Jocko Podcast 257: You Have to CHOOSE to Get Stronger w/ Green Beret Ryan Hendrickson

2020-11-26T13:56:15Z

Join the conversation on Twitter/Instagram: @jockowillink @echocharles @tipofthespearRMH 0:00:00 - Opening 0:08:10 - "Tip of the Spear" with Green Beret, Ryan Hendrickson 3:07:32 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 3:20:06 - How to stay on THE PATH. Jocko Store https://www.jockostore.com/collections/menApparel: Jocko Fuel: https://originmaine.com/nutrition Origin Jeans and Clothes: https://originmaine.com/durable-goods/ Origin Gis: https://originmaine.com/bjj-mma-fit/ 3:37:01 - Closing gratitude.

AI summary of episode

but we had gone through a large portion of special forces training together back at four brag it's through training that you really get to know someone I knew I could always count on Jason for help there were times I felt like I was a fish out of water coming over from the air force the army but Jason took the time to help me whenever I got hung up on one ever part of training I was stuck with Jason was someone I looked up to I admired how everything was easy for him he was smart and great shape a super dad to his kids and amazing husband to his wife but just two months into his first deployment as a green beret he was dead in the past I had heard about guys from a different battalion or unit dying and I rack her Afghanistan but this was the first time I knew someone personally death in combat was not just something I saw in the news now it was personal Jason was my friend and this was the ugly reality of war I tried my best not to think about Jason's death too much which was difficult I knew full well that Afghanistan was not the place to mourn the death of friends there would be plenty of time back in the states to think about that and try to come to terms with it I still had a job to do to make sure no one on my team stepped on an IED and a promise to fulfill to myself I would do whatever it took to make sure my teammates returned with to their families in one piece in 2010 though Afghanistan was not getting safer and the real fighting had yet to begin how long did you guys been on deployment for at that point so when Jason was killed I think we both got in the country at the same time and so that would be two months and how long are you how long were your deployments at this point um they were they varied but most of them were nine months at that at that point so you're only two months into a nine month deployment you've already your your battalions lost a bunch of guys your companies how did guys wounded and killed that your friend gets killed go and back to the book when summer was coming to a close my team along with other ODAs from our company was tasked with entering Choo-Too Valley I say that right yep from different locations and clearing out the Taliban to a central point which would send the bastards running for the mountains working against us however was the fact that this was not a covert mission everyone up and down the valley knew we were coming which gave the Taliban ample time to place IEDs and prepare for us so you go you talk through some of the planning and finally you guys go to execute this mission the date was September 10th 2010 each of us was carrying a different equipment carrying different equipment for the mission besides my body armor and amphal rifle I was toting a 60 pound assault pack on my back filled with ammunition demolition material food water extra batteries and whatever else I would need for three days my average fighting weight was 200 pounds but with body armor weapons ammo and my assault pack I probably took the scales at 280 280s being generous and you know the discussions still going on a few seconds later the Afghan commandos tugged on my shirt sleeve to get my attention again the men are heading this way we need to do something because I don't think these are villagers from the area he said I went back to my team sergeant was more direct we need to get out of here we have fighting age males moving in our direction I'm grabbing my guys and getting into positions to move out the team sergeant not not it fuck this he said I'm done to go she ate with these guys let's move out he had barely finished this sentence when the first shot was by my head with the all two familiar zip followed by a crack we were immediately in the fight for our lives rounds were coming in all round from automatic machine gunfire series of RPG explosions took us by total surprise everything turned into total chaos in an instant everything was happening so fast it was impossible for the human brain to comprehend it instinctively I knew I was sprinting for cover but for a split second I felt frozen in pandemonium of everything happening around me while my brain scrambled to make sense of the attacks ferocity now I was moving quickly screaming instructions and returning fired an enemy I could not see round sprayed everywhere hitting compound walls like a garden hose watering down a dusty road just then I heard a grunt as if you was hurt that was that's one of your afghans but for some reason it didn't occur to me that he could have been hit I darted toward a ditch that paralleled the dirt road running through the village after diving for cover I peered out cautiously but I couldn't see any of my guys or where we were taking fire from bullets were telling up dirt all around me as we tried to stay as low as possible then I noticed that three commandos in the ditch ten meters from my position had drawn the attention of a towel band machine gun crew that had zeroed in on them I waved for the three afghans to move to my position which would give them more cover but they were too scared to move I knew that if they didn't get their asses in gear and start moving they were gonna die I don't know what possessed me but I climbed out from my ditch and sprinted to their position praying to God that my adaptive leg would hold up I reached the first commando and grabbed the very first thing that I could get a hold of his hair I yanked him out up and pulled him back to my ditch holding the other two would follow they did as we ran dust kicked up and more rounds impacted around us I slid into the ditch like I was licking out a triple you know it's not like you're warm cuddly there either now no the uh just beat down we just we're not under the water and that was good as the days turned into weeks our bodies are breaking down so I pressed on as we near the end the final major obstacle in my way was along rut march we weren't supposed to know the distance of the final trek but every selection class got the scoop from the guys are gone before we would be going 25 to 30 miles turned out you guys went more than 25 to 30 miles again I'm jumping you you give some really cool information and that's why people should get the book fast foreign a little bit after hitting the finish line we gathered in a large conference hall to hear who got selected and who didn't I could barely put one foot in front of the other but at least I walked in under my own power those left standing after the dust cleared look like they had spent years as POWs most of the guys hobbled and limp their way into the conference hall beaten down and on edge as I took my seat my tired head was filled with questions will all this physical and mental effort be for nothing did I give it the best I could do I have what they are looking for after a wait that seemed like days the selection cadre entered the hall to call off the roster numbers of the guys selected I was roster number 049 out of 185 as you went down the list he reached those in the 40s I held my breath and closed my eyes roster number 049 selected I melted into my chairs the reef spread over my body out of 185 only 50 or so men were selected a little more than one out of every four I was one of them so finally you get the call from Ben let's move out guys we slowly charged our way toward the village of sar-tutu in the distance sar-tutu is made up of several mud-hut compounds in my group was tasked with clearing one of the sections keeping strict noise and like discipline we scan the hillside and the riverbank for any movement I kept my thumb on my weapon safety selector reddish switch to engage to kill the enemy taking fire from the Taliban was a risk we all knew as possible but the more likely scenario was experiencing a catastrophic ied explosion resulting in the loss of limbs and broken bodies all the team members were fully aware that one wrong step could change their lives forever my job was to make sure that did not happen these insidious bombs could be hidden anywhere buried in the ground hung in trees stashed in cooking pots inside the carcasses of that animals within car trunks are under clothing with the infamous strap-on suicide vests while they might have been built with fertilizer and discarded spare parts and look like a junior high school shop class project i never underestimated the lethality of these homemade bombs all i took was a handful all it took was a handful of high explosives a few inches of copper wire in a battery that nation could be triggered by compression the weight of a soldier or vehicle passing over the explosive charge remote control with cell phones or an electrical circuit from a distance the Taliban were limited only by their imagination which was limitless when it came to killing Americans moving up we intercepted a radio transmission from the Taliban indicating that they knew we were on the move and could see us at first the news made my heart race my palms got sweaty as my arm as my eyes darted around looking for anything slightly abnormal i felt i was starting to see things that really weren't there were my eyes playing tricks on me or my ears it seemed like i was curing all sorts of things when we stopped to get our bearings the guys called this hypervintulence hypervigilance and told me that when danger was imminent your senses rose up several notches to high alert status fueling the high percent activity was an overwhelming desire to stay alive the village was deserted when we entered one thing every sf guy knew you know you're in the bottom of your your in the bottom of the ninth just like you said so it's like you need to you need you need to do some management expectation here because like start thinking about other things start you know what are you gonna do with your life out of the military and stuff like that yep uh which ends up in a pretty quick divorce and at this point you you you write this in the book I needed a win a big win I was never the type to give up but with two blown marriages a failed attempt to become a navy seal and a feeling that I hadn't found my calling in life I was just settling and letting life run me ragged I needed to reset my failures with a major victory that was when I decided that there would be no more losing it was time to start winning again at the time the air force was overmaned in certain jobs ammo being one of them the army had a shortage of soldiers in certain career fields so the air force was offering a direct transfer to the army one thing my dad had told me years earlier kept nagging me if you don't try you'll never know and if you never know it's because you didn't try the answer was clear I wasn't going to live a life of regrets even if the high risk of failure was there after clearing my head I decided to jump head first eyes closed into the unknown that's you know you want to talk about there being a plan the fact that the air force was overmaned and the army would just do a direct transfer and now he could sit back and relish his golden month moments and wonderful memories because he had lived life to the fullest so there you go son I wish I would have done this or that statements are a prison of misery for the mind you want to go through life and be perfectly content with the life you've lived you want to do everything there is to be done right or wrong you do it and never regret a decision you made this from a man who'd been off to war fought for his life seen the world given life taken life loved and had his heart broken he had made mistakes taken chances and failed and succeeded many times good or bad I can sit back and reminisce on my life and feel good about it he said when God tells me it's my time to go home I will leave this earth fulfilled because I've done it all and I want you to feel the same way so let me leave you with this thought what kind of old man do you want to be son freaking good guidance from the from from pops you know and that's that's hard to come back from you know what I really like about what you just said I really like the fact that you just because you know everyone talks about lifestyle in like a positive thing like let's a Gigi to lifestyle it's a healthy lifestyle i so maybe came aware of the pain it was solely creeping in like a snake squeezing his victim to death i reached down from my left leg and wiggled it leg was still there bloody but still there when i tried to move my right leg however the pain was unbearable waving the sand and dust away with my hands to get a better view i could see my right combat boot was bent at a weird 90 degree angle it was like my combat boot made a T at the end of my leg the didn't seem possible that my leather boot could be twisted like that so i grabbed my right leg behind my right knee and lifted to get a better look as i raised my right leg up a tad my right foot flopped off to the side of my leg so when uh we'll we'll go back to the book here for the first time in my life I experienced a major setback becoming part of an elite unit with something I wanted with every inch of my being but I couldn't make the cut which prompted a series of questions why did I fail why wasn't I good enough how come my body broke down was I that weak I had no answers and I came up with every every poor me excuse in the book you'd think that for a guy who is raised the way I was excuses would be the last thing on my mind but they were my crutch I slowly but steadily turned myself into a victim if only I didn't grow up in a broken family if only the world and everyone in it weren't against me that just wasn't about buds but me not making it through brought my buried demons to the surface so even at this point you know you don't make it through buds and you kind of blame all these you know hate so because I was raised this way I hadn't used you know my death my mom wasn't around and you kind of make those excuses for yourself and there was a couple people that surprised me when they quit there was one guy in my bloods class that was like a he had gone to buds before he was in E5 he was probably like 25 or 26 years old which seemed pretty freaking old to me and like mature because I was still like not you know I don't think it all he's got this stuff off and if you let that if you if you if you continually do that if you continually to kind of shun and turn your back on everything that is a challenge you know like you could have done this like you know being in this freaking special operations you know after you after you didn't make it through buds you'd be like so I basically I had all of these notes I're not notes, but I had all these pages of my life 500 and some odd and I had a couple you know I had reorganized it to kind of like the organization in the book and had a couple people like Frankie and Mike read it and they were like This is me like it. i'll pull one little quote you say so i'm out of patrol trying to find i.e. my damn metal detector wasn't working so i closed my eyes and stomped around to clear the root boom found one mission success you say here i've been to germany many times during my military career but this time it felt different because i was fresh off the battlefield to Afghanistan i finally felt safe from the aircraft landed no longer a dangerous part of the world i could finally relax or so i thought what i didn't know is it now i'd have plenty of time to actually think about everything that had happened to me i would also have time to cry over my friends who didn't make it home alive the ones placed into coffins for the one way flight to dover air force base in Delaware a grim trip the no one wants to take out of time to think about the families torn apart because of war either because they lost a loved one or their soldier was coming home with a mangled body never to be the same again that was my situation as well i knew i was never going to be the same again all right um again jumping ahead here where you end up at broke army medical center he's like I'm not even gonna justify that question with an answer It's kind of like that you kind of feel that only because you know though, but he was a thing that's a good question But all these are good question and also it's a good question because the chances that You go through the effort to make actually make something and spend the time in effort and money to make something that's Actually good for you the chances of that are rare. but you know you can catch yourself and it's I think it's funny what is drop foot like it's like it's like it's like the nerve that makes you lift up your foot gets damaged and so your foot just kind of has done And you know you you again, it's really good because in this book you go through some of the details of what's happening when you come home from deployment you know You have that kind of What is it little empty feeling that we get something like that and you're trying to fill it up you're trying to figure out You know what this is how how to adjust back to being in Florida or wherever you're gonna be So you're doing You're doing the path which is easily available to us when we come home which is drinking fighting causing problems we had cleared another 15 meters of path when I saw movement in an open field near the first compound I turned to Abe and Abe is one of your guys that you had with you one of your one of your afghans that you had with you and that was when it all hell broke out before Abe could respond the night was lit up by a barrage of gunfire coming from the compounds outer wall first it was a zip zip zip followed by the crack of 762 caliber rounds flying past our heads these rounds which rip holes in the darkness looked like a laser light show with tracer streaking across the night sky next came an explosion from an RPG being fired at us then more automatic fire we'd walk directly into an ambush shit with my heart beating out of my chest I hit the ground and started returning fire the Taliban the Taliban had set up a complex ambush ambush and the trip wire IED was supposed to start the whole thing off one of their pk machine guns let out a burst of 20 meters a burst of fire 20 meters from our position a distance so close that it was almost like I could grab the flame coming out of the end of the barrel jawede Abe and booze molla how do you say that best bezzmula bismula jump into the ditch well cahan I'm what whenever I talk of that some people especially when people get out I'm like when you get out of the when you get out of the military you need a new mission you need to have something else to focus on but what's weird about this is you are in the military but the mission that you had whatever that mission was it like wasn't bringing you the satisfaction you didn't feel like it was what you should be doing you know you knew that you had more to offer and so you're traveling around you're looking for you're looking for the mission and you just couldn't find it and it did and it wasn't until i stepped on that iED that i was actually able to get control of my life again what are the biggest things you thought what was what was like the core issue that you were running from what like was pent up in you that made you that you think like steered you in these directions where you would be being a tear people down like what do you think made Maybe we could and we don't need to but yes little excerpts you want to share with your friend bull me show the excerpt all good And let's face the fact some of the excerpts have explosions have fire have smoke have all kinds of things that echo Lakers lasers just those kind of things if you're into that kind of stuff Which one of the people that are speaking on this podcast right now is into Maybe you too YouTube channel look at that one um is subscribe if you want to also Psychological or for if you know what that is that's an album attracts of jockel helping you through moments of weakness If they may arise in your life, which I think from most of us they do from time to time So boom, check just check that out and and if you want some visual representation of that then you can go to flipside canvas.com but I'm good man I answered I couldn't believe what it just happened how big of a bomb was that 500 pounds brother used a big one man and I'm still alive I thought I had come away without a scratch until I felt warm liquid coming out of my ears from the monstrous blast damn that was close there was no time to worry about my the ear drip because I had no idea if the enemy was still moving around or all tapped out I took a moment to shake the cobwebs out of my head then I checked on my guys to ensure they were good after everyone was accounted for un-injured I had my guys fall back to the closest position which was 20 meters behind us once we were back with the main element our jatac called in another strike which would ensure that if anyone was still moving in the compound they were sure to be dead damn that's uh that's freaking psycho crazy right there dropping a 500 pound bomb at 20 meters like I said that's and someone goes over to disarm it and they step on something else to get blown up yep the decoys the decoys are nasty super nasty and that that goes back to that you know that saying that we've all had and I guarantee you guys probably said it in remodie was where there's one there's five you know you know where there's one there could be ten or what but where there's one there's gonna be secondary because when that guy hits one of them then the rescue teams gonna come in and they're gonna start hitting the secondarys or we're gonna use one as a decoy

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Podcast number 257 with echo Charles and me, Jockel willing. Good evening, echo.
[00:00:08] The president of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the silver star to
[00:00:12] Sergeant First Class Ryan Michael Hendrixon, United States Army for exceptional gallantry in the face of
[00:00:18] the enemies of the United States of America with exceptional valerous conduct as the engineer sergeant
[00:00:26] of special operational detachment, Bravo, SF-ODB-7220 advanced operations based north
[00:00:35] special operations task force afghanistan on 23 February 2016 during operation freedoms
[00:00:43] Sentinel in support of resolute support mission 4. On 23 February 2016 members of the fifth
[00:00:52] eighth and tenth special operations conduct actively advised by SF-ODB-7220 conducted clearing
[00:01:07] operations in order to deny a known Taliban safe haven. Sergeant First Class Hendrixon
[00:01:15] led a team of national mine reduction group and MRG soldiers ahead of the main effort to clear
[00:01:23] routes of improvised explosive devices, IEDs clearing 15 IEDs in the process.
[00:01:32] While conducting movement to the first compound of interest,
[00:01:35] a member of this element struck a tripwire IED. The element immediately took cover.
[00:01:41] However, there was no detonation. Sergeant First Class Hendrixon's team was then immediately ambushed
[00:01:47] by heavy enemy machine gun, small arms and RPG fire from approximately 15 meters away.
[00:01:57] Sergeant First Class Hendrixon immediately directed his NMRG team to place
[00:02:03] suppressive fires on the enemy while providing detailed terminal attack guidance,
[00:02:07] which enabled an F-16 closer support platform to conduct a strike on fortified enemy fighting
[00:02:15] positions danger close to his position. Sergeant First Class Hendrixon assessed that his
[00:02:21] element needed to maneuver away from the enemy's position to ensure the safety of his NMRG members.
[00:02:29] He quickly led the element to bound back to a friendly position by creating additional distance
[00:02:34] between his team and the enemy air assets were able to successfully neutralize the enemy
[00:02:40] during a second air strike. After the smoke cleared following air to ground engagements,
[00:02:47] Sergeant First Class Hendrixon immediately began clearing a path for friendly forces
[00:02:52] by leading his team to clear several complex IEDs designed to target friendly dismounted elements.
[00:02:59] During exfiltration, the element was re-engaged by heavy and effective enemy pkm rpg sniper
[00:03:09] and mortar fire, which resulted in multiple us and partner force casualties.
[00:03:16] Sergeant First Class Hendrixon directed afghan commandos who were pinned down and separated
[00:03:21] from the main element to maneuver to and gain cover behind his position.
[00:03:25] Under heavy enemy fire, Sergeant First Class Hendrixon directed friendly elements to a nearby
[00:03:33] compound where the casualty collection point CCP was established. After conducting headcount,
[00:03:41] Sergeant First Class Hendrixon realized that two partner force members were missing.
[00:03:48] Sergeant First Class Hendrixon organized a team to locate and recover the separated and potentially
[00:03:54] wounded friendly forces. Sergeant First Class Hendrixon had to be held back numerous times while
[00:03:59] air support conducted additional attacks on enemy positions. Once the air to ground engagements
[00:04:06] were complete, Sergeant First Class Hendrixon selflessly maneuvered the recovery team under
[00:04:12] enemy small arms fire to retrieve the missing friendlies. Upon reaching the two missing soldiers,
[00:04:20] they discovered that the soldiers had been mortally wounded. Sergeant First Class Hendrixon
[00:04:26] then utilized a ladder as a litter to help carry the wounded soldiers to the CCP while his
[00:04:32] element continued to engage enemy forces with suppressive fires.
[00:04:38] Sergeant First Class Hendrixon's actions prevented the Taliban forces from recovering the bodies
[00:04:44] of friendly forces which ensured all partner force members were accounted for, leaving no one behind.
[00:04:55] Sergeant First Class Hendrixon's actions are in keeping with the finest traditions of military
[00:05:00] heroism and reflect distinct credit upon himself. The Special Operations Task Force Afghanistan,
[00:05:08] the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Special Operation Component Command,
[00:05:13] Afghanistan Special Operations Joint Task Force, Afghanistan, and the United States Army.
[00:05:26] So obviously that is a silver star citation from an incredibly hard mission
[00:05:34] and this particular individual, this Special Forces soldier Ryan Hendrixon, he had already been
[00:05:44] through hell just to get on that mission. Luckily for us, he has written a book about his experiences
[00:05:52] which is called Tip of the Spear and is an honor to have him with us here tonight to share
[00:05:59] his story. Ryan, that was a doozy of a mission. Thanks for coming on man. I really appreciate
[00:06:07] you guys having me on here. Yes, that was this awesome. Well it's good to meet you and I will
[00:06:14] dive into that some of the details around that, what you did there because really that's
[00:06:20] you know like I said you already been through a hell of a lot just to be on that mission in the
[00:06:24] first place you've been well we'll get there. But yeah let's start at the beginning and you know
[00:06:31] I read your book and it's called Tip of the Spear, the incredible story of an injured green
[00:06:37] berets returned to battle and I always like to start at the beginning so let's start at the beginning
[00:06:45] let's see what made Ryan Hendrixon. So you start off here in the book I grew up in the unincorporated
[00:06:52] California town of Fall River Mills, Nestle between the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mount Ranges in
[00:06:59] Rugged Shastock County and then you and I always have to say this I have to jump around in the book
[00:07:06] I'm not going to read the whole book you have to buy the book if you want to get the whole story
[00:07:10] but I'll fast forward through a bunch of the highlights this is always a good way to start life
[00:07:16] pretty much sucked because my mother who delivered my sister and me into this world was
[00:07:22] hooked on drugs and alcohol. Dad's center packing my dad was a Vietnam vet who did two tours as
[00:07:29] an aviation crew chief before returning to the Pacific Northwest and eventually northern California
[00:07:35] following his honorable discharge from the US Army. During the Vietnam War my dad's primary
[00:07:40] aircraft was the DH3 otter with the 54th aviation out of Vung Tao but he constantly found himself
[00:07:48] flying into combat in a Huey military helicopter formerly known as the Bell UH1. It was in a Huey
[00:07:57] that my father experienced the true horror of war as an M60 door gunner using the deadly firepower
[00:08:04] at his fingertips to rain down death on NVA troops and Vietcom. So your dad was in NAMM. How many years
[00:08:14] did it? Do you like the two years like hey I was in Vietnam I did two years and got out and
[00:08:19] stay in longer what do you do? Well yeah he actually actually did two tours in Vietnam so total
[00:08:24] of four years in the Army but he did a two back to back to back to tours in Vietnam.
[00:08:29] As in two years straight dang. Yeah well there was a there was a break because he came back
[00:08:36] for our nr and then went back so you know kind of little break but yeah he did he did a
[00:08:42] two tours over there and what what do you know anything about his decision making process on that?
[00:08:49] His so what we have talked about his decision behind wanting to do multiple tours in Vietnam
[00:08:55] is never wanting to love the people and number two it's it's combat and combat that's a
[00:09:02] dicken extremely dick dangerously a dicken and that was kind of when he was over there he's like
[00:09:08] hey I can go back to whatever northern California or Oregon or I can sit here and just keep
[00:09:15] getting after it. Yep. And the choice was pretty obvious for how old was he? He left out a high
[00:09:21] school he volunteered for the Army at high school which what do you know what year it was?
[00:09:25] 1966. Oh dang. I think yeah around in there. But then he got out. So he did two tours two
[00:09:35] years straight with a little break do you know how you got out? I'm not extremely sure the decision
[00:09:42] making process behind him getting out as he told me you know back in those days being in the military
[00:09:48] wasn't like it is today. And so you know getting out and moving on with your life or whatnot like
[00:09:55] that that is just the military wasn't popular at the time. It wasn't a prestigious thing for
[00:10:01] you know like today us serving it's you know it means something and back then it's he's like
[00:10:09] yeah well if you went in in 66 so he did need the two tours in nom so he's the we're talking
[00:10:16] yeah this is 1968 1969. Yep. The wars freakin everyone's against it. You guys moved around a bunch
[00:10:25] um redding uh you say this about your dad before Wendy and that's your sister before Wendy and I
[00:10:32] came in the world though my dad was a guy who liked his beer. You get drunk and if you happen
[00:10:38] across pass with him in a wrong way you would most likely be at the losing end of a fist fight
[00:10:44] you worked hard logging putting in crazy 12 hour days but he partied even harder. When the
[00:10:49] logging industry was booming and money was good coming in he was blown a healthy portion of his
[00:10:53] del on booze and you go into some detail here he was just sort of blazing a pass of destruction
[00:11:03] one night he's like drunk and basically feels like his life is kind of going nowhere. Yep.
[00:11:13] And he's well I'll go to the book here. Well driving in his drunk and stoop where my father thought
[00:11:20] about what his life had become. His options had slowly dwindled down over the years with no hope
[00:11:26] and no future he believed he was facing his last choice to end it all. Dad pulled his truck in front
[00:11:31] of uncle Steve's house. Redd is he shifted into park a man appeared in front of the house and walked
[00:11:37] up to the driver's side window. Dad hadn't seen him leave the house so he didn't know how or why
[00:11:43] this man had approached his car. My uncle lived in the middle of nowhere. Larry Hendrickson the middle
[00:11:50] aged man dressed conservatively had a smile on his face. My father never seen this man in his life.
[00:11:55] How do you know my name he asked? The man ignored a question. Larry your out of chances aren't you he
[00:12:01] asked. This time my father was too stunned to answer. It doesn't have to be that way the man
[00:12:07] continued. Jesus has a better plan for you and your life. In front of my uncle's house that night my
[00:12:13] father found God. After that his hellian days slowed to a trickle that didn't mean he didn't get
[00:12:20] pissed off at the cards he was dealt in life especially after he had just polished off another six
[00:12:24] pack but my father like everyone else I've met including myself was on a journey.
[00:12:30] So that sounds like almost a mystical situation like where does dude come from?
[00:12:35] Yeah so talking out or talking it out with my dad and it's one of the most powerful stories
[00:12:40] but yeah he was so he threw the truck into park and he was going to bring my sister and I
[00:12:47] two my uncle's house tell my uncle to take care of us then he was going to go shoot himself in the
[00:12:53] head and that's I don't know I mean you know I am religious and I believe you know I believe that
[00:13:01] God has a plan for everybody and that was just the plan. Did this guy
[00:13:07] did we ever see this guy again? I don't think he had we ever did I I was young so but I don't think my
[00:13:14] dad ever did now crazy yeah so you guys move around for a while you say we lived out
[00:13:24] we lived out in the woods in a house that had no running water due to damage pipes and
[00:13:28] limited electricity so the place was cheap your dad got hurt and then he gets rehealed up
[00:13:36] and and you say it was clear that he couldn't even afford a home with running water or steady
[00:13:41] electricity his only option was to have us move in with his mother who lived in Colton or again
[00:13:47] won a 100 miles to the south Colton was even smaller than Birk and Field but my grandmother could
[00:13:53] help provide the necessities of life while my father got under his feet and attended a Bible
[00:13:57] college he wanted to become a preacher fast forward a little bit after my father got ordained as a
[00:14:03] preacher his first pastor it was at a small church in Lincoln City on the Central Oregon Coast.
[00:14:10] He seemed happy and we as a family were happy although we were still poor didn't
[00:14:15] matter much because life was good my dad didn't my dad being a preacher didn't lift us out of poverty
[00:14:20] actually just the opposite happened we had to live in a tent for several months while we waited to
[00:14:25] move into the upstairs of the parsnige tent living wasn't bad but it did get embarrassing when
[00:14:31] other kids saw our living conditions and teased me at school all right let's get down to brass
[00:14:37] tax how big of a tent was this tent um I would say a last intent afghan alaskan tent and now
[00:14:46] I kind of feel bad about writing that in there because I've definitely lived in a last
[00:14:51] intent with about 15 other dudes and so we actually had it pretty nice um yeah
[00:14:57] right on well that's a positive attitude bad I like it um you continue on here after the
[00:15:06] tiny church in Lincoln City couldn't afford to keep its doors open we were forced to pack up
[00:15:10] and move again this time we settled in the sleepy logging town of low ol Oregon 20 miles southeast
[00:15:17] of Eugene and populated with 1000 residents my dad did his best to keep us in one spot until I
[00:15:23] could finish high school and move on with my life I guess having four years and one place is why
[00:15:28] I say that low is my hometown I was always active as a kid preferring to wander around the foot hills
[00:15:35] of the cascade mountains or play sports rather than sitting on my butt watching movies or doing
[00:15:38] nothing I'm sure I was hell for my dad to raise but he instilled in me the idea that I should set
[00:15:44] the rules for my life not let life set rules for me at low ol high I gave everything I had to
[00:15:51] our football and wrestling programs I was never the most talented athlete but every coach said I was
[00:15:57] the toughest kid they'd ever trained that was when I first heard the saying that boys to stupid
[00:16:03] to quit a backhanded compliment for sure but I wore it like a badge of honor how good were you
[00:16:10] at wrestling um I was mediocre and so but did you start wrestling in high school or did you wrestle
[00:16:19] before that a third yeah so I was against kids that were wrestling since they were in whatever
[00:16:25] first grade kindergarten yeah I was never a rock star at it or anything like that but I picked it
[00:16:31] up quickly and and I just kind of I don't know it was I was wrestling in my mind I know while
[00:16:38] people will have their own opinions about it but it's probably one of the toughest I guess sports
[00:16:45] out there as far as physical fitness endurance and whatnot and that also leads into you know um
[00:16:50] a jujitsu and um Greco Roman and freestyle whatnot but um it also what it did for me was
[00:16:57] it kind of I already had that work ethic but it kind of like I mean you you have to get tough
[00:17:04] or are you just gonna get slaughtered on Matt and that's embarrassing because I've had it happened
[00:17:09] before what what weight did you wrestle at um so I wrestled I started off at one one twenty whatever
[00:17:19] it was one twenty one yeah and then my senior year um I cut weight down to 142 which um was
[00:17:30] yeah pretty hard but I was running from the 151 weight class because the kid there was just a beast
[00:17:35] and so I got weight down to 142 basically running from somebody and uh went to state and then you
[00:17:41] know did okay. Oh yeah well damn if you went to state in Oregon that's freaking legit. Yeah I was
[00:17:46] during the uh got just period and stuff like that so um we we had a pretty Oregon uh was nationally
[00:17:53] known for wrestling with you know like the gotchish brothers and whatnot but that's awesome man.
[00:17:58] Um here's a little story one day as we were kicking around my future you're talking about your
[00:18:06] dad he told me a story there were two old men sitting on their porch is staring out to the
[00:18:11] abyss they didn't know each other but they had one thing in common they were waiting on death
[00:18:17] I leaned in closer dad could always tell a good story but this was different he meant business
[00:18:22] one old man was miserable he had let life's chances pass him by and now thoughts of opportunities
[00:18:28] long gone were replaced with haunted ideas of what could have been the other old man was totally
[00:18:35] fulfilled by the life he had lived he had done everything there was to do and now he could sit back
[00:18:40] and relish his golden month moments and wonderful memories because he had lived life to the fullest
[00:18:46] so there you go son I wish I would have done this or that statements are a prison of misery for
[00:18:53] the mind you want to go through life and be perfectly content with the life you've lived you want to
[00:18:59] do everything there is to be done right or wrong you do it and never regret a decision you made
[00:19:06] this from a man who'd been off to war fought for his life seen the world given life taken life
[00:19:12] loved and had his heart broken he had made mistakes taken chances and failed and succeeded many times
[00:19:18] good or bad I can sit back and reminisce on my life and feel good about it he said when God tells
[00:19:23] me it's my time to go home I will leave this earth fulfilled because I've done it all and I want
[00:19:28] you to feel the same way so let me leave you with this thought what kind of old man do you want to be
[00:19:36] son freaking good guidance from the from from pops you know yeah that's that is pretty much
[00:19:46] that guidance right there is pretty much led you know half of the the decisions I've made my life
[00:19:53] whether or not I look back and I'm like wow I can't believe I'm alive from that most of what he said
[00:19:59] right there is the reason why you know I can look back and like wow that was I was really dumb
[00:20:03] let's try this again so and that's sort of what made you guys start talking about you going in the
[00:20:08] military I know you you check with an army recruiter you didn't even you didn't even think about the
[00:20:16] navy no that's the first so the basically out went down was my my teachers basically said hey
[00:20:26] you'll graduate if you join the military you are you are D.U.M. dumb like you need to go do something
[00:20:32] that the military will force you to all right so the air force they looked in my test scores and
[00:20:36] they're like no sorry man you're you're real cute but now the the army they actually didn't in the
[00:20:44] mid 90s they didn't need anybody it was crazy so they had like Patriot missile program and there's like a
[00:20:50] six month wait to get in and then the Marines came in and I got so angry and me now's like man you're
[00:20:58] scary I like I don't want to be in the ring you're scaring me and then so the navy recruiter
[00:21:04] I mean he might as well had on like a Hawaiian t-shirt what now but you know you want to you want to
[00:21:10] be an F-14 Tomcat pilot like Tom Cruise like yeah you want to be a navy seal like Charlie Sheans
[00:21:17] yeah you want to go to exotic ports and see exotic women and yeah he goes cool man sign here it's like
[00:21:24] all right I didn't I didn't fly in F-14 as anyone so so then you went to boot camp and look there's
[00:21:34] so much you cover this stuff in the book which is which is cool but I'm gonna jump through jump
[00:21:41] past some of that stuff you go on here you finally get to see being on board a ship with 900 other
[00:21:46] sailors and Marines all male in this deployment was a major culture shock and not for the
[00:21:50] F-14 heart especially for low and listed sailors like me working 16 hour days and doing maintenance
[00:21:56] duties like keeping the deck department and equipment in good condition loading and unloading cargo
[00:22:01] shining brass busting rust because of salt water and painting bulkheads walls and passageways
[00:22:07] the same battleship gray sucked what little free time I had was spending my coffin rack
[00:22:14] trying to get some much needed sleep tell us about a coffin rack what's at all about
[00:22:18] coffin racks yes so when people talk about quality of life in the military I just say
[00:22:25] if you've never lived on a ship that was commissioned in the 60s then I don't think you really
[00:22:31] understand what bad quality life is so cloth got what was worse the tent that you lived in or
[00:22:37] the ship board oh shit oh my far and the Marines had it even worse oh yeah they were I think they were
[00:22:43] stacked like six high down in the Marine Burthing Bayes or five high yeah well I did two deployments
[00:22:49] on amphib ships yeah both of them were built in like 1960 something like that they were built to
[00:22:55] transport troops over to the southeast Asia yeah and so you were supposed to be on them when they
[00:23:01] originally built this was put Marines on there for whatever a four week trip and then you'd get
[00:23:06] off and go do your work well by the time the 90s rolled around like what you're talking about here
[00:23:11] we were going on six six month deployments and and yes I stayed in the as a seal was staying in the
[00:23:16] Burthing where where the Marine stayed and so yeah there would be David we literally had the old
[00:23:22] school canvas racks the canvas strong between metal pipes yeah and then a little cheap freaking
[00:23:31] mattress on top of that and yeah it was just and you there before five high I think usually
[00:23:37] we would kind of adjust our our living space as seals we kind of like yeah we'd do some work in there
[00:23:43] so maybe it wouldn't be quite as bad but uh get some golf and rack sorry I cut you off no people yeah
[00:23:50] people don't understand but your your entire life so I've done um I was on you know the USS
[00:23:55] Shreaf port which was LPD 12 amphib boiler super old and then um you know the gloom I did some time
[00:24:02] on that and then the camden well the camden was commissioned in the 70s so it was super it was just
[00:24:09] this great upgrade but yeah the Shreaf port we we were in the Persian Gulf probably 10 months
[00:24:16] in 98 and um and then yeah it's your coffin rack like you have that thin mattress and then
[00:24:26] you open up the what the mattress sits on is basically a lid that you open up and now you have
[00:24:34] your your area your where your clothes go and you know everything else and it's just this tiny like
[00:24:42] it's it's it's coffin but even a coffin has more depth than a coffin rack does on board ship
[00:24:48] and so yeah that's that's here entire life and when you're in subdivision and you're lower
[00:24:54] and listed I mean we were stuck for high and and so it was and then you got you know you have your little
[00:24:59] curtain close the curtain and you know trying to get some sleeper whatnot and maybe
[00:25:05] kick the rack of the guy next to you and he's being too loud so you know you know all about it
[00:25:12] yeah no it's uh it's that's what's always surprising is you know when guys are going through
[00:25:17] the training and you know even if you even if you just hear about that you think well I don't that doesn't
[00:25:23] sound like a good deal I might be wet cold and sandy right now but that sounds like maybe I don't
[00:25:28] want to go do that uh this was I thought this was interesting so fast forward a little bit at the
[00:25:35] time the USS Cole was bombed I was on board my second ship the USS Camden we were then 12 hours
[00:25:41] of Yemen when the distress calls came out we sailed full steam ahead through the streets of
[00:25:46] Hormuz at along the USS along with the USS Donald Cook we would be the first American military
[00:25:52] personnel to arrive in assist the Cole crew in saving the ship and pulling bodies from the
[00:25:58] wreckage I'll never forget the smell of burning human flesh when I stepped on board the Cole
[00:26:02] for the next week we teamed up with Cole crew members to keep the ship from sinking and recovered
[00:26:08] the remains of all 17 heroes killed that day I was I had witnessed the first salvo in what would
[00:26:14] become known as the war on terror and our rescue and recovery effort with the USS Cole would
[00:26:19] impact my life in the years to come yeah you you definitely be in on a navy ship you feel
[00:26:28] very untouchable by the enemy for sure and especially in the 90s so that must have been a shocker
[00:26:33] I was a shocker for the world but for you to actually go there that's crazy yeah I've seen that
[00:26:39] I remember when we were on the we call Liberty boats but you know there were the barges taken us
[00:26:45] over to the Cole and just looking at that massive hole in the side of it that had just been
[00:26:52] blown in there about 18 hours prior it was yeah it's pretty intense it's you know you go from
[00:26:59] untouchable to all of a sudden you can't be touched and so and yeah it would set the path for
[00:27:05] you know my you know basically what I did in special operations and whatnot as a green beret
[00:27:11] and the enemy trying to kill me and that you know the the zip in the crack and you're not
[00:27:17] untouchable anymore and so yeah but that was the first first little idea I got of what of wow you
[00:27:24] know people they they do want to kill you yeah and that's a weird feeling yeah it takes a little
[00:27:31] getting used to spring in 2001 you get out get out of the navy you'd gotten married and again
[00:27:40] there's all kinds of good this is good some good life lessons learned in this book very good
[00:27:45] life lessons in this book so you get married you get out of the navy you actually married a girl
[00:27:51] that was in the army and so you get out you try a bunch of different jobs you end up as a bartender
[00:27:57] which echo supports September 11th happens and now you're feeling like you know hey maybe I
[00:28:09] want to go do something in the meantime I got to read this little section one day and early
[00:28:14] 2002 I received a phone call out of the blue hi is this Ryan Hendrickson yes who's this it's your
[00:28:20] big sister Chris remember me barely I thought our family had been separated when I was
[00:28:25] still in diapers I had two older half sisters Paula was five years old and Chris was eight
[00:28:31] years older I also had a half brother who's ten years older than me and lived with us periodically
[00:28:37] his name was Robbie both my dad and his first wife were heavy drinkers one night she swept up my
[00:28:42] older siblings and disappeared I had memories of them but I was so young I didn't really have a
[00:28:47] grasp of what had happened or who they were and now this phone call came out of the blue so that's
[00:28:52] that's kind of crazy yeah yeah that was that was something else and she wanted to contact me
[00:28:58] because she she basically said like you won't remember all the bad stuff so I'm gonna start off with you
[00:29:04] but it was when um is when that uh what is it not and sister DNA but whenever they're building
[00:29:12] your family trees or okay I like the genealogy type thing yeah so that's actually when everyone you
[00:29:18] know started getting connected back again and it was yeah it was it was crazy but my dad and
[00:29:25] I we made a trip now and the new Mexico to see him and that was the first time he saw his kids
[00:29:29] in years years and you know and then we just you know we started kind of building the bridges back
[00:29:38] and you know I learned I learned just how you know my dad like he lived the hard life you know
[00:29:46] and so I heard some of those stories and but that's that's the one thing that you know the
[00:29:54] people that are out there and they say you know people people never change or you you're not
[00:29:58] gonna change once your once alus are always alus or something like that and I look at my dad and
[00:30:03] I could be like I 100% disagree with you and you knew your dad as this guy that was kind of you know
[00:30:10] on such a good path in life was steering you in the right direction and then your older half-sister
[00:30:16] had stories that you almost seem like a different yeah she was talking about a different guy
[00:30:20] well I remember she said hey have you talked to dad lately and I was like yeah talking about
[00:30:26] the time he's a preacher and she goes no no no um Larry Hendricksson as yeah yeah he's a preacher
[00:30:32] she goes it's impossible wow he's like no it's not well that's crazy now during this time also
[00:30:43] you stayed in the navy reserves which means you were doing your one weekend among or whatever
[00:30:49] and then we go back to the book then an unexpected opportunity came up as a naval reserveist
[00:30:53] I could attend basic underwater demolition school at Naval Special Warfare training complex
[00:31:00] in Coronado California but six month long training class was part was the first part of navy
[00:31:05] seal training so if I ever wanted to become a seal and member of the naval special operations
[00:31:09] community basic underwater demolition school is where I had to start my wife Sarah knew that being
[00:31:14] part of special operations had always appealed to me now this opportunity was sitting right in front
[00:31:18] of me I had undergrown training as a rescue swimmer in the navy so I had assumed I had the swimming
[00:31:24] part down when I was approved to attend the six month bud's course visions of becoming a sealed
[00:31:30] danced in my head I quickly found out how tough it was during the first phase of training a pre-bud's
[00:31:36] training course that lasted around three weeks from there I went on to phase one which consisted
[00:31:42] of eight weeks of grueling exercise and conditioning topped off by hell week typically more than
[00:31:47] half the recruits wash out sheer fatigue and sleep deprivation caused every candidate to wonder what
[00:31:52] his limits are the non-stop beating that our bodies took from some of the hardest training the
[00:31:58] military has followed by long stretches of being cold wet and miserable with no time to recover
[00:32:03] took its toll when my body broke down from a leg injury in severe pneumonia I was dropped after
[00:32:09] three months of training I could have tried again after I recovered but I couldn't bring myself
[00:32:14] to go through all that shit again yeah so what was what was out like going through buds or
[00:32:20] attending buds yeah buds was I mean I was class two four two I have to say we were a beat down
[00:32:28] class that's that's just my opinion you know how they have the classes where some of them are
[00:32:35] oh man that's you guys got secured early from hell week what not the next class this man you
[00:32:39] guys are a beat down class or whatnot well we we had a beat down class and it was it was intense
[00:32:46] everything that they talk about it yeah I the only thing I could tell any listener who wants to
[00:32:53] contemplate that route is do it because it's an experience that you'll never forget they will make
[00:32:59] sure you will never forget it 100% those are worse part you think for you because you know different
[00:33:05] guys they dislike different things mm-hmm what do you think was the worst part for me the worst part
[00:33:13] actually once I got pneumonia I couldn't breathe and so on and so when we were doing
[00:33:20] drumperfine and whatnot like that I just my nose would just start you know opening up but
[00:33:26] I would I would have to say anything like on on the water fine under the water I don't I don't really
[00:33:34] like that I'm not a very big fan of that so when uh we'll we'll go back to the book here for the
[00:33:45] first time in my life I experienced a major setback becoming part of an elite unit with something
[00:33:51] I wanted with every inch of my being but I couldn't make the cut which prompted a series of questions
[00:33:56] why did I fail why wasn't I good enough how come my body broke down was I that weak I had no
[00:34:03] answers and I came up with every every poor me excuse in the book you'd think that for a guy who
[00:34:09] is raised the way I was excuses would be the last thing on my mind but they were my crutch I
[00:34:15] slowly but steadily turned myself into a victim if only I didn't grow up in a broken family if only
[00:34:21] the world and everyone in it weren't against me that just wasn't about buds but me not making it
[00:34:27] through brought my buried demons to the surface so even at this point you know you don't make it
[00:34:35] through buds and you kind of blame all these you know hate so because I was raised this way I
[00:34:42] hadn't used you know my death my mom wasn't around and you kind of make those excuses for yourself
[00:34:48] yeah I buried I buried myself in excuses and it it became very easy to do that it's very easy to
[00:34:55] to make somebody else the issue instead of looking deep inside and insane hey man just you know if
[00:35:04] if everyone can make it then it wouldn't be buds and so instead of understanding that you know I I did
[00:35:12] I took the it was it was more it was almost more entitlement then it was victim is like well this isn't fair
[00:35:19] why why didn't I make the cut and thing is I could have rolled back but I don't know how far did you make it
[00:35:28] all the way up to the end of the first phase so it was yeah it is basically they wanted me to go
[00:35:35] back to day one of phase one and I was just like and you know I just I didn't have it in me so
[00:35:42] but yeah it's you know it's it's one of those things I look back on you know and I I do I don't ever regret anything
[00:35:50] but it is one of those things around like yeah you kind of you kind of fluck that one of you know
[00:35:58] so yeah well you know when you say you had a beat down class more than other people it's like
[00:36:04] I'm gonna tell you the classes are beat down classes yeah they are beat down classes you're gonna
[00:36:10] get beat down you know I was over there a few months ago with one of my friends it still works over there
[00:36:16] and you know he was like there's there's whatever there's like a hundred helmets by the bell
[00:36:23] and um and he goes every single one of those guys is a stud that wanted to be he
[00:36:27] hints every season like almost every single one of those guys is a total stud that showed up here
[00:36:31] thinking they were gonna be a seal and they rang that bell man and he goes I go it's crazy he's he's like
[00:36:36] it's it's crazy that's the way it is it's a crazy process it's a crazy machine yep
[00:36:45] so now you and Sarah she's done in the army you you you're you're now out of the navy and
[00:36:55] well here we'll go to the book everything was perfect so you're a Minnesota and that's because
[00:36:59] that's where her family's from yeah so you're a Minnesota everything was perfect except for one major
[00:37:03] problem I could not overcome my immaturity and my sense of being a victim when I refuse to take
[00:37:09] responsibility for my actions I drank partied and ran my marriage into the ground I used
[00:37:14] whatever excuses I could find so you're just on a bad path at this point yeah it's uh I was on a
[00:37:23] years long bender like I don't think guns and roses go to helld up with me yeah uh you get the idea
[00:37:31] that you should go back in the military um you obviously don't want to be in the navy your wife
[00:37:36] was in the army so maybe you're thinking the army's about idea so you go back and check it check
[00:37:41] the air force mm-hmm uh you go here I looked at air force special operations combat control
[00:37:49] and jumped feet first into training I buried myself in every aspect of the course until a medical
[00:37:53] review of my record showed I had taken depression medication while in the navy a lot of people
[00:37:58] need prescriptions anti-depressants and depression ran in my family anti-depressant medication
[00:38:03] and counseling helped me through a very dark period of my life but this detour came back to bite
[00:38:08] me the air force decided that I was not medically qualified for special operations and put me in a
[00:38:13] job where they needed bodies I was told I would become an amunition specialist or ammo troop
[00:38:20] so you did they had you already enlisted when you did you did you had you already enlisted when you were
[00:38:27] gonna try for for uh cc-t yes yeah I was already I mean I was already a couple months into the training
[00:38:34] oh you are actually in the air force yeah going through cct train yeah I was at air
[00:38:39] traffic control school dang and then they told you no yeah I mean the depression medication it you know
[00:38:47] it had helped me out through you know some events in my life or whatnot the one time I did it
[00:38:53] and um and but back in those days and I'm not making excuses for but back in those days you know
[00:39:00] the go to for counselors or whatnot is here take this take this take this and so it's okay I'll take this
[00:39:08] was that when you were in the navy so then you were taking a navy prescribed thing and they
[00:39:13] they told you no even though you're taking something I was prescribed by the navy well I had gone out
[00:39:18] for civilian counseling yeah but I had reported it all you know like you're supposed to
[00:39:26] and but yeah I was I mean it's just back in the days when it was easier to medicate than to actually
[00:39:33] you know kind of um face your issues and fix them man up and do the right thing it's just easier
[00:39:40] to take some pills and go to go to the spirit world I guess but yeah it came back and got me so but
[00:39:50] you know it's you know there's there's a path for everybody in life and and I firmly believe that
[00:39:58] you know the way my life paned out um I it was this this is the path that was gonna happen
[00:40:06] way before I was I was ever born I believe I'm you know God had this path laid out and you know
[00:40:13] I was gonna take some bumps and bruises along the way some big ones but you know now you know
[00:40:19] to the point where I'm at right now so you know I still make my mistakes I'm a man but you know
[00:40:25] I think I'm doing a lot better right you know building up people around me instead of tearing them down
[00:40:30] like one of the destructive paths I was on you know in my life so yeah I know that some
[00:40:35] well that's one of the best things about this whole story is when you look at something you took
[00:40:39] some major you know like but right there right those two things you didn't make it through
[00:40:44] buds and then you try for air force, combat control and you don't get that either like those are two
[00:40:50] things that people like that's that could be the last straw one of those things could be the last
[00:40:55] straw I mean and you've already been through the hard childhood so any of these things could be
[00:41:00] something that completely derail someone's life and and yet you're sitting here so um well let's
[00:41:07] continue let's continue that telling this story of your path so you get stationed in Idaho your
[00:41:13] an ammo guy you end up going on deployment to Qatar while in your in Qatar you're loading up
[00:41:19] aircraft that are going to drop in bombs oh yeah they were they were winchestered every night they
[00:41:24] had come back winchester what you was that 2003 okay you get divorced now you go to Iraq in 2005
[00:41:38] you're in Kirkuk and you say this Iraq was the first place out I was exposed to US Army special
[00:41:45] forces the Green Barais these bearded shaggy haired men seemed to play by their own rules we would
[00:41:51] see them walking by and later that night when the rest of us were hanging out after dinner the
[00:41:55] stories of what we thought we knew about these guys would spill out you end up in the you end up in
[00:42:00] the gym one time you're lifting and a guy says you know hey can you spot me and you look over it's
[00:42:07] it's this green baray as name is Johnny days later he introduced me to guys on his team one guy in
[00:42:12] particular a due-name Gary was in the air force before going into the army this got the wheels in
[00:42:17] my head turning what if I tried to become a green baray could I do it do I have what it takes my
[00:42:22] failure at buds was never far from my mind when I contemplated my future one thing was for sure
[00:42:28] I did not want to be an old man sitting on my porch wondering about what might have been
[00:42:35] so you go to Iraq as you're you're when you get back from Iraq you take some leave you go to
[00:42:43] dude you're you freaking get after you were talking earlier about like you not leaving not leaving any
[00:42:48] any stone unturned you you do some serious traveling you go to you go to Vietnam you go to Ho Chi Minh city
[00:42:55] in the maycon delta and you got all really cool stories about all that stuff in here um you come back
[00:43:03] from that you're in Idaho and and again you know you're kind of drinking you're not feeling like
[00:43:11] your path you're on the right path you go on you go on a trip to Europe you go you end up going to Korea
[00:43:19] you get you end up going for it was that a one year deployment to Korea yes and this is still an air
[00:43:23] force deployment you're over there doing what an ammo specialist does yeah and plan rugby
[00:43:30] and play rugby uh you go while you're over there you go to you go to you go to bank
[00:43:38] ox or you go to Thailand you go to China you go to Cambodia I mean you're bro you you're getting after
[00:43:44] which we do military travel you do in civilian travel so that was that was for my leave um so the
[00:43:50] 30 days of leave or whatnot like that but um but yeah so Vietnam that was civilian backpacking
[00:43:57] around Europe that was civilian everything was civilian travel and it was just trying to I don't know
[00:44:03] I think I don't really know if I was running from things more than you know I was just trying to figure out
[00:44:08] you know who who I was because I I had no I had no direction um you know I had um I had my time
[00:44:16] in the Navy time in the air force divorced which you know I I'm surprised she she made it that long
[00:44:22] she's fighter but it is what it is so um I ran that one into the ground um and I I think I just
[00:44:30] buried myself in everything that I could possibly do just to kind of like keep my mind off of the
[00:44:36] fact that you know I was turning into that I was turning myself into a loser basically you know and
[00:44:42] it was becoming easier and easier to give up and um and I I still I had that um I had
[00:44:50] buds in the back of my head the entire time and um it just I don't know as I really had I I guess
[00:44:57] uh come to Jesus moment when I started realizing that given up was becoming almost natural because I was
[00:45:04] as the entitled victim everything was someone else's fault um and create you end up with a
[00:45:13] girl named Jessica which is not a real name but you end up with a girl called Jessica and here
[00:45:18] and you're just partnering and you're boozing and you and Jessica I mean this is like the couple
[00:45:26] that we all knew when they were when how old are you at this point uh early 20s yeah so this is like
[00:45:32] you know the couple that fighting and yelling each other and then all of a sudden they're you know they're
[00:45:36] going to the club that just like you know I can I can I can see that scene yep uh and of course
[00:45:45] you guys decide you need to get married yep uh which ends up in a pretty quick divorce and at this
[00:45:54] point you you you write this in the book I needed a win a big win I was never the type to give up
[00:46:00] but with two blown marriages a failed attempt to become a navy seal and a feeling that I hadn't
[00:46:05] found my calling in life I was just settling and letting life run me ragged I needed to reset my
[00:46:10] failures with a major victory that was when I decided that there would be no more losing it was time
[00:46:16] to start winning again at the time the air force was overmaned in certain jobs ammo being one of them
[00:46:23] the army had a shortage of soldiers in certain career fields so the air force was offering a
[00:46:29] direct transfer to the army one thing my dad had told me years earlier kept nagging me if you
[00:46:36] don't try you'll never know and if you never know it's because you didn't try the answer was
[00:46:42] clear I wasn't going to live a life of regrets even if the high risk of failure was there
[00:46:47] after clearing my head I decided to jump head first eyes closed into the unknown that's you know
[00:46:58] you want to talk about there being a plan the fact that the air force was overmaned and the
[00:47:01] army would just do a direct transfer yeah it was it was it was insane because I was going to the
[00:47:09] to the S1 or the personnel office whatever to update some stuff for promotion and there was this
[00:47:15] poster on the wall and it had this guy in two uniforms half of them was an air um air force uniform
[00:47:22] the other half was you know class A's army said blue to green and that's and it it all kind of fell
[00:47:30] within the same time frame as you know I need a victory I need I need something because right now
[00:47:36] you know my I am I'm 100% heading down the path of
[00:47:42] that I that I probably won't be able to recover from if I keep you know because it's
[00:47:48] everything's in excuse and everything's everyone else as well and entitlement and victimization
[00:47:55] and I was I was I still wasn't far enough down the path to where I couldn't recognize that I
[00:48:02] totally became a victim of life you know shitty circumstances and so I was I was still
[00:48:09] able to see like all right you need a victory you need something you got to hold a lot of
[00:48:15] zeros going you need a one you know it's weird I'm what whenever I talk of that some people
[00:48:20] especially when people get out I'm like when you get out of the when you get out of the military you
[00:48:24] need a new mission you need to have something else to focus on but what's weird about this
[00:48:28] is you are in the military but the mission that you had whatever that mission was it like wasn't
[00:48:34] bringing you the satisfaction you didn't feel like it was what you should be doing you know you
[00:48:39] knew that you had more to offer and so you're traveling around you're looking for you're looking
[00:48:44] for the mission and you just couldn't find it and so then what this is the same thing that happens
[00:48:48] when guys get out and they don't have a mission to know the sun they just go down path of
[00:48:51] least resistance and well bottle the pills or whatever and it ends up bad you are still in while
[00:48:58] you are having that go on and luckily they had this opportunity to go in the army man so you
[00:49:05] went to army boot camp and you you talk about that and here was that was that a little bit of a
[00:49:10] gentleman's course do you if you heard the term gentleman's course before I have yeah okay so it was your
[00:49:15] boot camp like a gentleman's course which in the military a gentleman's course is it's basically
[00:49:21] there it's basically you're there to actually learn it's not like this be down thing you're
[00:49:28] going to actually learn stuff you get treated like a human you're not getting treated like a like a
[00:49:33] you know new guy piece of shit whatever you're getting treated well and you're there to learn that's
[00:49:38] a gentleman's course for instance I went to officer candidate school with all the other
[00:49:46] people coming out of college that go to officer candidate school that's not a gentleman's course
[00:49:50] like you go and you get all the full benefit of people the audience screaming to you but
[00:49:56] for worn officers or limited duty officers in the navy they go to a gentleman's course where
[00:50:02] hey here's how you wear the uniform and here's here's what here's how you write these reports it's
[00:50:06] like a nice transition yeah sounds like yours was somewhere in between you kind of had to go to boot
[00:50:12] camp a little bit but they were being cool to you so yeah infantry basic was that there's two
[00:50:19] things that happened there number one so I had I had done the the prior service
[00:50:25] course that they had for us in New Mexico which was supposed it was supposed to suffice as
[00:50:32] you know that was the phase one of infantry basic then you go to a IT
[00:50:36] you when you say infantry basic is that boot camp straight up boot camp so you went to his
[00:50:42] class in New Mexico how long was that course that was a month and then okay normal army boot camp
[00:50:49] is what 12 weeks yeah I think so they gave you a little short in course where they cool to you
[00:50:54] or where they yell in the screaming so new Mexico they can't really yell in the screaming
[00:50:58] bunch of you know they're a bunch of guard guys that were kind of which no offense
[00:51:02] definitely but they they were just there to check the boxes on us so they're there to actually
[00:51:10] transition you okay this is the way it works in the army here's how you wear uniform in the army
[00:51:14] these are the roles responsibility so it was it was a gentleman's course yeah that that was and then
[00:51:19] I get the bending for infantry and apparently I didn't get the memo that I was supposed to wait
[00:51:25] for a it so I started basic with everyone else and so the drone instructor he came up to me
[00:51:35] he's hey man you're not supposed to be here and I basically told him like I need this you know
[00:51:42] I need something to bury completely just focus everything I got on it bury all of my efforts
[00:51:49] into into into a cause and and I loved it like I loved it and he's like hey you know we're
[00:51:57] you're gonna have to play the game then I was like I'll play the game I got I got nothing but time
[00:52:02] so it was awesome I loved it and so I would think for a private going through when I went through
[00:52:09] they probably would say it was not a gentleman's course but for me going through basic you know
[00:52:16] our infantry basic and whatnot like that it was it was exactly what I needed at that point
[00:52:22] time every day was awesome and it just kept my mind off of everything that I just went through
[00:52:28] everything so but still didn't fix it just kept my mind off it you end up so you go through that
[00:52:37] infantry basic you go through a it you go to airborne then you start the 18x which is when you
[00:52:45] go in in special forces and you're not exactly sure which specialty you're gonna get they call it 18x
[00:52:52] and you go to this 18x prep course and you say this 18x prep course was extremely hard and
[00:53:01] pushed me to my limits I'm talking nonstop physical training 12 hours per day getting beat down
[00:53:06] the intent to the prep program was not only to get a soldier ready mentally and physically for
[00:53:11] selection but also to weed out the week so how long is that prep course it depends but our
[00:53:21] 18x or the prep course for selection I think ours was a month so four weeks and then from prep
[00:53:28] course you go to special forces selection yes so prep course is literally just to get you ready like
[00:53:34] yes hard PT's and they're trying to get you in good physical shape to be ready for
[00:53:41] for special forces selection yes or to help you understand that this isn't really what you want
[00:53:48] and so they don't blow a bunch of money training you they can just send you over to the 80
[00:53:52] second really quick got it and move on with life got it so now you get to special forces selection
[00:53:57] I'm gonna go to the book this was do or die time an 18 day gut check to pull out all the
[00:54:02] stops there was no way I would accept failure because I didn't think I could handle another
[00:54:06] fuck up in my life this was most likely my only chance and I was gonna make it happen everything
[00:54:11] that I had been through all the hard work I put in everything led up to this point selection as soon
[00:54:15] as we stepped off the buses at Camp McCall it was game on we started with the usual army PT test
[00:54:20] a readiness assessment also known as the army physical fitness test to my surprise some soldiers
[00:54:26] showed up for a shot to be the best failed the first PT test and we're gone on day zero fast
[00:54:33] forward a little time was flying by for me and I was killing it regardless of whether it was a 10
[00:54:36] mile run along Sandy backwards roads a 10k rock sack march with 60 pounds on my back a 12
[00:54:43] mile land navigation course rifle PT log PT with telephone poles or the dreaded team week events
[00:54:49] that broke the will of most of the trainees I was speeding through as excruciating as
[00:54:54] everything was I was amazed at how well I was doing the 18x prep course lived up to his name
[00:54:59] so you're kind of getting after it do good yeah we were constantly on the move 18 to 20 hours
[00:55:06] a day whether it was a ballbuster PT session or hustling from one event the other
[00:55:10] shot I came in snatches and meals were always on the go not getting enough food for me with
[00:55:16] not getting enough food for the number of calories I was burning took its toll after the first
[00:55:21] week but I didn't care while the lack of calories depleted my energy and strength that combined
[00:55:25] with my lack of sleep was all part of the mentally and physically breaking down a trainee so you're
[00:55:31] not eating very much which is one thing that I was was happy that I ended up in the navy and
[00:55:37] and going to budd instead of any of the army courses where you don't get to eat man yeah the
[00:55:42] the army seems to they they they really like the whole you don't need to eat thing yeah
[00:55:47] yeah the navy focuses on you don't need to sleep and and also you don't need to be warm which
[00:55:54] look range of school and freaking sf school you know it's not like you're warm cuddly there
[00:55:59] either now no the uh just beat down we just we're not under the water and that was good
[00:56:08] as the days turned into weeks our bodies are breaking down so I pressed on as we near the end
[00:56:12] the final major obstacle in my way was along rut march we weren't supposed to know the distance
[00:56:17] of the final trek but every selection class got the scoop from the guys are gone before we would
[00:56:20] be going 25 to 30 miles turned out you guys went more than 25 to 30 miles again I'm jumping
[00:56:28] you you give some really cool information and that's why people should get the book fast
[00:56:33] foreign a little bit after hitting the finish line we gathered in a large conference hall to
[00:56:37] hear who got selected and who didn't I could barely put one foot in front of the other but at
[00:56:41] least I walked in under my own power those left standing after the dust cleared look like they
[00:56:45] had spent years as POWs most of the guys hobbled and limp their way into the conference hall
[00:56:51] beaten down and on edge as I took my seat my tired head was filled with questions will all this
[00:56:58] physical and mental effort be for nothing did I give it the best I could do I have what they are
[00:57:03] looking for after a wait that seemed like days the selection cadre entered the hall to call
[00:57:08] off the roster numbers of the guys selected I was roster number 049 out of 185 as you went down
[00:57:15] the list he reached those in the 40s I held my breath and closed my eyes roster number 049
[00:57:23] selected I melted into my chairs the reef spread over my body out of 185 only 50 or so men were
[00:57:31] selected a little more than one out of every four I was one of them but I wasn't there yet I still
[00:57:36] had more hurdles in front of me out of the 50 of us who would advance to the qualification course
[00:57:41] less than half would become green berets those concerns didn't matter to me at that point however
[00:57:46] for now I saved my accomplishment I was on my way so you you do this freaking all this training
[00:57:52] of selection to how long selection 18 days yeah it varies there's some three week selections
[00:57:57] and whatnot but yeah I had an 18 day selection and then even if you pass everything you can still
[00:58:04] just not get selected yes there was a lot of those guys who they said hey thank you for coming out
[00:58:10] um you're just not what we're looking for good luck damn so you're sitting in there with your
[00:58:17] freaking fingers crossed yeah yeah dang yeah do you have any idea what they're like what is
[00:58:24] the kind of thing where they're saying that this guy's not not for us so the cause I would be pissed
[00:58:30] yeah some of the lessons that I've learned and some of the things that you know I can I think
[00:58:37] make a good operator regardless of what special operations unit you're with is a guy who's always
[00:58:44] looking for work you're never stagnant look for work a guy who's always willing to carry the
[00:58:49] heaviest shit look for work carry heavy stuff and then the guy who he just regardless of how
[00:58:58] bad at hurts smile because you're making memories that you're you're just you're not you can never
[00:59:06] recreate it ever so look for work carry heavy stuff and smile yeah that's very good advice
[00:59:13] we used to actually we used to tell guys you know especially when I was running training that was one
[00:59:18] of the things we tell guys is look for work even in a tactical sense like hey you're sitting there
[00:59:23] with your weapon pointed down the ground bro look for work go find something to cover go find some
[00:59:27] hold security somewhere you look for work makes something happen and that's right in there I mean
[00:59:32] that's almost the same thing as carry heavy shit yeah don't be the guy that's trying to
[00:59:37] shark that yep if if the two 40s on the ground and everyone's moving to a different weapon system
[00:59:43] grabbed the two 40 because I can promise you one thing it will not be the heaviest thing you'll
[00:59:49] carry in combat training can't touch a combat load yeah no doubt so from there you go to the Q course
[00:59:59] and I guess in route to Q course or part of the Q course the Q course is like a whole bunch of things
[01:00:05] racked up together right yes right so you do sear school you do sear sea school you you go to
[01:00:12] language school which you did Spanish yes and and well this was kind of funny you're like
[01:00:20] before selection I was given a language aptitude test my score determined the difficulty of the
[01:00:24] language I would learn well let's just say that Ryan Hendrickson's test results were modest at
[01:00:29] best and I would not be learning Arabic or Mandarin Chinese so no so you also said this you
[01:00:37] would joke with your friends where you're taking Spanish I can barely speak American let alone Mexican
[01:00:43] teacher denoling so then you go to Robin Sage and Robin Sage is this famous green
[01:00:50] bra exercise that you do at the end of the Q course over a period of three weeks we would plan
[01:00:55] in full train advise and assist a resistance movement that on some level back the United States
[01:01:00] and was seeking to defeat the occupying repressive forces in Pineland which is a made-up place in
[01:01:06] Western North Carolina this would be by far the most realistic military exercise to prepare men
[01:01:11] for what we would actually encounter while deployed when times were hard and I needed a
[01:01:17] pull strength from somewhere anywhere I would see someone in the course where I thought
[01:01:21] who I thought had no business being there someone who is riding the coat tails of others
[01:01:26] performing only when the spotlight was on him I would pick these guys out and think I'm not going
[01:01:31] anywhere if this guy is still here I'm better than this shit bag and I will outlast him no
[01:01:37] matter what then that guy would fail or quit and I would target someone else I knew that I was
[01:01:42] better than I would use their weaknesses to make me stronger in a crazy way I fed off their failures
[01:01:48] be bad good or indifferent this was the mindset I used to keep pushing myself just I mean
[01:01:58] well for me when people were quitting I would always like damn what a loser
[01:02:06] I guess I had a little bit of that and there was a couple people that surprised me when they quit
[01:02:11] there was one guy in my bloods class that was like a he had gone to buds before he was in E5
[01:02:18] he was probably like 25 or 26 years old which seemed pretty freaking old to me and like mature
[01:02:23] because I was still like not you know I don't think it all he's got this stuff off and he would
[01:02:28] give me advice like hey we need structures to do this you know and you need to keep this
[01:02:32] mine I was like okay you know sounds good and then in freaking first night of hell week he quits
[01:02:40] and I was like what you can what's your problem but the same thing I was kind of like all right
[01:02:46] well I'm definitely not quitting this freaking loser so then for 84 weeks that's 20 months from
[01:02:54] start to finish my tired and broken body performed at levels I didn't think we're possible I
[01:02:58] pushed myself to my limits and through to the end life had dealt me some major brod blows
[01:03:03] and no one knew better than me that I dug a hole for myself that was damn near impossible to get
[01:03:08] out of despite how much I had fucked things up I had pulled myself out of a pit started something
[01:03:13] and seen it through it to the end leaving nothing behind I'd given this everything and I had succeeded
[01:03:19] now as a green beret radar right the next chapter of my life damn that's already a like one full
[01:03:25] book right there just needed one victory yeah that's it damn um and I like what you said earlier you
[01:03:32] know you're talking about your dad being like able to turn himself around and that's the same
[01:03:37] you know it's the same story for you too you know you're going from a horrible spot where you've
[01:03:42] racked up some some failures and then you just get it together get focused and you win you start winning
[01:03:50] fast forward a little bit okay here's the sergeant major talking you're checking in okay
[01:03:55] you're the new 18 Charlie I've been waiting for I'm assigning you to ODA 7215 I knew the 7
[01:04:03] stood for 7th special forces the two for 2nd battalion the one for Alpha Company and the 5 for 15 in the
[01:04:10] company I knew my job as an 18 Charlie what talk about what an 18 Charlie is so 18 Charlie is a
[01:04:20] a demolition expert on ODA and we you know we have the different MLSs like the 18 Bravo weapon
[01:04:27] weapons expert 18 echo comms Charlie demolitions and also construction but state side you are a
[01:04:36] a a special forces supply guy is it technically engineering yep so that's what the Charlie is
[01:04:44] yep and then you know the fox intel and you know team siren to Zulu and whatnot like that and delta
[01:04:49] medical so hmm so you say this and this is a weird thing because you don't think when you think
[01:04:56] engineers you think building and and constructing and this happens in Marine Corps too engineers
[01:05:03] becomes the people at handle IEDs so I knew my job as an 18 Charlie wasn't for the faint heart
[01:05:09] while patrolling an enemy hell day areas of Afghanistan I would find myself upfront the tip of the spear one
[01:05:14] might say with 3 to 5 Afghan counterparts who specialize in counter ID operations and we're very
[01:05:21] good at finding them we would be exposed to Taliban snipers or any run the mill dumbass
[01:05:25] waiting wanting to take a shot at us the worst part of being the man upfront was that I would be the
[01:05:30] first soldier to encounter the IEDs I'd rather be in a firefight with a Taliban any day the
[01:05:35] week than deal with IEDs which were a nasty but very effective way to fight a war one of the senior
[01:05:41] one of the more senior guys in the back corner spoke up you got a lot to learn in a little bit of
[01:05:45] time sit down and listen but most of all keep your mouth shut keep your eyes open this will be a
[01:05:49] fire hose and you get man you do a good job in the book of of talking about the team and checking
[01:05:56] into the team and you're a new guy and you go through all that stuff but we're gonna skip through
[01:06:01] that and people need to buy the book to get that information I'm going straight to Afghanistan
[01:06:06] you're heading toward an outpost the outpost is called the alamo which is always a good sign
[01:06:13] yeah not sure what happened there but I don't think it ended up very well
[01:06:18] so here you are oh shit not only was I my first mission as a green beret but I was walking into a
[01:06:25] live combat situation could you guys have heard gunfire this wasn't a video game real 762
[01:06:30] caliber bullets would be flying this caliber of bullet would easily rip a hole the size of a
[01:06:34] silver dollar through a man's torso and tears internal organs to shreds we wore a body
[01:06:39] armor that gave some protection to our chest and upper backs but when a bullet penetrated the
[01:06:43] chest cavity nine times out of ten you were dead I was driving the lead vehicle when our convoy arrived
[01:06:49] at the last stopping point around a thousand meters from the alamo a call came over to vehicle
[01:06:54] radio communications all vehicles stop during our pre-mission brief that morning I remember being told
[01:07:00] that we would have to make a mad dash over a one kilometer over one kilometer of open ground to
[01:07:05] reach the safety of the alamo so we needed to be prepared for that the alamo was surrounded by a
[01:07:10] you shaped ridge line a finger like natural rock structure that ran toward the helmet river
[01:07:17] then the call came over the radio all vehicles move I hit the gas on my RG 33
[01:07:22] mind resistant vehicle and started covering ground within seconds a Taliban machine gun crew started
[01:07:27] sending rounds our way I heard pigs from the bullets hitting our truck thank god the RG 33 was armored
[01:07:33] sprays of dirt and dust from incoming bullets and golfed our vehicle my senses shot up to overdrive
[01:07:38] and adrenaline pump through my veins even though I was scared I had never felt so alive as I
[01:07:43] concentrated on keeping the heavy vehicle moving forward then crack we'd been hit the front
[01:07:48] windshield split in a hundred different directions like a spider's web crack crack two more
[01:07:53] hand at rounds hit my windshield I didn't know how many more rounds this windshield could take
[01:07:57] drive my captain yelled from the front passenger seat we got to get the fuck off this open ground
[01:08:02] I jam the gas pedal to the floor board and push the RG 33 to its limits limits and RG 33 ways
[01:08:09] around 38,000 pounds so maneuvering such a large bullet magnet over a thousand meters of of uneven
[01:08:15] rough terrain was no easy task I managed to rumble to safety through the alamo single entrance gate
[01:08:21] in into a large courtyard the other two vehicles arrived safely as well almost as soon as my RG 33
[01:08:26] stopped in the courtyard I jumped out and ran to the nearest elevated position in the compound I
[01:08:31] toggled the selector switch on my m4 carbine from safe to fire and started sending rounds down range
[01:08:36] toward the enemy for the next few hours we exchanged sporadic gunfire but I have to admit
[01:08:41] that it was hard to think clearly adrenaline had really taken over my body at that point training
[01:08:47] kicked in and I reacted with muscle memory that had been honed through hundreds of hours spent
[01:08:51] training for combat when my first battle experience was over I couldn't get my hands to quit
[01:08:56] shaking my nerves were tingling as well but I felt good the question of how I would react when bullets
[01:09:01] were flying had been answered that evening some of the guys looked at the damage on my vehicle
[01:09:06] we could see where the rounds hit even though bullets hadn't made holes but the indentations were
[01:09:12] everywhere damn one more round hitting your windshield and it was gone one of my teammates said you
[01:09:17] had been fucked up you got that right I said looks like you got your C.I.B. bro joked another buddy
[01:09:23] which is the combat every three minutes jet badge that they're telling you yeah you just got it so
[01:09:28] there's your welcome to combat yeah that was a day three day three and that that happened and it was
[01:09:38] it was awesome it was awesome I mean it's hard to explain it it was so awesome that it you know it's
[01:09:45] it's a dicking you know combat's it's a rush so that's and I got that day three yeah
[01:09:52] yeah that's a that's a good welcome there it's it's I remember the first time I went into
[01:09:57] I don't know it was an RG 33 for was one eight I think it was an RG 33 I was out there was one other vehicle
[01:10:04] I forget the name of it so they had so the Mac the Mac these the RG 31s they also have the
[01:10:14] MATVs or the Mac's I think it was a 33 but I remember driving through Ramani's I had
[01:10:21] probably been in Ramani for like a month at this point and all of the to all of my transits would
[01:10:25] be either in a Bradley which you can't see anything or in a humvee which you can barely see
[01:10:30] in your all freaking having to scan so the first time I rolled down route Michigan in an RG 33
[01:10:35] sitting at like 15 feet with the white lights on and the big giant bulletproof windows it's like
[01:10:40] the coolest thing ever you're like oh I'm good I can figure and you can look around and you can like
[01:10:45] really pay attention so that's that's it that's a good feeling as opposed to a humvee where
[01:10:51] it's awaiting to suck start an idea and yeah yeah so now you guys are doing rotations out at this
[01:10:59] place the album it's like a forward operating base yeah it was a it was a cop yeah basically we took
[01:11:04] over a compound ill check in farm goat cow whatever compound and turned it into basically
[01:11:15] where we were going to conduct operations engage in Taliban forces along the Hellman river
[01:11:19] you say I learned quickly that 90% of a deployment was sheer boredom followed by 10% of heart racing
[01:11:24] terror and excitement each rusher combat left me craving more there was something about the
[01:11:31] kill or be killed aspect of fighting the game you high high that was dangerously adicting
[01:11:38] during my first three months in Afghanistan my detachment saw combat got caught in several intense
[01:11:43] fire fights but we didn't take any casualties the rest of the men of alpha company second battalion
[01:11:48] however 2010 was proving to be one hell of a deadly deployment two men on a different detachment
[01:11:54] were killed in action including one of our air force counterparts and more than a dozen were
[01:11:59] wounded normally a deployment to Afghanistan resulted in four or five wounded guys and maybe one
[01:12:04] fallen soldier but our company more than doubled or tripled that amount one afternoon our
[01:12:09] team leader approached me to tell me that a friend of mine named Jason had been killed in action
[01:12:13] that day in a different part of Afghanistan Jason died in a V Jason died when his vehicle had
[01:12:19] an ID he said bam man this shit sucks are you gonna be okay I absorbed the emotional blow
[01:12:26] yeah I'm good I said even though my chest was closing in I hadn't known Jason that long but we had
[01:12:31] gone through a large portion of special forces training together back at four brag it's through
[01:12:36] training that you really get to know someone I knew I could always count on Jason for help
[01:12:40] there were times I felt like I was a fish out of water coming over from the air force the army
[01:12:45] but Jason took the time to help me whenever I got hung up on one ever part of training I was stuck
[01:12:49] with Jason was someone I looked up to I admired how everything was easy for him he was smart and
[01:12:54] great shape a super dad to his kids and amazing husband to his wife but just two months into his
[01:12:59] first deployment as a green beret he was dead in the past I had heard about guys from a different
[01:13:07] battalion or unit dying and I rack her Afghanistan but this was the first time I knew someone personally
[01:13:13] death in combat was not just something I saw in the news now it was personal Jason was my friend
[01:13:18] and this was the ugly reality of war I tried my best not to think about Jason's death too much
[01:13:26] which was difficult I knew full well that Afghanistan was not the place to mourn the death of
[01:13:32] friends there would be plenty of time back in the states to think about that and try to come to terms
[01:13:37] with it I still had a job to do to make sure no one on my team stepped on an IED and a promise
[01:13:42] to fulfill to myself I would do whatever it took to make sure my teammates returned with to their
[01:13:47] families in one piece in 2010 though Afghanistan was not getting safer and the real fighting
[01:13:55] had yet to begin how long did you guys been on deployment for at that point
[01:14:04] so when Jason was killed I think we both got in the country at the same time and so that would be
[01:14:12] two months and how long are you how long were your deployments at this point um they were
[01:14:17] they varied but most of them were nine months at that at that point so you're only two months into
[01:14:25] a nine month deployment you've already your your battalions lost a bunch of guys your companies
[01:14:32] how did guys wounded and killed that your friend gets killed go and back to the book when
[01:14:41] summer was coming to a close my team along with other ODAs from our company was tasked with
[01:14:45] entering Choo-Too Valley I say that right yep from different locations and clearing out the
[01:14:51] Taliban to a central point which would send the bastards running for the mountains working against us
[01:14:55] however was the fact that this was not a covert mission everyone up and down the valley knew we were
[01:15:00] coming which gave the Taliban ample time to place IEDs and prepare for us so you go you talk through
[01:15:09] some of the planning and finally you guys go to execute this mission the date was September 10th
[01:15:15] 2010 each of us was carrying a different equipment carrying different equipment for the mission
[01:15:20] besides my body armor and amphal rifle I was toting a 60 pound assault pack on my back filled
[01:15:25] with ammunition demolition material food water extra batteries and whatever else I would need
[01:15:30] for three days my average fighting weight was 200 pounds but with body armor weapons ammo and my
[01:15:35] assault pack I probably took the scales at 280 280s being generous yeah
[01:15:50] you say during our final pre-mescent checks I had time to let my mind wander
[01:15:55] what will be out there waiting for us do they know we're coming how hard will it be to find
[01:16:02] IEDs how I react on the bullet start flying all these questions plagued my mind as I was
[01:16:07] watching the river flow in the light of the moon until it disappeared into the darkness this
[01:16:11] seemed like a good moment to take out a small pad of paper from my assault pack and write a quick
[01:16:16] note from my family in case the worst happened dad when he Paul a Chris and Robbie I hope I made you
[01:16:23] proud if you're reading this note I did not make it death doesn't really scare me because I'm
[01:16:31] doing what I believe is right and just I guess that's really all you can ask from a man death comes
[01:16:38] to everyone at some point in life so there's no use fighting it when it's your time it's your time
[01:16:44] and there's nothing you can do about it I believe I live as good a life as possible and I'm asking
[01:16:50] you not to stay sad very long very soon you will be joining me in heaven and we will again be together
[01:16:58] I'll keep the beer cold for you all I love you Ryan I don't know why I chose to write this note
[01:17:08] maybe it was the fact that I was a new guy and had no clue what would happen on my first patrol
[01:17:12] that far from the alamo maybe I had seen too many warm moves and figured this was a good idea
[01:17:18] maybe deep down I really believe that this mission was destined to have a terrible outcome
[01:17:21] whatever the reason I chose to write down exactly what I felt at that moment because I wanted my
[01:17:26] family to hear from me one last time if the worst happened I folded the note placed it in a ziplock bag
[01:17:34] so it wouldn't get damaged if it got wet and stuck it to my right arm
[01:17:38] front uniform pocket where God willing someone would find it and pass the letter along to my family
[01:17:49] did you have the proverbial bad feeling about this up so looking back now and I remember
[01:17:57] sitting there and I got to think and everyone up and down the valley knew we were coming
[01:18:06] and the first set of villages were deserted and so you know as you will see for bad time
[01:18:15] I don't I to this day I don't know why I decided to write that note again it could just be
[01:18:20] too many warm movies I have no idea but did you save it? I do I got it at home
[01:18:27] but yeah it just seems didn't you think you were jinxing yourself so I do worry about that a little bit
[01:18:34] but because I never wrote I would get that but like no I'm not writing that nothing's going to happen
[01:18:38] yeah good I just had this I don't know I just had this weird feeling plus you know being up in the front
[01:18:45] it's kind of like oh man and I don't know I just think I just think you know getting caught up in
[01:18:52] all the emotion of everything and you're amped up you're ready to go you're ready for the green light
[01:18:58] and everything like that and it's like all right let me let me bust this out man because I just
[01:19:01] really don't know so yeah it was very uncertain what we were walking into yeah the freaking ied
[01:19:10] these are crazy you know you're going into an ied thick area you know you're the first guy
[01:19:17] and even if you're not getting an ied you're the person that's walking into an ambush oh yeah
[01:19:22] you're gonna get shot in the face good times so finally you get the call from Ben let's move out guys
[01:19:31] we slowly charged our way toward the village of sar-tutu in the distance sar-tutu is made up
[01:19:38] of several mud-hut compounds in my group was tasked with clearing one of the sections keeping
[01:19:43] strict noise and like discipline we scan the hillside and the riverbank for any movement I kept my
[01:19:48] thumb on my weapon safety selector reddish switch to engage to kill the enemy
[01:19:53] taking fire from the Taliban was a risk we all knew as possible but the more likely scenario was
[01:19:58] experiencing a catastrophic ied explosion resulting in the loss of limbs and broken bodies
[01:20:05] all the team members were fully aware that one wrong step could change their lives forever
[01:20:10] my job was to make sure that did not happen these insidious bombs could be hidden anywhere
[01:20:15] buried in the ground hung in trees stashed in cooking pots inside the carcasses of that animals
[01:20:19] within car trunks are under clothing with the infamous strap-on suicide vests
[01:20:24] while they might have been built with fertilizer and discarded spare parts and look like a junior
[01:20:30] high school shop class project i never underestimated the lethality of these homemade bombs
[01:20:35] all i took was a handful all it took was a handful of high explosives a few inches of copper wire
[01:20:40] in a battery that nation could be triggered by compression the weight of a soldier or vehicle passing
[01:20:46] over the explosive charge remote control with cell phones or an electrical circuit from a distance
[01:20:51] the Taliban were limited only by their imagination which was limitless when it came to killing
[01:20:56] Americans moving up we intercepted a radio transmission from the Taliban indicating that they knew
[01:21:03] we were on the move and could see us at first the news made my heart race my palms got sweaty as my
[01:21:10] arm as my eyes darted around looking for anything slightly abnormal i felt i was starting to see
[01:21:16] things that really weren't there were my eyes playing tricks on me or my ears it seemed like i was
[01:21:21] curing all sorts of things when we stopped to get our bearings the guys called this hypervintulence
[01:21:26] hypervigilance and told me that when danger was imminent your senses rose up several notches to
[01:21:31] high alert status fueling the high percent activity was an overwhelming desire to stay alive
[01:21:38] the village was deserted when we entered one thing every sf guy knew was that when you entered a
[01:21:44] village and it deserted you better figure that you're in for a big fight or a village full of iedis
[01:21:49] in our minds iedis were a cowards way of fighting but no one could deny that they were extremely effective
[01:21:56] we had to clear each compound or homes we advanced slowly and deliberately looking for anything
[01:22:00] suspicious or out of the ordinary that could conceal an ied we were professional soldiers details matter
[01:22:07] a slight delay discoloration of the dirt a suspicious pile of rocks and abandoned water pale
[01:22:13] a tree that had been tagged with a marker a disturbance in a mud wall or alone person walking
[01:22:18] quickly directly toward us anything mattered but we didn't see any people or anything questionable
[01:22:26] even though i assumed every doorway and window had a pair of eyes looking at me and my buddies
[01:22:31] after we hit our first planned stopping point the team broke up in a smaller elements to cover
[01:22:37] a bigger area in and around the village including a world war one like trench that ran adjacent
[01:22:42] to the helmet river one of the taliban's favorite positions to fight us from each element was
[01:22:48] made up of two or three green berets and a handful of afghan fighters assisting us
[01:22:52] in clearing the village my element consisted of myself our team sergeant lance and six afghans
[01:22:58] one of whom was neck our interpreter neck wasn't the man's real name but everybody who supported
[01:23:04] our team was giving given an easy to remember nickname for the ease of communication
[01:23:08] our job alongside the afghans was to clear the first set of compounds running parallel
[01:23:14] to the river once the compounds were clear we would move on to the next set as i approach within
[01:23:19] 15 meters the first compound i watched for everything and anything from movement in the compounds
[01:23:24] of variations in the terrain where i was stepping i stopped and turned around to check on lance
[01:23:30] who is behind me with several afghans he gave me a nod meaning i could keep moving with the afghans
[01:23:35] and check out the first compound i motion to nick to come closer tell your guys to move up
[01:23:42] and clear the compound i said keep your fucking eyes open we both knew what that meant sweep the
[01:23:47] car your courtyard while watching every nook and cranny for a rifle barrel waiting to open fire
[01:23:53] nick turned and relayed my direction to the handful of afghans soldiers instead of moving
[01:23:57] they stood there like statues as precious seconds passed by it became clear to me that they were
[01:24:04] not going to move what the fuck i thought do they not understand what i need them to do
[01:24:08] are they too scared to go i whispered a nick what's the problem it's too dangerous nick replied
[01:24:14] no shit of course this was dangerous this was what war was all about i knew they were scared
[01:24:21] i was too i figured they wanted the americans to go first because they felt we had better weapons
[01:24:26] and knew we were a better fighters i kept my cool and refrain from losing my temper but i was
[01:24:31] pissed this is your damn country so fight for it i turned around to have a war with lance
[01:24:37] went out of the corner my eye i saw nick moving toward the front of the compound about 15 meters
[01:24:42] from me where a wooden door into our first mud hut was slightly a jar what's he doing why is he
[01:24:48] walking into an unclear part of the compound without afghans soldiers leading the way
[01:24:53] he was my damn interpreter not a fighter i knew better than to yell out to stop him since that
[01:24:58] could have invited a firefight even though the Taliban were on the move tactically it was best to
[01:25:03] assume the enemy did not know where we were and to remain relatively undetected for as long
[01:25:09] as possible in case Taliban fighters were inside the compound and waiting to spring a nasty surprise
[01:25:16] lance grabbed me by the arm get nick away from that door this wasn't the place or time for an
[01:25:22] afghan rambo even though 15 meters wasn't a lot of ground to cover each step was a gamble
[01:25:28] in Taliban controlled area i carefully but quickly moved up to neck and grabbed his arm
[01:25:34] nick don't move bro we need to move back to lance's position in regroup this is unclear to ground
[01:25:40] nick looked at me we're going to back away slowly i continued i want you to place your feet
[01:25:46] over my boat boot prints and slowly move with me back to lance if you stay in my steps you'll be okay
[01:25:55] nick did not want to retreat we can still get our guys inside the compound he said no the time is
[01:26:01] not right i reiterated we need to get reorganized the firmness in my voice told nick that i met
[01:26:08] business he started to move back from the compound and retreated slowly as well and i retreated
[01:26:13] slowly as well making sure i had my m4 ready to rock in case someone in the compound moved around
[01:26:19] the corner and open fire on us my eyes were sweeping the compound as well as looking where i placed my
[01:26:26] feet i took one slow step after another when boom a deafening explosion pounded my
[01:26:48] ear drums at the same instant a hot searing brighter than midday flash of light enveloped me the
[01:26:56] blast shattered the silence across the valley sending birds into the sky as they flap their wings
[01:27:00] and screeched the concussive explosion knocked me the ground like a blind side hit from a line black
[01:27:06] blind backer in an instant i landed on my back just outside the compound entrance the foul ammonia
[01:27:12] smelling air clogged my lungs and choked my breathing i instinctively rub the grip from my eyes
[01:27:19] and waited for the dust to settle trying as hard as i could to breathe but i could only manage
[01:27:25] the barest of breaths i fought for air as i fought for air a yellow brown cloud swirled around me
[01:27:33] i couldn't see my hands in front of my face because of all the dust in the air i shook my head
[01:27:38] and yon the couple times trying to squelts the high pitch ringing my ears but that didn't work
[01:27:42] then i opened my mouth the scream for nick wanting to make sure he was okay but nothing came out
[01:27:47] the thickness of the dust with the overwhelming smell of ammonia saturated the air
[01:27:52] and made it impossible to yell or to take a full gop of air i'm not sure what just happened but
[01:28:00] if i don't confess here i will suffocate in those first few disorienting moments i didn't
[01:28:06] feel any pain so i had to be okay i tried to stand but then i fell back over and heep damn i tried
[01:28:11] again but i couldn't stand up what the fuck what's happening to me i was having trouble thinking
[01:28:16] clearly then in a moment then a moment or two later i suddenly realized what had happened i had
[01:28:21] stepped on an iED damn when you are going through that compound to grab nick there was still
[01:28:37] this was still there had been no compromise yet like it was just silence yeah there was no compromise
[01:28:43] there was the the quietest i think i'll ever remember any environment being was that's the scene just
[01:28:52] incredibly creepy and quiet and you're trying to step in the boot prints that you made when you
[01:29:02] get when you went to get nick so you walk in backwards so kind of sort of you know all of us know
[01:29:10] that you never turn your back or your side to the unknown and so pass the breach point is the unknown
[01:29:16] so we have the breach or the doorway or whatever you want to call it and so what it what it happened
[01:29:25] was i was trying to move back but then you know how when you're the very last man in a
[01:29:29] patrol you're constantly doing the or what's sorry you're constantly doing the back look
[01:29:33] yeah well that's kind of what i was doing making sure that my info was ready to start putting
[01:29:39] rounds into the compound and yeah so and it's and it's still like the sun wasn't up yet the the
[01:29:48] sky was getting light but the sun wasn't quiet up yet so you know yeah it's just the perfect
[01:29:55] perfect storm it's like that time where you're not sure if you're better off with nodger
[01:29:59] an off nods like that moment of the morning yep yep within about 10 minutes you're taking your
[01:30:05] nods off and storm them yeah it was that that perfect moment of zero visit back to the book i
[01:30:15] so maybe came aware of the pain it was solely creeping in like a snake squeezing his victim to
[01:30:21] death i reached down from my left leg and wiggled it leg was still there bloody but still there
[01:30:25] when i tried to move my right leg however the pain was unbearable waving the sand and dust away
[01:30:29] with my hands to get a better view i could see my right combat boot was bent at a weird 90 degree angle
[01:30:35] it was like my combat boot made a T at the end of my leg the didn't seem possible that my leather
[01:30:41] boot could be twisted like that so i grabbed my right leg behind my right knee and lifted to get
[01:30:46] a better look as i raised my right leg up a tad my right foot flopped off to the side of my leg
[01:30:54] oh shit the only thing connecting my foot to my leg was stringy bloody red muscle tissue and
[01:30:59] ragged skin what was more disturbing was seeing the stark white bones poking out of my leg i was
[01:31:05] amazed at how glistening white they were in contrast with my bloody leg oh god this was bad i'm hit i'm hit
[01:31:20] so what's crazy about these situations is when there's an in your knee these i.e.
[01:31:28] the environments no one can move like you can't just go oh my buddy's hurt i'm going to go help
[01:31:35] that's the wrong move you have to you have to actually freeze and not move yep
[01:31:42] where there's one there's five yeah and and you find out later that this was a little bit of a
[01:31:50] well not a full low order detonation but there was probably 20 pounds and only seven or
[01:31:57] only only like a third of the the the i.e. went off yep otherwise you wouldn't be here right now no there
[01:32:03] would be they they they could have put what was left in me in a plastic bag if the whole thing would
[01:32:08] went off
[01:32:15] these guys they do and again you know you do a great job describing the stuff in the book
[01:32:21] i mean there's one part where you say i hear the team sergeant lansiel don't move Ryan
[01:32:26] and you help back where the fuck do you think i'm going as you're sitting there wounded yeah
[01:32:36] second stretched by like hours i'd never been in so much pain or felt so alone it was like i was
[01:32:41] the only person in that village i lay on my side and the dirt waiting for the bright light
[01:32:44] everyone says you see before you die lans is the closest american to me but i knew he couldn't
[01:32:49] rush to me because i had walked into an i.e. beef filled area chances were that he would be next and
[01:32:54] then what and in that moment it was impossible it was impossible to think clearly this is it
[01:33:01] i'm going to die in this shit whole village in afghanistan
[01:33:09] as i lay there for what seemed like hours i prayed harder than i had in years this was serious i
[01:33:13] felt like i was in the cost of eternity i'd always heard there were no atheists and foxholes
[01:33:18] and i guess they were right i was a Christian who had accepted Jesus Christ into my heart years
[01:33:22] ago but i'd strayed from the path of righteousness since then to say the least none the last i made
[01:33:28] peace with god and figured he understood the mistakes i had made in my life came back to me but
[01:33:33] so did the things i'd done right i asked for forgiveness for my sins and for the people i had heard
[01:33:39] in the state of mind i was in i felt this could be my last chance to make things right
[01:33:44] suddenly i felt a calm comb over me that i couldn't explain explain the pain lesson as i felt
[01:33:50] like i was fading into a deep sleep i thought of some of the good times i had had in my life
[01:33:54] for the July barbecue was loved ones watching the fireworks without a care in the world traveling
[01:33:59] around the world and all the amazing experience that brought me but most of all i was thinking about
[01:34:03] my family and how much at that moment i missed them i hope i've made my family proud but i also
[01:34:08] felt a strong sense of nagging guilt for letting my team down no green brahe wants that to happen but
[01:34:14] it did i fought back tears because i felt like i had failed my team five minutes or so after stepping
[01:34:20] on the i.e. i knew i was hanging on for dear life i could feel my life myself slipping away
[01:34:26] i'd heard so many say that your life flashes before your eyes just before you go but that wasn't
[01:34:31] happening i didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing stay awake lansiel don't pass
[01:34:36] out Ryan we're moving and you i skipped over this part but you had been trying to get a turn
[01:34:41] to get on yourself and you like couldn't get it done no i yeah i couldn't get it done because i
[01:34:45] um so i i pulled one of the rookie mistakes where usually on your kit you rubber band the
[01:34:52] turn a kid on correct well as you know it if that's security i'm gonna double secure it i'm
[01:34:58] gonna use the tip ties oh yeah so oops oops
[01:35:05] uh uh fast forward a little bit i felt a slap sharp i felt a sharp slap across my face and
[01:35:16] another and another each one harder than the last what the fuck i opened my eyes my
[01:35:20] found myself lying still in the dirt of the this pissant village my teammate George
[01:35:26] screamed stay awake Ryan keep your eyes open so he's just for his slap and you trying to
[01:35:32] so you are just all just blood loss um blood loss but i think more of it was shock and i don't
[01:35:39] i don't really understand how shock works but i i know it could kill you and so um there was some
[01:35:47] blood loss there but it was you know everything that had built up to you know George
[01:35:55] slap in the crap out of me um that was i i think i dealt with a lot of shock what was going on
[01:36:01] because i mean it's you know stepped on an ID yeah and then through they give you some morphine
[01:36:08] and you get hive so it turns out you're allergic to morphine yeah it's not a good to have to find out
[01:36:17] eventually and again you gotta read the book but eventually Kyle who must be a horse
[01:36:23] lifts Kyle couldn't move fast enough because he lifts you up he's buddy carrying you Kyle
[01:36:26] couldn't move fast enough because his body arm and gear along with 200 pound man over shoulder
[01:36:31] LZ was long ways away more than 500 meters the team took turns carrying me while keeping
[01:36:36] security high the Taliban knew i was hit because our afghan interpreted her monitoring
[01:36:40] their radio traffic could hear them celebrating and laughing about hitting me
[01:36:44] so they get you to the LZ um they get you extracted and then the next thing you know you're
[01:36:59] showing up in in uh tearing cot and then in the hospital you get pissed because they're
[01:37:05] gonna caught off your shirt which is one of your favorite lucky shirt my lucky organ ducks football
[01:37:10] share it yeah but they end up cut it off um and again you know you do you give you a great job
[01:37:19] talking about the medical team and the doctors, the nurses and the staff that freaking takes care of you
[01:37:24] and and keeps you alive, skit you stabilized and then from there you go to k af more surgeries
[01:37:36] they're trying to clean you know trying to clean it out and and then it's over to germany
[01:37:42] you end up in ramstine um and then at long stool i mean then again i'm just jumping through a bunch
[01:37:50] of stuff that you got to read the book because you know it's it's all it's all part of the story
[01:37:56] what you're going through i mean yeah i'll pull one little quote you say so i'm out of patrol
[01:38:04] trying to find i.e. my damn metal detector wasn't working so i closed my eyes and stomped around
[01:38:08] to clear the root boom found one mission success you say here i've been to germany many times
[01:38:19] during my military career but this time it felt different because i was fresh off the battlefield
[01:38:22] to Afghanistan i finally felt safe from the aircraft landed no longer a dangerous part of the world
[01:38:27] i could finally relax or so i thought what i didn't know is it now i'd have plenty of time to
[01:38:33] actually think about everything that had happened to me i would also have time to cry over
[01:38:38] my friends who didn't make it home alive the ones placed into coffins for the one way flight to
[01:38:42] dover air force base in Delaware a grim trip the no one wants to take out of time to think about
[01:38:48] the families torn apart because of war either because they lost a loved one or their soldier was
[01:38:52] coming home with a mangled body never to be the same again that was my situation as well i knew
[01:38:58] i was never going to be the same again all right um again jumping ahead here where you end up
[01:39:10] at broke army medical center bm it bmc for exam use in Texas fast forward after i woke up
[01:39:20] from my 15th surgery and unexpected visor stepped in my room where i was resting my father
[01:39:29] somewhere between me getting blown up and getting to germany my dad was notified about my injuries
[01:39:33] seeing my father standing next to my hospital bed in a sweat cake cowboy hat
[01:39:37] person is head and cowshit likely still on his boots gave me a much-needed sense of normality and
[01:39:42] safety this was a major surprise that it's good to see you my father gave my leg a long look
[01:39:48] then he gave me the usual tough but correct opinion well i figured if you played with fire long enough
[01:39:53] you're going to get burnt looks like you stepped on a doozy glad your lives son from his demeanor
[01:39:59] one would think i'd suffered a little more than scratch for the first month of my time at
[01:40:07] bmc my father never left my hospital room on the seventh floor it was like you felt the need to be
[01:40:11] there for me observing protecting and taking everything in my old sister Chris who is my half
[01:40:17] sister from my dad's first marriage was also there and you talk about the just the doctors and
[01:40:25] the nurses and the health care providers that are there and what they're seeing every single freaking
[01:40:31] day how hard that is on them you get your your lead doctor a guy named doctor sue
[01:40:40] and he comes in and you're talking to him the status of my right foot and leg was still uncertain
[01:40:49] i would lose the rest of my low would i lose the rest of my lower leg or was it worth trying to keep
[01:40:54] the damn thing doctor sue never sugarcoded anything even though at times i wish you would
[01:41:00] i'll never forget one conversation we have we have enough tissue to do a limb at salvage surgery
[01:41:06] he said well do our best to reattach your foot and lower leg but there are no guarantees because
[01:41:12] your leg is in bad shape we're giving it a 10 to 15 percent chance for success and if that doesn't
[01:41:19] work i asked we'll have to amputate but look on the bright side if this works we will rewrite
[01:41:25] limb salvage medical history well that was a ray of hope so do you think we should go ahead
[01:41:30] yes i do but this would be a long painful road it could be worth it in the end so what do you think
[01:41:37] i thought for a moment this was a big decision well i still have my leg i still have options
[01:41:43] but at the moment but the moment i have to cut it off there's no going back i reasoned
[01:41:47] you've been telling me that this will be the hardest thing i've ever done but if successful
[01:41:51] doctors will use my case to redefine limb salvage hell yeah i love a challenge let's do it
[01:42:02] like pain a picture for me what's connecting your right lower leg to your rest of your body
[01:42:12] so at that point in the hospital i had um this it it was called a um x fix it it looks like this
[01:42:20] giant bird cage and there's like 20 summod rods that they screw into your bone so my so
[01:42:29] you know obviously you need your you need your tip your tubula but the fib they weren't really
[01:42:35] worried about it and they said add the fib doesn't really do much for you so we're just going
[01:42:39] to let that free flow okay fine but the tip so basically what they did was they lined up
[01:42:45] the tubula the best that they could through the surgeries screwed all of the rods into my
[01:42:50] bones you know upper and lower and i had i had rods going into my toes i it looked like something
[01:42:57] of a saw movie but and then yeah they just they they they secure everything together with just
[01:43:06] all these rods going into your leg and then the halo devices that attached to the rods and then
[01:43:12] yeah the only way you can really grow bone is through friction and just beaten the crap out of
[01:43:18] yourself and physical therapy and whatnot so you know i had about two two inches of a tubula
[01:43:26] to grow back and so i was yeah as well i did do some uh yeah some beat down sessions you know
[01:43:33] in physical therapy to get that bone grown so when when at like when it happened you describe
[01:43:40] there's just like basically a piece of meat keeping your leg how about nerves to the nerves get
[01:43:45] damaged yeah so even even right now i have um i probably have half um nerve function in my leg
[01:43:53] and then there's you know parts of my leg that i just don't feel at all and then there's other
[01:43:58] parts that are um hypersensitive and then and it's it's crazy but but yeah my right leg is
[01:44:07] a skin graph the bottom of my foot is skin graph it's it's it's pretty uh it's pretty it was it was
[01:44:15] pretty intense but medical technology and the graph the skin on your bottom of your foot uh so
[01:44:23] i have this during from i have this dream that i want to be able to kick somebody in the face
[01:44:29] because it's from my ass okay and then i could yeah this is that does that because i'm thinking
[01:44:36] is the skin that's on the bottom of your foot is that like does it does it develop calisers
[01:44:43] everything now like it no it's it's it'll never go past the newborn stage damn yeah so there's
[01:44:52] yeah when i damage it it's it's bad so this so this whole procedure was uh was like a freaking
[01:45:00] bottom of the ninth like just last ditch effort hail Mary i guess we'll go football we'll go hail
[01:45:07] Mary scenario yeah um well to save my leg it was but for the surgeons because i you know i remember
[01:45:14] Dr. She's saying i mean fly out he's like if it doesn't work it's not like you had a leg anyway so
[01:45:21] you know just move on so um for them it was an act it was an excellent opportunity to
[01:45:27] to advance um you know technology with lymph salvage and one i like that and um and yeah it's
[01:45:34] uh 2010 was an excellent year to do it because there's a lot of dudes getting blown up lots of dudes
[01:45:42] man that's um that's crazy uh this is cool your your command sergeant major who you call Brian
[01:45:50] Brian was a man of his word someone who put his men before himself he understood those under his
[01:45:55] command took personal time to do what he could to ensure each and every man was taken care of
[01:45:59] he was a tough leader who had crushed you if you were wrong but he would go to hell and back
[01:46:04] to defend any of his men and you go into the book here one thing among green berets is the
[01:46:11] willingness to do anything to get back in the fight i was no different toward the end of his visit
[01:46:16] i asked Brian the one question that had been haunting haunting me for weeks i don't know what my
[01:46:21] future holds but i will not let this injury beat me i fully intend on being a green beret
[01:46:26] and deploying again if i can get myself healthy will you send me back into the fight
[01:46:32] Brian looked at me like i had two heads then glanced down on my right leg he knew that he knew what
[01:46:37] was in the heart of every green beret but he had to drop some common sense on me you're lucky to be
[01:46:42] alive Ryan let's figure out how to get you walking again you've got a long road ahead of you
[01:46:48] relax and take it easy that wasn't exactly the response i was hoping for but hell i knew i'd be
[01:46:53] lucky to walk on assisted one day so maybe the chance of returning to active duty as a green beret
[01:46:58] were a little far fetched all it took was one look at my blown up leg and everyone knew this
[01:47:04] was something that just wasn't going to happen but i wasn't giving up Brian had my back but when i
[01:47:10] asked anyone in the hospital the same question i heard something like this it's cool the way you feel
[01:47:15] Ryan but you would be limping and impaying for the rest of your life leave the fighting to the
[01:47:19] young healthy guys you've proven yourself enough but before you left my sergeant major surprised me
[01:47:26] Brian leaned in look me in the eye and made me a promise Ryan if you can get medically cleared
[01:47:32] i will send you back to afghanistan
[01:47:37] yep check
[01:47:42] that's awesome i don't think he quite realized you know what was uh i i talked to and we still keep
[01:47:49] in touch now and it's you know it's hey man did you do you guys think i was going to you know come back
[01:47:55] is man it's i mean no yeah i can't imagine here it's just trying to sit you know okay yeah
[01:48:04] hey cool yeah i know you want to come back if you can get healthy you come back but really he's
[01:48:07] thinking i hope this guy walks again yeah it was and and not you know because i they did medically
[01:48:13] retire me and i had to you know fight back on the active duty um so but yeah it was uh it was
[01:48:21] one of those situations and i remember um i remember i had uh i forgot who he was either you
[01:48:27] they're not i don't know but um one of the doctors he said hey look man it's it's good to have goals
[01:48:34] it is but your goals aren't realistic you're setting yourself up for failure because you're not
[01:48:40] going back like this is the doctor told you this not doctor shoe but one of the other doctors yes
[01:48:46] another doctor that was a part of my um therapy whatnot and he and i understood where he was
[01:48:52] coming from it's expectation management you know um and he said i my biggest concern is that you
[01:48:59] set these goals up for yourself and when they don't happen you can't recover from you know not
[01:49:06] achieving your goals mmm especially as a wounded guy because we we all do it's you know i i
[01:49:13] don't think there's a single military member in the united states um armed forces that got wounded
[01:49:20] and didn't want to get back in the flight as quick as they could i mean they're probably is i don't know
[01:49:24] i don't think so yeah i've never heard of one so but yeah you just expectation management you
[01:49:31] got to understand like you can want it and it's a good drive but man it's you're you know you're in
[01:49:40] the bottom of your your in the bottom of the ninth just like you said so it's like you need to
[01:49:45] you need you need to do some management expectation here because like start thinking about other things
[01:49:50] start you know what are you gonna do with your life out of the military and stuff like that
[01:49:54] and i understood where he was going with it because um unfortunately a very bad statistic even you know
[01:50:01] 2009 and 10 11 12 was um wounded dudes dying you know um commintan suicide whatnot and and so they
[01:50:08] had to manage expectations with you guys because yeah so i understood it um the other thing that you
[01:50:16] write about in here is the like you're on all these different drugs obviously for painkillers and stuff
[01:50:21] but it seems like that's just kind of sent you in like real super emotional you'd be like laughing
[01:50:27] then you'd be crying and sound like that was just freaking crazy yeah yeah the the drugs i was
[01:50:33] on i mean methadone for one oh my gosh it's i don't quite know what it would be like to be a
[01:50:39] zombie but i'm pretty sure i got a good idea from that drug yeah methadone is a hell of a drug so
[01:50:46] and that's what they used to get people off of heroin and you're just you they had you on it for
[01:50:50] pain obviously yep so crazy uh there's another got another got another quote in here from the
[01:51:01] old man maybe my left get the old man on the podcast says uh you know because you are you kind of
[01:51:07] like rock bottom you're all freaking emotional about everything and he says looks on you got Delta
[01:51:13] bad hand but this is a speed bump in life that's all how you handle this situation and pick
[01:51:18] yourself up will determine how this affects you later as bad as it seems right now as dark as
[01:51:24] the times appear to be never forget that with time you will heal and look back on this please don't
[01:51:31] allow yourself to look back and feel ashamed about how you dealt with this take control of your
[01:51:37] life own this situation turn it into something good learn about yourself in a positive way and I promise
[01:51:45] you in the end you will be a better man dad's pep talk man to pep talk meant the world to me i
[01:51:56] lay in my hospital bed that night and vowed i would never become a victim of life's circumstances
[01:52:01] i would use this situation to make myself even stronger i would face my demons which i had held
[01:52:06] close for many years and defeat them for years i had used my difficult childhood as a crutch after
[01:52:12] my father and mother divorced dad had married two more times and always seemed to find the bad ones
[01:52:17] i did not trust women or really anyone for that matter which i blamed on my past before i became a
[01:52:23] green beret i'd two failed marriages and it left the path of destruction behind me but i always found
[01:52:29] ways to rationalize my behavior it was never my fault i'm this way because i grew up poor i'm
[01:52:35] this way because i had a shitty childhood i'm this way because life's not fair everything was always
[01:52:41] someone or something else's fault i did not have control over my life life controlled me even
[01:52:50] though my dad had raised me right there were some things you just had to learn on your own the
[01:52:55] hard way the saying what doesn't kill you makes you stronger seemed like the story of my life
[01:53:02] but it didn't just happen on my own i had to make the choice to become stronger that's when i
[01:53:09] determined i would use this near death experience to make myself a better man this will not beat
[01:53:15] me i will be the man i was raised to be i will take control of my life and finally be responsible for my
[01:53:20] actions even with this my come to Jesus moment i knew life wasn't going to get any easier as a matter
[01:53:28] fact the hard work was just beginning i can take some ownership what's going on you're dad told
[01:53:40] you to own it yeah i actually a lot of people don't understand this when i say when i say this
[01:53:47] but um stepping on that iED actually saved my life yeah and expand so the path that i was heading
[01:53:56] down i was i was going to a point to where i couldn't return from um just life controlled me
[01:54:04] a victim of everything i was just running you know i would destroy people around me instead of building
[01:54:10] them up i was not a good person um even with the victory of becoming a green beret i still hadn't
[01:54:17] i i still hadn't faced any of my issues i was just i was constantly running for issues and um
[01:54:24] and there was always i mean there was always something i was just i was weak it was easy to
[01:54:32] to blame somebody or something or use the excuse of i mean you name it and i came up with it
[01:54:39] instead of taking i mean i'll use it um you trade market but instead of taking extreme ownership of your
[01:54:47] life i um you know i i allowed life to to own me and it did and it did and it wasn't until i
[01:54:56] stepped on that iED that i was actually able to get control of my life again what are the biggest
[01:55:02] things you thought what was what was like the core issue that you were running from what like was
[01:55:08] pent up in you that made you that you think like steered you in these directions where you would
[01:55:13] be being a tear people down like what do you think made you so kind of destructive i hated myself
[01:55:20] i wasn't happy um i didn't know how to like myself i didn't i you know i always tried to live this
[01:55:28] other people's lives thing and you know i mean you see it today it's it's rampant where people
[01:55:34] they try and be something that they're not they they don't have their own identity and i had no
[01:55:39] identity because what i was as a person was was ugly and destructive and i didn't like myself at all
[01:55:47] and so i technically i was always running from myself in the easiest way to do it is to take a good
[01:55:54] situation turn it into shit blame everybody else for tear people down around you and then move on to the next
[01:56:01] lately i've been thinking about this um it's real easy when when you got an opportunity when there's
[01:56:08] an opportunity for you to do something and you either fail or you're scared to try one of the easiest
[01:56:17] things to do is say well that's not cool or that's not the important or that's not for me so
[01:56:25] it happens on every level right it happens on every level when you know oh you're not great
[01:56:29] you're not a great runner well running we we see here's a classic example in the seal teams
[01:56:34] uh running right to just running let go go on for run and people that weren't good at running
[01:56:42] would be like running breeds cowardice meaning yeah you know we're never going to run and it's
[01:56:47] it's funny thing you know but that's like a little bit of an example of what we do as people
[01:56:53] of saying oh well uh school doesn't matter right when i was a kid right school doesn't
[01:56:59] school student that was me all day long when i was going to high school school doesn't matter
[01:57:03] why because i didn't want to try you know i didn't want to put forth the effort it's like oh so
[01:57:07] therefore it doesn't matter and it's something that we do all the time and people do it with um
[01:57:15] you know like hard work like starting a business uh and i'm not i'm not i'm not i'm not
[01:57:20] i'm not i'm not i'm not all into all that material stuff when really they just don't want to work hard
[01:57:24] yeah this are they cut it down and they actually will detract from people that are working hard
[01:57:29] there's and you could say this about really about anything right and it seems like that's sort of
[01:57:36] that's sort of it's not exactly what you're saying but it's something that i've been thinking about lately
[01:57:41] as i look at my life and i'm like oh you know oh yeah that doesn't really matter i'm like oh wait a
[01:57:44] second does that really not matter or am i just am i just throwing that thing out because it's
[01:57:50] something that i don't want to do or i'm afraid of or i'm calling it not important because oh
[01:57:56] really okay well let's take a look at that let's take a look at that you look puzzled no no that's
[01:58:02] it's that's interesting there that because that's like a level deeper than like what's happening
[01:58:07] that's like kind of like okay so you know what sour grapes right you heard that before sour
[01:58:11] yeah yeah that expression so it's kind of the same way expand on sour grapes so i know
[01:58:15] your definition okay so sour grapes is like it's almost like jealousy almost but
[01:58:23] so this is where the expression came from found out where there was this fox and he saw some
[01:58:28] grapes hanging on a vine kind of high up and he's like oh i'm gonna jump up and eat those grapes
[01:58:33] so he jumps up and he can't jump high enough so he's like all right whatever all he any try is
[01:58:39] again still can't jump high enough he tries one more time he's like oh no i'm gonna get on this time
[01:58:44] is there they look delicious up there he jumps up he can't get him and he's like that's grapes
[01:58:49] probably sour anyway you know that's it and leaves so it's kind of that right definitely kind of
[01:58:56] yeah definitely kind of that I don't want it you don't like that yeah that's not important yeah
[01:59:02] sour and if you let that if you if you if you continually do that if you continually to kind of
[01:59:10] shun and turn your back on everything that is a challenge you know like you could have done this like
[01:59:16] you know being in this freaking special operations you know after you after you didn't make it through
[01:59:21] buds you'd be like yeah being in special being the military stupid right you could have done that you
[01:59:26] could have done that all day long being the military stupid those guys are freaking idiots
[01:59:29] I don't want to be like you could have you could have gone into that mode and you just turn your back
[01:59:33] and then you turn your back on something else and you and pretty soon you look around and there's
[01:59:37] you're just you have nothing left right there's no that you've turned your back on everything
[01:59:41] yep it becomes a lifestyle and that's that's when it's dangerous and we've all we've all seen
[01:59:47] people today that they have shunned away from anything that is that that they could possibly
[01:59:56] fail at because of the fear of failure that they I mean they they've made that their life they
[02:00:03] are that person now and that's that's hard to come back from you know what I really like about
[02:00:09] what you just said I really like the fact that you just because you know everyone talks about
[02:00:13] lifestyle in like a positive thing like let's a Gigi to lifestyle it's a healthy lifestyle
[02:00:18] it's a what and you're like oh there's another lifestyle it's called denial and making excuses
[02:00:24] that's a lifestyle too and it's a shitty one that means a bad place is that's interesting
[02:00:30] the deterring other people down thing where you know how you say it out loud and it's like
[02:00:34] why would anyone do that like it's so obvious not to do that but I think when you're in it
[02:00:41] and you say you hated yourself right yeah we're even that's another one or it's like how can you
[02:00:45] hate yourself that doesn't even make sense right it's oh that's like expression but in a way it's
[02:00:52] like literally true where if you if you don't like yourself that makes you feel a certain way
[02:00:57] and it's it's bad it's a bad feeling we'll say it puts simply so what kind of relief can you get
[02:01:03] from that bad feeling is if you make other people seem less than and it kind of like relieves
[02:01:10] you of that feeling just a little bit you know but not fully not even close to fully so you
[02:01:14] constantly gotta do it to feel better about yourself essentially yep it is it's a series problem
[02:01:21] we we see it in our country all the time right now I think that's actually what made me start
[02:01:28] thinking about this because I'm talking about oh running is but you're what you're talking about
[02:01:34] the same thing when you look at another person and instead of going damn that person's really
[02:01:38] accomplished a lot that's awesome instead you say well I'm not gonna be some kind of career guy
[02:01:42] that's chasing a promotion or yeah they they just want to get all those calls so they could look
[02:01:47] good yeah you just throw all kinds of hate at them yeah but the person that you really hate
[02:01:52] those are those are the excuses I'm talking about is you make up your own demise you make up
[02:01:58] your own excuses as to why that is not your path into basically you demonize that person to
[02:02:07] make yourself feel better even though 90 that's great 100% of the time it's because it's because
[02:02:17] you're afraid to fail yeah and it's weird when you start looking at chunks of people that
[02:02:27] look into oh that lifestyles bad and it's like okay what do you really about about someone that's
[02:02:35] working hard and trying to be in good physical condition and trying to learn and trying to grow
[02:02:42] like there's people that look down on all those things which is kind of crazy when you think about it
[02:02:48] yeah yep all right hey tell us about the what do you call the ideal breed
[02:02:57] braids or is it ideal like do you how do you say that yeah it's it so I call it an ideal
[02:03:02] ideal okay but yeah basically it's Ryan Blanick he he created these things and it gives me a
[02:03:14] calf and you know push up you know I couldn't I got plant I think whatever one goes down I don't know
[02:03:20] but I yeah I'm sitting here trying to tell you all right it's like an exoskeleton type
[02:03:26] brace that you wear that makes up for whatever deficiencies you might have yes you're moving
[02:03:32] yes and so it gives you know that that basically it's it gives you your life back and that's what
[02:03:39] allows you to keep your leg that's what allows you to not have to go through the prosthetic
[02:03:45] is because now you have this I'm not even going to try and say the name but it's it's long
[02:03:52] the you mean the intrepid dynamic exoskeleton or phosis that that's what I was going to say
[02:03:58] I understand you do you have to wear that thing all the time so I've actually gotten to a
[02:04:04] point now to where I've rebuilt back my leg to where I only use that if I'm doing anything physical
[02:04:11] like gym I'll have my ideal on or deployment I'll wear the ideal whatnot but here I know I came here
[02:04:20] without it on I didn't you're walking around I mean you you walk in totally normal walking upstairs
[02:04:25] downstairs I mean it's awesome to see yeah and yeah until until you tell you cut on that one thing
[02:04:32] and it's that's funny and that's because you have no nerves or do you have like drop foot
[02:04:37] no I I don't have drop foot it's kind of naturally as fused itself at the the L okay yeah so
[02:04:47] but you know you can catch yourself and it's I think it's funny
[02:04:52] what is drop foot like it's like it's like it's like the nerve that makes you lift up your foot
[02:04:57] gets damaged and so your foot just kind of has done yeah yeah yeah yeah it did it naturally
[02:05:03] fused at the ankle joint so that nerve is gone but it's just the foot just stays at an
[02:05:09] out of no and Andy Stumpf has a certain amount of drop foot and from when he got shot you like
[02:05:17] lost some you got some you got a bunch of injuries but he got some nerve damage and so his foot
[02:05:21] doesn't respond really the way he wants it to and he makes him pretty funny jokes about that
[02:05:26] I can't imagine it's it's got a funny thing so the army wanted to medically retire you
[02:05:34] at this point and and then they offered you kind of something called continuation on active duty
[02:05:40] which means you basically they're still going to give you your paycheck and you're going to
[02:05:43] some kind of an admin job for you get to 20 yep yes so I was medically retired and then I applied
[02:05:49] for the waiver which was the continuation on active duty waiver and I got picked up for that how many
[02:05:55] years had you been in at this point total Air Force Navy and Army 12 yeah something like that
[02:06:04] so you now did you is that a document that you like signed you accept that or did you fight it
[02:06:11] the medical retirement well the medically retired medical retirement you you obviously fought
[02:06:16] yeah I mean that that was so I was medically retired and then I came back on to active duty
[02:06:22] through a waiver got it so they medically retired you and then you came back on when you
[02:06:27] came back on did you have that limited duty thing the the the continuation on active duties that
[02:06:32] how you came back on yeah and basically what it is so they do it for green braise seals
[02:06:38] raiders all kinds of stuff if they they spent that kind of money training you up we can find some
[02:06:44] review yeah absolutely no it's an awesome program and it's a good way to take care of take care of
[02:06:49] people yep then you find out about this program called four three yeah and so it's all about that
[02:06:57] Thor three program so I think I think this seals I think you guys kind of have some similar
[02:07:03] the return to fight program yeah we got all we got awesome people that are just doing everything
[02:07:08] they can to keep guys ready and if they get hurt to get them back in the fight yep it's awesome
[02:07:13] yep so it's basically that we call it the return to fight or the road to war program or whatever
[02:07:20] and it's hard I mean they bring these guys in from you know they were physical trainers for
[02:07:27] you know hockey teams or whatnot or like Paul he was he he was on Tito Ortiz's group and Paul
[02:07:35] did all of the athletic training for him so yeah you're not really going to tell him like it's kind of
[02:07:41] awesome it's like oh that's cute so and and I just I knew you know I I'd gotten myself back
[02:07:50] to seventh group but I had a dead man's profile so I knew for me for seventh group to wave
[02:07:58] big armies profile I would have to I would have to tear up dudes in the Thor three program
[02:08:04] and and so I just you know I I was on this path of you know I I was getting I was
[02:08:11] rocking up victories in my life and and so the Thor three program was it was tough it was extremely
[02:08:19] hard but guys that had never been hurt before I was just you know with all the physical events
[02:08:24] and everything like that just leave me in the middle dust but you know they weren't really
[02:08:27] fighting for anything I was I was trying to get back to war so um and then
[02:08:34] you you end up pulling it off man yeah yeah uh here you go after a few months of working with it
[02:08:40] with a Thor three program building up my body and rehabbing my store right leg and pressing my
[02:08:44] PT's on how far I'd come my command gave me some great news I was good to deploy
[02:08:51] when seventh group would take full responsibility for me my waiver was signed I was jacked
[02:08:56] from the moment I got the word from Brian that if I could get healthy enough huge semi back I had
[02:09:01] only one goal in my head to return to combat this was why I'd put in all the hard work I didn't
[02:09:06] want to be cooped up in some cubicle reading reports and looking at the clock counting down
[02:09:09] the hours until I would call today I want to be conducting missions with the guys doing what I
[02:09:14] was trained to do taking the flight to the enemy my company had already left for Afghanistan but once
[02:09:19] I got the medical waiver signed by seventh group lead surgeon I was on the next flight out April
[02:09:24] 2012 I would be deployed to the Pange Y is that right? uh Pange way district and can't
[02:09:32] to hard province in southern Afghanistan known as the birthplace of the Taliban times could have been
[02:09:37] tensor in the area so there you go man yeah yeah I got my wish return returned to war and then
[02:09:46] I got sent to the the most heavily IED area in Afghanistan in 2012 bro this is this is freaking
[02:09:54] all right so here we go you're you get sent to the most heavily IED place I was reading this
[02:10:03] I was like all right I'll just read it so here we go you're on you're on a really hard patrol
[02:10:10] to get to where you're going to get to the target area your the freaking point man again
[02:10:17] by the way the last time you were a point man you you got freaking blown up yeah
[02:10:22] you start you start clearing this compound again this is like deja vu back to the book we were
[02:10:29] barely underway when one of my afghan special forces soldiers and I detected our first IED
[02:10:34] and a partially collapsed outside wall of the first compound there it was buried in the dirt
[02:10:40] surrounded by rubble from a break in the wall that was likely caused by a previous IED blast
[02:10:45] or an RPG strike a nice little IED all you had to do is trip this sucker all you had to do to trip
[02:10:51] this sucker was step on the pressure plates that connected the positive wires to the negative
[02:10:55] once the circuit was completed boom the charge went off and your life was changed forever
[02:10:59] welcome back to afghanistan the Taliban had figured we would take this route because it was a
[02:11:04] short cut into the compound I have to admit that finding my first IED since nearly losing my life
[02:11:10] especially a nasty one like this produced a whole range of emotions my heart was racing
[02:11:16] but I had to keep it together because my team was watching really you have to admit that you had
[02:11:21] some some emotions first I slowly pushed the dirt away exposing the corners of the pressure
[02:11:29] plate I studied my hands and searched for the arming wires when I uncovered them I trace the
[02:11:34] wires to a battery pack hidden behind some rocks then I disconnected the power source and clamped
[02:11:39] surgical clamps to the wire my surgical clamps were attached to a 50 foot nylon cord so I could
[02:11:44] get some standoff or safe distance before pulling out the pressure plate after moving the team back I
[02:11:50] got my 50 feet of standoff and gave the cord a pull the pressure plate came flying through the air
[02:11:55] the first step was complete but the IED was not completely disarmed I then attached my cord to a
[02:12:01] plastic yellow jug buried beneath the pressure plate and returned my to my 50 foot withdrawal distance
[02:12:07] after a tug of war match with the jug I was finally able to yank it out of the ground crap
[02:12:12] this was a 15 pound IED more than enough to kill you or blow off both your legs
[02:12:18] how come I didn't just safely blow up the IED which is exactly what I was asking but normal
[02:12:22] procedure is when you find a freaking IED you put some explosives on your blow that thing up
[02:12:27] blow in place. Bip. Yep. Usually when I come across an idea I exposed part of the pressure plate
[02:12:33] to verify it was natural explosive then I would place a half block of C4 on it and blow it in place
[02:12:39] but we were trying to track down the IED makers in our area I decided to disarmed the IED instead
[02:12:43] of blowing it up because of the increased pressure we were getting to collect evidence which was
[02:12:48] key to finding the culprits with this first IED out of the way I breathed the deep sigh relief
[02:12:54] things had gone well and it almost felt like I knew what I was doing better yet I gave my teammates
[02:12:59] a warm fuzzy feeling about my capabilities and showed them that I could be an asset rather than
[02:13:04] a liability on the battlefield why did I deal with the IED instead of directing one of our
[02:13:10] afghan counter IEDs to get on it you could call me stupid or crazy but I wanted to get some
[02:13:16] IEDs under my belt okay I mean I you're not stupid so I guess we're going with crazy
[02:13:26] and I guess you want to get some IEDs under your belt has been to get an IEDs under your foot
[02:13:30] yeah I think I think my mindset at that time was very I mean could have been
[02:13:38] pretty deemed as pretty reckless but I just then that was the first one I came in contact with
[02:13:44] and I was going to own it yeah that's just kind of that's the choice I made if I was to go back I would
[02:13:50] stick half-blocksy for on and move back and that's what you're doing man IED after IED cash after
[02:13:57] cash every time we go out on a mission one thing was certain is the sun coming up in the
[02:14:01] morning we'd run into some sort of explosive device made to kill or maymust and you know I I
[02:14:07] skipped through the part where you kind of like we're checking back in with the team and these
[02:14:10] guys are thinking hey can this guy really do his job and he's already how scared is he going to be
[02:14:14] how bad is his leg he's out here with a freaking brace on his leg what kind of you know so you
[02:14:19] had to kind of push through all that it kind of skipped through but it's a really interesting part of
[02:14:22] the book as well yeah I mean and and that's the thing is I've I've heard people's reaction to it
[02:14:29] they're like oh well that's that's that's just so messed up and I was like it's not that's special
[02:14:33] operations when you go out to the team being in war isn't a make-a-wish foundation kind of thing
[02:14:40] like oh you know here's our make-a-wish foundation green beret we're gonna take them out on some missions
[02:14:44] no people people can die and and so I understood completely like they knew what had happened to me
[02:14:51] most of the team was on the battlefield that day in the helmet saw my leg and so for me to get back
[02:14:59] out to the team in the most heavily ied area in afghanistan at that point I don't blame like what are
[02:15:06] you doing here dude like you have no business being out here but you got to prove it
[02:15:12] another cool I'm not gonna read the whole section but you're talking about like what you're looking for
[02:15:17] and one thing you said is you you you'd you'd be looking and you'd be thinking what I put an
[02:15:22] ID there if I was a bad guy that was kind of the perception you looked at everything with oh yeah
[02:15:26] I get asked this question a lot about how do I find ied's and they're like oh yeah the mine detector
[02:15:32] my detector doesn't really do anything for me I look at so I I take a breakdown of the battlefield
[02:15:38] or the objective that we're going on to and then I look at okay so the easiest avenues of approach
[02:15:45] they're gonna be ied's there you got a 12 foot mud hut wall and there's a break in the wall right
[02:15:50] here and then it's 12 feet again there's gonna be an ied there and then I also so before I even
[02:15:56] use my mind detector I get ground sign ground sign tells me everything and then I verify it with
[02:16:03] my mind detector and then I mean I've I've definitely come up to like breaks in the wall and whatnot
[02:16:11] and I don't even use my mind detector or anything I just put a block a c4 there get back and
[02:16:15] whoa yeah because it's gonna be one there and so how much of how much do you think like a one
[02:16:23] thing I was always paranoid about it's like oh they got the fake ied there and did this in
[02:16:27] remodio a lot like oh there's a wire and whatever and someone goes over to disarm it and they step
[02:16:32] on something else to get blown up yep the decoys the decoys are nasty super nasty and that
[02:16:37] that goes back to that you know that saying that we've all had and I guarantee you guys probably
[02:16:43] said it in remodie was where there's one there's five you know you know where there's one there
[02:16:49] could be ten or what but where there's one there's gonna be secondary because when that guy hits
[02:16:54] one of them then the rescue teams gonna come in and they're gonna start hitting the secondarys or
[02:16:59] we're gonna use one as a decoy and then we're pretty sure we can funnel with this decoy here now I
[02:17:05] can funnel the troop movement this way and then it's all iedd yeah and my point in bringing that up
[02:17:11] is like it's it's it's it's it's not checkers it's not like oh there's an obvious place there's
[02:17:17] an ID it's chess where it's like oh there's one there but that means they're probably thinking
[02:17:20] we're gonna move over there so in the place we really need to watch out for it so the Taliban are
[02:17:25] super good at that crazy good at trying to anticipate troop movements and then iedd's you're
[02:17:33] carrying on with the deployment months go by and at one point you're in a little bit of a firefight
[02:17:40] and you you step into basically a shit ditch and it's filled with shit it's filled with human
[02:17:49] sewage which is which socks because it's staying since it's gross and all that but the real
[02:17:54] problem is you got your you know your foot which is a bunch of skin graphs is in there and this is
[02:18:02] after a long patrol so you already got blisters and whatnot because you got freaking baby
[02:18:07] skin on the bottom of your foot yeah open blisters so that is a problem yeah i mean we we got we
[02:18:18] got in a bit of a tick and every every war fighter knows cover and then return fire
[02:18:24] violence of action everything like that to you know get control the situation again
[02:18:30] and so i remember you know we're we're engaging you know different targets and i was you know
[02:18:35] my my adrenaline was really high but it still is man something really sick here it's like what in
[02:18:41] the heck is this and i just and then finally once you know it's like all right we got aircraft
[02:18:46] on station which means bad guys are gone so then i start to kind of get a sense of my surroundings
[02:18:53] and as a shit trench then i was up to my my calves and and so all of the open sores that i had
[02:19:00] where my skin graphs were just human feces going in yeah so you get an infection
[02:19:12] and you're worried like you're gonna get sent home but it turns out they don't they don't
[02:19:15] sent you on yeah go ahead no yeah my team you know when we got back you know i basically i
[02:19:23] had to tell our delta you know because it was bad he's man you need to go to calf and then when i
[02:19:28] got the calf they basically said they're like okay you're done in the panjoy we need to monitor you
[02:19:36] we don't you know we're not sure if you're gonna read a boy back to the states or not
[02:19:39] i knew if i read a boy back to the states that was a death wish as in and i don't mean literally but
[02:19:45] as in the command will know that this gamble that they took the let me go back to war
[02:19:51] it didn't pay off and i would never see combat again and so i i found work
[02:19:57] um i carried heavy shit and i made myself an important part of that and this was the first time
[02:20:04] in my life and so again it sounds really weird but stepping in this you know knee deep or i'm
[02:20:12] sorry calf deep and human feces led up to the first time in my life instead of saying poor
[02:20:20] me this happened to me why did i jump in that one trench and everything like that i owned it and i
[02:20:26] went and i found work and i and i made myself this valuable asset on calf load and helicopters
[02:20:31] to send supplies out to the guys in the field you know and still in combat and i i made you know
[02:20:38] made a name for myself is always getting these guys as if they needed one like that so i found work
[02:20:43] and then that was the first time that like that was a major victory for me of taking control
[02:20:50] over something that i very easily in the past what a straight went into victimization so
[02:20:58] so that here how long you doing that job for um i was doing that for
[02:21:05] probably the last three months of the deployment um and then you do you end up healing up
[02:21:12] decently and there's one more there's there ends up being a mission and the mission is is uh
[02:21:19] to go set up there's a big mission going on but you're gonna go with the command element you're
[02:21:23] gonna set up a command post on the top of a hill and that means you're gonna get inserted and
[02:21:28] you're gonna have to walk two kilometers but with three thousand feet of elevation gain and it's
[02:21:35] it's a it's a tough mission it's physically tough mission you you have some other strap hangers
[02:21:40] with you one of those guys wants to quit one of the other guys you guys end up having to carry
[02:21:44] other people's gear on that but you do it yeah you do it you do a good job you're healed up
[02:21:52] and luckily on the mission you know it's a it's a relatively peaceful mission yeah we we were
[02:21:59] supporting so the the seals and a bunch of ODA's we were clearing this valley together it was a joint
[02:22:06] mission and um and the command element last mission of the deployment command element wants to get
[02:22:12] you know boots on the ground say they did some and so yeah we yeah we were going up to hilltop
[02:22:18] 2000 and guys you know one guy he just flat out I mean it's already but quit and that's like I
[02:22:26] didn't think you can do that in combat yeah this is not training bro there's no training time out here
[02:22:32] and then another guy is body just failed him and so we were whole we were carrying all this stuff
[02:22:36] up to the top but I'm not big on spotlight range your kind of stuff but I knew for sure
[02:22:42] that I could solidify my career as a green beret if the kernel and the command sergeant major
[02:22:50] all saw me as a beast even though my body was oh that's that was another time when I learned like
[02:22:57] your mind quits way before your body will way before your body will and if you have if you
[02:23:04] you put this drive you you have this goal you want to reach and that goal is more important to you
[02:23:10] then your mind um given up on you then you will be able to see how much further you can actually
[02:23:19] go once your mind is told you you're done yeah I sometimes people like what do you do and you get
[02:23:24] what do you tell yourself when you don't want to do something and I'm like I don't tell myself
[02:23:29] anything because my mind is the one I'm just gonna I'm gonna be gonna keep you what I'm doing
[02:23:32] but like I don't have these negotiations with myself about like well you should really
[02:23:36] not like shut up keep going there's the answer yeah and it's it's hard until you make it a lifestyle
[02:23:44] yeah yeah that's the positive lifestyle we're looking for you get done with that mission
[02:23:51] you know you're a little while later you go back to America when you get back to America
[02:23:54] you're actually going to the normal seventh group rotation which seventh group's ayo
[02:24:01] is South America yep South Central America South Central America so you end up doing some
[02:24:08] do you call them deployments if they're if they're short what do you call those um so we we have
[02:24:12] CNTs or um J sets and I know seals you guys do J sets also yep you also do CNTs the counter
[02:24:21] in our cottage yeah okay so it's the same thing because we um I remember all of my deployments
[02:24:26] South Central America there was always um uh seal Patuens there so so you do some of those
[02:24:33] shorter trips and you go to L-SAL you go to Columbia you go to Peru and then I think you were
[02:24:41] getting ready to deploy to Guatemala and all of a sudden things change yeah they had um they
[02:24:50] requested it so Bravo Company second battalion was heading back to Afghanistan short on guys and
[02:24:58] so I saw I saw my in right there and I I started creating you know ways of finding my way over
[02:25:04] to Afghanistan somehow and that was that was all it took was I just I gave them the sales pitch
[02:25:11] and the original answer to your sales pitch was cool you can come but you're going to be
[02:25:15] not you know not not uh shooter yeah I was going to be riding a desk in managing um um uh
[02:25:25] just sources right right um so you so you're doing that that's your plan is to go over there
[02:25:33] you show up and uh about a month after you're there you get approached by the ops sergeant
[02:25:42] who says a new mission just got dropped in our laps you want to piece the action
[02:25:47] and uh you say yep and so you guys start planning this mission uh going to the book here the
[02:25:53] way we drew things up the Taliban would see the Afghan commandos heading into the village and fire
[02:25:57] at them knowing for certain that the Afghan soldiers would turn and run away like they had many
[02:26:02] times before once a bunch of Taliban assholes started shooting however that would be all we needed
[02:26:07] to call in close air support assets overhead which would give the Taliban a healthy taste of
[02:26:11] American firepower the insurgents would know in a New York minute that the Americans were in the
[02:26:16] fight and that would change the battlefield in a hurry and then you say on paper everything
[02:26:22] red well and I put a nice little exclamation point by that because as we know things that look
[02:26:30] good on paper don't always turn out the way you expect them to you proceed into this I'm going
[02:26:37] to fast forward a little bit um you're you're now executing the mission I could see our first target
[02:26:44] compound which was about a hundred meters up the path still had a long distance to clear and again
[02:26:50] this is after you you insert on the mission and we get done plan the mission you go
[02:26:54] insert on the mission you're moving you're moving to this first area that you're going to clear
[02:26:59] and the path started in narrow and rows of dormant fruit trees swallowed up the ground as we
[02:27:05] patrol deeper into the orchard I reminded myself to concentrate on significant details that were
[02:27:10] almost impossible to see under night vision and then pop with the fuck was that we all hit the ground
[02:27:16] unsure of the loud snap we just heard was a gunshot snipers in the area we waited for a shit storm
[02:27:21] of bullets to rain down on us but nothing happened then I noticed that jaw weed is that right
[02:27:26] yep Joey jaw weed and I were tangled in some type of line almost like fishing line holy shit
[02:27:34] we had hit a trip wire i.e. that didn't explode how did I miss that as jaw weed carefully
[02:27:41] investigated a trip wire against his chest without any quick movements I determined that the
[02:27:45] Taliban had tied the wire that ran from the set of explosives in in a mud wall all the way to a
[02:27:51] tree on the opposite side of the path the wire had been tied at chest level not the usual ankle
[02:27:56] height a clever move on the Taliban's part they knew we would be looking at our detectors to clear
[02:28:01] which meant we would be looking down at the dirt and walk right into a chest level trip wire
[02:28:07] why didn't the i.e. go off the best exclamation I could come up with was that the when the
[02:28:12] Overwatch element laid waste for five minutes firing everything they had into the orchard
[02:28:16] fragmentation from one of the mortars had hit the i.e. in disavvled it luck was on our side so
[02:28:21] there you go you're walking through this freaking orchard you hit a trip wire and for whatever
[02:28:26] reason probably the the preparatory fire that had been fired by your team had disrupt the
[02:28:32] die. we had cleared another 15 meters of path when I saw movement in an open field near the
[02:28:40] first compound I turned to Abe and Abe is one of your guys that you had with you one of your
[02:28:46] one of your afghans that you had with you and that was when it all hell broke out
[02:28:51] before Abe could respond the night was lit up by a barrage of gunfire coming from the compounds
[02:28:58] outer wall first it was a zip zip zip followed by the crack of 762 caliber rounds flying past our
[02:29:03] heads these rounds which rip holes in the darkness looked like a laser light show with tracer
[02:29:08] streaking across the night sky next came an explosion from an RPG being fired at us then more
[02:29:13] automatic fire we'd walk directly into an ambush shit with my heart beating out of my chest I hit
[02:29:18] the ground and started returning fire the Taliban the Taliban had set up a complex ambush
[02:29:24] ambush and the trip wire IED was supposed to start the whole thing off one of their pk
[02:29:28] machine guns let out a burst of 20 meters a burst of fire 20 meters from our position
[02:29:33] a distance so close that it was almost like I could grab the flame coming out of the end of the
[02:29:37] barrel jawede Abe and booze molla how do you say that best bezzmula bismula jump into the ditch
[02:29:44] well cahan con con okay just con well con darted back and took cover behind a tree
[02:29:53] I hit the deck and lay as flat as I could in the middle of the dirt path bullets kicked up and rock
[02:29:58] and gravel fragments all around me stinging my skin when bullets hit the ground around me
[02:30:03] splintering fragments sprayed everywhere I could tell some fragments struck my body armor's
[02:30:08] protective plate I was engaged I engaged the flames figuring that where there were flames there
[02:30:14] was a gun and where there was an AK 47 there was a fighter Ryan your strobe light my buddy Zach
[02:30:21] yelled over the radio they have NVGs they can see your strobe damn bro what were you thinking
[02:30:29] when you heard that I need to get this off comment I need to get this I are strobe away from me
[02:30:37] and our jatac couldn't see me because we had got caught up in an L shaped ambush and so he wasn't
[02:30:45] sure where the pkm was and that's you know so I took it off my helmet and I threw it as close as I
[02:30:51] could to where that pkm was at and then just hit the deck again and started engaging muzzle flashes
[02:30:57] and the jatac went you through the IR could he see it could the jatac see it so it's kind of funny
[02:31:03] um so I said you know you guys have visual on the IR and yeah and go okay they're they're over
[02:31:09] that direction he goes what in a while so uh going back here there's one guy that starts peeking out
[02:31:23] and you you actually end up killing this guy the third time he came out he took more time
[02:31:27] when the previous two tries attempting to a better shot off at us it was like he was daring
[02:31:32] me to light his ass up I knew I had him I locked in with a clear shot and let go a 10 to 15 round
[02:31:37] burst from my him for I watched him drop his body lay still on the ground it felt good to kill him
[02:31:42] but I couldn't relish the moment too long we were still pinned down our main element which was about
[02:31:47] 25 to 30 meters behind our position put as much fire power on the enemy as they could hoping to keep
[02:31:52] their heads down long enough for US aircraft to start dropping bombs I knew from the many fights I'd been
[02:31:58] in before in this country that a call for air support had been made within seconds of their attack
[02:32:03] in the meantime Frankie's position let loose this one of your other teammates but the Taliban
[02:32:09] were well protected behind mud walls unless they stepped out the open like the guy with the Rpg launcher
[02:32:14] there wasn't much we could do without an air strike at the same time I was aware given how close
[02:32:20] we were to the enemy that being killed by friendly fire was a very real worry yeah
[02:32:26] so you're you're 15 to 20 meters away from these bad guys yes the first peak and just so anyone that's
[02:32:36] wondering 15 to 20 meters is not a long way you know when you're gonna try and drop bombs
[02:32:43] yeah there's danger close and then there's common in on your position and it's yeah it's a little dicey
[02:32:50] this is getting a lot dicey yeah as our situation deteriorated by the second I knew that without
[02:32:57] bombs on target Jawede Abe Bismula Khan and I would all die this was about to turn into a body
[02:33:07] recovery mission and it would be our bodies that would be that they would be taking home within a
[02:33:13] couple of minutes the decision was made for us when our Air Force J-Tak J-Tak called in a
[02:33:18] 500-pound bomb just 20 meters from my position this was considered a danger close strike I don't
[02:33:25] even know if that's considered danger that's that's called on my position yeah especially five
[02:33:31] hundred pounds hmm this was considered a danger close strike but one that would give us a
[02:33:36] fighting chance of making it out of the orchard alive they call it went out over the radio and then I
[02:33:40] heard Air Force J-Tak's voice in my earpiece Ryan were dropping close to you man keep your
[02:33:47] fucking head down after receiving the radio transmission I relayed the information to Abe who told
[02:33:52] the others to get as low as they could there wasn't enough room in the ditch so I grabbed Khan
[02:33:56] and pushed him into the trench while I stayed on the footpath I ordered them to hunker down
[02:34:00] or prepare for the blast since we weren't firing back at the enemy the volume of fire on our
[02:34:04] position picked up so now you guys are gongering down because you're expecting this bomb and now
[02:34:09] this the enemy's thinking they got an upper hand overhead I could hear the rocket motors of the
[02:34:15] F-16 ripping through the sky as the fighter jet came in bound I received one last warning over the
[02:34:22] radio bombs away man stay low I lay as flat as I could on the path holding my hands over my head
[02:34:28] and planting my face in the dirt then I slightly tilted my head and opened my mouth to give the
[02:34:32] over pressure or shockwave a place to exit all I could do is wait for the blast when the bomb hit
[02:34:38] the over pressure from the explosion sent grass dirt gravel dust and tree branches flying in
[02:34:44] our direction I waited for the big chunks of mud of the mud compound to land on me as well as
[02:34:49] bits of earth another debris thankfully I was spared from the hunk some mud wall heating me
[02:34:54] which would have broken my back instead I was covered with dirt leaves and branches but the
[02:34:58] concussive force was so great that I felt like my skeleton had just walked out of my body
[02:35:03] turned slap me in the face and re-entered my body I tried to stand up I kept falling
[02:35:08] I almost felt like I was drunk yeah a few of a 500 pound bond go off freaking your rocked yeah
[02:35:15] it's like you just got like when you see someone get knocked out in the in in the UFC
[02:35:21] that's what you just got hit with. Yep only not just to the jaw but to the entire body
[02:35:28] in all my time in Afghanistan I'd get to experience a concussive explosion of that magnitude
[02:35:32] it took a good minute to regain my senses just as I was figuring out what happened I heard
[02:35:36] my guy screaming over the radio Ryan are you good Ryan answer your fucking radio if you're alive
[02:35:41] their voices sounded like someone is yelling down a long tunnel trying to get my attention I got my
[02:35:46] bearings fuck that was good that was big big but I'm good man I answered I couldn't believe what
[02:35:52] it just happened how big of a bomb was that 500 pounds brother used a big one man and I'm still alive
[02:35:59] I thought I had come away without a scratch until I felt warm liquid coming out of my ears
[02:36:04] from the monstrous blast damn that was close there was no time to worry about my the ear drip
[02:36:10] because I had no idea if the enemy was still moving around or all tapped out I took a moment to
[02:36:15] shake the cobwebs out of my head then I checked on my guys to ensure they were good after everyone
[02:36:20] was accounted for un-injured I had my guys fall back to the closest position which was 20 meters behind us
[02:36:25] once we were back with the main element our jatac called in another strike which would ensure that
[02:36:30] if anyone was still moving in the compound they were sure to be dead damn that's uh that's freaking
[02:36:44] psycho crazy right there dropping a 500 pound bomb at 20 meters like I said that's I mean we'll have
[02:36:51] to ask a good deal Dave Burke and see what the you know what what the error box is on that yeah
[02:36:59] you know I will re-oj attack I was a jac and like 20 meters is tight
[02:37:06] that's a tight one but they do it that's what they do you know they got GPS guided
[02:37:10] musicians and they do they do drop right in a spot yeah they actually had to switch out aircraft
[02:37:16] or switch out platforms to drop a non-fragmentation producing like a concuss because of how close we
[02:37:24] were and it it took like five minutes to get bombs on target and anyone who's been in a tick before
[02:37:30] five minutes yeah really long time well salute to your jac because that's a balls you call right there
[02:37:36] yep he's a freaking legit yeah I remember him saying he's like man if I if I would have killed
[02:37:42] you my career's done I was like thank you don't worry about your bro yeah yeah the deed the
[02:37:51] deeds that amazing same my life oh yeah for sure that's crazy you know that's when I was a
[02:37:58] jac they would when you had to call danger close you have to give your initials I don't know if
[02:38:02] they still do this but you have to give your initials saying like I'm signing for this bomb this
[02:38:08] is on me and you need to drop this bomb and you like they would be off that to get with you
[02:38:13] a jac initials or something I forget the actual calls but the MC Juliet whiskey drop it in
[02:38:19] boom so you now you go you you go you clear this compound the sun started to come up
[02:38:29] it's kind of settled down the situations kind of settled down a little bit the sun started to come
[02:38:35] up you're feeling good about that because now it makes ideas easier to find then you start moving
[02:38:44] to another compound and and once again you're just like finding ideas trippy ideas and still just
[02:38:52] moving from compound to compound clearing more ideas as you enter these other compounds there's
[02:38:58] there's not any movement or anything you say during the rest of our clearance I encountered
[02:39:03] more than 20 ideas hmm I personally blew up 15 before I ran out of c4 explosives we marked the
[02:39:10] rest um overall we located more than 50 ideas 470 170 millimeter rockets multiple booby traps
[02:39:20] and a complex bunker and tunnel system this particular part of the village lived up to its
[02:39:25] reputation as a hotbed for Taliban fighters the Taliban had reinforced bunkers spread throughout
[02:39:30] the village many connecting with tunnels that's freaking psycho I mean runnin into
[02:39:40] 50 ideas during the mall yeah it's um yeah the ones we couldn't clear we just had to mark and bypass
[02:39:48] it was yeah that village was a super nasty super nasty so then there's this little
[02:39:56] discussion between the Afghan force leader who after you guys clear these places
[02:40:02] your the goal is hey the Afghan stay there to you know prohibit the Taliban from coming in and
[02:40:11] taking over so there's a little bit of a discussion because you know American forces are going to leave
[02:40:16] okay we did the hard part and cleared everything now you stay there and occupy and build defenses
[02:40:22] and set up claimors and you know secure the area and hold onto it well they don't want to do that
[02:40:28] and so this discussion is happening and while this discussion is happening which by the way
[02:40:35] your team leader says the Afghan says the American should say not my Afghan soldiers you're
[02:40:41] better equipped to fight the Taliban and the team leader says if this was Texas I would agree with you
[02:40:46] but we're in Afghanistan this is your country I'm here to help you but not when your battles
[02:40:52] so as this little discussion's going on one year Afghan one of the Afghan commandos comes up to you
[02:40:57] and with with the interpreter and says there's 15 to 20 men moving our way yep and
[02:41:04] you know the discussions still going on a few seconds later the Afghan commandos tugged on my
[02:41:10] shirt sleeve to get my attention again the men are heading this way we need to do something
[02:41:16] because I don't think these are villagers from the area he said I went back to my team sergeant
[02:41:20] was more direct we need to get out of here we have fighting age males moving in our direction
[02:41:24] I'm grabbing my guys and getting into positions to move out the team sergeant not not it
[02:41:28] fuck this he said I'm done to go she ate with these guys let's move out he had barely finished
[02:41:33] this sentence when the first shot was by my head with the all two familiar zip followed by a crack
[02:41:41] we were immediately in the fight for our lives
[02:41:47] rounds were coming in all round
[02:41:49] from automatic machine gunfire series of RPG explosions took us by total surprise
[02:41:56] everything turned into total chaos in an instant everything was happening so fast it was
[02:42:00] impossible for the human brain to comprehend it instinctively I knew I was sprinting for cover
[02:42:04] but for a split second I felt frozen in pandemonium of everything happening around me
[02:42:10] while my brain scrambled to make sense of the attacks ferocity now I was moving quickly
[02:42:16] screaming instructions and returning fired an enemy I could not see round sprayed everywhere hitting
[02:42:20] compound walls like a garden hose watering down a dusty road just then I heard a grunt as if you
[02:42:26] was hurt that was that's one of your afghans but for some reason it didn't occur to me that he
[02:42:30] could have been hit I darted toward a ditch that paralleled the dirt road running through the village
[02:42:34] after diving for cover I peered out cautiously but I couldn't see any of my guys or where we were
[02:42:40] taking fire from bullets were telling up dirt all around me as we tried to stay as low as possible
[02:42:46] then I noticed that three commandos in the ditch ten meters from my position had drawn the
[02:42:51] attention of a towel band machine gun crew that had zeroed in on them I waved for the three afghans
[02:42:56] to move to my position which would give them more cover but they were too scared to move I knew that
[02:43:00] if they didn't get their asses in gear and start moving they were gonna die I don't know what possessed
[02:43:05] me but I climbed out from my ditch and sprinted to their position praying to God that my
[02:43:09] adaptive leg would hold up I reached the first commando and grabbed the very first thing that I could
[02:43:15] get a hold of his hair I yanked him out up and pulled him back to my ditch holding the other two
[02:43:20] would follow they did as we ran dust kicked up and more rounds impacted around us I slid into the ditch
[02:43:26] like I was licking out a triple then I reached back and dragged the three scared shit let's
[02:43:31] commandos down with me we had company in this part of the ditch Frankie was providing aid to another
[02:43:36] wounded afghan Frankie you okay man I'm good brother how about you yeah I'm okay you see aber
[02:43:41] anyone else not yet man I moved closer to a small mud wall that paralleled the ditch this wall
[02:43:47] provided decent protection from enemy fire and allowed me to look down the dirt road where I saw
[02:43:51] an afghan soldier lying motionless I brought up my rifle scope to get a better look Frankie I
[02:43:58] think that's buzmula in the middle of the road bro I think he's dead my heart jumped straight to my
[02:44:04] throat one of our guys was killed fuck where's the rest of my team Frankie and I were the only two
[02:44:08] Americans in that ditch I scanned back down the road where vizmula lay I knew a was next to him
[02:44:15] before the ambush kicked off but I could only see bizmula I hoped abe wasn't hit to what I could
[02:44:24] determine was that we had two wounded afghan commandos and bizmula lying in the middle of the road
[02:44:31] I figured bizmula was dead but until I had my hands on him I couldn't be a hundred percent sure
[02:44:36] I knew I needed to get to him but the amount of life fire coming in was too heavy
[02:44:41] the radio crackled again and then I heard a heart stomping message in my headset loud and clear
[02:44:49] Eagles down Eagles down
[02:44:52] The phrase Eagles down was code for Americans wounded or killed the fight had just taken the worst possible turn
[02:44:59] There were Americans wounded or killed somewhere on the battlefield but I didn't know where we needed some air support in a hurry
[02:45:13] How much time has passed and when I just read and I skipped a little bit of stuff but this is all
[02:45:18] I remember few minutes now I remember we were basically screaming for air support and they couldn't because the
[02:45:28] Taliban
[02:45:29] With the tunnel systems they were in our lines and they couldn't drop because they couldn't distinguish who was who
[02:45:35] And so yeah, if he came a fist fight at that point
[02:45:44] Here's the understatement of the year coming from you back to the book bro this shit is bad
[02:45:49] I said to Frankie no sooner did the words leave my lips than I heard one sound that gives every green
[02:45:54] Break chills and explosion from a morgue around which landed 30 meters from us and shook the earth
[02:46:01] I hit the ground and turned toward Frankie shit. I yelled they got a mortar tube up
[02:46:06] We need to move before we get hit so for anyone that doesn't know anything about mortars
[02:46:13] When you shoot mortars you don't hit what you're aiming at on the first shot usually you have to do something called bracketing
[02:46:20] Which means you fire your first shot and oh it goes long so you back your distance off a little bit
[02:46:25] You fire your next shot. It's probably gonna be short and then you split the difference and your neck shots are on target
[02:46:31] So when you're getting more dirt if you sit there they're gonna bracket you. They're gonna find you and they're gonna get you
[02:46:40] Gun fire is one thing if the enemy is close enough to shoot at you. He's close and you're close enough to kill him mortars are different
[02:46:46] They can be two or three kilometers away and engage you with Debbie fire and by the time you figure out where they're coming from
[02:46:53] It's too late another explosion hit the compound to the left of us two close for comfort
[02:46:58] That was our cue time to make a move
[02:47:01] Frankie and I engage Talbot targets as much as possible trying to keep their heads down with return fire
[02:47:05] Which would give us a little time to pick up our wounded afghans and move back
[02:47:09] Crack around hit directly in the wall above my head crack another round two close for comfort crack and another one
[02:47:15] Then two more rounds hit the mud wall in front of us a sniper had our position dialed in every time we stuck our heads up
[02:47:21] He sent rounds our way to make matters worse the Taliban were dropping mortars closer and closer to our position
[02:47:27] One of the afghan commandos besides us spoke a little English. He pointed to his radio and said he heard the Taliban had our position and we're trying to capture us
[02:47:38] Hearing that word struck fear in my heart. I'd nudged Frankie again the Taliban are trying to flank us and cut us off in the restaurant
[02:47:44] Our guys so they can take us it's time to move brother. I shouted
[02:47:48] First things first how do we avoid getting shot by the sniper? I saw protected area near a compound a couple of hundred meters from us
[02:47:54] Where I recognized several Americans including our medic Joe Frankie I see Joe. Let's move to him
[02:48:03] So you guys gather everyone up
[02:48:06] And you
[02:48:07] Finally like are able to get over to this other position where Joe is
[02:48:13] Joe's your medic. He's working on guys
[02:48:16] You get their all blood moons and cries for help stay to shock could be seen on the commandos faces
[02:48:21] We knew we were in a real shit storm
[02:48:23] So far we had one dead afghan commando two wounded afghans three wounded Americans
[02:48:29] We were missing five afghans
[02:48:31] Including Abe and Bismula who are your two guys
[02:48:34] Yes
[02:48:42] And still no air support
[02:48:44] At that point in time once we were able to get back to the CCP
[02:48:49] Well the first CCP
[02:48:51] We were able to start dropping bombs on on the targets probably 45 minutes into the tick and then
[02:48:58] They came up about a tunnels and engaged us at that first CCP which means we had to find another CCP
[02:49:03] How are you doing for ammo
[02:49:06] We're handing mags off
[02:49:13] So you're in this first casualty collection point CCP so for those of you who don't know this is when you're in a bad situation
[02:49:20] And you've got casualties you want to get to a point where you can gather all the casualties together
[02:49:24] So you can number one provide security number two provide medical attention and the number three
[02:49:29] Trying to figure out where you're tactically can get them out of there. Mm-hmm
[02:49:35] So you're in this CCP. I looked around for a jawede and con jawede was sitting up against a wall trying to catch his breath
[02:49:42] Grabbing ghost aren't turperder. I asked him if you knew where Abe was jawede shook his head. No, I haven't seen Abe
[02:49:48] Just then I saw Frankie con and two afghan commandos carrying Bismula from the road to the CCP
[02:49:54] Bismula's alive, but he can't feel his legs Frankie said thank God we got biz, but where's Abe? I asked
[02:50:00] A puzzle look came over Frankie no one has seen Abe since the firing started bro. He's still out there
[02:50:11] Fast forward a little bit now that we had most of our friendly forces back in one location our aircraft could start
[02:50:17] Engaging targets up first was the white two story former school building and these are things you explain
[02:50:22] These are areas where you're taken fire from um after 45 minutes of intense fighting we finally dropped our first bomb
[02:50:29] As they have 15 jet screamed across the sky and extremely close to our position the first bomb dropped
[02:50:33] The white building was reduced to wooden debris in a nanosecond instantly killing the sniper inside
[02:50:40] Fast forward a little bit at that point we had two wounded afghans three wounded Americans and now two dead afghan commandos
[02:50:46] 300 meters to the right of the compound was another mud hot compound with tall walls for protection and a large open field big enough for helicopters to land in
[02:50:56] This was gonna have to work because we need to get going we picked up and quickly moved to our new location and started calling a dust off
[02:51:02] Which was our call sign our radio call sign for medical evacuation
[02:51:07] So now you move into this bigger compound and
[02:51:11] You're preparing to get helicopters in there to get the wounded and dead out of there
[02:51:15] You go over to Bismillah. I calmly asked him if he knew where Ab was
[02:51:22] Ab was next to me when we started fighting he said and then he jumped into the ditch near the foot bridge at the last compound
[02:51:29] We cleared
[02:51:30] Okay, now I had a starting point, but we couldn't move or go near that area of the village the enemy was too well dug in every time we poked our heads above the near
[02:51:39] Road we got lit up by the Taliban somehow I had to get Abe I was not leaving him behind
[02:51:48] I had an Afghan commando pointing to the foot bridge saying another commando was there with Abe that meant two wounded guys now
[02:51:55] Which also meant I would need more help our Air Force J tax said he had a plan to keep the Taliban's head down
[02:52:01] While we sprinted for the foot bridge
[02:52:04] I'll call the Apache's to fly in front of your movement and shoot the shit out of everything ahead of you
[02:52:09] Guys, I like the way that sounded
[02:52:13] Little cover move with the helicopters
[02:52:17] At the same time we were putting together our two minute game plan the team sergeant stopped us
[02:52:22] We can't risk you going down there to get those guys. He said too much enemy fire
[02:52:26] Well, we're not leaving them behind. I said my team sergeant wasn't happy with my answer
[02:52:31] But he knew what we had to do. I spoke up again if we leave without them we could go we could have a mute knee on our hands with the Afghans
[02:52:36] We have to go no one gets left behind
[02:52:41] The team sergeant looked at us knowing this was something that must happen. Okay. We'll go he said
[02:52:47] This was going to be an American-led recovery operation
[02:52:50] Why the Afghan commandos wouldn't go recover their own guys was beyond me if an American had been left behind
[02:52:55] We would go to hellem back for our to get our brothers out dead or alive
[02:52:59] The J tack interrupted the discussion stating the Apache's were inbound to do a gun run on enemy positions
[02:53:05] We needed to use cover this cover as our chance to move
[02:53:09] Here they come everyone ready the J tack asked it was go time
[02:53:16] The sounds of the large caliber bullets echoed off the compound walls is the Apache's open fire
[02:53:21] Blanketing the area with 30 millimeter rounds
[02:53:23] Frankie our J tack our team sergeant and I sprinted down the road toward the area
[02:53:28] Where we assumed Abe in the mission missing commando were as we ran like hell in the direction of the foot bridge
[02:53:34] We took on small arms fire, but nothing compared to what it could have been if those Apache's weren't helping us
[02:53:42] The closer I got to the foot bridge though the more I prepared myself for what I might see
[02:53:47] Leading up to the bridge the terrain shifted upwards slightly making it hard to see what was in the ditch
[02:53:51] I was almost to the foot bridge when I looked down there float floating lifeless in the water at the bottom of the ditch was Abe
[02:53:58] His body was sprawled out with a blood soaked bandage around his pelvic area Abe had attempted to stop the bleeding himself
[02:54:07] But I knew that pelvic wounds were almost impossible to treat without proper medical help
[02:54:13] Abe had blood out so much that the muddy water in the ditch had turned bright red my friend was dead and I could not save him
[02:54:19] A Taliban sniper had perfectly placed three rounds into his pelvis. Oh Abe, they finally got you
[02:54:31] As I got to his body in the ditch, Frankie was providing covering fire while the team sergeant
[02:54:36] Nia attempted to pull Abe out lifting a lifeless body out of a six foot muddy ditch was especially difficult
[02:54:42] Adding to the difficulties was the fact that Abe's body was covered in blood
[02:54:45] Which made him extremely slippery to hold onto we couldn't get a good grip on him and struggled to carry his body up to dry ground
[02:54:53] I became more and more drenched in the Abe's blood and even got some of his blood in my mouth a taste that's forever etched in my mind
[02:55:00] Finally after giving it everything we had we freed Abe from his watery grave but the smells the tastes and everything about that moment still hauled me to this day
[02:55:14] Kind of kind of it's I mean not only does it say a lot about the American soldier in the American fighting man that you four go down to recover the body of these Afghans
[02:55:35] Also obviously says a lot about the Afghans who
[02:55:37] Don't go to go and recover their own people
[02:55:45] But that's you know to me it's a lot of it's just a cast to do with the value of human life that we have as Americans like we see we we value human life more
[02:55:54] And the bond that we have is so strong and it's just it's a it's a real tribute to
[02:56:01] The American soldier that you're you're going you're risking your life and your friends are risking your lives your lives as Americans to go and
[02:56:11] Basically you know that these guys are dead. I mean that's your suspicion
[02:56:15] Yeah, but you're still not gonna leave these guys behind knowing you're so happy
[02:56:20] You get you get Abe out of the trench and you you basically you find a ladder that that you use as a stretcher
[02:56:35] You put them on this thing on this ladder you carrying him into the compound as you're carrying them into the compound
[02:56:42] There's Afghans commandos that are just standing there watching you struggle
[02:56:44] We got back to the book don't just stand there fucking helpless. I screamed at the commandos
[02:56:51] But they stood there like statues. We continued on the landing zone to wait for the helicopter
[02:56:56] I was carrying I was helping carry get Abe
[02:57:00] Carried Abe on the makes shift gurney when I saw the helicopter hovering over it had finally hit me my buddy was really dead
[02:57:06] My heart sank when the helicopter touched down
[02:57:08] I helped load Abe onto the last flight you would ever take I reached out and grabbed his lifeless hand as the helicopter lifted off from the ground to take him away
[02:57:18] Yes, Abe was gone
[02:57:20] But we had recovered his body so that his family could give him a proper burial a true warriors funeral
[02:57:27] If the Taliban had recovered his body they would have desecrated it instead we did right by him
[02:57:33] As American fighting men and women we have one belief we will fight and die for no one gets left behind
[02:57:57] Yeah
[02:57:59] And you know in the book you go into a little bit about both Abe and
[02:58:05] This mula who you knew well and their backgrounds what kind of guys they were you know the the what they had fallen tiered to do right
[02:58:15] And you know like as I'm sitting here calling you crazy for want to go back and find I eds
[02:58:21] If you're if you're part of the Afghan team guess what guess how long you're deployment last forever
[02:58:27] Right
[02:58:28] So these guys are out there hanging it out there and you know you had that bond with them and then you stayed true to that bond
[02:58:41] What was the what was the I mean you know obviously shortly after this you you end up getting the rest of the team out
[02:58:49] What was the total losses for that day?
[02:58:53] That day we ended up with four Americans WIA
[02:58:58] eight Afghans carry a and 12 Afghans
[02:59:02] So it was pretty bad day
[02:59:05] How big was the force going in we have conflicting reports the last report
[02:59:10] I remember seeing as we killed over 400 Taliban now air craft killed over 400 Taliban
[02:59:16] We you know personally probably
[02:59:18] You know 10 20 at small arms and but that's still a pretty big force
[02:59:22] But I'm over 400 how many guys did you have total how many Afghans how big was the Afghan command O unit?
[02:59:29] We
[02:59:30] 100 and I think about a 120 Afghans and then an ODA and an ODB so
[02:59:36] About 25 Americans about 120 Afghans
[02:59:45] How how
[02:59:47] How much longer were you in country after that operation that it actually just started to deploy them off so we still had another
[02:59:57] I think I'd say five more months and what was the what was the rest of the point of like
[03:00:03] It was it was back to just trying to try to chase you know chase that elusive combat again, but
[03:00:12] Nothing nothing came even close to touching a
[03:00:15] Baglin and did they did they throw you back in because you you're original purpose on that deployment was more of work
[03:00:22] And the Intel side yep, did you get moved back into that and that's kind of what you spent most of the deployment
[03:00:27] Yes, I did yeah, I was I was moved back into the into the Intel role of it and I would um, you know
[03:00:34] I would constantly try and create work and find myself on missions and whatnot
[03:00:37] But yeah, I was back you know doing those reports
[03:00:41] I'm gonna fast forward a little bit
[03:00:46] To your head and home when our
[03:00:49] 2016 tour due to his over into lie our team bordered a
[03:00:53] C17 at Bogramar field and flew west until we landed at Eglonair force base near Pensacola floor to falling a fuel stop at Ramstein air base in Germany
[03:01:02] We basically hop from the dangers of the Afghan
[03:01:05] And from from the dangers of Afghanistan to tranquil floored up within 24 hours the quickest I ever returned home
[03:01:12] I still had to afghanistan dirt underneath my fingernails
[03:01:15] I didn't realize that I had suffered traumatic brain injury
[03:01:19] During the firefight where the 500 pound bomb had landed just 17 meters from my position
[03:01:26] Binge drinking on weekends became the norm for me fast forward in a little bit including consumption of a lot of beer at home
[03:01:33] I could easily clear 12 to 15 millilights in an evening
[03:01:39] And you know you you again, it's really good because in this book you go through some of the details of what's happening when you come home from deployment
[03:01:48] you know
[03:01:50] You have that kind of
[03:01:53] What is it little empty feeling that we get something like that and you're trying to fill it up you're trying to figure out
[03:01:59] You know what this is how how to adjust back to being in Florida or wherever you're gonna be
[03:02:08] So you're doing
[03:02:11] You're doing the path which is easily available to us when we come home which is drinking fighting causing problems
[03:02:22] Little road rage activity
[03:02:24] You're with Dawn and are you married to Dawn at this point?
[03:02:28] No, we got married in 18. So you got your girlfriend Dawn and you're you're like driving and you're with Dawn
[03:02:36] And I'm gonna look here the dude suddenly turned into this is oh, yeah, he cuts you off
[03:02:41] Right driving and you get your road rage on and you follow him
[03:02:46] What kind of vehicle you driving? I was driving in Tundra. Okay, check
[03:02:51] So you're driving your Tundra this dude suddenly turned into a driveway and ran into the house
[03:02:55] I slid into the curb and put my truck and park
[03:02:58] I was about to run after him when Dawn grabbed my arm. What are you doing?
[03:03:03] She asked are you gonna chase him down beat him up and then what what if we've got guns in the house?
[03:03:08] What makes you think he doesn't have them?
[03:03:10] This is stupid. What's going on with you right now?
[03:03:12] She had a point. I let out a huge breath of air which dialed back the adrenaline surging through my body
[03:03:18] Fuck this I mumbled as I got back into the truck. I used away from the curb and turned home word
[03:03:22] For the next 10 minutes neither of us set a word my mind was locked on this thought
[03:03:27] You need to get your temper under control damn it. I was a green beret
[03:03:32] That man I was professional and flipping the switch between civilian life and being in a war zone was the professional thing to do
[03:03:40] Yet here I was acting like a bully if someone did something I didn't like I took some active measures over the next few days in weeks
[03:03:47] I opened up to my friend Mike Valke. How he says?
[03:03:51] Yeah, I opened up to my friend Mike Valke Tyler and Frankie about some of my struggles
[03:03:56] It turned out I wasn't alone after sharing my innermost thoughts with Frankie he said he was going through the same
[03:04:03] Issues is me finally someone gets it
[03:04:07] And this is where you started kind of getting control though nothing happened overnight
[03:04:11] I slowly got my shit under control my anger issues at times were still an open question
[03:04:16] But I started to focus on what triggered me which helped me ratchet my aggression way down
[03:04:24] Yeah, I kind of I kind of spoiler alerted on the on the marriage thing, but luckily
[03:04:30] I didn't spoil much because in a very romantic fashion and an apple bees parking lot
[03:04:35] You asked Dawn if she would marry you
[03:04:41] You got married
[03:04:43] um
[03:04:45] You get cleared to do another seven month appointment to
[03:04:49] Afghanistan in August of 2018 ends in March of 2019
[03:04:56] You say in the book here in a few words my last appointment to Afghanistan was boring and cold
[03:05:01] You you detail some of these missions
[03:05:03] You also say that boring has tons of upside for coming back with all your limbs which is good
[03:05:08] And you did make it home from that deployment
[03:05:14] With all your limbs, but
[03:05:17] And you did make it home and not and obviously as we know not everybody does and I want to close out this book
[03:05:22] You know you detail some more information and
[03:05:26] But I want to close out the book
[03:05:31] In the actually in the acknowledgments when you address the fact that not everyone comes home
[03:05:36] Then you say last I want to point out the men who epitomize heroic courage and whom I look up to for strength
[03:05:46] Ben Harrow
[03:05:49] Will lials and leave i Rogers. Yes, those guys are wounded
[03:05:54] Yes, leave i he
[03:05:56] He was in a
[03:05:58] Max Pro or
[03:05:59] Argy that hit an ied
[03:06:01] Everyone died but him and it so that was chief Rogers
[03:06:04] Ben was my team leader
[03:06:07] When I got hit and then on the 2012 deployment he stepped on an ied last both of his legs and then will lials
[03:06:16] He was one of my friends that I went through the course with and this basically the same time frame that I
[03:06:22] Stepped on my ied he stepped on his and lost both of his legs so
[03:06:28] You say these three men of a definition of what it means to overcome astronomical odds
[03:06:33] To go through hell and back only to come out stronger on the other side
[03:06:37] I will forever be grateful for the lessons i learned from them as well as their strength and determination in putting aside their catastrophic injuries to show me the true value of life
[03:06:49] They remind me that no matter what life throws at you or how bad you think you have it
[03:06:54] You can always pick yourself up off the ground and kick life in the ass
[03:06:59] For the men in heaven keeping a watchful i on us
[03:07:06] I salute you
[03:07:09] May God hold you close and give you the comfort you all deserve
[03:07:14] Until we meet again. I will do my best to live the life you all embodied while you are here
[03:07:20] Still walking among us
[03:07:32] So
[03:07:34] That's the
[03:07:35] Like I said this is a powerful book and we're reading this very small percentage of it
[03:07:44] I would definitely recommend go out get this book read the full story
[03:07:47] I mean it's just powerful and it's a powerful tribute you know that powerful tribute at the end to
[03:07:53] All these guys and it's just it's just amazing when you think about
[03:07:58] The sacrifices that have been made by by the service men and women in this country has been just
[03:08:04] We should net we can never ever allow that to be forgotten and I think this book is a is a personal account of some of those sacrifices
[03:08:13] What so what's going on now?
[03:08:21] So I actually um I retired from the army in in January of
[03:08:27] 2000 or 2020 and was that was that 20 years?
[03:08:32] Yeah 21 and some change and then within a week I was back in Afghanistan as a as a contractor
[03:08:39] So I gave my time about I gave myself about five days to
[03:08:44] Celebrate retirement that I was back at it and that's what you're doing now you're doing contracting yes
[03:08:50] And you're continuing to go how how long are you going on deployments now?
[03:08:54] So these are these are four month deployments
[03:08:57] Cermin virus had a little something to do with the last one so we stayed longer, but um
[03:09:03] The next one I have coming up is that'll be a four month there and then
[03:09:06] We'll kind of readress
[03:09:09] Readress, you know what's going on in Afghanistan and what and I like that what um
[03:09:14] You talk about in the book, but I didn't read through it. I what point did you start writing the book?
[03:09:20] So the book actually
[03:09:22] It started off as as therapy and when I came back from the 16 trip
[03:09:27] The road regents and it was won, but there was there was multiple other ones, but um
[03:09:32] And and so I actually you know, I remember going to a therapist
[03:09:38] Army you know count our counselor therapist whatever they're called and he was kind of going down as list and I remember asking him is like
[03:09:46] What's my name?
[03:09:48] And I saw as I as had to go up to the top right hand corner and I was like I'm done here
[03:09:53] So I started you know, I you know our chaplains and group are very close with us and
[03:09:58] And I I remember I'm talking to one of them just and my biggest my biggest issue was like all three of us
[03:10:06] We could be we could be sitting out of our drinking beer and talking about you know things and what we deal with and whatnot like that
[03:10:13] And then you go home to your family you go home years and I go home to mine and it's dead air
[03:10:18] It was it was talked about but nothing was really like
[03:10:21] Taking off your chest and so our chaplain is like have you ever thought about writing so no
[03:10:28] I haven't I majored in you know English and like the third grade
[03:10:32] There's no I've never thought about writing so the 2017 deployment
[03:10:37] So I went to Afghanistan 16 17 18
[03:10:42] And then back in our 2019
[03:10:45] In 2019 and 2020 so pretty much since 16 I've been in Afghanistan every year and
[03:10:53] And in the 17 trip I just remembered
[03:10:57] just needing
[03:10:58] To to just get stuff off my chest and and I remember I was you know as I was in my little little little live in area
[03:11:06] And I just opened my laptop and just started typing and typing and it just and it felt good because I was I was taking I was taking these these
[03:11:14] These um I'll call them items, but I was taking these items that that had been bothering me for years or been or
[03:11:22] Just anything and I wasn't just talking about it and it was dead air not to be you know
[03:11:28] Half in the be re-adrusted again, but I was putting it on something else that was tangible a word document
[03:11:34] And so I could come back to that word document anytime I wanted and it actually felt like you know
[03:11:39] I was I was taking this off of my chest and I was putting it somewhere
[03:11:44] That was actually tangible now it was something and
[03:11:48] It felt great and that's and that's when I said oh
[03:11:52] Writing therapy
[03:11:53] God ya makes sense now
[03:11:55] But and then from that
[03:11:58] Came the book so yeah, you know it's uh
[03:12:01] I always talk about using detachment is is what you have to do that as a person you have to get you have to
[03:12:07] Attach for your emotions you can't get all look I'm not saying you need to leave all your motion totally behind
[03:12:12] But I'm saying you have to detach from them somewhat and
[03:12:16] What's cool about writing and this is I was trying to figure out what you meant by this
[03:12:21] So it's just dead air and I was like oh wait a second. I get it
[03:12:25] When you write something down
[03:12:27] You are you are actually
[03:12:29] Detaching from it right you get to see those words are coming out they're going somewhere else now
[03:12:33] You're looking at those words and so it gives you a
[03:12:35] An actual physical form of detachment from the thoughts that you have from the feelings that you have from the emotions that you have
[03:12:43] And then you can read them you can read them from a distance and you can understand them better
[03:12:48] And then as you continue to work through the writing that you're doing and it it's another way to reprocess it and
[03:12:56] Ted you ever I I actually don't think I think I guess I have heard the term writing therapy
[03:13:00] But like I guess it's a thing, huh?
[03:13:03] I never heard about it before until that point. Yeah, but did you just make that up yourself?
[03:13:09] Or I think I heard I
[03:13:11] So when I had when when I started typing
[03:13:16] Writing therapy that was that was
[03:13:19] Purely what I just thought it was but I think I've heard of it before like I do think it's a thing
[03:13:24] Yeah, I think it's a thing. I think it's a thing too. We're gonna have to find out if not
[03:13:29] We're gonna have to trade market you should trade market
[03:13:31] These
[03:13:32] Maybe that's why I've just written books all the time just provide in therapy for myself and so then now what
[03:13:39] What did you do how did you get the book published so I went?
[03:13:42] Yeah, that that was kind of a funny situation so I basically I had all of these notes
[03:13:48] I're not notes, but I had all these
[03:13:51] pages of my life 500 and some odd and
[03:13:54] I had a couple you know
[03:13:56] I had reorganized it to kind of like the organization in the book and had a couple people like Frankie and Mike read it and they were like
[03:14:04] This is me like it. Yeah, that's that's me and so
[03:14:09] I said you you know you should make this a book and so you know I did the google and and you get these
[03:14:16] You get these assholes that'll take you for your money. So I lost about five grand with the with a fake ghost writer or whatever
[03:14:21] I was like man
[03:14:23] So finally I got a hold of um, you know my buddy said hey just google military authors and send him an email
[03:14:30] And I I can't remember how many but this lady named Lynn Vincent
[03:14:35] She's here in San Diego, but she contacted me back
[03:14:38] She said hey, you know I got I got a guy that
[03:14:40] Yeah, he take a look at it for you. So Mike Yorkie who's another San Diego guy
[03:14:44] I send it to him and he's you know he read it is like yeah this this needs to be a book and so Mike and I
[03:14:54] Painstakingly sentenced by sentence went back and forth over you know Florida to San Diego over the period of a year
[03:15:03] Create an a document descended the DOD for review
[03:15:07] DOD review went through
[03:15:09] good to go no no redactions and then
[03:15:12] Mike had a good buddy of his who's an agent named Greg Johnson and Greg he was able to
[03:15:21] Yeah, he sent the proposal to a chef book group and they were like yeah
[03:15:28] So that's that's basically what got that started
[03:15:32] I
[03:15:33] Yeah, I was I was in Afghanistan most of the time, but it's
[03:15:36] Yeah, I still I still couldn't believe it in the first time my I was in Afghanistan when my book released July 7th of this year
[03:15:46] And I remember this this this this kid came up to I call him a kid because you know
[03:15:51] I'm 42 and he's he's a young private and he said hey
[03:15:56] Can I ask you a question sir?
[03:15:57] It's like yeah, it goes did you well did you write a book and it's like now hiding right a book
[03:16:01] And he goes hi that's funny and he held a book and he goes because this kind of looks like he is like give me that book
[03:16:08] You're a son of a bitch, you know like I'm not here to promote a book
[03:16:11] I'm here to do a job and then I was like well, let me see that book and that's the first time I ever touched my book
[03:16:18] While you're on the ground in Afghanistan
[03:16:21] Yeah, so what's the future hole?
[03:16:24] Another deployment
[03:16:26] But my wife and I actually strangely enough we are going down the adoption route now. Oh right. Yep, so I eat he kind of
[03:16:34] Made it to where having kids is is gonna be an issue, but adoption is not
[03:16:39] So we're we're starting that whole process right now and it's
[03:16:43] Very murky
[03:16:45] So so we're but you know, we'll we'll get all that done and hopefully
[03:16:50] Within the next year, but we'll open up our home and give
[03:16:53] You know, give a little one a a great life. So that's yep, that's what we're going on and
[03:17:01] Yeah, I just I don't know. Oh, they're they're not just kind of living life and riding the lightning and and
[03:17:09] Slowly trying to try to build up people around me making up for years of
[03:17:13] Destructiveness so
[03:17:17] Look we've had you over here for three over three hours
[03:17:21] Um
[03:17:23] People can find you. Where can they find you?
[03:17:25] So I actually have a website. It's a Ryan M Hendrix and calm and then um
[03:17:34] They yeah, I'm on I'm on Instagram at tip of the spear arm age
[03:17:41] But yeah, the the website that has the links to everything so it's so it's Ryan M Hendrix and dot com. Yes
[03:17:47] Hmm right on man
[03:17:51] Awesome echo you got anything else. Oh, I don't actually
[03:17:55] That's a shocking moment. Yeah, kind of yeah. That's a shock moment 80
[03:18:00] Any clothing thoughts closing thoughts right? Yeah, I mean we talked a lot about my dad
[03:18:05] But I uh it's you know the guys are you're oh and some some good advice, you know
[03:18:11] Definitely that is uh help change my life around and then you know like we were talking about with Dawn
[03:18:17] My wife um, you know we had we had dated since 2008 and and
[03:18:22] 2018 when we got married it was it was kind of like like hey
[03:18:27] I'm gonna I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen there guy
[03:18:30] We are getting married before you go back to Afghanistan
[03:18:34] Like man, what if I say no she's like you're not you're we're getting like this is happening
[03:18:40] So yeah, she's she's a stud um and I'm blessed
[03:18:44] So but there's yeah, there's a lot of people that have done some you know amazing things in my life and I do
[03:18:53] You know, I think a lot of these different organizations out there like the green brave foundation and I know the seals have one and the Marines have one
[03:19:00] But they really do
[03:19:02] um one of the things that I would have to say that
[03:19:05] I'm most
[03:19:06] proud of because I see it from my dad is my dad got closure on the Vietnam War
[03:19:11] Seeing how I was taking care of and the military has done a very good job at
[03:19:19] Taking care of us, you know of guys that we we come back change forever and there's still a lot of work to do but
[03:19:27] I just yeah, there's it's it's good it's good and I definitely I
[03:19:33] You know I'm proud to you know I'm proud to be a soldier I'm proud to serve my country
[03:19:36] And I'm proud of everybody that has and I just I think we're uh we're on the right path
[03:19:43] So
[03:19:44] Awesome man
[03:19:45] Well
[03:19:46] Thanks for coming on here to you know share this story and it's it's quite a story
[03:19:51] And obviously in in much more important thanks for your service. Thanks your sacrifice
[03:19:57] In in the Navy in the Air Force and in the Army
[03:20:01] Thanks for being out there. Thanks for keeping evil at bay
[03:20:04] Thanks for protecting your brothers and your comrades
[03:20:10] And most of all thanks for protecting us and this great nation appreciate it great a
[03:20:14] S nation on earth. I'll then and
[03:20:18] With that Ryan Hendrickson has left the building
[03:20:23] To go and carry on and
[03:20:27] Live the best life that he can and it certainly seems like
[03:20:30] We should do the same okay
[03:20:34] Echo any
[03:20:36] Recommendations suggestions on how we can live the best life we can we got oh
[03:20:42] It's over all this lot of things we can do
[03:20:46] So as my thing like an obvious one because we talk about it every single time but I'm gonna say it again
[03:20:53] Oh yeah, I'm gonna say it again like you are
[03:20:55] Anyway, we're working out ice I suggest or should I say recommend reading too
[03:21:04] I was about to say we don't really talk about reading that much but technically we do talk about reading a lot
[03:21:09] Well we're reading I mean I'm literally reading all the time. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, so
[03:21:14] So boom we're doing a bunch of things we need improvement things not we need generative not degenerative
[03:21:21] For like a better way. We've been reading the the source
[03:21:25] Anyway while we're working out we take a beating your body takes a beating I just got over burst
[03:21:31] Side is quickly by the way again by the way. I now down what
[03:21:36] Causes my bursides in my heel
[03:21:38] weakness
[03:21:41] Let's say the limitations of my body. How about that okay from time to time weakness anyway
[03:21:46] We don't want to worry about our joints while we're taking those beatings with our workout so it's part of life
[03:21:52] But we don't want to worry about that kind of stuff. So good news. Jockel fuel so we take our supplementation for our joints which is
[03:22:00] I'm just gonna start with this which is joint warfare super cruel oil
[03:22:05] Boom, it'll sort your joints right out
[03:22:07] So you don't have to worry about them also immunity right that's a big thing getting sick like these are things that like we don't want to have to
[03:22:14] Repon joints immunity so for immunity we got vitamin D
[03:22:21] Also cold war
[03:22:24] Take these yeah, you don't want to worry about a meaning definitely take these yes, sir also
[03:22:30] What do we got uh discipline supplementation kind of kind of like a not even really a supplementation
[03:22:36] But you want to go kind of lifestyle lifestyle kind of a lifestyle
[03:22:41] Laced and actually now that we're now that we're thinking about you know the way Ryan used the term lifestyle
[03:22:46] It could be use negative because I'm thinking now if you think about the life the joint warfare is a lifestyle
[03:22:52] Criollo oil super krill is a lifestyle yeah
[03:22:55] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you should make vitamin D a lifestyle that should be part of your life
[03:23:00] It's the way you live cold work the way you live
[03:23:03] Why would you why would you not do that there's not there's no reason to not be living this lifestyle
[03:23:10] There's zero reason is will make you better. Yeah. That's that same thing with the discipline
[03:23:15] Yeah, it's true. So discipline is one of those when you first came out with it. I was like cool
[03:23:22] Like cool. Oh, take it but you did something you didn't really understand that didn't really understand
[03:23:27] I am a full understanding at this time. I think
[03:23:31] So yes, that is a lifestyle so this one has three methodologies of deployment for lack of better way of putting it
[03:23:40] Boom discipline powder pre workout that's my I'm saying my little routine my little lifestyle if you will pre workout is the powder
[03:23:49] Discipline go the pills. I don't take
[03:23:51] Just don't have to you well, that's me because I'm going to talk and I need that little
[03:23:56] Different lifestyle. You will hit her but the discipline go cans energy drink. That's just like a
[03:24:06] Real energy that's like a treat. Look, I don't want to group this in with energy drink because we know what that means
[03:24:12] It's actually we know what that means. This isn't an energy it's real energy. I healthy energy
[03:24:16] It's definitely healthy. So we asked me the other day like on on the
[03:24:20] Social media platform. Is this healthy? Imagine being asked if it's healthy and I get to say yes, it is
[03:24:28] to actually healthy yeah
[03:24:29] Also, I'm sure you had that feeling like kind of like Tim Kennedy had when you asked him if he was allowed to shoot his guns in his backyard
[03:24:36] Oh, yeah, when you asked him that he's yeah, he's like I'm not even gonna justify that question with an answer
[03:24:40] It's kind of like that you kind of feel that only because you know though, but he was a thing that's a good question
[03:24:44] But all these are good question and also it's a good question because the chances that
[03:24:48] You go through the effort to make actually make something and spend the time in effort and money to make something that's
[03:24:56] Actually good for you the chances of that are rare. Yeah, but we did it did it this one go again
[03:25:03] I also got milk
[03:25:05] Which is also good for you in
[03:25:07] 47 different ways
[03:25:09] One of them being protein the other one being tasty. Yeah, so this so I have a thing
[03:25:14] All right my household lifestyle whatever with the kids they don't get dessert
[03:25:21] During the week these aren't only in the weekends
[03:25:24] So
[03:25:25] Everyone's on well like when the smash king the smashing pumpkin milk came out
[03:25:30] I make a big deal out of it, you know do this thing say hey guys, I'm gonna taste this or whatever
[03:25:34] I just can be like the dessert but not today. It's like a Thursday or tomorrow
[03:25:38] Tomorrow so I build the hype you see them saying next day they're all excited. Ooh, and we get to try that new thing
[03:25:45] You guys got or whatever
[03:25:47] So I make it up
[03:25:49] Give it to of course they love it, but you got the extra hype and then on top of that it's like good for you
[03:25:54] Seems like I'm so now in the future. Hey, this is a long game. We're playing the long game of your in the future
[03:26:01] I'll make them think I'm in a better mood than normal during the week
[03:26:04] It'll be like hey, and get I'll be the good dad game dessert doing the during the the week and they get that
[03:26:11] I'm actually giving you a solid 94 grade on that
[03:26:15] So a good job man long term. Yeah, I like that. I like how you play that whole thing you play the psychological
[03:26:21] You play the human nature, you know you a we could call it manipulation
[03:26:26] But we won't because you're doing something that's good for them for everybody
[03:26:29] I see what you like it exactly right. So yes
[03:26:33] Thank you jocco be little my son knows Brian little fields actual name
[03:26:40] It refers to him by his first and last name when he's taking more or drinking milk eating the uh
[03:26:47] Here's a little inside tip the
[03:26:51] Mulk bars like he'll send me the samples. Yeah, so
[03:26:54] Have you got the latest one? Yes, I got a few of them my son ate them and that's part of the reason why he'll be like hey
[03:27:02] Call Brian little fields to call them and tell them to send more or to tell them
[03:27:06] Thank you are all this stuff anyway, so yes, thank you guys for for creating this
[03:27:10] This is helping us on many many levels if you want to get any of this stuff you can get it at
[03:27:15] Origin domain.com you can get it at the vitamin shop nationwide
[03:27:20] You can actually get it on Amazon prime and if you're in Florida if you're in Florida
[03:27:26] Go to a wall wall in Florida and just go clear out the shelves
[03:27:32] Just go clear them out why because of go discipline go in the can is there we're trying to
[03:27:38] It's beyond the infiltrate, but we start we have to start we have to start with infiltration
[03:27:42] It starts in Florida, so if you're down there go to wall while cleared clean out the shelves clean them out
[03:27:49] And then we'll get you the whole he's coast then we'll be out
[03:27:53] West coast and pretty soon we'll be everywhere you go
[03:27:55] You'll be able to get some you'll be able to get that little
[03:28:02] Peter and it's doing good. That's the thing it's doing good for us for all of us food drink this
[03:28:09] It's doing good for yeah, yeah, because you can land in Wisconsin hopefully in a little while and be like oh cool
[03:28:14] I'm going into any store and I'm gonna get some go. You know, yes true
[03:28:19] So yes origin main dot com speaking of which has jujitsu geese made in America by the way
[03:28:27] Other clothing items made in America by the way
[03:28:31] Also American denim and boots made in America again by the way
[03:28:37] Which is a big deal oh?
[03:28:38] It's a real big deal as far as economy as far as like what year what the craftsmanship what you're actually wearing like the whole deal as far as rebuilding the
[03:28:48] Economy and the manufacturing capabilities of our nation. Yes. It's a big deal and you can help out
[03:28:55] You can help that you can help that go to origin main dot com if you want something
[03:29:02] Get something speaking of getting something if you want jacco as a store called jacco store
[03:29:09] This is what this is a discipline equals freedom store is what it is really
[03:29:14] Okay, also it's a good store. Oh, I see where you're
[03:29:19] I this is a weird story which is good very funny
[03:29:23] Anyway, you want to represent while you're on this path and the path is not easy
[03:29:29] Some of us choose to represent while on this path feels good
[03:29:33] This is where you go jacco store dot com getting you know get a shirt
[03:29:37] Jacket hat Christmas is coming up we got gift cards on there even yeah
[03:29:43] I'll tell you what here's what's going on with this let me give you a little heads up
[03:29:46] Christmas is coming right now covid the whole nine yards there is a shortage of aircraft
[03:29:51] There's a shortage of shipping personnel. I'm talking about in the entire world
[03:29:56] We're not gonna be able to ship what needs to get shipped so if you want to if you want stuff
[03:30:02] Don't wait
[03:30:03] Order it now. Yeah, that's the facts. Yeah, that's what I would say too and I'm not just talking about jacco store
[03:30:09] I'm talking about origin I'm talking about Amazon I'm talking about wherever you're getting stuff sent from
[03:30:14] Orgret early let's be a head of the power curve. Don't get behind the power curve the same the kind of year
[03:30:20] We're gonna be like December 22nd ordering my wife's gift for Christmas. Don't let it happen. Yeah
[03:30:26] I gotta keep that in mind
[03:30:27] By the way, another you mentioned it. Yeah, good good tips for sure. So but on the store also
[03:30:32] Like I said we have gift cards, so you don't gotta worry about shipping for that kind of stuff for the gift card
[03:30:36] Just get it virtually digital thing boom. Yeah, you get the
[03:30:39] Code you get a boom boom. Oh, he's he money. Yeah, but if you're trading
[03:30:43] You understand what I'm saying also what else we have is our
[03:30:48] Jocco's T-shirt club
[03:30:51] Okay
[03:30:52] Oh, this is a good club. This is where you can get like if you're you know you can get a little bit more how should I say
[03:31:00] layered
[03:31:01] creative
[03:31:03] Lighthearted sometimes
[03:31:05] shirts they're kind of like monthly one of a kind once we sit once we pass the month
[03:31:10] We're not selling those anymore. So if you're part of the club you get these kind of
[03:31:14] You sure and can you if you if you if you're in the club and there's a shirt that came out before can you get that shirt
[03:31:20] Probably as a right now. No, okay, okay
[03:31:23] That's a right now, but you never know everyone's so no while it's kind of like man
[03:31:26] Now and down down was really good so let's you know bring it back or what it's maybe I don't know but as right now
[03:31:32] Freighten out sorry. So yes, it's a subscription based situation. So yeah, it's a jocculpt t-shirt club
[03:31:38] So look into that if you want that that's cool
[03:31:40] If you want to support and you want to be on the path a while representing it
[03:31:44] We're my sister's app orange
[03:31:45] That one very much so yes, so jocco store.com also subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already
[03:31:52] Which is I don't it always feels weird saying not subscribe, but whatever so yes
[03:31:57] You're if if you want to subscribe
[03:31:59] Just know if you did it know that you can subscribe
[03:32:02] Okay, there's other podcast. You can leave a review. Yeah, other podcasts
[03:32:07] We got the debrief which is already inside this judgment or worried about
[03:32:10] Subscribing to that one, but we also have the jocco unraveling
[03:32:14] Jocco unraveling podcast
[03:32:16] Darryl Cooper and I talking about all kinds of crazy stuff all kinds of crazy stuff on that grounded podcast which we owe
[03:32:23] For your kid podcast which
[03:32:25] Your kid four is coming out so we're gonna work on that one. We got a YouTube channel
[03:32:30] If you want to see what echo Charles does in his
[03:32:35] spare time
[03:32:37] Then you can check out the YouTube channel you can see what echo Charles looks like you can see what Ryan Hendrickson looks like
[03:32:44] Because we put the whole podcast on there and a bunch of
[03:32:49] Short clips of the podcast which are according to echo Charles are shareable
[03:32:53] There's yeah, yeah shareable shareable. Yes, and we can you know obviously we're gonna you know in the in the spirit of brevity
[03:33:01] I think I use that right we're not gonna go into why that's still valuable
[03:33:06] Maybe we could and we don't need to but yes little excerpts you want to share with your friend bull me show the excerpt all good
[03:33:12] And let's face the fact some of the excerpts have explosions have fire have smoke have all kinds of things that echo
[03:33:20] Lakers lasers just those kind of things if you're into that kind of stuff
[03:33:23] Which one of the people that are speaking on this podcast right now is into
[03:33:29] Maybe you too
[03:33:31] YouTube channel look at that one um is subscribe if you want to also
[03:33:36] Psychological or for if you know what that is that's an album attracts of jockel helping you through moments of weakness
[03:33:41] If they may arise in your life, which I think from most of us they do from time to time
[03:33:46] So boom, check just check that out and and if you want some visual representation of that then you can go to flipside canvas.com
[03:33:52] Only by my brother Dakota Meyer where he makes awesome stuff
[03:33:56] For you to look at to keep you on the path we got a bunch of books
[03:33:59] You mentioned reading earlier. I also concur that reading is important first of all tip of the spear
[03:34:05] Ryan Hendrickson just this book is just it's a great book all kinds of good guides
[03:34:10] I gave you 10 10 percent of it 5 percent of it today
[03:34:12] So check that out about face by David Hacworth. I wrote the forward to that
[03:34:17] Leadership strategy in tactics field manual
[03:34:20] You got the code the evaluation the protocols
[03:34:23] You got the discipline equals freedom field manual
[03:34:26] Look what are you gonna say is it lame to say like this is a good book gift book?
[03:34:32] It's kind of lame to say that but it's also the truth. Yeah. It's not lame to see that the truth is the truth
[03:34:39] This is a this is a book you can give to somebody as a gift and you don't feel like you don't feel like oh
[03:34:44] I was well I was wondering by the book story. Yeah, oh, I thought you might like this like this isn't that book
[03:34:49] This is like hey, I got you this and people like check
[03:34:54] So get it this one goes for you. I'm feeling manual the new edition way the warrior kid
[03:35:00] One two three and guess what way the warrior kid four once again if you want to get this book for Christmas for your kids
[03:35:07] You need to order it like now
[03:35:12] Way the warrior kid four field manual
[03:35:15] Mike in the dragons. That's a good one for the kids extreme ownership of the decademy a leadership
[03:35:21] the the OG books
[03:35:23] Written with my brother, Dave Babin
[03:35:25] We have a consulting company called echelon front where we saw problems through leadership
[03:35:30] We have EF online where you can actually ask me any question you want and I will be sitting there
[03:35:35] Virtually on a computer live talking to you and answering your question
[03:35:39] So go to eF online dot com for that
[03:35:42] We got the master 2020. This is the only master that we're doing in 2020
[03:35:47] If you want to learn about leadership if you want to get granular information about the principles that we talk about all time come to the
[03:35:54] Master
[03:35:55] Dallas Texas
[03:35:56] December 3rd and 4th extreme ownership dot com for details
[03:35:59] EF overwatch if you want to hire someone that understands the principles that we talk about all the time
[03:36:04] that has experienced tested leadership experience
[03:36:08] From the military we'll go to efoverwatch.com
[03:36:12] If you want to help service members active and retired their families gold star families
[03:36:17] Check out Mark Lee's mom's
[03:36:20] charity organization
[03:36:21] Mom and Lee it's called America's mighty warriors and it's at America's mighty warriors dot or you can go there if you want to donate if you want to get involved
[03:36:29] And listen if you're into misery
[03:36:35] Personal self-inflicted misery and you want more of it
[03:36:39] You want more of my unremarkable remarks
[03:36:44] Or you need more of Echos chaotic commentary
[03:36:49] Then you can find us on the in a website on Twitter Instagram
[03:36:53] Which echo will only refer to as
[03:36:55] The Graham and on Facebook echo is adequate Charles. I am at jocke will link Ryan Hendrickson
[03:37:02] You can find him tip of the spear on Instagram tip of the spear rmh
[03:37:08] On Twitter he's tip of the spear 42 Facebook is Ryan Hendrickson and he's also got Ryan Hendrickson dot com
[03:37:16] And thanks once again to Ryan for coming on for sharing a story with a wooden credible story and
[03:37:21] Obviously, thank you Ryan for your service and for your sacrifice and for taking care of your your comrades on the battlefield and
[03:37:31] Intitian care of all of us and protecting all of us and thanks to all the military personnel out there in every branch of service in the army
[03:37:38] Navy the Air Force Marine Corps and the Coast Guard. Thank you for doing the same protecting us
[03:37:45] And that also goes for our first responders here at home police law enforcement fire fighters
[03:37:51] Paramedics EMTs dispatchers correction officers border patrol secret service all of you
[03:37:59] Thanks for protecting us here at home and
[03:38:02] Everyone else out there like Ryan said in his book
[03:38:07] What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
[03:38:11] But that doesn't happen on its own you have to choose to get stronger
[03:38:16] Take control of your life take responsibility for your actions
[03:38:25] Something I call taking ownership extreme ownership and yes do that go out there every day
[03:38:32] And get after it
[03:38:34] And until next time this is echo and jocco out