if I pass out, they will rescue me. Those guys everywhere. They tell us that we are safe. So we are safe. So, you know, I was blacking out, like, fell about to black out, having these black spots, but it became easier and easier. But I think by the time, like the next hour, I was like, shit, ain't that bad. I can do it. So what is it just like some weird, like claustrophobic thing on your face or something like that?

No, I couldn't breathe through my nose. And I couldn't know how to breathe through my, every time I to get breath. I've sucked water with it. So I think I was breathing water and air at the time. And I was coughing, I was suffocating, I was basically drowning. I felt like I'm drowning. And it's just, I say, I'm not going to quit. I'll just, I pass out and see what will happen

if I have to, but I didn't pass out. I got better. Actually, by the time, there was a fourth phase. There was a pre-phase before you class up for the for the CO training. So by the time, where we graduate from the fourth phase, moving to our single class, the instructors asked me to demonstrate

and you guys have to swim the side stroke. So I became really good. I was never fast swimmer, but I was strong swimmer. I could swim forever. And you didn't come up with any injuries or anything, being a 33-year-old guy going through buds? Not at that time.

The worst thing I was always tired. I was looking at these young guys, like, hey, let's go to the bar. I was like, dude, I can hardly move. I can't go to the bar. I'll still make it out to the bar here and there, but it was just really painful for me because, again, I was not the intensity of it.

It's not just the one time. It was like one time, like Searle training, I think most of the people that one day can, like, yeah, he may survive, but it over and over and over, it just wears your body, wears you down, and eventually some people quit. So that was the most difficult for me

because I did not recover as fast being 32 years old. other guys. So what were your first orders? What team did you get? I get to CL Team 2. Actually, I wanted to go to CL Team 4 because I don't want to be called. I know CLT2 at the time

operate the north part of the Europe and in Europe in general. So I say, I just want to go to Team 4. But a friend of mine said, no, no, no, dude, you with your language, with your Polish, Russian, and I speak Japanese too. So with your language, you be good asset in this

European team and stuff. So I kind of like put the, so I switched it from the Team 4 to Team 2. I put Team 4 second and just like, God, please not put me in SDVs. I just, for some reason, I don't know, I was not maybe that technical person at the time.

And the challenge is to be SDV operator is twice. It is as twice. It's going to be a seal, but you have to have that expertise with these mini subs and with the operation of it that for me I felt was overwhelmed by that what you need to know to be good operator in this DV teams so so I I just two and I got my orders to see all team too went to boot went to jump school did you go to Fort Benning yes for me it was kind of fun time because you know like

when I was growing up I was poor I would never had a chance to go to go to like a Disneyland or this type of thing. I could watch over the fans how children were playing around it, but I couldn't afford it. So when I got into this tower, I was like, holy shit, this is like a Disneyland, you know?

So I didn't care what the position they were me to jump, but I just like running out of it and a woo! And yeah, that's, they kind of didn't like it, but they are very rigid. So I remember, too, I had a lot of fun too,

because I think you went through the same thing. So there is the forebraining So you stay next to each other Shoulder, shoulder shoulder so close That basically you cannot even move And then you just go to your line You grab the line, they drag you, you just do the PLF I could never do the PLF, right?

I was always scared of PLFs. So, but anyway, I found out that if you like tip one of them From one end, there's like a domino effect These army guys, they would just totally fall down They would say it after they would fall out And that it was actually, I thought it was amusing It's like, that's pretty cool. You tip one a little bit, and the last guy just plubs down.

But my issue was that I don't like PLFs. So I made a difference. So just so everyone knows, a PLF is a parachute landing fall, and it's a technique that you get taught for static line jumping where it's supposed to minimize your injuries because you keep your feet and knees together, and you hit like, you kind of like roll, you sort of roll,

when you hit and you keep your arms kind of tucked in and it's supposed to prevent you from getting injured because when you're on a when you're on one of those parachutes you're still coming down really fast it's not like what you see in the movies when guys can kind of come down on a free fall parachute and they flare and they just kind of kind of tiptoe away from it you hit pretty hard especially if you're a heavier guy the heavier you are the harder you're going to hit so they try and teach and plus the army's working with hundreds and hundreds of people getting thrown out of that thing, getting thrown out of an aircraft every day. So they try and teach the most simple way that they can teach hundreds and hundreds of people

how to fall without getting hurt. Now, I also was not good at the PLF. Yeah, it's good a shit out of me. So I just, I try one time and just put my shoulder and I'm like, fuck, I'm doing it anymore. So every time I jump, I just stood up. I just, I was not a big deal because I had hundreds of jumps at the time. So I just jump out, just really little. land, they just stand up and I was like, so they had those black, black hats, they had those

tubes, PLF, private, PLF, PLF, I want to see PLF, I was like, Roger dead, and I threw my parachute and just roll on the ground. I can do those PLFs, you know, they don't hurt. The other one, I kind of, so, so that, they knew from me, from, not listening too good. Yeah, those PLFs, they were killing me, so I didn't do them. I avoided them. get the team too and what what uh did you get put in a platoon right away or did you go through sqt first no no i had to wait for sqt i had to wait for s tt at that time it was s tt

uh see your tactical training but uh when i show up in the teams you know like you are the new new sailor i was a new sailor everywhere i won the boot camp to a school or uh you know the buds everyone was so formal so uh so you know buy the book and everything so i show up and by that i don't and know where like five minutes later, I'm hanging on the pull-up bar in my blues and the fucking doing pull-ups, running three miles, fucking, I do my PRT in my thing.

And it's like, what the fuck? By the time I even, you know, realize what's going on. I had completed the whole PRT in my blues and stuff. So they were just like with the new guys. Yeah. So what he's talking about there is he shows up in his dress uniform.

When you check into a new command, you're in your dress uniform. It's the nicest uniform you've got. and you don't, you know, normally you'd wear it for like a ceremony. So he shows up with that uniform on and they're like, cool. We're going to do a physical, physical, what is it? PRT or whatever is it? What's the R stand for?

Physical, um, something test. Physical readiness test. Yeah. So they got to take a physical readiness test. They invent all me that. Hey, they say, get on the pull-up. Yeah. The pull-ups.

Go for the run. Now push-ups, go sit-ups. So, you know, I'm sitting there. Doing seat up is in my dress blues. And everything was so shiny. You know, I spent all night just making sure that I'm no wrinkles, no nothing. And here I am. There's always arrived up.

So anyway, I finish that. That's the welcome to the team's new guy. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I just, I said, that's okay. I guess this is the way it goes. So I roll with it. And another surprise for me was, I don't know, so we came in,

there's a couple other new guys at the same time, so when we show up in the team. And they said, hey, guys, at that time in the teams, on every Friday, we had a kegher in the highway. So it's a keg of beer, and the guys were drinking beer. So, hey, new guys, we just invite you for the kegher,

you know, just, I'm sorry, you need to come and join us for the kids. So I remember I was so taken. I was like, this old guys, these old Navy seals. They are so cool. You know, like these new guys, they invite for the beer. and stuff.

Well, I didn't know that we're just for the amusement of these all new guys. Not sooner that we just crossed the door of this bay. We just get beat up, taped up, hang up in those fucking chains up, hanging like a baths. While these guys are drinking beer and just throwing the insults on us and stuff. I have to be fair. Once every while they lower us down. They stick this tube in our mouth from the drager and just pull the dragger into the beer in the drugger bag and just sort of.

squeezed as fast as you can. So by the time, you know, you drink so much beer that you didn't care if you're hanging upside down or not. As long as they didn't leave you overnight hanging and it didn't happen. So that we are not there to just fraternza,

how to say, to fraternize with the old seals. We are just there for their amusement. As a new guy, they call us meat. You know, fucking new guy. Jeez. So that's, yeah. There was the welcome to the teams.

But you know what I said. I figure out that's the way it goes, so I don't have a problem with that. And I was waiting for my STT getting beat up here and there, and then that was fine. Then we got to STT. And STT pretty much pretty straightforward? Pretty straightforward, but with me,

there was me and another guy, Scottie Lenton, a great guy. I love this guy. He led the teams later. So those two of us, they were a bit different. I remember, so we went through STT, everything went, I had a little bit problem with my English because I still have to translate everything, all the commands. You should and move and you know, you communicate.

So far ahead and translate it in my head in Polish then and be fast enough to do it and react to it. So it was okay. So eventually we came to the crypto and the radio communication equipment, the communication class, and went to crypto and we were sitting there. by the time we were about to take a test from this. I was like two more days. So today was the last class, you know how to use the cryptographic equipment,

how to use, all that stuff. And so the next day is supposed to be, I think, a final exam, and then there's a sort of, then move to the next section of STT. So this guy comes in, and one of the instructors comes in and it's like, hey, do you have a clearance? It's like, I don't know what it is.

So most likely you don't have it. Do you have a clearance? And Scott like, well, I'm not even a citizen. Come on with me, you know, so we end up there and said like, so look at us, like, don't ever say anybody that you went through this class. You just don't say nothing. Don't say anything. You never sit in that class.

It's like, okay, you guys get your clearances, then go, we redo it. And so, yeah, we just see that. So next day we see our guys watching running through. the field, you know, with the equipment, setting it up, you know, doing the crypto stuff. And I was watching it, I was like, shit, I mean, there's not the difficult. I could pass the test now. Science is already out. They went through all this class.

I don't know what's a big deal, but I guess they don't want us. They don't want anybody to know that we sat through that class, not getting the secret clearance. And so, you know, eventually got my clearance. So I went to the Radio Shagg upstairs in the Seattle Team 2 and passed the test. Scott Elinton eventually got his citizenship. So we all went, how platoon went up there. in the platoon by this time and he got his crypto stuff too and we'll move down so that my first platoon is I was remember my chief bixler good god I think if this guy didn't have a hard attack yet I

think he might he will have it because of me because you know my English skills so it was not really that good so it reflected on everything I mean we you know whatever you do you know you have to communicate you have to communicate fast and very effectively and I just was lacking that English skills at the time. The funny things that finally I made it to this platoon, so I was not anymore, fucking new guy, I was not anymore, this is meat. And we,

I remember, so when you come back from the first platoon, or get back from the platoon, from deployment, you always like, hey, I got this school, I'm going to sniper school, I'm going to this school, I'm going to this school. So I said, hey, Drago, so what school did you get? You know, just where are you going? It's like, ah, dude, I'm going to English 101.

I think the next door up there, this fucking the regular Navy thing. And so I spent the next three months doing actually English classes. That was not bad because actually it helped me in my career in the future. So basically... So they legit sent you to English school?

Yes. Yes. And that saved my career. You know, these guys were apparently they seen something in me that say, well, you know, he bachelor English language. Were you having a hard time,

like, communicate, like in that, going through the house and stuff like that, just trying to communicate with the rest of the guys. Yeah, especially the communication, going through the house and trying to communicate. Yeah. So at that time, I was still had to,

I still had to, I didn't tell them that, but I had to translate from what I hear to my Polish thing, then I had to think of the solution, translate back to English inside. So I managed that, but it is so much easier later on when actually I get my English good. So that is just flow, you know. But they still have to be very fast.

What was your position in that between? Were you a 60 gunner? I was a 60 gunner. Yeah, I was 60 gunner, I think, for the next three platoons. It's just, I like that. You know, I think it's a big, you carry a big stick. Easy to load because, you know, I have to worry about just jamming this little piece shooter magazines. You just put the tape in it and say, I'm good to go.

And I'm good to roll. Where was your first deployment? Was it to Europe? Yeah, it was in Europe. It was at the time. actually we deployed to San Vito in Italy. And that was when the O'Grady got shot down, actually. We were looking at him.

You know, this actually brings to my mind, too. In C-L teams, you do every day you do something that can kill you. I didn't think about it, but it does. I remember flying over the Adriatic Sea where we were actually on the lookout for this pilot. Scott Linton, he was sitting in the, he was a sniper. So he's sitting up there and fucking with his gun. And we look at it and I think it was Bill White.

Look at it. Fuck. Say nothing. His whole belt just dropped off. So he was sitting on the ledge of, I think it was. Who's Scotty? Yeah, Scottie, yeah. So the ramp is open.

He's sitting on the ramp, fending with his gun. His whole belt is gone. So he just like, I think it was a Bill White. He just like sneak up with him just grab his ass and just fucking pull him inside. It's a guy like, what the fuck? It's like, dude, you almost fell out of that shit. Because, you know, those clips, they were like easy to come and don't. I mean, it's not really something, I would say, safe that they will stay close on you.

So, yeah, so that was the thing. Yeah, it comes to my mind as always there's something, there's some situation that you can get killed. And if you look over the statistics, I think from the before the war, I think we were killing like two guys in training every year. average I think it was like when I'm looking out this guy died this guy was killed in training this was like one or two guys every year yeah for sure no there's definitely you're doing stuff every day whether it's parachuting diving shoot and you're always doing something that that can give you a bad day or make you fall out of a helicopter because your belt came off yeah so did you

guys did you ever do any of work down in uh in bosnia yes went there was no mind another platoon we went to Bosnia to Yugoslavia, we spent time. I was pretty good time. Actually, well, like it. We just get... There was really not much to do at the time, but just work out and get big. So, that was really good platoon, actually. This is where I met the strongest guy,

I think, in the teams. I think I can think of Chris S. I don't know if I can bring his name, but I don't have a permission. I didn't ask him, so just to be on the safe side, but he knows who he is. When we went to France, France, I mean, this guy was lifting, like, what,

five plates, the bench press. So when we went to French, we just got the French equipment. He just bent that shit out of the, hell out of their, their, their bar bars. When he picked it up, this bar, I mean, the bar bent, and those weights are falling off. So all these French guys, they stop working with us. They're just like, whenever we rolled into their gym, they just sit down like a bunch of weird dudes. So that they, that was actually funny. but yeah there was big platoon

I remember so there was entire platoon I think over 220 pounds I think there's one guy maybe he was not but all of us was over 220 pounds of course Chris was way much more and yeah that's I remember for me I wanted to say I need to join this 220 pounds so I'm working so hard

and I'm just like a half a pound below have a pound below like 219 to 18 and say fuck give me that love of bread right there so I was just like I weigh myself maybe I hate this few grams to get to this 220 pounds. I just chow and down, push myself into that bread myself, like get on the scale. 220 and a half.

It's like, fucking I. I'm 220 pounds club. Now I wish I could get to the 220 pounds from the other side from the top. So then what was it when I showed up at Team 2? Was that your fourth platoon? Yeah, I don't remember. I think so. Or your third platoon, maybe.

I think it was your fourth. Yeah, I remember you showed up. I remember I had to swim with you. This was before even we platoon up. So we just did dive that swim. And I said, well, you had a kind of big guy, so I don't think you'd be swimming that fast. So I think I'm safe with you.

I'll be all right. And you say, okay, when you look at me, say, okay, that's your boy. You swim with the buoy. I was like, okay. And so we're getting the water. Fuck, you drag that boy, you drag and drag me and that boy with you.

I just could not keep up. I mean, there was like, Where this fucking guy is taking the strength from? I mean, you're so big, you shouldn't be swimming that fast. What were you doing? Like a recoil dive or something? Yeah, I think it was a recall dive. Yeah, there was just like swimming from one place to another,

just a couple legs here and there. I think it was a recoil dive. So I remember you dragged me and that buoy with the fucking water so bad. I think I would just overbreath that goddamn rake. We made it, so I said, I'm good. And so that we get put in the platoon. And we had a freaking really good workup out there.

Oh, yeah. That was good work. That was a really good platoon. Good deployment, too. I mean, I really enjoyed. At this time, we went to Spain. We hijacked in the Russian tanker, too. That was a, you know, now when I look at the bag,

after my experience in combat, I'm sure you too, it's like, it's not really that big deal. Yeah, yeah. But at that time, there was like, holy shit, we're not only hiding. that the Russian tanker, Volgeneft, there was Volgeneft, we fast robed on that thing. I remember the funny things too is you remember we're doing ships later because it was a Russian tanker, so there's regular native. And just to clarify everyone for the English translation,

when Dragha says we hijacked a Russian tanker, we actually didn't hijack a Russian tanker. There was a there was a tanker, a Russian tanker that was smuggling oil out of the Gulf and one of the missions that we had while we were over there was stop people from smuggling stuff out of the Gulf. Most of the time we were taking down little dows, little tiny boats, and we would take those things down. We took down a bunch of them too. But then this was the biggest catch that we got

was this big oil tanker that we took down. With a Russian flagged tanker that we took down. We got control of. We turned it over to the authorities. But, you know, we didn't hijack it, but we did assault it and take it down. visits and search. Visit boarding and search.

Akron, there's a name for it. But, you know, bottom line, we hijack the tanker. So we got it. And I remember, the funny thing is, you remember, we did the shifts later, right? Because maybe it was not comfortable, so let's keep seals on it. So we're just bobbing on this boat. You bobbing on this boat. But I remember, so when we took it down, we came back and died,

and the next shift came back next day, the other squad. When they came back, say, dude, you just left a bunch of weapons with them. There is so much, fuck, we took all this, the weapons that you guys left. I was like, what weapons did we leave up there? I mean, we searched the boat. What turned out to be.

When they went up there, they see those little butter patties, the butter knives and forks. They just fucking took it away from these guys. So when we went back, these guys are coming in. I spoke Russian, you remember. So I say, hey, Mr. Please help us. We have no teeth and we can't eat

because these guys stole our forks and our knives so we can, I cannot chew. Really, maybe two or three teeth sticking out of the mouth and that's all they had. So I remember, yeah, we take care. So we actually bring those butter knives or butter, what do you call it, spatulas and forks back to them so they can actually eat.

Yeah, I also remember those guys, they were telling us that we didn't do a good job clearing or whatever they were saying because we were like, oh yeah, They have butter knives and stuff like that. And then they're like, don't worry, we secured it. Yeah. And we were sailing.

We were on a Navy ship looking at the ship that we took down. And I'm looking at, I was like, yeah, you did a good job. And I looked over and there was like a fire axe. Yeah, yeah, there was an axe on every door. They were like, good job, you idiots. So they stole their fucking butter knives and forts, but leave the big axes. And I say, hey, you guys left all this weapon here. Look at this butternights.

Yeah, that was crazy too because. Just by sheer luck, our platoon commander went to the Naval Academy and studied Russian, and so he spoke Russian. We had another guy that was like went to Berkeley and he studied Russian and then you. So in a platoon, we had three Russian speakers when we took down a Russian vessel. Yep. That's freaking lucky right there. That was awesome.

I remember just at the very beginning, we bused the bridge and I remember this captain say, hey, don't cooperate with Americans. He's in Russian. Don't say nothing. Don't operate. Resist as much as you can. Mr. Fjong, he understands it. He was how old.

Oh, I see. He said, I'd go take care of it. So just grab the guy by the scruff, working up, open the, I was got a big chimney with the door. I should open the door. It's like a little tiny space. So I told him the Russian, like,

you motherfucker, you just say another word. I'm going to squash you right here and luck you have for the rest of the journey. He's just look at this little tiny space. Yeah, fuck, I better to fuck with these guys. Okay, so no problem. We never had a problem with this guy again. So, yeah, that was a good time.

But I tell you, I have to say one more thing here. I remember Rob O'Neill, he was in our platoon, my fairly good body, and at the time we were like best friends. And I remember he was a sniper on this off, and he said, drag, I ain't going to happen nothing to you. I'm looking over you. And I remember as we moved through the ship, as we searched, I said, I know Rob is up there, and I think shit is going to happen to me.

I know he'd take down anybody who's on our way. So it makes me very comfortable. Yeah, that was, we had a bunch of, We had a tight group. There was a good platoon. Yes. And also you were talking about being big. We were also, we tried to get a platoon average of 200 pounds.

And we had to make up for some slack because we had some guys that were like 150. We did. And we, I remember we got to, uh, we, the first place we went was Spain. Oh, yeah. And I was trying to get to 250. Yeah. And I could, I was the same thing. I was like trying.

I'm eating. I'm lifting. I'm squatting, I'm eating. And I couldn't get above like two, I don't know, 245 or something like that. And then where we stayed in Spain was they had an all you can eat buffet for all three meals of the day. And I was like, oh, I got this.

And like three days later, I was 250. I weighed in. And I was like, yeah, 250. And then I went on a four mile run. And I was like, okay, I need to lose weight. This sucks. Yeah. No shit.

But you remember we're living like our doors were opening right on the beach. So we just opened the door. You just walk on the side. It was like, I'm on the beach right there. That was awesome. I mean, that was awesome deployment. I really like that. And then the Bahrain and there was the Christmas party.

I mean, the Christmas time came, the New York came and kind of got us tighter and close together. There was the 2000 years. So that was really, really good time. And I have very fond memories of it. It's almost like very nostalgic to me right now. It's just so. So we get done with that platoon. I know I got back.

I went to college. You carried on. Where? Did you stay at Team 2? Or did you go to a different team? No, because I think you remember when we came out as in 2000. As a platoon from CL Team 2, we came back as a CL Team 4, at least some of us. So they remember there's a Vision 2000 that went blind.

Oh, that's right. Right. They made some adjustments to the way they were structuring the teams. Yes. And so when we got back, you went to Steam 4. You went to Team 4. Okay, got it. So all these upheavals and all that stuff eventually,

I end up in one of the platoons that were the, we deployed to South America, were in Puerto Rico, and we were like three months into deployment. When they call me, my chief calls me and say, hey, Drago, you will go to Baghdad. I just want you to pack your shed. We need to help facilitate the Polish groan with our guys.

Where were you in September 11th happened? I was in the World War on the Yachton 2 Quarters. I was actually watching it as it happens. And I remember I was working out when I was in the gym and they said the airplane hit the towers. I was like, what the fucking idiot? Some just flew into the thing. But then as the news progress

And I said there was a jetliner It was not a small airplane I just put my attention I say that's something That's something wrong here And then the second plane hit the tower I remember And I still have a hard time thinking about it

It just brings me all these memories And I was watching the towers collapse So it just brings tears to my eyes I can't think about it I just at that time I just wouldn't go And kill the savages So as you're now now fast forward a little bit because you're back on deployment, you're at Team 4, you're in Puerto Rico, you're probably going completely insane because you're in Puerto Rico instead of being either in Afghanistan or Iraq. Yep.

And then you get a call. Yes. And I tell you, make jealous everybody in the platoos. How the fuck drag who got this? You know sales, we are aggressive. There's a war. We want to be in the war. And yeah

So I was like fucking hey This is just incredible I am so damn lucky I can pass it like chief I can pack my shit right now I can wait no no no no no Just go pack your shit Just take your take stuff

There's like orders here Blah blah blah So they say what will happen Is we are like I think like half of deployment At the time So you just go for another half Another three months Just help settle down

The thing Settled up the Grom Come back and join another platoon And do your workup And so I say yes I was so excited as African, I land in the bag that... So, just so everyone understands,

so there's a Polish Special Forces unit. They're called Grom. What does Grom mean? Thunder? Or is that just the call sign? It is a consign, but, you know, you can translate Grom actually as a thunder.

It is thunder. It's a acronym for actually Grupa Reaction. I don't know, I can say this. So it does, it does stand for something in Polish? It does something. But it also means thunder, yes. It's similar to seals.

It means like animal sale, but it's not really what it is. Yeah. So the Grom, the Polish Grom had deployed to Baghdad. They were actually co-located with the seals that were also in Baghdad. And they needed someone to be a liaison between the Polish Grom and the seals that were there. And of course, everybody kind of knows or had run into or someone knew that there was a Polish guy or a... American. An American guy that could speak Polish, that grew up in Poland, that was in the SEAL teams.

They track you down. They contact through your chain of command, and boom. You get the call. How long did it take from the call to you fly over there? I think a week or a few days. Because I had to pack my staff. I still have to process my orders. And, yeah, I packed my staff.

It was a full civilian aircraft to. It was fun because I have all the guns, everything. and I'm flying civilian aircraft to Middle East and eventually a London in Baghdad. Yeah, it was 2003. Oh, wow. The heat was incredible, right? When I unpack my staff, I just stood up.

It was like, that wind blew. I was like, fuck, where is that aircraft here? I thought I'm like in the jet blast of some, you know. What month did you arrive? I think it was May. So there was hot. It's not even hot yet. Yeah, it's not even hot, yeah.

I mean, like June, it's going to come. Oh, yeah. And then July and August, it's on. So, but even May, you're like getting there like, oh, why is it so hot here? Where's the jet engine blasting? Yeah, I thought, I would like, the blast of the jet engine. I look around and it's like, there's no,

it's just the wind. So you show up, you get to camp, Jenny Posey? Yes. So they get into Jenny Pauzee and I show up, and so, you know, I'm getting briefed. And there's like, okay, so this is what we expect from you. This is what needs to happen. So this is where I raise my first alarm.

I say, I'm going to see the fucking Humvee and watch shit happens. I'm here. I'm going with these guys if they go. So, you know, for the command, our safety is priority. So they're like, you know, well, we don't know these guys, really. We know they're good, but, you know, we don't train with them. We didn't train with them that much. So if we set you lose with these guys,

I mean, we are taking a chances that you can get hurt. But I said, I had no other way. I said, I'm going with these guys. I mean, I won't get any respect even from the, I wouldn't respect myself, just sitting in the home, and I don't be doing nothing. So after a little debates, they say, okay, you can go with these guys.

So for me, it was good because I was double dipping. I was going with the Grom guys, and then I would just switch my gear and just go back with our guys. By switch your gear, you mean change your clothes? Did you wear the Grom uniform? No, no, no, no, I were a uniform.

But I changed my, like, if we use the magazines or reload, refit. And go with our guys. Sometimes we were on the fly, we were on the fly because, like, we're, at that time, it was 155. So the Grom hit the target and we moved to another target. Just switch the cars and go with the power guys. So I got some of those missions. I think it's pretty good. I think you're freaking living the dream.

No kidding. I mean, this is like, so that's why, you know, like three months came in where I'm supposed to return. it's like I hear nothing from my commands I'm like fuck I ain't saying shit either so I keep going where actually they ask say who wants to stay longer here because we have this change

but we could appreciate any change I'm here so yeah I stayed and like four months passed like nobody says anything five months nobody says anything I was like fucking happy as I can be I'm saying shit to these guys and so

like in the eight months so this was like 11 months deployment almost a year my NVGs broke and I say like guys I need some how can you guys loan me your NVGs they say well yeah we can you know as a platoon when we deploy our little gears limited and we have there's something that can support the platoon us but not to learn some other guys so you know it went for a while while I was trying to call my team I say hey guys So I finally I got to call my team I said I need NVGs in Baghdad So this guy is like listen to it It's like what? I say can you send me

NVGs to Baghdad? Who is this? I said Drago So you want me to send equipment To you somewhere in Baghdad I say to compose you have Camposi so And who you are say who the Drago you are Who? It's like I'm just Drago you know I'm still team Guy and team guy

It's like dude you don't even speak English. Do you want me to send the suicidal bomb vessel with it too? You know, just basically they thought I'm just Iraqi trying solicit fucking gear to send to somewhere to Baghdad. So I got really pissed. Like, dude, motherfucker, I fucking kill you when I get, when I come back. But anyway, get me Master Chief online.

So they put Master Chief online. Say, Master Chief, I need to get some NVGs. I'm here, my brook. And say, wait, wait, wait, drago, where are you at? I say, I'm in Baghdad, Master Chief. It's like quiet for a second. How long you have been there? I'm like almost a year on deployment.

Dude, you need to come back here. Because, you know, Sear team such and such, I don't want to bring the numbers here. It's about to deploy and we are next. You need to come back. There was no way to go around it. I mean, I could Wendegel maybe so much, but at that time, yeah, I had to come back.

So they sent me, I come back to Little Creek. And the first thing. So then the next team is coming out. So I say, hey, guys, I can go. At that time, you get addicted to that stuff. I mean, you just, you can't leave in normal society. It's just like, dude, I just left there. I don't like this place here.

So to live like this. I want to be there. And so I say, well, I go with you guys. Yeah, we can use you. You know, just help us settle down with this. You already been there for so long time. And you are with Grom. So you will help us settle down with that stuff with Grom.

And so I went that. we take you for a couple weeks and for me it's like yeah that's awesome it's a couple weeks of it as much as I can get so we flew up there and it's like four months later it's like hey Drago you need to come back dude we are deploying two months or something like this and then you need to be back into join your platoon so I say oh shit okay so I'm as master chief I'm on the way so I came back and turned around and came back again with with with with my shielding four the final thing is that I might on my on my on this last when I was there.

The army guy comes up to me. I don't know him from Adam. I was like, I'd never register even the guy. He comes up, hey, dude, have you been here in 2003? I say, yeah. Have you been here in 2004? Yeah. When did you ever go home even?

Well, for a little time. But dude, I said, I remember seeing you for all three fucking years. And I said, well, if you see me the long, you have been here quite some time too, you So these guys are doing awesome jobs, so the army guys. You know, it's pleasure to work with them. But yeah, there was like, yeah. And that was my Iraq time. Yeah, it was interesting, like when we were there together,

and just to give everyone an idea of what was going on. So the Grom, there would be intelligence from various sources coming down, and we would kind of go out and capture, kill bad guys. And sometimes we were basically rotating back and forth between Grom and the SEAL platoon, Grom, SEAL platoon. And sometimes it would be two targets and we just go out together and or if it was a really big target, we'd go out together and maybe Grom would be external security and the SEALs would do the assault or maybe SEALs would be external security and Grom would do the assault.

And I don't remember you're going to have to correct me. but I don't remember many of them speaking English. Not many at the time. Now everyone speaks and speaks very well, but at that time, yeah, there was only me and who were, this is why I was, for me, it was great because I was going on the missions with them. I was doing assaults and the storm,

the hideouts with them and with our guys. So I love the thing. But yeah, they did not speak English at the time. Yeah, so what I remember is, like we would give our brief and you would stand there and translate the brief for them and then they would explain what they were doing on their target and you would explain what they were doing

to us and then any time that we were if we were kind of doing something together you were really critical for making the connection between what the two elements were doing. This is a pretty big job. You know what? I think it was important at the time but eventually we matched so well that I remember sometimes was called

Hey, hey, Drago, is that guy is the Grom guy or is our guy? So I can say, that's our guy. You know, it was hard to tell who is who because we're working so well together. Yeah, but you know, talking about this English thing, translation and stuff,

I am also, I think besides being breacher and breaching in Iraq, known for my English skills, actually. For my, actually, I'm going to patent it. I'm thinking about patenting it. I became known for being the fastest

English language instructor teacher to terrorists. Actually, because I developed that course. I call it Dragos accelerated English language course for terrorists. Basically, you give me five minutes with a terrorist,

because they always say, remember, I don't speak, no English, no English mista, no English mista. So I said, I teach you. Five minutes later, the guy actually could speak with better accent that I could ever say things so that's that's I think that I'm very proud of my skills and that so that's that that that's that that's something about patenting it eventually because that's you know it's it worked so well yeah it was it was awesome too like when I when I said that the

translating between us and the Grom you're right like we'd be out on the target and we wouldn't there would be very little that you would have to translate translate because we all knew what the mission is, knew what we were doing, we would interact very well together. And just like, just like seals, I mean, when you're out on a seal operation, you're not talking a bunch or you're basically, especially on those types of missions, you're barely saying anything. So it was, it was not like you were all the time having to translate, but there was a couple times or there were B times where it's like, oh, we need to know what they're doing. What are they doing right now? Hey, Drago, where are they going right now? It's like,

oh, they saw a guy, they saw a squirder. They're going to get them. Like, cool. Roger that. Yeah, yeah. Just taking care and bringing those two units together. Man, it was an awesome working relationship that we had with the Grom. It was freaking awesome. They were great guys. I really enjoyed that work because especially there, you know, we have all the same ROEs.

But the interpretation of these arrows were maybe a bit more loose or not so strict. So they were strict. They apply everything that needs to be applied to ROEs, but they were also realistic about that stuff. So there was pleasure to work with them. The funny things was that if I mix it up, I had the switch or had the earphones, the Peltos with one connected to the Polish groan one to us.

So if I switched the wrong way, and it's like, Drago, God damn, speak English, motherfucker. Or then switch the other one. Drago, we don't understand shit you just say, speak Polish. I had to be very careful. You can do things very fast in combat. And then you have to just switch this thing the right way because we switch is the wrong way. It's like, yeah, we don't understand you.

We don't speak Polish, Drago. So you're there for 03. You got there in May. You're there, 04. You're there my whole deployment, which was from 03, like October, 2003 or something like that. Fall of 03 to spring of 04. And then 05. And then you went back for a little bit.

Did you go back? I went back with my platoon then. I came back to CLT. 14 and we are with the 174 was deploying and then came back again. I came back again for another six months. That was pretty cool. The thing is, you know, what it does to is I remember it becomes almost unreal this word here. I remember I was talking to my girlfriend at the time and say, hey, I need to go, I need to go home.

I'm tired now. It's like, that's just so stupid. You're not home. Your home is not there. Your home is here. And blah, blah. It's like, oh shit. Okay, well, whatever, you know.

But the reality is that that place becomes your home. When you think about this world, about people working on the streets, making groceries, it become a dream almost like state. That's just like, yeah, it is there, you know. But like now you hear the, when you think about the fairy tale, some snow white or something sounds really great but but it's just like a fairy tale so for me this world become a fairy tale it was just like a you know it's there it's awesome but I'm here and this is my reality and that one almost like a dream you know sometimes I was slab I was dreaming

and being in normal world and yeah so that's that become that world here become very distant to me become almost unreal because my reality was the war and I liked it. I mean, at that time I thought I liked it but I had to tell you because, you know, my job, I was a breacher so I remember after at the end of deployment the first deployment, I started having a problem reading I couldn't read. So I remember trying to read the sentence

and my eyes were jumping so I had to read it over and over And then when I finish reading it, I don't remember what I started sentence with. So it took me sometimes a five, six minutes to get through a paragraph. And I think this is because of the concussions. I mean, we are exposed to this stuff. And I did, it was a couple times that I, you know,

like we supposed we are going explosive bridge to the door, that we look at the intel pictures and there was like, okay, okay, so this is how we plan, you know, we prepare all the bridge. leaves. This is where we hide. This is what the assault element is going to be. There's a breechers. This is what we're going to go blow the door. This is how we go. Well, some of those pictures were not very accurate. And I remember around the situation that we had,

I had the assault in stash there. I went, sent the bridge charge with a guy came back and I had no place to hide. I was like, fuck. And you remember most of these most of these buildings or these hideouts were fenced off. the fences and stuff. So once we climb inside, there's really no place to hide. And I had to blow that shit put the much on myself.

It's like, how fuck. I can hide. I'm not going to make a ruckus running for looking forward to some place to hide. So I just took a knee, put the gun in front of my face and fucking blow this shit out. I remember, I didn't remember much after that.

I mean, I got my force on my fore, my legs and my blood from my nose and ear. But what kind of like, Always puzzled me. Like, what the fuck is my side? I mean, I have like, the Bruce, like, fucking broke my ribs. What that fucking came from? So the ground was like, dude, you were on your force.

We just have to kick you out of the way because there's no way to wait. You know, you were just there on your force. And we, so basically they kicked me out of the way. The king was so strong that almost broke my ribs. But, you know, this is no, it's not, that's something that you accept because that's. Yeah. Yeah, as a breacher, man. those operations like those breaches that you guys were doing and I would usually position myself

where I would be kind of with there be a wall I would sort of put myself on top of the wall on top of the ladder so I could see the breach I could see the building I could see if there's any enemy movement and then right as you guys would say turning steel I would duck down and I'm looking down I'm actually ducking down behind the wall because there could be fragging stuff like that oh yeah absolutely But you guys were inside those compound walls, and you're probably, whatever, eight feet, 10 feet, 12 feet away from the blast. And so, like I said, I get a little, little bit of protection, and I don't feel as much a concussion. The concussion's going up. And then as soon as the breach goes, I jump over the wall and we go do our thing. But, you know, you guys are just taking that breach on a nightly basis, taking that hammer to the brain.

And look, I know there's some of them where, you know, it would be really bad and it might knock you out. But even the ones that don't knock you out, even the ones that you just, oh, you just, you just suck up that thing. And it doesn't knock you out. And then you go, that thing is not good for you. Like, those breaches are not good for you. And who knows how many hundreds of times you just took that, took that minor concussion. And over time, it's definitely going to, it's going to freaking leave a mark. Well, it's, yes.

But we were, but as you know, we're not aware so acutely of the issue. Then, as we know now, what it does to you. And you're right, you learn. You get no, you get shirk, shaked. Shaken? Shaken, yeah. You get thrown off the, sometimes of the ground, just your feet go up in there. Right.

So of the blast. But then you just go in, you move on. you are autopilot, basically. You know what to do, you train for years to do it. So this is what I like it. I was so effective. I enjoyed that skills I could apply as an AVC also. That was great feeling, but yeah, it does.

Well, not the great feeling, you know, when you get knocked out or bleed from your ears and nose, but they're just the tactics and techniques, how effective they are and how well they work. When you said good feeling, I was just thinking about, like, when I got to Baghdad, so you'd already been there for a long, for, I don't know, eight months. Yeah, eight months. But I remember just being so freaking happy to see you.

And I was like, ah, wrong. Yeah, we do. Yeah. Because we already did a platoon together. We already had awesome times together. Yeah. And I just was like, so freaking stoked. There's another thing to going with your platoon.

I think this is for some reason. I talk to other guys, we feel fucking safe. like, dude, shit is not going to happen to us. Nothing is going to happen to us. I think because the way your platoon was fired up, the way you were fired up, the way it was, I mean, I think the leadership has a lot to do with it, how you feel about this given up.

And for us, it was just like, fucking I can operate like this forever. Yeah. All right, so let's talk about when you get back home, after you spend all these months and months over there. And you were talking about how the concussion, like you're trying to read and you see the freaking words are moving around. And you get done with a sentence, you can't remember it.

When that first started happening to you, what were you thinking? I was thinking keep it quiet because they will move me out of the platoons. They won't let me go to war. So I just keep my mouth shut and say nothing. So did you go back into another platoon at this point? Yeah, it was after the first deployment. So I did two more combat tours with that. But coming back, talking about the returning from the,

it was like almost a year being deployed. I remember I landed in Norfolk and the guys said like, okay, hey, go ahead and you want me to help you something. I had all my gear and all the stuff from Puerto Rico yet because I just came back from, I went to, basically from Puerto Rico to Iraq, so I had to get my old gear. So I stuck my gear in the car,

but it was called, and I was so tired, I remember. Again, I said, no, don't worry, these guys are coming to pick me up, so I'm good. So he left, he shut the door. There was like nobody there, you know, the Norfolk, the military airport. And I fucking fell asleep.

It was like, fucking getting dark, I'm freezing my ass off. I say, what the fuck? I don't know for a second, where am I? So I'm in Norfolk. What the motherfuckers didn't show up? So like my phone is dead. So I was like, fuck, I can't even call them.

It's getting fucking night and cold. There's nobody there. So I was like, hey, I tried to knock on the door. Hey, hey, hey, I need a phone. So nobody shows up. I'm so fucking cold at the time. I'm just saying, I need to get inside because I'll get hypotermia. I grab this fucking big concrete garbage thing.

I was about to swing it into the window. And this guy opens the door. I say, dude, I need to make a call. These guys didn't show up. So I can't, my phone is dead. I don't even have a phone. I don't remember because my brain is already some of my stuff. I don't remember the number to group.

So call the team, there was a weekend, so that team is not there. Carl the group. They say, hey, somebody's supposed to pick me up today a few hours ago. and I'm still in the parking lot. I say, and you are who? I say, I'm Drago. Where are you coming from?

I said, from Baghdad. I said, fuck up. We are not even there, you fucking idiot. We are not even there, you fucking idiot. And just fucking hang up. They thought they are just, I don't know what they think. So, you know, group two, there's not necessarily seals on the quarter of the deck. There's like anybody who are the logistic people.

So I call back again. I say, hey, motherfucker, give me OD, the officer of the deck. I need the officer of the deck. because I just came back from Baghdad. I need to get back to the teams. So they call O.D. and say, hey, this Drago. I just came here for a few hours ago.

He's a guy supposed to pick me up. He said, I want to pick anybody up today? He just looked, oh, hey, Drago, we are so sorry. I'll just send the track right now. So we are on the way. So yeah, they sent the guy, the tech came in, and a great guy, I really liked him. So he came in, they loved my gear,

we got to Team 4. They took my guns away, so they put it away. All my gear, I just unloaded in my cage. And something just took me, something came to my mind. Like, fucking, I haven't. By this time, the girlfriend left me. She just said, like, you are done. She called me on Christmas, say that she needs to move on,

and she don't have a time for this shit. So I'm like, she had my car and my stuff, but I'll have no car. The car is parked somewhere in her place. My clothes are there. Everything I had was like a cruise box word of things, but was in her place. So I said, I just get, can I take this key? I stole the key from one of those pickup tracks outside. I'm just like borrowed it.

And I'm glad I did because the guy woke out, we walk out outside. He shuts the door and I say, hey, what's the code? I need to get inside. You say, you guys are still sleeping in their fucking teams in the cages. You can't do that anymore. There's new regulations. You are not allowed to go sleep. in the teams.

I said, I have no place to go. He said, well, tough shit, man. He just jumped the kind of life. I was like, what the fuck? So I try to remember the code. I don't remember. I can't remember it. So we have those little punching things.

Because they stopped the quarter like do this some time ago. And so I can remember it. I said like, fuck, but I'm so hungry now. I just need to do something. I just need to go up something to eat. So I had to do something. I had no money, but I pulled my credit card, not credit card, but then have a credit card,

but my ATM card, it's like maybe $15. So I was like, fuck, I just need something. So I got the $10 out of it. So what can I just say, I hope? So I drove to, in Virginia Beach to I hope. That's by the, I think there was at that time, Borders bookstore. And I came into this thing and I started,

got me those cheeseblins. I love cheeseblins. So that's from the I-Holk. So got me cheeseblins, got me a coffee. I said, now I went to go fine. And I got so sleepy, so tired. I just fucking fall asleep up there. And then next thing is the guy, the security officer comes out.

Hey, what are you doing here? I mean, you are sleeping here. I'm watching you are here for like five hours or so. And this is like like, I think 2 o'clock in the morning. So I said, hey, I mean, what's the problem? I said, like, I'm looking at him. trying to get my wits together. He looks at me, it's like, yeah, the bitch kick you out, didn't she?

I was like, yeah, the bitch kicked me out. Yeah, yeah. So I say, do you mind if I just go relax tomorrow morning? I'm not today morning. I'll just go and I'll just buy some more food if I need to. Say, no, no, no, no, you're fine. Just go relax and, you know, just don't cause any problems. I'm sorry, I'm not no problem.

So in the morning I woke up, I've slept in the, I hope. I woke up and went to group two, got some phone calls. Most of the guys were, I think, Team 4 at that time, they were doing something because we were ready to deploy it again. So eventually I got hold of somebody, and then I got the code back to the team. And then I realized, that's not only me.

It's a bunch of guys. There's always some team guys sleeping in the cage because he gets kicked out from the house, his girlfriend kicks him out, or has this problem, or that's no place to leave. For sure. So, you know, it's like I moved into the, in the cage and that was pretty cool because the platoon had you have all the cable TVs you have a shower

you have a gym 24 hour 7 and so it was only me but it's like a bunch of guys say hey drago you should just bang on the door somebody would come out and just open the doors for you i said i didn't know anybody was here who were told that we can't know that there's nobody in the teams anymore that thing is gone no fuck this we're just playing cards and doing all kinds of cook that's cool it was really cool and then you know we just we deploy again but then i deploy again but then i deploy again, but that was the first, my first comeback was not only that, but then I find out that my checks are bouncing. I look at the bank, they said, no money at all. I said, what the fuck? So I go to them and they said, Drago, you didn't feel your travel claims. So travel claims.

I was in Iraq. We told them it was possible. I was not moving anywhere. I was there for like eight months, nine months, and we were told not to worry about the travel claims. Well, we just garnish your money, so you are getting in the paycheck. You're just getting maybe like three hundred, whatever that proportion was that they allowed to leave. So I say, dude, I'm so fucking sick and past about it. And I tell you this, I'm just going to make me a sign Iraqi veteran. I work for food. And I'm going in front of that fucking gate up there and start to get some money because I need to eat.

So I said, oh no, you don't need to go that far, you know. It's just we loan me the money. And actually the chief mess, actually loan me the money so I can buy some food and pay some bills. Of course, I paid it back. But I was so mad, I called those civilians that work the travel claims in Group 2 and just laid it to them and they show up a year on them. So next thing, the chief scouts me, hey, Drago, you're not allowed to Group 2. They call Provost and I think we have a problem. So we just told them that if you show up in Group 2, you will be always Chief assisting you and you go with Chief up there. So because you really scared

these people up there. I was like, okay, chief, that's no problem. And, you know, I'll just walk my way, work my way out of this, pay my some pay, those travel claims, you know, fill the travel claims, they did return some of the money. And it was all good, you know?

That's, that's, then I deploy again and again. And the, with the eyes, first I was coming with all kinds of theories. Like, maybe my eyes are bad, maybe the tent is dark. So I use the flashlight. this and I can't fucking read.

So I just give up, I say maybe I'm just not smart enough and I just like move on. It was busy with other stuff so it came back later that How many more deployments did you do? Three, two, two more to Iraq.

What year was your last one? 2005. 2003, 2004 and 2005. And then what did you do when you got home from that deployment? From that deployment? At that time I also You know, before you even jump into that,

like, there's a certain transition period. And there's a, there's like a, you know, when you're overseas, especially for you, you have one, basically one purpose in life when you're over there. Like you get it, you get your mission tasking, you figure out what the plan is, you get your gear together, you brief the guys, you go out, you do your hit, you come back.

It's the simplest life. Yeah, it's like a customer service. the government customer service. I would look at it. But my customers were always bad and I got to kill them. But you come home and all of a sudden there's all these other things, right?

There's freaking travel claims and there's like apartments and there's all these other things that you got to try and like deal with again. And sometimes just that is, it takes a little bit of time to get used to what you were saying, you were saying that the normal world

doesn't really exist anymore. And then when you come back and you get injected back into it, sometimes it takes a little time to get used to, okay, there's, this is what, this is what I've got to deal with. I got to go stand in line at the DMV,

like a normal freaking human being, which I have, you know, let's face it, if there was someone in the way when you're, you know, it's like when we were doing operations, when we were driving,

if there was a vehicle in the way, you freaking just knocked the vehicle off the road. Like you go plow it out of the way and then you drive on if there's a person that's in the way as you're moving towards a target you just freaking clear them out of the way. It's just no factor. Yes. And so you get in that mindset of, okay, I'm going to make happen whatever I need to make happen to get the mission done. That's the mindset that you get in and you get back and you realize, okay, it takes a little time to realize that you can't just go. You can't stay in that mode because that mode is not that mode is actually considered to be criminal. Indestructive in America. Yeah. In the normal civilian populace. Yeah. I remember, but my first feeling was even when I was sleeping in the I hope when I came back, it's kind of relief too.

When I'm just looking around, I see these people eating or walking around. So I say, that's the normal life. But I forgot about it almost because it was so immersed into that combat, into that the time there, that again, this became like a little. Then you come back and it's like, well, that's actually real, you know, that's, but also big relief. I never realized that that thing over your head always, well, I can get shot. We don't think about it. It never bother me. But then when I came back, I was like, I'm going to get shot.

So it's like, my first thing is I'm good, I'm okay, you know. But then come the reflection to think about the guys that did not come back. And that's, it still bothers me. And that's, I think they will always stay with us forever. I don't know, it's called it like the survival, survival guilt. That's what they call it. Why him, not me. And this is why I'm trying to cherish the memories of the guys that I knew they are not here anymore.

Because, you know, it fades. I think they are alive. They still live in our minds. So what we can do for them is just remember them because if we forget who we remember. So they're still alive. They are alive in our minds. We see them.

We remember them. And we need to cherish this. So it is so important to write the books about these guys who are not here anymore. Because who will write, they can write their own book. to engage parents. That was always tell parents of our guys, look,

they might not seem like a lot, but you wake up, and, you know, the pain doesn't go away, just leave to learn with it, as a parent, as a spouse. But what you can do is just write little things that you remember.

As you wake up, it's like, yeah, you remember he was doing this and that when he was a little kid, write this down. Because those memories are fleeting. You might not remember it 10 years down the road. But eventually if you keep doing this, you will write the full picture, the image of your child, of your spouse, who is not longer with us, but it helps all of us remember it.

So it is important that you do that. And hopefully people are doing it because, you know, that eventually will become a book. And maybe you want to share the parent or the spouse want to share with us the other person that we don't know. Because most of us know the guy like fucking warrior, you know, he goes up there, he kills the bad guys, he does what needs to be done. But there's another side to each of us. And we don't know that side of these people who didn't come back. So it is important that we help maintain that memory of these guys.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that. And even, you know, with the opportunity I have here talking to guys, talking to veterans from other wars as well and just hearing their stories and they still carry on the memories guys from the Korean War, guys from Vietnam that what you're saying is absolutely true and there's like I read a lot of books

that guys have written and that's the memory that's what they left behind and they remember and they account for the friends and brothers that they lost in combat and it's priceless it's priceless for us And this is how we keep them alive, you know. That's how we keep their memory by keeping their memory alive,

because they live in our minds. So you end up doing another, did your next two deployments, were those back to Iraq again? Yeah, yeah. And then when I came back, I realized that, you know, I'm 45. I haven't, at that time, my girlfriend dumped me because my career was not really good. I was making enough money.

I was actually, she actually said in the email that, that really not, there's not the place she wants to be in. So I say, fuck, I mean, I'm like getting 45, I'm getting old guy, and I don't have, don't know even girls, you know, I don't have anybody. So I'm going to go and find somebody. How do I find somebody? I think the easiest word just go online

and look for somebody. So I remember there was a site, American singles. And I say, fuck yeah, I'm American. I'm going to go and get me. a wife. I'm American and I'm single. The sights for me. So

I can't write very well, right? So I remember, so we are going, trying to finally I found a girl. I'm like, look, she's so beautiful. I'm going to go and let me see if I can wink to her. I just need to tweak my age little because she's

so young. So she's like maybe she's 13 years younger. So I just tweak my age a little bit. So I winked to her, just to write something. She got to look at it, and she winked back. She wrote back, and she wrote so nicely. So I say, if I write to her, she just fired me right from the get because she won't even talk to me. So I talked to the team guys.

Hey, can you help me write the letters? What letters is like a love letters? So we're going on. We had a guy, I had the guys writing the love letters to my. present wife, but just helping me out because when I write, you know, when I write this, like, I is what I is.

You know, I be what I be. Your love letter was, I like you. Do you like me? Yeah, yeah. Me love you very much. And so that wouldn't go well. And so the guys kept doing it and I'm looking at this,

I'm reading her letters. And this is so fucking awesome. She writes so well. She's so polished. She's so educated. Then I find out, you know, she's Air Force Academy graduate. So I was like, oh, damn, this is like make it... How many years did you chop off your age when you initiated this relationship?

I think five. Because... And I'm glad I did because we're not talking to her later. She said, like, a cut of women. If somebody contacted her above that limit, she just, like, disappear. So you were 45. She was... How old was she?

37. She was 37. 36, 36. So you brought yourself down to a clean 40. Yes. Like maybe 39, 40. Maybe 30. So I was strong. I was still, I still look young. And I was like, she can tell. But when she sees me, she will like me. So I, so the guys keep writing me, but eventually I say, look, Drago, we wrote you like, I think hundreds of these letters.

So I think what you can do right now is kind of paste and post. You can just make any letter you want, just copy and paste. So I'm like, fucking little bit worried about it, but say, okay, yeah, I have like every letter. So she wrote me an email. And I'm trying to make some things out. I guess it didn't go well because I sent a letter and just clicks. She disappeared from that. what I found out later is that she read the letter

and her friends and her came to conclusion that I'm in their own drugs and drunk so that they work very well so I better save than sorry so she left I was like fuck I think I fucked up so I like the guys look and say yeah Drago you did fuck up you just put the shit both totally backwards so I like damn okay I need to start over again

and then she shows up again well she shows up because I find out later that they offer her 30 more free days, like a freebie, so somebody else. So she said, oh, sure, okay. They said, we're sorry about that last Draco guy. We apologize.

Here's your money back, and you get 30 more days to find a normal human being. Yeah, I guess, you know, something. But when she shows up, I was pretty desperate at the time. I really like her. I love, you know, we talk for a while.

We wrote a lot of letters. I mean, my team guys wrote a lot of letters, and she wrote a lot of to me. So, so then, and she didn't respond. So I was like, just call me. Just call me. Wait, had you never, had you talked before? No, just she was, she's very proper.

She just like, I'm going to talk to you. I don't know you even. I don't want to give you my phone number or anything. But eventually, I coerce her into calling me. Had you told her your life story? Had you told her that you had come from Poland or were you telling her that you were a freaking hedge fund manager, York or something?

No, no, I just told him that I'm in the Navy, I'm doing well, and, you know, just try to just be very vague about it. I think that's maybe she didn't like it either, but I just try not to talk because if I say, yeah, I'm C, I'll just come back from Iraq, so my guy might be crazy or something. So I try to stay out of it. But anyway, the guys did a really good job, you know, if they stay with me, they could continue. I think I would have no problems whatsoever. But anyway, I created a letter.

It came out as a drogy or some drunk person and she's just like, I don't want to mess with that. So, but finally I got her to call me. And I say, look, this is me, this blah, blah. So I told her about myself and she's like, quiet for a second. I say, oh, you just don't speak English very well. It's not you are drunken drugs, right? It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't do any drugs, you know.

I don't drink on occasions and maybe wine sometimes. So we start talking about and then finally she agreed to come and visit me. I was totally in love and yep, we are married now. But yeah, that was a big thing that she thought that maybe I'm not quite right in my head. I was not. But yeah, we have married. We have two children now and together a little girl, 12 years old. 10 years, 11 years old boy.

So how did you wrap up your Navy career? I ran my career. So when I met her, I went to Master Chief, and I was a seal instructor at the time. I was in Buds. I said, look, I don't have any family. I have this guy right here. If I go to war, I deploy,

I'm just really scared I have to lose her. I've been there so many times, so long time. Maybe you can find me some post that I can just get married. I just wanted to get merits. I said, I'm to secure this girl. And so first, they say, okay, we'll try to help you, Drago. But the letter from command came in,

well, for that position, when somebody who is really polished and who speaks English very well, and Draghi is neither one. I've seen this email. They were shown to me. So I say, fuck, I'm marrying this girl anyway. But eventually I was able to, when they go to, that they sent me to Ohio, NRD, and we got married, of course, and I retired from there.

And it was kind of, I'm glad it happened this way because that transition kind of brought me back to reality. You know, it's not about just killing people and beating them up. It is more also about the living in society, being productive member of society. So that was a good transition period for me that I could actually relax and join the society back again and not be a villain but be a good person. And yeah, I got domesticated now. So I'm the nice drago and the life is good. My wife, she has a master's degree in bioengineering. She's about to do her PhD and I'm here to support her.

So we're doing well and I just miss the teams definitely. Well, you're always going to miss the teams. And by the way, you were, you may have felt like a villain in some way, but I can tell you, bro, you were never a villain to me. You were always, always freaking there, always there every single time on the good guys side. So when you retired, what did you do? what did you do once you retired? What year did you retire?

2011. Okay. So before retirement, I was like, I was told I need to do this, I can do this, I can do that. You know, when you come back from war, I think there's some issues linger with you.

And I was like, well, I didn't really care about doing that tab meetings, about that. I just wanted to go retire and move on with my life. I didn't order to do one. really know what I'm going to do, but that was good in the programming and the software development. And my wife said, like, what you need to do is put your resume here and start looking for the job. So finally I say, okay, I don't have the formal education. I'm a CEO. I don't write software. I kill people.

So I need to do something. So say, no, no, no, no, you do have experience. You have. did a lot and she wrote she helped me write the resume at the time so I put the resume and say my good luck yeah somebody willing to call me just like five days later to say hey we look we have a position here would you like to come and talk to us so I was like sure absolutely yes so I ran up up there and I got the job I before I retired I already have a job like I think in two weeks before retirement I got the job so I didn't start it yet until my but my on my leave I was working so my retirement leave and and that's a rolled in you know that's just I'm getting more

and more experience and learn more and more from the guys from the software engineers working with me and so my life is what it is right now I'm actually I end up developing quite few programs one of them is connecting what this is as you know my views my I'm I I'm very open about the socialism and how dangerous the socialism is. That anytime I posted on Facebook something about socialism, they banned me. They were just basically stopped my account. People were calling me names, and I couldn't even respond to it because Facebook was blocking it. So I say, fuck these guys, fucking communists.

I'm going to go and they will create my own Facebook. So I create connecting. And we have thousands of people right now on the site posting. There's no censorship. Everybody's welcome. It's not the right, left side. If you like to say something and not to be worried about being banned or ostracized by Zuck and Fokker, whatever his name is, or this other twer from Twitter, come to Kinek,

and you are welcome to say whatever you like to say. Just please keep the violence down and not nothing violent, but just you're welcome to speak. Be open. So it's connect zing. I'm I'm I'm now a member of connect zing I'm on there what one thing that I was thinking about as you were telling it talking about everything today I mean it couldn't there couldn't be any better parallel between what you experienced in life and and starting this so at one point in your life the communist government shut down all communications inside of your country and completely suppressed the populace.

And what you did back then as a freaking whatever, 19, 18, 20 year old was you said, okay, they're trying to stop us from communicating. So what we're going to do is we're going to start a freaking newspaper. And we're going to go and we're going to run around in the background. We're going to print it and we're going to distribute it out there to people. So even as a kid, you realized the importance of free speech.

Free speech, yes. And so now you're in a situation where you got banned from the social media platforms. And so you're doing the same thing. Okay, look, you don't want me to speak? You don't want me to have free speech? Okay, here I go. And so you created this website and this platform that people can now communicate and they don't have to have any fear of being suppressed.

being suppressed. Yes, and it is important for me. I see that I think we are going in the wrong direction. That suppression of free voice eventually we can destroy our country. The socialism has seven things in common. Whether this is Adolf Hitler socialist, Adolf Hitler National Socialism, whether it's Bernie Sanders socialism or Pelosi socialism,

they all have one thing in common. It's intimidation, violence, poverty, having a villain. Like Stalin, Joseph Stalin had a Kulax, those wealthy passions. They were villains.

They were always vilified. Adolf Hitler had Jewish people. He vilified this entire group. And Pelosi seems to me like veterans in middle class. So the villain is a very important element of socialism, but also political prisoners

and political murders. And the biggest, of I think totalitarian socialist state is where state entities are attacking and intimidating political opponents. We had IRS, you remember, I'm sure remember that, attacking and vilifying the opponents and other state entities. So this is where I think we are in a very dangerous spot and we need to act on it. Political prisoners, you know, in socialism, they always say, we don't have political prisoners because nobody sees for political reasons. He sees for state. stealing a milk, this guy sits for just maybe driving on the curb with his car, this guy

sits for something else, but there's no political prisoners, but they all sit for political reasons. And you know, we have here General Flynn. I mean, what happened to him, you always find something that you can show me a man, I will stick the paragraph to him. So they will find something to intimidate political opponents. And I think it's time to turn around our country. we can have, the things that are happening right now are very disturbing to me, they're too much like that socialism that I experience. And I, just like I said earlier,

if people only took time to ask refugees from the former socialist countries in Eastern Europe and stood against evil, who wouldn't have any Democrats left in the office? I tell you that. It is so bad. I mean, I'm really concerned. Yeah, we had some Vietnamese Vietnam War veterans on, and they certainly expressed very similar concerns.

They lived through communism. They escaped communist countries, and they hate seeing, and they're, they're sickened when they see similar things occurring here. And they, you know, it's a warning. It's a warning. It is a warning. You better hate it before it's too late, if not too late already, because, yeah, that's, we already have, we already had socialist elections and seems like the rules are being implemented. I was, when I was talking to people about it in 2008, that was laughed off. It was like, that's not going to happen here. We have been, we are having that now, right now, implemented, the rules are being implemented, allowing for socialist elections. Socialist elections, I mean elections where communists, Marxists, and socialists always win.

Now, on top of that, and I know that you got that going on, you also have a foundation to help guys that were in the SEAL teams, guys that are in the SEAL teams, if they run into hard times for whatever reason, you have a fund that people can donate to. What's that all about? And there's Navy SEALS Fund. It's 501C3. Navy Seals Fund.org, not foundation, it's Navy Seals Fund, F-U-N-D.

And this is to help our guys, because there's a lot of team guys that leave the teams before their time, before their retirement, and they have pretty much no support or very little support. So, and I've seen so many guys going with broken lies because they miss the payment here, That means the payment there. Their work, they lost the job. Some of them, their whole life was collapsing in front of them. So what we create is like no red tape charity that, look,

if you were at any time, $5326, we will help you. We don't let you fall down. And it's just nobody gets paid. So if you can look at our website, there's a bunch of team guys with the same attitude, with the same ideals that we need to help each other. And again, they don't want to get paid. They don't want the money. It is not about the money.

This is something that we can give back to those less fortunate. Because there's a big problem. Look, I was lucky. I came back. I met my wife. She was able to domesticate me and create a human being out of me again. But there's a lot of guys that come back, or do they? They got caught up in this violent cycle that, you know, the skills from the Navy SEAL teams don't translate well in civilian life.

Not many things, not many. Some people have a hard time in the transition. So what is happening with these guys is, well, you know what, I can't get the job, but what I'm going to do, I'm going to go contracting. I'm going to go overseas again, you know, should some, you know, do pretty much the same job. But when I come back with a lot of money, I can get a regular job. I can get back with my family. The guy comes back after six months with tons of money, he's trying to find a job six months later. He has no job and has no money.

What do you do? Well, I'm tired. They're tired. They just have no choice. I say, I need to get back. I need to go back into that world again. And that cycle repeats itself. We have a guy's caught up in this cycle.

You know, not everybody. There are some people that like this lifestyle, and they can continue on, but there's many guys that can get out of it. So this is where we step in. We want to go and help these guys. If you want to get out of this, we are here to help you.

And we stay watch over you. Awesome. Awesome, man. Look, we've been going for a while now. Probably a good place to, probably a good place to wrap up. I know, you know what we missed.

You know what we didn't talk about was one of my funnest things in life was introducing you to Jiu-Jitsu. Oh, that was a great thing. And how excited you were. You were so excited when you learned that you could choke people and you could arm lock people.

And I remember you got into a scrap somewhere. We were out somewhere and you got into a scrap. and I wasn't there. You came back to me the next day and you had the, you had a look of just joy on your face. And you said, jaco, jaco. And I was like, what's going on, man?

You said, I got in a fight last night. And I was like, okay, did you get in trouble? He's like, no, no, no, no. No, I choked the guy. I choked him. You were so happy and so proud. And I was quite proud as well. Actually, I have to do it something too,

because this is what sometimes get out and misunderstand, even within our community, an hour guys. So, you know, when I used to fight, when I was, the way I grew up is you, you fight until you decide the guy, the fight is over. Not when the guy told you, okay, well, I got it, you know, that is over, you know, you are better. And then he, as soon as you turn around, he launched at you. So you just beat the guy until he doesn't move. And then, which is what you need to be careful with is, and it actually happened to me before,

that he'll have choked on his own tongue if you're all the wrong way. Now, you need to go because the police are about to come in. So if you're leaving him, that he dies or not. So the technique that I learned in Poland is a pin-up type. So you just pin up, they make a pin-up out of the guy. You put the pin through his lip and to his tongue and pin his tongue to his lip. So that way, whatever he rolls in once you leave,

he's not going to suffocate on his own tongue. And people are like, so what's, is it real? Yeah, it is real, because then you can leave. and safely guy in that position. And when he wakes up, he just feels like his safety pan in his head and pin his tongue from his lip and go home versus being dead, you know, and then you get in trouble. So, yeah, that's actually a good technique that a lot of people, I think, adopted, I think,

because I taught that quite a few guys. There was also a good one where we were going through some kind of combatives training and the instructors, they had like these boxes, like taped on the floor. And the purpose of these boxes was that if you had to handle a situation, you know, in a hand-to-hand situation, those boxes represented the area that you needed to stay in because if you got out of that area,

you're actually interfering with other guys field of fire. So it was almost a way for them to prove that, look, you just need to stay still. And whatever, if you can't do it inside of this little box here, then it's probably not going to work. And so they did some things with me with grappling and it was kind of funny, but then they take you and they go,

all right, you know, you stand in this box and they put another like one of the instructors in the box and they said, you know, if you're in this little space like this, you know, these kicks that you're talking about, they wouldn't work because you're too close. Yeah, they were demonstrated. Yeah, and so then they go, they go, okay, Drago, you know, you're standing in this box,

you're not allowed to leave the box, but try and kick him, try and kick him in the head. And apparently they didn't know that you had very flexible legs and why you freaking kicked this guy in the head. He was definitely out of the box. It was freaking awesome. But you know, I remember too. I'm so glad that you mentioned about this because when you show up in the platoon,

I remember just came and I say, guys, I'm going to check out the entire platoon in five minutes. Okay. So you started it and as the progress within a 30 seconds, people are tapping out or pass out next next. So I seemed like a couple guys quietly just inching their way out of the room. So you know, you check out whoever was left up there, including myself. But there was actually good experience and there we start learning. And I remember that I was not that technically, I was pretty strong but not technically very well. And I was wrestling with one of the officers. And I remember. I was. trying almost everything. I had to pin him down, but almost ripped his hand off and didn't work, and didn't work. He was laying there. And I was trying everything. I found like 30 minutes later, he finally tapped out and gave up. Then you woke up, said, like, well, you know, I didn't want to go interfere with this, but you are doing okay, but if you take his hand just way and just push a little bit down, he'll be tapping out right away. So I just like, try it. And this guy, like, do that. I say,

fuck, I wish I knew that. I would spend 30 minutes trying to hit his arm. of and here's a simple technique to do it so so yeah that's pretty funny. Poor Skadi when he was, that's actually scurmi a bit because I didn't know it we're wrestling, you were overwatching us and then that's something like I'm doing pretty

good, you know, but he's not tapping out so I'm just wrapping him up and then I see you and other team got other other guys from the platoon just prying me out of Scott it's like, yeah, stop, stop, stop. I say stop for fucking what? So he's tapping out. I said

no he's not. He's tapping out. No, he's not. And then he say, wait, do you hear, did you hear this? Tip, tip, tip, tip. I say, yeah, but what does that mean? He said, well, he couldn't breathe and he couldn't tap. There, he was no way to tap out. And Scott said, dude, I thought, die. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't tap out. So I could say, I couldn't have a breath to even say stop. All I could do is tip, chip, chip, chip, tip. And then then you stopped. That was pretty cool. Actually, that's like, wow, that's fucking jihitza. That was, man. Yeah, that particular individual was kind of claustrophobic,

and I remember I would train with him. And when someone's super claustrophobic like that, sometimes I like to sort of give them some exposure therapy and try and make them more used to it. But I remember him just, he's going. He's just like, get off me. And he was so bad. Get off me, man.

I'm not down with this. And he's walking off. And that is so bad. He was freaking hilarious. It was nothing unusual to see, you know, that's having guys pass out. We were shaking their hands, their legs. Like, okay, I'll shake his legs. He'll be okay.

You know, it's like, what happened? It's like, what happened? I'm like, well, you just got chucked out. Is you okay? Good times. Good times. Awesome. Right on.

Echo Charles. Yes. Speaking of getting after it. Sure. Speaking of jujitsu. Speaking of, you know, maintaining the good physical condition, which I'm really, I'm really, When you're telling me that you didn't like work out or anything, bro, you're a freaking mutant.

Because you're a strongish. You're like, oh, it's pretty strong. Like, you're a strong as shit to wrestle with, man. That's just how. When I was 19. Speaking of being strong. Yeah. Now that I'm speaking of that,

so when we were lifting, we were all trying to get jacked. So whatever. I guess there's nothing. I don't know if you necessarily brought this from the Eastern block, but Drago taught us this thing or would do this thing where we would lift

when you're getting when you're getting your lift on he had this primal this primal noise so whatever like the platoon was in a gym somewhere overseas

you'd just hear guys going yacht actually in Iraqis every platoon came in who came through because I was staying there but the platoon's road

through Bargna. So everybody was living with art. Ats! Yeah. And so, but every single paternalist I said, okay, Drago, we are screaming the ads for the fucking mask here.

What that the fuck means? Ah, it's like, I don't know. It's like, it means everything, you know? Is it good? Ah, it's good. You know? Does it suck? Ah, sucked.

Sacked. So it means everything. I was talking to my kids and I was like, oh yeah, my. my friends coming on the podcast today and they're like oh whatever they don't care but then I was like this is the guy that originally said aught because when my kids were to work out I'd be like hey look when you're going to go for that big clean you got to get fired up what you got to do is give yourself a little ahst so speaking of yachts yeah well that there's in powerlifting

there's that there's that or some version of that yeah and there's always that at the end maybe there's like a physiological technique for that tightens up when you you if you're going to do it, it tightens up kind of your, your, uh, your posterior chain, right? Like you got to make your whole, your whole like rib cage kind of at. Yeah. Like if you do it hard, everything's going to get tight. Straighten up that spinal area. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, okay, so there's a method.

That's, that has a name for it when you basically, you know, no, no. But also when you are beating somebody up and you are this ass to hate this, it's scarce them even more. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, fully. But that, there is a technique.

That technique has a name, like to tighten up everything. It's almost like there's a breath hold scenario in there. Like a brace. I can call it brace for it or something? No, it's like an eerie. It's an odd word. I forget what it is. But when you say that's, that's like a, it's like you're not totally holding your breath.

You're giving in a little air. It's kind of like, you know, when you get, you know, those, what do you call the blood pressure things? You know, you pump it, pump it, pump it, and then you let out a little bit. It's kind of like that kind of thing. Anyway, I think it's a furrow technique. It doesn't block completely your blood. breathing. It's just, yeah, it's kind of gives you that extra pressure that

you need, but you still have that pressure valve. Yes, it's true, yeah. So maybe that's just how you kind of grew up in your mind. It became very natural. That's probably what happened. It worked. I think for all of us, because all the guys

in the weather team 5, 7, or whatever team showed up there, they all end up with AST. Makes you a little bit stronger. Actually, I got to call on a long time ago. I said, I go, what the fuck that asked me? So people are always asking me, and I don't know what to tell them.

I said, it means everything, dude. Just miss. Oh, hell yeah. It means nothing, but it means everything. Yeah. Yeah. You got to take a little deeper. When I was in college, I got knee surgery because it blew up my ACL.

And before I got surgery, I was like, okay, what's the recovery time and all this? And they were like, you know, it depends. And they asked me, are you Polish? Or do you have any Polish blood? And I said, no, why? It said, because Polish people tend. to heal faster. So they,

this is literally what the doctor told me, Polish and Samoan. So how they didn't ask you if you were Samoan? They did. Oh, okay. They asked you both. Yeah, but Drago doesn't have someone.

You bring this up. Less relevant. We'll just say, I'm just saying his durability may be attributed to his genetic, you know, scenario. I look at the barrage time

and maybe hopefully that will help me get through, but also the, I think, attitude. It was never like, I remember we see it before the Halloween, or during the Hell Week. I said, so why you are here?

Why would you come to Bards and stuff? Well, I want to try to be the best seal, the best guy. I tried to be a seal. I tried this, I tried that. So they came to me, I said, I'm not fucking trying anything. I'm here to be a seal. I just will be a seal unless I get injured or kick me out. So I'm not trying.

I'm just on my way to be a seal. Just doing. They kind of liked it, but I got beat up for that. Definitely got a beat down for that one. Makes sense. What do we got, man? Um, either way, we, yes, we are on the path. Um, so on this path, not all of us are quite as durable.

Or maybe we are, I don't know, but we got supplementation, Jocko fuel. So we got stuff for your joints, joint warfare. We have a review. We have an automatic review. Drago has been drinking the DAC Savage drink. And what, what do you think? I'm addicted to it. I, for many reasons.

is the taste of it, because I was telling you earlier about those candies in Poland. They said the specific taste of candies that were so rare that you can actually trade this candy between the kids. And there was like a caramel white candy within the... So this is it. This is that candy which I was always addicted. It's like Dr. Pepper. When I had the first Dr. Pepper, I say, holy shit, this is America.

We were struggling up there to have one candy like this and here. go to the machine and get yourself one. There you go. So I love the taste. So it tastes like America. What? It tastes like America. There you go.

It's odd because on the way down here I was thinking about it. You know like a regular, we'll call it, for lack of a better term, a traditional energy drink. Oh, an old poisonous energy drink? So exactly right. So poisonous, right? And here's the weird thing. Everyone knows that. It's so weird how everyone knows that.

Like if they say, okay, so let's say you just did some jiu-jitsu, you just worked out or something. And you're like, man, I'm thirsty or whatever, you know, let me go whatever. Now I need drinks. Yeah. You're like, you're not going to the soda machine. You're not getting some soda pop. You're not getting an energy, like an energy drink, traditional one. That sounds like the last thing you want to drink.

Yeah. But meanwhile. Meanwhile, you can get America in a can. Out. Not only are you kind of in the mood for it sometimes. Like right after like a hard workout, it's actually good for. for you. Yeah. But isn't it weird how?

Everyone just knows that that an energy drink is bad for you. It's a known, it's a known thing. It's mainstream already. Yeah. It's crazy. Check. Well, if you want to get those, if you want to get some joint warfare for your joints, if you want to get krill oil for your joints, if you want to get some, what, vitamin D three.

Yeah, which is all kinds of other. Also very good for you for many reasons. Mulk, which is protein, disguised as dessert. It's true. Anyways, you can get all this stuff at jacofuel.com or you can get, you can get the drinks at Wawa out on the East Coast or you can get the stuff at the vitamin shop. Yep. All available there. And consider getting the subscription.

So origin USA.com. You want a subscription to this stuff? You can save some money. Free shipping, by the way. Well, that's kind of a big deal. It's not even a by the way. That's almost the primary reason. Okay.

Maybe the primary reason is we don't want to not have what we want when we need. need it. Yes. But another good reason is it's expensive to ship stuff. Yeah. But if you subscribe shipping's free and that's cool. Boom and you get it every month where when you need you you don't run out. No, big thing. Doesn't seem like a big thing but try to run out. Are you going to know it's going to be a big thing. Anyway, origin USA.com. That's where you can sign up, right? That's pretty much the main spot. Yep. What is it? What is it? OriginUSA.com. That's the spot right there. Also at origin USA.com is jujitsu stuff. So we talked

about jihitsu briefly. We could have talked more Oh yeah. But, you know. But effective. Yes, very effective. But yeah, you want some Guise, American made, geese, rash guards, other jihitsu stuff, other athletic stuff too. Yeah. Origin USA.com. Yeah, made in America, by the way. So,

Drago, I haven't really dove into this with you, but we are, we now have a company where we are making products in America. We're making jihitsu geese. We're making rash guards. We're making boots. We're making jeans. We're making everything in America.

I know that because I was following you. Oh, right on. Yeah. Well, the freaking crazy thing is like, like, for instance, jeans. Everyone gets a pair of whatever name brand jeans, and they think that they're getting an iconic American gene, but they're not. They're actually getting genes that are made in communist countries. That's where they're made.

So we don't like that. We like our genes. to come from America made by hardworking people so origin USA dot com a lot yes

yes also on that same sort of tip let me direct your attention to jaco store dot com this is where you can get you know more apparel more representative directly

of the path so discipline equals freedom good all these things that's where you can get it we have a subscription situation going on as well. It's a good one. A little bit different designs, but still

applicable. It's just FYX. So you can get this thing. It's called the shirt locker if you want to get one of these cool t-shirts. Here's the thing, because this is the reason to bring this up, but someone went online and was like that you posted something, and they're like, hey, none of these t-shirts are on the store on jocco store.com.

Yes, and no. Right. Well, explain. So people do understand. Yes, they are on jocco store, but they're only through the subscription scenario the shirt locker so that's the only place you can get them it again like if you do i mean if you even care about like the difference or whatever it's just they're the designs a little bit we'll just say they're a little bit more creative from time to time nonetheless um you know they're a little bit different they're cool they're fun uh you will get a new one every month

boom there it is there you go uh you can subscribe to this podcast you can subscribe to some other podcast we got the the unraveling podcast with Daryl Cooper we got the grounded podcast we got the warrior kid podcast there's new episodes out by the way yes sir I was really slow in getting those out but they're out you can get your warrior kids listen to those you can also you can also join the underground jaco underground jocco underground dot com where we go into a little bit more detail a little bit of behind the scenes research yeah also some good that a lot because some people ask like hey what do you guys do Q&A yeah feel you know I I'm wondering about

this and this I want good questions but yes the answer is yes we do do the Q&A but it's on the underground exclusively to the underground maybe maybe not but currently we don't know yeah well here's the deal we had people that signed up to be on the underground that subscribe to the underground that asked questions so we answered their questions on one of the first underground Q&As so anyways go to jocco underground.com if you want to subscribe to that if you can't afford it costs $8.18 a month by the way if you can't afford that look we still want you to get the information you can email assistance at jocco underground.com

we'll take care of you we got a YouTube channel where Echo puts videos up that he creates that he put more to by the way oh are we got some new conceptual ideas okay so if you're waiting for Echo's conceptual ideas they should be produced within the next 24 months because his work ethic is well it's solid dude it's not It's not. It's not. He doesn't create videos and say, varying levels of

happening from. Maybe you should, maybe you should go home, get in front of your editing suite and just go axt and maybe we'll get some more freaking videos done. I want to get soft.

I'd be like, that's what he's doing. Yeah. I think of it. Yeah. If you got, they're legit. You know,

that odds actually is part of my, uh, the dragos accelerated English goes for terrorists. That's the main, That's the main motivator. People hear that one time, and they're telling you where their first born child is. This is good advice.

Thank you. They speak really good English after that. Psychological warfare. You can get that on any MP3 platform. We got Flipside Canvas. Flipside Canvas.com. My brother, Dakota Meyer, Marine Corps. He's got a company where he's making things to hang on your wall.

We got a bunch of books. Okay, the first book that I want to talk to you about is the book that I started off this pipeline. I took one little section. The book is called, and you're going to have to help me with all this Drago. So the book is called Camp Posey. The writer, his name is, how do I say it? Novel.

Novel. So novel was a guy in the Grom, in the Polish Grom, special operations guy. I don't know too much about him because I can't read Polish. But the book is available, and I ordered it, but I haven't gotten it yet. It's available on Amazon. So if you want to get this book, look up Camp Posey. And I did look through it. There's pictures of us too.

I mean, because he was deployed with us. When you were there and I was there, so it's our pictures. Yep, there's pictures of where we were. There's pictures of Camp Jenny Posey, which is freaking brings back all kinds of memories for us. Nostalgia. We were doing so much good work out of there. A bunch of pictures in it, and you can get an English version. So check that out, Camp Posey.

Have you read it? Oh, I have read it. Yes, I read in both. I read in Polish and English. It's very accurate. I think it gives you the perspective from the other guys who are not part of the SEALs, but they are really good. How they perceive SEAL teams.

How they see us, what do we do in Iraq and how they work. So it's pretty good insight and their perspective on some. sales from the different vantage point. And then what about this other book that you brought today, which I haven't seen? So what's this called? This is, the title of translation is, my 13 years in Grom. Okay. So this is the, it's not my 13 years.

This is this guy. Does that say 13 right there? Yes, 13. That's exactly. There's 13 in Polish. So that's what he said. My 13ashchelad, Yed not so that's what he said. I used to hear that over the radio sometimes.

When you wouldn't switch that dial, he'd be like, Brig-D-D-Rae, right? He'd be like, Drago. Drago, please, bro. It's us. You are on the English channel, Dragos. Switch mode. So this guy was with us, too.

Actually, the Hame and the Naval, novel, they were together in, I think, at the same time there. So this is, he wrote this book much earlier. And the same thing. He just, his view on the Iraq War, on our working together

with sales and how this thing, you know, I think it's very interesting, especially if you want to look about us, about sales, and how others perceive us, other forces. Do you know if this, is this book available on Amazon? Is it available in English? It is also available in Amazon. It is also, I will send you the links. It is also available in English on Amazon. And the English title is also 13 years? My 13 years. My 13 years at the ground. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm just flipping through this one. This one's got a bunch of pictures that look very familiar as well. Yeah. I mean, those pictures taken when we were there. Yeah, that's freaking awesome. All right. So we got these books.

Check these books out. And Drago and I already talked about hopefully getting one of those guys or both those guys on the podcast at some point. If they can come over here from Poland or maybe, you know, might we make an exception to do a not live. like not face to face, we have never done that before. We've never done a virtual podcast. Maybe we would do it for Poland. Like Skype or something.

Yeah, we haven't done it. Actually, one of them, I think it will be traveling here too. That's all we need to know. That'll be awesome if actually he could travel and tell his perspective on Iraq war why Poland got involved in it and why Poland was standing by our side in that war. And why is Poland standing by our side? So it would be good to hear from that. That'd be awesome.

A bunch of other books, too. I got a new book coming out called Final Spin. You can pre-order it right now. If you want the first a dish, I don't think we've talked about that yet on Final Spin. If you want the first, have we? If you want that first a dish. I think you mentioned it last time, I think.

But yeah, you didn't go. Look, don't be coming up to me in whatever. When the book comes out, two months after it comes out and you roll up to me, hey, chocolate, I got your book. And I look at it. I'm going to know. You're all going to know. We're all going to know.

We're all going to know. You got the second. the dish. Pre-order that one right now. Leadership Strategy and Tactics Field Manual. The Code Devaluation of Protocol. Discipline equals Freedom Field Manual. Way of the Warrior Kid.

One, two, three, and four. Check those out, Mikey and the Dragons, which is apparently the best kid's book ever. That's what I've heard. And then about faced by David Hackworth. I wrote a forward on a new version. We're honored to do that.

Extreme ownership, the dichotomy leadership. That's the OG of Jocko Books that I wrote with my brother Laif Babin. We got a consulting company, Eshalonfront. Go to Ashlamfront.com. We got EF Online. If you want online virtual training, go to EFonline.com. If you want to come see us live, go to Extreme Ownership.com.

We got three events this year because we're having three events this year. So if you want to come, go to Extreme Ownership.com. It's a leadership seminar live in person. We also have an event coming up called EF Battlefield, where we walk the Battle of Gettysburg. We walked the battlefield there and talk about the lessons that were learned. This is an unbelievable event. We sold, we were only going to do one.

We sold it out. We're doing two now, hopefully. So if we can get things scheduled, we're going to make that happen. Go to Eschelonfront.com slash events if you want to come to that. And if you want to help service members, active and retired. If you want to help their families, if you want to help Gold Star families, check out Mark Lee's mom. She has her own organization.

And if you want to help, you want to donate, you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org. And if you want to hear more from us, which is highly unlikely at this point, but if you want to, you can find us on the interwebs, on Twitter, on Instagram, on Facebook, Echo is at Echo Charles. I am out, Jocko Willink. Now, if you want to talk to Drago, he's not on those platforms. I'm bound for that.

His free speech has been suppressed, but don't worry. He's on the underground. He's making things happen. You can check him out at connectzing.com. I'm also on there now, too, because, well, if Drago was there and he's hanging out, I'm there, and I'm going to be hanging out too. Echo, you got any final thoughts? No, that's it.

And I'm good to see you again. We met briefly. downtown in my nightclub days with my good friend Jeremy. And he introduced me to you back a long time ago. It was like almost 20 years, like long time ago. Jeremy first can say hi to him. This great guy. Oh, yeah.

And, yeah, I remember Draga. I was like, ooh, okay, all right. He seems very nice, but he could probably get nuts. So good, good to see you again. Thank you. This was nice. You did again, and it was great to be here. Drago, any other closing thoughts, man?

I say maybe make a small prayer in our mind for those guys who are no longer with us. And maybe a few seconds of silence to honor them. Yeah, and I don't know when this podcast is actually coming out. But today is March 20th. Today is Mark Lee's birthday. And, I mean, just an incredible man, incredible. incredible seal, incredible husband, incredible son, and miss him and the rest of the boys every day. So happy birthday to Mark. And Drago, man, thanks for your service. Thanks for your service to the teams.

Thanks for your service to the Navy. Thanks for having my back countless times. and thank you for your service to America. And beyond that, thanks for your service to the ultimate cause of freedom in the world. You can't repay freedom. There's people who ask me, thank you. This is the other way around Jacko, actually. There's me who's supposed to say thank you to you,

to every America for my freedom. What I did in the teams, in the Navy, it's just a token. You cannot repay free. freedom. The freedom is not for sale. There is nothing you can do to reciprocate that freedom that that I got from America. I'm a free man and that's awesome feeling. It's something that I will never be able to repay and I just I believe that just keep serving in any capacity I can to our great America is important. So I'm not done.

yet I've finished my military career, but I'm still serving. I'm still going to make America a better and a safer place. Amen to that. And I know I will always be proud to call you, brother. And to all the other people out there, especially those that are out there wearing the cloth of the nation, thank you for protecting the most precious thing that we have, and that is our freedom. And the same goes for our police and law enforcement. firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service,

and all the other first responders out there. Thank you for protecting us here at home. And everyone else, just remember that freedom is not free and we cannot take it for granted. There is evil in the world. There is oppression in the world. And we must be on guard for... authoritarian and tyrannical leaders and like drago we must be willing to stand up and fight for our freedom and until next time this is drago and echo and jaco out