Transcribe your podcast
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Chris Peranto, welcome to the show, man. It's a

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long time coming. I would probably say it, but thanks for and you and you're so tolerant, man. That was so cool that you're just willing to wait and then just, hey. I'm gonna be in town, and I hope you don't have to bump anybody. If you did, sorry, guys.

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But just you're you've always been a stand up guy with me. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's really cool. Yeah.

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Thanks, bud.

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My pleasure. I'm just happy you're here, and I'm, extremely patient. So

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There aren't many stand up guys in it in there in the world and even coming out of our community anymore in this public figure world. So it's nice to still find a few out there like yourself. I try to be, but I'm not always a stand over guy. That's why

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Oh, I'm sure you are.

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Talk to my wife, man. I need to bring you home, talk to my wife about how nice and reasonable I am because I don't get that respect at home, man.

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Well, Chris, I wanna do a life story on you. Yeah. You know? And, obviously, talk a lot about Benghazi and what you're doing now, but we're gonna cover the full spectrum here. Okay.

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And, so everybody starts off with an introduction.

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So are you gonna read? Don't make me feel like a pretentious asshole.

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Oh, no. You're good. Everybody gets 1. Chris Peranto, former army ranger, second battalion, 75th regiment.

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Yeah.

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You responded to the Benghazi 2012 attack. You're the author of the Ranger Way and the Patriot's Creed, coauthor of 13 Hours, the inside account of what really happened in Benghazi. You're a motivational and public speaker and the cohost on Battle Line podcast. Yeah. You're the founder of the 14th Hour Foundation, owner of Battle Line Tactical, and coowner of Tanto Vodka.

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Yeah.

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You're the host of a pro military documentary series, War Heroes. You cofounded E3 Firearms Association, and you're the father you're a father, husband, and a Christian.

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That's the most important there at the bottom.

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That's right.

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You could have cut out everything else and just read that at the bottom, and I would have been perfectly happy, right?

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That right there just tells everybody what a great man you are.

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I appreciate thank you, man. Thanks, man. Thank you. It's cool you say.

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You're welcome. What is the E3 firearms association?

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Well, you know, and we it's so difficult. I don't know if you know Adam Paintschod. Adam was a SIG firearms, he started SIG Academy. Okay. A trooper in New Hampshire.

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It is a training website. It has been so difficult though to get that thing off the ground. It was just running to roadblock after roadblock, because of Google. Because I hey. And if you don't think there's state run media and state run, state run Internet web there is.

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You have to be dumber than a bag of hammers to not see that out there, but it's it's we've tried to get it going. There's a lot of training materials on there, videos out there, and, you know, you get sponsorships to come to Battle Line tackle courses. If you're a member, you come to my courses for free.

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Oh, wow. I mean,

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it's just it's a it's a So

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is it an online training platform?

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It's an online training platform, but it's a paid online training platform.

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How many how many lessons are on there?

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Oh, man. I know just hip pocket training stuff where I'll just jump on and do a 10 minute video, we've gotta have 50 or 60 videos on.

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Oh, right on.

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And Adam's a wonderful, wonderful instructor. He is I am the loosey goosey, hey, man, let's just go out and shoot. I'm gonna give you some lessons. Adam is which is which is great. It's a great dynamic because he you you do.

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There are people that respond to that kind of training better. The by the book lesson about where some guys respond to, just tell me what I need to do. This is what you need to do. But, you know, it's it's it's been we've we've had it going for a few years now, and it's just always trying to improve the website, get that flowing. It's e 3 does a and it's a whole association, so it's not just farms.

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There's camping. It's outdoor. Oh, wow. Camping, aviation. John Rain Waters runs the aviation side of it, you know, RV ing, off roading, and I say I so I tell the e 3 owner, his name's Brian Brian Brian Johnson, I tell him, yeah, farms is like the redhead stepchild of e 3, e 3 because all those are cruising, and ours is just it's it's been very difficult.

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And I and I get it too because, you know, it's a paid website where there's a lot of YouTube sensations out there that are showing training, and you can get that for free. Yeah. So it is, and it's I I won't do the the free video stuff, and and the reason being it's not a money thing. It really is. You you really don't have any control of who those videos are going to.

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And where do I get that from? Well, I I spoke at an FBI Academy conference, which had a lot of law enforcement officers, a lot of former FBI trainers, and I sat down with them, and they're great guys. You know, of course, it's not all formal functions. I'm with a bunch of cops, man. So of course we're gonna go to the bar a little bit and enjoy enjoy, have some food.

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But I remember coming back and I sat with 1 of the officers and he goes, you know, you've had Don Shipley on. I know. He goes, you know, I I watched Don's videos, but now it's starting to bother me, a lot of these videos out there because they're teaching all these tactics and they don't know, they have no control of who's getting them. And the Dallas, police office Dallas chief of police came in and they had that tactical shooting where some officers died, and he was 1 of the speakers at that event as well. And it kinda hit home to me.

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I was like, man, he's exactly right. We're putting all these videos, and and god bless him. I I have nothing wrong to say about Don. I don't know Don. We've never met.

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I support what he does. I think, you know, he's a from what I've seen, he looks like he's a stand up guy, and I'm I'm just throwing that as an example because that's what the law enforcement officer said the police he's from Philadelphia. He's like, we just you know, we're we're really we're really getting not upset, but he says we're really worried that the bad guys are starting to watch these videos out there.

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Well, I mean, there's a caveat to that too. You know? I mean, what the are people supposed to do? We've defunded the police. The border is wide open.

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Yeah. They are actively sending $87,000,000 a week to the Taliban.

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And that did that's

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Sorry, man. You know what I mean? But people have to be able to defend themselves, and that's where they go to do it.

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And they go on it. And so And that stuff's out there no matter what. And that's where it's just it's it's where I can at least have some control though. And, you know

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what I mean? I mean, people are I a 100% get your point.

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And I get your point. Said it too. Yeah. Till he said, like, I never wrote the

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whole bible. Context. There's a things aren't the same as they used to be.

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Not at all. That people,

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it's dangerous out there. I mean, Chicago is the murder capital of of the country, and more people are dying there than they did in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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And it's no shock that that is 1 of my most I have arranged there with a Chicago cop. The VOD Defense, Daniel Lombard, tremendous guy. We've got a range called the compound. I don't think that's any coincidence that the majority that those are the biggest classes that I will have when I teach out there. At the compound in Crete, Illinois, it's run by Daniel Lombard, the VOD Defense is his training company, but he's a he's a lead farm instructor for Chicago PD.

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He's getting older now, so he's off the street now he's teaching. But but you're right. It's just this where where do I find some responsibility? And again, I never thought of it that way until I talked to it. I was like, you know, he's he's got a point, so I'm not gonna stop doing videos.

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Don't care. No. That's not gonna happen. But where can I at least have some control? I'm not gonna stop teaching tactics Mhmm.

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With my classes. Well, Donald, you're a hypocrite. No. At least have some control. I know who I'm teaching.

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I at least have something, and if and have we turned students away when I couldn't verify whether they could carry a criminal? Yeah. We have. I've done it. So I'm not ever gonna tell guys to stop teaching tactics.

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Yeah. And it's an outlet for us too. It's therapeutic for us. But I I would just say after talking to that police officer and then getting back to the e 3 stuff, being a paid website, I'm a problem with it being paid because we have some control of at least who the members are and who's watching. And if it's somebody that maybe is a criminal, shouldn't be owning a weapon, we have some little control that we can alright.

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I'm like, I can't stop them from learning from other guys, but you're out. We can't teach anymore. But getting back to the e 3 again, it has been an uphill climb with it because it is a paid website, and you can get the training for free on YouTube or Instagram. And but, you know, from tactics are tactics are tactics. Shooting is fundamentals.

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There is no secret sauce. There's no Jedi mind trick. You're not gonna I'm not gonna be teaching you how to use the force. The way I shoot, you can go watch another shooter, and you're gonna get the same stuff. It it's just the presentation.

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Who do you like? What what resonates with you? So, yeah, E3 has been good, and I think it's wonderful because we're part of an outdoor we're telling them, hey, go go do something. Fire shooting is outdoor. Shooting is relaxing, at least in my opinion.

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Shooting is you're outside in the fresh air, or you're at least doing something active. It's a sport. Yeah. It really is. I mean, shit.

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You have you have the competitions, the USCCA, you have all those. The tag games, it's a sport now. Yeah. And it should be like that. The reason I'm getting into why I talk about it and the paid and not paid is is really why I don't do more unpaid YouTube videos online.

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I don't I don't do that. That's why I don't is because I don't have control of who's watching it, and and it was that conversation with that Philadelphia police officer and listening to he spoke before I spoke, the Dallas chief of police, and now he wasn't condemning it at all. He's just saying this guy knew what he was doing. He had some tactics, and he didn't say no what he was doing. He knew how to pie.

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Yeah. He knew how to he knew how to edge a corner.

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Well, Chris, before we get too deep into the interview, everybody gets a gift.

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Oh, no. Man, you you're all gifted.

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Nothing but hospitality. Oh, man. They're gummies. That's right. Those are legal in all 50 states.

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Fortunately or maybe unfortunately for you, I don't know. But they are made here in

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the USA. Oh, that's what we

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And, yeah. So there you go. Some vigilance leak going on. Those are hard to come by, by the way.

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Listen. Actually, this is going on my side by side when I get home. Nice. Right on. It'll be at the range, man.

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Nice.

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And thank you. Thank you so much. And do you we need to bring manufacturing back to this country, man. The only thing we're manufacturing now is drama and freaking political bullshit. That's right.

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We need more manufacturing. Thank you, man.

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You're welcome. Thanks. 1 last thing Yeah. Before we get in. I got a Patreon account.

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They're my top supporters. They've been here with me since the beginning, and, they're the reason I'm here and you're here. Yep. So, 1 of the things I do is I give them the opportunity to ask each guest a question. Uh-oh.

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And so this 1 is from Moose.

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What's up, Moose?

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What was it like for you to see the Obama administration blatantly lie about something you saw firsthand? Blame the attack on something unrelated and refused to call it a terrorist attack. How did it feel to be on the ground at the annex and realize that help was not coming? I understand. I'm like Let's do 1 question first.

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Well, let's go first first with the help not coming, so that's we'll just go on a time line there.

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We can skip that.

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We'll do that. We'll do that. Okay. So give me give me a number because the feeling What was

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it like for you to see the Obama administration blatantly lie about something you saw first?

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Yeah. I mean, I can tell you, watch Fox and Friends, the last last, interview I ever did on Fox and Friends with Pete Hixeth. It was back in 2014 or 15 where he would somebody caught him on a cell phone. It was either at Loyola or 1 of those 1 of those liberal colleges there in Chicago. I I can't remember which 1.

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And he said Benghazi was a conspiracy. He didn't know he was being filmed, and of course, they threw it on the TV. It's at 6 in the morning. I was just I was in actually in Springfield. I was gonna go gonna go speak at a, an event that was sponsored by the guy that owns Bass Pro.

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So I was staying out at the Bass Pro Resort up there and told Pete I couldn't be there. I said I gotta zoom in, so I zoomed in at 6 AM, and I'm half asleep. I've been, this was my 5th speaking event in like 7 days, just spent. And pissed me off. Why why would it?

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Of course, it pissed me. I mean, all those lines continually it was angry. It made me feel hate. And what did I say? And you can watch it.

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It's out there on YouTube somewhere. I'm sure. He said, what did you feel after you watched Benghazi? And I said, well, Pete, I said I wanted to reach for the TV, and I wanted to choke his ass. I I wanted to choke him out.

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And Pete, his eyes got big. He goes, you have probably don't wanna be threatening a former US president. I said, Peter, you asked me. That was my last ever Fox interview, actually, I ever did. And I did get visited by the Secret Service 2 weeks later.

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Luckily, I knew the guys. They showed up in my house. Like, Chris, we we gotta be here. You're threatening the president on national TV. And, but if that tells you my anger right there, I mean, without even thinking, skipping a beat, and it wasn't to create, it wasn't to troll accounts, it wasn't to do clickbait, it was an immediate reaction.

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As soon as I saw it, it was like, that mother. And I didn't wanna kill her. I'm, let's get in the ring. I'm gonna put you in a lock, and let's see how you feel, man. That's what I felt.

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So, of course, I was angry. I was angry for a lot of years. And I think if you watch even your speeches that I've done out there, I just still do corporate talks. I just did, you know, that's why I'm in Nashville and do your show and I did a talk at the at the Gaylord there. In the early days, the speeches were very very angry because nobody was being held accountable.

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Mhmm. And there were people that were calling us liars,

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you know.

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And it that's that's hard to it's hard to be called a liar, guys, when I saw Roan and I was shooting over their heads when that last those 3 mortars threw a fire for a pick, hit right on top of building c. The 5th attack that night, and I was shooting, and it wasn't the movie showed it as daytime, it was actually, it was, before morning on Audical Twilight. You know, it was right before this, you know, you know what that is. Your viewers can Google that. It's right before the sun comes up, so it's still dark.

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So my night vision was still on. My 15s were on, and I remember the first 1 hit, blew up, on the backside of building ceilings. It was right over the top. Roan spun. He went cyclic on that belt fed, which was pretty freaking awesome, because all I'm seeing is a laser beam as he turns and they're coming to attack us through the through the sheep slaughterhouse here.

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I put a few rounds over his head, because I wanna get in a fight even though I can't see them because I'm I'm back behind them on building a's on Belize C. Dave's there's Dave Rubin shoots, Oz is up there, he shoots, Bubba's up there, he's shooting. So I'm seeing all this far. Shooting, I'm thinking, shit, mortars this way, they gotta be bringing that whole force following those mortars in. So I turn around, make sure nobody's coming, nobody's there, come back, 2 more shots.

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I see 1 hit directly right on top. My vision goes completely white. You know, this is overbund. It's like white. As it comes back, I saw 4, and now there's 3.

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So the guy disappeared, and I can hear him screaming. Even in all of that, I can still hear him. It was Dave. I didn't know it at the time, but it was Ubin. Just sheared it sheared his leg off, sheared his arm, they were hanging.

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So not completely gone, but he's legs this way, arms this way. How do I know that Tig got up there when he saw Dave? Tig told me what his arm his arms for legs looked like. Take a few more shots, because what can you do? We're still getting attacked, we're in the middle of a fight.

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You know, as you don't you can't stop fighting. What am I gonna do, run off my building and go help? He's got 3 guys up there. I gotta keep fighting. I got my sector behind me I gotta take.

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I turn around, I come back, they're still shooting. I took 2 more shots, and then I saw boom boom boom. If you've been in artillery, you call for fire and you know what that is. That's fire for effect. They're right where they wanna hit.

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Night vision goes white, and as it comes back, all I see is the pixie dust. It got quiet. It got silent. Really weird. I thought they were gonna keep coming.

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And, all I saw was the charged particles because, you know, blow ups, explosion, the debris, the dust gets heated or charged, and it looks like it does. It looks like pixie dust coming down with those, with my night vision starts to come back and refocus from the the white light, and they were all gone. And it it it my brain my brain said, your team just got turned to dust. It's like, holy. I mean, it was it was it was and it maybe it felt like longer than what it was.

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It was only a few seconds, but I put my head down. And I remember thinking, it was the 1 time negatively I thought that every other time, man, there was negative things happening, that was the 1 time where it was like that, holy shit, we might lose this. And I said, man, we can't beat this. I'm thinking to myself, we don't have any air support. They're gonna fucking keep hammering us.

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And, you know, God God God was there all night, man. And God kicked me in my ass and said, get your gun up, ranger. And I know people are gonna, oh, fuck. That's no. Making no.

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That's what happened. What do you

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mean God kicked you in the ass and said get up?

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Quit whining. Quit feeling like a victim.

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So you Is that a feeling you got? Is that a voice you heard?

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Voice in the back of my head right there. I still feel it. I still get chills. And maybe it was my mom saying it, you know, but it was to me, it was that voice of God. It was something saying, we don't quit.

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You don't quit. Get your gun up. Keep fighting. And I said, get your gun up, Ranger. That's what I heard.

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And that's being a Ranger too, and that's what Rangers are. When you're at the 75th, get your gun up. Get your gun up. You're not quitting. Keep fighting.

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Keep pressing through. You learn that from Rip, which is option 40. Now harass now, you learn that throughout. That's what's instilled in you. Rangers before you, what'd they do in Vietnam, the 100 killer teams?

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They ran towards the fight. What'd they do when they jumped into Rio Hado? They ran towards the fight. There's no cover. They shot their way off the off the earth the tarmac in Grenada.

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What'd they do? They ran towards the fight. Now get your gun up, Ranger. Why and so why am I so angry? Because when somebody calls it conspiracy, and I watched I watched Roan I watched Roan and Bob and Dave and Daz at the time.

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I thought all I watched them evaporate. That's what I do with my friends. Like, holy shit. Those guys are they they're gone. I've seen death before, but have you ever saw where your friends just like, they're there and they're not?

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So when he said it was a conspiracy, it's like, hell yeah. I was pissed off. And I was pissed off for many, many years, and it it did hurt a lot of relation. It hurt my relationship with my wife and my kids at the time. So to ask that's I mean, it's a great question, but it also points to how how irresponsible politicians are with their words.

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Yeah. And and how they they don't give a shit, and him especially. You know, Hillary got what she deserved. She wasn't present. She was humiliated.

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She lost. Is she gonna get more? Yeah. She's gonna get more. When she when she stand before her, make her with God, God's gonna judge her, and I hope he judges her, and he's going to.

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He's gonna judge her well, how she should. Obama is the 1 that got over Scott free. He was the commander in chief. Come on, man. Who's supposed to help get people to us?

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Is it Hillary in state department? Granted, she was hugely responsible. So was Leon Panetta. General Ham could have done something. But who was the commander in chief?

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Who was general Ham? He was the he was the Eurocomp commander. He was the 1 that

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And for everybody knows Leon Panetta was director of CIA at the time.

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At the time, and then he went to the SECDEF, you know, and became SECDEF and all that. But actually, but, you know, he could've done something too. And, but Obama is the 1 that really is the 1 that's held should have been held responsible for it all. You know? And also with the rhetoric, Al Qaeda remember, people forget that.

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What was his platform at the time? Al Qaeda was on a run. Terrorism is dead. He knew it wasn't. That's who attacked us.

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You you had Sir on. She knows a better name, but who was the 1 that masterminded that? Yeah. It's our Harry. What he's number 2 Al Qaeda.

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So, bro, the the guy that got away with it, and then continued to try to press a narrative, which we see happening now. Question.

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I don't wanna get too deep, and I wasn't expecting to get this deep inside.

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That's just me, man. I I go down rabbit hole all the time. What I

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wanna ask though is is I can see I can see the rage returning right now.

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Yeah, it does. Of course it's gonna come.

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So what what was the what was the turning point that kinda eased that rage?

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That interview was 1 because It's like with Pete Eggseth? Yeah. That was because it was it was it was the last mainstream interview I ever did. Was that Was that

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your terms or theirs? Mine.

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I said I'm not gonna do anymore. I I told them, so I'm done. It was mine. I'm not doing that because I got I did get asked 2 times to go on Tucker, and nothing against him. I like him.

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I just I'm not doing that because that's what they wanna get. I started to realize that's what they wanna get out of me. They wanted they know Tono's gonna come in and say something that's gonna clickbait and gonna be pissed off because that's how I always was. I am very I get I'm animated. I'm gonna say what's on my mind, and if it pisses somebody, so what?

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I'm gonna tell you how I feel, and that's great for ratings. It is. And I but and nothing against I got friends down there. Sean's a nice Hanami's a nice guy, man. You know, the the the Deuceys are they're nice people.

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You know? Martha McCollum, she's really nice. She's treated me very, very well. They're not it's just was ruining my family and my relationship because I got divorced at that time as well. So that anger had carried over to where my wife and my kids, like, we don't want you around anymore.

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Your toxicity is here. You're you're just always pissed off. You're never happy, and we had gotten divorced. So when I did that, we were actually divorced at that time, and it was I gotta get myself right because

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So it was it was doing the interviews that brought the rage back.

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I think just reliving it all and not being able to handle it and finding a silver lining to it, which there always is a silver lining. God gives us a silver lining for everything that we do. We just gotta find it.

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How do you feel about doing this interview?

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That's I'm good because I'm at peace with it all. I don't have a problem getting I know it's gonna bring anger out of me, but does it make me angry when I leave? No.

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Because I

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don't have to see my kids. And I want to tell this because I still talk to Ty's mom, Cheryl Bennett, wonderfully. Love her. I'm she's she I'm her second I mean, she's my second mom, and telling this keeps their memories alive. Where back then, it was more of, it's about me.

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I need to show you how angry I am. I need to show you how pissed off

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I am.

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I need it was selfish. It's very now it's I'm a tell you because I want people to know that so when they hear a liberal, they hear on Obama, they hear Hillary, they hear hear a Biden say, now it's conspiracy. You know, it's videoing a protest. They can say no. I know that dude's telling the truth, because just look how emotional he gets.

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And if of course, it's emotional. I saw my teammates die. They were my friends. I remember we weren't best friends or nothing, but they were still my teammates, and they still were my friends. And so they tried the powers that be tried to cover it up.

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But that was a turning point somewhat, because 6 months later, I did put a gun in my head. We'll get there. Yeah.

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For starters

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Yeah. Where did you grow up?

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[00:26:15]

Colorado. Alamosa, Colorado. Loved it. Grandmother and grandmother grand, my grandmother and grandfather were were immigrants from Mexico. My Garcia, man.

[00:26:25]

My mom's dad's West Texas. Mom's a Garcia. But so we grew up, we grew up in the, you know, lower middle class, but it was wonderful childhood. Alamosa's small little town in the Sangre de Cristo range out there in Southern Colorado. And then we go to visit my grandmother and grandfather who were pickers and then they owned their own farm.

[00:26:44]

So I saw them, just the hard work man, it was amazing. I loved I loved being a Parenteau, but I also loved being a Garcia. I mean, my middle name is after my grandfather, Joaquin, Christian Joaquin. So it was it was awesome, and it was just always happy. You know?

[00:27:00]

Always playing. I'd play with the web we called them the webbacks. I know that's a that's a that's a, politically incorrect term, but that's what we the migrant workers that would come over work on my grandfather's farm. Webex, man. Pickers.

[00:27:13]

Yeah. I remember going out, and they we would play baseball with them when they come from the field. I remember 1 actually saved my life. I'm playing hide and seek in a back potato truck, and I was running away from my cousin, hit a bar that was across the top, cracked my head open, and I laid there for about 5 minutes before 1 of them carried me out. Family bleeding all over, and he carried me out to my grandmother's house.

[00:27:38]

I mean, it just it was amazing fun. It was a rough it was a rough childhood. You know, it was a rough fun. Skin your knee up, ride dirt bikes

[00:27:46]

Great.

[00:27:46]

Take your lab out, go little hunting with the 22 or or with a with a pellet gun. It was wonderful, man. Skin crack your head open once or twice. Brothers and sisters? I have 2.

[00:27:59]

I have a brother and a sister. And, you know, me and my sister, we have our issues, but we're close. It's a close family. It's not like there's no any hatred. My brother no.

[00:28:08]

My brother, he's awesome. Now him and I are it's 1 of those relationships so it's like he'll call us and then I'll say, what's up, jackass? Hey. I say, yeah. What's up, douchebag?

[00:28:16]

It's like, I love you, man. And 2 years younger than me, we played sports together growing up, and athletics was huge in the family. My dad was a football coach, NCAA football coach. So when we were at Alamosa, he was the head coach at Adam State and the athletic director. Then we moved to Brigham Young.

[00:28:33]

We moved to Utah because he got a job, as an assistant at Brigham Young University and that was a 1 hell of an experience. I look back at it now and it's like, wow, I was blessed because that was during their their glorious. So I got to hang around a clubhouse with G McMahon and Steve Young and Bobby Bosco and and national championship team and, you know, you're taking it for granted. You had Lil Val Edwards, who they don't make coaches, you know, that was like the iconic coaches when coaches were actually coaches and not public figures. You know, Lovell Edwards, Paul Bear Bryant, you know, guys like that.

[00:29:08]

Woody, you know, it's just the old school. He was awesome. But, you know, you had Mike Holmgren there who was the offensive coordinator who later became the coach of the Packers, won 2 Super Bowls. Norm Chow, who was a he was a legend in the NCAA, went to USC. Wow.

[00:29:22]

Andy Reid was a graduate assistant there at the time. Of course. So, you know, I looked back, like, man, I was around some cool and you just and all I'm doing, I'm a kid running around the clubhouse playing catch with Steve Young, going to the grad school. Yes. So, so sports were big, you know, and I wanted to play football, and I played football.

[00:29:41]

We moved to Oregon State, and I got a job at Oregon State, and we it was wonderful there. Gotta be around, you know, the Pac 10. I was a ball boy on the sidelines for the Pac 10. That was so fun just being at the games, you know, and that was that was Pac 10 at the time. I mean, that's Washington, UCLA, USC when they were I mean, they're still good, and I guess, but they was it was amazing.

[00:30:01]

It was just good good time being around college when college was college, when it wasn't Yeah. Propaganda. Let's protest about everything. It was it was college. It was PCU, man.

[00:30:13]

It was where people would make fun of that. Yeah. Let's go have a you know? So and it was a it was college towns. Now bringing me on was a little different.

[00:30:20]

It's Mormon. You know? There's it's you're not gonna find a lot of Drake in there. But, and then we he got a job, in Colorado back in Colorado, and, we moved. And, still he's still coaching at Mesa it's called Colorado May it's called Mesa College at the time.

[00:30:35]

It's called Colorado Mesa University now. And, we moved there, and, of course, being around at sports forever, and I my dad was a football player. My mom was a pretty good athlete in her own right. You know, I I got some good genes in me, and I managed to get a scholarship to play football, and I played football for 4 years at actually, I I did. No kidding.

[00:30:55]

Yeah. I I, I was I was I was I had a good time, man.

[00:30:59]

So Your dad wasn't the coach?

[00:31:01]

He was the AD at I went to that and to be What does that mean? He was the athletic director at that college. But, I didn't go there first. I I wasn't I was a typical college football player. I'd rather drink and party than go to class.

[00:31:17]

So my 1st year at Mesa, I flunked out of college and had to go to a junior college to get my grades up so I could continue to play football. So I went to, it was called Dixie at the time. Because of the wokeness and political correctness, now it's called something else, but we were called the Dixie Rebels. I'm still at Dixie Rebel for all you whatever you call the college now. It was awesome.

[00:31:39]

That was a wonderful experience because it Dixie was like the program where BYU, UNLV, University of Utah would send all these truants to get their grades up, and so we were a football fan. I mean, we were awesome. We were number 1 in the nation. We finished number 2 1 year, so I'm around there, and I'm around gangsters, man. I'm around the Donner Street Crips.

[00:32:01]

I'm around West Coast Bloods, Tonga Crip Gangsters. Then you got farm kids coming from Utah, big farm boys, and we had this it was such a wonderful experience. It was wonderful to see so many I was out on you know, so many people of different backgrounds and nationalities come together for a focus to win games.

[00:32:21]

Sounds like the military.

[00:32:22]

It does, and it sounds like you know, that's why I laugh when I hear all these DEI pro albus. So we had diversity way back then, guys. And guess what? We were called the Dixie rebels too, and not 1 black dude gave 2 shits. We were proud to be called the Rebels.

[00:32:39]

That's what we were. And I was, you know, I I wasn't as true I mean, they were hardcore I just flunked out of school. Now, you know, I I ain't gonna lie. My ethnicity did help. It does.

[00:32:50]

He's Mexican, dude. And they my grandpa, yeah, it was it it it it allowed me to at least have a have a foot in the door where, okay, we can kinda trust this guy. And and stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. I have no problem with that. But it was 1 hell of an experience because we were so good.

[00:33:08]

It was fun playing on a team of so many different characters. And what got me is that was back in the day when Bloods and Crips, they were you know, that was a big deal. There's gang violence all the time.

[00:33:18]

And there

[00:33:18]

was a guy named Stacy. He was a West Coast blood. He came from Los Angeles, and and then we had a guy named Chuckie who was best athletes I've ever seen in my life. He was a Donna Street crip from Vegas. And I went to Stacy 1 day, because I I didn't get I'm I'm this naive kid from Colorado.

[00:33:35]

You know? And I don't know what I can ask or what I can. I say, hey. How come you guys aren't killing each other? You know, I'm being an idiot.

[00:33:42]

Should I say that? I don't know. I'm 19 years old. Who I don't why am I saying the right thing? And Stacy looks at me, and he goes he goes, on the streets, man?

[00:33:50]

Yeah. He said, we would. I I said, I'd I'd shoot that motherfucker. But here, I just wanna win. It's like, wow.

[00:33:59]

That just makes so much sense. Wow. And that's also when I started going to military and then even GRS, a lot of people don't know. Oz and I don't get along. We never have.

[00:34:11]

I was gonna

[00:34:12]

wait till the end of the interview.

[00:34:13]

No. Wait. And I'm sorry. I didn't mean to jump

[00:34:15]

into that. Let's well, I mean, you brought it up. Let's do it now. And I've always I've I mean, obviously, I've been following you guys.

[00:34:24]

I mean,

[00:34:25]

we were in the same profession. Of

[00:34:27]

course. Yeah.

[00:34:27]

And I remember after it happened, you guys, you know, you did the book. Yeah. It came out. Lots of speaking events. I thought you guys used to speak together.

[00:34:37]

We

[00:34:37]

had to. Yeah.

[00:34:38]

And then it seemed like everything kinda I mean, look, What happened? Why don't you guys get along?

[00:34:47]

Well, it's just personalities. They're nothing Oz is a wonderful wonderful person. He is in his own right. It's just personalities. Very I'm very outspoken.

[00:34:57]

Whenever we do speeches or things like that, he always wanted to kinda play like the politician. I gotta make both sides. I was like, screw this. Say what happened. So we went at odds, but even when we were downrange, it just was personalities, man.

[00:35:09]

It just was you just there's just some guys you don't get along.

[00:35:13]

Did you guys butt heads before

[00:35:14]

Yeah. Benghazi? It's the first place we worked at together. I'd never worked in before. That was the first first base that I worked with Oz at.

[00:35:22]

And immediately butted heads. It's just 1 of those base where, you know, the guy come a guy comes in and you're man, we just don't jive. He doesn't he doesn't like my Jack Ashry. I don't like him being so damn uptight. But we were both professional enough, and this is this is a kudo to Roan as well.

[00:35:40]

Roan really was our was our team leader. We had an official team leader. Rowan was our assistant team leader. We had a, you know, we had a staffer that was our team leader. But Rowan is who we listened to.

[00:35:48]

The staffer we never listened to. Isn't it

[00:35:51]

funny how that's like the I know. Common theme?

[00:35:54]

Well, when you don't hold the staffer the same

[00:35:56]

every I know. GRS team that the staffer is always the weakest link.

[00:36:02]

When you don't hold them to the same standard, then they're not always gonna be

[00:36:05]

They get mad at me when I say this stuff.

[00:36:07]

Tough shit, dude. There it's it's the truth. I mean, I can count good staff, and I'll tell the staff there are some that but the majority of the good staffers were the ones that had the same background.

[00:36:16]

We'll get into this later.

[00:36:17]

But anyway, yeah, with with us, it it was nothing where and it wasn't a hatred. It just was we don't like each other, man.

[00:36:25]

Yeah.

[00:36:26]

And you get to an age at 42 at that point. We're maybe in the early days in our thirties, maybe we woulda f you f you, just but it wasn't like that. It was just you're you're I'm 440. He's 45. I'm 42.

[00:36:38]

It's like there's no reason to create any more drama. Deal with care how we need to. Just win. Because that still kept going in my head where Stacy said to me about the Crips and the Bloods. We just wanna win.

[00:36:49]

Let's put the differences aside so we can win the focus. And that's that's that's also wrong keeping us on, hey. What's the what's the main focus here, guys? Everybody goes home. Put your stupid differences aside, shut the hell up, and do your jobs.

[00:37:03]

You got your right and left limits, you got your right and left limits, and we stayed within those. And it wasn't like a, man, you're a douche. It wasn't like that. It was just, you know, you're in a room you're you're just in a room with somebody that you just don't get along with. So you stay in there as long as you can, and then you get out and you go do your thing, and you'll go do his thing.

[00:37:21]

It is a lot more difficult because you've been on a lot of those bases doing this where you're on top of each other, so it's harder to get away get away, but we did. You know? And, you know, and Rowan wasn't dumb enough to put us rooming together in the same room. You know? It was 1 of those things, let's let's make it as as possible.

[00:37:37]

And there you always, at least at that point in time, because of my age and experience, and I think this is important for everybody, even on people you don't like, you find things that you can respect about them. I do. Again, I I he's tough as nails. The dude got hit with a mortar and tried to get up and shoot. I saw him I told you in the beginning, I saw a guy get up and try to shoot after that mortar mortar stopped, and he the gun kept falling.

[00:38:02]

Because he would get up and he'd shoot, and I'd see the rounds. Boom. Well, his arm he hadn't realized his arm had gone fall. So when you watch 13 hours and you see him getting up like that, that hap that wasn't movie magic. That happened.

[00:38:15]

So do I respect his toughness? Hell, yeah. And he said 1 of the coolest things I'd ever heard in my life, when we drove to the airport, he's bleeding out. His arm's about coming off. We wanted to help get him on that plane, that executive's jet, and he said this.

[00:38:31]

And I'm giving him crudos for it because it was some Clint Eastwood shit. He goes, I walked into this country, I'm walking out. That wasn't a movie magic, that wasn't a line written in, he said that. And I remember when I heard it, I was like, alright. Aza may not get along, but that's some cool ass shit right there.

[00:38:47]

And I said and and so you cannot get along, so that's fine. But you still find ways to respect each other and work together because the goal is to win. And I kept thinking about Stacy, the West Coast blood. The most intellectual wise thing I heard was from a 20 year old gangster Man. From Los Angeles.

[00:39:09]

We just wanna win. It's that simple, and I think that's why when I talk to corporations, it I tell that's part of my speech. Just win. You said that that's the goal. Let's win.

[00:39:21]

Yeah. Put the differences aside. And, that's why also when we were out doing our speaking and you're seeing us on TV, alright, we gotta put on a united front here. We're stronger together. And because there wasn't hatred there, it just was a dislike.

[00:39:36]

Just didn't like, didn't care. Our personalities just didn't mesh. It wasn't that hard to go in there and do an interview together, and Oz had great things to say because he was there. He saw things that I didn't that helped expose the BS. Because we were in different spots the whole time.

[00:39:54]

Mhmm.

[00:39:55]

Let's let's move back to Yeah. Kind of

[00:40:00]

Growing up.

[00:40:00]

We're past we're past childhood. I wanna get to this, but I want it to all be in 1 piece, if that's okay.

[00:40:06]

No. No. No. No. You're good.

[00:40:08]

And so what so your football

[00:40:11]

Football, golf ball.

[00:40:12]

College. Yeah. Yeah. What got your interest in the military?

[00:40:15]

God just path. When you're short and you're slow, you're not gonna go to the next level. And I was I was really short and but I was super slow, so the NFL didn't come knocking at my door. So I I remember I I was just walking through the student union building there at Colorado Mesa. Mesa College was called at the time.

[00:40:34]

And, you know, at the graduation, there's job fairs at these colleges. If you go to college, you're always gonna see a job fair. And I'm walking through, and, all these jobs are there, but of course, who's there with all the all the occupations, all the corporations? The vultures are over in the corner. The army recruiter, the marine recruiter, the navy recruiter, the air force recruiter.

[00:40:54]

And, you know, long story short on that 1, which is not gonna be the theme here, but they yelled. They said, hey, you. I was a stupid enough 1 to look in that direction. I walked over there.

[00:41:04]

They said,

[00:41:05]

hey, what are you gonna do after and, you know, I had thought about FBI. I had thought about federal police. Every time I went to apply for 1, I'd get a call, hey, you need experience. You gotta go become a police officer. You gotta go endure, you gotta go to the military.

[00:41:20]

You gotta and police just didn't sound fun to me. So I walked over there. I saw the ranger I saw the recruiting video, which was the 75th ranger video. So they're jumping out of planes, fast roping. They showed me the SEAL challenge video, the navy guy did.

[00:41:36]

So I'm watching the helocasts, and I'm watching the low cast, and I'm seeing all the cool stuff.

[00:41:40]

You

[00:41:40]

know, the marines, they're landing on the beach. You know, the recon they're showing me recon guys, the air force 1. I always make this a joke. I say I saw the air force 1, and, you know, they were in a air conditioned room, nice, comfortable with good food. Now they're showing the jets and things, and I just thought the rangers was was the best 1 for me.

[00:42:00]

And so I said signed up. I signed up. I enlisted right there after I got my bachelor's degree. No kidding. And, yeah, 30 days later, I'm off to Fort Benning, and, did that.

[00:42:11]

You literally signed up right there at the job fair. And the scariest thing that I'll leave. Shit. I tell you. About an impulse group.

[00:42:18]

It's just

[00:42:18]

like it's like I was like, what am I gonna do? And then, you know, I had, well, FBI. They said military. And I do remember telling the recruiter, I asked him, I go, is that hard? He goes, yeah.

[00:42:28]

I go, do people quit? He goes, yeah. Alright. Let's do it. And, so move on, and we go to Fort Benning, Georgia, and, it it did.

[00:42:40]

I was like a a a round peg in a round hole. I just fit. You know, I was I went to, it was Sand Hill at the time. It was echo company 258, called the House of Pain. I was supposed to be the hardest 1 there, but come on, they're all the hardest.

[00:42:55]

Every every basic training, Depot's the hardest 1. But the Stinger's honor graduate, I did really well. It just it just fit. It just made, you know, I was physically fit. I got the the athletics completely prepped me for it.

[00:43:08]

You know, the teamwork aspect of it. You just had to get used to the yelling and they were still smacking us around. It was 1995, which if you didn't deserve to get smacked around, then you didn't get smacked. And that made sense to me. It was based on merit.

[00:43:20]

You worked your ass, it's merit based. You're gonna perform, you're gonna do what you're told, we're gonna move you up. You're gonna be a smart ass, you're gonna be lazy, you're gonna be a fat body? No. Then you don't.

[00:43:32]

It's easy. It's a piece of cake. Yeah. And, went to airborne school, but I was married to my first wife at the time, and nothing against she's a wonderful person. We just got married way too young.

[00:43:43]

Just nothing bad to say about her, but she was having an affair. So I got my Jody letter. Yeah. Hey. I want a divorce.

[00:43:51]

And it really was hard from there on out, airborne school on out, because that wasn't something I ever expected. That wasn't something in my family that happened. Divorce didn't happen. To me, that wasn't even on my radar. Yeah.

[00:44:04]

And it was, woah. What this is so I'm fighting airborne school. Airborne school is easy. Just all you gotta do is learn how to fall and break yourself, and then jump out of a plane. It was it was memorable.

[00:44:16]

There was a memorable thing about airborne school though that was awesome. And again, god looking out. My first 2 jumps, 1st day jump and 1st night jump, I was the first 1 out the door. It was so awesome. Being able to have the door open, 1st jump, and I'm watching, that was cool.

[00:44:32]

It's memorable. I threw in the night jump too. I was like, how lucky am I to be how did that happen? I got lucky to be the first 1 out the door. So, you know, your door opens, you get to watch all that shit for about 30 seconds before you go.

[00:44:43]

But Airborne School then went through Rip, got through Ranger Rip, went 2nd bat, and we're there. I was there for about 8 months. And, you know, you're an untapped guy, and you've been around rangers. You know, for untapped at ranger battalion, we're shit. We're Mhmm.

[00:44:57]

Piece we're we're getting hazed. I mean, it's it's just it's miserable. You're hiding in your team room on the weekends because you don't want the tab spec 4 to come in there and smoke your balls and haze the shit out of you. So you just, like, either hide or you take off for the weekend. And, but, went on a GRX training mission at Bragg.

[00:45:18]

About 8 months in, I was at battalion, and the joint readiness exercise, so we're doing a a joint readiness exercise with blue, green, some pjs, and then the air force guys at Polk, the spec ops, the specter, and you know, and the task force was there too. Night stalkers were there too. So it's a big yeah. It was it was pretty awesome. So I mean, I'm a private.

[00:45:37]

I'm just but I'm fighting this divorce. I mean, I'm my wife's cheating on me, you know, and and it's just killing me.

[00:45:44]

Did you know who she was cheating?

[00:45:45]

No. I I mean, I at that that first 2 week, it was it was a it was a 2 week GRX, the 1st week. I still hadn't figured it out. I I was in denial more than anything. You know?

[00:45:56]

That's no way she's doing that. And this is for the admitted cell phone. Cell phones are a big thing. So to go home to call, you had to go actually go to a pay phone. So it wasn't like I could call and check all the time like you could now, which maybe that would have made it worse.

[00:46:08]

Maybe this made it better. This 1 but I'm a new private. I'm around all these tier 1 guys. I'm just holy shit, dude. I'm should I you know, and and when you're a new guy, you you have that bravado, but should I be here?

[00:46:20]

You know, tab spec fours, you got tabs squad leaders, TAB e fives. These guys this is old hat to them. I'm like, oh my gosh. And so the the stress levels for me, don't fuck up. Don't fuck up.

[00:46:30]

I got 2 hernias on my first jump too. So I'm don't wanna tell nobody because I got 2 little aliens going there when we jumped in. Is it Sicily at Bragg? I can't remember the the drop zone. But, anyway, it all came to a to a head, and, I called home and I threw an answer.

[00:46:46]

So I finally called my brother, Mike. Love him. I go, hey. What's going on with Stacy, man? He goes, dude, I I I don't wanna tell you.

[00:46:53]

And as soon as he said that, you know, I I was like, bro. Because it was in the. And I went home on block leave because right after that, we're going on block leave. We're trying before Christmas. And, I just I went to the guy's house, and I hid in his bushes.

[00:47:06]

I was gonna kill him. And I came to my senses, which was great on my end because I got out of there, but it was also where I even felt like a bigger failure because, like, man, I can't even do this. I'm the biggest pussy in the world. But God has God has got me. Yeah.

[00:47:23]

God has and but, of course, everybody found out, small town, Grand Junction, Colorado. Military found out, of course, because I was very lucky. I instead of going to jail, I gotta go to the VA there in Grand Junction. They threw me in the mental ward, like, to check on me. Of course, to the military.

[00:47:43]

So the wheels are turning that I'm gonna get.

[00:47:45]

So hold on. Did you get caught?

[00:47:47]

Actually, I what I did is I went back home. I drank myself silly, and my friend found me on the floor. My ranger buddy who I joined with that is home too on leave, he found me on the floor just I was just drunk and took a bunch of Tylenol, and yeah,

[00:48:02]

it's just So you tried to kill yourself?

[00:48:04]

Yeah. 1997, 6 or 7. 96, then 96. Holy shit, guys. Yeah.

[00:48:13]

It's just 1 of those things because it it it's you're young, you're piss vinegar, you're full of fire. You're a ranger, dude. Someone was gonna you know? But I wasn't ready. It just was being young and stupid and and doing stupid things impulsively that young people do, especially young guys like myself and myself were just were not thinking.

[00:48:33]

We're just action first, consequences later. And, but the military found out.

[00:48:40]

And of

[00:48:41]

course they are. And we of course we called the commander, and the commander found out. And I had I had wonderful so blessed. First sergeant was Frank Grippi, ranger legend, sergeant major Grippi, fucking, you know, he was dropping mortars and tubes in, in Torbjorn, Anaconda, and he was a sergeant major. He was my first sergeant.

[00:49:00]

And we also had captain, Paul Lacamera, who I think he's a 3 star general now. He may have just retired. But he was my CO. And they I mean, I wasn't gonna stay in. There was no way I could stay in, but I managed to get an honorable discharge.

[00:49:15]

I didn't I didn't deserve it. So I only finished 2 years out of my first 4 year contract. Well, how long did it, take you to snap out of that? Well, I I went home. It took me 2 year well, I had 2 years.

[00:49:26]

I didn't have a choice. The, we got out let me sorry. Let me Yeah. Yeah. So you left I left the army You left the army.

[00:49:34]

At the end of 1996.

[00:49:35]

At the end of 1996, and then went back to your hometown?

[00:49:39]

I went back to my hometown, and was like, I can't do this anymore. And and What were you doing in your hometown? Nothing.

[00:49:46]

Just being miserable? Being miserable.

[00:49:48]

You know, your It was as miserable as but as with family. You know, my family my mom's there, my dad's there, my brothers are there, so I'm surrounded by family. My friends are still there because I'd just really been 2 years out of college. I still had guys I'd played football with that are still finishing up. And, I had a buddy of mine named Brian Edwards.

[00:50:03]

He goes, dude, you look like shit. And I moved in with them. I I hung out with my buddies. You know, my parents were there, but I I moved into a room at 1 of their old ex football players. They were still playing 1 of my teammates' houses, and they went on a and that's what I recommend everybody to do when you go through a divorce.

[00:50:18]

I went to South Padre Island for spring break spring break. He goes, wait. What happened there, Chris? She's like, dude, you look miserable. We're going to spring break.

[00:50:27]

Come on. Get in the car. We're going. I was like, okay. We went.

[00:50:30]

And I went to South Padre for spring break, and I remember this. I can't the lord I am beyond. The lord works mysterious ways. I'm serious. It's just so may you I look back at it now.

[00:50:40]

I'm like, my gosh. God really does have control. I go there. Hold on.

[00:50:45]

Can I can I make a prediction? Yeah.

[00:50:46]

Yeah. Yeah.

[00:50:47]

Did you meet your current wife there? Get the It

[00:50:50]

was Are you serious? Shit. I went there.

[00:50:53]

Hold on. Hold on. How long had you been? Were you divorced?

[00:50:57]

We were yeah. We well, we had been unofficially divorced for only about 6 months, but we she had tried to divorce me and get rid of me at basic training. So it didn't

[00:51:06]

So you're, like, depressed at home Yeah. Depressed. Yourself to death Yeah. Trying to commit suicide with a bottle of Tylenol.

[00:51:14]

And now I wanna what am I gonna do with

[00:51:16]

the bike? Like, we're going to stop

[00:51:18]

by spring break. I need you to smile again. And Brian I love Brian. He is he is all he is and he was a he was a he was a really good football player, outstanding wide receiver out there, but we go there, and this is what's so funny, and it's funny, but I also I do believe there's Cupid is out there, because we're at Charlie's. It's a bar there.

[00:51:37]

No. It's Louie's. We're at Louie's. Louie's Louie's bar and something, and I'm dancing, you know, and but I'm still jacked. I'm a ranger, shredded, you know, I'm jacked up, shirts off, because I'm the, woo hoo, I'm spring break drinking, drinking, and all of a sudden, this searing pain all flows down the side of my face and my eyes.

[00:51:57]

Well, it was before Fireball, so when they had those shots of cinnamon snobs that the little ladies would carry around, somebody knocked the whole thing on me. And I look, and it was my wife, my current wife. I look, and it's it's like Cupid's arrow. It's like Wow. And we danced.

[00:52:16]

We were inseparable that whole spring break. I stayed with her.

[00:52:19]

Wait. Hold on. What was the 1 liner?

[00:52:22]

There there Picked up who? Actually, I still think she's and I told her, I said, you spilled that that cinnamon schnapps on me on purpose, didn't you? Because you saw my heaving chest and I was showing her, didn't you? She was like, that was so there but that's the that was actually the joke. And it was that, because I still believe, like, you saw me and you did that on purpose, didn't you?

[00:52:43]

Just so I look at you. And I looked at her, and she's a volleyball player from University of Nebraska in Omaha. I mean, she'd say, you know, volleyball players, come on. Watch watch college volleyball. And, you know, she's taller than me.

[00:52:56]

She's 5 10. I'm 59. She's 5 10. And, just athletic, and, man, that was it. And then, again, the whole spring break.

[00:53:05]

So there wasn't a 1 liner, but it was I do give her shit. Like I said, you did that shit on purpose because you saw my man boost from all them push ups. And, it was awesome. And, so when I went home, it gave me a direction. So I went back home, like, okay.

[00:53:20]

I the stipulation is my honorable discharge is I had to still I had to stay up for 2 years. I couldn't reenlist for 2 years. It came in the in my my file. And my dad had a doctorate. My mother, she's a teacher.

[00:53:34]

She had her master's. What's the logical step here? Let's go back to college. So I applied to University of Nebraska Omaha, took the GRE, got accepted, and I got into my Bronco too, and luckily, I made it to Omaha. I lived in a $100.10 a month, room in in the slums of Omaha.

[00:53:56]

Omaha is a wonderful place, but it was the poorest Omaha. No air conditioning. Nothing in it was wonderful. It's wonderful. It was just it was just it was like I'm an out of a terrible element, and here I am by myself, no money.

[00:54:13]

Bronco twos don't run, so it's in a crappy car. I'm still fighting double hernia surgery because I hadn't got my hernias fixed yet, but it was like, man, this is awesome. And the only person I know is this woman that spilled drinks on me that I spent 4 days with at. And she was she was awesome. And we just we dated, and and I just got my life together.

[00:54:35]

I went back to school. The VA got my chit fixed. I got my hernias fixed. There was there. Grad school to me was was the school, I don't say it's easy, but the ability to to go to school and then also work, and it wasn't hard because military was so you you you know, it was regimented.

[00:54:54]

You you could do multiple things and not get enough sleep and still get it done. Oh, it was easy. So I got a job at Mission of Omaha working as a security guard, go to school, and my classes I could take at UNO, a lot of the grad classes were in the evening, so I would take classes. And a lot of those graduate school classes, I was in for criminal justice, so I was still thinking maybe the feds down the line even though I had done. But it was 1 week, so 1 3 hour class a week I could take, and then it was just study, study, study.

[00:55:24]

And to me, studying was awesome. The library was peaceful. So I would get an internship. So I worked at the library, I could study. I worked at Misha Wilma during the day, so I was making money over there.

[00:55:35]

And and I was going to school, and I was with this woman that was was young woman that was just hotter than all hell as you are. I mean, volleyball players, man, squats and jumps, obviously you can tell what kind of man I am. She was amazing. And, and she turned out to be just a just a a very wonderful person that, you know, in social media, you see all the all the women on social media. She's not that she didn't have a social media account.

[00:56:03]

She doesn't believe it. She's just a just a good home homegrown Nebraskan girl.

[00:56:10]

Nice. And

[00:56:11]

she took care of me, and she really did. She she got me back up on my feet. She got me she just got my the whole situation got my life back together, but she was the main focal point on that. And 2 years, got my master's degree. I actually went from being a security guard to where I became an insurance adjuster.

[00:56:28]

So when you watch the movie where they say, you know, you'll be happy being on that that argument did happen. I fell asleep during the ambassador's speech. I heard so much political I I I didn't care. I would have been up half the night, dude. I was up half the night.

[00:56:41]

I got up in the morning. I'm like, screw this. Do I really have to go wrong? He's like, Donald, get in there. And I'm sitting in the back.

[00:56:47]

But, anyway, when the argument said, yeah, there that happened, he goes, you'd be happy going back home and being an insurance adjuster, it's because I was. I still am a licensed National Flood Insurance Program FEMA insurance adjuster to to this day. I still can run claims if I want, but that's what I did. I went to got that certification and started working at Mission of Omaha, and and eventually, I got back in the military. And I remember I I I it was hard.

[00:57:11]

I went through 8 different recruiters because nobody was gonna help me when they found out what I did even though I had an honorable discharge. My renter code was a 3, which is very bad. That means you you got an honorable discharge, but there's an asterisk there. And, the last guy saw, it was a recruiting command. It was right by my house too.

[00:57:29]

I came I'd missed it for 2 years. I don't know what happened. Lord works mysterious ways, my friend. I'm driving home to go home. I'm like, well, I guess the military's done.

[00:57:39]

I I got my master's, but I guess the military's out of question. I see it in the corner, and I'm like, how did I miss this for years when I'm by my house? And my my 1 room in the house I lived. And I drive in there and the Nebraska recruiting command sergeant major's in there. I walk in, he's in there.

[00:57:58]

I'm talking to a recruiter. He overhears me telling pleading my case to this recruiter. Hey, man. You please. I really wanna go in.

[00:58:04]

I need to finish what I started. He walks in. He says, I'm hearing what you're saying. He said, do you really wanna go back in soon? I said, yes, sergeant.

[00:58:14]

He goes, Roger, though. He signs me the paperwork over. I sign it. He takes it back from me. As he's holding it, he goes, there's just 1 stipulation.

[00:58:23]

You have to do it all over again. Roger? Yeah. So I did it all over again, basic airborne ranger, did it twice, and went back in. And I I I did it all twice.

[00:58:35]

Yeah. Yeah. If you want something bad enough though, was it it you'll do it. And it really lot of that, and you know this is, when especially when you're early on, it's a mind game. It's fuck fuck games.

[00:58:46]

I knew it was coming.

[00:58:48]

I

[00:58:48]

was in great shape because that's all I did. I worked. I went to school. I hung out with my my my girlfriend at the time who was a volleyball player there, so what did I do? She was half the time, she was at the gym.

[00:58:59]

So I worked out all the time. I was running 5 minute miles. You know, I could I could do 120 push ups in 2 minutes. I mean, I was you know, and I'm very lucky. I had good genes from my family.

[00:59:09]

You know, playing sports helped as well. So when I went in, I could outdo the drill sergeant, but I saw I saw how the military in those 3 years went from or it was actually 4 years. That was from 1995 when I first went into basic training till when I went back in in the beginning of 1999, how had it gotten easier?

[00:59:31]

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[01:00:41]

I do the drill signs. When I went in the first time, every drill instructor, infantry drill instructor, except for 1, was tabbed. They at least had a ranger tab. They don't come from ranger pad, but they at least had a tab. Or they were mechanized, and they'd seen some combat, or been in their deserts.

[01:00:57]

I mean, they were hardcore. The 1 that didn't, and he was 1 of my drill sergeants, drill sergeant Hardney, the devil. Love that man. Big black dude, 6, 7, looked like a demon from hell, but I love him. He was actually the, NCOIC for Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, if that tells you anything about his qualifications.

[01:01:19]

He may

[01:01:19]

not have his tab, but do you think he's disciplined? Yeah. Standing 8 hours at yeah. So when I went in the 2nd time, 2 guys had tabs, no CIBs, not that much in shape. The only 2 guys, the the senior drill instructor, he was from 3rd bat, so he was a ranger.

[01:01:43]

He was TAB, and then our commander, our CO was TAB, and and it was easier. They weren't throwing us around. They couldn't even get in our face. They could still do the shark attack, but it was the the standards had lowered. The mile max, the 2 mile run was 1154 when I first went in.

[01:02:02]

It moved down to 13, so it was easy. I was like, geez. This is cake. I was you know, every all the standards had lowered, and and it wasn't it was. It was just it was a hell of a lot easier.

[01:02:13]

And of course, it was a lot easier because I knew what what was coming. Airborne school was easy. Rip was hard like Rip should be. I mean, it was just it was a kick in the ass. RIP should be a kick in the ass.

[01:02:25]

The only thing is is those 2 of the instructors there, I joined in in 1995. So when I came back through, they were both e sixes, e fives and e 1 was e 5, 1 was an e 6. And they're like, what the hell are you doing? Faye? So I mean, it would why I tell people that's because it was I didn't feel the, oh, shit, you know, the the nervous you know, like like you do when you went through hell week or you these guys are maintenance.

[01:02:47]

Like, I know that dude. I could outrun him 5 years. So it was and then go back to battalion, went there, got my tab, became a team leader, and then my platoon leader found out I had my master's degree and that I'd been at battalion before. And he says, you need to become an officer, son. And so I became an officer.

[01:03:10]

I got to my commission.

[01:03:11]

No kidding. You you became an officer.

[01:03:13]

Don't tell him, buddy.

[01:03:15]

I did not. I did not know that. You would have not been invited to the show.

[01:03:21]

It wasn't long lasted though because, I did. I got my commission, and in 2003 oh, it was yeah. 2003, I was going through IOBC, entry officer's base, of course. I actually joined 19 Special Forces Group too. So I I stayed enlisted in the Guard as I was getting because I did green to gold.

[01:03:40]

I didn't go to officer candidate school. I just had to do a year of green to gold at Creighton University. So I joined the Guard 19 Special Forces Group is where I linked up with my partner that does my vodka with me, Ben Morgan, for 1st ranger bat. He was on ODA 993. They brought me into ODA 993, so we were we got to we were friends and we grew up in Grand Junction, but that's where we really developed a great friendship because he went to a different high school.

[01:04:03]

We didn't really hang out. Gotcha. But, anyway, I still had I got my commission, and I entry, got it. And, at the end of the course, I was standing out there at the Malone ranges, and, my stomach was really hurting bad. Terrible.

[01:04:18]

I was feeling awful. But I'd just been out the can in the night before drinking. You know? I was like, it's normal shit. We're out there sweating our balls off, just drinking.

[01:04:26]

I ate a ton of pizza. Of course, I and I, you know, I had passed gas. I let a fart go, and I charted. I chipped myself. But it the pain actually increased when that happened, so I was like, that ain't right.

[01:04:40]

And I went and dropped trowel, and I had blood all over. Just I had what? I had blood. Just I I had, well, they rushed me to Martin Almond Hospital, and they I figured I I had ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease, and it was really bad. And I remember the the GI doctor, yeah, I just had blood all over the place.

[01:04:59]

I'd shed blood. Because that's what I it when it becomes extremely inflamed, for those who don't know what ulcerative colitis is and all Crohn's disease, it's your lower intestines and your colon become inflamed, and they just have ulcers all over. And it looks like you've got road rash. It's like when you and I'm I've I'd had it for years. I just didn't really, you know, I didn't really notice it because it I was going at such a high level, and I think the focus was there to finish what I started that it I wasn't gonna let anything hamper that.

[01:05:28]

But it got so bad that now it was affecting my nutrients, it was affecting my energy levels because I couldn't that's where you process all your food. That's where when you eat everything. And when it's all like that, your food, it doesn't process. It just shoots right through you. It's blood, mucus, and food, and that's what was starting to happen.

[01:05:44]

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I got discharged. I got discharged in 2003, and I was a kick in the balls, dude.

[01:05:49]

That was my 1 1 time where, in my life where god was I was mad, or or I was like, man, I wonder if god really exists. Because, like, holy crap, I went through all this. All this. And and I did I remember lying on that gurney looking up at him going, really? Why?

[01:06:08]

What the hell? And and sorry. He he has pain. God always has patience, and I see he, you know, he pities us, which he always he always pities the 1 that needs the most pitying too. It was at that time was me.

[01:06:22]

And, I went home, and I lost 30 pound I mean, it was like Ranger score over again. I lost £30 in about a

[01:06:28]

week, so I couldn't eat. Were you just, like, completely devastated? It was. You were a bit discharged again?

[01:06:35]

Yes. Because it was that wasn't the plan. The plan was I had already

[01:06:39]

I What did you think you were gonna do?

[01:06:41]

I had no idea. I I had no idea. No idea. I was I I didn't know. My wife was there.

[01:06:46]

She was very supportive. We had actually got married. We had got married before we went to ranger school. She's that's how wonderful she is. We got married at a courthouse, and I was off to ranger school the next week.

[01:06:56]

But she was there, and, what did your wife do at the time? At the time, she was actually she stayed in Omaha, and she was managing Gold's Gym. She was a Gold's Gym. She was just working. She had a business degree, and that was you know, I fit her.

[01:07:09]

She's athletic. Gold's Gym at the time, that was when Gold's was really big, so she had a good job. You know? So not that you know, it was about $40 a year. That's tough for 2 people to live on.

[01:07:19]

Couldn't do that anymore, but that time, we were okay. We're living in an apartment, and all I'm all she cares about, we're just healing. So I'm trying to find natural remedies to heal myself. I'm going to nature store because I'm on prednisone, but prednisone is rough. So through the next year, all I'm doing is, first of all, I'm I'm eating things, and if it if it goes right through me, I write it down, I cross I can't eat it anymore.

[01:07:43]

So I'm figuring out what I could eat, my diet. And then I'm taking the medication, and then I'm going to go into nature food stores, organic food stores. You know, it wasn't a Whole Foods at the time. You had to find the little mom and pop ones and trying to find out what could I eat to start to build my body back up, because I couldn't take whey protein. I couldn't do anything that was dairy related, and I just tried to build my body up for the next year, and I found this goat colostrum, which they they don't I wish they still made it goat milk.

[01:08:13]

I could do that. And then I I could eat corn stuff. I could eat stuff that was rice related. I could eat anything in the bible. If it was manna, manna bread, I could eat that.

[01:08:23]

For some reason, it didn't didn't disagree with me, and I built my body back up for the next year. And at the end of 2003, I got a call on the phone from Blackwater Security. Blackwater called me first, and then 30 sec 30 minutes later, Triple Canopy called.

[01:08:38]

How did they get in? I mean, did

[01:08:40]

you Well, at that time, it was just word-of-mouth. And, I remember they got a hold because 1 of my ranger buddies at both places were already working for him, and they had recommended my name to him. Him. Interesting. And, yeah, they were they were good.

[01:08:54]

Actually, Blackwater was a gentleman. He and he's a great guy. Brian Mastrafini was his name, and he had recommended that, as Rangers, let's give him a shot. He didn't know I was sick though either. Yeah.

[01:09:06]

But they, they got my phone number because he, you know, he was a friend. He had the phone number, so he's like, here it is. And they called me, and the only reason I went Blackwater Blackwater is because they called me first. And at that time, they were both great organizations. You had Eric running that, and it was still relatively small.

[01:09:20]

And they had Lee Van Arsdale running, who's a, you know, a Delta legend, running triple canopy. It was it was pretty good shit. And

[01:09:30]

and they had Was it for, OGA?

[01:09:33]

No. That time, there there wasn't there was peak. It was called Polar Quest. It was just starting to come online, but at that time, it was Bremer, the Bremer detail. What year is this?

[01:09:42]

2004. End of 2003, beginning of 2004. So Karzai had already been going. The Karzai detail was a lot of your brothers were on on at Karzai, and they had just started to move to Iraq, and they were starting to pick up guys to go on the Brimmer detail, which was gonna be the Nagar Pani detail down the line. It was it wasn't state department either.

[01:09:59]

It was the Coalition Provisional Authority.

[01:10:01]

Interesting. How'd you like that?

[01:10:04]

The beginning, it was great because it was like OGA.

[01:10:06]

I remember showing up at GRS and everybody was talking about

[01:10:12]

the property. That was that was the good old days. That was when it was state department really didn't have their hand in it, so it was it was the wild west. I mean, that was, you know, that's where Saxx started. Saxx was he was that's where he became really a legend over there with in the GRS was he was 1 of the original Bremer guys.

[01:10:27]

Love Saxx. But anyway, yeah, that's that's what I and I went and I went to the first class where I met Boone. Boone and I were in that first it was called the Did you work with Sachs on that? Not in the Brimmer detail. No?

[01:10:39]

No. He moved on. He was 1 of the first guys moving over to GRS.

[01:10:42]

Okay.

[01:10:43]

So that Sachs was the trendsetter on on contracting, but rightfully should be, and he's he was

[01:10:47]

What a great guy, man.

[01:10:48]

He's just he is. He's that's the 1 thing. He is an opera, but he's just a nice guy.

[01:10:52]

I love that dude.

[01:10:53]

He was I obviously, I'm mentioning him, so he he had an effect on my life, a positive effect. But, yeah. I went there and went through the training, which was basically 3 weeks at Moyoc of Delta, Long Tabbers, white soft, blue, rangers, and marines fighting with each other.

[01:11:16]

Oh, I changed throughout your entire

[01:11:18]

contracting career. Dude, it was, dude, it was so hilarious. We didn't learn a damn thing during that. We we went through all the shootings, so you had to pass the shooting, but as far as the PSD stuff, we didn't learn a thing. Because they were just always everybody was always

[01:11:34]

Arguing tactics.

[01:11:35]

And then you're having the the wipes was the wipes off the the, you know, the seal, the the white the vanillas, the the the seal teams outside of blue. The Miis. They were

[01:11:45]

the regular ship bag Navy SEALs.

[01:11:47]

Come on. Shit. I believe you, man. I'd I'd rather work the vanilla guys knew infantry stuff better than the blue guys. I was always saying, man, you guys know your infantry shit down.

[01:11:59]

You guys had it. Mike Hain, Sawbones was a guy who worked quite often. He was awesome, and he hated blue. I was like, fuck, dawg. But I he was awesome.

[01:12:07]

Bones was the man. And, anyway, they're running the course. So do you think a blue guy is gonna take shit from them or Delta? And it was I remember sitting on the bleachers week 2, and we're trying to do through we're trying to learn basic formations, walking formations, diamond, you know, and then how to react to contact within those formations, and it just turned into a big argument shoving.

[01:12:32]

From a bunch of guys that none of them have done personal protection.

[01:12:36]

The other ones that were teaching it. Been insulting. Yeah. You had been there and the ones that were teaching it, you know, they'd been down range for, what, 6 months.

[01:12:42]

Guys, we're gonna go on defense now. I know. What's that? What's that? I don't know.

[01:12:46]

Figure it out and teach it.

[01:12:47]

That's what it is. It was so but it was it was it was awesome because it was a beautiful day. You know, it's it's it's early spring in North Carolina, Moyock. It's sun's out. It's starting to set.

[01:13:00]

I'm in the bleachers, and 1 of the instructors come over to me, his name was his call center was Shrek. He come over to me and he goes, what you smiling at for, Ranger? I said, you guys are paying me because I I hadn't made shit for a year. Yeah. You guys are paying me $250 a day to sit out here in this beautiful weather, get a shoot gun, and I get to watch you guys just clown show me.

[01:13:22]

This is awesome. I don't lose I'm just unbelievably, like, how how lucky might have been right here watching this shit show go on. And it was so awesome. It was wonderful. And then, you know, I finished the course.

[01:13:35]

I had to go home for, like, 2 months because my clearance still hadn't cleared yet. Mhmm.

[01:13:40]

And

[01:13:40]

I hadn't got my clearance yet from the state department. You know? That's when we started to figure out, oh, they're you know, DOD, NSACI have their own clearances? Oh, I didn't know that. I thought as you get 1, they all they don't cross over.

[01:13:51]

So I had to wait for my state department clearance, got it, went home to my wife, I said, please don't divorce me, but I'm going to Iraq. That's when the contracting life for the next 10 years took over, man. That was it. In early days, and it was it was the wild west, man. It was, man, sitting up on top of a building on Haifa Street with my ranger buddy and pigeon shit overwatching 1 of our PSD teams, watching Bradley shoot down Heifers Street spinning.

[01:14:18]

The guys in their turrets, they spinning because they're that was I still remember. That was so cool. So they because their their gut the up gunners, they're spinning, making sure they're looking, and they're not gonna get shot because Heifel was bad at that time. That was real bad. And, yeah, I'm ducking because they don't know if I'm a good guy, but I don't wanna shoot me, but just that was wonderful times, man.

[01:14:39]

Driving down Biop, driving down Irish, Route Irish at a 100 kilometers an hour, fucking making sure that you don't get hit on that overpass or

[01:14:48]

There

[01:14:48]

are not

[01:14:48]

a lot of people that say they've had a great time running up and down Route Irish.

[01:14:52]

Oh, yeah. You're 1

[01:14:53]

of the few.

[01:14:54]

I I loved it. Yeah. And I had an awesome team. We had a wonderful just an awesome team. Again, another 1 just guys that just I don't got along, but it just it worked.

[01:15:04]

So for those listening that don't know about Rout Irish, Rout Irish is most likely, unanimously, the most dangerous road in Bagdad.

[01:15:16]

It it was for a time. I mean, there were other dangerous roads too. Like, Haifa Street was very dangerous. Route wild, when you got up to Sodder, was pretty damn dangerous. And even route 10 at some points were dangerous.

[01:15:27]

And then, of course, route 10 when it got into the Ramadi and Fallujah, of course, were extremely dangerous. And god bless him, Helvasten and and the guys, you know, that that that got hung and died there. You know? You know? But Irish was always hot.

[01:15:43]

Mhmm. Always something that he was dying or getting hit on Irish, and I loved every minute of it. And I had the best drivers in the world. And you see when when you see a motorcade with 3 cars and they know the drivers know what they're doing, and I was very lucky enough that I moved being from the trunk monkey to eventually I became the team leader. So I'm on that rear vehicle making the calls and just watching drivers do their thing, blocking and screening at a 100 k.

[01:16:10]

Dude, it is beautiful, man. And I just get chills thinking about it because I was like, man, it got to a point where it's like a great football team where coach didn't need to say a thing. Everybody knew what they were doing, and they just did it. It was amazing having my 2 left and right door gunners cracking doors. If they needed to hit somebody, they'd hit them.

[01:16:29]

If they didn't, they didn't. You know, getting out and even when I got to be a door gunner on the left rear, when you're going a 100k and you gotta crack that door and you're hanging out the side, like, that's almost the same as hanging on a bench of a little bird as it's spanking in. It's it's it's wonderful, man. Who gets to do that? That was that was fun times, and we we were up and down that thing.

[01:16:51]

In a 2 month period at 1 point, we had to run it 6 times a day. Not stupid. It was state department. 6 times a day. A day?

[01:16:59]

You had to We were we were Woah. We were protecting times a day on route Irish.

[01:17:03]

We were protecting the rhino bus, and we got gas for that. It. And, 6 times a day, and it was we violated every security principle that you're supposed to have.

[01:17:15]

Were you guys 1 of the crews that had the with

[01:17:20]

with what? I don't know.

[01:17:21]

Somebody dressed up like a dinosaur at the at the back of a truck and rode that day.

[01:17:26]

No. No. That that that wasn't us as far as, you know, I don't think. No. It wasn't it wasn't us.

[01:17:31]

It wasn't us. It wasn't us. That was later down the line. It was a Dyncore team. That was later down.

[01:17:36]

Yeah. That was down the line. It I I went it was team 5, I believe, that did the Dyncore team, because we would rotate with Dyncore on this because we were still didn't have enough people. So we would take it, then they would take something. I love the Dyncore guys too.

[01:17:48]

But that that was not seriously, that was the Dynacore team, which I wish it would have been. That was that was some funny shit. That was hilarious. YouTube that stuff, guys. Dinosaur around Irish.

[01:17:58]

But, yeah, we were time and place predictable, we were a big target, and we were slow. Everything you didn't wanna be on route Irish, we were

[01:18:06]

And did you guys did you guys take contact?

[01:18:09]

Just sniper fire from away, you know, on right when you hit route Irish, you have those that that where the, where the Edinburgh Risk guys got hit. That's that famous that I say famous, that infamous video where those guys are on and there's an SF guy in there that everybody hammered because he ran and hid in a little ditch. I've not seen that. It's a it was Edinburgh risk where where, it's right at the beginning of when you when you get out of the green zone and you start hitting around Irish, it's still Iraqi urban areas right there. And it's it's about 300 meters off the road, and they would sit PKMs or snipers on there, and they because there was also a building that had been bombed and burnt out that they would sniper fire about a 100 meters away when you're going.

[01:18:51]

And, so anyway, we would take every once in a while, but we got didn't get hit with a car bomb. We got very lucky. The Dyncore team that took over for us got hit the next week. So we would just take and, you know, urine ping. Alright.

[01:19:07]

Well, we're good. Everybody good? Yeah. Alright. It just added to the flavor, man.

[01:19:13]

And, and, you know, it was something to say that for the team as well, how how awesome they were and how a good motorcade operations if you're running it right. They're gonna hit somebody that's not doing it right. They're and but I do remember that it was when we got the task to do it, and I was a TL, I was like, can you guys do this? Well, yeah, you know, what am I saying? No?

[01:19:34]

Of course. We can do it, but I went to the team, and you should have seen the looks, man. Half of them were stoked. The other half were like, I'm not going home. Yeah.

[01:19:44]

And you're trying to keep everybody pumped up and in my head going, holy shit. 6 times a day? Just the odds Yeah. That we're we're gonna get hit with the VBI ID. I said, we can take small arms for because we're gonna keep moving.

[01:19:58]

We're gonna keep pushing through. Just don't stop. Don't create your own kill zone like the Edinburgh Risk guys did that got hit, where you get caught in a traffic jam there, and then you push everybody out right and left. So you're basically you you you've just given them an ambush zone. You've given them a big target, but we could just keep pushing.

[01:20:15]

Don't worry about the Rhino. It's got much armor on it. It's the state department armored bus that a m 1 Abrams has. It's gonna be able to take a hit. Just be able to med vac them or get them out of there if it goes down, but just keep moving.

[01:20:27]

And it was very we we just did everything right, and we got lucky. You know, a lot of

[01:20:33]

nice things. You you never got blown up on Irish.

[01:20:37]

I never got blown up on Irish. That is

[01:20:40]

It's like It's a running 6 times a day, time and place predictable with a huge bus as a target. I mean It was That is incredible.

[01:20:52]

It's lucky. I it is very lucky. It is because, again, I said when Dyker took over the next week, team 5, they got hit. The car bomb hit him. Hit the hit the rhino rhino.

[01:21:00]

Hit him. Boom. And, you know, I wanna attribute it to that. K. Yeah.

[01:21:04]

We were just that awesome. Now we're just

[01:21:07]

that lucky. That's luck.

[01:21:08]

We're just that lucky. But it still brought the team together. It was wonderful. It was wonderful, and it was very tiring days because you are distressed. That should be

[01:21:17]

I'm not diminishing your team, by the way, by saying that it's just luck. I'm just saying.

[01:21:21]

No. No. Yeah. But I'm

[01:21:22]

telling you it's just VFPs and shit. I mean, there was

[01:21:24]

Well, and they were and they were starting to drop the grenades with the little Yeah. Little shoots off the overpasses as well. No. Of course, it it there is some there is some hey. We did what we we did what we had control of.

[01:21:37]

We planned what we had to. We ran our route right. The motor kit operations were great. We were doing what we needed to do. We kept moving.

[01:21:43]

We didn't ever stop.

[01:21:44]

Let me let me say sorry.

[01:21:46]

No. Go ahead.

[01:21:46]

I get I get yelled at if I don't talk about these acronyms. So EFP for the audience. An EFP is, basically a bomb.

[01:21:55]

It's a platter charge. It's a forced projectile. Yep. I wanna say I always say I always say electrically, but that's not right. I don't know why my head say it.

[01:22:03]

It's a platter charge. They put a piece of copper on it. It's a forced projectile. I always forget what the e stands for. You guys can hammer on me later about that.

[01:22:11]

But it's where it goes, and then that platter of that copper turns into molten lava, so it'll go through the armor. And then when it goes through it, it cools, and then it becomes it becomes a projectile, a hard projectile. And they were starting yeah. Remember that? They were starting to hit us with that, and and that was always Well,

[01:22:29]

they would even put those thermal sensors on. Yeah. So when they when they sense the heat of the engine, that's what would

[01:22:36]

turn off. Because we were able to counter their first of all, their wires were we could see them a lot of times, which, you know, you just give me, but we're able to with all the countermeasures, we could counter the cell phone. So that was huge. Yeah. And, yeah, I had a we had a buddy that next month, a guy named Wee Man, that got hit with they got hit with the EFP when they were driving the Mambas around.

[01:22:59]

You know, Blackwater had those white South African, and it went right through that armor. Yeah. And, you know, I I always say I love Wee Man. I love Chris. He was a great guy.

[01:23:11]

He was actually our he worked in the mail. I mean, it sounds kind of of of, cliche, but he worked in the mail room. He he came in, and he didn't have he was not special ops. He worked in a small town police department, and he came in, and he wanted to get on the road, and we would never let him on the road. Or, like, no, dude.

[01:23:28]

You don't call. Just this is where you belong right here. And finally, he got out on the road and got hit with an EFP, and he fucked him up. Damn, man. And but I still love him to death, but, yeah, I'll be honest.

[01:23:41]

I think I I think I think I don't wanna say he wanted that. I because I I would never say it on anybody, but I do remember when they because we didn't go pick him up the qr f team that responded they went to to help or my team was the psd team And I do remember when they came back 1 of the guys on the qr f team kept saying I said did you see wee man? He goes, yeah, he goes What was he saying? He said just he kept asking me to take a picture of him. It's like, I mean, sometimes you get what you wish for, man.

[01:24:09]

Man. And, yeah, I'm not not to guess he's he is awesome. We and he's braver than shit. He is. But some be careful what you I always that's always a reminder to me.

[01:24:20]

Be careful what you wish for. Yeah. But, yeah, we did that, and and then, I did another year, and then I went back home. And in between, I was instructing at Blackwater, so I was a farm synthetics instructor in between contracts. So I I really never went home.

[01:24:35]

Even when I So did you move to Moyock? No. I stayed normal. She had a great job. So it was it was 1 of those things where we were just apart a lot.

[01:24:44]

It was I was gone or I'd go home for a month, and it was hard because my son was born, my first my 19 year old, he was born, 1st 2 months I was over in in Bagdad, my first 2 months on the contract. So I did come home to see his birth, and then I went right back for another 7 months. And then I and, but that was, you know, at that time, that's that's what I wanted. There's nobody to blame but myself.

[01:25:04]

Man, what is what is it? My whole career was pre kids. And so, I mean, as you know, today was my son's 1st

[01:25:15]

day of school. Congrats on you. I'm so happy that he's just, like, dad, I'm out, man. It Yeah.

[01:25:20]

Well, I was expecting, like, a little, you know, I'm an issue. Mom and dad. No. He's, like, I don't give a shit. I'm like, hey.

[01:25:28]

See you guys later. But but, I am I I I missed his first open house because of a I interviewed Trump. Yep. And, otherwise, there's no way I would have missed it.

[01:25:47]

You gotta do what you gotta do. You gotta make sure.

[01:25:50]

When my wife sent me pictures of my son, like, with his backpack Yeah. On walking into that school, I was, like you know? And and it just every time I have an experience like that, I just wonder, like, how the how did my buddies do it back in the day? How would it how how do you

[01:26:10]

Yeah. How do you rationalize that

[01:26:12]

comfort zone with it? To come home. You met your son when he was a when he when When he was a baby?

[01:26:18]

He was born. He was 1 month.

[01:26:20]

And then you come back, he's 7 months old.

[01:26:25]

Now today, at that time, it was it was just what it was. Mhmm. It was this is what I'm doing.

[01:26:30]

This is

[01:26:30]

what I gotta do. I'm providing for you're rationalizing because this is I'm providing for my family. Yeah. But it's also a little ego. This is what I wanna do.

[01:26:37]

This is where I've been this is what I've always wanted to do. And and when, you know, when I got discharged from the military, my buddies were jumping into Afghanistan. So, like, I thought I missed my war. You know? I yeah.

[01:26:50]

God. Well, no. I got my war. This is where I need to be. I'm going, and and I did have a good time.

[01:26:55]

I was enjoying it. It was wonderful. Now looking back now and experiencing you're getting experienced the little kid time with my 9 year old that I have been with him growing up, now it's now it hurts. And now it's like, man. Damn.

[01:27:12]

Do you feel I missed I missed him, and we had to we had a coming to Jesus when he was 16 because we didn't know each other. And even when I was home as a contractor, you don't get there's no decompression.

[01:27:24]

Yeah.

[01:27:24]

There's no demobed. You're off a plane, a commercial jet, and you're going home. And it takes about 30 days just to get your head right. You're not you're not home. And then you have 30 days of downtime, and then you're back out again.

[01:27:37]

So that's why I think it was even easier for me just I think maybe that was a defense mechanism for me. I don't wanna go home and be angry and just just let me keep working. That's and I'd go back and continue to instruct it more, and I wouldn't go home for more in a couple weeks or I'd fly them out to me. It was dude, it it at that time, it wasn't hard because I thought we were doing it for something bigger than you know, it was patriotism. They attacked us.

[01:28:02]

We're now looking back, I'm like, man. Gosh. I missed that. I would have enjoyed being a father then, and luckily for us, him and I are very close now. I'm happy to hear you.

[01:28:14]

But and so we were able to come to terms, same with my daughter too.

[01:28:17]

What did that what did that mean? Did it come to a head and there was a conversation?

[01:28:22]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When he was 16.

[01:28:24]

What what was that conversation?

[01:28:25]

We, my wife and I had reconciled. We we were back together. You know, we we it was 2 I'm sorry. Not when he was 16, so it was right around the year of 2018 where I got my shit together, and him and her and I are back together. And we're out at a family dinner, and we're out at Olive Garden, Council Bluffs, Iowa.

[01:28:43]

I remember it vividly. And, you know, my little guy, I'm being able to be a father with him. Even though I'm speaking and I'm not I'm starting to whittle the speaking down, I'm starting to be home a lot more. You know, I'm hugging all over him. The stuff I really didn't do with the other 2 because I was just so detached when I was home.

[01:29:01]

It was I wanted to, but I didn't know how. I mean, it really was because I wasn't always there. My my brain was sandbox, Afghanistan. Brains half brain's there, half brain's family. Where now my brain is all there with the family.

[01:29:19]

And, my little guy did something, and I I sorry. I can't say it. My my wife well, you all well, many people know, but I just my wife is all good. My little guy, Peanut, all my kids have call signs. Peanut.

[01:29:35]

He does something that the other 2 at Olive Garden. He's doing something. He's having starting to get angry, have a tantrum because he got those little games there at Olive Garden. You can play on the little monitors. In the past, when those kid when my when my other 2, Kiki and Bubba, when they were growing up, I'd get angry, just lose it because I was back home, a lot to handle.

[01:29:55]

I'm not getting mad at him. I'm actually being a dad. I'm actually I mean, I'm being disciplined, but I'm having some patience. He he looked at me, and it killed me, dude. It did.

[01:30:06]

He looked at me and goes, why don't you get mad at him like he used to get mad at me? And it was like, woah. I mean, it's just knife in the chest, and, I didn't have an answer. I couldn't tell him what was because of the war. It's because of Iraq.

[01:30:24]

I mean, that's an excuse, kind of. He's not gonna understand that. And that was where I realized that he was angry with me for being gone for many years. And Kiki, my daughter, is the same way. Because I was.

[01:30:44]

My little guy, Peanut, got treated a lot better, a lot less hand spanking on the bottoms or whatever than the other 2. And that's attributed to my mind state being coming back. Because, you know, you come back and you have that excuse. I mean, what are you guys crying about? You see this little Iraqi kid, he said on the street, you don't have nothing to eat, and you're trying to compare the 2.

[01:31:09]

Yeah. But it's completely different. But that's how I am coming back. That's my rationalization. I may be yelling at you, but you could have it a lot worse.

[01:31:17]

And I know a lot of guys a lot of fathers now are realizing that because we're comparing their lives to these Afghani Afghani that's walking down the street carrying water up a 5 miles up a hill or, you know, or this or the kids that are caught in a crossfire because or a car bomb goes off and it blows up a busload of kids going to school. You know? We're trying to compare that, and they don't understand that. And that's not a fair comparison. But that's how I was until I was finally home more and able to come to terms with what was going on over there, that that was a life, but now my life is as a father here.

[01:31:55]

And my actions were completely different with my younger son than it was with the other 2, and I didn't realize it until he said that. How did you reconcile this? Became a present. Hug on him more, love him more. I I told him, I said, when he pushed away from me, given him his space, but then come back and just be, hey.

[01:32:17]

You okay? Son, I love you, man. Or even now that and with the advent of cell phones, that's 1 positive is that I can just always, I love you, Bubba. And even if I get back, yeah, because he's a teenager. He knows.

[01:32:30]

And you know how I know we reconciled because his junior year, he was an athlete as well. When he played basketball, he played football his freshman and sophomore year, but he had 3 concussions, so I pulled him out. I said no more. You're down to football. Play something else.

[01:32:44]

He loves soccer anyway, so he went to soccer. He changed his number to 13. I was like no way. I went to a game, and I'm like I was, you know, my wife Tanya was sitting there. I was like, is that oh, shit.

[01:32:59]

I said his name. Sorry. Is that Bubba? Thank you. I said, is that Bubba?

[01:33:03]

She goes, yeah. He He goes, he's number 13. She goes, yeah. And that's when I knew that he'd finally forgiven me, and we are very close now. Yeah.

[01:33:12]

I love I love that boy to death, and he is just a good kid. His mom raised I mean, he is he wasn't he's nothing like me. He doesn't drink. He went to school. He had a soccer scholarship to go play at Northwestern College there.

[01:33:26]

It's a Christian school in Iowa, and he's up there. And I thought it'd be alright, and he's like, dad, I don't I I don't do any all the guys go to go to Sioux Falls and drink, and they and I he goes, I don't do that. He goes I go, well, then come home, and you have a track scholarship to the small college in in Kansas. Write that coach up and tell him you wanna come in. That's what he did.

[01:33:48]

So he was he was wonderful, man. He's just how about your daughter? She's headstrong, man. But now that she we're starting to we're starting to get better because it's it's the daughter's way different. Little boys, you know, boys, you can be a little firmer.

[01:34:06]

Girls, you you you don't really wanna in my opinion, you don't because you don't want them falling in with a man that that bosses them around. But you you also you know, she's still your daughter. She got a discipline. So what do I do? Mama, handle this.

[01:34:22]

But it came to a point to where yeah. And my daughter's as far as her outspokenness is like me. My oldest son, he's not you know, he's very very very quiet. He's strong, but he he, you know, he doesn't argue back. He doesn't.

[01:34:36]

He he he knows that I got he goes, I got it. I'll fix it. My daughter, she's gonna argue. Argue, argue, argue. And there were times where we would be yeah.

[01:34:43]

We'd be yelling at each other, like, because the disrespect that was there. And, my wife finally said, I she goes, just let me let me let me handle it. And this was a couple years ago, and so done. You just default to my wife who who and my daughter responds better to her mom. And a lot of it has to do with me being gone a lot.

[01:35:08]

But now we're we're no. We're getting back again. We're we're we're we're reconciling, and we're at a point where and she's not very I think she got she's not very, affectionate. She doesn't like the hugs and the and the kisses like my little guy does and my oldest son who I said, I'm a hug you till you're 40, till you're 50 years old, son. They like it.

[01:35:31]

I mean, my son doesn't hug back, but he lets me. She she doesn't like it. She doesn't and I I think a lot of that has to do with, you know, her growing up and me and her mom, you know, sometimes having some issues. We got divorced at 1 point, and me being an angry angry man coming back from deployments. But she knows I love her and, you know, there was an issue at our school that I love it.

[01:35:56]

She wrote a letter to the school saying how she had a problem with 1 of the 1 of the dress code issues. I'm like, heck yeah. And I remember I called. I said, I got your back, darling, because I believe you. I said, and I know you're doing the right thing.

[01:36:08]

And that's what I love because that is something Tonto would do, like selling telling Pete Hixep that you're gonna choke out a former president. Hey. She got her opinion. Hell yeah. I got you.

[01:36:21]

And I called her, and she was she, you know so it's it's a lot of time when I'll tell her I love her. I love you, Donna. Yeah, dad. I love you. I love you too because I called her and I said, you write what you want.

[01:36:34]

You know I got your back. Tell them how you feel. I said, I love you. And she goes, I love you too, dad. And that was actually just last week.

[01:36:42]

Good for you, man.

[01:36:43]

So it it just it's being a father, man. You you just have to figure it out. And there are it's okay to be a disciplinarian. There's nothing wrong with that. But you also your kids are all different.

[01:36:54]

And for us at Deployed, we do have to relearn. We have to change ourselves. You know? Warriors don't retire, like Ron said, and I know we put it in the movie, but he said that. But it's the truth.

[01:37:04]

But we don't ever retire, but we can't be a warrior at all. You can be a dad, and but you have to figure out a way how to reach your kids. And and luckily for me, my kids are smarter than me, so they would maybe not tell me, but they would say things where I was astute enough to pick it up, like my son or like my daughter. And they don't always have to say they love you, just an an action like my son wore number 13. I just know right then.

[01:37:33]

Like, he he he he he get he he forgives me. He's we're good, and we have been perfect since. And I'm happy to

[01:37:40]

hear that.

[01:37:40]

Thanks, man.

[01:37:41]

That's pretty good. Let's, let's take a quick break. Yeah. When we come back, we will get into how you got into the OGA contract.

[01:37:49]

You got it, brother. Perfect.

[01:37:53]

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[01:38:34]

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[01:38:55]

Alright, Chris. We're back from the break. Yeah. And, we just went through a small portion of your career. Well, I guess not a small portion, but we went

[01:39:04]

through a portion. Of my life. Small portion of my life. Let's put it that way.

[01:39:08]

But, now we're getting ready to get into how you got picked up for

[01:39:13]

Yeah.

[01:39:14]

OGA.

[01:39:14]

That was you know, again, I I and I keep referring this. God's path. The Lord works mysterious ways. It really it wasn't anything I wanted to do. I was doing fine doing I was working with Blackwater, doing state department stuff, but then also I was working with Greystone, which was Eric's he was trying to make, like, kind of an executive outcome sort of, but it was Greystone.

[01:39:36]

So it was still Blackwater, but it was like a little offshoot. We were going out What's executive outcomes? That was the old South African PMC where it was really a PMC mercenaries where

[01:39:47]

Oh, that was like De Beers shit.

[01:39:49]

Yeah. That was where they were going and actually getting hired by governments to take down terrorist organizations or or actually do direct action missions.

[01:39:56]

That wasn't the De Beers shit.

[01:39:58]

That wasn't the De Beers shit. No. This is this was the old and you were

[01:40:02]

Real mercenaries.

[01:40:03]

Yes. The where the term mercenary, I would say well, the term mercenaries back in the beginning of time, But that was where the government stopped in and said we gotta stop doing this because there were 60 South African you know, those guys were 60 South African strong of former military, and they were taking out huge armies at the behest of some of the African governments. Read about them. It was pretty interesting stuff. They're they're badasses.

[01:40:28]

What is this called again? They were called executive outcomes.

[01:40:31]

How the hell do I not know about this?

[01:40:33]

I'm not so surprised too, man. That's that's a big deal. That's a I'm

[01:40:36]

a dumbass sometimes.

[01:40:37]

You'll I don't know if anybody's still alive from any of those. You know, it was early, long seventies, eighties, I think it was. But anyway, Greystone was supposed to be or it's kinda like a offshoot of that. So it was black order, but we're called Greystone. But we were know Greystone either.

[01:40:52]

Yeah, dude. I got a lot of that

[01:40:53]

dark oxygen. Very small. It just last but it was Eric wanted to keep that

[01:40:58]

Was it the agency stuff?

[01:40:59]

No. It was private stuff. We were going out South America and training local South Americans to go and protect bases overseas. So protect Blackwater bases more. So instead of using an epoese, the Gurkha Gurkhas, you know, that we were trying to

[01:41:17]

Alright. Hold on. Let's go let's talk about Greystone. I've had Eric on here 3 separate times. We have not talked about Greystone.

[01:41:23]

It was I don't think it lasted very long. It was very small. It really was more training going down there and vetting locals that we could use from South America to Central America. So I went to Peru and El Salvador, and then we all set teams going to Colombia, and it wasn't anything nefarious. It's not like we're going down there and starting to execute.

[01:41:48]

We we weren't pulling we weren't pulling inks. Let's put it that way. We weren't doing that. And we were we were we were going out there to train and then working with the and helping them train a little bit. So it was like a FID mission.

[01:42:02]

It was it really was. But it I think Eric wanted to get to a point where it was, like, its own self sustaining army. Gotcha. But it just never morphed into that because then state you know, that's when those times is when state department started to take over high the CPA now was high threat protection, then it went to that whips worldwide personal protective and state department getting their hands in. And that's when the microscope started going up Eric's

[01:42:26]

Yeah.

[01:42:27]

Keister where they were trying to come back from for stuff. Because they and whatever. I like Eric. I I protected his family in between contracts. I'd go to Tyson's Corner and, you know, I'd go run with him in the morning because I was the only guy that he was he was a beast.

[01:42:41]

He was physically I could run with him in the morning, and I go take his kids to school because that code pink, that liberal terrorist crazy women group was always threatening him. So we had a team that would help him and I was on that as well. I was the detail leader for that. But anyway, we did that, and I got to go somewhere in South America in between contracts. So I was state department, and then do you wanna go Greystone?

[01:43:04]

You wanna go to South America? Hell, yeah. So we went to Piero, Peru, went to, San Salvador, went to Lima, Peru, and it was fun. It was it was a good time. Again, my Spanish comes back, so I don't really feel like it's a deployment to me.

[01:43:17]

You know? And and ate some good food, went to a couple spin classes there in Lima, you know, Shakira on bikes in spandex. What can go what? Anyway, anyway, it was a great and then it was and then the training too. You know?

[01:43:31]

And and, and working with the Forza De Especial, especially in El Salvador was pretty cool. But then, I came back and I was still teaching eye threat protection, getting ready to do another contract, and Marty Strong, Seal Lieutenant, great guy. He's written a few books himself, but great guy. He was 1 of the program managers on the Blackwater contract, the state department contract, and Randy Leonard was running starting to run the OGA side house. We call it the victory.

[01:44:01]

We call it the victory program, and AOB, Army of Blackwater program, which was the static CA guys, the base security guys. Marty comes to me and says, hey, you wanna go work OGA? And, like, Marty, man, I'm in state department, and I thought the requirements were still like 8 years or 9 years spec ops. I only had 6. So I was like, I don't qualify.

[01:44:23]

And it was 6. He but I he he goes, you qualify. I go, alright. Yeah. Because I was jogging in Moyock.

[01:44:29]

I lived out in the back at the PTC, the private training center, which was out. So I was jogging 1 day and he was driving home, and that's when he he yelled out his window. He goes, you wanna go do OGA? I was like, man, I don't qualify. And I'm still trying to run.

[01:44:41]

He goes, you qualify. Alright. Sure. Put my name in the hat. And then the next day, Randy came and there was 7 of us instructors that had been working contracts, and there was the Victory program which we ran to get guys certified for OGA.

[01:44:57]

It was it was easy. It wasn't anything tough, to be quite honest with you. We're coming back, and I remember, we're we're getting done training. We're teaching a class for the day to send guys over on the whips contract. I was doing a high threat protection side of the house on that side.

[01:45:11]

And he pulls all these guys, and and what get these are all these are all tough guys, man. All pipe hitters. Right? Cool. Yeah.

[01:45:18]

Everything. I can do anything. And Randy comes in, and TDC had gotten a name for itself. It was hard. People fail.

[01:45:25]

A lot of people were failing. Mhmm. And so Randy comes in, and there's 7 of us. He goes, we have a slot for TDC. Who wants to go?

[01:45:32]

It was crickets. All these pipe fitters, man. Everybody's look. You're not looking somebody say something. I was like, fuck it.

[01:45:42]

I'll go. I I was like, I'll do it. And it was like everybody would because if he 1 of us didn't volunteer, Randy was gonna pick 1. Mhmm. And, you know, if you if you don't pass it, well, then you may be able to come back on whips, but you're never working.

[01:45:57]

It was. It was it's literally pass or fail. You pass. If you fail, never OGA ever again.

[01:46:03]

For those listening, OGA stands for other government agency. So we weren't calling We're getting into the intelligence world.

[01:46:10]

Intelligence stuff. Yeah. The clowns in action. We're getting into the clowns in action. True.

[01:46:15]

True. But we didn't call it GRS. I didn't know what that was called. I didn't know it was GRS, you know. He said OGA, which I knew what it was, but it wasn't called GRS at that time.

[01:46:24]

If it was, it wasn't that wasn't a term used around the head shed there. Yep. So I say I did, and Randy says, okay, we need to get you spun up. Then he brought in Dan Simpson, 30 Dan, 1 of the original makers of TDC with Randy. They they, I mean, they started with Dan, Another Dan, he started Jiras.

[01:46:43]

Great guy. I wish I could remember his last name. I can't. But It's probably better you don't. No.

[01:46:50]

You're right. Even though he's pro well, he left and started Ossen Hunter Group,

[01:46:54]

which is Oh, maybe different.

[01:46:55]

So he he's a but I well, no worries. But, anyway, he goes, we need to get you spun up. And if you're a ranger and seals, you guys use pistols. SF, they get good at pistols. Rangers, we get a pistol, we're throwing it in a rucksack.

[01:47:12]

We don't shoot this. Like, I mean, we're rifling a machine. We can that's our thing. Rifles, machine guns, Gustavs, that's our thing. And Randy goes, get out there.

[01:47:22]

I need to start training. And at the time too, I wasn't using broom handles, which Oh, shit. You know? Because we don't that wasn't you guys did. Blue Blue and and WhiteSoft did.

[01:47:32]

A broom handle is a forward grip that was on the front of an AR 15.

[01:47:36]

That wasn't a thing. High Redis.

[01:47:38]

Or m 4.

[01:47:39]

M 4, what, m 4, AR 15, SBR, PDW, whatever. Yeah. You get all you gun porn people can can call it whatever you want. They figure it out. Yeah.

[01:47:48]

Exactly. But, I remember, and and I never we never did high ready. That wasn't a thing. It was low ready, low carry. Low carry, low ready.

[01:47:57]

So that's Ranger. Right? You gotta teach your high ready. So I get out there at Dan. The high ready actually came pretty natural.

[01:48:04]

The broom handle, I love it's like, man, where did why have I not been using that thing? And it was this I used the Deeter. I like the Deeter for the fore grip, the CQD fore grip. It was excellent. It was perfect.

[01:48:14]

It fit my hand right. And, so I got the rifle stuff down. That was pretty quick. The pistol, jeez. I mean, I could pass a state department call it the pistol, which is a joke.

[01:48:27]

The TDC pistol was

[01:48:29]

Not a joke.

[01:48:30]

That was like, woah. How am I gonna do this? There's and we worked on that continually for about a week. And then it was like, you're gone. Go see you.

[01:48:39]

And we went, my TDC course was held in Danville. Not Danville, ITI. That's where it started. The the racetrack, the out there. ITI, which what is that?

[01:48:50]

West Point, Maryland? I don't remember. It's it was called ITI.

[01:48:53]

It's, it's in Virginia.

[01:48:55]

It's in Virginia. Yeah. It but we did it there, went there, you know, did the PT test. Easy. I mean, actually, I'm running 5 minute miles.

[01:49:04]

It's nothing. I think I ran that whatever it was in 9 minutes where you had to run a half mile, carry the body, run back. I mean, I was just it's it's I was I was very blessed. I've been blessed with good Aztec running jeans. The, rifle part, I mean, it was tough.

[01:49:20]

It was challenging. I wouldn't say it was easy. It was challenging. No. It's tough.

[01:49:23]

It was the the time standards, they're they're tough. Got through that. The night stuff, again, we used night shit. I I was used to infrared lasers. I was used to I was so it was awesome to actually not have a 14, a cyclops on, and it wasn't the 15s we were using that time.

[01:49:41]

They were 20 threes.

[01:49:42]

They were a little bit bigger. Oh damn, those

[01:49:44]

old school ones. Those little school ones. It was real heavy, but it still was alright. I got used to it because we had stronger necks back then. We were tougher back then.

[01:49:52]

The vehicle stuff was PC it was just tactics. It was battle drill 1 alpha, man. React contract, break contract. You know, it's from battle drill squad attack, battle drill 1 alpha, and then you're either break contract or you flank, and it was the vehicle attacks were pretty simple. It's just bounding.

[01:50:06]

Often, sex it was infantry. And house stuff, no problem. Just don't flag your buddy. The high ready eliminates that, which made it a lot easier. And just get on your target, think.

[01:50:19]

Use your this that's where I started. This needs to start kicking in more than this. More than the shooting, the chess game. Be 3 steps ahead of your enemy. If you're racing towards your gun, you're already screwed.

[01:50:32]

You you've screwed yourself. That's why I don't get into the YouTube. Let's go fast fast. Because if you have to go fast, you fucked up somewhere. And that was what was t that's what Randy really Dev Guru ran, seal team.

[01:50:43]

Horse cock Randy. You know where his holocall site came? He really harped into that with me along with my platoon sergeant Randy Battallion, which I didn't really start to put together till TDC. Be 3 steps ahead so you don't have to react fast. It's a chess game.

[01:51:01]

And we had a Mi 5 and Mi 6 guys train in there too. They were part of our vetting team too. They were and for some reason, I don't know if this was your every Mi 5, Mi 6 guy I met was either named Mick or Moe. We had a Mick and we had

[01:51:13]

a Moe. Okay. Well Standard issue call sign up.

[01:51:16]

But they were 1 was an SBS guy, the other 1 was a Royal Marine that went to SAS, and they were a part of our instructing cadre too.

[01:51:23]

Okay.

[01:51:23]

And they were those guys think. That I mean, that's fine, fix, and then eliminate, but they're always thinking. And that's the it so it really became now where things started to slow down. You know, your adrenaline, fire breathing, let's kick through that door. That's actually where I started, hey.

[01:51:40]

Take a breath. Let's start to slow it down, Ranger. Alright? Be aggressive we need to, then bring it down. And it it really it just started to all make sense.

[01:51:48]

So the room clearing was actually it was great. It was it's like, man, I'm getting this. I'm I'm actually becoming an operator here, you know? And, you know, it only took 10 years, but I'm there. I'm getting there.

[01:52:01]

And, the pistol though, I was so worried. We went on and did the pistol, and you get I don't was it 2 tries? You get you do practices. They have us do some practice runs through, so it's not like they put you on their cold, you'd be practicing. This has changed.

[01:52:20]

And I I I don't because we got we had a day of practice runs, yeah, of that morning, and then they said, okay. Qual. We went out and called. I I blowed the head. Alright.

[01:52:32]

You get 1 alibi. And I went and I the body was fine. I was making the times. I couldn't hit the head because I my grip was I just didn't have the right grip. I didn't have the mechanics.

[01:52:44]

I was really because I didn't shoot a pistol a ton at range battalion. We just didn't do it.

[01:52:48]

So

[01:52:51]

we're out there, and I mean, luckily for me, fundamentals are fundamentals are fundamentals, so I'm trying to find the front sight, trying to do whatever, and doing it within that time frame, which the 1 that got the the 1 that was getting me was the 2 to the body, and then you have to, you know, you start at the 10, and you have to run at the 2 and put 1 in the head. So it's like, go. Draw, you run, and you have to put 2 to the body, then you have to run down to the 5 or to the 7, and then you gotta put 1 in the head within, like it was it was stupid. It was, like, 3 seconds or something

[01:53:23]

like that. I think these are different calls, though.

[01:53:24]

They might be different now. They might be. And I still got my calls. If you ever want me to send them to you, I I've still got those Qualls because I used to teach the course after. Yeah.

[01:53:33]

I get it. So I've still got those. I've got them too. And they may I'd like to see what you have. So I I mean, I can always use more training material, man.

[01:53:40]

I love Qualls, but it was that was getting me. I could get the body, and then you had to run fast down to the 3, and it was like 10 to the 3. Or no, I'm sorry. 10 yeah. It was 10 to the 3.

[01:53:53]

I'd have to look, guys. Forgive me, guys. You guys all know, I will maybe I'll I'll send that. We'll put it online, but it was it wasn't ungodly. It was tough, and I kept blowing the blowing the head shot.

[01:54:02]

Because you did that twice, and if you didn't get in that the the a box both times, it didn't matter, you failed.

[01:54:10]

Yeah.

[01:54:11]

You could get everybody shot in the world, but you had to hit a box, not outside yet. And

[01:54:16]

Basically what he's talking about is there's a slot that we call the credit card

[01:54:20]

The credit card. In the head. The prefrontal cortex lobe, right? The eyes. And,

[01:54:28]

so if you miss, if you hit outside of

[01:54:30]

the credit card You're you're done. You're done. It's it's on those IPSC targets, the ISPC I IPFC targets. And the last 1 I got, I didn't know anything different. I just got lucky as shit.

[01:54:46]

Body was fine. Physically, I was fine. I was fast still. Still could run fast. I got there, so my job was, k, get there, get those bodies out.

[01:54:56]

You're gonna hit them because they're easy. You know, all you do is a or b, which is here or here. That's a big spot from 10 yards. That's that's not hard to do, especially if you've been shooting a lot. Probably couldn't do it now, but no.

[01:55:08]

Much back then. But and then use my speed and run as fast as I could so I could get a stable position, and then just pray. So it was run like this and pray, and I did it. Got it. Nice.

[01:55:21]

And I and I got it. I hit the first 1 center, and I broke the line on this. Break the line, it counts. Yep. And I was like, oh, yeah.

[01:55:31]

And that was it. I made it to your s, and, went back, and it was a good feeling because you weren't looking down at guy, but it was like yeah. Because not many guys had passed TC. We lost half the course that we had, and all of them were ranger seals. We had 1 d boy and, SF, And we we had 10 guys, 5 passed, 5 failed.

[01:55:54]

Yep. And and, yeah, I went back and, they said, where do you wanna go? I said, I don't care. And I they sent my first trip. I went to the secondary, went to Afghanistan, went to Kabul.

[01:56:04]

And that was the end of o 5, beginning of o 6. And I forgot we called it the secondary. The second I remember the main and the secondary. What,

[01:56:13]

when did you realize that the OGA contract was for CIA?

[01:56:20]

At TDC.

[01:56:21]

At t they told me?

[01:56:22]

Yeah. Because they would sit us down, and they would tell us. And Afterwards

[01:56:26]

or during the course?

[01:56:27]

During the course. During the course, we we would we would know. And Randy Randy started the program. He'd been agency for a while. Gotcha.

[01:56:38]

We knew. I mean, he didn't have to it was, hey, guys. This is OGA. Wink wink. You know, we we knew.

[01:56:45]

Yeah.

[01:56:45]

It wasn't but, officially, when we got there, because it was a it was a Cordonoff training area, it was like a private training area where

[01:56:53]

Yeah.

[01:56:54]

There were no outsiders.

[01:56:55]

A private training area within a private training.

[01:56:58]

Yep. Exactly.

[01:56:59]

So we're at the same spot all the way on the back.

[01:57:01]

Yep. Yep. And so I so that that's when I knew, and and what I was so cool about is that the teams it was always the the for me, the pain was better. It was. It was great.

[01:57:13]

It was great. Patrick and I weren't getting pain well before, but it was still great. But the the smaller teams were what was cool to me. I thought that was neat. Being you and a buddy, and that's it.

[01:57:24]

Yeah. And you're out there on your own, and then sometimes you're out on your own, but on your own on your own where I did a lot walking within the cities on my own, which was awesome. I love that.

[01:57:34]

Finally Where was your first deployment?

[01:57:36]

Cobble. Ariane. And I, when I grow this out, I can blend pretty good. Not that I wear, but I could look like a business. No.

[01:57:46]

You you don't have to draw on the man wear the man jammies. There's a lot of government workers out there. Yep. You know, just wear what they're wearing. They were button down shirts, man.

[01:57:54]

And in the wintertime, they wore long coats, and you could buy 1 off at the park down by the movie theater, you know, right where the not the Serena Hotel. That's the 1 that got hit, but there's that other hotel downtown that they had that park, and you could just go buy stuff. And I would I'd stop, and I'd buy local stuff. Throw it on. Yeah.

[01:58:12]

You know, just make sure you delauce delauce. You're gonna smell a little bit, but it worked. And and I loved walking on my own. Like, and Saks, he trusted me. Or maybe he just thought, well, he's expendable.

[01:58:26]

I don't know what Saks, but he liked Gaetano. He's like, do you wanna go for a walk? And I loved it. A lot of guys didn't, and I get it, man. I mean, when you're a white dude tatted up down to here and you eat well and you're always buffed out, you're not gonna blend very well.

[01:58:40]

I get that. It wasn't that they were afraid. It's just they didn't blend. I'm a little guy. I'm I have a I have a brown complexion.

[01:58:47]

You know? I know how to handle myself, and I wanted to. And so I got then I went to the Mottie Market walking it was like Indiana Jones. I gotta walk in some of those alleyways. It it was I I have pictures of it.

[01:59:01]

Now sometimes I'll post them. It was it was where I was acting, and I was walking with a CIA case officer. We were back there doing a recon, just seeing, and I think, honestly, I think she just wanted to go back there to see it was cool. And this was, I threw an MP5 in a computer bag, and my Glock 19 on me. I wore just local I wore just what they wore.

[01:59:25]

I wore khakis and a button down shirt, and we went back. It was by CNN Circle. It was back, like, by the soccer field, where you go across the river, and the Mahdi Market's where the river is, and then if you come out the back, the front side is where that 2 story mosque, their their famous mosque is. Well, if you get down in the market in the river, there's the river here, and then you see people walking to shopping, there's a whole other shopping alleyways through that, and you have to find your way in there. It was so cool.

[01:59:55]

You just walk in, and it's like, it is like the movies. It's like this tight alleyway, and you get through it, and a whole other world of shopping opens up. You've got spices. You've got fighting quails that are about this big. You've got naan everywhere, and there's people being crazy everywhere.

[02:00:13]

There's I'm not crazy, but just it's just people shopping, Afghani shopping. You've got police. I remember walking in 1, and you do have a lot of shit and a lot of trash piled up on us because, you know, the open sewers and so forth. I remember walking, and we right out of this right left alley, and there was this police officer with a, a blackjack, you know, beating sticks. He was beating the shit out of some Afghani, just whooping the back of his legs, like just disciplining him.

[02:00:42]

And I remember walking, and we did have a local guy. So that was a that was, you know, that was a plus. I have a local Afghani with us. He's with us. And I said what what the hell, man?

[02:00:52]

He's beaten a shit up. And you know, first instinct as an American does this step in. I gotta stop this. No no no. Let it it's Afghan.

[02:00:58]

Let it go. What what they would do is is when they would go shopping, they'd hire guys to pull those you see guys carrying pulling donkey carts around? That was for people that didn't want to carry all their supplies back to their vehicles or their home. They'd hire these guys to put in the donkey carts and they'd walk them. The the tuk like kinda like a little tuk tuks, I guess.

[02:01:19]

Donkey carts is a better explanation. Little little pull wheelbarrows. I said why is he kicking the shit out of them? And he goes, he was parked his donkey cart in the wrong spot. It's like, there's Afghanistan for you.

[02:01:32]

But it was it just it was fun because I got to I wasn't on a military base. You know, I wasn't always being a DA guy. I I was I was getting out and doing surveillance and counter surveillance and just getting atmospherics, and that was fun. That was so cool. And getting to experience the food and hanging with the locals a little bit, and and it was it was awesome.

[02:01:57]

That first trip, and all the trips after were awesome. Because after I would do a couple of those and Saks and the agency found I was a guy that could they could rely on to do that, I'd they sent me out to do a lot of

[02:02:08]

stuff.

[02:02:09]

I'd go out in the Makaurin district, and they said, can you go take pictures of this apartment building? We think there's a government worker that's part of the Taliban, and I go, yeah. Sure. And we'd set it up, so I'd have Keur Ref around. Great guys I could trust, like Popeye was 1, Sacks was another.

[02:02:27]

You know? Otto, marine buddy that runs Photonis Defense, he was a Girozka. So they'd be close by. They'd be orbiting the area, so if I was 911 dude, I'm getting wrapped up, come help me. But I could go out there and they just let me go, and I would just walk around the city.

[02:02:44]

It was fun. I loved it. Yeah. I I that was the job on GRS that I love. But that was anyway, that was the beginning of GRS was right there where I got the taste, and that's where the bug got me.

[02:02:56]

It was it wasn't even the protection. It was that, holy crap. I have freedom to actually get to know these cities and see the stuff that I only saw in movies and National Geographic. Yeah. It was awesome.

[02:03:11]

Those were good times.

[02:03:12]

Yeah.

[02:03:12]

Yeah. Those were good times for the most part.

[02:03:15]

For the most part. Just dealing with this and then you had to come back to the to the agency and put a with the bullshit or or go, you know, try to stay clear of the Talibar so somebody's getting in a fight or drinking too much.

[02:03:29]

You weren't a Talibar guy?

[02:03:31]

I went in there a couple times, but I wasn't a big drinker. No. I wasn't. It it was too much drama. Yeah.

[02:03:36]

There's drama or, you know, some

[02:03:39]

A lot of drama. A lot

[02:03:40]

of drama. You just stay away from there, and, you know, a lot of women the women that were there, you know, it just A lot

[02:03:46]

of things happened on that pool table.

[02:03:50]

And you said it. I didn't. I but it it was too much drama. It's just, you know, it's just alpha men women, alpha males and females, and no. I always said I was my best person when I was overseas because I focused on the job.

[02:04:05]

I had fun. Gyms were good. There always was a gym. I could always work out. I had no problem running around the area, and I loved running even though the hour getting all that crap in your lungs.

[02:04:15]

Well, I'm getting the crap in my lungs in the gym with the with the little with the little, it's mini splits. You know? So I loved it. And that first trip was all 1st 7, 8 months was off and on to the cobble. That's where I went.

[02:04:29]

Kept going, kept going, kept going. It was fun, and I had a great time. What was your favorite place to work? Kandahar, Gekko. Gekko by far because all the ops were at night, so you could sleep all day.

[02:04:41]

Favorite place in Afghanistan or favorite place?

[02:04:43]

Favorite place for me was Gekko. No shit. I did love it. I love Kandahar, And I love I gotta do a lot of flyaways there. A lot of Losch hasn't spun up yet, so we were setting up Losch Gagarin Spin.

[02:04:57]

Those places were still they were thinking about setting them up, so we were doing a lot of flyaways and landing in the middle of the night in a soccer field, running off the back of a of a hip, which I hated flying those things. I felt like I was flying in a death trap because, you know, it's slow. It's just but laying in a soccer field in the middle of night, having the local guard force can pick you up, then you'd go stay in a bombed out building with some ratty, old blankets and worth but you'd go with your Canadarm security force too, so we'd always take guys with us. And I I got real close to them, and I was also in part I was also, in charge of the training. So we I'd run the training with the locals too, with our local QSF guys, you know, and the local guys that worked with us.

[02:05:41]

So that was fun. So I you know, I'd go over there, and even though there was a language barrier, I'd go in there with their CO, with their head guy, and we I drink chai, and we just sit and we try to communicate, and it was fun. I I enjoyed it. I played soccer on that Rocky soccer field where PT was. I remember PJ, whenever he get I I don't wanna say his name, but he broke his ankle out there because there's just rocks everywhere, you know, and then we'd run up gecko, you know, run up the mountain, do PT in the morning, and it was just it was it was awesome.

[02:06:13]

And we had a great team there. No. The team was that team rivaled the Benghazi team. That was 1 of the best teams where everybody got along. Myself, Kerley, the TL we had there, Rebel, he was awesome.

[02:06:24]

1 of the best TLs. Again, another guy that qualified if he was a contractor, but he became a staffer, 1 of the good staffers. Kerley x Bixler Joseph, who passed away, in a motorcycle accident, you know, the following year, he just he got hit while he was driving his motorcycle too fast. And, Mushroom, who is a old 4th degree car marine, old marine Who doesn't like an old old crusty marine? Great guy and then Joe dirt.

[02:06:54]

Joe's, Joe Zarq, Joe dirt deer take the dirt, Joe dirt, 10 special forces group guy. And, everybody just got along. It was wonderful. It was just and everybody it was 1 of those again, teams where you could go out and do stuff, and nobody really needed to say anything. You didn't even work together.

[02:07:10]

You just everybody just knew what everybody was gonna do. Yeah. And you just roll out, and I loved it because it was all at night. And going out and wrapping up guys at night was fun. I mean, we didn't it was hot, so we didn't get a lot of ops.

[02:07:21]

It wasn't like you guys where you guys were constantly going, but when it was, it was fun. And it was like and then at that time too is when also when we lost Jeremy Wise and we lost Southside at Coast. So, you know, so that's when the tactics changed too, or the the the standards operating procedures changed where we had to search people that were actually coming in. They wouldn't just let them on the base because you know, for those that don't know, I don't think the movie's that great, but I do like that scene actually is pretty pretty good. It was 0 Dark 30, where they showed what happened, where the CIA chief of base let the double agent on too too far and then blew up.

[02:08:09]

That's that was accurate. That south side, that was Jeremy. Doc Wyatt didn't die. He came to AAA later, but he was 1 of the ones injured, and they lost that real good targeter. But that's what we had to do as well.

[02:08:21]

And I there was 1 I remember. There was a defining moment for me there of how to handle because we would we'd have Taliban people coming on, or we'd go grab them, and we have to bring them in, and we'd search them again there

[02:08:33]

on a facility outside.

[02:08:33]

And X was hardcore seal, outside. And X was hardcore seal. He wanted to kill every I loved him not, but he just was mean. He'd be the nicest guy to us, but Taliban, I don't care who you are. You do what I tell you to do, you do it now, I'm gonna slam you.

[02:08:50]

And we brought this Taliban guy in, and we were searching him, and he wouldn't let us search him. But we're at an outer facility, so it's so if anybody gets blown up, it's gonna be us. You know? Say, we're expendable. It's alright.

[02:09:01]

Well, he wouldn't let him I remember, and it was, he was trying to search him, and we had the Afghan we had 1 of our interpreters there, and and I'm trying to play good cop we're fighting a good cop, bad cop, I'm trying to be the nice guy. And x is grabbing him and trying to get him to do what we're telling him to do, and he was just fighting it. He's Italian, he's fighting it. It. And I I go, so what's going on, man?

[02:09:22]

Why why is he not letting him search him? Is he hiding something? Is there a bomb here? Because now my spider senses are going up because I think he's gonna blow us up. And he goes, no.

[02:09:31]

No. He's he says, it's because he's got his Quran in his top pocket. He's got it in his charma camis up here. And I I always carried my pocket bible, and the little green ones we get going down change, the new testament, I had 1 here. I always carried it every day.

[02:09:44]

I pulled it out of my pocket. I said, here. You give this to him and you tell him he can touch it. We're saying God, I believe in God, I respect his God, he respects my God, we're good to go. And I said you say that, and you always said you don't know the truth, but I said you say that exactly how I said it.

[02:10:01]

Don't change it. Don't try to change the words. You say it just like that. And he did it in in Pashto, and the Taliban guy stopped fighting. He looked at me, and he says, okay.

[02:10:14]

I said, I'm shaking his head. I said, I go, so we good? We cool? He goes, yeah, we're cool. And he let me search him.

[02:10:23]

And I was like, man, you know what? The little diplomatic relation, but also the religious side, man. God is God. I don't wanna disrespect your God. You don't disrespect my god.

[02:10:35]

We have to search him. I said, tell him, and I did tell him this, that we tell him we have to search him because I don't want him killing me with a bomb. And he said it, and we searched him. Now X was in all his rights to throw that guy around. And believe me, I wanted to as well.

[02:10:54]

He's Taliban, man. Yeah. But there's gotta be more way to remedy this than just throwing his ass around and all of us getting scuffed up a little bit because nobody roadhouse man, Patrick Swayze, the great philosopher Patrick Swayze said, no 1 wins a fight, and he's right. Somebody all of us are gonna get scuffed up a little bit. We're gonna win because we're gonna throw them down, but somebody's gonna get scratched.

[02:11:18]

Somebody's gonna get beat. Somebody's gonna get hurt. You know what? Screw it, Kent. Let's try to do this.

[02:11:22]

Be the nice guy first. And it worked, and he gave us good info. Case officers were very happy with us because they didn't get a belligerent guy trying to give information. He he gave up at least that's what they said. I don't get into it.

[02:11:37]

But that was Kandahar, and that was how Kandahar was for me because it just it it the team fit, the work fit. I enjoyed going out at night. I enjoyed that it was very hot. You know, guys were getting or you had I don't know if you talked about it, but you had Bradley on, Don, lucky. You know, he got massive car bomb there when you were with the teams.

[02:12:00]

I mean, that was that was Kandahar. Yeah. But then also, I love that we got a punch out all over in the Laskergar and the Helman the Helman province and the Kandahar province, and we got to fly and Yeah. It really felt like cloak and dagger type shit. It was really cool.

[02:12:16]

Yeah. That was a good place to work.

[02:12:18]

It was. It was.

[02:12:21]

Let's move into let's move into Libya. Yeah. You ready?

[02:12:28]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it.

[02:12:32]

You wanna skip right to it? I'm good for whatever you are, brother. Every I if I if it hurts, then that's what I'm supposed to feel. That's what people need to see.

[02:12:43]

If you lead the way and I'll guide.

[02:12:45]

Yeah, yeah. I went to Tripoli first. My first trip wasn't in Benghazi, it was to Tripoli. And 1 of the things that I enjoyed about GRS, and especially then, is by that time I had started to stop moving, I stopped working for like the secondary companies. I wasn't doing contracts for Blackwater or Sauk who took over the contract, or, those were the main 2.

[02:13:12]

I don't know who Gaz'em anymore. Osen Hunter, we had another contract where I would do teaching with Osen Hunter. That's where I got to I mean, that's me and Evan Hayford worked on those contracts together. Great contracts. But they started a program called the Direct Hire Independent Contractor.

[02:13:28]

You know that, you've worked it. To those that don't, it's funny because what's the acronym? DHIC, we were dicks. And that was the joke, and I were dicks. You wanna be a dick?

[02:13:38]

Sure, I'll be a dick. And so they would come recruiting for from the Black Waters and whoever else, and if you had a good record, you've done a lot of time, and your c 1 at those places would write you a good eval, you could come and be a be a jerk, be a dick. And that's what I did after Kandahar actually. I said, yeah, do you wanna go? Because it gave us the opportunity to just because it gets mundane going from the secondary to the main to the secondary.

[02:14:06]

I mean, you're going after SNR. Right? When you're doing that 10 years, it's just you get bored. So it gave me the opportunity to go out to different places, and and Libya was 1 of them. So I was like, yeah.

[02:14:16]

And so I went to Libya, went to Tripoli. It was fun. Again, it was another place where, you know, you you get from the American government that these these dictators and all that are just awful people in these countries are shit holes in. I went there and, like, this isn't a shit hole. Wow.

[02:14:35]

Alright. There's still the hotels are still open, man. There's still a Sheraton here that's still open. Man, this this little resort down by the Mediterranean is still open even though it was a burning tank down the road. I mean, it was that's where I I I I didn't ever really question foreign policy and things like that until Libya.

[02:14:56]

It's like, okay. I'm not really sure this was right, but who cares? That's not my job. I don't it's not. I'm here to to do what my job is, and it was fun.

[02:15:05]

That's where I met Bob. I met Glenn. He was there, and and it was just it was less protection and more atmospherics. It was more surveillance, counter surveillance, and, trying to see if there were terrorists that were moving into the country because of the vacuum of power. Who was on our side?

[02:15:25]

Who was not on our side? And that was fun. Because it wasn't so much protection anymore doing like we did in a lot in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was more just a lot more tradecraft. It was.

[02:15:37]

It was and and and it was, it was a lot of times where where, you know, you're getting to see things or like even getting to go places that you wouldn't get to go in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm not talking about just nature. There's there's the ocean right there. You know, you got Leptis Magna, the old Roman Colosseums that are right there. And a lot of this job took us to those places.

[02:16:01]

So you're getting to work in some historic places. They're like, wow. I didn't know Rome was here in in Libya, you know, or you're seeing, you know, the the Battle of Tripoli, and you're seeing the marine gravesites. Or and we wrote about in 13 hours when the there was a consulate that was attacked in Libya way before ours, and we write about in the book and getting to go see that. So it was almost you know, it's not like a music.

[02:16:29]

I'm on I'm on a job, but I'm also on a historical Tour. Tour. And it was awesome, man. And, the guys were great, because if you're on the on the dick program, you're generally, you've been there for a while. So everybody, even if you didn't know, hadn't worked that person, maybe in an area, because I worked in Kurdistan as well.

[02:16:46]

Love that place. I love Sue, Sully and I loved Derbeul and I loved the hook, but you would know the guys. So the guy you hear the name, oh, I've heard of him. Oh, yeah. I know.

[02:16:55]

He knows it. So you're not getting a new guy coming in with a chip on his shoulder. Everybody's man, they're chill, man. They're like you. They're like me.

[02:17:04]

I'm probably the most wired. They're like you. They're just chill. Got a job to do, it's time to do the job, flip the switch on, let's go kick some heads in, then turn the switch off and just relax. And that's how it was.

[02:17:15]

And the agency there, you know, I I I learned I had learned how to deal with them. You know, I I I knew what I I knew what to expect. And, Bub was awesome. Bub was always a CrossFitter. He was always out working out, and so was I.

[02:17:28]

Loved working out, but he did the CrossFit stuff. I wasn't a big CrossFitter. We'd watch, you know, we'd go watch movies in our downtime. He was the only guy that would watch black dynamite with me. I love that blaxploitation movie, and every guy hated it there except for Buck.

[02:17:43]

He was the only 1 that would sit through it with me. But the first trip was pretty it's normal. Nothing really big was happening. You'd see some black flags going on. You'd you'd see the terrorist flags, Al Qaeda flags.

[02:17:58]

You're used to that timing. You see them everywhere. So so what? There's some black flags. You weren't really thinking of it.

[02:18:04]

Went home, and then the next trip, they said you're going to Tripoli, so I'm getting ready to go to Tripoli. And then right when I got to Sudebay, Greece, which is where our stopping point was, where part of the 5 55th Fighter Wing is, They said, no, we need people in Benghazi or going to Benghazi. It's like, okay, AAA Benghazi. So what? Head out there.

[02:18:25]

I get there and, you know, you just felt it was different. You just walk, you get on Benina, and the movie did an excellent job show, showing that, man. You just get off the plane. We do have an expediter there. We always, you know, we have expeditators at all these airports, but you have a guy waiting for you, a GRS guy waiting for you by himself.

[02:18:46]

So because we that was where we were doing a lot of movements, single per 1 person movements, which was even better. That was even more fun. Guy waiting on himself. He get off a plane, Libyan air probably, flying in, you know, flying flying that first class flight, which is love how the movie did it just right. You have a first class ticket, but on those planes, there's no first class, so you just get the whole row to yourself.

[02:19:09]

So you watch the movie again, Jack's flying first class, he has that whole row to himself. That's just the little things that they got right. Well, you got the plane, you go in there, they get you off, and then you go to you go to the base. And it just, like it wasn't secure. You know other places, there's shit going on, but it felt somewhat secure.

[02:19:29]

At least there's Big Brother's kind of watching you. There you just, you did. You were like, which was fine, but it just felt different. And there was, the work was pretty, the work was fun, enjoyed it. Did a lot of, again, a lot of tradecraft, more surveillance than any protection.

[02:19:50]

I remember towards the end though, and this is where it started to get hairy, where we're just, me and Boone are there, and Boone's been out a long time today. He was starting he's been doing longer, just as long as I have. And we're out on an op, and it was about 3 weeks before the attack. And Sarah, you've had Sarah on. She's she's like, hey, we've got reports that AQI's here.

[02:20:09]

There's this camp, and we had all on our falcon view, we had all the terrorist camps marked, and we were spot on. We had 10 digit grids on each 1. Rafal Asahate, Anshariah, AQIM, and she goes, there's a Rafales Ajate camp that they think there's AQI in there. Can you guys go sit on it? Now Boone's for those that don't know, Boone's black.

[02:20:32]

Mexican, I grew my beard out. Now I always thought he was Mexican. I could never figure out. He's he's he's weird looking. I thought he was Tongan once, and I thought he was Polynesian, or he was black, and then he's like, are you Mexican?

[02:20:42]

But he's he's mulatto, but what I'm saying is he looks he can fit, he can blend. Yep. So we take our local car out, and we go to this Rafaela Sahate camp service. Go to this 1, and we sit on it for a little bit. And there's this opening within the within the compound that their camp is.

[02:20:57]

It's it's walled, but there's an opening, and we can we're sitting there in our vehicle and we can see through it, and actually we do look like locals, and nobody's gonna monitor us, and the sky walks by, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. And I looked at Boone, and I said, do you see that, man? He goes, yeah. That's AQI. I was like, fuck.

[02:21:17]

Yeah. That's that's Al Qaeda, man. They're here. And it it looks just like we were people we were fighting in Iraq, man. He looked just, you know, the you could even the dead eye.

[02:21:27]

I mean, we're it was. I don't know. And we weren't super close. I mean, like, I but it was just it was a you just knew. It was like, that's that's AQI.

[02:21:35]

Holy crap. We rushed back, like, sir, they're here, man. You guys are giving reports. AQI's here. And we got chewed out for that.

[02:21:45]

Yeah. For what? That was beyond our scope of duties. We weren't supposed to be sitting on camps. Bob came and chewed our ass out, and chewed Sarah out.

[02:21:53]

She goes, you guys, and Sarah was pissed. She's like dude, I just got chewed out. Bob came and got us, because you guys are going beyond. You don't need to be doing that. That's not what our job is here.

[02:22:04]

And me and Boone are like, yes it is. It's like, chief, that is our job. And Boone's pretty laid back. I used to, like, chief, yeah, that is our job. That's our job.

[02:22:13]

And he did rip Sarah more than us though, because he can. She's a staffer. And she was pissed. She was just, and you know Sarah, she does. She's a pit bull man.

[02:22:27]

And I remember that after that, she said, we can't go sit on camps anymore. You just can't. We're not doing that. I said, well, what the fuck are we doing here then? Because it it was towards the end.

[02:22:39]

You know, I'd already gone through the fights with all the CIA peace case officers, made fun of them, you know, chubbed their shit. I I've been doing that for for 2 months now. And I was like, well, what the fuck are we even doing here? And 2 weeks later, the attack happened. And then 2, 3 weeks.

[02:22:59]

And it was like it almost like they they knew it, and I I I still don't understand why the job that we're supposed to be doing, we found a target, we verified that target, let's action that mountain rocket target, why we got in trouble for that. And the only 1 that can ever answer that is Bob, maybe our TL. I never got an answer. Sarah, maybe she knows, but I I don't know if she really does or not, because I don't think she even got an answer. She got reprimanded.

[02:23:32]

But that was Benghazi. It was like it was. We were and that was even Libya. Even some of the state department officers will tell you, they're RSOs. It's like we were fighting Al Qaeda in our own offices.

[02:23:44]

And and that was that was it. It was it was a lot of just doing a lot of great work, getting to be on our own a lot, singles, but then when we did our jobs, we get reprimanded for it. We took some we got another time we got reprimanded as well. Before that happened to Wisera, we some BT Garv guys came in, the the listener guys. And there was a hospital there that they we were want they wanted, and that's part of our job.

[02:24:11]

We'll take them around. We'll drive by the areas that they think they can hear, and if they have or gather information, suck out text messages with their little stuff that they do, the cool stuff. And and we took them out because there was a hospital that they thought Iranians were in, and so we drove by it to see if they could find out. And then, as we came back, we came in, Bob was outside, he was waiting on us like we were in trouble for something, and he's called the BTR guy. Guys in the staff they were staffers and called him in.

[02:24:41]

They were on a plane out the next day. And I was like, what happened? He's like, he didn't want you going and listening in on this hospital, or and he doesn't want you doing any of that stuff, and these guys shouldn't have done that. They weren't supposed to. I don't have an answer.

[02:24:57]

I asked somebody why. I I don't have an answer. I I still I don't know why. We're doing what we're supposed to be doing. We're getting good intel.

[02:25:03]

We're giving action. Guys were in there. He somebody had brought them in for some reason. Yeah. We did what we're supposed to do, and every time we do something and get headway where we could action on a target, because we're not the action guys.

[02:25:16]

You know, we're the we're the collectors. We're the protectors. But when we did, it would get we get it get we get condemned for it. He would jump on our shit, and it was it was just I just like and I did it a lot of times. What the hell are we doing here?

[02:25:30]

Why are we even here then? I don't get it. What's the deal? And, then the attack happened on on 911,012. And, you know, there were some precursors to that.

[02:25:41]

You know, the the British ambassador had got hit by RPG. We were I didn't respond to that. I was in Tripoli when that happened. The gRS guys that were there at that time did respond to it. That's when they moved out of the country.

[02:25:54]

They got hammered. 1 of their security officers got the RPG lodged in them, but they were out. Red Cross had been attacked once, which is news. That was a big news thing, and they had also blown a hole in the consulate once already before the attack. They had tried to breach the wall.

[02:26:11]

So the signs were already there. Yeah. And, you know, we were always over there at the concert. They were good guys. Alec was a good guy.

[02:26:18]

You know, they were. Dave was awesome. And they're they're I have nothing bad to say about them. They were just they were they were overwhelmed, and they were These

[02:26:27]

are the state guys?

[02:26:28]

Yeah. Alec Henderson, Scott Wicklund, who was the ambassador's body man, Dave Rubin were the 3 guys that were mainly there, and people, oh, they were chickens. She ordered a chicken. What would you have done? You got a massive 40 man force running in.

[02:26:42]

You're out there smoking. Hook it, chill and relax, and you don't got nothing but m fours, and you're not allowed to even carry them because state department policy says when you're on the compound and you're not pulling work, you gotta keep them in your in your armory, which was over by the kitchen. I don't blame them doing what they're doing. They ran to they did what they needed to do. Scott ran towards the ambassador to protect, and that was his job.

[02:27:02]

Alec ran to the talk. That's where we were supposed to go. Dave ran to get a weapon. They were just overwhelmed like that. It's done.

[02:27:10]

But that being said, you know, our conversations with them, we would constantly warn them. And that's the scene from the movie where Pablo or me being that asshole, I did do that. I remember looking at their compound. We came and we did a evaluation of their compound before the attack, and I remember looking at Scott, looking at Alec. I was looking at the walls.

[02:27:32]

There was a big building over here that I thought you could put sorry about that. Put sniper fire in. And I remember looking at him, and I said, guys, your walls are soft. Your guards ain't for shit. You know?

[02:27:42]

They're local guards. Half your guys don't even have guns. Blue Mountain Group didn't even carry guns. I said, you're sniper's paradise. I said, any big element gets in here, you're all gonna fucking die.

[02:27:52]

And I remember Scott's eyes went, and I did feel bad a little bit. I didn't, but Rome was there. He covered. He's like, guys, if you ever need us, we'll come get you. And we get they had radios, we gave him our radios.

[02:28:05]

We all had ICOMs to talk to each other, and they did request more security. Their RSO Eric Nordstrom in Libya and Tripoli did. So they did try. They were just turned down. They requested 240 Bravo, they requested more armed security, and it was turned down by Patrick Kennedy and Charlene Lamb.

[02:28:22]

Patrick was the undertone secretary for Hillary, and so was Charlene. She was in charge of case security and all that. Those people also get away scot free. They should have been held accountable as well, very much accountable. But but when the attack happened, it still was a shock to me because the ambassador at that time, his he did have a security detail attached to him.

[02:28:44]

It was 10 special forces group. It was this it was the SIF team. That was his security. For some reason, they had been pulled off him when he came to Benghazi. I don't know why.

[02:28:53]

No shit. I do not know that. When you watch the movie and it says JSAOC team repositioning to 4 position, that was his team. They had been pushed out for a training mission in either Croatia or Spain. I can't remember.

[02:29:07]

Interesting. Yeah. But because I knew because a lot of those guys when I was in 19th special forces group, a lot of those guys from 19th, I was in Colorado, the act when they did active detour, and they were 10 special forces, so we knew a lot of the same people. And they'd come eat with us when I was in Tripoli because their food at the state department facility sucked. So they'd come and eat dinner with us.

[02:29:26]

And that's why, actually that's why in the movie when we're talking to Bob and the the basher's coming, and we had that conversation, like, the basher's coming. You guys you know? And I was like, so who gives a fuck? We're in the state department. And Bob's like, dude, there's not he's not coming with his detail.

[02:29:46]

I was like, where the fuck is this detail? They're not with him. And they were they were hardcore pipers. There was a SIF team, and they pulled him out. So that's why we stayed, and 3 of us did extend.

[02:29:57]

Myself and Boone and Rowan were supposed to go home to each other before the attack and we stayed because we had a great team. We didn't wanna mess that chemistry up. You know? And and sometimes that pisses some people off because, of course, if I would if Rowan would've went home, he'd still be alive, of course. But I know Rowan wouldn't change it because if he wouldn't have stayed and we would have new players in there, not saying