Jocko Podcast - 458: Things Will Not Go As Planned. W US Navy SEAL, Sean Murphy.

Episode Date: October 2, 2024

>Join Jocko Underground< Sean Murphy served in special operations for 22 years where he tested himself physically and mentally. During his career he gained incredible insight into how elite teams are established, operate, and perform in austere environments. Through these experiences his dedication remains to being the best at what he does. This is the mindset and commitment he brings to you. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 458 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. They treated us like animals. You're laying in the fetal position on the ground. And they don't even, they don't care. Their duty was to keep me from dying because then I wasn't worth anything. And I thought, please tell God that I need some help.

We need to get out of here. Later, all of a sudden, it's just this eruption of gun, fire and I think okay well this is it this really is truly the end and I cover up with my blanket again and I just start saying oh God oh God oh God and I just remember thinking or maybe I'm saying out live loud I cannot survive this and then all of a sudden I feel these hands on me roughly grabbing at me and I try to protect myself and I pull the blanket closer on top of me and then I hear my name but it's a Somali accent, it's an American accent. And I can't compute.

Like I can't understand that somebody with an American accent knows my name. And they say, Jessica, we're with the American military. We're here to take your home and you're safe. I pulled a blanket down from my face and all I see is black. Black masks, black sky. And all I can say over and over is you're American? You're Americans? I don't understand.

You're American thinking, how did you get here? And I'm still alive. And they asked me where my shoes are, and I don't know. And one of them picked me up and starts running. He runs for several minutes and puts me down on the ground. And I'm still asking who these Americans are. I don't understand who they are, and I don't understand what they've done. And then they identify themselves and that they knew I was very sick.

And they have medicine. And they have water. And they have food. And they've come to take me home. At one point, I think they thought they heard something. I don't know this group of men who's risked their lives for me already, asked me to lie down on the ground because they're concerned that there might be someone out there. And then they make a circle around me.

And then they lie down on top of me to protect me. And we lay like that until the helicopters come in. and they are so kind and so gentle and they are trying to assist me to get to the helicopter but I think I've been out here for months I can run to this helicopter myself and so I just break away and I just take off running through the scrub

through the brush and I throw myself onto that helicopter and push myself up against the wall and I don't start breathing until we actually lift up off the ground and they hand me an American flag that's folded I just started to cry.

At that point in time, I've never in my life been so proud and so very happy to be an American. And those are some quotes from Jessica Buchanan, who was working on a demining project in Somalia when she was kidnapped

and held captive for 93 days until being rescued along with one other person, Paul Hagen, who were both rescued by seals from the Joint Special Operations Command. And it's an honor to have one of those seals, Sean Murphy, here with us tonight, to share some of his experiences and lessons learned from his 22 years of active duty service and the other experiences in his life. Sean, thanks for joining us. Thank you, Jocko.

Good to see you, man. Likewise. It's been a while. It has. Man, you got so much stuff I want to get into. Your whole life has been, I mean, it's just been a wild. You've had a pretty wild ride. Yeah.

So let's get into it. So what year were you born? 1981. And where? Oklahoma. Toss, Oklahoma. And what was going on with your, what was your mom and dad doing at the time? Jobs and whatnot?

My mom was a stay-at-home mom. My dad, this is as early as I can remember his job. He was working in a furniture store from what I remember. He bounced around a couple of jobs. And they end up getting divorced, right? Yeah. And so what happens? How'd that affect you?

What age were you? I was probably around eight or nine. I was really young. I don't really remember exactly why they got divorced. But I remember my dad losing his job at one point. And we had, I had four brothers at the time. time and we just didn't. What number were you in the in the stack?

Second. Number two. Check. Number two. And so you're all living together when they get divorced. What happens to the family unit? Man, that was, so we went and lived with my aunt for a while while my mom was trying to figure things out.

My dad was trying to figure things out. I could sense that there was like tension and we didn't quite understand. We thought it was cool that we got to go stay with my aunt, all of us there. and she had kids at the time. So it was a house full of maniacs, five boys and her two kids. Yeah, it was cool because this was the time that, man, I'm going to date myself pretty good here. They had cable.

And it was the cable box that you press the button. Oh, yeah. Chink. Yeah. Chink. That was cool to us that we got to go stay with our aunt. But at the same time, like we didn't understand what was happening with the family. We didn't, where was dad, you know, we're just kind of living our lives as kids,

real young kids just fighting and, you know, beating each other up and playing politics within the family of who we picking on today and what your strategy to avoid getting picked on. And so we had that going on. And it broke us pretty good as far as like what we anticipated was going to happen. We just didn't quite understand. So then where did it all shake out? Like where did you end up living permanently? So we went back to a little town called Claremore, Oklahoma. And I think the only reason why we did that was because, the church that we were going to at the time opened up a place for us. It was just a one-bedroom apartment, and we didn't have anything, you know, because the divorce and I don't know where

everything went at the time, but I remember staying, like we had, there's five of us, there's five days in a week, so we got to choose a special day of the week. My day was Tuesday. Second in line, day number two. And that was the night I would get to share them one mattress that we had with my mom because she was trying to figure things out. She was going back to school to be a nurse and just trying to make some sort of like I guess path for us and we were all living in this one-bedroom apartment having the time of our lives because as kids you make the best of what you have and that's what we did and the same thing that if it was your night to sleep on mom's mattress the rest of us would sleep on the floor but you also got to choose what dinner you had like whatever government

cheese that you had like what kind of concoction you're going to have. I always chose macaroni and cheese. And so Tuesday night used to be pretty special for me. And how long were you living in that kind of one bedroom apartment scenario? Man, it's hard to remember, but it seems like it was about six to seven months, maybe to a year. And then we finally got an actual house that was down this old country road. It was pretty old and pretty bad shape, but it was a home. And so we loved it.

And we're like, we're not in a one-bedroom apartment, sleeping on the living. living room floor on a mattress we started getting things we had a couch um and uh beds we had beds that was a luxury that we we embraced and enjoyed and we had a little bit of land too which was good for us as five boys so what are the how far apart are all the boys pretty tight group as far as ages go yeah it was it was uh two years apart actually my older brother's about a year and a half no he's right at two my younger brother's at two the one beneath that is two um and my youngest is right about a year and a half. And I remember when the youngest was born.

But I don't remember the other ones. They were just always my brother. I remember my little one being born, being in the hospital. I'm like, what's going on with mom? She's having another kid. Oh, another brother. Cool. So it was pretty interesting.

Five of us. So now, now what's going on as far as like, did your mom eventually get a job that she finished nursing school? Like how are you putting it all together? That's a great question. I don't know how she held herself all together, to be honest with you.

She was going to school. to get a nursing license and she was working trying to find some way to provide income and we're on food stamps at the time and that was like very embarrassing you know i could from where i am today going back in that time to have being a parent being on food stamps not being able to provide for your family as a kid you don't know you're like oh what are these cool things they buy you food and cool we were actually stealing from her purse to go down to the gas station and uh this is where we learned that if you've got a food stamp that's worth one dollar you're going to buy the cheapest thing in there and buy as much of it as you can.

And we'd buy a little jolly ranchers. And so we had like a plethora of jolly ranchers. We're like, Eureka, this is awesome. But for her, like, it was just chaos and five boys, you know, trying to, one, get a good headcount. You know, where are these kids at all the time? And then, two, like, how do I provide?

How do I feed them? And there's a lot of government cheese, government powdered milk and whatever, whatever we could get from like our friend's house. Like, hey, let's go over to so-and-so's house and see if they got leftovers. Where was your dad this whole time? He had moved to Bentonville, Arkansas, and was trying to find his life now, too, trying to get a job. However, that's, I didn't realize it at the time, but that was two hours away from us. And so every time he got to see us, he would spend two hours driving. And that, it taught me a lot. Now on the effort you put in matters. And he would drive two

hours one way and then two hours back and then uh for us on the weekends we'd go see him on the weekends and he would do that same drive two hours and made the best of it in this big blue astro van throwing all the kids in there and saying all right buckle in we got two hours and it was like it's like you know in the still teams you have van fights yeah yeah for no we were doing that as kids you were well experienced in van fights by the time you got to the team it was familiar to me I was like oh van fight I didn't know this very well so where did you end up going high school. Claremore Sequoia.

It was a little very small school. Everybody knew everybody. Yeah, it was such a small school that you kind of knew where you were and everything. Like you had small little cliques of groups. You had the prepees. You had the jocks. You had the, I don't even know what they're called. I think they're called goth now, but you know, the dressing out of that.

Yeah. So he had different clicks. You had the, I mean, it's Oklahoma. So you had the Cowboys. Yeah. You know, we had a lot of Indians. We had a reservation that we passed every day on the way to school. And that was actually very, very cool getting to see, because they would come into our school

and we'd get out of class to go see, like, demonstrations that do. So you learned about their culture. And I thought that was awesome. Learn how to build a teepee. Got to see, you know, the headdress and what it means. And then you got to go to school with these kids that know all about it. And you're like, man, that's so cool. Like, tell me more.

And it was neat. It was a small school, but you got to see a lot of diversity and culture. And what were you playing sports? Yeah. I always played something. Well, that was daycare for us. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

You either had track and you had football because Oklahoma, you had to play football. You had baseball and that was about it. They had wrestling, but the school that I went to didn't have wrestling. I would always wrestle with the guys that went to the other school. Yeah. Just get my butt kicked. Yeah. That's such a bummer.

They should have, I didn't have wrestling. my high school either growing up so it's just a terrible loss and were you what were you thinking i mean so now you get your freshman year sophomore you're like what are you into what does life look like do you have any kind of grand plan for life no so the only reason why i even left my hometown was because my best friend chris he he was going to college and so throughout this whole time my childhood um you know i had some some good instances that that shaped me and my mom she was and she was never around, not because she didn't want to. My dad, not because they didn't want to,

just because they were trying to make something of themselves. And so I was always over at his house. And so their parents, I spent more time with them than I did my own parents. And I had the greatest influence was his mom. Like his mom and dad, they would take us to the lake and stuff like that. And so when high school was kind of winding down, I had some buddies that went to the Marines. And I was like, man, what am I going to do? Like I have no plan.

And my buddy, Chris, was like, hey, I'm going to, Missouri Western to go play football. Why don't you come with me? I was just like, okay. Like, how do I do that? And he was like, well, you know, we figured out. My dad and mom kind of came together. My dad got me, because we were such poor kids,

there was all kinds of programs you could get some of your funding paid for. And he took on a lot of that and got me to where I could go in and went to college football just because of my buddy. He was like, well, why don't you come with me? I was like, okay. Okay. Now, did you actually play college football? I did. Well, it was I walked on. And, uh, I mean, so at this point in my life, I had to do something. I'm a fighter, you know, I was always made fun of, picked on, you know,

there was always some sort of adversity that was hitting me in the face. And so I was just naturally stubborn and I wanted to fight. Hitting back. Yeah. When life's hitting you in the face, you hit back. Yeah, no, I wasn't going to get pummel. That's not who I am. That's not. I just had to like, okay, let me go give it my all until I am a bloody pulp. No matter what, it's a mentality that I had. And so I walked on the football team and, man, that was a wake-up call. I got my butt kicked so much, but I freaking loved it because the guys I was with, there was this other running back that was a walk on as well, Nick Richardson, and we became really good friends. He was a black dude from Springfield. And so me and him like buddies, but he was

a lot more talented that I was, but I had a lot of heart. That's what I call it. I would get just pummeled for the scout team. And I think I did my part for building the confidence of the first team, the starters. Making the first team feel confident. And so that was my experience. And I knew that I wasn't, I had this small dream of like, oh, I'm playing college football. Like, this is my ticket to get to the NFL. I could be. So I love Barry Sanders at the time. I grew up like Barry Sanders is the man. Hell you. And that quickly faded when I realized like, oh, like the best I could be is a third down back to go and like throw my body into like a defensive end that's just going to destroy me just so the quarterback gets a few more seconds to throw that ball.

And there was a call. So you need to make a change. You need to find a purpose. You need to find something. What were you studying in college? Criminal justice. So were you thinking maybe being a police officer was in? in the cards?

Yeah. You know, so growing up, I was always in trouble. The police, my older brother was always getting arrested for something. And so I was always near policeman. At one point in time, like me and my best friend Chris, we were in my house. And there was a group that went out and like tore down a gazebo or something. And like our house was surrounded. I was asleep on the couch.

I had no idea. And a bunch of guys come flying through my door. They're all my friends. And like, they're like sweating. and they're just panicked and they sit down like, hey, what's up? And I'm just like, waking up. I'm like, what's up, guys? Like, oh, nothing, what are you doing?

I'm just like, wait, what's happening? And they're like, oh, nothing. And then my mom comes out. She's like freaking out. Like, why are there cops everywhere? And I was like, there's cops here? I was like, well, let's go. I had a Jerry Rice jersey on an old one breaker at Edita's pants.

I remember because it was a very unique experience. And so I was like, well, let's just go out and talk to them. Like, their cops are cool. And I walk out. And it was they had like the the end of the road blocked off. So they're all down there. Dang, dude. What kind of gazebo got wrecked?

Right? There was another car that came flying through and was, and my older brother comes out of his room with an SKS and just shoots in the air. It was just like, because he didn't, he wasn't part of it. Like he has his chaos going down too and he walks out and he shoots in the air. And so we, we have no idea. Like we just have this vehicle driving around our yard that is not a police car. just a truck, and I think he was chasing the guys that did it, and they're like, go to

Murph's house. They're always in trouble. You can go to his house, and that's our safe zone or whatever. He'll know what to do. No, that was not the case. So I walked out, and it was that big line of cars. There's probably about 10 cop cars there, and they just split. And then it was like, there was a cop car that came flying, flying up to our house.

And I'm like, cool, someone's coming to talk to us. You know, it's like two in the morning. I'm walking out, and it was like guns in our face. get on the ground, get on the ground. And so I'm like, oh, face down. Yes, sir, I'm going to obey what you say. And they got the full story. And it was funny because as we were sitting on the cop car and our hands are on the car,

there's another buddy of mine that was with, I can't refuse. No, he was with the Cizbo gang is what they're known as around our hometown. But this guy is like, he's one of our best friends and he's a pastor now in Kansas. And really good kid. And he's like freaking out. And he's like, guys, we've got to come up with the story. We've got to come up with the story. Like, we're at the movies.

We're coming back from the movies. And I'm like, I don't think they're going to buy it. And so we talked to the cops already. And he doesn't know this. We've already told him the story. Like, yeah, there's some guys. I wasn't part of it. Like, I can vouch.

You know, these guys can bust him in. So we just told him the truth. And he doesn't know it. And he's like, sir, we were just at the movies. And he's kind of look at him. like, we already know what happened. And so they end up, then my best friend's parents show up and you could tell they were pissed. Like, hey, this isn't, this isn't okay.

Like, look at all this. This is not a good spot. And they yanked us out and, you know, the dad and the parent look of like, yeah, you're in trouble. Yeah. You know, like, ooh, okay, okay. So that was your experience with police or one of your experiences. One of many. when you're going to college, is being a policeman like something that you're considering at this point?

Yeah, I respected the uniform. That was something that I always admired that, you know, because they, they're very professional. They always had like everything was dress right dressed, very to a tee, meticulous detail. They looked professional. And some of them would come up and they were like good mentors. And they would say, you know, you got to think about things. You know, there's consequences. We see the worst in everything.

And so I took that on as like, man, that's great, you know, that somebody has that awareness that a troubled kid like myself, they could impart some wisdom and knowledge on and it could change the trajectory of their life. And that's exactly what was going on. It's like, I love that. The uniform. I respected it. I respected those guys.

And so maybe that's what I want to do. Maybe I want to be like them because I didn't have anybody in my life at the time to say, I want to be like them. My dad was awesome. He gave me some very good wisdom and lessons learning. I still apply today in life. And my mom, I saw the hard work ethic, but I didn't want to be a nurse. You know, that wasn't something as a 19-year-old punk wants to say to his friends.

Like, I want to go be a nurse. And they're like, okay, float off. Like, go ahead. Whatever you want to do, man. Being a nurse was not, it was not one of the things. And so that was one of the things that really impacted me really. And so I was like, let's do it. So at what point you realized that the NFL probably not going to happen?

at what point did you start looking at the military as an option? When I was on campus and I saw Army ROTC and they were running around and at that point, you know, I did my internship and practicum with the Kansas City Police Department and I saw some really messed up stuff with, you know, just how bad it was. And I saw some of the guys there that didn't project the same professionalism that the cops did in my hometown. So I was like, man, I don't want to be a part of this. They're not a team. Like that's not something that they're together, but these guys, they're all in Army uniforms.

The ROTC guys, yeah. Yep. And they were sharp. They were professional. And they were the same age as me. And the look that I was giving them. And keep in mind, I was on the football team. We got a lot of good looks of like, oh, these guys are awesome, right?

But me looking at them was like, ooh, that's cool. Like I liked that. I used to play Army in the ditch all the time growing up. And now I get to see it and have the opportunity. And so I went and signed up for Army ROTC. And we did these, you ever heard of the Ranger Challenge? Yep.

That was so cool. I loved that. It's like an ROTC thing. They get together different groups and they go and do these challenges. They're like three-day weekends and you'll have to do foot patrols and bridge building

and just kind of little tactical missions and stuff like that for the cadets. Yeah. Marshmanship. It was the first time I got to shoot an M4 or an AR-15. That was awesome. And so it really like it started this little fire inside of me of like this is amazing. This is what I want to do until we're at an event.

It might have been, God, what college do we go to? When I saw this battalion commander, they had all their NCOs and all the RTC guys lined up. And this guy was just, I saw the way he was talking to his guys. And it was like accepted. and it pissed me off. Like I was like, hey man, like, you don't, why are you talking to them that way? There was no point. There's one thing if, like, you were in the wrong, but he was just like, kind of belittling

in them. And I was like, that's not cool. I was like, I got to find a different path. But that fire was lit. Like, I was like, all right, I want to do something in uniform. This is cool. Like, I love the guys that were in the Ranger challenges with. They were really good dudes that, you know, I learned a lot about leadership, a lot about, you know,

thinking things through. It was a big one of like, you've got to think things through. You can't just, you know, use your emotion and things. And that started there and added on to some of the things

that were already ingrained to me as a kid. So it's, right, cool. Let me explore this a little bit more. Let me get a little bit more deeper in this. And so where did that take you? Right down to the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot.

My friends went into the Marines. And, you know, at the time, I didn't know anything about the military other than what I saw because we didn't have technology. What I watched growing up was like maybe one or two cartoons as a kid and the rest of time was outside.

And we were poor. We didn't have TV. We didn't have cable. And so we were whatever trouble we'd get into, go build a bike, go rebuild that motorcycle, like ask for things that people wanted to give you. And so that was like my childhood of like experience that and pretending to be in the military. But when my friends went to the Marines, you knew about the Marines. Everybody knows about the Marines. Marines are awesome.

And so I walked down in the Marine Corps office and clunk, clunk, clunk. door was closed. I was like, that's not cool. That's probably the only time they were closed. But there was two like E5s in the Navy's office

were like the two doors you could reach them with one hand. So I just open it up and walked in. I said, hey, I'm looking for something what you got. And what they did is they sat me down.

I kind of gave my background a little bit. Like, you know, play football and teams. And I want some team dynamics. And so they popped in. I still think I would love to find this vision.

I've tried to search for I can't find it, but it was the, it's like probably the JFK original like recruiting video for Seals. It was the old like cheesy music and they were running on the beach in Cornell. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And one guy comes out of a submarine and I was just like, that looks awesome. Yep, sign me up. I want to do that and they kind of, this is where like the fire was set ablaze because they, they kind of laughed at me.

And so in my childhood, when you laughed at me, I'm kind of like, okay, you kind of, you judge me for something that I'm not. And like, oh, nobody makes it through there. And I was like, well, what are they? Like, oh, they're Navy SEALs. And so in my mind, I said this to them, I think out loud. Is it, don't they grow Navy SEALs in like some sort of government facility, like these special people? Don't they like have like this special place for them?

And they laughed at me and said, no. But don't worry, you can't make it. Like, nobody makes it through seal training. And I was like, hmm, okay, you can't tell me what to do. It's like, sign me up. And he was, the two of them were like, okay. You know, so I ended up going into the delayed entry program. And at that time, you had to do the screener.

And they had a chief seal up in Kansas City at the time that was, his name was chief Roger Roberts. I'll never forget his name. And they brought him down. He was like a dive motivator. And he spent some time with me, explained to me what a seal was. He said, hey, this is what a seal is. Because I never read a book. Didn't know anything.

I just know that that cold video, and they're saying, I can't go do that. And I was like, you can't tell me what to do, man. Like, you don't laugh at me and say you can't. Roger that. Okay. Let's see what I got. And after that, like, he trained with me for a little bit.

I worked my tail off, man. I, I wasn't already in pretty good shape because of football. But then, like, he taught me the side stroke, which I didn't quite grasp. But at the time, I'm like, okay, I'll do it. I would try and muscle through it and it was just exhausting. so I exhaust myself time and time again and somehow gridded through the PRT and passed and got a contract saying you can go to the Navy

and try out for buds. You can actually try and get a chance to be a seal. That was the first time in my life. I'm like, I see a path. You know, I never had anything before. It was typical and, you know, society puts pressure on people to be something that in a situation, like being a poor kid,

it was common for the poor kids in my upbringing, in my area, my community to go along with, oh, you're not going to make anything yourself. You'd come right back here, working a gas station, working something. And I didn't, I don't want to accept that. And it was the first time I broke that. I'm not going back home.

I made a choice. You know, home is not where I want to be right now. I want to be out making Sean Murphy. And that's where I found the sealed teams is like, all right, I see a path. I see something I can try. and do and make something with myself. And six months later, I had to finish out the semester in college.

Six months later, I'm on that bus, head to the Navy Recruiting Depot in Chicago. And how was the shock to the system going to boot camp? Were you good with it? If you did ROTC, I imagine you kind of knew some of the games that were going to be played and all that, so probably not that big of a deal. Well, Jocko, I have to put you in where my frame of mindset was.

I grew up with hammy downs. I didn't have, like, I had L.A. lights for, like years. And I had, and I still love, I have a love for this, this pair of Jordans that I got given to me from like a, I'm sure somebody probably felt sorry for me or something. They gave me a pair of like 93 Jordans. It was like the blackness, because I watched Jordan all the time. I loved watching him play.

And so I got a pair of his shoes and I, I had them for so long. And so I didn't have anything of like, that was cool like an ooh and awe at. Well, when I get to boot camp, they're like, you know, you were going through the line. And they're like handing you underwear, handing you socks. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. This is better than Christmas. You got the sweatpants that's got the navy blue on it and stuff. It was awesome to me.

It was like, this is cool. Guys, we get free stuff, man. It's awesome. And a bunch of food to go with it. Food. Yes, that was a big one. So you go through Navy boot camp and then would you go, weren't you a GM? Do you go to Gunnersmaid school?

Yep. How long is that school? It's about six months. Cool. I still use some of the stuff I learned in that school today. Like, they, that's a great school because they had, I learned about guns, right? That's satisfying any young kid that has a passion for, you know, guns or anything like that and wants to learn. You get to learn to dismantle them all the different nomenclatures what their capabilities are and not just the, the small arms, but you also get big guns and see how these Navy, big Navy ships, the, how those giant guns and everything works and the hydraulics.

Like I use that on my track today. Like, I understand what an accumulator is. I understand that you got to do all these things. And at least it gives me a starting point to, you know, problem solve. I'm like, what's going on? Like, what did I push my tractor too hard to do and where did it break? And so I learned it all through Gunners Made A school. And are you still prepping hardcore?

Were there other guys going to buds that you were with at the time? And you guys were training your ass off? Yeah. So that that, ignorance is bliss, Jacco. We didn't know. We didn't have any idea what we should be training. I was running in the Navy. boots the like clodhopper oh yeah the uh the boondockers boondockers yeah those things i was running around

and those things tearing up my feet doing pushups pull-ups not really swimming that much i should have been yeah and uh yeah there was a big group of us that um kind of stuck together you know everybody's like oh we're going to go do it every single one of it's like we're all going to make it and everybody's uh very confident in training but it wasn't uh yeah it wasn't the right path The right thing to do and that working out the way that we did. So you show up to Buds. How's your first impression of Buds? I remember the smell that seawater, that kelp.

You ever seen the ocean before? Never. Check. Never. I was like, this is amazing. This is the coolest thing. Because I remember landing in San Diego, and it's a short runway,

and I could see the Corridontal bridge. I didn't know where Buds was, but I remember seeing the bridge. And I land there, and I got my little, the van driver that picks you up and takes you over to the compound and buds and I remember showing up

and like this is buds this is awesome like I had goosebumps and everything was and this is so this group of dudes that we had that were going to be in class 238 we're I don't know how many of these

I don't think any of these guys made it through but we had this genius idea we get into 618 we drop our stuff and we're like let's go surf torture ourselves And in hindsight, that was so dumb. It was like, we're trying to now like prep ourselves to be ready because we're going to be the best seals ever that came through buds. You know, everybody thinks that.

And we went out and surf tortured ourselves for a little bit. And we're just like, yeah, it's so cool. And it was just, I think back, it's the dumbest saying like, there was plenty of that to come. You're going to get plenty of that. Yeah. So and how, so you form up in class 238? Yeah.

And how'd that work out for you? Oh, that was a disaster. So I was sitting in, it was actually when 9-11 happened. 9-11 happened when I was sitting there eating breakfast, and I didn't realize it was real. I thought it was a bad movie. And was you, were you in first phase at this time?

No, we were right about, getting ready to class up. Yeah, we're an end doc or PTR and R. I don't know what they call it now or what it was back then. It was, um,

I remember I had my blouse, my little canteen belt and canteen and stuff. And I remember sitting there eating. I looked up at the, uh, the TV that was in the galley. and I saw the plane hit. I was like, that's weird, man.

That's a messed up movie. Like, why would somebody make a movie about that? Where is, like, where are we going in society? And got up and had my buddy, swim buddy, and we started running back. And I remember seeing what dawned on me is like, this is real. Is when I saw the seal teams, like people up on the roofs and like cop cars and everything, like things locked down, I was like, oh, maybe that's real. And then Master Chief Gild, he was the CMC at the time. Big will.

Yeah, he got everybody to get on the grinder and he gave us a great speech of like war. Yeah. Wars here. This changes everything. And it was like, that feel good and you're like getting goosebumps. And you're like, this is it, man. Like we get to go do something. But we're still like, we haven't even proven ourselves yet.

We haven't even stepped into, you know, the actual training. It's just like getting you prepped. It's kind of like a babysitting club like Kindoc is. Is what I look at is prepping up to. I bet big will. So when I was like an E5, he was my senior chief at team one in the training cell at team one. Yeah, and he was one of those guys where I bet you gave you one hell of a speech. It was fired up.

It was awesome. It was the one that touched your soul. Yeah. Because he's a really smart, really articulate, just awesome guy. He is an awesome guy. But I can imagine him coming out there as a master chief and you're a freaking. and not even kicking off into buds yet, just getting ready to start.

Yeah, as a Navy SEAL like this guy, and he had that tone and just like gentlemen. And he's like 6-5 or something. Yeah, he was a big dude. That's why his nickname's a big will. Yeah. It's freaking epic. So you kick off, you get into first phase, and how to go?

Well, so first phase, you know, there was so many dudes. The first time I ever did an ocean swim was in first phase. And they sent us out, you know, little fens and all that stuff. And I had done pretty well. Like I was figuring my groove out, figuring out how things worked, realize that you'll never pass a room inspection. You're always going to be wet and sandy.

That it doesn't matter how many perfect pushups you do. The who yaw isn't going to make it better. And got all the way to Hell Week. And this is where I, now I'm starting to figure out, oh, you got to make it through Hell Week before you get this brown shirt, this coveted brown shirt. and I was at I can't remember exactly which night it was I think it was two I think it was Tuesday night right before like you could get rolled forward if you make it another night and we had come

back for med checks and there was this other guy Noel Sons which we I just talked to him the other day and we reminisced about this we hadn't talked since then he is like a six foot two probably taller than that dude and I'm you know I'm smurf crew you know the best group of guys and somehow whoever was the instructor that decided to do this, thought it was funny to put us in the same boat while we're taking seats in the surf and trying to eat our MREs. And I remember Noel just having this like, ah, this pain scream and falling forward.

Well, I'm in the middle of the boat in between the two back guys, and I'm in the middle, and they're taller than me, and they kind of fall forward in this whole way of the boat, boom, right on top of me. And I remember my spine just feeling like the bolt of lightning, boom. And I was like, oh my gosh. And so it like stiffened me up.

Like my everything kind of like tensed up. And so I go through with this is clever. Team guys are so clever. When you're out there and you're cold, they turn on the hot showers to wrench you off before you go in and talk to the docks. And so I'm like hot showers in hell week, piece of cake, right? That was terrible because the second you step out of that nice hot shower, I was just, I remember being so cold, my back being tight. and then walking into the med checks just jackhammering and trying to tell the doctors, I'm going back to hurt her.

And he was like, you hurt your back. And I explained to him what happened. He was like, well, we got to get you x-rays, especially if you had a bullet of lightning and it's stiff. And so I send me over to get x-rays. And at this time, the group that I was with, they said, hey, you guys all get rolled. And I was just like, what is rolled?

Like, I want to get back in there. I'm like, no, they're too far away. You've been out for too long. You get rolled to 23-9. Okay. I can do this. I know I can do it once. Yeah, it sucked, but I can do this.

Yeah. And you get rolled just so, Echo Charles, if you're in Hell Week, so you went through, I don't know, three or four weeks of really a bunch of crap. And then you start Hell Week. If you get rolled in Hell Week, you have to go all the way back to the beginning. And it makes sense because otherwise you'd have someone that was like, I'm just going to get purposely kind of get rolled in Hell Week and then be totally fresh going into it, which gives you a huge advantage.

Yeah. Because all of First Face beats you up. So it's simulating combat. Like you're, you don't get a fresh start. You don't get like the weekend to recover or a week to recover. So when you get rolled back in Hell Week, you're going back to the first day of first phase. So that's what happened to you. Yeah, day one, week one.

Get some. Guess what? You're on the same playing level as everybody else next to you. Do you know better than anybody else that has a white shirt? You're, you got to pass every single run. Nobody's going to have any sympathy or anything for it. And I was like, all right, I do remember. Don't be in the Goon Squad.

You don't want that. And when they tell you to get wet and sandy, don't be emotionally hurt. Go get wet in Sandy. Get some. Yeah, just embrace it. And so I did a little better in 239. And then I get all the way back up to Hell Week

and get rolled again for the same thing. Not the same scenario, but same thing. I had an injury. And they're like, hey, you can't, man. Like, they were rolling people left and right. And so I got into 2-4-0. And so at this point in time,

man that hurt that was like I don't know if I can do this and I was in two four zero and I was happy and there was a point where I had so many miles all my body that because I didn't recover you if you think back to buds once the guy class makes it through hellwick they're like another one starting so you don't have much of a break and so I jumped in to four zero and going through it awesome dudes making some good friends I'm like I see it I can do this you know, getting back in that confidence. And then we're on a four mile time, Arnault was, can't remember if it was a four mile time runner for it was just to run.

But there was one of the guys that used to be in SWIC he was coming through. And he ended up run a beach run. And also this dude collapses. Boom, thud. And I was like, what was that? And we all circle around him and then all hell breaks loose. They're like, hey, you guys take it back to the beach or back to the podium. And they end up swooping this dude up.

and he died on the spot. He had something go on with his heart and he just collapsed and died. And so I was like, oh, that's crazy. Within the next week, right before we're going into Hell Week, he had that four-mile-time run right before Hell Week. And so I'm on that four-mile-time run. I remember coming back around.

I was right at the rocks coming back to the podium, and I couldn't walk. Like, it locked up. I couldn't do anything. I was like, the weirdest feeling of like you try so hard, but your body's like, no. Like, you can't move. And my legs wouldn't move.

And I was just like sitting. I was like walking in a very slow pace and they put me in the ambulance. So now the medical, as you know, anything that happens in buds that, like a student dies or a major injury, there's going to be a lot of scrutiny. And so I'm in the back of this ambulance and I'm telling them what's going on.

They send me to get x-rays and I had bilateral hip stress fractures. And it's where there's like in it where your hips are, there is a little hairline fracture on both sides that if you've never had a hair. line fractures the same thing is feeling like it's broken it was it was rough man it was hard to understand like why can't i walk well now i know why it's because i had two cracks on my hip i remember sitting down there with the medical guy and i've had this conversation multiple times now and he's like hey bro you can't you can't get rolled we can't keep you here as a what are my

options and he told me he's like well here's what we can do you know you're you're very well liked here it's like you you definitely put out you're not like one of these guys that or because I never went into medical. You're not a medical commando. You just seem to have like some, a series of bad things happen to you. He's like, we've got a billet that you can fill in Puerto Rico,

but you got to go to Texas. It's about a year and a half, two years, depending on how you do there, you can come back. I said, all right, man,

you're telling me that this is not the end of my chance. He said, yeah. I was like, I hired I'm in. I did it. And so I signed a paperwork, said I'd volunteer.

remove myself from training to go do this. And so I got the orders and left. And man, that was looking back on it now, like as sad as I was, like, you know, my feelings were hurt because it didn't make it through. But that vision was still there. It was a blessing because now going into it and I was ignorant, which is also a blessing. But now I knew how to prepare. I knew exactly what I needed to get tight.

I had actually Mark Lee was in that class that got, I think he was in 239 and got rolled and he went to yeah, where did he go? He went to like Virginia Beach. Something, he went somewhere. Maybe it was Rota.

I don't know, but he went to the fleet but he was also like, did some kind of like quick excursion back to the fleet. So did, um, Mikey Monsor. Yeah, Mikey did too. I think he was in Rota.

Yeah. That's right. Yes, he wasn't. He was, because I remember his dad was telling a bunch of stories. about him driving fast cars and rented fast cars over there. But yeah, but it's always, you know, when I talk to guys that quit, if I talk to a young person that quits, you know, first of all,

going into Hell Week or going to start and I'm like, don't quit. And then if they happen to quit, which happens, I always tell them about Mikey and Mark because both those guys quit and both them came back and our freaking heroic, you know, iconic frogmen for all time. Absolutely. And so that's, you know, you can get back to it. I think that I also know that the highest percentage of quitters that they have are previous quitters. So if you're a quitter, chances are if you go back, chances are you're going to quit again.

It's not a guarantee, right? But it's a low percentage of people that make it if they've quit before. I had a guy that was my roommate who was a quitter from pre, from, from, from the fleet so he quit went to the fleet and came back and he was now in my class and he was you know i was young i was like 18 19 and he was probably 25 which is a pretty like seems like an old knowledgeable person right and he's kind of a physical stud and everything and yeah sure enough he quit again during hell week so chances are you've developed a habit of quitting you're probably going to quit again but you have control and if you're mikey monsore

or Mark Lee, you go, cool, I'm not going to make that mistake again. So, and that's, so you end up going down to Puerto Rico. Yeah. And are you training your ass off down there? Yeah, there was, do you remember the book, Stu Smith had the, it was like the 36 weeks to buds or something? Yeah, I don't remember, but I know it's been a guide for a lot of dudes trying to go. There was, I'm not going to say his name because he's still active, but another buddy of mine that was down there in Puerto Rico with me. I mean, he had it.

And he's a tall, lanky dude that, you know, he was in 239 also and quit. And so there's a group of us that were like, hey, let's train. And we did. We trained so freaking hard. There was three of us. Another kid was a really, like he was a triathlete super studded everything. Good swimmer, good runner, everything. I could do pullups and pushups for days.

But me and the other guy. And was he a previous quitter as well? Yeah. Dang, dude. So it was quitter land down there. Yeah. But it was fun because we had our vision of getting back through and making it back. And yeah, I trained.

I trained so hard. I actually swam in the ocean this time. Learn the side stroke and just got in really good shape. And I could run for days. It just mattered. I just had to learn how to control my breathing. And after I did that, I was running so far, so fast. It wasn't about I would just run for like, I remember around Puerto Rico because it was a, you know,

in the Caribbean, you could run a new day. And so I remember running just until like, for time. I would start with the time and say, I'm going to run for 30 minutes. I didn't run for distance. I would just run for time. I don't do 30 minute run today. And that 30 minute would keep getting longer and longer. And the better I control my breath, like what I was doing is heart rate training.

I didn't know it. And so as I'm controlling my heart rate and breathing, I could run as fast as I want it, as far as I want it, as long as I maintain that and control my pace and my heart rate. heart rate and breathing the trifecta if i could maintain that i could run forever and i was doing that almost every day and living you know being i think it was 21 at the time being a 21 year old like just getting the best that you can getting the best physical shape you can learn as much you can doing some really cool stuff and down there in porto they had a seal um like i don't know what they did in there was like a dive lock or something and uh those there was there there used to be a unit down

there in Puerto Rico. Yeah. Yeah. So I've gotten tight with those guys. There was two bars. There was Don's Lighthouse right outside. Don's Fight House. Don's Fight House. Don's Fight House. Yeah. And then there was Papa Joe's, which was like a, I guess you could call it a strip club. It was like, it was more of a bar than anything. And so you could tell like those are the two places. And I was in security at the time as a gunner's mate. And every once in a while I had to go do patrols in the cop car and stay in the gate. And I started,

And there was a group of us that, like, if we ever heard about Seals getting in trouble, we'd try to help them out. And so I started, like, give my number. I was like, hey, guys, if you go down these bars, like, call me, I'll come pick you up. And I don't know how many team guys I picked up with the gate in the cop car

and would drive them back to their barracks. And there was, galley, I'd love to talk to these guys again. But there's one night that there's this back road on the north side of the base that, nobody, nothing was back there. And so I have a car full of team guys I was like doing a van fight in a little Impala.

And they're like, hey, turn on the lights. I was like, like the cop car lights. Like to me, I'm like, okay, boop. Like these guys are a bunch of big kids. And so I let them on the PA, which was the worst thing for me to do. I gave them that. Yeah. And so I'm doing like 80 miles an hour with these guys on the back with the lights on.

They're just like yelling at people. And I actually come up on a car and I can't get it back from them. And so I'm trying to get back away from the car because they're just screaming. And that guy pulled. over and so I just have to blow past him so that I don't like I'm not going to get behind him and I don't know who that person was but it was a that one's like don't give team guys things that you can't answer for yeah so I would drop them off and had a good time check so uh when you're getting uh you show you go back at the butts yeah and you must feel like you're prepared absolutely but are you still like also realize that there's a chance of you can't make it yep I knew that it's not 100% guaranteed. Nothing is ever 100% guaranteed. But I had confidence.

I had a little bit of, I know what's behind the curtain. I know what's coming. So I can be more calibrated, not be so shocked. I can stay focused, determined on where I need to be and what I need to do, knowing that this is truly when I realize nothing lasts forever. Nothing. And, man, too far. 50 was awesome. I got I ran to mark again. Mikey was there like all these like we're having a

good time now we're like oh we're back and we're telling stories about what we did and where we were and uh we started going through training and um this is so funny Mark was the supply guy and so mark always had everything I'm sure he did I'm like how are you passing all these room inspections like my knife my K bar is like destroyed and he was like I'll kill him And so I had this brand new knife that became my inspection knife that once after inspection, I put that thing up and it never saw the light of day again because it was in pristine condition. And so I was like, oh, there's tricks you can do. Cool.

So there's a group of us that like, right, hey, we've got to bond together and stick together and like overcome what we can and just try and survive. Like, let's do this. And, yeah, that was, I had the confidence I was going to make it through because, you know, the community, the brotherhood that was there was just so strong this time. And we're like, we got this. Whatever they throw at us, we're going to make it.

And it was not the case. I got all the way to Hell Week. And, oh, man, the entire class had VGE. I forgot the acronym, Gastroenteritis something. And so there was a brown shirt. And a big dude came over to me. and he's a hey Murph here's some Skittles because you remember they took all the good stuff out of the MREs and we're sitting on the the beach savages right that's so crazy to this day this is why I do not like

skittles is I so I'm like oh open package insert and swallow ate the whole thing of skittles instantaneously it's like sugar like that's awesome and we're doing med checks and there's an admiral touring hell week and I'm sitting on the podium and all of a sudden I got it. I got VGE. And it comes up. Just the rainbow came out. And I'm pretty sure it hit the admiral because he's walking out and talking,

how are you doing? You know, doing the admiral thing, shaking hands and looking at us. And I was just like, I'm doing great. And he's just like, you don't look so great. I remember he turned to his aide.

It was like, get that man to medical now. And so I'm walking out. What year was this? 2002, 2003, okay. Check. And so I go into medical. on the dock there.

Now I'm friends with everybody because I'm not afraid to talk to people. And I'm in there and he's like, hey, they're watching you. I was like, okay. He's like, so here's the deal. You've got to hold down something or something or not going to let you go back in because you can't go back in. And I was like, all right, he kept feeding me insurers. Like I need you to keep one of these down, just one.

And you'll be good because you pass all your other med checks, but you got VGE. Everybody's got it right now. but for some reason, like they're watching you, you're like the little test case for him. I was like, all right. And so I drank the insurer and couldn't hold it down. So he gave me three.

And the last one, he said, hey, Murph, I know you want this. And you will go back out there if I let you, but you have to hold this down. I said, okay, I drank it. And there was nothing that was going to hold it back. So I was saying, hey, can I at least go? take a leak or something? He's like, yeah, the bathroom's right there. So I go in the bathroom, I shut the door and a lock,

and I just like, let loose and let it out. And I was just like, he'll never know. And then walk back out and they're just standing there looking at me. I'm like, I'm good. They're like, no, Murf, we heard you. Sorry, buddy. And that crushed me. And I was just like, not again.

I have to start over. So this was during hell week? During hell week. Ooh. Yeah, that's a bummer. Yeah. And then it was kind of like questioning, do I have what it takes? is this like God's sign of saying, hey, bro, I got something else for you in store.

You're just being stubborn. Go follow the other path that I've been laying out for you. And I was like, you know what? No. I got something here. Like, there's a reason while all this is happening. Got rolled to 251. And at this point in time, like, nothing was going to phase me.

I knew don't be in the Goon Squad, pass inspections. And don't let the hype of what's happening. deter you from your focus. And that's where I found my happy place was in a log PT. There's a big seal instructor that was notorious for crushing souls in log PT. And it's actually, this is a good thing because one of the officers, he still and so I won't say his name, was in the Smurf crew. And as you know, like everybody can pretend when you're going through hard times until eventually your true colors will come out.

We're on the log and it's we're losing race after race. You know, the jolly green giants, screw those guys, man. They were winning races and we always wanted to win because you got the two boat crews that you cannot miss these guys, the taller guys and the shorter guys. So you got a bull's eye on you all the way through buds. And we're losing races and it started to get to us. And guys started arguing, complaining, bitching moaning, whining. He's not putting out.

I need a break. you're not your hands don't even touch the logs like it was just arguing i remember him seeing like hey listen this isn't working we've got to figure something out and it dawned on us we're like all right who's tired we're all like well i'm all tired like no seriously i'm like i'm on the end i'm like i could use a break because the end of logs is usually the heaviest because you're um just if one guy on this end now it tilts it on the other side and so you're you're taking a lot of weight so he switched out well that worked just that one little thing of us coming together and saying hey switch out you know speak up and let's let's figure this thing out because right now what we're doing complaining isn't getting us better and it actually we got we weren't in the last place we didn't make the goon squad in this um chaos of going up and over the beach or up and over the berms and we came back and that kind of gave us some energy we're like coming together works this is crazy and um we sat down and said, all right, now I start seeing what other people are doing, what's working for them, like little things that we started recognizing, like, this is our competition.

Are they doing well? What are we not doing well? What are our advantages and what are our advantages and what are our advantages? Our disadvantages were a little bitty leg just doing a thousand miles an hour coming up over the berm. And so we would get over the other side. And before we got down, we would start lifting the log up to use our momentum to get underneath and get our little legs turned around and going back up the other way. Well, eventually we kept doing little things like that coming together and communicating, telling each other, hey, try this, try this. And we'd, hey, I need to switch out. And so everybody was eager to help instead of like blame. Everybody was blaming each other. And so we kind of holstered our blame guns and kind of got on the same page of let's find a way. Let's do this and end up winning.

And I remember that same time frame we're sitting in the, we're sitting in the ocean. and I had to find a place to go because it was hot and it sucked. Like you're just exhausted. And they sat with the logs, which is terrible. Logs were facing the surf and you took seats. And so you had to like do the craziest sit up to hold this log up. And then I remember go to a happy place. And I went to like, I was on the beach, but I thought of the beach, but in a different way,

the water was nice and cool. It was cool on me all. So I had to gravitate towards something positive. And I found this happy place of embrace, feel the things, do a mental check, fill the things that feel good. And so I started feeling the waves. And I was like, ooh, this feels nice. And so it reset me. I was like instantaneously in a better place.

And from that, like I started finding those things this time around in class of like communication, teamwork, you know, finding your grounding point. I call them touch points now, but finding that grounding point. to keep you focused in what you need to do because it started getting me past all these little things that would be a lot you know you're going through and now started getting that confidence back of I'm going to make it and sure enough I did I didn't make it all the way through the 251 like I man gosh I still get excited about this I remember and I had this story with um another guy that was in our buds class with us I I did I forgot about this but I remember because When I made it past that, you know, that hump of Wednesday, when I made it through Wednesday,

I remember one step at a time. Don't think about it. Don't look at Tuesday. Don't look at Wednesday. Look at right now. And then I realized like, oh, it's Wednesday. And it was like that turning point. And so I can't remember when they do the nap that you get like a 30 minute.

Yeah. It's probably Wednesday or Thursday or something like that. And they reminded me I did this. So now I'm in like happy mode. Like you can't. There's nothing you can. do to me. And he reminded he was like, you know, I don't remember a lot, but I do remember this in Hell Week. Like, you were so happy that when you woke up, like, everybody was miserable,

but you like woke up and you beeline to the surf and we're like pretending to be a dolphin. Like, look, guys, the water's great. Like, you're out there like making dolphin sounds. And he was like, as much pain as I was in, I laughed. And he remembered it. I was like, I do remember that. I remember because I was like, I guess that's kind of way I was wired is, you know, going in my childhood growing up in like the best thing is laughter like if you can joke around like defeat them before they come and make fun of you about something and so I was like hey let's brighten things up let's have a good time I'm having to blast like we're going to make it guys like it's it's right in front of us and he told me that story and I was like dude I remember that I remember

being so happy that now that that thing that was so foreign to me is a reality I'm making it And it's funny. I was in a, so I do team building now. And I was with a NASCAR pit crew. And a good buddy in mine, Paul Swan, he, he wanted to hear my story. And this is the first time I ever put it all together. And I started lining out the amount of days I spent in buds in Hell Week. And I had it up on this whiteboard and I was like, scratch my head.

I was like, my gosh, like that was a lot. Like I didn't realize at the time because I was so focused on my dream. And when I lined it out, it was like, it was so rewarding. that this this thing that I wanted so bad was now a reality this is Sean Murphy didn't know who he was and then he's joined the Navy and still didn't quite know because he hadn't made it through and now I'm like yep got it yeah I can imagine it's so much more rewarding because you went through five like first phases and that's practically that's basically five months worth of training that like I made it through my first shot man I didn't

just did one of those but all my buzz was all together was five months you did five months before even getting through hell week so that's a lot of you must have you must have been super freaking stoked oh i was happy like that was it changed uh it changed me i was super stoked to be there so any other like you go through sqt any challenges there pretty straightforward no it was and you know after you get through that now it's a kind of a not necessarily a gentleman's course but you start learning things and you know I didn't I was never very good at like school but now this is a school that I'm passionate about I'm learning all about diving Charles Gay-Lusick's law you know the Boyle's law things that I would have never given it any effort because it wasn't valuable to me and now I've got

these things that I'm like this is going to keep you alive and it's also going to make you who you need to be in the seal teams you got to learn to dive and understand the the dangers of it so you can mitigate that. And I put myself, it was the first chance I think that I really had to apply myself. And so I'm going through there, applying myself and learning and no issues. It was like, okay, I got something here. And just went right through and SQT, same thing. Yeah, there was a chance. Actually, I got a scar my finger here. It was in third phase. And we're doing an inspection. I thought this was going to roll me. Actually, no, there's two. There's one. Right after Hellweek, I got a scar right here.

I had a cellulitis. During hydro hell week, you remember those little hydro charts? And my hand was the size of like Mickey Mouse's hand. It looked enormous. And one of the cormant came up and it's like, Murf, we kind of take you to the hospital. I was like, why?

It was streaking. That was bad. So they took me in and they drained and I was like, no. But they were cool. They're like, no, as long as you finish your charge. So I wasn't sleeping. I was like coffee and just doing my charts with like this. I had surgery on it.

And then in third phase, had one of those K bars. And we did an inspection. And I remember pulling it out. And somehow I nicked my finger really good. And there's still a scar from it. It opened it up. And I'm like, at first I was like, oh, cool, no blood. I can hide this and get through the inspection.

Well, then all of a sudden I'm standing at attention and I can feel the little warm sensation. I was like, don't look. It's one of the things. You don't look. It doesn't exist. well then I remember one of the instructors came up came up to me and it was like Murph what is going on it's like nothing I'm good what's up you know like try and like don't look at the knife

don't look at the knife and he's like give me your knife I handed it to him and he looked at my finger he's like go to medical and I was like no not medical they're like hey we're going to stitch it up and you can't get it wet so I'm thinking no but again I just you know We did the duct tape band-aid, and when I would hit the surf, it would hold my finger out. It once didn't do anything. And I was fine after that, came through, and SQT was a blast. That's when, you know, guys really, I think, come together. And you get to know each other.

You do it buds. At this time, like we, right after Buds, you graduated, and I moved into an apartment with Mark and a couple other guys that were at Team 3. and we were in La Mirage. Oh, okay. That was up by the Chargers Stadium at the time. That was interesting. That was not, I mean, yeah, it was cool because you're out on your own

and you made it through buds and you're going through SQT, but when you come back and it's, it was interesting because you had a lot of freedom in your apartment. It was like worse than a frat house. Yeah. You can go out and do anything and everything, but once we got through SQT and yeah we stayed there and had had some adventures say the least because you were going I remember you guys at team three you guys were going

through schools and Mark would come back and tell us about it and we were just like little kids like oh cool what's like what's land warfare like or what's this like and he's just marks a little smug and he's like oh it's no big deal you know I was doing this you know BTF and this that and the other and I was like so we're like in awe just like oh it's so cool man that's so freaking cool. And I think you guys went through ITI. Did you guys do ITI? We did. We sent a bunch of guys to ITI. Mark was one of them. He had this little Volkswagen Jetta. It was diesel. And I remember we'd gone out and he'd just gotten back from that trip. And so he's like showing me on the San Diego freeways about how to do high speed tactical maneuvers, which was scaring the living crap.

And he's like, dude, it's like, we can't be doing this, bro. And like, But you had to practice, right? You had to stay relevant and current. And we tried. I don't know how we didn't get pulled over. That was an interesting choice that we made. And was that just random that you got, so you get stationed at Team 5?

Is that just like how many guys went to Team 3? How many guys went to Team 5? Did you pick West Coast? Yeah. Well, I didn't care. You know, because, again, I didn't know anything about the East Coast West Coast. And I was like,

I'm just happy to go to a team. Like we're all we have a little clicks that formed in SQT and stuff like that and We had our core group of guys that we all wanted the guys that live together. We all wanted to be on the same team And I just happened to draw orders of Sill Team 5 which One of my buddies had a brother at Sill Team 5 and He came and talked to us and I was like yeah, I'll go to team five. I love team five because I don't know anything other than I want to be a seal You put me on a team give me orders. Yep, I'm happy and And so you would living with Mark in SQT.

Mm-hmm. And then when he showed up at Team 3, you guys were still living together. Yeah. Yeah. But they were a little, we at Steel Team 3 were a little head on the cycle. Because you're at Team 5,

they might have still been on deployment at that point. But anyways, they were just a little, yeah. So that's good times. And you're getting that insight from him because he's now in the walk-up and everything. He was the cool guy now. He loved it.

He loved every minute of, he'd come back from a trip, you know, walking out the door. Hey, guys, what's up? We're like, come on. the details like what's it like being over there doing the work up and stuff like that and he's oh it was good man you know and he's building everybody up and it's like this awesome and this that and the other and we yeah we learned a lot you know and it was a it was a good time it was good insight for us because

at team five the the platoon i was going to was selling deployment and they had just disbanded another one oh yeah that's right and uh so i got kind of the mix of that and so it's interesting like i'm learning what Team 5's culture is and I'm actually learning what Team 3's culture is from Mark and ignorance was bliss and I just didn't know and Mark was feeding us

with some good insight and I had some stuff coming from. Like if so occasionally I would say probably once every two or three maybe even five years like a platoon just for whatever reason just isn't going to work and it gets disbanded

I mean they just echo Charles they just take everyone They go, no, this platoon doesn't exist anymore. And they just break and they send everyone in different directions and divide them up as much as they possibly can. Because it's usually some personality. Sometimes they get disbanded because, like, there's infighting, meaning the chief has like a group of guys

and they hate the officer who has a group of guys and it's just this big disaster. The one, I think the one in Team 5 that you're talking about is they were just filled with maniacs. Yep. And you can have maniacs in your platoon and you kind of want to have a couple maniacs in your platoon. But if you have a whole, if everyone's a maniac, there's no like all gas, no break scenario.

And that was that platoon. And they just ended up getting disbanded, which was, yeah, that's a little shocking, right? Well, it was. Yeah, because I didn't understand it. Yeah. The guys that got disbanded, I know a lot of them still today, or a few of them still today, they're great dudes in the right environment. Oh, totally.

That's what I said. You, like, I know a lot of those guys. And I would want all of them in my platoon. Would I want all of them in my platoon at the same time? You know, honestly, for me, yes. I like guys like, and plus I can tighten guys up and I could tighten guys up and be like, dude, you cannot do that. Stop what you're doing.

But if you don't have that, like, if you don't have someone that can kind of put the brakes on, it's just going to ignite and it's going to be a problem. And there's two sides that. You've got to have the, if you're going to do that, they have to be able to respond to that. Yeah. And that's, I think they didn't have that in the previous one. Yeah.

Yeah. So you get to team five, you get it put in a platoon, workup, how was it workup? It was good. It was, I remember every part of my first, you know, impression of these guys. I thought, you know, we'd made it through buds, SQT, top of the world, you're invincible, and you're like walking in like, guys, I made it. I got my trite and everybody's like, nobody cares. We all did the same thing. But guess what?

We've deployed. We're coming back. We've got to get ready. Like, get up on step, bro. And so it was like humble pie for me. I was like, oh, I've got a lot to learn. It was like, you don't have the knowledge that we have. We need you to be where we are.

And so I had some awesome mentors. One of the guys he's still in over at Dev Group. And, man, learning from him was awesome. He was the guy that was always quiet working on his gear, big time grappler. And would basically say, hey, if you want to learn something, read the manual. read the manual figured out, understand its capabilities and why are you using it. And that's when I started learning, oh, okay, it's not just you get a gun and go shoot it, sighted in, understand the optics on it.

What are its capabilities? Understand the lasers. What are its capabilities? What is it used for? Understand like the battery life. You've got to understand the equipment, not just, you know, you've got cool equipment. Understand it. Put in the time and effort so that when you are starting to go into these cycles and training,

that you're more knowledgeable about what you're employing and why. and it was a great experience learning from those guys to have them take me under their wing because I see as you know seals when they go through you have different places that you're going to be in new you're going to be a little bit more impressionable and so if you don't have good guys that are guiding you in the right way then you will end up probably not ahead of where you need to be you'll be right behind. because if these guys, you're going to have an attitude first, like we were growing out beards and stuff like that.

And so that was the cool thing, growing your hair out long. But if you didn't have somebody that guided you into, hey, there's a reason why we're doing this, and you also can need you need to clean it up just as quick as you can grow it out. So if there's a reason behind growing out your beard and your hair because we're going on deployment or calling it blending in, but there's also going to be a time you need to present yourself to be professional. And so if you can delineate those two,

at first you're going to be like the younger guy I've been like, oh, why can I do this is stupid? You know, if you don't have somebody that explains the why, then you could develop a bad attitude and that's your reputation, that's who you are. And so you kind of evolve and mature as a seal, not just as an individual, but as a seal. And I had a bunch of good guys that ended up going to dev group,

I think, because of that they were the top 1% of the platoon that were always, you know, they're stellar performers, they're mature, They took everything serious. They knew how to relax, but they didn't go off and just party and, you know, put everything they just went through to the side and said, oh, I'm going to go on and make an ass myself. They were actually locked on. I look at Liberty and operational. It's like, are you, do you have character?

Do you have like a maturity level? And that's kind of mature through the SEAL teams when you do that. I'm going to have good guys that can pick you up along the way. Yeah, to me, that is the SEAL teams. And if you don't have, like, that's what a guy, starting with you, you get done and you're, you get done with your first platoon. Now you're, you're a one cruise wonder. Even that guy has a responsibility to teach and educate the new guys that just showed up because he knows infinitely more than them. The two platoon guy, absolutely. He's passing on knowledge. The three platoon guy, absolutely. And passing on the, the attitude that you're supposed to have in the teams, which is, you know, there's like the simplest things. team gear first, then platoon gear, then op gear, then personal gear, then yourself. Like that religion, for when I was at Steel Team 1 as a young guy, that was religion. You didn't do anything until the team gear was taken care of.

Once those big boats were taken care of, then we take care of platoon boats. Once the platoon boats were taken care of platoon radios, then it was like, oh, now it's our radios, now it's our weapon. And then finally at the end of that whole chain, you get to take a shower. Like you get to take care of yourself and not setting that example if someone doesn't set that example it's going to be terrible same thing with like if the platoon I remember we were on an argue platoons we're on a ship and squad one was out doing an op and we get back from this whatever operation training operation it's four or five o'clock in the morning it's miserable and as we're

pulling our boats to the stern of the ship I look up and I see I was in squad one I see squad two all squad twos there they all woke up they all came down put their warmies on and freaking were standing on the deck of the ship to help us recover the boats march them upstairs you know run the engines do all that stuff that we had to do but we it was all the platoon was doing it and that was the way i always operated always like if there's a platoon guy working we're all working if there's one platoon guy that has work we all have work and we're not done with work until every platoon guy is done and that's how we roll and if you don't get that impression as a young seal you really missed out and if older seals don't pass that at that on to the boys like oh we're

going to do a fam shoot with the 60s okay or the the mark 48s oh so the whole platoon's going to shoot the mark 48s and now we're just going to stick them with the new guys to clean like no it doesn't work like that if we're doing a fam shoot with what if we're using platoon gear we're all helping if we use the vehicles we're all cleaning the vehicles we're all doing the maintenance on the vehicles everything that we do we do together and that is the way that's the way I was raised in the teams I would I couldn't conceive of walking past you like if you are putting dive gear away I can't conceive as being in your platoon walking by you and not stopping what I'm undoing and helping you put dive gear away it was not part of the program so you get such a you get a lot

of your DNA from your first platoon and it sounds like you got a good set of DNA from that first platoon. I did. You know what the, I learned kind of a deeper part of that is the most valuable resource that you can never get back is time. And they would always say, hey, the longer you put it off, now's the time.

Nobody wants to do it at this point in time. It's at the end. It's like late at night. Everybody's tired. You know, the adrenaline training's worn off and you're just exhausted. And all as you want, it's like a warm shower, but you're like, it's got to get done. If we don't do it now, it's just going to get put off. And that's not the way we do things.

because it's going to rust, it's going to make it ten times worse. Make the most of it right now. Don't waste your time and give it up just because you're being lazy or you're feeling sorry for yourself. You know, you learn, don't feel sorry for yourself.

And the teams, you're the only one that's going to feel sorry for yourself. No one else is feeling sorry for you. It's just the way it is like, okay, but are we going to get work done? Like, I don't feel sorry for you. You're going to get work done or what? So that was like one thing that took away

is like take your time and maximize what you can do. doing that time because you don't get it back. Once it's gone, that's one of the things I teach some of these professional athletes is if you're not training, if you're not working right now, every second that you waste, you gave it to your opponent. So you gave it to them and just, it's going to mount up and mount up to make the most of it. Give it to yourself before you give it to them because you can't get it back.

It's not about the moment of performing. It's about the time that comes up to that moment that you're going to go perform. And that's what I learned in the SIL teams is it's not just about that. Super Bowl moment. What work did you put into that got you to day one to being at, you know, season one first game or the first race or whatever? Like, what did you do up to that point that's going to make you perform? How much time did you give yourself? Are you performing based on the effort that you gave to yourself that time that you had or did you waste it?

And you can have nobody to blame. You can say, oh, it's bad luck. It's the way things go as well. Part of that goes into like what you put in at time. that valuable resource that you can't get back. You can't just say, oh, I'll go buy it. Nope. Money can't buy it.

Everybody's got a clock. It's winding. As you're going through Workup and now we're on deployment, meaning Mark's on deployment, are you tracking what's going on on a lot of you hearing AARs, reading ARs and stuff like that? Yeah, that was, yeah. Yeah, so we, everybody was so engaged with what was going on.

They heard about the gun flights. It was like such a high of like, awesome. We're going to go get some. You know, there was there was this thought of like, what are we going to be doing? And when we started hearing these stories and these after-action reports like, that's awesome. You know, that's just amazing.

It was like, it kind of made us feel a little bit more confident of like seals. Because I think at the time, I can't remember the number, there was like a story going around like the ratio of seals that died in Vietnam to how many enemies we killed or something like that. And it was like some crazy number like 200 to 1

or something like that. So we started hearing about this like awesome this is this way it goes this is cool this is where we are and it was so interesting to hear and then hear how the older guys are like taking a look at it and telling us what's happening and i remember snipers were always you know that was a cool school that was the thing like you wanted to be a sniper everybody wanted to be a sniper breacher and as a new guy he don't get that my first school is hazmat school and i'm here to listening to these war stories and like i went to hasmat school okay i can put the label on a truck and get the gear there.

It matters, but I wanted, I wanted more because of what was coming out of what you guys were doing over there in Ramadi. And so when did you hear that Mark got killed?

I was sleeping in Ocean Beach in an apartment that I had. And I got a phone call from one of the Intel ladies and it was as it happened. She's like, hey, do you hear about Mark? The first thing I went through my mind

was, what did Mark do? Like Mark's always doing something. She's like, well, where are you at? And I was like, man,

I'm at home. Why it's up? Just woke up and she's like, hey, I need to tell you something. And I was like, what is it? She's like,

hey, Mark, Mark was killed. I was like, Mark Lee. And so my mind at that time didn't want to grasp it.

Like, no. That didn't happen. What do you know? Like I started fighting. I was like, no, that ain't right. And so I remember I hanging up

and it was just like, whoosh, like out of my body, It was just like the reality of everything. I was like how, why? You know, just it felt like something was ripped out of me. Because he was my best friend in the SEAL team's, like, living together. Like the, there was a moment to where, like, I had a deep profound respect for Mark because it was Christmas time.

And I wasn't going home. You know, because I came from like a broken family and it was going home like, no big deal. And so I was just going to sit at home. And Mark's like, now you're coming with me, bro. And like he took me in, like, kind of like what my best friend's mom and dad. dad did took me in took me to a home to spend time with them to have like family feeling and once he passed away I was like man what now like what is this I just felt empty like it changed the way that I was looking at deployment is like so it's not a game this is real this is people die

close friends of yours you have a chance of dying as well and so I had to stop and kind of really really take a look at what am I doing? Like am I going to be sacrificing myself in the same way that Mark did? And I didn't know the full story about how he died or anything like that. And so we went through the funeral and everything. And I mean, I must have cried like a baby for like a week. Like because, you know, I did my sunglasses, tough team guy at the funeral. I'm not going to shed tears, but I was just like I couldn't hold it back.

And I just let it go because I had friends that passed away through my. childhood but nothing like this close to me and uh so is the first time that it was a gut punch and it was close to you guys were about to you know come and switch out and then it wasn't that much longer that heard about uh bigels and mikey and that's when it hit me even harder i was like man where are we going what are we doing everybody was jocke and like who's going to go relieve jocco who's going to go relieve that that platoon because everybody wanted to go and like get in the fight. Now, this is where I'm going to go back to my childhood. It's about what my dad taught me about, you know, people, seeing the core people. And when that had happened, I had hate. I had felt

hate. I wanted to hate somebody that took my best friend, another good friend of mine, that are killing people that are close to me. I went back to, I was about three or four years old, and my dad would work on vehicles. And he had an old El Camino. and one day me and my older brother got in the car with him he had to go to shop and pick up some parts and he walked into the store and my little brother you know at this time it was in the early 80s racism was around you know it wasn't in our household we didn't know much about it my brother had heard a racial slur and he he peeked out the window and there's these two black guys walking up and he yelled racial slur out and I didn't know what it was but my dad was walking out at the same time

and it stopped my dad dead in his tracks and he looks over at us and I remember him looking in I'm not sure he was apologizing those guys and let him in the store and I remember seeing the look at my dad's face of like you guys are in trouble like this is not right and so we got in he didn't say anything to us we sat down everything was quiet I remember the ride being like so tense of like dad's getting us dad's something's wrong my brother was like he had no idea either and we get home and there's this iron rocking chair that was in our backyard. And usually when we got in trouble, we had the Murphy belt. My dad would take it off the wall and had our last name on it and he would he'd spank us with it. Well, we didn't go inside the house. He said, go put your hands on that

rocking chair and walked over the rocking chair. And I'm a little kid now. I'm already crying. Like I'm scared. Like what did I do? Like where am I at with these things? Like, why is he being so mean to us. And so we're crying. We know the drill. I cry and you can probably get out of it. And so I'm holding on this chair and I'm like like shaking like oh my God, what's happening? And he comes back and he doesn't have the belt. He's got a bull whip. And that's when I realize like, man, we messed up big time. Like he's about to beat us. Like he didn't beat us. But what he did is he took this whip and he started explaining to us. He's like, let me explain to you what you just did to those two men. He said, they, they are people just like you and me. But what you did is they've got

something with that word that means a lot more than a word. It hurts them. And he spanked us. And so we're crying. And he said, they, when there were people in the United States a long time ago, they were called slaves. And they used that word to hurt them. It's something that you could hurt somebody without ever touching them. And it was demeaning. It was putting them beneath you, putting them to subhuman status. And I'm like, we're like pleading with like, dad, that's not what we were trying to do. We didn't want to do that.

And he was like, he leaned down to us. And I remember looking at me in the eye and he was like, hey, do you love your brother? I looked over my brother. I was like, yes. I'm so intent. Like I couldn't be more deliberate. Yes, I love my brother. He's like, do you love me?

I was like, yes, dad. I do love you. He goes, well, those two men, they have somebody that loves them too. And when you hurt somebody like that, you take that away from them being those people. You need to see people as you see me and you see your brother because they have a father and they have a brother that they love, somebody loves them. And so from that moment on, I realized if I look at people with whatever stereotype, whatever adjective, whatever label get placed on people, it takes away from who they are.

and that's what essentially was happening to me throughout my childhood. And having that lesson that he taught me, value somebody for who they are as a person, not for anything else that somebody says they are, you get to know them. And about five years later, we were at the ballpark and there was another instance where there was a kid that had a bloody nose and we were always fighting.

And so they came up and grabbed me and said, hey, Sean, there's a kid that he's fighting this other kid. There's a little black kid in there. And so I ran in there and I looked at, I remember seeing the same fear in that kid's eyes, a little black kid's eyes that I had in my eyes. I looked at him and said, hey man, what happened? He's like, he called me that name. I looked over at him and he had a bloody nose and I was just like, took his side and I was like,

all right, bro, I got you. I was like, hey, you deserve that. Everybody kind of looked at me and was like, Sean, like, what are you doing? I was like, he didn't do anything wrong. The actual, the fight started over like who could be in the batting cage. And so I stood up for him. and it was my opportunity to say make a change you know if you you have that lesson instill it don't hold on to it you got to instill it enact it make a practical application to use that

lesson that you learn and so i go back to when mark died you know 9-11 the day after america was filled with flags i didn't know what a muslim was i didn't know what an iraqi was but i knew that i was supposed to hate them because what the media was telling me and so that was the enemy Didn't quite understand it didn't understand who it was and So when Mark died I had to reshape Kind of what my mindset was is all right. I'm feeling hate. That's not right I got to find a way to not let my emotions Take me over and be

Just as bad as the people that I'm supposed to go and fight and I carried that with me and I I went on my very first stop and that was my time and I was my time to like have every single bit of emotion come together. You know, the first time that you get to step out, it's real. You get to go be, I mean, I was excited, but I was also kind of scared. I had all these emotions going on. And, you know, being a Navy SEAL going on a Navy SEAL mission was, you know, that was what I wanted to do.

But at the same time, I had all this hate. I had all this emotion inside of me. And I don't know if you pray, Jocko, but I pray. And this day, I remember this all happened in the span of 100 yards. As I weighed myself, I had 185 pounds of gear on. I only weighed 185 pounds. I was an 8-up gunner, which had my Mark 48, had my loadout. I knew that guys depending on me, I was the big gun that came and brought the noise.

And I'm patrolling. And all these emotions are going through. And I was so ineffective because I couldn't see right in front of me had one nod on my helmet. And I'm walking through this village and I was just so overwhelmed. And I was like, what if I get hit? You know, I started thinking about Mark. It's like, how did he die? What was he feeling?

Did he, what happened to him and what happened to Mikey? You know, what's going to happen to me? Am I going to be able to fight when the gunfight breaks out? And I had all these things going through my head. And I just like felt this hate and it's like, I wanted to go kill everything that I could. And so I recognized that I was not in a good mindset. And so I stopped. I remember just taking a deep breath and being like, all right, God, you know, I wasn't always

that good of a Christian or I didn't pray a lot to you, but I'm coming to you now. Like, I need some help. I need something that I want to give my life to you. It's in your hands where are you going to take me? And please let me perform the way that I need to so my brothers can rely on me. And that's when I felt like this big weight lift off my shirt. shoulders and I could breathe again and everything like my vision was starting to get tunnel and it opened back up and from that point on like I had so many more times that I prayed but that was the single point where

I took the the hate and had to let it go I said you know what if I'm going to be an effective seal that honors those that came before me and the many scissors are to come after me I need to be in the right frame of mind if I don't do that I'm going to probably do something stupid and And luckily I changed my way after that thinking, okay, I can't go in and just hate these people. Let me figure this out. Let me see what the battlefield is. Let me learn from the guys in front of me. They've got to rely on me.

And if I'm not effective, I'm actually taking away from the effectiveness of the team. And I thought, if I was to look at myself, how am I going to be in those moments, even if it is my last moments? like this is this is where I looked at every step could be your last step how are you going to be if you could see yourself in those final moments are you going to live up to the honor and integrity that the still teams have that you have this is your time are you going to be weak are you going to cower down what decisions are you going to make and how are you going to apply yourself in these moments and that's when I said you know what I'm going to have courage I'm going to have the integrity I'm going to have the honor I'm going to listen to all the things that I have had throughout my

live facing adversity, I'm going to fight through because that's what it takes for me to be effective. And that's what is expected of me. So I'm going to come through and not be the, the weak-minded person that has, let's emotion, let's hate, let's all the things that are negative control you because then you're ineffective. You're not coming through. You're not going to be that teammate. And that's what I needed to be. And it taught me so much about how I saw people You could be the greatest celebrity in the world That does all the great things But who are you as a person?

I don't care your accolades Who are you as a person? Like how are you? That's because that's what I look at I wanted people to see me like that as a kid And now I want to see people like that I don't care if you're my enemy or not Like we get a limited amount of time on this rock

Like the places that I've been Like let me get to know people so I can be Do the right thing and that's where The big picture with the media impacts Is I got to make choices if I was to pull a trigger, the government and myself are making choices. The government gave me the ability to make that choice to take a life, to do these things that not many people have the ability to go do or have the opportunity.

So now it's my time. That's a big responsibility. I have to live with that for the rest of my life. And how do I want to do that? Do I want to have it be hate-fueled to where it comes back to bite me later on? or do I want to take a look at things and make a choice that I can live with? And those are the things that changed me when I would sit down and talk to the, the turp and get to know the families of the houses that we were in.

I was like, man, because I saw a little bit of myself there. I saw a little bit of the struggles that some of these people were going through are just poor, waking up early just to make ends meet, taking what they had and making the best of it. And I was like, I can relate to this. So how do I view them? and then how do I find the enemy that's within? Because they were blended in.

You know, it was all over the place. You couldn't just look and see as easy as society is divided. Well, I could say, oh, Jocker, you've got short hair. We don't like people short hair or no because some sort of divisive narrative. You couldn't just see that. You couldn't see a visual difference or something that you could apply. It was like surrounding you. So I had to be a little bit more deliberate and think things through a lot more.

even though I was a new guy, I was trying to learn from those guys like, hey, why are we going to engage this guy? And they taught me the right things, the right steps to think of what rules of engagement truly are and why it's important to think very deliberately and not let that hate those things that can sneak up and bite you and make you a bad, bad operator, bad person control you. And that's, that changed me after Mark died. that really kind of fueled something that set a series of things in motions that I could draw from my childhood and apply. I still to this day think of, you know, how do I, how do I present myself? If I could look back and see, what have you done? What choices did you make? Yeah, you made some stupid mistakes at times, but what did you do that was honorable?

That time that you can't get back. How did you make the most of it? And that was, it changed my whole mindset. That first appointment, that first instance where I felt overwhelmed of like I can make a choice, but is it going to be the right one? I put a lot of thought into it. In a span of 100 meters, changed my life. Change my life.

Yeah, there's like everything you just said is so important for people to think about and think through and understand. And you're right. Like there's guys like the front line, whether it's a frontline seal, whether it's a sniper, whether it's a machine gunner, whether it's a Marine, whether it's an Army guy, they're going to have someone in their sights, they're going to enter a building, they're going to be looking down a street, and they're going to have to make that decision. And if they make the wrong decision or if they make the decision from the wrong place, everything's going to fall apart. It really is.

And, you know, we had situations on deployment not only for us, but the Army, the Marine Corps, where they sometimes it would be something that that was called a good shot bad result meaning a machine gunner or a sniper or a rifleman sees something sees a person doing something that is completely an enemy TTP engages and the investigation happened it's like oh that person didn't you know they weren't they didn't have an IED they had this or they didn't they weren't carrying a weapon they were carrying a tire iron for their car or something like that. If those things happen, it's like devastating.

Number one is devastating for the war effort because especially, well, for us in Ramadi, it was like there was locals everywhere. And if you shot an innocent person, everyone was going to know about it and there was going to be massive amounts of backlash. So that's number one, number one. And then number two, from like you said,

from a human perspective, now you've got to live with that for the rest of your life. and you you got to live with the decision that you made so yeah those things are I mean there's nothing more important in combat than those things so the fact that you were able to

reconcile those things in the first hundred meters of your first patrol on your first operation that says a lot as to where your headspace was at and also I can only imagine that knowing Mark and knowing the type of person that Mark was

which was obviously a man of great faith. Also a guy that always, you know, always took care of other people, always was empathetic, funny. And even, you know, there was a whole, there was a whole kind of like a, like a scenario that was happening with Mark was, Mark, I forget what, you know, his,

I forget what his actual nationality is, but he ain't white. Like he's not 100% of white. dude. He's got some brown person in him. Like he's, oh, we gave him a lot of crap about that. We call him whatever. Oh, you're Spanish today? Okay. Yeah. So whatever he was, but now when he, he grew a thick mustache and he got tan, you know, obviously being in Ramadi, he got tan. So all of a sudden, he looked, he could easily pass for an Iraqi. Like, he could pass for an Iraqi. And the Iraqis, you know, because he was a fun loving guy and

He was open to him. And so he had this, you know, the scenario that I'm talking about is he basically bonded with a bunch of the Iraqi soldiers. And so that all played into this, you know, and I'm sure as you're talking through, you know, you can just imagine, even though you weren't there with Mark, you can imagine what kind of human being he is. And he's looking around going, oh, like, I understand these people. I understand.

And you look at the background that Mark came from, you know, Mark came, you know, his mom, single mom growing up, really tough conditions, not a lot of money. and he's doing the same thing that you're talking about. So that connection that you made between him and going out on patrol and making sure that you're doing the right things for the right reasons, yeah, that's like that's how it has to be. He wrote, so we probably weren't supposed to do this, but he was writing me on Facebook, and he told me about that.

He told me about like, because he had a sense of humor, he would start off like, hey, in camp today, we made ashtrays. And then go into like, yeah, you know, these people are actually human. And I remember him talking about that like, yeah, I became friends with any of this, that, and the other. And I saw the mustache. The mustache was just ridiculous. He looked like Saddam Hussein. Yeah, he did, dude.

Oh, yeah. And the other thing is like he's such a good soccer player. And like they played like soccer games against the Iraqi soldiers. So yeah, he had these big, you know, bonds with the Iraqi soldiers, which therefore you go out in town. And even in Ramadi, like you go into a house in Ramadi, these, they look like just normal people. I mean, they'd be in there. The little kids are dressed up like little kids. And the kids are kicking a soccer ball around and the dad's working on his car or whatever.

And like, it was very distinct of, oh, I see what's going on here. These people are being, are being abused and terrorized by the insurgents, which actually talk about fuel. It's fuel to like, oh, they raped this woman in this, in this house. They killed the dad. Like there was times where they killed, they'd murder the dad. Cut his head off and put it on like the front porch or not the front porch but put it in the compound Skin people alive like they're doing this horrible stuff and that that was great fuel to say oh we need to protect these people and mark that was marks that was what was in mark soul was like oh I see what's happening here I understand these people I relate to these people and they're being they're being tortured murdered raped mutilated by these insurgents and we can help them yeah one of one of the things that um

I started to say to people is, as you know, like when you come back from deployment and people want to know, hey, how many people have you killed? I was like, man, like, oh, I'm sorry if I don't need to ask that question. I was like, no, but I can tell you how many people I've saved. Like that's how I had to rationalize things. I'm not here to kill people. I'm here to save people. Like that was something to me is if I'm just there to kill people, that's a slippery slope. Slippery slope because if you're drunken with that number, it's dangerous.

Very dangerous. And that's a lot of the situations I was in is. you were saving, whether it's an American life or the Iraqis lives. Just like you said, they're going through some rough stuff that you're like, man, these are humans. They're going through, like you said, they're kids.

I got a picture of this kid. I'm sure you've seen it. They had like, it was just a hoop and they had a stick. They would just play with it. And that was like their toy. And so I'm like, man, I kind of want to play with you because I remember my child. I didn't have anything and that looks really fun.

You know, so I was relating to them in a way. It's like, I get it, man. like I see where you are. Like you're just, you were born, you're two feet planted on this soil here, and you're just in the situation doing the best that you can. I get it. And that was,

that's why I say, I can tell you how many people I saved because that's what I enjoy doing is saving those people that deserve saving. And the Americans that were over there, just as you remember, the convoys and stuff like that, unsuspecting.

And there's somebody that, like my dad said, somebody loves them. And somebody who wants to take that away. It doesn't matter. All these little things that make us different. You wear that American uniform or you're in a bad spot.

Somebody loves them. Let's go protect it. And so it was like, I can get behind that. That's, that's what I like to think about it. And so that's what I did. And it helped me out a lot. Yeah, for sure. So that was your, what was you, where were you on that first deployment?

Hobania. Hobby, check. And what kind of missions were you guys doing? We were, oh, there was, uh, all kinds. We had, um, we're doing a lot of river stuff that would go in and, do a capture kill mission. We had some that were going up providing aid. You know, we do the med caps, you know, provide medical stuff to them.

There's actually one that I saw a lot of good things and bad things. It was, do you remember kidney bean lake? Maybe you can call something different past 611 Bridge, you know, New Man's Land. When you guys went through Vermonti, you pushed all the insurgents out into that one territory where there's this kidney being looking lake. And we were going to go in, and we had two mutually supporting OPs. And because we were just basically going to clear out that area and say, hey, this is where they're bedding down. And we got into this area, and we're going to stay there for a couple of days.

And we had the Iraqis with us. And they were down on the first floor. We're always on the roof. And when we got there, we patrolled through some places. and the house that we're in just looked like somebody was there five minutes before and got up and left. There were still warm things. There was an AK laying up against the wall. There was food that was still warm.

We're like, what happened? Like, this is weird. And as you know, you get into a cycle. You learn call to prayers. You can kind of time things, you know, throughout the day. One most likely somebody's going to attack you. And we had these three snipers that were in the area that were, you know, putting a weapon on the Marines. And so we're like, hey, let's go get this, let's clear out this area.

They're supposed to be in this area. And sure enough, we saw this mosque. These three dudes came bebopin, got in the mosque. And they came out. And I remember, I wish I could say his name. But it was so funny. Like, he's sitting there all, like, it's in the hottest part of the day in Iraq. Tars all over.

We're melting. Like, you're just sprawled out. And you're just like, man, it's miserable. Like, something happened. And we're all sitting there kind of looking around. I had my responsibility was behind us on the, the route coming in. And I remember he looked up and he was like, oh, I was like, that's weird.

I've never seen that on an operation. Oh, and he gets up and he was just like, ptschoo, drop these dudes. And it was from that point, it was just kind of like, oh, something's happening, like get us out of this midday funk. And some of the guys got together. Well, there was nothing that came from that. I think they were premature to go and start an attack on the other OP.

And so we went out and did some SSC on it. But while we were out there, we went through a couple other homes. They were in the same kind of thing that we had is they were empty. Because we didn't see anybody coming out and about. I mean, like, this is weird. This is not normal. Usually you see people out. So as we're coming back, all of a sudden we started getting mortared.

And we're like, oh, somebody knows that we're here now. So we ran into our house, and that's when all hell breaks loose. You hear just, it was like as much gunfire as you could possibly hear, but it wasn't coming at us. It was coming at our other O.P. And it took about a minute, and all of a sudden with the radio, it was just pure chaos. Like, you hear yelling, and we hear seal down, seal down. And we're just like, oh. And we've been shot at a lot, but none of us had been hit.

And so that jacked us up again. Everybody was like on, well, I can only speak for me. My heart rate went through the roof. And it was just like, that overwhelming feeling again was like, uh-oh, like here we are. And so I didn't really get a clear picture what was going on. So I immediately go back to my responsibility. I'm like, okay, panic mode, just do what you're supposed to do. Get your responsibility.

So I went back and I'm watching and I start seeing as you remember what their TTP was, their tactics at the time was they would. attack us and then they would go and hit our exfil route. They wanted to kind of see how we're going to respond. And so I saw some guys going out there and they started laying down IEDs and I got to engage one. And that was the first time that I actually got to see a guy fall. And that kind of paused for it.

It made me take pause for a moment. I was like, oh, that's a life. And I didn't have much time to think about that because there's chaos going around. Like, I'm overwhelmed. I'm like, all right, just do what you got to do. Do what you got to do. I kept saying, hey, you got to do what you got to do. You got to do what you got to do.

And so I'm scanning the whole route and finally got to a point where this chaos is going on. You just hear just an incredible amount of gunfire. And I hear over the radio, hey, everybody come down here to the first floor. And I could hear it clear as day. So I'm like, Roger that. Came downstairs and the chief, he was my sister platoon chief. And this is where I learned about emotional intelligence and how powerful it is. He had the awareness of the time.

He saw the chaos that was going on and need, and you knew that we needed some sort of direction and guidance. He had a plan together. And we're in this circle on the first floor. And we're all just like sweating like, you know, team guys. Let's go get some. And each one of us looked at us in the eye. I was like, hey, I need you. Go get your pack.

Pack it up. I want you being the rear. And we're going to go help these guys. We're going to have you lead it out. So everybody beat back down here three minutes And so we went and packed up my stuff And after he did that when he engaged with me I could breathe like it was like

I just needed that connection with that emotional intelligence To set me where I needed to be so I could understand what my job and where we're going Because at the time like we didn't know like hey we're gonna go help these guys Like there were so many questions that left unanswered and he answered them all and in a very good way that connected with everybody To calm everybody down like this is what we're gonna go do and so we did We ran through and got to about 100 meters away. And so they didn't know exactly where we were. So it was like that deconfliction of, hey, we're coming in.

They're still, it reminded me of like the only way I can explain is like the Mogadish mile and Black Hawk down. And I can still see the guy's eyes, you know, that I'm, you're doing that rolling, that bounding thing. I remember I love seeing him like, seeing him like, it was like you knew like, yep, go. And so you're, you're going back and front. forth, but that first time that I exposed my back, I'm like, I trust you, man. And so I, probably the fastest my little legs to go with an A-dub, just, do-do.

Come across the road. And we got there and we're popping smoke to let them know. And they finally said, hey, we see you. We're coming from that direction is what we told them. And we got in there. And that's when the guy, Mark Robbins, he was shot in the eye. Well, everybody thought he was dead. And there was supposed to be a medevac helo coming in.

But one of the chiefs of the time, like, like waved him off and said no get out of here it's too hot it's a hot lz i didn't understand at the time i was like why did he do that and um so we called in the qrf the marines they came in with their their um their humbies and we are sure we're like we're all converging at the same time and um i remember seeing mark come down and one of the officers um had blood all over him and mark his head just it didn't look real he got hit in the eye and that side of his head was so swollen that seeing him like he was out of it like he he was walking i was just like what like he how is this alive like is this like he looked like a cartoon character almost and got in the hum being went off

and so that kind of like spun me up again a little bit i was like oh man like i don't want to see what i would look like if i got shot i just want to go lights out like i just don't want to suffer i don't want him to suffer i don't want anybody to suffer and uh we got all together and um I remember going in and seeing the look on the guy's faces that they were hunkered down. There's bullet holes all along the wall. And they were like, get down. Do not. I'm like,

I'm like, okay, thanks. I could walk in. And so then I come in, I'm like trying to control my breath because somebody just did that for me. And I'm like, belly breathing.

I was like, hey, what do you got? And I remember talking to a friend of mine. And he's sitting and was like, all right, there's these guys right over here in this, uh,

right next to the lake. And there's this road. They've been coming down this road. They've been hitting us from this. Like you can see where the rounds are. You can see where they're shooting from. And so we kind of devised a plan and we were effective. But then the hard part about that whole operation was our QRF.

It just came in. And now they took Mark to go get medical attention. We don't have a QRF now. And so we're like, okay, when are they coming back to get us? And I'm up on the roof now. things have kind of died down a little bit. We're still getting like, they're using kids to come out and like spot for us

and then guys are come and shoot at us. And so we would be getting a lot of pop shots and stuff like that to keep our heads down as well. And they're very effective rounds. And I remember the same chief that calmed us down and he goes, hey guys, listen up. I need to take a quick pause for a second. So the QRF can't come get us.

We have nobody that's going to come get us. So I want you to get comfortable. come up with the plan and sit tight. He's like, I'm going to be working on something to try and get us to come out. And that feeling was like, nobody's coming to get us. It was hard. It was like alone. Like I just felt so distant.

Like the world became so big and I became so small. Like I'm stuck here. And so a couple of us were like, hey, if this is how we're going to go, let's go out fighting. And so I remember one of the guys he's still in. He looked at me and said, and this is when it got really raw. and I was like, hey, count your rounds. I'm like, why? Because you need to know, you have enough for us to fight.

Don't waste them, make them count. And I was like, oh, got it. And so that's when it sank in. Like, nobody's coming to get us. We're all alone. Hey, if we're going to die, let's fight. Like, let's stick together. I got your back.

You got mine. Let's do this. And it was, we sat there for a while. It seemed like an eternity. Well, this comes to play later on my career. I learned that when you go out on SACCOM, everybody here is in theater. And nobody was coming to get us because we were in a bad gunfight and we just had a guy hit. And the Marines came in and said, no, we're not going back in there.

And not right now. It's ideal. You know, you got all kinds of gunfire. It's way too hot. It's too big of a risk to have all these resources come in for bigger risk. And by the way, that's not cold-blooded. That's like risk assessment and evaluation. And sometimes like, hey, we just came in there.

You have no one else wounded. we don't want to come back in right now because they're putting IDs in the roads and that stuff happens like there's there was a lot of situations in Ramadi was like oh if you like the casualty evacuation plan was wait. Yep. Tactical patients. Yep and wait and then hopefully we can get a minesweeper to come in

and we can clear the route and we get up there. You know there would be other situations well to urgent surgical maybe we can push but if you have a kind of a somewhat stable casualty you're going to sit there. So yeah, this stuff happens. Yeah, that was, for me, I didn't know all this stuff was going on behind the scenes.

I'm like, I guess we're going to die here. This is how we're going to fight. And you kind of get that dump of adrenaline. Like, all right, let's do this. Like, now I want to see how I'm going to be in these situations. Now is my time. And the, this is what was the most profound thing for me in that moment was when we've been sitting there for a while.

And then that same chief came over and said, hey, guys, somebody's answering the call. I was like, what does that mean? TF160th was listening to the radio and it listened to everybody like, hey, we don't have any resources. Can't come get you. You guys are on your own. And so we're still out there just sitting there and they are probing us. They would send all the women and children come probe us and stuff like that. And finally 160 said, we can come get you, but you got to wait for three hours for nightfall.

Set up the LZ. We're coming. and that was a long three hours. That was the longest three hours. But I think of they rogered up. Like that's what we needed to hear. We needed to have something that somebody was coming, three hours or 12 hours. Somebody was coming to get us.

And that's what we needed at the time because at the time you felt like, all right. I guess we're going to die in this crappy little hole that we're dug in right now with all these bullet holes. But you develop a bond with people when you go through that. There's nothing quite like. like it. So I left with a lot of good and bad things. The bad thing that I thought was just the, it's not necessarily bad. I look at, you know, you grow as a leader too. We didn't have the information at the time. And the way that information came across when Mark got hit, I thought that was bad. Like being clear and direct and concise, people could have processed it. But when it's

just screaming and yelling and trying to like, it was like overwhelming. Everybody was like, ooh, that's good I can't do that and so hearing the other side of it the good being like being you know emotionally intelligent and deliberate with people that's how people listen it is indeed um you come back from that deployment and it's just re-rack into another platoon right yeah yep right back into now I'm that one platoon wonder guy um had some great mentors a j you know a james yes awesome dude so I love a jay we became brothers because I started to become a point man now. I got to go to

sniper school. And AJ's my bro. He taught me how to do Muay Thai. And my other buddy was I was doing Jiu-Jitsu. Do you remember Eddie Bravo the book? He had a book. So I would do like, I would read Eddie Bravo's book and learn of Fire and stuff like that. I want to learn Mu-I tie. And AJ, it was like,

AJ's this world champion Muay Thai fighter. He's a stud dude. He's got a story. Like the guy, his whole story is just incredible. But now he's my right-hand man. He's my A-Dub gunner. I'm the point man. And I got a real funny story about learning not to follow stars. So it's my first time being a point man, and I had my GPSs and everything.

And we came in the 53s, you know, covered in hydraulic. So we're back in Iraq now? Yeah. Okay. Check. Yeah. So we came in and, oh, man, we're going on this target. It's like a Bedouin camp out in the middle of the desert.

And so there's nothing, like usually I use terrain association. And this is my first time to like get my bearing, you know, use my GPS and I'm put it in there. But when I land, I looked at my GPS and I'm like, that's weird. It's not working. But I have. I know what my bearing is and how, what the distance is. We just straight line it there. We're going through the desert.

But I need something to reference. And in the horizon, there was like this mountain range. And there was like a star off this tip. So I was like, okay, if I keep those things lined up, I'll be, I'll be. be good to go. And we're walking along. And you know, you got the dog. The dog was going out, come back and hitting me.

And I'm just like counting my steps and, you know, doing my little range of B. and I kept checking my GPS. It's not working. I was like, all right, if I stay on this bearing, you know, stars are lines. Like, we're good. And it was a while. And I remember people, hey, Murph, where are we at?

I'm like, oh, we should be coming up on it shortly. And AJ's there with me. And AJ's, you know, guy, he's such a good dude. He's, hey, everything good, man. I was like, yeah, I was like, but let's take, let's, let's circle it up and let's, let's take an E for a minute. I need to check some stuff. And I was like, AJ, hey, is your GPS working?

He's like, I don't have a GPS, man. This is like, only a few of us had GPS. And then another guy that's still in, funny, you watch your eyes. That's what we used to call him, would come up. And he was the LPO at the time. And he was like, hey, Murph, what's going on? I was like, hey, I got to come clean. I've been following stars.

And when I said that, I could see the look on their faces of like, what? I was like, well, yeah, I took a bearing. It made sense to me.

Like, yeah, I took a bearing. I lined up a star, I've been following it, but my GPS isn't working. He's like, he pulls out his GPS and he's like,

fix it. And so I looked. And luckily, you know, because the moon and it curves. And so we just kind of went off to the right about 500 meters. And the target was about 500. If I went 500 meters left,

I'd be back on track. And that's what I did. And I learned, trust your instrument. have a backup and don't wait so long to say hey yeah I got a problem because I went I thought oh this is why we learn you know two is one one is done or redundancy have a backup plan I knew my bearing and went off and man it that I felt I still am embarrassed about that we also learned that stars move in the night

sky echo Charles yeah yes they do how was the rest of that deployment That deployment deployment was, it was good. We got called up to Muzul to do some sniper ops. And I, those deployments, I, when we did that, like I worked a lot with some of the other East Coast teams. We started merging together. And it was so great to see some of the guys went through Buds with. And it was like meshing instantaneously. And learning a lot about the.

the dynamics between how other people view things. We had Terps that I just told the story the other day. We had a terp that quit on us because I don't think he'd ever been in combat. And we were up there and he saw the harsh reality of, like, Mosul was a bad place. You know, we had, at the time, the reason why we got called up was there was a, I can remember if he was a Marine colonel or who he was, but was killed by, a roadside bomb. And so they called us up and was like, hey, we need to fix this problem.

Like he was loved by everybody, great leader, great guy. And I remember when they came in and briefed us, there was this empty whiteboard. And he said, guys, he put a tick mark on there. He's like, I want this thing filled when you guys leave here. There's a problem and we need to solve it. I was like, okay, like we're pretty good. And that's when I started looking at, actually, that's when I, a lot of my new guys, you know, you've been on deploy.

and the whole like get your kill on and all that stuff and some people were a little bit too eager and had to tell them like hey man don't chase the kill it'll find you before you find it because it was you know when you've got freedom to go do whatever you need to do be careful man like don't chase it and luckily we had like I said good group of guys that were very deliberate very intentional that we could kind of bring those guys up but when that turp quit we were up in this a big like hotel building and he was like why did they shoot that guy and he kept questioning everything. I'm like you realize that these are bad people. They just slaughtered a bunch of Christians and they're over here killing and raping people.

Like all these dudes that are coming around here that are engaging us, they're not just protecting their families, man. This is something different. And we had a dishka up on the rooftop or it was there and they were using that to attack the coalition. forces and we ended up dismantling that. But I can remember if we blew the breach or something happened, they dismantled it. And then we sat him there until we got back and was like, all right, you quit, man. That means no more because we did take him out on side by sides. We did those type of movements.

That was the old Kawasaki mules. I don't know if you remember those. We were going out in those things and we would take him with us. And he was great because, you know, we weren't getting to many gunfights. We were doing a lot of reconnaissance and running around trying to figure these things out. And we had taken these Kawasaki mules and painted them tan and just started outfitting him. One of the Marine Logistics units was there. And master guns opened up his doors and said, whatever you guys need.

Sort of fabricating mounts for guns on these side-by-side and going out and doing patrols. and there was one particular operation we're going and we're running up to this other base up north and we're going through there was two towns on the east side of us and there's this one row that went between them and we came up and I was the lead nav

and AJ was my driver and AJ's best drive I trust him and there's no one else that can drive than AJ and AJ's he's super serious he's knuckling the side by side and he's very, very good at what he does. And I see these towns, and we see it on the right side, there's this bongo truck that's coming down.

I'll stop, you know, getting our formation. We hold tight. And as the truck is coming down, we earn like a Mexican stare-off with these guys. They're driving. And we're like, and me and AJ at the same time, like, hey, you're seeing this? And we're like, yeah, he's slowing down. He's driving real slow. and I key up on my mic

as like, hey, be prepared. Like, there's something going on with this guy and sure enough, right as soon as he gets right in front of us, these two dudes in the back pop up with PKMs and just start lighting us up. And man, I don't know how we survived it. Like rounds, I remember rounds were hitting right next to me. And I felt in these side by size that have no armor, no protection,

and I'm strapped in. I had an M79 in my lap that I could use. I brought that thing up. It was like, thump, and it hit right in front. And I went to go, this is my adrenaline was going so much. I went to go and I reload and I broke it in half. I was like, crum. I was like, oh, caveman.

So I grabbed my rifle. I mean you literally broke it in half? So there's that, there's that pen. Yeah. That pen came up and was like bent up because I was like, crunch. And I was like, no. I was like, this is such a good weapon. And so AJ, being the good operator he is, he broke contact.

And everyone followed suit. We're the first one. So we had speed over security. So we had to move and we broke contact. We're flying. We're hauling. And as everybody's like, I'm just praying like, I hope nobody got hit. You know, it was such chaos that two PQMs come up and they're like all around us and we ended up circling back.

And I saw where those guys had went. And we happened to just, we broke contact. And so we started circling back. We ended up starting back towards him. And I was like, right before we crested this little sand dune, I was like, hey, all stop, all stop. I was like, hey, I need to get my bearings. before we head down there, and sure enough, like if we had crested that hill,

they were right down at the bottom of the hill, that we just would have compounded the problem. So we sat tight and ended up making a plan, had to wait. It was two hours before Cask could be on station, and then it just turned into this whole ordeal. We ended up calling in some other units, and they cleared through the town,

didn't find the guys, and it was just way too late. It was kind of like, if you don't take action, there's a few minutes that you have, it's going to be, it's not worth it. It was nighttime. This is during the middle of day.

It was nighttime by the time that we actually got to move through the town, but we were out there. And it was a good chance for me. It was a sniper school I went through and learned to take pictures. And I actually was like, hey, let me see if I can send them pictures back in the talk. And so I did it. I went and used the comm and hooked everything up. And I started sending them pictures through the old school way of the tough book. And I was like, yeah, this is cool, man.

I got to do something. And then you're coming home from that deployment. Yeah. How'd that go? Oh, man. Because now we'd started doing the decompression stop. Because we, like I came home, my last appointment of 2006 came home, we just got on a plane in Romadi and flew home to America. Yeah.

But then people felt like maybe that wasn't the best thing. And I kind of agree it wasn't the best thing. But what we went to may have not been the best thing either. No. So you did a little decompression stop in Germany? Yeah. So I had orders to a green team. Mm-hmm.

And we had turned over the Silt Team 7. And we had literally like within 24 hours we did our turnover op and we got into a good really good gunfight and we kind of told them like hey right on this time. They're going to hit you and blah blah blah like the standard routine. And so they we turned over with them and then I get on a plane. And I say this because I can understand I was peeing in a bottle within 24 hours ago. Now I'm landing in civilization. I was living as a caveman for six, seven months. And now I'm in civilization. Well, when we land the C-17, the ramps open up, they've got this bus and it's got a cooler full of beer. And so they're handing out beers. Hey, congratulations. Welcome back. Heroes welcome, I think. Or big setup.

If you think about it, it's kind of a big setup, you know. Well, we're just pounding beers. Yeah. And so we haven't drank the entire deployment. Now you get introduced to alcohol, young kids that were just out like in a different mindset. and you get to stay in this nice hotel and you get to go out into bars where other people are around and you're having a good time while I go out and are new guys. They're not new guys anymore.

After a while, you're just like, you're not new guys, man. And so we're like, hey, let's go get them and bring them out. Like, they have a new responsibility now. They're no longer can be called new guys. They're one but two wonders. And we go into these, I love these guys. They were awesome, great new guys. And I go into their room with another guy.

I can't say his name. He's still in. He was an officer. a little rough around the edges hung out with a list of guys. It's too much, I think. But so we had the right idea. Let's go in and tell them that they're coming out with us.

We're in their room. They're like, no, we're just going to sit and chill. And we're like, no, you're not. You're coming with us. And so we decided, well, he starts peeing in the corner. And I was like, all right, I'm going to pee on your duvet if you're not coming out. It was such a stupid thing. I was so childish to think this.

And it's not like I peed a lot on there, but I, you know, I peed in the corner kind of like, oh, you got to come out now. Like, I don't know why that would entice somebody, but it was such a stupid decision. And I'm close to being, like, really drunk. And so I pulled the duvet cover off. There's like that little strip that doesn't serve a purpose.

I pulled it off and was like, all right, and I went and finished going to bathroom to the bathroom. I was like, no, seriously, guys, come on out. And I kind of had the talk like, hey, man, like, you're one of us. Like, you're not a new guy. Like, we don't want you to be in that mentality. Like, you've got a responsibility now, blah, blah, blah. You're like, no, I just want to sit and talk to my wife.

I can respect that. And so I left and so did the other guy. And we go out and come back from going out. And there's a Master Chief that you probably know pretty well. I don't know if he's still in or not. And he's sitting there. He's like, hey, Murph, come here. He sits me down on this bench.

And I was like, yeah, what's up? He's like, hey, I need you help. I was like, what do you need? Like, I'm a little tipsy, but I'll do whatever you need. And he's like, I need to find a guy that's been rock-starring rooms. I was like, what's rock-starring rooms? He said, you know, toss the mattresses and all that stuff. And I was like, one of our guys did that.

And I was like, check, got it. He's like, yeah, can you help me find out who it is? I was like, sure. And he's like, you sure you don't know anything about it? And I was like, no. He's not even like a little bit like somebody peeing on stuff? And then it clicked. And I was just like, hey, man, are you talking about me?

He was just like, yeah. And he just like went off on me. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean? Rockstar, we didn't do that much. It was like literally like it was just a tiny little like a capful appeal inside of a thing that we threw down like it's not even going to cause an issue. And he's like that's not it. Like the Commodore blah, blah, blah, everybody's wanting your ass. Your name came up and I was like thinking about those new guys like, man, I'm going to get them. And like what did they say to these guys? And the Commodore had said, hey, put this guy on the next flight home.

He's coming to Commodore's Mass. Gosh. And I still didn't know what had happened, like what the story came out. And so I flew back and then some good leaders at that point showed up. And they said, hey, let's talk about what happened. And so they gave me the story that had been put out. And I was like, that ain't what happened. And so it turned out that the two guys that, the new guys that were in there, didn't tell the story.

Another guy came in that nobody liked, we all have that one guy. And he had bounced out. He'd been kicked out of a platoon and put in our platoon. Nobody liked him. And so he didn't like me because I didn't put up a BS on deployments. He was a sniper. He didn't even break open his sniper guns. And I'm like, you're not a sniper.

Like a sniper when they hit the ground, they go dope in their guns, get acclimated. And he finally never wants during that deployment. And so he went in the Commodore and the group Ashley for his downstairs at the bar eating. And he went and told him the whole story, like an elaborate story that we tossed the thing and that they had to call up room service and get new rooms and that we broke lamps and all kinds of wild stuff. And I was like, how do I defend myself from a story that cat's been out of the bag? And now I'm defending myself on a story that is outrageous. And so I sat down and heard what all happened. I told the guys, and no, that's not what happened.

And so the same thing with the other guys. And we're all in our platoon space. And this guy hadn't showed up yet. Everybody's back from deployment now. We're, you know, doing our inventories. And one of the good leaders, the same guy that watched your eyes was, he got the bottom of me and was like all in here we're going to get the bottom of this before he gets out of here we're going to have like an internal meeting and uh so the two new guys come in and we're like

hey what happened and immediately they knew like oh no we didn't say anything wasn't us and they're like well tell us what happened he told us who did it and it was that guy that nobody liked and he hadn't showed up yet always late always first one to leave so he walks in and he doesn't know that everybody knows the story and so he puts up front sitting and I'm standing behind, you know, just sitting there kind of like in trouble. You know, everybody knew that I was in trouble. I was in my dress whites, you know, and knock that thing off. I'm sitting there and he's like, hey, you want to tell us a little story about we heard some stuff that went down in Germany.

And he was like, I don't know what we were talking about. Integrity. I had no idea. Did you say anything? No, it wasn't me. Wasn't me. And he told lie after lie. And then he was finally like, we know the truth.

They told us. And I remember he looked over those two new guys. He was like, we told him. We had to tell him. And he was just like, oh, well, you know. And then like his personality came out and said, oh, this guy's a piece of crap. He doesn't deserve to be here, blah, blah, blah. And he's like, get out.

We'll deal with you later. Get out. And so I saw some people that had made mistakes that came down on me pretty hard. And they wanted me to basically, they took away my orders right away. And there was an argument. I was sitting in the chiefs. board and I'm just standing there in it and an argument broke out in the chiefs DRB about and they're like youngish you've done worse than this man like this is an opportunity for him not for you like

if you're mad about something don't take it out on him and I remember one of the guys in it I went and worked for it at trade at was like I'll take them you're coming to work for me you're going to go back and you're going to get your orders maybe not now but we're going to we're going to fight for it it was a blessing man like after that um You know, I was bummed. I didn't get to go to a green team with the rest of the guys that went. But going to trade at was a huge opportunity for me. I learned so much.

Good leaders stepped up and took care of me. And I started to see, like, that's true what it takes, man, is get to the bottom of things. Don't just react. Find out, I learned this later on, you know, write the problem out in a statement. Write it out in one sentence. Can you? sometimes you can answer the the question that you need to ask when you write that out when you figure out how can you put it down in one statement because you got to gather all the details don't

just jump to a conclusion and that's truly what they did for me is all right let's figure out like what the truth is let him tell his side somebody's got to go back for him he needs leadership that stands up for him because if you don't teach him that he's not going to learn it he's going to learn that you just crap on a guy whenever you know they get into trouble and went to trade it and man God what an awesome awesome experience trade it was it was

the guys that I worked with you know JP yeah yeah yeah I love working with JP yeah yeah yeah at that time you know I was at trade at as well at that time it was 2009 when you showed up there but yeah just had a great group of people that were all getting after it everyone just wanted to help the teams everyone wanted the guys to be ready to deploy it was awesome yeah it did a shift

I remember going through assaults that's where I went was assaults and man it was such a great seeing how everything changed from you remember it was the like you just got beat down going through training it was like you didn't really learn as much and then it shift is like yeah it can be tough but we're teaching and training and opening up to the why and for me that was so deep and important to understand and to teach now I you know I learned my I got my master trainer specialist to learn about how to design develop curriculum how to review it how to implement it and making sure everything's wired tight and understand what goes into training. There's so much that goes into training.

I thought it was like, you're just a bunch of team guys hiding out. No, they work their asses off. Yeah. It was a good experience to see, man, I'm telling you, Jacco, the platoons came through. Every single one had a personality. And you got to see team guys, new guys, experienced guys, grow from, like, operators to leaders. Those leaders grow and face those challenges, work through them. And I got to work through it with them.

And I'm learning so much about, like, different good leadership styles, bad leadership styles, how you change, how you are effective with how you perform and then how you handle it afterwards. You could be a terrible leader and have an effect on everybody in your platoon. I did see some of the guys that were like, hey, man, I remember, I'll never forget. We're out there running assaults. And we took it serious. You know, JP, it's strictly business. up on the rafters and it's hot they're okay they can go sit in the shade but me and j p are upon the rafters

just melting every single day and this uh one of the platoon chiefs comes up to us and he i can tell he's trying to stand up for his guys he's like hey man can we just like take the rest of the day off and i'm like that it'll look like kind of like he was trying to solicit empathy or sympathy from us and I was just like no what do you mean like are you guys hot go drink some water that's why we have the water jugs like we have these things in place like we can take a break if it really is that hot but we're not taking the rest

the day off and then we went right back into training because I was like come stand up here with us like we have no shade like I had sunburns all my arms I was constantly wearing sunscreen because we're just up there getting beat to death by the sun and granted we're not running around through the house but I was I was like, hey, if you need to take a break, I get it, man. Give you guys a break.

It's hot in combat, too, by the way. Just that's going to be tired. Yeah, a huge part of my life was when I was mentioning working for Big Will, senior chief turned master chief eventually, Big Will Gile, but he, that was in training cell, still team won. And we had such a great crew in there. But, you know, same thing. I would go out with the platoon, watch him do.

And I was a single guy, dude. I didn't care about anything. Like every trip that we were going on. Land Warfare, CQC, Mount, whatever we were doing, we'd get the chance to go. And it was awesome. And being able to learn and watch what worked for that platoon, that leader, he did this and it didn't work.

And just absorbing all that from a detached perspective, because when you're watching, when you're not part of it, you can learn a lot by watching it and seeing how the brief goes and seeing how the leader interacts with the boys and seeing what this chief did versus what that chief did, what that LT did, what that LT did. And you just learn so much. And I took so much away from those few years that I was in training cell at at SEAL Team 1. And it gave me, you know, then I became an ensign.

So now I was like a new guy, a new officer. But I had been in for eight years and I had taught what we were about to go and do like inland warfare and CQC. So it was very, very helpful. And I love when, uh, when guys would show up at trade at and they'd either come there, either pre-PLPO or pre-Latoon chief. And it was just such a huge leg up. because now when they'd come through workup, they were dialed most of the time. So awesome thing to be able to do.

And you spent a couple years there, and then you finally do get to go to selection to go out to Damnack. Yeah. And did you go TAD out there? Is that the way it worked? Yeah. So at the time, you got TAD order. So you had all my stuff was still in San Diego and trade at. I stopped my locker, still and everything.

Because you weren't guaranteed. You go out there and really, um, screw things up day one and you're right back. Yeah. It could have been a short stint or it could have been a long stent. Nobody knows. It's TAD. So go out there and give it your best shot and see what happens.

And went pretty good for you out there. Yeah, man. It was great. Made it through Green Team. Made it through all the way. And that's during the assault portion. The, that's where I was so blessed have gone. going through trade ed is because

you understood the why. You can yell all day long at somebody, go to this exact position, go here, do this, be a robot.

But if you don't teach them the why, they won't understand the process. And so eventually robots got to think for itself. You go into a room, there's going to be some stuff that never seen before

and they're going to give it to you some stuff you've never seen before and then two, three, four rooms in a building like that and if you don't know how to think, if you don't understand why you're doing what you're just going

fall apart. You can't just be a robot. You've got to be a, what we used to call a thinking shooter. Yeah, that proves so valuable in that block of training because it's also where I learned it's not about the mistake. It's about how you handle it. And everyone makes mistakes. As fast as you go, like, they want, they want you to be perfect. And so they'll give you the perfect instructions and you're going to screw it up. One little thing. Eyes not on sides. The little things that even like their job is to put you through stress. And they had heart rate monitors on it. So they could see it was a game to them.

I know it was. I know some of these guys that put us through it. I know it was a game to them because you'd be sitting outside waiting. And you knew when your turn was coming up. And they knew when our turn was up. Because they had this big screen on. They could see the heart rate spike right before we're about to go. And they started banging on walls and yelling.

So it's like heart rate spike. All right, cool. These two are up. You come in like, uh, Murphy reporting. And all right, Murphy, get after it. And so it was, when you got jacked up, you made a mistake. You knew, especially when they start yelling,

because you're yelling out your infractions as you're doing the house run. You can't stop. You cannot stop. You've got to find what's next. Whether it's a good, you had the best run or the worst run. The house run continues. What's next?

And so if you make a mistake and you snowball, you let it start to consume you and just like thinking about it. You can't let go and continue to focus forward and stay disciplined and be able to find what's next. you're going to fail. And that's kind of what they did. It's not the mistake. You can get better.

If the mistake becomes a pattern, that's the problem. And so I learned that. I made it all the way through. And, yeah, it was a good time. It was a horrible time, but a good time. It was buds all over again. And then you got back to trade at now it's like, what is it, 2011 or something like this. Yeah, 2011.

And you come back to check, basically to check out. And you get rolled into like a freaking legal scenario that was going on. You don't get rolled into it, but you're kind of adjacent from a guy that had done some dumb shit. Yeah. And there's some collateral freaking frag flying out. You caught one of those pieces of frag. Yeah. I came to check out.

I was going to my squadron. And I had literally shipped off all my stuff in pods. My car just got put on the truck and left. And I took a taxi to trade it. goodbye to everybody. And I walk in there and I'm in the assault's office like hanging out and, you know, being like, all right, guys, man, you know, I'm not going to be the guy that leaves here and never comes back.

I'm going to keep in touch with you and then like, hey, Skipper wants to talk to you. I'm like, okay, cool, you know, and walk down to his office and I walk in and it was just awkward. You know, there's the same moment like when my dad, you can sense something is wrong. Something ain't good. I walk in. I was like, it's a little too quiet, and they're kind of looking at me weird. And there's another guy in there, and they read me my rights.

I was like, wait, what? It's like, is this a joke? You guys know I've got a flight. I got to get on going back over to the East Coast. And I'm like, no, this is not. Like, we were directed to read you your rights. You're being placed under arrest. I was like, oh, okay, now it's raw and it's real.

And I was like trying to grasp, like, what did I do? I didn't do anything by speeding ticket. I was like, no, there's no way. It could be a speeding ticket or something. I'm like, okay. And they started reading some stuff to me. And it was a guy, the guy that I knew had been arrested. I didn't know all this.

Well, I didn't know of it, but I didn't think anything like, yeah, what an idiot. Why would you do something stupid? And so during that whole thing, they had found some stuff that I was a part of that they tried to connect in it to build this whole case. And they're reading the stuff to me and they're reading off some text messages that we were talking back and forth with. And I was like, I didn't sound like stuff that I was saying.

I was like, I possibly could have said some stuff. And I was like, is that my number? And I remember the look on his face was like, I don't know. What's the last four year number? And I said it.

And he was like, yep, this is you. And I was just like, oh, crap. And I didn't know what to do at that point. And like, I, it was the, you know, you think like, okay, I've had this dream that I've been living. You know, I went from Sean Murphy, this poor kid that was disadvantaged that nobody expected to make anything of himself.

And neither did I. So now I'm at the SEAL teams. I figured out what dev group was and was like, oh, I want a taste of that. And I go and I get it. And now it's like it's all about to get flushed. And you're going back to you're not going to make anything. You're going to screw things up. And I was just like, this is all going through my head.

and man, it hit me hard. Like I was sitting there and I was waiting, waiting, waiting to figure it out. And I, there was this, I remember I got called in for, to be questioned by the NCIS. NCIS and I think ATF was there. And they had this file. And they called me into this office. And it looked just like in the movies. They had a big glass window and had this, it was completely staged.

and they had this chair that was like, there wasn't cameras in there, but I knew it was being recorded because it was like perfectly positioned. So I had to sit down in this chair. And this other guy comes in, he slams his file down and is like, you're screwed.

I'm just thinking like, well, tell me why. I still don't know the depth of what they're pulling against me. And they read through all this paperwork. He's like, this guy, you know, he was running guns and he's got ammo and blah, blah, blah, blah. All these bad things.

So just real quick, this guy was a seal. And he had, taking guns out of Iraq and sold them in America. And like probably like I think the number that I read was like 80 AK-47s and then a decent amount, but like not a crazy amount, but you know something like 50 pistols or something like that.

And he'd taken these things illegally out of Iraq, brought them back to America. And he had connections through a guy that was like a felon. Yeah. And the felon in order to save himself sort of started selling these things, these guns, these weapons that this team guy had brought back. And the the felon guy was also working for as an informant. And basically, and so this guy, this, this seal gets busted for, I mean, weapons track.

He's selling automatic weapons in America illegally. Like, you can't do that. And I don't know, you know, I don't know that guy. Um, the guy in question, uh, you can Google it's bit. The guy's last name is Bickle, but it's all out there. So it's not like we're talking about some top secret information, but he got rolled up. And again, when I look it back on it and it's really hard to get in people's heads and understand like you, a, a nine year old could figure out that this is dumb, right? A nine year old would go, hold on a second.

You're going to take a bunch of weapons from Iraq. You're going to smuggle them back to America. and then you're going to sell them on the black market. It doesn't take a genius to go, this isn't going to work out well for you. Seriously, like a 9-year-old, 10-year-old kid is not going to think that this is a good idea. Yeah.

Well, for whatever reason, this idiot did think it was a good idea, and he did it. So he gets busted, he gets rolled up, and by the way, he's doing something like 20 years right now for these crimes. And so all this is happening, and of course they take his phone, and they see who he's been texting, and look, there's team guys,

We're all, not we all, but you have groups, you know people, you're friends with people. And so you're going to be on text threads that, yeah, and you're going to respond to people and team guys are going to send you. And there's also a lot of, you know, dark and freaking sick and twisted humor on some of these things. So it's like all that's happening. But meanwhile, you, you've moved on, you've carried on, and you don't even know about any of this other. You don't know this guy's been selling freaking weapons and smuggling stuff back and just being an idiot. And I guess the things that tied you into this whole gig was number one text message. You guys, you had, there was a text message group thread or whatever that you were on.

And number two, and I think this is the file that you're talking about, you had signed for custody of ammunition. Yeah. A lot of ammunition, meaning a lot, not a lot numbers, but a lot, meaning a lot number. Every box of ammunition has a number where it. it came from so they can track defect or stuff. Well, they had, he, this criminal, had possession of

ammunition that you had signed for at trade at. And so they throw this thing at your face, the implication being you signed for this ammunition and gave it to this guy. Yeah. What they didn't realize is that there's

tens and thousands of rounds of ammunition in each lot and it's all over the place. Like when it's not some, it's not like, hey, there's serialized nine bullets that you signed for and you turned them over.

No, it's like you and everyone else at Trade Ed is signing for hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition and then they're going to a training site where they're being used. And if someone is a nefarious criminal, they can theoretically take some of that, steal it. And then it can get, found later, which is what happened here.

Oh, yeah. If I got this right. Yeah, that's correct. So to kind of expand on, so trade at the time, we had that big ammo depot. And so the way that they linked the two is one, they were trying to find a way to link us. And so the ammunition that he had, that lot number, and he was working at traded at the time. And so the same training rounds that you pull from for all the different, uh, um, um, training cycles that we go through

was from the same place. That lot is so huge. It's the way that the facility can track if there's defective rounds and they can say, hey, everybody that has this lot number is effect and pull this lot number. And when I saw that,

I was like, oh, thank God I went through Gunners May School because this was our job. And I was running assaults. And so I was the one signing. It was an ammo expenditure report. And so you have to have two people. You had to have a chief sign it.

You had to have the LPO sign it. And you had to have the civilians sign it. And the chief was actually sitting out in the hallway waiting on me. And so I am sitting there. And I was like, do you know what that is? And you said, yeah, it's the paperwork that's showing that you were running ammo with Nick. And I was like, no, no, no. Ammo expenditure.

I witnessed that it was expended. We spent those rounds out at training. We have to sign those. I didn't sign to receive those. I was on site. I watched and said that those rounds were there. Yes, that puts that lot there. And I explained them the whole thing what we just talked about is like that big thing.

You could tell that they weren't. Yeah. Because you could expend 5,000 rounds from a lot and there'd still be 5,000 rounds left over. So you're saying, oh, I'm signing that I expended some of these rounds. That doesn't mean you accounted for every round in the lot, which is kind of what they were thinking. Yeah. But I did. We did actually account for every single thing.

We knew, like, with the GMs that would come out there, they took custody the rounds. It wasn't us, you know, so the platoons to go get their rounds from that guy. And I had, since I was running assaults, they had to have somebody sign from assaults and I was a guy. And when I had that confidence of like, that's not that, no, I didn't actually, I was no way part of that. And that doesn't put me as part of that. When I had that level of confidence, I think it kind of like, he's not going to come clean. And he's like, oh, don't worry, we got other stuff we're going to get you for. And they kind of let me go after that.

And I was like, what am I here for, man? Like, why am I not over there, you know, with my other guys that made it through screening? Why am I not with them? And I'm sitting here. And I did have some very, very rough times of sitting there being like, is my life over? Like, I kept thinking. I was like, man, how am I going to get through this? I got to fight.

But where's this going to take me? And I had some good leaders that said, hey, man. you one need to go to an attorney and then another person told me he's like you need to go to court marshal and i didn't understand that process at the time i learned i'm glad that there was leaders that probably had been in trouble before too and learned like this is the way the system works like if you're young you still need to get somebody that it's mentorship right you need to find somebody that has more knowledge than you surround yourself with smarter people so that's what i did and he told me he's like hey request trial by court martial and have an attorney

And the attorney told him, he was like, hey, I can't do anything until you say that. He was like, I'm going to guide you through. He's like, I went and did all these things, been like to prove like I didn't do anything wrong. I just knew the guy. I mean, I actually did like the guy until like I learned all these things. And then I went and actually tried to find him and talk to him. He was like, hey, what happened? And he had like, hey, this is crazy and blah, blah.

And never could really get the truth of the matter. And we're all like trying to write character references for him because we all liked the guy, but he was doing these stupid things. And whenever it came down to, like where am I going to go next when they said request trial by court marshal that was a good thing and so he ended up the attorney end up pressing the um the jag because even after I got dismissed my I went to captains mass and they dismissed it there's no evidence here I was still on a legal hold to where

they wouldn't let me go to my team and even my team or my squadron was like where are you at and I became like now I'm this troubled kid going over there and that's you're starting off on the wrong foot And so I'm like, man, all right, I can work through this. And they finally pressed and said, hey, this is malicious prosecution. Unless you have something for this guy, he needs to carry on. Because I was in like this purgatory, I just checked out of trade debt. So no one truly owned me.

And the squad just didn't help me. So I'm like in this middle and like walking in. I do remember seeing guys that were like, I don't know why they don't like guys that go over there. But there are people who come up to me. He's like, you guys think you're so special just because you, make it through, you think you're better than everybody else. And I was like, I don't think that at all. Who told you that?

Like, who hurt you, man? Like, did you not get a hug or something? Like, why are you? I know that it was like probably egos or something. And I kind of blew it off. There were some good guys that took me and they didn't make it to the squadrons or they never even tried. And they were like, no, man, you're good, bro. Like, no, don't worry about those guys.

There's guys. They probably didn't make it through and they're still buttered or something. Yeah. So now you do end up getting out there, out there to the East Coast. You know, I started off reading this whole thing or started off this whole podcast, reading that thing from Jessica Buchanan. Freaking epic operation. Holy shit.

Was that your first mesh with those guys? That was the first week. God. This all happens. I remember showing up. And, you know, at first I had to wash the stink off. This is all within a week. The stink of, what were you doing?

doing, man. Yeah. Who are you? What kind of people are you hanging around with you? Like they're very, yeah, they're very protective of like their culture and their brand and I understand. like I get it.

And so I'm trying to do them with us. I'm like, hey, yeah. And luckily for me, some of the guys that I was, that were my mentors over at Silting 5 were in that same squadron. And I had to talk to him as like, hey, bro, listen.

And they knew the guy and they're like, no, you're good, bro. Just watch your peas and cues, man. And you'll be right. And I get my load out. And they tell me, hey, we're about to blow out on something. And this is right before the President Obama was in office

and the State of the Union was about to happen. And I'm getting all my gear tight. And a lot of the new guys, you know, we just show up. And now we're about to go do an HR. And some of these guys at the squadrons, you don't get to do an HR. It's kind of rare. And here I am showing up week one.

And they're like, get your gear tight. Go to the range. Make sure you got everything. And there's good guys. Like this squad. And like, there's a reason why they're the top 1%. They're all professionals. And they're all like, hey, do this, do this, this.

And they got me up to speed. And I'm like, right, you know, here's what we're doing. And about a week later, and I was sitting at home and I get the little pager. There was no kidding a pager at the time. Beep, beep. And then, you know, text chain came out. You know, everybody calling each other. All right, let's go to work.

Getting in. And it was so impressive watching the level of effort from every person in the organization that they put in to get get out the door for another American. It was so impressive. I realized why that's the best is everyone knows just like we talked about team gear, personal gear, what order, everybody knew where they placed in the function of once that go call is established, everyone came together and worked extremely hard to get everything out the door. And it was the fastest the squadrons had been deployed in some time and like they're planning we get to to africa and we're planning in our little uh planning cell and um it was like that surreal moment of like man we're about to go do the

hostage rescue and for me i'm a brand new guy i'm just looking in all these like warriors like these are the guys that remember i never knew what a seal was and then now i that's the way i looked at seals and now i'm like oh these guys are like the secret best of the best like you don't know about they don't exist they're the ghost and these were like guys I looked up to and um we had the whole operation uh was really neat to see how it unfolded how we got authorities approvals and we're sitting in this big high bay and all the different units all the players came together and they did a a rock drill and they talked through everything and I was actually there was the the military free fall unit or or um task unit and then we were a the helicopter

or contingent. And I didn't get to do anything cool on it, but I got to be on it. I didn't care. I was just happy to be there. I was like, one, I was not in trouble. And two, I was with the best of the best everywhere. And we're about to go save an American life. Yeah, the best of doing the best operation that you can do.

Oh, man. And so we, as you know, like you've got to have in this, you've got to have contingencies. And so we had multiple avenues to go in and get her. and the I was this sounds bad but I was kind of hoping that the free fall guys wouldn't get it so that we could go in and get it you know it's like it it sounds bad but it's the reality yeah you're like come on where's that where's that cloud that's going to keep them from jumping that's going to give them the no-go and we're going to get to go do it but it didn't happen that way and those guys they got to go launch on it and we we were in the helo standing by and oh so just so you know I've never I don't know if you've ever done this but this is so sketchy in the the Blackhawk helicopters, we're in this thing for four hours going to our lower zone

or set down point. And it doesn't have enough fuel for four hours. So what do you do in the middle of the flight? You have a C-130 that comes in. And that... You did the in-flight refuel. Oh, multiple times. That was scary.

You're like up and tucked in this... You got the wing and you're like tucked in here and like this where... These pilots are awesome. I'm sitting there like bug-eyed looking out the window I was like, where are those rotors? It was pretty wild. And I sat there for four hours and then we went in and they went and did their thing.

And a new guy, one guy that I went through training with was the guy that jumped on her. And there was a debate on whether or not we should be part of the assault just because we're brand new. And they said, you know what, these guys, they're good to go. you got to go. They can do it. They prove and they've made it through. And I understand where the guys were like, hey, I've been here. I paid my dues.

I deserve to be on this thing. It's like, well, we, we don't know who's actually going to be there and be the one. And he ended up coming through and jumping on her and some other really good guys that were experienced. Helped also jumped on her and got her out of there. But it was just such a cool moment to be able to see the amount of effort that goes into saving another American life that's in danger. Yeah, it's freaking epic. And, you know, again, this is open source stuff that you can read. But the guys, like you said, Ford Station Djibouti.

And she wrote a book about it. So this is, like I said, this is open source stuff. But parachute insert, 24 seals rolled in on target. There was nine enemy. 24 seals rolled off target. Nine enemy killed. Both hostages rescued. Freaking legit.

Yeah, I was like a little kid hearing like, hey, how to go? What all do you guys see? What did you guys do? And so my buddies that were on and they did a fantastic job. Yeah, it's pretty stressful because then they wrote like, nothing goes as planned. No. And they had some cool stories of like, well, I ran into this. Like this happened.

And well, this was going down and just seeing how they adapt and overcame and executed and got her out of there. We did a hostage rescue in Ramadi of like this Iraqi kid. And it was funny because, you know, I, it just didn't seem like. like, it could, you know, one of the chances, right? Yeah. We get this call. Like, hey, this guy's being, this kid, this, he was like a 16 year old kid. He was being kidnapped.

His father was the police chief or something in Fallujah, and he'd been kidnapped, and he was being held ransom, and they took him to Ramadi. And we're tracking all this through intel, and I'm, and actually, we got the word one night, and I'm like, we don't have any confirmation that this is what's going down. And so we rolled it 24 hours to the next night. And I'm kind of thinking, like, oh, Within the next 24 hours, we get, oh, it's actually not true, or actually it's this or actually it's that.

But no, we can start getting more confirmation, more intel, clearer intel. And so we're doing the brief, the whole nine yards and guys were all jocked up, ready to roll. And we get an intel guy comes running in like, they say there's IEDs in the yard and they have machine guns mounted on the roof. They're going to kill anyone that tries to save. And I'm like, hey, Rod, I looked at Laif, who is, you know, the assault force command. I was in ground foot. I was like, look it.

It's like, you guys are going to get some. But, you know, we had a good plan for it, you know, and we watched it for long enough. We saw that there was guys walking, the guys were walking around in there. We could tell there's most likely not IEDs in that front yard. But anyways, long story short, went in, hit it.

And, you know, I'm now, like, just outside the building. And I hear, like, Leif is, like, jackpot, you know? And I'm kind of, like, for real. And he's like, yeah, we, like, and I go, Cool and I went in like sure enough here's this kid we had because we had pictures of them and like hey Roger that freaking awesome and Save the guy but it was yeah it was it was the the amount of surprise of like Jackpot life's like Jackpot for real he's like Roger and uh sure enough such a good feeling yeah yeah yeah so awesome and and And the cool thing was the Iraqis we had Iraqi soldiers and they were with us and we just like like it hit the newspapers and stuff and didn't talk about us was just like the Iraqi

serving you know you to save this kid so it's pretty awesome but yeah there's like you were mentioned earlier there's like what's what a great operation where you can actually save somebody instead of kill people so that was that was good to go um things like are seemed like they're moving in a pretty good direction at this time you would think and then right about that time i got the call that's man it was it was rough uh my best friend's mom, and she was my non-biological mother. She was the one, she was my guiding light. And I spent more time.

Like, when I was a kid, I would go and try and see my best friend, and he wouldn't be home or he'd be out doing something, and she'd be there. And so I would sit and talk with her. And she was like, always talking to me. You know, she's very religious and she had her Bible. And, you know, she was very, like, motherly and nurturing and a great list. And, like, she was, I would talk to her for hours. I would call him even on the phone.

and she would answer next to you know I'm talking to her. Is this Chris's mom? You mentioned a kid named Chris. Okay, so this is Chris's mom. Just to tie it into the beginning of the podcast, you were talking about going to see your friend Chris and their family was influential. So, okay. Yeah. She had terminal cancer.

And they had told me that. And it was one of those things you're like, well, can she defeat it? And I remember hearing from Chris, he was like, man I don't know this is a second time and it's not looking good and they spent a lot of time trying to battle it trying to fight it and she would do the health thing with trying to change her diets and stuff like that and so I was going home as much as I could to see her and I just saw it how it man cancer's a beast it's horrible I would wash her just deteriorate but she always had like she was her and she could connect and so I felt like I was losing my mom

mom in which I was. She was my non-biological mother that I spent more time listening being guided by her, like being comforted her and like she was guiding me along. I didn't really truly realize it until like now I'm like, man, she's going away. And it's funny, but when I finally got the word that she had passed away, it was the, I went and saw her one last time and I knew, like you knew. and I remember I wrote her card about like, hey, you know, I loved you all the things you did for me in my life that, you know, I'm going to protect your daughter and your son. And she, I remember they told me that she had cried when she read it.

And so that was like my way of like, I go back to when Mark died. I didn't have a chance to say goodbye. And that was my way of saying goodbye to her. And so I say goodbye. Well, about actually three days ago, maybe four days ago, I'm going to read something. So her daughter sent me this. So back, you remember when I was in my first operation, I prayed? So in her Bible, she had written down, like had my name next to it.

And she had a verse that she prayed for me and had the same date timeframe that I was on that deployment. It was Psalms 919 to 16. It says, if you make the most high your dwelling, even the Lord who is my refuge, then no harm will befall you. No disaster will come near your tent, for he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. They will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against the stone. You will tread upon the lion and the cobra. You will trample the great lion and the serpent. Because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him, I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call upon me and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble

I will deliver him and honor him. With long life, will I satisfy him and show him my salvation? And her daughter sent that to me and said, hey, she was praying for you. And so I think back to like that moment of like I needed something. And so during that same time frame, the purest form of love and when somebody doesn't know, like that you're taking care of them, and this was her praying for me, like showing that she loved you. And that's the person that she was.

And so when I lost it, it was like, what do I have now? Like that's, it went back to, okay, like where do I turn to for that reassurance, that guidance, that motherly thing, even though I still had my mother. But losing that and then seeing that connection she had throughout my life and that she was still praying for me even though I wasn't there. That was, that was tough. That was a rough one for me whenever she passed. So, and then what's, how are you doing without work? what's going on at work now that time frame man in 2012 we'd gotten back from that HR and now I'm doing a number two at an outstation and you know I'm getting a lot more responsibility

well the when I'm out in an outstation the the job that I had was training and building up these African soldiers, these Somalis, and taking them to war and stuff like that. And so I had to focus, and this is something that I, I didn't deal with trauma very well at this point in time. And it comes to play later on in my career. But I'm doing all these things to like,

you know, try and find a way to focus my energy to, okay, keep working, keep being, you know, the seal. Sean Murphy's a seal. What would a seal do? Get right back to work.

And it actually did help for a while. It helped me, but I never actually sat down and like slow down. Well, then I go to my next, I can remember which to point was that the squadrons but I end up going to Afghanistan. And I end up blowing out my right knee because I had a left sprained ankle.

And because I wasn't rehabbing it out there. You know, in your out station, you don't have the kind of care that you needed out there. So as a team guy, you're going to try and make do with what you got. You're not going to leave the fight just because you got a twisted ankle. And so I was out there. with like these bands and stuff like that.

And actually patented a medical device because of this. Or my buddy patented it, but we on the company. And so I twisted my ankle or blow out my knee, came back and I had surgery on it. And that was the first time I had slowed down. You know, as a team guy, you're going. Like when I went to trade at first, I was like, no, I don't want to stop. I want to keep going. I want to go to poems.

But I was still turning and burning pretty good. So when you're you're isolated I had surgery I sat down and I was all alone I had this big house in Virginia Beach But I was all alone I was dating somebody at the time, but I was all alone and I had You know I started thinking like you know where am I? What am I? Who am I? Like it started going down some pretty dark holes of like I was gonna say Rough questions when you're sitting in your house alone in Vaugh Beach. What surgery did you get? I had my meniscus removed Okay, well as it was a recall how much time is it? take to recover from that so the first I had had two surgeries the first one they tried to repair it

so that was a long one that was about three or four months and that didn't hold and then it flipped on that deployment that I had that sprained ankle and that's when it locked up and so that's when they cleaned it out and that was only about three or four weeks but man well when they took it out and then I'm sitting there they had me laid up and I was like I stopped and I was like much like when you go through a transition you're stopped you're at full like that trains movement

as fast it can now you're stopped and your buddies are out there and you're just like where are my bros who do I and you used to be able to call you know my best friend's mom

and I could talk to her and it'd be my energy my lifeline and it didn't go so well and actually what did save me were my puppy dogs I had two dogs that I rescued

one was his name is Vader I'm not a Star, why I'm a Star Wars fan now, but at the time it wasn't, but it just happened to, I was a black dog, Darth Vader,

Vader, good name. And he, when I would be sitting there going through these tough times, he, like he was like a cat. He would jump up on my shoulders and then like,

he would just go to town, lick in my face, and I was just like, get out of my face, what are you doing? But he recognized me when I'm like going through these emotional times.

And what was wrong with me is I was depressed. I didn't realize I was depressed. I was like, team guys don't feel this way. What's wrong with me? I was depressed because I, you know, I'd been through so much and I hadn't slowed down and processed what I was going through.

And so all the things I thought about, I think about every friend that I ever lost, every little thing that I, it was a bad thing because I'm a true believer and you have like two choices, positive and negative. And where do you go? I was negative, Nancy. Everything was like negative.

But I had to process some of these things. and I was sitting there and my dog would come up to me because I would be sitting there like questioning. I was like, man, Sean Murphy, who is Sean Murphy? You know, is this, you know,

I'm breaking down. I'm getting older. I'm starting to see my injuries and I'm laying there and I don't take pain pills. I just refuse to take pain pills. I feel like that's, if your body's telling you don't do something,

don't do it. And if you're trying to recover, that's kind of an indicator. So I wasn't taking them. And every time I started having like these depressed, moments the dog would come up and just be in my face and just like my wife today hates it she's like because the dog will still come up and like he will like start licking my leg or licking me he's

like it's like it's like a habit now and I'm just like oh I love you too buddy like being all like you know friendly with the dog and she's just like ah that noise just drives me nuts I'm sorry babe but this is a special blonde of me my dog have like I'm going to pet him I love him and my other dog her name is ray because I want him to have a companion it was important for me I think not only the way I see life like you need to have a companion you have that community and and so I had her adopted her from New Orleans on a one of our squadron trips and you know the military dogs I'm sure you think oh yeah all right so we had military working dogs and they had their crates and we're in New Orleans doing one of our big training exercises and I asked them actually faster

but hey there's this puppy that I want to save and they're like what what are you doing Murph what did you just ask if you could bring home a puppy and I'm like yeah and I told him like, that's from a dog, you know, they'd rescue it here. And they're like, I don't care. Just put it in a crate. You know, talk to the dog guys. And let's talk to the dog guys. And they're like, wait, you want to put it next to one of our dogs?

And I was like, yeah. Well, we're on the C-17, this poor dog, they said, just give it some Benadryl. Like, that's what people do when they fly their pets. Just give Benadry. I'm going to sleep through the flight. Gave it some Benadryl and it fell asleep, put in the crate, put it next to, as soon as I brought it up to next to the military working dogs, it was like, those dogs are like, I'm now in go mode and I want to eat that thing.

and it wakes the dog up and she starts throwing up and threw up the Benadryl. Now she's just like sitting next to these beasts. And I was just like, like I felt so bad. I was like, oh my gosh, this poor dog. But she ended up making it through the flight and bringing her home.

And those two became my little savior dogs that were always there for me. Always there. I love dogs. So is this when you started working with like NASCAR and stuff? Is this around the same time? Or did that come later? Yeah.

So, yeah, the, this was right after, I worked with NASCAR right after the deployment I became like I learned what GFC was, Ground Force commander and how much goes into that. Like hats off to the guys that do it. I can tell you a little bit about, I can remember if I wrote this down, but the update went able. Go ahead. Why that's so, so important. So it's my very first operation as a GFC. and I had some really good guys that would help me out that help plan everything.

And so you have all the quarterback roll-up sleeve that I had, like everything, all the lines I needed to give back to HQ. And I had great leaders. The CEO at the time, he was a task force commander throughout the region. Awesome guy. Great mentor. Awesome person that you want in charge that encouraging you. Like I had actually kanked the first operation because there's just, I have the rule of three.

Three things went bad. And so I was like, you know, rolling 24 called him and he's like good call mirf so i was like man it's good to hear well we go out on the operation we go get this guy and um this like i had everybody in position we're target secure we have our guys and uh i got a call back to hq and that's the net that goes out to everybody and so i had my com guy next to me and um i got got ready to give him my my little situation report keyed up and as soon as I keyed up this Afghani next to me opens up fully auto

it takes a dude out and I was just like I said my call sign I was like well update when able like so I was like what just happened I came off and it went out over theater and so immediately the Com guy's like hey Murf they're trying to get a hold of you you need to get on the horn they're saying right now and I'm like all right

and so I called the commander and he's like saddest and I was like hey just so you know I'm not quite sure. We'll update when able. Everything's good. We'll update when able. Like I just get to say like, we'll update when able.

Like I'm trying to figure this out. And so I look at my com gun. I was like, dude, what just happened? Like, why did that guy shoot him? It was because one of the guys had ran off towards an AK and the Afghani was doing his job and just blasted this guy right as I keyed up. And so now the entire theater here's,

we're up in the mountains of Afghanistan. And they just hear this gun go off, come over comms. and one guy, the first thing he says, they hear from this outstation, this patrol is like a gunfire and then we'll update when it was like, what is going on? Like, hey, do you any push the aircraft and all that stuff?

And so I finally got things figured out and settled back down and I was finally able to give him the quarterback roll up and say, hey, no, we're good, man. It's just, okay, now we have one tango, you know, KIA, and then the rest of us are good. We're heading back. And so as soon as I got back, the phone was ringing. It was like, Murf, what was going?

on. I was like, it wasn't that bad. And it was good that it happened that way. It wasn't chaos because it taught me a little bit about the process of making sure people are informed properly. How many people are listening? How many eyes are on what's tracking? Yeah. Check. That's good stuff to know. And so you got two things, really. You got the ankle rehab device that you figured out a way to allow people to do rehab. And you invented that, patented that, started that company. That's called tri-vette LLC. Yeah. And then the other thing

that you started was hit the surf LLC, which is like you working with teams, getting them to perform better. Yeah, so I started that from a guy, when I was a new guy

at the squadrons, we were in Chicago, and we had to go to events that they needed some seal representation, and I was a new guy. Of course,

you always volunteer for everything because it opens up doors. And there's a Clint Black concert that we went to and it was like open bar, you know, you got VIP treatment, closed thing, was a fundraiser for, I think the folds of honor foundation.

And so I went and I sat down at this table. And it was me and two other team guys. And then there was this other guy sitting next to me. Look like a young kid. And so it's, we're just being team guys, you know, drinking some jack and, you know, having a good time, joking around. And this guy, and we're used to it by now. You know, it's seals when we go places, the people are like,

who are these guys like this group of guys are all in shape and like they're just a bunch of fun and uh he leans everyone was like hey who are you guys and i was like oh i'm sean um this is uh so-and-so and uh we're just seals here being you know representation for you know this event or whatever and he's just like oh cool and i was like what do you do and he's like i'm a driver and i was just like in my back of my head i'm thinking great they volunteer we got voluntilled to go to this thing and now i'm sitting next to the driver for the guys in the band and I was like, cool, like who are you driving in the band? Like, why are you, are we in like the stepkids?

He's like, no, no, I drive for a living. So what I did is I said, oh, like a limo or something. Domino's or what? Yeah, like, cool, bro. You must be the best, you know, driving. He was like, no, I drive NASCAR. And I didn't, I didn't know anything about NASCAR at this time. I did follow.

I knew the three was. Yeah. He was like, no, I drive NASCAR. And I said, oh, the guy has to drive around in circles. And I was like, cool, bro. Like, that's awesome. And he was just like, no. what are you guys doing later?

I was just like, I don't know, what are you doing? He's like, I know some club owners. And he took me, and he's like, hey, you guys all want to come to a race tomorrow? And I was like, let me ask the guys. I didn't know, like if there were NASCAR fans in the squadron. And I put it out and they're like, who is? And I was like, it's Austin Dillon. And they're like, yeah, absolutely.

And so he got us all like backstage passions and stuff like that. And started, and I'm big on character. Like, I'm not going to associate with you if you're a dirtball. And this guy, good kid. and I wanted to know like well who is this guy if he's got attention on him like what kind of person is he in so

I got to know his family him Mike Dillon his dad and then Richard Childers who owns Richard Childers Racing still didn't know anything about him but I wanted to know who they were as people and great great people and he would call me all the time

invite me out to his house I was going out there meeting his best friend I mentioned him earlier Paul Swan huge character and so I noticed the community that they're involved in

and I just gravitated tours and I was like they're just like team guys they're good dudes they travel a lot They rely on each other, depend on each other. It's a lot of things. And so I started to learn more and more about NASCAR.

And one day he called me after a race. And he was like, hey, I want you to come in and do some team building for my team. And I was already doing that kind of in the squadrons with non-seals and stuff. And I was like, cool, man. And as a matter of fact, I called Laif. Oh, man, I just remember this. I called Laif. And I was like, hey, I need some advice.

I was like, he wants me to come and do some consulting. I don't know what to charge. I don't know what to do. I don't want to think. And he was like, listen. this world is there's a plethora of a work out there that you can do there's no end to it but you need to be uncomfortable with how much you charge i was like what does that mean he's like because you're used to running a trip where it's like you know you have the navy paying for everything so now you have to

budget all that stuff out and he kind of lined it out for me he's a really good advice he's like and if they can't do it if you really want to be serious about this business do it for free i was like okay so i went in i talked to uh um his uh uh uh at the time is his head of their arrow engineering super smart guy Eric Warren he works for like the GM like he's got a doctorate and like how aerodynamics works and the first call I had with him was and I just got my degree in organizational leadership and I was already doing case studies on people and so I started doing analyzing like my squadron and like the command and how leadership and stuff worked and we had a three hour conversation the first thing and he was like dude you're coming in

you're going to teach these guys and so from there he brought me in i do i did team building for him started off i did both the eight car and the three car um and man those guys are awesome ray right he's their pick coach there former baseball player jockey i tell you this guy like they do such a phenomenal job with they take these athletes that aspiring NFL people that uh someone did play in the NFL or sports and other kids um they bring them in and they they give them jobs They give them structure. They give them guidance. They form a team so fast and they have to be higher performers in a very, very high-stress

situation. And I noticed that it was very similar to the way that we structure things, like who's in charge, who's making the calls. Communication is important. And so I started breaking it down. And I thought, you know what? This is a great way for one, me to understand it. Because I'm still, I'm in the later part of my career.

I need to figure out what am I going to do next? whole mentality of what's next all right he gave me an opportunity and they they kind of talked me into it and he you know him and his dad was like yeah yeah I think you should do this and so I came up with hit the surf which I have a love-hate relationship with the cold because it was at the time I I was trying to figure out like what am I going to call my company and I was like all right hit the surf because I remember in buds when you got told to hit the surf you had an opportunity What are you laughing at, man? I like how you put that.

Let me explain this thing. So when you're getting your butt kicked and you're hot and you're exhausted, you can't do any more push-ups and they take you to failure. They tell you, go hit the surf. And you're like, man, another thing, you run out there and you're just going to be miserable. But when that cold water hit and it was rushing over my head, it was like you ever have that hot feeling of like just going through and you've got that hot air and you hit that cold water and you come up and you breathe out and it's just like refreshing.

And that was my opportunity because I reset myself in that moment. I recalibrated, okay, I got to be the first one back. It's a new race. It's a new opportunity. Every time you get told to hit the surf, if you're the first one back, it shows that you care. It shows that you're putting out. And that's kind of way I wanted to like, that's what I want to do in team building is like, how can I change mindsets?

How can I take them and hit this surf with them and be able to show them the opportunity they have before them. And that's how it was formed. And I could bring in seals that I worked with and give them the opportunity to have ways to talk about communication and why it's important. The tacit knowledge that they have, they could bring in. I could pay them well and be able to give them the opportunity to not just tell team guy stories, but tell the value in what they went through and what they've learned to share

it with these organizations that are looking to improve performance. and after the first one it was really successful. I remember the, when I sat down and talked to the guys afterwards, the feedback I got, I was like, you know what? We brought in so many people and spent thousands of dollars, hundreds of thousand dollars on all these courses, all these presentations of guys coming in talking about this and that and the other. And we got more out of your week than we did to them.

And I was like, why is that? And it's something that I I think that you could talk all day long. You could read every book. You could do all these things and put it in your thought process, but you got to put it into practical application. And that's what I was doing with them.

All these little drills that I had, I would go out and put him through some training and explain going back to trade at the why. And it was like they were able to not only learn it, but then they were having these small moments of like application. And so they could take away like the things I was talking to them about. And after that, it was all right.

And then he called me back again. And then he does a PBR. He owns a PBR team. Man, those dudes, those Bull riders. Oh, man, I love those guys. As a matter of fact, next weekend I'm going to their home event. They, have you been near a Bull? Have you ever been?

Yes, I have. Yep. And the look you're giving me right now is, yes, I understand. I've gone back there and, like, stood next to them when they're in their little cage freaking rattling around. and you're like, yo, this thing is going to murder somebody. Yep. And there's not amount of money that you could give me to get on this thing right now.

Well, they don't make a lot of money. That's a sad thing. Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. Talk about Brave souls. They get hurt and then guess where they get up and they're like, let's do it again. I'm like, I love it. I love you guys so much.

I would have to see what it would be like if I was 23. Because if I was 23, I'd probably be jumping on that thing. Yeah, you would. Yeah. At this age, it's like every time I see those guys at the ground, I'm like, oh, that's an injury. you know what I mean? So, yeah. And then meanwhile at work, you moved into where you're doing reckey, right?

Yeah. And you're working with Chad? Yeah. Yeah, Chad. Man, that's out of all the mentors that I've had, I spent a lot of time with him, he guided me in so many ways that he was the guy that was soft-spoken that didn't say much, but when he spoke, people listened. And he had his little quirks.

You know, everybody's got their little. quirks and stuff and he was my team leader I was his ATL and he brought me up um teach me all about the planning the nuances of what you need to think about all the details it goes into being reckey of being a real point point man and not chasing stars um and yeah the the crazy thing about chat is you know people would come to him and he just had a plethora of knowledge and just a really good really good man. He was a good man. And there was one day

that we're in a wrecky hooch. And me and him were sitting there playing and he's, we're going over things. And there was a guy that came in that he was like, hey,

he needs somebody to talk to. I mean, and Chad are like, we looked at each other. We were like, this dude don't look well. And that it was just, you didn't need to say anything.

We're like, okay, we just sat and listened, what's going on. The way, the things he was described when we was going through and we're like, man this is rough like we're about to go on deployment and you've got a lot of things going on

like you need some help and no team guy wants to be that vulnerable you know i think we put up a shield at times and he was opening up and this was an opportunity i didn't quite see it the way chad saw it chad i believe saw some of himself what he was going through and he wanted to be the savior and fix it i was kind of like you okay man like just need a break Like I just thought, oh, he just burned out. And Chad was like, no, I need to give him some help. And he took the lead. And there was some pushback on some other guys, but Chad, you know, champion getting him what he needed.

And he got sat down and got the help he needed. Now he's, you know, he was a family man. And so now he's back with his family doing, he's doing really well. He's out making a great life for himself. And I love that guy. He was such an awesome dude. And seeing him, like, hurting like that. It was kind of scary.

like dude are you okay man like what happened and it was just you know he was at a point that uh was vulnerable and needed somebody to reach out to and you know thank god he found chad in that capacity to be able to recognize him and talk him off the ledge and realign him to get him focused back to where he needed to be which then he came back and went back to another squadron and was an awesome team guy and but chad um you know like didn't figure out i guess i guess how to get that help for himself, you know. I'm friends with his wife, and she's been on this podcast and got to talk through the whole thing.

If you haven't heard that yet, Chad Wilkinson killed himself. And, yeah, it was really interesting and what really kind of left the biggest impression on me talking to Sarah, his wife, was like, she explained so clearly that the guy that she married, like that person that she married,

had changed dramatically and was kind of a different person by the time he killed himself. And her main point in saying that was that there was something going on besides like just, hey, this is a different phase of my life. There's some, whether it's TBI, whether it's PTSD, what it does to your brain,

it was something, it had created like a different personality. And like she was so distraught by that, you know, by the end. And yet she was still surprised. She wasn't like, wait, she wasn't expecting it or anything. So just totally devastating. Yeah, I actually talked to him the day before. It was so surreal that I'm sitting there. We're going through like a different training cycle.

And this is like, you know, you doing like surveillance and counter surveillance stuff. And he was learning some of that stuff. And it can be a little sketchy at times. It's a lot of pressure and stress. And I saw him at the Chow Hall with a couple other guys and everyone else saw him. It was just like you could see like he was committed to something. You know, he didn't. Like he seemed a little off.

But, you know, sometimes Chow would get that way. You just kind of quiet and be like, yep, nope. like one word answers and it was like okay um game a hug good see you buddy took off and then um one of the guys that i worked for gave me the call the next day and i was just like it was again going back to like what i went through with mark is like i don't believe this are you sure like is this like is this like one of them team guy rumors or is this real he was like no man he told me everything that happened and i was like oh man like i had taken chad to some of the NASCAR races too.

And so I'm thinking, and that was one of the things that what I thought was, why? What did I miss? And the worst thing was, is this something that can get me? Is this something that is out there that we're not recognizing that's this invisible monster that can get one of us? And it was, you know, there was a lot of emotion that came through with that on being mad at the guy or, you know, being upset at the situation. or you didn't know, you didn't have anything to control.

You're out of control and does this thing come for you next? It was hard, it was hard, real hard to grasp. And I, you know, I can't imagine what the family goes through. And it's funny that, you know, we do, every year Austin will call me and say, hey, I need a fallen seal to put on a Memorial Day race. And he won his first, uh, he won his first, uh, Cup Series race with the team guy on his on his car and he's it's in his museum and so I you know I get to escort some of the spouses around because I always volunteer is like I want to be

there I want to be there for the community and for the family let them know they're not forgotten that there's still somebody there for him and when I walk them around the tracks and and hear their stories they they're the first ones that can see what we don't they get to hear more about what's going on than what we do and that think they're you know what they go through they're in such a hard spot like you know they're the ones that uh they get to see more of the change than we do because we can team guys are good at coming into work that's our safe zone and we can put up a shield and put up uh you know we can be our team guys at work but they're the ones that see the other side yeah plus we see each other

every day whereas like you know if echo puts on seven pounds in three weeks you he might not notice it. But if I saw him again, like, and I didn't see him for three weeks, I'm like, dude, you're getting fat or you're getting jacked depending on which one. Hopefully it's jacked. But, you know, it's just like one of those things where you don't notice the little changes over time. Yeah. But someone goes away on a four-month deployment and then another four-month deployment and you're not seeing them for four months and then you're seeing them. Yeah, that's a good point where the families are going to notice some of those changes more than the boys will.

Yeah. So then what's next? You get married at some point? That wasn't a trick question, dude. Yeah, I got married. This is what I was after, you know, a big part of my life. You know, I wanted a family. I was pushing it off or so I thought I was to be a part of the family of the brotherhood and the seal teams.

And I destroyed so many relationships because I was, you know, seal first, seal 24-7, you know, go, go, go. You know, the country needs me. I always had that in the back of my head. you know, you come second, if that. You know, my puppy dogs are number two. You're maybe number three or four. Boys are number one. The mission's number one.

Then I met my wife on a training trip. I didn't know she's going to be my wife, but we actually had a long-distance relationship. But the first time I met her, she had a son. She had a two-year-old boy. And so this two-year-old boy, Jack, he, I didn't know what to think of it.

right so at first you're like okay what does this mean is the father still in the picture and the father was father's a good dude they just didn't it didn't work out and um and so i go out and we have our date at the wine at a winery in seattle she was in i rescued her from seattle as way i like to think of it um so we talked long distance for a while and uh it was funny because um i love talking to her like she was awesome like in my way like my way of thinking i'm always like what's wrong with her where's that red flag? I'm trying to find something wrong, right? And because I want to commit, but I'm like, okay, what's wrong with this girl?

She seems pretty cool. Like, I get her and she's got a son. Like, where's the red flag? And I would spend so much time, like, wanting to get to know her. And then I find myself planning the trips around her son. Like, I want to go hang out with him. Like, I'm building, it was around Halloween. I had this whole elaborate setup for him that we spent time, like, just hanging out, like, playing games.

And it was like, I'm a kid now. Like, I'm this. deal at dev group that I'm supposed to be a hostage rescue and I'm over here playing Legos with a little two-year-old just having a great time and she's like I'm just I don't know what she was thinking I'm sure she would have a great story about this but when I'm over there like hanging out like being the gentleman to her I always put her first like very respectful like you know I make sure that you know she got treated like a lady but I'm also like I want to have fun with Jack and I remember like we were in a hotel room and that one of the

chairs in there. I was like spinning around like we're bouncing bouncy balls up and off the ceiling. And I'm laughing like a little kid. And I don't know what she's thinking like this is like a Navy seal is. Like is that we're acting like a kid. Yes. Or it. I can answer that question. Yes. It is maturity level. Yeah, about a two year old. That's what we could relate to you. Yeah. But it was a blessing, man. I'd tell you with like that's, you know, I'm telling you when I say God has a plan, he has a plan because that's that's when it taught me to be a man, be a dad. And it had to be very fast. I was an instant family now and had to learn that, you know, my emotions, my behavior. I'm still trying to figure it out. Like, I know what a seal is, but what's a dad, a father and a husband.

And I'm learning all this with, you know, the dynamics that my upbringing kind of blessed me with being able to have that same understanding of what a broken home is, what a dad is, what a dad isn't in the picture, what he is in the picture and all these things. So I could tap into my dad and ask I'm like, hey, how do I handle a situation? You know, and Jack was there, and he's such a good kid. This kid, so emotionally intelligent, such a young age, it's impressive. He knows, like, as a three-year-old, I remember being a three-year-old. He knows, like, if you're not feeling one, he's like, hey, everything's going to be okay.

I'm just like, I'm being comforted by a three-year-old. I'm looking like, how does this kid do that? I'm not that good at this, and he's a super smart kid, which I can, it's a funny story of when my daughter is born with this kid. Once we finally get married, they move into Virginia Beach. And we wanted to have a child, another kid. I finally talked to her into and like,

hey, I'm not that bad of a guy. You married me. Let's have some kids of her own. And she got pregnant. And we're about two months out from giving birth, like her due date, 40 weeks. and at this time we had the baby registry and nobody was buying it and something was telling me like you need to hurry up and stop dragging your feet on this baby registry get the nursery ready and it was the night before i went and bought everything on amazon hadn't paid in the nursery yet and um at the time she was as we all know if you got kids echo yes sir i do okay so you know that when women are pregnant sometimes they snore they need they need their sleep and so i she was sleep i let her have the room in the bed i I would go sleep on the couch, you know, because we both need to sleep.

And I get woken up around three in the morning to my wife. And she's shaking me. She's like, hey, I just need somebody to be with me. And I'm like, okay, what's wrong? She's like, I've been throwing up for about an hour. And I was like, why? She's like, I'm in so much pain. And she's a nurse.

So she's very smart, smarter than me. And she's like, I think it's trap gas. And I'm like, no. No, trap gas doesn't cause you to throw up. and she's avoiding going to hospital because I'm like, hey, let's go to the hospital. She's like, no. I was like, listen, I'm in the military.

We can go to Portsmouth and it's free. I'll drive you there. What about Jack? I was like, I'll call the neighbors. I had it such great neighbors. I called my neighbor, Brian. I was like, hey, Brian, you wake? And he's like, well, yeah, I answer the phone.

I was like, hey, Annalis is going through something. Do you mind watching Jack why take her to the hospital? And he's like, no problem. Came in, Jack loved it. He loved it because he'd go watch cartoons or whatever they did. and rush her into the hot or before that so we're all standing there I'm making the phone calls and jack comes in this is how intelligent this kid is and he sees that mom's in pain he comes in and starts playing queen that's her favorite band he's like playing a radio and like playing her favorite song

trying to comfort her and i was like in the moment i'm like hey buddy i love it that you're trying to help is like that's not helping let's just turn that off and so we took him my neighbors and i rushed her to the hospital and um we went into the uh the obc yiner or whatever the room is called. And they're like, okay, what's going on? And they're like, hey, just protocol. Like, you want to tell you what happens? Like, if something happens to the baby or the mother and we have to deliver the baby,

we're going to try an epidural first. And if we can't get that, we got to put her under if it's an emergency. And you can't be in there for that. You can be in there for the epidural. I was like, okay, why are you telling me this? Like, she's not due for another two months. And she said, okay, we'll pull off all the jewelry. We're just going to check the baby's heart rate and then mama's heart rate

and make sure everything's going to fun. and the I remember the the nurse her demeanor changed the second they're like oh we got the baby's heart rate yeah yep we can hear it and all of a sudden she goes uh-oh the baby's heart rate's dropping she's like hey mom your heart reach dropping too like the worst case scenario is happening and the nurse told him was like hey this isn't good because if mom's bleed internally she could die and the baby could die we got to make some decisions right now and so I was like do what you got to do like just make it happen like and now I'm freaking out like okay my wife is laying here like her heart rate is off the walls and so is the baby and um they rush her out of there and they say sir you got to stay here

we got to put her under we can't get the epidural so you can't you can't be there and so they put me in this room and that's the last I see and I'm sitting in this room for about two hours and I'm pacing I'm texting everybody every single person I know is like somebody talk to me because I'm freaking out right now like I don't know if my wife has died I don't know if my baby's dead or what and so I finally I had enough and I walked out of the room and went up to saw this poor this poor little nurse I'm like you get over here now and she's like whoa what's happening I was like you tell me it's like my wife just got wheeled off of here that her heart was dropping the baby's heart tried to give her the whole story and she's like what's her name I was like annelise and so

they went and tracked down annelese and like so nobody's came and talked to you and I was like no. She's like, okay, sir, calm down. Go back in this room. I was like, I'm not going back in that room without some answers. Like, this is a human life. Like this, love my life and my daughter that just got whisked away that I don't know if she's going to be alive. She's like, no, your wife is in surgery right now.

And I was like, well, is she going to be okay? He's like, we don't know, but we'll send the doctrine as soon as we know anything. And so that just made things worse. And now I'm thinking, you know, I was set and my mind went negative. Don't go negative. And I'm like, great. Um, my wife is gone.

My baby's gone. What am I going to do? I'm going to be that guy that's in the teams forever and just going to take all my anger and hate on the enemy that comes forth. You know, I was just going through this, this scenario. And, uh, finally a doctor comes in. And I'm just like, you need to tell me something. He's like, hey, okay, listen, listen. Um, mom's recovering.

Um, babies and Nick you. And the way he said it, I was like, well, what's wrong with the baby? And he's like, we don't know if anything happened, but, uh, we weren't sure. if she was breathing when she came out, but we intubated her and got her in the NICU, and they're doing some tests on her to make sure that we, you know, see if she's going to be okay. And right about that time,

they start wheeling Annalisa and she's still all drugged up. And I'm in not the right frame of mind. So I take a picture of her. And I was like, she's all looping. And I was like, hey, this is what you look like. And I don't know what to do. I'm like, hey, are you okay? And she's just all still anesthesaged up.

And because the doctor told me, like yeah your wife's going to be fine didn't give me any any fidelity on the baby and uh so i didn't want to tell her that yet she kept asking like where's amelia we named our daughter amelia so where's amelia where's amelia and i was like she's in nick you they haven't given me any answers she's like i want to see her and i do too they said we can't go back there so it was about eight hours from the time that we got there to when we actually got to go in and see my daughter and they still told me like hey she had all these tubes in her and and all these things and um But I was happy that I could go see her.

Like that's all I wanted. It's like next to this baby that my wife just, you know, went through a traumatic experience that we can now see it. She's going to be okay. She's got a few days of recover. They had to cut her out and she was two months earlier. And I didn't know the whole process of what's a premature baby. And so they're explaining to me.

It's like, oh, she's got to stay in here. And, you know, you guys are going to have to come back and forth. Well, what happened? This is March 19th. COVID. Country locks down. Dang. and I'd tell you what, Jocker, that was a test, but it brought us closer together.

Me and my wife, she, I feel really bad for her because, you know, pregnancy, they go through hormone changes and stuff like that. And so she kept thinking she did something wrong and they came in. It was like, no, it was a placental abruption, which it can happen. You know, if you weren't in a car accident, usually they sometimes happen. Like, you didn't have anything, but sometimes that happens. And you're lucky because people die. Like you were bleeding internally.

We had to come in and take care of everything. And so then we got to spend some good quality time, like seeing NICU nurses. Have you guys ever been in the NICU? I've only been NICU adjacent because I've got four kids. And I was around for, I was around when they were born. So like I'd see the, you know, and thank God all my kids were kind of normal, healthy babies. But, you know, I'd be seeing the adjacent rooms, you know, where, and seeing the, you know,

even when you're, even when you have a healthy baby, they, they, sometimes they spend like an hour and near the NICU or there's, you know,

whatever little adjustments when they're monitoring them. So yeah, kind of like Nick U adjacent and, and know that that's just a rough place to be. It really is. And the people that work there,

there, you want to see an angel on earth, those people, like the nurses, the effort that they put in, the doctors, they got all these babies, and there were babies

that were younger than Amelia that were in there. Smaller little baby and they brought them, they gave them life. Like some of them, there were some very sad stories like they didn't have parents or parents didn't want anything to do with them. And we were in there every day and you saw some parents that come in. And, you know, it was sad when you saw the firemen because that meant that there was a baby that didn't make it. They were life flighted, but really they were just taking the baby away and seeing them day in and day out have to do with these little beady babies. And a lot of them would make it through and some of them not so much.

We saw that and that was emotional along us. The baby's next to us, not having a mother. So we'd bring in, come in. And I would sing songs to Amelia. As a dad, I was a terrible singer. I was going to say, hopefully she should not traumatize from that, dude. Well, I do have a picture on my phone. That's my screensaver of her smiling.

It was the first smile. And so that was probably her laughing at dad's singing and dad's being silly. And was there any incident issues with you getting this in and out of the hospital with once COVID was in? Like, were they like, no, you can't come in here anymore? Yeah. So we started all. with um we could both be in there and then they're like nope only one parent could be in there so i was and keep in mind like i'm also essential personnel at work and they they do a great job of

giving us that time but when covid happened nobody knew what to do and now only one of us could go in and out it was nice because there was no traffic but when we got there was like a decon station every you had to wash head to toe and like then you had to only be in there for a certain amount of time period and I wanted to be there 24 hours a day for my daughter. I don't care. I don't need to sleep. I want to see my daughter. I want to be there with her.

And she was doing well. She had like ups and downs. And every little beep was like stress for me. But she ended up pulling through. But there were times that me and her, like we were getting so close. And then now it was like I didn't get to see my wife other than to high five her. And our command did this great thing called the meal train where everybody would pitch in to make meals, excuse me, meals for you, bring it to you. you bring it to you and jack was such a good sport like he was having the time of his life like

he understood like there's something going on but he was always so happy and so positive and and so it was like nice to come home and hang out with him and you know watch puppy dog patrol and play goofy things and listen to records and and stuff like that and um one thing that that uh while i was going through this there was an amazing thing that there is a lady that i worked with and she worked for me. And I didn't expect it. But as I'm going through this, like, it was a very rough, you know, experience.

And she reached out to me and said, and she gave me comfort. She's like, hey, she started telling me her story. She had a premature baby. And she sent me pictures of her daughter. She's like, everything's going to be okay.

It was just that one little of like, hey, everything's going to be okay. Like, it was her, you know, the best thing that she could ever do was share her story. And it was like, in my retirement speech, I thanked her, like, still to this day,

Like, I'm so grateful that she did that because I was in a rough spot. Like, you don't know if your kid's going to make it. You see her in the NICU and things could change dramatically real quick. And when she did that, I was like, there's hope. It was good that she did that. So you make this decision to retire. And what was the, I mean, obviously you got family now. You got Jack.

You got Amelia. You got your wife. Like, you think it's time. I'm going to move on. Yeah, that was So I always told myself that If I ever became invaluable If I was the guy that knew too much

Or the guy that Was burnout wasn't providing anything I was approaching Approaching the time of like I was burnout I've been through a lot You know changes were happening I was in a different I wasn't in the assault squadrons

I was in a different squad and where we did a lot of We worked a lot with seals and non-seals And so I had to leave people in a different capacity. It was wearing on me because, you know, with seals were so easy to manage that at the squadrons, you could say this is your expectations. I need you to go do this.

And if you're not doing it, you could be like, if you came to me, Jacquim and said, Murf, that was stupid. Pull your head out. Get back to it. Cool. You can't do that to people that aren't team guys. If you go to somebody and say,

hey, you're screwing this up. Stop doing that. They know their job. It's something that I knew inherently throughout my career. I knew that I could fix something. I knew exactly all the different phases of the operation, everything about it. And, you know, because I had gone from being the assaulter to knowing just about

everything that you could do. Now I'm in this point to where this foreign territory of leading people that don't have that same mentality, that standard that you start in buds of you get to a certain point and now you're you don't have the same reliance on that that that safety net it's all special operations right so all the even conventional force they get a standard um that they set and so i'm i'm dealing with different personnel and at that point you know going through what i did with amelia and annalice i wanted to be there and so i could see it have an effect on my life like am i going to be that bitter team guy that isn't good for the mission i was i think i was getting there and i just didn't

want, I didn't want to get to the point to where it's too late to be bitter coming in. And I had a lot of personality, um, conflicts during that because the group that I was with, and I'll never forget, and I, the first day walking in and this, uh, another, uh, person that was in the Navy, she comes up and she's like, hey, just so, you know, seals don't get along with us. And we stay out of your way. You stay out of bars. And I was like, what happened here? Like, we are a team. We don't say that to each other. like I'm not staying out of your way. And so I started doing some research and like, oh, well, some team guys didn't treat them well.

And they always complained about team guys. And so I was like, well, I'll treat them right. So I'll try and be a good leader. And that's where I learned like the long-term vision of always do the right thing. And during when Amelia was in the NICU, I had one of the girls that did not like me. She couldn't stand me. She wanted to bring me down. I still still to this day, don't understand what I did to like, and I didn't.

know that you're not going to please everybody, but at the same time I was wondering, as a leader, like, why is that affecting you? Why is my presence affecting you so much? And she had gone through a pretty bad experience herself. And so behind the scenes, you know, I was getting information and you're not supposed to get certain medical information and pass it on. It's the HIPAA rules and stuff like that. And one of my team leaders brought it to me and he said, hey, I'm getting this information. I was like, listen, we have a corpsman for this exact reason. I was like, let's rally around her, like find out what we can do for, like get her flowers and start the mill train.

Like she's going through something that's support her. And I'm thinking like, how would I want to be treated? You know, if I have the, I always think that if somebody doesn't like you, they're watching you real close. And so you have the opportunity to make the most impact. And so I was like, I got to do ride by her. Like, I don't care if she doesn't like me or not. I want to do right by her.

She's a good person at heart. She just may not like me for whatever reason. And so we had this whole text chain and supported her. She didn't know this. And she ended up filing a complaint against me saying that I violated HIPAA violation. There was a whole big. She went up like through her congressman, which came down through the CEO and CEO was not happy. And was like, what is this?

First of all, why did we not hear about this and where did it go? And so there was an internal investigation when they found the text chain. We gave him over all the stuff that we were doing how I managed it. and he sat me done. He did the right thing. You did the right thing by supporting her. I know you didn't do any hip a violation. She's in a rough spot.

You know, we, I'm thinking, I was like, hey, she's going to be okay. Like, she went through a pretty traumatic experience. Is she going to be all right? And they're like, yeah, she's going to be fine. But she's got it. She's going to stay here. I was like, okay.

And so I always thought, like, it doesn't matter. I could be negative and say, you know what? Forget her. Like, that's not support. I was like, but then what is that. do for me, I think of like, if I look back and reflect on what I did as a leader, was that the right thing to do? No. What I did was the right thing. But if I was like, no, don't rally around. And so I got to a point that I got to do some really, really cool stuff in that squadron. And then

I kind of felt like, man, I have a daughter now. We went through a traumatic experience. I want to see her grow up. Jack is getting older. And I, I want to spend more time with him. And the way that I was going, I was spending so much time away, and there was stress coming from work that was bringing home. And I was like, hmm, you can't do that. I want to make this thing work. I want to be the husband and father that, you know, I can be.

And so I made the choice that I was like, all right, I need to retire. And went into my wife and we talked about it. And we had a plan. We wanted to either move to Seattle or Arkansas. And I didn't get to spend a lot of time. my dad so I wanted to be near him and that was driving me there because I know how important community is the when we were raising a family we had a community there in Virginia beach but I want to be near my family I wanted them to get my dad was getting older I wanted them to get to know my dad

I wanted to get to know my aunts I wanted to get them to know my brothers um to have the opportunity that I if I stayed in they wouldn't have and so I was like you know what I'm going to retire and she was okay with it and we decided to move to Arkansas. And then what was your first move when you got out? You got to have a new job. I mean, basically. So what was that? I went to,

so my, actually, I have a very large family, jaco, if you can't tell. I had a step sister named Stephanie and a stepbrother named Chris. So there's two Chris. I got a brother Chris and a stepbrother named Chris, but Stephanie worked in Tyson Foods in Bentonville. And I was real close with her and talked to her about doing an internship

there to go work there. Because I wanted to pursue hit the surf and and I still am trying to get trivet and back to the warfighter and so that's what I want to do but I had to do something to take care of the family couldn't just get out and you know have hopes and dreams and expect that to make it's mean hopes and dreams don't pay mortgages no they do not and so I still had a couple of events with hit the surf that were coming up but I did the socom carry coalition the warrior transition program and uh we went to Tyson Foods, help them establish it. It was just a terrible decision.

I went into HR. I said, hey, because my mindset was, I'll go into human resources and figure out the organization. Well, I also learned that human resources deals with every single problem. And it's not for me. Like, I'm sorry, but as a seal, like, I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to sit down with kid gloves and be like, okay, what are you going through? Let's watch our peas and cues.

Like, I needed some time to, like, mature. into that role. But I went there and I was just like, no, this ain't good. And I was funny. So just like a team guy, you dress up. You, you come there, presented the way that you want to be seen. Every day came in a full suit, did everything, attention to detail, presented myself, dressed up. And I walk in for orientation and I asked for a map.

The lady looked at him. He was like, a map? I was like, yes, I need to know where all these departments are. I want to know where I'm going. If I have a map, I can do that. And she was just like, I guess I'll try and get you one because it was a compound. Tyson food is a big compounded. They kind of looked at me weird.

And so my sister, Stephanie, she pulls me aside and say, hey, this is about a week of being there. She's like, hey, listen, you're not making any friends here. I'm like, why not? She's like, okay, look around. Everybody's wearing cowboy boots and jeans and you're in a full suit. Do you know who shows up in full suits? Consultants. Do you know what consultants do?

They lay people off. So everybody's going to be looking at you like you're coming in to fire him. And I was like, oh, that makes so much sense. I was like, thank you for helping me out. Thank you for giving me the feedback to correct me. And it wasn't working out, man. I went down to the global security department down there and met some of those guys, awesome dudes,

retired FBI guy, former law enforcement. My people, right? It was down there and thought that, okay, if I'm not happy, I need to be doing something with a gun or security or solving complex problems, risk assessment. I'm good at that. I'll do that. So I went down there, started making friends with them.

And, yeah, they had offered me a pretty good job. I was going to take it. I was going to go live my life there, but I was, I wasn't happy. I wasn't like content. Nothing's going to fill the cup like being a seal, right? You come in, you got some awesome dues. They push you to get better. Everybody, you know, wants to be the best.

And so that mentality makes you better. And coming in that every single day, it fills your cup. and that's not going to be the case when I make this transition. I felt it. I felt it was about two or three weeks and I was like, ooh, this is going to be rough. So I was doing that internship at Tyson.

And then you saw Jimmy May's post? Is that what happened? Yeah. On LinkedIn? Yep, LinkedIn. I was on LinkedIn. I'm trying to figure out like, how do I,

how does Sean Murphy put himself out there not as a seal, but as a person? And so I got on LinkedIn. I saw Jimmy, and I remember Jimmy from his Bud's class 238 and he was in that same class and I run into him a couple of times

I always liked Jimmy because he was a spar and you know and Jimmy's just a likable guy and so and he said that he he wanted to get after the suicide problem he had four friends and four months that had taken their lives by their own hand and he wanted to create you know a community outside the community that you can get into to give you know our big folks

his community purpose and goals and it resonated with me and I was like I'm kind of already doing that I'm like hey man here's what I've been doing. Like, I want to join forces. Like, that's what I want. And it's what I needed to. And so we got together and kind of explained what our vision was.

And I love the fact that, because, you know, as an SEA, your senior list advice, your job is like manning and taking care of getting guys trained, prepped, sent off to WarMixers. They're qualified, certified, all the things that get them prepared to go overseas. and they also can get them back. Well, nowhere in that cycle is it saying, this is how I'm going to prepare you for your next chapter. I'm going to help you choose you to be you. There's no one doing that. There is nothing there that's saying, hey, Sean, don't worry.

You can work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And then the day after retirement, here, you're going to step right into this new platoon over here that's going to get you going in this path. And so Jimmy and I was like, we've got to build this. Let's build the community, the command that takes seals.

We'll screen them for care. and we'll connect them with the elites and the civilian world and coach and mentor them. Try and find a way to get them where they are in the military to help them transition before they get out because it's too late when you're that last day of like I've had a lot of conversations since we've been doing this of guys that, hey, I don't know what I want to do. I was like, how far are you from getting out? Three days. Yep.

And I'm like, oh, brother, it's like, all right, what are you doing? What do you got going on? Like, where are you at? We go through our, we have a whole long list of things. But I told Jim, I was like, hey, this is kind of what I've been doing. He's like, cool, let's do it. And I actually talked to Austin about it. Hey, man, this is what we're doing.

He's like, I love it. Same thing with all of his people. His community is tight too. And so we did a pit stop challenge out there. I was like, hey, let's bring some, I'm all about experience. I was like, let's make a unique experience. for people. And let's bring in the guys that are wanting,

the guys and guys that are wanting to support, like the donors and the organizational leadership that want to learn about these seals. And let's bring these seals together and have a unique experience to break down that communication and trust barrier that may be there because they don't know each other. They don't know the questions asked. They don't know what value they have in stories. And let's do something they've never done before. Let's pit a NASCAR.

And they're like, and Richard Childress is awesome. He's like, hey, whatever you need, man. Like my facility, this, I didn't realize how rich the history was of that facility. It's like, it's open, whatever you need. I'm just like, I want to pet a NASCAR. And they're like, cool, yeah, go for it.

Ray was a big part of that. And so that's kind of what we do is now we break down those barriers and start pairing up guys with mentors to coach them and guide them before they get out. So that now is they go through that last six months, or we try and get them two years out because now we can start helping them line up with certification, schooling, all that stuff to get them where they need to go. And I'm real big on that experience because you can have, and it sounds bad, but a team guy is not going to trust you until he gets to know you. He's not going to put his faith and trust in you if you're not another team guy. It's just the way it is.

You know, we've built that standard that coming in, if you have a guy that, because you hear horror stories, it's like that foreign, you know, I don't know what that is, but I've heard that you're bad. But there's a lot of great people out there. I tell people this all the time. If you have warriors going out doing great things, they're protecting something. Well, there's also warriors back here making the America country great. So they're giving it their all, and we're giving it all that we have.

Let's bring them together, and that's an unforemitable force. That is something that is powerful when you have good coaches, the right mindset, to be able to bring those people together. And that's kind of what we've been forging head with and it's been very successful. Yeah, it's been awesome. So beyond the brotherhood.org and what you guys do is really do

an awesome assessment of people, a screening of people. You do a peer review, which is really part of the secret sauce is reaching to people peers. Let's say we're going to see if we want to bring Echo on board. Not only we talk to

Echo. We talked to Echo's peers. We talked to Echo's superiors and we talk to Echo's subordinates and we get a full assessment of what this guy was like because, look, being a seal doesn't make you the perfect person. It doesn't make you the perfect, you know, you could be a dip shit for lack of a better word. But you can also be a squared away person. And there's also, when you assess someone, you can figure out what type of scenario they're going to fit well into, right? If you can look at someone to go, oh, you know what? This type of industry would be good for this person because they're a go-getter. They have high energy.

Oh, but this other person, more cerebral, be better in this type of industry. And then getting them trained up, spending the time with them, and then doing a really solid turnover to make sure that it's the right fit. I think the program that you and Jimmy have put together is as good as it's going to get for, I mean, it'll get better, I'm saying, but it's as good as exists right now for taking a seal from that life, which is, for lack of a better word, it's institutionalized. It's like, when you're in the teams, you just know one thing. Like people talk to me about, you know, because I ended up getting into a bunch of different industries when I got out. I didn't know

anything about the civilian sector. Didn't know about it, didn't care about it. It wasn't impressed by it. I didn't care if someone was the CEO of the biggest company in the world. I would be like, nice to meet you. You weren't in a platoon? Okay, later. You know what I mean? It was just Like that was and it wasn't disrespectful. It's just like I didn't understand it wasn't even part of my world. And so showing and then I got very lucky because as I was getting ready to retire, a guy that I did know who has friends with through Jiu-Jitsu was like, can you come talk to my executives about leadership?

And I was like, oh, sure. And I went and talked to him. And I gave him the four principles of combat leadership. Cover move simple, prioritize, as a execute decentralized command. But when they started asking me questions, like literally the first question that I got asked,

I was like, oh, well, it's because you're not doing this from a leadership perspective. And I realized that all this stuff that we learned through the years applied to business and life. And so that was very, very lucky that that happened. But now we have, you know, you and beyond the brotherhood. Dot org recognizing, okay, what type of seal do we have here? First of all, are they a good human? If they're a good, because, hey, you can be a good seal and be a bad human. We don't want them.

You can be an okay, see you can be a great human. Okay, we at least have potential. But also, where does this good human, good seal fit into which industry and how can we get them out there to try these different industries? That's another thing I like is Jimmy's taking people and putting them somewhere. Hey, try this, try that. Interacting with people, seeing if there's a fit. There was a little bit of time. And there still is where basically someone might want like a token seal.

Like, oh, yeah, it's like a cool guy. We get to hang around and tell, yeah, this guy was a Navy SEAL. And that lasts for a little while, maybe six months, maybe a year. Yep. But at a certain point, at a civilian company, if you don't add money to the bottom line or add some kind of value to the bottom line, it doesn't necessarily have to be money. It might be safety. It might be something comprehensive that's going to help our efficiency. Ultimately, by the way, both those things will help our bottom line.

But eventually at a company, if you don't, you can't just be a token standing there. Hey, I'm going to stand over here and look cool. That'll work for six months. That'll work for a year. But you don't have a career. So taking people, bringing them into situations where they can add value, that's what, that's what Beyond the Brotherhood.org does. And they're doing an outstanding job of doing it.

Yeah. The other part of that, Jock, is that how we align it. And this is what I really like. We have Jay Harrison, who's a former NHL player, and he turned sports psychologist. He has an assessment that we put every guy through. We have it for every seal that applies to. You take the assessment, you get your initial, like, read feedback because you want to do right by the entire community. Or if you get selected and picked up, Jay will coach you through this assessment.

What this assessment does is it has all these different attributes and characteristics that it aligns with different industries. and I'll just tell my story just to try and paint the picture for people is that when he first gave it to me it was just like any team guy you give him something I was like I don't want to hear that like that is he said you could be a high school football coach you could be a chief learning officer I was like what is that and then another one was like a director of sales like he had all these job titles on and I was like Jay I'm going to have to be honest with your brother I was like this seems like a little

crazy gimmick you know and I challenged him on it and And he was ready. He was like kind of smiling. He's like, he's very well-spoken professional. He's just like, let me explain this to you. He's like, I want you to think about these different jobs. Not that you need to go out and seek these things, but they all have something in common. And like, you would be happy doing these things.

And we broke it down. And really what he made me realize is just like, I go back to trade debt. When I was training and teaching people, he says, you like to see people learn and grow. And I was like, yeah, I do. because I went back to trade it and I loved that was like of all the cool things I've done in my career I go back to that time with you know jp and lois and you know vaughn and all those guys like we were having the time of our lives building curriculum instilling it teaching people the why watching them grow and then like seeing that go out and do great things I was like man that is awesome he was like you know you're actually in a pretty good position with me on the brother because I think that's what you need to be doing and he's he mentioned like you could be a psychologist too and I was like nah No, I couldn't do that, man. It's like, I like where I'm at. I love doing this and seeing, you know, helping people because I've been affected directly

by what happens when you don't. When you do stop, I had a little brief taste of it when I had that surgery and I started going like, okay, I was full speed. Now I'm stopping and thinking about things. It wasn't good. And then I get out. Now I'm sitting in Tyson. And I'm like, because I went through it when I remember I didn't know what a seal was.

like, who is Sean Murphy? What am I going to do? And I was like, oh, Sean Murphy's a seal. But then I had to realize, I'm no longer a seal. Who is Sean Murphy again? Okay, what am I going to do? I didn't have really any guidance. That's kind of what I hear from a lot of people is they, like, I don't know what I want

to do. I'm just probably going to go work for the agency or the FBI or I was just like, well, let's fill an application. Let's get you squared away. And then the guys that we do coach true, I push him to Jay. It's like, hey, man, before we push you forward, I want you to be aligned with an organization that not only, because team guys will. grit through and they'll do a great job.

But if you are happy there, think about the balance that is. If you are happy at work and not only you're going to perform, but you're going to love doing what you're doing and you're going to come home and be happy, that to me is like, man, that's worth it. That's a win all day long, man, all day long. Does that get us up to speed? Does that kind of get us to present day? It does.

I think so. Where can people find you? So you have hittersurf.com. You have tri-vette LLC.com. That's this gadget system that you can rehab your ankles with. Yeah, we're actually with a manufacturer right now. We're starting to learn on how to take it to market because right now we want to, it's a DME and durable medical equipment. And so we're going through the FDA approval process.

We've already got an orthosis, stuff like that. I'm learning a lot from this about the medical world. and it's, we've got some pretty good people excited about it, but we're about to break through on some things because we're advancing it because there's nowhere you could have a portable ankle rehab device. For strengthening, it's for longevity, for post-rehab. And then if you want different programs, like it's something that we're going to advance it to where I can't give away too much. But we've got some ideas that we're going to put into place to where it's, you know,

you think about telehealth and where our medicine's going. And that's where we want to take it to where somebody that can't afford health. health care or something, you know, there's got to be something out there for them. And this is what we're trying to do. And you're the executive director at Beyond the Brotherhood. Yeah. Right? That's your role there.

I only found you on LinkedIn. Is that your only social media, for lack of a better word? I've got, so we, I do hit the surf.com and then I have HDS LLC on Facebook and Instagram. But other than that, yeah, it's LinkedIn or Instagram, Facebook. and I have a X account. What's your ex account? At what? I think it's HTS LLC.

You can always tell someone's a real active user when they don't know what their ad-dose is. I'm sorry. Like I said, I'm learning. It's all good, man. H-T-S-L-C, right? Yeah. That's right.

Awesome. Yeah, so that's people can find you. And I know that you are active and Jimmy's active on LinkedIn as well. That's kind of his most. I don't know if he has any other social. media. I think he's just there, but that's where you can communicate with you guys and Beyond the Brotherhood.org is awesome.

Echo Charles, you got any questions? Yeah, I got a couple questions. Here we go. What position you play in football? Have you heard of Leftout? No, I played. When I was in high school, I was strong safety and tailback. In college, I played tellback.

Oh, right now. Okay. Okay, so here's a serious question. So back in the day, you had Tuesday nights as your special night. Yes, sir. And you had macaroni and cheese. How long did that last? Like you have in Tuesdays?

That was forever etched in stone. Tuesdays was always my day because there was five of us. And so instead of changing it up, I always stick with Tuesday. So right now, today. So in two days it's Tuesday. Today. Does Tuesday still have like a special feeling to you even like right now? No, not Tuesday.

days but it so going through that and I got a this actually ties into beyond the brotherhood and why I love giving back is during that time frame you know we didn't have a lot of food and uh my mom she worked her butt off all the time and so when we had the limited amount of food that we had we we never had any like the name brand name brand stuff yeah one day she said hey guys you know I've I finally got a paycheck if we the church is having a food drive if we clean out our cupboards I'll reward you we're letting you buy one treat that you really liked and so with five boys we're all like donuts you know all of the powder donuts and then the apple pies and all that stuff and so we started having like what we're like we're giddy and just like all that and so we went to the store and

we went to the church and dropped all the food off and then we went to the store and we all got all things we drove back home and uh we looked on the front porch and the food drive was for us and uh my mom broke down crying like she just bowled her eyes out and i'm like grabbing it was like mom look at all that food and she and i now see why you know the what she was going through you know because she wanted to provide and then yeah that's pretty awesome explanation of your mom too of your mom's like they there's someone that's more needy than us and she's cleans out your cupboard sacrifices your damn food And then it turns out it's, man, that's a moving story.

Yeah. Well, we, we, um, yeah, as kids, we didn't know, we were like, mom, we have food for like days. We, we, I was always hungry, cold and tired. And then we were like, we're going to eat like kings. We're going to have like apples. You know, what is an apple? What is it? We don't have this scoop out cheese from this big brown bucket that we got from the government.

Like, know the right, uh, ratio of water to powder to make milk. And so it's funny. Like we went in my family, my family tradition. This is my direct. children. If it's your birthday, you get to pick where we're going. And we did that when I was a kid, too. And I would pick McDonald's because that was kind of like the deal back then. And we didn't, you think about we hardly ever ate out when I was a kid because it's expensive to eat out. And, you know, both my parents were school teachers, not a ton of money. So we didn't eat out a lot.

So then I had the same tradition with my kids and be like, hey, you get to eat out wherever you want. And the best was they would pick their classic malt shop across the street over here. Our friends own it. And they like they kind of for they really take care of us there. They always have, you know. So I would always be triple stoked when they'd pick my kids would pick the malt shop because we were going to get a real cheap meal.

It gets fully taken care of it. And, but it's just funny. You're like for kids, you know, there's there's something to the fact that like when you had five, five of you living in a one bedroom apartment, you don't even know. It's like when you fly economy class, you know, economy class is fine until you go to comedy plus, which economy plus is kind of awesome.

Yep. Until you go to business class. And then you're like, yo, I'm never getting in that backup. And then you go first class. So having that taste of things, you know, it can be rough. But for kids, you don't care. You don't know about any of this stuff. You're just like, mom, there's food.

We're stoked. Or where do you want to go for dinner? McDonald's, bro. Like, yes. I'm going to get a quarter pounded with cheat. Let's go. That system of having like your day where you get to make all the dissing, you know, in your case was birthdays or whatever.

But yours was just because there was five kids, right? Yeah, I think what they did is my mom was like, okay, you're the first born, your Monday, you're second born, your Tuesday, you're third born, your Wednesday, and fourth Thursday and Friday. But you'd think that, like later on, You know how like during the week, right? Every day has a feel. You know, Monday has a feel.

Like Friday has a feel, right? Saturday, Sunday. They all have these different feels. It would seem like Tuesday would have a special feel for you. I wish it did, but, you know, I look at now I do try and do nice things for my kids. We'll make Friday night pizza night. Yeah, yeah. They do pizza night because I know how special that is, like having that special like we just talked about.

Yeah, exactly. But Tuesday didn't, I mean, I do think about it from time to time, but it's not like Tuesday. I'm going to do something special to honor that day of being able to say maybe he's over here trying to forget about it, bro. Maybe he doesn't want to think about that. I'm going to need a minute.

I'll go over here in this corner real quick. There you go. All right. Yeah, man, that was it. That's what I was wondering. Thanks. Any other questions? Echo, Charles.

Good to meet you right on. Any closing thoughts, Murph? No, we've got events coming up for Beyond the Brotherhood. If you're interested in getting involved, check that out. Tell me what happened. at one of those events. So we have one up coming up in November. It's November, right?

Yeah, Virgin Day shootout down in Copendero. We're going to have a silent auction. So if people want to... Houston, Texas. Got it. Copendero shooting, indoor shooting range. Get together with the team. Come on out.

It's really not just competing, but it's also networking. Getting everybody to meet some of the guys that they're actually supporting and then also having the opportunity to network with them, get to know them and humanize everybody, have a good time and raise some money. And then at the end, we're going to have an auction. that we'll talk about some of the other events that we got coming up, like our triple S, which is awesome. Jimmy told me about triple S.

I know it's shooting. What is it? I was like, I know shooting is one of them. What are the other two S's? Shifting and saving. So we did it before. Like a mobility thing?

Yeah. That's shifting. And then survival is what? Trauma, combat trauma? Yeah, we changed it up depending on, you know,

what we want to do this year. We're going to do escape from restraints, like saving yourself. So it's going to kind of cool, put people on a process. pressure and see how they work as a team. It's just, it's a lot of fun. Jimmy, we got nods now. And so I brought some out, had a buddy of mine that let me borrow some.

I brought them out last time and it was awesome. Like, it didn't dawn on me that some of these people probably have never. Never seen nods before. And we, I let them drive a Humvee on nods. And they were just like, the guys that didn't have nods, the guys and gals that didn't have nods, they were like, I can't see anything. How do you know where you're going?

He was like, I can see playing this day. And I was like, isn't it beautiful? And so we're going to do that again and have more nods. It's time for people to experience that. Right on. It's really it's a way for people to come out, get some good, I look at it as like you spend money on going on corporate retreats. And why not bring them out to have them an experience,

learn from some of the leadership and the things that these guys have been through and then also get to tell your story as well to impart some wisdom and knowledge on these guys that are so thirsty for that knowledge to share. They want to drink it up because that's, it's just like anything you have that passion to succeed and if you don't seek that knowledge then you're just kind of stagnant so if they have that opportunity to to give a little bit to some team guys that are looking to be part of that new community that new family to find some new goals to accomplish then come on out that's that's where to do it awesome awesome man well thanks for joining us

man really appreciate it obviously thanks for sharing you got a ton of lessons that everyone can learn from and of course thanks for your service your sacrifice your sacrifice for the teams for the country. And thanks for what you're continuing to do today to help out our brothers make that transition from the teams and move beyond them into the civilian sector, man. Really appreciate what you're doing.

Well, it's an honor. I appreciate you guys for having me. It's been a good time. Right on. Thanks, brother. And with that, Sean Murphy has left the building. And then we were talking about performance. Sure.

Talking about stressors, talking about some protocols that he goes through, very good protocols. Having some reset points mentally, physically even. Get yourself back on track. But physically, guess what? Got to be physically ready. Which means we're lifting. We're running. Sure.

We're sprinting. We're training. Yeah, that's why. And when we're doing all those things, guess what else we're going to need to do? Guess what else? We need to do. Guess what else we need? Fuel.

Of course. The proper fuel. Yes, sir. I recommend. Jaco Fuel. Yes, sir. Hey, check it out. Joccofuel.com.

We got everything that you need. We got protein. I just pounded one, by the way. I just, in that break, which was probably, what, 10 minutes where we were talking, maybe 12,

I had 30 grams of protein. Just like that. Just put down a milk. You had 30 grams of protein. during the podcast. And then enough 30 during the second part of the podcast. So you're at 60 right now. Yes, sir.

60. So there you go. Ready to drink protein, protein powder, joint supplements, like joint warfare, super krill. We got everything that you need. Joccofuel.com, also available at Walmart. Also available at Wawa, vitamin shop, GNC, military commissaries, Afees, Hanifer, dash stores in Maryland, Wakefern, H, shopwright.

Did I say HB already? Is it H? but H, H, H, E.B. I know where you were going with it. Down in Texas. Meyer up in the Midwest, Wegmans out there in the Pennsylvania in eastern regions, Harris Teeter, Lifetime Fitness. Anyways, Shields, small gyms, we're rolling into all kind of CrossFit gyms.

We're rolling into Jitsu gyms like madness. We're going into autos. Did you know that? No. Going into Atos. We're going to Pedro Sauer. Yeah. What kind of more people, you know?

Yeah. If you got a gym, you want to have the Jocko fuel there. so your people can be stronger, faster, smarter, healthier, and just better, you can email JF Sales at joccofield.com. So we got you covered. Also, when you're training jih Tzu, you're going to possibly need a ghee.

A ghee is a uniform that you wear for jih Tutsu. It's a piece of clothing that you wear. There's also no ghee jih Tzu. There you're going to wear a rash card. We can get both these things, 100% American made at origin of U.S. USA.com. Miha did a, I was talking about this, I think, with Keenan and Miha.

The percentage of people that train no ghee, the percentage of people that train ghee. The largest percentage of answers was I trained both. So a lot of people out there that training ghee and no ghee. We got you covered either side. OriginUSA.com. American made. by the way, American made jeans. American made shirts.

American made hoodies. American made boots. Did you get the new boots yet? They're freaking awesome. The moccasin. The mock toe boots, man. They've got like this cork footbed. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I said the whole process. Super comfy, dude. Super good to go. All made 100% in America. So that's what we're doing. Oh, by the way, workout gear.

Oh, by the way, hunt gear. It's hunt season right now, which I'm missing. We know why I'm missing it. We got other priorities at this time, which I know it's hard to have a priority above hunting, but we got one. So we're making that happen. But I see pictures of Cameron Haynes out there slaying.

See pictures of John Dudley out there, slaying, see all kinds of people in that origin USA. By the way, if you hunt with origin USA, will you like put my name, in your picture so I can see what you got. Oh, like tag you in the thing because I want to, I like,

I'm living vicariously by all the people out there. Yeah, yeah, I dig it. So do me that favor. OriginUSA.com. Tag me. That's right.

Tag me. Yeah, well, and now I think there's a bunch of different things you can do, right? Tag, collab, what do you call?

There's like different things. Just tag me or whatever. Yeah, tag is way more convenient. Yeah. I don't know, the other stuff yeah but just so I can see what you got yeah whatever you got this hunting season I want to check it out because I'm not out there with you I'm jealous but I'm not jealous I'm happy for you but I I want to share the joy yeah

I want to go yeah be there in the spirit so there you go also yeah also Jock was a store called Jocko store you know I know crazy right anyway this is where you can represent your discipline equals freedom because discipline does equal freedom by the way we knew that from the beginning I know but if you want represent now. Boom, you can get your stuff there. Got some shirts, some hats, some hoodies. New shirt out. Jiu-Jitsu shirt, by the way. It's the situation. Jujitsu's life. Oh, yeah. It's a good one. It's a good one. It's a good one. It's a good came out good. But yeah, that's where you can get it. Jocco store.com, also on jocco

store.com is what we call the shirt locker subscription scenario. Every month you get a new design that's representative of discipline equals freedom. A little bit different, a little bit outside the box sometimes, most of the time. Sometimes it's right on. Sometimes it's right in the middle. It's true. Back, back bull's eye. I agree. People seem to like it.

It's good. You can check it out. Again, Clay, if you go on the website, you go top right, boom, click on that. It'll take you to the page. You can kind of see some past design. See what it's all about. But yes, it's all on jocco store.com.

I like it. You're also going to need some steak. Because listen, hey, sometimes when you are living five people in a one-bedroom apartment and you're eating government cheese, like our boy, Sean, Murphy was. Hey, that happens, man. Yeah, it's real. But eventually, hopefully you get to a point where you can get some steak. Coloradocraftbeef.com, primalbeef.com, get some of the best steak there is. Not some of it. Get the best steak there is. Also, Colorado Kraft beef has the beef sticks. Yeah. The meat sticks. It's so good to go. Primal beef launching some jerky they sent me.

And Sean Glass is like, oh, you know, he sent a message through my wife like, hey, hey, make sure he doesn't eat the jerky because we're going to do it for something with it or whatever. I ate the jerky. I didn't eat it all yet because it's hit me a lot, but it's freaking tasty. So primalbeef.com, get some jerky. Colorado Craftbeef.com, get some meat sticks.

And both of those, get yourself some steak. That's what we're doing. Also, subscribe to the podcast. Also, jocco underground.com. Check that out. We just recorded one this morning prior to sitting down with Sean Murphy. YouTube channel. We got a YouTube channel.

Echo is putting some really ridiculous AI formatted images on there. Sure. It's not ridiculous, but yeah. It's totally ridiculous. Totally ridiculous. Out of line. Out of line.

Out of line. Okay. All right. Well, they're at least questionable. They're borderline. I think they're over the line. You did literally reject one of them. So I guess you might be right about that.

But most of them, The good thing is you at least know if you have one that's really questionable. Because like the latest one that came out, what was it? It's something. I forget. Not my circus, not my monkeys. Oh, is that what that one is?

That's the most recent one. See, that's a good one. But the image that you have of me on there, which is an AI gemering. Oh, okay, I get it. But it's just like I pictured me looking all monkeyish. Yeah, with two monkeys in the back and it says not my. Yeah.

Okay. Well, subscribe to that. So you can see the dumb AI generated images. Because you're like a, you know, like let's say a chef, he gets a new tool. Sure. And he starts like cutting the meat or cutting the cake in a circle. Or he gets a, wait, when they put frosting on a cake, you know, and sometimes it's fancy. Yeah.

And it comes out of a different type of tube. Yeah. But now they're going crazy with it. That's you with AI pictures, bro. You've lost your freaking mind. No, no, no, no. No. Actually, I don't think you're wrong.

I think you're right. You know, we've got a new tool. We're going to experiment. with that one, you know, see if we can't utilize it in real life, you know? Publicly experimented. Publicly experimented. Like, occasionally a guitarist will get a new effect on their guitar. Yeah.

And then they'll just make an album and it's all this effect that they overused. Hell yeah. That's you right now. Hey, man. Overusing. I thought everyone pretty much loved the one of you dressed up like a clown. Everyone liked that one. That one was pretty sinister looking.

Was that an AI prompt? How does it work? You say, draw jocco dressed up as the Joker and make it look. and make it look super sinister. Or do you, how does it work? It depends on what you're asking. So how do you make the whole thumbnail? No, no.

Just how do you get a picture of Jock? How do you get that picture of that thing? Do you have to input a picture? Yeah. So you get, there's a, it's a, I don't want to waste everybody's time. But basically you have to, but I got to get a few pictures of you, real you. And then I have to, you got to essentially learn how to use this tool,

program tool, which is through another program called, or, thing called Discord and then boom you got you know and then anyway so you input yes you input your pictures and then you'd use a prompt I guess it's called to do

to I don't know say so you can say make Jocko look like the Joker say yeah it'll say make Jocko look like the Joker from Batman you know and be detailed boom it'll spit it out it won't look like you so now I got to do a prompt called swap this or swap that

one of the pictures that I input it as that ID, boom, swap the picture. Now it won't fit because your head is shaped different. So you'm saying? So now you've got to bring it into Photoshop and do a whole bunch of stuff. So it's a process is what I'm saying. But yeah, you talk to the AI like it's a person essentially. Some people are fired up for that process, aren't they?

We're trying to utilize it. Anyways, YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel so you can follow Echoes Follies. Thank you. Also, Origin USA has a cool YouTube channel. Also, Jocco Fuel has a cool YouTube channel. Check all those out. Plus psychological warfare plus flipside canvas.com. Dakota Meyer making cool stuff to hang on the wall.

Books. I've written a bunch of books. Everything from leadership books to novels to field manuals to kids books. A whole series of kids' books called The Way of the Warrior Kid. It's getting made into a movie, by the way. Did you know that? I did know that. Hey, rumor has it.

sir you're in the movie rumor has this true it's yeah it's yeah it's true do you think there'll be at least a percentage of people that are kind of going to see the movie because you're in it yes I think there is a percentage for albeit small there is a percentage of people that yes that is their

motivation um this is what my attempt you know there's just so many people I want to thank you know but my attempt is to bring authenticity and excellence you know you know to a film anyway I can. You just missed quoted. What was it?

Legitimacy. Legitimacy. Excellence and legitimacy. That's what ECHO Charles brings to the scene. That's what we're trying to do over here. Excellence of legitimacy. In any way I can.

The director of the movie is called, is a guy named Mick G. And he's fired up. And he pointed out in a scene, complicated scene, lots of things going on. Lots of people playing their role. Hundreds of people, by the way, are involved in all this stuff.

Oh, yeah. And out of all of all, All that activity that was going on, all the people, people that are some of the best actors and most popular actors in the world, by the way. Yes, sir. But all that, there was one thing that got revealed.

And that MacG pointed out. And that was Echo Charles brought excellence and legitimacy. It was you and Ryan. Yep. And Ryan's a black belt from where? Real BlackBas. Gracie Baja. And you and him were providing excellence and legitimacy

in a cage map. in the background in this one particular scene. I felt it. I felt it too. I think everyone felt it. And we know Mick G. Felt it. Yes, sir.

Excellence and legitimacy. My man. I feel like the whole, this is the beginning or something big for you by homery? So there you go. Way the Warrior Kid, movie coming. Also, Mike in the Dragons. So check those books out if you want. Eschel in front, we have a leadership consultancy.

We solve problems through leadership. One of the things that Sean mentioned was getting hands on and doing things. We have a program at Eshlam Front called the FTX. And everything that Sean and I were talking about trade at and assaults and training things, we kind of simulate that. I mean, it's at a much more sort of simplified level.

But boy, the leadership challenges are the same. And that's what we do. We teach leadership. So that's JP to Nell also. Sean mentioned J.P. to Nell many times today. JP runs that program.

He's the, chief of experiential training. So that's what he's in charge of, but he's also got a great crew and they do a great job. So that's Ashlamfront. Go to Ashlamfront.com. We also do long-term consulting with companies. We have live events. You can discover all about this at Ashlandfront.com. We also have online training because you can absorb information and knowledge through classes, through tests, examinations, role plays. Like there's a bunch of ways we do it. If you're interested in learning the leadership principles that we teach,

go to Extreme Ownership.com. And these are not just leadership because you're in charge of 400 people at a company. This is the kind of leadership that you're enacting with your family, with your friends, with yourself. So check out Extreme Ownership.com if you want to get engaged with that. Also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, do you want to help their families? You want to help Gold Star families.

Check out Mark Lee's mom. You heard us talking about Mark Lee today. And his mom started a charity organization when Mark was killed. It's America's Mighty Warriors.org. It's an unbelievable organization that has helped out so many people and so many of my friends. If you want to involve, you want to donate, go check out America's mighty warriors.org. Also, Heroes and Horses.org. just graduated a class.

Micah Fink up there in the bush, in the mountains, or as you would say, mountains. Sure. Helping our veterans get their soul back. And then finally, you heard a bunch about this today, Jimmy May's organization,

which I'm also involved in, beyond thebrotherhood.org, just doing an outstanding job, and you heard about that today. If you want to check that out or support it, or you want to get involved with it, go to beyond thebrotherhood.

org. Once again, if you want to connect with us, Sean Murphy, you can find him, hitthesurf.com, trivetlc.com, and beyond thebrotherhood.org. Also, he's on LinkedIn at Sean Murphy. For us, Echo is at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocko Willink on the social media stuff. I'm also, you can check out jocco.com.

Just watch out for the algorithm on all these things. Thank you, once again, Sean Murphy, for joining us, for sharing your lessons. and for what you did for the teams and what you're still doing for the teams. It is much appreciated, brother. Also, thanks to all of our military personnel around the world for what you do each and every day to protect our freedom and our way of life.

And thanks to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thanks for what you do each and every day to keep us safe here at home. and everyone else out there there's ups and downs

in life and things aren't always going to go as planned you might get rolled back one two three four times you might get rolled back three times and then sent to another job that's not the one you wanted at all stay on the path keep going and you'll get where you're supposed to be by putting one foot in front of the other and no matter what happens keep getting after it that's all we've got for tonight until next time

zecho and jocco out