Jocko Podcast - 391: From Political Prisoner to U.S. Navy Seal. Drago Dzieran. The Pledge To America.

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

>Join JOCKO UNDERGROUND<Retired Navy SEAL Drago Dzieran takes readers behind the scenes of his incredible life, from an impoverished childhood in Communist-controlled Poland to his time as a political prisoner, to his twenty years as a member of the United States military’s most elite fighting force.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 391 with Kerry Helton and me Jock Willink. Good evening, Carrie. Good evening. We moved out just after 0-200. We functioned seamlessly as a unit pushing through the quiet pitch black night toward the compound rising out of the dusty Iraqi streets. Our orders were to capture or kill the target. We had confirmation that the terrorist was in the building. The assault element, including myself, scaled the same.

six-foot concrete fence in perfect silence while the designated security element circled the walled compound to make sure the terrorist escape was impossible. We hit the ground with barely a rattle. Within moments, I was shouldered up against the outer wall of a building just inside the fence, a string of men with me. With practiced movements, I set a breaching charge on the door, and on my signal, my security element and I began to walk. Walk back toward the designated space around the corner where the rest of the assault element were ready were already taking cover The moment we began to move however I realized with a sinking feeling that the reconnaissance images I'd studied earlier hadn't shown the mound of rubble in the same corner between the wall and fence

Shit there was barely enough space left to cover most of the assault element I wasn't going to fit. And there was no time to scale the concrete fence and take cover. It was a split-second decision. I backed myself as far from the door as possible and then dropped to my knees. I covered my face with my M-4 curling up to protect as much of my body as possible. Based on the careful calculations for safe standoff, I knew I would still be relatively safe as far as the shock wave was concerned. I learned early on from my previous direct action missions to calculate the safe distance from breaching charges in two ways. One normally per the manual and one for situations like this for me. The second calculation was important for times when I may not make it to cover but needed to have an absolute minimum safe distance.

It was a distance from the breaching charge that could cause injury but should not be incapacized. I was hoping to never use it once I knew everyone else had cover I quietly passed the call over the radio turning steel turning steel turning steel and I detonated the charge on the door the blast blue fragments of the door out right over my head with a thunderous sound that rattled my skull a shock wave that felt like it lifted me off my knees slammed me back onto the ground I yelled open, open, open, even as I tried to regain my footing only to fall back on my hands and knees bleeding from my nose and one ear. The breach blew the door wide open and the rest of the assault element was forced to shove me out of their way as they rushed in the building through the smoke. I don't remember pain in the moment.

Pain is the last thing on your mind when you're in the middle of an operation. I rallied quickly enough to join my team to clear the building, going room to room on autopilot, We caught our suspect without much struggle and we returned to base on the high of a successful mission before the sun was even up. And that right there is an excerpt from a new book that is out right now. It just came out. It's called The Pledge to America. It's written by Thomas Drago-Zeran. And that is actually a little bit of an excerpt from my life as well because I had a

the honor to be on missions like that with Drago in 2003, 2004 in Baghdad, and throughout Iraq. I also served in a platoon with Drago at SEAL Team 2, a strike platoon where we served on the USS John F. Kennedy and went over to the Persian Gulf during the millennium. And it was an awesome time that we had. And it was awesome to get to know Drago. and he has one of the most unique stories in the world. And I know that's a bold statement, but he, when you hear it, you'll agree with me. It's one of the most unique stories in the world.

And he's sharing this complete story in that new book that's out, The Pledge to America. And it's an honor to have Drago, my brother, once again, he was here, podcast 276, have him back again to talk through, this book. Drogo, welcome back, bro. It's good to see you, man. Thank you for inviting me. Thank you so much. It's nice to be back. Absolutely. Well, even when you read this event, it just, yeah, I just remember those times. There were great times. I miss those times.

Yeah, you sent me some videos and just seeing, it was like, one of the ones you sent me was just us We're kind of the vehicles are lined up. Guys are getting in and out of vehicles. We're kind of having a powwow about the finite or the final details of an operation. And, you know, that's what we were doing almost on a daily basis. And you could see that everyone was in that mode. Everyone just knew what was going on. Everyone was confident.

We were so engaged in those missions all the time. And what a little, what a little, like, window into the past. to see what it looked like. Because now, you know, I'm sitting there watching a video of it. You're like, man, that really happened. And that happened over and over and over again. Dude, the book is incredible. The book is, there's so much detail in it.

And, you know, it's weird. But when you would tell me stories like this about your past, we would kind of like laugh about them. You know what I mean? It's just basic team guy humor. It was curiosity. And it was kind of like, what, that's weird. That's funny, you know?

I was like, how the hell did you end up in prison and stuff like this? But, you know, we're all, because we're mission-oriented, we're focused. And that was just like funny story to say, maybe to just take us away, take off the edge a little bit between missions and stuff. But, you know, I think, and I was the same way. I didn't think much of it. people were always telling me you need to write this in the book, you need to write in the book. And I was like, oh, well, maybe, yeah, one day. But I think it is important to read it, I think, today, because our country, I think, needs unity.

I think we need to go back to basics. And then look at America again, how great country it is, how great country we have. I want this book to be a prism, to be a lens that you can see even closer and better the virtues of America, how special country it is. And that's just, that was my goal that after reading this, knowing about the communism and socialism and other cruel political system, you will appreciate our country, our America more. And, yeah, I'm kind of scared that it start looking slowly, more like a mirror from the place, of the place I escape from. But again, we need unite. Our country will not move on for the better future if we are divided. So I hope it will help people understand the greatness and uniqueness of America.

Yeah, the greatness and uniqueness and also the threat. it's very sobering to read your story and hear your story. And again, I had kind of almost like a cartoon image of what you had grown up, you know, where you'd grown up and what you'd been through. And even the last time you were on my podcast, I was listening to it again. And you're saying things like, oh, so I was in prison. And you're like, think about that. Think about that for a second.

Oh, you know, we weren't sure if we would live or die. And, you know, for you and me as grown seals, like, okay, yeah, we were on deployment. But you were a young person and you weren't alone. There was thousands and thousands of people that were arrested, that there was people that were murdered, people that were killed. All these things happened. And there's a certain level of detachment from it when you and I as grown men are kind of sitting around. And we're talking about something that's in your past.

And I just never really, like I said, even when you were on the podcast last time, it didn't weigh as heavily on me as it did when. when I read it, when I read it in this book, it's very sobering. And the book makes it so real. And the fact that you were able to get out of there, the fact that you were able to get asylum, the fact that you were able to escape

the Polish people's republic. The Polish people's republic. They just changed the name. They made a little change to the flag. And there was rats everywhere. Yes. Yes. and you never knew what is waiting for you behind the corner. And this is, there was the life in typical socialist country.

Because I would like to make a point here that none of these countries behind Iron Curtain, none of these, not Poland, not East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, not even Soviet Union were ever communist countries. We refer to them like this. I even in my book say the same thing, sometimes refer them to the communist. But the bottom line, the fact is that they were not communist countries.

They were socialist states. They were socialist states run by communists, like my father, high-ranking communist and official in Polish government. So I know this a little bit from both sides from behind. I had the chance to peek behind the curtain of the socialist state how it works a little bit more than most of the polls had the chance to see. Well, I want to go through some of the book here.

It's, like I said, it's a heavy read. You know, a lot of parts of it, well, we'll get into it. But I want to start at the beginning with where you started. And you say this, my life began in October 1960, 15 years after the end. of World War II. So that's closer than you and I are right now from September 11th, right? Yes. So World War II was fresh in the memories when you grew up.

Poland was still a place of desolation and despair. People were still trying to rebuild their lives after the Second World War, but this time under the terror and totalitarian state run by communists and Marxists like my father. Yes. That's where I spent the first five years of my life, or the first years of my life, amid the rusting ruins of the old bombed-out Poland and cheap scaffolding of the new. Yes, and there was nothing unusual for me.

I thought this is the way the life is. I didn't know any better. I didn't know any different. And I remember playing in those ruined buildings, sometimes trying to destroy it too. I thought it was fun. You know, we didn't have any, but the supervising us,

we just cut loose and go. So we were dirty. So many times I came like almost like all painted in tar because we're playing with tar. Our hands, we walk into the barrel, then our legs above our knees even, all in tar. So my mom just had a heart attack

every time she saw us coming up from these excursions. But I thought it was fun, you know. We're always dirty too. But my mom had to clean us. quite often. You say we were, with me, we're my parents. Stanislav, is that my sonnizloff? Yeah.

Stanislav and Florentina. Yes, that's my mother. Following my arrival, my brother Slavic. Yes. And my sister Justina. Yes. Thankfully. My pronunciation of Polish is.

No, it was good. It's good. Absolutely good. Together, we lived in a standard multifamily home, a two-floor by the communist build in a town called Zilona Gora. Yes, it's translating, it's a green hill. It's a beautiful town.

You know, it's like, I think it was funded in like 1,200 year. So it is yeah, it's very beautiful. Has a lot of trees. The only thing what was sticking out for me was the gray buildings of so, they call it like

socio-architecture, socialist architecture. That's what they call it in Poland. Everything is gray, everything is the same. It looked like the project, projects, project houses maybe in our country, but kind of much worse because, again, everything is decrepit and everything is being...

I mean, you can see it on YouTube some of the videos from the communist times in Poland. Even I'm watching sometimes, and I gasp, I was like, good God, I can't believe I live through that. But, yeah, you know, it's a... I have this distance now living in prosperity, living in a beautiful country as a free man. It's a little bit different now perspective than it was then. Yeah, you didn't know any better.

You didn't know any different. We lived downstairs, which had two rooms for us and a third room for an unrelated single man, a single bathroom and one rudimentary kitchen. We all shared on the first floor upstairs. There was a duplication of downstairs floor plan with another unrelated family occupied. Which is crazy, right? You're just living with Randoes. Now it is crazy.

It's like somebody moved to your house. The government came and said, okay, this guy is going to leave with you right now. Or this family we're going to put into dead room. So that room is no longer yours. They're going to leave. You're going to be sure of your bathroom and kitchen and everything that you have up there. So for me, it was like I was born to it, right? It didn't bother me.

But my mother, she was crying about it. Say, this is not the way to leave for people. and my father was of course communist he was afraid to say anything he was even afraid to send us to church that guy still remember i was passed like a football through the window because he didn't let us go didn't know he won't ask kids to go to church because he was afraid he's going to lose his job the faith the family values are totally incompatible with the socialism that was the democratic that's what they call it democratic socialism in Poland at the time.

So they always talk about democracy, but so how democratic socialism is great. And I didn't know any better until I start eventually growing up and learning more about what is really going on in a socialist communist Poland. Call it Communism because everybody says, everybody calls it.

Everywhere I read, it is being referred as a communist state. But again, like I say later, none of them were. There's a reason why they were not so communist state. And we can dwell on a little bit more. So unlike in communist state, run by a typical clean communism, in socialist state, you do have private property. You do have private business.

You can own, but the majority of the key infrastructure is owned by government, is ruled by government. Same with the police and military, everything is run by the government. But you can have some small properties. Of course, you know how it ends up. If you are part of the government, go along with them, they will let you exist and keep your little business. But if you sway away a little bit or you are not convenient for social estate, they will ruin you. They will just take your business away or they will stop the supplies or you won't be able to make any business.

So they control everything. And this is what happened to my family. Now people say, well, there was a communist system. You guys didn't have a private property. Well, we did have a private property, but the government ultimately owned it. And in case of my uncle who, oh, he despised communists and the whole state. The concrete guy, right? Yeah, the concrete guy.

Yeah, so he decided to, he's seen how poorly the social system operates. So he decided to just compete with them. He knew that he was expert, so he started building those brakes and selling the bricks to builders, bricks, the cedar blocks. And to the point that some of the private businesses stop doing. stop buying from government because basically he was competing directly with the brickmakers and the silver block makers run by the government state by the social estate. So the police came in.

I told him how you need to scale down because you are competing with government here and you need to stop. He said, I can't. You see, I just got the loan. I bought the truck. I bought this. And I'm barely making end with end. but just I'm right, this is how I run my company.

And they say, if you don't scale down, your business will not prosper, and he didn't. So the anti-fascists, that's what they call themselves in Poland, but they were socialist guns. They were just people who, they tried to protect the society from Nazism and fascism. And my uncle, because he had his own business, he was labeled fascists. the Nazi. So they came and destroyed his machines. They wrecked his business. And then when my father went to police compliant, he knew who it was because they usually, the communist state, the socialist state, use those naive, young guys, young people from schools, from factories. They organized them in like, you know, we need to be patriots. We are patriotic. There is a fascist up there. Let's, you know,

take care of that. And they went, they destroyed his business. And when my uncle went complained about it, the police said they arrested him, they beat him up, they tortured him for a night and sent him home and say, if you do it again, we do it again. So my uncle fixed that, fixed the machine, start doing the same thing again, and things repeat itself. Again, I think it was like three times until he finally didn't have any resources to rebuild it. And they did, they run his business. But this is nothing unusual. describing here, it was quite common in Poland. If you didn't go along with the socialist state, with the ideology, with the party line, the communist party line,

those socialists run by communists, mostly, and then they ruin your business, they destroy you, or if they couldn't do that, they kill you. There's a lot of, there are graves across Poland, and not only Poland, all socialist states right now, where a lot of these people who opposed socialism in Poland, they were murdered. And that thing didn't happen just overnight. What happened is after Second World War, when socialism was brought on Russian bionettes,

I shouldn't say Russian, Soviet Union bionets. We need to distinguish the Russian people and Soviet Union and communists. But so when it was brought to Poland, not everybody who was deemed possible not sympathetic, sympathizing with the socialism and communist party was under observation. I mean, there was a totalitarian system suddenly thrown on Poland.

And this is something that we need to be careful in America, we just need to make sure that doesn't happen here, because it is very easy to fall into that thing. So people who came back from the... West who were fighting the Adolf Hitler and the Hitler Socialist Germany, National Socialist Germany, they were arrested. Most of them were arrested. Even the heroes, even like Polish ace with most of the kills in Second World War, on Polish side, his name is Stanislav Skalski. he returned to Poland after Second World War.

He was arrested. He was sentenced to death on espionage charge. So most of those prominent heroes of Second World War were sentenced to death. Not every sentence was carried out, but at that time, many of them were sentenced to death and on espionage charge or working for the West or sabotaging something or just being not good citizen. And eventually came to the point that if you steal a food, you could be sentenced to death. And that sentence is carried out for people, let's say, selling a food on black market or manipulating food in Poland. Yeah, so even though there was a facade that you could have private property and you could run your own business,

ultimately the government had full control and they would impose their control and make people fall into line. Absolutely. There was no such thing like you permanently own anything. You may think you do until that you are proved wrong by communists. And it's like my father said, you know. Because I went for a year to leave with him because my mom couldn't afford to feed all three of us. So my father was very adamant about it.

He said, look, the socialism is such a great system. For some reason, people do not like to subscribe to it. So we need to make people aware how great the system is. When they still don't buy into it, we basically need to cancel them out of the society. We need to just silence them and say, what if that doesn't work? Then we need to physically silence them. That's my father's words.

And there was nothing unique at the time. That's how my father perceive his role in society building this better, more humane, socially state, that everybody gets equal part, everybody contributes equally to it. And even that doesn't work, but they realize that does not work. people don't want to vote for them. So the next thing came fraudulent elections, and next thing they came to just counseling people. So there's a lot of authors, poets, painters,

you know, the people who make statues, they were totally removed actors. They were canceled, they were removed from, they were not allowed to play in the theaters. They were not allowed to play in the movies. And their names were silenced, even famous people who were well known in Poland at the time, they were silenced through censorship to the point that like the next people,

four or five years later, nobody knew their name. Nobody remember who they were. And they were very, again, at one time, prominent and very famous people. So this is the... What we need to understand is, that eventually people realize that this whole socialism is a hoax is just the tool for the government to control people and people revolt. So they don't vote.

They don't vote for them. So now the socialists, they need to do something about it because if they give away the power, the people will eat them alive. They will hang them from the Latin posts. And we wanted to hang these communes from the Latin posts. If you could get away with it for all the perversion, depravity they thrown on Polish society. But eventually, this is what I have to resolve to the fraudulent election, to the terror. And the only saving grace, I think for Poland and other countries,

is that Joseph Stalin and the Polish communists did not have access to computers on the scale we have now. They did not understand social science. So they resort to terror. because that's what socialism eventually has to end up to keep people in line. They missed one thing. If Joseph Stalin flowed Poland with people with no loyalty to Poland. So if he would bring people from different republics, if he would bring people to Poland other countries and float the countries with people with no loyalty to these countries,

There would be no Poland, there would be no Czechoslovakia, Romania. There would be one big Soviet Union. Yeah, I can't even imagine like the, like your, and you, so you get into this. So your father, he's a card-carrying communist. Of course he is. With Poland, with the Polish government. And he's working for the Polish government. Your mom, on the other hand, hates communism, hates Marxism, hates socialism, hates socialism.

She You say this She saw the communist regime as nothing more than occupiers by a different name like the Nazis during World War II and the Germans during World War I She was a devout Catholic too, which didn't sit well with my father who believed per the party line was necessary for communists to be atheists So you've got that going on in your family Your father doesn't want to spend any money on you You do say this We couldn't afford to buy the state required school uniforms

And our grandma and accomplished seamstress made them for us Instead, the richer kids were quick to point out That our uniforms were not purchased and were homemade Most of the kids at this time were wearing these homemade uniforms And I decided to beat the rich kid Who opened his mouth first about the uniforms. They left me alone and never heard about my uniform again. That's what I started learning, the violence works

At least in Poland at the time. They wouldn't work today. Today, Poland is a different country But at the time, it worked very well. But this isn't just odd here one thing when you say my mother was totally opposing the socialism and socialist state because she understood it. She understood very well. She knows what happened in Soviet Union before the Second World War. But my father's mother hate the socialism and communists too. And I talk about it. I remember she was the one who taught me how to pray to God. And we always pray to God for, you know, to be good. to everybody, to us, to help us get through these hard times, and to get the fucking communist out of the country, as fast as they can.

So, so, so, so, so, so, so the truth was like, my father didn't know until when he heard it, he freaked out. You got in here, this is, this is how you got to pray with your grandma, for health, happiness, and liberation. Kneeling next to me, my grandmother would say things like, please send the communists back to where they came from, and please take the red Satan away from Poland. And I would repeat word for word after her.

After repeating words a few times, I had to ask, who are these people? They are evil. They kill people and keep people in prison. Real demons. Yeah. And for me, for a young kid, you know, learning about the hell, about the demons. I thought that in this case, I had to actually ask her, ask my grandmother. So grandma, they have those horns and tail, the pitchfork and stuff.

She said, well, I said, not that you can see. But those are that type of people just what you describe. They just hide. But you can recognize them by their deeds, the atrocities they commit against other people. You see, like this is like my mother's family was very humanitarian side, humane. My father's family, his parents, my grandparents, they were. My father was not. He was totally sold out.

I can see why, but we can talk about it, but he was like totally sold out to the depravity and perversion of socialism. This, I can imagine you got this one kind of argument. They would get, they would get in fight your father and grandmother. And you say here, he'd demand that she never talk about communism and socialism. Don't talk to my son about that. That's you. We're building a socialist paradise for all of us.

I am not evil. In response, my grandmother would become very still. She would rattle off the names of people she knew who had been imprisoned, disappeared, or murdered from memory, dozens of them years after the fact. Yeah. Yep. Those names mean nothing to me at the time as a kid.

I didn't understand a lot of that stuff. I was just too young to understand it. But I knew there was something wrong and that my grandmother, my father's mother, was very adamant about it and she never approved what my father was doing

until she died so yeah that's kind of sad this is how socialism tears the families and friends and the fabric of society very quickly which is one of their goals

they have to they have to because this is for them to stay at power it is nobody will vote for them. But if you can turn one citizen against another citizen, it's much easier. You cater to one, you cater to another one, and you cater to actually to both. And both who are hoping that, yeah, you'll be with them against the other people and the other side of things the same, the same. And this is how you end up eventually with being the broker between these two groups that dislike each other

or they work against each other. So the socialists, the communists, will place themselves in the middle and being those ones, the brokering the peace. And this is how they... And even that didn't want them to get elected, so they had to result to fraudulent elections.

And then once they borrow themselves in society, once they establish the pattern of fraudulent elections, you can get them out. Basically, it took Poland five decades to clean these parasites out of Poland and be free and you can see how Poland

immediately, after just got rid of that socialism, how Poland flourish. I mean, look at the Putin, you know, this guy is, we tend to call this guy an idiot, a stupid. He's not good guy, but his guy is extremely smart. This guy, I wouldn't

call idiot somebody who rebuilt broken empire, put it back together, and is threatening entire West again. So we just need to be careful and don't dismiss the threat from people because we don't like them. We might not like Putin, but he's extremely smart and well versed, and he did a lot to bring Russia back into the picture and start threatening everybody. when you talk about growing up in this system, in the book you say this, the state infiltrated every aspect of our lives. Learning the Russian language, for example, became mandatory when I entered fifth grade. Even at that young age, I was, I was precocious. I openly questioned why we had to learn Russian when there were people who didn't even know Polish fully. After all, the Russians

were occupiers. That didn't go well in my school. My mother was no longer teaching in the same school as me and I was unable and was unable to provide me the usual first line of punishment. So my teacher immediately pulled me out of class and marched me straight to the principal's office. Once I was standing in front of him, he called the police. Yeah. On their way to school, the police grabbed my mom out of her school across town and sat us all down for a talk.

In addition to the uniform police officers, a member of the state security police in plain clothes joined the police during the questioning of my mother. If this happens again, if we hear anti-communist and anti-Polish sentiment, expressed again they said he's going to an orphanage and you'll be facing prison time for failing to teach your children the right way to think that's correct that's what happened when and it was not even political from my side at the time I was just a kid and you're just a kid going I don't want to freaking learn this other language yeah you know I have enough problems with Polish language so what the hell do I learn this something else I would never use and and my mother

rules that tells me it's just a language which is used by the occupies of occupiers of Poland. So it was not that political at the time. I was just being kid and say I don't want to learn that but this is how it ended up. But also if you think about a little bit more, this is the rules and regulation that laws that were in Poland in effect allow the state the state to take the kids away for such reasons that you would never think. My mother would not never think that there are such regulations that would allow us to be placed in state government, state orphanage,

because we are being told not to like socialism or just told that we do not like socialism. And the speed at which the government gets involved in that process From classroom to principal to state police and uniformed officers talking to you and your mother. You know, same day. Oh, some day. There was like 40 minutes, an hour. So the teacher took me out.

The teacher was, she had a Russian name. I think she was one of those Polish Russians. And yeah, she took me to the principal's office. They sent me down there. They called police. And I didn't know that the time. That's the world police is coming. arrest me. No, they came with my mother because they go, they arrested my mother,

detained her, pull her out, bring her in the school and the office and they threatened us. I remember my mom was shaking and I was scared too because I see my mom being so scared. Yeah, and that's how they, that's how they slowly get control and break people because what is your mother? She's like, okay, listen, do I want to lose my son and go to jail? Or am I just going to tell them, hey, be quiet and comply? So a lot of people are like, hey, I don't, I don't have time for this kind of trouble. I don't want to lose my kid and I don't want to go to jail.

Yeah. There's a lot of people like this. We don't need that. Just go and say this. Go along with it. Go along with it. But that creates two different problems then. Once it teaches kids to be this genuine.

It teaches kids to lie and cover it up. And also teaches them that you don't stand up for your rights, for what is right. You just do what is safe. And I remember many times going to school. And my mother always, to me and my siblings, say, do not talk politics at school. Do not say, do not get provoked. Don't say anything that could be taken the wrong way because we may lose our family.

They might separate us. And the state, it did happen. I mean, I got away, but there's some people who didn't. And some people, because of something like this, they lose kids, and if they didn't stray themselves up, they eventually, some of them disappeared. And like the kids stay in orphanage forever until they grew up, never seen parents again. So this is the socialist state. It's the control, the amount of control that government has is so pervasive that even maybe, like my father, maybe he wasn't even. man, he just totally

believe in the socialist system and to implement at any price. So this is just so pervasive. It creates people, basically allow them to justify almost any action,

anything, to protect their ideology. And, you know, we've seen this also in Adolf Hitler's socialist Germany, national socialist Germany, where, you know, if you were just speaking up or you were inconvenient for the Hitler's national, what do you call it, NSDAPA, the Socialist German Workers Party, if you were not convenient for them, you could end up in concentration camp and that eventually

whether there was Adolf Hitler socialist, National Socialist Germany, or Poland, Polish socialist, they both end up socialist Poland, they both end up having concentration camps. And the concentration comes, actually, there's

not the German invention. By the way, about that, this is another socialist state invasion, a Soviet Union. A Soviet Union, there's the Union of Socialist Republic, right? Not Communist Republic. They had the Communist Party, the Communist Party ran that show, just like in Poland. But also for the facade, they had many other political parties in Poland, too, maybe two, three or four other parties. I don't remember their name because they mean so nothing.

They're like nobody even care about them. But they always say, hey, you know, this coalition, we work together to build a better socialism, to build better Poland and, you know, on the graves of opponents of socialism. You also see, like, for instance, in America right now, the educational system, there's parents that are saying, hey, teach my kid how to do reading, writing, and arithmetic. Teach me, that's what, that's what you should do is teach my kid. And they're teaching them all, the whole slew of other things. Oh, God. Yeah. That parents say, hey, actually, I don't, I don't really want you to teach my, my kid that when they're in third grade.

when they're in second grade, when they're in fourth grade. And what I've heard some of the educators saying is, well, you don't get to tell us what we're going to teach your kids. That's exactly my mother was told. That's what I'm saying. In a social estate. Like you, hey, no, Mrs. Zeran, you can't tell us what we're going to teach Thomas. Thomas is our kid now.

So in Poland, if you do that, if you still insist, they will brand you terrorists. You were actually literally branded terrorists. So the kids cannot grow up in a terrorist family. And they didn't tell you that because you oppose social, because you oppose social, if we take your kids, we say, you pretty much, your views are aligned with the terrorist totalitarian, something, and your kids do not belong to you, which we cannot allow your kids to grow up this way. So we as a government, the socialist government, will step in and will provide the education that we need.

It's what's best. It's what's the best for the social state. What they think is best. Right. What they think is best. It's for the best. But you know, the first thing, what people need to remember in those social states, attacks on families of families' values.

It was like, you don't need a wife and a husband. Why would you do that? All it is, what needs to happen is kids need to be learning how to be good citizens. And of course, by that they meant socialist citizens of socialist state. What they mean is obedient slaves. Obedient slaves, yes. And those kids from those family that opposed, they never had the chance to go to college.

That was just that their end of education was at the high school level, the most. Because to get in college at the time to Poland, it was free, but only for the politically aligned kids. And also, during the college, if you deviate, any, you could be removed very quickly if you deviate any from the Socialist Party line. So they have a special point for being member of socialist youth, of Socialist deaths, Communist death. There were points for parents being in the party. There were points for having a family aligned with the Communist Party in Socialist Party in Socialist Poland.

So these are the warning sites. This is something that we were, you know, I'm seeing some of these, many things that you just mentioned. And it really worries me. We need to be very vigilant because it is very easy to fall into the totalitarian government that eventually will tell you what you can, what you cannot do with yourself, with the kids. Then you will be eventually forced to do things, take medications. don't take medications or you will not allow to

take medications because suppose it's not enough, just like happening with them, I describe in the book friend of mine when his mom died basically they they decide not to provide her with medicine not to treat her because she was older. There was very scarce medicine

and they needed for younger people supposedly. I believe more for like party line people. So that's how evil system is. It's not very difficult to implement. All it is, all is needed, just in different people who are afraid to stand up for what is right, who are terrorized easily by the state.

And I think there's a good example for us could be some of these people I describe in Poland at the end of my book, how they were schooling socialists and communists, judges and how they stood up to the totalitarian government. And again, what is happening here kind of a little bit worries me, but we need to be very careful because the first thing that socialists state will want is violence. Violence either way.

They need violence. Well, there's many things. They need villain, but every socialist state will have villain. Poland had a villain, Soviet Union had a villain, Germans had a villain. So everybody in the Soviet Union, there were Kulaks first, the wealthy patients. Then there was doctors. Stalin died during the purge, dead purge. And so didn't follow through quite well.

But in Poland, there were Jews. Then they were educated people. So there were intelligentsia, what they call. So intelligentsia is bad. We need to promote people from this peasant. from workers. If you are coming from intelligence, intelligentsia family, you'll use what you are scrutinize very well. In Germany there was of course Jewish nation. But this is all by the so-called, like my mother called it, relative morality. So your morality is not based in faith,

in something solid. Your morality is based in ideology that can change in politicians' view that we no changes. And this is very dangerous because look what happened in Adolf Hitler's socialist Germany. When he was able to pervert the most civilized nation in Europe at the time into euthanasia of sick people on handicapped people, into concentration cap, into gassing people. Eventually they turn them onto the Jewish people, the exterminating entire nation, trying to do it. So that relative morality is very dangerous. We need to also make sure that we understand it here, not to fall into the relative morality model. And another thing too, like in Poland, they were always saying, you need to be tolerant. You need to be tolerant. Oh, this is intolerant. You can do that. This is intolerant. But I say to it, like my mother always say, an educated

tolerance. It's as dangerous as intolerance. You need to educate yourself what you're about to tolerate before you start actually promoting it and tolerating. And you know, like we would never tolerate

murders, right? But if you subscribe to this relative morality in Adolf Hitler, they did tolerate euthanasia, right? So you need to be careful. Um Fast forward a little bit in the book Your father takes a job in 1967

You're seven years old And he He basically abandoned you guys Took off yeah You know It could be a number of things That he was having a little of success In the Communist Party

Your mom is still being Catholic Being religious So he felt like There's some things going on on. There wasn't going to help his career. You say we moved to a little apartment across town almost six miles from where we'd been living before at that age in that place. That was a huge distance, especially because he had to walk or take the bus everywhere. Our beds were narrow and mattresses were thin, much like the walls to be able to sleep on cold nights. We shoved our beds together

and slept head to feet and side by side. To say Polish winters are very cold to be putting it mildly. It was bad enough that we had to stuff our coats with old newspapers to keep warm. The fact that we couldn't afford to replace them with coats that could actually keep us warm was worse. It turned out that my father was refusing to pay child support. So while we were trying to hide our crinkling coats from other kids, he was buying a new life for himself. The court eventually forced him to start paying, which he did. He was always late. Yes.

You know, talking about those beds, actually, we didn't have two beds. We had just one bed. And it was like single bad. But, you know, we're small. me and my brother, so me and my brother slept in one bed, had the toes to have to, and my sister slept with my mom. But yeah, we didn't have to

bed. I kind of like, I think me's quoted there, that there was just one bed that me and my brother slept. Eventually, you know, like my mom was able to procure another bed. So we lived in a two-room apartment at the

time. So it was here, we hear two-room. you mean two bedrooms. There was not like that in Poland. In Poland was just two rooms with two rooms. So me and my brother were sleeping in one room and my mom with my sister was sleeping in another room. There were little tiny rooms.

But, you know, there was such a big, for us, it was like we have our own apartment because there were a lot of people that did not have even that. There were people living with parents and grandparents in one in a studio, bigger studio, just so you, and they didn't even have a bathroom. You have to go outside to the common bathroom.

So this is, you know, there was the desolation after Second World War and also the socialism economy that ruined Poland even deeper and put people into slavery. You say on top of this, on top of all this, we were often hungry. That loaf of bread my mother got if she was early and lucky enough, you couldn't buy more than one loaf at a time. People could get violent if you tried. This meant we were forced. to learn ways to be less hungry.

Soon my brother, my brother learned how to make French fries from potatoes. I learned how to... It was tasty. It was very good, yeah. I learned to spot the school children of wealthy Communist Party members by their sandwiches. Yep. These were some good-looking sandwiches, too. While my siblings were eating thin sandwiches with butter or margarine, if there was no butter,

often only sprinkled with sugar, these rich kids were eating theirs with fresh meat and all the best fixes, dressing smears. dressing smeared across their smug faces. There were two ways to get your hands on things in those circumstances. Money and violence. Since we were poor, I used violence. This is where I learned that violence works. If violence didn't work for you, it meant you didn't apply enough of it.

I'll be the first to admit I was a bit of a bully as a kid. Yeah, yeah, you know, this is something that you just have to help yourself as much as you can. And at that time, I was, I envy these younger kids for having this like a nice, tasty sandwiches, you know, like when I look at it, I celebrate. And so I figure out that I would just like to try this sandwich like that. You know, we never had one. So I just woke up, I just grab the sandwich from the guy, I bite it, I bit it, and I was hooked. I was like, okay. So this is what's going to happen next.

you, tomorrow you will bring two sandwiches. And if you don't, you want to eat. Because I'm going to eat your sandwich. So one sandwich is for me, one is for you. For parents, you can just tell them that you are growing up. Because our parents, it's probably. I think every kid knew, hey, you are growing up, so you need to eat more, you know, you need to eat more.

Maybe because our food was very bland within every tasty food. So I didn't want to eat. I didn't eat a lot. So my mom always had to like, you need to eat because you're growing up. So I advise this kid, hey, you know, just telling them that you're growing, you need more eat.

And from what I find out, these parents were very happy, say, yeah, our kid is eating well. You know, he's having two sandwiches now every break. They didn't know that he was eating just one. And another was share with me. So it's comfortable. It's funny that the, or it's not funny,

but, you know, you hear people that lean towards socialism. Oh, say, they're so anti-rich. You know, they think, all the rich people have all the money. And here you are talking about, it was the communist kids. The kids that had the Communist Party connections. Those were the rich kids

because they just took everything from everybody else. That's what happens in this society. This is how it works. I mean, remember, the socialist economy is very inefficient. It just does not work. And so people are people. Whether you are communists,

no matter how well-meaning communist you are, you're going to help yourself. You know, you can help this, so you're going to help yourself here, and you're going to go bring the, so people can eat, but at least you can eat. And this is how people start starving, and it just does not work. Fast forward a little bit. Again, I'm fast-forwarding through the book. There's so many good stories and insightful. You want to know what it was like.

Get the book so you have something, so you can understand what communism does to a people. into a country fast forward a little bit you say by the time I was entering eighth grade my mom couldn't afford to support me by then almost 13 years old plus two other children so she did the only thing she could do and sent me to live with my father yeah she didn't have my choice I mean there was we're growing the food was expensive and we have we're leaving this little tiny apartment with two rooms so basically one bedroom apartment So she had to do something And she just

She sent me to live with the father And that's kind of funny story Because he showed up He picked back He didn't like it already But he didn't even tell his wife The wife that he had That he's coming with me

So basically I show up on the doorstep He just told him, well He's going to leave with us And I remember the hair screech What? No way. I was like, I just wanted to punch that bitch. And that's crazy to hear when you're only 13 years old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't want you. But I just remember that my mom, she knows that we need it. That needs to happen. So I kind of like swarrow my pride, just look at her and just say nothing and walked past her. Was your dad's living arrangement better? Did they have like a nicer apartment and stuff? Yeah, because they have actually three rooms.

So here there was one room, the bigger room, and two smaller bedrooms. So when I walk into that family, his family, she had a son already from previous marriage. And so they kind of let me have one of the rooms, and they both stay in the big room. Because in Poland, there was not a division between bedrooms. There was no bedrooms. There were rooms. So we had one room, you have one room, and my father and his wife had a... another room.

And I thought this, like, great. That would be awesome. The only thing that, you know, what happened there was not quite awesome. Now, this is where you started learning to fight for the first time. Yeah, well, I already went there. I started fighting right before I went to my father.

So I joined the police boxing club. That was my, boxing was my first thing. And I was really good at it. Actually, I was so good. And also what kind of motivated me It's because like I didn't have a father. So the coach at one time when I

described a bid up one of the kids who beat up my younger brother and I broke my hand. But he came to visit me and kind of like sit down talk to my mother, talk to me and I was like, holy shit, I must not disappoint this man.

I must just do the best I can. So I would start beating people up with the gloves up there because I wanted to appease him, you know? and he really said how good I was. So when I went to Warsaw, I was already pretty good. I had a good punch, not quite few people out, like that guy who beat my brother up.

That's actually a funny story, because I was always, I was not very strong at the beginning. I was just bully because I thought that my mother is a teacher, so who is going to challenge me? So I never had to Never hesitate to punch somebody or beat somebody up And of course didn't work that way always But

But just from the very beginning I remember like When I was being bullied When I was kid So there's not like I could come to my mom Say mom can you could beat him up or something There's like I didn't have an older brother So I had to figure something out

So I found like a big steel pipe I put in my book case When I was going to school from school, because kids used to follow me and just kick my ass sometimes, like around the blog, or they push me into the entrance of the apartment and beat me up up there.

So later the world starts spreading that those kids who follow me in my apartment, somehow don't show up, the ambulance shows up, takes them out, because it was me with my pipe, and it worked. It was like, again, violence works. You just need to apply enough of it.

So, so, So that's where I started it. So I was already fighting by this time. And then, so from the pipe, I move on to boxing gloves. And then there has become kind of well-known because I'm quite a few guys. And I didn't have to wear the pipe. I don't know. I tell you what, some of these pipes, guys who I piped,

it's like I really don't know because they didn't move when I left. And this is where they were spread out. When they follow them into the apartment, they don't come out. So they left me along. They got piped. I don't have to say it right away, but you know what I mean. Definitely. They got piped.

So when you're in and around Warsaw, you start, you know, you're kind of just like doing some sort of almost like extortion, hanging out with guys, getting money, making things happen. Well, because I had no fear of kids. especially after the boxing thing, I was just like looking for the challenge. And I remember, I think I started off wrong food because I was always trying to be like, my mom told me, well, I beat up the girl in the first grade

and I kick her so strong. And we were just starting first grade. And they just like told me, oh, Drago, this girl is your girlfriend. And I was like, I don't need no stinking girlfriend. I woke up and I kick her. She just fell, they carry her to the emergency, school to the nurse's room. And I was just proud.

I was like, yeah, yeah, you know. And this is like, how old are you? Like six, seven. Six, six, six, six, six going seven. So they told you had a girlfriend and you went and kicked out. Yeah, yeah, I don't need a stupid. I have no girlfriends. I don't need it.

And that was happened that my mom worked at the same school at the same time. This is why I was like a bully. I was like, my shit don't stink. But so I'm sitting in the cell of my mom rolls in the class, got quiet. I'm just like looking and that doesn't seem good

she walks to me she looks around the class she looks at me who did you hurt and I just like thinking what to say about the entire class like that guy him that I mean that that girl right there

that girl so my mother look at this girl and she's still crying there so she was all bruised between her legs apparently she pulled me out by my ear. It's very common in Poland. Teachers used to do it, just probably by the ear

and pull you out of the bench. She pulled me by my ear. She stands me in front of the class. She pulled my pants down and just starts spanking me. And it starts spanking me so hard and so long until I broke down and started crying.

And she don't ever, you know, you want to fight, fight the guys, fight people like you, don't ever touch a girl. And so that was it. I mean, the embarrassment, you know, my pants down, my butt read from the sound, you know, being spung in front of the whole class. And there was not enough, too, because when I came home, that thing repeated itself.

But I never touched the girl after that. That was like there was ingrained in my head, do not. You cannot do that. And that was just that, yeah, that was so embarrassing. And I think I learned a lesson forever from that. But anyway, so I went to Warsaw too. So I was like trying to be very nice guy. So one of the guys, I didn't know the dynamics,

the gangs working at Warsaw at the time. So one of them was just harassing one of the girls. So I went to knock him out. Turned out to be, he was one of those guys, those little gangs. So they came to me and said, look, you're going to, this is going to happen. We're going to buy us the wine.

You're going to go extort the wine from these guys. But, and then it will beat you up. Everybody from this gang is going to hit you. And then, you know, would you be along? I say, I'm fine with the wine, but if you're going to hit me, I'll hit you back. I will knock you out. And so they kind of let me along, but eventually, they were doing the same thing I did. I mean, that mentality was the same.

So I say, like, okay, so I bring you the wine. but you know if you try to hit me I'll beat you up and really bad so they they didn't we just drink the wine and say hey let's go extort

this time not the sandwich let's go extort the wine from these and these guys so we're just targeting guys and say you bring the wine no well they'll punch the guy a few times then he brings the wine we punch him again

and then just leave him along but what they told these guys these poor victims that you know you can be abused And like if you want more wine, we just call the same guy who just beat up who brought us the wine and say, more wine. And so he was bringing the wine to us.

And I was like, what, 14, 15 years old? So we were already drinking and I was smoking. And I was bad. I mean, kind of not good person. That's what I mean. I was not good person at that time. Yeah, that's, you're definitely heading down the wrong path. Again, this is, you go into these kind of

details in the book really it's it's fascinating to read I'm gonna fast forward a little bit here just a touch base again on the on on what you're dealing with with the communist situation you say when the government executed citizens they were called bandits and insurrectionists and enemies of the state people who are trying to upend the successful socialist system societal values had changed and the thinking became that these people should be isolated from society, in some cases executed for opposing socialism and the official Communist Party line.

Show trials were publicly prosecuted. A lot of charges against said insurrectionists were completely made up. Evidence was made up and there was no opportunity to challenge the charges. People were harassed by state security, police, and publicly humiliated. They were isolated from friends and business. The communist regime was relentless in pursuit of dissidents. They did not need to have any evidence. They would manufacture evidence.

There were countless victims. To this day, no one knows how many polls continue to find secret graves. Oh, sorry. To this day, no one knows how many, and polls continue to find secret graves of opponents of socialism and communism in prison courtyards, forests, and other obscure places. To this day, polls are searching for the graves of their World War II heroes who disappeared or were outright murdered by the communists. upon their return from the war. Yes, that's something that I mentioned at the beginning here when we start talking about it.

This is how a socialist state persecuted the opponents or the people who they perceive could be opponents. It could be something that you just came back from the West and you witnessed too much. You witness how prosperous the West is. That was enough to put you on the list. And then if you are still speaking out and talking about that you could disappear.

I think one of the last graves that they was discovered in Poland was what might be like, I think a year ago, I believe, when they found, and there's not all. They're still looking for it. There are still so many citizens missing from socialist times. And they never thought they would be ever found at that time because there were no computers. The science was not there to help find these people. they are finding them now and they are still looking for many of them. But this is the socialism.

You say earlier too about this fake charges, the spies. Yes, they all were branded. None of these people were sitting there because for political reasons, according to socialist state. There would be this grace for socialist state to keep political prisoners. So they were all criminals. I was criminal. I was never like political prisoners.

You broke the law. And what was the law? Well, you can't print. you can have a free speech. Basically, they wouldn't say free speech. Yeah, they would say you violated the tax code or you violated the printing law that we had for the government distribution or whatever. So there was always some law to put you in prison or enslave you. And this is something that stays with me today when I see sometimes, well, I don't want to go there,

but this is something that we need to be very careful because it's very. very easy to brand people, spies, brand people, criminals, and then prosecute them, and they will not even have a support in society if you are able to brand them as criminals. Just that they were, their crime was exercising free speech, where there was no free speech in Poland at the time, but trying to speak your mind, people didn't know about it. that was not being told why the person was executed or why the person was in prison. They were told they were spies. They were told that they violate the law.

They violate this, violate that. And they are not political prisoners. They were very adamant. The socialist regime was very adamant that there are no political prisoners in socialist state. They all are criminals. I was criminal. That's disturbing. Um, fast forward a little bit.

After my father kicked me out and back to my mom, I thought I would be done with the upheavals for a while. Uphiables being getting transferred back and forth. The back and forth had been upsetting and stressful. And I was excited to go back with my friends and classmates in 1975. But I was also drinking and smoking and had decided to take up karate after getting a taste of boxing in Warsaw. I was in a lot of trouble with my mom to say the least. So then you start training in karate as well? Yes, that was something I was so fascinated about the first ever in the

Zerona Gura, in the city of Jolna Gura, Karate Kikushinkai section was created. So I say, I need to join it. I just was too young for it. So I was really good with my pencil and pen. So I just fake my ID. I just take my idea, I changed my date of birth, and I signed up in the, that was a Karate Kikushinka, Kikushin. Yeah. And Kyrishikan is.

savage karate. It's brutal. Kind of, yeah. I tell you that at least at the beginning every time I was going to training session, I was a bit nervous.

I was like on my toes because I know I will be hurt. And, you know, that's just like, we were hurt, you know. But even just the methods that they train us, you know, you have to stand up,

you know, you take the San Chint Dachi position and they kick you in the stomach so hard that you just fly. Some of us make it like I was a very light guy. So actually I end up usually making somersoll and falling on my face and my knees because from the kicks or you know lay on the floor

and the instructors, they run on your stomachs and stuff. But after a while I got used to it, you know, it's like I'm tough. You know, I'm not going to give up on this. And we're learning and we're actually becoming very effective. I was supplementing my boxing skills with the, now with the kicks and some sweeps. So I was like Unbeatable on the street

And I liked it You're you from everything When I would watch you fight You have a very and it might have seemed natural It might have when I watched you it like seemed natural Because you've been doing it for a long time But you You clearly have a natural gift for fighting

Like when I would watch you Throw punches When I watch you throw kicks When I would see you hit people Or kick people I'd be like oh you look like a really good fighter and you are a really good fighter but just the fact that you were doing this at a time when really a lot of people weren't doing this and going out and I know you you spent a lot of time in the

streets fighting and I have no doubt that you were unbeatable in the streets at that time yeah especially with these techniques that people didn't know at the time because it was not popular in Poland yeah yeah it was savage were you how big were you back then? I was fighting for the championship of Poland that was in Taekwondo I was fighting 169 pounds. I was light but you know I was beating big people because like you know small guys they usually don't pick the fight usually the big ones there's the one that's say I'm going to kick your ass and especially you small so the most of the people that I fought at the time

they were bigger, but they were also easier to, you know, they were easy to topple, like they were like wobbly, more wobbly, and I was able to just kick their ass. And I was beat up too. I mean, there's not always like whatever fight, but eventually we end up like a challenge, how many fights you can go without losing one. And I think I went to like, I think like almost close to 100. And, but there was like a street fight. So there's also too that we are picking up this fight.

We're not like at that time the part that we're like having that kind of competition there was the we were just picking up the fight it was not like people were looking trying to fight us but we use it as a training

that we pick up these fights not for, there was no cameras at the time so we use like a we go and four or five of us from the club there was when I was doing Tequondo when I came to different city switched from Karate Keukushin

to Tequondo so we'll going in groups and say like, okay, so we knew where to find people to beat up, like, you know, just drinking beer somewhere or, you know, places were rough. Rough places in Poland were like rough, rough here, even extra rough. So we go up there and we just pick the guy and then, you know, we beat the guy up and then we get together, have a drink and talk about it because we didn't have a camera, as like today. You can video it and you can say, okay, critique.

So we critique each other. You got a debrief. Yeah, debrief, yes. So like your kick was kind of good, but you escaped the guy on the shoulder. You didn't hit him in the head. You actually kick him like there was no effective. So this debriefing then. And then we're going to reenacting it too.

So creating how we were the fights and we become really good at it. So we can so good to the point that eventually we stopped beating single people up. We are looking for more at one time. So it was like, I remember, and the news spread on city, too, there's people like, well, this is like, be careful about these guys. If they walk around, just walk away,

and it happened, people could recognize nice us because we'd have a lot of people. But there were some people who didn't, especially if they were two or three of them. So we just woke up to the guy who just grabbed the beer of his hands, pitting and giving back to him. You know it's going to be fine, right?

Especially if he had two, three people around, so he was there. But even dead, you know, like eventually we ran out of these people too. So if we found somebody like this, we sometimes the rule was who spots the group who wants to beat

beat up, then he is the first one to do it. But when we started running out of people, we had to draw the lots, straws, yeah, who is going to beat these people up. And this is how we train and we find that it was very

effective, which a lot of the techniques that later I I kind of master and help us to also fight in the in the dodger in the gym because it seems like it was less stress up there was like everything by the rule you know there's not like you're

going to fight somebody going to stab you but on the street you have to be careful about it so yeah and in the book you go into some details you guys were training like two three hours a day you were working out yeah you're doing everything right to be ready to scrap in the streets

meanwhile you say this as I grew older, my understanding of what it meant to live in communist state grew with me. I started listening to Voice of America, the BBC and Radio Free Europe years before without anyone knowing. I began tuning in shortly after my run-in with the state security police after I'd question my teacher about being forced to learn Russian. I had been told about these radio channels by my mother's brother. And this is where you tell the story about your uncle Adam. Yes, my uncle Adam. And he's the one that, you know, showed you how to listen to these band radio stations. So this is where you start seeing sort of the outside perspective of what's going on in the rest of the world and what's actually happening to you all in Poland. Yes. And again, I didn't have a father at the time. So I was looking up to my uncle and he was a big guy. He liked to beat people up too. So Raxal has always idolized him.

And he was like you wouldn't want to mess with him. But he told me about this because, you know, we knew the story. him being beat up by the police, being kidnapped from the street by the police. So he told me how to listen to this, because he said what you hear is full of propaganda. It is indoctrination. It is censored. You don't hear the true. You don't hear everything.

You need to listen to outside. And thanks God for Voice of America. You know, you could go to prison at that time for listening to it. BBC, Radio Free Europe. And you know what is actually fun. I just need to digress a little bit on that. When I came to America eventually, when I moved to where I live now,

where I live, there is a Radio Free Europe radio station there. It's not active anymore. But this is where those transmissions, I was listening to, it was from, and I was able to actually visit that radio station. It's almost like a museum. Where was the radio station located?

In Mason, Ohio. Oh, really? So I was able to tour it because you can and see it. So for people, they were mostly like a technical curiosity. For me, it was much more. Yeah, that's amazing. And this is where you started getting information. And there's just so much, there's, you know, we kind of take it for granted.

You know, the fact that we can get information. Then again, you've got to pay attention to the information that you're getting because a lot of the information that you're getting is screened and is being censored. So that stuff is happening. People are getting banned. People get shadow banned. People get suppressed. Like, all that stuff is going on right now.

And you got to pay attention to it. You do talk about this. I wanted to bring up this one. section that you you talk about in the book you say one of the greatest examples of socialist censorship and suppression of information is found with the story of captain vitold pilecki am i saying that right pelytsky yes in 1940 captain peleski one of the polish army resistance leaders volunteered to allow himself to be captured by the gustavo in order to infiltrate auschwitz concentration camp yes so i'm just say that

that again, everybody. This guy, he's a Polish resistance leader, and he volunteers to be captured so he can go into voluntarily into the Auschwitz concentration camp. Yes. It was there that Captain Poletsky organized the resistance movement, which included hundreds of inmates. He created the report that was smuggled out detailing the horrors and atrocities occurring at the camp.

This report made it into the ally's hands, but it fell on the... deaf ears. Captain Poletsky escaped Auschwitz and later fought the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. He was a great Polish patriot and a great inconvenience to the socialist regime in Poland. In 1947, he was arrested by the communist state security police and charged with anti-Polish activities. He was then subjected to torture and to show trial. Captain Poletsky was officially executed by the Polish socialist government in 1948 and was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in Poland. They still can find where. They are still, the Poles are still looking for him. He is a national hero in Poland. And he was in resistance. The Poland during Second World War has the largest,

the largest partisan army in entire Europe. So he was part of it. And the task was now, because there were already reports coming, that something is going on in these concentration camps. And we need that atrocities happen, but they need somebody to witness to write reports and send these reports, smuggle these reports back. So for him chance to escape the Auschwitz,

were very slim, but he, so basically he volunteered for the one-way mission. And he did. He accomplished, he sent the reports, he described what is going on there. And of course, he tried to escape. He was successful. He did escape. But there was very inconvenience for the socialist state because he was fighting on the wrong side. He was fighting on the Allies side. He was not part of the Soviet Union Army. He was not part of the Soviet Union, the Polish military sponsor by Soviet Union. So, hero like this, especially with his courage speaking out against the socialism, was very inconvenient. So he was promptly arrested. And as many of these heroes at the time, he was promptly arrested, sentenced to death in the show trial and executed. And he was fully reggae. Rehap.

When Poland became free, he was fully rehabilitated. It was exonerated. And actually, today, there are streets, places, and schools name after him in Poland. Yeah, that just shows you how horrible and evil this is. It is evil. You know, let me just throw something here too. Because even I remember there were a lot of monuments. They were totally destroyed because they were.

totally destroyed because they were not supporting socialist narrative. Monuments of freedom from monuments from previous Poland where Poland was not socialist. That was destroyed. The history was so twerp and so twisted that I didn't even know about some of these heroes or about the police squadrons, Polish fighter squadrons fighting in Battle of Britain. You know, there was all of they were suppressed here and there a little bit show up, but it was mostly very, very heavily censored. But, you know, during Battle of Britain, the most effective fighter squadron was Polish 303. There were movies made about it now. But at that time, being member of that squadron could mean death sentence in Poland. I'm going to fast forward a bit. By early 1981, after the

communist government raised food and fuel prices and lowered work. Wages solidarity had a membership of about 10 million people and represented most of the Polish workforce This is when my mom became involved with the trade union and the first time in any Warsaw Pact country that an organization was formed independently from the regime with real elections and everything Through the union strikes began bringing entire industries to a halt state-run companies were losing money and they were deeply in debt to the West to boot desperate the authorities tried to strike a deal with the unions. The agreement at the end of the day was to allow the trade unions to exist in exchange for fewer strikes. This was just a ruse in preparation for martial law to take down the first independent trade union of the Warsaw Pact.

At that point, I was more firmly entrenched with the anti-communist solidarity movement and I'd regularly stay late at the headquarters at Lotes. Am I saying that right? Lots, yes. They're kind of a wudge, but lots, yeah. That's how you pronounce it. Now that I was in my early 20s, I had a lot more flexibility to do what I wanted within constraints imposed by the regime, of course.

And this is a historic day. On December 13th, 1981, around 10 in the evening, people started coming to tell us of their parents and other family members who were being arrested throughout the city. The state security police had come to their homes and their family members were gone. We knew that something big was about to happen.

We braced ourselves for whatever was going to happen next. People started calling their friends in other countries outside of Poland, trying to organize routes of escape and chains of communication and case things went badly for us. Someone at the HQ turned the TV on, mentioning something about a government message being broadcast. General Jerozzi... How do you say his name?

Yeruzelski. General Yerouselowski. General Yerluski. Yeah, Soviet, who is more Soviet than Polish, appeared on the screen. And he was sort of like at this time was sort of the military leader of Poland. He was the military leader of Poland. Yes.

He looked grim in full uniform with the Polish flag looming over his shoulder. The National Council, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, has introduced martial law throughout the country, he read. This is the last chance to pull the country out of crisis and save it from disintegration. Yep, there's always excuse for something. So the mantra was that there is just about apprising to happen. People are ready to overthrow the socialist legitimate government.

It was never legitimate government. It was never, all the elections were fraudulent. So there was the mantra. And to save Poland from the mayhem and upheaval and possible Soviet invasion, General Yeruzalski had to do that. This dispute, and my opinion is absolutely Bologna, that's the bullshit. That was just another attempt, one of the last attempts, to save socialism in Poland.

Besides, they understood not only in Poland, but in other Warsaw-Pact countries, that if socialism falls in Poland, it will fall everywhere else. And it did, including Soviet Union, later in 19. 1990s. But that was how they imposed martial law. There was just one night. They arrested, they started running up at midnight. They started running up people like on the mass scales. In every city, every town in Poland, it was well organized. And I remember that the communications were cut in Poland. The telephone lines at midnight went blank. The TV went out. There was

no radio stations, nothing. They were just blank, nothing. A lot of people died too. People were in emergency having a heart attack. There was no way to call. All the telephones were shut down because they were trying to save Poland from the insurgents, for the insurgents, Polish people who are opposing, who are trying to ruin Poland. This is how they explained. Yeah, this is what they viewed it as. You say it's believed that over 20, 25,000 patriotic Polish citizens were arrested one night December 13, 1981. Yes, and yes, the thing is that at the time

the socialist state was very adamant about it. These people are not arrested. They are interned. We don't keep them in prison. We keep them internment camps where they are safe. And we do it for their safety. We do it for safety of Poland and for safety of Poles. Now that they did commit any crime, this is why they are not prisoners.

They are internees, but they were potentially dangerous to the state. They could be dangerous to the state. So we just hid it up and kind of interned them, send them to vacation homes, sanatoriums. That's how they explained. But in reality, they were just arrested, thrown jails in prisons around the pond. Fast forward a little bit. When the president of the United States, Ronald Reagan announced sanctions. against the communist regime on December 29th, 1981,

polls, including myself, were cheering, even further infuriating the communists and socialists. This is when the phrase was coined, I'm not even going to try, how do you say it? The worst, the better. The worse, the better. That's how do you say in Polish? Yeah, that's the same thing.

Imgozritim Leppier. In Gozreitim Lepey, the world's the better. The worse, the better. It meant that the more sanctions put in place to ruin socialism and communism, the better for Poland, Poles, and freedom. Anything that even remotely hurt communists was cheered by the polls. The Polish people were ready for any sacrifice just to get rid of the hated, oppressive socialism that my father worked so hard to put in place.

Those of us who escaped or who were left out of the mass arrests met on the streets in the days following and discussed what we could do to resist the blatant show of terror and authoritarianism. The country was faced with news, blackouts, and total censorship. So we decided it was going to be important for someone to tell the truth of what was going on. We found one guy who had a typewriter and another who had a printing press. So me and a couple of my friends decided to report on what was happening on the ground. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking about what would happen if we got caught. Being found with an unregistered typewriter or, God forbid, a printing press,

usually meant spending some time in prison. My newspaper was really only a double-sided single-page leaflet that we produced. But the messages it contained were dangerous enough that I could have been. imprisoned after printing a few hundred copies we walked the streets pressing the censored newspapers or the uncensored newspapers into people's hands and leaving them in high traffic areas the city while desperately hoping one of the socialist sympathizers would not turn us in following the implementation of martial law on that night December 13th 1981 in my city thousands of us would turn off our

city lights every month on the same day that started martial law to show solidarity against the regime whole city blocks would be completely dark except for a single candle in every window 20 30 40 apartment buildings all in a row each 20 to 30 stories tall each window with a candle in it if you didn't see a candle in a window you could assume the person living there was someone who supported or worked for the regime i'll never forget the site it was one of the most powerful and beautiful demonstrations with the polls showing solidarity with each other and against the regime in overwhelming numbers. That sounds amazing.

It still brings almost tears to my eyes, thinking about it and remembering that. So, Poles were, any means of protest, anything they was criminalized, anything you just, the socialists and communists did not like, communists like my father, could put you in prison or get you killed.

So Pauls found the way. They, on the day that Marshall Law was imposed every month on 13th, they turned the lights off in their homes. So you can see entire city almost black out with a single candlelight in the window. So there was such a powerful message. And what they tell Paul's to, that in opposite what propaganda was saying, millions were supporting the solidarity and freedom against socialist state. There was not like what you had in the news and press that is a fringe of society. There's only very few people who want this crazy concept of freedom or something that is just crazy.

And there's very few of them. But here, then you can walk through the streets and can see it yourself. There's like thousands, thousands of people who, who opposed that socialist terror and oppression. So that was very inspiring, you know. This is how you can, people can, I guess, when everything is taken away from them, they still protest and they still show what really is happening.

So yeah, that was actually interesting. Yeah, that was amazing to read about. Fast forward a little bit. Some resistance figures I knew quickly became very loud and outspoken, creating their own circles that people flock to. New organizations were established every other day and just kept getting bigger and bigger. We didn't realize that some of these organizations were actually being established by the state security police who collected names and information and were then able to arrest opponents of socialism in one fell swoop.

Because my group was very small, no one thought to try and join us, let alone infiltrate us. We kept a low profile and covertly distributed our resistance literature out in the streets. I'm sure the police had been following us for a long time, but they didn't get anyone until early 1982 when I was walking toward the printing press down a tiny little street. I happened to look up and notice someone was watching me. He was maybe 100 yards away and staring directly at me. Of course, I thought that was strange, but I kept walking and got to the building. I climbed the stairs to the third floor. Suddenly I heard footsteps thundering over my head in a bunch of doors flying open.

I had at least eight or nine guns pointed at my head. It really was like an old school police standoff. They eventually got me to the ground and handcuffed me. I stayed down there with boots on my back next to my resistance friends who were already handcuffed prior to me showing up they waited for others to show up but no one did the state security police hauled us off to their headquarters that same night they stripped me of everything except my clothes i was wearing and carried me off to a dark smelly cold prison cell even for all my trouble making over the years i'd never seen an actual prison cell close up i'd

only ever been in a holding cell this was far worse reeking of piss and shit and mold there was there were people huddled somewhere in the dark but i couldn't see anything i stood there until someone called out, hey, you, just sit down somewhere. I had to feel my way around with my hands on the walls, blindly managing to find a spot on the wall among a dozen other people. Eventually, when they turned the lights on, I was able to see it was a small room with steel doors with a raised bed in the middle that was more like a low pedestal. A few people could lie down on it at a given time.

And there were food rations, but they were so small, I was soon painfully hungry. Apparently others were in a similar state. One prisoner, a real mean-looking guy, came up to me sometime after dawn and said, I'm going to eat your food today. I wasn't about to give him the chance, not even a slim one. I knocked him out. And when he was laid out unconscious on the ground, I carefully lifted his upper lip and using my knuckles, punched his two upper front teeth and to drive the point home. No one was going to mess with me in here. I pulled the knocked out teeth from his mouth, put them in my pocket,

and then I ate his food. Yeah, yeah, that was, you know, I'm still kind of like, I'm still sad that I lose those teeth because I was hoping to one day make a necklace out of it, you know, and carry it, but just during one of the searches, they discover the teeth. So, yeah, I was hungry. But this is something that we also need to look out,

watch out for the methods, the totalitarian states operate. They will have a very small thing that you wouldn't think is a torture, but it is. So basically in Poland, the secret services, the secret police were doing, they were just limiting rations and keep you cold. So there was not like you'd just die of it, but it was enough to kind of ache at you and slowly dismantle your defenses, and eventually you start talking. So that was very common technique. And actually, I have to mention the same technique was used on Chief Gallagher here by NCS in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the,

in California. Cold and lack of food? Yes, cold and limited food rations. So he was always cold. He didn't allow him warm clothes, and the food rations were very small. And again, this is not the rations to starve to death. It's just enough to make you uncomfortable, out of balance.

And this is actually well described in one of the research papers you can find on the official CIA website. I forgot what's the name. of it. Basically, there's that techniques of, used by Soviet secret police

against political prisoners. So they was, what was described there, at that time I didn't know there was a technique. I was just hungry. The guy told me, he's going to eat my food. I say, hell no, and I knock him out. But now, when I came to America, I learned about freedom. I learned about

these techniques. And it really came to realize that this torture, very subtle, but were conducted in Poland against political prisoners. You do end up, someone asked you what you're in for, and you say solidarity. And then they know that they'll help you out, right? Now you kind of find some brotherhood in there. During my time in the state security police, HQ at Lotez, did you say it's like Woods? Is that what you said?

Would you? That's how you pronounce it. Looch? Yeah. Wooch? Yeah. But, yeah, L is like a L, like a wudge. Because it's L with the slash.

So this is how we pronounce. But I say that one time to my wife, she sounds like wucci, something like something like female. So actually, it's a lot. L-O-D-Z. This is how you spell it. Well, I'm going to say wudji then. Yeah, that's right.

I don't know if I'll remember it. Because why didn't they just spell it W-O-O-D-Z-I-E? And then I'd pronounce it right. It said it's L-O-D-Z. L-O-D-Z, but it's O with a little apostrophe, a little point above it, and that makes it O. Lutz. Wudji.

All right. I was interrogated from anywhere from two to three times per day where they asked me the same questions over and over. While in prison there, the police raided my apartment and destroyed everything. They kept me there for three weeks, asking the same questions repeatedly, sometimes beating me when I didn't answer the way they wanted

or didn't answer at the end of my stay. They announced they had everything they needed to put me in jail for life and that I was soon going to the big prison. That same night, without explaining anything further, the police marched me out at 2 a.m. in handcuffs. The police kept moving and under the cover of darkness, they hauled me out into the street and shoved me into the back of a civilian car.

Where are we going? I asked, when we get there, it won't matter to you anymore. The thought crossed my mind that maybe they were going to kill me. I prepared myself to fight getting my blood up while I sat handcuffed in the backseat of the car. I knew it was a lost cause, but I would not go quietly. My plan was to hopefully knock out the two cops with a good kick when we got out and make a run for it. It was naive, but I had no other option. The whole time I was brainstorming, they drove for almost four hours in and out of town over and over aimlessly until 6 a.m.

When they brought me back to the cell at HQ, when I got back confused by the change of plans and jittery from my adrenaline. I saw some of my cellmates were crying. They thought I'd been taken out and shot and they were the last ones to see me. That's where socialism works. They were sure I'd be the next. They were sure they'd be next as the last people to witness me alive. Communism doesn't like witnesses.

True. Yep. I didn't even understand that the stress I put on my fellow cellmates at the time because I was taken away, I thought, I could be shot but I didn't think they would worry about that somehow until I came back and they explained it to me why they are so nervous

with the tears in their eyes and saying dude thank you for coming back because we thought that we are next because they're the last witnesses who saw me so what happened well he was taken by the police never came back and that they were afraid

genuinely afraid for their lives and that's how socially state operates the terror the terror fast forward a little bit four weeks after my arrest I was transported to an intermediate prison the police investigation was done now they were gathering materials and evidence to build a case against me the absence of a confession or any proof was no obstacle for the communist regime if they lacked evidence they would make it up but even though I knew they had a bunk case against me I still didn't have an attorney to help fight it and going up alone against a corrupt justice system usually never ends well

I was initially placed with common criminals the worst of the violent criminals in a single cell some of them were snitches for sure the prison walls were made of concrete reinforced with rebar the whole place was cold and quiet mold was everywhere it was huge the windows were very high on the walls with bars keeping us in and metal shields on the outside of the windows preventing us from being able to look out how many of us were there how many of us there how many of us this were and for what crimes was anyone's guess. The prison administration's intention was to break me down by putting me in the worst cell. The biggest guy of the group tried to strong arm me into conforming to the cell's imaginary hierarchy of control.

Of course, it did not end well for him. I implied a significant lesson I learned on the street. You finish the fight when you are done with the fight, not when he tells you when he gives up. If you stop before submission, he could turn the tables and take you down. despite this guy's screams to stop, I didn't. I kept beating him until he stopped screaming and stopped moving. I fell asleep, yeah. That works.

I mean, this is something that I learned on the street very quickly. You know, when you fight, I mean, like, not in the ring, but when you fight on the street, you fight until you decide that this is enough, you don't let even small glimpse that this guy can control anything. especially not when to end the fight. If you let him control that, before you totally destroy the guy, he may turn, and this often happened to us. You know, I'll learn the hard way the thing.

I got beat up like this. So you don't stop until the guy is not moving. He may scream the blood and mortar. Stop, stop, I'll give up. I'm your friend now, you know, but hey, you know what? You become my friend when you fall asleep, and then, you know, when we bring you up,

you will be okay. and that's how it works. I know it doesn't sound nice, but it's just the safety, you know, for my own safety. If I stop beating this guy up, when he says, stop, stop, you know, I'd be nice. Most likely, he would still find a way to attack me or to keep his position as the top guy in the cell. So I couldn't allow them.

So I learned to be. beat them up until they don't move. When they don't move, then usually when they wake up, they just like, they either go home if they can or in prison, they just hold themselves in the corner somewhere. You know what I'm thinking about too? I was talking about your fighting prowess earlier. And also, you know what I just remembered from when you and I would train

is you have like real explosive muscle. You know, like some people, they have good endurance. Some people that are super explosive, strong. you have that super explosive strong muscle fiber. So like I bet a dude, because I'm sitting here thinking about this dude like thinking he's going to think he's going to do something to you. And I can just imagine your full force like explosion of violence on this dude. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's just. Yeah. So that's why they fell asleep very quickly usually when they when they start up. And that's kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That's, you know, that's all of us have that. power just sometimes most of us and here in America is different I would now I'm different I'm American now I don't go and beat people up I wouldn't do it but at the time there was just the necessity

that was just you have to do what you have to do to survive especially in prison when there was such a brutal place you know so it helped me and this again like I was saying earlier some of the stuff when you read it it seems to be

heavier. This is one of those things that I was reading it. I was thinking, damn. It says the discomfort of prison can't be understated. Beyond the outright violence, there were millions of little things that made life miserable for all of us. One of those things was that you couldn't just lie in bed. You had to either sit down on the floor or on the stool, but you could not lean on the walls or the beds. There were four beds per cell, two bunk beds. However, it was not meant for the 10 or more men that were actually in the small cell. When I'd first arrived, I didn't think. think much of it. So I was so tired and sore for my weeks at the state security police headquarters that I decided to lie down, even though the other prisoners told me I shouldn't.

One of the prisoners said, don't do it or they will fuck you up. Screw that. I said, I'm tired and I'm going to lie down. My cellmates were smiling and smirking at each other in anticipation of what was to come. I ignored them and started to settle into the bed preparing for some relaxation. Sure enough, as soon as the bed, which was a little more than wooden cock, creaked under me, The guards came down on us. My resting time was up. They pulled me out of my new cell and started to work me over. I could hear their punches echoing throughout the prison as they landed on me.

They beat me up and then threw me back in my cell. When they were done with me, I thought for sure this was the time when I laid down, they would leave me alone. Would you think otherwise? I mean, they just beat you up, right? You are really sore. You walk in the cell. So it's natural.

You need to lay down, right? I was naive to think because I could barely sit straight that they would surely leave me alone and let me recover in my bed. It was not an act of defiance, not yet. However, it happened again. This time they beat me with rubber nightsticks in such a way is to not leave too many bruises.

This methodical beating included multiple hits to my kidneys and I ended up pissing blood as a result. Once again, they threw me back in my cell. This time I was 100% sure they were not going to mess with me. It was impossible for me not to lay down. I could not sit or stay standing, so I went straight to bed. I thought they were going to leave me alone.

I was wrong. They were not done with me. The cycle repeated himself. You know, there was not the resistance at the time. There was just stupidity. I didn't know in the better. I was never in prison before. I was jailed, but something.

So why wouldn't I lay down? What's a big deal? And then when they beat me up, I assumed that there's going to be, well, now I have an excuse to lay down. So I kept doing it, but again, at the beginning, it was not just because I was just tough and resist, was resisting. I just wanted to rest. And well, but yeah, that's eventually, dude, my buddy Stoner, he was in Sears school.

And apparently, you know, they give you like certain information that you're not supposed to divulge. You're not supposed to tell them, like, don't tell them what, you know, where the friendly force. are or something. Right, right. So they capture him in Sears School, and they're starting to, like, beat him, and then they're starting to waterboarding. And they're like, they're waterboarding, and they're like, where are the friendly forces? And he's like, I don't know.

And so then they waterboard him more. And like, where are the friendly forces? He's like, I don't know. And then they're like, where are the friendly forces? They waterboard him again and again. And finally, they go admin. They stop, and they're like, hey, dude, like, you're, this is horrible. You're getting tortured for no reason.

You should just tell us where the friendly forces are. And he goes, I forgot. He couldn't say even if he wanted to. Exactly. So it's the same thing. He wasn't resisting. He was just freaking forgot where they were at. So there you go.

Sometimes it better be, better be, sometimes not like heroic resistance. You just forgot some shit. Yeah, but you know, the funny thing is the guy who bida. He's like, well, you know what, I can, I can lay down. I mean, I can do the same thing, you know, because they let me along eventually. me. They said, so after so many beatings, they're just like, okay. So I lay there, you know,

being sore, and they didn't come for me. So he said the same thing. He lay on the opposite side. Sure enough, you can just the doors open again. I said like, oh, fuck. I'm getting ready for another beating. No, they just leave me along. They just grabbed the guy and you can hear,

you know, at least I didn't scream. But that guy is like screaming like a bloody mordered. Ah! And you can hear, a beating up. They just, the doors open, walking in a cell. He gets up,

looks around. Okay, you get the fuck out of this chair. I will sit. He was like a big herds up there so he could throw people out of the chairs. So there was like four stool, so he seated one stool from then on. I was laying in the bed,

I was laughing my ass. He couldn't quite take the beatings. Yeah, yeah, he could know. I think they could actually, like, I was a political prisoner, even whether they admitted or not, he was a common criminal, so they actually could kill him. With me, you know, just like, I think they had some kind of, at least those common guards, they were not really, some of them didn't hate us. Even through this propaganda and their training were trained to hate us, they didn't, some of them didn't. But common criminal, I have no doubt they would kill him. you got look the get the book there's all kinds of stories in here and and details about this stuff at one point you get in trouble i mean you get in trouble a lot of points you spend two weeks in solitary confinement um tiger cage yeah you get this tiger cage thing i mean this they took me to a cell had only an open window covered by a shield that kept me from viewing outside but did nothing to keep the cold out i was giving thin blanket they fed me water and bread and a regular

isolation, yeah. Yeah, then this time I was given a week. Again, you get in trouble, you're knocking people out, you're breaking shit, you're just being a freaking savage in there. Some of it was just from the fear that if I fell, you know, they would eat me alive there. So you just have to be the, you don't let, you need to be pretty much on the top. If you don't, then you'll have to submit to other people and stuff and I would never let it happen. you know, I had enough skills and I had enough expertise not to let it happen.

So it was, yeah. Yeah, you get this one time you get in trouble again. I was given a week of solitary confinement once again, but this time it was in the so-called tiger cage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, tiger. For a moment, I wondered if there was a real actual tiger in the basement of the prison, but that was short-lived. When they walked me into the cell, I burst out with laughter.

It was so surreal. Within the cell room, they did indeed have a real cage. It looked like a very large dog kennel. They could not understand what was so funny and finding my humor in the absurd of the situation did not endear me to the prison guards. It was so odd to see this misplaced tiger cage within the walls, a cell within a cell. The cage had steel bars as big as my thumb and a low clearance so I couldn't stand upright. My only two options were to sit or lie down on hard steel. They tossed me in and my weak started.

I didn't hate solitary confinement, not completely. It was cold, dirty, dark. It smelled. and the only light in the room was always flickering or completely dark. I only had a tiny blanket and a wooden slat for a bed, but at least I didn't have to deal with other prisoners or guards for that matter. I spent only a few cold and uncomfortable days in solitary confinement before the prison guards came in.

I thought they would just send me back to my cell. To my surprise, instead they say, we're putting you on a transport. That gave me pause. Where am I going? Russia, maybe. We don't know. Yeah, yeah.

That was very stressful for me because we knew that there were ready transports to go to Soviet Union to kind of isolate us, the political opponents of socialism. But that was a real fear. And you will see at the end of my book, it was not only me, but other activists actually were talking about it. Andrew Krasuzki, who is, I have his excerpt from his defense. against socialist regime, the court defense. He talks about it actually they were publishing that there are such transports already and could happen. They'd be going to Poland.

From Poland to Soviet Union. So yeah, I was scared, yeah. So what's the next prison you get sent to? Khrubyshev, on the Russian border. So actually, from myself, I could see the Russian side of the pass across the river. There was Khrubyoshov present. Yeah, that's where I ended up on the Russian border.

Not quite in Russia, at least. You say it was classified as one of the harshest prisons in Poland. Yes. Prisoners were separated by blocks with common criminals being in different location from the political prisoners. Prisoners also had more opportunity to interact with like-minded prisoners. It became very educational environment as we were sitting in prison with many intellectual members of Polish society. Doctors, professors, physicists, economists, and engineers as well as other hardworking Polish patriots. We all shared the same disdain for communism and social.

One of the routines was to open the windows at 8 p.m. and the entire prison sang patriotic Polish songs that the state hated. Every night, entire prison blocks joined together in singing songs about freedom and independence. These songs carried into the small town and beyond. The local Polish population liked to hear this patriotic resistance. The guards tried to squash it, dragging prisoners away from the windows, but we persisted as there were not enough guards to stop all of us and our deterrenties. nation was strong. In a cold, lonely place like that, morale was vital for our collective survival.

Yes, I know this is something that when we opened the windows and hundreds of people start singing the same song, it was echoing in the small town where people were living. And that was, they couldn't do anything about it. There was not enough guards. So there was not like you just stay there and sing. When they came to the cell with the nightsticks and all that stuff, we're holding the bar. So, and then it's like, hey, can you move away from the windows? Like, fuck no. So we just stay there and they have to drag us out. So it took a crew of people to drag each one of us, and then they have to move to another cell and another cell. So as soon as they leave our cell, we just go back up there and still keep singing. So that was really unnerving for

for socialist regime. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds like a powerful thing to witness. It was. August 13th, 1988, we started a hunger strike

for the recognition of our status as political prisoners. The regime had been hiding and denying for decades that they held political prisoners. The last thing they want to do is admit that the socialist state was holding political prisoners,

especially at such a volatile time in Polish history. Instead, their propaganda was to show us all as criminals who committed common crimes. After a certain point in our hunger strike, once we'd wasted away a bit, the guard started to force feed us per prison regulations. They would drag us into separate rooms in the medical unit and tell us we had a choice. They could either shove a pipe down our throats and force feed us, or we could eat and swallow on our own. Either way we had to eat. Most of us stuck to our guns and said no. That isn't what they wanted to hear. The feeding

procedure was to bring the prisoner in, strap them to a wooden chair, and shove a corrugated feeding tube down the throat. It looked more like a vacuum tube than a feeding tube. It seemed way too big to be a medical feeding device. They would push the pipe down your throat and deep into your stomach. Using a funnel, they would dip a large jar into a deep fat of yellow sludge that was then poured through the funnel into the tube. Yeah. At first, they tried to do it to us in groups, but when enough people resisted, they started doing it one by one. This was a strategic move on their part. It was easier to talk someone one-on-one and reassure them that no one else will know, lulling them into a false sense of security.

Their method was to convince a prisoner to take the cup for a sludge and drink it himself, instead of having them have to shove a thick pipe down the prisoner's stomach and having that sludge poured through a funnel. But it was a trap. the moment after someone took the cup and drank from it, they were immediately informed that taking a sip on their own meant the hunger strike was over and they were separated from the striking population eventually removed and sent to another prison. Yep, that was the technique.

You especially know, there was something so amazing to me still. I was young, so I could put up with a lot of pain and stuff, but those are older people like, you know, your fathers, your grandfathers, And they sit up there and they say, no, I'm not going to eat because you are evil regime. And this is the only means of resistance I have not to eat. So many of them stuck by it. But, you know, there's like older people. We're talking 40, 50, 60.

Well, I'm 60. But they're, you know, like... You're a tough 60. You're a different kind of 60. Yeah. But so these guys were tormented. Some of them were sick with medical problems, like Edward Kjorski, one of my friends, cellmates from a lot. We were in the intermediate prison together.

So they used that. They say, look, we don't tell anybody. But if you just go and drink, we don't have to hustle. It's still the same thing. So we said of me, for us to put the tube in your neck, you just drink. you just drink it and just go to your cell but there was a trick because as soon as you take it

you take a few sips there was a the cup was flying over your hands they slap it off and handcuff you back again and march you to different cell and you either stay separated from that striking from us, striking population or you were sent to another prison

because you were not on strike anymore and they didn't want you to be on the strike so that was a technique but these guys, these older people you know, and days they had so much enough of the socialism that they were ready to die even, you know, being suffocated, but they will not give in to socialist regime. So it is very, for me, it was inspiring to see these old people.

For me, I was 21, for me, 60 years old, it was like old, you know, it was like my grandfather. So these grandfathers, these fathers, with their children outside and families outside were risking their lives to free Poland from cultures of socialism. Yeah. How many days did you go before they force feed you? I think a couple weeks, if I remember. There was just there's a time that they have to step in.

There's a prison regulations. If you refuse to take me or they will force feed you. But we find out a better way too because instead of doing it, and we did it too, instead of just doing it, like Constance, until, you know, you die, you do it just two days a week or once a week or once a month. Eventually, and I were describing the book, those more prominent political prisoners, like Binkowski, like Andrew Krasuski, Kjorski, and other people, they came out with the regulations, and I described the fight for, to change that prison regulations.

So they just, they create our own code of conduct. I would say conduct of conduct of political prisoner. And most of us, if not all of us, were adhering to it. So if you get beat up, there was four days hunger strike. If you were put in the isolation cell, there was another strike. So whatever they did, we had always tools to. respond and to counteract that the socialist regime actions. So that was for me it was inspiring seeing these old people not giving up and say I'm going to I want

to make sure that Poland will become free. You say this my mother came to visit. The first thing she said that she was very proud of me. Of course you are replied for what she then showed me a letter she'd received from the prison warden that said I was disobeying rules and generally being a problematic prisoner for them. Their expectation was that my mom would come and visit and persuade me to change my ways, but my mother grinned as she read the letter. She was fussing over my skinniness a moment later. I wasn't the same young man.

She'd been only two months before, two months before prior to our hunger strike. I was thin and looked like I'd barely slept because I hadn't. The mental toll of being in prison was nothing compared to the physical toll, and I was feeling both. my mother, despite her pride in me, was afraid for me and our family. Yeah, I do know this, I have this letter here. I have this letter in the States here. I have it. Actually, I found it.

I found it by accident. I showed it to my wife. I need to find it because we just say, okay, I need to put it in the place where I will remember what it is, and this is where I always lose things. I just put like I need to remember. So it is there, it is here, and I'm going to publish it on my website. I will send it to you the copy when I find it. I need to search for it.

That was so funny. Problematic. Your son is really problematic prisoner. Just overall. Your son's behavior is highly inappropriate. Inappropriate. Inappropriate. Inappropriate, yeah.

So they can coerce her. They want him to come and persuade me to behave. So my mom was like, she used it just to see me. So I say, yeah, okay, I will come up there. I will talk to him. She talked to me and said, keep going. Don't stop. That's awesome.

Fast forward a little bit. The communist regime in Poland following another visit from Pope John Paul II announced amnesty for prisoners, including political prisoners like myself. In Poland at the time, people were always tried to dress decently even if they were poor. When I left prison in spring of 1983, I was smothered in my old winter clothes, which hung off my starved frame like a costume. And for all the production behind my arrest imprisonment, in the end, the guards just basically kicked me out the front gate and said, off you go. That was it. Besides giving me my old clothes back, they also gave me just enough money for a train ticket home, but I had to walk all the way to the train station of my old winter clothes and heavy boots.

Some passerbyes pointed to me in whistling and whispered laughing behind my back, calling me a bum. I was freed from prison, but not a free man, not yet. Yep. So in Poland, as a custom, no, people always want to look nice when I was growing up. So even if you go take a trash out, you know, kind of like a common trash cans, where apartments you just go and throw it, your trash, you always dress up just to look nice, not to look like a bomb. And, you know, we often look like a bomb, bombs, not because we dress up like this,

because this is all we had to wear. But there was different. There was just people knew that you just, when you see. step outside, you look your best. And so me walking from prison, this big cold, heavy cold, you know, the winter boots, heavy boots, you know, I look like at the hobbo, like a bomb. And people were like, look at that guy. You know, it's like, so it's kind of odd. But yeah, I made home, so that's important. Yeah, that's definitely important. You say by 1983, the people were so tired of hunger, terror and years of fear they endured under the socialist state

that they were ready to hang communists from their lantern posts if they could have gotten their hands on them. Yes, that was, you know, and this is something where we need to be very careful. We need to understand this process that happened in Poland, because Poland just could not stand anymore, the socialist state and the Communist Party aparachiks. So they were ready actually for violence. And they were created these groups where you make. earlier, they were creating. Many of these groups were created by the security, secret police,

the state security police, and they were just like, you know what, they were the most, seems like those agents and informants, they are the most patriotic polls, seems like. They were just trying, okay, so we need to make the oath to this cause here. Let's get together, and let's make a secret meeting. Let's make it so. We just, we don't do violence, but we will be prepared for this, prepare for that. And this is they were getting these people to join in. They were taking these different oaths and different things while these agents are writing things down. So if you, and this is something that eventually they could use these groups. They wanted to use, they didn't have a time to do it because the communist fell. But they would use these groups to instigate violence.

And then, let's say, the danger was that one of these guys, the agent or informant, will do something to provoke things or something provocative, and then they would have a reason to just arrest entire group. And they were doing that, too. There were priests who were trying to be framed. They were priests, they were activists. They were being framed like this. And they all went to jail because one of the informants did something that allow state security. police to arrest entire group. Would they use that in the propaganda as well? Yes, yes. Yes, they could kind of scapegoat him that way? Yes, they did. But it accumulated in the murder, one of the priests, the father Popilusco, Popiulushko, this Popolosuio, Father Popiushko.

So State Security Police tried everything. They tried to say he's a gun runner, he runs the guns, or then he's the pedophile, then he is this. nothing's thick. This guy was very patriotic. It was very as preaching freedom, preaching, don't leave on your knees. And eventually they got tired of it. They kidnap him. They murder him. And eventually, and think this. So if you are, and this is the lesson to oppressors, eventually your time will come. Because today they are prosecuting these people. These cops, when Poland became free, The security police went to prison.

These agents went to prison. They prosecute, actually, they call it extrajudicial murders. When judges were sentencing patriotic polls or fake evidence or just sentencing them to death, they call it murder, judicial murders. And they are not extra, they call it judicial murders. So these judges are being today. prosecuted. Matter of fact, I was contacted recently maybe a couple months ago by one of the prosecutor in my city trying to build a case against these oppressors today, years, decades after

it falls. So if you are an oppressor, if you are pervert, if you are the Marxist banded, your time will come. You will be one day prosecuted in full by the law and you're going to at yours. Nobody's immune. And that's the best would happen. That's the best example. It's Poland. I never thought it would happen, but they were prosecuting these murderers, those judges, those prosecutors, and those police, secret police officers for

what they did to Poland. Your time will come. Yes. Your time will come. Going back to the book, after I was released from prison, I became hyper aware of the communist atrocities being committed and the miserable living conditions in Poland. You also had a priest that would do, that would, that would visit the prison while you were there. Yes, yes. And that was pretty moving to you. Yes, Father Paiurek, yes. This is something for me important. At the time, as a young person, you know,

you don't really dwell much about your faith, about, you know, the philosophical things. But when, you You know, when he starts coming and visiting us in present and talking about freedom, talking about things about faith, it really changed me too. So that was like, for me, it was a very significant moment in time in my life where he had a big influence on me. Actually, I had a chance to meet him recently when I went to Poland for the reunion of former political prisoners in 2022. And the Pope had a huge influence too. Pope had a huge influence too, yes. And he refused to come to Poland unless the socialist regime, the communists running socialist

regime, release political prisoners. This is how I got out. So among other political prisoners, they didn't release everybody yet. There were still people kept in secret that nobody knew. There were some people that they deem extremely dangerous. They didn't release, but they released most of political prisoners before John Paul the second came to Poland second time. What a great person.

Now the globalist and socialist elites try to smear his name and destroy his reputation now today. Of course, that's what they do. You say this. The communist regime believed that depravity and perversion when thrown, on society make it easier to divide people and therefore control them. Yes. Relative morality was key. For communism to succeed, your morality must be based on the ideology and the political agenda of those in power, not on God's laws. God gave faith and strength to the people which made them dangerous to the regime.

And in thinking independently and not thinking along necessarily party lines. Yes, that's true. The depravity, perversion, alcoholism, alcohol and vodka pushed on people, make them volatile, make them also divide them. And then they can step in, they can broker the peace between this group and that group. But also they use these people, they use these groups, mentally ill people, to wage the war on the nation and for control. So people who normally you would have compassion for and the mental ill person

you would like to allow them to live in dignity that was taken away from them. They were being used as a scapegoat often or as a bargaining chip trying to destroy the police society and civility in police society. So that was very common. And, you know, as

people do take sides, they have their own opinions, but if you keep presenting group of people as evil or you present evil as as the good thing, this is what you're supposed to emulate, and you know in your heart that this is just perversion, depravity and evil, then you already are rallied against these people. If you present mental illness as something that you have to, this is normal, this is it's supposed to be. You, of course, normal people will say, no, it cannot be like that. And very often they will lash against these mentally ill people who just did nothing to it. They are being pounded used by the socialist regime to control society, to divide us further. So that's how it

worked. This is how the perversion, the private mental illness was used to further their agenda to this mental family, the attacks on the faith and patriotism was a big thing. You know, if you are a patriot, there is no way you will go and join international club of the Communist Party or something. So, you know, if they destroy the borders in Poland, if they destroy the family, faith, and the patriotism, the national identity, then you are so easy target to become the pan-national, international subject.

And it is making it works today. Because when I went to Poland, I had a chance to speak from one of the friends, German, who I referred to you to German. Apparently I offended him. He was not a German. He was the European Union citizen, calling him German was the right extremist. It was the extremism and it shouldn't be ever used. He was not the German.

He made very clear in a very stern way to me that he was not a German. He was a citizen of European Union. Germany is just extremism now. Yeah, that's the goal. The goal is to break apart the family, remove faith in anything other than the state. The state can control you. Fast forward a little bit,

and this was interesting to me. Even though I'd been freed from prison, I was still considered an enemy of the state. It never escalated to the point that I faced prison time again, but it was a constant fear, and it became impossible to live my life. Trying to live normally when you regularly looking over your shoulder, waiting for some state security police officer to jump out of the shadows,

or from around a corner, isn't life. It's torture. It lasted for only a few months in the autumn of 1983. I finally decided to visit the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw and request political asylum and ask for help. And it was such impossible thing for me to think that I could ever be, to leave Poland and come to live as a free man in America. You know, America was always for me this country where people are free,

that they can live their lives the way they want to. There is government not telling them how you have to live your life. But it was such a distance, such impossible to even imagine that I can ever come to America. But when things happen, the way what you do. just said, I said, what have I to lose? I can go and ask, ask for help. I didn't think they will be allowed to, you know, to come to such a great country. And especially me being a criminal at the time. Oh, no, criminal. I was not really criminal, but with the present time. And no, actually, those opposite happened. I found it was found out with a lot of warmth and,

yeah, we're going to help you. We need to help you. So this is what we need to to do. I was guided through the entire process and very quickly I got the promise, the card promessa promise for the to have immigration or visa to the United States and I was allowed

to come to America, you know, that was yeah, that was something. Did you just go down there and knock on the door? Yeah, like, yeah, I just went to US Embassy and say and this is what happened to me. You know, there were wrong lines already too, but if you were political

prisoner at the time, I think they look at you differently. So, yeah, I just waited in line, came to my time came in, I explained what happened to me, what is my real story, and then here I am, you know, now in America. Yeah, you said it took like a matter of months.

Within months. Yeah, three, four months, yeah, three months, I think. I had this promise. Usually it took a long time. And to get immigration all of visa, I would even longer time than that, but because it was emergency, then,

like they understood the urgency of it. And I was allowed to come to America very quick. It was actually funny because I could talk about it for days

because, like, no, I was always called. So I wouldn't dare to ask. I would just want to come to America. But they even asked me where I want to leave.

I was like, it must be crazy. So I say like, anywhere where it's hot, you know, I just don't want to be called. It was like, I don't know what it is.

Is it hard up there? Oh, yeah, it's hot. Like me. That's good enough. That's good enough. You say this when I was, I'm going to fast forward a little bit. Again, you go through some of that details of that process of getting out of there. Finally, you get on a plane.

West Germany was the first stop on my journey to freedom. In Germany, I learned a lot about the American citizens and Polish expatriates living there who worked for the U.S. State Department and who were assisting me with other, me and other Polish political refugees in the transition to our new life in America. They taught me and others fleeing from various oppressive communist terror states what America is like, the customs, social moraz, and how to be successful being good American citizens. It was a lot to learn, and even then it barely scratched the surface. This is when I made a promise to myself that I would be the best citizen that America could have. It was my pledge to America, the greatest country in the world,

the land of the brave and the free. Yes. That's, you know, this is something that is still with me today, very, very, very life, you know. It's, I was never asked, what can we get out of you? I was only asked to, when you come to America, we ask you to respect our citizens, respect our laws and respect our flag in our country. And go and leave, live in peace. That was it. It's like, and they was so like, well, so they just don't want anything from me. No, we just want you to come and leave as a human being.

And hopefully you learn about America enough. You can become U.S. citizen even, and you can vote. You can actually be part of this setting the direction for the country. I was like, that was just, it was like science fiction to me at the time. And that's what happened. On March 21st, 1984, I landed safely, albeit exhausted in America with the equivalent of 10 cents. 10 phoenix, yeah, 10 phoenix.

There was German, Val. 10 phoenix is, I don't know, like maybe five cents actually, but it's like 10 cents. I was picked up from the airport by a church family who had volunteered to host me while an apartment was being set up. That part didn't take long at all. In the days of my arrival, I was brought to my new apartment near the project. in downtown Memphis, it was completely stunned.

It wasn't the nicest place, but it was mine. And most importantly, it was America. For me, it was the most beautiful place on earth. The fact that I had suddenly had an air conditioning unit, central heating and refrigerator, was mind-blowing to me.

Oh, yeah, you know, it's like in Poland. I remember when I was growing up in Poland, sometimes watching American movies. You can see these boxes in the windows. And I was like, why? It's such a simple idea. to put the just box so when my mom puts the,

when my mom puts the milk outside, because in Poland was cold, so we keep the foot on the ledge of the window, like third floor or fourth floor. So sometimes the thing fell off. So we say, what's such a simple idea? Those awesome boxes, Mom, why don't we build the box like America here in our home?

Well, I didn't know they were other conditioning. I thought they were just boxes when you keep the milk and meat The stuff that needs to be called outside. So I learned that. But yeah, there was such a, you know, like, I still remember that time when I came in, like, there's nobody telling me what to do.

I can ask, they will tell me, but is nobody waiting to put me in prison? I can say whatever I want to say without, of course, not offending other people. And be free, man. You know, there's like a, I really, felt free. And this is something that even today touches me, you know, that I still can come back to that

feelings where I was really for the first time. There is not the government here to torment me or, you know, or put me in prison. So I still remember. How long did it take you to feel like that? Was it like instantaneous? Where you just... The first, when I landed, it was the first time that it's like, they can't get me now. But then when I start living on my own, you know. I was a janitor. Yeah, so that was your first job.

You got a janitor. I was a janitor, yeah. So I was cleaning the toilets, mapping the floors, and this was down on me. I can pay for my shit. I can pay for my apartment. I can, but you know what, this is not all the story, because, you know, I wouldn't make, that would be, maybe so easy for me. I had American people coming and helping me, basically, this is how you need to do this.

This is how we need to do this. Do you need the clothes? My clothes worn out. I was making barely money. I was part-time janitor. So just enough to pay my apartment, my food, but like clothes and stuff, which American was bringing me.

People I didn't know from Adam. They just feel that, you know what, he is in need. So we're going to help him. And this is something that people here don't think about. They don't realize it even. It's so transparent to Americans, a goodness, being good to other people, and helping.

other people. And sometimes I say, you are helping this person and that's where we are. You know, this is the way America is. You can help. You help. And what's wrong with that? I said, no, nothing. You just, you don't even think what you are doing. You're just doing because this is the way you were brought up as an American, helping people, helping other people. And if you succeed, you help other people succeed. And this is, and this is, and this is, Well, but this is so, this is normal. This is how we are. Well, that's how we are.

But this is normal. But this is not normal anywhere around the world. So this is different. I know a family of refugees from Vietnam. And they came to America. Someone paid for them to come to America. They paid for this family to have like a small house. They paid for like food for them to get started.

They started. Same thing. Yeah. So they paid for all this stuff. And the family ended up, the sons ended up doing very well. They're like super wealthy now. They still don't know who the people are that sponsored them. Yeah.

They don't even know. It's just someone just gave them a ride to freedom. And then a head start in America. And the people that did that never have stepped up and said, hey, you're welcome or, hey, how about some payback? nothing. They just dig out of the goodness of their heart. This is something that American people don't see it because it's transparent to them. They are brought up like this. This is just, this is the way we are. But for us immigrants, it is different. It's like, holy shit, this is, the entire nation is so different. It's built on goodness, personal freedom,

and it is being cherished. And this is something that, that it touches me. Every time I think about it, is the nature of America and the character of America, which is like people don't think about it because that's the way we are, you know? It's like, what are you talking about? But yeah, there is a lot to talk about. You write in here about the first time you went to a mall. What was that like?

You must have been blown away. Well, before I went to the mall, I went to downtown because in Poland there was never malls, right? It was just like if you want to go see like nice table cord there So I was in electronic sanctity, like, have a nice tape recorder, have maybe some nice radio. So in Poland, you want to go see, you go to downtown. And there's like, we walk on the street and you see it.

Because the climate is so mild that there's no reason to go inside, outside. So I decided myself to go check it out myself. I was encouraged by the people who took care of me first time, the older couple, to explore America. So I decided to go downtown. Well, I see those big buildings in the far away. I couldn't judge the distance that far. I never seen that thing that far.

So I said like, I just woke up there. So I put my flip-flops on and flip-flop, flip-flop, just going to jump over the interstates. Because like I came to the stop. It's like there's no, how do I go? Well, in Poland you just crossed the street. So I didn't know what the interstates were. So I crossed the interstate, jump over the fence,

climb the bank, you know, keep walking. and to go downtown took me a few hours and I came in there and it's like nothing there so there's like big offices you can see nice dress people during the lunchtime

no going to eat something a bunch of restaurants but like nothing to look at just the office buildings so then I was trudging my way back and again every so often some Americans talk

do you need help do you need a ride I was like no thank you I couldn't have say what they want. I could tell what they want because I didn't speak English, but I kind of figure out they won't give me a right or something. I say, no, no, no, thank you.

And keep walking back. But the blisters all over my feet. I say, I'll never do it again. Definitely not in the flip-flops. And then I told him about my escapade, this older couple, so they took me to them all and said, this is where you go.

Holy shit, I haven't seen my life, things like that. That was like everything there, you know, And those people are nice dress You know they're walking around And like nobody's chasing them They don't try to just run into store and grab something Like I was used to, you see something good

You just go and grab it So I was like wow This is so great you know So then I was always like where do you want to go I want to go to the mall So I was like become like the permanent mall fixture I think in Memphis for a while Because I just couldn't have enough of it

So you eventually get a job job, you know, in a car shop, a car dealership, your, your, you're, uh, full in parts, basically that they need. Yeah, yeah. Oakley, Kesey Ford, those. Okay. And as you're doing that, your English isn't great. So you're kind of messing up so many parts that you're following eventually.

Yeah, yeah. So basically the dealership, the Oakley, Kesee Ford didn't want to fire me because I was working so hard. They knew in my challenges, my English, but they like me. So the opportunity show up in another dealership to be a mechanic, either for Porsche, Audi, on Sub. So they say, you know, like, would you, what do you think about? Do you know anything about foreign cars? Do you know the European cars?

I was like, yeah, I didn't. But, you know, I didn't even know anybody, none of my friends even owned a car. And I never owned the car for sure. and then my father only did, but he was never with us. I never seen that car. But you're European, so you must know about European cars. Yeah, I came from Europe, so do you know about European cars? Like, yeah.

And I just wanted to, you know, progress. I wanted to another opportunity, and I knew that I was not doing that great here. I was trying very hard, but just my ability was not quite there. But, you know, banging with the tools and hammer, I can do that all day long. and so I decide yes yes and we went to so they drove me to the dealership and those three

two mechanics show up first for Porsche then for Audi but they both look at me and it's like you know what the guy really don't speak English very well and I need somebody who actually can get up to speed on these cars they were very expensive cars

to do something so no no thank you and so they say okay well let's wait for the last one that's the sub-mechanic And here it is, the ramble of Holly Davidson, the whole dealership shook. So the guy just pulled in. I didn't know, I could hear him,

but we didn't see him yet because we are in the office. And then the six-foot-something Sasquatch shows up, fucking, like, a jetty, a big guy. It's like, she just look at me, say, that guy? It's like, yeah, she's like, do you want to be sub-mechanic? It's like, yeah. It's like, okay, I need a slave, so I take him as my slave. Go work for me.

And I got hired. I got the job. And this guy, you know, they were afraid of him there often. They call him motorcycle gangster. He took me under his wings. Everything I knew and know about cars, even today, I learned from him. And he basically, that he basically. allow me to

move on the next level in American society. I became mechanic and he made sure that I am damn good mechanic. And I remember, for me, it was still very challenging. I had to read manuals. I had to connect the words that I read with the parts that I'm fixing and working on. So I figure out the easiest way

would be to let him go and read the text for me. So we were the friends, said, Jim, if you could, I would like you to read this manual for me loud. I would record it so then at home I can repeat and read it over and over. I thought the professor was looking like,

what the fuck is he asking me for? I thought he would kill me, but he says like, you know what? I help you. But if you tell someone that was your bitch and reading your books, I'm going to fucking kill you. I'm never telling about it. And I think he doesn't mind.

now I can tell it, but at the time, yeah, he was the, he was the biggest, baddest guy I think I met till in my life. So he told me everything I know. He knows about cars. He made me good mechanic. And he, but when he read, he was not good at the reading. And I know his resistance now understand why he didn't want to read. But he did. He struggled through it as much I think as I do. I think I could read as much as he could, but he did it. And then at home, later on, every night I was listening to the tape recorder

and was following in the text and then the figures, the drawings, and it really helped me, help really become the good mechanic. And I owe him so much. So Jimbo, if you listen to this, my respect to you and my gratitude,

thank you for everything. You made me a better American. Thank you, brother. There you go. James Moore. James Moore. So you end up with that job. You end up getting a job then with Mercedes. Time's going by.

You went on a date with some girl and she had just been skydiving. Yeah, you know, like I never thought even this possible. It never crossed my mind. But here I met the girl and she jumps. So now I feel like a pussy next to her. It's like, what the hell? So we talk about it and say, why don't you try?

And it's like the, I think there was one. of the times like unlocking moments that yeah nothing is stopping me why wouldn't I try this is America this is America you can do whatever you want to do of course within the limits of the law of being the good citizen but but yeah so I call the drop zone and say hey can I jump yeah I'll be right there and I just drove myself there and I was ready they will put parachute on me but I say well that doesn't work like this you you can do today you can do the tandem jump So then if you like it, then you know, you can ask, you can schedule the classes and usually take a couple weeks that, you know, you go to class, make a jump, another class, make a jump.

And within maybe two weeks, you will be skydiving on your own, like as you want. So I made the first tandem jump and say, fuck, I need to do it again. So we won't bug again. And then I just run out of money for the weekend. So I said, like, I want to start skydiving. And they say, okay, when can I start? We can start on Thursday, so we might get Thursday jump. Then maybe you can back one on the weekend.

Then maybe another Wednesday, maybe another weekend, the seven jumps. Because A.F. And you're good. Then you can start jumping on your own. Oh, fuck. I started on Thursday. I was Saturday. I was jumping on my own.

We just went through all these jumps. I was just nagging, begging them. Say, hey, don't leave. Don't leave yet. One more jump. One more jump. So the instructors, Tommy Kinder, rest in peace, brother. and Wolfman, Robert Collins.

They were one of them, Reggie and Sarah, that were my instructors. Actually, Reggie took me first on the first skydice. This is the guy who hooked me up on skydiving. And they were there all the way through my progression until I graduated from the AFF course when I became the seven skydives on Friday. And Saturday, I was jumping on my own,

actually a barrel parachute. just rented parachute and I was jumping on my own. And I was screaming like, Geronimo, because they told me to scream like this. So I was bombing out of the airplane on my own after I'm 8, 9, 10, jump Geronimo. And also with my name, too, my name is Geron.

So there's like there was like two or three Thomas at the drop zone. So I said, no, if I would carry you Geronimo. That would be easier for us. You know, we don't have to worry about that. Your funny name. So I became Geronimo. So you're learning that.

You're learning free fall. You also at this time are studying to become an American citizen. Yes. And you memorize all that information. You learn the American history. Yes, because it was examulator. Yeah. And as you're doing that, the war kicks off.

The first Gulf War kicks off. You become a citizen of America, May of 1991. Yes. Now the war's going or looks like it's going to go off and you decide you're going to go fight. Yes, yes. You're able-bodied American. That was, I'm American. This is my country in war and need.

So I will support my country. I will fight war for America. And this is when I decide to join military. I never intended to spend, you know, to do career out of it. I just wanted to fight war. on behalf of America because America was at war. So I had to do that. And I didn't know how to go about it.

So I went to post office and I found there that thing that says what the... Yeah, you say in the book, in the post office I had found a selective service registration card for the draft. Yeah. I proudly filled it out, sent it off and went home to pack my stuff. Yeah. I was expecting to get a call from the military anytime. America was at war and I was ready to serve.

Yeah, yeah, so they, so the guys came in and said, what are you doing, Drago? I was Geronimo at the time. So what are you doing, Geronimo? I said, like, I'm going to war. So I'm packing this. I don't know what to do with the parachutes, but you can get to care of it for a while.

And I'm ready. So when are you leaving? I was like, anytime. Because I didn't know it. So they, they're like, okay. But then the, the, they're a, they're a, Pons came in that I'm too old. That's just the, there's not the registration.

It is not the, you know, contract, the military contract. Right. And I was like, sudden, but I figured out, well, there's some way I can support my country. I mean, it doesn't have to be, maybe more than. But I would like to do it because it's the easiest. I cannot build the jobs. I don't have resources to build more jobs for my fellow Americans. So I will fight for them.

And they kind of guide me later, say, well, this is what you need to do, and go to the recruiting office and join it. And I had no distinction between Army, Navy, Military. Military was military to me. It was like Army Navy, I didn't know any difference. There is a difference. So I went to Army office. I'll go there.

They send me there. They fill the paperwork. They proceed the paperwork with all this background check and everything. It took a while. And in the meantime, when they already complete pretty much everything, that came in, the Navy Seals came into Memphis, Tennessee. And they, they, we jumped together because they were the jump team, right? Yeah, it was a jump from the leapfrocks. They were doing some demonstration in Memphis.

So, of course, they stopped by our drones to make extra fun jumps. And this is how we find out. They told them what I'm going to do. And they're like, well, why don't you go and ask the name? got joined the Navy because asked them about Navy SEALs. I say, okay, I really didn't know what the Navy SEALs were at the time. I just knew there's some special forces. Stafford was not my goal to join special forces.

I joined and I just wanted to be in military and fight a war because America was fighting a war. And then, so I went up to them and said, look, I just met here guys at my drop zone. They told me to come to your office and switch. my paperwork from basically not to join Army where I'm working with now, recruiter next door. Just come to talk to you first. And who are these guys? I said they call

themselves sales. Ooh. Okay. So what do you want to do in the Navy? I want to be Navy SEAL. Just like these guys. Okay. So now then we start working on it. They told me to bring the paperwork. And I was kind of very awkward for me to

go to these guys. I would build a relationship with that army recruiters and go there and say like well thank you giving my paperwork I'm going next door but I did that I didn't like it but I did it didn't like because I didn't feel comfortable you know like I feel obligated to these guys and and then so I brought the paperwork stuff and that was pretty quick from then all because they yeah that was that was very quick yeah yeah I mean you say in the book the following Thursday I was sworn into the US Navy delayed entry program that Saturday I left for boot camp Yeah, because what happened is they asked me, at least they were honest with me,

that they were nice with me that provide me with the job. Because you can, at least in the Navy as undesignated, and then after boot camp, the Navy sent you somewhere. But they knew that I'm way too old, and my chance to join Navy sales was pretty much zero. So they say, well, at least we give him the guy, job. He's so excited to be part of the military. So they say, what job do you want to do? And I say, like, well, something with parachute maybe, because I don't know what the jobs,

maybe jobs are, but with, yeah, parachute regar. I say, right on, sign me up. But then he's like, well, but you know what, they call me like next week, I say, you know, this is like, if you want to go to parachute regar, you have to leave now because this is the schedule as boot camp. and we need to schedule. So from boot camp, you go to A school. If you don't go now, you have to wait another month or two to go to boot camp,

and then, so the time frame comes just right, so after bootcum, you go to A school. So I say, well, I don't want to wait that long. The war is on. So sign me up. So I call my girlfriend. I say, Delaine, we're getting married because I'm living for the Navy.

It's like, what? It's like, we're going to the Navy. I'm going to the Navy. So we need to get married. And she kind of like was a bit upset, but then she came in because I was in town, say, hey, we need to go and find the judge, get married, sign it up, and I'm leaving this weekend. So we went up there, we found some judge who was actually leaving home. So say, hey, Wilkie, can you marry us?

So he was a super nice guy. He talked to us and stuff. We filled the paperwork. We got married. I went to, I think on Thursday, gets warned for the delay entry program, and I think Saturday I was ship out to, Saturday or Monday, I think Saturday,

I don't remember, I was ship out to boot camp. And it was it. So I was in the Navy. I was happy. Damn, dude. And all I ask is just to go to war. I say, like send me to war and then never intend to make career out of it. I just thought to make, just go fight a war.

When the war is over, come back and resume my, life because it was good life you know I was I had everything in my life I could dream of and then you ended up in Navy boot camp there you go yeah and there's was something that was for me there was the initial thing was pretty scary because they're yelling at me you know they shaved my head took my clothes away give me some you know the military clothes it was a big shock but you know for second I was like that's pretty scary but then I said this is this is the path for me to fight for America. So I need to do that.

And I stayed that. And I was good because I graduate as a number one recruit in this whole graduation cycle. So I will receive the Military Excellence Award number one recruit and was sent off to a school

the next the parachute rigging school. And what was you got a kidney stone during boot camp, right? Yes, yes. They got laid up, almost got rolled back. Yes. So I didn't know what the kidney stone was. I never had one. I was not that dedicated. I was laying in the bed in a one night.

It was just like the pain just kicked me right. So badly in my back that fell off that bunk from the first, second bunk on the floor. And it was like it was already dark because we were sleeping. And it was like, boom. It was like, what happened? The lights went on. And by the time, they say,

call the medic, because I couldn't speak. It was so painful. And I'm on my fore. Before the medics even came out, I had that big paddle of sweat from pain under my nose. And this guy came in, are you okay? I was like, do I look okay to you? I was like, no.

Okay, so they called me up to hospital. That was okay. You know, I pissed this thing up. When they told me I need to be moved to the class behind in my company, 169, I think. It was graduating. I was begging. I was, no, please send me back. I'm good.

I piece this stone out. I have no problem. I can, I'm good. And they decided actually, they allow me to come back. The funny things was like inspiring for me. So when I walk into the group, because they announced the company, these recruits that I would be moved to class behind. I was, I had a medical emergency and I'm not going to be continuing.

And then I'm walking in. So they are like a line up and I was walking there. Everybody was clapping and, you know, it was so inspirational to me. These young kids, these young guys, and they like that, you know, they're banking in their company. So, yeah, but also was derailed my seal training because I didn't know at the time.

But eventually I was going to, I passed the test, so I was doing to medical checkup for the Navy SEALs. And I went maybe like two, three stations and the one that doctor looks at it and say, well, I think your seal career ends right here. It's like, well, yes, sir. And he said, you had a kidney stone. You have to wait, I think, year or two years.

I have this document still at home. So you have to wait a year. And then you can reapply for CL training again. So midnight, but you can continue with your A school and just go assign the command somewhere. And so I was like, Yeah, for you, that would be game over kind of. Game over because age.

Yeah. I already need that. waiver like I was like going 32 so like four years over and then you know another year waiting and then more a few years that that would never happen well luckily you got hooked up you got this part in the book here you say wallin millington this is where your your a school was where you're learning about parachute rigour yeah i visited a navy seal motivator on base i asked him to take the initial seal entry test and i passed it then i told him my situation with the kidney stone he thought for a minute and then told me to bring my medical record to his office.

Sure, I ran to the clinic on base with his request for my medical record and was back within an hour. The record of my kidney stone was on the first page. The Navy SEAL Motivator, Lester, told me to wait outside his office. I could hear a loud rip, and I was called back into the office. He looked at me with concern and said that he was not able to find any record of my kidney stone anywhere. He asked me if I could point it out for him. As we trudged through my medical record, I could not find it either. Then, looking carefully at me, he asked me if I was sure that I ever had a kidney

style. At that point, I was already 100% convinced that I hadn't. Yep, that's, let's Barrios. Rest in peace, brother, he's no longer with us. But he's the one who actually put me on the right track and put my career on track the way. So I end up in the SEAL teams. But you know what is? I want to make one point here that my biggest motivation was not to be a SEAL,

was just to join the military, join US Navy and fight the war on behalf of America when America was at war. So, you know, if a SEAL's capacity, they would be great. But if not, it really was not that important for me what capacity I would be serving America. And so then, but it happened that Les Barrios, he knew what he was doing. He asked me to bring the paperwork. He fixed it. And I went to, and I eventually, because I end up also with the trade school, the A school, as a PR on the top of my class. So I was doing well in the Navy.

And I think this is why I got these waivers eventually. So the only thing barring me from training was my age. And that was with less barry's recommendation. And I was granted the waiver. Yeah. Do you know what the oldest person is to go through buds? Do you know? I think it was maybe years older than I am,

but there was like four older, maybe like four older people than I was. Yeah, I was going to, I think I've heard of someone being 34. There is now somebody who was older than dead, but he didn't make it through, he made out of buds, but didn't make it through the training.

He was, he didn't make through SQT. But there was just very few people. I think, yeah, I didn't know at the time that I'm one of the oldest ever going to that, but kind of, you know. Yeah, I've heard, well, you just, it's hard to recover for guys that are older. Now, listen, you're a straight up mutant because you're sitting here right now. You're freaking 63 years old. You look like you're about 38 years old at the most.

So, yeah. So, but most guys, they can't recover fast enough when they're 33 years old, when they're 32 years old, even when they're 30 years old. And then so it's really hard for guys that are, quote, older to make it through. And then it's also hard for guys that are young to make it through. I heard the other day a stat that guys that are underneath 20 have less than 5% of making it. Because when you're young, you don't quite have all your strength yet. And a lot of times the guys just aren't mentally mature enough to be able to gut through stuff.

So I think the prime age is probably like 23, 24 or something like that. That's the most of the guys in my class were 21, 21, 23, 24. Yeah, I was old. I mean, I didn't feel old amongst them because I could beat up many of them. But I was, I was, but, you know, they took care of me. They knew I was kind of different. I was different a little bit. And I became like a mascot in the class, I guess.

even they're just making fun of me, instructors too, but, you know, they didn't find any buttons on me. So, like to push on. So they move on yelling

in other students. I got yelled at them too, but not more than average in the class, but when they pick somebody in the class who was like weak on something, who was like sensitive about something, they just keep pushing this button until this guy's quit.

Yeah, that's what happens. Or stop being sensitive to it. Yeah, yeah, that's right. They can either become hard or they can quit. Yeah, that never bothered me. I went to prison time. I went to the stuff that actually helped me, maybe mature me mentally enough that that never affect me. I never pay attention to that.

They could yell at me all day long. I just wanted to do a good job. I just wanted to be good. Now, you're saying the book that your biggest issue was that you weren't the strongest swimmer, and I was thinking about that. When I read it, I was like, yeah, it wasn't like you were going and down to the country club pool on the weekends. Poland or anything like that. You weren't taking trips down to the seashore to go swim. So you didn't have much

of water time growing up. Yeah, no, not at all. I mean, the thing to send there was a stream like a river, a little tiny river by my grandmother's place once every year, once every while. I was going there, but, you know, I didn't know how to swim very well. So and I tell you this, how naive

I was. I will jump for a second to Bats. When I show up in Bats, you know, get wet and send. Randy, run again. So many of us just run to the ocean. I see this guy just getting like an knee deep, like the uncle deep water. They roll in it and just come out, rolling the sand.

So I say, that's kind of stupid. Why not it's kind of like painful because it's cold? I just go and let the wave, because big waves roll over me. So I just dug, the wave rolls over me. And I get wet and they're just rolling the sand and come back to instructors to the class. Good God.

know the power of ocean. I thought I would drown. I thought my hands, my legs got ripped out of me. Eventually, the ocean sped me out. And I was totally exhausted. I said, what the fuck was this? And so I basically crawl out of that thing, rolling the sand and limped back to the...

And then I say, those guys were smart. I need to follow them, do what they do. But yeah, I couldn't swim. So I was... And you know, we tried to practice it, like Jason Cabell. Jaybel. Jaybel, yes, yes.

So we, when we met in the PR school, this is when we tried to help ourselves and prepare, but there's nothing can prepare you. I couldn't swim. Jable couldn't swim ever less than I did. Oh, really? Yeah. No, no.

Oh, dude. I don't know how he, this guy made it to the sheer willpower. He just would not quit. But yeah, we didn't swim. Jeebel's like determined dude. He's a hard-headed determined dude to make stuff happen for sure. You know, often, when I had a hard times,

we kind of become good friends in the A school. So we went to BADS, very often I just like rely on his opinion on his what he thinks, you know, what should I do. And he's the same thing, we're just asking, helping each other out. So J. Bell was... So you guys in Buds class together, too? Yeah, we're in Beds class together, too.

So, yeah, that was something that... I think we are friends forever. And so we're brothers forever. And then, you know, we met in combat too in Iraq, so there was something. But I remember when I was learning how to, when I was trying to swim, when I first time came in, I'd never swim with the mask on my face. So when they told me to put the mask on, and they told us swim the laps. When after the first two laps, I was already drowning because I couldn't breathe.

I was breathing so much water in the lungs as air. And I was like, we were seeing these black spots, you know, they're about to pass out. So I remember like if I stand up, they would just kick me out. It's like I can't swim. But if I don't, well, I would not drown. They will pull me out of water and resuscitate me. So I just swim. I will swim until I pass out.

And I didn't. And I was getting easier and better and better. And eventually, in the end of it, when we finished with this phase, the next phase came in, I was chosen to demonstrate side-stroke swim to this new guys. So I did well. So you figured it out. And I mean, you're used to, you already been in freaking a communist prison camp. So once you got through the swimming, people are yelling and screaming at you, no big deal.

And then the running, the O course, all that stuff, pretty much no factor for you. I was pretty good at it. I was not the top of the class, but I was never, I was never going until third phase when I start piecing blood. But otherwise, you know, I was always somewhere in the middle of the park. Yeah. And yeah. But it was taxing for me. You know, like guys were, after finishing, I was with amusement watching like these guys,

hey, let's go drinking. I was like, fuck, I can't do that. I mean, I'm about to, I can hardly move. I cannot leave my hand. So I did manage to go drink with the guys too, just not so often. Did you ever get rolled back? I got a roll back just in the beginning of it. Right before the halvee week, I got this MRSA infection.

so my legs swore I couldn't put my pants on and I was not smart about it instead of I figure out I don't go too day medical now but what I will do I just wait until Friday so they will cut that shit out and then I will have three days to heal

and I'm good to go well so I went to Balboa on Friday after we finished with our exercise with our day and they clean it up they cut the shit out and they send me home and I was like okay I'm good.

By Monday morning, my leg is so swollen that to put my pants on, I had to actually cut my pants open. And I went to medical and they were peace. What happened is in Balova, they did not irrigate that wound. So they just cut it out and just send me home.

And so they fixed it. And my swelling went within an hour down. So I said, can you put me back in the class? I say, no, because we are going into muds. and you have open wound, it will get reinfected, you can't.

I was just like, no, please do it. I'm strong. I can do it. I'm strong. Yeah. And they say, okay, if you can run here, I think they'll run me to run a mile. Bugging a four and you come back on time,

we'll reconsider it. And I did. I did run. I was painful, but they already cleaned it up. The swelling went down. So I did, I finish it up and say, can I go back? No.

It's still open So it was one class 184 And it was before the Halle Week And so I started 185 And I finish one 185 From the very beginning Was it? How was Hell Week?

Hell Week? I don't remember as a bad thing For me it was like We get in I got kicking the balls And we left and I was done The more important The more difficult for me was third phase

That was real Hellwhip That was Halloween for me and was kicking my ass. That was when I started piercing blood. And that was like... What about second phase? What about how about pool comp? Since you didn't swim much growing up, how was pool comp? No, by this time, I was swimming good.

So, you know, that's nice about the Navy and Bats. Even if you try and the instructors will help you, they make sure that you know the material, you know how to swim. And Bats was kind of, I failed the first one. First pull comp and the second one, I was so stressed out. When I felt, I had to take the test next day. They were so stressed out that when I was driving home,

I beat up to guys up there and by my apartment. But that was another story. But I passed it next time. You say something really interesting in the book, which I actually think a lot of guys would agree with, but I don't think I've ever heard anybody say it. this way. You say, Bud's training proved I was capable of a lot of things, but it also revealed a lot of ways in which I wasn't as strong as I thought. And I was thinking like, yeah, you get pushed

to your limits where you can't do anything else. Like you get, you're going to do exercises and do things to where you know, oh, there's a point where you can't just do anymore. Like, there's a point where you can't climb a rope anymore. Like, it doesn't matter how bad you want it. I always like the example of climbing a rope because you can climb a rope to failure and you can't climb a rope anymore. Like, you can get another grip and pull you slide down.

That would happen to some guys they had on the O course. Like, you know they wanted to pass the O course, but they couldn't climb that rope to grab the rope transfer or the ring transfer. So there are things. We as human beings, like everyone talks about how in buds you learn to push through, anything, but you also learn there's some stuff you're not going to be able to push through

and that's why you're going to need teammates. Exactly. Oh, exactly. It teaches you, it told me to some of the stuff that I need to be aware of, that there are things that I need to rely on other people. And especially on the teamwork here, that teaches you that by yourself, by anything, yeah, you can be powerhouse, but you still need a teammate. You can't do it on your own. And there's not only through BADS, but the entire seal career, you learn to rely. And you know that BADS is teaching you where you need that push, that extra teammate, to get you through the hump. Why was third phase, which is land warfare?

Why did that kick your ass so bad? Well, first, because I think by this time my body was a little bit exhausted too. I allow myself before going to San Clemente Island to be dehydrated. I remember we came back from the Rooksack March and I was pissing blood because I was so dehydrated and I was so tired I guess Besides my kidneys I guess were not very strong because the beatings I got from the they were They were how the guards were beating us in kidneys where you basically have no marks It's not many marks so that paid the got the toll and I think from then on I remember I was always I was weaker I was weaker than I normally would be

And so when we went to San Clemente Island, as you know that you just, there's like a hell week but on steroids. You don't sleep. You hardly sleep. You always cold and wet. And everything is very physical. But on the top of it, you need to think. You are shooting live ammunition next to your teammate next to your next student. You move, you do things that could potentially kill you.

So you have to, you are tired, exhausted, but you still have to think, and you have to think quickly. And on the top of it, if you want to eat, you have to make those perfect 11 pull-ups in full gear. So like I say, I was weakening already. So sometimes I was able to make those pull-ups, but if you didn't, then you made those races. You go race back to the surf, to the surf, and if you don't come back on time assigned to you by instructor, you run again, you run again. you run again and eventually you end up eating outside so there was December of the time it was freaking cold and most of the time I ate outside so so that was kind of yeah it was hard there was heroin steroids that's what I call it yeah you also say this from the outside this

training seems absurd and it is brutal but everything that happens during seal training is taken from a carefully curated and calculated training guide that is updated and improved upon year after year There are no random exercises. And if it's not in the manual, it's not part of training. Unlike the popular belief that some exercises are just arbitrarily made up and crazy. In seal training, there is no randomness or haphazard foolishness. Everything goes by the book and manuals. The training is dangerous as it is.

There's no place for craziness. There are many safety measures implemented to protect students. Most of it is invisible to trainees. They don't know about it. And this was one of the ways to introduce stress on the students so they can be graded on how they perform during duress. Yes, that's what, there's a big misconception. And I hear it all the time from people, from civilians. The COL training is just crazy.

These instructors are coming up with some crazy shit, and they would just drown you, they would resuscitate you. There's like, you know what, but this is so stupid. People need to realize the training, the serial training is dangerous as it is. Even the initial part, that selection course is very dangerous. So there is no time, there is no place for some craziness and wild things. Everything goes by manual.

Everything goes by the instructions. You cannot debate from it because if you do, you risk students' life. You reach these kids' lives. So I didn't know it when I was going through the training. I thought it was freaking crazy. This guy, that instructor, that thinks it's crazy. But it is not.

Everything goes by the book. Everything is already assigned and it's being improved upon every class. class. So it's getting better and better. Yeah. So you get through that and you end up getting assigned to Team 2. SEAL Team 2. Yeah. Team 2. And so that was kind of got me too because when you check in, you always under the pressure, stress to perform to be a good student, good sailor. So when you check in the teams, it's a good

teams, that's what they tell us too. You remember, like, get your best uniform you have, you present yourself in professional sailors way, and that's what I did. I've just pressed my, spent all this weekend pressing my uniform, you know, make sure this is perfect, as everything is shiny and cool. I show up on the quarter deck and it's like, okay, they introduced me to a CEO, a master chief. I went to this initial thing. And then I say you go to the back door up there and get your, go to get your gear issue and all that stuff. So, well, I did that, but I didn't make it to the issue thing because the old seals caught me. And so, you know, I already knew there's going to be some harassment.

So I was kind of prepared for it, but not for that. You say as soon as I was out of the CMC and walking through the compound, I was stopped by other seals, told to jump on the pull-up bars and keep doing pull-ups until Toad to dismount from the pull-ups. bars. From there, things got fast and painful. After pull-ups, I was yelled at to lay down and do sit-ups and push-ups, and I was ushered out of the SEAL team through the back gate, marched the starting point of a three-mile run, testing route and told to complete the run in the required time. Mind you, I was still wearing my dress, blues, uniform and perfectly polished shoes. By the time the older SEALs finished with me, my awesome uniform looked like sweats

for playing basketball. Well, you can imagine now, too. So here it is on base, right? There's normal traffic that people go, but the hour where we ran those three miles around, it was along the road where people drive all the time when they move. So can you imagine the dude with the white hat, you know, with this wide, long pants and the shiny boots and stuff and the, and the, the, the, the neckerchief, yeah. The neckerchief, the flap on the back, flapping around, and you run like crazy. So there's like, what happened to this guy? He just lost his mind or something. So yeah, yeah, That was my welcome to the teams. But I kind of expected there'll be funny things happening to new guys.

Here's another good one. One Friday, the older guys invited us FNGs to join them for a kegger. As a new guy, I was impressed. I thought there was genuine interest in team building. We were all looking forward to the end of the day. Honestly, I remember thinking, oh, wow, these older experienced deals are inviting us to join them for beers. How awesome. Whoa, yeah.

Team buildings, you know. We felt like the popular kids. It just invited us to sit with them at lunch. I quickly learned, however, that we weren't there to build camaraderie or hang out with the popular kids. We were there for the amusement of the veteran seals. This was them giving us an old school Navy welcome. The cool old guys jumped us and bound our feet with rigors tape. They hung us from the high base ceiling with cranes and chain lifts.

Of course, there were more than a few punches thrown throughout to minimize our resistance to their welcome. We soon found ourselves hanging from the ceiling like big grumpy bats. Every once in a while, we were lowered down from the ceiling for a swig of beer or another beating or to be laughed at when our faces changed another shade of red. We weren't back on our feet until the kegger was over. While this ritual might be considered hazing by outsiders, it was meant to be a kind of testing ground for the new guys. We had to prove we were tough enough to be trusted in any situation. Today, there are no longer kegger Fridays in the SEAL teams and no alcohol is allowed in the compound. Very strict policies regarding alcohol are now in place.

The old welcome to the teams has been softened and put under. control so the new welcome procedures are not mistaken for hazing. There are very strict policies in place regarding any welcome events, but at that time, it was all good to go. Yeah, you know, I think there was nothing wrong with that. They say that some people got hurt, but I think mostly their feelings got hurt. But you know, you have to have a thick skin in teams. So for me, kind of like, you know, I just roll with the punch. I say, this guy's not going to kill me, at least I hope not, and it's going to be fine. So I put up with it, and eventually, you know, they move on to somebody else.

I mean, you do deployment, and you are dishing out these kind of hazing stuff. So there were funny things, too. You know, like when I was already, I wasn't a new guy anymore. I was the season seal. So we had the new guys coming to Searle Team 2, and we did the spy rope exercises. you know, you just, the hiller comes in, drop the rope, you hook yourself to the rope, and then takes off with like five, six guys

hanging on the rope. And so we just talked to the pilots, say, you know what, it's just like, when you fly over this pound up there, why don't you just dip these guys in it? And so it's like, mine is like December in Virginia Beach, is them cold.

And it was not frozen yet. So, yeah, we just flew the hill out, the hill came, there's new guys in it. And then, put them around for a while, you know, freezing. So, you know, things like that happen. But again, it makes you harder.

It's like nobody gets hurt. Maybe a lot of feelings got hurt. And I know these people whose feelings got hurt. They, not long, they didn't spend a lot of time in the SEAL teams. Yeah, you know, I always felt like the guys that didn't, as a matter of fact, when I was in platoons, like, if you didn't like a guy or if you really wanted to kick them out of the teams, and they wouldn't get hazed. They would just get, like, ostracized.

So hazing was kind of like, or whatever you want to call it, I guess. You can't call it hazing, but whatever this is called hazing. Welcome to the teams. Yeah, this stuff was kind of just for fun. I do know that there were sometimes, there were sometimes where it got out of control.

Excessive, yes. And I was like, yeah, that's over the line. And so the problem is, I think, instead of saying like, okay, here's, and look, you can't be like, hey, here's the rules. Yeah, this is how you haze the guy. Yeah, you can't do that.

but you know they could have put some kind of parameters on it it was also good because man it was it's humbling right like you're a new now you're showing up you if you're a wise ass or you think you're you think you're you think you're the greatest thing in the world you don't think that when you get to the team and you see what's going on at least that's put a foot of it long yeah not for very long for about seven minutes before you're getting you're getting squared away yeah so I think it was a cultural thing um and you know I mean I know you've got in here that there's official regulations again it's that I don't know necessarily that it's that there's not clandestine welcomes going on but but yeah you know I think like anything

if it's taken to an extreme then it gets dumb but there was something really positive to it too um you know there was a thing I watched this documentary about hockey and there's a there's a player in hockey called the enforcer and the enforcer literally just beats people up and he beats people up that do things that aren't okay in hockey they're not illegal in hockey but they're not okay for instance there's like a star player yeah and someone would blindside hit the star player the star player the star player's out there he's he's a skilled guy he's focused on scoring goals and all of a someone would blind side hit the star player although the enforcer would come out and freaking

beat the shit out of that guy and so what happened was there's actually balance and people go yeah I don't want to do that because then I'll get the shit beat out of me by the enforcer so there's what there is is respect and so I think

you know in the SEAL teams there was respect because you want to get the shit beat out of you and guess what I force you do first you listen first you pay attention so You know, again, if it gets out of hand, obviously, it can get stupid. But it was a good way of me when I was 19 years old checking into a SEAL team thinking I was a badass, a good way to be like, oh, I'm not a badass.

I'm just a dude and I need to get on board with the program. Cool. Got it. Got it. So, you know, it's humbling and it's good. Oh, this is the way I look at it too. It never hurt me physically or mentally. It was just making me kind of like, I thought it was funny.

It was like fun. It was painful. I didn't laugh all the time. But it was kind of like accepted. This is the way it is. And it doesn't make me weaker. It doesn't make me, it makes me just better, tougher guy. Yeah, I'm fine.

Yeah, it's a little camaraderie. You know, it's a little classic camaraderie. After the beating, we used to drink together. Yeah, let's go. So you end up, you go to SEAL Tactical Training. STT, this is back when we, did it at the team. This was funny.

You didn't have your freaking clearance yet. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was kind of like, I knew that you need this. Something like clearance, but apparently nobody ever asked me about it. So I thought maybe this is something I misread, didn't understand well. So we went through entire STT course and the phase when you did the radio communication and cryptography, when you learn how to encrypt messages, they crib them and word with this

secret. equipment. So we went through entire course. Me and another guy, Scott Linton. Scottie, if you hear, Cheers brother. So me and Scottie, so me and Scotty then we sit in the bench like day before the FTX, the final exercise that we need to like exam from the crypto and all that stuff. So we are all ready. We can take the test. The institute comes in so like, hey, it comes to me, it's like, do you have a clearance? I'm like, what clearance? Like, secret clerians? It's like, I don't know, never heard of it.

I mean, I never heard, nobody asked me that before. Okay, do you have a clearance to Scott Linton? Do you have a clearance? It's like, I don't think so. I'm not you as a citizen. Scotty Litton was somehow, he's born in England or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he moved here when he was like tan or something like that,

but he still had a little bit of an accent. Yeah, he spoke with an accent. He's a great guy. Yeah, for sure. But it's the fact that no one picked up on it and said like, hey, bro, where are you from? Because he was clearly not from America the way he talks. Yeah, I love Scadi. So he just pulled us out and said, come on with me.

He was already shaken at the instructor. I don't remember his name, but he was like, okay, this was going to happen. Never, ever say to anybody did you even seen this course. You have not been here. Understood? He has instituted. Okay, you're going to get your clearance. You're going to pass this test again.

It's easy for you guys because you already went through this course anyway. Just don't say to anybody. And we came back and eventually for me because my background, the clearance took longer time and it came in. I went and took the test in the radio shack upstairs and passed it. Scottie Linton actually. We all went to his citizenship ceremony. He had to become citizens.

first before he could. So if he became citizens, he got his clearance and we deployed to Bosnia, I mean to Italy at the time. Yeah. Well, I mean, you had, first you had to go go through like, used to have a probationary period.

In the teams, yeah. And you said it's after a probationary period passing the seal board made up of chiefs and officers. We awarded the seal trident. In the morning muster in front of the entire entirety of SEAL Team 2, we were called up front and center and were presented with the coveted tridents in the presence of

Admiral Joseph McGuire. He's an Admiral today. Back then he was a commander. It was a great milestone in my life. It was a great moment, but it also made me reflect on many things. It was crystallizing in my mind that this could only happen in America such an exceptional country. Only in America is it possible to come without even knowing the language and carrying only a bag of clothes and still succeed through hard work and determination. As much as I was proud of of my seal trident. There was an even greater honor that was bestowed on me before. It was American citizenship.

The citizenship and American flag encompassed the Trident. I was a Trident wearer because I was an American. Boom. You see, this is why, like, I don't wear a Trident. Once I'm out of uniform now, when I'm already a civilian, people do and they can. They deserve. They earn this thing.

but I wear an American flag because this encompasses everything. It does encompasses the Trident. So me wearing the Trident is like a distraction to my American flag that I wear. So this is what is important. This is what drives me. And yes, people say,

congratulate me of being a seal, making the seal training and being a good operator. But that's not my biggest accomplishment. That's my biggest accomplishment. biggest thing that I ever did is become American. And not only just through the ceremony, but also thinking like American and being my heart American. So this is something that I'm very proud of.

That's the proudest things. Like you just mentioned, two months after I received my trident and officially became a seal, we deployed to Italy. And this was cool. Soon after we landed in Italy, we were sent on a mission to find and if possible, rescue a down pilot from behind enemy lines. An American pilot had been forced to eject from his plane, then to survive a week in his own hostile,

on his own in hostile territory before he was rescued. Seals were among those sent to look for him at this point. The full realization, it was real, now hit me. I was no longer in training. There are so many safety nets in training precisely to make sure that students don't get injured during the training. However, these safeguards are no longer there during missions, and you must rely on your training and your teammates

to reduce the chance of injury and to ensure mission success. From the moment I first checked into SEAL Team 2, it dawned on me that every day we were doing something that could kill us. Training, obstacle courses, parachuting, diving, swimming in the open ocean. I remember during one of the flights over the Adriatic looking for the down pilot, one of my teammates, Scott was sitting on the edge of the helicopter's ramp, legs dangling with his head leaning out of the helo. He had a safety belt on him to keep from falling out, but at one point it slipped off by some freak accident. He was sitting on the edge of the ramp with his safety belt unbuckled, laying behind him. Bill walked back to Scott

Grabed him Right on Grabbed him and pulled him away From the ramp inside the helo We're afraid that if we yelled the Scott He would move and fall off the ramp That would be tragic It was narrow escapes like that

That reminded us we weren't training anymore And it happened It actually did happen in Zero Team 2 Later on And in Bosnia We lost guy like this Fell out the helicopter And with Scott

Yeah there was Scottie Linton actually. Oh, that's Scottie. Yeah, there was Scuddy. So he was sitting, twinglingly with his sniper rifle. And, you know, these belts that we have, they have,

there's like a buckle that you can just sometimes touch it, catches it, and it just comes off. This whole belt comes off. So when we look at this, he's sitting on the ramp. He's on 53. His legs are dangling. He's just like leaning here, leaning there, that's twinkling with his gun.

if we call him, he would just turn around, he would lose his balance, it was like he would just fall off it. And so Bill White actually, he just, we look at it like in horror. So Bill instead of saying anything, he just kind of just grabbed him by the neck

by his shoulders and just drag him inside. He was like, what the fuck? But it's like, dude, you almost died. And we showed him the belt. Yeah, he had no problems being manhandled. But yeah, there was things like that happened.

You know and and this is why it dead down on me that the safety nets that we have always have in the training in the initial training They're no longer there the balls to the wall Mm-hmm You tell other stories in here get the book to get the rest of these stories you come back from that deployment And you know when you come back from your deployments in the SEAL teams that's your opportunity to you about six months you can go to different schools and whatnot So people put in for sniper school and breach your school and and J-TAC school. Just put it in for a bunch of different schools

to get more skills. You say here, I was assigned to English 101 school on base in Little Creek. As guys would pass me in Navy buses on the street on their way to the respective schools, they would shout, hey, Drago, where are you going?

I'd hold up my heavy textbook. I'm going to English class. Yeah, so, you know, they've seen something in me, something promising that instead of shit-gunning me from the Thames, because my English was not that good. I mean, it was good enough

to mask to cover it, but I still have to listen to you, translate in Polish, then translate in English and answer to you. I was quick with it, so nobody caught it. But it took me a long time. So that English class, whoever made the decision to send me there actually helped me a lot and allow me to continue with my career. So yeah, I was like, there's my, I was not even upset about it. I was like saying, anything to. make me a better seal. If my English is lacking, I will fix it. And I did.

Were you an AW in your first platoon? Machine Gunner? What did you do? Yeah, I was AWD. They had the machine gunner. I was struck for two platoons, I think, was machine gunner. So I loved it. You know, it was heavy, but you carried a heavy stake.

So when you unload it, when you open up, everybody knows that. You are on line. Yeah, I love that. Hell, yeah. Second deployment, you go Germany and Bosnia. Yeah. And what's cool about this, you mentioned this, the biggest influence on me in my seal career,

the guy I always wanted to emulate with. And that's his first name. He was a great leader. Not only was one of the toughest, he was also dedicated to making us the best seal operators there were. I swear the guy never slept. He was always trying to think of ways to make the platoon

harder, better, and stronger. His knowledge and expertise were legendary, especially in winter and Arctic warfare. He taught us how to ice climb, ski. navigate Arctic environments, everything. Nobody else in SEAL Team 2 knew as much as knew as much as who in his late 30s was also older than most seals about that stuff. Legendary guy. A legendary guy.

I can say his name, I think, now. I hope he doesn't mind me that. But, you know, if he does, we can always cut it out. Well, let's just not say it because I don't want to. I know he still does different. You know, he still does various things. Yeah. But I think he knows who he is.

And he is the guy. He definitely knows who he is. Yeah. I mean, he knows that. And everyone that teams know who you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. So this is the guy I was trying to emulate always.

And to the point that even like with Rob Bonil, he said, dude, that thing's so easy. When you do this stuff, it looks so easy. How did you get to this? I'm just trying to be like my chief and try to emulate him. He was the, but you know what? There was not only the toughness of him. I mean, the guy was,

some of the guys in the SEAL team, too, the training cadre, he thought he's unhinged. They even came to us and say, you know what? We can catch you. Regardless of what your chief wants, we can put you back in the barracks. Because they did not allow us to sleep in the barracks. We got to barracks only for the weekend.

We sleep in the wintertime, in the wintertime, slip on the range. Sleeping bag, biv bags and everything. We're on the range. Minnesota. We slept on the range. range. So he was that guy. But

not only that, you can tell this guy hard, he always knew, he always asked how you are doing, how can he help you? And in the platoon, so like time, we stop, you know, we have this breaks a little bit, we set the perimeter, he was always that, how are he doing?

Because everything, okay, there's anything you need. Are you okay? Everything's fine? Yeah. So he always makes sure that each one of us is fully ready for the next thing and stuff. And it was such a pronounce that I told myself, from this problem, I want to be like him. I want to be like him. And that's what I tried. I failed many times. There's the caliber of people that you can't sometimes emulate.

Yeah. And just universal respect from everybody knows who he is. Yes. And he just freaking love the teams. He cared about the teams. And when you got a guy like that, like, it's just awesome. And I never actually worked with him. I only would, like, I'd be at some conference or we'd be at some thing.

And so I'd get to talk to him. But yeah, just an awesome reputation. And it's cool that that is what carries, you know, the guy in the teams. The officer in our platinum two, Bill, again, this is the thing. I wanted to call him. I just connected, reconnected. With him, I just didn't have a chance to ask him about it,

to bring his name. I will not use his name, but he knows who he is. He was the OIC of that platoon, Bill. He's very successful now in civilian life. But so these are these officers that I was so lucky to work for them. You know, like I never had bad officer. You know, it's like all of you guys are working.

with. It was just like fantastic. I was extremely lucky because you know, sometimes you have officers you might like less or you don't like but I never had an officer that I would not, I would think less of him because

they were just always above the cut. The officers I work with. So I was very lucky. Yeah, that is lucky. That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. So you get done with that platoon and then you go into your third deployment which is Bahrain and this is when you and we were

together and what platoon was what what were we fox trot or we echo what platoon were we do you remember echo echo echo so that's where we were seal team two echo platoon oh no no no that was the uh i'm sorry that was a thing was it might have been fox trot maybe you see like i i was not putting this in the books because I try to avoid this, you know, not to give away too much, like what the SEAL teams, what, how many combat mentioned, so nobody can figure out, you know, up-tempo or stuff like this. So I try to keep it away from the book. Is that bad operational security? It just broke by not knowing my own foot. You didn't break security to that.

I guess no one learned anything because I don't even know it. I'm kind of like stoner. I can't give me the information because I don't know it. You know, there is so many platoons. you do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we do, we get in a platoon together, which was freaking, um, really fun.

Oh yeah. That day was when, you know, this is when I met you first time. Yeah. And God, I remember. I said, well, this is the first time when I see you, actually we end up doing the the swim, the, the qualification dive. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I'm sorry, I look at you because I was, we are paired up.

So, you know, it was three men pair. Oh, God. And I look at you and it's like, well, that guy is big. So he ain't going to swim that fast. I think I'm good because I was never fast swim. I can swim long, but not fast. And so it just gave me the buoy. And I say, I swim with the buoy.

And so then it's like, for a while I'm doing okay, but then I feel my drag is getting hot. But it's like, fuck, I can't keep up like this. So I'm kicking my ass. So if I look at this guy next to three men per swim, he's already in total toe. You're just towing two guys. Suddenly I was the same thing.

And so we swamed there and back. And I was like, fuck, that's a big guy, but that guy's on the mom. So, yeah, so that was right there. The respect is like, fuck. I thought I'm good, but not that good. We had an awesome platoon. We had a, we had like a condensed workup, if I remember. Like we didn't have, we just, as soon as we formed up, we were in workup.

Yeah, there was that. Yeah, there was the first strike platoon too. So they were like in the rush, I think, to put us out. Yep. So we didn't have any, like, what they called pro-dev phase where you're kind of going to schools. The thing I just talked about, where you're going to schools? No one went to schools.

Everyone was like, boom, we were in a platoon and we were automatically in a work-up, and that was fun. I know I was trying to get people to train jujitsu. That's the thing. The welcome to the platoon, that's like the guys. I was like jujitsu. I didn't know much about jujitsu. I didn't really know.

I thought it was like a judo or something. and your first thing was you just came back and you look at the platoon and say, I'm going to chuck out the entire platoon in 10 minutes. So we were just laughing. It was like, yeah, yeah, right. We didn't know who you were.

So by then the first two, three guys stopping out or pass out and the thing that I remember, like most of the guys just lay on the bag and we are shaking their legs and bring them back to consciousness, you know, so that was a case. And then I can see like a couple guys like,

well, I need to do something. I'll be right bag and just around the errands. Like they never came back. But yeah, this entire platoon, including myself, will choke out. And that's another thing. You know, it was like then. I was fascinated.

Fuck, I want to love that. I want to be that good. So this is how we actually start doing the jiu-jitsu in there. Yeah, you have a little story in here. You were, we were doing some jih Tzu in the platoon. I was kind of coaching and watching you guys. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And here I'm like yelling,

Drago, man. You got to let him go. Let go, man. He tapped out. while choking him even harder, I started arguing that he was not tapping out. Yeah, yeah. I did not feel nor hear any tapping.

They had to pry him out of my grip. I released my sparring partner confused. He didn't tap out, I told them. Yeah, he did. Jocko said while laughing, did you hear the sound? I said, what was that? My sparring partner eventually caught his breath. Dude, you had me so pinned down that I couldn't even move a finger.

I was trying to say tap, tap, tap, tap, but I didn't have enough air. And the only thing came out was Tittitsin before passing out. I immediately apologized. I felt awful well, maybe a little. Yeah, actually I reconnected with Scott. So after that, just recently, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, I talked to. Scott Linton was Scott.

Yeah, I know the other Scott. Yeah, I talked to him the other day, too. I traded some text with him. Yeah. That was who it was. He would get so mad doing Jiu-Jitsu. He would get, he would get, what's the word? He would get personally mad at me.

Oh. I would be rolling with him and like he would he would I would just be a cross side or something on him and he would just tap out and he'd be like too just go just get off me man just do this stuff he would be mad at me like literally mad at me and then like five minutes later he'd be like dude I suck or whatever but in the moment of of of claustrophobia he would get freaking mad. Yeah but you know this is a typical team guy. stuff, you know, aggressive guy. And here, just losing able to pass out. So, fuck, just get mad. You can not get scared, get mad. So he was.

And the Jiu Jitsu was not working for him well. But I like Scott. He was a great guy. And he's so funny. He would say the funniest stuff. He would, he had this voice that he'd use. Like he'd say, ice cream, Sammy.

He'd be like, let's go get ice cream. My memory comes back. He'd say, that's because I am an athlete. He would say like that. He would say, I am an athlete. That's what he'd say to me. He's like, I don't need to get on the ground with you. I don't need you to do this kind of stuff.

I'm an athlete. He was good. He was like very physically. He was a very, I think he played some kind of like college. I don't even know what sport, but he was definitely a really good athlete. My respect to Scott. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

But funny as hell. Funny. He had this story where. They were in sniper school. And they were going through the drill Kim's keep in mind, right? So you've got to look out at the field and you've got to find stuff. Yeah. And so there was a guy that was going through sniper school with him that they didn't really like this guy.

I guess he was kind of arrogant. He's kind of an asshole. And he was doing pretty good in the school. So they're all on the line. And they have to look out into the field and find, you know, they'll have like a canteen. Yeah, yeah. They'll have a notebook and they'll have this, that, a bullet casing. And so you've got to find as many things as you can.

So all the guys are on the line and they cheat and they kind of tell each other like, yo, there's a, you know, canteen at 120 yards and then like it's building. So they all cheat and they, but they didn't tell the other guy. And so they all write down and you had to find like 10 items. And so they all turned in their pieces of paper. They all have 10 items. Instructors are like, yeah. And they, and they're like, hey, yep, everyone did pretty good.

One guy failed. And they could tell it was him, the guy that they didn't like. I can tell it was him because he was like his face turned red. He's all mad. And Scotty goes, Scotty goes, they're walking back to the, to the freaking buses or to the trucks or whatever. And as they're walking back, Scott, Scotty's talking to that guy. And he goes, I'll tell you what, you got to be a real piece of shit to fail that test. Yeah, just the stint the body.

The way he said, I'll tell you what, you got to be a real. Oh, piece of shit to fail that tough. And the way he saves the shit, I can see it. Just freaking savage. Just a total sad. But, you know, we had an awesome platoon. These guys were like comedians. Oh, yeah.

He was always like Steve Drew. That guy had us so quick-witted. But the nickname didn't work out with me because this is where I got my Dragon nickname. And he was like, why don't I get a cool nickname like that? And then you came out with the nickname for Steve. But he was such a quick-witted, such a funny guy. And Robo Neal. Good God, Robo Nuss.

I mean, that was just like comedy show. I have never laughed so hard. Maybe in prison a little bit, but even not in prison. As I was laughing in this platoon, that was the funniest group of people I ever been with. It was fun. I had, we were out at some bar, and something happened with Rob where he left, right?

And some girl comes up to me. I don't know where this came. I don't know where this came from. This girl comes up to me. And she goes, hey, do you know that guy's Sloan? And I'm like, I go, I go, uh, and I have no idea. I don't know anybody. She goes, you know that guy named Sloan?

And I go, yeah, I go, I think so. What does he look like? She was like, oh, you know, he's kind of like a little taller. He's got red hair. And I'm like, it's got to be O'Neill because he's the only like red hair, dude, I know. And I'm like, yeah, no. She goes, where did he go? And I'm like, he went back to our house, right?

barracks. I'm like, I'll take you. So we like, I get the, and I, I bang on on O'Neill's door. He's passed out. And I'm like, hey, bro, I got you something. I'm like, I go, hey, Sloan. And he's like, you know, he's all confused. Like, hey, this is, I forget it. You know, whatever her name was. Yeah. She was looking for you. And he's like, oh, thanks. And he was passed out. So he was just like looking at me all confused and crazy. So then I started calling him Sloan. From then on, I started calling him Sloan. All kinds of bigness. And I'll be out. He always got up something. That's where you, that's the platoon.

You got the nickname Drago? Yeah, yeah. And that's from Tony. Tony G. That's from Tony G. From Tony. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was when I beat up on the, uh, uh, shod.

You know, but the new guy. He was a new guy. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's a, that was so. They started calling you Drago. Yeah, yeah, because he was just saved and the cabby came into me and say, hey, uh, why did you do that? Why did you just did it to him?

I said, he was a new, yeah, he was a new guy. who's mouthing off, great guy. Here's the funnest, you know, there's the whole entire platoon. It was like a comedian's show. You remember the time in Fallon when we went to patrol, and so we trained the reaction to ambush, right?

So the up force came to brief us, this is how you go, you go this way, this way, we will ambush you somewhere and want to see your response, how you acted. So we are getting, the guys left. So now we are lining up for patrol,

And it's like, where is Shad? I don't know. Shad. Shad. As a camera radio. Hey, are you guys missing the op force? That guy's supposed to attack us. Are you missing the guy?

Yeah, we are missing Shad. There's a motherfucker walking behind us and patrolling, passing us the signals and all that shit. And he's acting like real security. There's that guy? So, yeah, it's got to be that guy. So basically he went with the up force and this guy was just lolly gang, just walking or talking and planning the ambush on us.

And this guy was patrolling behind and passing them the signal. I was like, yeah, it's good. It's going with the car. Freaking jackdown. Yeah. Tony G. What was pissed me off about him is he was like this little guy kind of like a little bit stout, a little round. By the powerhouse.

But he was stronger than me and faster than me. He would freaking outbench me. could run fast for me. It was freaking annoying. Tony G. I know you're out there, bro. It always pissed me off. I never let it show, of course,

but I'd always be like, God damn, dude, he's fast and strong. And just unassuming looking and super scored away across the board. Yes. He was in my blood's class too. He's an awesome guy. Yes.

I'm asking. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So, yeah, we also on that, on that deployment, we did a cool, we did, like, what at the time seemed like a pretty cool mission taking down that one big oil vessel.

The vulgeneft. The vulgeneft 1.47. Yeah, that was actually funny story too. You know, it's like for at that time, we were not at war. So there was the first time, like first real life mission that we actually went and hijacked

the foreign ship. So we just, we, and I remember, we remember, they move us from the carrier on the, on the destroyer. And then from Hilo, we just launched our assault on the tanker. And Robo Nielas was there too.

And so Robb said, hey, Drago, let's go. We need to go. So we were all prepared. So we just dress up, kit up and go. So we took down the time. Remember, we had a very limited time to do it because they knew that we are watching them. So they were skidding the territorial waters of other countries. So we had like three minutes to take it down.

because otherwise we had to jump off the ship, not to cause international incident. Like the U.S. armed forces are getting somebody's territory. So we need to be quick. And we fast up on the ship. We took it down very quick. And we had like three Russian speakers. I was speaking, Mr. F.

I don't know if I can say his name, but he spoke. He speak and Rob spoke Russians. It was crazy because, like, seals don't, we suck at languages. And like the special forces, they go to language school, that's part of their pipeline. In the SEAL teams, like generally speaking, guys don't really, guys don't really know a lot of languages and all that.

And for whatever reason. We kill people. We don't speak to them a lot. So for whatever reason in this platoon, we happen to have our platoon commander who had studied Russian in college and then gone and done a semester in Moscow or something crazy. We had a Berkeley hippie that studied Russian in freaking college. And so he spoke Russian. and then you were forced to speak Russian by these communist bastards.

So we had out of 16 guys, we had three freaking really good Russian speakers and we went down to take down this Russian ship. That was awesome. Yeah, yeah, I remember too. I could hear, and so Mr. F could hear too that the captain, yeah, don't obey him, don't obey Americans, resist what you can,

don't do anything. Mr. Sadega, just take this guy out, explain to him. So I grabbed him by the scarf, walking him up, there was a chimney. and it was like opening, the size maybe of the briefcase, like a bigger briefcase or suitcase. So I told him, you know,

you open your mouth one more time, I'm going to squash you in it, I will fit you in it, and you'll spend the rest of the travel in this chimney right there. So let's look at this chimney, look at this. And you said that in Russian to him? Yeah, and then he says like,

okay, I won't say anything. And then we just like him having that thing. But you remember the funny things with it when we searched the ship, right? Because we were the initial team the group that took it down. So after we hijacked it, it was already on our control,

we moved down and other squad came in, the other seals, our seals came in. And then we changed them again. We're like rotating. So when they coming back, you remember, they came out with a big bag clunging shit.

And it's like, dude, you just failed. You just left all these weapons, all that stuff. And it's like, damn, that's not good. how do you leave all these weapons? What it is,

let him see it. So he opened the back. There's a fucking butter knife and forks and spoons in it. There's like, dude, they're fucking shitting me. And then you... So they were trying to make us

like we had missed these weapons that could be used. And he's like, hey, you guys missed some weapons over there. I'm like, oh shit. And then you look the Biden binoculars? Yeah, that's right. So,

and you just didn't mind those axes hanging up there on the door. You just stole their butter knives and forks and these axes are still hanging there. Yeah, they had like damage control fire axes that these guys, like, hey, what about those freaking straight up axes that they got sitting over there? That wasn't a threat. They were like, oh, wow, yeah, for God.

But you know, the funny thing is that when we exchanged again, we came back, these Russians, they knew I speak Russian. So they came to me and said, like, please help us. We need our forks and knives and spoons back. I said like, why would you need the back? You know, can you eat with your hands? It's like, no, we can. We don't have teeth.

And they open their mouth. And I tell you, so all these women and young guys, everyone is missing so many teeth that there wouldn't be even one full set of teeth among all of them. They were just over there gumming out on some chicken tiny. Yeah, so you remember I came to you and say, like this is what they ask and they can't eat.

that they don't have teeth. So we say, okay, so you told these guys to bring their forks and butter knives and stuff. We'll mitigate the threat. But they were so grateful that they didn't cause any problems after that. You know, they were just happy. They were greeting us. Thank you for the knives and forks. You know, every time they eat, like when I was passing by, it's like they were shaking their

forks and knives. Like, thank you. Spasiba, spasiba. Yeah. And that platoon, I just remember you, talking about the first. squad going on there. And we were trying to get as big as humanly possible. And so we wanted the average platoon weight to be over 200 pounds.

And we had some smaller guys too that were in there. We made up for them. Yeah, we made up for them. I got to 250. So when we left for deployment, I was like 247. And the first place we went on deployment was Spain. And they had an all you can. We stayed at some all you can eat.

buffet hotel and I was like oh I got this and so for like three four days I just dead lifted and eight and I got to 250 and I was like cool I'm going on a four mile time run and I was like all right I need to lose some damn weight boy but yeah we all did yeah we were all freaking jacked yeah yeah but you know that was so awesome because you opened the we went to rota right and I think it was in Spain yeah whatever we were up there that the place or we stay, we just opened the door, the resort, you step on the beach. And this may be like maybe 20 yards is the ocean,

so the Atlantic. So that was such a great trip. There were so many good things. You remember we went also to see the Indiana Jones. The pyramids. Then the winds see the pyramids too. Yeah. But I was not fast.

by the pyramids because like I remember they, those people were just coming and they're just like, Mr. Mr. here is your, here is your, we give you the Arab garb, you know, that, that what do you call this? I don't know what it's called.

What you put on your head, right? Turbin? Turban, yeah, like I said, like a turban and they just give it to you. But then they say, give me the money, give me the money, you know, you need to pay for it. So, like, well, like, where are you from? I'm from Bangladesh. So they're like, oh, Bangladesh,

That's okay. From Kenya, so leave me along. So they went hassling somebody else. They worked for me. Do you remember when we got to Rota, the other platoon, I don't know what team they were from.

I think they might have been from team two. Those team two. Yeah. And freaking Tiny was there. Yeah, we were rushing the medicine for him because he was like out of medicine and was in such a pain that we just need to do some.

The first thing we did, I remember just break away from the platoon, Run to Tiny is tiny. Here it is. Here it takes some shots. God. He had a horn. He had like an animal horn.

Dead was from, I don't know, but Brad actually acquired it. Oh, so Brad had a horn of Satan. Yeah, it was the horn of Satan. If you drink from it, you got in trouble. It was guaranteed getting in trouble. And I remember Tiny was just like drinking prolifically from the horn of Satan. Yes. Yes.

Yes. And by the way, Brad, he didn't need any extra help finding Satan. No, no, no. He was freaking. No, but the funny things they're like, so we barely made it like two days later. The entire platoon is being called out, say, anybody see this and this guy whipping out the genitals on the table in front of two lieutenant females? It was like, no, we didn't.

Like, okay, so this full investigation is like, who did that? There was not us. No, no, I know. But, yeah, there was like first thing the whole platoon had to go and... They were suspect. Yeah. Yeah, they knew who it was.

I know who it was. We knew who it was, but, you know, it was like, it was like... It was just so funny. We were just laughing over us of the way it happened that... Yeah. Well, that's what you get when you hang out

with people from other military. branches sometimes these things happen um all right next here you go so we get down with that deployment for uh good times uh like pretty like it was pretty cool we got to do so we got to do other like little vessels inside the persian gulf we'd track those things down and board those things so we were actually doing work which was kind of nice because it was the 90s and there wasn't much work to be done yeah um you get home from that deployment and you immediately, and a bunch of guys, immediately get reassigned to SEAL Team 4.

Yeah, well, actually, we're assigned even while on deployment on the way back, we came back as a SEAL Team 4. Oh, dang. So that's, so me, Rob, a couple other guys, a few other guys. But it wasn't like not a big deal. My family was already falling apart, and all I need to do is just grab my kid,

kid back and move from one building to another. So there was an entire move, you know, PCS move. Yeah, I mean, you say in the book here, What was waiting from you when I got back home, though, wasn't great. My marriage had fallen apart while I was overseas. It's no secret that life is a Navy SEAL put serious strain on your personal life, family, and marriage. My life was no different than my SEAL teammates.

Most of our time is divided up with six months or more of platoon workup than six-month deployments overseas. There's never really any time at home. Once the divorce was final, I lost my home along with my family. I was financially broken too. Without the structure and distraction of being deployed, I was getting myself into a lot of trouble back in Virginia Beach. Eventually I ended up in a new platoon doing another pre-deployment workup. Our deployment was scheduled to Puerto Rico. That was our launch pad.

I returned to the only place I knew I could trust the people I was with my fellow seals who were like my family to me and whom I knew better than my real brother. That's true. Yeah. That's how it is in the teams. You know it. You know these guys. You know the guys next to you better than you know your family.

And people say that this is, well, this is not good. but at that time, that's all I had. That was the only family I had. And that was great. You know, there was kind of compensate for my son, I hardly got to know him during all these things. So we are missing a lot. And I didn't understand how much I lost,

how much I didn't see my son growing up until eventually after the Navy. I had my children when I could actually observe them every day, be with them every day. This is when I realized how much time I lost with my son, with my first son. And it still bothers me often. But yeah, this is the way there's life. It is when the seal teams. Yeah, you know, when you and I, when I left for Iraq, when you and I were in Iraq,

when I left for Iraq on my first deployment, my son couldn't crawl when I left. When I got home, he was walking. And then you go again on the trip, then everything you come back, the guy, the little baby, already does more and more and more. So like for me, my son was always baby. Even he was big, he was still baby,

because this is how I remember him. And it is not good. It's not good for family, but sometimes you just cannot change things. You cannot be there when you need to be there. And I also tell, I tell, I've told many guys this over the years, like men have been leaving

for the entire existence of humanity. Men used to go and hunt and they'd go on hunting trips. Then we were going on sailing ships around the world. Then we were going to fight wars. Like this is nothing new that we are doing and it's not, you can get through it. You can get through it. But it's going to be freaking hard and it's going to take a toll, you know?

Yeah. But this is normal. It's kind of normal, right? that if you were around in the freaking 1700s or 1800s, your dad might be going on a ship and might not be coming back

for a year and a half, two years. You know, these things happen. Roman Empire. Yeah, exactly. That's the same year long campaigns. Yeah, they're going on deployments for three years. You know? Like, that's the way it goes.

But I can tell you, like, I was talking to Laif the other day. My buddy Leif, who, well, you know, Leif. And, you know, he, you know, He has kids now young kids and he he was just like I don't know how you did this because He's not in the mode of being in a platoon going on deployment being in a platoon going on a point Yep, that's so normal to us it was so normal to me I I didn't understand what it would be like to do something else

I didn't see any difference yeah, they're just that's the way the life is yeah this the way life is This is the way me and all my friends is all we do we go in platoons we go on deployment we go on to plumes going to deployment That's what we do. So everyone has kids. They're going on deployment. You're like, goodbye kids. We're going on deployment. Yep.

And like what you're saying, Leif now looks and he's like, man, I don't know how you just were able to just go on freaking six month deployments. Another six month deployment. Another six month deployment. And freaking to the wives. Like they're having to hold down the fort. Freaking big age. It's a rough tour. Yeah.

My wife was, you know, at home with three kids and just holding it down. right and just not ever asking me a damn thing you know she didn't even barely knew you know what I look like anymore after a while she was just like yo where's my paycheck son um but it's hard you know and it's it's it can be very hard um and the place you the family usually the one was that that pays the biggest toll because then uh it does the divorce ratio is just incredible 90% because there is no way to hold the marriage and family when you constantly go and come back just for a little and gone and gone and gone yeah it's it's definitely very brutal uh for family life and the the guys and the teams myself included like if you have to choose between

the teams and the family you choose the family i'm so you choose the teams you're like oh we got you know your daughter's got a recital tonight yeah cool but i've got I've got to go do this training mission. Yeah. Oh, your son's got his first freaking wrestling match. Yeah, I've got a night hit down and whatever. And see, that's just the way it goes. It's not like you can go and say, well, you know, I will skip this training

or I'm not going to go with you guys because I have my kid. My kid has something to do. That's something that we know we accepted it. Yeah. And I hope maybe people understand and give us a little leeway that we are less than perfect fathers and husbands when it happens. I mean, I mean by not being there where we need to be there. But, you know, this is the way goes in the civil teams,

and that sacrifice is needed because we need to protect America and our citizens to live safe. And this is why, you know, Jack, sometimes, what I like to do now is I go sometimes on the street or to the park. I sit down, I watch these people. I just look at them. and they have a careless, they think nothing about the war,

nothing about what's going on. They're just in love, there's a couple going on and kissing and talking, there's older people, couple walking, and talking, and it makes me feel so good because it tells me that we do a good job to protect these people, that they don't have to look over their shoulders.

They don't have to look for being unsafe being our country being destroyed by somebody so it makes me feel really good you know I was just like yes that's I was part of it so part of the protective

segment of society that these people can live and don't have to worry about the war about anything else and this is how it's supposed to be this is how society is supposed to leave that without fear for the war and even right now with no war going on what we just talked about,

there's people in the military right now that are missing everything with their family because they're on deployment somewhere. There's no war going on, but they're still putting stress on their family. They're still missing their kids' birthdays. They're still missing the graduations. That's what they're doing right now.

There's no war going on right now, but that's what's happening. But there's no war going on because these people are there regarding us, including myself. Now, in my family says, I'm no longer with the military. But we've, yeah,

we sympathize, with these families and with these guys. Yeah. It is definitely to think about that bubble of protection when you're at the park watching these people and they don't even think about it. Yeah. But it makes me feel that. Be mad about it. Be like, you're cool.

Yeah, yeah. I really enjoy that. Going to the stores, go to the mall where people really enjoy their lives. I say, this is what we provide, that safety. So they can do that. Our citizens can because there's violent people standing and guarding their lifestyle, our lifestyle, and the way the America is. So it really makes me feel good. That's a good thing.

So when you were scheduled to go to Puerto Rico, when did September 11th happen? Where were you? I was in the quarter of CL Team 2. And this is when actually I was working out. I was in the gym. That was a CL Team 2, CL Team 2, CL Team 4. I said, no, I was still a CIL Team 2, Quarter Deck, and I sealed to gym. We were working out.

And somebody is coming out to the gym and say, hey, just airplane run into the building in New York. So the comments like, yeah, so what the fucking idiot. Just, just small, everybody thought a small plane. And then say, somebody else came in and said, this is a commercial airplane. just crash in the building. So that was like, oh, that's not good. So then we all go to quarterdeck and just watch what's happening.

This first time it's building. And then we see another, that's as it happens. We see another plane flying to it. So there was like right away. That's not the accident. We already knew. So we'll be deploying.

We knew will be kicking us. How? And so then you go to, you go to Puerto Rico on deployment. And, yeah. On the East Coast, nobody was deploying it to the war.

There was West Coast platoons deployed. And I remember, so, you know, like team guys, we're aggressive. We want to go to war. Everybody like, damn, you know, we are, oh, which we're on the West Coast. I wish we were there in hours we could go. And all of us. But then, like in the three months into deployment, you know, I've been called by chief and say, hey, you have orders to go to Baghdad?

You'll go to Iraq and you'll help the platoons, the seal platoons that are there. You start working with them and coordinating our missions with Polish Special Forces Grom. And I didn't know what the Grom was at the time. And so I packed my shit and flew to Baghdad. So there was like in the, I think, in the half of the deployment, then I was sent there. And I have to say here too, as there's a chief baggett. I can say his name. I ask him about it.

So I owe this guy a lot too. I mean, there was what I was all kinds of troubles by the time. You know, I tried to kill this guy. Try to do this. Try to do that. So he was the chief actually who stepped in and say, look, I'm going to help you. And this was going to happen.

And he actually took me under his wings. And he straightened my life. And then he sent me off to war. So, yeah, I mean, it was great. I mean, I always will be grateful for him. And he'll be in my heart, especially that, you know, under his leadership, that he sent me to war.

So, yeah, I was happy. You fly over there, a civilian plane. You say from there I was taking to seal compound Camp Posey, where I quickly acclimated to got to work. For those first three months in Iraq, I didn't hear from my commanders in Little Creek once. I figured they were busy, so chose not to bother them.

Yeah, yeah. I was like, you know, you'll be busy, you do the snaps. So why would you bother yourself calling somewhere there? By the chance they might say, you navv is navv because I'm supposed to be there for three months only. So basically it would be six months deployment and then come back. But three months passed, like nobody calls. I say, right on, you know, like I'm not saying anything. I call Rob O'Neill sometimes.

Hey, Rob, I'm still here. First I was saying, just tell my command I'm still here. But after three months, like, hey, I'm still here. Just don't tell anybody. Yeah. You say my job was to help coordinate missions and facilitate communication between SEAL teams and Polish special forces, using my Polish and English language skills to do so. My commanders were wary about sending me on direct action missions incorporated in the GROM assault element structure.

They were worried about my safety. I refused to stay back and asked to be allowed to join the GROM assault during direct action missions. Yes, that was normal. You know, we don't know these guys. Like, I didn't know much about GROM. and our commanders didn't know much either. So now put me under the command of foreign force and risk, you know, we could die,

we could be killed during these missions, right? So they were like, they were very protective of me. They didn't want me to participate in assaults with the element they did not understand very well, didn't know. But, you know, winning my way, I just like, look, I couldn't respect myself. I cannot just sit and watch it. and not to be with them.

So if I need to work with them, I need to be part of them. And eventually they did a couple of missions that, yeah, okay, this is like, go ahead and see and report what's back. And these guys are good. I mean, these guys are the pros.

Pros, yeah. Yeah, so after that, there was like no issue whatsoever. And, you know, we blend so much that sometimes it was hard to tell who is who. And there's quite often I had those calls in the Fontrago is our guy

or this is a groan guy. I said, I don't even know. myself they look the same and then I just like him close and yeah this a grumb guy you know it's so yeah they were good they were fast it's funny if you think fast forward a couple of years and seals were out operating with random freaking Iraqi soldiers that had rusty

AK-47s and didn't speak English or didn't didn't freak know they're left from right you know what I mean like and here we were worried about sending you with them like a tier freaking one element of awesome operators from Poland. But at the time we didn't know much about them. So that's where I came in.

Finally, we started learning about them. And actually, we learned a lot of stuff from them. And I brought a lot of things to the teams that I learned from these guys too. So that's what's like those. For me, it was impressive. Yeah, some of these missions, I think one of our missions that were, when we remember, we snatched those Syrian terrorists from the hotel in Fallujah, when the Fallujah was evacuated, like nobody was going to.

They were just sending us to just clean that spot or dead spot. Yeah. And it was the hotel. Yeah. So that was like, I remember so we are breaching like every door. It's a hotel. So we bridge every door. So we're everywhere.

And the end of it, we gathered them, you know, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, the, uh, the hallway up there on the, I think it was a third floor. And, and then so everybody grabs one of these terrorists and I grabbed mine. And dead mother fucker didn't want. to go. I mean, that was like he was falling down every single time. And every step we did, he was trying to fall down. So, you know, I'm a strong guy, but sometimes I fell with him too. And we're just like dirty in this dirty dust. Yeah, blood all over the floor. Yeah, blood all over the floor. So we come back to the Humve. I'm coming back in one of our guys. I said, Drago, what's happened? Are you okay? I say, yeah,

but this motherfucker just doesn't want to go. He's resisting all he can, man. He just laying from the floor I had to basically carry him out. She's like, dude, Dragogu, no, this guy just doesn't have a leg. I was like, what? This guy doesn't have a leg. So I pick his skirt, you know, his skirt. I was like, fuck, he doesn't have a leg. So this is why he was falling down. He didn't want to go. I didn't understand Arabi if he was saying something. So the guy just like couldn't go. I just didn't know it. So I would drag him down the stairs, falling down myself sometimes. If I knew it, he was. I would just grab him on another side and like me, hop around, but I didn't know it, so we kept falling down together, and I was mad.

So I was just using the Drago language sometimes to get him back on the feet, and, you know, using the Drago persuasion tools and the Drago translator to make him go. And that worked, but we got tired. And, yeah, he just didn't have a leg. Unfortunately. That was kind of a crazy operation. But, you know, this is the time also that I developed the Dragos accelerated English course for terrorists. So it was very effective, you know, you just give me like five, ten minutes with the terrorist.

And sometimes even I envy the guy the way how well he learned English from me. He spoke with better accents sometimes than me, the terrorist. Yeah. So that's, that was, I'm going to patent it. You say in the book, this is where I'm at Taylor. for the first time. He was attached to SEAL Team 5 and had already been in Iraq for some time. We immediately became good friends and we still are today. We were big and heavy and because of our size, we were often designated as prisoner handlers to haul terrorists from targets. This is where I

devised a kind of crash course in English for terrorists, otherwise known as Drago's accelerated English course for terrorists. Working together, Tej and I applied this technique very effectively. My model was, give me 10 minutes with a terrorist who doesn't speak English and by the end he'll come out speaking better English than I do. That's what happened, yeah. And well, we, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, we had the, you know, we were with different officers. So one of the ladies' officers of the three-letter agency, she was, uh, this guy just, no

English, no English, no English. So I was like, well, man, just like me and Tage, just give us like 10 minutes and we kind of, we'll teach him English. She didn't know what we were talking about, but she left and she turned, can I come in and say, yeah, he's pretty proficient in English. So when she started talking to him and asking the questions, this guy was like, me and Tage were amusing. Fuck, this guy speaks better English than I do now, even. So, yeah, yeah, it was very effective. It worked. Here's another one. During another mission, this one to capture an Iraqi Air Force General with proven involvement in various terrorist attacks.

Our intelligence indicated he was hiding in a building with solid doors that would be very difficult to breach, a standard compound, a standard mission. As we approach the house in the dark, I noticed the doors were strong, but not quite as thick as I anticipated. I had initially calibrated charges for a stronger door. I knew if I breached the door per the original intel, the explosives would do more damage than expected and potentially kill anyone inside. Familiar with the uncertainty of urban warfare, I was prepared for the situation and immediately

replaced the original breaching charge with a smaller one that would get the job done. I was unaware that while I was breaching the door, the target was standing on the other side of the door with his hand on the doorknob and his ear against the door trying to listen to what was happening outside. He obviously couldn't hear me because after I detonated

that smaller charge, we found the general standing in the doorway holding the doorknob. He didn't look severely injured at first, but he was obviously dazed and confused by the blast. It got him on the ground. I got him on the ground and cuffed him with zip ties but as I clinched the plastic around his wrists,

I had a hard time understanding why the general had three hands. On closer inspection, I realized the hand had been holding onto the doorknob and had been split, clean up the middle. In the dark, it had the effect of making it feel like the guy had 15 fingers and three hands. Yeah, yeah.

Luckily, the zip ties worked well as a tourniquet. Yeah, I thought maybe I just killed somebody there for a second. It was like, there's three hands. So what is the other guy? whose hand is dead and it was just this guy yeah definitely he was listening because he was listening on the other side

so I gave him an earful how do you say in English I gave him an earful so yeah he he was okay we hauled him out with the target but yeah that was actually one of the funny things

you've got all kinds of interesting mission post mission debriefs in here you say during this time in Iraq circa 2003 I devised new breaching charge I devised a new breaching charge that allowed us to explicitly breach obstacles with minimal fragmentation.

This prevented injuries to non-combatants, innocent civilians, who often found themselves in the crossfire. The charge was safer to use for us as well as it allowed for a smaller standoff from the explosion and less fragmentation. This charge was based on a principle that was different than the standard breaching charge principles we learned in breaching school. This newly devised breaching charge became widely used in the seal teams in breaching operations throughout Iraq. I also started using different tactics from those taught in breaching school. I was one of the proponents of those tactics modifications that were eventually accepted into the breaching curriculum. Additionally, I created a database containing all the pertinent information for each breach operation. I consider these safer breaching charges and tactics my biggest contribution to the seal teams.

After I returned from this deployment, I was ordered to meet with Tier 1 seal team breaches and briefed them on all this new information. It was a great honor. Yes, that was the time that we did injure people to the breach on target very often or even more. And something has to be done because the breaching, the entry method with explosives was very much safer for us because they stoned people inside and were able to actually to dominate the room, dominate the target before they kind of came to their senses. So it was great, but again, all the type of charges, that we're using, we find out in Iraq.

I cannot go into details here, but we're ineffective. They either bounce off the... You know, the Iraqis don't have a standard doors. So you can find the steel doors in the same building, the same type of building, and you can find also plywood doors. And the doors can open both ways too. So there's like... It's crazy.

There's no standard like here in the United States. So it seems like all the charges were geared up to our standard, to the US standard. And that didn't work well. They either bounce off the walls, bars off the door or just did so much damage that injured people inside. And remember, we were actually dealing with the terrorists, with the bandits that had no scruples to put kids and children in the front rooms.

So most of the time when we're breaching the doors, coming the doors, we were actually stepping the room for children and women and these terrorist bad guys behind them. So that was my concern, and we had to do something. these charges were, I cannot go into details or the different principle. It allowed us basically bridge from the feet from the door. And it was so much more expensive. It didn't care.

It didn't matter if there were metal door, wooden door, or whatever door they were. We were able to enter the target fairly safely. So the first mission that I described, the first pages that I described, these charges, if I use our standard charges, I would kill myself with it, most likely. So this time, knowing these charges, knowing that the targets, being so familiar with Iraq and their building, and their constructions of their buildings, doors, it helped me to just create this charge that it would become, like, when you guys came in there, remember, I came to Bahrain, I brief you on these new charges, a new way of doing this. Because the way we were doing, till this time, was very, very. very dangerous. I mean, we had the guys without, we still have guys without hands or fingers because

of this type of methods that I discarded and we abandoned that. We start using different things. Big improvement for sure. You also say this. It was while working in Iraq as an NSW lead breacher that I began to really notice the impact of close proximity explosions from the breaching charges. I started to notice some memory issues, problems with my vision and balance issues. This didn't scare me as much as it made me very aware of what I was doing. I made it a point to be extremely focused during mission so I wouldn't forget or mistake anything after. So you're just eating freaking breaching charges on a regular basis. And some of our breaches that knew about our guys and the Polish guys, they knew that some problems that I have.

But I forbid don't say anything because that would mean me being. pull out of the theater and I didn't want to go back. I mean, by this time, I've become so customized. I've been so, for being so long time in combat there and doing that stuff, I just fell at home. And that was like getting me out of the home, somewhere else, and throwing me into a no place. You know, this is something that, I think you had the same thing. They had to be the feeling that eventually I'm so immersed into that situation there in the combat that what happens in the home, the safe America,

the great mall, stores, people walking around, kissing each other and holding hands. It becomes like a fairy tale. It becomes so unreal. Like now we can think about some science fiction things, right? So you can think about it, but just like it's there. It's like in Vietnam movies when they say, you're going back to the world

as if it's another place like it's some other thing we're not in the world where this is something else yeah for me that the world up there was a fairy tale it became this way that the home became there and I feel needed up there I felt useful I felt

I was doing something for America so that for me was very important and you almost forget that this is not normal the normal life is there in America but became like a like a dream, like a fairy tale.

Sometimes when I was going to sleep, I was thinking about it, and I was thinking like, this is, while falling asleep, like, this is such a nice place up there, you know,

such a, such a thing, like, again, fairy tale. Yeah, I mean, the way you put it in the book, you say,

life in America seemed distant and almost unreal. The real was here in Baghdad, in combat, and I loved it. Yes,

that was, that was me. That's why, you know, we all, there is no, none of it, there's no one, there's no seal that haven't been injured this or the other way in Baghdad, including yourself, and you know it. Sometimes we don't tell it. And I didn't want to admit it for a long time. But yes, that's, eventually, this didn't happen right the way. I was already having these problems in Baghdad that I couldn't read because I read the paragraph and I forgot what I read. remember the beginning of the paragraph, so didn't make any sense for me. I couldn't make sense out of what I read. And that's kind of was already a little bit alarming to me, but I figured out that this is because the lightning, because, you know, the tents were living the tents, the lights were like scars. It was not really good. It was like always dim. So you get used to it, and I thought it was just because of that. Yeah. And I mean, it's so obvious now that we understand all the TBI.

Yeah, we didn't know at the time. We just didn't know. And, um, You know, when I eventually came out of Iraq, when I became, so I got orders to be a breaching instructor. And by this time, I already knew that something is wrong with me. I couldn't, any explosion and even shot fire next to my head. It was causing me being nauseated and losing balance. So I call Chief He passed away Chief Berringer

And so he was in Iraq With me with us And then so he was the He was the Taylor I said freaking great guy He's freaking outstanding Yes Rest in peace

And I ask him Please help me because I need These orders to Breaching instructors will kill me I just need to Send me some of I don't need to be around Explosions and shots

So he It was hard to do it, you know, just change the orders on the fly. But in the short time, he changed my orders to go to Bats, to be a school instructor. And that kind of saved me. But this is when I started learning up TBI. Because when I came up there, like every 2 o'clock, every time 2 o'clock in the morning, I was waking wide away. I could sleep the best, dreaming the best stuff and just wake up 2 o'clock, say, fuck, why do I wake up? No, I had to go back to sleep. And then I couldn't fall asleep. So, you know, talking to, to, you know, what do you do? Just go to the other guys, right?

The team guys, hey, this is what's happening to me. Like two o'clock, I'm fucking awake. So we think, we try to figure out what the fuck is going on. And the consensus was that fucking apartment is hunted. There might be a ghost up there. And that's, I didn't know I was scared of ghost. I was like, fuck, that scared the shit out of me. I say, I'm moving out. So I was looking for another apartment I couldn't find because it was the I couldn't find it because you know it was very expensive that was like a good apartment but I was scared of that ghost so so I was dreading for a long time just going back at night by myself to this apartment and facing the ghost but it was not the ghost it was just brain damage that and TBI which we didn't

know at the time but you know with the problem with team guys is too there's like Fuck, my wife or somebody, my neighbor's telling me I am fucked up. So what do you do? You talk to the guy, hey, you know, my wife tells me I'm fucked up. I'm this, you know, my neighbor fucking yells and meets him. I'm fucked up. Am I fucked up? No, you're just like me.

No, we're not fucked up. You're not bad. You're good. Well, he's fucked up like I am because he went to the same shit. You know, he has the same issues, same problems. So for him, I look normal. He looked normal for me. So I ask for assurance about myself with the guy.

So we both are fucked up, but I was like, no, we're good. So this goes. And this is the problem until today. I think sometimes with the guy, it's like, am I, do I have a problem? Do you have a problem? Do you think? No, just like me. But they both have a problem because they both went through the same thing.

So that was like very educational for me. Eventually we learned that this is TBI. This is not the, not the ghost. A ghost. Yeah, it's your first, your first deployment over there was almost a year long. Yeah. And, um, you freaking come home and you get to the airport. There's no one to pick you up.

And, you know, you, oh, you call and you're like, hey, I'm Drago. I just came back from Iraq. I need a ride. And the guy says, dude, we don't have anyone Iraq. Because you, because that team wasn't deployed Iraq. There was no Westco, no, no, he's going to deploy at that time. We, we don't have anyone, buddy. Iraq, what action is that anyway? Stop calling or I'll call the police.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was because they didn't know, well, this is how I came back from Iraq. I would stay there longer, but, you know, when I called for my night vision, there was like, the guy was like, because my night vision broke out. And like, you guys didn't have enough. I mean, there's like, Drago, we can help you, but we cannot do that all the time. So I called up there and there's like, where are you at? I'm like, I'm in the Iraq. Iraq and Baghdad. But the first response was the new guy, I think, in the armory. So he thought basically that the guy calling from Baghdad from Iraq, who wants to send, he wants night vision to send to Baghdad to Iraq, and the guy don't speak English. So like, what if, so like he was

like cracking jokes. I said, do you want a suicidal bomb vest with it too, maybe? Because, you know, there was the suicidal attacks at the time. quite common. And so I just told him, like, you motherfucker, I'm going to kill you when I got up there. Get Masterchief online. So Masterchief comes out. Oh, yeah, Draghu, good to hear from you. How was everything going? I say, great. Where are you at right now? And in Baghdad? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's right. How long have you been there? Like, yeah, almost here on deployment. Oh, okay. How long ago? Let me get XO online. I think you need to come back. So I couldn't win anymore anymore.

And I was sent back. I went home. It's crazy. So you get home. Yeah. And therefore they didn't pick me up at the airport too. So actually my first night after a year-long deployment, almost year-long deployment, I spend in the I-Hop. I hope.

And I don't mind because I love I-Hop. I always love the pancakes. They reminds me like my mom used to make them and the cheeseblins. It's like my favorite. Cheeseblins, I love it. So when I show up up there, this guy in the airport, say, like, hey, you know what? Can you do in some help? There's like a few of guys came, but these guys were picked up, like, either their wives or the command vehicles.

So I said, no, just help me carry it to the car. The track is picking me up. And it was November, so it was very cold. And so I went up there, it's just like this afternoon. So I just wait, the track will show up any time. And as I wait, I fell asleep because it was like, fucking, I was tired. I didn't realize how tired I was. So I fell asleep.

And then I hear, zzz, you know, this, this fucking light buzzing above my head. It's getting dark. These lights came up

on the lot up there next to the airport. It is Saturday. So I think everything is shut down. There's no more flights. So they shut the airport down. And I'm like fucking going hypothermia. I have bombs,

grenades and bomb and everything with me on the curb sleeping like there's nobody there to pick me up. Say, what do I do with the bombs? So with the guns and all that stuff. So I tried to knock on the door and then nobody shows up. So I say, fuck, they left. So I'm going to go.

I need to get inside to get a phone. My phone is dead. It expired anyway. It's been a year away. They shut my account. So I picked this, like concrete encasement for the, what you throw the can inside. It's like pretty heavy. So there it gets sway in the wind.

So I pick it up, I'll have to hear it into the glass because I, you know, I just need to save my life now, save myself, because I'm freezing. And I'm like, really freezing. And this guy stopped up. I'm like, no, no, no. So say, see, open the door, say, what's going on? I say, I'm like shaking. I need my, I need a phone.

I need to call. I cannot even say it, right? So eventually, I didn't even know that number. My mind was so much stuff. I didn't remember the phone number. We had to find me the number group two. The sale team was already somewhere else. And so I called the group two

And this one, you say like, this guy is like, we don't have anybody there, fuck off, just go. Basically, but they didn't say fuck off, but they say, like, no, just leave us along. But then I said, like, Calda ODI. I started using the lingo that, you know, they's like, get their attention, say, ODI, the call this, this.

Okay, hold on one second. And I can hear the shuffle of the papers. And whoever was ODI at the time, say, Drago, I am so sorry. I remember seeing the message somewhere, but we totally overlooked it. overlooked it. We are sending track right now. Just hang on there. We are sorry. And, you know, I don't have a, I understand that there was the time when we change how we do the business. I don't want

to go into details here. But so the team was gone. They were doing something else. There was a few guys left here and there. And there was nobody in the SEAL team at the time. And so, you know, they have so much shit going on, especially going to war. that, you know, things like that will happen who fall through the cracks. And so it was no big deal. I think now I think it's funny. But that time I was really pissed.

So they came and pick me up. And then they don't let you stay at the team. Oh, yeah, because I have no place to go, right? Because I didn't have a family at the time. The girlfriend that I left, supposedly, for three months only, was already mad after six months. But after a year, she finally said quit. She fired me.

So I didn't have a place to go. She just said, when you come back, just let me know. I will put the track, your Jeep, and your cruise box, that's all I had. And your cruise box on the parking lot, and key inside, you can pick it up. I say, okay.

But I couldn't call. My phone was dead. I didn't even remember her number because my brain was so messed up. And, yeah, so they drove me to the teams. They took my guns, everything. And now just by thinking, I just snagged the key from the quarter deck because we didn't have people on quarterdeck by this time

so those, so I snagged the key, put my pocket because then I said, well, later on I will go eat something or, so we woke out the guy, the tech, there was not the shield, I have a lot of respect for him, he's a good guy, I really like him. So he shuts the door and I say, hey, what's the code? I need to get back in. He said, dude, no, we cannot give you the,

I don't give you the code. It's a weekend and the UCL's my, not sleep, cannot sleep anymore in the cages. Because there's a bunch of us usually sleeping in the cages. There's so many seals without families, having no home. So they just like, they stay in the cage, they go sleep in the cage.

The cage is big. And then we have a, like, the way, like, free TV, free cable TV, free, free... Free toilet paper. Yeah, free toilet paper, everything. So, like, some people didn't mind it, and I didn't mind it either. So I wanted to stay, but he said, shut the door and took off. I'm like, fuck. So I used that kid.

I went to like three or four tracks, parked in front of the team four, I found one that worked. So I drove myself, I said, I need to go and get something to eat. I'm hungry. So I went to the bank. It's like $25 or $30 left.

I pulled whatever I could $20. What can you eat for $20? Really not that much, but there's my favorite, I hope. So I say, okay, I said, now, so I'm going to I hope. So I went to I hope up there and got the coffee,

got the cheese beans, I ate, I'm home. I'm safe. So I was like, the thing I remember, I fall asleep and it's like, hey, you okay? It was the security guard, like the rent-acope type guy. I said, I'm okay.

He says, I told him that can I stay here a bit longer? Because like I'll buy some more food just to, so I can relax and rest a little bit. And I was like days. He just woke me up. He looks at me, yeah, the bitch kick you out, did she? I was like, like, what is he fuck? What the fuck he's talking about?

But then I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, she did. He said, okay, you can stay here, but just don't cause any problems. Just stay here as you need and, you know, it's okay. So I fell his back asleep. So my first night was in I hope. Welcome back to America, damn. Well, you know, things like that will happen sometimes. at the time. There was nothing intentional. Yeah. Fast forward a little bit in the book. I couldn't

find myself in Virginia Beach. I didn't have family there anymore. When the opportunity came to go back to Iraq, I was excited and jumped on the opportunity. Yeah. I was missing Iraq. I was missing combat. I missed the work. I had been doing there. I was told I could join them for a couple weeks once again and once again as act as a liaison with the Grom. I'd be helping them out since the new team hadn't had any previous experience working with Polish Special Forces. Two weeks. went by and I was expecting the call from the command to return to Virginia. It never came. Two weeks became four weeks, four weeks became four months. My first extras long stint in Iraq the saying went, no news from Drago was good news. So you just basically did it again. Yeah.

And again, the call came not from me, but from my team. Say, Drago, you need to come back. We are into join the platoon. We are deploying a very short time. And it's our time. So, you need to come back. And I went back and came back again to Iraq with my seal platoon. And that's your sixth deployment to Baghdad or through Iraq. Or I guess

your sixth appointment. Sixth appointment total. And you say by my last deployment in 2005, things had changed considerably since I'd first come to Iraq in 2003. In the wake of 9-11, the bureaucracy had intensified and the war was now being fought largely by the Army and Marines. Even our pre-raid briefs

when we received last minute intent, reviewed and reviewed dossiers maps and recon photos had become longer and longer. This wasn't the old days of maps on the walls and physical files either. Everything was digital now. We called it death by PowerPoint. It seemed like we were briefing for the sake of the brief in order to brief more. Yeah. If that sounds confusing, trust me, it was.

I still believe to this day that was an army requirement that we were being forced to adopt. Then the missions became scarcer and we were no longer assaulting targets every night. Actually, this is what happened because the briefing that they prepared, the mission preparation took so long, it was by the Army standard, by the time we complete the preparations, the target was gone. So we basically were hitting empty houses

or didn't do anything. I remember I had, oh, sorry. No, no, no. So that was just that just that. Yeah, I mean, just to go to the other end of the spectrum, my commanding officer at Steel Team 7, like after we'd been there for a little while, he came down to the camp and talked to me,

and he goes, hey, When I'm briefing up the chain of command, how much time do you need to prepare for a mission? Like, how much time do you need? We went to quick. And I said, I said, well, sir, 15 minutes. And he actually, he thought I was kidding. And I was like, he goes, no, but let me like seriously. And I go, no, 15 minutes.

We've launched in 15 minutes. I said, I need the location of the target. And I need the frequency of the conventional forces that are, that own that battle. space and give me the sat com links because we were so proficient we did so many times that it does not there's like really no-brainer most of the time these missions were not as complicated as as some people want to believe and we did launch in 15 minutes on a bunch of operations yes 15 minutes load up the trucks there were times that we can remember we came back from the mission yeah say hey we have another target here so we are like about to drop our kit off and like oh shit up let's go back

We did one. As a matter of fact, I remember when we came back, I said, okay, hey, from now on, when we roll out, put your actual, put your military uniform on. Because I said, hey, we're launching in seven minutes, and guys were like, I was looking at turret gunners. They were wearing, like, random clothes with their body armor on. And I was like, all right, that's not cool, bro. We can't do that again.

Take an extra two minutes to put your actual military uniform on. Yeah, yeah, shirts are kinds of in the cool, like, Coral shirts still with the corals. That was funny. But yeah, that happened. But it was so fast. We were so efficient. And we did so many times that we really could pull it off.

But then we kept slowing down. This is not by the book. This is how we need to spend time on this. And then I found myself, I was watching, and the Grom was watching with very amusement. They never did that. They were like watching, what the fuck is going on, Dragu up there? So first we breathe, then we rehearse. then we rehearse again

to the same thing and then we breathe just so people can listen to the brief and improve the brief, make the better brief. And then we go with the brief once there was brief to breathe and then it was listened to the brief and there was going to the army guys to approve

to army command. So that took us a long time and there was so bad that I remember you've seen part of this debacle that there was a two, another grown unit showed up working with Green Berets. Great guys. I have a lot of respect for them. But their cycle was so slow

that these guys got finally pissed off and said like they came and said, hey, we need to get us out from, I want to work with sales. I want my unit to work with seals because we don't do any missions there. And it takes so long time to plan. And that caused kind of

a little bit friction between us and Greenborrace. I had to explain to Grom that it's not up to us we can't make these decisions and they were upset they were genuinely upset we want to go and kill these bad guys and we can't

because that briefing all this process goes so long and so precise I'm not saying that this is wrong I'm just saying that it just took so long time that a lot of these targets got away and this is what bothers me till today this is something that

people ask me if I have any regrets from Iraq. I do have one that bothers me that very often I reflect on it as we didn't kill enough of these bastards. There's too many of these bastards just got away. And there isn't that bothers me

is because if we did get maybe than one son of the bitch some of our brothers would come back later on. That wouldn't be killed later on by this son of the bitch. So that weighs on me And even now, sometimes I sit down And like almost every night I have these things

I think every son of the bitch that got away That I wish I could kill So I think we all have this Almost like a guilt that Maybe we could do more So some of our brothers would come home safely No doubt about it You don't know

Yeah That's the only regret I have Yeah But you know I think about this Like when I was beginning Yeah, so I came back and I asked later to go to BADS because every shot, like from the gun around my head or my close proximity caused me to be nauseated. And sometimes I lose the balance. I was like for wobbly for a while.

So, yeah. I mean, that's nothing unusual because quite few of our guys suffer from that. Yeah, so that's what, you know, you go into this. what you were talking about earlier, where you came back, they gave you orders, which was smart. They're thinking,

hey, let this guy go be a breaching instructor because he's done hundreds and hundreds of real world breaches. He developed this breaching protocol. He developed breaching charges. But then they didn't know about the medical things you were facing. You called. I was hiding it for a while, but then eventually I confessed to him to Chey Berger.

Yeah. Something's wrong with me. And luckily, Berger's is a freaking awesome guy who has figured things out, how to take care of the guys. how to take care of you. And so you end up going to Buds. What job did you have a budge?

Were you a second phase instructor? I was second phase instructor. So, yeah, that was pretty good. I mean, it was funny. I think that the most difficult part for me was to answer the question, how would you describe your work in SEAL teams? What are SEAL teams? You know, and I kind of struggle to, because you can talk about these jobs about

seal teams forever. So making sure that I say, like, you know, think about like government customer service, you know, government, but my customers were always wrong and I got to kill them. So this is something that- The customers always wrong. Yeah, you know, our customers were always wrong.

Yes, they were. So I think it was like, they never bothered me after. You know, like, they laugh at it, but I didn't have to make those long answers. When you're at Budz, what did you learn, what did you see as a Buds instructor that was like new knowledge to you? Obviously, you learned that everything is structured and organized, which you didn't know when you were going through Buds. Right. So one of these are explained all this structure, the safety mechanism that are transparent to the student. But what I learned the most, I think what struck me the most is that how is the extremely humbling experience to me, to be.

go up there and see it. And for me, when I was going through bots as a student, it was just kicking the balls, kicking the ass, and just spit you out, ready for real seal training, right? So when you go up there as an instructor and you have to dish out these punishments, you have to do all this stuff, and it is almost like I couldn't believe that it is possible to make through it, almost thinking like, these people have balls. I mean, to go to this shit and how can this kid this 20 years, 19 years old,

25 years old kid not quit after this. You know, most of them quit, but there's those guys who didn't. Holy shit. This is like new found of respect for these kids, these guys.

You just can make them quit. You just cannot. Did you work in a hell weeks? I did, yeah, sometimes. Because I was second phase, but I was assigned to sometimes to support the Hell Week because the Hell Week goes 24-7. There is no break.

There's always evolution is going on. The students don't sleep. So, yeah, I was supplementing sometimes these guys. I kind of wish I got to watch some Hell Weeks or work some Hell Weeks because I never did. And the only Hell Week I saw was mine. Yeah. Which I, you know, was just like, you're like,

what the hell is going on? It is incredible, you know. And then you can see that at the end of these people, like, they don't even sometimes. know what's going on around them. They know what's going on around them, but they are unable to quit, even if they wanted to,

because their brain is already set, I'm going to make it, I'm going to go through it. So some of them have to be actually pulled out of training if they are serious injuries, and there are such sometimes. So this is why those inspections are going on. This is why we don't allow people to injure themselves. You know, there are some who hide it, who lie,

and those are those people who get usually injured. If you are dishonest, you do not follow the instructions to report yourself injuries. If you hide from the doctor's staff, you get injured. And this is why the inspections are the way they are. Every night you are inspected and make sure that you are still good to go. But Helwig is just what it is. It's not the most difficult part of buds. I think the second phase is very technical,

where most of the people actually fell out. And the third phase is like real Halloween steroids. That's the way I experienced that. Now, at this point, you are finally kind of settling down a little bit. You start to think about maybe you've got to find the other part of the American dream here, you know? Like settle down. Build a family. Yeah.

You say with the help of some of my SEAL brothers, I turned to online dating services to try and find the woman of my dream. Yeah, because I was trying to find somebody in San Diego. And actually, I can say that Joel, brother, peace, respect. So he was trying to hook me up and help me out find some girl. But every time it came out to, it was like not good, you know. Like the guidance being English looks scary. So that did not work. Not exactly the Romeo they were looking for.

Yeah. And the clothes, you know, like I never feel the new after Iraq. I spent so much time they're wearing just the commies. I didn't feel the need to wear nice clothes. Nice clothes for me was jeans and black t-shirt. But when I wanted to be fancy, I wore black jeans and white t-shirt or something like that. And that was it. So finally, Joel said, dude, you're not fine anybody like this.

You cannot go like this and people and expect the girls were far for you. We're going shopping. So he took me to the store We started buying stuff And he said like The things that I pick up He's like dude, this is like 1970s

Don't wear that So he picked the clothes for me and everything And when we came back from this trip I'm still grateful for him I thought there is no girl able to resist me From then on But you know what

I think I already burned myself out in San Diego So I decided to go and Find some I was advised to go and and find somebody online. That was disaster too for a long time. And I can talk about that. I wrote them about in the book.

But eventually I made up to Rachel. Eventually you find a girl. We emailed back and forth a couple days. I was totally charmed. Her name was Rachel. She was everything I was looking for in a woman and a partner, beautiful, witty, smart, successful in her own right. She was much younger than me, which made me a little nervous.

What if she thought I was too old for her? On the advice of my teammates, I'd taken a few years off my real age for the dating site. Yeah. Even then, I still barely fit her preferred age range. I found out later because I didn't know it, but I was like a month away from being cut off, even after I lie about my age. How many years did you take off? I think like five.

Five or six, maybe. I don't remember, four, five, six. A lot. A lot. That's pretty significant. But, you know, she was like way, way younger. And I was like, there is no way she will, you know, want to date me or see me. and I'll suppose

I looked scary at the time And then you say I didn't want to risk losing her so I asked some of my seal teammates to help me write love letters to Yeah, yeah, because you know I still my English is not perfect As you can hear it

Until this day I'm more proficient Speaking with bullets Than speaking with words So yeah Who could help me My closest family That was fellow sales

So whoever I could react to it say, can you help me? Can you correct my grammar? Can you fix this? It's like Jaguar. If you write this, you cannot get... She will not want to talk to you. You don't speak like this to ladies. You don't know. So basically they were writing the love letters for me and I was just typing it and just sending to her. She liked it. But, you know, I could only pull that shadow for so long. So eventually you say I met Rachel in person about two months later. It felt like an eternity. She came to visit me in San Diego. I asked a fellow seal to come with me and assist him bailing me out if Rachel turned out to be a catfish. From the previous dating experiences. So yeah, I had my

swim body with me. I had her picture and a flower. The flower I kept hidden in my Jeep just in case I had to make a last minute escape. I had no reason to worry though. My teammate and I both recognized her. She came down an escalator at the San Diego airport. Holy shit, Drago, my buddy exclaimed. She's too young. Did you rob the cradle or something? How did you pull that off? I laughed and replied, you guys wrote the love letters. I lied about my age. It worked. My buddy threw up his hands and laughing, turned around to leave.

Whatever, dude, she's hot. I'm out. Now really nervous. I approached the escalator to wait for her in the bottom. When she walked up to me, I was scared out of my wits. I extended my hand to her stiff as a board from head to toe and muttered, hi. I'm Thomas. Rachel looked at me with a twinkle in her eye, and she replied breezily.

Thomas, it's nice to meet you, but I didn't fly all the way across the United States. She said your hand. Give me a hug. holy shit I melted and leaned in to give her real Drago hug oh damn I was in love

so yeah at this time you say Rachel was living in Ohio for a while you freaking were helping her out like you know giving her sending money out to her she wasn't changing the job

at the same at the time when they transitioned time so I figured out like I just can be I can be helpful you know and and kind of like so she likes

me more I would do anything for her to love me so so I was like no like I was willing like I was doing everything just too so so that included giving up your apartment moving into the cages like a freaking new guy to see what you and then eventually he just got sick of the cages so you you kicked a couple of bud students out of their room and you moved into one of the buds yeah it's right Jared Ogden, he's one of those students. And we connect, we reconnected back now. Wait, who was it?

Jared Ogden. Jared Ogden. Oh, okay. Great officer. Great officer. Great guy. So much respect for him. But even more respect because, you know, like, he was living next door. So in the morning I get up, I brush my teeth, spit in the sink and stuff.

And then I was running back again, inspecting his room and he's in the bathroom. And getting him in trouble for the bathroom. Yeah. So I admire his restraint. He didn't die me out or anything. He just like took as a man. And yeah, we are friends. We are friends still today.

And a lot of respect for this guy as an officer, but also as a student. Fast forward a little bit. You say, even as my personal life began to fall into place, I struggled to wrap my head around the fact that I would soon be leaving the Navy SEALs forever. I began looking for jobs, trying to think of whatever career could possibly satisfy. find me after years in the teams. The problem with the seal life is it's harder to get out of than it is to get in. I know that sounds impossible given everything you've read, but you must understand how much of your life the teams occupy and for how long. For years, your sealed teammates

are everything to you, your family, your friends, your co-workers, you eat, sleep, breathe, and fight with them day in and day out. No one in the world knows you better than those guys do. Not only that, but they also understand what you've been through better than anyone ever will. That's true. Totally true. Rachel helped me a lot with this process when I was put on terminal leave, meaning you were getting ready to retire. She helped me do everything from typing up my resume to teaching me how to negotiate job offers. Never accept the first offer they give you, she said.

Rachel helped me post my resume online for my job search. And three days later, I received a call from a software development firm. They asked me some basic screening questions and then invited me to come in first. an interview on my way out, Rachel reiterated, do not accept the first offer they give you. She emphasized for me to come home, we would talk about it, and then I would negotiate for terms

I wanted. Naturally, I said yes to the first offer they gave. But I thought to our listener more closely from that. I forgot to mention this whole time, and I was going to mention when you were talking about the database that you built for the breaching charges, you're a computer guy. You're a computer nerd. You know, I remember this a team, too. You like new

computer languages and stuff like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, says this, how I got that job. But you know what? With this, yes. So what I did, I was taking picture of every bridging charge and the door, the target before and after it. And also notes what was, what charge did I use? I don't want to go into details.

There's new charges. So I was told that I need to go and meet with this tier one guys. And I went up there and talked to them. I gave them all the information that I had. So they were very, you know, they said thank you. I hope it helped them a lot. And yeah, they were appreciative of that stuff. I was very, every charge, the size, the standover,

everything that need to be that I was. And you had enough computer savvy to know how to make the pictures and all this stuff. So that's like something we always talk. I mean, I always talk about you, you know, punching people in the head and blowing shit up. but there's a whole other side to you that like is a computer programmer and knows how to do all kinds of stuff like that. So you end up getting this software job. Yep. You say this.

The military provides structure, camaraderie and stability to a lot of people who have never experienced any of those things before. And it can be extremely difficult to leave behind. In combat, I did not see anything the Navy didn't prepare me to see. I did not do anything the Navy didn't prepare me to do. I don't have any regrets for my actions in the war. There's nothing that ever bothered me about the war. On the other hand, traumatic brain injury is a different story. As a lead breacher, I was exposed to countless close proximity explosion.

Some of them caused bleeding from my nose or ears. It definitely had some effect on my health, and I did have trouble sleeping as I transitioned to civilian life. I'd wake up in the middle of the night at 2 or 3 a.m. In the past, when talking about with my fellow Navy SEALs, the consensus was it was ghosts. but the more information that began to come through about these problems, the more I began to realize the damage done during my time in the military was still with me. Every breach, explosion, shockwave, and concrete powder inhalation had left us with varying degrees of physical trauma. This had affected things like my memory, balance, and speech.

I carried a lot of bad habits from my time in the seals for quite a while. Probably some of the bad habits for my earlier life, too, now that I think about it. Rachel, who has always been significantly more proper than me, had to tell me on multiple occasions, not to just spit out the first thought that came to my head when somebody said something stupid or not to beat up some random guy in the street just because I thought he looked at me funny.

Sometimes I felt like I was taking etiquette classes. Yeah, I'm fully domesticated now. I know. You use that term in here. He keeps saying she domesticated you. Well, you know me from before. Yes. And there's like, yeah, that guy.

But now, you know, I'm proper. I know that I'm good person, you know, and I'm a good husband. I'm a good father. And I was neither one before. Well, from my perspective, you were an awesome person before. Because I know that no matter what was going on, I knew I could count on you. Thank you. And that was what our jobs were.

and it was a different, I mean, it takes a different type of person. So do you have to maybe shed some of that a little bit when you go and be married and all this other stuff? Well, Rachel beat it out from me. So she basically what she did, she, she, she, she, she fired Drago. She fired Drago. Yeah, Thomas back. Drago is in the cage now. He's in the lion cage, the tiger cage, whatever it is.

I just had to read this one section. It says, my bud students shared how much they valued my perspective and what they learned from me. At the end of each phase, students were required to write a review of the phase and provide evaluations for all the instructors. One of my students commented, instructor Drago was so motivating. I can't imagine how much more motivated I would have been if I understood half of what he said. That's actually a real critique. That's the part. I still have it.

I have those critiques at home, some of them. So, yeah, that's... You decide you're going to ask Rachel to marry you. You freaking take her to our desert training facility. Because, you know, like the divorce, that's being... Why, that ruin you also financially. And I was trying to...

My best to kind of impress her to... I was in love with her. We were in love with each other. So finally, I say, I need to pop the question about how do I do it. I start reading books about it. go to vacations, go to Cancun, go to here, Hawaii. It's like, I don't have the money.

I don't even know how to do that. So I figure out just do what I know the best. I invite her to the range, make her shoot, and I ask to marry me. So me and my fellow team guys, my team brothers, seals, devise the thing that we're going to go and line up the gun, every type of gun in our inventory on the range where we train sales. And we invite her.

so he started shooting from gun to gun to gun to gun. And the last gun will have those Mark 48, will have the, when you leave the tray to load it, because I tell her she needs to load every gun. So we put actually 2 Mark 48. So Mark 48 with the tray, so she can kind of get used to it. So she doesn't smash it and forgot my ring. The ring that I secure up there.

So the first 48 was just playing for 48. She loved the gun, shut the tray, shoot she was a good shoot I can like make me feel like yeah so so the second gun the last gun on the line so she went she was like she knew how to do it

because she did on the first one she confidently opened the tray and here's there's hanging on the ring on the thread is a ring and on the bolt it says marry me instead of the ball up with a piece of pepper or marry me so she looked she looked she had the tears in her eyes

me too And she said, yes. And this actually, I have a video of it. I will pose on the website. Actually, the video when I ask her to marry me with the guns, and I have a picture that I'll pose online to. She said yes. Pretty epic.

Fast forward a little bit. Rachel and I were married on August 18, 2007. That also happens to be the date of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, and we were married in a small town that was named after the Spartan King, Leonidas. Yeah. I had been fascinated by the ancient Greek and Roman history for years, and these coincidences felt like a confirmation of our beautiful life ahead. We have five children together, including three from our previous marriages. Our older boys are in their 20s.

Adam is happily married and has a young daughter. Blake is starting college after serving honorably as a U.S. Marine with deployments to Afghanistan, and Connor's loving life while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard. Our two little teenagers from our marriage are Grace, the little lady of the house, and Dorian, our future warrior. Yeah, Gracie rules the house. That's my little lady. And yes, she's the lady. Yes. I officially retired from the U.S. Navy Seals at the rank of Petty Officer First Class on June 31st, 2011.

I am proud of the contributions I made to the teams and thankful for the great men I was able to serve with and learn from. And you go on to say this. I love Poland And sometimes I still get asked if I would ever move back And every time I say no I'm an American now I'm an American by choice I'm fiercely proud of my roots

But America is where my heart belongs Where I live And America is where I will die Yes That's me And you know This book is freaking great You put so much stuff into perspective and here's another thing. I've seen what happens when a totalitarian government takes control and it's why I'm so grateful to be a proud American citizen. America is my country and I consider myself blessed to live here. This is where I found the seals who gave me a new life and a new sense of purpose. Where else but America can you show up with only a bag of clothes barely able to speak English and rise to the ranks of the world's greatest fight is fighting force? America is where I found.

love, a renewed sense of faith, and I was able to build a family and a life for them without ever having to look over my shoulder. Only in America. There is no other country in the world where you can come and be whoever you are able to be and live safe, great life. And that's the life I have in America. I'm proud of America. There is no hyphen in front of this.

I might have kind of hear just American. Look, again, get the book. I just want to close it out with this one little part. You say, ultimately, I believe the American dream is about more than material prosperity.

It's about being able to live a safe, simple, fulfilling life and having the freedom and opportunity to pursue our individual dreams, regardless of what you think or how you vote. Patriotism to me means respecting one's neighbor

and loving one's family and being willing to defend both. I fought against a totalitarian government when I was younger. Doing so taught me to be strong and to never lose sight of what it is I'm defending. Whether it's a person, a flag, or a place, every American can love something about this country and fight to make it a better home for everyone. For me, at the end of the day, I owe everything to this country and the people in it. and I wouldn't have it any other way. That's what I would like to use this opportunity here to say thank you to every American.

Thank you to America for my freedom. I can only live free because of America and American people. So I would like to say thank you. And very often people say thank you for your service. Thank you for what you have done for America. People don't understand. You cannot repay freedom. How can you?

So there's so much more. There's always more you can do or you should do. So for me, I'll say, like, you don't say thank you. There's me who should say thank you and who is saying thank you for my freedom. So I would like to say thank you so much. Thank you for everything. Thank you for allowing me to be American and be part of this great country. Yeah.

That's freaking outstanding. And there's so much more in the book. Like we didn't even touch on. You've got you got journals from people that you knew when you were a political prisoner. They're journals in this book. You mentioned this earlier. There's documents from the show trials that some of your friends went up against, and they stood up to the tyrannical governments.

It's just a freaking outstanding. It's an outstanding document. It's a historical document. It really is a historical document. that people are going to be able to look back on. So tell us what you're up to now. You got Connect Zing, right? Yes.

So I was heavily censored by Facebook, LinkedIn, and matter of fact, LinkedIn, I had to like open. This is my third account. Every time I open something, they shut me down, and I lose all the followers. So, and Twitter, they kick me out of it. So I decided to open my own social media.

And it is connectzinc.com, and it is in the book. So this is something that I think we don't have socialist fact checkers. You know, there were no fact checkers until the truth started coming out. And that's what's triggered that censorship. So there is no censorship here. We let people decide what they want to read, who they want to connect with, and what they want to believe in, and what they want to pause.

That's their forum. There is no censorship. So that's, I think, is my other contribution to free speech and free America. I think it's, yeah. So it's connect zing, zi-n-g.com is where you can find that. You also have the Navy Sealsfund.org. Yes. And what that is, that's a five, it's a charity.

It's a 501C3 charity. It's relief, support, and education. That's what you all provide. The quote that you have, have as quiet, flexible, and responsive. And what it is, it's just a no red tape action arm that can make stuff happen when people need it. Yes, and especially nowadays, when the wars are winding down, there's a lot of people from our community coming injured. And they are usually, sometimes they are branded as troublemakers. And when they ask for help, there is no help for them.

Many charities turn them away because, you were troublemakers. We don't want you here. We can help you. For Navy SEALs fund, there is no such distinctions. You were 5326 or officer in SEAL teams. We will help you. We will not allow you to fall. And this is another thing is there is no paid position. The charity is run by Navy SEALs only.

And we don't get paid. This is something that was very important to me that we do it because it is a right thing to do, not because we get paid. And there's a group of great sales on our board of directors. And we are very quick. We can respond within an hour sometimes. And this is necessary because very often we get a call with the sales is they don't ask for help. Usually they try to deal with it themselves. We don't want to see being seen as vulnerable or in trouble. So they don't ask for help. But we get a call like, hey, so I run out of option. They're going to take them, they're going to repossess or I will default on my mortgage and tomorrow I will be

done with it. I need help. Can we do something? And there's quite a few times we had to step in within an hour for a closure or something and pay that bill and put the guy back on his feet. Because sometimes it is, I don't know if you were, but many guys I know where and I was the situation that I'm almost there. I'm almost got myself out. on the clear, but this last thing is going to sing me. I just need a little bit push to get me over the hump, and I'm good. And I have a job line number. I have this and this.

And we are there. We gave that push so the guy can get on his feet. And another thing, too, what is important for Navy Seals Fund is get people out of this vicious cycle of contracting. There's many guys they like it, and I understand it, and I think I would like it too myself, but there's many guys that are tired already. They are tired of war. They are to combat deployments. But when they retire or they leave the Navy, they don't have sometimes much options. The skills, as you know, Navy SEALs, their skills, our skills are not easily translated into civilian

world. I mean, you could be great Walmart, Kmart Guard or something like this too, unless you have other skills that you acquire while in the teams. And a lot of team guys are, but they're some that don't. So we don't want to send them. So what they do, say, okay, what I'm going to do is I didn't find the job this time. So I will go contracting for six months. I make tons of money and then I come back. I will have a cushion that I can find the job. Well, there's no longer these tons of money available because the wars are winding down. The guy going to put on such contract comes back with the money. Six months later, there are no money left and there's still no job. So what do you do, what

the guy is doing? Well, I just try one more time. So just then he tells his family, his wife, his kids, I'm going again, I go one more time, next time will be better. And he goes again on this contract, comes back, it is not better.

So we are looking for the way to break them out of the cycles. Those guys who want to get out, Navy SEAL's Fund is standing by and they're trying to help to get out of it. Besides, some of these guys are the injured and they don't need to go on this on these type of trips anymore yeah for sure um all this information can be found at uh drago geron dot com that's where it is uh your last name is

spelled d z i e r a n the first name is spelled drago uh you are back somehow on social media you're you're on instagram you're on twitter at at drago gerago zeran Yes. So you're on both those places. And this is what you got going on. The book freaking just came out. It's just, it's outstanding. Does that get us up to present day?

Do we cover it? Oh, I know what we didn't cover. Yes. Your friend from Bone Frog. Yes. Bone Frog Coffee. Yes. Bone Frog coffee.

Bonfrog wines. He is, I would like to bring it up because it's great coffee. This guy is, there's a seal business. great business and the coffee you will like it, you love it. This is something that that's all I drink.

I would like to bring it up and I would like to encourage people to support this Navy SEAL business. It's great again, great coffee, great and these guys are supporting our charities. Bonfrog coffee,

bonfron wines are supporting Navy SEALs, They are always very active with Navy SEAL community. They support, again, Navy SealsFund.org. And I would like to encourage people to look into their website. It is posted at the Navy SealsFand.org as one of our supporters and actively helping our community. So this guy that made this company, Tim, he is a team guy.

He's in the DC oh yes so he retired I think he did what 25 years I think something like that so and then he you know he's one of these freaking coffee junkies people that are super into coffee like and so it's bone frog coffee.com and I don't know if you want me to say this or not but you were saying that he donated so much money to you and your charity that you had to be like hey dude you you don't need to give us any more money right now like we'll get money. money from other people. That's where his mindset is at. I would have to help out. Yes, because so it is on our website. We want him to take care of himself right now and his family because his beloved wife, I think I can say about it because this is officially on our website, the support for his wife, has cancer and he's fighting with everything he has to provide to his family and save his wife. So please go to the Navy SealsFand.org to our support page and read about my teammate who is fighting for his wife's life right now

and still trying to provide for his kids, for his children. So again, I have to be very careful how I say it for the legal reasons, I think, but this is the man that we support. We actually had to ask him to do not, to instead of donate to Navy Seals Fund, just provide for his family, for his wife, and we are standing by his side. So the Navy Seals Fund is on his side.

We try to help him. But this business is, the coffee is great. This is something that I drink every day. And I was not the coffee drinking until I ran into this coffee. So if you can maybe show it to So one's called Bone Frog Blend, the other one's called Frogman.

Yeah, yeah. Friggin. My frogman is my favorite. That's your favorite. Believe it or not. So let's support Tim. Let's support Bone Frog. Bone Frog.

Bone Frog Coffee.com. There you go. Also go to NaV.C.O.'sfan.org where you can read a little bit more about what we are fighting for right now for his family. There you go. So check those things out. And does that get us up? Does that get us a present day? I think that gets us up. I think we're in present day. Okay. Carrie, you got any questions. I saw you over there taking notes. Were you just taking a freaking admin notes or you got some shit to put out?

Actually, I did have one question for you, Drago, just because I'm curious. And I definitely plan on reading the book. But in socialist state, Poland, about what percentage of the Polish people, would you say, were bought into what was happening with the socialist government? It seems like with, you know, people having rooms taken away from them in an apartment building to put somebody else there and food scarcity, it seems like you, the people would look around and say something here isn't right. This doesn't seem like it's working. but I'm not sure how many the what percentage of the people are bought into this and are believers and what percentage are kind of felt like you and and your kind of comrades.

Very small percentage. Although if you listen to official socialist propaganda, the press, the media, the fakeness media, that you would think that everybody is for socialism. There's only few these, they call it insurrectionists who oppose it. But, you know, people in Poland knew about these murders after the Second World War when they were executing people opposing socialism. The apartments and stuff, this is not the biggest deal. That was just inconvenience.

But we're talking about the imprisonments, the persecution of opposition. The prisons after the Second World War, war, people being sent out to Soviet Union to Siberia from Poland. So that was so pretty much common knowledge that even strict censorship falsified history and destroyed monuments, barn destroyed books, the history books did not help to suppress the discontent and the hate for socialism and communism, the totalitarian oppressive systems. And actually the Polish constitution, I think Article 13, I believe, says that it forbids any party, any type of organization whose ideologies based on totalitarian system like socialism, like fascist, national socialism or communism. It is

illegal to promote this type of ideologies in Poland now. Although now they try to change. They try to change that there's a lot of forces now financed by Soros and bankers who are tried to dismantle Poland right now. They try to bring a lot of refugees in Poland. They try to build a hate of Poles one towards another. They try to build this French group or group with questionable morality. They try to push a man into girls' bathrooms. So this is something who is coming from overseas, from outside of Poland, which is Poland. It is now under attack. So they try to defend themselves. But, you know, think what happened here, you know, I think the best, the real life teaches you a lot. The girl, the girl who was jailed in

Russian prison, she refused to stand up to our flag, our anthem. And look how she changed after she experienced how patriotic she became after she returned from prison after two years and become stand up for for anthem now she she she I believe she's patriotic but imagine how patriotic I am after 20 years in this type of prison and this is one of the things the other thing I want to say is just how grateful I am for the perspective that that you give us in this book I think I a lot of times lack that perspective and just to be reminded of it is really powerful. So I'm super fortunate to, you know, thank God America got Drago

and thank God the SEAL teams got Drago, man. So thank you. I want to say thank you because you actually made my point. This is the reason I wrote this book. I want people to read it and not amuse how bad it is. Everybody knows how bad socialism and communism is. I want people to read and think how great America is. I want this book to be a prism, a lens,

where you see the good things about America, which we tend not to sometimes notice. I see people here, or maybe some of the younger generation, not being aware about the great America, how unique country in the world it is. So that's why you wrote this book. Yeah, that way people don't have to go to a Russian prison

in order to realize that they should be very grateful for the freedom that we have here in this country. And they can just go, oh, yeah, we're blessed to be here. Yes, that's what I would like to see people to see my book. Well, that's what it delivers. Any Drago, any closing thoughts, you got anything else for this time around? I think the same thing. For me, it is important. We lost many guys in this war, many teammates, but also other military.

personal and they live. They're still alive in our minds, in our hearts. So this is how we need to keep them alive. And we must not allow them to die again by fading from our memories. So we need to call their names. We need to remember them. And we need to pray for them and their families. We are the These families lost their protectors We need to step in We must be their protectors now

So just Just that thought Yes indeed Well you know As I read the book I know that From the book Years ago

Before you even made it to America While you were waiting in West Germany To get your to get your final flight over here to America, you made a pledge, you made a promise, you made a pledge to be the best American citizen that you possibly could be.

And I want to tell you, without a doubt, you achieved that goal. And I think you've gone above and beyond that pledge, you know, from working as a janitor to a parts picker, to a mechanic, to a parachute expert. And then when our country went to war, what did you do? You went and volunteered to fight. And you served with a distinction as a seal on multiple combat deployments.

And it was an honor to serve alongside you then. And it's an honor to always be able to call you brother. And likewise, likewise, it is a great honor to be called American. and this is something that I cherish the most. And it was an honor to say with you and my fellow seals. And I would say thank you for allowing me to come to this country and leave as a free man.

And that thank you is for every American, every person here in America, I would say thank you. I will never forget that. Well, thanks for your perspective and thanks for being an American. Thanks, brother. And with that, Thomas Drago Zeran has left the building.

Not much. I mean, damn. What a freaking story, huh? Talked about getting better, man. That guy, socialist, communist, Poland. Prison. Prison. Yeah.

Walks up to the embassy. What's up? Yep. You know what I failed to talk to him about? First of all, I kind of went into a look. He's kind of a mutant. Obviously, like he's 63 years old. Right? How does he look? I mean, I would guess like early 50s. I'd probably say around late, like I'd probably say early 50s. Really? Yeah. I think he looks like he's 33. He looks, yeah, he looks young. And he's freaking jacked. He's jacked. And he's a really, I kind of Hinted to it like he was a when you'd see him like fighting you'd be like yeah, he's he's a good athlete Explosive he has explosive and like I trained with him you know so you could feel like oh yeah

He's really explosive and he would learn really quickly But he's just a just a stud, but what was I gonna say about this? Oh, just a beast Yeah, a beast. Oh, what I didn't what I didn't talk to him too much about like how did he prepare for buds I think he just I think his life was preparation for buds and his genetics are preparation for buds because yeah he was putting that he was putting those mMA pieces together early on too

when he was talking about the the boxing fundamentals then the karate then the taekwondo stuff is getting that little mix and then taking it to the streets yeah taking it to the streets but what a great dude

and you know a big freaking heart you know like just a big heart wants to help people out so awesome I was lucky to be able to work with him And I worked with him a lot, man

Like, you know We did a lot of ops You know, it's freaking legit So like I said, man What a freaking awesome dude So there you go I think we need to take advantage Of our freedom here

And we do that by getting after it By getting better So we're getting better Jock Fuel JoccoFuel.com Go get yourself some Go get yourself some I'm right now fueled up on Jockgo

by the way It's like 10 o'clock at night right now. We just recorded for how, I don't even know how long it was four, four and a half, five hours, something like that. Something like that. But guess what? Here I am. Do I sound amped? You sound amped.

Because I'm still fired up. I'm still fired up because of Drago. I'm also fired up because I got my go up in me. So get yourself an actual clean energy drink. Get yourself some, some of that 30 grams of protein hitter. You know what my combo is now? Mulk cookie, 14 grams of protein. and a milk, 30 grams, right there.

You're good. 44 Gs of the protein machine coming at you. That's a, that is a gratifying thing to do in your life. Like, you know what it's like, let's say you're, you know, your timeline, whatever. You need, you need protein. You already jacked steel, maybe you did squats, maybe did snatches. I don't know what you did, but you know you need some protein. Boom, you get that milk cookie.

And then you get that Moke RTD hitter. And you do it in 37 seconds. You get them both down. Yeah. I think the actual time is 44 grams of protein and 44 seconds. One gram per second. JoccoFuel.com. Get yourself joint warfare.

Get yourself to get yourself that freaking time war too. Get in there. Get in there on that. Joccofuel.com, you can get it all. Vitamin shop. You can get it. G and C. I just had someone text me

just got it at GNC Yo, we're in there We're at Wawa right now People were hassling Wawa the other day Because on Twitter Some people were like, yo I just went to Wawa They had a one can bottom right corner

I'm like, yep I said hey let Wawa know You want your go And people were getting fired up But who knows You know we're up against some Billion dollar literal billion dollar Conglomerates there

We got the people though we got the people right you know we got rebellion we got solidarity we got solidarity a jaco fuel uh vitamin chop g and c a feces just found out people been asking just found out we're going to be going into the navy exchanges the n e x boy and look i know all you young troopers out there i know all you young marines all you young sailors are out there i know you go to the nex i know you don't go to the damn commissary because you're like yo i'm not doing that so we got in there We got into the NEX. I don't know what it'll be in the next next few months.

It'll be in there. Das stores in Maryland, Wake Fern, ShopRite, H.E.B. H.E.B. killing it. Everyone in Texas. Thank you. Thank you for supporting America. Thank you for supporting yourself. That's what you're doing.

You're supporting this podcast, by the way. This podcast is fueled by Jocko Fuel. Meyer in the Midwest. Harris Teeter in the game. Lifetime fitness. Shields. And we got small gyms, Jiu Jitsu gyms, CrossFit gyms.

We got you covered. Email JF Sales at joccofuel.com if you want to get it in your, in your facility. That's what you got going on. So joccofuel.com, check it out. Origin USA just came out with the RTX line, roll, train, execute clothing to wear while you're getting after it. That's what it is, the quick dry, the anti-smell, what's the anti-smell? Anti-smell called. Anti-microbial.

We got it going on. And you know what? It's American Made. It's made by freedom. It's made by freedom. You heard, you heard Drago talking about it. Communism, socialism, government controlled. Well, guess what China is?

Guess where your shirts are from? Guess where your shorts are from. They're from freaking China. You are keeping someone imprisoned when you buy their shit. So don't do it. Buy American. Buy freedom. Support national security.

OriginUSA.com. Go get it. Hunt gear, Jitsu gear, Jitzu Gees, rash guards, boots. Just go get. OriginUSA.com. That's what we got going on. We also got jocco store.com.

Look at you coming in on cue like Echo Charles. Look at you over there. Just filling that seat, bro. I said it right this time. We don't even need Echo Charles around these parts anymore, huh? Is that what's going on? Jocco store.com. We got rash guards, t-shirts.

Your discipline equals freedom represent on the path gear. Look at you, bro. Like, where is it? EC's not needed, is he? He's just filling it in. Hey, everyone, EC's in Hawaii before you freak out. He's on vacation, you know,

because he needs a break. He's been under a lot of stress. He's been working hard, EC, just being, you know, he'd been going around the clock over here, cruising. So that's why K dogs here, but apparently he's stepping up to the plate.

He was ready, dude. He's freaking getting in there. Getting in there. We got trucker hats, hoodies, Beanie's, um, we've got Warrior Kid soap from Irish Oaks Ranch. Uh, we got the Jocko soap on there. The throwback stay clean. The throwback what?

Stay clean, son. Oh, stay clean. Boy, stay clean. Uh, Sherlocker as well. Don't forget about the shirt lock. That's where, that's where the, what is Echo call? The creative design. Yes, sir.

So check that out. Subscribe to the podcast. Subscribe to, subscribe to Jock Underground. Jock Underground.com. That's where you can get we could we don't control the platform unless you're listening to us on jock underground.com, which you might be. We don't control the platform. They could shut us down tomorrow.

The communists could take over. That could happen. But if it does happen, you'd be right there on the underground. We're there. We'll be, we'll be still. We'll be like radio free America on the underground. That's where we're going to be $8.18 a month. If you want to join the revolution, the resistance, come and get it.

If you can't afford $8.18, well, don't worry, we got you. Email assistance at jocco underground.com and we got you. We got a YouTube channel. Subscribe to that. Subscribe to Origin USA YouTube channel. Subscribe to Jocco Fuel YouTube channel. Subscribe to Ashlam Front YouTube. We got a bunch of YouTube channels.

Psychological warfare. Go buy that if you need to hear me talk more. Or revisit that. If you haven't listened to psychological warfare in a minute, go back. It's a good one to get into. Go back. Just go back. Flipside canvas, Dakota Meyer.

A bunch of books, number one book. The Pledge to America by Thomas Drago. Drago Zeron. Check that one out. Freaking great book. And then I read a bunch of books too. Final spin, Leadership, Strategy, and Tactics Field Manual. You guys know the deal.

Look, get your kids a book. Get your kids Warrior 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Get your kids Mikey and the Dragons. Get your kids about-faced by Colonel David Hackhart. Because they need it. They need it, boy. All right. Extreme ownership dichotomy leadership.

It's all in there. Eshalom Front. We have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to Eshlamfront.com for details. We got the Dallas muster, October 18th through 20th. We got the next battlefield is August 8th through 10th. I think there's a couple seats left, a couple slots left.

It's that little big horn. You want to see where it went down. You want to walk the battlefield. You want to study. the terrain and the leadership and the personalities, come and get it. We'll be up there. Also, we have The Assembly,

which is the, for, it's a women's event run by Jamie Cochran, the COO at Eshlawn Front, September 14th through 16th in Phoenix, Arizona. Go check that out. We also have online training because we can't get to the whole world, but we're trying,

and the way we're trying is through online training. Extreme Ownership.com. Learn the jiu-jitsu of leadership. Learn the magic of leadership. Learn the maneuvers, the skills, the tenants. Learn how to lead. It's not natural. It's not a natural gift.

It's something you have to learn. Extremeownership.com, we will teach you. You can also come on there and just ask me questions. You can come on there and take some courses. Whatever you want to do. Just get in there. New course out on the academy right now. Which one is it?

Relationships with yourself and Dave. Good deal, Dave. Good deal, Dave. relationships are everything relationships or everything it's some of the things that you do to build relationships are counterintuitive you might not be doing what you think you're doing so get in there take that take that relationship scores believe me you build good relationships with other people if you build good relationships with the people you work with if you build good relationships with you the people in your family

If you build good relationships with the people that you interact with in the world, the car mechanic, the plumber, the teacher, the college professor, the doctor, the boss, the subordinate, the peer, if you form good relationships with these people, your entire life is going to be better. And their entire life is going to be better. So don't, but you don't necessarily know how to do this. Check it out extreme ownership.com. Learn how to build relationships, learn how to lead. If you want to help service members active and retired, you want to help their gold star families.

You want to help just service members in general. You want to help people that need it. Go to Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got a charity organization. It's a great organization. It's at America's Mighty Warriors.org. and if you want to donate, if you want to get involved, you can go and look at what she does to provide.

One of the huge parts of what she does is provide medical treatment for people that need it that's outside the realm of what the VA provides. It's outstanding. I've seen it completely 180 turn around my friends' lives. So check that one out. Also, heroes and horses. Mika Fink, he takes veterans up into the wilderness so they can find themselves again. And it's extremely powerful.

And when he's not doing that, he's like single-handedly hunting down mountain lions with slingshots that he made out of raw hide. He's just getting it. There you go. If you want to connect with us on the interwebs, connect to Drago. Drago's at, he's got a website, dragozran.com. He's on social media. He's on his social media, which is Connect Zing.

He's also on Instagram and Twitter at Drago Zeran. Kerry is at Carrie Helton. Carrie underscore Helton. He didn't get that Carrie Helton. He won't quick enough. That's all good. I'm at Drago Willing. Just watch out on any of those.

Watch out for the algorithm. Don't forget about bone frog Bone frog coffee Bone frog coffee.com Go and give that a checkout. We got a team guy. We got a seal that is

making an awesome coffee for you and he's helping out veterans and he's trying to take care of his family right now in a big way trying to take care of his wife. So go and check that out if you can. And thanks to all the military personnel around the world. Thank you for our freedom that you've given us.

For centuries, thank you for standing up and holding the line. Thanks to our allies throughout the course of history that have supported us in the fight for freedom. Special recognition for the Polish armed forces, including the Grom, who had my back over and over, again over in Iraq who took care of Drago we thank you for standing with us in the fight to preserve freedom and also thanks to our police and law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service all of you first responders thank you for your

sacrifice to keep us safe here at home and everyone else out there isn't it crazy to think about what people have to suffer through and how easy it is to take things for granted things like running water things like being able to travel freely things like a bed things like food things like music

and art and speech and thought being free being able to do what we want that's freedom how often do we take it for granted too often How often do we forget the price that's been paid too often? How often do we ignore the opportunities that freedom presents too often?

So remember from Drago's story. And he's one of the lucky ones, by the way. He's one of the ones that only went to prison. He wasn't murdered. He wasn't buried in an unmarked grave. How many thousands and tens of thousands were. He's one of the lucky ones that was. to escape but we have to remember that our freedom is not free and that it is fragile

and that we have to cherish it and protect it and we have to take advantage of the opportunities we get from freedom and it's a travesty if we don't do that so go use your freedom go live go breathe go build and create and speak and think and relish relish the freedom and that's all we've got and until next time this is Kerry and jocco