#235 John "Tig" Tiegen - 13th Anniversary of the Benghazi Attacks

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John Teigen, welcome to the show, man.

Thanks for having me.

You might regret it, but we'll see.

I don't think I'll regret it.

But,

yeah, so we've talked a lot about Baghazi on the show.

And, you know, we've had our former colleagues on, the people that you were there with, the ones that came public anyways.

And so you're kind of the last one of the stack.

And

I've been really looking forward to this, man, ever since we talked what a couple months ago yeah it's been yeah so i appreciate you coming out thanks for having me on man appreciate it my pleasure my pleasure you ready to get into it no but i guess i got no choice i'm here now so

all right everybody starts off with an introduction john teigen A Colorado native and former United States Marine Corps sergeant, a seasoned private security contractor starting with Blackwater in 2003, later joined the CIA's elite global response staff, also known as GRS.

A hero of the 2012 Benghazi attack.

You are one of the six GRS operators who defied orders to stand down, fought through 13 grueling hours of chaos, and helped save dozens of American lives.

Co-author of the best-selling book, 13 Hours, The Inside Account of what Really Happened in Benghazi.

A dedicated husband and father of twin sons.

And most importantly, out of everything, you're a Christian.

Yes, sir.

Am I missing anything?

I don't think so.

Well, I can think of something I'm missing.

You're running for mayor in Colorado Springs.

Yeah, I am going to be doing that.

So we'll definitely hit that up.

And a musician?

I am not a, well, definitely not a musician.

Or should I say a magician?

Is that what that one?

You remember that interview?

I don't know if you saw that one.

Anyways, oh, yeah, yeah.

Anyways.

I would say more,

I don't know, I wouldn't call myself a music writer.

I just kind of wrote some stuff down.

I think I posted a couple of the poems online, and actually David Corlew

got a hold of me.

He said, hey, you need to do a voiceover on this.

So I was like, you know, I hate hearing myself because I don't watch my own interviews.

Me neither.

Yeah.

So you can do it at the Philly.

So I'm like, okay, fine.

So I started reading it and I didn't like the way it flowed.

So I started started changing it up a little bit.

Then I had a buddy, another buddy hit me up, said, Hey, you should throw it in, you know, make it to a song.

I was like, I don't know how to make anything to a song.

So he told me about a program, said, put it in here, it'll actually, it'll like sing it to you.

And that's kind of how it came that he started changing the lyrics around and kind of make it sound good.

And that's kind of where it came from.

Oh, it sounds good.

Not really a, I don't think I'm a writer, music writer, but David Corlo, he's, he's, he, yeah, he's going to work with me, I guess.

Right on, man.

He's a good dude.

Oh, he is.

How long have you known David for?

Probably since like

when did we meet him?

I think it was in the book tour.

Met him and Charlie.

We went to

the Grand O'Opry.

I think it's 2014 when we first did the book tour.

Damn, right on.

So

2014, 2015, sometime around there.

10, 11 years.

Yeah.

He's a good man to know.

I've been buddies with him for,

man, I don't know either.

Less time than that.

It was right right when we moved here.

So probably around 18.

Yeah.

But what an awesome guy.

Oh, he is.

He's really good.

He's a really good cat.

Well, a couple of things to knock out here before we get into the interview.

So

I have a Patreon account.

It's a subscription account.

Kind of like OnlyFans?

It's kind of like OnlyFans, except at least I keep the majority of my clothes on.

So now if I was in my 20s, you know, we'd probably go the full gambit.

But you do the foot thing at least, you know?

that's a fetish.

But they've been with me since the very beginning.

A lot of them have, and it's turned into quite the community.

And so one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question.

And so this is from Ian Lane.

It's a good question.

You've seen firsthand what happens when politics and hesitation cost lives.

Do you think America is any better prepared today, or are we doomed to repeat Benghazi in a different place at a different time?

Yeah, I would say, yeah.

Because if you look at, I mean, just through the history of what things have happened, when I would say leadership is not truly held accountable, nothing changes.

But, you know, we got

it really just depends on the administration that's involved and, you know, what their mindset is actually changes it.

But until people are actually held accountable and for the even just for somebody being killed when they just promote somebody or just reprimand them

again your leadership and you're in that position and that that is your responsibility to make sure that they have what they need to make sure they come out alive and you know if somebody gets killed because of your lack of leadership your lack of oversight you should be held accountable to where again non-vent on voluntary manslaughter it is what it is until stuff like that happens it will happen again yeah I mean,

it's fucking sad, man.

It is.

I mean, it's a tough decision to make, but again,

you're responsible for the lives of the people on the ground.

You know, like Lamb, they're requesting for stuff.

And I was in Baghazi since 2011.

They were requesting for more support, you know, talking to the security guys because we'd go over there almost every week, you know, and

they would say, yeah, we always get denied.

And ask them why.

They would never tell us why.

And again, this is from their mouths.

And, you know, when the concept was attacked the second time over there, there was only two security personnel over there at that time.

You know, I believe this was like in April, and it happened about one o'clock in the morning.

So I was there that night.

So that's how I know.

And we got told to stand down then.

But again,

when stuff like that happens, you know it's a security risk.

You know there's failures and you don't do anything about it.

Until people are held accountable, nothing will ever change.

Man, it's just crazy.

You know, do you remember when the Coast bombing was?

Yeah.

What year was that?

I want to say

2010, 2011 or something.

No, I think it was 2010.

It was like around, it was Christmas.

Man, I just...

I remember working over there and it was just the same mistakes everywhere.

Oh, yeah.

And you'd bring it up.

I did it too.

You know,

I actually went somewhere else.

I was supposed to go back to there.

And

yeah, we kept telling him, I was like, we got to search these guys when they come on.

No, no, they're our friends.

They're our buddies.

It's so again it's like

yeah, it was like I can't remember excuse me.

I can't I can't remember if it was your event in Benghazi or if it was the coast bombing, but I remember deploying in a

Christmas time frame.

I think it was right after Christmas and

I feel like it was the coast bombing that had just happened.

It may have been Benghazi, but I remember getting over there and I was just like, guys, like, we're time and place predictable.

We're doing the same same shit every single fucking day, you know, and I was brand new.

It was probably Coast.

It might have been Coast.

But whatever it was, I brought that up and I was like, we can't be doing this shit.

Like, this is, I was new at SOC.

I just went from Blackwater to Sock, and then it eventually went direct.

But I was like, we, we're going to get fucking killed.

Like, you guys just saw what fucking just happened.

You know, we got it.

I'll be damned 24 hours later, Safe House got hit.

And, you know luckily nobody got killed but

dude it was just the same thing over and over and the same excuses like that well no we don't search them because they're our friends or oh well you know we've been doing this for years and it's like yeah that's exactly what we need to switch it up exactly so it's

we never understood that at coast never

Never understood that at all.

Were you at Coast when it happened?

No,

I went to another location but i just i was at coast three trips in a row because normally you go back four times but then i ended up getting i had the golden visa so i went over there oh gotcha gotcha yeah yeah man

i can't believe we never worked with each other yeah

that's i mean it's yeah it's crazy i went to more uh foreign bases.

I was at in Kabul like my first trip.

Then after that, it was out the other locations.

Did

twice?

And yeah, I hated Kabul.

Yeah, I hated it, too.

I like the outstation.

Oh, yeah, way better.

There's a lot more, a lot more going on than

too much flagpole crap.

Yeah, man.

But, well, a couple other things.

Everybody gets a gift.

Oh, yeah.

He perked up for that one, didn't you, Axel?

All right.

Easy fellow.

But That's money.

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Not that you have to worry about that in Colorado.

Right.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it's just candy.

And then I got another thing for you.

All righty.

So I got a

buddy over at SIG.

His name's Jason.

And I told him you were coming on, and he got all excited.

He wanted me to give you this.

So that is the sig p211 gto it is sig's first 2011 style pistol

and uh

they did a damn good job i like it damn good job

it's heavy isn't it i like it i have the i carry the legion you do the 365

which legion the the x oh nice yeah it's a big this is i mean it's about the same weight i i just like heavier guns man

feel that trigger man.

Yeah, they got the compensator up front.

Redid their optics line.

Hey, buddy.

That is nice.

Ooh, the reset's nice.

It's crisp.

It's good to go.

I like that.

Not that you need that with this guy running around you all the time.

You know,

he's a very good deterrent.

I'll bet he is.

He's got my acid line, that's for sure.

Oh, this is sick.

Appreciate it, man.

Yeah, man.

You're welcome.

You're welcome.

We'll break it in on a break.

Right?

Heck yeah.

It'll be my first

one.

Nice.

Yeah, I got the compact and the X, and now I have this one.

Nice.

Nice.

I liked it.

I did.

I've liked SIGs.

Me too, man.

Me too.

They make a great firearm.

They do.

But.

All right.

So let's get into the interview.

So, like I, like I mentioned.

Oh, I thought we were done.

Thanks for coming.

Yeah, so like I said, I want to get into

my favorite thing to do, my bread and butter, is to do life stories on gentlemen like yourself.

And so do a life story, get into your military career, how you got into contracting, GRS.

I would love to talk about, obviously, what happened in Magazine and then everything that you're doing now, including running for mayor okay

so where did you grow up

well um i was born in cedar rapids iowa so i lived there pretty much until about third grade or something like that so and that's actually where i wanted to join the military um not really having the good i get structured family life you know mom worked at a bar just all that stuff so she was there never really there at night and always slept during the day

so i guess it was kind of fun um but

oh yeah i got some yeah maybe some stores i probably shouldn't say on here as a kid but so there was a recruiting army recruiting station across the street and we lived um like on the main ave not for a long time but one of the main ones on the main ave so Right across the street was a recruiting station.

So to and from usually from school I'd always go there because you know parents went home anyways Plus they always had snacks and posters and you know patches they'd always give you yeah, so I was always hang out there, and so that's kind of, but it was with the army.

Um, and it was actually, I wanted to fly the Apache helicopter, no kidding, yeah, that thing was just badass, man.

You know, then plus, Air Wolf was out, I think, at that time, too.

So, if you don't know what Airwolf is, yeah, you know, go look it up,

but TV show, but anyway, so uh,

but uh, unfortunately, about fifth grade, I had to start wearing glasses,

so yeah, that's kind of when I was decided, yeah, I was done flying.

I'm like, no, can't fly.

But no, so I grew up in Iowa,

did a lot of stupid stuff as a kid there, even young.

We used to jump trains.

Used to do what?

Jump on the trains to go from like one part of the town to the other.

Cause like our cousins lived on like the south end.

We lived on the north end kind of thing.

So the trains wouldn't go.

They go like 10 miles an hour.

They weren't holiday ass.

So you just jumped the train.

We knew the schedule.

Again, you're looking like a third grade.

Damn, dude.

Yeah.

Damn.

So, Cedar, I mean, it's a pretty good-sized city.

And, you know, go on the other side.

Time get late.

You knew the train was coming.

You had to get down the train.

Otherwise, you had to pretty much walk back.

It sucked.

Damn.

Sometimes the family would give you a ride back, but not always.

They're kind of disheggs in a way.

Was your dad in the picture?

No, he left, I think when I was born or something like that.

Have you met him?

Yeah.

I think I finally met him the first time, like in sixth grade, I think is what it was.

Holy shit, what was that like?

Um

it just uh you know, it was awkward, it was weird, but

you know, I actually went out.

I think it was uh

might have been fifth grade, I think I met him the first time.

But anyways, I went out there one time and I was gonna try to stay out there and live, but that didn't turn out very well either.

Why not?

Um

it kind of goes back to well growing up getting violent, kind of

being

physically abused and stuff like that as a kid.

So when I went to my dad, kind of on a different kind of scale, but he kicked me one time because I spent $2 more than I should have.

And I said, I'm not going to live here.

I can just go back home.

At least I got more of my friends.

So, because at the time he was in California.

So then kind of went back from California back to Colorado.

That was in seventh grade.

You were physically abused as a kid?

Mm-hmm.

By who?

Three different people.

Adults?

Yeah.

Well, no, I'd say one was more of a...

It was a.

This was the first one.

It was in Iowa.

I would say

kindergarten time frame.

But it was a babysitter.

What happened?

I don't know if we're going to detail into it, but

she would just kind of

just do things, I guess.

Sexual?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Dude.

And then, well, the physical side was more from our stepdad.

You know, he'd beat the shit out of us.

Sometimes he'd come home drunk, and if he had a bad night, pull us out of bed and whip our asses.

I just remember the belt, and it had metal rings in it.

So he said he used it because with the holes, because it would fly through the air faster.

Just for no reason.

Yep.

You just had a bad night or we left dishes in the sink or something like that.

Jeez, dude.

Who was the third?

Well, the other ones was more of a sexual abuse kind of stuff.

But, you know, my mom's boyfriends used to pretty much hit all of us.

You know, I mean, we were unruly for the most part, but...

How many brothers and sisters do you have?

I got one older brother, older sister, and a younger sister.

And they all got it?

Not my younger one.

I don't think she really did.

What about the sexual abuse?

I don't think they did.

I think it was just me.

So.

And the other one, again, was in Iowa as well.

It was, again, close friend.

And then the last one was

in Colorado.

I think I was

going into fifth grade.

Jeez, Tig, you had three different fucking sexual abusers by fifth grade?

Yep.

Two of them the family didn't know about.

They only knew about the last one.

What are they doing?

Those two never got caught.

What's that?

What did they do?

So

how that guy got caught, we were

up in Gold Camp Road in Colorado.

And actually my cousin was there.

And the guy, you know, he would bring, he bought his liquor.

He was actually, he was a...

stock car driver or something like that, one of those little short speed track racers.

So he was pretty well known, I guess.

We didn't really know because it was like our second year being in Colorado for the most part.

And, but anyways, so we were up there and he started playing like a truth or dare game.

And

he's like, you know, truth or dare.

I can't remember exactly what it was, but I think he pulled his pants down.

That's when my cousin grabbed me and we took off.

You know,

people in Colorado know where Gold Camp Road is.

You know, we pretty much went from Gold Camp Road and we hiked it back to Manitou Springs and had the cops called and that's kind of how that went.

But

come to find out, he was doing that to a couple other kids, but they let him off, saying there was not enough evidence.

Do you mind if we dive into this a little more?

Go ahead.

You know,

I totally wasn't expecting this to come up.

In fact, when we just reviewed the interview, he said, Oh no, he had a great childhood.

And

but you know, it

I can't believe

how common this is in people's childhood.

And, you know, I just, I found it out through interviewing, I'll bet 50% of

the people that have been on here have been through physical or sexual abuse as a kid.

I think that's why it's probably more than that, just ones don't talk about it.

You know, like the mill, if you look in the military, a lot of the, I bet you majority of them that had a semi-rough childhood were probably abused in one way or another.

I mean,

and out of that, I mean, there's only so many.

A lot of times, this will come up after the interview or before the interview, and they don't want to talk about it because they've made amends with the abuser

or whatever.

But

I mean,

so anyways, kind of where I'm going with this is, you know, I've learned like how common this is through interviews, diving into childhood.

And it just keeps coming up.

And it's always

almost is a shock because it just comes out.

And so, I started,

I hate hearing that.

And I started diving into child sex exploitation and child trafficking and abuse and all that stuff, and kind of exposing how common it is

in today's society.

But, you know,

what I want to ask is: if you don't want to go into detail, that's fine.

I totally understand, and I'm not going to press you on it.

But, you know, one of the things I like to do because we've had so many of these stories come out is talk about, you know, kids that are in that predicament right now as we're sitting here talking.

Yep.

You know, and

fuck, man, three abusers by the time you're in fifth grade.

Yep.

How do you get, I mean,

well, I mean, for the most, I mean, the first two, you don't, you don't really

think anything's wrong, honestly.

I mean, hell is so damn young.

I don't know if anything's wrong or not.

I think the the first one stopped just because we moved you know she was again she was the babysitter um and you know again she i don't remember exactly why but you know you know she was babysitters during the day mainly during the summer um could have been it was maybe because school started she couldn't come over no more um

but you know for

for me

You know, even though I was running for mayor, you going through and they're teaching you about the things that's going on in here.

And I'm like going, you know, when these things have to me,

none of this stuff was brought up when I was a kid.

I remember, you know, going through the problems and stuff.

And,

and for like kids that are going through it, my biggest fault, I originally didn't want kids because I didn't want to have to deal with,

you know, my own kids going through the same shit that I did.

So

that's why I waited till 35 when I had enough close calls to say, well, you know, I better have kids if I want my genes to continue.

So again, that's why I I decided other than that, it's just like, man, society is just fucked up.

Yeah.

And we don't protect our kids.

You know, you do have some parents, again, they'll see somebody doing something to their kid and they'll go kill them.

And then what do they got to do?

They got to go spend time in court, which I think is horseshit.

Somebody's hurting your kids.

You know, that's our number one asset in this world is our kids.

That's our future.

So to allow things like that to happen, that's why I was kind of afraid to have kids because if somebody did that to my kid, you kill them.

I'm going to kill him

so

you know i talked to my kids about it you know they don't know my history but i always made sure i let them know you know that was the biggest thing about the last guy was he would use you know again you know what fourth grade you're what eight nine or something like that you still don't really know um

so and there's again he was like you know if you tell anybody i'm gonna i'm gonna kill you or i'm gonna kill your brother and sister because it was in an apartment and they they just lived like right upstairs and he was a pretty big guy you know um he was bigger than my uh mom's boyfriend so you know as a kid you don't know so my biggest thing is telling my kids if anybody ever tells you to keep a secret on let me know because you know who i am i'm gonna kill him i got no problem telling my kids that that way they don't have to fear somebody else

geez so with the with the sitter was this like an everyday occurrence or or every time she

every time so it was pretty much just during the week

how i mean what would she say to you would she say don't tell anybody?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

They all said that.

Don't tell anybody.

That's the biggest thing about telling your kids.

Anybody tells you, do not tell anybody, there's a problem, especially as a kid.

They shouldn't have to have a secret as a kid.

Jeez.

So, again, that's just parents actually having those conversations with their kids just to make sure.

You know, even going back to the whole crap that they're teaching kids in school, forcing that LBGT, all that hidden stuff.

Same thing.

If anybody says don't tell you, your, you should be telling your parents because they're doing something that is wrong, period.

Did you wind up telling anybody?

About the first two, no.

And the second guy was upstairs in an apartment?

No, that was the third one.

Who was the second guy?

That was in Iowa.

He lived down the street.

And I just remember it was

that one only happened twice only.

But it was just because I spent the night.

He had a kid the same age and stuff like that.

I think

they worked in the bar with my mom or something like that.

And the third guy lived above you?

Yeah.

How would that happen?

So he had,

again, they'd say they're going to take us to the racetrack or something like that.

And that's when it would happen.

Or,

again,

he said he could watch us or watch me.

He never did anything when the other kid, brother and sister, were around.

So so take you to he had a uh used car lot right on film uh

not fillmore right on platt kind of next really close to union the building's still there but obviously he's not but that's where again

he'd try to that's when things would happen mainly there so i try to not go

but again sitting there sitting there telling you you know don't tell your parents or i'm gonna you know kill you kill them so you don't tell them why you don't want to go so sometimes you still had to go.

Shut, dude.

So

and physical abuse.

Fucking hey, man.

Yeah, there's people who had worse than me.

But that's probably why I was so kind of protective, I guess, and violent growing up.

So.

Who are you protective of?

Just like other friends, other people being picked on and bullied and stuff like that.

Did your mom have any idea that this was going on?

No, but I do.

So when she finally, well, when everything kind of did get out in the open, the cops are calling all that.

I do remember when

I think I took off.

When was this?

It might have been like in eighth grade or something by now.

You know, as a kid, we don't really have a curfew or anything.

And I think I was out and I remember coming back.

And I was coming in through the garage.

And usually they're up and partying almost all the time.

So they're up i remember i just i don't know why they were talking about it but i know my sister was there talking to my mom about it and uh you know she was kind of you know because i was getting a lot of trouble

and my sister is probably you know trying to explain to my mom was like well it's probably this stuff you probably need to go see somebody i just remember her sitting there saying he needs to quit using this as an excuse and just get over it

your mom said that

Of course, they didn't know I was out there.

And then I was just like, I just kind of said, fuck this, and I just took off and went to my best friend's house and just stayed there for a few days.

Jeez.

Are you close with your mom now?

No, I really haven't talked to her since like

2000,

maybe

four or five.

Why did you quit talking to her?

That's another story.

So, I've got a step,

a stepdaughter.

I'm not in my second marriage, but my previous wife had a stepdaughter.

And she was getting into a lot of trouble and just kind of doing her own thing for the most part.

And we were disciplining her and

came to a point.

I think her mom was actually, she was in Kuwait at this time.

And so I was kind of at home and we were getting ready to go back to Kuwait because I think I came back to pick her up to bring her back to Kuwait.

Something like that.

And well,

she was constantly running away and stuff like that.

And one time she just kind of disappeared.

So we're calling, calling, calling my younger sister, my mom, trying to figure out where she might be, calling her friends.

Well, got a hold of her friends.

And her friends were saying that my sister was picking her up from school every day.

This is why her grades were failing.

So he called her and said, do you know where she is?

And she's like, I haven't heard from her, yada, yada, yada.

Well, me and my buddy went over there at night and just kind of went around her house because we just kind of assumed that's probably where she was sure enough we heard her voice in there and uh

so we called the cops cops came and i just remember my mom coming in she didn't say hi or nothing to you know me and my buddy at all you know the cops just sitting there as we're talking explaining what was happening And, you know, she did, my mom just comes walking by really fast and cops like, who's that?

And that's my mom.

You know, she's not even going to say anything.

It's probably because because she knew she was there she had been gone for like a week now we've been trying to look for her

well

obviously cops get involved child protective service gets involved they start talking to her next thing you know i'm being looked at for um uh

what i can't think uh for molesting stepdaughter

what

So they had convinced her that if they if

she told them that I was touching her, that she could leave and come live with them.

And that's when I was like, fuck you, I'm done talking with you guys.

Because

that does more than what they think they thought it would do.

Because that destroys somebody's life.

This is when, again, I was getting ready to actually start working with

Blackwater and all that, doing all my background

something like that.

You're done.

Jeez.

So,

how would you internalize all the abuse as a kid?

Um,

it's just kind of one of those things that you can't control it.

You know, one thing I knew wasn't my fault, so I was never

had that, never felt anything like that.

My thing was just like, where was the protection that you're supposed to have?

Where are all the adults, you know, especially after when they let the dude off?

And I was just like, this is just fucked up.

You know, it was just

this when I kind of knew like I have, I had to be my own protector.

And pretty much from that moment on, I was.

When did you realize it was wrong?

When my cousin yanked me out of the car.

I think I kind of knew because I didn't want to go anymore.

But again, I didn't know what to do, what to say to anybody.

So

I think during that time, I think I knew it was wrong.

Why did your cousin yank you out of the car?

He was two years older than I was.

and I think he's just kind of like, you know, like, yeah, fuck you.

Plus, he's kind of part Indian, so he has that mentality.

Damn, man,

damn.

So,

so, what did you know where I'm kind of going with this is there are a lot of kids out there that go through this.

I have no idea how many, but it's an overwhelming amount.

And, um, I mean, one is too many.

What advice do you have for kids that are dealing with this right now?

My

Tell some, find somebody to help you until you do, honestly.

If you don't trust your parents, you know, again, you can call 911 and you can tell them.

Find somebody.

Damn, man.

But the lot of the problem is there's so many people that cry wolf out there that it hurts the true people.

It really does.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Again, don't just because somebody's,

I guess, don't, you don't like them, don't do that shit to them either because it destroys their lives

Man, I'm sorry I had to go through that.

Yeah, I mean

I would like to change things but it also made me who I am So it's kind of hard to say would you yeah, you know cuz I may maybe went a whole nother direction and did something else and

so

damn

Would you talk about it with your with your siblings

any of the abuse

sexual or physical no we talked about getting beat by our stepdads and stuff and how he was an asshole.

Did you ever stand up to him?

No.

I know I didn't.

I think my brother might have, but then he just

beat you harder.

That's all they would do.

I mean, we're kids or, you know,

the size difference, you know, it's amazing.

It's you ain't not much you can do about it.

I know my mom tried to stand up for us a couple of times, but I know he put her in the hospital a few times,

threw him down the stairs and all that stuff, you know,

separating her shoulder and all that.

Shit, man.

Had you witnessed all that?

That's heavy stuff, dude.

Yeah, foster homes ain't that great either.

Same thing.

They're very abusive.

You've been in foster homes?

Yeah.

How did you wind up in a foster home?

Mainly, I think the babysitter once left us

when I was in first grade,

around first grade.

And we were, again, we were asshole kids, man.

We're intense.

You know, no discipline, no supervision.

And she couldn't deal with us no more.

So she called the cops.

My mom, again,

she was at the bar.

Nobody could ahold of her.

So the cops came and got us.

Foster home for about a week

for that one.

Again, that they were just, again, kind of same thing.

Very, very abusive physically.

And then

the second one was physically and sexually again

so the worst one though is like that one my mom was in the hospital I don't remember exactly what for

but uh I remember them walking us there so we could see her from the hospital room which was kind of cool I guess as a kid walking back I didn't have any shoes and I stubbed my toe and I ripped it open pretty good it was pretty gnarly screaming crying um couldn't walk so they were nice at that time but then we got into the house they beat the shit out of me.

Because I was crying.

Damn, man.

Yeah.

That's a rough childhood.

Jeez.

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What got you...

So what got you interested in the military?

Was it an escape or?

Well, again, I think I already kind of had it from the recruiting station.

You know, just kind of seeing them, you know, compared to my own family life, seeing how they

portrayed themselves, I guess.

Yeah.

And that's kind of what I wanted.

But again, how I kept wanting to do it from pretty much, you know, you look in

like second, third grade time frame when this is going on.

And then still wanting to do it, you know, all through all the other stuff.

I think I just always

wanted, you know, I did like a lot of reports in high school on Vietnam War and stuff like that.

Did a lot of look into that, how they fought and stuff.

And

it just always intrigued me.

Did you, I mean, what I'm just, what's your relationship like with your dad now?

Is it non-existent?

Do you know?

He, uh, so he actually was, he was, he lived with me for a long time.

Um,

and uh, he was actually watching, watching one of our house when we were overseas, doing a lot of contract work and stuff like that.

But then I got divorced in

2023, and then he's kind of out on his own now.

So pretty much about like 2006 till 2023, he lived with us.

So I had a property out down in Pueblo County.

I had an in-law house.

That's kind of where he stayed.

So he kind of watched with the cattle and stuff like that while I was gone.

And, you know,

he did some help around the house or around the property.

How do you think that abuse is affected if it has your adulthood?

I'm pretty sure it has in one way or another.

I mean, I don't see how it couldn't.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think I have that.

My wife would probably say

the romantic lovey-lovey thing.

Pretty rough on the edges for the most part, but

definitely don't, you know, trust really a whole lot of trust.

In anybody?

Not really.

You know, so.

I mean, I trust her and my kids.

But, you know, just been so in betrayal.

It's been there forever.

You know, even one of my other, my, I would say the second stepdad,

he, uh, so when you're a kid, you get a job.

You can't open a bank account.

You have to have a co-signer.

So he was the co-signer on the account.

And I started work when I was like, 50 when he first when he could, like 15 or 14.

And so, I was just saving up money.

You know, I'm making a lot of money, but I was saving up.

I think I was supposed to have like four to six thousand dollars in the account.

And uh, I was probably the only kid in ninth grade that had a car.

But I went to go because the battery died, so I went to go buy a battery and I had, and I was kept getting denied.

So, I called the bank, there was no money in it.

He stole all my money.

Yeah.

Damn, dude.

So, my boss actually

would just cash my checks for me and just give me cash.

I quit my bank accounts until I could actually get my own account.

What are your relationships like with the rest of your siblings?

We talk here and there, but they don't.

I don't talk to my younger sister.

She was part of the whole problem with the stepdaughter.

My older one, she lives in Ohio.

And then my brother, he works for the post office, so he's always working.

It's kind of like somebody in the military, you just never see him.

But, you know, just kind of like with Oz and Tanto, we just kind of talk every now and then, hit each other up.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Do you guys talk about what happened nowadays?

No, I think we did once.

Me and my brother, when

we were drunk.

It's usually when you're drinking, talk about it.

Man, I hate hearing this shit.

Didn't expect that, did you?

Not at all.

Not at all.

But I'm glad we went there, so thank you.

Again, my thing is, so

I used to kind of keep almost everything to myself, but you always hear like, you know, you got to tell your story because, you know, somebody else is probably going through it.

They're going through something worse.

They don't know how to deal with it.

don't know what to do, especially with kids.

Yeah, you know, so my biggest thing that you know, my best thing to do is tell it because more kids might hear it because of who I am, and Morgan likely to finally say something is happening and it shouldn't be happening.

So, it's really better for them.

I mean, for me, healing doesn't really heal me at all.

It's just it is what it is.

There ain't nothing I can do about it, can't change it.

Um,

I dealt with it, it is what it is again.

But it's for me, letting kids know,

or even adults know, like, again, it's not your fault.

At least I did know that growing up.

I knew it wasn't my fault.

But talk about it, get it out.

Otherwise, that demon is just going to destroy you.

And for kids, find somebody to protect you.

Talk.

Tell somebody it's happening.

There's nothing wrong with you.

You know, just make it in.

Stop it by telling somebody.

What were your grandparents like?

My grandparents.

is this a generational thing?

That's what I'm getting at.

I don't think so.

I mean, I didn't really, I mean, my grandpa, he World War II vet, uh, my grandma, they're just stubborn,

stubborn people.

My, that's on my mom's side.

I didn't really know my grandma on my dad's side.

I knew my grandpa.

He was a, he was a Christian guy the whole time, you know, that I've known him or knew him.

My grandpa, he was just a stubborn old guy.

You know, just a mean, grumpy guy.

Sounds like my grandpa.

Yeah.

This dude, oh my God.

I don't know how he lived as long as he did either.

He was in so many accidents.

He fell down.

So he lit, he worked at Quaker in Iowa.

He fell down an elevator shaft

down like all the pipes down below.

I think like four stories.

Lived, walked out.

They got in a major car crash.

Again, met all just wrapped around him, lived, walked out.

This dude would not die.

i remember when i stayed them one one summer

what was it some i was but listen to i think i wanted to i was watching a tv show he wanted to listen to music so he would turn his up i would turn the tv up he would

he would tell my grandma go tell that little i could hear him go tell that little to turn that off and get outside

he was but he was i mean he was a he was a happy guy but no i mean that's it never they were just kind of mean they were never abusive.

They were just, you know,

disciplined, I would say.

Old school.

Yeah, just old school.

You know, the reason I was bringing that up is, you know, you see a lot of families,

if that's what you want to call it, but,

you know, this gets carried on from generation to generation to generation.

It becomes like a generational curse.

Yeah.

In fact, I got

somebody on my team who's been through a lot of that kind of stuff.

Sounds like a very similar situation.

And so, you know, what I want to ask, and I always commend him because I know where he came from.

And, you know, I guess I can't, I can't say I know where he came from and know what it's like to go through that because I didn't, I didn't, I was fortunate.

I didn't have to go through that.

But I always tell him how proud of him I am that he broke the curse and that his kids are, his kid is, uh, is,

is doing awesome and won't have to experience any of that

from a lot of people that do it that's their a lot of their fear i think so what i want to ask is and that's why i was asking about your brothers and sisters too to see if they

were able to break that and so with you i just want to ask you know what what does it feel like to to break that in the

in the family liney lineage I mean, knowing my kids, it feels great knowing my kids have to go through that.

I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's something that I'm glad they never have to experience.

But

a lot of times when you do break it, if you never talk to them about it, they can come right back.

So I think that's, that's all.

It's, it sucks to have to talk about it, but talking to your kids about it, even if you, because you don't know if they're going through it or not.

I guarantee my mom had no idea.

Obviously.

So I think having those conversations with your kids and letting them know, like, hey, people shouldn't be touching you here, touching there.

And if they say, don't tell anybody, you better tell somebody.

Regardless if they threaten your life or someone else's life, because they can't do nothing to you.

I guarantee you.

They can't.

It's just an empty threat, especially knowing what I know now.

Man.

Scary shit, man.

Scary shit.

Yeah, because the moment law enforcement gets involved against the scene, it's not a Hollywood movie.

They're done.

I mean, they may get away with it, but you're going to be pulled away from that environment completely.

Yeah.

So either way, you're still protected.

Yep.

Man.

Well, once again, man, I just thank you for going into that because I think it's important to talk about, you know, for the, for the upcoming generations.

And

it seems to be happening more and more and more

as time goes on, or at least it's exposed a lot more.

And well, it goes back to the, like I was saying, the accountability.

they think people cannot be

there's no rehab for that

they should never see daylight ever again when they do that yeah that's the problem i'm with you

so let's get into the military stuff

when did you join

so I decided to join the Marine Corps when I saw Full Metal Jacket.

I think I was what, what, 89 or something like that, when that popped out.

So I knew I was going to join.

I still kind of was going to do the Army.

But being the hoodlum that I was, I saw that.

I was like, you know, I need more of that.

I knew it.

So I'm talking about the boot camp scene, not the after.

Actually, I don't really watch the whole combat part.

I just like the boot camp and it's awesome.

Maybe I'll see if I can find it.

But I got a picture of my kid.

I still watch it.

I was downstairs watching it and it just kind of started my son literally stood there during the whole entire boot camp part of the movie and was just watching then i i stopped it just before uh

uh gomer freaking whacked himself so i was like okay you know how'd you like it he said that was cool like see

oh

um so i ended up doing the delayed entry program uh in the marine corps you don't go to boot camp but it does kind of help towards promotion so I did a, you kind of sign a thing saying you're going to do it.

And you have to go through like the weekend stuff.

So that kind of helped me stay out of trouble.

And then, yeah, then November of 95, I went to boot camp.

And I'm going to tell anybody, if you cherish holidays, don't go to boot camp during holidays.

It'll ruin it for you.

I used to love Christmas.

Now it's just kind of like, eh.

Our Christmas tree was a red light, red lens flashlight in the tree.

Nice.

And we had to sing O Christmas tree to it.

So boot camp was, I thought it was easy, man.

I mean, if you're physically fit, to me, it was a cakewalk.

I mean, I didn't mind getting yelled at.

I got slammed a few times, but I just giggle.

Just like, this is awesome.

What did it feel like to get the hell out of your family predicament?

I kind of left when I was in ninth grade.

I moved in with my best friend's girlfriend's parents.

So I was, actually, I was

when I got my job after my dad, my stepdad stole that crap from me, I kind of just said, I'm done.

And I left.

Moved in with a stripper when I was 16.

What?

Yeah.

And how did you meet a stripper at 16?

One of my mom's friends.

Was your mom a stripper?

No.

I don't know how they met.

I think it was over drugs.

Holy shit.

So moved in there with them and then with her.

And it was all normal at first.

And then it turned to more of a relationship.

But then I ended up moving out and actually moved into the back of the restaurant that I was working at.

So I had a bed back there and I'll just go there and I'd sleep.

Did that for a while.

And then I moved in with my best friend's

parents.

his girlfriend's parents.

So you

met a stripper who is a friend of your mom's and moved in with her.

Yeah, she tried to, yeah, she called the cops on her and tried to get her for all kinds of stuff.

But again, at the like statutory rape is what it was.

But nothing was actually happening at that time, anyways.

I just wanted to get the hell out of that place.

You know, she had already had drug raids done on her and stuff like that.

So I just had to get out of there.

So,

yeah.

How old was this stripper?

24.

And this turned into a relationship?

Yeah.

What's going on in the house that you're living in when you're living with a stripper?

What do you mean?

I mean, is it like

what the hell was happening?

Did they come home and there's a party every night?

No, actually, she didn't throw any parties in her house at all.

In the apartment, she never had any.

They're always

across the hall.

I used to go over there and hang out with those guys more than anything.

Jeez, dude.

yeah um but no i mean it was again it was just a good way to get out my actually one of my my best friend ended up moving in there too as well for a while um

yeah it was a we again weird upbringing but

why did you leave there uh

it just

just wasn't very good you know

i don't really know how to explain it but it just kind of

i think it was more the relationship side of it to where again you couldn't go out and she was going out kind of a thing.

And then I noticed

she had drugs.

Again, I just hated the drugs scene just because of my parents.

So I was like, I'll screw this.

And I moved out.

My boss, again, he said, you can go stay back here in the storage area.

I mean, put your bed, put aside a bed, a dresser,

everything back there.

And I'd just take a shower at school.

until I moved in with my best friend's parents.

And then

I was really jacked up in my junior year and I was playing football, you know, staying with them.

I had a third-degree separation on my shoulder and I had to have surgery.

Well,

it came to a point where they actually had to go and yell at my mom because obviously they don't really have custody over me.

So she had to sign the paperwork for me to actually get the surgery done.

So here I am.

I have my bones sticking up like this for about three months and I'm in a sling.

And I finally got the surgery done.

But yeah, they had to force her to sign the paperwork for me to get the surgery.

How the hell did you find Christianity through all of that?

I think it started as a kid.

We always went to church and stuff like that.

So I always liked the music.

It was just weird.

All this is going on and you guys are going to church?

My parents, not really.

It was mainly my

grandma.

God, I can't remember the name.

And then some other people in in the family, some of the older ones, it would like take us to church and stuff like that.

So, we did a

we're on welfare, so like if we wanted Christmas, Thanksgiving, and all that stuff, we always had we always went to the church to go get food, go get presents and stuff like that, and see Santa Claus.

It was always at the church.

That's where we got stuff from.

So,

damn tag,

but you know, I always believed in God and Jesus.

Always didn't really understand it.

Got baptized as a kid.

The second time I did it, I did it because of a girl.

Man, I'm just

whatever it's worth, man.

I'm just really proud of you and getting out of that shit.

I mean, a lot of people never make it out of that.

And

I think I had one, so

getting a lot of trouble.

I had to go see counselors and crap.

I remember my mom was inside.

This is before they had the white noise machine outside the counselor's office.

I remember the office building was.

It was on Academy.

I think I remember exactly which building it was, but it was actually right next to the recruiting, the Marine Recruiting Station I ended up going to.

But I was sitting outside the office.

My brother, my sister, we're all always in trouble.

So again, it was just that family, you know, just getting in trouble constantly.

I won't tell their stories, but I was there and I remember, you know, my mom talking about it was really not in a good way.

But and then the counselor just said, you know, talking about me.

He's like, you know, he's going to end up just like them.

He's going to be in jail.

He's not going to amount to anything.

And that's, I just kind of sat there, I heard that, and I got up and I left.

I never went back there, but I was like, fuck you, you ain't going to tell me who I am and what I'm going to do.

So

that was probably part of the motivation.

But I still got in trouble, but I also kind of knew that fine line of what you could do and what you shouldn't do.

So, how do you think you learned that?

Just from other people around you, what kind of, you know, the crap they got into, you know, what would happen to them.

So, I just learned like you can only push things so far.

Like, I never got into,

you know, robberies and stuff like that.

You know,

I don't know why this just popped in my head.

So, in Iowa, when just when it was before I got into first grade, we had moved to this new house from the other one

that I had the babysitter at.

I would sneak out like at midnight before first grade.

And I learned that.

Before first grade, we lived next to a college, so a bunch of apartments and stuff like that.

A lot of people didn't lock their cars back then.

So I'd open a car and I still all the change.

I did this for a

It probably, I think it was about the second month, because I wasn't smart enough, I'd probably do it like, you know, almost like every weekend, like every Sunday, I think is what it was, or something.

I was consistent.

Well, these college kids decided to hold a sting on me.

I think they caught me like at three in the morning.

What do you do to a pre-first grader that's

taking change out of your car?

Oh, my God.

so

they they grabbed me right i'm just like i'm just a little i'm just like let me go i'm cussing up a storm and this and that what are you like six oh yeah

probably five

dude and uh

they're just like what the hell are you the one in here you know tell us the truth have you the one stealing it we already called the cops and

You're like, you know, we'll help you out.

I'm like, yeah, I've been the one doing it.

It's like, why are you doing it?

Well, I want to eat.

Because, again, a lot of times we didn't.

That was usually we go go to the grocery store and steal and steal food from the produce section.

You know, we got kicked out of high-v a lot just because we'd sit there and eat.

At least I did, especially if the strawberries were good.

But then they're just looking at him like, are you serious?

Like, yeah, just, you know, usually I just go buy food with it.

So the cops got there.

They said, oh, no, he wasn't.

They told him that I was out wandering around.

They didn't tell me that's what I was.

They told me, don't ever do this again.

And I didn't.

Damn, Tig.

But no, the cops kept me.

They brought me back to the house.

I learned to lie pretty good.

My mom and

the stepdad, like, what the hell are you doing?

What's going on?

I just started wanting to go for a walk.

So I got my ass beat, but not as bad.

Just a couple of spankings, a couple of slaps, not the normal beating.

So it wasn't too bad.

I forgot about I was talking about before that, but no, I just, I don't know.

that just kind of made me talk about.

Oh, yeah.

So I didn't, like, wasn't no grand theft auto.

I didn't do no armed robberies, didn't, you know, kind of quit stealing after I left Iowa.

You know, we used to break into people's houses and garages and steal stuff, but

kind of went to Colorado, stopped doing that stuff.

Mainly for me, it was just a lot of fights.

That was really it.

It was about the only biggest thing I was, because once I, especially when I started working, I was more about making money than doing anything else.

I mean, hell, I was 14.

I had a Mustang 2.

I bought for 300 bucks.

The only thing I had to do was put new tires on it and traded that and

got a 84 blazer.

And I was always, you know, from a kid, I was working.

I was always trying to make money.

Even mowing lawns, I always tried to figure out how to make money.

Usually that's how you bought your toys, especially G.I.

Joe's.

So I always worked for everything that I had.

Nothing was really given, even during Christmas and all that crap.

Damn, man.

So you were surviving

from

a very early age.

Jeez.

All right, let's go back to the Marine Corps.

Yeah, so I went to boot camp.

Again, it was fun.

I enjoyed it.

It wasn't to me, it wasn't hard, but we had 84 recruits and only two drill instructors.

So we got away with everything.

I mean, normally it wouldn't be that way.

It would normally be like 50.

But Bill Clinton had a shutdown during that time.

So everybody got backlogged.

So anyways, got in there, wanted to do infantry.

It was just a bullet catcher.

Picked up rank pretty fast.

Because, again, I just knew what I wanted to do.

I enjoyed that stuff.

You excelled at this.

Yeah.

You know, became an infantry squad leader, you know, became sergeant within like three years.

So so i was a i was a squad leader within two years

so what was it like for you i mean

let me rephrase that

how close were you with your guys in the marine corps i think for the most part we were fairly close i mean

obviously you had to separate the rank for the most part you know you kind of did kind of den it sometimes i i I think it's more hurtful to a unit than it is helpful, but a lot of guys can't keep that separation of the rank you get too buddy buddy and i that's where they want that because they're like i don't really gotta listen to him he's my best bud even though he's your squad leader yeah so that's kind of the separation but the most part i think you know we'd always hang out we'd do things what we could but my biggest thing you know

was

again doing a lot of things i did in school the wars and all that

Reading with a lot of the problem was was the guys, the junior guys didn't know what to do if the squad leader leader got whacked or the platoon sergeant got whacked so when i went in my goal was to make sure like my team leaders knew what a platoon sergeant's job was

so they always knew like ranks above them and i told them you you got to tell your guys what your job is and what my job is

kind of thing because again war happens people die if you don't know how to handle things and move step up it makes you might not know everything but it it it starts guiding them in the right direction.

So I always made sure, you know,

that,

again like yeah they knew other people's jobs even radio so even on the marine corps we saw a radio like maybe once in four years

of course that was back in the 90s now i think everyone has a radio but me being a leader is just making sure that they're that your juniors are capable of doing your job and somebody else's job above you that's what a leader does it doesn't make it doesn't you don't stand there and just be like oh i'm the all-powerful like no they need to be able to step up and take your spot if something happens

so i enjoyed it i mean it was a lot of fun i've they kind of made me the remedial uh guy because i was kind of i was an asshole it wasn't nice um

but so like all the guys who had fell pt i was the one they send to in the whole platoon it was fun

what did the stability feel like i mean coming from an environment like that into

oh the consistency was awesome i enjoyed it

It was way better.

So, I mean, I was in 29 Palm, so that part kind of sucked, but I didn't really, it doesn't bother me too much because I already had a vehicle.

If you didn't have a vehicle, it really sucked.

So, I don't know if you know where 29 Palms is, but it's a miserable base.

But training,

training is awesome.

You can't get any more better training.

Everything's live fire.

Nice.

Yeah.

So, a lot of, well, a lot of guys that come from like Pendleton and other locations, they end up whacking other guys because they're not used to adjusting fire.

And again, it's all live fire.

So, you know, it was cool.

Be able to call, you know, mortars.

We have to actually, I got to call on a Cobra one time.

You usually don't get to do that as a squad leader.

Yeah.

But out there, it's different.

It was really cool.

Did you deploy with the Marine Corps?

No, we just did, I just did

deployments.

Well, I did, but not to combat.

I did Okinawa, Thailand, Tinian, and Guam.

And that was it.

And that was just all peacetime stuff.

How long were you in the Marine Corps?

Four years.

Four years?

Yeah,

I was going to re-up.

um

and i was gonna do msg duty i didn't want to do boot camp crap i didn't want to be a drill instructor because even though it was fun i didn't want to do it i didn't want to do recruiting duty because i would i would come home and i would do recruiting duty so you can stay home longer and uh

so i want to do msg duty well

i went went to the school and

About a month into it, then you go in because you do all the psyche eval stuff and then they're looking at everything over.

It's a three-month school.

Go down, I have my interview, and you know, they're bringing up things.

You know, I,

again, protecting people for the most part.

Well, I put one kid in the hospital for about three days.

Um, and I think it was my junior year or senior year.

Um, but and they asked me, okay, what happened?

I told them, well, the guy punched a kid in a wheelchair.

And, you know, he was like some like

number one wrestler or something in Colorado at the time and

you know nobody wanted to step up to him but my was i'm just like no no nobody's gonna hit a kill in a wheelchair you know and i i'm the name the kid's name was richie you know he's kind of like a he couldn't really move himself either you know he kind of could and stuff so even from junior high i'd push him around to his classrooms if i saw him anybody picked on him i would i would thump him nobody really picked on him like that but like this guy did and so my buddy's like dude there's no way this guy punched him and he's like he's right over there so you go ask him if he says something i'm gonna floor him

and i remember my buddy josh asking hey i heard you hit you punched richie in the chest and he started laughing hell yeah i did and i was blacked out

yeah and i guess they for what they said it took 10 teachers to pull me off of them

good for you So they brought that up and then they brought up my childhood thing with the guy molesting me.

So they actually used that against me to kick me out of the MSG school.

Are you fucking serious?

That's what I was like.

That's when I said, fuck this.

I'm leaving the core.

Holy shit.

Why the fuck would they use that against you?

I have no idea.

How did they find out about it?

Because it was in the police records.

Because it's even though it's your kid, but they can look it all the way back.

Shit, man.

Yep.

So you felt betrayed again.

Mm-hmm.

And you got out.

Yep.

And then once she, well, once she knew I, well, that kicked me out.

Because what they said, they said, you need to go see a shrink and get this dealt with before you can go over there.

I'm like, deal with what?

It's not my fucking problem.

It's not my fault.

And I said, fuck this.

So then I got shipped back to my unit.

My ex found out.

She got a hold of me.

And then I was in Okinawa.

And then I i came back and we got married

shit man

so you left all that stability for what felt like a betrayal again

and then

what did you do from there uh well it got out um

went up she got stationed in washington she was in the army she had joined and uh

So I was stationed in Washington.

I tried to do the whole

dependent thing.

Try for about two months.

I couldn't, dude, I had to work.

I was like, man, I'm going to go to Subway.

I got to go do something.

And finally, I just went into heating and air conditioning.

Actually started off as a gas piper.

So just, you know, doing gas lines and stuff like that.

And then

9-11 hit.

I remember, you know, getting ready to go to work and watching, you know, hearing about the first plane and watching the second plane.

I just looked at her and said, we're going to war.

This is an attack.

And

so I told the

I called my boss or my boss said, Hey, I'm not coming in.

I'm going to the recruiting station.

So

went to recruiting.

Of course, they were pissed.

They're like, Oh, this ain't no big deal.

I was like, You guys know what's going on.

Do you?

So I went there and you know, they're talking with them.

And they just kind of look at me.

I already had a 10% disability rating.

They're like, We ain't going to need you.

We don't need no broke.

I don't, I get it.

They're like, We got, we don't need no broke dick we're gonna have so many people join us i was like man it's fucked up so look whatever went back and uh she ended up getting orders to go to kuwait move back to colorado

um this i didn't really know about contracting yet so i actually started going to school for heating and air conditioning the money was good i mean i was making between five to a thousand bucks a day um so it really wasn't money is why i did the job but um i just hated it.

I mean, it was, it just felt like something was missing.

I'd just be pissed off every day at work.

Like, you work at your own pace.

So it ain't like I had so many things because you got paid by the job.

Whatever you got done is what you got paid for.

So

when she was over there, she found out about contracting.

And that's when, and then

she came back.

in 2003, I think early, but I still had to finish my school.

Still wanted to finish it.

And then she went, and then I stayed.

And once I graduated, I went over in July 2003 to Kuwait for my first contracting.

And I was only making 13 bucks an hour.

What was the first contract?

Doing the gate guard stuff for Camp Doha.

I got in a lot of trouble there, too.

What kind of trouble?

Well, you'd have guys coming back.

You'd have dudes coming from Kuwait, from Iraq, you know, from the combat zone.

You know, you could see their combat units they're coming down just for like r r well if you didn't have some kind of thing piece of paper from some colonel or something saying you know you're allowed to come on the base they wouldn't let you on

so i'm just like you know these dudes are driving you know from there to here i'm like i get it and you see your highest ranking individual is here and i tell them what's going on i just let them on

I just say, you know, you're going to have a big issue getting off if you don't get this.

They probably won't let you off, but

have a good time and i would i was like oh just please do me a favor just don't tell them who let you on because i won't be able to do it for anybody else well they finally figured it out

right on man

so so they put me out they took me off gate put me interior stuff and it was just like like whatever But to me, it was just bullshit.

It was like, these are coming.

You guys are here in Kuwait.

You can go out in town at the freaking mall and hang out.

These guys are coming from a combat zone.

You can't let them come here and hang out and do some R ⁇ R for a day.

Like, screw that.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So, where do you go from there?

That's when you started looking at the contracts that are going on.

Again, you're looking at 03 to 04.

You know, that's when Blackwater really blew up with the four guys who got dragged and hung on the bridge and stuff like that.

So, trying to find.

companies that were reliable contract companies because there are so many fly-by-night ones.

I mean, ones that would actually,

they'd do drive-bys on military bases.

I don't know if you heard about that stuff.

Yeah, some of these contracts, I mean, Americans doing, it's like, what are you guys doing?

So

so many drive-bys.

Yeah, like going by a military and shooting at them.

Are you serious?

When the hell was this happening?

Like the 0405, like really the Wild West stuff.

Holy shit.

Yeah, it was stupid, man.

So a lot of it, it's just like, so you had to be careful.

There's one that I I know, a couple of the guys that I was doing security with.

One of them was named Little.

He actually ended up going with Blackwater.

But he was going to go in there and do security work.

And I was just like, dude, you're not,

you don't have enough training for that.

You're going from an admin guy in the Army to doing PSD work over there and only going to give you a two-week train up.

Now, him and his own team have been getting whacked like a month in.

Damn.

But

it was some of the other ones, again, they're paying you like 90 grand for a month, two months at a time.

But some of them, they're not even going there with real guns.

They're going with like broomsticks painted as guns and all kinds of stuff.

So you had to be very careful.

Yeah, I remember.

I mean, I fell into one of those, not quite that bad, but I remember my first contract was this one with Armor Group.

Did you ever hear Armor Group?

It was at UK.

Yeah.

I lasted about two weeks there, and I was like, get me the fuck out of here now.

And

then

I wound up getting picked up for

the OGA program.

But geez, dude.

Yeah.

So ended up going with Blackwater.

Put my resume in just before my,

because I could have left earlier.

I mean, a lot of guys, they would break their contract.

But again, to me, you sign up for something, you finish it.

So I just finished it out, went home, went to the training and uh after july so sometime after july in 04 or something like that i went to bw did it didn't know who i was gonna be working for you know you just blackwater just picks you up you know and then

did the training and next thing you know i'm overseas doing work what contract was this

this agency this was this was grs no cobra get

so i didn't know about grs at the time

um because you're supposed to so yeah so i went there and then they kind of they were talking about it, you know, like, I was like, oh, that was this GRS thing.

They're like, oh, you know, they're doing like the mobile stuff.

Okay.

So

I get over to

Afghanistan and that's when, you know, you start learning things and, you know, knowing what's going on.

And I actually ended up getting airport duty.

I don't really see a whole lot what's going on out there, but there's some fun transfers going on.

But so we actually got, it was a benefit to me.

So we would actually do some escorts for some of the agency personnel as Cobras, even though you're not supposed to.

Because

we're going out to the airport, so they would just kind of jump in with us.

We do, you know, we still had to do the SDRs there and back and stuff like that.

So I got to know the town as a Cobra.

Normally those guys don't see anything but to and from the airport.

Well,

when somebody says you can't do something,

I'm going to say, well, I'm going to prove you wrong.

So every time I would come, I'd go to the TL for the GRS.

Here's my resume.

This is my background.

It's like, dude, you have to be eight years SF.

Like, I can do better.

I can do what you guys can do.

So 07,

they finally said, all right, go and do it.

Cause I got tired of it.

I mean, I was coming all the time.

I was like, you know, I can drive around, right?

So, I mean, but I had in the Marine Corps, I went to urban warfare.

So I was an urban warfare instructor and stuff like that.

That's like my highest speed thing I did.

And I was the assault climber.

so you set up the lanes for the battalions and climb cliffs and stuff like that at night.

So I had, you know, some specialized, but you know, nothing like SF guys.

But, anyways, so we went to Blackwater.

I did, I think at the time it was like a four-month train-up.

Yeah.

For the real quick, I just want to, I just want to educate the audience.

So when we're talking about

back in those days, I don't know, it might still be like this.

There was the Cobra contract and the CAPO contract

under the OGA umbrella of their government agency, which is the CIA contract.

And so the COBRA sector is basically a static security base.

You're assigned to a specific base and you do all the perimeter and internals

for that specific location.

And with that being said, before we move on to the CAPO program, let's take a quick break.

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

We're getting ready.

You just got picked up for the CAPO program, the

mobile program

at the agency.

So

it wasn't, it wasn't really smooth because this was like 07.

I had LASIK done when I was in 2002, so my eyesight was like really good, like 2015 vision.

So we start going through it, start doing all the training.

I can't remember exactly the,

how did it, the flow, but I think we did like the house stuff of the qualification at the last week of it

and everything else, like the shooting.

So I was doing really good and all that.

It was passing, you know, the hardest one, I don't know if you remember, was the 25-yard shot.

concealed four seconds, two shots.

That was a kind of a pain.

I was never really good with pistol, but I was good enough to pass.

Dude, I'm just, I just want to hear your whole training experience because,

and I don't want to diminish anything that you've done or any conventional guys at all, but I mean, I came out of the SEAL teams and I had maybe

about a year-ish

break where I tried to do some business stuff and failed miserably.

And then wound up at that shitty armor group one and then wound up getting picked up.

But I thought that that training package, I think it was about a month long then.

Yeah, it was tough.

It was right around the same time frame because I left in 06, so it was 07, 08 maybe that I got in there.

Yeah.

And

that was fucking tough.

Dude, those drills walls were stiff.

Yeah.

And the timing, holy crap.

Working with new people, working with other branches that did things different.

I mean, that was.

That was challenging coming from where I came from with all that training.

And so

for you,

I mean,

what did you think of that?

I mean, for me, it was, I guess, maybe just being molded by the core.

You just kind of adapt and just do it.

Is this how they want it done?

I just do it that way.

Because I think even though, like, even that night, I think even like Ron, Ron and Jack kind of went back to their seal stuff.

For the most just kind of like because they were moving on the side of me going down.

It was a little bit different than what we were, but I just started kind of flowing with them.

They started flowing with me.

Um,

and then they kind of broke off and did their thing together, which again, I still think

because what Ron was 20-year seal, so I think you're still going to go back to some of that stuff.

Um, but you still have, I think, since you know the training of it is so long, you all have a base to fall back on, so you kind of have an idea what the guys to the left and right are going to do.

So, I think that's what helpful.

But, you know, me doing like the vehicles and stuff like that, I mean, that was all new.

But do you know who Jake Banta banta is yeah

so i met him doing cobra

so i had a little bit of insight on a lot of what grs was doing the training wise so

he kind of told me okay if you're going to go do this

here here take this go practice this stuff so i had 40 acres i had more gun range so i did a lot of practicing back you know you got paid pretty good but ammo is a lot cheaper than too so i had a bunch of ammo i was just training every day getting my speed up getting all that doing my pistols So when I went there, I already had an idea.

I pretty much knew what they were going to do, except for vehicles.

CQB, I wasn't worried about because, you know, that was a month-long trainup I did just in the Marine Corps for CQB.

So that for me, that was easy.

It's just, I just couldn't shoot everybody like I did in the Marine Corps.

So.

You know, then the hooded box drill, that was freaking epic.

Yeah.

That was fun.

I did enjoy that part.

Yeah, I thought that was, that was a really good exercise that was that was that was what did you find to be the most challenging

um

i think dealing with the staffers

other than that i mean the training um

just trying to remember all the all the stuff so fast and you know just the

the wording on you know the vehicles you know content just getting that knowing what to do how to protect the package and stuff like that that was kind of the hardest stuff um because because a lot of that stuff kept changing from class to class for the most part.

You know, tie them, do you don't tie to them?

Keep moving, you know.

And then the deeter thing was kind of a pain in the ass.

Yeah.

But it is what it is.

So we get to the final,

and my eyes started going bad.

Like, I woke up and I couldn't see that glass right, that, the, uh,

your water bottle right there.

Oh, I was like, holy crap.

So I I went into the eye doctor.

I paid like 500 bucks to get a prescription right away.

So I could see.

So I went through it, got it going.

Next morning, changed.

So every day I had to keep going back to the eye doctor

to pass.

And then finally, my eyes, I don't know, about a month later, finally settled down.

And

so I kind of fought with that.

all the way up through even through Benghazi my eyeballs but I could always make sure I could see and stuff like that and so I ended up getting like the hard, soft contact lenses and that really.

So I worked with contacts over there quite a bit.

But it was that dude that week.

I don't know what

was going on, but come to find out.

And sorry, and I think it was 2017,

about three months before I had to have transplants in my eyes, I had cornicosis.

What is that?

Deterioration of your cornea.

So

I had to get

for intacts and there was something else.

I forgot exactly what it was, but

so they take these two plastic things and they reshape your eye.

So both my eyes got these plastic things in them.

And then they put,

I forgot, anyway, they put some other drop in there, hardens up your lens and stuff like that.

Again, the eyes just kept fluctuating.

Finally, my right eye really started getting bad again.

And they went in.

My right eye is an artificial lens.

Damn.

So the fact that i could even still see even the eye doctor you know they put i guess they're doing like all they did a whole study on me in in the eye doctor school

now

in the eye doctor school whatever they really want to call it they've i had like school of optometry yeah that one i had like seven different surgeries on them

so

how many people made it through your vetting do you remember or was it tdc it was it was uh tdc uh it i think only one person didn't pass no shit yeah damn when i went through there was only about three three or four of us that made it through yeah and everybody else failed it was it wasn't very big i think it was only like five of us anyways oh okay well yeah

wow but so i almost failed because um

they gave me a mask where i couldn't wear my glasses

So when I was going in,

they had the package dressed almost exactly like uh the aggressor.

So I went in the room.

I could, I was a 50-50 shot, and I ended up shooting the package.

And uh, but I remember luckily the other guys backed me up and they said he kept asking you guys for a mask for his glasses.

So they didn't send me home.

I had to go back through it one more time.

So I got in one more chance to go through it.

And they said, you better make it 100% clean.

I was like, fuck me,

talking about tents, dude.

Yeah.

Like, now the eyes are just on me.

Yeah.

So, but I ended up making it through clean.

And it was a, they, they, they, they ran me through the ringer on those, man, because, again, they're like, you can't shoot the package.

Yeah.

I mean, there's no second chance.

You're done.

Yeah.

That's, I think you're the only person I heard that got a second chance at that.

Who was it?

Uh, I want to see, I think it was Dusty was doing the train up.

I think that's me.

I remember him.

So, oh, yeah, he was running me.

What the?

I was like, dude, and all the other guys stepped up, say, hey, he asked you for,

wouldn't fit.

Damn.

Well, what did you think of the job when you got over there?

Pretty boring.

Where did you go?

Actually, so my first two trips were actually in Iraq.

Okay.

The first one was the VVIP, and then I was at the villa.

The villa was just dumb.

I think, no, I think they might have done.

Three trips,

two trips were at the villa.

It was just dumb.

I was just, I didn't do anything.

It was just going to the gym.

I mean, I did like a midnight shift just in case the chief of station woke up in the middle of the night and somebody had to take him.

But they wouldn't, they wouldn't call me anyways.

They'd just see other guys.

So I was just like, whatever.

So, but, you know, it was, uh, we had a couple of rocket attacks.

I remember

it was July.

And

again, it's only, I don't think any of the GRS guys knew I was even there as GRS, honestly.

Because I would just go hang out with the Copernicus because they're, you know, they're the cool guy crew.

I was just, you know, anyways,

so I remember being in the gym and they're getting, we're getting hit.

And, you know, you go into the bunker and I heard this one and just come in.

You knew it hit.

So I come out of the bunker and, you know, their staff's like, get it back in here.

I was like, you know, whatever.

So I go out and you can see,

went down, ended up hitting.

one of the trailers

and it's still smoky, still all that crap.

So I start yelling, anybody anybody in there, anybody in there, start going in and end up being,

I forgot what company he worked for now, but he ended up having a piece of shrapnel just sticking out of his chest.

So I kind of grabbed him.

He was stumbling.

He was trying to find his way out, but I mean, it jacked up the whole front.

There was no stairs, no nothing, no more.

So I pulled him out, got him out, and I set him down.

I was like, hey, is there anyone else in there?

I said, just kind of sit down, relax.

You know, I didn't want to lay him down.

So I sat him.

I said, don't move.

Stay here.

Is anyone else in there?

He's just kind of like, you know, his bell was wrong, you know, because they're, you know, he got two pods attached.

So I go back in there and I start yelling, hey, anybody in here?

Go back to the other one.

Anyone in here?

Nobody was in there.

So I go back out.

Dude's gone.

I'm thinking, oh, shit.

So I'm like, now I'm looking for this guy.

He's got this piece of shrapnel stuck in out.

And then.

Go around the corner.

And actually a couple of the GRS guys are headed that way and got a hold of him and sat him down.

So I'm just kind of standing there, you know, kind of watching.

You know, you just kind of like, you know, kind of listen to everything going on.

Already knew the trailer was kind of clear.

That's the only one that got hit.

And I don't want to say his name, but I remember him looking at me, so you hate GRS, you get the hell out of here.

I'm like, okay.

I went back to the gym, started working out again.

So it was funny that

I went to go back to do the recall and he was there.

He's like,

Were you GRS?

He remembered me because there's just some dude just standing there.

He's like, were you GR?

I was like, why don't you say something?

i didn't need to you already he already had him the medical kit i just what else am i gonna do

so and then uh

then at the

again

didn't do anything there then over at the vvip really didn't do anything there either what's the vvip it was just like the uh

just part of the airport where they would fly in and fly out and stuff.

Oh, okay.

But we would just run people to the airport.

I mean, we do some what they call black ops.

First time I learned about what actual black ops are.

I was like, oh, okay.

Anyways, that's the only thing we did out of there.

And, uh, but

I

one of the, they called it the White House.

It was where they did a lot of the

can't really say what they did in there, but a lot of explosives were in there.

Well, one of the guys was in there welding and a spark hit one of the RPG blankets and just

so we went over there.

We had to get that guy out, and really, that was about the biggest thing.

But I was over at the

I mean, he got jacked up.

He was not the front of him, but the whole back side of him just got cooked.

Damn.

Yeah, so he was pretty jacked up.

We got him out of there.

But what was that one

GB base, Eagle base?

So I was there doing,

I think I get it in Iraq.

I got all the shit details.

I mean, I was the only non-SF guy there.

So like, you know what, this is intig.

Whatever.

So I got to work out, you know, with those guys quite a bit.

And that's when I, I can't remember his name, but

what'd they call him, the Wolf of Baghdad?

That one tank commander, Marine.

I don't know.

We have to look him.

But so I was there on watch that night.

It was kind of cool because I had to be on the radio.

I kind of helped

because sometimes their comms wouldn't be all that great so we'd kind of transmit it they couldn't hear.

Well, that was I was there that night when he was in the lead and he I'm getting whacked, one of the GB guys.

And so that was, you know,

he was a pretty well-known Marine at the time.

And I just, that was like when I first,

when they were like saying, oh, he was a Marine, but I knew where he was working at.

But when I saw it in the paper, it didn't say anything about what he was.

I was like, okay, this is how they're doing this stuff.

Gotcha.

So it was kind of a weird.

Yeah.

It's like, oh, okay.

So that's when I finally, I kind of, my wife at the time didn't even know who I was working for.

You didn't tell your wife?

But after I saw that, that's I said, I'm going to tell her.

Just because.

What'd she say?

He's like, oh, okay.

You know, no big deal.

You go up for the CIA.

All right, whatever.

I want to go play tennis.

Yeah.

So, but no, that was, yeah.

So that was an experience.

But again, those two trips, I was just like, this is so stupid.

Then I got sent to Afghanistan for the first time as GRS.

And again, I'd been in Afghanistan for a couple years now, you know, so I knew the area.

So when you get there,

the newer guys usually have to go out and, you know, they're driving around knowing the town.

You know, my hardest thing was like knowing this, knowing the street names, the circles, and all that stuff.

But I got it fairly quick.

And I remember,

I don't really say who it was again.

I don't like putting names out there, but I was, you're not supposed to be in play, you play a lot of Call of Duty.

You know, you play a lot of Call of Duty.

He is GRS.

So I was in,

you know, I'm sitting there playing.

He comes in.

He's like, what the fuck, Tig?

What are you doing?

What you think you know the roads now?

I'm like, yeah.

I already been like, only been like a week and a half.

He's like, that's it.

You're doing your test now.

If you fail, you're out.

Okay.

Well, and he tried to get me.

He tried to stump me as best he could.

He goes, because he didn't realize, I think he had, I think he had just kind of shown up, but that was when I was over in,

actually, I started going to Herat.

I was doing, I did a lot in Herat.

So I don't think he.

I got a feeling I know who that was.

Yeah.

Heavy cop.

Yeah.

He was second on my list.

Yeah.

So

anyway, so he goes, he's like, how the hell do you know the city so well?

I was like, I've been doing this since 04 out here.

Oh.

Like,

you know,

I knew the damn city pretty well.

I just didn't get, didn't really know the names and the circles.

I just knew how to get around.

So the hardest part for me was just knowing the names and the circles.

So how long were you?

You went direct, right?

So I didn't go direct

until

actually it was like mid 2011.

so i was over in uh pakistan when the constant got attacked there

and uh i guess from from that one uh a couple other guys that were like

high in the food chain for grs that were direct or whatever saw my actions there that day and that's when they said they want me to go and do direct.

What happened that day?

The consulate got attacked.

nothing really major happened um

it was a

a dude came in with the car bomb initially blew up then there's a second one that came in there was uh i think six attackers came out and they're just kind of shooting in the air so we're inside the consulate and trying to figure out okay we're trying to get a hold of the uh the state department guys hey what's going on what do you see on your cameras they told us uh post one had been already breached we're like that's this that's serious so they're already inside the compound.

So me and the other guy, you know, our gear was technically in our vehicle.

That's where we just left it.

You know, after that day, we never left our stuff in the vehicles no more.

So we end up rounding up our own, some other body armor, another weapon system.

Then we go out.

They haven't even breached the freaking outer perimeter yet.

So we come out the door like we're ready to shoot.

You're like, well, they're talking about bad intel.

Holy crap, guys.

So he goes to the front.

I go to the back.

You know, they're just kind of shooting up.

We're being told that the attackers, they're in police and military attire.

So I got the back corner of the consulate and it's pretty close to some other buildings.

And I'm seeing dudes running around and cops in military uniform left and right.

I'm going,

these are bad guys.

They're not.

I mean, they're not looking up.

I mean, they got their guns, but they're moving people.

So we're just kind of standing there.

And there's a big ass tree, so we couldn't engage.

There's a couple of DS agents that was up there.

I think there was two DS agents up there with me and the other guy.

And then

a couple more on one of the other buildings.

I think there's only like three buildings at the consulate, maybe two.

But

then

probably about five minutes into this thing, just

they lit off like 1,500 pounds of TNT.

collapsed the building.

Dude, it was pretty crazy.

And then

they asked me if I got knocked out or not.

I remember getting up off the ground, but I don't don't remember if I was knocked out or not.

I just remember a guy got smacked by one of those big AC panels.

And yeah, that was other than that, that's really all that happened to me.

Body parts from these guys are flying all over the place.

The funniest one, actually, is two.

Well, maybe not funny, but it is funny.

One of the dudes got, you know, the fences had the gaps in them.

One of the dudes' body was just like impelled.

The other guy had his upper torso finger in his nose.

And it was just kind of funny.

yeah that's all they always are is finger in the nose

oh geez

but no i mean that that was really it that happened but after that i guess they

then again you don't hesitate i guess they're like oh you're all right you can go to direct and that's kind of

when i went to direct where did you go when you did you go right to libya no um

i pretty much went back to pack

went there a couple more times and then uh then it was over to Libya.

So from there,

we flew flew in flew into magazine that evening and actually we started driving with the chief of station from benghazi when we landed up to tripoli so we stopped in mistrada stayed the night again i never really knew anything about tripoli except for freaking the marine corps song

you know so we're just kind of driving uh taking turns you know through that hotel.

I don't think anybody slept.

You know,

it's just a hotel.

It ain't like it's a safe location.

Yeah.

You're just trusting the locals, man.

So, you know, we did the fire watch thing.

And, yeah, get up to Tripoli.

I think we stayed in like another hotel.

Then we opened up a compound.

So you opened it.

Yeah.

I didn't realize that.

Yeah.

So the agency was there first.

We actually went to the old embassy, went around there.

I picked up a couple of the

security procedure books that they left behind.

It says classified on it.

Whatever.

I picked them up, made sure I brought them back.

I don't know how, yeah, I mean, everything was still in them.

Like,

I guess they couldn't read English.

So I brought those back to our compound.

But now then

stayed there.

They found, yeah, then helped opened up the embassy.

Then I left.

And after, then I went back.

When I came back, that's when I went back down to Menghazi, which is good because I don't like the flagpole

so at the time it wasn't the flagpole because there was only

four of us that did all the GRS guys that went up there then as I was leaving two more guys came in because they were getting ready to open up the I actually got to walk through the other the permanent CIA annex

and again I think it was like eight houses all had pools I mean it was nice

so that's the one that they uh they aired on TV saying it was the embassy that they broke into.

They're jumping off the balcony into the pool.

That was the agency's compound.

Interesting.

I never went over there.

Yeah, it was nice.

I heard it was.

But yeah, then I went down there and, yep, did a lot of stuff down there.

They went down and we did one of the

yellow cake sites, I guess, for Gaddafi, where you had a bunch of the nuclear crap down there.

And other than that, we did some runs to,

and I wouldn't think, I'm going to say,

well, I don't remember, but the city close to Egypt.

I can't remember the name of it now.

But other than that, I mean, it was pretty relaxed.

I mean, even in Tripoli,

didn't really get too many stink eyes like you did in other places, but Benghazi was different, man.

They would shake, they'd come and shake your hand.

Like, like, thanks for your help.

Thanks for getting him out.

You know, if you're in a coffee shop or getting food, somebody probably tried to buy it for you no kidding it was weird they're very grateful

so def definitely a different environment anywhere else i've been

how long were you there before that happened so the first two trips um

the first trip was three months and then the second one was two months then my twins were born premature so that kind of pulled me out early so probably if it wasn't for that i probably wouldn't have been in benghazi when 9-11 happened um So,

yeah, so I was on my fourth trip down there when 9-11 hit.

And that last time, I mean, it was fairly quiet for the most part.

I think Iran had just kidnapped a few people

at that time.

But a lot of some politicians, you know, they're trying to kill him.

This is the first election, like 30 years.

The police chiefs, I think a couple of police chiefs got whacked when I was there.

Other than that, I mean, threat towards us really wasn't there.

But Bob, you know, he was just, I don't know.

It's hard to explain out what,

yeah, it's just hard to explain, Bob.

Just very risk adverse.

Didn't really, I don't think he understood our capabilities.

Can you tell the audience who Bob was?

So Bob was the chief of base in Benghazi.

The head guy.

Yep, the head guy.

So, well, in Benghazi, then he had the chief of station, which oversees the whole country.

But yeah,

he was the head guy in Benghazi at the time.

And, you know, when I talked about earlier about the con, even before the consulate, you remember when the British ambassador got attacked?

No.

So he got attacked in between one of my trips.

And

again, Bob was there, but a different team leader.

And Bob told him, no, you can't go.

And the team leader at that time told him to pound sand and they left.

And they're the only reason why one of the security guys even survived because they were able to render him medical aid.

Right on.

So, and there was a time when we had

the deputy chief and a linguist, they were probably almost about an hour away from us and they got hemmed up at a checkpoint.

And

we're like, you know, we need to get over there, get in the area.

We don't go in there, guns blazing.

It's just, you don't do that.

It's just in case something goes south after the checkpoint, we can help intervene.

He wouldn't even let us leave the compound to go help to get in the area.

That's just the type of person he was man so again for like the stand down order it was just him that that and well there's more more to it now that i know of thanks to sarah

so

did you know sarah when you were over there oh yeah worked with her in a few other places she likes getting people whacked yeah she's really good at it she still likes getting people whacked

I did.

I see people trying to go after her on like, especially on X and stuff.

Oh, you're fake.

You're fake.

dude she's far from that and I worked with her a lot of different places we got some people whacked

so we just brought her on the team yeah did she tell you that uh uh yeah I'm pretty excited about it we've gotten pretty tight ever since that first interview she's freaking she she knows what she's talking about yeah she does man she does that's awesome yeah i'm really excited about it but so you've worked with her several times in different locations where else did you work with her at

mainly in Pesh?

I think that was my funnest place.

Why do you say that?

Oh man, because we got

we got some HVTs whacked in that place.

Nice.

And it was cool.

A lot of the places you go, like, they don't tell you about like what you're doing, why you're doing it for the most part.

There, they're like, oh, yeah, we're going after this guy.

This is how we're going to do it.

This is what, you know.

I need you to take this, do this.

So he got more involved in actually getting these dudes whacked.

It was it was awesome nice

so i think that was it was just like you're always working i mean it was

it was always work you liked working oh yeah it was great you didn't like the flagpole booze booze cruises no

time just goes by too slow yeah i didn't like that either i like to work yeah

so that's what you're over there for man over there to work get things done you know i remember we almost got we almost got uh killed at a restaurant but an asset called about a half hour before the meet and said it's it's an ambush they're gonna kill you when you're there so we pulled we still went and did counter surveillance and sure as shit they they pulled in there and went in but they didn't their head the lead guy we see they're stupid because they all got out of like uh the hodgie van And they're like standing there and the one guy walked in then walked out and you can tell he's like throwing his hands up and they got back in and they left.

There are six of them, all AKs, hodgied out

yeah

well let's get into the night of the september 11th

you ready what day is that

yeah

what do you want to know the short version or the long version or just the the long version so

Well, Sarah was there and actually I was doing this one

Kind of like gathering stuff.

She showed me how to use this one of the one of the equipments and i ended up actually having that there when we went we took the i took the deputy the the chief of base deputy chief of base and another case officer that morning over to a meeting with the local intel service which is the first time they ever met them and it's the first time they ever been to this location it actually happened to be right across the street from the consulate on the second floor

And so I had this thing, you know, it was running, you know, collecting all the data.

People are on their phone and stuff.

And, you know, and I actually i took it in the office with me because i went upstairs and just kind of because i just want to see what they could see and i'm just remember and red flags going off like they have this thing right across the street they can see inside the company you can see everything i was like this is just weird and you know i sat there for a little bit then i went outside because the vehicle is just out in the parking lot unsecured for the most part so i didn't want to leave it alone i was the only one

so so i went back out there kind of hung out in the vehicle just watching the door and watching you know know, whatever you could.

Well, they come out and they're talking and, you know, and we're like, hey, you need to take us over to the consulate.

It's like, I'm like, okay, no problem.

And as we're going, I can come to find out that they got

intel that there was going to be an attack on a government facility that day.

So the ambassador was there.

He just got in there the night before.

So it was kind of like to inform him.

This is early morning still.

I think it was even before breakfast.

It was pretty early.

Go over there, let him know, just in case he was going to plan on doing any more ops off base.

Because I think Roan

and

Jack had a movement with them that day because we were augmenting our security.

We shut everything down so we could help them on their moves.

So I think that kind of shut one of his moves off that was supposed to be off base.

So I kind of come back and, you know, I take the

thing that I had.

And I was like, like, that's probably pretty good.

And I download it all into a USB drive and I put it in my locker, waiting for Sarah to come back because it was, you know, that's the targeting package kind of a thing.

And

so, anyways, not thinking anything of it.

Rest of the day goes by normal.

I think Oz was the only one who had a movement that day besides me with

the female case officer.

And it was like some kind of meeting she couldn't cancel.

And the next morning, me and Rome were supposed to be part of the detail that took the ambassador to the Persian oil golf company.

And when

Rome was talking with them, and they're like, well, we're just going to let the local driver drive us

do the route.

I'm like, no, we're not.

So I was like, I think I know exactly what they're talking about.

You know, because again, I've been there longer.

I've drowned, you know.

And actually, I think I did a meet there once.

But anyway, so I went there.

We found exactly where it was at.

We did a couple routes, kind of checking like checkpoints or block roads because they were still kind of doing each neighborhood had its own little click so we're trying to make sure which neighborhood we could flow through nice we figured it out on our way back roan calls the the ds agent says hey we got the we got the route do you want us to stop by now and we can go over it or do you want to wait till the morning because we're like we're not the driver is not going to dictate how we're going to go I mean that you had an HVT with you and you're going to let a local

like oh hell no

so

so they said nah we'll just wait till tomorrow And we were driving by the consulate and, you know, it's nice and quiet.

And, you know, nobody's out in the road.

There's no big protest.

And you're looking between 8.39 or something like that.

We go back.

We get to

the team room.

Team leader hushes in there and kind of let him know what's going to happen because we're probably going to leave early so we can go and explain to them our route and time it and all that stuff so that they know where we're going in case something happens.

I go to bed.

They're still up there jibber jabbering.

Jack, he's on the computer talking, Skyping with his wife.

And, you know, he just found out that

his wife was pregnant, I think, with their third kid.

And, you know, I'm just kind of getting undressed.

And next thing you know, here, hey, I'll GRS to the team room.

Just that call.

This is from Hush is on the radio.

They're just kind of like, okay, so I just kind of get out of bed, you know, and go to put my flip-flops on.

and like i need all grs to the team room now and this so i started moving a little bit quicker say jack i'll go figure out what's going on um go out there

and uh so i'm in building four and then you have building three which is the command post and you have building one or uh building two

uh which is um

tanto and od's um um house and then building one which is actually what's where oz was staying which was the chow hall that was in the very front of the compound or the front gate i guess you could say you can hear gunfire going off, stuff like that.

You can hear a couple explosions, but it's been ghazy.

There's a wedding hall.

Try to tell people, wedding hall right there, you'd hear people gun, you know, they would shoot stuff off.

Then he

then comes up to me and says, hey, we need to get ready to roll.

The console's been overrun.

A lot of people kind of, they don't understand like.

They think it's being attacked.

No,

he's saying it's being over.

It's been overrun.

So that means they're already in the compound by the time we get the call.

Inside the gates.

Inside the gates.

So that's how fast it happened.

So I run back, tell Jack, we get our stuff on, we come out.

Tonto and OD, they were the QRF.

So they're, you know, they were dressed, ready to go.

And I think Roan grabbed one of the vehicles and the Tonto grabbed the other one.

So they were already staged by the time me and Jack finally came out.

And that's when I overheard, you know, how many attackers are there?

They're saying anywhere between 50 to 150.

So there's, they're all over the place.

And I'm thinking,

you know, we got to have four.

So I ran into the team room.

I grabbed the grenade launcher and the and the belt-fed machine gun, brought them out, you know, started doing function checks on that, waiting in the vehicle.

I'm in the backseat.

Roans, the driver, Jack is the passenger, you know, just kind of checking, checking the trigger.

Okay, making sure I know which way is safe, which way is not safe.

You know, then, you know, checking the gain launcher, checking the trigger.

And

we're just kind of still sitting there and it's like going, you know, these guys, you know, they're digging in.

You know, they're, they're going to, they're going to get the initiative.

We're going to lose it.

So I get out of the vehicle and I

remember it's, it's, it's Bob, Hush, and the deputy chief of base.

They're all on the front porch.

And I was out on the passenger side.

I said, hey, you know, we got to get over.

We got to get over there now.

We're losing the initiative.

It's going to take us a lot harder to get onto this compound and rescue these guys.

And Bob goes, no, stand down.

You need to wait.

I'm like, what the fuck, what the fuck are we waiting for?

You know, there's nothing to wait for.

We need to get over there.

And he's like, we need to come up with a plan.

We can't come with the plan fucking sitting here.

We got to come with the plan with our eyes on the target.

There's nothing we can do from here.

We know the layout of the compound.

And that's when Hush goes, Tig, you know, shut up, get back in the car.

So

fine, I get back in.

And,

you know, it's armored, so they couldn't hear what's going on.

I closed the door and I got out.

I said, hey, Bob just told us to stand down.

And you could just tell right then.

they're like,

he's not going to let you go.

That's what it meant.

Well, with Sarah and what OD would have been doing forout the years is actually digging into actually what happened, more the investigation.

Well, weeks prior to the attacks, 17 Feb had told Bob, the commander, had told Bob that if something ever happened,

they were never going to show up.

That night, Bob actually got a hold of him before he told me to stand down, that they weren't going to show up.

That's why we were told to stand down.

And then, you know, for them to sit there and say, oh, there's no evidence of a stand down order, what the hell is that?

But again, how can you rely on it's a hostage rescue is what it is.

You're going to send 17 Feb in there, which is, which is worse than sending the Boy Scouts in to do a hostage rescue.

Some of these guys watching the State Department train don't even know how to reload a freaking rifle.

So it's like, we are the only, and like in the movie, we are the only help that they had.

We're the only support that would that could have made a difference.

And that stand down order is 100% guarantees why Ambassador Stephen and Sean Smith didn't make it.

They're dead because of that stand down order.

Damn, man.

Well, people say, well, how do you know that for a fact?

Well, they'd have been engaging with us instead of setting the buildings on fire.

They died of smoke inhalation.

They didn't die from

blunt force trauma, a gunshot.

They died from the smoke from the fire.

So,

so we ended up, you know, it came down to,

I think it was Alec Gate on the radio.

The State Department guy said, if you guys don't get here now, we're all going to fucking die.

And that was it.

Rowan just put it in drive.

We started driving.

Hush gets on the radio.

Wait, wait, wait.

I'm coming.

We were leaving his ass.

We were done waiting.

We were done asking for permission.

And Hush is the team leader for the audience.

Hush is the team leader for the GRS unit in Benghazi.

And his name's not classified because it's in the Congress congressional.

It's a call sign anyways.

Yeah.

So

we leave, we get over there.

I immediately engage with the grenade launcher.

It's fired three rounds, which that disperses the attackers, which allowed us to move on to the compound.

Who did you fire them at?

The attackers.

So they're away out of range from the grenade launcher, but it's still, they didn't, I think they may have thought it was mortars coming in.

They don't, you know, from what I heard, they had no idea what it was because they've never been shot at like that with something like that before.

So it was just a 40 Mike Mikes.

So

they dispersed.

I went back to the vehicle, put the grenade launcher in because I had no sling for it.

Normally I had to attach.

Just those things, you know, you do your own debrief for yourself, right?

I should attach it right back to the gun.

So as what happened normally it was attached to one of the rifles but we had a temporary team leader that came in and took him off took it off the rifle because he's like well nobody else can use it

just grab the damn gun that's had it it doesn't matter

anyways so i put it in there had no otherwise i would have had it with me too the whole night but grabbed the uh belt fed and then uh Roan and Jack just followed me.

We went down the road.

Paused just outside because, again, we haven't really heard from the State Department yet.

I just kind of got on because we had, now we had, now we're on the same channel as them.

I got on the radio just to let them know, hey, we are coming on.

Kind of like, hey, don't shoot us.

So when I said that, Roan and Ron got up and just started taking off.

Jack got up and moved in.

As I was starting to follow behind him, because you know, the agency, we have all the high-tech gear, right?

You know, we got the throat things, the brain things that feed the radio, right?

No, we have the still, we have the old school clip-ons worse than freaking law enforcement.

So I'm trying to clip this radio back on my gear because for a whole high speed.

So they're running in front of me.

Next day, no, I start getting shot at.

So I dropped down.

The militiamen that were with us, well, actually at that corner when we showed up, they actually followed us down.

I didn't realize that at first.

They opened up on fire and whoever's firing at me because I was kind of looking down.

So I didn't know where the gunfire came from.

So I dropped.

Well, while they were firing, I was able to move up to Jersey Barrier, get the machine gun up, and I was getting ready to start to put my nods back.

I was ready to put my nods down when some local just walks out of the darkness, hands up, 17 Feb, don't shoot, don't shoot.

It's just like, where the fuck this guy just come from?

You know, again,

I don't know, no uniform, no nothing.

So he could have been the one shooting.

I have no idea.

So I look at the guy next to me, a little hodgy guy, you know.

just he looks at me and he just kind of shrugs and like

okay whatever i don't dirk a durka so i just kind of got up moved in the compound

and uh first thing you see is the main village just engulfed in flames black smoke coming out uh the building off to the right which uh ended up being the 175th martyrs brigade that was the that was the qrf that the state department was relying on in case something happened so

They had four guys that stayed there.

But from what I heard,

those four guys actually did shoot back a little bit before they took off.

So from what I heard, they actually did try to fight.

I don't know for sure.

But anyways, that building was completely engulfed.

I just kept, you know, going as I'm going forward, there's a guy walking from that building.

I don't know, you know, who's all in the State Department compound, no weapon, no nothing.

Just walking, you know, flip-flops, white shirt, just nonchalant.

I'm just like, this is so freaking had this out here just happened.

Oh, and before we got down there all the way, we had a local who came out of his house and was, had his cell phone in his hand, was yelling yelling at us in Durka, Durka.

We're just looking at, we're like telling him to get back, get back.

And finally, we just had to keep going.

So that, that guy shooting at us, this guy here, I'm like, what the hell?

It's just some weird stuff.

So you can't just shoot anybody.

You know,

we're not cops.

We just don't shoot anybody.

Just kidding.

So I go up and I hear banging going on.

I don't know where anybody's really at.

So now I'm out here by myself.

And some local dude behind me, I'm watching him, just making sure he doesn't pull anything.

He never did.

And they're, you know, they had like a horseshoe fighting position.

So I go up there and I'm just kind of sitting there kind of just assessing, listening to sounds, watching this big orchard area that's all pitch black.

I go to put my MVGs on.

I couldn't because some of the spotlights were kind of like shining.

up high so it just floods them out so you can't

the night vision goggles are pretty much worthless

Maybe if I had your secret, you know, 10 goggle ones, it would have been better.

Doubt it.

But so I'm sitting there getting no communication on the radio.

Next thing I know, I hear a vehicle starting up.

I'm thinking like, what the fuck?

Oh, somebody's stealing a, they're all up armored.

You know, they don't have any like we did, you know, up unarmored.

So I'm thinking, oh, yeah, I got a belt-fed machine gun, got it up armored.

Oh, I'm going to shoot the shit out of this car.

Right?

So I can see it.

It's coming down the road.

The lights are off.

There's no lights on it.

So I'm thinking, oh, yeah, they're trying to be sneaky or something.

So I come out from the side of the sandbag and I kind of got it up.

Vehicle comes, it turns.

Dude, I got the slack coming out of this freaking

saw.

And I'm like, oh, that's going to be awesome.

And next thing I know, I see dude lean forward, ended up being de-boobin'.

State Department guy.

It's like, oh, you got to be kidding me.

I mean, how many people could blast a government vehicle and not get in trouble?

Dude, I was like, yeah.

So,

yeah.

So that didn't happen.

And then

they backed up.

I moved up, kind of followed them because I didn't know what the hell was going on.

I mean, no comms whatsoever going on.

And that's when I ended up linking up on the Roan.

He was standing up on the front porch and kind of talking with him.

And he's like, yeah, they don't know where the ambassador is.

And I kind of look over off to my right.

And there's a, they have one guy laying there.

And then Jack's kind of over the top, you know, kneeling down over him.

Look like he's trying to provide first aid.

And I go, you know, who that is?

Is it one of ours?

He says, I have no idea.

And I was like, well, hopefully it's one of theirs.

You know, and then like, kind of goes like, well, I guess we got to clear this area now.

And that was like the main villa area.

And I mean, it was huge inside.

So we kind of move in, pitch dark, hotter than, hotter than hell.

I mean, it was so freaking hot.

It's kind of like being

like just like a major bonfire but being right next to it the whole time that's i mean it was just intense heat um moved couldn't see anything you know flashlight made it even worse so you're just kind of going by feel i go in um i think three times i went in and out i don't know if i don't know if rowan ever came back out that many times but last time i went in i was like okay i'm just gonna because i had kind of the layout because i'd been there a few times already so i was like i just went to where i knew where the safe room door was.

It was kind of like the outer door was open, but the bars were closed.

And

I yelled for Chris

three, I think twice as loud as I could.

And actually somebody named Chris outside, I could hear where it's coming from.

He's like, oh, I'm out here.

That's not, you know, Stevens.

So I start moving back out.

I get out.

And, you know, just that shouting, you know, taking those breaths and shouting.

I took in so much freaking smoke.

So I'm hacking.

Then I hear Roan.

He's inside saying, I'm lost.

I can't find my way out.

I'm lost.

So I go back in and we just did a little Marco Polo thing and got him.

Then we kind of just moved out.

And they're still going in and out of the safe because when we come out, the safe room's like right here.

And

they're still kind of going in and out of that room.

And that's when...

Tonto gets on the radio and say, hey, we're getting ready to jump the back gate.

So myself and Ron, we moved from there over to

the road that separated the two compounds and started putting security up there.

Remember Ron coming up and said, hey, thanks.

I hope thanks for saving my life.

And I'm like, well,

I hope we can all make this out alive.

It was kind of like something like that.

Because initially, I didn't tell anybody about the Roan incident because to me, that was just

who would believe it anyways.

Well, I guess Ron ended up telling Oz about it because when I told the story to the author, he's like, well, what about this?

I was like, how the hell do you know about that?

So, but to me, it's like putting stuff in that to where it's only my word versus a guy who's not even here.

So I was just kind of like, well, I'm not putting that in there.

Yeah.

But anyways, so they end up jumping over.

But unfortunately, when,

no, nothing really major happened, but from it.

But the locals that went with Tonto and them didn't want to jump the back gate.

So they had Tonto open up the back gate.

Tonto said, hey, you you know, when you come in, close the back gate.

Well, they didn't.

So we went over there, cleared the other side, came back.

I started searching in the safe room.

Didn't really know the layout of the safe room whatsoever.

I kind of went in there a couple of times trying to get the blast, the blast shield things open so we can open up more windows to flood the smoke out so we can search easier.

Because honestly, I didn't even think we'd get a follow-on attack.

I figured that had been kind of hit.

Like, you know, again, thinking 17 Feb's going to show up.

The police are going to show up.

They're going to lock this place down, right?

He's had a U.S., he's had an embassy, regardless if it was U.S.

or not, but an embassy, a foreign embassy in your country just got attacked.

In my mind, you're going to shut this city down, right?

So I wasn't honestly wasn't thinking too much about a fall-on attack.

So went in a couple of times, kind of came back out.

Hush at the time.

I think it was like the third time I came back out.

Well, the first time I went in, I smashed my night vision goggles.

because, again, they're up here, not thinking about it, just trying to go into this window, freaking smashed, shattered them.

So, lost those, jacked my neck up, but came back out.

And he's kind of, you know, he get all the

State Department guys.

And they're gathering up, trying to figure out what they're going to do.

He's getting them in the vehicle.

He's kind of like, I get on the radio, say, hey, I'm going to go in one more time.

And he says, no, I'll just stand by, you know, I think because we're probably going to evacuate or something.

I just said, you know, fuck this.

You know, I took my helmet off, took my body armor off, grabbed my flashlight, put my weapon down.

Finally learned what I was taught in elementary school.

Get on your freaking belly.

Get on your belly if there's a fire.

It works.

I mean, I could see.

I mean, it wasn't, it was only like this much, but I could see pretty far.

I could see the other doors.

I crawled, went into out of that room, went into the bathroom, looked around the shower, the tub, looked into the other room,

looked under the bed, you know felt on top of the bed there was a couple cabinets open just in case they went into it the closet and then as i was coming out an rpg smacked the wall of the room i was in that was that was that was loud and that's what counted that started the uh the second attack on the consulate

and it was pretty much just kind of kiddie corner was just like the door was here the other safe room door where i was at was like over here So I just, you know, kind of got up and just ran that way, jumped out, put my gear back on.

Then I peeked around the corner to see where the fight was coming from and it was coming towards the back gate.

There's a ladder that went up to the roof, got up on the roof

and

just let the let everybody know, hey, I'm on the roof just in case something happened.

I got shot.

They don't have to go searching for me.

So I started moving to where the fire was coming from.

They all have like the three foot walls around the top, so it's pretty easy to move up.

As I came up, the guy who was shooting the RPG was coming, came back into the front of the gate and getting ready to launch.

I just did about a 10, 15 round volley of fire.

He drops and all the fire stopped.

Oz and who else got to see Oz and actually Hush said that I guess that volley of fire that I did nailed the RPG and actually did a whole ramble thing, went off in a 90-degree angle.

So that's how good a shot I am.

I can hit an RPG fly through the air.

So

that stops.

You know, everybody kind of starts coming up on the roof because we're still trying to figure out what we're going to do.

The State Department guys,

one thing that kind of irritated me was

while the attack started, Tonto went and got behind their vehicle for

protection, synop armored vehicle.

Well, they actually honked a horn so they can get him off the vehicle so they could take off.

So again, this is their compound.

They didn't even think of jumping out and helping us defend their compound.

They took off.

jeez so they leave they end up going the wrong way they got they got ambushed i mean they made it to our compound but it um you know they've got followed all the way to our compound

we're still there nobody still no no they didn't know if the ambassador was kidnapped i took off on foot no idea if he was still in the building so again we had no idea um

so we're just trying to figure out what we're going to do.

Then they got word from the drone that came overhead that there's about 100, 150 people moving towards us.

So again, we had like six of us and a linguist that looked like a turtle because of the, you know, the body armor and the helmet were just way too big for him.

And then two, three dozen unknown people with us.

Some in uniform, some not, some in shorts, some with guns, some with no guns.

It was just weird, man.

So it was just like one of those moments that, you know, they made the call, we got to go.

So we all get down.

We we loaded up Sean's body into our vehicle state department guys left him with us so we had Rome was driving it was hush

Jack the linguist Tonto myself

OD and Sean's body in the back so we go we pull out We go back the way we came in.

The other vehicle that we had, we had to leap.

We left it because the three of us went on foot.

So that vehicle got stayed.

But that's also where the grenade launcher was.

So if you watch the damn movie, I didn't lose a grenade launcher.

That was bullshit.

I knew exactly where it was.

But there was like, again, dozens, so people around the vehicle.

We had no idea who they were.

You know, they could have been part of the attack.

So instead of us breaking seal, potentially all getting killed right there, because they had, you know,

gun trucks with diskas mounted to them.

There's, you know, nothing we can do with that.

So we just kept going right on by them, like we're just neighbors.

So.

What's going through your head when they tell you 100 to 150 people are moving towards you it's like oh that's a lot of people

you know it's you're just like hoping they don't hit you i mean one thing i've learned though is like what i try to tell people is they're shooting at you you're probably not going to get hit it's the one it's the ones that's shooting at somebody else is the ones that's going to hit you Because I've really rarely seen them just kind of shoot like we do.

They kind of do the whole spray-pray thing.

So, yep, so we get back to our compound.

We dismount, and we get attacked probably within about an hour.

What's the discussion like when you get back to your compound?

Really wasn't.

It was just, we just dismounted and kind of went to pre-designated positions to defend the compound, you know, especially since they just came back and tried to hit us.

You know, well, they're coming back for a third time at the consulate.

So it's like, there's no way, this is going to be a long night.

So we just got out and we just kind of jack went.

Oz, he was already there.

So he had the State Department guys when he got there.

He put he put one on each of the buildings besides building one.

The two other guys, one of the guys got pretty jacked up from the smoke inhalation that was with the ambassador

and Sean Smith.

He's, you know, he made it out alive.

But then the other, I don't know why the other guy didn't come out.

But anyways, so there were.

three State Department guys up on the roofs.

We had four local guards and then we had two

SPOs with us as well.

So they were like, they did all the the gate stuff and uh the monitoring of the the cameras so they were kind of so the base was kind of secure for the most part um but we just kind of went and filled those gaps i went to tower two oz went to tower three row went to building three jack four

and od and um

tompton went to building two so we can kind of cover the zombie lands what we called it that's where we kind of figured because the other ones was just chuck points coming up that road i mean you didn't have to be in the front to really take care of that.

I mean, it's just really easy.

So,

but I end up moving from tower two to tower three.

And during this move, is when we got attacked, I was actually carrying water to Oz

when something came over the wall, probably exploded about 25 feet from me, something like that.

It was pretty close.

Didn't get hit by nothing, but dropped the water, kind of like trying to protect myself.

And I'm patting, you know, gunfire is going on, but I'm just adrenaline's rushing you and sometimes you don't get hit.

So I'm just checking myself, saying, Okay, I'm not hit.

Uh,

get up in there, you know, and just start returning fire.

Lasted, you know, felt like forever, but probably like five, ten minutes.

Um, you know, maybe 20-15 attackers, you know.

But unlike the movie, they had a lot of

concealment.

So, a lot of times you can only see the flashing because they're just again, they're just shooting through shrubs, they're not like in front of it, they're behind it.

So,

um, even the night vision, you couldn't, you couldn't see them.

So, you know, we didn't have the cool infrared crap, just night vision.

But

then repelled that one.

And that was probably about,

I think they said like 1.30 in the morning or something like that, 1, 1.30.

That's about the time they found the ambassador's body.

He was inside the consulate in his room is where they found him.

And the locals didn't know who he was, but

a neighbor was there when he saw him.

He actually grabbed him.

And I got to see the actual

camera footage from a cell phone.

You can see it in his eyes.

He was already gone.

He wasn't alive.

But from the moment he grabbed the ambassador, dragged him up, threw him in his car, took him to hospital.

You know, pretty much the camera was just almost on his face the whole time.

I mean, it was moving around, but yeah, you know, that whole, there's a lot of things that people said, you know, that he was raped, mutilated, and tortured.

That never happened to him.

That's all bullshit.

None of that stuff ever happened.

That's one of another thing that kind of forced us into the book because that stuff never got corrected.

So

anyway, so they found him about that time, but it wasn't verified until about three in the morning that it was actually him when we got the pictures of him in the video.

So

as we're sitting there, we heard that the team from Tripoli had just landed at the airport, but the militia that was supposed to show up didn't show up yet.

And this is when we got the second attack.

It's about three in the morning now.

Same type of attack, but RPG started, come over the back of the wall.

There was a car that actually pulled up.

Yeah, I wasn't in the tower.

I was actually talking with the TL

at the time.

And because what I was trying to do, because they

had everybody else kind of go into the rooms and getting their personal belongings.

So I was like, if we're going to evacuate, we need to get our own stuff.

So I went and got my stuff.

And I was kind of talking with the TL at the time.

And that's when I knew about the ambassador and all that stuff.

And that's, and then a car somehow got towards the back gate where the jersey berries were.

So it couldn't get to us.

It was about 50 yards or something like that.

Dude gets out.

Oz sees him.

He goes to go throw something.

Oz drops him.

And that's when the RPG flies over.

And I head back over to the tower, engage.

That's when I end up getting some guys moved around from the, they flanked us.

That's the only maneuver they did.

And so I ended up getting shot in the side.

Plate stopped it.

Still hurts.

Let me tell you, it still hurts.

Now, unlike the movie,

I didn't lay down and sit there for five minutes like a little baby.

You know, I kind of buckled me, put my hand up underneath, making sure I didn't fill a hole.

I mean, it was wet because I'm freaking sweating.

I didn't feel no hole, but it hurt.

It felt like I was still shot.

Didn't fill a hole, and I just got back in it.

Then

ended up checking myself after,

you know, after it was done, making sure I wasn't actually shot.

but

um and that firefight probably lasted a little bit longer it was probably double the double the guys that showed up uh but i think tonto and od and even the camera guys said they they could see them you know some dudes crawling on their hands some people getting dragged out so we were hitting them

um

but and it was pretty pretty quiet them the the team from tripoli um the militia showed up Tonto moved from building two over to building one to guide them in.

And that's where the whole laser, weird, you know, I lasered two guys, but it wasn't to

identify them as targets.

It was to let them know that they were my target.

If they keep coming closer, I'm going to shoot you.

And then Tanto used it because that was actually, that was just a live laser.

It was let them know, like, you need to walk in this way because they had no guns.

But we had

the sheep herders.

They were still coming.

Dude, it was weird.

They were still coming, showing up and herding the damn sheep.

Are you serious?

Dude, it was so weird.

while all this is going on

man

yeah i know so but anyway so tompton moved up he did the lasso thing so they can kind of they had our coordinates but just to guide them in a little bit better so he's just lassoing him in with the ir so that's where that whole i we're lasering targets no we weren't anyways

so they come in they get there um

they go in the team from tripoli and the militia commander go into the compound and go to the you know inside the command post why they let this militia guy in there, I don't know.

But anyways,

then Bub, you know, he knew that Ron was there.

And I guess they worked in the teams together and stuff like that.

He said, hey, you know, where he's at.

And, you know, so he went up.

Ron was there introducing him to

Dave Ubin and Oz and kind of, I guess, explained what was going on when

what I heard

was sounded like a mortar going off.

It's kind of like that.

You know, it's kind of hard to explain, people.

When you're next next to it, it's really loud.

When you're not, you can kind of tell what it is, especially when you're in infantry, you do a lot of mortars.

And I get on, I'm getting ready to click the radio.

When Tomto gets on, it beats me to it.

Hey, I think I just heard a mortar.

Anyone wants to hear that?

And I key the radio and said, yeah, and that's when the round, the round hits.

And it hit probably, you know, 25, I would say, yards west and 20, 25 yards north from Building C.

Small arms fire opened up, same time, and then then those guys opened up so i just kind of look and i see the explosion so i go back to my area just in case he's getting you're waiting for more attacks like just you know you got to trust the guys they they trust me to watch that side so then i hear another one going off don't ask me how i can hear these things but that one comes in it hits

kind of tags the top of the wall, but blows up on the other side.

So, you know, I'm looking at the explosion.

That ended up taking out Dave Ubin because he had taken his helmet off and he got a bunch of shrapnel through the forehead.

So that dropped him.

Then I heard another round going off.

And to me, from my angle, that one hits here.

That one hits here.

I'm thinking because they want to come to this area.

They're trying to take out the tower.

So I jump out of the tower and I start moving back to what we call the prison gym.

And the round comes and it hits the top of the building.

And I guess two more hit right behind it.

And, you know, everything just goes quiet.

So I'm looking at the building.

I'm like, holy shit.

So I get on the radio immediately.

Say, hey, you guys up on building three.

You guys okay?

Hush gets on the radio and says, yeah, we're okay in here.

I'm like, you shut the fuck up.

I'm talking about the guys on top of the building.

Jack gets on the radio.

He's over on building four, which is closest to building three.

He's, hey, Tig, I got no movement.

I can't see anybody moving.

So I start sprinting over there.

Start going up the ladder.

Again, with the small arms, you know, the wall, you know, it doesn't go all the way up.

So as I start getting the crest of the wall, I'm checking my six and you know, as much as I can to still go fast.

And then I just kind of jump over

over here on the left-hand side is one guy.

He's got his pistol out.

So I start talking to him immediately.

Say, you know, what I, you know, say, hey, man, you're going to be okay.

You know, say calm, I got you, I got you.

Actually, I ended up having Oz's go bag instead of mine

because mine got left in the vehicle over at the consulate.

I didn't lose that either.

It got left in the vehicle.

So I started going through Oz's stuff, trying to figure out where his tourniquets are and stuff like that.

Because

Jack,

Ubin, his left leg, left arm almost completely several off.

I mean, it was just shredded.

So if you actually watch the movie and they show Oz's arm and stuff, that's what Dave Ubin's leg and arm looked like.

It was just shredded.

I go for his leg first, start getting it on, you know, and then

before I started this, I got on the radio and said, hey guys, I need, I got men down, I need help up here.

Then I started going to work finding things and got the tourniquet on him.

I got the second tourniquet on.

I'm trying to look him over.

It's still dark out, and it's just kind of like the blue light kind of a thing, so it's not light enough to really see, but you can kind of see shadows.

So I'm trying to look at him as close as I can without busting the flashlight out because

Those are pretty accurate freaking mortars.

So there's got to be a spotter somewhere.

So for God, it's again a spotter is somebody who sees what we call a splash, which is the impact.

And then they tell the mortar team how to adjust.

So that's what I was afraid of.

So they see movement, they're going to relaunch them or something.

So I have no idea why they stopped.

So I look them over as best I can.

I said, all right,

right now it's the best I can do.

Cause I know there's dudes with other stuff that's got to be blown up.

And I grab my stuff, get on the radio, say, hey, I got guys down.

I need help.

I go to turn.

That's when Dave said, hey, give me back my gun.

I'm thinking, oh, fuck.

You know, you always, you know, you're always taught, you know, don't give somebody back, especially when they're, give back their gun when their bell's been rung that bad.

But

I also thought, you know, it might help keep him calm and stop him, give him something else to think about besides going into shock.

So I just unloaded it, you know, took the mag out, racked the round out, and just handed it back to him.

I doubt he realized I did it because, you know, still dark.

I mean, I had my back turned towards him.

But to me, again, it was just that try to keep him calm kind of a thing.

So I got got up started moving across there's one guy just laying flat in the middle of the building not moving um

keep moving uh there's like a we had a little water tower thing the water i mean you can just hear it flowing i didn't know what it was at first but i could see somebody kind of laying against the wall moving somebody else was laying down in the fetal position but you know it's gonna went straight to the guy that was moving ended up being oz um he's just kind of sitting there i think he saw me coming and he had his tourniquet out i think he was starting to do it for himself but i think he saw him him.

He's like, I got, you know, he'll, I'll just let him put it on.

Oz is kind of lazy.

I mean, you interviewed him.

You kind of know.

So he's just kind of, you know, just like bouncing his wrist up and down.

He's like, hey, Tig, check this out.

Like, literally, I mean, it's kind of limp.

You know, it's pretty jacked up, but he's just like, hey, I think it's messed up.

I'm like, yeah.

Quit playing with it.

You're going to make it even worse, man.

Stop.

And he's like, yeah, but look, you know, it was just, it was just one of those moments.

And I ended up just

last time, get on the radio, said, I got guys down.

I need help.

And that's when OD gets on the radio, says, hey, if nobody's

going to go over there and help, I'm going to get off this damn roof and do it myself.

That's when I hear Hush get on the radio again and says, no, just stay where you're at.

We're on our way.

Not that they're coming up.

I guess they're just now leaving the building.

So I get the tourniquet on Oz.

I get him up, say, hey, can you walk?

to the ladder by yourself.

And he's kind of like, you know, he's seeing Rowan kind of right there next to him.

He's like, well, I guess I got no choice.

And so I kind of guide him a little bit just to make sure he didn't like

collapse, I guess, you know, because, you know, they got to be,

that brain's got to be wrong pretty bad.

So he moves on.

He was able to walk.

I go over to the third guy, which ended up being Roan.

Flipped him over onto his back, checked for a pulse.

Never got a pulse, but his throat moved.

So, you know, for me, adrenaline could have been pumping.

I don't really know.

So I kind of sat for a second, another second, didn't feel anything uh ripped off his body armor lifted up his shirt you know try to you know do a look listen feel again couldn't really see too much but i was at least trying to see if i can hear or feel a breath couldn't feel anything and that's at that point when i was like okay i got to break out the flashlight got the flashlight checked his pupils no dilation so right there i kind of knew he was gone um and then with uh oz He was just going down the ladder.

One of the Delta Force guys was just up there.

And I was like, Oz is going to go down there.

They're going to start screaming because Ron was our arlimatic on the base.

So I just got on the radio and said, hey, everybody, Ron's gone.

Went over to the fourth individual.

Again, rolled him over.

And initially, when I saw him, again, it was still kind of dark.

I thought it was Jack.

Like, the process of everything really quick, but I'm like, oh, wait a second.

Now,

I can, because I was just talking to Jack.

He's over on that building.

So, but did the same process to him?

Uh, did a pulse check, look, listen, feel, people dilation.

There was nothing.

But this time, after I'd finished this, I could hear,

I don't know if it was a team leader or it was the country team leader, but they're like, hey, we got to hurry up and get off the building.

We got to hurry up and get down.

So, this time, you know, the whole time I've been up there, there was no fire, you know, no shooting going on, no, nothing.

In my mind, though, I'm just like, at this point,

there's no rush.

Mortar keep coming in, we're all dead.

These buildings are not designed to handle freaking mortar strikes.

And, you know, it was by the grace of God that that building even stood by getting, it was 381 millimeter mortars, they say, got hit by.

I mean, that's, that's insane.

But

where it hit was directly because the walls over there, they were like, you know, about a foot and a half concrete walls.

And that's where the mortars hit right in a row on those walls.

I think that's the only reason why it stood.

Wow.

So

I went over, you know, again, they're like, hurry up, we need to get off.

I saw them.

They kind of, they had Dave Ubin, you know, the Delta Force guys.

And again, about the only thing they really did was they built the backpack, kind of human backpack to get Dave Ubin off the roof.

So they got him down, and I'm just collecting the weapon systems.

I'm going over, went over to Roan,

and grabbed his guns, checking his pockets for like wallet or anything, just in case we had to leave him, because it may have happened, right?

So then, you know, before I left, I knelt down, said a prayer over him,

went over to

Bub at the time.

Again,

didn't know who the hell he was, never worked with him.

But again, same thing, checking his pocket, checking for wallets, case, wedding ring, and didn't know, trying to check as much gear as I could.

Said the prayer over him.

Then I got down.

At this time, they're just getting a stretcher around for Dave Ubin.

So I go in, I drop all the weapons off.

I go back.

Ozzy, they got him laying on the ground, so I'm stepping over him.

They're cutting his clothes off.

I go straight to the back, which ended up being our

medical room.

I guess it was the kitchen, but it was our medical room.

And I'm trying to open up the blast doors.

That way they could bring him in through the back versus the front because he was jacked up, you know,

avoid the staffers from seeing it, I guess, from seeing him.

Couldn't get the doors open and got up like a fraction of the way.

And it was just too, I mean, that those mortars jacked it up.

So I go and I just grab three four more tourniquets and I got my pocket put them in the backpack start walking back around

and

two other GRS guys actually end up having Dave Ubin and they're walking in front and passing by the two Delta Force guys again at the time I didn't know I knew I thought they were just GRS guys they're like hey where are you going I said I'm gonna go back towards the tower and watch that sector and they're like oh you can't do that too dangerous I'm like what the fuck you mean I can't do that?

I've been up there all fucking night.

It's not too.

So we're like having a shouting match.

That's when the country team leader comes out.

He's like, what the hell's going on?

He's like, I need to go over there and watch the fucking sector because it's unprotected.

And Delta Force guy's like, oh, it's too dangerous.

You can't go over there.

He's like, fuck this.

This is stupid.

And then that's when the team leader just said, just go right here.

Just, you know, just stand by right here.

I'm just like, again, I got, you know, walls higher than the ceiling in here.

I'm like, going, this whole freaking area now is completely fucking unprotected.

When did the Delta Force guys show up?

Just before the mortars hit.

How did they get there?

With the team from Tripoli.

So,

yeah, so anyway, so we're just kind of, I'm just, again, like, this is fucking stupid.

I mean, this is the dumbest security position ever because people would be literally sneaking up to our wall right now and coming in.

We wouldn't even know it.

All of our cameras got shot out in that whole corner.

All of our lights got shot out.

So it's completely unprotected.

You know,

Boone might be able to see some of it over there, but again, you still had a bunch of shrub.

You had a bunch of, again, sheep pens.

They could be sneaking up on us and all kinds of shit.

It's just like, this is so stupid.

But then I think one of the

case offers, case officers got a hold of another unit that was down there.

And they had about 300 strong, gun trucks, all that stuff.

They showed up,

again, I think 7.38 in the the morning something like that and that's when the and i'm again i'm just standing there like this is so freaking stupid and the two delta force guys come back said hey we got to get the guys off the roof and i'm like okay we you know there's a we got a toe strap that we use to pull the tires and as we're walking telling them we can i can go get it we can lower them down like oh don't worry about it we got this so we just need you to come and pull security for us so I go and I start going up the ladder.

Post security, right?

Like, no, what are you doing?

Just stay down here and wait.

so how do you want me to post security for you while you're up on the roof while i'm down here and i got a wall that's like 10 feet from me this is again this is like this is stupid so they're up on the ladder and i'm just kind of sitting there again like this is so freaking dumb and in my mind i'm thinking okay they're gonna you know probably do the whole back backpack thing, you know, bring the guys down because we got time.

Now we have, we have like three, 300-man militia surrounding our our compound.

They got gun trucks.

They're in uniform.

They're very well organized, very well structured.

So, you know, again, we had time.

They lower them down.

And next thing I know, as I'm sitting here, I'm getting up.

I'm looking this way, back this way.

Again, it's another like a shed.

So all I can really do is look forward.

But even in front of me, I got a big ass generator house.

So I really can't see shit.

And next thing I know, I see a body get put up on top of the ledge.

And, you know, I'm still probably, I don't know, a good three feet, you know, from the outside of the ledge.

And next thing I know, they just push him off.

He comes down right next to me, smacks.

I can hear the shoulder crunch.

His head hit.

And then you can see where he ran into the, because we had like

really thick kind of rose bushes, kind of sliced his stomach open a little bit and added up being bubb.

And I'm just like, holy shit, I can't, they just did this.

And then, you know, I'm still standing there and I go, I know it's fucking coming next.

You know, the first one was kind of a shock.

The other one was just fucking miserable.

And again, you just hear him come down, smack, you know,

you can hear the shoulder hit, and then the head hits.

And again, in my mind, at least try to lower them down by their hands, something, let them drop, but just to shove them off like that was fucking disgusting.

And then, you know, what they told

Roan's wife and everybody's family was, oh, we got them off respectfully.

That's not respect.

That was

that was a fucking disgrace.

You know,

there's nothing you could do about it.

It was done.

So

a couple of the guys came around.

I ended up grabbing

Bub's arms and one of the URS guy grabbed his

legs, carried him around, got him up on the bed.

And I know the, well, we go back to a little bit more because about the fight that we had sitting there.

They're saying that I lied about what they did.

They're saying, again, they're trying to tell everybody that they got him off

dignified and all that crap.

They're trying to say that the Delta Force, I hate bashing on guys, kind of like those dudes.

They got that kind of started this whole thing again.

But

they got an award saying they went up on the the roof under fire and all this shit.

There was no fire.

I was the first one up on the damn roof.

You got an award for that?

They got the second highest award, both of them.

Second highest.

For going up on a roof.

Yep.

And getting Dave Ubin off.

That's all they did.

And throwing Ronan Bubb off.

You know, so when they came out and started attacking me saying we lied about that, that I lied about it.

Oh, I was pissed.

So I started going through all the congressional reports.

Well, there's actually another eyewitness proving that they threw the bodies off the roof in that report because he saw it through the back, through the back door.

He talks about it in Congress.

And so now they're actually trying to up, they're trying to get upgraded to the Medal of Honor as well.

They're trying to upgrade that to the Medal of Honor?

Yep.

For showing up late.

And in,

again, reading through his

congressional report, they waited two to three minutes after the mortars hit to to even come out.

Dude, I was up on that fucking roof in like 30 seconds.

So, anyways, so if you guys, yeah, there was a whole fight.

I mean, you know about that big fight, and I was pissed.

I was going off.

They're trying to slander, saying that, you know, anyways, so

just get them, get him up on, and then me and Jack were supposed to be the drivers for the flatbed.

Well,

he kind of came obviously he heard about rome but again he didn't know anything about bub either and i guess he worked with bub in the teams he was on they were on the same team together and he saw him and i just saw him go white he was just kind of like holy

so he kind of got in the driver's seat and just kind of sat there and i looked he's like dude you want me to drive he's like yeah so we kind of swapped

um

We covered up we covered them up with sheets the best we could

so

we end up going out.

Everybody else is like, they're all in these sedans and shit, all these fast freaking vehicles.

And we got this hodgy flatbed two mile an hour truck and we're fucking just trying.

I'm trying to drive this damn thing.

You know, we went the long route.

We went through the city, which ended up being 13 miles.

But I just remember the militia

coming up next to us like on the main highway.

They're like, Like the cars were gone.

We're like back.

Me and Jack are just back by ourselves with two militia trucks.

And I'm like, I'm going as fast as I could in this damn thing.

You know, so I'm just like, fuck, we're going to get hit going to the M airport.

So

we finally catch up while they were still sitting at the gate trying to get in.

Well, the militia controlling the airport didn't like the militia that was escorting us.

A lot of people don't understand is that militia that showed up that kind of, that actually rescued us from that attack in the compound was Gaddafi's military.

So they didn't even know, again, our Intel service didn't even know they were there.

Had no idea.

Jeez.

So we get it, we finally get in there.

We pull up to the, you know, the bird that Bub had come down in on, and

State Department guys start loading all their

equipment that they pulled out of the consulate, start getting loaded up.

Actually, I went on the bird and I took my body armor because my side was killing me.

Just kind of took it off.

Came back, so I thought we're all going to get on this bird.

bird and uh

end up well i did it so my body armor left with without me

so again one of those other things i'll never do again but so we get everybody on all the non-essentials and

oz

he he kind of gets

he was uh being uh

i think he might have the picture of it i think i found it at one point anyways he's in the back of the truck laying down kind of bandaged up a little bit i think one of the militiamens took it took a picture of it.

But anyways, so very expensive jet, very nice jet.

It had a stewardess, very nice cabinets.

And so when Oz starts walking up to get up onto the plane, you know, she's standing there and just kind of looking at him and just eyes get wide.

Next you know, she takes off.

You know, I'm kind of standing with Oz.

I'm just kind of like, yeah, I don't know what's going on, you know.

I kind of, I turned and started doing something else.

I guess Oz, because he was going up on the, he was just kind of going up there.

And what happened?

She was, she ran to the back to get a bunch of towels to come up.

Oz, you know, he tells her, he's like, well, I thought she, you know, okay, I've still got, you know, a bunch of pot marks all over.

I'm bleeding kind of all over these little holes.

And

he's kind of thinking like, okay, he's going to wrap him up and cover him up.

Nope, she started covering up all the seats and the floor and stuff with all these towels.

So he went and dripped blood everywhere.

So

Oz is kind of like, well, if you think I'm bad, just wait till the next guy comes on.

They end up having to rip the cabinets out of this plane so they can get Dave Ubin in.

Because, again, he's on the stretcher and stuff.

So they end up getting him in, getting him on the plane.

They bolt the plane up.

About five minutes later, the door comes flying back open.

Dude, the pilot jumps out.

He's running all over the bottom of the plane.

We're just like, what the hell's going on?

Well, you know, everybody that works in a high-threat environment has to qualify with a pistol.

You know, they got to carry a gun, right?

Doesn't mean they're technically qualified.

Well, the maintenance guy pulled the trigger while he was on the plane, fired the gun.

So now they're looking for this bullet.

But as the pilots out there looking for it, they found it.

It actually, right where the seat post is, it hit right there and just stopped.

What is that gap like this?

The bullet would have went left or right.

It would have never took off.

And they said that when they finally got up the Tripoli, that if Dave Uvin would have been another 10, 15 minutes, he'd have been dead.

It's because of so much blood loss.

They couldn't stop the bleeding.

Because, again, stopped a lot with the arm.

I think they ended up adding another tourniquet to his arm because it wouldn't stop.

But then he just had, again, he was just blistered all over the place.

So

again, one of those God things, man.

So we stayed back.

We had the two Delta Force guys with us, a country team leader, our team leader,

a linguist,

Jack,

Tonto, OD,

and one State Department guy.

Yeah, so there's nine of us that stayed back.

So as we're sitting there, the plane had taken off,

you know, then the militia, they started coming over.

They wanted the, you know, what are we going to do with the vehicles?

We started divving out the vehicles.

And I'm looking at the back of the bed and I'm like, I thought there was three guys.

You know, we got our two guys.

Where's the other guy at?

And I started looking and

I'm thinking, holy shit, they left Sean's body in the fucking car.

So I see the SUV starting to pull away and I'm just fucking running for this SUV.

And

the blonde Air Delta guy,

I think that was the Marine.

And he's just like, dude, this Sean, help me get Sean's body.

So we had to start, you know, luckily I stopped him.

Otherwise, we'd have not had Sean's body with us.

So ended up getting Sean's body, grabbed it.

You got it?

Yeah.

He ended up getting it out and getting it onto the flatbed.

Again, I don't know why.

Again, it's just like we're doing an old State Department's job, you know.

But luckily, I was in the mind to actually like think.

Otherwise, who knows what happened?

So

after the vehicles left, the commander came up from

that militia and said, hey, we can go get your, we can go and recover the ambassador's body.

They had the numbers and they had the firepower because at the time it was Ansara Sarias

that

was actually commandeering that hospital because that's where we were sending him to.

So the militia commander, he went,

took him about 45 minutes or so, came back.

We stopped the vehicle, you know, kind of away from us, myself, that same Delta force guy and Tanto walked up, you know, looked the ambassador over, just looked up the shirt, just make sure there was no incisions or anything like that.

So again, that's how I know for a fact he wasn't tortured or mutilated.

And, you know, he wasn't raped.

So he still, you know, said, oh, his belt buckle was over.

well yeah I mean surprised the belt buckle was not backwards who knows I mean shit happens in combat but you know again I went over that morning and saw him and he was wearing the exact same suit you know he had the same suit pants and you know he had the white undershirt so he never even had it he never even got out of his work clothes

so

we brought him over got him onto the flatbed and then that's when you know I don't know about 10 o'clock that that morning a Libyan C-130 C-130 landed, pulled off to the side.

The team leader and the country team leader and the linguist went over there and

I guess talked them into flying us out of there.

Because at the time, we had no idea.

We had no idea if we're going to have to drive up or wait here.

That bird's going to turn around and come back and pick us up.

Nobody really knew.

So

one thing was funny.

Dude, the airport was open.

So we're sitting out there.

We got belt feds.

You know, we kind of, I still had you know the our guns were there just not my body armor you know the airport planes are landing we're just kind of sitting out there big militia groups standing out there people are just kind of looking out it's just it was just so real man just like holy like going on like that's life man

so we take off um

We land in, I think it was like taking off, that's when everything started hitting me.

Kind of like, okay, we're kind of safe.

You know, and then to me, it was just replaying them getting thrown off the roof over and and over and that's what fucked me up

um yeah i talked to

tanto and oz about it and they said that that really really

haunts you yeah

so yeah we landed um got them off and then that's when the you know when we put them on the on the plane you know we had their arms so their arms are kind of sucked i think tanto talks about it we had to snap them to get them to lay down to put them in the body bags and stuff it's just one of those things you're not really thinking about at the time, honestly, the rig of mortars.

And so that, that, you know,

that was pretty shitty, but, you know, at least we got him home.

There's a lot of guys that didn't make it back home.

So

then we get to

the annex, the CIA compound, and we pull in.

Dude, just the road is just lined with luggage.

I'm just like, what the fuck is going on?

Well, they pulled everybody from the embassy and told them all to pack up so all their luggage was outside waiting to get evacuated

so we go in we get debriefed we tell them you know our side what happened

all this crap and uh

you know to me i didn't i didn't really talk about the standout order because that was just more of an internal thing anyways you know but the more you know about things you're just like you motherfucker but anyways so we go back and we kind of we go we get a little bit of lunch um take a little little nap and i think uh that's when hush kind of came around got us, and said, Hey, you guys are going to evacuate.

We're like, Why?

Just fucking stay here.

Now they're going to send you guys back home.

Makes no fucking sense.

We'd be better off standing here just in case something happens, protecting the compound, you know.

Like, okay, whatever.

So we ended up borrowing because, dude, my shit was all tore up, blood everywhere.

So I ended up borrowing clothes from everybody else.

And

get there, we get flown into Tripoli.

Here's what I want to tell you.

We get flown into Tripoli, Tripoli.

General Ham was there.

He greets us off the bird.

And we go in.

USO is there.

They have, you know, all kinds of stuff for us, right?

But we got the whole entire embassy, which, I don't know, like 100-something freaking people.

And

remember,

they had all their stuff.

But we didn't even have our backpacks.

We didn't have time to grab it.

So we ain't got shit except for the clothes that we're wearing.

And they, you know, they start, you know, because I guess they didn't want to let people know who we were or anything like that.

Even the State Department guys that were, they were kind of sitting with us, not even with the State Department.

And, you know, they said, okay, come up, you know, grab the stuff that you need, you know, and, you know, just take what you need.

Dude, by the time the guys were actually in Benghazi, everything was gone.

All the embassy staffers fucking took everything.

Clothes, socks, underwear, toiletry,

everything was gone.

And when we walk up, you you could tell, like, oh, you guys are the ones that were down there, huh?

Like, yeah.

So they end up giving us, like, each of like of us, like, $500

credit cards, you know, but that wasn't the point.

It was like, holy, you guys got all your shit.

And they literally took, I mean, pants, socks, underwear, shoes.

They fucking took it all.

It was like, you motherfuckers.

That's the State Department for you, though.

So we wake up,

the State Department security guys, they were pretty much ordered to go talk to the FBI.

We were asked if we wanted to go talk to the FBI.

And to us, why?

There was no, for us, I mean, it was an attack on a, it is what it is.

I mean, it was an attack.

How is this an FBI investigation?

We're in a

high-threatened environment, not really technically a war zone, but it's a war zone.

What's the FBI going to do?

So we never talked to the FBI there.

They kept us there until after they brought the guys home.

The moment the ceremony was over with, they came down and said, you guys can go home, but you got to buy your own ticket.

So

we were able to finally leave the following day.

Flew to DC, stayed there for about three days, debriefed twice, saw the medical because my lungs were just cooked from the smoke and the fire.

And I think it was about a week after that when I was able to finally go home.

So it was about a total week before I actually made it home home.

So

that's the story.

How were you greeted at HQ?

Pretty good.

I mean, yeah,

it was a pretty good greeting at that time.

And they were showing us around.

I think they had,

no, not at that time.

That was the second time I came back.

I mean, I had no negativity.

really from them until I think

until Tanto started the rumors about him doing a a book, him and Ox.

That's when it kind of, the treatment got a little bit different, but I wasn't part of it initially.

I didn't even know they were doing it, but because I went back two more times.

So, I mean, it was,

you know, you do it for long enough.

There's a lot of little scrapples you kind of get involved with.

It's just, that's the one that everybody knows about.

So.

So.

Did these Zelta guys, did they see

it was over when they showed up?

Yeah.

Was it all the way over?

I mean, they were there when the mortars hit, but that was it.

They didn't come out.

They didn't shoot a gun.

They didn't fire.

They were never out in the open under fire.

Nothing.

And

they got the second highest award.

Yep.

For Army and Marines.

What is the Navy Star, I think, or something like that?

Navy Cross?

Navy Cross.

Yeah.

And they're going to be upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

Yep, I read it.

Yeah, they're trying to get upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

Which to me is just a slap in the face.

It's a disgrace to that award.

So I'm doing my best to fight it.

But again, it's you can only, I mean, I've even told a couple of the Medal of Honor recipients, it's like, this is bull, it degrades what the purpose of it is.

What do they say?

They can't really do anything.

It's up to some committee and crap, which again, you try to get a hold of, try to email, nothing.

so

and it goes like like if those if those guys get that award i don't know be able to look at a men of honor the same way ever again because i'll be thinking the same thing like you didn't earn that

and people came after you for this

yeah i mean i had uh the other

the other delta force podcast came at me um some other journalist that uh does fox news came at me for it,

saying that we lied

because they're saying the Delta Force guys are saying that I lied, that they got him down respectfully.

They were up on the roof under fire, all this horse shit.

Again, I was up there.

I was going to a third individual, put on two tourniquets, looked one over, putting on another tourniquet, look one over, getting him up, moving him, going to the third individual before anybody got up on the roof.

So, I mean, that was up there for a while.

Have they stopped coming after you?

I haven't heard anything yet, but I mean, they could just have blocked me again.

I only saw it like last, it was again, it was on Fox News.

I was scrolling through it

saying that we fabricated the book.

The book was full.

I was like, what the hell is this?

And that's what I read: a Delta Force guy saying this and this.

And I was like, oh, hell no.

So I kind of of went in,

went at them.

And, you know, they're trying to say, you know, we put this out there.

Nobody reached out.

Well, actually, they talked about on the show how Boone's team,

and they laughed it off.

All that he tried to reach out.

And again, it was just a bunch of horseshit.

All they do is try to tear guys down.

I mean,

and

you know, you got other operators trying to tear other operators apart, which is horseshit.

In my opinion, you know, if somebody does, says, over-exaggerate something, I don't really care.

You know, but again, if you're going to sit there and tell me that I lied about it, I'm going to have a big problem with it.

And so, again, I went through, that's a lot of congressional hearing stuff to read through.

Again, found his statement contradicts what he says, even in his own freaking citation that he was given.

But

what he testifies in Congress contradicts his own citation.

And then this other guy, again, he says, why contact

the Special Forces Operations Command within 24 hours and he said no his awards are good no they nobody's gonna get back to you that fast period

who is that uh that uh the new i forgot what the guy's name is he's like the big us i guess he does more sports crap but he's buddy buddies with the delta force guys that do do that podcast

This is the anti-hero podcast.

Yeah, but it's the other guy that they use, I think, too.

Also,

this is some kind of big podcaster as well.

I can't remember his guy's name, but

so far,

when I did my whole, like, I did a whole video on it and stuff, even Roan's mom got a hold of me because she heard about it.

She's all hell now.

Because she did her own investigation into shit.

So she knows the truth.

Because I told her.

And they were telling her that they got Roan off respectfully.

So when I went, when we got a fake award from the agency, they came up to me and they're like, hey, hey, you know, you remember when we were under fire up on the roof?

No.

They tried to tell you that

they tried to basically manipulate you into saying that they were under fire

on the rooftop.

Yeah, and then Rowan's wife wanted to talk to me, but I couldn't talk to her at that time because

I was still dealing with them getting fucking tossed off the damn roof.

How am I going to tell the wife that?

But I guess they had already told her that they got him off respectfully.

Who are these guys?

Do you have their names?

I don't write off the head.

Their awards are public.

So

it's disgusting.

So, but you know, we did get a really good coffee coaster award from the agency.

What?

A coffee coaster.

We got an award that's probably about as big as this, maybe, maybe bigger.

They gave it to the cook and the maintenance guy and the staffers, too.

You know, with this podcast coming out about all these guys, I mean, there's, it's fucking, it's tricky, you know, and

one of them that just got hammered,

I mean, he came in here and

over-embellished, lied about his entire fucking service record.

And I think that's disgusting.

And

it takes away

from people like you

and every every other person that's come in here and sat across me and documented their service, what they were a part of, historic events like Benghazi.

And that takes away from the story.

And I can appreciate that.

You know, at the same time,

if you don't have your fucking facts straight,

people commit suicide over this shit.

No.

They commit suicide over this shit.

It's crazy.

And it is.

destroying lives.

Yeah, it destroys the whole community.

It does a lot of damage.

Again.

And at the same time,

some of the records needed to be set straight.

No, I agree.

But to go out and

be very

fucking careful

when you broach

these type of topics because if you do it wrong it's yeah you are the fucking problem yep kind of like what they did to me

do you have anything to say to them no i think i've kind of already have and i'm they're like well you can come on the podcast like why would i come on to your podcast when you couldn't have the balls to reach out to me initially and ask they didn't even reach out to you no none of neither none of them did

I'm easy to get a hold of.

I'm pretty much a public figure.

So for them to have an excuse, so we couldn't bullshit.

They did this.

They did this.

So I don't think I

saw what they did until like April and they did it like in November of last year.

I had no idea until I saw that guy's report on Fox News.

Why do you think the journalists targeted you?

Where did this stem from?

So I went after him.

Because he again he slandered me and on Fox News.

So I came after him.

And then that's when the

other podcast popped in.

And so I was actually doing them both at the same time.

I'm very,

I won't, yeah, I won't back down.

I really don't care.

Good for you.

So I went at him.

Yeah.

And I, you know, obviously their community came at me and I was fired right back.

Fuck you.

Who's their community?

Well, whoever watches the podcast.

Yeah, there's some other people or what?

Other Delta Force guys that came at me.

And again, I kind of threw their whole, the whole model motto back at them and, you know, forgot exactly what their motto is.

But then some other guys, like, well, you can't be using that.

You're not this.

Like, I'm not saying I'm not.

That's their motto.

It's like, you know, their own motto is like, you know, don't go after your own brothers.

But what are they?

That's their whole podcast.

So, but yeah, there are some other people in their community.

Not a lot, but again,

whatever.

I'll stand.

I know where I stand.

Good for you, man.

why do you think these guys are chasing this award anyways

most both guys i don't know again i didn't know they even had the second highest award until this i had no idea what they got like whatever

what does it claim in the award um

they were they rendered aid under fire

and The biggest one, again, they rendered aid under fire and they escorted unarmed civilians to safety.

Both of those, that's all a lie.

They didn't render aid under fire.

Yeah, they rendered aid, but they never even escorted any, all of us were armed.

I mean, we're all agency personnel and State Department in a high-threat environment.

Every one of us were armed.

But for me, I mean, it's the whole rendering aid under fire crap.

No, he didn't.

Because even if he rendered aid afterwards, it definitely wasn't under fire.

And all three of you guys have the same story because I talked to all three about it.

Well, again, if you read the book, how we did the book, none of us ever talked to each other.

That's the thing about that book.

We never talked to each other.

We never discussed anything, never had a chance to, because I went back to work.

I think maybe Oz and Tonto did, but even then, I don't know how much they would have.

So when I said, yeah, I'll finally do it.

The authors, what he wanted us to do is just tape record what we saw, what we did, and send it to him.

Again, Jack is over here.

Tontos, again, I've never again, I never talked to Jack, Tonto, or O.D.

until after I sent my recordings in for the book.

So what he did, he took all our recordings and just meshed them together.

That's how he came up with the book.

This is probably one of the most factual books that I know of you could have done between five people.

Why do you think some of the guys never went public?

Jack is still working.

He's still doing

it.

Not for the agency or anything like that, but plus he has a little

small mom and pop kind of a business.

So he just kind of wanted to keep that out.

But yeah, he still does

high security stuff in the States.

Seals are just nuts, man.

He just likes to keep working.

so yeah that's why he didn't and then uh boom he finally came out yeah i think he was just stuck in the closet lost the key or something i don't know

did want to revisit it yeah but i think he went he was working too he was still doing stuff as well and i think that's why yeah i met him again and

so

but yeah i mean initially i wasn't i was going to be uh I wasn't going to come out public either.

Why not?

Just didn't really want to to deal with it.

I killed kind of wanted to work still too.

And I was, I would say I kind of got talked into it by the author because, you know,

because I was kind of like in every major portion of it, but also I was the one that got told to stand down.

So it's kind of like, you know, it's going to be their word.

You know, they're going to,

they did kind of attack us, but not as hard as we thought.

But he was like, if you don't, it's going to be kind of like they're going to have to use use your words to defend themselves versus you coming out and being able to defend it directly.

So it was like the day before it was like I had to tell him yes or no.

So how long did you take off before you went back to work?

It took me about six months to heal up.

What was it like going back to work?

Pretty normal.

I mean, I went back and then

had, I actually did a video test testified in front of the Senate committee, which, which was weird because they actually, when I was testifying to tell us, they actually had

Bob and Hush on the video conference.

So it was just kind of, I don't know, it was just weird.

They had those two on the conference call.

How was that?

So they would answer, I could tell they're, they would hurry up and answer questions that I would probably going to say different to.

And I just sat there.

I was like, whatever.

Especially the stand down order.

Bob answered that one really quick.

And then, uh, what did he say?

Um, he pretty much said, Well, I don't remember if there was this, and you know, it's probably because of like I was waiting for support.

Yeah, that's what it was.

It's because, oh, there wasn't, you know,

that's not probably, that's not really what I said, or if I did, I didn't mean it that way.

And then when I went and testified in front of Congress, Hush answered it really quick because when I went and testified, I was with Hush.

Again, I'm just kind of like, and then, yeah, and I'm not personally like, if you don't ask me, I'm not going to answer for you, kind of a thing.

Um,

I mean, is it a big deal?

I mean, it's a big deal because two people got died from it because you had somebody who was a, who was in the league, actually, both of them.

If Hush didn't know, I don't know if he knew or not that that Seven Feb wasn't coming at that time.

Uh, but I mean, his decision to make us wait when he knew nobody was coming got two people killed

directly.

So

again, at the time, I think that's why they were doing what they were doing because, again, he was retiring, he was a 30-year agency guy, and everybody was trying to cover their own asses for the mistakes that were made.

And again, instead of holding people accountable, they got promoted.

I mean, they all,

the team leader, Hush, and Bob, the country team leader, they all got the Intel star.

And if people don't know, that's equivalent to the model of honor.

They didn't give us shit.

And we don't do it for that, but again, it just goes back to like a slap in the face.

Yeah.

It definitely goes to show you what this is actually all about.

Maybe it's just that's all it was.

It was just them bureaucracy.

Yep, them covering up each other's asses.

That's why you watch, you know, Don Bangino and what is the post.

Like, the shit that I've seen, they'll never forget.

Like, this country is fucked.

That's kind of what I got from that.

Just because of the corruption.

I'm sorry, man.

How are you doing today?

I'm good.

Yeah.

Gotta, a, you know, got, you know,

got divorced and got remarried, you know, did a 180.

And

she's a very

religious Christian lady.

But she's been really good.

She's been helping me quite a bit, you know, dealing with a lot of different things.

You know, when I was going through, you know, pretty much like in 2020, kind of started my own divorce path and just kind of really taking a more of a big shitter.

And then, you know 2023 found her when I was running for mayor the first time and just kind of turned turned everything around.

How did you meet her?

She

was did an interview with me.

She did an interview with you.

Yeah.

So she's got her version of how it happened.

I got my real version of how it happened.

So

so again, I jumped in the mayor race in 23 like the last minute.

I mean, I didn't really know what else.

I just wanted to throw a wrench in the system and just try to

get things actually done.

And I don't like, I don't bullshit.

I'm just going to be direct.

I don't, like, if I don't really know something, I'm going to tell you.

I'm not going to, like, a lot of these, when I was up there, when I, when I started doing the interviews or the panels, whatever, their answers started changing to what my answers were.

I was like, you motherfuckers.

They're all like all these politicians, they just.

They're all fluff.

They change their answers for the audience.

I don't change for anybody.

Yeah, I don't really care.

But anyway, so I was doing my coming out of the closet launch and she found out about it.

Normally she wouldn't show up to the local races and stuff like that, but you know, she got hit up by three people.

And so she finally came.

And then my manager and

my manager, yeah, I guess my manager kind of hit her up to do an interview with me.

And then we kind of did an interview and then she started stalking me.

She won't say it, but that's the truth.

So she started coming in, doing some training.

So I was was doing a training also at DCF Guns.

And so, and she was actually going over to another

magnum that was there.

She was there.

And then she canceled that membership, joined DCF.

And then, you know, we kind of started talking a little bit more.

And she'd use excuses like, hey, the security team at Karis Bible College wants to meet you.

I mean, they did, but it was her just stalking me is what it was.

And.

And then we just kind of kept on from there.

And then eventually we had lunch and just kind of kept going.

And

yeah, then once I got married, she stopped training.

So that's how I know she was talking me.

Right on, man.

Well, no, that's kind of how we met.

I mean, it was, yeah, she's been a big blessing.

So.

Good for you, man.

It was probably what actually, you know, all the, I don't know if we go on the music stuff yet, but kind of started pushing that stuff out.

Yeah.

Let's take a break real quick.

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All right, Tig, we're back from the break and we're getting ready to get into life after

contracting.

But, you know, one of the things, I don't know if you've watched any of these, but, you know, one of the things I like to do is is talk about, you know, kind of all the struggles that veterans and contractors have coming home, how to fit back in with society.

Most of us, it's not a positive story, you know, and

being through something like what you went through in Bugazi, I mean, how did that affect your home life and

reintegration?

How was it coming home?

I mean, you had seven-month-old twins.

I mean, it was nice because I was able to see them.

I mean, we were talking about a little bit on the break, but, you know,

it was a first time having kids and dealing with something like that.

So, you know, when I remember just being in the back of the car, my biggest thing is like, you start going back home.

Normally never, you just deal with it.

You know, you don't, I never thought about home.

This time it's just kind of like, holy crap, I might never see the kids again.

They'll never knew who I was, you know, never get to see them growing up.

That shit starts playing in your head.

Were you thinking about that that night?

yeah i mean again sitting in that car just waiting to roll and it's just like now you got to squash it out you know you got to stay focused because you know again having kids for the first time it was just it was weird it was different um but you know once we started actually rolling it kind of went and then when i was in the tower like during the intervals is you know your mind starts going back home sometimes and just like you try to get it out that way you can just focus because you know if your mind's wandering

something comes up on you man that's bad yeah so i'm just trying to stay focused on it but you know coming back home

real quick i want to ask one other thing yep

what prayers did you say over bubs and run

um

so i wrote it down at kind of when we're doing the the book i did i did write it but i didn't say what it was because at the time

it to me it just felt like it was just something that was between me me, them, and God.

But it was, you know,

Lord, watch over our fallen warriors, for they have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Guide them,

guide them to, guide them to your side and

help your angels ensure that no more fall tonight.

Because, again, we now we just lost four.

Um, and then, um, I, and I don't know like verbatim right off the top of my head, but and it was a watch over their families for

what they're going to experience

and

just what they're going to face, just the turmoil they're going to go through.

And my thing was just trying to guide them

back with as much light as possible so they can heal fast and go forward.

Because again, Ron, he just found out also that he was just having a kid.

So that's kind of some of the stuff that was going through my head was just the stuff that their family is going to have to deal with back home.

you know, to me,

I think

somebody, somebody dying is not, and to me, it's not really a sad thing

because they're actually going home.

We're, we're all the way from home.

I'm ready to go home, you know,

you know, but when the time is the time.

And so, but for me, it's just the

turmoil that we kind of deal with when we do lose people.

So for them, it's not sad, you know, because again, they're, they're gone, they're home.

home.

But for us, again, we are, you know, we're just kind of dealing with how do we move on from saying so.

But I was kind of thinking about us just being protected

because I didn't know what was going to happen.

And just for the family, me having kids, knowing he was just getting ready to have a kid and stuff like that.

Again, said the same thing over, Bub, but then didn't know him, but still the same mindset.

Yeah, man.

Thank you for sharing on that.

Yeah.

So again, just listening to people.

Again, the wife kind of drives certain things out that I usually wouldn't talk about.

But again, it goes back to like just stuff like that may help somebody.

If it only helps one person, that's enough.

Yeah.

So that's...

Do you think about them a lot?

Yeah, I would say so.

But again, it's,

you know, when I do my speaking events and, you know, saying their names, for me, it just, it keeps them going forward.

It keeps them alive.

You know, they always say, you know, you're only truly forgotten when your name's spoken for the final time.

Were you close with Tyron?

No.

Again, just

he was, he was that normal, I would say, for everybody calls him Master Chief, but to me, he's like a gunny.

He just had that gunny attitude, you know, always had a coffee.

So I can only relate to as a Marine Corps side.

So, um,

but no, he was always cool, laid back.

You know, we talked a lot about cows.

I had cattle at the time and stuff.

They were actually going to buy some beef from me.

And

but

again, 30 days, you kind of get to know people, but not really.

Again, my background, I'm very kind of still,

I'm more open now, but I was back even back then, I was more kind of quiet, standoffish, didn't trust anybody.

Well, I think we've established why.

So, like me getting to know people, it takes a while.

So, what was it, what were your struggles coming back?

I never had nightmares.

I did have a hard time sleeping and getting a pretty good, I think I had actually had the TBI from the

one in Pesh, that attack.

Again, never received medical attention for that whatsoever, but I felt weird after that one.

But this one, I think just being around the explosion so close to him and just consistent more,

I just couldn't sleep.

Again, didn't have nightmares or nothing like that.

So for me, it was just kind of just getting medical issues taken care of.

Because I couldn't go to the VA for it because we were contractors at the time.

And technically, they didn't want you to go into the VA because it was still classified.

So they picked the doctor that you went and saw.

So just dealing with that.

I mean, I had all kinds of weird stuff.

Like, dude, my body would just swell up.

Kind of like I had diabetes or something.

It was just weird.

Like, I couldn't wear watches or nothing because my wedding ring couldn't wear because my whole body would just swell up like just weird.

Just at random?

Mm-hmm.

What was it from?

Did they figure it out?

They didn't figure it out.

They kind of, they gave up pretty much.

Rehaboozin?

Nope.

Drugs?

Nope.

Nothing?

Nope.

That is almost unheard of.

Yeah, it was weird, man.

But then the VA

They gave me some kind of, they did give me a like a sleeping pill, but it was like a psychotic sleeping pill.

And dude, that's when I actually started dreaming.

And

I was dreaming about the Benghazi, but it never happened the way.

Like one time I was climbing through freaking rafters with Roan and even Oz.

I'm like, Oz, what the fuck is going on?

We didn't climb through right.

Oz wasn't even here, you know, kind of thing.

I mean, he was there, but he wasn't like in the, over at the consulate and stuff.

And then again, just weird scenarios that were going on, but it was all in Benghazi.

And then the last one was, I don't know how my kids showed up.

When my kids showed up, I ended up chopping their heads off.

What?

And that was the last time I took it.

I woke up and said, fuck this.

I never took any sleeping aid ever again.

Shit.

So, and I think a lot of veterans, they sit there and they say they have this kind of stuff, but they keep taking it.

Because you do sleep.

I mean, I was sleeping.

Yeah.

But I was like, fuck this.

It ain't worth it.

So I've never took anything for sleep since.

And then

it was just that.

I mean, just

weird medical problems um

and actually I got a thing called a relapsing polychonderitis which they don't even know where it comes from only like

10 American 10 people in our country even have it so it's a it's an autoimmune that attacks your cartilage and

usually it's already attacked my ears the next is usually the nose then after that it goes for your your esophagus that's when you die

so

but I still I mean they say within about 10 years, if you're still alive, you'll be good.

I got another five years because that was diagnosed in 2020.

Jeez.

So, for me, coming back, it wasn't really difficult.

I didn't really have

a hard time.

Again, for me, honestly, for the whole thing, it was just

hearing them getting tossed off that roof.

Honestly, after everything, that's the hardest thing for me.

So.

no depression suicide attempts

nothing no

i mean i'm pretty sure i had some depression i mean kind of quit doing what i wanted to do uh we got you know pretty much screwed over on the book and movie deal how'd you get screwed over on the book uh well we don't we did we get no residuals from book sales or movie or anything is that from them or is that the agency intervening i do we don't know according to them the book didn't sell enough the movie didn't make enough.

So we don't get shit.

Number one New York Times bestseller.

It's right on the fucking cover.

Yep.

According to them, nope.

It's one of the only movies I've ever watched that has to do with what we used to do.

Well, dude, if you look at the reviews, it's got like 15,000 reviews.

It's still almost five stars.

But no, the actors, they're making a shit ton of money from it.

We don't make...

Again, it's just how we got screwed over.

I guess, guess you know the same uh people that helped us do the do the book um kind of did the movie as well and we kind of thought we had everything covered in there we but again this just

you know liberal hollywood fucked us over i mean we didn't do it for the money it's good the story's out there it's permanent you can't change it but yeah a lot of people think oh you get you know they well they call it blood money but even if it whatever that we don't get anything from it unless we sell it unless you buy it from us directly we don't get anything.

That's a shame.

What

you guys were involved with the making of the movie, though, correct?

Yep.

How involved?

So once you do the movie or they're going to do it, you have to sign your life rights.

So you can, they're only going to do so much because they have 100% control.

So I like to laugh because anyways, because I stand my ground on shit, I don't care.

Once, anyways, so, you know, we went in, we talked to Michael Bay.

They gave us like the movie script the day before.

I don't know how to read a movie script.

I don't, you know, I'm reading this stuff and I'm like, I don't know what the hell they're even talking about, you know, because they're talking

because again, they're leading up to it.

And I'm like, yeah, whatever.

I'm not going to be able to read this the whole night before.

We're just going to see them tomorrow.

We're going to walk through it, talk through it.

So we did.

We walked through things.

They showed me, you know, what the set was going to look like.

And I'm like, yeah, the set's not right.

So the movie set for the annex, that's dude, it's pretty accurate.

I mean, that's probably 99% accurate.

I was like, well, there's trees here.

There's, it's like, we're not doing that, dude.

So, but for the most part, the

our the annex is pretty good.

The consulate is pretty far off.

But again, they, you know, you got to deal with the layout of the land and stuff like that.

So

when we're there, we got to go on set for 10 days.

And uh,

I was sitting there.

They were doing

the attack scene.

So it was kind of cool to watch.

But again, I don't really know because they're doing like the same thing for an hour straight.

I don't know how people do it.

But anyways, and Michael Bay, as they're filming, whatever, they're doing the whole actions.

He comes walking up and he says, hey, so you got shot.

And again, like, yeah, I got shot.

Where'd you get shot?

I got shot in the side.

He goes, okay, you're going to get shot in the chest.

okay whatever you know so it's just things like that that you just really can't control but

so they did it all and then i think i went home and then jack calls me

and uh he's saying hey uh i just found out that they're not gonna put you up on the roof i'm like what do you mean so it's just gonna be me up on the roof and i'm like

No, that ain't gonna happen.

It's like, and they're and they're not showing that the Delta Force guys threw them off the roof.

And I said, well, if they're not going to put me on the roof and show the truth, I don't want nothing to do with it.

You can tell them all to fuck off.

So next thing you know,

I think I forgot who, like the producer guy calls.

He says, hey, you know, we just, this is why.

I'm like, I really don't care.

Why?

If I'm not on the roof and you're not showing what they did, you can fuck off.

And I hung up on him.

Michael Bay calls.

said the same thing to him.

And then finally, the

President Paramount, whatever dude's name was at the time, called and i hung up on him yeah i don't really care i will not be on if you don't put me on the roof don't show what they actually did you can all fuck off

well they fixed it

that's what i mean it goes back to like

i really don't care it's like we there's a certain ground where people just need to stand and they didn't do it then i just wouldn't promote the movie i wouldn't want nothing to do with it good for you man so

even more now that we didn't we don't really get anything from it but it was just about about, you know, like you need to show what really happens.

And there are a lot of things in Hollywood, like Michael Bay is like, well, we're doing it this way because we need to have more action.

I'm sorry, I didn't know you were, I didn't know we didn't have enough action for everybody.

Like, holy shit.

So,

yeah, it's just, but I mean, they did a good job with it.

It honored the four guys, and that was their biggest thing.

They left politics out of it.

That was another goal with the book and the movie.

We didn't want politics in it because politics were not involved when we're in the middle of the fight.

Politics came from politicians.

We didn't, we didn't invite the

politics into this.

It was everyone else that did it.

So again, we get, you know, we were doing the book tour and all this, even the movie, we'd get, we get hit up, you know, bashed by the left a lot.

See, oh, you're doing this because it's political.

You did that.

I'm like, what the fuck are you guys talking about?

It was like, like, we're not going to watch it.

It's all, it's like, they don't even give.

the book or the movie a time because they think it's political.

There's nothing political in the book or in the movie, but that's that's their mindset.

And, you know, I remember we got this old lady one time, we were in Boulder and she came at us saying, Yeah, I can't believe you guys left the ambassador to die.

You just abandoned him.

And I'm just like, He wasn't our job.

We risk our lives to go and save them.

It's like a lot of people don't even know what happened, but yet you get yelled at.

You know, you get like degraded for something you had no control over.

What the fuck, man yeah the book tour was interesting

sounds like it so

but no i mean again coming back home to me the hardest thing was just getting the medical treatment um

and

and then trying to do speaking events because again i was the quiet guy you met boone right

Met him several times.

I was quieter than he was.

Are you serious?

That dude does not talk.

Yeah.

Wow.

So, yeah.

So, again, I would, it took me a while.

Like, I mean,

like the first like six months, I think Tonto answered every question that was asked to me.

So I think, you know, I've come out of my shell quite a bit.

Well, you've got to if you're going to run for mayor.

Chief, right?

You better start talking.

I'll probably still not be a typical politician.

God, I hope not.

We got way too many of those.

Yeah, I mean, you know, then I, you know, get involved in a lot of these other veteran organizations and foundations.

And I think that helped quite a bit, you know, because then you're more, you're not focusing on yourself.

You're kind of helping other guys.

And it kind of helps you at the same time.

But then you do got some guys.

I mean, I still, I did a couple,

what was it called?

like with Sauce Special or Save a Warrior, you know, went to their retreatment.

So I did my own things as well as helping other guys.

Because again, you want to sit there as a vet and say, oh, you need to go do this, but if you don't do it yourself, you're kind of doing everyone else a disservice.

You're being dishonest.

So you still, I mean, if you're going to be part of it, you still got to help fix yourself.

Otherwise, you know, you see guys that take their own lives and stuff like that.

And it's because,

you know, was that one?

I think his name was Jocko.

He was a pretty

vet that was like in the whole 22 kind of thing, helping guys out constantly.

The next thing you know, he's gone.

It's just like, again, if you're going to

see other people help, I think it's been, for me, it helps me knowing that I kind of help them in a way.

Who's this?

I mean, I know Jocko, but

it was a different one, though.

Not the one, again, he was from Texas.

For some reason, that's the name that's coming in my head, though.

Well, the other one has been a lot.

Yeah, it's not a lot of them.

It's sad, you know, but

some of it I don't always think it's combat-related.

I think it's home life-related.

They just don't know how to deal with that portion of it.

Yeah.

At least that's what I've kind of seen.

I think sometimes, not to

go off on the spouses, but again, I think sometimes the spouses aren't truthful of what happens inside their family life, which again keeps this thing going forward without actually being able to

truly fix it.

That's my opinion.

Just because I've been around it so much and I see so much stuff.

Yeah, guys suffer, they see things, but I think it's a lot of it's just that stress of the home life and that's what gets to them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did you deal with any type of survivor's guilt or anything like that?

No,

because my mindset kind of goes down to like we all knew what we're getting into.

We all knew what we wanted to do.

And

we volunteered to go there

um

we'd always want everybody to come home when we can uh but also i think it goes back to like we didn't have that solid brotherhood either

you're like i'm not again like i don't want active duty guys to say off you know kind of fuck you will you know we weren't there for a year four years five years six years together you know 30 days you know you didn't have time to build that kind of camaraderie so it's a little bit different um we i mean you it still hits you regardless yeah I mean, you're still, you're still a brotherhood.

You want to fight for each other.

You're Americans.

You're fighting for the same thing.

But, you know, I just don't want to take that away from other guys that have that.

And that's not what I'm saying.

Just we didn't have that ability to build that type.

But you also got to remember, y'all signed up for that job.

That comes, death comes with it.

It's, it's just, it sucks.

But having that survival guilt, I mean,

if you passed, would you want him doing the same thing you're doing?

For me,

it's more about

doing better or keep going.

I have the thing that always says, always move forward, because

if you degress versus progress, it does them a disservice.

It dishonors their sacrifice, in my mind.

So maybe it's just trying to keep on doing it.

I mean,

you're always going to have failures.

I mean, you're always going to, you know, it's not every day, everything's perfect, you know, but it's just trying to do your best, you know, to honor them by doing better.

Keep going forward and make things better for our country.

Make their sacrifice mean something.

What advice do you have for guys kind of getting out, coming home for today?

Have a plan.

Have, you know,

a lot of guys you talk to, it's like they get out.

They're like, I don't even know what the hell I'm going to do.

If you don't know, don't get out.

That's the worst thing you can do.

Have something, have something in mind to go and do.

You know,

that's what I hear the most out of a lot of guys, even retired guys, but they don't have to worry about income, but they're just kind of like, I don't even know what to do.

It's like,

you knew you were getting out at least a year before he got out.

And I think you have to start planning for something.

Don't go to college, go to trade school.

Just if you don't have an actual skill, that's, I mean, I started in hvac it was all you know um

hands-on labor stuff but i'm not a college kid so i went to a trade school but you learn the job you want to know versus you know a lot of college you got to take 20 30 other courses that cost you an extra 200 grand it doesn't have nothing to do with what you want to learn but

For guys,

just have a plan, man.

Don't just get out.

That's the dumbest thing you can do.

If you don't have a plan, you better stay in.

Because that's my opinion.

I think that's good advice.

So you're running for mayor

in Colorado Springs.

What prompted that?

I love chaos.

No, so, you know,

it stemmed initially from 2020, but yeah, from 2020.

So it's why I kind of jumped in in 2023.

I was very vocal in 2020.

I hated the shutdowns.

I hated that stupid socialism, lockdown, just infringement crap.

It pissed me off.

So I did a lot of things in Colorado trying to tell business, just open up.

They can't shut you off.

And they can't.

They can't shut you all down.

They can't, otherwise they destroy the whole entire city anyways.

So I did things up in Denver, pissed off the...

the polis up there.

I think he one time he called me a stupid, selfish bastard because I wanted, I was up there, I think I had like 4,000 something people show up bunch of dudes on motorcycle I mean it was a bike ride from all four corners of Colorado it was pretty cool and

because for me for the government to tell us that we can't do something is bullshit we tell the government what it can't do it doesn't tell us what we can't do so I started really pushing back on that.

And, you know, cops arresting parents in parks with their kids.

No.

Oh, hell no.

To me, that's that you as a cop you should retire you need to throw away that badge because you're a disgrace i'm with you on that one man i can't i can't listen to another

person

that's just saying

i'm just doing my job oh no yeah then fucking quit yep i'm on one and get a new job your job season well that's just if you're just following our orders one you can just go enjoy prison the rest of your life in my opinion because you're violating somebody else's rights that's how i am I'll back the blue, but again, that doesn't, you're,

yeah, your lack of knowledge does not supersede my freedoms.

Yeah.

So,

so then, you know, 23 came around.

I was

starting a new job because I got tired of like traveling so much.

And

I was taking lunch and I saw on the news, you know, you have like

so long to sign up and then so much longer to get the signatures you need to you know to run for mayor i think i had like two days to get my packet in and then i had to like two weeks to get my signatures it was right before shot show

i was like shit i'll just do it

so i got up went down to the again i had no no idea what i was gonna i was just gonna do it went down there got the packet came back had a friend come over filled out the paperwork finished it that night turned it back turned it in the next morning got my my my stuff to go get my uh signatures you know the 200 you had to get 200 signatures and that's then i had to come to shot show

so they're doing that i i got like 200 signatures the first weekend when i was gone came back got another 200 turned it in that monday and then i got on the ballot and then they tried to remove me from the ballot why'd they try to remove you from the ballot because supposedly two people came in to the administration's office and said i didn't live in colorado springs

So I asked them, so who are my accusers?

Apparently, you can't face your accusers in those incidents.

People can just accuse you, whatever.

So I had to prove that I lived in Colorado Springs for over a year.

It wasn't hard.

Seems pretty easy.

Yeah, but I'm just like, this is stupid.

And then they tried to fight me on putting John Tig Tigen on the ballot.

Like, well, that's a trademark name.

I can put it.

Actually, I can put anything I want on the ballot.

So I got to fight.

It was everything I did in the first round was a fight.

So, anyway, so I got on.

You know,

I think it panicked a little bit of the other,

it's a bipartisan, supposedly, or not a, yeah, it's

unaffiliated run.

But I think I still think the Democrats kind of freaked out and they saw me jump on.

And I think it went up to like a million-dollar race.

I raised like, I raised like 20 grand, you know, but again, I knew I didn't have a chance.

That wasn't the point.

The point was to do what I did.

And this time I'm doing it again for the same reason.

Again, my goal is

the mayor can only do so much.

I think people need to realize that, which, you know, when I was running, the questions they're asking you, even from the media, the mayor doesn't even have no control over.

You know, so that's the hard part for me was trying to figure out what can the mayor actually, because I'm not a politician.

Never wanted to do it.

And now I'm just like, screw it.

I'm going to do it now.

He pissed me off.

But, you know, they're asking things like a mayor can't control.

That's more like a city council or that's the county commissioners.

It's just like, what's wrong with you people?

So, but I want to give more control back to the people, back to the community, and even back to the police.

Because if you look and see what happens around this country, especially with police chiefs and certain mayors,

they'll tie the hands of cops, and they can't do anything with criminals.

They can't do anything.

Again, like this mayor, he's tying our police chief's hands, regardless if he wants to admit it or not, because I know people too.

He won't allow the local law enforcement to work with federal agents to wrap up these criminals, these illegals.

To me, it's like, no, they're one, police, the number one job is to protect the community.

Anyone who's violating our community needs to be wrapped up.

And again, if they're healed legally, they violated it.

So

my goal in a way, I don't know, again, still looking into things, but

trying to make it to where even though the mayor may still pick the police chief, he can't dictate what he does.

Like as long as he's within the Constitution, the mayor has no control.

You shouldn't have to control that police chief, just like a sheriff.

You can't control the sheriff.

Yeah.

but people say, well, you need to build a make sure your town's taken care of.

It's like, as long as you put in there, like he has to abide by the U.S.

Constitution, the state constitution.

That's all he needs to do.

That's what you should be doing anyways.

The mayor shouldn't be stopping, shouldn't be hindering, shouldn't be influencing, shouldn't be doing a damn thing with law enforcement.

So again, it's just like, it's just like the president kind of having control over the FBI and having them do a raid on the, on a former president because he wants to.

That's bullshit.

You shouldn't have that that type of control because that's what happens.

During 2020, you had the Seattle police pulled completely out, and you had a nation of Chaz show up.

It's like, no, they're there to protect the community.

The mayor should not be telling that police chief to pull.

The police chief should be doing their damn job protecting the community.

And then, you know, just the infrastructure and all that stuff.

And

yeah, it's, I mean, I got a little ways to go, but I got two years to prep.

And I have like eight issues I'm looking into that people complain about.

Well,

I'm sure you're going to do well.

So I'm excited to see how it goes.

You know, people say, well, it should be easy.

It's a military town, but yeah, we have five military bases.

But again, it's the military don't vote.

Well, they vote, but not for Colorado Springs.

They vote for the state they come from.

That's the problem.

Yeah, it's a military town.

Make

Get them to register.

Right.

I know when I ran the first time, I think it was about 100 people came up and said, I'm voting for the first time ever because you're running.

Good.

So that felt pretty good.

I'll bet it does.

So.

What's your wife think about you getting into politics?

So

she was actually, she was going to run for a seat for a state.

She was kidding.

And she would have won.

I mean, she would have smoked them, anybody that was going to run against her.

I mean,

she's been involved in the political community across the whole state for about five years now.

She helps organize churches and stuff to kind of get more involved in politics because they've been too scared.

They don't realize the rules and stuff.

It's a big voting block.

Oh, yeah, it's huge.

Actually, I'm doing, well, I'll get in that.

But so she's been involved with that.

And she got asked to do that.

And

I was like, well, cool, because I'm going to run for mayor.

I'll win mayor.

You'll be up there with good powerhouse.

But then she's kind of like, yeah, I don't, I'd rather just stay home and I'll just help you.

Because I get it.

I mean, that would cause a little bit of a separation between us, her doing that, me doing this.

So she's like, and plus, you know, she, you know, she does a lot, a lot of prayer, praying and stuff.

And she's like, it never came to me to actually do it.

It was more of my decision.

And it's not something that God's leading me to.

So I'm stepping back.

I'm not going to do it.

So now she's just pretty much like, just going to help me do it.

And she's actually going to business school right now, too.

Right on, man.

Yeah,

she's a blessing.

I got a good feeling about this.

Yeah, I think it's going to be strong.

I think you're going to get it.

Yeah, now I'll have a team.

I mean, we're getting a solid team because it's not just about the one person.

To me, the mayor is just a leader.

Everybody else does the work.

It's just making sure that everybody does

what the constituents want.

Where nowadays it kind of seems like politicians just they get in there and and then just kind of do what they want.

Yeah, it sure as hell does seem like that, doesn't it?

On both sides.

Yep.

It's a fun disaster because they want to please everybody.

You're not there to please please everybody.

It's favors.

Yeah.

So just get there, do what needs to be done, what should be done.

And what the voters want is what they get.

Yeah.

So

we'll take, we're wrapping up the interview, but

you know, out there we were talking about your son or your kids, twins.

And

just want to see if you have anything you want to say to them.

Never give up.

Always push forward.

Life's hard.

Sometimes you get knocked down.

Just always got to get back up.

Well, dude, I wish you the best of luck, man.

And I just want to say thank you for coming.

Well, thank you, man.

Appreciate it.

It was an honor, truly.