Rob O’Neill: Near-Death Experiences, Top Secret Area 51 Helicopter, & the Disgusting Push for War

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how'd you get into this into the navy yeah i mean

it was one of those things where um

a time in life where it's just time to leave town i um if if you ever want to make god laugh tell him your plan for life and then it's something changes that's for sure and it's even like going up to bin laden's bedroom it was never planned to be that way it just it just happened like life happens around you as you're planning uh i joined the navy just it was time to leave town i had a bad relationship with a girl my plan in life was college basketball and mba and then work with my dad dad as a broker.

And I had a bad relationship.

I got dumped, and it's like, I got to leave.

And the easiest way out of Butte, Montana is to join the Marine Corps.

Butte is not the same as Bozeman.

No, no.

I don't think, well, I don't think people understand that.

Bozeman is beautiful.

It's got Yellowstone.

Even though Yellowstone's in Wyoming, you know, the show made everyone go to Bozeman.

Of course.

Bozeman's beautiful.

There's great food, really good coffee.

In Butte, Montana, you will get your ass whooped.

Yeah.

Like it's a mining town.

And

they're proud of that.

The biggest.

I think think it's the big was the biggest.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah, it was, I think it was the it got electricity before Chicago.

And it still has the oldest uh Chinese restaurant in the country, uh, the Pekin.

Uh, and this is funny.

They, that, so the guy that owned it, his name was Danny Wong.

His son, Jerry Tam, owns it now.

Best Chinese, you only need a menu.

You go in there and they just serve you.

But after Danny Wong, they named the street behind it after him.

And I don't know why, but they named it Danny Wong Wei.

Wong Wei?

It's like, are you messing with him after his death?

We too low.

But yeah, it's just a wonderful town, really good food.

And they don't quite realize how good the food is there, how good life is there.

Like I have friends back home that, because I have an odd job now.

I'm not really sure what I do, but I have friends that have a nine to five.

Like they go to work, they have lunch with their buddies, they go home at five, they see their kids or with their wife, and I'm jealous of them.

Like a normal life.

It's a cool town.

It is.

It's an old-fashioned town.

Yeah, it is.

I've actually brought, when I was at SEAL Team 6, I brought about 20 dudes up there to skydive.

We sold off a skydiving trip for high altitude and then horseback riding and mules and stuff like that.

And they got along great

with them.

I told the Butte guys, hey,

there's a difference between being a tough guy and being a technical fighter.

So let's just all get along.

Don't, don't, you don't punch him, you don't punch him.

Let's just have a drink.

And we did.

It was a blast.

There was one fight, but it ended a little amicably.

So you wanted to be a broker?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just, I thought I would, it just, I didn't know anything about it, but my dad did it.

He looked good in the suit and I just, I liked his house.

So you didn't dream of fighting wars?

No, no,

no.

We weren't a military family.

It was,

you know, I'd seen Full Metal Jacket and Navy SEALs, but it was never going to be me.

I did have two friends that wanted to be in the Marine Corps growing up, and they were two years older than me.

And they were the reason that I went to join the Marine Corps because I saw them when they'd come home.

And I had one dude that joined the Army, and he gave me great advice when I just sort of decided.

He just said, get it in writing.

And that's good advice for life.

Like, you know, we can, yeah, I love when people say, let's do business on a handshake.

It's like, fine, I'll shake your hand after you sign the contract.

So you went to join the Marine Corps, but wound up in the Navy?

Yeah, because the Marine recruiter was at lunch.

And I wanted to be a Marine because I wanted to be a sniper.

And

the recruiter was gone.

The Navy guy was sitting right there.

And he was wearing his khakis.

He was a chief.

And I didn't know what a chief was, but he's a senior dude in the enlisted ranks.

And I went in there just because my Marine friends told me that the Marine Corps is actually part of the Department of the Navy.

It's just the men's department.

And so I went to ask him, where's the Marine?

If anyone will know, you will.

And like the Army guys are here, Air Force guys are here.

Marine's just not there.

And he said, why do you want the Marine Corps?

And I said, I want to be a sniper.

I'm a hunter and Marines have the best snipers in the world.

Carlos Hathcock, like I said, full metal jacket.

I can do that.

It looks cool.

And he said, look, no further.

We have snipers in the Navy.

You need to be a Navy SEAL first.

He brushed over that and gave me a contract and I signed.

I didn't know what a SEAL was.

I didn't know how to swim.

Is this at a recruiting center?

Yeah.

It's still there.

I go in there when I go back to Butte Montana, talk to the recruiters now just to see if anybody wants to be a SEAL or even, you know, maybe I can tell them that Marine boot camp is going to be great or join the Army, be a Ranger.

It'd be awesome.

It's just a good,

it's a good way to grow up.

Wherever you are in this country, you can go join right now and be on a bus, three hots in a cot.

You'll be, you'll be part of a brotherhood somewhere.

And I mean, just being a Marine would be cool, but he just wasn't there.

But I look back on it now and I tell my daughters that

if that, the butterfly effect, if that Marine recruiter wasn't at Arby's at 1130 on a Wednesday, you wouldn't be alive because I would have joined the Marine Corps instead of the Navy.

But I joined the Navy.

And he showed me the videos of what Navy SEALs are after I signed.

And I remember I went to get my mom.

I brought her in and said, check this out.

And she didn't say it, but she admitted later, like, there's no way in hell you're going to make it through.

The only one who believed in me was my dad.

Wow.

And what year was this?

1996.

I, yeah, I joined in 1996.

So I left in 97.

So what was going on in the world in 1996?

Nothing.

Nothing.

No, I joined in 95.

I went to boot camp in 96, January 96, nothing.

And that's part of the mystique was

I can join.

I won't make it through SEAL training, but I'll live in San Diego.

I'll go to a ship on the fleet for four years.

I'll come back to Butte and I'll hang out at Maloney's bar and and tell sea stories.

Like that, like, I'm not going to make it.

Nobody makes it through SEAL training.

And that was almost the mindset of failure.

So you're a teenager at this point.

Yeah.

And

I learned how to swim.

I knew I wouldn't quit, but it's.

The Butte is not on the ocean.

No, Butte.

The entire state's landlocked.

Yes.

Right.

I mean, I could keep myself alive, but I didn't know any strokes at all.

I actually ran into a buddy of mine who swam at Notre Dame, one of the few swimmers from Montana, because I still had my ID from Montana Tech.

They had a pool.

And I had a couple, I actually had a couple weeks before I left.

And I ran into him at the pool and he goes,

don't take this the wrong way.

I'm happy to see you in the pool.

I just literally never seen you in the pool.

What gives?

And I said, I just joined the Navy.

I'm going to be a SEAL.

And he goes, oh, not like that.

You're not.

And he showed me the breaststroke and the side stroke.

And then I practiced that.

And I was good enough to pass the screening test to get into SEAL training.

But that's, I mean, that test is easy.

So the first test is a swim test.

Yeah.

Well,

it's a 500-yard swim,

42 push-ups, 50 sit-ups, eight pull-ups, and then a mile and a half-timed run.

Like, it's really easy.

But when I went to boot camp and took that test, we're sitting at bleachers.

There's 250 dudes on these bleachers.

And I remember thinking, well, what makes me special?

There's no way I can make it.

And out of that 250, two of us passed the test.

And then when you pass that test, then you might get orders.

And then out of that, two of every 250, 85% won't make it through training.

So it's, it's a really, but it's a mindset at a certain point.

You need to.

So from the day you got on the bus as a teenager, like, you know,

you're in the Navy.

Yeah.

How long was it from then until you got your Trident?

I think well, it would have been a year.

Boot camp, no, a year and a half.

Boot camp was nine weeks.

I did a two-week A-school where basically the Marines taught me how to wind a bobbin and use a sewing machine.

They called sewing's a big part of it?

No, no, just you had to get a rate for a job in the Navy, like bosons made or photographers made, or I was an air crew survival equipment man just because that's the shortest one to get me to San Diego.

So I did it two weeks in Millington and then I went down to in April.

It would have been 96.

I checked into Buds Class 208, classed up there, and

then we graduated in December.

But I got some good advice by a guy by the name of Tom Donovan, who is an admiral now, which makes me feel so old.

He might be a two-star, but he was fresh out of the academy.

And the Naval Academy has a really high rate of guys make it through because they screen him so hard in Annapolis.

And his dad was an admiral.

And I remember seeing him.

And he doesn't even remember saying this, but I ran into him in the cages, one one day.

And I was like, wow, this is crazy.

Like, I'm scared, but you're like in charge.

Like, you got to be really scared.

He looks at me and goes, the fuck are you afraid of?

Why are you, why are you scared?

I'm like, I don't know.

He said, don't be afraid.

Just, these are just normal dudes.

Just make it, make it one evolution to the next.

And he was a student like me, an Ensign.

Great.

I mean, there are guys that when we did Hell Week, he personally, there's like at least 20 Navy SEALs that owe their careers to Tom Donovan because he got them through, like just like motivating them as a student.

So in 96, 97, you're

trying to become a Navy SEAL, which is the most famous of the American warfighters.

But what do you think you're going to be doing?

I didn't know.

Did you think about it?

Or are you just so focused on it?

No, well, I was focused on the training because I wanted to make it through.

I had, I keep bringing up Hello Week because that's allegedly the hardest part when you wake up on Sunday and you don't sleep till Friday.

You're awake the whole time running with boats on your heads and doing evolutions, cold, wet, sandy, miserable.

Like by Wednesday, every part of your body that's touching cloth starts to bleed because of the salt water and the sand.

But I had an instructor, I don't know why he said, I don't know why he was, he didn't need to be motivating, but he said, right before Hell Week, you're about to go to war for the first time.

And the enemy is all your doubts, all your fears, and everyone you know back home that told you you weren't good enough to do this.

Keep your head down, keep moving forward.

You'll be fine.

One meal at a time, he said,

another, he said, the first day of training was, I know you've read the the books and probably seen the movies, regardless of what you've been told.

However, this course is not impossible.

People graduate.

Look at me.

I'm living proof.

So I will never ask you to do anything impossible, but I will make you do something very hard, followed immediately by something very hard, followed by something even harder, day after day after day for eight straight months.

And that sounds like a lot to get from now to graduation day, but don't think about it that way.

That's not how you achieve a long-term goal.

Do it like this.

Wake up in the morning on time, make your bed the right way, and then brush your teeth.

That's three wins.

You just started your day with three victories.

Make it to the 4 a.m.

workout on time.

And when I'm beating you, don't think about the pain.

Concentrate on your next goal in life, which is breakfast.

After breakfast, your next goal in life is lunch.

After lunch, it's dinner.

After dinner, do everything you need to do to get back inside that perfectly made bed.

And because you took the time in the morning to make your bed the right way, regardless of how bad today was, and it'll be bad.

Tomorrow is a clean slate.

Tomorrow is a fresh start.

And when you feel like quitting, which you will, do not quit right now.

That's emotion.

Quit tomorrow.

If you can keep quitting tomorrow, you can do anything.

And just, that's the mindset that I needed that because I went there scared.

It's like, well, I'll just quit because it's almost like fear of the unknown.

Like, I'll just quit because it's easy or watching other guys quit, like a loudmouth or a big tough guy or a college football player.

He quits.

It's like, well, shit, if he can't make it, I can't make it.

And that's like sympathetic quitting.

Just let him go.

No one's better than you.

Just because you're from Butte, Montana or from West Palm Beach or from Long Island doesn't mean someone from Chicago is better than you.

And people, like Butte, Montana, we were almost in a bubble.

Like the other side of the uh continental divide is you got seattle portland san francisco there's they got to be better at athletes than me or something but don't believe that you can do anything just got to keep the right mindset how many guys quit we had a big class out of our 227 we graduated 33 that was big two classes before us they graduated seven

there was a class that graduated zero like they call it the class that never was they got down to so few that like well you're all done got to go to the next class but then the older you get it's funny you get um every navy seal always says, my class was the last hard class because they're easy now.

And they're like, what do you mean?

I'm like, well, we graduated too.

They made us fight it out.

Just bullshit.

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But it's the camaraderie there.

You meet the people,

the sense of humor, the dark sense of humor.

And misery loves company.

We say that all the time.

One guy that I met

during hell week, you're cold and wet and miserable the whole time.

But every day, at least once a day during hell week, they send you to medical.

They check you out.

They look at your eyes because you're going to be delirious, freezing, you're shaking.

And then as soon as you're done with medical,

you have a dry uniform and dry boots, dry socks.

And as soon as you put them on, you're right back in the water.

Like, it just sucks.

And I was trying to tie my boots one time and I couldn't.

My hands were shaking so bad.

And I look at my buddy and I go, hey, Barker,

can you pee on my hands?

And I meant to warm them up, right?

And he's freezing.

He just goes, well, yeah, if you're into that.

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

That was funny.

But I mean, just the dry sense of humor and the camaraderie in that.

That sense of humor.

But

that's what you need.

When we were going after Marcus Luttrell, we were awake for about three days.

We're on top of these mountains in eastern Afghanistan and I, and we're exhausted.

And I looked at my guys and I said, this is why training is so hard.

Because if we were going to quit right now, where the fuck are we going to go?

We're just here.

And this, and that's why, you know, you've been through the training and then combat's way worse.

Even being at the SEAL teams is way worse than SEAL training.

That's just the initial welcome to the

Naval Special Warfare.

Did you have any sense of that when

you completed training?

Did you have a sense that I'm going to do

shocking things for the next

10 years?

When we finished SEAL training, the last part is 40 days, maybe 30 days on San Clemente Island, where they say no one can hear you scream.

You go out to this training site and it's no time off.

Then when you get done with that, it was a Monday and we're graduating Friday.

And I remember the instructor saying, all right, go to admin and go to dental, get your service record, your medical record because you're checking into SEAL team too.

And I'm like, well, shit, what does that even mean?

What do you mean I'm done?

This shouldn't end.

Now you got to go be a SEAL.

So good luck.

Did they give you any sense of what that would mean?

No.

No.

I picked two, two, eight, and four because they were on the East Coast.

And I wanted to go to two because they were in Bosnia.

And that's the closest thing to combat.

And I thought I wanted to combat.

That's before I went to combat.

And, you know, they're in Sarajevo.

Kosovo's popping off.

We'll get in there.

So I went to SEAL Team 2.

And then,

I mean...

They don't really teach you anything in SEAL training.

When we got to the team in my era, then it was SEAL tactical training, a 13-week course where they finally teach you how to do stuff.

And then you go to a platoon, which is 16 guys, and that group works together for a full year, getting to know standard operating procedures and how, you know, tendencies.

And then they sent us overseas.

So my first deployment was in the summer of 1998 on the USS Austin.

We went to the Mediterranean.

You know, there was, we heard about Al-Qaeda.

They were in Albania because there was some sort of an exercise and they threatened them.

And I just finished sniper school.

I'm kind of jumping around here.

I just finished sniper school.

So I was on a

rooftop with a range card, you know, out to a thousand yards looking at this place like, okay, I made it.

I'm a Navy SEAL now.

But there was nothing.

It was, you know, before 9-11 so i thought i was high-speed issue in albania yeah

yeah but i mean if you're not i'm not sure most americans understand we sent seals to albania like well they're just what are seals doing in albania well you got to figure that part of the the woods of the the adriatic and you got uh all kinds of al-Qaeda guys in coast of Bobasia so they're going to be in Albania too.

I mean, of course it makes sense and it's a heavily Muslim country.

And

but I guess my question is, did you understand just how

large the landscape was?

No, because we were just basically training.

We spent a lot of time with the Special Boat Service in the UK, a lot of time with the German commswimmers, Norwegian Jaegers, those are badass dudes.

Really?

Yeah,

they're really good.

But they don't get involved because their government sucks, but they're studs.

I talk about skiing and rock climbing, never seen anything like it.

Plus, the best-looking dudes in the world, got to be honest.

Just

the Norwegian.

Yeah, they're studs.

Like, they're really good.

Telemark skiing, there's nobody better.

And so, combat skiing, you know, rucksacks, guns, and all that crap, like carrying the old M14s because they work better in cold weather.

But we were training just because

contingencies, like we don't know, you know, Russia's gone, Cold War is over, nothing's going to happen.

So we're basically going to be safe.

And when my time came up,

after four years, I just, I knew the guys and I'm like, I'm 23.

I don't want to go home now.

I want to stay with these guys.

So I re-enlisted just to stay with the guys at SEAL Team 2.

What year was that?

That would have been 1999 or right around 2000.

No, 2000.

Jocko reenlisted me

on a Humvee in Kuwait, but I re-enlisted because I knew the guys.

And then 9-11 happened and I'm like, well, I can't, can't get out now.

And then I ran into a dude from SEAL Team 6 at Navy Exchange.

I was taking a leadership course at Damnik, which is near Oceania in Virginia Beach.

That's where SEAL Team 6 is.

And I'm taking this course and I went over to the Navy Exchange, which is a mall in my uniform with a trident, like camis.

And there's this dude in there with flip-flop shorts, a beard and long hair.

He's kind of eyeballing me because he knew I was a SEAL.

And I'm like, well, that's a SEAL Team Team 6 guy.

And that arrogant fuck.

I'm going to find out what that place is like.

That's the only reason I went to SEAL Team 6 because that guy was mean-mugging me.

Wow.

But that's, again, that's how, you know, life's decisions, the smallest.

2001, you've been in five years?

Yes.

Did anyone you know

shoot anyone during those five years?

No.

There was rumors of one guy might have got a kill in Bosnia.

But the only guys who were shooting would have been Somalia right around 1993

and then 91.

I don't think SEALs even did anything in Desert Storm.

And then you you had Patia Airfield in Panama in 1989.

And those dudes are just legends because they got in a gunfight.

And some guys did a combat swimmer op.

They, they swam over to, instead of blowing up Noriega's boats, I guess they were told to unscrew the screw on the back of the boat.

Typical American, let's just be nice about being mean.

Just unscrew it.

Just blow the damn boat up.

But those guys were just legends and nothing until

we just finished a 40-day thing in Kosovo or 30 days and we're sending out emails and then the towers were hit.

And then we're like, where were you in that house?

Germany.

I was a Stukart.

What were you doing?

Just a deployment.

We uh we had a unit over there, so we'd go over there and we would we would stage out of Germany.

So we went to Lithuania for training, went again to Norway, over to Scotland, and we did training around there.

Kosovo was the real world stuff, and then back to Germany because that's where all of our stuff was.

We deployed to Germany, it's called the UCOM, so European Command, uh, special forces over there, and SEALs go over there.

And then we have a place, we had a place in Rhoda, Spain, too, uh, but that's where deployments were, and that's all you do.

You're not

we like I did, um, when I was on the deployment with uh Jocko and Drago and Scott Padge and Steve Drum,

the one mission we did was

we took down a Russian tanker full of smuggled Iraqi oil, and there was no resistance.

I mean, like, we were taking away steak knives because there was a weapon, like, just bullshit mission.

Where was it?

That would have been in the Persian Gulf.

They were smuggling oil.

So we just hopped on that and drove it to Oman, and we made headlines, and we thought we were high speed.

So that would have been right around 2000.

What did the Russians say when you boarded their ship and they didn't have a choice?

We just, we came in with a helicopter.

I was a sniper in the helicopter, and our guys fast roped down, and our guys just took it.

We're good at that.

But no, no, we're anticipating resistance, but I don't think they had any guns.

But that was like at the time.

Were they annoyed that you stole their ship?

Yeah.

But we were doing stuff like that.

Like people were smuggling dates and we would take down these little Dow boat dates.

Like, all right.

Dates like the fruit?

Dates.

They're smuggling dates.

So let's go save the planet.

Literally, Navy SEAL is taking down boats with dates.

That's it.

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So you go from that to what?

Well, the 9-11, and it's just.

How soon did you realize this changes everything?

The second, the, the, the minute the second plane hit the tower, the South Tower.

And we just assumed, because we were already overseas, they're just going to keep us here and we'll go to Sudan because that's where a lot of al-Qaeda is.

We didn't know.

We didn't think Afghanistan, us, but someone knew somewhere.

So, but we stayed over there for another month and then we went back and then redeployed.

To where?

Well, we were heading over to invade Iraq.

I was on a boat.

It was in 2003.

We were on with Marines.

They're going to go through Turkey, but then something happened in Liberia.

So they sent the Marines off, and then we turned around and had to swim into Liberia to do

hydrographic reconnaissance for the Marines to come in and save people out of the embassy.

And I mean, that was a different, that's a different place to be, too, because it's a civil war.

Liberia is named after Liberty, and then Monrovia is the capital named after President Monroe because they sent

I was there then that year 2003 2003.

We, you know, the most dangerous thing we were thinking about was sharks or saltwater crocodiles.

When we got there, the people loved to see us.

They thought we were liberating them.

No shots fired, but there was a civil war going on and like cannibalism.

So it was kind of an awakening, but we missed the invasion of Iraq and then turned around.

And then I went.

Went to Liberia.

Yeah.

Did you see General Butt naked when you were there?

No.

He was a major commander.

Yeah.

No, I didn't even, I'm not familiar with that at all.

General Butt naked?

It describes his uniform.

So you're in Liberia, wow.

Yeah.

When they're invading Iraq.

So they're already in Afghanistan.

They're invading Iraq and we're in Liberia, which is just weird.

But, you know,

yeah, that was that.

And then went back and then I screened for SEAL Team 6, went through selection.

Then my first deployment to Afghanistan was 2005.

Went to Jalalabad right around the time that

Turbine 33 was shot down, Red Wings, Lone Survivor.

Why did you, what is SEAL Team 6 and why did you want to be in it?

SEAL TEAM 6 is the National Mission Force.

And so they were designed to rescue American hostages at sea.

If a cruise ship gets like, so Delta Force will do the airplanes and stuff, and then we'll do the water on paper.

And that's just where the best SEALs go, because

half of the guys that get selected to try out don't make it.

These are Navy SEALs, like

experienced Navy SEALs, usually five or six years in the SEAL teams, and then they try out for SEAL Team 6.

And it's just a hard selection course.

There's

a lot of close quarters battle, a lot of drills designed to make you fail and just to see how you handle failing because they don't really care if you succeed.

They want to see how you handle failing.

So it's not about physical fitness.

No, well, you do at least a 10-mile run every morning and then you get into the training.

And like skydiving, high-altitude, high-opening jumps.

That's when you jump out of a plane and you can go to a spot 11 miles away under canopy.

Like even looking down at your GPS, you can't feel any wind, but you're going 90 miles an hour.

It's just, it's a crazy experience.

Jumping at night, jumping bundles, jumping tandems, jumping gear, testing stuff out.

And that's scary.

You know, I mean, when you can't see anything, but you know you're at altitude, you know, you know you're at 25,000 feet.

Like you think you're looking at Tucson.

Oh, wait, that's actually Phoenix because I'm so high up here.

And then, you know, like even on a 25, we would do 25,000 foot halos, so high altitude, low opening.

And it's weird.

We're wearing the old school altimeters with the dial and watching it get to zero and knowing you're not going to hit the earth because you got another 13,000 feet to go.

It's just a crazy feeling.

But it's so dark you can't see it.

You got to trust your.

How long is the the fall in a handle?

For that would be about two minutes.

Normally, when we jump at 13, it's about a minute, depending on what you're doing.

If you jump at tandem, you have to set a droghesho, like a six-foot drogue shoot, to stay at terminal velocity with everyone else.

We're jumping a bundle.

What's a bundle?

A bundle is a huge barrel that weighs about 400 pounds and it's full of extra gear.

So it'll be radios, batteries, bombs, bullets, just stuff that guys can't carry.

So the bundle master jumps all of it and then you break it out and you hand it out when you get down there.

And some guys like it because it hits it, like when you're jumping at night,

under night vision, you can sort of see the ground, but you can't, like you want to flare when you get to the bottom and that turns the back of the parachute down so you can stop.

Yeah.

But if you flare too high, it needs to eat again.

Then it'll just drop you from 10 feet.

So you kind of judge where you want to do it.

But the bundle will hit the ground first and you hear it hit and then it kind of pulls you down.

But the entire time, the bundle's trying to kill you on the way down.

So you're connected to a 400-pound barrel.

With a 10-foot tether, yeah.

I mean, that sounds unappealing.

It is.

And it's one of those things.

I did it just because I wanted that qual.

I want to say that I'm a tandem master, a bundle master.

I just want that qualifying.

What can go wrong when you're jumping with a 400-pound bar?

A lot of stuff can go wrong.

Everything from when you start, you've got to set your drogue parachute.

If that doesn't set, you have to know it by feel that you're now going faster than everyone else.

And you got to get it set out there.

You got to get that thing out there.

Then once you're falling with it, I've had an occasion where when I pull, so when you pull, like little things, like remember to cross your legs because you don't want to snap your nuts off because you've got this thing.

Little things, little things like that, details in my case, anyway.

But uh, um, once that pulls to, then you know, you got to check your canopy, make sure it works.

You got all nine cells up there, make sure the brakes work, and then you do your little test.

But I've had it before where only half the parachute opened, and then it's in a dive, and I'm in the middle, and this thing's spinning violently.

Oh, and um, the 400-pound barrel is spinning violently, and I'm in the middle of it, and this adriftal force is pulling me to the like.

I had uh

line twist behind me.

So it's pinning my head to my chest.

And the cutaway for the bundle is right here.

And I'm lucky I pulled on a high altitude jump at 10,000 because normally you pull at 5.5.

And I actually burned about 7,000 feet in the spin.

If I would have.

And so I remember saying to myself,

if you ever want to see your daughters again, you got to get this now because it's like I can hear it and the ground's coming.

I pulled it.

The thing shot off.

It's got a parachute on it.

So it landed in Farmer Brown's field.

I landed by myself under this 400-foot canopy.

And my buddy Phil came out to me.

He didn't see the malfunction, but he came out and he goes, you look like you just saw a ghost.

Are you okay?

And I said,

somebody needs to change that.

This high-speed canopy with that low-speed cutaway has got to change because we just changed the new parachutes, these high-performance parachutes.

Someone's going to die.

And a year later, Lance Vaccaro died of the same malfunction because they didn't fix it.

And then they fixed it.

It's like, why didn't you fix that?

What happened to him?

Same, same exact malfunction, except he pulled a 5.5 and

he couldn't get it out.

And he smacked into the ground.

And like some of my buddies went out there to him um they they had a they cracked him with a pen like a writing pen cut his neck and put it in there tried to get him to breathe and he died out there oh and that's in training um training and this is during war like he i don't remember what year that was 2008 maybe

but uh yeah i mean the training's dangerous but it has to be done because well we do we do all that we do all the jumps all the wind tunnel time indoor skydiving because that one jump that you need to nail the exit you you can like captain phillips like everyone there had been in the tunnel had done the jump that's just because you got to nail that exit when you leave an aircraft especially a c-17 you're hitting the relative wind at first so 130 knots so so you're actually hitting that wind straight and until it transitions you to go down so when you jump out especially with the rucksack it's going to pull you and if you mess with it you can flip and then you don't if you pull on your back uh your canopy could come out in a horseshoe and wrap around your neck and people have died that way so you really got to nail an exit so we trained that much for that one jump how many jumps are you doing i had i had i've had over a thousand probably A thousand?

Yeah, that's not a lot either.

Like

some of our instructors, 20-some thousand.

Because we hired civilians, like Arizona Arsenal out in

Marana, Arizona, best skydivers in the world.

So we started to hire the best in the world to teach us this, like the best fighters, the best skydivers, the best shooters, the best drivers, just to teach us how to do what they do.

And they taught us how to do exits and learn how to fly canopies.

You have over a thousand jumps.

So that's multiple jumps a day.

Yeah.

Well, I'd go out there a lot.

I would do about eight trips a year to Arizona for two or three weeks at a time just to skydive.

How often are you skydiving when you're out there?

Every day, six a day.

Six jumps a day.

Maybe more, depending on your attitude.

Like guys would say for 10.

Or guys just wanted to get back to the Trident Bar and Grill where Nelson Miller owns that place.

It's just fun to hang out.

Did you lose your fear of jumping out?

Yeah, there was never a fear of jumping.

It was the first jump is like

looking through straws.

Like you really lose your periphery, but then it starts to get easier and easier.

And then so jumping is not, I mean, when you're strapped to a bunch of stuff at night, it's definitely sporty, but it's not fear.

It's like, I know how to handle this.

And I'd rather, like the Army jump static line where you connect to the thing and you jump at 2,500 feet or whatever, like that.

I don't want to be connected to the aircraft I'm jumping out of.

No, no.

I'd rather have time to work.

I've got a minute to work any high-speed malfunction or low-speed malfunction.

I can solve it.

But that's low.

I mean, 2,500 feet doesn't give you a lot of time to return.

Well, that's why, that's like the 80-second airborne.

Like, they're just throwing hundreds of people out at once and like vehicles and stuff.

Like, that that's ranger stuff like we can take an airfield and ours is uh high altitude high opening because we can ideally jump in and then float without anyone seeing us

and i've had friends do that i had um one of my really good friends is uh he led the jump to into somalia to rescue jessica buchanan and they jumped uh i think 17 dudes in 40 knot wins that like we wouldn't have jumped in training, but he did that.

They led it and they killed like 22 terrorists and rescued both hostages.

And that, again, that's just because

he was prepared.

His team was ready.

Like they did so many training jumps that we can do this when we need to.

You said that training for SEAL Team 6 was heavily psychological and they make you feel like a loser.

They make you fail on purpose.

What does that consist of and what's the purpose?

They just want to see how you handle failure.

And even when we're

training later when we get into SEAL Team 6 in a debrief, even after a combat mission, on a debrief, I would say, okay, what did you screw up?

I don't want to sit here and listen to how awesome you are.

What did you fuck up?

Tell me.

And we'll learn from that.

So they purposely get you into situations that you can't pass to see, just to see, like when they ask you, what were you thinking?

Your answer should be, I'm an idiot.

That's it.

Deflate it.

Don't get in an argument.

You can't win.

But the guy that starts to explain, well, here's what happened, blah, blah, blah.

You know, thanks for the debrief.

You're out of here.

Like,

I don't want to hear your excuses.

Just you're an idiot.

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So what would they make you fail?

House runs.

That's when in a kill house, like when a hostage rescue team comes into a house, you'll see it in action movies and stuff where they just come in here and they clear the whole area.

There are definite steps, distances, movements, and angles based on covering each other's backs and fields of fire.

So each, like one man goes here, two men goes here, three, four.

And they just make it really, really difficult.

Um,

uh, target identification, like they'll stupid paper targets where someone's pointing something at you and you shoot them.

All of a sudden, it's just a cell phone.

So that's a safety violation.

You're probably fired.

Or they'll have something holding a hostage.

And if you shoot the wrong person, well, if you shoot the wrong person, you're out.

But just little footwork stuff or too far far off the wall, too far, overpenetrate, long hallway, stairwell.

Just you screwed something up.

You didn't go by the

by the standard operating procedures, but they'll let you keep going

to see if you like when I, when, when you first take a step into a room, are you the person who comes into a situation and makes a mistake?

And then realize worrying about that mistake right now is not going to help.

I have a job to do.

And we'll talk about that later if we live.

Or are you the person who comes into a situation, makes a mistake, and then you can't stop thinking about that mistake?

And even though you're moving this way to clear that corner, you're dwelling on this mistake.

And because you can't stop thinking about that mistake over here, that's where you make a bigger mistake.

And that's where they get you.

And then you're fired.

So it's make a mistake, get over it.

And then keep going on.

And then the house run can be another 20 minutes.

And you're still thinking about that first entry point that you screwed up.

But you got to get that out of your head.

How do you do that?

You just

get over it.

It's, I mean, it's as simple as just stop thinking about it.

You, that, that no longer matters.

That, that, we're just here.

Your failure no longer matters.

Nope.

Because, I mean, everyone's still alive.

I screwed up.

I came in with the wrong foot.

Whatever.

So they make you feel incompetent.

Yes.

Like every run.

And at the end of it, you get debriefed on how bad you are.

And like the whole

green team, we call it the selection course,

just telling everyone how they screwed up.

And then

everyone gets punished for it.

And then as soon as you're done getting punished, you're right back in there again.

And the whole point is, can you get over it?

I mean,

that sounds harder than running.

It's hard.

And

I've seen dudes that when they just freeze, they screw up too many things and they just freeze.

Yeah, because it's a perfectionist who gets into this business anyway, like who wants to be a Navy SEAL, only someone who wants to test himself, be the best.

Right?

Yeah, I think so.

Yes.

Someone's got something to prove.

Exactly.

And they want to be the best.

And then, I mean, it's even, it's even unique going to SEAL Team 6 because not everyone knows that SEAL Team 6 is a different animal.

Like a lot of the Navy SEALs you see out there now weren't at SEAL Team 6.

And they know that.

And a lot of people don't talk about it.

That is the best command in the world.

I mean, those are the guys that they call when Osama Lan pops up or SEAL Team 6.

Shoe, how do you, I mean,

how do people fail out?

I mean, these are all SEALs with cybersecurity.

It's usually safety violations.

Like I was talking about with the wrong foot or shooting the wrong target.

You can have minor safety violations or majors.

If you get a major, they're going to boot you.

But if if they like you, they might keep you.

Like if they personally like you, if they hate you, you're in a bad, you're starting off on the wrong foot.

There's a point during the screening process where they just hand your picture around to the guys that have made it.

And if you get too many thumbs down, like I've seen this guy out, I don't like him.

You're not going to, you don't even need to try.

Like it's a, it's a good old

really?

Yeah.

Yeah.

You want to.

What percentage is the attrition?

50%.

When I went through, half the guys didn't make it.

And you knew them all, I assume.

Oh, I knew all of them.

And it was just bizarre because one minute you're having breakfast with your buddy, then you go to the, and I, there were guys I had breakfast with, and I never saw them again in my life.

They did, they did something wrong.

They're out.

They would walk around with the instructors, and they're all SEAL Team Six guys, these instructors.

They've been through this course.

They'd walk around with like two airplane tickets back in the day when you'd have paper tickets.

They'd be like, all right, we're not, we're not done until two of you guys go home.

So we're going to keep training until two of you guys fail.

Like, it's, it's a, it's a tough course.

How long is it?

Nine months.

Nine months?

Yeah.

Does anyone fail out at the end?

Not usually.

When you get through the initial part of close quarters battle, they keep you around.

The initial down in Tennessee, or not in Tennessee, in

Arkan.

Where the hell are we?

Mississippi.

If you make it through that and jumping, they'll usually keep you around because you've proven you can do that stuff.

Plus, they spend a lot of money on you.

And so they might keep you around.

But you can get shit canned at any time, too, when you're

at the command.

And if you screw up, they can, we can.

So you graduate, you become part of SEAL Team 6.

You made it to the top.

What do they do with you next?

They split us up into squadrons, and they're just, you go from

being a number team to a color team.

So, like I was at SEAL Team 2, and then I went to SEAL Team 6 for Red Squadron.

So I was at Red.

And it's even funny out in town.

Like, you see some of the local groupies, and they would talk to SEALs, like, number or color?

It's like, first of all, fuck you, but second of all, red.

Are there better colors than others?

No.

It is funny that no, when you get to that level, everyone is

on the same level.

There's different

attitudes, personalities.

Like red team was known for training way too hard.

Gold team was known for telling people to F off like you can't tell us what to do.

And blue was awesome.

When we finally started silver, this is kind of funny.

Cause Delta was going to go to four squadrons.

So we went to four squadrons.

And the rumor that gold squadron started was, yeah, I heard the next one's going to be silver squadron.

And that rumor just started and it turned into silver.

And we finally asked gold, why did you keep saying it was silver?

And they go, silver is not quite as good as gold.

Second place.

Yeah.

But no,

I did one one deployment with silver also and the guys are just uh

the best of the best how many are there in seal team six about 200 i think at any time and that was a unique place because i i was excited to get out of bed because every day i can go to work with people who are better than me And we all thought that way.

We all acted that way.

And nobody ever undermined it any, undermined anybody else.

Like if someone was out shooting me, like in a speed drill, I'd go up to them and say, hey, why did you switch your holster to here?

Why did you put that pouch over here?

What time do you wake up?

And what do you, what workout do you do in the morning?

What do you eat?

I want to find out what you're doing to make, what made you better than me today and try to get better.

And then we'd help each other.

Instead of like trying to steal their job or whatever, we'd help each other.

And then when we, I mean, at that level, when we first started going to Iraq, because I'd only seen Iraq on television, suicide bombers everywhere, car bombs going.

Like I, I, the first three months in Iraq, I was like, are we missing something?

Because we're really good.

Like we're, this isn't even close.

The enemy's not even getting a shot off.

We got to a point where

we stopped blowing up doors and stopped talking to each other and went quiet, went silent.

Like we, if we were silent, we were faster.

And we got to a point where instead of blowing up a door and waking, instead of landing a helicopter right on the house, we'd land way over there, walk in, pick the locks, break the glass quietly, go in.

We would have competitions on who could touch more terrorists while they were sleeping.

Like you walk up to them and you'd like to test their vest for a suicide vest.

And then you put your hand on their lips and go, shh, shh, and you wake them up.

And then they shit their pants.

And then what happens?

You arrest them.

Unless they have a suicide vest on, then

they find out if the 72 virgins are real.

When was the first time you saw someone killed as a SEAL?

Do you remember?

I want to say in Ramadi.

I didn't.

No, because we dropped bombs on people in 2005.

And then I went to

Iraq in 2000, late 2005.

And that's the first time I killed someone.

Me and actually the sniper from the Captain Phillips mission, we got our kills at the exact same time.

What happened?

We were doing

a combined hit with it was SEAL Team 6, Delta Force, and the Special Air Service.

So we got a good crew coming in, and we're splitting up this,

like SAS says this, Delta's got this, and here's our target.

And we crept in.

We had just started that tactic of not going on white lights, not moving fast, going dark, not talking.

Like when I see people at war just screaming, go, go, go, all that bullshit.

It's like, shut up.

Why aren't you just yelling?

Here we are.

Just shut up and like if if you point this way i'll assume you see something and we can just read off each other so we went into this house four of us one of the guys was from the sbs special boat service and we're walking down this long hallway four of us and this dude came out with an ak and he could have killed all of us but he couldn't see us so he went back in the room and then we hit the room and killed him then we came outside as the whole town started to light up and me and the um sniper went out and we we did this cross pan thing on a building and as like when you're crossing like i'm covering here he's covering there and you can wave and take your corner corner or whatever.

But these two dudes just popped up, two Al Qaeda guys.

I blasted him, he blasted him.

And I go, Oh shit, I just killed that guy.

And my buddy goes, Yeah, I just killed that guy.

Like, what do we do now?

And I guess we do one of those bounding things and find more Al-Qaeda guys.

But it was, it was almost like the first kill wasn't uh

it didn't bother me.

It was more of a, okay, now I'm part of the club because now I have friends at F kills.

Now I have a kill.

And then the, you know, the floodgates open and everyone started killing people.

When was it?

It was 2005.

Uh, 06 and 07 was when it really got hot.

And then over in Afghanistan.

But did you, that night after you killed somebody, did you think about it?

Not really.

No, I mean, it was just a kill.

It was

everyone's trying to get there.

Everyone's trying to do it.

So I'm just part of the club.

It didn't bother me at all.

And again, just working with these guys, I thought I was a different mindset.

So it didn't.

And that guy still doesn't bother me.

He had a gun.

He was maneuvering on us.

So whatever.

He's definitely Al-Qaeda.

And then, you know, we just did that and we were really good about it.

We, we, the more latitude that we had as far as collateral damage, the, the fewer innocent people got hurt because

we're the good guys.

Yeah.

And we're not going in there to murder people.

And if you, if you give me that, then, but then, I mean, it got to the point right before I got out that if you're in a gunfight and there's a cave.

I remember one, there was a cave.

We're trying to call it hellfires.

And the bosses 200 miles away said, we're not saying there are women and children in that cave, but we can't prove that there are not.

It's like, what are we even doing here?

But we got good at it.

Every night we're going out and we

uh, General McChrystal decided that we should be hunting um Sunni terrorists.

That's what Al-Qaeda, they're Sunnis, and they were terrorizing the locals.

And that's kind of where I got an affinity for locals because they got to deal with us and they got to deal with Al-Qaeda.

All they're trying to do is get on with their lives.

Like, most people in a combat zone are not combatants.

They just want to live.

Of course.

And so they deal with Al-Qaeda in their house.

But so then we would go to their house.

And then we, that's when we got into interrogations, try to find the bad guys and root them out.

And we were given the latitude if you, if you see

kill them on site.

How, how would you know who they were?

Well, I mean, usually if they go to their guns or they sleep outside with guns buried, you can kind of tell they're bad guys.

And, you know, if they don't have guns, we don't kill them, even though we know they should be.

But again, we're the good guys, so we're not trying to do that.

But they'll usually hop up and fight

or then the trees are on the, you know, get shot at from rooftops and things like that.

But interrogating them was actually funny.

I mean, how do you do that?

The way I started to do it, because I never had training.

We just learned on the job.

And so what I would do is I would take my interpreter and like have him stand here and put the al-Qaeda guy right in front of him.

So they can't look at each other, but I talk to him and he talks to you.

And then you tell me what he says.

And I'm going to be very direct.

I'm just going to ask,

who's the man of the house?

How many guys are here?

What are their names?

What's your name?

And then let him go.

But then like I've run into...

Why do you ask that?

Because if there's seven, usually it's like a rule of threes.

Like if there's seven dudes, there's going to be 21 women, 60, God knows how many kids.

So the guys are the bad guys.

And so if there's seven dudes, five of them are going to be, they live in the house and those two are, they came in from Jordan.

That's al-Qaeda.

And you just separate them.

Then you arrest them and bring them back to, you know, prison and stuff.

And they can interrogate him there.

So you look for the, you look for contradictions.

You ask them all separately.

Because the two guys are lying.

They don't know who the guys in the house are.

They don't know their names or how many people are here.

The five guys that live here do.

And then the one that I really liked was like the 12-year-old kid, the boy, the oldest of the children, because

you could prop him up, up, like dust him off, and say, All right, finally, I'm talking to the man of the house.

What's going on here?

Who are these dudes?

And then he just, yeah, I am the man of the house.

Well, these two are assholes.

I was like, All right, cool.

Or even bring him in a place where they can't see him, like put him behind a sheet or something.

And I'll bring these guys in, and you just point to the bad, like a lineup on TV.

And then those are the bad guys, and they don't know who the kid is.

And then you just roll them up that way.

And I mean, it sucks because then you send him to prison.

They're out in 30 days and you're finding them again.

Where was the prison?

Abu Ghraib, usually in Iraq.

And then Bagram, we take him there.

And we sent a few guys to Guantanamo.

Um,

you know, that was, but at the time, too, it's almost like it, it's

we were at a time where we're just fighting for the guy next to me.

The overall plan, like bin Laden's a ghost, we're never going to find him.

Like, I would even joke with dudes I was interrogating, like, uh, who's the man of the house?

Whose house is this?

Where's Osama bin Laden?

And I'd see terrorists laugh at me.

I'm like, I don't know.

Like, I know you don't know.

I don't know either.

I just figured I'd ask.

But, like, I've run into

English speakers where,

like, you didn't need the interpreter, and he'd say, I know the deal.

This, I remember one guy said, I go, You know, the deal, he's like, Yeah, I know the deal.

You're going to send me to prison.

I'm going to get out in 30 days.

I'm going to kill your friends again.

And I said, So, you've dealt with Americans before, huh?

And he's like, Yeah, I'm like, Did they look like me?

Like, with the beard, short sleeves, tattoos?

Do they look like me?

Yeah, you know, you didn't, you've never dealt with us.

We're not here on accident, we're here for you.

And then again, watch Al-Qaeda shit their pants.

It's pretty funny.

I mean, what a heavy life, though.

I mean,

it was, but everyone was doing it.

So it seemed normal.

Did you ever talk about it?

I mean, you're just the people you're, the guys you're working with sound like smart people.

I mean, they're screened for intelligence and self-control.

And like, they're not shallow people.

No.

Right.

No, they're deep thinkers.

I can tell.

But

just be like everyone around you is doing it.

So it seems normal.

It was not uncommon.

to see a guy at the team that just made headlines around the world and say, hey, dude, you just made headlines.

Cool.

You want to go go to the gym?

Like, just blow it off.

When my buddy

rescued Richard Phillips, and we were on the ship and I said, this is obviously before the business.

Can you explain the Richard Phillips story for those who don't remember?

Yeah, it was

the Marisk, Alabama was a ship carrying crate around the Horn of Africa.

And Somali pirates had started taking the ships as criminals because.

The insurance company is always paying the ransom every time.

So it's going to be a lucrative business.

And

they captured the Mersk, Alabama, and Richard Phillips was the captain.

In order to save his crew, because there was a fight on board, he got in a lifeboat and then the four terrorists or criminals got in a lifeboat and then they went off to sea because he was going to just send them out, but they took him as a prisoner because they could sell him to al-Shabaab or whatever they're going to do.

And eventually

the USS Bainbridge, a destroyer, started towing it.

So they're towing this around.

Not sure what to do with them.

They got terrorists inside there and an American prisoner.

I mean, even to the point that he jumped jumped out once and he was looking at the Navy, like, are you gonna go hot?

Like, you can go shoot now because I'm in the water, and they didn't even shoot.

Like, you're putting his life at risk because if they get him back, so they tied him up and all that stuff.

And then that's when they called us.

And I was, um,

it was my birthday, Good Friday, April 10th, and I was at my daughter's Easter tea party at her preschool.

And I'm getting her cupcakes.

I got a pink plate, and I walked over to she's four years old, and I got a message that you're going to get them now.

So I had to kiss my daughter, like, look her in the eye.

Like, that's the hardest part too, of combat.

Look her in the eyes eyes and kind of realize this could be it.

This could be the last time we ever see each other.

You know, and there's a huge difference between kissing your kid good night and kissing your kid goodbye.

And she was always there.

Like she was four during that one.

She was one after Lone Survivor.

She was seven going after Bin Laden.

But he's saying goodbye to her, giving her a kiss.

And then,

well,

we had a set amount of time to get to work.

We'd been selling it since 1980, but we'd never done it.

And I have about an hour to get to

selling that we can be wheels up at a certain time and we can be anywhere in the world in 24 hours.

We've been selling it to like JSOC, the Army, and the White House.

And you got to figure the Obama administration had only been in office for a few months.

So this is very serious.

But the funny part of the story was I was ahead of schedule and I stopped at a 7-Eleven on the way.

There's a 7-Eleven outside of the base and I got a...

a log of Copenhagen, a carton of cigarettes, and as much cash as I could out of the ATM.

That's the spirit.

Because I knew we were going to be jumping on the east coast of Africa, but there's never a perfect plan.

We might not land where we want.

I'm the lead jumper and we might not end up where we want.

If I land in a semi-permissive environment, I might be able to barter with the locals with the tobacco or

pay my way to safety with cash.

What brand of cigarettes?

I bought parliament lights.

Parliament?

People?

Lights.

Yeah.

But I was in there to get it.

And there was one dude.

There was one dude in front of me.

And he was buying a USA today.

And the headline was about Richard Phillips, about the mission we're trying to do.

I'm right behind him.

And he slammed it down on the counter and kind of announced to the whole store, man, I sure wish someone would do something about this.

And I'm behind him, recognizing the irony and looking at my watch.

And I tap him on the shoulder and he turns around and go, buddy, pay for your shit and we will.

Like, I'm not even kidding.

Like, the national security timeline is squarely on your very broad shoulders.

Did you make it within?

Yeah, I made it in time.

And then 15 hours and 46 minutes after I got the message, we were in the Indian Ocean with 103, 103 guys, full headcount.

And then a day and a half later on.

How'd you get in the Indian Ocean?

We jumped out of the C-17.

We flew from Oceania, refueled, and then I led the jump out.

And we had a dude behind me that

he wasn't a SEAL and he didn't have any skydives, but he was a communicator.

He set up the radio so we could talk to the White House.

But then we're like, we might need better communication when we get down there.

So I'll handle this.

And I went over and kind of kicked him.

I said, hey, Hughes changing plans, homie.

Guess who gets the skydive?

And he's like, oh, no, I didn't join the Navy to be a SEAL.

I don't want to skydive.

And I was like, you're half right.

Have a nice jump.

And so we.

You told him on the plane that you were jumping out.

You're going to strap up to my buddy here here and he's going to jump.

Well, that was a funny story, too, because I'm on the ramp.

We just launched the boats.

I'm the lead jumper.

I'm the first guy to bring the guys down.

I turn around.

At the end is this poor kid doing his first tandem.

And before I jump, I'm in a great mood, right?

Because I hooked him up.

I'm a tandem master.

So I'm doing the personnel inspection on him.

He's just a radio guy.

He's a radio guy.

And I could have ordered him to go, but I'm like in a good mood.

And I'm like, dude, chicks pay for the shit on the weekends.

And that water's like 90 degrees.

This is gorgeous.

It's going to be so fun.

And he's scared to death.

So I'm getting ready to jump and I turn around and I kind of give him a like thumbs up and I'm getting nothing.

And my buddy who I connected him to, his head comes around and kind of gives me a thumbs up.

And then this kid looks back and they're like in each other's intimate space.

And the last thing I heard my buddy say was, well, don't look at me, bro.

I don't know what half this shit does anyway.

Before he jumped him.

And then we had, so we jumped in.

So the kid actually went out the plane.

Oh, yeah.

He stayed scared the whole mission.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

But then it ended on Easter.

So you land in the water now.

Land in the water.

Sink the parachutes.

We sent four boats out.

So we hop on the boats and we go to the uss boxer and then we put the snipers on the bain bridge and and then we were coming up with plans because no one had thought of a lifeboat being towed by a destroyer so literally everyone come up with a plan and we'll write them down and we'll come up with the top five and as we're doing that the snipers got a good look they were they were looking at them for a while and they got the shots and they just took it and um

yeah and uh one of the stories i don't know if it's true because i wasn't with him but his story is awesome One of the snipers,

there's an obstacle at SEAL training called the slide for life, where you climb this structure and then you slide on top of a rope all the way down.

And we always thought, what's the application,

the reality of it?

When are we ever going to need this?

That one guy needed it that one time when he crawled down to rescue Richard Phillips.

So he crawled down there.

And again, this is his story.

He said he pulled his pistol and he's getting ready to go in that small hatch in the back.

And just being an arrogant Navy SEAL, he's like, this is the only time I'm going to rescue someone.

I got to think of something cool to say.

What do I say?

SEAL team here to get you out, whatever.

He said he went in there and now he's in this lifeboat.

they've been using it for a toilet for five days.

And it's in this hot African sun.

And now there's three dudes laying in it with their heads blown off.

And he said, he looked at Richard Phillips and the first thing he said was, I'm going to need therapy after this shit.

That's, that's what I say.

I'm going to need therapy.

Did he?

I don't know.

And I don't know if he even said that.

The story's awesome.

Was there...

I mean, to crawl into a,

you know, a latrine filled with guys who had their heads blown off pretty heavy thing to see it is this what i was getting at though was um when when my buddy did that and i i talked to him afterwards and they did a really good job in the movie the sniper shooting they just they put their bipods up and they leave i talked to my buddy and i said you realize that you've just done the most important thing in the history of the seal teams and his response was cool can we go home

How long did it take you to get home?

About two weeks.

We went to Cutter and hung out at the pool for two weeks.

Karaoke night, R ⁇ R.

What a weird life.

Oh.

Yeah, well, because we never, because we'd never done that mission before.

We'd been selling it since the 80s.

And that actually reminds me of the mindset.

This, because, you know, getting to SEAL Team 6, the mindset,

those snipers were sleeping in their own beds on a long weekend.

And their guns did not need to be sighted in for the most difficult shots of their lives, but their guns were sighted in for the most difficult shots of their lives.

If they would have, if they would have,

they didn't get complacent.

Complacency kills.

Complacency is caused by success.

Too much success, and you have a tendency to say the worst thing you can say when you're running a team.

Well, this is the way we've always done it.

Those guys could have said, I'm going to sight my gun in on Tuesday.

I can drink beer all weekend.

And that's a shortcut.

That's being complacent.

And they weren't complacent and it saved the man's life.

Those shots, I mean, they're shooting through a window in two moving boats.

You know, there's some serious, and if they miss, they're going to kill him right away.

Like, if you miss this shot, he's going to execute and it's on you.

I mean, that's a lot of pressure.

How do you, how do you hit something

when both

the object you're standing on and the object the target is standing on are moving?

They've done it 10,000 times in training.

They

muscle memory.

Shooting at movers, walkers, cars, shooting in wind when someone's walking, like having a moving target in wind.

So it almost looks like you're shooting behind it, but you know the wind's going to take it into them.

Anticipating

what the C-state is like and you're leading them.

I didn't take the shot.

It was just awesome shots.

They were, yeah, they were pros.

Really good dudes.

So how long between that mission and bin Laden?

Yeah.

Two years.

Would you do for that two years?

As soon as

Captain Phillips was done, we went over to Afghanistan and I was on the base when Bo Bergdahl walked off.

And so we tried to rescue him.

That's a weird story, too.

Cause I...

Wherever you are, be there, be present.

And I happen to find myself on all these major missions just because I was available.

I've had army guys joke with me.

They said that I'm the forest gump of the navy, only I'm not as good looking.

I can't run as fast.

I'm not sure how to take that.

But Bo Bergdahl walked off because the way that we would work overseas is we sleep.

So who is Bo Bergdahl?

Bo Berdahl was the guy that the Taliban grabbed him and they held him for five years in Pakistan.

And then the army flew in and traded out those five Taliban guys for Bo Bergdahl.

So he was a POW, but he walked off because he was an idiot.

Right.

And the way that we would work out.

He walked over to the Taliban.

He walked out just because he was going to to start a new life in the mountains.

And he, it's one of those things where just because you don't think you're at war with someone doesn't mean they're not at war with you.

Well, exactly.

When he walked off the base, I went into the tactile operations center with a coffee and they said, yeah, this dude just walked off the base.

And I was like, you mean he walked off?

I said, yeah, we intercepted this phone call from the locals calling the Taliban.

They said, we found this American soldier.

Do you want him?

And they said, the Taliban said, what do you mean you found him?

They go, they said, we found him on the side of the road taking a shit.

And the Taliban's response was, yeah, we want him and he'll never shit right again.

And that, like, that dude was held for five years.

And I've been asked before, too, should he, should he do jail time?

It's like, no, he needs therapy because he's been punished.

He realizes he made a huge mistake.

Whatever happened to him?

Do you know?

I don't know.

I think he got court-martialed.

I don't know.

I should look that up.

Wow.

So you went to Afghanistan after the Indian Ocean.

What was that like?

The same.

It was summertime.

So they don't really fight in the winter.

They do the spring offensive and they fight all summer.

And we'd just been authorized a few years prior to actually fight the Taliban because we were fighting just Al-Qaeda as a tier one unit.

And then they authorized us to Taliban so we could fight anybody.

And it was just, I mean, same stuff, looking for,

you know, targets that weren't as important as our government tries to make them.

They like words like shadow governor and here's the spider web of this, you know, this leader of, it's like, or you mean a farmer.

Like,

where's Al-Qaeda?

Well, they're in Pakistan.

Why aren't we in Pakistan then?

Why weren't we in Pakistan?

Well, I don't know.

We were running sources in and out, and then the agency was right there.

My actual deployment right before the bin Laden raid, I was running several out stations working with the agency, and the bin Laden team was there, and I didn't know them.

And it was,

I used to give the agency shit.

I was like, the biggest problem with the CIA is they make too many cool movies about the CIA.

Yeah, exactly.

They're not that cool.

But the bin Laden team was there, and they were that cool, and I just didn't know it.

And then I met them later.

Were they really?

Yeah.

They lived up to the hype.

When I met them at first, when the commanding officer, SEAL Team 6, came in with a team of women and said, the reason you guys are here, this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden.

And they explained to us how they found him.

I was like, okay,

this is their tier one unit.

This is a good team.

But the whole time they were there, because we got back from Afghanistan like in February or March.

Well, my second to last deployment was like my 12th deployment, I think.

And

then we went to Miami.

for diving.

We were still thinking Somali pirates and the mothership.

Like we're going to we're going to make up tactics how to dive in currents in the middle of the ocean so you can hit an anchored ship.

And plus we're in South Beach.

Like we just finished war and we'll train all day and then we'll go out and have fun on the patio with happy hour with our friends.

And then we got recalled to Virginia, just the senior guys.

And

when we first got there, they said,

this is real.

This is not a drill.

We found a thing and this thing is in a house and it's in a bowl in these mountains.

And in this country, and you're going to go get it and you're going to show it to us.

And we're like, like, cool.

What's the thing?

Can't tell you.

Okay.

Which country is this?

Can't tell you.

How are we getting there?

Can't tell you.

How much air support we got?

None.

Okay.

That's an answer.

And then we assumed it was Libya, Qaddafi, the Arab Spring, whatever that was, was happening.

So this is April 2011.

We assumed, okay, we're going to fly off some ospreys off a flat top.

And they don't want to tell us because ospreys have a shady track record.

They've crashed before.

So we're going to go there, get them and bring them back.

That's got to be it.

So we were actually training for that.

And oh, they said also you're not taking any Air Force guys.

So, if you used to carry a radio, you're the radio guy.

If you used to be a corpsman, you're the, you're the medic because we're not bringing PJs or CCT.

And so, we're adjusting our gear for about a week.

And even other dudes from other color teams are coming up to us, like, hey, the super secret mission, what is it?

And I'm like, I don't know.

And they're like, come on, you can tell me.

I'm like, I honest to God, don't know what it is.

And then they, um,

on a Friday, they briefed us again and said, All right, go home, be with your kids.

Uh, come back Sunday at about 5 a.m.

And we're going to leave and and we're going to drive you to a place and read you in how many men by the way had kids would you say i think all of us wow maybe one of the guys on the mission didn't maybe two i could be wrong but i most guys were family men most guys were in their in their early 30s married

and then uh they were briefing us this is actually a funny story um

Come in on Sunday and I remember asking, who's going to be there at the read-in?

They said, well, the vice president, Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Navy.

It's like, Jesus.

But they're going down the list and they said CTC Pad will be there, blah, blah, blah.

And they kept going.

And I didn't say anything, but CCT Pad is a counter-terror PAC Afghan.

If we're going to Libya, that doesn't make any sense.

No.

So I went home and then we came back.

They split us up.

This is a funny story.

They split us up, four dudes in vans, and we're driving down to North Carolina.

My boss is next to me.

My two buddies are driving.

And I told them exactly that, CTC Pad.

And I said, this isn't Gaddafi.

They found Bin Laden.

And my boss looks at me and he goes, that's exactly what I was thinking.

So we're just calmly discussing it.

And my buddy driving, as bad as it sounds, he looked me in the rearview mirror and goes, man, O'Neil, if we kill Osama bin Laden, I will suck your dick just like that.

Rude.

But three weeks to the day, we're standing over his body.

And I went, hey, now's a good a time as any.

He's like, oh, hell no.

I'm like, you said it.

But no, then we went down to the thing and the team was there.

And we weren't joking anymore.

We're all serious.

And they said, yeah, this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden.

And

the head targeter explained, she must have talked to us for three hours about how she found him to the point where it's like, okay, we just believe you.

I don't need to know anymore.

I don't need to have the sausage.

I trust you.

We're going.

So let's train up on it.

Can we go now?

What was she like?

Just cool.

As cool as you can imagine.

Just an awesome professional.

Like she's, she's the reason that when I was saying, okay, this is the real tier one CAA.

She was like that badass.

The team was badass, but she was like in charge of it.

She even came with us to Jalalabad.

She stayed with us the whole time.

Yeah.

Just didn't go to ABAD with us.

She stayed at the talk in J-Bed.

But we trained

for a couple of weeks

just on the exterior, because I don't want you to tell me what you think is inside.

Like, if you tell me there's definitely going to be a right turn, there's going to be a left turn.

So don't it's like almost when we go to a target.

I don't want you to tell me how many men, women, and children you see.

Tell me how many people you see, and I'll figure out who they are when I get there.

Just let me do that.

So we trained on the exterior.

We came up with the perfect plan.

We talked about contingencies.

The youngest guy in the room one night said, well, the helicopter could crash in the front yard.

Let's talk about that for 30 seconds.

And that's what happened.

And then we went out west to,

well, we would stand around this table at night talking about it.

And, you know,

and this was in Jollaben.

No, this is in North Carolina.

Someone had made a two-scale model of his entire place.

And we're, and like, SEALs are funny.

Like, we have a good time.

And guys were joking.

And I'm usually the guy telling a joke or whatever.

But I said to the guys, like, hey,

you should take this a a little more serious because this is a one-way mission.

Like, we're not coming home.

This is it for us.

We're, you know, we're going to get shot down.

There's going to be a fight.

And if anyone's going to blow his house up when we're in it, it's been line.

We're going to run out of fuel.

Like, take this serious.

And then we went out west to Nevada and we met the helicopters.

And we turned a corner and we saw these things.

And everyone's kind of laughing.

And I remember someone said to me, Why are you laughing now?

And I go, Well, there's a better chance we're going to live because I didn't know we were going to war on Transformers, these helicopters that they got.

So we trained on them for a while.

And then what were they?

Stealth.

Helicopters that no man invented, like these things.

I can't even describe them.

They're just awesome.

And we were training with them with what makes them different from a camera.

I don't know.

It's got to be the angles of the

outside, the structure, and the paint.

Had you ever seen one?

No, no one had.

The president didn't know about them.

The president didn't know about them.

Yeah, when they were talking about what are they going to do, are we going to bomb the place?

And the Air Force said that to bomb it, we got to put 22 J Dams on that house, 2,000-pound bombs.

Like, you'll never know he was there.

And then I guess the chief of staff, the Air Force, said there's one more option.

And he told them about the helicopters.

And that's what we went out to train with them.

So the president didn't know that his own military had these.

Yeah.

And he was cool, too.

There was no, there was no partisan politics on this mission.

This was just, this is the right thing to do.

When we first presented a plan, two helicopters, 32 minutes, and then fly out, you might rent a fuel so they were going to run over the Hindu Kush.

Like, we got to get back to Afghanistan.

If we get compromised, it's going to be because of the local police.

It's like if someone invaded near West Point, it wouldn't be cadets going after him.

It would be the cops.

And then we're in a weird spot because I don't want to kill cops.

I don't want to kill Pakistani police.

They're just doing their job.

We're here without their invitation.

So what we said is we're going to, we'll hardpoint it.

And then you need to send someone to Islamabad and negotiate our release or whatever, because we're not going to surrender or whatever.

But that was our plan.

And I guess Barack Obama, again, looked at the chief of staff of the Air Force and said, what do you need to rain hell in Pakistan?

My guys are not surrendering to anybody.

Good for him.

Which is some South Chicago politics right there.

He was awesome.

So we got a guerrilla package.

We got more helicopters, more stuff juiced up.

And I don't even know what we had overhead.

But I mean, when we finished and they launched F-16s, I know we had something up there that convinced him to turn around.

But these helicopters, was anyone aware that these existed?

No one knew about them.

I mean, these are helicopters.

So the U.S.

military can just like have, I mean, a helicopter.

It takes a lot to build a helicopter.

That's very well.

And I can't get too much into it because.

Oh, right.

You can.

They're like, you're not even allowed to talk about what you think you saw here.

Like, it's, there's some serious shit going on.

And you say they were out in Nevada, where in Nevada?

Well, I can't say that either.

Yeah, but I think we know.

Yeah, we probably know.

Yeah.

Near Vegas.

That's where we stayed.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

I mean, it was, it gave me faith in what we can do if we need to.

I just find it very, not to, I never thought I'd be focused on the helicopter.

No, like, who cares?

Well, and it was, um, but that's the weirdest thing I've heard in a long time.

Yeah.

And then you got to figure the pilots had never heard of them.

And so they, they got to practice for what, five days, and then they're flying us into Pakistan.

Those are the heroes, the pilots.

How do you get a machine like that from Vegas to Jalalabad?

I think they probably put it in a C-17, flew them over.

And then when they put them together there, too, like they're in the middle of an airfield with their covered during the daytime, and then there's bright lights shining out out, so no one can see them.

They would put these things in the hangar so like Chinese satellites couldn't see them, but they're pretty serious.

What's like to ride on one?

It was comfortable, it was quiet, and uh, it was just cool.

We had, there was more room, uh, in that they looked kind of like a 60s because there's no engine, right?

It's just anti-gravity.

There's something up there, yeah, they're flying by magnets, yeah.

But no, they were, they were cool, and it was, it was, it was comforting because, I mean, once you take off

and cross the border, they tell you that you're in pakistan it's like okay now we're going to find out if this works and then then again the mindset comes in like um worrying about a missile is not going to stop it so i'm not going to worry about it you know if like you're worried about anything in life that your worry doesn't affect why are you wasting your energy yeah so what i what i do and i learned as a sniper was count so i would count from zero to a thousand thousand to zero And I just get that in my head, you know, counting, changing the cadence up, just counting, you know, looking at the watch.

We got 90 minutes to get in there.

Cairo, Cairo, the dog was sitting next to me, the Melanois.

No easy, no ordinary dog is a book written about him.

His handler, Chesney, was right here.

Good dog.

He's the best dog.

He was the best dog I've ever worked with.

Cairo's the best.

What made him?

I don't know.

He was smart.

He was just a good boy.

He'd been shot before

in the chest in a gunfight.

Wait.

And when a dog gets shot, he's just dead.

And it was a really weird gunfight a couple years before.

We were doing vehicle interdictions.

Taliban and Al-Qaeda were figuring that we were coming after them at night.

So they would start driving their motorcycles right around dusk to cross the border of Pakistan.

And then we just started hunting them on their motorcycles.

And if you've never hunted men out of a helicopter on motorcycles, you have not lived.

You take pig hunting.

That's nothing.

hunting guys on motorcycles.

So we got in a fight one night where we found the low ground.

We ended up in the low ground.

We had to split it up.

And I had to flank some guys up here.

And these guys went down there.

And we could hear my guys in a fight.

And they said, hey, we got a friendly wounded in action.

And I asked, who is it?

I wanted a call sign because, you know, if you tell a call sign, you don't know who it is, but I know exactly who it is.

And they said, Cairo.

And I'm like, fuck, he's dead.

He got shot in the chest and the arm.

But the guy with him, who is actually the point man on the bin Lan raid, got to him and like shaved him and put a chest seal on him.

The pilots came in under fire and pulled him out.

And then

the surgeons were waiting for him and they saved him.

So Cairo lived.

And he actually, he actually.

The pilots landed under fire to save the dog.

Yep.

Because that does make you love America.

Yes, because he's one of the guys.

We're his pack.

Other countries don't do stuff.

So he went on trips with us again, and he actually got PTSD because we'd be on targets, and we'd tell him to go in a room.

And he kind of, you sure?

Like, yes, that's your job.

Get in there.

But then he went on the bin Lan raid.

And he was.

So why, why do you, pardon my ignorance, why do you bring a dog on a raid?

He can smell them.

He can find him.

People hiding.

I've had him open secret doors for me, like get on their hind legs and push something, and it opens in a castle.

Just weird Afghanistan stories.

They'll chase chase people down.

They'll they'll um

they'll corner them.

They uh just like finding a grouse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And they're amazing.

Well, even a Cairo, uh, I read stories that he had some $20,000 titanium teeth, which is bullshit.

He, he had one tooth because of a gum disease.

He was there for his nose.

And his job was to one.

He had one tooth.

He was just a good boy.

But on the, on the, yeah, and he was, he was with us always.

He was, he was one of the dogs that could, um,

when we were overseas, we would have like the stadium seating with leather couches to watch when we're not working, watch TV and everyone can sit there.

And once you take their vest off, they're just part of the pack now.

So you can pet them, you can play with them.

And they want their ball more than the, more than a treat.

But then they'll do stuff like if they're up on the same level as you and put upon you, you got to push them off because they're trying to get up there.

Because like his handler is his dad and you're an uncle.

And if they start doing that paw shit, they're trying to get up the chain of command.

So you certainly are.

They're trying to dominate.

But then you got to be careful because he doesn't have a muzzle on.

If you piss him off, maybe he'll bite.

But Cairo never would.

None of the dogs ever bit.

Well, one dog dog probably did but uh he was just a good boy he never would do that he wouldn't even try to challenge uh for for hierarchy he was just awesome just a great dog that book's amazing no ordinary dog is amazing and they can find people anywhere yeah they'll that you're not hiding from him and you're not going to outrun him he'll if you uh if you score because it's you know it's better to send a dog to get him than to just shoot a guy you can he'll bite him and then we'll arrest him because you don't know he might be running because he's afraid or whatever i'm not on the bin ladder and this is not a culture in afghanistan or pakistan where people keep dogs at home right no they hate dogs.

But they have dogs.

They have them.

Like, one of the hardest things to get used to is the 30 dogs that are barking as you roll up on a house.

They're just out there barking all the time.

But they're not pets.

No.

But our dog, that's cool to watch our dogs with those dogs because they don't give a shit.

Like, they're just like, I'm so much better than you.

They don't even pay attention to the other dogs.

Really?

Uh-huh.

Like, I'm the one wearing a vest.

I'm carrying extra magazines.

You're nothing.

They carry extra magazines.

They carry mags and they wear a flag and he had his red man patch.

Yeah.

And so I was sitting next to Cairo.

He was asleep on the plane.

And it was a funny conversation just to what, because not conversation.

I was looking around the Hilo flying into bin Laden's house just to see how my guys were handling.

We could get shot down.

How are you guys dealing with this?

And one of my friends was asleep.

He put his headphones on.

He was asleep.

And I kid you not, what I said to myself was, you're asleep.

literally on the ride to Osama bin Laden's house.

Like you have ice in your veins and I actually see why women find you attractive.

That's badass.

That is, that is.

And then we banked to the south, 10 minutes out.

And

it sounds Hollywood, but I was counting still.

And I don't know how I remembered the quote, but I said, 556, 557,

freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended.

And it kind of sunk in 10 minutes from Bin Laden's house.

Like, holy shit, this is the mission.

This is the team.

And we're going to kill them.

Holy shit.

And then like the air crew guy who never gets credits, he reached over and opened the door two minutes out.

Like the crew chief's job was to keep the helicopter flying and open the door.

That's it.

But how important is that?

What if we couldn't have figured out the door?

Like just sitting in a helicopter can't get out.

And if we got hit with a missile, he's got a family too, and they'll miss him.

But no one ever mentions him.

He's a hero.

He opened the door.

He was the first step of us getting into Bin Lan's house.

Who are the pilots?

Not by name, but

how do you get to fly a machine like that?

They are Task Force 160th, the Nightstalkers.

Talented?

They're the best in the world.

The Army helicopter pilots are the best helicopter pilots in the world.

And we got the best four.

And we're lucky we did because the flight lead saved everyone's life on the first helicopter by crash landing it in the front yard.

How does it crash land a helicopter like that?

When he told me, I'm not a pilot, but he told me when they were coming into fast rope, which is when you hover 30 feet, 20 feet, whatever, ropes come out, snipers are watching, guys just slide down.

They're going to separate to where they're going.

And we're going to drop some guys off and Cairo outside.

And then Mike teams going to the rooftop.

We're going to hit him that way.

But as soon as he started to hover, he realized he couldn't hover.

Like there was an updraft.

Something with the fences were different than the ones we were training on.

And it was a little bit warmer than we were used to.

So they're not going to get much lift.

And he said an inexperienced pilot would have powered it up and rolled it and everyone would have died.

But he realized in the blink of an eye, if he can turn it and put the tail on the 15-foot fence and pin the nose, everyone might live.

And he made that decision quicker than I just explained it.

And he just smacked it into the ground.

And then our pilots was bringing us to the rooftop.

Was anyone injured in that?

Yeah,

but not like at the time, like bad, they have bad backs now.

Like they're spine stuff, but nobody got hurt right then.

And plus the adrenaline was pumping.

I'd imagine just getting dropped, like getting dropped off in a crashed helicopter in the front yard of the number one terrace in the world.

And you don't know what the resistance is going to be.

And so our guy would lift it up, but he saw them and then put us down.

And he knew they couldn't hover.

He probably couldn't hover, but we didn't know they crashed.

So they just, he kicked us out.

So now we're outside of Bin Laden's house looking at a 20-foot wall on this end.

I can see his house.

And I remember just thinking, I guess, I guess we start the war from here.

We know what we're doing.

There's There's a door right over there.

Let's go blow that one up.

So we went to the northeast corner where there's a double door.

And

I called a breacher up.

A breacher is the methods of entry guy.

He's going to get you in.

He'll pick that lock.

He'll break that glass.

He'll blow that door.

So he decided to put a seven-foot charge of C6 on the double door, which will open anything.

And he blasted it.

And we tried to go in.

And there was a, it opened like a tin can, but there was a brick wall behind it.

And why was there a brick wall behind it?

Fake door.

He just made a fake door.

And the breacher turned around.

He goes, fake door.

This is failed breach.

This is bad.

And I said, no, this is good.

That's a fake door.

Nobody does that.

He's in there.

So now we know this door opens over here.

It's a carport.

So we had to go past his house to this double door that we knew opened because we'd seen it open.

And

the

other, we heard them saying dash one going around.

Dash one going around because we assume they took fire and they're doing a racetrack and they're going to re-engage.

But they were saying dash one going down.

So we didn't know they crashed.

And we said, hey, this is so-and-so.

We're going to blast the carport.

And they said, no, no, no, don't blast it.

We'll open it.

And before that could even register, the double doors opened and a thumb came out with a glove that we recognize.

And it's like, okay, it doesn't matter.

I don't know why they're in there, but it doesn't matter.

They just are.

They're in there.

And that's the point in life.

Like sometimes it doesn't matter why.

That's exactly right.

It just is.

And the clock's ticking.

I told you yesterday about the football team when I talked to the offense, like, it doesn't matter why it's second and 15.

It just is.

And you can complain about it, but the clock's ticking.

We got to make a move.

so then we went there was already and this is a weird thing about rules of engagement too one of my guys was outside of the house and he'd shot through the window at uh i think a bra one of the couriers and his wife jumped in front of him so he shot her too and he looked at me this is how fucked up the rules of engagement are he goes this is a seal team six guy he goes i she just jumped in front of him i just shot her am i going to be in trouble and i go dude who cares we let's go find bin laden then we'll worry about rules of engagement but why is that in your mind right now because your leadership is so poor that you're thinking about going to jail jail right now.

So then we, you know, we got inside the house.

These are all guys from the other helicopter.

They're going down a long hallway and I hopped into a room.

Cause like if, you know, I hope you're never in this position, but if you're in a gunfight in a house, get out of the hallway.

It's just, that's just good business.

So I'm in this thing and I'm looking for bombs because this, he's going to blow this house up.

He's got to be a martyr.

And one of the guys behind me just said,

helicopter crashed.

And I said, because we had extra helicopters.

So I thought they were 45 minutes behind us.

They weren't stealth.

So I thought we just lost two helicopters full of my friends.

And I'm like, my God, what helicopter crashed?

He goes, bro, our helicopter crashed in the front yard.

I think he walked right past it.

You didn't even notice that?

No, I didn't even notice it.

But now it makes sense.

Okay, now that's why they're in here.

And then even the sniper who was with Cairo running around, he saw the tail on the fence.

So he's running around and the tail was right there.

And his response, he came over to the radio and said, all right, guys.

be on alert.

They're ready for us.

They have a training mock-up of our super secret helicopter in the front yard.

And then the, there was silence.

He

training.

Yeah, and the boss came over and he goes, No, jackass, that's ours because we crashed.

And he goes, Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than the shit.

I was just saying.

So, these are the conversations.

And it's crazy to think that guys still have their sense of humor.

But then, I'm just, and I'm behind my guys and I'm watching them.

And it was just so cool.

I'm just so proud of them.

Like, we could die at any second, and it's not even phasing you guys.

You're just doing your job.

Slow as smooth, smooth as fast.

No one's freaking out.

Just you're, you're, you're, you're escalating as necessary.

You know, you're, you're, you kick the door, try the door, kick the door, go mechanical, go explosive, boom.

And then the woman told us, you're going to run into a stairwell and you're going to run into Khaled Bin Laden.

So the head.

Who's Khaled bin Laden?

His son, his 20-year-old son.

And she said, and she ended up being 100% right on everybody in the house.

This was the CIA targeter.

Yeah.

Woman.

Sorry, not chick.

I doubt she'd care.

I don't think she gives a shit.

But yeah, he was right there and he hopped behind a banister and we got eight dudes going up the stairs that kind of turn, they go up and turn back.

And they're separated by

just a banister.

And they're both armed.

They're both grown men and they want to kill each other.

And so instead, normally I'd pick some guys back and move them out of the way because in an urban environment, if they start throwing grenades, but we're going to die.

So I want to see how this goes down.

I got to see this.

And he just whispered to him because we're quiet.

We're not saying anything to each other.

So we confuse the shit out of him.

And he whispered something along the lines of come here, come here, in Urdu and Arabic.

And he said his name twice, Khalid.

And Khalid leaned over.

He's got a gun.

He leaned over and goes, what?

Blasted him right there.

How did he know how to say from here?

Khalid is like, that's how smart he was.

He just knew he would need to know how to say that.

Just certain things.

Like, I was kind of arrogant when someone tried to teach me how to say, drop your gun.

I was like, I don't need to know how to say that.

I can say it like that.

I'll just shoot him.

He'll drop his gun.

But this guy learned it.

And like, he just was smart.

And that saved, I don't know how many lives.

Cause if we turn that corner with an AK, I don't care how much body armor you have on at that range with a 762.

Yeah.

He killed him.

And I remember walking over his body thinking, okay, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen.

And I was right for about seven seconds.

And then I saw bin Laden.

That was cooler.

But we went to the second floor.

I'm about seven or eight.

I forget the number back.

And guys start to split off because you got unknowns.

There are people in here,

rooms over there and there.

So they're clearing that.

And then we're down to two guys now.

It's the point man that killed Khalid and then me.

And the way that works is he's looking up and I'm looking back.

And I have, you want to have not control, but you want to let the point man know you're there.

So either hold his leg or hold his shoulder.

And he's feeling that.

And

he's always looking forward.

And wherever his eye goes, his gun goes.

So he's looking at the top of this curtain and he can see people moving behind it.

And so he starts to pimp me.

Doesn't know it's me, but he knows it's one of his shooters.

And he just starts saying, we got to go now.

Come on.

We got to go.

We got to go.

Because he's saying, those are the suicide bombers, but we can beat them, but we have to go right now.

And for me, it was just, it wasn't bravery.

It was like, he's right.

I want four.

I want, I'll take two, but it's going to be just us.

And I, and I, I just, we're going to blow up now.

I'm tired of thinking about it.

And I just squeezed him and he went up.

And there's a curtain at the top of the stairs, not a door.

And he moved the curtain.

And there was these two women there.

And he assumed those were suicide bombers.

So he just jumped on them, which is most courageous thing.

I did.

He jumped on them.

He like tackled them to absorb the blast so the guy behind him can get a shot.

Like it's crazy.

You can't say that man's name.

No, but he should have a medal of honor.

Someone knows who he is and it's not hard to figure it out.

And just be, and simply because he went this way, I turned left and there's Bin Bin Lan standing there.

What was Bin Lan doing?

He had his both hands on Amal, his wife, and she was shorter and he was tall and he was maneuvering.

He was skinnier than I thought.

His beard was kind of gray,

taller than I thought he'd be skinnier.

I remember skinny, but I was looking right at him.

That's his nose.

I've seen that nose a thousand times.

Did he look at you?

I think so, but it was dark.

And it was, he's a threat.

I got to kill him.

And the way you kill a suicide bomber is shoot him in the mouth or in the head.

So I shot him twice in the head and then once more on the floor because all they need to do is suicide bomb.

I've dealt with suicide bombers and it is terrifying and it's permanent and it's loud, it's scary.

And all they need to do is have like a negative and a positive.

They just got to touch the leads.

So

they can do that like this and then just go boop.

And then everyone blows up.

So

I was even giving some shit about that.

Like, why just shoot him in the face?

Positive identifications.

Like, well, shoot him in the chest.

People live for a couple seconds after you shoot him in the chest.

You want to kill him.

He needs to go down.

What did you shoot him with?

556.

Yep.

Hollow points.

77 grand.

HK 416.

How long between when you identified him and shot him?

Probably second, maybe a second.

Less.

Like the saying we had is,

you have a second to convince me not to kill you.

And he didn't do it.

And that was his bedroom?

Yeah.

What was his bedroom like?

Big Bed, King Bed.

I think he and I think they were him, his daughters, and his wife and young son were all in there.

I think it was two daughters, I think.

At the time when you shot him, they they were all there.

Yeah, they were all there.

Well, it was the daughter that actually said finally it was that's Sheikh Osama.

You got him.

That's before we did the Geronimo call.

Because we, uh, this is cool.

We had a dude from another squadron who had been teaching himself Arabic.

So he was already deployed with Blue Squadron, and we were Red Squadron.

And we flew over to Jalalabad.

He was there.

And because he taught himself Arabic, we're bringing you because you're a shooter, SEAL Team 6, you're coming.

So congratulations.

So he was the one that was speaking Arabic.

And even his buddies were giving him shit because we had stopped going to Iraq and we're just in Afghanistan.

It's like, why are you still studying Airbus?

Exactly.

You don't need it.

Well, it's like the skydive.

I might need it once.

And the daughter was trying to say it wasn't him.

She finally said, yeah, that's him.

That's Sheikh Osama.

You got him.

His daughter says that.

His daughter said that.

And then when we came over to the radio, Forgotten Country, Geronimo, a.k.a.

And that wasn't, we didn't, we got shit for that too because we said, we used the word Geronimo as a pro word.

We didn't name him Geronimo.

That would be an insult to Chief Geronimo.

It was a pro word in honor of Chief Geronimo.

Instead of saying, hey, I'm in Bin Laden's room and he's dead, you say geronimo aka meaning geronimo means i am with bin laden right now and you have different pro words instead of saying hey i'm at the front gate you say something else like orange how did the kids and the wife respond um they were shocked they were surprised then they were scared um they were the same as every target um they huddled in a corner and and you know you try to calm them down uh try to reassure them you're you're not going to get hurt now just sit here And then when you're leaving, you say, all right, stay here until the sun comes up.

We do have aircraft, so don't go outside until Pakistani military gets there.

Then you'll be fine.

We're taking him.

Is he the only person you took?

We left everybody else there.

What else did you take?

We found a bunch of Intel.

We didn't know if he was running Al-Qaeda, but he was.

It might have been two or three offices.

So we took, they had the old school towers for a home computer.

So we crushed those, took the hard drives out.

We found a bunch of CDs and a bunch of papers.

And

anything electronic or written, we just threw it in a bag and brought it back.

And then we spread it up with the Intel analyst when we got back.

And they went through.

I didn't really go through anything.

I've heard rumors of missions and porn and all that stuff, but I think the porn might have been there because they were,

they embedded missions on that.

So if someone looked at it, they would just see porn, but not the mission they're trying to send, I guess.

And again, that might not be what happened, but that's what someone told me.

But I didn't go through any of the Intel.

The inside of his house, was it like the house of a rich guy?

No, it was, it was kind of standard.

Like, um, I think he might have been the only one with a bed bed.

The rest of them had like floor mats, just kind of like everywhere over there.

And then, you know, there's animals and trash that they burn.

And it's not a, I mean, there's a garden.

They were growing their food and three-story house, but it wasn't, I mean, it looked like the outside.

It was a stone inside.

There wasn't a lot of decoration.

There was a couple things hanging up,

you know, Karans on shelves and shit like that.

How did it smell?

I don't really remember.

When I got in there, it smelled like bombs going off because my guys had breached a few times.

So it smelled like a training area.

And again, it was one of those things where you're just kind of taking a snapshot.

I remember saying, like, you remember this because this is going to be it.

Like, this is going to blow up.

Just remember this.

And then, you know, I killed Bin Laden.

We got bin Laden.

And I was just standing there.

I'm going to go take a picture.

And one of my guys came up to me and he goes, hey, are you good?

And I said, what do we do now?

Because we're still alive.

And he's like, now we find the computers.

Every night we do this hundreds of times.

Right.

And I said, yeah, you're right.

Holy shit.

And he said, yeah, you just killed Osama bin Laden.

Your life just changed.

Now get to work.

And I knew what work was.

So we got to to get him in a body bag, got to find the intel, bring his body outside, blow up a helicopter, call in another helicopter, and then hopefully live for 90 minutes and get back to Afghanistan.

Did you take books?

Possibly.

I was more working on the computers.

I was in the,

I'd imagine they took pretty much everything they could.

How many people were killed in the raid?

Four.

One, two, three, four.

Five.

Five.

Yeah, we killed the courier, the other courier, his wife, Khalid, and then Osama.

What happened to his osama bilan's body well when we got back to bagram we flew him to jalalabad we showed him to the the woman that found him we showed him to the cia targeted yep she was there she wanted to see him and she saw him said i guess i'm out of a job and left she's it didn't even stick around she said yeah she kind of looked down like i guess i'm out of a job she was The only reason we were there because of her and she gave up her life to find him.

She was so cool.

No husband, no kids, 20 hours a day only on this.

And once she saw him, that's it.

Like when I saw her later, I said, because every, no one at the agency believed her, really, like 70%, maybe.

And when they got back, she said, like, everybody got awards.

And I didn't even get a parking spot.

Yeah, but we showed.

She sounds like a hard kid.

She's badass.

She's like, if anyone knows her, hire her.

Like, I'm not going to say her name or what she looks like, but yeah, hire.

That's

have any idea what happened to her?

No, I don't.

I mean, I've heard, no, I don't know.

Probably on Wall Street or something.

She should be.

Yeah, we brought him back to J-Bad.

We showed him to Admiral McCraven,

who was awesome.

And he, you know, we, yeah, we had just a moment looking at him.

And I remember he put his hand on my neck kind of like that.

It was like a really, just a cool team thing.

Like, here's the boss.

Here's the guys.

There's Bin Laden.

What was Bin Laden wearing?

He had on a, I think it was like pajamas, like white pajamas.

Might have been gray.

It's kind of hazy.

Yeah.

For me.

But then we brought him to Bagram,

laid him out.

They were doing the DNA tests.

And this was a weird time for me, too, because we're still in our gear.

We laid out all of our intel.

The smart people are going over that.

The TV was on, and they brought us breakfast sandwiches.

And President Obama with a red tie came down the red carpet and he said, tonight I can report to the people and to the world.

The United States conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda.

I hear President Obama say Osama bin Laden.

I looked at Osama bin Laden and I thought, how in the world did I get here from Butte, Montana?

And then I had a bite of the sandwich.

I'm like, this is the best breakfast sandwich I've ever had and then they did and then we hand we handed them and oh and then we're looking at the tv and we're just like say it that no one was hurt you got to say it say it and he finally said no americans were hurt like thank you because our parents were now watching this back home and they'd figured out by this point at this point yes they because we well i called my dad before i left on the mission i couldn't even tell him what we were doing i called him in my gear in jalal bed i grabbed one of the phones in one of the b-huts and i called him and i would call him on missions before and i would just say hey got to go to work whatever and he would always say i wish i was going with you And I would say, you know what, Dad, I wish you were too.

And this one, I called him, and I just was saying, hey, you know, thanks for teaching me how to be a man.

I got to go to work.

And he said,

I wish I was going with you.

And I said, well, I'm with some really good guys.

Don't worry.

And then I left.

And he was at home.

And I'm getting a little emotional now.

He was at home in a

Walmart parking lot.

And he sort of realized that we're going somewhere important.

He didn't know I was overseas.

And he went into Walmart and he ran into his sister, who's a registered nurse.

And she saw him.

She's like, and she, my dad says he was his two favorite words,

apoplectic and catatonic.

And she said, what's going on?

And he goes, I don't know.

I think something's going on.

And then we got back and he saw the TV and said, holy shit, because my dad always thought

that I was on the big mission.

And

he's going to think that was it.

And he was, I even called my mom.

I'd been joking with my mom my entire life, even in high school.

I would say, don't worry about me, mom.

I'm here to do something important.

I'm going to be safe.

Don't worry.

I'm here to do something important.

And I called her from Bagram and I said, hey, mom, you can start worrying because that important thing,

I think it just went down.

That's amazing.

And then we handed him to the army and they

flew him out to a ship and threw him over into the ocean, is what they told me.

Not only is that an amazing story, you did an amazing job telling it.

How long after

you killed Osama did you get out of the Navy?

My end of obligated service was January of 12th.

So I I was going to get out then.

But then on August 6th of 11, Extortion 17 was shot down.

Yes.

And we had 31 Americans on board and some Afghans.

And we lost a lot of guys from CL Team 6 on that.

I knew pretty much everyone on that helicopter.

So then I was definitely going to get out because I want to see my daughters get married.

And the unfortunate truth.

So what, I mean, that changed your perspective?

Yeah, because it can all, everything that is, everything that's ever mattered to you can end with one bullet.

Yeah.

And a bullet bullet never, never lies, and it needs to be right once.

So, but then we also had to backfill those guys because we lost a troop of SEAL Team 6 guys.

So I went to a different squadron to deploy one more time.

And

my thought process was:

I came in through the front door.

I'm going to leave through the front door.

So I'm going to go to war one more time to prove that I didn't just come here to kill Bin Laden.

I'm going to do one more deployment.

And actually, Bin Laden wasn't the last guy I killed with that gun.

I went overseas again and

I went with Silver Squadron.

We had a winter deployment.

Got in a couple fights, but it was winter in Afghanistan, so not a lot.

Actually, my last mission was an L ambush, which is the oldest tactic in war.

The only time I've ever done it is when you set up an L and someone either walks or drives right into it and you got them in two ways.

So we were able to do that with

a vehicle.

We were watching a vehicle.

start in this village, drive around a mountain.

This is Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan.

And then they were waiting for Americans to ambush.

And Americans didn't show up on Monday.

So they went back to their house.

They did it again on Tuesday.

And then we're watching them now.

And then Wednesday and Thursday.

And then I remember watching them saying, if they do it tomorrow on Friday, their day of prayer, they're definitely going to do it Saturday.

So if they do it tomorrow, we're going to set up on them Saturday.

So they did it Friday.

Now we're going to set up on them.

And this is the winter.

It was a car and no one else is driving this road.

So we just, we inserted, we set up on these rocks, put some snipers up.

So we have an L ambush, and we're going to wait for them.

And everything,

everything that can go wrong will, no matter what you're doing.

The mission was so simple.

Someone is going to be in a plane watching them and then they're going to give us a green light, yellow light, red.

And that's when we're going to pop out.

And even, I was even telling the army when we're selling them, like, yeah, I'm going to pop out and I'm going to stop the car.

And he's like, well, what if he doesn't stop?

I'm like, I'm going to shoot him.

This is pretty easy.

I'm just going to tell him to stop.

And then if he doesn't, I'm going to kill him or the snipers will.

So we sat up there and naturally their car wouldn't start.

So we're, we actually took out cigars and lit them up, waiting for them to try to figure out how they're, to start their car.

So they're on this other side of this mountain.

We're waiting over here.

Car won't start.

Like I almost want to walk over there and help them put it and put it in gear and jump it and then I'll run back to the rocks.

But then we're waiting on them and we're starting to get the calls and a van full of women and children drives right past us.

And it's like, what was that?

Like, where did they come from?

Like, imagine if we weren't well trained and we just lit up an entire family for no reason.

So a van drove by.

And then these dudes finally drive up and we set, you know, we step out and I tell him to stop and he didn't want to stop.

So we killed him.

Him and they tried to get out, cut their RPGs and we killed five of them, I think.

And that was it, the last mission.

And the same rifle you used to shoot Bin Lane.

What happened to that rifle?

Then I brought it back and

I asked them if I could keep it and they said no.

So I turned the gun in.

And I don't know if someone else got it.

I don't know if they hung it up somewhere.

I don't know what.

You have no idea what happened to me.

No, I kept a firing pin, though.

I have that, but they kept a gun.

So they might have given it to some, one of those radio guys that is going to skydive for the first time.

He just happened to be carrying the bin Laden gun.

It's pretty funny.

Did you tell him this is the bin Laden gun?

Everybody knew.

Yeah, and even the gunner's man.

He was cool.

He let me keep the firing pin.

Even the gunner's man is like, easy, come on, dude.

Let me keep the gun.

I'll give you $10,000 for the gun.

What kind of gun was it?

H and K416.

Good gun.

Never had an issue.

Never had a jam with that gun.

So you come back from your last deployment to Afghanistan and then...

Well, then

I get done and

I had a bunch of terminal leave, they call it.

You get 30 days of paid leave a year and I hadn't taken any so I have a like 90 days of leave where I can still get paid which is good because now I have until August to figure out how to get a job because it's weird to leave the military without a degree because I know guys now that would they'd rather go to war than fill out a resume because war makes sense the resume doesn't I don't know what shoes to wear with a suit crap like that so I had to learn what to do.

And it's just, I'm fortunate that I can tell a story.

I'm fortunate that I can manage stress and solve problems.

I got on the speaking circuit on,

again, just being present, got offered with leading authorities out of DC.

And the first speech I gave was to, I think, 2,000 airline pilots.

And I had no experience speaking, never taken a class.

And I remember being backstage looking out at this audience.

I'm like, I called my agent.

I'm like, hey,

I've been to combat, but am I going to faint when I get out on stage?

I have never been looked at.

And she said to me, here's what you do.

Here's the key.

Three glasses of red wine right now.

Not two and not four.

That was her prescription.

Three, and you'll be fine.

And then I didn't have them, but I walked on stage and they were pilots.

So there was a lot of Navy guys, a lot of Marines in the audience.

And one of the Marines, former Marines, he kind of heckled me.

And that clicked, like, oh, they're friendly.

Okay, good.

Good.

This is a fun crowd.

And so I gave my first speech like that.

And it's just, and speaking is just, you can't really market it.

You just, if you're good, someone in the audience hears you and hires you.

That's exactly.

So it's like I did one in November and then two in December and then five in January and then 10 in February.

And I just started speaking and then

helped guys transition.

How was your transition?

I mean, it was difficult because, you know, I don't necessarily miss the missions, but I miss the guys.

Of course.

The skydive trips to Arizona, there's nothing like those.

Skydiving with 30 of your best friends, going out to dinner when you're done jumping, talking about how close that jump was and then jumping the next day.

And, you know, I miss that.

I miss the workouts, the morning stuff, because even at SEAL Team 2,

We every Tuesday, Rain or Shine, we had the two-mile ocean swim.

And I'm talking like February in Virginia Beach is not fun to do it, but the bus ride to get there is hilarious just because it just sucks.

And we all know we're just going to take a big bite of this shit sandwich, but we're all in it together.

Let's go swim.

I miss that.

Yeah.

If I never do an ocean swim again, it's fine, but I do miss that bus ride.

What is PTSD?

PTSD is real.

And it takes for me and a lot of my friends, a lot of my Marines,

a lot of SEALs, some of them don't have it, but

for me, it seemed like a seven-year thing.

Like right around the seven-year mark, it starts to sink in.

What you were doing, seven years out.

Seven years out of the Navy is when it started to hit me.

Really?

And that's just.

Had you ever had any symptoms of what you would now describe as PTSD when you were serving in the Navy?

No.

Or for the first seven years out?

No.

No.

Interesting.

Yeah.

It just, it just seemed like that's what we were supposed to be doing.

But then, you know, you get older and you realize that, you know, I was in houses killing people in front of their families.

I mean, even to the point where you're like, okay, I did kill that guy in front of his two sons.

Now, did I get rid of a terrorist or did I make two new ones?

What are they going to do when they get older?

What are they doing now now that they're in their 20s?

I mean, they're not going to forget me killing their dad in front of them.

The guy that I killed in front of his wife, he's not, and I killed his brother right before I killed him in front of his wife.

They still remember that.

They still hate my guts.

So you start to think about, I mean, I'm convinced I never killed the wrong person, but also

I started to think, could I have talked them out of that?

Because the one guy that I talk about, I try to talk him out of getting his gun.

Like he got up and was trying to kick me.

Where was this?

What is it?

It's in Ramadi, Iraq?

We just went into a house and as soon as we went in to the, it was a big like Saddam mansion type place.

As soon as I went in, there's a guy with the gun, so I blasted him.

Then other guys are coming in.

There's an open door here, and I did a one-man entry, which you shouldn't do.

But I went in there and there's a guy in bed with his wife.

And I'm standing above him.

And I can see a gun and he's right there.

And he's waking up.

And he threw a kick or something.

And I remember thinking, okay, he just woke up.

Give him a courtesy 10 seconds because he's groggy.

And then he he starts looking at the gun.

And I was like, no, don't, don't do that.

Don't do that.

And he went for it and I killed him.

And then I put a white light on him.

And his wife now sees him.

And so she screams.

And then I'm like, man, why?

And then later I started thinking, why did I shoot that guy?

Well, because he went for his gun.

But why did he go for a gun?

Well, because I'm in his room at two in the morning.

And then you start thinking, why am I in his room?

Well, George Bush had a problem with Saddam Hussein.

So we invaded Iraq.

And that's why I just killed that guy.

And again, everything that ever mattered to that dude doesn't matter anymore because I just took it all away from him.

So that, and that just starts to, you know, that you could, that can eat you up sometimes.

Me anyway.

Some guys don't have a problem with any of it.

And he wasn't, he was a terrorist.

So whatever.

But you still think about it.

And the, the thing that I bring up too is if I had met that dude in Paris over coffee, did he know a joke?

You know, that's, that's the weird shit.

And then for me, it's just PTSD is, is anger, like a quick anger, and then

hyper awareness.

Like even if I'm downstairs making a sandwich in my kitchen, I got to be looking at the doors just to make sure no one's coming in, you know, yelling at the wife for not locking the door, arm the alarm.

Here's the shotguns.

Here's how it works.

And she probably doesn't need to know all that, but that's just, that's part of it.

Because

one of my sayings is it's a large planet, but it's a small world.

And people can get here really, really quickly.

And we've done it to them.

And they can do it to us.

And it's one of those things that it's so dark and bad.

And I know what people are capable of doing to each other.

And I don't want to see it again.

But, you know, if they come here, I mean, I'm ready for them.

But

You get an October 7th I think in this country.

People are not prepared for what they might see because it's people are people are worse than animals as far as violence we can do some of the most horrific shit to each other and that that that gets to me to the point where like I do ibogaine now uh I do psychedelics I'm actually going back down with a company called Ambio in a couple of weeks to do ibogaine I do it once a year just because when I when I start to get a short temper

or or just like if I if I have to have green noise on to sleep so I can't hear what's going on in my head, it's just time to get back into the psychedelics.

And what the psychedelics do is

they get me structured.

So

there's like a four, four or five month window for Ibogaine that it works.

And that's when you're supposed to structure yourself.

So like for me, it'll be the

barefoot walking in the grass at least five minutes after you wake up and before you go to bed.

And then meditation, yoga, and working out.

I mean, you got to work out.

Just get that, get the endorphins going.

But Ibogaine helps you get back in that.

And then once you're in that system, then you can stick with it.

So that's how it helps.

But yeah, PTSD can be anything.

I've seen guys

try to drink their way out of it, which is horrible.

Cause it's like I've had friends say, yeah, I'll take a drink of alcohol to get rid of the pain, but then I got to have one more drink of alcohol to get rid of the pain.

And then I'll wake up the next day.

We'll have a hangover, but you know, we'll get rid of it, another drink.

And it's a vicious cycle.

But the alcohol doesn't help.

The psychedelics do, and that's why they're not legal here because it works.

And I don't know why they won't help the veterans with that.

I think they're working on it now.

I know there's a company also in Texas called Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, and they partner with Ambio.

And we get veterans and first responders to Mexico, but we should have it in New York at the VA.

We should have it in Virginia and California.

Veterans should be able to get ibogaine administered medically.

And that's how they do it in Mexico.

It's a doctor.

You're on a heart monitor.

They watch you the whole time.

And it just, it gets in your brain.

It shows you stuff.

And it really, it kind of cleans out the closet.

It's, it's terrifying.

Ibogaine is.

DMT is not.

It's awesome.

But

it breaks everything up and then it kind of pushes it out for you.

Why is it terrifying?

Because it opens your mind.

Like when people say you use 30% of your brain, it's like you use 30% for tennis and then a different 30% for chess or for whatever, but this one opens all of them and it all talks.

And so stuff that you've suppressed, trauma as far back as your childhood, it'll show it to you

that you wanted to stop thinking about.

And then you have to deal, like it, you have to deal with it.

Like the medicine shows you things.

And you can tell it, I don't want to, I'm not ready to see that right now.

But if it keeps, like for me, it's demons.

If it keeps showing you stuff, you have to deal with it right now.

Demons?

Demons, like black gum, yellow teeth demons.

Yeah.

Just staring at me.

At first, and then it gets rid of them.

But what do you think those are?

I don't know.

I don't know.

It's hard to say.

I mean, it's just an evil face, but it's a bunch of them.

And then with your mind working, if you're...

Do you think they're real?

Yeah.

I think so, too.

I do.

I think there's real evil in the world too.

And guys like me that were never supposed to be killing people.

They're going to, they're going to taunt me a little bit.

But when your mind gets creative.

What do you mean, guys like you who are never supposed to be killing people?

Well, I wasn't supposed to be

a killer.

I was supposed to be a chef.

I was supposed to be a stockbroker um so i mean i have a big heart like i'm i'm i i don't want people to go to war you know i don't want people to be shooting each other i don't want bombs dropping on innocent people yes um but but when you under ibogaine as creative as you can get you can start thinking of horrible shit and because you're in you're in a state you actually see it you can see it it's it's a vision of like like awful awful shit uh And so you have to deal with that.

But it goes back and forth.

And the medicine kind of like guides you.

And the coolest thing it said to me was, the only people who go to hell are people who think they deserve to.

So it's a healer, but it's just, it's, it's really scary.

And then there's a 24-hour period where you're just, it's like a really bad hangover.

You're depleted.

So you get a bunch of IVs and stuff.

You do a Reiki massage, which is an energy massage.

And then they give you 5MEO DMT, which is the God molecule.

And you go to.

You go wherever heaven is and you see it for, you lose track of time.

The first time I did 5MEO, I asked them when I was done, how many days have I been asleep?

And they said a minute and a half because you lose track of every, like you can't describe it.

And I've heard other people talk about psychedelic.

You can't, it's the most beautiful

time lapse.

Like you lose track of time.

And I get, I feel like I'm being lifted by my stomach.

And there's like, there's family everywhere and a maternal voice.

And it was telling me I was home, but in a language I didn't understand, but I could, I, I couldn't understand it, but I knew what she was saying.

And like my grandmother, my dead grandmother was there and she was just saying, we're not waiting for you.

We're just here.

Like, like, we're here now.

Like, and it sounds crazy right now, but it's, it's, it's, uh, it's, it doesn't sound crazy.

It'll really, it, it really uh opens your mind to

what next.

It's, I mean, everyone that's done it too.

I like, I went through with, I'm talking Sergeant Major and Delta Force guys, uh, 30 years in the Army.

And they finished this.

Ibergain Reiki DMT and they, they told me to give a message to Amber Capone.

She just, she runs VETS, Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, to please tell Amber that she saved my life because I was going to kill myself next week.

This was my last shot at doing something for myself.

And it cured him.

It's cured heroin addiction overnight, like dope sickness.

Like I heard a story of a woman that was addicted to heroin and she did ibogaine, didn't have any visions, just slept.

And she said, I don't think it worked.

And they said, well, are you dope sick?

And she goes, no.

And he goes, no, it worked.

So now just set your patterns.

So it's crazy.

I mean, every veteran that's seen combat should, shit, everyone that's had had any trauma in their life should, should get a shot at Ibogaine because it's a, it's a life changer.

What are the symptoms of PTSD?

You said anger and paranoia and paranoia.

Yeah, just awareness.

Awareness.

Overawareness.

Over aware.

Yeah.

Like I can't concentrate on the show because I'm always looking at the door.

And then the anger.

I mean, that's, that's not me.

I don't like getting angry, but I'll just, I'll get really pissed off.

And then where do you think that comes from?

Yeah, it's just got to be all the, all the stuff that we saw because even, you know, shooting people is one thing.

not all of them bother me a couple of them bother me just because you kind of what if i did it differently um but then you you know you see other dead people you you have friends like the the worst conversation is when someone would come up to me say hey did you know scott neal

what do you mean did i know what happened you know did you know rob reeves yes what happened You know, just did you know?

It's like, I knew him.

What happened?

You know, did you know Neil Roberts was the first one I heard Fifi, the guy that fell out of the helicopter red team in Afghanistan.

And yeah, I knew him.

He was the first SEAL I met.

He brought me, when we went to Arby's, it's my first day because he was an older guy, and he brought two new guys to Arby's to tell us what SEAL Team 2 was like.

Yeah, I know him.

I knew him.

So just losing friends and knowing their families, it's just, I think it's a lot.

I mean, and it's like anything.

Like, just the older you get, the more shit you start to realize.

Of course.

But there's, I mean, there's a lot of dramatic stuff.

Even like, I remember

a house I went into in Iraq, and we're going into two, three in the morning.

I went into the wrong house, and the only people inside was a woman and her, her young daughter.

And I'm standing, they came out of the room to look at me.

Here's some dude with a green face and a gun getting muddle over their white carpet, wrong house.

And I remember looking at him just thinking, I understand why they hate us.

Like, I wouldn't want to wake up to this guy in my house.

No, not at all.

And just thinking, what did I did?

Traumatize that poor young girl for nothing.

So just shit like that.

Maybe I'm too sensitive, but

they asked a lot of us.

We did a lot of stuff over there.

What are you haunted by?

Are you more haunted?

Well, I can see you're probably haunted by everything.

Why wouldn't you be?

But is it the killing or the seeing?

No, you know what it is?

It's haunted by stuff that's probably not going to happen, but I'm anticipating it.

The October 7th style attack on a gun-free zone in Arizona, when suicide bombers go to an elementary school,

when the sleeper cells activate and they're cutting heads off somewhere.

That bothers me.

It doesn't bother me if they come after me.

I can handle them.

I got them.

And I'm so morbid sometimes.

It's like, well, if they get me, at at least that's an ending finally.

But, no, I mean, I got shotguns like we said yesterday, whatever.

But just thinking about it,

I don't like the idea of innocent Americans getting killed here just because

political

ideologies left our borders wide open.

And they're here and they haven't forgotten about us.

They've always said to us that,

you know, the Americans have the clocks, but we have the time.

And they're not going to forget.

They hit the World Trade Center in 93.

They came back in 2001.

So

that bothers me.

And it's almost like the idea of something bad happening bothers me.

And it probably never will.

Like, you shouldn't be worried about stuff that won't happen.

But that's part of my PTSD.

It's always struck me as weird that combat veterans kill themselves, which they do.

They do.

Of course, much higher rate than non-combat veterans.

But they survived and some of them really beat the odds to survive.

Yeah.

And then they wound up killing themselves.

Why?

I think, again, it's the,

they can't live with the guilt.

Or I know some guys that killed themselves because they had traumatic brain injury and they can't live with the headaches.

Yeah.

I begin cures that too.

I mean, guys need a shot at this.

They don't need to be taking all the pills the VA gives them.

What do you mean, the guilt?

I think just talking to some guys, like some of the some Marines I know from Fallujah, just the killing, the watching guys get killed.

It's like, could I have saved my friend?

Like, I'm fortunate.

I don't think I've ever killed the wrong person.

I've actually never seen one of my friends hurt in front of me, which is crazy going to that much combat.

But some guys have.

I mean, I was talking to guys that were trying to put their buddy back together when he was blown in half, like his best friend, like just that guilt.

I'm tired of living through this.

Is there guilt over killing?

Not, I don't even think even guilt.

I do think about that one guy every day, but he, again, he was a bad guy.

But could I have talked him out of it?

Like, was it worth it?

Probably, maybe not.

But

the unknown.

And then just wondering, you know, again, wondering how did that affect them?

How did that woman that the dog bit, you know, bit her arm or whatever?

Yeah.

And just we, I mean,

because again, why are we here?

And why are we doing this to this group of people right now?

And it wasn't, it was never the weapons of mass destruction.

And now I'm fighting for the guy that came in the room behind me, the guy who's in front of me.

That's what I'm fighting for.

And we're going to win it.

And Americans win every fight, toe-to-toe.

But what's the reason we're here?

You said this, this hit you, and it commonly hits people.

I think you said seven years-ish,

years after

they're safe and living in some leafy leafy suburb with a pretty wife and like everything's fine, but they're not fine inside.

How many conversations did you have in all the years you were, in all these 12 deployments or whatever, about why you were there, about the meaning of taking another man's life?

We didn't talk about it at all.

Not when we were in.

It was just the job.

The only person that brought it up was one of our personal trainers.

Because we have these trainers that will, you know, do everything from strength coaches to helping you stretch bad back type stuff.

And I remember he said, every one of you guys has changed.

You just don't realize it.

Like every single one of you guys, you're not the same as you were when you checked in here for selection.

Like you guys are all different now.

And it was just because of the, because of the missions, whether, whether they admit it or not.

I mean, it's, it's a, it's a lot.

We were good at it.

Well, well, undoubtedly, you know, the best.

Yeah.

I just think it's interesting that the U.S.

government or your

officers, I mean, why is it left?

Why is it left to your personal trainer to note something that often?

And I don't, I don't, um,

I don't think they have interest

in mental health or even helping you separate because you're not sticking around to do the job they need you to do.

And they might be getting better now, but I doubt it.

They're certainly not doing psychedelic work.

What about the moral questions?

How many people you served with were

faithful believers in God?

A low percent.

Maybe 5%.

Wow.

But

the further we're out now, more guys are going back.

I've noticed.

A lot of Christians.

I'm Catholic and I'm going back to church now.

I didn't go to church.

I don't, the only time I went to church in the Navy was with funerals.

And it doesn't make any sense.

You'd think I would have been better with Jesus doing that.

And even when they would bring a pastor out to pray before a mission, we're like, whatever.

Let's go kill these fuckers.

But now it's kind of like, all right, maybe take a wrap off that too.

Fair.

But yeah, it's.

I guess I'm making a point, which is it seems like they're treating you like animals or machines.

They're not considering the effect on you.

That's just, sorry to say that, but that's the way.

No, they, they, I mean, they cared about a professional development.

They cared about us going to sniper school.

They cared about us

doing training, but I can't remember.

I mean, they, okay, they started to get good with retreats.

I remember they would do some retreats.

Like you get to take you, they would pay for you and your wife and kids to go to like Great Wolf Lodge and do the water park.

And they would have classes about like, it was more marriage counseling because we're all nuts anyway.

So they did, they did, they, I don't want to say they didn't do anything, but they, they certainly aren't keying on, it's almost like if, if someone's got a psychological problem, then do we, do we trust them to be the lead jumper on that jump?

Do we trust them to be the one man?

You know,

um, did you see people go crazy?

Yeah.

I saw, I saw people freeze.

Um, it, it's a different animal.

What does that mean, freeze?

Just freeze.

Like if someone shoots an AK-47 at you in a house, it's really loud and scary.

I can't imagine.

And I've seen guys just stop.

It's, it's not, I mean, nothing on them.

People react differently.

I just say, I was just dumb enough to go after them.

But

some guys quit.

Some guys, I'm not doing this anymore.

As soon as, well, after Neil Roberts fell out of the helicopter, a lot of poster child SEALs hit it, beat it.

Can you tell that story quickly?

I'm not familiar with the defense.

That's when they were going after Al-Qaeda, Operation Anaconda.

And it was mainly, it was like the 10th Mountain, some Army Infantry.

Delta and SEAL Team 6.

And they were trying to put SEAL snipers on top of a mountain called Taker Gar,

and they're being flown by TF-160, the best pilots in the world.

Al Mack was actually flying the best pilot in the world.

Razor Zero 3 is his book.

Stud.

He's so cool.

I had a shirt made that said, I know Al Mack.

Like, he's a badass.

And he saved everyone's life.

But when they were inserting, they started taking fire.

They got hit with an RPG.

And Neil was on the

ramp.

He was going to be the first guy off.

He's carrying a saw, a squad automatic weapon, belt-fed machine gun, and he fell out.

And he fell so hard, he actually bent.

We had the gun.

It bent the barrel.

So he's without a gun now on the mountain.

The helicopter takes off without realizing he fell out.

So now Neil's by himself with Al-Qaeda and they did him dirty.

He fought for a while, but he ended up getting killed pretty bad.

And then they came back in to get him.

And that's when

Brits Lubinsky and

Chappie was John Chapman, CCT guy, who they were both awarded Medals of Honor.

John Chapman should have been awarded two Medals of Honor for what he did on the mountain.

He actually ended up, they ended up fighting it out close quarters, like inside bunkers with each other.

They found Neil.

They ended up, they left John Chapman.

Rangers went up and got him later.

Really shitty fight, but Neil was the first casualty that everybody knew and loved.

Like he, like his, his O-course time, he was the fastest obstacle course runner, it was is on his headstone.

So he was the first one that died.

And that's when a lot of guys started, like when we started training after that fight, everything that we'd been trained on, change it because you're not going to do that stupid shit.

You're not going to stand up, pirouette, and say Senator Peel.

You're going going to get the fuck down because these bullets are coming right here.

So change everything.

Now we're going back and we're fighting in the mountains with guys who've been fighting their whole lives to the point where, like, I remember fighting guys where saying to my guys, as we're getting ambushed, this is going to end one of two ways.

We're going to die or we're going to win.

That's it.

And save one bullet for yourself because you do not want to get captured by these guys.

So it's, it's, it's very intense.

I mean, I remember in one fight I was in, I ran into a guy that looked like me, red hair, red beard, shooting a Belfed machine gun at me, yelling, allahu akbar and that realization is okay that's a chechen and those dudes are very serious that's al-qaeda like 100 al-qaeda and you you you're gonna have to kill him or kill yourself because it's on and um yeah that i mean i was on a border bombing did you kill him yeah with uh the air force we ended up getting um

we got ambushed for a full hour i i'd actually um

i'd heard about

from vietnam guys they used to wear their we used used to wear our gear in lines, like third line, first line, second line, third line.

Uh, first line gear is on your body, it's the most important shit you have.

So it's on your belt and your pockets.

Um, so your second line's your second most important, so like bullets, grenades, and water.

Third line is your least important stuff in a backpack, like foot powder, extra socks, sleeping bag.

The reason you carry it that way is so if you're running for your life, you can start getting rid of it.

Third line first, second line, you can sprint.

And I never heard of anyone doing it, but I dropped it and had to go to my radio guy because we're getting ambushed on this mountain.

It was just a horrible day.

And I told them to call you know we got to i can see this checkpoint up top where the leadership is i went bomb them first and they said well we don't have any uh air there's no air support we got nothing so we had to lay there and take fire as they're surrounding us and uh they got close like i mean tracers flying in between my hand and my face like in between two tracers is five real bullets

where you're almost thinking like um

Now, is it going to hurt when I get shot in the face?

Or do you feel it?

Or do you go to heaven?

Or what happens when you like that's like airburst, RPGs, and stuff going off?

And finally, he'd snapped me out of it by saying, I got one.

I got a jet.

And I said, cool, hit that checkpoint.

And he said, I can't because the batteries just died.

And I'm a big believer in not micromanaging.

And I said, change the batteries.

And he said, I can't.

I'm not carrying the spares.

Remember, you are.

I'm like, oh, shit, it's in the backpack.

I dropped 100 meters that way.

Now I got to run and get that damn thing as they're shooting at me here.

And, you know, got the batteries and threw them to him.

And he called in a, I think it was a B1 because he said, bombs away two minutes out.

I'm like, two minutes out.

What did the space shuttle drop these things?

We We need them on us.

And then you just hear them sizzling and then like bacon.

And then we just start bombing the side of this mountain and they start running back into Pakistan.

And we pursued him into Pakistan and bombed him for three hours

because we could.

We had positive identification, troops in contact so we can bomb them.

But then we get back and Pakistan, we killed 11 Pakistani soldiers and I don't know how many Al-Qaeda.

And they started saying an unprovoked ambush, Americans started bombing Pakistan.

So the boss I talked to said, well, here's the deal, because I was the ground force commander for that.

And he goes, well, you're either going to get a silver star or you're going to Leavenworth.

So we'll let you know.

It's like, When?

Like, I have to wait three weeks to find out if I'm going to jail now.

But yeah, did you get the Silver Star?

Yeah.

That was my first.

I got two.

But I mean, again, with those, it's not,

it's almost like I'd give the Silver Star back to not have that memory.

Yeah, no, I, I bet.

So when you're

tormented

by what we refer to as PTSD, like, what are you thinking?

I wouldn't say tormented.

It's just more, it's just the awareness and the

just thinking thoughts that I don't need to be thinking.

Just

knowing

if someone got to someone I loved, what they would do.

And I don't like thinking about that.

So it almost, again, not tormented, more of a protector, like an over-protector.

Yes.

And, you know, just make sure everyone has guns.

So that's a lot to go through, you know, in your 40s.

Well, and to consider, like, I just joined to get out of town.

It's like that poster of the dude chucking a grenade and says, I just joined for the college money.

So given everything you've just told us for the last two hours, how do you feel when you're driving in your car, looking at your phone, and you see some political figure saying, hey, let's have a war with Country X?

Well, a good indicator is if anyone's referred to as a war hawk.

They've never been to war.

And they just love the idea of the military-industrial complex.

They're going to get paid.

Their friends are going to get paid.

They have no skin in the game.

And they've never been up close when,

I mean, getting bombed in a house you're in has got to be the worst thing ever, buried alive in that heat.

And they just love doing that because

we'll get a contract to build more bombs.

And just the threat.

I mean, as long as I've been alive, there's either been war or a threat of war.

And if you keep people afraid, we'll slowly give up our liberty.

The Patriot Act sounded great on 9-12, but the week later, it's like wait what are you watching why are you watching us did you guys ever talk about that no it no because it was red white and blue and apple pie like we're americans and we're the good guys when you were in the service yeah like the whole time you never no i didn't question iraq it's like i wanted to go like let's get get me in there before this ends

when did you start rethinking i mean about seven years ago you're the most famous trigger puller in the war on terror.

I think that's famous.

That's fair to say.

So,

and a lot of positive reinforcement because people are impressed by your bravery and amazed by all the things that you saw.

And you are kind of the forest gump of the war on terror.

I think that's true.

Um, but at what point did you start to question, like, what was that?

Yeah, seven years.

I know, after Iraq, after we pulled out, started to pull out and ISIS was formed.

It was like,

at first for me, it was more of a, we never should have invaded, but we also shouldn't have left

like that.

And then you got that, that, uh, line, a convoy of ISIS coming in from Takrit.

It's like, bomb them.

We We have ATENs.

That's ISIS.

Kill them all.

But they didn't.

And then ISIS turned into ISIS.

And, you know, it's all part of the Islamic Jihad.

It's all the, you know, ISIS.

And even though they're different sects, Mos Hezbollah, and all those, everyone down to the Houthis, it's all, you know, but then they're, but then they're fighting us because we're there.

Guys were leaving countries like Jordan and Syria to go to Iraq because, well, we can fight Americans.

I got nothing else going on.

Just it's easy.

It's easier to kill them there than it is to get to Afghanistan.

Oh, of course.

And so we're just fighting to fight.

You know, we forgot about WND, like a couple months into it.

And then it turns into a surge.

And it turns into, well, we got to kill ISIS.

And well, we got to kill Zarcawi.

Well, we got to kill, you know, it's first it's Hussein, Uday, and Kuse, and then it's Zarkawi, and then it's now it's ISIS, and then it's Baghdadi, and then you got

Quezon Soleimani from Iran, and then you got the Iranian influence everywhere in Afghanistan.

You know, they're all in Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda's working with Iran, the Sunni and the Shia are all together.

It's like it's,

you know, it's a mess.

And

I mean, hopefully now it's going to get better.

I mean, yeah, well, that's always, you know, that's always the hope.

We're commanded to hope.

If the bombs in Iran worked, great.

I mean, you know, Iran's one of those things where I don't want them to get a nuclear weapon for sure.

Oh, for sure.

But then I was also saying, if you're going to bomb them, you better be all in and be right.

This intel cannot be wrong.

And they hit him, and it's like, well, I mean, and again,

I wasn't necessarily, I definitely didn't want to land war in Iran, but

if you're going to, now that you hit them, now I'm 100% in with you.

Cause it doesn't matter why we're here.

We are.

Did it work?

Because you're betting a lot on that.

And if I don't want troops on the ground there.

What would that look like?

Well, I mean, it will look like everything.

We go in, we kick someone's ass, but then we decide to nation build.

And that's where they get us.

No one's going to mess with us.

But the Marine Corps is not there to build schools.

Marine Corps is going to break stuff, kill people.

And then the way we handle Iran is great.

Punch them in the face and tell them no, and then leave.

And that's or destroy the whole country.

That's it.

But this whole nation building, we've proven.

I mean, it didn't work in Vietnam.

We're still in a conflict with Korea.

What happened in Grenada?

What happened in Panama?

What did we do in the first Gulf War, Second Gulf War?

Afghanistan, you know, we got Bin Laden, but he was in Pakistan.

You know, why are we giving money to Pakistan if they're if they're harboring terrorists?

You know, it's very complex.

Why are we doing that?

I don't know.

I don't know why we give Egypt all that money.

They built a wall.

They won't let any Palestinians in.

Well, we're doing it at the request of another.

I mean,

we're not doing it for Egypt, right?

We've been asked to do that, of course.

Um, but

like, why do you think we went into Iraq where you almost got killed?

Yeah, um, I think because Saddam Hussein said he was going to assassinate George H.W.

Bush, and George W.

Bush, you know, loves his dad and never let that go.

Yep.

And I had friends that were flag officers in the Pentagon a week after 9-11, and they were already planning the invasion of Iraq.

And some of these officers were like, why?

What are you talking about?

They had nothing to do with this.

Why are we going to invade Iraq?

And that, that, and we shifted all of our assets to Iraq instead of Afghanistan.

When we should have been fighting Al-Qaeda here, find Bin Laden, kill him, and then hopefully that's it.

But now we're in Iraq, bogged down.

No, and I mean, even taking down Baghdad, it's like, what's the, what are you going to do next?

Well, the, you know, they'll, they'll rise up and then they'll start their own government.

And we were saying, well, what if they don't?

Well, they will, but yeah, but they might not.

What if they don't?

No, but they will.

No, they won't.

And then they didn't.

And it's, it's chaos.

Oh, they didn't?

No.

They're in there robbing the museums.

But it's almost one of those things, too.

Like the

devil you know is better than the devil you don't.

Yes.

These people have been under a dictator and maybe they need a softer dictator because they're not ready for democracy.

Obviously.

And even in Afghanistan, you think the people in the Shuriak Valley want our style of democracy?

I've talked to farmers.

I've eaten rice out of the same bowls these guys and had probably Taliban guy saying, why would I send my son to school when I can teach him how to farm?

He doesn't need to sit in a school.

Why would you you build this one?

We don't want that shit.

Because it's different.

And

we don't do any research.

We don't know the history of places.

We just think, yeah, we'll go over there.

And they love U.S.

I'd love to break it to a lot of the politicians.

Most people don't like the United States, and especially in that part of the world.

Wait, there was no research done?

No,

there were officers that thought Iraq and Afghanistan were the same.

Officers thought that?

Oh, yeah.

What's the difference?

Going to one or the other?

It's like, well, it's a huge difference.

Like,

if you run into a dude from Saudi Arabia in Afghanistan, he's a foreigner to them, too.

Big time.

He's a foreign fighter.

He looks nothing like them.

No,

I ran into one dude, and I think the only reason I didn't shoot him is because he made me laugh.

He didn't speak English, but his t-shirt said,

I'm not kidding.

It said, it's not a beer belly.

It's a fuel tank for a sex machine.

Yeah.

He didn't know what it said, but I thought.

Where was this?

That was in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

One of my first missions in Afghanistan, in a house, in the city.

And he had no idea what it said.

No idea what it said.

It was awesome.

Give him a quick gut punch and tell him his shirt's funny.

So, but you think there were, you know, that there were officers who thought Iraq and Afghanistan aren't basically the same.

I had an officer, I told you about the L ambush.

When we were selling, you had to sell your mission.

Here's what we're going to do.

Here's who's there, blah, blah, blah.

I was selling this to him and I said, we're going to insert here and we're going to set up an L.

And an officer said, What's an L?

And I said, an L is the second thing they teach you after you join the army.

The first being, there's your bed.

This is an L ambush.

And he goes, who invented it?

And I'm like, Sun Tzu invented.

I don't know.

The art of war, man, an L.

I'm going to hop out and stop.

He's like, what if he doesn't stop?

I'm going to kill him.

Why am I talking right now?

It's an L.

It's not hard.

And yeah, but I mean,

they don't do, not all of them.

I've worked with great people, but there are people that are making decisions.

They shouldn't be making decisions.

Like I said yesterday, once you stop carrying your own luggage, you shouldn't be in charge of anybody.

You should just surround it.

And it gets political.

Like you get to that level like a captain in the navy or a colonel now they're just trying to make admiral or general so they're doing the politics and if you don't do the politics you're not sticking around so then you're thinking about my next star uh when am i going to go work for dyne corps what's my political thing going to be when i get out so it's just political and and uh then the guys below them they're just yes men and they're going to tell you what you want to hear not what's real They don't want to tell you the truth because you might actually know what's going on on the ground.

Go talk to some E-4 Marines.

They'll tell you what's happening.

And we're not winning this war right now because we're out there building schools or

giving people a shit ton of money to embezzle.

And they're saying they're building a school, but they're buying a house in Qatar.

Like you go into Afghanistan where they don't know what time is.

They don't know how old they are, but give them a briefcase full of cash and see what they do with it.

The corruption, I mean, it's horrible, but they don't think ahead like that.

Because they think everyone's just like us.

People are different.

Do you think that those wars had a corrupting effect on the United States?

No, I mean, I think the invasion of Afghanistan was good.

I I think we had, I mean, but that we're right back where we started.

Bin Laden's gone, a lot of al-Qaeda's gone, but they're going to get replaced.

Almost 30 training camps over there, terror training camps in Afghanistan again.

God knows what's going on in Iraq.

How does that make you feel?

You fought in both.

You killed Bin Laden?

I mean,

no, I mean,

it's fulfilling because we were able to prove that if you're a bad guy, we have people that will come find you.

We proved it.

And we cut the head off Al-Qaeda, the snake.

They know that we can do that.

So it was worth it.

We took a lot of al-Qaeda off the battlefield.

I think we slowed down their ability to attack this country for a while, but they're getting close to coming back.

You say we're hated in a lot of the world and don't know it.

Why are we hated?

You know what?

It's almost a jealousy thing because we are the most powerful country.

And we just proved with what we did in Iran that

China and Russia are watching.

We can fly pilots over you.

You'll never know that they'll hit you.

They'll be home the next day.

Like they'll leave from the middle of the country, anywhere in the world.

And you can't, there's nothing you can do about it.

So I think a lot of them are jealous in that aspect.

But we're also the, we're the big, dumb, tough guy in the bar that doesn't know he's tough until he has to be.

So, I mean, in the Middle East, just because we're there.

And

like forward defense,

I know that the world's a safer place with a strong United States.

And the forward defense and alliance solidarity is great.

The carriers are awesome.

But, you know, just people get sick of us.

You know,

we're still in Germany.

It's only been 80 years.

Yeah, right.

What are we doing there, by the way?

Do you know?

I don't know.

I mean, I've been there.

It's fun.

We're going to Oktoberfest.

That was awesome.

Yeah, it's great.

I don't know if it's been great for them, but did anyone ever explain, you know, you're at the highest levels or say, you know, we're in Germany for this reason.

We're in Japan for this reason.

No, we just had a unit there.

And we can forward stage out of there so we can be somewhere.

like Bosnia quicker.

We can, we can fly to, you know, we stop in Ramstein on our way to Iraq and Afghanistan so we can get there quicker.

We got Air Force bases over there, too.

I mean, we have a great relationship with the Germans.

You must, you deal with a lot of, you've met a lot of politicians.

I know that.

You worked at Fox for a while, always politicians there.

Did anybody ever apologize to you?

No.

There's nothing.

No, and I don't know if there's anything.

What do you mean?

They sent you.

I mean, you sign up for the SEALs.

You know, you're going to risk your life.

That's on you.

I think that's fair.

But what's on politicians and policymakers is to only ask you to risk your life for a really good reason.

I think that's fair too.

Yeah, it is.

No, no one ever really has said anything.

George Bush wrote me a

handwritten letter, which was cool, just thanking me for it.

Because I said that that quote, Freedom Itself was attacked this morning.

So he thanked me for remembering his words.

That was cool.

I mean, and I don't think an apology is necessary because at the time, I wanted it more than anything.

Yeah.

I mean, seriously, 9-11 happened.

Let's invade everybody.

I'm ready.

Let's go fight.

Well, everyone felt that way.

Just, I mean,

again, as you know, time goes on, maybe there, a lot of them are thinking, well, we did make a bad decision.

But at the time, everyone was ramped up.

We had Democrats voting for war.

Oh, but

they love war now, though.

So I don't know.

All but one, Barbara Lee of Berkeley.

So did, I mean, you live still in a world surrounded by people who had jobs similar to yours.

Yeah.

Are they rethinking their views or rethinking what they went through and what it meant?

They're rethinking their lifestyles.

Like I was always impressed when some of my friends told me they quit drinking.

They left out the part that it was because they did Ibogaine.

Yeah.

I said, oh, you quit drinking.

That's great.

Well, I did Ibogaine.

And so they're rethinking their lifestyles and getting

into more healthy stuff.

But

I haven't heard a lot of my friends talk about Iraq the way I talk about Iraq.

They don't,

I'm not sure if,

I mean, we went in there just because there was a vendetta.

There was nothing tactical about that.

Does it make you wonder, like, there are all these theories about bin Laden, who he was really working for was he behind actually behind 9-11 was

that really him who you shot do people ever say that to you um yeah i've i had someone tell me it was a body double that i shot and i my response is well i killed a guy that was in bed with bin laden's wife so either way he had it coming that'd you but it was oh 100 him that was definitely him um

You know, even meeting the CIA people before we went, like, I was convinced because of the, especially that one woman that was, it's him.

Definitely him.

All the stuff we found, he was definitely still running al-Qaeda.

But how the hell did he live in Pakistan for 10 years?

Had to be with the ISI, the Intel Service had to be monitoring him.

Because I think they have vested interests in keeping Al-Qaeda a little bit at bay, which is good for everyone because you don't want Al-Qaeda getting their nuclear weapons.

But they're a massive recipient of U.S.

aid.

Yeah.

But they're basically our enemy?

Well, I mean, we were funding

the Mujahideen in the 80s, and Bin Laden was a part of that.

Because the big enemy was the Soviet Union.

So let's fight them in Afghanistan and start pumping money in there through Pakistan.

So they've been involved forever.

What was the role of opium in all this in Afghanistan?

You know,

that was kind of dumb because all we're doing, I mean,

heroin's bad, but you're taking away someone's livelihood.

So what are they going to do if they can't grow opium?

They're going to fight you.

They're going to be Taliban.

Why do you care?

Stop worrying about the opium.

Let them grow it.

Who cares?

But that became a major thorn in our side because we're worried about opium.

How about we just kill the Taliban and Al-Qaeda?

Who cares?

What about female literacy?

Was that a good reason to go to war?

No, uh, for war, no, that's more into, I don't think that's for uh just joking.

Well, I'm just saying you'd always hear people say, Well, the female literacy rates cut up, and it's like, okay, no, that's that's right, that's on them.

Take care of your own house.

I don't, yeah, if your women can't read, I'm not coming to shoot people over that.

So, you never thought of that as you broke into someone's house.

No, your girls can't read.

It's almost like when it's well, we want women to vote.

And I'm like, Why

did joking?

Yeah, sort of.

I'm half joking.

I'm not.

Um, but

sorry, um, were the guys political?

Did you ever talk politics?

Not really.

I, because I remember I would, um, I would read political books before 9-11.

I would, when we were, especially on the ships, I would, I remember reading like Sean Hannity's books, and uh, yeah, I read um uh Alan Combs' book just to get, try to get both sides.

That's kind of where I got my politics.

Like, well, this is crazy.

That makes sense.

Uh, and but no one was really interested in that with me.

I couldn't get anyone to play chess either.

But

yeah,

I've always been political, not political, but trying to pay attention.

And I honestly believe the media was telling us the truth for a while until, again, COVID or whatever.

Yeah.

You don't believe that anymore?

No.

No, that was a scam.

So last question on a happy note.

So you made, basically made the case without saying it that a lot of the flag officers, senior military leadership, not impressive.

And that's very obvious to me.

Who is the most impressive senior officer you've met?

Joe McCraven.

Wow, that's Admiral McCraven.

That didn't take long.

No, he always has been.

I knew him.

Can you tell people who he is?

Admiral McCraven was in charge of Joint Special Operations Command when we took the bin Laden Raid.

He's the one that sold it to President Obama.

He's a SEAL Team 6 guy.

And he just...

He'd always, I think he was, I think he was an admiral the whole time.

I was in the damn military, but every time he showed up, he looked and sounded like an officer.

And the way I described, like, he looked like a SEAL.

He sounds like a SEAL.

He's got, he's really sharp.

And I shouldn't badmouth all flag officers because he's included.

He's just a badass.

He knew it.

Really good at everything.

And the way I would describe it is like, I understand why Al-Qaeda was afraid because 23 Bill McCravens just came in your house at night to get you.

And that's scary.

But just he was, he was just sharp, sharp as a tack.

And honest?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, he's, he's the guy.

Like, it, it doesn't take, it didn't take me a second to answer that question.

How did it, how did he get to that position?

How did he become an admiral?

i don't even know how that works um i you know obviously you got to take command of different places so you know run a platoon at a seal team run operations you get promoted to an executive officer then a commanding officer which is an o5 level have a command move up to like the group level so you got like a couple different groups and like dev group being one of them seal team six commander there and then uh

just start getting stars um so he was he was the second four-star admiral ever.

I think Admiral Olson was the first one.

Great officer, too.

We were, I was fortunate.

My SEAL officers were, for the most part, really good.

Like Jocko,

he was one of my guys.

No, I was one of his guys.

And he was a dude that what I learned from him is

I've never seen him lose control or yell.

But what he was really good at when you screw up is,

man, I expected so much more out of you.

Oh.

Yeah.

I'm never going to let you down again.

He was incredible.

He re-enlisted me in Kuwait.

And then, yeah, I've worked with some, I've been fortunate to work with really good officers.

But McCraven best.

Yeah, by far.

Rob, thank you.

Of course, thank you for having me, Tiger.

I appreciate it.

It's been fun.

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