Jocko Podcast 276: DRAGO. Rebelling Against Communist Poland, to Patriotic Navy SEAL

2021-04-07T08:38:48Z

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AI summary of episode

The funny things are finally I made it for this platinum, so I was not in the more fucking new guy, I was not in the more this meat, and we, I don't remember, so when you come back from the first platinum, or you come back from the platinum, from the deployment, you're like, hey, I got this school, I'm going to sniper school, I'm going to this school, I'm going to this school, so I said hey, Rago, so what's called the jiu-jia, do you know, just what what are you going, it's like, I do them going to English 101, I think the next door, I'm there, it's fucking the regular navy thing, and so I spend the next three months doing the actually English classes, there was not bad because actually it helped me in my career in the future, so basically, so they legit sent you to English school, yes, and I did save my career, you know, these guys were apparently they seen something in me, they say well, you know, he bought your English language, but it is, were you having a hard time like communicate like in that going through the house and stuff like that, because they are trying to communicate you know, especially the communication, going through the house and trying to communicate, so at that time I was still had to, I still had to try and, I didn't tell them that, but I had to translate from what I hear to my Polish thing, then I had to think of the solution, translate back to English and sight, so I managed that, but it is so much easier later on when actually I got my English goods, so that is just flow, you know, but there is still I have to be very fast, because I do that fast. No, I couldn't breathe to my nose, and I couldn't breathe now, I had to breathe through my every time I had to get bread, I was like the water with it, so I think I was breathing water in a year at the time, and I was coughing, I was suffocating, I was I was basically drowning, I felt like I'm drowning, and it's just as I'm going to quit, but I'll just pass out, and see what will happen if I have to, but I didn't pass out, I got better, actually, by the time there was a fourth phase, I was at pre phase one, before you class up for the, for the seal training, so by the time we graduate from the fourth phase, moving to our real seal class, they instructed us asking me to demonstrate the new guys have to swim the side strokes, so I became really good, I was never fast swim about that was strong, so we might have to be swimming forever, and you didn't come up with any injuries or anything, being a 33 year old guy going through Buds, not at the time, the worst guys were always tired, I was looking at these young guys, like, hey, let's go to the bar, I was like, dude, I can hardly move, I can't go to the bar, I was still making out to the bar here and there, but there was just like really painful for me, because again, I was not the intensity of it, it's not just the one time, because like one time, like seal training, I think most of the people that one day can, like, he might survive, but it over and over and over, it just wears your body, wears you down, and eventually you have some people quit, so that was the most difficult for me, because I did not recover as fast-being 32 years old, as other guys, so what was your first, where your first orders were team did you get? So we had agreement, we had always partnered with one of the guys, and we had agreement, you know, if I ask you had a question, you answered it correctly, so I don't have to, because if you answered correctly, I have to retitch you because these people are watching, if I don't catch your error or your wrong answer, then they will go into it to me in the air, so we are okay, so we are with the document, and you know, there is a point in the skydiving too, when we teach people eventually, saying like, so there is an altitude that you have to make your decision, either cada way, the malfunction, the parachute, if you have malfunction, and open the reserve, or you ride it the ground, so I think it was at times 2000 feet, you saw it by 2000 feet, you never have a good parachute, and you need to make the decision to cada way as a new jumper, and and and and open your reserve, if you didn't do it by the time, it was like you just should be riding it to the ground, so we got to it and say, look at this guy in this commission is listening there, and so okay, now tell me what is your hard day, this guy looks at me, so like what, I was like, you know, tell me what is your hard day, I say, I can't tell that, so now I'm getting a man that's like mother fucker, don't fuck with me, what is your hard day, and he says, what do you mean, what do you mean, I said, you know, the 2000 foot hard day, I don't have 2000 foot hard day, I was like, man, I have to punch this guy, look up there, and this how this, they're laying under a table in the parking so hard, I was so focused that, you know, it's a 2000 foot hard day, yeah, yeah, he's working right here, I'm just copying him, I'll write that in the other, and then, and that's, man, so he's like, okay, if somebody comes in, just kick me, I'm going to sleep, I say, okay, he's sleeping, great guy, actually this is the first time that I was exposed to America, I'm American way of eating too, because, so I remember saying, you know, you need to come over here, we'll have a stakes, and I'll just, we'll just have a stakes and say, okay, so I show up, and there's a big, I think, two stakes, no, three stakes, where she's girlfriend there, so there's big, as three stakes are like, I'm going to be eating it for a month, I mean, so like, so who, who else is coming here, he said, now I just three of us, I say, I'm going to write the stakes, yeah, you can have one, I mean, the one is for you here, you can't pick whatever you want, I was like, I mean, they didn't tie a stake, he's like, yeah, who was wrong with that, I say, dude, how'd be slicing it and slicing it just to let you think would last me for a month, and Paul and, and I, I just didn't know that you can just take like that just by the slub of meat, you've cooking in the U.S., that's like, what the fuck, and I love stakes, I'm addicted to stakes now, so, so that was how it's exposed first time, and you get it done in four days, and then I'm going to become a jump master and you're working as hard as you can, it's like you have this open free way in front of you for America, you can be whatever you are able to be, you know, I can say whatever you want to be, because I want to be as an Arab, I'm 60 years old, I ain't going to be as an Arab, I'm not a Arab, but but you can be whatever you are able to be, there is nothing to stop you like different countries, what's your background, who is your mom, are you coming, so are you belong to Socialist Party, so we can help you, but if you know, you cannot be in this position, you cannot go to college even, if you don't have, you are not part of the Socialist Youth Organization, so for me, yeah, there was like the entire world open, I could be whatever I was able to be and there was nothing stopping me, so even more, even more makes me that stick to my word, I want to be the best citizens, I want to make this country, the best can be and contribute to it, so that's where the first person who came out and I just became US citizen at the time, so as like, okay, I can't build the jobs for these people, I'm not reaching the half, I don't have resources, but I can fight for them, so this is my country, I'm going to go and sign up, I had no idea how to do it, I remember in post office, I seen those draft cards sometimes that you, you feel like that, so I say, I went up there, I feel like that, I sent it out, I packed my shit, I was leaving with others, skydive hours at the time, so to see what's going on drag, what are you going, I'm going to war, I'm just sending out my papers, and this is the first goal for first goal, so it's 1991, yes, the first goal for kicks off, yes, you want to go fight, I don't think go down to the post office, and fill that, grab the what's that thing called, the selective service should be, yeah, I'm waiting on the van de Simulette, sorry, but this selective service doesn't apply to you, you are to all, so I was already 31 at the time, going 32, and so I say, fuck, I find my, I will find my way into the war, so somebody said, hey, once you go to recruiting golf, recruiting golfies, I say, sure, I went to the army, in Poland, army is everything, you know, it's like army, you're talking about army here for me, that time was, everything was army, so good to army, so, okay, this is me, I would like to join military, I would like to go to war, it's like, okay, what do you want to do, I say, by fight, it's like, no, no, we're like a jobs or something, you have in the skills, I say, no, not really, but I will doubt do whatever you tell me to do, and I just want to go to war, when the war is over, I'll go back to Marlomar life, but I think just for the duration of the war, I would like to join the military, they say, okay, well, let me see, look at my documents, they tell me what to bring, so I bring all the stuff, they did all the war, I say, okay, so we put you as the infantry, I think it was infantrymen and stuff, and I say, absolutely, thank you so much, I'm ready to go any time, and then I see us show up in our jobs, and they were doing demonstration jump, leapfrocks in my face, so we start talking about it a few times together, I say, I think I have such a cool guy, you know, and so they are, so the kidnaps stone and there, and I remember that they were so freaking painful, I mean, I never had a lesson, but I was never beat up, so I had, they were so painful, like this, but that was so painful that I remember they gave me that medicine, I think it was demoral, it's like, didn't work, they don't say that, I need something stronger because I just, I'm about to go crazy, I can, that pain is so, so hard, so they give me a more fun, just like one away, but I remember it was funny thing, because the first time with this job, I had no idea what it was, I was laying in the bunk in the boot camp, and that's just, the Spain came in, I just fell off the bat, and so the tender lights on, and within like three minutes, I had this pool of sweat under my nose, all dripping, and on my force, this medic comes in, hey, are you okay, it's like, fuck do I look okay, to you, I'm never came move, I say what's so, they got me to post me that I passed it, but that was not the worst thing, that was thing, it's like, you know, you're going to this medic, we are about to give you the medic examination for seals, but you had just had a kid and they still don't have to weigh the year, I was like fuck, but in my mind said it was, I want to fight the war in any capacity, you know, I'm, I'm all know that I have that privilege to go and fight for America, so I promise you this is really mad, so I said, So I don't know if I found out that if you like tip one of them from one end, just like a domino thing, it's army guy, they would just totally fall down, they would say they would definitely fall down, and it was actually I thought there was a, there was some music, I think that's pretty cool, you tip one a little bit at the last gauge, gloves now, but my issue was that I don't like PLFs, so I made it, so just so everyone knows, a PLF is a parachute landing fall, and it's a technique that you get taught for static line jumping, where it's supposed to minimize your injuries, because you keep your feet and knees together, and you hit like you kind of like roll, you sort of roll when you hit, and you keep your arms kind of tucked in and it's supposed to prevent you from getting injured, because when you're on one of those parachutes, you're still coming down really fast, it's not like what you see in the movies when guys can kind of come down on a free fall parachute, and they flare, and they just kind of tip toe away from it, you hit pretty hard, especially if you're a heavier guy, the heavier you are, the harder you're going to hit, so they try and teach, and plus the army's working with hundreds and hundreds of people getting thrown out of that thing, getting thrown out of an aircraft every day, so they try and teach the most simple way that they can teach hundreds and hundreds of people how to fall without getting hurt. Yes, we went, those were some of the other problems we went to, Bosnia, to Yugoslavia, we spent time, I was pretty good time, she was like, it was just good, there was something that much to do at the time, but just work out and get big, so that was a good pattern, actually, there was, this is what I made the strongest guy in the team, so I think I can think of Chris S, I don't know if I can bring his name, I don't have the permission I didn't ask him, so just to be on the safe side, but he knows who he is, where he went to France, France, I mean this guy was lifting like about five plates, the bench, bench press, so when we went to France, we just got the French equipment, he just bent that shit out of the, they're bar, bar, bar, when he picked it up, this bribar, I mean the bar bent and those weights are falling off, so all these French guys, they stop working with us, they just like, whenever we rolled into their gym, they just sit down like a bunch of the weird dudes, so that was actually funny, but yeah there was big pattern, I remember, so those entire platoon, I think over 220 pounds, I think those one guy maybe was not, but all of us over 220 pounds, of course Chris was way much more, and Yeah, that was, we had a bunch of, we had a tight group, a lot of good people too, yes, and also you were talking about being big, we were also, we tried to get a platoon average of 200 pounds, and we had to make up for some slack, because we had some bad amount of one thing, and we, I remember we got to, the first place we went was Spain, and I was trying to get to 250, and I'm the same thing, I was like trying, I'm eating, I'm lifting, I'm squatting, I'm eating, and I couldn't get above like two, I don't know, 240, 5 or something like that, and then where we stayed in Spain, they had an all-you-can-eat buffet for all three meals of the day, and I was like, oh, I got this, three days later, I was 250, I weighed in, and I was like, yeah, 250, and then I went on a four mile run, and I was like, okay, I need to lose weight, sucks. yeah, you eat the steak, you don't just paper slices like this, and because in Paul and you know, I didn't mention that, I just come back very quick to it, the social is what they do, Paul and there's that, once became very resilient to hangar, because I, I was going to hangar to school quite often, because my mom, you had to, you cannot buy food for more than two, three, three, four days, especially bread or something, so if my mom didn't get up early in November, I'm three or three, three, three, three, three, four o'clock in the morning, I stayed in line for just, but sometimes around the block, to buy a lot of bread, I didn't, I had no breakfast, so sometimes she was in a lie or I'd for a couple hours, but then they sold our bread before she could get it, I was hungry to school, going to school, but my remedy for it was, I just find out there's a richer kids, especially those parties, party members, sons, they have always food, they have really good food, so I just beat them up and I took their flans, and I ate their lunch, and I said like you want to eat lunch, you break two sandwiches next time, so I had so much supply that I actually, I was like a robin who, because I was like to pull the guys that I knew up there and I said like I get to seal team 2, and actually they, I wanted to go to seal team 4, because I said, I don't want to be called, I know seal team 2 at a time, operate the north part and the Europe, and in Europe in general, so I say, I just want to go to like team 4, but friend of mine, say, no, no, dude, you with your language, with your Polish, Russian, and you, I speak Japanese too, so with your language, you would be good asset in this European team and stuff, so I kind of like put the such switch that from the team 4 to team 2, put team 4, second, and just like God, not put me as the visa, I just for some reason, I don't know, I was, I was not maybe that technical person at the time, and that challenges to be as the operator is twice, it is as twice, you said to me, I see, but you have to have that expertise with this mini-subs and with the operation of it, that for me, I felt was overwhelmed by that, what you need to know to be good operator in this DV teams, so I just too, and I got my orders to see all team 2, went to jump school, did you go to forebending? Yes, so they get me to Jenny Pozy and Ashwabin, so you know, I'm getting briefed, and there's, okay, so this is what we expect from you, this is what needs to happen, so this is what I raise my first alarm, I say, I'm going to sit in the fucking home via a warship happens, I'm here, I'm going with these guys, if they go, so you know, for the command, I will save this priority, so they were like, you know, well, we don't know these guys really, we know they're good, but we don't train with them, we didn't train with them that much, so we set you loose out with these guys, I mean you're taking, we are taking a chance, you can get hurt, but I said, I had no other way, so I'm going with these guys, I mean, I won't get in the respect even from the, I won't respect myself just sitting there, I won't be doing nothing, so after a lot of the bays, they say, okay, you can go with these guys, so for me it was good because I was double dipping, I was going with the gromm guys and they don't just switch my game, just go by with our guys, I switch your gear, you mean change your clothes, did you wear the gromm uniform? but I didn't know, I just, I said that's okay, I guess this is the, the way it goes, I roll with it, and the bit, another surprise for me was, so we came in, there was a couple other new guys at the same time, so when we saw him in the team, and that's okay, hey guys, at that time, in the, in the times on every Friday, we had a kegger in the high bay, so the kegger of bay, and the guys were drinking beer, so hey, when you guys, we just invite you for the kegger, and I was just, I'm sorry, into coming, join us, for the, for the, so I remember I was so taken, this is all the guys, this old Navy seals, they're so cool, you know, take these new guys, they, I'd invite for the beer and stuff, and well, I didn't know that we were, they just put them, use them, and these old new guys, then as soon as we, that, that, not soon that we just crossed the door of this bay, we just get beat up, taped up, hang up in the, on those fucking chains up, hanging like a bath, while these guys are drinking beer and just throwing the insults and I ask and stuff, hey, and I, once they, once they have to be fired, once they're brought in the lower, as down, they stick this tube in our mouth from the braggar, just pull the braggar into the, beer and the braggar bag, and just squeeze that fast as you can, so by the time, you know, you're doing so much beer, you didn't care if you hanging upside down, or no, that's it. yeah, you can do it again, so I do one more time, so I like, can I jump by myself, like, not right the way, but you have to go to the classes, so tell me about it, so here's what I said, you got a class, most likely, like, on the weekend, then you come Monday, come, you do one jump, maybe two jumps, Tuesday, Wednesday, like, like, one in two weeks, you get this enough just seven jumps, it was AFF, accelerated three four at the time, and there, so you may enough jumps, then you can graduate to jump on your own, I say, fuck, and we can restart, I say, we can start it actually this Thursday, I say, no, Friday, I say, okay, so Friday, I came ahead of all the classes, we made three jumps, Saturday, I made the next four jumps, and I was, I think Saturday evening, I was jumping on my own, so thank you three days, I was hooked, I stayed and like, four months passed, like, nobody switched anything, five months, nobody switched anything, I was like, fucking happy, I said, I can't be, I said, ain't saying shit to these guys, and so like, in the eight months, so this like 11 months, the deployment almost a year, my NVG's broke and I said, like, guys, I need some help, can you guys loan me your NVGs? Yeah, and we should, but you remember, we were leaving like our doors were opening right on the beach, so we just opened the door, because we're talking to the side, we were just like, I'm on the beach right there, so that was awesome, I mean, that, that was awesome deployment, I really liked that, and then the barrained, and there was the Christmas party, I mean, the Christmas time came, the New York came, and kind of like get us tighter and close together, and there was that 2,000 years, so that was really, really good time, and I have very fond memories of it, it's almost like a very nostalgic to me right now, it's just so, so we get done with that puttune, I know I got back, I went to college, you carried on, where did you say it team, two or two go to the different team? I didn't think about it, but it does, I remember flying over the Adriatic Sea, where we were actually on the lookout for this pilot, scatty lantern, he was sitting in there, and there, he was a sniper, so he's sitting up there and the fucking with his gun, and we'll look at it, and I think that's Bill White, look at it, say, the park, the say nothing, he's called Belle just dropped off, so he was sitting on the ledge of, I think it was, who's scary, yeah, scary off, so the ramp is open, he's sitting on the ramp, tending with his gun, he's called Belle just gone, so I think it was, I think it was a bill White, he just like sneak up, he just grabbed his ass, he's just fucking pulling him inside, he's a scatty, like what a part, he's like, dude, he almost fell out of the jet, because you know those clips, they were like easy to come and down, I mean, it's not really something that I would say safe, that they will stay, cause only, so so I say, I said, sure, you know, that's enough, I say okay, but they say it then, but now before you become a seal, you need to get a job, you have to select the job in the Navy, at the time there was no seal rating, you remember that there was, you got to boot camp, you got to A school, you got to job in the Navy and then, you got to, if you like you are assigned to go to seal training, so I say well I don't know much what I want to do, I'm part of shooting something with have I been part of shooting again, so it sounds good to me, no idea what it was, it stuck me in this field for like as a E5 for a year, so I said like okay, Okay, I mean this is like, so that's why you know, like, three months came in, but I suppose to return, I was like, I hear nothing from my commands, I'm like, fuck, I ain't saying shit either, so I keep going, I was like, they asked say, who wants to stay longer here because they have this change, but we could appreciate anything change, you know, I guess I'm here, so But you guys were inside those compound walls, and you're probably whatever, eight feet, 10 feet, 12 feet away from the blast, and so like I said, I get a little, little bit of protection, and I don't feel as much concussion, the concussion is going up, and then as soon as the breach goes, I jump over the wall and go, we go do our thing, but you know, you guys are just taking that breach on a nightly basis, taking that hammer to the brain, and look, I know there's some of them where, you know, it would be really bad, and it might knock you out, but even the ones that don't knock you out, even the ones that you just, you just suck up that thing, and it doesn't knock you out, and then you go, that thing is not good for you, like those breaches are not good for you, and who knows how many hundreds of times you just took that concussion, took that minor concussion, and over time it's definitely going to, it's going to freaking leave a mark. Yeah, it's about to deploy, and we are next, you need to come back, and so there's those no way to go around, I mean, I could, when I go maybe so much, but that time I had to come back, so they send me that, I can back to a little creek, and, I had to find this door, so that the next team is coming out, so I say, hey guys, I can go, I did not even get addicted to that stuff, I mean, you just, you can't leave in normal society, you just like, dude, I just left there, I don't like this place here, so to leave like this, I want to be there, and so I say, I go with you guys, I say, how can you use you, you know, just help us settle down with this, you're the been there for so long time, and you're with Gromso, you will help us settle down with that stuff, with Grom, and so I went, so, just for a couple of weeks, and for me, I said, And so, you know, I eventually got my clearance, so I went to the radio shag upstairs in the C02 and passed the test, a scatial into the venture, got his citizenship, so we all went out, got him to end up there, and because he was in the platinum at this time, and he got his crypto stuff too, and we moved on, so the my first platinum, as I was a member of a chief bigsner, good, good, good, I think, if this guy didn't have a hard attack yet, I think he might have it because of me, because you know, my English skills, so it was not really that good, so the ref like everything, I mean, you know, whatever you do, you know, you get to communicate, you get to communicate fast and effectively, and I just was lacking that English skills at the time. So, it was okay, so when eventually we came to the crypto and the, the, the radio communication equipment, there's, you know, the communication class, and when the crypto and we're sitting there by the time we were about to take a test from this, as I was in like, like, two more days, so that, so today was the last class, you know, how to use the cryptographic equipment, how to you, all that stuff, and so that the next day, supposed to be, I think, final exam and then there's, there's like, then move to the next section of STT, so this guy comes in, one of the instructors comes in, it's like, hey, do you have a clearance? I mean, I have like the Bruce, like fucking broke my ribs, what that fucking came from, so the ground was like, you are on your floor, we just have to kick you out of the way, because there's no way to hide, you are just there on your floor, and we, so basically they kicked me out of the way, the kick was so strong, almost broke my ribs, but you know, it's not, that's something that you accept because that's, yeah, as a breacher, man, those, those operations, like those breaches that you guys were doing, and I would usually position myself where I would be kind of with there be a wall, I would sort of put myself on top of the wall, on top of the ladder, so I could see the breach, I could see the building, I could see if there's any enemy movement, and then right as you guys would say turning steel, I would duck down. and so we went to the judge, we got like, you know, the stem we got married very quick and then I sure have on the in debt got the sworn in and Thursday I left to boot camp and didn't become the, there's like no intention to make me a seal, but you know for a little bit, I just wanted to join military, I want to contribute to the effort, I am American, I want to fight for my country, so whether being the part of the regular or whatever, I just made the best out of it, by the size of the opportunity shows up, I say why not to be a seal, I will, I will try it, and I did, I passed all the tests, so that was in boot camp and they do that, they do that, they do that day where they go okay, if you want to try for seals, you need to go take the test right now, yeah, there is a, there is a day that actually the different jobs, there's people are coming and telling about their jobs, so there are seals, you'll demotivate those show up and he talks about, I was just couldn't sit in this fucking chat room, just, get out of there, I just, You know, I do, it's like, I'm basically, they thought I'm just Iraqi trying to solicit, fucking gear to send somewhere to Baghdad in the, so I can really taste, I do the motherfucking kill you when I get, when I come back, and then, by the time I get my master chief online, so they could master chief online, some master chief, I didn't have to get some NVGs, I'm here, my broken, say, wait, wait, wait, drag, what are you, I say I'm in Baghdad master chief, it's like quite second, I was like, and how long you have been there, I say I'm like, I'm a Aussie here on deployment, and then, dude, you need to come back here, because, you know, sealed team such and such, I don't want to bring the numbers. Yeah, that was awesome, I remember just said that very beginning, we busted the bridge and I remember this captain, so hey, don't cooperate with America and see it's in Russian, don't say nothing, don't operate resistors, magic, you can, a Mr. Film that he understands it, he was over the OIC, he said, I drank a teker of it, he just grabbed the guy by the scrub, working on it, opened the house, got a big chimney with the door, I see open the door, it's like a little tiny space, so I turned in Russian, like a mother fuck, he just said another ward, I'm going to squash you right here and I'll like you after the rest of the journey, he's just looking at this little tiny space here, I'll fuck up, but there's no fuck with these guys, okay, no problem, we never had a problem with this guy again, so yeah that's, I remember for me, I wanted to join this 220 pounds, so I'm working so hard and I'm just like, I have a pound bowl, how the pound bowl, like, two, 19, 2018, I say fuck, give me that lot of bread right there, so I was just like, I weigh myself, maybe I had these few grams to get this 220 pounds, I just chow and down, push myself into that bread myself, like, getting the scale, 220 and a half, it's like, fucking, I'm to 220 pounds club, now I wish I could get to the 220 pounds from the other side, so then, when I showed up at team 2, what was it, was that your fourth platoon? that was a good workout, that was a really good platoon, good deployment too, I mean, I really enjoyed, I just thought we went to Spain, we hijacked the Russian tanker too, that was it, that was it, you know, now when I look back at it after my experience in combat, I'm sure you too, it's not really that big deal, but at that time there was like holy shed with not only hijacked the Russian tanker, vulgon eff, it was vulgon eff, we fast rope on that too, I remember the funny thing, Stu is, you remember who would look ships like that because there was a Russian tanker, so they're those regular, they just to clarify everyone for the English translation, when, when drugless as we hijacked the Russian tanker, we actually didn't hijacked the Russian tanker, there was a tanker, a Russian tanker that was smuggling oil out of the Gulf and one of the missions that we had while we were over there, we stopped people from smuggling stuff out of the Gulf, most of the time we were taking down little, little dows, little tiny boats and we would take those things down, we took down a bunch of them too, but then this was the biggest catch that we got was this big oil tanker that we, that we took the Russian flag, and I remember the funny thing is even, I remember we did the shifts later, right, because that was not comfortable, so let's keep seals on it, so just bobbing on this boat, bobbing on this boat, but I remember, so when we took it down, we came back and then the next shift came back next day, the other squad, when they came back, so you just left a bunch of weapons with them, there is so much fog, we took all this, the weapons that you guys left, I was like, what the weapons did we leave up there, I mean, what's the search that boat, what's now to be, when they went up there, they see those little butterflies, the butterflies, the butterflies, they just fucking took it away from this guy, so when we went back, these guys are coming in, I spoke Russian, you know, I'm like, yeah, so say hey, a Mr. please help us, we have no teeth and we can't eat because these guys told our force and our knives, so we can, I cannot chew and this is up there, really, maybe two or three teeth, sticking out of the mouth and this is all they had, Yes, for me it was kind of fun time, because when I was growing up, I was poor, I never had a chance to go through this nail-eyed or this type of thing, I could watch over the fans, I shielded and were playing around it, but I couldn't afford it, so when I got into this tower, I was like holy shit, this is like a decennial idea, so I didn't care what the position he would meet to jump, I just like, I had a bloody hour to read, and yeah, that kind of didn't like it, but they are very rigid, so I remember two of those, they had a lot of fun too, because I think you went through the same thing, so there is a forbending, so you stare next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, so close, that basically you cannot even move, and then you just go to your line, you grab the line, they drag you just do the PLI, if I could never do the PLI, that was only scared of PLI. I think can, just go get your medic or record from your, from your medical office, bring it here, we take a look at it, so I ran up there and I said, what magic you'll come up with, I'm sure there's some paragraph or some regulation that will help that bypass this to put kids, so I brought this record, and I said, I was right, right there, right there, I was just, I want you to leave the room here, I'll just call you in a second, and I could hear a rip, so he comes back, so the kidnaged stone, where is that, I was like, right, oh, so he's like, I don't see any, I don't see any either, should he had the kidnaged stone, it's like, you know, maybe not, maybe I didn't, okay, I remember you showed up and it's like, I remember I had the swim with you, this before even we platoon up, so we just wanted to dive the swim, and I see well you had a big guy, so I don't think you'd be swimming the fast, so I think I'm saved with you, I'd be alright, and it's okay, I want to look at me, I say, okay, that's your boy, you swim with the boy, and I was like, okay, and so again, the water, you drag, that boy you drag and drag me and that boy with you, I just could not keep up, I mean, that was like, what is fucking guy, he's taking the... Yeah, I also remember those guys, they were telling us that we didn't do a good job clearing or whatever they were saying, because they still, because we were like, oh yeah, they have, they have butterflies and stuff like that, and they're like, don't worry, we secured it, and we were sailing, we were on a Navy ship looking at the ship that we took down, and I'm looking, I was like, there's the camps to my mind, there's always, there's something that's some situation that you can get killed, and if you look over the statistics, I think from there before the war, I think we were killing like two guys in training every year, as the average I think was like, when I'm looking out with the disguided eye, this guy was killing, in training, this white was killing, in training, he was like, one or two guys every year, yeah, for sure, no, there's definitely you're doing stuff every day, whether it's parachuteing, diving, shooting, you're always doing something in computer, that can give you a bad day, or make you fall out of helicopter, because your belt came off,

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jockel Pontkass number 276 with echo Charles and me, Jockel willing. Good evening, I go good evening.
[00:00:09] Archival publications of the Institute of National Remembrance Poland.
[00:00:17] Court name, Court of the Pomeranian Military District B.
[00:00:23] Judge Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Sobisky, Court of File Number Redacted.
[00:00:33] Prosecutors Office of File Number Redacted. Security Service File Number Redacted.
[00:00:42] Case Examination Date, 1981, 1214.
[00:00:47] Case Conclusion Date, 1982, 1228. Case Description.
[00:00:57] File in the Criminal Case Against Redacted Name, suspected of printing and distributing leaflets containing false information.
[00:01:08] That is crime based on Article 48 Section 3 of the decree of December 12, 1981 on Marshall Law.
[00:01:19] Detained temporarily on February 11, 1982, based on the decision of the Military Prosecutors Office February 12, 1982.
[00:01:30] The Accused Acting Together and In Consultation with Redacted Name, produced brochures for distribution, which could cause civil disturbances and which contain false information on activity of authorities of the people's Republic of Poland in the period of Marshall Law and calling upon civilians to oppose the authorities and to organize an illegal underground organization.
[00:01:57] That is, crime based on Article 48 Section 3 of the decree of December 12, 1981 on Marshall Law.
[00:02:06] Based on the ruling of the Court of the Pomeranian Military District, redacted name is sentenced to three years of imprisonment and three years of loss of civil rights, a charge to be paid on behalf of the state treasury in the amount of 4200 PLN reimbursement of one-third of the costs of court proceedings.
[00:02:37] So that is a document from a book.
[00:02:43] The book is called Camp Posey, and it's written by an individual called Naval, who is a member of the Polish-Grom Special Forces.
[00:02:55] And the document is from the case against a man whose name is redacted in the document is named Thomas Zaron.
[00:03:07] Thomas was born and raised in communist Poland, and he made a stand against the authoritarian communist regime and was sent to prison for his actions.
[00:03:25] It's sent to prison for speaking out against the evils of communism and he ended up in prison.
[00:03:37] Communist prison, then I guess I need not talk about the condition of communist prisons, because we've discussed them on this podcast before, but it goes saying goes without saying that those prisons are not for the faint to fart.
[00:03:51] But luckily Thomas Zaron possessed an incredibly strong will, and he survived prison, and he made it out of prison, and eventually he made it out of Poland.
[00:04:05] And eventually he made it to the United States, where he eventually joined the Navy, and became a seal.
[00:04:20] And this is also where Thomas Zaron took on a new name, a nickname, Drogo.
[00:04:34] And this is where I was lucky enough to serve alongside him on and off the battlefield, and this is where we became brothers.
[00:04:41] And it is an honor to have him here tonight to share his story with us, Drogo.
[00:04:50] Welcome. Thank you. It's also to be here on your podcast.
[00:04:54] I follow it for a long time, and eventually I thank you for inviting me and it's honor to be here.
[00:05:01] And somebody on something reached out and said, well, why don't you have Drogo on? And I was like, any time Drogo wants to come on. No, no, no factor of course.
[00:05:12] So this is like one of the craziest stories, as far as back stories go, not just for joining the seal teams, but joining the military in general.
[00:05:20] I mean, it's pretty straightforward. What happens to most American kids, right? Oh, I want to be a soldier. They joined Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marine Corps, that's what they do.
[00:05:31] Man, your story is about as crazy as it gets for backstories.
[00:05:35] I guess it is, for my, maybe not the crazy but it's different. And just even from, well, let me just back out of it. But when I came to America, I came with a bag of clothes and 10 clinics, the German, it's like less than 10 signs in my pocket.
[00:05:54] So everything I have, everything I own, I owe it to America to you to American people. So I promise myself that I will be the best citizen, the American can have. I'll do everything to be the, as good citizen as I can be.
[00:06:18] So yeah, as the beginnings were very hard, but like, no, there's nothing unusual. You can don't speak English. You, I didn't come here with expectations like, hey, give me a job and make tons of money. And I just wanted to work. I just wanted to leave free man and that was given to me. So that promise, I, I try to, I still keep it deep in my heart that yes,
[00:06:48] I am, I'm so successful. I succeeded, but there is so much more to do for America for our country. And that's what I, that was my goal. Be the best American citizen. America can have.
[00:07:01] So let's, let's take it back a little bit before you get over here with less than 10 cents in your pocket. So you're born in Poland. Is that right? You're born in Poland? Yes, I was born in Poland. What did your parents do? My father was communist. He was, he was a professor. He was a teacher. Then became, became a party member joined the police, that's not really not coming. He's more socialism.
[00:07:25] There, very the same. We can talk about the differences later, but so my father was a party member. My mother was a teacher. She was a elementary school teacher.
[00:07:37] So when I was born, my father was already starting his career with political communist party.
[00:07:44] And that was something that, you know, if you're, if you're living in Poland and you see the communist party on the rise, your dad looks around and says, hey, you know what, I kind of got to, I kind of got to go with the flow and get with this party. If I'm going to advance my career in life.
[00:08:00] I think that's what it was. You know, he came from very poor family too. So the party, they gave it to him. Say, look, if you just close your eyes on some moral aspect of socialism and just follow that our doctrine and you're going to be successful.
[00:08:18] And he fell for it. He went, he became very successful eventually. He had been also in the, imagine the top communist government as one of the directors of ministry of art and culture. So he was successful.
[00:08:36] But it sounds like your mom wasn't quite as on board with looking away from some of those immoral aspects of communism. Neither my mom, neither my father's mom. I remember that that was big ref in our entire family.
[00:08:52] I remember as a little kid, maybe six, seven years old visiting my grandmother and I mean my father's mother, my grandmother. And she always was telling me, communist are evil. They are devils. Socialists is evil. Socialism is evil system.
[00:09:09] And I always had an image of socialist or communist as the guy with the big tail, with the big horns, breathing fire. I remember I've been asked, my grandma, my grandmother, they breathe fire. And my grandma, yeah, they are words and they, they more, they're people quietly on this on the sides. And they are just really bad as evil. So in my mind was always communism, socialism is pretty evil system. It is.
[00:09:39] I remember my father tried to protest, I'm not evil. I'm not really, I'm your son, I see I look at him. He was like, if you saw your soul to socialism or communism, if you did, you part of these more, that are quite happening in Poland.
[00:09:54] So you are evil and I don't want to consider you to be my son. That she was very adamant about it. So for me, I was always, I remember before going to bed, we were my grandmother teach me how to pray. So I was praying and I remember we always closed the prayer, God, please help. But they take all the communism, communism and socialism out of Poland. So I just, I just kind of, grew up with it and there's never different.
[00:10:19] And the, the, the, the, with my mom and my father, I still remember there was, I think it was, I don't remember what age it was, but we wanted to church my mother wanted to church on Sunday. And I still remember my father standing in front of the door, say, we cannot go because I'm going to lose my job. We cannot go, I'm going to lose my job. We are not going to church the church, the communism and church and socialism and church have not compatible. And we just not going there.
[00:10:48] So my grandmother was visiting at the same time. So my mother left the couldn't keep on stop her. My grandmother passed me to the window to my mom, down, it was in the first floor. And we still went to the church. But that was pretty much constant, right eventually that that marriage fell apart. My father went with the communists and socialism, I stay with mom. My brother, my younger sister, stay with mom. So that's, it was, it was,
[00:11:17] it was very difficult to for us because at that time in Poland, it changed it now, but at that time in Poland, if your parents divorced, you as a child will stick my ties. So you were the divorcee, you know, there's actually that parents were say, hey, don't go play with this guy because his parents just got divorced. He's just divorced.
[00:11:35] They were the kind of derogatory name in Polish that we were caught. So they actually can't toughen me out because I didn't actually be picking up some of these guys and they're laughing me along. They were not my friends, but they never bothered me out again.
[00:11:48] So that they worked. So what you're going to school every day is it's like normal, is that what's happening in Poland in the, this is in the late 70s, huh?
[00:11:57] Where the 70s? That was 1968. Remember, I'm 60 years old. So how was born 15 years after Second World War? So this is, I was born with less this time, this time, this time that we have between, we, our beginning,
[00:12:14] September 11 and today and this is still so fresh in our minds, right? September 11. So I happened to be, so I was born in just 15 years after the Second World War. So I was still playing the ruins in the broken houses. There were some people are still finding bombs and exploded bombs and explosives.
[00:12:34] Kind of interesting. So, so you go on a school, is that normal? Are they state run schools? Is there communes? Are you being taught communism in the schools?
[00:12:43] Oh, yes, absolutely. I actually kept on notes. I found from my, from my notebook from school. That was elementary school, like later classes at seven great about communism, socialists.
[00:12:52] You were indoctrinated from the very beginning in socialism, communism. And the, the things are very funny there because the government, the socialists government, they feel like they need to have a total control and they rush, they have to but otherwise people would just
[00:13:08] People don't subscribe to slavery. So, so socialism is not really that good systems. They don't want it. So they, they, I remember they force us in fifth grade. I was in fifth grade elementary school and we had to learn Russian. I was not there.
[00:13:26] I was never the best student and then they thrown the Russian on a me as like for that bug with that to lend the shit. I don't want to learn and I'll kind of fall open and I have been like in the class. I say, look, I'm Polish. I don't want to go into, learn Russian language. I don't want to learn it.
[00:13:42] I don't feel like I have to learn English or I have to learn German. Oh my god, I had no idea what's going to happen. But next thing I was pulled out to principles of his mother. She was teaching in different schools. So they, they called the police the secret police came in. They picked my mom. They drove her to, to principle when I was the waiting there, scared shitless. And they, they say, so what happens so that teacher explained that I am anti-socialist, apparently, I don't know, I don't know.
[00:14:10] Anti-socialist, apparently, I don't like socialism and I am also objecting to Russian language indoctrination. So my mom is all in tier she's scared or shaking then they drag my brother into it,
[00:14:26] drag my sister, I know idea what's going on. So we sit up there and they were very clear. I still remember that if it happens again, these kids will go to orphanage that government will make them good citizens if you cannot do that. So this is the, this is your last warning.
[00:14:42] And so I had to, I was able to buy it, I never changed my attitude that I was always outspoken, but I remember that fear that my mom lived for that in rest of our lives until the rest of the time when we were still growing up and the state could take the kids away from her.
[00:15:02] So that's, that's, that the other interesting part of it is that like today I have 11 years old 12 years old daughter 11 years old son.
[00:15:15] I'm looking over them like, oh, I don't let them go anywhere where I can see them. I can play, but I have to be always able to go in assist if something happens.
[00:15:26] I didn't happen Poland, Poland I remember I was seven, eight years old, I was driving across the town thinking bars crossing the streets going to somewhere else and there it was like there's no big deal all the kids there would just ten miles away from school where we have to commute and we're just coming here there was like no big deal my mom would just bought me a ticket.
[00:15:46] So if I'm getting to the bars, if I could because they were so crowded, you just have to pull yourself in and sometimes the door don't close, you're holding yourself in it, your legs are sticking out, but you're just going to school.
[00:15:58] So that was kind of, yeah, there was like, I don't know it is because we felt we did fall safe my mom apparently feels safe about it and maybe this because there was no internet at the time so some of the crime that happened was not very transparent.
[00:16:14] It was not very readily the information about it was not readily available. So people didn't know if something bad happened so I remember going to kindergarten so I was,
[00:16:26] that was I think I was five and a half years old. So we had to go from from our home after my younger brother so he was around me three and a half and by hand we are getting the house shoes and another hand the house shoes.
[00:16:41] This is a good sleepers because in kindergarten you cannot wear those shoes that you wear outside you have to give a sleeper so it has to be clean everything so we get the sleepers now and hands.
[00:16:51] We're going to around the school around the street across the street actually a friend of Mike at Kild on the street by the motorcycle so but it was not a big deal so when you go across the street you look like the look right and I'm sure nothing is there.
[00:17:06] And we just woke across the street so just walked to a kindergarten by ourselves being six and a half six five years old.
[00:17:13] So today I think I was going to jail for the lightning things like that happened to my kids but at the time I was just fed a colon and that's not going to be wrong.
[00:17:24] So you're you get this experience in fifth grade where you basically say you don't want to learn Russian they they crack down on your mom your brother your sister.
[00:17:38] And at any point where you so where you so you you saw what happened between your mom and your dad you've been told your whole life that communism was evil.
[00:17:56] I did but maybe not intentionally really a that time I was not political I was just like I would just annoy that I have to have the language that my grandmother tells me those people are not really good in the good things in Poland.
[00:18:09] They they are prayers Poland so I don't have to have that language so there was not so much political but the state was very political the state was very they were very conscious with citizens.
[00:18:21] They wanted to control they did control almost every aspect of social life that's what socialism is and so that didn't really that the political part came later when I started learning about the more there's the political more there's the oppression of socialism.
[00:18:39] And then what has became a little bit more aware what's going on then reading about the people disappearing from the street and like never heard from them again.
[00:18:51] That become a little bit more than I became more aware and so then in late 70s in Poland had so much so enough of these lies because what happened is we had the empty shelves there was nothing to eat and you can buy food you can buy clothes you cannot buy food and jewelry.
[00:19:14] But all you hear how great is in Poland in social system if you look at America people are sleeping on the street and they you know we had no access to an information they showed us tens or they showed us shags were poor people sometimes or stay or they show the worst thing about America so that was just a people knew that is lie so they got so fed up that eventually domineering what that social is press it.
[00:19:42] People didn't believe they say that this is this is brown people think they know that they're lying even if it was brown this how they had enough it had to explode and that that thing was accumulating.
[00:19:57] First the people lost the faith in the government they lost the faith in the truth that the lies that being told is they stopped paying attention to it. So at the end of the mother would they say.
[00:20:13] They had an out of it and they'd explode in the solid that they trade union movement one of that people just raised up and say in our vision off we had an out of socialism and companies.
[00:20:28] The people are growing up you talked about fifth grade you're in eighth grade you're in ninth grade you're in tenth grade and I know we're going to end up talking about this at some point you learn how to fight.
[00:20:42] What did you train you train you train you take on no train boxing what did you train I started with boxing just regular boxing and I remember being just my mom growing as I have my younger brother and sister so sometimes I had to fight for my brothers to it's quite often.
[00:21:05] I was a boxing who was important for me to kind of like codify what I already knew to just learn maybe this technique our skills now and it worked great I mean I really liked it but then.
[00:21:21] So my brother got beat up at school I think because we're divorces so there's people just so I was to remember I was sick and.
[00:21:33] I said well I need to go to school then I just pack my stuff I went to school I found a big guy oh guys like huge so I just knocking out and knocking out so bad that is this guy show up with his mom later in the evening in my apartment and it's like.
[00:21:47] I like see this your son did that to my son he can look his eye I mean I look at the guy from like kind of.
[00:21:55] Corona and I was like holy shit guy has no eyes like big swan and so my mom just comes coming in and so I look at me I'm like half of his eyes and this guy is huge and he's crying so.
[00:22:09] So that guy with your son. Yeah, you see what he did to him so if your son that big let him happen to that I think he does that just when she just guys leave.
[00:22:21] So yeah they left with their boxing gym was there boxing.
[00:22:25] Yeah those boxing gym actually those are pro-grammers that was official program yes actually those the police club I didn't know about that time but the clubs like this were own only usually by the police so yeah I bought the kind of the guard.
[00:22:38] So yeah I belong to this club but when I nailed this guy I broke my hand.
[00:22:43] I didn't know it so that put me and that's so some of my friends went on their first boxing matches and stuff I just stay to stay home and then we just moved to different towns so but there was my style was with the boxing and I like that.
[00:22:57] I got involved in the eventually tech window and let's go from the start it is because my attitude was different and the tech window they practice in Poland at the time there was two different type of tech window ITF WTF.
[00:23:10] So we did the ITF there's like no covering or anything you just going to look at out.
[00:23:16] So went to the first Polish championship and I didn't know about it they put this thing on me I was like have that fight with that but okay.
[00:23:25] So I just keep knocking these guys out they just keep progressing so I've got every time I finish my fight they say you have minus points for the being brutal to you're probably the brutal you can do that.
[00:23:36] So I mean it was like it was funny and the final fight final fight for the first place I knocked the guy out and there's the so the guy's laying there the guy's the judge comes to me say like you're you being disqualified from the program you I mean not quite the qualify.
[00:23:54] But he's the winner so then you know the announce okay this is we know the sense so right here the guys are laying there but stop.
[00:24:03] So it's like okay well but anyway if I guess there was now was not very my fight was not very sports like because I got a lot of whistles and booing after.
[00:24:12] I went this second take my second place and then kind of and then you know the prison came in and actually they helped me a lot in prison I'm glad that I was able to help other political prisoners as friend of mine who actually I met again when I visited Poland recently so.
[00:24:34] I didn't have anything to do up there just sit. We're just just behind you I saw you there too. I'm so that's good train. So we're trained and he said look what you did to me.
[00:24:45] Help me light of survive the beatings that I got from the guards and then that's and all that stuff.
[00:24:52] So so you were go let's before we get to being in prison so now it's the late 70s now at some point you must you made a decision that you're not you're not going to comply with communism you're going to you're going to fight against it.
[00:25:07] Yes.
[00:25:08] The inshia I didn't even know how to but the the the first thing actually when I when it's when it's when it's started changing my when when it started making me aware was really going on in Poland.
[00:25:23] I was I started listening to radio free Europe and the voice of America and BBC this station you could go to prison for listening to it so I remember my mom was like in panic oh my god I can hear you get more pillows on your over your head get more those big.
[00:25:41] And I was like I'm a blanket so neighbors don't hear that she wasn't fair she could she could go to prison for that so so I was listening to BBC how old how old are you that time I think I was 12 13 14 so as I was getting all that and there was getting more interested in what's going on this when I learned that you know that the social is actually quite killing people who are in convenient to them or those people disappear like we don't know where this guy is.
[00:26:09] You was very outspoken about socialism he just disappeared so so I was learning about it I was learning also about the the more that's the extra judicial.
[00:26:19] More that's.
[00:26:21] Commented by judges in Poland who subscribe to social is ideology.
[00:26:27] So that's where it started changing in me they say this is not wrong this is what's going on in Poland how did those murders take place you just.
[00:26:37] I tell you all how could happen because nobody knows but I tell you what happened to me eventually so I was working from the gym we're working out just.
[00:26:48] Do some fights and can get the police pull Zensei.
[00:26:52] Just grab you by the hands pulling the car just go that's it and then just let me say like that's where are we going I say well where we got what once we made that one that anymore might have to you anything.
[00:27:03] I was like oh fuck so I'm already thinking like hey so if we get out of this car I'm going to kick this guy out I'm going to do this I'm they're going to shoot me they're going to kill me was like he but it's not going to go down quietly.
[00:27:14] And but they're just drove around the town just drop me off in the other part of the town I had to walk back home for a few miles.
[00:27:21] So that's just like intimidation and letting you know what they can do.
[00:27:25] Yes, if they want to.
[00:27:26] Yes, yes, how old are you and that kind of things start happening.
[00:27:29] That's that happening when that happened after I was released from prison.
[00:27:34] But before that this will ask them this how this people disappear they don't like you are spoken.
[00:27:40] You're going to either comply or we just destroy your family.
[00:27:46] That's that's how social is works and so.
[00:27:52] I experienced that how they disappear people after I get out of prison.
[00:27:58] Before that I was not aware I just knew that people are just there and that they were not there in the wrong year or this they committed suicide or they fall of the stairs.
[00:28:07] So that's some.
[00:28:10] It was.
[00:28:12] Just something that was waking up in me that this social system is very oppressive and you can't leave as a free man.
[00:28:23] And you know, in the operation like this I remember actually that I was also downing on me that there's different countries that have different systems are free.
[00:28:32] I learned about America.
[00:28:34] I remember in Warsaw for every time I was in Warsaw.
[00:28:38] I was like to go to US embassy because they have those beautiful cars those big cities that's their images you know, I was like I can't pick the fence I can see that.
[00:28:47] I was like, I was like, the images that have those like a glass things on the fence where we can read about America.
[00:28:57] I was like, oh, why Poland cannot be like that.
[00:29:00] You know, why this is so awesome.
[00:29:02] I remember every chance I had.
[00:29:04] So this is like when when I look at American fly something like taking my heart and it's like, this is so free.
[00:29:12] This is this is the freedom and I always from then on I always cared. So whenever something happened in Poland, I was like, we need to change. We need to be like America.
[00:29:23] So that's where this start my view start my tuning in.
[00:29:28] So how old were you when you started to actually.
[00:29:32] Do something about it that you see, you know, what you eventually get arrested for at what point and was it up was it other kids was there some kind of leadership network of people.
[00:29:41] That work of people that were leading solidarity. Do you join the solidarity movement? How did what did that look like?
[00:29:47] It went it crystallized. I remember the first strikes happened people were hungry. I don't know. We want to food and freedom.
[00:29:56] So they organized strikes. This was like, well, as I came into the picture.
[00:30:01] He was the that the prominent eventually became the leader of solidarity, the trade union movement in Poland.
[00:30:07] So my mom got involved and I got involved with my friends. I've there on the different level. My mom was involved in school and this is how it went.
[00:30:17] And so then we started there was really not much to do at the time because the solidarity was doing everything.
[00:30:23] There was the first trade union that was the first movement in Eastern block country that was independent from social is regime from socialist communist party.
[00:30:36] So that was I was just like, I couldn't read enough what there was being published, what really happened in 19 when the communist and socialist came to Poland after Second World War on the Stalin's bayonets.
[00:30:53] That was our learning, you know, about the atrocities, about the mortars, about the freedom that we didn't know that we are not free sometimes.
[00:31:03] But when we learn about how other countries, how it's been done in America. So that's when I started actually maturing it's a growing and night in so that was right before the was before the martial law was late 1970s.
[00:31:20] Especially when the John Pope came to Poland and he like rise people, I say look, you can't live on your knees. You need to rise up, you know basically he's a message he didn't say directly but he's a message was like this, always taken this way and people raised up and gave the socialist as out.
[00:31:41] So that they had seen, I mean the communist had seen this kind of thing happen in other Eastern block country countries. I mean the Hungary had happened so they kind of they followed.
[00:31:52] So they were nervous about that. So they end up declaring martial law. They do martial law to try and.
[00:31:58] Yes, they must suppress the solidarity movement. Yes, they lost control. They knew it and there's no way to putting this genie back.
[00:32:05] I think something happened with Trump here. You can't put it back. And there's a little violence. So they realized that they cannot go back to what it used to be people who don't trust them. They know they are liar and they know that they weren't they everybody knew they were liars and thieves too.
[00:32:23] So they decide eventually, we said we had enough we are losing control and if it continues, they will hang out. They were they these people. Hey, that's really for what we hear what the socialism don't do these people.
[00:32:38] They will, they will prosecute us. So they impose martial law and I remember I was on the phone with a friend of mine. He was in Austria and midnight click as we're talking quiet. I say with that.
[00:32:54] No, no connection. So then people are still coming. Hey, they just shut down all the TVs or the radios. There's no communication on the telephone lines in the work. They shut down the communication the entire Poland.
[00:33:09] And I think 15 after midnight they started rolling in. So I was at the hotel that they had quarters at the time and midnight when they came in. So they just brought it all. They round up everybody who was there. They hold us on the on the police station.
[00:33:27] And then they they only hold those people who who hold prominent leadership positions. So that night they arrested. I've done different estimates. They are from 25,000 people on the low side to 65,000 people arrested that night.
[00:33:42] They were not criminal arrests. They were that basically the way they explain to us that those people are not arrested. They're sitting in jail, but they are interned. We interned for their safety because we want them to be safe.
[00:33:59] And also, they were potentially dangerous to the state. So they were not really dangerous. There was that there's not like they did something. They were potentially dangerous to the state. So we didn't jail them. We just interned them. They have a good living conditions. We provide the food.
[00:34:18] It's just it is so ridiculous now when I'm listening to what I say and it is so sound so weird, but that was the fact then that was that the way we perceive that reality that was quite normal. Well, you know, martial law, they in jail 60,000 people one night, we do something this way, get eventually get we and a couple of my friends start building them say we cannot just see them.
[00:34:47] I didn't watch it. What we're going to do is send this shutdown or the communications. We're going to create our own. So we're going to create our own network.
[00:34:58] And we start printing and then just working there's those print and I if the way we did that, but we didn't know that I'm in the better. So we just print what happened. We printed the names of the of people arrested.
[00:35:13] So the families know that these people just didn't disappear yet they just sitting in prison now eventually. So we stopped distributing that in my city where I was at the time growing up.
[00:35:25] And this how it started. So we function for a while until we got caught and then of course it was not very difficult for the because they were prepared for that.
[00:35:34] And then and then how I end up in prison eventually they start publishing the lists of some of the some of the people they they intern basically put them in prisons.
[00:35:45] So so you get you get arrested they come to your house they find you at school they find the natural history.
[00:35:51] And then you got me a pretty much of the street I was working in the point where we're printing it to pick up more of the.
[00:36:05] And then I started becoming they're like I would really go go my.
[00:36:23] And then you go my party.
[00:36:30] story, this is something I didn't know, I didn't know that I can have a lawyer. You could,
[00:36:37] but they just ignored that. So it was a little bit different. So I got to jail,
[00:36:44] that's okay. So did you do it? I said no. Did you do it? No. You did it? No. So you know,
[00:36:50] got a little bit beat up and that's us stuck by my thing. No, I didn't know. So what
[00:36:56] there are these papers, what you find in your house, because they went to my house later,
[00:36:59] they searched my house, my mom liked her told me that they just demolished my house.
[00:37:04] My apartment, my home. I live with my mom there, so they demolished her apartment.
[00:37:09] They held the house and it's too kid. And so I see, we're just finding them on the street.
[00:37:15] It's like how you find them on the street. I did leave my there, because I got three as president
[00:37:19] and so I arrived at the bat. So I remember the funny things, they got me from,
[00:37:25] we're going to them from the present to the court. So I took my boots away, so you take the boots,
[00:37:31] I take my boots. And this guy at the cup comes out, so he had his guy kicks. So he cannot run away.
[00:37:37] He cannot kick with the barfine. I say, well, I do kick with the barfine. So they beat me up for that.
[00:37:43] And I went to the court, I said, look, I was beat up, I was like, we don't care.
[00:37:47] But I basically almost had a judge, but I said, we don't care. It didn't happen.
[00:37:52] So what's the prison conditions?
[00:37:55] Present conditions for me at the time. I didn't know when the bat at the bat, that's sort of
[00:38:00] prison after always, it's to be bad. But again, you're always hungry.
[00:38:04] You have no rights. You can't see it. There's another funny thing, because
[00:38:08] when I went up there, they say, you can't lay down. You can't just see it on those
[00:38:14] tools, all day long, and just a table, as a course or a table. And from me, all the
[00:38:21] people just wait there. When the cow comes in, you go to, you go to, you go to,
[00:38:27] you go to the land, I don't know the bat. So I'm just trying to be in a,
[00:38:31] like, I'm still scared. I'm new to this environment. I'm sitting by a
[00:38:35] select fuck, I ain't going to sit here all the goddamn day long. I can't get to
[00:38:40] the way down, see what it happens. I just lay down, just keep the shadow of the
[00:38:44] meat on that side. So I'm coming back to this service, you know, I'm
[00:38:48] beat up. I can't see it on my eyes. So I say, fuck, I don't think they're going to
[00:38:52] beat me up again. Now they know I have a legitimate reason to lay down.
[00:38:55] I can't see it. So the other came to the game. So it's like, you're a
[00:38:58] beat three times funny like I said, I guess they say, like, fuck, they
[00:39:01] ain't going to sit. I ain't going to be like down. So just let me that.
[00:39:04] So I had no problems, but then there's a one of those criminal guys, because
[00:39:09] I'm talking to the people who come on criminals. He said, fuck, any of that
[00:39:12] time, I'm tougher than him. So I think I can earn my way to fucking
[00:39:17] two. I don't want to see the whole day, the table on the stool. No
[00:39:20] bag resorts anything. So he lay down bad in his bed up there across.
[00:39:25] And it was my friend, it was not my bed because it was like four
[00:39:29] beds, about 15 of us there. So we sleep on the floor, but that's like,
[00:39:32] fuck, you try to kick me out of there. So he lay down on the bed.
[00:39:38] And so in storage, just you can hear the screaming, the beating
[00:39:41] out of this bag, he comes back or black and blue. And that's good to
[00:39:45] bear. He was to the table, he seems. Yeah, that was it.
[00:39:48] It's like a game around. I had enough. I will sit. So it turns out he
[00:39:52] wasn't quite as tough as you. Well, I don't know if they were
[00:39:54] there. So at that time, toughness, I just he was not prepared for the
[00:39:58] beating. So he's like, well, I don't know either. I rather put that
[00:40:01] with sitting on the stool in front of the table than then deal
[00:40:06] with these guys. So eventually they had an act say, I was so naive.
[00:40:11] I had no idea. They told me, hey, those those old prisoners, like,
[00:40:15] now if we can make the hole in this wall to this other cell, we can have a
[00:40:18] sugar and some other food because these guys give a lot of stuff.
[00:40:21] So I say, fuck, you know, I'm just with crime under the bed and
[00:40:25] stomach. So that made the hole maybe like this big, but then go
[00:40:30] far because of course, you know, there's like there's no tools of nothing.
[00:40:33] Wait, where were you trying to be, break the hole in the wall to
[00:40:37] using what using the, like, the, the, from the stool that you see.
[00:40:44] Okay. The like you think of my party, the like to take this to a
[00:40:47] part and you start to get through a con. Yeah, well, yeah,
[00:40:52] it was not really that hard actually. It was not maybe that
[00:40:56] concrete in the beginning, but the bunch of that got to the
[00:40:58] concrete. But it was when, when, when, when, when
[00:41:01] when, when, when, when, so I got pulled out of somebody pulling me by the legs and
[00:41:06] you know, they got a good kicks and stuff with one other cell.
[00:41:09] So, so here it is then I'm baguette this room. There's not the
[00:41:13] principle of the word word. So you have a lot of problems with you.
[00:41:18] You know, you're going to go, you do it again. We're going to go and put you in the
[00:41:22] isolation and they kind of get tired, Kate. So it was a cell.
[00:41:26] And within the cell was a Kate, just like it in the zoo.
[00:41:29] I just put you there. So I say, okay, whatever, I'm not going to be
[00:41:34] punching the walls in the house in the wall, okay.
[00:41:37] It's like, it was so stupid. I didn't know any better.
[00:41:40] So then I work every day for like 15 minutes, we're allowed to go outside
[00:41:45] and work. There was like a room, maybe half size of this with the high
[00:41:51] walls, what they say, guards working on the tub or above you.
[00:41:55] And the funny thing is that there was a maid of these concrete posts with the
[00:42:00] slit inside. We've seen them in Iraq and this reinforced concrete
[00:42:06] slab was slight in between the posts. One on the top of another.
[00:42:10] So I was thinking, take one. I remember I was just for the
[00:42:13] demonstration. I was breaking those in half. So I thought that I had
[00:42:18] the voice of the guy who was in the case with me. So I said, I
[00:42:21] didn't communicate with him. Let me take a look. I didn't mean to break that
[00:42:25] shit. I would just go, I was like, quit. I just kicked that shit.
[00:42:29] So I thought just like you move this some of this mud from in between
[00:42:33] those cracks between these slabs. That's fucking thing fall off.
[00:42:37] And just as cold to slabs above, just fall down on it.
[00:42:41] And so you can see that the alarm's going on everywhere.
[00:42:43] I was like, what the fuck? I did not. So I end up in the tiger case.
[00:42:48] And I just didn't see the time. I just sitting there. And I
[00:42:52] didn't see the time. It was the final time. But the second, the
[00:42:55] other time, they put me in the prison with the broken windows.
[00:42:59] It was winter time. And they gave me no blankets. I was just laying on
[00:43:03] those woods for I think it was a week. So it was not. It was,
[00:43:07] it was okay. I was freezing, but there was nothing that would kill me.
[00:43:12] And you know, like, I'm looking watching some of the TV's here
[00:43:17] in the United States. I was like a fuck. Now, if at that time,
[00:43:23] how would I trade my alive in Poland for prison here? Because I would be fed.
[00:43:28] I have a medical attention. I had a TV. I would have a gym, maybe,
[00:43:32] possibly even. And how can you live better? I mean, what else can you do
[00:43:37] you want from life? Just you have everything provided to you.
[00:43:41] You don't have to fight for anything. So that's how long we
[00:43:46] how long did you end up staying in prison? There was three
[00:43:49] years prison sentence. And they released as I think close to
[00:43:52] year and a half or after a year and a half when John Paul
[00:43:55] and second was coming to Poland again. So they tried to make a
[00:43:59] gesture. So we started releasing political prisoners on
[00:44:02] armnesty. And I noticed they started releasing us and
[00:44:07] some the prisons that are shrinking. Because after the case
[00:44:12] was done, my case, I was sentenced to, got my sentence.
[00:44:15] They shipped us to Rochen border. We were in prison
[00:44:19] Calif Rubiershov. I think we can throw the window.
[00:44:23] We can see the river and the Rochen territory next to it.
[00:44:27] So it's kind of like a nerving. Because at that time,
[00:44:30] there was a reality of innovation. I mean, we were afraid
[00:44:34] that the Rochen's will come in to take to put some order
[00:44:39] there because I think it was the communism and social
[00:44:42] institutions. We were trying to make sure we were
[00:44:46] going to get killed. So we were thinking,
[00:44:50] like, well, we're going to get killed. Anyway, if they
[00:44:52] come in, this was what we need to do. We had like a
[00:44:54] plans actually, how to bridge the bridge, not the bridge
[00:44:57] like we know as a seals. But how to get through the
[00:45:00] wall, how to get this, we're just making the
[00:45:02] equipment down. So they may be killed, but maybe they
[00:45:05] do not kill everybody. But we cannot just sit here in
[00:45:08] prison and just wait for it to be slaughtered. So they
[00:45:11] were killed. So they were thinking at the time in prison.
[00:45:16] So yeah, so we were in this, that's actually a couple
[00:45:22] other things came to my mind too. I didn't even think about it.
[00:45:25] So they beat us up. I remember I had some issues with,
[00:45:28] okay, so we went on the hunger strike. So, okay,
[00:45:32] when we were on hunger strike, we won the status of
[00:45:36] political prisoner. They were in socialism, I don't know,
[00:45:40] if you can guess you knew, but in social
[00:45:42] there are no political prisoners. There are, but they
[00:45:46] are sitting for something else. They are sitting like
[00:45:48] stealing the milk from the front of the somebody's
[00:45:51] or the door or just insulting the neighbor or just
[00:45:55] being mean to somebody. So they put you for something else.
[00:45:58] So they always claim political prisoners, not in
[00:46:00] socialism. We don't have that. Everybody until
[00:46:03] the martial law who was like that for political
[00:46:07] activities was like that pretty much for something else.
[00:46:11] For some criminal offense. They did, they did, they
[00:46:13] could generate it. So yeah, there was something that
[00:46:17] when they, so they sent us to Hrubiushav, they kind of
[00:46:21] isolate the political prisoners there from the general criminal
[00:46:25] population. So just like pretty much go like. And they,
[00:46:31] so we decided to go on the hunger strike.
[00:46:36] And the way they broke our strike was in Poland,
[00:46:42] they said there is a law that after two weeks if you
[00:46:45] don't eat, we'll forcefully feed you. So what they did
[00:46:49] is like a vacuum pipe or something. So they said,
[00:46:53] god damn, I ain't gonna come into my stomach. And so they
[00:46:59] put this thing in your throat and they just put it
[00:47:03] in your throat. So they said, well, whatever the mixture
[00:47:07] they gave you there. And I remember I didn't know that
[00:47:11] bad. So I said, I ain't gonna, I'll fight these guys. So I
[00:47:15] find the same family. They overpower me. They hang out
[00:47:17] me to the chair. But when they tried to put this pipe again,
[00:47:21] I just broke the fucking chair. So they broke the
[00:47:23] different chair this time. I couldn't break out of it.
[00:47:25] And they actually forced it later. I'll learn how to
[00:47:29] deal with it. So yeah, I was like no big deal. I'm just
[00:47:32] going to put it in my foot in it. But what they
[00:47:35] way they broke it is typical social is way, but it's
[00:47:38] sneaky. So they got to especially the older guys say,
[00:47:41] look, see this big pipe and I'm going to have to show
[00:47:44] it back down your throat and your stomach again. And
[00:47:48] put it in, why didn't you just take it to yourself,
[00:47:51] just drink that shit and go to yourself. So they're like,
[00:47:54] no, that's pretty painful. So I just like, okay,
[00:47:57] as soon as you just take it one save, it's like,
[00:47:59] wow, you just broke your hangers. You just ate on your own.
[00:48:03] So now we're going to transport you to another prison.
[00:48:06] Again, they may have a chance to most likely to go to this prison
[00:48:09] cell. He will just handcraft, put it in the
[00:48:11] transport and drove away somewhere. So the
[00:48:14] eventually there was only a few of us left. And the car
[00:48:17] came from the church that this is pointless.
[00:48:21] The socialists, socialists will never admit
[00:48:24] they hold political prisoners. And you just waste your
[00:48:28] health into stop it. So we did eventually stop that.
[00:48:33] And I've put all of it for a guy about it until I went to
[00:48:36] Poland and met this guy. He's, hey, do you remember the
[00:48:38] hangers try here? I have the calendar here.
[00:48:40] This, this, this, you know, the, like, shit, yeah,
[00:48:43] I remember now. But then, so when we were on the
[00:48:46] hundred hundred, hundred, hundred. I think there was
[00:48:48] three weeks before the car came into stop. And because
[00:48:52] they were going nowhere. Yeah, I need to look at
[00:48:57] the, I need to look at the calendar. I don't have it here.
[00:49:00] But, uh, into looking to it. This is interesting actually
[00:49:03] because, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
[00:49:06] there was things to that, uh, we did in prison. I can't
[00:49:09] sing where the shit. I'm not the singing person at all.
[00:49:13] But I was singing like a mother for a kid in prison.
[00:49:15] There's those political songs. There from Polish past
[00:49:18] from Polish history. They were very patriotic songs
[00:49:21] which socialists really hated. So, uh, we in
[00:49:25] prison, there was at eight o'clock in the evening. I
[00:49:29] believe it was eight o'clock in the evening. We just opened
[00:49:31] the windows on the whole side. And then Thai prison
[00:49:33] population from the even discriminant still joined in. But
[00:49:36] they got beat up a shutdown very quick. And there was, there
[00:49:39] was, they, they squashed them. But not with us. So, uh,
[00:49:43] we kept singing. There was so loud that, that,
[00:49:46] near by town, they could hear. And actually, that
[00:49:49] priest was coming in, praying in front of the prison. So,
[00:49:53] they were, uh, that guards hated. Because, you know,
[00:49:56] they were, they were not to one cell. They beat up people.
[00:49:59] They tried them and closed the windows up. As soon as
[00:50:01] they leave, the windows got open again. And people are singing
[00:50:03] on the cell. So, there's not as much they could do. Um,
[00:50:06] that, that's, uh, that's funny. Actually,
[00:50:09] I, I, I didn't to send them. I send it to you because I
[00:50:12] haven't. There was so bad, I guess, for them, they,
[00:50:15] I didn't have any family at the time, just my mom. So,
[00:50:18] they sent a letter to my mom, complaining, say, hey,
[00:50:20] you know, do something you sound is not listening. And,
[00:50:23] actually, I was showing to my wife Rachel,
[00:50:26] say, look at this here because I knew that I had
[00:50:29] that just couldn't, but then I just, by accident,
[00:50:31] I found it. So, I had this document saying that same
[00:50:33] to, let, let it from prison. So, just come out
[00:50:36] and help because I'm not listening to social,
[00:50:39] it's got.
[00:50:41] With their any guards or any government officials that
[00:50:45] were like sympathetic at all, or they just,
[00:50:48] they just had to tow the party line. They had to tow the
[00:50:51] path line, but there were, uh,
[00:50:53] some of the guards that they were not so vicious.
[00:50:56] So, uh, they, they, they just not, uh,
[00:51:00] they listened to sometimes, like,
[00:51:03] there was even, we were able to smuggle the camera
[00:51:06] into the prison. I'm sure that some of the guards knew
[00:51:09] about it. And, uh, there, there are some pictures floating
[00:51:12] I think I've seen some of the pictures from the prison at
[00:51:15] the time. And, um, some of them, like, you know,
[00:51:19] on the, during Christmas time. So, uh, we had
[00:51:24] this nose. They say, like, well, we can see
[00:51:27] us some out of the whole Kinra had to help to
[00:51:29] hout the hall, but we have this alcohol
[00:51:30] to clean the skin. So, see, well,
[00:51:32] let's, you know, why don't we just, yeah,
[00:51:34] so we just, uh, put the rope down from the
[00:51:38] first floor. She, she can, she can, I've just been
[00:51:42] skin clinging alcohol just put it out. You're the fire thing to present.
[00:51:46] Can you get the better than that, right?
[00:51:49] I thought, remember, it comes present. That was actually, it was really bad if they
[00:51:56] coach with this. So you end up getting released when the Pope comes back again,
[00:52:01] they do this gesture, they're going to let you out of prison. And then are you
[00:52:05] going, once you're out of prison, what are you doing? Trying to find the job
[00:52:10] facts? So I was going to do something. I mean, my mom cannot, she's in the
[00:52:15] hard time, she has a hard time too. And I cannot be on her sitting and leaving
[00:52:21] on her from her money. So I'm trying to find the job and you can't because
[00:52:27] everything is controlled, the government owns everything. They own the job. So if
[00:52:32] I remember after struggling for a while, I still continue my training. So this is what I
[00:52:39] described earlier after the training coming out from, sometimes in the evening,
[00:52:44] the Pennsylvania train, as police pulled in, they pulled me out in the car drive me around,
[00:52:48] threatened me for a while and just thrown me on the street. So this is who I
[00:52:52] asked, like, you know what, I can continue like this. This is something that I
[00:52:56] eventually end up dead. And they did actually, we found out later that not
[00:53:00] later I found out around the same time that one of the my fellow prisoners was
[00:53:06] suicide that then another one, I was like, I'm not going to wait, maybe. And then
[00:53:11] the my images of America came in. Yeah, so this is what I went and I said, I need to
[00:53:19] go get something. I went to American ambassador. See, this is what's happening.
[00:53:25] I need help. And how yeah, I was like, sure, we need this, this, this, and within
[00:53:31] three weeks I had the, I think within three weeks I had a visa out of Poland to
[00:53:39] Germany to the United States, permanent. The funny thing is that I also had to,
[00:53:43] because I was still in the age that conscription age. So they had to go and sign
[00:53:51] up like, I'm not going to go to join Polish military. I'm not being sold by the
[00:53:57] military or anything. I remember I was working to this office and I say, I'm living
[00:54:02] Poland. I need you to sign this here. So this fucking sergeant, that's look at me.
[00:54:07] Say, you look pretty strong. But you know, people like this should serve Poland under
[00:54:11] this, Polish fucking, this Polish symbol, this Polish ego. I just like you say, dude,
[00:54:18] anyway, Polish ego, then motherfucker you and your Russians, but they stole the crown
[00:54:23] from that ego. It's a bad, that ego doesn't have a crown on his head. So that's
[00:54:28] your ego, but it's not mine. I'm not serving out of this motherfucker right there.
[00:54:31] And then he was the scientist, I just let I remember his armars leaving the building.
[00:54:37] Then my little still screaming and yelling, I don't tell you how bad we are.
[00:54:42] They are the bad ones people. So and I came to Germany first in the real center
[00:54:48] that the United States created for us for refugees. I'll then about America. We had
[00:54:53] people coming teaching us about America and eventually I'll remember still like, so where
[00:54:58] would you want you to have any preferences where you come to America? I remember I was always
[00:55:02] called. I was in Poland. I was so called that, actually, we couldn't buy the good clothes.
[00:55:08] So my man put the newspapers in our, sometimes in our jackets. So just like, just don't
[00:55:13] tell people, then anybody, because then I'm better than me, but I just have those newspapers
[00:55:18] inside to keep you warm. And the day that would actually did the trick. So I was always
[00:55:23] called in Poland and then so when they asked me, I was like, well, everywhere would
[00:55:33] is not called. I mean, if it is hard, it's perfect, but just not what it's called if you
[00:55:38] can. So I was like, what would you think about the manfies? Do you know what I think about
[00:55:41] the manfies? It's like, no, but I know that I was pressley. It was from the manfies. I
[00:55:44] knew that. Okay. Okay. So we're looking for the place in Manfies for you. And that's what
[00:55:50] I came in. That's when I landed, I could say, is with the 10 thinnicks in my pocket and
[00:55:54] bag of clothes. So how long has it been since you left Poland? How long are you in Germany
[00:55:59] for? I was in Germany. Maybe three months. Are they teaching you an English there? No,
[00:56:05] there was no time for that. There's mostly, like, you know, the legal staff, what do you
[00:56:10] need to do? How you go about getting the English classes? How you leave? What the
[00:56:16] laws are? How how to be good a member of society and productive? So there's that we try
[00:56:29] to learn on our own. I just remember both of my sort of the English dictionary and that
[00:56:35] lost somewhere on the way to, in the flight. But that was really good because Coastal
[00:56:41] I gave a funny year and we came to like a normal world. Everything was clean. Everything
[00:56:46] was bright. Everything was nice. People were nice. And like, that's the war of that. I think
[00:56:53] that's what I'm, I'm already guys going to be doing. So really, I was really excited just to
[00:56:58] go to come to America at the time. What year is it? It's 1984 beginning. Also, I left 1989
[00:57:04] and I did three, like December 1983 and this is like beginning in 1984. So you get on a plane
[00:57:09] or you buy yourself or is there other people with you? There were some other people with me.
[00:57:13] There was, there was a group of people refugees from the Communist Socialist state and
[00:57:20] by the way, we're going to different locations. So some of them were adding in the know,
[00:57:23] and once we get on this big jungle, you know, there was like, by the men know who these people
[00:57:28] were, where they went. So I eventually got land in New York and I remember I just wanted to see
[00:57:35] this statue of, like, so great, you know. And yeah. Is anyone escorting you? Is anyone?
[00:57:45] Oh yeah, yeah. I mean, there was like a wooden cannon I wore on. I mean, when we came in,
[00:57:50] there was probably people waiting for us. Everything was provided that they helped us to
[00:57:55] our destination, the manfrees, I remember this, when I get my first apartment, they helped me get
[00:58:00] the apartment, my first job and I was so excited. I remember I, I never knew what they are
[00:58:06] your condition against, right? So I was watching the movies from America in Poland when I was
[00:58:13] young and I see those boxes in the windows. I thought they're just a box you can put them in the
[00:58:17] milk inside, no, it's because in Poland, they're so cold. You just put that side of the window,
[00:58:21] your food, your mail, your staffs, I say, this is so cold. You have so smart, you know, I in Poland
[00:58:26] don't have this, we could have this box behind the window, we could put more stuff in it. But then
[00:58:31] there's, I was landed, it's actually, there's not the boxes for food, it's just air conditioning.
[00:58:35] So they sounded, it keeps your house cool and healthy. And but I remember, so when I moved my
[00:58:40] first apartment, I couldn't contain myself, tell my mom, say, I call my mom, say, Mom, I'm
[00:58:46] living in the apartment and with climateisation with air conditioning, she's like, what the air
[00:58:54] conditioning? I say, it blows cold air on the mind, if you want, say, oh my god, how much do you
[00:58:59] pay for it? Can you afford these things? I say, oh yeah, it comes with apartments. So yeah, that was so,
[00:59:07] I mean, that, that, that change was so drastic. I remember going to the store for a
[00:59:12] time, grossed a store. In Poland, it was very simple, just grab whatever was left on the shelf
[00:59:18] and just run with it before somebody grabbed it from you, it's like, here, you see the cereal,
[00:59:23] first I didn't know what the cereal was. What's this? Or this like, it's like a cereal,
[00:59:27] that there's a, I don't know what it is, but I take one. But then I look at these boxes, they're
[00:59:31] also looking cool. So nice. What's right? This one, maybe I tried this one. So I have like 50 boxes of
[00:59:36] cereal, then it was so the abundance of everything. Something that could not get used to it for
[00:59:45] long time. I always end up by trying to buy maybe like $56 grosser is, I end up with like $30, $40,
[00:59:52] another time, and spend all the money again. Because my first paycheck was, I think, it was like,
[00:59:56] I have $40 a week. So I remember, but, of course, people, I wouldn't be able to make it without
[01:00:04] American helping me. So they, I remember that $40 usually buy the end of the week. Because I had to
[01:00:14] say, money to pay for apartment was like $100, I think for apartment electricity and everything.
[01:00:20] I had maybe like, I ran out of money at the end of it. So I just have to wait for my paycheck.
[01:00:25] As soon as I got the paycheck, a small cereal, more food, you know, people were bringing me food too.
[01:00:29] So again, I would not survive in the Americans helping me. Who are the Americans that were helping
[01:00:35] you? Was it a religious group? Was it religious groups? Some great look, church, and my office.
[01:00:41] And these people are Christians. And they have so many people. And I think I feel obligated,
[01:00:55] I need to do something to maybe reciprocate. And now kind of late, but there are also people.
[01:01:03] And they still, they still actively support people coming to America. Help them settle down.
[01:01:10] I would never succeed if not their help. I was very lucky. The funny things is to that I didn't
[01:01:18] speak English. So they both made dictionary. And so I'm just trying to learn as much as I can.
[01:01:27] I remember one of the families, like older couple, older couple, picking up and saying,
[01:01:34] I'm going to drive you here today, show you this, you know, on the main fees and this.
[01:01:37] So as we drive, actually, they gave me the dictionary. So because they were helping us.
[01:01:45] It was just that couple or maybe I think it was like designated help us. So the email dictionary
[01:01:50] I'm trying to show that I'm using it and I'm really trying to learn. And I see this black guy
[01:01:54] working on the street. So I'm working dictionary. I say, this is black man, right? So just looking
[01:02:00] and saying, and that addiction that it says, this is an. So I say, hey, this isn't an. It was like
[01:02:08] someone's crash the car. Oh my god, no, no, why do you say the, what you landed? What are they saying? The
[01:02:14] dictionary you gave me right here. So I have the dictionary here today with this lady still scratch
[01:02:21] that word and say, black man. You know, I didn't know any better. I mean, for me, I grew up in
[01:02:27] Poland. There was no, no, there was just only white people there. So I didn't know about that
[01:02:34] and the most, how and the most it is when we the first black person I've seen, I was maybe like 16
[01:02:40] 17 years old. I said, this is a freaking cool. I never seen Guy with a lot of the skin. So me and my
[01:02:45] bodies were like circling around. This guy, I'm sure this guy said, what the fucking weird does.
[01:02:48] But he was like, holy shit, he's really black. You know, I didn't know it. But there was never
[01:02:54] an SNES their feelings. It was just curiosity. And I said, I want to be friends with them. You know,
[01:02:59] let's invite these guys to our club, you know, and actually we did that they show up. So we're
[01:03:04] giving a Polish name as one. It was Yashu and I was something else. And we can't friends. You know,
[01:03:11] so by those the first black people I've seen. So do you go to any classes to learn to speak
[01:03:16] in English or just work? No, it's a time I was working already. So for them, the church
[01:03:22] provides us like short, maybe I think it was a one month class of English where we attend,
[01:03:28] you know, it's hard to learn. It was hard for me. As you can hear it now.
[01:03:35] 30 years later. But yes, that's was, it gives us some basics, maybe. But I remember,
[01:03:42] in our pronunciation, good, God, it was killing me. Thank you. There's no war,
[01:03:46] T. H. Ward in Polish. So thank you for me to say. I was like, I couldn't, I couldn't just
[01:03:52] could not say that was fitting. I was just, but you know, the word, probably friend of mine comes in and say,
[01:03:57] hey, just, you know, fuck it, just say thank you very quick, say F instead of the PH. That won't even
[01:04:02] hear the difference if you say it fast. So sure idea, you know, and I remember some meeting
[01:04:08] somewhere where this, I think there's a priest or somebody who brought the cookies. So I grabbed
[01:04:14] the cookie and as I tried to struggle with, did I say this guy from behind like, thank you. So
[01:04:21] it's like, let's like fuck you, you know, it's like, and it's like, got quiet. That's not right.
[01:04:29] There's something wrong with this guy, like, whoop, there's a very behind it's like,
[01:04:33] and finally one of the older gentlemen comes in. What he is trying to say is, and he looks at
[01:04:38] me and say, thank you, you're saying, thank you, you know, I work on it hard. That's so I'm better
[01:04:46] now. But I'm still like, you know, it's my wife. There are words that I'm not allowed to say in public.
[01:04:51] So like sometimes like, hey, take my phone, can you put the phone in your post? It's like,
[01:04:56] don't ever say that loud and front of on the body. That's just to say, say my, my, my, my bag
[01:05:01] or something. So it's challenging for you to say, first, uh,
[01:05:04] Pools. Okay. Yeah. We're not going to have more good. So, so it's things like, don't,
[01:05:12] I have like a little list of words that I'm not allowed to say, especially around my wife.
[01:05:18] So it's so good. I'm thinking that. So what was the first actual job that you got once you're on the ground,
[01:05:25] you're in Memphis, you got a, you got an apartment. It has air conditioning. Yeah.
[01:05:30] What's the first actual job? That job was in the deal. It was in church. I was basically
[01:05:35] mopping the church, letting the toilets and that was something to get me through.
[01:05:40] Getting me familiarized a little bit with, with, with America, with, with,
[01:05:45] get, but English, uh, behind my belt. And so basically I was working part time, uh, as a
[01:05:52] janitor. And this is where I actually start actually picking up English more. I remember I had a bucket
[01:05:59] mop in one hand and I have a little cartoon cartoon in my backpack. So, and Joey is going to
[01:06:08] the store. So, I mean, and Joey is going to the store. Joey is going to the store. It means that he is
[01:06:14] going to go and buy some groceries. Obviously, like in Polish, so it's translating it. And so I did
[01:06:20] more cartoons. I was picking up a little more and more English. And eventually, I think they decided
[01:06:26] I'm good enough to venture find a different job. So, the church helped me together job with
[01:06:34] Oakley Keezy Ford, uh, first time in Memphis. And I was Oakley Keezy Ford. Yes. Okay. In Memphis. That's
[01:06:42] not like a Polish word actually. And I thought you got a relapse on me. We come back to it later,
[01:06:49] right? Especially when I had to translate Polish to English and back. So, uh, in Iraq,
[01:06:54] but, um, so I got the job up there. My job was to pick up the, uh, the phone. And they already knew
[01:07:00] that this guy who doesn't speak English, but he knows the numbers. So, they say, okay, five, six,
[01:07:06] six, seven, eight, nine, ten. So, I was just right to down. I say, thank you, click. I run upstairs
[01:07:12] and I pick the part. There was five, five, six, seven, eight and brought it up. So, the, the, the, the,
[01:07:17] the cars from different dealerships or whoever needed that part was coming into the door and pick
[01:07:22] it, pick it up and I was just the guy who just take the phone call, get the number, get the parts.
[01:07:27] I was working really hard, but God, then those numbers, I just kept mixing up. So, there was a
[01:07:31] guy's coming up and like, two hours later here. Five, just got a wrong part. There's, there's
[01:07:36] not the part we wanted to. The mechanic says that we just gave him a wrong part. So, they came
[01:07:41] to me and it's like, hey, no, then we are, you're working so hard. We say, we don't want to fire you,
[01:07:47] but, you know, you just need to get better. But, uh, do you know anything about cars, European
[01:07:52] cars maybe? I was like, yeah, you know, I have an idea, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because
[01:07:57] there is an opening in another dealership and they are looking for mechanics for sub,
[01:08:03] Porsche, and Audi, maybe I don't know if you would want to go and try that too, you know, that's,
[01:08:09] I say, yeah, absolutely. Yes, well, yeah, I know everything about cars. How many people,
[01:08:13] when you were in Poland, how many people did you actually know that actually owned their own car?
[01:08:18] I personally didn't know anybody who owns the car. I know some people who knew some people
[01:08:24] who owned the car, but, and now you're, but, okay, so you're a car, it's my father, because he was a
[01:08:29] communist, he, he was a lot, he owned the car. There you go. So, yeah, but I was the, those, those
[01:08:34] the expertise that I had. I know somebody who knew somebody with the car. So, I went for the
[01:08:43] interview and I, my English was so broke, I hadn't, even I didn't know what I was saying. But I
[01:08:50] remember that, that, so they brought, they was like, they needed a mechanic for Porsche, Audi, and
[01:08:55] sub. And so they brought the, the, the format from the Porsche, first he looked at me and like,
[01:09:03] and I know there's like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, just like, we can have a guy,
[01:09:08] guy that he means speaking English. So, that the, the Audi mechanic came in, he talked to me for a while,
[01:09:13] and I was like to say my best, but he's like, I can see him coming heads, you know. And then the
[01:09:18] sub mechanic comes again, this big guy, like, motorcycle gangster, and it works in, so like,
[01:09:26] looks at me, I take him in slave, going with me. As I started my career, I become good, I became good.
[01:09:33] This guy, I owe him so much. He, as he was, he was running with other motorcycle gangs, and
[01:09:42] he, I remember he was very proud guy, and, and, but I was able to actually talk him into
[01:09:53] look, a jimbo, a jimbo, a jimbo. I can't speak English very well, I need to learn this thing,
[01:09:59] I have these manuals for sub, if you can read it aloud to me, I can record it, I can listen
[01:10:07] at home, and I can match the words with the recording. I thought he will kill me for a time
[01:10:11] saying, my other fuck, I ain't reading shit, I don't even know how to read well, but then,
[01:10:18] then I've, I've, I've, I've documented it, and he says, so we're sitting in his kitchen,
[01:10:24] he'll keep, he kept reading that manuals, and there was, I know there was hard for him, I could
[01:10:28] say, that would tell him what's hard for him, but he did it for me, so we become really good friends,
[01:10:34] and very often, he came back, drunk up the handling of the car, so he said, hey, jimbo,
[01:10:38] he's working, I say, yeah, he's working right here, I'm just copying him, I'll write that
[01:10:41] in the other, and then, and that's, man, so he's like, okay, if somebody comes in, just
[01:10:44] kick me, I'm going to sleep, I say, okay, he's sleeping, great guy, actually this is the first
[01:10:51] time that I was exposed to America, I'm American way of eating too, because, so I remember
[01:10:56] saying, you know, you need to come over here, we'll have a stakes, and I'll just, we'll just have
[01:11:02] a stakes and say, okay, so I show up, and there's a big, I think, two stakes, no, three stakes,
[01:11:10] where she's girlfriend there, so there's big, as three stakes are like, I'm going to be eating
[01:11:15] it for a month, I mean, so like, so who, who else is coming here, he said, now I just three of us,
[01:11:22] I say, I'm going to write the stakes, yeah, you can have one, I mean, the one is for you here,
[01:11:26] you can't pick whatever you want, I was like, I mean, they didn't tie a stake, he's like, yeah,
[01:11:32] who was wrong with that, I say, dude, how'd be slicing it and slicing it just to let
[01:11:37] you think would last me for a month, and Paul and, and I, I just didn't know that you can
[01:11:41] just take like that just by the slub of meat, you've cooking in the U.S., that's like, what
[01:11:45] the fuck, and I love stakes, I'm addicted to stakes now, so, so that was how it's exposed first
[01:11:54] time, so yeah, you eat the steak, you don't just paper slices like this, and because in Paul
[01:11:59] and you know, I didn't mention that, I just come back very quick to it, the social is what
[01:12:04] they do, Paul and there's that, once became very resilient to hangar, because I, I was going
[01:12:10] to hangar to school quite often, because my mom, you had to, you cannot buy food for more than
[01:12:17] two, three, three, four days, especially bread or something, so if my mom didn't get up early
[01:12:22] in November, I'm three or three, three, three, three, three, four o'clock in the morning,
[01:12:24] I stayed in line for just, but sometimes around the block, to buy a lot of bread, I didn't,
[01:12:29] I had no breakfast, so sometimes she was in a lie or I'd for a couple hours, but then they sold
[01:12:35] our bread before she could get it, I was hungry to school, going to school, but my remedy for it was,
[01:12:40] I just find out there's a richer kids, especially those parties, party members, sons, they have
[01:12:46] always food, they have really good food, so I just beat them up and I took their flans, and I ate
[01:12:52] their lunch, and I said like you want to eat lunch, you break two sandwiches next time, so I had
[01:12:56] so much supply that I actually, I was like a robin who, because I was like to pull the guys that I
[01:13:00] knew up there and I said like okay you bring the sandwich to this guy, you bring the sandwich to this guy,
[01:13:05] and you to me, and if they didn't, it would just took their lunch, and it would just ate their lunch,
[01:13:09] and that, that they usually they brought their lunch, so they worked, so how long are you working
[01:13:15] at the, oh is it the sub dealer? It doesn't have no work for quite a few years, and I think
[01:13:22] it was to the point that the war, then I became US citizen too, so for me, it was, it is still,
[01:13:29] it is the biggest accomplishment, for me people think you, you might do the seal training,
[01:13:34] how does it feel about it? Well, I told you how does the field to be American citizen? I tell you
[01:13:38] how to be American, I'm free man, that's the biggest accomplishment I made, that's not the seal
[01:13:43] teams, I'm very proud of the, of the tried and I'm very proud what I did in the seal teams, but
[01:13:48] it is not my biggest accomplishment, I always look in the American flag in, I'm American,
[01:13:56] I'm not a Polish or American, I am not something American, there is no hyphen in front of this
[01:14:01] or American, I am an American, and I'm proud, and so yeah, so you mentioned, you mentioned the
[01:14:10] first goal for, but then you, I will point, because I know you got into parachuting at some point,
[01:14:15] oh yeah, how did that happen? Yeah, I was at the time, I say, I'm at the guy who made the
[01:14:21] parachute jump, she told me, well, you know, it's like you need to try, that was once, that's
[01:14:26] what if I got tried the ones, that was before the war, before anything, so I say, well, I just
[01:14:32] called the drops and I say, hey, can I make a parachute jump? I'm sure, come on over, that was in
[01:14:36] Memphis, so I came and say, how can I make the parachute jump? Well, you have to see through the
[01:14:40] classes, it will be tandem jump, I say tandem jump, okay, so I sit for the class, you know,
[01:14:48] that he explained what to expect, what to look, when I, and jump, I was hooked, so I said,
[01:14:54] can I do it again? It was pretty expensive, but not being single at the time, so yeah, you can do it again,
[01:15:00] so I do one more time, so I like, can I jump by myself, like, not right the way, but you have to go
[01:15:05] to the classes, so tell me about it, so here's what I said, you got a class, most likely, like, on
[01:15:11] the weekend, then you come Monday, come, you do one jump, maybe two jumps, Tuesday, Wednesday,
[01:15:16] like, like, one in two weeks, you get this enough just seven jumps, it was AFF, accelerated three
[01:15:21] four at the time, and there, so you may enough jumps, then you can graduate to jump on your own,
[01:15:26] I say, fuck, and we can restart, I say, we can start it actually this Thursday, I say,
[01:15:32] no, Friday, I say, okay, so Friday, I came ahead of all the classes, we made three jumps,
[01:15:38] Saturday, I made the next four jumps, and I was, I think Saturday evening, I was jumping on my own,
[01:15:43] so thank you three days, I was hooked, so yeah, I was skydiving, actually this finally, because in
[01:15:49] my face we jump from very high altitude, usually 12,000 feet, sometimes 15, 16,000 feet, so I accumulated
[01:15:56] a lot of free fall of the time, so I decided to go myself for the AFF Jammas, of course, I said,
[01:16:02] I become the Jammas, that I would teach in skydiving, and I did, and actually I did extremely well,
[01:16:07] I remember when it told Zaglah how my at the time, the only issue ahead again with my language,
[01:16:12] because you know, you have to do class, you have to do class, you have to be very thorough,
[01:16:19] if you miss something, then instructors, usually there was a USPA commission, people, all those,
[01:16:24] very experienced skydivers, they pick up what you miss in the brief, and they did that errors in the
[01:16:30] air, would you didn't breathe or you'd say that the wrong way, you told it wrong way.
[01:16:34] So we had agreement, we had always partnered with one of the guys, and we had agreement,
[01:16:40] you know, if I ask you had a question, you answered it correctly, so I don't have to,
[01:16:43] because if you answered correctly, I have to retitch you because these people are watching, if I don't
[01:16:47] catch your error or your wrong answer, then they will go into it to me in the air, so we are okay,
[01:16:53] so we are with the document, and you know, there is a point in the skydiving too,
[01:16:58] when we teach people eventually, saying like, so there is an altitude that you have to make your decision,
[01:17:04] either cada way, the malfunction, the parachute, if you have malfunction, and open the reserve,
[01:17:08] or you ride it the ground, so I think it was at times 2000 feet, you saw it by 2000 feet,
[01:17:13] you never have a good parachute, and you need to make the decision to cada way as a new jumper,
[01:17:18] and and and and open your reserve, if you didn't do it by the time, it was like you just
[01:17:23] should be riding it to the ground, so we got to it and say, look at this guy in this
[01:17:28] commission is listening there, and so okay, now tell me what is your hard day, this guy looks at
[01:17:34] me, so like what, I was like, you know, tell me what is your hard day, I say, I can't tell that,
[01:17:40] so now I'm getting a man that's like mother fucker, don't fuck with me, what is your hard day,
[01:17:44] and he says, what do you mean, what do you mean, I said, you know, the 2000 foot hard day,
[01:17:52] I don't have 2000 foot hard day, I was like, man, I have to punch this guy, look up there,
[01:17:58] and this how this, they're laying under a table in the parking so hard, I was so focused that,
[01:18:02] you know, it's a 2000 foot hard day, yeah, yeah, for me, it's kind of like it's same, same day, so
[01:18:10] so he didn't say nothing about 2000 foot hard day, but eventually I graduated from this course,
[01:18:18] even the gallows this hard day, and yeah, so I was skydiving by this time, but but it seems like
[01:18:28] coming from Poland, coming from not having food from being in prison, from all these things that
[01:18:34] are going on, it seems like when you get to America, you've just got this, this like drive just
[01:18:41] to live and make things happen and you're going to free fall and you get it done in four days,
[01:18:45] and then I'm going to become a jump master and you're working as hard as you can,
[01:18:48] it's like you have this open free way in front of you for America, you can be whatever you are
[01:18:54] able to be, you know, I can say whatever you want to be, because I want to be as an Arab,
[01:19:00] I'm 60 years old, I ain't going to be as an Arab, I'm not a Arab, but but you can be whatever you
[01:19:05] are able to be, there is nothing to stop you like different countries, what's your background,
[01:19:10] who is your mom, are you coming, so are you belong to Socialist Party, so we can help you, but
[01:19:15] if you know, you cannot be in this position, you cannot go to college even, if you don't have,
[01:19:20] you are not part of the Socialist Youth Organization, so for me, yeah, there was like the entire
[01:19:26] world open, I could be whatever I was able to be and there was nothing stopping me, so even more,
[01:19:34] even more makes me that stick to my word, I want to be the best citizens, I want to make this
[01:19:40] country, the best can be and contribute to it, so that's where the first person who
[01:19:45] came out and I just became US citizen at the time, so as like, okay, I can't build the jobs for
[01:19:53] these people, I'm not reaching the half, I don't have resources, but I can fight for them, so this
[01:19:57] is my country, I'm going to go and sign up, I had no idea how to do it, I remember in post office,
[01:20:03] I seen those draft cards sometimes that you, you feel like that, so I say, I went up there, I feel
[01:20:08] like that, I sent it out, I packed my shit, I was leaving with others, skydive hours at the time,
[01:20:13] so to see what's going on drag, what are you going, I'm going to war, I'm just sending out my papers,
[01:20:19] and this is the first goal for first goal, so it's 1991, yes, the first goal for kicks off,
[01:20:26] yes, you want to go fight, I don't think go down to the post office, and fill that,
[01:20:30] grab the what's that thing called, the selective service should be, yeah, yeah, you filled that out,
[01:20:35] so it's no big, I'm going to hit your bags, I'm going to hit your bags, and that's why anytime now, so,
[01:20:42] well nothing happens, the guys like drag, I don't think this the right way to do it,
[01:20:46] the right, but you should surely want to go and to war, man, there's a war going going up there,
[01:20:52] I say, yeah, you have to, I came here with nothing, and everything, I have, I want to
[01:21:00] America to this country, I need to do something, and the best way I can do is go and fight for my
[01:21:05] country, so yeah, I'm waiting on the van de Simulette, sorry, but this selective service doesn't
[01:21:11] apply to you, you are to all, so I was already 31 at the time, going 32, and so I say,
[01:21:19] fuck, I find my, I will find my way into the war, so somebody said, hey, once you go to recruiting
[01:21:26] golf, recruiting golfies, I say, sure, I went to the army, in Poland, army is everything,
[01:21:34] you know, it's like army, you're talking about army here for me, that time was, everything was
[01:21:38] army, so good to army, so, okay, this is me, I would like to join military, I would like to go to war,
[01:21:45] it's like, okay, what do you want to do, I say, by fight, it's like, no, no, we're like a
[01:21:52] jobs or something, you have in the skills, I say, no, not really, but I will doubt do whatever you
[01:21:59] tell me to do, and I just want to go to war, when the war is over, I'll go back to Marlomar
[01:22:05] life, but I think just for the duration of the war, I would like to join the military,
[01:22:10] they say, okay, well, let me see, look at my documents, they tell me what to bring,
[01:22:14] so I bring all the stuff, they did all the war, I say, okay, so we put you as the infantry,
[01:22:19] I think it was infantrymen and stuff, and I say, absolutely, thank you so much, I'm ready to go
[01:22:24] any time, and then I see us show up in our jobs, and they were doing demonstration jump,
[01:22:32] leapfrocks in my face, so we start talking about it a few times together, I say,
[01:22:37] I think I have such a cool guy, you know, and so they are, yeah, I did not before they joined
[01:22:44] Army, why did you try the Navy, just go and ask recruiters about seals, I was like seals,
[01:22:52] what was the seals, yeah, but the Navy, this cool guy, I'm jumping the coldens of seals,
[01:22:58] so I'll just go and ask hey, I went in the next door, I said like I'm applying here for Army
[01:23:03] and they have all my paperwork, but I met some friends who told me to ask about the Navy,
[01:23:09] I'm just asking about the Navy, who those friends are, I said like they're coming to serve seals,
[01:23:13] oh yeah, yeah, you know, you can be a seal, it's like, but into good those paper war from these
[01:23:21] guys, we put you in the Navy and you okay, and then they were just putting the Navy, you will be a seal then,
[01:23:28] I say okay, so I went and like it's the horse, I'm going there, so can I have it, they were
[01:23:35] pissed, they did not like it, but so anyway I get my pay where I show up up there, they look
[01:23:39] through my papers and they're like a bunch of, well you know what, we can guarantee you the seal,
[01:23:43] there was a die for programming at the time, we cannot guarantee to you because you are way too old,
[01:23:48] you are even too old to qualify for the seals, but if you sign the paper here, you join,
[01:23:53] you got to boot camp, that will make you a seal, that's not, no doubt about it, oh yeah, so I say,
[01:23:58] I said, sure, you know, that's enough, I say okay, but they say it then, but now before you become a seal,
[01:24:04] you need to get a job, you have to select the job in the Navy, at the time there was no seal
[01:24:08] rating, you remember that there was, you got to boot camp, you got to A school, you got to
[01:24:13] job in the Navy and then, you got to, if you like you are assigned to go to seal training,
[01:24:19] so I say well I don't know much what I want to do, I'm part of shooting something with
[01:24:23] have I been part of shooting again, so it sounds good to me, no idea what it was,
[01:24:28] it stuck me in this field for like as a E5 for a year, so I said like okay, so yeah,
[01:24:34] make me see, I did that amount of dating a guy or two, so they say okay, but if you want to go to
[01:24:42] that school to PR school, you will have to leave this week, you will have to leave on a Thursday
[01:24:48] we'll put you in the entry program and I think you'll be sworn on Thursday, you will leave on Friday,
[01:24:55] but that's I think those, like, sure not, so I come again, hey, we're going to get married right now,
[01:25:00] because I'm going to the Navy, I'm leaving to the Navy, I'm leaving this week and so we went to the
[01:25:06] judge, we got like, you know, the stem we got married very quick and then I sure have on the
[01:25:12] in debt got the sworn in and Thursday I left to boot camp and didn't become the,
[01:25:18] there's like no intention to make me a seal, but you know for a little bit, I just wanted to
[01:25:24] join military, I want to contribute to the effort, I am American, I want to fight for my country,
[01:25:30] so whether being the part of the regular or whatever, I just made the best out of it,
[01:25:34] by the size of the opportunity shows up, I say why not to be a seal, I will, I will try it,
[01:25:38] and I did, I passed all the tests, so that was in boot camp and they do that, they do that,
[01:25:44] they do that day where they go okay, if you want to try for seals, you need to go take the
[01:25:47] test right now, yeah, there is a, there is a day that actually the different jobs,
[01:25:50] there's people are coming and telling about their jobs, so there are seals, you'll demotivate
[01:25:55] those show up and he talks about, I was just couldn't sit in this fucking chat room, just,
[01:26:01] get out of there, I just, hey yeah, I want to go, so, and now you're, are you 32 years old?
[01:26:09] At this point, I just wanted to tell you something.
[01:26:11] What the hell kind of physical conditioning did you do throughout your life to get, to get there
[01:26:17] and be like good enough shape, because they don't even like guys go to buds when they're
[01:26:21] 27 or 28 or something.
[01:26:23] I guess I got to be that a lot, it's just a condition, did you work, were you working out this
[01:26:29] whole time? No, really, I didn't know that the physical demands of the seal teams at the time,
[01:26:36] I was just like, what about just in life like, when you were working, when you were working,
[01:26:43] you were freaking soft, you were getting a kickboxing tech one though, yeah, that's basically what?
[01:26:47] Do you're a mutant, you're freaking mutant? Well, I just can't consider myself a liking,
[01:26:54] that you know, I was able to, and you know, the tests are really not that difficult to pass.
[01:26:58] Yeah, that's true. It's still something about your prepare, you're not about it.
[01:27:03] Yeah, so, so just so people know what you're talking about, you say the test isn't that hard to pass,
[01:27:07] the bait, the seal test that we used to get to get a chance to go to seal training was like,
[01:27:14] I think it was, you had to do, it's some minutes ago, it's like 50 pushups,
[01:27:20] 50 minutes, 50 set ups and two minutes, eight pull ups, 10 pull ups, 11, 11 pull ups, and then a mile and a
[01:27:28] half run in 11, 30 and a 500 yards swim. Yeah, so something like that. My struggle was with the swim,
[01:27:36] which I couldn't swim quite a while, so, but I got it, you know, I passed it, so I'm so happy,
[01:27:44] I'm like, oh yeah, this is so cool, and then a fucking guy that kidnaps on.
[01:27:48] Okay, me stone, yeah, and that's right because you're freaking old man, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
[01:27:53] so the kidnaps stone and there, and I remember that they were so freaking painful, I mean,
[01:28:01] I never had a lesson, but I was never beat up, so I had, they were so painful, like this,
[01:28:06] but that was so painful that I remember they gave me that medicine, I think it was demoral,
[01:28:11] it's like, didn't work, they don't say that, I need something stronger because I just,
[01:28:16] I'm about to go crazy, I can, that pain is so, so hard, so they give me a more fun,
[01:28:21] just like one away, but I remember it was funny thing, because the first time with this job,
[01:28:24] I had no idea what it was, I was laying in the bunk in the boot camp, and that's just,
[01:28:28] the Spain came in, I just fell off the bat, and so the tender lights on, and within like three minutes,
[01:28:33] I had this pool of sweat under my nose, all dripping, and on my force, this medic comes in,
[01:28:41] hey, are you okay, it's like, fuck do I look okay, to you, I'm never came move, I say what's so,
[01:28:47] they got me to post me that I passed it, but that was not the worst thing, that was thing,
[01:28:51] it's like, you know, you're going to this medic, we are about to give you the medic
[01:28:55] examination for seals, but you had just had a kid and they still don't have to weigh the
[01:28:58] year, I was like fuck, but in my mind said it was, I want to fight the war in any capacity,
[01:29:05] you know, I'm, I'm all know that I have that privilege to go and fight for America, so
[01:29:12] I promise you this is really mad, so I said, yeah, that's okay, and so then I went to A school,
[01:29:18] and the A school I met, resin piece, bless barriers, I don't know if you knew him, but so bless
[01:29:25] barriers, he was a motivator in million, and when I was going to the my parish of the school, I said,
[01:29:30] look, I passed the test, I think I can easily pass it again, but I had this kidnaged on, and I
[01:29:38] cannot, I just want to be a seal, so it's anyway, maybe there's some maybe paperwork and we don't,
[01:29:44] people, people say, people work, yeah, I think can, just go get your medic or record from your,
[01:29:51] from your medical office, bring it here, we take a look at it, so I ran up there and I said,
[01:29:57] what magic you'll come up with, I'm sure there's some paragraph or some regulation that
[01:30:01] will help that bypass this to put kids, so I brought this record, and I said, I was right,
[01:30:07] right there, right there, I was just, I want you to leave the room here, I'll just call you
[01:30:14] in a second, and I could hear a rip, so he comes back, so the kidnaged stone, where is that,
[01:30:23] I was like, right, oh, so he's like, I don't see any, I don't see any either, should he had the
[01:30:32] kidnaged stone, it's like, you know, maybe not, maybe I didn't, okay, well you didn't, so, and
[01:30:39] I graduated from A school in Milington, and I think one of the second top, you know, everything
[01:30:45] that from bootcamp I graduated, the top recruit in this whole batch, I was there, I got
[01:30:49] military excellence I was not, I was not at first, very first of the recruit actually,
[01:30:54] the top recruit from that batch graduating, A school I graduated, I was able to, if the second,
[01:31:00] for the second high school, so I had things going on for me, and then I was waiting for
[01:31:08] my order, he said, okay, I sent it out for it, hopefully it'll get approved, and sure, three months later
[01:31:15] got my orders to bud, so that's the rest of this rest of it is a history.
[01:31:22] You show up at Buds, what was, what was there any major challenges for you was like you said you were
[01:31:29] not a great swimmer, how are you on the rest of the water stuff? Well, the, the, the problem was that I
[01:31:35] could swim only on one side, and I never swim with the mask on, so either they dump you in the pool
[01:31:40] and say, I want you to swim here, there's a sidestroke, sidestroke, this is how you do it,
[01:31:44] and the Buds do, we swimming all the styles that we tell you to do, and I was going to
[01:31:48] ever play with it, but when they put them put the mask on, after the first couple of laps, I thought
[01:31:53] I would pass out, I mean, I was like hyper ventilating, I was blocking out, I see the black
[01:31:57] spazzing for myself, I bought a die here, but then so if I stop they kick me out, so I ain't stopping
[01:32:03] I see, I know that if I pass out, they will rescue me, that's as guys everywhere, they tell us
[01:32:08] that we are safe, so we are safe, so I was blocking out, I felt about to black out, but having
[01:32:14] these black spots, but it became easier, and easier by the time, like the next hour, I was like
[01:32:20] shit, they're in that bed, I can do it. So what is it just like some weird, like, claustrophobic
[01:32:24] thing on your face or something like that? No, I couldn't breathe to my nose, and I couldn't
[01:32:28] breathe now, I had to breathe through my every time I had to get bread, I was like the water with it,
[01:32:33] so I think I was breathing water in a year at the time, and I was coughing, I was suffocating, I was
[01:32:40] I was basically drowning, I felt like I'm drowning, and it's just as I'm going to quit, but I'll just
[01:32:47] pass out, and see what will happen if I have to, but I didn't pass out, I got better, actually,
[01:32:53] by the time there was a fourth phase, I was at pre phase one, before you class up for the, for the
[01:32:58] seal training, so by the time we graduate from the fourth phase, moving to our real seal class,
[01:33:05] they instructed us asking me to demonstrate the new guys have to swim the side strokes, so
[01:33:09] I became really good, I was never fast swim about that was strong, so we might have to be
[01:33:13] swimming forever, and you didn't come up with any injuries or anything, being a 33 year old guy going
[01:33:19] through Buds, not at the time, the worst guys were always tired, I was looking at these young guys,
[01:33:24] like, hey, let's go to the bar, I was like, dude, I can hardly move, I can't go to the bar,
[01:33:30] I was still making out to the bar here and there, but there was just like really painful for me,
[01:33:35] because again, I was not the intensity of it, it's not just the one time, because like one time,
[01:33:41] like seal training, I think most of the people that one day can, like, he might survive, but it
[01:33:47] over and over and over, it just wears your body, wears you down, and eventually you have some people
[01:33:53] quit, so that was the most difficult for me, because I did not recover as fast-being 32 years old,
[01:34:00] as other guys, so what was your first, where your first orders were team did you get?
[01:34:06] I get to seal team 2, and actually they, I wanted to go to seal team 4, because I said,
[01:34:12] I don't want to be called, I know seal team 2 at a time, operate the north part and the Europe,
[01:34:18] and in Europe in general, so I say, I just want to go to like team 4, but friend of mine,
[01:34:23] say, no, no, dude, you with your language, with your Polish, Russian, and you, I speak Japanese too,
[01:34:29] so with your language, you would be good asset in this European team and stuff,
[01:34:36] so I kind of like put the such switch that from the team 4 to team 2, put team 4, second,
[01:34:41] and just like God, not put me as the visa, I just for some reason, I don't know, I was,
[01:34:48] I was not maybe that technical person at the time, and that challenges to be as the operator
[01:34:54] is twice, it is as twice, you said to me, I see, but you have to have that expertise with
[01:35:00] this mini-subs and with the operation of it, that for me, I felt was overwhelmed by that,
[01:35:06] what you need to know to be good operator in this DV teams, so I just too, and I got my orders to
[01:35:14] see all team 2, went to jump school, did you go to forebending? Yes, for me it was kind of fun time,
[01:35:24] because when I was growing up, I was poor, I never had a chance to go through this nail-eyed
[01:35:29] or this type of thing, I could watch over the fans, I shielded and were playing around it,
[01:35:34] but I couldn't afford it, so when I got into this tower, I was like holy shit, this is like
[01:35:39] a decennial idea, so I didn't care what the position he would meet to jump, I just like,
[01:35:43] I had a bloody hour to read, and yeah, that kind of didn't like it, but they are very rigid,
[01:35:53] so I remember two of those, they had a lot of fun too, because I think you went through the same
[01:35:57] thing, so there is a forbending, so you stare next to each other, shoulder to shoulder, so close,
[01:36:04] that basically you cannot even move, and then you just go to your line, you grab the line,
[01:36:09] they drag you just do the PLI, if I could never do the PLI, that was only scared of PLI.
[01:36:14] So I don't know if I found out that if you like tip one of them from one end,
[01:36:18] just like a domino thing, it's army guy, they would just totally fall down, they would say
[01:36:22] they would definitely fall down, and it was actually I thought there was a, there was some music,
[01:36:27] I think that's pretty cool, you tip one a little bit at the last gauge, gloves now,
[01:36:32] but my issue was that I don't like PLFs, so I made it, so just so everyone knows,
[01:36:39] a PLF is a parachute landing fall, and it's a technique that you get taught for static line
[01:36:46] jumping, where it's supposed to minimize your injuries, because you keep your feet and
[01:36:51] knees together, and you hit like you kind of like roll, you sort of roll when you hit,
[01:36:58] and you keep your arms kind of tucked in and it's supposed to prevent you from getting injured,
[01:37:02] because when you're on one of those parachutes, you're still coming down really fast, it's not
[01:37:08] like what you see in the movies when guys can kind of come down on a free fall parachute,
[01:37:12] and they flare, and they just kind of tip toe away from it, you hit pretty hard, especially if you're
[01:37:17] a heavier guy, the heavier you are, the harder you're going to hit, so they try and teach,
[01:37:21] and plus the army's working with hundreds and hundreds of people getting thrown out of that
[01:37:25] thing, getting thrown out of an aircraft every day, so they try and teach the most simple way
[01:37:31] that they can teach hundreds and hundreds of people how to fall without getting hurt.
[01:37:36] Now, I also was not good at the PLF. Yeah, it's good to share that with me. So that's weird.
[01:37:42] I tried one time and just put my shoulder and I like, if I can't even get them more,
[01:37:46] so every time I jump I just stood up, I just, I was not a big deal, because I was here in the
[01:37:51] hundreds of jumps at the time, so I just jump out, just a little bit of land, just stand up and
[01:37:56] just like, so this little, the head of those black, black heads, the head of the cubes,
[01:38:02] PLF, private, PLF, PLF, how to see PLF was like, Roger that, and this gentleman,
[01:38:07] throw my parachute and just roll on the ground, see that, I can't even feel that.
[01:38:11] They don't have that, they don't have that at all, so they knew from me,
[01:38:17] not listening to good. Yeah, those PLFs they were killing me, so I didn't do them.
[01:38:24] So you get the team too, and what, what, do you get putting up a tune right away,
[01:38:29] do you go through asking me first? No, I had to wait for a security, I had to wait for a
[01:38:32] city, that was the time to see your tactical training. But when I show up in the
[01:38:38] teams, you know, you are the new sailor, I was a new sailor, everyone I won, the bootcamp,
[01:38:44] the A-school, you know, the bots, everyone was so formal, so, so, you know, I buy the book and
[01:38:52] everything, so I show up and buy that, I can't even know, like five minutes later, I'm hanging
[01:38:57] on the pool of bar in my blues and the fucking doing pull ups, running three miles, fucking,
[01:39:01] I do my PRT in my tank, and, and so, what the fuck, by the time I've been, you know,
[01:39:08] what do you realize what's going on, I had completed the whole PRT in my blues and stuff,
[01:39:13] that was just, I was the new guy, yeah, I just show up, so what he's talking about there is,
[01:39:18] he shows up at in his dress uniform, when you check into a new command, you're in your dress
[01:39:22] uniform, it's a nicest uniform you've got, and you don't, you know, normally you'd wear it for like
[01:39:27] a ceremony, so he shows up with that uniform on and they're like, cool, we're gonna do a physical
[01:39:35] physical, what is it? Fiatios, we're gonna see R stands for, physical,
[01:39:43] something, physical readiness test, yeah, so you gotta take a physical readiness test.
[01:39:47] The inventor of the, they say again on the pool, I'm gonna go for the run, now push up,
[01:39:51] see, I'm seeing, I'm seeing, I'm seeing my dress blues, and everything was so shiny, you know,
[01:39:57] I spend all my, just making sure that I know, no wrinkles, no nothing, and here I am,
[01:40:02] there's all this arrived up, so anyway, I finished that, that's the welcome to welcome to the team's new guy,
[01:40:07] I'll just, yeah, yeah, but I didn't know, I just, I said that's okay, I guess this is the,
[01:40:12] the way it goes, I roll with it, and the bit, another surprise for me was,
[01:40:18] so we came in, there was a couple other new guys at the same time, so when we saw him in the team,
[01:40:25] and that's okay, hey guys, at that time, in the, in the times on every Friday, we had a
[01:40:30] kegger in the high bay, so the kegger of bay, and the guys were drinking beer, so hey,
[01:40:35] when you guys, we just invite you for the kegger, and I was just, I'm sorry, into coming, join us,
[01:40:42] for the, for the, so I remember I was so taken, this is all the guys, this old Navy seals,
[01:40:47] they're so cool, you know, take these new guys, they, I'd invite for the beer and stuff, and
[01:40:52] well, I didn't know that we were, they just put them, use them, and these old new guys,
[01:40:56] then as soon as we, that, that, not soon that we just crossed the door of this bay, we just
[01:41:00] get beat up, taped up, hang up in the, on those fucking chains up, hanging like a bath,
[01:41:05] while these guys are drinking beer and just throwing the insults and I ask and stuff, hey,
[01:41:10] and I, once they, once they have to be fired, once they're brought in the lower,
[01:41:13] as down, they stick this tube in our mouth from the braggar, just pull the braggar into the,
[01:41:19] beer and the braggar bag, and just squeeze that fast as you can, so by the time, you know,
[01:41:25] you're doing so much beer, you didn't care if you hanging upside down, or no, that's it.
[01:41:29] As long as they didn't leave you overnight hanging, it didn't happen, so, so that, I realized
[01:41:33] that this is, we are not there to just, fraternize, fraternize with the old seals,
[01:41:41] we had just there for the remunes, new guys, the colors meet, you know, fucking new guy, yeah,
[01:41:45] and she's, so that's, yeah, those, they're welcome to the team, so I didn't know that's,
[01:41:51] I'll look at the, I figure out that's the way it goes, so I don't have a problem with that,
[01:41:55] then that I was waiting for my STT getting beat up here and there, and then that was fine,
[01:42:00] and then we got to STT.
[01:42:03] And STT pretty much pretty straightforward.
[01:42:05] Pretty straightforward, but with me, those that have sort of those me and another guy,
[01:42:10] has Katty Lenton, a great guy, a lot of this guy, he went the team's,
[01:42:16] lighter, but so those two of us that were but different, I remember, so went to STT,
[01:42:21] everything went in, actually, a bit problem with my English because I still have to translate
[01:42:25] everything, all the commands, you, you, you, you, you should then move and you, you know, you
[01:42:30] communicate, so far, I had to, that's going to translate this in my head and polish then and be
[01:42:35] fast enough to do it and react to it. So, it was okay, so when eventually we came to the crypto
[01:42:42] and the, the, the radio communication equipment, there's, you know, the communication class,
[01:42:48] and when the crypto and we're sitting there by the time we were about to take a test from this,
[01:42:52] as I was in like, like, two more days, so that, so today was the last class, you know, how to
[01:42:57] use the cryptographic equipment, how to you, all that stuff, and so that the next day,
[01:43:03] supposed to be, I think, final exam and then there's, there's like, then move to the next
[01:43:08] section of STT, so this guy comes in, one of the instructors comes in, it's like, hey, do you have
[01:43:14] a clearance? It's like, I don't know what it is, so most likely, don't have it, do you have a clearance?
[01:43:22] And it's kind of like, well, I'm not even USA, then. Wow. Come on with me, you know, so we end up
[01:43:31] there and say like, don't, so we're like, look at that, I was like, never say anybody that you
[01:43:35] went to this class, you just don't say nothing, don't say anything, you, you never sit in that
[01:43:41] class, it's like, okay, you guys get your cleanances then go, we, we'll redo it and so, so yeah,
[01:43:49] we just see that so next day we see that, we're guys watching, running through the field, you know,
[01:43:53] with that equipment sitting here, that I've been doing the crypto stuff and, and as I was watching
[01:43:58] you know, there's like shit, I mean there's not the difficult, I could pass the test now,
[01:44:01] science is already out of the went through all this class, I don't know, it was a big deal,
[01:44:03] but I guess they don't want us, they don't want anybody to know that we sat through this class,
[01:44:08] not getting the secret clearance. And so, you know, I eventually got my clearance, so I went to
[01:44:14] the radio shag upstairs in the C02 and passed the test, a scatial into the venture,
[01:44:18] got his citizenship, so we all went out, got him to end up there, and because he was in the
[01:44:22] platinum at this time, and he got his crypto stuff too, and we moved on, so the my first
[01:44:28] platinum, as I was a member of a chief bigsner, good, good, good, I think, if this guy didn't have a
[01:44:33] hard attack yet, I think he might have it because of me, because you know, my English skills,
[01:44:38] so it was not really that good, so the ref like everything, I mean, you know, whatever you do,
[01:44:44] you know, you get to communicate, you get to communicate fast and effectively, and I just was
[01:44:49] lacking that English skills at the time. The funny things are finally I made it for this platinum,
[01:44:54] so I was not in the more fucking new guy, I was not in the more this meat, and we, I don't remember,
[01:45:02] so when you come back from the first platinum, or you come back from the platinum, from the
[01:45:06] deployment, you're like, hey, I got this school, I'm going to sniper school, I'm going to this school,
[01:45:10] I'm going to this school, so I said hey, Rago, so what's called the jiu-jia, do you know, just what
[01:45:14] what are you going, it's like, I do them going to English 101, I think the next door, I'm there,
[01:45:18] it's fucking the regular navy thing, and so I spend the next three months doing the
[01:45:24] actually English classes, there was not bad because actually it helped me in my career in the
[01:45:30] future, so basically, so they legit sent you to English school, yes, and I did save my career,
[01:45:38] you know, these guys were apparently they seen something in me, they say well, you know,
[01:45:43] he bought your English language, but it is, were you having a hard time like communicate like
[01:45:48] in that going through the house and stuff like that, because they are trying to communicate
[01:45:52] you know, especially the communication, going through the house and trying to communicate,
[01:45:56] so at that time I was still had to, I still had to try and, I didn't tell them that, but
[01:46:01] I had to translate from what I hear to my Polish thing, then I had to think of the solution,
[01:46:06] translate back to English and sight, so I managed that, but it is so much easier later on when
[01:46:15] actually I got my English goods, so that is just flow, you know, but there is still I have to be very
[01:46:20] fast, because I do that fast. What was your position in that particular year, got it,
[01:46:24] 60, got it? That was the 60, got it, yeah, how's 60 got it, I think for the next three
[01:46:27] buttons, it's just, I like that, you know, I think that's a big, you can a big sting, you
[01:46:33] see too loud, because you don't have to worry about just jamming this little piece with that
[01:46:37] magazines, just put the tray in there and then I'm good to go, where is your first deployment
[01:46:43] was it here? Yeah, it was in Europe, there was at the time, actually we deployed to San
[01:46:49] Vito in Italy, and those were the, oh, great, he got shut down, actually we were looking at him,
[01:46:55] and you know, this actually becomes a brings to my mind too, in sealed things you do,
[01:47:00] every day you do something they can kill you. I didn't think about it, but it does, I remember flying
[01:47:06] over the Adriatic Sea, where we were actually on the lookout for this pilot,
[01:47:12] scatty lantern, he was sitting in there, and there, he was a sniper, so he's sitting up there
[01:47:17] and the fucking with his gun, and we'll look at it, and I think that's Bill White, look at
[01:47:24] it, say, the park, the say nothing, he's called Belle just dropped off, so he was sitting on the
[01:47:30] ledge of, I think it was, who's scary, yeah, scary off, so the ramp is open, he's sitting on the
[01:47:35] ramp, tending with his gun, he's called Belle just gone, so I think it was, I think it was a
[01:47:40] bill White, he just like sneak up, he just grabbed his ass, he's just fucking pulling him inside,
[01:47:46] he's a scatty, like what a part, he's like, dude, he almost fell out of the jet, because you know
[01:47:51] those clips, they were like easy to come and down, I mean, it's not really something that I would say
[01:47:58] safe, that they will stay, cause only, so yeah, so that was the thing, yeah, there's
[01:48:04] the camps to my mind, there's always, there's something that's some situation that you can get
[01:48:08] killed, and if you look over the statistics, I think from there before the war, I think we were
[01:48:13] killing like two guys in training every year, as the average I think was like, when I'm
[01:48:18] looking out with the disguided eye, this guy was killing, in training, this white was killing,
[01:48:22] in training, he was like, one or two guys every year, yeah, for sure, no, there's definitely
[01:48:25] you're doing stuff every day, whether it's parachuteing, diving, shooting, you're always doing something
[01:48:29] in computer, that can give you a bad day, or make you fall out of helicopter, because your
[01:48:34] belt came off, yeah, so did you guys, did you ever do any of it worked out in Bosnia?
[01:48:41] Yes, we went, those were some of the other problems we went to, Bosnia, to Yugoslavia, we spent time,
[01:48:46] I was pretty good time, she was like, it was just good, there was something that much to do at
[01:48:50] the time, but just work out and get big, so that was a good pattern, actually, there was,
[01:48:56] this is what I made the strongest guy in the team, so I think I can think of Chris S, I don't know if
[01:49:04] I can bring his name, I don't have the permission I didn't ask him, so just to be on the safe side,
[01:49:09] but he knows who he is, where he went to France, France, I mean this guy was lifting like
[01:49:13] about five plates, the bench, bench press, so when we went to France, we just got the French equipment,
[01:49:20] he just bent that shit out of the, they're bar, bar, bar, when he picked it up, this bribar,
[01:49:27] I mean the bar bent and those weights are falling off, so all these French guys, they stop working
[01:49:33] with us, they just like, whenever we rolled into their gym, they just sit down like a bunch of
[01:49:37] the weird dudes, so that was actually funny, but yeah there was big pattern, I remember, so
[01:49:45] those entire platoon, I think over 220 pounds, I think those one guy maybe was not, but all of
[01:49:51] us over 220 pounds, of course Chris was way much more, and yeah that's, I remember for me,
[01:49:58] I wanted to join this 220 pounds, so I'm working so hard and I'm just like, I have a pound
[01:50:04] bowl, how the pound bowl, like, two, 19, 2018, I say fuck, give me that lot of bread right there,
[01:50:10] so I was just like, I weigh myself, maybe I had these few grams to get this 220 pounds,
[01:50:14] I just chow and down, push myself into that bread myself, like, getting the scale,
[01:50:19] 220 and a half, it's like, fucking, I'm to 220 pounds club, now I wish I could get to the 220
[01:50:27] pounds from the other side, so then, when I showed up at team 2, what was it,
[01:50:34] was that your fourth platoon? Yeah, I don't remember that, I think so, or your third part of
[01:50:38] that platoon maybe, I think you're sure, yeah, I remember you showed up and it's like,
[01:50:42] I remember I had the swim with you, this before even we platoon up, so we just wanted to
[01:50:45] dive the swim, and I see well you had a big guy, so I don't think you'd be swimming the fast,
[01:50:51] so I think I'm saved with you, I'd be alright, and it's okay, I want to look at me,
[01:50:56] I say, okay, that's your boy, you swim with the boy, and I was like, okay, and so again, the water,
[01:51:04] you drag, that boy you drag and drag me and that boy with you, I just could not keep up,
[01:51:09] I mean, that was like, what is fucking guy, he's taking the...
[01:51:12] We're trapped from him, you shouldn't be swimming that fast, what were you doing,
[01:51:17] like a recoil diver, something? Yeah, I think was a recoil dive, yeah, that was just like swimming
[01:51:21] from one place to another, just a couple of eggs here and there, I think it was a recoil dive,
[01:51:25] so I remember you dragged me and that boy, the fucking water, so but I was like, I think I was just
[01:51:30] over a breed that got them raken, we made it such an angle, I'm good, and so then we get put in the
[01:51:39] platoon and we had a freaking really good workout out there, oh yeah, that was a good workout,
[01:51:47] that was a really good platoon, good deployment too, I mean, I really enjoyed, I just thought we
[01:51:53] went to Spain, we hijacked the Russian tanker too, that was it, that was it, you know,
[01:51:59] now when I look back at it after my experience in combat, I'm sure you too, it's not really
[01:52:06] that big deal, but at that time there was like holy shed with not only hijacked the Russian tanker,
[01:52:12] vulgon eff, it was vulgon eff, we fast rope on that too, I remember the funny thing,
[01:52:18] Stu is, you remember who would look ships like that because there was a Russian tanker, so they're
[01:52:23] those regular, they just to clarify everyone for the English translation, when, when drugless as we
[01:52:30] hijacked the Russian tanker, we actually didn't hijacked the Russian tanker, there was a tanker,
[01:52:35] a Russian tanker that was smuggling oil out of the Gulf and one of the missions that we had while
[01:52:40] we were over there, we stopped people from smuggling stuff out of the Gulf, most of the time we were
[01:52:44] taking down little, little dows, little tiny boats and we would take those things down, we took
[01:52:48] down a bunch of them too, but then this was the biggest catch that we got was this big oil tanker
[01:52:54] that we, that we took the Russian flag, yeah, with a Russian flag tanker that we took down,
[01:52:59] we got control of, we turned it over to the authorities, but, you know, we didn't hijack it,
[01:53:05] but we did a small bit of a visit and search, right, I couldn't, I couldn't, there's a name for it,
[01:53:13] but you know, bottom line, we hijacked the tanker, so we got it and I remember the funny thing
[01:53:20] is even, I remember we did the shifts later, right, because that was not comfortable, so let's
[01:53:23] keep seals on it, so just bobbing on this boat, bobbing on this boat, but I remember, so when we took
[01:53:29] it down, we came back and then the next shift came back next day, the other squad, when they came
[01:53:34] back, so you just left a bunch of weapons with them, there is so much fog, we took all this,
[01:53:40] the weapons that you guys left, I was like, what the weapons did we leave up there, I mean,
[01:53:45] what's the search that boat, what's now to be, when they went up there, they see those little
[01:53:51] butterflies, the butterflies, the butterflies, they just fucking took it away from this guy, so when
[01:53:57] we went back, these guys are coming in, I spoke Russian, you know, I'm like, yeah, so say hey,
[01:54:02] a Mr. please help us, we have no teeth and we can't eat because these guys told our
[01:54:08] force and our knives, so we can, I cannot chew and this is up there, really, maybe two or three
[01:54:15] teeth, sticking out of the mouth and this is all they had, so yeah, we take it, so we actually
[01:54:22] bring those butterflies, those butterflies, what do you call it, that's what you lost, and
[01:54:26] folks back to them, so they can actually eat. Yeah, I also remember those guys, they were telling
[01:54:31] us that we didn't do a good job clearing or whatever they were saying, because they still, because
[01:54:35] we were like, oh yeah, they have, they have butterflies and stuff like that, and they're like,
[01:54:39] don't worry, we secured it, and we were sailing, we were on a Navy ship looking at the ship that
[01:54:44] we took down, and I'm looking, I was like, yeah, you did a good job and I looked over and there's
[01:54:47] like a fire, oh yeah, yeah, they were like, good job, you idiot, so they stole that
[01:54:54] fucking, you're a better nice and fought, I don't even think the big locks are saying, you guys
[01:54:59] left this all this weapon here, look at this, look at this butterfly, yeah, that was crazy,
[01:55:05] too, because just by sheer luck, our platoon commander went to the Naval Academy and studied Russian
[01:55:13] and so he spoke Russian, yeah, we had another guy that was like, went to Berkeley and, and he
[01:55:18] studied Russian, and then you, so in a platoon we had three Russian speakers, yeah, we took down a Russian
[01:55:24] vessel, yep, that's freaking lucky right there. Yeah, that was awesome, I remember just said
[01:55:29] that very beginning, we busted the bridge and I remember this captain, so hey, don't cooperate with
[01:55:35] America and see it's in Russian, don't say nothing, don't operate resistors, magic, you can,
[01:55:40] a Mr. Film that he understands it, he was over the OIC, he said, I drank a teker of it,
[01:55:43] he just grabbed the guy by the scrub, working on it, opened the house, got a big chimney with the door,
[01:55:48] I see open the door, it's like a little tiny space, so I turned in Russian, like a mother
[01:55:52] fuck, he just said another ward, I'm going to squash you right here and I'll like you
[01:55:54] after the rest of the journey, he's just looking at this little tiny space here, I'll fuck up,
[01:55:58] but there's no fuck with these guys, okay, no problem, we never had a problem with this guy again,
[01:56:03] so yeah, that was a good time, but I tell you, I have to say one more thing here,
[01:56:08] I remember Robo Niel, he was in our platoon, my very good body and at the time, where I got
[01:56:14] best friends, and I remember he was a sniper on this OIC, I got angry to happen, I think to you,
[01:56:20] I'm looking over to you, and I remember as we moved through the Shreva, as we said,
[01:56:24] I said, I know Robo's up there, and I think shit is going to happen to me,
[01:56:29] I know he'd take down that anybody who's on that one way, so it makes me very comfortable.
[01:56:33] Yeah, that was, we had a bunch of, we had a tight group, a lot of good people too,
[01:56:39] yes, and also you were talking about being big, we were also, we tried to get a platoon average
[01:56:45] of 200 pounds, and we had to make up for some slack, because we had some bad amount of
[01:56:49] one thing, and we, I remember we got to, the first place we went was Spain, and I was trying to get
[01:57:00] to 250, and I'm the same thing, I was like trying, I'm eating, I'm lifting, I'm squatting, I'm eating,
[01:57:08] and I couldn't get above like two, I don't know, 240, 5 or something like that, and then
[01:57:14] where we stayed in Spain, they had an all-you-can-eat buffet for all three meals of the day,
[01:57:20] and I was like, oh, I got this, three days later, I was 250, I weighed in, and I was like,
[01:57:28] yeah, 250, and then I went on a four mile run, and I was like, okay, I need to lose weight,
[01:57:34] sucks. Yeah, and we should, but you remember, we were leaving like our doors were
[01:57:38] opening right on the beach, so we just opened the door, because we're talking to the
[01:57:42] side, we were just like, I'm on the beach right there, so that was awesome, I mean, that,
[01:57:46] that was awesome deployment, I really liked that, and then the barrained, and there was the
[01:57:53] Christmas party, I mean, the Christmas time came, the New York came, and kind of like
[01:57:58] get us tighter and close together, and there was that 2,000 years, so that was really,
[01:58:03] really good time, and I have very fond memories of it, it's almost like a very nostalgic
[01:58:09] to me right now, it's just so, so we get done with that puttune, I know I got back, I went to college,
[01:58:22] you carried on, where did you say it team, two or two go to the different team?
[01:58:27] No, I think you remember, when we came out as a 2000, as a platoon from CO team 2,
[01:58:36] we came back as a CO team 4, at least some of us, so there remember, there's a vision
[01:58:41] 2000 that went blank, oh that's right, they made some adjustments to the way they were
[01:58:46] structuring the teams, and so when we got back you, how was the info?
[01:58:50] You went to team 4, okay, I got it. So I'll do all these, I pay those and all that stuff,
[01:58:56] eventually, I end up in one of the plutins that were the, we deployed to South America,
[01:59:04] we weren't Puerto Rico, and we were like three miles into the deployment, and they
[01:59:09] call me my chief calls me and say hey, Dragon, we, you got to bug that, it's just on you to
[01:59:15] pack your share, you need to help facilitate the Polish Chrome with our guys, where were you
[01:59:20] in September 11th happened? I was actually watching it as it happens, and I remember I was
[01:59:27] working hours in the gym, and they say the airplane hit the towers, I was like what the fucking
[01:59:31] idiot, some just flew into the thing, but then I was like, as the, you know, the news progress,
[01:59:36] and they say like there was a, not, there was a jet line, it was not a small airplane,
[01:59:40] I just put my attention and I say that's, that's something wrong here, and then the second
[01:59:45] plane hit the tower, I remember, and I still have a hard time thinking about it, it
[01:59:52] basically made all these memories, and I was watching the towers collapse, so it's just
[01:59:57] being still to my eyes, I can't, I can't think about it, I just, I did time I just want to go and
[02:00:02] kill the salvages, so, so, as you're now, now fast forward a little bit, because you're back
[02:00:11] on deployment, you're at team four, you're in Puerto Rico, you're probably going completely insane
[02:00:16] because you're in Puerto Rico instead of being either in Afghanistan or Iraq, and then you get a call.
[02:00:22] Yes, and I tell you make jannels everybody in the platoons, how the fuck Dragon God, this,
[02:00:28] you know, sales, we are aggressive, there's a war, we want to be in the war, and yeah,
[02:00:35] so I just like fucking, hey, this is just incredible, I am so, they're malaki,
[02:00:39] I can pass it, I can pack my shit right now, I can't wait, no, no, no, no, just go, go,
[02:00:43] go, pack your shit, just take your things, stop, there's a, you're gonna order skier, blah, blah, blah,
[02:00:48] so, let's say what will happen is we are, I think, I have the deployment at the time,
[02:00:51] so you'll just go for another half, another three months, just help settle down,
[02:00:55] the things, said, the ground, come back and join another platoon and do your work up and
[02:01:00] so I say yes, I was so excited, and I was asking, I'd land the bag that, so,
[02:01:04] just serve it in a sense, so there's a, there's a Polish special forces unit, they're called
[02:01:09] Grom, what does Grom mean, thunder, or does that call sound? It is a council, but you know,
[02:01:14] you can translate Grom actually as a thunder, it is thunder, it's thunder, it's a crony for
[02:01:19] actually group of reacting, I don't know, I can say this, so it does stand for something in
[02:01:27] fall, it does sound something, but it also means thunder, it's thunder, yes, it's a little seal,
[02:01:31] seal, it means like an animal, right, right, and then I'll seal, but it's not really what it is, yeah, so
[02:01:37] the Grom, the Polish Grom, had deployed to Baghdad, they were actually co-located with the seals,
[02:01:44] that were also in Baghdad, and they needed someone to be liaison between the Polish Grom and the
[02:01:53] seals that were there, and of course, everybody kind of knows or had run into or someone knew
[02:01:58] that there was a Polish guy or a American guy that could speak Polish, that grew up in Poland,
[02:02:05] that was in the seal teams, they track you down, they give, they contact through your chain
[02:02:10] command and boom, you get the call, how long do you take from the call to you fly over there?
[02:02:16] I think a week or a couple of a few days, because I have to pack my stuff, I still have to process my
[02:02:23] orders, and yeah, I pack my stuff, I have full civilian aircraft to, it was fun, because I have
[02:02:30] all the guns, everything, and I flying civilian aircraft to Middle East, and eventually I'm
[02:02:35] landing Baghdad, yeah, it was 2003, oh wow, the heat was incredible, when I unpack my stuff,
[02:02:44] I just stood up, it's like that wind blew, I was like fuck, what is that aircraft here? I thought
[02:02:50] I'm like jet blast of some, you know, what month did you arrive? I think it was May,
[02:02:56] I mean, should I have the dose? There's not even hot yet, there's not even hot yet, I mean like June,
[02:03:04] it's gonna calm, yeah, and then July and August it's on, but even May you're like getting there like,
[02:03:10] oh why is it so hot here? Where's the jet engine blasted on the, the engine, I don't know,
[02:03:15] it's like there's no, it's just the wind. So you show up, you get the check camp for Jenny Pozy?
[02:03:23] Yes, so they get me to Jenny Pozy and Ashwabin, so you know, I'm getting briefed,
[02:03:31] and there's, okay, so this is what we expect from you, this is what needs to happen, so this
[02:03:38] is what I raise my first alarm, I say, I'm going to sit in the fucking home via a warship happens,
[02:03:44] I'm here, I'm going with these guys, if they go, so you know, for the command, I will save
[02:03:52] this priority, so they were like, you know, well, we don't know these guys really, we know they're good,
[02:03:58] but we don't train with them, we didn't train with them that much, so we set you loose out with
[02:04:04] these guys, I mean you're taking, we are taking a chance, you can get hurt, but I said, I had no other
[02:04:11] way, so I'm going with these guys, I mean, I won't get in the respect even from the, I won't
[02:04:16] respect myself just sitting there, I won't be doing nothing, so after a lot of the bays, they say,
[02:04:21] okay, you can go with these guys, so for me it was good because I was double dipping, I was going with
[02:04:24] the gromm guys and they don't just switch my game, just go by with our guys, I switch your gear,
[02:04:28] you mean change your clothes, did you wear the gromm uniform? No, no, no, no, no, I would wear
[02:04:31] our uniform, but then change my, like, you've used the gas in, so it's really, really, it's a
[02:04:35] stuff, really, a lot of pressure, and go with our, I sometimes don't, the fly, it will on the fly
[02:04:39] because like, we're at the time, it was like, so the gromm hit the target and we moved to another
[02:04:45] target, just switch the cars and go with the by-road guys, so I had a gap some of these missions,
[02:04:49] that's pretty good, I think, we can live in the dream. Okay, I mean this is like, so that's why
[02:04:55] you know, like, three months came in, but I suppose to return, I was like, I hear nothing from my
[02:05:00] commands, I'm like, fuck, I ain't saying shit either, so I keep going, I was like, they asked
[02:05:06] say, who wants to stay longer here because they have this change, but we could appreciate
[02:05:10] anything change, you know, I guess I'm here, so yeah, I stayed and like, four months passed, like,
[02:05:20] nobody switched anything, five months, nobody switched anything, I was like, fucking happy, I said,
[02:05:24] I can't be, I said, ain't saying shit to these guys, and so like, in the eight months, so this
[02:05:30] like 11 months, the deployment almost a year, my NVG's broke and I said, like, guys, I need some
[02:05:38] help, can you guys loan me your NVGs? They say, well, yeah, we can, you know, as a plateau, when we deploy,
[02:05:44] our gears limited, and we have something that can support the plateau, not us, but not too long
[02:05:52] some other guys, so, you know, it went for a while while I was trying to calm my team, I say,
[02:05:57] hey guys, so I finally I get calm my team, I say, I need the NVGs, and back that, so this guy is like,
[02:06:03] listen to it, it's like, what? I say, I can send me an NVG's to back that, who was there, it's
[02:06:07] an un-brago. So you and me to send equipment to you somewhere in Baghdad, I say, to compose, you
[02:06:16] have composed, so, and who you are, so you, who you, who the drag who you are, who, it's like, I'm
[02:06:23] just drag, you know, I'm sealed team, guy and team guy, it's like, dude, don't even speak English.
[02:06:28] Do you want me to send the suicidal bomb vessel with it too? You know, I do, it's like,
[02:06:33] I'm basically, they thought I'm just Iraqi trying to solicit, fucking gear to send somewhere
[02:06:39] to Baghdad in the, so I can really taste, I do the motherfucking kill you when I get, when I come back,
[02:06:45] and then, by the time I get my master chief online, so they could master chief online,
[02:06:49] some master chief, I didn't have to get some NVGs, I'm here, my broken, say, wait, wait, wait,
[02:06:54] drag, what are you, I say I'm in Baghdad master chief, it's like quite second, I was like,
[02:07:00] and how long you have been there, I say I'm like, I'm a Aussie here on deployment, and then,
[02:07:05] dude, you need to come back here, because, you know, sealed team such and such, I don't want to bring the numbers.
[02:07:10] Yeah, it's about to deploy, and we are next, you need to come back,
[02:07:16] and so there's those no way to go around, I mean, I could, when I go maybe so much, but that time
[02:07:21] I had to come back, so they send me that, I can back to a little creek, and,
[02:07:27] I had to find this door, so that the next team is coming out, so I say, hey guys, I can go,
[02:07:31] I did not even get addicted to that stuff, I mean, you just, you can't leave in normal society,
[02:07:35] you just like, dude, I just left there, I don't like this place here, so to leave like this,
[02:07:41] I want to be there, and so I say, I go with you guys, I say, how can you use you,
[02:07:46] you know, just help us settle down with this, you're the been there for so long time, and you're with
[02:07:50] Gromso, you will help us settle down with that stuff, with Grom, and so I went, so,
[02:07:57] just for a couple of weeks, and for me, I said, yeah, that's also, I mean, there are a couple of weeks,
[02:08:01] as much as I can get, so we flew up there, and this like, four months later, it's like, hey,
[02:08:07] drag away, you need to come back, we are deploying too much, so something like this, and you need to be
[02:08:13] back into the junior platoon, so I say, okay, so I'm, as much as you're going on the way, so I came back
[02:08:19] in town around and came back again with the, with the, with my, with my, what's the 134.
[02:08:24] The final thing is that I, on my, on this last tour, and I was there, the, the army guy comes up to me,
[02:08:30] like, I don't know him from Adam, I was like, I never just arrived in the guy, he can't say,
[02:08:35] he did, have you been here in 2003? I say, yeah, have been here in 2004, yeah, when did, did you ever
[02:08:46] go home, you man? It's like, well, for a little time, but I remember seeing you for all three
[02:08:52] fucking years, and I said, well, if you see me that long, you have been here for a sometime, too, you know,
[02:08:58] this guy's been doing some jobs, so the army guy's in our class of project war with them,
[02:09:02] but yeah, those, those like, those, yeah, and that was, that was my, my, you know,
[02:09:11] time. It was interesting, like, when we were there together and just to give everyone an idea
[02:09:18] of what was going on, so the grom, there would, there would be intelligence from various sources
[02:09:24] coming down, and we would kind of go out and capture kill bad guys, and sometimes we were basically
[02:09:33] rotating back and forth between grom and the pull to seal, pull to grom, seal, pull to and sometimes
[02:09:39] there would be two targets, and we just go out together, and or if it was a really big target,
[02:09:43] we'd go out together, and maybe grom would be external security and the seals would do the assault,
[02:09:47] or maybe seals would be external security and grom would do the assault, and I don't remember,
[02:09:54] you're going to have to correct me, but I don't remember many of them speaking English.
[02:10:00] And not many of the time, now everybody, everyone speaks and speaks, speaks of it well, but
[02:10:05] at that time, yeah, that was only me and who, for me was great, because I was going on the
[02:10:12] missions with them, I was doing assaults and the, and the storm, the, the hideouts with them,
[02:10:18] and without what guys, so just, all of the things, but yeah, they, they did not speak English
[02:10:22] for the time. Yeah, so, so what I remember is like we would give our brief and you would stay
[02:10:28] in there and translate the brief for them, and then they would explain what they were doing on
[02:10:31] their target, and you would explain what they were doing to us, and then any time that we were,
[02:10:36] you know, if we were, if we were kind of doing something together, you, you were really critical
[02:10:40] for making the, the connection between what the two elements were doing. This is freaking,
[02:10:47] a pretty big job. You know, there was, I think it was important at the time, but eventually
[02:10:53] we meshed so well that I remember sometimes with Cal, hey, hey, dragul, is that guy is the
[02:10:59] Grom guy, or is that our guy? Like I said, that's our guy, you know, it was because Cartholomew
[02:11:04] is who, because we're working so well together. Yeah, but you know, talking about this English
[02:11:10] think, translation and stuff. I am also, I think the besides being breacher and breaching in
[02:11:19] Iraq known for my English skills actually, for my actually I'm going to patented, and thinking
[02:11:26] about patenteding it, I became known for being the fastest English language instructor teacher
[02:11:35] to terrorists, actually because I developed that course, I call it dragos, accelerated English
[02:11:41] language course for terrorists. Basically, you give me five minutes with the terrorists, because
[02:11:46] they always say remember, I don't speak, no English, no English, no English, no English, no English,
[02:11:50] no English, no, English, no, so I, I teach you, five minutes later, the guy actually could speak
[02:11:56] with better acts and that I could ever say things. So that's, that's, I think that I'm very
[02:12:00] proud of my skills. And that's, that's, that's something about patented, eventually, because that's,
[02:12:09] it's the world was so well. Yeah, it was, it was awesome too, like when I said that the
[02:12:16] translating between us and the grom, you're right, like we'd be out on a target, and we wouldn't,
[02:12:22] there would be very little that you would have to translate, because we all knew what the mission
[02:12:26] does knew what we were doing. We would interact very well together, and just like, just like
[02:12:31] seals, I mean, when you're out on a seal operation, you're not talking about it, but you're basically,
[02:12:35] especially on those types of missions, you're barely saying anything. So it was, it was not like
[02:12:40] you were all the time having to translate, but there were a couple times or there would be times
[02:12:44] where it's like, oh, we need to know what they're doing. What are they doing right now? He
[02:12:47] drove away, they go in the right now. It's like, oh, they saw a guy, they saw a squirt,
[02:12:50] they're going to get him. Like, cool, Roger that. Yep, just just taken care and
[02:12:54] bringing those two units together. Man, it was an awesome working relationship that we have
[02:12:58] with the grom. It was freaking awesome. They were great guys. I really enjoyed the work, because
[02:13:05] especially there, you know, we have all the same arrowies, but there's an interpretation of
[02:13:10] those arrowies, but maybe the better, the more loose or not so strict. So the worst trick,
[02:13:15] they apply everything, then it should be applied to arrowies, but they were also realistic about
[02:13:21] that stuff. So those pleasure to work with them. The funny thing is, was that if I make
[02:13:28] it up, you know, I had that switch, I had the earphones, the palters with one,
[02:13:31] connected the police grom one to us. So if I switch the wrongs wrong way and it's like,
[02:13:36] drag or god damn, it's big English, man, fucker. Or then switch the other one. Drag or
[02:13:42] we don't understand shit, you just say, speak polishes. I had to be very careful. You know,
[02:13:46] you do things very fast and come back and then you have to switch this thing the right way,
[02:13:51] because we just run away. It's like, yeah, we don't understand you. We don't speak polishes. Drag or
[02:13:58] so you're there for O3, you got there in May, you're there O4, you're there my whole deployment,
[02:14:03] which was from O3, like October, O3 or something like that. Follow O3 to spring of O4.
[02:14:14] And then O5 and then you went back for a little bit. Did you go back?
[02:14:17] I went back with my platoon then I came back to seal team 4 and then we are just
[02:14:21] seal team 4 as deploying and then he's back again for another six months. That was pretty cool.
[02:14:28] The thing is, you know, what what it does to is, I remember it becomes almost
[02:14:38] unreal this world here. I remember I was talking to my girlfriend at the time and say, hey,
[02:14:47] I need to go home, I'm tired now. That's like, that's a star stupid, that's a huge home,
[02:14:53] your home is an out there, your home is here and blah blah blah blah. Oh shit, okay, well, whatever,
[02:14:58] you know, but the reality is that that place becomes your home. When you think about these
[02:15:07] world, but people in the streets making groceries, it becomes a dream almost like state.
[02:15:13] That's just like, yeah, it is there, you know, but like now you hear the fact, when you think about
[02:15:18] the fairytale, some you know, snow-wide or something, it sounds really great, but it's just like a fairytale.
[02:15:24] So for me, this world becomes a fairytale. It was just like, yeah, it's there, it's awesome, but
[02:15:31] I'm here and this is my reality and that one almost like a dream, you know, sometimes it was
[02:15:36] like I was dreaming and being in normal world and yeah, so that's that became that that world here,
[02:15:46] become very distant to me, become almost unreal because their my reality was the war and
[02:15:54] I liked it, I mean, that was the, at that time I thought I liked it, but I had to tell you, because
[02:15:58] you know, my job, I was I'm breacher. So I remember after at the end of the deployment,
[02:16:04] the first deployment, I started having a problem's reading, I couldn't read. So I remember trying
[02:16:12] to read the sentence and my eyes were jumping, so I had to read it over and over and then when I
[02:16:17] finished reading it, I don't remember what I started sentence with. So it took me some times
[02:16:21] a five, six minutes to get through a paragraph and I think this is because of the conclusion,
[02:16:26] I mean, we are exposed to these, to this stuff and I did use couple times that I, you know,
[02:16:35] like we we're supposed to we're going explosive bridge to the door, that we look the Intel
[02:16:40] pictures and there was like, okay, okay, so this is how we plan, you know, we prepare all the
[02:16:45] the briefs, this is where we hide, this is what I saw, element is going to be, there's a
[02:16:50] breacher, so there's what I'm going to go blow the door, this is how we go. Well, some of the
[02:16:54] pictures were not very accurate, and I remember I ran the situation that we had, I had the
[02:17:00] assault in stash there, I went sent the brief charge with a guy came back and I had no place to hide,
[02:17:07] I was like fuck, and you remember most of these, most of these buildings or these hideouts were
[02:17:15] fans of the fences and staff, so once we climb inside there's the place to hide and I had to blow
[02:17:21] my shit, put the machine on myself, I was like, I can't, I'm not going to make your
[02:17:26] rookies running for looking for the someplace to hide, so I just took a knee, put the gun from
[02:17:30] my face and fucking blow this shit out. I remember, I didn't remember much after that, I mean,
[02:17:37] I've gotten my force on my floor, my legs, and I was bringing from my nose and ear,
[02:17:42] then I have, but what kind of like, always puzzle me, so I, what the fuck is my side? I mean,
[02:17:49] I have like the Bruce, like fucking broke my ribs, what that fucking came from,
[02:17:54] so the ground was like, you are on your floor, we just have to kick you out of the way, because
[02:17:58] there's no way to hide, you are just there on your floor, and we,
[02:18:04] so basically they kicked me out of the way, the kick was so strong, almost broke my ribs, but
[02:18:08] you know, it's not, that's something that you accept because that's, yeah, as a breacher, man,
[02:18:16] those, those operations, like those breaches that you guys were doing, and I would usually position
[02:18:21] myself where I would be kind of with there be a wall, I would sort of put myself on top of the wall,
[02:18:27] on top of the ladder, so I could see the breach, I could see the building, I could see if there's any
[02:18:30] enemy movement, and then right as you guys would say turning steel, I would duck down.
[02:18:38] And I'm actually ducking down, I'm actually ducking down behind the wall because
[02:18:43] there could be fragging stuff like that. Yeah, no, yeah, absolutely. But you guys were inside
[02:18:48] those compound walls, and you're probably whatever, eight feet, 10 feet, 12 feet away from the
[02:18:54] blast, and so like I said, I get a little, little bit of protection, and I don't feel as much
[02:19:00] concussion, the concussion is going up, and then as soon as the breach goes, I jump over the wall
[02:19:04] and go, we go do our thing, but you know, you guys are just taking that breach on a nightly
[02:19:09] basis, taking that hammer to the brain, and look, I know there's some of them where, you know,
[02:19:15] it would be really bad, and it might knock you out, but even the ones that don't knock you out,
[02:19:19] even the ones that you just, you just suck up that thing, and it doesn't knock you out, and then
[02:19:24] you go, that thing is not good for you, like those breaches are not good for you, and who knows how many
[02:19:31] hundreds of times you just took that concussion, took that minor concussion, and over time
[02:19:39] it's definitely going to, it's going to freaking leave a mark.
[02:19:42] Humilets, yes, but by the way, you know, we're not aware, so I cutely of the issue, then as we know
[02:19:51] what it does to you, and you're right, you learn, you get sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.
[02:20:01] Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.
[02:20:04] You get shown of the sometimes of the grandages, your feet go up in the air, and stuff, the
[02:20:08] blast, but then you just go in, you move on, you're out to, out to pile up basically, you know what to
[02:20:14] do, you train for years to do it, so this is what I like to them, so I'm so effective, I enjoy that
[02:20:20] that scales like with the play as an VC also.
[02:20:23] That was a great feeling, but yeah,
[02:20:27] it does.
[02:20:28] And when you get no doubt,
[02:20:31] the bleed from your ears and nose,
[02:20:32] but just the tactics and techniques
[02:20:38] is that how effective they are and how well they work.
[02:20:40] Yeah, when you said good feeling,
[02:20:42] I was just thinking about like,
[02:20:43] when I got to Baghdad,
[02:20:44] so you'd already been there for a long,
[02:20:46] for, I don't know, eight months, six months.
[02:20:49] But I remember just being so freaking happy to see.
[02:20:53] And I was like,
[02:20:53] oh, I'm kidding,
[02:20:55] and you look at us.
[02:20:56] Because we already did a platoon together.
[02:20:58] We already had awesome times together.
[02:20:59] Yeah, and I just was like,
[02:21:02] I know, so freaking dope.
[02:21:03] Another thing to go in with your platoon,
[02:21:05] I think this is for somebody's on this,
[02:21:08] I talked to other guys.
[02:21:09] We were fucking safe.
[02:21:10] It's like, do,
[02:21:12] shit is not going to happen to us.
[02:21:13] Nothing is going to happen to us.
[02:21:15] I think because that the way your platoon
[02:21:19] was fired up, the way you were fired up,
[02:21:21] the way it was,
[02:21:23] I mean, I think the leadership has a lot to do with it.
[02:21:25] How you feel about this,
[02:21:27] that they're giving up and for us,
[02:21:29] it was just like fucking that can operate like this forever.
[02:21:32] Yeah.
[02:21:33] Yeah.
[02:21:34] Yeah.
[02:21:35] Let's keep that.
[02:21:36] All right, so let's talk about when you,
[02:21:37] when you get back home after you spend
[02:21:39] all these months and months over there.
[02:21:42] And you were talking about how the concussion,
[02:21:46] like you're trying to read.
[02:21:48] And you see the freaking words are moving around.
[02:21:52] Yeah.
[02:21:53] You get down with the sentence you can't remember.
[02:21:54] What did you, when that, when that first started
[02:21:57] happening to you, what were you thinking?
[02:21:59] I was thinking, keep it quiet because they would move me
[02:22:01] out of the platoon, they would,
[02:22:02] they would let me go to war.
[02:22:04] So I just keep my mouth shut and say nothing.
[02:22:07] So did you go back into another platoon at this point?
[02:22:10] Yeah, there was after the first deployment.
[02:22:14] So I did two more combat tools with that.
[02:22:17] But coming back, talking about the returning from that,
[02:22:21] there was almost a year being deployed.
[02:22:25] I remember I landed in the North Walk and the guys
[02:22:28] say, OK, hey, go ahead and we'll only
[02:22:32] to help you something.
[02:22:33] I had all my gear, all the stuff from Puerto Rico
[02:22:35] yet because I just came back from,
[02:22:37] I went to, from basically from Puerto Rico to Iraq.
[02:22:40] So I had to get my all gear.
[02:22:42] So I stuck my gear in the car.
[02:22:43] But it was, it was called, and I was so tired.
[02:22:46] I remember, I said, now the world is,
[02:22:49] guys are coming to pick me up.
[02:22:50] So I'm good.
[02:22:52] So I've shut the door and there was nobody there,
[02:22:54] you know, the North Walk, the military report.
[02:22:57] And I fucking fall asleep.
[02:22:58] Just like fucking getting dark and freezing my ass off.
[02:23:02] I say, what the fuck?
[02:23:04] I don't know what am I?
[02:23:06] So I'm not for what's my other fucking thing show up.
[02:23:09] So like my phone is dead.
[02:23:11] So I was like, fuck, I can even call them.
[02:23:13] I'm just getting fucking night and call them, nobody there.
[02:23:17] So I was like, hey, I tried to knock on the door.
[02:23:19] Hey, hey, I can, I need the phone.
[02:23:23] So nobody shows up.
[02:23:26] I'm so fucking cold at the time.
[02:23:28] I'm just not saying I need to get inside
[02:23:29] because I'll get high, high, higher, higher, higher.
[02:23:31] I grabbed this fucking big, kind, great garbage thing.
[02:23:33] I guess I'm not just swinging into the window
[02:23:35] at the sky.
[02:23:36] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[02:23:38] Opposite the door, I say, dude, I need to make a call.
[02:23:40] These guys didn't show up.
[02:23:41] So I can't, my phone is dead.
[02:23:46] I don't even have a phone.
[02:23:48] I don't remember because my brain is over there.
[02:23:49] So my staff don't remember the number to group.
[02:23:53] So Calder team, there was a weekend.
[02:23:55] So that team is not there.
[02:23:57] Calder group.
[02:23:58] So I say, hey, somebody supposed to pick me up
[02:24:03] to the few hours ago and I'm still on the parking lot.
[02:24:06] I say, who, and you are who?
[02:24:07] I say, I'm Dragon.
[02:24:09] Where are the coming from?
[02:24:11] I said, from Baghdad.
[02:24:12] So, fuck up, we are having the body in Baghdad, yeah.
[02:24:15] We are not even there.
[02:24:16] You fucking idiot.
[02:24:17] And just fucking hang out up.
[02:24:18] They thought they, I'm just, I don't know what they think.
[02:24:21] So, you know, group two, there's not necessarily seals
[02:24:25] on the quarter day.
[02:24:26] There's like anybody who has the logistics people.
[02:24:29] So Calder again, I say, hey, motherfucker, give me O.D.
[02:24:31] The officer of the day, I need to,
[02:24:33] officer of day, because I just came back from Baghdad
[02:24:36] and I need to get back to the teams.
[02:24:38] So you say, they call O.D.
[02:24:40] And say, hey, this is Dragon.
[02:24:41] I'm just came here for a few hours ago.
[02:24:43] So guys supposed to pick me up.
[02:24:44] So you don't have to pick anybody up today.
[02:24:46] He just, oh, hey, Dragon, we are so sorry.
[02:24:49] I was just sending Dragon right now.
[02:24:51] So we are on the way.
[02:24:54] So yeah, they sent the guy, the tech came in,
[02:24:56] and Greg, I really liked him.
[02:24:59] So he came in.
[02:25:02] They loved my gear.
[02:25:03] We got the team four.
[02:25:04] They took my guns away.
[02:25:05] So they put it away.
[02:25:06] They, I'll make you, I just unloaded my cage.
[02:25:10] And I just have something just,
[02:25:12] take me, some of you came to my mind,
[02:25:15] and I fucking, I haven't,
[02:25:17] by this time the girlfriend left me,
[02:25:18] she just said, you are don't,
[02:25:20] she got me on Christmas, say that she needs to move on,
[02:25:22] and I'm still have a time for this shit.
[02:25:24] So I'm like shit, my car and my stuff, but that'll help.
[02:25:28] So I have no car, the car is parked somewhere
[02:25:29] in the workplace.
[02:25:31] My clothes are there.
[02:25:32] It's everything I had was,
[02:25:34] probably a cruise box, water, things,
[02:25:36] but it was in the workplace.
[02:25:38] So I said, I just could,
[02:25:39] but can I take this key, I stole the key
[02:25:41] from one of those pick-up tracks outside.
[02:25:44] I just like borrowed it.
[02:25:46] And I'm glad I did, because the guy,
[02:25:49] we were going outside, he shouts the door,
[02:25:51] or I say, hey, what's the code I need to get inside?
[02:25:55] You say, you guys are still sleeping in there,
[02:25:56] fucking teams in the cages.
[02:25:58] You can't do that anymore.
[02:25:59] There's new regulations.
[02:26:00] You have no allowed to go sleep in the teams.
[02:26:03] I said, I have no place to go.
[02:26:05] You say, well, type shit, man.
[02:26:07] He life, he just dreamt the kind of life.
[02:26:09] That's like what the fuck?
[02:26:11] So I tried to remember the code.
[02:26:14] I don't remember, I can't remember it.
[02:26:17] So we have those little punching things.
[02:26:19] Because they stop the court of like,
[02:26:21] do this sometime ago.
[02:26:23] And so I can't remember it as it like, fuck,
[02:26:26] but I'm so hungry now, I just didn't do something.
[02:26:28] I just didn't do something.
[02:26:29] I just didn't do something to eat.
[02:26:30] So I had no money, but I pulled my credit card.
[02:26:35] Not good card, but my ATM card is like maybe $15.
[02:26:41] So a slack fuck, I just didn't do something.
[02:26:43] So I cut the $10 out of it.
[02:26:45] So what can I say, I hope?
[02:26:48] So I drove to Invigia Beach to I hope.
[02:26:52] That's why I think there was the time borders bookstore.
[02:26:57] And I came up to this thing, and I started
[02:27:00] got me those cheese plates.
[02:27:02] I loved cheese plates.
[02:27:03] So from the I also, the guy in the church is playing.
[02:27:06] He's got me a coffee, I said, now I'm going to go find it.
[02:27:09] I got so sleepy, so tired, I just fucking fall asleep up there.
[02:27:12] And the next thing is the guy, the sickly, the office,
[02:27:15] so it comes out.
[02:27:15] So hey, what are you doing here?
[02:27:19] I mean, you are sleeping here.
[02:27:20] I'm watching you and he'll have five hours or so.
[02:27:23] And this is like, I think, to a clogging the morning.
[02:27:27] So I'm like, hey, what's the problem?
[02:27:30] I'm looking at him.
[02:27:31] I'm still trying to get that my wits together.
[02:27:36] He looks at me.
[02:27:36] It's like, yeah, the bitch kicked you out.
[02:27:38] Then she was like, yeah, the bitch kicked me out.
[02:27:41] Yeah.
[02:27:42] So I said, do you mind if I just go relax tomorrow morning
[02:27:46] and that today morning I'll just go and I'll just buy
[02:27:51] some more food if I need to.
[02:27:52] So you know, no, no, no, you find just go relax.
[02:27:55] And you know, just don't cause any problems.
[02:27:58] Sorry, I'm not on a problem.
[02:27:59] So in the morning, I will go up, I hope.
[02:28:02] So I will go up and went to group two,
[02:28:04] get some fun cows.
[02:28:05] And most of the guys were, I think,
[02:28:07] team four at the time, they were doing something.
[02:28:09] Because they were the deploy, we were ready to deploy it again.
[02:28:13] So I went, I got hold of somebody and then I got a coat back
[02:28:18] to the team.
[02:28:19] And then I was like, this is not only me,
[02:28:21] it's a banding off team, guys.
[02:28:22] It's a bunch of stuff.
[02:28:22] There's always something guys sleeping in the cage,
[02:28:24] because it's legal out from the house.
[02:28:26] He's got from kicks him out.
[02:28:27] Because this problem has less no place to leave.
[02:28:29] Or here.
[02:28:30] So I mean, I was like, my moving to the cage.
[02:28:33] And that was pretty cool, because the platoon had you
[02:28:36] have all the cable TVs, you have a shower, you have a gym,
[02:28:38] 24 hours seven.
[02:28:40] And so it was not only me, but it was like a bunch of guys,
[02:28:42] I see it, I go, you should just bang on the door.
[02:28:44] Somebody would come out and just hop on the doors for you.
[02:28:46] I didn't know anybody was here.
[02:28:47] We were told that we can,
[02:28:49] that there's nobody hitting the teams anymore.
[02:28:51] That things gone.
[02:28:52] Fuck, this is a playing card.
[02:28:54] I think all kinds of cook, there's cool.
[02:28:57] That was cool. And then, you know,
[02:28:59] I'll just, we deploy again, but then I deploy again,
[02:29:02] but that was the first, my first camp I was not only dead,
[02:29:05] but then I find out that my checks are bouncing.
[02:29:08] I look at the bank, I said, no money at all.
[02:29:10] I said, what the fuck?
[02:29:11] So I go to them and I said,
[02:29:13] Rago, you didn't feel the travel claims.
[02:29:15] So travel claims.
[02:29:16] I was in Iraq, we tell them, don't it possible?
[02:29:18] I was not moving anywhere.
[02:29:19] I was there for like eight months, nine months.
[02:29:21] And then we were told not to worry about the travel claims.
[02:29:25] Well, we just garnish your money.
[02:29:29] So you're getting in the paycheck.
[02:29:31] You just get in maybe like three hours.
[02:29:32] Whatever the proportion was that they allowed to leave.
[02:29:36] So I said, I'm self-fucking sick and pissed.
[02:29:40] I'm about it.
[02:29:41] And I'll tell you this, I'm just going to make me a sign.
[02:29:45] Iraqi veteran, I work for food.
[02:29:47] And I'm going front of the fucking gate up there
[02:29:49] and start to get some money, because I need to eat.
[02:29:51] So I said, no, I didn't get it.
[02:29:53] Yeah, that's for you know, we don't need the money.
[02:29:56] And actually the chief mess, actually the loan,
[02:29:58] me the money, so I can buy some food and pay some bills.
[02:30:02] Of course, I paid it back.
[02:30:04] But I was so mad that called this,
[02:30:06] those civilians that worked the travel claims in group two
[02:30:10] and they just laid it to them.
[02:30:11] They show up a year.
[02:30:13] So next thing that chiefs cows me, hey, Dragog.
[02:30:19] You know, they're allowed to group two.
[02:30:21] They count provosts.
[02:30:22] And I think we have a problem.
[02:30:23] So we just told them that if you show up in group two,
[02:30:26] you'll be always chief assisting you and you go with chief up there.
[02:30:29] So because you're really scared these people out there.
[02:30:32] I was like, okay, chief, that's no problem.
[02:30:35] And then I'll just work my way, work my way out of this.
[02:30:38] Pay my sample, those travel claims,
[02:30:41] you know, filled the travel claims.
[02:30:42] They do return some of the money.
[02:30:44] And it was all good, you know.
[02:30:46] That's, that's, they're not deployed again and again.
[02:30:51] And that, that's, with the eyes, I was coming with all kinds of theories.
[02:30:57] Like maybe my eyes are bad, maybe the time is dark.
[02:30:59] So I used to floss like that, you know, there's an a can fucking read.
[02:31:03] So I just, I just gave up.
[02:31:06] I said, maybe I'm just not smart enough.
[02:31:07] And that has just like move on.
[02:31:09] It was busy with other stuff.
[02:31:10] So it came back later that how many more deployments did you do?
[02:31:15] Three, two, two more two year arc.
[02:31:18] So when, what year was your last one?
[02:31:20] 2005, 2003, 2004, 2005?
[02:31:24] And then what did you do when you got home from, from that deployment?
[02:31:28] From that deployment, you know, at that time I also,
[02:31:31] you know, before you even jump into that, I asked like,
[02:31:34] there's a certain transition period.
[02:31:38] And there's like, you know, when you're overseas,
[02:31:41] especially for you, you have one basically one purpose in life
[02:31:46] when you're over there.
[02:31:46] Like you, you get, you get your mission tasking.
[02:31:49] You, you figure out what the plan is.
[02:31:51] You get your gear together.
[02:31:52] You brief the guys.
[02:31:53] You go out.
[02:31:54] You do your hit.
[02:31:55] You come back.
[02:31:55] It's the simplest life.
[02:31:59] Yeah, it's like a customer service.
[02:32:01] The government customer service.
[02:32:03] I would have looked at it.
[02:32:04] But my customers would always bet
[02:32:05] and I got to kill them.
[02:32:06] And then you, but you come home and all of a sudden there's
[02:32:11] all these other things, right?
[02:32:12] There's the free control of claims and there's like apartments.
[02:32:15] And there's all these other things that you got to try and,
[02:32:18] like, deal with again.
[02:32:20] And, and sometimes just that is,
[02:32:23] you're just not, it takes a little bit of time to get used to
[02:32:26] what you were saying, you were saying that the normal world
[02:32:31] doesn't really exist anymore.
[02:32:32] And then when you come back and you get injected back into it,
[02:32:35] sometimes it takes a little time to get used to,
[02:32:38] okay, there's this, this is what,
[02:32:40] this is what I've got to deal with.
[02:32:42] I got to go stand in line at the DMV,
[02:32:45] like a normal freaking human being,
[02:32:46] which I have, you know, let's face it.
[02:32:48] If you, if there was someone in the way,
[02:32:51] when you're, you know, it's like when we're, when we were doing
[02:32:54] operations, when we were driving, if there was a vehicle in the way,
[02:32:57] you freaking just knock the vehicle off the road.
[02:32:59] Like you go out out of the way and then you drive on.
[02:33:01] If there's a person that's in the way as you're moving towards
[02:33:03] a target, you just freaking clear them out of the way.
[02:33:04] It's just no factor.
[02:33:06] Yes.
[02:33:06] And so you, you're getting that mindset of, okay,
[02:33:09] I'm going to make happen, whatever I need to make happen
[02:33:13] to get the mission done.
[02:33:13] That's the mindset that you get in and you get back and you realize,
[02:33:17] okay, it takes a little time to realize that you can't just go,
[02:33:21] you can't stay in that mode because that mode is not,
[02:33:26] that mode is actually considered to be criminal and destructive
[02:33:29] in destructive in America, the normal civilian populace.
[02:33:33] Yeah.
[02:33:34] I don't remember, but my first feeling was even when I was sleeping
[02:33:38] in the eye-up when I came back, it's kind of really, too.
[02:33:41] When I, I'm just looking around,
[02:33:43] I see these people eating, walking around,
[02:33:46] and so I say, that's the normal life,
[02:33:48] but that was before God about it, I wasn't.
[02:33:51] Because you saw immerse into that combat,
[02:33:54] into that time there, again, this became like a dream,
[02:33:59] then you come back and it's like,
[02:34:00] well, that's actually in real, you know,
[02:34:02] that's, but also be really, I never realized
[02:34:06] that think over your head,
[02:34:08] they always want to get shot.
[02:34:10] We don't think about it, they never bothered me,
[02:34:12] but then when I came back, I was like,
[02:34:13] I'm going to get shot.
[02:34:15] It's like, first thing is, I'm good, I'm okay, you know?
[02:34:20] But then come there for action,
[02:34:21] you think about the guys that did not come back,
[02:34:23] and that's still bothers me.
[02:34:29] I think they would always stay with us forever.
[02:34:33] I don't know, is it, you call it like the survival,
[02:34:38] survival guilt, that's what they call.
[02:34:41] Why me, why him not me, and this why I'm trying to cherish
[02:34:48] the memories of the guys that I knew they are not here
[02:34:51] anymore, because, you know, it fades,
[02:34:54] and I think they are alive,
[02:34:58] they still leave in our minds.
[02:35:03] So what we can do for them is just remember them,
[02:35:06] because if we forget who we remember,
[02:35:09] so they still alive, they are alive in our minds,
[02:35:12] they see them, we remember them,
[02:35:14] and we need to cherish this.
[02:35:16] So it is so important to write the books about these guys,
[02:35:21] who are not here anymore, because they can write their own book,
[02:35:26] we need to engage parents, that was also a style of parents,
[02:35:28] of our guys, look, they might not seem like a lot,
[02:35:33] but they are, you way gap, and you know,
[02:35:37] the pain doesn't go away, just leave to learn with it,
[02:35:40] as a parent, as a spouse, but what you can do,
[02:35:43] it's just write little things that you remember,
[02:35:46] that's your way gap, it's like, yeah, I don't remember
[02:35:49] he was in this, and that one, he was a little kid,
[02:35:51] write this down, because those memories are fleeting,
[02:35:53] you might not remember the 10 years down the road,
[02:35:56] but eventually, if you keep doing this,
[02:35:58] you will write the full picture, the image of your child,
[02:36:02] of your spouse, who is not longer with us,
[02:36:05] but it helps all of us to remember it.
[02:36:08] So it is important that you do that,
[02:36:10] and hopefully people are doing it,
[02:36:12] because you know, that eventually become a book,
[02:36:16] and maybe you want to share the parent or the spouse,
[02:36:18] want to share with us the other person that we don't know,
[02:36:22] because most of us know that the guy, like,
[02:36:24] fucking warrior, he goes up there, he kills the bad guys,
[02:36:27] he does what needs to be done, but there's also another side
[02:36:30] to each of us, and we don't know that side
[02:36:33] of these people who didn't come back.
[02:36:36] So it is important that we help maintain
[02:36:40] that memory of these guys.
[02:36:44] Yeah, there's no doubt about that,
[02:36:46] and even with the opportunity,
[02:36:49] I have here talking to guys, talking to veterans
[02:36:53] from other wars as well, and just here in their stories,
[02:36:57] and they still carry on the memories,
[02:36:59] guys that guys from the Korean War, guys from Vietnam,
[02:37:03] that what you're saying is absolutely true,
[02:37:05] and there's like, I read a lot of books that guys have written,
[02:37:09] and that's the memory, that's what they left behind,
[02:37:12] and they remember, and they account for the friends
[02:37:16] and brothers that they lost in combat,
[02:37:17] and it's priceless, it's priceless for us.
[02:37:21] This is how we keep them alive, you know,
[02:37:23] this is how we keep them memories,
[02:37:24] and by keeping them memory alive,
[02:37:26] because they are leaving not what minds.
[02:37:27] So you end up doing another,
[02:37:34] do your next two deployments, were those back to Iraq again?
[02:37:39] Yeah, and then I went back, I realized that, you know,
[02:37:42] I'm 45, I haven't, at that time, I went to my girlfriend,
[02:37:45] because my career was another review,
[02:37:47] that I wasn't making enough money,
[02:37:49] I was saying this, she's actually sighted in the email,
[02:37:50] that there's not a place she wants to be in.
[02:37:55] So I say fuck, I mean, I'm like,
[02:37:57] I'm like, I'm getting 45, I'm getting old guy,
[02:37:59] and I don't know where even girls, you know,
[02:38:03] I don't have anybody.
[02:38:04] So I'm going to go and find somebody,
[02:38:07] how do I find somebody, I think the easiest way
[02:38:09] to just go online and look for somebody.
[02:38:12] So I remember there was a site, I'm American singles,
[02:38:16] and I say, fuck yeah, I'm American,
[02:38:19] I'm going to go and get me a wife.
[02:38:22] So I'm American and I'm single,
[02:38:24] I have this site for me.
[02:38:28] So I can do right very well, right?
[02:38:34] So I remember, so we are going, trying to find a girl,
[02:38:40] I started to see so beautiful, I'm going to go and,
[02:38:43] let me see if I can wink to her,
[02:38:44] but just into to me, my age is little bit,
[02:38:46] because she's so young, so she's like maybe 13,
[02:38:49] she's 13 years younger, so I just to wink my age a little bit.
[02:38:52] So wink to her, just to write something,
[02:38:55] she's got to look at the head and she wink back,
[02:38:58] she wrote back and she wrote so nicely,
[02:39:01] that's a party, if I write to her,
[02:39:04] she just too just fired me, right from the get,
[02:39:07] because she already talked to me.
[02:39:09] So I took the team guys,
[02:39:11] hey, can you help me write the letters?
[02:39:13] What letters, like a lot of letters?
[02:39:15] So we're going on, we had a guy, the guys,
[02:39:19] writing the lot of letters to my president wife,
[02:39:22] but just helping me out, because when I write,
[02:39:27] when I write this like I is what I is,
[02:39:29] I be what I be.
[02:39:30] Your love letter was, I like you, can you like me?
[02:39:33] Yeah, yeah, me love you very much.
[02:39:36] And so that wouldn't go well.
[02:39:38] And so the guys kept doing it,
[02:39:41] and I'm looking at this, I'm bringing the letters,
[02:39:44] and this is so fucking awesome, she writes so well,
[02:39:47] she's so polish, she's so educated,
[02:39:50] then I find out, she's Air Force Academy graduate.
[02:39:53] So I was like, damn, this is like, make it,
[02:39:58] how many years did you chop off your age
[02:40:01] when you initially ate this relationship?
[02:40:03] I think five, because I,
[02:40:06] and I got the idea, because we're talking to a lady,
[02:40:08] she said, we should have like a kind of women,
[02:40:10] if somebody contacted her about that element,
[02:40:12] yeah, she just like,
[02:40:14] it's a piece of story.
[02:40:15] So you were 45, she was, how was she?
[02:40:18] At the seven, she was 37, 36, 36,
[02:40:22] so you brought yourself down to a clean 40.
[02:40:25] Yes, like maybe 39 40 years.
[02:40:27] She's very amazing.
[02:40:28] So I was strong, I was still a little,
[02:40:32] I still look young, and I was like,
[02:40:34] she can tell, but when she sees me, she will like me.
[02:40:36] So, yeah, yeah.
[02:40:39] So the guys keep writing me my name, eventually.
[02:40:44] So you look, drag go.
[02:40:45] We were all like, I think hundreds of these letters.
[02:40:48] So I think what you can do right now is kind of,
[02:40:52] paste and post, you can just make any letter you want,
[02:40:54] just, you know, the copy and paste.
[02:40:57] So I'm like, but what are you about?
[02:41:00] But say, okay, yeah, I have like every letter,
[02:41:03] so she wrote me an email, and I'm trying to make some things out.
[02:41:10] I guess didn't go well, because I sent it letter
[02:41:13] and just clicked, she disappeared from that.
[02:41:15] Because what I found out later is that she read the letter
[02:41:20] and she has her friends and her kind of conclusion.
[02:41:23] I'm in the wrong drugs, I'm drunk,
[02:41:25] so that I in word were well.
[02:41:26] So it was better saved and so on.
[02:41:29] So she left, I was like, fuck, I think I fucked up.
[02:41:32] So that like the guys look and say,
[02:41:34] yeah, drag go, you did fuck that,
[02:41:35] you just put the shit back once.
[02:41:37] So I like them, okay, and to start over again.
[02:41:40] And then she shows up again.
[02:41:42] Well, she shows up because I find out later that they offer
[02:41:45] her 30 more free days, like a freebie, so somebody else.
[02:41:50] So she says, I'm sure, okay, I'm busy.
[02:41:52] We're sorry about that last drug, I got three of
[02:41:54] apologies.
[02:41:56] There's a few days of money back and you get 30 more days
[02:41:59] to find a normal human being.
[02:42:00] Yeah, I can't, yeah, I guess, you know, something.
[02:42:04] And one of the she shows up, I was pretty desperate
[02:42:06] at the time, I really like her.
[02:42:07] I love, you know, we talk for a lot of letters.
[02:42:11] I mean, my team guys wrote a lot of letters and she
[02:42:13] looked at me.
[02:42:15] So, so then, and she didn't respond.
[02:42:21] So I was like, just, just, just, just, just,
[02:42:25] just, just, just, just, just, just,
[02:42:26] wait, have you never had you talked before?
[02:42:28] No, just she was, she's very proper.
[02:42:29] She just like, I'm done, I'm going to talk to you.
[02:42:31] I don't know you even.
[02:42:32] I don't want to give you my phone number or anything.
[02:42:34] But eventually I co-ed us going to,
[02:42:36] calling me.
[02:42:37] Had you told her your life story?
[02:42:38] Had you told her that you had come from Poland?
[02:42:41] Oh, you tell her that you were of freaking hedge fund manager
[02:42:44] New York.
[02:42:45] Something.
[02:42:46] I have no, I just told them them, I mean, the Navy,
[02:42:49] I'm doing well.
[02:42:50] And, you know, just, just try to just be very vague about it.
[02:42:55] And I think that's maybe like it either, but I just try not to talk.
[02:42:59] Because if I say, yeah, I'm seeing I'm just coming back
[02:43:00] from Iraq, so that my guy might be crazy.
[02:43:02] Oh, something.
[02:43:04] So I tried to stay out of it.
[02:43:05] But anyway, the guys did a really good job.
[02:43:07] So if they stay with me, they continue.
[02:43:10] I think I would have no problems whatsoever.
[02:43:12] But anyway, I created a letter.
[02:43:14] It came as a drug or some drunk person.
[02:43:16] And there she just, like, I don't know, mess with that.
[02:43:19] So I finally, I got her to call me.
[02:43:22] And I say, look, this is me, this is blah, blah.
[02:43:24] So I told her about myself and she's like,
[02:43:27] quiet for second say.
[02:43:29] Oh, you just don't speak English very well.
[02:43:32] It's not you are drunken drugs, right?
[02:43:33] It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that.
[02:43:35] I don't do any drugs.
[02:43:36] No, it's not drink only on occasions and maybe wine sometimes.
[02:43:40] So we start talking about.
[02:43:42] And they're finally, she agreed to come and visit me.
[02:43:44] I was totally in love.
[02:43:45] And we are married now.
[02:43:52] But yeah, that was a big thing that she thought,
[02:43:57] then maybe I'm not quite right in my head.
[02:44:00] I was not.
[02:44:03] But yeah, we have married.
[02:44:04] We have to children now.
[02:44:05] And together, early old,
[02:44:08] Guarant, 12 years old, and then you're
[02:44:10] a Japanese old boy.
[02:44:12] So how do you wrap up your Navy career?
[02:44:15] I remember when we came here.
[02:44:17] So when I met her, I went to master chief
[02:44:21] and I was sealing stroke the other time.
[02:44:22] I was in Buds.
[02:44:24] I say, look, I don't have any family.
[02:44:26] I have this guy right here.
[02:44:28] If I go toward the ploy, I'm just
[02:44:33] going to go to the school, I've been there so many times,
[02:44:36] so long time.
[02:44:37] Maybe you can find me some posts that I can just get married.
[02:44:42] I just wanted to get married.
[02:44:43] So I'm to secure this girl.
[02:44:46] And so first, they said, OK, we'll try to help you, Dragon.
[02:44:52] But they're letter from command came in.
[02:44:53] Well, for that position, who in somebody who is
[02:44:55] really polished and who speaks English very well,
[02:44:59] and Dragon is neither one.
[02:45:00] I seen this email.
[02:45:02] They were shown to me.
[02:45:03] So I say, fuck, I'm bearing this girl anyway.
[02:45:08] But eventually, I was able to, when they go that,
[02:45:11] they sent me to Ohio, NRD.
[02:45:14] And we got married, of course.
[02:45:18] And I retired from there.
[02:45:20] And it was kind of, I'm glad it happened this way,
[02:45:23] because the transition kind of brought me back to reality.
[02:45:27] There's not about just killing people and beating them up.
[02:45:30] It is more or so about the leaving society
[02:45:33] being productive member of society.
[02:45:35] So that there was a good transition period for me
[02:45:40] that I could actually relax and join the society back again.
[02:45:43] And there will not be a villain, but be a good person.
[02:45:49] And yeah, I got domesticated now.
[02:45:51] So the nice Dragon and the life is good.
[02:45:59] My wife, she has masters degree in bioengineering.
[02:46:03] She's about to do a hip-peach thing.
[02:46:06] And I'm here to support her.
[02:46:10] We're doing well.
[02:46:11] And I just misdead the things.
[02:46:14] Different way.
[02:46:15] Well, you're always going to misdead the teams.
[02:46:16] And by the way, you were, you may have felt like a villain in some way,
[02:46:20] but I can tell you, bro, you were never
[02:46:22] villain to me.
[02:46:23] You were always freaking there.
[02:46:25] Always there every single time on the good guys side.
[02:46:30] So when you retired, what did you do?
[02:46:33] What did you do?
[02:46:34] What did you do?
[02:46:34] What did you retire?
[02:46:36] What year did you retire?
[02:46:37] 2011.
[02:46:38] OK.
[02:46:39] So before retirement, I was told I need to do this,
[02:46:46] I need to do this, I need to do that.
[02:46:50] You know, when you come back from war,
[02:46:51] I think there's some issues linger with you.
[02:46:54] And I was like, right, I didn't really care about doing
[02:46:57] that tab meetings about that.
[02:46:59] I just wanted to go retire and move on with my life.
[02:47:02] I didn't know that I wanted to tell you really
[02:47:03] know what I'm going to do.
[02:47:05] But I was good in the programming and the software development.
[02:47:09] And my wife said, the thing to do is put your resume here
[02:47:14] and start looking for the job.
[02:47:18] So finally I said, OK, I don't have the formality
[02:47:22] and I'm a seal.
[02:47:24] I don't write software or I kill people.
[02:47:26] So I need to do something.
[02:47:30] So say, no, no, no, no, you do have experience.
[02:47:33] You tell you a lot.
[02:47:34] And she wrote, she helped me write the resume at the time.
[02:47:37] So I put the resume and say, well, good luck.
[02:47:40] Yeah, somebody will need to call me.
[02:47:41] That's back in the end five days later.
[02:47:43] Say, hey, we have a position here.
[02:47:44] Would you like to come and talk to us?
[02:47:47] So I was like, sure, absolutely.
[02:47:49] Yes.
[02:47:49] So I ran up up there and got the job.
[02:47:51] I'd be running very tired.
[02:47:53] I would have a job.
[02:47:55] I think in two weeks before retirement, I got the job.
[02:47:57] So I didn't start at the end until my life.
[02:48:02] I was working.
[02:48:03] So my retirement.
[02:48:06] And that's the role then.
[02:48:08] And now that's just what I'm getting more and more experience.
[02:48:10] I learned more and more from the guys,
[02:48:13] from the software engineers working with me.
[02:48:15] And so my life is what it is.
[02:48:18] Right now, I'm actually, I end up developing quite a few programs.
[02:48:24] One of them is connecting with this as you know, my views,
[02:48:31] my input open about the socialism and how dangerous the socialism is.
[02:48:37] That when any time I posted on Facebook something about socialism,
[02:48:42] they banned me.
[02:48:42] That was basically, stop my account.
[02:48:44] People were calling me names.
[02:48:46] And I couldn't even respond to it because Facebook was blocking it.
[02:48:50] So I said, fuck, these guys fucking companies.
[02:48:53] I'm going to go and create my own Facebook.
[02:48:56] So I create connecting.
[02:48:58] And we have thousands of people right now on the site,
[02:49:00] posting it in no censorship.
[02:49:02] Everybody's welcome.
[02:49:03] It's not the right left side.
[02:49:06] Just you know, if you have if you like to say something
[02:49:08] and not to be worried about being banned or ostracized
[02:49:12] by Zukinfucker, whatever his name is.
[02:49:14] Or this other tour from Twitter come to connecting.
[02:49:18] And you are welcome to to say whatever you like to say.
[02:49:21] Now just please keep the violence down.
[02:49:23] And not nothing violent, but just you welcome to speak.
[02:49:28] Be open.
[02:49:29] So it's connect Zing, Zi, Angie, connect Zing.
[02:49:34] And I'm now a member of Connect Zing.
[02:49:38] I'm on there.
[02:49:39] One thing that I always think about as you were telling
[02:49:42] and talking about everything today.
[02:49:44] I mean, it couldn't, there couldn't be any better parallel
[02:49:48] between what you experienced in life and starting this.
[02:49:52] So at one point in your life, the communist government
[02:49:58] shut down all communications inside of your country
[02:50:03] and completely suppressed the populace.
[02:50:06] And what you did back then, as if we can, whatever,
[02:50:09] 1918, 20 year old, was you said,
[02:50:12] OK, they're trying to stop us from communicating.
[02:50:15] So what we're going to do is we're going to start
[02:50:18] of freaking newspaper.
[02:50:20] And we're going to go and run around in the background.
[02:50:22] We're going to print it.
[02:50:23] And we're going to distribute it out there to people.
[02:50:25] So even as a kid, you realized the importance of free speech.
[02:50:32] Free speech, yes.
[02:50:33] And so now you're in a situation where you got
[02:50:37] banned from the social media platforms.
[02:50:41] And so you're doing the same thing.
[02:50:43] OK, look, you don't want me to speak.
[02:50:46] You don't want me to have free speech.
[02:50:48] OK, here I go.
[02:50:49] And so you created this website and this platform
[02:50:53] that people can now communicate.
[02:50:56] And they don't have to have any fear of being suppressed.
[02:51:00] Being suppressed.
[02:51:02] Yes.
[02:51:02] And it is important for me.
[02:51:05] I see that I think we are going to wrong direction.
[02:51:09] That suppression of free voice eventually
[02:51:11] will be the spoken destroyer of our country.
[02:51:14] The socialism has seven things in common.
[02:51:18] Whether this is Adolf Hitler's socialism,
[02:51:21] Adolf Hitler's National Socialism,
[02:51:23] whether it's Bernie Sanders' socialism or Pelosi's
[02:51:26] socialism, they all have one thing in common.
[02:51:29] It's intimidation, violence, poverty, having a villain,
[02:51:35] Stalin, Joseph Stalin had a cool acts.
[02:51:37] Those wealthy passions.
[02:51:38] They were villains.
[02:51:39] They were always vilified.
[02:51:40] Adolf Hitler had Jewish people.
[02:51:43] He vilified that's an entire group.
[02:51:46] And policy has seems to me like you've
[02:51:48] veterans in the middle class.
[02:51:49] So the villain is very important element of socialism,
[02:51:55] but also political prisoners and political murders.
[02:51:59] And the biggest hallmark of, I think,
[02:52:01] to tell you, a socially state is where state entities
[02:52:05] are attacking and intimidating political opponents.
[02:52:09] We had IRS, you remember, I'm sure,
[02:52:12] remember that attacking and vilifying the opponents
[02:52:16] and other state entities.
[02:52:18] So this is where I think we are in very dangerous part.
[02:52:21] And we need to act on it, political prisoners.
[02:52:24] And socialism, they always say,
[02:52:25] we don't have political prisoners
[02:52:27] because nobody sits for political reasons.
[02:52:29] He sits for stealing a mayor.
[02:52:31] This guy's state's, maybe driving on the curb with his car,
[02:52:35] this guy sits for something else,
[02:52:37] but there's no political prisoners,
[02:52:38] but they all sit for political reasons.
[02:52:40] And we have here, General Flynn,
[02:52:42] I mean, what happened to him?
[02:52:44] You always find something that you can show me,
[02:52:49] and I will stick the paragraph to him.
[02:52:52] So they will find something to intimidate political opponents.
[02:52:55] And I think it's time to turn around our country.
[02:52:58] We can have the things that are happening right now
[02:53:00] or very disturbing to me.
[02:53:02] There are too much like that socialism that I experience.
[02:53:07] And I just like I said earlier,
[02:53:09] if people only took time to ask refugees
[02:53:13] from the former socialist countries in Eastern Europe
[02:53:18] and stood against Avalu,
[02:53:19] and haven't the Democrats left in the office,
[02:53:22] totally that it is so bad.
[02:53:25] I mean, I'm really concerned.
[02:53:27] Yeah, we had some Vietnamese Vietnam war veterans on,
[02:53:35] and they certainly expressed very similar concerns.
[02:53:38] They lived through communism.
[02:53:41] They escaped communist countries,
[02:53:43] and they hate seeing, and they're sickened,
[02:53:48] when they see similar things occurring here,
[02:53:53] and they, you know, it's a warning.
[02:53:56] It's a warning.
[02:53:57] It is a warning, but it hated before it's too late.
[02:53:59] If not too late already, because,
[02:54:03] yeah, we already have,
[02:54:06] we had socialist elections,
[02:54:08] and seems like the rules are being implemented.
[02:54:10] When I was talking to people about in 2008,
[02:54:13] that was laughed off, it's like that's not going to happen here.
[02:54:17] We have been, we are having, now, right now,
[02:54:21] the rules are being implemented,
[02:54:24] allowing for socialist elections.
[02:54:27] Socialist elections, I mean,
[02:54:29] elections were communist,
[02:54:31] Marxists, and socialists always win.
[02:54:37] Now, on top of that, and I know that you got that going on,
[02:54:41] you also have a foundation to help guys that,
[02:54:47] we're in the sealed teams, guys that are in the sealed teams,
[02:54:49] if they run into hard times for whatever reason,
[02:54:52] you have a fund that people can donate to,
[02:54:55] what's that all about?
[02:54:57] It is NaviCeeals Fund, it's 501C3,
[02:54:59] NaviCeeals Fund.org, not foundation,
[02:55:01] it's NaviCeeals Fund, FU and D.
[02:55:04] And this is to help our guys,
[02:55:06] because there's a lot of team guys
[02:55:09] that leave the teams before their time,
[02:55:12] before their retirement,
[02:55:14] and they have pretty much no support or very little support.
[02:55:17] So, and I've seen so many guys going with broken lies,
[02:55:23] because they miss the payment here,
[02:55:25] they miss the payment there,
[02:55:26] there were, there were, they lost the job.
[02:55:31] Some of them, the whole live was collapsing in front of them.
[02:55:36] So what we create is like no retake charity
[02:55:40] that look, if you were any time, 50, 320, 6,
[02:55:45] we will help you, we don't let you fall down.
[02:55:48] And it's just, no body gets paid.
[02:55:55] So if you can look at our website,
[02:55:57] there's a bunch of team guys with the same attitude,
[02:56:00] with the same ideals that we need to help each other.
[02:56:05] And again, they don't want to get paid,
[02:56:08] they don't want the money, it is not about the money,
[02:56:10] this is something that we can give back
[02:56:12] to those less fortunate.
[02:56:14] Because there's a big problem, look, how is Laki?
[02:56:18] I came back, I made my wife, she was able to domesticate me
[02:56:22] and create a human being out of me again.
[02:56:25] But there's a lot of guys that come back or do they.
[02:56:29] They got caught up in this violent cycle
[02:56:35] that the skills from the Navy SEAL teams
[02:56:40] don't translate well on civilian life,
[02:56:43] not many things, some people have a hard time in the transition.
[02:56:47] So what is happening with these guys is,
[02:56:49] well, I can't get the job, but what I'm going to do,
[02:56:52] I'm going to go get contracting.
[02:56:54] I'm going to go overseas again,
[02:56:55] no, should some, you know, do the pretty much the same job.
[02:57:00] But when I come back with a lot of money,
[02:57:02] I can get the regular job, I can get it with my bag
[02:57:05] with my family.
[02:57:06] The guy comes back after six months with tons of money,
[02:57:08] trying to find the job six months later,
[02:57:09] he has no job, and has no money.
[02:57:12] Well, I'm tired, they have tired, they just have no choice.
[02:57:19] I need to get back, I need to go back into that world again.
[02:57:23] So, and the cycle repeats itself.
[02:57:25] We have a guy's got up in this cycle.
[02:57:27] You know, not everybody, there are some people
[02:57:28] that lie this lifestyle and they can continue on,
[02:57:30] but there's many guys that can get out of it.
[02:57:33] So this is where we step in,
[02:57:34] we want to go and help those guys.
[02:57:36] If you want to get out of this, we are here to help you.
[02:57:39] And we stay watch over you.
[02:57:43] Awesome.
[02:57:44] Awesome, man.
[02:57:45] Look, we've been going for a while now.
[02:57:48] Probably a good place to,
[02:57:51] probably a good place to wrap up.
[02:57:54] I know, you know what we missed.
[02:57:58] You know, we didn't talk about
[02:57:59] was one of my funnest things in life
[02:58:02] was introducing you to GJ2.
[02:58:05] Oh, that was a great thing.
[02:58:08] Then how excited you were.
[02:58:10] You were so excited when you learned
[02:58:12] that you could choke people
[02:58:14] and you could armlock people.
[02:58:16] And I remember you got to a scrap somewhere
[02:58:18] where you were out somewhere and you got into a scrap.
[02:58:21] And I wasn't there, you came back to me the next day.
[02:58:24] And you had the, you had a look of just joy on your face.
[02:58:29] And you said,
[02:58:29] Jocco, Jocco,
[02:58:31] and I was like, what's going on, man?
[02:58:32] You said, I got in a fight last night.
[02:58:33] And I was like, okay, did you get in trouble?
[02:58:35] He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
[02:58:36] No, I choked the guy.
[02:58:38] I choked him, you were so happy and so proud.
[02:58:41] And I was quite proud as well.
[02:58:42] I actually do have to do an auto to it something too.
[02:58:45] Because this is what it's like sometimes
[02:58:47] get odd and misunderstand, even within our community
[02:58:50] with an hour guys.
[02:58:51] So when I used to fight, when I was the way I grew up,
[02:58:55] is you fight until you decide the guy,
[02:58:57] that you defied his over, not when the guy tells,
[02:58:59] okay, well, I got it, you know, that is over.
[02:59:02] You are better.
[02:59:04] And then as soon as he turned around,
[02:59:05] he lands, he lands, edge you.
[02:59:07] So he just beat the guy and he doesn't move.
[02:59:09] And then, which is what you need to be careful with
[02:59:12] is it actually happened to me before that he'll
[02:59:15] then choke on his own tongue if you roll the wrong way.
[02:59:18] Now, we need to go because the police about to come in
[02:59:20] so if you're lifting that, he dies or not.
[02:59:23] So that the technique that I learned Poland is a pin-up type.
[02:59:29] So you just pin up, they might get pin-up out of the guy.
[02:59:32] You put the pin through his lip and he's tongue
[02:59:35] and pin his tongue to his lip.
[02:59:37] So that way, whatever he rolls in once you leave,
[02:59:40] he's not going to suffocate on his own tongue.
[02:59:42] And people are like, what's the real?
[02:59:46] Yeah, it is real.
[02:59:47] Because then you can leave and safely guy
[02:59:50] in that position.
[02:59:52] And when he wakes up, he just feels like
[02:59:54] because of safety pinning it and pin his tongue
[02:59:56] from his lip and go home.
[02:59:58] Versus being dead, you know, and then you get in trouble.
[03:00:00] So yeah, that's actually good technique
[03:00:03] that a lot of people are asking, I think I adopted, I think.
[03:00:06] Because I told that, right, thank you guys.
[03:00:09] There was also a good one where we were going through
[03:00:12] some kind of combative training and the instructors,
[03:00:17] they had these boxes taped on the floor.
[03:00:21] And purpose of these boxes was that if you had to handle
[03:00:26] a situation, you know, in a hand-to-hand situation,
[03:00:29] those boxes represented the area
[03:00:32] that you needed to stay in because if you got out of that area,
[03:00:36] you're actually interfering with other guys,
[03:00:38] feel to fire.
[03:00:39] So it was almost a way for them to prove that look,
[03:00:43] you just need to stay still.
[03:00:45] And whatever, if you can't do it inside of this little box
[03:00:48] here, then it's probably not going to work.
[03:00:50] And so they did some things with me
[03:00:53] with grappling, it was kind of funny.
[03:00:55] But then they take you and they go, all right, you know,
[03:00:59] you stand in this box and they put another,
[03:01:01] like, one of the instructors in the box.
[03:01:04] And they said, you know, if you're in this little space like this,
[03:01:06] you know, these kicks that you're talking about,
[03:01:09] they wouldn't work because you're too close.
[03:01:11] Yeah, they were demonstrated.
[03:01:12] Yeah. And then so then they go, okay, droggle,
[03:01:15] you know, you're standing in this box,
[03:01:16] you're not allowed to leave the box,
[03:01:18] but try and kick him, try and kick him in the head.
[03:01:21] And apparently they didn't know that you had very flexible legs
[03:01:26] and fire on your freaking kid.
[03:01:29] Just catch him. You're probably not that bad.
[03:01:31] You're definitely out of the box.
[03:01:33] It was really awesome.
[03:01:35] But you know, I remember too, I'm so glad that you mentioned about this
[03:01:38] because when you show up in the platoon,
[03:01:41] I remember just killing us a guy.
[03:01:44] I'm going to chuck out the entire platoon in five minutes.
[03:01:47] Like, okay.
[03:01:49] So you started it.
[03:01:51] And as they progress within the 30 seconds,
[03:01:54] you were typing out or pass out next next.
[03:01:57] So I actually like a couple of guys quietly just inching their way out
[03:02:00] of the groom.
[03:02:02] So you know, you took out whoever was left up there,
[03:02:04] including myself, but that was actually good experience.
[03:02:07] And they were starting learning.
[03:02:09] And I remember that I was not that technically,
[03:02:12] I was pretty strong, but not technically very well.
[03:02:14] And I was recently with one of the officers.
[03:02:17] And I remember I was trying almost everything.
[03:02:19] I was pinning, I had pin came down, I was.
[03:02:21] But almost with him, he's hand over.
[03:02:23] And they were in the world.
[03:02:24] He was laying there.
[03:02:26] And I was trying everything and found like 30 minutes later.
[03:02:28] He found a tap towel and gave up.
[03:02:30] Then you woke up, said like, well, you know,
[03:02:32] I didn't want to go in there with this.
[03:02:34] But you were doing okay, but if you take his hand
[03:02:37] just when he's just a little bit down,
[03:02:39] he'll be tapping out right away.
[03:02:40] So I just like tried and just like,
[03:02:42] I don't know.
[03:02:43] I said, fuck, I wish I knew that I was spent 30 minutes
[03:02:46] trying to get his arm off.
[03:02:48] And he was just simple technique to do it.
[03:02:51] So yeah, that's probably funny.
[03:02:52] Or a poor scaddy when he was, that's actually scared me
[03:02:56] like, but because I didn't know it.
[03:02:58] We were wrestling, you were over watching us.
[03:03:00] And then that's like, I'm thinking pretty good.
[03:03:02] And I was like, but he's not tapping out.
[03:03:04] So I'm just grabbing him up.
[03:03:06] And then I see you and other team got,
[03:03:09] other guys on the platform just priming out of the scar.
[03:03:12] And it's like, yeah, stop, stop, stop, stop.
[03:03:14] I say stop for fucking, wow,
[03:03:16] he's tapping out.
[03:03:17] I say, no, he's not.
[03:03:18] He's tapping out, no, he's not.
[03:03:20] And then he say, wait, do you hear this?
[03:03:23] T-t-t-t-t-t-t.
[03:03:26] I say, yeah, but what does that mean?
[03:03:29] He said, well, he couldn't breathe.
[03:03:31] And he couldn't tap, there was no way to tap out
[03:03:33] that scar's in dude.
[03:03:35] Oh, yeah.
[03:03:35] Yeah, yeah.
[03:03:36] I couldn't breathe.
[03:03:37] I couldn't tap out.
[03:03:38] So I could say it was, I couldn't have a breath
[03:03:40] to even say stop.
[03:03:42] Well, I could do it.
[03:03:44] And then you stole off.
[03:03:46] So it was like, that was pretty cool.
[03:03:48] She says, wow, it's fucking jeez.
[03:03:50] That was, man.
[03:03:52] Yeah, that was a killer individual.
[03:03:53] It was kind of claustrophobic.
[03:03:55] And I remember I would train with him.
[03:03:56] And when someone's super claustrophobic like that,
[03:04:00] sometimes I like to sort of give them some exposure therapy
[03:04:04] and try and make them more used to it.
[03:04:05] But I remember him just, he's gone.
[03:04:07] He's just like, get off me and he was so bad.
[03:04:11] Get off me and I'm not done with this.
[03:04:14] He was walking off me.
[03:04:15] So he was freaking away.
[03:04:17] That was nothing unusual to see.
[03:04:19] That's a gaming guy.
[03:04:20] Spacel, who would be shaking their hand?
[03:04:22] Did it like?
[03:04:23] OK, well, shake his legs.
[03:04:24] Good.
[03:04:25] OK, that was like, that's pressing.
[03:04:26] Who would happen?
[03:04:27] It's like, what happened?
[03:04:28] And I, you guys just checked out, is you OK?
[03:04:32] Good times.
[03:04:33] Good times.
[03:04:33] Awesome.
[03:04:35] Right on.
[03:04:36] Echo Charles.
[03:04:37] Yes.
[03:04:37] Speaking of getting after it, speaking of
[03:04:41] Jiu Jitsu, speaking of maintaining the good physical
[03:04:45] condition, which I'm really, when you're
[03:04:48] telling me that you didn't work out or anything,
[03:04:51] but you're a freaking mutant.
[03:04:53] Because you're strong.
[03:04:54] You're like, I've put these thrown like you're strong.
[03:04:56] It's just a wrestle with, man.
[03:05:01] That's just how.
[03:05:03] When I was making it to be in strong.
[03:05:06] Now that I'm speaking that, so when we were lifting,
[03:05:09] we were all trying to get jacked.
[03:05:11] So whatever.
[03:05:13] I guess there's nothing, I don't know if you necessarily
[03:05:16] brought this from the Eastern block, but, but
[03:05:21] drogletonist this thing or it would do this thing where we
[03:05:23] would lift when you're getting your lift on.
[03:05:27] He had this primal, this primal noise.
[03:05:31] That's.
[03:05:33] So whatever, like the platoon was in a gym somewhere overseas,
[03:05:37] you'd just hear guys going, that's.
[03:05:40] There's actually no, you know, every platoon came in who came
[03:05:45] through, because I was staying there by the platoon's
[03:05:47] rolls through that, through barring that.
[03:05:49] So everybody was living with, oh, it's.
[03:05:52] Yeah.
[03:05:53] And so, but every single platoon was kind of,
[03:05:56] I said, OK, drag away, screaming the ads for the fucking
[03:06:00] man's here, what that the fuck means?
[03:06:02] It's like, I don't know.
[03:06:04] It's like, it might say everything.
[03:06:06] Is it good?
[03:06:07] It's good.
[03:06:07] It's good.
[03:06:08] That's it's suck.
[03:06:10] That's it.
[03:06:11] So next, let me say everything.
[03:06:13] I was talking to my kids and I was like, oh, yeah, my friends
[03:06:18] coming on the podcast today, and they're like, oh, whatever,
[03:06:20] they don't care.
[03:06:20] But then I was like, this is the guy that originally said,
[03:06:23] ah, it's because when my kids were to work out,
[03:06:25] I'd be like, hey, look, when you're
[03:06:26] going to go for that big clean, you've got to get fired up.
[03:06:28] What you got to do is give yourself a little.
[03:06:30] Ah, it's.
[03:06:34] So speaking of, yes, there we go.
[03:06:38] Well, that there's empowering lifting that there's that or some
[03:06:42] version of that.
[03:06:43] And there's always that.
[03:06:44] And maybe there's like a physiological technique for that.
[03:06:48] Tighten up when you, if you're going to do it,
[03:06:50] it tightens up kind of your, your post-year, your chain, right?
[03:06:54] Like you've got to make your whole, your whole rib cage kind of
[03:06:58] ops, yeah.
[03:06:59] Like if you do it hard, everything's going to get tight straight
[03:07:01] straight enough that spinal area.
[03:07:03] Yeah, it's going to take you know, okay.
[03:07:05] So that there's a method that that has a name for it when you
[03:07:08] basically, yeah, no, but also when you are beating somebody up and
[03:07:13] you are this, ah, it's just let me even more.
[03:07:16] Oh, yes, it's, yeah, yeah, yeah, fully.
[03:07:19] But that there is a technique that technique has a name like to
[03:07:22] tighten up everything.
[03:07:23] It's almost like there's a breath hold.
[03:07:24] Like a spray or a call at brace for or something.
[03:07:26] No, it's like a theory of it.
[03:07:28] Yeah, it's an odd word.
[03:07:30] I forget what it is.
[03:07:31] But when you say that's, that's like a, it's like you're not
[03:07:35] totally holding your breath.
[03:07:36] You're giving a little air.
[03:07:37] It's kind of like, you know, when you get, you know, those,
[03:07:39] what do you call the blood pressure?
[03:07:40] Yeah, you know, you pump it pump it up and then you let out a little bit.
[03:07:43] It's kind of like that kind of thing.
[03:07:45] Anyway, I think it's a furrow technique.
[03:07:47] Doesn't block completely or breathing.
[03:07:49] It's just, yeah, it's kind of, did you that extra pressure that
[03:07:52] you still have that pressure about?
[03:07:55] Yes, it's true.
[03:07:57] Yeah, so maybe maybe just that's just how you kind of grew up,
[03:08:00] you know, in your mind, it came very natural.
[03:08:03] It's probably what happened.
[03:08:04] It worked.
[03:08:05] I worked for, I think for all of us, because I was the guy,
[03:08:08] and I did, they, by the time five, seven or whatever,
[03:08:11] they think show up up there.
[03:08:12] They all end up with, ah, that's, that's what they're doing.
[03:08:15] Make you a little bit strong.
[03:08:16] Actually, I got the call on too long time ago.
[03:08:17] I said, what the fuck did that ask me?
[03:08:19] Is the people who are asking me?
[03:08:21] And I thought, what to tell them, I said,
[03:08:22] means everything.
[03:08:23] Just listen.
[03:08:24] Oh, yeah.
[03:08:25] When I was,
[03:08:26] it means nothing, but it means everything.
[03:08:28] Yes.
[03:08:28] Yeah.
[03:08:29] Yeah.
[03:08:30] You're like, a little deeper.
[03:08:31] When I was in college, I got knee surgery,
[03:08:34] because it blew up my seat.
[03:08:36] And before I got surgery, I was like, okay,
[03:08:38] what's the recovery time and all this?
[03:08:39] And they're like, you know, it's, it depends.
[03:08:41] And they asked me, are you Polish?
[03:08:43] Are you, do you have any Polish blood?
[03:08:45] I said, no why?
[03:08:46] It's because Polish people tend to heal faster.
[03:08:50] So they, for this is what the literally what the doctor told me,
[03:08:53] polishing some on.
[03:08:54] So how did they didn't ask you if you were someone?
[03:08:57] They did.
[03:08:58] Okay, that's both.
[03:08:59] Yeah, but drugo doesn't have someone.
[03:09:01] You have a person.
[03:09:02] Let's relevant.
[03:09:03] We'll just say, I'm just saying his durability may be attributed
[03:09:06] to his genetic, you know, scenarios.
[03:09:10] Blood.
[03:09:10] How look at the bath time and maybe hopefully that will help me get
[03:09:13] got through.
[03:09:14] But also the attitude.
[03:09:17] I was never like, I remember we see it before the hell,
[03:09:19] or doing the hell, we're going to say,
[03:09:20] so why you are here, why would you come to bath and stuff?
[03:09:23] Well, I want to try to be a bestseeing, the best guy.
[03:09:26] I tried to be a seal.
[03:09:27] I tried this.
[03:09:27] I tried that.
[03:09:28] So they came to me, I say, I'm not fucking trying anything.
[03:09:30] I'm here to be a seal.
[03:09:31] I just, I will be a seal and as I get injured or kick me out.
[03:09:35] So I'm not trying.
[03:09:37] I'm just on my way to be a seal.
[03:09:39] Just like the kind of like that.
[03:09:41] But then I got to be that for that.
[03:09:43] You definitely get to beat down for that one.
[03:09:45] Like sense.
[03:09:46] What do we got, man?
[03:09:47] Oh, oops.
[03:09:50] Either way, we get guests.
[03:09:51] We are on the path.
[03:09:53] So on this path, not all of us are quite as durable.
[03:09:58] Or maybe we are out of no, but we got supplementation,
[03:10:00] juggle feel.
[03:10:01] So we got stuff for your joints, join more for us.
[03:10:03] We have a review.
[03:10:04] We have an automatic review.
[03:10:06] Drogo has been drinking the DAC savage drink.
[03:10:12] And what do you think?
[03:10:13] I'm addicted to it.
[03:10:15] I just, for many reasons, one is that the taste of it,
[03:10:19] because I was telling you earlier about those candies
[03:10:23] in Poland, they said, there's specific taste of candies
[03:10:25] that they were so rare that you can actually
[03:10:27] trade this candy between the kids.
[03:10:30] And there was like a caramel white candy within the,
[03:10:34] so this is it.
[03:10:35] This is the candy, which I was always addicted.
[03:10:38] It's like Dr. Pepper.
[03:10:39] When I had the first Dr. Pepper, I say holy shit.
[03:10:42] This is America.
[03:10:43] I was like, we are struggling to have a one candy like this.
[03:10:47] And here, you can just go to the machine and get your someone.
[03:10:50] So, so that I love the taste.
[03:10:52] So, it tastes like America.
[03:10:55] What?
[03:10:56] It tastes like America.
[03:10:57] So, it's odd, because on the way down here, thinking about it,
[03:10:59] you know, like a regular, we'll call it for lack of a better term,
[03:11:03] a traditional energy drink.
[03:11:04] Oh, an old poisonous drink.
[03:11:06] Old energy drink.
[03:11:07] So exactly right.
[03:11:08] So poisonous, right?
[03:11:09] And here's the weird thing.
[03:11:10] Everyone knows that.
[03:11:11] It's so weird how everyone knows that.
[03:11:13] Like if they say, okay, so let's say you just did some
[03:11:15] jujitsu, you just worked out or something.
[03:11:17] You're like, man, I'm thirsty or whatever.
[03:11:19] You know, let me go whatever.
[03:11:20] No, I need drinks.
[03:11:21] Yeah.
[03:11:22] You're like, you're not going to the soda machine.
[03:11:25] You're not getting some soda pop.
[03:11:27] You're not getting an energy drink.
[03:11:30] Traditional one.
[03:11:31] That sounds like the last thing you want to drink.
[03:11:32] I need to get you.
[03:11:34] Yeah.
[03:11:35] But meanwhile, meanwhile, you can get America.
[03:11:38] That this is like, yeah.
[03:11:39] Oh, it's not only are you kind of in the mood for it,
[03:11:43] sometimes.
[03:11:44] Like right after like a hard workout,
[03:11:46] it's actually good for you.
[03:11:48] Yeah.
[03:11:48] But isn't it weird how everyone just knows that that
[03:11:51] an energy drink is that it's like known.
[03:11:54] It's a known thing.
[03:11:55] It's mainstream, ready?
[03:11:56] Yeah.
[03:11:56] It's crazy.
[03:11:57] Shack.
[03:11:58] Well, if you want to get those, if you want to get some
[03:12:00] joint warfare for your joints, if you want to get
[03:12:03] krill oil for your joints, if you want to get some
[03:12:06] what vitamin D3, yeah, which is all kinds of other.
[03:12:10] Oh, it's so very good for you for many reasons.
[03:12:12] Mulk, which is protein.
[03:12:14] Disguised as dessert.
[03:12:16] That's true.
[03:12:18] Anyways, you can get all the stuff at jockelfuel.com
[03:12:21] or you can get you can get the drinks at wall wall out on the East Coast
[03:12:25] or you can get the stuff at the vitamin shop.
[03:12:28] Yep, all available there.
[03:12:29] And consider getting the subscription.
[03:12:32] So origin usay.com.
[03:12:34] You want to subscribe to this stuff.
[03:12:35] You can save some money free shipping, by the way.
[03:12:38] Well, that's kind of a big deal.
[03:12:39] It's not even a by the way.
[03:12:40] It's almost the primary reason.
[03:12:42] Maybe the primary reason is we don't want to not have
[03:12:46] what we want when we need it.
[03:12:48] Yes.
[03:12:48] But another good reason is it's expensive to ship stuff.
[03:12:53] But if you subscribe shipping free and that's cool.
[03:12:56] Boom, and you get it every month or when you need,
[03:12:58] you don't run out.
[03:12:59] No.
[03:13:00] It doesn't seem like a big thing, but try
[03:13:01] to run out.
[03:13:02] You're going to know it's going to be a big thing.
[03:13:04] Anyway, origin usay.com.
[03:13:06] That's where you can sign up.
[03:13:07] Right?
[03:13:08] That's pretty much the main spot.
[03:13:08] Yep.
[03:13:09] What is the subscription?
[03:13:10] Origin usay.com.
[03:13:13] That's the spot right there.
[03:13:15] Also, at origin usay.com is jutsu stuff.
[03:13:18] So we talked about jutsu briefly.
[03:13:19] We're going to talk more.
[03:13:20] Oh yeah.
[03:13:21] But you know, but effective.
[03:13:23] Yeah, that's very effective.
[03:13:25] But yeah, you want some geese American made geese
[03:13:28] rash guards.
[03:13:28] Other jutsu stuff, other athletic stuff too.
[03:13:31] Yeah.
[03:13:31] Origin usay.
[03:13:32] Yeah, made in America, by the way.
[03:13:34] So, Dargo haven't really dove into this with you,
[03:13:37] but we are, we now have a company where we are making
[03:13:41] products in America.
[03:13:43] We're making jutsu geese.
[03:13:44] We're making rash guards.
[03:13:46] We're making boots. We're making jeans.
[03:13:48] We're making everything in America.
[03:13:49] I know that because I was following you.
[03:13:52] Oh, I was right.
[03:13:53] Yeah.
[03:13:53] Well, the freaking crazy thing is like, like,
[03:13:57] for instance, jeans.
[03:13:58] Everyone gets a pair of whatever name brand jeans.
[03:14:01] And they think that they're getting an iconic American
[03:14:03] gene, but they're not.
[03:14:05] They're actually getting jeans that are made in communist
[03:14:08] countries.
[03:14:10] That's where they're made.
[03:14:11] So we don't like that.
[03:14:13] We like our jeans to come from America, by hard,
[03:14:17] made by hardworking people.
[03:14:18] So origin usay.
[03:14:21] Dot com.
[03:14:22] That's.
[03:14:23] That's how we get it.
[03:14:25] Yes.
[03:14:26] Yes.
[03:14:27] Also, on that same sort of tip, let me direct your attention
[03:14:31] to JoccoStore.com.
[03:14:33] This is where you can get more apparel, more representative
[03:14:37] directly of the path.
[03:14:39] So just plenty, equals freedom.
[03:14:41] Good.
[03:14:41] All these things.
[03:14:42] So you can get it.
[03:14:43] We have a subscription situation going on as well.
[03:14:46] It's good on.
[03:14:48] A little bit different designs, but still applicable.
[03:14:51] It's just FYI.
[03:14:52] So you can get this thing.
[03:14:53] It's called the shirt locker.
[03:14:54] If you want to get one of these cool t-shirts,
[03:14:56] here's the thing.
[03:14:57] Because this reason I bring this up is someone
[03:14:59] went online and was like, that you posted something.
[03:15:02] And they're like, hey, no, these t-shirts are on the store
[03:15:05] on jocquistore.com.
[03:15:06] And yes and no.
[03:15:08] But right, well, explain.
[03:15:10] So people do understand.
[03:15:11] Yes, they are on jocquistore, but they're only
[03:15:13] through the subscriptions.
[03:15:15] The shirt locker.
[03:15:17] So that's the only place you can get them.
[03:15:19] Again, if you do, I mean, if you even care about the difference,
[03:15:22] or whatever, the designs are a little bit,
[03:15:26] we'll just say they're a little bit more creative
[03:15:28] from time to time.
[03:15:29] Nonetheless, they're a little bit different.
[03:15:32] They're cool.
[03:15:32] They're fun.
[03:15:33] You will get a new one every month.
[03:15:37] There it is.
[03:15:38] There you go.
[03:15:39] You can subscribe to this podcast.
[03:15:41] You can subscribe to some other podcast.
[03:15:42] We got the unraveling podcast with Darrell Cooper.
[03:15:46] We got the grounded podcast.
[03:15:47] We got the Warrior Kid podcast.
[03:15:48] There's a new episode down by the way.
[03:15:49] Yes, sir.
[03:15:51] I was really slow in getting those out,
[03:15:54] but they're out.
[03:15:55] You can get your Warrior Kids list of those.
[03:15:56] You can also join the underground,
[03:15:58] jocquawunderground.com, where we going a little bit more detail,
[03:16:02] a little bit behind the scenes.
[03:16:03] Research.
[03:16:04] Yep.
[03:16:05] Also, some good, a lot of some people asked,
[03:16:08] like, hey, do you guys do Q&A?
[03:16:11] I'm wondering about this and this.
[03:16:13] I'm a good question, but yes, the answers.
[03:16:16] Yes, we do do the Q&A, but it's on the underground.
[03:16:18] Exclusively to the underground, maybe maybe not.
[03:16:20] But, we didn't know, yeah.
[03:16:22] Well, we did.
[03:16:23] Well, here's the deal.
[03:16:23] We had people that signed up to be on the underground
[03:16:25] that subscribed to the underground.
[03:16:26] That asked questions.
[03:16:27] So we answered their questions on one of the first underground Q&A.
[03:16:32] So anyways, go to jocquawunderground.com.
[03:16:35] If you want to subscribe to that,
[03:16:36] if you can't afford it costs $8.18 a month, by the way,
[03:16:39] if you can't afford that, look, we still want you
[03:16:42] to get the information.
[03:16:43] You can email assistance at jocquawunderground.com.
[03:16:47] We'll take care of you.
[03:16:49] We got a YouTube channel where Echo puts videos up,
[03:16:54] that he creates, that he put more to the point.
[03:16:57] Oh, that's a new conceptual idea.
[03:17:00] OK, so if you're waiting for Echo's conceptual ideas,
[03:17:03] they should be produced within the next 24 months,
[03:17:06] because his work ethic is, well, it's solid dude.
[03:17:10] It's not.
[03:17:11] It's not.
[03:17:12] Yeah, well, he doesn't create videos.
[03:17:14] There's things, there's things levels of,
[03:17:17] not having a, maybe you should, maybe you should go home
[03:17:19] get in front of your editing suite and just go,
[03:17:23] and maybe we'll get some more freaking videos done.
[03:17:25] I guess so.
[03:17:26] That's what he's doing.
[03:17:28] Yeah.
[03:17:29] Yeah, if you got the legit,
[03:17:32] you know, that odds actually is part of my,
[03:17:36] the drag-os accelerated English course.
[03:17:38] That's the main motivator.
[03:17:42] Yes.
[03:17:42] People hear that one time, but they're talking to you
[03:17:44] where they're first born child is.
[03:17:46] This is a good advice.
[03:17:47] Thank you.
[03:17:48] Let's be very good English after that.
[03:17:51] Psychological Warfare.
[03:17:53] You can get that on any MP3 platform.
[03:17:55] We got flip side canvas.
[03:17:57] Flipside canvas.com.
[03:17:58] My brother Dakota Meyer, Marine Corps.
[03:18:02] He's got a company where he's making things to hang on your wall.
[03:18:05] We got a bunch of books.
[03:18:06] Okay, the first book that I want to talk to you about
[03:18:08] is the book that I started off this podcast today.
[03:18:11] I took one little section.
[03:18:14] The book is called, and you're gonna have to help me
[03:18:16] with all this, uh, drug-roat.
[03:18:18] So the book is called Camp Posey.
[03:18:20] The writer, his name is, how do I say it?
[03:18:23] Navajo.
[03:18:24] Navajo.
[03:18:25] So Navajo was a guy in the grom in the Polish grom.
[03:18:28] Special Operations guy.
[03:18:30] I don't know too much about him because I can't read Polish,
[03:18:34] but the book is available, and I ordered it,
[03:18:37] but I haven't gotten it yet.
[03:18:38] It's available on Amazon.
[03:18:40] So if you want to get this book, look up Camp Posey.
[03:18:42] And I did look through it.
[03:18:45] There's pictures of, um,
[03:18:47] I'll shoot.
[03:18:48] I mean, this because he was deployed with us.
[03:18:50] With, you were there, and I was there too.
[03:18:52] Yep.
[03:18:53] I would picture some.
[03:18:54] Yep, there's pictures of where we were.
[03:18:56] There's pictures of Camp Jenny Posey,
[03:18:58] which is freaking brings back all kinds of memories for us.
[03:19:02] Because you're doing so much good work out of there.
[03:19:05] Bunch of pictures in it, and you can get an English version.
[03:19:08] So check that out.
[03:19:10] Camp Posey.
[03:19:11] Have you read it?
[03:19:12] Oh, I have read it.
[03:19:12] Yes, I read it both.
[03:19:13] I read in Polish and English.
[03:19:15] It's very accurate.
[03:19:16] I see.
[03:19:16] I think it's, it gives you the perspective from the other,
[03:19:23] other guys who are not part of the seals,
[03:19:26] but they are really good. They, they, they, they, they,
[03:19:28] and how they perceive seal teams.
[03:19:31] Right. How they see us, how, what do we do in a rag and how they work?
[03:19:35] So it's pretty good insight and the perspective on seals
[03:19:38] from the different vantage point.
[03:19:40] And then what about this other book that you brought today,
[03:19:42] which I haven't seen?
[03:19:44] So what's this called?
[03:19:45] This is, uh, the title of translation is,
[03:19:48] my 13 years in the, uh,
[03:19:51] Grom.
[03:19:52] Okay.
[03:19:52] So this is the, there's not my 13 years.
[03:19:54] This is this guy.
[03:19:55] Is that say 13, right?
[03:19:56] There's 13. That's exactly the 13 post.
[03:19:58] So it's Trinash,
[03:19:59] it's, it's, it's Trinash,
[03:20:01] you know, so it's going, grown.
[03:20:03] So this is what he said.
[03:20:04] I used to hear that over the radio.
[03:20:06] I was like,
[03:20:06] I was like,
[03:20:07] when the wind sweeps that dial,
[03:20:08] he'd be like,
[03:20:09] Brittany, right?
[03:20:09] Have you had a bra,
[03:20:10] a bra,
[03:20:10] a bra,
[03:20:11] a bra,
[03:20:11] a bra.
[03:20:12] It's us.
[03:20:13] You had a thing with
[03:20:15] shallow drag,
[03:20:16] a switch mode.
[03:20:18] So this guy was with us too.
[03:20:20] Yeah, actually,
[03:20:21] they came and the Navar, Navar,
[03:20:22] they were together.
[03:20:23] And I think the same time there.
[03:20:27] So this is,
[03:20:29] he wrote this book much earlier.
[03:20:30] And the same thing.
[03:20:31] And he just he's view on the Iraq war
[03:20:34] on the,
[03:20:35] I were working together with C.L.S.
[03:20:37] and how this thing,
[03:20:41] well,
[03:20:42] I think it's,
[03:20:42] is very interesting,
[03:20:43] especially if you want to look
[03:20:45] and about us,
[03:20:47] about C.L.S.
[03:20:48] and how others perceive us.
[03:20:51] Other forces.
[03:20:52] Do you know if this is this book available
[03:20:53] on Amazon?
[03:20:54] Is it available on Amazon?
[03:20:55] It is also,
[03:20:56] I will send you the links.
[03:20:57] It is also available in English on Amazon.
[03:21:00] And the English title is also 13 years.
[03:21:04] My 13 years.
[03:21:05] My 13 years.
[03:21:06] I don't know.
[03:21:07] Yeah.
[03:21:08] Yeah.
[03:21:09] I'm just flipping through this one.
[03:21:10] This one's got a bunch of pictures.
[03:21:11] Very,
[03:21:12] that looked very familiar as well.
[03:21:14] Yeah.
[03:21:14] I mean,
[03:21:14] that was a picture taken when we were there.
[03:21:17] Yeah.
[03:21:17] That's freaking awesome.
[03:21:19] All right.
[03:21:20] So we got these books.
[03:21:21] Check these books out.
[03:21:22] And we,
[03:21:23] and Dragone, I already talked about,
[03:21:24] hopefully getting one of those guys or both those guys.
[03:21:27] On the podcast at some point,
[03:21:29] if they can come over here from Poland or maybe,
[03:21:31] you know,
[03:21:31] what might we make an exception and do a not live,
[03:21:35] like not face to face.
[03:21:36] We have never done that before.
[03:21:37] We've never done a virtual podcast.
[03:21:40] Maybe we would do it for Poland,
[03:21:42] like Skype or something.
[03:21:43] Yeah.
[03:21:44] We have a dozen of them.
[03:21:45] I think it would be traveling here too.
[03:21:47] So that's all we need to know.
[03:21:49] We just,
[03:21:49] but I don't be awesome.
[03:21:50] I think it would be awesome.
[03:21:52] If you want to know something,
[03:21:54] actually he could travel in town.
[03:21:56] He's perspective on Iraq War.
[03:21:58] Why Poland got involved in it and why Poland was
[03:22:01] standing by our side.
[03:22:03] In that war.
[03:22:05] And why is Poland standing by our side?
[03:22:07] So we good to hear from you.
[03:22:08] Yeah.
[03:22:09] That'd be awesome.
[03:22:10] A bunch of other books too.
[03:22:11] I got a new book coming out called Final Spend.
[03:22:13] You can pre-order right now.
[03:22:14] If you want the first to dish.
[03:22:16] I don't think we've talked about that yet on Final Spend.
[03:22:19] I mentioned it last time I think.
[03:22:20] But yeah, you didn't go.
[03:22:21] Look, don't be coming up to me in whatever.
[03:22:25] When the book comes out.
[03:22:26] Two months after it comes out and you roll up to me.
[03:22:28] Hey, chocolate got your book.
[03:22:30] And I look at it.
[03:22:31] I'm going to know.
[03:22:32] You're going to know.
[03:22:33] We're all going to know.
[03:22:34] You got the second dish.
[03:22:36] Pre-order that one right now.
[03:22:37] Leadership Strategy and Taxes Field Manual.
[03:22:39] The Cold Dvaluation of Protocol.
[03:22:40] Displaincours Freedom Field Manual.
[03:22:41] Way the Warrior Kid.
[03:22:42] One, two, three.
[03:22:43] And four.
[03:22:44] Check those out.
[03:22:46] Mike in the Dragons,
[03:22:47] which is apparently the best kids book ever.
[03:22:50] That's what I've heard.
[03:22:52] And then about face by David Hackworth.
[03:22:55] I wrote a forward on a new version.
[03:22:57] I don't know.
[03:22:58] I do that.
[03:22:59] Extreme Ownership.
[03:23:00] The Academy Leadership.
[03:23:01] That's the OG of Jockel books that I wrote with my brother, Dave Babin.
[03:23:04] We got a consulting company.
[03:23:06] Excellent.
[03:23:07] Go to echelonfront.com.
[03:23:08] We got a EF online.
[03:23:09] If you want online.
[03:23:10] Virtual training.
[03:23:12] Go to EF online.com.
[03:23:14] If you want to come see us live.
[03:23:16] Go to extremeownership.com.
[03:23:17] We got three events this year.
[03:23:20] Because we're having three events this year.
[03:23:23] So if you want to come go to extremeownership.com.
[03:23:25] It's a leadership.
[03:23:26] A leadership seminar live in person.
[03:23:29] We also have an event coming up called EF Battlefield.
[03:23:32] Where we walk the Battle of Gettysburg.
[03:23:35] We walked a battlefield there and talk about the lessons that we're learned as if unbelievable event.
[03:23:41] We sold.
[03:23:42] We were only going to do one.
[03:23:45] We sold it out.
[03:23:46] We're doing two now.
[03:23:47] Hopefully.
[03:23:48] So if we can get things scheduled.
[03:23:50] We're going to make that happen.
[03:23:51] Go to echelonfront.com slash events.
[03:23:53] If you want to come to that.
[03:23:54] And if you want to help service members.
[03:23:57] Active and retired.
[03:23:58] If you want to help their families.
[03:23:59] If you want to help Gold star families.
[03:24:02] Check out Mark Lee's mom.
[03:24:04] She has her own organization.
[03:24:08] And if you want to help.
[03:24:09] You want to donate.
[03:24:10] You want to get involved.
[03:24:11] Go to America's mighty warriors.
[03:24:14] Org.
[03:24:15] And if you want to hear more from us.
[03:24:20] Which is highly unlikely at this point.
[03:24:22] But if you want to.
[03:24:24] You can find us on the in the webs on Twitter on Instagram on Facebook.
[03:24:27] Echo is at echelotrols.
[03:24:28] I am out.
[03:24:29] Jockel willink.
[03:24:30] Now, if you want to talk to Drogo.
[03:24:34] He's not on those platforms.
[03:24:36] Just come back.
[03:24:37] His free speech has been suppressed.
[03:24:39] But don't worry.
[03:24:40] He's on the underground.
[03:24:41] He's making things happen.
[03:24:43] You can check him out at connectzing.com.
[03:24:46] I'm also on there now too.
[03:24:48] Because well, if Drogo is there.
[03:24:50] And he's hanging out.
[03:24:51] I'm there.
[03:24:52] And I'm going to be hanging out too.
[03:24:54] Echo, you got any final thoughts.
[03:24:56] No, that's it.
[03:24:57] And good to see you again.
[03:24:58] We met briefly.
[03:24:59] Down town in my nightclub days with my good friend Jeremy.
[03:25:03] And he introduced me to you.
[03:25:05] That long time ago.
[03:25:06] It was like almost 20 years.
[03:25:08] Like long time ago.
[03:25:09] Like this.
[03:25:10] How do I?
[03:25:11] It's a great guy. Oh, it's guy.
[03:25:13] And yeah, I remember Drogo was like, oh, okay.
[03:25:16] All right.
[03:25:17] He seems very nice.
[03:25:19] But he could probably get nuts.
[03:25:21] Okay.
[03:25:22] Good to see you again.
[03:25:23] Thank you.
[03:25:24] There's a nice, nice.
[03:25:25] It was great to be here.
[03:25:27] Drogo any other closing thoughts, man.
[03:25:29] Um.
[03:25:32] I see maybe some of you make it.
[03:25:34] I'm probably not going to get some of you.
[03:25:35] I think that would mine for those guys who are going to go with us.
[03:25:37] And maybe a few seconds of silence.
[03:25:40] Two other of them.
[03:25:56] Yeah.
[03:25:57] Um, I don't know when this podcast is is actually coming out.
[03:26:00] But um, today is is March 20th.
[03:26:05] Today is is Mark Lee's birthday.
[03:26:09] And I mean, just incredible, incredible man, incredible seal, incredible.
[03:26:17] Husband, incredible son.
[03:26:20] And, uh, miss him and the rest of the boys every day.
[03:26:25] So.
[03:26:30] Happy birthday to Mark.
[03:26:32] And Drogo, man.
[03:26:34] Thanks for your service.
[03:26:36] Thanks for your service to the teams.
[03:26:38] Thanks for having my back count was times.
[03:26:41] And thank you for your service to America.
[03:26:46] And beyond that, thanks for your service to the ultimate cause of freedom in the world.
[03:26:58] You can't pay freedom.
[03:27:00] That's people are asking me, thank you.
[03:27:02] This is either way around Jack or actually.
[03:27:04] I had this me who's supposed to say thank you to you to you to every america and for my freedom.
[03:27:07] What I did in the teams in the Navy is just a token.
[03:27:11] You can't know the repay freedom.
[03:27:13] The freedom is not for sale.
[03:27:15] It's not there's nothing.
[03:27:18] You can do to reciprocate that freedom that that we that I got from America.
[03:27:26] I'm free man.
[03:27:27] And that's awesome feeling.
[03:27:29] It's something that I will never be able to reply to.
[03:27:32] I just I believe that just keep serving in any capacity.
[03:27:37] I can to our great America is important.
[03:27:42] So I'm not done yet.
[03:27:43] I've finished my military career, but I'm still serving.
[03:27:46] I'm still want to make America a better and safer place.
[03:27:51] Well, I'll lend to that.
[03:27:54] And I know I will always be proud to call you brother.
[03:27:57] And to all the other people out there.
[03:28:00] Especially those that are out there wearing the cloth of the nation.
[03:28:04] Thank you for protecting the most precious thing that we have.
[03:28:09] And that is our freedom.
[03:28:10] And the same goes for our police and law enforcement.
[03:28:13] Firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers,
[03:28:17] Border Patrol, Secret Service and all the other first responders out there.
[03:28:21] Thank you for protecting us here at home.
[03:28:24] And everyone else.
[03:28:26] Just remember that freedom is not free.
[03:28:32] And we cannot take it for granted.
[03:28:35] There is evil in the world.
[03:28:37] There is oppression in the world.
[03:28:40] And we must be on guard for a foretarian and tyrannical leaders.
[03:28:47] And like Drago, we must be willing to stand up and fight for our freedom.
[03:28:54] And until next time, this is Drago and Echo and Jocco out.