Julian Dorey Podcast - #241 - SEAL Team 6 Mercenary taken Hostage by Serbia | Daniel Corbett

Starting point is 00:00:00 Something across my desk was, hey, there's a dude that's living in Belgrade who's a big-time bad guy financer. And I'm like, well, I don't know, like, this isn't running around Yemen, this is Belgrade. And they're like, we just need dirt on him. So I beat the streets, and Serbia's a beautiful country, it's amazing. Trying to see if this guy's into p***tutes, into c***s, into drugs. Like, just really trying to find anything on this guy. This guy's clean as a whistle. I'm like, this sucks. I had recruited a source.

Starting point is 00:00:28 I was at his house. He takes a phone call. One night, leaves. 45 minutes later, the door busts open, and I see him, like, fly across the floor in handcuffs. I'm like, what the? And then I look up, and there's a gun at my forehead. And I just see it, like, right here,

Starting point is 00:00:42 and I can hear the magazine shaking and rattling because the guy is so nervous. Hey guys, if you're not following me on Spotify, please take a second to hit that button and leave a five-star review. It is a huge, huge help to the show. And you can also follow me on Instagram and on X by using the links in my description. Thank you. Dan Corbett, thank you for being here sir thanks for having me i've been looking forward to this one since your buddy taylor brought you up on our podcast he said you gotta talk to this guy real savage your taylor voice is very good that's a good taylor how do you how do you know him were

Starting point is 00:01:17 you on a team with him at some point no he was one of my students when I was training kids. No kidding. Yeah. And that was, what, maybe like 2009, 2010, something like that? 10, 11, 9, something like that. Out of Coronado? Yep. How long did you do that for? I was training for about a year and a half, maybe two years. Were you doing that with Eddie Gallagher too?

Starting point is 00:01:46 No, I think we either missed each other or were in different departments got it yeah so when you go into a training platform or pipeline you're pretty much doing one one thing like i was specializing in room clearing room clearing yeah so when the kids would go through that they would get me and another group my group of instructors to teach that and then when they would go to the next phase there's a whole set of instructors dedicated to the next thing understood yeah there's so many different moving pieces there when i have the navy seals and something gets unlocked every time like wait i never heard that one before with all the training you guys do but it's like i love talking with you guys because you're like the elites of the elites you know this is the you're the guys who are called in to do the crazy shit around the world when stuff's going down you guys and then on the spec ops side as well in the army

Starting point is 00:02:30 but you know for for you was being in the military or even like a navy seal something you thought about when you were growing up a ton or not really i didn't really think about much i was so busy like with sports and school i didn't really know even what navy seals were until i was 16 yeah and when you were 16 were you thinking i want to go on when i'm 18 or yeah well what happened was someone showed me the vhs old school i think nat geo or history channel like documentary on SEAL training. And then I was hooked. I was like, man, I want to do this. And what sports were you into?

Starting point is 00:03:11 I did football, huge, huge football town where I was from and started doing cross country and triathlons as well. That probably serves yourself pretty well for the Navy SEALs, football with cross country and triathlons. Exactly. A little bit of everything. They're like, check, check, check. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:03:28 So did you go in right when you were 18? Yeah. Well, I signed at 17, delayed entry program, DEP. And I did that just to make an insurance policy against myself. I wanted to graduate and go and not get sucked into like oh let's take a year off let's do a cool senior trip to cancun i was like nope i'm gonna promise it sign it graduate and leave accountability yeah for it yeah that's impressive i'm always amazed that the guys who joined like when they were 18 and especially the ones who even signed up before that you guys have

Starting point is 00:04:03 like the presence of mind at 16, 17 to be like, I'm going to be disciplined. I'm going to do this crazy thing. I'm going to get it done. Like I, I could barely function when I was 16 or 17. I mean,

Starting point is 00:04:15 I, I did the delayed entry because I know myself too. I could be like, eh, I can do a year off. I can go do this. Maybe I'll go to junior. I was like,

Starting point is 00:04:23 nope. Boom. And you didn't want to go to college? I didn't like, you know, I've asked, people have asked me this before. They like, Oh, when did you decide what you're going to do after high school and high school? High school was great for me. So I wasn't even thinking about college. I wasn't even, no one in my family, we're not, there's no college graduates. So it wasn't even like a big thing. Um, I wasn't even thinking about college. And

Starting point is 00:04:45 then when I saw that video, I'm like, oh, that's what I'm going to do. That's what you're going to do. Yeah. What did your parents do? My dad was in the army. Okay. My mom was a preschool teacher. Very cool. Yeah. So your dad, I mean, you know, I always wonder about also the... When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer. So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes.

Starting point is 00:05:21 Plus enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart.0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. The patriotic duty, if you will, that goes with it. Obviously, you're going to go do a very hard thing, and it's a really cool job. It's high octane, but it's a really cool job. But at the same time, you're also signing yourself to lay your life down for the country. And again, you serving my country at 16, 17, 18. It was more, I want to do this challenging thing. And from the video I saw, it seemed like a really cool environment and awesome people that are super smart, super athletic, super motivated.

Starting point is 00:06:21 I said, it's perfect. And that was the initial draw. And I think once you start deploying and you start to see the real toll it takes on some families, when guys don't come home, you're like, oh shit. Like that's when it starts to hit you. That's when you kind of grow up a little bit. Like this isn't just a cool job. There's a lot more. Yeah. And I mean, I'm talking to you as a guy who was on multiple different SEAL teams. We already mentioned you ended up becoming a trainer as well. You ended up going in and doing the damn thing for a while and doing it pretty big.

Starting point is 00:06:53 And we'll get to all that today. But when you go into 18, coming fresh out of high school, obviously you're a great athlete. Was Bud's kind of exactly what you expected or was it more of a kick in the ass than you thought but it's weird because there was little information back in the day when i was interested so you kind of had an idea but getting ready for it i would just train to infinity right so i would just run then come home rest run again because i didn't really know where the limit was going to be. Yeah. There's times and stuff that, you know, you have to meet, but you just train because there wasn't enough information out there to be like, okay, this is enough.

Starting point is 00:07:33 I need to do this much. So when I got there, I think most people perceive things always a little bit harder than it actually is going to be. Yes. It was hard, but it wasn't undoable. Obviously I made it through, but the times aren't crazy. You don't have to be a college cross country runner to hit,

Starting point is 00:07:50 hit the run times. You don't need to be in a, you know, Olympic swimmer to hit the swim times are doable. The hardest part about buds was it, it being so long and waking up at 4am or three 30 and being like, damn, I'm doing this for six months.

Starting point is 00:08:05 Oof, it sucks. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, there was the recent news with, I think his name was Kyle Mullen, who was a BUDS trainee who, like, died doing this stuff. And I know, like, you know, you hate to see that happen and stuff, but I also understand if you're training for the highest level of the military to do the craziest stuff, you kind of have to simulate the most intense, potentially even like life-threatening situations, no? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:39 I mean, I don't know the details and I don't think the training necessarily killed that guy from what I have heard but to your point of training that intensely even when you're at the SEAL teams I remember my first contact I get I got in in Iraq in 2005 I thought it was a training I just my I thought it was like oh it's a flash bang back left and I'm like holy shit this is real so it's almost like we trained too intense yeah I was like I was like oh shit like this is really happening fuck so yeah we do train uh the most realistic you know scenarios we can what was the hardest part of it for you the cold man i hate being cold and i went through hell week in january and the pacific ocean is just that's the killer it's right there training's right on the beach yeah go get wet like god man really can i just do like a million push-ups nope go get

Starting point is 00:09:31 wet how long how long would they have you in there to do drills like what was the longest period of time i couldn't even tell you but they they push it they have charts with air temp, water temp, and they go, okay, human body can be in this. Oh, yeah. They max out the charts. They have it right there to go right up to that line. Whoa. And what years are you doing this? I was in 2003.

Starting point is 00:09:59 Okay. So this is an interesting time. This is like shortly after 9-11. We're fully in Afghanistan. We're headed in Afghanistan. We're headed into Iraq at this point. So like you got to know while you're doing this, even if you're young, you're like, well, shit's popping off. I'm probably going to be in the action right away if I get through this, no?

Starting point is 00:10:18 Yeah. And there was like a little bit of hate and discontent from the older instructors. They were like, hey, hey guys i've been in the seal teams 20 years i've done east coast i've done west coast i've been chasing conflicts you guys have no idea how lucky you are because you didn't go right to the show and he wasn't wrong yeah it's a it's a strange way for civilians to hear people think but you know you guys want to do that. That's what you're there for. You're like, put me in the action no matter how dangerous it is. That's what I tell people.

Starting point is 00:10:50 It's like imagine being a pro soccer or football player, training like crazy all week and never having a game on Friday night. You want to play. Yeah. Yeah. So the other thing I always ask all the Navy SEALs when they're in here is what they think the number one trade is someone needs to get through buds. Because you hear all the stories about the guys who show up and it's like, oh, that guy is definitely going to make it. And then they're the first one to drop out.

Starting point is 00:11:22 And then the guys who show up that you're like, well, he's fucked. And then that's the savage that goes all the way through and it's funny because every time i've asked this question i get a different answer so i'm curious like as someone who was also a trainer and had to watch this from the other side eventually as well what what do you think it is that that kind of separates the the seal from the one who rings the bell. It's, it's all mental. And the guys I've seen do the best aren't guys who've done endurance sports where you're doing those long runs or those, whatever,

Starting point is 00:11:54 whatever endurance sports you need to go into that weird space in your mind to just block out the pain. If you can put yourself in those scenarios before showing up to Bud's, so it's not a new scary place to go, because you're going to have to go there. You can only do so many pushups, pull, I don't care who you are, Wednesday night of Hell Week, you're done. And now it's all just in your head.

Starting point is 00:12:16 So it's the people who've exposed themselves to that type of mental hardship and pushed through and are comfortable being in that spot so that when they get there and buds, they go, oh yeah, this is like when I did that marathon. This is like when I did this. Yeah. People who can suffer and be okay suffering. I have to tell you about this game-changing product I use before a night out with drinks. It's called Z-Biotics Pre-Alcohol. Pre-Alcohol is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after

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Starting point is 00:14:06 I'm translating here. So correct me if I'm wrong, but people who have like simulated the pain essentially. Yeah Yeah, I mean it's it's hard to say how you'll react when Like, you know how the human mind works You're just like oh I could just stop right now and rest for a second But you're in a situation where the one time you do that in this long course you're doing with with buds and training you're out you're like you can't you can't it's not like you can have an off day you can't have an off minute doing this that's why i have so much respect for the guys who have made it through

Starting point is 00:14:41 but when you came out on the other side first of all like the guys who made it in your class with you are were those guys you ended up some of them going into actual teams with and maintain friendships with today or did you guys kind of all go to separate teams we were such a small class that we all went separate ways okay kind of backfielding teams yeah now how did i'm trying to think with the timeline here. I know at some point it changed. It used to be like the even teams were East Coast and odd teams were West Coast or something, and each team was a specific geography in the world.

Starting point is 00:15:16 Was it still that way when you were coming out? So you're correct on the odds and evens, right? Even numbers, East Coast, odd West Coast. So before I came in, each of the teams had little specialties. They were Arctic or jungle or whatever. Right, right. But then Iraq popped off, and the tempo for the desert teams was just too much. They didn't stay there forever, right?

Starting point is 00:15:42 Stay there for 10 years. So they said, okay, scratch all the specialty stuff. Let's get everyone over there and rotate out. Yeah. Okay. So was it a situation where you had a choice to like pref what teams you wanted to be on or was that? So you can do a wish list, right? But the needs of the Navy will trump that.

Starting point is 00:16:03 Right. So I was like, oh, I want to stay on the west coast still team five and at that time five had like a really cool kind of rock star mentality vibe that you know would pick up on i'm like i want to go seal team five and then you'd have to go in order down okay seal team three seal team one and i got lucky i got got to go where i wanted why was five why were they the rock stars i don't know they just had that vibe they were just like you know they're they're cool hanging out on the beach running i was like man that's cool they're playing volleyball and they were always joking and stuff when we'd run by something that's cool you want to be a part of that yeah so you start off on five you come out now what's what was like your specialty while you were a trainee coming through? Like what was the main thing that you were bringing to the table?

Starting point is 00:16:47 Fucking listen. Just listen and learn. When you're brand new, it's listen, learn, take the trash out. Fucking be the first one there, be the last one to leave. Learn about every department you can. And then you'll get put into stuff. Then I went to breacher school and became a breacher. But when you first get there, you're just taking it all in.

Starting point is 00:17:08 Because you're not really done. Like, oh, I got through BUDS. I got through SQT. It's like, well, now I have to learn how to function in this team. Right. Yeah. Right. I think someone else, I think Ephraim was telling me, like, you can get kicked out at any time if you're not assimilating at all.

Starting point is 00:17:22 Yeah, so selection's never over. Right. Yeah, you've got to show up every day for sure and you're showing up onto a team where there's guys sometimes who have been there for like 15 years yeah right yeah and then you have some guys who have been there for two or three but it's like a mix yeah and you're not allowed to say how big the team was right yeah i mean not huge okay yeah very specialized yeah so you come out it's still 03 at this point when when oh i got when you finish buds no i think i checked in 04 okay so iraq has been going for like a year oh yeah roughly at this popping are you going into action right away? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:06 Now, how'd that go down? Summer of 05, we deployed to Iraq. And for the first three months, we had to do a personal security detail for one of the local nationals. Nothing too spicy during that time. And in the last three months, we did just direct action assaults and what's that comprised of rolling up on a dude's house at night reaching the door either grabbing them or if there's resistance and you gotta take shots take shots and gathering any intel bring it back and seeing if you can farm that intel into another target and we just did that for three months are you doing any of that in conjunction with other parts of the military

Starting point is 00:18:47 or is that strictly SEAL Team 5 going in for? So I'm sure other parts of the military were involved, but like being a, I was, that was my first deployment. You know, I was just making sure I had a round in the chamber. So that bigger picture stuff, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't even important to me because I didn't have the bandwidth for that. I was like, okay, make sure my night vision has a new battery. I was just like, be a good new guy.

Starting point is 00:19:13 That's it. And all that stuff will come later on. That's more leadership stuff. What's it like when you get off the plane and you're in Iraq in the middle of a war zone? It was pretty wild because we were getting ready to land. I remember the first, since first, thanks for the question, first time I even thought of this. Guys start unzipping their bags, putting on their body armor

Starting point is 00:19:35 as we're coming in the airport. I'm like, no shit. Like, it's hard to, even though you've been told it's real, you've been training that it's real, until you're there, you're like, oh, it's real. you you know you land and you're like oh the airport just got bombed in the south end or whatever and you're like holy shit like fuck okay we're here yeah it was it was very surreal where did you land i think we landed right in baghdad in baghdad yeah what's that yeah yeah yeah so that was there was a whole thing i i'm forgetting

Starting point is 00:20:06 the details but like chris cathers had talked about that like that was like a major operation right at the beginning where they like took the airport or something so when you're landing it's like part of a green zone if you will yeah okay so you come in and the first three months aren't crazy the next three months you're doing a lot of these roll-ups how did you guys you know are you working with intel at this time to determine like where you're going i would imagine you're not just picking out random guys so you know back to what i was saying earlier they had to jock or talk and you know tactical operations command or joint operations command and like it's straight out of like an old nasa movie you walk in there's screens everywhere there's people like, you know,

Starting point is 00:20:45 making target packages and stuff. And, you know, I wasn't invited nor wanted to be anywhere near that as my first deployment. Let the head shed deal with that. Okay. Yeah. And what, like,

Starting point is 00:21:00 that's kind of a whole new world as far as you're not exposed to any of that when you're out at core or not. No, I'm just trying to make sure I clear my quarter when I enter the room. I'm not worried about target packages at this time. No. Yeah. I mean I love hearing about some of the backstories with like how CIA or DIA had to work with the SEALs or special forces to find targets because you're bringing together such wildly different personalities

Starting point is 00:21:27 you kind of have your like ivy league you know computer types and then you have like a where's my fucking hex bar let's get some dead lifting types yeah and it's funny because you'll see them try to like go out of their lane and this you know know, the, the tech nerd guy was like, Oh, you guys should do it like this. You know what I mean? Like stop. And then, you know, one of, one of us will be like, Oh, you should, you should have, you know, 10 drones do this, this, or like, shut up, bro. We'd like stop. So like, it's funny to see when everyone's like, Oh, I'm going to try to suggest this to them. And it's like, bro, you have no idea what you're talking about, but it happens both ways.

Starting point is 00:22:02 So it's funny. Yeah. Stay in your lane. Yeah, just do your job. I'll do my job. It will be good. How was the drone technology at that time in like 05? I think it was minimal. Right? I think it was super minimal. Everything I've always heard was like that kind of came in hard at the end of Bush's presidency.

Starting point is 00:22:18 Yeah. Like 07, 08, right? Yeah. So I guess at the time it is – well, this is 05. So you're – is this like kind of on the hunt for Al Zikawi? Were you involved in that at all? That was – I think that was going on, but we never got tasked for that. So what really was the mission at the time?

Starting point is 00:22:43 And the reason I ask that is just because, obviously, Iraq started successfully. Like, hey, wow, we rolled in. We did it. And then suddenly, insurgency goes crazy. Power vacuum. Right. Yeah. So what's, like, 05, what's the vibe, if you will?

Starting point is 00:22:59 Man, 05 was just fucking fighting in the streets, man. It was crazy. Yeah, we're going after the just generic bad guys, just bad dudes. And that was it. It was popping off at the gate at night during the day. And yeah, I couldn't tell you exactly who we were targeting because I was just like, here's a picture of the guy.

Starting point is 00:23:22 Put it on my little play sheet. All right, let's go. I mean, I was what, was what 20 21 and just go that's wild you like see him yep take him yeah i mean that's it but you're also doing this like it's got to be difficult when these guys are like hiding behind families and stuff and innocence because like you're going into some places it's like there's kids there, but you got a really bad guy in there. You got to take it down. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:49 So two things. One, I'm coming home. That's all stop. Two, fucking shoot tight. You know? Shoot hard groups and it shouldn't be a problem. And if something does happen, that's on him for behind his kids i don't

Starting point is 00:24:06 know yeah no yeah it's it's a shitty reality but it's like war is hell you're in the middle you're in the middle of a war zone shit's going down and you know you were them to a degree if you're gonna fight monsters you need to be just a slightly bigger monster right you don't want to go too big of a monster and then you know it's harder to come back from but me versus you it's gonna be me i'm gonna win that's it did you have that mentality at the time like that exactly 100 percent was that something that had kind of been ingrained in you from the trainers or the people who kind of prepared you for that or was that more intuition yourself i think it's just intuition playing middle linebacker, just trying

Starting point is 00:24:48 to crush dudes. I don't know. I think, I think that could have something to do with it. Yeah. Did you have situations during this first run here, I guess like that second three months where you had some really tight calls or difficult decisions? No, I got pretty lucky on that on that uh deployment everything is pretty cut and dry yeah what when when you're going in to roll up like you're a breacher so that's one of your specialties with this but you know i would imagine you're rolling up on all different types of places it's not just always like a house in the city you know it might be a different layout if you will like how do you plan a lot of this ahead of

Starting point is 00:25:26 time so we if we can and we get intel we can kind of see what it looks like but it's it's all bird's eye view and you're like okay and sometimes they'll have a source and they'll do a drive-by and get pictures but pictures are good but it's always different when you get there but most of our hits were in the city apartment complexes and training for an exact layout. That's not how we operate. We train tactics so that you can go to any layout and do the tactic and execute because you can't train for every single layout. It's impossible. You'd be training forever, right? So you have your standard operating procedures and then execute on the target. You're good.

Starting point is 00:26:06 I mean, one time we had a target in the middle of a field, a house. We got there. There was 150 houses because the satellite imagery was super old. So we ended up breaching like 26 houses until we found the right one. The right one. Yeah. 26 houses. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:24 How did they not catch after like four? Like, Oh, they're here. Right. I mean, I had some hearing loss from that night, but yeah, it was wild. Oh my God. Yeah. Cause you're right up. What are you wearing when you breach? Like, do you put in like some plugs or something? No. Um, so, so yeah, so you can wear like, you know, this is before like the really good noise canceling Peltors that you would wear over your ears. But still, even with those, when you get shot at, it's hard to tell exactly what direction. So I would have one ear for comms and one ear open. And some of these courtyards, the way a lot of houses were set up in Iraq, you'd have the house and then like a really thick mud wall courtyard a lot of those times a lot of

Starting point is 00:27:05 that time a lot of those times the the distance from the door where the breach is going to happen to the courtyard wall was inside the minimum safe distance of the charge so as a breacher you're putting it on and you're like getting as far back as you can like sucking up against the wall but you're still like three to six feet inside of where you're supposed to be and you're just like boom and you send it you ever get knocked out from that sometimes i i didn't get knocked out but we did a breach and it would like the waves traveled down a stairwell hit me in the face and i had a bloody nose and i'm like dude i get shot but it was the way the explosive uh wave went boom ricocheted and hit me right in the face and I had a bloody nose and I'm like, dude, I get shot. But it was the way the explosive wave went boom,

Starting point is 00:27:46 ricocheted and hit me right in the face. I was like, it was wild. It's intense. Yeah. But it's gotta be heavy, heavy adrenaline. I mean, you gotta be like, that's what you're there. I mean, kinda, it's more, it's more, um, it's kind of calming. And I tell people this, if, if someone you love is going to get open heart surgery, would you want the surgeon to come in? Like, let's go. Let's fucking go.

Starting point is 00:28:11 You'd be like, hold up, buddy. Or would you want him to come in? Cool. Hey, I got this. I'm, I'm, I'm a thought of cool. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Done. I'd want that guy.

Starting point is 00:28:22 Yeah. I had a doctor one time when I was going to get surgery. He didn't walk in like, let's fucking go. But he walked in with just enough energy and confidence that I felt like it was more of the calmness. It just wasn't like, he wasn't like, Hey, how are you? He was like, all right, let's do this. That's cool. That's a sure. Okay. That's cool. All right. All right. You got it. So it's like that. It's like, yeah, we're good. Let's go that it's like yeah we're good let's go let's yeah you got this it's not right because you want to make your shots count and you want to be calm and you want to make the right decisions yeah all right during this time period though like because you're working with all these guys who had been on the

Starting point is 00:28:56 teams obviously like within team five for a long time in many cases is there a point where where you kind of feel like, I think I've earned their respect. Like I've been here, I'm executing, and they're like, okay, this guy can stay. I think, I mean, we train for six months before we even deploy as a team. And I think you earn their respect during that time, and on deployment you guys are like living together right because when you're training yeah you do training trips and you go home and blah blah but you really don't really know somebody until you live with them and you're living with people for six months two to a room or three to room four to a room or maybe

Starting point is 00:29:43 you have your own little room but like like communal space, everything, kitchen, living room, like whatever, that's when you really earn the respect. It's like you can operate as a teammate both on and off the battlefield, living and working. So you gain a little bit while you're getting through workup, your six months before you deploy, but it's overseas, yeah, is when you're like, okay, you're good to go. Is that where you kind of start to develop lifelong bonds, if you will?

Starting point is 00:30:13 Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And you didn't have, as you said, you didn't have any guys from your class with you. So you're meeting all new guys, and you're kind of like the rookie out there. I mean, there was a couple other new guys that were a class before me so i mean we're like hey we're the two new guys let's make sure the trash is picked up and right yeah so at the end of the well six months that deployment is that right so at the end of six is do they send you back to coronado and just say like you're required to chill here for a while

Starting point is 00:30:47 or at this time are they possibly giving you the choice of like hey do you want to stay for a second deployment or something like that so what's unique about the seal teams is that we do cyclical training so you get back from deployment you have some time off you go to schools individual schools like i want to go to sniper i want to do this okay you come back from that and then you start the cycle over again six months working together doing diving room clearing blah blah what each of the phases of training and then once that's over you deploy again but unless a guy's got like 10 deployments he's gonna have a newborn no one's asking to leave.

Starting point is 00:31:26 People get right. It's like pulling teeth. Like, Hey, we need guys to leave the platoon and go to a training command. They're like, fuck that. You know, but some guys are like, Hey, I've got a million deployments. You know, my, my wife and kids are ready to leave me. I got like, okay. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:31:41 Yeah. I get it. But like being a young single dude, I'm like, leave me over here. Let's go. And you're what, like 20 at this time? 20, 21, yeah. Yeah, so you're young. Yeah, I don't give a shit.

Starting point is 00:31:51 Let's go, yeah. But when you do go back, what specialty did you pick up the first time? To a breacher and then... That was it, man, just breacher. And I became a sniper much later on in my career. So when you came back, you didn't do one of those schools no i had to do all the the non-fun schools like static line jump master dive supervisor that's like static line jump master yeah it's just

Starting point is 00:32:16 if when guys are getting ready to do a static line jump which we don't even do anymore you have to go to the course to do an inspection on them before they go out the plane. And those are like the mandatory new guy schools. I kind of skipped out on. So I had to go backfill all those kind of administrative, not very sexy schools. The paint drying classes. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:32:37 Yeah. Okay. So you do that. You do a workup. Now you ended up, as we said on, on other SEAL teams, are you still on SEAL five,

Starting point is 00:32:45 SEAL team five at this point? I'm still on buddy goes hey i want to i want to screen for seal team six and i'm like i haven't really heard about it and the things i had heard about it which is obvious to me now were from disgruntled members that aren't at seal team six they had screened and got rejected so anytime i heard that come up, I was like, oh, it's not cool. And my buddy, best friend, he's like, I'm going to do it. I'm like, fine, I'll do it with you. So we worked out, and we screened, and we both got picked up. And that was going to be after we got back from our next deployment

Starting point is 00:33:24 with SEAL Team 5 again. What makes SEAL Team 6? Everyone out there knows that team more than any other, partially because of the Bin Laden raid, but what makes them this whole different thing? The selection process and the funding. The funding? Yeah. can you explain that so funding equals training opportunities and training opportunities equal skill sets yeah right so you have to be

Starting point is 00:33:56 selected to even try out and the the pace of that course is so fast if you make a monday mistake on mond, that's fine. But if you make a Monday mistake on Tuesday, you're gone. Like they don't slow the train for anybody. So you have people who can just process information so fast and learn so quick and not just regurgitate it and forget it. Like learn it, know it, and done. And then the funding and training and the tempo

Starting point is 00:34:28 of deployments to actual combat is much higher so you have a bunch more experience the funding thing's a new one for me though because i i guess like in my civilian ass brain i always just figured all right you got all these seal teams they they got what they need but seal team six like gets a lot more earmarked from the government you're saying yeah when did that start it's just always been that way yeah i mean they're different classifications so still team six is a tier one command under jsoc joint special operations command so they have different pots of money they can pull from. Oh, so it's a completely different – okay. Because I was going to say, like, in my head, it's like – I'll just make up a team.

Starting point is 00:35:21 If I'm SEAL Team 3 and I've been assigned to do crazy mission X or whatever that needs to get done, whatever it may be, my thought has always been what they need, they get. But you're saying it's not necessarily that way because certain teams are going to have more access to that. I don't think anyone goes wanting, but I will say you'll have sexier gear at SEAL Team 6. You'll get better platforms to train on at SEAL Team 6. So you and another buddy screened and both got accepted, you were saying? This is like 07 now? 06, 07?

Starting point is 00:35:51 So we got accepted, deployed to the Philippines, came back, and then went right into the selection course. Okay, so you deployed to the Philippines, still a member of Team 5. Correct. Oh, okay. Yeah. All right. What were you doing there? Doing some weird intel stuff.

Starting point is 00:36:10 There's some bad guys down on the southern island chain, down the Holo between Philippines and Indonesia. There's a couple groups. There's MNLF, Miro National Liberation Front, Abu Sayyaf Group, and MILF, and terrorists, bad guys. And we would just train with the Filipino SEALs, which,

Starting point is 00:36:34 in Marines, which is pretty, some interesting times. You know, we had a little gym outside, and we'd be working out, you know, jungle, we have our shirts off, and they'd all just be posting up, watching like this. And I was like what okay it was why it was wild man i was all right man are they any good yeah i mean it's crazy they're like hey go teach them jungle warfare i'm like these guys live here what am i gonna teach them okay sure like stupid now so are are you doing any missions at that time to take down some of those terror cells or whatever when you were there? We were training the local nationals as well as trying to gather intel to share with other entities.

Starting point is 00:37:31 So there's okay so so you do it's a similar setup in that yes you're working with with the local guys include the local military but you have your intel people like you were talking about your nasa station and in iraq you have a similar type setup here with them in the Philippines. Correct. And the – I'm trying to think and keep it straight. But like 06, 07, this kind of area is the main I guess like top line target that these cells are operating off of still al-Qaeda at this point. Is that more? They're the – one of the three aforementioned.

Starting point is 00:38:05 Abu Sayyaf, MILF, MLF. Same concept. So they're not with it. They're not like off branches at all. I'm sure they have the same flags. They're like, oh, we're brothers. Bad guys together. Yeah, so I guess one and the same.

Starting point is 00:38:19 Okay. And that was like six months being there? Yep. So you come back. Now you go into selection for SEAL Team 6. Correct. What's this like? It was wild.

Starting point is 00:38:30 It's like super intense. You go into a room to do room clearing, and there's like four instructors in the rafters watching two of you, and there's like three instructors on the ground watching you like this far from your face. Like really not to help you went too far. You did the, excuse me, you did this, you did that. And I was like, damn, like straight up,

Starting point is 00:38:55 like no room for error. And it was like that for six months with every block of training. How many guys were looking to come in? I can't really say, i can't say by the end of it and these are all like rock star dudes yeah that even showed up we had half at the end yeah so they just went back to other teams yeah they went back they probably went back to their the seal team they came from yeah whoa that's intense yeah so you finish that now you show up to the actual

Starting point is 00:39:26 team correct and you're loading up to go no yeah yeah is this fallujah or no my first one was afghanistan so you went to afghanistan yeah in 07 um i think 08 okay oh yeah now what's going on in afghanistan at the time like what was that like like legit bad guys like legit fighters and i tell people you know in iraq we would breach the door and the guys would throw the guns out the window or over the ball and they'd be like crying and screaming you're like you fucking turd in afghanistan you can call in ac-130 gunships and they'll keep running at you i'm like oh these dudes are fucking down like jihad is real here yeah so it was it was uh it was eye-opening to see those two different theaters and the actors you're fighting against. Yeah, it's also a whole different,

Starting point is 00:40:28 completely different terrain. Yeah, because I was... You're dealing with mountains. Yeah, we were rolling around urban city streets. And then, boom, you're at 8,000-foot elevation. And you're like, fuck. And you have to walk in and go up another two. It's like, oh, shit,

Starting point is 00:40:42 this is like some mountain warfare shit. Now, did that get scary out there? Like, like, cause it's a totally different type of tempo and, and how you're engaging. The fighters were scarier. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:40:56 But I think rolling around Iraq, like the area that was scary to me. Cause IEDs and you're, you know, you're in Humvees driving down these narrow streets and then you see a car, its lights start flashing. You're like, fuck, if that thing goes, we're done. I was like, man, those narrow streets with a bunch of cars, any one of these can be an IED and we're done.

Starting point is 00:41:15 That's it. And there's nothing you can do about it. You can be the best shot. You can do a million pull-ups. You can do a sub four minute mile. You're dead. So that in your mind, you're like, like that that in your mind you're like fuck that sucks yeah yeah guys if you're still watching this video and you haven't yet hit that subscribe button

Starting point is 00:41:30 please take two seconds and go hit it right now thank you but you're getting there like i talked to all different guys who went through afghanistan intermittently in the years leading up to 2021 and it's like you know if you look back at the beginning of that mission post 9-11 it's one of the most successful military operations in world history you had this whole paramilitary setup that was new at the time they came in they mopped the floor with a lot of that and then obviously politically in dc the whole thing happens where it's like oh we're going to iraq now and it's like you take your eye off the ball you pull all these resources out of afghanistan you stick it into iraq that's a separate issue and it was like almost the way

Starting point is 00:42:18 it's been described to me is it's almost like a slow burn over those next, let's say, 03 on, those next 18 years where because there's not as much resources on the ground, the central part of the mission kind of gets lost. It's more just like blocking and tackling rather than game planning. And you get into this point, I don't know if it's 08, maybe it's 09, 10, 11, but Taliban is kind of like rising from the ashes a little bit and taking more and more itty bitty pieces. Were you seeing that at the time you were there? Yeah. And you know, it's a really difficult situation because

Starting point is 00:42:54 we, you know, roll into a village, hey, we heard your help in Taliban. And they're like, yeah, we are. You're not going to just kill this guy you can't like we're not savvy i'm not going to kill this guy because right and they go what why'd you help him he's going to cut off my head and rape my wife and kill my whole family so like that's the enemy we're against so how do i convince him let that happen and don't so you know what i mean support us instead like they're fucked yeah it was really shitty situation to see them like yeah we'll help you and they're fucked. Yeah. It was really shitty situation to see them like, yeah, we'll help you.

Starting point is 00:43:26 And then, you know, they're helping us, telling us where the IEDs are being buried. And then Taliban comes up and like, you don't fucking tell them shit or everyone's dead. And they go, Roger that. So who are you going to side with?

Starting point is 00:43:35 Cause we're not going to go chop their heads off. Yeah. Do like in, in developing Intel sources though, obviously you're getting people who are then completely risking their lives because 100 you know if that were ever found not even that their family too right their whole family 100 dead how do you convince someone to do that i think a lot of them want to they've probably already been victims of you know violence from taliban they're like fuck this i'm out i'm i don't care if i die i want these guys dead it's crazy that you looked at that

Starting point is 00:44:12 those guys were even more about it though i wouldn't i wouldn't have thought that they're about it about it you have some crazy gunfights out there? No, because, I mean, I was still team six. We roll at night with dudes who shoot super fucking hard. We have all the right gear, and we're sneaky. And our gunfights were a lot of times one way. It's been a couple, but it's usually one direction and then we leave that's it that's it yeah yeah but those like those conventional units or like even marsat guys and all these other guys were like posted up on roofs and just for days and shit and like the fights they get in

Starting point is 00:44:59 i'm like god damn that's fucking crazy yeah i mean the way we operated when i was there and the missions i did would be the equivalent as walk of walking up to a drunk guy at a bar and just knocking him out and then leaving like there wasn't really any big fights yeah that's really we had a couple but yeah when i had ephraim matos in here he was in he was there a few years after you but he had some wild firefights in afghanistan like the tree lines, like shit, like his storytelling on that. I felt like I was there, but it was crazy because it's like, you know, our guys are 100 yards up there. Our other guys are 100 yards down there. They're behind trees.

Starting point is 00:45:39 We can't see them. They got snipers in the town right there. There's an open field over here. It's like, how do you even, you know, I don't have that background at all so it's hard for me but holy shit that's wild yeah we had we had some interesting stuff we had a tree line we had a dude up in the tree and uh you know our canine got hit and you know we smoked those guys but everything we do is at night we have night vision and lasers i mean it's it's a cheat code and we have every asset you can find a guy in the tree at night is a cheat code no with that us having night vision

Starting point is 00:46:10 and lasers and them not that's a cheat code you can see at night it's wild and they can't so like it's unfair which is good i don't want to fight fair when i'm going to war so we hadn't given them our weaponry yet. No, no, this is post. You guys have all of our cool shit now. This is pre that, yeah. They're running around the woods with knife. Where was this?

Starting point is 00:46:35 You see your name stenciled on it? That used to be mine. Oh, man. What did you think in August 2021 when you saw that as a guy who had been there? I couldn't believe it. I was like, no way. Like what's happening? It was equivalent of watching 9-11 on the news.

Starting point is 00:46:59 Yeah. I was like, is this really happening? And then the people hanging on the planes and falling. I was like, holy shit. And is this really happening? The people hanging on the planes and falling. Like, I was like, holy shit. And then those 13 Marines who got blown. I was like, that's horrible. It is still even hard for me to comprehend to this day. So you didn't see that coming?

Starting point is 00:47:19 No. I mean. You hadn't been there in a while, but. Yeah. Yeah. I mean you haven't been there in a while but yeah yeah there was a last year I went back and listened to a really old podcast from like 2014 with Joe Rogan and that CIA guy Mike Baker

Starting point is 00:47:35 and it really put a chill up my spine because there was a point in there where Mike Baker basically for I don't know 5-10 minutes this is 2014 described play by play no shit how it was going to go down down to like almost saying like the saigon type helicopter which you know we've

Starting point is 00:47:53 all seen that image and when i hear that from a guy who obviously was in intel if you ever really leave and you know has been around seeing this stuff and it's like you saw that that long before which means you saw it before that and other people who are in there have seen it before that it's like isn't there a way you could you could plan this better at least if if that's if that's what the fate's gonna be i don't know i don't know if it was planned or he just recognized the patterns right like this happened this happened this happened more than likely this is going to be how we leave due to a pattern i've seen in the past i don't you would think so i don't know i mean it was just really it it felt

Starting point is 00:48:38 like a a full breakdown of the command it was sad it was embarrassing it was devastating yeah now did you have a lot of guys obviously have had contacts there like people who gave them intelligence or even interpreters and stuff who helped them did you still have connections with any of your guys who were there no um i never really was interested nor was even given the opportunity to like bond with any local nationals it was like you're interpreters let's go boom boom boom and like that's it right i was never uh really interested in making friends i was like i'm here to work that's it yeah because there were there were a lot of dudes who literally like as civilians now went over there yeah like trying to get them out well there's different so

Starting point is 00:49:28 oda army army unit their whole thing is like by through and with like they train foreign nationals and they teach them they go out and those guys that's their mission set like on paper like that's what they do so they those guys have really close bonds with guys they've been in gun fights with have each other's back probably eight met met their kid or some shit so those guys are like that's my boy we we didn't do we didn't roll like that it was like you're our interpreter let's go shut up that's it like that's let's go so you didn't have like any see-through to the afghan army that they were trying to build at the time or anything like that we were just going and hitting dudes and coming home yeah no yeah some of the stories

Starting point is 00:50:10 i've heard especially like off camera for some of my guys who were involved with that they're just like this was fucked man they were just it was low talent they're like we were getting because like who wants to go into that and then be found out and then your family killed by the taliban because you're in this army? So they'd get these guys who were just like shitty and they're like, yeah, we're going to build an army and spread democracy. Didn't work out that way. Plus then you had incidents where the good guys they were training with, they'd be out on patrol doing a mission and it'd be like three, two, one, and they would all turn and start shooting at the americans like that's happened too that's crazy wild crazy place i mean they say that's the place where like empires fall yeah it's it's those dudes and that terrain the hardest i've ever

Starting point is 00:50:59 seen yeah oh yeah when you were when you were there I mean this is back in like 2008. But as a part of like any of the – I don't know, like intel briefings and precautions, was anyone ever talking about China given that they were right there on the border and if things fell into their hands as they have now? Like was that a conversation at all at the time no not even a little bit because they they have control of bases now i think right and and mines i think there's like a 88 trillion dollar lithium mine i think they have access to in afghanistan i'm not sure you're welcome yeah yeah here you go like dude we could have mined there. What's up, man? I'll go do security. Let's get it. Yeah. In this time, though, working with SEAL Team 6,

Starting point is 00:51:49 do you feel like, minus the fact you guys have more funding and stuff like that, do you feel like this is another level up? Or did it feel very similar to Team 5? Another level, for sure. Because, and it's not any knock on any of the other SEAL teams, it's just that the SEAL teams will get new guys straight from training because that's just the, you have to.

Starting point is 00:52:15 You have to have some tenure to even show up to SEAL Team 6. So there's no new guys. They've already deployed. They already know what you've got to do to be a good SEAL. So the fact that there's really no new guys at SEAL Team 6, that's the difference. Everyone's already moving up to speed. Where at the regular SEAL teams,

Starting point is 00:52:37 you always have to start over at the basics because you have to bring in those two to five new guys each time. Yeah. And obviously you're in afghanistan for this whole one so you're doing a lot of missions there but you know is it i guess it didn't happen for you but if you're say seal team six and you're deploying to afghanistan on a six month rotation is it possible that during that time, if something goes down somewhere else, you get called in to there and moved? Or do you know you're going to be in Afghanistan?

Starting point is 00:53:09 I don't want to go too much into details. Okay. But there is contingencies for people to do that. All right. Yeah. Because obviously, like, when these teams are going out, it's not like the whole, you have guys who are on a different rotation from that team. Exactly. There you go. Okay. Understood. Yeah. It's not like the whole you have guys who are on a different rotation from that team. Exactly.

Starting point is 00:53:25 There you go. Okay. Understood. Yeah. So you finish Afghanistan. You come back. Same type of situation. Is this when you do sniper school?

Starting point is 00:53:35 No. No? No. What did you do? Went to like race car driving school. There you go. All kinds of wild shit. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:53:42 It was cool. Skydiving a bunch. Skydiving a bunch and then skydive yeah we did we at the team i was at we would and it wasn't fun skydiving it was like wake up at 1am put on all your shit out of the plane at 2am do it four more times i'm like man this this is like selection again this fucking sucks but team's like no we need to know how to jump we want to i'm like god and then you hear about the other teams are like we're going to thailand to do a breaching trip i'm like fuck can we go to thailand like nope you're gonna go skydive a million times like fuck it's can we just do what those guys oh we're gonna go hike kilimanjaro cool we're gonna just be in the desert

Starting point is 00:54:18 skydiving over and over and over again at 2 a.m at 2 a.. How cold is it up there when you first jump? It sucks. It's pretty cold, right? Because I have zero tolerance for cold. I'm the worst. So when we're doing those really, really, really high jumps, it's, I think, and someone can correct me, I think it's minus three degrees every thousand feet you go up. Whoa. So math, cold, right? That's it. Get 30,000 feet in the air. Yeah, that's cold. that's it get 30 000 feet in the air yeah that's cold shit's cold up there yeah and then i always wondered like how that goes down because i've never been skydiving myself

Starting point is 00:54:54 not that the civilian version is anything like that but you know they're bringing you up there you have an objective obviously of where they want you to land right so you got to learn how to maneuver everything like did they just throw you into that the first time you do it or i was gonna say i mean jesus christ figure it out no there's like there's ground school and they you know you have a little board and you got your compass and your gps and you know like all right this is how you get to where you need to go and you're on night vision you got your oxygen mask on and you can't really turn your head because your risers are coming up and you have your all your shit on it's just like and um it's it's it's weird because in the seal team seal team

Starting point is 00:55:36 right room clearing you're with your boys shit boarding you're with your boys like everything's so group oriented yeah as it should be and even though we jump out as close as we can out the plane at night you don't see anybody until like the last 10 minutes of like like being in the sky for 25 minutes you know you're under canopy and you're hoping you're going the right the right direction with your you know the plan you had and you look down your gps and you're following the arrow the arrow but you're like drifting left or right. And then you see a little light on the ground and you're like, Oh, is that the lead jumper? Or is that the Walmart? Like, fuck, I don't know. I don't know what it is. And you just, you know, as you get lower and lower,

Starting point is 00:56:18 you either find out it's the Walmart parking lot or you're on course. And then, uh, you gotta, if, if you are on course and thank goodness I never was too far off course i always found the rest of the guys and under canopy like 5 000 feet and gotten the stack and landed so did any of your guys like ever actually land in the walmart parking lot like hey hello sorry oh man in uh in through selection we had a guy land so far away he had to pull out his satellite antenna and call it in. And if you do that twice, you're gone. You're gone. They had to get on quads and trucks and go find him.

Starting point is 00:56:53 When you're doing all this, do you have any idea where you're going to be going next? Or is that still up in the air? No, because when you're doing these evolutions, because the plane is either chartered or you know we're just there to jump so you land get your shit pack up get in the van go back and do it again yeah and this is like over a six month period something like that for jumping we'll jump for about a month oh it's a month yeah but like every day multiple times a day maybe two weeks. Maybe it's a two-week trip, but it just feels like a month.

Starting point is 00:57:27 It's brutal. I have one buddy who's ex-Special Forces who trains all that stuff now. Like just gets them out there and does it with like a bunch of, I think, the teams and stuff like that. I guess the guys on the other end of it have fun with it tossing you out of the plane. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:57:43 So when did you you where did you go next after this like you've been obviously like your career starts off crazy you're you start young you're 18 you're in there by the time you're 20 21 you go to iraq at the height of shit you go to afghanistan where shit's going down like you're not old you're 24 25 at this point but you feel like a grizzled veteran so where where are they sending you next after this back to afghanistan back to afghanistan again yep what was going down at the time like just getting worse more smashing bad dudes yeah all right i feel like this is one you don't want to expand no no self- no. It's all self-impressing. No, no. Bring it.

Starting point is 00:58:26 It's just hard, right? It's like, oh, damn, that's an actual story. I'm like, I don't know. So we did. I don't know. I just shot some people. Yeah. I mean, it was good.

Starting point is 00:58:35 We had one that was kind of sporty. Sporty. Yeah, it was sporty. Yeah. We had one of our dog handlers got shot, and unfortunately, the canine died. They kind of squirted off target and we were like, fuck, we got to get these guys, but we need to cazevac our boy first. They took off up in the mountains and we had eyes on from one of the platforms in the sky. So we loaded up the helos and went after them and they were way up in this ravine like super high elevation and i tell people you know i was fortunate enough to do a 100 foot

Starting point is 00:59:11 fast rope and they go well the fast ropes only come up to 90 feet exactly there's 10 feet after you just kept going yeah it sucked um so we fast roped in. I hit the ground. I looked down at my rock in the saw, right? The belt fed 5.56 machine gun. I looked down and the box, the ammo box had broken off and just went down like a crevasse. Well, I'm down 200 rounds. Grab my other, load it up. So we fast roped in.

Starting point is 00:59:39 It was sketch. And we start going up the ravine, but like offset because they're in the ravine, four dudes looking down the ravine waiting for us. And it's 3 a.m., 4 a.m. local time. And we take the long route. So we're parallel to where they are now and we come across over the road.

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Starting point is 01:01:19 strafing runs on those guys yeah so i was like shit. And then the sun started to come up. Okay. So I was like, one of my few daytime engagements out there, we come up over the ridge and, you know, we take an evening, like, Oh, they're there, they're there, they're there. Cool. And, uh, I remember the dog handler with me, he was next to me with his dog and um it was kind of like a three two one execute i pop up with my saw and i just lay into these guys and he's trying to get hit shots off but he's his dog's going crazy so he's like wants to engage and work in his dog and then after he's like fuck bro i get to shoot he shot everybody with your fucking machine you get to shoot nobody sorry bro i mean i was really happy i got to because i've carried that thing probably like

Starting point is 01:02:05 10 to 12 other times before and never got to shoot it i said finally right so we got those guys in the valley in the little ravine and um you know i put up some bushes just to make sure i'm looking i see what looks like a log just like a brown log and what had happened was we were up here facing these guys down here one of our reconnaissance guys went around and flanked him from the top of the ravine and he saw something odd like i saw and he pulled the trigger and what happened he shot a dude right in the tank boom and i hear this god awful scream and then i see that brown log turn red and then this guy does like an atomic setup wham and i can see his profile right in my eotech site picture and i'm like

Starting point is 01:02:57 drop him we get back to the bird we get back to the bird and the recce the reconnaissance guy was like bro like what's up he's like dude i shot that guy and he's on a magnifier he's got a scope on his gun and then when he sat up i was gonna take a headshot and i was zoomed in on his face and then all of a sudden you opened up and i just off the side like man that's that's fucking wild he's like dude it was crazy so okay don't be a bad guy yeah yeah gotta gotta be a monster out there you gotta be a monster it's it's crazy though because like the way we get exposed to this stuff is through like video games or like scenes in a movie or whatever but a lot of these firefights that'll happen you know this isn't it's not like

Starting point is 01:03:43 it's two minutes or something like that they're happening over a period of hours this one you just described starts at like 3 a.m and it's happening when the sun's coming up and and it's not like that entire time everyone's shooting no you're maneuvering you're right okay i'm gonna go here and do this yeah right how do you mean like what's going on with the adrenaline during that where you like can kind of maintain that level of like, oh shit, we're in the middle of something when there's also, you know, all these, I guess like almost lull times in the middle of the actual action going down. You know what I mean? You got to have that throttle, man. Throttle up, throttle down.

Starting point is 01:04:20 And in like you're hungry, like fuck these guys. Like our canine shot shot which is just as valuable as a dude and our dude got shot like i'll stay out here for fucking weeks i don't give a shit they're going down yeah had you had at up to this point had you had any of your guys be shot or injured or killed in you know in battle so that was the first that's the first for me yeah what was that like saying that it it's hard because when you're rolling around with like those dudes with night vision and you're like we're the baddest motherfuckers in the world like we got this like we're untouchable and then people be like oh shit like that bullets do go both ways like

Starting point is 01:05:01 it's a wake-up call it's like holy shit yeah yeah yeah i can't imagine what that'd be like because it's someone you're you're tight with you train with every day and then you know there's beast and then suddenly it's like oh we got to get him out of here yeah life's in danger and you you call in like a helicopter for that yep those guys are good no those guys are damn near fucking they're surgeons they're like the periwiscue guys are fucking yeah badass they're like yeah we got you but they're literally you know they're going through like terrain in afghanistan yeah to get that part is crazy yeah they're badass i love those guys yeah so that fight ends because you take the guys out and whatever and and this this is another like six month appointment to afghanistan uh shorter

Starting point is 01:05:43 i guess three three months shorter and you're there the whole time you're not going anywhere And this is another like six-month deployment to Afghanistan? Shorter. Three months. Shorter. And you're there the whole time. Oh, yeah. You're not going anywhere. Oh, yeah. Okay. But you deployed to other places around the world too, right?

Starting point is 01:05:52 Like you talked about the Philippines. But like you were in Iraq and Afghanistan. You went to some other places as well, right? I mean I spent some time off the coast of Africa, yeah. What was going on there? An American got kidnapped off a ship. What was that? I don't remember that.

Starting point is 01:06:09 Captain Phillips. Oh, that was Captain Phillips? Yeah. You made that sound way different. So you were a part of that one? Yeah. What were you guys doing there? So we were on standby, and we got the call.

Starting point is 01:06:27 And the day before I was told I was being trained as a load master and make sure, you know, everybody gets there on time and loads up the planes and get a head count and make sure the weight's good. And when we got the call, all of that went to shit. I mean, the boats were overweight, the planes were overweight. And then I had the manifest okay everyone's here and then like four four guys show up and they're like move i'm like you know i'm a nobody i'm gonna eat five at the time and they're like i'm this i'm the i'm the ceo of seal team six get the out of the way and i'm like yes sir so i'm like so much of this you know piece of paper is it didn't matter yeah you know like the head shit yeah you're like we're not not getting on this plane i'm like roger that

Starting point is 01:07:10 um yeah we flew in jumped in um i wasn't on the ship that took shots i was on a different ship and i didn't realize how big of a deal that mission was. When we got back, it was like, oh, my God. I'm like, what? Like, yeah, it was cool. And we saved him. But like, all right. Apparently, SEAL Team 6 was created.

Starting point is 01:07:38 And like their initial mission statement was to be able to do a hostage rescue at sea. And like it happened happened and we did it and i was like oh that's that's pretty cool yeah it was badass yeah my friend jim diorio was ex special west point special forces but at this time he had been a long time guy at the fbi so he was one of the dudes like called into that i guess like i don't remember if it was like negotiation or you know whatever but when he i love when he talks about because he's like so what happened he's like fucking painted the floor bro what does that mean he's like i mean it means what it means they got taken out yeah that's it quick and dirty work but that was like a whole obviously they made the movie and it

Starting point is 01:08:25 became a famous story but was there like outside of them just taking a hostage was there also like some stuff with that ship that made it a little different too or was it just a straightforward hostage thing apparently when they took it they're like oh we thought this was a french vessel and it's not like no no take backsies, bud. Like, you're fucked. Yeah. And then they eventually moved him to that rescue boat, which is very small and very tight quarters.

Starting point is 01:08:53 And, you know, the boys who took the shot took awesome shots. And, yeah, they made it work. And how long were you guys there for? We stayed longer than we probably should have. Because, you know, we had all of our shit. We're right there. And there's like intel, there's pirate camps. Like, are we going to just turn this into like a go smash pirates now for the next month or so?

Starting point is 01:09:19 Pirate camps? Oh, yeah. Like legit pirate camps up and down the coast. So we were like, all right, let's go and then yeah let's go like nah not approved okay go home so it's just the boat it's just basically it was just that yeah yeah i mean that's got to be like a because you know it's i i imagine you're talking about somalia like it's another country too so you're going into this country exactly geopolitical but like well they're here we're really close yeah it'd be really convenient yeah and i was all about i'm like let's go yeah yeah yeah did you ever did you ever go somewhere like the places you're talking about are all some

Starting point is 01:10:00 level of like crazy shit going down did you go somewhere that you wouldn't have expected to go while you were in the we're going to get to after the teams but while you were in the teams that you're like oh we're doing a mission there no all pretty standard all standard war zone stuff and what where was where was your last rotation before you became a trainer in afghanistan so that was the one in in 09. yeah what made you want to want to stop and become a trainer. In Afghanistan. So that was the one in 09. Yeah. What made you want to stop and become a trainer? There was a little bit of fallout at the command I was at, at SEAL Team 6, and then the war started changing.

Starting point is 01:10:38 Halfway through my time there, we had to bring five indigenous with us troops. So we're like, okay, we can manage that. You five sit in the back, back stay out of the way don't point your ak's at the back of my head and then as that evolved it was more and then it turned into like okay five of you guys can go with x amount of them whoa whoa whoa what are we doing here and then we'd see all these crazy shit like can you guys not wear body armor you look too intimidating can you guys um not work at night because it's very scary for the locals like all this crazy shit i'm like what so i think a lot of guys saw that writing on the wall and when i

Starting point is 01:11:17 had some even the smallest turmoil at my team i was like i'm out of here going back to california because i'm from california let's do it yeah and this is obviously this is before the bin laden raid yep and all that so that none of that was even a thought at this time right i mean well bin laden was always a thought he was a thought but like that mission itself to go to abadabad didn't exist yet 100 yeah okay so some of the guys it to say, though, that the guys who were on that mission are guys you worked with extensively. Oh, yeah. All of them or most of them? I mean, except for the new guys that came when I, before I,

Starting point is 01:11:57 except for the new guys that came after I left, I didn't know them, but, like, the core team, yeah. Did you get some FOMO on that one? No. You know, everyone asks me like, Oh, and,

Starting point is 01:12:06 um, no, I'm actually happy for him. Like good. And when you, when you decide to leave something, leave it. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:12:13 Right. Yeah. I wouldn't think you're not happy for him. I'm just like, you'd be sitting there like, damn, I wish I was on that one with him. I only,

Starting point is 01:12:20 I actually only feel that way when like something bad happens. Like, man, maybe I could have been a difference maker. Maybe so-and-so wouldn't have got hit or whatever. That's the only time I'm actually genuinely happy for dudes going out and doing awesome things. I'm like stoked for him because I know through my timing, I got so lucky. So go, go get some.

Starting point is 01:12:41 Yeah. Yeah. Go get some. Yeah. Yeah, go get it. It's also amazing that they got out of there unscathed considering what happened with the Blackhawk on the way – like that whole thing is unbelievable, like how that went down. Wow. Yeah. And why is there like – I got to be honest. I don't really pay attention to it, so I don't know a ton of details, but there's all these, in the background,

Starting point is 01:13:08 you see these internet arguments about, well, you didn't shoot Bin Laden, or it was actually him. What's the deal there? I have no idea. And here's what I say. Unless one guy flies out by himself and does something, then you can say you did something. You can be like, yeah, I was the first one to shoot him with this.

Starting point is 01:13:30 But to me, like, you're flying on Army helicopters. You have support with the PJs and combat controllers, and there's still Team 6 there. Like, America killed him. Like, we all did as a team. That's how I see it. Now, if guys want to say, well, I was the first guy to put a rile on, now the second, that's for them to argue out. I'm not interested in it.

Starting point is 01:13:51 But I do know that some of them feel very strongly about it. So if they want to argue that point, go ahead. Yeah. You remember where you were when that happened? Mm-hmm. Where were you? I was in Pacific Beach, San Diego, and I got an encrypted weird text from somebody,

Starting point is 01:14:12 and I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, really. And this was at like 10.30 a.m. Mm. So I called up all my boys in San Diego, and I said, hey, leave work. We're going to go to the bar. I took them out.

Starting point is 01:14:26 I'm like, what's going on? I don't think it was announced until like 11.45 that night. It wasn't. So your 10.30 a.m. West time, which is 1.30 a.m. East time, it got announced during Sunday night baseball with the Phillies and I want to say the Mets at maybe like 8.15. Yeah. So that would be 5.15 your time.

Starting point is 01:14:46 So you knew about it like seven hours before. Yeah. Whoa. And they're like, what? They're like, Dirty, are you sure? I'm like, bro, I'm sure. And they're like, really? I'm like, yeah.

Starting point is 01:14:56 And then we were at the bar and they saw it. And they're like, holy fuck. I'm like, I told you. I told you. I told you. That's amazing. It was fun. It was a cool day. Yeah. I was going to say like that. It was fun. It was a cool day.

Starting point is 01:15:05 Yeah, I was going to say, like, that, I think. I was proud, you know. Right? Yeah. Like, you're in it, too. But, like, as a civilian, what was so cool about that day is every, there was no politics. Everyone was like, we fucking got him, bro. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:15:20 And I wonder if today it would be like that. No. and I wonder if today it would be like that no because it's cool to fucking be a shithead and just go the opposite direction of everyone else just so you can feel special and post it on Instagram 100% true man I don't know how we got there I don't think because it's easy

Starting point is 01:15:39 if you wanted to be famous back in the day you had to be on a Wheaties box that's waking up at 4am being the best in the day, you had to be on a Wheaties box. That's waking up at 4 a.m. being the best in the fucking world at a discipline. Now you can just say some wild shit. I don't think half the people even really believe what they're protesting,

Starting point is 01:15:54 but now they're special. Now they're part of a tribe. Now they can have more followers. It's not waking up at 4 a.m. to get yourself on a Wheaties box and get a gold medal. That's right. It's just being controversial.

Starting point is 01:16:04 Boom. Now you're a fucking influencer. and you're incentivized to do that yes you're not incentivized like I saw this weird thing happen politically like in the 2010s where it started on the left side where like if you were on the left and you said one thing that was like against them they kicked you off and they called you right and then eventually the same thing infected to the right side and so now when i look online you know politics is even like so cloudy with all the different wars going on around the world and there's some weird alliances there for sure but you see people who you know let's say they're looking into maybe some conspiracy or something like that they're

Starting point is 01:16:47 incentivized to at the end of looking into it be like see it's a conspiracy the full thing i just proved it they're not incentivized to be like well i researched this and actually there's not much there yeah maybe i'm wrong yeah yeah and and that i don't know when we fully jump the shark on that but as someone who worries a lot about free speech and people who may want to take that away, man, not that it's ever right to do that. I'm like, man, are you giving them some leverage to be like, see, you know what I mean? That, that really concerns me a lot. Yeah. I mean, I think that changed when the extreme left and right was like,

Starting point is 01:17:25 you said this, you're not with us. And you're that me, I'm pro choice. Right. But no one's going to take my guns. But I've also been at Bass Pro Shops buying ammo, watch a guy buy a gun that should not have had a gun.

Starting point is 01:17:38 So you're what we call reasonable. Yeah, exactly. Right. But, but, but to the left, you're like,

Starting point is 01:17:43 Oh, he has a gun. He's bad. And to the right like oh he's pro-choice he's bad so like whatever it's fucking crazy man yeah it's and and like it's gotta be frustrating for someone like you who's seen the real shit seeing people fight over bullshit here it's it's so frustrating it's really saddening to where I, as of right now, I'm doing it. I'm just avoiding it.

Starting point is 01:18:08 I'm just trying to, because I'm trying to work on other things and move forward with my life. But I know the answer isn't ignoring it, but I want to be in a spot to like, okay, really take it in and then ask the real question, is there anything I can actually do about it? Hmm. Well, unfortunately on many things it's like you can't i mean you can go and vote for your local leader like you can do stuff you can run for office i mean got latrell eli crane like a bunch of dudes have gone and said fuck it i'm gonna go do it yeah and they have and get on them yeah but at the same time and this isn't taken away from guys like that or whatever but it's like like my friend Tommy G has this quote.

Starting point is 01:18:48 You ever seen his channel, YouTube channel? I'll show you that after. He's great. He does amazing documentaries. But he's like, I can't boil the ocean, but I can boil my pot. And I'm like, all right. I like that. Yeah, that's like a little life motto of mine because sometimes it's like, you know, I'm just a content creator and I see all these problems.

Starting point is 01:19:07 I see these things happening. But it's like, what am I going to be the fucking Nelson Mandela of the world to like, no, that's not what it is. But if there's like a little whatever it is, a little piece you can do here in some sort of good way that generally affects society in a good way or if like some of your boys who served are like, hey, I can run for office. I feel like I can enact at least a few good things. Good on them. Like that's – I think that's the best we can do. I just hope we get to a point where maybe some of the overall leadership attracts personalities that aren't like they are right now. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:19:44 If you get what I mean. But here's a problem though. To get to that point, you have to be that way. You have to be a politician. Yes. It's the incentive structure again. If we can have all of our politicians,

Starting point is 01:19:57 not actual politicians, that'd be great. Yeah. Term limits though too. That's the biggest thing. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. You got people in fucking Senate. They're dying on the floor they're like no literally

Starting point is 01:20:09 yeah it's fucking well it's it's crazy yeah i mean i understand when people are like oh if you had term limits on everything the government would have way too much turnover or whatever look there's going to be negative with anything you do. But like look at what we got right now and ask yourself, is it working? Is it trending in the right direction? Is it time to maybe try to make some adjustments? Yeah. But they're not incentivized to make those adjustments because the people who vote on the laws are the people who want to stay there forever. Who watches the Watchmen, right?

Starting point is 01:20:39 Yeah. Exactly. It's so tough. There's another story I've told on the podcast a bunch. My friend Andy Bustamante told it. But he was in the CIA, if he ever left. And he was, I guess he was like getting his master's in Florida. And at the end of the class, you know, these are all her constituents too. She's like, is there anything you'd like me to take back to DC to vote on it? And he like looks around and raises his hand.

Starting point is 01:21:09 He goes, yes, I'd like you to take term limits back. And she goes, I'm not going to do that. And he looks around and goes, well, where are your constituents?

Starting point is 01:21:20 Is everyone else with me? They're like, yeah. And she's like, oh, she doesn't have to do it though no i mean that's career suicide for her she's the one person that's not going to yes and it's just like god that makes me so like cynical when i hear shit like that because it's

Starting point is 01:21:35 like and that's what i'm trying to avoid is being cynical like like okay i know it exists i'm not in a place right now to address it and see if I can actually do something. So I'm going to keep focusing on me, what I have going on and keep that on the back burner. Sure. Yeah. But yeah, we, we, we have been talking about the, been lying to Ray before we got on this tangent and everything. And that was like May, 2011. So during this time you're in what, like that two, three years where you're a trainer?

Starting point is 01:22:00 Right at the end of my time here there as a trainer. So like I met that one and a half two year mark so shortly after is when i got out were you so at this point you're thinking about getting out like it's an act of no i went to the recruiter not the recruiter's office the career counselor's office on base and everyone was getting like this big fat like 85 000 re-enlistment and i'm like that's nice and i knew i'm pretty i should be close for re-enlistment and I'm like that's nice and I knew I'm pretty should be close for re-enlistment so I went in there I'm like hey can I get this my up board she's like you're up for me in this bit but not this bonus I

Starting point is 01:22:36 said well why well you took a program that you got early rank and it extended you and you're back at something six and you didn't dissolve it in time so yeah you missed out i'm like there's like instant rage i was like motherfucker but then there was instant clarity because i didn't have to make a decision i knew what the decision was it's time for me to leave yeah and you've been in what like seven eight years at this point 10 11 12 10 11 10 a little over 10 years yeah okay so this is like 2013 then yeah 2012 2013 yeah so you leave the teams but you know again you're like still really young because you got you got in there really young like you got your whole life in front of you here did you did you know what you wanted to do no but i i kept that close hold because i'm like i'm getting out like

Starting point is 01:23:24 that's bullshit i can't believe i missed out on that fucking realist'm like, I'm getting out. That's bullshit. I can't believe I missed out on that fucking re-enlistment. I'm getting out. So when you get out, you have to take a paper around at your command, and you have to sign out of every department. And when I was going to go see the commanding officer, I wore a three-piece suit because I wanted to show them that I had some cool shit going on but I had no plan I had no plan I had no plans

Starting point is 01:23:50 you got a fake Rolex yeah the whole I was like yeah you know blah blah blah he didn't give a fuck he didn't ask about he's a kid here you go get the fuck out damn it so got out went home took off my fucking stupid suit and uh sat around like what the fuck am i gonna do now yeah now was there any thought in your head of like okay well i have weapons of war skills there's got to be a way i can i can put that so initially i was like once i leave the teams i'm leaving leaving it. I'm leaving that world. I've seen too many guys get out and come crawling back because they're like,

Starting point is 01:24:28 oh, I'm going to go to Wall Street. I'm going to go do this. I'm going to go get my MBA at Wharton. I'm going to go to blah, blah, blah. Yeah, fuck that.

Starting point is 01:24:36 Yeah. But they would say it and then you'd see them two years later. It's like, what's up, bro? Like, oh, yeah, I missed the Brotherhood.

Starting point is 01:24:42 Come back in. And I'm like, that's sad. I never want to be that guy. I i'm gonna go and make my own way i was like well i need a job so when from the time i was 18 to when i got out yeah i had a job but i didn't feel like a job and every two weeks no matter if i was home on leave for christmas or in the jungle or wherever every two weeks money would just show up. That's right. That, when that stops happening,

Starting point is 01:25:09 you're like, holy shit, I need to like have a job job. Right. The money just doesn't appear on the 1st and 15th anymore. It's like, it's a wake up call. So I'm like, I heard about this company

Starting point is 01:25:21 doing anti-piracy escorts. Anti-piracy. Yeah. it's like big container ships coming down through the suez canal you jump on those you and a team of three dudes eight hour rotation shoot to kill shoot to kill so i'm like i'm gonna go this is awesome did it for on and off for like six months didn't see a pirate just fucking staring at the ocean fucking bored as hell like this fucking dumbed it was lonely and boring and i was like man this sucks but the money was good and i'm like fuck down this ain't it and then who are you working with on that they're all ex-seals all exes yeah okay initially and then you know in the contracting world there's rebidding

Starting point is 01:26:03 and then now you have like some foreign nationals that are like Thailand seals. Like, so then you're like, fuck. And then the wages get cut because the big company, they're a great company. They're keeping it alive still.

Starting point is 01:26:14 So it's like, it's not what it was. And I'm like, man, this is fucking, this, this is, I am not built for the ocean at all.

Starting point is 01:26:21 And as a Navy seal, it's horrible. Like if I, if I see waves, I get nauseous. If I'm on a boat, I'm throwing up. You're in the wrong business, man. I know, man. I know.

Starting point is 01:26:29 Luckily, I was in Afghanistan and Iraq. But I mean, being on the big ship, it doesn't really move. But like, I don't feel comfortable being in the middle of nowhere on a huge body of water. No thanks. Right? So I was like, all right, this ain't it. And then I swallowed my pride and I became one of those guys that came crawling back. I called the reserve SEAL team and I'm like, Hey, it's me.

Starting point is 01:26:51 How does that work? The reserve SEAL team? So there's two reserve SEAL teams. That's a new idea to me. Yeah. There's two reserve SEAL teams. One on the East coast, one on the West coast. So I called and I was like, Hey, what do you guys think? Can I come? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So did all my physical. so i called i was like hey what do you guys think can i come like yeah yeah so did all my physical and i i was the guy that said i was gonna go make it with my three-piece suit when i checked out and i'm coming back to fucking be an active reserve at the seal team 17 yeah

Starting point is 01:27:15 yeah i i don't understand so i i hear about the reserves usually it's like the national guard stuff like that so what what's the what's the parallel there with with the navy seals like what makes you different on seal 17 as a reserve versus seal team three or something like that so the only difference is when you're not mobilized or activated you're doing your one weekend a month two weeks a year like typical reserve stuff and then when i was there it was like hey you have five years of being able to do that but after that you need to mobilize and do a deployment and do what still team 17's mission was at the time so i'm like okay well i need a job and they're like great we're trying to mobile If you want to mobilize early, we can mobilize you right away. So right when I joined, they mobilized me.

Starting point is 01:28:09 And they're like, okay. Well, before that, actually, I'm like, hey, how can I? It's like, I need money. First and 15th. This is the thing. I need the money part. Money me, please. Right?

Starting point is 01:28:22 I was like, fuck. How do we do this? And they're like, hey, language school. There's a language school on base that doesn't, that gets funding from big Navy and it doesn't come from SEAL Team 17's money. And the language school, they don't want to close. So they need people to use it and they need people to use the budget. So SEAL Team 17's like, we have no money for you.

Starting point is 01:28:42 I'm like, I'll go to do a language. I'm like, hey, what language you guys have? we have russian fine let's do it three months on orders paid in full learning russian one-on-one do you speak russian now i did pretty well a while ago yeah that's impressive only like 90 days and you get pretty damn good at it yeah pretty good but i mean it was 90 days one-on-one eight hours a day yeah that's with like a hardcore like old school soviet chick she just i'd come in and try to do small talk and she'd just be like yeah sit down i'm like fuck she's dumb so fuck yeah it was brutal it was good i learned and then um you know that ran up and i was like okay can i go to school and yeah yeah all right i want to

Starting point is 01:29:23 go to sniper school i never had time oh this is when you did that so i called my buddy guys who knew known forever and they're running a sniper school like yeah dude come on out and still team said i begged them begged me they cut the check to put me in orders to go do that so that was awesome yeah where'd you go for that uh indiana yeah that's that's like pretty standard right yeah i feel like a lot of guys just said indiana yeah that's that's like pretty standard right yeah i feel like a lot of guys just said indiana yeah okay and how was that like eight weeks something like that i forget i mean you do a couple weeks in coronado and then you go out there i think like yeah two months something like that so you have i mean obviously you were well trained with a gun and had carried that around

Starting point is 01:30:02 and and been there done that but sniping is all it's such an art form it's such a whole different kind of thing so i realized if i think i'm great at something i'm probably good yeah at best because i am a really good shot but when i got behind the sniper rifle i realized um it's a different it's a whole different thing and i was very i uh ate some humble pie at sniper school because a lot of the kids that were in sniper school with me were kids I put through training as an instructor oh shit that's right

Starting point is 01:30:32 and they're like oh what's up instructor Corbett I'm like hey what's up guys and they're like man we thought you'd be better I'm like me too fuck it shut up were you in there with Taylor? no this would have been he was in there

Starting point is 01:30:41 I think he was one of the guys maybe I'm remembering that wrong no no we didn't go I don't think we went to sniper school together. But you didn't go together. But I'm pretty sure he went out to Indiana and was in sniper school. Yeah, there's a class every, whatever. Okay, got it.

Starting point is 01:30:52 That would have been funny. Yeah, so I was like, fuck, man, all my students who think I'm a legend, I'm out here missing shots. I'm like, fuck. I got to get better. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, you know, as the distances go up and everything the whole like the science of the curvature of the earth the wind the wind oh my god so they teach you to use all these electrical devices right it's like oh it's this here and this and i'm like dude i've come to the

Starting point is 01:31:17 determination that fucking calling wind is voodoo magic like i'm throw the chicken bones hold three left it's like well the thing's saying four right like just listen to the fucking chicken bones bro because this is black magic because you can do exactly what it says and fuck and miss yeah because the wind could be doing this here and then doing that doing the opposite direction at 300 yard mark and then doing three quarters of that opposite direction at the 800 yards so like you're like two two minus one plus like it's it's it's a headache yeah yeah and that's like you're not dealing with any of that when you're no when you're shooting out afghanistan i mean i never got to be deployed as a sniper but i can't imagine like you have all the time in the world to be like

Starting point is 01:31:57 this is like yeah you kind of got to feel it like i know that's the wind it's gusting right now is it going to gust again by the time the bullet gets there? Like, it's crazy. The guys who are really good at it, it's very impressive to watch them even just go through the whole process. Like, also the, like, the breath work of the actual shot. You know, if you move a millimeter, just like yourself, you'd throw off the whole shit. Like, Danny Hall would demonstrate, like, how to do that. a millimeter just like yourself you'd throw off the whole like i had danny hall demonstrate like how to do that it's like yeah like like every time like a direct motion like that did you develop a

Starting point is 01:32:32 yeah a cadence yeah having the trigger break on your natural respiratory pause at the bottom of your breath right like bang and i think through video games and movies people get it backwards there's like you hold a button and you hold your breath like no no you want to exhale nothing bang that's crazy though because that means you have to be in this like zen calmness to do it right and that's with anything that we talked about earlier it's like going into a house breaching it's not let's fucking go it's like all right that's cool but you're still when you do that though you're still moving right yeah you're moving you you may be calm but there's motion you're all around and you're in the middle of

Starting point is 01:33:14 a commotion yeah if i look at something like what we saw recently with the july 13th trump attempted assassination you're talking about snipers in the middle of a 13,000-person crowd where bullets are flying at a former president. Shit is crazy. And that guy has to be presence of mind zen enough to be like – instead of like, oh, fuck it. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's the difference between a professional and non-professional. Like mad respect for that. Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 01:33:46 That was a good shot, too. Apparently, it was a really good shot because behind the bullet, he had to drop it in. Yeah. That's like, it's a whole different thing. But that's cool you got to eventually do that. Yeah, so I did that, and then we mobilized, and I got to deploy to Korea for six months. Oh, you went to Korea? Learned Korean, ate a bunch of awesome food what's what's the food like in korea meat and kimchi yes i like that

Starting point is 01:34:12 well then i was like hey can we get to more like roughage bro because i can't just eat fucking pounds of meat and i need something to help move things along yeah here's kimchi i'm like i love kimchi but like do we have anything green you're like here's more pork belly okay fine fuck it give me the pork belly how long were you in korea six months and what was it what was the i mean obviously it's not north korea but it's right there like like what was what was the thought process being there it's funny because we were going through the loadout and at the time i was running the ordnance department i'm like hey we're bringing all these training weapons but like

Starting point is 01:34:46 we're Navy SEALs we need to bring our gun guns too no I don't need that North Korea's right there I'm not saying it's gonna happen but like no no we deploy over there we start doing a big joint training exercise that happens every year

Starting point is 01:35:01 and North Korea starts like posturing it's a big posture like oh we're gonna put our missiles here we're gonna do a test i get a call from my uh from one of the guys at the team that we're on deployment with i was at the soccer field playing soccer and they're like hey can you put together a list again like the real stuff that we need i'm like damn it i told you yeah we could have been on plane, but I guess it'll be your next plane. All right. Yeah. That's got to be creepy, though. You got a crazy guy right there. With, like, damn near nothing to lose.

Starting point is 01:35:31 Nothing to lose. And then you have this metropolis that looks like fucking future when you land in South Korea and you get on a bullet train. There's, like, all the neon lights and shit. I'm like, oh, fuck. Yeah. And you have this place where people are starving to death right across the street. It's wild. And he's got some nukes. And he has nukes.

Starting point is 01:35:51 You know, I'm very grateful that that has never popped off, but that one, that's one sometimes at night I think about a little bit, because I'm like, he really doesn't give a fuck. Like, they live in a separate reality there. 100%.

Starting point is 01:36:04 Because you said it was 100 what like because you're doing you said it was joint stuff so you're you're with the koreans and everything the rock are okay republic of korean seals and it's cool because that's the first time i've seen a unit in another country have like as much pride like they got ud like the old udt underwater demolition team statues and like navy seals like really prestigious there even for them so it's cool it's cool like oh you guys have like a culture around it also they're good to work with yeah how but how did they view that because like they obviously they've grown up in it this has been the reality their whole life there's this little

Starting point is 01:36:39 country right on the other side of the border that they fought a war with 60 70 years ago at the time yeah that has all these nukes and they're crazy and they starve their people like what did you have any like intense conversations with them about what that what that is to them no i mean a little bit but they're torn right because they're like you know do they want to unify in korea do they just want to keep it the way it is and just hope that nothing happens we get a little bit a little bit of both yeah and this is before yeah trump trump didn't visit that guy till like 2018 i think yeah so like none of that's happened yet this is when he's like still a rocket man yeah or whatever rocket man yeah but it was it

Starting point is 01:37:16 was interesting that the i don't know if they ever confirmed it officially because it was like president to president, but the implied and widely believed thing that Obama told Trump when Trump was coming in and they had a private conversation about like his number one concern, it was strongly implied that it was North Korea with nukes, which was interesting to me because again like you know it's a smaller country economically not meaningful but they they do sit on this very powerful thing and don't give a fuck and you have an outgoing president who during the times you're talking about right now because that's when obama's in there he was concerned about it enough that he's like yo to the next guy this is the number one thing yeah i want to worry about crazy yeah i mean we can do all the planning we want but if a new clan's like yeah we have we have all of our weapons and machine guns that we brought over but i'm a shadow built burnt into a building right now so it doesn't matter did you guys ever as far as like maybe i don't know hypothetical scenario training goes within the teams did you guys ever plan for a situation where

Starting point is 01:38:35 for example somewhere a nuke goes off and you guys are called in yeah take care of cleanup we do full on full-on cutouts which is where you wear your mop gear you got your gas mask on with the with the ventilator microphone like you got all this shit on fully enclosed gloves and um there's certain sites we train at like if someone's making mustard gas or some of the chem bio nuke stuff or radiation it's called and you know we've done training where you run around with a geiger counter on it's like oh it's in this room and you've got a suit up what's a geiger counter again i'm blanking it's uh because it's the thing that matters measures of radiation so like when you get

Starting point is 01:39:15 close to the news like you're like oh yeah but we've done it in training and it's it's a huge huge ordeal because you have to put on all this shit. You do the training mission. And then our EOD guys, who are super smart on this shit, especially at SEAL Team 6, they set up these stations. And one by one, you walk in. There's charcoal you have to dust on yourself. And you take a step. And it's all marked by chemlights.

Starting point is 01:39:45 They take off your mask, cut you out like it's all marked by chem lights they cut they they cut out they take off your whatever they could take off your mask cut you out it's like this whole long process to be decontaminated and it takes all night because everybody has to be meticulous so we trained for it it sucks because you have all like you're already wearing a bunch of fucking gear throw a gas mask on with a ventilator and all that shit. It's just fogging. It sucks. It sucks. I mean, those are scenarios, and obviously you have to do it.

Starting point is 01:40:14 That does sound like it sucks. But, you know, again, you're also – you went into these places where shit goes down, right? It might not be a nuke or something, but, you know, you you're in South Korea and there's a concern about that while you're there. So like there's a reality you have that like no disrespect to me but I'm not getting that when I'm on Twitter just like hearing about something. You know what I mean? Halfway around the world. Do you ever feel like from your seat and from the things you've seen, like society, people have no idea how fragile and how on edge things are at all times? Or do you feel like there's some sort of order that keeps things balanced and like, yes, we got to worry about these threats, but they're probably not going to happen? Two parts of that.

Starting point is 01:41:01 I don't think about it too much how I view different than what other people view. mean i did initially when you joined the navy and i'm 18 i'm going through the pipeline and i'm filling out a will at 18 filling out what a will oh a will yeah and like didn't realize when i went home visit all my high school friends like they're like what why would you do that like so you're already doing things and being exposed to things that aren't normal at the time, right? So making sure you have your mop level gear and your gas mask loaded up when you go to Korea is just normal. It's just a normal thing.

Starting point is 01:41:38 I think in some aspects, we are like on a razor's edge for something really bad happening. But at the same time, i think there's a lot more to lose on either side whether it be between two countries or two separate parties there's enough mutually assured destruction yes and ties either financial economical that they're both going to lose so much if they take that right one step extra no i had a long really good back and forth with sean ryan when he was on my show about the power grids because he knows so much about that stuff and

Starting point is 01:42:20 you know like you he comes from that background so so he's thinking about stuff I don't even consider. But that has always been in the back of my head that it's like, OK, if country X decided to hit our power grid somewhere here and killed millions of people or something like that, what could we do to them? You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I know, for example, Russia has had this power for a long time. Like they were testing this on Ukraine in like 2014, 2015. Had Andy Greenberg in here episode 99 telling us all about it. Like he wrote a book about it called Sandworm. But like they haven't done that here because not that you should ever think like this,

Starting point is 01:43:02 but it harkens back to the times of like the nuclear panic in the 60s where you literally had people in the US State Department. I don't know. I think this was a very wrong way to look at stuff. But they looked at things like, oh, well, if they did it, we'd lose 60, but they'd lose 240. We win. Yeah. You know, and technically you do, but it's like, holy shit, 300 million people and 60 of your own just died. I don't want you thinking like that.

Starting point is 01:43:25 But there is that mutually assured, to use your term, mutually assured destruction thing that gives, say, these other powers that might not like us that pause. Yeah. It's like if you do this, you have to weigh the repercussions and go, oh, it's not worth it. Let's go pick on a smaller country. Yeah. What about like biologic weapons though and stuff? Did you do things preparing for that? It's all the same stuff.

Starting point is 01:43:49 You wear the same suit. Apparently I talked to some EOD guys and like, dude, there's stuff out there that it doesn't matter what you're wearing. You're fucking done. I'm like, oh, that's good to know. I'll still put it on and I feel brave enough to go do the mission as my skin's melting off. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:44:04 Yeah. Don't tell me that dude there's some things like i'm okay being ignorant to that yeah let me feel safe in my little rubber suit and then you go quickly and then i die yeah fine yeah at least i won't be thinking about it the whole time right so yeah yeah that's the other one that scares me though because that's the shit you really can't even see you know no there's been all these movies and shows i remember like 24 had like sarin gas or whatever you know 20 years ago yeah and now we've seen that deployed in in syria and how bad that is but like you know you could just like

Starting point is 01:44:37 stick someone could stick something in a train station out here and yeah spreads to the whole system gone yeah wow that's scary scary it's almost so scary i just don't even want to accept that it's a thing right just walk around scared all the time were you ever like in some sort of intel briefing where you were just like holy no no everything was pretty cut and dry well well the first deployment in iraq they're like make sure you bring your gas mask on this one i'm like what the fuck does that mean i guess i'll bring my gas mask on this one yeah yeah because they were worried about saddam yeah yeah deploying some stuff yeah danny hall was saying i hope i remember this right when i had him in here he and and ryan t, there were two guys who were in Iraq.

Starting point is 01:45:27 Danny Hall was a sniper in the teams or in spec ops. And then Ryan was a recon Marine. But the whole like WMD thing with Iraq, obviously he didn't have nukes. But they did both say that he did have biologics and they had access to that. So that was real real and that's scary a guy like that having that i mean we've seen what asad has done yeah you know that's the shit you know we don't talk about on fox and cnn i don't fight over that stuff i can't i can't with the media right now i can't do you ever get asked to to go on any of those main channels?

Starting point is 01:46:05 I will say this. When I did the book launch, I have a book. Let's plug it. Let's give it a name. We're going to have the link in description. American Mercenary. Pick it up on Amazon and buy it. It's awesome.

Starting point is 01:46:21 Anything else in the works there? Yeah, I got some other stuff going on. Okay. Talk it to a big studio. Maybe doing an adaptation of the book to screen. So we'll see. Let's go. It's going well, so we'll see. But you were saying, you were talking about in your book something with the media?

Starting point is 01:46:34 Yeah, so the marketing plan to get your book out there, and we can get you on these networks. I said, look, I don't want to even appear on network A or network B. Because if I appear on network B and someone turns on the TV, they're going to go, he's that all the way. If they turn on the TV in one second and they see I'm on network A, they go, he's that all the way. And I'm not any of those all the way. So I said, just keep me away from them. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:47:07 Doing the independent media is good for you. yeah let's go independent style yeah yeah but i mean you you do have to go out there like especially with books that's a hard business i have guys in here all the time yeah push your books like everyone's got a great story but you gotta put yourself out there and and get people to want to learn more to a point right if i say that's not worth it to me i'm not going to do it like oh you're losing on book sales i don't give a shit like i'm not going to sell my soul or put myself in a situation because i might get 50 more book sales or whatever whatever it is i don't care i don't care enough to yeah yeah well we've been kind of putting it off all day but let's's get to the second half of your career, if you will, here.

Starting point is 01:47:46 So just for a timeline in my head, you were with Team 17 in Korea. Was that the last deployment you did? Yeah. And that's like 2014, something like that? 2014, 15, yeah. Okay. So when you come home, is that when you go, I'm out? Or did that take another year or two? I come home. I'm doing the, you know, hustling,

Starting point is 01:48:07 trying to see where pots of money are at SEAL Team 17 to keep going to more schools, right? I'm like, what about this? What about that one? I think I even jump on one of those container ships one more time just to go get some scratch, right? Make some money. And during this time, I get a phone call.

Starting point is 01:48:24 It's like, hey, are you out are you out I go yeah I'm out he's like we're doing some pretty wild stuff like some dynamic cool shit and I said yeah I don't believe he's like meet me for dinner I said okay went back into SEAL team 17 I said hey am I gonna be able to get into this particular school I wanted to go to? And they were going to get funding for it. They were like, oh, yeah, dude, you're a shoo-in. Cool. I put off dinner meeting with the other guy.

Starting point is 01:48:53 And then the next day I came in, they're like, sorry, man. Someone from SEAL Team 18, they filled that billet. And I said, okay. So I called the guy. I said, all all right i'll meet you for dinner let's talk about this cool shit you have going on who is this guy the guy i knew from the steel teams okay yeah so i meet up with him and he's like hey we're doing this this and this it's fucking dynamic it's crazy and i go i don't i'm not buying it i don't believe it he's like okay i want you to meet the prime the prime

Starting point is 01:49:28 the prime the guy who has the contract come to come meet him like tomorrow night up in rancho santa fe super rich area of san diego okay show up hear him out you know a lot of like measuring each other like this is bullshit i'm like where's the money coming from blah blah blah i'm like i can tell i'm asking him too many questions but he's like listen it's all legit it's fucking it's a real deal are you in i said if i'm in how when do we leave he's like next friday i said i'll think about it he's like oh and if you say yes you're gonna have 20 grand wired in your account by the time you get home i was like sign me the fuck up boy let's go and then you know at 1201 at 1201 midnight plus one i get an alert deposit made and i was like well i guess i'm going yeah i'm trying i'm trying

Starting point is 01:50:27 i i could tell there's some stuff you can't really say there for sure so if i delve into some things like that just tell me like what is the so who is this guy all right so this guy is a dear friend of mine um ex-israeli special forces badass dude. And he put together a team to fly into Yemen. And we're working with, buy through him with the Emirati special forces, UAE. As a mercenary. Yes, as a mercenary,

Starting point is 01:50:58 training them to be able to go do special forces type missions. And that's how it started, was us training with them and we tried to do some practice runs that did not go well what do you mean but go out in town let's train for this mission out in town not next to the bad guy's house but near it and the communications were wrong like it just was a fucking train wreck and i eventually got to the point where i said fuck it just let me and like let me roll out i'll do it i'll do it myself i don't give a shit you know i was like fuck it like this is

Starting point is 01:51:31 too easy yeah he's right there let's go get him um it's like no you can't because it has to be with them right okay give me two and just have him stay with the car right like no so we spun up a couple times to go do some stuff and like last minute we get a call hey hold off on that hold off on that like what the fuck and while this is going on in yemen i'm like soup getting super frustrated and i'm coming up with a game plan because the guys we're working with they're not able to operate at the level I'd like to go with. So I said, can we sell them like a six month pipeline? I'll run it.

Starting point is 01:52:13 I'll run these guys. And, uh, so that went up the chain of command and towards, I mean, it was the end, but one night we're all outside. Then we start to hear snaps

Starting point is 01:52:26 snap snap overhead and like our base was like one mile by one mile that was a square mile hesco barriers full of sand and we hear the colombians there's a colombian mercenary contractors on the guard tower just fucking opening up like and then we boom like i think three vehicle born explosives went off like boom and like i was on top of the hesco barrier and i like flopped up boom i was like damn that's close and we can tell the the explosions were getting closer and closer they were they were getting through each checkpoint and the way it was getting the base you know s turns and checkpoint checkpoint so there's like car one boom okay and then car two would get to the second

Starting point is 01:53:09 checkpoint so they're working their way to the base and if they got in there was nowhere to fucking go oh yeah yeah are these hootie yeah okay yeah so the colombians up there they have like 40 mic mics machine they're just unloading everything just fucking you get up there, they have like 40 mic mics, machine, they're just unloading everything. Just fucking, you get up there, I'm like, hey, what are you guys shooting at?

Starting point is 01:53:28 There's an empty field with a couple bodies and then there's a giant boulder. Like, dude, there's one guy behind the boulder. I'm like, that's it?

Starting point is 01:53:36 It's fucking just like, are you trying to break the boulder with your guns? Like, what are you doing? See? Yeah, see?

Starting point is 01:53:42 Then, all of a sudden, I hear an Apache just come in overhead and just dip down, and then take off. Well, see. Then all of a sudden I hear an Apache just come in overhead and just dip down and then take off. Well, that was that. And then shortly after, that was the end of that contract. So fast forward. Real quick, I'm sorry to cut you off just for how I understand this.

Starting point is 01:53:59 I've had like Dale Comstock in here who's like the most recognized mercenary in the world but it it still confuses me what the what the legality is on some of this like if there's gray area because i mean you're dropping to areas that would be considered somewhat war zones and whatever but you're not representing a government you're representing a private contractor and you're fully fucking kitted up with with weapons so that's where you can be gray and not gray. Say I'm advising and assisting these people on this thing. Okay. Now if I'm advising and assisting

Starting point is 01:54:34 and then something bad happens while we're out and I pick up a rifle to defend myself, are you going to really prosecute me? Oh, I see. Like an intent versus, it is great. A hundred percent. Yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 01:54:49 It is a dance for sure. All right. But you were saying this one, that was the end of this. That was the end of it. And so they said yes to the six month training program. Boom. Fly over and start training the Amarante Special Forces. In the UAE, totally chill, range stuff xyz one night i'm not there and the guys i'm with they're like dude we saw some other guys here with like high speed night vision mismatching camis i'm like

Starting point is 01:55:19 hmm that's weird the next night i see those. I go to the training site, and I'm like, bro, is that you? And he turns around and is like, Dirty, is that you? I'm like, what are you doing here? And they're like, what are you doing here? And there were two guys I had known that were active duty.

Starting point is 01:55:38 And I said, where are you? I'm like, where are you guys? What are you guys doing? Are you guys getting ready to go somewhere? Like, yeah, we might be going a little head nod to the Southwest.

Starting point is 01:55:49 And I'm like, Oh, I've been to that place. And he's like, when? And I told him when he's like, we need to meet. We go meet up with them.

Starting point is 01:56:00 Me and my boss. And, um, we're at the Jumeirah towers hotel. I'm sure they changed the name by now we're hanging out and they're like dude we go through it all and it turns out that they were working with an entity okay and they were gonna drop kinetic strikes on the two targets we were gonna roll roll on while we were in Yemen.

Starting point is 01:56:25 Oh, shit. And that's why we kept getting called off. We didn't know why. It was because they knew there was a friendly force, but we didn't have blue force trackers or anything. And we were getting like, we didn't want a hellfire dropped on our head. But we were frustrated and didn't know why. But thank goodness.

Starting point is 01:56:40 Yeah, you'd been killed. Yeah, by our own shit. Yeah. Yeah. So it was like oh fuck that's so trippy you go halfway around the world run into your voice wait a minute how do you do it let's let's have a conversation place yeah so you and this is just during that training time yeah with the emiratis so we do a big ftx we show them because the plan was look how good we trained

Starting point is 01:57:01 them let's deploy with them like we try to and go do some cool shit and they're like no thanks for your training beat it so then me and one other guy my boss we we did some contracts and stuff we can't talk about um good stuff and then good stuff good stuff you know traveled around did some cool shit and a lot a lot of bodies left behind no you know it's not all like that man one like one you know we get we get calls it's like hey this guy's this guy is dual citizen so are his kids and he's keeping them in country x and like the mom is a full american wants her kids back but he's connected to so and so in that country can you go get him so he calls like that too like oh that's fun. It's just more like a problem-solving company is what we would be, right? This isn't Black Cube, is it? It's Black Cube.

Starting point is 01:57:51 All right. Good answer. All right. Continue. That one's getting clipped. Is Black Cube the ones that set up people? Like they did a big thing and mixed? We'll talk about it.

Starting point is 01:58:03 Yeah. We'll talk off-air on that. Yeah. I know they are. I know we'll talk about it. Yeah. We'll talk about it. Yeah. I know they are. I know they are now. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like a lot of, you're basically saying it's a lot of random shit where you need very highly trained individuals who can quietly go get something done essentially.

Starting point is 01:58:20 Yeah. And it might even just be the contacts like my boss or me i know the guy who knows the guy who works at right ministry of police and we'll go we'll just go do it so that's it i mean it's not all crazy running and got it yeah it's not so did that and then i got a something across my desk was hey there's a dude that's living in belgrade who's a big-time bad guy financer, Arabic dude. Terrorist financer? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Starting point is 01:58:50 I'm like, well, I don't know. This isn't running around Yemen. This is Belgrade. They're like, we just need dirt on him. We need some not-so-halal activities. And I've seen that before i've been in bahrain coming back from it from iraq and seeing dudes wasted oh yeah and they're like yeah all i cannot see in bahrain i'm like damn okay like so there is there is proclivity for people to to be acting a certain way in

Starting point is 01:59:20 different places that are not their home country right that i've seen so they only but they only wanted dirt on the guy it wasn't leverage him to stop yeah yeah and because you're in belgrade you're gonna go kill like this yeah it's still a european-ish yeah it's an international issue yeah right so i'm like that's easy day i don't like all i need is what my camera work some sources you know i'm there real quick i'm sorry to ask but had you done training for surveillance as well in your years and the teams i take it so you knew that okay yeah so i beat the streets and serbia is a beautiful fucking country it's amazing yeah and uh just get to lay the land meet some high rollers meet some guys that you know not the highlights of society you know

Starting point is 02:00:07 everywhere in between trying to see if this guy's like into prostitutes into kids into drugs like just really trying to find anything on this guy this guy's fucking clean as a whistle i'm like fuck this sucks i'm just grinding and grinding grinding grinding. And then, you know, I had recruited a source, a kid I made friends with, and I was at his house. He takes a phone call one night, leaves. Forty-five minutes later, the door busts open, and I see him, like, fly across the floor in handcuffs. I'm like, what the fuck? And then I look up, and there's a gun at my forehead.

Starting point is 02:00:45 And I just see it like right here. And I can hear the magazine shaking and rattling because the guy is so nervous. And I try to like zoom out more and I see it's a uniform. And it's a cop uniform. But it looks like it was bought at like Party City. It looked like really cheap. I'm like, is this a fucking like fucked up prank from this kid? Like what is going on?

Starting point is 02:01:11 And then four more cops show up. And then two plainclothes cops show up and i'm like what the fuck and there's yelled at me in serbian and like i don't know what they're saying so i just like maybe if i just put my hands up slowly that's a good start and it was and then you know i got handcuffed behind my back thrown on the ground and no knee in my back and they're like just barking at me in serbian i'm like bro i don't know what the fuck you're saying like american i'm like yeah like america i'm like yeah yes yes american what are you doing here like we're gonna have a party no why are you in serbia i'm like why not like what what's the big deal love this country yeah do you have a passport yes i have a passport like what are you talking about where is it right here so they start searching this kid's house

Starting point is 02:01:50 they go down to his garage where he has this big safe and they pull out all these guns like a million like like 50 guns but he's a hunter and like they're all registered and shit okay right but they're like oh american you like guns i'm like as much as the next guy i don't know and this this goes on and on and one of the plainclothes cops speaks english and i'm like dude what the fuck am i under arrest they're like you are now i'm like fuck if i should maybe i shouldn't have said anything like i don't like what do you mean i am now like what's changed between now and 10 seconds ago like Like what the fuck are you talking about? And the kid I was,

Starting point is 02:02:29 the kids whose house I was with, he's like locked up. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden his mom lived on the first floor, like four stories below his flat. She comes flying in, wailing and crying and the cops have to take her out. I'm like,

Starting point is 02:02:42 dude, what the fuck is going on? Like, I have no idea what's going on more conversation serving like you're going to yeah you're going to police station fine whatever get in the car and then we both get put into a car and there's also there's two other guys in handcuffs i'm like what the fuck is going on who are these two other guys yeah because you were there alone like, what the fuck is going on? Who are these two other guys? Yeah, because you were there alone doing this, right? Yeah. I'm like, who are these two other guys?

Starting point is 02:03:12 Well, doing this, I wasn't doing anything illegal. I was just trying to find out information on somebody, right? That's not something you should get arrested for. So I'm like, who are these two other guys? And I go to the police department. It's like, spread your cheeks, lift your sack. I'm like, what? I'm fine. Do my thing. Did's stick a finger up there no yeah you can tell the cop was like the cop was like yeah okay that's enough he's like okay like i'm doing this out of protocol i'm not really

Starting point is 02:03:36 enthusiastic thankfully so we get there and i'm sitting in this little room it's you know the bench is just long enough that it's not big enough for me to lay down in i'm like god damn i get the wool blanket i'm sitting there then i get pulled out there's this big huge dude cop and he's like what's up man i'm like what's up he's like cia no dea no fbi no like this asked me every alphabet i'm like no what are you doing what do you do for work i'm like oh i'm a private contractor like oh yeah what'd you do wow what qualifies you to do that oh my god there's an abc and he's like oh your special forces in serbia that's very interesting and i'm like what why and then i was like oh yeah kosovo and right oh they don't like it i was like oh yeah he's like what are you doing tonight i'm like

Starting point is 02:04:33 i was at my buddy's house he's like hmm so you know he got arrested for drugs i'm like i did not oh it's for drugs yeah so apparently So apparently we're going to have a party. Sounds like a good party. Not my cup of tea. I'll drink all the tequila in the world. You keep saying that. We'll go with it. He's under the table.

Starting point is 02:04:57 Oh, God. Zen is good enough for me. I put two six milligrams in. I'm wired. So this guy takes a phone call. He goes to another city to buy drugs well the drug dealer that guy's dad got arrested three months ago for guess what dealing drugs yeah so the police been listening to his phone oh no so the drug

Starting point is 02:05:21 dealer is with a friend and then the guy i know was there to buy and what do drug dealers carry on them to protect themselves guns guns so boom those three get arrested i happen to be at the kid's house and they go back to search his house i'm like who's this guy he's the kingpin yeah i'm i'm the guy i'm the uh i'm the drug lord so i get wrapped up into this right and the the the good i call him a good cop the big dude he's like wait what oh yeah he's like he can tell i wasn't lying he's like holy shit he's like so you're not here for for vuchich i'm like for what i'm like vuk because i know vuk means wolf in russian so like for a wolf he's like no vuchich i'm like what is vuchich he's like

Starting point is 02:06:04 our president you're not here to kill our president i said no i'm not here to kill your fucking president you're fucking crazy he's like yeah i didn't think so i'm like cool let's go he's like yeah but the newspaper's already found out about it i'm like no shit it's been like four hours he's like yeah it's election year two so that there's a navy seal and ex-navy seal and they're here to kill the president oh here to kill the president oh yeah oh they were just like boom are there articles about this right now yeah can we pull this up yeah navy seal kill serbian president i gotta see this for myself they have me listed as like a marine how did they get from cocaine to killing the president? I'm very confused.

Starting point is 02:06:46 I have no idea. And they never, well, I never was charged with any of those things. So here we go. So the good cop's like, look, dude, I believe you, but this has gone to the media. Yeah. He's like, you're fucked. He's like, you're famous and you're fucked. I'm like, but I didn't do anything.

Starting point is 02:07:05 He's like, have we got anything there? Yeah, I think i think we got one here all right we can switch to camera five beautiful all right so the past several weeks i've seen a peculiar set of events play on serbia that would make a plot worthy of any good espionage novel it opened a rare window into an ordinary ordinarily opaque world a former navy seal who now works for a well-connected private military company, a Serbian arms dealer recently sanctioned by the United States government and seeking relief, purveyors of Washington money and influence all find their way into the plot.

Starting point is 02:07:34 Except here, the former Navy SEAL lands in a Belgrade jail and is held under a judicial detention order while outside he is daily tried in the virtual courtroom of the pro-Russia Serbian media, which hints or declares outright he is a professional assassin sent to kill Serbian leaders. Some go so far as to accuse him of the January assassination of high-profile Serbian political leader in neighboring Republika Spritska, where anti-Bosnian and secessionist sentiment runs high. To start at the beginning on February – what year is this, by the way?

Starting point is 02:08:10 1920? Okay. 1819? All right. So this is before Ukraine. Yeah. So this was the word instantly. Boom.

Starting point is 02:08:20 And I'm like, what? No. And then – so the good cop's like cops like i believe you but you're fucked it's okay thanks for being honest puts me back in a little holding cage i think you got your wool blanket yeah my wool blanket you know two three days later i get pulled out two two other cops plainclothes and him we get in there and there's this lady like just big big huge lady smoking cigarettes like she looked she she's dressed like 101 dalmatians bad guy carilla deville but she was built like ursula and she's like she's sitting there she's like make sign here and gives me

Starting point is 02:09:00 this paper in cyrillic serbian and i'm like bro i'm not signing this did you ask for a lawyer yeah they're like yeah you don't get one right now they're like oh maybe maybe some other day like there's no like due process there she's like make make sign here i'd make translate you on my mouth for you ain't translating shit let's go yeah i was like uh no and then she's like i'm like well what does it say it says you have a gun and explosives. And I'm like, I do not have a gun and explosives. I'm not signing this. She's like, she like looks at the cop and she's like,

Starting point is 02:09:33 they're like, hmm, like, oh, we tried. I'm like, motherfuckers. Like, just see if they'll sign it. I'm like, no. And they're like, okay. Okay, sign this. This says passport, your watch, ID, wallet. And I can make out like Rolex.

Starting point is 02:09:46 You sure? Yeah. Somewhere in there. It doesn't say grenade. I was like, yeah, exactly right. Granada. And I was like, here. And she's like, okay.

Starting point is 02:09:53 Got a bunch of DNA swabs taken from me. They're like pinning me down, like holding my jaw open. Like I'm going to bite them. I'm like, dude, what the fuck is going on? Then I get interrogated by the two new cops and the good cop who's sitting next to me he's like hey these guys are organized crime unit because there's four people in your case i'm like i don't even know who those two other guys are yeah but three or more now it's being charged as an organized crime it's being looked at as organized crime all over the board oh yeah

Starting point is 02:10:23 everything everything you're throwing at me and i was like okay so they interrogate me and i'm like what no and i dance with them and then i just be quiet because i realize i'm getting really tired i'm slipping a little bit and they end the meeting and they're like we know you're trained but even the best guys who are trained reveal something. I'm like, ooh. Like, wow. It was cool. The good cop during this interview, the good cop. I love that he's the good cop.

Starting point is 02:10:54 Yeah, he translated something from them. He's like, hey, they asked if you want to take a polygraph. And then he leaned in real close and said, say no. I was like, no. He's like, yeah. He said no. I was like, hmm. Because they he said no i was like hmm because they would rig it yeah he knew he knew that he's like dude you didn't do anything but you're in for it yeah so are you are you thinking like i'm fucked no because i'm like there's nothing there i still

Starting point is 02:11:21 didn't know why we even got arrested i know know, but like you're in a foreign country. They've decided they don't like you. You know you did nothing wrong. Yeah, I thought maybe they'd say leave. You have to have something. You have to have one thing. Right. You have to have one thing.

Starting point is 02:11:37 Allegedly. Allegedly, right? So I get put back down in a little holding cell. The next day we go to court and we have to make statements and the lady's like what are you doing like i was at this guy's house he left came back arrested i got arrested and she's like okay yeah i don't really see any charges here but you're an american and there's four of you in this thing you guys are gonna go to jail until this gets figured out like awesome fantastic right like this

Starting point is 02:12:06 is fucking crazy in the hallway of the courtroom i met my lawyer and he's like there's a bunch of lawyers trying to represent me and he's like hey mr so-and-so mr so-and-so say hi i'm like okay you're my guy right yeah and that was kind of a relief because that that meant that people knew what was going on with me like my people people knew what happened because, you know, phone off, everything. Is this the guy from the original meeting who wired the 20 grand? Yeah. Okay. So he's like, this guy knows you're here.

Starting point is 02:12:35 I'm like, all right, cool, roger that. Like someone has my back, we're good to go. And then like, oh, so they put me in the first observation room and i was in there with a hardcore criminal dude like career criminal and there's like a hole in the ground as the toilet no toothbrush no shower you have a spoon a blanket and a bowl and three times a day they will a cart with a five gallon metal thing and with the ladle and they go here's your shit you're like all right and then i did that for three days and they're like all right and they go here's your shit you're like all right and then i did that for three days and they're like all right and they put me into did you talk with that guy at all yeah he didn't speak

Starting point is 02:13:09 in english a little bit he's like what are you doing here i'm like i don't know america he's like you're american doll you'll be out tomorrow he's like did you really do nothing i'm like yeah i have no idea he's like you have a blue passport i'm like got a blue passport he's like oh embassy you're good i'm like hey man thanks you know thanks. You know, like, cool. Thanks, bro. I appreciate that. He was wrong. He was super wrong.

Starting point is 02:13:28 Yeah. So prison guards, they didn't take me after they take him and me. So that was just an observation. I guess they keep you there to see where you're going to fit in. Well, but they put me in a special room. They put me in a room with a guy who murdered his wife with a hammer

Starting point is 02:13:45 a croatian terrorist and a dude who professionally kidnaps people for ransom that is that you were on the all-star team oh yeah yeah you know i walk in and you know i'm like what the fuck like i've seen all the movies i'm like all right i'm ready to like stab someone. You know what I mean? Like, here we go. Put him up. Yeah. So the guy walks up and he pulls out this shank and I'm like, oh shit. And then he reaches across me

Starting point is 02:14:12 and grabs a bag of cookies and opens it up and he's like, here. And I'm like, that's a weird way to open a bag of cookies, bro.

Starting point is 02:14:17 Like, we almost had it coming, bro. I was like, holy fuck, dude. And they're like, calm down,

Starting point is 02:14:22 calm down. You've seen too many movies. And I'm like, holy shit. This is going to be fucking fun, right? And they're like, calm down, calm down. You've seen too many movies. And I'm like, holy shit. This is going to be fucking fun, right? And they're like, oh, you're a, oh, and they turn on the TV. My name, ticker, a stock photo of some operator in like a hat and gear. I'm like, oh my God, really?

Starting point is 02:14:38 I thought I was going to be the gray man. And he, good cop is right. Yeah. They had my shit. Everywhere. and he good cop is right yeah they had my shit everywhere and it's weird in in that country being a criminal is like really highly romanticized it's like cool it's still like oh bad boy cool fucking cool shit cool cool especially amongst other criminals like oh you're a fucking badass you're a real deal like okay like prison culture tough guy shit like gang shit and um i was like fuck so much for keeping a low profile and i walk in the halls to go to the cantina you know guys would salute me

Starting point is 02:15:12 and the prison guards would salute me i'm like what and salute you i'm like what because i found out everybody in prison and every like federal employee they all hate the president so they believe the headlines and i them i was like their messiah and i'm like this is this is our guy and i was like i just was like uh-huh i just kind of rolled with it i'm like yeah it was too bad it didn't work out yeah it's fucking crazy so everyone's like no was it dangerous in there i'm like not really everyone thought i was awesome they're like that's weird i'm like i know it's really weird it was bizarre and plus serbia is a pretty homogenous country anglo-saxon white orthodox church and that's so there's not like you're that you're

Starting point is 02:15:53 this color i'm that color not that that should make anyone want to fight each other i think it's ridiculous but there's not there's just all and it's a small it's a small country and when you're in there it's us versus them us being everyone behind bars and them being the system right so now is not the time to start being violent go to court and you're like your lawyer's trying to say you're an angel and you just stabbed a dude in the neck right so it's like this is all be chill but you're still not having any problems with guys being like oh was he in kosovo or stuff some of the old guards were but i'm like bro do you think i was 15 flying a fighter pilot do you know how old i am yeah fucking idiot yeah it's 99 i graduated high school no two like fuck off and open up the bar yeah stupid so i was in that that special room

Starting point is 02:16:38 which sucked because we only had 30 minutes a day on the walk outside oh you're 23 and a half down with a guy who hammer hammer murder his wife right nice guy though he's super nice okay did he do it oh 100 apparently when they he was living with his mom and like his mom's got crystal balls and she's a witch or whatever and they went to the house to investigate in the whole house there was not one piece of dna or fingerprint on the entire house like bleached clean head to toe she's like oh yeah i just did a cleaning that's just how i roll okay so so i'm in that room and you know it's like these guys are staying up super late giving each

Starting point is 02:17:25 other tattoos with like razor blades and broken pens and i'm like dude they're like oh foca yeah so they called me foca f-o-k-a because i don't think the newspaper knows that seal is an acronym so they just called me a seal like the animal and foca means like the animal seal and sir right like ohca you need to get a tattoo i'm not getting a fucking prison tattoo with a razor blade get the fuck out of here but then i was on the top bunk and the hammer murder was underneath me and he kept his radio was on when he passed out because they're all on drugs so i just took the radio one night and i just i just spiked it and i found out later that it takes six months to get radio approved.

Starting point is 02:18:06 Oh. Wrong guy to do that. No, I would have fucking destroyed him. Oh, you would have? Oh, yeah. So I bounce it on the ground. Hammer or no hammer? No hammer.

Starting point is 02:18:15 I don't need that. He can have two hammers. It's fine. Okay. Yeah. You're confident. That's good. So I spike his radio and the next day I'm out of the room.

Starting point is 02:18:23 Thank God. So now I got brought into another room that gets two hours a day on the walk. There you go. With all the other inmates. Because when I was with that room, the first room with the three other guys, the hammer murderer and his crew, our 30-minute walks was just us. So it was really daunting being in that fucking room. Are you outside actually?

Starting point is 02:18:44 It's weird it's weird it's a it's a big rectangle outside and the walls are made up of the prison that are really high so there's never like direct sunlight you can see the sky right yeah so i got put into a room with like a junkie a canadian uh aussie who just got wrapped up for a massive cocaine deal by interpol and then a dude who's a state-sponsored killer who runs the whole block my state-sponsored killer yeah like what does that mean like he kills people in the state by order of the state unofficially okay and i'm like oh this guy's serious deal and we were kind of like why would they put us together and like we're like checking for microphones and shit

Starting point is 02:19:26 but he was cool he ran the prison and you know that was probably at two months in and three months in was when embassy started coming and embassy was of no help the guy was terrified and he's like oh how's the food I'm like it's shitty

Starting point is 02:19:42 can you change it he's like no I'm like well quit asking they didn't do anything like oh the newspapers He's like, oh, how's the food? I'm like, it's shitty. Can you change it? He's like, no. I'm like, well, quit asking. They didn't do anything. They're like, oh, the newspapers, they're looking pretty bad against you. I'm like, what? Shut up, dude. It's fucking, it's worse than the National Enquirer. Like, do you even believe American news?

Starting point is 02:19:56 Like, come on, bro. I'm surprised. I know you're not actively in the teams at this point, but I'm surprised it was like that low touch point from that like just a basic embassy guy coming like this this is kind of a big deal you're being accused of bullshit yeah like trying to kill a president like this is this is a geopolitical nightmare you would think they're like sending the fucking secretary i think it was so i think people are interested so in april we went to a small trial court made statements again she, I don't see any reason to charge you. You're free to go.

Starting point is 02:20:27 Awesome. Been here three months. Learn some chess. Good vacation. Easy day. Go back. And as soon as I get to my cell room, I start packing up my shit into a black trash bag. That's the luggage of prison.

Starting point is 02:20:41 And the guard's like, Volker, advocate, lawyer. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I know. He grabbed my bag. He's like, no, lawyer and i'm like yeah yeah i know he's grabbed my bag like no no leave it okay so i go to my lawyer he's like yeah when you left she got a call and they said you will be charged with something i'm like get the fuck yeah i'm like how what are we talking another month he's like am i another six months he's like i'm like probably a year he's like dude i don't know i know in the end it's gonna be okay but probably going to be here a year? He's like, dude, I don't know. I know in the end it's going to be okay, but it's going to be a long fucking time, so settle in. I was like, motherfucker, dude.

Starting point is 02:21:12 Now it's got to set in a little bit. That's when I was like, okay, I live here now. When April hit and I thought I was free to go and then my lawyer's like, you're going to be here a long fucking time? I was like, okay, this is my home. 2019? I think so. Okay.

Starting point is 02:21:27 2019, I don't remember. Pandemic's not happening. No, no, no. Right, okay. So I'm like, this is my home. And then just the doldrums of fucking being in prison and fucking seeing guys come and go. And they're like, yeah, I beat the shit out of this kid.

Starting point is 02:21:40 I beat him to death, but the camera didn't catch it all. I'm free. I'm like, dude, how did you come in? And you're out, and I haven't fucking done anything. This is fucking crazy. I'm happy the kid's free. Maybe he should be. I don't know, but I'm jealous.

Starting point is 02:21:54 I was like, god damn, dude. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to get in great shape. I'm going to learn Serbian. I'm going to get good at chess. I'm going to make the best of this time. Did you learn Serbian? Yeah. Wow. So I learned some great shape. I'm going to learn Serbian. I'm going to get good at chess. I'm going to make the best of this time. Did you learn Serbian? Yeah.

Starting point is 02:22:07 Wow. So I learned some Serbian. Finally, so legally they're supposed to charge me within six months of arresting me. They charged me in month 11. They did charge you? After holding me for 11 months, they charged me. Now, during this whole time, before we get to the charges, are you constantly worried about, like, someone wearing a wire around you or shit like that? No.

Starting point is 02:22:32 Record me. What am I going to say that's incriminating? I mean, but the thing is, you could say, like, hey, I'm coming over for dinner at 6. You know, let's have some spaghetti, and it sounds like it's code for something. You know what I mean? Like, people can make wires sound however they want. Yeah. I mean,

Starting point is 02:22:48 yes and no, but like, you weren't that worried. No, no, you don't seem like a warrior. No, I'm zero.

Starting point is 02:22:55 I don't care. That's over here. Like, God damn. So I, I get charged and my lawyer brings Ben. He tells me, dude, we've, you got charged.

Starting point is 02:23:06 I'm like, good. Because it's an event, right? It means something's going to have to start happening. Right, right. I'm like, what are the charges? Like owning and distributing firearms and explosives. I'm like, what? Fine, whatever, right?

Starting point is 02:23:23 Cool. He's like, yeah, they have your DNA on the dna on the gun oh no well they took a couple swabs i'm like well tell them they didn't touch it's like we that's not gonna fly because in serbia dna is king is king dna you're done here in states like there's transferable like that's a piece but it's not it's not the end all be all here in the states because they know that's not how dna works right but he's like dude there's dna so we have to come up with a reason that he showed it to you you touched it okay fine whatever we've got to do to satisfy the dna fine even though they they took

Starting point is 02:23:56 enough cotton swabs they could put dna in a fucking tank right now right yeah i'm like fine i'm like who's our judge couldn't get a judge for another month because no judge wanted the case because you have this political pressure that even the president like oh he he wasn't here to shoot fish in the danube river with that gun i didn't have a gun what are you talking about so there's that there's this pressure that i'm this bad guy and then there's the pressure of people doing their jobs as a judge because there's no jury there it's just a judge one person and they have to look at the facts so if they do their job look at the facts there's nothing to even keep me there another day but it looks bad after all the shit that was talked about me

Starting point is 02:24:41 is it an elected judge though or is it i don't know how they're because i would think you know this is like a political kind of you know how that works and there could be pressure but so we finally got a judge and my lawyer calls me again you got a judge i'm like yes you know he's like no bad i'm like why why is this bad come on it's a it's a woman i'm like who fucking cares he's like yeah but women aren't good for men crimes i'm like what are you talking about he's like there's a gun involved i'm like bro he's kind of sexist but like i'm just happy we have a judge but let's well sure right i was like whatever and then trial starts in january so i got arrested in january my first my first

Starting point is 02:25:24 day of court is the following January. And the way court works there is because they're so backed up on everything. You go in and you do, you know, I have to get transported. And I get transported in my own little paddy wagon with MP5s on either side of me. Like, oh, they put on a show when they transfer me back and forth and walk me in the courtroom. They put you in the Bain mask. I was ready to be Hannibal Lecter, bro. I was like, are you the guys?

Starting point is 02:25:48 I was raised under that. Exactly. The nighttime is dark for me. It's for everybody, bud. And the guards are like kung fu gripping me for like a year. Every time they move me around, they're like, oh, this guy's the most. Newspapers are saying I'm the most dangerous man that's ever even been in the country and all this crazy shit and we go make opening statements so you make opening statements and then you leave and come back a month and then

Starting point is 02:26:13 you do the next part and the next part you wait a month after opening statement and then and then they do examination and then a month cross-examination and then a month evidence and then a month like that's how the court works there It's not like you start court seven twelve days later. It's over. It's boom leave So we show up and opening statements Horrible translator. I'm just like what yeah, I don't fucking know. I don't know what's going on this is I'm beyond like thisief that this is even happening still.

Starting point is 02:26:46 And I've been in prison now for 12 months. I've been for a year. Yeah. So I like, you can't be nervous or scared that long. You just don't give a fuck anymore. Like this is fucking stupid. Opening statements go down, go back to prison. Everyone's like, how'd it go?

Starting point is 02:27:02 I'm like, I don't know. And then go back the second, it's the second or third time when they're like, oh, yeah, the translator's not here. Go back, come back in a month. I'm like, mother fuck, dude. So we go through everything. We finally get to the last court date. And then, okay, we're going to do a verdict the following week.

Starting point is 02:27:23 Don't have to wait a month, just a week for the verdict. It's the last court date basically closing arguments? Yep. Okay. Closing arguments, and then seven days from there is going to be verdict. Okay, go in. I'm ready. I'm looking at 12 years or some crazy shit.

Starting point is 02:27:38 Wow. Or something crazy, right? All right. At least I'll go to the prison where I can go run and work out outside. You know, I'm, like like planning my life right so they we all have to stand up and like you three guys and you're a drug dealer and blah blah blah blah and you know daniel stand up and and of course on this day i get the worst translator i've ever had during this whole process and i'm like what what the fuck she fuck is she saying? Like, come on. And she's like, you're free to go.

Starting point is 02:28:10 I'm like, well, you don't have to look so fucking surprised. Right? Like, yeah. But I was really nervous. I'm like, I need to know under what terms. Because I was ready for them. Me and my lawyer were like, they might do guilty time served to go home. And I didn't want that.

Starting point is 02:28:26 You didn't want that. I didn't want to be guilty time served served i wanted to be acquitted because i didn't do anything yeah no i i agree with you but like yeah if they're like you can get the fuck out of here it's serbia who the fuck you have a criminal record in serbia yeah right i don't know i like it there i definitely want to go back as fucked up as it sounds it's awesome it's i love it there i know have you been back since no no i wouldn't advise yeah probably not yeah so so i go i'm like hey what under what circumstances she's like oh you're innocent you're acquitted of everything i'm like okay good and everyone's like weren't you like so excited i'm'm like, no. I was like, this should have happened fucking 18 months ago. There's nothing to be excited for.

Starting point is 02:29:09 I just had 18 months robbed from me. I'm excited? So the judge is like, look, in perfect English, she's like, hey, I'm sorry this happened to you. I hope this doesn't make you view Serbia in a bad light. The state is to pay for all your legal fees damages like all this shit and i'm like cool she's like but you got to go back to prison to get your shit and then you have to go back to the police station for customs because you've been here too long i'm like motherfucker oh they just want to fuck you oh yeah man so i go back to prison everyone's like

Starting point is 02:29:42 hey i'm like yeah i'm out of here and everyone's like cheering in the yard like fuck yeah go kill the president well if like if this guy can make it out with all the bad press he had because it's shawshank redemption everyone in there is innocent right yeah sure so i leave get my shit and then the cops escort me to the police station i'm like what are we doing here and they're like well you've outstayed your visa on your passport i said i don't think the months of me being incarcerated and then being acquitted should count against the time on my fucking passport on my visa and they're like well what were you doing here where's your laptop i'm like i said mother and this is like a pretty good Serbian too.

Starting point is 02:30:26 I'm like, hey, I already fucking did this shit. I ain't doing it again. What the fuck do you want from me? And they're like, you have to leave in three days. I'm like, no, I don't. No, because the time me being incarcerated, I don't have to leave in three days.

Starting point is 02:30:36 How you wanted to stay? No, I didn't want to stay. I just want to tell him, fuck off. I'm like, no, that time is not going to count against me because I was in prison. I would have been in the airport. god ryanair back row in between the people let's go but i'm like no but you got to think about it dude i just beat a huge charge so you're like you think you're invincible i'm like no fuck you and then the boss comes in he's like

Starting point is 02:31:03 how does seven days sound? I'm like, yeah, I can do seven days. But I was gone the next day. Oh, my God. I was going to leave regardless. So you were just fucking with him. Yeah. I was pissed, dude.

Starting point is 02:31:15 So pissed. Now, does the Israeli billionaire guy call you at this point? We link up. In Serbia? No. So get out. Talk to mom and dad, get on the flight home. Had you talked with them at all in the last 18 months? No.

Starting point is 02:31:32 You had no contact? With anybody? No. They had to be shitting themselves at home. No, because the guy from the State Department was saying, oh, it's like a hotel. They're just hanging out. Oh, my God.

Starting point is 02:31:43 And I showed pictures, went online, showed my mom. She's's like that's not a fucking hotel i'm like yeah no shit oh it was it was fucking crazy they're like airbrushing your face yeah look how happy he is he's on vacation no my lawyer was cool because i would write i'd say give me your paper i'd say mom it's cool don't believe anything don't talk to anybody i'm safe i love you and he'd be like okay i'll send that out so there was that but nothing nothing else so i get home and my mom and dad brother there and i'm like what's up guys they're like hey but my mom my mom and dad know me and they they know what i do and i travel and they're like you good i'm like yeah all right cool and then go back to san diego hang out with the fam and kind of bopping around go to seal team

Starting point is 02:32:33 17 like yeah dude we kept extending you but we had to you know your time service was up wait a minute so while you were a mercenary you still technically were in the reserves with them yeah that's illegal i didn't know because people will contract as they work for the reserves all the time okay when you're at when you're mobilized you can't because you're right nine to five that's wild so you were still technically a navy seal during all this yeah so they're like hey we extended you but we kind of had to i said that's fine i was a little. Like, yeah, we can't really have you in the SEAL team anymore because I'm like, I was acquitted. Like, oh, you were?

Starting point is 02:33:08 Yeah. But I'm like, yeah. So they were, they were kind of, they were kind of like, ah, yeah, but still I'm like, you know what? I was really mad at the beginning, but I'm like, you know what? We just kind of grew apart and that's fine. You go that way. I will keep doing my thing.

Starting point is 02:33:21 But at first I was like, that's bullshit. Cause I won and I fucking didn't do any drugs they tried to give me and I did this and I did that and I didn't take a plea deal and I fucking, you know, stood my ground and then I come back and they're like, yeah, we can't really have you part of the community anymore. And I'm like, fuck, dude, that sucks. All right, fine.

Starting point is 02:33:36 I just keep moving forward. So I took a little security job for some rich guy in San Diego Hills somewhere doing some stuff. I'm like, man, what am I going to do next? I get a phone call from my boss, my friend. He's like, hey, brother, I heard you're retiring. I said, no, I am not retiring. He's like, all right, how soon can you be in Central America?

Starting point is 02:34:01 I said, how fast can you get me a ticket? He's like, I'll see you tomorrow. I said, let's do it. So I was back for 30 days and then went back to work. Where'd you go in Central America? The United States. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:34:13 What kind of mission was it? Was it like a cartel kind of thing? No, no, no,

Starting point is 02:34:20 no. Okay. More like rescue? Yeah. Asset recovery. Got it, no. Okay. More like rescue? Yeah. Asset recovery. Got it. Interesting. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:34:32 You find where the Nazi den was? No, no, not that kind. All right. I got to ask. I got to pry around there. And this is like 2020 now, 2021? 2020. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:34:42 Yeah. July 2020. You're coming home like mid-pandemic. Was this like a little bit of a... No, no, no. This was before. No, the pandemic started March 2020. Well, then I was 2019 then. I got arrested in 18 and got out in 2019.

Starting point is 02:34:53 Okay. All right. So you go down there. June, I got out 2019. And then July 2019, I went back to work somewhere else. Wow. And you're still doing this stuff today? Oh. That world has really gotten... went back to work somewhere else. Wow. And you're still doing this stuff today?

Starting point is 02:35:08 That world has really gotten... It's hard because even in this world, I'll get four phone calls in two years. And of those four phone calls in two years, only one of them is legal, only one of them is worth my time, and only one of them's legal only one of them's worth my time and only one of them's gonna pay enough so it's like hold your breath and wait for those jobs or what do you do so i monitor stuff i take phone calls um i did something uh last year which is not very like totally low low risk nothing crazy but

Starting point is 02:35:46 i have to believe in the mission i have to be able to sleep at night and i have to stay on the right side of the law and it has to be worth my time and like as i get older that criteria is tighter and tighter so it's i say no and no much more yeah yeah i i can imagine i mean you're running in dark poles sometimes you're running with things where it's like well we're saying we're the good guys but are you and it's hard too because when when libya fell there's two generals trying to control libya and it's like one day we will support this guy so it's like cool i'm gonna go help him secure an airfield and then like the next day it's like no no we support him so it's like uh that's gonna put me in a weird spot i'm gonna stay away yeah yeah it gets complicated out there man oh yeah but you have

Starting point is 02:36:34 you know guys like you have such a unique set of skills that it's always gonna be relevant there's gonna be someone calling with a big enough bag at some point that I'm sure it gets tempting sometimes. You say no to, no? No. No? Mm-mm. Even if the bag's huge. No, I'm not super money-driven.

Starting point is 02:36:55 If I was, I never would have joined the military. It's not a place to make money. I agree with that. But also guys do know that like not that they're thinking about this when they join, but you know, especially if you're high up in the military or things like that, that's, that's an asset when you leave. Yeah. People want you. But you can also go be, I mean, everyone I know is over right across the river here. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:37:20 And they're making bank. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They could go do that. Sure. and they're making bank right yeah yeah they could go do that sure because it gives you a lot of sets the the standards that you need discipline work and i think more and more people are seeing guys come out of the special operation community as more than just like jack dudes with guns they're

Starting point is 02:37:40 like oh they're leadership they're you know they're leadership. They're, you know, leadership, critical thinking, public speaking, all that shit. They're like, we can use that in corporate. So guys are getting really good jobs now. What made you want to write the book? Because you're not, you're like, you're an extremely humble guy. You're not, you're someone I got to get to expand upon things. You're not necessarily the guy that's like, here's everything that happened. You know, Taylor gets in here, boom. You know, he'll just get to expand upon things. You're not necessarily the guy that's like, here's everything that happened. Taylor gets in here, boom.

Starting point is 02:38:07 He'll just go through the whole thing. But you're more guarded with that. What made you want to literally put your testament out there? So I didn't. I got a phone call from a book agent. He goes, hey, I heard about your story. Do you want to do a book? And I said, no, because I was still doing my thing.

Starting point is 02:38:24 Right. But then, like I said, the criteria got tighter and tighter and calls became fewer and far between. He called again. I said, let's do it, but I don't want it to be a seal book. I want it to be post-seal. I want to focus on things that haven't already been written about. Buds and running with the law with a log like yeah we've all

Starting point is 02:38:46 done that yeah okay and then sat down and we banged it out and that's like that's like a good decade-ish period right like almost yeah almost decade there that's awesome yeah yeah and and and i i appreciate you going through so much of this stuff today and really charting your career too before that because that sets the foundation. You're on SEAL Team 5, SEAL Team 6 doing that kind of shit. It just puts you in another stratosphere. But was there anything we didn't get to today that you wanted to get to? No, man. It was good.

Starting point is 02:39:21 I think we covered the gamut. This was fucking entertaining for pat definitely entertaining for me over here good job pat yeah thanks for pat last minute edition i scheduled this because you were going to be in town unless he was previously scheduled to be out of town but great fucking job today bro i appreciate you much appreciated happy to be here oh there we go i got you much appreciated happy to be here uh to all those watching thanks for having me and i'd love to do it again all right brother i'm sure we will but we're gonna have the link to your book down in the description below so everyone go check that out american

Starting point is 02:39:54 mercenary and i recorded the audio book too so if you want to hear this voice oh shit that's check it out that's right i'm glad you did and you can hear my voice acting skills because i change it up for different people in the book. Oh, you were an actor in this too? Oh, I went full on. And it hurt my throat too. Are we going to get you acting in your own shit in the future? Is that a possibility?

Starting point is 02:40:15 I think I'm more behind the scenes guy. Voice acting, if Pixar wants to hire me, let's do it. I can do the booth all day. All right, I'm going to download the audio book. All right, yeah, check it out. Yeah, check it out. Yeah, check it out. Now, I hope it's good. I hope you didn't oversell yourself there.

Starting point is 02:40:29 Mostly. You're a voice actor. I wouldn't have guessed that. I'd like to be. That'd be cool. That'd be a cool job. You do any accents in there too? I do like a raspy bro voice, like kind of a Kavanaugh voice.

Starting point is 02:40:42 Yeah. But you weren't doing like arabic accents i tried oh you tried i tried they're bad we got but we we got through it all right let's not get you canceled all right you've been through enough but dan thanks so much man it was a pleasure everybody else you know what it is give it a thought get back to me peace thank you guys for watching the episode before you leave please be sure to hit that subscribe button and smash that Peace.

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Julian Dorey Podcast - #241 - SEAL Team 6 Mercenary taken Hostage by Serbia | Daniel Corbett

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