Shawn Ryan Show - #298 Jason Magnavice - SEAL Team 6 Red Squadron Operator

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Jason Magnavice is a retired U.S. Navy SEAL with over 26 years in Naval Special Warfare. He spent eight years at SEAL Team 2 before being selected to serve within Joint Special Operations Command, operating in some of the most elite elements of the community for over a decade. He deployed four times to Operation Enduring Freedom and four times to Operation Iraqi Freedom, serving as a sniper, tactical communicator, lead jumper, and team leader during the height of the war on terror. During his time in special operations, he transitioned into a specialized aviation role, earning his Airline Transport Pilot certificate and later serving as a senior enlisted leader within that element. He finished his career coordinating recruiting for Naval Special Warfare. Today, he flies a Gulfstream privately and holds a 767 type rating with a major freight carrier. He’s a father, a grandfather, and has chosen to live a quiet life with no social media, no book, and no brand. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Find your forever cookware and get 10% off at https://hexclad.com/SRS! #hexcladpartner Post jobs for free at https://ziprecruiter.com/srs Try ShipStation free for 60 days with full access and no credit card needed at https://shipstation.com using code srs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Countertop wipes and fly traps Hey fruit flies your baby boom ends here Save the Everyday with Amazon Have you seen this show before? Yes. I watched the one on Biss. Oh, okay. Your buddies was... You watched DJs? Well, I knew DJ when he was a kid.

Yeah, I saw that. I did a freaking... I did a platoon with his dad. He was my... his dad was actually my platoon chief. I knew DJ when he was 13 or 14 just to go hang out with his parents. They'd always... You know, they have a big deer roast. You know, we'd go hunting and eat some venison, tell stories. His dad was mostly incredible.

incredible storytellers. Very... Still is, right? Animated, huh? Still is, right? You still talk to him? No. No? Are you buddies with DJ? DJ, I shoot him with text every now and then. Like, I went to Virginia Beach about a year ago to go through a, like a workout program there, VHB, it's called.

It's an awesome program. And then we were going to link up then, but our schedules didn't ever seem to... Oh, right on. To add up. Right on. Let me start you off with introduction. You ready? I'm ready.

All right. Jason Magnevice, J. Mags. Retired Navy SEAL with over 26 years in the community, eight years at SEAL Team 2, 15 years at J-Soc, Joint Special Operations Command Dev Group, which led to earning your airline transport pilot certificate and numerous FAA aviation qualifications. served as a tactical communicator, sniper, lead jumper, and team leader. Completed four deployments to Operation Enduring Freedom, completed four deployments to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Closed out your career is the coordinator for recruiting candidates for naval special warfare. Senior listed advisor for the only enlisted aviation unit in the Department of Defense. Currently, an airline pilot flying a Gulf Stream for a private family,

holding a 6-7-67-type rating at a major freight carrier, raised with a Jehovah Witness mother and a Vietnam vet father. Most importantly, you're the father of one daughter and the grandfather of two boys. No social media, no book, nothing to sell. Nothing to sell. Did I write that? I did, right? I found that out.

But, well, since you're, new to media, I thought we'd kick it off with something real easy. It was super easy to talk about. Everyday carry. Me, I got a 365 Legion, AXG. You got a 365 Legion? Yes.

Nice. Nice. What do you carry? What else do you carry? Actually, I just picked up a staccato. Nice. Two days ago. Nice.

Yeah. You like it? It's a little Gucci. You know what I mean? But it's, it shoots like a dream. It's heavy. It's an X-C. But it was one made, our community actually got,

it's got like little bone frog on the side, American flag on it. That's kind of why. And it got a pretty good deal for a cicado. Nice. Yeah. It's a cool gun. So what would you carry,

what would you carry when you were a pilot in the development group? Nothing. Nothing? No. No, we flew pretty much. in the states that's pretty much it yeah we'll find our bosses around gear to and from you know certain places that's pretty much yeah we didn't carry no firearms right on what would you carry if you were doing some low pro stuff over a dev group we'll talk about pistol what's in your go

bag any cool devices you may have had we pretty much carried the 226 back then before they is in the big, the, the H-AK, what's it, the Mark 21, the 45? Holy shit, you guys were using those? A couple of guys carried them, yeah, just for the suppressed value of some of them. And a Ruger Mark 3, I've got a Mark 4, but we carry the one, the self-suppressed Ruger to 22. Self, a little hush puppy? Yeah, for shooting out street lights and stuff like that. Nice, nice.

Anything else? What kind of medical? Oh, just block it. That's it. We had PJs that did all that stuff. What kind of long rifle were you using? I had a SR25K. I like to carry 308. It was a shorter SR25.

And 300 wind mag was like the laser beam back then. And now everybody knows shooting 6'5, Creed more, all that other stuff. Yeah. What's your favorite round? I like 308 and 300 win mag. You like 308? 300. Do you like 300 blackout? I got a Daniel offense PDW. Actually, that's pretty sweet. No shit. But every time you squeeze off and run, it's like there's five bucks, five bucks, five bucks, five bucks.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, I got you a present. What'd you get me? Do you want to see it? Sure. All right. It's a bag of gummy bears. Vigilance League gummy bears. See, I do have shit to sell. I like gummy bears. But that's a bag of vigilance league gummy bears. But that's a bag of vigilance league gummy bears. But that's a bag of vigilance league gummy bears. made in the USA legal in all 50 states so you can fly home. Are I going to pop positive if I take these with anything? You might pop positive for sugar and red dye and that's about it.

And I did get you one other present too since we're talking about weapons and oh yeah. This is a story behind that. Guns and everyday carry. Oh, no way. Yeah, man. Have you seen these? This is

a... Is that a signal for a? This is, No, this is, this is, uh, this came out after the Rattler. This is better than the fucking Rattler, my, my opinion. But, uh, this is the SIG, MCX spear. And so this is, uh, they're replacing all of the, supposedly, they're replacing all the military rifles with the 6.5, uh, excuse me.

Yeah, six point shit, dog. There's so many rounds coming out and can't fucking keep track. It's either 6.5 or 6.8. Yeah, you start talking, start talking. fucking guns. But this one, so they got a 5-5-6 version, a 300 blackout version, and a 6-point whatever version. And they put their new optics on the top of them for you. This is like, you can't even get these yet, barely.

And then, are you familiar with silencer shop? Yes. I just picked up a couple of hucks which can, so 556 and a 308. No shit? Yeah. Well, Sig was ecstatic that you were coming on the show. I told Jason, he got a buddy over there, Jason, he runs a marketing over there. And he was like, it's a great place. They're a great company. Have you been out there?

Yes. We went out there for an event for the foundation. Oh, nice. Like two octobers ago. Yeah, it was, it was a good time. A lot of good people at that place. A lot of good people. Nice. Well, and then silencer shop. There you go. But silencer shop got word that you were coming on. And, you know, I don't know, I guess you'd already have experience with them, but, you know, you put in, once you get signed up with them, they make it super easy. They do all the paperwork for you. You go to a gun shop that's got silencer shop kiosks in there, and it just makes it super simple. And then the other thing they do is they also fight for basically gun rights, you know, especially, obviously suppressors. so fucking awesome company but told them you were coming on too and they wanted to throw a can on there so

that's yours i'm extremely honored have from you very much i will i will i will we got a little a little place land passes in texas that we do some blinking at nice nice try to eradicate the hog population out there because they get out of control i hear that could be pretty challenging yes but uh from a helicopter it's entertaining nice Well, maybe we'll break that in later. We've got to range out back. Okay. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Thank you. You're welcome. And then one more thing to crank out before we get into the real interview. So I have a Patreon account, and it's a community that we've built. And so they're the reason that I get to be here with you today and do these interviews. So they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. And this is from Rex Herman.

What was the moment in your career? that changed the way you think about leadership the most? The moment when, well, I've worked for some incredible people and listed guys. And like when I first got to the command, I'll just call this guy crazy horse. He was one of the best leaders I ever worked for. You know, a humble guy that didn't think he knew everything all the time. And if he had any, any quip, that's like who I wanted to be like. We respected him.

He was a hard worker. He led by Exempt. example, but he wasn't hard-headed, right? He was just, hey, if he had a, he wasn't afraid to ask a question. He wasn't afraid to delegate other people that he knew were better at certain things that he wasn't. And that's what really made me respect leadership a lot from him. Right on. And a few other people. What day, what year did you get to the command? 2001. Holy shit. Yeah, I went over there. And you left in 2019, I think you told me before we started with. 2016.

2016? Holy shit. You got 15 fucking years over there. I went over there for a break, too. I saw that in your outline. You wanted a break and then decided to scream for Dev Group pre-9-11. I wanted a break. I was tired of doing six-month appointments when I was a little creek.

And I did winter warfare platoons, too. So there was a long workup. You know, some of the deployments were over six months, six, seven months. And my daughter was born, what, year, 97, and I was gone a lot. And we weren't really working that much. Little stuff in Bosnia, Kosovo, that's pretty much, that was our work schedule back then.

Then I'm like, hey, hon, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna screen for data, because a bunch of my buddies were going over there too. A whole bunch of my buddies from two were going over there. Like, I'm gonna screen, and some of the guys are, you know, pretty set in their ways that are like team two, you know what I mean? They were, some didn't wanna go over there, they didn't wanna go through the challenge.

of the selection process again. And I could get it, I can understand it. So some of them were trying to talk me out of it, but I'm like, no, dude, I'm not going to be home. You know what I mean? I'll be home for three months at a time. You thought you were at home? But this is, I got a,

I got out of the selection process, Green Team, in September of 2001. Holy shit. I remember we're walking across the compound when we were talking about the planes hitting the towers. And the first thought was, man, ATC must have screwed that up. Then when the second one hit the tower, yeah, we got, they took our whole class into a briefing room. Our skipper came in, gave us the brief and we're like, oh boy, excited.

Yeah. Excited because we knew we were going to be busy. But, you know, the families, it took a, the families were like, our guys are going to be gone for for quite a bit. And we were. Damn, man. were. Damn. Yep.

Well, I know you've had one hell of a career. But let's start prior to the career. All right. Where'd you grow up? Waterbury, Connecticut. What were you into? I was into bikes. Baseball and football, pretty much.

That's it? Yeah. What about when you were a littler? Any time in the woods? Oh, yeah, well, my grandfather. So that's, yeah, getting back to the, yeah, by the way, I got to get for you. We'll get that down the road. But, yeah, my grandfather, my mom's dad, he was a Korean War guy.

He, from Kentucky, a big backwoods guy. He taught me, we go hiking all the time where we used to live by a reservoir in Waterbury, Connecticut. Yeah, he'd take me on hikes, point out. It's like poison ivy, poison oak, show me how to make little spears, like with his little folding knife. And then, yeah, we climbed this mountain. He called it Jason's Mountain. Yeah, it was pretty good upbringing. me and my dad also taught me a lot growing up he was kind of a stickler for baseball and football

and pretty stern when it came to that stuff too oh really serious yeah right on yep what did your dad do my dad he worked well when he got out of navy he started he worked for a cargo company as a supervisor for transportation and then he actually retired from the state of connecticut working as a a transportation supervisor for the state what's about your mom she pretty much a stay-home mom her in most of her life i got a sister i'm four years older than then a brother i'm 10 years older than okay so you're the oldest yes and your mom was a is is or was was jehovah's witness yes we have we have a prior jehovah's witness working here great people aren't they Yeah, awesome human being.

He's editing the show right now. But boy, he's got some fucking stories. Oh, yeah. It's rough. It's rough growing up as a kid being a Joevis witness. They stole his kid from him. They did? Yeah, yeah.

Well, I guess I can't say they stole his kid from him, but they, it's a custody battle. And like, the whole, they're all going against them. It's wild. The religion did? Yeah, yeah. them all in? Really? Wow. Well, I'm sure I'll tell you about it after us. Yeah, that's crazy.

You had a good experience? No. It's hard to explain. So my mom had me when she was, this was a funny story. My dad got drafted. He was 20. Your dad got drafted? Yeah, he got drafted.

He was supposed to go to PBR, then he volunteered for submarines because it was also sub-training in Grott in Connecticut, too, at the sub-based there. So it was convenient. before he got. Yeah. So my parents are married in May, and my mom was a little Miss Goody. Awesome. I love her to death.

Little Miss Goody Tushu. I'm like, my, you were born on, say, a certain date in October. And I'm at birthdays two weeks later. So she turned 18 and I was born two weeks later. Wow. Yeah. They're still married. Wow.

Yeah, that's cool. But when my dad was deployed, you know, and some of his sub-trips and stuff like that, Jehovah's witness says, you know, they go door to door on Saturdays or throughout the week, and they kind of pulled her into it. And because she was probably pretty easy to influence her to have, you know, like a congregation to people, like-minded. And they do have got their great, they're incredible human beings for the most part. You know, everybody's got their, I can't argue that.

Every one I've about, they've been super nice. But then, you know, going to church three times a week with the Kingdom Hall, that's what they call. You know, the church where they go. I'm going to wear a suit, which I still to this day. I don't like wearing a suit. Get dressed up in a little suit, little tie. You go to the Bible study once a week, like a Tuesday night. You go to church Wednesday, Sunday for an hour and a half.

Yeah, I was, oh, and, you know, celebrate any holidays. That's what I was going to. You don't celebrate birthday, Christmas, anything. Yeah, but if you dig deep into, hey, I'm not promoting them. I'm not sending anything, but they do. Like when you go into a normal church, you have your pastor or a priest up there, right? They just talk off the cuff. They just give you, you know, with a lot of their knowledge, which I think they gain internally as themselves.

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Jehovah's Witnesses, all they do is read from the Bible. That's it, you know, from Genesis' revelation. Their viewpoints are pretty good, but why, you know, celebrate certain holidays. Yeah, it makes sense. But it's tough when you're a kid. You know, all your buddies are celebrating. Why don't they celebrate? Halloween.

How does it make sense? There's a reason in the Bible for everyone, like, start off about Halloween, right? Halloween, that's obviously a pretty evil holiday. Yeah, it's Saint-Danic. Christmas, Jesus was born December 25th. historians know that, right? So, but it's just convenience, I think, holidays of convenience. Easter, which I heard, did you have a conversation with somebody talking about this,

the weird star alignment that's going to be happening in a couple weeks? Yeah. What do you, oh, you know what, you know, you, how do you know about that? Did you watch that episode? I got crazy family member, no, somebody, my mom, my mother-in-law sent me that, I think. My mother-in-law sent me that. No shit. Because she's into the, uh,

Yeah, she's really, like, off-the-cuff stuff. I'm like, Ma, you got to calm down with this stuff. She sends us some stuff, like, here we go. The banks are all going to explode. This is going to happen, you know what I mean? That sounds like here. Yeah. That's why I try to stay away from it.

I just try to do my own thing, you know what I mean? I tried to stay busy. But, yeah, getting back to the holidays. Yeah, Easter, Christmas. This guy, let's, so, yeah, what's your talk about? This guy said the second coming's happened in Easter, 2026. So I'm excited. We'll see what happens.

You gotta be ready for it. About a week away. Any day and getting- I'm ready. And getting back to that religion, getting back to the Jehovah's Witnesses, man, did they believe in, you know, Armageddon is gonna eventually happen, all outlining revelations,

all the shit you see going on in the world right now, sorry God, is like, it's what it says. You know what I mean? People just take it for granted, oh, just ho-home, you know what I mean? It's starting in Iran, yeah, that's kind of, There's certain signs. It's fucking wild, man. But you gotta have, hey, you gotta have faith.

You know what I mean? Be ready for it. That's the big thing. Yeah. It's the big thing. What got your mom out of it? When did she leave? When I just went to military.

Really? I'll get back. Yeah. So I graduated high school at 17 and I couldn't, they wanted, my parents want to sign a waiver for me. My dad wanted me to go in as an officer. So he's like, Jay, give me a year of college. And I hated school.

Like, I told, getting back to the story, I wanted to be a seal since I was 10 like 1982 when I saw the first Rambo movie nice but um yeah when I joined the military she stopped going to the kingdom hall stopped going to church and she kind of let it and then my sister had kids and then oh they started celebrating Christmas and everything is your dad a Christian he's proud he was raised Protestant but yeah he believes in god but really non-denominational I guess got you so he he grew up so Celebrating Christmas? Yes.

And then you guys did not celebrate anything? Yep. He just went along for the ride to keep my mom happy. Yeah. Do you celebrate Christmas now? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Yes, I do.

Man, that's fucking crazy. That's just weird to me. It's weird. And then just, yeah, you know, everybody talking about, yeah, it's a way. Hey, but they have, hey, they stand behind their faith. You know what I mean? They really, they're really sticklers for it. Go door to door spreading the word.

It's, I've let them in all the time. when I was in Virginia Beach. I don't seem too much in Austin. I don't see many going door to door there. But yeah, I let them in and talk with them, you know, and give them my viewpoints. And like, why don't they don't believe in really serving, you know, a particular government or country?

They believe you should just serve God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, all that. You're making this sound really good. Huh? It's, no, if there was one true, yeah, I think that's one of the truest, because I've been around at all, I've heard it all from Catholicism to, are you, any denomination? I guess I consider myself Catholic. I consider myself Catholic, but I bounce back and forth between that and non-denominational.

Because, and I'll tell you why, I think that the Catholics have the spiritual warfare stuff down better than anybody else. I think they really understand what's going on, you know, in the other realm. And but I think that the I think that the Catholics don't do the best job of teaching about the life of Jesus and the Bible. And non-denominational churches do a much, much better job of it. And so, you know, I grew up Catholic and then left right around when I joined the SEAL teams, didn't come back to Christianity for, I guess I found faith about two, three years ago. And so really dove into the non-denominational stuff to learn about Christ and the Bible and all that stuff. And then actually through the show, interviewing all these exorcists and stuff like that,

it kind of got me back into, you know, I'm really interested in spiritual warfare in that realm. Yeah, there's a whole different, yeah, there's definitely a whole different realm. I believe in, too, definitely. Yeah. But like when first time going to Italy, like I walked into Vatican, I was like, this place is pretty cool. But it's very materialistic, right? Very materialistic, which a lot of stuff in the Bible is. It sounds a lot like the Pharisees.

Yes. Yeah. I'm with you. I totally. And then how do you expect? In celibacy, I'm like, it was really say anywhere in the Bible to be, I mean, God wouldn't have made a woman for, out of his own image. that he created, he wouldn't have made it. Yeah.

He wouldn't brought even, right? Yeah. Down the road, you gotta be, hey, you gotta be celibate, you can't procreate. It makes, and I'm not too sure the real reason behind it. I've heard a bunch of theories about keeping, you know, certain sex of the Catholic Church within each other, you know, I'm not too sure how, where that really came from. I don't know either. But it's just weird, yeah, it's.

And once again, like you said, I think you just got to have faith in whatever you believe in. Because there's some weird, yeah, I mean, there's some weird stuff going on. There's definitely some weird shit going on in the world. But, so you wanted to be a seal since 11 years old. Spent a lot of time out in the woods, carving spears, making weapons. Yeah. Well, my dad is why I brought this for you. It's a movie prop.

But I saw the first Rambo at 10. Jehovah's Witness kid. My dad takes me to see, because he heard about this movie at work or something, he takes me to see First Blood, right at our movie, 1982, 83 he came out, I think, 82. And I was like, holy cow. I'm like, that is, I mean, that image you get in your head at 10 years old, too, like, just being in the woods, the freaking blade that he had. You know what I mean? The same thing, the Jimmy Lyle one. Jimmy Lyle made dark.

I saw Knife Smith. He passed away a while ago. But I was intrigued. And my dad's like, yeah, Green Berets, like they say in a movie or somebody, those guys are real badasses. My dad's like, I worked with these guys called, you know, these guys called, you know, UDTs and seals back in the South China Sea and submarines.

They did a couple, a few things with them. And I always love the water, too. And you know that image of coming out of the water with, oh, yeah, you know, all kidded up. It's, when you're impressionable at that age, it's, it leaves a big mark. on your brain and yeah when I was in middle school like Jay what do you want to do when you grow I said I want to join a Navy I want to nobody knew in the 80s what

the freak of seal was to like 1990 when well when Marcinkel wrote the book rogue warrior whatever and then in 1990 when the the SEAL's movie came out with Charlie Sheen and whatever that and I thought that was pretty cool like again I was impression about 17 years old and um yep when I wanted to be a team guy since yeah I was a young kid Damn. But I couldn't, I graduated high school. My dad wouldn't sign a waiver for me, like I said. I was 17. No, I want you to go and be an officer. No, it's not, I don't like college. I don't like school at that time. And I turned 18 and joined. Back then it was on delayed entry program. I was talking to my recruiter the whole time. I was in college and he's like the one recruiter that didn't lie to you, right? Like I always say recruiter is bullshit you. And he, you He was a quartermaster, a rating on the submarine. And back then, they had the dive fair program, which you join, but as a non-rate,

go to boot camp, pass a screening test, go to Buds. And then if you fail, if you make it through, you get a rating. But if you don't make it through Buds, it's not like nowadays where you can say, I'm emotionally distraught and they let you out of the Navy. If you didn't go to Bud, you're like chipping paint and, you know, swabbing decks as a non-rate in a fleet, which is not good. And my recruiter's like, Jay, the odds of you making it through buds are very small. Because you're going to want to have, if it falls through, you're going to want to have a good rate in the Navy.

So I'm a QM. It's a pretty decent rate. And I just think I wanted the shortest A school, you know, the shortest school you go to further rating. And back then, I think it was Singlement was three weeks, and QM was six weeks. So I'm up, sign me up. And, yeah, boot camp, Bay School in Orlando, then straight the buds. Right on. What did you think of buds?

Hold on, let me back up. What did your parents think when you got it? I didn't think they thought that I would make it through, Buds, but that was a great thing when it came to the graduation. They weren't happy. They weren't happy, but they knew I wanted to do it. And when I, yeah, when I 318, I signed a line, yeah. Yep.

Right on. They got over it, though. Yeah, yeah, they did. Yeah. So what did you think of Buds? You get their... Well, hindsight's always 20-20 when it comes. to Budge, right? I got there in a...

You're 18, right? Yep, just get ready to your 19. And I got there in August, right when a bunch of, we had like 12 officers in our Bud's class. They're mostly all academy guys. We had two Air Force Academy guys, too. It was a good group, dudes, hard chargers, you know what I mean? And, but back then you're just young and dumb.

You just, Buds pissed me off while I was there. Like, I never thought about quitting. I was just mad all the time going through buds. Jogging into the compound we first got there, yelling, get in step, everybody getting like, dude, shut, they're going to drop a drop. Told you, stop. We get yelled at by not only our own, our own nose,

but by the instructors of buds, like, constantly. But it was, it's a big mind game, like they say, but like when I was doing the coordinator thing out of San Antonio kids who asked, what's the, I'm like, dude, it's a, it's, if you get past the PST, and just stay healthy, you know, and deal with the mind games and buds, you're going to be fine. Yeah. Yeah.

As you know, it's a big, yeah, a lot of mind games. Did you have any hang-ups? Um, no. Nothing. When we got to the, what's that stuff? Guys would get TBI, the side of their knee, whatever, not TBI. Oh, yeah, the, uh, shit. That little tendon.

And I always thought it was bullshit until I got to San Clement Island and I could barely bend my leg, but I ended up gutting it through. But, I forget what it's called. Yeah, your typical band, yeah, something like that. But, yeah, that was the one time I really got freaking, pretty much, I guess you'd say, hung up.

That's it, though? Time runs. A couple times in the old course, yep. I remember getting hammered once for that, trying to time the rope swing and instructor yelling at me, I said a really bad word to him. And sure enough, he had duty that night in the grinder and like the whole 1,000-8-count bodybuilders. Just the mental part, too.

Just staying healthy was the key, being smart, you know what I mean, and not doing anything like, is stupid or, yeah, staying healthy was the biggest. Being cold, wet and sandy all the time, you just got to get used to it. You got it. What did you, what did your parents think when you hit graduation? They were proud. Yeah, my parents never fly either. Their home bodies, they don't fly anywhere and they flew out to California to San Diego, came out to Coronado.

Yeah, they were proud. Still, yeah, I got to find some of those pictures back then before the digital times. How did that feel? Totally against you joining the military. But then I was, I was, I was, I was. I was happy that they were happy that, you know, I actually made it through, and I got pretty fortunate

with the same class. But then we had to go to jump school right after that airborne, and that was freaking throwing a bunch of gung-ho young Navy dudes into a pretty regiment in an Army school in Fort Benning. We got in a lot of trouble there. We got a couple guys got sent back to the camp,

but back then it was like, all right, we'll send you back. in a couple weeks. What did you get sent back for? Well, we went. I didn't get sent back. A couple of my buddies did for just, yeah, we're running in formation with each of running around the formation. We jump into freaking water before we did a PST.

Just being, you know, cocky. Yeah, it's kind of, you look back at it now and it's kind of like, yeah, we were pretty dumb. Yeah, we, uh, we weren't even that fucking bad. And they just kept picking on us. and you know what I mean? The Army cadre just kept picking on us. So one of our guys, you know, they make you do watch and shit out, you know, at the barracks.

So a really good friend of mine, he's passed away now. His name is Kyle Paulson. Name was Kyle Paulson. He posted all his guys up there. He's like, you go watch that door. you go watch that door, you watch the front door, you watch the back door, I'll be right back, went in to the Sergeant Major's desk and took a huge shit. Took a huge shit right on his fucking desk, and you know, the watch goes all night.

And so the next morning, like, we're all out there standing. And you knew you were getting blamed. You knew you're going to get blamed. I know, right? Well, none of us even fucking knew. And we're just, he didn't. He didn't tell the guys that he had posted up on the doors. He didn't tell any of the other guys that were coming there from Buds.

You know, we're all in the same Buds class. And we're standing out there in formation the next morning. And this guy was just a total... It was just like, dude, we're not even doing anything. You're being a fucking asshole to us for no reason. And he comes out. He's like... These fucking...

You fucking seals. And we're all like, what the hell? Who's shit on my fucking desk? That's what he fucking starts his thing. Starts the buster with who's shit on my fucking desk? And it was just, I mean... Did he ever get caught? Or did anybody rat him out?

No. He told us that night, but none of us wrote it was fucking hilarious. So, yeah, just the visualization of that dickhead to have to scrape shit off of his desk. Dude, that's freaking disgusting. Yeah, I know it is. It's also hilarious. So, but, uh, yeah, yeah, anyways. And you knew you were going to get blamed for it anyway because, yeah, they always, those freaking Navy guys. Because I think we had a couple of EOD guys there too. But, uh, yeah, we got blamed for it pretty much.

You know, the 32 foot tower? Oh, yeah. Well, like the second class is the E5s were in charge of the little hill. You jump off 32 foot tower. you hooked up the little D-rings, you do your four-count and get down. We had this big dead blackbird on top of the, and we thought it was going to go up to our black hat. Our black hat, our instructor was a cool dude. He jumped into Panama, freaking, he had his little freaking mustard stain on his airborne wings. So he was in the 75th Ranger Regiment, too.

So he had a little bit of animosity from the other instructors looking on him, but he was real cool to us into the future team guys that just got out of butts. But we thought he was going to be up there. and they switched sides, but we took this blackbird, shoved its head. It was somehow, it died up on the freaking hill. We shoved the head in the D-ring. So when the runners come down, like, they hook the little rope

up in the D-ring, and they're running, and this bird, it wasn't small. It was like flopping like this. So the instructor nonchamountly, oh, crabs. He just yells, everybody drop. And it was a different guy. And we got, yeah, they hit, well, tried to hammer us.

We were, we just keep doing push. because it's all we've been doing our lives well up to that point and yeah he was he took everybody off the hill we had hammered us for a good hour and and the poor other people up on the hill that that were just going through airborne where like they had to pay the price for our stupidity you know what I mean oh shit dude yeah that was uh yeah interesting times back a long time ago man good times good times good memories but definitely so where do you go from you go from you're going to go from Jump School? Team two. Team two. Yep.

What was the reputation of Team Two back then? Oh, my team one and team two, man. The Seal Team Shoe, they called it. It was, uh, yeah, you don't want to be a new guy hanging around in the locker room in the cage area on a Friday. Put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Hazing was pretty, um, pretty common. Did you get it? Pretty fine. Oh, yeah. Give me a good hazing story. They don't do this shit anywhere. I can't really tell you. I was it, when I made third class, got my bird we were at fort picket in uh in virginia and my do my first platoon they all went we all went to captain's mass after deployment for a hazing incident that was actually an accident but it went

to the wrong people but anyway yeah i'm talking if you try to fight back at all because i was a pretty good scrapper back then now it's all it's all over when somebody's got your balls in their hand and the freak they're twisting man and you're getting you're getting tied up or zip tight and getting dragged out, freaking shaving your balls, hot sauce in the balls, getting hit with paddles. Yeah, it was,

it's stupid, right? It's all fun in games until you're tied naked to a spine board hanging upside down from an elevator shaft and they're shooting fucking fission rounds at you. And then tape your head up and put a little pinhole on your mouth

and throw you in the fucking showers. Yeah, like, waterboarding. Welcome to team too. They're like, waterboarding. Like, what? You get that all the time, man. Yeah. Drop a rag on your face while you're hanging upside down.

And then as soon as you take an inhale, somebody's blowing cigar smoke in your face. Yeah, that's not torture. More whiskey down your throat. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. It was stupid. I mean, back then it was just, like,

and then once you actually, you got your... There were, like, no fucking rules when you were in. But that's why you were, I mean... Like, no rules. You were smart. When you got secured on Friday, we would sneak out through the locker room, jump the back fence over by it.

STV and get to your car, you parked down the road, so you want to get freaking guys would have, yeah, keg in a locker room, you know, a Friday, and freaking, where are new guys at? You don't want to be around, man. Did you carry that forward? No, I did not. No, I can't say that I did.

I wasn't big into it. I wasn't really big into, no, I thought it was stupid when it happened to me, so I'm like, why do I want to do that? But when you were a new guy and after you got, hazed and they if somebody else was gonna get hated they made you like me and my buddy john we were to take down guys like the the most dangerous part of hazing somebody that doesn't want to be hazed right you got to go in and grab them while everybody else tries to control them tie him up do whatever and then i just yeah it wasn't for me really yeah yeah well how did it feel checking into

team two after buds a lot of pride a lot of pride in team too because you know they had a reputee i kind of wanted to go to four because i like south america jungle type stuff, which come to find out the older I got. I really don't like it, jungle that much. There's a lot of history there. You know what I mean? When you walk across that quarter deck. And then, but you're still, you still got to go through STT.

And then you seal tactical training back then before they, they stopped doing that and made it all go on in Coronado. But, yeah, STT was, it was fun and challenging. I mean, the summertime in Virginia at APA Hill, very hot. And that's where you try to start, you know, building your reputation too. Mm-hmm. Because nobody really cares who you are until you get, you check into your team. And then you start training and that's all the shooting, move and communicating really, really big back then. It still is.

It still is. But now, you know, you got a little, a lot more to worry about with drones and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, actually yesterday we brought these, um, were you involved in, were drones big when you left? And they were just coming in. They were just being teeny quite a bit. Now it's like it's one of the deadliest things in the battlefield, obviously. Dude, holy shit.

I did this, I did this little, we made a piece of content yesterday. And we brought these drone operators from Ukraine down. Oh, that's a down. Yeah, those guys know what they're doing. Dude, holy shit. So they kind of briefed us up on everything they're doing. I had never, I've never seen it on the closest thing to drum warfare. I've seen as a fucking predator overhead.

Yep. You know, but none of these like FPV drones or anything. So we go, we brought them on this property is over 100 acres. And they gave us, you know, hey, this is the, this is the drones. These are the capabilities. These are these type of drones. And they're like, all right, go hide. We'll give you a head start.

And then they're sending the drones after you. And you can't. Dude, holy shit, you can't hear where the fuck they're at. Nope. You, I mean, like, it sounds like they're right above you and they're over there. And it's impossible to get the fuck away from those. Yeah. I took some shots at one just for the hell.

I just wanted to see what the side picture was like. And there's no way in hell. I mean, you're basically trying to hit a four inch dot. They just came out with a particular ammunition. I read somewhere for a drone that you could shoot out of like a 5, 5, 5, 6, or whatever. whatever too and it still seems like pretty hokey to me. Because it shoots in a pattern, well, the one round splits in like four little rounds. Gotcha.

Yeah. Even if you try to jam them, you know what I mean? I think they still already pre-programmed for what they're going to do, where they're going to go. And the tethered ones are the big problem too. Yeah. Well, I mean, once they, once you're identified, you're fucked. Yeah. Because, I mean, I just had a pistol with it.

I was like, you know, just for the hell of it. I was like, I just want to see, I just want to put myself in the fucking scenario and actually take it seriously. And, you know, I was like listening to their tactics and shit at the beginning on how they find people and all the different capabilities and what the weaknesses are. So I was trying to utilize some of that stuff. And but once, once they're on you, you're, you're fucked. Like, doesn't, if you, if you shoot one down, there's just going to be a swarm of them coming. It's a 24 of them, yeah. And they were even saying that you can have one on.

station or more than one on station and have the same pilot control and multiples. So you could, you know, fly 10 damn drones and have nine on station and just up, that one went down. Another one. Switch to the next one. You know what I mean? And they're already hovering on station, just waiting for it. Waiting to bounce.

Yeah. I was like, this is, that's nuts. You're fucked. A shotgun. Even a shotgun, you don't even have that many shells to go through, you know what me? Maybe it hit one, but by that time you got one coming behind you, too. It's a whole, yeah, different battlefield.

Like, we always say, like, getting back to the STT thing. That's where they really teach you, well, the diving and then shoot, move, and communicate. And now you got to really stay low move with discretion and definitely have somebody watching your six or somebody that's gonna, yeah, because the drones are the biggest, I mean, for when I'm hearing now and all this stuff, because I've been out of the game for a while.

And then talking to people that know a lot about it. It's, yeah, it's a different battle. field definitely it's pretty wild yep it's pretty wild because as you said yeah back then and you know the beginning of oef and oif all we had where yeah predators draco's up there and not and now they're they're kind of outdated yeah the i mean these things one of them was like that big yeah said it can go 300 kilometers an hour i think it's fucking crazy that's insane but um i actually i could be off on that but anyways back to you

back to me STT yep AP Hill then the dive in and then yep got my first platoon how was that

it was actually a pretty good deal because they usually don't give like new guys out of STT back like I said winter warfare platoons right so we go to Alaska do telemark skiing

you learn how to live out of a backpack for freaking almost 11 days unsupported and so I got to do a winter work here to and great great people in there my my first the die buddy was Tommy Valentine who unfortunately passed away quite a time back in a jumping accident in Arizona or yeah but uh yeah he was my first swim buddy he was a

freaking stud all in all the time awesome awesome dude I'm learning a lot you're pretty much trying to gather you're trying to see like we talked about earlier like hey, who do I want to, who do I want to be like? You know what I mean? And yeah, Val was definitely one of those guys. He led by example, hardcore, super incredible combat diver, too. And like, we take that shit for granted nowadays, right? How much water's in the desert?

But, yeah, super squared away. Pretty much everything you did. Where was your deployment? We went to our first trip. Well, they moved the command. Well, not the command. the unit from Scotland. Yeah, we moved on over to Italy.

Brandezy, the heel of the boot. Because we were staged there just to go over it back and forth to Bosnia, to Sierra or Kosovo, or whatever, just to work with other little units over there. We really weren't doing much as far as combat-wise. And a teammate did a couple ship takedowns in the Adriatic around that time to enforce embargo. Like I said, this was back in the 90s. and then we went to Norway, which was a blast.

I've heard those are awesome. Went there for a month, and yeah. The funny thing is I go, I've raised my whole life, right, thinking I'm Polish and Lithuanian. My first trip to Norway, I get there with talking to Marine Yeagers, they're like, their version of a great, incredible people. They're like, are you Scandinavia? Are you, like, Norwegian? Like, you got a big head. You kind of like, you look like us.

And I'm like, no, dude, I'm not. no I'm I'm I'm like Polish and freaking I think Lithuanian you know but back then sure enough I get my freaking uh the 23 or whatever the DNA check done comes back hey you're 80 it's like 78% from and like in Norway that area like right over there kind of a little bit to the UK and my mom is also the same like my dad I don't is even my dad no he is he is but he is Yeah, he don't have any, like, I don't have anything that my dad has in him from his DNA. It's weird. Well, like the ethnicity traits or whatever you want to call him. Yeah. But going back to the first trip to Norway and they, like, dude, are you, are you Norwegian? I'm like, no, like, you look like you could be.

You know what I mean? They were, like I said, this was back in 93, 94. Like, no. And yep, sure enough I am. But Norway was a blast, man. A lot of skiing. Those guys are born with freaking skis. their feet jump turning with 80-pound rucks on with the tally skis on you're like holy cow we're

just too busy picking ourselves up off the snow you know what i mean yeah yeah damn damn what was going on i mean i i know what was going on but what did you wind up going to bosnia of kosovo yeah we go to syriyo hang out there actually that's where i started uh made a couple good friends with a couple cccc's conduct controllers over there from yeah we just drive around to various like safe houses there, hang out there, bring them food and stuff and come back. It was a lot of driving around, not too much. What was the point? What was the mission?

Back then, right? It's funny how America goes to one extreme. We were protecting Muslims from getting killed by Christians, right? The Serbs and all that were, and I really wasn't clear what the mission was over there. I've really, it was just. Sounds like every fucking war. It going after... I'm not really sure. What the fuck we're doing this?

Well, going after Piffwicks, and like, the person wanted for war crimes or whatever, like, these generals that were in charge of the mass, freaking graves and stuff and killing just... In like towns of people, you know what I mean? Yeah. But that was very, like... There's genocide going on. Yeah, a lot of genocide. Yep. Humanity could be evil at times, man.

So what, I'm just curious. I mean, this was... I don't want to relate our experiences, but this sounds similar to when I joined. What was your impression of the SIL teams? Were you fired up or you're disappointed? I mean, you've got, this all came off of Rambo in 1982. Yes, it did. It did.

You're not doing Rambo stuff. No, yeah. Not yet. I think I was just along for the ride, like waiting for something to happen. You know what I mean? And the training was fun, but we made, obviously, you know, we make things that people pay to do for fun suck. Like jumping. Like, dude, oh, we go skydiving.

Like, dude, I don't care if I ever see a rig again, you know, diving. Like, oh, it's not the fun of staring at a compass board, a freaking depth gauge and a stopwatch for freaking two hours underwater and freezing your ass off, right? But you learn a lot and you want to be good at it. Yeah, right? You don't want to be subpar, especially. The biggest thing is not letting your teammates down, I think that was. So the brotherhood, you know, you definitely see from the beginning once you're in, once you get kind of established in your role and you build that trust. But as far as being bored, yeah, it was as far as like not actually doing what you're training to do.

I think that's kind of what was going on in the past couple of years too as well with guys just getting bored and wanting to. But you've got to be careful what you ask for too. You got to be careful what you ask for. So you spent some time. How long were you a team two before you decided? Eight years. Oh. Eight years.

Yeah. There's something. Glad you're playing. brought that up. Something that's not on that piece of paper right there. So I got out in 90s, eight for eight months. I got out. I was going to be a U.S. Marshal. A couple of my buddies from Team four already went over and doing it. I went through the whole process, got out, moved to Connecticut, moved back home because I thought I was going to work out of New Haven. Guy I went to high school with as a marshal as a U.S. He was the head marshal at the time. A guy went to high

school with his dad's best friend. So he's like, come up, yeah, come up here. You move up here. And I'm waiting to hear back from the Marshal service about when I'm going to go to Glencoe, you know, to start up school on here, fleecy, whatever. And then I get a letter back then. So before emails and all that. We're sorry to tell you that you no longer consider for it. And I went through to interview. I went through that like you're going to. I. You left the fucking seal teams to become a Marshall and then they denied you. But whole, can I rewind for a minute. Why did you want to leave the SEAL teams to become a U.S. Marshall? My daughter was born. I don't want to deploy anymore for no reason. Just what we were talking

about earlier as far as being bored where it really wasn't anything going on. And I thought it would be cool. You know what I mean? And just talking to other buddies too. Like, hey, it's better than being an FBI agent because you don't got as much red tape to cut if you want to do this. This is back then. You know, yeah. And I got the, said, you're no longer being considered for the position. And I called up one of my buddies. like yeah there it's a whole they're doing a whole scrub there it was at that time it was kind of like because i looked the way i am and who i am who i am i wasn't going through with that class i'll just leave it at that so i'm like shit what am i going to do like i got a new morn

well my buddy's like hey the federal prison's hiring in danbury connecticut and i'm like what be a be a freaking ceo right and So I go interview for that job, I'm 23, 24 years old. And I'm like, yeah, I guess I could do it. And it just went from male prison to female prison. Medium security, federal correctional institution in Danbury, Connecticut. And they're like, do you sure you want this job? Like I need something, man.

Let's start off as a GS-7 or GS-8, whatever. I'm like, I just got out of the Navy. I got, and my buddy of mine was also in my first platoon, he got out. This is where I'm going with this. He moved to Florida to be an EMT. And we talked back and forth. He's like, he's like, fuck this. I'm going back in the Navy.

And back then, so this is a fun. I don't know where I'm going with this. But anyway, I work to the, I go to Glencoe for the training down in Florida at Fleecy, where they trained the federal COs. And that was a fun. Only one, one other dude knew what I did prior. Like I just kept it on the down low. He was a Marine.

And we both worked at the same prison, but we both went to training together. And when you're down there, you shoot like a Ruger 9mm, the old freaking AR-15s, and a shotgun. A pump shotgun. And yeah, it was, it was a good time. It was a pretty The shotgun story I got to tell it though It's when

So this You line up in like a couple lines When you're shooting everything else You're on line in a shotgun You're getting like a two lines Because I think I don't know I wanted to say money for shells Or it's just something

And it was like a Remington 870 I think A pretty basic pump gun And there was a lady A DEA agent That was an instructor there right And I'm just having a guy I'm like dude

I'm like, why? This is this is going to be funny. So, because she's like milking everybody through it. Like, hey, this is what you do. Like, you put one in the chamber this way. And then you load it like that. And she's like, all right, be careful. It kicks a little, right? And I get up there.

And I'm like, I'm like, I'm all nervous and shit. And he was trying not to laugh, right? And she's like, hey, just relax. Just relax. And like, dude, I've been, John Shaw taught us how to shoot shotguns. You know what I mean? I grab the shell. I go put it in backwards.

You know, the brass face. And she's like, no, no, no, no. It goes up. I drop it. You did this shit on purpose? I drop it. I drop it. And then I load it up.

And she's like, okay, be careful. You know, it kicks. And like, the way they're showing how to shoot, like, boom. So boom, boom, boom. Give it back to her. She called me a fucking asshole. And the guy behind me. And he was laughing, I'm like, dude, I just wanted to have fun with it.

And one of our instructors, like, he started laughing his freaking ass off. Because it was a pretty, the way it went down, you had to be there to see it. It was pretty fucking obvious. She was like, be careful. I'm like, yeah, no, I'm a little nervous. That's awesome. But yeah, I did that for eight months. I found out my buddy went back in the Navy.

And I'm like, dude, I can't do this anymore. So I called up, I'll call him Mad Dog. A lot of people can know who he is. And he was working, another great guy, another great role model. Growing up, taught me out of ski, actually, well, growing up in the teams. And I'm like, hey, are you taking? I'm like, can I go back? And he goes, I know you'd be calling back.

I know you'd be calling back. I'm like, are they taking? He's like, yeah, you got to go see your recruiter. I'm like, what? I just can't. He goes, yeah, you got to go see your recruiter. This was before, as Seoul was actually a rate, I was still a quartermaster. So I went to the same recruiting office.

I went in freaking, dude, 10 years ago, when I first started talking to him when I was in high school. And obviously, the same recruiters aren't in there. And like, hey, I want to go back in the Navy. I'm a, they called it a nav vet. Like, I'm a nav vet. I want to go back at it.

I'm like, well, what did you do? I was like, I was a quartermaster. I think it was second class. And he gets up, he calls a Detailer. He's like, no, they're not. No, they're not taking you back. I said, my NDC is 5326. And dude, I'm wearing, I'm wearing,

I'm wearing tibas, torn shorts, and, like, freaking, a beat-up t-shirt. And he's like, you're a fucking seal? He goes, oh, yeah, they're taking you guys back. And that was another little journey. So I had to go back to the MEPs, the military entrance processing station, up in Springfield, the same one I went to before. And my recruiter drove me up. Well, the recruiter I was working with. Joe, I had to do the duck walk, go through the whole physical again to get in there.

And then when we were standing there, swear in, I'm, I'm, like, talking to this kid. Hey, when do you go to the Navy for? He goes, I think I'm going to go to Buds. You know, I want to be a seal. I'm like, I heard that's tough as shit, man. Like, it's a pretty, it's a pretty hard, you know, line of work to choose. And my recruiter's like, Jay, leave him alone. Like, don't be it.

And I said, hey, we'll talk about it afterwards. So it was going through the whole recruiting thing again, going through the whole. Damn. Freaking. Yep, I came in. Two weeks later, I was in a platoon with DJ's dad, my platoon chief. Yep. How was that?

It was good. It was a fun. It was a good time. It was good just getting back in, man. It was good getting back in, man. It was just good getting, being around, you know, going to work, I'm not saying, going to work at FCI for like eight months and then having that broken service and then realizing, you know, how much you do miss. Like the biggest thing you miss when you leave are the guys, right, the boy. So getting back in, right into another winter warfare platoon.

Yeah. Right on. It was, and then, two years later, I screen for a damn neck for Dev Group. Well, before we dive into Dev Group, let's take a quick break. All right. Perfect. If you've ever hired somebody like I'm in the middle of doing right now, you know this can be extremely overwhelming. You put a job posting out, and the next thing you know, you have 2,000 resumes, all wanting to be the next producer.

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who want the job. And you even get a better sense of who they are because candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested. Cut through the standard and get to the standouts with ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free. It's ZipRecruiter.com slash SRS. That's ZipRecruiter.com. slash SRS. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Hi, I'm Sarah Adams, the host of vigilance elites, the watch floor, where we highlight what matters. It became a permissive state. Explain to you why it matters and then aim to leave you feeling better informed than you were before you hit play. Terrace, hostile intelligence agencies,

organized crime, not everything is urgent. But this show will focus on what is need to know, not just what is nice to know. All right, Jason, we're back from the break. We left off at you took a quick, you took a, you took another break from the SEAL teams, became a correctional officer, went back to Team 2 for about another two years. And now you're, sounds like you're getting ready to scream for development group, also known as SEAL Team 6. Yes. I wanted to go over there to take a break. You wanted to go over there to take a break? Yes.

Did you tell them on that in your screening? No. I'm just kidding. No, I wanted to go over there to stop because my daughter once again was young. I was never home. Just wanted to stop with a six-month deployments. And I'm like, go over there. I had a bunch of my buddies went over there.

And they're like, it's great, you know. You hang around for three months, just carrying a beeper on you back then. And then you train, you have some very specialized training, you know, for another three months. You get to go to schools, you want to go, like, civilian schools, great shooting schools, you know, lock pick and all that stuff. And at a very high level. And then you train with your team back then, or squadron now for another three months. So you're home quite a bit, except for when you're picking and choosing what training you want to go do. And this is what you were told.

Yeah, this is pre-9-11. Yeah. Yep. And I finished a training program there in September 2001. And, yeah. Well, hold on. Let's talk about the screening. The green team.

Yeah. It's definitely more cerebral than, like, you would say, like, then buds is as far as the shoot and move and communicating part of it. I mean, when you got in, when you got. got, you know, went through green team, I mean, I'm out of a fucking dev group guys, so I can't talk shit. But I know what I saw

when I was in, and I got out in 2006, and they went from running one green team a year to running two green team of years. And it seemed like the majority made it through green team. I think it was a completely different scenario when you got in, because there was nothing going on. Retention was probably really good.

Yeah. Guys weren't dying, so there wasn't really much to fill. So it was really, really fucking hard to get in there. Harder. Probably should shove my mouth because I'm not one of them. No, no, but I get your point. Even when I went over here to screen, when I said, I was like, I wasn't impressed by the attitude to some of the guys over there.

You know what I mean? They're like more high and mighty than you were. You know what I mean? We have guys coming over there that were, that have done real world shipboardings. You know what I mean? Real world operations either embodied. Kosnia, Kosovo, and we knew that the guys at the command really weren't doing anything except hanging around and maybe go grab a person wanted for crime, and that was the big thing,

or, you know, take down a ship that gets hijacked or whatever. And I wasn't impressed by the attitude because they were like, oh, like this fucking new guy, you wear your blues when you go over there to the screen and do your interview and all that stuff. And it was just like you're arrogant dude, it's pompous and arrogant. And then even after a green team, you could kind of see why they are because you do get some pretty good training, like really good training. And but as you said, once again, there wasn't much going on. And then 9-11 happened. They weren't taking anybody, though, were they?

I mean, they were taking, like, very few people before September 11th. Yeah. It's a good old boy network. You know what I mean? They go around. They ask everybody you work with. And you dump a toons with and if you don't like somebody, I just give a reason why. Because there are a lot of great guys that don't come over to the command because they just don't want to deal with the bullshit.

You know what I mean? Back then when we got busy and started growing, yeah, that's when they were because we were gone, I mean, quite a bit. Yeah. The three-collar teams were, yeah, four months, four months, four months, you know, you rotate every four months. How was green team? It was challenging. Safety is a big thing there in doing things at a very high level. You know, being able to shoot well, it's a big thing.

Safety violations, I said, is the biggest thing that gets people shaking in from there. Not being able to think, shooting an unknown instead of, you know, what you're supposed to do in the house. That was the, I think, the most challenging part for people going through the training. jumping they take it that at a very high level too can't go one degree off heading when you when you exit the plane you got to be able to yeah fly type formation under canopy that and everything the diving it was pretty you know at a high level because you're not just in peers anymore you're diving as a whole group so oh no shit yeah with a little pole yeah right right right on

So you get through Green Team, where do you go from there? I went to, right into a squadron, and then, well, the team back then, and then we punched out to Afghanistan. Which squadron? Red. Red Squadron. Is that where you met this? I met him a few years after that when he came there, yes.

Okay. Yep. Red Squadron. And you graduated Green Team? It was Red Team. It was Red Team back then and then he started calling them squadrons to, you know. them squadrons to made up with our army counterparts at CAG because they were squadrons so they're like they wouldn't team anymore and we just make it squadrons for the higher ups at J-sock to make it easier

for them and so you graduated green team right before september 11th right during right during we were going we were walking across the compound when the first plane hit and i remember one of my buddies comes out of the locker room he was like dude you hear what happened and that's what we had just well like phones were that big back then either we were just watching the news inside the team room or inside our training room and then another plane hit then our skippers like called a meeting for all the cadre in all the class and kind of gave a lowdown what's going down and that's when he said there's another plane they're tracking down right now after one hit the pentagon and uh yeah it was kind of it was exciting it was an exciting time i think it's

But then it was, you know, this is, shit's about ready to get real. What's your wife think? She was worried, obviously. All the wives were. Yeah, that first appointment wasn't really good for the wife network. Yeah, when we first, when we first punched out over there. So you, hold on, hold on. So you get done with Green Team, what, and then you go right to Red Team, right to Afghanistan?

Yes. Yep. Well, we had a few weeks in between, and we were working on stuff. that we might be doing over there as far as insertion techniques like jump in how we're gonna work freaking getting our gear set up because it was a first move for i mean i mean going to afghanistan right it just it just kicked off and we wanted to be sure were you the first watering to go no no second what were you guys doing what was the mission going to be hunting down the line was the big one obviously we first got over there looking for him

all over his his network of people and yeah just trying to find him and that was our big mission when we first went over there well let's talk about flying in there i mean you just had what roughly a 10 year career at still team two yeah yeah eight eight years eight years at seal team two with a eight month break you join the seal teams because of rambo in 1982 yep and you Now you're stepping foot in a country that just where a taricell is that just fucking hit the Twin Towers of the Pentagon. Yeah. Yeah, we flew over there. That was freaking entertaining too.

The crew that I was with, the team, the boat crew and like a little squad you call it pretty in the teams. We moved around. We called ourselves the orphans. We moved around from we landed. We got in Kandahar. And then we went to a couple other small towns. We were living out of a backpack eating MRA for almost four months. Holy shit.

And then, yeah, just standing by, trying to get, develop intelligence to actually track down people in this network. And then we, they had a big, a big military offensive operation Anaconda. It happened during our first pump over there where we lost Neil Roberts, Fifi, Chappie, the controller. And, yeah, that was. You were there for that. I was one, we were on the other ridge. Yeah. Holy shit. Let's go into that.

Well, getting into that was even funny because my chief, my Bocarey leader, which call him Crazy Horse, he's like, Jay, are you still up on your J-TAC stuff? Because he comes out of a meeting, right? And we're just messing with our gear. Like I said, we were moving everywhere. And he wanted to know if I was still, because I was a communicator or two as well in my platoons I've done. And I'm like, yeah, he goes, dude, you know how to use,

Like 117 Fox Rock? Yeah, dude. I'm like, why? We had no idea what was going on. It goes, I'm trying to get us some work. We were an assault team. We weren't a reckey team, but they wanted to put up, they're like, well, we got snipers in here. We get with 10-inch barrels to it. It was stupid. But it was two hours. You got two hours. Go do your radio checks. Meet up with Al, who was our freaking, our comm support guy. Not a team guy, but a very smart, incredible guy. And, you know, Get a DMC 125 satellite antenna, the donkey dick, your UHF,

I'm like two hours. And then we got to pack out rucks for, I think we're going to be out there seven to ten days. And guys weren't really sure. I'm like how to pack out a winter ruck because it was freaking cold and we're at 10,000 feet. Most of between 9 and 10,000 feet. So yeah, we're doing, I'm doing radio checks as we're getting on a freaking 47 to go in. Holy shit. So wait a second.

They're sending a fucking assault team in to do sniper work with two hours of prep time? Yes. It was just, it was one of those things, hey, it's better. Let's go do something instead of not doing anything, right? And we insert it up on this point. It was, jumped off the rapid ass, set up our freaking, our O.P. site. As T.F. Mountain, it was the 8,200 first airborne as they were moving to clear out this valley. And we just called in Cass for a week.

And then one night that March 4th anniversary just passed, that was a, that was a, Yeah, when Neil and his team was Slavvy and a couple other guys, that's when they inserted and got lit up and where Fifi fell off and ended up dying. I just interviewed Pete Blaber about this. Oh, I think he wrote, he was, yeah, he was out there as part of, didn't he write a book? He did. Yeah. He did. Yep.

He was with the Delta unit that was there before. Mm-hmm. How do you feel about that now? I thought it was, we helped out a lot. We did, I mean, we supported, you know, the big movement with T.F. Mountain or whatever, the hundred, yeah, those guys. And it was, I didn't feel good when, you know, we found out that Fifi passed away. And all of our casts went to them. And then we kind of, yeah, we took it out on the Taliban the next day, put it that way, just with more casts.

And, yeah. Were you the one calling the cast, then? Yes. How did that feel? It was... I mean, you're on your first operation that's gone kinetic, I'm assuming. Yes. Well, big time, kinetic, yeah.

Yeah. It was a fucking huge operation of cut your teeth on it. Do, you know, kind of, yeah, we call the cat... We have, shoot, B-52s, B-1s, 18s, 15s, yeah. Do you remember the first cast you called where you killed somebody? Uh... Yeah. It was right there with B-52s on a Dyska site, actually.

Can you describe it? We had shorty rifles too, which was, yeah, our post-op debrief on that was, all right. We do this again, we gotta do it a lot better. But can you describe your first cast? It was pretty, it was actually, I mean, pretty dramatic. I mean, as far as what would a B-52 could drop? You know what I mean? And pretty accurate too.

I mean, the- Describe everything. What were you hitting? It was a disqual position in the town. That was a good maybe two, three thousand meters from us. And but we'd see these guys come up, start lighten up to 101st, 80 second. We had them all graded out already. And we were doing this with a GPS and a range finder back in.

There's a lot, yeah, there's a lot better ways to do it nowadays. But it was super accurate as soon as you give, you know, the modified nine line to the pilot or the controller up there. in the B-52 they program where the JDM's going to go and yeah took it out then freaking four hours later another guy would come out of the there was a big cave system it called the whale and yeah the guys would just come come out of that and just like refill the role and just keep doing it they were like little ants you know what I mean how did it feel to for your first cast I felt successful it felt good It was just work, you know what I mean? It's just pretty much what it's about.

That's it. How many bombs do you think you dropped? Oh my goodness. That was a long time ago. A lot. That's all I know. A lot. Yeah, I got to read the post-off.

We did. It was, yeah, a pretty good amount of munitions. Oh, bad. Yep. What was the sentiment like after Neil died? Oh, revenge, I think. think you know what I mean and uh yeah that whole thing yeah was I mean it was tough too because the guys that I was with the other four dudes that knew him really well I knew him from

two that he he came over to the command before I did and the two guys that I were with were really good buddies of him and when we went when his call sign came back that that's who fell off the helicopter they're like shit and at this time yeah getting back to the wives being home at this time we we didn't even talk yeah we didn't even we haven't talked to anybody for like almost a month from home so they were kind of worried and then that hit the news and our command did not know how to deal with that they were hearing about neil before the command told anybody and that when we got out of the field and never forget al like i said our calm guy we get out and we're going in the gardez mud pit and he's throwing

his two erridium phones he's like call home like call home now the wife network is losing their freaking mind so that was a big lesson learned too for the command after Pfei passed. What came after that deployment? Well, during that deployment, we did another good little Wolverine, which was a good little operation, and ended up working out perfectly. We're going after Zawa Herri and his bodyguards,

and that was perfect L-shaped. Once again, the orphans had to run around with a perfect good L-shaped ambush set up with 247s. And Zawa-Hari wasn't. there but uh yeah we got the mission accomplished as far as dealing with the detail what was that mission about going after going after their body guards bin laden's we thought he was going to be with him too and the intel wasn't that great where was that at right outside uh guardes do you want to describe it what was your role in that i was assaulter

yeah it was we rolled up on in a in a the 47s and like an L-shaped ambush they said they had squirder oh this is a funny story well not funny they said they had squatters up on another ridgeline and like somebody that they thought was fleeing from part of that motorcade that we ambushed and we wait you ambushed a motorcade yeah how did you do that motorcade with 247s okay we caught them right when they were doing the little traverse up it with the timing in the TF-160th guys are freaking awesome man they're Yeah, the way it was set up to in the LZs, the landing zones they put them on,

it just happened to be perfect. And the guys that we were going after didn't even, I don't even think they knew it. They started shooting and bailing out of the vehicle, but the vehicles, there's three of them, but after that it was over. Then we went after squatters, and it was just a farmer in the field. I was the first one off the ramp on the, I never forget. I got my two buddies standing next to me in the skies. We get back into 47 take off

and go land We're right next to where the guy The crew chief's yelling At us where his guy's at I get off, I look at him And he's got his hands in So I'm thinking, okay, maybe he's got a suicide Fest on it, that's fast

And he keeps walking towards us And my buddy Next to me, he's like, dude, I'm like, dude, don't Once again, this is where you've got to be a thinker, right? You just don't like blast somebody to freaking do it So I let three rounds rip by his feet And he falls over on his back like a freaking upside-down turtle hands in here we go zip time and my buddy was just getting ready

to drill him he was just a farmer out there a goat a goat herder you know what i mean and we took him down dropped him off after we found out who he was and but that made me feel really good you know what i mean not because it could have gone another way which would have been hey that's the fog of war but yeah that was something i remember really good about i mean specifically about that that i was Right on. When I was first growing the business, I was literally boxing up gummy bear orders myself, packing bags, printing labels, trying to keep up with fulfillment on top of everything else. And at a certain point, that just didn't work anymore.

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Use code SRS. Shipstation.com code SRS. You guys are busy Yeah, but there was a lot of Sitting around waiting You know what I mean Like waiting to do something Getting approval to do something

And then Yeah When we went through three times Wasn't really that busy I was going to go to the training cell Until one of my chiefs said Dude you want to go to Iraq And

Yes, I want to go to Iraq Because I've heard the stories From Green It's everything a team guy wants to do and get up at night eat bread eat uh dinner for breakfast and then walk out to the birds you go go do your work come back and do it again maybe all night but yeah abrac was i i think what every team guy at that time the type of operations they wanted to do just going out and getting busy no shit what year was this in 2003 and four same squadron uh yeah

Yep. Yeah, we sent a couple other guys. We would do the crossbreeding. We sent a couple guys from our, I think even best did it from the newer guys actually to go work with CAG, with Delta Force guys, and we do it back and forth. And we took a lot of lessons learned to and brought that into our training and our SOPs the way we operated coming from each side. Like you ever remember doing a hot hallway in training? Oh, yeah. Right? That's one of the stupidest things you could do, right? Just, hey, run on the way down there instead of, you know, maybe crashing her toward the grade, and we learned that less than the hard way from a couple squadron guys in the Army. Oh, shit. So did you augment over there?

No. No. No? No. You went over there with the, with Dev. Yes. Yep. How was it?

Was it what it was cracked up to be? Yeah. It was. It was, um. Yeah, we were busy, you know, but it was everything, like I said earlier that you kind of want, yeah, man, you just load up, come up with the game plan. It got to the point, like the first couple times when you're planning to go, you know, go to work. It's, you overthink things a little bit too much until you get like a little bit nervous. But then when you, once you keep doing it more and more and more, it's it just becomes second nature.

Like you could go, all right, we got to go take this down. Our officers wouldn't even come in there. They let the team leaders figure out, okay, yeah, I got the white side. You got the green side, blue side, whatever, boom, just go to work. But it was great. And walk out to the little birds or 60s or 47s. And the targets would change all the time depending on the intel and what we had, what we had going on over there.

Where are you guys going after? Just going after bad guys. Just going after, yeah, that, that just in bad dudes, shit that were coming over from, yeah, different places to different, you know, different countries and not only just in Iraq itself. How many targets are you guys hitting the night? It would depend on the follow-ons. Some nights one, some nights five. It just depended on what we got off one target if we even landed on the right building

or if they move somewhere else. That's where the ISR assets were great, too, helping us out And getting back, we're talking about the drone war now that with drone warfare, it probably be so much easier to actually pinpoint and not mistakenly hit targets, you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what did you, so now you're doing close quarters combat. Mm-hmm. Lots of action. You got a wife, a kid at home.

Mm-hmm. What's going through your head during all this? You don't even think about them. You can't let that distraction get in your way. That's where people make mistakes. Like when you leave home, it's, yeah, it's all right. As soon as that gate closes, you walk in, they're like, yeah, if you think about that, you're going to let your boys down, you know what I mean?

Parmentalize it. Yep, you compartmentalize it. Just like you do losing a teammate. You've got to compartmentalize it and put it in the cupboard and try not to let it peek itself out, keep the cover closed. What about the cadence? Cadence of ops. Are you keeping up?

Yeah. You feel good about it? Yeah, it was back in that time, it was what we wanted to do, like what we were trained to do. But the cadence was there definitely, yeah. Do you remember your first kill? Yeah, it was on a rooftop. I mean, I don't want to talk about that, but yeah, it was like, yeah, it was because we were a wrecking. team. We climb up buildings and, uh, yeah, I don't know if that wasn't the first one. Once again,

you compartmentalize that too. But yeah, guy with a gun on a roof sneaking over the side as our assault team was coming up. Yeah, we'd like to climb buildings there. They're, they're ecu guys. Did the killing bother you? Hmm? No. No. I mean, it's, of course, it's going to bother you if you sit back and, like, think about it, right? But no, I mean, I mean, It was just that's work and you're doing it to save if you put it in their mindset and like hey I'm protecting my guys right now and that's pretty much what we did a lot of as a reckey team I'm covering my guys protecting them and that's you don't you just don't think about yeah the actual action that you just did anything else you want to talk about on that deployment

um but should I was they all kind of blend together Oh, getting to, yeah, I want to talk about one good buddy of mine. Like I say, his name, he'll know. One of the best operators ever worked with. And we were on the roof. This was actually a pretty funny story. I told you securing the SR 25K. And this was supposed to be like a can and like a little, it was going to be almost like a dog and pony op.

Because we were doing a turnover with another color team coming in. This was like our last stop before he went back to the States. And it was going to be super easy, right? We walk in, once again, we climb a building. There's no covering a building. It's a flat mud roof. It's a stupid idea to climb this building. We got rangers coming down the other side of this canal covered in elephant grass that we're

going to take out. We'll take out a tent close by not take it out, just go in here and see who the heck was in there. So we climb up the building. We're laying there. Then we start getting lit up by a building that come to find out was 300 yards away. We start getting lit up from a P.K.m. on top of the building. top of a freaking car. It looked like it was like a black Mercedes. Then a guy comes out of a house

behind us and starts lighting us up and we're like, what the f, this was supposed to be easier in this. And we're on a roof like sucking mud. My buddy's standing up looking through his nods. I'm like, dude, what are you doing, man? Fearless. And he worked with Cag for a little bit too. They love them over there. I'm like, get the fuck down, man. And he's like, dude, is that a, what is that? What is that? Meanwhile, I'm fishing for my inline for my scope, my night vision for the scope I was carrying. He's still standing up. He's looking.

And I put the end line. He thought I had my 5-5-6, my RECC M-4 when I had the 308. And I couldn't see behind. I couldn't really pick out what was going on because there's a big light behind the car where the guy was shooting with PKK. And I'm like, well, I know how far that is. And I carry the rifle doped in at 300. So I know my holds for 100 to 500. It's a short-billed 308.

take the shot, the light goes, and I'm like, oh, this happened in a second. I'm like, dude, they're at 300 yards, right as I'm transitioning down to the guy shooting the PKN. Who I hit in his shoulder, by the way, I'm not too proud about it. Because all I saw those flip-flops

and come to find out, they all ducked behind the car. And I'm like, oh, I carry a mag of AP rounds right here too, and they're ducking behind the car. So I fish tail, it's got a big-ass piece of brigger tape on it.

I put it in my first round hits like 20 yards in front of the car it was but then I worked it up to the car and then yeah we took care of business come to find out the next day after our turnover the next night the people we were turning over with blue they went in and said yeah

they're like how do you guys see that well at nighttime shooting and all that and yeah we did a pretty good job yeah but that mission was supposed to be like freaking just go in, gather some intel, and leave, and that's not the way it worked up. Yeah. Damn. How many times did you go over there?

Four. Four times. And I left, yeah. Then we started working out of Ramadi. We started doing, you know, transitioning a lot more around instead of being in LSI. Yeah, we moved all over the place. Then we went to, when it really started getting entertaining, when we brought our forces up just north of Baghdad, the back. Ackuba and they weren't used to bad guys weren't used to having people coming at night

and do operations up there. And that's right when I got the call to get back to the beach to start flight training for the aviation unit that we have. No ship. So what is the aviation unit? And how did that pop on your radar? A bunch of my buddies went over to fly over there and, well, I got a funny story about that. So my first time back from my first pump and

O-E-F. Back home, you know, basket leave for two weeks. And my chief, my bocury leader, he's like, Jay, you got to escort the weapons out to Shaw's gunbox. I'm like, all right, how do I do that? I'm still a new guy. We just got back from our first trip, our first deployment, when we talked about earlier. And he's like, go over to the airport, to Norfolk International, on the other side of the airport. This is back in 2002, 2003, right? And you're going to see a gate, go up to that gate, ring the buzzer, whatever. So I drive there, govy pickup truck, weapons in the back, and I see this big dude wearing a polo shirt, khaki pants,

he's waving me up. Back up, throw the guns in the caravan, C-208, little turbo prop for a four-hour flight to Memphis. So we take off and this dude's asking me all kinds of questions about the deployment. Like, hey, about Robert's Ridge, what's going on? I think he's just like some normal dude, right? And total oblivious.

I'm like, dude, are you a fucking team guy? He's like, fuck, yeah, I am. And he ended up down the road, he was a master chief on freaking Neptune's spirit and I've been loud enough. He's always trying to get back to freaking big guy. I'm trying to get back to the blue, you know what I mean? And I can't right now. And I'm like, dude, wait, you're freaking flying an airplane?

Like you're a team guy pilot right now, flying me to freaking Memphis. So that's when I'm like, well, this is pretty freaking cool. Kind of scary, but pretty cool, you know. And, yeah, come to find out that program was developed back in the beginning just to learn how to steal airplanes if you had to do it. Man, I remember hearing about that shit. I didn't know who's still going on.

I had no clue at the time either. Apparently. Yeah, I didn't know anything about it. And then come and find out, yeah, it's kind of where they sent people that they really didn't want to. It wasn't a good thing to go to, but it was a great trade, a great skill to have, right? They send you to civilian flight school. You get all your pilot licenses, even CFI flight instructor licenses, and then you just pass it on.

Why do you say it's not a good place to go? Well, back then it wasn't because we were at war, and you don't want to be a team guy flying around the United States while your buddies are off, you know, doing work overseas. So is that what you do? Well, I was burnt. That was the first time. Oh, you're talking about flying around in the state?

Yeah, that's, yep, you just, you don't deploy at that time. Oh shit. Yeah. You're stuck. Well, they just spent a bunch of money for you to go to the school and they do utilize you to a certain extent pretty well. How do they utilize you?

Flying gear, flying equipment around. Just like it makes the process of moving like weapons from one place to another place. Okay. And there's one little special program we have for our bigger plane that we have there, the 1900, which is used for, yeah, a lot of special stuff. But in the United States, nothing crazy. Interesting. Is it, I mean, is it still like that?

I think so. I haven't been back there in a little bit. It's been a couple years. How many people are involved in that? Eight. That's it? 10. Yeah, it's a good, it's a close-knit unit, too.

It's, I mean, I don't know much. We're talking about it, but. What, I mean, if we talked about, you wanted to, break to be with your daughter how old is your daughter at this point that's 2013 13 years old was that the big reason you wanted to do it yeah and just get a break from yeah just kind of getting you know the same routine those normal playing every four month every eight months you know yeah and and also building that skill because when when i went over there they're like hey you're never gonna you're not going to make master chief

if you don't, you don't take a certain leadership position as a troop chief. And I'm like, no, I'd rather get my pilot trade, you know, than have to worry about making E9. You know, so, and it turned out to be a smart move and also being home a little bit more. But you do go to flight school for like almost eight months in Florida. So it's a lot of back and forth. How did it feel being home after all that? It felt good. It felt good.

And we got divorced, of course. They get divorced. Oh, yeah. Yep. Yeah, we'll be separated for like three or four years and then tried it again. And then, nope, it just didn't work up. Sorry to hear that. Typical story about team guys.

Yeah, yeah. 90% success rate at getting divorced. Are you close with your daughter? Yes. I try to be closer. We had her little problems when she was like a younger, in her teens. You know what I mean? And when me and her mom were separated, it was kind of, she could pick and choose.

who she wanted to see. Me and her mom really didn't have an ugly divorce at all. We just say, hey, what do you want? What now? But when she was going through that age, yeah, she was a typical teenage girl. And plus, I was flying a lot. I was just learning to fly. Yeah, but I'm pretty close to her. Yeah, she lives in Virginia Beach right now.

So you got divorced after the break? Yes. What led to that, do you think? Me being gone, I think. And then also just, yeah, just my wife, she said that when I got back from my first trip to Afghanistan and like something changed. I'll bet it did. And blame, like, I'm still me.

You know what I mean? Because we compartmentalize. No, there's something different. I'm like, no, I'm good. You know what I mean? You know how we are in our community. Like, we just ignore it and just keep rolling. And some people close to you actually see the changes that you choose to ignore happen.

and I think that's what led to pretty much yes she was just yeah is there anything you would change anything I would change yeah no nothing nothing I want to change anything how long after you took the break did you wind up getting divorced or not took a break well we were separated for three years anyway and then so it was probably five six years we got divorced yeah like 2015 yeah did you feel different when you were coming home from Iraq No, I was just worn out. Did you notice any changes? I didn't know.

She might have noticed, yeah. Looking back, do you notice any changes? Yeah. Well, hindsight's always 20-20, right? So I think, yeah, they're probably, yeah, maybe it was a little more cold, more when I got home, you know what I mean, more, I guess I sound like a psychiatrist now. But I wouldn't say not as caring, but not as emotional, I guess. So that's, I guess that's a sudden she saw that would change pretty much.

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Honey, forget about the lasagna. Let's celebrate. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concern about your gambling or that of someone close to you. Call 16-531-2600 or visitconX Ontario.ca. So you, do you feel like that you had any PTSD, TBI? No, I did have TBI and I had to go through that with FAA too.

That's another story. But, no, not really any PTSD. I think we're good at compartmentalizing, you know, the certain days, like March 4th, like we talked about August 6th, extortion 17. Yeah, there's certain times where you like, shit, hasn't been that long? You know, and I'm like, you missed a lot. those dudes too so it's kind of but then you just move on right because if you dwell on it it does you know good at all yeah just staring the bottom of a freaking pocket bottle or something you know

what i mean how do you deal with it now just compartmentalize it stay busy stay busy analyze i like shooting i'm you know what i mean uh i'm in a car's motorist that's what i do when i would come back from my deployments shoot i rebuilt a 93 Mustang in my garage that was the way i i dealt with it like i got back for my first pump in in afghananese and see them go out in the garage, work in the car, and motorcycles. I like motorcycles a lot. That's how I deal with it. Keep busy, because if a stagnant mine is not something that's good.

Yeah. What kind of motorcycle do you have? Decati. No shit. Not a Harley? Mm-mm. It's a V4, actually. Right on, man.

Okay, N'A. No Harley. Italiano. It's Italian. Right on. So what did you, I mean, what did you think of the, aviation unit. It was good, it was monotonous, you know what I mean? But it was, learned a lot for a lot of times you're on call. I'm like I'm married a night,

Adam Brown. I was flying when Adam Brown was killed and yeah, we were on standby then and my wife knew his wife from doing, she would do her hair actually. And then I got a phone call from our command at like, yeah, 11 o'clock, hey, you got to fly to Arkansas, heart springs. And my wife heard it on the phone and she's what well yeah no I don't know if she goes that's where so-and-so lives and yeah at times like that that's hard too we flying a Kiko team out to tell you know to tell the family and this is like shoot right before the year before extortion so but other than that yeah the aviation unit was it was a learning

experience put it that way and it sets you up for the future too for if you want to stay with the flying part. And you did? Yeah, until I went to, when I did my last three years at the recruiting district, I wasn't flying much at all there. But when I got out, I had an opportunity to freaking jump right back into it again. How was the recruiting duty?

Oh, man, dealing with recruiters was... I don't know. How the fuck you did that. When I first went in there, I told him I had very little respect for that anybody that could sit behind a desk in the military for a career and have a rating of a Navy counselor. And I think it should be a civilian position personally because they want like our job there is to give them quality.

All they care about is quantity, right? And you're screwing with young kids like futures and lives. And I was glad I went there with the rank that I had as a senior chief because I don't see how like a second class of E5 could go do that job because they would just get stepped on as far as, hey, keep giving us bodies. You know what I mean? We're not going to just sign somebody off. That's how that job got created in our community.

When they made SO an actual job, SEAL, EOD, diver, rescue swimmer. In SWIC, they, recruiters would just, you know, pencil whipped their PST scores. And then they sent them up to boot camp where they already spent money on getting this guy up there going through boot camp. and they bombed the PST. Like, why are you sending these guys to us? You know, and that's where they put in the shit screen at the recruiting level. So they would have more qualified candidates go up there.

And it was cool, like, going out the way it came in, you know, talking to kids, answering their silly little questions about buds and training, all the book writer's books that I may have read one or two. Do you know about this guy? But it was a rewarding job. It was rewarding, even though I think like maybe five kids, I said they made it through buds, but in three years.

Right on. So why did you, what led from the aviation unit to the recruiting? I wanted to move to Texas. Why did you want to move to Texas? And I like, I used to like it when we trained on there in the 90s. We trained at Fort Hood and go visit Austin, back when it was a nice, sleepy college town. it's not anymore but uh i just like the weather there it does get hot the people the culture when i was there and it worked on i didn't even know that job was a job i called up my detailer

and um he told me that there's a recruiting job in san antonio like working there and i'm like what i don't want to be a recruiter he goes no no it's a coordinator i never even heard about it before once again and you work with a civilian counterpart that worked for academy it's like a contractor so there's two of you and i had no zero shore duty as far as every command i was at i was always on like sea duty could deploy whatever i want he's like dude i'll hook you up with with this job and that's what made me go to texas so i'm like anywhere san antonio houston dallas and it recovers a humongous district in texas san antonio all the way up to the northwest all the way down to the south Oh, wow.

It's huge. A lot of driving. But like I said, it was rewarding. It was rewarding. I mean, what was it like for you to just totally punch out of that command? Out of Steel Team Systems. That was kind of relieving. No shit?

It was kind of relieving, yeah. It was good just to, you know, move on and think about the next chapter. You were done. Yeah. It was, yeah, and things started to slow down, too, a little bit. But, and losing friends, and like when when extortion 17, got shot down, man, I was sitting I actually flew up to Boston to pick guys up that were training up there. And I'm sitting behind home plate at Fenway Park

because I was only one of the top Red Sock and Patriot fans that everybody knew that was up there. They had tickets. So I'm sitting behind a home plate and my phone, it was actually best. My phone vibrates and he's a two troop. And I'm like, who, like two troop? Like what? It's not sinking in. And that was when, that was August 6th when freaking extortion 17 got shot down with quite a few of our friends on there. But then, yeah, and that was right around the time. I was like, I just wanted to, you know, move on and do a more cushier job.

You're ready. And the divorce. Just wanted to get away from, you know, the area, half the Roads area, and start out new. And I had a new girlfriend, too, who's not my wife. Wow, congratulations. Yeah. How'd you meet her? That is another interesting story.

So before all the bookwriters, right, at our command, we'd have people come down. We knew people in the aviation. This is when I was flying. We knew people in the aviation community, like higher-ups, like some of the guys that found in net jets, just through doing our recurrent training in LaGuardia Airport. So we'd bring them down for visits. They visit the command. I'll never forget one time we're walking around the command. Get them a tour.

of a room, kind of like, you know, the team room, and then going downstairs showing this monument we're getting built. And one of the head guys of United Technologies, Pratt and Whitney, he's like, well, when's it going to be done? And we don't know. We need like, well, we don't know. We need like $25,000, whenever operations guys is telling him this. And he turns around to his assistant, whipped out one of those big, like, notebook checkbooks, and writes it. And here, it's covered. So Through that, he was good buddies with my current wife's best friend's dad. So we met up through that meeting right there. And then it just kind of, a long story short, I went, my wife's going to be pissed.

But her best friend died. And then we, I called her just to say, hey, I'm sorry about it. And then we linked up that way. Gotcha. But through that meeting that happened at the command, of court. It was, they got to shoot like, freaking 50, Cal's, the Maduce, they got shoot grenade launchers. They had a blast.

And now they don't do that anymore. I can't even get on the command anymore because of the notoriety. But they were very happy. And it was pretty cool, the way that went down with, you know, taking care of the memorial that they were building for the command, just as one guy writing a check. It was pretty, it impressed me too. And they were happy with their experience there. I'm right on.

What was it like for you separating out of the Navy? You're right. I mean, it sounds like you're 100% ready. Yeah. Yep. Well, I was offered a job to actually fly by a great company out of California, Solaris Aviation. And I thought they were rolling the dice with me too as well because it's flying a jet.

And all I have been flying is turbo props, twin turbo props. It's like a jet with a prop on it anyway. So the CEO there gave me the opportunity to, he's like, dude, I'll give you a job right now in Van Nuys or Teeterboro. I'm like, no, I'm not leaving Texas. If something pops up in Texas, let me know. Like two weeks before I retired, a golf stream job popped up, and I got the freaking go to initial training for it. And it was a little bit easier in flying a prop. Things just move a little bit quicker.

And then I rolled right into that. You like flying a golf stream? Yeah, it's a gorgeous airplane. It's a gorgeous plane. All the golf streams are. We fly a 550 though. It's a beautiful airplane. Right on, man.

And then it started, yep, I did that. And then I flew for another guy to Austin, single turboprop, PC12, which is a gorgeous plane. They're incredible. And the guy was one of the best guys ever flew for in my life. Then I got hired by a big freight company and did that for a little bit. and kind of taking a break and just working with my buddy out of North Carolina.

Right on, man. How do you, I mean, how long, so you got out in 2019? Yes, they retired. Do you miss it? I miss the boys. I miss the fellas, you know what I mean? I do, but when I think back, do I really miss it that much? Not really.

I mean, I miss some of the cool things we did, you know, but I was ready at that time. I'm going to be, I have replaced shoulder, my knee, my back's jacked up, freaking, yeah. It's, it took a toll, you know what I mean? And mentally, it takes a toll on you. Yeah. It takes a toll. Yeah.

Especially with the FAA, it takes a toll. What do you mean by that? We went to Isle of Man. I got back, and I'm trying to help other people out with this, right? I got back from Isle of Man going through the mail. We went there for the T-T races, the motorcycle races there. It's freaking incredible experience in itself. But I'm going through the mail, and I go, oh, I never get a letter from the FAA.

open it up. Like, hey, we see your disabled vet. I'm like, yeah. And you got to tell us everything that that's on your VA letter. And I'm like, well, when I take my physical every six months, I check off like the stuff that bothered. I didn't even know about half the stuff that was on my VA letter. And I read it. Like, oh, oh, oh, because it's kind of like a blanket one we had. Yeah, long story. So I go through everything that's on there. Like, well, you got TBI, PTSD, for I could sleep apnea, all this other stuff. And I got to go get it taken care of. So I see a great doctor in Savannah, Georgia. He has me go through everything. I go through all the testing, smoke it. I mean, my brain is, like, fried going through the neuropsych testing.

And then I end up answering questions to a bunch of other guys that are disabled vets, that are pilots that are going through the same thing. But a lot of these guys, they keep trying to push for more disability, right? But they don't report it to the FAA. We check everything off every six months when we get our flight physicals through our docks, and there's a box in there. Are you disabled? Boom, you check it, and you get fill out, you put it at everything you have,

and you're good to go. Some guys are lying, and they got in trouble, they got caught. And what's weird is they're worried about some of the veterans, right, that are around there. could walk around to flight operations area and see like a five foot four three hundred and fifty pound man pilot walking around like i'd be worried about that guy more than they'd be worried about you know having a vet flying an airplane yeah what do you think they're worried about that's flying airplanes i don't know well disabled vets yeah interesting well some i mean

there are some crazy people out there not even vets you know what i mean that do stupid shit so So you're a grandpa now. Yep. How's that? I don't see them that often, but when I do, it's cool. The one, the littlest one, Braxton, he's a terror. And, yeah, Tofer's, they're both good kids. They're good kids.

They're crazy. They're good. Yeah, it was weird. That wasn't planned either. So, yeah. Right on. Yeah, they're good kids. I spoil them when I see them, you know what I mean?

That's pretty much what you could. I'm looking forward to getting them out in Texas, do some shooting. I already bought him like a little 22, a little time cat, whatever. Nice. The little can on it, yeah. Nice. I'm looking forward to that.

Maybe you can get him behind that 300 black out there. Yeah, in a couple more years. I don't want to give it to Brax and he might turn around and shoot me with it. Oh, man. You want to go break that thing in? Mm-hmm. Well, before we do, what do you got coming up next? Anything?

No, this was not. No, this was a big step for me. I'll tell you that coming in here, talking to you. Thanks for the opportunity. My pleasure. Jason. I got recurrent training next week, so that's my next big step. Right.

Oh, man. Well, wish you the best of luck. Thank you. Thank you, man. Cheers. Thanks. No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything,

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