The Megyn Kelly Show - Marcus and Morgan Luttrell on the Afghanistan Debacle, Loving America, and Never Quitting | Ep. 149

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Marcus and Morgan Luttrell, twin brother Navy SEALs and co-hosts of the "Team Never Quit" podcast, to talk about the Afghanistan debacle and how it could have been handled differently, being raised to be "good Americans," Marcus' "Lone Survivor" story like you've never heard it before (including from Morgan's side), Morgan's Congressional run, the "never quit" Navy SEAL attitude, the value of failing, parenting and marriage, the state of politics in America, the need for unity and perspective in this country, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, and it's got to be our most special edition. It really does. to this for months. I've had viewers and listeners emailing the show, texting or commenting on our social media, wanting to hear from Marcus Luttrell. Oh, so honored to finally be able to bring him to you and also a double dose of goodness, his identical twin brother, Morgan Luttrell. These two are going to make you stand up and cheer. They're going to show us how to love America, how to raise little patriots, how to raise tough kids who never quit. They're going to make you understand what it is that has made us feel like we live in a special place for all this time, right?

Why do we fall so in love with our military men and women? Just listen to them and you'll be reminded of all of it. Both guys raised in Texas, became Navy SEALs, were deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan, serving our country nobly, bravely. And this is their first time speaking about the exit from Afghanistan and how it was handled by Joe Biden and whether it's caused them to think differently about whether it was all worth it. They and whether it's caused them to think differently about whether it was all worth it. They have not yet addressed this. They have a podcast.

They co-host a very worth your time podcast called the Never Quit Podcast. And it's super fun. They interviewed their mom once and many others. And they haven't actually gone there on the podcast. So we're honored to have those first remarks for you. I think you'll find them interesting. And they're also right now running something called the Team Never Quit Foundation, which supports veterans and the families of the fallen. They've had a lifetime of service. It

continues to this day. They've been through hell, especially Marcus. Morgan too, though. And, um, you know, it's not every day you get to spend an hour and a half with two guys like this in any in any time of your life. This was a true honor for me. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for listening. In one minute. Here they are. Hey, guys, how are you? Miss Megan, how are you? I'm great. All right. So you decided to mess with me by dressing the same. You already look the same. Thank you for the beard differential. That'll help. We put a pin on his, on his, uh, I was going to wear a tie, but they told me to be comfortable. I like it. No, I like it. All right. So just for the audience at home, we've got,

we we've got Marcus on the left and Morgan on the right. So, uh, when they're watching this on YouTube or do we, you know, we'll get to that because i understand you guys are fond of switching it up a little it has happened a time or three throughout our tenure on this planet you're going to be blessed with a twin you might as well utilize it you have to own it i can see that yeah how old are you guys now we're celebrating our 23rd anniversary from being 21 soon. Oh, I like that. Fix the view. Head to the 46th, Jeff. Okay. That makes sense to me. Okay. So let's dive right in on the week's news because I've been dying to get your reaction to the events this week in Afghanistan. Let's start with you on that, Marcus. What do you think? It's tough to watch. Obviously,

all of us have a connection there. The scenario that's unfolding right now with Americans still there waiting, feeling that lost feeling, that sense of hope. Not hopelessness, I wouldn't think, because we're still here. I've had that. I mean, literally over there by myself, not knowing what to do, and y'all came and got me. I never forgot that. I spend the rest of my life trying to make my soul bleed, showing each American how precious that is to me. And when you get when something like this happens, you have a taste for what America truly is. I mean, I wanted to hug the first person I saw. And it ought to let you know how wonderful this place is.

And in America, it is a place. But moreover, it's the people. And there are people literally holding on to the outside of our aircrafts trying to get here and falling from the sky just to meet y'all, just to hang out here. Because all they have access to so far is just the people in the military. We're kind of regimental. The true spice of America is our people back home. And people are flooding to get here. We not only have Americans over there that we have to get back. Just bottom line, line you got to get

them back now call cost alone send in expendables or send in just the rest of the military and put us in there we'll go do it y'all have truly never seen the full weight of what what we're capable of because you just never had to implement that but it's uh i think the emotion that i'm feeling more over than anything else and most of the veterans are as a man, there's still people back there. We don't leave anybody behind. I never had PTSD, but I started to get it thinking that there's some of our countrymen stranded somewhere and they need our help. And I know that firsthand spent because y'all came and got me.

So I know it's possible. Y'all sent the entire military in to get me. And I was in hell. They're on the border of it. So it's, it kind of resonates real, real resonates real close to home here. Yeah, I would say you've got a deep appreciation of what it means to be stranded out in the middle of the country waiting for somebody to come get you. Trying to kill you? People trying to kill you?

Yep. I can't even imagine what it's like when you set foot back here. It looks different, feels different. I mean, we're going through some stuff here in America. And we're a family. Families do that. And we'll get through this. And as I've been we've gone through it. The way I always look at it, man, nothing will ever change how much I love everybody here for coming to get me and what I try to do to show that. Biden's now saying that we'll go back, we'll get we'll get the military guys and we'll get the Americans. The promises are less explicit on getting those who helped us, the translators and sort of the Afghan people who were in support roles to our men and women in uniform over there. I wonder what

you think about that, Morgan. Let me ask you that one, because we heard from a lot of military guys who are upset about that and knew how much we relied on those helpers when we were over there. You couldn't tell the difference between ourselves and our translators or our support. Rounds come down, Rage, they did not discriminate. And those that were tasked to us fought just as hard as we did. And we've always said, and I always wanted them to have the opportunity to come over and be here because they defended our country just like it was their own. So it's very disheartening to see, or hear, excuse me, that that's a possibility that that won't happen. Maybe call me an eternal optimist that there's enough people surrounding the administration that says, no, they need the opportunity and they must have the opportunity to come.

We need to rescue them just like we need to rescue all the Americans that are waiting on us. Period. Let me tell you something. Not only do they serve us and help us overseas, they were in the front. We watched those terms

and especially the ones that assigned to us thousands of missions. We pinned a couple of those guys with SEAL Tritons. They were such great operators. I mean, they gave it everything they had. Those are the ones you definitely want to bring back. Otherwise, why else would anybody help you? And if they're willing to help you in the worst situation ever,

they'll obviously help us over here when things are good too and when things are bad. I was actually listening to the New York Times podcast, The Daily, today, and they were talking about this soldier who had served in Afghanistan. He was talking about the relationship that you develop with the translator. Here he is. His name was Colin Daniels, served in the Army for six years, 28 years old. Here's just a little bit of that guy. Listen, we would tell the Afghans whether they were interpreters or civilian or Afghan army that they could trust us as Americans. You know, I joined the military because I truly believed that America was. The. I. I believed in America.

And they did too. And like we told them on an individual level, trust us. Trust us on this patrol. Trust us on this KLE. Trust us on all this. We have your back. Because they just were aspiring to be free.

What's more American than that? And, you know, when push comes to shove, like I don't disagree with having to leave Afghanistan, like we can't do it forever. But when push comes to shove, like, I don't disagree with having to leave Afghanistan. Like, we can't do it forever. But when push comes to shove, these people that soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines told, hey, man, you can trust me. It's a lie now, you know? Excuse me.

You can hear that guy's pain you can you can hear it there there is we because the relationships it they're most certainly carved out in in pain and misery and most certainly blood so the fact that you look and it's just as important looking left and right and seeing who's standing there with you, they're there. So I could, I, I, I can empathize with him knowing that we did, we did. That was always conversations that you had with those individuals that supported us is that, you know, some of them wanted to come blank. Yes. I mean, cause that's how it was always articulated to us. Like, you'll have that opportunity. I would, I would say the vast majority of Americans still believe that. And I won't maybe preface this with saying I don't think there was an intentional lie to the individuals that supported us over there from Afghanistan, the locals that supported us and the Army and the interpreters. intentionally lied to him. I think once again, if you look at the administration, they weren't

prepared. And I think their decision-making was not orchestrated properly. And then it just came completely off the rails. What do you make of that? Because Biden's out there today saying that it could not have been done better. He says he does not think it could have been handled in any better way. Do you agree with that? No, no, no, not at all. Most certainly, I think they absolutely got everything backwards. I think we should have remained in place and started evacuating civilian population. Those are the ones that can defend themselves properly. Then you come into the interpreters, and then the Army, and then whomever else.

And we're the ones you leave behind. It's systematic. We can handle ourselves. We're designed for that part. You get everybody else, and then whomever else and where do you leave behind it's it's systematic we can handle ourselves we're designed for that part you get everybody else and then we go and i don't know if he's if he was i saw the abc interview and i don't know why he won't you know this is something trump would have done he's like i would because he's like he would never answer hey august 31st is at the deadline will you will troops remain in place and he kept dancing around it trump would have been like we'll stay there until the day I die. Until every American's out of there and every support staff's out of there.

I don't understand why that's a problem. Yeah, we're going to stay. If we got to go back, you know, we did this wrong. We we messed up. We effed up. But I'm going to course correct this and I'm sending in the Marines and the airborne and we're staying and we're staying till the last person's out and then we'll put a date. I don't know why that's so hard. We heard a very different message from President Biden. Let me just give the audience a sample of what he said to George Stephanopoulos so they know what we're talking about. But it was very deflecting.

It was not a message of I'm taking responsibility. It was basically reminding me of Kevin Bacon in Animal House. All is fine. All is calm. Remain calm. All is fine. All is well. I got one better than that, Megan.

They had one of the spokesmen out. And there was a Jim Carrey movie where he works for a global company like Fleming with Dick and Jane. He's on there trying to tell you what a great company it is. And then they have the real live stream going, and it's all falling apart. And they're doing their level best. I heard him say, we got communications with the Taliban, and we got guys coming in and out of the airport.

That's probably a gate guard outside the airport saying, yeah, come on, bring him up in here. We don't negotiate with Taliban. They don't negotiate with us. That's that's the whole point. That's that's why we can just go in there and get our Americans out. We don't have to ask for permission. There's no stable government and the president bailed. Right. He grabbed a bunch of coin and hauled, but America's a lot of things. Do we have our bad part? Yeah, we do. But the only time you have to stand up and be recognized as an American to understand

his values is when we say the pledge. And that because if you are stranded somewhere, just one of us, if one of our people is stranded somewhere and needs help, we will send the entire country to come get you. That's the blessing to be an American. And the trust level goes, they sleep in the camps with us, those turps and everything, a position of watch. I mean, if they can't trust us, if we go over there and we go on the missions and it's like a half trust with them, well, man, that doesn't make you feel too safe. Yep. Let me stand by because I want to get the audience up to speed on Biden. Let's just listen to a sampling of what he said on ABC. When you look at what's happened over the last week, you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, getting in a plane and taking off and going to another country.

When you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off. That was, you know, I'm not, that's what happened. That's simply what happened. But we've all seen the pictures. We've seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17. We've seen Afghans falling. That was four days ago, five days ago. What did you think when you first saw those pictures?

What I thought was we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did. So you don't think this could have been handled, this actually could have been handled better in any way? No mistakes? No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that we're going to go back in hindsight and look.

But the idea that somehow there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened. So for you, that was always priced into the decision? Yes. What do you make of that, Marcus? I think it's been a few days now. So my hindsight is we see what happened. I don't have to say anything.

I don't have to suggest something. I don't have to belittle anybody. I don't have to talk smack about anybody. I don't do that anyways. It's right there in front of your face. I mean, you can literally turn on television and watch it. You don't have to have somebody tell us. It's there, right?

I mean, I think he most certainly, I think every one of his answers was taking a political stance instead of the stance of the commander in chief and a commander in chief would not shift in point shift, blame and point fingers. A commander in chief would stand up and say, mistakes were made. We own it. And this is what we're doing to course correct it. I will say that the only way, reason you know that that's that's happened is when someone tries to explain it and any situation that you get into if when the outcome presents itself there's no explanation and that's the way it was supposed to go and even when it snowballs the contingencies people can pick that up you can see it if you just constantly happen to defend and try to explain not defend it just try to explain it then defend it, just try to explain it. Then that's how, you know, something's gone wrong.

Can I, can I, can I offer something from my love, my level? When I say my level, my rank, when I was in the military and we were serving over there, and that was at an operator's level on the ground,

the day one, week one, when I first stepped foot in Afghanistan in the early two thousands, talking with the villagers, talking with the army, talking with the army, what you're seeing as far as the Taliban coming in and how they've taken back the country, in my opinion, that was always inevitable. It was going to happen.

It's happened over millennia. Alexander the Great got stopped there. Throughout time, everybody stops right there uh what was not inevitable was how it happened now we could have done it differently where we wouldn't be in the position of american lives are in jeopardy that most certainly would have changed in my opinion in morgan's opinion yeah but the fact that we we fought in that war and the Taliban has come back, they just waited us out like they did everyone else. That was going to happen.

And I think you've heard a lot of leadership say that. Well, the amazing, when you see something spread that fast, it means people are allowing it. To take that, because Afghanistan is a little bit smaller than Texas. And to consume it like that would have meant there were the little to no resistance and when you watch tv and you see all of them the the taliban on the road with those with our weaponry the way they're they're moving and walk in where they're carrying carrying themselves just the way they they

carry themselves you know we trained them that's the afghan army so they were already that was our that whole thing was going on underneath the watch. It spread like a wildfire. I mean, coming from the North down to the South, it could go districts ahead. Hey, the Taliban's moving in. Americans aren't here anymore. I don't have any backside support.

I'm Taliban now. That's right. Well, a lot of people, they do have to self-preserve, right? They do to save their own lives, to save the lives of their families. They always said that. It's like, what are we supposed to do when you leave?

They're doing it. And we weren't there to stay. I mean, we didn't go in to occupy. That's the only way you could truly change it is to get the people to take control or we have to stay. And then you just build a society there. And you said it best, Megan. It's self-preservation. If I have to survive and the Taliban is coming through,

I need to conform. And so is that a good thing or a bad thing, or is it just a thing? I'm curious how you guys, cause you sound different about it. When I talked to Rob O'Neill, for example, you know, the SEAL who killed bin Laden, one of the guys who went in on that mission, the guy who fired the shot and he's pissed off. And he said, um, you know, what, what did, what did our guys die for? What was I there for? You know, he's like, I don't like the whole country's now back in the hands of the guys we were sent over there to fight. You know, Al Qaeda is going to get another stronghold there, another foothold there and launch more terror attacks on us. So what did our guys die for? He said, I'm angry. I'm, I'm pissed. Do you, have you talked to anybody like that? Like, what do you think,

what do you make of that perspective? Dr. Robbie? I've been, I've been filled in phone calls since this kicked off. And I think I might have a little different response to most people. And I don't mean to anger anybody, but I tried to level the situation saying we lost our brothers and sisters over there. We, we, we, we went over there and we fought for 20 years and now is it all for nothing? I always, and I've been saying since all this happened, is like, I'm proud to have gone over there and served. And I tell everybody, hold your head high because you did exactly what you were supposed to do that your country asked you to do. And is it tragic that we've lost? Are the loved ones that lost someone, are they hurting and dying? Yes,

they are, but they're loved ones. And this may not be the case, but I tell myself this every day. They died doing what they loved doing. And because they lost their lives, others lived. And then I tell all the individuals that served with me, I was like, hey, look, you know what? We did exactly what we were tasked to do. Is it over? Did we lose or did we time out? Because inevitably, if you don't have anybody to surrender to you, there's really no end of the quarter. Yeah, there was never going to be a spike the ball in the end zone moment in Afghanistan. There wasn't. It was, yeah.

When that dude came down to get some milk and cookies and found Rob O'Neill in his kitchen blasting right in the face, that kind of ended that. That was a different war than when we were there. It's been 20 years. I mean, that's generational. What we were there for is completely different of what the troops are there for now. So when we see that, like what we had to go through to get to the point to where we could leave,

that's where the frustrations come from. Like, hey, man, if you had to have any idea what we had to go through just to get to where we could attempt to leave you wouldn't want we didn't want to see it go down like that because we we weren't never allowed to operate like that and uh yeah i understand why rob's manager yeah they're right can i ask you looking back you know especially given all that you've both gone through again i mean obviously that's what the your whole book and the movie about you is about marcus and morgan you Morgan, you've served multiple times and gone through a lot of physical pain,

lost a lot of guys you deeply love. When you see the way it ended, now that it's ended, does it change your assessment on whether it was worth it? No. Every war ends like this. This is war. I mean, you look back generations

and the ones that came before, we're from a military family. We were trained up for this. This is war. I mean, you look back generations and the ones that came before, we're from a military family. We were trained up for this. We were ready from Vietnam, Korea, World War II, all the way back. I mean, every place that America's been and took it over, it's always gone back to something, back to whose place it was. And that part, you will literally drive yourself crazy thinking about it in that direction. I would never, I would never put, I would never take away any deployment anybody's ever been on by saying, by thinking that way. No way. Too much knowledge learned. I mean, the further you travel, the more you learn and the hardships that you take, that teaches us something. It's not that we came out of here without anything. Even with pulling people out of Afghanistan, we lost 3,000

plus people in New York City. I mean, I had somebody say that to me. He's like, you know how I know I won? Our body count was lower than theirs. Yeah York City. I mean, I had somebody say that to me. He's like, you know how I know I won? Our body count was lower than theirs. Yeah. So, I mean, people will rationalize it in their head however you want it, man. But ultimately, we're still standing and we're still moving. Honestly, it's not only that. It's the fact that you guys kept us safe here on the homeland for 20 years.

You know, we did not have another attack that looked like, yes, they tried. We had some things in Orlando and elsewhere, but nothing that even came close to the scale of 9-11, which is what they wanted to do. And they weren't able to do it because of guys like you. I agree. Thank you. Up next, exactly how did their Texas mom and dad raise future warriors, Navy SEALs, kids who love America and you never give up. That's one minute away. Let's talk about the Latrell brothers. Born in Houston, fifth generation Texans, identical twins. Morgan, you're older by how many minutes? Seven, which means I'd have been a king back in the old days. So are you the boss between the two of you? Does that carry weight? Oh, it's still, I'm the big brother. Yeah, it carries weight, even though I'm bigger.

No, that's how our family lives. I'm looking at the background and I heard you interview your mom. She said neither one of you ever had any fear. You're just fearless boys from the beginning, which explains a lot.

You hunted, you fished. What is this I see about wrestling alligators? Is that bullshit? No, that's head to toe. Our best friend, Trey Baker. What? He'll do it. toe. Our best friend, Trey Baker. What? Yeah, our best friend, Trey Baker and Opie and a few other guys.

We'd go out in Trinity River, which is just up there in Huntsville, Texas, where we went to college. And after work or after some late-night frivolities, we would go out and get on the airboat. And whoever could bring the biggest gator to the boat. We didn't, we didn't keep them. We didn't dive into the river on top of them. Whoever could bring the biggest gator to the boat won. That's the,

that's true statement. We haven't been to the ponds out here too. Yeah. So everybody, it would get interesting if you jumped on something a little bit bigger than you could handle, but I don't recommend going to anything over four feet. Everybody,

Trey used to get up to the six and eighters, but four, you can kind of handle it. They'll get you though. You better know what you're doing. What if another one comes along? Yeah, well, you try to save them out. We got Matties in the boat. Try to find one that's by himself. That's good thinking, Miss

Megan. The contingencies. We like that. I like where your head's at. Okay, so it's true. You really were set up to, you were born to become Navy SEALs. Now, you got a long history of military service in your family, right? Your dad, who else served? Dads, grandparents, uncles, cousins.

It goes way back. Okay. So your mom comes on your show. You got a podcast called Never Quit. Your mom comes on your show and I heard an extraordinary moment where it appeared to me you were learning for the first time on the podcast that she had been married to another man before your dad. Like, I think I

learned it while you were learning it. Is that, am I crazy or did that happen? You can't believe what we learned about our mother still to this very day. The matriarchal family around here, women run the show. So we don't ask a lot of questions. And definitely when they go to talk in their business, we leave. So there's a lot of stuff we don't ask a lot of questions. And definitely when they go to talk in their business, we leave. So there's a lot of stuff we don't know other than the fact she's my mother. She loves me. I think she might have went

a little more. There might have been some grumblings that we were privy to, but mom has a tendency. You know, she was raised on dirt roads. So she says what she wants to say no matter what. Country girl.

So we started doing our homework about the young man. She was previously married okay so it was a hockey player that's what really pretty tough that happened that happened now she's talking about when she uh goes to deliver the two of you in the hospital and that's the this is you know back in the 70s back in a different era but she finds out while she's about to deliver you the doctor says i think there's two she grabs the guy she says she says two what yeah back in the 1900s yeah back in the 1900s 70 that was a disco era so uh i was a surprise i came out right exactly yeah he was a surprise

and they thought i was going to be a a girl is that right totally flipped yeah yeah flip the script on him um and that you've been spending the rest of your life trying to make up for that, becoming an ABC. Your mom said something interesting. She said in your family and her family, we knew how to raise warriors, good men, good Americans, good people. So how like you when you looking back on your own childhood, how did she do that? Never coddled, but loved us, loved us very much. She was very, always very proud of us, but,

but, but never, there was never an opportunity to be lazy. There was never an opportunity to feel sorry for ourselves. And she, she made sure that she would teach us to do stuff for ourselves. I just, she's like,

Hey, look, it's a way to a lady's heart. You learn how to dance, cook for, you know, all kinds of stuff like that. We grew up on a horse ranch.

So she's, she, she works the ponies the ponies, thoroughbreds and quarter horses. So she raised us like that. And she's like, I know they're tough. And it was tough out there. My father, he was just, you know, he's firm hand. So mom kind of did all the raising and keeping us in check. And we hope the guy never elevated to our father. He was a little bit abrasive at times.

She knew that. But if it was 20 degrees outside and snowing, we had to get up every morning and feed and water them horses. During the summers when we weren't going to school, we had to get up before the sun came up and do the same thing and then paint the barn. But I see we were always painting something, throwing hay. Just wasn't a lot of tolerance for whiners.

No, no, no, no. No opportunity for that. You could go whine, but you had to go out and do it. Whine while you're doing it. You want to make a man out of your son? You can have him throw hay in the summer in Texas. I'm sure that's true. So you meet a guy down the road when you guys are 14,

who I think it's fair to say would have a major influence on your future military career. And you're jumping into Bud's training as potential SEALs. What was the name of this guy? Because as I hear you talk about him, I read about him. This guy sounds a little crazy in a good way. Billy Soupbone Shelton. And tell us about Billy Soupbone Shelton, what he did to you.

He had an understanding, especially back in them days, of what it took to be physically and more importantly, mentally ready. He was around before us. We knew who he was when we were young. We just kind of stayed away from him. He's scary. He's about 5'3", but had an attitude and a will of him

as a giant. Even when he'd come in the field house, the football players would take off running. You could hear him. When he screamed, he'd come in the field house that all football players just take off running because you hear him when he's screaming he's gonna be yelling at you man just the first time we ever went into the gym i'll never get this when i walk in he called it dime time i was the littlest one he's like everybody look here comes dime time because i could only have 10 pound weights that's all i could lift dime time you time. You remember that? Yeah. And then we would do the workout, and he'd sit there and cuss, and this man, and he had laid me down.

I was on this bench, and I had one of the curl bars. I was trying to do this exercise. And the problem was he would get down there ahead of us and do it. And he would yell. He's like, I'm 55 years old. I sit down here, and he just boom. And then I remember laying down there, and he picked the bar up and handed it to me and I, it was too heavy.

So it fell on me and I was just kind of laying there. He put two other benches on either side of it. So I couldn't drop the weight. He walks around, he's training. Everybody comes over and he stopped. I mean, I'm looking, he stands over the top of me. He looks at me. He's like, man, what, what are you doing?

I was like, I can't lift the suit, man. Too weak. And he looks down. He's like, man, well, I hope you effing die. And walked off and left me there. And walked off and left me there. Walked off and left me there. Then he would throw me out of the gym, and I'd be out there waiting on everybody to get out. I mean, this would go on for months before I could even get the strength to finish the workout.

He cussed me. I mean, I was the most worthless thing in his eyes. Well, you have to appreciate what he was doing, because while you were in the moment, either in but you have to appreciate why, what he was doing. Cause while you were in the moment, either in the gym or he was training as he was ferocious, but after and before, I was going to get to that. Okay.

Yeah. The minute we'd walk out of there, best father ever loving, just like, Hey, we need to eat. You got to do this. You got any clothes and tell you why.

Yeah. But what he, what he gifted us unbeknownst to all of just even Mark Snyder and the football team and whomever else he trained, was the mental fortitude that he created. That most certainly is what gets you through training. Yeah, because most everything that bucks you off of what you're trying to do is something like that.

People screaming at you, talking, saying something. Taking you out of your comfort zone. Taking you out of your comfort zone. So if you get used to that, coming from something from a man like that, you can handle it saying something. Taking you out of your comfort zone. Taking you out of your comfort zone. So if you can get used to that, coming from something from a man like that, you can handle it from anybody. Billy's soup bones. Yeah.

So he starts whipping you guys into shape and you decide when you become of age that you really are going to do it. You're going to enlist in the Navy SEALs. You both do it. You don't go through exactly the same training class because it's just different things with your health and your schedules.

But you're both doing BUDS training at around the same time, I guess. So no, Marcus, I had a really bad leg injury and Marcus went in, went ahead and went in. It took me two years to get back to where I needed to be. So Marcus had actually graduated and then I came in. Okay. So is that, so, So when you came in later, Morgan, was it Marcus who came to visit you and did one day in your Buds training? No, absolutely not. Negative.

I was a SEAL. I already had my trident. I would not go back into Buds as a team guy. That was me coming to see him. I would go over and mess with him because that was the thing. And I was a medic. I'd doctor him up every day.

But I was in phase when he came he was still in college and he thought that must have been fun for you oh um it was a blessing for both of us because i got i had a broken i'd broken my femur and i was just at a beat death and and uh i had gotten on a buddy pass to come out to see him right and we had come back from we had our whole class ran back from chow and he was standing on the third deck of the building he had goatee and sideburns like i said that's college student college student our class like hey you know shave your side but come on down here we switch uniforms he let out marcus was late and uh his roommate was like hey look man you're gonna be dragging that hard why don't you just get your brother to go for you? And I mean, we didn't even say anything.

He starts taking off the uniform and I started putting it on. Yeah, and they dry shaved me on the way down to the grinder. No way. Oh, yeah. Did you pass? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was the, I don't know the best way to explain it. It's like, imagine being able to do something for a day that you wanted to do all your entire life you mean you just that's what you your dreams of being here and uh you know i just it just happened i don't own a whimsical that wasn't like i was like no go because it's terrible there it's hard you know we've been at it for a while. I'm sure you appreciated the day off. So there you go. Great point, because he never did that for me. Whatever, new guy.

I feel cheated. You're a pretty good student, man. This is like if somebody came to me and said, would you like to be Tina Turner's backup dancer for one day? And I would say, hell yes, I do. Oh, yeah, of course. But a little different. OK, so let me ask you this, because I heard you give a speech, Marcus, and I heard you talking about the number of guys who came into the class with you and the

number of guys who graduated. Can you, can you give us those numbers there about. We started with 168, I think. And then they graduate 10 originals. There's only 10 guys made it through the entire class. How many did you have? Wow. So we started out in doc with 250 and we graduated with 27 originals.als wow it's just it's a testament to how hard it is to become a navy seal and it's and you tell me how much of it is mental versus physical 90 10 maybe 95 5 mental yeah certainly you can always quit you don't quit it's the physical part you can get there if you want it bad enough and it's the it's the physical part. You can get there if you want it bad enough. And it's the,

it's the mental piece that most that that's what gets most people is that mental angle, just the grind that every single second of every single day over and over. It's just so repetitive. And then the mental part, everybody breaks down physically over time. You just do, you just,

so you can't do, you can't do more anymore. Pushups or pull-ups or sit-ups or run. You just, you can't. And that's where, you know, our buddy, David Goggins puts it into perspective. He's like, when, when your body starts to shut down, you're only, you're only into your brain. Yeah. That's why throughout life, you hear mind, body, and spirit. Your body's conditioned.

Your mind is conditioned it to anything gets uncomfortable. Your body will haul butt. It'll haul ass out of there. So fat. And that's a real thing. Don't even know know why those are those sympathetic parasympathetic nervous systems so as it'll wear our body out to where we can't even move well then they'll go to work on our mind they'll start doing stuff like that so then the body gets a break conditions that they usually throw us in the ocean to them to our mother right we just free the death out there and then as we go through this you beat your body up your mind gets stronger beat your mind up your body gets stronger and then when we graduate your your, you beat your body up, your mind gets stronger, beat your mind up, your body gets stronger.

And then when we graduate, your spirit comes in because it's things conditioned to hold it. And it's whoever developed the program. That's where Hell Week comes in. Man, it's just whatever they, however they came up with that is unbelievable. We can back at it now and we go through all that. Someone's like, hey, it was just like, man, I wouldn't do that again if you well little did you know what was actually coming your way we were going to have quite a few more hell weeks uh handed down to you but this is why they put you through it right so you're going to have not just the physical training and the military training

but the the spirit training to to use your term right to to be able to handle real what i was when they can't handle it that's the spirit when they pulled marcus when they first got when he was first rescued uh there was a there was a guy with him that gave him a sap phone and he called the house and i answered i don't know how that happened there's like 300 people at the house but i answered and he's like hey i'm here you want to talk to him and i was like you, of course. No. Tom McCollum, my stories are over. Anyway, so we got into it and he was like, man,

had to go through Hill Week again. I was like, yeah, you did, bro. He's like, I made it. Wow. Just the mere fact that you could joke about it. But I know, having read Marcus's book, you guys use humor to sort of diffuse the seriousness. Y'all taught us that. I mean, y'all give us these, we call it. That's how we get through everything, humor. Yeah. So you, can I ask you about quitting? Because I love the Navy SEAL attitude towards

and I love how it's just, we just don't quit. We just, you don't, you know, it's not part of the Navy SEAL code. And we've been talking about this on the show about how more and more in our country, we seem to be like, not only seeing more quitting, but celebration of quitting. Like, yes, somehow it was strong to quit and we should celebrate the quitting because, you know, we celebrate, quote, mental health. You know, one took care of oneself. And without singling anybody out, I just feel like to me, I object to it because I much rather have my kids have the Marcus and Morgan Latrell mindset of, no, you just don't. It's not an option,

not an available option to you. But what do you guys think? That we believe exactly what you just stated. Well, back to 100%. So what's happening to us? Why are we doing that? I don't understand it. So everybody can be a winner? Yeah. So everybody can be a winner. So. So everybody can be a winner.

So you don't have to face adversity and be a loser. I mean, we learned more in losing than we ever did in winning. That's just part of it. It's when you know, you're making progress. Cause you, if you went into it and you just kept going, you would never know if you, if how hard you train, if it worked out, those, those, when you hit those resistance marks, that's to let you know how far you went in training. When you hit those big walls, that means you're going past it.

So they're there for a reason. So like in our, in our previous community, you win, win, win, win. And when you get your ass handed to you, I mean, there's no quitting. You can't say, Oh, Hey, look, I'm, I'm having a bad day. I'm going back to the house. There's none of that. We all lose together as a team. And then we go back and we figure out why we lost.

And then we make ourselves even better because taking your, getting outside your comfort zone and losing, that's not a, that's not a bad thing. You're only a loser by yourself. Period. Otherwise, if the team went down, then that was a collective. That was just what his way was supposed to be. Whatever.

You can only be a loser by yourself. Yeah. We don't have the opportunity to have the mental, you know i was i started becoming mentally weak hell we gets that out of everybody yeah that's that is that's true you literally cannot be laying down and taking fire and going i've never been in this position before i'm gonna go home that has been you cannot do and we don't we don't that's, that's not something the military community does as a whole. You don't want to see your dad's last name on one of those helmets by that quip bell.

No, no, no, that would never happen. Only way that helmet would have been under that bell is if our head was in it. Well, that's the other thing. I mean, I think it's because I'm looking at you two thinking this is how you build a soldier. This is how you build a SEAL, right? Like what happened in Luttrell family that led to these two extraordinary men? And it goes back always like the military family, the never quit attitude, your mom toughening you up.

But with love, your dad sort of not tolerating any BS. This guy, Billy Soup Bones, who is, you know, adding another level of toughness. And I think we've skipped over an important one, which is love of America. You are a patriotic family and you were taught from an early age to love this country, Marcus. You put it in your book to die for any woman

and fight beside any man without hesitation or hopes of individual achievement. To love this country, your dad taught you, and its people more than you loved yourself. How does he do that? I think a lot of parents out there are saying to themselves, how do I do that right now? You guys are both dads now. How does one teach that? Let them live life. Let them get out there and experience it because there is no living unless you have somebody next to you. There is no reality unless there's somebody next to you to base it off of.

Otherwise you're just living in open space. So that it's, it's a, it's kind of like a step-by-step process. You only got one day down here tomorrow. You don't have any idea if you're going to see it. Yesterday is gone. That's why we say the only easy day is yesterday. You wake up in the morning, see what you can do. The further you travel away from your day, the further you're traveling away of what you're supposed to be doing and the day is too heavy it's like fish get carried by the

water the birds get carried by the air you're actually supposed to get carried by your day you're meeting some resistance you're in the wrong spot and the people in our lives are we're talking like stones and we're blades and they're either they're going to sharpen you polish you or dull you out if your life starts to get dull, look around you. And people who say they don't love this country or they hate this, that's the town or whatever the environment they're living in. I heard something like 50 something percent of all people on either the planet or the country don't leave the town they're raised in. So think about that. So just change your environment and everything will change. There is literally somebody out here waiting on you to meet you to create a

life. And our childhood was created. I mean, we love growing up, man. It was hard, but I mean, it wasn't when, when people talk about, when they hear us talk about how things are hard and say, yeah, it was truly, but it was so worth it because of the time you're having in it. There's a difference between painful and hard and we just had that we were blessed with it and then one thing most certainly is marks now nobody ever believed in us david especially when we were telling we wouldn't be in the teams we were little bitty guys and i mean all the way from i'll be honest i'll be truthful i went i mean i was not good in academics that was not i was

not a smart kid uh Most certainly wasn't an athletic kid. We didn't play college. We didn't play football. Too small. Played tennis. I was in drama. I was in theater. Come on. What's up? Yeah. No, no, no. We were little bitty guys. I don't believe you. Seriously. I played tennis. I have a letter.

I'm a letterman in theater. Drama. What did you star in? Did you have the lead role in any particular number? I played the grandmother. You're the one with the show. I played the grandmother. I played the grandmother in the picnic. One act play.

But anyway, there came a point in time where I got tired. We got tired of people calling us stupid. Got tired of people calling us stupid, got tired of people calling us weak. And there came a point in time where there was absolutely nothing. The more miserable we became in training, and especially when we went into the military, the better off we were.

And it was strictly a mindset. And you asked about how do we raise our children. I try to give my sons, I have two sons, I try to lend them perspective of the things that I've seen and done. I have, of course, have to break it down to a four-year-old, eight-year-old level, but I give them relative experience. Why? Hey, this is why you don't want to quit. This is why it's okay to fail. You fail forward. You know, this is okay. It's okay to have certain things happen to you because we learn from it. We don't run from it. And that not only builds up their physical fortitude, but also their mental fortitude to know, hey, look, you failed your math test. Hey, we'll just come home. Mom, dad will sit here. We

will work harder. Hey, can you ace that? And they ace the next one. Now you understand why it takes work to accomplish something. Nothing's free. Nothing's going to be given to you. And I don't care who you are. If you leave out of, when you get out of high school, when you get out of college, nobody's going to be standing there. Everybody's going to be looking to take you down.

So we, I think we're failing ourselves at the younger levels when they get up out. And as younger adults are like, well, everything's supposed to be given to me. It's not supposed to, that's not supposed to be challenging. Yeah,

it is most certainly. That's right. And then you have to leave it to protect your mental health. Our father, he would tell us, he's like, I'm not your friend. I'm not your friend. I'm your father. And reason being is we still have the same crew we had when we were boys. And we do stupid things with our friends.

Your kids are the one person you can't be friends with. I mean, it talks about that in the Bible. You're not even supposed to like your dad. You got to respect him. He's supposed to keep everything in check. You're loved and beloved by your mom. He would say, you know, my shoes aren't here for you to walk in. You can step in them every now and again if you need to. But other than that, I'm going to give you discipline every day of your life.

And through discipline, you're going to gain respect, respect for yourself and respect for other people. The only time you ever lose your respect is when you lose your discipline. You're the only one that can throw that away. And think about it. Break it down to one person on one person. If you try to consider yourself one person on life, you'll break. Same way with war. If we're standing out on a battlefield, and there's a million people standing in front of me,

and everyone's freaking out. I was like, how are we going to beat this number? I was like, I'm going to beat that dude standing right in front of me. And when I'm done with him, I'm going to go to the next one. You get the guy to the next one. And that's how we worry about it. And as you go through life, you learn from zero to 40, you have an opinion, 40 to 60 is perspective. And then wisdom, hopefully she'll show up later. But when you go through life, you learn from each experience.

Imagine each person that you run into is designed to teach you something about yourself, good, bad, or indifferent. And never look at it as a bad day. It's just either hard or we just keep, and it's training. Imagine all of life is training. The minute you are born, you start dying. You come down here to learn how to live while you're dying. So how are you going to do it? And the coolest part about it is it's only one day. You wake up tired the next day, well, then that's how you came in.

And you just keep going. And then you always respect the ones around you because they're the ones ones that actually give, you know, show you life, otherwise it'd be an empty place. Up next, Operation Red Wings, Afghanistan, June 2005, and the battle that would become the subject of a bestselling book, of a bestselling movie, in which Mark Wahlberg stars as Marcus, and that would change Marcus's and Morgan's life forever. Hearing the one brother talk about what the other brother was going through and vice versa was really extraordinary. And by the way, you should check it out on YouTube because just watching them while the one was speaking was pretty extraordinary. Um, so you

can check that out at youtube.com slash Megan Kelly. But I wanted to read this to you from Marcus's book before we get to it. Okay, just so you, this is who Marcus is. He writes in his book, I'm a U.S. Navy SEAL, team leader, SDV, team one, alpha platoon. Like every other SEAL, I'm trained in weapons demolition and unarmed combat. I'm a sniper and I'm the platoon medic. But most of all, I'm an American. And when the bell sounds, I will come out fighting for my country and for my teammates, if necessary, to the death.

And that's not just because the SEALs trained me to do so. It's because I'm willing to do so. I'm a patriot, and I fight with the lone star of Texas on my right arm and another Texas flag over my heart. For me, defeat is unthinkable. That's next. It's so fascinating for me to listen to you because I have read your book. I have watched your movie. I've listened to so many interviews you've given, speeches you've given. And just, I mean, I know we've spoken before you came on the Kelly file for back in 2014, Marcus, but just hearing you talk like this and it just explains so much, both of you guys about what happened in Operation Red Wings and how you managed to make it through that and how you've managed to find some joy in your life, notwithstanding that awful experience and

what you witnessed in the loss of your friends. And I know, Morgan, your friends died that day, too. It wasn't wasn't just Marcus's friends. But let know Morgan, your friends died that day too. Um, it wasn't, wasn't just Marcus's friends. Um, but let's, let's talk about it for a bit. Operation Red Wing. So folks know, um, who haven't seen the movie or read the book. It was in Afghanistan. It was June, 2005. Um, first, can I ask you, Morgan, you were not part of this, but where, where were you when, when this happened? I was at Yuma, Arizona. He and I, I was, he and I did a high five on the tarmac in Afghanistan. And, um, so I was there, he came in and I left and I was in Yuma, Arizona at, um,

free fall school. Okay. Cause I know that you were both deployed at the same time at one point, but this was not that point. This was after 2006. Okay. I mean, that's what's so crazy. After they hear this story, it's like you went back. Morgan went back. I mean, Marcus went back and then Morgan went back too. I mean, you guys just kept going back. It's crazy.

I mean, it's admirable to somebody like me, a civilian. It's crazy. It's hard to understand how you keep going back and back and back. So the goal of Operation Red Wings, Marcus, was to basically target this one guy, right? Ahmad Shah. And what were you supposed to do with respect to this guy, Shah? The reconnaissance in the beginning, then it was a capture kill, interrogation, follow on mission. Okay.

So you found him pretty easily. You thought you did, right? The four of you. It was four of you. There was. Oh, yeah. They inserted us. It took us over all night into the morning to

track down where they were but we uh we got in there yeah we were on target when the whole thing went down it's you tell us about the you and the three guys you were with uh michael murphy was our officer in charge matt axson he was our point man one of our primary snipers and danny deets was our communicator and then i was the medic rear security that was our but you had many roles right you were medic and you were snipers right just for those of us who are not military people correct yeah so mike murphys is our officer in charge now i was kind of i was rear security but i was also the the lpo of the platoon so that danny danny actually came from a SEAL team and was assigned to us,

but SEALs, we kind of, they intermingle us all the time. And when I stepped into Afghanistan, like I said, my brother had left. And when we got there, that was our reconnaissance platform. So they would send us in ahead of the main body and we'd stay out there for a week, two weeks, whatever it was, just watching everything. And then the main body would come in. I know you wrote your book that no SEAL would ever admit to being scared of anything. Whatever we felt that night that you were there, it was not the fear of the enemy.

Although I recognize it might've been fear of the unknown because we were really unsure about what we would encounter in the way of terrain. You had terrain and you had weather worries as well. Just set the scene for us. That's always the thing with us. When the weather gets bad, the more inclement the weather, the better for us. That's when we're kind of going in. This area we had been in, we had to fast rope in out of the helicopter. And it started raining on us halfway through it. And we were up in the snow caps now.

And it would go from what you think Afghanistan would look like to that shell rock and all that nastiness to look like farmland and beautiful trees, and then you'd be on the side of a mountain, and then you'd come around and go down into a valley and you'd come back up, and it just kept opening up and dropping down. It was pretty surreal. I remember we all stopped for a little bit to kind of catch our breath and we were looking around, and you never see anything like that out there there it's just you could see every star and and it's just it's just different and it's tough

it took us eight and a half hours to go four kilometers four miles you know i mean brutal but nevertheless we got in set up shop and started watching the target that morning and then a couple hours later is when we got overrun so the the first sign of trouble was really you run into some goat herders. Yeah, shepherds were up there walking the herd. And they kind of walked into our perimeter. A boy, actually, in the beginning. And then two adult males. And the question you were faced with was what?

What to do with them. What we need to do with them. And we were on target. They didn't have any firearms or anything like that, but they, you could tell when people don't, you understand what you're dealing with. When you see, it's just like here, when you walk into a different neighborhood or into the store, you know, if there's somebody standing next to you, you can be get along with,

or they, if they hate you just by the way things are going. And, uh, we did our, did our thing. And ultimately we, we, we turned them loose. And about an hour later is when we got hit. And it was a real decision because you didn't, you suspected they would just run back down and tell Shah and his guys and the Taliban that there's these, you know, these SEALs are up there. It's pretty self-explanatory. It did. It did happen. It happened just the way we thought it would. And it's happened to a couple of other units in the past. When we study our military, our history and some of the op wards, that's been

the case a few times. So we referenced those when we were going through that. And ultimately, we turned them loose. Because the rules of engagement say you're not supposed to kill civilians. God says that too. We just don't do that. I mean, that's the way it is. We're not murderers, rapists, revenge and robbery. We don't mess around with that stuff. I mean, we're trained professionals. You spend a lot of money, a lot of time honing our skill set and we do it to the best of our ability, for sure. You say in your book that Murphy, Lieutenant Murphy, put it up for a vote and that you voted to let them go and said, you said it was the stupidest, most Southern fried, lame brain

decision I ever made in my life. I must have been out of my mind and that you immediately regretted doing it and thinks that you will regret it for the rest of your life. So I mean, I understand what happened after you let them go. But given what you just said about the rules of life, the rules of God, the rules of engagement, how do you square those two? Irony, you don't. That's life. I tried to square that. I'd be thinking about it all time and it'd drive me crazy. I said it out loud. When it happened, then you're like, oh, okay. Then you just start dealing with it. If it's a problem and you can handle it, then it's not a

problem. If it's a problem and you can't handle it, it's not your problem. And everything is good both ways. And then there are times when you will get in situations like this and get tested. And that's just kind of the, well, it was our time. That was our past. Knowing that they did go give you guys up, so we think, and Taliban came back and found you, do you feel like it was the wrong decision? Well, it's splitting hairs, Miss Megan. I know, it's a tough one one why did you ask me that because i'm wrestling with it too so that was no i get your point that's clever wow that was a good question that was good did you hear that of course i did

i'm hanging on every word yeah i don't i don't honestly i i'm not trying to put myself in my brother's shoes or anything else, but you know, but he wasn't a father back then, you know, as a child. I don't think anybody has the ability or the right to armchair quarterback. And, and this was one of the most inevitable questions that I always be asked to my brother was like, Hey, look, you know, y'all did this. You said this in your book. How do you think now? And I think just time changes perspective, but I, you know,

if I was ever in that situation and like five years from now, if I, if I was in a situation on the mountainside, knowing what happened to my brother and I was placed, I was put in that same spot, what would I do? No idea because I'm not in that spot right now. Yeah. It's tough to go back with, with the knowledge of what happened and try to second guess the decision. We cannot what if it. Yeah.

You raise an interesting point in the book about the media and their influence. I mean, it's weird to think of like the mainstream media at all in your head in that moment. But they played a little bit of a role, like the, the shaming that they'd done of soldiers, the worry and sort of the heads of some of the seals about what could happen if they made a wrong move. Can you talk about that? It shouldn't be that hard for y'all to think about it because that's, y'all are our voice. Y'all are the ones that are supposed to relay the information from one to our people so they get, so they can have an understanding of what's going on. And when you shift that in a certain way,

always pushing the narrative in a certain way, when you're not even out there in the field with us, then yeah, we have to think about it. It doesn't bother us or whatever. No, we just have to deal with it. We have to contend with it. It's not something we think about all the time. It's just like with everything else.

Y'all are playing that role, the antagonist, making everybody mad about what we're doing. So how do we deal with that? We have to shift. When in reality, we're over there just to fight a war. But since it shifted like that, we had to contend with, with everything.

It's kind of like what's happening to cops right now. Yeah, sure. Everyone's had their, just looking back over the years now, everyone's having their deal. It's turned into a political narrative. Yeah.

Right. You shouldn't have had to be dealing with that. I know you said if you don't think these Taliban knew, you know, certain behavior to wind them up on the cover of some, you know, liberal media magazine or newspaper in a way that would make the troops look bad. You know, they were aware of it, too. It just raised interesting questions for me about the media covering whether it's cops or soldiers and and a higher responsibility to be careful? Oh, certainly. I think you're going to be covered in police officers

and however you're reporting on it, put a badge on for a little while. Yeah, you got to run with them. If you're going to be reporting from what they're doing, you got to be- No, I mean, literally, put a badge. Don't go in there as a reporter. Put a badge on

and walk a mile in our shoes, or their shoes, and see how challenging it is. Or before you can report on it, you actually had to do that job for a few years. The press is not a courageous group as a rule. That would never happen. That's funny because every time I turn the television on, man, y'all act like y'all the baddest things walking around.

All y'all do is make fun of people, pick on people and stir up fights. Well, sadly, that's true. Although I am. Let me note my objection to the term y'all do is make fun of people, pick on people and stir up fights. Well, sadly, that's true. Although I am. Let me note my objection to the term y'all in this context. So let's talk about it. I don't want to get too deep into it. I don't mean I don't want to make you relive this whole thing, Marcus. I just I just want the audience to understand, you know, sort of what went through.

I don't have to relive it. I lived it. It's good. It's always with me. I'm fine. Come on with it. All right. OK, well, you got a little hard. I got whipped. Yeah. But over time, I lived it. It's good. It's always with me. I'm fine. Miss Megan, come on with it. All right. Okay. Well, you tell me.

Battle hardened. I got whipped. Yeah. But over time I healed up. And the biggest thing that ultimately would happen to me was I got my confidence whipped out of me. They whipped me until I was naked and killed everything around me. And as I grew, I came back, got around my friends, I slowly got it back. And so I learned from that and it made me stronger, not weaker. So you can ask me anything you want. Well, so can you describe it? Let's talk about Murph. Let's talk about Danny. Let's talk about Axe. Cause you guys were out there thick as thieves, just brothers, brothers in arms, like family, right? Just like family. And how long did the gun battle last? Like from the moment that you let those goat herders go to, like you say, an hour later, the bad guys showed up.

It was from the initial shot to around it to the lulls and the fires over three hours. The entire time I was out there was about five, six days. I was missing, I had me in this hole for about three days. Because it started in the morning. And then I thought about this in a while. It, as they so systematically picked us apart, I was unconscious for a long time. And then when I came to,

I was upside down and I crawled into this crevice and buried myself till the sun went down. And then I just started crawling. And then that lasted all day into the next night. You were outnumbered. What, how many, how many bad guys were there? So Intel reported anywhere from 80 to 200 before we went into the field. My best guesstimation above me was initial was a dozen above our head and then a dozen or so running down each side.

You could see them filling in. And then about halfway through the gunfight, reinforcements came up from the village we were watching. They figured out what you know right away you know right away this is not one you know we're going to need to get out of here or to get air support asap no we we realized that immediately and we were trying the whole time problem was we were in that in that valley in that canyon so it was in a gunfight so the only thing in a gunfight is gun or fire excuse me bullets back down range and then you deal with everything and um there was just never a lull to where we could get that and we tried to make gone we wouldn't go out perfect storm kind of thing what it was yeah you couldn't get your comms up and so you couldn't couldn't get the backup you need it

not even till the next day the the hard part was as i was crawling through the night i would i would ping my my emergency radio i didn't know this until years later but they were actually y'all the military was actually seeing that but by the time they got there i'd already crawled off because they'd i'd been walked on and they almost found me so i just kept going i gotta save myself a lot of pain if i stayed in one spot, but I didn't. I just kept moving. Right. Well, the account of the heroics of the guys who you were with and of yourself are heart-rending. I mean, you write about Lieutenant Michael Murphy or Murph, as you say, command control, and you say, if they built a memorial to him as high as the Empire State Building, it would never be high enough for me. This guy was shot up.

He knew the risk. He understood what was going to happen to him if he put himself out from undercover. But he had to do it to try to get that phone call, right? To try to get that phone call to get the backup. Can you talk about that moment, Marcus? The best way to put it into perspective, when y'all get to see war, you watch it on TV. And even when you're watching war on TV, you get excited. And when we win, you get excited. It's like you're watching any other thing on television. And especially when you know them and you can relate to them. And there's levels of when men start killing each

other. The more intense it gets, the more violent it gets and uh there was a point in time when things start when everything starts shedding off you're like how are we getting to this point to this point to this point and through every military engagement when you when you hear about it like how did you guys live through that i don't know i don't know how we got through that it's like your body takes it just over that muscle memory and that's kind of the way we're trained it's just that muscle memory move And that's kind of the way we're trained. It's just that muscle memory. Move, shoot, communicate, keep going, keep going. And then you see something like that, knowing when we get separated.

And sitting here today, that's the whole reason I got out of there. It's because he did that. The whole reason all of us got out of there. Y'all wouldn't have known about it. I'm so thankful that he did that. I make sure I get out and live my life the best I can every day with a smile on my face, not to begrudge the fact that that went down like that. Cause that's what we were there for. We talked about that.

You understand that it's like with anything else in your profession, when you go in to do it, you're going to do it. Well, don't, don't be mad or be upset at the fact that we did that. The loss is one thing. Yeah. So all y'all know that when we go into that. And to, to, to even come off of that kind of motivation an inch with me, what would tear me down? So on mine, it's always the best, the positive, the, the, what, what we were there for never. It's like, Oh, I can't, I can't do it.

There's no, there's no way he didn't know what was going to happen to him. If he, if he got, went out if he went out into the open like that to make that call. He was shot up anyways before he went out there. Yeah. I mean, not to get too graphic, they didn't put all that in the movie, how bad it really was. We let that out for the families. But, you know, that's all I have to say about that, I guess. Well, I know you described it as an act of Supreme valor. He,

he did that for all of you and to try to save your lives and, and his life. And, but he knew what was going to happen. And ultimately might do something so magnificent. You're like, well, like jaw dropping in the middle of a moment, like in the middle of all that, you see some stuff go down. You're like, wow, that was awesome. I hope I remember that. Is that right? Did you, did you have that feeling in the middle of a moment, like in the middle of all that, you see some stuff go down. You're like, wow, that was awesome. I hope I remember that. Is that right? Did you,

did you have that feeling in the moment? There's those elevation moments. Okay. You know, when they have, they, I mean, ask anybody when they're out there,

you fight long enough. You have, I guess it's the mind's way of breaking that. So you don't break. Uh, you know, I can't say that I was trained for it or anything like that. I would just pick it up. And a lot of the guys see that. What's crazy about it is when you read

the story, it seems like each one of you guys had one of these moments. I mean, I don't know these guys. I didn't know them, but I read about Danny Dietz and you talk about how he'd been providing the covering fire all afternoon. He was desperately wounded. He kept firing no matter what happened, no matter how many bullets they fired into him. He just never stopped firing and trying to protect you guys until he was dead. I think he was so upset they shot his thumb off his hand.

He was a comm guy. He had a radio in his hand. I mean, that was the first injury I had treated out there. He was the first one. I remember he came up and the fight had been on for a little while. I didn't know he was shot. He's just mad. You know, you gotta have that look on his face. I was like, what's up, bro? He put his hand up and I was like, whoa, I'm sorry. I don't mean to laugh.

It's like a, I was like, how'd that happen? You know, in the middle of a gunfight, I know how it happened, but I mean, you know, you ask for the little detail things. You're like, man, I was just sitting there. And that in that moment, there's a little, I was like, well, you know, all right here. And then we, we, we kept moving and then obviously that guy, I forgot about that. I mean, you talk about how he died in your arms, your heart broke. Yeah. And you left him with God that I mean, you talk about how he died in your arms. Your heart broke. Yeah.

And you left him with God. I can't imagine because I know in the book and the movie make clear no matter who died, no matter who stopped fighting because of the bullets, you kept trying to go back to get them. Like, that's one of the things that stood out to me. You kept trying to go back to get them, even when you, you, you must've known there was no hope. Always hope always. And it's more of a thing. I'm trying to get back with them because it's like a safety blanket. Uh, you're looking at it from the wrong lens. You need to look at it from as I get the back together. We're stronger. It's not like I'm trying to get them out there too. That, that, that, that obviously happened, but there there's a, it's, it's hard to explain. You got anything on that, bro? I mean, it's kind of like a, Hey, no, I wasn't there and I would never try to, no, I didn't mean it like

that. Thanks for the backup. To me, it speaks to not only the bond between the seals, but like you guys tell me as twin brothers who love each other so deeply, how does that, how does the bond compare right? When you go out there and you're fighting next to these guys well how does that bond compare to the one you share as actual family brothers exactly the same that words don't even do it justice you understand i mean what they put us through and what we come out on the other side is completely different than anything else walking around here that's why we always call ourselves brothers yeah man that's a that's just a word we have to use so y'all will know but it's i don't think there's a. I mean, that's a, that's just a word we have to use. So y'all will know, but it's, I don't think there's a,

I don't think there's a word that you could articulate. Am I going into hell for all the time? Well, and you and you Morgan during all of this, so you, you find out that this has gone down. There's been some sort of a fight and that they can't find Marcus. I,

I would be remiss not to mention. I was literally freaking out the whole time. He was going to do something dumb. You want to know what happened? It worked up was that my brother, I was, I remember when they, when the village found me too, I was like, Hey bro, I am right here. Right. Because your family didn't know that you, you were alive. Axe was also killed who I understand was your, one of your best friends,

you too, Morgan, Morgan's best friend. And so you were obviously the lone survivor, hence the name of the movie in the book and so on. You wound up getting found by a villager. He helped give you shelter. You got word back to the military base. And amazingly, they came back and got you. I, of course, a helicopter had gone down in an attempt to rescue you as well. And, uh, SEAL team six, eight SEALs, eight army special ops were killed as well. One of the many tragedies about this story, but while it's all going down and while Marcus is missing, what are you being told Morgan, Morgan, you, you were already back at the ranch in Texas. I was, I was, uh, I, so when the 20 on the, on the actual, on the 28th,

I was still at free fall school and we were two days out of graduation, I think two days from graduation. And I had not been reached out to from the command, David Goggins, who was at, who was with me at, at, at jump school. He came in, he came in, he's like, Hey, there's, there's something happening in Afghanistan. Have you heard anything? I was like, no, I haven't. And then the next day he comes in, he's like, Hey, there's a, there's a helicopter that went down and there's seals that were killed. How have you heard anything about your brother? I was like, that's exactly what I said to him. I was like, and I don't feel anything. So he's fine. And we graduated shortly thereafter.

And I, and I got in, in my rental car and I was headed back to San Diego to get on a flight to go back to Hawaii. There's no cell phone service out in, out in Yuma. And when I got into range where my phone just started voicemail after voicemail,

and then the first one was a buddy of ours. And, uh, he's like, hang up and call me what he said so i did and he went into the story of hey this is what's going down i was like what about bro and he's like well he's mia presumed kia and that's two a two hour plus drive from yuma to san diego that's a pretty long drive by myself i can't believe i get pulled over i do about 110 and so when i got to the command they they had everybody was

there i mean everybody knew everything it was much as they could know at this particular time so they rounded me up and i called the house and when my father answered the phone he's like am i well i'll be expecting uh someone to show up on the doorstep with in a uniform and i was like if anybody shows up dad will be me and unfortunately i had to show up that night we got there about two three o'clock in the morning if i remember correctly and from there it was what what was the news at that point that kia or mia but did they did they know that that danny and and no that particular point they only knew about the helicopter they didn't know we were on the ground. Yeah, that was the problem. The only one I knew about was the helicopter.

And the only individuals that knew about the boots on the ground were, of course, myself and all my teammates that ended up coming out there with me at the ranch and in the community, but not the civilian population per se. And then that started to trickle out. Well, so for how many days were you at the ranch with your mom and with your neighbors waiting for word? So the 29th, and we got the word on July 3rd, if I remember correctly. And we had had a secured line brought out to the house

the day that we showed up. So we could get reports from hire or updates. And it was twice a day. It was a rollercoaster ride because night into night, and as the days went on, more and more. And then they found Mikey, and they found Danny. And I had people coming in telling me, hey, look, you know, by myself, they're like, hey, look, the word's out. Your brother didn't make it. And the whole time I was like, look, my brother's out there.

You better send somebody to find him or I'm going to go myself. Because I was always trying to get back over there. I was like, I know I can find my brother. I know exactly where he'll be. I know what he'll be doing. Of course, that didn't work out. Now you got to stay here with your family. I was like, okay. So, um, at any given time, there was anywhere from 60 to 300 people at our ranch. And those phone calls were just

devastating and they were good and bad, right? No, no news is good news is something they kept saying. And then if I'm fairly certain, it was the morning call and a mass chief, mass chief Gothrow was out there and he's the one that would answer the phone. And by this time there's anywhere, there's about 40 seals out there and we would all pile into my father's bedroom, which was little bitty and shoulder to shoulder and mass chiefs on the phone.

He's like, yes, sir. Roger that. Understood. Roger that. Yes, sir.

And he dropped his head and I mean, we lost right we was like oh my god you know the worst case scenario i'm sitting there staring at him everybody was crying around i was in there staring at him and he he he gives us a thumbs up oh my god and oh yeah what a son of a bitch i I know, right? I do my mom, I pass count and everything. So everybody in the room is crying. Which this guy's great though, by the way. Oh yeah, no, no. He's awesome.

Yeah, he's large. Yeah, he's he's just anyhow, my parents came walking in and then some of my best friends

came walking in. They saw everybody else crying. Mom loses it. Dad loses it. They're like, no, no, no. They found him. He's rescued.

So, I mean, I don't remember who it was. Walked out to the crowd and said they found him. And I mean, it sounded like the Super Bowl. I hear it from Afghanistan. But the problem with that was all my friends and family were celebrating the fact that we found my brother. But all the SEALs that were out there and there were some Marines and Army and everybody just started to come out and spend time with us. We were still very stoic because we're down, we're down men, you know? And so we kind of, we huddled up and everybody was celebrating that

they found Marcus, but the rest of us were, you know, Hey, look, we're, we're still down. So we're, we're, we're praying and we're doing what we need to do to stay on, stay on target, if you will. And then it was a few days later that they, obviously they found an ax. I don't remember exactly how many. And that was weeks later. I thought it was, it was, well, if it was, it was a, it was a stretch and that was really hard because we just, you know, we were still trying to get the reports up, down, up, down. Until the last man was out. But it was good to know.

We had to go back in there and get him. It was good to know that my brother had been rescued. Can you tell me, Morgan, I read in Marcus's book that you guys sang God Bless America. Oh, yeah. So the pastors were coming out i mean there was so we had a chaplain that that stayed with us from day one i had a chaplain that that flew with me out to um out to the ranch vaughn right amongst us some other folks made it 10 acres with a push anyway there's my There's mom for you right there. So we're very spiritual. Yeah, we're very spiritual, patriotic family.

And my mother was very good about keeping us front site focused on other things besides what was going on. And yeah, so there was prayers. There was singing. There was a lot going on. Matter of fact, a funny story. I don't know if this has been out. Maybe day three, my mom's first thing son's coming up. she's barking orders at all the team guys and everyone else that's around is sleeping in the yard, sleeping in their trucks. Y'all boys get up. We got to, you know,

we got to, we got to mend these fences. We got to cut that. We're out here. We'll put you to work. And she was kind of getting a little aggressive with everybody. And I'm standing on the porch with four or five of my teammates beside me. And I said, mama, why don't you calm down a little bit? And she slapped me in the face in front of everybody. Yeah. She's like, I'm your mother. Don't you ever talk to me like that?

And I was like, yes, ma'am. It looks on him. So much as faith stand next to me. I tell you what, 32 years old. Oh no,

no. I was 29 years old. I was 29 years old. Combat veteran. And she slapped me in front of everybody. Don't you ever talk to me like that? I was like, yes, ma'am. I apologize. And I slapped me in front of everybody. Oh, mom, jerk her not in her ass so fast. She looked over and talked to me like that. I was like, yes, ma'am. I apologize.

And I tell you what, everybody went to work. Yeah, yeah. But that was her way. She was the rock out there. She never cried except for when she walked in with that phone call. But she was very, yeah, very stern, very stoic, very, yeah, yeah, a matriarch. She kept her mind busy by putting all the, her other sons to work, if you will. That's how she looked at everybody. And that

boy, they abided by that. I have to tell you, I love that because this is from your book. It really got me. And you say, immediately, this is after they gave him the good news, immediately they raised the flag and the stars and stripes fluttered in the hot breeze. And then the SEALs linked arms with my family and my friends. Oh, I'm getting emotional. And my neighbors, people who they might never see again, but to whom they were now irrevocably joined for all the days of their lives. I was alive.

I guess that's all it took. And all these amazing guys with hearts as wide as the Texas prairies burst suddenly into song. God bless America, man, that I love. I just it's such a moment. I don't know, Marcus, when you heard about that. So they they wrote me letters. They would write me letters. And I got when I was in the hospital, I got to read them. When he was talking about then you could hear them screaming from afghanistan people sleeping in horse trailers like two of our buddies all they did was work the barbecue pit slept in and uh gavin yeah the tallest brother jason told us i just slept in those old school lawn chairs right hot isn't it hot it's june in texas june july yeah june july into yeah into when he came they

did not leave i was away for a while i was in the hospital so uh i didn't get home for a while yeah so so can we get to that because that that's actually something that's really amazing about your story too you we i we got to talk about this because this is like i'm picking the things that really made me like feel something something other than total despair um and it was first of all you come off you get off at Bagram, you get back to Bagram and you see the nurse. The nurse gets a look at you who had seen you before you went off. And she takes one look at you and just describe the condition you were in and what the nurse did. I guess I was, there was this one lady, when they transferred me from the Hilo to this, to a C-130 fixed-wing aircraft on on a different base i think

it was jbad they laid me it was just an open plane there was a gurney laid down on the ground and and i i was like sweet my own plane first class and i remember laying down and um this doctor an angel straight from heaven she leaned over top and thought of me. She's like, baby, are you in pain? And then my first reaction was like, no, ma'am, I'm strong. And I was like a little bit. And she juiced me up. I'd never touched anything before. I'd never messed around with drugs.

And I was like, she's my new favorite person. And she started just talking to me. I hadn't heard English. I was like, man. And she's like, I'm here to take your pain away. I was like, oh. There was this other guy. He was great. I didn't even get his name.

All I remember is I still had his hat too. It had an American flag on it and he took it off his head and put it on mine. He was like, you earned that. I was like, thank you. They went to cut my clothes off of me. The only thing that really made it was this. this is a random story but i had these underarm tri shorts on and that was a big deal when we got issued those

and they cut those off of me and i and this happened to another buddy of mine as well so when i started when the plane landed the ramp dropped like how do you want to leave out of you wants to gurney out here i was like no man just help me just pick me up let me kind of help what said ivy bags on my neck i remember that and they were kind of strutting me down and i looked kind of off the corner and there was this i remember this one lady she she started she just covered her face and walked away i guess i looked worse than i thought i thought i looked pretty good but uh um man they've broken a lot of bones. Broke your back. Yes, ma'am. Been shot. They took care of me. Yeah, man. They put me back together.

So good. Oh, yeah. I got a cheeseburger from Burger King. We were driving back and they're like, you want anything? I was like, man, I love a cheeseburger. And I got one bite out of that and I got sick. I remember because I hadn't eaten anything in forever. And it was just, I was so sick on the inside.

I caught all this stuff. I was laying on the ground bleeding and bacteria got inside of me. Oh my gosh. I mean, amazingly, for whatever reason, you made it out of there. You weren't shot to death in that gun battle. And you did get the help of this Afghan guy named Mohammed Gulab Khan, who helped you and gave you a place to stay and took care of you for a few days. Well, until our guys could come get you, he got a note to them and they came back to get you. I don't know, Marcus, I'm sure you've given some thought to this, but do you ever, do you ever think like, why, why, why did I live? Like, why me? What does it mean? What am I meant

to do now? Absolutely. I mean, you go through those. Okay. You should ask yourself that question. I was like, why? And then I started looking and I just started doing the best I could. Earning the right I have to be alive was granted to me by y'all. Y'all came and got me. And I remember that. I kind of go borrow time thing, but with, with incentive, every time we would go out and y'all and we would get busted up no matter how hard we broke our body both of them helicopter crashes helicopters crash around me i fall down mountains you know he drowns whatever but every time y'all bring us back to life and put us back together we go back out happier and stronger uh with those memories and to remind

us of how how where we come from y'all never gave up on me, on us. Y'all never did. Never gave up. Ever. And it just, every single day, it just gets stronger and stronger, that appetite we have for going out and doing more. It really does. Your brother did it too. I mean, you were in a helicopter that went down, right, Morgan?

That was back stateside on a training mission, as I understand understand it and you you also typical twin i was in the hospital i mean so crazy i hear these stories i'm like your poor mom yes exactly same thing it's funny because that i broke i broke the exact same vertebrae he did oh come on yeah oh yeah t9 10 11 12 l3 and 4 i sat up in bed tonight i was like what and they were like hey you gotta get up brothers in the helicopter yeah oh yeah absolutely so that is that true for you guys like you can feel when something's going on with the other one oh yeah that's been a thing for us for a long time um wow they were like hey you gotta get up here and i co i finally made it up there i could could have run down. He was in that. They put him in the MRI tube.

So I walked down there to be with him. But he couldn't get the tube because he had the hiccups. They had given him pain meds. They gave him hiccups. I'm allergic to opioids. Thank God. It broke his pelvis. So they gave him hiccups for that.

And then they couldn't get into the MRI tube. So we're both sitting in the lobby in the basement of this hospital. Excuse me. Just that was a pretty somber moment, I think. We had a blast, though. Couldn't get into the MRI tube. So we're both sitting in the lobby in the basement of this hospital. Excuse me. Just. That was pretty somber moment. I think we had a blast, though. I bet you kept reading. And I understand it now talking to you guys, how much you love being seals and how much you love serving the country. This is like what you were born to do.

But it's it's to the outside person. Just amazing. And I it leads me to tell me, Marcus, is this a seal credo um it's in your book the seal philosophy i will never quit the sort of the paragraph and i will never quit is that does every seal take like an oath to that extent yeah that motto do you know that can you like do you know it by heart one of them deals where that the the guys who we actually know the guys who wrote that and the the powers that be they kind of had like a round table and they brought one i think the one rank right one rank

one person from each rank and then some master chiefs and some officers and they all sat down and wrote that and um it sums it up our life i thrive on adversity when knocked down i'll get back up every time you know i've never never had a country expects me to be mentally tougher and harder than everybody else and my enemy. I thrive on adversity. I mean, so many parts of that, when it comes into it, you just like at any given time, it reminds you. It's also a reminder of what y'all gave to us. You'd said that you see how much fun we have and just the, the joy we have in being Navy SEALs and serving the country. It is, I mean, boil it down to if this is one big high school or one big house, y'all let us go do that.

We get to have that kind of travel the world and see everything. That's why it's so hard to get in. And that's why we die. But the life y'all grant us is something. I mean, it was, thank you. I to say, you know what? It's amazing that you say that you spoke at the Republican National Convention in 16. And I listened and I was like, listen to what he's saying. This American hero, you said America will always be worth fighting for. And it was my greatest honor to fight for her every day of my adult life. I wanted to come up here and thank each and every one of

you from the bottom of my heart for allowing me to serve you for 20 years. You went on to say you were going to spend the rest of your life trying to make it up to him. Like I, I, that mindset of service of gratitude of love of country, Marcus, it's the reason everybody loves you and you too, Morgan. It's that is inspirational. That's the kind of thing we want our kids to wake up thinking every day that you're thanking us. What are you thanking us for?

We're the ones who need to thank you. We're the ones who have nothing but gratitude and love for you. How much fun we have. And it's hell. I mean, it's hell getting this respect from y'all. Imagine that. The most respected nation, the strongest, most powerful thing to ever. fun we have and it's hell i mean it's hell getting this respect from y'all imagine that if y'all the most the most respected nation the most the strongest most powerful thing to ever be down

here i mean take away the countries we're all earthlings you know what i mean everybody fighting and going back and forth with this but then this place exists to give us a life like this and every day we get into it it just keeps getting better and better and you know i think brother has a perspective that most, and I wouldn't wish what happened to him on anybody, but maybe the perspective that he had all that taken away from it. I mean, I mean, hell alone. And just when, yeah, you have, you don't have anything, nothing, zero.

And everyone around you is trying to kill you. And your country comes back and get you. Those are those Rangers that came out and saved him and brought him back you know and then everybody was so welcoming when he got home hell yeah he's gonna say what he says i mean we all should i don't even go out of the house very much because people try to do something for me like i i love my brother step into the breach now this is is the best part. Now that we're twins, we're gonna have fun with this. Don't leave me now. We got more coming up in 60 seconds.

You got your brother. You got your mom. You got your wife. Can we spend a minute on Melanie? How lucky are you? Pretty lucky. Oh, I'm extremely, extremely lucky. She's just having a bad day or something when i come stumbling in there i actually tell people because my brother met his wife at our wedding he married her best friend yeah oh oh no way i didn't realize that oh yeah they live right leslie leslie yeah they're

best friends and um i tell people like hey we're not the seals they are like my brother and i had to go through every ounce of pain and everything we had to go through just to earn the right to stand next to them. Because however special they are, and they are, they had to have one of us. And that's how I always look at it. They are very, very tolerant women. I told her that last time. Tolerant. Thank you so much for understanding.

Can I tell you? So I've spoken with Melanie a Oh, I told her that last time. Tolerant. Thank you so much for understanding. Can I tell you? So I've spoken with Melanie a bit. I know her a bit and I'm in awe. The kind of woman who is strong enough and sensitive enough and smart enough to protect and be a partner to a man like Marcus Luttrell is the kind of woman I aspire to be. It's no accident you found each other. That's how I feel talking to both of you. Do you feel that way?

Yeah, we met on a blind date. I asked her to marry me that night. I knew she was the one. Come on. Yep. We were zero to 40, no wife, no kids. We were married to y'all, to that life. And we had a lot of fun.

Y'all was settling down with one. But when I saw her, I knew something shifted in me. And I tell people this too you young bucks pay attention when you meet a woman for a first time she's gonna drag one or two guys out of you you're either gonna want to go out and show off and show your buddies like look at this are you gonna want to go home and watch the notebook and and just be the room if both both of those emotions show up when you meet her then that's the one and i was like she's my complete opposite she and she can control those vibes and i i'm not even the alpha my brother's the

alpha you talk about a saint my brother's wife and there's a reason why those two grew up together apparently because they had to deal with us yeah little did they know what the future held yeah it was that's a lot it's a i've heard it's a lot we were we were i was in the ready i was deployed and a buddy of mine one of my teammates who has proximity to the family we were jocking up walking out and he was like hey man i heard your brother got married i'll never forget this i said what neither will melanie what he's like yeah i heard your brother got married congratulations i ran fully jocked up ready to roll roll. I was like, everybody hold on. I ran across.

Stop the op. We hadn't left yet. I ran across base to grab the sap phone and called him. And most certainly, I was on scene. He was on receipt. It was a one-way conversation. And I was like, the only words I want to hear out of your mouth are yes or no. And he's like, no.

And I was like, and I hung up. I was at the, I was at the. What was the truth? No, no, no. I wasn't married yet. Oh, okay. I wasn't allowed to get married until he got home. There's a whole process that the girlfriends have to go.

Just like, I, I actually walked Melanie over to Marcus and I didn't propose. I was just on the knee. He did all the time. And here's the ring. Yeah. That's a big deal. It's a big deal for us. We made that very clear when we were young that,

that this was going to be, I was on the tee box and Melanie answered my phone. It was him. And she's like, put my brother on the phone. Oh man. She's like, I think something happened.

And I'm standing with my rifle my armor helmet rifle everything the first time they met was at the white house was uh gulab was there uh what oh yeah yeah is this when you went marcus when you were when you were given i don't even remember while we were there. We were in the White House for some reason. And that's what they meant. I had just gotten back from deployment.

She wouldn't come out of her hotel room. Yeah, she was scared to death. Why was that? She was scared to me. And I was knocking on her door. I was like, the only way this is going

to go forward is to come out and hang. She wanted to be happy about the fact that I was going to be married. That whole thing. Not that he's mean. She wanted his approval.

Yeah. Because Morgan's like, hey, this is the one I've been waiting for. I was like, well, we'll see about that. Yeah. Did you feel like you had a veto, right, Morgan? Absolutely. Oh, man. I always have. Every girlfriend and everyone by the wayside.

Absolutely. I always have. That goes both ways. But did Soup Bones approve? Everybody did. Everybody, from the moment they... All you have to do is meet. You think I'm bad?

Our mother, boy, she's hard. Yeah. She's hard on the ladies. And then there's a few of the aunts and the godmothers that were real overbearing, that were protective of us. And we have a couple of young ladies that we grew up with our whole lives that had... They had something to say about that.

Had to make sure that Leslie were worthy. You know, till, till like, Hey, I'm getting married. And they're like, Whoa, we'll just see about that. Hang on. So to both. So wait, listen, I can't let this wrap without asking you about what you're doing right now, Morgan, because you're taking all this wisdom, right. Or let's say perspective.

Cause you're still in the 40 to 60 Mark. If we go by Marcus's phases of life, you're taking all this perspective and you're going to do something that we all need you to do. And frankly, Marcus, you should do it too. And that is you're running for office. You're trying to get a seat. For some reason, you want to be what AOC is, even though you're 10 times the person she is. But for the rest of us, y'all, I speak on behalf of y'all. We thank you. So what's making you throw your hat into the congressional, the politics ring? Yes, ma'am. Most certainly out of necessity more than I don't want to. I'll be brutally honest. I, I, I never wanted to run for congressional seat and most certainly probably still don't. I don't want to, you know, if you ask me why that would be,

and if I could break it down and peel the onion back, I don't want to expose my, I don't suppose the family, this, my kids, the length that I'll have to be away. And then my wife and I and Marcus and the family came together and like, this is most certainly a move out of necessity to bring perspective to Congress and try to bring our country back to center. And it breaks my heart, the divisiveness after serving over overseas and multiple countries.

And I don't want to come home to that. I don't want to come home to that. And the things that are happening in our country right now, I I've seen before, and I want to be a part of the problem solving machine. And I think my background and my pedigree, my resume, if you will, lends perspective to something that I can use to do just that. That's such a, that's so, can I ask you, because that's so well put. And I, when I,

before I talked to you, I was like, well, I know he's a Republican and I just assumed you'd be, you know, firmly on the right. Is that how you would describe yourself? You sound more conciliatory toward, you know, working across the aisle. I don't know. You describe it. No, ma'am. I'm very much a conservative Republican. I am through and through wholeheartedly. That doesn't mean that, that there can't be a sweet spot between the two that we can't coalesce right now. I think every, every time you see our elected leaders on either media or in public, they're just, they're so far apart. Yeah.

And I try to put it into perspective, like uh army rangers i just they make my skin crawl i can't say an army rangers it's just a thing they're just so opposite of what team guys are army rangers saved my brother's life and i love them to death wholeheartedly and i respect everything they do i respect their perspective and no i am i am a very conservative man i'm very and i'm proud to be a republican and most certainly proud to be a Texan. But at the end of the day, Rangers tactics, techniques, and procedures are different than mine as a frog man. But at the end of the day, when we're out on the battlefield together, there's only one mission. And the success of that mission, it has to come from both sides.

And America is my mission now. And you have to understand, if we just keep going off the rails on both sides, we'll never bring this country back to what it needs to be and supposed to be. And that's some place that everybody can live in harmony and agree to disagree. It's almost as if nobody in politics is married. I don't agree with my wife a lot, but we live and coalesce very, very well. I mean, it's ultimately with him at service. I mean, you boil that down. Those guys that don't want to go,

we didn't want to go to war, but when we go in, we're going to do it effectively and to the best of our ability. And back in the day, when this country was founded, George Washington said, it's not supposed to be any political parties because parties play out. It's like going to a house party.

You can go to it and go to it, but eventually, man, you're going to get tired of it. People get mean. My grandma used to call it being ugly. And the best way I try to describe it, I was like,

imagine if the United States, one big house president and the first lady, that's mom and dad, senators, aunts and uncles. And we're the cousins, everybody else running out here. You ever hung out with anybody who's a child of divorce?

Like one parent likes to throw a lot of money at you, keep you quiet, and then the other one tries to get you to follow the rules and do some stuff. We're going to be doing that. That's kind of what you see up there. Like every time we shift from a D to an R, it's like throw it in drive, haul ass, throw it in reverse, and then stop or whatever. And then it's to the point now where I didn't get anything done.

Man, we live in the same house. I don't get along with some of my uncles, but I love seeing them on the holidays because they're just different and weird. And that's the spice of this place. That's why there's 50 states, 50 different states of people, and we all had to learn to live together. And the worst thing that I see, man, for whatever reason, baby boomers do not like each other. Man, they're war.

They're just all that, man. They're always just yelling at each other. And they say this. And you got to know anything coming out of there is the worst scenario possible for both sides. With us, man, we cut through all that. We don't have time to deal with that. If you're a popular politician, you're in the wrong business, man. They're supposed to hate you guys because y'all talk about the stuff.

Nobody, you got to get it done. There used to be a neutral zone. Like we won't talk about that because it upsets everybody. That's what you get elected for, to send him up there. Because he can actually not only talk like a tough guy or walk the walk. I mean, been in combat, you know, and sees how things work and how they, also how they work outside of this country. And the last thing I want to do, man, we're supposed to leave this place better than we

found it for the next generation. And that's not happening right now. Let me ask you a quick question about that, because I feel your love of country and your need for service. And I respect it and I admire it. I do want to ask you, how do you feel when people are kneeling at our national anthem, are disrespecting our flag, turning their back on it? I mean, I didn't do anything like what you guys have done. And it, it,

it upsets me. It burns. I had somebody, I had somebody asked me if I'd ever kneel for the flag. And I was like, last time I kneeled down for the flag, there was a body attached to it. Yeah. Or I'll be face down. We don't kneel. You can't fight from your knees. You know, you know, any problems we got, you got to get on your feet to solve them. Honestly, Ms. Megan, I would, I would be hypocritical if, if I said don't do that to somebody who, you know, any problems you got, you got to get on your feet to solve them. Honestly, Ms. Megan, I would, I would be hypocritical if, if I said, don't do that to somebody who, you know, we fought for our right and our constitutional right and the constitution of the United States to do those things. If that's, if that, I don't do that.

I stay in, I put my hand on my heart. Because we can switch that. We can say that we fought for our right, not yours. But we fought for the collective whole. Yeah. We can say you are a collective yours. But we fought for the collective whole. Yeah. We consider you our collective family. It hurts in the Olympics. You know, I just, I totally disagree with our American athletes that are representing the United States of America to take a knee.

I don't think that is the, I don't think that's the proper way to get your point across while you're representing the country as a whole. Because I don't feel that way. You're in the Olympics. You're representing America. Representing America. I don't know. But as far as an individual exercising their right

to freedom of speech and emotion, that's your right. I believe wholeheartedly that you're right to do that, but I don't disagree. I don't agree with that. What do you make of Drew Brees being so apologetic for defending his

willingness to stand? Remember that? I love Drew. He's a great man. But that was BS. He was like such a groveler when they were like, Hey, why,

what do you mean? Why would you stand? Why would you defend standing? I think, I think maybe, you know, I can't answer that. Cause I'm not,

I'm not Mr. Brees and I wasn't there. I think sometimes people get caught up at the moment and their emotions play out in different ways and if they have the opportunity i also think a lot of our our public elected officials and our and our our the people that we look up to whether or not that that's an act or whatever they um you know they're scared of what other people i could give two shits less but that's right they found me you know as they're scared of what other people, I could give two shits less, but that's right. They know,

as your mom said, you guys are not scared of that. We spent the first part of our adult life over in different countries. I'm trying to kill us every day. I don't care. I don't care how many people like me on social media. I mean, I have platforms,

but I don't, that doesn't there. The underpinning is more important to me than, I mean, if you got something that much to say, man, eventually our paths will cross. You can say it to our face,

but like plugging into the... It's like plugging into a video game. If you're not good at playing that game, you can get beat and thrown out of there quick. I mean, it's just our technology is wonderful and then sometimes it can't be. And it's, you know, you can... People can be mean just to do it.

Yeah. So Morgan, well, how do you like your chances how are the polls looking for you i mean i know we're a ways out well yes man we're we're over a year and a half or a year and some change out they're looking very strong with q2 reportings we were up front we're doing very well i'm a home so it's my district where we were born and raised um our congressman congressman kevin brady has decided to retire is another reason why i was come to to run but it's we're doing very well we're doing and i'm comfortable we we have nine counties and i've touched every single one of them either in school hunting or fishing or we

have family or land so i think i represent my base very well i think it does great but i would just love to see i would just love love love to see you in a debate with somebody like AOC, who's always trying to tell us how she's been traumatized at every turn. Everything she's done is traumatized her across my Navy seal, like you with your history, Morgan, please make that happen. Looking forward to it. Me too. All right. Let me leave it with this. We're not going to lose. Let me leave it with this, with the brotherhood, right? And you say that the bond amongst the SEAL team is the same as the bond amongst the brothers. This is the final message in Marcus's book. It's to you, Morgan.

It says, finally, my fellow SEAL and twin brother Morgan, who came storming into the ranch within hours of the battle for Murphy's Ridge, swore to God I was alive and never stopped encouraging everyone. Devastated by the death of his great friend, Matthew Axelson, still too upset to talk about it, he was nonetheless there for me, helping to correct and improve the manuscript, still with me, as he's always been and I hope always will be. Just like we say, bro, from the womb to the tomb and no one's ever going to change that. Your love for each other, your love for the country inspires us all. Thank you so much for your service, for helping keep us safe, for helping show us how to love our country and God bless you guys.

Thank you for the time. God bless you. God bless. Wow. Wow. How about those guys? Right? I'm sure you're feeling what I'm feeling. For those of you who want to hear it in full, the Navy SEAL philosophy is as follows. I will never quit.

My nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates. I am never out of the fight. Those words Marcus wrote in his book are ingrained on the soul of every Navy SEAL and maybe someday on the soul of every American citizen. I will never quit. Try to be physically harder. Try to be mentally stronger. If not down, I will get back up every time. I am never out of the fight. Wow, what a privilege spending time with them. Listen, have a great weekend. I hope you listen to it over and over. I know I'm going to. And don't miss our show on Monday because we've got Wesley Yang. So smart.

The guy who coined that phrase, the successor ideology. That's sort of where we're going as a country now, now that we've seemed to abandon small L liberalism, free speech, due process, and so on. And he's got his finger on the pulse of where we're likely to go next as a country. Thanks for spending the time. We'll talk to you next time. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.