Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Escaping Afghanistan: How a Navy SEAL Saved a Family of Fourteen w/ Retired Navy SEAL Dan O‘Shea EP 63

Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm sitting there, baby breath, I texted, you know, Sam are in, I said, hey, get your family ready. Stand by. He goes, we're ready and I'm getting ready to go, my God, I'm going to get him out. I'm going to get him out. Sergeant comes back 20 minutes later and goes, damn, sorry, man. That place is crawling with Taliban. We can't, they own that gate, I said, damn it.

Starting point is 00:00:18 You know, five hours earlier, no one was there. And now the Taliban are tightening that news. Welcome visionaries, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and growth seekers of all types to the Passion Struck podcast. I'm John Miles, a peak performance coach, multi industry CEO, Navy veteran, and entrepreneur on a mission to make Passion Go viral for millions worldwide. In each week, I do so by sharing with you an inspirational message

Starting point is 00:00:45 and interviewing high achievers from all walks of life to unlock their secrets and lessons to become a passion struck. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener. By giving you tips, passes, and activities, you can use to achieve key performance and for two, a passion-driven life you've always wanted to have. Now, let's become PassionStruck. Welcome to episode 63 of the PassionStruck podcast with retired Navy Steel Commander, Dan O'Shea. And earlier today, we passed an incredible milestone for the podcast where we surpassed 100,000 downloads

Starting point is 00:01:24 since we started in February of 2021. for the podcast where we surpassed 100,000 downloads since we started in February of 2021. And thank you to all of you who have tuned in to our episodes to get us to this point in time. And also thank you for the 1200 plus five star ratings that we have. Your support means so much and allows us to bring content like the episode you're going to hear today. And if you haven't been tuning in to our episodes during the month of

Starting point is 00:01:49 September, they're all dedicated to veterans who served in the 20-year warrant here. And so far this month we have featured a black-haul racing team of veterans Janet and Tony Blackhall, NASCAR driver Tony Awigi, who is the first Naval Academy graduate in Naval Officer to drive a NASCAR. Former astronaut, Captain Wendy Lawrence, and in the future, we have episodes with current astronaut, Caleb Aaron, retired Navy SEAL commander, Mark Devine, retired Army Colonel and Navy SEAL, Dr. Bob Adams, and retired Navy SEAL William Brannum. So much incredible content throughout the month of September.

Starting point is 00:02:29 I hope you check all those episodes out. Now, let's get on with today's exclusive interview and I'm gonna start it with two quotes. The first is from our guest today, Dan O'Shea, who said, what people have to understand is what SEAL's train for is to go to war. It is inherently dangerous, and so is the preparation. I'm going to do another quote today from former Navy SEAL, Jason Redman,

Starting point is 00:02:53 who in his book, tried and gave this quote. There was no higher calling in the military than to be called upon to rescue fellow American military members or citizens. It is what makes this country the superpower it is. I picked that because it is an incredible backdrop for today's episode. Now let me tell you a little bit more about Dan O'Shea. Commander Dan O'Shea, a retired Navy SEAL had more than 25 years of special operations experience, including multiple Middle East Iraq and Afghanistan and Africa tours since 9-11. Dan is a subject matter expert in Islamic terrorism. Dan was the counterinsurgency advisor for the Commander International Security Assistance Force,

Starting point is 00:03:46 Afghanistan from 2011 to 2012. O'Shea established and served as the coordinator of the hostage working group at the US Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, from 2004 to 2006. He expertly managed during that time the interagency coordination of more than 400 kidnapping incidents. Arriving at the height of the hostage-taking campaign that targeted more than 50 foreigners per month by the end of his tour, foreign kidnappings in Iraq were in the single digits.

Starting point is 00:04:18 Commander Dan O'Shea graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in. It has a master's and executive leadership from the University of San Diego. He has been a military analyst for CNN, BVC, MSNBC, and Fox News. He also served as a producer on the Discovery channels, Kinnap and Rescue Series, and was featured on national geographics, locked up abroad, and Netflix's Captive Series.

Starting point is 00:04:46 Dan is the co-founder of the Tampa Bay Frogman Swim that has raised more than $6 million for the Navy SEAL Foundation supporting Navy SEALs wounded and killed in action since 9-11. And during our exclusive interview today, we discuss how he got involved in Operation Pineapple Express. And he tells the incredible story of survival as he guided an American citizen and his family of 14 out of Afghanistan over a 96th period of just sheer terror for that family.

Starting point is 00:05:23 He talks about his decision to become a Navy SEAL, the biggest lessons that he learned from going through BUDS training. He goes through the organizational structure of the SEAL teams and his Corp as a platoon commander in SEAL team three. He goes into depth on his Corp duty in Iraq, where he was the coordinator of hostage rescues,

Starting point is 00:05:46 and goes into several of those that he was involved with, as well as his experience in Afghanistan, and really hits home on how much the Afghanis who served along his side, meant to his survival in those of so many other Americans who are alive today because they put themselves in harm's way. Why he is so adamant about never leaving a soldier behind. And he ends by describing the origin

Starting point is 00:06:12 of the frogman's whim, which he founded to benefit, as I said previously, the wounded and fallen Navy SEALs who served since 9-11. I am so privileged to have this special episode for you, and I hope you take the time to listen to all of it. Now, let's become passion struck. I am so excited to have my friend Navy SEAL commander, Dan O'Shea, on the podcast today. Welcome, Dan. Hey, John, how you doing? I am doing great. And I am so excited to not only bring your story to life, but also for the listeners and watchers to hear what really happened

Starting point is 00:06:54 with Operation Pineapple Express, but I thought a really good starting point was for those who are listening, tuning in to learn a little bit more about your background, because I think that gives a lot more foundation for what you ended up doing with Pineapple Express. So you and I went to Navel Academy about the same time you were a couple years ahead of me, graduated in 91. What was that burning desire in you that made you want to take the leap to become a seal? Because I know at that time it was before all these books were written, and the seals were as well known as they are today.

Starting point is 00:07:29 And there were very few billets back at that point in time. Yeah, the funny part is, plead summer, as you recall, I was an India company, and they have the Iron Plea competition, which I think everyone takes. It's a PT competition, pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, a run-up, a wait.

Starting point is 00:07:45 And I ended up being the Iron India Company champion. And I think I had one of the top 10 or top 20 scores of the entire brigade in terms of just PT, push-ups, sit-ups, and whatnot. And my roommate was a prior Navy guy. His brother had gone to Buds, Quipner, and Hellweat. And he found out about my swimming background, because I played Waterpole and swam in high school

Starting point is 00:08:04 out in California. And he looked at me, he played somewhere and said, hey, do you wanna be a Navy SEAL? And I literally looked at him and I said, I go, what the hell's a Navy SEAL? Again, there weren't any books, well, there had been two books out on the teams, I believe, from two Vietnam vets.

Starting point is 00:08:17 No movies, no one knew anything about the team that they had to me, other than a very select few. And as soon as I was told about buds, and especially Hell Week of a week without sleep, I thought, man, you're crazy, I can never do that. But as luck would have it, I would have all of the crew team and virtually everyone

Starting point is 00:08:34 on the lightweight crew team at the time, they either wanted to be a Marine or Navy SEAL. So the seed got planted my complete summer and then just kind of grew over the next four years and went to many buds. It's airborne, tried out for scuba school and all those things. So it was not an easy decision to make because going to many buds and going through three weeks of seal training, it was a kick in the gymmy as they say. And I wasn't sure if I could last six months of basic underwater development training, but like everything else,

Starting point is 00:09:07 you've got to have a motivation for me. It was about following the career of a young officer named John Patrick Connors, a Lieutenant-June of Raid, who actually was killed at Panama. His story inspired me enough to say, if I could spend the rest of my career working with men like the Navy Seals, I would never look back and have any regrets on what career path I chose, and that's ultimately why I made the decision to go to Buzz and become a seal. And so you were Buzz class, I think of 179. 179? That's correct. That's correct. The last

Starting point is 00:09:35 hard class on my dad. So I always ask Navy SEALs when they come on the show, what was one of the biggest lessons that you learned by going through BUDs? Attitude is everything. Literally, you go through training with Olympic caliber athletes. We had a guy that was on the National Water Pole Championship team. John Redmond, this guy was a fish.

Starting point is 00:09:57 And he was a classic stereotypical frogman, about 6364, Bondhaired, California Surfer Dude, and an amazing swimmer, but he couldn't run. He could not handle the runs and the beat up on the runs just crushed him. There really, Seale's coming all shapes and sizes from 5, 5 to 6, 5 and everything in between. And you really can't point out who's gonna graduate

Starting point is 00:10:18 and who's not. It really comes down to the internal fire. It's always that fire in the gut that everyone gets you butts has because they haven't quite figured out for anyone to get someone to train them. And there's some basic things obviously, but it comes down to each individual on it.

Starting point is 00:10:32 And the end of the day, butts is very much an individual decision. If you're gonna make it or not, it we're gonna quit. And I think that's the one common denominator of a team guy has is that there is literally no can't and no quit in the chorus of ethos of anyone that graduates but sure.

Starting point is 00:10:47 Yeah, I know absolutely. All of the answers I've heard from the seals I've interviewed are different, but they all have a similar tone and that is no one can get through buds by themselves trying times end and it's your attitude and your mindset that's got to take you through it because you learn by going through everything. Even when you think your body's gonna give up, you can power through. And I think for you, that has led you

Starting point is 00:11:11 to do some pretty amazing physical feats after it. I remember one time we were talking and you said you used to do ultra marathon runs, as an example. Can you just talk about those? And because I think it was about 100 miles wasn't it? Well, it wasn't runs, it was actually adventurous. I was one of the early athletes in the sport called adventurous. Actually, it was in the Gotter Race and the Eco Challenge in 1996. I was

Starting point is 00:11:34 on active duty. I got invited to come out travel to a team and typical seal mentality. I took over right away for the land app portion and I'm a young officer that just did what was natural to me and right away the other athletes were like, yeah, you're gonna be our lead navigator for this this team. And so I got involved in the sport the next four or five years and I was racing all over the world center in South America, Asia. And then I would design courses. I designed the very first adventure race in Brazil was involved with the mile seven after a question, China.. What Buds teaches you is that what the mind can conceive, the body can achieve. That when people thought running a marathon was crazy and then adventure racing. And then you got to where each adventure race became from 300 miles to 300.

Starting point is 00:12:17 And then the last race I did was a 514 mile race down in Brazil, which was a poorly managed event. Because I don't think anyone actually finished the 500 miles But but they kept just going pushing the human mind and the human body further and further and and that's really what it's come down to I think everyone realizes that there's no Ridge line you can't accomplish You've got amputees that are doing I double-iron and trap ones and whatnot So really it's all mental thing it really comes to, that's what everyone in Buds gets, but that's not exclusive to being a seal. Anyone who's done these

Starting point is 00:12:49 type of endurance events realizes it really comes down to the power of the body because you can get your body in the shape it needs to do to damn your accomplish anything if you have the right mindset and the right attitude. Yeah, and for those who may be tuning in and don't understand the different seal teams, the odd teams are on the West Coast and the even teams are on the Atlantic coast. And you were in seal team three. Can you talk about the different teams that are on the West Coast and what areas they serve back when I was in every team had an area of orientation. Like, Silteam Free was the desert team. We went to the Middle East. Silteam One was the jungle team. They would go to South East Asia, the Philippines, and Singapore, those regions. Silteam Five was the northeast of Asia, so they would focus on cold weather, and Alaska, well, they trained in Alaska, but they would go to Korea, generally. That was generally the dynamic. And then East Coast, she had Silteam Two, went to Europe. Silteam Four

Starting point is 00:13:43 was Central and South America. Silteam 8 was Southern Med and Northern Africa. And then of course teams obviously have expanded since then. But after 9-11, all that went out with the bathwater in terms of where Silteam's deployed to. Pretty much you can have any team from any command, any coast going to the Middle East, going to Asia. So I think they're trying to get back to that area orientation, but the teams are different today and they train for a wide variety of deployments.

Starting point is 00:14:12 And especially in the 9-11 world, the majority of our deployment focus has been the Middle East for 20 out of years. Okay, and I remember when I was talking to friend of both of our viscosity, he told me that generally you do workups for about 18 months when you're with the team prior to going on deployment, but that can change, but generally is that the rule? That's a 12 month workup and then a six month deployment. So you're in a platoon for 18 months. That was general. Now of course a lot of that change with the formation of task forces and whatnot from post-911?

Starting point is 00:14:45 So I can always speak to the 90s, because but in the 90s, yes, it was basically an 18 month rotation, perpetun, 12 month workup, six month appointment, and then they recycle the opportunity. You'd go right back into workup and then to point it again. Okay, and I remember you first went to Africa and Iraq before going to Afghanistan.

Starting point is 00:15:03 And at one point, you were in charge of all hostage rescues during probably the height of Al Qaeda in Iraq. And I remember you and I having a conversation about it. And I was thinking that the hostage situation was going to be in the single digits, maybe 10, 15. You said, no, you're absolutely incorrect. There were about 400.

Starting point is 00:15:26 And I don't think many people understand that. Can you talk a little bit about that experience? Sure. To be clear, what happened is I was, so I got mobilized after 9-11. I did my SEAL team time. I did a Patoon Commander tour and then I got out of the Navy in 1998. So I did seven years in. It was a civilian.

Starting point is 00:15:44 I just finished a master's at University of San Diego and basically at MBA, a master's in executive leadership. And I was running a company in another seal on 9-11 itself. I was a civilian. And the tax happened and soon as the second plane hit the building, I looked to my roommate who was another silteam-free guy. And I looked at him and I said, I go bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. And we both knew it because that was our silteam three. I deployed in Middle East, my first point was in 1992, deployed in the entire

Starting point is 00:16:13 region, everyone from Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi, Egypt, Pakistan. I mean, literally most of the countries in the region that we were training with, I work with them. And, but again, on 9-11, I was a civilian. And I remember, I've emailed, came out on 9-11 from the SEAL community saying, guys, we need you back. So I picked up a phone. I was back in the reserves within a week, and then mobilized them up later, and ended up

Starting point is 00:16:37 at Special Operations Command Central in Tampa, Florida. How we met and why still live here to this day. So I did two years at special operations command as a special operations liaison to the higher headquarters in a general Tommy Franks and then general abysade coordinating everything was happening for special operations, but special forces units, ODA, civil tunes and Rangers and then whatnot. And then I took a one assignment, 120 day set of orders to back get to work inter-AIDSC coordination between our, quote, inter-AIDSC partners, Department of State, the intelligence community, FBI,

Starting point is 00:17:10 I actually flew the FBI team into country, and we were supposed to just work between the inter-AIDSC help, coordinate between the fence department, State Department justice, or the FBI, and then the intelligence community or the CIA. And ultimately, first day on the job, kind of a message you garcy a moment. I was literally at my second morning meeting of the day and at this whole mill ambassador was, staff was dealing with these two bug hearing truck drivers had been kidnapped and mousel.

Starting point is 00:17:37 And literally the chief of staff read off the list and said some guy named Zart Kaui says he's gonna cut their heads off and what's the bulk variance his folder troops out of Iraq. And he says, too on voice, fine today, to the embassy at noon, we need to brief them and tell them everything that U.S. is doing to save the lives of these two hostages. So the State Department guy, which said they want military again in the room, and literally said to me, quote, Dan, you're a Navy SEAL, go call your friends.

Starting point is 00:18:03 And I had not been in country more than 12 hours. I would have got in midnight. It was in my second meeting of the day and Ruud didn't even know where the jock was or the joint operation center was at that moment. And but I just took the mission. You know, I took the assignment and next thing now I started forming a committee called the Hoss's working group. In the military when you have a problem you form a working group, you bring in bodies that are smarter than you to answer these questions. And that's how it got started. And by default, because I was a guy that built, brought everyone together from the intelligence community, special operations, the diplomatic community, and then just a range of military outfits,

Starting point is 00:18:36 the hostage working group grew to one point represented 30 odd entities across the spectrum from law enforcement through special operations. And then I just stayed on, I got hired as a GS to work directly for the ambassador and I stayed for 22 months. And over that tour, there were 448 international kidnappings over the over two years span. And then thousands of Iraqi kidnappings. And so every day my phone blew up on a new kidnapping crisis.

Starting point is 00:19:03 And I just we built the operations intelligence fusion for kidnapping incidents in Iraq that ultimately led to some pretty high profile rescues or recovery efforts by the national forces if you look. So no, I was not in charge of all hostages of Iraq that certainly was the general and JSOC and those folks but in terms of the coordinating element yes I did establish an entity called the hostage worker which became a in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was

Starting point is 00:19:32 in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in the United States, and I was in ransom payment. So as I always say, we did not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Starting point is 00:19:49 But what we did find was a weapon of mass destruction. And that weapon of mass destruction was the kidnapping industry of the hostage taking industry that was proved vital for the insurgency in terms of habit where it was self-effectively counter-esks and counter-argmedsage and destabilizer efforts to try and rebuild the rep. Are you at liberty to discuss any of the kidnappings you worked on and maybe a hero

Starting point is 00:20:10 and story about one. Well, yeah, and I've done, you know, there's been a couple walked up a broad, there was a locked up a broad episode about Thomas Hamilton. Thomas was a contractor that was taking hostage. He came back, but he basically rescued himself. He basically broke out of his cage and heard a convoy come by. So he self-rescued. It still was an amazing story.

Starting point is 00:20:28 That was the case we worked. The Roy Hounds case is probably one of the most fascinating. Roy was a retired Navy man, a logistics officer who got hired by the side of Raven Company. He was kidnapped right on the eve of a battle of Fallujah, November 1, 2004, if I got the day correct. And as soon as Fallujah kicked off November 4th, he disappeared.

Starting point is 00:20:49 And literally we had very little contact with him, and only through a Filipino that was kidnapped with him at the same time, because the kidnappers were actually talking to the Filipino's regularly about a ransom payment. And ultimately, it turned out that where it was captured by the biggest kidnapped Iran, that openly became the biggest target for me over my two years as this one kidnapped or in a particular, headed up by, if you can believe it, a professor of Islamic study

Starting point is 00:21:16 at Baghdad University would be inviting Western journalists as journalists to his office and rail against the coalition and the infidels, and then the moment they walked out of his office He would have his men kidnapped these journalists from say France or Italy Romania and then he would charge multi-million dollar ransom payments to get these people released so guy perfected a perfect business model and And we chased him for two years and ultimately Roy Howam ended up in this same ring was held by the same ring and he wrote a book

Starting point is 00:21:44 I wrote the opening for his book, Barry to Live, and a fascinating book was supposed to be made into a movie that ended up being Ryan Reynolds, it's a movie called Barried, and Ryan Reynolds largely, that's based on Roy Hallum. So there has been movies made out of some of these cases, and there was a character in the movie called Dan, named Dan Burke, was a coordinator of the hostage working group.

Starting point is 00:22:07 And the only thing that didn't match up with me is my last thing's O'Shea and not Burke. But ultimately, there was a character based on my role and a rack that ended up in the move. So there's been stuff out there and whatnot. And probably the most fascinating, I think the best case that Netflix did a series on called Captive was the season

Starting point is 00:22:28 one episode eight, the Iraqi Christian peace member team. And I was interviewed in that with the number of the other folks involved, including the hostages, a couple of the hostages that were held. They were interviewed as well. And that goes into the depths of like trying to chase these kidnapping rings and the danger to non-government organizations or NGOs that are operating in these regions. But yeah, there's been a lot of history told on that. And then after when ISIS came back and got into the kidnapping game again, then I was interviewed multiple times on, say, CNN or MSNBC, and you can kind of Google those

Starting point is 00:22:56 interviews to learn more if you want to. So people can get an understanding that death of your experience from 9-11 over a period of 10 years. How many deployments did you end up doing? Well, I mean, I did four and a half years of deployments over that decade. So you can drop it into whatever. I mean, I did a two-year tour in Iraq or Ken Appings. I did some smaller deployments, three, four months at a pop, and then I did another 12-month assignment as a Canon Surveillance Advisor in Afghanistan. The interesting part about that, and that was my last overseas tour, short of a deployment to Africa with Canada being my last official military deployment for retiring. But the big change, because we're going to lead him to Afghanistan, and I would say that

Starting point is 00:23:38 I got hired by Green Beret, who I've known in respect for a long time, kind of a remark individual, 86 West Borough named Roger Carson. He is currently the US envoy for all hostages around the world. He's could there's no better matter for the job. And Roger is your classic philosopher, poet lawyer. He's deployed quite a bit, but he really understands policy. And he's a true patriot. And he brought me to Afghanistan as a cabinet service advisor in 2011 to serve for four year or 12 months as a point advisor for at the time General Allen. And Roger made a comment to me coming

Starting point is 00:24:12 over from Iraq. And I had a lot of time in Iraq at the time. And he said, Dan, understand something. Everything you earned in Iraq put it in the back seat because Afghanistan is an entirely different animal. Iraq, he had three major tribal components between the Sunni, Shi and the Kurds, but Afghanistan, he said, there's 12 plus different ethnic groups. And yes, there's the Muslim underlying thing, but again, it's so much more complex.

Starting point is 00:24:35 As he said to me, Dan, you got your masters in counterinsurgency in Iraq. You're gonna come get your PhD here in Afghanistan. And that was just probably the best way to kind of look at comparing Iraq to Afghanistan. And that was just probably the best way to kind of look at comparing Iraq to Afghanistan. Both challenging problem sets, but Afghanistan was a myriad of difficulties that probably largely up to what we have today on display because baseline 12 different ethnic groups, 12 13 different ethnic groups. Each region is very, it's tribal. It's completely

Starting point is 00:25:01 tribal society. Most of the major parts of the country are living the same, they have thousands of years, except for the major cities, Hurrah, Kandahar, Maasri Sharif, Bagg-A-Kabal, excuse me, not Bagg-A-Gad. And other than that, the rest of the country side, they live in mudhuts, they farm, it's an agrarian culture, and it is truly the graveyard of it, parts going back to Alexander the Great. What do we know in history? The greatest armies in the world from Alexander the Great to the Brits, the Russians, and now us have all been humbled by people who were, what do we flip flops

Starting point is 00:25:35 when they go into battle, literally? So you and I are actually speaking on the eve of the 20 year anniversary of 9-11. And we have some mutual friends, Scott O'Neill, Coco, Mark, Ty, Tyson, all of them, Army Special Forces, who were two of the first groups that went into Afghanistan. Those guys who are known as the Horse Soldier, movie came out a few years ago, 12 strong based on them. And can you kind of put this in perspective for people? Because when I look at that, through to six weeks,

Starting point is 00:26:11 they go in and capture most of the northern territory up through Kabul from the Taliban. And then an ensuing team captures the southernmost part. And from an outside looker looking in, you would think, oh my gosh, we won the war there. And then it goes on for 20 years and we end up losing it. But what were some of the dynamics that made it such, you know, you talked about some of them, but why was this such a tricky thing for the United States to fight? Well, listen, and I'm on a seal. So, yeah, we'd study, I'm going to have to say, but that is the bread and butter at the special forces.

Starting point is 00:26:47 This is what these guys have been doing, their entire history. Going back to the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, obviously they laid the footprint, ground turn of this in Vietnam, and these guys are just, this is what they do. And I was at Sox Hill, some fifth group, legendary Vietnam era guys.

Starting point is 00:27:03 I remember this one officer, Jesse Norther, he was just this Bible of knowledge. And he literally said to me one time, almost in Jess, and I thought he was joking, but literally it proved true. In the beginning of the initial operational, we just sent a bunch of, what do we, a handful of ODAs? I mean, a handful of these special forces,

Starting point is 00:27:21 and we're talking 10 12 guys, total, that went in and embedded with each Northern and Alliance tribe. I believe there were seven tribes, so we had seven ODAs that went in initially. One ODA per tribe not only brought all the power of what the Green Bray's brought, but they brought the communications, they brought a JTAC, they brought the power of the air force. So they brought the ability to drop strategically, and even though some of these Northern Alliance elements they were attached to will only a couple hundred initial days, they were able to take on a much larger Taliban force and start decimating the Taliban. And the tribal issues, again, what's the green braids understand better than anyone, they were able as the Northern Alliance started gating territory. And I remember that in about four months and again, Scott and those guys know the history better, but they literally turned the tide when days after 9-11, when they had the first,

Starting point is 00:28:10 we had a map of Afghanistan, we broke it all up, but who controlled what and what tried to control what. And the Taliban outnumbered the Northern Alliance by like seven to one. It was out, you know, it was a, it was only about, and I can't remember the numbers, but I used to have a PowerPoint that had all this laid out, but the Northern Lions were only like, say, 7,500 total. Taliban had like 40,000 fighters, but that's not the number, but it was that much of the differential. But every month, as it re-enbraced, basically took the fight to the enemy on horseback, using these J-tacks, the Taliban numbers started to shrink, and a lot of these tribes realized, well, the past 2-1 like. And a lot of these tribes realized, well,

Starting point is 00:28:45 the past year, while I cultured, in the middle of the fight, if you realize you're getting butt kicked, you can literally throw up your arms and say, okay, he got us, we'll join your tribe. And then the other tribe says, okay, you're not part of our tribe. So within four months, the numbers completely inverted,

Starting point is 00:29:00 where the Taliban will basically down to like 10%, compared to the 90% numbers that the Northern Alliance had. And that was done literally in the first few months of the war and argue you what you could say. I mean the special forces guys will tell you that we were winning the war when we left and it wasn't so big army and that's how it came in that we started losing our way in Afghanistan. And again, that's not for me to argue I'm not I studied history, but that's going to be a discussion by actual historian. But what the Green Beret accomplished in the first four months of 9-11, after 9-11, there's almost no week when history to what those guys,

Starting point is 00:29:32 that number of men and what they were able to accomplish. So again, hats off to those guys and their accolades were well deserved. I think it leads to where we're going next in this because it is a perfect intro. Yes. So I wanted to get your direct experience when you were there because I know you served with Afghani interpreters who were helping you out. And for someone who hasn't been in a war zone, who doesn't understand how vital they were,

Starting point is 00:29:59 can you kind of just talk about some of your experiences and maybe the loyalty that they had because they were putting themselves in constant harm's way. Absolutely. I mean, listen, a lot of Iraqis and a lot of Afghans, they totally bought into the promise of America what America was offering, including democracy and these principles, right? They really bought into this and thousands, tens of thousands of them. When above and beyond just believing in AUSA

Starting point is 00:30:25 number one, but they fought alongside us. I mean, they would have, not only did they do, quote, translations, they were, would have, at our sides. I mean, I'm alive because of my Afghan partners, my Iraqis, I took threats and took huge risks to go into certain areas of both Iraq and Afghanistan on the trust of having a local hire that would know when we needed to leave and get off the exit, if you will. And every soldier that served made these kind of relationships that are, their relationships built on a battlefield that they can be just as tight and just as powerful as your relationship

Starting point is 00:30:59 you build with your fellow seals, your fellow green brazer, your rangers, your raiders, your infantry Marines or just army infantry grunts. So these men, in particular, the men and women too, but especially the men that fought alongside our special operation forces, they became brothers for life. And that is something that goes back throughout history because we know the numbers of those green brazed,

Starting point is 00:31:20 Doastum could have killed that ODA, he could have killed the men from 595 as soon as they arrived easily. I mean, he could have rancidned them for probably millions of dollars if he wanted to, but no. They believed in what the Special Force reburing and the Marine's the Special Forces fought alongside Doastum. Those bonds are irreplaceable and that's a that's a relationship. You go to combat with someone. That's a relationship on a brotherhood level that you can't compare to anything, including buds or the cue course. You would always cement those relationships, fly from the fight along someone, and that

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Starting point is 00:32:37 both minded individuals to help them step into their sharp edges, execute on their passion journeys, and get predictable results time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. You and I have known each other for quite a long time now and I don't think I've ever seen you so exhausted as you've been for the past two weeks. And you told me it was like putting two hell weeks together because

Starting point is 00:33:05 you literally didn't sleep for almost 10 to 12 days besides a cat nap here and there. So you ended up getting involved with Operation Pineapple Express. And if someone is unfamiliar with it, can you explain the origins of it and then why you would have thought the higher-ups the government, the State Department would have been getting these Afghani allies of ours out, but instead this pineapple-express organization came into being to do just that. So I think it's really important for people to understand what happened. Well, listen, pineapple-express, in fact, first off, I'm now having to go back and talk to the founder of it and the guys that kind of brought it together because I was working on it for six, seven days and really didn't understand the origins other than being asked to help.

Starting point is 00:33:53 That's how I got sucked in. Again, I know these special forces guys from the Tampa area, they were having trouble trying to get their interpreters out. I personally, my two interpreters that I work with in 2011-12, both have gotten out one to Europe, one to Australia. No one reads out to me directly, but I knew that our guys were doing something and the two founders of the pineapple, ironically, it's a Green Beret and ABC News producer named James Meeks. And the face of our organization has been a guy named Scott Mann, David Scott Mann, a Lieutenant Colonel, Green Beret,

Starting point is 00:34:24 seventh group, multiple deployment staff, Gments to Afghanistan, a couple to Iraq, and just classic Green Beret that spent virtually all of 9-11 deployed. And Scott and I both knew this ABC reporter. He interviewed us roughly, I don't know, a month and a half, two months ago, about looking back on 9-11, 20 years later. Well, within a week of that interview, obviously, Cobble fell, and then now we got all sucked into this, but the origins of pineapple, and again, I'm going to paraphrase what was related to me. Scott Mann and this journalist, and again, there's a lot of Afghan veterans that aren't just special operations guys or infantry grunts.

Starting point is 00:34:59 There's journalists, there's people who worked in NGOs, there's anyone I consider that went to Afghanistan in the last 20 years is an Afghan veteran, right? And has established friendships and relationships. Well, the pineapple got origin came because both Scott Mann, Ringbury, and this ABC News reporter, both new and Afghan, I won't share too much, but they knew an Afghan partner who had been fought alongside with Scott, James knew him through his being over there in multiple performances, a wartime correspondent and they knew this guy was on on the run for his life. He was trying to get out because the Taliban had him on the target list and he escaped from the north, flight down to Kabul one step ahead of the Taliban and ultimately where pineapple came into

Starting point is 00:35:40 play is Scott and James started pulling guys into this chat room, if you will. And one by one, everyone started leveraging their own networks. And ultimately, this guy was at the airport. One of the tens of thousands trying to get through the wire with the Marines and 82nd Airborne Guarding. And because of the network that the pineapple, and it wasn't even called pineapple at that point,

Starting point is 00:36:01 it was, I don't know what it was called, but ultimately, someone in the network shared with our Scott and James and said, listen, tell your guy at that checkpoint with the Marines, the password is pineapple. So it was just a random word. It wasn't picked on anything, but so that guy got to the gate and one of thousands trying to get in said the word pineapple. And by the third time the Marine looked up and goes, okay, he's vetted, he's one of ours, and that's how he got through it. Then the thread became T.F. pineapple.

Starting point is 00:36:31 And so when I got sucked in, I don't know where I was, I was in the top 20, I believe it got sucked in to help. And I was helping another veteran I served with from Iraq. She was trying to get a senior level Afghan Ministry of Defense individual out and she called desk for help. And I said, Hey, I got some green braids working at let me pull you in. And that's where Dan or Shay got sucked in. And again, there was everyone independently.

Starting point is 00:36:52 We're all trained for this. And we had again, a lot of you know, it was initially green braised seals, Marines infantry type. But then we started pointing the human and former folks with intelligence background. So everyone brought something to the table and all of us had Contact with Afghans on the ground who were feeding us intelligence that we were then relaying. So we started building these Communities of interest and on the thread the original task force pineapple thread that started growing because people started being added to the room. I realized hey, we need a we need to intel sharing thread So I built one and then it became our info sharing thread and a media thread. So our, so our

Starting point is 00:37:28 verb journalists, we need to have the messaging that we're putting out. So just independently, just because that's kind of a type of people we are, Scott Mann wasn't able to really push out guidance to do one, because Scott was in the middle of his phone blowing up in 24-7 knots. We all were everyone on on these threads where you could be on the thread at 2 in the morning. And people would be popping up like your threads were constantly popping up. So people would not know when was sleeping.

Starting point is 00:37:53 We had congressional staff from Colonel Mike Walsh, who was a representative in Northern Florida. His staff, when I got, she called me, like, four days into this on a question, she had in something a week. I think she had less sleep than me at that point. So it wasn't just, it started with special forces and then it just grew from there. Well, special forces in a journalist and it grew from there. And everyone brought something to the table to where ultimately, we did get a couple folks on the ground. But the irony of the cash force pineapple is everyone

Starting point is 00:38:22 thinks that a bunch of seals and green braids were in Afghanistan running around the back streets of Kabul picking up Afghan partners to get him across the wire. We all did this on our cell phones back here in the states, but we had networks in country including Afghans and the real heroes of this story, frankly, are the Afghan partners who were risking their lives to get our Afghan partners out, where they could have said, no, I'm going to get out to and some of these people are still hoping to see this day.

Starting point is 00:38:46 So the story is incredible. It will be told, but it really was a very much a glass roots, crowd sourcing effort that just grew, exponential. And again, Task Force Pineapple is one of many organizations. We're not doing ones. There was digital Dunkirk. There was some Facebook pages.

Starting point is 00:39:03 But it was virtually Afghan veterans, men and women, across all type of memoesses, military occupational specialties from intelligence to special operations to everything in between. To journalists, it just had a good network and context. And everyone was leveraging relationships to get things done, and that's the beautiful story because it is remarkable what we accomplished. The term is we've shepherd a lot of these glass flocks or sheep to safety. And that's that's all the more what the end state was

Starting point is 00:39:31 is to get these people out. Well, I'm gonna ask you here in a second to describe how you got a family of 14 to 16 out. But before I do, I just wanted to understand more. I would have thought that the Department of Defense or the State Department or some government agency would have been going in and shepherding these vital Afghani allies out.

Starting point is 00:39:54 Why didn't that happen? That's not a question to ask me because a lot of us asked ourselves that question. That problem needs to come out as some congressional hearings to be frank because what we were getting on the ground was just absolute utter confusion and no order I mean there were conflicting messages being passed from State Department to American citizens Aspart Holders and otherwise for example

Starting point is 00:40:14 They kept pushing out that we're working with our Taliban partners to let anyone with an American passport or a SIV application to get through and get to the airport. Yeah, we're getting reports from our Afghans that said the Taliban won't let us get to the gate. I mean, they're being threatened beaten. So what was being pushed out of Washington in terms of how things were so prophetic at the airport, we're working through with our new Taliban partners, get you guys like me and others on the ground. I'm like, I don't trust anyone associated with the Taliban and never would.

Starting point is 00:40:41 And we also had the facts that Taliban were not helping. They, you know, so there was a lot of conflicting things. Now, the reality is task force pineapple isn't going to get in the weeds because, hopefully, we've got to work within the system to get our people out because we got 700 people out of one week. A major, amazing story. Other groups got out thousands, too. But we all have thousands more that are still on a you know that our SIVs that work with us So as Scott Mann said the day after when we had our first real conference call because we went I went a week without any type of guidance for anyone. We all operated independently to do the job to get it done But when we had our first phone call Scott put out the message to everyone and say hey guys

Starting point is 00:41:18 We got 700 out, but there were thousands we didn't we have more work to do So we're still very much in the fight and we're still We've got a lot of people that are relying us the very lives are in the in the balance right now So there's a lot of challenges working through state and diplomatic issues But it's one thing to get a family across the border and to save you But then what if you get him across the border in the Pakistan and then you know, they're out of money Which is the case for a lot of these families or what have we really done for them if we've gotten them into a country where there's no acknowledgement or recognition and there's a lot of challenges and I'm not putting this all on DOD or state because this is not easy to do.

Starting point is 00:41:54 But we just saw a gap that needed to be filled and we stepped up to the plate of Scott has said time, time again. We are doing this to honor the promise we made to these people, these, these Afghan partners who risked their all for us. And they understand we know in behind. And that's kind of the story that I got sucked into about the family I got out. And I can share that because I think that goes to the very crux of the challenge that everyone is facing right now. And Afghanistan does for it to get out. Yeah, I think it's a heroine story happened to hear it on Saturday. And just the emotion you told it with was, was just got wrenching. So I think it's a heroine story happened to hear it on Saturday and just the emotion you told it with was just got wrenching.

Starting point is 00:42:27 So I think it's important for people here at this story. Well, let me get in. So when I got sucked into this, the timeline was simply, um, Friday, two weeks ago, I was asked, I knew that these guys were working. I knew the green braze were working on getting Afghans out. I was at a, um, a women defense luncheon in Tampa. I shared with the room at the end. I said, hey, we're working to get our Afghan partners out if you've got these challenges. And got together with folks in the room. One guy relayed that an Afghan army captain female that had worked

Starting point is 00:42:57 for him worked alongside him for a year and told him multiple times, hey, you've got to get me out of here because when America leaves, the Taliban will kill me. And he found out the day prior that this young Afghan captain, female, had been murdered the day before in front of her family. So we knew the stakes were high. We knew that Afghans were being targeted and killed. So for us, it was a sense of urgency from day one. And what do we say to morning?

Starting point is 00:43:20 I get a phone call from a friend asking for help. I got plugged in the network then. Sunday morning, I want to step back. At that women in defense meeting, a woman from Special Operations Command said, hey, we're in the building, we're probably going to track that. I gave her my card. She was in the J35 ops plans and Sunday morning, she called me at 7 a.m. and said, hey, we, I have a captain that needs needs, needs, is interesting what you guys are doing. Can you call him? So Sunday morning, I call this captain up and I said, hey, sir, I

Starting point is 00:43:49 understand you're running the operational planning team. And when you say captain and O six Navy captain, Navy captain, I, I thought, okay, this so calm must be tracking this. And I said, you must be running the OPT and he said, no, we don't have an OPT, but he goes, I heard you're getting interpreters out. Can you help me get mine out? I'm like, okay, so I got a request from Socom two weeks ago to help get an interpreter out.

Starting point is 00:44:12 So again, the private sector is already leaning forward and getting stuff done when the public sector is dragging its feet, if you will. Anyways, I'm not gonna get into that conversation, but what I'll say is, by Monday, I got handed, what we need to worship, is people who could guide these families and say, with who had a way of the land of

Starting point is 00:44:27 cobbling particular at that time. And I've been to cobbling many times, born in the airport multiple times. So I was handed a family, an American Afghan passport holder. He all knew is that he worked with the special forces, third and seventh group for three years, and with the DEA for seven.

Starting point is 00:44:42 That's all I knew, did nothing more about the gym. And I won't use his name, but I knew that he fought alongside us. And that's all it took for me, because I've worked with others that have got citizenship. And they have earned it. These Afghan and Iraqi's who have went away, fought alongside us, taken risk every day.

Starting point is 00:44:56 They earn and understand that with that blue passport means more than any one. And I was just texting with a guy and getting updates from a consulate. Every time it gets to a checkpoint, they would say to him, well, you can get on the shuttle to the terminal because you have a boot passport and your wife and your two boys do, but your family cannot and it included his parents, his brothers, sisters, and their children, 14 total including five kids

Starting point is 00:45:16 under the age of nine and two baby twin boys that were born three weeks prior. So literally two babies and swathering close. And every time this guy would trudge to these checkpoints, because what you had a cobblestone or a mass wear port, four or five checkpoints, and it's a pretty big airport. And one checkpoint would open and there'd be thousands rushing to the gate. They would shut that gate off and then open up another on the other side of the airport, which meant people had to go navigate through these checkpoints, down in checkpoints, the crowds, rush hour traffic. It was a nightmare and it's 120 degrees right now in Kabul this time of year. So you imagine a family of three generations trying to move from checkpoint to checkpoint, constantly being denied access. Ultimately, the one good thing about helping this Navy captain

Starting point is 00:45:57 at SoCon is he started helping us. They built up a channel. So we were communicating with SoCon, giving them updates because we had probably better intel than they did on the ground because we were getting it live from our Afghans on the ground. And as we all know SoCon and the military and they're told just we pulled all over assets out. So we were providing updated intel to everyone and we were getting our people out. So there was this working relationship established with the military here in Tampa. Thank God. And at one point, I got a document that the captain signed off about, and I just copied it, made it my own, but I built a ledger on a so-com wetter head on this family,

Starting point is 00:46:32 to say this individual and his entire family are authorized to get through the wire because they've worked for us. I have a paragraph. So I built the document. I sent it to my counterpart. It's called Samar. And, um... Well, and let me just stop you there, because it's not as if it just took you like 15 minutes

Starting point is 00:46:48 to do it. It took you hours because you had to fill in all the information. And that was accurate. Yeah, trust me. It took like two and a half hours. And I was doing this on, I think the second night up on two hours a sleep on day two of this whole mess. And I remember talking to him because I had to get this information with him and he never slept because he was at all hours of sleep on day two of this whole mess. And I remember talking to him,

Starting point is 00:47:05 because I had to get this information with him, and he never slept, because he was at all hours of the day, five, six hours ahead of me, and he was constantly responding to my Texas. And again, it was a collaborative effort. I wasn't the only person helping him. There was a team of us in this chat room helping him. And, but I got the document to him,

Starting point is 00:47:21 and I said, make sure this is on your phone. Don't have a paper copy, because the Taliban find so-com wetter head on you, like a piece of paper that had special operations command. That's a death sentence. They would have executed him on the spot. But the challenge was for him to get close enough to the gate to show a soldier on his phone,

Starting point is 00:47:36 a foreign screen, hey, I've got this document from so kind. I worked with you guys. And again, because everyone come up to the gate is telling every Marine or 82nd Airborne, save me, save me. So ultimately, after the second day of him not getting through even getting up to the gates, because he's constantly getting pushed away, and the Hutt Kahnineck, what they brought, the Portaway, 8,000 fighters, they were putting a new surround the airport every day, got tighter and tighter. And at one point, I remember the second

Starting point is 00:48:03 night weight, it was well after midnight, and I'm texting him, and I realized, as the Intel's coming in, that more and more people were not getting through the wire unless you had a quote, everyone had an American passport. And even then, they were getting turned away. I knew the challenges for him to save his whole family were almost impossible. And I remember trying to, how do you say this to someone

Starting point is 00:48:20 who barely know, you've known for 36 hours, and I'm texting him, and I'm trying to do the Southeast choice. I'm trying to say, hey, you know, you got to figure out who you can save at this point. Because in my mind, I already knew that his family's probably not going to get across the wild. I said, you got to think about who you can save at this point. And what he said to me, it just cemented why I was like everyone else on the task force was doing this on no sleep and doing everything we could because he said to me when I said you got to make a decision you can save at this point he goes Dan. He goes my father made me the man I am today. I'm not leaving him. My mother, my brother, my sisters or their children. Would you and I'm a seal right we have a combat record we've never left a man behind on a battle ever.

Starting point is 00:49:01 We have a combat record. We've never left a man behind on a battle ever. That's our legacy. And it means something to me going to a Ranger School where I recited it every day. I will never leave a man behind on the field of battle. And I believe in that. This is not a talking point or a tagline that's coming out of the talking hasn't been seen. This guy it meant the same to him as it means to a seal, green beret, Ranger, anyway.

Starting point is 00:49:23 And I said to him, I said to him, no, I would stay too. And he said to me, well, then you were my brother and you understand. It goes, if we die, we die together. And I swear that I just made a commitment. I said, I'm going to do whatever is in my power to get you out and your family. Again, state of all night, got that document prepared.

Starting point is 00:49:44 Send it back to him. The next day, he gets to a checkpoint. I think it was Abby gate. I'm not sure. I think it was Abby. And Abby, as you know, was kind of that shit show gate that had thousands of people on it, trying to get through. And as he got up to, with an eyesight of the 82nd airborne

Starting point is 00:49:59 soldier, he can see the checkpoint. He's almost there, but the Taliban have this line. And he's dressed like every other local and he gets up there with his entire family, tries to get through the Taliban, who are being, the world's being told that Taliban are waiting these people through and they're not.

Starting point is 00:50:14 And in fact, he gets up there and the Taliban guy says, no one's getting through here. And he pulls out his blue passport, the same blue passport you have and I have. It says, I'm an American citizen. The Taliban looked him in the eye and said, I don't care if you're George W. Bush. You're not getting to that fucking gate

Starting point is 00:50:31 and then started to beat him and his family, right? And they just beat him retreat. They had to go back. Well, anyways, the irony of this, throughout this all day process, and this was a day that I did not go to sleep throughout the whole day. I kept in cons with him. At one point, there was a gate near his house. It was unoccupied, but

Starting point is 00:50:49 I didn't have anyone on the ground at the time to go check that gate out. And I know exactly what gate it was. It was called the OGA gate. And even he knew what it stood for other government agencies. And I had fun into that terminal once before. So I knew exactly what he was talking about. He said, no one's there. If someone can just open the gate, just unlock the gate, we can get in. Well, I called the Pentagon hotline. I called Sen-Kon hotline.

Starting point is 00:51:12 I called the Silicon folks. No one could get me and cons with someone in common at the airport. And so again, I just trying to rely on our government solution, there was no solution, right? And ultimately, my phone had been blown up all weekend from people calling to try and get their folks out on an old army buddy. I trained with him in my silver team, went over 30 years ago. He called me up and said, hey, bro, I got

Starting point is 00:51:33 turps I'm trying to get out. What are you doing? I said, shit, get involved with Task Force fine up with me. We're working this issue and we can probably get you out of to the mix. And I talked about my challenge trying to find someone on the test on the compound, on Cobble itself. And he said, he goes, hell bro, my nephew's at 82nd Airborne. He's in the jock right now. And I'm talking to him on a secure comnet. I said, holy crap.

Starting point is 00:51:58 I go, can you put me in comms? He goes, yeah, wait one. A second later, I'm in direct comms with an 82nd Airborne. Well, it's charging. And I said, listen, I got a pin drop. Can you check out this gate? It's called the OGA gate.

Starting point is 00:52:09 I said, can you look it up for me? He goes, and this is now about 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock his time. So it's 9 o'clock. And he goes, I go, I got a family 5 meters walk, 500 meters from there, they can be there in 10 minutes if you get the gate open. He goes, hey, hold, he goes, get the family ready. He goes, let me go check it out.

Starting point is 00:52:28 I'm sitting there, baby breath, I texted, you know, Sam, her and I said, hey, get your family ready. Stand by. He goes, we're ready. And I'm getting ready to go. My God, I'm going to get him out. I'm going to get him out. Sergeant comes back 20 minutes later and goes, damn, sorry, man. That place is crawling with Taliban.

Starting point is 00:52:40 We can't, they own that gate. I said, dammit. You know, five hours earlier, no one was there, and now the Taliban are tightening that news. Yeah, and can you explain one thing? Because I understand some of our coalition partners like the British and the French and others were actively sending special forces teams in to get their people out, but the United States didn't do that.

Starting point is 00:53:02 That is correct. They would deny the ability by our own government. And like I said, I'm going to stay out of the politics of that. There will be a time for that discussion, but yes, the British and the French. The French were going outside the wire to get French nationals back and we were not. So that's a decision made at the administration. So that. Yeah, I'm just saying because at this point,

Starting point is 00:53:25 it could have been, a team could have been sent, grabbed them from that gate, brought them back in, didn't happen. So now you're looking at yet another solution to come up with to send this family. So to proceed, later on, we found out a gate called the M.O.I. gate was open

Starting point is 00:53:43 and it was not jammed with thousands. This is now the middle of the night. So.I. gate was open and it was not jammed without. This is now the middle of the night. So this Sam and his family had been going gate to gate now for almost three days, four days straight with no success. They're exhausted as you can imagine, but I get them to a gate. We've got a guy there that says, no, they should be good to go. And then he gets to the gate and I get a text that the driver, any game he's name, he

Starting point is 00:54:03 said, he went to look at my phone. I can't get my family on. He'll only let me on and not my whole family. And I'm thinking, shit, we're almost there. And I'm, I try to the net going, hey, this guy driver, Hadari won't let him on the bus. Someone in our network, and I, as I recall, it was the sergeant, but someone immediately popped up

Starting point is 00:54:20 and said, hey, I got a cell phone. Here's his WhatsApp number, give him a call. So would we at 2 30 in the morning, day three in the this mess? I get a hold. I call on WhatsApp. It rings rings and hello, hello. And I said, Hadaari, yes, sir, I said, and I told you I had a document signed by this captain in Socom. So I identified myself as captain, so and so from you, a special operations Command. And I said, I have signed a document.

Starting point is 00:54:46 I want this individual, Sam, or his entire family on that next bus that goes to the terminal. Do you understand me? Oh, yes, sir, yes, sir. I go, I will forward these documents to you. And sure enough, on WhatsApp, I was able to send them the document that I wrote and signed or that I impersonated, if you will. But I said, I'm sending you the So-Come document and then all the passport photos, which is what I did. And I thought it was a done deal.

Starting point is 00:55:07 The guy assured me he'd get them on the next bus. I texted Sam, I said, my friend, he has your information. He's got all your passport photos of your entire family. You will be on the next bus. I think we're there. So obviously, Sam is excited. He's over the moon. He's very thankful.

Starting point is 00:55:23 I asked him about his family. He sends me pictures of the two twin boys, he said everyone's tired but we're safe, and we feel safe here, and I said, we'll just stay there, you'll be out of there, the bus will be back within the hour, or so I thought. So at this point, I think, oh my god, I've done everything I can do, I think we're good, I put the phone on my chest, I pass out for two hours, almost two hours. I wake up frantically at 4.29 in the morning, look at my phone, hoping that I've got some word that he's inside the wire and it's no, it's Dan. The bus never came back. Dan, they walked the gate. Dan, like, what do we do now? And I'm looking at this phone realizing,

Starting point is 00:56:00 oh my God, I said, I will one, I thought I was now talking to a dead man because now I knew that there was no more options that day to get anyone with no proper paper to get inside the wire. That Abigate was a non-starter because we had a suicide bomber throughout there for four two days now. And the only way to get to Abigate to the front of the gate, if you saw that canal that went all the way around the airport, that canal was raw sewage. And we were, our other shepherds were telling their guys, if you want to get to the front of the gate. If you saw that canal that went all the way around the airport, that canal was raw sewage. And we were our other shepherds were telling their guys, if

Starting point is 00:56:29 you want to get to the front of the gate, the only way past the checkpoints for the towel end are going to stop you, past the 5,000 people trying to get to the front of the line. The only way you can walk up to the gate is to walk through that mile of shit, like Shawshanes Redemption, right? And at that point, I can't send a family with three generations, grandparents and grandkids, a mile through a ship river, if you will. And in my heart, I said, oh my God, me falling asleep for two hours, I was beating myself up going, man,

Starting point is 00:56:54 you did a week without sleeping, how would I stay awake for two more hours, Dan? And I'm about to have to text this family to say, I can't help you anymore, you've got to go home. And I was, what are we doing like at the lowest of the previous now? I guess three and a half days at this point. I, as I was about to send him home, I get a text popped up in my, the other thread.

Starting point is 00:57:16 And it was a girl that was helping us. Sandra, I don't even, I didn't know anything more about her. She said, what's the update on Sam and the family? We haven't hurt you in a couple hours. I said, the bus never came back. The gates walked. I said, I'm about to send them home because I can't send them to Abbey Gate. And she popped up. She said, hold on four minutes later. She pops up with a pin drop and says, Dan, this is the Northwest Gate. Which at that point I'd never known ever even heard of it. She goes, it's open for another hour. They have to get here now.

Starting point is 00:57:46 And she said, this gentleman, this guy, this soldier will be waiting for them. She sends me a picture of the guys taking a quick selfie of Justice Chess body owner where he had his American flag right here in his chest. And where the stars are supposed to be was the emblem for the 75th Ranger Regiment. So this guy was a Ranger.

Starting point is 00:58:03 And I'm a Ranger, right? I went to Ranger school and I said, holy shit. Oh my God, we got a Ranger, man. We're gonna pull this off because Ranger's a lead, no man behind on the field of battle. So I immediately texted Sam, or I said, Sam, you've got to start moving now. This is the Northwest Gate.

Starting point is 00:58:19 It's open for another hour. I know you're exhausted, but you gotta go. You're entire family, you need to go right now. And then I sent him the picture. I said, this soldier is waiting for you. You must find this soldier. So over the next hour, I'm texting him. He's going, well, there's Taliban.

Starting point is 00:58:34 I said, get through the checkpoint. I'm the whole way I'm just encouraging. I don't hour into it. Right at the window when he's almost times up, he goes silent on me for about, I don't know, 20 minutes, 25 minutes, and then pops up and says, we found your friend. He got my entire family through the wire. We've all cleared the biometric scan.

Starting point is 00:58:52 We're waiting for a shuttle, and I'm going, oh my God, okay, we're inside the wire, we're not there yet. Another hour goes by, one line text, we're on the shuttle. Another 45 minutes later, the last text text and we've got through the second screening at the terminal we are inside We are being manifested for a flight tonight to Qatar. You have saved my entire family God bless you and God bless America and John if I lost it because I was like so mentally wiped out at that point I was just but I was too for it because I thought I had been talking to a dead man for three days because all the other threads

Starting point is 00:59:28 and I'm falling are bad news stories. People cannot get through. People were being executed. So, and I say that and I shared this with my team and obviously, I, in fact, I called Sandra, you know, and I said to her, I said, hey, I don't know where you're at. I don't know who you work for, but you say that man's life

Starting point is 00:59:44 and three generations of his family. And we both had it. It was emotional because she goes, you know what, Dan? Thank you so much because that's the only good news I've heard in the last two days and three days. And I said, I hear you. So I share that story because we owe this guy, not just because he's an American citizen, but he is someone who's

Starting point is 01:00:02 blood for us and fought alongside my brother in the Green Brays, served alongside our law enforcement, men and women in blue. He honored that code. We've known behind to his own family that sets a far better example that was being currently set by our own administration

Starting point is 01:00:18 and can enter to this point with. Again, don't wanna get any more politics on it, but we do have an honor to these people. Not everyone, trust me. I'm not saying open borders and let every Afghan in, but we've got an open border to the South that we're what are we sending? Plain loads and trebles, these people spread out across America.

Starting point is 01:00:35 And none of those people come from Central and South America or elsewhere. They haven't done anything for this country. They haven't blood for this country. They haven't thought for our principles, but our Afghan partners who served alongside our military and men and women, our special forces, our seals, our reemba rays,

Starting point is 01:00:50 our rangers, our Marsox raiders. They have fought and served alongside us for these principles that most Americans don't even understand. I mean, freedom of expression, bill of rights. I mean, these people are desperate for this. And these men and women, and Afghanistan, win above and beyond.

Starting point is 01:01:05 And that's why we have a moral imperative to honor our promise we made to them. And our nation made this promise. Our politicians, our presidents, our general officers made these promises. And they needed to do a better job because what was on display the last two weeks made me frankly ashamed to be an American.

Starting point is 01:01:24 But I will honor my own code and my own values, which every man and woman in pineapple. And frankly, John, I don't even know the total number of people who have helped us because it is in the hundreds. And we're not alone, it's not just us. There's hundreds of others out there, thousands of veterans that are doing the right thing to try and get these people back.

Starting point is 01:01:42 And I'm just a small cog in a big part of this wheel. And I just have one story. And it took me 96 odd hours to get one family out. We still have a lot of Fox out there that need help and the chepherds in need our mental and moral support. Well, what an incredible story. And thank you for sharing it. I know it's not easy to share.

Starting point is 01:02:01 It's very emotional, but it just puts it into perspective. If you think that there were 700 people who we did get out. How many more stories were like that? And unfortunately, how many more stories were they weren't able to get through? And I know there's still people, as we speak, trying to get out airplane stuck on the ground and other things. So more work to be done, but God bless you for what you did. And I did want to allow you to maybe explain the map behind you because it's a it's a map of Afghanistan. And I know you can't go into it too much. But can you talk about the company that you work for and and basically

Starting point is 01:02:39 what they do? Because I think it's a very interesting veteran owned and operated company. Sure. so I'm a member of a play-counter in a company called Equitus, and it originally SC2, and it was the brain trust brainchild of a guy, Sir, with his socks sent. I, at the time, a major getterie who's now Brigadier General, did he's a national guard, General Officer in the Army Guard, and he built this vision, this company built this vision, this company, built this vision for exactly what is on display in Afghanistan.

Starting point is 01:03:09 So we are a big data scraping company that can take volumes of data and replicate it on what we're building as a common operating picture. Because right now we're doing all this on our cell phone. So everyone is staring at a phone, trying to coordinate among multiple lines of effort, where our goal is that we're gonna be able to represent that up on a screen and everyone can get a big picture

Starting point is 01:03:29 of everything going on and get a picture of that phantastin from okay, major lines of communication, what are the ex-fill, in-fill routes, airports, hospitals, ATM machines, the ZARS for people who get food, hospitals, you name it. So, and border and border crossings, and telebench at points and all the things like that, where we wanna have it interactive,

Starting point is 01:03:49 that is all this Intel's coming in from the ground when it gets vetted, we can replicate that up on the big screen and make it easier for kind of the big picture. Because right now, everyone involved in pineapple is doing this. We are raising money, and the website to date was operationallycovered.org, but we have now, our leadership just came back from a meeting with the chairman of the

Starting point is 01:04:12 Gronethees of staff this past, I think Tuesday and D.C., or Wednesday, and we are now going to try and formalize a private and public partnership between these veteran efforts and the government efforts, because the reality is the average Afghan passport holder via the blue passport holder, green card holder, or SID, especially immigrant visa, they don't have a lot of trust in safe right now in our own government, and we do have that trust in safe. So we are that bringing that seam and gap

Starting point is 01:04:40 to the whole finest solution. Because ultimately, we're gonna need the State Department to be on the receiving end when we get these people out of country. So we can't choose who we work with. We have to work in a collaborative environment in rice bowls and make it happen. And my time in Iraq, I get with a lot of inter-AIDS-y food

Starting point is 01:04:56 fights. And there will be that in the future. But we have to come together as a nation to do this, both our Defense Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, and then these private sector efforts that are working a little around the clock over time and just trying to do the right thing.

Starting point is 01:05:13 So for those who are listening, when I'm holding in my hand as a book that was gifted to me by Dan, called the Trident, written by one of the seals that he talked about earlier on, Jason Redman. And to me, when I first picked up the book, the thing that was most amazing to me is you go through the first few pages and it's all the seals who have died over the course of the war on terror. And so one of the things, Dan,

Starting point is 01:05:42 that I wanted to recognize you for is that here in Tampa, and it's now grown to other cities across the United States, you started a charity organization called The Frogman Swim, and I was hoping you could just talk a little bit about that, the purpose of it, and what it's aiming to do in the benefit of Navy SEALs and their families. Sure. Well, we probably should do a podcast on that, because there's a lot of stories to that. But essentially, the Tampa Frogman swim that started,

Starting point is 01:06:12 the ideal from a young kid that I've mentored from about age 12 until I got into high school and he wanted to go into the SEAL teams. And it was his idea at his swim across Tampa Bay to honor a Naval and other Naval Academy graduate, Dan Knochen. Dan was a Navy SEAL Lieutenant Siltine I on his first mission in country. He stepped on a land mine and lost both waves and was as Sam Young, Sam

Starting point is 01:06:34 Barton had read, had been fighting for his life at Walter Reed to try and save himself. And so it was this young man's idea to swim across Tampa Bay. And I put out the word to a handful of seals, and that email went viral, and instead of just having five, 10 seals show up, on year one, we had 39 swimmers, 42 kayakers, and about 25 volunteers, about 100 souls showed up on the beach

Starting point is 01:06:57 and January 2nd, 2010, and now we're going in year 12, and it's grown every year, we doubled the numbers of swimmers, so we capital 175, general hand average about 150 every year but we get repeat swimmers, we had a handful swim every year and the fundraising, everyone swims on behalf of one of those fallen Navy Seals

Starting point is 01:07:18 and they reach out to friends and family and we have fund raise, we have individuals that are bringing on average like 2,500 is on the low end. We get about five grand per swimmer raised by these swimmers, but we've had an individual like bring an 80,000 of his own money from one swimmer plus one team is bringing in like three, four hundred thousand dollars. One page in his team. It's insane. It's just incredible. And we have a lot of gold stars now that have come out. They form their own teams that feaks family or patty fe own teams, the Feeke's family,

Starting point is 01:07:45 or Patty Feats to honor him. So it's just an incredible event, and we have almost 1,000 people involved in the separate, every January, second or third Sunday, and every January. And we welcome people to come out, especially if you're in the Tampa area, or you wanna come to Tampa and either swim or volunteer.

Starting point is 01:08:00 But it's a great event, and to date is raised, as last I checked, I think we're over over five million and I think we're over the six million dollar mark money that has been raised for the Navy still foundation. So it's takes care of those families over fallen and takes care of our rooted and it just does some remarkable things for the and and honest just service and sacrifice of some men that and brothers that that gave their last full measure of devotion for this country. Yeah, amazing. And now I remember just a few months ago, you were up in Boston, where they have also started one of these. Are there other cities that are doing it as well?

Starting point is 01:08:36 So San Francisco had a swim that ultimately just the race director got sick. So that we shut down the San Francisco swim a couple years ago. Boston is in year three. And even though right now that's our only other affiliate swim, but the Aaron Vaughn swim got started. I invited the Vaughn family to the Tampa frontman swim, year two, year three. And then they started their own swim. And now the honor foundation run by Matt Stevens,

Starting point is 01:09:01 another Naval Academy graduate of 1991 and my buds class 179. they are doing an honor swim out in San Diego coming up there week or two. So we were the first one that I know of on the block, but now that we've spawned other swims around the country. So I just think it's awesome and the more than marry as far as I'm concerned. Well, Dan, I'll end there.

Starting point is 01:09:20 And I think it might be a great idea to do a whole segment on the Frogman's swim and maybe bring in multiple people who've been involved with it. So, but thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much for your time today and telling that amazing story and thank you for your service throughout all that time

Starting point is 01:09:40 and making that commitment to come back on active duty, which turned out to be a very heroic 10 years of your life. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat as as what everyone else announced. I'm not sure about you, but I was left breathless several times during that story that Dan just told. Such an incredible example of a bunch of veterans and other communities who have come together

Starting point is 01:10:01 at a time of need to help these vulnerable, and organic allies of ours, who are trying to leave the country before the change chance in Alabama. And it's remarkable how many of them are still there trying to get out. As always, I wanted to thank all of you taking the time with us today and our mission of making passion go viral for millions everywhere. Today's episode is exactly why we do this show. And if you truly love today's episode, which you please forward it, the people who need to hear the message

Starting point is 01:10:34 that Dan gave today. And if there's a person that you would like me to interview or a personal topic that you would like me to talk about, you can always DM me at John Armiles. And if you haven't checked our YouTube channel out, which has over 175 different videos on it, ranging from overcoming adversity to assistance with relationships, personal growth,

Starting point is 01:10:56 peak performance, and so many others, you can check it out also at John Armiles. Thank you so much for supporting us in this incredible journey that we're on. Thank you so much for supporting us in this incredible journey that we're on. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make Passion Go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Passion Start podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast ad. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five-star rating on iTunes,

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Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Escaping Afghanistan: How a Navy SEAL Saved a Family of Fourteen w/ Retired Navy SEAL Dan O‘Shea EP 63

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