Jocko Podcast 347: To Accomplish The Impossible. With Nick Lavery, Green Beret and Wounded Warrior.

2022-08-20T08:01:59Z

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AI summary of episode

And, you know, and we know it like we know it, but it's like, okay, so you need these guys like, uh, what's the group, the acrobat group, like a Cirque du Soleil or something or, you know, whatever you called it. Because you know, you also have those kids that like they're out in the field and there's like a rattlesnake and they just like grab a stick, you know, hold the things head down, pick it up, swing it up against the tree and kill it, you know, you're like, that's pretty legit. and he's like, Hey man, I'm going to talk to your team, Sajima, but I think you need to be on like a, like a DA team, you know, you're like, you don't fit in and this team you're on now, you don't blend. And he did jujitsu, the brown belt, you know, and he used to roll with my son and he would kind of like bully my son, you know, when my son was a little kid, he'd like, you know, maybe slap him around a little bit on the mats, you know, maybe give the noogies, right? And he's not like a sloppy, like two, you know, even how big he is, he's not like a, and I'm not saying all because it's, I'm not saying that, but there's a difference between just being big and sort of lurchy and maybe sloppy and like a six, five stud as it were. But what I like about it is, over time, if you're not careful, you can start to, like, let some things slide a little bit, you know, you like, Well, you know, I only really need to do this or I only really do that. In retrospect, I talked to these guys late like years later, they're like, we thought you were like an actual like government project that was going on. And but you know, he was he's kind of, you know, like a, like a loudmouth, you know, always poking fun, always, you know, that kind of guy. and I needed to take a short halt because I needed to stretch because otherwise I was going to go down and one of my teammates yelled the word medic, which is the first time I had heard that, like in real life, you're going to hear the movies, but someone actually yelled medic and then a medic showed up and I was like, Oh, this is like a real thing. And he came over one night randomly and was like, hey, you know, I heard you're into like combatives and stuff like that, you know, come check out my gym once you get out of here And then the command is like, Listen, doc, I don't think you want to tell this dude, like, no, like he's, he just like, jumped on a plane and flew here. And I was like, man, there's exercises that I do just to make sure that I don't lose that capability, like whatever it is, whatever that exercise is, muscle ups, like overhead squats, like I had a hurt elbow for a year, man, I could not do an overhead squat, couldn't do it. Like they're like, they're pumping like sustenance in there like daily, which you see that right when you meet these guys. You know, it kind of sounds like a pain in the ass, but it's also like, Hey, if you got shot and you're freaking prosthetic, you're like, cool, let me just put on the other one. And he's like, okay, well, basically, don't ever talk to the boss like that again, and like, get out of here and like, go find your company. And, you know, two or three of these little like E3 med kids were like, stop physically like getting in my way to try to take my weapons and kit from me. Even if you're not that like, impressed with that, what if you were six, five freaking two, you know, two 15, one leg though, seem saying like you would have been two 50, the equivalent of like a two 50 seem saying now do it. Yeah, because I mean, you got 12 guys, like that's that's a freaking important gun, just like legit, like just a gunner. And now I'm feeling like I'm playing the game with like, with like the big boys, I got SF guys that are now my cadrates and my first time being introduced to them. I kind of already mentioned it, but having guys come back from combat and say, hey, we got out of this situation because of what you taught us and now having been doing this stuff, you know, the amount of feedback that I get like that, man, it's just, it feels good to pass that information on and you're going to get the same feedback, you know, on your story, on the lessons you learned, on the methodology you put forth in your book. I was like, bro, I think that that's like an asset, that tunnel vision, because that's really a big part of what discipline is, is not getting distracted by other stuff, including like your own feelings, right? You know, like the runs, like the workouts, they weren't all that like stimulating or difficult. But that's the kind of thing where you think like that left a mark on my kid, like, Oh, when the time comes, I'm going to train and I'm going to work You may think it's like this like piercing stabbing sensation, like a piece of metal going into you, but it's more just impact. You know, so you know, like, maritime ops, and especially in the schoolhouse, it's very procedural, like left foot here, right foot here, it's broken down step by step by step to increase efficiency and reduce risk to keep it as safe as possible. We got our footprint, you know, we're like patrol based activities for the first, it's like 48 until we got some semblance of some force pro going. So Army Special Forces National Guard team that was operating down in Helmand that had a real bad situation going on with their partner force, like we use the term catastrophic loss of rapport as being like mission abort, because we worked through partner force, they were right at that point where the machine gun barrels were essentially being pointed inwards with the commando elements they were working with. And it's just so automatic, just like anything else you do, not anything else, but like a lot of stuff you already do as a human, like walking. And if homeboy came back with some like crazy, ridiculous strategy that I knew wouldn't work, I let him know that I'm like, no, no, no, that's not going to work. So I mean, I was dissecting like where I put my phone, my keys, my walk, like to the, like to the inch within my life so that I didn't lose 24 steps ever again. It's not anything you can prevent by any means, but we could have done a better job to mitigate it, you know, and a lot of the lessons that have gone out from the event with us, which is still considered the most catastrophic insider attack since 9 11 is the lessons learned from that are being employed now really much as like, as like pretty much a baseline for all the guys that work with with indige. This is the time, you know, 0400 Reveley, 0428, you know, in the gym, 0521 starting cardio, 0610 first calorie intake, 700 via egg, you know, like that kind of thing. So, you know, horse trailer from here to here, you get there, you walk, you know, 12 miles through the wood line, link up over here, jump on a boat, move down this river, you know, it's like a full on infill as if you're going into actual denied area. But, uh, uh, yeah, that objectivity, I guess it happens a little bit different in buds, you know, like the instructors will see someone that's weak and they'll kind of like, they'll start working on them and they'll just break him. And I'm like, I don't know how to answer this question, you know, like, why are you here? Did you know like a, did you know like the sleeper hold? And he's like, you know, C-A-I, he's like, you know, car. They'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, I've all told me, like we had to do everything in our power to hold back, like the crazy one-eyed look, like, what did you just say? So at this point, we've got like some ratty chain link fence and some half filled Hasco as like force pro, there's nothing, you know, other than guys that are up there with 240s. It's like, yeah, don't you know, it's kind of like Minnesota, Minnesota thing, Southern Canada type thing. But you know, there would be like a Lurse unit or like a another unit over here that was going out to this area for whatever mission they had. And, you know, at, we have a leadership consulting company and explaining to people that they can actually learn skills, just like, I guess, at the example I was used as playing guitar or shooting baskets and basketball, like you can't just pick up a basketball and be think you can make free throws. I think that the way that you like had that memory freaking woke up from a coma without a leg and we're like cool, I'm going back to an ODA team. And this kid, you know, his parents weren't all that put together, you know, father answers the door, hippy looking dude, but like big, hairy, hairy, big mustache, you know, shirtless answers the door. And I, I realized that there was things that I said that made him think, well, oh, Jaco says he can, you know, squat 405 for 20 reps, which I kind of like, I don't know if I actually said, yeah, or 10 reps or whatever it was. I'm thinking like, every time like I hear a bully story, yeah, you know, I have kids and now they're small. That's like the way, that's the way, you know, at least in California, kids are getting, kids are like 23. He's like, you know, he's like, you're one of those combatives guys, right? And I'm like, all right, but I'm just going to keep going with this because like, he seems cool with it. So he hit me up and was like, Hey, man, just like, keep me updated with if you're modifying any specific procedure, I just need to know what that is. But for me, it was like more like my sophomore year, 2.0, you know, because I wasn't in line with the credits I needed to stay on track to graduate in four years. So, you know, ironic turn of events, if it was anybody other than him, who knows if that would have been approved, because you are assuming quite a bit of risk, both for him as the medical professional and then the commander in which he works underneath, like they're assuming that risk to send you a course like that as a student. And then it was just rinse and repeat like that for, you know, a month or so, five weeks, six weeks, something like that until the infection eventually stopped, which left me with pretty much what I have today. You know, another thing that I breezed over a little bit is the fact that as you are focused on you and you're focused on your goal of like, hey, I'm going to get back to an ODA team at some point along that journey before you took that final physical test, you looked in the mirror and thought to yourself, wait a second, this isn't about me. Like that was like, you know, my attitude, but then this thing would happen. So the two years I had, like since Walter Reed, you know, the first trip to Afghanistan or the train up Afghanistan, now I'm like two, two and a half years post injury. And again, I'm like jump, you've got all kinds of applications of this where people read and be like, oh, I think that might be me right there. And you know, I'm sure you've heard me talk about this before, but like I pushed you to too hard on my kids when they were younger, like competing. And you know, I talked to the admiral and I was like, Hey, sir, he, he wants to stay in and the animals like whatever he wants, wants to stand. You know, people thought I had like a diagnosable problem, whether that was delusional or like psychopathic. So we, you know, we had different like mockings that we used as like IR mockings to try to help us figure out where we were. They don't think like you think they don't think like I think so salute to the army and to SF for, for keeping that door open. One's an inhalation hose and one's an exhalation hose and it looks like you know if you look at Jacques Cousteau diving in 1973 like that's what he's using and there's no button to press. Whereas on the ground prior, we were just like going out and like paving the road a lot of the way. We didn't talk about the fact that once you didn't have a leg, you're like, all right, I need to be beneficial to my team in other ways beyond just physical, you know, you're going to be able to hold this standard. So Spratt's like, you know, looking at my name, he's like, I heard of you. It's at a slow pace, you know, it's like a fast like a brisk walk. Because my instructors don't like know what this looks like. You know, it was like almost like a backup plan. So I just want to crack this thing open and like just like I said just hit some of the high points of how you live your life, how you overcame these things. At the same time, like when they, when you walk in there, it's like a going on to a car dealership.

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Episode transcript

[00:00:00] This is Jocko podcast number 347 with echo Charles and me,
[00:00:03] Jocko willing. Good evening echo. Good evening.
[00:00:07] Simply put,
[00:00:09] warn officer Nick Lavery is a warrior's warrior.
[00:00:14] Nick selflessly and repeatedly risked his life for his nation as comrades in arms and most
[00:00:19] importantly, he accomplished what our nation needed him to do every time he left our shores.
[00:00:25] Nick is a hero in the truest sense. Nick's chosen profession requires an immersion
[00:00:35] into some of the nation's most difficult challenges, often in demanding, complex,
[00:00:42] and especially uncertain environments. To answer the nation's call, we seek men and women who have
[00:00:49] the tenacity to achieve the impossible and the resiliency to do it again and again.
[00:00:58] Nick Lavery's story is truly an exemplar of that.
[00:01:06] And that right there is an excerpt from a book. The book is called objective secure and the book
[00:01:12] is actually written by Nick Lavery and the words in that excerpt were spoken by Lieutenant General
[00:01:20] Francis Baudette, who is the commander of US Army Special Operations.
[00:01:28] And the speech was given when Nick received an award for his service in Special Operations.
[00:01:32] And I think anyone that hears Nick's story will agree that Nick is exactly what the general said.
[00:01:42] He is a warrior who can absolutely accomplish the impossible. And it is an honor to have Nick
[00:01:50] with us here tonight to talk us through his experiences and share some of his lessons learned.
[00:01:57] Nick, thanks for coming down, man. Thanks for having me. I wanted to read a really quick intro
[00:02:02] so we could start talking, man. Yeah, man, let's do it. That's where I'm at.
[00:02:07] Yeah, freaking insane. Your life's been kind of crazy thus far. And we'll get into that. Let's
[00:02:16] start from the beginning. Normally, when you've spoken nine words, everyone knows where you're from.
[00:02:22] Pretty quick, yeah. Yeah. Boston Mass is where I claim home. I guess more accurately, though,
[00:02:31] is I'm a nomad of Massachusetts. I moved every 12 to 18 months as a kid all the way up until
[00:02:39] eventually I got to college. And that's because your parents were just moving around?
[00:02:45] Yeah, a lot of it was financially related. Both my parents, they had me and my youngest
[00:02:52] sister, real young, so struggling as young parents and trying to just grind it out with also my father
[00:02:58] trying to pursue his passion in life, trying to figure out what that is and go after it while
[00:03:04] he's got two young kids he needs to feed. How old was even your handiw? And how old was your mom?
[00:03:08] 20. And my mother was 22. That's like old school. Yeah. My sister's two years younger than me.
[00:03:15] So, you know, they do what they had to do. And, you know, I love them and respect them for it.
[00:03:21] But that part of the story, that movement is deeply rooted in a lot of what we're going to get into
[00:03:28] here today. Like those experiences, particularly me struggling socially, struggling to make friends
[00:03:35] and keep friends and being the new kid in school every year. In today's world, what's known as
[00:03:40] bullying, you know, back then wasn't as looked at as it is today. So, my resiliency started from
[00:03:48] the time that I, you know, was five years old and went to kindergarten. That thing, we were just
[00:03:54] talking about bullying yesterday as a matter of fact, because it is, we were talking about like
[00:03:59] everyone gets bullied, right? Well, at least back in the day when I grew up and you grew up, when
[00:04:02] Echogrup, we all got bullied. That wasn't going to happen because no matter what, when you're 10,
[00:04:08] there's going to be a 12 year old that's bigger than you. And when you're 12, there's going to be a
[00:04:11] 14 year old that's bigger than you. And when I got bullied and pushed around and shoved in the
[00:04:16] lockers and all those things, I kind of was just like, that's it. To me, it was just sort of the
[00:04:21] way things went. Like, oh yeah, well, I'm smaller right now. And I'm going to get knocked around a
[00:04:26] bit because I'm smaller. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. I don't know. It didn't like
[00:04:32] hit me in some big emotional way. I don't know. Am I dumb? No, you're just you, bro. You're just you.
[00:04:40] I definitely struggled with it more so than you did. Eventually, I became conditioned to it though,
[00:04:47] which, you know, took a few years. Then it became normal for me. I wasn't as understanding of it
[00:04:57] as the way you just put it. But I just, my mind was conditioned to deal with the pain and discomfort
[00:05:05] and embarrassment. So the effect was less and less and less over time. Early on, coming home with
[00:05:12] tears in my eyes just about every day of school. And my parents are doing their best to kind of mentor
[00:05:17] me and be like, you're going to be good. You're giving me some guidance. But then eight months
[00:05:22] but then, you know, eight months later, I'm in a new location and it's that's all over again. But the,
[00:05:28] I guess I never had that too because I like basically grew up in the same town with the same people
[00:05:31] all the time. Everybody knew who I was and knew who my sisters were, you know, whatever. So I didn't
[00:05:37] have to go into some new environment. So I never really experienced that. Yeah, it was tough. But I
[00:05:42] look back now, of course, extremely grateful for that. Because a lot of people, you know, they
[00:05:48] asked a lot of the questions, how'd you do this? How'd you do that? I don't typically just dive
[00:05:51] straight into that portion of the story. But if I extract this thing all the way down,
[00:05:57] that's deeply seated in that. Is there anything that you remember? Do you remember like one kid?
[00:06:02] Do you remember, you know, I wrote a book about bullying. There's a bully in their name, Kenny
[00:06:07] Williams, you know, who's just bullying. Do you remember any specific like things that happened
[00:06:15] where it really left a mark? I'd say the most clearest memory comes back was a kid who was
[00:06:23] maybe two years older than me. And he, you know, he would beat on me just about every day. And one
[00:06:29] day got dropped off the bus. He gave me an exceptionally good beating this particular day.
[00:06:36] So normally I come home, I wouldn't be like visibly beat up. And I would hide it from my parents. I
[00:06:42] wouldn't let them know how often I was getting like beat on. Because I even had this young person,
[00:06:47] I felt bad for them because they're struggling and they're grinding it out. I didn't want to add to
[00:06:51] their stress. Like we're getting kicked out of this house or moving to another house. Like they're
[00:06:55] working their balls off. I could see that as a young person. So I would hide it. One particular
[00:07:00] day there was no, there was no hiding it. Right. So I was like busted up pretty good, walked in,
[00:07:06] and, you know, my father got home from work a little later and the kid lived just down the
[00:07:10] street from us. So he grabbed me and like drugged me down the street and I'm begging him, like,
[00:07:14] no, no, no, let's not do this. You're going to make it worse. Let's not do this. That was in,
[00:07:19] I don't know, third grade. So it was probably, I don't know, seven or eight ish. I'm like, dad,
[00:07:23] no, he's like, no, no, no, we're doing this. No, you know, knocks on the door. And this kid,
[00:07:28] you know, his parents weren't all that put together, you know, father answers the door,
[00:07:33] hippy looking dude, but like big, hairy, hairy, big mustache, you know, shirtless answers the door.
[00:07:41] And here my father had some words where it almost went physical between the two of them,
[00:07:47] right on this dude's doorstep, you know, and the kid I was dealing with is behind his father.
[00:07:51] And he's now he's yelling at me about how I'm going to get it worse. And I'm like, this is not
[00:07:56] working out for anybody. Ironically, though, however, it did, I do remember that it did tone
[00:08:02] down after that. So it reached the precipice of confrontation, but it did kind of level things
[00:08:06] off a little bit. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a little bit crazy. You know, that's that's what
[00:08:12] the dad wants to do, right? Echo Charles, what that was, that was a real strong affirmative over
[00:08:18] there. Did your dad get into it? Back you up? No, no, but I don't know. I'm thinking like,
[00:08:23] every time like I hear a bully story, yeah, you know, I have kids and now they're small.
[00:08:27] But if I, you know, you imagine them coming home with visible damage, bro, oh yeah, you want to go
[00:08:35] over there and kill everybody. Like whoever was even a part of it. We had a kid, we had a guy at
[00:08:40] this gym. And he worked here. And he did sales. And but you know, he was he's kind of, you know,
[00:08:48] like a, like a loudmouth, you know, always poking fun, always, you know, that kind of guy. And he
[00:08:54] did jujitsu, the brown belt, you know, and he used to roll with my son and he would kind of like
[00:09:01] bully my son, you know, when my son was a little kid, he'd like, you know, maybe slap him around
[00:09:06] a little bit on the mats, you know, maybe give the noogies, right? And I remember one day when
[00:09:13] my kid was maybe like 10 or 11 years old, we're leaving the gym and I didn't like painty mind to
[00:09:20] it. You know, he would just get abused or whatever bullied whatever while I was training or something
[00:09:26] by, you know, he's trying to train and this guy would grab and rough him up. And one day we're
[00:09:30] walking out and and my son goes, Hey, dad, I go, Hey, what's up? And he goes, Do you think that guy,
[00:09:37] he's like, Do you think he'll be here when I'm like 20? And I was like, I don't know, but I could
[00:09:46] see he's plotting. Wow. I mean, he's plotting on this dude. So that guy doesn't work here anymore.
[00:09:52] So he's probably going to get away with it. But that's the kind of thing where you think like
[00:09:55] that left a mark on my kid, like, Oh, when the time comes, I'm going to train and I'm going to work
[00:10:02] and I'm going to be bigger and stronger. That guy will come back when I'm 20.
[00:10:07] How old was he when it happened? It was probably like, I mean, this happened for years. I mean,
[00:10:10] we've had this gym since he was since my son was like five. So this could have happened anywhere
[00:10:16] between the ages of five and 15, you know, like he was forecasting. Yeah, that gate down the road.
[00:10:21] But this was when my son was like 10, he was thinking, Hey, he was, yes, he was forecasting
[00:10:26] by the time I'm 20, that guy is going to be old and I'm going to be ready. My prime. I think
[00:10:34] he is about 20. He's coming. Yeah. That clock is ticking. I'm going to go to the book here,
[00:10:42] give you a little childhood background here. When I was around nine years old, my parents
[00:10:46] bought me a dumbbell set. It had pairs of three, five and eight pounders. I began constantly working
[00:10:53] out my bedroom. Eventually I got to an age when I could join a gym. No matter where I was living
[00:10:58] at the time, I would scout out a nearby place to train often, my oftentimes miles away. I would
[00:11:04] ride my bike there and back. The progress wasn't what I had hoped for. Neither did it have much
[00:11:08] of an effect on my social life. But the desire to be big and strong remained. I caught the bug.
[00:11:15] Mother nature eventually blessed me with a growth spurt, shooting me up over six feet five,
[00:11:20] and my consistent work in the weight room paid off. I introduced different combat sports and
[00:11:25] martial arts into my life. I was no longer picked on. And as my social skills also developed,
[00:11:32] I was no longer without friends. So you started getting after it.
[00:11:38] Yeah, I don't know if that connection, I don't know if that was a pre-planned segue
[00:11:43] with your song, but that's, I mean, that's perfect. Because I didn't have a specific
[00:11:47] dude in mind that I was targeting a decade down the road. It was really everybody I was targeting.
[00:11:52] But the grind began then in order to build up the confidence that I wanted and needed.
[00:12:02] And so when did you start wrestling?
[00:12:05] High school. Yeah, I wrestled high school for my first three years up until my senior year,
[00:12:11] which is when football became the only sport that I would play. Our head coach,
[00:12:16] head football coach was also the athletic director of the program. So I started getting
[00:12:22] looked at to play football my junior year by college scouts. So come senior year, he's like,
[00:12:28] not all you're doing in the weight room, it's football. You can run with the track team to
[00:12:33] help you with your speed and conditioning, but you are football 24 seven. And you were down
[00:12:37] for the cause on that, right? Absolutely. Yeah, that became my primary sport earlier than high school.
[00:12:44] And then I saw it as as a way to go to college because I was not an academic by any stretch.
[00:12:50] You weren't talking about doing the bare minimum just to be able to stay eligible to play sports.
[00:12:55] That was me, man. So that was my only route to college. So I was cool with that adjustment.
[00:13:01] When did you grow?
[00:13:03] I was a peanut. Most of my life growing up. I was a massive baby. I was born I was 12 pounds,
[00:13:09] nine ounces as a baby. And my mother, that's not a baby, bro. That's like a small child.
[00:13:17] Yeah, I said, I set the record at the hospital, which has since closed. So I own that forever.
[00:13:22] And my mother's, you know, she's a hippie and she wanted to have this natural birth process.
[00:13:27] And the doctor's like, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. We have to go in and remove this
[00:13:32] human from you because he will split you in half. So that's the route I took. And I was massive as
[00:13:38] a baby. And then I became really, really small. Like I wrestled at 123, you know, my freshman year.
[00:13:43] So little, I was maybe 5556 little guy. Damn. It wasn't till I think it was between my sophomore
[00:13:49] and junior year of high school that I hit this massive growth spurt. And I shot up like six inches
[00:13:55] over a summer. And my, my joints were all achy. And I had Oz Goods, what it was called my shirt.
[00:14:02] I had that going and I was dangly and awkward because I had gotten so tall, came back my junior.
[00:14:10] Yeah. And my football coach, all my coaches were like, what do we even do with you now?
[00:14:14] You know, because you're, you're growing so tall. But between that time and then the time
[00:14:18] I graduated those two years was when I shot up, you know, like over a foot over the course of two
[00:14:24] years. That's insane. It was wild, man. And it was even, it was stranger because in my birthday,
[00:14:30] September 1st, which is coming up here pretty soon, I went to school early. So everyone in my
[00:14:36] class was a year ahead of me. So I started college, for example, at 17 years old, was my
[00:14:41] freshman year college. So I was already like a year behind everybody in terms of my maturity
[00:14:47] and my puberty development. So even my buddies, once I had them, their voices are dropping,
[00:14:52] they're getting hair in new places. And I'm still this little squeaky mouse, right? You know,
[00:14:57] trying to lift my eight pound dumbbell set so I could stay, you know, one of the, one of the cool
[00:15:01] kids. So I was real late to the game with all that stuff. Yeah. That's why parents hold their
[00:15:07] kids back. That's a big deal, man. Holding the kids back so they're little dominators in wrestling.
[00:15:13] That's like the way, that's the way, you know, at least in California, kids are getting, kids are
[00:15:18] like 23. They're seeing, they're seeing your year, you know, you're like football in Texas.
[00:15:24] Oh yeah. It's the same thing. Freaking crazy. You see these seniors in high school with full-blown
[00:15:27] bids, like men, right? These aren't kids, man. These are men. Yeah. So you, so you must have
[00:15:34] started to like just completely shine in football because you get huge. I didn't get huge, like
[00:15:42] body mass wise until I was in college. So by the time I graduated my senior year, you know,
[00:15:47] I was a strong safety, but I got so tall that the scouts started looking at me for linebacker
[00:15:53] in college. They're like, you're eventually going to fill out that frame. We just need to maintain
[00:15:57] your speed and stack on some muscle mass to go along with your now new height that you have.
[00:16:02] So I was recruited to play linebacker and then the muscle mass really came around, you know,
[00:16:10] sophomore year college. I spent my first year in that summer just with the strength coaches
[00:16:15] and the nutritionists all within the program that we had at the school, learning how to eat,
[00:16:20] learning how to train. And that's when I really filled out my frame. So my sophomore year of
[00:16:24] college, you know, I was eventually around like 225, 230. Whereas if I was born in Texas, or if my
[00:16:32] father had half a brain and he had done what he should have done, right, I would have been more
[00:16:37] than likely D1 full ride playing on Sundays today. I blame him for my current lifestyle.
[00:16:43] Did they put you on like a straight up just dirty bulk? Is that the proper term?
[00:16:51] Wonderful.
[00:16:52] Dirty. I mean, I imagine if you showed up to me and you're a freshman in college and you weigh
[00:16:57] whatever 185 pounds, I'm like, cool, deadlift, squat and just eat. Did they put you on that?
[00:17:05] Like you said nutritionist, I thought the nutritionist at that point would be dominoes.
[00:17:08] Just eat everything.
[00:17:09] Just eat everything.
[00:17:10] No, it wasn't. It was more dialed in. I had a regimented meal plan that I would just show up
[00:17:15] to the cafeteria and just give them my name and then they would give me the food. But it wasn't
[00:17:22] just like pizza and like hot pockets and shit. It was like real food. It was just a lot of it.
[00:17:28] There was a basketball player named Manu Boal who played for the University of Bridgeport. He
[00:17:32] came from Africa and he was seven, 10 or something crazy. And when he got here, he weighed, you know,
[00:17:38] like some tiny amount. And I read some article that they were like, hey, they were just pizza and
[00:17:44] beer. Like we just need this guy to eat everything he can to just get a little bit bigger because
[00:17:50] he was too skinny.
[00:17:52] Yeah. That it's weird. I mean, we're in the generation where they know a lot about nutrition
[00:17:58] nowadays where even in our college where if they would have guys gain weight, it would be good.
[00:18:03] Good.
[00:18:03] Oh, no kidding.
[00:18:03] In fact, yeah, we had a program called Training Table where all the football players would go
[00:18:07] and they'd eat separate and it'd be different food. And it's all like good food. There's no pizza.
[00:18:13] There's no that kind of like chicken, veg, potatoes. Yeah.
[00:18:17] Yeah. A lot of potatoes. But that was really where I began learning about nutrition.
[00:18:22] And then I was seeing the effects as it pertained to me on the field. And that was where I really
[00:18:27] fell in love with training and fitness and, you know, continuing that through today. That was
[00:18:32] the foundation of that knowledge was at that point.
[00:18:35] And then so how did it go? How did it go in the football college career?
[00:18:40] It was good. You know, I played, I played D2 at UMass and UMass Lowell. And, you know, my first
[00:18:47] freshman year, you know, it didn't didn't get really any playing time. But I was still kind of
[00:18:51] growing and developing. SoftMoy, I started to play a little bit. And then junior year, I was starting.
[00:18:56] I say junior year because that's the way we normally break it down. But for me, it was like
[00:19:01] more like my sophomore year, 2.0, you know, because I wasn't in line with the credits I needed to
[00:19:08] stay on track to graduate in four years. Right. So, but my second or third year of playing ball,
[00:19:15] my third year in college was when I was on the field. And then my fourth year, I took a, I took
[00:19:22] a pretty nasty injury to my back and that ended my season a little early. That was your senior year?
[00:19:28] Yeah. So what year was that? That had been 2004, 2005.
[00:19:34] Okay. So where were you and what were you doing when September 11th happened?
[00:19:40] That was my sophomore year. Yeah. SoftMoy or my second year of school was not 11.
[00:19:47] Were you, is that what focused you maybe thinking about being in the military?
[00:19:52] Yeah. I mean, that was certainly the tipping point for me was that I started looking at it in high
[00:19:59] school around my freshman sophomore year and no direction. I skipped school one day. I went
[00:20:04] downtown Boston and I went with a Marine Corps recruiter. And I said, I think I want to be a
[00:20:07] Marine and he's like, perfect. Finish high school and come back and we got you. We got you, bro.
[00:20:12] I'm like, great. So I had like kind of an idea because I hated school. I liked athletics, but I
[00:20:17] was tiny. There was no future in that for me. I wanted to, again, I wanted to be respected. I
[00:20:22] wanted to be feared in a lot of way because I lived my life in fear most of the time. And the Marine
[00:20:27] Corps was the route to give me what I needed. He's like, cool, graduate high school, come back.
[00:20:33] Did he take your number or anything? I don't think so.
[00:20:36] It might be too far outside their window because they got to get their quotas and all that.
[00:20:41] At the same time, like when they, when you walk in there, it's like a going on to a car
[00:20:45] dealership. Like they're ready to take you. But I guess if you were like 13, he's like,
[00:20:50] come back when you graduate. Yeah. I don't remember any, any exchange of information.
[00:20:55] The only thing that detracted me from going that route was, was football, was athletics. So
[00:20:59] went to college, you know, kind of plan B. And then sophomore year was, yeah, that was 9-11.
[00:21:05] And then at that point, I struggled to stay in school because I was really angry and I wanted
[00:21:11] to be part of the response to that. I struggled to stay in school, listen to some, you know,
[00:21:15] family and friends and mentors and decided to stay in and grind out the rest of my degree.
[00:21:20] And then look at options to come in. Would you, would you get your degree in?
[00:21:24] Criminology. And then you, so you know you're graduating. What did you, what did you say,
[00:21:29] graduated? 2005? I graduated in 2007. Oh, no kidding. So yeah. You know, normally if you go to
[00:21:37] college for seven years, they call you doctor. Maybe they, it's just Nick still. So, you know,
[00:21:43] a lot of different academic probations and having to redo semesters, you know,
[00:21:50] it made it easy for me to be eligible for football because it's played in the fall.
[00:21:54] So all I needed to do was maintain, I think it was nine credits, like three classes,
[00:22:00] and just not fail any of them. If I could, I could fail all the rest of my classes after the
[00:22:06] season was over and I didn't care. And that was the route I took. I immature. I didn't, I didn't
[00:22:12] care. You know, I look back now and I'm like, man, you know, what if I just applied myself and now
[00:22:17] I enjoy reading and learning and studying, but back then I didn't, I didn't care. So yeah, 2007
[00:22:22] was when I finally received my degree. And then when did you talk to recruiter? So now did you
[00:22:28] still look at the Marine Corps or how'd that go? I looked at the Navy. Oh, okay. Graduated college,
[00:22:34] the war was still going on. Now Iraq is kicked off as well. So Afghanistan, Iraq are both surgeon
[00:22:40] as prime for someone to go in and get some. And I'm like, yep, here we go. So I maybe it was a
[00:22:45] week after I graduated college, I went downtown Boston. And in the same building, they had three
[00:22:51] branches. They had the Navy, the Marines and the Army and three separate offices. And I went into
[00:22:56] the Navy office first and I said, I want to be a seal. And I knew I wanted to be in special
[00:23:00] operations. I want to be right at the front of the fight. And the seals came, comes to mind
[00:23:03] really fast today as then of being the ultimate badass warrior. So I walked in and said, I want
[00:23:10] to be a seal. And he said, perfect. Let's get you enlisted in the Navy. And then you can request
[00:23:16] to go to Bud's and go that route. And I said, okay, thank you. And I left. And I went and talked to
[00:23:22] the Marine Corps recruiter and I got the same answer. When I went and talked to the Army, I got
[00:23:26] a different answer. They said, we have this program called the Special Forces Recruit Contract Option,
[00:23:32] known as the 18X-ray, which I'm sure you're familiar with, gets you straight into the
[00:23:39] Army Special Forces. You bypass the conventional Army, assuming you make it all the way through.
[00:23:44] The Navy recruits, the Navy brings in a lot of people that want to be seals that aren't going
[00:23:53] to be seals. I mean, a lot of people. And it's interesting that you were able to identify that
[00:24:00] that what they were offering you wasn't what you actually wanted. And there are programs. I'm
[00:24:06] surprised that there are programs that you get like a contract to go at least get a shot at Bud's.
[00:24:12] Those things do exist. When I came in, that's what I did. It was at the time, it was called the
[00:24:16] Dive Farrer Program. I have no idea what that means, but it was like, you are guaranteed
[00:24:21] an opportunity to take to test to go to Bud's. And I was like, yeah, cool, sign me up. But it
[00:24:26] sounds like that guy didn't even have that much to offer you. No, no. And I mean, if he had chances
[00:24:33] out, things would look a little different right now because I would have taken it. Because that
[00:24:36] was my goal. I was like, I want to be a seal. Boom. If he had said, hey, man, we got this option right
[00:24:40] here, we'll get you into Bud's within the first six months or whatever. Some kind of guarantee.
[00:24:45] I probably would have signed it right there. And then, yeah, he, man, that's weird. I wonder
[00:24:49] what was up with that. And then the Marine Corps, same thing. The Marine Corps used to be like,
[00:24:52] hey, you joined the Marines and you don't even get any kind of select. You're going to join the
[00:24:57] Marines. We'll give you a job. That's the way the Marine Corps, it's better now. But the Army has
[00:25:02] had that 18X Ray program has been freaking goldmine for them. Yeah. It kicked off, you know,
[00:25:08] originally back in the day. And then, and then it went away for a while and they turned it back
[00:25:13] on in 2002, you know, post 9-11, when the ODA was getting requested to do a whole bunch of stuff.
[00:25:18] So like, we need to, we need to get more quality candidates. Let's start this program back up again.
[00:25:23] Yeah. I don't know if you've heard some of the SOG guys, a lot of those SOG guys were
[00:25:27] off the street and straight into SF and they'll defend the 18X Ray. They'll, we're all eight.
[00:25:33] We're basically 18X Ray because they just came right in and went in and went to NAMM and got
[00:25:38] after it. So that's what happened. So you end up, did you even think about an officer program or
[00:25:46] was that just not happening? I mean, it sounds like your grades stellar. Grades were not stellar.
[00:25:52] It was offered to me. It was brought up to me by my recruiter, but the X-Ray,
[00:25:56] 18X Ray contracts, not an option for offices. So it immediately wiped that off the table for me.
[00:26:03] Also, my interpretation of what offices do back then was a little off. There's some truth to it,
[00:26:11] but in my mind then, officers strictly sat behind a desk and enlisted guys were the actual guys
[00:26:16] that worked. And I wanted to be a worker. I wanted to get my hands dirty and everything else dirty.
[00:26:20] I wanted to get into it. I don't want to be the guy telling the guy to do the thing. I want to be
[00:26:24] the guy doing the thing. And in soft, that's obviously not the case. But because the X-Ray
[00:26:32] option didn't exist for O's, that automatically made it a non-option for me.
[00:26:36] What did your parents think of this? My father essentially tried to ground me when I brought
[00:26:43] this to his attention. I was 24. 24, a lot of life experience. I graduated college and I called
[00:26:51] him up because I had done my homework. I didn't sign the X-Ray contract right there in 1998.
[00:26:55] I went home. I said, thank you. I didn't know what Green Berets did. I'd seen Rambo and John Wayne,
[00:27:01] but I didn't know what an SF-ODA does, what a Green Beret really does. So I did some homework.
[00:27:05] I was drawn to the mission. I was really attracted by the timeline. That's what ultimately made me
[00:27:10] pull the trigger. But once I did my homework, made my decision, I don't think I'd sign the contract
[00:27:15] yet, but I called my father and I said, hey, dad, there's what I'm going to do. And he's like, no,
[00:27:20] you're not. And I'm like, listen, dude, I love you. You're my best friend in the world. I'm not
[00:27:27] asking you permission. I'm 24. But as a new father now, my kids are also young. I can put
[00:27:35] myself in his shoes. He sees the news. He sees what's going on. He knows where I'm trying to go,
[00:27:38] and he's just scared for me, which is fine. But they were both totally against it to begin with.
[00:27:44] Now, you described your mom as a hippie. Is that like classic definition of a hippie?
[00:27:50] She's a free spirit. Yeah, she's a free spirit. She's got her stones and she's got her crystals
[00:27:55] in the bedroom. She's got some crystals. She's got a dream catcher over the bed. Got some incense,
[00:28:00] burning. Okay. She's in there. Yeah, man. She must have been really freaking out.
[00:28:05] Yeah. She's less than my father. My father's much more like rigid and objective and scientific.
[00:28:11] My mother was still kind of like, well, you need to, you know, you need to choose your
[00:28:15] own journey kind of thing. Oh, right. But I'd rather you not do that, but like, you need to be
[00:28:21] who you need to be kind of thing. Okay, we'll take it. I remember I just came home and told my
[00:28:27] parents, yeah, I just enlisted the Navy, you know, and my dad just looks at me, he goes,
[00:28:32] you're going to hate it. He said, you don't hate you hate authority and you don't listen to anybody.
[00:28:38] And I said, I'm going to be in the SEAL teams. It's a team. You don't know nothing, old man.
[00:28:44] Do you come from a military family background? My grandfather was in the army. My dad's dad
[00:28:49] was in the army for 20 years. My dad got kicked out of ROTC. And he says that the military gene
[00:28:56] skips a generation because my dad's not a very militaristic dude, but I was a real, I was a
[00:29:01] rebellious kid. So my dad was looking at my, but they were both like, cool, you know, get out of
[00:29:05] here. That's probably the best thing that could happen as you go in the military instead of
[00:29:09] staying around here causing trouble being an idiot, which I was doing a good job of. So
[00:29:15] rolled out and that was that. But I, yeah, I didn't, I just came home and told them I did it. So
[00:29:20] they were, I think they overall, they were like, this is probably a really good thing that this
[00:29:24] idiot's getting out, getting off the payroll. That's right. Let's jump back to the book here
[00:29:31] real quick. August 13th, 2007 was my first day in the United States Army. It began at the 30th
[00:29:38] Adjutant General Reception Battalion located in Fort Benning, Georgia. This is the first location.
[00:29:44] US Army basic training recruits arrived prior to the actual start of basic training. Its purposes
[00:29:49] to receive, prepare and train personnel for what lies ahead. While I am sure we were given some
[00:29:53] classes, the only things that I recall during my time at the 30th AG were doing paperwork,
[00:29:58] eating our three meals a day and waiting, a lot of waiting, most of which was spent
[00:30:02] standing in formation. We stood in formation for hours each day. While in formation waiting,
[00:30:07] for what seemed like an eternity, we would sound off with several mantras. The soldiers
[00:30:11] creed the Army song and the warrior ethos are a few that come to mind. At any point, a drill
[00:30:16] sergeant, a member of the command or any soldier in the formation would simply yell, the warrior ethos.
[00:30:21] Then the entire formation of soldiers would sound off with that mantra. This served two
[00:30:27] purposes. One, it killed time, even if it was only 30 seconds of time, it gave us something to do.
[00:30:32] Two, it ingrained these mantras into our heads. Basic training is the Army's method to break down
[00:30:39] an individual into human clay in order to then be remolded into a soldier. The same goes for
[00:30:46] other branches of the military. The verbalization of mantras is part of that process. The warrior
[00:30:51] ethos was one of them. The warrior ethos has four tenets. One, I will always place the mission
[00:30:57] first. Two, I will never accept defeat. Three, I will never quit. Four, I will never leave a fallen
[00:31:06] comrade. So it's welcome to boot camp. How'd you feel about boot camp when you got there?
[00:31:13] It was annoying more than anything else. I mean, I was physically in a phenomenal shape.
[00:31:22] So physically, it was relatively easy. How long was it between when you enlisted and when you left?
[00:31:30] Maybe three, four months. Did you shift your training to be ready for
[00:31:36] drastically? Oh yeah, drastically. Pumping rocks and yeah. So because I finished playing football
[00:31:40] around 2004, 2005. What did you weigh when you got done? What was your max weight?
[00:31:46] Playing ball, I would usually start the season around 250 and I'd end up usually around like 240
[00:31:51] by the end of the season. So I was done playing ball, still had more college left and I just
[00:31:57] wanted to see how big and strong I could get. I didn't need to be quite as athletic as I needed
[00:32:02] to be as a football player. So I got more into strongman and powerlifting type stuff. I was doing
[00:32:07] a little bit of boxing, a little bit of light wrestling, but it was mostly just like, let's get
[00:32:10] big and strong, which worked for me because what I was doing professionally was VIP security and
[00:32:16] nightclub security. So all my bosses liked a big yoked up dude and a suit at the front door.
[00:32:22] So it helped me with what I was doing for work and I enjoyed the training. So by the time I
[00:32:28] decided to, by the time I graduated college, decided I was going to enlist, I was close to 300
[00:32:34] pounds. Damn. Yeah. I mean, I was doing like 12,000 calories a day. I mean, it was just crazy.
[00:32:40] So there's no way I was in a condition to go to basic training. Does it take effort for you to
[00:32:45] eat 12,000 calories in a day? Yeah. It was hard. It's work. Yeah. I really disliked it.
[00:32:52] I'm like choking down chicken breasts and dry potatoes with a gallon of water. My strength
[00:32:57] coach is like, hey, this is what it's going to take. If you want an 800 pound deadlift,
[00:33:01] this is what you got to do. So I decided to enlist and, you know, I'm huge. So you're 300
[00:33:08] pound bouncer. Yeah. Did you ever get a test as a bouncer that you had any trouble with?
[00:33:16] No, not really. Not at that point, man. I mean, I can just imagine you're six foot five, 300 pounds.
[00:33:22] You wrestled like you must have been a real quick peacemaker in these scenarios. Yeah. At that point,
[00:33:29] man, you know, I was so comfortable with losing fights, although it'd been a couple of years
[00:33:33] since that had happened at that point. I'm the biggest guy in the room. I've been boxing since
[00:33:38] I was a kid wrestling, you know, some different martial arts. Like I was well equipped. Did you
[00:33:45] train Jiu Jitsu yet? No, Jiu Jitsu didn't come on until, until I got into SF actually. Did you
[00:33:52] know how to choke people? Did you know like a, did you know like the sleeper hold? Yeah, I knew
[00:33:56] about the rear naked choke. Yeah. I knew basic, I knew basic stuff. Like as a bouncer, you occasionally
[00:34:02] had to put somebody to sleep. Yeah. Oh yeah. And I, you know, I wasn't the most mature bouncer
[00:34:09] until I got a little older. You know, some of the places I worked, some of the people I worked for,
[00:34:13] their methodology was let's make, let's punish this person so that they don't think,
[00:34:18] oh, no one else thinks to act a fool in my place again, which I enjoyed. I look back with, you
[00:34:26] know, some regret hurt and some people that probably didn't need to be hurt that way. But I
[00:34:29] mean, that's just the nature of the business. I was in the way. I went about doing it.
[00:34:34] So big boy. Yeah. So your 300 pounds are almost 300 pounds. Yeah. When you enlist.
[00:34:40] When I decide that the military is definitely going to happen. Okay. And by the time that I signed
[00:34:44] the contract and then my report date was like four months or so after that point was when I
[00:34:50] started my training program. It was about a 16 week program I did. Where'd you get that program?
[00:34:55] Did you create it? I was working with a strength coach, same coach I work with today,
[00:34:59] actually one of them that I've been working with them now, you know, close to 15 years.
[00:35:03] He's so he put it together for me. And obviously it was a wild shift from flipping tires and moving
[00:35:08] Atlas stones to, you know, running, rocking dynamic CrossFit style circuit training. So I
[00:35:15] sliced myself down over about 16 weeks from, you know, 295 to about 245, about 50 pounds or so came
[00:35:23] off. 245, 65 is a big person, right? But I was just diced because I had so much mass on that I just
[00:35:31] sliced everything off. So by the time I showed up day one, I don't think this is in the book, this
[00:35:37] is no shit. Day one of bootcamp or basic training. Yeah, you're just a savage. I'm a 24 year old,
[00:35:44] six for five, 24 pound diced dude. And I'm surrounded by a lot of, you know, 17, 18 year old
[00:35:52] children who have never left their house before. And you know, you get your ass smoked right,
[00:35:56] of course, for the first several hours when you get there. After me four or five hours,
[00:36:01] they're just doing pushups and flutter kicks and setups, I'm like pumped up my muscles are like full.
[00:36:07] And then they do their tattoo inspection. So they strip you down into your underwear,
[00:36:13] and they just go person to person to person. And I don't think they're really searching for tattoos,
[00:36:17] I think they just want to see like your physique and like expose you and just make you feel uncomfortable.
[00:36:22] So all three drill sergeants are like surrounding you when you stand in there and you're
[00:36:26] underwear. And they're just like looking you up and down and just like getting into your head.
[00:36:31] Well, the tattoos I have on me, this is Latin for strength and honor. I didn't have a lot of
[00:36:36] these other tats on me at the time. So these, these stuck out. And they look at me and they're like,
[00:36:42] what's your deal? And I'm like, I don't know how to answer this question, you know,
[00:36:46] like, why are you here? And I thought they were messing with me. In retrospect, I talked to these
[00:36:51] guys late like years later, they're like, we thought you were like an actual like government project
[00:36:57] that was going on. Like you were creating a lab or something. Like they didn't know what my deal was.
[00:37:04] Because then they asked me about the tattoos. And I say it says strength and honor. And then they
[00:37:09] look up at the wall and it's engraved in the wall above the whiteboard. It says strength and honor.
[00:37:14] So now their wheels are really spinning. Like I'm some kind of an implant.
[00:37:18] You're from the movie soldier, bro.
[00:37:21] And I didn't pick up on all this at the time. Eventually I head drill instructor
[00:37:26] later on that evening came over to me and he's like, no, really, man, like, did someone send you here?
[00:37:32] I'm like, I can't, I don't know what's happening right now, dude. I'm trying to play the game,
[00:37:36] but I don't know what game we're playing right now. So it was more, it was more, I say it was more
[00:37:42] annoying and frustrating because I was babysitting kids and I was putting shod in my of my platoon on
[00:37:47] day one. Like, you're the guy, we're all going to leave for the night. You're going to make sure
[00:37:50] that everyone that's in their beds right now are going to stay in their beds. So I'm, I was literally
[00:37:54] chasing kids like down, down the stairwell that were trying to just leave for bedding. I don't
[00:37:59] know where they thought they were going to go. But I'm like dragging kids back to their beds, you know.
[00:38:05] It wasn't very like tactful with my approach. It was very blunt. Like get your ass back in your
[00:38:09] bed and stay down or else, you know. So that was like 16 or 17 weeks and pretty much that.
[00:38:15] Yeah, that's classic, dude. You're not a normal dude.
[00:38:20] That's friggin awesome. So you do, you go to basic and then you go to, you go straight to AIT after
[00:38:26] that? Well, for us as an 18X rate, you do the infantry program, which is called one station
[00:38:32] unit training. So they go basic and AIT back to back without any break. So it's boom, boom,
[00:38:37] right? Straight through. Are you just having fun this entire time?
[00:38:42] No, no, I wasn't fun at all. I was just like staring at the clock, like get me out of here.
[00:38:46] You know, like the runs, like the workouts, they weren't all that like stimulating or difficult.
[00:38:50] I was trying to play the game. I did play the game. You know, I wasn't like a rebel. I was like,
[00:38:54] Roger that I was a good soldier. I was just like, I want to get to the real work,
[00:38:58] which I know is at Fort Bragg. So like get me out of here.
[00:39:02] And then so you make it through all this stuff that you had a airborne school too?
[00:39:06] Yeah, go when you finish basic or AIT and then you go straight down the street to airborne school.
[00:39:11] Get your airborne shuffle on for three weeks. Oh yeah. Do some PLS in the sawdust.
[00:39:18] And then it's then it's to where'd you go? Sopsie. Did they have Sopsie up at this point?
[00:39:22] Yeah, then it was to Sopsie. And that's to get you ready for that's to get you ready for selection,
[00:39:29] right? Correct. You were kind of ready for selection. Oh yeah. Yeah. Were you in worse
[00:39:33] shape now than you were when you entered just from being in bootcamp and stuff? Or were you
[00:39:37] made able to maintain? No, I was I lost, you know, 20, 25 pounds in basic training, just because I
[00:39:43] didn't get I wasn't getting the calories I needed. You're they were starving you. Yeah, the freaking
[00:39:48] government project. Yeah, they were trying to cut off you. They wanted to tear me back down and
[00:39:55] have me sent back to the lab for for a refit. So I was in I would say I was in worse shape for
[00:40:03] selection specifically than I would have been if I had just gone straight to that without going to
[00:40:08] basic training. But it was okay because by the time I got to Sopsie and I got to break the stat
[00:40:14] Sopsie, then I could eat like normal again and I put some mass back on. So get back into more
[00:40:19] anaerobic stuff with some resistance to be ready for Sopsie. So I was I was good to go.
[00:40:24] And now Sopsie when you get there, is it starting to start to approach what you have in mind?
[00:40:30] Yeah, it definitely was. I mean, the way Sopsie was back then, I think it was five or six weeks,
[00:40:35] and you would stay at Fort Bragg, and then you'd go down to Fort Campbell on Monday,
[00:40:40] and you would train and be in Sopsie Monday through Friday, and then you would come back to
[00:40:44] Bragg for the weekend, and you would just do that for six weeks. And it was just a lot of PT,
[00:40:48] land nav, like not tying some SF history stuff, but it was mostly physical to get you ready for
[00:40:53] selection. Well, at the end of the first week, so it's Friday, one week, week one is done. And now
[00:41:00] I'm feeling like I'm playing the game with like, with like the big boys, I got SF guys that are
[00:41:04] now my cadrates and my first time being introduced to them. I'm surrounded by a bunch of x-rays.
[00:41:10] I'm like, okay, now I feel like I'm in the game. That first week ends, and our lead instructor
[00:41:15] comes down, he says, all right, check it out. The upcoming selection class has some open slots.
[00:41:20] So we're going to send volunteers, or we're going to just force those that are in the top 10%
[00:41:28] performance wise to go and it starts on Monday. I raise my hand immediately. I'm like, yep,
[00:41:33] I'm good. I'm ready to go. Like, let's go. My confidence was really high. So it gave me a
[00:41:38] weekend to just get my stuff ready, my equipment, make sure I had everything I needed, which I did
[00:41:43] because I was proud of Sopsie. So my Sopsie experience was five days. And then I was in
[00:41:48] an SFAS to follow in Monday. And how was how was that selection?
[00:41:54] Selection when I went through was was 14 days long. Now it's back to 20 or so. It was 2021 for a
[00:42:02] long time. And then mine was the second class after they condensed it down into 14. I can't tell you
[00:42:09] why they did that. But you would think that that meant they removed like five or six days worth of
[00:42:13] stuff, but they didn't. They just rammed it into a shorter window. So there was no like white space
[00:42:20] in between stuff. Everything was just it was much more intense, because you still had to check all
[00:42:24] these blocks, but just in a week, less of time. What percentage of attrition comes from that
[00:42:32] selection? Yeah, so the time I went, we started with around 300 or so candidates. And around 100
[00:42:42] made it to the end. And then they selected around 40 or so. God, see, that seems like a freaking
[00:42:52] crazy roll of the dice. If you're joining the army to be a SF guy, that you can go through the
[00:42:58] training and they can just be like, yeah, you're not what we're looking for. Is that what it is?
[00:43:03] Yeah, I mean, they, you know, I have some buddies that are selection cadre now and some that have
[00:43:08] been and now are back to the unit. You know, they make it as objective as I think they can, but
[00:43:13] it's open to subjectivity because there are human beings that are evaluating you. And when,
[00:43:17] if you're looking at purely physical capability, like how fast did you run two miles? That's
[00:43:23] subjective. How many pushups can you do pull ups, whatever. But when you're evaluating people for
[00:43:28] leadership and their ability to work in a team dynamic, that gets subjective pretty quick. So
[00:43:33] it is a roll of the dice to a degree because you may just have a bad, may have a bad day or bad week.
[00:43:39] You're a solid leader, you're a solid performer, you just didn't perform when you needed to. And
[00:43:43] that's what the cadre had to go off of. So yeah, you didn't make this round, but come back and try
[00:43:49] again. How long do you have to wait before you can come back and try it in? I think it's, I want to
[00:43:55] say it's like six months. No, it's not too bad. I think it's like six months. Were there guys that
[00:44:00] you thought were like, oh, that guy seems like good to go and he didn't make it, didn't get selected.
[00:44:04] Yeah. Yeah, a few, a few of my buddies that were actually in basic with me that made it all the
[00:44:10] way to Sobsi that came with me with that first chunk because there were like 10 of us that left
[00:44:15] Sobsi early. They maybe five of us got selected that first class. And the other five I would have
[00:44:20] said, no, no, these guys are, these guys are going to be good to go. I was mostly looking at their
[00:44:24] physical performance, like their rock times and their pull ups and they're like, these were physical
[00:44:28] studs. But for whatever reason, they just didn't, they display what they needed to do.
[00:44:34] Do the cadre debrief a guy and be like, Hey, man, you were definitely not in the
[00:44:37] game over here. You felt short. Look like you had a big ego. Do they debrief guys?
[00:44:42] No, damn. No, it's the cadre during selection are like robots. They're not, they're not in your
[00:44:50] face. They're not screaming and yelling. There's a couple of times that they're screaming and yelling.
[00:44:53] Log and rifle PT are two iterations where they are in your face and screaming and trying to crack you
[00:45:00] physically and emotionally, mentally. But the rest, they're like cyborgs. It's very just,
[00:45:06] here's where you this is your task. This is your condition. This is your standard. Do you have
[00:45:10] any questions? Execute. That's it. And if you, if you don't make it, they're like, okay, go over there.
[00:45:14] There's nothing. They're not trying to, they're not trying to get you to quit. And they're also not
[00:45:20] that a tell you why you don't get picked up or why you failed an event. They're like cyborgs.
[00:45:29] That's wild. Cause it seems like in buds, really the whole first phase is to weed people out,
[00:45:36] but most of it happens the first, second, third, fourth week, the fourth week is the fourth or
[00:45:40] fifth week, depending is, is hell week, you know, and they'll get rid of so many people. But, uh,
[00:45:46] uh, yeah, that objectivity, I guess it happens a little bit different in buds, you know, like the
[00:45:52] instructors will see someone that's weak and they'll kind of like, they'll start working on them and
[00:45:58] they'll just break him. And that'll be that. Um, was there anything that was a challenge for you
[00:46:06] in this stuff? Cause you're like a freaking government experiment. Was there anything that
[00:46:11] was hard for you in selection? Yeah. Selection was certainly challenging. Um, I think what I
[00:46:16] struggled most with was the team dynamic aspect. Although I grew up playing team sports, you
[00:46:23] know, you, you get put in these, in these scenarios where you have a mission to execute as a small
[00:46:28] group and they'll rotate who's in charge, you're in charge of this, you're in charge of that.
[00:46:33] And that's where they're assessing you as leaders, but they're also assessing
[00:46:36] everyone else as a team player and their ability to support a leader, right?
[00:46:42] To kind of lead up the chain of command kind of philosophy. Well, as an aggressive,
[00:46:49] younger person, as if a leader made a decision on how we're going to execute something and I
[00:46:54] didn't agree with it. I made that note. I'm like, no, that's, that's not going to work. Like I wanted
[00:46:59] to win. And these tasks that they're given to us, they're essentially impossible. Like within the
[00:47:05] standards that are given to you, there's no way it's happening. They know that it's not about,
[00:47:09] can you get from A to B in the lot of time? It's about how do you work together as a unit?
[00:47:13] How do you lead? How do you communicate? How do you problem solve? How do you deal with stress?
[00:47:17] That's what they're looking at. I wanted to win. And if homeboy came back with some like crazy,
[00:47:22] ridiculous strategy that I knew wouldn't work, I let him know that I'm like, no, no, no, that's not
[00:47:26] going to work. And now this dude's in like a tough spot. He's like dealing with someone who's like
[00:47:30] bigger than him and angrier than him. And he's trying to do his job as a leader. And of course,
[00:47:36] he's being evaluated, the cashier standing right there. So I could have done a better job
[00:47:41] of being a supportive member of the team. I didn't have the same leadership philosophy and
[00:47:48] methodology and tools that I have now. So I struggled with that because even in the moments,
[00:47:53] I could tell like, I'm not handling this very well, but I want to win. And it's just, it's
[00:47:59] superseded my ability to stay calm and tactful. Did they debrief you on that or you just figured
[00:48:04] this out later? No, they did. So if you get selected, you sit down with a cadre after and
[00:48:09] they go through your entire, your entire packet with all your scores and all their inputs. So that
[00:48:15] was the number one thing that that was told to me was you need to learn how to be more supportive
[00:48:21] of a leader. That's legit. Yeah. Give you some legit feedback. And you, were you humble enough to
[00:48:29] understand that at the time? I was humble enough to accept it. I didn't have the same mentality
[00:48:36] towards leadership then as I do now, where now I look as leadership as very much a skill. Like,
[00:48:42] it's something that you can learn, but you have to deliberately train on it. Back then, even, even
[00:48:47] at that point, so I'm now 25, I just got selected, whatever. I still looked at leadership as, as a
[00:48:53] talent as something that you either had or didn't have. And that was it. So I just took it like,
[00:48:59] Roger that, Sergeant, I appreciate it. But like, this is who I am. And I don't have the leadership
[00:49:05] like skill ingrained in me genetically, I just don't have it. So I'm gonna have to get better
[00:49:10] other ways to kind of make up the difference. Now I look, you know, my mentality towards it is wildly
[00:49:15] different. Yeah. No, that's a, that's a, a lot of people make that, or a lot of people have that
[00:49:20] attitude. And, you know, at, we have a leadership consulting company and explaining to people that
[00:49:24] they can actually learn skills, just like, I guess, at the example I was used as playing guitar or
[00:49:30] shooting baskets and basketball, like you can't just pick up a basketball and be think you can make
[00:49:34] free throws. It's like not happening. You can't pick up a guitar and just think you're going to be
[00:49:37] able to play. You get skill and leadership is the same way. And are there some people that have a
[00:49:42] little bit of a tendency that have better hand-eye coordination that they're going to be able to pick
[00:49:46] up basketball a little bit quicker? Yeah. Are there people that have a certain ability to recognize
[00:49:51] different notes when they hear them? Yeah. That's an actual thing you can be born with. But regardless,
[00:49:57] you still need to learn the skills in order to get good at it. Leadership's the same way. You're
[00:50:01] going to have some natural propensity for it. There's going to be some parts of it you'll be
[00:50:04] good at. There's going to be some parts you'll suck at. You take advantage of the ones you're good
[00:50:08] at. You work on the ones you're not. But it's definitely everyone can get better unless they're
[00:50:13] a person that says, I already know everything. Right. And then they're going to be a problem.
[00:50:18] So then it's off to Q-course after that? Yep. Get selected, go into Q-course. And back then,
[00:50:24] it's different today. But back then, you go through these different phases, phase one,
[00:50:28] two, three, four. And in between those, you would just be waiting at Fort Bragg for there to be
[00:50:34] enough students that they could lump together to start the next phase. So a lot of white space in
[00:50:39] between. You know, phase one, you go to Down to Camp McCall, you're there for three weeks, seven
[00:50:44] weeks, whatever. Come back to Bragg and reset. Well, sometimes those breaks could be a month or
[00:50:50] three months. Right. What do you do during those breaks? Just working out? PT formations. They do
[00:50:56] like some LPD stuff with some of the tax that were back there at Bragg, the guys that were like in
[00:51:01] charge of us keeping accountability. So we do some like leadership type classes. But you were
[00:51:06] mostly just hanging out waiting, trying to stay out of trouble. And that's where actually a lot
[00:51:10] of guys, that's the reason why they're not green berets today is because of that downtime.
[00:51:15] You know, there's plenty of distractions in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
[00:51:17] God. Plenty. There's plenty. They're all actually, they're all there. All the vices and distractions
[00:51:22] that you could want or hope didn't exist. They're all there. Girls, drugs, booze, nightlife, fights.
[00:51:29] That is what got a lot of guys removed from the program because they just couldn't stay focused
[00:51:35] for that amount of time because it took me just the Q course alone about 18 months.
[00:51:42] Oh, no kidding. To get through it. Yeah. And how much of that time was it?
[00:51:46] Maybe just just, yeah. How much was actually training? Maybe 12. Wow. Yeah. Well, when you were
[00:51:52] going through that, was there anything that was trouble for you in there? Language school. Real
[00:51:57] hot. Yeah. Yeah. Language school is hot. What language did you learn? I learned Russian in the
[00:52:03] Q course, which was six months long. Do they have Rs in Russian? They have the Rs sound in Russian?
[00:52:08] They do, but I don't pass a shit. You talk about a confusing accent. You mix Russian and Boston
[00:52:14] together. Literally no one knows what I'm saying, including me. So everyone's left lost. What did
[00:52:20] you just say? I don't think I even know. That was tough. How long was the Russian course? Six months.
[00:52:28] And that's all you do. Eight hours a day. Headset on. Freakin. They don't speak English to you.
[00:52:33] We got instructors. So you're in a classroom with like six, seven other guys. Eight hours a day,
[00:52:39] just learning Russian. And it was even worse because we still to maintain our jump status
[00:52:44] during the Q course. So we did a jump like the week before I started language school.
[00:52:49] And I broke my tailbone. I broke my coxsus. I came down, I landed on the runway.
[00:52:56] Bro, those shoots are not made for big dudes. No, man. I come down like an asteroid.
[00:53:01] I always did too. Especially with equipment. I mean, I forgot about it. It's just a freaking
[00:53:05] disaster. Even at 1,300 feet. It's like by the time I shoot opens, I check my stuff. I drop my
[00:53:11] equipment pretty much immediately and I'm smashing into the earth with a vapor trail behind me.
[00:53:16] You know, so I came down. I had some wind. I couldn't steer. Couldn't avoid it runway.
[00:53:22] This is happening. Boom. Broke my tailbone. I thought I paralyzed. I thought it was
[00:53:26] freaking horrible. It was scary. Guys have been paralyzed from that type of accident.
[00:53:30] Yeah. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I'm like, okay, this is the rest of my life.
[00:53:35] Fortunately, it was just a broken tailbone, which is not a convenient injury.
[00:53:40] You know, never had it, but it doesn't sound like there's no great. You can't cast it,
[00:53:45] you know, so you just have to stay off of it and let it kind of heal the best they can.
[00:53:49] But I'm immediately going into language school where I'm going to be spending
[00:53:52] eight hours a day in a classroom. So my first, I don't know, three, four months of language school,
[00:53:58] I was either on a knee or standing because I couldn't sit. You know, eventually I was coming
[00:54:04] to class one of those donuts, you know, those inflatable things. So I was doing so. I mean,
[00:54:08] I also, not an academic, trying to learn a new language, which I'm convinced is in the same area
[00:54:16] of the artistic side of people's brains. Like if you can play music or if you can paint,
[00:54:22] that's the art form of learning a language. My wife's a great example. She's both like,
[00:54:26] she's a musician. She's a phenomenal artist. She can pick up foreign languages like that. For me,
[00:54:31] nah, dude, it was brutal. It was just forced reps. Like that's how you do it. So I mean,
[00:54:39] and you have to test out, you have to test out like a certain level. Yeah,
[00:54:42] you're gonna test out what you're gonna test out at. What I would say would be like a,
[00:54:47] like a between a beginner and a novice level to have a working knowledge, I think is the
[00:54:53] way they kind of describe it. Where is that language school for practice?
[00:54:58] Jack, what, what, what were you, you were a 18 Bravo? Were you a Bravo?
[00:55:03] I was a Bravo. And how was that part of the schooling?
[00:55:06] That was great. Now the Bravo course was awesome. You know, just learning weapons and
[00:55:11] a little bit into tactics, but you're just playing with guns all day.
[00:55:15] Did you pick that? Is that what you wanted?
[00:55:16] Yeah. So I picked my, I picked my MOS and my language, which determines your group.
[00:55:22] Everyone that gets selected, or at least back then, picked those two things,
[00:55:26] requested MOS and requested language. And they would give, I think it was the top,
[00:55:31] like 15% or 20% of the performers would get what they, what they asked for. And then the
[00:55:36] rest would get whatever they, you know, they needed to get. So I requested Bravo and I wanted
[00:55:41] Russian cause I wanted to stay at that third group.
[00:55:44] What made you want to be Bravo?
[00:55:47] They're the ass kickers on the team, you know, stereotypically, but also in reality,
[00:55:53] because you kind of, you kind of have to be, man. And here's why you're, yes, you train
[00:55:59] on weapons and maintenance and troubleshooting, but you're also the primary tactician on the
[00:56:04] team or the primary tech tactical advisor to the team sergeant is that, you know, that's your
[00:56:09] support function on a team. So you're putting together ranges, you're executing training.
[00:56:14] Well, every SF guy, every soft guy thinks that he is a perfect tactician and a perfect
[00:56:22] marksman. The other skill sets, medics, commo demo, those are much easier for those guys to
[00:56:31] teach their teammates because they don't have the pride associated with not knowing medicine.
[00:56:36] I don't have the pride associated with not knowing how to use this, this radio.
[00:56:41] You walk up to a guy and say, you don't know how to use your rifle.
[00:56:44] That they don't take that very well. So you have to have an aggressive, dominant
[00:56:48] personality to be able to break through that barrier that your teammates have to be able to
[00:56:55] do your job. Yeah, they're going to take that very personally. They don't like that. You know,
[00:57:01] I don't like that. Like you're, you can't shoot and you don't understand tactics. You tell that to
[00:57:07] a green beret or seal or a ranger that it's not going to go well. Yeah, they're going to have
[00:57:11] that stuff. They're going to have a little bit of an eco flare in those scenarios. And how was,
[00:57:16] how was Robin Sage? Robin Sage was good. I mean, aside from the infill, which is,
[00:57:21] it's just, I mean, horrible. We didn't jump. Thank God. My buddies, who's a good buddy of mine
[00:57:27] today, he was on one of the teams that had to jump in because you're, everyone on that, on that team
[00:57:32] is carrying about 120 pounds in their rock to, you know, sustain off of, to conduct
[00:57:38] unconventional warfare in a denied area. That's what Robin Sage is. The teams that have to jump in,
[00:57:43] man, not, not, not dude. If I jump in without equipment, I'm coming in hot. Yeah. You throw
[00:57:50] 120 pounds on me. So I'm going to put a mark in the earth, putting dent in the earth. Yeah.
[00:57:57] So fortunately, I didn't have to jump, but you know, the infill, the infill is tough,
[00:58:02] no matter whether you jump in or not, you're humping miles through North Carolina.
[00:58:06] But once you get past that, then you're actually operating with other MOS's,
[00:58:13] which is the first time that you get to see that because it's the last thing you do and they bring,
[00:58:19] so now you can see what medics do. You can see what the 18 childlies do. You can see what the
[00:58:24] commo guys can do. You see the, the alphas, you see the team leaders up until you go to MOS,
[00:58:30] everyone's just a candidate. Then you learn your job and then you come together to execute your job
[00:58:35] with the other team, with the other MOS's. So I remember just when we were on infill, I started
[00:58:40] cramping up and I needed to take a short halt because I needed to stretch because otherwise
[00:58:45] I was going to go down and one of my teammates yelled the word medic, which is the first time I
[00:58:51] had heard that, like in real life, you're going to hear the movies, but someone actually yelled
[00:58:55] medic and then a medic showed up and I was like, Oh, this is like a real thing. We actually have
[00:59:00] you guys. I hadn't seen it before. So it was cool to see those different jobs and how they
[00:59:05] employed themselves within a team dynamic. So it was actually a lot of fun once you got past,
[00:59:09] you know, getting to your, your site. How long is the freaking infill?
[00:59:14] It usually takes, you know, like two to three days to get in. Yeah. I mean, every, every route's
[00:59:20] different. It's usually, it's trains, planes, and automobiles and a lot of walking. So, you know,
[00:59:25] horse trailer from here to here, you get there, you walk, you know, 12 miles through the wood line,
[00:59:30] link up over here, jump on a boat, move down this river, you know, it's like a full on
[00:59:36] infill as if you're going into actual denied area. That's what they try to replicate.
[00:59:41] You get done with that. That's it, right? That's when you get your, your designation,
[00:59:45] your green beret. That's it. Yeah. Did your parents come down for that? Oh, yeah. Did your mom put
[00:59:50] any crystals in your green beret? She probably did. She blew some incense on me. Do you have like
[00:59:57] one green beret that you got that one time? Like, and that's the one that you get and the one that
[01:00:04] you keep? The actual headgear? Yeah. So I still have the same one is the one I graduated with.
[01:00:09] Right. So that's, is that pretty common? I think that that's most common unless a guy like loses
[01:00:15] it. We don't really wear it that often though. So there's, there's no real need to upgrade because
[01:00:20] you like destroyed it. It's, it's kind of funny, man. You spend all this time thinking about becoming
[01:00:26] one and you want to earn this little green hat more than anything. So the top of this mountain,
[01:00:30] it means everything to you. You want to put it all on the line and then you get it and then you
[01:00:35] never want to wear it because it's just a pain in the ass to put on your head. So we don't usually
[01:00:40] wear a uniform all that often anyway, but when we do, obviously it goes on. So I think that's
[01:00:46] part of the reason why most guys, the one that they had originally is the one that they keep
[01:00:49] throughout their career. Yeah. No uniform is always not fun. I remember I always thought to myself,
[01:00:56] man, I'm like a, I'm like a 30, 35, 38 year old dude. I go to work all day. I don't have to wear a
[01:01:02] shirt man. This is the, this is the life. Freaking good to go. Yeah. But your parents came down to
[01:01:08] graduation and all that. Absolutely. How they feel about that. Cause now what year is it? 2010.
[01:01:16] Okay. So Iraq is kind of chilled out by now. So you must just be eyeing Afghanistan at this point.
[01:01:24] Yeah. So at this point, I know I'm going to third group, which is at Bragg, which is the one I wanted
[01:01:28] to go to because third group owned Afghanistan for that, for the groups, for the SF groups. That's
[01:01:34] all third group did. The other groups would filter in and support, but third group owned Afghanistan.
[01:01:40] That's where I wanted to go. That's why I chose that language. That's where I ended up going. So
[01:01:45] from my parents perspective, of course, they were proud of the work and happy for me for being
[01:01:51] successful, but also petrified because they knew what was coming. And this was 2010. You joined
[01:01:57] in 2007. Damn. That's a long freaking pipeline. Yeah. Yeah. That's a long pipeline. Now it's much
[01:02:03] more streamlined. So the current Q course, they've cut that white space in between. So they give
[01:02:09] guides, maybe it's a week or two or so off and it's, it's a much faster turnover rate. Got it.
[01:02:15] Yeah. So you get, how was it checking into, to the battalion? It was, I mean, I showed up,
[01:02:22] never having been in like a real unit before, other than as a student. And you don't get a whole lot
[01:02:28] of guidance. It's like report the third group on this day. It's like over there somewhere. I'm like,
[01:02:33] okay. So you find it, right? And then I walk into like group headquarters building and there's like
[01:02:38] some E five work in the CQ desk. And I'm like, hi, I'm here to report to first battalion. He's like,
[01:02:44] okay, it's over there. I'm like, all right, Roger that. So like I meander over there. And the funny
[01:02:51] the funny story is I'm walking around the battalion, trying to get all these little boxes checked off,
[01:02:57] right? Check in with S one, which is your admin section, check in with S two, your intel section,
[01:03:01] like get yourself administratively within the unit. I've never heard of S four. I don't know where it
[01:03:08] is. Like what's okay, it's over here. I find it. What do I need from you guys? So I'm meandering
[01:03:14] around pretty lost. Clearly I was lost because a dude comes up to me and P T's and he's like,
[01:03:19] can you help find something? And I'm like, yeah, man, I'm looking for this like S six thing. He's
[01:03:23] like, yeah, it's over there. And as soon as I start talking, he's like, you from Boston? I'm like,
[01:03:27] yeah, he's like, I'm from Boston. I'm like, Oh, no kidding. So we start talking about the socks and
[01:03:32] the paths and where you're from, which neighborhood, whatever, we're just like, bullshit. And then
[01:03:35] he's like, come on, let me show you something. Following this guy. No idea who it is. He brings
[01:03:40] me into an office. He's got red socks, pictures on the walls, all this memorabilia. We're just,
[01:03:48] we're chopping it up. And I realize I'm in the battalion commander's office. I haven't dropped a
[01:03:54] single sir. Yeah, I have no idea I'm talking to him. And it's like dawning on me. And I'm like,
[01:04:01] all right, but I'm just going to keep going with this because like, he seems cool with it. Maybe
[01:04:04] this is just the way it is. I don't know. It's my first day in the unit. And then I just hear this
[01:04:10] bellowing voice from the office next to it. And this was Sajam Major Spratt command, Sajam
[01:04:18] Major Spratt, who had just left SWIC, which is where the Q course and selection is, and came back
[01:04:25] to third group. And he had some specific language about, you know, asking very politely who was
[01:04:32] talking to the battalion commander that way. And he walked in the office and he's an old school SF
[01:04:38] guy, man, old school, like big mustache, big chest, right? Walks in, yelling at me. I look
[01:04:48] over the battalion commander like, are you going to, are you going to step in here? And he's just
[01:04:51] laughing. I thought we were boys. I thought we were buddies, you know? He hangs me out to dry
[01:04:56] completely. So Spratt's like, you know, looking at my name, he's like, I heard of you. He's like,
[01:05:01] you know, he's like, you're one of those combatives guys, right? You're one of those like MMA fighter
[01:05:05] type dudes. And I was like, I don't know if I should say yes to this. I feel like you may want to
[01:05:10] challenge me out back. And I don't know how that will go. I'm like, yes. Yeah, that is me. And he's
[01:05:16] like, okay, well, basically, don't ever talk to the boss like that again, and like, get out of here
[01:05:21] and like, go find your company. What gave you that reputation as being an MMA guy? Because,
[01:05:25] what, just because you wrestled or were you, did you pick up Jiu-Jitsu and stuff along the way?
[01:05:29] So I ended up getting a MacP, which is the Army Combatives Program, cert one and two during basic
[01:05:36] training that they offered to just like guys that were proficient with combat sports. So I showed up
[01:05:42] to the unit that with that. And then, or during the Q-Course. And then actually, when I was in Robin
[01:05:51] Sage, Alan Shabaro, who's a Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt former third group SF guy, he was a cadre for a
[01:06:00] different field team out at Robin Sage. And he came over one night randomly and was like, hey,
[01:06:07] you know, I heard you're into like combatives and stuff like that, you know, come check out my gym
[01:06:11] once you get out of here and you graduate and whatnot. That was my intro into into Jiu-Jitsu.
[01:06:15] So I've been training with him a little bit before I actually showed up on day one. I just think
[01:06:21] maybe word kind of just travel kind of quick, you know, whatever. But so that's your welcome aboard.
[01:06:27] You freaking bro out with the battalion commander and then get your ass chewed.
[01:06:32] And how long does it take for you before you get into like an ODA?
[01:06:37] I was on my first team probably probably a week or two after that. Because the timing was interesting.
[01:06:43] My entire company was forward in Afghanistan, but they only had about a month left before they were
[01:06:48] coming back. Every team except for one of them was forward. And there was a team that was a
[01:06:55] that deployed offset from the rest of the company and the battalion because it was a specialized
[01:07:00] team. So it took my company, Saja Major, a little bit of time, a couple days to think about
[01:07:06] where to put me. Because I met him that day, my very first day I made my way over the company,
[01:07:11] met the Saja Major, introduced himself. He said, cool, man, like, what are your goals? I said,
[01:07:15] I want to get in Afghanistan like now. He's like, of course you do. But like the entire company's
[01:07:19] coming back. It doesn't make any sense. By the time you get there and get situated,
[01:07:22] you're going to just be packing things up and come home. So the timing's not there. But I do
[01:07:27] have this team that's set to go forward in a few months. I'm like, cool, can I go to that one?
[01:07:32] He's like, well, it's a different type of team. So like, let me think about it. He did. Eventually,
[01:07:38] I sat down with the team, Saja, into that team. And this team focused on preparation of the
[01:07:44] environment is the task that we were assigned. So kind of like left-to-bang type stuff, which
[01:07:50] isn't exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to go kick down doors and shoot bad guys in the face.
[01:07:55] This team was not designed to do that. But it was more designed to find the bad guy so that
[01:08:01] someone can go kick him in the face. It's designed to facilitate the door kickers to get to the guy
[01:08:06] or get to the area. So I mean, it was that type of work. And it was a very senior team because
[01:08:12] most guys would go spend a few years on a standard ODA and then they would migrate over into this
[01:08:17] type of stuff. So senior dudes. But eventually, that's the route that I went when I was on that
[01:08:23] team within a couple weeks of getting a group. I mean, I'm just going to say, you're a new
[01:08:27] guy. You're checking in. You get a chance to go to Afghanistan in a more rapid manner. They could
[01:08:32] probably told you like, hey, we need to cook to go to Afghanistan. A month you'd have been like,
[01:08:36] I'm in. At least I know I would have been. I'm like, cool. Where's the freaking spatula?
[01:08:41] Where's the ladle? Yeah. Let's do this. Did you have any time to like prep? Was there any
[01:08:49] type of workup or are they already done with all that? No, there was a workup. I think maybe,
[01:08:53] yeah, like I said, I think I was on the team about four months before we infilled. So I went
[01:08:57] and I learned Dari, which is a prominent language of Afghanistan. So I spent six months in the Q
[01:09:03] course, getting my ass kicked, learning Russian, show it to my group. And they're like, welcome,
[01:09:08] go learn Dari. My God, kidding me. I can't get away from this language thing, man, which
[01:09:13] I understand the value of it now. Actually, even once I was able to employ it. So it was three months
[01:09:18] of that. And then some like preparatory collective training that we did. But it was pretty fast and
[01:09:25] furious before I was out the door. And then you, how was that deployment? What was it like when
[01:09:31] you got there? It was amazing. You know, initially, I wanted to come in, do my five year contract,
[01:09:40] get some payback for 9 11, learn some skills and then get out. This was not going to be
[01:09:45] like my profession or my career. And then I got to the ground, I got on the ground in Afghanistan.
[01:09:50] It was a nine month rotation, mostly down in Kandahar. We were mostly doing split team
[01:09:55] stuff. So one team was on the packy border and the other team was in like downtown Kandahar. So
[01:10:00] I was getting a chance to see more rural and urban environment. And because of the team I was on, I
[01:10:06] was seeing the more overt stuff where we get in like mounted gun trucks to go support a particular
[01:10:12] op to being in a soft skin Corolla driving through downtown Kandahar and just very close. So I was
[01:10:18] exposed to a lot of what ODAs can do, what SF guys can do aside from the thing I really wanted to do.
[01:10:26] You know, so we didn't get into a couple little things somewhat by accident, but
[01:10:32] it was in that deployment that I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I decided like this is what
[01:10:38] I'm going to do for my career. And I reenlisted actually in Afghanistan for like another six,
[01:10:43] I think it was beyond my current contract I was on. So it was great. So was the op tempo good
[01:10:50] where you were working all the time? Busy. Busy. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, like sitting around for
[01:10:56] a long period of time. You were getting after it all the time. No, no, it was it was super busy.
[01:11:00] And that's cool. You get out get exposed to a wide spectrum of different things that are happening.
[01:11:06] You get to see a lot. Yeah. That's a freaking great first deployment for you. Yeah. And I was
[01:11:10] again, I was with all these senior guys. So I was an E five and everyone else was E seven or eight
[01:11:16] or an officer. So I'm just learning from these dudes that have been around for a really long time.
[01:11:22] And you know, some of them were on their fifth, sixth Afghanistan pump. So I'm just I'm drinking
[01:11:27] from a fire hose, but just the knowledge that was coming in from these dudes, it just
[01:11:33] got caught the bug. And I was like, yeah, this is it. This is this is for me.
[01:11:36] You get done with that deployment. You said you've gotten us some things. I mean,
[01:11:43] you get you get in some gunfights. You guys got a few gunfights over there on that one.
[01:11:47] Yeah. Yeah. But not nothing that like was too major. No, no, it was nothing anything all that
[01:11:53] serious. But what's what's funny about it is because the mission that we were on is not designed
[01:11:59] for us to be in those environments. But you know, there would be like a Lurse unit or like
[01:12:04] a another unit over here that was going out to this area for whatever mission they had. And we're
[01:12:09] like, well, maybe there's something out there we can check out that isn't lying with that mission.
[01:12:13] I don't know. Maybe I can talk to someone over there. Maybe there's something.
[01:12:18] So we would just get added on to their car and then some things would happen. But because of
[01:12:24] our team and our reporting channels, it was different than the other units in the AO.
[01:12:29] So even though we had been in these engagements, there was no like reporting of it happening.
[01:12:35] At one point, the commander that we actually worked for heard about some stuff and he showed
[01:12:41] up to our site. We were working under NSW. So like, it was a CO05 that showed up. And he's like,
[01:12:49] has everything going about first time I met him? He's like, okay, so just so you know,
[01:12:53] I know what you guys are doing. And you need to stop. Trying to keep the boys trying to keep
[01:13:02] the boys down. Come on. So you come home from that deployment. What's next? A ton of schools and
[01:13:10] training individual schools. At that time, we were doing usually was six months on nine months off
[01:13:17] before we would re rotate. For me, I think it was ended up being around nine or 10. I was back in
[01:13:21] the States, but it was just individual school one after another. And then I went back over
[01:13:28] in Afghanistan for a short period of time with on a tasking from another unit that needed some
[01:13:35] support. And so I went over there for a quick little thing and came back and then
[01:13:41] like how long was that when you say a quick little thing? Was it like months or was it like
[01:13:44] four months? 90 days. 90 maybe 120 days somewhere between three and four months.
[01:13:49] All right. Now, are you still with the same ODA this whole time? Yeah. So you still are kind
[01:13:56] of focused on the same type of mission? Yes. Until I get back from Afghanistan. And then my company,
[01:14:03] Sajamajia, decides he wants to put me on a standard ODA or a direct action focused ODA. So this is
[01:14:09] after your second after that 90 day stint. Yeah. So on the 90 day stint, you're over there. Did you
[01:14:14] get some good lessons learned from that deployment? Oh yeah. What did you take back from that one?
[01:14:20] That there are other units within the SOCOM enterprise that operate at an entire different
[01:14:28] stratosphere, which I could tell even as a junior Green Beret working on, you know, around ODA,
[01:14:33] guys, there are other people out there that are really good at what they do and they know how to
[01:14:39] do it. So I was a, I was a riding on the side of this thing. They just needed some support. It was
[01:14:46] first PSD stuff. Okay. It came over to third group because we're on for brag and they needed like
[01:14:52] a bigger combatives, PSD type dude just to like take orders and not talk or ask questions. And I
[01:14:59] was the guy, I mean, I got this all day. I didn't know really like what I was doing. I understood
[01:15:06] like PSD work, but who I was with and what we were doing. It took me like a while to like figure
[01:15:13] that out. But I learned a ton and that was really what sunk my teeth into what my next thing would
[01:15:20] be post ODA time. Did you, are you still, are you training Jiu-Jitsu all the time now? Yeah.
[01:15:27] So when you got back and what about when you're on deployment, are you training at all? Do you
[01:15:30] have time? Oh yeah. Make time. Every trip I've been on, I've built a little fight house. Even
[01:15:37] into like austere stuff, we'll get into the next actual rotation. We're in the mountains
[01:15:41] doing VSL when I built us a fight house up there. So that's, so you come back from the 90 day
[01:15:47] stent where you're doing PSD type work and then you get put in, now this one you get and put it
[01:15:52] to like a DA type ODA. Yeah. Yeah. I get back and my, my, my deal was I would do two rotations on
[01:15:58] the first team I was on and I committed to that because there's a lot of time they spend in training
[01:16:04] you know how to do certain stuff. So it was like, yeah, there's no problem. Sajima Jiu came in
[01:16:09] right after I got back and he's like, Hey man, I'm going to talk to your team, Sajima, but I think
[01:16:13] you need to be on like a, like a DA team, you know, you're like, you don't fit in and this team
[01:16:18] you're on now, you don't blend. You're like, you're like, you're the worst low visibility guy in the
[01:16:24] history of freaking special forces. Yeah man. So it didn't make sense from that lens. And I was young
[01:16:30] and hungry and he wanted to like, you know, maximize on that, leverage that, get me into the fight
[01:16:35] for more traditional sense. So he made with my team side and seems like, cool man, this is what he
[01:16:39] wants. This is what's best for him. Roger that. So he let me go and then I went to a DA team.
[01:16:44] This is now in like early 2012 and I was with them just in time to go through a full train up
[01:16:53] nice of that type of work before we went in. What was my second actual combat rotation in the fall
[01:17:00] of 2012. And so how's that? How's that working out? It was, it was night and day man. My first pump
[01:17:09] doing what we were doing. We were living kush. We were living kush. Everyone had their own shoe.
[01:17:16] I had air conditioning and I had a full size bed. I had a plasma TV. Two different child halls,
[01:17:22] two different gyms, full blown fight house. Cause one of our camps was in the, was like on the
[01:17:28] back end of a mass of a bigger fob. So we had all the fob stuff, but then we had our own, our own
[01:17:34] stuff, you know, OGA camp was right next to us. They had a whole bunch of cool stuff. So I was,
[01:17:39] but that was not, that was just the way it was for me. It was my first trip. Like this is the way,
[01:17:43] this isn't living off the land. You kidding me? I haven't had to kill a single snake yet.
[01:17:47] You snake eaters. I got two child halls to choose from. When I switched teams and went to the DA team,
[01:17:55] we went in to do VSO, village stability operations. And that by design is very austere. You actually
[01:18:02] have limitations on what you can do to build up your physical infrastructure to keep it within
[01:18:07] line with what your partner force or those within that area with how they live. We assimilate to them,
[01:18:13] which is exactly the mission we wanted. But when you get dropped off on, you know,
[01:18:18] mountaintop helicopter to zero three, and you're the first team that's occupied this site,
[01:18:24] there's nothing. And it was like, Oh, this is what ODAs do. This is okay. This is what this,
[01:18:32] so it was a night and day shift from my first trip to my second. So now you're out in the middle of
[01:18:38] where are you Wardak? You're so you're in Wardak, just your ODA team in the middle of nowhere.
[01:18:44] So there were three teams that they inserted into Wardak along the Chalk Valley,
[01:18:48] two on one side, one on the other, but it was really just us to mutually support each other.
[01:18:55] And you are starting from scratch, building out what you're going to build out,
[01:19:00] because there's no preexisting team there at all. There's no turnover or nothing. There was a turnover
[01:19:04] only because the team that was on the ground when we got there, they had closed down their site,
[01:19:11] which is where we were originally planning on going. But as things changed operationally,
[01:19:15] they shut that site down. They packed up all their stuff. They moved to this secondary location.
[01:19:23] They were on the ground for 24 hours before we landed. So, so there's nothing. There's nothing.
[01:19:29] There was a team there, but they hadn't been working out of that site. Right. So then you
[01:19:33] guys start building out, do you have a partner force that's there? Yeah. So they handed over
[01:19:38] their partner force to us, which was an A&AsF team. So the regiment, the Army Special Forces had
[01:19:44] created an Afghan National Army Special Forces unit. They looked structurally the same way as us,
[01:19:51] same MOS, the same breakdown. And they had 12 guys or whatever. 12 guys, just like ours. Yep.
[01:19:56] So you show up there, you get settled in and is the AO, how hot is the AO? It was, it was, it was
[01:20:05] busy. It was hot. We got our footprint, you know, we're like patrol based activities for the first,
[01:20:12] it's like 48 until we got some semblance of some force pro going. And then on maybe day three or
[01:20:18] four, we, we went to drive down the street to Afghan local police checkpoint, which you could see
[01:20:24] from our camp. There's maybe 400 meters down the road. I think we had a four vehicle convoy.
[01:20:30] I was in the little trail vehicle working out of a hatch. And by the time a second vehicle
[01:20:35] got on the road, we were ambushed. So at this point, we've got like some ratty chain link fence
[01:20:41] and some half filled Hasco as like force pro, there's nothing, you know, other than guys that are
[01:20:47] up there with 240s. So ting, ting, ting, ting, and I'm like, what, I don't know what's happened.
[01:20:53] What kind of vehicles? We were in Matt V's man that IG 33, 31. So I'm a bomber, you know, they're
[01:20:59] legit. But even though I had been around a couple, you know, engagements prior, it was nothing like
[01:21:07] this. Like we were like ambushed. This wasn't some, you know, moron who got creative with an AK47 to
[01:21:13] wanted to get his G hot on for a second and then drop his gun and run away. This was like a no
[01:21:18] shit. We're going to fight right now. So we were not even all the way out of the gate. No,
[01:21:25] it's all right there. So we dropped us off into a hornets nest, you know, which we kind of knew,
[01:21:30] although we were prepping for location a, we ended up at location B, but they were relatively close
[01:21:35] where a lot of our intel and prep in terms of personalities and leadership and cells and
[01:21:40] who we would be targeting was still considered the same. I didn't realize it was going to be
[01:21:45] quite that level of, of be high. So zero white space, which became our primary mission was just
[01:21:54] to open that up. So every day or every other day, whenever we rolled, it was just like move to contact.
[01:21:59] Like that's the, that's the mission for today. That's what we're doing. Let's go find the ambush
[01:22:04] and like set it off. And you're going out with your team plus the Afghan SF team. So you got like
[01:22:10] 20, 25 guys. So we also had an infantry squad that was there as an uplift. It's about 2022.
[01:22:19] So I made about 15 dudes, all super young minus that the squad leader, most of them were just
[01:22:25] fresh out of basic young and hungry though. Hell yeah. I can work with that all day. You
[01:22:29] give me a blank canvas. I love me some blank canvas. So it was, it was, there were stuts
[01:22:34] like savages. Eventually we created some savages. Afghan national army SF team was,
[01:22:41] was I dedicated pattern of force. Eventually within, I say the first month or so, we started doing
[01:22:46] bigger ops and we bring in Afghan national army guys or another commando elements or
[01:22:53] Afghan national police guys. And this leads to, you know, me, me eventually getting shot up
[01:22:59] with an insider attack is because when you start getting all these different dudes from different
[01:23:04] units, there's no practical way to establish a baseline with these, with these guys. You know,
[01:23:11] if you're living with somebody, you get to know that way you can tell if something's off, like
[01:23:15] the Spidey sense can start to go off because it's different. When you're getting new bodies as
[01:23:21] frequent as eventually we were, it drastically opens up the risk for an insider threat. Yeah.
[01:23:30] You end up, you get wounded early, huh? In this deployment? Is this deployment you get wounded
[01:23:35] for the first time? Yeah. What happened there? Yeah. I mentioned, I ended up taking some shrapnel
[01:23:40] to the back of my shoulder. We were on the ground for just a few weeks. We, you know, we drove the
[01:23:46] contact. We actually had an actual mission other than like, let's go find a fight to get into.
[01:23:50] We did get ambushed on the way from what ended up being what we considered to be the Taliban
[01:23:57] strong point village within our immediate AO. It was the first time that we actually maneuvered
[01:24:02] into it. And my team sergeant would tell you himself, like he made a, he made an aggressive
[01:24:09] decision. That's going to piss some people off to go in there. Yeah. And we were way over our
[01:24:15] heads and we were outgunned and outmanned, you know, because he just took myself, one of my
[01:24:19] teammates and then a handful of our partner force guys and we maneuver dismounted into the,
[01:24:24] into the village, just like the six of us. We had to swap our fire machine gun coming from the
[01:24:29] trucks and some mortars, but like we were in a village. Now you're in like a more urban environment
[01:24:34] with three US, three partner force. We've been on the ground just a few weeks,
[01:24:39] you know, on error. And he would tell you the same thing. Like it was a mistake.
[01:24:42] Like me actually getting hurt may have, may have saved that because we fought our way to
[01:24:49] a two story structure where we were taking Tishka fire from up to the road. So the guys are
[01:24:54] engaged in that way. There's some other dudes on some rooftops and there's six of us maneuvering
[01:24:59] through an urban environment, an Afghanistan urban environment, different than like Iraq,
[01:25:04] but you're still dealing with buildings and multiple level structures and windows and doors and all
[01:25:09] the hallways and alleyways, all the things. Right. So I even noticed that one point. I'm like,
[01:25:16] we shouldn't be here right now. You know, we shouldn't be here right now. This is a mistake.
[01:25:20] I didn't voice that. I was like, Roger that, like, let's, let's keep going. And we made it to
[01:25:26] the structure that we were trying to breach to deal with the, with the dish. Cause I was coming
[01:25:30] out of the second story. And we had been receiving some, some indirect that were coming in and
[01:25:37] dudes were dropping grenades out of structures as well. So we're at the breach point to enter
[01:25:44] the courtyard into this structure that is still actively engaging and something just blows up
[01:25:50] behind me. And there's a grenade and it just ripped into the back of my shoulder and it was like
[01:25:55] getting hit with a sledgehammer. And you think about shrapnel penetrating your body. You may
[01:26:01] think it's like this like piercing stabbing sensation, like a piece of metal going into you,
[01:26:06] but it's more just impact. Someone just hit you with a bat and then I look back and there's just
[01:26:12] like a lemon size hole in the back of my shoulder. I'm like, Oh, okay. This just happened. So I
[01:26:21] immediately just like, no, I'm fine. Now adrenaline's pumping. It's a shock, but there's no real pain
[01:26:28] that sets in. I'm like, we're good. My team sergeant comes over and he's like, no, no, no. So he
[01:26:34] grabs my other teammate. He starts putting some, we get into like a little strong point. He gauzes
[01:26:40] it up. Is the dish still firing? Yes. That's good times. Yep. So that's still going off.
[01:26:46] The boys in the trucks are really the ones that are getting it. And our partner force had
[01:26:51] been sending a separate dismount just themselves to stop moving in towards the building as well.
[01:26:57] So they're treating me some gauze, calm, you know, a pressure dress and wrap it up. And my team
[01:27:05] sergeants like, we're, we're aborting this mission right now. We're getting back to the trucks. And
[01:27:11] I'm like, no, no, I'm fine. Like, let's go. We just fought our way all the way to this door that
[01:27:14] we're in front of now. Like, let's, let's get in there. He's like, no, no, no. This is, we're in
[01:27:20] overrides. So that was the, that was the trigger for him to be like, yep, let's detach and take a
[01:27:26] look at what I'm doing. So a lot of ways I think I'm grateful because I don't know what was on
[01:27:31] the other side of that door, but those guys were still getting it. And it could have been,
[01:27:35] it could have been a lot of different things. Yeah. You know, yeah. Sometimes the things just pile up
[01:27:42] where, you know, I used to joke, you know, you have the no go criteria, like, hey, this is no
[01:27:47] go criteria. We don't have aircraft or we don't have this, we don't have that. And I used to joke
[01:27:51] and say, Hey, we just have go go criteria because we're fucking going. Like that was like, you know,
[01:27:55] my attitude, but then this thing would happen. Something else would happen. Something else
[01:28:00] would happen. And it would be like, this is a sign. Like these one sign I can overlook two
[01:28:06] signs. Maybe I'll ignore, but now we got three, four things that are going on that don't seem right.
[01:28:10] It's like, Hey, we're getting out of here. This is a bad call. And it sounds like he came to that
[01:28:14] conclusion, which, you know, you got one wounded guy, you got it a bunkered freaking dishka
[01:28:20] elements maneuvering through the city. Yeah. Could go sideways real quick. I mean,
[01:28:28] how much different does that impact? Does that shrapnel have to hit you where all of a sudden
[01:28:32] you're not just a wounded guy, you're a dead guy, or you're a severely wounded guy. I mean,
[01:28:36] two inches freaking, it's ridiculous how those little things can change the whole, the whole
[01:28:42] scenario. How bad were you actually hurt once you guys pulled out? It wasn't, it wasn't bad.
[01:28:49] You know, I get back to the trucks and we, we ITB and my medic takes a look at it and
[01:28:55] he's like, do your good, but it's like a pretty good hole here, man. So this was the first time
[01:29:00] anyone had been wounded. We'd been in the ground maybe just like a few weeks, like I said. And so
[01:29:03] he gets me medivac'd out and I throw a temper tantrum at the camp. I'm like, I'm not going anywhere.
[01:29:11] And my team side is like, yes, you are. I'm like, so I think I'm going to Germany. I think I'm
[01:29:16] going home like we just got here. This is where I need to be. You know, I'm really childish
[01:29:23] in my response to that. But I do and I get back to, they sent me to one of the, one of the
[01:29:29] outstations where there actually was a, was a forward surgical team and they treated it.
[01:29:35] And the way they treat that is they pack it with this antiseptic gauze because they can't just
[01:29:40] sew it shut because it'll leave this open cavity. Now to get infected for infection. So they pack it
[01:29:45] and then you just change that dressing out, you know, three, four times a day. So it closes from
[01:29:50] the inside out. It was it. It really wasn't a big deal. I was supposed to stay at that location
[01:29:57] until it was completely healed. The head doc who was at Bagram was made aware of my wound.
[01:30:05] And he said, Nick will stay where you are until it's closed to make sure that there's no infection.
[01:30:10] How'd that work out? Yeah. After about three, four days, I started getting anxious.
[01:30:20] And the only rotary wing flights that were going into my site where my team was was coming out of
[01:30:26] Bagram. So either way, I had to get to Bagram before I could initiate movement back to
[01:30:30] jaw res, which is where we were. Well, I grabbed one of my buddies who's on that support team that
[01:30:35] was there. And I said, bring me down to the time back, which he does. And I go from one C 130 to
[01:30:41] another one until I find one that's going to Bagram. And I go up to the time, like, Hey,
[01:30:46] you guys go to Bagram. It was like the third plane I walked on. And they'll like, Yeah, we're taking
[01:30:50] off in like 10 minutes. And I can wait through. They're like, Sure. So I just jump in the plane.
[01:30:53] I don't tell anybody where I'm going, land at Bagram. I had been to Bagram before. That's where
[01:30:59] we originally landed when we got there. But I was only on Bagram for like a day until we just got
[01:31:04] all about stuff together. And then we flew out to our site. So I wasn't familiar with Bagram at all,
[01:31:09] which back then it was like a city. I mean, Bagram is huge. So I land, I have no idea really where
[01:31:14] I am. I know that the special ops camp is in the vicinity of this. So I find my way over there.
[01:31:21] And I walk into the jock. And it was my first time actually being in like a real jock. I hadn't
[01:31:27] seen one before with all the TVs and all the different staff sections. And they're all wired
[01:31:31] in. It was like, This is kind of cool. I haven't seen it before. And I walk in and the sodif commander,
[01:31:39] who's my battalion level command team, they're the ones that are running the sodif,
[01:31:43] special operations task force. He's like, Hey, what are you, what are you doing here? And I'm
[01:31:50] like, Hey, sir, hey, doing, you know, I need to ride back to, to JARES. This dude's from Boston.
[01:31:56] So he starts going off. He had actually brought in a bleach a seat chair that he bought that used
[01:32:04] to be in Fenway Park as his like battle chair. Hell yeah. So they refurbished Fenway Park and
[01:32:11] they sold a bunch of stuff. So he brings this over with him to Afghanistan. So rather than focus on
[01:32:15] why I am there, he just wants to show me his chair. He's like, Dude, look at the chair I brought
[01:32:19] it has this great. This was used to be out in Fenway Park, whatever. And I'm kind of like, Yeah,
[01:32:24] that's it. That's awesome. That's an awesome ship. Well, then the, then the sodif commander,
[01:32:28] Sergeant Major walks over and he's like, No, really, what are you doing here?
[01:32:33] I like how you can always know the officers, but the freaking E dogs, man, they're on to your
[01:32:38] bullshit. There was no any Jedi thing happening with him. He's like, Why are you here? And I'm,
[01:32:45] I'm like, coming up with some bullshit that doesn't float. And then the phone rings. And
[01:32:50] he picks it up and I hear the yelling on the other end of the phone. And it's my company,
[01:32:56] Sergeant Major, who is at the location that I had just left from. I've been gone maybe three hours
[01:33:01] or something for hours. And I hear him screaming and CSM is like, Oh no, he's right here in front of
[01:33:07] me. And I'm like, Okay, now I know this is about me. I don't am I going to get court-martialed?
[01:33:13] Like what happens? I don't know. I know I'm in trouble. So he hands me the phone and my company,
[01:33:19] Sergeant Major, just loses his mind on me, you know, for like 10 minutes. And I'm just like,
[01:33:24] Roger that, Roger that, a lot of that going on. And at the end, he's like, Okay, dude, listen,
[01:33:29] like, I get it. I get it. I've been there before I get it. But like, don't ever do that again.
[01:33:34] I said, Roger that hang up. Well, now everyone's kind of joking about it a little bit. CSM thinks
[01:33:41] it's kind of cool, but he's also trying to be professional. There's a lot of people around.
[01:33:44] I've clearly just done something and subordinate. It was it was a the commander eventually gets
[01:33:50] switched on. He's like, Oh, wait, what? Did you really just do that? Well, my team's on a mission,
[01:33:57] right at that point. My first time in a jock, I just got yelled at, which is fine. We're kind of
[01:34:02] joking. And I look up red lights that's going off, you know, essential personnel only inside the
[01:34:09] jock, people are leaving, people are coming in, people are getting spun up, I can tell something's
[01:34:12] going on. And it's my team on and off and my team sergeant takes around to the abdomen. And I'm
[01:34:18] watching this for the first time through the lens of an ISR feed, I've never seen it before.
[01:34:24] And it takes a minute to realize what's happening. And I put two and two together, and I have, you
[01:34:28] know, an emotional breakdown of rage. And I'm like throwing chairs, immature, completely emotionally
[01:34:36] charged response or reaction. And I'm like, you guys need to get me a ride now. I'm going back.
[01:34:45] And I get pulled out of the jock, and the dock shows up. And I'm with the group or the SOTIF
[01:34:54] commander, and the SOTIF CSM and the doc comes over. And he's like, Why are you here? You need to
[01:35:02] wait till you're healed. You're not going back. And I started yelling at him. And then the command is
[01:35:08] like, Listen, doc, I don't think you want to tell this dude, like, no, like he's, he just like,
[01:35:15] jumped on a plane and flew here. Like he's like, he's gonna he's going back. So they
[01:35:19] overrode that decision. And I was back on a bird the next day or the day after that, back out with
[01:35:25] the team. And what happened to your wound, the guy that got wounded? Would you say that was your
[01:35:29] team surgeon? Yep. So he came in, I was there to meet him at the hospital when he showed up to
[01:35:33] Bagram, which was good. He went into surgery. He was medivac out of country. He was over in Germany.
[01:35:39] I don't think he ended up going back to the States, because he returned back in to the team. He was
[01:35:46] out of the game for maybe a month or two. And then he came back over. Do you guys have any kind of
[01:35:53] backfill plan? I mean, you only got 12 dudes. When someone gets hit, that's like a freaking significant
[01:35:59] amount of the force. Yeah, every dude does play a big role. We didn't get outfitted with the with
[01:36:08] the new team sergeant, just the next senior guy on the team picked it up. Yep. Oftentimes, we will
[01:36:16] get augmented by by one of the support teams that's in the area. Yeah, because I mean, you got 12
[01:36:21] guys, like that's that's a freaking important gun, just like legit, like just a gunner. Even vehicles,
[01:36:29] like whatever you're doing, that's freaking crazy to think about that. You lose two or three guys,
[01:36:34] like you're almost you need replacements sometimes. Oh, yeah. So you get back up there now. How often
[01:36:41] do you what's your op tempo like? Like how often are you guys going out? Yeah, we're going out
[01:36:45] probably three, four times a week. And and most of the time, do you have things that you're doing
[01:36:52] trying to do civil affairs out there? Or are you going out patrol to contact? Like what are you
[01:36:55] guys actually trying to do? Yeah, so our mission was to open up white space, open up freedom of
[01:37:03] maneuver so that some of the other units in the entire AO had the ability to begin their X fill
[01:37:11] process. So this is 2012 going into 2013. The writings on the wall that we're about to close
[01:37:18] down Afghanistan. So the units on the ground are making those preparations to be able to get men
[01:37:24] with weapons and equipment to Bagram and to Canada. So we needed to open up some lanes. So does
[01:37:30] that mean you're are you setting up combat outposts out there? Or are you just going out clearing and
[01:37:35] then leaving? What are you doing? No, so the Afghan local police concept was built specifically for
[01:37:41] this where we would build and or reinforce checkpoints along the major avenues throughout the AO.
[01:37:51] So there were these Afghan local police checkpoints that were all down the major roads. So we were
[01:37:57] rather building those out, validating the ones that were already there, training the guys that were
[01:38:02] there or bringing in like resources and stuff to make them more effective. So let's say you might,
[01:38:08] oh, we got this checkpoint down there, checkpoint four, we're going to go out there today, we're
[01:38:12] going to check their force structure, we're going to meet with their people, we're going to give
[01:38:15] us some pistol training, and then we're going to come back. That's kind of like the type of stuff
[01:38:19] that you were doing. Yeah, that and then we were tied also into the local and regional government
[01:38:25] officials to help them with their structure and they're building out and just gaining more control
[01:38:31] of the area from like a civil and diplomatic perspective, which it's a tough task to do that
[01:38:37] in Afghanistan. So we mostly focused on Afghan local police enhancement via checkpoints along
[01:38:45] the major routes. What's the local populace populace think of you?
[01:38:51] Hit or miss. In an area like that, you're really putting the local populace in a lose lose scenario.
[01:38:57] We come in big, big white guys, big American guys,
[01:39:02] tatted up with all the guns and this stuff. And we come in and be like, you're going to help us.
[01:39:07] And what are they going to say? No. The problem is when they say yes, the actual dudes that run
[01:39:12] the show in that whole area, they're going to come back. So, you know, it's tough. And they know
[01:39:18] those Americans, they know that they're going to leave someday. The local populace like, oh,
[01:39:22] you're here now, but the Taliban is going to be here forever. Yeah. So it's an impossible.
[01:39:29] Is the biggest threat on the ground IEDs at this point?
[01:39:34] At this point, the biggest threat on the ground was IEDs and then a close second would be the
[01:39:40] insider attack, which once that happened to us in what it would have been early 2013 on the same
[01:39:48] deployment. That was kind of the catalyst that drove that threat up to supersede IEDs within
[01:39:54] that immediate area because it was just so effective. You ended up getting shot again, right?
[01:40:00] Or you get shot? Yeah. In the what? In the face? In the face. Yep. I took an AK round,
[01:40:06] which sounds worse than it was. It really just grazed my cheek and, you know,
[01:40:10] ripped a chunk open. It did clip an ottery, so it bled a bit, but I didn't know that I had been
[01:40:17] shot for like an hour or two after the fact because it was the result of a massive IED that
[01:40:25] hit ILEAD vehicle, decimated the truck. And when I showed up to that vehicle, there were some
[01:40:32] dismounts that had showed up as well. This was a full on ambush. So we'll talk us through it. So
[01:40:37] you're out on patrol. How many vehicles got with you? So we had, I think it was four trucks and
[01:40:42] a couple side by side raises on that. We were returning to base from the thing. We just did
[01:40:48] like a KLE, a key leader engagement. How far away are you from like, what are these? Are these like
[01:40:53] four mile, five mile transits? Are they shorter than that? This one was a little longer. This one
[01:40:57] we drove out along the main road, maybe nine miles, 10 miles. And we were on the way back
[01:41:04] when we hit this. And we had driven down this road multiple times before. And this thing had been
[01:41:13] in place before all that. They just, they never set it off. LEAD vehicle, which has my team leader
[01:41:20] in it, he, that vehicle gets just decimated. What vehicle are you in? I'm in vehicle four,
[01:41:25] working out of a hatch. And I see it go off in front of me. And we had hit a bunch of smaller
[01:41:31] IEDs before. So I was familiar with it. But this thing was the biggest and the most accurately
[01:41:38] timed. It just, it was perfect. Picks up the truck and just launches it off the side of the road
[01:41:44] down into this apple apple orchard off to the side. And it was down this little ravine
[01:41:50] off the side of the road. And that was the initiation of a complex ambush. So PKM,
[01:41:54] IPG, some indirect are all coming in. And, you know, I know what react to ideas. We have that
[01:42:04] SOP established. And I don't do my job. This is important note. Instead, I jump out of this hatch,
[01:42:12] the vehicle's still moving. And I take off on foot towards the truck, which was, you know,
[01:42:18] a couple hundred meters away from me, not a tactical movement by me, like rifle in hand.
[01:42:25] And I'm just at a dead sprint to the vehicle. And I slide down off the side of the road into
[01:42:30] this, into this orchard. And I know, solo, this is a solo. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just going by myself.
[01:42:38] I know everyone's dead. There's no way anyone survived that level of destruction. The truck is
[01:42:43] on its side. So drive the side door is pinned against the ground. Passengers side door would be
[01:42:49] facing the sky. And I, I slid off the road and I tripped and fall. And what I had tripped over
[01:42:55] was my teammate who was in the turret of that truck, who was ejected and landed about 30 meters
[01:43:03] from the vehicle. I didn't see him. I tripped over him, looked back and it's him. And he's alive.
[01:43:08] And I can't believe it. His leg snapped in half just below his knee. He's got a whole bunch of other
[01:43:14] like lacerations on his face, but he's alive. He's suffering from immediate blast injury for
[01:43:21] sure. He's incoherent, but he's alive. He's breathing. He's not bleeding from anywhere profusely. So
[01:43:26] I do like a quick assessment of him. And then I start hearing different rounds impacting the
[01:43:32] truck, which is behind me about 30 meters and some dismounts that showed up. And they were just kind
[01:43:38] of randomly shooting at the vehicle. They're shooting at the blown up vehicle? Yeah. So just
[01:43:43] ting, ting, ting. I turn around. There's three of them. So I smoked two. The third one takes off,
[01:43:51] run it. And this isn't again an apple orchard, but it's in October or it's November. So there's not
[01:43:56] a lot of vegetation. There's just mostly trees and branches. So you can, I can see kind of, but
[01:44:00] there's just a lot of, so I'm maneuvering through this. He's running away from me on an angle with
[01:44:07] his AK over his shoulder firing been my general direction while running away. And next thing you
[01:44:15] know, I'm looking up at the sky. Boom. I felt an impact. I'm looking up at the sky. And I thought that
[01:44:20] I had run into a branch from a tree and it just knocked me over. So I pop up and I like kind of
[01:44:29] look around and I'm fine. And I go to reengage on this dude and I noticed the vehicle is on fire.
[01:44:37] And I hadn't checked the vehicle. I had the only, I've only seen one of my buddies.
[01:44:41] So as bad as I really want to go kill this dude, I was like, I'm going to go check the vehicle
[01:44:45] instead. So fortunately, the passenger door, which against facing the sky had been blown off the
[01:44:51] hinges because the truck had basically collapsed on itself. So the turret was, you couldn't,
[01:44:56] there was no access point inside the cab other than that door. Climb up the vehicle,
[01:45:05] look in and my team leader is buried kind of where the driver seat would be. And he's trying to
[01:45:12] establish comms, which just says a lot about like training and like just doing what you'd need to do
[01:45:20] regardless of how bad it gets. I mean, he's in a exploded vehicle and he's a mess. Both his legs
[01:45:27] are are nasty. He's a below the knee amputee. Now both his legs are completely mangled.
[01:45:31] He's got an arterial bleed through his arm. His face is completely riddled with spall.
[01:45:37] And he's on the radio in a destroy decimated truck trying to establish comms, communicate to
[01:45:42] high Elb, what's going on? Says a lot about that dude. I'm looking inside this vehicle,
[01:45:47] you know, we're still taking PKM and RPG. Now our trucks are set up, they're returning fire.
[01:45:53] We got a couple of us 60 millimeter mortars out, they're returning fire.
[01:45:56] Team Sergeant, who are acting team Sergeant at the time, he's got a maneuver element that's
[01:46:02] maneuvering on the ambush line. I don't think anyone really knew what where I even was.
[01:46:07] Because I'm in the middle of all this that's happening. I look inside the truck, I see him.
[01:46:13] Okay, trucks on fire, it's burning from the back towards the cab. I look inside the rounds from
[01:46:20] inside the vehicle are starting to pop off from the heat. So it's like looking into a
[01:46:25] like a popcorn bag, pop pop pop pop pop pop. Rounds are still taking off the front of the truck
[01:46:30] from the enemy machine gun fire. I'm like, this is a really bad day here. And that this is where it
[01:46:36] ends. There's no way either one of us are making out of this. My team leader played offensive
[01:46:43] line at West Point. Big Cat. This is the dude that's legs are mangled, trying to make comms on
[01:46:50] the radio. Yeah, our captain. So he's a big Jack dude. Big boy. I wouldn't say jacked, but just a
[01:46:57] horse, six, seven, about, about two 90 to 25 without without kit. Big boy with kit, he's well over
[01:47:05] 300 pounds. And we used to joke about this, you know, which is kind of ironic that he and I can
[01:47:11] never be in the same vehicle because we were the only ones big enough to move the other guy
[01:47:18] if we needed to, which is what played out. So I see him in there, big dude wedged in a pile of
[01:47:25] metal that's on fire rounds outside the vehicle rounds inside the vehicle. Anyone else inside
[01:47:29] the vehicle? No. How is that? So it seemed like two got ejected or three got ejected. There were
[01:47:40] two in the back, the guy in the turret, and then the driver managed to scathing scamper out of that
[01:47:48] of that doorway before I got there. Were they Afghans or Americans? Was it all Americans?
[01:47:55] All Americans except for one of my turps, one of my interpreters was in that truck.
[01:48:00] God, I can't believe these guys made it out of there. Yeah, it's freaking crazy. It is. It is crazy.
[01:48:05] Because they all lived, but I assumed that everyone would be dead based on the level of damage.
[01:48:12] So I jump in the truck and I kind of just wedge him up a little bit out of the area where he was,
[01:48:20] kind of pressed him into the dash. And then I climbed myself back out and then just grabbed his
[01:48:26] kit and just like dead lifted him out of this thing and just chucked him over the side of the
[01:48:31] truck. And at this point, some of our partner force guys had showed up, a couple of my teammates
[01:48:35] had showed up. So they took him, busted out of Lita, began moving him. The truck pretty much burnt
[01:48:42] up completely within a minute or so after we were both out. And then we just circled around to find,
[01:48:50] scoop up all the rest of the guys that were just in random areas around, set up a CCP and then
[01:48:56] finished the fight and then went to our med course action.
[01:49:00] How far back was it to get back to base? We were maybe three, four miles out.
[01:49:07] So did you go back before you cast the guys? No, we set up an HLZ right there. Bird came in,
[01:49:14] we pushed out the dudes, they did launch a ground QRF element from one of the sister teams that was
[01:49:19] in the valley with us. They showed up on the ground. We met a back to five or six guys that were in
[01:49:24] that truck right from there. And then eventually I got medivac'd out after.
[01:49:33] Did you guys blow that freaking truck in place or did it burn so much that you didn't even have to do anything?
[01:49:38] I tried, they strapped a couple charges to it. But it was pretty much destroyed. Anyway,
[01:49:44] they recovered some of the combo stuff and then bit like the rest. But I was treating one of the
[01:49:51] guys in the vehicle once we established the CCP, his one of our attachments, one of our
[01:49:56] nerdy attachments, although important, his eye had come out of his head. So his eye was like
[01:50:02] dangling down where his cheek is. So I was treating him, put the eye back in the socket and I'm wrapping
[01:50:07] it up with gauze. And one of my teammates comes over and just slaps some gauze against the side
[01:50:13] of my face. And this is like 90 minutes after initial contact. And I'm looking up at him like,
[01:50:18] and I'm looking up at him like, what are you doing? And he's like, bro, you're like gushing blood.
[01:50:23] I'm like, really? I'm like, all right, so he's holding the thing against my face. I'm putting
[01:50:28] this guy's eye back in his head. And then I, you know, stand up, I take a look at it. I didn't take
[01:50:34] a look at it. I'm like talking to him. I'm talking to him. And my medic was like, yeah, I think we're
[01:50:40] going to need to get you out of here to get that looked at. And, you know, I throw another childish
[01:50:46] type of tantrum right there. I refused to leave until the other guys were out and then the QRF
[01:50:52] showed up. So they showed up situation under control. They were going to escort them back to base.
[01:50:58] There was one bird that had come back in. So I jumped on that. And then I was made it back to out.
[01:51:05] And then how was it? Was the result of that? I mean, would they do stitch it up?
[01:51:09] No, they had to cauterize it. I guess because it clipped an artery. So they sent me to Bagram,
[01:51:15] which is where the rest of the guys were at. And I wanted to just be with those dudes. I wasn't
[01:51:22] sure if some of them were going to live. I mean, some of them were like real banged up. So I wanted
[01:51:26] to get there and be with them. And I had a little bit of a situation with some of the army staff
[01:51:30] that were at the hospital. They have this protocol where they don't allow a kit, grenades, weapons,
[01:51:35] like they secure all that stuff into like a separate area. I had never been in a hospital
[01:51:39] like this before. And I just come blasting in the front door, angry, looking for my teammates. And,
[01:51:46] you know, two or three of these little like E3 med kids were like, stop physically like getting
[01:51:53] in my way to try to take my weapons and kit from me. And I did not appreciate that at all.
[01:52:00] Fortunately, one of them, another SF guy that was there came over and grabbed me and pulled me
[01:52:06] in real tight and was like, you need to calm down, man. So I gave him my stuff. And there happened
[01:52:14] to be a army reservist doctor was in Bagram, who in his day to day job owns a plastic surgery clinic.
[01:52:24] So he's an army doctor. And then he's a plastic surgeon civilian life. He was the guy that treated
[01:52:29] me. So he pulls me over and he's like, Hey, man, I gotta, I'm going to cauterize your wound. And
[01:52:34] then I'm going to, I'm going to sew it back up. I'm going to get you on some pain management stuff
[01:52:40] like now, like, interveneously. And I'm like, no, you're not doing that. And he's like, no,
[01:52:47] it's like gonna, it's gonna be unpleasant. I'm like, do listen doc, like hit me with some
[01:52:52] lidocaine if you want, that's fine. Some like numb it up. But you're not going to put me out of my
[01:52:57] mind. I'm not going to be stoned and drifting around this place in pixie land. Two of my teammates
[01:53:04] are in surgery. Three other ones are bedside right there. You need to hurry up and do whatever this
[01:53:09] is so I can go do my job, which is to be next to those guys right now. So the sort of commander
[01:53:16] had showed up because there's six or now I think seven of us wounded, he shows up and
[01:53:20] the doctor looks over at him and sort of commanders like just, just go ahead and do it. So I'm laying
[01:53:28] down on my side and he, this little medical welder that goes in and, you know, like burns it back
[01:53:33] together and then so is it shut and, you know, it's stuck. But I was so angry and filled with
[01:53:39] just rage and concern that it really wasn't that big of a deal. And then you said all the guys that
[01:53:45] got wounded, they lived. Yeah. Yeah. And yet how many of them got Kazovac out of country?
[01:53:53] All of them. So now how many guys you got left on your freaking team?
[01:53:57] So out of the out of the six, only two were SF guys. Okay. Our captain and our,
[01:54:05] another one of our weapons guys, another one of another Bravo, the guy was an a turret.
[01:54:09] So they replaced my captain. They gave us a new captain who was already in country. He was working
[01:54:18] out as like a staff support officer in one of the other locations. They pushed him to us.
[01:54:24] And then it's back to business. Yeah. You get back up and it's like,
[01:54:31] uh, you got to adjust to this new captain. You got to work through the guys that you did lose,
[01:54:39] the other guys that that left, even though they weren't, they weren't attached to your ODA, but
[01:54:44] you got to replace them somehow. So you can start figuring the stuff out how, how long it
[01:54:47] would take for you guys were going back out on ops. Yeah, there was definitely a lag.
[01:54:52] That was the end of November. So right around early December was when the snow came in anyway.
[01:54:59] And when you're at 75, 7,800 feet in the mountains, I mean, that's like real snow,
[01:55:05] like feet of snow. So the timing was kind of good for us because no one can move when you've got
[01:55:13] nine feet of snow outside in the mountains. So everything just kind of goes on pause for a little
[01:55:17] bit from like December through like the end of January. That's where we got a new captain.
[01:55:22] We got plused up with a couple more attachments to backfill the dudes that we had lost.
[01:55:27] So we had, you know, eight, nine weeks together just to kind of get our stuff together, bring the
[01:55:32] new captain of the speed. So by the time we were ready to kind of get back into it, come early
[01:55:37] February timeframe, he was, he was good to go. And then you start doing ops again. Yeah.
[01:55:45] And now you're working like you were talking about earlier, you're starting to do some bigger ops,
[01:55:50] and you've got a bunch of other Afghans coming in from different areas, different units,
[01:55:56] and that could be sketchy. And you guys know it's sketchy.
[01:56:01] Yeah. We, we prefer to keep our, our, our task org with our internal unit, because we lived with
[01:56:12] this A&AsF team. And we're talking about like a broken down clay, you know, structures. Like
[01:56:19] when I say we were living together, I mean, we were living together. Right. So you, you, you gain
[01:56:24] that bond with those, with those guys, and you learn them, you learn their personalities, their
[01:56:28] character, their, their quirks. When you start throwing, you know, hundred random dudes at us,
[01:56:34] because we're going to go do some massive village clients. You don't know any of these guys. We
[01:56:39] have been training them like randomly within our training cycle, where we would run through,
[01:56:45] you know, a couple of days with the Afghan national army, a couple of days with the Afghan
[01:56:49] national police, couple of days with the ALP, the local police guys, our own guys. So there was a
[01:56:54] there was a system in place, but they're still just sending us whoever they wanted to go to train
[01:56:59] in that day. And you know, you said, you mentioned earlier that the threat, IED threat started to
[01:57:05] be surpassed by the threat of an insider attack. So was there insider attacks before you guys had
[01:57:14] yours? Yeah. And so you guys are full, full aware like this shit can happen. Yeah, we were,
[01:57:19] we didn't take it as seriously as we should have. We didn't prioritize it enough to instill greater
[01:57:31] mitigation criteria. We had some stuff in place, but we got, we were sloppy, I think as a detachment.
[01:57:38] It's not anything you can prevent by any means, but we could have done a better job to mitigate it,
[01:57:45] you know, and a lot of the lessons that have gone out from the event with us,
[01:57:48] which is still considered the most catastrophic insider attack since 9 11 is the lessons learned
[01:57:55] from that are being employed now really much as like, as like pretty much a baseline for all the
[01:58:00] guys that work with with indige. All right. So, so let's get there. It's March 11th, 2013. And you
[01:58:08] guys are getting ready for some kind of a big operation. What are you doing to clearance? We,
[01:58:13] what were you planning to do? Yeah, we were doing a larger village clearance. I believe
[01:58:23] my memory is terrible during this whole timeframe because of me getting banged up that day. But I
[01:58:29] believe we were going to do like a 48 hour clearance with Iran and we were sit tight. I think it was
[01:58:39] more of an ALP checkpoint establishment mission to begin building something from nothing.
[01:58:46] And so this is one of those ops where you have a bunch of other Afghans that you don't know. Maybe
[01:58:51] you've seen them sporadically, but I mean, look, you get freaking a group of a hundred Afghans
[01:58:57] that you saw three months ago, you know, like who knows who these guys are. They might as well
[01:59:03] just been right. Random. So you guys had some, some standard operating procedures as far as
[01:59:12] what you would, how you conduct these operations because you knew it, you know, it is a threat.
[01:59:15] You know that an insider attack is there's some level of threat to it. So you have some standard
[01:59:21] operating procedures about how you're treating the Afghans. Correct. And keeping them some keeping
[01:59:28] some kind of distance. And so what is basically like you would only allow the leadership into the
[01:59:33] compound. That was kind of the standard operating procedure. Yeah. So our compound had two layers
[01:59:37] to it internal, which is where we lived and where our ops center was. And then we had outside that
[01:59:43] perimeter was where our motor pool was. So we kept our vehicles, fuel weapons, or not weapons, but
[01:59:48] other storage. So our SOP was for an op, the units would show up, they would stay outside of our
[01:59:59] entire perimeter. The leadership would come into our motor pool area. So we could brief them on
[02:00:06] what we were doing. Standard practice is you want to keep that window where you notify your
[02:00:12] partner force where you're going as narrow as you can, because they talk. So in an attempt to reduce
[02:00:18] that word getting out, we would just tell them right there and then and then we would roll.
[02:00:25] And that worked for us, you know, and the Bravo section 18 Bravo section is responsible for base
[02:00:32] defense. Right. So meet my team and I or my my section and I we the ones that put this together
[02:00:38] team size and obviously is the one that says yes, because we roll with and it worked that entire
[02:00:45] time. On this particular day, leadership comes in and a Ford range of pickup truck rolls in.
[02:00:56] And I immediately see it, obviously, it sticks out to me because it's a violation of the SOP
[02:01:00] that we developed and we've been executing two, three times a week for five and a half months.
[02:01:05] Is it like a technical does it have a mounted machine gun in it? I wouldn't call it a technical,
[02:01:10] but there was a mounted PKM in the back. I think a technical, I mean, I was in Eastern Africa,
[02:01:15] there's like different kinds of like Mad Max technicals. Yeah. So it's not an upgraded technical,
[02:01:20] it's like the lowest form of a technical possible. Yeah. You know, but a but a mounted PKM in the
[02:01:26] back, 100% mounted PKM in the back that a machine gun to operate from a standing position.
[02:01:32] That rolls in with two dudes and I see it and my first response wasn't oh,
[02:01:38] shit, this is a threat. It was, you know, these idiots just can't follow instruction,
[02:01:44] which is pretty common in Afghanistan. So my first response was just, I'm annoyed
[02:01:50] that you're doing this. And now I'm at a crossroads, man. And it's either,
[02:01:56] do I address this problem right now, an error on the side of security? Or do I let it ride?
[02:02:02] I go the more diplomatic route where my team sergeant talks to his leadership or my commander
[02:02:09] talks to his leadership and we handle it after the fact. I went with the more diplomatic option.
[02:02:16] This is it. And you've been working, I mean, you've had this SOP, it's worked,
[02:02:21] you've been working with a bunch of Afghans like, oh, these idiots,
[02:02:24] it's all just kind of leaning you in that direction of like, these people are stupid.
[02:02:29] And, you know, I'll square this away when we're done with the brief. Yeah, you know,
[02:02:33] and it's easy to look back and judge, which I do to myself about how easy you can get complacent,
[02:02:40] which is true. But when you've seen so many things that could have gone wrong, that didn't,
[02:02:47] you become conditioned to these types of mistakes or these types of acts by your
[02:02:52] partner force. It's not, they don't jump out as these glaring red flashing holy shit lights.
[02:03:00] But I noticed it and I'm like, you know what, I'll deal with this later. Let's just get through
[02:03:03] this mission and we'll address it after the fact. And this is the perfect storm because
[02:03:11] we do the mission brief, get our partner force leadership up to speed on what we're doing.
[02:03:16] And then we're doing our own team internal comms checks. So we're in a circle.
[02:03:19] And, you know, you go around, you go around the circle, right? Like Alpha up Bravo one up Bravo
[02:03:26] two up everyone's just checking comms. The trucks are all pretty much right behind me.
[02:03:32] They're all up and running. Coms are good in the truck. Weapons are good in the truck. First
[02:03:35] thing we do. Well, when I got our vehicle set up, I had left my go bag, my rifle, and then my
[02:03:45] crew surf all inside the vehicle. Important lesson to note. I have my Glock on me and I'm overdoing
[02:03:57] mission brief and final comps checks. Okay. My radio is good to go. And I immediately
[02:04:03] turned stop walking towards my truck, right? Kind of insubordinate because you're really
[02:04:07] supposed to stay there until everyone's good to go. Well, I'm like, I'm good. I can hear you.
[02:04:10] You can hear me. I'm going to go get my vehicle. And I'm walking away from the group. And that's
[02:04:16] when I hear the rounds crack off from behind me. And my first thought again was one of our Afghan
[02:04:23] partners had just indeed their weapon, just negligently discharged their weapon, which also
[02:04:27] wouldn't be unheard of. But after the second round, third round, fourth round, you know,
[02:04:32] I can tell it's coming from a belt fed machine gun, like no, no, someone's deliberately shooting
[02:04:36] at something. And I snap my head around. And one of those guys sure enough, I jumped up on the back
[02:04:42] of that four range and was just opening up into the crowd. Perfect setup for that. We're all lumped
[02:04:49] together. And he's, you know, 20 feet away with a PKM ripping into the crew. So I see that. And
[02:05:00] my first thought is move to cover, eliminate the threat, like just react to near ambush. And
[02:05:06] although I've played this game now, I don't know, infinite amount of times in my mind, I wonder if
[02:05:12] I had had my primary weapon system on me, would I have done what I am supposed to do? Because I had
[02:05:17] cover right there. There were four or five armored trucks right next to me. Take a couple steps
[02:05:23] over, weapon system comes up, problem goes away. And we move on with life. What I see,
[02:05:32] after I see the shooter is one of our infantry uplift. Soldiers who was scheduled to be a driver
[02:05:39] for us that day, frozen. And he's maybe eight feet in front of me. And he's like a deer in
[02:05:45] headlights. And he's staring at a guy with a machine gun shooting in his direction, 15,
[02:05:51] 20 feet in front of him. I see that. And although I know what I'm supposed to do,
[02:06:02] my love of a teammate superseded me doing my actual job. So instead of moving to some cover
[02:06:10] and eliminating the threat, I move towards this kid. And I take maybe just like three, four aggressive
[02:06:17] steps. I'm coming in pretty hot. And I get my back to the gunner and I get in front of this kid.
[02:06:25] And that's when I'm hit for the first time, just below my right ass cheek, upper thigh, boom,
[02:06:32] knocks me down on top of the soldier. And then I feel another two, three impacts to my legs.
[02:06:40] So I know I'm hit. I don't know the, I don't know the severity of it, but I've been hit before.
[02:06:47] I'm hit again. Okay, we'll deal with this here in a second. And I drag myself and this kid,
[02:06:54] you know, maybe four or five feet behind the front corner of another truck to get us a little bit
[02:07:00] of cover. People are dropping all around us. People are scrambling. I get to this, this next location.
[02:07:08] I don't have my rifle on me. There was a rifle laying on the ground next to me that I've seen
[02:07:14] your medic. It was his weapon. He had been hit. I roll over, I grab that, I throw that into action.
[02:07:20] I'm laying on my back. I put a couple horribly placed rounds towards this threat who's still
[02:07:27] engaging. And then one of my teammates comes in and smokes this dude. This was the initiation of a
[02:07:34] complex ambush. So we start taking machine gun fire and rockets from outside of the outside of the camp.
[02:07:39] So immediate threats been removed. I can tell that we're in a firefight, but I'm in no position to
[02:07:47] address any of those problems. So I go to my next course action and I check this soldier who I'm
[02:07:51] still kind of laying on top of who's just in shock, but there's no holes in them and he can breathe.
[02:07:59] So no massive, no massive hemorrhaging. He got an airway. Okay, we're good.
[02:08:03] I now look to see how bad my damage is. So I ripped my pant leg open and my right leg is just mangled.
[02:08:15] Doc's estimated it was probably four or five rounds I took to that leg. I took one to my
[02:08:20] lower left leg, which I didn't even know about for like weeks, weeks later. The right leg was
[02:08:26] definitely the problem. And the river of blood that was flowing from me to where I had initially
[02:08:32] been hit was substantial. So I know my femoral artery has been clipped. So time is, is of the
[02:08:44] essence, right? I know due to training, I have probably maybe eight to 12 minutes before I'm
[02:08:50] completely blood out. So I grab a kid, grab a tourniquet off my kid, I slap that on,
[02:08:55] wrench it down, lock in the windlass. Bleeding doesn't stop. Second one goes on. I put a second
[02:09:01] one on myself, put that down. Looks like the bleeding may have slowed down a little bit.
[02:09:08] But I can tell I'm still bleeding. A teammate gets to me and he's like, you're in bad shit.
[02:09:15] Like I had the look on his face, said everything I needed to know. He puts on a third tourniquet
[02:09:22] and then he gets IV access for blood or from meds or whatever. And I was trying to like get him
[02:09:28] away from me originally. Like I know I'm dead. Like I'm in the expecting category. Like I don't
[02:09:32] know who's doing triage right now, but I need to be with the group that isn't going to make it.
[02:09:37] I'm with the group that you don't waste your time on because I know there's a lot of people
[02:09:41] that are down right now and I know that I'm not one that can be saved. So get like get away from me.
[02:09:46] He ignores me and does what he needs to do. Third tourniquet IV access and then his work was pretty
[02:09:52] much done. So he moves on. Well, I'm still confident that I'm still bleeding out. So I'm
[02:10:02] thinking, man, have I done everything I can do? So I decided to grab some gauze out of my kit
[02:10:08] and ball it up into a little power ball, just taking gauze and creating this little ball out of it.
[02:10:15] I loosen up one of the tourniquets and I just wedge this gauze up into my thigh and I'm kind
[02:10:21] of reaching up towards my hip looking for the to feel the pulse of the ottery. And we do training
[02:10:29] to be able to do this, but it's on something else other than, you know, you. And when you're
[02:10:35] bleeding at that volume, all the blood starts to shunt inwards to your organs to protect your body
[02:10:43] to survive as long as you can. So my hands are real numb. I can't really feel anything.
[02:10:48] I think I feel something. I'm brushing past broken FEMA. My FEMA was shattered. So now the pain is
[02:10:55] really kicking in for the first time and I'm trying to stay conscious. I feel something. I think I
[02:11:01] just wedge down as hard as I can. Press that gauze in, feed the rest of the gauze in on top of it,
[02:11:07] re-secure the tourniquet on top, lock that in. And then my work there was pretty much done.
[02:11:20] You cover that in the book. You say, this is going to hurt. I rammed the power ball into my leg,
[02:11:27] reaching up toward my hip. It hurts. I'm feeling for the femoral artery. It needs direct pressure
[02:11:32] to pinch the bleeding off. The problem is the remaining blood in my system is shunting away
[02:11:37] from my extremities to protect my vital organs. My hands feel like meat mittens. Zero dexterity
[02:11:44] or fine motor skills in my fingers. The only way I can tell I'm brushing past my shattered FEMA
[02:11:50] is the shearing shockwave it sends through my body. Going unconscious seems inevitable.
[02:11:55] There it is. I think I feel a pulse inside my leg. No way to be sure, but the clock is ticking.
[02:12:03] Only a matter of minutes, if that until I am completely blood out. And only matter of seconds
[02:12:09] before I pass out. I ram the power ball down as hard as I can. The pain rips through my body,
[02:12:15] attempting to eject from my eyeballs. I feed more gauze on top of the power ball,
[02:12:20] just as our medics taught us. I re secure the tourniquet on top of it. Tighten the strap,
[02:12:25] twist the windlass, lock it in and pass out. I wake up what I think is just a few moments later.
[02:12:34] I wasn't out for long. I look at my leg and determine my work here is done.
[02:12:40] All right, that's enough sleeping on the job. Get back to work. Be there for your brothers.
[02:12:44] I drag myself maybe six feet to a teammate. He is taken around through the calf, nothing life
[02:12:51] threatening, although certainly painful. The guys have applied some interventions already,
[02:12:57] including a tourniquet, which seems to have stopped the bleeding, but he's in severe pain.
[02:13:02] Note, tourniquet save lives and essential tool, but that comes with some impressive pain for the
[02:13:07] patient. I do what I can to distract him, provide some verbal relief. My efforts create minimal
[02:13:14] effects, but it is what I feel to be the best use of whatever time I have left, which I am certain
[02:13:21] is not long. At some point, I go unconscious again. When I come to I'm being carried out on a stretcher.
[02:13:30] Seems like they are preparing me for Medevac. I am right. How long has it been? How long was I
[02:13:37] unconscious? It doesn't matter. I'm still alive. Still in the fight. The bird touches down. My
[02:13:46] teammates load me on. One of them grabs my face, looks me in the eyes and says, I love you, brother.
[02:13:56] My heart is full. What an honor to have served with such men. What an honor to die alongside such
[02:14:04] warriors.
[02:14:15] Our Medevacs and our docs and our medical military operations are so good that a lot of time,
[02:14:37] it's like, oh, if you get on the bird, if you're alive getting on the bird, there's a really good
[02:14:42] chance you're going to make it. It doesn't sound like you're thinking that way. No. I just hearing
[02:14:53] that you read that, like, puts me back in that place, man. I wasn't sure how long I had been
[02:15:04] still on the ground, but I knew it was it was quite a bit of time. So
[02:15:08] I was surprised that I was still even alive at that point.
[02:15:18] I was convinced that that was it, though. That was where it was ended.
[02:15:28] Your boys put cast all over that valley, by the way, drop all kinds of bombs. You're on the first
[02:15:34] Medevac bird out, obviously. You get to the AOB surgery clinic. And this is freaking nuts.
[02:15:48] You get you need a blood transfusion because you've lost a ton of blood. And somehow,
[02:15:55] you end up with the wrong type of blood. Wrong type of blood transfusion, which is
[02:16:01] horrible. Do you remember any of that? You're not you're not conscious at this point, are you?
[02:16:10] I remember being at that aid station. It's spotty. But I do remember getting pulled off the bird
[02:16:17] and getting thrown on the table. And then just, you know, the Med Staff scrambling to work on me.
[02:16:23] So the next they get you stable enough, or at least they think they get you stable enough
[02:16:31] to get you from the aid station to to Bagram.
[02:16:35] They don't know what the problem is with me other than I'm crashing hard. So they put me on a
[02:16:43] helicopter to send me to Bagram where there's a full scale hospital. At this location that I was at
[02:16:48] first was a full surgical team that certainly has medical capability. But once they put me on that
[02:16:54] transfusion, everything began shutting down. They didn't know why, but they knew I needed to get to
[02:16:59] Bagram immediately. It was while I was flying to Bagram, which was maybe a nine, 10 minute flight,
[02:17:06] that they realized what happened with the blood because they were given my teammate,
[02:17:10] my blood type, and they were giving me his. We have very similar last names. They both begin
[02:17:17] with LA. So they just switched up the names. Well, they're pumping him full of positive,
[02:17:22] which is my blood type, which is I'm a universal donor. I can give blood to anybody. So he's fine.
[02:17:27] But when they looked to see what they were giving him, they were like,
[02:17:31] wait a minute, and they looked to check to see what they just gave me. And it was like eight units.
[02:17:35] I mean, it was a ton. That's what they, that's when they realized what happened. So I'm airborne.
[02:17:41] And they call Bagram and they say, we just pumped Nick full of AB negative. There's no way he survives
[02:17:48] this flight. I was already in critical condition to begin with. There's no way he survives the flight,
[02:17:54] just be prepared to receive his body when he gets there. And in a lot of ways, they were right.
[02:17:58] I mean, I coded on that flight. And to your point, the flight medics were getting real creative
[02:18:05] with keeping me alive. So panels and the whole thing is out. I think they were hitting me with
[02:18:11] like shots of adrenaline and just like whatever tools they had to keep me clinging on. Pull me
[02:18:19] off the bird, get me into surgery. They take my foot off immediately. Really, I mean, it was,
[02:18:25] it was probably dead at that point, because now we're talking 90 minutes close to two hours since
[02:18:30] the point of injury. But really, it was just trying to minimize how much damage my body was
[02:18:35] trying to recover from. And then, uh, innovative dialysis, transfusion machines are just keeping
[02:18:43] me alive, you know, at this point. And that was the, that was the case for like three or four days
[02:18:50] at Bagram.
[02:18:54] What's the first thing that you remember when you come back? Where are you?
[02:18:59] I remember, um, coming to at Bagram a couple of times and I was restrained to the bed because I had
[02:19:07] been trying to rip the breathing tube out when I would wake up. When you're, when you're
[02:19:16] animated, you know, a machine is breathing for you. But when you try to breathe yourself against
[02:19:22] that, it can throw off the timing of the machine. So it feels like you're like suffocating.
[02:19:27] It's a horrible feeling. So I would, I was trying to get this tube out of my mouth when I would come to.
[02:19:33] I don't remember doing that, but I just remember coming to and being like restrained to a bed
[02:19:39] and wanting to, for someone to put me out of my misery.
[02:19:45] And then when, when do you come to again? Like, what's your next memory? When's your first full,
[02:19:50] when do they take you out of coma? When do they bring you back and let you start talking and thinking
[02:19:55] and what does that happen? I remember, um, my now wife who was deployed and working at a Bagram.
[02:20:04] I remember coming to a couple of times and seeing her bedside. I remember my sort of command, I'd be
[02:20:13] in bedside a lot talking to me. But my last real memory is when they were moving me from
[02:20:19] Bagram to load me on to a fixed wing bird to fly me to Germany, which took about five days for them
[02:20:25] to stabilize me enough to survive the flight to Germany. I remember getting loaded on that bird,
[02:20:32] which is wild. Those, those C-130s that are outfitted. It's like a hospital on, you know, with wings.
[02:20:38] I remember getting on that flight. Um, I don't remember much from Germany. I was only there a day.
[02:20:45] You know, you lost your leg at this point? No. Or your foot? No. No. Nope. Um, no recollection of
[02:20:52] that, no knowledge of that. They took my leg up to the knee at Germany and then they flew me from
[02:20:57] there to Walter Reed the next day. And I get to Walter Reed and my father was there. My mother
[02:21:05] was there. I went straight into the intensive care unit, which is where I spent the next like
[02:21:10] six weeks because it was still real touch and go. And it was around that. It was at that point that I
[02:21:15] realized my leg was, was gone or at least a part of it was gone.
[02:21:23] Did you think you were going to be, did they think was it when you realized you had lost your leg,
[02:21:29] was it above the knee or below the knee? By the time I realized it was already above the knee.
[02:21:35] Um, they had taken it above the knee at Walter Reed and the chief of ortho came in to the intensive
[02:21:44] care unit and he, he looks at me and I'm whacked out. I'm on ketamine and a lot of it, you know,
[02:21:49] I'm on a high cocktail of pain management meds. But he looks at me and he's like, Hey man, I'm
[02:21:54] Dr. So-and-so chief ortho. Here's the situation. You've been here about three or four days.
[02:22:01] Your leg, most of your leg is gone. What's left of it is riddled with bacteria and infection.
[02:22:09] Any one of these things could kill you. So my staff wants to take you into surgery right now
[02:22:16] and amputate your leg at the hip and just get rid of this problem that could kill you and just get
[02:22:22] you on with life. But I think I can save more of your leg. I think I can save more of your leg
[02:22:27] but I think I can save more of your leg. It's just going to be a street fight and I need you
[02:22:35] like in the fight with me. And I just met this guy, you know, he's telling me that
[02:22:41] this problem could kill me at any moment, but he wants to like slug it out with me. And I don't
[02:22:47] think I really processed medically what he was saying. I just heard like, let's get into a fight
[02:22:52] together. Do you want to do that? And I was like, yes. Who's got we taking? Yeah. Yeah, right.
[02:22:58] Who's got we taking? We're going to hurt some people and you can never ask me about it again.
[02:23:01] Who's got we taking? That was that was it. I think I just heard that and I said, let's do that.
[02:23:07] And he said, okay. So that began my regiment of surgeries three or four times a week. And they
[02:23:17] were just going in and amputating more and more and more cutting out dead tissue, cutting out more
[02:23:22] bone. Monday, Wednesday, Friday was kind of my typical routine. And then flushing me with antibiotics,
[02:23:29] hoping that the infection would get taken care of. And then it was just rinse and repeat like that
[02:23:33] for, you know, a month or so, five weeks, six weeks, something like that until the infection
[02:23:38] eventually stopped, which left me with pretty much what I have today.
[02:23:42] Oh, yeah, let's do it. You got a section in here where you're talking about as you begin
[02:23:53] as you begin rehab. So you get right into it says on one particular day, I was walking my
[02:24:01] laps around the track. So I'm fast forwarding a little bit, right? Obviously, there's and when
[02:24:06] you get the book, you can get some of these other details. I'm fast forward a little bit.
[02:24:10] One particular day I was walking my laps around the track one step at a time.
[02:24:14] It was packed. In fact, in fact, a bunch of New York Yankees were there visiting service members.
[02:24:19] I typically avoided these meet and greet moments like the plague when I was working. Kelly knew
[02:24:24] this and Kelly was your rehab physical therapist physical therapist. Kelly knew this and did an
[02:24:31] amazing job of shielding me from unnecessary distractions. I'm pretty sure she literally
[02:24:34] hissed at a dude one time like an angry cat. Given that on this day, it was the Yankees. I was
[02:24:39] even less interested. Go socks. I was in a good stride. My prosthetic had had a solid fit that
[02:24:47] day and I needed to push it. I decided to hold a 90 pound barbell straight overhead in order to
[02:24:52] increase the difficulty. Off I went shoulders burning core burning glutes burning perfect.
[02:24:58] We were working. I picked up speed. I didn't have a set number of laps in mind. I just planned
[02:25:02] on going until I couldn't go anymore. My body began to twitch uncontrollably. Fatigue set in.
[02:25:08] I was right at muscle failure. I got one more lap in me. Let's go. I rounded the corner of the track
[02:25:13] and lost my balance. I already knew how this was going to play out. My wipeout was of epic
[02:25:17] proportions. The barbell went one way, my body, the other and my prosthetic detached completely.
[02:25:23] It was a totally yard sale. The barbell slammed on the floor, clanging around, looking for a
[02:25:27] target. It found the legs of a physical therapist who was coaching a patient through a stationary
[02:25:31] bike workout. The therapist fell on her back with a thud knocking the wind out of her. My body went
[02:25:37] flailing into a rack of medicine balls neatly organized according to weight. The heavier ones
[02:25:41] at the bottom, the lighter ones at top, all of which were now bouncing or rolling in all directions
[02:25:46] through the facility. The photo op with the Yankees stopped. The stretches stopped. All
[02:25:51] conversations stopped. Everything stopped. As I lay on the ground, I conducted a quick damage
[02:25:55] assessment. Fingers, arms, leg, head, everything seemed to be functioning. The therapist I knocked
[02:26:00] over regained her breathing ability. I asked if she was all right. She was fine and asked the
[02:26:06] same of me. I looked around the gym to see that nobody had moved an inch. Nobody, including Kelly,
[02:26:11] had made the slightest attempt to either slow me down before I wrecked or come to my aid once I did.
[02:26:16] It was business as usual. I strapped my leg back on and staggered over to Kelly. The only damage
[02:26:22] was to my pride. You good? She asked. Yeah, I'm good. Think I didn't swing completely through
[02:26:30] and my foot hit the ground behind me. Yeah, that sounds right. Now go pick up those med balls and
[02:26:35] meet me over at the squat rack. So you're freaking good. How long was it? How long was it that you
[02:26:42] were like laid up? You're getting the surgeries before you got fitted for a prosthetic and all
[02:26:47] that? Yeah, I got fitted for my first prosthetic probably 10, 12 weeks after getting there.
[02:26:54] And which is, you know, a monumental step in the process. Unfortunately, this is quite common.
[02:27:00] I needed a couple surgical revisions after that had happened, which is really difficult to deal with
[02:27:06] because it pretty much puts you back at square one. You know, your leg changes shape. The swelling
[02:27:12] sets in. You have to wait until you can get recast it for another prosthetic. It kind of starts
[02:27:17] that clock over again. I had to go through that twice, you know, in those setbacks. And I talk
[02:27:22] about this often, you know, like that's what separates those that can continue to make the
[02:27:27] strides. And oftentimes is what just derails people. They just can't deal with that, with that
[02:27:33] setback. How long was this like a five week, eight week setback? Yeah, no, I'd say maybe around three
[02:27:38] or four. Okay. But they don't man, that's freaking, you know, yeah, it's tough because you're making
[02:27:43] that you can see the progress you're making and then boom, you're back to where you were. And this
[02:27:47] is like a revision. They do surgery. They fit you with a prosthetic. You start walking on all of
[02:27:52] a sudden like the way your bone is, is jacked up or it's sticking out or something. And they've
[02:27:57] got to go in there and shave that thing down. Yep. Exactly that. And then you got to get all
[02:28:02] healed up and start again. Yeah. So what you just read was probably around July timeframe,
[02:28:10] where I was done with surgeries. And I was really making substantial progress, working with my
[02:28:16] prosthetic. I got to the hospital and match. So, you know, a few months after that was when I was
[02:28:23] done with surgeries completely. And I was really getting after it. Freaking walking around with
[02:28:30] a prosthetic with 90 pound barbell over your head. Yeah. You were going freaking hard. I was,
[02:28:38] I was, I mean, my level of obsession, because I could already see where I was going. Like I knew
[02:28:45] what was in front of me was getting back to the team that happened in the hospital.
[02:28:49] Even before I was on a prosthetic, I was like, I'm going back to my lifestyle and my profession.
[02:28:55] So these training sessions, this was, this was my life. Yeah. You immediately knew you're going
[02:29:00] to go back to an ODA. 100%. Which by the way, in case this wasn't clear, you have no leg.
[02:29:07] Right. And you're saying I'm going back to an ODA. Right. People are actually trying to get you
[02:29:13] to freaking chill out and trying to, you know, that's kind of a funny way of saying it, but people
[02:29:19] are actually trying to get you to adjust your expectations for your life. And you have a section
[02:29:26] in here where it's one of those scenarios. April 2013, my father tells this story better than I do,
[02:29:35] as I heard it only second hand, but on one particular day, a psych came in to visit me
[02:29:40] and I had just been wheeled out for surgery. My father told the doc the deal and they began
[02:29:45] talking a bit. The psych explained to my father that I was continuously talking about returning to
[02:29:51] my job on an SF detachment, doing the same things I had done before, etc. He further explained to
[02:29:57] my father that he felt I was perhaps in a state of shock or denial, simply due to the drugs not
[02:30:03] yet aware of the severity of my situation. He essentially warned my father that at some point
[02:30:09] I would be made aware of how badly I was injured and that the likelihood of me doing what I intended
[02:30:14] to do was extraordinarily unlikely, perhaps impossible. He simply wanted my father to be
[02:30:19] prepared to deal with what could potentially be a dramatic severe fall into depression.
[02:30:26] In hindsight, I may have had the same thoughts and concerns as he did. After all, I was on an
[02:30:31] enormous amount of medication. I was in surgery three times a week and I had expressed my intentions
[02:30:36] were unpro— and my expressed intentions were unprecedented. Additionally, I am positive he
[02:30:42] had seen this cause and effect happen throughout his medical career. So I get it. No hard feelings,
[02:30:48] doc. My father expressed his appreciation for the information and analysis before telling the psych
[02:30:54] that he didn't like— that he didn't see that as likely to happen. My father explained that he
[02:30:59] felt I knew what was going on. I had amazingly accepted the reality of my situation and just as
[02:31:05] quickly had already focused on the next evolution. He told the doc this is just who Nick is.
[02:31:11] My father knows me as well as anybody. He's my best friend in this world. He knew that I knew
[02:31:17] my current situation and that even while doped up with enough painkillers and anesthesia to kill
[02:31:24] a horse, I was already formulating a plan. Freakin' ready to rock, man.
[02:31:38] You were there. Just mentally there. Yeah, man. I was at— how long are you in Waltz Reed for?
[02:31:46] About a year. Total. And that you just— you report in here that it was great for you. Like,
[02:32:00] the medical support that you got, the people there, the people that were training you were just
[02:32:05] freaking good to go. Amazing.
[02:32:07] How is it happening? How does it progress? Like, what happens when the chain of command
[02:32:16] here is that you want to come back? What are they saying?
[02:32:19] So, I mean, I was in communication with them while I was in the hospital and they come visit me
[02:32:24] every now and then and we just maintain comms. But it wasn't so much about tell me what your—
[02:32:30] what your goals are when you get back. It was just how you're doing. Do you need anything? Has
[02:32:33] your family, right? That was the focus. When I left Walter Reed and got back to Bragg,
[02:32:40] I reported back over to their group and I met with the group command team
[02:32:45] the first day in their office. And of course, they're like, welcome back. You look great.
[02:32:51] I'm still early on in the process. I've been in amputee for about a year. So,
[02:32:56] I'm no physical specimen. I'm still hobbling. I'm still limping. I'm still trying to figure
[02:33:01] out how to live life with one leg and I'm sitting in their office. And they eventually asked me,
[02:33:06] so, like, what are your goals? What are you looking to do? And I told them that. I was like,
[02:33:10] I'm going back to the team. And they just said, okay, is that something that you think you can
[02:33:20] do now? And I said, no, no, no, no. I have a lot of work I still need to do. But that's where things
[02:33:25] are going. In the interim, you know, I need a job. I need to provide value here. So, I requested to
[02:33:33] go to the combatives committee to work as an instructor. So, it's a great fit, you know,
[02:33:38] a long time, like combatives dude. And they granted that request. I haven't talked to these guys,
[02:33:46] you know, years later about this exact moment. They'll, they'll, they'll, they'll, I've all told
[02:33:52] me, like we had to do everything in our power to hold back, like the crazy one-eyed look, like,
[02:33:57] what did you just say? Or go down the expectation management kind of brief, that I was getting
[02:34:05] quite a bit at the hospital. They had to fight the urge to do both of those things. And just stay
[02:34:10] kind of cool and neutral. Because they wanted to be supportive of me, right? But as a leader,
[02:34:17] right? Like you also want to be practical to a degree. So, you know, I understand that. They
[02:34:24] didn't think that what I intended to do was, was possible. I didn't think that that was going to
[02:34:30] happen. But they did grant me the request to work as an instructor. And that's when the game really,
[02:34:37] like went up significantly. Because as amazing as the staff is at Walter Reed, their job is to
[02:34:42] keep you alive. And they get you as functional as you can be to live the rest of your life
[02:34:46] with whatever condition you're dealing with. They're not there to train someone to go back
[02:34:51] to an ODA. That's not their job. The guys in my unit, that is their job. So I knew I needed to get
[02:34:57] back to Bragg ASAP to begin training with those guys and gals. First, they needed a job, which my
[02:35:06] unit gave me. And then I knew I needed to fight this thing administratively, which I didn't know
[02:35:10] what that looked like. But I knew it was going to trigger a medical evaluation board, which I referred
[02:35:16] to as a military eviction board, because that's really what they're like, programmed to do. And
[02:35:23] in their defense, most of the guys or gals or service members that they see are looking to
[02:35:28] transition out. So they do place a lot of emphasis on, let's make sure we get your VA rating where it
[02:35:33] needs to be all the documentation, get you maybe an internship for what life looks like as a civilian.
[02:35:38] That's what they're there to do. And I walked in and I'm like, I'm going back to the team.
[02:35:44] And the first person I got linked up with that kind of quarterback you through that process,
[02:35:49] just didn't get it. He just didn't get it. And I fired that guy, which I didn't know I could do.
[02:35:58] But I threw enough of a tepidantrum and talked to his boss. And I was like, you either need to get
[02:36:04] me someone who's on the same page as me, or I'm just going to do this myself. So he was cool.
[02:36:08] He linked me up with this girl who was amazing. My name is Rachel. And she had worked with
[02:36:13] some SF guys that remained on active duty. So she became my girl and she was on the same page as me.
[02:36:22] The admin fight happened at that point, which took about eight months of time.
[02:36:27] So I'm working as an instructor day to day. And I've really just taken the same mentality I had
[02:36:35] at Walter Reed, which in a lot of ways is easier to maintain this because you're living in this
[02:36:40] bubble where your only job is to go to these appointments and you're like living at Walter
[02:36:44] Reed. Once you get home, you got your friends. In my instance, I had my girl who I moved in with.
[02:36:51] Like, does it do these other factors that a part of your life that can distract you or detract from
[02:36:59] the mission? So I had to take the same mentality I had in the hospital and apply that to a normal
[02:37:05] living environment. And with just within the first week of being home, I had to make some real hard
[02:37:12] choices and eliminate anything that didn't need to be there, complete and total reevaluation of how
[02:37:20] I spend every single minute of my day. And if you didn't need to be there, if it didn't need to be there,
[02:37:24] both tasks and people, it was removed. And with tasks, I think it's easier to say, I'm not going
[02:37:33] to watch Netflix anymore. But when you start talking about removing relationships from your life,
[02:37:37] that can be real difficult to do. And I sat down with my now wife. And this is like the courting
[02:37:45] phase of our relationship, right? Like she was in Afghanistan when I got banged up.
[02:37:50] And what was she doing in Afghanistan? What was her job?
[02:37:53] She's active duty. At the time, she was doing psychological operations.
[02:37:57] Got it. But we hadn't spent any real time together. And then I move in with her. And within the first
[02:38:05] week, I sit down with her. I said, Hey, babe, here's the deal. I'm going all in.
[02:38:11] Hey, just real quick. When you're communicating with your significant other, a good way to not
[02:38:18] start this conversation is, Hey, look, here's the deal. So we're getting off to a good start, bro.
[02:38:23] Yeah. All right. Here's the deal. It was the truth, though. Like there was no alternative.
[02:38:29] This is the deal. This isn't like a course of action. This is the way it's going to be.
[02:38:34] I just wanted to be transparent. I'm going all in on this, like complete and total, burn the boats.
[02:38:41] Like, I'm either going to be successful, or I'm going to die trying. That's it. Not negotiable.
[02:38:46] I have to do this. And what that means on the tactical level is that there are no dinners.
[02:38:53] There's no, we're going to go to this wedding. There's no like nothing, nothing, everything gone.
[02:38:59] It's each sleep train repeat until I get successful or they kick me out of the army. That's it.
[02:39:07] And I look back at that conversation now with the family we have, we're married now,
[02:39:15] six years, two young kids, the highlight of my life, most important thing in my life by a mile.
[02:39:22] And all that could have very easily just non-existed if she didn't have the strength to
[02:39:29] be okay with the somewhat craziness that I was communicating to her.
[02:39:36] So I'm incredibly grateful that that happened. It can be tough to talk about because
[02:39:44] it could have all just not been a thing. She was like, okay, Roger that.
[02:39:51] And I think what enabled that was she was also aggressively pursuing her next echelon,
[02:39:58] her next evolution in her career. So she was really dialed in professionally as well.
[02:40:02] So we were both going down in parallel these hyper-focused roads towards our professional
[02:40:08] ambitions at the same time, which helped because she had stuff that she needed to do,
[02:40:14] stuff I needed to do. We'd come together when we could, but it was an interesting
[02:40:17] introduction to our relationship with all this was going on.
[02:40:22] So eight month process of a med board, I'm working as an instructor and I'm just living
[02:40:28] just this completely and total dialed in, minute to minute, hour to hour lifestyle.
[02:40:35] Obviously a lot of physical training was involved. And after about eight months,
[02:40:42] med board complete, the army allowed me to stay in on active duty. Then that check,
[02:40:48] that box was checked and then it was, okay, now I need to get back to the team.
[02:40:51] And now I need to figure out how to go about doing that.
[02:40:55] And it sounds like there's a really specific list of things that you needed to be able to do.
[02:41:02] Like, is it some kind of test, like a fit for duty test? Is that like there was certain tasks
[02:41:08] you had to be able to do? And where's that list come from?
[02:41:13] It was created in real time by my chain of command. There wasn't this laid out pipeline.
[02:41:22] It started off simple. It was go do an army physical fitness test.
[02:41:25] Okay, you did that. And then they threw every army physical fitness program of record at me.
[02:41:32] And once I checked all those blocks, then they started just throwing other stuff at me.
[02:41:39] So they had me, I was getting evaluated cognitively,
[02:41:45] proficiency, they ran me back over to the 18 Bravo committee, which is where I learned how to
[02:41:50] be an 18 Bravo, they threw me back over there for like a one week, two week, train up evaluation
[02:41:56] to see if I can still do my job as a Bravo. They put me in front of psych screening, which
[02:42:01] which no one's admitted this to me yet directly. But I'm confident when I say I was, I was operating
[02:42:08] at such an insane pace and intensity that people thought I was like legitimately crazy.
[02:42:15] You know, people thought I had like a diagnosable problem, whether that was delusional or like
[02:42:20] psychopathic. Like we need to get this guy's mental well being checked out. Cause I think
[02:42:24] he's insane and needs like treatment. The site came back and was like, yeah, he's no crazier
[02:42:29] than he was before. So he's, he's good at this time you're teaching combatives,
[02:42:34] which is who you're teaching combatives to, is it within your own battalion or is it like
[02:42:37] who you teach in combatives to the group? So third group, so third group, you're teaching combatives,
[02:42:43] you're, and then you're just PT and to try and get to be able to do this job. Yep. PT and doing
[02:42:49] a ton of Jiu-Jitsu, competing in Jiu-Jitsu as well, which is a huge part of this overall journey
[02:42:55] is what is that piece of it that not just from a training perspective, but just mentality and
[02:43:00] structure and like technical focus on what I'm doing, adaptation to how do I, how do I do this
[02:43:06] with just one limb now, one leg now. Were you like a purple belt when this thing kicked off?
[02:43:11] No, I was a white belt. I got my blue and my purple after I lost my leg.
[02:43:20] But you trained before you lost your leg. I did. Yeah. I trained. I got into Jiu-Jitsu right after
[02:43:25] I really, I graduated the Q course. So I did that on two legs for a while. And then my Jiu-Jitsu
[02:43:30] journey as an APT started at Walter Reed, they had a local black belt who owned a studio downtown
[02:43:35] Washington who would come to the hospital one day a week. Who's that? Jose. It's like Ortiz.
[02:43:43] His name. Good on him. Awesome dude. I met him at the hospital and then I began training. He
[02:43:48] invited me over into his, into his dojo. So I began training there like three, four nights a week.
[02:43:53] You know, one thing that you, and I forget if I'm going to cover this or not in the book,
[02:43:58] but I want to talk about it anyways. You got this thing that really like struck a chord with me.
[02:44:04] So you explain that when you got a prosthetic, when you put that thing on, there's a clock that
[02:44:11] starts because you can only wear it for so long. And there's a bunch of factors. If it's hot out,
[02:44:18] what activity you're doing. And it made you, that was one of the things that kind of drove this,
[02:44:24] this efficiency in you. Cause you go, okay, when I get this thing on, I have X amount of hours to
[02:44:30] operate walking around. And after that, I got to take it off. And that's, that was one of the
[02:44:36] things you said, okay, as soon as I get this thing on, here's what I got to get done. And that struck
[02:44:41] a chord with me. Cause like that's the attitude you should have regardless in life is like, oh,
[02:44:47] you're going to wake up today. You only have so many hours, but that put a, put an exclamation
[02:44:51] point on that for you. Yeah. I'd say that, you know, having been in the military and special ops
[02:44:57] for, for a bit before this, I was used to living, you know, structured discipline lifestyle, but
[02:45:03] the forcing function of knowing I needed to be able to execute at the highest possible level.
[02:45:09] In order to do that, I needed to be as efficient as possible. You said it, it was about efficiency.
[02:45:13] How do I maximize every moment I have upright on two legs? And I got, I developed a bit of OCD on
[02:45:21] that because if I would, if I would go to leave my house and I would leave something and I'd walk
[02:45:26] 12 steps before I realized I forgot it, that would, that would irritate me because now that's,
[02:45:32] that's 24 steps. I'm not getting back. So there's a, there's a glitch in my system. There's a glitch
[02:45:37] in my, in my protocol. Things aren't prepped where they need to be. This mistake can't happen.
[02:45:43] Again, cause I just lost 24 steps. So I mean, I was dissecting like where I put my phone,
[02:45:49] my keys, my walk, like to the, like to the inch within my life so that I didn't lose 24 steps
[02:45:56] ever again. You were freaking committed to this thing. How, what was the, what was the biggest
[02:46:04] challenge as you, as they threw all these different tests at you, right? They're throwing the army
[02:46:09] PT test at you. They throw this other test at you. What was something that really was a challenger?
[02:46:16] What was the hardest thing? Yeah, the final, the final physical evaluation,
[02:46:20] which was my final overall evaluation was the, was by five, the hottest one. This was at the end
[02:46:24] of about 12 weeks where I was doing one or two assessments a week. And third group, again,
[02:46:32] only operated in Afghanistan. They were dealing with a lot of injuries. So third group took it
[02:46:37] upon themselves to create what they called originally the return to duty physical fitness
[02:46:42] assessment. And that was specifically for guys that were wounded that wanted to go back to
[02:46:46] operational status. They spent months putting this thing together. This was while I was at the hospital.
[02:46:52] And they were telling me about it a little bit and they developed it out. They ran, you know, able
[02:46:58] body guys through it to develop the standards. And it was more of more tasks that were more in line
[02:47:04] with a combat scenario. So as opposed to just, you know, push up setups and running, it was
[02:47:10] tactical tasks like move to cover type drills. Everything's done with a 50 pound weighted vest
[02:47:16] to simulate kit. Most were done with a rubber duck rifle. So it was more tactical tasks,
[02:47:23] 12 events in total. Well, the day before I took mine, this was like my Super Bowl.
[02:47:28] And my training for about six weeks or so leading up to that point was mostly focused on those
[02:47:36] particular tasks. The day before I went in the gym just to loosen up, get some blood flow, get ready
[02:47:45] for my next for the test to happen the following morning. And the group command sergeant major and
[02:47:52] another dude who had been shot through the hand who was trying to go back to the team,
[02:47:56] to the team, they both took it that morning. So I walk in the gym to loosen up and they're both
[02:48:02] sprawled out on the turf, drenched and exhausted. Group command sergeant major is Mark Eckard.
[02:48:08] He just recently retired. He was the most recent use of socks CSM. He's a stud. He's a PT stud able
[02:48:15] body dude stud. He's out on the turf, both of them. I walk over and hey, Sergeant Major, how you doing?
[02:48:23] He's like, not great because that test just kicked my ass. He's like, you're taking this thing
[02:48:28] tomorrow morning. I said, yeah, he's like, this thing's no joke. And I knew it was brutal. I had
[02:48:35] never taken it entirely in its entirety to standard once because I knew it was going to break me off.
[02:48:42] So in my training, I was playing around with different resistances, but I would just lump
[02:48:47] together different groups of them and go back to back to back in repetition. I said, yeah,
[02:48:53] tomorrow morning, he's like, okay, well, I'll be here. You know, good luck. I said, thank you.
[02:48:56] So I show up the next morning. Group command team, battalion command team, company command team,
[02:49:02] and about 50 other dudes are all there. There's a massive entourage. They basically closed the gym.
[02:49:08] Or at least no one was training because everyone was just there to watch. There's my teammates are
[02:49:12] there. And I knocked that out. And the final event on this thing is it doesn't sound bad,
[02:49:22] but it's actually quite miserable. The 12th event and I think you had, I think it was two minutes
[02:49:26] in between each event. The final one, the 12th one is just as a walk on an incline of treadmill.
[02:49:35] And it starts off flat and then every two minutes it increases in elevation. So at the final point,
[02:49:42] you're walking at a 45 degree angle, which is steep. It's at a slow pace, you know, it's like a fast
[02:49:49] like a brisk walk. So you're doing this 50 pound weighted vest 12th event. Well, my issue, similar
[02:49:55] to the way I wiped out there, Walter Reed, was because of the lack of range of motion I have in
[02:49:59] my hip. When the angle is that steep, I can't get my foot out in front of me. So I had to develop
[02:50:07] a technique where once it hit a certain degree of elevation, I would rotate my body laterally.
[02:50:13] And I would laterally shuffle uphill. So my, my, my prosthetic is the trail leg,
[02:50:21] my sound leg is the uphill leg. And that's essentially just pulling me up. So I'm doing
[02:50:26] this little sidewards lateral gallop up this hill, which just looks crazy. So I finish
[02:50:37] event complete. I'm on the verge of passing out. I'm on the verge of going to see the wizard.
[02:50:42] I'm losing peripheral vision. It's getting real spockly around me. And I'm standing there trying
[02:50:48] to look tough. Like I could do it again if I needed to. And groups see us then comes over and he
[02:50:54] says, Amen, you know, I just took this test yesterday and it kicked my ass. He's like,
[02:50:59] if I wasn't here to witness you just do what you just did, I would never believe that that was
[02:51:05] possible. And this is at the end of 12 weeks. And I'm like, all right, dude, thank you. But like,
[02:51:11] what else do you need from me? You know, which my teammates were kind of laughing. I'm talking to
[02:51:16] the group command, Sajam measure. And I'm like, thanks for the thanks for that. But like, what,
[02:51:19] like, what's next? Come on, man, what else, what else is it going to take? He looks over the group
[02:51:25] commander. And he just goes, Hey, Mark, this is your decision. But I don't know how we're going
[02:51:30] to tell this dude no, after what we just put him through. So he mocked at good look to me. And he
[02:51:37] goes, All right, man, you'll have your orders come Monday, and you'll be back back on the team.
[02:51:46] You have a section here in the book, you got a few sections like this in the book where you
[02:51:50] where you have other people that knew you or that know you chime in. You got a section here about
[02:51:57] this. This is by a master Sergeant Jimmy Rooney. And he writes, the ORT is an extremely difficult
[02:52:04] assessment even for able bodied men. Some events are arguably, arguably impossible for an above the
[02:52:10] knee amputee such as the depth drop. In this event, an individual must climb up a four foot
[02:52:15] platform wearing 50 pound weighted vest, jump off, make an athletic landing without touching the
[02:52:20] ground with his hands. Nick's mechanical knee was incapable of articulating in a dynamic fashion,
[02:52:27] and prevented him from sticking the landing. For weeks, Nick drilled this event starting on one
[02:52:31] foot platform with no additional weight and gradually increasing height and weight over time.
[02:52:36] The method he developed to complete this event was to land in a pistol squat position,
[02:52:41] essentially a single leg squat landing. The guys and I watched him practices over and over again.
[02:52:47] The mere thought of doing this myself made my knees and hips hurt. But Nick insisted it was
[02:52:51] possible he meticulously measured out the distance from the platform to where his heel needed to
[02:52:55] land marking it with tape on the ground too far forward, you'd fall backward upon landing too
[02:53:00] close to the platform and his knee may explode. He approached this event like a science experiment,
[02:53:05] a problem that needed to be solved through trial, error, and work. On the day of Nick's
[02:53:09] final physical assessment, the ORT felt as if the entire unit was present. Nick was attempting to
[02:53:14] make history as the first above the knee amputee to return not just to an ODA, but to an ODA set
[02:53:21] once again to deploy to Afghanistan to conduct combat operations. Everybody was in all watching
[02:53:27] him perform. When he completed the last event with our entire command and attendance, he was
[02:53:32] given approval to return to the team. It was one of the most memorable moments we shared.
[02:53:37] So how did Nick put his mind and body in such a positive, motivated, and influential place to
[02:53:43] become so well known as not only one of the most aggressive warriors, but also a life coach, teacher,
[02:53:49] and mentor, I believe Nick's outlook on his environment is where it started. He had to determine
[02:53:55] what it was that he wanted in life and set a plan to achieve it. Nick could have easily become negative
[02:54:01] and bitter and could have medically retired out of the military. Nobody would have fought less
[02:54:05] of him for doing so. He had been through a lot. Instead, Nick chose to pursue what he identified
[02:54:13] as his purpose. I feel the key to Nick's success is that he clearly stated his intent and it gave
[02:54:19] him a reason to get out of bed every morning. This only grew as he continued achieving goals
[02:54:24] along the way. And Nick may not realize it, but he became a model for success in every aspect
[02:54:30] of being a phenomenal green beret and leader. His fear, his sphere of positive influence encapsulate
[02:54:36] encapsulates everybody he comes in contact with. Complaining around Nick is impossible.
[02:54:42] Giving anything less than 100% around Nick is not an option. His actions raise the bar for the rest
[02:54:49] of us to match. His presence makes us better. What did Nick do to get where he is today?
[02:54:55] Plain and simple. Nick embodies intestinal fortitude and cares about the men and the mission.
[02:55:07] Hell yeah. Freakin insane, right? Jumping off the four foot thing, landing on one leg. Come on,
[02:55:16] man. That's freaking savage. What was your mock max squat when you had two legs? Do you know?
[02:55:25] Back in my, when I was like big, big, before I came into the military, I was around, I was in the
[02:55:31] 600s. What do you think your one leg, like, is it stronger now than it was then? My one leg?
[02:55:40] Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. That thing is just like a freaking savage. Yeah. That's the most savage leg
[02:55:45] on the planet. It has to be. It has to be. So, you know, there's, there's, there's one more thing
[02:55:57] I want to read about this before we get into some of your other, you know, moving on from here.
[02:56:06] It just going back, it's a little reflection on the whole scenario, but I think it's an important
[02:56:10] thing to read. You say on March 11, 2013, we were set to conduct a routine operation. As always,
[02:56:17] our partner force gathered outside our camp, the leadership entered a wire to receive the mission
[02:56:22] brief. Only this time a truck also drove in. I noticed immediately that it wasn't right.
[02:56:27] I was pissed. Do I address this now? I thought to myself, it seems obvious that the answer
[02:56:32] was emphatically in the affirmative. Why wouldn't I? The answer to that question is rapport.
[02:56:38] This is a tough balance and arguably the most critical factor for an ODA's success.
[02:56:42] Fostering and maintaining relationships are the keys when conducting partnered operations.
[02:56:48] I decided to hold off. I would address this with my detachment commander after and he would address
[02:56:54] it with the partner force leadership. This was a decision I must live with for the rest of my life.
[02:57:01] This truck was a Ford Ranger with a mounted PKM in the bed. This is the weapon that would
[02:57:06] happen that would moments later rip my body to shreds drastically altering the rest of my life.
[02:57:11] But this result is not the reason for my regret. The loss of my leg is not why I spring up sweating
[02:57:20] in the middle of the night. Living the rest of my life as an amputee is not why I continue to
[02:57:25] reanalyze my decision making process on that day. Our detachment commander, Captain Andrew
[02:57:33] Peterson, Keele, our infantry uplift squad leader, Staff Sergeant Rex Shad, and our military working
[02:57:41] dog, Back, were all killed in action as a result of my decision.
[02:57:49] It took years to be able to look at this event and extract positive value. The pain was too great.
[02:57:56] I couldn't see past my anger and the disappointment with myself. I couldn't see past the faces of
[02:58:02] my brothers who paid the ultimate sacrifice. It took time. It took a lot of reflection.
[02:58:10] It was hard, but I owed them this effort so their deaths were not for nothing.
[02:58:17] Gradually, I was able to gather the lessons learned. Internal security, SOPs,
[02:58:24] partner force relationship dynamics, and John Boyd's Oodaloop cycle are just a few examples of
[02:58:31] what was extracted. We used our experience to better educate ourselves and those around us
[02:58:36] in order to minimize the likelihood of a future similar tragedy.
[02:58:42] The loss of these men brought value to those who remain in the fight.
[02:58:48] How many lives have been saved because of their sacrifice? There's no way to ever know,
[02:58:52] but I'm certain it is substantial. The insider attack on March 11th, 2013 is considered to this
[02:59:00] day the most catastrophic insider attack since the start of the global war on terrorism.
[02:59:06] It is referenced in schools and training events throughout the soft community.
[02:59:11] As painful as it remains, we have managed to pull the positive value from this tragedy.
[02:59:18] We must get better. We owe this to the fallen.
[02:59:22] Yeah, you and I were talking when we weren't recording.
[02:59:38] For me, I had a blue on blue incident in Ramadi that I was in charge of. A friendly Iraqi soldier
[02:59:44] was killed several more were wounded. One of my guys was wounded. What I did when I got home was
[02:59:55] debrief that event to every SEAL team on the West Coast that was going on deployment.
[03:00:02] I had many times guys come back and say, hey, I was in the situation. We had this element over
[03:00:10] here, that element over here. If I wouldn't have known and trained to avoid blue on blues,
[03:00:16] the 100% would have happened. I was just saying to you that you're telling this story.
[03:00:24] Look, man, there's special operations guys working around the world right now as we speak with
[03:00:30] countless partner forces all over the place. This is a lesson that everybody will not forget.
[03:00:42] I know that the blue on blue that we had early in deployment saved lives later in deployment
[03:00:47] because we would have had, there's other things. I talk about an extreme ownership.
[03:00:53] I had a freaking Bradley want to put 25 millimeter chain gun on what they thought was enemy
[03:01:02] element on a rooftop. That enemy element was actually my guys.
[03:01:08] Laef talks about in there, he had Chris Kyle identify, hey, there's, I see a person with a
[03:01:14] scope weapon in this building. Do you want me to shoot him? Laef's checking with the army.
[03:01:18] Do you guys have anyone in this building? And they're like, no, kill that sniper. And Chris didn't
[03:01:23] feel comfortable taking the shot and didn't take it. And luckily he didn't because we were so sensitive
[03:01:29] to blue on blue. And so the lessons coming away from this guaranteed. You say you don't know how
[03:01:37] many lives they've saved and we'll never be able to know how many lives they've saved, but no doubt
[03:01:42] the level of caution and making sure that assessment is happening all the time.
[03:01:46] That's what we got to take away from these things for sure. I have to.
[03:01:56] You know, another thing that I breezed over a little bit is the fact that as you
[03:02:04] are focused on you and you're focused on your goal of like, hey, I'm going to get back to an ODA
[03:02:10] team at some point along that journey before you took that final physical test, you looked in the
[03:02:19] mirror and thought to yourself, wait a second, this isn't about me. And you know, you're going over,
[03:02:27] if you can't do your job, it's not just about you. It's about the guys you might let down.
[03:02:34] It's about do they want me on the team? Do they want, do they feel like there's going to be slacked
[03:02:39] that they're going to have to pick up for me? Talk about that kind of, you had some legit
[03:02:45] heart to heart conversations with the guys that you would be working with about the situation
[03:02:51] that you were in and whether you should proceed down that path because it wasn't just about you.
[03:02:55] You got 11 other guys that are counting on you to be able to carry the weight.
[03:03:00] Yeah, and not just the 11, but the families as well. And you're right. I was in a tunnel,
[03:03:08] my tunnel vision during that first phase about it was about me being successful, doing what I
[03:03:16] knew I needed to do, proving that they say is wrong, proving myself right, all that kind of stuff.
[03:03:21] It was about me. And once I began going through this assessment, I'm knocking one out after
[03:03:28] another, boom, boom, boom. Right around that time, I woke up in the middle of the night in a panic
[03:03:35] because I realized in that moment that I was going back to a team and I hadn't thought about them
[03:03:40] once before. And these are guys that are around me. They're in the gym, we're training together.
[03:03:46] I'm seeing them all the time, but I was so target fixated on me doing what I needed to do that I
[03:03:50] didn't consider them. And it's just, it scared the hell out of me. So that very, that day at work,
[03:03:59] I tracked down a couple of the guys that were local, had some phone conversations with some guys that
[03:04:05] were off site doing some stuff. And I was like, guys, I apologize for having not even done this
[03:04:11] up until this point, but is this within the best interest of the team? You guys are supportive
[03:04:16] and you're in my corner, but are you doing that just because you care about me and you want me
[03:04:22] to be happy? Have you guys thought about this? Because I haven't. And I don't think I can do
[03:04:28] this. I don't think I can give this an objective look because I'm so obsessed with success. I need
[03:04:33] you guys there to do that. And this was maybe four or five different conversations. And I got pretty
[03:04:40] much the same answer from all of them. And they said, listen, dude, we've all talked about this
[03:04:45] already amongst ourselves. And the, the high truth is, is we don't know if this is going to work.
[03:04:52] But what I can promise you is we want you to keep working towards it. We will be the ones to tell you
[03:05:00] if this isn't going to work. If you're able to make it back, we'll assess the situation then.
[03:05:07] And we'll make that hard call for you so you don't have to. So I had to put my trust into them and
[03:05:12] my teammates to be able to look at it objectively that way. And Jimmy Rooney, who you just read about,
[03:05:19] he was set to take the team as the team sergeant. He may have already taken it at that point,
[03:05:25] but he and I were working together when I was working as an instructor. He was the head instructor
[03:05:30] of our safari committee, Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat Committee. And we work at our offices
[03:05:36] right down the hall. We worked together, that committee and the combatives committee. So we had
[03:05:40] a working relationship. And it wasn't till much farther down the road that he told me he was going
[03:05:46] to take 2-6, take my team. And he was the last one I talked to on that day at work. And we had a
[03:05:54] candid emotional conversation. And he said the same thing. And hearing it from him as the guy that I
[03:06:02] know is going to put the best interest of the team above all else, because that's his job,
[03:06:07] I can trust him and the guys to give me that no shit objective feedback. So once I made that switch
[03:06:17] about wanting to pursue my own goal versus, and the reason behind that,
[03:06:24] to it being about them. And when I'm walking into my fourth training session for the day and I'm
[03:06:31] exhausted and tired and beat up, rather than thinking about taking those first steps off the
[03:06:37] plane in Afghanistan with my arms raised in the year, I was thinking about my teammate's son,
[03:06:42] I was thinking about my teammate's wife. And I needed to annihilate this workout right now.
[03:06:47] There's no other option for them, for that kid or for that woman. And it took what was already
[03:06:54] an extraordinarily intense and rigid lifestyle to another level. And you could, I could even feel
[03:07:05] the additional energy surging through me. It was like electric. And now I'm walking into these
[03:07:09] training sessions, it was just that much easier to get up at zero three, it was just that much
[03:07:13] easier to do those extra two, three reps, when everything in my body and my mind is telling me
[03:07:18] to stop. The image of my teammates five year old is what fueled that.
[03:07:22] Five year old is what fueled that to happen. Freaking, I guess we get some of that beat into
[03:07:32] us, you know, like you do, you just never want to let down your friends. And then you throw the
[03:07:38] family on top of that. Yeah, that's heavy. And you make it back, you make it back to a team,
[03:07:49] you end up going back to Afghanistan. And it's August to fight and season taught.
[03:07:58] What do you think when you show up there, man? There was a, you know, there was a, there was a
[03:08:02] quick, you know, celebration that I had just with myself. The boy collectively, we were,
[03:08:08] it was all business, but I did have that, that glorifying moment that I dreamed of
[03:08:12] taking the steps off the plane. That was real short lived because I realized how fast
[03:08:17] we were in the game and how many gaps I had. So we landed, this is 2015, we landed C17 lands,
[03:08:30] it's taxing, it stops. The tailgate hasn't even dropped yet. And the SOTIF command team is running
[03:08:38] onto the plane, which is unusual. And they run over to our team leadership and they have a little
[03:08:44] huddle on the plane. So we're all looking around. We had a horrible infill. I mean, we went through
[03:08:49] like five different countries, delays and flights. It was a mess. It took us like a week to get in.
[03:08:54] So we're all operating on random time zone times coming off of ambient, you know, half a sleep,
[03:09:00] like, okay, we finally made it. And this, this meeting is happening on the plane.
[03:09:06] We get the equipment off and our team leadership is like, we need to go into the,
[03:09:10] into the meeting and briefing room like now, we go in there. And there was a 19th group team.
[03:09:16] So Army Special Forces National Guard team that was operating down in Helmand that had a real bad
[03:09:24] situation going on with their partner force, like we use the term catastrophic loss of rapport
[03:09:29] as being like mission abort, because we worked through partner force, they were right at that
[03:09:33] point where the machine gun barrels were essentially being pointed inwards with the
[03:09:38] commando elements they were working with. It was, it was, it was horrible. So we needed to get spun
[03:09:44] up. Even though on that trip, we weren't falling directly under the sodiff. We were falling under
[03:09:50] a separate task force for that deployment. Task force gave us over to the sodiff to be the answer
[03:09:57] to this problem as like a temporary solution. So we were getting spun up the second we literally
[03:10:03] the second we landed and it was, it was game time. So did you guys go take over for them?
[03:10:11] We didn't take over, but we went down there and assisted them to get the situation under control
[03:10:19] for a couple of weeks. When you look at that from a leadership perspective, what was wrong?
[03:10:26] I'm going to piss off a lot of national God guys on this, but this is my opinion is
[03:10:30] national God SF teams provide an enormous value across the operational continuum,
[03:10:37] where I've seen it work. The best is when they take national God SF guys and they attach them to
[03:10:43] active duty ODAs. In 2012-13, we had a national God medic that was attached to us for that duration
[03:10:50] of that deployment. That always works out great. When you have an, an organic national God ODA
[03:10:58] and you put them into a combat environment, this is, I'm generally speaking, they just don't
[03:11:04] have the time that they train together to the same level that we do as in the active side
[03:11:11] to bring that same level of tactical capability to a fight. And they're hamstrung oftentimes
[03:11:17] because they group these teams together kind of as of a hodgepodge of different dudes in the unit
[03:11:24] to send them over. So you don't have that organic chemistry that you have with an active duty side.
[03:11:32] So from just a management and operational perspective, they're fighting upstream because
[03:11:37] of that dynamic. And when you put them into a hostile environment, like in Helmand, and you're
[03:11:43] given that type of mission, it can be, it can be really tough. It can be hard for anybody. And if
[03:11:50] you haven't done a good work up together, it's going to be even harder. Yeah. You also, you know,
[03:11:58] you get over there and there's like new challenges for you. One of them you talk about is getting in
[03:12:03] and out of an MRAP. And you go through this whole thing, you're like, if you don't know what an MRAP
[03:12:08] is, it's a, it's a mind resistant vehicle, but they're freaking tall because they want them off
[03:12:12] the ground as high as they can be so that the, the explosion, if it's underneath it, dissipates.
[03:12:18] So they're, they're, you're climbing a ladder to get in there. You say, I can recall one of the
[03:12:22] most frustrating tax was getting into and out of a mind resistant ambush protected all terrain vehicle.
[03:12:28] To get in and out of these trucks, one must climb up four feet with the use of a couple
[03:12:32] metal steps. As with most military vehicles, the MATV is designed for function, not comfort or
[03:12:37] accessibility. Of course, getting into and out of one of these was simple as a two legged dude.
[03:12:42] But in 2015, it was anything but to say this was frustrating would have been an understatement.
[03:12:47] This was also something I did not even consider during my train up to get back onto a team,
[03:12:51] but it was a challenge nonetheless. I began drilling over and over again, in and out,
[03:12:56] trying different foot placements, trying different hand placements, how I shifted my weight.
[03:13:00] Then I did the same with kid on then with a rifle over and over and over again. I had a teammate
[03:13:06] videotape my reps so I could watch the tape and check for deficiencies or wasted movement.
[03:13:11] I had put the, I had them put me on a stopwatch over and over. I checked my time against one of
[03:13:15] my teammates to compare. I focused solely on the task at hand. I wasn't thinking about all the other
[03:13:20] tasks I needed to master and I certainly wasn't thinking about the bridge, just this one piece
[03:13:26] of the puzzle, focus rep after rep until I felt I was sufficient. I repeated this process throughout
[03:13:32] the entire deployment, even after I displayed enough capability to my leadership where they felt
[03:13:37] confident, confident putting me on more and more operations. That's like one little thing,
[03:13:42] which no one would think about and it's a freaking challenge for you and you had to figure how to
[03:13:48] do it. Yeah, because by the time I got to the team, man, they were already past their collective
[03:13:53] training phase. They'd already finished PMT. They were basically just getting gear prep,
[03:13:57] taking some leave and then heading into the box. So I had just like six weeks on the team before
[03:14:03] we were back in Afghanistan. So these tactical tasks, you know, they would have been fleshed
[03:14:07] out and trained in if I was with the guys leading up. I didn't have that time. So things
[03:14:12] became real on the ground the first time I tried to climb into a mad V or an MRAP and I'm like,
[03:14:17] how the hell do I even do this? So that's just an example and it's a list of tasks that I perform
[03:14:25] the same way and I, you know, downtime in between training and ops, I would just identify one of
[03:14:31] these things that I knew needed work and I would just like go crazy and just do it a thousand times.
[03:14:36] If I do this a thousand times, I'm going to figure out how to do it. If I do it a thousand times,
[03:14:41] I'm going to find a way to do it. I just need to do it a thousand times. So like, how do I do that?
[03:14:44] I'll do it a hundred times a day, you know, for a hundred days or whatever, 10 days. And what was
[03:14:49] your, what was your mission on this deployment? What were you guys doing? So we were running the
[03:14:53] Kotejas, which is an Afghan commando unit. That's their tier one unit that was established by CAG
[03:15:02] years prior that they handed off to us to run. So that's their premier direct action CT force.
[03:15:10] So we were running those guys based primarily up out of the Kabul area, not Kabul,
[03:15:17] Propa, but in that vicinity. So we had, we moved around the, basically the entire AO.
[03:15:23] And just running DA's mostly? Yeah. What was your op tempo like?
[03:15:28] It wasn't as busy as, as the deployment I had prior because they were just more specific point
[03:15:35] target rates based on higher levels of Intel and higher levels of effects. Whereas on the
[03:15:40] ground prior, we were just like going out and like paving the road a lot of the way. So this was
[03:15:44] more tied to like strategic initiatives and directions. So we'd maybe have a thing maybe once
[03:15:51] a week, once every couple of weeks. But in that time, there were a couple of massive ops that we
[03:15:56] were a part of that took up good chunks of time. One of that was, was when Kendoos, the Taliban
[03:16:04] took it over. We were a part of that as well. So we ended up shifting to that AO and we dedicated
[03:16:12] like two, three months to the response to that and then to the rebuild of that AO.
[03:16:18] How many guys were in that force you were working with?
[03:16:22] We had around a company size element, about a hundred, 110 dudes. And the craziest thing about
[03:16:28] working with these guys. So these guys were built, you know, by by Kegi as prior, they had all,
[03:16:33] like all the equipment, they had all the Gucci stuff, same uniforms. They're rocking PBS 31s.
[03:16:39] Like they got like high speed stuff and they're all juiced up. Like they're like,
[03:16:45] they're pumping like sustenance in there like daily, which you see that right when you meet these
[03:16:51] guys. That's like very strange. It is. Even like the standard Afghan commandos, they aren't that
[03:16:56] outfitted that way. They don't look that way. We meet up with these dudes for the first time and
[03:17:00] they're these just yoked up Afghans rocking cry precision. Like this is weird, but what made it,
[03:17:08] I never got to a point where I was comfortable, was under nods. Everyone looks the exact same.
[03:17:15] Whereas normally I can tell the difference between my teammate and our partner force
[03:17:19] instantaneously. When you got guys that size rocking the same gear we are, I couldn't tell who
[03:17:25] was who. Dang. So we, you know, we had different like mockings that we used as like IR mockings
[03:17:30] to try to help us figure out where we were. But I was constantly uncomfortable when we were doing
[03:17:36] night stuff, which was a good portion of it because I didn't know who was who. Yeah, that's
[03:17:41] not feeling good. No man. I didn't, I didn't like how were they? They were good in the field. They
[03:17:46] were good. Yeah, they were good. They were good. I mean, you know, it's an Afghan partner force,
[03:17:50] but they were, they were the most proficient that I'd ever seen. No, they were good. And so that,
[03:17:55] that deployment pretty straightforward doing a bunch of DA's. Any, any big lessons learned from
[03:18:02] that one? I mean, I was drinking through a fire hose because not only were my Afghanistan for
[03:18:08] the first time as an amputee, I'm dealing with all these tactical gaps. We were living out of
[03:18:13] rucksacks most of that trip. So I didn't get a chance to really establish like a rhythm in one
[03:18:19] location at one time because we were moving around so much. So I had to adapt my loadout package
[03:18:26] for vehicles for half infill ops for dismounted ops, like where do I keep my extra legs? Where do
[03:18:32] I keep all my equipment? How do I carry all this stuff that I'm going to need if and when something
[03:18:37] breaks down? It was a forcing function to think about how I would go about doing that. So for every
[03:18:46] deployment I've had since, it's pales in comparison because I jumped off like the massive cliff to
[03:18:54] begin with. So now if I go someplace and I'm working out of the same location, it's like
[03:18:59] quite simple comparably. Why do you gotta bring an extra leg? Like what scenario? Are you bringing
[03:19:04] an extra leg in the field? All the time. At least one. I mean, the technology in this thing is great,
[03:19:10] but it breaks. Like legs, legs break. You know, this thing's got a little microprocessor in it.
[03:19:16] You got batteries? It's got an internal battery. Yeah. There's a little computer inside this knee,
[03:19:21] so I have to charge it and then it runs like a computer. It doesn't power me. How long does
[03:19:26] the charge last for? It depends on the level of activity because it goes into like a hibernation
[03:19:30] mode, like a computer. Like right now it's like sleeping. So depending on how much I'm moving
[03:19:35] will determine how much battery life I have, but even on an active schedule, a fully charged knee
[03:19:41] will get me like three days. Okay. And so you're bringing a whole extra leg in the field? At least
[03:19:47] one. Yeah. Sometimes more than one? Yeah. So I'd usually carry one mechanical backup knee on my
[03:19:54] person in my rock and then I'd have a backup one of these. How much is that way? The mechanical ones
[03:19:59] are a lot lighter because there's no technology built into it. Mechanical knee maybe, you know,
[03:20:05] eight pounds, nine pounds. This one weighs closer than that. Freaking nine pounds is a lot when
[03:20:09] you're humping around, bro. That's not fun. No, I'd rather not have to carry it, but I've broken
[03:20:17] so many of these things that it's really, I consider a requirement. So my standard loadout
[03:20:22] for like a vehicle type movement, a gaff would be mechanical leg in my ruck, an extra one of these
[03:20:29] that I'm wearing now in my truck and an extra one of these in another truck. Okay. So my truck was
[03:20:34] disabled or blown up. I'd have another leg somewhere to go get and put on. You know, it kind of sounds
[03:20:41] like a pain in the ass, but it's also like, Hey, if you got shot and you're freaking prosthetic,
[03:20:47] you're like, cool, let me just put on the other one. Well, it's fun. You mentioned one of the
[03:20:51] conversations I had with my group command team. They were voicing their concerns. They're like,
[03:20:56] well, what happens if your prosthetic breaks in the field? And I said, well, I have, I can carry
[03:21:01] an extra one. If your leg breaks in the field, you're out. And they kind of got a chuckle out of
[03:21:06] that. But that's true. So you got good, you got proficient and have a good solid deployment.
[03:21:15] Yeah, successful. And we had a lot of visibility on us that whole trip. I mean, all the way up to
[03:21:20] like Washington, because I needed approval from the use of SOC commander to be able to go.
[03:21:26] So the SOCOM commander was aware of it. So no SF team, no soft team wants a lot of people
[03:21:33] checking it, checking in on them and paying attention to what they're doing and answering
[03:21:38] phone calls from, you know, three style generals, no ODA or team leadership wants that. My team
[03:21:45] leadership dealt with a bunch of that because it was almost like people were expecting and waiting
[03:21:50] for something to go wrong for them to pull me out and be like, Hey, we tried it. It didn't work.
[03:21:54] Let's like get back to reality here. And like, let's find a real solution for this dude.
[03:22:01] But that didn't happen. We had a successful trip. No, no issues. So it was just, it was just hectic
[03:22:08] because I was doing this vehicle type thing in all my free time. So after that six month pump,
[03:22:14] I was the most tired I've ever been in my life.
[03:22:18] What's the, I know you wrote about how there's like a limit to the amount of time you can spend
[03:22:23] on it. Well, how long can you patrol for? Like a foot patrol? So I've done, you know, multi-day
[03:22:29] missions. It just, you know, it does start to take its toll after a while because there'll
[03:22:35] be a point where I have to take it off at a minimum, you know, wipe down the sweat, maybe throw on
[03:22:40] some antiperspirant type stuff, get it back on and go. So it just depends on those different
[03:22:48] variables. But there were times when, you know, I'd be in the field out on something for four, five days.
[03:22:53] And as long as I had, you know, a couple, two, three hours during my rest cycle,
[03:22:57] to kind of let that fluid go back into the residual limb and kind of plump back up,
[03:23:02] strap it back on and, and then be good. Yeah. Well, being in the field for a few days, it's freaking
[03:23:07] legit. That's awesome. Did you come home from that deployment and what, but go again? That's the deal?
[03:23:15] Yeah, back from that trip. Standard training cycle for us, individual schools, collective training
[03:23:21] into PMT. And then the next year, the year after that trip, we were over in Somalia
[03:23:27] on our next thing, which was a CT mission as well, CTDA mission, just different continent,
[03:23:34] but very, very similar. Doing the same thing. Doing the same thing. Did you have a partner
[03:23:38] force over there? Yeah, we had five. Oh, damn. Yeah. We had a bunch of Somalis. We had some Kenyans.
[03:23:45] We had some Ethiopians. And you're training them and you're going out, did they're doing work?
[03:23:50] You're doing work with them? Yeah. We were, we were, we were targeting Al Shabaab. This is a,
[03:23:56] you know, Al Qaeda affiliate. We were targeting those guys. And it's good op tempo. It was busy.
[03:24:04] We were going out once two, three times a week. We were doing DAs. Yep. Doing DA.
[03:24:14] We were down south. The other unit we were working with was, was further up north. And we
[03:24:20] would just like flip flop to support each other. It was busy. And are you, do you get in a flow now?
[03:24:29] You said like, Hey, once you did that first deployment to Afghanistan, where you're living
[03:24:31] out of a rock, are you in a pretty good flow now where you're, you're starting to be able to deal
[03:24:36] with your leg? It's not that big of a factor. Yeah. So the two years I had, like since Walter Reed,
[03:24:42] you know, the first trip to Afghanistan or the train up Afghanistan, now I'm like two,
[03:24:46] two and a half years post injury. I learned a lot of lessons and ways to maintain my prosthetic and
[03:24:53] my body. So I'm learning how to do this. So by the time 2016 trip came around,
[03:24:58] I was, I was much more confident in my tactical prowess and insertion within operations. Hell yeah.
[03:25:06] And then what's after that Somalia deployment? Another deployment? That was 2016. So I came back
[03:25:14] from that. And that was when I transferred groups from third group to fifth group. The reason I
[03:25:21] transferred because my wife, she went down a different career path and got orders for, for
[03:25:28] Campbell. So I transferred groups at this point we were married. So to stay with her, obviously,
[03:25:34] I transferred from third to fifth, went over there and then got integrated with those guys.
[03:25:39] And then my next trip was into Lebanon. Check. And you're obviously still active duty right now.
[03:25:46] What kind of let that one, we use our imaginations for that deployment over there.
[03:25:53] At what point did you decide you were going to try and get a commission, become a warrant?
[03:25:58] Or what you guys call in the army a chief? Yeah. Yeah. In the Navy. I'm sure you know this. Yeah.
[03:26:02] A chief isn't a listed guy in the Navy. And we still have warrant officer. We have chief warrant
[03:26:07] officers. But what point did you want to become a warrant officer? Yeah, I started looking at it
[03:26:11] actually when I was in Somalia, because I warrant had to go home on emergency leave. And I kind of
[03:26:17] took up a lot of those tasks for the detachment. When I got back from, from Lebanon is when I dropped
[03:26:25] that, is when I dropped that packet and got picked up. Yep. So we, the SF warrant offices,
[03:26:33] we go to Fort Bragg to go to our school, whereas every other Army warrant officer goes down to
[03:26:38] Fort Rucka and goes through the warrant officer course. We have our own, our own program because
[03:26:43] it's the SF warrant officer is wildly different than all the other warrant officer branches.
[03:26:50] You know, there's only two combat warrant officers. And those are aviators and then SF guys,
[03:26:56] the rest, those are, those are managers. Like they, you run a desk, right? Because you're,
[03:27:01] you're an expert in that particular system and your job is to manage and task. On the outside
[03:27:05] of the house, it's, it's different because you're on the team. So we have our own school. So I went
[03:27:09] and did that. That was in 2019. Yeah, five months, my five month course, it's a lot of writing and
[03:27:16] briefing and officer and stuff. And you loved every second.
[03:27:20] Dude, salute to the Army and the special operations for this whole thing. Just for them,
[03:27:27] keeping you on that path, opening those things up, you become a warrant officer, like that's freaking
[03:27:32] just outstanding that they, that this happened. You know, I mean, look, this stuff could be easily
[03:27:37] be shut down. Like there could be some, some senior officer that's like, I don't think this is the
[03:27:41] right thing to do. And boom, you know, so that's outstanding that you actually, that the army
[03:27:47] allowed this to happen. Do I believe it should? Hell yeah, of course. But I'm saying, man, you know,
[03:27:53] some of these, some of these bureaucrats, like they don't think that way. They don't think like
[03:27:57] you think they don't think like I think so salute to the army and to SF for, for keeping that door
[03:28:04] open. Freakin that's just outstanding. I know I had one of my guys was Ryan Job was blind,
[03:28:10] he's blinded. And you know, I talked to the admiral and I was like, Hey, sir, he, he wants to stay in
[03:28:17] and the animals like whatever he wants, wants to stand. We got jobs for him. That's freaking
[03:28:22] outstanding. You get picked up from warrant and then what's the next step? Next step is going to
[03:28:30] my next attachment as the assistant attachment commander. And I was notified the team I was
[03:28:36] going to go to about two weeks left of the war officer course. And the second I was told the
[03:28:42] team number, I knew the type of team it was going to be, which was a maritime ops team, a dive team.
[03:28:47] Yeah. Right. And SF all the teams that ended the number five, their dive teams.
[03:28:53] All right, just completed the war officer course. First amputee to ever go is challenging as hell.
[03:29:00] Believe it or not, it's, you know, there's a lot of physical stuff. But to go back a bit,
[03:29:04] when I first got to group, the war officer on the teams, stereotypically, we're out of shape,
[03:29:10] old guys that were never around. Well, the regiment realized that and they completely
[03:29:15] re altered the actual course to include a lot of physical gates that you had to pass. Because
[03:29:21] they didn't want these old crusty guy out of shape guys on teams anymore. If you're going to be a
[03:29:24] war officer on a team, you need to be able to function as a team guy. And every ODA has the
[03:29:28] assistant commander is a warrant. Is that right? Every ODA doesn't have a warrant. But because
[03:29:35] it's a small community, most do and that guy is the assistant attachment commander. Because the
[03:29:40] SF ODA, the 12 man construct is designed to run split team ops. It's not just rug a random number.
[03:29:46] So the captain takes one section and the warrant takes the other. If there's no warrant, who takes
[03:29:51] the other one? The the sergeant? The would would be the team sergeant. The team sergeant. Yeah,
[03:29:56] the senior enlisted guy. Where does the captain get his experience before he's the captain of an ODA
[03:30:01] team? Is he coming from infantry? Is that where he gets his initial experience as a leader, like
[03:30:05] as a platoon commander or something? Yeah, most come from the infantry. They don't necessarily have
[03:30:10] to have an infantry background. But they're I mean, they're green, even like the most experienced
[03:30:15] new captain. In today's world, you're not seeing it that much because there's not a lot of combat,
[03:30:21] but they get maybe one trip as a platoon leader in their conventional unit, go to the captain's
[03:30:27] career course, go to the Q course and then show up. And that level of inexperience is why the SF
[03:30:34] warrant officer exists, because their trajectory, they get two years on a team and then they're gone. So
[03:30:40] the most senior captain on a team has been there for 24 months. Like that guy just barely figured
[03:30:46] out his job, what an ODA does, how we fit within the overall picture. And then he's on to the next
[03:30:52] thing. The warrant is there, you know, we're expected to do five, six years on the same
[03:30:56] detachment, where there to be that strategic advisor to that leader. That's freaking legit.
[03:31:01] So you get to dive team assignment or sorry, I cut you off. So you were saying that warrant
[03:31:08] officer school was actually there were some there were some challenges in warrant officer school,
[03:31:11] wasn't a walk in the park. No, no, it was it was legit. It was tough. So I mean, I got like two
[03:31:17] weeks left before I'm going to graduate. I'm just about the top of this ridgeline, like graduation
[03:31:21] is inevitable at this point. So I'm feeling pretty happy about my, you know, my performance and where
[03:31:25] I'm going, I'm excited. And then I get the phone call, like you're going to this team right here.
[03:31:29] Yeah. And I had the same response that everyone, every SF guy gets when he's totally going with
[03:31:35] dive team, which is shit. Okay. Because everyone knows CDQC, the combat dive of qualification
[03:31:44] course, everyone knows that that is the hottest school within the army by a mile, physically
[03:31:51] and mentally. And most fearful of it, most don't want to go down that road. You know,
[03:31:57] I had the same response. It was, okay, well, my celebration here was short lived because now
[03:32:03] I got to figure out how I'm going to do this. Yeah, that sounds like, like I was giving all
[03:32:10] these props to the army. I guess we got to give more prop. They're like, cool. Oh, you want to
[03:32:13] be warrant? Cool. Oh, you got one leg house dive school sound. Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's funny
[03:32:19] man because I got back to the group. I got to my new battalion and got assigned to my new team.
[03:32:23] And I met with the company command team the next day. And within the first couple minutes of that
[03:32:28] conversation, they told me that no one had any expectations of me going to dive school. Oh,
[03:32:35] I had the same conversation with the battalion command team a couple days later and was told the
[03:32:39] same thing from them, which I found was interesting, you know, and I looked at them kind of sideways.
[03:32:45] And I said, listen, this team is there a bunch of aggressive savages to see. It's the most senior
[03:32:50] team we have in the battalion. They're hungry for combat. They haven't seen it yet. We need a
[03:32:57] strong leader on that team. There are only two warrant officer candidates. There were only two
[03:33:01] of us in fifth group that went me and my buddy, me and my buddy Mike had wildly different experiences.
[03:33:10] Mike did a lot of like interagency stuff and he was more on the technical side of things and did
[03:33:14] a lot of intel stuff. My experience was like all combat. So they looked at both of our packets
[03:33:19] and they're like, we can't send this guy to a dive team, especially this one. It's going to have to
[03:33:23] be Nick, but it'll work because he's a strong leader. They'll respect them. It'll help keep things
[03:33:28] moving in a general direction. Dive teams are known for being insubordinate, aggressive, you
[03:33:37] know, it's the double edged sword for leadership because you got a really high performing
[03:33:43] detachment, but you're going to have to deal with their aggressiveness and keeping them
[03:33:48] within line in a garrison environment. So they made it clear to me that that was the reason why I
[03:33:53] was going. And yet they didn't expect you to be actually going through dive school. Like that
[03:33:57] wouldn't be a requirement necessarily is what they're thinking. And there as that's what they
[03:34:02] were thinking. I didn't see it that way. Yeah, you're just like, okay, well, I got to go do dive school.
[03:34:08] It's the one thing that separates dive teams from every other detachment is going through
[03:34:14] that extra filter. And it's really irrelevant to the actual execution of maritime ops. It's just
[03:34:20] that fine filter to be able to push yourself through that hell. And then you take 12 guys that
[03:34:26] have all been through that and lump them together, they are going to be a high performing
[03:34:29] detachment no matter the mission. Were you in the water much growing up? A little bit, but not much
[03:34:36] of a group in New England, you know, so yeah, I mean, spent time in the water, but I wasn't a swimmer.
[03:34:41] But okay, you know, never scoop a dive before nothing. So this is not going to be fun. No,
[03:34:49] yeah, it's not going to be fun at all. You got to start training for it, right? Like you got to
[03:34:55] start figuring out like getting comfortable in the water is a big deal. Do they normally pick guys
[03:35:00] that were have some comfort in the water? Or do guys volunteer for does anyone volunteer for it?
[03:35:05] Some do it's rare for a new a new dude to show and be like put me on a dive team. Most happy with
[03:35:10] the little green hat in the head and they want to just like chill and just get to team stuff.
[03:35:15] It does happen. It's not very often that it happens. I think the Sgt's major, they do ask if
[03:35:21] there's an open slot on a dive team, hey, you know, you've come from a water, do you spend any time
[03:35:24] swimming? You know, which I think brings value to your success and CDQC is more about your being
[03:35:32] comfortable in the water, not necessarily your ability as a freestyle swimmer. Oh yeah, it's
[03:35:38] definitely a comfort in the water. I mean, I haven't been through that school, but in in basic
[03:35:42] seal training, you go through some pretty significant dive challenges and people it pays to be comfortable
[03:35:48] in the water. You have to be. Yeah. So I do think they have that conversation. But if the answers
[03:35:53] know and they needed another diver, it's like, okay, well, you're going anyway. And you had to fight
[03:35:58] against a med board again, just kind of like get a waiver to go to this school. Yeah, it wasn't a
[03:36:04] med board, but I did need a waiver approved to be able to go because of my physical profile.
[03:36:09] So there had never been an amputee to even like consider going. And now I'm kind of back where
[03:36:16] I was where I had to fight the admin fight and then also prepare myself physically and mentally.
[03:36:21] So the admin side, it worked out great for me because I went through my dive physical, which is
[03:36:26] the most in depth physical we have in the army, they check you for everything because it's just
[03:36:30] just such a high stress school. There's two phases I get through both of those both are clean, both
[03:36:35] are good to go. And then our med clinic sends up the waiver for me to be able to attend administratively.
[03:36:42] Well, that needs to be approved by the SWCC surgeon, who's a full bird colonel. I said, okay,
[03:36:47] cool, send it. I get a phone call about a week later from some 910 area code number, which is
[03:36:54] North Carolina, answer the phone. And there's just some dude on the other end of the phone like yelling.
[03:36:58] And he's talking about one legged guy who wants to go to dive school. And I think that someone had
[03:37:05] just dialed my phone number by accident. And I'm over here in a conversation about me. And I'm going,
[03:37:10] Hello, who is this? Dude's just yelling, talking real aggressively talking real fast. Finally,
[03:37:15] he stops. I'm like, who is this? He's like, Nick, it's it's Mike. And I said, Doc, how you doing?
[03:37:24] Well, Mike was the third group surgeon back when I was in Afghanistan. He was the first guy that
[03:37:31] operated on me when I've got flown into Bagram. He had since been promoted to 06 and was working
[03:37:37] as the SWCC surgeon. So he and I knew each other real well. I didn't know that that's where his job
[03:37:42] was till he calls me. And I'm like, Oh, no kidding. Okay. He's like, I'm staring at your, your waiver
[03:37:49] to the front of me right now. I said, you're going to approve it? He's like, Yeah, I already did.
[03:37:52] I just sent it back. He's like, I think you add to your mind that you want to go do this. But
[03:37:58] if you want to go, go ahead, like good luck. So, you know, ironic turn of events, if it was anybody
[03:38:05] other than him, who knows if that would have been approved, because you are assuming quite a bit of
[03:38:10] risk, both for him as the medical professional and then the commander in which he works underneath,
[03:38:15] like they're assuming that risk to send you a course like that as a student. He gave me the
[03:38:21] green light. And then once I had that, I had already been training, you know, physically my first day
[03:38:26] on the team. I was in the pool. Day one, I just met these guys. It's my first day in this battalion.
[03:38:32] It's my first day as a warrant officer. And I'm in the pool. You got to get like, fin legs or
[03:38:38] some shit. Yeah. So I did, you know, and I went to my prosthetist and I said, I need a fin.
[03:38:43] And they make, you know, fins for amputees. It's not, it's not like a new thing. He gave me this one.
[03:38:51] And things may be, I don't know, three feet in length. It's small. And my teammates called it
[03:38:57] my finding Nemo fin. It's just the difference between my leg and this thing was just so different.
[03:39:02] But the concern was that, you know, if it's, if it's a longer lever, it places more force through
[03:39:08] the socket, what's actually attaching to my body. So we were concerned that if it was too long, I
[03:39:14] was generating too much force, it would rip the prosthetic off my body. So we went with the more
[03:39:18] secured option, even though it gave me less propulsion. So that was what I had. And, you know,
[03:39:25] I just said, you know, Roger, that this is my equipment, I'm just going to figure out how to
[03:39:27] make it work. Really had to turn my left leg into just an absolute tank, because that's what was
[03:39:33] propelling me for treading and for underwater nav and for all the finning was my left leg.
[03:39:38] That's what I used in the pool during our train up. And, you know, my teammates were phenomenal.
[03:39:44] But at the same time, it was no one really knew how to do this with a guy with one leg. So it
[03:39:50] was a lot of trial and error and like figuring it out. Did that. And then I was in communication
[03:39:57] with the leadership down at CDQC. They reached out to me once they were made aware that an amputee
[03:40:02] was going to come down. It was a third group dude who was actually one of my instructors in the Q
[03:40:07] course was now the Sergeant Major down there. So he hit me up and was like, Hey, man, just like,
[03:40:12] keep me updated with if you're modifying any specific procedure, I just need to know what
[03:40:18] that is. Because my instructors don't like know what this looks like. You know, so you know, like,
[03:40:24] maritime ops, and especially in the schoolhouse, it's very procedural, like left foot here, right
[03:40:28] foot here, it's broken down step by step by step to increase efficiency and reduce risk to keep it
[03:40:34] as safe as possible. Well, for me, some of those steps just don't exist. If it's like,
[03:40:39] put your right foot here, well, like I don't have one. So what am I doing when everyone else is
[03:40:43] putting that right foot over there? So just those small little tweaks is what my team and I were
[03:40:48] kind of playing around with. And then I messaged that to the cadre down there, it was ultimately
[03:40:53] up to them to decide if what I was doing would meet their standard requirements.
[03:41:00] Couple adaptations with a couple different things. But and then the CDQC journey.
[03:41:05] What's the attrition rate at that school? It varies from 20% up to like 60%. There are some
[03:41:15] classes that graduate like five guys. And if you just if you fail, they just send you back to SF,
[03:41:20] you just can't be on a dive team type thing. You usually will get two or three attempts at it,
[03:41:27] which is quite common. If you're afraid to take a guy maybe twice, how long is the school? Six
[03:41:32] weeks. You got a section in here. You talk a little bit about this, which I had a lot of
[03:41:40] Julian laughter when I was reading it. The combat diver qualification course or dive school has
[03:41:48] several tests students must successfully complete. Each is designed with a purpose according to
[03:41:52] years of data collection and lessons learned from generations of previous combat divers.
[03:41:56] The most notorious is the one man competency exam. During this test, students are required to wear a
[03:42:02] blacked out mask to simulate nighttime conditions and then surge underwater for several currents.
[03:42:09] Once the surge phase is complete, the students are placed at the bottom of the pool and paired up
[03:42:13] with an instructor who systematically removes the students air source regulator and in places a
[03:42:19] series of deficiencies. So how do I breathe without a regulator? You don't you hold your breath.
[03:42:25] The student is required to trace the air source line from its origination point to the regulator
[03:42:30] while on a breath hold in order to retrieve the air source and breathe. This process is repeated
[03:42:36] until the exam is completed. If this sounds awful, it is because it is just that awful. The one man
[03:42:42] competency exam is widely considered the most difficult test within dive school and is the
[03:42:47] reason why so many do not advance in the course. There is however a method to this madness.
[03:42:52] Conducting underwater operations is arguably the most dangerous task we do within the military.
[03:42:58] The ocean is unforgiving. A plethora of things can go wrong and as with most operations something
[03:43:03] will almost certainly will go wrong. Given the fact that we as humans require oxygen above all
[03:43:09] else to live problems underwater can quickly turn deadly. During underwater operations it is just
[03:43:14] you and your team at times perhaps it is just you and your dive buddy and if things really go bad
[03:43:19] it's just you. When a problem presents itself you absolutely must be able to correct it and
[03:43:24] depending on the severity of the issue time becomes a critical factor every second counts
[03:43:29] pressures at an all-time high. The stress of these situations can be incapacitating. The only way
[03:43:35] to work through the situation is to remain calm. Good times. We have a test like that similar
[03:43:43] that's called pool competency. It's the same thing they're just going to freaking jack you up underwater.
[03:43:49] It's not fun. That's not fun. You got to fight the demons. Every survival instinct you have as humans
[03:43:56] you got to battle through that. But you made it through. You made it through that dive things.
[03:44:06] You failed a couple times. I failed one man twice. How many chances do you get? Three.
[03:44:13] Yes. I blacked out underwater my first two go-arounds and my blackout experience they tell you
[03:44:21] you know you're going to start to feel yourself going like when you're being choked out. I like
[03:44:25] things get soft and start to feel yourself getting comfortable like you're on the verge of blacking
[03:44:30] out. That doesn't happen with me. Mine is just continued increase in pain and discomfort and then
[03:44:38] you're out and then I come to and I'm on the pool deck. What kind are you using a
[03:44:43] normal regulator like the kind with one hose that you press a button and air comes out of it?
[03:44:49] Yeah. You use an open water tank on your back with the standard regulator. We have this in
[03:44:57] seal training. They have this regulator from like 1968 or something and it's got two hoses. One's an
[03:45:06] inhalation hose and one's an exhalation hose and it looks like you know if you look at Jacques
[03:45:10] Cousteau diving in 1973 like that's what he's using and there's no button to press.
[03:45:17] You have to drink the water out. You just suck the water out of it when you put it back in your
[03:45:22] mouth and they just take this thing and freak it out. It's insane. The only reason that this
[03:45:26] regulator exists is for buds at this point. They still use this. They still use it. Wow.
[03:45:31] They still use it to this day. It's crazy. It's crazy evolution. Yeah but I've talked to some of
[03:45:39] the people that work at that company and they were like yeah that's the only people we make
[03:45:44] for. I guess there's an occasional person that were requested if they're an underwater photographer
[03:45:48] because the bubbles are behind your back but other than that it's just these because there's no
[03:45:53] reason to use it. It's the worst piece of equipment ever for diving. They probably made it and like
[03:45:59] a year later like hey this is dumb. Fix it but that's what we still use. Not fun. All right so you
[03:46:08] get done. You pass. Now you're a one officer inside of your ODA team. Rack up another deployment. Where
[03:46:14] are you going this one? The one after that we were in Iraq. Damn okay. Doing a lot of diving
[03:46:22] in Iraq where are you? Not much. What year was that? 21. No kidding. Last year. We went in in
[03:46:29] December of 20. December of 20 into 21. I mean from what you can say without going into classified
[03:46:35] material like what was your general mission? Advise assist. I mean the Iraq of today is much
[03:46:40] different than the Iraq of your days. How'd you like being the number two guy in command?
[03:46:48] I enjoyed it. Yeah we did a couple split team scenarios but then because of what we were doing
[03:46:56] was pretty routine myself and my actual team leader we would just swap out at times so I got
[03:47:03] some reps at the detachment commander thing so it was good. And you liked that being in a leadership
[03:47:08] position? Very much so. It's difficult as a warrant because a way it was described to me was it's a
[03:47:16] commandless, thankless, selfless position. You know when you have that tripod of leadership,
[03:47:22] the detachment commander, the captain, your senior enlisted guy, and then the warrant officer,
[03:47:28] you know the detachment commander is in charge of the team. He runs the team.
[03:47:31] The senior enlisted guy, the team sergeant, he runs the boys. They all work for him. The warrant
[03:47:37] exists kind of in between that and the way you influence as a leader is more done through your
[03:47:42] actions than it is about having one-on-one like molding sessions with the individuals because
[03:47:49] that's really the job of the team sergeant. So your approach to leadership as a warrant
[03:47:54] has to be a mature one which is tough for a lot of us because we're aggressive type A
[03:47:59] pipe hitters who think we know exactly what Wright looks like so I have to stay back from that and
[03:48:05] lead through supporting others and lead through more of your actions than your verbal mentorship.
[03:48:13] It can be tough. And then so where are you at right now? Are you still at a team?
[03:48:19] I just came off the team. And so where are you stationed now? I'm still at four Campbell,
[03:48:24] still in fifth group. I just took over as the company operations warrant for our advanced
[03:48:30] skills company. So when I was working in the combatives committee it was underneath the advanced
[03:48:35] skills company. So now amongst the company level leadership where I work alongside a major
[03:48:41] and a sergeant major. Got it. You know that kind of brings us up to date for this,
[03:48:48] for where you're at right? What you got going on. You know that this is the thing though about this
[03:48:55] book is this book, this book objective secure, it's not a memoir of your life. It's not like hey,
[03:49:04] here's a bunch of stories. It's actually like almost like a field manual of how you can overcome
[03:49:15] things and how you can achieve things in life, which is a pretty awesome book. And look, obviously
[03:49:23] I read some of the stories out of it today because you relate oh this event happened. Here's you know
[03:49:28] what occurred. Here's what caused me to do this. Here's where I learned this lesson. There's a lot
[03:49:32] of that stuff in there. But the actual book is I mean the subtitle of the book is battle tested
[03:49:38] guide to goal achievement, right? Which is freaking legit. Like hey, here's a guy that has gone through
[03:49:47] a bunch of obstacles and overcome those obstacles. And he did it not by luck, not by miracles, but by
[03:49:55] figuring out how to assess these things and how to overcome them. And you take the military
[03:50:01] methodology that you learned from being in special operations and you apply that to your life and
[03:50:05] apply that to the challenge you face and you outline that throughout this book. And that's why if
[03:50:12] you know if you're listening right now just order this book right now because there's so much good
[03:50:16] information in it to help anybody that's overcoming anything. That's facing any obstacles, but I would
[03:50:23] feel bad if I didn't at least give people sort of a heads up sort of some of the highlights that you
[03:50:28] go over in the book. So I just want to crack this thing open and like just like I said just hit some
[03:50:35] of the high points of how you live your life, how you overcame these things. The book is called
[03:50:43] objective secure. You start off with objective secure a military brevity term used during the
[03:50:48] execution of combat operations meaning the location or target has been isolated and contained,
[03:50:52] the assault force has eliminated all known threats and the element is prepared to move to the next
[03:50:57] objective phase of the operations of the operation. Reaching objective secure during a combat
[03:51:04] operation is a good feeling. It means we have a foothold, a location to re-consolidate,
[03:51:09] establish communications, prepare stage and if necessary fall back to. But this does not mean
[03:51:14] the mission is complete. Objective secure in our context here is twofold. First it is a victory,
[03:51:22] a milestone, it marks the success of achieving a necessary goal along the route to mission
[03:51:27] accomplishment. Second it is a tool, a system, a methodology, a process designed to manifest
[03:51:34] our reality. Objective secure is a philosophy and a blueprint that was created in real time,
[03:51:40] refined, then retrospectively analyzed following years of trial and error, years of failure,
[03:51:46] years of obstacles and years of adversity. It was forged by fire and is battle tested literally.
[03:51:56] Objective secure. Did you have that name out of the gate for the book? No, not at all. I mean,
[03:52:06] I created this thing. The original objective secure was about a nine page Microsoft Word
[03:52:13] document that I slapped together as the result of being asked the same question hundreds and hundreds
[03:52:21] of times was how did you do what you did? So rather than answering those every single time,
[03:52:28] what you're email address. Yeah, I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to answer that
[03:52:32] question, put a little more thought into it and that way I can just attach and send. It was about
[03:52:38] efficiency. I created the original one of these things, a purely out of efficiency to answer
[03:52:41] the question to provide that information to those that were seeking it. It wasn't until years later,
[03:52:47] I used it as such for years. It wasn't until years later that a good buddy of mine, now my
[03:52:53] business partner, hit me up. I was actually still in dive school. I had about a week left and he
[03:52:58] called me out of the blue and said, I think you need to write a book. And I said, get out of here.
[03:53:04] What are you talking about? Dude, I'm clinging by a thread down here. I'm exhausted. I can't even
[03:53:09] have this conversation with you. We eventually circled back a couple of weeks later and I gave
[03:53:13] it some thought. And this is in the middle of 2020 COVID. I got a lot of extra time and energy on my
[03:53:20] hands. Gyms are closed. The combatives house is closed. We're doing this weird half on half off
[03:53:26] work schedule, you know, remote LPD sessions. It was just a strange time. I had a lot of extra
[03:53:31] time and energy that I otherwise wouldn't have had. So out of respect to him, I gave it some thought
[03:53:37] about that Microsoft Word doc. And I said, I actually kind of have something. And he said,
[03:53:43] just keep going with it and see what it turns into. So I sunk my teeth into it and became
[03:53:48] real obsessed with it. I really found out that I actually enjoy writing, which if you had asked me
[03:53:52] that a week before this, I would have said no, no interest, but I actually do enjoy it. But I didn't
[03:53:58] figure out the title until maybe about the halfway point. I started thinking about it.
[03:54:03] And then it kind of kind of flipped. Yeah, you got what you the way you run your life and it
[03:54:11] becomes really clear in the book. I haven't touched on these part of the books yet. But like,
[03:54:14] you're you're very calculating in everything that you do. This is what I need to get done. Here's
[03:54:19] what and that's what makes this so effective. And obviously, it's worth outstanding for you to be
[03:54:25] able to pull off the kind of shit that you've pulled off. That comes across. And one of the things
[03:54:34] that one of the ways that you break down the book is you use some of the well, you use the way you
[03:54:39] learn things in the army. And one of the things that you talk about is the ethos, the warrior ethos.
[03:54:45] And here's part of it. I will always place the mission first. Now I realize the term mission
[03:54:51] has a strong military undertone, but this absolutely applies to everybody because everybody has
[03:54:55] dreams. That's what the mission is. It's a dream, the long term goal. The mission is what is waiting
[03:55:01] at the end of the road. Missions are impactful, often life changing. But for many, the mission
[03:55:05] will remain just that a dream. Many do not reach mission success. Many do not turn the dream into
[03:55:11] a reality. Those who do are able to recognize the need for something. Sacrifice, a subset of
[03:55:19] discipline, something we'll get into later, the active forgoing what we want for what we need.
[03:55:29] So you break these things down. So when we say, I'm fast forwarding. So when we say,
[03:55:35] I will always leave, I will always place the mission first. What we are saying is, I will
[03:55:41] make the necessary sacrifices, and I will prioritize my time. And again, I'm like jump,
[03:55:48] you've got all kinds of applications of this where people read and be like, oh, I think that
[03:55:54] might be me right there. Oh, I think he's talking about me over here. Or Oh, I need to do, I need
[03:55:59] to do better on that thing. So this, this, this book is very practical from that perspective.
[03:56:06] The next section I'll read is I will never accept defeat.
[03:56:11] This statement has a somewhat obvious meaning behind it, resolve, resiliency,
[03:56:16] and toughness. The mentality is that if you get knocked down seven times, you get up eight.
[03:56:24] Pretty, pretty straightforward. I'm going to read one little section out of this.
[03:56:28] Our egos do not digest failure easily. Our egos want us to constantly project strength,
[03:56:34] ability and knowledge. Our egos can prevent us from asking questions and pushing our
[03:56:38] limitations. Humility requires allowing ourselves to become vulnerable, to expose our weaknesses,
[03:56:45] things that are extremely difficult for most and for individuals who work in the special
[03:56:49] operations community, they're next to impossible. Gotta stay humble.
[03:56:57] Can be tough. So when we say I will never accept defeat, what we are saying is strive
[03:57:04] for failure. And when you reach it, learn from it, apply it and keep moving forward.
[03:57:10] Again, a bunch of good examples you throw in here about this. And all totally pragmatic.
[03:57:21] Next one, I will never quit. Initially, this sounds similar to what we just talked about,
[03:57:24] but upon further examination, we'll recognize the difference. I will never quit is about
[03:57:29] avoiding complacency. It is not letting ourselves get comfortable not celebrating too long,
[03:57:34] not accepting status quo and not growing stagnant. It is adopting the principle that satisfaction
[03:57:40] doesn't exist. And that now is the time to attack. Check. These things have a lot more meaning.
[03:57:54] When determining the appropriate rucksack, we need to think about the mission. We need to
[03:58:00] choose the right size rucksack for the job. Choose one too small will not be able to bring the
[03:58:04] necessary equipment. Choose one too large and we tend to fill the extra space with things we want
[03:58:09] rather than only the things we need ounces equal pounds. Next thing you know, we're humping 70 pounds
[03:58:15] instead of 60 pounds. At first, this may go unnoticed. But as the miles continue, the extra 10
[03:58:22] pounds take their toll. This will undoubtedly increase fatigue and reduce focus and ability,
[03:58:28] leaving us less effective when it is time to go to work. And this is what made me want to read
[03:58:33] this same as with ounces, minutes become hours, hours become days, days become weeks. And before
[03:58:41] you know it, a year has passed with little to show for it. Later in the book, you got some of your
[03:58:53] time like you got your daily schedule written out. It's like to the minute. Yeah, there's no time
[03:59:00] being wasted for freaking Nick. Now we're next on the mission, man. When Nick's trying to get back
[03:59:06] to an ODA team, there's not a second wasted. Can't. Can't. I mean, for one, just the gift of perspective
[03:59:20] with coming as close to death as I did, driving in how precious life is and how time is our most
[03:59:28] limited resource and just to maximize the gift of we have of minute to minute to minute, just that
[03:59:35] perspective was given to me through what happened. And then when you've got, you know, big goals,
[03:59:43] that's what it takes. That's what it took for me. Anyway, I think that's actually just what it takes.
[03:59:51] Not just for you, but for anybody. I will never leave a comrade. I will never leave a fallen
[03:59:58] comrade. We know the obvious meaning behind this, the meaning reserved for the warfighter,
[04:00:02] the mentality that no matter what, nobody gets left behind. When we open the aperture a bit,
[04:00:07] however, this tenant is speaking to a commitment to doing whatever it takes. Yeah, there's not too
[04:00:15] many, there's not too many sayings that have the word never in them, right? And that's what this is.
[04:00:21] This is like the commitment. You talk about this in this section when we understand that
[04:00:27] everybody eventually hits a decision point and that when they do most give in our decision
[04:00:33] point becomes an opportunity. Man, we were just talking about this the other day, like your life,
[04:00:38] our lives are just a bunch of decisions. They're just, they're just all decisions. What are you
[04:00:43] going to do? What are you going to eat? What are you going to get up? What are you going to do today?
[04:00:46] What progress do you make? What time are you going to waste? You say it gives us a chance to either
[04:00:51] extend our lead or make up ground on our competition. Through this understanding, we will begin to
[04:00:58] welcome these decision points. We will seek them. We will find ourselves intentionally pushing
[04:01:03] until we find ourselves standing at the crossroads. And when we arrive, when most would find themselves
[04:01:09] conflicted, we are not, we embrace it. So when we say, I will never leave a fallen comrade,
[04:01:15] what we are saying is, I will do whatever it takes to make it. At times, we have to ignore the brain,
[04:01:21] listen to the heart and take the risk. It's weird how many decisions you make without even
[04:01:29] thinking about it, the fact that you have a choice, right? You just, people just allow things to
[04:01:34] happen in their lives. Sure. Oh, that just, you know, what are you doing today? Oh, you know,
[04:01:43] like, no, that's not part of the plan. That's not part of the plan. That's not going to work.
[04:01:48] That's not going to work. Nick knows what he's doing. He knows what he's doing on Sunday afternoon
[04:01:55] at 1340. He knows what's up. And this is where you break down how we're going to execute this.
[04:02:09] So like, you just kind of talked about the mindset through the warrior ethos. Now you get into the
[04:02:13] execution of this whole thing. Phase one is the mission. Here's where we identify the mission.
[04:02:19] And again, how many people are going through life? They don't even have their mission identified.
[04:02:22] I'd say a lot. You know, I've talked about the fact that I was very lucky because when I was very
[04:02:28] young, I joined the Navy and I just wanted to be a good seal. And what like that gives you,
[04:02:35] you can make so many decisions based on that, you can make, you can do so much just on having a goal
[04:02:40] like that. Here's where we identify the mission. This is a long term goal, the dream, the what we
[04:02:48] are trying to accomplish, the who we aspire to become. There's a reason why this is phase one
[04:02:53] is it is exceedingly important. If we botch this up, we may be making progress, but progress in the
[04:03:00] wrong direction. So if you're listening right now, and you don't know what your mission is,
[04:03:07] you're already, you already got a significant problem. You get a problem going on because where
[04:03:11] are you going? Where are you going right now? What is your mission? If you don't have a mission,
[04:03:17] you need to figure out what it is 100%. And yeah, I think that the way that you
[04:03:28] like had that memory freaking woke up from a coma without a leg and we're like cool,
[04:03:33] I'm going back to an ODA team. There's my mission. Like this is what I'm doing.
[04:03:40] Design, we must have a solid understanding of our current situation, our mission, our obstacles,
[04:03:45] and how we are going to advance. This may sound intimidating, but don't let it overwhelm you.
[04:03:49] And then you break out. You know, there's another thing we didn't talk about. We didn't talk about
[04:03:54] the fact that once you didn't have a leg, you're like, all right, I need to be beneficial to my
[04:04:02] team in other ways beyond just physical, you know, you're going to be able to hold this
[04:04:06] standard. And I would say you probably do a lot better than the standard, but you're like, hey,
[04:04:10] there might be some deficiencies that I have because I only have one freaking leg.
[04:04:14] So I'm going to make up for that. And you started going to some of the more cerebral parts of
[04:04:21] special forces started going to schools to learn, you know, operational art and design.
[04:04:28] And that way you had something else to offer. You know, it was like almost like a backup plan.
[04:04:33] If you didn't have it all physically, which again, I would, I would say you definitely have a
[04:04:38] physical, but if you had some slack there, you're going to be able to make up for it.
[04:04:41] Yeah, that was a conscious decision that you made. Yeah, no, that was tough to accept that growing up
[04:04:46] as an athlete and a fighter and, you know, being that door kicker on the team is what my team wanted
[04:04:51] of me. It's what I enjoy doing, spend time in the gym, the fight house on the range. And everybody
[04:04:57] was a win-win accepting the fact that no matter how hard I trained, I was never going to be as
[04:05:03] physically dominant as I was with two legs. How can I make up the difference and still be that asset?
[04:05:10] And this was in the hospital. I was still an inpatient status living in the hospital,
[04:05:13] going through surgeries when this happened. And actually the Ususak commander at the time,
[04:05:17] General Cleveland, he showed up just to visit me. We had a conversation and that's what opened up my
[04:05:23] eyes to the other skills within being an all-encompassing green beret or an effective ODA,
[04:05:31] kind of the soft side of our business. You know, most of us come in because we want to kick
[04:05:35] down doors and shoot bad guys in the face, but there's a lot of other skills and tasks that
[04:05:39] enable that to be able to happen. So I recognized it then and committed to it in my own personal time.
[04:05:49] So rather than reading about exercise physiology or nutrition, I was reading about cultural dynamics
[04:05:54] in Afghanistan. I was enhancing my foreign language skills. I hated doing this stuff, man.
[04:06:00] I absolutely hated it. I loved the way I spent my time with two legs. I didn't want to do this at all,
[04:06:06] but I believed that it would work. I just forced myself to do it, man, which I'm preaching to the
[04:06:16] gospel or I'm preaching to the choir on this is like the discipline to execute on the tasks that
[04:06:23] you know will bring value is the road to success. Doing the thing whether or not you feel like
[04:06:30] doing it or not. And I know you're the subject matter expert on this. I've learned a lot of this
[04:06:35] from you personally during all of the stuff we're talking about. It's like, did the research,
[04:06:40] I know this will work or I'm confident this will work. Yeah, it sucks. But doing the things that
[04:06:46] suck is what separates the average from the great. So diving myself into this road, operational
[04:06:51] design was a school I went to. I needed to waive it ago because I was an E6 and it's reserved for
[04:06:56] more senior leaders who are going to be dealing with like campaign planning and type stuff. But I
[04:07:01] went as a tool to increase my cerebral and intellectual capacity overall. But then I was
[04:07:07] able to leverage what I learned in the course and apply it to my mission. Take the lessons learned
[04:07:14] and actually use those techniques to outline my day-to-day life and my operational approach. So
[04:07:20] it was multifaceted what I was able to leverage by doing that. Yeah, it's almost like what we
[04:07:26] were talking about earlier with leadership and how leadership is a skill. Well, you know,
[04:07:29] planning is a skill and designing courses of action to overcome obstacles. It's not just
[04:07:37] something you're born with. You can actually learn how to do it. And that's what you did. You went
[04:07:41] and learned how to do it. And here you look, you applied it in the field, but here you're applying
[04:07:45] it to your life. You go through this, you go through this phase diagram. You got all these
[04:07:51] diagrams in here, determine your current situation, define the mission, frame the problem, identify
[04:07:58] lines of effort. You go through this whole thing. And then once you figure out what the lines of
[04:08:04] effort are, you talk about how you're going to now attack those lines. You got the next phase,
[04:08:09] which is research. Access to information has never been as readily available as it is today.
[04:08:14] Never. There's absolutely no excuse to be uninformed. I don't know how it's just that
[04:08:19] an excuse and a avoidable reason. We must set ourselves up for success. The key to this phase,
[04:08:23] however, is to move quickly. We cannot get stuck here. The research is solely to get the wheel
[04:08:27] spinning and provide some direction to advance down our lines of effort. And you give examples of this.
[04:08:36] What is it? One of the examples you give is, hey, I'm living in a crappy house. I want to get a new
[04:08:41] house. Here's the things I can do. Here's the problem. Here's how I can make this happen. It's a
[04:08:46] campaign plan. Oh, I got to get a cheaper rent right now so I can save more money. I got to get
[04:08:50] some additional income. You go through it. Another one you got in here is, what is it becoming an
[04:08:55] instructor? Right? Like, these are things that you're doing to, you've actually taken these
[04:09:01] methodologies and applied them to your life. And it's not complicated. Next phase is approach.
[04:09:09] This is where we create our approach. We have already determined our long-term goal, our mission,
[04:09:13] our 300 meter target. We have also identified our lines of effort, the broad conceptual categories
[04:09:19] along which we will advance. In phase four, we are going to implement the list of tasks and
[04:09:23] considerations. We identified through research the series of short-term goals that exist between
[04:09:27] where we are now and where we are trying to go along our lines of advance. These are our objectives
[04:09:38] our 25, 50, 100 and 200 meter targets. Here is where we prioritize, organize and correlate
[04:09:46] along the timeline. So again, there's another place where people can get caught up, right? Oh,
[04:09:51] I created a good idea. I have a good plan. And then they don't execute on it. They don't, they don't,
[04:09:57] well, not that they don't execute, we're going to get there, but they don't figure out what do I
[04:10:00] need to actually do to get there? Like, okay, I see that I want a new house. I know I need money.
[04:10:06] How am I going to get more money? That's what this is. What are you going to, what do you do?
[04:10:10] What are you going to actually make happen here? Freaking, again, these things seem obvious.
[04:10:17] Yes. It's, it's really not that complicated. And I think a lot of people ask that question how
[04:10:27] to whoever they look up to will learn from wanting a complicated answer, because it just
[04:10:34] enables the excuse. Well, this is just too complex. Well, he's a seal. He's a green beret.
[04:10:41] Like I can't, I'm not either of those things. So this doesn't apply to me. It's like, it's actually
[04:10:46] quite simple. It's not necessarily easy, but it is simple. Yeah. The amount of times I've been asked,
[04:10:54] how do you get up early in the morning? And my response is, oh, I set my alarm clock or when
[04:10:58] it goes off, I get out of bed. That's legitimately what it is. Yeah. So when your alarm clock goes
[04:11:06] off, you get out of bed. That's what you do. That must be, it's simple, not easy. Simple.
[04:11:15] That freaking pillow, that pillow grabs a hold to echo Charles over there. I think
[04:11:19] you get strangled by that. You can put a chokehold over there. It's very dangerous.
[04:11:25] Here's another place people miss out. You got to execute. Phase five, execute, discipline. Discipline
[04:11:31] is controlled behavior. In other words, it is the combination of sacrifice and time prioritization.
[04:11:38] Warrior ethos one, I will always place the mission first with discipline. We are stopping
[04:11:43] ourselves from doing what we like or want to do and or forcing ourselves to do things we need to do.
[04:11:57] That's another thing. I'll use that answer sometimes. Like, you know what you need to do.
[04:12:04] Actually know what you need to do. You're just not doing it.
[04:12:07] Like you're not going to get better at jujitsu, not doing jujitsu. You're not going to get in
[04:12:10] good shape by not working out. You know what you need to do. Like you said, I think there's people
[04:12:16] that want you to say, well, there's a big complex thing that we need to discuss. There's actually
[04:12:21] not. There's actually not. Just stop doing it. Just stop doing it. Focus to remain disciplined.
[04:12:33] We must remain focused. This right here is essential. We have our plan. It's broken down into a
[04:12:38] series of objectives. Each objective has a series of requirements and tasks that we must accomplish
[04:12:42] to reach objective secure. We know there will be a host of challenges and obstacles along the way
[04:12:47] we anticipate setbacks. We project failures. We are prepared. But what are we actually focusing
[04:12:53] on during the process? The reality of it is it's our choice. Picture you getting your purple belt
[04:13:00] here, by the way, 2016. Check. How many times a week you train? Now? Yeah. I'm coming off a
[04:13:13] shoulder surgery. So none, but usually two, three days. Uh huh. Yeah. What happened to shoulder?
[04:13:20] I told my labrum. Doing jujitsu? No, this was just wear and tear, but I completely dislocated it back
[04:13:28] in 14 in a jujitsu tournament. Shredded the labrum. Put it back together. Wait, 2014,
[04:13:37] isn't that when you were still a white belt? I think I, in this particular tournament, I just
[04:13:43] belted blue. Yeah. There's a lot of people that were unhappy the day they saw you in the freaking
[04:13:48] bracket. You know what I'm saying? Well, I mean, especially it's, you know, it's a weight class
[04:13:55] sport, right? So I mean, from the waist up, if you looked at me versus my opponents, like,
[04:14:00] there's no way these guys are in the same weight class. Oh, shit. How much do you weigh right
[04:14:04] now? Right now, I'm probably 215. What would you weigh if you had your other leg? 250? Yeah,
[04:14:12] that's, you know, that's 45 pounds of leg is just not there anymore. Wait, so you said right now,
[04:14:17] you weigh what right now? About 215. 215. Yeah, that's messing up some people's,
[04:14:24] some people have bummed out where they see that bracket. They're looking at you going,
[04:14:28] there's, hey, get a scale. Yeah. And I went to the hospital, I learned a lot from Anthony Robles,
[04:14:35] all American wrestler born with one leg at Arizona State. I read his book, Unstoppable,
[04:14:40] to help me with my training. And it's funny, there's an excerpt in the book from his mother
[04:14:43] who talks about how when he was real young, the other parents would be like, Hey, this isn't fair.
[04:14:49] He only has one leg, like go easy on him, you know, because he was learning how to do it. So
[04:14:53] they, they noticed that as a disadvantage and they felt bad for him. Well, once he got real good
[04:15:00] and beefed up his upper body, it was the complete opposite where now the parents are going, this
[04:15:04] isn't fair because he's wrestling at, you know, 205, but really he's got the upper body of someone
[04:15:10] who's 235. So it just went to complete 180. It's like, I can take advantage of this. Yeah. Yeah.
[04:15:18] Damn. You got a section in this part, hard work now that we choose to stay on track,
[04:15:26] it's time to put in the work. Here's where the tangible gains are made bottom line up front.
[04:15:32] Good things come to those who work hard. Great things, however, come to those who are willing
[04:15:37] to do whatever it takes to those who are willing to push themselves to a higher level.
[04:15:41] We're going a little beyond hard work. We're going to freaking Nick style structure.
[04:15:51] Our daily structure informs us of what are we, what we are doing and when this is, of course,
[04:15:54] created based on many of the objective, secure considerations and requirements. And like any
[04:15:59] schedule, this provides us with some structure, a guide. And, and you got some cool examples of,
[04:16:07] of your freaking schedule and stuff in here. I wanted to point this out cost of ambition.
[04:16:15] We can quickly disregard those who genuinely don't want to see us succeed. They are relevant. So
[04:16:21] there's no associated cost. The haters of the world suffer from insecurity. They lack confidence.
[04:16:28] They look to tear down somebody rather than build themselves up because it's easier. They're weak,
[04:16:32] ignore and move on easy. Our loved ones want our time because they love us in the onset.
[04:16:40] They are genuinely supportive of the goal, cheering us on any way possible. Then the realization sets
[04:16:45] in that in order to accomplish this mission, we are going to have to prioritize the task necessary
[04:16:49] to reach the objective along the way. This takes time, time that is spent elsewhere. There's going
[04:16:54] to be some friction here. Yeah, especially those that, you know, have spouses, kids. This is where
[04:17:01] this is where this gets tough. Yeah. How old are your kids right now? Five and 16 months.
[04:17:07] That's awesome. Freaking outstanding.
[04:17:12] Fear. They don't want to see us disappointed. Manage your expectations. Don't get your hopes out.
[04:17:17] Up. This is out of love. Big goals are inherently a long shot. We, we have accepted the fact that
[04:17:22] there will always be failures along the way. We have accepted the fact that it's going to be painful.
[04:17:25] Resentment. So it's good to think about that resentment. Number one, to make sure that you're
[04:17:32] not getting caught up in it because this thing will eat you alive, man. And the biblical story of
[04:17:40] Cain and Abel. I've talked about this a lot. Cain was so resentful of Abel that he literally killed
[04:17:46] his brother. Just literally killed his brother. Right? We use the term brother in the most, the
[04:17:55] strongest bond we can possibly have with another human. And this guy killed his brother because he
[04:18:00] was resentful. So you got to watch out for it in yourself. And you've also got to watch out for
[04:18:06] another people when those around us see our drive, our work ethic, our dedication, they too may feel
[04:18:12] obligated to perform oftentimes as a positive chain reaction, accepted with gratitude and
[04:18:16] resulting in output. This may also, however, have a negative response. It is not a catalyst for
[04:18:23] performance. They can, they cannot refuse to reciprocate, which results in a feeling of laziness
[04:18:28] or lack of ambition. Similarly, some have also attempted to achieve the goal themselves and
[04:18:32] were defeated. Our success will affirm their inability to do the same in both cases, rather
[04:18:37] than being a source of motivation, we can become a source of resentment. We must also be aware of
[04:18:42] the flip side of the same coin when our ambition and determination are not reciprocated by those
[04:18:47] around us, our loved ones, it can result in our resentment towards them. You got to watch out for
[04:18:52] that one. Sneaky, sneaks up on you. You know, it's one of my buddies was trying to, Seth Stone was
[04:19:01] trying to go, he's like, Hey, I want to go to, I want to go to Princeton. There was like a program
[04:19:07] to go to Princeton while you're in the SEAL teams. And he asked me like, Hey, do you think I should
[04:19:13] go? I was like, hell yeah, man. And he's like, Well, some of the other guys are telling me,
[04:19:15] don't go, it's not going to be bad for my career. I was like, bro, how's it going to be bad for
[04:19:20] your career to be a SEAL officer that went to freaking Princeton and has a degree in international
[04:19:25] policy? Like who said that? And I think it's the same thing. People just didn't want him to get that
[04:19:31] little extra little thing going on his life. A little resentment coming through. Yeah, maybe.
[04:19:37] Watch out for that one. Community to put it bluntly, if we hang around with losers, we'll
[04:19:44] become a loser. That one's kind of speaks for itself. I think the classic is you are the average
[04:19:51] of the five you spend the most time with, you know, which I don't think is like statistically
[04:19:56] accurate, but anecdotally and common sense wise, that makes sense to me. For sure. For sure.
[04:20:01] And by again, I'm you've got all kinds of backing up data and stories and information to
[04:20:08] to explain these things. I'm just trying to hit the high point so people know
[04:20:12] that when they get this book, they're going to get a legitimate guide on how to do how to live.
[04:20:18] Consistency, unfortunately, it's easy. It's easy to be great for a day. Anybody can do it. But the
[04:20:24] other 364 days that make the difference. And this is truly the most challenging aspect of execution
[04:20:30] consistency. That catches a lot of people off guard. Discipline, hard work and consistency.
[04:20:37] How can you stop someone who is willing to stay on track, despite temptation,
[04:20:41] someone who's willing to sacrifice and put in hard work, someone who's willing to dedicate
[04:20:44] himself or her self on a daily basis? How can you stop someone who is willing to do whatever it
[04:20:50] takes? The answer is you can't. Phase six track, there's no reason to over complicate this one.
[04:21:01] It's simple. This is simply keeping track of what you are doing and how you are doing.
[04:21:06] It's a diary really for for all my alpha tough guys out there. You will likely refer to this as a log.
[04:21:13] But that's all it is. We are logging our actions, what we're doing, how we're doing it.
[04:21:17] How what's the oldest log? You got logs from your freaking college workouts? Oh yeah,
[04:21:21] go back decades. Yeah, yeah, old school. Yeah. I've got some, I've got some old, old. I have
[04:21:29] the little right in the rain notebooks. And so I've got that I just always track a workout in.
[04:21:34] And I've got probably, what is it 2022? I might have 15 years worth of I could pull up. I'm gonna
[04:21:46] have to check that one. I pulled I had to pull it up. I really, we had a little situation unfold
[04:21:51] that whole situation. Well, we, we, we, there was a guy that did a did a video about me being on
[04:21:59] steroids and I've never done steroids. And you know, he kind of broke down. He had broken down
[04:22:07] like what we had said on this one particular video where we were, we were kind of just having fun
[04:22:13] and bullshit and back and forth and you know, talking about Echo's skinny knees. And a lot of
[04:22:20] people sat down. And anyways, you know, this guy, his name, he's got a video, a thing called more
[04:22:29] plates, more dates. Good, good dude. His name is Derek. Anyways, he made a video and he just did
[04:22:34] like an assessment. I competed in jujitsu. I like he just did an assessment. It's like, oh yeah,
[04:22:38] he's probably on TRT and probably juiced at one time. And I just, we just made one back and said
[04:22:44] like, Hey, no, actually, I, I haven't. And I, I realized that there was things that I said
[04:22:52] that made him think, well, oh, Jaco says he can, you know, squat 405 for 20 reps, which I kind of
[04:22:58] like, I don't know if I actually said, yeah, or 10 reps or whatever it was. But I, I'd said it
[04:23:03] bullshit with Echo on the podcast and was even a real podcast. We were just kind of like it was
[04:23:07] before. So it was that I said, I worked out four times a day. Like there's some little clip where
[04:23:12] I'm like, Oh, four times a day. And I had to clarify what I mean is like, Oh, on a good day,
[04:23:17] I lift, I run, I go to jujitsu and I surf. Those are all some physical, those are all tiring, right?
[04:23:23] But they're not like I didn't do some crazy workouts. So anyways, while we were doing that,
[04:23:30] I kind of went back and just kind of reviewed, you know, just to get some real numbers out there
[04:23:36] where I said, Hey, here's what, here's an actual number. This is the time. So that's why that's
[04:23:41] like the last time. But I got just like stacks of these little notebooks, you know, but journaling.
[04:23:48] You're talking about journaling over there, man. Yeah, man, some alpha males are going to get freaking
[04:23:53] distraught. That's why I talk about it as much as I do. Because what are you going to do? You're
[04:23:58] going to call me a bitch? I mean, really, really? You know, that's not like you go talking. It's
[04:24:03] like one, I don't care. And two, like, okay, good luck with that. But like journaling, logging,
[04:24:09] there's a huge part of my day to day. And I'm like, I'll scream that from the rooftops.
[04:24:13] And it's always good. Like I, I since I track my since I write down, I can't track is a strong word
[04:24:19] for me. But what I like about it is, over time, if you're not careful, you can start to, like,
[04:24:28] let some things slide a little bit, you know, you like, Well, you know, I only really need to do
[04:24:33] this or I only really do that. Or what could I actually do? This is good enough, I think. And
[04:24:40] I had had this conversation with the Bert Soren from Soren X, you know, I'm talking about.
[04:24:45] And I was like, man, there's exercises that I do just to make sure that I don't lose that capability,
[04:24:50] like whatever it is, whatever that exercise is, muscle ups, like overhead squats, like I had a
[04:24:56] hurt elbow for a year, man, I could not do an overhead squat, couldn't do it. Maybe it wasn't
[04:25:02] a year. But you know, in my little logbook, it says elbow still hurt, you know, they can't do
[04:25:08] overhead squats. So I know what's going on. I know why I'm not doing it. Those little things
[04:25:14] to put in there, do you use any like the electronic tracking devices of your sleep or your, whatever?
[04:25:21] No, not yet. No, not yet. I mean, the technology seems to make a lot of sense.
[04:25:25] I haven't, I haven't found a gap yet where I may need to know that I got 6.125 hours of sleep at
[04:25:35] 75% efficiency. I think I don't know what difference it would make. Like it's time to get up, period.
[04:25:42] So that's it. My watch says I only got, you know, 40% quality suite. It's like, it doesn't matter.
[04:25:47] Yeah. Actually, I was talking to JP and he said, so he was doing my buddy JP and he said that he
[04:25:56] started sort of his attitude would adjust based on what his, he stopped wearing it because it's,
[04:26:01] it would say, oh, you need more rest. And he'd be like, oh, this workout's good. And he, and he
[04:26:07] said, he took it off, bro. He was like, I'm not doing this. Cause it doesn't matter. Like you just
[04:26:11] said, Hey, I'm up. This is the workout. I have to do. I'm going to go do it. When you see, hey,
[04:26:16] you're only at 27% recovery. Man, come on. Start to feel it.
[04:26:26] Phase seven, assess. This is where we analyze the state of our situation and identify areas of
[04:26:32] progress stagnation and or regression. Again, how often are we going through life without actually
[04:26:40] assessing where we're at? What's going on? What's our status? What adjustments do we need to make?
[04:26:47] Like this seems so obvious, but guaranteed, guaranteed. I would actually say most people
[04:26:55] aren't assessing where they're at. Maybe they do it. Oh, you know, when they do it is, what's the
[04:27:01] new year, right? The new year. The resolution. Yeah. They're like, Hey, you know, I need to do this now.
[04:27:07] But this is something you should be doing all the time. Where are you at? I used to tell the,
[04:27:14] I used to trick though, when I taught the young junior officers, one of the little tricks I would
[04:27:20] play, I'm going to say, what's the most important piece of information that you need on the battlefield?
[04:27:23] And they would be like, where the enemy is, how many weapons they have, how many there are. And
[04:27:27] I'd be like, no, the most important thing you need to know is where you are. So that's what
[04:27:31] that's about. Assessment. Where are you at? So you can make changes to your course and get it
[04:27:38] corrected. Honesty is what's critical with this, which a lot of us struggle with, man,
[04:27:43] especially with social media, like what people project oftentimes isn't real.
[04:27:49] And you get so conditioned to projecting this facade that you believe it yourself.
[04:27:55] That's going to hurt. In order for this to have any kind of significance of value,
[04:28:02] you need to have that internal no shit dialogue, where you can be honest with yourself. Like,
[04:28:07] where am I currently at? Forget about my last Instagram post, which has 17 filters on it.
[04:28:12] I took 57 different attempts for the perfect angle. Forget that. And your caption, that was very
[04:28:17] enlightening. Sure, forget that. Like, look yourself in the mirror. Like, what is my current status?
[04:28:22] And be honest with yourself. You're gonna bullshit yourself and forget about all this.
[04:28:26] It's not going to matter. It's one thing that's nice about Jiu-Jitsu. You can't bullshit your partner.
[04:28:33] It doesn't work. This just doesn't work. That's another reason for me. Like,
[04:28:39] I have those logboots in my workout so I can say, man, you know what? I don't really need to do that.
[04:28:45] Oh, wait a second. Let me look at what I see what I was doing two years ago. Oh, I was actually doing
[04:28:49] this many reps or this many sets or whatever. And that's what it Oh, it keeps me keeps me honest,
[04:28:56] actually. Absolutely. No, no. Um, phase eight repeat has the goal changed. If the answer is yes,
[04:29:03] then repeat the process. That means go all the way back to the beginning and do this assessment.
[04:29:07] Again, if the answer is no, repeat the process with specific and intentional adjustments based on
[04:29:12] the identified lags or deficiencies, boom, execute back to work, move out, continue to gather the
[04:29:20] data, stay the course, trust the process. We cannot make brash decisions. Odds are there are
[04:29:25] variables within our equation that are working. The only way to determine what is creating positive
[04:29:30] effects is through small incremental adjustments over time. It's hard. This separates the average
[04:29:37] from the greats. If it were easy, everybody would do it. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The process
[04:29:43] does not stop focus. It is worth it. So again, those were the highlights to this.
[04:29:55] This guide, this, this methodology, the sort of military, the military planning wrapped around
[04:30:06] what you could use for everyday life. Freaking legit, man. Thank you. Freaking legit.
[04:30:14] So that's kind of, that kind of gets us up to speed, right? How, how many years you've been
[04:30:19] in the army for right now? 15. I guess you're going to stay for 20. At this point, man,
[04:30:26] it would have to take something real convincing to get me out of here. How to know what the hell
[04:30:31] would get you out of here at this point. You got any, are you starting to look at what you
[04:30:37] might do after the military? Yeah. So I mean, it's, I'm going to continue to write because,
[04:30:43] again, I found out that I actually enjoy it. So I got a few projects I kind of work on. Well,
[04:30:47] you did spend seven years in college. So you got some experience at it. Got some lessons learned.
[04:30:54] Yeah. A little bit. So continue to write because I enjoy it. And then I'm not working for anybody
[04:31:05] else ever again. After 20 years, I'll work with a lot of people, but I'm going to choose who I work
[04:31:11] with. But the days of people telling me what to do will be over once I get that DD 214 in my hands.
[04:31:18] And so I see myself doing consulting, speaking, workshop, seminar type stuff. And I got a small
[04:31:28] crew around me now that are in line with that successful buddies of mine and some family that
[04:31:37] are doing well in life, but feel unfulfilled. My buddies, they work for Salesforce and they
[04:31:43] make a ton of cash. They live in Manhattan. Wow, they successful. But it's like, do I want to look
[04:31:50] back on my death bed at 80 and been like, I sold a lot of software and I had a really nice house.
[04:31:55] Or do I want to do something to sink my teeth into something that I'm proud of that gives me
[04:31:59] some fulfillment. So just turning that into a from what is now a nights and weekends kind of
[04:32:05] side thing to just what I do full time. Where will you raise your family once you get out?
[04:32:12] It's a good question. My wife and I have in this conversation right now. I would like to go back up
[04:32:18] north. But I want land as well. So I'd like to be able to live ideal for me maybe as like western
[04:32:28] or central mass where I can get my family because it's all about what culture don't want to raise
[04:32:32] my kids in. That's the conversation her and I are having. I think that there's a lot of value. I grew
[04:32:37] up in more of an urban environment where there's the edgy fast thinking wittiness that comes.
[04:32:44] The expression is with New York. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere because it's
[04:32:47] tough. You take someone from that environment, that culture, put them into a much slower environment
[04:32:53] like Tennessee where I'm at now. Yeah, they'll probably be frustrated because things are moving
[04:32:56] at a slower pace, but they're going to do well because they can move fast and talk fast and
[04:33:01] think fast. Where if you take someone who grew up in some, you know, backwards area and threw them
[04:33:06] in Manhattan, they're just overwhelmed by events. So I'd like to really give my kids a taste of that
[04:33:13] high tempo environment, but I don't want to necessarily like live in that environment.
[04:33:18] Yeah, I think there's a good, if you can get somehow, get both those, get your kids in both
[04:33:24] those environments where they spend some time where they're like in the city scenario and they
[04:33:28] spend some times where they're out in the country scenario. Because you know, you also have those
[04:33:34] kids that like they're out in the field and there's like a rattlesnake and they just like grab a stick,
[04:33:40] you know, hold the things head down, pick it up, swing it up against the tree and kill it, you
[04:33:43] know, you're like, that's pretty legit. Absolutely. So you get, you can, and you can kids are, their
[04:33:50] minds don't get developed even remotely to the capacity that they've got, you know. So if you
[04:33:55] can get a little bit of that, both, you know, you get them in the city sometimes where they're
[04:34:00] comfortable with that, you get them in the country sometimes where they're comfortable with that.
[04:34:05] I think that, I think that's optimal. You know, same thing, man. Got some space, you know, get a
[04:34:11] little range set up out there, some quiet, some lands, made TVs, some, you know, some hiking
[04:34:16] trails, do some outdoorsy stuff. But then, you know, I'm two and a half, three hours outside of
[04:34:20] Boston where I can go in. Yeah, you need, you might need to go to New Hampshire or Maine or
[04:34:24] something for that kind of scenario. I could see that. Because I can't, I don't see you having a
[04:34:27] range anywhere in your backyard in Massachusetts. Is that even possible? Legally? It might be tough.
[04:34:36] It might be tough if you had the land. But that type of dynamic, I think, is the goal for both of us.
[04:34:42] Right. Right. But you got to have, you also have, man, you got some roots in Boston, man,
[04:34:49] where you want them to have. You want them to have a Boston accent? I try to indoctrinate them
[04:34:53] into that now, you know. And they, you know, my oldest is five. He doesn't have, I'd say, a Tennessee
[04:34:59] accent yet, but he uses some of the vernacular down there, you know, the y'all and the, and the
[04:35:04] whatever. And I'll correct him on how to pronounce words with an accent, you know, because he's
[04:35:08] learning how to read and write. And he's like, you know, C-A-I, he's like, you know, car. And I'm
[04:35:14] like, it's car. Say it again, car. He's like, no, dad, it's car. I'm like, negative. It's car. My
[04:35:22] wife is like, would you leave him alone? Where's your wife from originally? Milwaukee. They kind of
[04:35:28] have not much of an accent, right? It's kind of like a Chicago thing. It's a little Chicago. It's
[04:35:33] like, yeah, don't you know, it's kind of like Minnesota, Minnesota thing, Southern Canada type
[04:35:38] thing. Hers isn't isn't really that thick. Some of her family is right on. Awesome, man. I think
[04:35:46] that's probably a pretty good place. Echo Charles. Yes, sir. You got any questions?
[04:35:52] Well, I was going to ask about Jiu Jitsu, but we kind of talked about it, you know,
[04:35:55] why would you want to ask? Just, you know, how's the training? When are you getting back to training?
[04:36:00] Because your shoulder and stuff, right? Yeah, man, I'm probably another eight, nine weeks out
[04:36:04] before the docs will clear me from that. And there'll be a slow progression back. But I'm not
[04:36:09] trained in Jiu Jitsu like I used to. I did deprioritize it where I was real heavy into it and competing
[04:36:17] and like real aggressive and like enhancing my skill and my technical capacity. Now I get in
[04:36:23] there a couple days a week just to just to keep a finger on the pulse and enjoy it kind of open
[04:36:27] mat style. And I help with the instruction of my son who's in Jiu Jitsu now. That's one. Yeah,
[04:36:33] that's kind of a natural progression for a lot of people, right? Especially when you get kids and,
[04:36:38] you know, all this stuff. It's like, you keep Jiu Jitsu, but you
[04:36:41] you deprioritize it a little bit. Yeah, that makes sense. How's your kid like Jiu Jitsu?
[04:36:47] He struggles with it a bit because it's there's a lot of free time where they're trying to teach
[04:36:53] some real technical stuff. And he doesn't do well when he's told to just sit there and like pay
[04:36:57] attention. He's five. He's five. I very seldom because I taught kids classes for a long time.
[04:37:04] Now, including my own kids classes. If five is really young, man, it's almost like when they're
[04:37:09] five, you should have a half an hour class. Because you just get them out there and keep it fun.
[04:37:15] They already know how to wrestle. Like it's it's it's a natural thing. So if you just say put some
[04:37:21] rules around what they already know, some very basic rules, they'll have fun. And the funner,
[04:37:26] you can make it man, the better off you're going to be. And you know, I'm sure you've heard me
[04:37:31] talk about this before, but like I pushed you to too hard on my kids when they were younger,
[04:37:35] like competing. They trained seven days a week. That's a lot. Yeah, seven days a week. And we
[04:37:42] were just I was just talking about with my kids the other day. It'd be like on Saturday, we'd get
[04:37:46] hit we'd get to this gym at eight o'clock in the morning. And like I would teach their striking
[04:37:51] class. And then I'd bring them up and teach their jiu-jitsu class. And then I would train
[04:37:56] for two hours or two and a half hours. So they'd be here. Just in this gym, ages like five through
[04:38:04] eight for like five, six hours Saturday and Sunday. That's aggressive. It's not the best protocol.
[04:38:15] That's aggressive. I would have been done a better job. Now look, they're coming back to it. I mean,
[04:38:20] one of my daughters is like training. She trained more than that right now. You know, she's getting
[04:38:24] after an echo nose. Yes, sir. Echo almost lost his arm to her the other day. She was getting hostile.
[04:38:28] Every time I come in here, she's here. Yeah. No matter what time, by the way. How old is she?
[04:38:32] 21. Oh yeah. But she wrestled in high school and stuff. She's down for the cause. But yeah,
[04:38:39] you can't get two. You gotta let you gotta make them love it. Yeah. We scaled it back. It was
[04:38:44] twice a week. And now we're doing like one. And then we brought in some gymnastics. And he does
[04:38:49] like this little CrossFit like a class thing. It's just it's just there's more movement
[04:38:53] hell yeah with those things, which is good for him. Well, this was the main point I want to make.
[04:38:57] My son had a friend because I would like try and get every kid in the neighborhood to train jiu-jitsu.
[04:39:01] And my son had a friend who I brought him in. We was five. He hated it. I brought him in when
[04:39:06] like literally a year later, he was six, hated it. He was seven, hated it. He was eight, hated it.
[04:39:12] And finally when he was like nine, all of a sudden it clicked and he was like, Oh, I understand
[04:39:16] what all this means and what this could help me with. And it, you know, and he started training
[04:39:20] all the time. And it wasn't like he was then five years behind my son. You know what I mean?
[04:39:27] Like the kids are only going to learn so much and they can learn so rapidly that once they get
[04:39:31] engulfed in it, they'll catch up pretty quick. So you don't have to worry like, this is a wasted
[04:39:36] year. Go freaking full, go freaking full Nick Lavery on him like, you missed a training opportunity,
[04:39:42] son. That's a good, that's actually a good point. Yeah. Cause they'll be able to make up for it.
[04:39:47] And if they, if they're into it, man, that's worth, that's worth it. Look, we can find you.
[04:39:53] People can find you machine Nick.com. That's it. You're, you have a YouTube channel. You have
[04:40:01] Instagram, which is Nick at Nick.machine.lavery. Lavery is L A V E R Y. Any closing thoughts, Nick?
[04:40:16] I appreciate the invitation, man. I, you're in this book. You didn't, you didn't read the pots
[04:40:20] where I mentioned you personally. Dude, I totally appreciate it. It feels weird. I bet it does.
[04:40:26] No, it's fine. But just a level of gratitude to the lessons I learned from you and from these
[04:40:32] works. You know, once I did realize that leadership is as a skill, although some people may be
[04:40:42] genetically enhanced based on character traits, it's a skill that requires reps like anything else.
[04:40:48] And you were the first dude that I found the first mentor I found when I realized that I had that gap
[04:40:55] and that there was a difference and I drove down that road. So a lot of my operational and personal
[04:41:01] successes are from your works and the way you message that. So I'm a, I'm a fan. So it's an
[04:41:08] honor to be here and just spend some time with you, man. So I appreciate it. No, that's awesome.
[04:41:13] And, um, you know, my last job in the SEAL teams was running training and there was so rewarding.
[04:41:23] I kind of already mentioned it, but having guys come back from combat and say, hey, we got out
[04:41:28] of this situation because of what you taught us and now having been doing this stuff, you know,
[04:41:36] the amount of feedback that I get like that, man, it's just, it feels good to pass that information
[04:41:42] on and you're going to get the same feedback, you know, on your story, on the lessons you learned,
[04:41:49] on the methodology you put forth in your book. So I appreciate you taking that and, and running with
[04:41:55] it. And it, that's, that's what we got to do, you know, we got to take care of the next generation.
[04:42:02] So I appreciate it, man. That means a lot. And yes, it was a little, I did purposely avoid the
[04:42:07] parts of the book. But all good, man. I want to read one last thing. Just because I think it's
[04:42:16] closes out the message really solid from the book. I was not genetically gifted with any
[04:42:20] astonishing talents. I don't come from a family of wealth. I make mistakes constantly. I lose focus.
[04:42:26] I procrastinate. I waste time. I feel pain. I experience fear. I bleed. I am not cut from a
[04:42:32] different cloth. I am not from another planet. I am a human, same as you, which means we have
[04:42:39] the ability to choose. It doesn't matter what we do for a living, how much money we have in the bank,
[04:42:46] the size of our house, the disability we live with, who we care for, who cares for us, the car we
[04:42:51] drive, if we have a car at all, how popular we are, or how much we can bench. It does not matter.
[04:43:00] We must simply decide. This is what I believe. This is who I am going to become. And I am willing
[04:43:11] to put it all on the line to achieve it. So there you go, man. You live in proof of those words.
[04:43:23] Thanks for joining us, man. Thanks for sharing your story, your strategies for victory.
[04:43:32] And most important, thank you for your continued service and sacrifice. You set an example for
[04:43:40] all of us. And the next generation that's coming up is going to be looking at you and knowing
[04:43:45] that they can get things done. And it's an example, not just how to live, but how to live right.
[04:43:55] So thanks, brother. I appreciate it, bro. And with that, Nick, slavery, the machine
[04:44:03] has left the building appropriate, fully appropriate, right? Yes. You're not like, well,
[04:44:11] that's no. What a freaking stud, man. In the classic Hackworth sense of the word. You know
[04:44:20] what, Hackworth? Yeah, no. That's the way he describes his two categories of people.
[04:44:28] Studs and duds. Hopeless in the hard part. But like, like the most, the best thing he can describe,
[04:44:35] he goes, this guy was a stud. That's like his big, his big statement. But yeah, man, Nick,
[04:44:42] just amazing human out there, crushing. And what a beast, man. Here's a small point of contention,
[04:44:56] which you just alluded to before you hit record. He says he has no, not genetically gifted.
[04:45:02] He's a little bit too many. I was going to chime in. You were sounding good. I was like, well,
[04:45:08] you are a monster. Yeah. He's a, he's a massive monster of a human being. Yeah. And then,
[04:45:15] but then I was thinking about that. 300 pounds as a bouncer. How tall he say he was? Six, five.
[04:45:21] Six, five. He said he shot up to six, five. I was looking at him. I'm evaluating, I'm thinking
[04:45:24] six, five, six, six. That's what I'm thinking. Not a small human. No, giant. And you can get by,
[04:45:32] you can get by with that in life. But then you can go to the next level. Yeah. And he's not like a
[04:45:39] sloppy, like two, you know, even how big he is, he's not like a, and I'm not saying all because
[04:45:44] it's, I'm not saying that, but there's a difference between just being big and sort of lurchy and
[04:45:48] maybe sloppy and like a six, five stud as it were. See what I'm saying? And he was for sure that.
[04:45:54] So I can imagine him eating with a diet coach and all this stuff. Yeah. I didn't do a good job.
[04:46:00] I didn't do a good job of capturing the fact of like the discipline that he imposes in his life
[04:46:08] to achieve these goals. Look, it kind of is clear that you have to, but you know, he's, you know,
[04:46:13] this, how many calories I'm eating at this time. This is what I'm doing here. This is the workout
[04:46:16] on this, the stretching, this is mobility. This is the time, you know, 0400 Reveley, 0428, you know,
[04:46:23] in the gym, 0521 starting cardio, 0610 first calorie intake, 700 via egg, you know, like that
[04:46:33] kind of thing. Bro, he said something or the one part that really I was like, bro, that's so true.
[04:46:39] If you can just remember that because, you know, he mentioned tunnel vision at one point, he
[04:46:42] mentioned tunnel vision, right? About when he was just thinking about his own goals kind of thing.
[04:46:46] I was like, bro, I think that that's like an asset, that tunnel vision, because that's really a big
[04:46:52] part of what discipline is, is not getting distracted by other stuff, including like your
[04:46:56] own feelings, right? So you guys, both of you guys are talking about like, when you wake up in the
[04:47:00] morning, you just do it, you're not distracted about how you feel, how much sleep you may or
[04:47:04] may not have gotten, you know, the weather or all this stuff, whatever. You're just not distracted
[04:47:08] by that. You just sort of do it, right? So technically, distraction is kind of the main
[04:47:13] enemy of discipline. And he mentioned it. I was like, I was just like tunnel vision. I was like,
[04:47:17] yeah, that is, huh? If you can maintain tunnel vision and leverage that, bro, you can kind of do
[04:47:22] anything. And this is the part where I was like, bro, that's so true. I hope to remember this
[04:47:28] at times that'll benefit me, where he was like, he was talking about getting in and out of the
[04:47:33] vehicle, right? Where he's like having trouble. So he's just practicing. He's like, if I can do this
[04:47:37] a thousand times, I'll be good. I'll be good. Good to do. Yeah, I'll be good. And I was like,
[04:47:41] bro, that's so true. And, you know, and we know it like we know it, but it's like, okay, so you
[04:47:46] need these guys like, uh, what's the group, the acrobat group, like a Cirque du Soleil or something
[04:47:53] or, you know, whatever you called it. Yeah. And they do these things. You're like, how the heck
[04:47:58] can they just nail that? It's so precise or whatever. But then you think about it in those
[04:48:03] terms where if it's like, yeah, let me do this a thousand times, let me do this 10,000 times.
[04:48:06] Let me do this. I mean, probably even more than that. Just do it that many times. And it's just
[04:48:09] so automatic, just like anything else you do, not anything else, but like a lot of stuff you
[04:48:13] already do as a human, like walking. Probably you ever consider about what your body has to do
[04:48:18] to just stand up and walk like your little feet and all this stuff. So it's like, man, you just
[04:48:23] got to put it into perspective. It's like, yeah, you just apply that to like kind of hard stuff.
[04:48:27] And probably you can do it, but you got to maintain that tunnel vision though in a way.
[04:48:30] Yeah. And the tunnel vision you got to watch out for because he got tunnel vision just focused
[04:48:35] on himself. But I, what I liked the power when he was like, oh, when it was about me, he was
[04:48:42] working hard. When he realized it was about his teammates and his teammates, kids and wives.
[04:48:48] He's like, I can get another freaking rep. Watch this. You know what I'm saying? So
[04:48:55] you know, you are much less likely to allow yourself to let your friend down than to let
[04:49:03] yourself down. You know, that's why people need a workout buddy, right? Like, Hey, are you going
[04:49:07] to be there? Yeah, I'm going to be there. You don't want to let your friend down. So you show up.
[04:49:10] They recommend that if you're having trouble getting it done, get a workout buddy. So he had that
[04:49:16] like amplified times 1000 because it's him wanting to be able to execute the job to take care of his
[04:49:25] teammates. That's what this is about. So freaking neck. Awesome. Awesome guy, man. Just an awesome
[04:49:34] guy. Hey, look, no matter where you are in life, you know, you can do a little bit better. Nick is
[04:49:44] good example to all of us. You know, I could probably do a little bit better.
[04:49:49] Everything that I do, every single thing that I, Jocko willing do is a little bit easier for me,
[04:49:54] because I got two freaking legs. Can you imagine jumping off a four foot thing in order to be
[04:49:59] able to do your job that you want to do? You jump off this four foot platform, you got to land in a
[04:50:04] pistol with another random prosthetic legs sticking out and stick the land and stick it.
[04:50:09] By the way, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. So what, you know, they said in the book, if you're
[04:50:15] around Nick, you have no excuses. Well, we're around Nick, man. Nick's out there. Think about that
[04:50:19] right now. So Nick's out there. So the pistol squat thing, sticking the landing, jumping off the
[04:50:24] four foot thing, sticking landing in a pistol, pistol squad. Even if you're not that like,
[04:50:30] impressed with that, what if you were six, five freaking two, you know, two 15, one leg though,
[04:50:37] seem saying like you would have been two 50, the equivalent of like a two 50 seem saying now do it.
[04:50:43] Way more impressive. So we're doing better. If you want to do better, you're going to need to
[04:50:49] work. If you're going to do work, you're going to need to recover. If you need to recover, you need
[04:50:52] the right fuel. You need the right fuel to work sometimes. I want some fuel right now, some
[04:50:56] jockel fuel. I drink some go. It feels good. I feel good. So jockel fuel.com. You can get some fuel.
[04:51:07] Supplementation, supplementation. You can get MOLC. You can get joint warfare.
[04:51:13] Go read the reviews on joint warfare and then press click order because it makes you feel
[04:51:17] good. Yeah, way better. I had a jujitsu sash that was slightly more intense than maybe I was
[04:51:24] I was used to or whatever. No, no problem. But my elbow and shoulder. So I had to double up the
[04:51:29] joint warfare. It's a good move. Hey, that's my life, man. Energy drinks, which we use the term
[04:51:38] in its own category separate from the poison that you may have been drinking. This is energy
[04:51:42] drinks that are good for you actually give you energy and now they taste good. They may not have
[04:51:46] tasted. They might have been not. They may not have been to your liking before. Now they will be.
[04:51:52] We fixed it. We took input. We're not over here like no, no, we took input wanted to taste better.
[04:51:58] Now it tastes better. Now it tastes freaking delicious. So we're up there.
[04:52:02] jockelfuel.com. You can get the drinks at Wawa. You can get this stuff at vitamin shop. You can
[04:52:06] get it at eGB. I owe everyone a list of where you can shop for this stuff. I'll get it out there.
[04:52:11] I'm sorry. jockelfuel.com. Go get some origin USA.com. We didn't even talk really too much
[04:52:17] with Nick about jujitsu, but he did. He did talk about how jujitsu was like a huge part of his
[04:52:23] recovery and what he did. You should be doing jujitsu and you may, you may have previous to
[04:52:29] this podcast had some kind of an excuse as to why you couldn't drain because you have this and you
[04:52:34] have that and you have the other thing. So you don't have an excuse anymore. Nick was a white belt.
[04:52:43] He didn't have, he doesn't have a leg and he got his black belt and competed by the way and and
[04:52:48] competed. So yeah, yeah. And that and so come on. There's a, as far as like, you know, you want to go
[04:52:54] hard into jujitsu, there's different levels, which to me are 100% all of them are 100% acceptable.
[04:53:00] If you just want to train recreationally, you just, you want to train and go hard and see, you
[04:53:04] know, and for your rank or whatever, or you want to train to be a competitor. No, they're all,
[04:53:09] all legitimate, all viable, all viable. You do them all. It takes a lot more to do all these
[04:53:17] insane and this motherfucker did it all. So you are correct. There is no excuse. Yep. We have no
[04:53:23] excuses. So trainjujitsu origin USA.com. Get yourself an American made G and while you're
[04:53:28] there, get yourself some American made jeans, get yourself some hunt gear. We got some good
[04:53:33] and good gear coming out. We're going to sell it all. We're going to make as much as we can.
[04:53:39] Next year we'll make even more. The pieces are freaking great. So origin USA.com support America
[04:53:49] and support yourself by getting awesome stuff. And don't forget that we have a store. What's
[04:53:52] that store called? Jockel store. Just like Jockel podcast, Jockel store. Same thing. You get this
[04:53:58] store. Just like Jockel fuel. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yep. Yeah. You want to represent on this path
[04:54:04] varying levels of representation available by the way, but yeah, we got some new stuff on
[04:54:07] their discipline equals freedom, standard issue shirts. I wore one yesterday. Yeah. So you would
[04:54:14] represent it hard. It was impressive. But yeah, you like some stuff, get some stuff. There's
[04:54:18] something called the shirt locker. If you didn't know what it is subscription service shirt. Even
[04:54:24] I have to admit at this time currently I'm looking at your shirt, which is a shirt locker shirt.
[04:54:29] Yes. And I must say it is pretty squared away. Yeah. It's nicely done. This one is one of the
[04:54:36] there's like six shirts that are kind of the crowd favorites. Everyone kind of like asked about this
[04:54:41] is one of them. Yes, sir. Yeah, it's a good one. But yeah, a lot of good stuff on there. But yeah,
[04:54:45] jockelstore.com. Subscribe to the podcast. Go to jockelunderground.com. We've been we just we
[04:54:50] just recorded a couple of those. We have our own little platform just in case things go totally
[04:54:56] sideways. We don't control the platform that you're listening to us on right now, unless you're on
[04:55:01] jockelunderground.com, which in which case we're all good. But they could shut us down. They could
[04:55:06] stuff. I there's people there's some of these platforms stick advertisements into the middle
[04:55:11] of our podcast. Did you know that? Yeah, I don't know. They just insert they just insert a damn
[04:55:20] commercial. Oh, for real. Thanks. So we're in here talking about war, talking about combat,
[04:55:24] talking about loss of lives. Oh, here's an advertising thing. So we don't like that.
[04:55:29] jockelunderground.com. No freaking commercials on there. $8 and 18 cents a month. If you can't
[04:55:36] afford it, it's okay. Email assistance at jockelunderground.com. We can get you hooked up. We just we
[04:55:41] just want to make sure that we can continue to do what we want to do with freedom. YouTube channel,
[04:55:49] psychological warfare. That's a little MP3 thing, which we owe another one, which I've been thinking
[04:55:54] about actually. So that might come to fruition flipsidecampus.com to Kota Meyer out there getting
[04:56:00] after books, Nick, Lavery, Objective Secure, just go on to Amazon order it right now. It's a little
[04:56:08] guidebook on how to live your life. Check it out. Only cry for the living by Holly McKay,
[04:56:14] who risked her life to write a book by some miracle. She made it out of Syria and Iraq and
[04:56:21] Afghanistan. And she interviewed all kinds of people on all sides of the conflict. If you want
[04:56:27] to know about it, go get that book. She's been on the podcast a couple times. I've written a bunch
[04:56:32] of other books. Check those out. Eshalonfront. Eshalonfront.com. It's a leadership consultancy.
[04:56:40] We talk about leadership. We teach leadership. Go to Eshalonfront.com if you need help with
[04:56:45] leadership. And if you don't think you need help, it's your first indicator that you need help with
[04:56:50] leadership. We also have the online training academy just like Jiu Jitsu. You got to keep training. You
[04:56:57] got to do it every day. Extremeownership.com. Check out the Extreme Ownership Academy and also
[04:57:04] from the charity perspective. If you want to help out veterans, check out Mark Lee's mom,
[04:57:08] Mama Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. And if you want to help out or you
[04:57:13] want to donate, you can go to americasamightywarriors.org. Also, check out Micah Fink's organization.
[04:57:21] He's a seal. He's taken veterans into the wilderness and repairing their soul.
[04:57:29] Actually, they're repairing their own soul. He's facilitating, I guess I would say. Heroesandhorses.org.
[04:57:36] Once again, if you want to check out NickMachineNick.com, you can find him there. NickMachineLavry
[04:57:47] on Instagram. So it's Nick.Machine.Lavry. And he's got a YouTube channel as well. He said he's
[04:57:52] going to start putting on more YouTube stuff. So check that out. And then of course, for Echo and
[04:57:58] me, we're on the Twitter, we're on the gram, we're on the Facebook. Echo's at Echo Charles. I'm at
[04:58:04] JockerWilink. And when you go in there, watch out because the algorithm is going to try and
[04:58:09] grab you by the throat. And thanks to all the military out there for risking your life, liberty,
[04:58:17] and pursuit of happiness for us and a salute to all the wounded vets whose sacrifice is continuous
[04:58:26] every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every year. We thank you for your sacrifice. And
[04:58:32] of course, thanks to Nick for coming out for sharing his story with us. And thanks to Nick
[04:58:42] for teaching us a better way to live. And also thank you to our police law enforcement firefighters,
[04:58:49] paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service,
[04:58:53] all first responders. Thank you for your sacrifice to keep us safe here at home. And
[04:59:00] everybody else out there, just remember what Nick had to say when he's talking about the fact in his
[04:59:07] book that he's not from a rich family. He's not genetically gifted, which that's a little bit
[04:59:14] of contention behind that. But listen, we know this, he's now been physically put into a situation
[04:59:25] where it certainly was not a gift. So he's in a situation right now that's more challenging
[04:59:30] than most of us have. And he makes mistakes, and he feels pain like everybody else. But none of
[04:59:38] that matters. None of that matters. He's not complaining about any of it. What matters is that
[04:59:46] we simply must decide what we're going to do, and who we're going to be. So go make that decision, and
[04:59:55] then get after it. And until next time, the ZECO and Jocko out.