The Team House - From DEVGRU Operator to Mercenary | Daniel Corbett | Ep. 284

Episode Date: June 22, 2024

Support the show here:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Daniel Corbett III served as an elite Navy SEAL operator, part of SEAL Teams 5, 6, and 17. He’s now an ex-military operator for hire. He joined the navy shortly after graduating high school in 2002 and was deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2005 with SEAL Team 5. He joined SEAL Team 6 in 2007, deploying to various locations around the world. In 2010, Daniel returned to the West Coast and began instructing at the Naval Special Warfare Basic Training Command (NSWBTC). Daniel ended his active-duty career after two years with NSWBTC and quickly fell into the world of private military contracting. Daniel joined the active reserves in 2014 and maintained his active reserve status until 2019. In 2017, Daniel made international news when he was thrown in jail in Belgrade, Serbia, for eighteen months after traveling there as a private contractor to track a terrorist financier. Daniel still monitors international news and continues to entertain phone calls and meetings with those who need unique solutions to unique problems.Grab Daniel's book here:https://www.amazon.com/American-Mercenary-Riveting-High-Risk-Operator/dp/1546006192or here:https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/daniel-corbett/american-mercenary/9781546006190/——————————————————————Today's sponsors: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]#devgru #sealteam6Become 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, good evening, folks. This is episode 284 of the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with David Park. And our guest on tonight's show is Daniel Corbett. He is the author of American Mercenary, which is going to be released this August. The book is available for pre-order right now. Daniel served in the seal teams. And as the title of the book implies, went on and do some mercenary operations

and Yemen and Serbia and a few other places that we'll talk all about. Before we get started, I just real quick want to tell our viewers out there to consider subscribing to our Patreon. There's a link down the description. $5 a month gets you access to all these episodes ad-free and supports the channel, keeps this podcast going. We really appreciate all you guys who have been with us all this time. Daniel, thank you for joining us, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Yeah. So like most of our guests, I'm going to ask you for your origin story. Tell us a little bit about how you grew up and how that kind of propelled you towards military service. Yeah, it was a pretty good child My dad was in the Army, so we moved around a bunch.

I was born in Hawaii, left there after about a year, then hopped around three years in Germany, and then by fifth, sixth grade, hit Texas, and was there for a year, and then settled on Northern California. Went to high school, finished up, and towards the end of high school is when I made, you know, the decision point, you know, what I was going to do the rest of my life.

And you mentioned something, because I was, you know, fortunate enough, I got to read a copy of your book. What was the catalyzing event that made you think Navy Seals is my thing? Yeah. So I was running cross-country one year, and the assistant coach was a young dude, like 21, and he was like, hey, what are you going to do when you graduate? And, you know, when I was 16, high school was great, and, you know, I thought that would be life forever. You know, I wasn't, there was no pressure to apply to college, and I don't think anyone in my family had even been to college.

So it was like, just keep being an athlete and partying and being awesome in high school. That, you know, that wasn't in real life. So I never really thought about it. I was like, fuck, I got to grow up. And he handed me a VHS tape on the History Channel, like Navy SEALs. It was like, I think, made like late 90s. and had the really cool voiceover and it said, you know,

Vietnam, Navy Seals had a kill ratio of 201 and all this cool shit. I'm like, oh, that's fucking badass. And then they asked one guy, they interviewed him. He said, what makes you guys so good? He said, we're not that good. It's just that everybody else just sucks.

And I'm like, okay, that's cool. I like that. And that was it as hookline sinker. Because I like doing the endurance sports, like triathlons and cross-country. and then, you know, I was a stud football player. But socially, you know, I was really smart. So I got putting all these extra classes and, you know,

the smart kids were nerds and I didn't like hanging out with them. And then the jobs were just kind of dumb. So I didn't get any, like, stimuli out of them. And then I think when I saw that documentary and that guy say that, and, you know, you could see there is, you know, an aspect of intelligence. that physical demanding side. I was like, that looks perfect. I want to do that.

And so you go into the Navy. Tell us about, you know, getting into the SEAL teams. You spent a period of time, of course, in the White Side SEAL teams and then went over to DevGrew later on. Tell us a little bit about that experience. Had a great time. I checked in the SEAL Team 5 in early 2005. First deployment was straight to Afghanistan, summer of 05.

It was awesome. We're in, we're in, uh, Ramadi, Talafar, Habanilla, Baghdad. So, I mean, it was good. We got to do some good stuff. Did that. And then my buddy, after that deployment with my best friend said, hey, I'm screening for still team six.

I said, I don't, we're at still team five. I really had no idea what that was at the time. I was like, whatever. He's like, you should do it too. Just because he's my best friend. I was like, okay, I'll do it with you. and they have to go get a packet and fill it out and kind of get permission from the master chief of the command.

And when I went in there, the master chief was very surprised. He's like, I was actually looking for you. I wanted you to do this also. And I said, okay, cool. So I did it. The cadre came out from the East Coast, screened us, did the interview process, and I got the thumbs up for the next class.

So I still had another deployment to the Philippines. Did that. It was back for about a month. And then boom, straight over to selection. And you mentioned in the book, I believe that you were like one of the youngest guys to make it through Green Platoon. I think you said you were like 23.

Yeah, I checked in at 23. That's crazy. You know, there's the pros and cons, right? Sure, yeah. My body's not broken. Right? So there's that. you know, I still, you know, you still have your head in the clouds, right?

You think everything's bigger and better. You still have it. You've yet to look behind the curtain and see there is no Wizard of Oz. It's just a dude with the screen, right? So that's good. The only thing that wants, you know, is I would say the maturity aspect definitely did catch up to me. It didn't catch up to me in the SEAL teams. It was like, oh, he's a rock star.

He can do whatever he wants. Definitely, definitely. Those deficits definitely showed once I got over to Virginia for sure. Yeah. In your book, you actually, it's really more about your time in the private sector, and not so much about your time in Sealed Team 6. But, I mean, before we move on, is there anything you want to say about highlights, low lights, turn-ons, turnoffs, nightlife?

Yes, man. I mean, so much and so much it was a coming-of-age story for me, too. You know, I was from 18 through 27, 29. I was active duty. So, I mean, it was just a young man growing up and also happened to have been a seal in that Silt Team 6 and got to do all these cool things. It was a fun.

I didn't have one moment where I was like, oh, I need to be it. Again, I didn't know what Siltim 6 was. Like, I loved my time at Silt Team 5. I love my deployment to the Philippines and to Iraq. I loved all the things we did at, you know, Silt Team 6. We would talk about the good and the bad. I mean, it's just like anywhere else, it's a big, the war machine is big,

and there's politics and bureaucracy and great leaders and not so great leaders and good teams and bad teams. So, I mean, that could go on forever and ever, but all in all, I had a great time. Were you saying that your sort of relative immaturity kind of caught up with you when you got to Seal Team 6th when you got out to Virginia? Yes. Can you talk about that at all? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, there's a different, there's a little bit of a different culture too. And when I was in San Diego, I could be a seal until the beer lamp was lit.

And then I could go out and wear my raiders hat over my ears and tell people I was a tattoo artist. And that shit flew, right? No one knew, no one cared. When you're out at Seal Team 6, you're part of the National Mission Force 24-7, right? And I was like, what's the big deal? I came in. I fucking shot well. cleared the room.

We did our jumps. So whatever we did that day, like, who gets the fuck? Who gives the fuck what I do out of town or whatever? And they're like, yeah, but bro, like, you know, nothing. I didn't get that DUI or anything, but it was like, hey, like, you can't get in trouble. You can't not make it to work

because you have court. Like, you owe, like, you're part of this now. You're not part of you. You're part of this. And then when there's time for you, you go check the mail or whatever, right, because you don't have that time. I was like, it's just another nine to five. And it wasn't. It definitely isn't.

And the guys who are there deserve the guys who are willing to be, you know, that committed 24-7 because that's what it takes 100%. One story that you kind of glaze over in the book. I want to see if I can pry out of you maybe is how did you get your call sign? Oh, dirty. You know, apparently there's multiple dirties in the steel teams, and I know I'm not the first. but when guys meet me they're like man he like dresses nice and his nails are all trimmed and he wears a good cologne and like what the fuck is turvy is like an oxymoron

like calling a big guy tiny and there's none of that I was a new guy and everybody my platoon had nicknames and I didn't and I was and this was a platoon that eventually got disbanded because it was just too crazy but for being 19 it was awesome for me and a lot of our lunch times started at dany's our bar in Pornado at noon and would end up at the strip club and we never made it back to the base and this is with senior leadership right so I was like hey these guys here I'm good um it was one one night in the strip club I was flirting with this with this woman

she was a little bit older than me and I said hey what are you doing after work she said honey you can't handle me. I'm too nasty for you. And I was like, you know, I panicked. You know, I didn't want to back down. I said, well, I'm dirty. And the old guys behind me heard that. And they're like, that's right. You're fucking dirty. And I was like, no. Because they kept, they're like, oh, he needs a nickname. And I know what they meant by that. I'm like, dude, this is going to fucking suck. But, you know, whatever. I rolled with it and it's all good now. Yeah. I love the part of your book where somebody tries calling you Mr. Dirty and you're like, no, Mr. Dirty is my dad's name. So what precipitates you, you know, eventually deciding to leave the command and become what a lot of people probably don't understand or don't know about that there are Navy SEAL reservists.

Well, you mean leave Active Beauty or leave SEAL Team 6? I guess both. Yeah, so I love Team 6. Yeah, because you're doing CQC training first before you. Yeah, so I left I left SIL Team 6. It was kind of like, hey, I think you need to leave. And I'm like, yeah, you're probably right. So it was kind of those.

I could have fought to stay, but I was kind of over it. So I came back to the West Coast to teach CQC, which is postportor's combat room clearing at SQT, which is still qualification training that follows buds for six months. And it was, it was a blessing because it was me and like three or four other very recent Silt Team 6 guys that were either. in a semi, what I like to call, a tier one time out with me, like kind of in the penalty box? Or they were like twilighting and. On their way out of the time. Mama bear was like, uh-uh, we're going to San Diego and Navy's going to pay for it.

And they go, okay, baby, we got this. I did too many deployments with you on the East Coast. Okay. So we had that. We had a good mix of guys. And the students we put through our four-week course, when we had that group, I would put up against any platoon. at that time going through.

It was awesome. Yeah, you were really proud of your time as an instructor, I thought. Yeah, it was very humbling to be, to get there from, you know, oh, you're already from still Team 6. And the first day you get asked to demo a room and I do it, how I know how to do it. And, you know, the first thing the head cadre says from the rafters is don't do anything that guy just did. You know, I'm like, what the f that was perfect, bro.

Come on. That's what I do. and I had to realize how to teach it. And I was talking to kids who've never even seen this. Right. You know, right, right. It's like, oh, yeah, moving move. Safety.

Oh, I'm like, I haven't done that forever. Yeah. So it was really humbling. And then it was like, okay, just because I'm good at something, it doesn't mean I'm good at teaching it. All right. I need to learn how to be good at teaching. And really, really fulfilling.

Because you get told you're good so many times. You're like, yeah, okay, thanks. but when someone tells you that their new guys are performing amazing, it's because you taught them, it does need to compare. Yeah. And then how did you make the jump over to, was it SEAL Team 17? Yeah. So I went to the career counselor's office.

I'm like, man, I'm up for a re-enlistment. Everyone's getting these big, like, 85K, you know, they're flying out to Bahrain to escort something. being this thing and everything's good. And I walk in and you're like, yeah, man, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not, you're not eligible because you did some weird early advancement, E5 star program and you didn't dissolve this and that. So yeah, you're not kidding that. I said, okay. Oh, that big, like, I was mad and then I was like, well, at least I know

what decision I'm making now is to get out because it just didn't make sense. Became totally disenchanted with our mission and what we were doing and the way things were turning. You can just see the writing on the wall, the patterns in place. I'm like, I don't want to be a part of this anymore. So I left. I left. I went and rode boats for about a year and a half, doing anti-piracy stuff. You know, and being on a bridgeway in the middle of the ocean, feel really small. It's really fucking boring. And you're like, man, what I'm, you're like, man, what the fuck are I doing with life, right? So, this was with the, uh, with a trident group. Yep. Yeah. And this was at the height of like the anti-piracy thing too.

Yeah. Yeah. I was like, fuck it. Let's go. But didn't see any fucking pirates. You know, and I was like, this isn't for me. So I swallowed my pride. And I say swallow my pride because, you know, I see too many guys get out.

Oh, I'm going to start a tactical fucking whatever business. Or I'm going to go get my MBA at Wharton, right? And then you'll see them like, you know, kind of. sulking back into the to the to the to the door like hey guys can I come back and I was oh man that sucks I wish you really would have made it like if you're going to go go and then I found I found myself in that same situation missing the teams and you know not really having any guidance and what I left and did doing doing the contracting stuff that I did it definitely wasn't what I thought and it was really not for me so I called up

still team 17 which is the West Coast active reserve team and said, hey guys, what do you think? I see, come on over. And I mean, it sounds like it was fun for you and that one of the plus sides is in the Army, they call it being a guard bum. You know, the guys who keep going, trying to find schools to get themselves sent to

because when you're on active duty orders, you get paid when you're not, you're not being paid for folks out there who don't know how that works. Tell us about what it's like being a seal reserve. No, that's awesome. I had no idea that that culture existed in the Army, I wish we did in the Navy, in the SEAL teams, because a lot of people don't know that. They don't know how the pay structure works. And, you know, I didn't either. And it's like, hey, you get paid for the days you show up

and do your drill weekends, and only if you get on orders. And I was like, well, fuck. Like, how can I get on orders? Yeah. I put in for every school I could. And it was hard because there was no vehicle to send a reservist through these schools because no one's ever done it. We didn't have, we don't have guard bones. I was like the first one, right? So they're like, would we pay like, you know, they're going to Opso and Master Chiefs like, dirty's not mobilized, but we have some money.

Can he go on orders and we mobilize? Like, we activate him and he does his school. And they're like, no, no. Sure. So when once I got to one school, went to another, and then, you know, it was September, October time frame. Like, hey, man, we don't have any money in any. I said, okay. And there's a program in, I don't know, I hope it still exists. In the Navy down there, NAB, it's the language program. And that's paid for by Big Navy, not the Steel Team 17 pulls of money. its own group of money from pot of money from the big navy. And the people that run the language school are always like,

hey, if you know anybody who wants to learn any language, come here, we'll put you on orders here and Navy will pay for it. Not still 17th. And I had already went to the language lab there for Tagalog, which is now called Filipino language school before my appointments in the Philippines. So I walked over and like, hey, we're going to Korea. Can I learn Korean? And they're like, yeah, here you go. Boom, got out orders for three months, learning Korean.

And I actually doubled down on that again after we got back to Korea with another language. Yeah, you went to take Russian. Yeah. Yeah, so it was a hustle. It was a full-time hustle. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's cool, man.

Yeah. So let's get into some of the, you know, the, bulk of your book is, you know, you're still a reservist, but you're also, you know, trying to fill those gaps. I mean, looking for a paycheck. And you find yourself in the private sector. How does it come about, like you get linked up with this guy? I don't know whose names are aliases and who's are real in your book. There's one character named Maliki, and then there's another Azale. Malachi. Tell us how that comes about, how you meet these guys. well the one character Isaiah I've known from the SEAL teams he called me up and said hey

you know we're doing some things and your name came up and we could use you good dude knew him socially didn't work with him so I decided to have launch with him or like afternoon beverages and from what he was telling me and what he could tell me I was not interested and the following week, I was back at Still Team 17, hustling, trying to get another school. And it was looking good. They're like, oh, man, you're slated, you're going.

And then the week after that, I got the call. And it's like, hey, it's a no-go. Someone else took the slot. I was like, fuck. So I called him up. And I said, hey, you guys still looking for somebody? He said, yeah. Actually, the prime, Malachi, he wants to meet you.

And then that's how that whole thing got started. And how was that first meeting with Malachi go? It was very much not quite a dick measuring contest, but a lot of like, who the fuck is this guy? Yeah, yeah. Me, I was who the fuck is this guy. I had a no locked and loaded in my back pocket ready to go before I even left. It was at a super nice place.

You know, everyone had sports cars. I was wearing a hoodie and jeans or forget. Like I was not, did not give a shit. I gave a shit enough to go, but I wasn't about to bend over backwards, I guess you could say. So I get there and the teen guy I know and Malachi are sitting there and they're all dressed nice and they're hanging out. It was obviously, they'd been there for a little bit before me. And it was just, you know, the questions were for me, it was like, hey, where is this money coming from? What is the job?

Who is the client? You know, is this all about bored? and the responses were like, yes, of course. And then if they weren't, yes, of course, it was like, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. And I was like, eh, kind of do. And now I was really like, okay, thanks, I'm out of here. And then Malachi is like, hold up and pulls out a pen,

grabs a napkin, does a super crazy flow chart. Does this make sense? How this works and who's paying who and who the client is? someone. Not really. And then we had another, then it went on for another hour and then finally, you know, it was, it was good enough. I was like, okay, let's do it. Because I had this, you know, I did the reserve thing, which is cool, but, you know, you have all these talents and skills and you know there's still bad guys out there. And you're like, man, I want to go continue to do this. And when I was sitting at that first meeting with Malachi, it seemed like this is a perfect

gateway. And I mean, when you came away from that meeting, what was your conception of what this job actually is? I think I was pretty spot on. I'm going to go advise and assist, you know, one of our allied nations special forces. And then, but see, I've had enough time in the military and traveled and seen other units. Like, it's really hard to be thrown off with any situation, right? oh, it's going to be this, we're going to leave on this date. Well, until you're on the plane and that birds out the tarmac, you're not gone. Right, right. So I think we all know how that shit rolls.

So nothing really throws you off after that many years, active duty. So I think one of the really interesting things about your book is that, you know, it actually kind of details like, how does one become a modern day mercenary? And your book really kind of walks through that step by step. Could you tell us a little bit about, you know, after. that first meeting, what that was like for you, how you came into this role. I mean, I'm sure you did the right thing. You got a signed contract, had a lawyer look over it. Yeah, sure. It's good to go. I mean, for real, tell us what it's really like. Yeah, it's funny. I meet kids.

Like, oh, I'm your mercenary. I'm like, bro, like, that's not how this shit works. Like, just go do something and you will fall into whatever it is. You can't go on LinkedIn and type in. Right. This is what I want to do. Yeah, you can apply to the big companies, you know, back in the it was Blackwater, I think it now was Constell. It's like private contractor gigs, yes, right? You can. There are avenues for that where you can go in Ruther Virginia and go talk to those people.

But I want to do something totally different with no market cap, right? Be a complete entrepreneur, capitalist, more gray area, right? Kind of dancing in the gray area and do it. I was like, fuck it. Like, let's roll. I don't give a shit.

So I think you just To get where I was Obviously you need to have The skills to find fix finish You need to be able to shoot Work in a team X, Y, Z That's a prerequisite You just you won't even get asked to the table

Unless you have that And then You know, it's just a little networking community It's like hey I got this thing going on The border of Texas blah blah or whatever Like hey millionaires kid need security Like it could be, you know, 90% of those phone calls are like, hey, do you do security? It's like, absolutely not, but I know who does.

It's like, hey, this guy has a hit on him. He needs someone that's ready to fight. It's like, okay, that's more interesting. So it's kind of like once you get in and you do one thing with one person and they're in that network and you get the, hey, he's a good dude. We trust him. And then you're in it. But going back to that night, we agreed.

I had money wired in my account, like three hours later, and we were on a plane the next week. And when we got in country, I was like, yep, this is what I expected. Let's do it. And what country did you go? Was this the Emirates first? Or Abu Dhabi? Yeah, we'll say. We flew into Abu Dhabi.

Yeah. Kind of gathered there, and then there we popped around and eventually got to Yemen. And, I mean, what's interesting about this contract is like, like, You alluded to it a little bit, but this isn't like a Blackwater job doing mobile security in Baghdad. Like you guys were kind of off the grid to the point that nobody really knew who you were or what you were doing. Obviously, you were working for a client, but aside from that client, I don't know who else knew what you were up to. It sounds like not many. People knew what we were up to, whether they were to admit it or not is one thing.

we um before we ever left to do anything we always would beat with people and let them know what our intent was and they'd either go or they'd go and if we got the ooh then we'd be like okay um no it was working with their super special presidential guys and getting them up to speed on being a small unit. And we tried. And then through frustration and being mildly stagnant, I was like, all right, what's the minimum force required from these guys? I'll go fucking do this thing. It's right there. Give me the green light. Before moving on to the next thing, I really got to ask you about the team of guys who were over there with, because they're about the most colorful characters imaginable. Can you tell us

a little bit about their background, who they are, what they're like? Yeah. So we had a couple team guys which is easy because we all know the same language and we have the same room clearing techniques and that. We all knew each other socially so that was good. And then we had Malachi, older dude, bad motherfucker, awesome, mentor.

And then you had an army guy that was super religious and always reading his Bible. Then we had another army guy that was like a straight up looked like an 80s porn star. Like they were all characters. And then we had one French guy that was like super, super big heart, super nice guy. I had no idea why he was there doing things with us.

So what are you doing here, bro? Like, oh, you know, he was like, show me pictures of his kid playing sports, how much he loves his wife. I'm like, go. I'm not saying you can't have that and do this job. I'm saying like, get out of here. Oh, we got this. And then we had an ex-foreign Legion guy who's Polish and just like, he was impossible to try to, like, talk to and work with.

And then through trial and error and some examples, I learned that just yelling at him and saying, fuck, every third sentence got him to do what I needed him to do. And I don't know if that's a foreign legion thing or a Polish thing or fucking what, but that's the way, that's the leadership style he responded to. So that's what I had to give him. What was Malachi's background? Oh, he's just all around bad motherfucker. I think he was born in Legion and then after citizenship, Israeli something. And that's about it. I don't know.

I don't know how deep into military or, you know, the government side he did. but definitely legit background, legit operator. And somehow he gets linked up with a client in the Emirates who then just... Who lives in the Emirates. Okay. Who then facilitates this contract. And again, the other interesting thing, again, this isn't a Blackwater mobile security contract. You guys actually had targets that they assigned to you.

they assigned to the unit we were with. Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Tell us about that. I mean, you get these targeting packets from them and intelligence briefings. I mean, I wouldn't call them intelligence briefings for legit packages.

It was like, there's a bad guy here to get them. And I'm like, hold on. Right. You guys have eyes on? Yeah, we have one drone. Okay, how long can it stay up? Oh, like eight hours. So you have no overlapping, you have gaps.

Well, yeah. Like they, coming from a J-Soc background, you take things like that for granted. They're like, what, 24-hour overlap? Yeah, one comes on station, the other one relieves it, boom, boom. So they're like, oh, that makes sense because he could go to the mosque during that time

or go to the fucking market, what do the fuck they do? And you can lose eyes on. I said, yeah. So there's a lot of things you think are common. But again, that country is only, what, like 50 years old now? the UAE and half their military is outsourced.

So there was really no one there like setting up like a J-SOP type functioning Intel or troops on the ground or anything. It was just kind of like whoever the general was in charge of X, Y, or Z, it would just be that right. And so the targets, I mean, from what you were told anyway, one was an AQAP leader and the other was a bomb maker. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So one was just a straight up, Akeh, Al-Qaeda, Arabian Peninsula, a bad dude. And the geography of Yemen was crazy because you had so many different, you know, the days of World War II where there's a line and this group's wearing one set of uniforms and we're wearing the other set. I mean, that shit's gone away forever now. And it's just fucking all these little factions, the Houthis, the ACAP, you know, the guys who backed the president of Yemen who don't.

So it was really confusing, but the ACAP was universally bad guys, right? Bad guys. Yeah, commander and target right outside the base. Tell us about that first off you guys went on. So the first op, let's say the first off, was just a, there's more of a walkthrough with the team we're working with, and we decided to, you know, have it even be in the big MRAPs and we had up armored vehicles and we were going to do, like, a route reckey of the area,

pretty much the same profile of what we wanted to do to go after aQAP guy, the ACAP commander, but we did it offset enough to where it wasn't the same neighborhood. So daytime, we rehearsed the day before and the night before, and it was going good, comms were good. You know, our partner force was English, which is popping. You know, I somehow, I don't know, my Arabic understanding, was good and then we went out on the street outside the gate radio shit the bed fucking the the m raps set point they don't stay put and we go down the little alley doing our route recie

or walk through and you know the turns start getting tighter starts getting a little bit more narrow got more and more looky-loos looking out the window women and children start disappearing dudes walking around with the Aks and it's like, all right, let's fucking ditty Mal out of here. And we had passed like a turnout alley point so we can just do like a little quick three point because going forward was no good. It was just more of an ambush alley. And you said the vehicle in front, the guys in the backseat are looking at us and like we're doing like Navy Steel charades. Like no, bad. Like we're fucked. You know what I mean? Like trying to do what we can. Like this is not good. and I turn around the back seat and I see all three of the MRAPs stuck in this alley

with their rearview mirrors smashing against these walls and I'm like oh my God like we're fucked like we're just fucked I was like you know like that way's fucked we need to go that way to the car in front and we're like what I'm like just fucking going so we broke away from our apartment force and we got back to base and they got back to base everybody's like You fucking ditched us. Like, you didn't do the plan. You were supposed to stay putt. Everyone's motherfucker on each other.

It was fucking. It was a nightmare. I'm like, dude, what are we going to do? Like, this is bad. I'm like, we need to, like, reset. Go back to their home country. Sit down, drop like a six-month, legit.

This is how we do shit. And they're like, yeah, man, that's not going to happen. So, okay. Sure. Thank you for your input. dirty now. Yeah, exactly. That was our first stop.

And I was like, okay, how do we go about doing this? You know, I don't want to give too much of it away, but we did, we, we spun up. And on that one, we spun up. And right before we launched, it was hanged. And then you guys, that's when you get shifted to the secondary target, right, the bomb maker. Yeah. So we're the number two guy on the deck. that was given to our partner for us.

Supposedly the guy who did the USS coal bombing. So I was like, fucking cool. I think it would have been more jazzed about it. If I wouldn't, if I wasn't already in country for a couple of weeks or months, I was like, who gives a fuck? Let's go get them. Same thing. First, we had to transit a couple, I think 200 kilometers north where we were,

staged out of a fucking bombed-out air base. Like, it was pretty, it was pretty surreal. there was a bunch of like top airplanes that were military that all had bullet holes and had just gotten bombed. I was like, holy fuck, this is wild. So we made a little makeshift camp there. We're getting ready to roll out the first night

and there was like a tactical with the ACAP just waiting for us like drawn down at the front gate and say, oh, so I was like, all right, we can still do this, but we're going to have to get creative. This is the base where there were Senegalese commandos, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we're working in the car towers. And you guys had to do, like, because the bad guys found out pretty quickly you were in town, so you had to do like a little false extraction, a little game, play a little game on them to make them think that you left. We called it and we said, hey, what's what we're going to do? We're going to pull the pieces from the Vicks. We're parked around back. We're going to call in the Hilo. We're going to have our headlamps on.

you know, as the sun goes down, and they jump on the heloes, just get the dust. As soon as it starts the dust off, we're just going to jump back out, run around nightfall, get in the Vicks, and then go stage towards the back gate

where there's a back gate and the bottom of the south. And so you spent the next period of day, daylight, basically just chilling, smoking cigarettes, and then head out that night to go do the op.

And how does it transpire? Yeah, man. It was just like, it was so frustrating because, granted when I was a J-Soc and even at St. Team 5 the missions were like

some are easy but some are legit right we got to get in here if you go through this alleyway like for Iraq or you know Afghanistan's like hey this village has a high point and there's no way up to it but walking up and they have the high ground like

really difficult targets as far as planning and you know primary secondary tertiary how are we going to do this these were so fucking shit simple I was like he's right there like give me one of those David and Goliath's things I could get him from the gate you know like

what do we're getting spun up final walkthroughs everyone's locked and loaded boom set phone kanked again and I'm like okay that's that's it dude what the fuck's going on I mean did you ever get an inkling of like what was going on you guys kept getting spun off and then spun down it's hard because I know why now

Right? So it's like, how do I separate that that bias of knowing? I think there was more people who knew what was going on than had let on and come to find out it was that. So my first thought was like, okay, either this guy we're going after is actually a source that one of our guys are working, our guys made U.S. scub and he's got like, don't. touch him on it. It's like, okay, maybe that. I didn't know. I think I wasn't thinking clearly because I was just so frustrated. I'm like, I'm out of here. This is ridiculous. And you did find out a little bit more because you went back to the UAE again, not to do, not doing ops or anything, but to do strictly training of their special ops guys. And in your

book, you talk about running into some of your former teammates there who were able to shed some light on what was going on. Yeah, so they actually did sign off on the six-month course. They're like, okay, that sounds good. Let's do it. Great. Put a team together, go back over. Everyone's happy.

And we're doing CQC on one of their bases, and there's multiple houses. And I was gone one day. And some of my guys are like, hey, man, there's some dudes out here with, like, fucking prize and, fucking HK416s. quad knots. I'm like, eh, whatever. Because there's Aussies and Brits. Like I said, everything's fucking outsourced in the country. Right. So I was like, I didn't think much of it. And then the next night I see two dudes. I'm like, you know, it's on night vision,

but I like seen them enough. I'm like, yo, is that you? And they're like, Jerry? Who do you do it here? Like, what do you do here? And it was like, what do you do here? And then it was like, okay, you and your boss need to come meet with us in my boss tomorrow at the hotel lobby okay and yeah we met with them and they were like yeah dude we heard about you guys and there's you guys obviously have a blue force tracker and as we all know certain people don't share information with other people even though we're on the same team but there was someone that was able to bridge the gap enough to be like uh this could go wrong

if you guys did a kinetic strike with the platform in the sky in this area because we think a group is a group of Emirates with some advisors are going to be in that area and I think to make it just totally safe they just called up both sides and said cabbosch yeah before you have a real confliction issue on target that would have been a messer mean it wouldn't have been a confliction would have been a hellfire in the top of my head yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean, based on, you know, what you know now, I mean, do you think that your client ultimately was working for the United States government and that's what was going on here and the left hand wasn't talking to the right? I mean, I think we both know the left and right hand rarely ever talk and it happens more often than not. Yeah, yeah.

Well, think about Yemen was a proxy war, right? It's the UAE Saudi. and U.S. versus Qatar and Iran. Right. Those are like the little groups of friends that are fighting in the shitty playground that is Yemen, right? Yeah. So you finished that contract and Malachi has something else for you. Yeah. So he's like, you know, you've got to check this place out.

This is easy. This isn't even work. we just need some dirt on a financier bad guy who lives in Serbia. We're going to love Serbia. And I was like, I can get dirt on somebody, right? And I've been, you know, I've been to places who I don't want to dime any one group out. I've seen people who call themselves very religious in other countries. Sure.

Doing things they say they should never do. And then the response was, well, my God cannot see in the Bahrain. Right. So that's why I do it. Right. apparently your god can't see in this country so drink all the booze you want um so i was like okay i know that there's a possibility that that this might be easy right like oh i don't need to be so like halal if i'm not in my homeland and no one's going to tell on me and i have all this money

and you're also not having to worry about getting shot at or blown yeah yeah yeah i'm not going into country with anything not even a huge you know 120 millimeter mirror lens. I'm just hanging out. So I go and, you know, try to find my guy, you know, see if he's in the prostitute, see if he's doing drugs. Can you tell us about meeting the biggest, the largest, most prolific madam in Serbia or the Balkans? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, oh, my, okay, let's go. Mark I, motto, what's the easiest thing? Let's go with girls. Does he like, is he solicited prostitutes, right? So I make friends with the guy.

He happens to be a big time Hell's Angel in the, in Serbia. And I said, hey, who runs all the girls here? I was thinking it was going to be like a, you know, a dude, like a big, you know, Drexel temp from a true romance. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And he's like, oh, you want to meet Sonia. I'm like, Sonia.

I'm like, yeah, dude, it's a chick. And she's, she's like, she runs everything. And I'm like, oh shit. And you can't just go up and talk to her, right? He's like, I'm like, can you get me a meeting with her? He's like, yeah, I can get you a meeting. So we meet up in a hotel lobby. She's got like, like, she's built like Jessica Rabbit.

And she's wearing like close to no clothes, you know, sigh high, bouqueton, leather high hills, to little boots and, you know, the smoking glove and everything. And I was like, oh, she's like, straight up, straight up comic book character out of control. I'm like, okay. You know, I said, hey, this is what I'm looking for. Here's the guy I'm looking for.

You know, does he use any of you or your girls' services? And she's like, no. I'm like, are you, she goes, yes, I tried. And I gave him good prices. And he still said, no. I'm like, fuck, maybe this guy is pretty, you know, clean cut. And so the search continued. Did you ever end up finding anything on the guy before things went south?

No, man. Because it wasn't on a timeline and I had no need to push it. It had no need to like, wasn't a break into someone's house and surveyed. There was no need to commit any crime or be in the gray area or have to come up with cover for action or cover for status. Like, oh, I was doing this. enough. Yeah, so I was like, here's the thing. The big agencies that do this shit take six months to years to even build rapport to flip a taxi driver, right? So that's how long this shit really takes sometimes. I've gotten shit done in fucking weeks, and that's fucking crazy fast, borderline dangerous.

super fucking dangerous. But I was like, okay, don't rush it, don't rush it. But, yeah, I was just settled in for the long game and just going to keep trying to get closer and closer. So tell us how you came into the orbit of this guy. I think his name was Nikolai. And things start to go sideways on this job. Yeah, so I was hanging out with this chick and Nicola was hanging out with her friend and connected kid. Went to school, Boston College, super smart, well-to-do, knows everyone.

And he started to show me, you know, his young guy, he's like showing me all these chicks, you know, and showed me this one chick on his phone. And I'm like, there was an office with the company logo in the background. I'm like, do you know what that is? It's like, yeah, she works there. She's like the main assistant there. And I'm like, oh, that's where my guy works. I didn't tell him that, but that's where my guy works.

I said, oh. I'm like dude you should have a party and like invite over a bunch of chicks he's like yeah and like make sure she comes she's cute right he's like really I'm like just invite her right so I'm like okay boom there was a reason I'm gonna get closer he knows

someone that works at the place like fuck it's something like I'm getting a little desperate so yeah that's how Nicola came into the picture and then what happened when the Serbian police come kicking in the door So, Nicola's like, hey, we'll start cooking dinner.

He's got all the Rakhia, the Serbian national beverage of choice. And, you know, we're hanging out. And he's like, makes a phone call about 6 o'clock in the afternoon. He says some shit in Serbian at the time I didn't know any Serbian. He's like, hey, man, I got to jet out. I'll be right back. Okay. Just hanging out.

Chopped up some vegetables for the fucking stewer. they can put on the TV and then all of a sudden, now all of a sudden, about 45 minutes later, I hear the door open, I see Nicola just get fucking, just like fly across the room and slamming to the ball, go to the ground. I'm like, what the fuck? And then I, like, as soon as I turn my head, I see, thinking about it now, it felt like it was this big, just a nine millimeter barrel, like right at my fucking temple. And I'm like, what the fuck? And I try to like zoom out, you know, not focused on that fucking gun. I see they look like police uniforms, but like you would buy it from Party City. Like you look like it looked fake. I was like is this some kind of fucking weird joke

Nicola's doing on me? Like what the fuck? And then I was like, oh shit. And then I kind of zoom out again and look up and I see this kid he can't be more than 21 years old. He's like sweating. His eyes are big assauses and his gun's rattling. I can hear the strings in the magazine and his fingers on the trigger. And I'm like, oh, my fucking God, like, please, not like this. Not after all the shit was done. So I was just like, you know, I'm getting yelled at and Servian. And I'm like, okay, I don't know Servian, but I think putting my hands up slowly is probably like the best thing to do right now. So I just slowly put my hands up.

Boom, on the ground, facing the ground. Fucking the pan cuffs. And I'm just like, Jesus, fuck. So they start grilling me. Fuck it. Then I just hear this god awful wail of a banshee. this fucking crying and then this

this old woman who's a little bit heavier and falls to the floor and she's bawling it's Nicola's mom who lives on the first floor we're on the fourth she comes in her son's getting arrested

so she's just like falling over like knocking plates off the table like oh my god the cops are like what the fuck get her out of there and I'm like dude what is going on

what happened you know and Nicola looks at me he just weeks I'm like dude what I don't know what that means What do you mean? What do you mean? What are my... You know?

I'm like, what? Yeah, so the poor cops are in there. They're going through his house. The kids are hunters. So they have all these guns in his house. They're all registered. And then finally, I'm just tired of getting yelled at in Serbia. I'm like, yo, does anyone here speak English?

Like, oh, American? I'm like, yeah. Why are you here? I'm like, I'm here for a fucking party. Why are you in Serbia? I know. I'm like, fuck. Here we go.

already off through a shitty start. And I was like, what the fuck does that matter? Like, you like guns? I'm like, as much as the next guy, like, what's going on? Is your passport here? I'm like, yeah, it's like, right here. You know, I didn't grab it as in handcuffs behind my back, but I'm like, yes, it's here.

Take my passport, flip through it. And they're like, more and more talking, more searching. Am I under arrest? They're like, you are now? I'm like, what? Because I asked? was completely fucking crazy. And then we get thrown into a paddy wagon. I get thrown into a cop car and we drive to the jail and proceed to be interrogated for a couple days. And thus begins your

odyssey through the Serbian justice system. Oof. Oh yeah. So you start getting interrogated by the cops. They pull some good cop, bad cop on you. But the good cop was actually pretty fucking good. Yeah. At one point, so one of the big takeaways was, like my second or third interrogation, the good cop, right, we'll call him, I made friends with him. Pull me out of my cell.

I'm like laying on the floor because the bench isn't long enough to lay down on. It's fucking cold. I'm like, tired, whatever. We called up and he's like, hey, these two cops are, with organized crime. I'm like, organized crime. Like, yo, what the fuck? They're like, yeah, you, Nicola and the two other guys, that's four people.

I'm like, who are the two other guys? What are you talking about? Like, oh, yeah. When Nicola was arrested, he was arrested with two other dudes. I'm like, I had no fucking clue. I don't know what these guys are. Yep, but that's more than three people organized crime. I'm like, God damn.

So now I'm like getting, the interrogation from these guys was so bad. They're both sitting across from me. trying to talk over each other in Serbian. And then the good cop was trying to translate for both of them. And I was like, I told the good cop, I said, tell them one should sit behind me with a notepad. One should ask questions. One should take notes. And then they should switch.

He's like, I don't think they're going to like your advice. Okay. Because I was getting frustrated. I'm like, that's not how you do this. I can show you how to do this. And then at one point, they said something to the good cop, the good cop, translate, he goes, hey, they want to know if you're willing to take a light attack your test.

My first thought was like, for what? Right? And as soon as he said that, he kind of laid it his back, turned the back to the other, the two cops that were from organized crime and he whispered real quietly. He's like, just say no. He's like, yeah, say no, don't do that. I was like, no. He's like, yep, he said no. We're done here?

Good. So the good cop When we got interrogated again He was like hey are you here to kill Voochich and I'm like I don't know what a Voochich is and I know enough Russian I'm like a Vuk is like a wolf And they're like no the fucking president of our country

I'm like no I didn't know his fucking name And they're like D-EA no CIA no Masah no You're just a dude Yep what are you for it? I'm a private contractor.

Oh, you are. Yeah. Was your back with Navy SEAL? Oh, Navy SEAL, huh? American military. You guys bomb Kosovo, right? So then like other people start spinning their head. I'm like, oh, my God.

And he's like, look, man, I believe you that you're not here to kill our president. But I will tell you this, the newspapers already believe you. So be ready. And boy, was he right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we should mention, like, while all of this is happening, I mean, this hit the, obviously all over the news in Serbia, but all, I mean, it hit the press here in the United States, too. Ex-Navy seal arrested with a gun in Serbia.

Yeah, with a gun, which I just hate that headline. I was arrested 40 kilometers away from a gun, but whatever. Yeah, yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about, like, as this starts to progress, you're in prison or you're in jail, you know, you're quickly discovering that you're, you're quickly discovering that you're, don't have the right to a fair and speedy trial in this country. Tell us about how, like, the gun comes into it and how, like, you start to, your arpature opens up a little bit and you start to understand, you know, what's happening to you.

All right. So here's what had happened. It took me, fucking over a week to find this out. Nicola had called someone to buy cocaine because he wouldn't have a good time with the girls, whatever, don't care. the guy he went to buy cocaine from, that guy's dad was arrested a month before for selling cocaine. Cops were listening to this kid's phone.

What did drug dealers have on them for protection? They have guns on them for protection, right? So there's drugs, there's guns, and there's another guy, the cocaine dealer's framed, I don't friend. Right. So that goes down in some other, I forget the name of the city they were at while I was at the apartment. And then Nikola comes back. They're like, there's an American guy here. Oh, he used to be a seal.

He's a private contractor. Oh, and the guy whose house he was at, he had a gun or he was the vicinity of a gun. That was for him. I'm like, okay, this is fucking bananas. So I wasn't even stressed. I was like, I know not every country has a perfect legal system, but this sounded so weak. that when we made our, so right after, right after the four days of interrogation or whatever, we went to the courthouse and we had to make statements.

I'm like, I don't know what the fuck's going on. She's like, judge there's like, there was a gun, there's drugs, there's poor people, you're an exceal, you're an American. We don't know what's going on either. You're all going to go to jail till we figured this out. Okay. And that's when the lawyers started coming in. He's like, look, dude, this is what the fuck's going on.

I said, well, it's all fucking bullshit. Like, yeah, but this is Serbia and you're American, so it's going to suck. And meanwhile, the gun comes back with your DNA on it. They're telling you. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, when I was being interrogated, I don't know how many cotton swabs, they stuck into my cheeks to get as many samples as they need. And so at this point, it sounds like you're rightly fucked, right?

Oh, I'm fucked. I'm totally fucked. I'm like, this is it. I'm like, okay, I start asking about. Because where I was, Centrani Zapor, CZ, is it's a jail, but it's a prison. You know, there's no AC. It's built pre-World War II. Fucking bedbugs. It just sucks.

And, you know, you're in a room 22 hours a day. You know, the food, you just have a bowl. The food guy with the cart comes by and puts a spoon in. He gives you whatever colored water for that day. They call soup, but there's no fucking shit. It's just water, but it's green, yellow, red, or fucking clear, right? It's just fucking garbage. So you're there and like, you know, there's other inmates in there and shit.

And I start, you know, make some friends with them. And I start asking about like what Mithrobeats is like the actual big prison after you get sentenced. I'm like really like, hey, can you go outside? You go and run. Is there like a wait room? I'm like, I'm fucked. And I like almost immediately was like, yeah, well, I'll fight it. But I'm ready.

I'm ready to like for it to suck. Yeah. Yeah. And meanwhile, you're. stuck in the joint with, you know, a guy who killed his wife with a hammer. Oh, my God, dude. So the first room they put me in, they put me in a special room where you only get 30 minutes a day on the wall instead of two hours. And it's with your own room, right?

Because there's like, well, the one kid was like a 22-year-old hooligan. And hooligans in the Balkans in that side of Europe are more than just, like, football fans. Like, they got their fingers and everything. This kid was Croatian and had, like, went to the Serbian game and beat the five. out of someone and like he wrote a little manifesto and they found that in his fucking hotel so he's a terrorist and then there was a dude who's a professional like kidnapping ransom guy and then there was the last dude this this dude that's not funny this guy his wife was murdered to death by a hammer while she was out jogging

and when they went to his house that he shared with his mom and dad the whole thing had just been doused, like completely fucking doused and clean with bleach. Like, like, come on, bro. Like, what are you doing here? So I'm in there with a guy who beat the fuck out of his wife with a hammer until she died in the middle of the field while she was jogging. So my eyes fucking great. You know, I go in there, I'm like, okay, fuck it, like take off my human mask and just be a fucking monster and start wrecking dudes, right? Like, like, I'm in prison. This guy killed him's wife with the fucking hammer. Like, I'm not going to be victim, too.

And then I quickly found out that was not the vibe in there. The vibe was very much us versus them, us being the prisoners, them being the whole system. It was really funny because, I mean, I think the prisoner's name was Luca, who this charge against him was that he was the president's personal hitman. Yeah. And he actually, you guys kind of befriended one another. Yeah. So I was in that first room, the special room, until, you know, it was just bad. The guy who hammer murdered his wife, him and the Croatian kid would stay up all night and give each other like razor blade cut with pen ink tattoos in their arm and they'd write this manifesto and take fucking, you know, the Serbian jail was like pinks, blues, yellows, whites, all different types of pills, handed out from staff and traded amongst amongst like, you know, commodities amongst the prisoners.

They'd take drugs, sleep all day and then up all night, writing a manifesto. little AMFM radio he'd hang from his rack the springs above his rack which is the springs to my bed it was like I think it was like night five and like damn near zero sleep I just reached him grabbed his radio and smashed on the ground and uh like fuck it it's on and he just kind of rolled over and fucking cried but I didn't know for one I didn't know it takes like five months to get that approved to get a radio a little shitty rube so turn your fucking shit off you don't want it broke but um shortly after that I got moved to a room and a room was much better.

We had professional killer and Ozzy who got wrapped up in a huge cocaine deal, like over a million cash on them, like fucking massive. And then a junkie, like a token junkie, which is like in every room. You find out you got like one, one good junkie. I'd have one good junkie. Yeah. So meanwhile, you're sort of like pathway. through the justice system, through the courts,

is pretty Byzantine. I mean, it's like, isn't it like six months before they even charge you with anything? So we go in in August, I was arrested in the last day of January. We go in August, no, April, sorry, going April to make, like, to see if this needs to go any further.

We all go and make statements. The judge says, congratulations, you're very smart. I see that you did nothing wrong. You're free to go. go back, pack up my trash bag, because that's the luggage in jail is a black trash bag. And guards like, nope, leave that. Lawyer's waiting for you.

Go see my lawyer and they said, hey, the judge got a call right when you left. And the call was pretty much that you will be charged with something. So you may go nowhere. Okay. I was like, okay, it's going to suck. And then one other thing that had been happening before I even got. there. The newspapers, like I said, beat me to jail because I was being interrogated. And the newspaper said I was there to kill the Serbian president. And every prisoner and 99% of the guards

hate the Serbian president. So I was like getting salutes from people. And then I was just kind of like I kind of was like doing the Kaiser Sosei. Like I was not going to say, yeah, I was. But I was kind of like had a little bit of clout. You know what I mean? So I was like, oh, yeah, I can't talk. about it. So it definitely paid it. Played in my favor. So they finally end up charging you

and then you're having to wait like it felt like reading your book. No, they didn't charge me for 11 months. 11 months. Holy shit. And by legally they have to charge me in six months. And then it's like months in between each court appointment. Oh yeah. So I'm in there

and my lawyer and the embassy who did fucking nothing. the lawyer comes in and he's like, hey, I'll keep visiting you every, you know, every month. I'm like, look, motherfucker. I mean that endearingly, the guy's fucking rock star. Well, this was, so this happens in April, was like, look, I'll keep checking him with you. Two of the guys already have house arrest, apparently. I didn't know at the time.

So I'll put in for house arrest. I'm like, sweet, cool. And then every time my house arrest would go in front of a judge the day before, even though there was no new news in my case, there'd be a front page hit piece on me on all the tabloids. It's like, wow, that's really convenient timing. And that's that to come out and the judge would be like, oh, nope, I'm not stamping that.

It's like, fuck, this sucks. So then people, just to like point out, you alluded to it briefly, but I've been to Belgrade before and there's no love lost with America. And if you talk to any particular Serb, it's only a matter of time before in the conversation, they say, you're not from here so you don't understand. Let me explain to you what America did to us.

So I can see that, you know, ex-Navy seal in Serbia, like the culture is not predisposed towards Daniel Corbett. Yeah, no, it was, there was definitely some of that. You know, honestly, it was more for like the really old guards, the old guys. Yeah. Besides that, I mean. It was no, it wasn't too bad. But, and then the other big break in my case, so nothing was happening.

And then the top defense lawyer in the whole country was like, I'm going to take on your case represent you. And as soon as that was like, he announced that, I think the next week, he was assassinated in the streets. And that's when everybody was like, oh, what the fuck is, what is, what is dirty into? His lawyers got assassinated. I'm like, the guards came in. They searched my room. you know fucking get naked spread the cheeks with the nuts like for the hundredth time since my arrest and I'm like dude what like what what and then the front page said in Serbian

avocat will be in Zbofoka means lawyer was killed because of the seal in my face superimposed next to the blood on the sidewalk in the front page and I'm like dude fuck bro I'm just taking heavies I'm like well that's not good colleague is, to remain my lawyer who I'd been working with before, awesome dude. And like I said, the months went on. He's like, look, dude, they haven't charged you.

And I'll keep coming, visit you. And I said, dude, don't, don't visit me. Don't fucking come here if you don't have to. I don't give a fuck, bro. You go be a good lawyer and I'll just be a good fucking prisoner. And when you have news, fucking come in. Cool. Cool. Cool. Well, good to go. So that went on. And then after like the six month mark he came in i'm like dude are they gonna charge me he's like yeah that they haven't i'm like but legally but they're like yeah but since it's an organized prime case you're like saying it

could take longer and i'm like oh my god so like the rules are there but i mean are they enforced i didn't see it and so when they when they do finally decide to charge you uh what do they charge you with and what are those how do those hearings kind of play out over the months that draw yeah so the charges were possession possession and possession and buying and selling of firearms and explosives

and explosives? Like what? Like, oh, bullets. There was no bullets. Like, what are you talking about? So they were just like, what can we throw in this guy? So yeah, that was that, I think that was the official charges was possession and intent to sell firearms and explosives. And I said, okay. So we got, we officially,

got charged in November after being arrested in January. We got charged and then within days, because now I'm like learning the court system because I was in with that, you know, professional killer and all these other guys. And there's nothing, there's nothing fucking to do in jail. So someone goes to court and comes back, you're like, what happened? What's going on? Who's your judge? Oh, I heard that one's cool.

Like, you know, that's it. That's all you have to talk about. And they're like, yeah, you. have a you've been charged, you're going to get a judge like two days. A month goes by. Me with my lawyer. Nobody wants to take my case. No judge wants it.

Because there's no jury in Serbia. It's just one person who makes a decision, right? So I'm like, what's going on? They're like, look, from, you know, someone who took a note to be a judge, there's no evidence against you. Everyone is saying, Dan didn't have a gun. my gun, whatever. But the minister of defense said,

quoted in newspapers like, oh, he wasn't here to shoot fish in the Danube river with that gun he had on him, something to that effect. So now to be a judge, you're stuck in this rock, between a rock and a heart place. And if I do my fucking job, this kid's going to walk. But if he walks, I'm pissing off. my damn near totalitarian dictatorish government. That may or may not have smoked your defense attorney. Yeah.

Yeah. So I was like, so a young female judge took the case. And, you know, when I came and broke the news to me, he's like, Daniel, we have a judge. And I'm like, fuck yeah. And he was like, but there's some bad news. I'm like, dude, fuck it, charge me, put me in jail, guilty, innocent. Like, let's go. I've been here a year.

Like, you can't be scared for a year. Like, let's fucking go. I don't care anymore. Or you can't be nervous that long. He's like, yeah, but it's bad. I'm like, why? He's like, because it's a woman. I'm like, what the fuck?

You know, that's super sexist, but like, what does it have to do with anything? Because there's a gun involved and chicks don't know guns. I'm like, oh, who gives a fuck, bro? I'm just happy we've got to judge. And a month after that, the following January was my first court date. And the way court works there was fucking bizarre. Because I've seen TV shows, or even watched like when there's like a big trial on start court.

14 days later, right? Maybe a little longer, shorter. Boom, boom, boom. Done. I had no idea that wasn't the case. We walked in and like the first court, court date was like, what's your name? What's your day to burn? Yeah, it was out.

I'm like, okay, what? Back tomorrow? Do this for 10 more days? And they're like, no, no, no. Your next court days in a month. I said, wait, what? Like, oh, yeah, each part of the court process is one day, and those are separated by a month each. I'm like, hold up.

So you're saying like opening statements, examination, cross-examination, prosecution side. Yep, those are all separate one-day increments spaced one month apart. I say, oh, my fucking God, dude, this is going to be brutal. So we did the first one. I think the second or third court date I walked in you know we were going to get started but court's over what's going on

there's no translator I'm like dude to my lawyer like you speak better English than any translator they've given me like they did not give me good translators right so I'm like what nope we can't continue then back in the fucking paddy wagon back to jail and it took about total six months to get through my court case And tell us about that last hearing that you had where the judge weighed in finally. Yeah.

So my second to last appearance in court was like closing statements. And then she's like, yo, next week verdict. I was like, oh, shoot. Like not a month, seven days. Like that's quick. That's the only time. It wasn't a month in between. So we go, we show up.

And of course, I get the worst. the worst translator I've ever gotten. I'm like, fuck, at all days. Like, you, they give me you? Like, and she's like trying her best. And she's like, you know, a little timid woman. I'm like, try not to be a dick. I'm like, okay, thank you for trying.

You know, but I was like, fuck. Fuck, goddamn. So, you know, all the three guys stand up one by one. And she reads, that, that, that, that, that, that, that, that you were accused of, you know, house arrest, time served, six, more months in jail, blah, blah. To me, she's like, stand up, I stand up. You, you know, you told your friend to buy you a gun and their bullets and firearms

explosion. She reads the whole shit. And then at the end, the translator looks at me. She's like, you can go. And I go, okay, like, what does that mean? Like, under what circumstances can I go? Because I was willing to bet almost everything that the judge was going to say, to make everybody happy.

We find you guilty and your sentence was time served you're free to go. Right. So the last sentence of it would be the same. So when she goes, you're free to go, under what circumstances? She's like, you're innocent.

That's okay, good. And then the judge goes, then the judge addresses me directly imperfect English and through the whole process, we've been flirting back and forth me and the judge, is bananas, but it worked, I guess. She goes, look,

I'm sorry this happened to you. I hope you don't think poorly about Serbia now. And, you know, the state has to pay for all of your legal fees and restitution, missed wages, and, you know, damages. And I was like, okay. But first you have to go back to jail, get your shit, and then go to the immigration office because your visa's expired. I'm like, yeah, no shit. It's fucking sparring. It's like, come on. It's got 18 fucking months.

The other- now you're going to jail for being illegal. What are the, what are the like more Kafka-esque moments and all of this was you talk about when you go to customs and they're like looking at your passport and like, the passport's expired. Why have you been here so long? I was like, I was like, hey, you have you have to leave the country like in two days. Like, why? Your passport's expired. I'm like, I don't think, I don't think time should be counted against me. for the 18 months I was falsely incarcerated. So I think I still have like another like 17 days. And the guy was just like, he was like not having it.

And then his like superior overheard walked in. He's like, how does seven days sound? I was like fucking soul. I was still leaving in three days. I just didn't give a fuck anymore. So you close things out in Serbia and head back to the US of A. Yeah. Wake up with your family.

I mean, you talk a little bit about what it's like bouncing back and forth between, you know, jobs overseas and then coming back home and it's always a little jarring. But, I mean, I got to think, especially this time after 18 months in Serbian prison. Yeah. I mean, I wasn't Mandela locked up for 20 years, but there was definitely like some changes you could notice. You know, mom, dad and brother and mom, dad, brother, like, what's up, guys, love you, blah, blah, and then I go hang out my brother's house. and he opened up his TV

and all these little bubbles on the bottom with like Netflix, Hulu, and I'm like, what is all this? Like, yeah, you don't have TV anymore. You just click these and just I'm like, what? So like all the subscription stuff and all the movies I miss, like, oh, you haven't seen this one? You haven't seen Spider-Man fucking whatever. I'm like, no, I haven't seen shit, bro.

I was a fucking prison in Serbia. Like, wow. You know, it was like, I'm pretty good at chess, you know? That's it. So I had to catch up on a lot. people it's hard you know if anyone who's ever deployed out there in my mind mom and dad are 30 grandma and grandpa are 50 and no one ever ages and changes and then you then you know we wake up one day and i'm 40 you know grandpa passed away mom and dads are in the are in their fucking 60s

you're like oh for like you know late 50s you're like oh shit like time keeps moving and I think guys that go away or deploy often and come back you're There are two separate worlds, and that one kind of pauses when you leave it. And then when you come back, it's like, oh, shit, you got married? Oh, you have a kid? Like, it's hard to fathom that other people's lives keep going while you're away. And I know that sounds egocentric. And it's not based on, oh, I'm not there so things can't happen.

It's just you don't realize it. It's your last image. It kind of like locks in place, you know. Like guys who I was in the army with that I haven't seen in like 15, 20 years, there's still 18-year-old kids to me. Exactly. Yeah. So do you know if anything happened to that judge as a result of her judgment?

I don't think so. I think she did the right thing. Yeah. And also, so Serbia's very interesting political, geopolitical spot because it sits kind of in the middle. Montenegro just joined NATO and then Russia's on the other side. So they're like, okay, there was some talk that Vuchich wanted to do EU or NATO, but the number one thing, because there's an actual checklist of like an application to get into those things, the number one thing at the very top is corruption.

So if there's like a case where a guy is totally innocent and you try to indict him or you try to charge him even still, we were going to go to the international court in the Stuttgart or wherever the fuck. Yeah, hey, and be like, hey, or Straussburg, sorry, there's the Hagen's from Straussberg. We're going to go to Straussberg. We're going to go to Straussberg. It would be like, no. So that would have been a big black mark on them

with their application. But I'm sure he's not now. And he sits on, you know, he's like, hey, Angela Merkel, you're amazing. And he's like, Putin, you know, like, yeah. So he kind of sits in a weird spot. You point out in the book that you think that maybe they were holding on to you

because Putin wanted to trade. you for Maria Butina, who we were, here's a Ruski spy that we rolled up. I heard about that after. I had no idea. They're like, yeah, they were trying to do that. And Putin was like, bro, just because you've got an American that happened to be an exceal doesn't mean he's a spy. Like, he's not, she's an actual fucking spy.

We need her back. Like, she's those fucking state secrets. And they're like, oh, but we have this. And so, yeah, it's not worth anything. He's like, oh, okay, maybe you can actually let him have a fair trial on, you know, get him back out of here. So you come back to the United States. You learn about streaming services and reacquaint yourself with your family.

I mean, what's the next step for you? I mean, you continued working with Malachi. Yeah, well, the first step was go to Siltim 17 and be like, hey, what's up, guys? I'm alive. And they were just fucking, they saw a ghost. There was no. Right. Good to see you.

No. Fuck, do you? Like, do we need to put them? through psych, medical, dental. It was like, oh, what are you doing here? I'm like, what? Like, it was, I was like, I mean, I didn't expect to parade, but like, God damn. Because they, they honorably discharged you, but they also pulled your seal trident,

which was pretty shocking. Yeah, well, they gave me an honorable RE1, so I can go back in the reserves with those special designated, right? So I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, why? I'm sitting down with someone at the team. like oh, hey man, we extended you as long as we could. I was like, oh, thanks. I appreciate that.

But your EOS came up. Okay. Well, when did, when did, and then they, you know, give me the packet and he goes, well, I have to tell you this. We pulled your tribe. I said, why? You know, a whole team on the East Coast just got popped for doing drugs. I'm like, what?

Who cares? Right. Does it do with me? Oh, and this is like the week of Eddie Gallagher's, like, final trial days to in court. And like, oh, and Eddie Gallagher's like, oh, and Eddie. Gallagher, like, he's going fucking down.

I'm like, for one, that's all fucking bullshit. Two, what does that do with me? Oh, it just looks bad. It's a bad mark on the fucking team. Found out, they extended my EOS and my trident got pulled like a week before my verdict date.

Right? They were hedging, and then they got scared and then pulled chocks. And I'm like, you can't give me an honorable RE1 and then full my bird. Right. You have to give me an other than RE4 or something. Yeah.

It doesn't make any sense. Right. Oh, that was, that was a little dirty, I have to say. Yeah, it was 100% good. That's kind of a low below. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, okay, like, where the fuck is Master Chief C O XO here? Like, yep, walk in. I'm like, hey, what the fuck? Oh, you were working for a foreign military. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, we read it in Serbia newspapers. I'm like, you're reading Serbia newspapers

and that you're going off of? I was pretty pissed. And they're like, hey, you need to get a congressional letter. You know, we, so I'll let me, let me go ahead and button that up. So I was really, I was really pissed. And then, you know, we did the whole congressional thing. And there was a letter written by an officer I have a lot of respect for. And he's like, look, he responded on behalf of whoever it was that made the decision to the congressman. He was like, look, dude, he was traveling a lot, wasn't telling us where he was.

the guy who decided to do this had every right to and we'll stand behind it but i will say i've operated with dan corb he's fucking amazing he's done his dues so i now look at it as um you know irreconcilable differences and we just we just we just broke up and that's fine by me it's fine i still about the steel teams fucking awesome people you group of guys um but we just our lifestyles just grew apart and i'm fine with that and what have you been up to since then other than writing American mercenary. Yeah, so I'm back for a month. Well, there was a fucking reserves in my, you know,

doing the hustle and getting schools and deploying. And I had a friend who's been, who's been hounding me since like 2010. Finance guy. Dude, you would kill it finance. Come to finance. I get back. Hey, I heard you made it back so happy.

We wanted to do finance. You know, decent salary. I was pretty cool. And I'm like, man, what am I going to do? You know, talk to my mom. My mom's like, look, don't do finance. Like, I know what you do. I know you love what you do.

Go do that. Just be fucking safe. I said, all right. So I definitely need to hear that from mom. It was like, fuck yeah. Green light. And then I think not 30 days later, I was on a plane headed to Central slash South America.

Can you tell us about that? No. if you continue doing that line of work since then? No. I think when the, I don't know, I'm talking only based off news, I'm sure you guys know more than I do. I think ever since those guys said they got paid 20 grand to go down and go down to Venice. Right.

And they got wrapped up. I think that's kind of been like, that's, let's not do anything like that anymore. Well, that. And I was like, okay, what I want to do? Finally called up the guy after that. I was down there for three months doing that gig. I did 30 days after being backstate side. And I said, I'll do finance.

Did that for two years. Good pay. And then, you know, that eventually went away. And I was like, fuck, I'll just teach shooting. I got shot timers. I got bullets. I'm a good shot. I'm a good teacher.

I was doing that. And then I got a phone call from my book, my now book agent. He was like, hey, I heard about people. story, do you want to do book? And I said, no. Because I'm I was still kind of chasing the dragon, right? Because like I like being like, yeah, let's go. Let's go do it. Fuck yeah.

I like the lifestyle and I like the pay and I like the autonomy. I like being able to say no to shit. You don't agree with or super unsafe. Right? You know? So I was like, no. And then being the person I was that had the connections

I had and still have, I tell people this, you'll get about two to four calls in two years. Maybe one of them comes to fruition. Like it lines up. Logistics are good. It's legal. You can do it. You can pull it off.

It's clean. Money's good. And money's not that good to work once every four years. So, right? I was like, ah, fuck. Book agent calls again. I said, okay, but I don't want to do a seal book because it's not proprietary. me, right?

They'll talk about me, but I'm not going to talk about buds. You can read it. You can watch it on TV, right? Okay, I'm cool with that. All right, let's do it. Do we have questions for Daniel? We do. And so folks can go out there and pre-order Daniel's book, American Mercedery.

It's up on Amazon. I finished reading it this afternoon. It is, as you guys can tell, if you made it this far into the interview, it's a hell the good story. So actually, first off, global media, thank you very much. He just said, support the team Allison at that like button. Thank you. Chief Justice

Keep, thank you very much. What was the most interesting form of hazing you experienced? In the SEAL teams? Oh, I would say most interesting was also the most fun. I think it was wearing a drop-leg holster with submunition in your pistol and being naked

standing across from another new guy doing full on 3-2-1 draw cowboy style. Was there even if it wasn't sort of the juvenile style, was there a type of hazing that you went through when you first

sort of, you know, joined the mercenary term or when you first went to prison? Was there sort of a new guy break in period? No, I think and here's one. When you get called up,

by certain people a lot of money and connections to do a mercenary job like your resume you're not some kid off the streets like this guy was at this command and then the prison thing maybe there would have been but the same time the newspapers beat me they're saying i was there to kill their biggest enemy right so i was like i was like lauded as your hero you know like yeah that's the fucking guy i'm like hey what's up yeah um got it funny hey clint thanks jack and david another great podcast. Thanks, Clint. M. Corbyn, thank you very much. How many different ways can the same thing be taught to different types of people? So I think he's talking about like CQC and people. So that's a beautiful question and I got into

some of the instructors when I got really into teaching. Let's say it's for numbers. They were never, they were never this big. You would have a class of 100 and you would teach and 80 students would get it. Well, a lot of the default from a lot of the instructors I saw was that these 20 kids are stupid. And I said, that's not, that's not what it is. Get the Mark 1 motto fucking teaching style that's going to hit 80%. And then maybe you need to do buy showtel, maybe make it like, you know, really go into the philosophy of why we clear that form first. Why instead of just monkey see monkey do?

So I like to go, I mean, I know there's like seven, seven styles of learning, but, What I've seen is I'll do like my main way, like by show, teach, tell, whatever, tell teach, show. That will hit the 80 and then I'll have to get more creative and then I'll get to like 90 and not to get more creative and I'll hit like 95 and they get more creative and I'll hit 98 and then maybe get real outside my comfort zone and try to get those last two guys up to speed. So I, you know, if you're in a position to teach and guys have shown 10 months of, showing up and being smart and dedicated, and they're not getting something at your block of training, that's on you. That's not on the students. And then when you're working with different people,

say whether it's, you know, other units, people from other American units, other units in other countries, whatever, you know, and obviously we're talking about CQC, like there are a different way, you know, you've got strong wall opposing corners, sort of free flow, physically, you know, physically dominate or whatever.

Like, how do you, guys, because everybody says, you know, people will die on those hills, right? Oh, yeah. People will die on those hills. How do you guys come to that sort of happy place where we're all copacetic and we all agree that this is how we're going to do it? I think through just straight practical application. Guys like, no, we're going to sector.

Okay. And I'll go get behind the opposing wall with a laser beam and pointed out of his head. And the three seconds it takes for them to get plate to plate. and in sector, those are shots. Right? So it's like, oh, okay, maybe we do need to cross cover because we're the most exposed. So I've ever seen within my communities,

like huge dissension in tactics. Like, no, fuck you. There was some when we started going really deliberate. There were some old school guys. Like, don't be a pussy and get the fucking door. And it's like, why? What are we doing here? Right.

This guy's barricaded with a sandbag and they're putting like chain link fencing in the entryway because they know how we make entry now. like, no, let's go around back and shoot him through where his fucking window is. Yeah. Yeah. Nantes, thank you very much. We really appreciate your donation.

Dee, did we have any on Patreon? No, I don't think so. Cool. So next week we're going to be here with William Negley, served in the CIA, and now runs a sound off, which is a application for, uh, Veterans, people in military community, the intelligence community can go on there and talk to a psychologist anonymously. It's a really good program that he runs. So looking forward to having here in the studio.

Daniel, is anything else you want to put out there? Anything else you want to talk about before we get going tonight? No, man, look out for the book. And, you know, follow me because I'll have some more announcements coming up, hopefully before the end of the year. And hopefully it will be huge. So the book is American Mercenary by Daniel Perbet. It comes out August. August 20th.

Where can people find you to follow you? At American underscore mercenary. Cool. Daniel, thank you very much for joining us tonight. Really appreciate you telling your story, sharing your book with us. This is a fun interview. Awesome. Thanks.

I had a blast. Thanks for having me. Good, man. Thank you. So we'll see all of you guys out there next Friday. Thank you.