The Team House - Army Special Mission Unit Operator | Erick Miyares (throwback ep)

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

original airdate 4/15/22Erick Miyares recounts his path from the Marine Corps and 7th Special Forces Group into a highly secretive Army special mission unit, conducting intelligence and advanced force operations across Afghanistan, Iraq, and other sensitive environments. He also opens up about being shot in Colombia, hunting high-level targets in Ramadi, singleton missions, hostage rescue work, and the psychological toll of spending two decades operating in the shadows.Support the show & get ad free episodes here:https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse00:00 – Start02:38 – Erick’s Cuban-American Upbringing in Miami04:18 – Joining the Marine Corps06:13 – Airborne, Pathfinder & Becoming a Scout Sniper07:20 – Leaving the Marines for Army Intelligence10:12 – Becoming a SIGINT / Electronic Warfare Operator12:42 – Getting Assigned to 7th Special Forces Group14:32 – Life on a Special Operations Team Alpha18:37 – Mission on the Ecuador-Colombia Border23:13 – Ambushed by Guerrillas27:04 – Getting Shot in His First Firefight34:31 – Discovering the Secretive JSOC Intelligence World35:19 – Getting Hog-Tied by Rangers During a JSOC Exercise41:22 – Selection for a Special Mission Unit44:06 – What Makes the Right Kind of Operator?47:18 – Living With Ambiguity & Controlling Aggression51:04 – The History & Mission of the Unit58:44 – Straddling Special Operations and Intelligence1:04:28 – 9/11 Changes Everything1:06:01 – Early Global War on Terror Missions1:09:10 – Afghanistan & Advanced Force Operations1:11:20 – What AFO Operators Actually Do1:19:33 – Hunting a High-Level Target in Ramadi1:23:23 – Going Up Against State-Level Tradecraft1:26:01 – Infiltrating a Cordon-and-Sweep Operation1:28:03 – Finding the HVT and Leaving Him in Place1:29:31 – RPG Attack & Hours of Fighting in Ramadi1:34:44 – Building the Final Target Package1:35:48 – Rangers Raid the Target & Seize Everything1:39:02 – Sitting Face-to-Face With the Man He Hunted1:41:24 – Espionage Inside a War Zone1:41:40 – The American Hostage Rescue Mission1:46:07 – The Psychological Toll of Constantly Switching Missions1:49:31 – Compartmentalization, Secrets & Family Life1:53:38 – Activating an Emergency Destruction Plan1:57:23 – Destroy the Gear and Escape2:03:03 – The Fear of Being Captured on a Singleton Mission2:07:41 – When the Entire City Went Dark2:09:40 – Treating PTSD With a Stellate Ganglion Block2:15:05 – Helping Special Operations Veterans Get Treatment2:18:47 – Leaving the Clandestine World Behind2:20:25 – Opening Pandora’s Box After 20 Years2:22:49 – Suicide, PTSD & Finally Asking for Help2:24:24 – Becoming Erick Again After the Military2:27:10 – What Special Operations Does to Families2:30:26 – The Nightmare of Forgetting Who You Really Are2:36:11 – Why Army “Spies” Struggle to Tell Their Stories2:38:20 – Classified Trauma & Getting Help From the VA2:42:00 – Why Secret Careers Are So Hard to Translate to Civilian Life2:47:27 – Is This Line of Work Better for Single Men?2:51:19 – Politics vs. Operating in a War Zone2:55:25 – Cuban-Americans in Special Operations2:57:03 – Why These Stories Need to Be Told3:01:34 – Where to Find Erick & Closing ThoughtsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Tonight we are here with a special guest, Eric Miaris. He served as a Army Special Mission Unit operator. Just as a way of introduction, I'm just going to tell a little bit of a funny anecdote myself about when I was a young ranger. And we went out to the border of Pakistan in 2004. And when we got out there, there was already an American where we were there to set up camp up on a hilltop. out there by himself, one American with an Afghan interpreter, and they're looking down at the border control point with Pakistan. And when we'd go up there to bring him like some food and water,

this dude had like a big beard. He was wearing, I think, like blue jeans and maybe a camo top, had all these like necklaces on and everything. And we were just as young rangers were looking at this guy like, who is this dude? What in the world is he doing up here? And he was like super chill, like, oh, hang loose my dude. dude. But it was clear that he'd been left out in the sun a little bit too long.

I was like, hey, maybe this needs to be brought back to chill out in the fob and watch some DVDs like a normal soldier deployed to Afghanistan. But I always tell that funny little anecdote there to allude to the fact that J-Soc has these operators who are deployed, sometimes in singleton missions, in highly compartmentalized operations. And even within the military, even in the special operations community, oftentimes very little, if anything, is known about those guys or what they do. So I'm very pleased to have Eric on the show tonight and just pull back the curtain just a little bit and tell Americans about what it is that some of these guys in these programs do. So Eric, thank you for joining us tonight.

Absolutely. Hey, it's fun. I'm excited to be here. You guys are great. I love watching your show I love getting into the spec ops and the intel side of this world. So thank you very much for having me. Yeah, absolutely, man. And could you start off with telling us, as we ask all of our guests about their origin story, about your origins growing up in Miami as a kid and kind of the path that eventually took you

well, first into the Marine Corps, right? Yeah, absolutely. So I came to America, if you would, in my mom's belly. My mom is pregnant. and her, my grandmother, grandfather, and her siblings left in, I want to say it was May of 1971. They were able to catch essentially the last flight, or one of the last flights that was leaving Cuba into the U.S. So very fortunate that we got that plan and that we got welcome to the United States with open arms. Essentially, like most Cubans, they either go to Hialeah, Miami, or they head up north, I want to say like New Jersey somewhere.

But we ended up, obviously, in the High Area. So born and raised there until I was 18, essentially, you know, I went to private school, which was a bilingual Cuban American school. So my upbringing was always sort of that dual U.S. Cuban heritage, you know, speaking Spanish in the streets of Hialeah. And then, you know, just to mention raised by essentially was a, like my stepdad, my mom never married, but what we know, for our intents and person, we'll call him Mr. Clean.

He kind of raised me and instilled sort of this level of patriotism and this, this vision of wanting to do this unique sort of cloak and dagger type work to keep it simple with what he had done in sort of the Bay of Pigs aspects of it. And so in 1991, in the year earlier, I joined the Marine Corps originally, supposed to be active duty to go into infantry. I think I also had seen that, you know, force recon video and that's what I wanted to do. But I wanted to leave Hialea, or I would have ended up either, you know, in jail, in trouble. And so I went off, I went off into the Marine Corps to do infantry. So I'll go ahead and stop there. Well, you spent quite a bit of time in the

Marines, too, didn't you serve as a scout sniper, if I recall correctly? Yeah, so I ended up doing just shy of six years, which I'll cover for a while. I didn't finish that full contract later on as we talked to the reasons going into the Army. So, you know, I got finagled by my recruiter, which, you know, 29 years later, I've learned from other, you know, folks that I've talked to that they also got host by their recruiters. And so my contract ended up being in the reserves with the promise that once I came back from basic training or from, you know, school of infantry or my trade that I would then go on active duty. And so for those five and a half years, I spend just about every day trying to get back, get onto active duty or do as much active duty

schools or floats or whatever I can be part of in order to kind of earn a spot to be able to the Marine Corps to bring me back on. And so essentially I was a tow gunner in Miami, which I didn't even know we had that capability. Interesting, those guys. I just came back from the Gulf War. So my first checking in was, you know, to being a tow gunner, which a highlight was I did get to shoot, you know, a highly a kid who got to shoot a tow missile. That was really cool.

Did that for a little bit. And then I found out as I was trying to continue that process, that there was an ability to go to airborne and an organization in West Palm Beach, that was an Anglico Air Naval Gun Fire Liaison Company. And so that's where I first went to Airborne's, school as a Marine. And actually, ironically enough, I got to go to Pathfinder as a Marine because of that organization. So I did Forward Observer Naval Gunfire for a little bit. And I really found what I really enjoyed in my time in the Marine Corps. I went to a state platoon civilians

target acquisition up in the New Orleans area. So I was with them in and out for about three or four years and that's actually where where I I work as a regular spotter and then I became a scout sniper and then spent the time doing work with the JTF6 doing chronicin nicotics missions that's pretty cool so yeah we've had a few people on that the JTF6 ops yeah that was a big money before 9-11 that was like the cool thing to do before 9-11 yeah that was where all the action was. Yeah. And then how did you make that transition over the Army? What was that kind of point and what kind of led you to that decision? Yeah. So when I was in State Platoon as a Marine, I was young, dumb, not focused in college. Just I want to preface that a lot of the reason and sense of urgency

to get back on active duty is I ultimately wanted to kind of cut my teeth at the Marine. And I had aspirations. when I was in high school and I knew I wanted to join the military, in particular the Marine Corps, that ultimately I wanted to either go to the CIA or I wanted to go into the FBI. I think the FBI was more because one of my uncles was just scared that I'd be killed or some reason. So I threw in the hat. I'd go to the FBI, right? But I knew what I wanted to go do. And so the path was, you know, go to the Marine Corps, do your college and then go apply because I didn't see,

I didn't think I was going to be in the Marine Corps that long. And so when I was in New Orleans, there was a whole lot of partying, a whole lot of, you know, and I almost got to a point where I was like, man, I'm going to lose my liver or whatever else that's back there. So I'm like, I'm going to come back to Miami so I can at least get back to school because you don't have all the great influences that you did in New Orleans. And so when I came back to Miami, I think I was going back to the Anglico unit. Then I met my first wife. And then it was kind of a relationship, a friendship. And at that point, she was looking to go into the National Guard, as most people did in that time frame.

This is 97 for college money. And so she's like, I'm going to be this linguist in the Army and do this intel stuff. I'm like, okay, that's cool. Where are we going, Monterey, California? I was like, okay, that would be cool. So I went as a military spouse to essentially to Monterey, Fort Ord. And then it's like, are you kidding me? Is this what the Army does?

Right. So I saw a DLI from a spouse perspective. And then I started to do my research again. And as I'm over there, there wasn't, I think the only closest unit was like a reserve force recon unit up in Nevada. I'm like, I don't want to travel over there. And then I just I did some thinking, some soul searching really. And I was like, okay, well, maybe how about going to the Army as an option? Let's do this military intelligence because I thought that that would align best at that point with going to the CIA, right?

or going to go do intel work as I had planned and that I would ultimately focus on school. And so I made a mistake. I joined the National Guard for a month. Same thing, horrible contract aspects. And then just the next day after I joined active duty and then signed in some port somewhere with a bunch of other former Marines

that were learning how to be in the Army. And you went into the Army on what was your MOS? I mean, it was an Intel job this time, right? Yeah, it's 98 Gulf. So that was the SIGA electronic warfare interceptor. And that I'm, do you want to talk a little bit about, you know, what that job entailed and where you got assigned? Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah.

So when I came in, just because it'll probably come up later on, you know, I was. was a proud E5 and the Marine Corps. And part of this whole negotiation, too, was like, you're going to be an E4. I'm like, oh, I get to be a corporal, right? Now you get to be a specialist. I'm like, I'm a specialist of what, right? So I started off my army career with a bunch of other Marines,

get a sea bag full of clothing that they didn't even teach me how to wear. And then flew back to DLI, which was, by the way, phenomenal. I learned so much because I was a careerist, so I didn't have to apply to all of those rules that were there. And actually, interesting thing, I met what would later on would be three other former unit members that I would then go through selection with. I think it's the conversations we had earlier that just kind of jarred that memory. So that was pretty neat. It was an amazing time. And so I, at DLI from timing with my former spouse who was still learning, I finished the Spanish and then went to Goodfellow Air Force Base to go learn at that time to be a 98

golf. And then that started my career really with ironically Russian, Russian warfare. That's what we learned. And then I want to say that they sprinkled on initially some of the counterinsurgency and maybe some of the counter-nicotics was part of that intel school. And so I just loved it, right? coming as a Marine who had been, you know, a sniper had done some stuff in JT at 6, but just that combination of infantry and jumping out of planes and everything that I had done. And then I got to focus kind of back into, I've always liked academia. And so I really loved being an intel guy, right? Like it was just so, I guess just because I was fortunate to have that hard skill,

young hard skill background and then learn to be an intel guy. I think it's a really deadly conversation or combination, excuse me. And as I was finishing school of infantry, or not excuse me, I was finishing Goodfellow, I got kind of got hooked up. And someone came up to me and said, hey, you know, what are your plans? I'm like, I've got no idea how this army thing works. I don't know where I'm going to go. And they're like, hey, there's this thing called seven special forces, would you like to go?

I'm like, okay, sounds good. So it's got the word special in it so far, you know, this looks good. I was going to ask you that because I didn't know if when, you know, when you went in, if you were going in an active and DLI was basically your AIT and Goodfellow, you know, the follow on, because you had an infantry back down, these hard skills, I imagine you would have been plucked out for like a SOTA team because they're desperate for people like you. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting that you did say that because I remember it may have been DLI or maybe in that transition. of both it may have started. I remember doing, and I still think I have the resume,

it was horrible writing, horrible. I don't even know how I went to seventh group. God bless that they did take me. But I had to put it in their head. I was in 11, Bravo and 11, I think, Hotel also. And then I had some of these hard skills, you know, airborne, right? So as an E4, I guess it all aligned. Spanish, you know, all the the scores you got to have. It just aligned perfect. And then there was a lot. also that buddy hookup, right? Somebody called somewhere and say you to branch or whatever that was, hey, you may want to pull this guy. So I had direct orders from there straight to group. So ended up spending two years in seventh group, which for you guys knowing this is not the

conventional army. So I'd never spent one day in the conventional army, good, better, and different. That was literally my world is, you know, leaving the Marines coming through the the training seventh group, and that was fast and furious, and then straight to where I ended up at. So just for our viewers who might not know, so you went to a Sadi team, right? So Sades are a special operation team's Alpha. They are sort of the SIGAN side of special forces. They don't go through the Q-course, their own element. How was that for you being in group?

like how was that being with green beret how did they treat you how is the reception yeah i want to say that i i you know and i only just because i saw on a photo the other day um i had my gold wings on right um so i was on my gold wings right i think i stood on e4 e5 and you know i made a bit a bit cocky uh because i'm a as a native i was excited i was probably more gold lucky than anything right um and And I want to say, you know, I had a really good relationship with the ODAs. Never really had. And I looked at it in retrospect as I went back in time as I was retiring.

I was looking at all the awards and the write-ups. And they were all ridden by. And I'm like, man, I got to find this guy, Captain So-and-So and Master Sergeant, so-and-so. And, you know, as I wrote, you know, posted just the other day, the dude who shot the guy who shot me. I'm like, man, I got to go thank these guys. Like, I'm an asshole. Like, you know, they were really good. Now, when I was in the Sade As, it was an interesting time because it was pre-GY.

Right. So a lot of the, I don't think any of those guys were former anything else but Army. And so when they were in a Sade, unfortunately, what I perceived is that a lot of those guys wanted to be ODAs. They wanted to be Green Berets. Right. I'm like, I don't, you know, no disrespect to anyone, but I'm like, I didn't want to be a Green Beret. If not, I would have, I think had gone down that route. but I kind of had plans my future.

And at that point, I had greater ambitions, right? So I was very happy to be in Assad A. And I got exposed that seven special forces group at that time, had some really good connections with the IC. So we were very fortunate. We were across the street from Usesak, you know, Army Special Operations Command. So we got all the capabilities.

My first mission was Panama. I learned and cut my teeth with, one of our Saudi, you know, the detachment sergeant, he taught me some ropes, you know, going in and out of the roads of Panama. If you guys have been there, you know, you go the wrong way, Skipper, you better find your way back. And that's how I grew up. And then the next couple of missions were integrated with green berets. And I brought the languages. I brought my hard skills. So they didn't have to worry about me necessarily shoot, moving communicate. I already knew how to do that. But I brought my, I think I brought my technical proficiency. And I, and I

I was just happy to do my job. So yeah. How many people at DLI were confused, and further on in your army career, were confused by your gold wings? Oh, a lot. A lot. Yeah, they were, they, they, you know, so it was funny because I did see someone else at some point. I remember it was somebody that had, you know, maybe two or three rockers, right? So I looked more like than my little three wings on, on my, my charge.

and they were wearing it. They were a prior service. And it was that same whole long thing. If you put a 4187 and you put it in, but anybody who's ever read an army or military regulations, there's like 50 ways to read it. Right. And at the end,

you're just like, it doesn't say you can't because there's no equivalent on it. And for a while, somebody, I think, told me something. And it wasn't the military. Am I guys? It might have been, and just to keep a lower profile,

when we started to go travel and sanitize for training, then we took it off anyway. So then for the longest, time i just didn't even wear anything on the uniform because we were training or going forward to do you know the fid missions and stuff like that but yeah it was at the beginning it was kind of a yeah i was like oh crap i i shouldn't do that and then after i left group it just really didn't matter because yeah i stopped doing any of that so tell us about this operation uh down on the ecuador columbia border where you guys ran into eln yeah so that well that that was a that was that was

interesting and that was kind of the start of a lot of things for me and I want to say that was my second mission in seventh seventh group it was your typical fit mission flying into keto and from keto we were going to do this to uh it's to the putomayo area so it was probably i don't know like a 12 hour 11 hour drive with an entire company of you know everything that we can take to support the police over there in that trading and so my mission was to do force protection of the SOTE. So I was in the lead vehicle with the commander, the sergeant major, and I think like a commo guy. It was a commo SF guy. And then it was, you know, token me. And my responsibility was, you know, essentially do the intel guy,

do the Sagan stuff. Obviously, I had a pre-brief prior to leaving of what potentially could be threat. And I think it was like that 18 Pox kind of working with him. And, and, you know, So, yeah, as your typical, it was a really good mission because at that point, it wasn't just flying in somewhere and then just training the guys. Like, you had to do with movement and through, you know, it isn't, it isn't, it wasn't, it was in Afghanistan at the time. But it's still, you're in the, you're at that, you're at that border area and you're a bunch of gringoes transporting, you know, million dollars worth of capability. So you, you are a moving target. And so I'm in the lead vehicle. We're going town to town to town.

And I think I've mentioned it before, like, I knew. you my trade, I was pretty decent at it. But obviously, I relied on the skills, a lot of the green berets that were there. These guys have been long, long tooth guys in seventh group. I traveled in and out of Latin America more than I did. So they really understood. So I kind of, I want to say the Kamel got the Kamo S.F guy that was next to me, kind of helped me in that perspective bounce what I was interpreting from an Intel side

and what he did from just his skills and his experience. And so we were kind of bounced that off as we would go, on my time, people are stopping to take piss breaks. But then, you know, here's where in that convoy, a lot of my skills down the streets of Miami helped me, right? Like, that definitely I've always listened to that little voice for the longest time throughout my entire career. And so two or three towns, two little, three little towns prior to where we got hit, with the ambush that was already something, an engagement going on. It was just desolate, right?

Like you kind of see in the movies, you pull it in and you're like, where the hell is everybody out? Like it's not supposed to be, right? I can see that there's cell tower. It's the oil pipeline. There's all of these, you know, Met Tea type stuff. You're like, okay, this is not right. And so you kind of give that indication.

And then as you get to the next one, there's a little bit of traffic sort of on the SIGGIT world. And SIGN's pretty easy, right? And it belongs there. It doesn't belong there. You have to listen to it. You can tell. I think at that point that, you know, a lot of that comms in there is, which they will let her serve on.

You know, they can say like, hey, there's three blue cows in the truck. Well, that's not what that means, right? It's just a fairies talking where generally a regular, you know, a person who learned Spanish may not understand that. Someone who's from the streets is going to understand, you know, some of that. And so that's really what I was queuing on because this wasn't like, you know, Cuban, you know, order of battle and Russian order. battle and this was more thug level or whatever can happen in there. And so as we get to the last town as we're leaving and it's starting to get, you know, get dark and it's kind of the whole thing, the road goes along to our right. If you would, as we were moving to the Pultamaio area,

there's the oil pipeline that just runs all the way across, right? And as we're coming around a bend and we turn left, it's kind of a huge blind spot. And as we come, come around, and then now we can see forward down the road and then the S turns, it's a little, it's like a bridge, a wooden bridge, and there's a bus, a school bus there. And that was like your atypical. The dudes are robbing them.

They were really kidnapping a politician that was there. And I guess I didn't know we were coming or they may have known we were coming. As I'm coming around, I get that unique break of squelch, right? That follows with some spoken language. but as we come around, I give an indicator, and as soon as we come around, we start getting shots fired. And there was that big, oh, crap, like, this is not supposed to be happening, which was, you know, part of that. So I'll stop there for a second.

Yeah, no, that's, I mean, this is a pretty big deal, too. I mean, prior to 9-11 that you have Americans on, I don't want to say clandestine, but it's out of low visibility. You're not trying to make your presence known. And then you run into the enemy and start taking fire. Yeah, you take fire. I mean, you stumble across, you know, their activities, you know, and to go forward, originally it was, they were declared to be banditos.

But that was really also because of the host nation. As you know, you know, the Americans are coming with food money. There's lots of money. They don't want the U.S. to pull out because it wasn't assessed that there's bad guys. right so you're going to downplay as if you're in any of these you know i don't want to say third what countries if you're any of these other countries and you're supporting that nation and something happens you know they can look bad they don't want to use to pull out you know and then ultimately i get shot or you know and so that means now somebody's down and this is going to go up to

essentially go up the flagpole right um so yeah so initially it was it was bond deal later on as they're processing everything from the intel side and as the heroic actions from the Green Berets and everything that happened. And then, you know, the MI side and the Usasok side is looking, hey, do we give this guy a Purple Heart? Or we not give this guy a Purple Heart? Do we give this guy? You know, what awards are we going to give for these actions?

Because it did happen. Right. Then the information surface and Usesok was amazing. I mean, I got a lot of the general officer notes. And everybody was very supportive because they're like, hey, it did happen. People did get shot at. We killed people. You know, they saved lives of guys that were about to get taken as hostages.

And then they found out, yeah, these are dudes that were ELA and FARC. They're training down there and they're doing this as part of money. And then it goes back to the order of, you know, the information that we knew about the way that they operate. But that was it for me personally. Well, I'd imagine. And I left groups shortly after that. So I don't know how, you know, SF group or at least seventh group changed in time. because I was gone shortly after that.

I mean, that was a problem that seventh group was having a lot, I think, during like the 80s and like the early 90s, right? They weren't getting recognized. They weren't getting combat infantry badges. They weren't getting purple hearts. They, you know, because they weren't in an official war or whatever. We talked about that with Greg. Yeah, that they were being kind of left out to dry.

Yeah. I mean, the threat was there. I can tell you that. I would then go to Columbia, the next mission. And then we ramped up force protection. Force protection was kind of one of those things like, yeah, okay. A lot of the old timers and the team are like,

no, man, hey, there are people that are going to want to rug us. We're Americans. We bring nice, fancy stuff. You're out there and you're also training the police or the military. We're going to come after them. You can see where that cycle goes. It doesn't need to be war.

essentially is a war, right? War on drugs or war on their neighborhood, if you were like a turf war. So, yeah, I remember, and again, at this point I was younger, I learned a lot from the team sergeants there. And we were carrying the fanny packs and we would go to the gym and we would protect each other. Where is your gun? Where did you keep your gun? Because there was that threat level. It wasn't like it is like if you would go to Afghanistan, but it was there. How did that go down, though, where on that operation?

where you got shot and had to be evacuated. Yeah, so as the vehicle came around, we took, I want to say, maybe the first two shots, the driver went forward a little bit and then the determination was to to pull back because there was nowhere to go forward, right? So we needed to get some distance between the bridge, the hard bridge, because it was dark at that point. And then I want to say they can see or acknowledge because of the beams of light from the vehicle. They can see the first two guys.

and then there were some guys on the hilltop or along the hilltop. And so we backed up. And for you guys that have been in those little crappy one-way roads, you know, luckily the guy who was driving, no, don't go too far back because then it's a cliff down or you're going to hit the pipe. So we got enough, you know, lucky just pulled back enough that when the two, the commander and the charge of major

opened the doors to start engaging, we were then in the back. and I think the combo guy had his radio, was able to get to his weapon faster. I had all of this crap on me, right? Lesson learned for the rest of my career, how to keep everything tidy. And so as we open up now,

there's only, again, it's a one-way road, you know, hill on the left, and then a drop, a dark drop-down, which he would potentially hit the old pipe that was there. And so we could not, we could not engage because we had the other two guys in front of us. And so my thing was to come out, I came out the back rear door was essentially I knew to jump over and try to get into sort of the ditch.

I just didn't know how deep a ditch was. So as I'm untangling, getting ready to move and to jump, as I'm jumping over, you know, I get nicked in the inner thigh and it goes out the exterior of my right thigh and then just kind of come crashing down. And then, you know, it was like, oh, crap, right? I feel the heatness in my leg. There's a lot going on. This is my first engagement in combat. And I think I've mentioned it before. Like it was interesting for me to mentally go from, okay, I'm going to do my job as the Sade guy, right?

Yeah, I'm going to do some typical be a team member. But that's what these guys are here for. But once I got shot, now it's kind of like, okay, this is personal. And that adrenaline kind of kicks in. And so that Marine in you comes out. you're like, okay, got it. Now, now I'm going to be part of this team, part of this, this, this aspect of it. As I hit the ground, as I do that quick, you know, that quick combat lifesaver check, if you would, like, all right, I'm okay. Go for my, I think it was like a nine millimeter

at the time of my Greta. Boys are still there. What's that? Make sure the boys are still there. Yeah, right? Well, yeah. You're just like, okay, it's a package, package, check. You shot my brand new Norface pants or are you, I think they're in a face pants. I'm like, fuck I'm still paying for those things. And then I go look up and then now this ditch is really high. And I'm like, okay, this is now I'm going to have to either crawl up. And then, you know, obviously you alert to team and say,

hey, I'm hit or whatever I said. And then it appeared within within seconds a minute that then either the medic or maybe one of the guys that was in the back vehicle actually came to see me kind of double check. And he had the comms to be able to relate back.

Hey, you know, he'd been hit. how far if that was your inner thigh how far was it from your formal artery that's a really dangerous place to get shot really really really really close um i'm very lucky um when i've again in in i don't think i even looked at the x-rays or even cared when i got back to um walmac is it walmac whatever it is that at brag i never looked yeah brag i never looked at it um only until i was retiring that now you're making the case to the VA that got shot How many percentage can I get that they looked at all that stuff? And they're like, hey, man, that was really close.

I was like, yeah, I never really went back. But I mean, as I feel it, it's really right. It's got to be centimeters that it went through it. I do know that the medic wanted to try to put like some rod. He's like, I've got to, you know, first combat. He's like, I got to do all these procedures for your mind. Yeah, you're not doing that, dude. Right, right, right.

And of course, you got a CIB out of all of this. a combat patch. I didn't get anything. Yeah, I get, I get, yeah, they all got their, I mean, they're all, you know, they got their awards. They were World Tech, and it was both documented. They did their part. I think I left out of there, obviously, my purpose, the first Purple Heart, which, again,

lots of respect for, for the professionals. I saw all the paperwork that they had to do to get that, to get that filed in that time. and forever I took two things out of that. It is take care of your people when it comes time to a war because I saw, you know, from captains to, you know, E6s all the way to three stars pushing this paperwork forward. So I believe in the process. Sorry to kind of hijack that a little bit.

No, no. It's your show, so you're not hijacking. Oh, you're good. And actually talking about a package check is a good segue. It's a good segue to our first sponsor of the night, which is Chill Boy Undies, because you got to keep the boys chill,

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the normal one that they've, oh no, that's the chili. Yeah. The chili is really hot. It's even hot for me. But then there's also the normal non-spicy traditional. You're Irish. What do you mean even hot for me? Dude, I love spicy food. I do. I grew up eating Portuguese food. Have you had Delton before? I'm not, but I will. Yeah, we'll send you some of the Boykees. Like it is good, good stuff. Yeah, highly recommend it. So boykies.com use Team 10 to get 10% off your order. That's the promo code, Team 10 for 10% off your order at Boykies.com. So back to you, Eric.

You obviously, thank God, survived this encounter down on the Colombian border. You said you had another Fid mission down to Columbia with seventh group. When does this idea, when do you even first hear that there's this secretive J-Soc intelligence unit. I mean, I think especially at that time in the late 1990s, no one even knew these guys existed really. When did this idea or when did knowledge of this unit's existence even creep into your awareness and what made you make that decision to kind of take the jump over?

You know, there's something you just said that just jarred my memory. And I'm going to make a joke here probably to use when I got hog-tied by. a bunch of rangers on an abandoned airfields on a on a j-sock exercise so true story so how i actually even came to understand what j-sock was and even i didn't even know what the tiers would be i didn't know any of that while while in group i think the only thing i participated in was at the sears school right so they need they needed bodies i think they i don't maybe they needed a little brown guy I had to play a part. I did go be like an extra at Sears School there at Port Bragg. And so I kind of saw a world that I wasn't aware of when I was a Marine. And definitely not while I was in MI or a Sadi or in group.

And then there's a couple of guys that came in, you know, typical came into the little blue blazers with gold buttons. And, you know, by dead sergeant tells me, hey man, you need to go report over here because they're doing a casting call interviews for an exercise. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. And then he's a Spanish speaker. So there was something that they said that then I felt, all right, cool, I can be, I can be of use. And so I went through this interview process and they made me talk. They want to know, made me read these lines.

And essentially, ironically, I then end up playing a FARC, a commander for a, you know, Latin American terrorist group for an exercise. So I said the first time I get to grow my beard. I get to, you know, and as an Intel guy, it was interesting because I could then go to the skip if you would and then look this up. So I got to really rehearse rather than just being like somebody random that they got a group to play a character in one of these JRX exercises. And so I then during that, the, you know, backside of being a target. So I was essentially the number one target or the number two target for this exercise. So J-Soc brought everything. to bear. And I got to see it from that perspective, right? And I got to see it because I had my lines, and then I got to go to like the little talk where they're orchestrating. And then I remember this one guy, just kind of to your story of the hippie, you know, in the mountains. He just looked different, right? This guy just carried himself different, long hair, that blue coat. It seems like he

wore that everywhere, right? And it was just authoritative, just telling anybody knew everything what he was doing and capabilities and assets and the boys. I'm like, oh, man, that guy's pretty cool. But then I get told to go off. And then they're going to capture me and have this little piece of paper on you. Don't say anything and talk on the radio. And subsequently, I didn't know what a direct action hit would be or a hospital. I didn't know what that would be.

But I felt the fucking concussion grenades, right? And I then quickly learned backwards. I knew that they were assets because at that time, as just a SAA, there were capabilities at hand that didn't make sense to what I knew. Right? As an E5 and a SOTA with SIG and gear or capabilities,

I knew so much. But when this exercise was unfolding, I'm like, how the hell are these guys going to do that? Who the hell of these do? How are that? Right. I was really inquisitive of how they were going to to find me and there was things being brought to bear that I had no idea and obviously a guy with the blue blazer wouldn't tell me until you know at the dead of night they found me it happened to be in this one where the rangers and all due respect those dudes came in they stormed in hogtied a crap out of me I was still with the concussion whatever they they threw in there and I'm hogtied uh and finally

one guy finally found that little piece of paper I'm like dude if you if you did all that to me you found that SSC, right? You better have found that fucking thing. Other lesson learned. And so from that one, when I went back and went through the debriefing, I talked to that one guy, he was a sergeant major at the time. He was a sergeant major. And then all I know was to the effect of, hey, guys are going to be coming in the months to be to show up for the pitch, the recruiting pitch. And so I then went back and told somebody that was in charge of me. I was like, hey, I'm interested to do this between training and stuff like that. And I went and then it was two guys that ended up being forever two of my greatest mentors, right? Just really quick. Hopefully a lot

of organizations when they send folks to do the recruiting, you send your best to the best because that impression lasts forever. And it was, in fact, it lasted forever. A, the guy that ran the exercise or that aspect of the exercise, I would then work for him or know who he was. And then the two guys that came for recruiting. I don't remember much, but whatever they pitched, I wanted to do it because I just remember being hug-tied and all of that.

So that mystique, again, I knew there was no videos. There were nothing. And then I applied. And they would basically said, here's a card. We'll call you. Don't contact us. And then that's it. And then I went and that's when I got shot and came back.

And I was like, oh, crap. I know I got to go through some selection process. And then at that point, I had heard bits and pieces, but there was nothing being talked about. I grew up. Nothing. I want to say that there was one guy that was a former guy that, hey, came back, there were some incidents unfortunately fatal that I didn't know that this guy did come from somewhere, but he was pretty dinged up mentally. And I filed that later on, which is what I do now for a lot of the vet and suicide.

After I got shot, came back, and then I knew I just needed to train and then did end up getting that magical phone call. Here's some information show up and you're going to go through your selection process. What could you tell us about the selection process? Because I've had some conversations with people who actually said they had a good time at the selection course and thought it was a very challenging experience where they were kind of asked to think outside the box. Yeah. For simplicity, that is, you know, and I'll Eric Lut to speak on his personal, which is going to probably quantify a lot of that. I went every time I went through something, I knew more and more than that's why I wanted to be. I never saw it in the Marine Corps.

I never saw it at group. I didn't even read about it in a book, right? During that time, maybe I could have correlated it to a movie or something. Every time something was done, I was just enamored by it. I was enamored by the preciseness, the timeliness, the exactness.

So no feedback, right? The no feedback aspect of it. I don't know. Might have been something from my childhood. It was just the way it was, right? And so it just, it was hard. It was physically, it was physically hard, mentally hard. I think it was the good piece.

Very individual aspects of it, which I enjoyed. And then there was always that mystique, right? You know, you start with so many, and then one day so many are gone. And you keep going out. And what that told you is if you're going through all of this, you want to be part of an organization that has high standards. Right. And so I remembered that.

And all, and it's just the way things rang, the littleness. I was just, I was just attracted to that compartmentalization, to that mind challenging, to that, you're not going to figure it out, right? Like you, nobody talked about it, nobody knew. And the people that said some stuff, I remember in my class, you're just like, okay, you need to get chaptered out of the army because you're just talking wacky shit. Like, we're not here looking for aliens. Like, so it, it forever, I was, you know, obviously really proud to have been selected.

But many times in my career, and I think we talked about this earlier, as we transitioned into GWAT, and then as certain organizations changed in time, I would always revert back to selection as the core of why they select people. And that, in essence, is your selection is an indicator of what you may have to do in the possibility. Because in those selections, you're going to be tested across this spectrum. And that spectrum is tied back to, obviously, an organization's requirements for the people that they need to do certain missions. What do you think that core is that they're selecting for? Like, well, I guess I'm kind of asking that question of like, what is the quintessential operator,

which I know is kind of a broad and maybe unfair question in some ways. But what do you think that those qualities are? You know, the ability for ambiguity, right? The ability, and it's been said many times, to live and think in the gray, is very difficult. That ability, again, I, you know, I'll do respect to everyone. but every Marine, every rifleman, every seal, every other operator, every, you may not have the mindset to take off and do what is needed, right? And Dave, you can relate to it, which is that, you know, in the IC world and the trade craft

world is, hey, come back and fight another day, right? And they always, depending, you know, the old instructors from the old Cold War will tell you, you know, don't be that ranger who has to take that hill. You might have to make that determination. You evaluated and you said, I will come back tomorrow. And a lot of, by DNA, if you would, you know, the infantry people, the more of the special operations, drag on knuckles, you know, dragger knuckles, knuckles are going to want to use that adrenaline. And so the type of people you need is that person who's able to think emotional intelligence, right, is critical. That ability to go, nope, that compartmentalization, intelligence, to be smart, thinking out of the box.

Yes, you know, those things. Those are key. And then there's things you're just not going to be comfortable, right? A lot of people are going to be like, hey, I didn't join the military for that. But that's great. Thank you for your, you know, we saw that a lot. Thank you for your patriotism. You're going to leave here and you're going to do great things.

But this may not be for you. And because this world, we're actually not going to tell you about it. But there aren't very many people that are going to go do something, not being told. Because you knew when you guys went to Ranger School, what Ranger School was about. You knew about SF. You knew about all of the agency, might be a little bit different. But everything in the military, but this world, no, because that's the type of world you're going to operate in. Right.

So singleton, two, three, four, ambiguity. So that ability really, it's simple to operate and be trusted. And so there's integrity is huge. Yeah. Your word, your word is it. And then so your analytical process to process the information, not only as an individual because you work in team and you're able to talk to each other. And then an analyst is going to take it.

But it all starts with that trust. That that guy really go do, did he self-assess? How many people really know to self-assess? Hey, man, I'm hurt. Yeah, it was one thing to muscle through a long walk than to go, I may need to stop. It's okay for me to stop because the mission. I got to do tomorrow, it's going to take me 18 more hours to do. And then I don't know what's going to

happen. So I need to have some reserves. Hopefully that answers the mindset of it. And then, and then the last one. And if I would, is, I mean, you got to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, right? Like, you've seen some of the pictures. And there's, I mean, I'm not the only one that's studies, right? This can relate to guys doing other sort of intel, intel work, which requires more of that mindset. But it's, hey, you don't know what you're going to need to be tomorrow. And that can be in a variety of ways, which I think you'll probably cover on later on. But it starts there. And I, you know, it's interesting because one of the things you said is, is, you know, the ability to do what it takes. And I think a lot of people think,

when they think of that, they think of like from a shooter perspective to, kill a bad guy or to, you know, take the shot. But sometimes it more like in a DEA scenario, it's like not taking down the bad guy, knowing they're doing harm, but waiting to collect on the bigger picture. Like that type of thing is hard for people to walk away from. You know, it's like, it's tactical patient. Yeah. Yeah.

It's, um, so sometimes doing what it takes isn't, isn't like the, the, the, the, the, the, the gung-ho, yeah, I'm going to sue a sponte or, you know, just charge in here and blast this person. I'm okay with killing bad guys. Roy Jenkins. It's living. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's living in a much more, you know, kind of obscure world of I know, I know this person is actively hurting people, but it's not my job at this point to stop them from hurting these people because there's a larger picture that that's being taken in.

Yeah. You guys both said something, and again, and now I'm fortunate that post-processing, and when I went to Nykel, the National Intrepid Center of Veterans for traumatic brain injuries, it's generally here in Walter Reed area. We get a lot of special operators that come that are, you know, 15, 20 years into career, and these guys are burnt out. And the command sent them to this one-month program. And so one of the key things about NICO and traumatic brain injuries and PTSD, if you would, is based on triggers, right? And so when we did this exercise really quick on triggers, I was, that's kind of almost be like a joke. Like, I was there with the seal.

I was there with a guy from Fort Bragg, and I think it was another SF guy, and then it was me. And interestingly, and the seal came from a higher tier level. and their triggers in the mentality, again, nothing wrong with any of them, but it's just that, that, by default, by default, they're going to, their triggers are different than our triggers. Our triggers are very suppressed. You know, if you bump into me, I am just going to go away. If you hit my car downtown, you know, the streets of Paysonville, Haiti, I'm just going to keep on quick as emissions more important. You have to be able to control that adrenaline. And yes, I can pull out my gun and I can shoot them. And yes, I can pull out. my knife. We can do all of that. But it is that emotional ability in those triggers. So when we did this exercise, all my triggers were different than theirs. That's interesting. Because my requirement was to be for us to be gray. And gray is not, you know, that only cloak and dagger, but it's those emotions. Right. Right. Like you're, I'm not going to if you, you know, as you know this from a fifth perspective, foreign intelligence service, someone is going to probe you.

while a lot of these Marines, you know, these wound up guys, they're going to, they're going to, you're going to fail that test. You're going to show that you're an aggressor where you have to be able to be able to control that. You just go, okay, I got something else that I got to protect. So, Eric, you did get selected, of course. And I was wondering if we could take a moment here because I know you're a bit of a student of the history behind it. If you could tell us a little bit about the unit history now that, you know, you're getting read onto the mission and onto the unit. and I know there's plenty of things you're not able to speak about, but are you able to talk to us a little bit about the unit history, why it came about, why it exists, how it developed over time? Yeah, I'll do my best to navigate. And so obviously, there was a unique requirement a long time ago when a lot of these other organizations came, right? And so there's a, from my background, and just to keep it simple, obviously, you know, special operations and intelligence and the importance of intelligence at,

had a tactical operation and strategic requirement, and a particular strategic, right, that very hard on the ground intelligence with certainty, you know, to be enablers for people who have another job, right? Another, another tier organization who has something to do. And so that's a kind of an origin story of the requirement, right, for unique special operations intelligence that keeps it simple. And then the history, so I always found history in that,

regards, A, as a childhood growing up because of my stepdad and sort of the Cuban background and what, why pay a big, you know, the Bay of Pigs. I didn't understand it in high school, but I did, ironically, when I went to Goodfellow to be a military intelligence, that was something that I learned. I learned the insides and out from the intel of the Bay of Pigs and the requirement for intelligence. And so when I, when I start getting to the unit, you know, these things start to kind of combine, and kind of my life at being at seventh group, which is special operations and then being an Intel guy, and then some of the things from my childhood

with my stepfather at that kind of Bay of Pig world. And so getting into the unit, and I was a young guy. So as any of these organizations, they get to go to the corner and draw, right? You got to earn your keep, right? And so you know that because that's kind of part of selection, that's part of the course.

And so when you step, been the first day, you know your place, right? And then they bring you in open arms. But then you just, there's just so many things going on and things that you won't, you won't be exposed to in training, obviously, because if you're not selected, then just like anything should be compartmentalized. And then when you get in there, and depending where you go and you do kind of like the unit history, they're very good at, at a corporate level, if you were, at an organization sharing its history, where we come from. So now you understand because you're inside, excuse me, you're inside the fold, right? So you get some of that. And then I happen to be that the teams that I went into were

full of history, full of the guys that did stuff, some of the, you know, the ninjas, as we call them, these are the skills-wise. And so when I think I mentioned it to you, when you're sitting in there and you're having some of your briefings or you're getting in there, you're having some of your team talk, right, at the team room and you're having a drink, these stories come on. And you're like, you fucking kidding me? Like, we did that, you did that. And everybody says, humble. Yeah, we did this.

And we did that. And we were part of this. You know, a lot of it wasn't, hey, my, you know, my sock is bigger than yours. It is, hey, man, start learning. Because you got to get into those shoes quick. And you've got to be able to understand the spectrum. Because they don't teach you this in the schoolhouse. You've got to be ready for the spectrum of what the possible is.

And so, yeah, you're seeing, you know, and I think that time, we didn't have, We didn't have computers. So I remember part of my day was come in, work out, go do combatives, go do some technical stuff. And then if I was getting ready to go, I'd have to read on paper the daily sit reps. And so you're reading these sit reps. And it's got to be like reading a jack car book. You're just like, are you serious? Like these dudes are out there.

Like you didn't even meet these guys. And you're like, oh my God. And then you read the other folder of some, you know, there's 10 things going on in the world. and then all of a sudden, there's this drawer of all of the other stuff. So I got to read them, right? And then there was a lot of history. So I learned early on of people.

I mean, we would celebrate what individuals did because they became myths. And it was okay. It's kind of, I think I mentioned it once. It's kind of like being like the Indians who sit around the campfire

and talk about how they slayed, I don't know, whatever, and how they did something. And then that instilled in me, I don't think of the 20 years that were there. I learned all the history. I was fortunate.

A lot of the gray beards brought me in and talked to me about these stories. And there was kind of a passing on of the history, which is an honor to be sort of bestowed just this information, which unfortunately, it's got to stay in your head. Right. So you talk to talk to others. But yeah, that was my. Go ahead. I was just wondering, how was that for you from going from the Marine Corps, which is very, very, focused on esprit decor, very focused on history. I mean, you get history classes during boot camp,

you know, and then going someplace where the history is so fragmented and threaded that you really have to track it down on your own if you want to know it. Yeah, that's a good point. I don't, that kind of probably, you know, answers some folks questions like, hey, why does it seem that you're so much more passionate about being a Marine, right? That whole once a Marine always a Marine. But that's why I started. And that's how when I left the streets of Hiaiaa and I went into the Marine Corps, I got indoctrinated into the Marine Corps history.

And so in and out was Marine Corps history forever. And then my time in the Army and seventh group was too quick, right? It was fast and furious. I was in and I was out. And then when I came to the unit, it was all based about history. Right. because of its orange. It's about, there's also this piece of, hey, buddy, this is for real.

Right. Your actions, home, forward, back, left, and between what you say, who you marry, who you talk to, what you purchase, what you wear, affects the organization. Right. And so that ties back into the history and into the why. And in simple places, into the level of what you're operating. at and it sinks in sometime it really does sink in right when you start going up the ranks i think by time guys are eadn's you know you start understanding more of the inner workings of money of of charter you start understanding uh authorities right and once you look at these authorities you're

looking across right and i always studied also uh intelligence um as the intelligence community so i knew oh wow okay this organization not only in the hallway but in documents, like, you're for real, right? You're giving a lot of money. You have a lot of your requirements are at that level. And then I experienced it, you know, and I will get into where I did the typical tactical mission, you know, running around the mountains of Afghanistan to a strategic mission, which is there's serial chance, you know, there's no wriggle room for compromise,

which is different than being shot in the leg or getting hit by an RPG. Compromise, in essence, is really not an option. So history was important to understand. When you say the spectrum of the possible, I mean, it sounds like a lot of the guys at the unit had really everything thrown at them as far as mission profiles, types of missions. You mentioned the title authorities. In one sense, it sounds like the dream job that you can kind of do whatever it is you need to do. That's maybe the wrong term to use. But, I mean, you have different means to accomplish your mission.

and probably you guys have wider left and right limits to do that than probably some of the other units. But I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the difficulties or maybe not of straddling that world between special operations and the intelligence community and sort of existing in that gray area. Yeah, absolutely. So by definition, be where there isn't, and maybe it's changed inside that now, I was referenced. you know, hey, I got out two years ago and the world could have changed since then. Nor do you see a lot of special operations as we related to, you know, and we talked about this earlier, you know, the direct action, halo, scuba, seals, you know, what was the old term, and I fixed finish or whatever, fine, fix finish world to this, which has always been more

on sort of the agency side, go collect intelligence, espionage, right, worlds. And then when you get to put that potentially on one plate to something you said earlier, it is very unique, right, to be able to, and I want to probably go back, because I got a little bit lost here, on the mentality side of it, I was fortunate just from a groundwork when I first got there, I did the atypical

mission that was going on. So that was good for me and my peer group when we came in, I got to go into that real mission. And that was everything that I trained for, everything that we had done, every preparation, we were doing it, even to have the subsequent risk levels that came with it and exiting, out. So had that under my belt. And then the global war on terrorism kicked. And then we, you know, everybody's going off and doing Afghanistan, AFO work, you're going out looking on the mountains,

or doing all of this type of work. But when you got back, you may or may not go back on that rotation. You may have skills that you've developed. You may have certain characteristics, languages, technical, other hard skills that you may have. Or kind of simple, what happens in our world is your bin-named, hey, I want, I want, you know, Joe or Dan to come on this. mission, because of whatever reason. And so then you're going off and you're doing that. And so for me, 20 years later, and you're probably going to pull the strings on a little bit of that was a lot of jumping around. And that literally is a lot of jumping around between

all of those different skill sets, things you had to go learn to do. And then all of the crap that I call Pandora's Box that is part of it, which you have to put away because you're not bringing that stuff home to Mama because Mama and the family really don't know what you're doing. Yeah, I'm going to rely on like some cliches and some Hollywood to try to, I hope, paint this picture. And you can tell me if you agree or disagree. But it sounds like people like you were bouncing very much between like being a character in, let's say, like, American sniper or one of those types of films. And then jumping into the next mission, which is more like Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. you're having a kind of like jump in between these two very different worlds.

And I can only imagine the amount of stress that that puts you under. Yeah. You know, the neat thing is the sanity part is we had really good mentors, right? And so I hope that I was a good mentor. I think I was. And so I had really good mentors that guide you. And so when you step in for you guys, you step into a team room and that team room functions a certain way that it becomes normal. And so that became quickly became normal.

And in particular, after the global war on terrorism, organizations still struggle. We're like, oh, my God, this is not what we're supposed to be doing, you know, that typical stuff. But after a while, these units are resilient and they adapt. And then, you know, I think we mentioned before you have NCOs. NCOs are the backbone of a lot of these special operations units. and the NCO, that gray beard's going to go, nope, got it, suck it up, is what you're going to go do. Go put your dry suit back in your cage, go get your suit, go freshen up, you know, literally go freshen up your language, go do this tradecraft, go get your shots, and study up on the mission

and get out completely to the different side of the atmosphere. And by the way, the protocol for this one is, you know, tell Mama, you're not going to talk to her for three months, right? And then, by the way, Skippy, have your shit in order and don't fuck up. No pressure. That was, well, the pressure really was, like, you can go do really good. But if you fuck up on the day you came back, like, that's it. You fucked up that day here. And you're just like, that's not fair. But, you know, there's unique cultural things. Yeah, hopefully that answer. I'd like to get into, well, of course, 9-11 happens. The war on terror kicks off. It changed.

the unit you're in changes a lot of these units and how they operate. I like to kind of get into that and start getting into, you know, some of your time getting deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. And do you want to lead us into that before we kind of, I'd like to ask you about Ramadi. Yeah. Yeah. It took me a little bit to Ramadi. So the first one I did was, again, as I mentioned, that typical mission was a good mission,

came back. I think of that one, same thing, long hair, beard. And surely after that one, I met my wife. So my poor wife and it is a, you know, you got to bring in the family. Because without my family, I don't know if I would have been able to do this this long, especially my spouse, my current spouse of 19 years. And so that's when she met me. She was a foreigner,

met her on the streets of D.C. And Dave, you can relate to it like, hey, crap, this is a foreigner. I'm in a, you know, a special unit. right like oh god this is just why couldn't you just meet an American right so much easier to date and you know and I'm like all right you know love at her side I fell in love and then you know and so she was a foreigner didn't really know anything about the military she was from Brazil came into the yes probably been in the US not even a year her parents I've been here for a while that's where she met me and then I was off to do training at Fort Bragg or something like that and then went

into GWAT. The first thing I did for GWAT, I was fortunate. Again, my mentors, one that is now one of my lifelong mentors and good friends, there's a lot about selecting by names. They select me to go. We set up essentially like an LFO cell overseas, somewhere I think we were like Dubai or Qatar, one of these places, right, where the task forces were setting up points.

points. And so we was an officer, senior guy, and then I went in there. And so from there, that was me then, I think I pushed it somewhere. I went to like five different countries. I went from an embassy to transporting money to transporting prisoners on helicopters that the task force I just got in to landing in these dusty AFO somewhere to meet my buddies and hand them crap that we bought them at REI. Right. And so that was my like, holy crap. I came from, you know, somewhere you know, it was completely different focus to the, I finally got into the global war on terrorism. I got into the global war on terrorism, probably like a year, year later, because we sent all our guys out. And as Jeremy and some of the guys that you had had out in there, they got burned out, right?

Like they were doing stuff that they weren't designed to do. And those guys have that, you know, those elements, those other SMUs have the ass behind them to do that. And they were tiring out. So we were in smaller numbers. Just, you know, it's never created to, like, produce at that kind of tactical level in support of so many ongoing tactical operations. Now, I want to say, and again, this is only me putting my, my G8, CdD-D-Sardid Major hat, you know, 19 years later, it's because of our creativity.

Right. And it is because of our problem-solving abilities from the lowest, you know, E-5 operator at, you know, at where Jeremy came from to wherever I came from it. And then just the missions that these units have, if people present a problem and a solution, you're going to get the resources. And so anyway, that was the first thing I did that mission, which again took me onto the ground.

I went and grabbed prisoners. But it was that at a typical. I think we talked about it, Jack. It was like, you know, a commander's looking at you going, hey, we need one of you guys. It's either from your element or a Delta op, you know, another operator, we got this sensitive thing. Go pick up this prisoner or go take this gear or go take this money.

Right. And so you're doing stuff. You are that trusted entity that can take care of whatever. And so when we traveled, go ahead. I was just going to say the problem, I mean, the problem with your ability to be flexible and to get it done and not just yours, but the unit in general, is that that just generates more work. Right.

Having a can-do attitude. Right. Right. Right. Well, it became that we're like, well, I'm glad they think we can do it. Okay, how are we going to do it? Like, I live my lives and a lot of the guys that were my bosses, we're like, all right, buddy, we're going to go to the whiteboard.

So we would go to the whiteboard with markers and figure out how to do this. So anyway, so I did that. And then my real first time into sort of the hard skill side of it was doing, I joined the seals in Kabul for a PSD-type AFO work. So that was just being another enabler in sort of that joint world, right? And I think that's key for folks to understand that in the joint world, you know, one element's in charge, but there are other many people that make that capability, right? Everybody's got a key job regardless of what you were, especially at these levels.

But someone always has the primary responsibility. So I was embedded for about a month in Kabul, which was good. However, then I get that magical phone call, as we always do, because we pack everything we can possibly pack for contingencies. He's like, okay, you're going to go into the mountains of Assadabad, and now you're going to go do AFO work, and you're going to replace your buddy over there because he has to come home because he's going to have his first child, which, by the way, then we end up knowing, you know, our friends' children. Right. So like they leave off to high school. So anyway, so I'm going to go replace this guy and probably, you know, the guy you met in the

mountains might have been there before. So I'm now dumped in, you know, whatever I thought about was at, joint base with the Rangers, OGA, SF group and our guys and doing stuff along the border. And that was literally, you know, operators slash human technical, right, for the Intel special operations world it's not really an int you're just a person who can get stuff done i think that's very key to articulate the difference that folks want to go well you're a keyboard monkey that's all you do well no we're we we get things done it's just you you know like an oda team you may have a specific right skill but at the end you're still a green beret or you're still

a seal you're still right you're the problem hopefully that answer is that yeah yeah that problem, essentially a problem in social. So that took me to like 2002, three, but let me know how you want to. Yeah, Eric, real quick, just for the people who, you know, listen and may not be falling along that well, can you tell us what AFO means and then what you do when your AFO? Because, you know, like you said, that your first job was, you know, was outside of theater, was outside of the combat area. But then you went into the combat theater and did PSD.

and AFO. So can you tell us about AFO? Yeah, so like advanced force operations in essence, it's in the beginning of at least for GWAT in this particular case, right? There was other elements that have written books or guys have written book in how they were down in the mountains doing advanced force operations.

But there's also this administrative side that has to get done, right? Like special operations doesn't have bases all over the place. We're a very, very small little tick in the beginning that we have to find land. And we have to find resources. We have to do administrative stuff. And in some instances, be able to get into the fight beyond what we were tasked for.

So that aspect of it from a liaison perspective was going, setting up from an advanced force was we were helping all kinds of stuff, from vehicles to how to bring planes, how to get houses, how to get weapons in, how to get, you know, all of that aspect of it. which when you're, you know, it doesn't matter how special you are. When you're going to someone's base, you, it's a, that's a relationship. Like, hey, man, I'm going to have to go, you know, I need those barracks, right? And here's all I can tell you, right? And so that's a lot of leg work to facilitate people coming in and or the other one is providing options. So we have to sometimes provide multiple options. So it's just not like you went to go do one thing.

Sometimes we're doing that thing, one, two times and three times. because option number one and number two went to shit and now you've got to go do number three. And that's really what you're running around with the flexibility to just jump on a C-130 and fly and go to this country and then go to that other country. And that's at the admin in the non-combat area.

And then in the combat area, it is just these enabling all of these other activities that the regular conventional mechanism can't do fast enough. Right, like, hey, these guys went in there, they got this hit, but those prisoners need to quickly go from this little shitty, not even a fob, to this interrogation, because now they're doing it at this new place because someone set up a capability, but you can only go, you know, entrusted.

That's a lot of that work. And then the typical stuff is then you're out operating out of FOB X, and, you know, this entity is assigned to do special reconnaissance is assigned to do AFO work up in the mountains looking, right? that's different than doing more of the major combat operations. You're doing three, five, you know, small elements with other IC partners, with other indigenous at that level. And just really quick, I mean, a lot of that was really possible because we were able to thank God there was a lot of, you know, really cool, you know, the Rangers, the Marines and National Guard that helped us accomplish a lot of the work.

because when you're doing a lot of the sale of homework, you're not taking a full package. Like you're taking whatever you can put in trucks. And then when you get there, as many of your other guests say, you're like, oh, I guess these trucks aren't going to work. Crap. Right, can you buy those jingo trucks? All right, we're going to buy these jingo trucks.

No authorities need it, right, give or take. Now we're buying these jingo trucks. And now you're continuing forward. Right. Right. Yeah, it's, you know, I think that it's interesting that, you know, when we watch movies, you know, somebody, a team shows up and, you know, there are all these weapons waiting for them or there's

a safe house waiting from, and people don't understand that doesn't just happen. Like the U.S. military and the CIA and these other organizations don't have hit teams staged everywhere and safe house and staged everywhere and, you know, all these things. And that kind of gets left out of the books and the movies because like, are you going to make a movie about logistics? Right. But the thing is, is the logistics. can be very, very spicy, like you say, when it's just you and three other guys or two other guys and five indage

in the, you know, out, you know, out in the mountains outside of, you know, or Goon or whatever, you know, and it's like, okay, well, you know, how do we get trucks that navigate these? I just can't go to the local Toyota dealership and buy a bunch of high luxes. And that operation, like a lot of people don't understand,

And including, you know, the operators, dare I say, Rangers, seals, etc. Don't understand that, like, yeah, you went on this operation, did, kick some ass, got HVT number one. But there is like a whole cluster of enablers around that shit that made that operation actually happen. I mean, we were just kind of like the guys that kicked in the door the last 30 seconds of it. Yeah, you got, I mean, you got to bring it some point. It's something you had said. I mean, we, and it was someone that you knew that we know in common. And so that peer group was out forward, right?

And so one of the things that we were doing back at home station was monitoring because they were out first with, you know, organically with the guys that they went out to go do, like you've had the guy on your show before. And those things were, you know, the point that I'm going to get, they were freezing their ass off. Yeah. Because we didn't have that gear, right? We had gear for those guys had their gear for their specific missions. And yeah, they were able to get up. I think they were doing a train emission somewhere, take that package and get to Afghanistan. But that terrain was different.

There's a lot of unknowns. And so when they're getting ready to do, they're buying a lot of crap on the economy, but they had that reach back power, right? And so that's the uniqueness that these organizations do have is you're picking up the phone and you're sending an email and it gets prioritized. But that takes time to buy this stuff and then get it in. And nobody really has gone to wear. gear that you haven't trained with because that's pretty dangerous, right, to just take,

especially some of the more critical kind of capabilities. But we had guys that, you know, took certain gear that we had on the shuffle. We had a pretty wide range of gear from across all the other SMUs or entities. We would get similar of their capabilities and then we would have ours so we can be interoperable for black and better words. But then those guys are like, dude, I didn't think I was going to go from here to 10,000, and feet and I'm fucking freezing my ass off because so we would literally you know and you hear maybe sometimes these things in movies or books guys are going to REI huts and trail and we're buying

and we don't know we're going to you know this 18 year old we're like hey man if you had all the money in the world what would you buy for your buddy who's stuck in the mountains of a really high mountain freezing his ass off and needs to be really light because he's carrying a lot of vital stuff and they're like well you know not here's this art taric $800 jacket, right? And people are like, well, you guys are overspending. That's the only thing that was available in 2001. Right.

So we quickly had to get that gear because that's time. That's time that those guys on the ground are like, hey, man, I know how much, you know, how far I can hump, how much gear I can take, I know how cold that can be, but after a while, you're just gonna be, I don't care how bad ass you are, those mountains of Afghanistan and that time will eat you up, right? Your boots, that's why quickly,

beyond soft went and ditched whatever boots we had and we were buying, you know, whatever high-speed boots were available. But these elements were able to get that done. To your point, that was critical to be able to get this gear and their stuff to these guys' hands. I was thinking that those REI co-op rebates on those big purchases must have been nice for the guy going and making the purchases. Yeah, the government impact card.

Yeah. Yeah, but if it's on his account, it doesn't matter what credit. Cardi's using. So let's jump then over to Iraq and Ramadi. I think we're talking a little bit about this mission before we started the episode, before we started streaming here tonight. I think it's really interesting some of the details on how you accomplished what the job you were assigned to do out there. Can you kind of walk us through that? Yeah, absolutely. So that was when I got there was probably November of 2006. And so my, my, a good friend of mine

was taken lead on on that requirement. He had been hand selected to lead certain aspects of that. And so that targets that had been in the work for about a year prior. So from about 2005, it was essentially one of the number one target sets that, you know, the top 10 that we were looking for. And I mean that the greater,

you know, enterprise was looking for in Iraq. And so they had gotten closer. They were narrowing down. I mean, this was going after, you know, a very elusive, so one-off from, you know, senior al-Qaeda. You're trying to get to them by their communications, their facilitators, key folks. And so this person happened to have an extreme amount of level

of tradecraft training and just what they were doing would very, very key. It had a lot of the agencies allude to how they were essentially communicating and then the way that they were doing things. I mean, again, we can throw everything at it. We just couldn't figure out to the simple terms, where the hell this person was and who they were, right? And so by the time I got there, I had been hand chosen. I was operating somewhere else, came back.

I think my kid was like a year old, and then I'm back out the door. I go to replace, and then I'm taking on this other capability. And so we end up working for the task force commander as a unique capability for him. He's got his elements of at that point was a SEALS. That team is there. They're doing their work, and it was a joint effort. And so essentially my task was to lead some effort. leveraging IC capabilities, you know, intelligence community capabilities,

and just kind of pulling together how to get to this entity. And so we had done several, you know, operating into Ramadi, as you guys know, in November of 2006, was extremely dangerous. I think there was a huge flurry of activity going on in the summer of 2006. I mean, I think there's like movies and books written about it. But by the time I got there, I knew that it was. It was a hostile environment. And so I had ran a couple of operations going in,

essentially from the task force in and out of our body, looking for my whole mission was just find this individual. And then give the task force commander and the overarching special operations commander on the ground options. Right? That's essentially what we do, is provide those options. And the one really big mission was there was going to be

a cordon sweep by the Marines and sort of the army going from one side of Ramadi all the way across. And we provided to the task force commander. We're like, hey, we believe this entity, which has a very unique high level of tradecraft. Like this enemy is employing high levels of tradecraft. And it's just you're just not going to send Rangers in there and find them. It's just not going to work that way. Eric, if I can interrupt for a moment. I mean, tradecraft implies training, professional intelligence service training.

Was there any indication or any idea of where the bad guys picked this up from? There is. And I'm probably going to refrain a little bit, but it's definitely at the state-sponsored level. Holy shit. It was good. And it was stuff that I'll preface it, I ended up. having to go into the interrogation room with the gators at that point because of the dynamics and the relationship ultimately i'll get to this point uh but when they started to peel the onion

it was just like oh crap okay that this is at another layer which made sense but when you're starting to see technical you know and and uh it's kind of shit you see in movies but this person wasn't who they were yeah so we're up you're up against a state sponsored terrorist organization Your state sponsor. This is state sponsor running around in the open, you know, in the open in Ramadi amongst the other crap that's going on, right? So you've got the regular task force going across, you know, and that includes the Brits and everybody else going against high level targets. And you've got the Marines or the regular sea, you know, everybody else. But then you have this other little spots that were state sponsor. There's always another layer of stuff going on all the time. It's just if that's your response. you're aware that in the other building, there's something at the strategic level where you're looking at it at the tactical level. Right. And again, this has been. On the other side of that, that onion and that other little spot, you were the adversary that pops onto that battle space to find that one guy. Yeah. And, you know, it, we talked about this earlier. The harder part is navigating the political piece. Right. Right. Like, it's somebody else's space. Right. So people think it's like, oh, the Marines just went in there or the seals went in there and they tore down this door and got the bad guy. Before that even happened,

there are layers of, for good reasons, sometimes, that that house, that building can't be taken down. Right. Because there are other things at play. Right. So that ability to also understand, hey, wait a minute. What is actually also going on here, a block away, two blocks away, right? So we got to approvals. I presented the option to be embedded. There was a cordon sweep that was going to happen. So that means then when these things happen, the populace knows that the Marines and the military are going to come through.

So they're going to hunker down, right? And activities are going to go down. And we're going to do all of this PR kind of stuff. So quickly, grab my kit, flew over, embedded a, I want to say they're the second ID, their scout return, right? Because then this is the colonel that was in charge of them, knew somebody from the task force, which again, it's usually who you know,

these friendships that go a long way that help facilitate these operations. So, you know, I got my little itaric rock full of kit, my guns and stuff and my uniforms. And actually on that one, that's the one that I took two uniforms. I took an army uniform and a marine uniform, understanding what possible courses of actions, what some lines of operations could be. So I flew over there.

At that point, only the colonel knew, and then he brought on the senior staff sergeant. I was in charge of the scout team. So essentially, I became one of their team members. So we went in in the darkness, just like the scout team would do, providing Overwatch for the greater Corridon Blue, which gave me then the opportunity to sneak and peek in and out of that. houses as they were going in Ramadi. So we weren't the official welcoming party of the Corridan sweep.

We were more of the Overwatch, but that gave me more of the ability to look for what I was looking. So all they knew is, you know, Eric, you know, that your hippie is going to be tag teaming with them, right? And so the neat, odd conversation, there was, hey, do you want to be with us when we go and do the, you know, we find your guy or direct action? Like, no, dude, that's your job. And I'm like, no, no, no, dude, like, you do your job.

I got my job. The shit goes bad. I'll step in. But this is your primary job because I've got two or three other things that if something happens, I got to be able to do. So anyway, we went in the cover of darkness in and out of these houses until we found, so we found one of the houses where then there was indicators that clued me in that that was a spot. my overall mission was, you know, obviously this person, we've been looking for them for about a year, was leave that person in place. This is the greater, that's how that operates.

You've found them, you've confirmed it visually, right? And the whole goal was not let that person realize that he had actually been targeted, that we were looking for him. So success in that mission was leaving this HVT, this high-level guy, believe that he had skirted us. Wow. At the same time, there were culverts. There were covert stuff that was done, right? To activity, to, you know, certain things that were done, confirmation,

leaving them in there, and then we moved on. However, because there were then, we were there, the Marines were around, the rangers were around, we hit a nerve, right? You hit a nerve not only for him, maybe the cell that was around him, didn't even really know who that he was, but they were, you know, they were just other simple terms of their bad dudes. They reacted to us. And as I was coming out, I was literally about to put my Peltors on, because I was sending a note back, you know, a quick note to confirm kind of like a jackpot, if you would. And as soon as I come out of those metal gates, we get hit by an RPG. And

it was a real shock because you weren't expecting it. We weren't here in gunfire. Again, like I said, you hit that kind of nerve. And as we were coming out of that one house, that RPG hit, you know, the other side of the block, which is, I don't know, meters. And it went from putting all my, you know, checking back on the team being the first guy that gets out. And then just being slammed by the concussion onto that blue gate. And then the next five hours, which is just a gunfight. It just movement back and forth, shouldn't I say. So, and this is sort of behind the main advance or within that main advance.

Yeah, yeah, we were just one little small piece, again, hidden within that greater corridor suite that was going on. And, you know, interesting then, by the time we secured, I think it was like two hours into it, not even that long, we had secured a rooftop. And then I had helped the JTAC with supporting fire, calling in pass, some other activities at the same time. He had the radio. So I reported back to the task force.

I'm like, hey, I found, we found the guy. What do you want me to do? And I love the commander at the time. He posed like, hey, you think you want to bring him back? I'm like, okay, sir, like we can. This is what just happened. And the task force, the jock had seen the explosion. So they, we had odd eyes, right?

On my little team had all eyes to protect this movement. And so that was, you know, at that point he said, hey, just leave him there. and to some of the mental health kind of stuff that we talked about, I just remember finalizing that cons with the commander, because that was my priority, not the gunfight, because all of that kicked in instinctively, if you would, but it was providing that message, getting that commander to say,

all right, man, I'll see you when you get back, go back, do all your hot wash, and then just only remembering waking up at the jock, at my little, you know, little cot at where the task force is at. what felt like two days later, because I had just, I did not remember. And again, I would only come to find this out, you know, whatever, 20 years or not even that, 15 years later when I retire. When, like when you're working in somebody's battle space like that,

I'm sure you have sort of a cover for action for the troops that you're around. But are the battle space commanders, are the battle space owners generally clued in to what your actual mission is, or does it even bypass them? You know the answer. It depends. I think at the level where, you know, calculated risk, if somebody's going to get hurt, you're going to break something, you're going to potentially do something. If you can do it underneath the radar, right? And obviously, higher moral ground, not violate anything ethically, right? And not put, because my authorities, my authorities may be different than the people that we're catching a ride or they're using us.

At the reality, where you, you know, the individual guy operator, whatever team, any other team who's doing a similar activity will assess, am I putting somebody into risk? Because, hey, man, you know, you don't look like them. I've taken a lot of measures. We've taken a lot of measures to look just like them. in that particular operation, just really quick, like I went in wearing a army, regular army uniform, which I don't even know why I even took them. I think I took them so I can get out of country if I had to go to Qatar.

Right. Like I'd never wore them, but I wore them to go be like the scouts because that's what they wore. So I had everything that they wore, if I had a big beard, but then the whole story was, I was like, I looked like a turp. So you can play that for those 10 minutes. You got that gray area.

of 10 minutes. But you would tell the guy, him, and you know, you would trust somebody here. This is, here's what, here's what's going on within left and right limits. Because you don't want to put somebody to put their ass on the line. And in particular, where you're, you're reaching that scout team leader. And now what happens is they're like, oh, my God, this guy, this task force guy. No, dude, like, don't worry about me. Worry about your team because I'm going to be gone.

Right. And I don't want, you got to keep that rotation. You got to keep on going. And then also you want people to feel part of a grade or something. Right. So I thank them. I would bring them in. You're like, hey, that's the guy.

And they're, you know, they're like, oh, no, there's so much shit going on. And then a month later to this story, there's 15 hits across two major cities. So the dudes are probably like, okay, I was part of that. Right. Right. And hopefully their commander went back and said, you were part of it. And I've seen that to be with a lot of my other former friends that they have built these relationship with these commanders or these sergeant majors or these people that helped us. So you're alluding to sort of the aftermath of this operation that down the line, there was an action taken against the high value target that you were after that night.

Yeah. So that night, by the time I got back, I think I got back like a day later when I woke up and I got back. we then went to work for about another month, and this was just intense, you know, development of a target at the, you know, at the levels that you, you know, you kind of read about where all capabilities are brought in. It was just, it's just amazing.

Like the teams, the teams, right? Like just we brought in all kinds of experts. We brought them in into this joint, and just develop, develop, develop, provided a variety of options. and then the target sets grew and grew and grew. So when it's done, you know, it isn't just going, as you guys know, and go and just take out that bad guy just because it's the time is right.

You leave it up to other echelons to figure out what the best way to do it and when to do it. And then there's all kinds of authorities and stuff that happens. So there's some patience. So essentially a month later than the Rangers, you know, I went. And then at this point, I went in with specifically to go get that guy. with a rager element that was with us there. And those guys were amazing.

The funny, funny story is I went to the team leader, and I briefed him. I'm like, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to be one of, you know, 15 other hits. When you go in here, I'm going to go confirm. And then I need you to pull everything out of there. And he's like, hey, Eric, you do know that these are Rangers. And if, like, you tell them to pull everything off of that hit, they're going to pull the fucking microwaves.

They're going to pull the lamps. They're going to pull the shapes. Yeah, right. Okay. Thank you. Like, only take anything that's electronic. Is it anything that's electronic? I'm like, take anything that's electronic.

So if someone can draw a picture of Rangers hitting, you know, these two-story house, taking these bad guys out, which is one thing. But literally carrying microwaves, carrying computers, carrying lands. Because, again, as you mentioned, you alluded to check at that level, you're taking everything because you're looking at a state. level. Right. It is so important. That was a huge SSC effort. Like it hadn't been done in a long time, but the Rangers were just, they were just so happy to go do that, right? Like, they went in there,

dude, and they were so happy. Like, I got the microwaves. Well, I got the lamp. They didn't know, you know. You got five guys like we're all in the fridge out. I'm having, like, I'm having flashbacks to an operation we did in Blod for some reason, even though we were task force north. And it's a, Same kind of thing. They wanted to pull all the electronics off of that mission. And we pulled everything. And then when we walked, because the target was right next to the fob, we walked back

out of the fob. But there weren't trucks to meet us and drive us to the airfield to get on the 160th birds. And the sun's coming up. And 160th doesn't fly it during daylight. So the whole platoon of Rangers, and we're holding like computer CPUs and shit like that, like full tower computers, like running, full sprint. like a mile down the road to the airfield so we can get on the birds and go back to our base. And really, I think the whole reason is just because we don't want to be stuck in Balad for a day.

We want to go back to the chat hall and get some red bulls and whatever else. But yeah, that's really funny. It was a great mission. I mean, all of that stuff came back. And then I'm like, all right, mission complete. Right. And this kind of goes to something that we were talking about earlier. I'm like, they capture all of these people.

now it is the next level of, you know, of folks that are working this mission set, they're going to start the interrogations, they're going to start gathering the intelligence, and they're going to do all of that. But I got to get home, right? Like, it's not, you know, like, my time is up, but that was my mission. And I'm already getting indicators that I got to train up for other things to go do, which I did. I ended up deploying literally three weeks later in a completely different hemisphere for a hostage rescue type thing, which I had been going on for a long time, which I was very happy that I got to go do. But when I got back, it then came to the higher powers and go, hey, you build a relationship

with this person and the entity and you know them so well. I had psychiatrists that actually worked for us that were just understanding how these people think, breathe and that hole was fusing on a whiteboard, right? We had this whiteboard of death and everything was being put in there. And they're like, yeah, the boss wants you to go and you're going to go and hang out with the gators for a week because you have built a relationship with this individual because ultimately you guys have figured out. And that's really simply how you can get a little bit more cooperation. Oh, so you actually had that scene like in the movie the Battle of Algiers where they're sitting in the back of the car like, I feel like I know you because I've tracked you for so long. It, yeah, I mean, I had to go back in there.

And so I got to sit and watch a day of the process going. And then the next day I was in the booth for about two or three days in that cycle. How did this gentleman respond to having you there? It was kind of checkmate. Yeah, we got you. It was that sense of, it was checkmate. the level of, you know, if you would, Dave, the, you know, the, the, the IC officer to the IC officer, right? At that trade craft, at that level, you're like, okay, you got me.

You know, and that's actually been later on, we used it in, and again, to, to you talk about at the schoolhouse of what's, and then we didn't know this was going to happen, but this is what we can do. This is what people can do. These are the ideas we bring. out and because you're trusted at this level, well, you're going to move forward with it. And again, I was packing to go home and but then we went and we did it and it was successful. And it's not, obviously, I was a small fraction of it. There are just so many other professionals and mechanisms that helped us facilitate, but we're just those out of the box thinkers that say, how about this?

And they're going, okay, well, if this dude thinks we can do it, then let's give it a try. And that's awesome. That's wild, man. And I mean, that's just an incredible and kind of rare story, I think, of espionage taking place inside a war zone. Yeah. Could you tell us a little bit? You alluded to being next sent on a completely different mission and a completely different AO to locate American hostages. I was wondering, you know, what can you tell us about that?

What was it like kind of bouncing from Ramadi to a totally different AO? Because you had been working on this prior to, right? Yeah, I'm going to try to keep that one simple. Sure. And so there had been, like I said, a few of them, there's probably one that's a little bit more noticeable, a lot closer to home for folks, right? And I, we, the greater soft community was one part of it. But when you've got Americans captured hostage, I've seen the energy that goes behind taking bad, you know, bad people off the streets. I have seen a different level of dedication and passion to go rescue

our Americans. It's just a completely different world. And so probably, I'm going to kind of speculate maybe two years prior to that in and out. And it was just as opportunities were seen. Again, you were doing something else, studying, learning, whatever, you were going to go do that, and then you can come back and do another one. So that one, I still hadn't even, again, known that what a traumatic brain injury was. I had no idea what that was. But there was, as everything happens, new information, new developments, new equals new opportunities.

And then you're sent to the fight. I had nothing to do with in that aspect, part of the planning. It was just, again, one of the folks that by name said, all right, Skippy, here's what we're going to go do. And then it went from leave, Ramadi. and I've talked about it, this board is putting everything that went on from a year prosecuting that target and all the combat trauma, all of that, and even also acknowledging, and I'm remiss if I don't say, all the service members that were killed in that time in Iraq and Ramadi. That weighs heavily. And unfortunately, you see it, but you've got to put it away. It's hard to operate sometimes at those levels. But I put Ramadi into it. that Malila folder and I put it at the safe at my team room and locked it up and prepared for the other one. And that little Lee was get back into the mission, understand what it's going,

you know, you're going to go and dress completely different. You're going to go do completely, it's all literally a different world. Right. And there's higher, there's higher level of, I don't want to say it's risk or compromise, but sensitivities that are in play with it. So you've got to check your mind. You got to check where you're at. And then went off. and did it. And I want to say that that point was it wasn't successful, which a lot of times in our world, there's a lot of things that they don't lead to success at that moment, but they do later on. And so you kind of used to, hey, I move that football, just a little bit more forward for the next option. And so we did, we did go down, integrated. I think we went down for maybe two or three

weeks. And then, hey, there's nothing else to do because of other things have to come into play. And it takes that world to rescue folks. It isn't black and white. It's not like dropping a day, J Dan. This is a chess game, right? And there's things that have to be put in place. And sometimes they'll take weeks. So, okay, back you go. And then you're doing something else. Ultimately, that did culminate into a success. I want to say I was, probably in the Horn of Africa or somewhere, when that, you know, those American hostages were rescued. And I can tell you, everybody, anybody that was involved in it, just easily shed tears, just joy to know that our folks came back and that we had a part of it, a part in it.

Yeah, that owes, those are some of the greater highlights. I'm not going to, I won't drop any dimes here, Eric. I'll just say, I think it's fascinating that officially the role that you and many others played in recovering those American citizens is completely unacknowledged. People have no freaking idea. Okay. Eric, you know, when we talk to a lot of service members and intelligence professionals, you know, one of the challenges they have, which gets. mixed in, I think, with post-traumatic stress. Like, it all joins together, including the TBIs, but it's also the shifting of gears, right? Going from, you know, 100 miles an hour in a combat zone with no decompression, no, like, sort of venting function from the government to back to civilian life. And that, that's very hard to go to do this ramping. And even that creates its own sort of

low grade post-traumatic stress in a while with one foot on the brake one foot on the gas all the time but for you and others like you it wasn't just shifting gears from going from operational at you know 100 miles an hour killing what's in front of you or whatever to back at home trying to fit in with people at you know TGIF or whatever TGI Fridays or whatever or outback or whatever but but you were actually also going on operationally still still in a high stress environment but with a completely different focus and a completely different so how how hard was that for you did you did you because this is this I'm going to make this a bigger question because one of things you mentioned when you talked about sort of your expression of post-traumatic stress or

these things being different than like a dev grew guy or a CAG guy. Do you feel that guys in your world compartmentalize and detach a lot more because that's sort of part of the job? And then so you almost have this sort of anhadonia, you know, this lack of feeling that that that becomes your survival mechanism. Yes. And, you know, not in those guides, I'm not an assaulter at all come from those organizations. I've worked really close with those organizations. I've made friendships with a lot of them early on when I started my career in 2000 in this unit.

And across the time frame, and I'd seen a lot of them suffer from post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries. what I will say is then, you know, and each organization protects their activities differently. You know, and I'll say this simply, but, you know, a seal is a seal. So a seal does seal stuff. Okay. So I'm assuming the spouses and the children of a seal and every seal know that those dudes are going to be constantly in danger because that's what they do. they're really good at doing. Special forces, same thing, the Rangers, the Marines, and then however guys from CAG and however that world, but there are cycles in the way that they train

and the way that they deploy, you know, and again, I'm just generalizing here in three to four months rotations, that kind of stays in par with what, you know, the special operations is doing for deployment. Now, in the world of sort of intelligence, special operations in a unique world, a lot of unique small organizations is that then we don't have those same cycles. And what happens at work literally stays at work. Because at a, you know, and it's nothing because it's super sexy and, you know, James Bond crap, well, because it's classified work. Right. And so anybody that works in the IEC in the intelligence community, they leave their work there and they can't talk about it. And so we have a large aspect of that. And

And I would say this in general in sort of military intelligence and then mix that with special operations. So we tend to compartmentalize a lot. And I've mentioned this before on a personal level. And I will say that I did wrong. I probably had a lot of opportunities to tell my family that I got hit by an RPG, that I almost feared getting imprisoned, that I, you know, stump my head and past whatever, all of these really bad things that happened, as well as even share a couple of.

accomplishments. Hey, then, I just came back from a rotation and something really good happened. Why you, my son went to the hospital when I left and you had to deal with the bills, there's a good outcome. But we didn't even share good, bad or different, right, because you compartment. And a lot of that in a selfish perspective, I didn't want, you know, my wife to take away my kitchen pass, right, and go, you're done. Or I'm going to divorce you because we have high rates a divorce. A lot of the divorces where I don't know what you're doing, but I know it's not good for the family. And so we tend to compartmentalize. Hopefully it's getting better. That it has to get better where folks that are doing this level of work or any level of work in the military,

learn to do with PTSD and TBIs upfront when you get back from a rotation. And so we tend to compartmentalize more because of the type of work that we do. And again, it doesn't come home. for me personally the way I always conditioned myself with the ways my mentors taught me, I never took anything home. There was nothing home. There was no souvenirs when you came home from a trip. You know, there's just set rules.

You leave it in your wall locker and maybe you bring it home five years later because Joe went to Africa and he brought you that elephant. It's just the way it is because at the end, you're protecting not only the organization, and as we've all talked about it, you're really protecting that person to the left and to the right of you by these little things. Because in this level where there's less room for error, you got to check that eagle, right?

You got to check it at the door. And so there is a lot more compartmentalization. Now, the mental aspect of it is, I don't think anybody when GWAT started thought that getting hit by grenades and RPGs and being shot at or being compromised or being singleton stuff or going in and out, moral injury is another one that people think, well, maybe only assaulters have moral injury because they killed a bunch of people. Moral injury extends to, you know, I told my wife all the time, I said, I didn't, well, intended to purpose,

I never lied to you, but I didn't tell you the truth. Right. Right. There's a lot of moral injury that today I don't remember. Right. really what I suppressed, when I suppressed it, where I was at, until I'm looking at photographs going, oh, fuck, I was, I couldn't sleep. I was talking.

I was over-drinking. I was an asshole. Right. Or something happened. And I left it in the team room in the safe because that's how I love to deal with it. I'll stop there just in case you. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like a cliche, but I can imagine here how.

like your mind becomes a labyrinth over time and just the psychological pressure it must be so immense. And I want to get into the kind of toll that doing this line of work takes on people in a bit. But I did also want to hit up some of these other stories that we had talked about. You had mentioned one where you had to initiate the emergency destruction plan of your equipment. And I was wondering if you could tell us as much as you can about that operation and why you had to go down the, I mean, maybe you can also explain what the emergency destruction plan is for people who don't get it. Yeah. And, you know, it was, man, I think it went over almost against every fiber in my body to even acknowledge that or even, again, now I'm realizing that if I did, didn't say anything to my family, that's kind of my Lintab's test, right? And then again, there's other people involved in these things. And then there's other folks that have had similar scenarios that I hope they're listening

and I hope that they figure out that you need to work through it, the things that we or anybody else has gone through. So in particular this one, I actually did put it in my PTSD paperwork at the VA, took a little bit because of the sensitivities involved in around it. But it did get help figuring out that, oh, yeah, I had to do, which is right, classified, plastic. classified for the five Ws of it, except the how or why or whatever, you know, what actually transpired. And so it was, you know, since it was an operation doing intelligence work. And what an emergency destruction plan is, it's kind of like an oat shit plan, right? And so if you're going to get compromised, one man, five man, ten man, an airplane, wherever you're at, you're You got to sign it, guys.

In a tactical world, I remember at least formatively as a Saaday, that would be take a thermite grenade. You put it in your backpack. You would hope that that thermite grenade would go down, right? I think I pretended to do that one time in a JRX, and I kind of passed that one. Well, sometimes you don't get to carry thermite grenades, right? So the level of some of these operations, you've got to be way more creative. And at least in my experience, in the experience of the folks that were involved in this session of this mission line, guys that have taught me, I don't think anybody else had done one.

Later on, I did come to find that, and maybe somebody did something similar because they're always going to have these hairy scenarios. But I'm so glad I didn't have to pay the bill because I destroyed a lot of stuff. I think I was like, what was it, a 15-6 or whatever it was? I got back and I thought I'd done good. And then I'm like, you're getting investigated. I'm like, where the fuck does that work out? Anyway, so there I am. You know, we're working in an environment that has very little room for error.

And it meets the threshold. Something, an activity meets the threshold with two guys. that I think the world of for their actions and then funny stories later on. I have to kind of process how I said them. But I get a phone call, right? There's that dreaded phone call with, you know, you see this in the movies, with, you know, the red cow is about to take a poop. Well, that means you need to go do A, B, C, D, and go.

And that means that then turns into Musa memory. There's no thinking that has to be planned. That's methodical. That's timing. And so I get the phone call and I go through the process. I think at that point, we hadn't thought about only doing it with one person. There was a little, you know, a gray area there. It was manageable.

But there was a lot of things to break, sanitize, right? And then part of the destruction, emergency destruction plan is also an escape and evade aspect of it. So part of that is twofold. It was destroy and get the head. hell out of there and go. And then go means there's a plan. And I think my plan on paper was like two days. And later on, I'm like, I don't know.

I could have walked that far. Right. Like it was one of these elaborate like go downhill, get on a boat, go across this river. You're in another country. And now you're just going to go that away. I think I just did that. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

I know what to do. Like, it's never going to happen, but it happened. However, in this aspect, um, I'm then halfway I get the bag, I destroy everything, do everything I need to do within protocols. One part of it that we didn't know is it's really hard sometimes to destroy things when you don't have thermites and you've got to take your hands to it. And now you've got this adrenaline, right? We know what adrenaline is. We know how your eyes are going to go down and you start ripping. But now your hands start getting bloody, right? And because you're breaking plastic and

plastic starts to cut. And after a while, you've got your body's and your heart rates going. But now blood in your hands is really slippery, right? And I don't even make it a mess. At that point, I'm like, I'm not even worried about DNA. I'm not even thinking about it. I'm just thinking about I can't hold crap in my hands and there's blood everywhere. So I'm destroying stuff. My hands are getting bloody. I wash up as best as I could. I sanitize as best as I could. And then I start moving out. And then I get a phone call. Hey, man, you've got to come back. wasn't thought about in order to make everything go back to green, right? If you would, simple as green.

Yellow is you're kind of in danger. Red is you're in danger. So to get back to green, you need to get back. And so that's not quite anything I ever thought about. So I literally have to come back and just accommodate things in order to get back to green. So that took a lot of creativity of why at the end, you know, just like you see in the, what is the ID channel, why did the murderer have blood in his hand? Well, why do you have blood in your hand?

Because you say you're doing X, but you're really doing Y. And so that ended up being good. I had some creativity on the spot to explain why I have blooded my hand, why they were scrapped. But I had to reenact and put kind of things back in place. And then essentially everything got back to green. And the butt a couple of days later we wrap up, we get out of there and go kind of back to what we were talking about. And we didn't get to go home.

Then subsequently there's that, you know, that fraggo, hey, man, I know you kind of destroyed everything, but you guys need to stay here for another month because we need you for something else. The answer is, okay, let us figure it out. So that's that story. That's crazy. That is. You know, it's interesting because on the show before we've talked about the weight of decisions. you make that you have to make, right? Like when you're on patrol and you see a guy with a cell phone,

do you shoot him or do you not? If he's triggering an IED and you haven't shot him, you just failed your team. If you shoot him and he's an innocent, then you just committed a horrific act. I mean, we saw, was it in 2001 when the EP3 went down or, right? In China. In China, right?

Yeah. And they didn't destroy the equipment. And people go, how could they not do that? They had procedures in place. That's a lot of weight on them. If they destroy that equipment and then our government turns around and tells them, why did you destroy that equipment like, you know, whatever? Like that's a lot of weight.

Those are heavy decisions because, like you said, you're glad they didn't make you pay for it. Right? Or, yeah, I mean, I try to make kind of, you know, even though it is a true story, you know, and later on into the future, I would always think about that. And then I'm like, okay, that's kind of silly, right? Like, I need to make sure when I do a mission back brief, if we got to do this, you're not fucking going to go and go chase these people because they did what you just agreed we're going to do. Right. Track, right, lessons like because sometimes we get so procedurally used to what's going to go wrong until things go wrong.

And then unfortunately, it always ends up an investigation, good organizations, good companies, and he's learned from that and change everything. So it doesn't happen again. So then the folks are going to do it. They're not like, hey, man, you remember what happened to Eric or what happened to these guys? Yeah. Fuck that. And what happens is you compromise the system.

Right. You compromise the integrity of how you're supposed to work. Right. So continue to, A, take care of your freaking people all the way to the end because they're going to give you, they're going to give their lives for you. They're going to go to jail. They're going to freaking, you know, sit in a cell somewhere. and you know but be there to back them up because you know those being an American hostage

and there's been very many of them that's a world I never wanted to be in like I'd rather have and I'd never tell my wife like I rather have been shot blown up killed but to be captured right I still have I still have nightmares about that like right it still goes into that hyper vigilance that folks that have been and it doesn't matter what you did in the military or if you were even an undercover police officer, you don't want to get ratted. You don't want to get found. Like, you're just not going to. I was wondering if you could tell us about some of those times where you were afraid of

being captured because I know, you know, you had mentioned doing Sigleton operations in a few occasions. And again, I mean, back to the amount of psychological stress you're under. I mean, that's a very different scenario than being part of a Delta Squadron or a Ranger or a conventional infantry company. What were some of those instances that, you know, really stick with you? Yeah. And I mean, I'll say I'm not, I'm not the only one that's ever done that.

A lot of folks, you know, have been tasked to do things. And what essentially is a singleton, you're by yourself there, but in the shadows, and if you wouldn't have to that way, in the background, there's people helping you, right? Like there's no, you're just going to go to yourself generally in this country and do stuff by yourself. You're going to have an element. But it is your ass on the line by yourself. You don't have a buddy to your left and to your right. It's just you and what you're doing.

And so I did have one in sort of mid-2000s post-Ramadi post some of the other stuff that I did. And at that point, I was already kind of worn down a little bit. And so one of that in that rotation, I essentially found an entrusted to do some placement in access, if you would. So the ability to develop gain access and kind of work my way closer while in the back, I knew the same elements you just mentioned would be there to take care of me. But there was an instance going in and out of a facility that I worked at was that high level of stress, right? Just getting bags in, developing the relationships to have people not blink an eye, right? That took weeks to develop. And then you're going in and out.

And essentially, you're sleeping there by yourself. You're living your life every day as you need to. And then you're operating when it's the right time to do things, kind of that wave of the hand, if you were to keep it simple. And so I had been doing this several days, about a week. And there were, like always, there's always something going around around you. And this was citywide. So citywide, and this was a hostile. This is literally a hostile environment.

It was an Iraq and Afghanistan. And so there wasn't a lot of U.S. entity just running around. It's very select folks running around. And so in that one and working, I had not only a weapon, but I had some other capabilities and things that I was doing across the spectrum of INS. And then there was one time that the lights in the city went off. And before that, I was getting,

I would do a comm check with sort of another operator that was back in an area. I would do my comm shots, if you would, communicate, get my instructions. Here's what I'm going to do. do, you know, here's my, you know, updated emergency plan. If something goes on, here's my schedule for the day, I'm out, right? And that's how you kind of work.

Then it was a part that, hey, hey, man, by the way, here's the threat level. It's going up, right? We're going from, we're going to red. And what really matters is they're targeting Americans, right? Still American. However, little brown guy that you look like, you're still, you're not from there. sorry, you're not from there. And so at the same time, I was getting closer and closer and kind of creating some

avenues into what I needed to facilitate. So when I come back, then you're always, you know, you get tired. You start to do your checks and balances. Okay, I don't remember that person. I don't remember this. This person's new. I've never seen that person at my car. All of this starts to build up, which there are always multiple things going on.

around you, it is just identifying which one is focused on you. Like there's criminals, there's other intel work. There's always a multitude of things going on. It's just having that clear mind. And so one night, I'm at the site that about where I was living. And at that point, I had a big toll. So unfortunately, I had probably been drinking a little bit more than I needed to. And I was exhausting myself to go to sleep in order to continue to operate day.

the day, I was reaching that really bad threshold and the entire lights in that city go on. Like all of it. There's no power. And so the critical lifeline that I had was commo. And as you guys know, when commos done, I don't care how many guns you got. I don't care how fast you can run. I don't care what what indigenous clothes you're wearing. You got no commo, man.

That's when you feel, that's when that gut feeling. And so the power had gone down. And I was essentially probably within minutes. of packing up and making a run for it, right? Because I would have met certain time windows, and then there was luckily elements that they were doing their own stuff around that knew, hey, if this happened, you're going to go help this one knucklehead doing his own thing. So that ended up being to get to a point in a variety of ways,

one of a major PTSD for me, because I slept with my pistol. at my pillow for various nights, you know, in a nice soft bed, but I had a pistol, I had all the measures to know if the door was open. I shouldn't have been doing that, right? Like, that pistol should have been a tertiary thing to get to, should have been kind of more concealed. Everything else would have been more of my protection. My gun was the last, but the gun was the first thing. And so when those lights went off and at the level that I was at, that was really hard to be in that scenario and so till today not that to today I think you know it took it took probably going back a couple of months and even recent the SGB Seglavlov and

B like Lavinbach to kind of take that fight-flight because that ramp me up really really high and there was no one coming no down there was no coming no down because I really didn't talk about it when I got back home never talked about it to our docks never talked about it to my spouse it went back in that envelope and that was mid mid you know two thousands and then just kept on working. Eric, can I, I mean, I hopefully we'll talk a more, a broader spectrum about post-traumatic stress after this because it's, it's a big deal and we tried to talk it on the show,

talk about it on the show. But can you tell us a little bit about the, about the, what is it, the Stellite Gangling Block, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I get, I'm not a doctor. Yeah.

Don't know. So this is my fourth one. I just did two of them the last week with Doc Mulvaney, former Navy SEAL turned Army Doc, Sturgeoner. And so the SGB, I want to say, I'm going to throw a number out there. Probably about 10 years ago, 10, 13 years ago, became something that was then being used in, at least in Special Operations Community, to help with post-traumatic stress, essentially, What it does is they put, I want to say it's lydicane on the sympathetic nerve going obviously

up to the brain. And essentially it just numbs it. Well, what does that do for us who've been in these fight or flight synders, these high stress levels? And again, it's not only veterans, it's not only military. It can be unfortunately, you know, someone who got raped or had a really bad stressful environment. They got stuck and they couldn't make the loop of coming off the fight or flight.

what it does is essentially for me from my high-winner. And it's just, it's stopping it, right? It's allowing you to reset. And what it did for me that first time where this is 2019. So again, I got shot in 1999, came into the unit, had all, you know, just about it seems like every trip I had an incident or something was going on until 2019. So that's a lot of fight or flight syndrome. And so what that did to me was take off what it.

felt like an 80-pound rock. Just your body feels alleviated and your emotions just, you know, what do we do with most your emotion? You just start to cry. You just start to release. And you start to feel. I know most guys who have PTSD or girls, at least in this line of work, stop feeling. You stop being able to be sympathetic on the stuff that you're going through.

So that SCB has been, and hopefully this answer is just an amazing therapy or procedure to help alleviate and grow post-traumatic stress. And like how long after you receive a shot, does it last for you? They say it's typically six months, and I would say that that's about right. So my first one was right after the two guys, two friends of mine that committed suicide in 2019. So I got that one. And then six months later, almost to the T, when I was really getting into the medical aspect of retiring, which is now I'm understanding all the shit that's broken, I did my second one. And that was about six, seven months ago or six months prior to the first one.

And so they typically said it's about six months past the first one. And then I went along on this last two. It was probably about a year and something. Because the first two were on active duty. And unfortunately, the VA and civilian health care isn't paying for it. So it took me a little while. And so the last ones I just did a week ago were on the, typically they do it on the right side.

And now they're also doing it on the left side that is also helping for dramatic brain injuries. So the VA is not covering this? They won't cover out of pocket. In other words, they won't send you. from my research and the research that has been done with the nonprofit that I'm working with, the VA won't say, okay, go to the Stegla, you know, this institute to get it done. They are certain VA hospitals that will do it. From my understanding for folks that have tried, it has just been, it's been very difficult

for them to get an appointment in a timely manner to go get an SGB. Yeah. And so, right. Yeah. I not just say anything about the doctors and the medical staff at the VA because I generally think they're good, but the administration, I think their plan has to wait out vets, like let them die before we have to pay for anything. Let's delay stuff as much as possible. The hardest part, just really quick on this is if we do it on active duty, why are we not doing that at the VA side? Right.

Like if a soldier, Marine, or service member, that was part of the get well plan on active duty, a year. year prior to getting out and they're diagnosed with PTSD, a traumatic brain injury. And all of a sudden, you literally are spitting them out of the active duty tricure system. There's a gap. Yeah, into the veteran system. And then you're not following up with that care. Right. I think you're, you're, that's, you know, you're, you're causing more issues. And that can probably hurt that person. Do you, do you want to plug the nonprofit that you mentioned that you're working with? I can't if you don't, you know, Thank you.

So right now, I got brought in as a team member to the military, special operations, family collaborative. Okay. Essentially what they do is they focus on research, education, and connection, right? And so what, and there's a huge team or a huge grouping of other nonprofits, all secure, foundation, Warriors Heart, and healing. And there's a couple of other ones, really key ones right now. unfortunately, it's evading me. But what they're focusing on is taking research from these

institutes or these other nonprofits and these things that are working going, okay, this is proven medically, this is proven peer-wise, this is proven across, you know, various other institutes, and then we, they provide education. They're providing education at certain commands at special operations, which is good. So these special operations command are bringing in these entities to allow us to share what we've learned from those outside of active duty, right? Because there's a different aspect of that. And then they connect and there's a lot of connecting of just like what I did with SGB. And in particular, they just had a couple of soft team room health events that we had online.

And there's another one coming on May where we had Dr. Lynch, Dr. Tudy and two other doctors talking about SGB and psychedelics. So again, the reason we're sharing this is because they've done the research at a high level to go, okay, this is being proven at multiple commands, the seals, the Rangers, whatever. And so that's essentially who I'm teaming up with with a lot of these fronts. Yeah, we've had a couple of that's on the, of Sam Juan and a couple others who have talked about the benefits of like psychedelic traits. down like it was UT Austin where they there's a couple different places yeah but but where like people are having great effects from this what what you're talking about the uh the the game the basal

or what is it the gg bsgb sgb um yep i've heard about that before and i've heard that people had really good effects at least like short-term relief from it you know yeah there's no i mean i'll tell you besides the funkiness and you guys come you know from an environment we're like okay, we put a needle in your neck. Okay, well, that's about it. Right. They're not removing anything. Right.

They're not putting anything in. Like, I've yet to, in the research piece of it, though, somebody grew something out of their forehead. Right. It hasn't happened. But most, and the quick test within minutes, is that eye. So on my right side, your right eye, literally freaks out. And so that's the test to go, okay, it worked.

Yeah. Yeah. So for those of you who are listening and watching, the organization that he mentioned is you can find it at ms.ofc.org. I'd never even heard of that one. Yeah, I haven't either. It's a military special operations family collaborative. M.O.F. Foxrot C. Charlie.org. If you guys want to check that out.

And so, Eric, there's a whole bunch of other stuff you did in the military that we're not, I don't think we're going to have time to get to. tonight. We'll have to do this again sometime. Yeah. Damn you for having such an amazing career. Yeah, I mean, I know you spent a lot of time doing like force modification work, developing the new generation of technologies for the special operations community. I would like to take some time to talk about getting out of the unit, getting out of this clandestine world. And I had mentioned to you previously, You know, we interviewed Sarah Carlson on the show once, who was a CIA analyst, and she really talked us about how an analyst can have PTSD.

I mean, and I think the public thinks like, how can somebody who sits by into computer all day have PTSD? And they don't understand the type of pressure this person is under to get it right 100% of the time, which, of course, is impossible, right? I think that the public understands at this point that we have these soldiers, we have these hardcore dudes. who we send into combat overseas. They shoot and kill bad guys. Sometimes there's collateral damage. Sometimes they see their teammates killed. And this leads to this phenomena that we call post-traumatic stress disorder.

But I think the public has a harder time understanding people like Sarah Carlson, the analyst side, or people like yourself, Eric, who are on sort of the technical intelligence side, not necessarily pointing a gun and shooting people. I'd like to take a little bit of time to kind of unpack your experience for people. I think this entire interview has done that a little bit, but to further go into your path getting out of the military and sort of some of the issues and the unique aspects of your job that lead to a different type of post-traumatic stress. Okay. Yeah, so a lot of it was acknowledgement, right? So there's the what, again, as I mentioned, kind of putting in a Pandora's box just so I can go out to another trip. And I can pass the test with the doc or the psych who says, okay, Eric's clear to go out. Right?

That was literally the, that was literally my, you know, five meter night fight for 20 years or whatever. And most guys and girls in a variety of things that they went through a lot of, and they saw a lot of stuff that. you just lose sleep. It's just not normal, right? And then you can't talk about it. There's no, there's also this stigma. So I think part of it, maybe what you didn't mention is there's a huge stigma about a vulnerability that, you know, bombs dropping on people and people getting killed or, you know, we're saving stuff. Then you should be able to know, we're still freaking human beings.

This isn't a video game, right? And the GWAT has been going on for a long time and it's been nonstop. Right. And so that's another key aspect of it. And so for me personally, reaching 2019, there were several key aspects of it. And hopefully it relates to others who are in similar positions getting ready to retire or EPS or have got it now and now can look back and go, man, you know, maybe that's a good idea is if you have a family and that can be a significant other or your children or even your mom and your dad, you want to give back. to them you want to be able to say here's what I was doing for all these days because I know you suffered you saw me right there's a key thing uh perspectives like I can tell myself I was okay

until I'm starting to look back at those pictures going dude you look like shit like you were beat down you were having issues medically marital family friendships once you start to retire you're you're really coming to a hopefully Most people come to come into Jesus and go, I need to close this chapter and I need to go to the next one. Because if you've learned anything from reading or watching some of these podcasts is, I don't care how bad of an ass you were or how tough you were, you're gonna have some remnants of what you went through, right?

And so for me, it was, all right, I, because of the suicides, that was literally what tripped to me and I fell flat on my face. I went into a dark corner and said, I went back to those skills that I did have of self-assessment and ability to self-adjust and go, all right, the right thing to do right now, Eric, is ask for help. And I asked for help. And so part of asking for that help, as I was getting ready to retire, was, hey, you need to open those Pandora boxes and figure out all of these things that you went through. And how did it really affect you, like the PTSD, TBI, it's moral injuries. Oh, yeah, Ajo, you weren't around when your wife needed you, your children needed you, your family

you need to do. And for me personally, one of the aspects of it was I cut away from a lot of my family 29 years ago when I came into the military. Again, you know, for simple terms, they were Cubans and I didn't want any of that to hinder my family or hinder my ability to serve this nation. So I cut ties with my family. So there was a lot of guilt associated with that. So when I started to look at my transition, there is a selfish aspect, which I hope something, folks take to it, which is, hey, man, you've done a lot to serve this country. If you're entitled to VA benefits, then take the time and focus on that because going through that VA process will also help you find care and help because you're going to acknowledge you're broken somewhere

and then you're going to get treatment. So as I started to open that box, identify that I had issues and started to documented, then I would start working on that aspect of it. And importantly, was, okay, what kind of person am I going to be post-military? It doesn't matter how cool, you know, all the cool stuff you do. How am I going to provide from my family post? Because literally, when you get out, I got out 30 September, one October, I'm a civilian. I'm no longer Sergeant Major Meadis. I am now Eric Miatis. And that's. That's it. There's nothing else that matters, but I'm now Eric Mianis who's responsible for a family

and I got to get my, I now have to really get my head straight because I got to be a civilian and take care of them to what they want because they weren't, they didn't sign up to serve this country. So there's a lot of aspects of transition, especially if you're married, if you're married, that now that wait, and you got to work through a marriage and you got to fix a marriage, heal a marriage, post that service. and what you've heard in the last two, three hours, is that in all of that, who really suffered are the family members

that have to endure all of this. Hopefully that kind of answers, Jack and Dave, which you were. It's an overview for sure. Yeah. And we've, you know, we've talked about this before where, you know, there's this big, you know, thank you for your service culture, which is appreciated. But at the end of the day, especially for people in special operations,

we we were doing it because we wanted to like there was no draft right there was no we were all in it for own reasons that were ultimately selfish in some ways and the people who really and i'm not like you know we all have our demons and and post-traumatic stress is real but also the people who really suffered were were the lives and the kids and the husbands in some cases but that but the families that were left behind that weren't out there living their dream. You know, weren't out there doing the cool guy stuff that they're living with the uncertainty. You know, you know, yeah, you know, at any, any moment, you know, somebody could kick in your door and, you know, when you're in some, you know, non-permissive environment and take you hostage,

but you signed up for that. You want, like, that's the life you wanted on some level. And we suffer from that. but the families didn't sign up for them. And we forget sometimes, and the divorce rates in special operations, and I'm sure in your unit, are astronomical. And you cannot blame spouses for feeling left behind when we just go do our thing. Yeah, I mean, that can be an entire conversation on it. I would say that, I mean, we took advantage of knowing that our family would be there for us, right?

There's a few things that I told my wife. The one thing I would say I promised because I had awful intent literally was to walk home. Because walking in special operations is a core of what we do, right? That mindset that I can walk back. It's a carvate. So I would always promise I will walk back. If at any case, and that again, it means being compromised. And if I've got to fight my way, chew my way out of somewhere, I'm going to walk back home.

But what does that mean to them? Right. That's not something a spouse wants to hear. They don't want to hear that. They want to be able to hear like, hey, as soon as you leave, your kid's going to get sick. And the mortgage is going to come in. And that bill's going to. Because here's I know what we were doing.

Right. And I mentioned this. And I think I had said this is I was always, I can. came home to be on TDIY and I went home to deploy. Right. I lived 20 years at least more so until I figured it out, forward either missions, training, embedded in some agency, doing something. And then I came home to TDIY hoping to hurry up and get and get out of here.

Right. Now the reality and it's, it is probably the hardest thing I had to deal with because again, a lot of my friends have gone everywhere for good, bad, reasons because you're just like, I mean, I got to leave you guys alone. I got to, I have my family. So I don't have the team room anymore. I don't, I have some really close friends that we maintain. But now it's just you and that family to, you know, to work through it. And I think there was something that you had asked as part of that transition is how do I want to unfold my story? How do I want to say what I did? How do I want to do? I know what to say. I got my master's

degrees. I can be a technician. I can be an executive. I can go freaking build log cabins. But there's a process that then I have to worry about what am I going to disclose and what I did. It was really hard to get to this point. That was a lot of thinking in retrospect. But my purpose is two foes really quick. It's I don't want another suicide. I don't care if I served with them. I didn't so with then law enforcement, military family, I remember first responder, I don't care. Not for having to go through things like this. And because people aren't talking,

I will share that I went through this, as much as I can share of the really cool missions that I went through. And that was important. And really, I'm giving back my family and my close friends, their life. Because I took away their lives. Unfortunately, because what we had to protect organizations,

always have to protect Opset, in basic obsec. Every military person has to do obscen. The family is who takes the brunt of the opposite because they don't understand it. They don't do that freaking every yearly upset class. There are upset classes you telling them not to put anything on social media and they're like, but why? Right. So anyway. Eric, something you told me once that really stuck with me, there's something you told me about the unique issue that

people in your line of work have. And it reminded me, I just a juxtaposition this. I have had the nightmares in the past where you're doing a halo jump and you pull your rip cord and nothing happens and you go through all the performance measures to try to fix it and none of it works. Or where you're in a firefight, you're shooting your M4 and the gun goes down and you go through sports,

you know, do all the corrective measures. The gun still will not go off. And I remember my dream literally. breaking down the gun and field stripping it and trying to fix it and it still would not go off. I think that's a dream every ground guy goes through. Every ranger, every seal probably has those same kinds of dreams. You told me once that a nightmare you would have is that you would wake up in the morning

and you would not know who you were, that you would not know what your identity was because you had been traveling and all over the world doing these different missions under different alias is living as different people and then you come home and you're going to wake up in the morning and you're not going to remember who you actually are. And that's something that really stuck with me. Yeah, I mean, you know, the complexity of just in special operations, it's for good reasons. It has to be very protective, the element of surprise, right, and protect the organizations that do special operations. And then and enters their aspects when you're doing intelligence work, obviously more so.

And then you mix both of them. And then if you're a military service member versus an intelligence officer, that's different because they have different authorities and different protective measures. I'm still an E9, but I'm struggling this world. And so at least from 2000 to maybe 2018, at least traveling and doing stuff. There was so much stuff to be involved in, not to sound cliche, but so many secrets that have secrets, right? You know, things, you know, it's funny, things that happen in Vegas, stay in Vegas,

well, it's similar, things that happen forward, stay forward, and then that's protecting the mission itself. And then there, you have your moral injuries. And then you have, you know, what aspects when mechanism is, when mechanism is, you know, facilitated my ability to conduct the missions I did, or we did at a certain time and place. And there were key to the success to keep it simple. And so those things weigh on you extensively, right? It's one thing to constantly say, I'm an infantry man, I'm an infantry man, and that's what I do.

however, when you start getting into the grayer areas of where, you know, and hopefully for the audience, I know you guys kind of reflect your audiences, you know, this shit isn't a video game. But there are pieces that are in some of these, you know, these books and in these movies that draw from reality. And some of the things that the guys and girls in various echelons have had to conduct standby, can you hear me? Yes, we got you. hold on that's how hardcore this dude is he has his pace plan for the podcast

of course you do bro you got all the face fine and so sorry man it's second nature you know there's actually a pair of hardwired uh and so in this world of having to do all of these things and they're just not all black and white man you wake up sometimes you go to sleep and you and nightmares are nightmares for a reason you're like what did I do what can't I talk about it who the fuck am I and sometimes who the fuck am I isn't like this james bond shit is what was my mindset at that time right was I hunting people right was I lying to people was I just did I go on this trip because I wanted to avoid my family that's a fucking nightmare that's a nightmare that now you kind of think about at least for me when you're retiring

knowing, hey, asshole, did you really get hurt on that mission because someone sent you or because you volunteer? That's still a nightmare that I've got to in this, I have a spreadsheet because I had to figure out a way to do it. And I'm like, okay, line one-on-one, hey, asshole, you volunteered. Because your spouses at some point are like, all right, did, I'm going to make up a name. Did Andy say you needed to come or did you volunteer? because I heard the other spouse say that Joey volunteered for that mission.

And hopefully that kind of ties back there, but there's a lot of that who was I and that person last one of that. Eric, can you just change the microphone on Zoom? I think maybe it's using the microphone on your headphones if you can change it to the one back in your computer like before. And I'm going to go ahead and use the opportunity to jump up on my soapbox for a moment here, if you'll permit me, because I do. want to address something else that I think is unique about the position that folks like you

have where in the Central Intelligence Agency, we've interviewed a lot of these folks here on this podcast, there is a process for their cover to be lifted and for them to reintegrate back into the civilian world. So that alias, that cover persona, whatever that was, there is a process for it to be lifted and then that person can come forward and say, hey, I was in the CIA. maybe they can't reveal all the details. That's frequently the case. They may not be able to say what country they were in. Of course, they can't say who the sources were that they developed, but they can tell a lot of their stories. And if you look back at a lot of the interviews we've done with Douglas London, Mark Palomoropolis, I mean, many people that we've interviewed,

they're able to tell quite a bit of their story and say, I was a CIA officer. This is what I did. but for people who are, for lack of a better term, are army spies that work in this kind of clandestine world. It sounds as though you folks are kind of just expected to maintain your silence forever in perpetuity. And I think that's kind of unfair in a number of different ways, including the pressure that we put on the soldiers themselves, the veterans themselves, and again, as you mentioned, their families, that were just, expecting this guy to just hold it all inside all of it and i'm not saying that they all need need or should or want to come on a podcast like this but i think it's an unrealistic and unfair expectation to expect them to just not talk about any of it with you know their their immediate circle if nothing else yeah um contact really quick can you hear me better not really can you hear me now yeah

that sounds better all right let's do this okay uh So, no, we don't have a mechanism to do that, unfortunately. You good? Okay. No, we hear, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. Priorities have to be priorities. And so with regards to that, you know, and I won't focus on anything from an organizational perspective.

But I will tell you that, Dan, there is a sense of difficulty at the humanistic level. when someone is, hey, man, I got hurt. Oh, I've got PTSD. I've got PTSD for an explosion and then the other. You know, I will share that out of my PTSD claims. There's eight of them, I want to say, or 10. Eight of them, eight or seven of them were classified. Okay, Eric, well, why were they classified?

And now I am out of the military. how do I incorporate my family into my great get well plan well part of my gate get well plan is why the hell are you scared of sleeping in a hotel room why do you have to have a gun why can't you fly in an airplane you think it's going to fall out of the sky because all you say is if it isn't one of your pilots and you don't have a parachute on your back you're not trusting that aircraft right it isn't just and don't really because that airplane's going to fly it's because we've been in some shitty airplanes that have literally if they would have followed you would have been eaten by sharks or you would have been held hostage.

And so then there's the administrative aspect of that, right? Okay, where are all these certifications for all this training for all of these things that you did? And then if I choose to articulate in LinkedIn, which has become a staple for, right, your network is, whatever, worth your net worth. well if you don't know what to put on LinkedIn because it's all hush hush yeah i'm sorry 20 years as a sergeant major in the or you know 29 years or anybody else yeah you're you're going to get only certain jobs contract work right right or you're going to get something that maybe when you came into military i think you mentioned this earlier dave you know you might have wanted to be i don't know you had other

ambitions in life but you came in the military for patriotism to serve this nation in particular guys who came in and goes right at September 11. But now in this world, when you're trying to articulate and you don't have, for like a better words, as we always get an SOP, right, because we look at SOPs for MFF jumps or whatever we do. There's a checklist. There isn't a checklist. That to me, and again, and it's not pointing fixture, at this point in a veteran, I don't need to bring that in order I need to make excuses anymore for my family.

I need my life back. Right, right. We need. And that's the tough thing is that when you have that, you know, 22 year, 20 year or 14 year or 10 year, whatever it is, blank spot on your resume that looks like a generic military resume or whatever. How do you go to, you know, Google for a head of security, head of site, you know, whatever, whatever kind of job it is for an executive level position, which you've been. doing, you know, and say I have this skill set when you can't back it up with, you know, with anything. Well, and again, I'm going to get on my soapbox a little bit, probably because I've had like three or four scotches. But there's there's that off ramp, I feel like for the officers, for like the blue badgers

and the CIA, for the military officers in the army, that they have that sort of off ramp. And it's all set up for their career progression. But for the NCOs, for the contractors, they get fucked. Yeah. I think that, you know, and we've kind of, you know, briefly talked about it. You know, the intel world in the military and depending what you did, it just doesn't translate easily, right? And that's not even saying, hey, you were a, for like a better word, an assault or a ranger, a seal, a recon guy. Those are things that at least you can put in your resume.

And but really what, and I've been on the corporate side where I'm looking for people that I need to hire. And I'm like, okay, what skills did you get? Where did you apply that training? What level of leadership did you do? And what were the outcomes? But a lot of young folks are like, oh, my God, I did all of this stuff. I don't know how to translate. And I can tell you, tax that program has very, again, my experience, very little knowledge of how to translate soft experience, which is very ambiguous.

The stuff that the Green Beret seal has had to do in the last 20 years isn't part of the standard recruiting checklist of what you're going to do. And then where I come from in some of this intel and activities, right? There's a lot of programs for lack of better words that have been created in the last 20 years that guys have guys and girls have gone to do that don't have an exit plan, right? Some folks, hopefully they're smart. And this is what I learned from some of my mentors is like, all right, man, take that training course and find the equivalent in English civilian speak, right?

I think we talked about it. Like I went and did computer network operations. So I got trained to do computer network operations at the IC and high levels. While I was in the organization taking some of that advanced training, I used that to translate to civilian speak because I had learned from people prior to that. They're like, hey, man, I don't know how to say that. did this six-month course in whatever training, even though it is marketable, but it doesn't have a code to train into.

Right. Yeah, it's a burden. And I'm sorry, I'll just take the second that there's a lot of folks that are, I don't want to say suffering that don't quite know how to go back and share or articulate, you know, what they've been part of for multiple reasons. Eric, we've taken up a ton of your time. I'm going to try to run through some user questions here really quick. Brad says, any big difference between what you did and a CIA paramilitary officer,

also ever work with any body-centered therapy or know anyone who did? Okay, so the first one, different capacity. I'm a DOD guy. That's a CIA intelligence officer, even though, and Dave can help me out. We're two different things. I'm enlisted inside the military. However, when you start deploying, there are authorities that certain military intelligence organizations have access to to be able to conduct intelligence operations.

So at the end, doing operations potentially similar in the back as roles different entities. But there's some overlaps. And then have you ever done any body-centered therapy or no anybody? Like Havening, maybe, or EMDR or? I've done a whole bunch of acupuncture. So we had some of our former 18 series. Deltas that came on as PAs were pioneering a lot of really cool acupuncture for us.

I think the Hoffman cocktail they were doing on us, which really, really helped. And then on my way as I was transitioning out, there was some EMDR, some stuff with the eyes. That was really good for sort of therapy on the PTSD. I am, full disclosure, looking at some of the psychedelics. Yeah. Well, I mean, honestly, like I said, I mean, we should, we should connect you with Sam with Sam because like she's done a ton of research into it. And it's it's helped her out tremendously. Yeah.

I'm open to it. Yeah. And then EFT is also another sort of, I guess, more body center therapy that people have had success with. Joe's got you. Thank you very much for the donation. Semper Phi, EDC guy. Thank you very much. John Pierre. Thank you. All you guys, BPA Izzy, thank you for your donations. Hale Billy Lives Matter. Hey, we're not going to ask this question about the Saps. So if you want to ask another question in chat, please ask it. We'll credit your donation to another question. He'll be a lives matter. Is it better to do the job as a single man? Because I hear it as a single man's game all the time.

Sometimes I wonder if it's better not to be. It depends. So there are times that, again, as I mentioned earlier, you're really never by yourself. You always have a network of people behind you from communications to emergencies to actually the largest part that ever helps the Singleton or folks committing or conducting an act. what appears by themselves is a support infrastructure. Without those support infrastructure, you're not going to be able to do it. So there are times that sometimes doing things as an individual, doing things as a couple. It's what makes sense at that level to be able to accomplish that mission. Some of them obviously have to do six-man or squads or teams. Hopefully that answers it.

I also think that Hillbilly is asking about relationship status. Do the single guys fare better? Oh, got it. I'm so sorry. No, that's okay. But do the single guys fare better or? You know, I would say I've seen, again, in the 20 years, at least in this, I've seen a lot of guys come in single, a lot of guys marry.

And those that had a stronger foundation was the married guys. Yeah. Because you can be as tough as a badass as you are. When you come home, you're like a little wimp and you are going to mama to help you. Right? Because at least in my world, for my family, it was a circle of trust. And that circle of trust, that first onion or that lowest part of that onion ring was me, my wife, my son, and my dogs. That was it.

And so when I came from whatever, they were my support network. And what we noticed a lot with the singles, we worried about them because they would go back to their apartments or they're going and we would have to pull them in. And so ultimately, no one can endure. I don't think I know very many people that stayed singled and did this line of work. Yeah. If not, you start broaching very risky behavior. Yeah. Because you don't have somebody to check you.

Right. I mean, and really the guys who have like the sort of the stronger wives who will call them out. Oh, yeah. And yeah, no, you're right. Yeah, they are your foundation. They're your reality. Even though, again, everything I mentioned that you may not share, you may not, but they know you inside and out. Yeah.

And you've got something to come home. So, you know, that's my hope. And you go to Sears school and you think about getting interrogating or captured, you've got to have something that you put in your mind and mine was always if I'm going to break out of here I'm going to figure a way to walk right yeah I made me didn't have a tangible but I knew I was going to walk home to my wife and to my son and one hard thing to take away from anybody is hope yeah and in the hope that I would get back to my family so unless you have something that powerful as a as a as a single person is very difficult yeah I it's interesting because most guys sorry are older in life anyway most

of our guys are 30 and above. Right. So we're, you know, there are no young, young folks in these units doing this. Yeah. In a man's search for meaning, Victor Frankl wrote about that in the concentration camps, that the people who had something to live for were the ones who make it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Jackie, thank you very much. Lo what you guys are doing and keep it up. By the way, go Navy. T-Barr, thank you. What's harder, blending into a civilian population or navigating all the politics of a war zone

when running a strategic mission? They're navigating the strategic, because you would think it would make sense. You would think that everybody's on the sanction for the greater good of the mission, and unfortunately the greatest heartbreaks and disappointments that I've ever had have been home, have been going back, you know, at work or going, you know, to downtown

to some entity where, for lack of better words, we had to get mother may I, can I go operate or can we get the go or the funding and then just be shot down for stupidity? And, you know, you kind of figure it out, you're like, hey, man, I got to, listen, I'm going to, you will get promoted, right? You got to do that reverse kind of intelligence. work and go, you will get promoted, let us do our mission. So to the answer, blending in is hard, but you figure out there's, it's just you in that environment. The political has been, I think, in my perspective, the hardest thing to navigate is just

getting after it sometimes. How did your unit deal with officers who were very protective of their careers and wanted sort of the no failure options? So there's a lot of briefs. There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of, like Jedi. I don't have the right word like Jedi mind tricks, but there's a lot of NLP. Well, there's a lot of like guerrilla warfare, right? Like I'm going to get this guy and I'm going to get this person to believe the cause.

And then that person tells somebody else and that person gets to someone else. again, as an enlisted people, the enlisted folks that stay there for a long time, we don't ever, and this goes across a lot of organizations, you're like, oh, God, I know what this person unfortunately is in their mind. They're worried about their career. They're going to ride this phoning to the end. Hopefully, they listen to us. And what we're going to need to do as professionals is provided in a way for them to make

the right decision-making process. We're going to provide it in a way, we take out the, hopefully we take out the emotion. and we get to the facts and we're able to present the case for them to do the right thing. And when they, unfortunately, they don't, there are times that they're like, hey, bro, I told you so. Right. Yeah. And then if you're young in the career in the unit, in any of these units, you are ultimately going to come back when you decide to go from, you know, I don't know, a captain or a major. And now you're going to, you know, like, we will see you again.

Yeah. I will probably be here. that guy will be here and that person that was your teammate and enlisted will probably still be building this unit so please make the right decision because at the end we're all trying to get to the we're trying to get to the same end state because I mean I mean you guys have these guys coming in from inscom like where these guys we'd have them come back to us in SF as like battalion commanders and some of them are like yeah you don't really know anything about SF at all why are you here yeah yeah we we we we we we we we we we

We get them from all over the places. It's not Intel guys. I mean, you get all breeds of people that come in at the officer level. And I really don't care where they come from at the end because of the selection processes and all of that. At the end, you start, you should start with a clean slate, right? Right. And then once we start creating those conversations and just like, you know, just like me or anybody else,

it's you're only as good as your last, your last mission and what success you had. And so as you start, you know, you don't want to build that hallway. file. Right. Right. hallway file. Yeah. Connor,

thank you, you much. She said, thanks for the content gents. Semperify EDC. Semperify, Eric. Hassan 116.

Thank you. Have you run across any other Cuban American? Sorry. Americans in soft J-Soc. Great episode. Hey, go check out a previous team house episode with Ruben Garcia.

Yeah. Served in Vietnam, Cuban immigrant. And then was a, involved in SOT. Yeah, amazing interview. Oh, you know, I haven't even seen that. Actually, ironically enough, I have not. Really? I think, yeah, not just anyone that I've had to work with, right? Like either on a mission

forward, anybody from another tier or anything that I build a relationship or even I did Google when I Google in the I see Google, you know, at the whatever the search of like Google, I Google my last name to see if there was anybody else. I think I popped up like two people. So I stopped searching my last name to see if there was any other meiotis and I never found anybody. I know I know another Eric. He'd be mad if I mentioned his name here. But I'd be happy to introduce you guys. Eric serves a lot of them. Miatuses I hadn't found Cubans. I had been blessed with a whole bunch of Puerto Rican, Mexican, all kinds of other. I've got Egyptian. I've got Egyptian brothers, you know, all of the other dudes that we get. But no, not, not Cubans.

Did he hopefully ask another question? Do you see him? I don't think so. I think that was the last one. And listen, we're almost like three hours at this point. Eric, I really appreciate your time on a Friday. I know you're out doing family stuff right now. This has been an awesome interview. I hope that we can have you back at some point. This is like a really unique perspective to have. Yeah, we really appreciate it. And, yeah, sorry. Go ahead, Eric. I'm sorry.

No, I just wanted to, you know, thank you. But, you know, openly also, I do appreciate, you know, this isn't about me. Like, I've never, I didn't come from a world where Eric really mattered. It was the great admission. You know, and this isn't about the organization I came from. And we both have talked about it. is the folks that do this line of work, and I think you guys are getting at it.

You're getting at sharing these stories. Some of them are cool. I wish, you know, I'd love to come back and share aspects of other things that I've been involved in or even have knowledge of without compromising anything. And again, it isn't about the unit. And hopefully people don't worry about where you came from, but they worry about the individual. And for you guys, as a podcast, you're doing just an amazing job

at sharing that history. in capturing it and formulating in a way that is fun and hopefully new generations of people who want to do this line of work. And just as importantly, family members and children or friends that have had someone involved in anything that you guys cover, glean something, because I think you guys have done an amazing job at getting at it and providing that information. So I thank you. I know my family thanks you for being able to share my ability to share the story. answer these questions and obviously not compromise anything into the future. Well, we appreciate it. And for a lot of our viewers, I don't know if they understand, like,

the amount of pressure that a person like you, like that we have on ourselves, you have on yourself, you know, and, you know, you want to be loyal to your people. You don't want to, you don't want to be the person who talks out of school. But there are also stories. that deserve to be told, need to be told. And these communities have had a horrible, horrible rate of, you know, suicide, self-harm, alcoholism. And we really appreciate you, like, making yourself vulnerable and letting other guys who might be in your position know that it's okay to come out.

and talk about this. You know about what we're going through. The American public can't support a capability that they don't know we even have. So to talk to the public, to talk to the taxpayers out there and let them know that we do have these guys and we should support them and make sure that they're taking care of. It's an important and it's a healthy conversation. And make sure they're taken care of. You know, like it can't be so absolutely 100% secret that you can't even talk to the VA. and get to support that you need.

Yeah. And I think that's the key, you know, and that's the silver, you know, and again, and it doesn't matter what level or the individual's perception of what they can and can talk. And sometimes we are our worst enemies. Right. Like, we would drown ourselves in a freaking shallow pool because we weren't world informed. However, what we can do, those that are now veterans, is illuminate the path, not compromise anything. but we're smart about this, right? Folks that come from our community,

we're smart people we can get at it. And I think the way we're addressing these topics and we're illustrating. And at the end, I'm not talking about any TTPs. I'm literally telling you what the life is of people who've done this work across the spectrum, what their families are. And hopefully someone's living who works at the VA,

who works somewhere, and just we move this forward to take care. So we can at the end, actually really become a stronger nation and take care of our people because the next generation is coming. And in this world of, you know, I don't want to say Google, but Facebook and all of this crap, we've got less people who want to really serve this nation. Right.

We need them to be prepared to do it. Right. And we kind of need to adjust a little bit our biases and help them move forward. Yeah. So check out military special operations family collaborative. That's M-S-O-F-F-F-Foxrot. see charlie.org. You know,

you're doing great work. Eric, where can people find you? Yeah, so the key one is on Instagram. So Echo 9 Axiom is the primary when you can find me on Instagram

and it's on Facebook. And if you Google now, Eric, me out is on Google. You can find me. But really on Instagram is the first one on Facebook. There's Echo 9, E-C-H-0-1. 9.axium.

And then from there, really, there's a link tree that'll lead to a lot of these videos and a lot of that. All that information is also going to be down the description of this video. Also down the description, you'll find a link to our Patreon. If you guys want to support this live stream, we really appreciate it. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already. Leave us a review on iTunes. All that stuff helps.

And we really appreciate that. Next Friday, we're going to have Ben Milligan. He should be here in the studio. He wrote, by water beneath the walls. I'm reading this book right now. It's complicated, but it's a history of amphibious warfare and amphibious commando operations and what led to the creation of the Navy SEALs. There's some heresies in here about William Darby.

We'll talk about that. Uh-oh. Yeah, Ben Milligan is spicy. Special ops apostate. You know, and Ben is a former seal. So we're going to break his balls a little bit about hair product and things like that. But no, this, honest to God, this is a really good book. And I'm learning things in here that I didn't know anything about.

So I highly suggest people go out and get a copy of this and give it a read. Really good stuff. Also get some boykeys. And I'm excited. We're excited to talk to Ben next week. And Eric, again, man, thank you so much taking some time out of your Friday evening. Yeah. We really appreciate it.

Gentlemen, thank you so much. And I want to do it again. I want to have you on again sometime because it's a lot more. We watch you in studio next time where we can tip a few back. Yeah, yeah. Oh, we will. Sweet. All right.

See you next Friday, everyone. I don't know how this works, but I'm going to say cheers, Dali. I'll see you next time.