[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they were just more specific point target rates based on higher levels of intel and higher levels of effects. Whereas on the ground prior we were just like going out and like paving the road a lot of the way. So this was more tied to like strategic initiatives and directions. So we'd maybe have a thing maybe once a week, once every couple weeks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But in that time there were a couple massive ops that we were a part of that took up good chunks of time. One of that was, was when Kendu's, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Taliban took it over. Uhm, we were a part of that as well. So we ended up shifting to that AO and we dedicated like two, three months to the response to that and then to the rebuild of that AO.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had around a company size element, about 100, 110 dudes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the craziest thing about working with these guys, so these guys were built, you know, by, by keg years prior. They had all, like all the equipment. They had all the Gucci stuff. Same uniforms. They're rocking PVS 31s. Like they got like high speed stuff and they're all juiced up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is weird, but what made it, I never got to a point where I was comfortable, was under nods, everyone looks the exact same. Whereas normally,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can tell the difference between my teammate and our partner force instantaneously. When you got guys that size rocking the same gear we are, I couldn't tell who is who.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 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. But I was constantly uncomfortable when we were doing night stuff, which was a good portion of it, because I didn't know who was who. Yeah, that's not true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No man, I didn't lie, I didn't lie. How were they? They were good. In the field, they were good? Yea, they were good. They were good. I mean, you know, it's an Afghan partner force, but they were the most proficient that I'd ever seen. You know, they were good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I was drinking through a fire hose because not only was my Afghanistan for the first time as an amputee, I'm dealing with all these tactical gaps. We were living out of rucksacks most of that trip. So I didn't get a chance to really establish like a rhythm in one location at one time because we were moving around so much. So I had to adapt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My loadout package for vehicles, for half infill ops, for dismounted ops, like where do I keep my extra legs? Where do I keep all my equipment? How do I carry all this stuff that I'm going to need if and when something breaks down? It was a forcing function.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To think about how I would go about doing that. So for every deployment I've had since, it's pales in comparison because I jumped off like the massive cliff to begin with. So now if I go someplace and I'm working out of the same location, it's like quite simple comparably.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, the technology in this thing is great, but it breaks. Like, legs break. You know, this thing's got a little microprocessor in it. It's got batteries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's got an internal battery, yeaah. There's a little computer inside this knee, so I have to charge it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So depending on how much I'm moving will determine how much battery life I have. But even on an active schedule, a fully charged knee will get me like three days. Okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I'd rather not have to carry it, but I've broken so many of these things that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's really, I consider it a requirement. So my standard loadout for like a vehicle type movement, a GAF, would be mechanical leg in my ruck, an extra one of these that I'm wearing now in my truck, and an extra one of these in another truck. In case my truck was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Disabled or blown up. I'd have another leg somewhere to go get and put on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well it's funny you mentioned that. One of the conversations I had with my group command team, uh, they were voicing their concerns. They're like, well what happens if your prosthetic breaks in the field? And I said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, successful and we had a lot of visibility on us that whole trip. I mean all the way up to like Washington.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I needed approval from the Yusisok command to be able to go. The Socom command was aware of it. So no SF team, no soft team wants a lot of people


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Checking it, checking in on them and paying attention to what they're doing and answering phone calls from, you know, three style generals. No ODA or team leadership wants that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My team leadership dealt with a bunch of that because it was almost like people were expecting and waiting for something to go wrong for them to pull me out and be like, Hey, we tried it. It didn't work. Let's like get back to reality here and like, let's find a real solution for this dude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that didn't happen, we had a successful trip.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no issues. So it was just, it was just hectic because I was doing this vehicle type thing in all my free time. So after that six month pump.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was the most tired I've ever been in my life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just, you know, it does start to take its toll after a while because there'll be a point where I have to take it off at a minimum, you know, wipe down the sweat, maybe throw on some antiperspirant type stuff, get it back on and go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It just depends on those different variables, but there were times when, you know, I'd be in the field out on something for four or five days. And as long as I had, you know, a couple, two, three hours during my rest cycle to kind of let that fluid go back into the residual limb and kind of plump back up, strap it back on and, and, and be good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, back from that trip, standard training cycle for us, individual schools, collective training, uhm, into PMT. And then, uh, the, the next year, the year after that trip, uh, we were over in Samoa on our next thing, which was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A CT mission as well, CTDA mission, just different continent, but very, very similar.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we had five. Oh damn. Yeah, we had a bunch of Somalis, we had some Kenyans, we had some Ethiopians.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we were, uh, we were, we were tagging in, uh, Al Shabaab. This is, uh, you know, Al Qaeda affiliate. We were tagging in those guys. And it's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once, eh, 2-3 times a week. Uh, we were- Doing DA's. Yep, doing DA. Outstanding. Yeah, we were down south, the other unit we were working with was, uh, was further up north, and we would just like flip-flop to support each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 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.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I learned a lot of lessons and ways to maintain my prosthetic and my body. So I'm learning how to do this. So by the time 2016 trip came around,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was, I was much more confident in my tactical prowess and insertion within operations. Hell yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was 2016. So I came back from that and that was when I transferred groups from third group to fifth group.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, the reason I transferred because my wife, she went down a different career path and got orders for, for Campbell. So I transferred groups. At this point, we were married. So to stay with her, obviously I transferred from third to fifth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Went over there and then, uh, got integrated with those guys and then my next trip was into Lebanon. Check.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I started looking at it actually when I was in Somalia, uhm, because I warrant had to go home on emergency leave and I kind of took up a lot of those tasks for the detachment when I got back from, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] From Lebanon is when I dropped that, is when I dropped that packet. And got picked up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We go to Fort Bragg to go to our school, whereas every other Army Warrant Officer goes down to Fort Rucka and goes through the Warrant Officer course. We have our own, our own program because it's, the SF Warrant Officer is wildly different than all the other Warrant Officer branches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, there's only two combat warrant officers and those are aviators and then SF guys. The rest, those are, those are managers. Like they, you run a desk, right? Because you're, you're an expert in that particular system and your job is to manage and task.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On our side of the house, it's different because you're on the team. So we have our own school, so I went and did that. That was in 2019.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, five month, my five month course, it's a lot of writing and briefing and officer stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Next step is going to my next detachment as the assistant detachment commander. And I was notified the team I was going to go to with about two weeks left of the warrant officer course. And the second I was told the team number,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I knew the type of team it was going to be, which was a maritime ops team, a dive team. Yup. Right, and SF, all the teams that end in the number 5, they're dive teams.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I just completed the Warrant Officer course. First amputee to ever go. It was challenging as hell.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Believe it or not, it's, you know, there's a lot of physical stuff. To go back a bit, when I first got to group, the Warnoffs on the teams, stereotypically, were the out of shape old guys that were never around.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, the regiment realized that and they completely re-altered the actual course to include a lot of physical gates that you had to pass. Because they didn't want these old crusty, out of shape guys on teams anymore. If you're going to be a worn-off on a team, you need to be able to function as a team guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Every ODA doesn't have a warrant, but, cause it's a small community, most do and that guy is the assistant detachment commando. Because the SFODA, the 12 man construct is designed to run split team ops. It's not just like a random number. So the captain takes one section and the warrant takes the other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, most come from the infantry. They don't necessarily have to have an infantry background. But they're, I mean, they're green. Even, like, the most experienced new captain.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In today's world, you're not seeing it that much because there's not a lot of combat, but they get maybe one trip as a platoon leader in their conventional unit, go to the captain's career course, go to the Q course and then show up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that level of inexperience is why the SF-1 officer exists. Because...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their trajectory, they get two years on a team and then they're gone. So the most senior captain on a team has been there for 24 months. Like that guy just barely figured out his job, what an ODA does, how we fit within the overall picture. And then he's on to the next thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The warrant is there, you know, we're expected to do 5-6 years on the same detachment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're there to be that strategic advisor to that leader. That's freaking legit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, it was legit. It was tough. So, I mean, I got like two weeks left before I'm gonna graduate, and I'm just about the top of this ridgeline. Like, graduation's inevitable at this point, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm feeling pretty happy about my, you know, my performance and where I'm going. I'm excited. And then I get the phone call like you're going to this team right here. And uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, cause everyone knows, CDQC, the Combat Diver Qualification Course, everyone knows that that is the hottest school within the army by a mile, physically and mentally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And most, uh, fearful of it. Most don't want to go down that road. You know? I had the same response. I had the same response. It was, okay, well, my celebration here was short lived because now I've got to figure out how I'm going to do this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and it's, I mean, it's funny, man, cause I got back to the group, I got to my new battalion, I got assigned to my new team, and I met with the company command team the next day, and within the first couple minutes of that conversation, they told me that no one had any expectations of me going to dive school. Oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had the same conversation with the battalion command team a couple days later and was told the same thing from them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which I found was interesting, you know, and I looked at him kind of sideways.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, listen, this team is, they're a bunch of aggressive savages. It's the most senior team we have in the battalion. They're hungry for combat. They haven't seen it yet. We need a strong leader on that team. There are only two Warren office of candidates. There were only two of us in fifth group that went, me and my buddy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Me and my buddy Mike had wildly different experiences. Mike did a lot of like interagency stuff and he was more on the technical side of things and did a lot of intel stuff. My experience was like all combat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they looked at both of our packets and they're like, we can't send this guy to a dive team, especially this one. It's going to have to be Nick, but it'll work because he's a strong leader. They'll respect them. It'll, it'll help keep things moving in a general direction. Dive teams are known for being


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In subordinate, aggressive, you know, it's the, it's the, it's the double edged sword for leadership because you got a really high performing detachment, but you're going to have to deal with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Their aggressiveness and keeping them within line in a garrison environment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In their eyes, that's what they were thinking. I didn't see it that way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's the one thing that separates dive teams from every other detachment is going through that extra filter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it's really irrelevant to the actual execution of Maritime Ops. It's just that fine filter to be able to push yourself through that hell and then you take 12 guys that have all been through that and lump them together, they are gonna be a high performing detachment no matter the mission. Were you in the water much growing up?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A little bit, but not much of a group in New England, you know, so yeaah. I mean, spent time in the water, but...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wasn't a swimmer. Never scuba dived before.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some do, it's rare for a new dude to show up and be like, put me on a dive team. Most are happy with the little green hat on their head and they want to just like, chill and just get to team stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It does happen. It's not very often that it happens. I think the Sagin's major, they, they do ask if there's an open slot in a dive team. Hey, you know, are you comfortable with water? Do you spend any time swimming? You know, which I think brings value to your success in CDQC.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have to be. So I do think they have that conversation, but if the answer is no and they need another diver, it's like, okay, well, you're going anyway.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it wasn't a med board, but I did need a waiver approved to be able to go because of my physical profile. So there had never been an amputee to even, like, consider going.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the admin side, it worked out great for me because I went through my dive physical, which is the most in-depth physical we have in the army. They check you for everything because it's just such a high stress school.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's two phases. I get through both of those. Both are clean. Both are good to go. And then our med clinic sends up the waiver for me to be able to attend administratively. Well, that needs to be approved by the SWIC surgeon who's a full bird colonel. I said, okay, cool. Send it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I get a phone call about a week later from some 910 area code number, which is North Carolina.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dialed my phone number by accident, and I'm overhearing a conversation about me, and I'm going, hello, who is this? Dude's just yelling.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Talking real aggressively, talking real fast, finally he stops. I'm like, who is this? He's like, Nick, it's, it's Mike. And, uh, I said, doc, how you doing? Well, Mike.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was the third group surgeon back when I was in Afghanistan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was the first guy that operated on me when I got flown into Bagram.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had since been promoted to 06 and was working as the SWIC surgeon. So he and I knew each other real well. I didn't know that that's where his job was till he calls me. And I'm like, oh, no kidding. Okay. He's like, I'm staring at your, your waver. It's in front of me right now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That you want to go do this, but if you want to go, go ahead, like good luck. 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.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, both for him as the medical professional and then the commander in which he works underneath, like they're assuming that risk to send me to a course like that as a student.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He gave me the green light and then once I had that, I had already been training, you know, physically my first day on the team. I was in the pool. Day one. I just met these guys. It's my first day in this battalion. It's my first day as a warrant officer and I'm in the pool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so I did, you know, and I went to my prosthetist and I said, I need a fin. And, uh, they make, you know, fins for amputees. It's not, it's not like a new thing. He gave me this one and things may be, I don't know, three feet in length. It's small.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And my teammates called it my finding nemofin. It's just the difference between my leg and this thing which is so different. But the concern was that, you know, if it's, if it's a longer lever, it places more force through


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that was what I had, and uh, you know, I just said, you know, Roger that, this is my equipment, I'm just gonna figure out how to make it work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the pool, during our train up, and you know, my teammates were phenomenal, but at the same time, it was, no one really knew how to do this with a guy with one leg, so it was a lot of trial and error, and like, figuring it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did that. And then, uh, I was in communication with the leadership down at CDQC. Uh, they reached out to me once they were made aware that an amputee was going to come down. It was a third group dude who was actually one of my instructors in the Q course, who was now the Sergeant Major down there. So he hit me up and was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey man, just like keep me updated with, if you're modifying any specific procedure, I just need to know what that is. Cause my instructors don't like know what this looks like. You know, so you know like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maritime mobs, 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.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well for me, some of those steps just don't exist. If it's like, put your right foot here, well like I don't have one. So what am I doing when everyone else is putting their right foot over there? So just those small little tweaks is what my team and I were kind of playing around with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I messaged that to the cadre down there, it was ultimately up to them to decide if what I was doing would meet their standard requirements. Couple adaptations with a couple different things, but uh, and then the CDQC journey. What's the attrition rate at that school?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Two or three attempts at it. Which is quite common. Feel free to take a guy maybe twice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I blacked out underwater, uh, my first two go-rounds. And my blackout experience, they tell you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you're gonna start to feel yourself going. Like when you're being choked out, right? Like things get soft and you start to feel yourself getting comfortable. Like you're on the verge of blacking out. I, that doesn't happen with me. Mine is just continued increase in pain and discomfort. And then you're out. And then I come to and I'm on the pool deck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The one after that, uh, we were in Iraq. Damn.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Last year. We went in December of 20. December of 20 into 21.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Advise assist. I mean the Iraq of today is much different than the Iraq of your days.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I enjoyed it. Yeaah, we did a couple, uh, split team scenarios, but then, uh, because of what we were doing was pretty...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Routine, uh, myself and my actual team leader, we would just swap out at times. So I got some reps at the detachment commander thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Very much so. It's, it's difficult as a warrant because a way it was described to me was it's a command-less, thankless, selfless position. You know, when you have that tripod of leadership, the detachment commander, the captain, your senior enlisted guy, and then the warrant officer,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, the detachment commander is in charge of the team. He runs the team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The senior enlisted guy, the team sergeant, he runs the boys, like they all work for him. The warrant exists kind of in between that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the way you influence as a leader is more done through your actions than it is about having one-on-one molding sessions with the individuals, because that's really the job of the team sergeant. So your approach to leadership as a warrant


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Has to be a mature one, which is tough for a lot of us because we're aggressive type A pipe hitters who think we know exactly what right looks like. So I have to stay back from that and lead through supporting others and lead through more of your actions than your verbal mentorship can be tough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so where are you stationed now? I'm still in 4th Campbell, still in 5th group. Uh, I'm just took over as the company operations warrant for our advanced skills company.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when I was working in the combatives committee, it was underneath the advanced skills company. So now I'm amongst the company level leadership where I work alongside a major and a sergeant major.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, I created this thing. The original Objective Secure was about a nine page Microsoft Word document that I slapped together as a result of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Being asked the same question, hundreds and hundreds of times, was how did you do what you did? So, rather than answering those every single time, what's your email address?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I said, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer that question, put a little more thought into it, and that way I can just attach and send. It was about efficiency. I created the original one of these things, purely out of efficiency, to answer the question, to provide that information to those that were seeking it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wasn't until years later, I used it as such for years. It wasn't until years later that a good buddy of mine, now my business partner, hit me up. I was actually still in dive school. I had about a week left and he called me out of the blue and said, I think you need to write a book. And I said,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We eventually circled back a couple weeks later and I gave it some thought. And this is in the middle of 2020, COVID. I got a lot of extra time and energy on my hands. Gyms are closed. The combatives house is closed.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're doing this weird half on half off work schedule, you know, remote LPD sessions. It was just a strange time. I had a lot of extra time and energy that I otherwise wouldn't have had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So out of respect to him, I gave him some thought. Thought about that Microsoft Word doc.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, I actually kind of have something. And he said, just keep going with it and see what it turns into.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I sunk my teeth into it. I became real obsessed with it. I really found out that I actually enjoy writing, which if you had asked me that a week before this, I would have said no. No interest, but I actually do enjoy it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I didn't figure out the title until maybe about the halfway point I started thinking about it and then it kinda flipped.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The gift of perspective with coming in as close to death as I did, driving in how precious life is and how time is our most limited resource and just to maximize the gift we have of minute to minute to minute. Just that, that perspective was given to me through what happened. And then when you've got, you know, big goals, that's what it takes. That's what it took for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, that was tough, uh, to accept that growing up as an athlete and a fighter and, you know, being that door kicker on the team is what my team wanted of me. It's what I enjoy doing. Spend time in the gym, the fight house, on the range, and everybody, it was a win-win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How can I make up the difference and still be that ass-set?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We had a conversation, and that's what opened up my eyes to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other skills within being an all-encompassing green beret or an effective ODA, kind of the softer side of our business. You know, most of us come in because we want to kick down doors and shoot bad guys in the face, but there's a lot of other skills and tasks that enable that to be able to happen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I recognized it then and committed to it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In my own personal time, so rather than reading about exercise physiology or nutrition, I was reading about cultural dynamics in Afghanistan. I was enhancing my foreign language skills.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hated doing this stuff, man. I absolutely hated it. I loved the way I spent my time with two legs. I didn't want to do this at all. But I believed that it would work.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, I just forced myself to do it, man, which I'm preaching to the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To the gospel, or I'm preaching to the choir on this, is like the discipline to execute on the tasks that you know will bring value is the road to success.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doing the thing whether or not you feel like doing it or not. And I know, like, you're the subject matter expert on this. I've learned a lot of this from you personally during all of the stuff we're talking about.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did the research, I know this will work, or I'm confident this will work. Yea, it sucks. But doing the things that suck is what separates the average from the great. So, diving myself into this road, operational design was a school I went to, I needed a waiver to go because I was in E6.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We'll use those techniques to outline my day-to-day life and my operational approach. So it was, it was multifaceted what I was able to leverage by doing that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That complicated. And I think a lot of people ask that question how to whoever they look up to or learn from.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wanting a complicated answer, because it just enables the excuse.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, this is just too complex. Well, he's a seal. He's a green beret. Like I can't, I'm not either of those things. So this doesn't apply to me. It's like, it's actually quite simple. It's not necessarily easy, but it is simple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, this was just wear and tear, but I completely dislocated it back in 14 in a jiu-jitsu tournament. Shredded the labrum. Put it back together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I mean, especially, you know, it's a weight class sport, right? So, I mean, from the waist up, if you looked at me versus my opponents, you'd be like, there's no way these guys are in the same weight class. Oh, shit. How much do you weigh right now?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I, you know, when I was in the hospital, I learned a lot from Anthony Robles, an all-American wrestler born with one leg out of Arizona State. I read his book, Unstoppable, to help me with my training. And it's funny, there's an excerpt in the book from his mother who talks about how when he was real young,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The other parents would be like, Hey, this isn't fair. He only has one leg. Like go easy on him, you know, cause he was learning how to do it. So they, they noticed that as a disadvantage and they felt bad for him. Well, once he got real good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Spouses, kids, this is where, this is where this gets tough. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Accurate, but anecdotally and common sense wise, that makes sense to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, really? You know, that's not like ego talking. It's like, one, I don't care. And two, like, okay, good luck with that. But like, journaling, blogging, is a huge part of my day to day. And I'll scream that from the rooftops.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, not yet. I mean the technology seems to make a lot of sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I haven't found a gap yet where I may need to know that I got six


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[Assistant] Honesty is what's critical with this. Which a lot of us struggle with, man. Especially with social media, like what people project often times isn't real.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you get so conditioned to projecting this facade that you believe it yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In order for this to have any kind of significance of value, you need to have that eternal no shit dialogue where you can be honest with yourself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm gonna continue to write because again I found out that I actually enjoy it. So I got a few projects I kind of work on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So continue to write, because I enjoy it, uhm, and then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not working for anybody else ever again. After 20 years.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'll work with a lot of people, but I'm gonna choose who I work with. But the days of people telling me what to do will be over once I get that DD214 in my hands. So I see myself doing, you know, consulting, uhm, speaking, workshops, seminar type stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I got a small crew around me now that are, that are in line with that, you know, successful buddies of mine and some family that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, doing well in life, but feel unfulfilled. You know, cause my buddies, you know, they work for like sales force and they make a ton of cash. They live in Manhattan wildly successful, but it's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do I want to look back at my deathbed at 80 and been like I sold a lot of software and I had a really nice house or do I want to do something, sink my teeth into something that I'm proud of that gives me some fulfillment. So just turning that into a from what is now a nights and weekends kind of side thing to just what I do full time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My wife and I are having this conversation right now. Uh, I would like to go back up north.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I want land as well. So I'd like to be able to live, ideal for me maybe is like western or central mass where I can get.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think that there's a lot of value. I grew up in more of an urban environment where there's the edgy


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fast thinking, wittiness that comes, the expression is, with New York, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, because it's tough. You take someone from that environment, that culture, put them into a much slower environment, like Tennessee, where I'm at now. Yeaah, they'll probably be frustrated, because things are moving at a slower pace, but they're gonna do well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because they can move fast and talk fast and think fast. Where if you take someone who grew up in some, you know, backwoods area and threw them in Manhattan, they're just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Overwhelmed by events. So I'd like to be able to give my kids a taste of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] High tempo environment, but I don't want to necessarily like live in that environment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Same thing, man. Got some space, you know, get a little range set up out there, some quiet, some lands, some ATVs, some, you know, some hike-in trails, do some outdoorsy stuff, but then, you know, I'm two and a half, three hours outside of Boston where I can go in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the whatever, and I'll, I'll correct him on how to pronounce words with an accent, you know, cause he's learning how to read and write and he's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, see a, ah, he's like, you know, car, and I'm like, it's car.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a little Chicago, it's like, eh, don't you know, it's kinda like Minnesota, Southern Canada type thing. Hers isn't really that dick, some of her family is. Right on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah man, I'm probably, probably another 8-9 weeks out before the docs will clear me from that and there'll be a slow progression back. But I'm not training jiu-jitsu like I used to. Uhm, I did deprioritize it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, where I was real heavy into it and competing and like real aggressive and like enhancing my skill and my, my technical capacity. Now I get in there a couple days a week just to, just to keep a finger on the pulse and enjoy it kind of open mat style and I help with the instruction of my, my son who's in jujitsu now as well.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] How's your kid like jiu-jitsu? He struggles with it a bit cause it's, there's a lot of free time where they're trying to teach some real technical stuff and he doesn't do well when he's told to just sit there and like pay attention. He's fine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, we scaled it back, it was twice a week, and now we're doing like one, and then we brought in some gymnastics, and he does like this little crossfit, like, hit class thing. It's just, it's just, there's more movement with those things, which is good for him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I bet it does. No, it's fine, but just like a level of gratitude to the lessons I learned, uh, from you and from these works. You know, once I did realize that leadership is more as a skill, although some people may be


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Personal successes from your works and the way you message that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I'm a fan, so it's an honor to be here and just spend some time with you, man, so I appreciate it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I took the master class by the way. Very helpful, very good. That was a very well done one. Uhm, what's your thoughts on like good, the whole good cop, bad cop, uh, interrogation?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the, oh, back to the accommodator. So if I'm running late, not that I ever run late, but hypothetically, if I'm running late and then Jaco texts me how long.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm thinking I give him the good news so he's not that mad at me. See what I'm saying? So if I give him the worst possible news for that 10 minutes or whatever, he's gonna be mad. See what I'm saying? Then he's already mad when I walk in there. But if the small chance arises that I get there in the 5 minutes, boom. Easy money. See what I'm saying?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know I have accommodator traits from time to time. We know that you're not analytic. Okay. And we know that you're not assertive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, one time you called me out for clicking the pen. I edited it out so it's not on any episode. And the way you said it was,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Is that clicking gonna show up on the recording, do you think? You said you think. Like me, it was like my idea kind of a thing, you know? Like I have to figure out for myself if it's gonna, as opposed to hey, that clicking is annoying and it's gonna ruin the take or whatever, you know?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you look on the video, I responded like totally, like, it worked. That little tactic.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Your, your interest is like, it's like an 80-20 where you like how things work for sure, but only like 20%. 80% is you're interested in, okay, so what do we do about it? So like, and I think I'm kind of the, if I'm like really trying to be introspective.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm kind of the opposite, so I'm like a 2080 kind of a scenario. So anytime I start going deep on how things work, I see your eyes kind of glaze over and then you snap to it and you be like, okay, this is what you do. This is what you do. It's like you, uh, you interrupt it with the next step kind of a thing. So, so I can see why you'd be really into the, the stories.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's true. Also, Jocko's store. Jocko's store. Called Jocko's store. This one equals freedom shirts. New one is out. It's been out. It's a good one. Standard issue one? Standard issue. Multiple forms? Multiple forms. Uh, get one. Look. Is Christmas near? Is Christmas near? Technically? Maybe. Maybe not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Available. So is it near? This is something to think about, we'll say that. So yes, we got some good stuff on there, some kids stuff on there, where are your kids stuff on there as well? So we kinda got everything, something for everybody if you wanna check it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The warrior kids need that Christmas hitter. Yeah, that'll be a good clothing gift. I've got some accessories, we've got some good stuff on there. Also, we've got the shirt locker.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you for having me. Good to see ya. It's good to see you too. They do not call me DVO.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Speaking of that man, so I've never been to your place. It's, it's marvelous. And uh, went to the head, that's the bathroom for folks who aren't in the Navy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, to begin in the beginning, as they say, uhm, I was raised in abject rural poverty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, by a single mom. My dad was not honorable. No other way to describe that. He abandoned us when I was an infant. And uhm, I dropped out of high school when I was 16 years old.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, you should have, because Ken Burns, uh, did one of his, uh, documentaries called The War. Okay. And it featured the Palace Theater, which is on Main Street in Laverne, and we lived in the apartment above the Palace Theater once we got enough together, because we had to live with my grandma, and we were that poor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, she was one of the first female sports reporters in the country. And, uh, she's always been a stats head when she died.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nine years ago, eight years ago now, my ma, she's wonderful, Carol Ann Mulligan, she's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, it was kind of odd to get off that sort of stuff, right, because it was just weird to have a woman reporting sports, you know, it's just now it's... Now it's common. Yeah, it's normative.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay. And uh, then she got promoted. She's very, she was very bright. And uh, she wound up retiring, running the West Coast.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For, uhm, Cigna. Okay. She ran this whole office and it was interesting. She, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] as a seal that she was like, wait a minute, if we have this phone and we, anyone has a phone, they can call this number.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if they have the ability to understand what's going on with this phone, they can get everybody's insurance information.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she was one of the first people to get into cyber security.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because you had the modem, you know what I mean? It didn't matter, there was no encryption there. It was, if you could...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, I'm not having a father figure as a dad.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My uncle Bob, which is her oldest brother, she's one of ten Irish Catholics. And, uh, Bob left.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Worthington, which is outside of Laverne when he was 16 years old and joined the Navy, uhm, in World War II. There's this great picture of him. He's sitting like this with his hands over the rail of an ammunition oiler right off of Iwo Jima.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No shirt on, you know, just hanging, being a sailor. It's just so fun, you know. But uhm, yeaah, so Gunny went to, uhm, he was in the Navy, and then,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, they demobilized everybody after World War II, so he goes back to, to Minnesota, can't find a job.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he's like, man, I need a job. This is Uncle Bob, we're talking about. This is Robert Francis Mulligan. The oldest


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Brother of your s- of your mom. Of my mom. Got it. So he was one of ten.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, so he winds up going back to Minnesota. This is so fun, because we're in San Diego.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And, uh, he goes to the Marine Corps and he's like, you know, can I join the Marines? He goes, yeah, there's some Staff Sergeant there. He goes, okay, here's your bus ticket to San Diego.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just, you'll go to the bus station, take a cab to MCRD, which is right down the road from here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uhm, you know, then you're there, and you know, Bob's looking at his feet. It's called, it's museum feet. You know, you don't want to be in a museum anymore, you gotta shuffle your feet. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The staff started looking at him and he goes, you don't have enough money for a cab, do you? And he's like, nope. So he gives him money for a cab. So Bob takes the bus, cab, MCRD, Marine Corps, you know, fast forward 20 years or whatever it is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he goes, were you a recruiter in Minnesota? He goes, yea, I'm the guy that you gave the money for the cab.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the gunner looks at me and goes, do you know how many people had to give money for a cab?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we think that things are difficult now, and we're getting, trust me man, the economy's going right into the tank, it's bad. But the, the level of


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, that was like, you didn't have anything. So Bob does, uh, 20 years. He goes to Korea, uh, grievously injured.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, till I was in second grade. Okay. And then we moved, mom got promoted, and we moved to Heartland, Wisconsin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wisconsin. Yeah, man. Uhm, so we grew up there was still very poor and the apartments we live in now I think are section 8 housing. Uhm, that we lived in then are now I believe section 8 housing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, so I, we, mom got promoted again, and then we moved to Oregon.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My brother is super big in professional sports, clearly. My mother was because she was a sports reporter. But uhm, but just never, never did much for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, from when I was a little kid, I was always reading. And I was kind of more, uhm, I don't know how to put that. I just, I was...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was into exploring the world from a different perspective because, so we were so poor, I mean like dirt poor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I knew I could never collect material objects because of that. And so, from when I was just a little kid, I started collecting relationships with people. And I had the same friends that I've had since I was 14.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I understand the value of human beings. And I understand the value of the intrinsic nature of somebody's intellect. Vice, you know, their physical being. And they're clearly intertwined. One is part of another. But uhm, so for me that's always been my thing. So I've always really focused on humans. And the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The additive value of people, you know, the synergistic effect of getting together, that's how you create. And uhm, so I've always done that, you know, I've done some art stuff and whatever, but uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who's wearing all black hair? Let's just, you guys, is this camera working? So, no man, I was kind of an outsider because again, you know, children can be very cruel. And when I say we were poor, I mean, we were poor. So I was ostracized because of my poverty.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when we moved to Oregon, it was a very affluent community. And, you know, I wasn't just on the other side of the tracks, I was on the other side of the, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That can be very, uhm, you can take that one or two directions, you know. You can consciously choose your path.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you can choose to, to ride that into the dirt and get into this, uh, destructive cycle. And we've seen this happen over and over again, you know, intergenerational poverty and all these things, and people feel like they have no way out. I mean, I was the, did you ever see someone walk around with their head down? Yeah. And they walk like that all the time. Somebody, I ran into them. Where did I see them? They're like, oh, you're, so I had dropped out of high school. I was working.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're the guy. They recognize me. You're the guy that walk around with your head down because I was so, I wasn't self-absorbed, but it was like, I felt like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because you were so pouring being, you know, just the other. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That, you know, I shouldn't be interacting with the world around me. So I started, I put my head up and I was like that one physical gesture of going, you know, I am here and I'm part of the equation. And then that slowly opens up your aperture.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it does. And I think that, uh, I don't think, I know that people now, you know, they can go, oh, this is a brash, you know, person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I sit down with them, talk to them, they understand that that's not posturing, it's posture. So then there's a difference between the two. One is, is something that's internalized and the other one is a projection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you have posture, that's, that's, you've internalized that. You're posturing, you're pretending. I don't pretend about really anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't have one. Just I'm not going to school anymore? I'm out. Had you already been working? Uh, yeaah. I started working I think when I was 14. And so what are you doing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I just, it was, I don't think the environment was oppressive, I just, I just didn't fit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm out! Yeah, I did, I'm out, and then I moved out, and uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, do I recommend this life path? I mean, I did that, I got an undergrad degree at 44, I got accepted to law school at 50, you know, that sort of stuff. Would I recommend this path? Uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's a very complicated answer because in some ways I would say yes, in other ways I would not. And I was thinking about this because I knew I was going to come talk to you. Uhm, if you look at


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's taking place in the world right now? Uhm, I think if more people had more adversity growing up, that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I started from the meanest circumstances you possibly can. I mean, abject rural poverty, broken home, single mom, enlisted guy in the Navy. And, you know, I'm going to be in the highest levels of power.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the most powerful country in the world, within a single generation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I tell people this all the time man, you know, what's that called?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's the American dream, right? I'm the embodiment of the American dream. I lived on five of the seven continents as a frogman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I lived in Africa, I lived in villages, in Afghanistan, I lived in cosmopolitan European cities, Iraq, you know, in Asia, everywhere, and it's the American dream, man. It's not the Argentinian dream, or the, it's not, it's not the English dream, Irish dream, it's not, it's the American dream, because this is the only place that my story can happen every day, like all the time. Look at Winsome Sears.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Immigrant to the United States, she's the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that's what I think is important about these growing up where things aren't handed to you as much. Cause I've fought for everything I've had. Everything. My entire life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I know what that means, and then I can assign value to that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not eating. Just no food. Just not eating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jocko is that people are getting there again in America.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're, they're having to make those decisions and it's shocking. So yeaah, not eating was, you know, I mean, right now clearly that may be a good thing dude. I tell people like, you know, we're nine meals.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I went out with a buddy of mine, his name is Kurt, and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, we're drinking beer and we're in Oregon and, and uh, I'm like, let's join the Marine Corps. And he's like, yeah, let's join the Marine Corps. Oh yeah. So we got, you know, we get all tuned up and we were like the best Marines for six hours. And I wake up and I call him and I'm like, I do not want to join the Marine Corps. And he's like, I do not want to join the Marine Corps. I go, let's join the Navy. He goes, okay. I picked him up. We went to the recruiting office.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, that was it. That was exactly as much thought that went into it. Now remember, now Gunny was, he was a Marine. My, you know, the guy that I aspired to be.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, no, and you know what, it's interesting if you wanna, I mean, not to over-spiritualize things or get too philosophical about stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure. There's been several inflection points in my life where it's just kinda like, you know, throw your chips to the wind and see what happens.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because at that point, I was going nowhere. And I realized that, you know, I guess, uh, alcoholics call it an epiphany.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, that you have this moment, and uhm, I kinda had that moment where I realized


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is just not, I don't want to live this way the rest of my life. Right. And so there had to be a change.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, how do you change like that? I'm a high school dropout. I couldn't get accepted to college. You know, any of that stuff, right? Uhm, and it just really, it was an epiphany.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I joined the Navy. Did you have to get your GED? How'd that work? They gave me six months to get a GED. I was offered three different programs. Seamen apprenticeship, fireman apprenticeship, and airman apprenticeship. That's it. There's no other options.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In the Navy. Yea, straight up menial labor. And uhm, so I just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, okay, you know, I signed on. I got stationed at Naval Weapons Station, Concord. Hold on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Listen dude, Reagan wanted the 600 ship Navy. That's right. You could like, where's, here he gave me this trench knife. So you could like, wipe the blood off a knife you just stabbed somebody with, and they're like, don't do that again, and they'll let you in the Navy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's something I was alluding to earlier, is that, you know, our standards now, people have not faced this adversity. And so, we're taking, we set all these prerequisites for guys to go to different programs, especially specialized programs.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, yeah, apparently. Uh, oh, everyone understands what you're saying. So, yeah, I mean, it was just what you're doing, and uhm, that's kind of how I live my life. I approach it like this is what we're doing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's crack on and let's do it the best that we can. And that really paid off in Bud's. I'll tell you a story though.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, in order to get to Buds, right? I joined the Navy. I'm working on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It wasn't like, hey Derek, check this out. By the way, you can never do this. You're gonna work at a tugboat because you're a scrub. You know, that's essentially what it said. So I cleaned toilets and painted.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get done with- Where do you get stationed? Naval weapons station Concord. Concord, California, it's closed now. Okay. There's an ammunition station.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I made E, did I make E2? I can't remember, E1 and E2 doesn't matter.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Six months, eight months, or whatever. After hours, I struck for a rate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was a, right, so I made BM3, Boson's Mate, third class, decorating, uhm, and then I went and became a corpsman. But, so here, here was the turn. A quarter inch shackle turned my life around. And that's a, shackle, I don't know how to describe that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I had to take a series of tests. I did all these, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] General military trainings, I did a whole bunch of correspondence courses, like the NATO Handbook on Surgery and all these things I did, which is a course for physicians. I ordered it, used to be able to order all these books for the Navy. And I just have an act for it. You know, I'm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah. And passing tests? Because I've been reading since a kid. You know what I mean? It wasn't, it wasn't strange to me to garner knowledge from the written word.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so being able to read things, absorb information, and then...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Take things from disparate sources, combine them together to understand the best way to do things. It's just something I'm, I'm just good at. You know, it's intuitive to me. I don't have to work at that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. And then I got accepted and I put everything I owned in the entire world on the back of my motorcycle and drove like everything. Drove from Concord, California to San Diego and checked into core school here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Navy to be Seals. One's name is Rodney. Unfortunately, he was killed working for the CIA after he got out of the teams. He graduated.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, they're like, hey, you know, I'm gonna be a seal. This is at core school? This is at core school. Okay. And, uh, they're all like, er, you know, and I'm me. And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like, what's the seal stuff? Like, well, you have guns and planes and boats and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You had at that point three chances to take this screening test. Did you do the same thing? What class were you? 177. Okay, so I was 184. And so remember you had three chances. Oh, no, you're, yeah, you're an E, weren't you? Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so I failed this twice. And back then, like you failed this three times, you're out. We don't want to see you again, you're dead to the world, right? Get out of here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't know how to do the side stroke. I've been swimming since I was, you know, a kid. I just don't know how to do a formal stroke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I failed this thing twice. And they started renovating the barracks, which is the, not the oldest, but the second oldest building in San Diego at the Naval Hospital. That was our barracks. So they move us to 32nd Street, the Navy base down there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And by now, this is, this is a personal thing at this point, because of the push-ups, sit-ups, uhm, run, I don't know if you did dips, anyway, crush all of those, pull-ups, right, crush all of them, can't do the swim. So I go to the pool, there's a nine-year-old kid in the pool, and he's doing the side stroke. And I'm like, hey dude.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can you show me how to do that? Because there was no mentoring yet. Remember that? It was like, go do this. No mentoring. I go, hey man, can you show me how to do that? A nine year old kid. He's like, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just grab an apple, pull the apple down, get it with your other hand, throw the apple away, grab another apple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which was the thing that I was missing as a young man to be able to ask a 9 year old kid how to do the side stroke.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then, so, you know, the, the stuff, which are actually beautiful boats, this big wide fantail in the back, and then there's a, the 01 level, which is where the, uhm, the Coxsons flat is, you know, the wheelhouse. Uhm, you know, clearly they were up there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. And if you have the, the, the wherewithal to do things, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You should do things. I mean, some things are just that simple. You can sit around and hang out or you can continuously try to improve yourself. So I've got friends like that. One of them I gotta give a shout out to is Mike Emmer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This dude up in our village in Butternut is just always doing things. He just got into sailing with his family now, so he sails on. This is a farmer who now has this big boat, sailboat that he runs his kids around Lake Superior on. Because he is always, him and Liz, she's just wonderful, uhm, have always kept their eyes open.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when people have their head down, we talked about that earlier with your posture, you just don't see the world around you. And uhm, I made a conscious decision.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, not to get overly political here, but I talk to people and I'm like, hey, uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you can go outside and you can stare at a hill. Doesn't matter how long you look at that, the cavalry's not coming over the hill. They're not coming. You know, it's you. You are the cavalry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So when you care enough about something, you got to understand you are the person that can affect positive change. And so I empower people and I go talk to them. I go, look man, we always talk about the guys who jumped into St. Mary Eglise or whenever the beach is in Normandy or the Marines in Kaysan in Vietnam or in the Argonne Forest in, in World War I. We think about them as these people that,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At this singular point in time when their, when their country, our country needed them, they stood up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they, they bodily entered into something knowing that they may not come back alive. Uhm, in the same vein.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's who the people that care about the United States are now. I hope to God they never have to get involved in physical combat. We've both been there and it's a horrible thing and war should be horrible so people don't want to get engaged in it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're doing that now and they have to show courage because courage is contagious. We've seen this. A lot of people out in the civilian world have not and I'll give them an example that people can understand because it's kind of funny. During the lockdown, uhm, there's, it's, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's 323.10 is the statute in the Wisconsin state law that says that the governor has the ability to exercise emergency powers. It's like a 30 day window. So I'm like, okay, check. I don't know what's going on. It's like, your dude's in combat. You're like, go do this. It's like, well, sir, I think we should have a, you know, no emergency situation. Boom. Got it. Right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and so the legal authority ends, then it's time to challenge authority. The same person that is a law-abiding citizen, right? That's your duty to follow the law when you're in a crisis situation. It's the same person that says no. When that expires,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That is, that is your duty as a citizen, is to stand up for what's, anyway, so uhm, this lockdown's going on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm like, I'm no longer complying with this. The legal authority has expired. I will not do this. I'm not. So I go to Walmart because I'm a smelly, you know, dirty Walmart shopper. I am. And I don't have a mask on. And someone recognizes me. They have a face shield and a mask on. And dude looks at me and he's like, what are you doing? I go, I'm not complying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he said, well, I'm not either. And he takes his stuff out and throws it into his cart in Walmart. And uh, courage is contagious, man. Wait, he didn't die immediately? No, but listen, don't get me wrong, uhm, you know, I had COVID twice and it was horrible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a lot of people died from it. And if you want to wear a mask right now, wear it. I mean, 100%. If you want to wear a mask and a face shield, you want to wear gloves, you want to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hand sanitized and all that stuff. That's your ability as an American citizen to choose the way you want to live your life. And now everybody's coming around. The CDC just said that. People should be able to choose. So they should have been able to choose. Back then I wrote an op-ed in like April of 2020 called Freedom Over Fear. And it laid it out. Like you gotta pick. Cause you can't have both. What's your book?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Extreme ownership? Well, there's a bunch of them. Dichotomy of leadership? But you talk about fear and stuff, right? Oh, Mikey the Dragon's, the kids book. Okay, mind killer, right? You can't function if you're terrified. So,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's just a different way of thinking about how we should interact as citizens. And so you want to do that stuff? Go ahead. I'm just not going to. I will not join you. But I won't mock you either. Because it's your choice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 184 and graduated with 184. You know, Neil Roberts? Yeah. First guy killed in Afghanistan. We've got our team too with him. Yeah. Okay. So we had our arms over each other's shoulders graduating.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, super guy. But so I got there and I'm like, I don't know what to do here. And I show up at like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You go to A.B. Brights. Is that still there? Yep. So you got your pants, you know, that you can stand up by themselves. Cause they're so starched. Like seriously, that's not a joke. You can stand them up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So it's like, I pay all this money to have these things done and I go down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not gonna s- I don't know what his first name is. I'll just call him C. That's the first letter of his last name. I don't wanna embarrass the guy, you know? And uhm, it's like four in the morning, I'm wearing this uniform, and I'm walking like, uh, what is that, Pillsbury Doe Bargain, anyway, or Gingerbread Man or whatever, and uhm, this guy comes up to me and looks at me up and down.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, and then it occurred to me, I mean, I actually have a mo- again, another one of these epiphanies where I understand exactly what the deal is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, we're sitting on the beach, we're PT'ing, we're looking in towards the compound, so the oceans that are back, and the instructor, uhm, he's looking out to sea, and we're exercising.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it starts to rain, which is bad, you know, but you'll get through it. And then it starts to lightening and hail.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I'm thinking, wow, this is bad. We're standing on a beach, you know. The only thing we don't have is a golf club holding up there. And the instructor, he goes, and halt, you know, in buds. That's not like smoking me if you got him. You're standing at rigid attention. He runs into the compound. I'm like, well, good, you're going to get us off this beach. We've got to get out of here. It's a lightning storm. And, uh, he comes running back out and he has a dive mask on. And I'm like, oh, I get it. This is the contract.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So my part of the contract was I'm going to show up here every single day and do everything I possibly can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To meet your standard. My instructors. Not my standard. Your standard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And his part of the contract was, he's gonna show up every single day and make sure that I adhere to his standard. And it was like a light bulb appeared above my head.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he couldn't see if we were performing the functions to his standards. So that was, that was it. I'm like, I get buds at this point.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was PTRR. It was fourth phase, didn't even class up yet. So when I started, there was guys who were like sandbag. So they were like, you have to do the


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, of course, and I'm just making up these numbers now in 10 minutes and then it had to be 9.30 and you know, you had this progression, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they would do it just passing, on purpose. Because I knew there were better athletes than me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I took the opposite approach. I was like, I'm going to get up every single day and try as hard as I can for everything I do. Like every single thing I do, and then I'm going to get better. I'm not going to stay the same, you know, or decrease. I will get better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I know I can do this because there's somebody wearing a trident making me do it. So it's possible.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's how I got through buds. And I swear, man, third phase out at the island, we're flying back and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was certain that plane was gonna crash. Because there's no way I could be graduating from college, you know what I mean?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, it was, but I was a book crew leader, so I was an E4. Oh, you were an E4. I was an E4. Wheels, mate, dude. Yeaah. And uhm, I've found... Old timer. Yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have found personally that when you are in a leadership position and you have people that you need to be concerned about, then you're putting their care above your own, which I've done my whole life, so that was just, you know, something that you do, that it actually makes the time go by.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Better? Because you're not worried about yourself, you're not, you're not focusing internally, you know, this is hard, I'm freezing and, you know, I'm chafed and whatever. You're looking out for your men.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you're like, oh you get this. But you're like, this person is having a bad time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And what can I do from my position to make this better for them so that we can accomplish the mission?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, if someone couldn't make it in Buds, people are like, oh, you should help them and carry them along. I took, again, the opposite approach. If this person can't get through Buds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But at the same time, I think it was easier for me than any of the guys in my boat crew. Because they were...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you know why I failed Pocahontas the first time? Because I forgot the end of the brief.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you had just kissed the regulator and ascended, you'd be fine. And I was like, oh, check Raj, that's the end of the brief.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dude, a nine-year-old taught me how to do the side stroke like two weeks before I went to Buds. So in fact, yes, I was a slow swimmer. It was actually about three months before I went to Buds because I, there, in that interim period from core school to going to Buds, I worked at the Naval hospital and I collected dirty linen. Awesome. But I also,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the, the linen collection shop at Balboa Naval Hospital, I don't know if it's still there, was down in the basement right next to the morgue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I was like, I'm going to go to Bud's training and I should understand more about human physiology because I'm going there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I would go do, it's like Wednesday morning, this guy named Braswell, he was the autopsy instructor. So I would go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do these autopsies, you know, I would stand there. I finally worked my way up to weighing organs, but just to really truly understand physiology because you read that in a book and you can do a cadaver lab and that sort of stuff. But when you have, um,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I mean, so I was a corpsman, right, and then I went to the 300 F-1 program down in San Antonio, Texas after I graduated from BUDS. And then I went finally after two platoons at Team 4 in South and Central America and then Bosnia and Herzegovina.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause I was a frogman and I want to take six months off to go work with the army going to school anywhere. I want to stay in a platoon, right? That was my thing. If you're a SEAL, you should be in a platoon. Yes. And if you're in a platoon, you should be at war.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's it. You know, the, and God bless them. The guys that do 27 years that trade at MarOpps instructors, you know, thanks. That's so no one else has to do that, but you get the deal. That seals natural environment as combat. Cut, dry, period. Over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm like, how do I beat them? Aha! Academically. Right? So that's, they're very serious about academics. That course was really hard. That was a hard course. I didn't go through it but I remember.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. So, when I graduated, the commander had to give me their commander's excellence coin. You love that. It was just like their hand is shaking like, argh, you know? So, and it was just very, very interesting. And if you're gonna do your job, do it the best you can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, everyone should take that approach of life. Have you ever seen this documentary called Hero Will Love Sushi?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you gotta get to that. So you can be doing anything, just do it the best you can.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because SEAL Team 4 was the only SEAL Team I was aware of that had been in combat since the Vietnam War.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And just like we just talked about man, a SEAL's natural environment is combat. So I, I put that as my first choice because I thought that was the team that has the highest probability of entering into combat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Team 4 was, is the east coast equi- or was the east coast equivalent of Team 5.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Much more relaxed and, but super, super professional. It's like, so we would, you would do, I think six weeks of land warfare at Pickett. And then you'd go down to Panama and you spent your first month and a half living in the jungle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so you seriously know what you're doing. And I really, I really appreciated that a lot. And that's why I volunteered to go to Traded.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, because I was not satisfied with our land warfare training. I thought it was completely inadequate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They were very interesting. I mean, uhm, I got my first-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was another terrific accident. So I was a new guy, but I'm like, I stick to my guns, right? And I paid the man for it several times, but I would insist on bringing my medical gear back to, we were staying in like four different condos in Salinas, Ecuador.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I would insist of packing up all of my medical gear and taking them back to my room every night after training. And like, new guy, we wanna, and I'm like, I don't care, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tune me up if you want, but I'm going to have my stuff. Like 2 o'clock in the morning, a big thing, this car was driving.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, they lost control and hit a cement telephone pole. You split the car in half and shot bodies all over the street. So I was like, holy beanbags. And uhm, I had all my stuff.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And made the naval base. This is written in this little navy chamber metal. And uhm, made the navy base reopen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're clinic and had all my stuff and all the guys, my God, but I just, I miss sometimes being around seals because they just perform. You're like, bam, they can be sitting around doing something. They are on it. So everybody has that, you know, nascent medical training and they all just performed. I'm like this, this, this got checked. We saved everybody's lives.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So that was part of the reason that this, uhm, you know, deployment was so terribly interesting. Uh, and then...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ninety-six rules around, ninety-five, ninety-six rules around. And uhm, they, the war was going on in Bosnia and Herzegovina.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This would be my th- this wasn't even a platoon. I had done two platoons and this was like kind of an augment thing. It was really weird. So, they're- they're-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So they signed this Dayton Accords and they're trying to figure out how to implement them. Prior to that, there was a program called the Joint Commission of Observers and those were tier one guys that were going in and, you know, doing JTAC stuff and whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And uh, so this transitions to how are we going to maintain this presence on the ground? So they transitioned from the tier one guys to the theater soft and SF had this mission. And they wouldn't let us do it. Were you around for, what were you doing?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so you remember the JCO stuff where guys got to go to Bosnia? Alright, so they come back on the grinder at team four and which is just part of a compound, you know, I'm in the east coast and uh, they're like, okay, SF can't man this mission. We're going to let SEALS do it. So everyone was like, you know, yeah, we're going to war. I'm excited, right? And they go, we're taking E7 and above. And I'm like, I'm going to E5. Yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Come on, man. So everybody goes to the language lab, signs up. This is something that I learned, and I think...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not sure, I hope that I'm wrong, but I see the military going back to the way it was in the 90s.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Politically and all this stuff, right? I mean, I do believe we are auguring in. The Department of Defense is broken right now. So everybody goes and signs up on, you know, like this legal pad. And then they call them in, rank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, one, the next, next, next, next, and everyone's like, well actually I gotta...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you need to be like, oh, going to work. Yeah, I'm a seal. That's great. And they get really excited about it. But then when you get them on one-on-one, they don't want to be there. You know what I mean? They join the canoe club.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They want to work out and all that stuff. That transcends all spectrum, you know, that's not unique to SEALs. So they get down to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's freakin' crazy, dude. Right. And so I go in to see my CMC, uhm, his name is Perry. Total redneck, awesome guy. And he goes, well, Van Orton, whatcha doin'? I go, Mass. Chief. General Patton had to petition General Pershing as a second lieutenant.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To be included on his expedition during the Mexican-American war. And he goes, you trying to tell me you some kind of GD General Pepper? He did not abbreviate that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I said, no Master Chief, but I'm telling you my bags are packed right now and I can leave in 10 minutes. And he's like, beat it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In San Diego, right before, uh, right after I, no, right before I went to Bud's, we got married right after Bud's. Got it. So I spent, I was a SEAL for just under 22 years and I spent 16 years away from home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I took every single training trip. I went to every single school I could. Because again, you have to find, if you're doing something, do it. Don't, and that's a biblical principle.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, be either hot or cold. If you're lukewarm, I will spit you out. That's in the Bible, man. So, if you're doing something, do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so I got every single qualification I possibly could, so in case something came up, I would be the one selected to do it to go defend my country. I mean, I live my life that way, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Damn. Yeaah. I have eight grandchildren.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everything you hear about being a granddad? Not even close to how cool it is. Seriously, they're just wonderful. But yeaah, so uhm, I went on that deployment, it was very interesting, uhm, I remember


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The guy named, uh, Repass. Mike Repass was a major at the time. I went up working for him again when he was a two star in Germany. It was really cool. But, uh, we went into Sarajevo, we fly in.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Get you in. There's two seals there in my house when we moved out to, uh, Mugano, to name the town where they've been.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like to plan these missions and go out. And I had like a pistol and a butt pack with one other seal with a pistol and a butt pack. And you're going out and, you know, talking to these people who just want to kill you. And the level of uhm, I guess the Yiddish term would be chutzpah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, you gotta get out there, and I'll give you this example, man. So we go up to, uhm, Banja Luka to the 117th VRS. That is a Serb, uh, Serbian military unit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anywhere, right? So back then you had to like, boom, I had to get the salad. So I had, I do the...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The math problem, I look at where I'm going, I realize that I have to point this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This antenna into a mountain and I'm not getting comps. And there were no cell phones, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I understand that, you know, it's just me and my buddy Mick. So we go up there and uhm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm late, or excuse me, we're on time. This guy's not there. His name was uh, Chulich, Colonel Chulich. We walk in and there's this dude standing right there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who has got rosy cheeks like mine, a huge white beard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right. They want no part of us. And so they are not happy. And...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're like, what are you talking about? And my turp name, his name is Zoran Azuminidich. They call him Zorka because he was fat and like Zorka like Orca. Okay, got it. Right, so Zoran, they're like, uhm, he's starting to worry and, and uh, they're like, what are you laughing at?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 31 rounds of 9mm with us, like that's it. So I go, okay, hey, in the United States we have a guy, his name is Santa Claus. And you look just like him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, it gets more banana. So we're sitting at this huge table and uh, Chulich is supposed to show up at the head of the table and whenever you use an interpreter, you put him in between you and whoever you're talking to, right? So they should just be a conduit for language.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he's sitting there, this guy's just late. Late, late, late. We're sitting there drinking, slivovice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Maybe with a mirror bill blown, in case you're wondering. But uhm, so this guy finally shows up, and my, my radio's in this rock sack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And this dude, he's dressed like a Russian mafia guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, Europe's safe from the Ottomans for 300 years. I'm like, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Serbians could kick NATO out of here anytime we want. I look at them, I go. You see that radio right there?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You keep that up, I'm gonna rain fire from the sky on you in 10 minutes. Is that clear? And Zorin...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Remember I'm an 85 dude talking to Serbian Colonel. So Zoran is there, he's just like, like instant sweat. Like he just ate, uh, a ghost pepper. And he's like, uh, I go, Zoran, you tell him exactly what I said right now, or you're out of here. And he's like, okay.


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[Assistant] We get back in the car and Sarn's like, Derek, do you know where you're at? And I go, yeah, I'm in Kula Camp. And he goes, do you know what happened to Kula Camp? I'm like, no.


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[Assistant] I was one of the guys that ran the six platoons. The mission was declassified in like 2009. So we protected the top six Iraqi officials. And during the election cycle, I had this guy named Ibrahim Al-Jafari. I was a platoon chief at this time.


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[Assistant] So, I was supposed to go to Danneck. You know how you have see daddies and they lay out your whole plan for you. And the Corman Detailer is for same as Tom. He's a very good guy. I don't know where he's at now.


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[Assistant] So the plan was for me to finish 18 Delta, and at that point they were only taking 84-91, so that's the senior level, just for your audience. So there's 84-92s, that's the basic, you know, special forces medic, and then the, the full graduate of the army special forces medical sergeants course. At that time the damn neck was only taking these guys.


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[Assistant] So that's why I had to go to 18 Delta. Tom sets all this up.


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[Assistant] But then I'm sitting there this, remember this is 98, 99 ish. And I had been gone for the five and plus years I was at team four. And then Sarah and I had.


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[Assistant] Three kids at the time? Mhm. She's a San Diego native.


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[Assistant] And I really felt horrible. You know what I mean? Because I'm a husband and a dad and all that stuff and her family's still here. They're wonderful. Uhm, so I was like, you know what?


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[Assistant] We're sitting in this meeting, you know, Tom pulls all the quorum in, where do you want to go, where do you want to go, and he's asking them, bap bap bap, east coast, west coast, whatever. And he looks at me and he's like, you know, just skipping over me, and I said west coast, and he was like, what? I go, yea, west coast, man. He's like, check. Goes around everybody. I put in five.


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[Assistant] Because that was the SEAL Team 4. Then I put in 3, then I put in 1. Now this is the person that decides where you are going.


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[Assistant] At me, personally. It was a great experience there, but it was just so different. Like, I got yelled at.


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[Assistant] I deployed in uhm, 2000. So whatever that cycle would be.


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[Assistant] Like, I'd had the wrong Paris. There's like a matrix. So Dean Cummings, he's a great dude. I mean, he was the CMC there. And, uh,


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[Assistant] Honor graduate of my army special forces medical sergeants course, I'm not some new guy that just fell off, you know, the buds train, right? I am an experienced, at that point I was a journeyman seal. You know what I mean? Not a master, I was a journeyman. And finally I'm like, hey Master Chief, can I get like a Matrix?


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[Assistant] Thankfully, well thankfully and no, there's some very distinct, I mean like hardcore negative squalay because of Force 21. The first and foremost one is that Seals don't want to do stuff anymore.


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[Assistant] And when I say Seals don't wanna do stuff anymore, I mean, we're stone cold killers, right? That's not change. I just mean like the day to day sort of things. We've lost that, uhm.


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[Assistant] We've lost the ability to, like, learn how to sew your own gear, because people, I'm like, I know how to use an industrial sewing machine, as did everybody in the SEAL teams, because you'd make your own stuff in the Parallel Offer. Things like that. How do you build a duck and what not. But uhm, so,


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[Assistant] Again, I was, I was distinctly dissatisfied with the line of work for training that I got at team one.


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[Assistant] It was, it was not adequate. Because remember, I came from team four.


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[Assistant] Where you spent, that was what you did. I mean, you lived in the J. And uhm,


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[Assistant] So I'm like, there's no war going on, there's nothing. I go, I'm going to, and remember it was over at Brown, or Turnerfield, what's the, uh,


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[Assistant] You know, next to the EOD buildings over in Coronado. What are we, what are we talking about? That, that field, Turner Field or. Yeah, Turner Field. Okay, so this is, this is how discombobulated this was and it's fascinating. They just put the road cones.


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[Assistant] Like they put a road cone, it's like team one, team five, team three, trade at, and you would go stand behind the road cone. That's how I got to trade it. I stood behind a road cone.


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[Assistant] So I walk over to the building, the Starship, you know, I don't know if they're even there anymore. The one that was shared by one and three and we started, um, trade out. We had like the second floor or whatever it was. I walk in an empty room. It's me and, uh, Jeff Green. Then we're like, we're it.


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[Assistant] That's the beginning of trading. Land warfare. And so I went through everybody's safes in all of the teams and I took all of their documentation going back to the Vietnam War, you know, the ch ch ch, the type stuff, after action reports and I consolidated all those things and we wrote all of the curriculum.


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[Assistant] For land warfare and then special reconnaissance, taking the lessons learned, going back from our forefathers who gave us our, you know, fierce reputation. And then worked those over and over again.


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[Assistant] But I get there, we start doing that, and then, uhm, September 11th happens. And I was down, we lived in Navy housing, and I, I'm like,


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[Assistant] What the heck, we got a phone call from, uh, a guy named Andy Dalton, retired SEAL senior chief. His wife's Cheryl. Just beautiful people. It's wonderful. Oops, sorry. And, uh, they're, he's at Team Two at the time. And they're like, turn on your television. So we turn it on and we're like, what the heck is going on? And, uh,


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[Assistant] So I go, hey, honey, keep the kids home from school. I do not know what's happening. I drive to the team area.


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[Assistant] We get snipers up in the building. We don't, we don't know what's happening. And I remember I went with this big vat board, this big white board, and I took a red marker and I wrote war.


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[Assistant] Like these big letters, right there. At that point we had desks and everything. Like war, like, it's on.


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[Assistant] And so, from that point on, I tried to get out of there.


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[Assistant] Because we're at war right now. Lumpy was the skipper there. And every morning I'd go in his office. Just like I do Perry Bruce. Like, uhm.