Jocko Podcast 134 w/ Mike Sarraille: Life is a Gift, But Not Free. Don't Waste It

2018-07-19T02:39:08Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles 0:00:00 - Opening 0:09:06 - Navy Seal, Mike Sarraille 1:18:34 - The Op: Mikey Monsoor saves Mike's life. 2:35:15 - Support 3:08:17 - Closing Thoughts and Gratitude.

AI summary of episode

I'm tapping out in the sense at the end of the day you always ring the bell to the community they're like I'll get quit it quit her um and uh you know I had one last good deployment with a different group it was awesome work with these guys and um you know there's a lot of things you're not one I finally felt the fatigue um and the hardest thing to do for any seals to dab out but it's because you know that you're no longer like the best guy to push that uniform and and I also was going through divorce at the time and um things were just you know things were out of balance and even though I wanted to take the XO of a squadron um I knew I was not the best option for the guys and uh even though I could probably maintain the job that's not the right answer if I could not keep them uncomfortable and different forward then then I wasn't the right guy and I know there's there's a problem with that's getting out especially seals they're not getting jobs commensurate with their abilities and company should be swallowing these guys up leaders I mean the one thing you can't deny is the military is the preeminent leadership training platform in the nation motivating it not saying to the world if I be the world I'm not saying there's not great leaders out there that have not been the military actually they're they're they're more than than than people like the they there's a lot of great leaders and never had military training but as a whole and as you said about the Marine Corps they tend to turn out this this this standard product which is a kind of button the same thing with the military general and so uh you know talking down on the craving and a great guy named uh who is this vice chancellor major general Tony Kukuhu and this guy's become a real big matter in the um love them we talked about this and uh basically walked myself into a project which we got approved by the McComb's business school 20 vets we we did a analysis into the systemic challenges facing veterans when they get out in terms of employment and it was a you know 60 page paper which was met with quite a better reception and then again walking myself into more work everyone's like and so that's why we the companies we work up with that we work with up there we know that they need this and so that's why we're doing this one in San Francisco October 17th and 18th come on out you can register to extremotorship.com you'll see that on this one you'll see like a lot of people from the last one because they're like keep coming you know me because not only the updates or whatever but just like how you're saying earlier where the more okay you learn something then you go to the field you know you practice you you know practice you perform thing you're like he wants an outcome for you a good outcome for you more than you do I know that doesn't seem possible but for him to come and ask me to like talk to you means that what he wants more than anything in the world is for you to be in a good place in the future that's what he wants he doesn't want to screw you over this isn't a plot to get you to fail in life he actually wants you to win more than anything so you may want to listen to them check so it's at this point you do you do so what do you had you did nine deployments overseas total ten nine ten deployments overseas and and finally the little voice in your head says you know what I need to uh look at something else probably probably the toughest decision uh I had to make I mean a lot of guys like a lot of guys thought you were a thirty year that easy he's easy to do a thirty probably more and they usually say the same about me So if if a guy is seemingly getting gangged up on you know like if everyone's like hey you're not pulling your wig you know everyone's getting frustrated and then everyone's like harping on one guy that makes them quit way quicker than if like everyone's like but he used to call me that um and he said I understand what he wanted to do it's like you want to go to uh uh Memphis and like working the details shop I said no hey get me orders to to Texas my my XO's probably moved back to Texas that's where she's from and I want to be close to my kids I need to repair that relationship um and you've talked about it you know family is come second bottom line when you're at war you have so many responsibilities on you one Ranger guys whom that the the family is coming second and so that that was my new priority and so you test him into the CL community they they made things happen they realign things and they got me a billet at the University of Texas Naval ROTC um where one uh Admiral William McRaven was sitting as the uh the UT chancellor boom right there's no it no longer is a thing to wear it used to be like if you wore a black ghee you're like hey look everyone is like look at me right now no one gave it to cares what color because there's a lot of those different colors in circulation so whereas a year ago i'm saying only a year ago i would have been like hey listen you need to just stick with the white ghee that's just how right now the might have been open if you want to get a black ghee if that's the one that is is you know what you're into our company origin american made stuff geese rash got for jiu jitsu other stuff as well a peril why does it pair will get like a like a tone you know because you know how you get you know with the whole like a peril like you're not a fashion person They give us about five minutes and then, uh, rustists in the surgery and, uh, you know, next thing I know I wake up in, uh, Baghdad and, uh, go through another procedure and then prep to get the metavac to Germany, to, to go through another procedure and, um, the great thing is, you know, got other sealants I were together in the entire time that gave us two, uh, seals to escort us and, um, you know, Germany, we're there for I think three days and just people kept this and then visiting it. yeah, you know, I need to qualify this, you know, getting the try that was one of the biggest things, uh, one of the biggest accomplishments in my life, but they, it was just like a different sense of pride than who most rates up there that this bad ass, with Denny Colonel, that, that it been, you know, in the sock for so long, uh, bestowed a infamous, you know, uh, symbol on our shoulders and said, hey, you wear this in combat. right like how would you ever know what it's like to deal with a school teacher you know what to deal with a coach how would you know what that's like to deal with another person you know what you're And it was just, even that, like I remember that's so vividly, and I think, in a, in a, in a subtle way, like I held that against my daughter for, for a short while, um, it's like it was just like, it was almost like a shunning, like she knew what happened. and you know my fiance sees a different person because yeah for for the listeners I took a you know high level job in higher education executive director of veteran services for the tech say name system and it just you know even though the work was rewarding it just wasn't the same as being part of the actual front in like jorn has seen she's like you're actually like how did it get out of bed in the morning now no I don't understand your business I understand leadership that's what that's what Eschalon front we understand leaders so we can go in and look at what's going on and say oh you've got a leadership problem here and here's how we fix it and so to take that and say you know what we can actually give you people that understand leadership and they can help you solve these problems that is like you said Reese's peanut butter cup peanut butter and chocolate that's what it is so it's been on speaking of bringing on talent like when this whole thing was going down I'm like how if I can move mics are really attached along from because guess what that's what we did yeah bring bring the band back together yeah with the boys that makes a big difference and like you said you can't even shut us up like we will have a like we we got this thing called the tank where we'll get together and talk about like a leader like for working with three companies and there'll be leadership issues at each one of the companies but we and we never thought about hey what about joint supplements you know like you know when you're young you're like a cool maybe for like older folks or something like this how do you balance between being too much of a micromanager and being to lose how do you how do you manage the being communicating too much with the group and too little with how do you do how do you manage being too close to your people or to distant from your people so all those little things all those little balances that you have to figure out as a leader there in that book check it out you can preorder it anywhere if you preorder it's helpful because that way our publisher who is you know just not aware they're not in the game they're not listening to actually some of you know what we need to print a bunch of these books don't miss out on the first edition you know what the second edition might end up with it if you don't order it but and speaking of which for leadership training if you read the book you need a little bit more inside your organization echelon front we saw problems through leadership it's me late babbin jpe to know Dave Burke flint cauldron and now as you've heard my brother Mike's are Ellie monster 006 monster 006 in San Francisco October 17th and and I'm just like dude what is going on like I gave one speech and like people were like did you that actually you're perspective as I'll re-change my life I'm like well I'm glad to hear that I'm not saying you didn't realize the the impact but when you lose 31 that is just you know that that hits the military to to to the listeners they may say well 31 soldiers you know you guys can easily recover from that you can't all the the man hours that go into to training those guys the level of proficiency they had crude over years like that is like that is a catastrophic failure or you know detriment to the military that is a loss of a lot of capability I yet alone the pain for those 31 families the children the or not the orphans but the kids that are left behind the wives that are left behind and and that will never have any solace other than that their level ones were doing what they believed in for them defending them but no the work is you know fathers come up to me and be like hey can you talk to my son really loves you want to be a seal I what can you leave him with listen to your old man he may not know what the right decision is or right path is uncertain things but he will tell you what the wrong path is sometimes knowing what not to do it says valuable is knowing what to do you know what else I tell when when fathers ask me to talk to their sons I tell the sons I say listen your dad actually cares about you more than you do he and so you know we talk about brutal self-assessments that was the most brutal self-assessment because I had in that that all you know however good I thought I was and what we did what we did it just I'd come to a point where things were to go rating and so uh you know over overseas I actually called back to uh you know my my CEO at the time I said I'm done and uh this had and I was definitely it's funny because like when you're talking about like like I there's a lot of buddy carrying going on when I was running training and the reason is because I got the debrief you know like it's and and there's another weird thing about this whole deal this whole deal is that it's so hard to someone's got to have a real open mind to be able to teach it to people you know someone's got to be when someone's got to have an open mind like I would say when I was running trade at I would say like 30 or 40% of the people would be like listening and absorbing and which is important which is pretty good hey I remember you telling me that every company you talked to is like we're gonna get like five of you and that just wasn't your game at the time but at the end of the day you know talent is all about leadership becoming a talent magnet or having a talent mindset within your organization is about leadership and so you know knowing our communities the special operations community and combat aviators they broke your resident fighter pilot the badass that you um that could deal day we knew we could start something Yeah, that was, in the second month, and then she's going, like, I'm used to being with mom, but, uh, just, just being at the funeral and everything and just looking at all, you know, watching all the seals there, they took, you know, uh, to celebrate my ex life, it, it just, it felt like the eyes were on me, too. but we called Seth in and the whole I do remember this about Seth is as the strikers come in strikers are it's like an armored version of a humvee with wheels that can carry more troops than a humvee larger and they have some pretty good armament and weapon systems and the ramp lowers and Seth runs off and starts firing into a building and of course it's that's how he's like let's go get on the strikers and the guy start loading up and the strikers are getting after it to the point where they went winch after getting his out of there and one of the striker operators says hey give me your gun and I hand him my SR25 and he just starts going at it my hand him my last maggy reloads and he's just getting to after it well tell you what humbling experience put us back into the same position like a new guy in the body Sometimes it did, uh, most often we would infiltrate at night prior to, uh, you know, use the advantage of, uh, of night to you, to, to your unit, uh, set up prior to the, uh, the conventional's coming in the early morning and starting the, uh, the clearance operations, and then we, you could pull out during the day or stay until night, just to, uh, give ourselves, uh, you know, mitigate risk as best possible. and I would literally feel like a sickness in my stomach like a pit like just like when I was in the body if you'd see someone in the street you'd like to get out of the street I would have that feeling and you know people people often say like well how how are the seals like sent on a miswin business I'm like you just said it you're a unit you're a company you're dealing with people you deal with the same issues and it has been great I mean how long have I been on now three months and you know when I started that there was a lot of business matters in mind very successful business matters that are like duty needed capitalized this thing and at the time I couldn't see it like my ultra is I'm sort of drove like no it needs to be non-profit where you're not okay charged people for this see which kind of goes the you think it's kind of intuitive to his whole thing you know it's like hey let's make something that's like you know healthy good protein clean all this stuff but what's also interesting is that at the tail end of that the shakes inside solder city came out and said hey look we're good like we're here to make friends now we're done with this and what was really awesome was it solder city had been a complete nightmare for five straight years I mean solder city was completely uncontrollable and then in a six week period give or take that the those operations took place it was like done it was like they the the shakes came out and said yep

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocopodcast number 134 with echo Charles and me, Jocca Willink. Good evening,
[00:00:08] echo. Good evening. Maybe I was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can see
[00:00:20] where someone could get that idea, but I actually don't think that. I don't think that at
[00:00:31] all. It's in fact quite the opposite. Now, looking back, of course, there were some,
[00:00:46] sometimes, there were some awful times. I'd even go so far as to say there were some
[00:00:57] wretched times. There were nights filled with discomfort and stress and fear and there was pressure.
[00:01:18] And sometimes that pressure was so great that I thought my mind just might fracture and
[00:01:30] break apart. But fortunately, I could tell you that I didn't break. There were times when
[00:01:44] I saw the cracks. I saw the cracks starting to split open and I had to work hard to keep
[00:01:51] it together. But that's the way it was in my old line of work. My old line of work had some
[00:02:06] definite down sides. Because on top of all that pressure and stress and fear and discomfort,
[00:02:19] there was death. Even during peace time, even during peace time, I lost friends and I lost
[00:02:32] teammates. It goes with the personality profile. They would say risk takers. So even peace
[00:02:48] provided little peace. And then once the war started, it just escalated. Not just for me,
[00:03:02] not by any stretch whatsoever. Every military member has dealt with death in some way over
[00:03:09] the past 17 years of war. Some more than others. There've also been life-changing wounds of which
[00:03:26] I was spared. I was lucky. But many others were not so lucky. Because the bombs and the
[00:03:44] bullets and the ID's and the mortars and the rockets, they do not care who you are at all.
[00:03:51] But for whatever reason, I made it through. I was lucky. And now my life goes on.
[00:04:19] Maybe on a little more paranoid than the next person. Maybe I don't always sleep that well.
[00:04:24] And maybe there's times when some fought or some memory catches me off guard. And I end up
[00:04:30] relieving a moment from the past. A moment from the past that I wish I could change. And
[00:04:43] you might think, wouldn't I just want to change it all? When I want to go back and erase
[00:04:54] all that pain and replace it with relief and replace it with ease and with comfort. And
[00:05:10] the answer to that question is no. In fact, it's not just no. It's hell no. Because wrapped up
[00:05:23] in that pain and wrapped up in that discomfort and wrapped up in that stress and anxiety,
[00:05:29] wrapped up in all that is the polar opposites of all those feelings. Inside all that turmoil
[00:05:40] there was relief. There was certainty. There was happiness. There was focus and security. And
[00:05:52] there was peace. Peace of mind in knowing that no matter what. No matter what horrors befell
[00:06:07] me things would be okay. And that is because I knew that my brothers would take care of
[00:06:17] me no matter what. You see, my old job allowed me to work with some of the best guys in the
[00:06:29] world. Not all of them. You've heard me talk about that before. There's substandard people
[00:06:38] in every organization in the world. There's a bell curve. And the bottom of the bell curve
[00:06:44] is filled with the same deficient people. You'll find anywhere. Lazy, scamming, irresponsible,
[00:06:57] self-centered, whatever. But at the high end of that bell curve. But guys, I worked with
[00:07:11] were righteous and noble and hardworking and it was humbling to be around them. Now, were
[00:07:22] they perfect? No. None of us are. Did they have flaws? Yes, absolutely. All of us fall
[00:07:31] short. But could I count on them? Could I count on them without question and without hesitation?
[00:07:45] 100%. Through all the horror and the fear and the pressure, there were always some guys
[00:07:56] that I knew without a shred of doubt would stand beside me and hold the line no matter
[00:08:02] what they would never let me down ever. And as fate would have it, I'm lucky enough to have
[00:08:24] one of those few men that I knew I could always count on no matter what here with me tonight.
[00:08:34] He's done more for me and for the teams and for our great nation than the world is ever going to
[00:08:40] know. His name is Mike Sirelli. He's a former recon Marine. A very recently retired seal officer
[00:08:52] and he's someone that's never let me down. So Mike, welcome to the podcast and thanks for coming
[00:09:04] on brother. Hey, Jocco, have you been here in that go? Thank you for having me. So you retired
[00:09:12] how long ago? Large first, large first. And so no one knows anything about you, which is the
[00:09:19] way it is. And so let's get to know a little bit about you starting with the beginning.
[00:09:27] Let's start in NorrCal. NorrCal, right? NorrCal, Palo Alto, California. Just about 30 minutes
[00:09:35] south of San Francisco. Entire family born and raised in San Francisco. They're all still back there
[00:09:41] except for my brother, White Fish Montana. But you know, nothing to really lack in terms of
[00:09:47] grown up at a great family. Sometimes I just grabbed growing up in this house. The Sirelli household
[00:09:53] is being in 1960s, 1950s, Germany, Berlin. Except I was on the wrong side of the wall.
[00:10:01] No, I had a you know, grew up in a very Catholic family, loving parents, very strict
[00:10:06] stern parents. But I got the benefit of being the last child. And by that, you know, that point,
[00:10:13] they older brother and sister. They'd worn down the, they'd worn down your parents a little bit.
[00:10:18] They'd worn down my parents a little bit. And so I got away with Bloody Murder to a point.
[00:10:24] But you know, standard upbringing of a seal. I had my share of trouble. I got a cost.
[00:10:33] And it's probably I went, why went the path that I went? I went, what point did you,
[00:10:37] at what point did you realize that you were going to go in the military?
[00:10:41] So you know, I can't, you know, pinpoint a specific moment. But everything was driving that,
[00:10:49] you know, driving me that way. I did have a grandfather. That was first of the 50 first.
[00:10:55] Oh, wow. And World War II. Actually, he trained with patent out in, oh, and, you know,
[00:11:03] yeah, the lake is training center. Yes. So they actually trained at the lake. Oh, okay.
[00:11:09] Um, near New Zealand. Okay. Oh, let's see. Salt and sea. And so he'd actually hit the very early
[00:11:16] part of Africa. And then came back to the, uh, the states, uh, when airborne and he was a quartermaster,
[00:11:23] uh, for the first of the 50 set. I'm sorry, first of the 50 first. And then the last,
[00:11:28] he still went through airborne training. He would jump in with them. And so he was actually a, uh,
[00:11:32] third day of Normandy drop day. And then, uh, fought in the, uh, the battle of the ball in the black
[00:11:40] forest. And so that humble confidence that he never spoke about. And so my mom would naturally tell
[00:11:47] me stories. And, um, it wasn't until I became a Marine that he actually, you know, really revealed
[00:11:54] a lot of the stories from, uh, from World War II. And then, you know, as he got older, it was, it was
[00:11:58] the same stories. But I would sit there and listen for the 15th time as if it was the first time I was,
[00:12:04] you know, hearing it. I got out of respect. You know, it's interesting. I was talking to Dave
[00:12:09] Burke once again today. Good deal. And yeah, good deal. We were talking about reading about face.
[00:12:15] And, uh, I was saying, hey, you know, when you were read about the, the older I got, the more
[00:12:23] it meant to me. And there's a quote that, that from Musashi that I talked about on the podcast, which is
[00:12:27] it's something like this. And I'm not going to get it perfectly right. But it's something like this.
[00:12:32] When you know the way, then you see the way and all things. So about face is not a leadership book at
[00:12:40] all. But when you read it and you are thinking about leadership, it's just all about leadership. It's
[00:12:45] 100% about leadership. But it reminds me of what you're saying. Like when you're a little, when you're a
[00:12:49] kid and you don't know the way yet and your grandfather could be telling you these stories. And it
[00:12:54] sounds kind of cool or whatever. But compared to when you actually know and understand war and
[00:13:01] you, it's just a totally different story. And as a matter of fact, speak to that. When you were
[00:13:08] running the Jocci course, I was, I came in and I was going to do like the brief that I would do to the
[00:13:12] Jocci course. And you know, you were there. It was like the 10th time you were going to watch it.
[00:13:17] And I was like, I'm going to hang out and watch this or you're just going to leave and go do like
[00:13:20] work out or something. And you're like, no, I'm going to stick around and I was like, why are you
[00:13:24] for what? And you're like, I learned something new every time. All the like dead. So that's pretty
[00:13:30] definitely when you get older, you can appreciate some of these things from when you know the way.
[00:13:36] Well, let's look at extreme ownership. I mean, this is why you hear people that are like,
[00:13:40] hey, I'm reading it for the seventh time. Yeah. Because they, they will get 10 new things or
[00:13:44] their perspective is changed. That's the, that's the part that I didn't account for. And I don't
[00:13:48] know who told me this. Somebody told me this like, it was someone that had come to multiple
[00:13:53] monsters. And I said, well, you know, how do you like this one? And all the monsters are a little bit different.
[00:13:58] But the first three were not that different. The first three were the same, almost the same.
[00:14:03] And someone said, well, it's only been a year, but my perspective is totally different.
[00:14:07] Outside, I've been promoted one time and I got different situations going on. So it's I'm seeing it
[00:14:11] differently. So that's, that's another thing that happens as you get again, older.
[00:14:15] So back to you, how did you pick the Marine Corps or did the Marine Corps pick you? So we
[00:14:25] a little bit above out of options. No, hey, so you're standard, again, high school sports,
[00:14:32] loved running, loved wrestling. The grades, not so much. It wasn't for a lack of
[00:14:39] aptitude. It was a lack of complete effort. And so, you know, loved to party. If it didn't have to
[00:14:47] do with parties or girls, I wasn't involved. And so I actually was the only one in my high school
[00:14:55] class, not to graduate. Yes. And I think going forward with my mom is a little
[00:15:03] Italian woman. And she, you know, she really is the rock of the family. And you have to know
[00:15:11] how to play her. My dad is just the disciplinary and you feared him. You just feared him.
[00:15:16] Bottom line. But your, you know, my mom was a nurture and a disciplinary and you just had to play
[00:15:21] both sides because once you put her onto the disciplinary side, you just had no safe,
[00:15:27] safe house whatsoever anywhere in the surrounding household. So they did, you know, my dad had
[00:15:33] served in Vietnam in the reserves. He did not have to go to Vietnam because he had a very unique skill.
[00:15:38] He was very good at football. And back in the day, he was stationed in Fort Boca, he was in Louisiana.
[00:15:43] He got assigned to the football team. And that's what he did in the army. But very different
[00:15:48] army wasn't a fan in the military. Just, you know, we were different in those regards, but we're
[00:15:54] very much alike. So I went off to the university, Colorado, Colorado, Boulder, the,
[00:16:00] how did you do this reading graduate high school to get your junior year? So I went,
[00:16:04] went back for the summer school, summer session and finished their requirement.
[00:16:08] I'd already been accepted into the university, Colorado Boulder. The early stage of my life
[00:16:15] is not just parents can't say there's a whole lot of pride there. From the end of high school
[00:16:20] until about the first year of college. So I did not pick up a ROTC and naval ROTC scholarship
[00:16:28] at Boulder, but you can enroll as a volunteer in hopes of picking up a scholarship. So I joined the
[00:16:36] Naval ROTC at University of Colorado Boulder and shortly got kicked out just for getting in trouble.
[00:16:43] And I remember the, the, the, the time midship and commander pulled me in for my counseling
[00:16:50] and said you will never become a Navy seal. And also at that time, you wanted to be in the seal
[00:16:56] through this. So I was going between the seals and force recon and you know, lo and behold,
[00:17:01] we had this guy then I want you to use his last name who is a force recon Marine fifth force
[00:17:06] at the university, Colorado Boulder as a Mesa Marine and Lister Commission, the education program
[00:17:11] Marine and was just impressive built like a little tank. Everything about a marticulate, smart,
[00:17:19] confident, not the loudest guy in the room. And so he sort of took me under as wings. I hate don't worry about it.
[00:17:26] College is not going to work out for you, let's go around. Why don't you do what you want to do?
[00:17:33] And you know, walking down to the other recruiting office in Boulder, Colorado, signed up,
[00:17:39] and when I signed up, I came back to Northern California for a few months while I was waiting for my
[00:17:44] bootcamp date. I enjoyed myself. And then when it was time to go, I sort of dropped the last
[00:17:52] minute information on my parents. Mom, having a father that was in the military, she accepted it
[00:17:57] pretty well. And for my father, he was not Abby. Given his, everything is about our perceptions
[00:18:05] of life and his perception, his experience with the army was not a favorable one. And so he was
[00:18:11] living. And we had a few words and he did not see me off to the airport, my mother did. And then fast
[00:18:20] forward to bootcamp. Then again, had, I'd give me some advice like a, you can turn this around
[00:18:29] in the Marine Corps. We'll give you every opportunity to do that. And so I crushed it in bootcamp,
[00:18:35] graduated on her man out of like, you know, 300 kids. And on graduation day or the day
[00:18:40] prior, you know, the bands can come out and see you in the lineup, the entire group of
[00:18:46] Italian and low and behold, who's in front carrying the guy down, me. And that's the one time,
[00:18:52] you know, me and my father did not get along in high school because again, not his fault.
[00:18:57] You just see him doing this and shaking his head. And you ever since that, that time, my father and I
[00:19:03] see each other in a different light, we still clash because we were still alike. But we, you know,
[00:19:11] we've got a common understanding and he's just a good man. My parents are good folks. I could,
[00:19:16] you know, I was never in want for love, for discipline and in the straw house, what was a great
[00:19:22] household? It's weird, too, because as a parent, you're always thinking,
[00:19:28] if you try and impose too much on your kids, you're just going to, you're just going to
[00:19:32] push him in the other direction, you know what I'm saying? So, you know, for instance, your dad could have
[00:19:38] been like, no, you're not joining it and you would have been so rebellious to probably have
[00:19:41] joined anyways and done, you know, then you would just not got along even more, but he had to just
[00:19:46] be like, okay, I'm not going to see you off, but I'll be there graduation. Do you know, I'll
[00:19:51] put you this way. I love the Marine Corps. Best run service. I'll be at the small service,
[00:19:57] best run service in the U.S. military. You just can't debate that. And I think what he saw
[00:20:06] was he sent a boy off in, like within three months he saw the beginning of a man. And I mean,
[00:20:13] he loved it. He took it on wholesale. He loved it so much that he would pass by a recruiting office.
[00:20:18] He'd stop, get some donuts and bring him into the office and check your hands. I mean,
[00:20:24] he loved the military at this point. He sought from a different area. We literally changed his
[00:20:29] experience and Vietnam to a favorable one. Yeah, the Marine Corps has really just mastered that whole
[00:20:36] thing of taking a recruit and turning them into a Marine. They don't really could at that. They are
[00:20:41] really good. It's awesome. I think I already said about the Marine Corps as there's,
[00:20:47] you know, in the sealed teams, you'll get these totally great guys at the high end of the spectrum.
[00:20:52] And you'll get a lot of worse guys at the lower end of the spectrum. The Marine Corps, it just keeps
[00:20:56] it all in a much tighter group. Like you know what you're getting. It's going to be, it's going to be a
[00:21:00] Marine and it's going to be good to go. You're talking about like they're minute and a thingle. Yeah,
[00:21:05] minute and a thingle. It's a tight shot group. The sealed teams, you know, we get some, we get some
[00:21:11] awesome guys for sure, but then you get a couple of scatter around the center. A couple of stray rounds
[00:21:16] that are off paper. Don't worry about that little guy. Yeah. Yeah. So, so then what year was this now?
[00:21:23] Is this like 1998? 1998. So, so glad I came in before 9-11 because I got to see the pre-war military
[00:21:33] and then you know, became what I call the the GWAT babies that were absolutely spoiled. In the sounds,
[00:21:38] you know, contradictory is spilled by war. Yeah, yeah. So, what would you do in
[00:21:45] what would you, what was your MLS? So, winning as a Jesus, I'm even forgetting it, uh,
[00:21:53] O311 riflemen check. But so when I was at the school of imagery, these
[00:21:59] re-con Marines show up and you can always tell the re-con Marines that they have the dual cool,
[00:22:02] the double treble and the hairs a little longer and they stand a little taller and, uh,
[00:22:09] so unbedass me, they literally had to try out that day and so that was my opportunity to get into
[00:22:17] re-con early and I did extremely well finish first within that class and they're like, okay,
[00:22:24] do you want to go re-con? I said yes, absolutely. And so out of the school of imagery,
[00:22:28] when I graduated from there, it was straight to the basic, constant scores, right next to Buds.
[00:22:33] Wow. In Coronado for three months. How many guys get to go straight through that pipeline like that?
[00:22:38] So, you know, it had to be inflowed. Usually you had to do some infantry time before you tried out,
[00:22:43] but I think, you know, similar to the demands of post 9-11 when we started out, or the Green
[00:22:50] Brake community started opening up the 18x program for guys straight off the street into the special forces,
[00:22:55] recon would occasionally do the same thing. And so very few and I just happened to hit,
[00:23:00] at an opportune time, past the screening and I'll tell you what, BRC was tough and I have nothing
[00:23:08] but respect for those guys. It's not, they don't have a hell week, but it is, it is man-town,
[00:23:16] and every respect. Yeah, nice to see those guys. Obviously we see them all the time going through classes.
[00:23:21] And then, so, and then you show up, where'd you go? Where'd you go after that? So, first
[00:23:25] recon of Italian, I can't pedal thin. Yeah. It was quickly thrown into schools. It was awesome.
[00:23:31] So, got dive school right off the bat, which is the Marine Combat and dive course in Panama,
[00:23:36] City Florida, which was, I'll tell you what, and most seals don't like to hear this.
[00:23:41] It was as tough as second phase, if not tougher. And even academically, they, they dove in a
[00:23:48] lot deeper to the dive physics, the dive medicine. So, you had guys getting dropped for academics.
[00:23:56] And then after that, it was shortly off to sniper school, which I was ill prepared for.
[00:24:01] I loved. I remember my mom, I went back to San Francisco, because that, a week and often,
[00:24:07] and you had a build-room gilly suits. And I built the worst gilly suit that you probably have ever seen.
[00:24:13] I still have the thing in stores. It looks like Chabaka. Line on the ground.
[00:24:19] But past that school, by the skin of my teeth. And I think we started with 40 and we graduated 12.
[00:24:25] And it literally came down to the last stock and a guy named Brian from Idaho who had been with
[00:24:32] a stay-upletoon in the Marine Corps, which is more or less a sniper button. And literally helped
[00:24:39] me get in my last position and sacrificed himself, because he didn't need to score a per score
[00:24:43] in that run and passed. But I made up for it, you know, the shooting, the shooting was not a problem.
[00:24:52] It was just stocking, since I had no real preparatory work going in, and those guys had, it was
[00:24:57] tough. How was your patient's level during stocking? Was it good? It was decent.
[00:25:05] The problem was we went to sniper school in January, California, which is cold. And so we were out there,
[00:25:10] all the time, sometimes rain. And so the patient's was fine, it was just the pain of sitting there,
[00:25:17] which you had to contend with. And then you go into employment? No. So did an entire work up
[00:25:27] and actually shifted over to another bitoon, because I was at first reconbetalion, and it was a company
[00:25:32] at the time, and we turned into a battalion when I was there. So I transferred from 7-platoon to
[00:25:37] a new bitoon and continued to work up and had a great officer, pulled me aside and he was like,
[00:25:44] hey man, I want to put you in for the meat set program, which again is the Marine and LISTED
[00:25:49] Commissioning Education Program. For listeners, that's where they send an active duty Marine
[00:25:53] usually a corporal sergeant or staff sergeant to go back and get their college degree on the Marine
[00:25:59] Corps done and then come back as an officer. It's because you've shown some promise. What I say is,
[00:26:05] I'd only been in two alcohol-related incidents in the Marine Corps. And so they said, hey, you're
[00:26:11] a officer. But the officer put me in, I filled out the package and got selected as a corporal.
[00:26:22] Very early in my career. And so when they asked me where I wanted to go, I wanted to go to
[00:26:28] the University of Texas. Did not get in, because what's the track back? They looked at the
[00:26:33] high school directors and like, I know. And so believe it or not, I had been to a wedding in Austin.
[00:26:40] What are my recon buddies and love the town? And the same guy looked at me and he's like, hey,
[00:26:46] man, what, what are you trying to text saying in? It's like, it's like the next best thing. It's only
[00:26:51] about an hour and a half outside of Austin. I'm like, okay, all right. And of course, I'm a
[00:26:55] corporal at the time. I don't have the money to go visit Texas saying them. Internet was not exactly
[00:27:02] booming at that time. And so I just submitted an application to actually some Marines that were
[00:27:07] there called me and they made it sound like a great place. And so when I went out there,
[00:27:12] drove out there with my three boxes of household goods. And it is just a country down
[00:27:21] with 50,000 college students. And it was a great opportunity. But college station was not for me.
[00:27:28] And the war had kicked off. And so I finished school in three years and got out of there.
[00:27:35] And then how did you go from, at what point did you tell them you wanted to join the Navy?
[00:27:40] So you know, going out there, I had about a 75% it already made my decision that I wanted to switch
[00:27:47] over to the seals. Even if you looked at it from a time perspective, had I gone to TBS and then
[00:27:54] officer and three quarters, it would have taken me the same amount of time to get to a seal team.
[00:27:59] And so it just made common sense. I'd worked with a few seals during the workups,
[00:28:04] the media workups at first week on the time. They were older, statistically,
[00:28:11] more highly educated, more physically fit in the biggest part. They were part of the so-called
[00:28:17] they had the money. I was still carrying an M1682 as a reconnery, Mr. Niber.
[00:28:23] We just didn't have the money we didn't have the gear. And so you never see seals
[00:28:28] switch from the seal team to re-gone. But you see a lot of re-connery and switch over to
[00:28:33] so-called community that you go seal, green beret, and a lot of them went pg.
[00:28:38] Which for the listeners is a Air Force pair rescue jumper.
[00:28:43] So I did go to Marino C.S. and I got to tell you again that was a challenge. I lost. I think I went
[00:28:52] in and around probably 185 and lost about 20 pounds that it didn't need to to lose. So that was a
[00:28:58] summer in Quanico and I was impressed and you talk about maintaining that standard, that quality
[00:29:04] spread that the Marine Corps does so well. Especially within their also ranks. That's the reason.
[00:29:11] How long is Marine Corps OCS? Three months. And how did if you knew you wanted to go in the
[00:29:18] Navy, how come they sent you to Marine Corps OCS? So the MECET program you actually go to OCS
[00:29:23] after the first summer, after your freshman year, you still come back as a sergeant. It was a sergeant
[00:29:29] at that time. Continue towards your degree in what you finished your degree. Then you get your
[00:29:34] commission. One year prior, and here's the fun thing. So when you're prior to graduating and
[00:29:39] said, hey, went to my Marine officer in the structure who's a major, who's a prior,
[00:29:44] and listed guy himself, great guy. I'm like, I think I want to go see all of this. I was like,
[00:29:48] okay, let's put a package in. It was like the military's going to get their pound of flesh from
[00:29:52] either way. Do what you want to do. The commanding officer was Marine Colonel. Did not see that way.
[00:29:58] I was disloyal. So during the process of the training, the Marine Corps, pretty much.
[00:30:05] I literally ate you. The major, brought me to get, he's like, I just listen to what he has to say.
[00:30:12] Not your head and just step out of the room, I got you. And so the inner service transfer was
[00:30:19] almost immediately improved. It was that easy of a process. But then it only I needed to
[00:30:25] attend something called out mini buds. That's summer of my junior year. And so when I show up,
[00:30:32] you have about 35 midshipmen from Naval ROTC units, the Naval Academy. And then one sergeant
[00:30:40] in his Marine Charlias. And it is, you know, khakis, khaki top with blue bottoms with a red stripe.
[00:30:50] And I'm amongst 34 guys in white and I just took out and it was gotty highway. So gotty highways
[00:30:58] in our course. And I was still very much sergeant. So they did love me towards the end. Because
[00:31:05] like they said, hey, we need this done. I'll let's step up. Yeah, hey fellas, let's get this done.
[00:31:11] And the guys sort of rallied around me and you know, low and behold at the end of that, I had
[00:31:16] a spot waiting for me when I graduated. And it didn't hurt that the the C.O. of buds was a former
[00:31:23] Marine himself. Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's awesome. It's a good way to get that. And there
[00:31:28] the primaries that come in the teams are always getting a little extra squared away,
[00:31:33] this inside them in their brain and buds any factor of buds. Just anyone goes for buds and says
[00:31:40] it's an infected non-factor. Well, it was the biggest factor you had. Patients. It was
[00:31:46] patients. I asked you about patients. Yeah. It's night before school. What were you in
[00:31:48] face or with? So you in sniper school, I was still new guy. Oh yeah, that's right. So you stepping
[00:31:55] into a community that I highly admired that I want to be a part of was the easy part. It was
[00:32:01] some of the instructors out of there were very artistic and getting on your skin. Yeah.
[00:32:07] And so one year is it now? Now when is it? Oh yeah. Oh, sorry. So it's game time. In fact,
[00:32:15] I think you you were deployed right around that time. Yeah. Well, I was deployed in
[00:32:21] 2003, 2004. My first deployment to Iraq. Yeah. Because you're counterpart,
[00:32:25] you're your sister-in-commander visited me. Okay. And buds, it was right before you guys went.
[00:32:30] All right. And which I have before you started about a jatzy when you came to speak to us.
[00:32:38] So you know, the just the patients are going through the process. Yeah. You and you went through
[00:32:42] jatzy? You did. Okay. I did not remember that. That's weird. So you had you a little bit in
[00:32:51] patient of going through buds. Like basically you're saying, I'm animating to get in the game.
[00:32:56] And they're like, okay, take this sweep this grinder and do all this dumb stuff that you have to do.
[00:33:01] Yeah. 100%.
[00:33:04] It's uh. When people ask me because people ask me all the time, hey, I'm 33 years old. I want to go
[00:33:08] in the military. Do you think it's a good idea? I'm always like, here's the problem. The problem is
[00:33:12] you're 34 years old. There's some real benefits that in that year mature and you are smart.
[00:33:17] And you have knowledge about the world. Here's the bad part. Your mature, your smart
[00:33:22] guy. You have knowledge about the world because when they're like, hey, we want you to do this completely
[00:33:26] ridiculous task that makes no sense whatsoever. You're not going to feel like doing it. And you're
[00:33:32] going to have to do it. And that's going to great on you even more. When I was 18 years old and I joined
[00:33:36] the Navy, it literally didn't matter what they made me do. I would like, well, like, what you just said,
[00:33:41] when you when you join the Marine Corps and when when Ben said, do you hey, look, you can you just
[00:33:46] do what they tell you to do and life's going to be good. You like, I didn't know and told me that,
[00:33:51] but when I got to boot camp, I was like, oh, I do what they tell me to do in life's going to be good.
[00:33:54] That's what's going to happen. So like, oh, you can fall down to where whatever clean the toilet,
[00:33:57] say, let's do this. And that's a lot easier when you're 18 than it is when you're 34. A lot easier.
[00:34:03] It is. And you know, it's not so much what they tell you to do. They tell you what to do, but they
[00:34:07] want to see if you perform. So now that we're trying to create robots and you know, a lot of people
[00:34:11] you have to demystify that about the military, but Buds is just a long process. And then while we're
[00:34:17] going through it, they're telling us stories about what you guys are doing overseas or, you know,
[00:34:21] we had one seal pass away in Afghanistan at the time. Someone received a Navy Cross in front of us.
[00:34:27] In the whole time, you want to be those guys. Not the metals or any of that, but you want to be
[00:34:32] the gladiator in the arena. And you know, you have 12 more months of training before you can even
[00:34:39] show up to the sea. The other the other big thing and you knew this because you've been in the
[00:34:44] market, the other big thing that people don't understand is the fear that we all had that this thing
[00:34:49] was going to end and we weren't going to do anything. That was the biggest fear I had. It was,
[00:34:55] this war is going to happen. It's going to be over in three months and I won't have deployed
[00:35:00] and off to do the rest of my Navy career never ever go, never go into combat, which was the the
[00:35:05] biggest nightmare I can imagine. Total nightmare. That would have been, it's the same for the
[00:35:10] guys that were in the Gulf War. You know, certain platoons got to go over there. Yeah. And they sat
[00:35:15] behind thinking that they were going to backfill them and the war was going to be a long war.
[00:35:19] And then it's over in what six days. Yeah. I had a master cheat friend that was on the last plane
[00:35:24] to be the last platoon going to Vietnam and the plane got shot down and they didn't go. So I
[00:35:30] can do total nightmare for them. But it's hard for people to understand that mentality of how bad you
[00:35:37] want to go. And it's just the way it is, man. I wish there was some nice thing to say about it
[00:35:42] or some psychological way to explain it away like, hey, it's just, no, it's like, I'm just going
[00:35:47] to say the way it is. When you're young and you're in the military, you want to go to war
[00:35:50] that's all there is to it. I'm sorry. I'm, that's the way it is. But you believe. You believe
[00:35:56] in what you are doing. There's a sense of purpose. And again, it is counterintuitive that anyone
[00:36:01] would want to go to combat. I'm super stoked that you feel that way. I'm going to hear to tell
[00:36:06] you and admit to you that like, I just wanted to go to war. I just wanted to go to war. I actually
[00:36:14] another old Vietnam guy, he, when he left Silti in one, he goes, he goes, I joined the Navy in 1970,
[00:36:20] so I could kill people for my country. And I was like, oh yeah, I don't what he's talking about.
[00:36:24] And the funny thing is, you start to love it. You start to love war. Oh yeah.
[00:36:31] And that's not a bad thing. You're funny. If I took a job right when I retired,
[00:36:35] a Texas A&M system was the director of veteran services for all 12 campuses. But there's this sort of
[00:36:41] old hand that, a mother hand that dude, that just didn't really like me. She leans in. She's like,
[00:36:49] what is the worst part about war? And I look at her and say, that it has to end. And just watch right
[00:36:57] up. Yeah, you can hear that. It's the classic line that they got right in the apocalypse now is when
[00:37:05] Colonel Kilgors, he just, he's just, he's just, he's just, he's talking about the
[00:37:09] bomb in the morning. And that smell, that gasoline smell, the whole hill, smell like
[00:37:16] victory. And someday this war's going to end. And that's the worst thing he can think of.
[00:37:22] Because hey, man, he's a battalion commander of the cavalry unit, Vietnam, he's got.
[00:37:27] He's on top of the world. He's on top of the world. There's nothing more important in the
[00:37:30] world than ever. He can't even imagine it. And he's depressed that someday the war's going to end.
[00:37:37] Fire it up. Yeah, yeah. So, so where were we? So you get done with buds, buds, the biggest thing
[00:37:44] people always ask about the physical part of buds. You're in good shape. No factor.
[00:37:48] Yeah, yes, it is physically exhausting. Of course. Yeah, what do you want to be? You get tired.
[00:37:53] But you know what it is? All too is that it's an opportunity to actually start submitting your reputation.
[00:37:59] And again, I was very much still sergeant in the instructors of love me. Because I would rally the boys.
[00:38:07] Even, you know, what I like to call a healthy appetite or healthy disrespect for authority
[00:38:13] is to get the guys fired up against them a little bit. And they get pay a little bit, you see
[00:38:17] I'm smoking the oil. All right, so it's worth the price. So, and again, you know,
[00:38:21] get the fire and they got the boys love me. They, they, they rout around me.
[00:38:26] Officer, you got the fire of the gut? Yeah, I haven't heard that too much. Have you heard that too much?
[00:38:30] You, I don't know. I haven't heard that too much. I,
[00:38:33] caveat or what is it called? I don't know for you what it's called. But I had one of my buddy's
[00:38:37] texts me that I, you're, you're making it sound like buds is super easy. It's not easy. And I was like,
[00:38:42] no, no, no, no, let me, let me correct myself. I'm not saying buds is easy. Like you said,
[00:38:46] buds is hard. It's, it's physically hard. The hardest thing to me, I think physically is that it
[00:38:51] goes on day after day after day after day after day after day. And so when you're doing a
[00:38:55] formal time, run, which should be pretty easy, because in first phase, you got 32 minutes do that.
[00:38:59] That's a long, that's a slow pace, even for a grown man. That's a slow pace, even for a big guy.
[00:39:04] That's a slow pace. But when you've done whatever 8,000, 8 count body builders the day before
[00:39:09] and then you got up at three in the morning and you did 8 million flutter kicks and then you go out
[00:39:13] and get on the beach and you do a time run and solve same with boots on, it's not easy. And that's
[00:39:18] what, that's what trips people up. I think the grind. The one thing too for me that was that was a
[00:39:24] driver is there was no way that I was going to disrespect the Marine reconnaissance community.
[00:39:32] No way. There are some warriors. I mean, there's a lot of warriors within that community. And so that
[00:39:38] was always over my head. No way was I didn't bring that down. That would just be a complete,
[00:39:45] a complete, utter lack of respect for the community I can't from.
[00:39:47] The quitting in Buds is really hard to understand. And I had like a mid-life crisis several months ago
[00:39:55] about because some people that I knew about and that I talked to had quit and like I didn't get it.
[00:40:05] And there's been guys from the Marine Corps that have gone through that I've been like, oh,
[00:40:10] that's awesome. And then they go in and you're thinking yourself, how does this even happen?
[00:40:15] So I'm 100% on board with the thought that no one knows who's going to make it through. No one knows.
[00:40:23] Like you can't say this guy is going to make it. He's a stud or this person's not going to make it
[00:40:28] because they're weak. You literally don't know. Now could I bat 60%, maybe 70%, maybe, but there's
[00:40:35] no way you could make a sure thing. There's not one person in the world that you could say.
[00:40:39] This guy is going to make it through Buds 100%. There's no person in the world you can say that about
[00:40:44] that I know of. The most humbling lesson I learned in Buds, and you're going to find this funny,
[00:40:50] was I went through Buds with a guy named Ryan Job, Sound familiar. And again, remember, I'm
[00:40:57] I was a really fired up Marine Sergeant that just pinned on bars. And from Judge in a book by
[00:41:06] it's covered, you look around and you're like, you're not going to make it. Everything was sloppy about
[00:41:09] him. And I even told him that one boy in my head man, you're not going to make it. She quit now.
[00:41:17] And just to watch him and the instructor zeroed in on him and the kid had no quit. And even at the
[00:41:25] end of the hell week having been beat more than anyone in that class, the instructor was actually
[00:41:32] pulled him aside and they said, hey, you're good to go. We've thrown everything at you in the
[00:41:37] kitchen sink and used to trough. There's going to be a great seal. And I watched that and I'm like,
[00:41:45] oh man, you know, I, who am I to judge who's going to make it? And that was it. That was a
[00:41:51] life lesson I still remember. I wasn't until Remadi that I apologize to Ryan. He, he's sort of
[00:41:58] getting on this second. Yeah, I know. He's like, you all thought I wasn't going to make it. Yeah,
[00:42:02] like you said, though, no zero quit. Zero quit. And it doesn't matter what you do to me. I'm going to be
[00:42:08] straight here. So then you get done, you get done with Buds. So I came and talked to your
[00:42:15] Jocce class. What I talked to you guys about? You said you, you and your task unit commander,
[00:42:19] okay, I came and talked about the deployment. It's awesome. But there's a a narrow, it's on the second
[00:42:24] deck, the classroom for junior officer training course, which I eventually took over for, for
[00:42:28] life later on. There's a narrow passageway and this task unit commander for Jocco and Jocco coming
[00:42:36] off his particular mentor had this, we're standing like this and they created a little lane. And
[00:42:41] as each of us walk through, Jocco would lean in and basically make you shimmy through. Yeah.
[00:42:47] That's a lot with this guy right off the bed. Right off the bed right. Right.
[00:42:52] This guy is an A hole. Like screw this guy. Now you want us to listen to you. And I mean,
[00:42:57] naturally, yeah, he's a physically intimidating dude, but like you, you really like screw that guy,
[00:43:03] man. I don't remember that at all. Sorry, bro. I was going to find what new guys though. It didn't
[00:43:10] stop there and we'll get to the next encounter. And then you showed up, you went right to T, you went,
[00:43:16] you go right to team three after that. I did showed up in November of 2004.
[00:43:24] And there was three slots open for J.O.s immediately and they went to all of the
[00:43:31] kind of me guys. And I got stuck in hops. Working with a great guy. Right off that we both know.
[00:43:38] And I absolutely looked out for me and so sent me to free fall right away and then when I
[00:43:43] finished that up he's like, hey, do you want to go join the boys over CX? Because Team Threw is
[00:43:47] to plug the time. I'm like, yeah. So it was, you know, shortly after December found myself on a
[00:43:54] plane and arrived in Baghdad and balling. I was finally in the game. I was there. That's after battle.
[00:44:02] And I loved it. Yeah. And then what were you doing just tagging along with the boys? So yeah,
[00:44:07] they gave you some strange job description. But it just meant hang out and wait to go on all this.
[00:44:13] So we're going in the job. Naturally, as an assistant operations officer. But there was another
[00:44:19] shield team that was there. Remember they were doing a good one since I'd killed Team Threw. And
[00:44:25] fell in with the two commander quickly. And he's like, hey, jump on the humvies. You're a 50
[00:44:31] cow gunner. When we go out, just watch us do our thing, you know, set up a court on with the vehicles
[00:44:39] and slowly learn. And so every time they would go out, I would jump in the the the humvies.
[00:44:43] It was a 50 cow gunner. And I was in heaven. Yeah. I was in absolutely
[00:44:47] never getting even. And it was freaking stoked. Yeah. And then you came back so you come home from that
[00:44:53] deployment and then you get put into, is it, did you get a platoon? The next time where you like,
[00:44:58] did you get stuck being an ops again in that task unit? So I get yeah, I got stuck. This is like
[00:45:03] good deals for good seals. Yeah. I got stuck as to you Charlie, uh, ops. Oh, get some. And so again,
[00:45:13] other slots were full. Uh, I'd have to wait for an AYC. It would mean I still get to deploy. I actually
[00:45:18] it's a double benefit when you look at it at the end of the day. I actually get two deployments.
[00:45:22] Those guys after they're done with their assistant, but two commander or step up. How to go elsewhere.
[00:45:27] And so it actually was a blessing in, uh, in disguise. And then, okay. So you're in that task unit.
[00:45:33] And it, interestingly, that task unit is in the book extreme ownership in a very short passage.
[00:45:38] And I was looking at it to think about what we said about it. But there was a task unit at
[00:45:43] sealed team three at the time. And the task unit commander and one of the platoon commanders,
[00:45:50] they didn't get along. They had issues with each other. And they couldn't, they couldn't put it
[00:45:56] aside. They just couldn't put it aside. And even the commanding officer, again, this is in the book.
[00:46:01] And the commanding officer said, hey, look, I'll tell you what. I know you two have issues.
[00:46:06] Because they had both come to them separately and I'm probably screwing up the story. But it was
[00:46:09] something like this. They both came to them and said, hey, look, I can't work with this guy. The other
[00:46:12] guy says, I can't work with this guy. And he brings them together and says, look, it's Friday.
[00:46:17] By Monday, come in here and tell me how you two are going to work together. Understand? And they're
[00:46:22] like, yeah, I got it, sir. They come in Monday. And what do they say? I can't work with him. I can't
[00:46:26] work with him. And he goes, okay, you guys can't work together. Guess what? You're fired. And he fired
[00:46:29] both of them, which was a, which was a great move actually. I thought, I think it was a good move. You know,
[00:46:35] if you've got two people that can't figure out how to work together under the threat of being fired
[00:46:41] from your job, that's a real problem. Especially if you can't substantiate it. I mean, if you can't go
[00:46:46] in there and say, listen, here's the reasons why I can't work with this guy to this and this.
[00:46:49] Because obviously, they had the opportunity to do that. And there's situations where you can say,
[00:46:52] look, I can't work with this guy. He's a moral or his unethical or he treats everyone horribly. And
[00:46:57] I can't sit there and watch this happen. Like there's reasonable arguments that you could make where
[00:47:02] you literally can't work with someone. But when you can't even substantiate an argument as to why
[00:47:06] you can't work with someone. And then you get told, okay, I get it. And I don't hear any real reasons.
[00:47:11] So you two go figure it out. And you come back and say, no, it can't, it's not happening.
[00:47:16] Seems to me like a good move is okay. Neither one of these guys. I trust to go overseas and
[00:47:19] form relationships with other military units and foreign military units and do their job properly.
[00:47:25] And he fired them both. You somehow, they said, okay, you know what, collateral damage we're
[00:47:32] going to take. So, really, we're going to move them into task in a bruiser. That's what they did.
[00:47:37] And I was stoked because I wanted more people, always, you know, because you get another 50
[00:47:42] calagoner. You get another officer, you get another shooter. You get another person. It's awesome.
[00:47:46] And I was stoked to have you coming on board. And there was, there was like a little bit of
[00:47:51] a dr, I mean, there was drama because, you know, inside, inside bruiser was like no drama. Like
[00:47:56] we don't, we don't play drama. Like we solve problems, we keep our mouth shut, we do what we're
[00:48:00] supposed to do. We, if we got problems, we figure them out, we straighten them out and we move on.
[00:48:04] And we could see all this drama unfolding in that other task. And it, which is, is not cool. I mean,
[00:48:09] you don't like seeing that at a sealed thing. You want the whole sealed team to be kick ass.
[00:48:13] And so you see a, a task unit that's in turmoil. It's like not fun to watch. Especially because I knew
[00:48:18] I basically knew every player in there. I knew every one of those guys. And you watch them just
[00:48:23] fall on a part and eagles are flaring up and it's just a nightmare, man. It was a nightmare.
[00:48:27] And anyways, you get basically out of that whole catastrophe that outcomes Mike Sirelli and
[00:48:32] it to ask me to bruise her. And the best we're still, I've ever been dealt. Best we're still,
[00:48:38] I've ever been dealt. So you check in. And I remember I, I was thinking to myself, okay, I didn't
[00:48:44] know you. I looked at your record. I knew you were in the Marine Corps. I like I knew that you're
[00:48:49] going to be square away. That was my, that was my as much as you can predict. You know, I was
[00:48:53] thinking, okay, this guy was in the Marine Corps. This guy's going to be awesome. You seem like
[00:48:57] you were serious and you want to do good job. And so I was, my assumption was, you're going to kick
[00:49:02] ass. However, I had to be a little bit, you know, I had to do a little precautionary precautionary,
[00:49:08] it takes some precautionary measures to make sure that you understood where I was coming from.
[00:49:11] You know, I wanted to make sure you knew where I was coming from. While I had an a little
[00:49:16] fun with it. Just a little, just a smidge. Yeah. So that's why that's why we're so introducing
[00:49:23] you into the task, bringing you in. I wanted to let you know, like, hey, this is where I'm at.
[00:49:27] You know, we don't have any trouble here. That's why. So that's why we did the whole, uh,
[00:49:32] the whole briefing. So in the mechanical, so in the mechanical room. So at Sealtime 3 at the time,
[00:49:37] there was no ceilings. In any, they were doing this big remodel. And there was no ceilings in
[00:49:43] any of the pertune spaces or task unit spaces. There was all just, there was a wall with no ceiling.
[00:49:47] So you could hear everything that was being said. And so whenever I had something legitimate,
[00:49:52] like an issue to bring up with someone, and it was almost, it was, I'm factored, it wasn't even
[00:49:57] almost always. It was always my, my jail. So it was either life or Seth or one of the other
[00:50:03] jails. And I'd bring them in there. And I'd be like, hey, here's what's going on. Because in the mechanical
[00:50:07] room, there's like allowed noise. And no one can hear you. And that's the only room that still
[00:50:11] had a ceiling for privacy for privacy. It was like the cone of silence. Yeah. It was the cone of silence.
[00:50:15] So whenever someone was doing something that I really need to tighten up, someone was getting out
[00:50:20] of line. And I really needed to talk to him on the secret level. And by secret, I mean, I didn't want
[00:50:27] anyone to go out to speak about what I was about to say. So I'd bring them in the mechanical room
[00:50:31] and tell them what was up. And so that's what I, that's how I welcomed Mike into the task unit.
[00:50:35] Go ahead. Now you can get out of this mess. So you have you come out of the incident where
[00:50:41] I was wrapped up in a lot of a little bit of drama and being shifted. That incident, though,
[00:50:46] you were just sort of like in that group or were you, you know? So since I was close, the operations
[00:50:52] officer, which is basically the guy that handles the the day-to-day affairs, the troop commander,
[00:50:57] I was naturally close to him. And if you want to step back to that task unit, because it was one of the,
[00:51:03] again, many great leadership lessons across the course of my career for a new guy watching that
[00:51:09] in the SEAL teams, it was, you know, I was questioned, maybe this community is not from me. If this
[00:51:16] is the norm, because that, this is my first experience. So this means this is normal to me.
[00:51:22] It just seemed like backstabbing and he goes, one of the potoons they performed and they stayed
[00:51:28] out of the drama for the most part, but between this particular commander and the task unit commander,
[00:51:32] it was from day one. It was just like watching a train derail, you just saw it coming.
[00:51:38] In the fact that the boss laid down the rule and they come back on Monday morning and paint
[00:51:45] him into a corner, I don't know what they expected. And they both got fired and it both affected
[00:51:52] their career, but it was a great, you know, I actually, I can say as a new guy, it was a great
[00:51:57] thing to see in retrospect, because you learned what not to do. But when I was told to report into
[00:52:03] Jaco, you know, I'm not in the best of spirits and not in the door to task unit bruiser
[00:52:12] and say, hey, Mike's really Jaco, I'm here to report in and he said Roger, come with me and
[00:52:17] he had a sheet of paper in his hand. Pretty cool. I was like, what's going on?
[00:52:22] So I follow him into everyone knows what the mechanical room is, but nobody goes in.
[00:52:26] Oh, man. I mean, you just want to picture like dogs turning. Yeah, just loud. Just steam coming out.
[00:52:34] Nightmare and L.M. Street. That's a pretty good thing. Yeah, it did. That's a good thing.
[00:52:38] You actually told me to pop, too. And so I pop, too. And you basically lay down the law of,
[00:52:45] hey, I heard what happens. You have clean sight here, but do not bring drama into my task unit.
[00:52:51] Here's your counseling sheet. You've been formally counseled and pretty much left the room.
[00:52:56] And I think I sat in the room for 30 seconds to him. And I'm just staring the wall like what?
[00:53:04] Mike, Mike, my career in the sealed teams is going to be extremely short.
[00:53:08] I'm getting it from all directions. And what he did was you lay down the law.
[00:53:13] And I understood there was just one thing to do with that point. That was just before.
[00:53:17] Yeah, it was before. Yeah, the other backstory here is, is that the platoon that you're talking
[00:53:21] about that performed well inside that task unit, the platoon chief and that, because he was
[00:53:26] here's one of my good friends from way back. And because there's all this strave voltage going around
[00:53:31] about who's fault this was. And he came up to me and he goes, hey, you're getting sorelly. And I was like,
[00:53:36] yeah, he goes, he's fucking good to go. And I was like, check. And that's like literally all I needed to hear.
[00:53:40] Because when he told me that, I knew like he's got respect to his opinion. And so I actually knew
[00:53:46] you're going to be good to go a little bit stronger than I gave no to. Now he was, in terms of
[00:53:54] first people you meet in the sealed teams was absolutely welcoming to every new guy. No hazing
[00:53:59] whatsoever. You can perform as a new guy. You're a part of this platoon you have a voice. And once
[00:54:06] he found out, because he's a sniper found out, I was a sniper at the Marine Corps. He's like, go,
[00:54:10] hey, I'm making a call alarm right now. Go check out a suite of guns. And I was shocked. And you know,
[00:54:17] I trained up as a sniper as an officer for the entire workout. And it was because of that one guy
[00:54:23] who welcomed me with open arms and despite his long history and the teams, I mean, no ego whatsoever.
[00:54:31] This humble awesome guy. So you're giving him that paper, the formal counseling. That's like,
[00:54:37] uh, isn't that something you normally do if you get in trouble, some officially go to the
[00:54:41] new or reprimand. So you just need to make a straight up impression. Like, hey,
[00:54:45] you're in trouble. By the way, I probably wrote in my entire naval career
[00:54:51] less than five. I might have written three maybe. So he didn't even do anything. Yeah. I know I had to
[00:54:58] give one to lay for one time. Like my, my, uh, my, my late, late, late, late, late, late,
[00:55:05] did something. And the exo was like, you need to write him up. And I was like, definitely sir.
[00:55:12] And so I wrote him up. And then I shredded it later or whatever. You know, it was like, not,
[00:55:15] but there's a very few times that I actually did that. But again, we're getting you late. It was
[00:55:21] pretty late. We were going on the deployment soon. And so it was like, okay, let's, let's get some
[00:55:25] you know, set the, you know, set the expectations. Yeah. They're in the front, you know,
[00:55:29] they were not playing around. And then we go on deployment, we go to a
[00:55:33] Romadi. We, well, we guessed before we did that. We did certax and all that kind of,
[00:55:38] the last little bit of training. And then we went on deployment to a Romadi.
[00:55:41] No, I did not. I joined the after certax. I literally joined you three weeks before we
[00:55:47] deployed. Good. God. So I was that fresh to task in a bruiser. No relationships,
[00:55:51] with a few guys that I got into a, to buzz with actually. So remember Mark Lee and I transferred
[00:55:57] over the same. Yeah. Yeah. That was after certax. Wow. Are you sure? Mark might have been before.
[00:56:05] I was after. Okay. Yeah. I think Mark was before. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because, oh, that's right.
[00:56:09] Because everything fell apart in certax for you guys. But your certax was before us. That's right.
[00:56:14] It was, we, we, we come back to some panel. Yeah. That's when the proverbial shit hit the fan
[00:56:18] within that basket. And so then, Jay, we're getting ready to go to Romadi. And what, what,
[00:56:25] what, you, you came, you became, what did you become? Like, like, because I had a guy that was the,
[00:56:31] the task in an ops, did I make you task unit assist enough? Custom lead a motive. That was the beginning
[00:56:39] of my second career. I was too, I was the aops. But quickly became, let me, let me tell you something.
[00:56:45] This is a, this is a great, a great point because all that, like, basically, you know what that is?
[00:56:50] Really? It's like a test. Like, I'm gonna write you up. Let's see what you're attitude is.
[00:56:54] You attitude is, you know what it is attitude is like, Roger. I'm, no drama. Don't worry about it.
[00:56:58] Then it's like, okay, you're gonna work for this other guy. That's probably lower and
[00:57:01] rank than you that has been in the military for a year. And you're gonna work for him. How do you,
[00:57:05] how do you take that? And you know what Mike's attitude is like, Roger that? I'm here to work.
[00:57:08] Those things, like, when you, when those things happen, because people ask me this,
[00:57:11] that kind of question all the time. Well, you know, someone else got promoted or someone else got this.
[00:57:14] It's like, what do you do? Oh, you work hard. That's, and that's exactly what you did. And, you know,
[00:57:19] it took a matter of days before I was thinking, okay, he's all given a little bit more. I'll give
[00:57:23] a little bit more, I'll give a little bit more, I'll give a little bit more. And then very shortly,
[00:57:26] thereafter, it's like, okay, guess what? You are ops now, which is not like this huge, great job,
[00:57:31] but it's, it's, it's pretty significant. Once we're on the ground in Ramadi, there's a lot of
[00:57:35] responsibility there. Like, how do count on you for a lot of stuff? And because you were,
[00:57:39] were freaking square away and we're like, okay, Roger that. No attitude. No, never did you,
[00:57:45] like, I gave you, and then we got overseas. I remember I gave you the worst job, which was I sent you
[00:57:50] to the TG, right? So the TG, for those of you that don't know too much about the military,
[00:57:56] there's a, there's a headquarters above the task unit, which is called, if the seal team, but when
[00:58:00] you're on deployment, it's called the task group. And they have all kinds of administrative
[00:58:06] stuff that they got a handle. And we, we had a great team with great support from our headshed,
[00:58:12] but they needed people to work. They need people to drive paperwork, is basically what they needed.
[00:58:17] And so they needed an officer to go over there for 30 days, for 30 days, and get, you know,
[00:58:26] work, do all this paperwork. And I had to submit an officer and I, I sent you. And there's two reasons
[00:58:32] why I did it. Well, number one, the number one reason why I did it was because I knew that you'd
[00:58:37] get there and figure things out and help us grease the skids for everything that we were doing,
[00:58:40] whereas if I sent someone else, they might be able to pull that off as well. And too, because I
[00:58:44] knew when I get you back, I could do something awesome with you, like, get you in the field,
[00:58:48] which is what I did. So yeah, if you're in those situations where you feel like you're,
[00:58:56] you deserve better. Yeah, just be quiet, suck it up, do a good job. And if you're,
[00:59:03] the other part that people get paranoid about is they think, well, they won't notice me. Yeah,
[00:59:08] they think, I should tell Jockel how awesome I am. I should tell Jockel that I was in the
[00:59:12] Marine Corps. I should tell Jockel that I, I'm a sniper. I should tell, like, hey, I got a better idea.
[00:59:17] How about you just be humble and just work? And if you do that, then Jockel says, oh, hey,
[00:59:23] man, this guy's square away. I wonder why he's so square away. I'm going to the character, I could
[00:59:26] always in the Marine Corps. Oh, let me look at his record. Oh, he's a sniper. Oh, he was in Recon.
[00:59:30] Oh, okay. I've got a pipe hitter here. Cool. I can use him and he's humble on top of all that,
[00:59:35] as opposed to, hey, look at me. Because believe me, there's plenty of people that come in and they
[00:59:39] want to bow up and act like they're the baddest guy on the planet. It's like, that's a real
[00:59:43] problem. That's a real problem. Because they have a big ego. It was to the point where I knew I'd
[00:59:49] burn my personal capital. And so it was time to rebuild. And even before he sent me to the
[00:59:54] disaster group, running an ops, quickly came at parent that the other guy that was ahead of me,
[00:59:59] just wasn't going to cut the bill. But a leaf had asked me if I wanted to go out and I'm like,
[01:00:05] yeah, everything in me wanted to go out on a mission with them. Because these guys are already
[01:00:10] starting to kill a lot of combatants. But I had worked to do in terms of ops that Jockel had
[01:00:16] passed down. And I knew if I'd went out, it wouldn't have gotten done. And you would have let me
[01:00:20] made that call. Yeah, you would have let me go. But I, you know, I passed. And you know, we were talking
[01:00:25] about that yesterday. I was with Lave and Texas. And he's like, I remember that one thing. And we knew
[01:00:30] that was a sign that you were going to get your stuff done. And he actually made the right call.
[01:00:35] And he still brings that into the... You know what you were doing? You were looking out for the
[01:00:39] task unit instead of looking out for yourself. That's what that is. You were looking out for the
[01:00:43] task unit instead of looking out for yourself. You were taking care of what your actual job
[01:00:47] was instead of taking care of yourself. And that's again, for everyone that's wondering like,
[01:00:51] how to act, that's how you act. You take care of the team before you take care of yourself.
[01:00:55] You stay humble. You don't think that you deserve more than you're going to get when you get
[01:00:59] handed a shit sandwich. Take a bite, chew it, and put a smile on your face and ask for another one.
[01:01:05] And make that one square to way too. And that's how that's how you're going to get where you
[01:01:09] want to go, which for you eventually meant going to join Geltel Potu. Awesome. Best experience I've
[01:01:17] ever had and again with a a patoon that is humble. And if there is a personification of that,
[01:01:23] that is JP to know. And those guys welcome me with open arms. And I was taken back by the
[01:01:29] by the humility. They're just sort of, you know, the way I described Geltel Potu is they were like
[01:01:34] the little guy. They were the little guy in Task Unit, Bruser. In the sense that they were just
[01:01:40] quiet with what they did. It's just different personalities between Charlie and Deltel. And you
[01:01:44] love both Bittons, but they had a very different style of leadership. And you know, I can't
[01:01:51] name any of the names because most of them are still in active duty, but it felt like home. And then
[01:01:57] being with Seth was educational, given the experience they had gotten within those like two months
[01:02:03] that wasn't there. Two and a half three months. And you know, there was a steep learning curve
[01:02:11] after three months gone after them. And I'm stepping in because I had to like speed up to the
[01:02:15] basically the speed of war because they were already there. Yeah, and they had a ton of experience at
[01:02:20] that point. I mean, it was insane amount of experience. The the first, at one point they did 24
[01:02:30] straight patrols into the mollab and got contacted every single time. And then one they didn't get
[01:02:35] contact. They were like way up in the northeast section. They didn't get contacted. And then the next
[01:02:40] time they went out, which was the day later they were right back in and again. So the amount of
[01:02:44] experience that they had was just was ridiculous. It was ridiculous. I remember so I was briefing
[01:02:51] the siege so-and-off. And I I've made that quote right there. And I was like, these guys have been
[01:02:56] in contact on their last 23, their last 23 operations. And the the talk watch officer comes
[01:03:02] walking in and he's like, sir, I was like, yes, and he was like, just want to let you know a
[01:03:07] decor eggot or is in a in a tick right now. And I was like, Roger that and I looked at the
[01:03:10] color and I said, make that 24. That was that was pretty awesome. We used to when those big
[01:03:19] wigs would come to visit us in Ramadi. We would we would attempt to make it all nice. But what
[01:03:29] that looked like was so obviously wretched that like we would say, hey, you know, we've we've got
[01:03:38] we'd layout the the mRE coffee for them. So like, hey, if you want to cup coffee, you're damn
[01:03:43] our coffee. And we've made it like we were doing our best to give them like the best treatment.
[01:03:47] But like the treatment that you're going to get just socks because we're out here in the middle
[01:03:50] of the room to supply chains. Not as good as it could be. And hey, if you want, hey, we will
[01:03:54] want you have coffee to have it. So here's a memory coffee. You can mix it up here. Get some.
[01:04:00] And then when they left, we cleared out the supply closet, put the coffee machines back up.
[01:04:04] The funny thing is you talked about the task route and during my time there is for those
[01:04:12] big ways that come in is it was such a deviation from what soft was doing and I rack prior to that.
[01:04:18] And you know, I like to, you know, use Colonel McFarland who you need to have on the show.
[01:04:23] Yeah, because the boss will use retired now, the tender general, the former commander of the
[01:04:29] one one brigade gone back to him. Is that he realized we weren't winning? We are not winning
[01:04:36] and to continue operations as we have been doing is the wrong call and things needed to change. And
[01:04:41] even at the task group loved the commander over us because it was a deviation from what every other
[01:04:48] seal team had done, you could see him struggling with whether it was a right call. And I remember a few
[01:04:53] times he called me in to ask my opinion about what was going on. But he wasn't really looking for an
[01:04:59] answer. He was using me just as a springboard for his own thought process. And so I would talk very
[01:05:05] little and he would just sort of keep on talking. And I mean, he had a very solid sort of thought process
[01:05:13] along the lines of how he justified it. And ultimately, you know, he looked out for you and the rest of
[01:05:20] the task units. Yeah, and they allowed us to look out for all the conventional forces that we were
[01:05:25] working with. Exactly. The one one AD and the first the five was six and the one three seven and
[01:05:29] three eight Marines and all those guys that were on the ground with us there who we were able to
[01:05:34] help out as much as as much as possible. Only because we got clearance to do those operations,
[01:05:38] which as you said was a was outside the norm, outside the norm daytime operations stay in out
[01:05:44] in the city, supporting conventional forces, which freaks some people out like, why would you be
[01:05:49] supporting them? They should be supporting you. It's like, well, no, they've got whatever
[01:05:52] a thousand soldiers and they're taking down a giant part of the city and we can help protect them.
[01:05:56] So we are a supporting element, but it's going to be it's going to have big impact. So it was
[01:06:02] uh, it was awesome. So when you got when you got out to correct door with the first the 506,
[01:06:11] how awesome is first the five, how awesome is first the 506? The first of the 506 from the top
[01:06:17] down were hardcore warriors. Yeah. Some of the strongest leadership. So now major general,
[01:06:26] uh, Ron McIrne, uh, I'm sorry, Ron Clark was the botanic commander of the Donald's
[01:06:30] Democratic Colonel, um, Dave Womack. I mean, I've never seen in my 20 years a stronger,
[01:06:38] soft conventional force relationship other than Romani. I mean, it was a textbook case
[01:06:47] of unity of effort. Nobody worked for the other, but they all worked in unity,
[01:06:52] towards the same uh, and state. And it was beautiful. And Ron Clark, of course, you know,
[01:06:59] Seth and all the boys, it's set that relationship up. They've done a wonderful job. And, um,
[01:07:03] the fact that, you know, I got out there before he bestowed the first of the 506 spade on them.
[01:07:09] And you know, I was there when he got bestowed upon us. Uh, it just, I mean,
[01:07:15] yeah, you know, I need to qualify this, you know, getting the try that was one of the biggest things,
[01:07:20] uh, one of the biggest accomplishments in my life, but they, it was just like a different sense
[01:07:24] of pride than who most rates up there that this bad ass, with Denny Colonel, that, that it been,
[01:07:31] you know, in the sock for so long, uh, bestowed a infamous, you know, uh, symbol on our shoulders
[01:07:39] and said, hey, you wear this in combat. And that was, I mean, there's very few words to describe
[01:07:45] how that felt. Yeah, that was, um, like you said, there was a relationship between, between everyone,
[01:07:51] between us, between everyone at the 118, it was just freaking awesome. And I don't know if
[01:07:57] we'll ever be able to capture that and describe it, um, but man, it was, it was awesome. And,
[01:08:04] and what they did for us, and we did whatever we could for them and what they did for us, man, was just
[01:08:10] the sacrifices that they made and the effort that they put forth to support what we were
[01:08:15] doing. It was, it was, it was awesome. It was just awesome. Talk about, um, just give like, hey,
[01:08:25] this is what we were doing. So people can hear from your perspective, like, again, you know,
[01:08:30] you don't need to get into tactics that, but just, hey, just a general, this is what we were doing.
[01:08:36] We were covering and moving with the first five of six. That's how I put it. We were covering
[01:08:41] and moving. Again, all in the, in pursuit of the same goal, it's win-remodied. And, um, we could
[01:08:47] stuck with the status quo with the, the nightly direct action raids, but it just had the
[01:08:51] little impact compared to what the, uh, the conventional's were doing. And they were going to go out.
[01:08:55] So we really utilized the skill set. That was unique to the seal teams, and that was the
[01:08:59] sniper overwatch. And, uh, you know, those positions, those sniper positions, because we would,
[01:09:04] again, we defied sort of traditional tactics of those two to four guys that went out, maybe six
[01:09:09] guys in a sniper hide, and we went out in force, fighting positions, fighting positions,
[01:09:15] because shortly, you know, after the first few kills from our, our snipers, um,
[01:09:21] quickly turned into a battle position, because they, they can sort of try and get late,
[01:09:25] where you're at, based off the, the body's land on the ground, and they had become very
[01:09:29] good at it. But we would move out, uh, ahead of the frontline trace of the 506 set up, uh,
[01:09:35] sniper overwatch, uh, mutually supporting sniper of a watch, uh, to really, uh, protect me,
[01:09:41] uh, conventional is doing major clearances throughout the Miloob district, and it was highly successful.
[01:09:46] Yes, did it mean we operated during the, uh, the days. Sometimes it did, uh, most often we would
[01:09:51] infiltrate at night prior to, uh, you know, use the advantage of, uh, of night to you, to, to your unit,
[01:09:58] uh, set up prior to the, uh, the conventional's coming in the early morning and starting the, uh,
[01:10:01] the clearance operations, and then we, you could pull out during the day or stay until night,
[01:10:07] just to, uh, give ourselves, uh, you know, mitigate risk as best possible. But, you know, you can't,
[01:10:13] are you, the numbers don't lie. You cannot, are you with the numbers that the cigarettes were going down,
[01:10:18] and to make a batons were, you know, killed were, were stacking up and slowly, you know,
[01:10:24] taking one body of the time of that elephant, we moved further and further into central
[01:10:29] Ramadi, which was, and me held territory, uh, up until 2006. And then from the other side,
[01:10:36] Charlie Patir, and it was coming in from the, from the Western side of Ramadi, and it was like,
[01:10:40] eventually we just all made it a little, and called it good. So, when you got over to Corregard,
[01:10:48] or, I mean, obviously you're working for Stoner when you first show up there. How's that?
[01:10:54] Stoner's great. Stoner is a very, uh, I don't know, the word,
[01:11:01] eclectic is a good way to describe them. So, for the audience, I mean,
[01:11:06] Cestone is a, is a Naval Academy graduate, highly intelligent, you know, the guy almost had a
[01:11:10] photographic memory, ended up, uh, you know, getting his, uh, his master's from Preston. So,
[01:11:15] clearly, three of the guys intelligent. Um, what, what are you saying about 6263?
[01:11:21] Yeah, he was a big dude. He was overly aggressive. Um, sort of had some extra tissue above his, uh,
[01:11:31] his eyebrows that sort of made him look like a, uh, a caveman. Um, but Stoner had a reputation of,
[01:11:40] of being, you know, just that aggressive. And that's what was needed in that position.
[01:11:45] But he wasn't reckless. And let me say that. He was, he was very methodical and diligent
[01:11:50] out, most of the decisions he made. And, um, you know, for any leader that the Burmne
[01:11:56] Command is, uh, is a lonely place. Your task came to Commander, you know, even though you're close
[01:12:01] with a late for in Jocca, uh, a late for not and Seth, you're, you're, you're also alone. And for Seth
[01:12:07] out there, all by himself, because, you know, um, Andrew had taken off, he was by himself and really
[01:12:14] had nobody to, to commensurate. And so I think, uh, when I get out there, you know, he was
[01:12:19] relieved to have an officer. That was, uh, you know, a little more aggressive, um, and confided,
[01:12:26] in me. And so I went everywhere with Seth every meeting for the first of the 506. Um,
[01:12:31] I think he was in a sense, relieved, you know, one of my strengths and, and it sucks to say this
[01:12:37] was I was actually a very good planner, very good planner. You know, I took a lot of pride in the
[01:12:42] fact that it was a sniper. And so I could do a lot of analysis, mission analysis going in,
[01:12:46] in Medigay, risk. And then I was very good at knocking out the products, uh, almost to my own
[01:12:50] demise and I'll get to that funny story. But Seth knew he could rely on me for the little things to
[01:12:56] get that done to clear the way for him to focus on the more strategic picture, what in the
[01:13:02] at the Battle of Monty. And so, um, you know, because I respected him for what he'd done up to that
[01:13:08] point, like very much in a sense, as a young seal, I was trying to earn his respect as well. And I
[01:13:15] think I did that towards Ian, is he knew he could rely on me. Um, and I think quickly out in the field,
[01:13:21] I proved my worth, um, to remember him an officer with a sniper rifle now and so I'm finally in the
[01:13:26] game as well. Um, but we grew extremely, extremely close to the point where he started to bounce off,
[01:13:34] you know, bounce a, matters off me for, for my opinion, before he weighed, weighed in, with some
[01:13:40] final decisions. Um, and he became a brother quite frankly. And, um, you know, when the, the, the
[01:13:47] the point was over, you know, led the way and making sure that he was sent off out of Delta
[01:13:51] between and in a fine fashion. You know, we got him out, uh, forgetting the pistol, but it was
[01:13:56] that he was in nice pistol. There was like a $2,000 pistol. Uh, the boys were happy to chip in. So
[01:14:01] we, we made sure that we sent Seth off with as much love as he showed the, uh, the boys. And
[01:14:06] let me, let me finish, you know, with Seth in that regard, he loved the guys. He would hold them
[01:14:14] accountable. But by all means, you know, he was close with guys, but he did not yet in the way of
[01:14:18] him making a decision. A right decision. Not what was best for the guys, but what was right for the
[01:14:25] guys, and he would make those hard decisions. And he didn't mind being on part two, I don't know if
[01:14:29] he did. Yeah, I owe, um, at some point I'll be talking a lot about him. Not now. So, now we're almost done
[01:14:49] with deployment. And, uh, you guys had a matter of, I don't know what to call it in terms of number
[01:15:00] of missions left. It might be zero. It might be one might be two. But it was almost time for everyone
[01:15:09] to start packing up and head and home. And that didn't mean that the first, the five of
[01:15:20] sex was going home because they weren't, didn't mean the one one. A. D. was going home because they
[01:15:23] weren't, didn't mean that they were going to stop doing it operations because they weren't
[01:15:26] and didn't mean that the enemy wasn't going to stop trying to kill Americans. And so,
[01:15:32] that meant that we couldn't stop doing what we had to do until the next seal team came into
[01:15:41] a leave us and take our place. So, there was no stopping. There was no stopping until it was
[01:15:50] time to go home. Um, closest we were. And I remember consciously, I said to myself,
[01:15:55] I'm not going to say, hey, this day will do our last mission because I think that's like
[01:16:03] a call me superstitious, but that to me is like a bad luck thing. Like, hey, okay, guys, this is the
[01:16:10] last mission. And even in my own mind, I said, okay, well, we'll see how this one goes and another mission
[01:16:15] comes up. And so, I never said to myself, okay, this day or this something we're going to stop.
[01:16:20] And I just knew that at some point we'd have enough of the new group over, the new team would be here.
[01:16:26] And we could say, okay, you know what? We're good now and we're going home. And I didn't want to make
[01:16:30] that a count. I didn't want to make that like a set date, you know, or a set time or a set number of
[01:16:36] missions. I just said, when we were ready to be relieved, we'll stop. We'll just stop and we'll
[01:16:41] pack up because I don't want guys out in the field thinking, hey, if I can just make it through
[01:16:46] this because that's bad or I don't want guys in the field thinking, this is the last one I got to do
[01:16:50] and I don't want that or anyone's mind, not even mind. And so I even tricked myself and just said,
[01:16:55] okay, we're going to keep going until we've got enough strength from the other team and then we'll
[01:16:58] just stop that when that day comes. So you guys kept operating and everything kept operating,
[01:17:11] kept going and it was still despite the significant impact there had been on the enemy. The enemy
[01:17:24] was still bringing it and they were starting to get a little bit more desperate and because we
[01:17:32] had really shut down a lot of their movements and they were starting to really try and strike back
[01:17:37] significantly when they could. So basically, almost every time that we went out into into a
[01:17:49] car, the other day, we were a model you was on at this point. So September 29th, 2006, you guys were doing another
[01:18:07] operation in support of the first the 506. Operation Kentucky jumper in the heart of the
[01:18:12] Lob district right by the stadium. We had inserted the other night before. Again, in an area,
[01:18:20] we had operated multiple times before. We knew it like the back of our hand. We had taken multiple
[01:18:26] positions in that area. And on this specific one, we had taken a very dominant building when I say
[01:18:31] dominant in terms of height of height. We had the height over any other building. And we were
[01:18:39] has diligent and with thotical as we were with any other mission. And shortly after sunrise,
[01:18:50] we were engaged with the enemy. First of the 506, I'd come into clear several sectors of
[01:18:55] the Lob district. And I think by noon, myself on to another SIL, sniper at the native foregast.
[01:19:03] And you two had sort of laid down and get some rest because we'd been up for close 24 hours.
[01:19:15] And Mike and I were holding the security. And Mike, you actually jumped on my sniper rifle
[01:19:21] to get some gun time. And there was a SIL to his left three feet. And that was three feet to his right.
[01:19:29] And of course, one of the things that's a young guy and I realized now is I just always pushed
[01:19:35] to the edge. And sometimes to take care of the guys, you have to take care of yourself. And I just didn't
[01:19:39] learn that early on. So what I've always tried to stay awake and I tried to sleep as a little
[01:19:43] as possible. Because I thought I had to be there. You know, case they needed me to make a decision
[01:19:48] in reality. They didn't need me there to make a decision. They had it. And I was very replaceable.
[01:19:53] But when your young, you don't always realize that. And so I was in and out of sleep, you know,
[01:19:59] bobbing, sitting on the ground, like he was sitting in a chair. And Mike and I were in
[01:20:05] conversation basically about going home. Because we knew that was one of the last missions.
[01:20:10] And Mike was excited because he was going to sniper school. I don't know if you remember that.
[01:20:14] You guys had to line that up. He'd been a machine gunner. Most of the, well, all the
[01:20:21] you to point at located right next to JP, who was the point man. And so that was Mike's job
[01:20:28] was to Overwatch, like snake Michael, Overwatch, JP. In case they ran into enemy contact,
[01:20:35] today would be the first ones. And Mike he would lay it down. And Mike he had laid it down
[01:20:39] on multiple multiple occasions before. And then the other thing we were talking about,
[01:20:45] uh, is he was dating a girl? And we were talking about that. He knew I was excited. Because my
[01:20:51] daughter at the time was two years old. And, you know, I don't think I had talked to my family much
[01:20:55] on that deployment because we were just so busy. And that sort of my style too is once I'm going
[01:21:00] to play, it was easier for me not to talk to my family because it was actually a distraction.
[01:21:05] Because it would, it would mess with my mind. So you knew the mission was to get home to your
[01:21:10] family as quickly as possible. And in the best way for me to do that, I'm not saying it was the right
[01:21:15] way. Um, was to focus on what I needed to do and it had a hundred percent of my attention.
[01:21:20] Because I would not, you know, for the life of me, I would not allow one of my guys to get killed.
[01:21:25] But unfortunately, that's out of our control. It's war. And war's not clean.
[01:21:31] But, uh, midday, um, you know, contacted died down. There was still movement out there.
[01:21:38] But, uh, during the conversation, um, a uh, a grenade had come over the roof.
[01:21:47] And, um, again, I was in and out of sleep, but what really sort of snapped me to heart was
[01:21:52] racer right away was Mikey snapped up. Remember, he was in a seat. The grenade had come over the
[01:21:58] roof and hit him in the chest and bounced on the ground right in front of him. And now there's
[01:22:03] there's a lot of accounts out there that are wrong. I saw some, uh, other seal speaking to a, uh,
[01:22:09] a crowd about this, you know, that there was a entrance to the rooftop that, you know, a stairwell
[01:22:15] that would go down in the main, uh, main building. And that wasn't true. We were actually like 15
[01:22:22] meters, uh, from that stairwell at the very edge of the roof, uh, closest to the street.
[01:22:29] When Mikey, I say Mikey had the greatest chance of getting their way,
[01:22:31] is that all he had to do was dive in the other direction. And he'd most likely take a little
[01:22:36] shot and I looked at the bottom of the feet into the calves, but he would have gone home.
[01:22:40] And, um, the thing that amazes me is, uh, uh, you know, I'm not the, uh, do list tool in the shed
[01:22:48] nor am I the sharpest, but the cognitive ability to assess what just had happened in the potential
[01:22:54] outcomes that if he chose self-preservation, which is not a wrong call, um, that the seal to
[01:23:03] his left and myself, what did just eight in the grenade in the face completely, just done.
[01:23:09] And the other seal to his left had kids as well. And, um, you know, you, you play this over
[01:23:18] your head and trust me, I play it every day and the first thing I think about when I wake up is
[01:23:23] Mikey and my kids and the last thing I think about when I go to sleep is Mikey and my kids.
[01:23:28] And the other reason I say that is there's a picture of, uh, of Mikey on my wall.
[01:23:33] And you know, it's that iconic picture of Mikey with Seth and another seal in the background
[01:23:37] with the yellow smoke and he's carrying the, uh, the machine gun. And, um,
[01:23:43] he yelled good-nid and then, um, he dove down on it. And, um, not to add humor to the situation,
[01:23:59] but it's almost like that scene from, uh, snatch where, you know, the guys are frozen as, uh,
[01:24:07] as the shotguns going off and they say you sit there with a stupid looking in the face.
[01:24:10] Uh, I probably sat there with a stupid look on my face because one, we, you know, we're in the heat
[01:24:15] midday, we've been up 24 hours, we're exhausted and, um, it just happened so fast and Mikey just
[01:24:23] took action in a matter of milliseconds. Maybe he assessed the situation. He knew the outcomes
[01:24:33] and he made the most selfless decision that anyone can ever make. There's no walking away from that.
[01:24:40] And I know there's, there's some people that have walked away from jumping on her grenade,
[01:24:44] but those are statistical anomalies. And, um, it went off and, um, by him smothering it,
[01:24:53] it funnelized the grenade blast to the sides towards, uh, the seal to his left to myself.
[01:25:00] And we almost had mirror wounds, like, through and throughs in, in both legs.
[01:25:05] And, you know, I've never been that close to an explosive. We, we, we, we work with explosives all
[01:25:13] all the time within the seal teams, but we are very, uh, diligent about mitigating risk in the
[01:25:18] parameters that you have to be so far from the, uh, the explosives, um, the thing actually picked me up
[01:25:25] and flipped me over. And, um, I just, I could feel the pain. You know, people talk about,
[01:25:33] uh, if you're shot or wounded, like you don't feel it, the adrenaline takes over that
[01:25:39] in the case, it was immediate hot metal burning inside my legs or through through wounds just bleeding.
[01:25:49] So at the time, I, I didn't know if I had legs. I couldn't even, uh, I didn't even want to look.
[01:25:54] So I put my head sort of forehand on the, uh, the dusty rooftop and just took that big, sort of bite
[01:26:01] to eat the pain and, um, uh, a third or a fourth seal was already moving towards our direction.
[01:26:09] Um, you've been infected by the blast as well. Didn't take any shrapnel, but I mean, it rattled
[01:26:15] all of us and, uh, looked at Mikey, who's had was turned towards me and I, you know, Mikey,
[01:26:21] Mikey, and it was just lifeless. And, um, so the, the next decision was,
[01:26:30] the next thing that happens, we start to get lit up by any enemy machine gunfire.
[01:26:36] All chaos, uh, it's breaking out. It's pure chaos, pure, uh, pure hell.
[01:26:41] The Iraqi soldiers on the roof with that's except for one who's close to us, but he was actually
[01:26:46] stricken and fair in the field position. They all ran off the roof and left us.
[01:26:50] So you've got one critically mortally wounded, two, someone out of the fight can't stand up
[01:26:57] and then the third is dealing with, uh, with Mikey. And so we were left pretty much, you could say
[01:27:03] left to die by the Iraqi soldiers. And so I immediately went to my, um, in better to, uh, to call
[01:27:11] for Seth who was in a mutually supporting Overwatch position about 500 meters away. And, um,
[01:27:18] the blast had knocked out my in better. And so I'm calling finally, you know, I pulled the
[01:27:22] and better out and it's just clear screen and I turned it back on reset it. But the better has to go
[01:27:28] through a, it loads the program and it takes, uh, a minute, let's say, tops. I didn't have a minute.
[01:27:35] And so still having looked in my legs, um, looking around, I see the Iraqi soldier, and remember
[01:27:41] his name is Mohanad, actually spoke English. And, uh, he's in the field position. I mean, he's just
[01:27:47] striking my fair. And so I get up to run over to him. And as I stand up to run, I just go right
[01:27:54] down. Literally on my face. The legs just wouldn't work. And, uh, again, sort of eat the pain,
[01:28:01] um, which glad to do, given what my he's going through right now and what he did, did for us.
[01:28:07] And I crawl over there and the Iraqi soldiers used motorolous. And Seth had Iraqis with him as well.
[01:28:15] And so, uh, I actually, uh, called out to Seth, Seth eventually got on that motorolah.
[01:28:21] Um, and then I said, hey, we're, we're, we're bad. Like he's down hard. We need you now.
[01:28:27] And they knew something was going on because of the fire's just, you know,
[01:28:32] hit our building. Um, but you, as a commander, you have to wait, you know, let, let the situation
[01:28:38] develop, find out, let your, let your, your assistant, the two commander call back and give you a sit rebel,
[01:28:43] what's going on. He's probably here on the radio trying to find out. Um, but I got back to him,
[01:28:48] probably within a minute after the whole grenade blast that had gone off. In Seth said, hold on,
[01:28:54] we're coming. And, um, so I crawl back to where Mikey's at, the, the four seals drag him away from the wall.
[01:29:02] Um, and then, um, he's trying to work on it. And I told like, I'm like,
[01:29:08] get on the machine gun. Because remember Mikey carries the machine gun. It was right there.
[01:29:11] And he starts to lay down return fire. And, um, it seemed like ages before Seth got there.
[01:29:20] But finally, some of my like soldiers had come out and they're starting to return fire. But, you know,
[01:29:24] it probably only took Seth five minutes. But you gotta remember Seth and all those guys were set up
[01:29:29] within their position. They weren't ready to move. Um, so they had to leave a lot of stuff behind.
[01:29:33] And they, you know, sometimes you're not wearing your, your kit because it's so hot. You're there for,
[01:29:38] it was what, a 48 hour operation. You just, you're not always wearing your kit. So they have to throw
[01:29:42] on their kit probably and get to us. And then when they move into the street, what happens?
[01:29:47] The animation is not there under fire. And, um, you know, um, we didn't have our morphing kits.
[01:29:57] And this was a problem with sort of the process of how that work. If you remember, we had sent home
[01:30:01] the guy who was signed form about a week earlier. And so I remember, uh, I finally had the
[01:30:06] courage to look at my legs. And I didn't expect to see anything there. And there was two two legs,
[01:30:12] very bloody, uh, ACU pants. But they were there and have a sort of a, uh, a relief and a sense.
[01:30:19] Okay, my legs are there. They're just not working right now. And I went to a grab from my morphing
[01:30:23] and it was gone. And so the other ceiling I or, you know, were a pain. But, okay, no more
[01:30:29] relief moving on. Um, so I eventually get there. And, uh, they start working on Mikey. They didn't
[01:30:36] know the building where they were in, uh, and apparently, again, God, I love the, I think you actually
[01:30:42] activated the, uh, the Bradley's and medicine on the backside of the building. They're completely
[01:30:46] different street. I don't know. Again, there was, there was some confusion about where to go. And
[01:30:50] I did my best to clear that up from what I remember, which I don't remember very well. Well,
[01:30:59] the, to the guy from Cess, uh, Elmett grabbed me and I led them through the, the stairwell
[01:31:04] down. There was an adjacent door to building behind them in the backyard. So we went through that building
[01:31:12] to the road that was on the other side. It parallel road from the, the road we were operating on.
[01:31:16] It was a, it was a main road. And, um, they throw the other wooded seal myself in there. And then
[01:31:24] the guy who was carrying Mikey, uh, brings Mikey into the, uh, the Bradley funding vehicle. And,
[01:31:32] we take off. And that guy, the look on its face, was pure exhaustion. Now, within the military, we always,
[01:31:39] you know, we, we trained in the buddy carry and we do it as part of like physical training.
[01:31:43] But you're also rigid when you're carrying your buddy. And he's got his hand in your back.
[01:31:49] And Mikey was not a small boy, you know, easily probably two ten. He's about six two six three.
[01:31:56] And this guy, uh, who carried him was, I mean, he's a physical stun. And he was exhausted.
[01:32:03] And we talked about it years later, because he sort of put Mikey down in the Bradley vehicle.
[01:32:08] And he sat down just sort of was exhausted and sat there and I yelled it on my camera. What are you doing?
[01:32:13] You know, start CPR and he sort of snapped to and start CPR. You know, he actually gave me years late.
[01:32:20] He's like, man, I'm really sorry about that. I'm like, brother, you don't have to apologize.
[01:32:25] You would just carry him, you know, probably a hundred meters with combat equipment on.
[01:32:30] And you just, you know, you weren't with, you took a second to recover. That, it's not your fault.
[01:32:36] But everyone finds fault in that day and everyone feels bad. JP who should have been there.
[01:32:41] But it cut his finger if you remember. Yeah.
[01:32:44] Wasn't there. And um, yeah, it was, you know, you talk about the relationship in the 506.
[01:32:52] Again, it seemed like ages from the Bradley to get from our position in central Romani, Milab,
[01:32:58] to the Cricket or Aid station. And I do remember when I got there, the medic gave me a little shot of Morphine.
[01:33:08] And like three minutes go by and talk about losing your exposure. I'm like, hey, man, I'm freaking pain.
[01:33:16] And I regret saying this. It was just like stupid things you say when things are going wrong.
[01:33:21] And I grabbed him by the car. I'm like, I'm a Navy seal. You've got to rip that shit up.
[01:33:27] And you know, I could tell the look of sort of frustration is I comes back and sticks me in finally,
[01:33:33] like the Morphine hits and the pain subsided. But what I remember vividly is one, they had very
[01:33:41] little capability for surgery. In fact, no, they're all and they had a prep us in, uh,
[01:33:46] 240, uh, 46 is running round to get us and who shows up. Dave will make.
[01:33:51] Colonel McFarland. I'm sorry, Colonel Lowarong Clark and the senior leadership from the first of the Vivo 6.
[01:33:59] In fact, there was probably a hundred soldiers out there. And so they bring us out in the stretchers.
[01:34:04] We're, we're strapped down and Dave will mac has some oak leaves because I remember it's still midday.
[01:34:11] And he puts them on me laying on the stretcher and I flew off with those oak leaves. And if you know the
[01:34:17] army, they don't get good gear, especially in the infantry. That guy just gave me his like a high
[01:34:22] protection that I flew off with, but they saw us off. And they said, I know I am end up in, uh,
[01:34:29] Allen, out to Kedom. Uh, TQ. TQ. Yeah. Uh, for surgery. And again, who's waiting for me, um,
[01:34:37] Rob, you're counting part and, uh, all the boys. And so the, uh, you know, before they rush in the
[01:34:45] surgery and put us under, um, Rob was there, but they, they thought, and in retrospect, you know,
[01:34:53] I still struggle with this, because I was almost upset with it at the time. It was almost like
[01:34:58] rubbing a dog's face and, and it's own faces for taking a crap on the carpet is they thought
[01:35:04] we would want to see Mikey. And, um, so they laid both of us right by Mikey, uh, who was
[01:35:11] declared deceased by this point. It was just almost like a point of shame, a point of utter shame.
[01:35:17] And, uh, I just getting to look, you know, the other seals and tears I'm in tears, but I just,
[01:35:21] I just couldn't look. And, uh, I know they, they had nothing but the best intent. But at the time,
[01:35:28] it was just, it was like, I don't want to see this. I know what I did. I know what happened. Um,
[01:35:35] so they did that. They give us about five minutes and then, uh, rustists in the surgery and, uh,
[01:35:42] you know, next thing I know I wake up in, uh, Baghdad and, uh, go through another procedure and then
[01:35:50] prep to get the metavac to Germany, to, to go through another procedure and, um, the great thing is,
[01:35:59] you know, got other sealants I were together in the entire time that gave us two, uh, seals to
[01:36:05] escort us and, um, you know, Germany, we're there for I think three days and just people kept
[01:36:12] this and then visiting it. And at the time it's just I didn't want to talk to anyone. I did want to
[01:36:16] talk to you and Seth. And, and that's what I talked to you for the first time was when you got to Germany.
[01:36:23] And, um, it's because I had, I had my sit rep to pass and, and I don't know how, I'm sure,
[01:36:31] because the other seal, the fore seal on that rooftop state was Seth. He, Seth wasn't where of what
[01:36:36] it happened. But I need to talk to you guys to be like, hey, he jumped on that thing and in the
[01:36:42] military when somebody jumps on a grenade grenade, you know what that means. It is the most
[01:36:47] selfless act of valor that there is and, um, it needs to be reported because usually if the medical
[01:36:56] records check out the, the due diligence has done and it shows that it is truth. It is a metal
[01:37:01] of water. And, um, I think that's where I started this citation to, to get to you. Um, and then, um,
[01:37:12] yeah, after the three days there, uh, we, uh, we're in the back and sitting here. Just FYI, the only thing
[01:37:19] you told me, which I asked you, I was trying to ask you questions about hey, man, or you're okay.
[01:37:25] How's the other seal that's wounded? And you just, we're like, that's all you're telling me. It was
[01:37:29] about Mikey. It's all you're telling me. More fun is a hell of a drug. No, man, it's because you,
[01:37:36] you wanted to make sure I knew what was going on. You wanted to make sure that, what happened?
[01:37:40] You wanted to make sure that I knew that you, you didn't care about anything else.
[01:37:44] That you were just like, this is what he did. This is what he did. I'm telling you, this is what
[01:37:48] he did. I'm like, I know, man, I got it. I'm like, are you okay? He's like, you're like, don't care.
[01:37:53] This is what he did. He saved me. He saved this guy. He saved all three of us up there.
[01:38:00] That was the only thing you cared about. And so, then you got home and uh,
[01:38:14] and yeah, I remember, you know, people asked me about like, you know, the, the few rules of my
[01:38:31] guys, but I wasn't never there. Because I was, you know, we were still deployed, but I know that
[01:38:36] this point you were. Um, and I know that's uh, okay, even imagine for you what that process was like,
[01:38:52] it was shame. The, the, the way Mikey passed, it's one of the most intimate ways,
[01:39:01] like, brothers can pass with one another. It's, you know, we're, we're out there in the
[01:39:09] conduct of the fight. Uh, I get shot laying down fire. It's selfless, but when somebody makes a
[01:39:16] sacrifice, but jump in over to Nade, that, that is, that is a message of hey. This is my gift to you.
[01:39:23] Keep my memory alive and live well. But to the guy that is saved, you all you feel is shame.
[01:39:30] And I, and I know you, you felt these same sort of feelings is, you know, ultimately responsible for these
[01:39:36] guys. Um, and I think we all conducted our career with God help me if there isn't anything I could
[01:39:43] have done in the planning and risk mitigation and preparation for this mission or during the conduct of
[01:39:51] the mission that brings my guys home, then I am wrong, and that is on me. And so to come home, even though
[01:39:59] everyone was, was so welcoming and gracious and, and, and, and caring, it's just you feel this,
[01:40:06] this, like, just blanket of shame. And, and funny enough, um, when, uh, they had these buses waiting
[01:40:15] for us at, uh, some Sandy, or their part, because remember, it was, it was a, some private jet that
[01:40:20] took us from Bethesda to, to Sandy Aigo, and so they loaded us up on a bus and then straight to
[01:40:25] Balbo and, um, my ex wife and my daughter were waiting there and, um, get my daughters to at the time,
[01:40:33] but she would not come to me. Maybe they had a little sign, welcome home, Daddy, and, you know,
[01:40:38] my ex wife tried, kept trying to make, because I'm still on a stretcher, uh, tried, try to keep
[01:40:43] give my daughter to me and she just would, she was cleaning on to my ex, would not come to me.
[01:40:47] And it was just, even that, like I remember that's so vividly, and I think, in a, in a, in a
[01:40:52] subtle way, like I held that against my daughter for, for a short while, um,
[01:40:58] it's like it was just like, it was almost like a shunning, like she knew what happened.
[01:41:03] She was like shunning me, uh, bottom line, she was scared. Yeah, bottom line, she's a two-year-old.
[01:41:09] Yeah, that was, in the second month, and then she's going, like, I'm used to being with mom,
[01:41:14] but, uh, just, just being at the funeral and everything and just looking at all, you know,
[01:41:19] watching all the seals there, they took, you know, uh, to celebrate my ex life, it, it just,
[01:41:25] it felt like the eyes were on me, too. And that's, that's a selfish feeling,
[01:41:28] hate, this isn't about you, whatsoever, but it was just this, like, how could, how could I
[01:41:33] like that happen and why didn't you jump on the grenade? Like, how could you not get there in
[01:41:37] time, or you slow? Could you not assess what are you stupid? And, um, I still don't have a good answer
[01:41:43] for that, you know, um, but what really just, you know, we talked about this, it's like,
[01:41:50] somebody needs to hold me accountable. That's what I found. I'm like, somebody needs to hold
[01:41:55] me accountable. And, uh, you know, the boys picking me up for the funeral, and of course,
[01:42:00] me and the other guy, pack up the wheelchair, throw them in the back of the suburban, and,
[01:42:05] uh, when we get to the, um, the mass prior to the, uh, the funeral, uh, Miss Montsour
[01:42:12] is waiting, and Neil, I'm ready to, uh, to own what had happened, and before, you know,
[01:42:20] I can even get the words out. She wraps her arms around the other seal and I, and says,
[01:42:25] I'm so happy, you are home. Thank you for being with my son. And at that point, like,
[01:42:33] okay, I have no idea what to say. You just totally threw me off my game. Like, you should be
[01:42:41] upset. You just lost your son, and you are thanking me for being with your son, and you're
[01:42:48] telling me, you are so happy that I'm home. I'm talking about, like, infilling the ultimate mind,
[01:42:56] fine kid. But that is just a testament of the family that Mikey came from. And for the audience,
[01:43:03] Mikey was a Southern California kid. Again, pretty big kid. That's 62. Probably about
[01:43:09] two, 10, Ryzen's a humor and was a devout Catholic. And the family still won't. I don't want
[01:43:16] you to think of this like, straight religious family. They are from the family family, but they
[01:43:21] dare resolute, never leaves. And then from Southern California, and um, they're the most
[01:43:27] selfless family I've ever met. And when you meet them and you spend time with them, you quickly
[01:43:32] realize where Mikey got it. And he went to every mass at Corrigaturn. When I say mass, it's in a
[01:43:38] bombed out building with some military priest, and about five people, one of which is Mikey
[01:43:45] passing out communion. And he had faith. And getting to know the family was actually very easy after
[01:43:55] that. But with time, as time went on, you know, you'd be in the field like you're a reminder
[01:44:01] of their son and not the best light. And so I think over time, I pulled away from the family
[01:44:09] to give them their rest because at some point they have to put it down and move on with their lives.
[01:44:14] And I don't know if that's a right call in. I still struggle with that today. But I mean, I love
[01:44:19] the family. Even there was a sense of guilt from my parents when they met their parents just how
[01:44:25] good of people they are. And you feel like why they're a son and not ours. Or my parents are
[01:44:31] thankful. Don't get me wrong. They're extremely grateful. But there was a sense of guilt throughout
[01:44:35] our entire family that we get to move on in their family lives with this burden. Much like we do
[01:44:42] for the rest of their lives. Well, I can tell you that when you said it's a reminder, not in a good
[01:44:51] way, I would actually dispute that with you. And I promise you that it's a, it's a, they love
[01:44:58] hearing from you and talking to you and anyone, same with Mark, same with Ryan, same with, same
[01:45:03] with all of our friends at the fall. And if you can go and tell a story that they haven't heard
[01:45:08] before or tell a story that they've heard a hundred times before, it's, it's, it's worth it.
[01:45:15] At what point did you realize that you were going to heal quick enough to go back
[01:45:20] in two and other. But actually they told me to take a technique and they wanted to
[01:45:26] give me orders out of team three and to take a easy tour and relax, which is the strangest thing
[01:45:36] I would ever think to hear from a bunch of seals, seal iters. It was actually okay, I mean,
[01:45:42] you're going to be back in the game, it's quickly as possible because that's what's best for you.
[01:45:47] So, talking about the fact that you're not sending me away from a sealed team three, so what do they do
[01:45:50] and responses that they align me into another buttoon that is heading to pick up for listeners,
[01:45:59] pick on means specific man that means we're going over the Philippines to work with the, the
[01:46:03] the Philippines seals and you will not be in combat. You are doing host nation building
[01:46:11] and funny enough when they align the buttoons, there's these little placards with your face
[01:46:16] and your name and the master chiefs. It's a big magnet. We call it the Ouija board
[01:46:24] because that's how they stack up who's going where and so the master chiefs office, this is a
[01:46:30] no kidding story, was open and they've got the three task units with each of the buttoons underneath
[01:46:36] them, the two buttoons and all the pictures of who's in one buttoon and I'm in this buttoon going to pick
[01:46:42] them. So what I do is take my magnet, take some junior officer that's an AOC in a
[01:46:50] cent comp buttoon going back to Iraq, put my picture there, put his picture in the pick-on buttoon
[01:46:57] literally go up to the toons base and get won so the guys name say hey so and so you've just been
[01:47:03] a re-signed to this buttoon go report and I'm not kidding you've done is how that happened and
[01:47:08] you know whenever something either one they didn't recognize that it happened or two they're just like
[01:47:14] okay we're not talking about this one and I screwed over a kid by sending him to pick on first
[01:47:20] but first buttoon I don't feel all that bad about it. So you knew how I'm thinking to heal up
[01:47:28] so it was about a four months of debris meant so you know when you had some holes that were as deep
[01:47:34] as half a golf ball and if you don't pick the scab off then it'll heal in a concave manner so this
[01:47:42] little doctor female doctor had to go in every day and she would pick at the scab to keep the
[01:47:47] wound fresh so that it heals out called her doctor pain but did that for about four months
[01:47:52] then I had to get the legs working and actually start to walk and then run but overall four months
[01:47:58] because remember when when a team comes back from a deployment to go into a six month
[01:48:02] individual training cycle so guys can go to sniper school and so I had time to heal but
[01:48:08] there's still a lot of strap metal in my legs we formed up with the batoon I'd put on some bad
[01:48:16] weight and then you know throughout that entire two two year training cycle in fact again named
[01:48:24] Derek Benson and we both know and Derek was killed on extortion 17 would cut into my legs
[01:48:32] the the strap metal that was pushing towards the skin he would remove it so I had a little jar of
[01:48:36] of strap metal throughout that two year period that he would you would take out and he loved it you love the medicine side
[01:48:42] so and then you roll back back to Iraq yeah do you remember anything in work up any
[01:48:52] spectacular you're giving me that look both people that I put through work up give me that look
[01:48:58] so hey having more than for jocco you know as we're gonna be on me naturally I put it on myself
[01:49:06] one of those self-inflicted pressures that he's gonna expect me to to perform at a higher level
[01:49:12] given the amount of combat experience I had had and you had by that point drastically changed
[01:49:18] how the West Coast seal team's prepared for war and it was you know it was good pressure I like
[01:49:26] pressure I like when somebody holds me accountable and you know I think echo and I were talking
[01:49:31] about this you have a very ungany way of having a conversation without saying a word
[01:49:36] you sort of you know the eyebrows come down lower and you just stare and one of the said is like
[01:49:43] you would you would do that and look at me during the training be like hey here's the standard for
[01:49:48] everyone else here's your standard get it done good talk and so you there were probably run
[01:49:55] eyebrows harder on myself than you were but I do remember not military operations are specifically
[01:50:04] in Kentucky and that was some of the best training we we got through and again that was drastically
[01:50:11] different than the prior work up prior to our body and for the guys that had not seen combat
[01:50:18] given what happened on the next deployment that that absolutely prepared us for what happened
[01:50:25] yeah I mean coming back I was so ideal for me to go back and run training I mean if there's no
[01:50:31] better job I could and that's you know I was a little really lucky that a good relationship with
[01:50:35] the admiral and he said like where do you want to go and I said I want to go run trade-out because I
[01:50:39] need to get these guys ready because when we got back Ramadi wasn't done yet it ended up finishing
[01:50:45] up pretty quickly thereafter but I was just thinking hey everyone's gonna be going back and doing the
[01:50:48] same thing for another the average counter in surgeons he lasts seven years this started six months
[01:50:52] ago we got like many years worth of fighting and these guys need to be ready for that specific thing
[01:50:58] that I know how to do and so I need to go run that training and that's what I did and I was definitely
[01:51:05] it's funny because like when you're talking about like like I there's a lot of buddy carrying
[01:51:10] going on when I was running training and the reason is because I got the debrief you know like
[01:51:16] it's I knew it's like this is gonna be if you get in the situation it's not it's not what you think
[01:51:21] it is it's gonna be hell and how do you prepare for it you prepare for it you do is close you make this
[01:51:27] is close to combat as you can possibly make it then that was my goal and it was freaking hard training
[01:51:32] and I you know I had so many guys come back over the years after that when I was running training that
[01:51:38] we're like hey you know I just got back from Afghanistan thank you and the fire fights were literally
[01:51:45] easier than going through a block of land warfare they would be so stoked and it was awesome that's
[01:51:50] like the best compliments I've ever gotten in my life was having those guys come back and and also I was
[01:51:54] just talking to as a matter of fact I was talking to the guy that told me that you were good to go the
[01:51:59] other day and he's he's like oh we would have had so many blue on blues if we didn't go through that
[01:52:03] work up we were so much better we were so prepared and they had a better freaking hardcore
[01:52:07] deployment to Afghanistan and they kicked ass and he's like yeah we were totally good to go because
[01:52:12] that training set us up and so that was that was a real honor for me to be able to get to do that
[01:52:18] but yeah I was a little bit I was also a little bit still like I remember I remember and I've
[01:52:25] talked about this before in the podcast but like I'd be in Mount like it watching urban training
[01:52:29] going on and I'd see like a new guy or something like standing in the middle of the street and I would
[01:52:32] literally feel like a sickness in my stomach like a pit like just like when I was in the
[01:52:37] body if you'd see someone in the street you'd like to get out of the street I would have that feeling
[01:52:41] and so when I'd go over and talk to him it would you generally be like like pretty hostile like
[01:52:46] bro what the hell are you doing you're in the middle of the street get out of here you're going to
[01:52:50] get freaking killed and so yeah it was good and it was good that we put you guys through that because
[01:52:57] you guys went right back into the fire right back into the fire on on that next deployment
[01:53:03] and you don't lean into that for the last month I had my son who I named after Mikey so his name
[01:53:11] is Michael Anthony Surreli it was Michael Anthony the Montsorn he knows he's not named after me
[01:53:18] so I get to see him born less than two weeks after that we all end up in DC to see Mikey
[01:53:25] posh him nicely recognize with the metal of honor and then from Washington DC I fly directly to
[01:53:34] the middle east and then into Iraq I mean it literally butted up when we were deploying again and
[01:53:41] so we end up back in Alambar province I rack I end up specifically in Ramadi which is completely different
[01:53:50] completely pacified and part of you just can't even believe it you're just like no no it's
[01:53:56] wait just wait it's coming they're gonna attack and notes not that way what at the same time
[01:54:02] we were arriving in Iraq the solder militia back by Iran Iranian special groups there what we call
[01:54:07] the cuts forces there their special forces had kicked off a major spring offensive in the spring of
[01:54:13] 2008 and so the army is getting hammered inside of solder city soldiers are dying and they
[01:54:22] request sniper support from the US special operations command specifically siege a sort of AP and that
[01:54:33] siege a sort of knowing that sealed team three had run that similar mission in support of the one one
[01:54:40] ready combat brigade the deployment prior said hey can you guys run this mission so are commander at
[01:54:48] the time in master c4 faced with a decision we had commitments in Alambar province you just couldn't
[01:54:53] shut down a location and send that entire unit to solder city that that wasn't going to work
[01:55:01] so he had to make a decision of taking seals from all the particular outstations in Alambar
[01:55:06] thrown them into sort of this haj pod unit so you had seals from two different seals
[01:55:12] thrown together and we loaded up a bunch of rg's i think eight eight and all and 40 of us
[01:55:19] drove out to the Baghdad International Airport and set up a new unit called debt defender
[01:55:27] detachment naval special warfare detachment Baghdad and we named it defender
[01:55:34] St. Michael dark angel defender after Mikey and we created this badass patch that had the
[01:55:40] arc angel on there and we all knew and some of Mikey's boys that had gone through bugs
[01:55:47] were in this new unit good good friends of mine that were in Iraq at that time they had deployed
[01:55:53] to the buildings and so we are located in Baghdad but solder city is like an hour and 15 minutes away
[01:56:01] from Baghdad International Airport and so you know they're screaming for us to get in and again this
[01:56:07] unit has never worked together some of them have like these three guys came from this
[01:56:10] but they had worked together but they had worked with these guys in the seal teams and the both
[01:56:15] the convention and seizure sort of for a scream for us again and there and so we did the best
[01:56:20] we could rehearsals the planning we had never operated in the area maybe some people had but
[01:56:25] those were the very senior seals and we yet thrust into solder city primarily around this
[01:56:33] this route called route gold and they were trying to at that point the strategy was to
[01:56:39] cordun off or in close solder city with these large t-barriers so that we can control the entry points
[01:56:45] into the city and hence cut off supplies or enemy troops coming into the city and ultimately
[01:56:54] the strategy worked but the first night in all 40 of us go in and again remember we had this like
[01:57:00] young Intel officer who had just come from first time in Iraq had come from Alianbar where you're dealing
[01:57:07] with now the remnants of a of a SUNY enemy and we're now operating in Shia territory and in
[01:57:15] Shia enemy completely two different styles of fighting two different purposes one will
[01:57:23] get their G-haed on to the point where the die others are not necessarily going to give it a life so
[01:57:27] they're in fighting and pull back and then find another day and he didn't understand really the
[01:57:31] difference and so the Intel wasn't exactly aligning again we hadn't been in the lot the area we
[01:57:36] go in the first night and all hell breaks loose remember Chris cows with us these are lead sniper
[01:57:42] and we're trying to get into a position and I mean we had EFP's detonated on our patrol
[01:57:50] for listeners and EFP is an explosive forming projectile again if you remember these were
[01:57:57] Ironian made and what it is is a concave plate of copper with a lot of explosives behind it
[01:58:03] when you detonate it it turns it into a molten projectile molten because I am bullet yes and this thing
[01:58:12] could cut through Bradley and RG and Abrams take cut right through like a hot knife through
[01:58:19] uh that better these things were nasty and they were killing troops we had that detonated on us
[01:58:23] and then they owned the rooftops and they had what we were trying to do to them and so we are just
[01:58:32] like fish and the fish bowl and they are shooting Chris took one round in the helmet
[01:58:36] bounced off and you know Seth had now taken your position as the and it really is the
[01:58:45] band got back together task unit bruiser and so Seth is back with the striker company that
[01:58:52] in certain us doing his job and deflection and making sure we had the sport we needed
[01:58:56] and shortly after we called for hot extract I mean guys we're getting low on ammo
[01:59:03] the enemies maneuvering RPGs pk and fire on the rooftops down into us how we did not lose a guy
[01:59:10] I will never know and what I like to say is that Mark Ryan and Mikey were looking after us
[01:59:16] they got this one we're gonna give this one to reset but we called Seth in and the whole
[01:59:22] I do remember this about Seth is as the strikers come in strikers are it's like an armored version
[01:59:28] of a humvee with wheels that can carry more troops than a humvee larger and they have some pretty
[01:59:37] good armament and weapon systems and the ramp lowers and Seth runs off and starts firing into
[01:59:46] a building and of course it's that's how he's like let's go get on the strikers and the guy
[01:59:53] start loading up and the strikers are getting after it to the point where they went winch
[01:59:58] after getting his out of there and one of the striker operators says hey give me your gun
[02:00:02] and I hand him my SR25 and he just starts going at it my hand him my last maggy reloads and he's
[02:00:08] just getting to after it well tell you what humbling experience put us back into the same position
[02:00:14] like a new guy in the body okay hey we've got some great experience we got a reset and we we said hey
[02:00:20] give us like 36 hours we need you to do some serious planning we needed to do some serious rehearsals
[02:00:25] we did that and then we inserted shortly after that you know the funny thing is the only time
[02:00:30] like I really felt vulnerable and I remember I called my brother before we inserted the next
[02:00:39] time and I said hey I don't think things are going to work out here but my kids know I love
[02:00:46] and make sure you know my daughter grows up to be a person and character and make sure my
[02:00:51] grandma and my son grows up to be a man and me and my brother don't talk all that much but for me
[02:00:56] to make that call was probably a bad choice and for him to hear that probably put a lot more
[02:01:01] concern on his plate but we inserted and we got into position and the guy started knocking
[02:01:08] out of the park and then mission after mission they just kept eliminating combatants
[02:01:14] cigarettes started to dive we had 172 hour operation where the guys eliminated 50 fighters
[02:01:20] and within three weeks I think I want to limited I don't want to I'd probably hear
[02:01:27] plus up numbers I think it was like 125 to 150 within three weeks the guys eliminated
[02:01:31] and cigarettes went to almost zero and then there was not much to do for the rest of the
[02:01:38] plan well all the next sign up and activities that's enemy attacks basically but what's also
[02:01:43] interesting is that at the tail end of that the shakes inside solder city came out and said hey
[02:01:48] look we're good like we're here to make friends now we're done with this and what was really
[02:01:52] awesome was it solder city had been a complete nightmare for five straight years I mean solder city
[02:01:58] was completely uncontrollable and then in a six week period give or take that the those operations
[02:02:06] took place it was like done it was like they the the shakes came out and said yep we'll we'll keep
[02:02:11] this under control we want to make peace and and that's what happened that was and that was a
[02:02:16] they that was an unbelievable set of circumstances did you know the one thing I'd had to
[02:02:21] put on that remember and and you know it's your dad earned sets trust because of the distance
[02:02:28] between the bagged out internationally airport in solder city the conventional unit that was
[02:02:33] supporting us when we go into solder was in outside of solder city so he's like hey Mike
[02:02:38] and I think I spent all three weeks there he's like hey stay there plan the missions
[02:02:43] uh if you need to do a wrecking of the site go out with the conventional and so for three weeks
[02:02:47] like I wasn't with the boys they would move to me and then we would execute the mission but you know
[02:02:52] learning what we had about unity that for and putting your your aside in building
[02:02:58] personal capital through relationships we built a great relationship with the the 10th mountain
[02:03:04] and they gave us anything we needed and there's a lot of lessons learned from our body that we you know
[02:03:08] we took in that we actually stepped up in terms of the mission planning and preparation with some of the assets
[02:03:12] that the tenth mountain ahead but I was going out with the conventional spun myself
[02:03:17] if I needed to get to another outstation or a cop they would have a con boy of Bradley's waiting for me
[02:03:22] just for me and I loved it but Seth realized I was probably getting a little off the reservation
[02:03:27] at one point we conducted a mission we got back to that larger base and he said hey go get your
[02:03:33] stuff going back and I'm like I actually think I'm part of the little of them and he's like go get your
[02:03:37] stuff going back that was pissed because I was loving I was criminal curts in it yeah loving it
[02:03:44] you know he made the right call so yeah I know you guys didn't outstanding job there and again
[02:03:50] it wasn't obviously wasn't just you guys the tenth mountain did freaking unbelievable job
[02:03:54] the some of the images that were coming back at that time of those guys putting that tea barrier
[02:03:58] up right in the middle or right at the what side of the solder city was at the eastern side of
[02:04:02] solder city then you could see those guys out there putting that barrier putting those barriers up
[02:04:07] the conventional army guys it was freaking awesome and what what what awesome guys
[02:04:13] then you come back from that deployment you think you maybe you had enough yet not really
[02:04:22] you know on that in that vein I sat down with that commanding officer of team through at the time
[02:04:28] and you know I got in order to an east coast team and you know he was doing my final fit
[02:04:34] rap and he said to me often we'd pretty good relationship and he said the last thing I want to
[02:04:39] leave you with is at some point it becomes about family and I'm looking at him and I pause for about
[02:04:45] ten seconds I said Roger that sir but within the hamster wheel turning in my head was are you freaking
[02:04:53] kidding me I'm gonna deploy as much and as often as I can because this thing is not gonna last
[02:05:01] forever and I'm gonna to another command with with a bunch of warriors and I know I want to get
[02:05:06] right and stride and deploy as much as possible but in retrospect towards the end I realized what
[02:05:11] he was trying to tell me at some point you got to pull back so it only took you another what seven
[02:05:17] years to figure that out so you get out to the east coast and now you're doing just more to
[02:05:23] deployments yeah first one was to to Afghanistan with a great group of guys men you know I loved
[02:05:32] love these guys different feel to them but my first mission out was probably one of the toughest
[02:05:39] missions I'd ever been on in terms of just like terrain because we were in Kona our province now
[02:05:44] and how I would describe Kona our province is manned down take you know some of the worst areas
[02:05:50] of of the Colorado Rockies and then maybe multiply it by two and the enemy I mean they were this
[02:05:56] was their territory they had prepared positions it was a dangerous area and to put it into perspective
[02:06:02] a little more for for the listeners you know of all the metals of honor with in Afghanistan I think
[02:06:09] the majority of them were in that Kona ournor stand area to include Dakota miners
[02:06:16] and on the first mission yeah it just was like an eight hour hour
[02:06:25] so fast and actually so Adam Brown was was killed on that operation and that was my
[02:06:33] sort of baptism to fire to that new unit and I remember I looked at a good friend
[02:06:40] that Jonas was killed on the instructions 17 is a bro our all the missions like that
[02:06:47] he was like no that was that was one of our been on that I'm like okay I just want to make
[02:06:53] sure I need to get my head right if we'll say it again yeah like oh no what did I get myself into
[02:06:59] but it was good to to work with that team and get that experience and then I got a lot of
[02:07:05] time with the maritime side as well the boats but did in all with him what was that
[02:07:15] seven more deployments with great guys and you know lots and more brothers
[02:07:22] namely extortion 17 which was the largest loss of life in Afghanistan just you know it
[02:07:29] it's a travesty when we lose one soldier marine sailor in airman but when you lose 31
[02:07:38] that is just you know that that hits the military to to to the listeners they may say well 31
[02:07:45] soldiers you know you guys can easily recover from that you can't
[02:07:49] all the the man hours that go into to training those guys the level of proficiency they had
[02:07:55] crude over years like that is like that is a catastrophic failure or you know detriment to the
[02:08:03] military that is a loss of a lot of capability I yet alone the pain for those 31 families
[02:08:13] the children the or not the orphans but the kids that are left behind the wives that are left
[02:08:17] behind and and that will never have any solace other than that their level ones were
[02:08:23] doing what they believed in for them defending them but overall I mean great seven years
[02:08:32] and just nothing but lessons learned and leadership lessons in terms of being a troop commander
[02:08:39] and quite frankly you know my last experience I learned a lot which was not my best
[02:08:45] uh leadership experience you know you look at extreme ownership and there's ways I could
[02:08:54] handle certain situations better and I think I reflect a mine entire military career just on
[02:09:00] man I could have done that better that's what we all do is you know back and think man we could have
[02:09:04] done that better it goes back to what I was saying earlier about like if you know the way
[02:09:09] then the way appears everywhere but when you don't know it you're seeing like little like I even
[02:09:15] I remember when I was young man young and I do something that was like partially right but then I
[02:09:20] do something that wasn't and I think of myself and if I would have known if I would have gotten some
[02:09:25] reinforcement if I would have figured it out better you know like figured it out better and you just
[02:09:30] don't and that's one of the hardest things about one of our hardest things about it's not just
[02:09:34] the civil teams it's the military when you complete a job you don't get to do it anymore
[02:09:38] uh you you get done with your assistant platoon commander and you're like okay I got this figured out
[02:09:43] I'm ready to do it again they're like no now you're gonna be a platoon commander and then you get
[02:09:46] done with your platoon commander you go okay I got this figured out I'm ready to do it again they
[02:09:49] go no you're gonna be a task to become better then as soon as you get you figure something out
[02:09:52] you're done with that job and you can't go back and you're very seldom do you get to go back
[02:09:56] and do you get it so we all sit around and look back and and there's another weird thing about this
[02:10:02] whole deal this whole deal is that it's so hard to someone's got to have a real open mind
[02:10:13] to be able to teach it to people you know someone's got to be when someone's got to have an open
[02:10:19] mind like I would say when I was running trade at I would say like 30 or 40% of the people
[02:10:28] would be like listening and absorbing and which is important which is pretty good it's actually
[02:10:33] pretty good but there was like 30% of the people that you know I would try and explain something to
[02:10:39] him and it just wouldn't they just wouldn't like you're putting the way in front of them but
[02:10:43] what they don't recognize it they can't see it and so it's easy now that you know the way
[02:10:49] when you look back at your own experiences you go the way appears everywhere but you didn't see it
[02:10:54] back I didn't see it back then I've just looked at it going and why did I want to figure that out
[02:11:00] it's one of those things and I think that's one of the things that that makes what I'm doing
[02:11:06] now what you're doing what we're doing now as a team is to be able to to try and pass these lessons on
[02:11:13] to leaders everywhere and you know leaders in the military leaders and police leaders and fire
[02:11:18] leader in business act everyone to be able to say look hey this is it over here I know this is hard
[02:11:24] to see but look at this and it's awesome to be doing what we're doing now and say oh and have people
[02:11:30] again a certain percentage of people that go I got it I got it I can take that and what's interesting
[02:11:36] about our business now is when people are raising their hand and they're asking for it that means
[02:11:41] their mind is open to they're open to it they want it whereas with and this does happen occasionally
[02:11:48] when we work with companies that we're getting imposed on you know like the board of directors
[02:11:52] and they go fix this company this company screwed up you got to go fix them those people don't
[02:11:56] have open months so they're they're looking when you're talking to them they're looking for reasons
[02:12:00] that what you're saying is wrong that's their goal is to say that doesn't apply to me it doesn't
[02:12:04] apply to this market doesn't it's no we actually work with eight companies in your exact
[02:12:09] industry your competitors and they have the same problem this is how they fix it but no this
[02:12:13] different for us okay it's different for you it's different for you leadership is different in your
[02:12:17] specific company leadership is different than it is everywhere else no that's actually not true
[02:12:24] not true at all so it's an unfortunate you know it's I've been thinking about this too because
[02:12:31] you know I got I got a I got a son you know I got three daughters in a son and and the fact of
[02:12:36] the matter is you don't see yourself as much in your daughters as you do in your son right your
[02:12:41] son is a he's a boy a small man and man what I wouldn't give to be able to just like put the
[02:12:49] knowledge in there you know because you see him doing stuff and you go and you could you know
[02:12:53] this is my own flesh and blood by the way that I say hey that's not a good way to handle that
[02:12:59] here's a good way to handle it and he looks at me like I'm an idiot right like how would you ever know
[02:13:05] what it's like to deal with a school teacher you know what to deal with a coach how would you know
[02:13:11] what that's like to deal with another person you know what you're right I'm sure you have this
[02:13:16] you're 15 now I'm sure you got it all figured out this is the one thing I lead kids with
[02:13:23] and I gotta tell you my old man was probably right 95% of the time but did I listen though no
[02:13:29] the work is you know fathers come up to me and be like hey can you talk to my son really loves
[02:13:36] you want to be a seal I what can you leave him with listen to your old man he may not know
[02:13:44] what the right decision is or right path is uncertain things but he will tell you what the wrong
[02:13:49] path is sometimes knowing what not to do it says valuable is knowing what to do you know what
[02:13:54] else I tell when when fathers ask me to talk to their sons I tell the sons I say listen your dad
[02:14:02] actually cares about you more than you do he he wants an outcome for you a good outcome for you
[02:14:10] more than you do I know that doesn't seem possible but for him to come and ask me to like talk to you
[02:14:15] means that what he wants more than anything in the world is for you to be in a good place in the future
[02:14:19] that's what he wants he doesn't want to screw you over this isn't a plot to get you to fail in life
[02:14:25] he actually wants you to win more than anything so you may want to listen to them
[02:14:31] check so it's at this point you do you do so what do you had you did nine deployments overseas total
[02:14:39] ten nine ten deployments overseas and and finally the little voice in your head says you know what I need to
[02:14:47] uh look at something else probably probably the toughest decision uh I had to make I mean a lot of
[02:14:54] guys like a lot of guys thought you were a thirty year that easy he's easy to do a thirty probably
[02:15:00] more and they usually say the same about me and and I can't even talk about this it just came over
[02:15:05] me like a like a wave just crushed me it was just like yep it's it like I'm I'm I'm tapping out
[02:15:13] in the sense at the end of the day you always ring the bell to the community they're like
[02:15:18] I'll get quit it quit her um and uh you know I had one last good deployment with a different group
[02:15:24] it was awesome work with these guys and um you know there's a lot of things you're not one I finally
[02:15:29] felt the fatigue um and the hardest thing to do for any seals to dab out but it's because you know
[02:15:38] that you're no longer like the best guy to push that uniform and and I also was going through
[02:15:45] divorce at the time and um things were just you know things were out of balance and even though
[02:15:53] I wanted to take the XO of a squadron um I knew I was not the best option for the guys and uh even
[02:16:00] though I could probably maintain the job that's not the right answer if I could not keep them uncomfortable
[02:16:05] and different forward then then I wasn't the right guy and so you know we talk about brutal self-assessments
[02:16:12] that was the most brutal self-assessment because I had in that that all you know however good I
[02:16:19] thought I was and what we did what we did it just I'd come to a point where things were to
[02:16:25] go rating and so uh you know over overseas I actually called back to uh you know my my CEO at the time I said I'm done
[02:16:34] and uh this had okay we understand that that's a mature decision you know you wanted me to stay
[02:16:41] he's like I want you to be my XO man he actually referred to or referred to the uh the captain from the
[02:16:48] uh the raid and the Philippines the Ranger the one that did all the planning I'm forgetting the
[02:16:53] name now but he used to call me that um and he said I understand what he wanted to do it's like
[02:16:59] you want to go to uh uh Memphis and like working the details shop I said no hey get me orders to
[02:17:07] to Texas my my XO's probably moved back to Texas that's where she's from and I want to be
[02:17:11] close to my kids I need to repair that relationship um and you've talked about it you know family
[02:17:18] is come second bottom line when you're at war you have so many responsibilities on you one
[02:17:25] Ranger guys whom that the the family is coming second and so that that was my new priority and so you
[02:17:31] test him into the CL community they they made things happen they realign things and they got me
[02:17:36] a billet at the University of Texas Naval ROTC um where one uh Admiral William McRaven was sitting
[02:17:45] as the uh the UT chancellor boom yeah and then so so did you go to school so you got down there
[02:17:52] and was it to get your degree it no it was to be an ROTC instructor and um they'd also
[02:17:59] prep the battlefield to hey the guy wants to get a uh a master's degree or to have one to get
[02:18:03] for so that was the collateral test to get your degree and so uh literally had one late week to
[02:18:09] apply for the the full time MBA program at UT uh took the uh instead of the GMAT I took the uh
[02:18:16] the AC no I'm trying to think of the ACT and um and um uh or GRE the GRE thank you
[02:18:25] and the scores were were not so hot uh and I've had some phone calls and I got in
[02:18:31] and um you know that was a homily experience as well to start you know we we in a sense
[02:18:37] I don't want to say master but we become very good I become being seals at the art of war
[02:18:43] which takes years and years to hone and even then you're never as good as you think you are
[02:18:50] but you put it put time in you built some level mastery and then to step into accounting and finance
[02:18:56] with a bunch of 27 year olds and you're the 39 year old in the uh of course and you have this
[02:19:00] puzzle look on your face because one you've been blown up a couple times and next there went to
[02:19:04] some training where they were like hey you've suffered cognitive degradation to the amount of 50%
[02:19:09] fuck what and I make that Excel spreadsheet and move slower then so I was grabbing these younger kids
[02:19:17] like hey uh show me how to do that man I know what you guys are talking about and it's like okay
[02:19:22] and they all love me they knew there was something different about me and I remember it came time
[02:19:26] for the other first test and one of the younger kids who was actually one of the owners of the
[02:19:30] class who was 26 years like sir one of the last time you took a test on my 14 years ago so I shut up
[02:19:39] but uh so it was it was hard stepping back and doing academic environment people were like
[02:19:44] what did you been to combat this is gonna be easy for you it's like a different type of stress brother
[02:19:49] and like you know one we all drive ourselves to do well and uh the first few tests did not come back
[02:19:56] uh favorable and Mike's really is a calling and so I buckled down and actually did quite well
[02:20:04] but after the first semester the basics of business it gave me a good grounding and I'm like hey
[02:20:11] I think I can do something I actually think I can do something good uh pay back to the community
[02:20:17] they hooked me up to be here where there's no military base I'm supposed to go back to the
[02:20:23] community and I know there's there's a problem with that's getting out especially seals they're
[02:20:27] not getting jobs commensurate with their abilities and company should be swallowing these guys up
[02:20:34] leaders I mean the one thing you can't deny is the military is the preeminent
[02:20:41] leadership training platform in the nation motivating it not saying to the world if I be the
[02:20:46] world I'm not saying there's not great leaders out there that have not been the military actually
[02:20:50] they're they're they're more than than than people like the they there's a lot of great leaders
[02:20:55] and never had military training but as a whole and as you said about the Marine Corps they
[02:20:59] tend to turn out this this this standard product which is a kind of button the same thing with the
[02:21:04] military general and so uh you know talking down on the craving and a great guy named uh
[02:21:09] who is this vice chancellor major general Tony Kukuhu and this guy's become a real big
[02:21:14] matter in the um love them we talked about this and uh basically walked myself into a project
[02:21:22] which we got approved by the McComb's business school 20 vets we we did a analysis into the
[02:21:29] systemic challenges facing veterans when they get out in terms of employment and it was a you
[02:21:33] know 60 page paper which was met with quite a better reception and then again walking myself
[02:21:38] into more work everyone's like hey did we think you guys have a business concept of this uh
[02:21:43] out around of this paper you need to take it one step further won't we'll prove another project
[02:21:47] the next semester and hence something called vetted was formed and to give a quick brief on vetted
[02:21:56] so vetted uh having done all the gap analysis of current programs out there and all the research we did
[02:22:03] we feel we found a solution and actually Huffington post-hilled vetted as revolutionizing the way
[02:22:07] that veterans exit the military so it is bar none the most comprehensive program out there and it's
[02:22:13] still building itself up so uh a partnership between the Wharton University of Texas McComb's MBA
[02:22:19] program and the Texas A&M's business program um MBA program we developed something called the
[02:22:25] veteran accelerated management program it's optional five months of online education through the
[02:22:32] Wharton Business Foundation's course as a preparatory to a two month in-house um
[02:22:39] residence program that basically gives them a very strong business acumen over the you know within
[02:22:46] that two months or the course of those seven months they've received more career development which
[02:22:51] is almost as important as acquiring the business skills then an MBA student gets into years and that's
[02:22:56] how to interview how you're having you know refined and resume optimize your resume like then mock interviews
[02:23:04] but they they hit all the the basic verticals of business even entrepreneurs that they have a business
[02:23:09] idea they came in they have a executable business plan on the back end and for those that want to
[02:23:15] go into industry actually every Thursday Friday they're working on a industry capstone embedded in
[02:23:22] the company so during that eight weeks every Thursday Friday working a project inside a company
[02:23:27] which means industry experience back and going their resume and then two organizations offer
[02:23:34] their placement services for each charge at the end. Actually I'm front over watch and Bradley Morris
[02:23:41] Inc which the two happen to be strategic partners which I'm sure we'll get into but um of the first
[02:23:47] pilot program at the University of Texas McCombs of the 25 veterans all our placed except for one.
[02:23:56] Yeah so that so you just kind of start talking about the next thing obviously we need to talk about
[02:24:02] is you know at some point well you were doing this and here late for an I were with echelon front
[02:24:09] and we work with companies all the time and every company we work with guess what they need they need
[02:24:13] people they need good people they need they need leaders that's what they need and you know as you and I
[02:24:19] discussed this and talked about it and I don't know if I don't know who made the connection mentally
[02:24:26] I think it was you who made the connection mentally like oh wait you you need people and we're making people
[02:24:32] let's figure that out and that's sort of where we got into this idea of echelon front over watch
[02:24:40] we did it was just combining chocolate peanut butter versus pieces it was magical
[02:24:48] it was magic moment sorry with so you know there was a lot of lessons learned from
[02:24:56] that and you know when I started that there was a lot of business matters in mind very successful
[02:25:01] business matters that are like duty needed capitalized this thing and at the time I couldn't see it
[02:25:05] like my ultra is I'm sort of drove like no it needs to be non-profit where you're not
[02:25:09] okay charged people for this and now I recognize that in a capitalistic market you can do more
[02:25:13] good on the for-profit side then you can then I'm profit side we live in a free society free
[02:25:19] enterprise and I remember sitting down and in Austin we do you guys I'm like hey I remember you
[02:25:24] telling me that every company you talked to is like we're gonna get like five of you and that just
[02:25:29] wasn't your game at the time but at the end of the day you know talent is all about leadership
[02:25:34] becoming a talent magnet or having a talent mindset within your organization is about leadership
[02:25:41] and so you know knowing our communities the special operations community and combat
[02:25:45] aviators they broke your resident fighter pilot the badass that you um that could deal
[02:25:50] day we knew we could start something and so we created echelon front over watch what we call EF overwatch
[02:25:57] overwatch being the term that the mission we ran in and reminding and I think like it has a little
[02:26:02] appeal in the sense that now we're overwatching our brothers green braise navy seals
[02:26:07] Air Force PJ CCT's Mar-Sot guys getting out and the direct support come a personnel
[02:26:13] we're overwatching them and helping with their transition we're overwatching the companies that are
[02:26:17] in a war for talent and that's the thing that people don't understand even the seals are always
[02:26:22] hunting for the best talent somebody asked me you know funny enough with with the with the most
[02:26:26] important job in the seal teams is and they thought it was gonna say a troop commander on the front
[02:26:31] lines that that is important that the end of the day that's what we do but I said no it's actually
[02:26:35] big big about budget trucker that is like being a hiring manager you are the filter of the
[02:26:40] talent coming through which ultimately will end up in that troop commander in that that troop chiefs
[02:26:45] hands and there has to be a standard we need to put some of our best guys at Buds can make sure
[02:26:49] that only the best are passing through well the same thing applies to business you are constantly
[02:26:54] in this war for talent and we couldn't think of a better talent pull than combat aviators
[02:27:00] co-repoilets fighter pilots again all the special operations guys in the direct support personnel
[02:27:05] the commander of so come that have the soft skills the leadership skills that you want
[02:27:12] they may lack the hard skills you look at the resume it may not scream right fit the but once you
[02:27:17] get these guys in the interview you see that one they they're leaders that they're humble
[02:27:22] that they're willing to roll their sleeves up and get after it and actually listen and learn
[02:27:27] that is the perfect employee yeah and if you can get more of these guys into your business
[02:27:33] I guarantee you you will create your own army that will dominate your battlefield and whatever
[02:27:38] industry that you're in it's it's it's awesome because
[02:27:44] people every every single time I go talk to a company they'll they'll say man it seems like you
[02:27:49] just it seems like you know you did you do a bunch of research to figure out did you have you been
[02:27:53] working with us and we didn't know about it and I'd be like no well how do you know what
[02:27:57] problems we have it's like oh because you're a company because you're a group of individuals
[02:28:00] you're a group of human beings are trying to make something happen I guess what there's dynamics
[02:28:04] there that happen with all different organizations that together and guess what if you take these
[02:28:09] leaders because there are maze that I can understand their business it's like no I don't understand
[02:28:13] your business I understand leadership that's what that's what Eschalon front we understand leaders
[02:28:17] so we can go in and look at what's going on and say oh you've got a leadership problem here and
[02:28:21] here's how we fix it and so to take that and say you know what we can actually give you people
[02:28:27] that understand leadership and they can help you solve these problems that is like you said
[02:28:34] Reese's peanut butter cup peanut butter and chocolate that's what it is so it's been on
[02:28:40] speaking of bringing on talent like when this whole thing was going down I'm like how
[02:28:46] if I can move mics are really attached along from because guess what that's what we did yeah
[02:28:51] bring bring the band back together and you know that's why that's just been it's been
[02:28:56] awesome and if anyone that's come to the master you know mics you can put it put it on a great
[02:29:03] talk about leadership inside the master for you and everyone loved it I myself included
[02:29:08] and yeah going out working with companies again now we just have someone else on the team
[02:29:14] that can get out there that understands leadership that sees solutions we're bringing it we've
[02:29:19] been bringing you out on a bunch of stuff now so you see other companies and you see
[02:29:22] you're starting to take even what you learned in school put that on top of the practical
[02:29:26] applications that we see now you know the way so you see it everywhere you look so that's
[02:29:31] that's that's another benefit so that's where you're at now talk about getting out
[02:29:37] I mean you talk about what gets you out of the bed in the morning and every company is like
[02:29:41] you love what you do I'm like the fact that jaco wave myself jp Dave Flynn
[02:29:47] are on a phone call talking about leadership I'm like there's nothing that gets us out of bed
[02:29:51] more than that like we actually we love to solve these problems because we've seen them before
[02:29:56] yeah and you know people people often say like well how how are the seals like
[02:30:01] sent on a miswin business I'm like you just said it you're a unit you're a company you're
[02:30:05] dealing with people you deal with the same issues and it has been great I mean how long have I been
[02:30:11] on now three months yeah and I just love it and you know my fiance sees a different person
[02:30:16] because yeah for for the listeners I took a you know high level job in higher education
[02:30:21] executive director of veteran services for the tech say name system and it just you know
[02:30:25] even though the work was rewarding it just wasn't the same as being part of the actual
[02:30:29] front in like jorn has seen she's like you're actually like how did it get out of bed in the morning
[02:30:35] now like yeah with the boys that makes a big difference and like you said you can't even
[02:30:43] shut us up like we will have a like we we got this thing called the tank where we'll get together
[02:30:47] and talk about like a leader like for working with three companies and there'll be leadership
[02:30:53] issues at each one of the companies and so we'll talk about the leadership issue and then how that
[02:30:58] problem should be approached and these calls that are scheduled for an hour will end up on the
[02:31:04] full of three-o-two-and-a-half hours or will end up in the in the tank for three hours sitting there
[02:31:08] going by and because we're learning from it we're also learning how we can apply what we're talking
[02:31:13] about it's just it's just it's just an awesome it's awesome to be part of the organization and
[02:31:18] and like you said to be with people that are just into it into it and you know the funny things
[02:31:23] having got my MBA the one thing that is not addressing any MBA program is leadership yeah
[02:31:30] and they know it and right now you're seeing a lot of MBA programs set up or stand up centers of
[02:31:35] leadership within their their MBA programs and you know I've had some great discussions I mean
[02:31:41] great professors there and so I mean strong leaders because they they were private sector leaders
[02:31:45] before they came back and and spoke but I mean you can and they turn out highly successful
[02:31:51] business practitioners but at the end of the day like it's not a recipe for for leadership training
[02:31:57] whatsoever yeah no that's it's it's been awesome that's that's why the business has gone to
[02:32:01] great because there's no one that's offered what we're doing there's there's there's people say
[02:32:05] well who's your competition I'm like we don't we don't I don't mean this in a negative way but
[02:32:09] because I'm sure there's companies out there that are trying to do something but there's no one
[02:32:12] that's saying hey this is this is what you do this is how you lead this this is the way this will
[02:32:16] apply to your business these are the principles that you can use and you can make happen so yeah that's been
[02:32:21] we've been pretty lucky in the fact that we we saw the correlations between these two things
[02:32:27] and saw them pretty clearly so big good and I'm gonna say so the muster in DC 005 was my first
[02:32:34] muster and naturally these guys know me I'm filled with hate it's just sort of what drives me
[02:32:40] just one of my nicknames is grumpy but you know I was definitely on board because it's
[02:32:48] you guys you guys my brothers I'm like yeah dude I want to love discussin leadership but
[02:32:53] naturally you know I always have a you hold back a little I'm like okay let me see what this
[02:32:58] muster is about and the fact that you guys are changing lives and people are coming up to me
[02:33:04] off one speech and I'm just like dude what is going on like I gave one speech and like
[02:33:10] people were like did you that actually you're perspective as I'll re-change my life I'm like
[02:33:15] well I'm glad to hear that I'm not saying you didn't realize the the impact yeah that it has
[02:33:22] no it's it's it's it's a it's awesome thing to be a part of and when I say I think to be a part of
[02:33:26] it's awesome to be at the muster with the people that are at the muster not just like oh we're
[02:33:31] a part of it and you're not no it's like everyone that's there is a part of it and everyone that
[02:33:36] there is there is contributing to the knowledge that that's being distributed and increased so yeah
[02:33:45] it's it's awesome it's a good time and that's where you're at now it's probably a pretty good place
[02:33:54] to yeah probably we're touching three hours almost right now or two and a half or something like that
[02:33:59] probably a good place to call it and I'm sure we'll do this multiple times again in the future
[02:34:08] it of course obviously thanks for coming on thanks for your service in the Marine Corps in the
[02:34:15] teams and now add a lot of echelon front at echelon front overwatch clearly Mike is out here doing his
[02:34:24] job he's done his job and now maybe we could get echelon to do his job and talk about how we can
[02:34:33] all do our job better in some way somehow sure could you help us with that one yeah sure
[02:34:41] be happy to go more on the path right yeah I'm on the path you're on the path I'm on the path
[02:34:47] right jockel is the path you're on the path you're on the path you're on the path
[02:34:55] trying to be on the path is where I'm at good need to get crazy all right so that being said
[02:35:01] we're all trying to stay on the path the best we can so here here are the ways to do this
[02:35:08] some ways some ways yeah some some suggestions like you're the authority like this is the way
[02:35:14] yeah you're at your ideas yeah proven prove most of these are all proven yeah
[02:35:21] but through experience true you know that's such a affirmative origin origin main dot com's called
[02:35:28] origin our company origin american made stuff geese rash got for jiu jitsu other stuff as well
[02:35:37] a peril why does it pair will get like a like a tone you know because you know how you get
[02:35:45] you know with the whole like a peril like you're not a fashion person well then again a
[02:35:49] peril in fashion is different okay yeah a peril what you wear as a human yeah yeah and fashion
[02:35:55] is something else yeah that you're trying to look a certain way or give a certain flavor to your
[02:36:01] vibe yes i'm not a fan of you're not a fan of flavor to your vibe yes you just your goal i went to
[02:36:08] when i went to college there was this woman who was a Buddhist monk and as i was learning about
[02:36:17] Buddhists they one of the things that they said was like you're not supposed to stand out like just
[02:36:23] just don't stand out just just fit in right that's part of the program yeah technically it's not
[02:36:28] fit in it's just don't stand out okay like maybe one of the two and if you're a practicing
[02:36:33] Buddhist you can come on and breathe brief me on this i'm sure any help this is how i read it okay
[02:36:38] okay don't you know just don't stand out you're just trying to be it's it's like an ego thing right
[02:36:44] it's like don't look at me don't look at me because i'm just i just wear a black t-shirt and a pair of jeans
[02:36:49] don't look at me i'm just a normal dude over here mm nothing special not wearing the laying
[02:36:54] as they call it so but there was a there was a person there that was a Buddhist monk
[02:37:04] and the Buddhist monk wore all the Buddhist garb like the robe and the stuff
[02:37:10] which i don't care hey i was i when i was in Thailand it's awesome it's actually awesome
[02:37:14] seeing the Buddhist monks walk around and they come and gather rice from you in the morning and it's
[02:37:18] it's it's like awesome it's it seems to be the most uh really chill and religion out there right
[02:37:27] and so i'm down with the Buddhists mm-hmm but if you're not in Thailand with
[02:37:35] other Buddhist monks where it's normal well then you what guess what happens when you put on the robe
[02:37:41] stand out and you're saying look at me and that's what i gathered from and i was like hey
[02:37:45] no look at me in fact my goal is like don't look at me that's the goal that's the goal
[02:37:53] look at me yeah oh so okay so i think enough to go too far deep into this
[02:37:59] but we were here hey you brought it up true so it's less about because when the Buddhists
[02:38:06] put on his garb regardless of where he or she is when they put on the garb that's just how
[02:38:12] that's just the garb kind of thing he's there that's not regardless of where we're here where
[02:38:16] he or she is because check it out if you're in Thailand and you put on the normal monk outfit
[02:38:24] sure you look normal yes if you're in a university where everyone's dressed in western clothing
[02:38:31] shorts t-shirts and you put on the garb then guess what you're don't look normal right you stand out
[02:38:39] yeah and it almost says look at me yeah because the true in my opinion like a like if you really
[02:38:47] wanted to to attain that level of ego less enlightenment then you just be dressing like the normal
[02:38:56] people dressed nothing more nothing less just right down the middle right but don't look at me
[02:39:01] right i'm just over here doing what i'm doing but i think and i don't know but i think it's possible
[02:39:07] that it's less about the result of them standing out and more about the effort or lack of effort or no
[02:39:15] effort made to stand out because that's what it is but this is like you can't be attached to like
[02:39:20] your personal it's like what i'm saying so if you if you're used to putting on this the garb
[02:39:27] everyday that's just how i'm like hey i put this on you guys i can stand out and not stand out
[02:39:32] i'm focused on this not really yet it has a good idea in okay well that's cool i'll change my
[02:39:37] attitude towards the monk that i went to college with that's why that's why he's the the
[02:39:43] little color the leader he means because he just opened my man yeah anyway how can origin
[02:39:49] main help us stand that's why if you order something from origin main you could order something that
[02:39:55] is neon green that peat robert's design yeah those fats are there have neon or you could order
[02:40:03] something that's just black or black and gray which is very uh low profile the joggers and
[02:40:10] low profile looking as far as the colors and whatnot but they're joggers it's kind of hip that's
[02:40:17] the thing right now joggers i've got a few of them most comfortable joggers in the world by the way
[02:40:21] proven proven by experts expert anyway how can you keep yourself on the path okay you do
[02:40:27] jj it to you stick with jj it's a new geek boom best geek main and macro by the way see same thing
[02:40:32] this is another question comes up all the time is should i wear the white ghee the black
[02:40:37] ear the blue ghee in my Buddhist mind it was always look the white ghee is just the plain ghee
[02:40:43] that's it you're just wear the plain white ghee that's the way it is i always only wore the white
[02:40:48] ghee guess what i got now black i got black ghee guess what it doesn't matter anymore because
[02:40:53] everybody wears all kinds of different colored geese well they wear white blue or black right there's
[02:40:57] no it no longer is a thing to wear it used to be like if you wore a black ghee you're like hey look
[02:41:02] everyone is like look at me right now no one gave it to cares what color because there's
[02:41:07] a lot of those different colors in circulation so whereas a year ago i'm saying only a year ago
[02:41:12] i would have been like hey listen you need to just stick with the white ghee that's just how right now
[02:41:17] the might have been open if you want to get a black ghee if that's the one that is is you know
[02:41:23] what you're into yeah yeah yeah yeah or the blue one or the blue one or the green or the
[02:41:28] not bright not me on green the me on green just for clarification purposes me on green was one
[02:41:33] of the colors that are in the spats which are compression pants yeah for stop so anyway
[02:41:40] see in the path get a new key continue or start jujitsu boom path that's right on the path
[02:41:46] right in the middle of the path too by the way it's not you know very nothing jujitsu is part of the
[02:41:49] path also joe when i say jogger sure yes they're comfortable i get it come there's no growth
[02:41:55] in the comfort zone whatever but when you're jogging getting out right running doing these things
[02:42:03] you want to put on sweatpants right so to speak and you put on some comfortable made in
[02:42:07] America origin joggers right you're still in the path big time good time actually there you go
[02:42:14] boom so there is growth in the comfort zone in a certain small exceptional capacity we talk
[02:42:20] anymore about clothing i will be like a little bit of a time it's comfort zone i'll be entering
[02:42:25] the fashion area yeah yeah after we like okay wait if we talk about clothing see even by
[02:42:30] me saying like wear this and don't wear that that's no getting in the zone and i shouldn't be in
[02:42:35] which is so I'm not gonna go there I'm done about supplements agree cool supplements okay so
[02:42:41] Mike remember supplements right when you're young take them all yeah whatever's gonna throw
[02:42:47] on the woods the muscle yeah yeah you're right see rest yeah I'm glad Mike's here we can talk
[02:42:52] about this stuff and get talk about it even more so we too what did give me the what the protein
[02:42:58] faster the stronger better in every single way lift more waste be more big
[02:43:03] our supplements and last working out and then smaller t-shirts yeah exactly so but we
[02:43:11] and we never thought about hey what about joint supplements you know like you know when you're
[02:43:15] young you're like a cool maybe for like older folks or something like this and i get it but
[02:43:21] not man give me the protein powder give me the BCA's right so current you know things always
[02:43:30] and evolving new information better information accurate information joint supplements are
[02:43:35] more important than protein powder supplements i would agree how to agree because look if
[02:43:41] your joints aren't working well in lifting heavy you don't need protein supplements because you
[02:43:48] can't lift the weights to get to need the recovery for the protein and for growth and gains
[02:43:53] it's a valid point yeah yeah and up your 40 and you can barely get out of your car after
[02:43:58] driving for one hour yeah and here's the thing that that is funny but it's not funny bill
[02:44:02] no it's not it's real and which brings me to my other my other point which actually all joking
[02:44:07] aside is a big deal this is a big deal that i've actually found when you when you get more healthy
[02:44:14] joints your everyday activity is like way different almost till the point where you didn't realize
[02:44:19] that you had jammed up joints same same you're like dang all this freedom was waiting for me
[02:44:24] on the other side of healthy joints decision making anyway point is jocos some supplements
[02:44:31] joints well mics here i figured we talked about you just got edge kibbing yeah yeah
[02:44:38] yeah and get educated is well anyway joint warfare crill or super crill oil these are things
[02:44:44] that go directly to joints other benefits by the way we can talk about if you want somebody
[02:44:49] ask a twitter i have my knees hurt how does joint warfare know which need to go to
[02:44:55] no yeah here's how it knows yeah i've the answer to that joint warfare knows
[02:45:02] that it goes to both knees okay so it's like hey cover move yeah it's like hey we got a bunch of
[02:45:08] guys right we got a bunch of guys they've been working now they have some issues you're going to say like
[02:45:14] no it knows yeah you just tell it before you eat it before you take it it's a joint warfare
[02:45:18] say it left me yeah he like well you think it feels like that but this is what it really is
[02:45:24] the joint warfare doesn't know the knees know so it's like hey look we're all working out we're all
[02:45:29] doing you know various uh we're moving we're cleaning the yard that's what we're doing
[02:45:32] we're moving our bodies through space we're moving anyway we're doing the yard work right
[02:45:39] me my jockel some other folks that we know right after all it's hot outside yeah and then boom
[02:45:46] one of our my wife comes outside with a big bucket of ice with waters in it right
[02:45:55] jockel's a little bit bigger he may have worked a little bit harder than us he might need some
[02:46:00] more water my work the little bit he might need a certain amount of water but we all need varying
[02:46:05] amounts of water some of the least water you know I mean I mean I mean I mean it looks like I've been in the
[02:46:10] shade maybe not working that much I may need a half bottle of water yeah you're assessing yeah
[02:46:16] so my wife is the joint warfare with all the omega threes and all the all the stuff
[02:46:22] the nutrients you guys are the knee jockel's the bad knee obviously I'm the good knee I need less
[02:46:27] of that stuff so we are the knees choose what how much water we need this thing and this is the
[02:46:32] what's cool about this is this is also this is all scientifically proven 100% that the knee will
[02:46:38] dry in the joint we know the joint warfare doesn't know the knee knows it's a check doctor echo that's
[02:46:44] literally how it works yeah also yeah but yeah very important supplement you'll know just take it you'll
[02:46:49] know and yeah discipline you can take that you might have seen the video that echo Charles made
[02:46:56] about discipline that I that I was taking three scoops of discipline and that it put me into uh
[02:47:02] let's just call it the zone do you just do excellent the geod the zone of geod you two excellence yeah
[02:47:07] and you spliced up that video you spliced up I got to say thank you you spliced up to make me look
[02:47:13] pretty good I was all grinding on the you know I had Andy's arm and I was like dang I look good
[02:47:18] yeah I think just so everyone knows yeah the rules don't always look like that yeah we got some good
[02:47:23] little clips you know here something actually really funny about that the funny you bring that up okay so
[02:47:27] all that footer everyone I can't just film real whatever and you're rolling with Dean for a lot of
[02:47:31] that time and you know when you roll with Dean so you're not just dominating Dean is good so he was
[02:47:36] kind of getting you for a little bit so Dean Eric like literally that night he's texting me
[02:47:41] hey send me that footage hey send me that foot I want to see the footage I want to see the footage I want
[02:47:43] to see the footage you know this and that and I was like you know I don't know you know I'm kind
[02:47:47] of you say hey I want to put something in there just send me the footage and I was like okay
[02:47:50] didn't send it to him I forgot I wanted to but then I was like shoot did I send him this footage you
[02:47:55] know what like what if you posted an internet or whatever it's man that's what I'm thinking but I'm
[02:47:59] like yeah okay there's the thing Andy said something like that like you were filming and Andy's all
[02:48:04] oh hey do you want to roll even though he's here filming I was like dude I don't care yeah okay
[02:48:08] because oh oh you just doesn't work on job yeah he's not gonna tap out no no actually you just
[02:48:13] it works on job going job going job type yeah with your freaking job and get caught Nick damn arm lock yeah yeah
[02:48:17] so so Dean wants this this footage so I go kind of look through the footage and there's one of him
[02:48:23] he takes you down he's like funny he's sitting on the yacht he takes you down while he's sitting down
[02:48:27] by the way and then he like mounts you and he's like grinding his elbow just like let me not put
[02:48:33] that part in it so yeah so I mean you look good and what sucks is like I was doing good because I
[02:48:39] was kind of getting after it yeah that's the part of it and yeah exactly maybe look good so everyone
[02:48:45] me I thank you Dean Lister does not thank you sorry Dean you know you talked about protein not
[02:48:52] being important and I actually think you're wrong well you need protein and you might as well
[02:48:58] get your protein from the what's commonly known as the only real source of protein that's good
[02:49:05] which is milk yes milk is milk do you know what mock is I've seen it yeah he heard here oh you have
[02:49:13] me try it I'm not trying to I'm sorry Dean we'll get spoon up yeah yeah you're you know
[02:49:20] you know what you're missing yeah so yeah you get milk peanut butter mock will be out
[02:49:25] peanut butter peanut butter chocolate mock will be out we'll call it
[02:49:30] we'll call it very soon within a week I'm gonna call it in a week because you know I know
[02:49:36] had it and it's yeah see which kind of goes the you think it's kind of intuitive to his whole thing
[02:49:43] you know it's like hey let's make something that's like you know healthy good protein
[02:49:49] clean all this stuff but you know what it has to taste delicious you've seen saying it kind of goes
[02:49:54] against this whole hardcore toughness thing right just like the discipline you made sure it tastes
[02:49:58] good it's been saying isn't that kind of funny it's funny right you think it's funny anyway yeah
[02:50:04] milk good good one replace your dessert with milk and boom no sugar protein it's weird
[02:50:10] there's a substance on earth that you can replace your steak and your dessert with one item
[02:50:16] and I'm not necessarily I'm not saying you gotta do that but take some lunch you know
[02:50:20] cooking a steak is a pain sometimes it takes eight minutes you know we don't have eight minutes
[02:50:25] sometimes boom yeah makes it good milk you're good come to the immersion camp we'll have
[02:50:29] milk the immersion camp in main August 26th through September 2nd you did to the immersion camp
[02:50:36] yeah the way you did to immersion camp not Italian immersion camp because we won't be
[02:50:41] speaking Italian there or any other language is most likely maybe a couple no the
[02:50:45] person is the other person yeah it's a Portuguese semesters funny maybe semesters
[02:50:49] pen you all sure yeah you've ever counted any other anyone else at once come to speak other
[02:50:53] languages all this stuff that Echo just talked about origin main dot com you can get it there
[02:50:58] yep it's true also good way to support yourself and this podcast if you want is the fact
[02:51:04] or knowing that chocolate store and it's called jocos store okay how do you support yourself
[02:51:11] with jocos store if you want a represent if you're on the path you want to represent
[02:51:17] you can get a shirt says discipline equals freedom to now new designs on there if you care
[02:51:21] about that sort are you still offering the old one yes that's an interesting decision
[02:51:26] why I don't know because they're they're slightly different yeah they're just you know
[02:51:31] hey okay so I have discipline equals freedom shirts I have the green one the you know the regular
[02:51:38] and what do you call that they're gray and what's the other one like a charcoal yeah all same
[02:51:45] design so I'm like hey you know if you care about this kind of thing hey I'm gonna go I don't know
[02:51:50] wherever the post office got the post office like hey that's a cool shirt you know your charcoal
[02:51:55] discipline equals room cool I got the post office next day I'm wearing the head of one there
[02:51:58] that he's like pro like what up you just like that same design so much you get it in all colors
[02:52:04] I say yes but it's I'm still left with the thought like man maybe I should get a different
[02:52:09] design but I like discipline equals freedom so you're saying yeah okay so I get the new design
[02:52:15] I come back to the post office the guys like hey I like discipline equals room too that's dope
[02:52:20] but I'm still he still has the sense like okay he has more than just that one do you like
[02:52:25] same same same thing all right I do yeah I mean I know I'm kind of overstating it but it's still
[02:52:31] it's the thing it's not nothing okay so on jocquist or you can get ratchcards t-shirts
[02:52:36] trucker hats you can get other hats hoodies you can get hoodies you can get legit hoodies and
[02:52:44] hoined hoodies hoined hoodies if you know who I in hoodies means which we don't because jocquist
[02:52:50] made that up it's just a lightweight hoodie you know it could be called Southern California hoodie too
[02:52:56] no yeah good no sure good so sometimes it gets to be 38 degrees in Southern California the
[02:53:02] Hawaiian hoodie I'm gonna cut it yeah I think you're about to all right nonetheless lightweight they look nice
[02:53:08] and anyway if you want to represent jocquist or dot com if you like something get something
[02:53:12] also also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't you can subscribe to it iTunes Google Play
[02:53:18] Stitcher if you leave reviews I read them sometimes they make me laugh yes that is good
[02:53:25] because they can be rough but then you read it a good review that makes you laugh that's positive
[02:53:30] so make that happen to work also you too by the way if you like the video version of this podcast
[02:53:37] and a warrior kid podcast if you haven't been listening to warrior kid podcast check it out
[02:53:41] sure it's for kids ask uncle jake questions there's some good questions in there if you got
[02:53:48] kids definitely check it out YouTube you can see echoes legit supposedly legit videos oh yeah
[02:53:56] the excerpts yeah yeah cool but also the ones you do you're a little fancy stuff too
[02:54:03] yeah yeah man again you're super sensitive about video making everyone should know that
[02:54:09] no no okay no no cool anyway yeah so you made it you made the master video yeah and someone
[02:54:18] this is an interesting part someone put someone I posted it to my face book I posted there
[02:54:26] and there's some people commenting and then someone wrote no credit to echo
[02:54:32] that's it I thought echo just did he's doing his job and he's proud of it yeah that's it
[02:54:37] doesn't want that kind of credit yeah no credit um I actually I think that made the video yeah
[02:54:43] the trick you did your job yeah you did what you're supposed to do good congratulations
[02:54:49] well I think technically to in I mean in the spirit of just accuracy I think most people
[02:54:55] kind of know that I made the video yeah like because I just make the video that's like the routine
[02:55:00] right that's what it seems like anyway anyway check all right yeah warrior kid podcast is dope
[02:55:05] that's on YouTube as well by the way also if you want to vary up your workout which I think is
[02:55:11] important thing but you know hey people people some people are different but if you want to vary
[02:55:16] up your workout try some new stuff going on at dot com slash jockel you get some new gear
[02:55:22] gear in all capacities by the way all we down to socks we have the club to club heavy club
[02:55:30] I'm gonna have to check this out yeah no no the club that you picked up right you're like hair you
[02:55:35] did you just for juggling you're like oh no that's not for juggling you'll kill somebody
[02:55:39] he probably yourself but he's see that backs up the point that I said before about those those
[02:55:44] are like oh yeah you know like cool it's a club it looks like one of those clubs that they juggle
[02:55:48] you know it depends you would ever die yeah and you pick it up you're like bro I can't
[02:55:52] juggle that that's like something you work out with and here's the thing yeah there's full
[02:55:57] workouts with that club and there's varying weights whatever anyway you go to the website you can see
[02:56:02] you know what workouts to do a lot of good info on there you know switch up your workout man
[02:56:08] iTunes Google Play MP3 you can get psychological warfare it's an album and yes it has tracks
[02:56:15] and it's just me telling echo and you if you're listening not to be weak at that moment in time
[02:56:22] no it helps it helps you that be weak we're working on the second album well I should say
[02:56:29] I'm compiling the thoughts for the second album which seems like we've determined the working
[02:56:35] title at this point is all your excuses are lies yeah because that one seems to be uh it's
[02:56:41] hit a home with me with everyone y'all juggle white tea you can get it on Amazon in Canada
[02:56:47] and in America you can get dry tea little tea bags that you brew or you can get the can
[02:56:53] which we're gonna put all the big unhealthy energy drinks we're gonna put them out of business
[02:56:59] yeah that's the that's the prediction sure because why would you not drink juggle white tea why
[02:57:04] would you drink something that's gonna kill you when you can drink something that's gonna make you more
[02:57:07] healthy yeah it tastes better and it makes you feel better is there do you have any answer to that
[02:57:13] I don't that's right because I'm right if you're your attitude is wrong
[02:57:19] and uh books if you're on Amazon anyways way the warrior kid and marks mission
[02:57:26] and this week was freedom field manual if you want that on audio it's not an audible book it's
[02:57:33] MP3 iTunes google play all that other stuff extreme ownership which was written by me and my
[02:57:40] brother Dave Babin it's about leadership and we have a follow on book to that called the
[02:57:46] dichotomy of leadership which is coming out September 25th and we're getting some feedback on it
[02:57:53] right now and people are really stoked. Dave and I are definitely stoked on it it's uh cool cool
[02:57:59] book to write it's a little problem the little area the it's the area that people have the most
[02:58:03] problems with yeah how do you balance between being too much of a micromanager and being to
[02:58:07] lose how do you how do you manage the being communicating too much with the group and too little
[02:58:14] with how do you do how do you manage being too close to your people or to
[02:58:19] distant from your people so all those little things all those little balances that you have to figure
[02:58:24] out as a leader there in that book check it out you can preorder it anywhere if you preorder it's
[02:58:29] helpful because that way our publisher who is you know just not aware they're not in the game they're
[02:58:38] not listening to actually some of you know what we need to print a bunch of these books don't
[02:58:46] miss out on the first edition you know what the second edition might end up with it if you don't order
[02:58:51] it but and speaking of which for leadership training if you read the book you need a little bit more
[02:58:58] inside your organization echelon front we saw problems through leadership it's me late babbin jpe
[02:59:03] to know Dave Burke flint cauldron and now as you've heard my brother Mike's are Ellie
[02:59:11] monster 006 monster 006 in San Francisco October 17th and 18th
[02:59:19] Mike you kind of talked about this but your feeling like the monster had will have good impact on people
[02:59:24] it's it most of the ways going to have impact on people it's been shown and just the two days
[02:59:30] I attended I walked away I came right back in Jordan I'm like call it I'm like dude don't call me dude
[02:59:39] I'm blown away in fact the funny thing is you remember there was a green miree that came
[02:59:44] and you know for the listeners hey you know there's there's strife rivalry rivalry between
[02:59:51] the communities all all for fun but even he looked at me and he's like dude this is amazing
[02:59:58] these guys are having an impact and we are going to a very unique place silicon valley
[03:00:04] that is without a doubt one of the most innovative places sometimes lacks leadership
[03:00:09] yep yep has innovative products but lacks leadership so this is going to be magical
[03:00:15] well yeah well yeah that's a good yeah well that's one of the things one of the reasons
[03:00:20] is because the companies we work with up in silicon valley a lot of times they have the
[03:00:25] technical capacity they're smart they they even have the business understanding but the only thing
[03:00:32] that they need especially once they start to grow as they need they need better leadership and so that's
[03:00:36] why we the companies we work up with that we work with up there we know that they need this and so
[03:00:43] that's why we're doing this one in San Francisco October 17th and 18th come on out you can
[03:00:49] register to extremotorship.com you'll see that on this one you'll see like a lot of people
[03:00:56] from the last one because they're like keep coming you know me because not only the updates or
[03:01:00] whatever but just like how you're saying earlier where the more okay you learn something then you
[03:01:05] go to the field you know you practice you you know practice you perform thing you're like oh wait okay
[03:01:11] now it other problems arise you like this problem now is another problem yeah because I see
[03:01:16] differently now I see more of that so boom I'm going back to the mustard yeah seems in and then
[03:01:21] boom back to the field so you'll see people there every time so you get it to do it and have
[03:01:25] going to tell you this so out of uh zero five this this police officer came up to me or I should say
[03:01:31] mounting from Nova Scotia second year I want to come to my department then yeah when he saw
[03:01:36] that I spoke with the Louisville Kentucky uh which are my boys police department major police
[03:01:41] department he's like hey you need to come out so we're coordinating I get to go out to Nova Scotia
[03:01:47] police is zero five that's awesome you know speaking of law enforcement is we because of the
[03:01:56] because of the popularity of the mustard and because there's usually law enforcement military
[03:02:01] border patrol firefighters paramedics all first responders basically people in uniform
[03:02:04] they've they've been coming to all the musters but we wanted to do one that's a little bit
[03:02:10] cheaper focused on those types of jobs so we're doing something in Dallas Texas September 21st
[03:02:16] it's called the role call if you want it it's the same register register to streamownership.com
[03:02:21] you got to be one of those you got to be one of those jobs to come to that but that's going to be
[03:02:25] focused on that sort of dynamic leadership that you get into in those situations so that's the role
[03:02:33] call zero zero one September 21st of course now one more thing to talk about
[03:02:37] echelon front overwatch efo overwatch so check it out real simple to put this out if you're
[03:02:46] a veteran and your either in the military and you're getting ready to transition out of the military
[03:02:52] soft soft support combat pilots if you're in that situation go to efoverwatch.com or
[03:03:03] if you're a business that wants to bring this type of leadership into your team then go to
[03:03:10] efoverwatch and you see there's real simple instruction to follow and we'll proceed to move down
[03:03:16] the path of putting the best people in the best positions and on top of that if you want to
[03:03:25] hang out with us a little bit more virtually until we see you in San Francisco at the monster
[03:03:29] or until we see you at the roll call or until we see you at the immersion camp in Maine then we're
[03:03:34] on the inner webs fully on the inner webs on Twitter, Instagram and dash of baseball key.
[03:03:41] Mike is MJ Surrelli it's mjsa r a i l l e that's him on Twitter. He's Mike Surrelli on Instagram
[03:03:54] and he's Michael Surrelli on dash of a is he bocky and of course echo is at echo Charles and
[03:04:02] I am at jockelwillic echo anything else yeah yeah actually so going back you did mention
[03:04:12] you said mini buds do you say mini buds that's where you went through not bud mini buds.
[03:04:18] Mini buds so I think it's called something's called something else now and I can't recall so
[03:04:22] basically there is a vast pool of kids in college and at the naval academy that want to
[03:04:28] try out to be officers in the sealed teams. Yes because the competition is so fierce
[03:04:33] the summer before they grew to do it actually become commission as officers in the navy
[03:04:37] they actually have to compete for the few billets that exist for buds officers. Okay and so
[03:04:45] you've got I think you anywhere from 100 to 100 actually probably more than that trying to get into
[03:04:50] mini buds and there's only so many I think like there's 30 per class they run too many buds every
[03:04:55] summer of about 30 candidates each so 60 total and there's probably like 500 kids compete
[03:05:01] in for the slots and then amongst those 60 they're only going to slack I think like 50 percent
[03:05:06] 30 that actually can step into buds as navy engines and try to become navy seal officer. So
[03:05:13] you know it goes back to that talent everyone is always in a war for down looking for the best
[03:05:19] candidate. So you go to mini buds you pass then you go to buds. Yeah. Definitely. If you're lucky
[03:05:26] if they select you got you to perform well it. Oh okay so again this is just for the officer
[03:05:31] pipeline if you're in a list of guy you're in the navy and you go to buds there's no many buds
[03:05:35] for you. They do have a prep course now up in Chicago after boot camp you stay and you try
[03:05:42] they try and get you ready for buds. But it's different obviously. Yeah it's different okay.
[03:05:47] I don't think that's even a selection it's not a selection it's not a selection it's not. No it's just
[03:05:50] it's not a selection they could deselect you but the purpose isn't deselect. No I think the purpose
[03:05:54] was to to see if we could statistically increase the number of people that get through buds and
[03:06:00] actually I think it has proven a fact that the end of the day it's one thing for whatever reason it's
[03:06:05] an 80 percent of tuition rate like almost all the time or 70 to 80 percent. So one of my friends said this
[03:06:12] about buds, about passing buds that this is a fact it's not the the tell tale but this is a factor
[03:06:18] where if you're in a group that and this is going to go back to leadership I kind of interestingly
[03:06:24] if you're in a group where people are real negative and then you know when you're negative you
[03:06:28] want to blame other people or just if you're negative person whatever you don't want take on
[03:06:32] shit. So if if a guy is seemingly getting gangged up on you know like if everyone's like hey you're
[03:06:39] not pulling your wig you know everyone's getting frustrated and then everyone's like
[03:06:43] harping on one guy that makes them quit way quicker than if like everyone's like yeah it's okay
[03:06:51] we can do this you know like you like if you have a leader who's like hey it's all good guys come on
[03:06:55] we got this we got this kind of cheer everybody on and saying like hey we're all a team here kind of
[03:06:59] thing but if you're like hey you're holding us back and everyone's ganging up on that guy he'll
[03:07:04] quit way quicker that's what you say. Chuck there's only one exception I think that's probably accurate
[03:07:10] to yeah for the most part there's only one person that I think that I've seen
[03:07:15] sort of defied at and that was run Joe yeah you would not get that guy's admin and yeah tough as nails
[03:07:24] yes seems like that would be a factor but yeah you get brother there's just guys like that and we're like
[03:07:29] nope I'm all die before I quit you know it was just simply not option no matter how deep you go
[03:07:35] it's crazy yeah you ask me what what to do how to get through buds don't quit that's it
[03:07:42] it's crazy Mike any closing thoughts yeah well yeah few just people to thank one you know
[03:07:51] to you and all the boys that I served with across all the commands I served in man it was
[03:07:55] it is a brotherhood while Mike now's gotten along with all of you definitely learned something from
[03:08:01] everyone and it is a brotherhood that you will never replace and that was an honor sort of long
[03:08:06] side of this guy's and then I think the last two is one my kids Cameron and and Kaden I mean that
[03:08:13] is any man's legacy is how you raise your kids and they mean the world to to me and then the last
[03:08:20] person who's changed my life is my fiance which you know I hope you guys are reserved in the date
[03:08:26] Jordan who's changed my perspective on a lot of things and you know helped me through a what is
[03:08:32] not easy for any veteran and that is that is transitioning out of the military and I'll say what
[03:08:37] or positivity is infectious and she calls me out on my you know what all the damn time she's
[03:08:45] younger than me and it's a hit to the ego so thanks to to that time group and love you guys
[03:08:53] awesome man well like I said of course thanks for coming on and also like I already said
[03:09:00] of which I can never say enough thanks for your service in the defense of our freedom
[03:09:06] you're talking about all those deployments over and over and over again man keep going back
[03:09:11] into the fray the freaking awesome and thank you for doing it and congrats on your retirement
[03:09:17] I don't know if I ever even said that to you in your retired but it's a glad that you got to be
[03:09:23] able to retire and it's awesome to be freaking working with you again so thanks Mike looking forward
[03:09:30] to many more years thanks brother and everyone else in the military that's still out there
[03:09:36] holding the line doing those deployments over and over again thank you and to the police
[03:09:42] and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and board patrol and the rest of you that are
[03:09:48] holding the line here at home thanks for what you're doing and to your families as well thank you
[03:09:56] for supporting those that support us and to the rest of you I know life isn't perfect
[03:10:03] and I know life can be hard but it is still life and it's your life and there are those that have
[03:10:14] given their lives so that we can have ours so for them for those heroes leave a good life
[03:10:29] live the best life you can by going out there every single day and getting after it
[03:10:42] and until next time this is Mike and Echo and Jocco out