The Team House - Delta Force Operator & Army Ranger | Dave Nielsen | Ep. 288

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

Support the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseDave served in the 75th Ranger Regiment and Delta Force for 9 years as a K9 handler and Assaulter/Sniper——————————��——————————Today’s Sponsor:⬇️Cayman Cigarshttps://www.caymancigars.com/TEAMHOUSE/ for 10% the Team House sampler.GhostBedhttps://www.ghostbed.com/HOUSE for 50% off sitewide!—————————————————————-To help support the show and for all bonus content including:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseTeam House merch: ⬇️https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963Social Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleWant to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail]#deltaforce #jsocBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to. And we really appreciate that. So go it and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Special operations. Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House with your host, Jack Murphy and David Park. Hey folks, welcome to episode 288 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with David Park. Our guest on tonight's show is former Ranger and former Delta Force operator Dave Nielsen. Really happy to have him on the show tonight. Has an incredible story to tell.

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for joining us tonight. We really, really appreciate it. Dave, it's great to be here. Jack, I'm literally like writing down,

came in cigars and ghost bed because you guys are good at that. I need that. Are you a hot sleeper? Yes. But my wife

is just coming through a certain period in life and she's liking it cool now, so we're almost about equal. Oh, nice.

Yeah. Yeah. I wonder, because sometimes, you know, I've had hypothermia and obviously we spend a lot of time in the desert. I wonder if that does something to your body's ability to regulate. I'm sure it does. I really think so, yeah. Like, I can handle the sun out. It doesn't, like, cook me, but just last week, you know, coaching football, I hit a point.

I'm like, guys, I'm going in the shade. Inside linebaggers follow me. I mean, yeah, because how many heat cats. My first one was on a sniper stall. man in training like I just out yeah yeah Dave I want to ask you know what we asked most of our guests about their origin story to start off if you could tell us a little bit about you know where you grew up what your upbringing was like and what was you know that path that took me towards the military yeah thanks so I'm from Michigan my mom lived in the city

you know parents divorced real early two two older sister's younger brother. And I lived in the suburbs with my dad, about 45 minutes north in a little town called Lake Oregon. Back and forth from the city, my mom is married to a black man to the suburbs. And that was, I didn't know it at the time. Me and my brother were just like, you know, but it was now I know that that was an extreme culture shock that we lived in. And it made us better. So that was in the 80s. But, you know, that was in the 80s. I ended up, you know, after high school, I knew I wanted to drink beer. And I like, like literally, I'm not even trying to, that's all I could figure out that I liked.

And, you know, girls. So I ended up homeless and sleeping in my car. And it was cold in February in Detroit. And, you know, I was even okay with that because I had a little job. I had enough money for beer and food. And then somebody broke into my Ford Granada one, one. night I'm going, you know, it stole my little speakers and that was something just set me off there. So I went to the recruiter. I never had anybody in my family in the military. I just had some

friends do it. And it just never seemed like it was for me. But when that happened, I knew I wanted shelter and food. And so I went there and I didn't know anything that I was doing. I ended up with the Ranger contract kind of on accident. But once I, I was. I got there and we started walking with weight on our back and being tested, I found that the very hard life that I'd had, the abusive childhood and straight up trauma that I had endured, God was using for a reason. And that was that I found that I had this mental toughness that you couldn't make me quit.

And that's how I succeeded in the Army. Army, you know, the first phase anyway. I mean, you said you ended up with a Ranger contract by accident. I mean, how does that happen? I mean, did you guys go in there and say, give me the hardest thing you have? Or did they say, like, push that across the desk? Like, we got this for you right here, pal, sign that. Yeah, when I tell this, it sounds like the old, you know, well, it was either go to jail

or go in the Army. I don't know if I believe those all the time. But this really happened. I was like, I just wanted to go to a cool location. I didn't know anything about anything. I wanted to go to war. When I was 16, I said, if our country goes to war, I'm going to enlist. And everybody about, you know, screeching halt at the table.

But I just had that in me. In 1986, you know, the movie Platoon came out somewhere in there, and I just love that movie and sought out the Vietnam vets. There was a book, Charlie Rangers, read that over and over. and once I was in. But so, yeah, so I'm going in and I'm like, I'm trying to get to California or Hawaii and the recruiters or they had me in some, a tank unit.

You know, I didn't even care about the job. I just wanted location. So I'm going into the MEP station. My buddies are driving me from Detroit to Cleveland. My dad, you know, long story. But we're drinking old Milwaukee lights and, you know, I'm not driving. I'm in the back seat, but I tipped one.

And right as we went by, a state police officer. So I got a minor in possession of alcohol ticket on the way to the MEPs. And I knew that wasn't going to go over well. And of course, it didn't. And he was, you know, okay, you screwed this up. You got to leave. Come back in two weeks, maybe.

As I'm walking out the door, he said, hey, do you want to, do you want to be a Ranger? I can send you right now on a Ranger contract. And I said, yeah. Okay. I knew a little bit about it at that point. I said, yeah. And that made me excited. And, you know, we all need a challenge and to find our purpose.

So that was the start of it. And I left right then. I, you know, that night I was in a hotel room and starting that whole process. It's, you know, when you tell your story, it reminds me of, you know, we had another, a British military veteran on who had a very traumatic childhood. And there's something he said about joining the Army really struck with me. He said it was the first time I ever felt safe, which as a 41-year-old man and a father today, like, that's such a horrifying thing to hear. I'm glad that he found some measure of safety in the military, though, of course.

Yeah, that's saying a lot. I love that. So for you, it was sort of an escape from a pretty troubled background, it sounds like. Yeah, and it was easy. It was security. And, you know, people were crying and all. all that and I get it. They had, you know, good families, but like, like, now I know I'm going to get food and I'm not in Detroit on the streets. Like, that was dangerous in itself. I used to just sometimes

going to work at four in the morning. I would like start running, acting like I'm already being chased to avoid, you know, certain situations. So, yeah, it was, it was good to be in. And it just, it was so easy. Like, even the hard stuff. It's just, I laughed. It's not, you know, the toughness comes from, from, I don't know where, but I think it's in all, most of us. Especially if you know that you got something like, man, go walk it out,

go put it on the line, take a risk. We actually, when we were on any stump show, we talked about this, that there's probably a large prevalence of, of people in special operations who either were either like adult children of alcoholics had had like childhood trauma, things like that. And so the idea of quitting just because you're in pain is like so.

Right. Yeah. And I am seeing that that's common. You're right when a couple of the Australians said, yeah, it's a common thing. And it threw me for such a loop. when it was Tom Brown, B.9 origins, he's like, asked, you know, about my childhood and you guys are doing the same. Like, it's, um, it's real. But that's not stuff you talk about in the

regiment. Well, I guess we do, but it's more like, you know, leverage to use against you joke around about it. You, like, you have to joke around about it because of people know that your son said about it. They're going to use it all the time. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So like a nickname. Don't eat, don't fight a nickname. You get to Ranger Battalion and the 19th. This is a different time. What was it like you were, you were a 275 guy? 175.

175. Okay, so tell us about like landing in Savannah and what life was like in 175 the year you got there. Yep, so 89 started in April. So it was through the summer. I get through Rip and did pretty well and just, you know, I think we had 12 guys make it out of 65 or something. So, you know, E2, no, E1, Nielsen, I'm just feeling like I got that black beret, man, like, feeling really good. And then I knew the shock was coming and it came, but, you know, again, it was like, this is okay. Yeah.

Tab spec 4 is like, cool, I want to be that. And it was brutal, like nothing else ever since. Ranger Private, that, I mean, there's nothing, there's no harder period of my life. and as a ranger private yeah and very quickly it sounds like after you get there uh panama kicks off yeah so i'm assigned to beko uh 175 second platoon i start out in a in second squad i think on a a fire team and then got moved to weapons so on the weapons squad i'm like uh it was like literally like they put the small guys you know i'm like 5-7 yeah 160 they put the small guys you know i'm like 160 they put all those dudes in weapons just as a joke because that's funny look at them they got a

but again it's like all right go ahead and try me so yeah we're there and so we sat around talking thinking about grenada which had happened in 83 like oh a combat jump our platoon sergeant had you know the old fat scroll on his right shoulder and it was just like Dave you mentioned earlier what it was like to see that later on. And so we would talk about Grenade. And this is 89 and Grenade was in 83. And at that time, you know, as young private, it's 18, 19 year old, it was like, man, that'll never happen again. That was so long ago.

It's six years ago. Yeah. And that was like one of the first times, you know, J-Soc tried to use all the pieces together and learn so much. But, yeah, December 17th, it happened on. the 20th, but, you know, we got alerted and all that a couple days before and literally getting ready to go on leave. My first leave in 10 months of being in the Army to see a girl in Henderson, Nevada, and we were Bravo alerted that night. I mean, I was watching the Simpsons on TV packing to go on leave and, you know, Bravo alert, get your shit,

follow that downstairs, like, right. saw it real quick that it's real. You never know if it's just a training exercise or is this the real deal. And even if it's a real deal, like what's the chance it's actually going to happen? I just want to follow a train of thought here. So you're a young Joe in Georgia and you're going to see a girl who is now in Las Vegas. Was her vocation artistic? Yeah. At the time, she had lived in Michigan by me. Yeah, child of sweethearts, but yeah.

Okay. Good intentions, but yeah, it's good that that didn't happen. So can you walk us through a little bit of the process? Because I was saying before we started the show, I'm reading this book about the Jumping Grenada right now. And it's very interesting to hear like kind of that process of, like, kind of that process of like, getting alerted, bringing the guys in, briefing them up, getting them ready to jump, JNPI, getting them on the plane. I mean, could you kind of like walk us through what that experience was like for you as a private and Ranger Battalion? Yeah, it was, there's no other time like it in my life, really. And I've, you know, since then, been on about 600 combat missions. I got journals and this and there's so much.

But there's nothing like that one, man, because some of the guys quit that had just graduated. with me from Ritt. I saw him out in the hallway, like, handing their black berets to their spec. I'm like, what are you, what's going on? Sergeant Rommels, my, my gun team leader, they're quitting. Lanier, I had this nickname Lanier. Lanier, they're quitting. You're going to quit? I was like, no, of course not. Well, you're not going on the jump. And I was like, why? You know, well, room. And I just was like, specialist Rommels, I need to go, you know, we've trained together. He's like the best leader I've ever had to this day. We talk all the time, 30 some years later.

So it was like, I find out I'm going pretty quick after that. So it was just nonstop details, ammo mostly, a little chow here and there, hurry up and sleep. And then they had terrain models that were like 20 feet long. I mean, they didn't just make those. Yeah. We had, you know, briefs and briefs. And it's very frightening.

Mostly, you know what, man, I've learned telling stories. It's like the reason I have been hesitant is because I don't want to get it wrong. I don't want to leave somebody out. Like that is the most important. That's why I'm so hesitant sometimes to come on social media. And I do it a little bit and I see that, you know, what's worse than that, not trying. right so um where we're uh it was just so he he had enough yeah he had enough uh wasta to get somebody from the five shot uh some major

kicked off the jump so an actual combatant could go exactly that happened a little bit i think in panama then got worse and worse with the jumps in afghanistan and all that but yeah i end up on the first shock i'm the ninth man out on the first bird on the left side of a C-141. And we had jumped a few times in battalion. I mean, it's brutal, 800 feet, you know, 600 rounds, whatever. You know, tripod and lots and lots and lots of weight. And the worst part was just, you know, I learned that this was,

I always thought it wasn't necessary. We got to the airfield and we sit and we wait for hours and hours every time in the hot sun and in the rain and this time it was in the rain and so we rig up and we get on it like i don't know seven o'clock at night it's getting dark it's raining and it's cold at uh saber hall hunter army airfield we're rigged up so much weight in our rucks and we get on the birds and it's a six hour flight and you know golly man thinking back there is just no suck like range of Italian. I mean, it's so hard to explain. I've tried and tried and tried. I wanted to quit. I wanted to get hurt. Not here in Panama, but just it was so hard.

My first training mission and Italian, you know, we fast roped in. I'm sorry I'm getting off track, but like got to give credit and explain what it's like. you roped in off of Chinook, you know, into Fort McClellan, Alabama and walk all night in the dark, right? With no GPS back then, compasses and pace count and somehow find what we're looking for. And it's just such a shock to me to be walking through the woods all night. Nobody talks. You're so tired. Can't smoke.

You can't, you know, you just suck it up. You learn to, like, do it. and it's so hard. So we're on the plane, man. And they opened the doors after six hours of this long flight. And the air came in. It was warm air. It felt so, so good.

And until I, you know, saw orange snakes in the air and heard rounds hitting the plane. And it was like a mix, an equal mix of totally, excitement like I want to go to war I need to go to where I need to test myself am I a man I want to find the most difficult thing that scares me which is war dying really I want to confront it and my life is so miserable anyways as a range of private like I want to see I wanted to conquer fear that was my my thing and of course you can't now I'm afraid of the silliest things but I know how to deal with it. So it's equal parts, excitement, and, you know, Hua, and just straight fear like I've never had since before then or since then, because it was my first time. I'm an E2 private,

hooked up, and there was a dude right in front of me that we had gotten in a fight at a bar. Not a bad, just an argument. And like, we skinned each other, you know, we like made up right there and my gun team leader's on the other side and he screamed, you ready to get some team like I could hear him over the, you know, the engines of the mold 141s. And that sort of snapped me out of it because I was like, okay, what, what's the process right here when people go to war for the first time? Oh yeah, I should be scared. I should be thinking about my family.

I couldn't remember any of my family's names or faces. Like we go out. And as I got to the door, you know, the slow motion, like you got so much time to do so much stuff. Because your brain is processing is quicker than it ever has. I remember seeing the grass move on the ground. Holy shit. Like, we're that low. I could just see the tall grass kind of going like this.

What altitude do you think you guys were at? I got out higher than most. I know they started at 500. somebody said there were there were altitude calls i think i went out around 480 480 which is like when you see a jet that low you think it's going to crash yeah yeah yeah and they're struggling um so i'm in the front pretty so i got out pretty you know higher there's trace around's below me i landed and then they shot above me so it's just nuts um You know, we only had five KIAs.

That's more than, you know, needed. But I thought it would be so much more, but lots of wounded. And then as I derrigged and got moving, I felt like, again, the slow motion thing, I felt like I'm like, come on, body move. Something's wrong. I'm like, I'm not going to make it. I'm not going to do it. And I looked over and I saw a dude like going about the same speed.

is me, you know, shuck it and jive in and taking cover and this and that. So I learned later that I was doing everything fine from the training. That's why we train. You know, I had no, if we wouldn't have had training, I would have just been useless. Yeah. But I was doing my training. So that, you know, I became a believer once I learned about that. Yeah.

And I mean, did you guys jump on, was it Rio Hado? No, that's second bet. We jumped on to Cumentorhios. Okay. So tell us about what the objective was and what you guys were trying to accomplish. Yeah, so we had our building, I forget the name of it, but everybody had their thing. And he too private man, I was like, have the tripod ready and my, my ammo. And there was a kid, a guy on another gun team in my squad.

He said, I'm going to drop, I'm going to dump this ammo when we land. And I ratted him out, man, and I would do it again. Like, no, you're not, brother. Uh-uh. That's all of us. That's team stuff. And he was gone. Fuck, yeah.

You're not going to dump ammo, man. So, landed. I didn't hit tarmac. I just missed it. I hit grass, but it was still like, like getting punched in the neck. Yeah. we wore reserves. I don't, you know, in Grenada, they didn't.

And, like, we didn't want to. Like, we wanted to be cool, like, Grenada. You can't use them. Well, just put them there to stabilize your ruck and all that. Like, whatever, okay. It's so ridiculous, isn't it? That, you know, they're so, and it's probably not your, like, direct line supervisor,

but it's probably some colonel or lieutenant colonel or whatever who doesn't want to have to explain why they didn't wear reserves, even though a reserve is going to do absolutely no good. at all at 480 feet, you know. Yeah, it's hard to get that thing out at 800. Yeah. Really hard. What is cool, what they did that was cool.

I just found this. They made us where these, make these helmet covers. Yeah. I kept this thing. That's awesome. Yeah, just tore up BDUs, so we all look like predators running around that was a good call. So you land, you start heading out to the assembly area,

and you said there was a target building? Yeah, and there's the old choke point. So I see people are kind of bounding up going through the choke point. I forget if it was marked with a camlight or something, but there was a choke point to get through. I heard, you know, sort of skirmishes left and right. There was nothing in front of me to deal with. But I heard, you know, RPG explosions,

which I would find out later, some of my buddies took you know got blown up um got through the choke point and there well there was a body there that people made sure was dead 100 percent um that so that's my first dead body i went through the choke point and then got to my objective kind of quiet at that point um and then uh something got i hit that I had to crawl to another gun position for ammo to redistribute. And somebody came up on a roof. So I see this sort of, you know, I'm crawling like high crawling.

And I just see somebody on a roof with a gun, look down at me. And I'd had dreams about this. I'm getting like dry mouth talking about this. I'm like waiting for it. And I hear a gun, you know, a pop. My squad leader shot him with his pistol. I mean, it's like, unreal. So there was that, and then it got quiet,

and then the 80 second jumped in, and then we watched them jump in and come up, and then the 7th ID landed and came in. And then the Air Force had a nice, a box truck, and my platoon sergeant picked me, and another private said nelson and fromke hey unload this truck it was bodies you know he told us they had gone out and collected bodies so we opened the truck doors in you know it's like half full this box truck of hot bodies in the hot blood man when you first the first time it's just like

wow you know it got real so we're unloading these I can feel it right now just warm copper blood smell bodies were stacking them up and on the bottom of the pile is Jim Markwell Ranger Medick from 175 and he had tried to put his first aid kid on it. He was shot in the

pelvis a horrible spot and yeah and yeah so we got him off wrapped him in my squad leader's poncho and man at that point I had been up for almost three days so I go back to my security position the sun's starting to come up

and there's this stack of bodies and you know I'm starting to hallucinate so and other people were too so I think I can't even remember what happened but somehow we went in and got sleep in this hangar

and I slept for a long time that was that that was the first combat wow and what was kind of the follow on to Panama Because, I mean, the invasion, it all popped off relatively quickly. Were there, like, follow-on targets that you guys had to hit,

or were you pretty much just chilling on the airfield at that point? We chilled for like a week, and then we went out in the bush to look for Noriega. I think it was just training exercise. And that was, to this day, the hardest humpin I've ever done harder than selection. Yeah, that was Panama. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, the jungle's no joke down there. Triple canopy, the black palm.

Yeah. Black Palm is no joke. Yeah, and I had lost my PC when the, when I think Huey's took us. I don't know if it was Blackhawk. We were on a Huey, I think. Lost my PC and so did another private. So what do you do? You wear a sandbag on your head, Ranger Nielsen.

So we're out in the freaking jungle patrolling looking for Noriega, and I have a sandbag on my head. I put E2 rank on it. Well, fortunately. for people who don't know a PCS patrol cap, it's also, as you dirty civilians would call it, a hat. And you stand in line for hours outside of some boutique to buy them. But if it just hadn't been actual combat, all the privates would have been online looking for it,

walking through the jungle. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so after Panama, that's 1989. It sounds like relatively quickly you guys get spun up for Desert Storm. Yeah, we go back and now life's kind of good. It's like I'm a PFC with the CIB. That was our thing.

Yeah. Go to Ranger School and, you know, we're jiving with the second bat guys, which is not normal. You know, because there's always tension. But, and third back because, you know, everybody's got their stories. But, you know, the Black Sheep and all that are doing their thing. But we're all PFCs with CIVs and Ranger School. it's like untouchable. Right.

Mustard stains too. Yeah. Mustard stain, yeah. Mustard stain, yeah. Combat scrolls. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty cool. So, yeah, the entire Ranger regiment jumped into Panama.

The only time I think that's ever happened. So that's kind of cool. Like you and your peers all had this sort of like shared experience, even across the geographically separated battalions. Yeah, it was very, it was a link. you know, it changed everything for me anyway because, one, I knew I could do it. You know, my gun team later was like, Lanier a good job. They're like, I did it, everything I was supposed to do.

Barely with that sandbag, I was so mad at this, you know, at some spec 4 and another squad that heckling me and making me do that, but whatever, I got through it. Not long after that Desert Storm comes up, and they pick one company out of the regiment at BCO 175. Which is fine. Because Schwartz O'Coff didn't like us. What's that?

Schwartzokov didn't like us. Yeah. Man, I had to meet him. We had to do this like, you know, put your stuff out there and he's going to come through. General Norman Schwartzcough, this was an M60 air cool belt-fed machine guns. He's like, I know, Ranger. Yeah. Tell me about yourself, you know, shook his hand and all that, so it wasn't bad.

But we didn't do anything. You guys sat out there? Yeah. there was and i mean i guess it wasn't you guys but there was like one ranger target i think they hit like a radio relay station or a radar installation yeah i mean so that was um first platoon my buddies they went cool out with some unit guys and blew that thing up and the kicker charge didn't go so it was like big old massive tower yeah um and I think it was after that.

And then a Blackhawk went down because of weather. And 13 or 14 guys were killed at the tail end of that. We had to go out and recover that. So, you know, just sad. Were those the unit guys that were out? Yeah. Yeah, okay. I remember.

Dale Comstock was out there on the ground when that happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I went to that right after Ranger's school and I had gotten married. so it was just good living but hard living got back and then I got out for the army that was just always my plan I was just going to do a did a three-year enlistment I got out in 92 and never thought about staying in right you held that you had that experience and you're ready to move on to the next thing

yeah not to mention how difficult it is to be a ranger I am so yeah I'm out for 10 years. And then you want to talk about the Black Parade now? You guys got one on yourself? Dave's is right behind us. Mine is right here. Nice. I was a new school ranger. I never, I never breathed the same rarefied. You guys were bougie. The same rarefied air. You were bougie. You had dog teams and interrogators. But you went to George Mason, you went to school. I mean, before we get to your road march protest, I mean, what were you doing on the outside? What was sort of your life ambition there? Still very lost.

Kind of just searching. So, you know, we talk about the trauma and the childhood stuff. It was bad. My brother, my little brother, best friend hung himself 12 years ago in 2012. Just, you know, he couldn't get through it. So, you know, it's bad. it's so I was just lost. I was really lost. At George Mason, I was an English major. I like to write. And so I just, you know, I never really knew what my calling was. Like I'm just now figuring it out.

It's, uh, it's being a coach and it's telling our story. Psalm 107 says let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story. It's so important and let the wise listen. Um, you know, I was at the VA and this this man was like well i only did one rotation so i'm not blah blah blah you know it's just a not just he's a he's a regular infantry guy and i felt compelled to talk to him i said man you did it brother you went there for a year you did your job we it doesn't work without us all like so yeah i'm out and um just you know on the fast track to realizing i'm an alcoholic and a drug addict. I'm sober today, 15 years is my sobriety day

July 26, 2009. Yeah, I just can't do it. Yeah, I know. Congratulations. How did you, you know, I think that a lot of guys from the community, a lot of people from the community, have to come to terms with this idea of the quiet professional,

but stories deserve to be shared. people deserve to hear them and the people who have them deserve to be able to tell them and not just you know for the historical part and I'm not talking about the guy in the bar you know who killed bin Laden but but you know the

the just the stories and again like a person could be an admin person like you do your time we do your time and there's no shame and there's no comparison or whatever but but we you We come from this community, and you in particular, come from this community where it's always impressed upon you to be the quiet professional. Right.

You know, and but then you get out to the real world, and one, being a quiet professional doesn't get you a job, right? And two, you're doing yourself and the next generation a disservice when you don't share. did did you have a difficult time coming to grips with that or how did you how did you do that and i'm wrestling with it right now really i'm at peace with it but i so appreciate you guys i'm trying to do my podcast it's difficult so i appreciate what you're doing um and i i didn't you know i get to the unit so okay i'm a really quiet professional you know but what is that what is that What is the purpose of that? Like,

Jessica Lynch, for example, we dug up those bodies, and I never talked about the nine bodies that we dug up. Hey, that was a reason to go. You know, stuff like that needs to be said, must be said. And so for me, it was a long process, Dave, like years. I mean, just about a year ago, I went to seminary some years back.

and I love theology. I just love that, you know, thinking about the creation and everything. So after that, I felt moved to tell my story, tell, you know, and hear stories. And, you know, so that maybe my brother wouldn't have hung himself. So at a certain point, and it was hard. I think my first thing was an Instagram account, and I was so nervous. And I had people helping me, and I put out, like, a post. and then, hey, people are liking this, you know,

and I put some pictures out, did it, was on a podcast. And, you know, I think the more we do it, the more sometimes scarier. It's like I've done these interviews with David Huckstead of Outkick, and he knows he gets those questions teed up. And it's like, I decided beforehand to answer the question. I really thought and prayed about it for a long time. And I said, if I'm going to do this,

I'm not going to half measure. it. I'm going to tell it all. So I'm going to talk about killing and not in a bragging way, but because it is a fucking burden. Not even that it's bad. It's not like I can't sleep because

of this. No, I'm at peace with all that, but it's so it's a whole different life experience that needs to be known by people. It's interesting that you brought up bragging because I think for a lot of us, it feels like when we are telling our stories,

it feels to us like we're bragging. Either that or that we're boring people to tears because they don't, because we think, they don't care about this. We've also had a couple interesting conversations with guys after we did the podcast. And they tell us some fairly graphic stories, you know, just man to man, but they didn't want to share on a podcast because for exactly that, They don't want to come across like they're bragging about it or like this is something to glorify. And I mean, I respect that. I get it. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a fine line. And I, so I try to always caveat or disclaimer it with, you know, look, I'm doing this because I have found peace and I've gotten better. I no longer want to die like I did. Like I tried to. So, you know, it does work. And like you said, the next generations, we're doing them at the service. We absolutely are. You know, these Vietnam Rangers took me out on a sailing trip for three days, and they told

stories. That's cool. And they're like, now you go. Tell us about Panama. You know, and we did, and we shot jellyfish off the boat and all that and just had a life experience, you know, like. That's cool. Yeah.

So take a, I mean, we're going to definitely, I want to dig a little bit deeper into some of these themes you've met. mentioned, but kind of going in chronological order, you're in school, you're in Sippy Street, you're a dirty, nasty civilian, trying to find your way. I mean, tell us a little bit about how that went and walk us into how you had this epic protest that even I heard about. It's a hilarious. Well, here's a story from George Mason in my English class. I, we had to write a narrative of, you know, I forget 2,000 words or something. So I wrote and compressed the Panama story. I just, and then we had to read it in this class. And this is like honors

English. So we had this really good instructor who was respectful. And I went through the jump commands, you know, six minutes. And, you know, and I called it altered because I had been altered from that experience and I read this so I'm I'm in my late 20s I'm older than many most of the people in the class I read it and even back then in the 90s are like what are you talking of right we went why why did you do that you know yeah yeah just it wasn't even like it was this it made me laugh and then cry later but yeah it's not it's not like there it's not like they're necessarily anti-war hippies. It's just they're sort of flabbergasted.

Like, this happened? Like, what? Exactly. So I'm like, man, people don't know anything. And without our presence and our freaking muscle through these years, we wouldn't be able to do anything good. So, man. And, you know, it's funny because I have seen guys

who sort of resent civilians for that. but at the same time it's like that's why we're there so they so that so that they can know who got voted off the real world or whatever and they don't have to worry about something that other stuff in their backyard yeah exactly you know um you know so yeah it's it's very interesting thing did the people in your class treat you differently after that i think so i think that's where i started to see that there was always within a group, and it became like a metric for me of who I want to be around because I can remember a couple people who had follow-on questions, and they're so scared to ask questions.

And, you know, I learned long after that, no, come on, ask anything. It's fine. Yeah. But, you know, I think that's where I started to see that the people who at least had that look in their eye, like, whoa, that's heavy. Like, I want to be around those people. Yeah. And when did it come around that, you know, the Rangers were changing out their beret from Dave's time to the present modern time? To, yes.

When Shenzakey said, you know, the Rangers are motivated. I think that if we give that black beret, which motivates them to everybody else, the rest of the army will be motivated too. On paper, it was brilliant. Yeah. And then we heard about it. So this was in that, 99, 2000? Yeah, 99.

Yeah, it was 2000. Yeah, 2000. I'm a civilian at George Mason. We just had, there were like chat groups, Ranger check groups, and, you know, I don't even know what they were called. Like AOL or something back then.

Yeah, yeah. And we're listening, we were talking to the Vietnam guys real time. It was cool. And then so I heard about this BlackBray thing and a guy named Dave Scott from Montana started it. He needed volunteers. I was like, hmm, I think I can do this. I talked to my wife and yeah, I can do it.

So I volunteered and I got on his team, you know, set it up. We had all kinds of support monetarily and leadership. Like guys behind the scenes retired. Some of them are still active. you know, some E-9s and some officers who supported us. I still don't know exactly how, but we had just everything we needed. So it's like, yeah, we're going to at least say, suck it, General Sonseki. That's crap.

I mean, the Black Beret was what we, why we got through Rip, three weeks. I did it twice. It sucks. Had to do it when I went back in the second time, which was actually. after the road march. So, yeah, so we, all right, we're going to walk from Fort Benning, home of the infantry to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness about this stupidity of giving the Black Parade to everybody. Right. And the people in the Army, not one person ever said that was a good, you know, they didn't want it. Yeah. They knew.

Right. So, yeah, we start walking, average 25 miles a day to 30 days. It was, yeah. I wasn't carrying weight. You know, I had a rug with some pillows in it. Still. Ranger got a little smarter at that. Yeah, right, right. Did at any point you hear from like the Department of the Army,

did they ever weigh in on like this controversy and what you guys were doing? Yeah, and I would hear it from, I think it was, I don't know if I should drop names, but, you know, the Colonel of the Reg, I think Colonel something. I had a call at the beginning. or we did saying well at first it was like what's your plan and they asked for our social

security numbers and then they said okay you're good to go it's like oh they wanted to make sure you yeah yeah that makes sense i think they're making sure we were we were legit right cool like yeah yeah please do that yeah and i tell people like always it's okay to ask for 214 i'm not going to get offended yeah so yeah because there's so many posers out there so many liars Yes. And so and then at the end, Colonel called me on my home phone. I'll get to that. But yeah, so they were involved. They were watching everything. Army Times was out there. And then it was like Fox News. It was local news. And every time, you know, a little city that we walked through. It was cool, man. That was fun just to sort of be alone. People fell out. I was the only one that. But, you know, not by, not because I'm awesome or anything. It's just I was the only dude that ended up going the whole way.

But the guy that started fell out with some trouble. Again, the leadership that we had would, they were, they would come in. They would make sure everything was good. And then they would leave. So the news, the media really built up, though. So it's like, then it's like Fox News CNN. And it's, we're seeing it on. I didn't like that.

I still don't. but I'm going to do it. That's what we're trying to do is raise awareness. So, you know, we get to D.C. We start talking to Center. Oh, man. Man, I got some cool stuff. We see Al Sharpton walking down the street.

So my gun team leader, Sergeant Rommels, he shows out. He's a civilian. He shows up wearing deserts. I'm wearing OG 107s. We had John Burns, Somalia vet, wearing chocolate chips. And then we had Bill Round, who's dead now. He was a F company ranger in Vietnam. Wow.

Going from, you know, we got there. So we're at the Lincoln Memorial Park. And we're walking up, and we just happened to be in a wedge formation. Like four or five Rangers, you know, just. And Al Sharpton and his entourage is coming down. I didn't, my, Sergeant Rommels was like, hey, that's Reverend Al. I'm going to, let's go meet him. He's like, hey, Reverend L.

The boys want to talk to you. we come over and meet you and is like they like covering up on al sharpton just a funny story like to me that's hilarious um so we get into dc and talking to senators and um we're trying to uh Hillary Clinton was a brand new senator at that point she was her office was down by the mail room she was brand new and just you know for the for the rangers we're like can we you know we're like doing everything we can to talk to Hillary Clinton just to get a picture, you know, for the, for the walls in the barracks, because it would be hilarious. And she looked out, but she didn't come out. So, but it was cool. We talked to, like,

Strom Thurman and, you know, all these people are gone now, but, um, it went well. Um, I testified in the Senate small arms committee or, uh, some committee, art services committee. Yes. Thank you. And General Shinseki was there. This, this was weird. Yeah, you told that scum, bag, what was up? Yeah, they had me in there and I was like, what do I do? Just sit there with your black or tanberry.

I can't remember, but so they start going and is that gentleman here that walked 700 miles from, you know, I stood up? Like, thank you, blah, blah, blah. And they're hammering Shiseki. They're like, this is why you're trying to spend six million dollars in China. That's what really got it overturned was

the money. It always is, right? It's like, hey, tank, boy. Yeah, and always trying to tell the difference between a Ranger Tab and a Ranger Scroll. Right, right. Oh, yeah. Never ending battle. Yeah.

But they, you know, and I thought, I was young. I was, you know, I was like, ooh, man, they told him good. We go out in the hallway and we're talking, and he's standing right there and I wanted, I just wanted to look him in the eye. And he wouldn't, he wouldn't, you know, I'm kind of like, not too aggressive. but just trying to like get to wear and he wouldn't look at me. So after that colonel called me at home and said, hey, we're going to wear tambourets. There's a compromise.

And I thought that, I still thought that was VS, but whatever. Yeah, that was going to be what distinguished them separate from big army. So for people who may or may not be following along, this was a real like hard. for Rangers at that time. And black was a ranger color, we're night fighters. Black, yeah, so you have your green beret, you have your maroon beret, you have your black beret.

And then Shinsakee, General Shinsakey, a tank officer, right? He was an armor officer. Decided that, basically that, oh, the rest of the army needs a spree to like the Rangers have Espri decor. It must be the magic hat they wear. That fantastic French poof that they wear, which was a pain in the ass to shape.

And nobody in the Army did that. They didn't shave it. They didn't shape it. Yeah, to shave it, yeah. But he thought that the answer to Army morale and espreedicure was these magic hats that the Rangers were wearing.

And so he basically said everybody gets that hat. When getting the hat, like getting a green beret, getting a black beret, what was a right of passage? It was, you know, for us, getting the Ranger tag was no big deal. Like, that just meant that we can make E5.

We didn't care about that. We cared about getting that black beret. Yep. So there was a lot of heartache about it at the time. Yeah. So.

And at the same time that all this is happening, it's already percolating in the back of your mind that you want to join the, you want to go back in. Yeah, it was. And I, because I couldn't, I still was like, couldn't find what I wanted to do with my life. And I woke up one morning and it was like, oh my God.

I said to my, I literally said, I'm going back in the army. And she screamed. the F word really loud. I think I'd been sort of murmuring it. I said, I'm going back in. She knew I was serious, and she's like, but quickly or eventually got over it. I gave myself a damn high and tight.

And it took me a year to get back, and they wouldn't take me back in. I had spinal fusion, and I was old. So I had to get waivers and waver. And I couldn't get back in. And then they're like for a year. And then they said, well, you can be a cook or a mechanic at Fort Riley, Kansas. You pick your job.

And I said, oh, my God. So I just happened to have this paper here because my wife just had loaned it to somebody. Another story. But, I mean, this is the Washington Times. And there's me, like George Bush. You know, we were on the front page of these pages. papers a few times. And my TBI just kicked in. What were we talking about? Yeah, you were talking about your decision to go back in and that they said no. And I just want to

stop there real quick. You said you were old. And for our audience out there, how old is old? I want you guys to hear this. How old were you? at that point. You're talking 32 years old. Ancient. You were ancient. Yeah, you were ancient for the airborne ranger in the sky.

Yeah. Kind of like athletes. Yeah, I mean, isn't the average age in Ranger Regiment, it's 18, isn't it? Well, I mean, I think the average age is probably like, it's probably like 21 because you have your leadership. You do, but there's much more privates. There's tons of privates. On average. Yeah.

It's like teen. It's a teeny bopper organization. We have sock hops. I school with guns. Yeah. But we get it done somehow. So here you are an elderly man of 30. Well into your wizened years. Your senior years.

Yes. Yep. And again, man, Dave, we're not bragging, but like this is a hilarious thing that happened. So there was an E8 woman working at the maps. I had this paper. This was my last resort. I brought it in. I said,

Master Sergeant, this is me. I did this walk because I love our country and our army. She was like, damn, that's freaking cool. Where do you want to go? That day, right there, I had orders to 175. No basic training after 10 years. and and then man

it was either then or the next time when i went it i'm sitting in this at the maps in baltimore i'm living in northern virginia but for george mason to go back in there's this like hundred inch tv screen on mtv and i'm sitting there with all the other idiots getting You can go into the Army. MTV's on. And they, this is back, Martha McCallan, when it was like, what are special operations? And they show me and my little entourage walking up to the Lincoln Memorial. Nobody knows.

It's me, right? It's like, oh, my God. I never saw that commercial, that thing before or since then. But it's like, wow. You know, nobody knew it was me sitting there, but. Ridiculous. Just ridiculous. So you didn't have to do basic again.

Did you have to go back through MAPS? Or not MAPS, RIP? Yeah. So straight to 175. That E8 was just like, she just rode over it. It was so easy. So I show up. They're on leave.

I just show up. I'm in the Army. I got my whole uniform. I think no rank, but I certainly got my mustard chain scroll on. And old, Major Turner's there who was in E6 when I got out in 92. Oh, I remember you. Oh, I remember you. You know, everybody's on leave, but he's there, Rudy.

So he puts me in snipers and I'm just elated. Like, oh, that's what I want to do. 9 and 11 had happened. You know, I want to get back in a fight. So they're gone on leave. I'm in snipers. I got my little barracks room, 1276 north or whatever. and I get in there and I

S-O-P my wall locker. I don't know if you guys had to do that. I don't I'm trying to remember. I don't remember if we did or not. So I do that and they come back on leave and I'm in their formation. Like what else am I going to do?

So I just, their first woman, they get back, you know, and you're back from leave. I was just like January. And they're like, who are you? So I tell them and they're like, oh, okay. so are you sure you a tab spec 4 at this point in time i'm a tabbed pfc pfc they put me back in as a pfc wow so they okay yeah like why couldn't i was in e5 when i got out yeah and they couldn't even make me a spec 4 there was some hate there yeah so yeah pfc back in and then i went to that must have been

I went back to Rip, which was, which was hard, but it was cool because when we got to cold range, those guys knew the instructors. They had jumped into Afghanistan. They knew that I had done the walk. So like when it was getting, you know, we're carrying the log and we're going to do fun games all night for three nights or whatever. Somebody taps me on the shoulder and I turned around like to fight. I thought it was. And he's like, no, no, no.

Come here. He's like, get your ruck and go over there in the woods and sleep. And I was like, are you sure? Yep. And, oh, was that nice? For however many hours it was. And I heard it all going on, but saved my bacon. Then we do the 12-mile or, you know, there's 99 guys.

And like, I got to come in first. I'm the old man. And I did. But, oh, did I hurt myself to him? So back to Rip. And then it tried to put me in. 375, which I didn't mind. It was just, I had my family at Savannah, so.

Yeah. Got that change. Went back there and, yeah, we deployed to Afghanistan. And then Iraq, Iraq, and then I went to selection. And what was it like for you going to Afghanistan and Iraq having been a Panama vet? looking back, I don't know what I could have done different with my personality. I'm an introvert, so I just tried to like jump in. But man, I was pretty freaking dumb on a lot of stuff.

We had prick 17s. And they had, what is it? No, it's a 17 now. New radios, new machine guns, new airplanes, man. Like we went to jump the first time and I put my hands on the door. They're like, whoa, what are you doing there, Geronimo? Yeah. Everything was different.

So I got pretty mocked and ridiculed, you know, all the wait until I made selection for Delta. But, I mean, was the mocking and the ridicule, like, in a fun way, like, hey, old man, like, or was there, do you think there was actual sort of malice behind it? I think a little of both. Good question, you know, I think it was both, there's just, you know, there's one guy who's just trying to get under my skin, and he did. looking back, today, it wouldn't bother me. Like, I don't need to let that bother me, but he did and made it really hard.

I made it harder than it needed to be. You know, it's just like, was he a peer or was he senior to you? He was equal. So we were in snipers. We're both tab spec fours. And it's just, you know, It was just pretty much dick measure.

And I mean, like, trying to outdo me for whatever reason. I don't know. But it's like, that's still in me. That's why I coach high school football. It's like that's the thing that you guys have. But I think a lot of people have, they don't know that that needs to be brought out. When you see something wrong, when you see hypocrisy, do something. And I think it's time that people listen to warriors,

the warrior class of people of men and women, some women. What was it like now going back to war with the Ranger Regiment? Because as you point out, the technology had changed, but the regiment was also going through tremendous changes at the time. And I mean, you said you did a couple pumps to Afghanistan and a couple to Iraq. Yeah, one to Afghanistan. in. I was pretty slow.

I mean, I probably should have had basic training again. I mean, I was, it took me a while to catch up. It really did. So I did my best. Yeah, you know, we had the Jessica Lynch thing. We talked about a little bit earlier where it still pisses me off. But, you know, we went there to get her and the nine American bodies that were buried in shallow graves for three weeks that we dug up. that you know

I've heard the stories to hurry up that was pretty bad it was horrible yeah but the worst you know that's doable

but the worst part is hearing the news and just all the BS and it's like never I never heard about the nine the nine bodies do you remember you know one of crazy

like conspiracy theories had actually caught on to where even like major news what networks was that the Rangers had BFAs on their weapons. Do you remember that? It was so crazy. And BFA is a blank firing adapter.

So even mainstream media was like kind of propagating. They weren't like this is what happened. Like did this happen? And so, you know, what does that mean? Was this raid just a hoax? It's like, where are you guys getting your information from? Yeah. It's maddening.

if you let it, you know, I don't, I'm hesitant to bring up the name Pat Tillman, but I saw in that movie that just came out where he was thinking that we were just there to shoot airplanes. It's like, dude, like he didn't know that we were digging up bodies because they don't freaking communicate, disseminate information. Right. He didn't, he thought we were just there for hours. I saw that. I was like, oh, my God, that's, hmm.

Man, if we're not telling stories. Yeah. Yeah. So when did the unit sort of come on to your, were you like, I don't want to be a Ranger, or were you like, I want to do this thing? Rangers were cool. I just honestly, like the physicality of it.

I mean, I did it for almost six years total, three years and then the other enlistment, almost three years. I don't think I could have done it much longer. It is so demanding. I mean, I just, so I knew in the unit, I knew it was hard to get there, but I knew that we didn't walk, they didn't walk everywhere. I just hated walking everywhere, even though I did 700 mile marks.

But, yeah, it was kind of like, I wonder if I could do that. I'm going to try and had the opportunity, my platoon sergeant let me train in Iraq. So I walked around at the MSS, those 10 houses we had. up and down those driveways with, you know, with bare feet sometimes just to toughen up my feet and get ready. And, you know, and then there was something that there was this first sergeant. I had smart wool socks on in Iraq during the war. We're wearing whatever we call it range uniform like shorts and boots, t-shirt for workout, whatever it was. Ranger panties and brown T-shirt.

Ranger panties, right. Yeah, how could I forget that? and he comes up he's like hey ranger buddy have those those army issued socks i'm like well they're smart rule of socks first aren't got to change him and i was like man that's it the little thing pushes me over the edge yeah so i went to selection yeah and all those dudes were like what are you going for you're old and what was that experience like i mean did you kind of find what you were looking for in the unit? Yeah. And then some. I mean, it just loved it, love it. I don't, I don't stay in touch and go to reunions and all that. Like, it's not my identity

anymore. Right. But it was so cool because, you know, in the Rangers, there was like, you don't get paid to think. I need to think, man. Right. Everybody needs to think. Right. So I wanted to do that. And then I get to the unit and they're like, you got to invent something in your first year. I was like, cool, I'm in the right place. Yeah. That's cool. And when you showed up the unit, did you go to the line or did you go to the sniper? Like, where did you go first?

Where did you end up? So I got through selection my first try, and I'm elated walking on, you know, oh, I made it the first time. Then I get to OTC and failed. I made it to the end. My pistol shooting just sucked. I mean, I had never shot pistol. I never shot a gun before I joined the Army. So, yeah.

I mean, you're going to shoot a live round in a real airplane. You've got to be into a bullet trap. You can't miss. And in the 90s, Rangers, like, now Rangers have pistols. In the 90s, they didn't. Like, maybe the squad leader. I don't know, maybe. First sergeant.

I can't remember, but, yeah. Well, and, you know, the. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Beade Commander was Barretta, but, yeah, I mean, but it was important. So I failed.

I made it all the way through and failed. And that's how I became a dog handler. So, you know, 25, 30% of people fail OTC. It's not a uncommon thing. I had a plan. I had seen Rudy, this awesome dog, when I was a ranger with the unit. So I was like, I want to do that. So I failed.

And I asked the, sorry, Major telling me that I failed, if I could do that. And he said, hold on a second. He came right back. He's like, You're going to squadron. So I'm a West Virginia graduate, but at a no-t-C failure. So I'm direct support. Right.

Okay, cool. That was priceless because I really learned to appreciate everybody. Now that I'm direct support, I failed something. I'm not Superman anymore. And I had this wonderful dog Pepper, who, you know, we've talked about a lot. and it was a great experience. I hit her for two years. She was killed in 06.

After that, I went back to OTC, crushed it, was drafted first, you know, up high, like they have a draft. So it was, yeah, then it was straight to a sniper rec team. And, you know, we still do assault. Of course, you know, that's pretty much what you do. And so the rest of my years, just on a couple different teams and different squadrons.

And I mean, we just, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hits every night, all night. How mature, when you went direct support, how mature was the dog program at that time? I would say not fledgling, but close. We could do CQB without issue. dogs knew what they were doing. So it was still young, but not established.

It was only at the unit. Yeah. Rangers didn't have it yet. What were, what was the role of the dogs in the unit? I mean, you were the canine handler at that time. Two main things like detection and, you know, going after a person, a attack. So some of them, you know, well, Yeah, my thing was, you know, a squirder.

Somebody's going to try and run away. This 53-pound girl can, she's going to get you. Yeah. And she's like, awesome around the house. She loves it to boys, so she, you know. Yeah. So, yeah. The breed, I don't know if people want that out,

but the breed that they use is amazing. I don't know. It's not a house pet. You know, it's not something you would get for, you know, your two-bedroom apartment in New York. But it's, I mean, it's a working dog, smart as hell. And when they turn it on, it's on. Yep, they're point of-eared dogs, and there's a few varieties,

but the point-of-eared ones are the ones that mean business. And then they go through selection. That's pretty cool. You know, out of 100 dogs, we'll get one or two that will... Like my dog, Pepper, you know, they had it set up in a dark room with like a hole in the wall and they you know like up and she jumped into a hole blindly yeah wow and like yeah that's how you know there's there's tests to see if they're gonna do it yeah

a friend of mine who who has a I think three of them I can't remember me before but she was saying that um that a lot of times they use the females because they're more aggressive the males the males get a little dopey and a little too friendly sometimes and that Honestly, like sometimes the smaller the dog, the more aggressive it can be. Yeah. I mean, she was 53 pounds. She was small. And there was this kind of bruiser in the kennels, you know, old salt who had been there.

And he one time, we kept him all separate, but there was one time where he got out and Pepper was out. And he tried to give her some stuff. and she whipped his ass right back in his kennel. It was amazing. Yeah. Yeah, amazing. Do you have any memorable moments from that time as a K-9 handler that stand out for you? It was so, so now I'm with like a Delta team.

You know, I'm attached to them. Feeling sort of worthy, but not like I felt OTC because of my. It's like looking back, you know, it was like my identity. was so dependent and that's just where I was at the time it's okay like I know now that you know I'm a I'm a person and a father and God loves me and all this but it took a long time to get our first bite so just a few missions you know there just wasn't conditions I'm not just going to bite somebody so finally like we're taking some some guys that you know detainees off a hilo so it's dark night, you know, belot, whatever, wherever it was.

Just, you know the noise. Can't hear anything. You got to get right up and screaming somebody's ear to say anything. We're getting these detainees off and we're tired and we're walking them. And this never happened except for that time. This dude starts leaning back into me. I hadn't been to Sears school yet. I didn't know anything about resistance.

He's resisting me. I didn't know what was going on. And then I'm just like, I didn't know what to do. So then he like turns around and I was clueless and I'm like at the end of the line so nobody's seeing me. Pepper, my dog comes around and bites this dude right in the junk. And he's just like, you know. And the truth, the guys turn around, the guys that I want to like be accepted into, they turn around and they're just like, like she did it finally so and it was it was the right thing this dude was i don't know what you know

so the dog just didn't like that dude bowing up on you like that yeah right it was so cool um so yeah that was the first one and then everything was smoother after that i mean you know until she got killed but we're going after zarkawi when she got killed i don't know if you guys remember a m's yeah of course you do at the time you know forget about bin laden like zarkawi was you know we wanted to get our hands on him he's sawing off people's heads recording it and putting it out for the world to see he's he's evil he's real really evil so that's who we're going after when she got killed on the tiger's river what turned out not to be him but you don't know until you find everybody that's trying to run away i mean i i know it's a

painful experience, but do you want to talk about what happened that day? Sure, yeah. And, you know, it's funny. When I tried to die, when I decided I was going to die in 2014. Like I said, my brother committed suicide. I did the only thing crazier than suicide at the time. I was like, I'm going to go to the mental hospital and the VA. That's nuts.

So I drove to the Durham VA high and got myself checked in the mental ward. help me out. About the mission with Pepper in 2016. So thank you. So I quickly got out of there. My roommate had one arm and a torso in his head. Nope, he was missing two legs and one arm. And when that dude turned and looked at me,

I wanted out because his eyes were deaf in a different way. So he helped me. And I, you know, but I got out. It took three days to get out. I got out. And then on my follow on, I had this great talk to this awesome therapist, Sarah Boating, Dr. Sarah Boating, she was incredible. She talked to me. And then we ended up doing prolonged exposure, which is telling the same story over and over and over.

And I chose Pepper. Yeah. And Lance Cornett, good buddy of mine, had been killed the night before she was killed. And so for a year and a half, I went to the VA as part of my recovery telling this story. closing my eyes, trusting, you know, this awesome doctor who I'm still in touch with, you know, these guys, there's good help at the VA if you can find it. For 18 months, and then right toward the end of that, I get contacted by HBO and Channing Tate wants to do this documentary. It was like, oh, my gosh. So I wrote this little thing called suicide

to red carpet because in three years it was like, I'm trying to die. And then I'm literally walking the red carpet talking about my dog story, which, You know, I learned to say it, speak it well at the VA. So it was clearly, you know, sort of I had help. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so what did happen? Well, we're going after eight, one squatter. There's this massive combined units thing. And we just had a little job. We were, wrecked team around Littlebirds. were just squirder control. So there's all this coordinated stuff of this village in South Baghdad. And now this is a nasty, nasty, nasty neighborhood. And I remember flying in, seeing goods of humvees on the ground and parts really bad. So we go in at night. There was like even 101st Airborne was part of this.

There was units all over the place doing things. We're squatter control. We were flying there. No squatters boom. We went home. It was five minutes from the airfield. We're back. We get off the birds and they, you know, oh, there's a squirder. So we go back. And me and Pepper, it had started real early at night. So we get back there. It's maybe 9, 30, 10 o'clock at night going after squatter on the banks of the Tigers River in South Baghdad. And maybe one day I'll be able to explain how thick, thicker than Panama, this stuff was at the, you know, on the edge of the river.

So we get to squirder, you know, we're being told from eyes above from bird's eye, he's right there. He's 10 feet in front of you. I can't say, are you sure? Yeah. Yep. But it's straight down and it's raining and it's muddy and it's February. I slide down once. I scramble back up.

I send pepper. We hear a pot. It sounded like a nine-mill pot. Muffled. And nothing. So we're trying to figure out what to do, blah, blah, blah. Pepper comes walking back up the hill like, I don't know if it was five minutes or an hour later,

probably five minutes. She comes walking up the hill, like dopey. I'm thinking she's shot and losing blood, so I know what to do. My wife is a vet tech at the unit, Laura Miller. She's awesome. Not at the time, but now she's my wife. I'm checking Pepper for bullet holes.

There's nothing. And as I'm doing that, she's like, all right, hey, leave me alone. Leave me alone. she comes back to life. And she's soaking wet. So I was like, she was partially drowned, you know. It appears because she's not shot anywhere. There's no wounds.

So she recovered. She's back. So now, man, we put everything we've got and everything we can call into this guy. We can't drop a bomb because there's civilian houses right there. But we're doing everything short of that. And we're not touching him. He's got this spider hole. So on and on and on and on.

I made the decision. And nobody tells you to kill somebody. You never get orders to kill somebody or to, you know, you decide things like that. So I knew, man, and there's a picture I sent you guys. The name of that picture is last night. That was our last night. that was right before we went out. And Lance Cornett had been killed the night before.

She and him were friends. So it was just like, I sent her again. I made the decision to send her again. And she didn't come back that time. But she got him out of the hole. And my buddy's like, there he is. I got, pop, that, you know, shoots the guy dead. Birds eyes sees him floating down the Tigris.

And we can't find Pepper. So we're looking. And then I got her, I got her, I got her. You know, somebody found her strobe light, her IR strobe. That had come off. So I'm like, oh, she was in a fight because, you know, that things anchored on there. She was in a fight.

We looked, I got on a little bird, and he just crabbed around the banks, you know, looking, looking, looking. And I knew what was coming. It's getting light. And I know the commander, I know we got to go home, but I'm not going to go home until I get pepper. And, you know, the call came and it's getting, the sun's coming up. There we got to go.

And I just, that's when everything snapped. That's when everything broken me when, because I punched the ground and I screamed. And that's when I, that's when I really became a good warrior, actually, because I was like, you know what? Fuck everything. that's when everything changed we got home and I threw that kennel you know when we landed I and man I had dreams for years that I was looking down like bird's eye view and she's coming back super super super super tough people people who are

watching this and maybe not familiar like might not understand how closely socialized the handlers are with the canines I mean if you're if you're open to talk a little bit about like what that relationship's like and why you know with the way you talk about it you know it's like losing a family member oh yeah it was i mean it was my best friend and so i got pepper uh and i got to the kennels who came a dog handler in 04 they're showing me all these dogs and they're all and this is so-and-so and he does he's good at this and then i show pepper and she's sitting down wagging her tail And I just had my baby daughter, so I'm like, oh, look at this little sweet girl.

And she's the only girl. And I'm like, I didn't say it. I'm like, I want her. And they're like, well, she bites, but, you know, she's too small, blah, blah, blah. We'll probably get rid of her. So she was assigned to somebody else. He ended up getting a DUI. Awesome dude.

Sean Kelly, love him. So I got Pepper. And I was so happy because she was so smart. And, but she knew, like, reality. She knew, you know, an ass from a real person because she didn't really care about me at first. I know she gave me a chance, but like I don't know why I did this, but I just, after work, everybody would go home after training. And I would take her out in the back. There was this like green grass meadow.

And I would just lay there with her for a long time as often as I could just to let her know that like this is real for me. and I know what it is for you. So we bonded, you know. And then the night before, you know, Lance Cornett being killed the night before, we didn't sleep. I kicked the freaking heavy bag all night with her and there in the gym with me.

And, yeah, two nights in a row. It's like, oh, my gosh. I don't remember that, like, for two days after that. I don't remember anything. To put things in context for people, I'm sure everybody's falling along, but a squirder is somebody who runs off target, right? When you know you have bad guys,

like a squatter is a person who runs. Now, early in the war, that was sort of like they're retreating. What we eventually learned, though, is that there was no such thing as a squatter. There were only maneuver elements. And if they didn't have well, weapon on them when they squirted, they were running to a cache to get a weapon.

And they would lie in wait, and they would wait for ex-fill, and then they would come out blasting, or they'd blast from a covered position or a concealed position, like this guy would have done. So it's not, he wasn't out of the, that dude was not out of the fight. That dude was waiting for his moment. Exactly. He wasn't scared. If the cops come to my house, I'm not going to run.

Right. today. Right. So yeah, what is it? Did this kind of like, this was sort of like the end of your time in the K-9 unit? I mean, am I wrong to say that you were a bit emotionally traumatized by that experience and like couldn't take another dog after that? You're not wrong and I never really thought about it, but I wouldn't have.

It just so happened to be, thankfully, at the point where I was going to. going back to OTC, there was a two-year wait since I had failed. So it's like you can go back and try in two years and that was just a couple months before it. So kind of, again, ordained to me. Yeah, I wouldn't have done it again. It was the hardest work too besides being a ranch private. A dog handler is extremely hard work. Jumping off of a black hawk with a dog on a 20-inch elastic tether.

is something to do or you know getting over a chain link fence oh my goodness was that difficult but well worth it and you know she used to like so the night after lance died we're at the ms s those houses udi and cussie's houses on the river is where we just where we lived for years so somebody dies man the next day it's quiet of course you know it's psalm it's there's no words but life goes on and so you get up and

four or five o'clock in the afternoon because you would go out at night so so pepper would go around and man that night or that day I I just let her go usually and I could hear her going room to room

normally it was like pepper you know but it was just like oh hey pepper and then you know another room And she would just make her rounds, man. It's like no other dog could do that. I don't know what goes on nowadays, but she, she could do that. So, man, these guys, I love these dudes that I was with, man,

who's eye team, Rakey Troop and squadron. They, they were her uncles. I mean, this was, they, I thought that, she, she thought that we were a So they did everything they could really, really, to find her, man. And we just could not. Yeah, generally, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. But generally those dogs are not that well socialized, where a lot of times only their handler can really be physical with them,

be playful with them, stuff like that. Is that correct? Oh, very much so. And Pepper was seven years old. And she had been taken home. She was from Belgium. She had, you know, somebody that had taken her home, so she was very well socialized. You know, and in that naivety or whatever of the dog program, oh, I want this dog kept it, you know,

I would put a poncho liner in Pepper's Kennel when we flew over to Iraq on the bottom because it's so cold, you know. And they make fun of me. I'm like, hey, man, whatever. Loving Pepper's wrong. I don't want to be right because we were good. But yeah, most of the other dogs. You know, Rudy just, I love that dude. Almost everybody got a complimentary bite from Rudy.

He'd come up, you know, people would be standing there and he knows it. They're like, what do I do? Pet him? I don't know, man. You might get bit if you pet him. You might get bit if you don't. Just a little snap bite, but it was, you know, yeah, incredible animals. Yeah.

So what was it like then landing in the sniper wrecky troop when you became a, you passed OTC the second time became an operator. When that switch happened, I didn't really, wasn't cognizant of it at the time, but after Pepper died and I, you know, I just was like, I tuned out and it worked. It got me to where I could shoot pistol. I could do whatever I got to do. I'm, you know, now I can run, I can keep up with the young guys and I'm driven again. I have a purpose.

I'm going to be the best operator I can be all that. So I did. Gosh. Oh, and then, so we start deploying. The next switch for me, what really took me kind of over the edge was going out and capturing these guys two and three times. Yep. And then our mates getting shot in the head. Rick Harrim, I got shot in the head.

And it's like by somebody that we had rolled up. And I don't mind saying it's like I'm going to talk about this the rest of my life. I made a decision if it was legal, moral, and ethical, if it lined up, boss, you want this guy dead. Yep. All right, he's dead. Because I had a new daughter, a brand new baby girl. And I just made that decision and I carried it. And when I coached football, I tell, I tell guys.

from this experience. I try to do, try to get, you know, work, run every place so hard that you get a look from your teammates,

like, who the hell are you? Yeah. What are you doing? Because I got that look and they're like, and I kept it up. And not for any reason.

I just didn't. It's dumb to fight a war and not fight to win. Right. Screw that. You know, earlier when you were talking about being in a college class

and students who wanted to ask you more. One of the things I've found very interesting with civilians is and you can tell me if this matches your experience at all is when they find out you've been in combat, they'll say oh, the first question is always did you kill anybody? And then the second question is

how did you get over it or how did you? And for me it's always been like, there's nothing to get over. They were shitheads. Like they were oxygen vampires and they didn't need to be here. Like better luck next life. Yeah. The way to get over it is I need more like a drug.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, you know, like the I deemakers were the worst because you'd roll them up and they wouldn't even have it. They wouldn't even try and fight back. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Got good news for you. Yeah. And so, you know, but you're another five years. in the sniper and recie troop at least um you know i'm i'm guessing this time frame we're talking about it's like it's a grind it's back to back to back like you're from that generation of operators that really got put through it yeah and i'm you know i'm proud of that in a way that i'm using like this to tell my story both where i was weak where i was strong what i learned where i screwed up

to help the next generation um Yeah, it was a grind. My God, just back to back to back. And then let's throw in a surge in the middle of all this. And, you know, going out, I got my journals. I have three leather bound journals in my safe, you know, with my guns and my birth certificates for my kids. Those things are not very detailed,

but I wrote in code so that I will know, you know, I will have memories of all that. And it's not about numbers. It's not about being better than anybody else. But it is, man, I'm just scratching the surface. You know, we all are of what it's like. I mean, any other, as far as like what it's like, any other aspects of it that you want to talk about

or things to stand out in your mind from that period of time? I was saying it was a decision. And that's where everything starts with. And I've tried not to get political for a long time, but we can't, we can't avoid it. We have the biggest circus going on. It's almost like we're being punked. I mean, I wouldn't, are we? So I'm sitting there watching the Trump rally, President Trump rally with my daughter, and I saw that and I said, he just got shot in the air.

This is before, anybody knew. You could tell by the way he moved. Yeah. And the sound of the pop. She's like, what? he just got shot in the air. Because we've seen so much of that. We've done so much of that.

And then to just see this, I don't even know what to call it. And I don't, it's not looking down, but it is, I do feel like it's the sheep giving orders to the shepherds. And that needs to fucking stop. I don't know how. But if I don't say what I just said, I'm not doing my part. and it's the video gameers telling the football players what it's like is the best analogy I can come up with.

Yeah. Yeah, it's been an interesting, it's been an interesting dichotomy because, you know, we saw sort of, like, there are crazy people everywhere, right? I mean, we get them in our units, you know, you get them in politics, you get him in everywhere. And we saw sort of the Q&ON phenomenon, you know, on the right. And it's like, oh, well, the rights are really looms.

And now you have very large, people with a very large presence and a lot of influence saying he wasn't shot. It was glass. It was this. It was that. And it's like, okay, so the left is equally susceptible. to conspiracy. I mean, Blue and Non has been a thing for

a long time. Those people have been off the rails with conspiracy theories. Yeah, going back to about that time, about the 2016 time frame. And it's just and you're right, it's very frustrating

it's like a bad, it's like an abusive relationship, right? It is the gaslighting. It's like you didn't see what you, No, I wasn't in bed with her, honey. You didn't see that. You know. You did not some epic conspiracy theory. You did not see what you just saw.

Yeah, we all saw it live on TV. It's not some epic conspiracy. Right. And hell is the impossibility of reason. Yeah. So, I mean, Dave, but to go back to this period of time, I mean, are there any, before we move on and get closer to the present, I mean, any experiences that kind of stand out for you

that you want to talk about before we move on? I had a horseshoe malfunction on the halo drop boy. That was something, 25,000 feet at night. Yeah. It wasn't combat, but, you know, training in the desert, 25,000 feet, jumping a long rifle. I think I had a Norma, a 338 Norma mag, and flying a ruck.

And I opened, I was sort of head down, I think. my pilot shoot wrapped around my ankle I felt it and slowly it was like this constriction and I've time slows down and I'm like oh that's not good I'd try to wiggle out and it it caught air and it my foot kicked the back of my head and I don't bend like that as that thing caught air so I thought my leg was just like when you take a chicken leg and thigh and you turn it and you hear that that's what it felt like it didn't break but that's what it felt wow but i'm hanging upside down at you know 24 000 feet now with the ball of crap and uh so i laughed and then i prayed the peter prayer god help

and i did my cutaway and uh it it went away sometimes they don't on a horseshoe sometimes the reserve gets wrapped around your ankle yeah yeah and uh that was in it and I jumped one more time after that to get it out of my head and that was when I was like when I was done with the fight. What altitude were you at when you got something over your head? Oh, probably 17, 16. Oh, my God. I was still high because my air, my mask came off, my nods came off. And as when I got situate, when I got my shootout, I was hypoxic.

I got, you know, that's why we do the chamber. I was starting to pass out. So I got my air back on and came to. The pain was so bad. Made a radio call. Hey, I'm okay. I heard them talking about me. You know, we got a horseshoe.

It's Nielsen, blah, blah, blah. So just listen to the, again, the training. You know, you never think it's going to happen to you. Dave, when you were 16, you know, you said, if a war breaks out, I want to go. You happen to be in the right place at the right place at the right time. Several times. Well, I mean, for Panama, for Panama. And, you know, when you were going back into the military, did you think that that, did you think that another, like, one-off, like, Panama was going to happen again? Did you think it'd be a peacetime military? Did you even think about it?

I did. I hoped for it. I hoped for war. I don't know why. I don't anymore. But it needed it. Yes. You know, there's scripture that says, God did this just to teach the Israelites. war like the lord is a warrior i mean it's it's all over the place it's an important thing and it's it's just not respected enough like it should be like it has been in history and we don't know i don't know i don't know why yeah and isn't it's kind of funny because i think when when you're like that it's like chasing it's this escalating chase right that yeah that you know for somebody who grows up you know in a not so peaceful household like getting hit his no big deal. So where

most gentleman is like, oh, I wonder how I'd do if I was ever punched in the face. Or I wonder how I do it. It's like, you're like, ah, whatever. But then you want to be in combat. But then you get in combat, you're like, well, I didn't

kill anybody. Like, it's not really combat if I didn't kill anybody, right? And then you kill somebody. And then it's like, oh, I never killed anybody with a knife, you know? Or whatever it is. Yeah. With a pistol. Exactly. whatever it is like you always find that one thing that that piece that's missing yep i didn't get shot everybody on my team got shot right multiple times except me right why right then it's crazy like

okay dude that's you know that's enough but it's but it's absolutely that way right you these elaborate fantasies of how a firefight goes down so you can like you know pull off some john wickshut or something i mean yeah it is and then it's the next one and the next one and the next one And I remember thinking Benghazi happened. And I had taken Arabic for a year and lived in Israel. I was off a team. And I'm like, oh, I'm going to go back to a team. And as I'm thinking that, I see Brett Farv on the Vikings, like, just get murdered by some D-N.

And it was like, oh, that's going to be me if I go back. Right, right. So you had this injury and this horseshoe malfunction. I think he said 2009, but you were medically retired in 2014. So tell us about what that. that next step was like you said you were off a team? That was actually 2010. Okay.

Yep. So then I went to, like I said, I volunteered for, to learn Arabic. I had always thought that would be cool. We're in Kirkuk on a rotation. Hey, anybody wanted to do Arabic that would come up like once in a year? And I prayed about it. And it was like instantly, I got this yes, do it. So I did.

And again, I felt like I was betraying my team. But why are they asking if they're not serious? So, you know, and then I'm in, I'm in Israel or in Arabic. My whole team gets fragged in Afghanistan, of course. And I'm mad because I'm not there getting fragged with them. But it was great. I learned that. I did that.

And then so 11, 12, the process started then, you know, somewhere in there, the medical retirement because the TBI stuff, I just, I couldn't. keep up so and the PTSD and so when I went and talked to the Maddox the med shed the doctor and Colonel Dyer the psych there's almost like they were waiting for me to come to them and say I'm done so yeah so there was a year or whatever in there of where I just worked at the language lab and facilitated others learning foreign languages and and then medicare retired and you know as we we kind of get into your like post-service life i want to ask you because as we have this conversation like i'm sensing that there are two different daves at this time right there is

you mentioned praying numerous times there's dave who who has religious faith and has a family and then there's dave that as you said before that you want to you try to die and what what was that experience like in uh you know post service i went through I went through two divorces back to back. That was the main thing. I have three kids. It was just too much. Like Dave was saying,

I stack, I tried to stack so much stuff and so many cool things as much as I could until I couldn't. And I hope that's enough, right? I hope I did enough to be respected. Like, what? To respect yourself.

Yeah. It's all internal, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You come to learn later. But so help me out, please, man. Your post-service life and, you know, some of the struggles that you went through?

It just in 2014 this night in November, something came over me. My brother had hung himself two years prior, and he wasn't supposed to. That was supposed to be me that dies, not my little brother. Right. It I wasn't facing it I didn't know how to face it I had two new babies

I man I tried to get I didn't try to but so I had two ex-wives they're teaming up on me their nickname Iraq and Afghanistan because I keep having to go back and fight each one they get like restraining order number freaking four right where the cops come and take your guns the cops know me I'm like hey man can I brush my teeth yep go ahead will you cuff me in front sure Dave like just going through the motions but I is never ever convicted

but they were never held up they were always dropped so it's just harassment so for some reason in there man I was like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do this anymore next time they come to take my guns I'm gonna make a stand and I was serious about it it happened again and I said sir I'm sorry I'm All right, you know, they're at the door, the cops, five cars out there blocking positions. I said, no disrespect, but I'm not going to give you my guns. This is stupid. And I shut the door. He's like, please don't do this.

I said, you please don't do this. And I'm going down into my basement. This is 10 years ago. I'm going down into my basement, into my alamo to fight it out. and my ex-wife, my wife at the time, I didn't know how sick this was until my wife, now Laura, told me how sick this was. She says, okay, well, good luck, or, you know, whatever she said, but she's, I'm telling her to leave the house and she's leaving. She's not trying to talk me out of it.

Right. I didn't even realize it at the time. She wants me to die. She wants my, so I'm saying about it of my sons, my twin boys who were born on November. 19th, 2012, 10 years to the day after an ambush in Afghanistan, November 19th, 2002. Side note. I'm saying goodbye to Milo, my son, who's five months old, and he starts laughing. The first time he's ever laughed in his life, five months old.

And it snapped me out of whatever dark cloud I was in. And I said, what the hell am I doing? This is not worth it. Take everything, except my kids, you know. Yeah. I called the cop. I said, hey, man, come and get them. They're cleared.

All my guns are cleared right here in the open. And they were mounting up for the attack. Yeah. So that happened? Come on. It's so clearly divine intervention. I tell my boy, like, you saved my life. Someday I'll tell you how.

He's 11 now, but they came, you know, so they come back into, this guy's looking for a fight. He comes up. He's trying to smell alcohol. I'm not drinking. and get some, you know, and he just takes me to jail. They go through. They're counting every round.

It takes about six hours. I got reloading stuff. It's just ridiculous. Ends up, man. The guy drives me home. You know, I'm sitting in the front seat talking to him. We're like friends, if we could be. But, you know, we're just, we talked it out of me and the cop.

And that was the last time that happened. But that was so close. You know, if you let that, oh, it's so hard. We've got to have our Pride, good pride, bad pride You guys know what I'm saying, man It's a fine line Yeah

Yeah, it's whether it's a real line or not It's a line that you feel will break you Yeah You know and it's worth defending And you know and I'm curious You know Sort of growing up in an abusive environment You know

Until we reach some level of self-enlightenment and recognize our patterns. We often seek out relationships that and people who repeat that or whatever. And it sounds like these women were very skilled or very good at that. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and who's the last person we look at to be at fault? Like, you know, my friend told me, hey, you've got to be at least 50% of the problems. Yeah.

Like, I'll admit that, but not a 51. Yeah. be 75% I don't know yeah yeah yeah like yeah like let's stop finding these patterns yeah what was uh I mean you walked right up to the precipice on what was your path to recovery after that moment so it was shortly after that was the the night of like I'm gonna die I don't know how but I'm dying tonight and then it was so I think like if I was to talk tell somebody about I'd say just walk it out. Move.

Move your ass. Move your faith. Whatever it is in there, move it. Play it out. I'm just dealing with this with my 19-year-old daughter. She's like, I don't have a purpose of why am I alive? She had a suicide attempt last year. My baby girl is now 19 and with slit wrist.

And I was at Cam. Set a goal. I don't care if it's crazy. And see if you can do it. Do everything you can. And if you can't, then, you know, okay, life's not worth living. And she said, okay. So, yeah, it's about walking it out and moving it.

Face the tank, man. One time we were on patrol and we, well, we're going on a hit. And there's an M1 tank in this field. Like, there wasn't supposed to be there. And we couldn't reach him on the radio. So, like, man, if we just walk by and he wakes up, he's going to shoot us. So that's my saying now, like, face the tank, figure it out. I end up knocking on this tank.

You know. like what are you guys doing here we almost shot you like okay and then he's now he's pulling overwatch for us so face the time and you've gotten involved in a bunch of other things since then i mean coaching high school football some uh it sounds like you know missionary work almost in sierra leone and even documentary you know some hollywood stuff also yeah i people ask me they'll be like do you have a job Not officially, but I'm busy as hell, and my life is great. I am so happy, guys, you know, joyful.

Just things are good now because I admitted that I couldn't fix myself, that I needed help today. I got to talk. Somebody asked me for help or anything. Yep. And, man, I look back and it's like, people were so graceful to me along the way. I did so many, a lot of stupid things, just hurtful things. things, you know, things that were done to me. And it's all about relationships. So I, yeah, Sierra Leone is a big one. We, a friend of mine just, he, he's a, he's a pastor and he, it happened through him. And then I'm a

theologian. Like I am, I went to seminary not to preach. I just love studying and, you know, learning the why of things. So I'm helping my friend out. He had to leave. So then I, I, just stayed on board and I'm doing these Bible studies online with this church in Sierra Leone and sending them a little a very little bit of amount of money every week that has become an orphanage. The roof just went up. And when the guy told me, let's, let's do this orphanage. I'm like, I said, okay, like it's not going to happen, but it's been two years of this money trickling. And that goes a long way over there. We have an orphanage. That's like your, your impossible goal that you set. Right, right, right. It happens. It's so like, oh, wow. That's the biggest, that's the coolest thing I've ever been able to be a part of than all this other stuff because you see a kid hurting, man. I can't handle that.

Yeah. David, if anybody is listening and they might want to help out with this church or this orphanage in Sierra Leone, is there a way that they can do that? Thank you. Yeah. Probably Christology. podcast on Instagram to start. And then I'll send them right to Pastor Hamelberg, who's the pastor there, and they'll do it direct. That's not this, I don't have a 501c3.

I just, I don't have the capacity right now for that, the business side of it. But if they want to give absolutely, that would be awesome. I'll put them right in touch with the pastor and it's easy. So it's Christology? Yeah, the Christology podcast. Christology podcast on Instagram. Yeah. Okay.

Do you want to tell us a bit about what your podcast is about also? We've done 40 episodes maybe. Christology, the study of Jesus, who is he? Who he is? In seminary, it kept coming. That word kept popping up. I was like, that's a silly word.

Or what does it mean? Like, you don't see it anywhere. What's the same as theology. Theo is God, the study of God, Christ, the study of Christ. So it always came down to like, Paul or Peter has a high Christology, and these people have a low Christology. It's who he is. I've boiled everything down, all my experiences in life to that question.

Everybody's answering that question in one way or another with how we live and die of, is he who he says he is? And it's not about, hey, check it out. I'm going to tell you who he is. We can have any balance or we can talk about football or anything because he made it all. He said, he says in the word. So that's it. I mean, and this is a great platform and way to, I guess, get people to look and see.

So, yeah, it's a lot of work. Man, it's hard. Yeah. And you also got involved in the Wardog documentary. You know, tell us a little bit about these projects that you got pulled into. And, you know, it sounds like you really lent your professional experiences to them. that was like a gift um HBO Channing Tatum produced and funded this documentary called War Dog a soldier's best friend

when it started it was like this is going to be maybe uh you know win an award like we had director Deb Scranton she'd done this really good stuff in the past and you know we had this momentum and the time it took to do that it went from like yellow ribbons and thank troops to you know, we suck in those few years from, I don't know, 15 to 2018. But it was incredible to do. It was hard, but told my Pepper story. There's a couple other guys on there telling stories about dogs.

And we'd go to Hollywood and meet Channing Tatum and like Magic Mike. Like stay away from my wife. wife, dude. But it was so cool. And then while we're there, there's these a couple guys, the dog handler from the TV show SEAL team, Justin Melnick.

He's there. He's like, hey, do you want to come out to the set tomorrow? And I'm like, nope, nope, nope, I don't want to do anything. I want to go home. And we talked a little more. And so we went out to the set, Laura and I, my wife, and watched him film. And then they're like, you want to be, I. extras. I said, okay, so we came back for this, but I'm a dog handler now on a TV show in episode 13 of season one of SEAL team. I'm a dog animal that gets killed. I love it. It's just at night.

I don't have any lines. I'm just walking into a team. We go into a building boom, you know. It was so fun to do. And I got paid four times the amount to act like what I used to do for Yeah, right. And you found it fun to play out like the fantasy where the stakes are so much lower than they were overseas. Yeah, all that. It was hilarious. It was fun. And then, so then, this is worth talking about. Sure. Chris Chulak was the director. I think he's gone out from that show. But what an awesome guy. I met these people in Hollywood. I thought it was going to be what you hear about. Man. without that like my experience from the VA and all that stuff wouldn't have been complete because they were like just real people and can you watch this and see what you think and how I'm doing this and give some feedback and I'm watching the scene where this RPG round comes up

a string you know they're making a TV show right but something freaking like the only like PTSD like movie type thing I've ever had I was like, something triggered. And I had to walk away and I was going to start crying and I was going to be embarrassed. But I had been to the VA so I knew what to do. I turned back around and I talked to my wife. And then I talked to the director, Chris Chulak. I was like, he said, was that pretty good?

I said, yeah, that was really, that was really good. That was pretty on target. Yeah. Yep, keep that up. That was good. But, you know, I was able to stay in it, and that was like the first sort of win with something like that. And then it's happened many more times, and now it's a breeze, right? Now life is like it should be.

Hollywood was awesome. Went out to Justin's house last year and rode horses with his wife. Me and my wife and daughter went out there and just the dog handler from SEAL team. He's awesome. That's super cool. And you said that now you're married. to a woman. Did you say she was a veterinarian in the unit? Laura Miller, she was the vet tech.

Bettec, yeah. So the enlisted helper to the vet. Yeah, super cool. Big Army, well, she was in the Army, 26 years. She retired right after me. We were friends when I was in. She was the vet tech. And, yeah, so she worked with Pepper and all the dogs. At the unit nine years, about the same time frame I was. Yeah. And we both found ourselves single, and now we are spend every second together. That's awesome. That's fantastic. That's great.

Yeah. And so where are you at today? I mean, you've had this like incredible journey. I mean, walking almost up to the brink. I was kind of curious about like where you're at today. And, you know, you've shared some really good experiences with us. I mean, and I'm just interested in, you know, I guess if we were to like AAR this entire conversation, I mean, lessons learned, right? Yeah, I appreciate that, Jack.

You know what? It's still just as hard. Yeah. But I don't take it as hard. Like, I still am struggling presently with what do I need to be doing? Do I write that book? I've started a book 40, 40 times. And the title changes, and I can't organize it and like, blah, blah, blah, but I got to get this out.

You know, so it's like, and if I do or don't, I'm okay with it, but then it's, It's like, man, am I being lazy? Am I not? And then, you know, people are like, well, you got your missionary work and at a podcast and your football coach? And she's like, okay. You know, this kind of is self-imposed. In your defense, Dave, I mean, writing and rewriting a book 40 times is quite normal.

So I've heard, yeah, good. I don't even know that, you know, it needs to be told. This is good. It's not, you know, the cliche is true. On my podcast, I've had, like, I got this list. like it was one a week when I was doing a podcast a week of usually like a guy who was in the Rangers in the 90s or 2000s for four years and then got out and those man that's hard it's so hard and they'd be like you know I heard something you said and man I appreciate

I was I was about to just totally give up but I'm going to try again it's like ooh man that's cool that's cool that feels good yeah yeah yeah I mean and it's it's It's wild, too, you know, because like with the post-traumatic stress, with the TBIs, with sort of the, well, the operator syndrome. Yeah, the combination of TBI and TTSD. And then the, and then also the, I was doing this and now I'm doing something like this. And, you know, and a lot of guys, I mean, girls, a lot of people from that, life find them they they find their dark night of the soul right they they they they they find that

and and it's not this chronic um situation that they have to deal with their entire life it's it's they have to get over that bump and and sometimes a call from a buddy sometimes hearing somebody like yourself talk about it sometimes that gets them past the not that may have changed everything. Wow. Yeah, man, that's it. That's deep. And there's a name.

I think I've heard that, but I didn't know people talk about operator syndrome? Operator syndrome, yeah. Wow. And you guys are saying that the thing is to get to that and through that. I mean, hopefully not to it. Hopefully, like, people, you know, deal with it, You know, they talk to, you know, they have a good mental health regimen.

Most people in our field don't. Like we, we've always been self-sufficient, how we made it through what we made it through. You know, we don't, we don't focus on our problems, right? Our problems are, eh, I don't really care. I don't really care. I don't really care. But enough I don't really care is it all starts to build up after a while. Yeah.

Yeah. And then one day you do care and you care a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So it's face the tank every day. No less than one bold move is kind of my motto because I've been slothful lazy or lately and lazy lately. But like I almost freaking had a damn heart attack. Like I woke up with chest pains and went to the hospital.

So like it's really hard. People say this but to learn to relax. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it? Yeah. What's up with that?

Yeah. It's keeping up that high adrenaline rate. That's what that is. Yeah. And sitting still and doing nothing is just like so antithetical to, you know, it's really who we are as people, right? Because like who you were as a person is what led you to this profession, not the other way around.

A really good shrink at the VA told me. She said it's its own type of post-traumatic stress. It's like this low-grade post-traumatic stress. that just taxes the body. She goes, because where you guys come from, and then where you're at now, it's like you have one foot on the gas and one foot on the brake all the time.

And that's how you're driving through life. Oh, my God. Yeah. Well, we have some questions, real quick. We have some viewer questions. Bjorn, thank you very much. What was your experience like with other Tier 1 units like DevGroove and 24th STS and FBI Hurt? Which team worked best with unit?

So it's always kind of a, it's kind of like two dogs coming together. It really is just like, you're ready. I mean, honestly, you're ready to fight. That's what I'm thinking. It's just like you're bowed up because it's good on good, right? That's what we call it on the football field, ones on ones. and you end up being friends but it's like in the back of your mind

how am I going to take this guy right right be kind be courteous but have a plan to kill everybody you meet yeah it's true it really is but I always love the seals really I mean

a couple incidences but you know I did stupid things too I don't know man I always thought they were great and laid back which is how I am like I'm should have been as

Steph instead of Ranger. FBI was like, oh, that was a tough one, especially when they were with us. I'm like, what? We just waited them out, man. We just had a little talk with him, you know, about like, hey, we're going to go do this. What do you think about that? One guy was like, cool. And one guy was like, I'm not sure.

That's, okay, you don't need to come. I remember when we were doing a class on EPW in searches. and one of the Rangers was given the class was like, so you know, you come up, you know, your barrel is hot because you've just been in an ambush, you come up to the body, you just stick your hot barrel in his eyeball, and if he flinches, you pull the trigger. The FBI guys looked like they're about to shit their pants,

right that in there. I always just nervous around them. I'm like, am I doing something wrong? Am I, like, what have I done wrong lately? Like, are they really here because of, you know, what they say they're for? some tax evasion in your background that they're looking into. Yeah. You really hear just a fingerprint this dead dude that I just killed.

Yeah. Yeah. Bjorn, thank you again. How different are the squadron cultures? Very. Just like Ranger Companies. Just like football teams in a county. Just like siblings. There's always a personality. It's cool.

I mean, that would be a whole field of study, I think. But like Charlie Company, 175. I was attached to them as a sniper like But then individually I got good friends from there You know I'm a Bico guy Bico I think then 20 years go by And you hear you grow up a little bit And you hear

Like you guys were really retarded Some of the stuff you did We're in sandbags on your head in Panama Why did you do that? Like I didn't want to The Spec 4 made me do it I'm like yeah he's nuts The dude's crazy

So it's like yeah we were kind of dumb But they do have personalities, squadron to squadron. It's weird, isn't it, too? Because you wonder where that per... Because it sounds as though A-Co is the same everywhere, because, like, at 275, they were the Alphabots. And if you're wearing a sandbags on you, yeah. But it's weird that a company has a person...

And a lasting personality. Not a personality that's driven by, you know, the Sergeant Major, or the first art, but this enduring thing, yeah, it's really interesting. Bjorn, thanks again. Also, what was more rewarding for you personally, being an assauter or a sniper?

And do the jobs require different personalities? Pretty awesome question. You have to be able to do both because when I was there, you get switched. Like, hey, you're going to a recry troop. You don't always have a choice. And it's just a whole extra set of skills and guns that you got to maintain and do. It's a lot of extra work, but it's its own reward.

So different personalities. I always say my greatest sniper shot was about 1.8 meters. I was moving. I was reaching back like this. And I dude grabbed his wife. And it was the first time I shot Brown tip. And I hit him like, you know, when you blow it, they yolk out of an egg with the pinhole. Like, somehow it hit him magically and his brain popped out on his wife's lap.

Holy shit. Wow. As I'm moving and, like, they're moving. And my team leader's going up, you know, the other side or my teammate. And we see that slow motion. And he looks at me, like, I don't. She's sitting there with a brain in her life, like, just nothing. I mean, what, that doesn't happen.

So I call that my best sniper. shot well because it was i didn't have any long sexy sniper shots but i'm proud of that one because you know he was pulling his wife and uh to use her as a human shield yeah i put i put it right in the only spot that i got um lots of sniper training you know yeah i just i just never had a long shot yeah 300 meters but nothing nothing long um now see i've been led to believe though that a sniper on the head would have made its entire head explode by all the current ballistics experts out there. You don't even have to hit them, you just shoot close by them.

Close by them. It'll shear half their head off. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Unless you're shooting ice bullets. Right, right, right. Or glass, yeah. Bjorn, thanks again.

What was harder selection or OTC and why? Damn, what's with these good questions? Really good questions. Golly. I've thought about this one a lot. And selection, I'd say OTC, because it was harder, because selection, you're alone. I got to be alone walking the mountains. And it's nonstop walking the mountains and you're wet and tired.

But, I mean, it's so out in the middle of nowhere I would, I can't sing, but I was singing whatever, you know, hymns and hers and everything. I'm just singing, like, afraid that I'm, you know, I'm not going to make it. And so, yeah, I mean, it was miles and miles and miles, hundreds and hundreds of miles in the mountains over many states. And it was extremely difficult, but OTC was harder because it's long, grueling, longer than it takes to train a fighter pilot. And I did it twice. I did OTC twice and ripped twice.

Glutton for punishment, you are. Yeah, not anymore. M. Corby, thank you very much. Any funny stories from when they first brought dogs into the unit? So Pepper, before I had her, she, and before Sean Kelly had her, she was with a guy named Kelly Roby, who's an awesome dude. He's out there on Instagram. I was a second bat with Kelly.

Yeah, I was at second bat with Kelly. Oh, nice, nice, nice. Yeah. He had Pepper first. I wasn't there, but this is a true story. Kelly is just freaking, he's real. He sent Pepper out, you know, on a training mission, as we're attempting, like somebody got, had the idea,

hey, do you think we can do CQP with dogs? Well, why? Well, because they can go up and bite somebody and we won't get shot. How the hell are you going to do that? Well, we're going to train him by doing this. and then one more step and one more step. So this was way early in the process. So, you know, it turns out we go to war and we have,

we're fighting people that are just culturally extremely different, different diet. They smell different. So it's pretty easy for the dog. Watch the turp as you're getting into a panter. Pretty easy target discrimination there, but in training. So Kelly sent pepper into a dark room. She goes around.

She comes back. He's looking for her. And she bit him in the nuts, her own handler. Yeah. And that was the end of that relationship. That'll do it. Kelly was done with pepper. Maybe I'm missing something and he'll fix it.

But awesome guy. He helped me. Like, I got to the unit and there's like a few guys that are just down to earth. He was one of them. Like, he just knew it was hard. And he was an operator the whole way. that's the key man be an operator in life but you know have the mentality of a support person he was like that and yeah uh i mean i'm sure there's a lot more of it joe's got you thank you very much

do dogs play any role in the sSC process on targets yeah i can't answer that one okay yeah good question very good question love it love it love the thought there uh and then last question is asking if you knew some people by name and what you thought about them. Oh, boy. So I can either ask you and you can say whatever you want to say or I can not even bring the names up so you won't be held. I'm fine. I'm not, I'll face that tank. I'm cool with it. Okay. Did you know Tom D, Scott Miller, or Steve Gillian?

If so, what did you think of them, and what did you think of the officers you served under while at the unit? I know who all those men are, Scottie, General Miller? Awesome, awesome, man. He's the kind of guy. I never directly, directly worked with him like in a troop, but amazing, man. He'll take the time for it.

He was a unit commander for a time when I was. there. Excellent officer. You know, this wasn't him, but I had troop commanders who would, uh, we were getting ready to go on a mission and I'd be like, where's my quickie saw? You know, I got, I got to have the saw on my back because we're roping. Boss, where's the quickie? It's on his back. He's like, no, no, it's okay. I got it. Like, boss, no, no, that's my job. I already got it on, man. I mean, you know, it's okay. Like something like that, an officer does something like that, for me, we are, we're good, man. I got you, brother.

And then that perpetuates that, that real brotherhood. You know, it doesn't have to be that divide. And there very often wasn't at the unit a couple times. But for the most part, man, were they good, solid men, officers, men that I still aspire to be like, you know, Scott Miller, D. Tomaso, yeah. Wonderful, man. That's awesome. Did you know if we had any on Patreon?

Nothing? Dave, I mean, thank you for sharing your experiences with us, man, and just being so open. I really appreciate it. And, you know, I think it goes a long way to, you know, what we've been talking about this whole time. I mean, like these conversations matter to a lot of people out there, whether they're veterans or even if they're young people. We do have a lot of a young audience, actually, of people who are thinking about signing up, thinking about enlisting. And I think these are really like important conversations for them to hear. That's good to hear.

That's really, I don't know if I've thought about it like that. Like that's cool. And man, Jack Dave, thank you guys. I wish there were so many times I wanted to stop and ask your opinion or, you know, stuff from you guys. Maybe we can do that at some point. I want to hear some of your stories. I would be happy to have you on again, man. Anytime.

time. This has been really interesting and insightful, I think. Thank you guys very, very much. It has been. I knew it would be. I'm not, I don't get nervous anymore because I've done it a few times. And it takes me to, hopefully many people to like the next level. Like, okay, I just talked about more stuff that I didn't think of it would.

You know, I knew when not to talk about stuff. But like, it's, it's a scary thing to think. that I might get it wrong because of the deadly seriousness of what we did. Yeah. Yeah. I'm envious. I mean, if I could change one thing in my life, it would have been that I would have kept journals. Because, as you know, like, it was just, it's one green blur after a while. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I kept GRGs too. So, like, I've got dates. One day I'll sit down and match them all up. I haven't done it yet. Yeah, yeah.

That's a, and I'd really encourage you to finish your book, Dave. Even if you don't publish it, if you put it in a shoebox and you're safe for your kids, I get emails all the time from the kids of Vietnam veterans. And I'm like, how do I find out what my dad did because he never talked about it, you know? I mean, there's a podcast, of course, nowadays. But, you know, sharing those memories with your kids and grandkids, it means a lot to them. Yeah. Thank you for the encouragement.

I will do that. next Friday we'll be back we're going to have Alan Shibaro on the show Alan's a great guy that I knew from back in the day and he served in third special forces group and he just got back from some time he spent in the West Bank and in Israel so we're going to have an interesting conversation with Alan next week hope you guys will join us then check out Christology on Instagram. Christology podcast.

Yeah, Christology podcast on Instagram. Thanks, everybody. Yeah, thank you, Dave. Stay in talks, okay? Thank you, brothers. Appreciate it.