The Team House - One Of The First Army Ranger JTACs | Eddie Chavez | Ep. 259

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Eddie was one of the 75th Ranger Regiment's first JTAC's (Joint Terminal Attack Controller). He's worked with all the tier 1units from SEAL Team 6 to Delta, RRC, and the UK SASCheck out Eddies podcast here:https://www.youtube.com/@UC2lFF6IRujlS9010_4h4SNg ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------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]#jtac #armyrangersBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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I'm Jack, here with Dave. Dee's producing back there in the background. And our guest on tonight's show is Eddie Chavez. Eddie served, started off in the Navy, then in the Army, did 10 combat deployments with the 75th Ranger Regiment, and then went back for some more as a government contractor. And then it's had some other interesting life experiences since retirement, working executive protection and other types of jobs. Eddie, thank you very much for joining us on a Monday evening.

Yeah, I appreciate you guys for having me, man. It's pretty awesome. Appreciate it. Yeah, yeah. We're happy to have you, man. So I'm going to start off, you know, asking about your origin story, of course. Tell us a little bit about what your upbringing was like and how that took you towards the, well, first the Navy.

All right, well, I tell you, it's pretty funny, man. I was kind of a weird kid. And so I grew up, you know, I was born in 74. And I grew up in the 80s. And I fell in love with the Ramble movies, you know, the John Claude Van Damme, stuff like that. And I legitimately was like, I want to save the world. You know, I want to be one of those guys that saves the world. I'm like, I'm a kid, you know.

My mom was kind of like, yeah, whatever. My dad used to make fun of me because the Chavez side of my family are huge hunters, like huge hunters. Like, they don't ever buy me. They got elk, oryx, you know, they don't ever need me. And I used to always go out and I'd have like, you know, the camouflage with the ninja thing. And he used to call me Johnny Pingpong. But, yeah, so, you know, it was just kind of the thing I've always wanted to do. do. And so I started reading books about the Vietnam War because that was a thing back then,

you know. And I read about Marine recon, Seals, Lers, which was, you know, the Rangers back then. And I was just trying to find out. I just wanted to do one of those things. You know, I wanted to do something. I wanted to, you know, to do something that was going to make a difference and to save somebody's lives. So I didn't know what that meant as a kid. You know, my grandfather was in the military, but he died, unfortunately, at a young age for me, so I didn't really have someone to talk.

He was in the Korean War, like the no-shit, you know, crazy Korean War. And he was a scout. His stories were pretty brutal. But, you know, so I didn't. I didn't really know what to do. You know, I was just kind of reading up on what I wanted to do. So I'm like, how do I get ready for special ops?

Well, I'm watching these movies with Chuck Norris, Rambo. So I'm like, well, I got to start taking martial arts. So I'm telling you, I was young when I decided this. So I'm like, 5, 60-year-old taking martial arts, you know, trying to get my black belt and this, my black felt and that. Now Bruce Lee's like, oh, take multiple arts, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I played football, but my heart was martial arts. And my mom always laughs and tells jokes on how my girlfriends would come home.

And they would just be making fun of me because I'd have like, we wouldn't have a lot of money, so I'd have a bunch of punching bags. So I'd have like soda, uh, soda three liters full of water. And I was kicking them on the trees. And my girlfriends would be watching it. And my mom would be just looking out there laughing. in and my stepfather was like, man, those trees don't stand a chance. Which would have been nice is like I tell kids nowadays, if you want to do this kind of

career, you need to be good at school because little did I know that after an operation, you got to write about it. You know what I mean? And, you know, I didn't come. When I would, when I would do stuff on the objective, my ability to put it on paper was not as good as people. And so there's a big part of that, right? And there's some, and I know you've seen this, both of you, you know, coming from the Ranger Battalion, there are some very, very smart people in the community in the Ranger Regiment. Yeah. So that was one of the things I'd have to struggle with. So luckily in my day, there were Strong Ranger, Smart Ranger. I was Strong Ranger. Nowadays, I feel like it's got to be pretty much just, you know, Smart Ranger, and you've got to

be strong as well. So it's a little different now. So, um, initially, I wanted to be a Marine because I saw Heartbreak Ridge, which little did I know was basically based off of the Ranger Battalion because it was the Grenada. And when Rangers went in and saved those people point to Hawk, or not Point to Hawk, in Grenada. Yes. Yeah. And at the True Blue Clinic. Yeah. And, you know, so initially I was going to do that and then I went to the recruiters.

and the Navy was like, hey, man, you can be a Navy SEAL. And I'm like, cool. That's, you know, why not? And so he had, he, he did all my paperwork, and he filled out this Manila folder. And on the outside, he wrote Navy SEAL, right? I'm a kid. I don't fucking know. So I go to MEPs with this folder that says Navy SEAL on the outside.

And I'm, and they, I can only imagine what they were thinking. It kind of makes me mad to think about it. But they're looking at, they're like, oh, you're going to, we're going to make you a mechanic under a ship. And if anybody knows me, he's laughing right now because I suck at mechanics. Like, I'm not good at that kind of stuff. Long story short, I was for four years, I was on an aircraft carrier at the bottom of a ship, working six hours on, six hours off, deploying all the time in the ocean, not doing anything at all. But I will say the one cool thing about that was, no matter.

matter how hard anything got in Ranger School or literally anything, it was nothing because at least I knew I was doing something. And this isn't to take away. I'm just, everybody's got their path. And my path to make a difference was what I wanted to be. I can suffer and I was going to suffer to do what I wanted to be. And, you know, instead of just suffering and then, you know, I'm not happy with my career choice. So it was actually kind of a good thing. And the other good thing about it was if I would have went, because I graduated in the 93, if I would have went straight in a Ranger Regiment in 93, by the time the war kicked off, I probably would have been an E-67.

And as an FO at that time, as we'll get to later on what happened until then, I would have never, ever got the experiences that I got after being pulled back, you know, basically, you know, because once you, all that rank that I made as an NCOs in the Navy didn't matter once I got out and went to the Army. So I got out of the Army or out of the Navy, and I had to take an ASVAB, and I knew I needed a 110 to try out for anything special operations, Rangers, Green Berets, whatever.

And so I literally studied for one month, took the ASVAB, and then went back into Ranger Regiment. I wanted to be an 11 Bravo. They told me, well, you can't be in 11 Bravo. we'll give you a 13 fox, which for those who don't know what a 13 fox is, in the regular army,

it's the guys who call in artillery strikes, mortar strikes, and that's basically what you do. In the Ranger Regiment, obviously, it goes a little farther than that. So, you know, I didn't know. I mean, it sounded kind of cool. At least I knew I had a chance to go in a Ranger Battalion. Um, so I ended up only getting airborne, the airborne option.

So I go to, um, basic training. And I've read all these books, brother. And a lot of the, one of the books I read was from a Marine, uh, sniper who, um, he had to qualify the best out of everything he did in order to be a sniper. So I thought I had to do the best that I was going to, you know, in order to do what I wanted to do. So my basic training. brother. I'm gonna tell you it was brutal. I know everybody's like makes fun, but I'm telling you it was brutal. And I had just so happened to have two scrolls, two combat scrolls from Panama, who were ex-fisters.

And they found out that I wanted to be a Ranger. So I was getting woken up at two in the morning. Getting brutal. Like these dudes were trying to make me yell, say the Ranger Creed. Like I didn't even know what the Ranger Creed was, but they wouldn't even give me one to study. I just like to talk with me, you know. And I can just hear their girlfriends on the phone going, leave them alone, you know. And I didn't know that they liked me because I wasn't used to this culture, but they were, you know, they were glooming me. I was like, why do they hate me, you know? And they kept me in charge. I was in charge from day one and it never switched.

You know, you're supposed to rotate all the way until we freaking got out of it. So where I was going to basic training there in Port Seal, you got this big old red, band and it said if you're in charge it was whatever rank it was a set e7 was my rank and then the guys under me were e5s you know so that a little e5 rank so i had that big old that red arm band and then if you win something you get an arm band so the next thing was shooting brm you know i won that so i had that one right here and then i won high pt so i had one under here and then i i won the end of cycle testing which is the only other three things. So I had all four of them. I'm a little skinny kid, man. I probably weighed like 165,

170. And my instructor with a fucking scroll thought it would be funny that after dinner, Chow, he would take me to other company areas and have me go to the drill sergeant tables. So I'd walk up to the drill sergeant tables

and you can already, I know, I see your smile already. You can see this little kid with these fucking, you know, four things on them. And I'm walking up to him. And I can see my drill son from the back. I was not allowed to tell them. My drill serge sent me. And I was loyal.

That's my one thing. If you tell me, if I'm on your team, I'm loyal. That's why I can't be a cop. Because I'm too loyal. If my buddy does something wrong, I'm going to have his back. But so I'm going to, you know, I'd walk up to these tables. And then I would have to go up to them. and as soon as I walk up

they're sitting there and just as you guys would do just like I would have done and they're like look at this fucking hero like what do you want hero and I would just I'd have my hands

arms behind my back parade rest and I'm just like drill sergeant look at the bro I would get mauled I was low crawling up and down

and they would jacking me up for like 45 minutes and the funny thing about it is now that we're older they knew somebody sent me to do that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah you didn't come up with that shit on your own and i could see my drill sorry and they never because if they wouldn't obviously they would have went to my company and complained and i just see him laughing at me and i'm getting murdered it was like oh man so it was brutal and he used always tell me man this ain't nothing compared to rip when you go to the ranger indoctrination course it ain't nothing um Turned out that I got so brutalized and basic that, you know, Rip was kind of easy.

There's a walk in the part. Yeah. The sergeants do like to fuck with each other through their recruits. Like if they can ward over the other drill sergeants with their recruits somehow, they'll do it. Yeah. Eddie, I want to ask you because, you know, you got a raw deal at the naval recruiter. And, you know, and then you're in the bowels of a ship, you know, not, you know, like, You know, out turning and burning for months, weeks or months at a time,

hit port maybe for three days and then back out. And you did that for four years. That whole time were you thinking about... Jumping over the side? Were you thinking about staying in the military? Were you bitter at all about the military? And then what led you to choose the Rangers outside of the Marines, the Seals, and anything else you could have done?

Okay. So obviously I went to the SEAL. initially because, you know, the movie the Navy Seals and it was like, oh, cool, it's by the beach. I was a very rude awakening when I got put down in a hole with literally, probably

about 60, 70 dudes and we just had like, it was a bunk bed and probably about this highest, this highest space in between your bed, and that's where all your belongings were. That's all you had. Yeah. So,

but yeah, so I will have to tell you that I got very lucky. Let me put it to you that way. I was not in a place that I wanted to be. I knew I had this warrior mentality, and I just wanted to do something. I wanted to be something. And I ended up almost going down the wrong road,

to be 100% honest with you. Because I was there in San Diego. I was going to Tijuana a lot. I was getting fights. I can tell you that my NCOs in Navy were like, oh, you'll never make it a special ops. Because I hated my job. Like, I fucking hated it. I hated being a mechanic.

It's just not, that's what upsets me about the military. It's like, let these guys go into what they want to do. You have no idea the potential that they have. But I was very, very fortunate to get an honorable discharge. And then so at that point, when I was getting. now, you know, I had two kids. And, you know, so I was getting out. I went to go live with my mom. And honestly, I just ran into another flyer and it showed Rangers. And I was like, I got to try again. You know, I got to try again. And so that's what ended me going to the route into the Army side.

And then when I was in basic training, and even then, even though, even. when I went to basic training, I thought being a ranger was you go to ranger school and now you're like a scout platoon for, you know, 82nd Airborne, 1001st or whatever. I thought that's what being a ranger was. And I got recruited out of a basic training. And they're like, yeah, you go through, you go to the selection, you get this tamburray, or I'm sorry, black beret, which used to look so freaking beautiful. Yeah. Let me tell you some. That black beret used to be sexy. Yeah. That thing was sexy. And so I was like, yeah, I mean, I got to go special.

I can, all I got to do is go through this course and I can be in special operations. Hell yeah, that's what I want to do. And so I went to Airborne school. They messed on my orders. And I'm telling you, man, I had a long road. So they messed up my orders. And they had me going to the 82nd Airborne. And I was like, fuck that.

I'm going to go get in line with the dudes going to fight. fucking rip. And I just got in line with them, got tossed up, got smoked, had to do the run with all our gear on top, from airborne school down at the freaking third range, our 75th Ranger Regiment AO. I got there, we got smoked, we got dusted up, we did our layouts. And then I got called up by an NCO.

They're like, Chavez, which by the way, Chavez was in my day, was a shitty last name to have whenever you were going into schools. because you want to kind of blend in but because of the young guns it was like a shitty last name to have so every time they would call the names they'd be like you know whatever whatever chop and they'd be like Roger Sarve.

They're like, who the fuck's Chavez? Chavez-E Chavez? Like you ever seen young guns? Like Roger Sargent. I got my eye on you. You were in charge. That's that always happened. But anyway, so they called me in

Well, they called me in, and I let them know. I was like, hey, Sarn, I had my orders twice, and they weren't, they didn't go through, so I just got in line. And he's like, well, you're here now. So that's how I ended up there at RIP. That's awesome. So you go through RIP, tell us about, like, landing in 275, like what year that was and what the kind of environment was like you and Dave probably crossed paths somewhere along the lines there yeah so this was this was about 97 and um so i'm going through i'm going through rip basic training like i said murdered me

so i'm just like i'm i'm just cruising through rip like nothing we do night land nav i fall off a cliff my hand gets stuck in one of my or my leg gets stuck in a wait a minute vine. It snaps my knee, flips me upside down. I fall in water and I get recycled. And it was, Sarmajor Roberts was the first sergeant of RIP at that time. And he just, he just freaking like me. And he's like, well, usually they didn't recycle you twice. They recycled me again. I went through again. I went all the way through. And at the end of it, when they were talking and telling people where they were going, and they brought me in and they're like, hey, it was crazy because I could see all the like the instructors

and they're like, I've never seen them like with kind of a sad face. And they were like, hey, I got to tell you, man, you know, because of your injury, because I couldn't run down the stairs. I could run up the stairs, but my buddies would have to carry me down the stairs. And it was hard for me. And they were like, like, we can't send you to Ranger Battalion, broke.

If we send you broken as a private, they will kick you out, and you'll never get to go back. Yeah. So I had to go to the 82nd Airborne. Oh, my God. Yeah. So now I'm at the 82nd Airborne

for a year and a half. Now think about, I'm this kid who didn't just join the Army and be like, oh, Ranger sounds cool. Yeah, and now I'm in Ranger Battalion. Like, I'm trying hard to be this certain person. Like, in my hard. I'm a warrior like I'm a I'm a damn ass tech warrior you know what I mean I'm a warrior

um but it was just it just wasn't working and um so I go to the 82nd and I was very lucky that um the commander for 3 to 319th was the old FSO for second Ranger battalion and dude I was there for a year and a half and I was a I already I became a stud I was competing for top fist you know I thought I was the shit I got attention of the commander. He always had me competing all this stuff. And then so when I was about to get out, I went to the recruiter. I'm like, hey, I want to go back to Rip.

Was it a two-year enlistment you were in for? Huh? Was it a two-year enlistment you were in for or a three-year? No, it was a four-year. Oh, it was a four-year. Yeah. So they were like, yeah, you can't. You have to re-enlist here first.

And so I was like, okay, I'm going to get out. So then the commander just so happened to call me in and he's like, hey, so what are your plans? And I'm like, and this is the commander. I'm a freaking E4. They, or they made me a corporal. They try to make me an E5. But I'm like, I don't want to be an E5 because I'm going to Ranger Battalion and you can't be an NCO without a tab. Like corporal, I was like, whatever, you know.

And so the commander, he was like, he's like, well, what's your deal? I'm like, well, sir, I'm going to get out. He's like, why? I thought you wanted to be a Ranger. And I'm like, I do, sir, but the recruiter said I can't reenlist for Ranger the time. He's like, he said, what? He got on the phone. The next day, I had orders two months later to go to Rip.

Wow. Wow. Real quick, just to clarify for everybody, we're not bagging on the 82nd. It's just when your heart's set on being a Ranger. And the conventional military during peacetime, was not a fun place to be. You wanted to be a special ops guy. That's where your heart was.

Obviously, this was like a hard fight. Yeah, that's why we all grown. Not because the 80s like of shit, because they did some great stuff. And also, Fist is fire support team. It's the, yeah, it's the Ford observers, the guys who call in all the Artie and artillery and whatnot. And back then, we weren't attached to the infantry.

I saw my infantry one time when I was there in a year and a half. Wow. I had nods, but, no nod mount and no laser on my weapon. I shot probably two times in a year and a half. And the last time I saw my infantry was we did a trip in Germany to get our German jump wings before I went to Rick. And so for me it was kind of a bad taste,

but this was before the war. Now keep in mind, after the war started, these dudes are probably, who know they're probably running and gunning, doing all this other stuff. But for me, it was a very bad experience. And I was like, this is, I'm just not doing it. There was dudes who were popping on their second or third marijuana thing, trying to just trying to get out.

Yeah. Spitting on the 82nd Airborne symbol when they'd walked by it. And I'm just like, dude, what the fuck, bro? And anyway, so now I go to Rip. I freaking smoke it, get leadership award. I was there with Barraza. I'm sure you heard that name Barraza. he was my he was my

biggest pain in the butt because he'd uh I'd always stick up for him he was always doing crazy shit uh I remember one time I was standing out there and I was like they're like where's Braza

and I'm like uh he's in the bathroom son and then he comes in because he was late and I'm like fuck what year was this when you went back the second time ah I want to it had been 99 I want to say 99

and forgive my memory because like no yeah we'll talk about the TVI say 99. It was either 99 or early. It had to be 99. It had to be 99 because I went to, I think I ended up going, I went up going to school.

I had to go to school because of my Navy time. At some point, they were like, hey, if he doesn't make E5 and like the next four months, you got to kick him out of the military. But I ended up having to go to Ranger School early. And I had to be a first time go. That's a funny thing. If I didn't be a, well, if I wasn't a first time go, I got kicked out of the military. And I happened to be a first time go.

for two reasons. That was number one. Number two, I was the last class who was allowed to dip. Yeah. So I graduate, when I graduated at Ranger School,

I was busting my ass. I got Honor grad and the Leadership Award in Ranger School. Yeah, you were motivated. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, no, that's awesome, though. So finally, finally you're where you want to be.

Yes, sir. And, um, I, got to tell you man it's funny because for a lot of these young bucks i mean they're happy everybody's happy everybody's excited and i'm putting on that black beret it was like man it was the most emotional thing for me i was like you know i i've i fucking done it man like i'm in special ops so when i when i went to when i wanted to get fucked up bro i wanted to go to i wanted to go to second range of battalion and I wanted them to just crush me.

I wanted to earn my stripes. And they did. Oh, they did. Believe me. They did. And it was even worse because I was really good at PT. So they would crush me. I remember I used to have to stand on the roof for hours,

waiting for Mount Rainier to explode with a radio. And I was supposed to call down when it was going to explode. Or I had to wait for Batman. that's my favorite one. I had to wait for the bat signal. But, but yeah, and they used to get so mad because when they would have me do push-ups, they couldn't smoke me because my dad used to make me do 50 push-ups a day. And so I was like, push-ups to me was easy, you know.

But, yeah, man, so by the time I got to Ranger Battalion, like I was, I was on cloud nine, man. That was my goal. Yeah. You know, that's who I was. That was my second family. And what, do you remember what year, what year was it around the month of year? It was either 99 or 2000.

Okay. It had to be 99. I always say 99, but, and that's what it says on my, my orders coming out, but I don't remember the month or anything like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't remember that stuff either. Yeah, you know, brother, like, I'm telling you, and that's one of the things I do want to talk about because of the concussion and stuff. Yeah. I have my memory right now I'm going through some brain doctors and I, um, yeah, yeah. But I'm going through some brain doctors and stuff because I can't remember things. Yeah. Like, like simple things, like your ranger school class, I'm probably the only person I know.

I don't know mine. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going through the same stuff. I forget my phone number sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Yeah. I mean, not good. But I'm right there with you. Yeah, it happens. It happens, man. It's not. We must have crossed path to battalion then, or at least, you know. We absolutely. did. You were in the same battalion. There's no way

we didn't cross the dirt. Yeah. And I don't know if you were there when we did the NCOs versus officers. In the in the, uh, the, I broke with the work brothers, were you there when the work brothers were there? I don't, I don't know if I remember them. But you're talking about, because you wouldn't remember them.

Huh? Are you talking about murder ball? The NCOs against the officers? No, no. See, so you let you, okay. So you left right before that. I mean, I was there when there were still murder ball, but when we started, I think I was there for one more year of murder ball, and after that they got rid of it. People get so fucked up. The big ball that was like as tall as you are.

Explain to a murder ball, bro. So, yeah, it's a huge ball that the two teams are supposed to, like, push against each other. But really, like, because was it, was it platoon size? I don't remember how large the teams work. It turns into a giant combatants. It's just a huge. There's bodies everywhere.

And there's like two guys trying to push the ball still. But, yeah, it's just dudes are choking each other out. Like, it's just mayhem. Yeah, you were allowed to choke each other out. Nobody can come from the stand. But the ball and stuff were wrecking people. People were getting broke or shoulders were getting dislocated. Yeah, it was pretty brutal.

So, yeah, they stopped doing that. So it was more, all they do now, I think, is a turkey bowl. So talk to us a little bit about, you know, life and 27, at that time frame and then kind of like leading into 9-11. Okay. Yeah, that's perfect because so when I was at 275, yeah, I was, I was, man, I was on cloud nine, man, I was so proud. I had my Black Beret back then before the war,

and he can adjust to this, or he can understand what I'm saying, but you were judged based on how much. suck you can take. So back then, it was like 20-mile road marches, 30-mile road marches. It was all about how brutal can you survive. And we were basically, we were expert infantry still. Yeah. The world's premier light infantry.

Yeah, the world's premier light infantry. Yeah. Which, as we talk more, you'll see how that kind of evolves and changes. But we basically wore. We were just an advanced. infantry and we were an amazing advanced infantry unit with abilities to do special operations missions but when I was getting there is when we started really um working CQB and stuff like that before I got there was kind of the spray and prey kind of thing I remember when Delta came down to

teach and a lot of them were X Rangers and they saw it they'd have us run through initially and they were like, it was a proud moment for me because I remember them, they were like, holy shit, you guys, you guys have come a long way. It wasn't like this. Which makes me have a lot of respect for the boys in Somalia because they didn't have the CQB training like we did. Right. And those boys still push through because that's what Rangers fucking do. You know what I mean? I've always been that guy. It was like, you can, you can give a manual to a bunch of privates, about an F-16 and in a week and a half, they'll build it and fly it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

But, yeah, so it was a lot of that. And it was the, it was a different time. I remember our wives would get sick of us because even though we were expert infantry, it was like, it was still a quick strike. So we would do an M-Lat and a multilat, which basically was you jump in, you know, while we still do, we got to always prepare for that mission to jump in an airfield. And then we'd go into where we're just working with the 163 Rotary Wing. Other than that, you know, we would get called when we were on call and do a, you know,

they would send us to whatever the opposite temperature of we were in. If it was cold, we'd go somewhere hot. If it was hot, we'd go somewhere cold, jump in and do a, you know, a fake mission and fucking make sure they make a suck and do a 30-mile or some point. but that was basically it being ready and you know training for the threat at the time which was nowhere near where we went right and i'm not going to get into where the threat was at the time but yeah so we were we were training for the threat at the time and it was still very secretive we couldn't even tell anybody like if we went trained in uh Nashville we weren't allowed to say we were rangers um which was kind of fun

But it was kind of funny, too, because we would come up with a plan. You know, you're out with your buddies and we're like, and we'd always try to make it. We're Rangers, bro. We can't do anything simple. We're like, hey, man, we're gynecologists. Another dude's like, no, we're freaking on the volleyball team for UCLA. And they're like, no. So then everybody had their own story.

And then when we'd come together, the girls were like, what the fuck? I thought you were volleyball player for UCLA. You thought you were a gynaecologist. I thought you were. And the girls still stayed around. because eventually we'd have to be like, look, man, we're... And then the funny thing is, is when you tell them you're in Ranger Regiment, they didn't even know what that meant anyways.

Yeah, it's funny because, you know, with that stricture there, but also no guidance of how to, like, do it. All these dudes with a high and tight. We were Zamboni drivers. We raked the beaches behind hotels, you know, to keep them nice. We told girls that we polished the reflective bumps on the highway. that we polish those. Like,

we, our favorite was retarded dolphin trainer. And you had to push its blowhole up above the surface. Yeah. But, you know, it's interesting, Eddie,

because you're talking about, uh, this transition. And I, I don't know if I went through the first or one of the first, uh, you know, when they do,

what, what is called the, the period where everybody splits off and does the individual training and, in groups. Oh, um, but like demo. Like, yeah, fuck.

Well, like, well, they'll come and they'll bring like the condensed version of sniper training. And demo. And so that was when we started. What was that called? Con skills? Yes. Yes. I can't even, I can't believe I remembered that. Yeah, that's great.

Yeah, con skills. So I remember, because I went through one, I don't know if it was the first, but it was one of the first CQB. And you mentioned this period of transition. And I had a platoon sergeant who, absolutely detested the idea of us doing anything like that. He was a former R.I. He felt like we should be out there doing patrol-based activities. We shouldn't be, like, kicking indoors.

He did not like that. And there was a lot of resistance in the old guard of Ranger Regiment against taking on sort of this new kind of, you know, special operations role outside of the Light Infantry. Yes, sir. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And like when we actually went into the war, we was still in high and tights. And it was J-Slock that came down and said, hey, man, you guys got to grow your hair out. Yeah. We can't have a bunch of studs with high and tights with a bunch of guys with beards and everybody knows who the fuck it is. Yeah, it's an obsec violation. Yeah, you know what I mean? And yeah, so exactly. It's an obsec violation without saying anything.

Right. There was some serious. is. Like the hires up try to fight that. Like some of the badasses, I don't want to mention names, but because I have a lot of respect for these dudes. But it was like, bro, you got to grow, man. You got to grow with the ages, man.

It is what it is. But, yeah. Yeah, tell us about like that transition, 9-11 happens and then getting into the war. Okay. So I won't get too much into when 9-11 actually happened and all that, because I think I talk about it on my. my podcast and I don't want to board people but um when the war first started man they didn't know what to do with us they had no idea what to do with rangers um so my first couple deployments

were extremely well minus my helicopter crash was was extremely um boring because um one they didn't know what to do with rangers yet They're like, are we, are we, so we're going to be the, are we going to be, you know, Delta's BP boys? Right. Or, you know, there's no bases out there. So initially we were out, you know, and finding these new outposts and digging in and pulling security for, I think, even vanilla seals. And, and, and it, it, initially, it was, it kind of sucked. And, um, and, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um.

But what made it worse, well, we were the only ones in country. Well, special operations were the only ones in country with, because when we all had the desert camel, we were the only ones with the Velcro. And so you would hear over the net from the bad guys, like, don't shoot at the guys with the black patches. So we couldn't get in a gunfight to save our fucking lives. So it wasn't until we. got to those and god man I gotta be honest man if I found

the guy who came up with the our gray uniforms what were they called all the ACUs yeah yeah I slapped the shit out of him man but um but the good news is is once when he put that out when they got that shit out they didn't know

because everybody had a Valkrow right so that's when we started getting it on um but slowly as we're going through it you know we would hit a target and we'd be pulling BPs. And, you know, the units like, all right, cool, now we got two houses. So they started, they were getting spread very thin and there was a shit ton of tier one targets, you know.

And I was very, very fortunate that once Iraq kicked off, every mission I ever did was with the task force. the deadliest and it's pretty proud of this because it's up to date the deadliest and most effective you know tier one task force in history and um i'm not to give it to our what our mission was but um it got to the point where you know there was there were like hey we can't there's just too many targets out right and and and you know delta's starting to trust and at this point we got a lot of boys because Delta is like what 75% Rangers and so they know our capabilities so they're like how about we're going to give these we're going to give the Rangers this house and then we'll have some Rangers pulling VPs on this because they always still have some of us right and

they're like oh they did a great job they did they cleared it they did this and that so you know they hit and took out the body guards we took out the main dude now we're going to have them do there's three houses we'll have them do to these two houses and we'll do this one And then it just turned out to be like, you hit this target, we hit this target. You hit this target, we hit this target. If there's two targets together, obviously they're going to get the higher one. But which was kind of cool for us because a higher one is, you know, the main bad guy. And they can talk all the shit in the world they want.

They don't want to die. But they're cronies. Yeah. They'll fight to the death. So we got to get it on. And so we slowly started to be. become a just basically a blunt strike force. And it's, they like to say that the, you know,

they say the Ranger Regiment is the sharpest blunt force, meaning we, the cool thing about the Ranger Regiment is we go in and we get the job done. And we're not just spraying and killing everybody. But if we're coming to get you, it's a bad day for you. Yeah. And if you, and if you shoot around at us,

you're all going to die. All of you. You know, if you have women and children, obviously, they're not going to you. But you and your boys, they're all going to die. And so it was cool to see that transition. And to where, and then you see to where it is now, to where back when I was in, I was just hoping to get in a one conflict. Let me jump into Grenada.

Yeah. Let me jump into Panama. You know, you see that combat scroll and you look at these dudes, they were your heroes. Yeah. They went and they did an amazing feat, amazing feat. But, you know, I never knew that I was going to be that guy that was going to get out there and get to do it over and over and over.

Eddie, speaking of that transition, I mean, you not only went from the black beret to the tan beret, you went from the LCE to the plate carrier and all that cool shit that people are familiar with today. I mean, it's hard to explain to people who weren't in the regiment, like, what a dramatic shift that was. Yeah. So it's funny you say that because we used to have the old school, yeah, the old school LCE, right? And you cut, we would have to cut our stuff off and we would tie it with 5504. Which, by the way, we all had to pay for when we got out, no matter how many years later, I'm like, what are you going to do? Send this to another country?

Why do we pay him for this shit? We were just trying to silence it. But you couldn't even wear like the even cooler ones. I can't remember what they were called. The rack. The rap, yes. The Ranger assault carrying kit. Yes.

And you were a badass when you had that. Yeah. But you got to have your cab first. And so, yeah. So you would get to that. And then the Mitch came in. Yeah. You know, that all the army has now.

But back then it was high speed of shit. I had the old K-pot, you know, the big old K-pot. Yeah. I had the chin strap with the MRI spoon. And, yeah, dude, it was, and I thought I was high speed. I look at, man, some of the pictures were training now, and I'm like, oh, my God, look, I get a nerd. But, I mean, that was high speed back then. Yeah.

Well, it's interesting, too, because, you know, at the Second Battalion, because we were so far from the flagpole, you had guys, you know, the tactical tailor, you had guys who started getting their woolly peat bags sewn into their backpacks or their alice packs, things like that. Like you had a little bit of innovation. Guys, you know, would see what, you know, Delta was doing and, like, try to copy it.

And they could kind of get away with it sometimes. But, yeah, it was still very much Vietnam-era light infantry gear. So around this time frame, I mean, there are any, like, particular operations that stand out in your mind? I think To be honest with you

I think when stuff like Anaconda With First Ranger Battalion With those Those boys were impressive Oh my God Haditha Dam Which I talk about on my podcast With one of our

You know a pilot who's on 160th Oh Greg Yeah Yeah Greg Cawker You don't go to Cocker Yeah Greg Coker Colbyor?

You were Hedina, right? I wasn't. Oh, you weren't. Okay. But people started to realize that, like, Rangers get the job done, man. There's just, there's something about the Ranger Regiment that's just, it's so impressive. Because we have the ability to do, and there's stuff that we have. do that people don't even know about all the way to you know basic

temperature stuff which to be honest with you we kind of pulled we're probably a little bit farther from the basic infantry stuff but we we are we're an amazing strike force but I think when it when it comes down to it it's kind of more of a there's just something about Ranger and and hit like I guess the best example is this. If I'm up on a door and I feel a tap behind me, I don't have to look to see who it is. Like, I could hate this motherfucker.

Right. You know what I mean? But you know he's coming in the door behind you. Yeah, he could have slept with my girlfriend. Right. It doesn't matter. But when on target, he's not going to let me die. Right.

Because we don't let Rangers die. We don't do that. So it's just, it's a different organization, man. And it's NCO ran for a reason. Officers are only allowed to stay for two years. And they have to go back to the regular army and prove themselves and come back. And it's just, it's a camaraderie. It's one of those places where I can tell you this, if you're a shit bag,

you're not going to be there. You can be, and what I learned when I was with, and again, no disrespect. I'm only going off my experience. When I was with the 82nd, you can be that guy who doesn't want to be there or spit, like all these dudes spitting on the fucking their symbol,

which I'm like, what the fuck, bro? And still have friends. You spit on the scroll in Ranger Battalion, you're getting fucked up, man. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, if you're a shitbag, you're not going to have friends. So it's just, it's that

unit where it's all about what you did today you know you can go out you can you can you can literally say five hostages and kill 40 people and then the next day you do something stupid and get a DUI well you're gone brother yeah yeah yeah you know what I mean it is what it is and I think I think that is kind of what I put it you this way I have a buddy he he's a sniper and he was one of the first guys with Marsoc. So for a lot of people who don't know who Marsoc is, Marsok is when finally the Marines decided, hey, we're going to allow an organization

to be a part of special operations. Which a lot of people don't understand that Marine Recon, Marine Force Recon, they are some bad dudes. They are some bad dudes. Like I would hands down trust them to my left to my right. But those poor guys don't understand that when they're not going to get to do the shit we do.

They're just not. And it's not because they suck or they're not as good as us. It's because they're just not, they're not a part of the special operations community. So when Marsock came around and they started getting that, that Ranger money, you know what I mean? And, you know,

you can get this stud and you can get this average dude. But if you get this stud, you know, 1,200 rounds a month and this guy goes to the range once every two months, bro, you know what I mean? It's just, it is what it is. And so when Marcosk came around,

I had a buddy who was a sniper and he was with the first group that they went in and, you know, and they got a little thing and they got kicked out, but eventually they started, you know, to get, you know, their stuff together too. and, you know, I think,

I think at the end of the day, I think Special Operations is starting to get, like, we got that full community now. Yeah. You know, we got all the branches. Everybody's got their specialized, what they're good at. And for the Ranger Regiment,

it's just where that premier strike force. That's all we do. Can you? Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I was just going to say, you can be, there's a lot of organizations that have a lot of stuff to do, but I'm just a firm believer that you can be, you can be pretty good at like, MMA, mixed martial arts.

You can be average at everything and be successful. But if you go into a Muay Thai ring and you're just average, you're going to get murdered. You know what I mean? You go on a jihitsu match and you're average, you're going to get murdered. And for us, we focus on kill capture missions. You know, when the war goes down, the Rangers Regiment's first mission is to go and kill the fucking their special operations. And then when that's over, we go and kill HIVs.

We kill capture HVIs. That's what we do. We don't worry about all the other stuff. So that's what we are ridiculously good at. And I would put us against anybody. And that's just from what I've seen. And if you count my, time in the military to my civilian time because I have 15 years active probably about 20 and then and then with

civilian 23 years when I was deploying with them um that's just that's just from what I've noticed from you know from Edward Chavez's perspective now as a fister how were you guys farmed out because you're not you know there's not always this great need for artillery right on on on a lot of these jobs so what do they you how are you guys fitting into the fold so and that's i like how you brought that out there um so for the year and the half that i was in the 80 second like i said i was like i was this the stud and i was getting winning best fist and this this and that i went to the ranger regiment and i was a fucking nobody because just your basic fister back in the day before we were j-tech qualified not only did you do

field artillery mortars but you also did naval gunfire you did rotary wing which means all the helicopter attack helicopters whether it's 160th cobras apaches

and the AC130 so I remember my very first practice mission I was calling in little birds 75 meters from my position. They stopped doing this. They stopped doing this.

And it's another reason in my freaking brain. It's the good thing they stopped doing this. But we were working the men safe, like legitimately in the men safe. So every target, every house that we built for the 11Bs to go in and do their CQB, we had a target. We had a, like, you know, be like a stick with a bunch of tires and I'd be calling in little birds hitting it like 75 to 150 meters away with 2.75 inch rockets and guns and I remember the first time I called that in

looking up and just feel like I was like wow but you know not realizing that oh yeah by the way they have shells and the hot braids coming out yeah yeah and they're coming down and like black eye but um and that's when you realize it's like bro you ain't nothing Nothing. No matter how hard you try to be the best, you're still just another dude. You know what I mean? I'm very proud of what I'd done. But if I would have went down, my number two would have came up and done just as good. But it was a big thing. And we trained cast a little bit back then. You know, before the war started, we did a little bit of cast, you know, just enough so that we can work,

we can help the the Air Force guys. And we're very fortunate in Ranger Battalion to where we get one Air Force J-TAC per company, which is pretty badass. When you look at the regular army, they get one for brigade.

So those poor dudes are probably sitting in the jock calling airstrikes from the jock because they can't be on a specific target. You know what I mean? And, but when we deployed, we spread out. You could have,

it could be a, uh, 275 and you could have one platoon in Afghanistan, uh, you know, three platoons in our, in Iraq. And it was,

everything was split. So we were a platoon. And so they were like, we need more J-TACs. So what they did were like, you know what? We have faith in our Rangers. So what we're going to do is,

we're going to have these guys get J-TAC qualified. So in came the huge controversy because until then, nobody in the Army was allowed to be a J-TAC, nobody ever in history. You can call in an airstrike, but it was an unqualified, it was a, you call,

anybody can call in as an unqualified observer. But to get a true J-TAC call sign, it just didn't have to, And so we got a lot of pushback initially from the Air Force because they thought they're gonna lose their jobs And I'm like bro you're not gonna lose your jobs because there's not enough of you like you're good bro And so initially we had People like a really good friend of mine You know Martin and them they went out and they got their J-Tac quals and they proved that they can get J-Tac qualified

And they'd show it on target but they were to like, yeah, yeah, but you're not good for combat. So eventually they push it out to where, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Domain. No. So Domay was a badass J-Tac who got killed by a Daisy Chain IED. But him and I were the first ones to get like legitimately qualified to go to combat as a J-Tag. I was I actually got to go before that um

well we'll stick with this first because I don't want to jump around but um so we know we were going out and we were J-TAC qualified and we got our J-TAC call sign and I don't know how I'm still very like I'm old school that's why when you guys ask for pictures they told us we couldn't take any pictures so I have like no fucking pictures bro it fucking sucks but these boys nowadays

got like kill cams and stuff I have like no pictures and um but um so I was the first whatever two four and um and I was also

I'm pretty sure the first one to legitimately be able to lay scunnian as a JTAC qualified Ranger and I remember Domey and I bring up Dome because Dome's a legend he fucking would talk we were good friends

he fucking hated me because of her first deployment I was like it would just happen to be we were in the right you know how it works out and we were I was smashing people every day

and then halfway through the second time we went out when we were qualified and he would just send me fuck you messages and then and then he started getting the scunnion on and after that you know it was what it is what it was

but the cool thing about me and Domey and this is me being kind of a little cocky if I can do that because my boys told me that I'm I do a bad job of complimenting myself I'm always compliment everybody else because you know you learn that humble stuff

in Ranger Battalion but I really believe he's the only one that could keep up with me because before we were allowed to be JTACs you know we were doing a lot of 11 bravo shit team leader courses he went to sniper school so we we could lead teams through houses you know what I mean we were doing the squad leader course we know we're

doing all that shit and so whenever an Air Force guy would talk shit because he understood how fast and if 16 was flying before it dropped a 500 pound bomb I'm like bro I'm not gonna tell him how fast to fly but how about we do a fucking how about we do a stress shoot and we'll run a team through clearing houses while calling in air strikes Yeah, that's what I thought. You couldn't hang, bro. But Domey was that dude. And Domey was a bad dude.

Unfortunately, we lost an amazing American, but he was a bad dude. But before I deployed as a Ranger call sign guy, I was given a call sign because I supported the British SAS. for four months doing hostage rescue. That's awesome. Yeah. What was that like? And again, I didn't take pictures, and it really pisses me off

because we ended up actually rescuing the hostages we were chasing. And Rangers and the unit were going after Jill Carroll, and we were going after, you know, a few foreigners. and the one thing that I will say about working with the SAS, and the reason they put me there was like basically the effescentio from the unit was like, hey, Eddie, what are you doing this rotation? I'm like, well, I'm waiting to, you know, take a team for the next deployment. And he's like, cool, you're going to go work with the British SAS.

And I'm like, oh, okay, who might take you with me? They're like, oh, no, you're by yourself. Because they can't understand them. I'm like, what? They're like, they can't understand those motherfuckers. So you got to go with them. So I'm like... The pilots can't understand your accent.

And so... And so I'm thinking like, oh shit. Like, these dudes, like, I'm going to show up over there. And I didn't know if they were going to be like the unit or were they going to be like dev. Because you know how dev is. And they're great Americans too, but they're very like, who are you?

Parochial. And why are you here? You got to prove yourself. When I showed up, these dudes treated me like a king because the guys who were rotating, they just went and got J-TAC qualified. But they were really shooters. So now that I was there,

they got to be shooters because I would take care of all the J-TAC shit. Dude, they had like refrigerators full of beer for me. They gave me a cell phone, which back in my day was huge. You know what I mean? I got to call my wife now, Amanda, who I tried to get around here just as I wanted to show her, because I'm so proud of how beautiful she is. She told me to get bent.

But, like, and I was still, you know, I was very rural, like, when it came to, I just didn't never wanted to disrespect Ranger Regiment. So I never used my damn cell phone. I never drank even when the two times we were off. And what's funny is the one time we were off, it was General McChrystal. No. Yeah, McChrystal.

Because his son came through right after him. General McChrystal. And forgive me if I mess up names. Again, like I said, my brain's a little. And the cool thing about him was when, he'd go to visit, he would legitimately go out with the boys. Like, he didn't just show up and look how everything was like. He would go with the boys.

So he came to visit the SAS, and we were going to go do an op with a 60-foot rope. And, you know, to, you know, to continue on with trying to get these dudes. And I remember the commander from the SES was like, hey, Eddie, we're not going out tonight. And I'm like, what? That's weird. because we're going out every night, at least once or twice. I'm like, is it the weather? He's like, we're not taking your general.

And I'm like, all right, make sense. Yeah, and I just remember the coolest thing about it for me was when we were giving briefings, and the intel guy came up, he's like, I'm so-and-so from MI6, and all I could think about was James Bond. And I was just like, God, Dan, this is so badass. But the one thing I would like to bring up about it, because this was probably the scariest moment, even more scarier than when I went down in a bird, was we went on a target.

And it was me with the British SAS, the unit, and I want to say regiment was hitting something. And I was in a Chinook. and then the other boys were going to land on the roofs with their version of the H-6s. I'm not going to call out their birds because I don't know if they want us to or not. But, and I remember, because in the back of their Chinooks,

they had it ordered off so that we can watch the target and it doesn't show light out the back. And I looked at the planning, and thank God, I'd done enough HLZs at this point where I was like, Like, uh, I don't think we're going to fit there.

So I sat there and I put my freaking, um, my rope gloves on, which was a pain in the ass. You know how long it takes to get that shit on over your other gloves. And I put them on. The hamburger helper gloves. Yeah. I was like, if we get out of here, I'm going to run out with this. And when it gets, if it's, if it's nothing, I'll just pull them off and it's over. I kept them on and the bird flared.

You know, when the bird flares, it seems like it hits the ground. Right. Yeah. I thought we hit the ground. So I'm coming around. I didn't take my gloves off. And the RTO, who's an operator, he steps out, he turns around, he goes like this. And I'm like, 10 minutes.

We already had the 10 minutes called. What he meant was like, put your gloves on. Thank God I had mine on. Because I didn't know what that's what he meant. And so we're following, and I'm watching these dudes just fucking disappear. And I'm going and I'm going and I'm going. And I'm like, holy fuck, we're roping. Because I hate roping.

I'm afraid of heights. As a ranger, I'm afraid of heights. Trust me. And it never goes away, just so you know. I'm afraid of hike. And so I'm walking up to this rope. And I'm like, thank God I have my gloves on. And then I remember hearing screaming with all this, you know, explosions and gunfire.

So for some reason in my mind, I'm thinking the rope doesn't reach the ground. Yeah. So shit's going on in my mind. And I look down, bro. And from being, that fight or flight, my first thing. was putting my hands on my invisible result. Right, right. Yeah, because I was like, dude, we're high as fuck.

Because I could see the bottom of palm trees. And then I'm like, oh, shit, no, we're roping. And by that time, that was just enough for the rope to swing a little bit farther. And you know, you got the little bit little microscopic thing of a chem light. And so I reach out. I grabbed that fucking rope and I'm like, fuck it. I guess I'm going to die but I'm not going to be

oh the Ranger didn't go down right he didn't go down you know he stayed up there so the whole would you follow people off a cliff uh yes yeah yeah and so I grabbed

if I was worried about my rep yeah yeah and I'm pulling it and I was trying to get my feet on it and I couldn't it started pulling it pulled my knife away it started it was it was ripping through and I just remember going it had been 67 foot

oh my god I hit the ground there's all this gunfire going off and I'm just just going like this and I'm like okay got my got my got my baby maker got this got that I'm like cool and then everything else was gravy but that's the only thing I want to say about would be with them other than the fact that they basically fought just like we did so and they were a lot of people think they're cowboys but they're not they're very safety oriented so for me it was very

easy as a fire supporter to to work through what they were doing and understand their audibles because I was very big on you have to know the plan because if you don't know the plan then how am I going to be good at what I do I can't be as fast as I want to be if I have to sit there and be like hey sir where's first platoon hey sir where's first squad where's second squad I already know where they are all I do is confirm and I get on their radio and be like hey two two confirm your east of building whatever Roger that okay cool I'm bringing in this you know what I mean and then everybody else will come in and do their I always had it set up to where the was PL

Patoon sergeant, first squad, second squad, third squad, but I'll acknowledge we were good and I'd bring in what I had to bring in. And you said you were able to recover the hostages you were after. Yeah, so here's a fucked up. I mean, we did, but here's the fucked up part. So we're doing this, and

I don't know what MI6 does, but every single target we got led us to the next person. Everyone. We never hit a dry hole. It was legit. Oh, my God, bro. And so this combat controller from the Air Force comes in because we're leaving the next day, we do the handshake.

That night, they get them. Oh. Which was cool, but I still felt cool about being a part of it. You know what I mean? It's awesome. Who, you know, the way Rangers, you know, support Delta because they're not big enough to, you know, do their own security support stuff.

Was it the paris? Who was like backing up the SAAs? when they were out so yeah so that what they were trying to do is they were trying to do the same thing as we did so um oh man i want to say it's their i'm i don't remember if it was their paris because what they have the the royal marines right the royal marines yeah i want to say it was the paras though so no please nobody quote me on this and i'm sorry for not remembering that because my because I never talked to them or hung out with them. Too good for them.

But they were basically doing, they were learning from us and trying to do the same thing. I don't know how it is today or how it ended up working out, but they were trying to use their boys to basically do what the Rangers accomplished. But me and my ego is kind of like you're not going to get anybody to do what the Rangers accomplished. So you, now you're J-TAC qualified. You did a pretty gnarly deployment with SAS. Tell us a little bit more about like as you're evolving as a JTAC, and then, of course, it sounds like you got involved with RRD or RRC as well.

So, so this, yeah, so then after that, I ended up, and I'm very proud, I was with A-Co most of my career, except when I was the Farsport Encio at headquarters, which ended up with me supporting, um, um, the SAS, but, um, so I went back to Alpha Company and I became the FSNCO, which is an awesome gig when you become JTAC qualified because you train your boys. And I don't know if you know the Swede. No. No, yeah, right. Everybody, I'm just going to use his name as a Swede because everybody who's watching this who knows, don't know who's suite is. He was an R-D way back in the day. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He was way, he was then back in the day, a big hockey

fan, bad-ass dude. But so I ended up being with them and he was a platoon sergeant for my first trip. And so I loved being with a, I always loved being with a black sheep for some reason. There were just something about him. They always had those squal eaters who were just like, I mean, they were just killers, man. They were just bad dudes. And I'm not saying the other boys didn't have them. But it was just something.

I just, I was just a black sheet. it was just in me that's who I was so my last two deployments were with a black sheet and I was J-Tac qualified and we went out brother almost every night we were in a gunfight

and we were I mean we were doing great things and I remember it was now general Carilla, Carilla, the gorilla. Possibly, yeah. Yeah, I want to say with General Carilla, now I was Com General.

I want to say it was him. He was talking to me on the roof one day, and he's like, hey, Eddie, you know how I know when the black sheep's out in Baghdad? I'm like, no, sir. He's like, I just look over and look for fire. Because we would go out there,

and I'd be calling an AC-130, and, you know, all those precise, you know everything's precise everything's um precision targets but then it starts on fire and then that's how starts on fire and we're just walking away to this just whole big old thing full of flames you know but um but yeah so i was very lucky as a j-tack you don't see this very often but i think it was because the times were different i call it the troy palom off because I'm a Steeler fan because Troy Palomalu kind of got to do whatever he wanted to do. So back when I was running and we were doing and we were part of this task force,

we only had like 45 to an hour before we were on target. And so what would happen is we'd get a mission and we'd print out this big ass map of the target. It would be me, the assault squad leaders, the weapons squad leader would be planning the route. the platoon sergeant will be doing the manifest and the PL will be fixing up that one slider. Right, right? So we would sit there and we'd plan how we're going to do this and they're hey, we're going to come in from this direction and they were very cool with me when I when I if I was to be like, hey man it's cool but we need to come up from this side because with this open area, I can cover that with the AC130. If we if we turn if we come in from this side then we're

going to start losing them inside of buildings and then we're going to have collateral damage or whatever. And I had some beasts with me. I think most of my squad leaders, I wish I can name names, man, because I'm so proud of them. A lot of them went cag, and then a few of them went out, but they were all badasses. And

I felt like I had the all-star crew. And then after we planned the mission out, we'd brief it real quick to Patoons aren't. And he would make sure that we weren't doing anything too stupid. Because, you know, sometimes Ranger wants to lipland for no reason. and like, you know, blow a breach through the top of the roof. And they're like, no, that doesn't make sense.

We're not going to do that. You know what I mean? And then we'd brief it to the PL, and the PL would brief it real quick. And, you know, we'd gear up. And by that time, all our stuff had to be ready to go, and we roll on target. And so that's when I had him as a platoon sergeant. And I was very lucky to where I could get with the PLs and be like, hey, sir, I'm going to be with you.

or hey sir, I'm going to be with the snipers on this building. We're going to go to the top of this roof here, and then we're going to shimmy rooftop to rooftop to rooftop, and I would try to put myself where I thought the bad guys were going to be because I wanted to see the bad guy so that I can shoot him with aircraft if needed, preferably with my M4, because it's a lot harder to do it with freaking aircraft. unfortunately it doesn't work out no matter where I put myself it's usually an E5 or something saying hey we're taking contact and now I'm gonna tell you man as a fire supporter trying to take care of your brothers and calling in heavy weapons from an aircraft way above in the air that when he looks down you can't just be like hey the

building with the blue roof because he's up in the air sometimes 16,000 feet and he's like bro there's like 45 buildings with the blue roof so you got to find like an airfield or or a soccer field and they use it as a unit to measure and do all this talk on blah blah blah blah blah and now I got to talk this aircraft which is hard enough to do it for what I see on a what a young team leader sees and um and the only reason I'm going to stop there is because I hate talking tactics. It's just not something I like to do. But then I would do some little safety measures and until, but until those rounds or that bomb hit the ground and I knew my boys were okay, dude, my butthole was like, yeah. It gets hairy. Yeah. Yeah, bro. And I think that's why I am mostly

fucked up now is because anybody who knows me will tell you I am Ranger to the core. Like everything I wears Ranger. My wife gets mad. Like, can you wear something else? It's not Ranger? I'm like, that's who I am, babe. But, and it's like, it was brutal. I hated calling in airstrikes. I fucking hated it until the bullets started flying. Because once a bullet started flying,

I felt like I had control of everything. Because I helped plan that mission. So I already knew where first squad was. I knew where second squad was. I knew where third squad was, and I knew where all the support by fire was at. You know what I mean? And sometimes they'd be like, hey, we're going to go in with a squad minus.

And I'm like, why? Well, we got to pull this BP. And I'm like, well, why don't you go in full? I'll control this BP. It'll be me, the PL, the RTO. You know, you always got a guess or two. And it was usually the units Delta Force Commander or Sart Major and some random guest. I'll like, I'll run this BP here.

You go squad pure. and so I was very fortunate because of, you know, I didn't make a mistake in what I was doing that I was able to do that. It's interesting to hear you talk about this like internal anxiety because, you know, you hear this from the medics a lot because you're holding your teammates' lives in your hands, you know, and it sounds like that caused a real stressor on target. Yeah, man. it's like when I was talking to

Greg from the 160th and there's one thing he sees like my Rangers and that's the way I looked I know I wasn't the PL but those were my Rangers I was going to make sure that they were going to go home I got well over 800 ops pro and I'm very

very very fortunate to have never lost a man on target which is pretty fucking incredible. Yeah. But I'll tell you what, if you pulled it, if you shot around at me, I'm ruining your world, bro. I'm taking that fucking building down. And I had that kind of, I knew what I could and couldn't do.

So for me, it was like, hey, sir, I'm doing this. He's like, Roger that. Hey, sir, I'm doing this. Roger that. And because he trusted me. And I was very fortunate. So that deployment and then the next deployment where Sweet ended up being the first sergeant, and I had Barnes as our platoon sergeant and Petrie, our Medal of Honor winner, was a weapons squad leader.

And like I was very fortunate to where when we were in contact, if I felt the need, I'll give you, I'll give you a good example. When we went, I want to say it was Baghdad area. It was us in the unit It was New Year's Eve And we went to hit We were going to take down a mansion With 26 Rangers They were going to take down

A underground area And they knew we were coming Somehow And as we're moving through And we're being We parked Good distance away We had strikers

As we're moving through They chugged grenades And I want to say Two or three Cag dudes got hit and so our boys had to like patch them up so by the time they patched them up you know we're doing this engagement

obviously we carry on with the mission their boys go to the other ground we go to the we go to where we're going to hit this mansion and I'm like and we're about to go and I'm like hey sir wait and he's like what do you mean wait I'm like let me drop a thermal barrack in that motherfucker with an age six because if they have if they have

any kind of explosive devices or murder holes or anything like that, I'm going to evaporate them. So with the thermal barrack, that 886 comes up, drops in, you can literally be right outside the wall because it's not an

it's not a shrapnel style thing and it dropped through. There was nobody in that motherfucker. One dude scored it out that Bohannon, I don't know if you know Bohannon, ended up taking out with the striker, But they trusted me for stuff like that.

And it made me very proud. And then the second deployment with them, I was able to do a bunch of cool shit. And the one thing I would like to say, because I thought it was kind of cool, is we were in Bakuba. And it was shitty because we didn't really own a spot there. We were just kind of just there.

And so Dev, and the unit would kind of switch out because nobody wants to be in there. We were stuck there. You know, we'd get up, work out, play video games, go hit targets, get up, work out, play video games, hit targets. But Deb never wanted to drive

because the IDs were bad. They were fucking up the regular unit, bad. To the point where they knew where the dudes that were at who were really doing this shit and they weren't a high-tier unit, but they were doing, you know, they're fucking everybody up. and they were going to go there, but they needed,

they weren't allowed to go there without armor and a brigade. Or a brigade and armor. I can't remember, but it was a ridiculous fort. I mean, it was actually not ridiculous once you saw what was there. So we had nothing that night, and someone higher up was like, hey, go take these dudes out. Here's the fucking 14 dudes who are responsible. So we get this little card

So here we go Ourselves by ourselves So I go to their fire desk And I wish I could name his name I'll just use his His nickname Paizan He looked like the dude

He looked like the Italian dude from What's that movie with the Irish It's like with the Irish Yeah Huh? Boundock Saints, right? Boundock Saints, right? Yeah. Yeah, he looked just like him. And, um, and I was like, hey, brother, your boys ain't going out and you're, and your JTAC qualified. Because he got injured. He was a bad dude, but he got injured so he couldn't do the full seal operation anymore. So he was on a desk doing fires and calling him fires from the desk. I'm like, hey, you can come out on target with us and be my RTO and you roll with the platoon sergeant in case we get IED.

because before that, I won't get into that story, but before that, we got I-A-Ded, and it could have been my vehicle that went down. And I was like, that way, if I get killed, you can still control. But if we get to target together, just know, I get it, you're to the tier one, we're the tier two, but you're going to be, you're going to just rack and stack,

and I'm going to control the fires. He's like, fuck yeah, brother. So this dude's coming out and, like, fucking, I'm pretty sure I had a Delta Force T-shirt with Chuck Norris on it and like shorts and his armor and stuff with his big old beard and stuff

so we go on Target and I had at AC130 I had little birds I had Predator I had F-16s and then like three or four other platforms in the air and so we're traffic copying that

and I'm like and I'm talking to my shooters and I said, hey, if we make contact, this is how I'm going to split, this is my fire support line. Ace 1-130, you're going to hit blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Little birds, you're going to hit blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And as soon as that ramp came down, we got attacked.

What was crazy is they couldn't have picked a worse spot to be at. It was kind of dumb on their part because it was like the Wild West. There was like nothing except two rolls of houses. Like when you watch movies like Tombstone, that's what it looked like. So we just basically had a bound house to house to house to house, and there was nothing but dudes. And so as soon as we made contact, I already had my first three missions at my command. So, you know, as soon as we make contact, we're dropping on here, we're dropping on here. And then my boys are coming in, clearing the houses.

And it's a good thing we did what we did. And we didn't let the other boys come through because these dudes, had like big old murder holes like set up with like I want to say dish guzz and shit where like if they're walking up the stairs they're going to get fucked up yeah and you know they do day ops so it would have been very bad it would have been a very bad day for these guys but we caught them by surprise man and we we we we crushed them and um we ended up getting all 14 of the dudes on the target oh shit and we yeah and it was just it was like a it was a perfect ranger mission nothing but dudes And we just like just killed all these fucking bad dudes and um and it was a good time man and then

that was my last um rotation as a shooter and when I went back um I ended that I was told that I was going to go they were like hey are you going to reenlist and I'm like I can't you know I want to go and I have some stuff going out with my kids in Vegas and it was Sarmajor Lake was like well why don't you go work for that schoolhouse here? I'm like, I'm not going to go back to the regular army. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

So it was at that point where I was like, you know, I'm just getting out. And they were like, well, what if we make it to where you can still wear the beret and you just got to come back to us. And I'm like, hell yeah, I would do that. So, long story short, I end up teaching that the first Army guy, Army J-TAC

to teach at the J-TAC schoolhouse. Wow. The Air Force J-TAC schoolhouse, the J-TAC-Q-C. They're in Las Vegas, Nevada. And Regiment took good care of you, too. That's awesome. Yeah, that was, yeah, that meant a lot to me.

But before that happened, the one thing I would like to say, you know, you get medals, man. And in Ranger Regiment, we're only allowed medals every other rotation, unless a bunch of people get hurt. So medals are kind of, you know, they're cool. You know, and every time I was allowed to get one,

it'd either be from Dev or the unit. But the coolest thing that I ever got, man, that made me cry was, and he'll know. A-code 275, the Black Sheep, they had this board of their insati. who they had like respect for. All these 11 bravos from like, you know, when, when Ranger Regiment came back. And one of the guys came up to me.

I can't remember who it was because it just like overwhelmed me. And I just started crying like a little bitch. And they're like, hey, Eddie, we made a vote. And we're putting you on the board. Holy shit. Oh, that's amazing. So I was the first 9-11 Bravo. to get put on that board.

I don't know if they have another one since then. Yeah. But now me and my son, who ended up becoming a black sheep, both have our name on that board. That's amazing. So, yeah. So when Eddie's talking about Lombrovics, he means like the infantry, the line infantry, and he was, you know, 13 fox or fister. So that's amazing.

I'm curious about something because it all seems so very tactical. And anytime I've seen like a combat controller or JTAC operating under pressure, they were always cool as cucumbers. Like there's so much going on, you know, and they're juggling so much in the midst of a battle. And you said you weren't good at school, right? You said that, you know, that learning wasn't much for you or whatever. But you're talking about controlling multiple stacks of air. And I know that you have a formulated plan, but obviously at some point. that plan can go to shit.

How do you manage that? How do you track it? How do you stay calm and know who's, who you want and what you want from them? You want to know the truth? Yeah. I'll tell you the truth. Before every deployment

when I knew I was about to go, my wife said I would just like, I'm a very passionate and loving and this, and this, isn't that. I'd become stone cold and I would cry a lot. because I was scared and every day that I woke up and went to the gym I prayed to God that I didn't have to do that because it's scary man because if it was me by myself dropping a bomb

from that high up or whatever I wouldn't you know it is what it is I fuck it up I kill myself but when you can kill somebody else is that another ranger who when I was on target I get it I'm not the PL but they were my Rangers right I was taking care of just like the medic right they were my Rangers but for some reason man when that first flew by your ear or or that first round I wanted control right because I'm like I know I can kill this dude yeah or I know I can kill these dudes so if we hit a target and we kill 16 dudes at least 12 of them are coming from me yeah you know I mean and and it's because I'm

going to, I, I think it came a lot with the way that I fight in martial arts. I'm a very big violence of action kind of guy. So if you're throwing punches at me, I'm not the kind of guy who just blocks. I'm the guy who likes to block and get in. The same thing is if you're shooting, like I'm coming up at you and moving towards you. So now you have to, your mindset goes from being a killer to a victim. And, um, Once violence gets in my head, I am extremely calm. And that's my world. You know what I mean?

And that's when I am at my best. And at that point, I can't explain it, man. I just know where everybody's at. I'm racking. I'm stacking. And there's so much math that goes into that. And I suck at math. But somehow I was like, I was murdering it, man.

and it's just because I'm very good at hectic combat situations. You know what I mean? When I was, I put it, when I went to Ranger school,

if your PL gets a no-go, everybody gets a no-go. Right. I was a squad leader. My PL got a no-go. I was the only one that got a go because they all got confused and they couldn't react

when they were getting ambush and I freaking moved my team in, took down the freaking enemy and called in a freaking artillery strike. So I got to go and everybody else got to know. no-go. I'm just really good at violence, man. Yeah. And, and it's, it's not, I'm not proud of that. It makes me sad. To be honest with you,

it's one of my things I'm struggling with. Because I'm a very good person and I, and I have a big heart and I, and I love people. And, um, but when it comes to violence, I'm really good at it, man. I'm just really good at it. And I'm very calm. And, um, but like I said, I would cry before deployment. and I was praying to God we didn't have to go out every day but we always ended up having to go out and when I was on target you know killing someone with my M4

you know I got a bunch of kills my M4 that's easy for me for me and you know what I mean you're right there like bye but calling in a freaking bomb or a rocket a lot of people talk shit but guess what if I would have killed our own guys they'd be like you killed them right But like me and the snipers, and it's fun competition, you know, we always do that competition.

They're like, well, yeah, but you called in this. I'm like, motherfucker, you call that shit in. Because you look at people who've done that who aren't qualified, they got silver stars. You know what I mean? All this shit. That's just a normal day for me. Right. But it was, I don't know, brother.

It was just something in me that that's just what I was good at. Like, I like being in charge. I like having the ability. to take control of that objective. And what was really cool is no matter how badass our PL or Patoon Sergeant was, they trusted me that when I came on the mic, everybody shut up and let me talk. Because they knew I was going to do something devastating.

Yeah. So I was very lucky, man. I was very fortunate. I watch these boys nowadays when I went back as a civilian, man. you can't even drop a goddamn hookin that out of an aircraft without talking to the damn, you know, J-Soc commander.

It's insane. Yeah, who was it we were talking to? He said that he had actually, like, he had to research all the ROEs every time he came in because they would change so much. He actually had, like, this whole thing that he had to go through

that troops were in duress, no, you know, no civilians present. That shit actually got so complicated. There were commanders who didn't understand the R. It was a small group of J-TACs who kind of like had that knowledge that it resided with. Yeah, that got incredibly complicated as the war went on. Yeah, my ground commander was a prekin, was a PL.

And then when I went in as a civilian, the ground commander had to be a captain. Right, right. Yeah. So talk to us about you went and did this job at the schoolhouse, and what was the rest of your time in the Army like? So when I went to the schoolhouse, And it's just, this is just me. I just can't stand.

And that's why I'm struggling now where I'm at. But I can't stand just being there and not making a difference. So normally, if you're an Army guy, and I was teaching at JFC, which is, I think it's joint fire control or whatever. The bottom line is in order to work at a big-ass jock to where you allocated how many aircraft went where. how many tanks went where or whatever, you had to go to this school and get the identifier. So my students were everything from full birds all the way down to E7s.

Wow. Right? And I'm teaching them how to command and how to how to work echelon of fires with both indirect and non-indirect, aerial, naval gunfire, you know, how to make all that work together so that you can get fire superiority. When I first went there, they had me as the guy in charge of Landnapp. When I left, I taught 14 classes.

Not only in JFC, because JFC is in the same schoolhouse as JTAC QC, but they also had me teaching those same classes in JTAC QC. plus I invented an urban simulator to where they used to be just two tank battles where they would have to come together and plan so then we ended an urban one they'd come together and they'd plan this this big old mission I haven't planned two up to are two

um you know like a primary and a secondary and then I'd come in and just blow their fucking plans apart which was cool because you'd have everything from one 60th pilots, F-16 pilots, to admirals in the Navy, I mean, or not admirals, but captains in the Navy, to, like, literally everything you can think of, every branch. And, but it was funny because the 160th guys could make, could plan two things in like 45 minutes. But everybody else, he was like taking them like the whole, you know, two days that they

had a plan. That was just picking the font. That was the picking the font on the PowerPoint, right? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no, no, no, you're good.

And I would sit there and explain to them how they could make, you know, this, this, and that better. And then my plan after that was to go and go to RRC selection. I was an E6. So I was very big on keeping my rank down because I didn't want to grow rank because I knew once you grow rank, you're out of it. Well, I get a call. And it might have even been domain. was it domain it might have been domain but they were like hey man congratulations i'm making e7 i'm like what the fuck do you mean like i don't have a da photo i don't have i didn't update anything

first look i made e7 well back then for rc as a fire supporter you had to be in e6 so i'm like well fuck now what am i going to do so i ended up going to regiment and then i was in regiment for like four days and then they were like, hey, do you want to go be the F.S. Encio for RRC? I'm like, fuck yeah, I'll do that. So I went to R.C. Became the F.S. Encio, which basically meant I taught the boys going through selection. I would take them to a certain spot, and I teach them cast, and I'd play the bad guy and have them control an aircraft to fucking find me and shoot me

and track me down or whatever. But more importantly, I was an ops damn freaking NCO for every day. damn emlat that went down. So I went to first MLAT, second battalion's EMLA, third battalion's EMLA, had to sit there and brief all their off orders and sit there for the, you know, I'm not getting a detail for what the stuff was going on. But yeah, so I was basically the MLAT guy. But, and then I retired under that. It's awesome.

That's wild. Yeah. Oh, incredible career. And, you know, did you get medically retired? Is that how that happened? No, sir. I got, I had, I remember, because I had my years in the Navy first. And Navy also. Yeah, and then that. So I retired at 20 years. Wow. Amazing. Yeah, when I retired in 2013, they actually didn't pay attention too much to medical. And when I retired, they gave me heartburn and toe fungus. Yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. So I had like 40% when I got out. And I had to get lawyers and stuff. I'm at like 90% now.

Good, good. Because apparently my knees and my brain. and all that my hearing. None of that was combat related. That's another fucking story. I ain't even getting into that. So tell us about post-service life and kind of like where that took you. Or not post-service necessarily,

but post-military. Yeah, so that's a good and humbling one, man. So when I was saying I was growing up, I wanted to be Rambo. So my two favorite movies were Rambo and the Bodyguard. and I ended up, I was always a class clown in school, and one of the teachers, you know, they had us do a book report. I tried to fuck it up or like read just the beginning and end. She caught me.

So short, I saw this book and it had like a samurai sword and a beretta. Well, it happened to be about a ex special ops guy who was a bodyguard. So that ended up being my dream, right? So, you know, I found out about Gavin De Becker. they usually start out with, I think they start out with like 2,500 applicants, and then you have to apply in your region to go to a PT, or to go do a PT thing. If your resume is good enough, you get to go do the PT course,

and then if you pass the PT, because I ended up being a PT evaluator in Dallas, I didn't know this at the time, but you can kill it, but if you're like wearing long shorts under your knee, or your pants are sagging or whatever because at the end of the day you represent your client um so then they pick who who who gets that and then and then there's like a couple other series i don't want to give way too much of their stuff but it was it was a long process and then i ended up going to the academy with like 45 people they they said they usually start with 25 200 and they ended up like with 45 or something to go to the academy did a week-long academy

And I was very fortunate because a lot of I know Rangers get pissed off because they end up going to a static location first to where you're basically because Gavin De Becker watches the best, the best. And a lot of these people have like four or five mansions. So a lot of these poor guys got four 12-hour shifts a week and they just watch a house and deal with the gardeners or whatever for 12 hours a day. I got put straight up on a dynamic detail and it was in Dallas, Texas. And so day one, when I remember when I first got to, they were like, hey, we're going to let you get in the groove, we'll start you on Sundays, blah, blah, blah,

and then eventually you'll start to go with the family by yourself. Day one, they came out and they're like, hey, Eddie, we want to go to the mall. And I'm like, holy shit, what am I doing? but um but that was like being a bodyguard was fucking amazing it's just it was what i was born to do the problem was it's 90 hour weeks but you don't know your hours you know the four 12 hours that you have to be there but if me and my wife went on a date i get a phone we have to take two vehicles because i can get a phone call and um they're like hey man they decided to go to a movie and dinner and we need you to advance it.

So I'd have to go to the freaking movie theater, buy the ticket, see where they're going to be sitting, see where the restrooms are, see the exits, and then go pick their favorite restaurants, go to every single one, talk to the belly, all that stuff, and be like, hey, man, I'm going to pay this, you're going to park the car here, you're going to give me the keys, blah, blah, blah, talk to the waitresses and be like, hey, whatever they order, give it to me, because I got their stuff, I'm going to pay the money, their checks, if they get something else, you know, so that when they're done, basically, they can go eat, and when they're done, they give me a thumbs up, and I'm like, we're

good to go. The one thing I will say is, because not only did I have my main client, I had people come through, I was very fortunate that I never had a horror story, and all the people that I had were very amazing people. And, um, funny thing is, is, um, I can't bring up the clients because I can literally get sued very bad. Like if I wrote a book, like for every page that was published, it's like $1.50 or some shit that I get sued. But the funny thing about it is, is my guy who I represented said that he wanted me to thank everybody in special operations, because he's a huge special operations

fan. And he would ask me, he would ask me, he would ask me, because you know I would go to these events. And one day I asked me. the company and I'm like hey you know my client wants to know if I can whenever I run into special operation guys if I could thank him for their service and he's like yeah you can so I'm like

cool so basically if we weren't on air I could tell both of you exactly who I was my main body are and they can't get me because I'm like bro you said I was cool I can't write a book or anything about it but I could say thank you from the family for what you do

but yeah so that's was a good time but well I will tell you on the dark side of that was all this shit that we did we just talked about well you're in you know you were in Ranger Battalion and you were doing this and you were doing that and you were calm under

this so when I was a bodyguard you know I may just have to drop him off at a movie theater with the right door and all of a sudden my hands are numb

my feet are numb I'm getting tunnel vision I'm like what the fuck going into the zone I'm like what the fuck is going on dude like this is nothing like why am I stressing the fuck out and then I started noticing this after that and I'm like extremely depressed

I think you know what God's going to pay me back because even though I feel like everything I've done and I would not take anything I've ever done back because there's always to save a ranger. But because of my career field, I killed a lot of fucking people. And I felt like God was going to pay me back.

So I was always scared that I was going to lose my kids. I was always scared of this. And I was just constantly sad, constantly depressed. And one day, it just hit me so hard. And the reason I do what I do for my podcast, man, and here's a big thing that this is the biggest reason. Well, there's two reasons. One, I want people to know what Ranger did.

You know what I mean? Like, I get it. We have our, you can't talk about it. I totally understand that. But at the end of the day, you can still say, like, literally every single war, Rangers have done the most daring and amazing shit. Point Du Hoc. Nobody even knows what that is.

Rescuing those hostages from the Japanese. Like, Rangers all. always get the most insane Merrill's Marauders. Oh, it was 6th Ranger Battalion that did the POW rescue. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? And it's like dude, we can talk

about our story without bringing, you see, I don't talk tactics. Right. I don't talk names. I don't talk any of that. But at the end of the day, I do want the world to know it. Yeah. What the unit did. It wasn't me. It was a general who said

that the Ranger Regiment as killed and captured more tier one targets than all units combined, both special operations and conventional. Yeah. Because we're always a part of it. It was published in one of the people, was it the New York Times or,

I don't remember, but there was a big article about it that the range was like just swacked more people, more bad guys. And if we end up going somewhere and something happens, you hear special operations soldier. And I get it, man. Again, I get it. I think it was more when my son became,

a ranger that as a father I'm like I want people to know what my son has done yeah yeah with me it was like whatever my my family knows but I wanted to know what my one of them know my son was done and then the shit I'm going through now and and and and and the stuff that my poor wife has to deal with you know what I mean um I got a therapist I got brain doctors I got cardiologists I got euro I mean all of a sudden I was benching 225 And it was hard as fuck. Turns out my testosterone level in two months after leaving Ranger Regiment dropped to the same level as a 78 year old man.

Wow. Holy shit. Yeah. And so you can imagine what that does to everything else. Right. Right. So now I have to get a testosterone shot once a month. And that, I mean, that's all I do.

And everybody's like, oh, you do, no, I don't do anything else because they test you before you get your new cycle. You know what I mean? It's just I work hard. because I again I have this thing in my head and I don't know if it's a Latin thing that's why if you're a Latin gangbanger those guys are scary bro because they will do anything for their fucking unit or their group or the Latin fucking cartel but I'm a Latin Ranger and everything I do I try to represent Ranger Regiment so I always try to stay in shape

and I always want to still be you know able to take care of my family I'm about to be 50 years old you know i'm still taking muay Thai classes and like why don't you do jiu jitsu because every old man does jiu jitsu bro i like to bang you know what i mean like i want to bang it out you know what i mean and that's just that's just a difference with me man and and um i feel like you know i've always been a warrior and and that's just kind of who i am but with that i was the guy i'm also the guy who can watch, and I like to put this out because people think, oh, you know, Rangers are this, this, and that, but

you know, if I, I can sit there and watch America's got talent or something and see this story, and I'm crying like a little bitch. You know what I mean? Like, my daughters and my wife, I hate watching that shit with them. I don't watch it with them, because they all go like this. And it makes me

so mad, I'm like, stop ruining my moment. It's like, dude, I'm like, let me cry. Let me get this out, you know? And, but yeah, so it's pretty funny, but so then I realized, you know, it was hard. So I got a call from a buddy of mine who worked at third range of battalion as a civilian. So now I'm on my way back to third range of battalion, which normally you think my wife would have been upset about, but she's like, let's do this. Because she doesn't see me anyways. We almost, we went through a bad scenario. And that's another thing I do, Because when I talk to, I'm the first one of my friends to retire.

When I talk to my buddies, I'm like, whether they're Delta, I'm like, look, man, I'm telling you right now, you have no idea what you're about to get into. Yeah. I tell their wives, too. I'm so sorry, hon, but you ain't seen shit yet. And so I go to third range of Italian. Next to you know, I'm fucking deploying again. I'm in Afghanistan. And so I'm deploying with the strike force in Afghanistan.

And I was just working, though, pulling mass. and putting it on their phones, but I was with the strike force, it was cool. You know, so I was pulling all their stuff. And then my son was deploying. I'm like,

hey, I want to go with Second Ranger Battalion. I want to be with my son. Big mistake. Huge mistake. I went there and 1-75, he was a dog handler. All their dog handlers were hit.

The one guy who was there was shot in the face but recovered. either shot in the face or shot in the neck I can't remember but he recovered so now I'm like what the fuck dude because now I wasn't around fighting when we had to work with the indigenous

I mean yeah so now you get these dudes hey you gotta do this and then when shit it's the fan they run and now our boys are just fucked it's not Ranger Pure like I was used to but my son being a dog handler's got to go up with these knuckleheads so when they run back he's not going to be protected

so I was scared shitless. I can't tell you if any of you guys were to walk outside and get in a fight, if you think I could just, just a fist fight, no weapons.

If you think I could sit inside and let that happen, you're smoking crack. Now having to give my, put, even before my son, putting boys in the bus to go to the fucking vehicle.

And by boys, I mean, but I mean I'm an old man. Yeah, yeah. And just like not being able to go with them was heartbreaking. but my son bro I put him on target

and I'm watching that shit live that was not good for you man I'm sitting there and I go back and I'm crying in my my hooch I can't tell my wife about anything I can't do this this and that you know and my son

a couple times he was walking point and I'm sitting there and I'm putting his fucking and I'm just like oh my god and then and I'm watching they're like oh the bad guys own this area this area this area you're gonna go in the middle. 25 of you are going to go in the middle

and you're going to get this guy. And when it's you, you're like, fuck it, I got this. When it's your son. But I will say the one cool thing that happened out of that, and it was going to look at me like I'm weird, is one night, I was, my wife was mad at me because I do a lot of dumb shit

and I make her mad all the time. And we just got off the phone and it was, I think they want to say, I think they said it was a 2,000 pound or 25,000 pound, bid hit us. I remember that blue-gaked. And that thing just boom! Just blew right there in Boggham.

And my son's walls caved in on him and his dog. And I remember, I was sitting there with no shirt on in my pants, about to lay down like, thinking like, you know, feeling sorry for myself because my wife's mad at me. And I hear this like, boom, and it hit, I thought it was mortars because it hit the,

um, the, um, the gym. And then one big piece hit where all our dudes were at, where our boys stay at and the team house is at, and then one hit the jock. And then my window, the only window out of all the civilians,

I'm the only one that took eight big ass rocks coming through. I thought it was bullets. So I thought it was, I thought the locals drew a bomb, and then they were fighting our own dudes during training, and they had real rounds. So I'd break and run out,

you know, with no weapon, you know, with my fucking Ben Diesel jacket, you know, and I won't get too much into that after that because remember I'm a civilian, but that was fun. That was fun, you know, being in being there when that shit's going down and I know my, I was originally going to go to my son. But once I saw that the boys were already teaming up and moving in teams, you know, I'm smart enough to know, you stay the fuck away from it. you know, let them do their thing. And then I saw my boy, he came through. I knew he was safe and watching the boys work and, you know, doing what I was doing. Yeah, man, it was. That's awesome.

I didn't actually know that the Rangers responded to that and helped repel that attack. Yeah, well, because originally we were holding our sector. And then, you know, I'm used to this, man. I've been in so many of these. After I started getting bored. Me and it was first on Archer back because now to be able to be, Second Range of Boutines are major. I'm so excited for him.

We just kind of looked at each other, and we were just laughing because a lot of these dudes are new. You know, not our guys, but dudes are running around because you've got knuckleheads running around from fucking some jocks somewhere with two pistols like an idiot. And, uh, um, but, um, so eventually I went to bed because I got bored. And shit's going on.

It's going like for 12 hours. And they wake me up. They're like, hey, man, we need you to make graphics because we're going to take. it down because I guess originally you got to let the base take care of it but they couldn't or whatever I don't know and they put themselves in a abandoned hospital thank God if there was CCT and PJs there I said I want to say just like three hours before that happened doing training but there was no one in there so basically there was after that V-bit hit there was seven assaulters yeah seven

assaulters and so they strongholded that building and they set booby traps everywhere and they all had vests and so they were hoping our boys would come through and they were going to clack that building down and fucking you know take as many people as they could but we're not that stupid so we clear it up to where we could and then we're like all right we're going to drop we're going to drop a 500 pounder and they leveled that fucking thing and all those boys went night night and um yeah i know And then one dude, I guess one dude just quit. It was really weird. He was just like, fuck it.

I'm not playing anymore. Started walking away. And one of our snipers from the top of the roof canudum in the head. Because my phone was like, yeah, yeah. He still had his weapon. But he was just like, I don't know. Like it was just cool to quit. He just started walking.

He didn't run. He had his AK. He was just walking away. Now back to the village that's close by in a sniper canoom. But yeah, that was pretty much ended up. that one. And then I deployed again and it was fucking horrible because there was peace and all I did was basically. I felt like I was in jail because I sat in my little conics got up, went to the gym, H.L and went back to my fucking conics because there wasn't shit going on. But yeah, that was

pretty much it, you know, other than civilian working a civilian and you know working for Solcom now doing radio testing. Cool. Okay. So, That's what you're doing today. And you said you're, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. You're still in the process of the medical treatment and kind of like getting your arms around that problem. Yeah. Can we talk about your TBI and like how it's affected you and, uh, or TBIs? Um, and I want you to know I'm right there with you.

Like I told you before the show, I forget my phone number. I forget my zip code. Um, like shit that, like it has a huge effect on, on us. well I think what a lot of people don't realize is um even before the war we didn't have the high speed peltors or you know the stuff they got now we had those little foamy yeah yellow things but when you're training you can't have that in your ear because you're yelling so you're you take them out and you're shooting here that alone right there is just constantly you know jacking you up and And then what are you supposed to do?

You're only allowed to shoot like, what, three Gustav rounds a week or some shit? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but when we go, we would do M-LATs. And where M-LATs is when we would work with 160th, and it was just the Fisters, and we'd call in helicopters, and we would try to use the Gustav to mark targets. But they would give us a ridiculous amount of rounds. So now we're doing a spend-ex. So everybody's shooting 10 fucking Gustav rounds in one day, which I don't know if it's true,

but it's supposed to put like a little hole in your heart after every fucking round or whatever you shit down. But I could tell you for me, it hurts because I have an amazing family. My youngest daughter just graduated as an RN there in Las Vegas. My other daughter lives with me. My son's doing amazing. I took two amazing grandkids.

And I just want to be happy, you know? and it's like, I don't know because I don't know what the fuck's wrong with me. Well, it's jumping from one life and one identity onto the next and whatever comes next for you in life. But, you know, there is something else out there for you, 100%.

There's a whole other life for you after your service. Yeah. I'm bit, I mean, I empathize with you because it's, I mean, I just talked to a therapist last week about like doing shit for my for my like for the tbi's and stuff um and it it like it alters your mood uh it you know and it sucks like not being as on it as i know i used to be um you know and you couple that with the physical pain just from being beaten it beaten down over the years um so i i i as

empathize. I'm right there with you. Like I'm, I'm in this right now, like, trying to figure it all out. Yeah. And, you know, I think a lot of it is, like, I have an amazing family, especially on the Travis side. And I'm just, I feel like I'm not good enough to be around him. I feel like I'm a, I'm a killer. I know they don't do me that way. They tell me all the time, but I can't help the way I feel. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just trying to be a better man. And, you know, the reason why I started, you know, my podcast or my podcast, you know, the operator debrief is because I just want guys to get a chance to speak.

and kind of help each other heal, you know, and not everybody has to be a Sarm Major to be a legend. Yeah. You know what I mean? A lot of these boys serve four years, and in my eyes, they're a legend of the Ranger Regiment. But, and it's just, it's hard. And again, like I said, I won't take anything back,

but at the end of the day, I took way of people's fathers and sons, and they were bad, and they needed to go. I mean, back in our day, we'd find, maps of Disneyland and shit, you know, but it's just, it's, it's an everyday struggle. Yeah. And, you know, my job now where I don't have Rangers around me anymore. Yeah. It's, it's hard, man.

It's hard, it's hard being average. Yeah. I don't mean to say it like that. No, I, I know what you mean, though. You'll never be average, Eddie. There's nothing you can do about that. But I know what you mean is, it's hard to go from being the point. pointing into the spear with a purpose, with a passion,

with something you always wanted to do. And you're doing stuff that they make movies about. You're doing stuff that they write books about. You're doing stuff that little boys grow up pretending to do. Like, you're doing, you're fulfilling this thing, and then someday it comes to an end, and you don't have the job, you don't have the camaraderie, you don't have the community, you know, you don't have that asprit of core,

and then you're out in the civilian world it's like everything's just kind of whatever like yeah no I totally understand I'm and I worry a lot about my boys because I feel like

you know you know how our community is they're very hard on each other and it's like if if if our boys are successful you got a lot of those knuckleheads who want to fucking bring them down right but if they kill themselves they're like oh my God you know

blah blah blah Yeah, right. It's like, bro, maybe if you had a fucking supported him a little bit. Right. You know, I've never, I've never seen a ranger succeed that I wasn't like fucking out goddamn standing. Right. I heard there's a couple rangers who made that bracelet that Taylor Swift wore, but she hugged Kelsey, whatever. And now those dudes are fucking, like, killing it.

Fuck yeah, bro. You know what I mean? Yeah. Fuck yeah. Like, I don't get jealous of my voice. I want Rangers to do good at everything they do. And if you're sitting there eating your fucking potato chips talking about how badass you used to be,

at the end of the day, bro, there's a reason we trained every day. Because if you don't train every day, you lose it. You know? And so I back up what I say. All I do is talk the truth. And I continue to train. I continue to try to be a warrior for my family. Like I said, I'm taking Muay Thai.

dabble with Jiu-Jitsu a little bit. And by the way, that Mui-T, I would like to say to people getting out, find something you like. If you're not a striker and you haven't been a striker, I don't suggest Mu-Tai. Yeah. I would say Jiu-Jitsu, because you can play around Jiu-Zitsu to you're 80 years old and still be okay. You fuck around with kids and Mui-Tai. You're going to get your, you're going to get, yeah. Eddie, tell us about your podcast where people can find it, what it's called.

Okay, cool, man. So my podcast is Operator Debrief. We are on YouTube and other platforms. Like Spotify, sorry, I have to talk to my producers because, like I said, my brain sucks. Spotify, what else? All social medias and Rumble. and basically I guess everywhere there's a podcast

you can have a podcast right yeah yeah we'll put a link down the description of this podcast and video too for people who want to find it how did it how did it start how did you start the podcast so it's kind of funny so at my new job that I'm at it was me and a couple boys talking it was me my buddy Craig who you met who's done a lot of cool shit he wasn't on the soft side but he did a lot of cool stuff on the security

he had to sit in front of Congress and get his ass chew out a couple of times which I thought was pretty fucking funny I never saw it I never saw it but I'm like that's pretty cool story and then my other two buddies who were SF commo dudes support but you know how that is nobody joins SF to be a combo dude So if you're good, if they trust you, they take you on target. So, you know, they end up going on target being the combo guy so that,

so the SF combo dudes can be shooters. Yeah, the Sigdet guys. Yeah, yeah. So, well, we're just fucking around talking about this shit one day. And originally we're talking about, like I'll show you here with, what we're talking about making T-shirts and stuff. And we're like, yeah, and I was just screwing around. I was like, we should call it two dudes and another dude.

And they're like, what are you talking about? Because me and my buddy would always fuck around. I'm like, what are you doing? You know, two dudes and another dude. And so we switched it around because there's four of us. And I'm like, why don't we call it three gag? Three guys and another guy. And so that's how we got our name.

So my media company is three gag. And from there, you know, we branch off and do other things. Operators debrief is just kind of my thing that I do. we have another company that is coming up called oh, Defiance, well, we'll just, when it comes out, I'll push it out on my podcast, but we have really cool shirts. We have really cool shirts like this one here. It says my second favorite DP.

The dual barrel shotgun, double. pump. But yeah, then we've got a bunch of cool things like that that we're putting in and we're just making sure we get the right t-shirts we want stuff before we actually push it out. And then, yeah, so we'll be pushing merch as well. And then same thing for operators debrief. We'll start pushing out T-shirts and stuff for that as well. But I have an amazing lineup.

I have a bunch of heavy hitters. Pretty excited about. from this war to Somalia to I'm excited like we got we got some boys out awesome we got some boys out there that we've already recorded my second video for anybody knew who goes there my first video was they wanted me to talk about myself a little bit but the first one we actually recorded was with my buddy Garrett from Delta I served with his dad and I served with him at 275 then he served with my son

and then he went to Delta but that was the first one we filmed and our audio was all jacked up. It still has the most view, ironically. We've been there. Our audio still gets fucked up. Like we've never mastered the audio thing. Yeah, it's, but it's still pushing the highest views.

That's cool. And then we'll do buddy checks from time to time, but we'll video it, you know. And another thing I want to do, another thing that I'm, well, we just got a bunch of things we want to do out there. And I just, I kind of want to bring like a relaxed environment. And then we have a Patreon.

And the Patreon operator debrief as well, right? Operator debrief as well. And when I have guests that actually show up, we do, we do some funny things. So the last ones we did, well, for one we did was with the 160th pilot, Greg. So we decided, I found out that, that, uh, Costco, the Kirkland brand, has like an equivalent of gray goose and an equivalent of red label and stuff like that. So we had a taste test if we could tell what was what. And the loser had to jump in our pool with these little itty-bitty Superman underwear.

Oh, my God. Yeah. So you got to get in our Patreon. You get to see stuff like that. So we have a lot of, so what we'll do is, you know, we keep it. We do our little fun, professional. But then we have the Patreon as well, you know, for, you know, some of our outtakes as well as, you know, funny shit like that that we've done. Like tortilla slaps, all that kind of shit.

Is the, is the operated debrief? Is it, because you mentioned that, you know, kind of talking to guys who are going through some of the same stuff you are. Is it more focused on, on that than the sort of their history? Yes, sir. So it is. It is. It hits that a lot. But there are some stuff on there that we do add.

So basically it's like some for some of them, if it's like if you're from the same unit, we're not going to go through your selection phase and blah, blah, blah. But I might ask what decided to make you go that route. And then like usually a couple operations that they did. And then, yeah, it's like how you coping. And, yeah, and it's just, it's good. Like, I mean, really, really excited.

We just had Greg's second episode pop out Sunday. And I'm really excited. My best friend, Will Hudson, is on the next one. And I watched it, and it, like, I laughed. I cried and fucking, I'm pretty excited about that one coming out. Not this Sunday, but next Sunday. Awesome. And then, again, we have some, we have some heavy hitters after that.

I got some I don't know if you guys heard of the gangsters like bully and fucking you know dudes who are just somehow just unstoppable fucking killers and yeah

so my whole thing is just to kind of bring awareness to the community the things that we've done as well as more importantly how are we how are we dealing with our lives now because I don't I feel like some dudes might

sit there and go because I know when I felt what I felt, I thought I was being a little bitch. But it turns out that I don't, if you've done anything anything worth of shit in this war, you're fucked up.

You know what I mean? It just is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. And there's different degrees to it and I just happen to be in that task force that we were going out running and gunning once to two times a night. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I'm very happy and fortunate for that,

but boy, am I paying the price of that shit now? Yeah. Yeah. That sounds fantastic. It sounds like something that isn't really being talked about. It sounds like a very novel idea. We support you. I just subscribed.

I hope everybody listening or watching this subscribe. I'm excited to listen to some of these episodes you're talking about when they come out. It's awesome. I hope people go check it out. Eddie, thank you so much for joining. us tonight telling us your story i appreciate you guys man yeah man i mean like keeping it super real too and it's important for other people out there going through the same thing to hear it you know and hear that they're not alone that's that like means a lot to people i think yeah i appreciate that um

it's kind of weird talking about yeah i know and then you get bumbled up and you just keep talking it's kind of i almost felt like it was a therapy session to be honest with you but but that's why i want to do this man so so my boys can come out here and just kind of let it out a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I honestly, I think that that fraternity and the camaraderie is not that it should supplant therapy, but I think that it's the best type of therapy. You know, having, you know, those people that have had those shared experiences

and seeing that none of us are alone in this. Yes, sir. Well, thank you again. I appreciate you guys to have me on, man. It's an honor. Thank you. You're the man. Any final thoughts before we can.

get going tonight? Nothing other than the fact that the Steelers are the best team in the NFL. All right, guys, on Friday, we'll be back with Jack Devine. He was the head of the National Clandestine Service or the Director of Operations at CIA. Had like a 32-year career there. So we'll have him here in studio on Friday. We're looking forward to that. Eddie, again, thank you for spending your Monday evening with us.

appreciate you guys thank you all right and go go check out his podcast i'm going to be checking it out too some of the names you mentioned or people i recognize or even served with back in the day so i'm i'm excited to hear it myself all right appreciate you brother all right take care eddie thank you right thanks a raise take care out