The Connect- with Johnny Mitchell - Inside The War On Somali Pirates: Navy Seal Team 6 Leader Reveals Rescuing The REAL Captain Phillips

Episode Date: January 12, 2025

Step into the gripping world of an elite Navy SEAL turned private military contractor. In this candid conversation, Daniel Corbett shares raw insights into his journey from a troubled youth to becoming a SEAL, intense combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ethical dilemmas faced in modern warfare. He reflects on his time with SEAL Team 6, hostage rescues, mercenary work, and the psychological impact of high-stakes operations. Explore the untold stories of battlefield tactics, moral ambiguity, and life after the military in this fascinating deep dive. Go Support Daniel! IG: https://www.instagram.com/american_mercenary/ Website: https://www.danieldavidcorbettiii.com/ Book: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/daniel-corbett/american-mercenary/9781546006190/?lens=center-street&fbclid=PAAaYv-73KLJC1uN2sVKAFbGN_ZlBcjEpPs-Op_JM3mpricBy4MyVIl6HYiZM This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at https://betterhelp.com/CONNECT and get on your way to being your best self. This episode is also brought to you by Rocket Money! Stop wasting money on things you don’t use. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to https://RocketMoney.com/connect Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I think you should always respect your enemy and then shoot him. I have bullets and a gun. He's a bad guy. He's going to die. And if he gets lucky, I'll die. These guys over there wearing suicide vests. Do you think your gunfire in that direction is going to suppress anything? These guys are already dead.

You can call in AC130 gunships on dudes and they'll keep running at you. If it interferes with me or my team making it back to the States, it doesn't matter. We're coming home, I'll stop. Daniel Corbett is a former member of Navy SEAL Team 6, the most elite unit in the Navy SEALs. He was involved in high-stakes military operations all over the world, including the rescue of Captain Phillips from Somali pirates back in 2009. He served multiple tours at Iraq and Afghanistan, where his SEAL Team 6 was part of countless search and destroy missions against al-Qaeda and Taliban targets. Dan is the most cold-hearted killer I've spoken to on this podcast. He embodies the Navy SEALs, not driven by any ideology or hyper-patriotism.

He is simply driven by the thrill of the kill. After leaving the SEALs, Daniel went on to become a peasant. paid private mercenary, locating high-value targets for both blackmail and assassination purposes all over the world. His story is so unbelievable that Hollywood has come knocking, where he's got a television show in development based off of his book, American Mercenary, in bookstores all over the country, so make sure to go pick it up. And for a bonus episode with Dan, where he goes into greater detail about his time doing black ops, head over to patreon.com slash the Connect show. What an incredible life story, the American mercenary himself, Daniel Corbett,

here on The Connect with Johnny Mitchell. When I'm in your house and I have little green circles under my eyes and I have my gun on you, you don't have time to grab a human ship. We did Captain Phillips mission, jumped into Indian Ocean, saved Captain Phillips. And then I just looked to my left and there's a pistol at my forehead. I'm in prison. I'm like friends with all the hooligans. I'm with the shot call over the jail now.

I wanted to contribute to there being less than. That's when I see the lights behind me start the flash. And I didn't even think. I just hit it. I was driving like my life. life depended on. Then I parked the car, hopped out, closed the door, and I started running. And he pulls out a burner, shank. It's like six inches. And he passes it to me. And he goes, here, that's yours. Don't ever leave the cell block without this. He was the reason I made it out of that place alive. When you go into

the military, do you have any idea about where it's going to lead you? To a degree, like I knew I wanted to be a seal, so I knew I'd be heading down that pipeline. But beyond that, it was a mystery, but it was, it was cool. It added to that sense of adventure in the unknown. Like, let's go. Let's do it. Yeah. And I suppose that depending on what your skill set is, that's where you'll get, you know, pushed in whichever direction they could best use you. Yeah. And a lot of it's just weird butterfly effect stuff too. I've seen one kid get rolled in Hell Week or whatever, then he got put on this other team and they got to go do stuff. So it's a lot of things are out of your control also.

Right. Okay. So you did Hell Week. You became a seal. Yeah. That's your background. Yeah. Okay. How, what led up to that? Did you have ambitions to do anything else? Yeah. So in high school, I was rock star football player. And one year I wanted to run cross country. I don't know why, but I did. And the assistant cross country coach was like, hey, what are you doing after high school. I was 16. I was 510, 170, same, full beard, okay with the chicks. Like, it was, it was good and I never really thought about after high school. I thought high school was forever. Yeah. And partially because it was awesome. And my family isn't a family of academics. So there's never like, are you going to Harvard or Yale? Like, there was no even talk of college. So I had no plans. So when the

assistant coach asked me. I said, I don't know. Then he handed me a VHS tape and it was a documentary about Seals in Vietnam in the training and I was like, oh, this is cool. Yeah. So that was the impetus. That was the catalyst because I did all these after school programs for smart kids and it was cool because mentally that was stimulating but hanging out, they were nerds, right? I was like, okay. And then after football games, we go over drink in the vine. and have fun and party, that was great, but there was no mental stimulation. So I was like, God, is there something that does bold?

And during that documentary, I watched on the VHS tape, they're interviewing a guy and he goes, the announcer asked or the interviewer asked, what makes you guys so good? And the guy goes, we're not that good. It's just everyone else sucks. And I'm like, okay, that's fucking cool. That's clever.

These guys are fit. These guys are putting it on the line, problem solvers. I want to be that. Yeah, it doesn't seem like it's ideological. The reason that people choose to go into something like the seals, especially. Yeah, I tell people that are like, oh, is it because Jenny broke up with you or you want to die for your country? Look, whatever reason you go, sure. But to me, I think seal training is too hard and too long to do it for any other reason besides you wanting to do it for yourself.

That's it. Because Jenny broke up with me can get you a month or two in, but it's not going to get you third. 13 months your training, right? That's not going to stay with you. It has to be an internal drive that is part of your character to show up every single day. Yeah, that's why it attracts athletes. Yeah, because it's that same thing. Wake up at 4, whatever.

It's like, okay, how can I roll this into a job? Navy SEAL, boom, let's do it. And also it attracts people that might otherwise be criminals. We just had Taylor. We just had Taylor Kavanaugh on the show. Yeah, I know. I know very well. Good friend of mine.

you know, wayward and on the wrong path and selling drugs and getting into trouble. But that criminal energy, that ADHD is prolific in the SEAL teams. Oh, I believe it. A hundred percent. And I tell people like, why did you be a SEAL? I'm like, so it's a super athletic criminal.

Where else would I go? And then, you know, you have that super awesome trifecta too because everyone's really intelligent. So you have this person who's okay being morally ambiguous, very smart and physical beast. That's a perfect summation.

Morally ambiguous. Let's weaponize those guys and send them overseas. Where do I sign up? So did you have to join or serve anywhere else first? Or did you just go through basic and then graduate to take your initial seals training and then go to

do hell week? So it changes back and forth, but when I went in you had to go to a regular Navy A school or job after boot camp because guys would pipeline straight into seal training after boot camp

they get rolled they would have a performance role or the medical issue or whatever and they'd end up being there for like two and a half years and then they finally quit or get dropped and they've been in the Navy now almost three years and they don't have a fucking job

so go okay we got to fix this we have to send people to a Navy job school first and then let them go to seal training because the attrition rate is so high and the pipeline is so long. So when I went in, they said, hey, there's these 13 jobs you can choose.

And I said, which one's the shortest one? Like, oh, gunner's mate's really cool, it's guns. I'm like, oh, that's cool. How long? Six months? I don't want that. I said, just tell me the shortest one. They said, it's parachute rigor out of Pensacola, Florida, four weeks.

I said, let's go. So you're jumping out of planes. No, you're just sewing. Oh God, the opposite. Yeah. Wow. What does that mean? You're sewing stuffing parachutes?

You learn how to pack parachutes. You're sewing and repairing gear, and you're also doing inventory on the stuff that pilots carry in their vest in case they have to eject, like their flare and water packets and all this shit. Do pilots still carry cyanide capsules? Was that ever a thing?

I don't know. I mean, that sounds really cool. Yeah. I mean, I've heard that Navy SEALs have to carry. around Mac 10s all the time. So, I mean, I don't know. But yeah, there was always that Cold War rumor that, especially people that were deep behind enemy lines, they always had cyanide on them if case they got caught, they would just... I could see that, but if you have a pilot flying high altitude taking pictures, he doesn't need to know all of the mission. He just needs to

fly. So even if he gets captured, he's not going to tell me anything. He's like, yeah, I'm a pilot. You know that because you shot me down. Now what? Like, could be, I don't know. So what was your specialty going into seal training? Where did you excel, you think? Through seal training? I would say running. Yeah. Which wasn't an excel that much because the small town I grew up in 25,000 people.

I mean, if you can run three miles and under 21 minutes, you're like, whoa. Yeah. And the first run we did in Buds, we had like 200 people in our class before held. week. And I was in the middle third of the pack, but towards the end, I was almost in like the last third of people. And I'm like running my little heart out. And I'm like, I'm going to fail. Like I'm running really slow today. I don't know what's going on. I'm very like, like just beat myself up during this run. And I get back and I had a really good time. And I'm like, oh shit. I'm not the big fish in little pond. These are some athletes. Come to find out one guy in my class was a,

Stanford cross-country champion. Another guy just transferred, he was in the Navy active duty on the professional triathlon team. So like we had some rock star endurance athletes and I was like, oh, okay. And this is wartime, right? It's the early 2000s?

Yep. Okay. So were you itching to go over there? I wasn't opposed to it, but at the same time when you're in buds, if a bud student talked to me that was in first phase, about Afghanistan or Iraq

or getting it on, I'd be like, shut the fuck up and worry about being a bud student. Because you guys, wake up at 4, clean your room, room inspection,

make sure your CO2 cartridges has no rust before you swim. Make sure you're knife's sharp. I'm like, you need to focus on this. The other shit will come. Sure.

If it's still there, right? So, I mean, no one wants to practice a game or sport all week and never have a game Friday night. You want to go play.

Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And now I think just moving into this new phase of humanity, there's going to be a lot less hot war. There's going to be a lot less use. There already is for rank and file infantry soldiers.

You know, future wars will be fought with drones. And I mean, they already are. But shutting down power grids, whatever. And we've known that for a while. And a lot of guys have been getting out. And like, okay, I've chased that. dragon enough. It's not coming back. It's not send 30 dudes over there, smash and come home. Those conflicts are going to become fewer and fewer, if any. And even now, even within the last

five years, it's been a huge slowdown for everybody that's still in. Yeah. Now, in your time, you passed Buds. Did you have any, was there any issues getting through it? Was there any with, I don't know. See, I don't want to sound like a dick, but no, I mean, I was 18, race triathlons. I was made of rubber, you know, like, I saw a guy doing ice baths and popping motrons, and I was like, you know, why? Yeah. Yeah, if I was 2830, I'd be doing the same. But I was 18, and, um, it was, it was good. Hmm. Okay. So after Buds, you graduated, you're a seal. Yeah, well, after Buds, you have three months of SQT, so, so qualification training. Right. And that's just more advanced training.

And no one really washes out of that. And then you're a seal. So, yeah, after that, became a seal. How many people did you graduate with? Probably like 35, 25, 25. Yeah. Okay. So where'd you get deployed first?

Iraq in the summer of 05. Yeah. That's hot over there in 05, huh? Oh, yeah. It was cool because we were in SQT, like the last month of SQT, and we had an instructor, older. He sat us all down. and he goes, you guys don't know how good you have it.

I've been doing this for 20 years. Tried chasing wars on the West Coast, went to the East Coast, back to the West Coast, nothing. And you guys are going out the door to the show. Like, know how good you have it. Wow. Because back in the day, there was like one shipboarding or like one gas oil platform takedown.

One. And if you're on that team that did that one shipboarding, it was like, oh shit, so-and-so. He did that one mission, like three years. go and then you know, but you don't know what you don't know. Like, I'm brand new.

You're going to Iraq. There's a war. Okay. But the old guys are like, you guys know how good you have. Right. You go into the show. You might have been part of the last show

in American history. We may never have a war. No, because everything's too politicized and we have better technologies and tactics. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you can't sell a lie like the Bush's sold the Iraq lie.

I don't think that's ever going to happen again. Yeah, I think there's a lot more oversight. Yeah, you were part of the last, you know, it was Vietnam for our generation. Hey, go over there and fuck those guys up. Yeah. Roger that. And it achieved un-gatz in many ways, but. No, it created ISIS.

Yeah, right, right. Well, just, you know, same with Vietnam, you know, just take this hill. Roger that. Yeah. Yeah. Now thousands of people are dead, bunch of Americans are dead. and now you got to take the next hill. What are we doing this for?

Well, kill count, body count. Take the hill. Exactly. Roger that. So what is your objective when you ship over there? Where do you go in Iraq? Where's the first place you go? I think we landed in biop right there, center, Baghdad.

And I think it's in Baghdad. I don't know. It was so long ago. And the first three months, I think the first three months? Well, half and half. We did three months of doing direct action rates. It's like rolling out, breaching dudes doors, explosive, either dumping them or capturing him and bringing them back.

How often were you dumping them versus bringing them back? That deployment? Not that much. Because a lot of the times we hit a dry hole. And the dry hole means like it's either the wrong house or there's no one there. Right. And it was, you know, it was pretty hot. It was hot like metaphorically, like shit was popping off summer of 05.

and I think there was some like weird like feverish mentality like look we got to hit this house hit this house and we're like fuck yeah let's go you know I'm a young guy I'm ready I want to go and reach a door and there'd be no one there and you're like maybe it's the next house boom nope so like most of the houses we hit were empty or like not even the right people yeah yeah what were the rules of engagement at that time did you you know because you you you know, after Ivo Grave and a lot of these, you know, kind of politicized things, the Nisar Square massacre, you know, that gun battle. But in 05, what were, you know, yeah, I guess what were your governs around engaging people? Did you have to be shot at first? It was pretty much shot at was very clear, cut and dry. Memorial Day weekend is almost here, and it's time to kick off Summer Right. When I'm getting ready for the first big weekend of summer,

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Spirits not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly must be 21. Pointing weapon at you was pretty good. And then as the use of IED started picking up, then it was like, okay, are we dropping dudes if they have a Nokia in their hand? Right. Right. It's just a phone.

Boop, boop, boop, boop, bo. Yeah. Dual-tone, multi-frequency, DTMF, boom, boom. Right? So it was weird because back in the day, lying in the sand, These guys are dressed in these uniforms provided by their country. We're in this trench. Boom.

Bad guy. Good guy. You know, terrorism. Dude's wearing a polo shirt, no beard, and a clean cut haircut. And he pulls out of Nokia. And then big IED goes off. So it's, you kind of had to be smart on the trigger. You're making your decisions split second.

Yeah. That's stressful. It is, especially when you know if you do the wrong thing, you will answer for it. Did you see people getting court-martialed for bad shoots? We saw stuff internally. We never saw it go that high. But you'd come back from an op and you'd hear about someone getting pulled aside. Like, hey, why'd you take that shot?

It's like, dude, he had a gun. It's like, yeah. But he was pretty far with a pistol. Like, you shouldn't feel threatened. You know, then people started getting divided like, fuck you. It's Iraq 05. He had a gun pointed at me. I don't care that was going to be a hundred-yard pistol shot or not.

I'm dropping them. So you started to see that there was some questioning going on. And that made things really dangerous for guys because on more than one occasion, you'd see someone put themselves in a very dangerous situation because they were afraid of the aftermath if they did pull the trigger. Now, when you're doing these raids, is it just other Navy SEAL teams or are you support for, you know, regular military? Like how do they incorporate you with the other branches of the, of the military over there. So when I was there,

we did everything. We drove our own Humvees, we had our mobility guys, and then we'd rotate out, and then the guys would go in and hit the house. The only time there was any joint, anything, it was, obviously, eyes in the sky, whatever platforms we had as far as, you know,

ISR or even gunships, so like Army Helos and whatever platforms we had, you know, given us ISR. So, but that, for me, being so young, I didn't really, I was involved in any of that mission planning. I wasn't talking to any pilots. You know, I was like, make sure my gun is locked and loaded and do what I'm supposed to do. And that's it.

So you didn't have any authority in the early days, obviously. My authority was taking out the trash. That was what I was in charge of right. As a new guy. Were you a little disappointed at first that there wasn't more action, that you guys are coming up, hitting empty holes? Yes and no because it was it was the first thing I've done So I had nothing to compare it to We're still flying around helicopters blowing up doors

Ready to fight I mean Yeah as a young as a young Navy seal I was like still still pretty fucking cool Do you remember your first firefight? Do you remember when at first you hit the right hole? Or you hit the right? Yeah, so the first the first time was actually very bizarre we were in a vehicle convoy and I was number two guys and Humvee on the 50 Cal. It was at night. And we were either on Route Irish or Route Michigan. And all of a sudden, I just see a flash and then boom.

And then vehicle one opens up with the 50 Cal. And then we start doing all our vehicle maneuvers and I'm on the gun. But it took me so long to realize what was happening. Because it was early on in the deployment. And the way, I have to attribute this to how really, we train. The way we train, the flashbangs, the training simulators, the blanks, it's so spot on. It's almost too spot on. I was like, oh, contact front. No, train, oh, that's a flash bang. I'm like, wait, there's no flash bang. Oh, this is real? Oh, we're getting shot out. Yeah. Those aren't blanks. Okay, so did you let the 50 cow off? Yeah, but the way, whatever reason, the vehicle commander decided to do break contact. So it was like, like up up and then we were already peeling back and the other guns were shooting. So it wasn't,

it wasn't much, but that was the first one. Okay. If you're getting shot at, like, how do you not, how do you not hit your own people? It's all training, man. So do you circle up the humvees? Like, say you're, you're surrounded and you have to, you have to have multiple people shooting the 50 cal. I assume you get this. So you know, you don't circle the wagons like the Western days. So it depends on what the call is. It's like a football playbook. You can either blow through. step on the gas and everyone has your field of fire. Humvee 1 will be usually front. Humvee 2 left, Humvee 2 right, you know, oscillating each way and then last Humvee is holding rear. Right. So you kind of have this like... That's got to be. I would assume that's the most dangerous spot to be is Humvee 1 on top with the gun, right? It's debatable. Humvee 1, you're either going to hit the first IAD or you're going to arm it and the second one's going to hit. But yeah.

Oh, is that how it happens? So... And they got smart too. It was, they would set an IED up, boom. Victim operated, right? So like pressure plate, boom. Convoy would stop and start to like offload the people, whatever. And then they would manually set off the IEDs. They had buried all along the road and hit the rest of the convoy.

Were you ever part of an IED hit? No, thank God. Thank God. Wow. Luck of the draw, right? Yeah. And we had these jammers that were in the back of our vehicles, these big, huge black monoliths.

And did they work? Or were there no IEDs? I don't know. Okay. How long was your first deployment? Six months. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. And it doesn't sound very eventful. We got to do some stuff. But, I mean, going out the door like 100 times in six months is pretty good. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

How did mentally, how did you feel? I mean, you're just a young kid. I wanted to stay. I said, leave my saw, my belted machine gun, and leave my M4, and I'll just stay. And they're like, bro, you can't just stay. You have to rotate back. Yeah. And other team's coming.

I'm like, well, maybe they don't have an extra guy and they could use me. And like, get in the fucking, getting the truck going to airport. Were you aware of who Blackwater and private military guys were? That was the heyday of Blackwater mercenary fashion. And there was dudes that were all super jacked. Yeah. Mohawks, body armor with no shirts underneath. I'm like, what are these guys doing? Well, did you consider jumping ship? I guess you can't jump ship, right? If you're under contract by the military. You know, you'd run some guys and be like, oh, if you ever get out, you know, I'm making X amount a day. And I'm like, oh, that's dope. But, I mean, I was a brand new. I just worked my ass off to become a seal. And the getting was good.

Yeah. As far as I knew. So why would I leave? Like the pay? Or no, like the action was good. So like, why would I leave? And plus, at that age, if I was concerned about making money, I probably would have went to finance, not joined the sealed teams. Right. Right.

There's really a thrill-seeking behind all of this. Right. It's hard to say because it's more like, I just like the competition, right? The ultimate competition. And in the critical thinking and the problem solving, because people go, Oh, were you, when you were shooting people, were you just, like, fired up and, like, yelling. And I said, no.

I see, if someone you loved was on the operating table, about to have open heart surgery, would you want the surgeon to come in, like slamming a red bull, bouncing off the ground, but like, let's fucking go. Or would you want someone to come in, calm, cool, professional? Do, do, do, do. So when I'm actually working and you're on the trigger,

it's very much you're in that zone like a pro athlete would be right you're just like focused boom I think the appeal is that you're never doing the same shit every day and that you're with people you can trust I mean the people is the best part of the job

100% and you really get to be creative on how you attack these problem sets these missions okay so you're there for the mental stimulation as much as like 100%. Okay.

So if not, you can go do a marathon and go to the jujitsu place down the road and go boxing if you really just wanted to hit that part. But the community aspect

was awesome. And like I said, yeah, the mental aspect, the critical thinking and problems. I think certain the military recruits

or were at least told that the military, whether that's just their army, the rank and file, they recruit like people from the hood, poor people,

people that don't have a lot of opportunity It's a way out, right? It's a way out. But for guys like seals and, you know, high-level people, it's deeper than that. These guys have options. You could have gone on to, like you said, been in finance or done something. You know, you had a lot more, you've got the mental acuity and the intelligence to,

you could have done whatever you wanted, but you're here. And that's exceptional. Yeah. So we got guys from the hood. You know what I mean? We got everybody. but you're right the guys that do come in and succeed in these special programs they could have succeeded anywhere so after your six months is up what happens go back to uh san diego and do your entire training cycle again

which is good because i'll talk to people in different units and different branches and they'll go oh i'm skydive certified i'm like oh do you guys jump a lot during your workup and they go no i went to this course nine years ago. Oh, okay. How many guys on your team are qualified? Oh, just me. So if there's a mission, you're going to jump in by yourself?

Like, how does that work? In the SEAL teams, we have a cyclical rotation. So when you get back from deployment, you pick up however many new guys that just graduated, you do all these same blocks of training that you just did over again.

And you just keep stacking the 10,000 hours of each skill set. You come back and you do it again. Right. And you're hoping to get redeployed, I'm sure. Of course. Okay. Did you go back?

So we went to the Philippines for the next deployment. Why? Drew the short straw. Yeah. Right? Because if you have a, let's say you have fake numbers for math, let's say you have 10 platoons at a seal team. Six are going to go to Iraq and four are going to go to the Philippines. well, my group was in the sixth I went to Iraq the first time.

Boom, boom, boom. Now you go. Damn. Okay. You go there and you just find a wife and start a family. It was cool. You know, I was a little bit bitter and I did pack a desert bag just in case. So in Philippines, green, different color cameys. But I did pack a bag with all my desert stuff. just in case. Some hopeful, wishful thinking.

Yeah. It never left and never used it, but I had it just in case because I was pretty bummed. But we were in the Philippines and I made the best of it. It was a little bit ridiculous. They go, hey, I need you to train these guys jungle warfare.

And I'm like, dude, I've done like eight days in Stennis, Mississippi in like the bayou. These guys live in a hammock in the jungle where they grew up. Like, what do you want me? to teach them. I can't teach them anything. They're going to teach me. But it was cool. I got to do some more intel-driven stuff and got to see that part of the world. Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. You guys have heard of BetterHelp by now. BetterHelp is the world's number one online therapy service.

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And I'm like, he called it something else at the time. And I go, I don't even know what that is. Well, you're my best friend. You're doing it. I'll do it. So I put in my package. And what that consists of is going to your Master Chief at Silt-Team 5 and be like, hey, I want to try out. Okay.

Paperwork. Fill it out. And then cadre from SIL Team 6 flies out like once a year to test the guys on the West Coast. Show up. Do the physical test. And then two days of interviews. You do like the California psych test, another psych test, interview with psychiatrists, and then interview with a panel of operators at Siltim 6.

Wow. And they ask you like good questions. Like, it's between you and Johnny. why would we pick you over him? And some guys would be like, well, Johnny's really good at radios, but if you need a radio man, maybe him. And I was like,

yo, I'm here for me. I'm not here for him. Right? So they kind of want to see your character. They want to see, you know, if you're going to be a good culture fit too. It's not a very big community over there.

So I did my interviews and third day, I think they told two of us. They're like, you guys are for sure in. So, okay. So that was actually right before, the Philippines deployment. So I knew I was going to go to that screening process right when I got back.

Wow. Okay. Tell us what SEAL Team 6 is compared to just being a regular SEAL. Okay. So I don't want to come across as an elitist, but SEAL Team 6 is a unit that has different pools of funding more. And there's no new guys there is the biggest thing. So that cyclical training cycle I was telling you about

Even if you've done five Deployments and Workups when you get back You got to pick up the new guys who just made it through training And do the same thing over and over again And you It's kind of a no child left behind policy there right Because you need to bring the new guys up to speed And you can't keep

Going and developing new stuff If someone's struggling Where when you go to Steel Team 6 and go into their pipeline if you make a Monday mistake on Monday, okay. But if you make a Monday mistake on Tuesday, you're gone. Like that, because they're not going to hinder everyone else's progress. So it's the elite of the elite. One way to put it, yeah.

Wow. And they're the ones who get the super special assignments, I would assume. Yeah, I mean, there's other units in different branches that are right up there. but yeah they they got to do big ones you can look in the news but yeah wow okay so you got in yeah at like 20 I checked in at 23

okay my team leader had a daughter my age when I checked in and people were looking at me like who how what is this young guy doing here yeah he's a baby yeah yeah okay so you got a lot to prove yeah you're probably excited as shit you're in the NBA you're in the yeah I'm in the big leagues So I had a lot to prove, but I wasn't that same 18-year-old kid worried about taking the trash out when I was at Silt-Team 5.

Maybe I should have been, but I was a rock star. I was like, the guy from Siltim 5. I couldn't give a shit. We're all seals here. Why are we doing this new guy shit again? And there was a little bit of a culture clash when I checked in for sure. Yeah. Does having bodies on you?

I don't want to be crude No But does that mean anything to people? No, because at this point It was 2007 The war has been going on for quite some time And it's pretty Assumed if you

If you even got Greenlit to go To try out for SEAL Team 6 That you're on the board Yeah Yeah It was more like He's

You know It's not like being You know I'd say A profession that doesn't have as many shootings Like, oh, that guy's been, like, dude. Like a cop or something. Yeah, we've been a sustained combat the whole time.

So, like, oh, you shot someone, you know, okay. You're a gunfighter, what'd you expect? Yeah. Wow. Wow. I'm just so fascinated by it because, you know, like, I don't know, the closest I've been to killing somebody is in like a video game, you know? Yeah.

It's wild. Had you had any mental, I don't know, moral misgivings about anything you were doing up to that point? No. And, you know, people would ask me like, oh, what if it's this situation? What if it's that situation? What if, you know, the person's this gender with a gun or this, this age? Look, if it interferes with me or my team making it back to the States, it doesn't matter.

Yeah. It's not, it's not even a conversation. Yeah. That's it. We're coming home. I'll stop. Yeah. Will it be unfortunate for whoever's on the other side?

Yes. But to me, all of the. different variables that it could have been, it's all one to me. You're just in my way for me and my team getting home safely. If you don't like it, then take it up with the politics involved and leave the military and go run for office and change it. Like, that's where I stand on that. Okay. So after you're part of you, you join SEAL Team 6 or you make it into it, what is the first place that you go? Can't talk about the first place. Second place? Really? Yeah. second place was Afghanistan.

And again, it was, my timing has been impeccable. Summer of 05 Iraq, awesome. And then the deployment cycle with the squadron I was on, we would show up like April, May, June was our deployment to Afghanistan. And Afghanistan during the winter months, everyone goes into like hibernation. Bad guys, everyone's like, it's too fucking cold. We're not fighting.

Let's just hang out. April, May, June. Time to knock the snow off the A-Ks and get to work. So the timing again in Afghanistan was awesome. Wow. Okay. And we were dumping dudes. Yeah?

Oh, yeah. Oh, even, like, guys who were attachments to us that weren't seals, that were, like, from different branches or part of the Navy doing different jobs, they were dumping dudes and they were like, holy shit. I mean, it was, it was game on. So it was firefights? Most of my firefights have been one-sided. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Night vision, sneaking, creeping, suppressor. Whoop. Wow. Go home. That's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I prefer it that way.

Oh, 100%. I have no desire to be shot at it. No. Yeah, absolutely. I'm good. Absolutely. If you're there, you might as well. I'll take sucker punches all day on people.

Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you're fighting the Taliban now. Yeah. was there, what's the biggest difference?

Who do you think was a better foe? The Taliban or the insurgency in Iraq? Taliban for sure. You had some, you had some, you had some hitters roll through both. Like you'd see Chesians in Iraq and they'd fight. But Iraq, here's an example. We hit a house. One guy gets shot in the face.

One of the bad guys get shot in the face. All their guns are away from them and they're just screaming. And then our mobility platform. outside in the Humvees radio so it's like hey can you shut those women up and like dude there's no women here these are the guys just screaming mister don't get whatever

in Afghanistan you can call in AC130 gunships on dudes and they'll keep running at you they're like jihad I'm gonna be immortal let's do this fucking kill me so you're like oh shit way different enemy

so the resolve was much deeper in Afghanistan Fool on. And history is shown that that worked. They're about it, bowed it all the way. They're running the country now. And it's funny when people,

when I see these tactics like, oh, you're going to put suppressive gunfire and then you're going to maneuver on them. I go, what do you mean suppressive gunfire? These guys over there are wearing suicide vests.

Do you think your gunfire in that direction is going to suppress anything? These guys are already dead. So your tactics of, oh, shoot some rounds and they won't keep popping their heads up. That's not going to work. Because they don't give a shit.

These guys are strapped. Right. Ready to blow. Yeah. Suppressive gunfire. They don't care. Yeah. And the fact that it's so mountainous to the terrain and the elevation must make them such so much stronger.

Yeah. You'll see a dude in man jammies and flip flops sprint up a mountain. You're like, okay. Wow. He's from here. Wow. That must be terrifying. I mean, fascinating.

But it is. It's cool. Right? You're like, holy shit. Like these guys are mountain. warfare ninjas. Yeah. And like, yeah,

we would do the best we could for two months before we deployed. We'd be on the treadmill with the shit, like minimizing oxygen and try to acclimate. Yeah, but, you know, they're like, yeah,

I'm gonna fuck, I live here. Yeah. Like, cool, you did two months on the treadmill with the little air tank thing. So is there a respect for them? I think you should always respect your enemy. Mm-hmm.

And then shoot them. Like, like, like, I think the moment you say, you see it like in UFC a guy puts his hand down because he has no respect and he gets caught right? Bullets go. They don't have ain't got no name I think.

Yeah so it's like Do you think it was more dangerous? Do you think America took more casualties in Afghanistan or Iraq? Maybe that's a stupid question. I don't know. I would have to assume Afghanistan because the Sivkass

collateral damage limit in Iraq Iraq was 31. So you can call in an airstrike and drop 30 civilians as long as it's not 31 to kill bad guys. Can you explain that further? Yeah. I've never heard this. So the collateral damage, like, accepted civilian casualties in Iraq when it's popping off was 30. So, like, we could be, like getting shot at from, like, this big compound.

And the ISR platform sees one gun shooting at you, like drop a 500 pounder. Boom. whoever was in there shouldn't have been friends with the bad guy and then you go to Afghanistan I don't know

what it started off with but when I was there you couldn't have one non-combatant Right Okay so the Exactly So the politics have changed

Exactly It's gotten a little more sensitive That was the beginning Of the handcuffs being put on Right That one okay I can get behind that But there needs to be

Case by case right This guy's with all of his homies Because they know our rules they know everything. Of course. They know everything. They know that's true. They know that we can't go into mosque, all that stuff.

What do they do? They fight for, like, right? Right. They're fighters. I would do the same thing. Yeah. Right. So it's like, oh, we can't do this.

And, you know, he's around two guys that on the ISR feed, they don't have guns. So we can't drive. Like, motherfucker. Really? Huh. We can't. We can't. And then you've got this like really big fear-based decision-making.

I don't want to get in trouble. I don't want to mess up. Yeah. And that's a really dangerous place to be. Very dangerous. But it's weird. What do you like, fuck it,

kill everybody. Right? So you have to balance it out. Okay. The movie with Mark Wahlberg. The lone survivor. The lone survivor. The whole crux of that massacre,

basically, is they're trying to decide should we shoot these kids at this kid and this farmer who are clearly going to run off and tell the bad guys in the village below. Yeah.

And you hear him saying, no, no, no, I'm not going to end up in Leavenworth. We're not going to kill these kids. That's a real mentality we have. Was that accurate? Could you actually... I mean, I wasn't there for that, and I was just on LaTrell's show, awesome, awesome guy. But is that mentality real?

100%. And plus, if you dump those guys, the village, it's not L.A. It's not New York. And those goats are like, they're lifeblood. So there's going to be your goat, you know, Johnny and Jimbo's goats are traveling around and you haven't seen Johnny. You're going to go find them. Yeah, but if they had killed those guys, at least it would have given them a chance to get out of there. You know?

I don't know. But yeah, but the mentality of I don't want to do this. I don't want to go to jail. 100% real. Right. Right. And that really sounds like it really put you guys in danger. It did.

But instead of whining about it. you just had to be that much better. Did you ever have to make a decision like that? No, I was never put in a position to. I think the people I was with and like systemically all the way through my entire circle loop, not one link was different. Everyone was on the same page.

Did you have anybody in CLE Team 6 when you were Afghanistan and your team get killed? No. Wow. So you guys were just cleaning up. We were cleaning up. And, you know, a lot of the tactics from the guys who, you know, went before us, they developed a better way of making entry into these places.

Instead of running in, they'd be a little bit more methodical. What was the mission? The mission for us was just dump bad dudes. It was just body count. Body count. So Vietnam type shit. We got, it was still team six. We had legit targets.

These legit bad guys. Who were some of these targets? Could you talk about? I don't know. Bad guy won, two, and three. I don't know. But are they like the heads of certain brigades? Of big madrasas in Pakistan that are terrorist units, all that shit.

I see. I mean, when I was there, too, I think is my second deployment. That's when, uh, so my second, so I came back from that first awesome deployment. It was on standby. We did Captain Phillips mission. jumped into Indian Ocean, saved Captain Phillips. Hold on. Can you go to that? You were on that mission? So I was on the, I was, I was on the mission, but I wasn't one of the shooters off the, uh, fan tail of the boat.

Wow. It was, uh, I was the load master for the airplanes. Okay. Making sure like nothing's overweight. The right people are on the, are on the birds, skydive in and, uh, figure, and yeah, did you skydive in with everybody? Wow. Into that village. No, no, we've got it in the ocean Into the Red Sea Or Indian Ocean, yeah Fuck That sounds exciting

I mean The big missions that get the news I mean that was pretty cool I mean come on dude You're talking to lay people here You know Big missions that get on the news Pale in comparison to the gun fights

You would get in in the orchards Of Afghanistan Where you can't see because your night vision is splashing off the trees and there's a guy three feet away from you. Like those stories just don't make the news because there's not a big political or geopolitical impact. Yeah.

But. Yeah. Yeah. So that morning we get paged. A couple days before we find out the Marisca, Alabama's taken, you're on standby, okay. And then Captain Phillips jumps off. It tries to swim away.

They shoot at him. He gets back on. And then it was like, okay, we're really spinning. Wake up. Get the message, boom, roll out the door. Where are you when you get that? Virginia Beach. Wow.

And you wake up that morning and you're like, hey, we're going to save America's hero, Tom Hanks. Tom Hanks is on the ship. Let's go get him. Wow. Yeah. That's, so you got, I mean, look, you didn't kill bin Laden, but this is a piece of history. Yeah. Like you really hit the jackpot kind of.

Yeah, and I didn't know at the time because it was just a mission, right? So we get it. So where, how do you? Yeah, yeah. Walk us through how you get from Virginia Beach all the way to the Red Sea. So we get the message. I go, okay. And the day before I had been given the gift of being trained on being the loadmaster,

making sure the boats that are on the birds aren't overweight, proper headcount, proper amount of parachutes, X, Y, Z. Okay. And then the morning of, show up. I get my bags on the plane. I mean, on the truck that goes to the plane, puts them in the boats. Big logistical nightmare. And I'm sitting there and the boat, the guys in charge of the boats, like, all the boats are overweight.

They might sink. Okay. Pilots like, yeah, that means the plane's overweight too. And it's like, well, we're not going to not go. I'm like, Roger that. And then I had my headcount checklist, like roll call. And like, okay, everyone's here and like four dudes walk up. And I'm like kind of stopping them from getting on the plane.

And it's the, it's like the commanding. officer, the executive officer, and the master of the command. Yeah. Right? Not even just in my squadron. And like, I'm an E5. I'm nobody, but I'm the load master,

right? I'm like, well, sir, you're not like, get the fuck out of the ways. I register that. So like, we're all like overpad. There's no seats for them. They take all the extra parachutes we had. So there's no extra shit. They debo their way on. I'm like, okay, who am I? Tell the commanding officer of this unit, you're not on the list,

right? So you put the rafts, the boats, the makeshift boats, the onto the plane. They're like cigarette boats. They're like high speed, badass boats. Yeah. Okay. So what kind of plane do you take over there?

I think it was a C-17. Wow. Huge, yeah. What is that? I hate flying. How long is that flight? And where do you... It was faster than we thought,

because we thought we were going to be jumping in at dusk or night. And it was like broad daylight. And we're up... We're up over the drop zone. We look down. We see the USS Boxer, big Navy ship. It's only at 4,000 feet.

But what is that flight over the Atlantic? I think it was like 14 or 16 hours. Because you got to go over Africa? You can go up. You know how the world is? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you go over Europe down into the past,

whatever, the Mediterranean. I was playing chess on my phone. Like, I wasn't watching the map. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah, so we jumped in and we sent one group of guys out to the Bain Bridge. and then my group of guys stayed on the boxer

and we were planning we were coming up with ways to skin this cat like how are we going to do it at this point in time the life raft that Captain Phillips was on was being towed by the Bainbridge right? Right. And we're like okay do we have them

tow them to the beach where they want to go to their pirate camp but it's not the pirate camp it's where we are already at waiting. So we had all these things lined up and then we got the word that things are looking good for opportunities to take care of the threat the way they ended up doing it and it happened

and then we hung out for about four or five days after because White House like okay these guys can perform there's a bunch of pirate camps right there these guys are here let's go smash some dicks right so we're like okay cool

let's do it nothing ever happened and took us like another week to get home okay so they sniped and just remind us because it's been a while since I saw the movie, they sniped the enemy from the ship. Yep. From the Bainbridge.

The Bainbridge. Those are really expert shots. Oh, yeah. Because they're in a life fucking life raft. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's incredible. I mean, I'll do you one better. So they always had shots on two guys,

but the third guy was inside. Right. And he sort of popping his head up into the little pilot window. and the guy that was watching the pilot window said, hey, this guy keeps peeking his head. If he holds it long enough, I'm going to send it. Are you guys good? And they go, yeah, we're good.

And then everyone's locked on. Head comes up. Done. Like that. Wow. Wow. Those guys must be rock stars, those snipers. Yeah, but you know what?

You would think so, but they're just like cool regular dudes, man. Now are in, in seal teams like that, Are there, who do they decide who's going to take those shots? Like, do they know who the best shots are? Yeah, so that, that was the reccy team on the Fantel, like our sniper team. Okay. But, like, who gets to go and do what? A lot of, like, you're pretty even across the board, so it's legit, like,

aces are low, low card goes. Right. Because it's, because it's like, you're picking. Like, you're picking between the best people, like, yeah. Yeah. How was your sniper game? I wasn't a sniper until much, much later. Okay. The party, you wish you could have taken that shot, though? No. I don't, I don't care.

It's a big responsibility. Well, I don't know. I'll take, like, confidence-wise, I'll take the shot 100 times. And that's what people were like, oh, who actually did this or who shot that guy? My squad, my team did. We're a team. Like, that's the way I look at it. And maybe it's because I got to get it on in 05 and I got to really get it on in my first deployment. where I didn't have this need to like feel super involved in everything and like being the load master was important

sure maybe that's just what I tell myself but I am I have nothing but love and happiness for the guys who go do those things it's not like oh I wish it was me well but even though you're the best of the best there's still different skill sets right everybody can't be the best at everything

even in an elite unit like SEAL Team 6 It's fucking close, man. Right. It's crazy because it's so small. Right. Yeah. Wow. It's crazy.

Like, you can go out, we, we go to the shooting schools where there's like steel ranges and this pistol rifle and you're moving and shooting. You can have 10 guys out there run it 10 times. You'll have 10 different winners. Yeah. Like, it's that. It's that. Hmm. Wow.

That's pretty crazy. And then when did the gravity of like the historical nature of what you did set in? So when we got back in was like, oh. shit. I'm like, okay, American hostage rescue. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna all right. No, no. Steel Team 6 was stood up on like one of

the sole principles was to do an American hostage rescue at sea. In this infancy, that was like mission statement. And it happened and it was successful. Wow. I was like, oh, that is cool. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Okay,

what year was that? 08,09. or much later 09. 09. Okay. Wow. So after that what happens? Where do you go? After that, I did another deployment to Afghanistan. Now, you're becoming an older person. You got a bunch of years under you.

Do you start to take command of units? Do they start to give you that responsibility? No, because when you get to Sill Team 6, yeah, you have some rank in the U.S. Navy, but you start over. because you're new to that command. Right. I mean, they listen to you, right? Like, hey, what do you think?

Oh, we should come in from the north? Okay, it's a good idea. Let's implement it. But you're not running shit. Mm-hmm. What was that other deployment? What was that next deployment to Afghanistan? Like, how did you see it start to...

Just same. Just fucking dropping dudes is all. It was awesome. It was awesome. And then, you know, I talked about the handcuffs coming on, right? Then you'd start to see stuff. Like, can you guys not wear body? armor because it makes you look too big

and it scares the locals. Can you guys not go out at night because it scares the locals? Can you guys not use canines because it scares the locals? Can one of you guys carry a non-lethal weapon? Like shit like that started coming down the pipe and everyone was like, what? And then it was like, hey, you have to take five

of Afghanistan's highly trained military guys with you. And it's like our guns in Night Vision are like top secret even for Americans. Like we can't be around these guys. What are you talking? about. No, no, no, no, you have to. So I was like, okay, let's put these five guys in the back, we'll go do our job. And those five guys turned into six, turned into seven. And then it turned

into 15 of them and five of us. And I had gone before then. Were there any leaks? It seems dangerous. Were there any traitors? When I was there, we had five guys and we had a real hush-hush meeting in the jock and they were like, hey, one of the guys is like a no shit, bad guy. It's like planning, planning on, like, lighting you guys up when you're out on patrol. And this had happened to Marine and Army guys so much with a partner force where they had coined a term. I forget it's either green on blue or blue on green. Like, it's happened so much there's a name for it, right? So we're like, oh, shit, this guy's like planning with these three other guys to do this.

I'm like, fine. Let's tell him we have a mission. Go out and fucking dump him. Yeah. No, you can't do that. like why is this credible intel? Yeah,

well we can go out and we can go out in the mountains and dump these guys of credible intel but these guys we're working with we have that same intel

of that same credibility and we can't just take them out and fucking not come back with them they're like nope we just got to send them off back to whatever base they have

yeah I would have gone to Leavenworth dude I'd be so scared I'd be like I'm not taking no chances did they use IED in Afghanistan?

Or was it more suicide bombers and vests and it was weird. Like Afghanistan there's one highway so that kids IED all the time

but like we don't we'd always do as helicopters. The IEDs you'd see in Afghanistan or we saw or I saw

was HBids houseborn where they build IEDs into the house and what they'll do is they'll know that we're tracking their phone

so they'll have their phone plugged in nonstop with it on like transmitting but there's no one there and they go you guys need to go hit this house like leadership it's like dude

that phone's been on and hasn't moved an inch in 30 days no one's been in and out of that house that's an H-Bid right and you know before we got super smart on that guys like oh phone they'd go in no one there pressure plate

the whole house explodes oh horrible did you hear about guys getting blown up like that? Yeah, I mean, the worst one was there's a video of it. It was tragic. I think it was a Ranger, Ranger element. You fly in, they're hitting a compound, and then one guy steps out of mine. And then they try to get them in like, they ended up stepping on like eight or nine minds, trying to like recover everyone.

It was like, boom, boom, boom. So yeah, and you know what? It's a tactic that works because I remember looking at a slide. presentation for a mission we were going to do. And then we have our EOD guys go up and it's like, hey, these are this, you know, significant stuff that's happened near this compound. And then they would

show like all these IEDs on the map, like, you know, color coded like known IED, suspected ID, was an IED, and it's just like littered all around the compound. It's like, dude, we're not hitting that compound. And we wouldn't hit it. Right. You could just turn down a mission like that?

Well, we would get creative, right? One time, we ripped out whatever the squadron that was there before us, they said, hey, Operation Redwood, right? Whatever bullshit name I'm making up. Redwood is this houseborn IED and we kept sloughing it off because we pinnagled her way out of it. But it is a houseborne IED 100%. Middle nowhere, bone on. But Hedgehead wants us to go clear it. So be careful.

Be ready to address that further down the road. Okay. We're in country. Hitchin, you guys are going to go hit. Operation Redwood. We're like, we know it's a fucking bomb. Okay.

Our team leader's like, all right, you, you, you and you, seven of you, go grab law rockets. Okay.

So we grab law rockets. Don't tell the headshed. Land on the, land the helo about 300 meters away. Okay, new guy won. Miss.

I think I shot. I missed. Third guy. Boom. Boom. secondary. There you go. There you go.

Yeah. So, I mean, there's like, turn it down or do it where everyone gets appeased, right? Right. Yeah. Right. Wow. Yeah, that's, it's tricky because now you're not allowed to kill civilians. Because in the old days, you say, well, just bomb the place.

Bomb it. If you think if it's an IED, just blow the whole village up, right? Mm-hmm. Hmm. I imagine a lot of those villages were abandoned, though, right? Or do they have people? Did they... They were either abandoned or they were...

or the band guys purposely use it as a base of operation because they know the game. Would they use human shields? In your experience, did you see that? No, because most of the guys I dropped were sleeping.

So, like, there was no, there's no time, like, when I'm in your house and I have little green circles under my eyes and I have my gun on you, you don't have time to grab a human shield. I meant, like, with, when it came to explosives, and IEDs and stuff like that. You'd see that in Iraq.

You'd see guys hole up in a mosque and be like, oh, and you guys were like using whatever. You guys like, fuck it. Some guys to go with. I wonder if that's why the Taliban kind of won the hearts and minds of the people a little better than the guys in Iraq, right? And now I know what they're doing now is,

I'm sure the people of Afghanistan, a lot of people don't like what they're doing. But, you know, they did have this dry, mission of self-governance. Yeah. That was a little more, dare I say, righteous, right? Mm-hmm. You know, in context, then Saddam Hussein and the Bathis and then what would become ISIS in

the Middle East. Like the Taliban had, you know, they really had a lot of support of the people. And they said, we were going to have a free Afghanistan. We've been fighting since the Russians. Yeah. And I think just like the Via-Colans, you know, obviously I'm no commie, right? I'm not communist, but they

were fighting a war of liberation since the early days of French colonialism. So looking back, you're like, of course we didn't have a chance. And plus, you're sitting there in Afghanistan, like, hey, we brought you some candy bars and some water. If the Taliban come here and do an IED,

you have to tell us. Okay, Taliban, same family. If you talk to the Americans, cut your fucking head off. Who's, who, who, no contest.

How much do you like butter fingers? Yeah, like no contest, right? Uh-huh. Okay, so they would massacre

civilians. Oh, for sure. For snitching or, yeah. For sure. Yeah. Like,

you can't compete with that unless you become a bigger monster than like, who's the bad guy, right? Yeah. Yeah. People are going to think

I'm like pro Taliban. I'm not. I'm trying to paint a larger. Yeah. Just the historical context and what's happening right in that, that region.

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, guerrilla warfare and it's yeah and there's no rules and if there is rules there are rules the taliban are the enforcers of the rules like who watches the watchman nobody they can do whatever the fuck they want right yeah but they weren't driving my point is they weren't driving for chaos the way that a group like isis was no like they had a political yeah an underlying political mission yeah and they view themselves as like a political party yeah and i and i don't i think america needs to look at that the next time

think about like going into like a protracted war it's like we should have learned the lesson in Vietnam you mean exit strategy yeah reverse engineer it after you have that figured out I agree duh Hamas right it's an ideology it's these people are fighting for land it's not because they want to kill Jews I mean maybe that's tertiary but it's like they're fighting just the way the Viet Cong fought overthrow the French in Afghanistan with Russians and the Americans. They're fighting to, you know, as a war of liberation. And it's very, very difficult to defeat that, you know, because it's about will.

And, you know, if you want to kill a mindset, then you got to kill everyone over the age of 10 and then take every 10 year old and younger and indoctrinate them. Like, you're not going to do that. Good luck. Yeah. Yeah. So did you become, did you start to become disillusioned at a certain point? Yeah.

You know, I had some personality conflict at that team And it's the same time during the handcuffs really being tightened on Like you got to bring 15 of these guys on And we need you to start doing shooter statements of like what happened It's like bro I'm a still team six operator I'm a professional I'm not a cowboy If I do something I do something that's it Don't question me

all that shit went away. They said, I'm out of here. I'm going to go teach back on the West Coast. Wow. Okay, so you had done your time. You had the freedom to leave, the military. No, I mean, I was still in. Oh, I see. Teach.

But there was friction personality-wise at Siltim 6 for me. And there was also the war had changed so much. And I was like, I'm over it. I'm going back to Cali. My family's from, you know, like I'm back. I'm going to go back. I'm going to teach. And that's what I did. Okay. Where'd you teach?

So I taught in San Diego. It's part of the SEAL pipeline. It's after buds. It's seal qualification training. And it was cool. It was me and like three other guys who were at Steel Team 6 were teaching room clearing. And that's like bread and butter. Your skills at CQC or close quarters combat, room clearing, whatever you want to call it, that skill in the SEAL teams is the high school.

equivalent to how much can you bench press. Right? Like that's like, oh, he's a great scuba diver. It's like, don't care. He's good at land navigation. Don't care. That guy is like a ninja in the killhouse. It's like, ooh, that's sexy.

I want to be his friend. Yeah. So it was cool. So we had three guys, three or four guys that were teaching students, not even seals yet. And like, it was awesome. We had those kids coming out of those four weeks, like, super good. Hmm.

Yeah. Okay. And then how long did you do that for? Two years. And then towards the end of the second year, I went into the career counselor office because everybody was getting

these massive, massive, like $85,000 real enlistment bonuses. And I'm like, hey, I think I'm up for this, what's going on? She's like, yeah, but you did some paperwork while you were overseas in Afghanistan and you had to come back and dissolve the extension to get it,

and you didn't dissolve it in time, so yeah, you're not eligible for shit. And I was like, okay. You know, it was frustrating to know I had missed out on some weird bureaucratic paperwork fucking bullshit. But at the same time, I didn't have to make any decisions. I knew what I had to leave. But the war being what it was and me missing out on that, I'm like, I got to go. Yeah.

So that's when I decided to leave the Navy. Yeah. How long were you in there for? 12 years Wow Yeah Wow Had you had a family

Anything by then No Yeah you're just a real killer Dude Well I was just I mean You didn't have a lot of attachments I mean

I'm very close with mom and dad Brother I mean I've had Girlfriends on and off But it had nothing to do With being a seal Just a young A young man

You know Doing dumb shit Like fucking ruining Relationships Not coming home Like you know Just young dumb stuff So

and I love my job. I love being a seal. It didn't seem like you suffered the way that a lot of people in the military that got deployed to the Middle East did with like PTSD and... Yeah, and you know,

to be, I'll be completely honest. When I was young man, I didn't think it was real. I was like, no, I've grown to accept it. I've been educated on it. Just because something affects me a certain way doesn't mean that's true for others. And just because,

something affects a lot of people a certain way, doesn't mean it's going to affect me the same way, right? So. But some people get, a lot of people get PTSD because they see, you know, their brother in arms get blown up or... Yeah,

I mean, I've never, I've never experienced them. Right. I was just like... You were just wins. It was just all wins, dude. Just dubbs,

catching dubs all day, just fucking first person shooter highlight reel. Like, that was it. But just, yeah, you know, going into somebody's cave or whatever, they live in over there, well, and shooting somebody to death in their sleep. That sounds very violent the way you say it.

But that's the truth. Yeah, I mean, I shoot them once, usually. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And, okay, shoot them to death. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, do they live? I assume they didn't walk out of there. No. game? Did that seem not real to you? I mean, for me, my whole life, I think everything's a movie anyways. Yeah. Kind of is. Yeah, right?

Like, is it real? I don't know. I like it. I liked my job. And being, like, hyper pragmatic, A equals A, right? Some objectivism. If I sign up to be a gunfighter and gunfighting happens, good. Right?

Yeah. You sign up to be a boxer. You get punched. in the face, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on? Or you punch someone really hard and they fall down like, ooh, I feel bad. Like, no, you're a boxer. Crush him. You're going to lose some too.

You're going to come on with a black eye. Like, that's... So I think being as logical as I am, I'm like, well, yeah. I have bullets in a gun. He's a bad guy. He's going to die. And if he gets lucky, I'll die. Yeah. That's it.

Wow. So you just... Yeah. It's incredible. Okay, so when you left the seals, did you think you were done with all of that? So I've seen so many guys like, oh, it's not the same. I'm getting out. I'm going to go make it big. And I'm like, go get some, brother.

And some guys did, right? Some guys, my buddy has a badass knife company, half-faced blades. He's killing it. You know, some guys go do big things. And some guys, you see eight months later. I thought you, yeah, man. took a job at AT&T's fucking stupid I'm back with the brothers

you're like damn you know like I can't can't fault him now I said that's never going to be me ever I'm going to get out I'm going to make it right so much so that when I checked out you have to go get signatures from every department like whatever admin blah blah blah blah and the last one is a commanding officer

and I didn't have a plan but I wanted everyone to think I did so I was wearing a three piece suit tie walk in to the CEO's office and he's like I thought he was going to inquire or anything but he didn't give a shit he's like all right here I left and I was like I'm out of the Navy

I'm done with it but there is a form of arrested development going into a big institution at 18 and it's a and it's not just the community brotherhood XYZ it's the finance you can be in Iraq like 99%

of the time I was in the SEAL teams I never felt like work was a four-letter word. And every first and 15th of the month, money would magically appear into my bank account. Even if they're like guys, uh, muster,

10 a.m. get a workout in. Phone in muster for the next three weeks. Just be playing golf, fucking off, whatever. And then guess what? Money appears. It's nice working for the government that just prints the money. I mean, you know, you throw it on the line, you go getting gun fights.

It's okay. But, I like that too, right? So when you get out, you know, it's America. It's capitalism that I figure it out. And I think a lot of vets get this thing like, well, I'm a vet. And it's like, yeah, great. Like what can you, what value added can you bring to civilian companies or being an entrepreneur or whatever it is? Yeah, nobody really owes you just because you chose to go over there.

Like, cool. Like if it's between you and a non-vete and your resumes are same and you guys are both type in 99 words a minute, sure, I'll edge it out to you, but I'm not just going to give it to you just because. Right. Right. Again, it's like the criminal world, man. It's hard to get out. You know, I was selling drugs since I was 17 years old.

The money's good. It's easy. You know it. When I got out of prison, like, I was like, I've never done anything else. So a lot of guys go back. Yep. So how long were you out there before you tapped out? So I looked at this company.

I was like, oh, I can do that this much a day, get on a cargo ship, catch it through the Suez Canal, do anti-piracy security. That's cool. That's sexy. I get there. Everyone, not everyone. There's a bunch of good dudes there. But the ships and rotations I got put on, old dudes, overweight, reminiscing about how fast they ran four miles in buds. and I'm like, what?

And never saw one fucking pirate. It was just soul killing. Boring. But I didn't have to go learn a new skill, right? But at the same time, none of the skills I had were actually being used. Just sitting on a boat, doing a six-hour watch, and then hanging out in my room the other 18 hours. So I was like, this is for me.

So I called up the guys at Seal Team 17, the reserve SEAL team in San Diego. I'm like, hey, guys. And I was the guy that came back in. Hey, I thought you got out. Yeah, I came calling back. Okay. So what is Reserve 17? Seal Team 17.

It's just a reserve unit like any other. To be an active reservist, you got to do your one week in a month, two weeks a year. And it was really cool. It's a really cool command because it's called a flex command. and they understand a lot of guys are contractors or whatever. So you can take the, you know, one week and a month thing and stack those and then do them all in like two weeks, like October or whatever, right?

So like it was really cool, really flexible, and you would have to mobilize in your first five years, mobilize do a workup and then deploy to Korea and work with the Korean Seals. So I checked in. I'm like, cool, I'm a reservist. It's like, yeah, but you only get paid for your weekend. and you're two weeks a year.

I was like, oh yeah, that's right. I go, okay, how can I get paid? So I started going to language schools because that pot of money comes from the Big Navy, not from the Reserve SEAL teams. So I'd just like, what are you guys doing? Russian? Let's do it. I'd go do Russian for three months

because I'd be on active orders getting my paycheck, right? What else I do? I did Korean, Russian, whatever I can get my hands on to get to get paid. And then a guy I knew from active, duty time, he was now an officer at Siltim 17. He goes, hey, I know you don't have to mobilize for another five years, but I'm putting together a team. Are you down to mobilize early and go to Korea? I said, let's do it. So I got on orders and did a workup and went to Korea. How long were you

there? Six months? Just training. Yeah, just training with the Korean Seals, check them out. Yeah. How does this all lead into why you're here? So I kept, I kept doing, I kept doing, the reserve hustle trying to get and eventually everything dried up. I get a phone call from a guy I knew in the SEAL team goes, hey, dirty. We're doing some really cool shit in Yemen. Said, oh yeah? Huh.

Met him for dinner. I'm like, you're not answering enough of my questions. I'm out. He goes, well, the prime, the guy who has the contract. wealthy guy, smart guy, done some shit, he's a real deal. He wants to meet you. I said, you know what, fine.

I'll go meet this guy. So I go and meet this guy. And we're just, you know, really sizing each other up. Like, what are you doing? Where's the money coming from? Is it legal? He's like, pulls out a napkin in a molten blank pen. He's like, talking super fast, you know,

with like a French-Hungarian accent. He's like, does that answer any questions? I say, no, there's just lines and circles. I don't know. It's like, look, we're leaving in two weeks. If you're in, you'll have 20 grand in your bank account tonight. I'm like, fine, I'm in.

Go home, get an alert from my bank. Okay. So this is a private contract, do you think? 100%. Yeah. Now, what is the legality of that? Gray. gray.

Yeah. Because it's through a nation that's friends with the U.S. working and advising them in a territory they're in a conflict with, right? So it's boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, all cut out around in between, right? So. Right. So first trip, we go, pretty much, we're there for three months, spun up, about to do a

bunch of cool stuff, and we kept getting called off. And we didn't know why. like leaving the base phone call off fast forward the country we were training with when we were going to go do these hits was like

we were with their presidential guard unit and they were not ready to do what we wanted to do with them and we sold them a like six month training contract so we wanted to do six months with them training and then to play with them like we tried to do in the beginning.

So while we're training on one of their bases, I see these guys with like really cool night vision, mismatch camis. And I'm like, what the fuck? And they're training with a group of nationals too, local nationals. And I look over and I'm like, I'm not going to use the real names.

I'm like, yo, yo, was that you? And like, oh, what's up dirty? And I'm like, yo, what's up? I'm like, what are you doing here? And they're like, what are you doing here? here. I'm like, well, I'm here to train these guys because we were out down that way in that country doing some stuff. And it kept getting, he's like, and they just, their faces turned ghost

white and they're like, we need to meet with you tomorrow. You and your boss come to whatever hotel. Okay. So we go to the hotel and he's like, bro, we were going to go kinetic with like an Airstrike multiple times, but we heard there was a non-Gov civilian contract company rolling out on the target list that we had with the same. And you guys don't have Blue Force trackers, like a little GPS thing that shows. And you guys are off way, we're way off the books. But we got Word. So we didn't know to either cancel the strike or not.

So we pushed it to the limit. And that's why we kept getting called off so that it. hellfire didn't drop on our heads. Wow. Yeah. That's a close one. You guys could have been. Yeah, because I was frustrated. I'm like, dude, I can go pop this guy by myself. He's right there. It's easy. Who's the target? One guy was a bomb maker and one guy was an ACAP Al-Qaeda Arabian Peninsula commander. Oh, wow. I'm like, too, he's right there. His mom and dad are there. He goes to the bakery. He's right there. I can go through the little olive tree garden, jump over the, I got this.

Let's do it. Go, boom, we get called off. But fast forward. Seven months. later and we found out. Wow. Okay. So did you end up hitting them? No. Wow. Yeah. All that money. Can you tell us the country? Yeah, that was Yemen. Yemen that was paying you? No. Can you tell us the country that was paying you that hired you? UA.E. Okay. Yeah. Wow. So do you think it's somebody within, in the UAE government or it's just a U.S. government? I think it was U.S. government that was that's running it through the UAE through you guys through other agencies yeah

no this is what I find baffling why can't the U.S. because you know why can't the U.S. just go pull that hit in broad daylight why do they have to sovereignty I don't know interesting

sovereignty when is the U.S. given a fuck about going in the same reason we can't go into Mexico and hit cartel members right it's a sovereign nation Right. Like there's like there's really, I think it has to be like really overt, gross action by the other side for the sovereignty to go out the window. I see. I see. We aren't in a direct state of war with Yemen.

Even still like fast forward. That was what, 2016 and 17? Yeah. Houthis are launching shit at fucking Navy ships right now. Right. But we're not. Are we at war with Yemen? I don't think we've actually declared.

war. So like... I see. And that's where the need for mercenaries. Private contractors comes from. Yeah. I'm like, well, we don't they're not military. That's not an active war because he's just a random guy or they're a random group of guys. Where do you think that decision comes from

in the U.S. government? The Pentagon, right? Pentagon or White House? So these are illegal acts. I would say, no, it's, they're legal. Because so Pentagon, you're going to deal directly military,

DC, you're going to have more of the political stuff that says, yeah, you can go do this or like, don't go do that. We've had meetings in D.C. where we tell them we want to do it and they just go like this. Don't do that. Or they go like this. And when I get the, I go do it.

Who have you taken meetings with in D.C.? I can't say. Can you tell us where? I don't remember. It was a really nice hotel. We had phones and Faraday bags and very small room talk. either get the don't do that

don't do it or they go that sounds interesting they do the if they do the shoulder shrug then I go that's good enough for me yeah

okay so after that did was that like a light bulb moment where you're like okay I can make some money doing this yeah but as

as morally ambiguous as I am I still feel bad you know getting paid and not delivering right wanted to go do the thing. And I like doing the thing.

But we got lucky there's some stuff that came down the pipeline that, you know, I got to do with someone else and I can't talk about those things. But how I got here was we took a meeting in Abu Dhabi and there was a target in Serbia who is funding bad guys. He's Muslim. And because it's Serbia not like Yemen or Afghanistan, it's like, hey, let's go see if this guy's living so living a not so halal like lifestyle

takes pictures snoop around town is he at the clubs does he like girls does he like guys right blackmail him into cutting funds off right because it's kind of untouchable in Serbia just so I go okay I could take this

get in my computer do a bunch of open source intel looking this guy up okay so I head out to Serbia talk to the main mistress who runs all the girls, who knows all the girls, have a meeting with her. And I know this guy? I said, yeah, I know this guy.

Like, is he a client of yours? He's like, did I've tried to give him the best girls in town? And he said, nope. It's like, fuck. Like, I'm like, I thought that was my end. I'm like, okay, this guy is for sure getting prostitutes. 100%. Nope.

Try to go to like the high end, like, speak easy lounge like nobody knows about unless you fucking know somebody you'd see everyone else serve not him like this guy was clean full muz I'm like dude and like living in a place where you can have a lot of fun awesome food

beautiful women like I was like man I thought it was gonna be layup and I had been there by this time for like two or three months I'd made friends with hell's angels like I'm like working every fucking every aspect of this

I can. And I want to finish. I want to get this done. Who's the who's your boss? Who's paying you? Private. Private guy. Right. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to get this done. And

about two and a half months in I had made friends of this kid educated in the U.S. Serbian, or Montenegro National living in Serbia and they go you show me, you know, young guy, show me pictures of girls and I see a girl standing and in the background is the company that I know the guy works at or the building. I go, who's she? He's like, bro, her? I'm like, yeah, she's cute.

Not knowing that I want to talk to her and see who her boss is and do that. I'm like, dude, invite her to the party tonight. He's like, done. But look at these girls. Yeah, I don't care. sure. He takes a phone call that night and leaves and I'm at his flat. Comes back like 45 minutes later. Door swings open. He flies across the room and handcuffs. I'm like, what the fuck? And then I just look to my left and there's a pistol at my forehead. And I can hear, I don't know if this, I was like, oh, you know, I've seen comments before. Like, you can't hear the spring shake if there's bullets. I can hear some piece of metal. It sounded like the spring in the magazine shaking his, his feet.

fingers on the trigger and I see that and I'm like holy fuck people are yelling in Serbian I don't know any Serbian at this time and I try to like shift my focus out from the pistol at my forehead and I see like a blue uniform like a cop uniform but it looks like it was bought at party city so I'm like it's just like a fucking weird like it was I was in disbelief I'm like oh shit this is a cop three more cops come in, four plain clothes guys come in, yelling at me. Don't know what they want, but I'm pretty sure they want me to put my hands up because I'm sitting on the couch, put my hands up, face down, handcuffs behind my back. That's when I started really paying attention. The kid who's outside I was at, his handcuffs were in front of them.

I had my hands behind me. I'm like, okay, what's going on? And they're just interrogating me in Serbia. And I was like, yo, does anyone speak English? and then the room went silent. Like, American? I said, yeah, they're like,

do you have a passport? I said, yeah, I have a passport. I didn't have got here, you know? I'm here, like, it's over there. Huh. What are you doing here? I'm like, just hanging out, man. Like, we're having a party.

Okay. Do you like guns? I'm like, what? I'm like, as much as the next guy. Yeah. Huh. They keep shuffering around this guy. house, they go to his safe, and he's a hunter, and they come up, like, three trips from the safe,

like rifles and all this shit. And they're, like, marking it, tagging it. I'm like, dude, am I under arrest? And he's like, you are now. I'm like, what? Because you felt like, like, whatever, right? So I get arrested. And I'm looking at the kid, I'm like, looking at him, he just winks at me. And I'm like, I don't know if that's like, you're good or like, I just fucked your sister. Like, I don't know what wink that is. like, yeah. So I'm like, what? So I'm like, I don't know. Get in the police car, go to the police station, strip down, lift the sack, spread the cheeks, my own little private cell.

I've been there. Yeah. Pull me out. Get interrogated. They bring me in this room. And there's this lady who's, I remember it so vividly. She's dressed like Cruella DeVille, but she's built like Ursula. Right?

She got this fur on and she's, you know, there's no smoking signs. all over the prison walls. I mean the police station walls, but they're all yellow because they're just non-stop smoke going us. This lady's sitting there smoking. And, you know, they don't understand suffixes. Like, what's your name?

Like, Daniel David, Robert, the third. I'm like, what do you mean the third? And I had to go on the computer and type in my name for them. It was just bizarre. And the lady's like, I make translate you. And I'm like, oh, fuck, this is going to be good.

And they hand me this paper. It's all in Cyrillic, observing. And I can read serilic, like proper nouns because I read it in Russian, right? And it's different, but like, it's similar enough. So I'm like, what's this paper? Oh, it says here you have guns and explosives and manufacturing with intent to distribute and purchase, like, all this crazy shit. I'm like, I'm not signing that.

Are you crazy? And then she takes the paper away and, like, looks at the cop behind the computer and does like, oh, we tried. And he's like, oh, we tried. Like, they just try to sneak it. in there. And I'm like, I'm not signing that. And then they ate another one. I'm like, what's this? And I can read like

Rolex the word for passport, passos, and I can read my name in Cyrillic. I'm like, watch this. This is your belongings that we have. Okay, I'll sign this because this is true, right? I'll sign it. EMTs come in, warn me

not to bite their fingers in weird sign language and just take as many cotton swabs as they want. Okay. put me back in the cell bring me out again like 12 like I don't know what you know time gets weird there's no lights nothing no window

then there's this cop who's interrogating me big dude he's wearing like tactical pants and shit so we're like talking and like I'm pretty clear minded and I can I can dance right so I'm like okay I don't really have anything to hide like let's do this I'll play I'll talk until I'm like outclass or too tired

then I know to shut up he's done contract work in Africa or like talking. He's like so, then, you know, he does a typical conversation, conversation, question. Rapor, rapport, question, question, right? So I have his timing down. He's like, CIA?

No. D.A? No. Massad? No. Like just, hmm. Okay. All right. Goes back and forth, back and forth. Running getting coffee and talking to some other people. And he's like, you're here for Vuchich.

And I'm like, Vuk? Like a wolf? He's like, no, no, no. Vuchich. I don't know what's a Vuchich. I know what I know Vuk means wolf. Like in Russia, is the same.

He's like, you don't know who Vuchish is? I said, no, what is Vujich? He's like, Alexander Vuchich, the president of Serbia. I'm like,

I don't know who the president. I don't. And then he's like, then he's like, hold on. He goes back out, comes back in. He's like,

he pulls up a chair, like sits down like backwards on it. And he's like, look, man, I'm going to be real with you. The newspapers already have this story. out. They're saying you're here to kill the president, Alexander Vuchich of Serbia. I said, okay. He's like,

but I can tell you're not. Like this whole thing is ridiculous. We've interrogated the three other people, which I didn't know there's two other people involved in this. And, uh, but I believe you, but I need you to know, you're fucked. Like you're famous. You're fucked. You're in the newspaper already. Story's gone out. Whoa. I said, okay. Cool. But, but, me back down in my holding cell and I think like 12 or 18 hours later I get pulled back up again it's the big cop the nice cop and two other cops plain clothes and he's like sits me in this room

these two are from organized crime I said organized crime like what well the guy's house you were at and the two guys he was arrested with out in the cemetery buying cocaine I'm like cocaine cemetery two other, like what? Well, there's four people and three or more it's organized crime. So now it's being looked at as an organized crime.

I'm like, oh my God, like this is fucking crazy. This is ridiculous. And the good cop is translating because he speaks the best English. And he goes, hey, these guys are asking if you want to do a polygraph.

And it was really cool. He leaned in real close. And he goes, say no. And I was like, nope. He's like, yeah, he said no. I was like, okay, this guy's kind of weird. I'm digging the vibe, whatever.

cool, no. So they go, okay. And then they go, they go, you know, they keep trying to interrogate me, translate, and question me. And I go, look, guys. Like, I'm not trying to be rude, but like,

you should ask me questions. You should be behind me with a notepad, writing down. He'll translate. And then when he has questions, you guys switch. And they're like, fuck. Like, they, you know,

they weren't happy with the performance critique. And then they ended it with like, look, we know you've been trained, but even the most trained guys give up something. They just don't know it. I'm like, okay, sure. Like, what did, like, shut the fuck up. I was like, so tired. So I get put back down to my cell.

And then the next day we drive to the underground part of the courthouse. There's like little cells. When you wait to go to court, go there. There's all these lawyers in the hallway. There's no fucking order. And this guy, I had seen. out in town during the he's like oh what's up dan I could be a lawyer I'm like I don't fucking know you

I don't know what's going on do I even need a lawyer like this bullshit and when I was being interrogated at the police station they say hey the kid that you got arrested with he's offering you his lawyer do you want to use his or do you want state appointed lawyer and I'm like I don't know if this kid set me up

because I don't know what wink that was right I'm like thinking now my mind's just fucking overdrive like thinking about everything what if you had told them, hey, I'm here because there's a guy funding terrorism. That's really... Oh, they already knew. I was a... I told they, what do you do? I'm an ex-naviceal. I do military

contracting. If I... that, and if I would use the word terrorism, or worked, like, they would have lost... It would have been 10 times worse. Okay. Yeah. Because it's... Just being a mercenary, it seems like the most dangerous part is when you're in country. You're not supposed to be there. You have no backup.

Yeah, that's why you get paid. Yeah. Because it's like, hey, there's no deny. we don't know this guy, Dan. Yeah. He's never not part of American intelligence. He's literally off the grid. Yeah.

That's why you charge top dollar. Because you were a sitting duck. Yeah. Wow. So when I was in there, I'm like, okay, do I take this guy's lawyer or do I do a state-appointed one? The way this is panning out already, when I know about the newspapers, state-appointed, 100% fail rate. This guy?

50-50. I think he might be setting me up. I think he's not. I'll take that coin toss over the guaranteed getting fucked. So I take his. So I get there and there's all these people and I don't know who's who and I'm not allowed to talk to the kid I was arrested with or these two other guys I've never seen before. And one guy comes up to me and goes, hey, Mr. So-and-so and Mr. So-and-so send their regards.

And I go, oh, thank God. They know I've been arrested. They know what's going on and I can trust this lawyer. So I said, you're my lawyer. Let's go. You're my guy. go in make initial statements the lady behind the desk

comes down to look I don't know who you are what's going on it's weird all of you guys are going to jail until it gets figured out okay you get in the paddy wagon you know you drive in the big gate opens you drive in the garage boom and I get put into this this room

hole in the ground no toothbrush no nothing no fucking toilet paper and I'm for two days with this criminal and uh he's like hey man you're American you're gonna be out of here like two days

you know and you know you know you know the hope market in prison is wild right you're out of here man 100 you're going home dude 100% bro you got this right

now I'm like okay he's like do you have a passport in country I go yeah he's like oh dude three days tops right okay I'm still like trying to wrap my head around what happened

So I'm like, okay, I do two days in there. And by the end of two days, this guy's a career criminal. So he's like, they're supposed to put us in our forever homes kind of thing. And we get two hours a day, walk. This is bullshit. And he's like starting to get kind of irate. And I'm like, okay, am I going to have to fuck this guy up? Like, is this going to be a problem?

Right when we've hit that point of tension, gate opens up. And I get taken to my first room, my first real room. And I go in there And I'm like, I'm going to be the gray man. I'm going to be like just, you know, if I got to stab somebody, fine. Like I've seen the movies, right? I go in there and I'm walking.

They're like, so there's four beds and three people and that fourth bed is like extra storage. So when you walk into a new room, the person that's using in a storage is kind of like, fuck. You know what I mean? They're like, hear the rules, blah, blah, blah.

And they're just like staring at me and they're like, oh. You're the American. And he gets up on the bed that's overlooked, that's right next to the window that overlooks the courtyard where you do your walks, the other blocks. He's like,

oh, blah, blah, blah, American. I'm like, yo, like, shh. You know, trying to stay gray. And he just laughs and turns on the TV. And there's like a generic photo of an operator with a baseball hat and a gun. And it says, like, my name, Daniel Corbett, arrested, here to kill the president.

Wow. Just on the TV. in the newspapers and I'm like well there goes that there goes like hey you know I'm just got arrested like I don't know what's going on like oh no no you're the killer there okay so that that first room I was in

I was in a special room we only got 30 minutes of walking outside a day because and alone not with anyone else in the block because I was in the terrorist room so the guy in there with me is accused of beating his wife with a hammer while she was out jogging she's like a pop

singer, a Croatian kid that came as a hooligan and had written some fucking terrorist manifesto and then some guy who professionally kidnaps and ransoms gypsies. Wow. Like that's his job. Yeah. Like he damn near had a business card, like a website. Like this is what I do. It's a job. I'm like, what the fuck? Did you make a phone call? Like what were you thinking? Who could you, right? It's laughable. What phone, right? Dude, that's wild. Nothing. MSC didn't come to see me for like a month. Wow. Okay, so you're waiting to basically get your day in court. Right.

So I'm in there for like, fuck, I think I'm in there for like two months. And they're all taking all the blues and the pinks and the yellows and the whites and all the different pills that get passed out. And I'm like, I'm good. And they sleep all day and stay up all night and write their manifesto and give each other razor blade tattoos. And I want none of that. And he left his race. So I'm on the top bunk. And it's like that weird metal spring shit.

And he had caribeter and in his little radio, AMFM radio. right underneath me over his over him and it was like 3 a.m. It was like the fucking 12th night in a row. I was only two hours of sleep and I just fucking reached under and grabbed his radio and just spiked it. Just shattered batteries. Come to find out it takes like six months to get approved to get something like that in.

So they move me. They moved me to a normal room, normal block two hours a day outside. Yeah? Not 30 minutes. And it's with everybody. they go in there and

prison guard walks me in and talks to this kid he's like 27 jack short hair he's like this guy got a problem he's like I'll take care of him I'm like what the fuck I'm with the shot caller of the jail now he's a state sponsored killer for that country he's like this is a second murder trial

and like spoiler alert he walks and there's video of it like the kids I saw him order a hit from the room And it was on the news the next day. Wow. Right. So I'm in there with this state-sponsored killer, a junkie, and an Aussie who was there trying

to do a big cocaine deal. Like they had like 1.4 on them and cash and all this shit. Wow. So it was an Ozzy, me, junkie, hitman. The junkie, he, having one junkie in the room is okay if he's past the withdrawals because there's like no, like, coddling there. There's no methadone. Like, it's like he had been moved.

after he said bro if I had a gun I would have killed myself. Like you're crying and shitting and throwing up but he's a junkie no money I buy a pack of cigarettes boom the room's clean as a whistle you know what I mean? Do do do here's funny

blah blah blah he was also criminal so you learn how to make cakes from the little biscuits and all the shit so you get you how to make a water heater from the toenail clippers and wires and shit right so learning my my did you think about like paying your way

Were you able to tell a lawyer? Because you had money, right? Did you have access to it? Could you have any way to it? There's money was an issue. Okay. But the newspaper. Yeah.

Was the issue. That's right. It was trial by media before I even was in the prison. They can't let you walk. It's too political. It's too big. Yeah. It's too big.

So on month three, I was rested in January in April. We're going to small court. Go make statements again. I don't know. He's shown me some guns. I've seen him. I know he's a hunter, blah, blah, blah. And the lady goes,

you've answered all the questions very well. You're very intelligent, Mr. Corbett. I have nothing for you. You're free to go. Boom, three months? Okay, no big deal. Yeah. Go back to my cell.

You know, the luggage for prison is a double black trash bag. Throw my shit in the black trash bag. And prison guard walks up. He's like, Foka. That was my nickname in prison. Foka. Advocate, lawyer. I'm like, yeah, I have.

I know, I'm grabbing myself. He's like, no, no, you're not taking that. So I go back to the visiting room and he goes, hey, man, I don't know what happened. But when you left, she got a phone call. And on the other line, they said, he will be charged with something. So I'm telling you right now, it's not fair. You're going to be here a long fucking. He goes, I believe it's going to be fine.

But when that happens, it's going to be a long time from now. Hmm. I said, okay. And he was representing like the big lawyer that, like, there was. one firm, like the big lawyer was kind of like the guy who got arrested with. So I was like, fuck, okay. State department would come in. They'd visit

and be like, hey, how's the food? I'm like, can you change it? They're like, no. Like, okay, I'm like, this is looking bad. And there was two people. There was a Serbian woman who worked at the U.S. Embassy and there was an American man. They'd visit. The Serbian woman was like, I'm so sorry

this is happening to you. I see what they're doing. to you in the newspaper and then the american man was like hey man here's the deal there's a dude in indonesia and you know they were offered it they offered him some sentence for like time served you know he's like molesting all these kids and he didn't take it and then in the end when he stood trial he got like 15 years so you need to really consider like taking a deal and i'm like i'm not a pedophile and i didn't do anything so why the fuck you tell me this kind of Indonesia. It was really fucking weird. And I could tell the

American guy was reading all the newspapers and believing all the hype. And I'm like, what the fuck, dude? So, that was in April. And then in June or July, I think July, June, I'll look it up. In the summer, the big lawyer, who my lawyer

was partners with, he had, like, it was public knowledge that he was working on my case, too, because they're all the same. A week later, he gets assassinated. He gets gunned down. Oh. And then then the State Department when they'd visit after he was this ghost white

terrified of me that morning the next morning the prison guards breaking and come into our room strip it's everything and even the shot caller's like well what are you doing dude and like oh make me get naked

rip all my shit and he's like what are you doing to the prison guards the shot caller's like you guys need to calm down you don't come in my fucking room like that and he turned on the TV and this is like

you know Michio Ogianovitch rest in peace was assassinated. Wow. And they know he was lost from him. I was with. So they thought like I ordered the hit or what, like they saw, I was involved somehow. But once that happened and hit the news, nobody wanted to touch me.

Wow. At all. Fuck. So you really thought you were going to do some years. Oh, 12. I was ready. That's what they were talking about. They wanted 12, but I mean, I looked into it and there's guy.

I mean, I'm in prison. I'm like friends with all the hooligans. Like I was a celebrity because. I was walking down, you know, when I first got there, I'd see people saluting, and I'd turn around and see if they were saluting like the game, like the warden or whatever. And they were saluting me. And I come to find out, yeah, the newspapers said, I was there to kill the president. But everybody in prison and every, like, federal employee hates the president. So I was like Messiah to them.

They loved me. Did you, was it something deeper? Do you think it could have been, like, counter-ops by the guy that you were trying to blackmail? Is that cool? You think it was just bad timing? Oakum's Razor, man. Yeah. Just.

I wish it was that sexy. Because I'll tell you more when I learned about when I got back. So lawyer assassinated. Fucking January, November comes around. And we're finally charged. And you're supposed to charge me within six months. But it's Serbia. Yeah.

Right? So I get charged in November. or like October or something and I'm like okay cool who's the judge what's going on and right away like another month because no judge wanted it because there was no evidence

but the secretary of defense already said oh he wasn't here with that pistol to shoot fish in the Danube River he was here for something else I didn't have a gun I wasn't arrested with a gun right so there's this political pressure for them to find something on me and then they have this

like moral pressure of their job to like serve justice right so we finally get this judge she's like mid 30s blonde like hot right and he's like you know lawyer visits me goes hey we got a judge and i'm like let's go right like another event because in prison you measure time by events right you know like day-to-day doesn't mean anything you measure by court dates and visits right so we got we got a judge yeah but it's a woman i'm like what it's kind of sexist like what like what's wrong with that It's like, yeah, but women judges aren't good for, like, man crimes. I'm like, what the fuck's a man crime?

He's like, it's a deal with a gun. I'm like, okay, fine. I'm like, I'm just happy we have one. We got this. And in Serbia, there's no jury. There's a judge. That's it. Yeah.

Right? So it's like, oh, I hope she likes a gray hoodie sweater because that's all I really had for court clothes, you know? So after a year, I had my first court date. Fuck. And the way it works in Serbia, you go. in opening statements, come back a month later. Come in, prosecution, come back a month later, cross-examine.

It's just because it's so backed up in time. And they put on a show in the morning, people go into court. They all meet the shit, chained up, and you all get in a paddy wagon. Pattiwagon had plenty of space for me. I got my own paddy wagon with two guys with MP5s. Like they made sure to show trial. show everybody. Okay.

I'm the bad guy. Even in the courtroom, the guy's like, and then I'm like, no, none of the other defendants are cuffed. And he like, unhandcussed me and I'll do something like, and just like, I'm like, that was the boogeyman. Yeah. I was like, this is ridiculous, right?

So, you know, the first trial, the judge, I was like the first one in, the judge was like, oh, good morning. And I said good morning in Serbia, right? I was like, Dobri utro. She's like, oh,

your Serbian is so good. And I'm like, oh my God, your English is so good. She's like, I've been practiced. I'm like, like, we're flirting.

Yeah. This is crazy. I'm like, this crazy. I'm like flirting with the jealousy. It's ridiculous, right? And then everyone else walks in, she gavils in and she gallows in and just stone face, right?

I'm like, this is wild, right? So I'm like, okay. That's a good thing, right? I guess. Or she's like really fucked up and playing with me.

Second court date or third court date show up. translator didn't show up. And I go, it's okay, my lawyer's the best translator I've had. It doesn't matter. He's not court appointed. Come back a month later. I was like, oh, fuck, damn. Court goes on and on and on.

And then after 18 months is up, we go back for the last day of court. And it wasn't a one month wait from the most previous one. It was like seven days for sentencing. Bigger hall. We're all sitting there. Hang on. What happened? what was the

sentencing? What was the conviction? Were you convicted? No, so we're going, this is the sentencing court date. Right? So we go there and. Yeah, but you haven't been found guilty.

Sorry, yeah, this is the conviction court date, right? So we, and sentencing, they kind of do it, they wrap it all the months, right? So we sit there and, you know,

each guy, each of the three guys stand up, like six months, house, Arras, time served, one year, whatever, and then me,

she's like stand up. And when they read your shit, they read from top to bottom, accused of this and this. And of course, on that day, I get the worst translator ever. Right. I'm like, what is she saying? What is she saying? And then the judge stopped speaking. And the translator says, you can go.

I said, okay, under what conditions? Are they saying I'm guilty? Time served? Are they saying I'm innocent? She's like, you're free. I'm like, yeah, I got that. And she says, you're innocent. Awesome.

Judge looks at me. Perfect English. Sorry for what happened to you. Serbia has to pay, the state has to pay all of your shit. Legal fees. I hope this didn't put a bad taste in your mouth about Serbian people. The whole thing, you're going to go back to jail, get your shit. And then you have to go to Customs Police Department because you've been here too long. Right.

I'm like, dude. So you think they were just waiting until all the publicity blew over for them to be like, okay, you can go? I think I think it's that And then when I got back I heard they were trying to Vuchis was trying to leverage me To help out Putin

When that girl Marina Maria Bhutina Or whatever her name That Russian spy That legit Russian spy who got arrested in D.C. Right, yes, I remember her But then like when it came out That I wasn't a CIA spy They're like we don't want him

Right He's not leverage And so you never told them What you were actually doing in that country Taking pictures of somebody? Right. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah.

I was trying to find a guy drinking alcohol when he shouldn't. Okay. So they kick you out of the country? So I go there and by this time I'm fearless because it's been 18 months. Yeah. Stead trial. I want some coming off a big win, right?

My Serbian's pretty good. And you got to leave in three days. I'm like, I don't think my time should be used up while I was being falsely held. I think I have another month and a half. And the guy's like, what? the fuck and like we start arguing and then the police chief comes in he's like how does seven days sound i said i can do seven days i was gone the next day but i was just like yeah ready to fight wow yeah holy what year did you get out 2019 wow okay did you keep did pursuing this work yeah so

2019 i got back in june and then july july of 2019 i was down in central america working in holy shit it didn't defer you at all you know you know How could you go back? I'm like, dude, if a cowboy gets bucked off a horse, he doesn't stop writing, you learn, become better, and you keep writing. If something is what you do and you have a bad day, it doesn't mean it's not what you do anymore. Grow the fuck up, right? Wow. Did you get paid extra?

Did the person who hired you? We worked it out. Okay. Because, like, it was, you know, that didn't go through, but we have a history and done it. So, yeah, it was good. Okay. So tell us about Central America because I assume this has something to do

with drugs. Am I No. Correct? No? No. Can you tell us what you were doing down there? No. That one I can't. Why? Do you have an NDA? Like how does it work when you're a mercenary? I understand you can't talk about things when you're part of the military. I think it's more for not incriminating myself. Yeah. Okay. Can you tell us who hired you? No, no. Really?

Oh, yeah. Wow. Yeah. Shit. Can you tell us anything? No, just that I went back to the game a month out of prison. How many missions do you think you did from between getting out of the game and, yeah, that time after you got out of prison in Serbia? From Serbian prison until present day? Yeah. Three.

Really? Yeah. So is it, do these take a long time? Like, are you in country? Yeah, I got lucky because I tell people, in this game, you'll get maybe four phone calls in two years. and of those four phone calls, one is real. One is paid.

Legal-ish and morally aligned. So would you only take things that were morally aligned? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone's like, oh, you're mercenary, you have no... That's the opposite. It's actually opposite.

Military, go kill that guy. Okay, maybe he's a farmer. Whenever, I don't lose sleep about it, right? Right. But when you're private, you can say no because you're the prime. When you're a private, you've got to say yes, sir. Right? So when you're your own entity, you can be like, and I ain't doing that.

I got to sleep at night, bro. Yeah. Interesting. So you could go kill for the state and sleep at night, but to have to kill getting paid by an individual or an entity. Because you have that onus is on me. Interesting. If you're just a soldier doing their job, you go do it. And, you know, it's not that I kill for the state and it's easy.

It's that I'm putting that position somewhere or another. I join the military and I'm there. If somebody or something is stopping me and my team from getting home safe, the reasons why I'm there are out the window. Right. We're going home. Sorry. We'll deal with it in another life.

Whatever. Right. But right now, I'm going home. So is my team. Now, on the mercenary side, getting put in that position, that's all on you. That's on me. So, you know, how fast and loose do you want to play it? Would you have a gun on you?

Like in Central America, knowing that you're there, you're a one-man show. Would you be armed in case you got a flee? If I felt the need to, yeah, 100%. And, you know, it's just beat the streets. And people think, you know, you see a movie. where James Bond opens up his briefcase and there's a false panel and he pulls out all this shit. It's like, no, you

have cash and then you need to go beat the streets and you need a GPS tracker, make one because you're not flying into wherever with one, right? Right. You need a weapon, procure one, right? Because you're not flying in the country with that shit. This is spy work. There's almost nothing different.

So being a spy, that term gets thrown around. A spy is someone who's more, more so, spies on the real country. Like, I can't be a spy in Honduras. Or Mexico, right? What you do is you recruit someone who lives there to spy for you. Because you can't, I could, to be a spy, then that would mean I'm spying against the

United States. And I would never, right? So, it's not like, oh, if you wear a wig and stuff, like, dude, like, dude, even if you're like a black dude from Baltimore, you're not going to fit in in Kenya or Cote d'Ivoire or whatever, because you're just, you not. You recruit someone who lives there. And you do it out of, you know, they want power. They're, morally motivated or financially. And you just exploit that from the sources you're running and they spy for you. You don't go around the spy. She ain't going to get anywhere. So you're running a team basically. Recruiting of spies. More or less, yeah. Okay. And is the bag big enough? I assume when you go to these places. Yeah. Especially now. Like, the bag has to be huge.

Right, right. We're talking hundreds, hundreds of thousands? Starting. Really? Yeah. Because think about it. Because when you do something, if it doesn't go perfect, how much money did I lose 18 months in prison? Right.

You need to cover, that bag has to cover a couple years. Right. And even if it goes perfect, it has to cover a couple years because, like I said, of those four calls in two years, one of them's real. So that job has to cover the next four years, right? Yeah. Do you know a lot of ex-seals and military people that became mercenaries? Like, is it pretty common? I mean, well, let's clean up that definition.

I know a lot of ex-military guys who are like working for the big companies. Yeah. Right? Making their 500 a day or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A bunch, huge. Why did you choose to go like the solo route? Because I wanted to, I couldn't just do security.

Yeah. That's all. And I knew there were still bad guys out there. You wanted the thrill? I wanted to contribute to there being less bad guys. Really? Yeah. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. I'll allow it. I'll allow it.

Wow. What was your third mission? You were in Central America. You were in Serbia. Can you tell us where the final one was? And why you decided to get out? was, so one was, that one was in the States. Really? And that one was, wasn't, it wasn't as sexy. It was, um, asset recovery.

Hmm. Yeah. To a bad, on a, the guy was a bad guy. Could you tell us how that wrapped? Because you're in the States, you can't kill somebody. Yeah. Pretty much. What's your goal?

How do you recover assets in a law-abiding country? make them write a really big check. I see. I see. And you've got to be creative with it, right? You can't just... Well, you need to motivate them to. Yeah.

So maybe there's something inside or missing from their house when they wake up. And they're like, what? A little message, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So you're willing to use underhanded tactics in pursuit of a greater goal, which to you is eliminating bad guys or at least, you know,

making them pay for what they've done. Justice. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You're like a cop. You're like a fucking really deep detective. Yeah, world police.

Yeah, you're a world police. That's right. That's right. But I mean, and then fast forward, all that stuff just slows down. Yeah,

there's some international conflicts going on that are very convoluted. And, you know, I got phone calls about what's going on in Eastern Europe. Yeah. And I was like,

I'm not touching that. Why? Well, one, I think there's a lot of media being pumped out on one side, and I don't think America's getting the whole picture. Sure. Which is with most topics. Yeah. And it depends on which flavor media likes to show in a bad or good light.

And then two, it's died down now, but there was this whole, like, video game warrior. thing that happened and guys are flying into Poland to like just get their kill on. They're working for like three grand a month those guys that are over there now. Right. Taking out Russians? I mean, but here's, it's like an

armored battle right now. Are you a transformer? Are you going to turn into a fucking tank? Exactly. What good is a military what is a mercenary when there's all out of hot war? I think guys are doing so. I'm not, hey, if you're over there I'm not talking shit on you, if you're doing good stuff, be safe, whatever. But for me, it's not it. I'm not going to go to another conflict

zone for $3,000 a month. Yeah. No. Right? Yeah. And then with, but things not being, hitting all my little personal check marks had slowed down, you know, a year and a half ago is when I get a phone call from a book agent.

And he goes, hey, do you want to write a book? And I said, no. Because I was still chasing this dragon. And I was like, I'm going to keep doing this. And then the time between the phone calls got greater and greater if the phone calls ever came. he called back and I said let's do it. I said, okay. He's like, yeah, man, you're an ex seal.

I say, hey, I don't want to do another seal book. Yeah. There's plenty of seal books. I don't want to talk about buds and training because, you know, it's not proprietary to me. Everybody's done that. Like, I want to talk about what does someone from my background do after? He's like, okay, so we did the book and it came out in August. What's it called?

American Mercenary. All right. and they can get it anywhere. Yeah. What can you talk about in that book if you can't, if it's also classified? The things I've talked about. There's some other stuff in there.

Some other details I've probably this. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Do you feel like now, don't you think personary work is going to keep growing and growing as governments are unable,

especially major governments are unable to, you know, just invade countries anymore? Like, it feels like that's kind of the way. warfare is going to go. There will always be a need. But again,

are you going to be the one that gets the call? Is the call going to fit all your criteria? And when I've been given other opportunities to make significant monetary gains in my personal life outside of that, and my life is evolved, right?

I have a fiance now, and, you know, it's changed. Yeah. And yeah, I still have that desire to go get the bad guys. but and I still will but there's also a generation of

guys after me that are right there you know okay well we're gonna switch over to the Patreon and I'm gonna try to get some more information out of you that's that's pretty fascinating man what an what an incredible

kind of a storied career in many ways besides your time you know in Serbia in jail but I mean it kind of went as good for you as a seal as it could have. Yeah, the timing was great. I didn't get hurt in buzz. I never got rolled. I never took any, took any bullets.

None of my friends died next to me, and we just dumped dudes every night we went out. It was great. Wow. And now, how does it feel, though, that in 2021, to see the Taliban rolling American armory through the streets of Kabul? in 2024.

No, 2021 when we pulled out. I mean, that's got to be such a fucking stab in the heart. When they did a parade with all of their shit. I mean, to me, that's criminal. That's criminal how that happened. Like, let's blow this up. No, don't blow this stuff up. Like, I don't understand what that was for.

Do you think it would have been, like, how should we have done it though? Because the popular sentiment, I think in both parties was, hey, we got to get out. Yeah. This is a 20-year. It takes two seconds to blow up all the gear. Yeah. Like less than. Right.

Yeah. Like helicopters. Like legit. Not like we left a couple pistols. Like night vision. Like really near peer capability shit. Yeah. Yeah.

But do you feel some kind of way just about the fact that like you were there and you had to do so much work? And yeah, none of your guys got killed. No, I have zero attachment to any of the work I did there. And look, I can say that. But I wasn't like the guys in Restrepo that were up on an outpost fighting and we need this. We got to keep it. And you're like, Roger that, sir.

Like, you know, guys are getting hit and we're fucking boom. And then like next, the next week, they're like, yeah, we don't care anymore. Leave it. Like, that would, that would gut punch and kill me. Right. That would, I don't know how I'd react to that. I'd probably be fucked up if that happened to me. Right.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. But on a, on a ideological level, you were just there doing work. And so whatever, even though ultimately, the Taliban won, you won because you're just stacking WZ. Yeah, I wasn't there to change the political face of Afghan. I don't give a fuck.

Yeah. All right. That's honest. Yeah, I would have tried to be in the State Department, not a Navy SEAL. Right? If I really wanted to make change, go to a place that makes change. Go get a pen in your hand and go to D.C. and make change. Right.

Yeah. Right. Wow. Dude, Dan, fascinating. Go get American mercenary, dude. Yeah, check it out. Yeah, man. You have social media or anything you want?

Yeah, I'm at American underscore mercenary on Instagram. Very cool. All right. Let's switch over. Let's talk some more. Patreon.com slash the Connect show. Oh, and we're going to zen up, too. I need another one, dude.

Yeah. I need maybe two more. Can you pass one over? No, you want my used one? No, is that it? No, this is it? You got to tap a new can. We got to get Zinn.

We got to get ZIN to sponsor the show. Yeah, no kidding. Thank you, guys. And thank you, Daniel. Yeah, thanks for third. You got it, buddy. Patreon. We'll see you over there.

Take care.