#153 Kris Paronto - Inside the 13-Hour Benghazi Gunfight and the Hillary-Obama Cover-Up

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Chris Perranto, welcome to the show, man.

Long time coming.

I don't cry already said it, but thanks for, and you're so tolerant, man.

That was so cool that you were just willing to wait.

And then just, hey, I'm going to be in town.

And I hope you didn't have to bump anybody.

If you did,

sorry, guys.

But

just you're, you've always been a stand-up guy with me.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

It's really cool.

Yeah.

Thanks, bud.

My pleasure.

I'm just happy you're here and I'm extremely patient.

So there aren't many stand-up guys in it

in the world and even coming out of our community anymore in this public figure world.

So it's nice to still find a few out there.

Like you're thinking about it.

I try to be, but I'm not always a stand-up guy, that's why.

Oh, I'm sure you are.

Talk to my wife, man.

I need to bring you home.

Talk to my wife about how nice and reasonable I am because I don't get that respect at home, man.

Well,

Chris, Chris, I want to do a life story on you.

Yeah.

You know, and

obviously talk a lot about Benghazi and what you're doing now, but we're going to cover the full spectrum here.

And so everybody starts off with an introduction.

So I'm just going to read, don't make me feel like a pretentious asshole.

Oh, no, you're good.

Everybody gets one.

Chris Perranto, former Army Ranger, 2nd Battalion, 75th Regiment.

You responded responded to the Benghazi 2012 attack.

You're the author of The Ranger Way and the Patriots' Creed, co-author of 13 Hours, the inside account of what really happened in Benghazi.

You're a motivational and public speaker and the co-host on Battleline Podcast.

You're the founder of the 14th Hour Foundation, owner of Battle Line Tactical, and co-owner of Tanto Vodka.

You're the host of a pro-military documentary series, War Heroes.

You co-founded E3 Firearms Association, and you're the father, you're a father, husband, and a Christian.

That's the most important there at the bottom.

You could have cut out everything else and just read that at the bottom, and I would have been perfectly happy.

That right there just tells everybody what a great man you are.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

And thanks, man.

Thank you.

It was cool of you to say.

You're welcome.

What is the the E3 Firearms Association?

Well, you know,

it's so difficult.

I don't know if you know Adam Painchott.

Adam, it was a SIG firearms truck.

He started SIG Academy, a SIG Trooper in New Hampshire.

It is a training website.

It has been so difficult, though, to get that thing off the ground.

It was just running to roadblock after roadblock

because of Google.

And if you don't think there's state-run media and

state-run internet web, there is.

You have to be dumber in a bag of hammers to not see that out there.

But

we've tried to get it going.

There's a lot of training materials on there, videos out there.

And, you know, you get sponsorships to come to Battle Line Tackle courses.

If you're a member, you come to my courses for free.

Oh, wow.

I mean, it's just, it's so is it an online training platform?

It's an online training platform, but it's a paid online training.

How many lessons are on there?

Oh, man.

I know just hit pocket training stuff where I'll just jump on and do a 10-minute video.

We've got to have 50 or 60 videos on it.

Oh, right on.

And Adam's a wonderful, wonderful instructor.

He is, I am the loosey-goosey, hey, man, let's just go out and shoot.

I'm going to give you some lessons.

Adam is,

which is great.

It's a great dynamic because he, you, you do.

There are people that respond to that kind of training better.

The.

buy the book lesson by where some guys respond to just tell me what i need to do this is what you need to do but you know it's it's been, we've had it going for a few years now, and it's just always trying to improve the website, get that flowing.

It's E3 does a, and it's a whole association.

So it's not just farms.

There's camping.

It's outdoor.

Oh, wow.

Camping, aviation.

John Rainwaters runs the aviation side of it,

you know, RVing, off-roading.

And

so I tell the E3 owner, his name's Brian, Brian, Brian Johnson.

I tell him, yeah, Farms is is like the redhead stepchild of E3

because all those are cruising and ours is just, it's been very difficult.

And I get it too, because, you know, it's a paid website where

there's a lot of YouTube sensations out there that are showing training and you can get that for free.

Yeah.

So it is.

And it's,

I won't do the free video stuff.

And

the reason being, it's not a money thing.

It really is.

You really don't have any control of who those videos are going to.

And where do I get that from?

Well, I spoke at an fbi academy at conference which had a lot of law enforcement officers a lot of former fbi trainers

and i sat down with them and they're great guys you know of course it's not all formal functions i'm with a bunch of cops man so of course we're going to go to the bar a little bit and and enjoy enjoy have some food and but i remember coming back and i sat with one of the officers and he goes you know You've had Don Shipley on.

I know.

He goes, you know, I watched Don's videos, but now it's starting to bother me a lot of these videos out there because they're teaching all these tactics and they don't know, they have no control of who's getting them.

And the Dallas police officer, Dallas chief of police came in and they had that tactical shooting where some officers died.

And he was one of the speakers at that event as well.

And it kind of hit home to me.

I was like, man.

He's exactly right.

We're putting all these videos and God bless them.

I have nothing wrong to say about Don.

I don't know Don.

We've never met.

I support what he does.

I think, you know, he's a, from what I've seen, he looks like he's a stand-up guy.

And I'm just throwing that as an example because that's what the law enforcement officer said.

The police, he was from Philadelphia.

He's like, we just, you know, we're really, we're really getting not upset, but he says, we're really worried that the bad guys are starting to watch these videos out there.

Well, I mean, there's a caveat to that, too.

You know, I mean, what the f are people supposed to do?

We've defunded the police.

The border is wide open.

Yeah.

They are actively sending $87 million a week to the Taliban.

Sorry, man.

You know what I mean?

But

people have to be able to defend themselves, and that's where they go to do it.

And that stuff's out there no matter what.

And that's where it's just,

it's where I can at least have some control, though.

And, you know what I mean?

I mean, people are.

I 100% get your point.

And it didn't make sense to me until he said it, too.

Yeah, until he said it.

But there is context.

Things aren't the same as they used to be.

Not at all.

And the people, it's dangerous out there.

I mean, Chicago is the murder capital of the country, and more people are dying there than they did in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And it's no shock that that is one of my most, I have a range there with a Chicago cop, Deva Defense, Daniel Lombard, tremendous guy.

We've got a range called the Compound.

I don't think that's any coincidence that the majority, those are the biggest classes that I will have when I teach out there at the compound in Crete, Illinois.

It's run by Daniel Lombard, Deva Defense is his training company, but he's a lead farm instructor for the Chicago PD.

He's getting older now, so he's off the street.

Now he's teaching.

But you're right.

It's just this,

where do I find some responsibility?

And again, I never thought of it that way until I talked to him.

I was like, you know, he's got a point.

So I'm not going to stop doing videos.

Don't care.

No, that's not going to happen.

But where can I at least have some control?

I'm not going to stop teaching tactics with my classes.

Well, Tony, you're a hypocrite.

No, I at least have some control.

I know who I'm teaching.

I at least have something.

And have we turned students away when I couldn't verify whether they could carry a criminal?

Yeah, we have.

I've done it.

So

I'm not ever going to tell guys to stop teaching tactics.

And it's an outlet for us, too.

It's therapeutic for us.

But I would just say after talking to that police officer and then getting back to the E3 stuff,

being a paid website, I don't have a problem with it being paid because we have some control of at least who the members are and who's watching.

And if it's somebody that

maybe is a criminal, shouldn't be owning a weapon, we have some little control that we can.

All right, I'm like, I can't stop them from learning from other guys, but

you're out.

We can't teach you anymore.

But getting back to the E3 again, it has been an

uphill climb with it because it is a paid website and you can get the training for free on YouTube or Instagram.

And but you know, from tactics are tactics are tactics.

Shooting is fundamentals.

There is no secret sauce.

There's no Jedi mind trick.

You're not going to, I'm not going to be teaching you how to use the force.

The way I shoot, you can go watch another shooter and you're going to get the same stuff.

It's just a presentation.

Who do you like?

What resonates with you?

So yeah, E3

has been good.

And I think it's wonderful because we're part of an outdoor.

We're telepathy.

Hey, go, go do something.

Firearm shooting is outdoor.

Shooting is relaxing, at least least in my opinion.

Shooting is you're outside in the fresh air, or you're at least doing something active.

It's a sport.

It really is.

I mean, shit, you have the competitions, the USCCA, you have all those, the tech games.

It's a sport now.

And it should be like that.

The reason I'm getting into why I talk about it and the paid and not paid is

really why I don't do more unpaid YouTube videos online.

I don't do that.

That's why I don't.

And

is because I don't have control of who's watching it.

And

it was that conversation with that Philadelphia police officer and then listening to, he spoke before I spoke, the Dallas chief of police.

And now he wasn't condemning it at all.

He's just saying this guy knew what he was doing.

He had some tactics and

say, no, what he was doing.

He knew how to pie.

He knew how to edge a corner.

Well,

Chris, before we get too deep into the interview, everybody gets a gift.

Oh, another man, you're all gifted.

Nothing but hospitality.

Oh, man.

They're gummies.

That's right.

Those are legal in all 50 states.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately for you, I don't know.

But

they are made here in the USA.

Oh, that's what and yeah.

So there you go.

Some vigilance elite going through.

Those are hard to come by, by the way.

And listen, actually, this is going on my side-by-side when I get home.

Nice.

It'll be at the range, man.

Nice.

And thank you.

Thank you so much.

And

you we need to bring manufacturing back to this country man the only thing we manufacture now is drama and freaking political bullshit that's right need more manufacturing thank you man you're welcome

one last thing yeah before we get in i got a patreon account there are my top supporters that have been here with me since the beginning and um they're the reason i'm here and you're here yep so uh one of the things i do is i give them the opportunity to ask each guest a question uh-oh and so this one is from Moose.

What's up, Boose?

What was it like for you to see the Obama administration blatantly lie about something you saw firsthand?

Blame the attack on something unrelated and refuse to call it a terrorist attack.

How did it feel to be on the ground at the annex and realize that help was not coming?

Let's do one question first.

Well, let's go first first with the help not coming.

We'll just go on a timeline there.

We can skip that.

We'll do that.

We'll do that.

Okay.

So give me, give me number two because the feeling.

What was it like for you to see the Obama administration blatantly lie about something you saw?

Yeah.

I mean, I can tell you, watch Fox and Friends, the last interview I ever did on Fox and Friends with Pete Hexeth.

It was back in 2014 or 15, where

somebody caught him on a cell phone.

It was either at L'Oreal or one of those liberal colleges there in Chicago.

I can't remember which one.

And he said, Benghazi was a conspiracy.

He didn't know he was being filmed.

And of course, they threw it on the TV.

It's at six in the morning.

I was just, I was actually in Springfield.

I was going to go speak at

an event that was sponsored by the guy that owns Bass Pro.

So I was staying out at the Bass Pro resort up there.

I told Pete I couldn't be there.

I said, I got to zoom in.

So I zoomed in at 6 a.m.

And I'm half asleep.

I've been, this was my fifth speaking event in like seven days, just spent.

And

pissed me off.

Well, why would it?

Of course it pissed me.

I mean,

all those lines continually, it was angry.

It made me full of hate.

And what did I say?

And you can watch it.

It's out there on YouTube somewhere, I'm sure.

He said, what did you feel after you watched Benghazi call it a conspiracy?

And I said, well, Pete, I said, I wanted to reach to the TV and I wanted to choke his ass.

I want to choke him out.

And Pete, his eyes got big.

He goes, you

probably don't want to be threatening

a former U.S.

president.

And I said, Peter, you asked me.

That was my last ever Fox interview, actually, I ever did.

And I did get visited by the Secret Service two weeks later.

Luckily, I knew the guys.

They showed up at my house.

Like, Chris, we got to be here.

You're threatening a president on national TV.

And, but if that tells you my anger right there, I mean,

without even thinking, skipping a beat, and it it wasn't to create, it wasn't to troll accounts, it wasn't to do clickbait.

It was an immediate reaction.

As soon as I saw it, it was like, that mother.

And I didn't want to kill her.

I'm like, let's get in the ring.

I'm going to put you in a lock and let's see how you feel, man.

That's what I felt.

So of course I was angry.

I was angry for a lot of years.

And I think if you watch even your speeches that I've done out there, I just still do corporate talks.

I just did, you know, that's why I'm in Nashville and do your show.

And I did a talk at the Gaylord there.

In the early days, the speeches were very, very angry because nobody was being held accountable.

And there were people that were calling us liars.

And

it's hard to be called a liar, guys.

When I saw Roan, and I was shooting over their heads when that last, those three mortars through a firefight fict hit right on top of Building C.

The fifth attack that night.

And I was shooting, and it wasn't, the movie showed as daytime.

It was actually,

it was

before Morning morning nautical twilight.

It was right before this, you know, you know what that is.

Your viewers can Google that.

It's right before the sun comes up.

So it's still dark.

So my night vision was still on.

My 15s were on.

And

remember the first one hit, blew up on the backside of building C was right over the top.

Roan spun.

He went cyclic on that belt fed, which was pretty freaking awesome because all I'm seeing is a laser beam as he turns.

They're coming to attack us through

the sheep slaughterhouse area.

I put a few rounds over his head because i want to get in a fight even though i can't see that because i'm i'm back behind them on building a he's on building c dave's those dave open shoots roz is up there he shoots bub is up there he's shooting so i'm seeing all this fire shooting i'm thinking shit mortar's this way they got to be bringing a whole force following those mortars in so i turn around make sure nobody's coming nobody's there come back two more shots I see one hit directly right on top.

Night vision goes completely white.

You know, his overabundance like white.

As it comes back, i saw four and now there's three so guy disappeared and i can hear him screaming even in all that i can still hear him it was dave i didn't know it at the time but it was ubin just shared it sheared his leg off sheared his arm they were hanging so not completely gone but he's

legs this way arms this way how do i know that tig got up there when he saw dave tig told me what his arm his arms and legs look like

Take a few more shots because what can you do?

We're still getting attacked.

We're in the middle of a fight.

You know, it is.

You don't, you can't stop fighting.

What am I going to do?

Run off my building and go help he's got three guys up there i got to keep fighting i got my sector behind me i got to take i turn around i come back they're still shooting i took two more shots and then i saw boom boom boom if you've been in artillery you call for fire and you know what that is that's fire for effect they're right where they want to hit it night vision goes white

And as it comes back, all I see is the pixie dust.

It got quiet.

It got silent.

Really weird.

I thought they were going to keep coming.

And

all I saw was the charged particles because, you know, blow-ups, explosion, the debris of the dust gets either heated or charged.

And it looks like it does.

It looks like pixie dust coming down with those movies

with my night vision starts to come back and refocus from the white light.

And they were all gone.

And

my brain said,

your team just got turned to dust.

It's like, holy, I mean, it was, it was, it was, and it maybe it felt like longer than what it was.

It was only a few seconds, but I put my head down and I remember thinking, and it was the one time negatively I thought that every other time there was negative things happened, but that was the one time where it was like that, holy shit, we might lose this.

And I said, man, we can't beat this.

I'm thinking to myself, we don't have any earth support.

They're going to fucking keep hammering us.

And, you know, God, God, God was there all night, man.

And God kicked me in my ass and said, get your gun up, Ranger.

And I know people are going to, oh, fuck, that's no, making, no, that's what happened.

What do you mean God kicked you in the ass and said, get up?

Quit whining.

quit feeling like a victim so you is that a feeling you got is that a voice you heard a voice in the back of my head right there i still feel it i still get chills and maybe it was my mom saying it you know but it was to me it was that voice of god it was something saying we don't quit you don't quit get your gun up keep fighting i said get your gun up ranger that's what i heard and that's being a ranger too and that's what rangers are when you're at the 75th Get your gun up.

Get your gun up.

You're not quitting.

Keep fighting.

Keep pressing through.

You learn that from RIP, which is option 40 now, I rash.

Now, you learn that throughout.

That's what's instilled in you.

Rangers before you, what'd they do in Vietnam, the 100-killer teams?

They ran towards the fight.

What did they do when they jumped into Riojato?

They ran towards the fight.

There's no cover.

They shot their way off the, off the earth, the tarmac and grenada.

What'd they do?

They ran towards the fight.

Now, get your gun up, Ranger.

And so why am I so angry?

Because when somebody calls it conspiracy, and I watched, I watched Roan,

I watched Roan and Bub and Dave and Dawes at the time, I thought all the time.

I watched them evaporate.

That's what I was with my brain.

It's like, holy shit, those guys are, they're gone.

I've seen death before, but have you ever saw it where your friends just, like they're there and they're not?

So when he said it was a conspiracy, it's like,

hell yeah, I was pissed off.

And I was pissed off for many, many years.

And it did hurt a lot of the relationship, hurt my relationship with my wife and my kids at the time.

So to ask, I mean, it's a a great question, but it also points to how

irresponsible politicians are with their words

and how they don't give a shit.

And him, especially, you know, Hillary got what she deserved.

She wasn't president.

She was humiliated.

She lost.

Is she going to get more?

Yeah, she's going to get more.

When she stands before her maker with God, God's going to judge her.

And

I hope he judges her.

And he's going to.

He's going to judge her well, how she should.

Obama's the one that got over scot-free.

He was the commander-in-chief.

Come on, man.

Who's supposed to help get people to us?

Is it Hillary and State Department?

Granted, she was hugely responsible.

So was Leon Panetta.

General Ham could have done something,

but who was the commander-in-chief?

Who was General Ham?

He was the EuroComp commander.

He was the one that.

And for everybody knows, Leon Panetta was director of CIA at the time.

At the time.

And then he went to the SEC death, you know, and became SEC death and all that.

But

actually,

but

he could have done done something too.

But Obama is the one that really is the one that's held responsible, should have been held responsible for it all.

And also with the rhetoric, Al-Qaeda, remember, people forget that.

What was his platform at the time?

Al-Qaeda was on the run.

Terrorism is dead.

He knew it wasn't.

That's who attacked us.

You had Sarah on.

She knows it better than anybody.

Who was the one that masterminded that?

Zawahiri.

He's number two, Al-Qaeda.

So, bruh,

the guy that got away with it and then continued to try to press a narrative, which we see happening.

Well, I got a question.

I don't want to get too deep.

No, no, go ahead.

I wasn't expecting to get this deep.

I'm sorry.

That's just me, man.

I go down rabbit harass all the time.

What I want to ask, though, is

I can see the rage returning, right?

It does.

Of course it's going to come.

So

what was the turning point that kind of eased that rage?

That interview was one

because

with Pete Hagseth?

Yeah, because it was the last mainstream interview I ever did.

Exactly.

Was that one?

On your terms or theirs?

Mine.

I said, I'm not going to do it anymore.

I told him, I'm done.

It was mine.

I'm not doing that.

Because I did get asked two times to go on Tucker and nothing against him.

I like him.

I just, I'm not doing that because that's what they want to get.

I started to realize, that's what they want to get out of me.

They know Tonel's going to come in and say something that's going to clickbait and gonna be pissed off because that's how i always was i am very an i get i'm animated i'm going to say what's on my mind and if it pisses somebody so what i'm going to tell you i feel and that's great for ratings it is um and i but and nothing against me i got friends down there sean's a nice hannody's a nice guy man uh you know the uh the the deuceys are they're nice people you know martha mccollums she's a nice lady treated me very very well there's not it's just was

it was ruining my family my relationship because i had got divorced at that time as well so that anger had carried over to where my wife and my kids like i we don't want you around anymore your toxicity is here you're you're just always pissed off you're never happy and we had gotten divorced so when i did that we were actually divorced at that time and it was i got to get myself right because

So it was, it was doing the interviews that brought the rage back.

I think just reliving it all and not being able to handle it and finding a silver lining to it, which there always is a silver lining.

God gives us a silver lining for everything that we do.

We just got to find it.

How do you feel about doing this interview?

I'm good because I'm at peace with it all.

I don't have a problem getting angry.

I know it's going to bring anger out of me, but does it make me angry when I leave?

No.

It's going to be time to see my kids.

And I want to tell this because

I still talk to Ty's mom, Cheryl Bennett, wonderfully.

Love her.

I'm her second mom.

I mean, she's my second mom.

And telling this keeps their memories alive.

Where back then it was more of,

it's about me.

I need to show you how angry I am.

I need to show you how pissed off I am.

I need, it was selfish.

It was very, now it's, I'm going to tell you, because I want people to know that.

So when they hear a liberal, they hear an Obama, they heal a Hillary, they hear a bid and say, no, it was a conspiracy.

No, it was video and a protest.

They can say, no.

I know that dude's telling the truth because just look how emotional he gets.

And of course it's emotional.

I saw my teammates die.

They were my friends.

I mean, we weren't best friends or nothing, but they were still my teammates and they still were my friends.

And so they tried, the powers at B tried to cover it up.

But that was a turning point somewhat because six months later, I did put a gun in my head.

We'll get there.

Yeah.

For starters.

Yeah.

Where did you grow up?

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I've spent years on this show pulling back the curtain and trying to reveal what's really happening in this country.

And the truth is, there's a double standard here in America.

You see time and time again, people defending themselves, defending their family.

and then the judicial system goes after them.

It's a double standard.

And if you don't believe me, check out episode number three with Don Bradley.

That is a perfect example of what I'm talking about.

Because it's not just about what you did, believe it or not, it's how the legal system interprets it.

And that's why I'm a USCCA member.

The USCCA has over 860,000 members because they know the reality is after you stop the threat, the real fight begins.

Your membership gives you the education, elite training, and self-defense liability insurance you need for the second fight, the legal one.

Plus, every member also gets access to a 24-7 critical response team and attorney network in the event of a self-defense incident.

Violent crime happens too often in America.

This isn't about living in fear.

This is about being prepared when things go sideways.

You don't get to schedule danger, and with the world changing so fast, you have to do what you can to protect your family.

Check out the USCCA's risk-free membership at uscca.com/slash SRS.

That's uscca.com slash SRS.

Protect more than just your life, protect your future.

Go right now to uscca.com slash SRS.

Colorado.

Alamosa, Colorado.

Loved it.

Grandmother and grandmother,

my grandmother and grandfather were were immigrants from Mexico.

I'm a Garcia, man.

Dad's West Texas, mom's a Garcia.

But so we grew up,

we grew up in the

lower middle class, but it was wonderful childhood.

Alamosa, small little town in the Sanger de Cristo Range, out there in southern Colorado.

And then we'd go to visit my grandmother and grandfather who were pickers, and then they owned their own farm.

So I saw them, just the hard work, man.

It was amazing.

I loved being a Paranto, but I also loved being a Garcia.

I mean, my middle name is after my grandfather, Joaquin, Christian Joaquin.

So it was awesome.

And it was just always happy, you know, always playing.

I'd play with the wet.

We called them the wetbacks.

I know

that's a politically incorrect term, but that's what we, the migrant workers that would come over and work on my grandfather's farm.

They were called wetbacks, man, the pickers.

I remember going out and that we would play baseball with them when they come from the field.

I remember one actually saved my life.

I was playing hide and seek in a back of potato truck, and I was running away from my cousin and hit a bar that was across the top, cracked my head open, and I laid there for about five minutes before one of them carried me out, found me bleeding all over, and he carried me out to my grandmother's house.

I mean, it's just, it was amazing, fun.

It was a rough, it was a rough childhood.

You know, it was a rough, fun, skin your knee up, ride dirt bikes,

take your lab out, go a little hunting with the 22 or with a with a pearl gun.

It was wonderful, man.

Crack your head open once or twice.

Brothers and sisters?

I have two.

I have a brother and a sister.

And,

you know, me and my sister, we have our issues, but we're close.

It's a close family.

It's not like there's no any hatred.

My brother, no, my brother, he's awesome.

Him and I, it's one of those relationships, though, where it's like, he'll call us and I'll say, what's up, jackass?

Hey, I'll say, yeah, what's up, douchebag?

It's like, I love you, man.

And two years younger than me, we played sports together growing up.

And athletics was huge in the family.

My dad was a football coach, NCA football coach.

So when we were at Alamosa, he was the head coach at Adam State and the athletic director.

Then we moved to Brigham Young.

We moved to Utah because he got a job

as an assistant at Brigham Young University.

And that was a one hell of an experience.

I look back at it now.

It's like, wow, I was blessed because that was during their

glory years.

So I got to hang around a clubhouse with Jim McMahon and Steve Young and Robbie Bosco and

national championship team.

And, you know, you're taking it for granted.

You had Lavelle Edwards, who they don't make coaches.

You know, that was like the iconic coaches when coaches were actually coaches and not public figures.

You know, Lavelle Edwards, Paul Bear Bryant, guys like that.

You know, it's just the old school.

He was awesome.

But, you know, you had Mike Holmgren there, who was the offensive coordinator, who later became the coach of the Packers, won two Super Bowls.

Norm Chow, who was a legend in the NCA, went to USC.

Wow.

Andy Reed was a graduate assistant there at the time, coach.

So, you know, I look back and I'm like, man, I was around some cool.

And all I'm doing, I'm a kid running around the clubhouse, playing catch with Steve Young, going to the crash school.

So sports were big, you know, and I wanted to play football, and I played football.

We moved to Oregon State.

My dad got a job at Oregon State, and we...

It was wonderful there.

Got to be around the Pac-10.

I was a ball boy on the sidelines for the Pac-10.

That was so fun, just being at the games, you know, and that was, that was Pac-10 at the time.

I mean, that's Washington, UCLA, USC, when they were, I mean, they're still good, I kiss, but they was, it was amazing.

It was just a good, good time being around college when college was college, when it wasn't

propaganda, let's protest about everything.

It was, it was college.

It was PCU, man.

It was where people would make fun of that.

Yeah.

Let's go have a, you know, so, and it was a, it was college towns.

Now, Brigham Young was a little different.

It's Mormon.

You know, there's, it's, you're not going to find a lot of drinking there.

But, uh, and then we, he got a job

in Colorado, back in Colorado, and uh, we moved and uh, still, he's still coaching at Mesa College.

It's called Colorado Mesa.

It's called Mesa College at the time.

It's called Colorado Mesa University now.

And we moved there.

And,

of course, being around sports forever.

And my dad was a football player.

My mom was a pretty good athlete in her own right.

You know, I got some good genes in me and I managed to get a scholarship to play football.

And I played football for four years at, actually, I did no kid

yeah I I uh

I was I was I was having a good time man so your dad wasn't the coach uh he was the AD at I went to that college and to be co

what does that mean he was the athletic director at that college but um

I didn't go there first I wasn't I was a typical college football player I'd rather drink and party than go to college.

So my first year at Mesa, I flunked out of college and had to go to a junior college to get my grades up so I could continue to play football.

So I went to, it was called Dixie at the time because of the wokeness and political correctness.

Now it's called something else, but we were called the Dixie Rebels.

And I'm still a Dixie Rebel for all you, whatever you call the college now.

It was awesome.

That was a wonderful experience because Dixie was like the program where BYU, UNOV, University of Utah would send all these truants to get their grades up.

So we were a football fan.

I mean, we were awesome.

We were number one in the nation.

We finished number two one year.

So I'm around there and I'm around gangsters, man.

I'm around the Donner Street Crips.

I'm around West Coast Bloods, Tonga Crip gangsters.

Then you got farm kids coming from Utah, big farm boys.

And we had this, it was such a wonderful experience.

It was wonderful to see so many,

I was out of, you know, so many people of different backgrounds and nationalities come together for a focus to win games.

Sounds like the military.

It does.

And it sounds like, you know, that's why I laugh when I hear all these DEI pro all this.

So we had diversity way back then, guys.

And guess what?

We were called the Dixie Rebels, too.

And not one black dude gave two shits.

We were proud to be called the Rebels.

That's what we were.

And I was, you know, I wasn't as true.

I mean, they were hardcore.

I just flunked out of school.

Now, you know, I ain't going to lie, my ethnicity did help.

It does.

He's Mexican, dude.

And my grandpa, you know, know it was it it it it allowed me to at least have a have a foot in the door where okay we can kind of trust this guy and and stereotypes stereotypes for a reason i have no problem with that um but it was a one hell of an experience because we were so good and it was fun playing on a team of so many different characters and what got me is that was back in the day when bloods and crips they were you know that was a big deal there's gang violence all the time and there was a guy named stacey he was a west coast blood he came from los angeles and and then we had a guy named Chucky, who was the best athletes I've ever seen in my life.

He was a Donner Street Crip from Vegas.

And I went to Stacy one day because I didn't get it.

I'm this naive kid from Colorado.

And I don't know what I can ask or what I can.

I say, hey,

how come you guys aren't killing each other?

I'm being an idiot.

Should I say that?

I'm 19 years old.

What am I saying the right thing?

And Stacey looks at me and he goes, he goes, on the streets, man, yeah, he said, we would.

I said, I'd shoot that motherfucker.

But here, I just want to win.

It's like, wow, that just makes so much sense.

Wow.

And that's also when I started going to the military and then even GRS.

A lot of people don't know.

Oz and I don't get along.

We never have.

I was going to wait till the end of the interview.

No, I'm sorry.

I didn't mean to jump to that.

Let's, well, I mean, you brought it up.

Let's do it.

And I've always, I've, I mean, obviously I've been following you guys.

I mean, we were in the same profession.

Of course, yeah.

And

I remember after it happened, you guys, you know, you did the book.

Yeah.

It came out.

Lots of speaking events.

I thought you guys used to speak together.

We had to, yeah.

And then it seemed like everything kind of, I mean, look.

What happened?

Why don't you guys get along?

Well, it's just personalities.

They're nothing.

Oz is a wonderful, wonderful person.

He is in his own right.

It's just personalities.

I'm very outspoken.

Whenever we do speeches or things like that, he always wanted to kind of play like the politician.

I got to make both sides.

I was like, screw this.

Say what happened.

So we went at Oz.

But even when we were downrange, it just was personalities, man.

It just was, you just, there's just some guys you don't get along.

Did you guys butt heads before Benghazi?

With the first place we worked at together.

I'd never worked in before.

That was the first, first base that I worked with Oz at.

And immediately butted heads.

It's just one of those bases where, you know, the guy comes, a guy comes in and you're saying, man, we just don't jive.

He doesn't like my Jack Ashery.

I don't like him being so damn uptight.

But

we were both professional enough.

And this is a kudo to Ron as well.

Roan really was our team leader.

We had an official team leader.

Ron was our assistant team leader.

We had a staffer that was our team leader.

But Ron is who we listened to.

The staffer we never listened to.

Isn't it funny how that's like the

common theme well when you don't hold the staffer the same every i know grs team that the staffer is always the weakest link well when you don't hold them to the same standard then they're always going to they get mad at me when i say this stuff tough dude there it's it's the truth i mean i can count good staffers and i'll tell the standard there are some that but the majority of the good staffers were the ones that had the same background we'll get into this later anyway yeah with

with oz it was nothing where and it wasn't a hatred It just was, we don't like each other, man.

Yeah.

And you get to an age at 42 at that point.

We're maybe in the early days in our 30s.

Maybe we would have F you, F you, just, but it wasn't like that.

It was just, you're, you're, I'm, we're 40.

He's 45.

I'm 42.

It's like, there's no reason to create any more drama.

Deal with chair how we need to.

Just win because that still kept going in my head, what Stacey said to me about the Crips and the Bloods.

We just want to win.

Let's put the differences aside so we can win.

The focus.

And

that's also Roan keeping us on, hey, what's the main focus here, guys?

Everybody goes home.

Put your stupid differences aside.

Shut the hell up and do your jobs.

You got your right and left limits.

You got your right and left limits.

And we stayed within those.

And it wasn't like a, man, you're a douche.

It wasn't like that.

It was just, you know, you're in a room.

You're just in a room with somebody that you just don't get along with.

So you stay in there as long as you can and then you get out and you go do your thing and he'll go do his thing.

It is a lot more difficult because you've been on a lot of of those bases doing this where you're on top of each other.

So it's harder to get away, get away, but we did, you know, and, you know, and Rowan wasn't dumb enough to put us rooming together in the same room.

You know, it was one of those things that let's make it as possible.

And there, you always, at least at that point in time, because of my age and experience, and I think this is important for everybody, even of people you don't like, you find things that you can respect about them.

And I do.

Again, he's tough as nails.

The dude got hit with a mortar and tried to get up and shoot.

I saw him, I told you in the beginning, I saw a guy get up and try to shoot after that mortar stopped and the gun kept falling.

Because he would get up and he'd shoot and I'd see the rounds and boom.

Well, his arm, he hadn't realized his arm had gone fall.

So when you watch 13 hours and you see him getting up like that, that happened.

That wasn't movie magic.

That happened.

So do I respect his toughness?

Hell yeah.

And he said one of the coolest things I've ever heard in my life.

When we drove to the airport, he's bleeding out, his arm's about coming off.

We wanted to help get him on that plane, that executives jet.

And he said this,

and I'll give him kudos for it because it was some Clint Eastwood shit.

He goes, I walked into this country, I'm walking out.

That wasn't a movie magic, that wasn't a line written.

And he said that.

And I remember what I heard it, I was like, all right, Oz may not get along, but that's some cool ass shit right there.

Yeah.

And so

you cannot get along.

That's fine, but you still find ways to respect each other and work together because the goal is to win.

And I kept thinking about Stacey, the West Coast blood.

The most intellectual, wise thing I heard was from a 20-year-old gangster from Los Angeles.

We just want to win.

It's that simple.

And I think that's why when I talk to corporations, I tell that's part of my speech.

Just win.

That's the goal.

Let's win.

Put the differences aside.

And that's why also when we were out doing our speaking and you're seeing us on TV,

all right, we got to put on a united front here.

We're stronger together.

And because there wasn't hatred there, it just was a dislike, just didn't like, didn't care.

Our personalities just didn't mesh.

It wasn't that hard to go in there and do an interview together.

And Oz had great things to say because he was there.

He saw things that I didn't that helped expose the BS because we were in different spots the whole time.

Let's move back to,

yeah, kind of

we're past childhood.

I want to get to this, but I want it to all be in one piece if that's okay.

Yeah, no, no, no, no.

You're good.

And so what, so you're football.

Football got you.

College.

What got your interest in the military?

God,

just path.

When you're short and you're slow, you're not going to go to the next level.

And I was, I was really short, but I was super slow, so the NFL didn't come knocking at my door.

So I remember I was just walking through the student union building there at Colorado Mesa College, what it was called at the time.

And, you know, at the graduation, there's job fairs at these colleges.

If you go to college, you're always going to see a job fair.

And I'm walking through and

all these jobs are there.

But of course, who's there with all the occupations, all the corporations?

The vultures are over there in the corner.

The army recruiter, the marine recruiter, the Navy recruiter, the Air Force Force recruiter.

And, you know, long story short on that one, which is not going to be the theme here, but they yelled.

They said, hey, you.

I was a stupid enough one to look in that direction.

I walked over there.

They said, hey, what are you going to do?

And, you know, I had thought about FBI.

I had thought about federal police.

Every time I went to apply for one, I'd get a call.

Hey, you need experience.

You got to go become a police officer.

You got to go and do a, you got to go to the military.

And police just didn't sound fun to me.

So I walked over there.

I saw the Ranger video.

I saw the recruiting video, which was the 75th Ranger video.

So they're jumping out of planes, fast roping.

They showed me the SEAL challenge video, the Navy guy did.

So I'm watching the Hilocast and I'm watching the low cast.

I'm seeing all the cool stuff.

You know, the Marines, they're landing on the beach.

You know, the recon, they're showing me recon guys.

The Air Force One.

I always make this a joke.

I say, I saw the Air Force One and, you know, they were in an air-conditioned room, nice, comfortable with good food.

Now, they're showing the jets and things, and I just thought the Rangers was, was the best one for me.

And so I said, signed up.

I signed up.

I enlisted right there after I got my bachelor's degree.

No kidding.

And

30 days later, I'm off to Fort Benning and

did that.

You literally signed up right there at the job.

And the scariest thing that I'll tell you

talk about an impulse.

I was like, what am I going to do?

And, you know, I had, well, FBI, they said military.

And I do remember telling the recruiter, I asked him, I go, is that hard?

He goes, yeah.

I go, do people quit?

He goes, yeah.

All right, let's do it.

And

so move on and we go to Fort Benning, Georgia.

And

it did.

I was like

a round peg and a round hole.

I just fit.

I went to, it was Sand Hill at the time.

It was Echo Company 258 called the House of Pain.

I was supposed to be the hardest one there, but come on, they're all the hardest.

Every basic trading depot is the hardest one.

But

distinguished honor graduate, I did really well.

It just fit.

It just made, you know, I was physically fit.

I got the athletics completely prepped me for it.

You know, the teamwork aspect of it.

You just had to get used to the yelling, and they were still smacking us around.

It was 1995, which if you didn't deserve to get smacked around, then you didn't get smacked.

And that made sense to me.

It was based on merit.

You work your ass.

It's merit-based.

You're going to perform.

You're going to do what you're told.

We're going to move you up.

You're going to be a smart ass.

You're going to be lazy.

You're going to be a fat body?

No, then you don't.

It's easy.

It's a piece of cake.

And went to airborne school, but I was married to my first wife at the time.

And nothing against, she's a wonderful person.

We just got married way too young.

Just

nothing bad to say about her, but she was.

having an affair.

So I got my Jodi letter.

Yeah, hey, I want a divorce.

And it really was hard from there on out, airborne school on out, because that wasn't something I ever expected.

That wasn't something in my family that happened.

Divorce didn't happen.

To me, that wasn't even on my radar.

And it was, whoa,

this is.

So I'm fighting airborne school.

Airborne school is easy.

Just all you got to do is learn how to fall and break yourself and then jump out of a plane.

It was, it was memorable.

There was a memorable thing about airborne school, though, that was awesome.

And again, God looking out.

My first two jumps, first day jump and first night jump, I was the first one out the door.

It was so awesome.

Being able to have the door open, first jump, and I'm watching.

That was cool.

It's memorable.

I threw in the night jump too.

I was like, how lucky am I to be?

How did that happen?

I got lucky to be the first one out the door.

So, you know, your door opens, you get to watch all that shit for about 30 seconds before you go.

But Airborne School then went through RIP, got through Ranger, RIP, and went to second bat.

And we're there.

I was there for about eight months.

And, you know, you're an untabbed guy and you've been around Rangers.

You know, if we're untabbed at Ranger Battalion, we're shit.

We're getting hazed.

I mean, it's just, it's miserable.

You're hiding in your team room on the weekends because you don't want the tab spec four to come in there and smoke your balls and haze the shit out of you.

So you just like either hide or you take off for the weekend.

And, um, but, um,

went on a JRX training mission at Bragg.

About eight months in, I was at battalion and the joint readiness exercise.

So we're doing a joint readiness exercise with blue, green, some PJs, and then the Air Force guys at Pope, the Spec Ops, the Spectre, and

the task force was there too.

Nightstalkers were there too.

So it's a big thing.

Nice.

Yeah, it was pretty awesome.

So, I mean, I'm a private.

I'm just, but I'm fighting this divorce.

I mean, my wife's cheating on me, you know, and it's just killing me.

Did you know who she was cheating on?

No, I mean, at that, that first two week,

it was a two-week JRX.

The first week, I still hadn't figured it out.

I was in denial more than anything.

That's no way she's doing that.

And this is for the administration cell phone.

Cell phones are a big thing.

So to go home to call, you had to go actually go to a payphone.

So it wasn't like I could call and check all the time like you could now, which maybe that would have made it worse.

Maybe this made it better this way.

But I'm a new private.

I'm around all these tier one guys.

I'm just, holy shit, dude.

I'm should I, you know, and when you're a new guy, you have that bravado, but should I be here?

You know, Tab Spec Fours, you got Tab

squad leaders tab e5s these guys this is old hat to them like oh my gosh man so the stress levels for me don't up don't up i got two hernias on my first jump too so i'm don't want to tell nobody because i got two little aliens going there when we jumped in is it sicily at bragg i can't remember the the drop zone

um

but anyway it all came to a head and i called home and i shoot an answer so i finally called my brother mike love him i go hey what's going on with stacy man he goes dude i i don't want to tell you.

And as soon as he said that, you know, I was like, crap, because it was in denial.

And I went home on block leave because it was right after that.

We're going on block leave.

It's right before Christmas.

And I just, I went to the guy's house and I hid in his bushes.

I was going to kill him.

And I came to my senses,

which was great on my end because I got out of there.

But it was also where I even felt like a bigger failure because like, man, I can't even do this.

I'm the biggest pussy in the world.

But God is, God's got me.

me.

But, of course, everybody found out.

Small town, Grand Junction, Colorado.

Military found out, of course, because

I was very lucky.

Instead of going to jail,

I got to go to the VA there in Grand Junction.

They threw me in the mental court, like to check on me.

So the military, so the wheels are turning that I'm going to get.

So hold on, did you get caught?

Actually,

what I did is I went back home, I drank myself silly, and my friend found me on the floor.

My ranger buddy, who I joined with, was home to on leave, he found me on the floor.

I was just drunk and took a bunch of Tylenol.

So you tried to kill yourself?

Yeah,

1997, six or seven, 96, then 96.

Holy shit.

And

yeah, it's just one of those things.

Because

you're young.

You're pissed vinegar.

You're full of fire.

You're a ranger, dude.

Someone is going to, you know, but I wasn't ready.

It just was being young and stupid and doing stupid things impulsively that young people do, especially young guys like yourself and myself.

We're just, we're not thinking.

We're just action first, consequences later.

And, um,

but the military found out.

And of course they are.

And we, of course, we called the commander and the commander found out.

And I had, I had wonderful, that so blessed.

First sergeant was Frank Grippy, Ranger legend, Sergeant Major Grippy.

Fucking, you know, he was dropping mortars and tubes in

Torbor and Anaconda when he was 10th Mountain.

He was a sergeant major.

He was my first sergeant.

And we also had Captain Paul LaCamera, who I think he's a three-star general now.

He may have just retired, but he was my CEO.

And they,

I mean, I wasn't going to stay in.

There's no way I could stay in, but I managed to get an honorable discharge.

And I didn't, I didn't deserve it.

So I only finished two years out of my first four-year contract.

Well, how long did it take you to snap out of that?

Well, I went home.

It took me two years.

Well, I had two years.

I didn't have a choice.

You got out.

Let me, sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you left.

I left the army.

You left the army at the end of 1996.

At the end of 1996, and then went back to your hometown?

I went back to my hometown and

I was like, I can't do this anymore.

What were you doing in your hometown?

Nothing.

Just being miserable?

Being miserable?

It was as miserable as, but it was with family.

My mom's there.

My dad's there.

My brothers brothers are there.

So I'm surrounded by family.

My friends are still there because I just really been two years out of college.

I still had guys I'd played football with that are still finishing up.

And I had a buddy of mine named Brian Edwards.

He goes, dude, you look like shit.

And I moved in with them.

I hung out with my buddies.

You know, my parents were there, but I moved into a room at one of their ex-football players.

They were still playing one of my teammates' houses.

And they were went on, and that's what I recommend everybody to do when you go through divorce.

I went to South Parson Island for spring break.

Spring break.

goes, what happened there, Chris?

She's like, dude, you look miserable.

We're going to spring break.

Come on, get in the car.

We're going.

I was like, okay, we went.

And I went to South Podger Island for spring break.

And I remember this.

The Lord, I am beyond, the Lord works mysterious ways.

I'm serious.

It's just so amazing.

I look back at it now.

I'm like, my gosh, God really does have control.

I go there.

Hold on.

Can I make a prediction?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did you meet your current wife there?

Get the fewest.

I went there.

Oh, shit.

i went there hold on hold on how long had you been were you divorced

yeah we well we had been unofficially divorced for only about six months but we she had tried to divorce me and get rid of me at basic training so it'd been so you're like depressed at home yeah

drinking yourself to death yeah trying to commit suicide with a bottle of tylon and now i'm wondering what am i going to do now your buddy's like we're going to

software spring break i need you to smile again and brian i love brian he is he is all.

He is, and he was a, he was a, but he was a really good football player, outstanding wide receiver out there.

But we go there.

And this is what's so funny.

And it's funny, but I also, I do believe there's Cupid is out there because we're at Charlie's.

It's a bar there.

No, it's Louie's.

We're at Louie's.

Louie's bar and something.

And I'm dancing, you know, and, but I'm still jacked.

I'm a Ranger, shredded.

You know, I'm jacked up, shirts off because I'm, woohoo, I'm spring break, drinking, drinking.

And all of a sudden, this searing pain

all flows down the side of my face and my eyes well it was before fireball so they had those shots of cinnamon snops that the little ladies would carry around somebody had knocked a whole thing on me

and I look and it was my wife my current wife I look it's like Cupid's arrow it's like wow oh and

we danced we were inseparable that whole spring break I stayed with her wait hold on what was the one-liner they're picked up who

actually,

I still think she's, and I tell her, I said, you spilled that, that cinnamon schnauffs on me on purpose, didn't you?

Because you saw my heaving chest and I was sure, didn't you?

She was like, that was, so there, but that's the, that was actually the joke.

And it wasn't, because I still believe that you saw me and you did that on purpose, didn't you?

Just so I'd look at you.

And I looked at her and she was a volleyball player from the University of Nebraska in Omaha.

I mean, she's, you know, volleyball players.

Come on.

Watch college volleyball

and uh you know she's taller than me she's 5'10.

I'm 5'9.

She's 5'10 and

just athletic

and man that was it.

And then again, the whole spring break.

So there was no one-liner, but it was, I do give her shit for, like I said, you did that shit on purpose because you saw my man boost from all them push-ups.

And

it was awesome.

And so when I went home, it gave me a direction.

So I went back home.

I'm like, okay,

the stipulations, my honorable discharge is I had to still, I had to stay out for two years.

I couldn't re-enlist for two years.

It came in my file.

And

my dad had his doctorate.

My mother, she was a teacher.

She had her master's.

What's the logical step here?

Let's go back to college.

So I applied to University of Nebraska, Omaha, took the GRE, got accepted, and I got into my Bronco 2.

And luckily, I made it to Omaha.

And

I lived in a $100 and $10 a month room in

the slums of Omaha.

Omaha's a wonderful place, but it was the poorest of Omaha.

No air conditioning, nothing.

And it was wonderful.

It's wonderful.

It was just,

it was just, it was like I'm out of a terrible element.

And here I am by myself, no money.

Bronco 2s don't run.

So it's in a crappy car.

I'm still fighting double hernia surgery because I hadn't got my hernias fixed yet.

But it was like, man this is awesome and the only person i know is this woman that spilled drinks on me that i spent four days with at south pike island and she was she was awesome and we just we dated and and i just got my life together i went back to school um

the va got my fixed i got my hernias fixed there was there um

grad school to me was was the school i don't say it's easy but the ability to to go to school and then also work and it wasn't hard because the military was so

you know, it was regimented.

You could do multiple

things and not get enough sleep and still get it done.

It was easy.

So I got a job at Michigan of Omaha working as a security guard, go to school.

And my classes I could take at UNO, a lot of the grad classes were in the evening.

So I would take classes and a lot of those graduate school classes, I was for criminal justice.

I was still thinking maybe the Fed's down the line, even while I'm done.

But it was one a week.

So one three-hour class a week I could take, and then it was just study, study, study.

And to me, studying was awesome.

A library was peaceful.

So I would get an internship.

So I worked at the library.

I could study.

I worked at Mutual Omaha during the day.

So I was making money over there.

And I was going to school and I was with this woman that was, well, this young woman that was just hotter than all hell as you, I mean, volleyball players, man,

squats and jumps.

Obviously, you can tell what kind of man I am.

She was amazing.

And

she turned out to be just

a very wonderful person that,

you know, in social media, you see all the all the women on social media.

She's not that.

She doesn't have a social media account.

She doesn't believe it.

She's just a good

homegrown Nebraskan girl.

Nice.

And she took care of me.

And she really did.

She got me back up on my feet.

She got me.

She just got my...

the whole situation got my life back together, but she was the main focal point on that.

And

two years, got my master's degree i actually went from being a security guard to where i became an insurance adjuster so when you watch the movie where they say yeah you'll be happy being at home that that argument did happen i fell asleep during the ambassador's speech

i heard so much political

i i i didn't care i would have been up half the night dude i was up half the night i got up in the morning like screw this do i really have to go wrong he's like tonal get in there And I'm sitting in the back.

But anyway, when the argument said, yeah, there, that happened.

He goes, you'd be happy going back home and being an insurance adjuster.

Well, it's because I was.

I still am a licensed National Flood Insurance Program FEMA Insurance Adjuster to this day.

I still can run claims if I want.

But that's what I did.

I went to, got that certification and started working at Mutual of Omaha.

And eventually I got back in the military.

And I remember

it was hard.

I went through eight different recruiters because nobody was going to help me when they found out what I did, even though I had an honorable discharge.

My rentry code was a three, which is very bad.

That means

you got an honorable discharge, but there's an asterisk there.

And the last guy I saw, it was a recruiting command.

It was right by my house, too.

I'd missed it for two years.

I don't know what happened.

The Lord works mysterious ways, my friend.

I'm driving home to go home.

I'm like, well, I guess the military's done.

I got my master's, but I guess the military's out of question.

I see it in the corner and I'm like, how did I miss this?

For years, it's been right by my house in my one room in the house I lived.

And I driving there, and the Nebraska Recruiting Command Sergeant Major is in there.

I walk in.

He's in there.

I'm talking to the recruiter.

He overhears me telling, pleading my case to this recruiter.

Hey, man, please, I really want to go in.

I need to finish what I started.

He walks in.

He says, I'm hearing what you're saying.

He said, do you really want to go back in, so?

I said, yes, Sergeant Major.

He goes, Roger, that.

He signs me the paperwork over.

I sign it.

He takes it back from me.

As he's holding it, he goes, there's just one stipulation.

You have to do it all over again.

Roger?

Yeah.

So I did it all over again.

Basic Airborne Ranger.

Did it twice and went back in.

You did all twice.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you want something bad enough, though,

you'll do it.

And it really,

a lot of that, and you know this is, especially when you're early on, it's a mind game.

It's fuck fuck games.

I knew it was coming.

I was in great shape because that's all I did.

I worked.

I went to school.

I hung out with

my girlfriend at the time who was a volleyball player there.

So what did I do?

She was half the time she was at the gym.

So I worked out all the time.

I was running five-minute miles.

I could do 120 push-ups in two minutes.

I mean, I was, you know, and I'm very lucky I had good jeans from my family.

You know, playing sports helped as well.

So when I went in, I could outdo the drill sergeants.

But I saw.

I saw how the military in those three years went from, or it was actually four years.

From 1995, 1995 when I first went into basic training till when I went back in in the beginning of 1999,

how had it gotten easier?

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Where do I do the drill search?

When I went in the first time,

every drill instructor, infantry drill instructor, except for one, was tabbed.

They at least had a ranger tab.

They don't come from ranger battalion, but they at least had a tab.

Or they were mechanized and they'd seen some combat or been their deserts.

I mean, they were hardcore.

The one that didn't, and he was one of my drill sergeants, drill sergeant Hardney, the devil, loved that man.

Big black dude, 6'7, looked like the demon from hell, but I love him.

He was actually the

NCOIC for Tomb of the All-Known Soldier.

If that tells you anything about his qualifications.

He may not have his tab, but do you think he's disciplined?

Yeah, standing eight hours at

10.

So when I went in the second time, two guys had tabs,

no CIBs,

not that much in shape.

The only two guys,

the senior drill instructor,

he was from third bat, so he was a ranger.

He was tab, and then our commander, our CEO, was tabbed.

And it was easier.

They weren't throwing us around.

They couldn't even get in our face.

They could still do the shark attack,

but it was was the standards had lowered.

The mile max, the two-mile run was 1154 when I first went in.

It moved down to 13.

So it was easy.

I was like, geez, this is cake.

I was, you know, everything, all the standards had lowered.

And

it wasn't,

it was, it was just, it was a hell of a lot easier.

And of course, it was a lot easier because I knew what was coming.

Airborne school was easy.

Rip.

was hard like Rip should be.

I mean, it was just, it was a kick in the ass.

Rip should be a kick in the ass.

um the only thing is though two of the instructors there i had joined in uh in 1995 so when i came back through they were both e6s e5s and one was an e5 one was an e6 and they're like what the hell are you doing yeah so i mean it was why i tell people that is because it was i didn't feel the oh you know the the nervous you know like like you do when you went through hell week or you these guys are me it's like i know that dude i could outrun him five years yeah so it was and then going back to battalion uh went there,

got my tab, became a team leader.

And then

my platoon leader found out I had my master's degree and that I'd been at battalion before.

And he says, You need to become an officer, son.

And so I became an officer.

I got my commission.

No kidding.

You became an officer.

Don't tell nobody.

I did not.

I did not know that.

You would have not been invited to the show.

It wasn't long-lasted, though, because I did.

I got my commission.

And in 2003, it was, yeah, 2003, I was going through IOBC, I'm Tree Officer's Basic course.

I actually joined 19th Special Forces Group, too.

So I stayed enlisted in the Guard as I was getting, because I did Green to Gold.

I didn't go to Officer Canada School.

I just had to do a year of Green to Gold at Creighton University.

So I joined the Guard.

19th Special Forces Group is where I linked up with my partner that does my vodka with me, Ben Morgan from First Ranger Bat.

He was on ODA 993.

They brought me into ODA 993.

So we were, we got to, we were friends and we grew up in Grand Junction, but that's where we really developed a great friendship because he went to a different high school.

We didn't really hung out.

But anyway, I still had, I got my commission and I

was infantry, got it.

And at the end of the course, I was standing out there at the Malone Ranges and my stomach was really hurting bad, terrible, was feeling awful.

But I'd just been out in the cannon the night before drinking.

You know, I was like, it's normal shit.

We're out here sweating our balls off just drinking ate a ton of pizza of course i and i you know i had pass gas i let a fart go and i charted i chit myself um

but it the pain actually increased when that happened so i was like that ain't right

and i went to drop trial and i had blood all over just i had what i had blood just i i had uh well they rushed me to martin armor hospital and they I figured I had also colitis or Crohn's disease and it was really bad.

And I remember the GI doctor, yeah, I just had blood all over the place.

I had shit blood because that's what I,

when it becomes extremely inflamed, for those who don't know what ulcerative colitis is and all Crohn's disease, it's your lower intestines and your colon become inflamed and they just have ulcers all over them.

It looks like you've got road rash.

It's like when you've had it for years.

I just didn't really, you know, I didn't really notice it because I was going at such a high level.

And I think the focus was there to finish what I started that it I wasn't going to let anything hamper that.

But it got so bad that now it was affecting my nutrients.

It was affecting my energy levels because I couldn't.

That's where you process all your food.

That's where when you eat everything.

And when it's all like that, your food, it doesn't process.

It just shoots right through you.

It's blood, mucus, and food.

And that's what was starting to happen.

Wow.

Yeah, I got discharged.

I got discharged in 2003.

And I was a kick in the balls, dude.

That was my one, one time where,

in my life where God was, I was mad.

Or I was like, man, I wonder if God really exists.

Because like, holy crap, I went through all this, all this.

And, and I, I remember lying on that gurney looking up at him going,

really?

Why?

What the hell?

And uh,

that's all right.

He has paid.

God always has patience in us.

He, he, you know, he pities us, which he always, he always pities the one that needs the most pitying too.

It was at that time was me.

And I went home and I lost 30 pounds.

I mean, it was was like Ranger School over again.

I lost 30 pounds in about a week because I couldn't eat.

Were you just like completely devastated that you were being discharged again?

Yes, because that wasn't the plan.

The plan was I had already.

What did you think you were going to do?

I had no idea.

I had no idea.

No idea.

I didn't know.

My wife was there.

She was very supportive.

We had actually got married.

We had got married before I went to ranger school.

That's how wonderful she is.

We got married at a courthouse and I was off to ranger school the next week but she was there and um what did your wife do at the time at the time she was actually she stayed in omaha and she was managing gold's gym so she was a gold gym she was just working she had a business degree and that was you know that fit her she's athletic gold's gym at the time that was when gold's was really big so she had a good job you know so not that you know it's about 40 grand a year that's tough for two people to live on couldn't do that anymore but at that time we were okay we're living in an apartment and all i'm all she cares that we're just healing So I'm trying to find natural remedies to heal myself.

I'm going to nature store because I'm on prednisone, but prednisone is rough.

So through the next year, all I'm doing is, first of all, I'm, I'm eating things.

And if it, if it goes right through me, I write it down, I cross it, I can't eat it anymore.

So I'm figuring out what I could eat, my diet.

And then I'm taking the medication and then I'm going to going to nature food stores, organic food stores.

You know, it wasn't a Whole Foods at the time.

You had to find the little mom and pop ones and trying to find out what could I eat to start to build my body back up because I couldn't take away protein.

I couldn't do anything that was dairy related.

And I just tried to build my body up for the next year.

And I found this goat clostrum, which they used.

I wish they still made it goat milk.

I could do that.

And then I could eat corn stuff.

I could eat stuff that was rice related.

I could eat anything in the Bible.

If it was manna, manna bread,

I could eat that for some reason.

It didn't, didn't disagree with me.

And I built my body back up for the next year.

And at the end of 2003,

I got a call on the phone from Blackwater Security.

Blackwater called me first and then

30 minutes later, Triple Canopy called.

How did they get in?

I mean, did you?

At that time, it was just word of mouth.

And

I remember they got a hold because one of my Ranger buddies.

at both places were already working for him and they had recommended my name to him.

Interesting.

And yeah, they were good.

Actually, Blackwater was a gentleman, and he's a great guy, Brian Mastrofini was his name.

And he had recommended that S.

Rangers, let's give him a shot.

He didn't know I was sick, though, either.

But they got my phone number because he's a friend.

He had the phone number.

So he's like, here it is.

And they called me.

And the only reason I was

Blackwater is because they called me first.

And at that time, they were both great organizations.

You had Eric running that, and it was still relatively small.

And they had Lee Van Arsdale running, who's a Delta legend, running Triple Canopy.

It was pretty good shit.

Was it for

OGA?

No, that time

there was peak.

It was called Polar Quest.

It was just starting to come online.

But at that time, it was Bremer, the Bremer detail.

What year is this?

2004.

End of 2003, beginning of 2004.

So Karzai had already been going.

The Karzai detail, which a lot of your brothers were on, on that Karzai.

And they had just started to move into Iraq.

And they were starting to pick up guys to go on the Bremer detail, which was going going to be the Negroponte detail down the line.

It wasn't State Department either.

It was the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Interesting.

How'd you like that?

The beginning, it was great because it was like OGA.

I remember showing up at

GRS and everybody was talking about the GRE.

Yeah, that was the good old days.

That was when it was State Department really didn't have their hand in it.

So it was the Wild West.

I mean, that was, you know, that's where Sachs started.

Sachs was, he was, that's where he became really a legend over there with in the GRS was he was was one of the original Bremer guys.

I love Sachs.

But anyway, yeah, that's, that's what I, and I went and I went to the first class.

That's where I met Boone.

Boone and I were in that first, it was called the.

Did you work with Sachs in that?

Not in the Bremer detail.

No?

No, he moved on.

He was one of the first guys to move over to the GRS.

Okay.

Sachs was the trendsetter on contracting, but rightfully should be.

And he's, he was.

What a great guy.

He is.

That's the one thing.

He is an opera, but he's just a nice guy.

I love that dude.

He was, obviously, I'm mentioning him so he had an effect on my life a positive effect but um yeah i went there and uh

went through the training which was

basically three weeks at moyok of delta long tabbers

white soft blue rangers and marines fighting with each other

Oh, and it never changed throughout your entire contracting career.

Dude, it was so hilarious.

We didn't learn a damn thing during that.

We went through all this shooting, so you had to pass the shooting, but as far as the PSD stuff, we didn't learn a thing because they were just always, everybody was always arguing tactics.

And then you're having the wife's, the wife's off, the SEAL,

the vanillas,

the SEAL teams outside of blue.

The Mi's.

The regular shitbag Navy SEALs.

Come on, shit.

I believe you, man.

I'd rather work.

The vanilla guys

knew infantry stuff stuff better than the blue guys.

I always said, man, you guys know your infantry shit down.

You guys had it.

My cane saw Bones was a guy I worked quite off.

He was awesome.

And he hated blue.

It's like, fuck that.

But he was awesome.

Bones was the man.

And anyway, they're running the course.

So do you think a blue guy is going to take shit from them or Delta?

And it was, I remember sitting on the bleachers.

week two

and we're trying to do through we're trying to learn basic formations walking formations, diamond, you know, and then how to react to contact when those formations.

And it just turned into a big argument shoving from a bunch of guys that none of them have done personal protection.

The other ones that were.

It's all been assaulting.

And the ones that were teaching it, you know, they'd been downrange for what, six?

Hey, guys, we're going to go on defense now.

What's that?

What's that?

I don't know.

Figure it out and teach it.

That's what it is.

It was so, but it was, it was, it was awesome because it was a beautiful day.

You know, it's, it's, it's early spring in North Carolina.

Moyak, it's sun's out.

It's starting to set.

I'm in the bleachers and one of the instructors come over to me.

His name was Colston Shrek.

He came over to me and he goes, what you smiling at for, Ranger?

I said, you guys are paying me

because I hadn't made shit for a year.

You guys are paying me $250 a day to sit out here in this beautiful weather.

I get a shoot gun and I get to watch you guys just clown show.

This is awesome.

And I'm just, I'm just unbelievable.

Like, how, how lucky am I to be right here watching the shit show go on?

And it was so awesome.

It was wonderful.

And then, you know, I finished the course.

I had to go home for like two months because my clearance still hadn't cleared yet.

And I hadn't got my clearance yet from the State Department.

You know, that's when we started to figure out, oh, you know, DOD, NSACI have their own clearances.

Oh, I didn't know that.

I thought if you got one, they don't cross over.

So I had to wait for my State Department clearance, got it, went home to my wife.

I said, please don't divorce me but i'm going to iraq and that's when the contracting life for the next 10 years took over man that was it in early days and it was it was the wild west man it was man sitting up on top of a building on high for street with my ranger buddy and pigeon

overwatching one of our psd teams watching bradley shoot down hypha street spinning the guys in their turrets they spinning because they're that was i still remember that was so cool so they because they're they're gut the up gunners They're spinning making sure they're looking and they're not gonna get shot because Haifa was bad at that time.

That was real bad and Yeah, I'm ducking because they don't know if I'm a good guy but I don't want to shoot me, but just that was wonderful times man driving down biop

driving down Irish route Irish at 100 kilometers an hour Fucking making sure that you don't get hit on that overpass or there are not a lot of people that say they've had a great time running up and down Route Irish

one of the few

I loved it yeah and i had an awesome team we had a wonderful just an awesome team again another one just guys that just i don't got along but it just it worked so for those listening that don't know about route irish route irish is

most likely unanimously

the most dangerous road in Baghdad.

It was for a time.

I mean, there were other dangerous roads too, like Haifa Street was very dangerous.

Route Wild, when you got up to Sauter, was pretty damn dangerous.

And even Route 10 at some points were dangerous.

And then, of course, Route 10, when it got into Ramadi and Fallujah, of course, were extremely dangerous.

And God bless them, Helveston, and the guys

that got hung and died there.

But Irish was always hot.

Always something was dying or getting hit on Irish.

And I loved every minute of it.

And I had the best drivers in the world.

And

when you see a motorcade with three cars and they know the drivers know what they're doing, and I was very lucky enough that I moved being from the trunk monkey to eventually I became the team leader.

So I'm on that rear vehicle making the calls and just watching drivers do their thing, blocking and screening at 100K, dude, it is beautiful.

And I just get chills thinking about it because I was like, man, it got to a point where it was like a great football team where a coach didn't need to say a thing.

Everybody knew what they were doing and they just did it.

It was amazing.

Having my two two left and right door gunners cracking doors.

If they needed to hit somebody, they'd hit them.

If they didn't, they didn't.

You know, getting out.

And even when I got to be a door gunner on the left rear, when you're going 100K and you got to crack that door and you're hanging out the side, like that's almost the same as hanging on the bench of a little bird as it's banking in.

It's wonderful, man.

Who gets to do that?

That was fun times.

And we were up and down that thing in a two-month period at one point.

We had to run it six times a day.

was stupid it was state-departed six times six times a day you had to

we were we were whoa we were six times a day on route irish we were protecting the rhino bus and we got passed for that

in uh six times a day and it was

we violated every security principle that you're supposed to have were you guys one of the crews that had the uh

somebody dressed up like a dinosaur on the back of a truck and rode that dude.

No, no,

that wasn't us as far as, you know, I don't think.

No, it wasn't us.

It wasn't us.

It wasn't us.

That was later down the line.

It was a dinecore team.

That was later down the line.

Yeah, that was down the line.

It was team five, I believe, that did the dinecore team because we would rotate with dinecore on this because we were still didn't have enough people.

So we would take it and they would take something.

I love the dinecore guys, too.

But now that wasn't serious, that was the dinecore team, which I wish it would have been.

That was some funny shit.

That was hilarious.

YouTube, youtube that stuff guys dinosaur route irish but um yeah we were time and place predictable we were a big target and we were slow everything you didn't want to be on route irish we were and did you guys

did you guys take contact just sniper fire from away off the on right when you hit route irish you had those that the where the uh where the edinburgh risk guys got hit that's that famous that i say famous that infamous video where those guys are on and there's an sf guy in there that everybody hammered because he ran and hid in a little ditch.

I've never seen that.

It was Edinburgh Risk where

it's right at the beginning.

When you get out of the green zone, you start hitting around Irish.

It's still Iraqi

urban areas right there.

And it's about 300 meters off the road.

And they would sit PKMs or snipers on there.

And they, because there was also a building that had been bombed and burnt out that they would put sniper fire about 100 meters away when you're going.

And so anyway, we would take every once in a while, but we got didn't get hit with a car bomb.

We got very lucky.

The Deincorrt team that took over for us got hit the next week.

So we would just take, and you know, you're

ping.

All right.

Well, we're good.

Everybody good?

Yeah.

All right.

It just added to the flavor, man.

And,

you know, it was something to say that for the team as well, how awesome they were and how a good motor kit operations, if you're running it right,

they're going to hit somebody that's not doing it right.

But I do remember that it was when we got the task to do it and I was a TL, I was like, can you guys do this?

Well, yeah, you know, what am I going to say?

No, of course we can do it.

But I went to the team and you should have seen the looks, man.

Half of them were stoked.

The other half were like,

I'm not going home.

Yeah.

And you're trying to keep everybody pumped up and in my head going, holy shit.

six times a day, just the odds

that we're, we're going to get hit with a VBID.

I said, we can take small arms fire because we're going to keep moving.

We're going to keep pushing through.

Just don't stop.

Don't create your own kill zone like the Edinburgh Risk guys did that got hit, where you get caught in a traffic jam there, and then you push everybody out right and left.

So you're basically, you've just given them an ambush zone.

You're giving them a big target.

But we can just keep pushing.

Don't worry about the rhino.

It's got much armor on it.

It's the State Department armored bus that M1 Abrams has.

It's going to be able to take a hit.

Just be able to med-vac him or get him out of there if it goes down, but just keep moving.

And it was very, we just did everything right.

And we got lucky.

You know, a lot 90%.

Man,

you never got blown up on Irish.

Never got blown up on Irish.

That is

like.

It's a for running six times a day, time and place predictable with a huge bus as a target.

I mean, it was that is incredible.

It's lucky.

It is very lucky.

It is because again, I said, when Deiker took over the next week, team five, they got hit.

The car bomb hit him.

Hit the Rhino right off.

Boom.

And, you know, I want to attribute it to that.

Hey, yeah, we were just that awesome.

No, we were just lucky.

Yeah, that's luck.

We were just that lucky.

But it still brought the team together.

It was wonderful.

It was wonderful.

And it was very tiring days because you are distressed.

I'm not diminishing your team, by the way, by saying that it's just luck.

I'm just saying.

No, no, I'll tell you.

I'm just DFPs and shit.

I mean, there was.

Well, and they were starting to drop the grenades with the little shoots off the overpasses as well.

Of course,

there is some.

Hey,

we did what we had control of.

We planned what we had to.

We ran the Rathright.

The motor kit operations were great.

We were doing what we needed to do.

We kept moving.

We didn't ever stop.

Let me say, sorry.

No, go ahead.

I get yelled at if I don't talk about these acronyms.

So an EFP for the audience.

An EFP is basically a bomb.

It's a platter charge.

It's a force projectile.

Yeah.

I want to say, always say I always say electrically, but that's not right.

I don't know why my head say it.

It's a platter charge.

They put a piece of copper on it.

It's a force projectile.

I always forget what the E stands for.

You guys can hammer on me later about that.

But it's where it goes.

And then that platter of that copper turns into molten lava.

So it'll go through the armor.

And then when it goes through, it cools and then it becomes,

it becomes a projectile, a hard projectile.

And they were starting yeah remember that they were starting to hit us with that and uh and that was always well they would even put those thermal sensors on yeah so when they when they sensed the heat of the engine that's what we're trying

because we were able to counter their first of all their wires where we could see them a lot of times which even though you just did but we were able to with all the countermeasures we could counter the cell phone So that was huge.

Yeah.

And

yeah, we had a buddy that

next month, a guy named Wee-Man, that got hit with, they got hit with the EFP when they were driving the Mambas around.

Blackwater had those white South African, and it went right through that armor.

Yeah.

And,

you know, I always say, I love Wee Man.

I love Chris.

He was a great guy.

He was actually our,

he worked in the mail.

I mean, it sounds kind of of

cliche, but he worked in the mail room.

He came in and he didn't have, he was not special ops.

He worked in a small town police department and he came in and and he wanted to get on the road and we would never let him on the road.

We're like, no, dude, you don't qualify.

Just, this is where you belong right here.

And finally, he got out on the road and

got hit with an EFP and he fucked him up.

Damn, man.

But I still love him to death.

But I'll be honest, I think,

I think, I think, I don't say he wanted that because I would never say it on anybody, but I do remember when they, because we didn't go pick him up, the QRF team that responded, they went to help.

My team was the PSD team.

And I do remember when they came back, one of the guys on the QRF team kept saying, I said, did you see We Man?

He goes, yeah.

He goes, what was he saying?

He said, just, he kept asking me to take a picture of him.

It's like,

sometimes you get what you wish for, man.

Man.

And again, I'm not, not to get he's, he is awesome.

We is, and dude's bravery and shit.

He is.

But be careful what you always, that's always a reminder to me, be careful what you wish for.

Yeah.

But yeah, we did that.

And

then um i did another year and then i went back home and i in between i was instructing at blackwater so i was a firearms syntactics instructor in between contracts so i really i really never went home even when so did you move to moyak no i stayed home she had a great job so it was it was one of those things where we were just apart a lot it was i was gone i or i'd go home for a month and it was hard because my son was born my first my 19 year old he was born uh the first two months i was over in in baghdad my first two months on the contract so i did come home to see his birth.

And then I went right back for another seven months.

But that was, you know, at that time, that's what I wanted.

There's nobody to blame but myself.

Man, what is what is it?

My whole career was pre-kids.

And so, I mean, as you know, today was my

son's first day at school.

Congrats on you.

I'm so happy that he's just like, dad, I'm out, man.

Yeah.

Well, I was expecting like a little, you know,

I'm going to miss you, mom and dad.

No, he's like, I don't give a shit.

I'm going to see you guys later.

But

I am.

I missed his first open house because

I interviewed Trump.

And

otherwise, there's no way I would have missed it.

You got to do what you got to do.

I'll tell you, man, when my wife sent me pictures of my son, like with his backpack

on, walking into that school, I was like,

you know, and

it just, every time I have an experience like that, I just wonder, like, how the, how did my buddies do it back in the day?

How do you

ration?

And I want to know what it's like to come home.

You met your son when he was a...

when he when

he was born

one month.

And then you come back, he's seven months old.

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Now today, at that time,

it was just what it was.

It was, this is what I'm doing.

This is what I got to do.

I'm providing for, you're rationalizing because this is I'm providing for my family.

Yeah.

But it's also a little ego.

This is what I want to do.

This is where I've been, this is what I've always wanted to do.

And, you know, when I got discharged from the military, My buddies were jumping into Afghanistan.

So like, I thought I missed my war.

You know how?

well, no, I got my war.

This is where I need to be.

I'm going.

And I did have a good time.

I was enjoying it.

It was wonderful.

Now looking back now and experiencing, you're getting experienced the little kid time with my nine-year-old that I have been with him growing up.

Now it's, now it hurts.

Yeah, now it's like, yeah,

damn.

Do you feel I missed, I missed him.

And we had to come into Jesus when he was 16 because we didn't know each other.

and even when i was home as a contractor you don't get there's no decompression there's no demo you're off a plane a commercial jet and you're going home and it takes about 30 days just to get your head right you don't you're not home and then you have 30 days of downtime and then you're back out again so that's why i think it was even easier for me just i think maybe that was a defense mechanism for me i don't want to go home and be angry and just just let me keep working that's and i'd go back and continue to instruct at moiak and i wouldn't go home for more in a couple of weeks or I'd fly them out to me.

At that time, it wasn't hard because

I thought we were doing it for something bigger than, you know, it's patriotism.

They attacked us.

Now looking back, I'm like, man,

gosh, I miss that.

I would have enjoyed being a father then.

And luckily for us, him and I are very close now.

I'm happy to hear that.

Yeah, but so we were able to come to terms.

Same with my daughter, too.

What did that,

I mean, did it come to a head and there was a conversation yeah yeah yeah when he was 16.

what what was that conversation we uh my wife and i had reconciled we know we were back together you know we we it was 2000 i'm sorry not when he was 16 so it was right around the year of 2018 where i got my shit together and him her and i back together and we were out at a family dinner and we're out at olive garden in council bluffs iow i remember vividly and you know my little guy i'm able to be a father with him even though i'm speaking and i'm not i'm starting to whittle the speaking down.

I'm starting to be home a lot more.

You know, I'm hugging all over him.

The stuff I really didn't do with the other two, because I was just so detached when I was home.

It was, I wanted to, but I, I didn't know how.

I mean, it really was

because I wasn't always there.

My brain was

sandbox, Afghanistan.

Brains, half brains there, half brains, family.

Where now my brain is all there with the family.

And my little guy did something, and I sorry, I can't say it.

Well,

many people know, but I just, my wife is all good.

My little guy, Peanut, all my kids have called sons.

Peanut.

He does something that the other two at Olive Garden, he's doing something.

He's starting to get angry, have a tantrum because he got those little games there at Olive Garden.

You can play on the little bottom trees.

In the past, when those kids, when my other two,

Kiki and Bubba, when they were growing up, I'd get angry, just lose it because I was back home, lost the handle.

I'm not getting mad at him.

I'm actually being a dad.

I'm actually, I mean, I'm being disciplined, but I'm having some patience.

He looked at me and it killed me, dude.

It did.

He looked at me and goes, why don't you get mad at him like you used to get mad at me?

And it was like, whoa.

I mean, it's just knife in the chest.

And

I didn't have an answer.

I couldn't tell him it was because of the wars, because of Iraq.

I mean, that's an excuse, kind of,

he's not going to understand that.

And that was where I realized that he was angry with me for being gone for many years.

And Kiki, my daughter, same way, because I was.

My little guy, Peanut, got treated a lot better,

a lot less

hand spanking on the bottoms or whatever than the other two.

And that's attributed to my mind state being coming back.

Because, you know, you come back and you have that excuse, man, what are you guys crying about?

You see this little Iraqi kid, he's on the street, you don't have nothing to eat.

And you're trying to compare the two, you know, but it's completely different.

But that's how I am coming back.

That's my rationalization.

I may be yelling at you, but you could have it a lot worse.

And a lot of guys, a lot of fathers now are realizing that because we're comparing their lives to these Afghani, little Afghani that's walking down the street carrying water up a five miles up a hill or, you know, or this, or the kids that are caught in a crossfire because, or a car bomb goes off and it blows up a busload of kids going to school.

You know, we're trying to compare that.

And they don't understand that.

And that's not a fair comparison.

But that's how I was until I was finally home more and able to come to terms with what was going on over there, that that was a life.

But now, my life is as a father here, and my actions were completely different with my younger son than it was with the other two.

And I didn't realize it until he said that.

How did you reconcile this?

Became a present,

hug on him more, love him more.

I told him, I said,

when he pushed away from me, give him a space, but then come back and just be, hey, you okay?

Son, I love you, man.

Or even now that, and with the advent of cell phones that's one positive is that i can just always say i love you bubba and even if i get back yeah because he's a teenager he knows and you know i know it we reconciled because his junior year he was his athlete as well when he played basketball he played football his freshman and sophomore year but he had three concussions so i pulled him out i said no more you're done with football play something else He loves soccer anyway, so he went to soccer.

He changed his number to 13.

I was like, no way.

I went to a game and I'm like,

I was, you know, my wife, Tanya, was sitting there.

I said, is that

I said his name.

Sorry.

Is that Bubba?

Thank you.

I said, is that Bubba?

She goes, yeah.

He goes, he's number 13.

She goes, yeah.

And that's when I knew that he had finally forgiven me.

And we are very close now.

Yeah, I love, I love that boy to death.

And he is just a good kid.

His mom raised him.

I mean, he is, he wasn't, he's nothing like me.

He doesn't drink.

He went to a school.

He had a soccer scholarship to go play at Northwestern College there.

It's a Christian school in Iowa.

And he's up there.

And I thought it'd be all right.

And he's like, Dad, I don't,

I don't do it.

All the guys go to Sioux Falls and drink.

And he goes, I don't do that.

He goes, I go, well, then come home and you have a track scholarship to the small college in Kansas.

Write that coach up and tell him you want to come in.

That's what he did.

So he was, he was wonderful, man.

It's just.

How about your daughter?

She's headstrong, man.

But

now

we're starting to get better because

the daughter's way different.

Little boys, you know, boys, you can be a little firmer.

Girls,

you don't really want to, in my opinion, you don't, because you don't want them falling in with a man that

bosses them around.

But you also, she's still your daughter.

She got a discipline.

So what do I do?

Mama, handle this.

But it came to a point too where, yeah, and my daughter's, as far as her outspokenness, is like me.

My oldest son, he's not, you know, he's very, very, very quiet.

He's strong, but he's, you know, he doesn't argue back.

He doesn't.

He knows.

I got it.

He goes, I got it.

I'll fix it.

My daughter, she's going to argue.

Argue, argue, argue.

And there were times where we would be, yeah, we'd be yelling at each other.

Like, because the disrespect that was there.

And

my wife finally said i she goes just let me let me

let me handle it and this was a couple years ago and so done you just default to my wife who who and my daughter responds better to her mom and a lot of it has to do with me being gone a lot but now we're

we're no we're getting back again we're we're we're reconciling and we're at a point where and she's not very

i i think she got she's not very um affectionate She doesn't like the hugs and the and the kisses like my little guy does and my oldest son.

I said, I'm gonna hug you till you're 40, till you're 50 years old, sons.

They like it.

I mean, my son doesn't hug back, but he lets me.

She doesn't like it.

And I think a lot of that has to do with, you know, her growing up and me and her mom, you know, sometimes having some issues.

We got divorced at one point and me being an angry,

angry man coming back from deployments.

But she knows I love her.

And, you know, there was an issue at her school that I love it.

She wrote a letter to the school saying how she had a problem with one of the, one of the dress code issues.

I'm like, heck yeah.

And I remember I said, I got your back, darling, because I believe you.

I said, and I know you're doing the right thing.

And that's what I love because that is something Tanto would do.

Like selling, telling Pete Hakeseth that you're going to choke out a former president.

Hey, she got her opinion.

Hell yeah, I got you.

And I called her and she was, she, you know,

so it's, it's a lot of time where I'll tell our lover,

I love you, Donna.

Yeah, dad.

I love you.

I love you, too.

Cause I called her and I said, you write what you want.

You know, I got your back.

Tell them how you feel.

I said, I love you.

And she goes, I love you too, dad.

And that was actually just last week.

Good for you, man.

So it just, it's being a father, man.

You just have to figure it out.

And there are, it's okay to be a disciplinary.

There's nothing wrong wrong with that.

But you also, your kids are all different.

And for us that deployed, we do have to relearn.

We have to change ourselves.

You know, warriors don't retire, like Ron said.

And I know we put it in the movie, but he said that.

But it's the truth.

But we don't ever retire, but we can't be a warrior at home all the time.

You can be a dad, but you have to figure out a way how to reach your kids.

And luckily for me, my kids are smarter than me.

So they would maybe not tell me, but they would say things where I was astute enough to pick it up, like my son or like my daughter.

And they don't always have to say they love you, just in action, like my son wore number 13.

I just knew right then, I was like,

he forgives me.

We're good, and we have been perfect since.

I'm happy to hear that.

Thanks, man.

That's pretty cool.

Chris,

let's take a quick break.

When we come back, we will get into how you got into the OGA contract.

We got it, brother.

Perfect.

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Let's get back to the show.

All right, Chris, we're back from the break.

Yeah.

And we just went through a small portion of your career.

Well, I guess not a small portion.

We went through a portion.

It's of my life, small portion of my life.

Let's put it that way.

But

now we're getting ready to get into how you got picked up for OGA.

That was, you know, again,

and I keep referring this, God's path, the Lord works mysterious ways.

It really, it wasn't anything I wanted to do.

I was doing fine doing, I was working with Blackwater, doing State Department stuff, but then also I was working with the Greystone, which was Eric's.

He was trying to make like kind of an executive outcomes sort of, but it was Greystone, so it was still Blackwater, but it was like a little offshoot.

We would go down.

What's executive outcomes?

That was the old South African PMC, where there was really a PMC mercenaries.

Oh, that was like the De Beer shit.

Yeah, that was where they were going and actually getting hired by governments to take down terrorist organizations or actually do direct action missions.

That wasn't the De Beer shit.

That wasn't the De Beer shit.

No,

this was the old...

Real mercenaries.

Yes,

where the term mercenary, I would say, well, I'll turn mercenaries back in the beginning of time.

But that was where the government stopped in and said, we got to stop doing this because there were 60 South African,

you know, those guys were 60 South African strong of former military, and they were taking out huge armies at the behest of some of the African governments.

Read about them.

It was pretty interesting stuff.

They were badasses.

What is this called again?

They were called executive outcomes.

How the hell do I not know about this?

I know, so I'm surprised, too, man.

That's that's a big deal.

That's a dumbass.

I don't know if anybody's still alive from any of those.

You know, it was early, long 70s, 80s, I think it was.

But anyway, Greystone was supposed to be Eric's kind of like an

offshoot of that.

So it was Blackwater, but we were called Greystone.

I didn't know Greystone either.

Yeah, yeah, dude.

I got left in the dark artist.

It was very small, and it just lasted, but it was, Eric wanted to keep that.

Was it the agency stuff?

No, it was private stuff.

We were going out South America and training local South Americans to go and protect bases

overseas.

So protect Blackwater bases more.

So instead of using the Nepalese, the Gurkha Gurkhas, you know, that we were trying to.

All right, hold on.

Let's go.

Let's talk about Greystone.

I've had Eric on here three separate times.

We have not talked about Greystone.

I don't think it lasted very long.

It was very small.

It really was more training going down there and vetting locals that we could use from South America, Central America.

So I went to Peru and El Salvador, and then we also had teams going to Colombia.

And it wasn't anything nefarious.

It's not like we were going down there and starting to execute.

We weren't pulling inks.

Let's put it that way.

We weren't doing that.

We were going down there to train and then working with the Fueza de Especial and helping them train a little bit.

So it was like a FID mission.

It really was.

But I think Eric wanted to get to a point where it was like its own self-sustaining army.

Gotcha.

But it just never morphed into that because then

that's when...

Those times is when State Department started to take over

the CPA.

Now it was high threat protection.

Then it went to that WIPS worldwide personal protective and State Department getting their hands in.

And that's when the microscope started going up Eric's keystroke, where they were trying to come after him for stuff.

And

whatever.

I like Eric.

I protected his family in between contracts.

I'd go to Tyson's Corner and I'd go run with him in the morning because I was the only guy that he was a beast.

Dude was physically.

I could run with him in the morning and I'd go take his kids to school because that code pink, that liberal terrorist crazy women group was always threatening them.

So we had a team that would help him.

And I was on that as well.

I was the detail leader for that.

But anyway, we did that.

And I got to go.

So I went to South America in between contracts.

So I was State Department.

And then, do you want to go Greystone?

Do you want to go to South America?

Hell yeah.

So we went to Pierra, Peru, went to

San Salvador, went to Lima, Peru.

And it was fun.

It was a good time.

Again, my Spanish comes back, so I don't really feel like it's a deployment to me.

You know, and ate some good food, went to a couple spin classes there in Lima, you know, Shakira on bikes and spandex.

What can go?

Anyway, anyway, it was a great, and then it was, and then the training too, you know, and, and, um, and working with the Forza de Especial, especially in El Salvador, was pretty cool.

Um, but then, uh, I came back and I was still teaching high threat protection, getting ready to do another contract.

And, uh, Marty Strong, who's SEAL lieutenant, great guy.

Uh, he's written a few books himself, but great guy.

He was one of the program managers on the Blackwater contract, the State Department contract.

And Randy Leonard was running, starting to run the OGA side house.

We call it the victory.

We call it the Victory Program and AOB, Army of Blackwater program, which was the static CAA guys, the base security guys.

Marty comes to me and says, hey, you want to go work OGA?

And like, Marty, man, I'm State Department.

And I thought the requirements were still like eight years or nine years spec ops.

I only had six.

So I was like, I don't qualify.

And it was six, but but i he goes you qualify i go all right because i was jogging in my i lived out in the back at the ptc the private training center which was out so i was jogging one day and he was driving home and that's when he yelled out of his window he goes you want to go do oga i was like mari i don't qualify and i'm still trying to run he goes you qualify all right sure put my name in the hat and then The next day, Randy came and there was seven of us instructors that had been working contracts.

And there was the victory program, which we ran to get guys certified for OGA.

It was easy.

It wasn't anything,

to be quite honest with you.

We're coming back.

And I remember, you know, we're getting done training.

We're teaching a class for the day to send guys over on the WIPS contract.

I was doing the high threat protection side of the house on that side.

And he pulls all these guys.

And what get, these are all, these are all tough guys, man.

All pipe hitters, right?

Cool as

everything.

I can do anything.

And Randy comes in and TDC had gotten a name for itself.

It was hard people fail a lot of people were failing

and so Randy comes in and there's seven of us he goes we have a slot for TDC who wants to go it was crickets

all these pipe hitters man everybody's look you know looking

somebody say something

and I was like fuck it I'll go I was like I'll do it And it was like everybody would, oh, because if one of us didn't volunteer, Randy was going to pick one.

And, you know, if you don't pass it, well, then maybe it'll come back on whips, but you're never working.

It was.

It was literally pass or fail.

You pass.

If you fail, it's never OGA ever again.

For those listening, OGA stands for other government agency.

So we weren't calling it.

We're getting into the intelligence stuff.

Intelligence stuff.

Yeah, the clowns in action.

We're getting into the clowns in action.

True, true.

But we didn't call it GRS.

I didn't know what that was called.

I didn't know it was GRS.

He said OGA, which I knew what it was, but it wasn't called GRS at that time.

If it was,

that wasn't the term used around the headshed there.

Yeah.

So I say idea.

And Randy says, okay, we need to get you spun up.

And he brought in Dan Simpson, 30 Dan, one of the original makers of TDC with Randy.

I mean, they started with Dan,

another Dan.

He started GRS, great guy.

I wish we could remember his last name.

I can't.

It's probably better you don't.

Don't.

Yeah, you're right.

Even though he's pro well, he left and started Osen Hunter Group, which oh maybe different so he he's up but i wouldn't no worries anyway

he goes we need to get you spun up and if you're a ranger and seals you guys use pistols sf they get good at pistols rangers we get a pistol we're throwing it in a rucksack we don't shoot this like i mean we're rifling a machine we can that's our thing rifles machine guns gustoffs That's our thing.

And Randy goes, get out there.

I need to start training.

And at the time, too, i wasn't using broom handles which oh you know and because we don't that wasn't you guys did blue blue and and white soft did a broom handle is a forward grip that goes on the front of an ar-15.

that wasn't a thing high readys or m4 m4 what m4 ar 15 sbr pdw whatever yeah you get all you gun porn people can can call it whatever you want and they figure it out yeah exactly but um i remember and uh and i never we never did high ready that wasn't a thing.

It was low ready, low carry, low carry, low ready.

So that's ranger, right?

You got to teach your high-ready.

So I get out there with Dan.

The high-ready actually came pretty natural.

The broom handle, I love, it's like, man, where did I, why am I not been using that thing?

And it was just, I used the Dieter.

I like the Dieter for the foregrip, the CQD foregrip.

It was excellent.

It was perfect.

Fit my hand, right?

And so I got the rifle stuff down.

That was pretty quick.

The pistol,

geez, us.

I mean, I could pass a State State Department call it the pistol, which is a joke.

The TDC pistol was

that I was like, whoa, how am I going to do this?

And we worked on that continually for about a week.

And then it was like, you're gone.

Go see you.

And we went, my TDC course was held in

Danville.

Not Danville.

ITI.

That's where it started, the racetrack out there, ITI.

What is that?

West Point, Maryland?

I don't remember.

It was called ITI.

It's in Virginia.

It's in Virginia.

Yeah.

But we did it there, went there, did the PT test, easy.

I mean, like I said, I'm running five-minute miles.

It's nothing.

I think I ran that, whatever it was, in nine minutes, where you had to run a half mile, carry the body, run back.

I mean,

I was very blessed.

I've been blessed with good Aztec running jeans.

The rifle part, I mean, it was tough.

It was challenging.

I wouldn't say it was easy.

It was challenging.

No, it's tough.

It was the time standards, they're tough.

Got through that.

The night stuff, again, we use night shit.

I was used to infrared lasers.

I was used to, I was so, it was awesome to actually not have a 14, a Cyclops on.

And it wasn't the 15s we were using that time.

They were 23s.

They were a little bit bigger.

Oh, damn, those old schools.

Those old school ones.

It was real heavy, but it still was all right.

I got used to it because we had stronger necks back then.

We were tougher back then.

The vehicle stuff was piece of it, it was just tactics.

It was Battle Drill 1 Alpha, man.

React contract, break contract.

You know, it's from Battle Drill, squad attack, Battle Drill 1, Alpha.

And then you're either break contract or you flank.

And it was, the vehicle attacks were pretty simple.

It's just bounding.

Ultimate sex of it, it was infantry.

And house stuff, no problem.

Just don't flag your buddy.

The high ready eliminates that, which made it a lot easier.

And just get on your target, think.

That's where I started.

This needs to start kicking in more than this.

more than the shooting.

It's a chess game.

Be three steps ahead of your enemy.

If you're racing towards your gun, you're already screwed.

You've screwed yourself.

That's why I don't get into the YouTube.

Let's go fast, fast.

Because if you have to go fast, you've fucked up somewhere.

And that was what was, that's what Randy really, Dev Grew Rand, SEAL team, horsecock Randy,

you know where Jolla calls I came.

He really harped into that with me along with my platoon sergeant Randy Battalion, which I didn't really start to put together till TDC.

Be three steps ahead so you don't have to react fast.

It's a chess game.

And we had MI5 and MI6 guys trained in there, too.

They were part of our vetting teams too.

And for some reason, I don't know if this was your, every MI5, MI6 guy I met was either named Mick or Mo.

We had a Nick and we had a Mo.

Okay, well, standard issue call sign-up.

But they were, one was an SBS guy, the other one was a Royal Marine that went to SAS, and they were a part of our instructing cadre too.

Okay.

And they were, those guys think.

I mean, it's fine, fix, and then eliminate, but they're always thinking.

And that's the, it, so it really became now where things started to slow down.

You know, you're with adrenaline, fire breathing, let's kick through that door.

That's actually where I started, hey,

take a breath.

Let's start to slow it down, Ranger.

All right.

Be aggressive when you need to, then bring it down.

And it, it really, it just started to all make sense.

So the room clearing was actually, it was great.

It was, it's like, man, I'm getting this.

I'm, I'm actually becoming becoming an operator here, you know.

And, uh,

you know, it only took 10 years, but I'm there.

I'm getting there.

And the pistol, though, I was so worried.

We went out and did the pistol.

And

you get, I don't remember, was it two tries?

You get, you know, you do practices.

They have us do some practice runs through.

So it's not like they put you on their cold.

You're practicing.

This has changed.

And I don't remember because we had a day of practice runs

that morning and then they said, okay, qual.

We went out and qualed.

I boloed the head.

All right, you get one alibi.

And I went and I, the body was fine.

I was making the times.

I couldn't hit the head because my grip was, I just didn't have the right grip.

I didn't have the mechanics.

I was really, because I didn't shoot a pistol a ton at range battalion.

We just didn't do it.

Yeah.

So I mean out there, and I mean, luckily for me, fundamentals are fundamentals are fundamentals so I'm trying to find the front sight trying to do whatever and doing it within that time frame which

the one that got the one that was getting me was the two to the body and then you have to you know you start at the 10 and you have to run to the two and put one in the head.

So it's like go draw you run and you have to put two to the body then you have to run down to the five or was the seven and then you got to put one in the head within like was I'm it was stupid was like three seconds or something like I think these are different quals though.

They might be different now.

They might be.

And I still got my calls.

If you ever want me to send them to you, I've still got those quals because I used to teach the course after.

So I've still got those.

Got them too.

And they may, I'd like to see what you have.

I mean, I can always use more training material, man.

I love a quality, but it was, that was getting me.

I could get the body.

And then you had to run fast down to the three.

And it was like 10 to the three.

Or no, I'm sorry.

Yeah, it was 10 to the three.

I'd have to look, guys.

forgive me guys you guys all know i will maybe i'll i'll send that we'll put online but it was it was an ungodly it was tough and i kept blowing the blowing the head shot because you did that twice and if you didn't get in that the the a box both times it didn't matter you failed yeah you could get every body shot in the world but you had to hit a box not outside yet and um basically what he's talking about is there's a slap that we call the credit card credit card in the head the prefrontal cortex lobe right the eyes

and um

but it's so if you miss if you hit outside of the credit card you're you're you're done you're done it's it's on those ipsic targets the ispc i ipfc targets and um

the last one i got

i didn't do anything different i just got lucky as

body was fine Physically, I was fine.

I was fast still.

Still could run fast.

I got there.

So my job was, okay,

get there, get those bodies out.

You're going to hit them because they're easy.

You know, all you do is A or B, which is here or here.

That's a big spot from 10 yards.

That's not hard to do, especially if you've been shooting a lot.

Probably couldn't do it now, but not

back then.

And then use my speed and run as fast as I could so I could get a stable position and then just

pray.

So it was run like this and pray.

And I did it.

Got it.

Nice.

And I, but I got it.

I hit the first one center, and I broke the line on this thing.

Break the line, it counts.

Yeah, and I was like, Oh, yeah,

and that was it.

I made it GRS and uh went back, and

it was a good feeling because you weren't looking down at guys, but it was like, Yeah, because not many guys had passed TDC.

We lost half the course that we had, yeah, and all of them were Rangers Seals.

Um, we had one D-Boy and uh, SF, and we had 10 guys, five passed, five failed.

Yeah,

And

yeah, I went back and

they said, where do you want to go?

I said, I don't care.

And they sent my first trip.

I went to the secondary, went to Afghanistan, went to Kabul.

And that was the end of 05, beginning of 06.

Man, I forgot we called it the secondary.

I remember the main and the secondary.

When did you realize that

the OGA contract was for CIA?

At TDC.

Yeah,

because they would sit us down and they would tell us.

Afterwards or during the course?

During the course.

During the course,

we would know.

And

Randy started the program.

He'd been agency for a while.

Gotcha.

We knew.

I mean, he didn't have to.

It was, hey, guys, this is OGA.

Wink, wink.

You know,

we knew.

It wasn't, but officially...

when we got there because it was a it was a cordonoff training area it was like a private training area where there were no outsiders

private training area within a private training yeah exactly so we were at the same spot all the way in the back yep yep and um

so i so that that's when i knew and and uh what i was so cool about is that the teams

for me the pay was better it was it was great it was great pay grant we weren't getting paid well before but it was still great But the smaller teams, what was cool to me, I thought that was neat.

Being you and a buddy, and that's it.

And you're out there on your own.

And then sometimes you're out on your own, on your own, on your own, where I did a lot walking within the cities on my own, which was awesome.

I'd love that.

Find where was your first deployment?

Kabul, Ariana.

And I, uh, when I grow this out, I can blend pretty good.

Not that I wear shama kamisas, but I could look like a business.

You don't have to draw on the man, wear the man jammies.

There's a lot of government workers out there.

Yeah.

You know, just wear what they're wearing.

They wear button-down shirts, man.

And in the wintertime, they wore long coats, and you could buy one off at the park down by the movie theater, you know, right where the uh

not the Serena hotel, that's the one that got hit, but there's that other hotel downtown that they had that park, and you could just go buy stuff.

And I would, I'd stop and I'd buy local stuff, throw it on, yeah, you know, just make sure you delouse, delouse, you're gonna smell a little bit, but it worked.

And, and I loved walking on my own.

Like, and Sachs, he trusted me, or maybe he just thought, well, he's expended a lot.

I don't know, Sax.

But he likes Eitano.

He's like, do you want to go for a walk?

And I love doing that.

A lot of guys didn't.

And I get it.

And I mean, when you're a white dude tatted up down to here and you eat well and you're always buffed out, you're not going to blend very well.

I get that.

It wasn't that they were afraid.

It's just they didn't blend.

I'm a little guy.

I'm, I have a, I have a brown complexion, you know, I know how to handle myself and I wanted to.

And so I got it, man.

I went to the Mahdi market walking.

It was like Indiana Jones.

I got to walk in some of those alleyways.

It was, I have pictures of it.

Now, sometimes I'll post them.

It was,

it was where I was uh acting and I was walking with a CIA case officer.

We were back there doing a recon, just seeing.

And I think, honestly, I think she just wanted to go back there to see what was cool.

And this was, I threw an MP5 in a computer bag, had my gene Glock 19 on me.

I wore just local, I wore just what what they were i wore khakis and a button-down shirt and um

we went back it was by cnn circle it was back like by the soccer field where you go across the river and the mahdi markets where the river was and then if you come out the back the front side it's where that two-story mosque the their their famous mosque is well if you get out on the market in the river there's the river here and then you see people walking to shopping There's a whole other shopping alleyways through that and you have to find your way in there.

It was so cool.

You just walk in and it's like, it is like the movies.

It's like this tight alleyway and then you get through it and a whole other world of shopping opens up.

You've got spices, you've got fighting quails that are about this big.

You've got naan everywhere and there's people being crazy everywhere.

I'm not crazy, but just it's just people shopping, Afghani shopping.

You've got police.

I remember walking in one and you do have a lot of shit and a lot of trash piled up on us because, you know, the open sewers and so forth.

I remember walking and we went out of this right left alley, and there was this police officer with a

blackjack, you know, beating sticks.

He was beating the shit out of some Afghani, just whooping the back of his legs, like just disciplining him.

And I remember walking, and we did have a local guy.

So that was a, that was, you know, it was a plus.

I have a local Afghani with us.

So he's with us.

And I said, what the hell, man?

And he's beating that shit out of me.

And you know, first instinct as an American does this step in.

I got to stop this.

No, no, no.

Let it.

It's Afghan.

Let it go.

Well, what they would do is when they would go shopping, they'd hire guys to pull those.

You see guys carrying, pulling donkey carts around?

That was for people that didn't want to carry all their supplies back to their vehicles or their home.

They'd hire these guys to put in the donkey carts and they'd walk them.

Kind of like the little tuk-tuks, I guess.

Donkey carts is a better explanation.

Little pole wheelbarrows.

I said, why is he kicking the shit out of him?

And he goes, he was parked his donkey cart in the wrong spot.

It's like, there's Afghanistan for you.

But it was, it just, it was fun because

I got to, I wasn't on a military base.

You know, I wasn't always being a DA guy.

I was, I was getting out and doing surveillance and counter surveillance and just getting atmospherics.

And that was fun.

That was so cool.

And getting to experience the food and hanging with the locals a little bit.

And

it was awesome.

That first trip, and all the trips after were awesome because after I would do a couple of those

and Sachs and the agency found I was a guy that could they could rely on to do that, they sent me out to do a lot of stuff.

I'd go out in the Makarian district and they said, Can you go take pictures of this apartment building?

We think there's a government worker that's part of the Taliban.

And I'd go, Yeah, sure.

And we set it up so I'd have Kirif around, great guys I could trust, like Popeye was one.

Sax was another, you know,

Otto, Marine buddy that runs Photonis Defense.

He was a GRS guy.

So they'd be close by.

They'd be orbiting the area.

So if I was 911, dude, I'm getting wrapped up.

Come help me.

But I could go out there and they just let me go and I was just walking around the city.

It was fun.

I loved it.

Yeah.

That was the job on GRS that I love.

But that was, anyway, that was the beginning of GRS was right there where I got the taste.

And and that's where the bug got me it was it wasn't even the protection it was that holy crap i have freedom to actually

get to know these cities and see the stuff that i only saw in movies and national geographic yeah that was awesome

those were good times yeah yeah

those were good times for the most part oh for the most part just dealing with this and then you have to come back to the

the agency and put

with the bullshit or or go you know, try to stay clear of the tally bar so

somebody's getting in a fight or drinking too much.

You weren't a tally bar guy.

I went in there a couple times, but I wasn't a big drinker.

No, I wasn't.

It was too much drama.

Yeah.

It was drama or, you know, some a lot of drama.

A lot of drama.

Like,

stay away from there.

And a lot of women, the women that were there, you know, a lot of things happened on that pool table.

You said it.

I didn't.

But it was too much much drama.

It was just, you know, it was just alpha men, women, alpha males and females.

And no,

I always said I was my best person when I was overseas because I focused on the job.

I had fun.

The gyms were good.

There always was a gym.

I could always work out.

I had no problem running around the area.

I loved running, even though, oh, you're getting all that crap in your lungs.

Well, I'm getting the crap in my lungs in the gym with the air, with the little, with the little mini splits, you know?

So I loved it.

And that first trip was all first seven, eight months was off and on to the Cabo.

That's where I went.

Kept going, kept going, kept going.

It was fun, and I had a great time.

Where was your favorite place to work?

Kandahar, get-go.

Gecko by far, because all the ops were at night, so you could sleep all day.

Favorite place in Afghanistan or favorite place?

Favorite place for me was gecko.

No shit.

Yeah, I did love it.

I love Kandahar.

And I love, I got to do a lot of flyaways there.

A lot of,

Losh hadn't spun up yet.

So we were setting up Losh Gagar and Spin.

Those places were still, they were thinking about setting them up.

So we were doing a lot of flyaways and landing in the middle of the night in a soccer field, running off the back of a

hip, which I hated flying in those things.

I felt like I was flying in a death trap because, you know, how slow they're just,

but.

Landing in a soccer field in the middle of night, having the local guard force come pick you up, then you'd go stay in a bombed out building with some ratty old blankets.

But you'd go with your Kandaar security force too.

So we'd always take guys with us.

And I got real close to them.

And I was also in part, I was also in charge of the training.

So I'd run the training with the locals too, with our local QSF guys, you know, the local guys that worked with us.

So that was fun.

So I, you know, I'd go over there.

And even though there was a language barrier, I'd go in there and with their CEO, with their head guy, and we, I'd drink chai and we'd just sit and we'd try to communicate.

And it was fun.

I enjoyed it.

Played soccer on that Rocky

soccer field where PT was.

I remember PJ whenever he get,

I want to say his name, but he broke his ankle out there because there was just rocks everywhere, you know, and then we'd run up, gecko, you know, ramp the mountain, do PT in the morning.

And it was just, it was, it was awesome.

And we had a great team there.

No, the team was, that team rivaled the Benghazi team.

That was one of the best teams where everybody got along.

Myself, Curly, the TL we had their rebel, he was awesome.

one of the best tls again another guy that qualified if he was a contractor but he became a staffer one of the good staffers um

curly ex

bixler joseph who passed away uh in a motorcycle accident you know the following year he just got hit while he was driving his motorcycle too fast and um

mushroom who is a old force recalled marine old marine

who doesn't like an old old crusty marine

um great guy and then joe dirt joe's Joe Zark, Joe Deerte, but Dirt, Joe Dirt, 10 Special Forces group guy.

And everybody just got along.

It was wonderful.

It was just, and everybody, it was one of those, again, teams where you could go out and do stuff and nobody really needed to say anything.

You didn't even work together.

You just, everybody just knew what everybody was going to do.

Yeah.

And you just roll out.

And I loved it because it was all at night.

And going out and wrapping up guys at night was fun.

I mean, we didn't, it was hot, so we didn't get a lot of ops.

It wasn't like you guys, where you guys were constantly going and but when it was it was fun yeah and it was like and then um at that time too is when also when um we lost jeremy wise and we lost south side of coast

so you know so that's when the tactics changed too or the the the uh the um

the standards uh operating procedures changed where we had to search people that were actually coming in they wouldn't just let them on the base because you know if you for those that don't know um

i don't think the movie's that great but I do like that scene actually is

pretty good.

It was

Zero Dark 30, where they showed what happened where the CIA chief of base let the double agent on

too far and it blew up.

That was accurate.

That was Southside.

That was Jeremy.

Doc Wyatt didn't die.

He came to Tripoli later, but he was one of the ones that injured and they lost that real good targeter.

But that's what we had to do as well.

And there was one, I remember,

there was a defining moment for me there of how to handle because we would, we'd have Taliban people coming on, or we'd go grab them, then we have to bring them in, and we'd search them again there on a facility outside.

And X was hardcore, sealed.

He wanted to kill every,

I loved him not, but he just was me.

He nicest guy at us, but Taliban, I don't care who you are.

You do what I tell you to do.

You do it now, or I'm going to slam you.

And we brought this Taliban guy in and we were searching him.

He wouldn't let us search him.

But we're out of facility.

So if anybody gets blown up, it's going to be us.

You know, say we're expendable.

It's all right.

Well, he wouldn't let him.

I remember, and it was, he was trying to search him.

And we had the Afghan, we had one of our interpreters there.

And I'm trying to play good cop.

We're trying to get good cop, bad cop.

I'm trying to be the nice guy.

And X is grabbing him and trying to get him to.

do what we're telling him to do.

And he was fighting it.

He's Italian.

He's fighting it.

And I told him to say, what's going on, man?

Why is he not letting him search him?

Is he hiding something?

Is there a bomb here?

Because now my spider senses are going up because I think he's going to blow us up.

And he goes, no, no, he's he says, it's because he's got his Quran in his top pocket.

He's got it in his chamber kameez up here.

And I always carried my pocket Bible, you know, the little green ones we get going down the range, the New Testament.

I had one here.

I always carried it every day.

I pulled it out of my pocket.

I said, here, you give this to him and you tell him he can touch it.

We're saying, God, I believe in God.

I respect his God.

He respects my God.

We're good to go.

And I said, you say that.

And you always said, you know, the terpers.

I said, you say that exactly how I said it.

Don't change it.

Don't try to change the words.

You say it just like that.

And he did it in Pashto.

And the Taliban guy stopped fighting.

He looked at me.

And he says, okay.

I shook his head.

I said, I go,

so we good?

We cool?

He goes, yeah, we're cool.

And he let me search him.

And I was like, man, you know what?

Little diplomatic relations, but also the religious side, man.

God is God.

I don't want to disrespect your God.

You don't disrespect my God.

We have to search you.

And I said, tell him, and I did tell him this, that we tell him we have to search him because I don't want him killing me with a bomb.

And he said it, and we searched him.

Now, X was in all his rights to throw that guy around.

And believe me,

I wanted to as well.

He's Taliban, man.

But there's got to be more way to remedy this than just throwing his ass around and all of us getting scuffed up a little bit.

Because nobody

wrote house man, Patrick Swayze, the great philosopher Patrick Swayze said, no one wins a fight.

And he's right.

Somebody, all of us are going to get scuffed up a little bit.

We're going to win because we're going to throw him down.

But somebody's going to get scratched.

Somebody's going to get beat.

Somebody's going to get hurt.

You know, screw that.

Let's try to do this.

Be the nice guy first.

and it worked and he gave us good info and the case officers were very happy with us because they didn't get a belligerent guy trying to give information he gave up at least that's what they said i don't get into it but that was kandahar and that was how kandahar was for me because it just

it the team fit the work fit i enjoyed going out at night.

I enjoyed that it was very hot.

You know, guys were getting,

or you had, I don't know if you talked about, but you had Bradley on Don, lucky.

You know, he got massive car bomb there when you were with the teams.

I mean, that was that was Kandahar.

Yeah.

But then also, I love that we got a punch out all over in the Lashkagar in a helmet, the Hellman province and the Kandahar province, and we got to fly and

do cloak.

It really felt like cloak and dagger type shit.

It was really cool.

Yeah, that was a good place to work.

It was.

It was.

Let's move into

Libya.

Yeah.

You ready?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Let's do it.

You want to skip right to it?

I'm good for whatever you are, brother.

Every,

if I, if it hurts, then that's what I'm supposed to feel.

That's what people need to see.

If you lead the way, and I'll guide.

Yeah, yeah.

I went to Tripoli first.

My first trip wasn't in Benghazi.

It was to Tripoli.

And

one of the things that I enjoyed about GRS, and especially then, is by that time I had started to stop moving.

I stopped working for like the

secondary companies.

I wasn't doing contracts for Blackwater or SOC, who took over the contract, or

those were the main two.

I don't know who has them anymore.

Osen Hunter had another contract where I would do teaching with Osen Hunter.

That's where I got to, I mean, that's me and Evan Hafer worked on those contracts together.

Great contracts.

But they started a program called the Direct Hire Independent Contractor.

You know that you've worked it.

To those that don't, it's funny because what's the acronym?

D-H-I-C.

We were dicks.

And that was a joke.

We're dicks.

You want to be a dick?

Sure, I'll be a dick.

So they would come recruiting

from the Blackwaters and whoever else.

And if you had a good record, you've done a lot of time.

And

you're a C1 at those places would write you a good eval, you could come and

be a a dick.

And that's what I did after Kandahar, actually.

I said, yeah, do you want to go?

Because it gave us the opportunity to just,

because it gets mundane going from the secondary to the main, to the secondary.

I mean, you're going to Afghanistan, Iraq.

When you're doing that 10 years, it just, you get bored.

So it gave me the opportunity to go out to different places and Libya was one of them.

So I was like, yeah.

And so I went to Libya, went to Tripoli.

It was fun.

Again, it was another place where,

you know, you get from the American government that these dictators and all that are just awful people and these countries are shitholes.

And

I went there and I'm like, this isn't a shithole.

Wow.

All right.

There's still, the hotels are still open.

Man, there's still a sherrod in here that's still open.

Man,

this little resort down by the Mediterranean is still open, even though it was a burning tank down the road.

I mean, it was,

that's where

I didn't ever really question foreign policy and things like that until Libya.

It's like,

okay, I'm not really sure this was right, but who cares?

That's not my job.

I'm here to do what my job is.

And it was fun.

That's where I met Bob.

I met Glenn.

He was there.

And

it was just, it was less protection and more atmospherics.

It was more surveillance, counter surveillance.

and trying to see if there were terrorists that were moving into the country because of the vacuum of power.

Who was on our side?

Who was not on our side?

And that was fun because it wasn't so much protection anymore doing like we did in a lot in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It was more

just a lot more trade corrupt.

It was.

It was fun.

And

it was a lot of times where

you're getting to see things or like even getting to go places.

that you wouldn't get to go in Iraq, Afghanistan.

I'm talking about just nature.

There's the ocean right there.

You know, you got Leptis Magna, the old Roman Colosseums that are right there.

And a lot of this job took us to those places.

So you're getting to work in some historic places.

They're like, wow, I didn't know Rome was here in Libya.

Or you're seeing the Battle of Tripoli and you're seeing the marine grave sites.

Or...

And we wrote about in 13 Hours when there was a consulate that was attacked in Libya way before ours.

And we write about in the book and getting to go see that.

So it was almost, you know, it's like a museum.

I'm on, I'm on a job, but I'm also on a historical

tour.

And it was awesome, man.

And the guys were great.

Because if you're on the, on the dick program, you're generally, you've been there for a while.

So everybody, even if you didn't know, hadn't worked that person, maybe in an area, because I worked at Kurdistan as well.

Love that place.

I love Suli and I love Durbill and I love DeHook.

But you would know the guys.

So the guy, you hear the name.

Oh, yeah, I've heard of him.

Oh, yeah, I know.

He knows it.

So you're not getting a new guy coming in with a chip on his shoulder.

Everybody's,

man, they're chill, man.

They're like you.

They're like me.

I'm probably the most wired.

They're like you.

They're just chill.

Got a job to do.

We stand to the job.

Flip the switch on.

Let's go kick some heads in.

Then turn the switch off and just relax.

And that's how it was.

And the agency there, you know,

I had learned how to deal with them.

You know,

I knew what to expect.

And Bub was awesome.

Bub was always a CrossFitter.

He was always out working out.

So was I.

Loved working out, but he did the CrossFit stuff.

I wasn't a big CrossFitter.

We'd watch, you know, we'd go watch movies in our downtime.

He was the only guy that would watch Black Dynamite with me.

I love that Black Exploitation movie.

And every guy hated it there except for Bub.

He was the only one that would sit through it with me.

But the first trip was pretty just normal.

Nothing really big was happening.

You'd see some black flags going on.

You'd see the terrorist flags, al-Qaeda flags.

You're used to that time.

You see them everywhere.

So what?

There's some black flags.

You weren't really thinking of it.

Went home.

And then the next trip, they said, you're going to Tripoli.

So I'm getting ready to go to Tripoli.

And then right when I got to Suda Bay, Greece, which is where our stopping point was,

where part of the 555th Fighter Wing is,

they said, no, we need people in Benghazi.

You're going to Benghazi.

It's like, okay, Tripoli, Benghazi.

So what?

Head out there.

I get there.

And,

you know, you just felt it was different.

You just walked, you get out in Benina, and the movie did an excellent job

showing that, man.

You just got off a plane.

We do have an expediter there.

We always, you know, we have expediters at all these airports.

But you have a guy waiting for you, a GRS guy waiting for you by himself.

So because that was where we were doing a lot of movements, single person, one-person movements, which was even better.

That was even more fun.

waiting on himself and you get off a plane

libyan air probably flying in you know find flying that first class flight which is love how the movie did it just right you have a first class ticket but on those planes there's no first class so you just get the whole road to yourself so you watch the movie again jack's flying first class he has that whole row to himself that's just the little things that they got right Well, you get off the plane, you go in there, they get you off, and then you go to, you go to the base, and it just like it wasn't secure you know other places there's going on but it's felt somewhat secure at least there's big brothers kind of watching you there you just you did you were like

which was fine but it just felt different and uh

there was the work was pretty the work was fun enjoyed it did a lot of again a lot of trade craft more surveillance than any protection um

i remember towards the end though and this is where it started to get hairy where we were just, me and Boone are there.

And Boone's been at it a long time too.

He was starting.

He's been doing longer, just as long as I have.

And we're out on an op and it was about three weeks before the attack.

And Sarah, you've had Sarah on.

She's like, hey, we've got reports that AQI is here.

There's this camp.

And we had all, on our Falcon View, we had all the terrorist camps marked and we were spot on.

We had 10-digit grids on each one.

Rafala Sahate, Ansa Sharia,

AQIM.

And she goes, there's a Rafala Sahate camp that they think there's AQI in there.

Can you guys go sit on it?

Now, Boone's, for those that don't know, Boone's black, Mexican.

I grew my beard out.

Now, I always thought he was Mexican.

I could never figure out.

He's weird looking.

I thought he was Tongan once, and I thought he was Polynesian, thought he was black.

And then he's like, are you Mexican?

But he's, he's mulatto.

But what I'm saying is he looks, he can fit, he can blend.

Yeah.

So we take our local car out and we go to this Rafala Sahate camp.

Sir says, go to this one, and we sit on it for a little bit.

And there's this opening within the within the compound that their camp is it's it's walled but there's an opening and we can we're sitting there in our vehicle and we can see through it

and um actually we do look like locals and nobody's monitor us and this guy walks by and the hair on the back of my neck stood up and I looked at Boone and I said do you see that man he goes yeah that's AQI it's like yeah that's that's al-Qaeda man they're here and it looks just like we were people we were fighting in Iraq man he looked

just you know that you could even the dead eye i mean we're

it was i don't know and we weren't super close something like that but it was just it was a you just knew it was like that's that's aqi holy crap we rushed back like sarah they're here man you guys giving reports aqi is here

and we got chewed out for that

yeah for what That was beyond our scope of duties.

We weren't supposed to be sitting on camps.

Bob came and chewed our ass out and chewed Sarah out.

She goes, You guys, and Sarah was pissed.

She's like, dude, I just got chewed out.

Bob came and got us because you guys are going beyond.

You don't need to be doing that.

That's not what our job is here.

And me and Boone are like, yes, it is.

It's like, Chief, that is our job.

And Boone's pretty laid back.

I used to like, Chief, yeah, that is our job.

That's our job.

And

he did rip Sarah more than us, though, because he can.

She's a staffer.

And

she was pissed.

She was just,

and you know, Sarah, she's a pit bull, man.

Yeah.

And

I remember that after that, she said, we can't go sit on camps anymore.

You just can't, we're not doing that.

I said, well, what the fuck are we doing here then?

Because it was towards the end.

I'd already gone through the fights with all the CIP case officers, made fun of them, chubbed their shit.

I've been doing that for two months now.

And nobody's like, well, what the fuck are we even doing here?

And

two weeks later, the attack happened.

Two, three weeks.

And

it was like, man,

it's almost like they knew it.

And I still don't understand

why

the job that we're supposed to be doing, we found a target, we verified that target.

Let's action that motherfucking target.

Why we got in trouble for that?

And the only one that can ever answer that is Bob, maybe our TO.

I never got an answer.

Sarah, maybe she knows, but I don't know if she really does or not, because I don't think she even got an answer.

She got reprimanded.

But that was Benghazi.

It was like it was, we were, and that was even Libya.

Even some of the State Department officers will tell you, the RSOs, it's like we were fighting al-Qaeda in our own offices.

And that was, that was it.

It was, it was a lot of just

doing a lot of great work, getting to be on our own a lot, singles.

But then when we did our jobs, we'd get reprimanded for it.

We took some, we got another time we got reprimanded as well.

Before that happens with Sarah,

some BT Garve guys came in, the listener guys,

and there was a hospital there that

they wanted, and that's part of our job.

We'll take them around.

We'll drive by the areas that they think they can hear.

And if they have, or gather information, suck out text messages with their little stuff that they do, the cool stuff.

And, and we took them out because there was a hospital that they thought Iranians were in.

And so we drove by it to see what they could find out.

And

as we came back, we came in.

Bob was outside.

He was waiting on us like we were in trouble for something.

And

he called the BT Carvik guys in the staff.

There were staffers and called him in.

They were on a plane out the next day.

And I was like, what happened?

He's like, he didn't want you going and listening on this.

hospital or and he doesn't want you doing any of that stuff and these guys shouldn't have done that they weren't supposed to.

I don't have an answer.

I said, Why?

I don't have an answer.

I still, I don't know why.

We were doing what we were supposed to be doing.

We were getting good intel.

We were getting action.

Guys were in there.

Somebody had brought them in for some reason.

Yeah.

We did what we were supposed to do.

And every time we do something and get headway where we could action on a target, because we're not the action guys, you know, we're the collectors, we're the protectors.

But when we did,

it would get, we get, it'd get, we get condemned for it he would jump on our shit and it was it was just i just like and i did a lot of times what the hell are we doing here why are we even here then i don't get it what's the deal

and um then the attack happened on on 9-11 2012 and uh you know there were some precursors to that you know the the british ambassador had got hit by rpg we were i didn't respond to that i was in tripoli when that happened the grs guys that were there at that time did respond to it um

that's when they moved out of the country They got hammered.

One of their security officers got the RPG lodged in them.

But they were out.

Red Cross had been attacked once, which is news.

That was a big news thing.

And they had also blown a hole in the consulate once already before the attack.

They had tried to breach the wall.

So the signs were already there.

And

we were always over there at the consulate.

They were good guys.

Alec was a good guy.

They were.

Dave was awesome.

I have nothing bad to say about them.

They just were,

they were overwhelmed.

These are the state guys.

Yeah.

Alec Henderson, Scott Wickland, who was the ambassador's bodyman, Dave Ubin, were the three guys that were mainly there.

And

people are, oh, they were chicken shit.

What would you have done?

You got a massive 40-man force running in.

You're out there smoking hookah, chilling, relaxing.

You don't got nothing but M4s, and you're not allowed to even carry them because State Department policy says when you're on the compound and you're not pulling work, you've got to keep them in your armory, which was over by the kitchen.

I don't blame them doing what they're doing.

They did what they needed to do.

Scott ran towards the ambassador to protect him.

That was his job.

Alec ran to the talk.

That's where he was supposed to go.

Dave ran to get a weapon.

They were just overwhelmed like that.

It was done.

But that being said, you know, our conversations with them, we would constantly warn them.

And that's the scene from the movie where Pablo.

or me being that asshole.

I did do that.

I remember looking at their compound.

We came and we did a evaluation of their compound before the attack.

And I remember looking at Scott, looking at Alec.

I was looking at the walls.

There was a big building overhead that I thought you could put, sorry about put sniper fire in.

And I remember looking at him, I said, guys, your walls are soft.

Your guards ain't for shit.

You know, they're local guards.

Half your guys don't even have guns.

Blue Mountain Group didn't even carry guns.

I said, you're a sniper's paradise.

I said, any big element gets in here, I'm going to fucking die.

And I remember Scott's eyes went.

And I did feel bad a little bit.

I did.

But Ron was there.

He covered.

He's like, guys, if you ever need us, we'll come get you.

And they had radios.

We gave them our radios.

We all had icons to talk to each other.

And they did request more security.

Their RSO, Eric Nordstrom, and Libya and Tripoli did.

So they did try.

They were just turned down.

They requested 240 Bravo.

They requested more armed security.

And it was turned down by Patrick Kennedy and Charlene Lamb.

Patrick was the underted secretary for for Hillary, and so was Charlene.

She was in charge of face security and all that.

Those people also get away scot-free.

They should have been held accountable as well, very much accountable.

But when the attack happened, it still was a shock to me because the ambassador at that time,

he did have a security detail attached to him.

It was 10th Special Forces Group.

It was the SIF team.

That was his security.

For some reason, they had been pulled off him when he came to Benghazi.

I don't know why.

No shit.

I didn't know that.

When you watch the movie and it says JSOC team repositioning to four position, that was his team.

They had been pushed out for a training mission in

either Croatia or Spain.

I can't remember.

Interesting.

Yeah, but I knew because a lot of those guys, when I was with the 19th Special Forces group, a lot of those guys from 19th, I was in Colorado.

When they did active duty time, there were 10 special forces.

So we knew a lot of the same people.

And they'd come eat with us when I was in Tripoli because their food at the State Department facility sucked.

So they'd come and eat dinner with us.

And that's why, like I said, that's why in the movie when we're talking to Bub and the basher's coming and we had that conversation, like the basher's coming, you guys, you know, and I was like, so who gives a fuck?

We're in the State Department.

And Bub's like, dude, he's not coming with his detail.

I was like, where the fuck is his detail?

They're not with him.

And they were hardcore pipe hitters.

There was a SIF team and they pulled him out.

so that's why we stayed and three of us did extend myself and boone and roan are supposed to go home two weeks earlier before the attack and we stayed because we had a great team we didn't want to mess that chemistry up you know and some guys that pissed some people off because of course if bub would if roan would have went home he'd still be alive of course but i know roan wouldn't change it because if he wouldn't have stayed and we would have new players in there Not saying that we're awesome tactically any better than anybody else.

We just had a good team.

I don't think the outcome would have been the same.

Not because of skill sets or anything.

Everybody's got great skill sets.

You worked your US as well.

You know the deal.

We all got great skill sets.

But it's the team.

And that team, whether we got along or not, we meshed well.

And yeah, so

people, oh, why'd you guys make it so dramatized that when you said during that film that three guys are supposed to, three guys extended?

Well, because three of us did extend, myself, Boone, and Roan.

And,

you know, it's also very telling of how awesome Roan was and maybe he just foretold everything.

Before the attack, we had just done, and I don't know, Oz may have said this during his, I don't know, because it really sticks out with all of us.

The day before the attack, we had just done a full-on Kazavac training op.

where Roan put us through a huge scenario of if the pound, if the compound gets attacked, this is what we need to do medevac-wise.

And we had ketchup, we had tourniquets who were teaching all the CIK software going through a huge CASAVAC plan.

Wow.

And it was just, isn't that just the most, I said, the Lord, I love God.

I just love, I mean, I do.

As much as God looks at me and goes, man, man, I cannot keep this guy straight.

Isn't it?

It's just, he did it.

And I didn't want to go to me being Tana, like, bro, eat shit.

I've done enough.

I'm going to do this shit, man.

Tana, get out there.

Oh, fine.

And yeah, it saved lives.

It did.

It was just, it was 24, 36 hours before the attack.

We went through base wide training, medive, Kazavac plan.

How do we handle mass cash?

Mass casualties.

Damn.

Yeah.

So that just shows you how awesome Lone is.

Yeah.

But the attack happened.

I remember.

I remember we were just laying there and me and Boone were on QRF.

We always had, you know, we always had a team on QRF standby.

Every team would be opting.

Then we always had guys that were on a, that's all they did all day, 24-7, 24 hours.

We were on that QRF.

So end of the day, we're thinking, why a day?

My gosh, almost time to go home.

I got a few more days left, extension.

I even remember

we were watching two of the greatest movies ever made.

I had just watched Battleship, and I was watching Wrath of the Titans.

And we get a call on the radio, and you can hear the gunfire, but it's not really, because there's always gunfire.

I thought maybe somebody's having a wedding or something.

And

we get a call on the radio, and it was from our team leader, Gira S.

He goes, Jira, she needs in the team room.

And it was about that monotone, not a lot of excitement.

And at least I didn't think it was.

I didn't hear the excitement.

So Boone did roll over me and he's like, dude, he's like, what the fuck did you do now?

Because he thought I pissed somebody off again.

And I go, dude, I ain't done anything.

I've been a saint all day, dude.

I swear I just want to go.

I'm sorry of the man.

man.

Because nine times out of 10, if we got called, I did something.

I either put, I had a placard from the movie Tropic Thunder where Sergeant Cyrus, the Robert Downey Jr.

character, I actually wasn't a placard.

It was a piece of paper and I'd laminated it and it said, never go full retard.

And if a CIK's officer did something stupid, I'd put it on their desk so they'd see it in the morning.

So I'd do stuff like that.

I just love picking.

I love picking on them.

The Jason Bournes.

So the Jason Bournes.

So

Boone, Boone's, and Boone's been with me for 10 years.

I mean, we hadn't worked together continued, but we've been in different spots for 10 years from State Department on to OGA.

So he knows me.

He's like, dude, what the hell did you do now?

You son of me.

It's like, nothing, bud.

I've been good.

I promise you.

And then

the urgency came.

It was about 30 seconds later, though.

It said, Jurass, we need you in the team room now.

And it was,

and you just know, you've been doing this long enough.

I've been doing this long enough.

All right, it's time to go.

And I look at Boone, and we're getting our gear because we kept some of our gear in our lockers, but our quick ready gear, our body armor, and our M4s, our peace shooters, we kept right by our bed on QRF.

So it was right there.

Radios were right there, of course.

All the night vision, all the heavy weapons were still in our lockers in the team room.

We start getting our shit on.

And Boone's smiling.

I'm smiling.

It's awesome.

I'm smiling just like this.

I still remember.

I still remember looking at him.

He's smiling.

I'm smiling.

I go, man, we could do something fun tonight.

And we headed out our door.

And as soon as you got out the door, our door from our, we were in Building Charlie, where it opened up.

The annex was directed at our 12 o'clock.

So as we opened the door, you know, and we're seeing the treasures.

You can see the firefight.

It's going off.

So now all that popping, you know, now it's starting to.

Oh, that's what it is.

You know, the brain is starting to realize, oh, this is just

some crazy night in Libya.

This is, holy shit, CASA's getting attacked.

And the Jason Bournes, the ones I saw were like, it was like cast light and firecrackers at him.

They're just going everywhere.

And I saw a team.

I saw Roan.

We all had tasks.

We all had responsibilities.

My responsibility was heavy weapon, Mark 46, get that.

And then I was going to drive the SUV.

Boone's responsibility was to get the keys for it, get it out.

My responsibility was to make sure we had it ready to go.

And then actually, we all had our different tasks.

And it was beautiful, dude.

It was just beautiful.

I saw

leaders acting like leaders and it wasn't the barking orders.

It wasn't the yelling at each other.

It's everybody shut the fuck up and did their jobs.

And

it was awesome.

Because even in that elements there, you don't always get that.

You're always going to have maybe one guy that thinks he's in charge.

And everybody respected enough.

each other and trusted each other enough that nobody needed to say a word.

And it was, it was like Mozart.

It's just

wonderful.

And that's what it reminded me.

I mean, I was like seeing notes, man.

And

we're five minutes.

We're ready to go.

Five minutes.

It's time to go.

And I remember I looked at Roan.

He's got the sedan.

He's got Jack and taking that.

Boone's a rock star.

He's got our shit together.

The SUV is ready to go.

I got my 46.

You know, we're geared up.

We got our night vision on it.

We got all the stuff that's in our lockers.

Got the ammo.

Ron goes like this.

I look at him.

That's all I need.

He's like, he's good, good.

I'm good.

Chief's here.

Our team leader's here.

They're on their cell phones.

I go, Chief, we're ready to go.

He doesn't bother him to look at me.

I said, Chief, we're ready to go.

He looks at the team leader.

Still isn't looking at me.

On his phone, talking to somebody.

I don't know who it was, still to this day.

He says to the team leader,

tell these guys they need to wait.

It's like that motherfucking disrespect.

Fine.

I didn't say a word.

I'm just watching.

The team leader looks at me.

He starts to tell me that.

I go, dude, I got it.

I fucking got it.

I walk back to my car.

Ron's like, dude, Tana, what's happening?

What's going on, man?

I said, boss, telling us we got to wait.

Now, the movie where Jack and Ron got stopped and we tried to get to him.

in the beginning that happened but it was at night so we had already been through that before

so we're like, shit, he ain't going to let us go again.

So that wasn't part of Movie Magic.

It just, the only thing we changed it to, it was nighttime when that happened.

And Rowan did bluff his way out of it.

And he just had a CIA chief of support lady with him when that happened.

It's pretty awesome.

But we'd already been through that where he would not let us go.

But we're waiting.

We're still thinking at that point in time.

Maybe he still does know something we don't.

Maybe the SIF team is on its way.

Maybe they're sending a bird in.

Maybe something's coming in.

Maybe there's Marines off the coast and they're, you know, we don't, we're trying to play the benefit of the doubt by not creating more drama because more yelling and screaming is not going to do any good.

It's not.

And that's why that team was so awesome is we all knew that.

If we had all been younger with piss and vinegar, we probably would have been fighting with him.

And what would that have done?

Nothing.

So we're waiting.

We're continually going scenarios, at least I am through my head.

I know the team is, you know, you're wargaming.

You're what-ifing through your head.

You're going through your head, going, going through scenarios that you win to keep the adrenaline in check.

So I'm going through my head.

I'm going, okay, if we get hit with mortars here, what am I going to do?

How do we win this fight?

Fine.

We get out the gate and we get ambushed on this road.

What do I do?

How do we win that fight?

So you're just, it's what you do in the corporate world too.

So you don't go like this.

You're just going through scenarios that you win.

And the only way you can do that is through hard training or experience or both.

And by that time, I'd I'd been through a lot of hard training and a lot of experience.

So I was able to pull from that.

And I know the other guys were doing the same thing because nobody was panicking.

Everybody was

Ron's taking the lead.

He's our charge.

He's going to take care of this.

And we trusted that.

So Roland's talking

to the chief.

Tig's there too.

Tig's talking to the chief.

And then time's just going by.

The fighting is intensifying.

And then instead of just hearing AKA and PKM fire, and you know what this sounds, we start hearing that.

like, holy shit.

That's a dishkim.

Holy fuck, we got to go.

And

can't do it.

We're still waiting.

And that's when I saw Tig and Bob arguing.

That's when

the one huge interaction we didn't put in the movie.

It wasn't going to have a place in the movie.

It didn't need to.

But they were arguing.

It's in the book.

And that's where Tig was told, Tig's like, motherfucker, we got to go.

We got to go.

We got to go now.

And that's where Bob told, stand down.

You guys got to stand out.

He told Tig and Tyrone in Jack's car right there.

And I don't think it was malicious.

I don't think it was nefarious.

I think he just was shitting down his leg.

Later, it was nefarious with the military not coming.

That was

purely political, nefarious actions from the power that be commander-in-chief and secretary of state and all them.

But that, I could be wrong, but regardless, we were told stand down

and um so we're told to wait once stand down 15 minutes later and then at the 25 minute mark of us waiting there because remember the state department guys have our freaks have our icon freaks they're calling us on the radios and that was heartbreaking man that really was because we're listening to them and they're like grs where are you grs where the fuck are you we need you grs they're we've been overrun grs they're lighting the buildings on fire we're hearing all this and we're like guys we're rising.

Is the

chief of base hearing this?

Yeah.

It's all on the talk because they're open mics.

I mean, so he's hearing this and he's still not letting us go.

What was the relationship like them before this night?

We didn't get along.

He was condescending as hell.

I didn't get along with him.

I didn't like him.

I didn't care for him.

We worked in Missoula together as well.

Didn't like him there.

I thought we made him pretty.

I think that was the combination of characters.

We had a team leader and we had the chief.

Chief was very...

What's this guy doing now?

He got assists.

So he got his top tier to retire as a cis, cis-level.

And then he became a

contract instructor at the farm.

Now, I don't know if he's still doing that.

Are you fucking kidding me?

They took that fucking clown and put him at the farm.

to train all their upcoming

he's made enough i mean cis level retirement what a fucking joke i know so he's he's what a fucking joke.

Take that guy and put him in charge of the fucking up-and-coming case officers.

Wow.

And that's why that fucking agency doesn't do shit anymore.

It's a shit show.

It's a clown show.

What a you know, he's probably retired now, living in Williamsburg or somewhere nice with a thousand acre.

I mean, he's made plenty of money.

He got the CIA, you know, he got the highest level of the CIA.

What do you think he thinks about every day?

I don't don't think they give a shit, dude.

You don't think he gives a shit?

He doesn't sleep well at night.

I hope he doesn't.

But

it's like asking me, you know, does Kamala Harris sleep well at night?

You know, she sleeps like a baby, because they think they're right all the time.

He was, I'm right, you're wrong.

I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but you know,

he seriously was going to stay there to collect intel when we were leaving out.

When after the mortars hit, after the bombs hit, after Ronan Bub died,

we had to force his ass out of the compound because he still was going to stay there and collect intel.

And

that was him.

They are so elite.

They are

elitists, and they just think they are the smartest people in the room.

And that's one of the reasons why I always would fuck with them.

Because they're not.

And here's this knucklehead hayseed from kansas giving you shit because you think you're the smartest person in the room but that was him

and uh

when we heard alec

and he's in the talk so he's watching his team basically get decimated they're lighting the buildings on fire he's watching all on the cctv cameras

he says jirus if you don't get her all gonna fucking die just it wasn't movie magic that's what he said tyran went like he tyran's awesome he's in the sedan you wore an an armored vehicle.

He can't roll the windows down, so he cracks the door and he just does this.

I was like, wow, that is.

I still get chills thinking about it because, you know, Tony, he was big.

His arms were like that.

And he looked, he had a beard like Leonidas.

He had dyed it black, so he looked like Leonidas.

She'd give me shields.

I was like, you're trying to look like Leonidas, aren't you?

Yeah.

But I remember thinking to myself, when I saw that, I was like, man, I got to get a combat with Leonidas.

This is fucking awesome.

And I gave him a thumbs up and we started to to head out the gate.

Now, we didn't quite make it out the gate because, and I, you know, I like I said, I'm wargaming.

We're still going through our heads.

It's a chess game.

Stay three steps ahead.

Don't rush.

You don't, if you're racing to your gun, you failed somewhere.

We need something.

I don't know what we need.

Then I realized it.

I said,

we need them all.

I'm not going to tell you his real name, but the interpreter.

We got to get them all.

Now, dude, he looked pretty good in the movie, like young guy, kind of young, 40s in shape.

Dude, he didn't look like that.

He looked like Bob Newhart.

Seriously.

He looked like an Egyptian Bob Newhart.

He was adorable.

Glasses, droopy cheeks, old dude, bald.

We need him, though.

We don't have combat turfs.

So I'm calling him and trying to find him.

You have faith.

I'm going to find him.

I say, stop the cars.

I get out of the car.

I'm thinking I'll have to run around this damn base to try to find this guy.

And the Lord works mysterious ways, brother.

I get out.

I come to the front of my hood.

I think I'm going to have to run to his hooch and then run to the skiff to find him.

And he's walking right in front of my car.

Thank you.

I said, we need you, man.

And it was awesome.

It was awesome because he did.

He got an argument.

Not an argument.

He was just shitting his pants because he doesn't want to go.

Bob Newhart doesn't go to combat, man.

It doesn't happen.

And his eyes are huge.

And I said, dude, we need you, man.

We need you.

I don't speak Arabic well enough.

None of us do.

We don't want blue on green.

You know what that is, but for your listeners that don't, a friendly fire incident with a foreign force because of a language barrier, blue on green.

And I said, dude, we need you, man.

And he goes, Tano, I'm not a combat trip.

I said, I know that, brother.

He goes, I'm not weapons qualified.

I said, I know that.

And I had a Block 19 on my hip.

I handed it to him.

I said, you're not going to go get your stuff.

It was freaking all.

He took it and he ran back into building C.

And initially, I thought I lost my weapon.

Boone did too.

Boone was looking at me, shaking his head when he ran away.

But he came back out and he ran back out.

And it was awesome because

he didn't have the cool Gucci gear like we do.

You know, the form fitting shit looking cool.

He had to borrow somebody's helmet.

It was way too big for him.

So it was all jingling on his head.

I mean, it could have even been on backwards.

I mean, it just didn't fit him.

He didn't have body armor.

He had a flak jacket because that's all he could find.

He's got his finger in the trigger wheel as he's running towards me.

He's flagging this shit out of me.

And all I could do was marvel at it that whole time.

I just marveled.

I was like, this is freaking off.

This little dude that looks like a little turtle is running towards me right now, flagging the shit out of me with this gun.

And I have never felt more motivated in my life because

this dude had no business going.

He's not a SEAL.

He's not a Marine.

He's not a Ranger.

He's not security.

He's not law enforcement.

He's a little interpreter that he is giving of himself and he's coming with us.

And I'm like, that is what heroism is.

That's bravery.

Yeah.

Selfless service.

That's it, man.

And he got in the car.

I did take his finger out of the trigger.

Well, I said, pitch again, because I didn't want him to shoot me in the backs.

He had to go behind me.

And then we took off.

And we started to head down there.

And that was our trek towards the consulate.

And then it just got even hairier

from there.

But we get there.

We stopped on a road called Gunfighter.

What's called Gunfighter?

It wasn't moving magic.

That's what we called it.

We had a gunfighter here and adidas was the other road on the other side and there was locals there they were looked like they were shooting back and it looks like in the movie we get up and it's creeping up they actually were already in a firefight they were already shooting back and forth um

we didn't know who friend or foe is but they weren't shooting at us so we get out of the car um boone and myself did tell henry we said henry get this figured out we had our tl with us in the car so we said you just stick with the tl tell us what the hell's going on and then

again, leaders took over.

Leaders do what leaders do.

Roan parked, Jack parked, TIG parked, we parked behind him, and we started to move in position to engage.

And you get close to that wall and you start hearing those cracks.

Just crack, crack, crack, crack, crack, because, you know, the bullets were going by your head.

It's breaking the sound, but you're hearing every once in a while.

And then there was a block, center block wall behind us.

So you'd hear a smack.

from around 762 hitting a wall, hitting the wall.

And it was freaking, it was all, you know,

it's fucking awesome.

it's awesome and i saw rowan start to engage nobody said a word and everybody just started to engage and we started to move and tig got his take out our 203 you know our 1203 cracked the breach put that he dp round and that high explosive dual purpose round he just started started throwing rounds down range and

boone came up to me and said uh as we're shooting he goes you know we knew there was a building off in the distance that we thought we could get up there and put machine gun fire sniper fire and says he goes tano let's get high man let's get high so roger that so he went and got his sr25 i went and grabbed the 46 so i had my m46 46 m4 covered i was wearing shorts yeah boy that's why every wearing shorts yeah i was actually they were just a grayer version of the they were a tan version of these they were shorts i'd made in candor from old true spec pants um i was also wearing a makey mouse shirt but we couldn't put that in the movie because uh i guess disney doesn't like mickey mouse shooting terrace but i had a mickey mouse

um probably the closest thing he could get was the was the was the Panda shirt, but it was a Mickey Mouse shirt.

But yeah,

and we just started climbing walls, man.

And it was hard.

I wasn't ready.

I wasn't no spring shake it anymore.

Eight-foot-high block walls with all that gear on.

A 200-round drum on, a nutsack on the 100 rounds on the 46, you know, magazines all over me, magazines all in my pocket.

and just sucked it up.

And you just, and, you know, I tell you what, the first wall we climbed over i was just getting ready to get shot in the butt or the head so i i did i looked over didn't see anything and then i went butt first so i figured well i'll get shot in the butt i could still probably fight if i get shot in the head i'm out but i'll be quite honest the third fourth wall i didn't even care anymore it's like just so smoke get me over this wall and we it's only 400 meters we're 400 meters from the compound at that point

Jack, Tyrone, and Tig went down and fought their way down and suppressed the weapons, just like the movie did.

They went down the main alleyway to the front gate and they suppressed because Tig had that 203 and he's just knocking them back.

And we had some local help, PKM, a guy with a PKM and some AK-47 guys.

And half of them didn't know what the hell they were doing anyway, but at least it was, you know, it was gunfire.

Boone and I did have two locals that we took with us.

They did.

The movie is two guys came to me before we jumped that first wall and said, hey, mister, can we go with you?

And I looked at them and they were kids.

And for a time, I I just felt like I could trust them.

I go, 17 Feb, they said, yeah, I said, come on.

And Boone's like, what the fuck are you doing?

I said, dude, I said, forge the fire team, man.

And I said, I'll stay in the front.

You just stay in the back.

If they, well, then you kill them.

So, and they went with us that whole time.

And we jumped walls, got onto that building, and it was, it was that disheartening.

If you, again, watch the movie, it's pretty spot on.

We cleared that building.

And, you know, you know how just clearing buildings, going upstairs.

And I got that gear and I'm clearing it with a 46.

And I'm smoked.

And we get to the top of that building you know Boone's got his M4 but he's also got an SR25 on him so he's smoked too and we get up there and we look down and we couldn't see anything it was like man all this energy you wasted because

the consulate the trees that surround the consulate well they were all on fire so you you just couldn't see anything in there and it's like God man

Because you're trying not to get pessimistic, but you're like, you know how many calories I just wasted, how much water just doing all this and for nothing, put out of your head.

And what snapped me out of it too is Rowan came across the radio because he's still moving because he needs our, he needs us to suppress.

At least that's what he thinks anyway.

He's doing a damn good job on his own.

That all three of those guys.

He goes, Tono, I need your eyes, man.

I need your eyes.

I go,

I go, Ron, this roost is a bust, man.

I said, shoot, move and communicate.

I'll meet you in the middle.

And that's what we did.

And we ran down the stairs and went to the back gate.

And just like the movie, we just climbed over the back gate

what was awesome is

there was a commander that pulled up just like that movie he pulled up with his vehicle and i actually wanted him before we jumped over the gate he got there before we jumped over the back gate i wanted him to push it open with his car so it's like push this open this car he goes wait mr wait and he got on his phone and he started dialing a phone number and i was like who the fuck are you calling man

It's like, just wait, wait.

I go, who you calling?

He goes, I'm calling the bad guys.

I'm negotiating surrender.

I said, who the fuck?

I said, you doing the what?

He said, motherfucker.

And

Boone's yelling at me because he's already inside.

He climbed over the gate already.

And Tig's yelling at me to get inside on the radio.

He's like, we need you, Tono.

Quit fucking around.

And I just let it go.

And he was one of the guys that was going to facilitate the counterattack later, but I didn't know.

And so that little argument you see me get in with, that wasn't, that actually did happen.

That happened as well.

And I got in there and we fought, we pushed them off.

It's a nine-acre compound.

And for the next hour, we just were trying to find the ambassador running in the burning building, trying to locate all the State Department guys because they were spaced out everywhere while fighting off the bad guys, pushing them off.

We're really that initial when we got on there, I think they were so shocked it was Americans.

And luckily, we have that still, that era of era of intimidation.

Americans are coming.

We got to go.

they ran wasn't much of a gunfight coming up on we were got in there americans here we got our night vision on even though i'm wearing shorts i still look pretty terminator ish with all the gear on

and uh they ran away and um we found alec you know we got him out of the skiff

dave was dave did awesome dave was already out he was already trying to find the ambassador he was already over at the consulate trying to find the ambassador.

And then we just took turns running in that burning building trying to find it and it was tough we almost lost roan roan went in the most jack and roan went in the most tig was probably close to it me and boon pulled a lot of security and then we'd take our turns we'd spell people but i i tell you what i would and i oh i admire and thank you all you firefighters out there i admire the hell at you i'd rather get shot at again than ever running into a burning building filled with diesel smoke ever again

I remember going in and trying to go in the first time and I tried to run in and the doors are wide open and you can see and it's open.

There's fire, you know, alive on the ceilings.

And there's, it's just smoke everywhere.

And

I hit, I ran in the, and it's almost like I hit an invisible wall.

I just, ooh, that is hot as shit.

It was so hot.

I felt like my eyeballs are going to melt.

And it's like, you really have to just, I just had to go,

suck it up.

Don't, it's going to hurt.

Just go.

And it was awful.

And, you know, your body gets used to it a little bit, but.

It was so hot.

It was like running into a pizza oven filled with diesel.

Damn.

And Ron did that.

I mean, that's how badass Ron and Jack are.

They went in there multiple times.

I went in there like twice because they just kept going in, and it was hard to find.

We did lose Ron almost where he got caught way back in the back, and we had to play Marco Polo with him to get it out.

We had like Ron, we're here.

Jack kept yelling from Ron this way, Ron, Ron, Ron, because he got stuck and he almost lost his way because he got disoriented from his.

But that just shows how badass and Tig as well.

You know, Tig's lungs are currently fucked, so are Jack's screwed.

Um,

eventually, scott got out you know and i i have no qualms against scott nothing at all people uh why did he left the ambassador well what the hell would you have done dude seriously you're you're dying of fire in the heat i i can tell you test from the heat that was unreal what would you have done man really okay

but he got himself out and uh

that's when it started to go to hell again because that's when they started the counterattack and uh

i do remember before that they did find Sean's body.

Dave, Ubin, Tig, and Jack managed to pull him out of a window.

And

the movie, I wish they would have put this in the movie more so than what they did.

They did a little bit of it, but it was pretty remarkable.

It was one of the most defining moments to me of human spirit and sacrifice that I'd ever seen in my life because Sean was out.

And I see him pull, Jack pulls him out, Dave's pulling him out, Ubin, Tig is, and Scott's on some stairs, and he's sitting there, and he just keeps rocking back and forth, and he keeps saying, he was just with me.

He was just with me.

He was just with me.

And I see

Cha, for some reason, he starts to do chest compressions and CPR on a dead body.

Jack knows he's dead.

The dude's dead.

Sean's dead.

It's obvious.

He's blues.

He's dead.

And I couldn't figure it out.

I'm sitting there watching this whole thing unfold from about from me to probably that desk there.

about that far

and i want to say something but before i get the word out it hits me because I'm looking at Jack and every time he does a chest compression, he looks up at Scott and he goes, we're still in this fight, man.

He is

being positive over a dead body to get Scott out of his shock so we don't have another casualty.

He's just, it's unbelievable.

It's just like, and I'm sitting there just marveling it going,

wow, these fucking dudes are awesome.

I love this.

I love Jack.

And I still love Jack.

But it just, to me, it just defined selfless service again.

And, you know, people think self-less service is giving yourself giving up your life.

Well, essentially, he did because

he's doing chest compressions on a dead body to get some guy back up on his feet to back in the fight.

Who thinks like that?

Obviously, he did.

And it was awesome.

Another motivating thing.

Just another reason why Benghazi was the greatest knight of my life.

One of them, per se, but it was defining.

We get it.

Scott comes out of his shock because, you know, Big Tyrone, like Superman, I don't know where he came from.

It's like he flew out of the bushes, but I know he's been the billy, but he's just, and I see Tyrone come out of nowhere and he just puts his arms around Scott and he goes, man, we are still on this fight.

We need you.

And you just see Scott come right back.

And it was like, wow, this is awesome.

I love these guys.

That's why Ron is so, that's why he was Superman to us.

But we loaded Scott's body on.

Tig and Jack and Dave Ubin did.

They put him in the back of our SUV that our team leader and the interpreter drove up after after we cleared it, said it was clear.

Our team leader, yeah, he waited till we cleared it, then they drove up.

I don't blame the interpreter for doing that, but come on, T.O.

But anyway,

we go back to pooling security and then was it was the T.O.

like, was he even.

He was former Secret Service.

No military.

I know who he is.

Yeah,

I know who.

Yeah, I was going to say, you know who he is.

What I'm asking is, was he

scared?

i know he was scared i know who he is

i'm trying to figure out how to ask this question the right way hey i'll wait i i got i gotta get a drink of water take i guess i guess what i'm trying to ask was

did you guys even keep him informed was he even what really part of the team or did you have you totally just

He had it just like him, just like any blue, he had his, he had it, you know, he he had his uses.

You know, he, he could, he would give us get intel because he was, you know, he was a blue badge.

So, but as far, you know, just everyday activities, he had the runs, control the runs, you know, and, but really me, I let Ron handle that.

I stayed.

I mean, he's just a liaison.

It really was.

That's what he was.

And that night, he was with us.

And no, we didn't pay attention.

It wasn't, we were relying on him to pull cover.

We were relying on him.

Like 99% of the staffers in GRS, they're just liaisons.

And that's, They're not operators.

They're just like

they aren't.

Just go

liaison.

Go liaison, give us the intel.

And that's kind of what he was at.

We don't even really know what you do here.

We're not qualified to be here.

You do here.

Still, favorite movies ever.

I can't fucking stand them.

I'm just, I can't stand them.

It's probably something I'll never get over.

But you, the amount of worthless fucks that were in charge of me and you and all these other like stellar performers.

And then you got these chumps.

When you don't hold people to the standards that everybody else has upheld to, that high-level standards, what do you think you're going to get?

And

we're divvying off a little bit, but I'm going to say it.

Look at the Secret Service that was protecting Trump.

Yeah.

That is what you got with JRSTLs.

For them, unless they were former spec ops guys that were contractors.

I think they were always just supposed to be liaisons, though.

And then at some point in time, they like inserted themselves to be some fucking leader.

And it's like

back to your desk, go get your fucking pen or your pencil and get the fuck out of my house.

And

that was him.

But you can't say that because he'll fire you.

But you can still

say it anyways.

You can still, I did.

And then you get fired.

Well,

I did.

I got told

after

I fell fell asleep, I had an argument with Bob and then the TL called me in and we had an argument.

He's like, Tony, I know who you are.

I saved his ass from getting his ass beat by a bunch of SEALs when his first trip went to coast.

Why did you do that?

Because I felt sorry for him.

It was his first trip.

I didn't know him.

I'm like, he's his first trip.

I'm trying to be that guy that's your first trip.

Let me tell you how it is, bud.

All right.

Don't go in there like you're knowing everything.

You're working with a bunch of top-notch dudes.

Go in there, shut your mouth, and fucking listen.

Yeah.

But he didn't.

It'd been, you know, that was 2006.

Now it's 2012.

So he's got years, six years.

Now he's salty.

But real experience.

Yeah, exactly.

It showed, too.

Yeah, didn't it?

It showed.

It is.

Yeah, it was funny because when we did our debrief, too, they did ask about him.

They said, what'd you think of the TL?

I said he did a great job.

I go, because he stayed the fuck out of the way.

Oh, man, the head shit at Langley, the GRS, they didn't want to hear that.

But that's what I said.

Boone started laughing.

It was during during our ar when we got back to after benghazi you said that i said draft right to this that's me dude i don't give it what are you going to do fire fire me then yeah if you haven't fired me yet you're not going to fire me but the argument i had with him we're in libya after i got dressed down by bob which i just the one dress like eat though i've been through enough of this pomp and circumstance crap enough rah-rah politics and progress a million

times.

I don't have to stay away through this shit.

It's the same shit.

Well, he pulled me in.

He goes, I'm going to write.

I got written up.

You know how we get, I got wrote up.

I did get written up.

And they wrote me up and he goes, I'm going to write you up for this because you fell asleep.

You're being disrespectful.

And I remember I said to him, because I saw GRS kind of go into more like a State Department, button down.

I saw it going, I said,

we're going more State Department, aren't we?

Button down, need guys that say yes, certainly no, nobody talks back.

No fucking guys that cuss every once in a while.

You know, you don't need guys like me anymore do you i guess guys like me are dinosaurs aren't they and he said yeah pretty much i signed my thing i walked when we got home i sent him an email i said good thing you have dinosaurs like me huh that night and i didn't get a response back from i still got the email my i had aol that's in my aol shows you how old i am but He said that, and I said, it looks like guys like me are dinosaurs.

I'm sorry.

When did he try to write you up?

He wrote me up right after I got rep after I fell asleep for the ambassador.

It was right right before it was before the attack.

So when I fell asleep and the Bob

Bob dressed me down, or we got in that argument,

he says, well, I'll write you up.

Well, I did get written up.

We didn't put it in the movie because how boring is that seeing some guy getting written up?

But I went back to my room.

You mean people don't want to watch a

pussy pencil pusher

write up a real man?

I'm going to write you up because I'm not a real man.

I'm just a bitch.

I got written up.

I I got it.

An hour later, he called me in, and

I got written up.

I was like,

I don't give a shit.

Fine.

It's like getting a ticket.

You got 100 million parking tickets.

Pay your parking tickets, y'all.

But you know what I'm saying?

And I threw it in, like, whatever.

That's probably what he was doing before this.

He was actually, he was a,

for those that, you know him, but he wasn't,

he wasn't a, he was in for check forgery.

And that was his, in the, that.

Check forgery.

It was in that division, the secret store where they do

forgery and money laundering.

laundering so whatever anyway but uh they drove up yeah he's and that night really it was we just if if we need your buddy just stay in the rear man if you want to add your gun to the fight fine just keep just make sure there's no ammo in it just dude just stay away from but he didn't fire his gun that night and he stayed hidden he stayed protected and we didn't really worry about it because we knew he wasn't gonna get in the fight it wasn't gonna happen So that's what we put, we put,

we put,

I don't see his real name, I almost did.

So we put a mall with him, but eventually Amal even saw what was going on, and Amal got attached to Jack.

Mal kept following Jack around when Jack wasn't running in the burning buildings.

So, um,

we go back and we haven't found the ambassador.

And, and, uh,

I remember on the back side of the villa here, because we're pulling security because that back gate was left open.

I told that fucking commander, close the back gate when you bring your guys through before I really knew who he was.

I thought he was friendly.

He left it wide open.

And I'm like, I motherfucker forgot to close the back gate i said guys this jackass didn't close the back gate i said get ready because i knew it was gonna i mean you just know it's like shit dude and i'm kicking myself for not going back there and closing it as well and trusting right i knew i shouldn't have and then all of a sudden i i take a knee and i hear a big explosion goes off so i'm here explosion blows off this way on the barronville and because the angle so lucky again Thank you.

Because the angle, shrapnel's this way.

But I do catch the overpressure because I'm not more than 20 feet away from the explosion.

So it knocks me.

Catch the overpressure, but the force of it goes this way.

I didn't hear the initial boom.

So I didn't think it was an RPG.

I mean, you know, unless you're from a very far distance, RPGs don't go

and you see vapor trails.

And

it's not like that.

Unless, you know, it's a way distance.

And then you might see it later after it hits.

You'll see maybe a little puff of smoke or something.

But you always hear a boom because that's the propellant that makes it go.

It doesn't,

there's a boom.

And

as I go back to post security, get back up on my feet because I'm thinking some guy runs in front of me and he's missing his hand.

He's holding his wrist.

So I go his profile and I go up and his hand's missing.

He's holding his wrist like trying to stem the bleeding.

It's just mangled.

And then his buddy comes out, runs from behind him, and he's holding pieces of his buddies.

And it's no farther than me and you.

I'm like right here following him.

I go, what the fuck?

What happened?

I don't even speak English.

But that's that's all I can get out of my head because I'm a little rattled.

My brain's knocked a little bit.

I'm seeing this dude running by with no hand.

He's just bleeding everywhere.

I'm seeing his buddy chase him.

It's holding pieces of his hand.

So I'm looking at him and I'm in my head going, dude, you forgot your hand.

Go back.

That's what I'm going through my head.

And I'm like,

I say, what happened?

I didn't say that.

All I could get out was, what happened?

The guy goes, grenade.

The guy holding pieces of grenade.

So I'm thinking, oh, well, you're a fucking idiot.

Next time, when you cook a grenade off, I'm thinking this in my head.

You hold it for two seconds instead of three before you throw it.

And I'm thinking of my dad, West Texas, from Lubbock, Texas.

His voice comes in my head, and all I hear is rub some dirt on it.

You'll be all right, kid.

And

as I come back to pull security because they're not a threat, I do hear a boom from a distance.

Like shit.

I know that's an RPG.

I go pull security and I just go like this because I know I'm dead.

If it's anywhere near on this side, I'm dead.

There's nothing I can do.

There's no cover.

I can get down and roll, but by that time I hear that boom from that distance where it's only 100 minutes, not even more than, I would say 75 meters away if that,

I'm dead.

So I'm just hoping I hear the second boom because if I do, I know I'm alive.

And I do.

I hear it.

Boom.

Blows up.

This one actually is closer.

And I catch building.

I catch the concrete, knocks me down in the middle of the road.

Again,

because of that angle, and I know that's what saved me.

It was the shrapnel, most of it went that direction or got

embedded in the wall.

And the movie showed me getting up and having a wall for cover.

I did.

I got knocked in the middle of that road.

That was shotgun from the front gate to the back gate.

And all that came in my head was, Ranger Battalion.

What's your cover, ranger bullets what do you do when somebody's shooting at you you shoot back and i took a knee on that road and i just started shooting

and i shot and i shot and i shot

and i was thinking of the guys from reojado because we get hammered pan you know rangers got a great history you know urgent fury just cause small ya you know

we shoot

Fuck you guys.

We're fucking you coming out and you're going to catch a bullet in that tooth.

And that's all I'm thinking.

And I'm just putting around.

And I remember Boone, he told me later, he says, I was watching you.

And all I could think of was, you're a fucking idiot.

Take cover.

And

I've never felt the hand of God before.

I've never felt it again.

I fit that night.

And I know, I do really believe we all get one,

one,

one hand of God moment where he steps in and protects you.

And I did.

He's looking down at me.

And I say this during my speeches, too, because I honestly believe this.

I think my guardian angel angel is like on this chair.

God's up here on this chair.

My guardian angel and God are looking at this idiot getting shot at because the world's opened up.

There's just crap, crack, crap, crap, crap.

It's all going around me.

And my guardian angel is looking at God going,

see what you tasked me with, God?

You tasked me with this fucking idiot that doesn't have half a brain.

And

God's like, man, pity.

God pities the one that needs to be pitied.

And he says, I got you.

And I felt a golden cocoon come on top of me.

And that's not,

I'm not saying that at any other reasons.

That's what I felt.

You actually felt it in that moment.

It was a golden egg.

That's what I remember.

Golden egg.

I got you.

Just warm.

Just, I,

was it, was it like an intuitive feeling?

It was a physical feeling.

No, it was physical.

It was warm, gold.

I got you.

And I guess intuitive too.

It's just safe.

I said, I'm good.

And I kept shooting.

And then.

Did it give you confidence?

Yeah.

I wasn't, I got this.

Nobody's going to get me.

You felt it before you started shooting or in the middle of it?

In the middle of it.

No.

When I was shooting you there.

In that position there, about five seconds before I felt that.

And I'd already went.

I was already hammering away.

Because, you know,

it was really easy.

I'm just,

I'm just, nobody's coming through there.

It was about five seconds.

I mean, five to ten.

It was.

Wow.

It was awesome, though.

And then.

I am taking a knee.

I'm not getting in the prone.

So I'm just, I feel fine.

God's got me.

My right eardrum blows out.

I remember that.

And I look and there was a Libyan that had taken a knee right next to me, his AK-47 was shooting with me right next to my head.

And that was amazing because I was thinking to myself, ain't this the damnedest thing?

God just gave me a little Libyan angel and put him right next to me.

Because he had a button-down shirt, slacks on, like he got off work and he's sitting there with his AK-47 shooting with me.

I never saw him again either that night.

I don't know where he went.

And then boom, I'm running.

Boone comes and boom takes a knee right on the other side of the road.

He starts shooting with me.

And then Tick gets his gun into the mix on the top of the roof.

And it was awesome.

It was just freaking awesome.

Now, we moved a little bit.

After that, we started to move back to vehicles and started to kind of peel out because we had to get out of there.

But that moment there for me was, and

I always tell people that.

And I said,

guys, I'm not saying hand of God's there all the time.

Again, I've never felt it after.

I didn't felt it before, but I felt it that night.

So when people say, Do you believe in God?

I say, no, I know there's God.

And he took pity on somebody like me that's probably broken every command, well, not probably, has broken every commandment that we're supposed to keep.

Oh, it was there.

I felt it.

And people went, oh, bullshit.

Fine, you don't believe me.

I don't care.

I don't think it's bullshit.

And I know, and

it was amazing.

Again, I wish I could say, but it's a golden egg.

It was like

a willy walk, a golden egg.

Warm, protected.

nothing's gonna get you i got you and we fought him off and we appealed out and it was hard to leave because we did have a drone overhead watching everything the isr had come on station and ron's like guys we got to go we get they're they're massing they're gonna attack the annex we got to get out and like ron we ain't found the ambassador yet He's like, I know, but we got to go.

And you got to make a decision.

Leaders always make decisions, even if they're hard decisions.

And it sticks with me because you know our Credo, dude.

Part of the fifth stance of the Ranger Creed is you never leave a fallen carmine to fall in the hands of the enemy every unit has that same not in those words the same thing you leave no man behind and we did because we had to get back to the annex and it wasn't the wrong decision we would have lost 24 if we hadn't gotten back but it still bothers the fuck out of me

because we left him we left him now we didn't know he was there That's still no excuse.

We still could have kept trying to find him.

But he had gotten so far back in that safe haven area that we just couldn't get back there.

And when the fire died down and the fighting moved back to our annex, the locals pulled him out.

He was dead of smoke and elation.

There's been talk that he was mutilated and all that.

I didn't see it.

And I inspected his body when they brought him to the airfield.

You inspected his body.

I looked at it.

No, I didn't pull his drawers down.

You know, I didn't do that.

I mean, maybe they did cut his genitals off.

I'm not going to, I'm sorry.

I'm just, guys, I'm not going to do that.

To me, I looked at it because what I'm thinking, again, Ranger Battalion, what am I thinking?

Randy Shugart, Gary Gordon, dragging his body through the streets.

So of course I'm going to look.

I'm going to see if he's scuffed up.

I'm going to see if his face is scuffed up.

I'm going to see if he is cut in places I can see, but he was clothed and I didn't see any marks on his face.

I just saw lifeless eyes and

he still had like,

you know, smoke from the diesel all over.

So what I saw,

I didn't see mutilation.

But am I 100% sure?

No, because I didn't pull his pants down.

And for those that wanted me to do that, they can go fuck themselves.

Don't do that.

No, I'll leave that.

I mean, if I was an autopsy guy, sure.

But not in that situation.

No, that's, I wouldn't.

And I wasn't thinking mutilation.

I was thinking dragging through the streets, too.

Yeah.

But we left him.

But

I stand by this issue, and all of us still do.

And as, you know, leaders, you've been a leader.

You know, you make hard decisions.

You have to.

And sometimes those hard decisions, even if they're the right ones, are going to stick with you for the rest of your life.

And that's one that does.

But it was the right decision.

And we got back to our annex.

We had Sean's body in the back of the vehicle.

So that was a little surreal because we all piled into one vehicle.

So we had Tyrone.

We had Tig.

We had Tyrone.

We had, yeah, Tig.

We had myself.

We had the interpreter.

We had the TL.

And Jack was sitting on the top of Sean's pony as we were driving back in the SUV, and they trailed us.

You know, they were following us.

It was easy to pick up.

And we're like, and I wish they would have put this in the movie.

It's in the book, but I wish they would have put this in there.

I actually was making the calls back.

I was like, guys, I was telling the gate, gates, get the gate ready.

Everyone's like, get the gate ready.

And they said, what's your status?

You know, you'd always say, we're coming in red.

We're coming in black.

We're coming in yellow.

And I said, or we're coming in hot.

We're coming in cold.

And I don't know.

I was just trying to make somebody laugh.

I said, guys, we're coming in lukewarm.

It was stupid.

It was like, I'm just trying to get people to laugh because we've been through a lot at that point.

We come in the gate and

the State Department guys where they tried to get out of there, you know, where we got them out.

The ones that were still, they did go the wrong direction.

They went towards Adidas.

Two houses down was where Ansa Sharia had a safe house.

The consulate was right next to the terrorist safe house.

State Department knew it.

We told them a million million times.

We had taken pictures of it.

They're just seeing the movie where you see us driving by and I'm taking a picture of those fuckers and you're flipping me off.

That's it.

That happened.

They didn't do a damn thing about it.

So when they went out the gate, Jack kept telling them and you hear it on the radio too.

And that was during the fire.

That's where the confusion happened because when we were getting attacked and I was shooting, that's when we were trying to get them out of there.

It was during all that chaos that Jacks, I heard on the radio, because I'm got a piece in.

And I hear Jack saying, guys, you're going the wrong way.

You're going the wrong way.

Because we said go to gunfire when you go out the gate do not go to adidas you go left you do not go right they went right and they got crushed and so when we pulled in the armor held they managed to get back on run flats to our place that car was just on fire just flames everywhere and i thought you know they all were dead but none of them died the armor held Scott did a great job pushing through.

So did Dave getting through.

They just went through a gauntlet of gunfire and RPG fire and got chased until they got back back to our compound.

So, that wasn't movie magic at all.

They got hammered, and it just was in the chaos.

He just went the wrong direction.

And luckily for them, and again, I kudos a lot to Dave.

Dave Ubin did an awesome job, but I wouldn't end that vehicle.

But if I was to guess, I would say they all kept their heads pretty good.

But Dave probably did the one that was like, get the fuck, go push through, push through, push through.

You know, but we got back, it's on fire.

We get

we get refitted with whatever we need as far as ammo.

Um, Tig did did drop our grenade launcher.

That was a movie magic.

He actually dropped it.

He didn't, it was a 69, HDK69.

He hadn't rechanged the normal lanyard that's on it.

You know, we get that the lanyard that comes with it sucks because it just slides through.

We usually cut it and we put 550 cord on it or something that sticks.

And he didn't.

So when he was running, it fell off and it fell on the ground.

But it was weird.

And I don't have an answer for you.

I wish I did, but we had a second one as well.

And for some reason, I was looking for it and I couldn't find it.

I don't know what happened to it.

I ran around for five minutes before I went up on my rooftop looking for that other grenade launcher because Tig's like, dude, I'm sorry I dropped it.

He's like, son of a bitch, Tig.

And I ran around, you know, and you know how we are.

We stage it where it needs to be.

It's in the team room.

It's in one of the gun lockers.

That's where it needs to be.

I didn't take it with me because I had a 46 and he had the 69 and we didn't put it in the QR vehicle.

So I ran and I couldn't find it.

And I thought, well, maybe Boone did put it in our vehicle.

So I ran and looked in the vehicle.

I could not find it.

It disappeared.

To this day, I have no idea what happened to that 69.

And I'm thinking, why on earth would Bob?

I'm thinking malicious, but like, what would that have done?

So I don't know.

So I couldn't find another 69, and we had two, but I couldn't find it.

And

grabbed more ammo.

Ran up to building first we went up to building A.

Vantage point was terrible.

And then we jumped up to building C where we could see over zombie land and this sheep slaughterhouse.

So we had our compounds building here, building here, building here, building here, front gate here, zombie land, parking lot where they were massing.

Families' houses right there that they were using to come through before they got into zombie land as covered because they knew we weren't going to shoot the kids because there were kids in there.

So we weren't going to shoot the buildings.

And then the sheep slaughterhouse, the sheep was over here.

So we got up there.

A was not a good vantage point.

So so me and boone moved over to c

oz and tiger in a little fighting position right here overlooking zombie land and they just start moving on us and you're just seeing it through the night vision and it was like kids playing hide and seek man so easy they're just i i don't think they thought we had night we had night vision or they didn't think it was that good because they were just running from bush to bush and Ron was awesome.

And I, you know, I talked about Nick and Paul, the Raven 23 guys.

That was heavy on our minds at that time because they had gone to prison for defending themselves.

Yeah.

so we weren't going to shoot we're like roan man i don't see guns but they're moving on us man they're moving the drone's even overhead feeding us intel you got asymmetric movement you know stuff's coming um roan's like do not shoot you see a gun first

then i'll give the command to shoot and he goes because i don't want to go to prison and he was referencing the three guys.

So that was on our heads.

So we just let him get, they just kept coming and coming and they got closer and closer.

And then finally, Boones goes, I got AKs.

And they were probably about 25 meters from Oz's position when he saw that.

And then this fist comes over the back gate right when he says that.

And it was a gelatina bomb.

And I saw it because gelatina bombs is like a stick of dynamite.

They light a wick so you can see in their night vision.

And it comes over the back gate.

And it goes over to Oz's and takes position.

And I'm like, man, this is going to miss him, man.

It's going to miss him.

This is good news.

And then this figure comes out of nowhere.

And this bomb coming this way.

And Take has got out of position to go get water.

What are the fucking odds, man?

I mean, the odds are like winning the lottery.

He's here, the bomb's coming.

I'm just watching it in slow motion, and it just blows up.

And all I see is the white light coming, and the world opens up.

You know,

that was the indicator to start the attack.

And they just started shooting, and we fucking destroyed them.

I mean, we were, we had our sectors of fire down.

We had our, our,

we had all the avenues of approach locked down.

We knew the dead space.

I mean, I wish I would have had that 203.

We would have killed a lot more of them, but we just crushed them.

And everybody was so disciplined.

Sector, sector.

We stayed within our sectors.

We trusted each other on their sectors.

And it was interlocking sectors of fire.

And

it was like coming into a freaking wood chopper.

Everybody did awesome.

Well, it only took about five minutes, really.

It's about as long as it was.

And a lot of you guys have been in fire.

Unless you've been in Afghanistan at a base where they just keep hammering you.

Most firefights are only about that long.

Yeah.

They're going to, and it's like a boxing mess, you know, you're real quick, and then there's some dead time unless there's just a massive, massive force, or you get stuck and they got the advantage.

But if they're losing their ass, they're going to break contact, get back, and figure out something.

And they did.

Well, when that ended, I looked and I'm thinking, I'm going to go get Tid.

Let's go pick up Tid because I figured he was dead.

How many,

I mean, do you guys have any estimate?

In your head, yeah yeah how many do you think

I think and I think the majority I mean it's it's it was hard but I think we got attacked by maybe over that whole course of the period not at one time 200 300 people two to 300 but not it you know it was like that initial one was probably 40 40 guys fought them off and then there's another 40 so it could have been the same guys I mean we didn't kill 40 I wish we were that good

you know and hey we're good at what we do but come let's be realistic but you know and then at the annech at at the consulate, yeah, easily 40, 50 that we got counterattacked.

I mean, it was 40, 50 at a pop.

And yeah, we were killing them.

I mean, we'd shoot them.

And that's, that's the, that's the, you know, a lot of us, unless it's within, a lot of us that have been in combat.

And I'm not saying in a bravado thing or an ego thing.

It's just how it is.

At a distance, five, five, six, if you hit somebody, sometimes it doesn't keep them down.

If close you're in, it's going to.

If it's me to you and I hit you, yeah, you're going down.

You're not getting back up.

But at 50, 75, 100 meters, you might, but generally they're going to be able to get back up.

And they'll probably bleed out or throw out of the fight, depending on where you hit them.

I mean, or, but

that was where it could have been, you know, how many guys, I would, we have estimates.

I've seen estimates of Wikipedia, like a thousand, no,

200, 300 over the whole night.

And who knows, some of those could have been attackers, the same attackers.

We killed,

I don't know.

I've got reports.

Again, I've seen reports.

No,

I think we killed.

I know, I think 100, 200.

I think we did.

Oz had our

had

contact at the hospital there.

And, you know, Oz and I still talk.

We get along or not.

We still talk every once in a while.

And I remember when we got back, I asked him, I said, dude, what's your contact?

Because, you know, we're Americans.

We like to keep score, right?

And I said, dude, did you ever get a word how many we got, man?

How many we killed?

And he goes, I didn't ever get a number, but my contact at the hospital said that they just kept bringing bodies and injured in all night.

So I was like, well, that's good enough for me.

I mean, after that, it didn't matter because it was nice seeing them turn tail and run.

That's even more.

And, but yeah, we fought him off.

And the reason Tig didn't die, the gelatina bomb hit him.

and it landed right by his feet and blew up is just because he's so big.

It would have stopped my heart.

You know, it's just a big, it's just a huge flashbang.

It's used for fishing it's for dropping in the mediterranean blowing and fish come up you know it's it's mediterranean redneck fishing and uh but it him up he still has problems his shoulder goes numb his back's out of whack but he got up and that's a testament to how tough he is he got up and he got back in the fight and he actually got hit around

we round hit his armor it was a piece of a round it hit a hit the metal post and sheared either the post or something coming hit him and knocked him down and he got up and kept fighting and uh he's a tough son of bitch.

He's a tough redneck.

Takes good good people, man.

Yeah.

And

that was, it was awesome.

And it gave us a wave of confidence.

It did.

It's like, okay, we got this.

Our battle plan, our force protection plan, our sectors of fire, they're on.

Let's keep doing what we're doing.

And throughout that time frame,

you know, we're still thinking Americans are.

going to help.

We're still thinking that the ISRs is seeing everything.

And we're thinking thinking, somebody's coming.

Cavalry's coming.

But they weren't.

But at that point in time, we still had some faith that they were because they normally did.

Everywhere else I was at, cavalry came.

Whether it was another GRS team, whether it was a Scorpion team, an NSA, you know, the GRS equivalent at the NSA, whether it was military.

Somebody was Brits, somebody was coming.

And

between that two-hour lull of 1 a.m.

to 3 a.m., where the next attack happened,

that's where we started to come to realization, nobody's come.

And the reason is because we had a, we didn't put him in the movie,

but we had a old Vietnam veteran that manned our radios, our 117.

He was a staffer with the agency, great guy, RTO in Vietnam, wonderful guy.

He still cries every time we see him because he apologizes for not getting us help.

We already had QF elements on station.

We had a 911 call that we could call because that's what we do.

GRS, that's what our jobs is, is to coordinate with the other units.

So if we need people, we can just hit a button, go on 10 Alpha Common

on the 117s and say, we need help.

We have 117.

Every so often throughout the next couple of hours, Boone would come to me and say, hey, we got to hold the the Delta, man.

They're on their way.

And little did we know they were coming, but they got diverted to, I think, Croatia.

555th Fighter Wing.

That was our big, we always thought we had them.

They had two jets at Ceuta Bay, Greece.

Suda Bay, Greece is five minutes with afterburners to Libya.

And then they had the 555th Fighter Wing, the whole unit up in Avellano.

It's a QRF base.

That's what it's there for.

We figured they were coming.

Boone's like, no, they're not coming.

The Fast Company of Marines, there was one in Spain and there was one in the Med near Sigonella and we thought they were coming.

He'd keep coming back to me every, after he'd tell me somebody was coming, he'd come back and say, no, they're not.

We're not getting words.

There's no confirmation they're coming.

And then that SIF, the ambassador's old, the ambassador's primary security team, the Panther's and the Shremis force that had been in Croatia and got repositioned to the staging area.

That was when I really knew nobody was coming because when he said, no,

they're not on their way anymore either.

He came and said, hey, that SIF team, the commander's team's coming.

You guys actually went through this entire checklist.

That's his job, and that's our job.

And yes, we went down the line.

That's why politicians and that's why the CIA pisses me off.

That's our job.

They know that.

Politicians may not know that, but the agency knows that.

That's what our main response as GRS.

We're protective services, and it's also to protect our asses if something happens, to get the assets needed that we assets that are in the area to us if we need them.

So we had them all.

We knew them all.

It was, I, I was in charge of that when I was there, but it's always pay, you know, every time it's passed down to somebody.

So it's always refined and improved and fine and reproved.

So it, it was the RTO, the Vietnam RTO, that was, that was his job.

And he was very good at it.

And he, and he was very supportive of us.

And

the reason

he cries when he sees us now, I remember.

And I remember I saw him in Texas when I was doing a lot of speaking back in 2016.

And I got pissed at him.

We

did a speaking event there in Fort Worth and his wife's wonderful lady.

They came to have a drink with me.

And I think Tig was there as well.

And

I got pissed.

I got drunk.

And he hadn't said anything as far as testimony yet.

And he can blow the doors off

all the help that was around there.

He could verify what we saw.

And I'm like, we're being a fucking pussy, dude.

Go tell him what happened.

And he got up and I saw, I felt bad.

He got up.

I saw

tears in his eyes and he walked away.

His wife's sitting there.

His wife's text is from hard as nails.

I go, ma'am, I'm sorry.

She goes, no, I've been telling him the same thing to tell.

And I said, well, why hasn't he?

He goes, because they're going to pull his pension if he does when he don't get his retirement.

And I, I was like, Okay.

And I never say anything about it again.

I love the guy.

I love him.

And he has a lot of info out there, but I do respect people and their family.

And if that's not for my selfish reasons or anything else, I understand that.

I never bugged him about it again.

And I never will again because I respect that.

I do.

Is it right?

No, I don't think it's right, but I still respect his decision.

And he did try.

he did try his ass off well

3 a.m

we get hit again

and um it was like the movie show we just it was just they did the same tactics and we just crushed them it's like waves hitting a retaining wall man

and it was uh it it was

very very satisfying but it was man

how long is this gonna keep up because we had a ton of m4 ammo tons, but we're eventually going to run out.

We're eventually going to get tired.

We're eventually,

they're eventually going to get it figured out and hit us with a car bomb.

I was so shocked they hadn't hit us with a car bomb yet because that was when Iraq or Afghanistan, that's probably what they would have just done.

Drove a car and blow up the wall, but they hadn't.

So I was really shocked at that.

But,

you know, you think about your family a little bit.

And before that second attack, I had thought about my family and I just remembered the phone call and I just remembered it briefly and I thought about them and I just remembered that the last thing they heard from me, did I tell them I loved them?

And I did.

So I was okay.

I didn't think about him rest of the night.

Those are last words.

Did my daughter, my son, and my wife know that I love them?

Before I got off the phone, yeah, I told them I loved them.

Out of my head, the rest of the night.

And by 3 a.m.,

you're starting to get, and what I was doing at that point in time, having some self-reflection.

getting motivated that they are going to breach the walls probably eventually and that I got to get it in my head that we may need to start.

It's going to get close quarter and we're going to maybe start stabbing.

It's going to start knifing.

And that's a totally different animal than shooting.

It's intimate.

And that's a mind.

If you're used to that, there's something wrong with you, in my opinion.

I mean, shooting, I understand.

I've done that.

It's kind of impersonal.

And because of the way we're trained, it's almost like you can imagine targets.

And also, they're terrorists.

Who gives a fuck?

But when they're up and you got a stab,

that's different, at least to me.

Maybe not to others, others but it is and i you i got to get my mind right if that's going to happen so i'm starting to get the mindset of hand to hand you know so i respect those guys from world war ii and world war one

trench fighting wow it's like god those guys are bad i ain't shit those guys are badass but um

and the ton of rats you know from vietnam but uh

We get word, Bub's coming in.

And I didn't know this for several years, but Bub actually ponied up money from his own bank account to rent that old executives jet.

I don't know if he was ever paid back.

Are you kidding?

I found that out.

Actually, I found that out from

his best friend Sean, who runs Bub's Naturals.

But he came on my podcast, and I had no idea that I didn't know that.

Wow.

But that tells you how Bub is.

Yeah.

Ponied up money.

I'm sure he was.

I think what Sean said is the Seal Foundation came in and actually reimbursed.

I don't have to see I ever paid him, which fucked them anyway.

But anyway, that's Bub, man.

That's Bub.

His own money.

And they rented his executives jet.

It was.

It was like a G6.

It was nice.

It did have flight attendants on there.

Serious, no shit flight attendants because they were waiting for us when we got to Bonina.

But he gets there and they got there actually at midnight.

And they just, it took them so long to coordinate to get the 10 kilometers to our place.

By the time they got to our place, it was about 5 a.m.

And

they get there and I remember them coming in and I remember I was being my smart ass self.

I was saying, hey, fucking welcome to the party, motherfuckers.

Better late than never, man.

Did you bring me something to drink?

And I remember Bub walked by and the TL that was with them, he was a former BW guy that went to the dark side because he started sleeping with the case officer.

So you married her, though.

It wasn't bad.

He married her, but he'd been becoming a staffer.

But they both went, they walked by me and they did like fucking tonno and they both flipped me off they was giving them shit and uh they went back all of them all the grs guys aside from bub went into building c there were two delta guys that were worked with us in tripoli they went into building c too and bub was the only one that came up to build i mean building uh building yeah building c yeah the the headquarters building and then bub went on top of building c

So, like I said, keep in mind here.

I'm on building A, building C's, I'm sorry, building A here, here building c

here B they're in B I'm sorry that's a headquarter building building B and then building A or building

I'm getting confused here A

B C D sorry a they went in building C D's here Jack's here Boone's still up here I went on the front gate building which is a

and

I need to take a crap

Couldn't get anybody to relieve me.

And

Boone said, go take a shit.

So I was scared down.

Bodily functions still happen when I was,

you know, that.

They don't stop.

Scurried down the stairs, took my shit, got back up.

And

all of a sudden,

and it didn't sound like a mortar.

It didn't.

And I don't know.

My hearing had been shot out.

I had an earpiece in one ear, but I didn't wear hearing protection in the other.

And Boone had been shooting an SR-25 by my ear all night.

And I'm shooting either my M4 or 46.

So my hearing's gone.

And I went, did you guys hear that?

It sounded like somebody's,

you know what it sounded like when we used to hear the 107s come in in Iraq,

that's what it sounded like.

I thought it was a rocket.

I said, did you guys hear that?

And then, I don't know, something in me said, more.

I go, mortars, mortars.

And so this to take cover, the first one hit and hit on the backside of Building C.

And that's when the world opened up again.

And I remember Roan, he just spun.

He spun and he went cyclic on that other 46.

And he's just over where the sheep slaughterhouse says.

They're trying to come through there.

Like idiots, they're walking their troops into where the mortars are coming.

Fine with me.

They can take out their own guys if they want.

But Roan is just, so I'm seeing this laser beam because it's not daylight.

The movie shows us daylight is actually was

before morning nautical twilight.

So it's, you know, it's right when the sun's made, but the night vision, you still need your night vision.

So I'm watching all this.

I'm seeing.

One guy turn and start to shoot that direction.

I'm seeing another guy turn, which was Oz.

The next guy was Bub.

and the next guy was Dave Ubin.

And of course, I want to get my gun in the fight, but I can't see the targets because they're here.

I'm here.

The targets, they're coming from this direction.

Mortars are coming from this way.

So I'm shooting over their heads.

I put a couple rounds down and I look.

And I think, you know, we kind of already went through this before, but I look behind me to make sure there's nobody coming from my six because I still got areas of responsibility.

Nobody's there.

I turn on a couple more shots and I see the next one hit.

And this one hits on Building C.

It hits right by the parapet wall.

Boom, blows up.

As my night vision goes white and it comes back, those four guys that were shooting are now three.

So it's like, it was, it's like, you know, close your eyes, you see four, open your eyes, there's three.

Dave's hit, Dave got hit with a 81.

It sheared half his leg off, it sheared half his arm off.

They were on, but they were just hanging by tendons and, and he's screaming.

And he, I like, how did you hear that?

I don't know how I heard it, but I heard him screaming.

I'm hit.

He's yelling.

He's screaming.

I heard all, I could hear it.

I'm still shooting.

They're still shooting.

I turn around to make sure nobody's coming again because I still got my six.

We still got a fight.

We got to finish it.

You can't quit.

They got to take care of Dave.

I'm not running off my position and helping.

Somebody, I'm just expecting maybe the Delta guys or somebody to come up and help.

But who?

I don't know.

We got a fight to go.

I put three rounds over the top of their head.

I went boom, boom, boom.

And as soon as I did that, three rounds, three mortars, fire for effect.

Boom, boom, boom.

And when they did that my night vision went completely white

because they overabundance of light and as it came back

they were gone and i saw the pixie dust i saw the charged particles because any of those explosions if it's fine particles or dust and and there's not a lot of wind and there wasn't and there's not you can see the particles coming down because they get charged or heated.

So I'm watching the pixie dust come down.

And

it really did look like they got turned to dust my brain's like because they're gone all of a sudden they're gone then there's a cloud of dust

i'm like man i we can't beat this we don't need air support and i put my head down i said florina

and god's and i know it was god it was god or my mom

and

he said get your gun up ranger

i kept fighting and jack kept fighting and boo kept fighting And we fought those guys off that were coming for us.

Boone and Jack Primarily, they had better avenue fields of fire than i did

but and they did awesome but um the mortar stopped and at the time i was like wow wonder why they stopped i mean they hit with the building they wanted to hit it was fire for effect they had that thing locked in that's our main building that's a skiff that's where all of our troops are that's where all of our equipment is that's where all of our all of our comms are is that building they knew which building to hit And unlike David Petraeus, who needs his Ranger tab pulled that said, well, it must have been a truck.

And they just ran a truck and they just

haphazardly put a mortar tube in the back of a truck.

Come on, man.

Come on, man.

What's up, infantry officer?

I got respect for Petraeus, but when he said that, I'm like, dude, come on.

Anyway,

the reason they stopped the movie, I wish they would have edited it a little bit better.

You see the militia take off before the mortars came.

They actually took off after that first shh.

When I heard that shh.

They must have heard it.

that good i don't know they must have known what it was more than me which then my hearing had gone to shit they took off and then that first one hit they went and took the mortar team out for us

their commander had actually come in with our team and he was in the building c when those mortars were hitting so they're that first one there they scattered because that's their tactics when they knew something was coming a mortar was coming in so they're moving their vehicles so they're not part of the carnage.

And then I could hear in the distance tires screeching, gunfire in the direction where the mortars were coming from.

And they went and took the mortar team out for us because their commander had got caught in Building C when the attack happened.

Lord works mysterious ways, brother.

Yeah, no.

And

the ironic thing is, too, is the mortar team, that whole militia belonged.

They were former Omar Qaddafi commanders.

Wow.

We got saved.

You know, we got saved by Omar Gaddafi.

So, yeah, so for anybody to think that we went in there to overthrow Omar Gaddafi, that's bullshit.

We went in there to stabilize a region so the Muslim Brotherhood could come in and stabilize it under that foreign policy and under the Obama administration.

And we needed Qaddafi's weapons to go and give to the friendly militias as McCain would say.

But anyway, they saved us and mortar stopped.

And then at 7 a.m., you know, a militia was coming in.

And I remember there were just me and Boone and Jack left.

Nobody, and it would piss me.

Nobody would come and relieve us.

It was like, dude, I was like, guys,

GRS guys, Delta, would somebody come give us a break?

I mean, come on.

It's like having a patrol base and

you got to give guys breaks.

Nobody would come relieve us.

So we stayed up there.

And I remember Bob said, Tom.

Delta guys didn't come up?

No, and not I got no heartache with I did for a big deal what were they doing I don't know

I that's a good question I have no idea um and I they're delta I know they do hardcore shit and I got no heartache with them I'm not trying to throw them on the bus here it's just it is what it is and I know they're they're fucking warriors because they're delta you get you kind of have to be to be at the unit now I've seen guys bolo shoots at from the unit too going through TDC

and and going but like anybody, they have bad days, but

I just, I don't know.

Maybe they're on a different,

I would like to know.

If you ever get them on, I would love to know what the hell they were doing.

Maybe it was document destruction, destroying classified documents of why we were there.

I don't know.

I mean, that's what we put in the movie.

Michael Bay actually has a pretty good,

he has a pretty good, he has his own peeps within the agency that feed him shit and DOD because they love him because he makes them look really good, which he should.

He's honoring.

He loves veterans.

So maybe that's, maybe he put that in there because that's what they were doing.

I don't know.

But all I know is they couldn't, they wouldn't relieve us because I kept calling for him.

Then I kept making fun.

Like, hey,

D-Boys, you think you could come and relieve us?

I got to get a drink of water.

You know, I was just on the open mic so everybody could hear it.

So I was being my normal jackass pissed off stuff.

Anyway,

when the militia was coming in,

Bob says to me, he goes, Tono, you got the front gate.

He goes, make sure this militia that we got coming is friendly.

All I had left was my M4.

That's all I had ammo left for.

It's all I had, my peace shooter.

It's daytime now.

And

I remember asking Bob,

I go, Roger that, Chief, I got front gate.

I understood.

Can you give me some description of who I'm looking for?

He goes, I don't know, Tono.

I said, Bob, I said, Chief, do you have vehicle colors, insignia I can ID?

He goes, we don't have any of that information.

And the TL needs to be start chipping in.

I'm asking the TL the same things.

I go, are there uniforms I can look for?

Do I have communication via cell phone?

My burn phone?

Can I call somebody?

You guys have communication.

We lost communication.

I go, give me a number, Bob, at least.

He goes, our team leader comes across for it and he goes, Tono, the numbers between 30 to 50.

They're all technicals.

Holy fuck.

And I got on the radio and we didn't put it in the movie, but I said, and you guys expect me to fight these fuckers off with a pea shooter?

I said, Roger that.

And

no response because why keep poking the bear?

Because I'll keep giving him shit.

And

I just said to him, and I go on the radio, I clicked it one more time.

I said, Bob, you've been a plethora of information.

I really appreciate

them being a smartass.

And I went dark and I saw him coming.

Pablo played it.

It still breaks.

I mean, it does.

It breaks my heart when I see it because he played it so spot on because that's how exactly I felt i'm watching these technicals and it is a huge militia they bat you know you know what technicals are it's those highluxes with those dischkas or anti-aircraft guns in the back or a pkm mounted and it's it's a badass militia and uh

as they're coming in i get behind that parapet wall at three foot high and i made myself as small as i could and i had an eotech It was on and I put the EOTech on the passenger because I'm thinking to myself, you know, hey, this ain't over.

It's not over till it all over.

It's not over till it ends, man.

And I'm dead or they're dead.

It's probably going to be me.

And all I'm thinking is that Dishka is going to rip me in half.

And I hope it's quick.

But I'm thinking to myself, I'm at least going to get one of them.

And I got my infrared dot, I mean, my EOTEC on the passenger who looks like a commander.

I don't know, but he's passionate.

And then I'm just rotating back and forth from the Dishka gunner to the pasture because if I see the Disca gunner move and he hits that fly, then I'm going to hit that fly, then fly trigger, I'm going to pull my trigger and at least get him, and then I'll get ripped up.

But I just couldn't think of anything else.

I had no way to connect them.

I learned the jambo in Mosul at Marez because we had Sudanese guards and every time we'd leave the gate, they would throw up the jambo to me in 2008.

So one day I stopped and asked them, I said, what does that mean?

Dude,

it means good morning.

It officially is Swahili.

It means good morning.

You'll see it on shirts and Africa.

I said, Jombo.

But because the shock is much cooler and it's be be cool, they've kind of adopted that.

And that's what they told me.

I said, so it just means be cool.

So I would throw that up.

And every time I threw it up, if I wanted to see if somebody was friendly, if I got it back, well, I'm here.

So nine times out of ten, it was friendly.

And I couldn't take anything else.

And I went like this.

And I,

man, I was, I, I was, you could have put a lump of coal at my ass.

It would have been a diamond like that.

I was like, just tight.

And they're both chewing cot.

I remember the cot cot because they had big wads of cot in their mouth.

For those that don't know what cot is, it's amphetamine they dip before they go into battle.

It's like a leaf, but it's like chewing copate.

It's like mixing Copenhagen with cocaine and steroids.

That's what it is.

And it rots your teeth.

It turns your mouth brown.

You chew it all enough.

It makes you look like a heroin addict if you chew it.

I mean, it looked like they'd been chewing it forever, just gross.

cot everywhere.

And

I remember doing this.

I went like this and I'm thinking to myself, this is going to hurt.

And the pastor reached out and he smiled at me.

He smiled at huge caught

brown teeth and he went, and he was that close.

I could see him that vividly.

And he smiled.

He threw the jumble up and the disca gunner got, took it, one hand off the fly, took off that disca at the back and he went like this.

No.

And it was shit.

And I said, people watch the movie and are like, that's so, that's so dramatized.

Like, oh, that's the fuck what happened and I said my wife is gorgeous my kids are beautiful beautiful smiles but they know this and I told them I said honey I love you you got a beautiful smile

but that smile that that

cot filled is still just the most beautiful smile I've ever seen in my life and and I did I did lose it it was like for briefly I did

I just kind of let it out and I got on the radio and I went there with us there with us.

And I, I mean, I'm hoping the movie, what all them felt like you see in the movie, I'm hoping that's how they felt.

And there would have just was

somebody.

What had happened?

And I don't know how Bob didn't get this fucking information since the commander was right in there.

The buddies that took the militia, the militia that took the motor team out, they went and got more of their buddies.

So they just got more Qaddafi people.

So we got saved by Qaddafi twice.

Wow.

And then we got out of there, you know, and got to the airfield.

And

there were some fights over our vehicles.

I mean, in the movie, it showed a few guys.

There was actually probably about 15 guys that wanted our vehicles.

It was kind of comical because some guy ND is AK when they were fighting over our vehicles.

So we're in the middle and we're trying to get people on.

And this again, this is a respect I have for Oz.

And I've said it before.

I think it was either with you or with.

But

again, you respect, even if you don't like people, you respect and give respect when it's due.

And again, he did.

He was John Wayne.

He said the coolest fucking thing.

And he did say this.

When we got there, we were trying to help him off the back of the truck and get on the plane.

And he wouldn't let us help him.

He climbed his own.

Yeah, for real.

No, he climbed his own ass down from the building, bleeding.

I don't know if he said it during his interview.

He may have, but that was pretty fucking impressive.

He was down pepper trapped, arms playing off, and he climbed down a ladder, one-handed.

He slipped on a rung and caught himself with his elbow and then he walked himself down so me and Oz may not get along, but he's one of the toughest son bitches I've ever been with and

when he said that I was like god dang I wish I would have said that man I said damn that's some John Wayne Clint East with shit right there and he walked in there and the flight attendants were out

I walked into this country.

I'm gonna walk out.

He said it wasn't movie.

It wasn't script.

That's what he said.

we were all standing there and all of us were like

damn man i'll say it's um

it's just nice to hear you guys have a healthy respect for each other you do you have to you go through that and uh i said you don't you're not gonna get along with everybody you can't hang out with her i'm not for everybody believe believe me there'd be like man i hate that some bitch but if i need him and i want him on with me in the front with me and there's some that don't some of that i hate that some bitch i don't want him anywhere near me and there's some that man, if we go through the gates of hell, I want you standing right next to me.

That's just, that's just humans.

That's just how we are.

You're not going to like everybody.

But if you have a job to do, and this goes in corporate world, this goes in the military, anywhere, private military.

You have a goal.

You need to reach that goal.

You better be all on the same focus, the same path.

Now, you may have different jobs, but don't create more drama by not liking each other.

And that's a good leader that puts you in positions that don't make you commingle all the time, which Roan did.

He put us in jobs and responsibilities that

if we had to do stuff together, we did, but if it wasn't necessary, then he wasn't forcing us.

So we had a healthy dose of each other when we needed, but if we didn't like, we didn't ride all together.

It wasn't necessary for us to, me and him do, do the, do the,

I can't call him anyhow.

It's got names for it, but it wasn't necessary for us to do the meetings and the pickups and all that together.

You didn't do that.

And you had leaders that would force guys to ride.

You don't want, no, we didn't like each other.

So there's other guys, Oz, Tony, you just don't have to ride together.

There's plenty of other people here.

And they put us in different vehicles.

Yeah.

So, um,

but

what was funny and comical on that is, is it only show in the movie that the flight attendant put one towel down on the stairs because Oz was bleeding over everything.

She actually came down, was putting multiple towels all along the stairs and was putting them in the fuselage.

Shit, because she was more worried about blood getting all over the plane than

Oz helping Oz into the plane.

She didn't give him a hand, nothing.

She just let him walk up.

You're like, wow, if that ain't

honestly, that's probably more closer to humanity today

than all people are today than it really was back then.

But he got on there and Dave, God bless Bub, dude.

Bub sacrificed his life, saved two guys.

He gave himself, John 15, 13.

Man, he exemplified that

Dave and Oswood have bled out Dave was bleeding out he went into a convo he went into convulsions twice because his tourniquets kept coming loose so he was losing so much blood we were out of IVs

but because that plane was there we had a little bit of a miss a little bit of a problem when we got everybody on the plane as we got everybody on the plane we heard a pop somebody shot their gun on the plane the heating and air guy

had a pistol all the contractors had sidearms if they were weapons qualified.

Our HVAC guy that was a contractor there with us had a pistol.

He took it out to clear it, dropped the magazine, and instead of racking the slide, he pulled the trigger and he shot the plane.

So the plane sat there for an extra 10 minutes while we tried to locate the bullet because the pilot wouldn't fly if there was a hole in the fuselage.

And we got lucky.

It lodged in one of the iron frames with the back of a seat.

Wow.

Insult to injury and just comical,

comical sh.

Wow.

And finally, we found it.

That's when it got out of there.

And

there was a Libyan, a Western-trained Libyan doctor, and one of the Deltas had 18 Deltas had got back to Tripoli

from that.

I don't know if it was from the CIF team or he'd come in from Djibouti, but there was a Delta that was waiting there, an 18 Delta from one of the groups that was working in the region.

And I still don't know who it was.

I just know it was

an SF guy.

And

they got him stabilized.

Dave stabilized.

Dave good to go.

They got Oz good to go.

And then we sat and waited.

And that's when I inspected the ambassador's body.

They brought his body on.

I opened up the body bag.

And again,

I don't think he was desperate.

You know, his genitals were mutilated.

I didn't look.

And I didn't see blood down there, but that didn't mean nothing.

They could have cleaned it up and just pulled his pants on.

But I didn't see any marks that indicated he was drugged through the streets, which is what I was looking for.

Tig looked at him too.

And Tig didn't see anything that indicated that as well.

So we're saying no.

Could it have happened?

Sure, it could have, but we didn't see it.

A C-130 landed at 10:30.

And as I'm seeing it come in,

if you've been around, you know the telltale signs, even from a distance, of what a 130 looks like coming in.

It's beautiful coming in, dual engines, cracking, looking at the tail boom.

And I'm thinking to myself, fine, well, better late than never, America.

And as it gets closer, I'm like,

are my eyes deceiving me?

That's red, green, and black.

That's not an American flag.

And as it gets closer, I verified it's a Libyan flag in it lands.

And I remember thinking, what?

It's like still, and I said it to myself out loud to myself.

I said, still no Americans.

Whatever.

Goes down.

I figure we're going to hot load it.

So it's going to drive.

It's going to drop its ramp and we're going to.

It's going to turn and then we're just going to run in and take off.

It didn't.

It went by us, went down about 400 to 600 meters, banked it right,

shut its engines down.

You're like, that's odd.

Okay.

Well, maybe they need to refuel.

And

I look at the TO.

I go, is that for us?

He goes, I don't know.

And our country TO was there as well.

And I asked him, I go, is that for us?

We jumped in some cars that we had left.

We had another interpreter

that was our expediter from the airport.

He had a vehicle, jumped down there.

They were all sitting in the room drinking chai.

They were maxed and relaxing.

Went to the pilots.

We're like, is this for?

And they had no idea what had just happened.

They had no idea what had just happened.

And we ended up talking them into flying us out.

Have faith, man.

Wow.

Have faith.

I always tell people, never lose your faith.

It's amazing that if you have faith, your luck increases.

It just showed up.

And that was something that, honestly, I pushed when we were doing all the testimonies, and nobody really ever cared.

Wow.

So I just let it go.

I don't push it anymore.

I like to tell about it because it is a question.

It is a, hey, man,

God's still in control, man.

And

I am going to talk about that.

I do, because this is why I don't,

like Obama or anyone, Mike Rogers, he's Republican, he talks shit about Benghazi.

He's a terrible man.

Whenever they call a conspiracy or they say, oh, it didn't happen the way they said they did it.

When we got on that plane,

and forgive me, Katie, and Bub's family, but I do want to talk because this is why politicians need to shut their fucking mouths.

Bub's rig of mortis had set in.

So his arm was, when we got on the plane, we loaded the bodies in.

We didn't have body bags for everybody.

So we had to put sheets or a sheet over Bo because we didn't have enough

and

He had get he had gotten dropped off the roof by the D-boys.

They dropped him

I don't know why again.

I've come to terms with that.

I'm not gonna beat those guys up.

They're they're they're

amen.

They're deboys.

I know they serve their country well and they're they're they did well that you you if you ever have them on you can ask them

but

his arm was up in the air.

So it was you know we had him covered with a sheet, but his arm was like this the whole time.

It's like an elephant in the room.

You're on a C-130 and I'm on the, we're sitting on this side on the webbing and they're sitting on that side on the webbing.

And you're seeing these dead bodies here.

And everybody's pretty much covered up, but Bub's arm is out there and everybody's just staring at it.

And I'm like, what the fuck?

Okay.

I was like, well, fuck, if I have to be the one to do it, I didn't say it, but that's what I thought.

And I walked over there

and I thought it was disrespectful to leave him like that.

So I just grabbed his arm and I went wrap and I ripped it down and I felt everything ripped

but I could tuck his arm underneath the

the sheet so it could

so we couldn't see it anymore

and um

you know I

I don't I don't know if that was right or not but I just I couldn't ride an hour watching his

and everybody was staring at it and it was just silent on the plane.

It's like nobody wanted to acknowledge that

was going on, or maybe what had just happened.

And it was like, fuck.

Maybe this is the, I have everybody, I have a little sociopath.

It's like, man, do I always have to be the one to do the do the dirty shit?

That's what I kind of felt, but it, but I'm glad I did because I know

I thought it was more disrespectful to leave his arm up in the air and leave him in that position and get him settled, get his arm underneath and have him be in a respectful position.

And that still bothers me.

And I don't really talk, I don't talk about that too much because, one of all, I don't talk about it a lot because it bothers a shit.

I mean, obviously,

but because

I don't want to disrespect the Doherty family by saying that,

you know, maybe

they would think of it like a desecration.

And that's not what it was.

Chris, I mean, you did it out of respect, man.

That's what it was.

And that's not a rationalization.

But I also

just doing the best you can.

That's it.

You always respect family, though.

You always respect other people's family, especially people you serve, because you want them to respect your family.

And I love, I think, Katie and what she's done with the Glenn Doherty Memorial Foundation and

Glenn's brother.

They're amazing people.

And Mrs.

Doherty passed away,

I think, a few years ago.

But now I have the utmost respect for them because

they lost their son needlessly.

And I just don't want to harp on that.

But I do want people to understand and know that.

So when they hear a politician say Benghazi is a conspiracy or Benghazi didn't happen or those guys are not telling the story, right?

I want them to hear stuff like that because that's

that's why I get angry.

Nobody believes politicians.

I hope not.

Well

regardless, that happened and we got back to Tripoli.

And we went back and, you know, we got off the plane.

We went to the

annex there in Tripoli.

I took a shower and got some food.

And

I was a big Copenhagen dipper at the time.

So I was like, man, does somebody have Copenhagen?

I need some

big dip in.

There's actually a picture.

There was one picture taken of me.

sitting on the steps of the annex in Tripoli.

I borrowed somebody's New York Yankees hat.

I didn't have any clothes because I wasn't able to get my gear.

So I borrowed somebody's white under t-shirt.

I had somebody's pants on that didn't fit me.

So it looks like I'm a lot bigger than what I am down there, but I'm not because they were too tight on me.

And I have a big old dip in and my sunglasses on.

And I'm trying to come to terms with it all.

And I got some food in my belly.

And then

they load all the contractors.

None of the staffers.

They load all the contractors

on a motorcade.

The Jerusalems are are there.

We load in their cars.

We drive down the airfield.

The Air Force crew chief, she was awesome.

Broke every reg in the world to let us load those flag drape coffins.

They already had the flag.

She was incredible.

She already had them flag draped coffins ready to go.

Christine, it was, you couldn't have done any better than at Dover.

She was incredible.

And the pilot, Eric Stahl, Lieutenant Colonel Eric Stahl, who was a C-17.

Wonderful.

Every reg in the world they broke to accommodate us.

They had already loaded Oz's, Oz was already on.

I'm not going to post it because it's for Oz, you know, but I got a picture of him where he's in his gurney.

Ivy's in.

He's coherent.

He's doing this to me.

But he's on the plane.

Dave is sedated, of course.

He's out because he's massive, massive trauma.

Get the coffins on.

Ramp closes.

We take off and we fly to fly to Germany.

And then we get to germany and um

plain lands i didn't let go of my rifle the whole time or my ammo give two fucks it's not going anywhere it stayed right next to me with my ammo so when we get there and i wish i would have known what i know now about general ham but he's on the way to greet us the euro comm commander he's the one that controls the euro comm forces or he's the one that can sacrifice his position and tell obama and hillary to go f themselves and send us troops you know

well Well, he gets on and

I don't even remember what he said, to be honest with you.

I just remember he said something positive to us.

He's an infantry guy, Ranger Tab, all that.

And all I remember is I remember going up to him and saying, hey, sir, is there an amnesty box anywhere?

Because I got a bunch of ammo I need to download.

And that's my conversation with him.

But if I'd have known that he could have sent people and he didn't, then I probably would have had a different conversation, but I didn't know at the time.

Yeah, he goes, yeah, sir.

He says, he's a good job.

He goes, great job, man.

And he goes, it's right over there.

And I walk over there and there's a sergeant in arm, like a sergeant, I would say sergeant in arms, but whatever, the ammo draw.

And there's a sergeant there.

And I gave a tech sergeant, Air Force guy.

I gave him the ammo.

And that's why I always tell people, support the USO, because they were already there waiting for us.

And this lady come, she was the nicest lady, 50-something lady, blonde hair,

about five foot six she comes up to me and she goes she goes she they already know what happened they know what happened they know the story they know we're coming from um anyway they don't know where agency they just know that there was a battle there's some deaths there's some military and some civilians coming in get your shit ready and they already had stuff laid out like toiletries

underwear you know clothes shoes

And she comes up to me and she goes, what'd you lose?

She goes, you okay?

I said, yes, ma'am.

She goes, what'd you lose?

I said, ma'am, I lost everything.

She goes, okay.

And she started taking me around.

And I got some money.

I got some jammies.

I got some sweats, USO sweats, and I got my toiletries.

And then we got to the end of it, she goes, write down what you need.

I said, ma'am.

She goes, no, I need you to write down what you need because you might be here for about four or five days.

I said, every, what?

She goes, anything.

So I'm just doing, you know, I lost my tennis shoes.

I lost my jeans.

I lost my t-shirts.

And I gave her a list.

And it was, it was a full page of stuff I lost.

I wasn't being a dick I lost my you know lost my PlayStation it's like I stuff I I handed it to her and I go back to my room and they put us into a nice room it's Air Force it's nice rooms man it's like a hotel it felt like a hotel put us in right next to the BX which Air Force Base Exchange Army PX post exchange but it's Air Force BX

and I lay down for a second I can't sleep I knock on my door at 1 a.m.

because we got in real late.

We got in like at 11 to the to Germany when we finally got there and it was her and she had two bags she goes here

she goes I got your stuff

and um I didn't I didn't break down in front of her but I did where I closed the door because it was

the first

first time I'd felt where people where someone generally cared

like actually gave a shit not like Bob, who came after her when we were at Triple and he goes, Thanks, man, thank you.

And I think he was trying to be sincere, but when you're that long in the agency, your sincerity is never

up there anymore.

Or having somebody say, Hey, man, great job.

It wasn't.

And the GRS guys, they don't know what's, you know, what do we say?

You know, it's, it, I know it's sincere, but it's a

good job, fist bone.

But actual, like a mother figure saying

caring, it meant a lot

and um

and then i uh you know i put the clothes on she got me some jeans she got me some running shoes so i felt normal and uh creator she took a shower and then uh

i slept for about four or five hours and then i got up and i turned the tv on and i saw susan and her ice already on tv

And I remember I called Jack and they were sending a video and a protest.

And I like, I said, are you seeing this fucking shit?

And we turned it on, and I just turned it off.

And he turned it off, and we didn't want to watch it because we figured at that point, we're like, Somebody's going to tell the truth.

You still have some optimism that there's some heart and some integrity within the government that somebody is going to say something.

And we still had that at that point.

It had only been a day, you know.

Who knows?

If I'd have known what I know now,

12 years later,

it probably would have been more vocal at that point in time, but we still had that,

we still had that faith that there was still integrity and ethics and morality in DC.

We hadn't seen behind the curtain yet.

We had a little bit, but not really, you know, because we didn't, that wasn't our job.

And we stayed on there.

And then I remember that night we got super piss drunk.

There's still a picture that I'll post every once in a while of me, Jack, Boone, and Tig.

And actually, the safety part, Alec was on one side, but I'll crop him out because I just, I don't know if he wants to be seen.

And I'm smiling a little bit.

And I still, I honestly feel bad that I'm doing it.

Like, what the, I'm looking at it going, what the fuck am I smiling at?

But I remember that

I'm just trying to get through it.

And I remember that I was, I was drunker than shit, dude.

I was so drunk.

And we had been laughing together.

healing together before that picture was taken because Tig was telling me, man, did you, man, this is what I did?

And Boone was telling me and some of the shit is comical.

That's why I'm glad we got the comical shit in the movie because that's, you know, you know, that happens, man.

They miss the bravado is there in all the movies, Lone Survivor, American Sniper, Black Hawk Down, you know, even ours, but they miss a lot of the Jack Ashery.

And that's one thing we like, Mike, we got to get that in there because that, that happens.

That's actually more relevant, more prevalent than the

Bravado.

And so I remember we were telling a story and I can't remember the story that it was, but we were laughing because I was like, holy shit, I can't believe that just happened.

I think it was Tig talking when he said, when he, one of the, one of the SPOs, one of the base security guys that we had there

called Tig into the office, said, can you come look at the monitor?

I've got some problems in

the sheep slaughterhouse area.

And he went down there to look and the sheep were jumping on each other.

And he's like, yeah, I went down there and I was watching these videos and the sheep were running around in a circle and they were jumping on each other and jumping on each other.

Well, all the sheep are doing, they're trying to get away, but they can't get away because they're in a pin, they're in a circle, and it looks like they're humping.

And he did say that the bait, the Spo goes, so do you think people are sneaking under there?

He goes, I don't know.

It's either that or the sheep are humping.

And

the Spo goes, well, what do you think it is?

He goes, he goes, man, it was like 2.30 at night.

He goes, I don't know nothing about sheep.

It was just funny.

It was dumb, but it was funny because it was just, again, ludicrous shit.

So when you see that in the movie, you're like, is that part of the, no, that actually, that that happened and that's that's what's so

funny about

and it is funny and and with 13 hours but it's just the night in itself is just just the stupid

the stupid stuff that we said to just to make each other laugh or just stuff that comes out of your mouth or rub some dirt on a kid you know after a guy blows his hand off i mean it it's it's there and and and

i i i still remember laughing and getting in that picture because of that story that Tig told.

But when I look back at the pic, though, it still hurts me a little bit because there's nothing that I need to be smiling about there.

We had just lost two guys.

We just lost an ambassador.

We lost Sean, who hadn't seen Comm is two weeks.

I've been doing that for 10 years, and I've been pretty, relatively unscathed.

He's dead.

And here I am smiling a day after the attack.

All of us were.

And it bothers me.

That picture, I still will post it because I do want to tell us always any picture that's that I post on social media I know it's not the cool thing to do I'll always have a story behind it because I want it's therapeutic for me but also maybe somebody will learn from it yeah you know but

yeah we there and then we went home um the reason they kept all the staffers there

including Sarah, she can tell you more about than I can.

She has already.

She's already talked about it.

And they flew us out is because they didn't want our input on how they were going to write the report of what took place.

So they flew all of us contractors out.

I didn't know that either.

If any of us would have known that, we thought they were just being cool.

It's like, oh, they're getting us out of here.

We got to go home.

It was no, because they're going to fly betray us in so they could get debriefed without us.

Here's agency for it.

Wow.

That's it.

Wow.

Went back to Langland.

You know, you stop, you turn in your dip passport, you do your debrief that's where i we did our our big debrief up on the seventh up on um seventh floor and we went through this is what happened we mapped it all out we stayed there for an extra day we went through what we all did

and um you know they did a big like a really was just a big aar like you do in the military we're up there and this is removed

and then we went downstairs and we sat with all the grs head shit out of you know that worked out of the out at langley there the guys that that worked out of the building.

And that's where

we went through another AR.

They're like, what'd you do?

What happened?

And that's when they asked me, like I just said earlier, whenever we talked about it earlier about our TL, they go, so how'd the TL do?

And they said his name.

And I said, he did great.

And they really, and Boone kind of looked at me like,

and I said, yeah, he did great.

Cause he stayed out of the fucking way.

What was their reaction?

What are they going to say to me?

It was one put his head down and snickered because he knew who he was.

The other two, they just looked at me and say a word.

And I didn't say a word and I looked right back at him.

And Boone was laughing the whole time too.

Boone's laughing.

So what could they say?

I got no right.

What are they going to say to me?

But been around long enough.

I know who you guys are.

You know who I am.

What would a normal human being say to you?

Nothing.

And

these people, who the hell knows?

Well, I was also, also, and not that I'm, I got, I've gotten my ass kicked enough times, but I'll fight if we need to fight.

And that's what it was.

Like, stay out of the fucking way.

And it was stay out of the fucking way.

And then with my eyes, I'm going, what the fuck are you guys going to do about it?

Yeah.

And yeah, they probably wouldn't.

I'm a little guy.

I'll get my ass kicked.

Oh, no, no.

I'll keep out of the same situation.

But it's, it's that.

I mean, there's just so many staffers that have no concept of what that might be like because they haven't done it.

They've never done anything.

and uh

nothing and do you know what that's i don't that's why i didn't get any response back because if they would have had a set of balls they would have somebody would have said something but i do also think the one that was laughing that snickering and smiling giving a little smirk he had been down range before i'd worked him a few times they also knew the truth they knew what were they gonna they knew they knew that he wasn't gonna do anything so that's why one was in the corner going you know

boo's sitting there going after he he looks at me and I said it, he's like, he just started laughing.

Boone doesn't laugh like that.

He just started laughing.

And everybody's on our side snickering.

So what are they going to say?

They know I'm right.

And if they did, then they would.

But

nobody said anything.

And then I also.

Continue to work.

What's that?

Staffer.

Who did?

Oh, yeah, he's still working.

The T.O.?

He's still working?

I'm pretty sure he's still working.

He's still, oh, come on.

You know the deal.

He ain't going nowhere.

He played the role.

He didn't say a word.

When he testified, he testified against everything that we said.

He never testified with us.

He testified on his own.

He testified once with Tig because Tig was still working.

Tig was the last one to quit.

All of us went to Yemen.

Tig went to Lebanon.

So myself and Jack went to Sana'a after we took

our 60 days off and then we went back.

I went to Sana'a.

Boone went to Aden.

Tig went to Lebanon.

You only took 60 days off?

I took 75.

I took an extra couple weeks.

Yeah.

That's it.

I had to get back on that horse, man.

What was the

first conversation like with your wife and kids?

I actually called her from the airfield.

There's a wonderful, wonderful.

I'm glad they got this right in the movie.

You just see Jack's perspective where he calls home.

We paraphrase in the movie because we got what we all said.

Then we had a wonderful writer named Chuck Hogan who mashed it together and got all of our base our words into that monologue when Jack's on his phone or Krasinski.

And I remember I called her on the Atarmac and I said, hey, you're going to see something on the news.

That's us.

I said, I'm fine.

I love you.

I said, I'll be home as soon as I can.

And then she goes, what happened?

I said, I can't really talk about it, but we lost one.

And I met Roan.

And, you know, this still bothers me a little bit too, because I really wasn't thinking about Bub.

I I was thinking of the teammate, even though Bub had come from Tripoli.

I said, we lost.

And I said on open line, I said, we lost Roan.

And

I said, that's all I can say.

I said, I'll talk to you when I get to, and I didn't know where I was going.

I said, I'll talk to you when I can talk to you.

And I hung up the phone.

And

yeah,

every one of us had a phone call like that.

Jack was the closest to Roan out of all of us there, Roan and Bub.

So his conversation was was a little bit more emotional than ours, but it was,

it still was, hey, you're going to see someone on the news.

It's over.

We're okay.

I'm okay.

Yeah,

we lost some people.

Be home when we can.

Love you.

Bye.

And then my conversation when I got to Germany was a little bit more in depth, but I had to be careful because we're on open lines.

And it wasn't I was worried about the bad guys listening to us.

It was

I started to figure it out.

Yeah.

You know, Toto started to open that curtain where the great and powerful Oz was.

And I started to see

who the enemies, not really are, because the terrorists are the enemies too, but that we also have enemies in our own house that don't want the truth to come out.

So I was more careful about what I would talk about.

on an open line.

And then when we got back to Langley and all that,

you know, there are debriefs.

I did also tell them as well,

because of that 203 incident where Tig lost the 203 and I couldn't find that other one.

I sat down with them because you can bitch about a problem, but if you're going to bitch about a problem, have a solution to it.

And I remember sitting there with him, I go, you guys know that for some reason,

we didn't have enough 69s out there.

I said, if we would have had enough 203s for all of us, the fight would have ended way before it did now at 5.30.

We would have crushed them.

They would never have touched us again.

So in the future, every GRS operator has to be just like when we're in the military.

Everybody has to have a 46.

Everybody has to have M4.

Everybody has to have a 203.

Everybody has to have an SR-25.

Everybody has to have the right gear for the right op and then they get to pick which gear they need when they head out.

Because this is bullshit.

I said, we're the agency and we don't have enough 203s.

I said, what the fuck is that?

Obviously, it fell on deaf ears.

And I even said, I said, even Ground Branch has every weapon system they need.

And I get it.

They're DA.

We're not.

But that's horseshit.

This is why everybody needs every weapon system.

Because if this happens again and we lose one, we're not out an entire weapon system that could have been a game changer, a force multiplier.

like a 203.

And from what I heard, and you kept working, I don't think, I think that fell on deaf ears it didn't it fell on deaf ears so fuck those fuck those pieces of shit how hard is it to get an extra 203 or an extra 46 for the guys when especially when there's only five guys on it on a team or an extra glm something

you know so but I remember saying that to him because I was pretty pissed I was I was pissed at that because again I felt like

we're the run of the litter and so what if we are but guess what this run of the litter just turned the tables without any assets at all.

It's not easy being a Ranger or a Delta or SEAL.

It's not.

You're doing DA stuff, but it is nice and it is heartening to have a Spectre gunship fucking overlooking you.

It is nice if you are a SEAL team going out there to have a platoon of Rangers that got your back or vice versa.

When you're on your own and that's it and you don't have all those assets,

it's...

It can be a little bit more scary that you don't have all those protections.

And so that's like, give us everything we need.

And I'm not asking for much.

It's not like I'm asking for a DAP cover.

I'm not asking for, you know, I'm just asking for, can y'all get us at least each of us have a 203?

How long did it take you, Chris?

I mean, you were abandoned by the U.S.

government

in all aspects.

I wish I could tell you different, but that's what happened.

How long did it take you to rid yourself of that anger?

2000, the end of 2017, 2018, when I reconciled my wife.

I tried to,

from

14 on.

Six years.

Six years.

Yep.

Because all that time in between, and that's when we had gotten divorced.

I was sleeping around.

You know, that's why we got divorced.

It was

me and my infidelity.

I was drinking a shitload.

I was drinking all the time.

I was was gone all the time.

I was speaking.

How did you reconcile that?

First, you have to reconcile with God, man.

How'd you do that?

Stood in the mirror and said, God, I need your help.

Carry me.

I can't do this anymore.

After I even remember exactly what I was, I was, I was at home by myself.

This is, you know, they'd lived out.

I lived on my own.

I was by myself.

I was, you know, I was a divorcee.

I still had our little guy.

You know, our little guy was still a baby.

So

that was hard because I was like, holy shit, I'm missing childhood, a child again because of my own stupidity.

But I remember I was in the shower doing the crying game thing in the shower.

I was like, my life sucks.

This is awful.

And I had, you know, I had millions of followers.

This is before I shit canned all my social media accounts.

So I had like,

ah, shit, I don't remember, 275,000 followers on Instagram.

And I think I had 300 on Twitter.

When it was Twitter, and Facebook was like, you know,

that was what was important in my life, right?

That is so fucking ego-centered, vapid.

But that's what my focus was, was my self-ego.

And

I realized that that wasn't, that was leaving me hollow, then the toxic relationships, then trying to fill it with alcohol, then trying to fill it with money.

I had a lot of money, tons of money.

Didn't make me happy.

And it was when I realized that I can't do this anymore.

God, I need you.

I do.

I need you.

I was in the shower.

I did the crying game thing, crying in the shower naked.

Got out of the shower.

I had my Glock.

It was right there.

And I looked in the mirror and I did.

I put it right here.

And I thought back.

I thought, just briefly, I said, okay.

Hard life.

Yeah, you've had it, not hard as, but

it was rough.

You got this disease that you're winning.

You're winning the Crohn's disease fight You got it under control You got kicked out of the military You fought your way to get back in you made it and You got through Ranger school and you did what you want to do there You conquered that even though their odds were against you

You're your grandson of immigrants that worked their asses off to give you everything you've got that gene of that you don't give up like your grandma your whela and a huela whela and whela

And then 10 years overseas, seeing death and seeing life and getting through all that, making a bad call in Iraq, that I made a bad call in Iraq where a little Iraqi girl died that I could have saved her in 2005 in the Mansoor district.

You went through Benghazi and you got through that.

And now the devil is going to win this battle for your soul.

That's what I thought.

And I looked in the mirror and that's when I said, I looked in the mirror and I said, God,

carry me.

I can't do this.

And I just put the gun down

and I stopped crying.

And I went and grabbed the phone and I called my, my, she was my ex-wife at the time, Tanya.

And they were on vacation in Disney World.

They had taken off for Christmas.

They were going on vacation.

In the divorce, she got the DVC membership.

But they were there.

And I said,

can I come spend Christmas with you guys?

And no hesitation.

She goes, yes.

Come on.

And,

I mean, it's like god answered me like that there was no there was no delay there was nothing i got a plate i got on yeah i got on uh you know i by that time i had more miles to orbit the sun on every freaking airplane in the world i got on uh delta got a ticket

flew out the next day

and they were staying at the polynesian village at one of the little huts there on the water and it was freaking awesome best vacation ever and with that, that was the life.

That was it.

The life changed.

Stopped doing the media.

I did one more written Fox interview for the Fox e-media.

It was, and that's where I said, I'm done.

Anger's gone.

God's got Hillary.

God's got Obama.

He will take care of him.

I don't need to judge anybody.

Who am I to judge anybody?

They will be judged.

Let it go.

And

life's been gravy ever since.

I stopped doing so much social.

I stopped doing a lot of, I don't do 60, 70 talks a year anymore.

I do like 10.

I shit canned all my social media.

I just got rid of all of it.

Now, I got back on when I got my head right.

My wife is a big part of that too.

So it's not just me.

It's me and her.

Dude, but that was huge.

That was so toxic.

And that's why I don't, I give guys people shit for.

protecting those accounts or making them so important because they're not at all.

And I got rid of all of them.

And

business-wise, went a different direction as two, as far as business goes, which means I minimized it.

Still had some battle line stuff, but I stopped doing the traveling courses as much.

And I focused on being home.

And

we also ended up getting remarried.

So worked on a relationship.

It took time.

And how that worked is we just started dating again.

It wasn't like we got right back in it.

It was we still lived separately and then we would just start going on dates.

How did your kids react when you came back in the picture?

They,

I mean, they were happy that dad was there, especially at Disney.

We're having fun, but it was, it was awkward for the two older ones because they really didn't know what to think.

I mean, is dad going again?

Is he going to be here this time?

Is he leaving?

But also at that time, they were so used to me being gone anyway, even when we were married from the point.

It wasn't, it wasn't anything.

that it was odd and they were pushing me away.

And also because mom and dad aren't arguing anymore.

They're not yelling at each other anymore.

So it was, it was happier environment.

If it was like a normal, where I had a normal job nine to five, or all of a sudden I disappeared and I came back, maybe they would have been a little bit more,

it would have creeped him out, worded him out a little bit.

But because dad was always gone anyway,

I saw them being a little happier.

But as we talked about earlier, they still were very reserved.

And

I don't know if this is for real.

Dad was mean when he ever come back from Iraq.

He's going to be mean dad.

And, and he makes, he makes mom cry.

And that's what they would see, you know.

And

so it just took time, a year of dating,

of just more dating, of then spending more time together, of then the kids and maybe staying over.

Then eventually it just ended up to like, just like a normal, where you're dating somebody and it develops into a

relationship, a marriage.

And we had to do it that way.

And it was a little weird, but it was fun doing it that way.

Cause I got to, you know, I got to do things that maybe I didn't do the first time I quartered her where I did.

So it was, it was like a do-over.

And it was awesome.

No, it was great.

Everything was fantastic.

I did have some,

I did have some where I would still get angry sometimes because...

just because it's just seeing what you saw not anything where it was infidelity or anything like that Now, that's terrible.

I'm a terrible person.

I hate even saying, but I'm going to be honest with you, man.

And she, I mean, obviously she knows.

And I wrote about it in some of the books that I've written.

But

there are times still where I would get angry, you know,

the and post-traumatic stress, whatever you want to call it, shell shock.

You just, you remember, you just, the anxiety was there.

But I said the CBD really did help.

I did get it on anti-anxiety medication, but all the VA does is just, and I got good VA.

Midwest, they do take care of you, but all that does is just create more problems.

The CBD helped.

I stopped drinking, you know, even though I have my own vodka.

When I say I stopped drinking, I have a drink with my wife, maybe once a month, you know.

Um,

and I also made it a point to be a father, be home.

This is where I want to be.

And uh,

I did realize that in 2017, 2018, I did a contract my last contract it was to uh costa rica it was an anti-kidnapping contract for a private firm in texas to find an american that had gotten kidnapped and so i was still contracting a little bit wasn't going to the middle east anymore but i was still doing some south american stuff and i was it was halloween time and i was there for halloween and my wife sent me a picture of my son peanut my daughter going out to the trick-or-treat

and

you know that feeling that you got to go downrange i gotta it was gone.

I was like, because all I could see was the picture.

And I'm thinking to myself, is, what in the fuck am I still doing this for?

And, you know, I finished my contract.

Those, though, and luckily, those things are real short.

You know, they're you find the guy or you don't.

You're going to find him alive in a few weeks or you're going to pass it on to the next guy or he's going to be dead.

And he did.

It was an American that they held for ransom.

They did find the culprits and we found he was dead they he was but contract over i flew back

and man just everything wrecked my son i reconciled my 16 year old boy we had that inning at olive garden that incident where

it's like how'd you propose to your wife the first time second time the second time

uh

I didn't get down on my knee.

She's not that kind of woman, dude.

She's not that type of woman.

It was honestly very nonchalant.

and it it was just

you know we saw our rings and i put my ring back on she goes you're still wearing your ring i said well i am now i said where's your ring she gets in the box

i said you want to do this again

and of course i knew the answer and she's tough as nails dude and um it was back at disney again you know and most people hate disney And I do.

Their politics are horseshit.

But it still can be a happy place for the family.

A lot of happy things happen there.

And

we were actually running around,

what's it called?

The Polynesian village.

There's another one out there where there's a massage place.

The white one, it's like a southern resort, southern, I can't remember the name of it, but we're running out there, jogging, and we stop.

And I said,

Will you marry me again?

And she just laughed.

It's just like, because it was so corny.

I'm such a nerd.

It's was so corny.

And

she laughed and just, yeah.

And really, it was this smile.

And she has a beautiful smile.

When she really wants to smile, she doesn't like smiling because she thinks her smile is ugly, but it's gorgeous.

And she just gave me her gorgeous, squinty-eyed, big-ass smile.

And

we sold her house.

She had a second house in Omaha.

We went back.

She got it ready for sale.

We sold it.

She moved back into my house in Omaha or say our house, because it was our house.

That's what we bought it together when I was in the military.

And

then we stayed there for a few years.

And

it was married.

And

I was a husband, finally.

She was always a wife.

I couldn't ask for a better wife.

I couldn't ask for a better partner.

I couldn't ask for a better woman because she's just

a wonderful, wonderful person.

And she's wonderful for me because she's not sappy.

If I'd have gone down on my knee and did all that stuff, she would have told told me no

it had to be doing something athletic we're out running because that's how she is and me just throwing it at her and her being and that's how you are and that's how i am yeah and she knows that um

and she put her ring back on and and i even asked her i said i'll buy you a huge because you know i had a little bit of money at that time i and um

I said, I'll buy you a huge rock.

What do you want?

I'll get you a huge rock.

She goes, you know, I don't want those hues.

I don't need diamonds.

I don't, I don't wear, I wouldn't wear that.

She goes, I'm fine with what I have.

And it was her original ring that I bought her when we got married in the courthouse in Tacoma before I went to Ranger School when I was at 2nd Ranger Battalion.

And

then we stayed there in Omaha for a while, and Omaha changed, just like all cities do.

And it wasn't the Omaha that I remember.

you know, good values.

And there's good people in Omaha.

There are wonderful people in Omaha, but it started to turn like cities do.

Amazon moved in google moved in warren buffett is warren buffett and

the tearing down cornfields uh there was even riots and protests in omaha at the time and we're like we're out we're not here and and um

we moved to kansas

that is a good woman she is she is wonderful and then we because nobody you were the first person that's asked me that because nobody's ever asked me that.

And

I think it's an awesome, I do, I think it's awesome because

it, it just, to me, it reminds me of how awesome she is and how she's not a girly girl.

She doesn't want the girly girl stuff.

And

I did think about proposing to her, like doing the proposing and on and down.

And because we're in Disney and we're at

the resort.

I wish I could remember that down.

It's right next to Polynesian Village.

It's the old Southern Resort.

it's the perfect place for it you know got the gazebos and

and uh

and

but i never would do that i got like there's no way because i did think about that i was like man i gotta propose her the right come on on a beach somewhere and it's like no way if i did that she would think i was such a she wouldn't believe me first of all she'd be like what did you do and not you

it was out running and being athletic.

It was out and it was it was perfect for us.

And then what did we do after that?

We went to the gym and we worked out together.

And it was awesome.

And I was so happy.

It was

the best.

And I still have those feelings when I go home.

That's why I love where I live, where I just walk in and everything is just,

and I don't need anything.

I don't need anything else but that.

It's wonderful.

And she's there and she has her life.

You know, she doesn't, she doesn't need me to, we don't need to be doing things together all the time.

She coaches volleyball.

She's very independent, but she'll still come home if she wants to, and she'll make dinner.

I don't need to add, but it's not required.

I like to cook too.

But, you know, she'll, or she'll come home and she'll say, get your ass up and go make me some food.

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, darling.

And

now she's, she's my angel.

And I have a tattoo up here.

You know, I had a cross that she gave me.

This is, she gave me this before Libya.

I've had it since libya but i had another one that i had uh she gave me when i was in the military and it said love love honor courage and i have a tattoo up here on my chest is that cross and then i haven't put peanut on there yet but it has the call signs of all my other kids it says once it she's angel my wife's angel

my daughter used to be princess but now she's like my her wife she's not a print that i'm not a princess don't call me that but that was her call sign when she was little now she's kiki Kiki.

And then I have Bubba, because Bubba is Bubba.

And that's them.

They're always right there.

Well, Chris,

there's a lot more we could dive into, but I think that's a perfect way to end it, brother.

I just want to tell you, man,

I saw you speak.

I saw how much pain you were in, you know, probably

getting close to

probably getting close to 10 years, not quite.

Where did you, where did you poke a ratone?

You saw that?

Yeah.

Oh my God.

That was, that was, that was, that was demon time.

And, uh, wow.

I'm just really happy for you, man.

Thank you.

I can tell you're at peace now and sounds like you got a great family and an amazing wife.

And

you deserve it.

Thank you, brother.

And, you know, right back at you.

I appreciate you being patient with me.

And that's that's cool that you did see that.

And seeing your pictures downstairs with your kids and your wife.

It sounds like, yeah, you ain't the boss of the house either, aren't you, brother?

And we don't need to be.

We need somebody that's going to boss us around and tell us, hey, our shit stinks sometimes.

And that's right.

It's wonderful to have.

So thank you, brother.

Thanks for having me.

It was an honor, brother.

No, the honor's mine.

And thanks for letting me go down the avenue like I did.

It's just me, brother.

Thank you.

God bless, Chris.

God bless you too, brother.

Thank you.

I am Michael Rosenbaum.

I am Tom Welling.

Welcome to Talk Bill.

Where it's fun to talk about small books.

We're going to be talking to sometimes guest stars.

Are you liking the direction Plois is going in?

Yeah, because I'm getting more screen time.

That's good.

But mostly, it's just me and Tom remembering.

I think we all feel like there was a scene missing here.

You got me, Tom.

Let's revisit it.

Let's look at it.

See what we remember.

See what we remember.

I had never been around anything like that before.

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Talkville.

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