Rob O'Neill - Disputed Claims Surrounding the Bin Laden Raid | SRS #027

Hey everybody, welcome back! I hope you're having a fantastic week, even though it's only, uh, Monday. But, uh, but hey, if you're not and it's off to a rough start, it's about to get better because I have a phenomenal interview lined up for you guys. Rob has been a long time coming on this show, and we finally got it done, and I think you guys are really going to enjoy it. We talk about his entire career, and we get into some philosophical type stuff that I think you all are going to find extremely interesting as well.

And I want to tell you all about the Vigilance Elite newsletter that we're kicking off. All kinds of good stuff coming through that, especially the exclusive content that's only for newsletter people, and, uh, all kinds of other stuff. When the gummy bears are gonna release new products, all that stuff, it's all coming out on the newsletter. It's our only way to get directly to you without any algorithms in the way. So anyways, it's free. Sign up. Links in the description.

And on another note, I just want to personally thank all of you for being here. I love you all. Thank you. And enjoy the show.

You guys are here because this is not a drill. Uh, this is real. We found a thing, and this thing is in a house, and this house is in a bowl, and this bowl is in a country. And you guys are gonna, you're gonna go get this thing and you're gonna bring it back to us and show it to us.

Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

I said, you guys realize this is a one-way mission. We're targeting, uh, Al-Qaeda in places where they've never seen guys like us. The reason you guys are here is this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden.

Good evening. The Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead, killed by American special forces who raided his hideout in Pakistan in the early hours of the morning. And I remember putting my first foot came out, I'm looking at bin Laden's house, and I remember thinking, "[ __ ] it, I guess we'll start the war from here."

These remarkable pictures from right inside his compound show us exactly where Osama bin Laden was finally killed. The woman that found bin Laden said, "I don't know what it looks like inside, but there will be a stairwell going to the second floor, and you will run into Khalid bin Laden, and he's 20 years old. That's bin Laden's son, and that is his last line of defense. He will be armed on the stairwell."

The blood you can see on the floor, evidence of how he was shot in the head through his left eye, simply because he went this way. I turn this way, and standing three feet in front of me is Osama bin Laden, and he's got his hands on a mall, his wife's shoulders. I turn around and, um, I kind of froze. And I'm, okay, other Navy SEALs are now coming in the room. A lot of guys are in there, and one of my guys came up to me and, uh, he said, um, "Are you good?" And I said, "No, no. What are we supposed to do now?"

So, Rob O'Neill, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here. It's great. It's been a long time coming. It has. Yeah, I think we've been promising to do this for a while. Yeah, never, never got around to it. I even, I haven't lived near here for a couple of years, and I don't know how I didn't make it here. Yeah, well, life gets in the way, right? Yeah, it does. Life happens around you.

But, uh, well, we had a great conversation about the upcoming alien invasion that's going to happen. I'm, I'm at a point right now where nothing would surprise me. Right? No. And even if aliens showed up, I would question, are those really aliens or just the government? Just the final push. That's what I'm saying. And I don't know what to believe. I mean, I've seen enough stuff to be, I believe a lot of things now, and there's other stuff that I, I'm not sure if I believe it. So it's just a, it's a crazy world. It's to the point where no matter what happens, I'm not going to be surprised. No. I mean, consider a few years ago that a lockdown was just something you see in a movie. There's no way this would really happen, and it did, and we fell for it. Yeah, hook, line, and sinker, all of us. Even if you're, you know, the anti-master, you still stay in your house. It's not like you're, you're not going to fly without it. Yeah, you're not traveling without it. So yeah.

Well, actually, I got everybody, I get everybody a gift. And I was going to get you a Delta Sky Miles. Oh, thank you. But can I open it now? Yeah, go ahead. What do we got here? These are gummy bears. Those are gummy bears. Well, thank you. Go good with, uh, your beer company. That's great. That's your beer. That's right. Oh, you're awesome. I need to get some of that beer. Yeah, I'll definitely, I'll definitely get you some. Not a problem at all. Brewing Company. We'll send you out as soon as we get done with this. Yeah, I'll put it right there on the bar. Very cool. You know, we'll drink it during the show. Yeah. We have, we have a beer, uh, for every branch. We have Jarhead, um, Soldier Beer, Cat Shot for pilots, Special Hops, which I thought was pretty special. Special Hops is an IPA. It's really good. We just came out with, uh, Neptune's Beer, uh, to sort of commemorate Neptune's Spear, which is commonly mispronounced. It's Neptune's Spear, as in King Neptune's Spear. Natural state. People say Neptune Spear, but that's, you know, it's the two S's in a row. Yeah. What do you got? Any, what's your favorite flavor? IPA. IPA. That's my favorite. Special Hops. But, but the, um, when, when Neptune's Beer is available, it's gonna be, I think 12. So that might be my new favorite. Nice, nice. You gonna get into hard stuff at all, or? Stupid. Uh, not just yet. But if, if the opportunity arises, um, probably. Well, I'm sure that's gonna come.

Well, hey, I just want to start. You got a hell of a career. Let's go through the, your entire career. You know, hit the high points, obviously the Bin Laden raid, but I want to start with, you know, where you grew up, Montana. What was your childhood like? Well, it was, uh, kind of living in a bubble that you, you know, there's nothing on the other side of that mountain. Butte, Montana. Montana is the center of the universe, and people from anywhere else are probably going to be better than you. Kind of a weird situation, a fear of success, I guess. Um, so I grew up hunting. That was a normal thing. It was normal to hunt elk. It was normal to go, uh, mule deer, whitetail hunting, fishing. And I played a lot of basketball. Um, that was, that was going to be my plan. I was going to get so good at basketball that I would get college paid for, and then I was going to stay in Butte, Montana, and be a stockbroker or something like that. You know, get an NBA, maybe from Montana Tech, where I did go for a year. Nice. Were you pretty tight with your old man? Yeah, yeah. We, we kind of did everything together. We started hunting basically the same reason I joined the Navy because he got dumped, he got a second divorce, and we just had to do something. So we started hunting. We have, I think the first time we went hunting, it was in a, it was in a two-door Datsun car, my uncle Jack's, and we didn't know what we were doing. We didn't know how to sight in a weapon. Um, kind of went out. We got, we got a doe tag for an antelope, and we went out. All we knew how to do was get, uh, the, the cooler stocked. Um, yeah, you know, I mean, like sodas and Twinkies and sandwiches and stuff. Yeah, yeah. We used to call it the buffet, and that was kind of it. It was, uh, there was basketball season, there was hunting season, there was fishing, and then, um, hanging out in Butte, Montana, which I thought was a big city at the time because I didn't, you know, we didn't really go anywhere.

Do you miss it there? Uh, I do. I love to go back. I, I sometimes get jealous of people that have a normal job in a normal life, nine to five, you know, wake up in the morning, kiss your kids, go to work, have lunch, come home, be with your kids. I totally understand that. Yeah. Just a normal life. I mean, like, yeah, it's kind of cool. I don't have really [ __ ] to worry about. Yeah. But, uh, yeah. What, so what did your old man do? He was a stockbroker. Oh, he was a stockbroker. Now he does weird [ __ ] like he bought a, a really fast Harley, and he's 73, and, uh, I think it scares him, but, uh, he bought it, and he's, uh, actually taking his, uh, road test soon. Dude, the cone thing. Oh, [ __ ] he's like brand new on a bike. Yeah. Wait, he had one before? He had a Honda Shadow, I remember growing up, but I don't think he ever rode it. I think he just had it. Yeah. But he's good. He's still a fly fisherman. He's put a, a basketball court in, um, in his backyard. Oh, no, he plays in the winter in Montana. He'll go out and shovel it and shoot free throws. He's still really good. He's got a good shot.

So when did you, if that was the plan, what, how the hell did the SEAL teams and the Navy? Well, this thing, the SEAL teams was an accident. Because it was, it wasn't necessarily getting dumped by a girl, but it was a situation that, you know, I started, once I joined the Navy, I realized most people are similar. You get to an age where I just got to get out of here, and that was where I was at. Bad relationship, basketball wasn't, I was playing, but it wasn't fun anymore, and it's, I need to go on an adventure. And I had two friends that always wanted to be Marines growing. I grew up with them, Jim McBride and Ben Walsheski, and they all, I'm talking high and tights growing up, Marine Corps stickers on their first trucks, they're, you know, they were Marines. And then, and then I would see them come, they were two years older than me. I would see them come back to Butte, Montana, and like, it was like watching someone from Full Metal Jacket walk into, I was in the VFW, and Ben walked in, I'm like, holy [ __ ], I mean, that's a Marine. Like, that guy, I still wasn't going to join. I was still playing basketball, and I was like, that's a [ __ ] Marine, though. I'd like to, I'm going to watch this guy kick someone's ass in here. Can't touch him. And then when it was time to leave, um, like, because as a young man, you, you can go out and see the world for free by joining the military. Yeah. And I, again, Full Metal Jacket, like everyone else, I watched that a thousand times, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do that because I guarantee, um, boot camp is gonna suck, but I wanna meet that drill instructor, you know, just how funny he is, but brutal, and I want to be tough like a Marine. So I went to join the Marine Corps, just went down there, and there was a, my wife calls me the luckiest unlucky man in the world. She, I think whatever's saying, like, go through life, I think one of her sayings is, you could trip over your dick, but you're gonna land in a pot of gold. So, uh, I went, I went in to join the Marine Corps, and as luck would have it, the Marine wasn't there. He was literally out to lunch, and the Navy guy was, the Navy guy, West. And I went over to him because my two friends, and I'm, everyone's heard this joke before, but my two friends, Ben and Jim, said the Marine Corps is actually part of the Department of the Navy. It's just the men's department. And that's why I went in there because if they're part of the department, he'll know where he is, and then he'll, you know, I, I said, um, "Hey, where's the, where's the Marine? When's it gonna be back?" And, you know, so he's sitting there, he's a Navy Chief, khakis, anchors. I didn't know what the [ __ ] that meant, but he's a Chief, so he's clever. And he said, "Why, why do you want the?" I said, "I want to be a sniper." And I grew up hunting. Marines have the best snipers in the world. I read Carlos Hathcock's book. Like, I want to do that. And he goes, "Look no further, my friend. We have snipers in the Navy. All you have to do is become a Navy SEAL first. No big deal. We'll send you right to sniper." And I didn't know what that was, right? I'm from Montana, and I didn't know how to swim. And me being a naive young man, I, I thought, you know, um, I don't know what a SEAL is, but this guy here is a professional recruiter. Why would he lie to me? And I signed it. And I signed the contract to go. The only thing I did right, um, was I learned early in life to get it in writing. Whatever you're doing, fine, we can do business on a handshake, but sign this first. Yeah. So I got in writing. It was called the Dive Fairer program. The Dive, the Dive Fairer program, which meant, um, you get like a $2,500 bonus. You are guaranteed a chance to go to BUDs, basically underwater demolition SEAL training. You're guaranteed a chance. And I didn't, I mean, I didn't know that all that meant is you can go and fail, and then you're going to the fleet. Yeah. And so I signed that, and, um, yeah, that was it. And then he started showing me videos of BUDs. I didn't know what that was. I, the only thing I knew about, um, Navy SEALs was, um, watching Charlie Sheen's character jump off the bridge in the movie Navy SEALs. Eddie Braun is his name. He's, he's still his stunt man, which is awesome. Very good guy, very good stunt man. I guess during that scene, too, I'm kind of jumping around. Eddie Brown said, "All right, I'm going to do this. You get one take." And he, then the famous, uh, jumping up there. Yeah. Anyway, I, that's why I thought it wasn't that I knew something about, um, sit-ups with 2,000-pound logs. My buddies that I grew up with, that I thought knew a lot about, um, the military, said, "There's no [ __ ] way in hell you're gonna make it through."

What did you just do? I took my mom to the recruiting station to have her watch videos, and she didn't tell me to my face, but she's like, "There's no [ __ ] way you can make it through this stream." And, uh, the only person that says that, I think, really believed in me was my father, um, just because I, um, because of our attitudes with, uh, free throws and master the basics. Um, free throws, that's, if I could describe life, it would be how to be successful in life. Free throws, because it's master the basics, do your thing, shoot here, muscle memory. You want to be great, do it a thousand times. You want to be really great, do it 10,000 times. Do everything like you do anything. We would do drills, my father and me, um, we would play every single day. And, um, anything from an hour of one-on-one to three hours of five-on-five, but we were not allowed to leave the gym until one of us made at least 20 free throws in a row. So that start with a make, and then you keep shooting. And, um, that's something else too, about like stances with shooting and all that stuff. When you make your first free throw, you don't move. You're in the position. I hate watching basketball players now. They make a free throw, and then I gotta go give everyone five [ __ ] you. It's your job. You made a free throw. Make the second one, and then talk about how awesome you are. But we couldn't leave the gym until one of us made 20 in a row, and that could take five minutes, that could take three hours. Damn. But we, uh, we got, we got so good at. I think we made ourselves. There's a, there's a, um, a steakhouse in Butte, Montana called the Derby. And like Montana's, like I said, how we don't know how good it is because we're just there. Don't realize how great the steaks are at the Derby in Butte, Montana. Um, we would start our season off, 20 in a row to leave the gym. 20 for a steak. Now it stays at 20 to leave the gym, but now it goes up by five. 25 for a steak, 30 for steak, 35 for a steak. 20 to leave the gym, 50 for a steak. And we get to the point, my father made 91 in a row, and that was the family record for a week, because the next week I made 105 in a row. In a row, in a row. And you know what's funny is like, well, a lot of things in life, only two of us saw it. So you can take my word for it or tell me. Yeah, yeah. So, um, um, he believed in me. And, um, so being lucky instead of good, um, I had my student ID to Montana Tech. They had a pool, so that meant I could still get into the pool, like at 5:00 AM, and I went up there and I'm like, okay, the breaststroke is one of the strokes. It can't be that hard. It's 25 meters down, 25 meters back. I'll swim a thousand meters and gauge it. Yeah, from there. And like, anything with, like, everything was going fine until I entered the water, and that's when the problem started. I made it to the deep end, I almost didn't make it back, and I was like, I'm [ __ ], I just signed a contract with the government to be a Navy SEAL, and I don't know how to swim. Holy. So I, I was trying, and I'm busting my ass, doing whatever. And, uh, my friend, so I, I'm in there for, and just dying. I'm trying to get out. My friend, Mike Driscoll, I went to high school with him. One of the few people in Montana who did swim, and I believe he did go on to swim at Notre Dame. And he said, "Rob, don't take this the wrong way. It's great to see you. I've just literally never seen you in the pool before. What gives?" And I said, "I just, I just joined the Navy. I'm going to be a SEAL." And he goes, "Oh, no, not like that." He goes, "Come here." And then he showed me, um, he showed me the, how to do the breaststroke, how to do the side stroke. And so with repetition, I just, um, I would go there every day. And I still have my, um, there's a little packet you get when you join the Navy, that folder. And even like, there's the BUDs warning order and all that. Yeah, I still have that with my, I would write my times down for the 500-yard swim that you had to do. No [ __ ] you still have that? I still have it. I found it in a, one of the kit bags that we all keep because I might need this sleeping bag, something. Um, but, and then I was, I was up there, I was getting pretty decent. And then Jim McBride, the Marine, who's actually, he was enlisted, he actually, I think he just retired as a Lieutenant Colonel, which is awesome. Semper Fi. That's what he was going to do. He was going to be a Marine. He, he went to aircrew school in, in the Marine Corps, and they taught him how to really do the combat recovery stroke. And he goes, "Just do this a couple times." And just like when I saw Ben in the VFW, I was watching Jim swim, and I'm like, "Okay, I, this is next level [ __ ] now. I gotta get this." So I just, you know, I got proficient. I thought, yeah. And then I did get to boot camp. And you know, I actually failed the, the screening test the first time because I took it like an [ __ ]. After you get those 90 shots, and you're just sick as a dog, cottonmouth, whatever. Um, and I was, I remember sitting there. How many people try out in, in boot camp at the time? There must have been 400 people. What year is this? 1996. '96. And, uh, looking at this bleachers, and I still had that small-town mentality. I remember looking at the Navy SEAL flag, the unofficial Navy SEAL flag. I'm watching this arrogant team guy. I didn't know what to think of Navy SEALs. He came out there, like, did this perfect dive that, like Greg Louganis would have loved for a number of reasons, but, and then he got out and kind of just gave us the stink eye. And he, and I remember looking, thinking, "There's no [ __ ] way. Why look at all these guys trying out?" And then, but then I started talking to other guys that were from Brooklyn, uh, some, some dudes that that joined the Navy to get out of Compton, guys from South Florida. And I started to realize that, okay, everyone's scared. Everyone's kind of the same. We're all the same. And, and then, and then started saying, I mean, later on in life, I realized that I don't give a [ __ ] if you're the CEO of a major company, you're the guy in Bin Laden's bedroom. We've all had our first day. Yeah. And we've all been scared. Admitted. I mean, we'll talk about the one percenters later, which exists, that aren't scared. They will pass. They're, they, but the rest of us get scared. Um, the rest of us have been nervous. But if you can just take it increments at a time. And so the next time I got there, I, I lost the intimidation. I gave up the [ __ ] with. I just got shots. No [ __ ] that. Do the swim. Do the pull-ups. Do the sit-up. Do the push-up. Do the damn run and get on with your life. And, and that was it. I mean, and, you know, just being in boot camp, and I kind of, I'm a big believer in, um, wherever you are, be there. So I, I got into, um, the classes we were taking. Okay, I'm going to be a Navy SEAL, but I want to learn about naval customs and courtesies, traditions. I want to learn with the horn, like I paid attention. I was interested in this. The, whatever they, I was interested in how to make a bed, how to fold your, your shirts. I still do it. And, um, I got into it. And then I did, you know, I got the contract in there with the, you know, now you're with a Navy SEAL Chief, and you, you, you know, you're gonna get your orders. Yeah. And, uh, part of the Dive Fair program, I didn't realize this was, you have to be a Corpsman. Okay. I didn't see that in the fine print. But I, I finagled my way. When you go up to get your rates, I made up some [ __ ] and I, I found out what the shortest A-school was so I could get to BUDs right away. And it was an Aircrew Survival Equipment, or a parachute rigger. So I would get that. I knew I would finish boot camp, go to Millington, Tennessee. It was like a two or three week A-school. And I, I was with Marines now, but I mean, I'm talking huge dude. I had, there's one huge Marine, one white dude, one black dude, huge Marines. I'm still intimidated by Marines. And then this big black Marine, this, I'll never forget, he's a Staff Sergeant. He taught me how to wind a bobbin and how to sew. And at first, I thought, okay, I'm into some [ __ ], but I don't know. And then I'm like, wait a minute, sewing might be an awesome trait. I'm going to pay attention. This big tough Marine taught me how to sew. I learned about cyclic rate of fire for a console machine. You know what was [ __ ]? But that in the teams, it turns out to be a good thing. But before we had all the high-speed kit that they, you need to cut this pocket off. So here, where do you want your stuff? And but never tell anyone you're good at it because then your first LPO, he'll have you sewing everyone's uniforms. Yeah, you have a year, work up to get all 100 of these blouses or whatever. Yeah. I went to Millington, and, um, went back to Butte, Montana for, uh, leave, and then drove my truck to Coronado. And the first place I stopped in, uh, in Coronado was, it was right by the Hotel Del. And I just wanted to get in the ocean to, you know, if I was, uh, talking to 19-year-old Rob O'Neill now, I'm like, dude, you're gonna get ocean time. Just stay out. Yeah. Don't take cold showers. You just, my thing about the cold showers, when I, um, I talk to young kids, young men that want to be SEALs, and they'll say, "What should I be doing to get ready for BUDs?" And I'll say, "Well, let me answer your question with a question. What are you doing to get ready for BUDs?" And they say, "Taking cold showers to get used to it." And I'm like, "You know what? Stop that right now. And I'm going to tell you what. I'm going to give you an example. If I told you in 30 days, I'm going to kick you in the nuts as hard as I can, and in order to get ready for it, you had your best friend kick you in the nuts every single day." Guess what? It's still going to suck when I do it. Yeah. Don't prepare for [ __ ]. It's just take it like a man, every single time. Yeah. So I got there, and, uh, it was a Thursday night, and I was in the, I got into the, the, um, the Pacific Ocean, and all of a sudden, there were these, these boats rolling by, and there was chem lights on the side of them. And it took me a second to realize, "Oh, [ __ ], I'm checking into Class 208. That's 207, and this is Hell Week." And I still get goosebumps thinking about it. Like, damn boy, you talk about swimming, you just jumped in with both feet, and it's about to be on. And then, uh, yeah, I got a hotel. I checked in on a Friday, which was stupid. Wait till Monday. Like, why do you want quarterdeck watch when you can at least go have your last beer in peace? Yeah. And then, uh, 208 started. BUDs Class 208, uh, you know, it's typical. Uh, starts off with, at the time, I think we call the PTRR. Yep, that's what they called it. They didn't have quite the pipeline they do now. They're doing it better now with actually getting guys ready with prep and nutrition. Yeah. You know, this is back in the day when you had a Navy SEAL as a skydive instructor, and you eat [ __ ], he doesn't tell you how to work your canopy, laughs at you. They have so many guys signing up now, apparently. This is, uh, from this family that I used to train when I did tactics and stuff. He, this kid went in. They have so many people signing up to be SEALs now that are, go to BUDs. I guess that they have to, they can't even take them all, really. Yeah, they're, they're showing up, and they sent this guy out to the fleet for two years, but broke his contract. That's how many people are signing. Well, that's what tells you about a contract with the government. They can tell you, "Go yourself." Yeah. Yeah. We've seen plenty of that lately. Yeah.

But, um, so you're not checking in though. It goes from watching a special on on a cable news special about some reporter that went to BUDs. Now you're at BUDs. Yeah. And, and I don't know what the [ __ ]. And they brought us into a classroom, and we were still in our whites, our dressing whites, with like the, I didn't, I think what you have, one little service medal. Yeah, yeah. And we check in, and this instructor came, this instructor came in, and he goes, "Hey, anybody want to quit?" And he was [ __ ] around like a team guy joke. This dude goes, "I do." Right off me. I never thought his joke. He's like, "No." He just, he just got orders to BUDs to get off the ship. No, she said he quit because he would get like three weeks on, should do whatever the hell they want. Yeah. So then he quit. And then, um, uh, we had a, uh, an instructor named Eshelman, and he's a legend. If anyone knows who a legend, and he said, um, "This is how I started. I started to realize that they're training you how to, how to be successful in life." He said, "All right, I know, I mean, and he, BUDs instructors are not historically nice guys, but this guy was like, he would say stuff, 'Look, guys, I'm not here to intimidate. I'm here to motivate.'" He was our class proctor, so that is the one that helps you through. And he said, "I, I know you've seen the movies and probably read the books. Regardless of what you've been told, this course is not impossible. Okay? People graduate. Look at me. I am living proof. So I will never ask you to do anything impossible, but I will make you do something very hard, followed by something very hard, followed by something very hard, day after day after day for eight straight months." And that sounds like a lot to get from not eight months from now. But don't think about that, because that is not how you achieve a long-term goal. You do it like this: You wake up in the morning on time, then you make your bed the right way, then you brush your teeth. You just started the day with three victories. That's three wins already. Make it to the 5:00 AM PT on time, and as I'm beating you, do not think about the pain you're going through. Concentrate on your next goal in life, which is breakfast. After breakfast, make it to lunch. After lunch, your next goal in life is dinner. And after dinner, do everything you need to do to get back into that perfectly made bed. And because you took the time in the morning to make your bed the right way, regardless of how bad today was, and it will be bad, tomorrow's a clean slate. Tomorrow is a fresh start. And when you feel like quitting, which you will, do not quit right now. That's emotion. I want you to quit tomorrow. If you can keep quitting tomorrow, you can do anything in life. And that's what I, I mean, I thought I wasn't gonna make. I had to get up 15 minutes early to put on sunscreen. Like, I thought that would be a reason, a sunburn would get me out of BUDs. Um, you know, little [ __ ] like that. But it started to enforce me. [ __ ] that I'm gonna put sunscreen on. I'm gonna fail a swim, but I'm not gonna quit. And, and then you start seeing guys quit. And, and one thing, one problem too, is, uh, I called it sympathetic quitting. When, when someone that you think is tougher than you, because he's louder than you, quits. Well, if he can't make it, I can't make it. And they, I'm sure you saw two in BUDs. Yeah. Someone, well, should they just follow him? Like, it's like, [ __ ] him. Like, even in the movies, when you see someone go into the bell, and the other students are like, "No, no." It's like, "[ __ ] you, quit. I don't want you." Yeah, join them. I'm not quitting. Yeah. And then it just, you know, it turns into, uh, Hell Week. Um, and I, you know, all of a sudden, it's breakout. Like, we're in the tent. I know it's coming. And breakout starts, which is organized chaos. They're, you know, get a muster, get your broke, and like, [ __ ] they're not gonna. They got, they got instructors like that are retired in there to [ __ ] with you. Yeah, just to realize the chaos. And, and there was a guy that quit right off the bat in breakout. And I'm like, dude, this is the best part. Like, this is, this is done. The movies. And then, um, and then again, it's just the, uh, I, I did have someone say, "You're obviously, your next goal is your next meal. Your long-term goal right now is sunrise of Wednesday." And if, if you can live the sunrise, you'll probably be so doped up from lack of sleep that you can, they'll just push you through. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, it's Friday. And then, um, um, we did, you know, the mud pits, the famous [ __ ] at the end, like the bacteria-infested cesspool, whatever. And, uh, I remember we had Admiral Richards was gonna secure us. And a typical Admiral, he was three hours late. So they have to beat us for an extra three. It's like, could someone just secure this [ __ ]? Can I get a Gatorade? Just let us go. Yeah. Hey, I remember he said, he's shaking everyone's hands, and like, he's like the first Admiral I've ever met. And he's like, "Congratulations, O'Neill." "Thank you, Admiral." "Because now, wipe that [ __ ] off your face." And like, "Roger that." Yeah. And then all of a sudden, Hell Week's over. And then, um, and then you're in the walk week, where they're actually letting you recover. And then I'll never forget our first swim. Because now you're done with Hell Week, and obviously Hell Week, I think is the reason that Navy SEALs in combat will walk three miles out of their way to avoid getting their boots wet. Yeah, you get tortured. And, um, our first two-mile swim, they had us line up and face the ocean. The first time getting in the ocean after Hell Week. And they made us line up, and we're just staring at it. And the same instructor, Eshelman, he comes walking up and down. He's like, "First time in the ocean since Hillary Clinton's kind of spooky, isn't it?" And then you do that, the hydro recon, and then boom, you get your, uh, blue helmet here and dive face.

What did you find? Did, did you make it through all at once? Yeah, you were, no, original. Yeah. Oh, that's not very many of those. I know. And, and I, it didn't make sense to me because, I mean, pool comp, uh, they have you do the test on Friday twice, and if you fail, you have to do it Monday, and then if you fail that, you're done. And a lot of people don't realize, a lot of dudes fail pool comp, and you can get kicked out for failing pool comp. Most guys get rolled to make it again. But I failed twice on, um, on Friday, and then I, I remember just practicing, uh, uh, untying knots, practice breath holds. How am I gonna get through this? And, and that started to start to enforce that failure is sometimes a learning lesson. You can learn. Don't be afraid of failure, just don't quit. And then I, I went through, and, um, I, I, I think I untied most of the knots. And, you know, you come up at the end, I feel fine. And then this instructor's here, and I just hear, "O'Neill, pass." I'm like, "[ __ ] yeah." And he grabbed me. He goes, "You untied three of my whammy knots, [ __ ]." And then you get on Indian Dive Phase. And now, and that's where you learn that the Navy can make anything suck. Because diving, scuba diving, I don't know if you know this, is fun. Not in the [ __ ] nation. No. So, you know, you do a little bit of open circuit stuff, then you do the cool, uh, 120-foot dive in the Pacific, which is neat. Then you get into a dragger, and then just learning how to count kicks and then ship attack [ __ ]. And you know, dive medicine, dive physics. And, you know, the classroom stuff where that now this is where the meatheads who can run five miles, they fail. Because now you gotta learn about Boyle's Law, you gotta learn about the bends, learn about, uh, uh, ages, artillery, gas embolisms, [ __ ] like that. And all of a sudden, you're done with that, and now it's Third Phase. And at this point, no one had, no one had told me that San Clemente Island is by far the worst part. I, I mean, I thought Hell Week was bad, I thought pool comp was bad. The [ __ ] island for me was the worst. 40 straight days of nothing but getting beat. And I'm convinced the instructors are, you know, hitting the sauce a little bit. They're reminding us that, "No one, you know, we're killing you on one of the nicest beaches in the world. Nobody can hear you scream out here." And, uh, yeah, I mean, you know, it's, and their thing was, um, wet and sandy every hour on the hour for 24 hours. It doesn't matter what you're doing, you need to run to the surf kit, and your swim buddy goes with you every hour on the hour. And I have pictures of like, I mean, you can be in your, there's no point in even going to bed, just sleep on the floor, and then they'll, they're watching, or we think they're watching. Yeah. I mean, they might not be, but what if they are? You know, um, uh, yeah, I had, I had a, my swim buddy kept, he just got, uh, some sort of homesick or some sort of island fever, and he kept [ __ ] everything up. He like, he, he forgot to put the buffer in his gun in the spring. And, and the instructor said, "Did you do a function check on this?" And he's like, "Yes, I did." He's like, "He pulls it back, there's no spring." So obviously the gun doesn't work. He goes, "All right, you two, wet and sandy every hour." And so I'm getting punished for this guy, for my swim buddy. And then I'll never forget, I think SEAL Team Three was out there. So the BUDs compound is here, and then the kick-ass, uh, SEAL compound, like for Navy SEALs, and they're still legends to us. Um, they, they [ __ ] up, uh, a demo shot in the bay there. Uh, they didn't, they didn't double, double [ __ ], whatever, it didn't go off. It didn't go off. So now you've got all these charges in the water, don't go off. And there's like this, I'm gonna screw up the regulations for the Navy, but I think it's, uh, 48 hours. No one can even go in. EOD can't even go in there because it might go off. And, and any, everyone knows that an explosion of water is way worse than an explosion on land because water doesn't compress. So, um, my buddy [ __ ] up again, and they're like, "Okay, God." And the instructor goes, "Well, I can't get you guys wet every hour on the, I can't put you in the surf every hour on the, because I have demo shots." And I go, "I will hit him with the [ __ ] hose every hour on the hour. Let me do it. Lay off. Spray this [ __ ]." So yeah. But then the island ends. You know, you take the C-130 back. And now they're saying, "Okay, um, well, they, they read our orders on the island where we're going." So, and I, I don't know if if they still do this, but we used to do a dream sheet. You put your top three SEAL teams in a row. To me, it was like, this is cool. Where do I want to go? And I think an, uh, a guy that I knew said, um, "Don't put, I mean, obviously put which team you want first, but then put the other teams on that coast because you might not get two, but you will get eight, which is awesome. Whatever you do, do not put SDV anywhere." Yeah, I mean, it sounded like a good deal at the time because you get free fall, and that's like the only good deal. But apparently SDV is a [ __ ]. Yeah. So, uh, I put SEAL Team Two, SEAL Team Eight, SEAL Team Four, because they're all on the East Coast. Um, and at the time, uh, the only real work we were getting was Bosnia, Kosovo, and SEAL Team Two, that was their al. So I kind of wanted to go to SEAL Team Two, plus, you know, one of the first two SEAL teams. Yeah, to me, it just seemed like a, to me, I still love to say SEAL Team Two. That's awesome. And, um, I'll never forget, they were reading our orders, and they're like, "So-and-so, SEAL Team Three. So-and-so, SEAL Team One." They go, "O'Neill, SDV." "Sorry, SEAL Team Two." And in that one second, I'm like, "No, SDV-2." You're ready to quit right there. You made it all the way through. You're like, 12-hour dives in the Chesapeake Bay in February, [ __ ] that, no thank you. Yeah. But I got SEAL Team Two. And then, and then all of a sudden, you're, um, you know, get, go to medical, get your [ __ ] done, go to dental, get checked up, and then go to Fort Benning. And it's like, holy [ __ ], BUDs is over. Yeah. Now what? I have to be an ABC. What does that even mean? And then you go to Benning, and, uh, I never worked with, um, the Army before, and it was just cool again, because I, you know, looked up to the Army Rangers or [ __ ] studs. And I went, and there, these are kids that look like me in Army uniforms, and like, they're asking me about BUDs, and I'm asking them about basic. And then we're going through, um, through Airborne, which is just a clown show. Yeah, just, I mean, because the Army makes those instructors do to keep your attention, that ridiculous dancing around [ __ ]. Well, they hate us too. Oh, they, they, I would hate us. Imagine the worst thing that they could have done is send. I didn't mean to say clown show. Airborne obviously has rich history, just some of the [ __ ] they did was clown show. Yeah. Um, but, um, yeah, I mean, imagine taking someone at 19 or 20 years old, just finished the hardest military training in the world, and you know, your punishment is due to, to do 10 push-ups, you need to do two pull-ups before you go in the chow hall. All right, yeah, two pull-ups. How many times? A hundred. But no, I mean, that was cool. And then, but, but then in their defense too, and obviously, you know, inter-service, we make fun of each other, you know, that, um, but then the first jump, I, I mean, it took a while. Like, I'm convinced you can teach someone how to fall and push them on a plane in one day, but they take their time. And you're in those gravel pits or whatever, falling. But the first time I jumped, the first time under canopy, and I landed in one of the black hats, one instructor said, "I was that." And I was like, "That is the coolest thing I've ever done." So that was awesome. You'd see. And then all of a sudden, bam, you go to SEAL Team Two. You didn't have, uh, SQT back then? No, no. We went through SEAL Tactical Training. What was that? I went through SQT, so I don't know what that was. Well, um, it's a 13-week course that they ran two times a year. So you get there, you're in the training department with the older guys, and then you, um, you, um, wait until you're classed up so you can volunteer to, you're, you know, picking up brass and [ __ ]. Okay. Actually, that's where I met Don Shipley. Senior Chief Don Shipley. The first, I think one of the first SEALs I've ever met. He came in, just, if, if Don Shipley to this day, it's one of the coolest [ __ ] I've ever met. He came in, and his CAC, I'm a new guy, like I'm trying to blend.

Into the nothing, he came in. In his khakis, he goes, "Oh [ __ ] it. Who wants to come with me? The Chief's Club. Get a beer." I was like, "I would love to." "No, you're not going." "I would."

And a ship would just turn out to be like, he was he was so cool. And we did, uh, we would, I would volunteer to jump with the platoons, um, just to get, I want to get the gold wings. That's your next go. I don't, I haven't tried it yet. You have to get through SEAL Tactical Training, which is 13 weeks, and then a six-month probationary period. So I want to get the gold wings at least. So I'm, I'm a new meat, but I'm not that new. Yeah.

And I remember jumping once with Don Shipley, and just like, I mean, so you're just statically in jumps, and he turns back, he's doing the the jump master win thing, and he kind of goes, "We had dudes in the trees." Like he's like, "Uh, yeah, let's go to the bar." Well, yeah, we're not steering this canopy. Just get out of here.

And then so SCT was, um, was, uh, we first part was in, um, uh, Puerto Rico for, uh, combat diving. And that was different than, um, than BUD's diving because now, I mean, they're legitimately teaching you how to dive, how to do your kitkat, how to get your, your [ __ ] right. You're wearing the the wetsuit you want or don't want, what makes you comfortable. And then just doing like a turtle backing, which, you know, that's the worst part. But then you do the four-hour dives, two a day.

And then up to Camp, uh, or Fort AP Hill in Northern Virginia. And then you do all the land warfare. That's basically land warfare, uh, then demo. A lot of demo. One of the best, uh, demo experiences I had, best and worst, was, um, so Master Chief Pig Wagner was running it. He's a Vietnam guy. And and he's up there running the show because he didn't give a [ __ ]. And we had always read that you can light C4 on fire and it won't do anything. It'll turn into a vapor. We'd read it. I ain't doing it. Right.

So he pulled us out the first day and he's like, "Yeah, okay, you two are going to come up here and you're going to like this." And around the class, improve. And I remember, I don't know if I had the lighter or Bob, my buddy had a lighter, but one of us did. And as soon as it flicked, he set off a four-pound charge in the woods. They did that same [ __ ] to me. Did you blush? They did. They did that. Yeah. Apparently, it's a good go-to. But then, then you light it. Like you can do this. And then you learn about C4. Like you can, you can do anything to C4. It's not, I mean, it needs that violent, uh, blasting cap. Yeah, basically. Yeah.

So we did that. And then you go back to SEAL Team Two. And then they have a, um, uh, six months of your in, uh, they're observing you. Like, and so SEAL Team Two, they're keeping time. How fast do you run the obstacle course? How fast was your base tour? How fast was your swim? They're timing you and they're watching and they're being pricks.

And I had a dude check in, his last name was Courier. Master Chief. I didn't know he was a Master. I didn't know he was about to be the Command Master Chief because young-looking guy, red hair, looks nice. And, um, he seemed like a nice. Yeah, he had a damn locker. And I didn't, I've never seen him before. And he's a young-looking dude. I'm like, "You know, I'm about to be a team guy."

And so anyway, so we went to, uh, we, we're going to the obstacle course. So there's two obstacle courses at Little Creek, as you know this. There's a small one and the big one. And the small one is just for time. It's like you're running in your, you know, monkey bars or whatever, uh, parallel ladder or whatever they call it. [ __ ] And then you jump over this. Run. You're running it for time. You do three of those. Then do a big loop and do three more. And then you go back to the team. And, you know, whoever wins wins.

And I was chasing Art Tulkey. So I'm a new guy, 20 years old. And Art Tulkey is one of the one percenters who, he will, he will beat you at everything. Um, so I'm, I want to, I can run. I'm still fast from BUD's. And so I'm like going through the little thing. And then I'm going through the tires. And, uh, I hear that dude Courier yelling at me, "Stop skipping every other tire!" I'm just trying to haul ass. So I'm running around. And he goes, uh, he yells at me from one of the, he's yelling across now, of course, at me. He's like, "I thought I said you should stop skipping into the tire." And I yelled at him, "If you were [ __ ] fast enough, you'd see me skipping every other monkey bar."

So, um, I'm just yelling, "Team guy!" Because my Trident board is that day. Now I get my, my camis on. I go to the Trident board. Guess who's in the center of it? That guy, Mark Courier, the Command Master Chief. Oh [ __ ]. Yeah. And I just told him to [ __ ] himself on the obstacle course. So he decided not to try it. And he goes, "You're the guy skipping every other monkey bar. Why do you do that? You need to cheat." And I said, "I go, you had to beat Art Tulkey. You do." So that was a long Trident board. I did get it that day.

And then, and then now you get assigned to a platoon, right? On. And that's just one. I mean, that's that's like a brief. It's a every moment in time of how to get there. And then now you, then you get your Trident. And then you get your blood wings. I'm not, they're allowed to do that. Yeah. And now you're a Navy SEAL.

So looking back through that whole pipeline, was there ever a time you wanted to quit? Every day in BUD's. Yeah. What got you through? Um, everyone who said I couldn't do it. Yeah. Just, I don't, I'm not going to go home with this. Seems to be the common denominator. I think it is. I mean, it's not because, uh, well, because it wasn't hard. I want to quit every day. Yeah. [ __ ] those ocean swims. Yeah. [ __ ] the the conditioning runs. The mind, the mind games on the soft sand runs when you're finally coming back after five miles, you go right to the compound, right past it.

What was the hardest part for you? Um, I think the swims, just because my times were just there. They, they put me with a good swimmer because I wasn't a good swimmer. And he could guide the key. You know, as we know, the key to ocean swims is guiding. Getting there straight. Because if you're doing this number, you're just adding to it. So I would just stare at Monty and, and he would swim. And I would just kick. And we, you know, yeah, that was that.

So you got into Team Two, right? Started Team Two. And what were you guys doing? What was going on in the world? Um, a little bit of Bosnia still, um, Sarajevo. Okay. And I don't think anybody had killed anybody yet. So we didn't really know what was happening. But that's kind of what it wasn't. And I was assigned to, um, a MARG platoon on an AMFIB ship, um, the USS Austin, which is an Austin-class LPD, which means it's the original. So we crossed the ocean on a on a flat-bottom LPD, which is horrific. And as a Navy SEAL on a boat, you don't have much to do.

Um, I, I did, I took advantage of it. I would go around to different shops and see how, um, how they worked. What the quartermaster's doing, what they do in the airloft, how's the, what's steering like. And, uh, boats is made cool [ __ ]. Um, and, and that's that's another part where a lot of team guys, if you can imagine, are cocky to fleet sailors. And I would tell a lot of SEALs, because I did a couple cruises on ships, I would say, you know, there are guys in the ship that work a hell of a lot harder than you do. Navy lies. No joke. Yeah. And I just tried to learn about it. Um, and, um, I met the Marines. We had my first time working with amphibious reconnaissance. Cool dudes. Great dudes. And we went over that. And all we were gonna do was, um, training exercises. We went, I mean, we went to Rota, Spain, I don't know how many times. Italy, like 11 times. And, um, we did get. So I actually, I'm sorry, I went through sniper school before that deployment. So they, turns out Chief John Judy, who was my recruiter, did not lie to me. They would send me to sniper school. And just get through BUD's first. I'd love to see him again. I mean, that was awesome. He was, he was never, he was never mean to me. He just kind of, yeah, you're good. Um, and so I did go to sniper school camp atterbury, which is awesome. And and that sniper course is based off of, uh, the Marine Corps sniper school. Um, so when I got on on the ship, when we're not doing anything, I would get with the the recon snipers. And we would just talk about ballistics and talk about minutes of angle and how you do this, how do you set up your hindsight, what do you prefer as far as taking shots and picking picking their brains. Because, you know, there's no internet. And you can read your books. You can lift. Yeah. What are you gonna do for the next 10 hours? So [ __ ] with them.

Um, and then we actually got called in to, uh, at the time, it was a real, real world mission to go into Albania because there was an exercise going on with some admirals and I think like the president of Albania. And then there was a terrorist threat. So this is 1998. And that was the first time in the Navy that I'd heard Osama bin Laden. Oh, Al-Qaeda is threatening this exercise. Al-Qaeda is run by like, one of the briefs, Osama bin Laden. Like I heard him because of the thing in in '93 when they bombed. Yeah. Okay. I know who that is. But he wasn't, you know, yeah, Osama bin Laden yet. Um, and so we, I mean, I did get briefed on it. And, you know, we're never going to see him. But I, I got to set up like my first range card. I'm overwatching this award ceremony, which is kind of cool. I mean, if Al-Qaeda pops out, I'll just, I'll shoot one of them. And that'll be it. That'll be it. Go get a beer. That's it. Um, no, that was like the first thing. Like we did, we did some security on, um, on the housing complex, the embassy. And that's actually the first time I saw SEAL Team Six guys. Because I had been told they were doing, uh, PSD, personal protection on a lot of, uh, big wigs at the embassy. And I, I've been told that SEAL Team Six had been disbanded. It doesn't exist anymore. And I saw them. One of the older guys, the potentials. Yeah, those are those are DEVGRU guys. That's still Team Six. I was like, those [ __ ] guys are legends. Yeah. First time I saw them for some urban line.

And then we go back to Virginia Beach after eight months at sea. And, um, start another workup. And then it's a part of the team guy life where, you know, they call them the one hump chumps. The most cocky guys in the SEAL team are the guys with one platoon. Because I know everything now. I'm gonna meet anymore. Yeah. You are to somebody. I ran into a guy. You know, your heritage. Um, you're a meat to somebody. You're a new guy to somebody. I ran into it. So I'm a cocky one-hump chump. I'm at the SEAL reunion in Virginia Beach. And, you know, I see those old-school badass dudes, like the big Trident hats. Yeah. And I saw this old dude. He's a little too old. Whatever. Me being cocky. And I go, "Hey, uh, what, what BUD's class were you?" "Oh, [ __ ]." And he said, "Uh, well, I went through Hell Week in, um, 1944." And I said, "There was no Hell Week in 1940." He said, "There was on Omaha Beach." "Know your heritage." I'm like, "Holy [ __ ]. Damn, dude." Yeah. Old school guy. I mean, that's again, goosebumps. Holy [ __ ]. So that's when I learned to just, you don't know. Don't talk [ __ ]. You don't know who knows what. Yeah. Never start a fight because you're probably going to lose. That's [ __ ] cool. Yeah. That's kind of, that's a cool thing. It's like, I want to [ __ ] with an old guy. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And then another platoon, we, uh, we got spun up quickly to do a strike platoon on, um, the USS Kennedy. So we did a shortened workup. And they actually, the only reason I got in, they made a quick platoon of experienced guys. I don't know why. But I got picked because, uh, I was a sniper. And they needed a sniper. One of our guys was a radio guy. They picked him. And another guy, um, just a linguist or some [ __ ]. And then we got into a, a pretty stacked platoon. And, um, we went overseas. And, and we did a couple things. We, um, we, we were doing the the interdiction operations in the Persian Gulf where you like, you're taking down dhows, a date smuggler. We, uh, we took down the USS, or the Russian tanker Volgeneft, which was a big deal at the time. It was a smuggled Iraqi oil. You know, I mean, the closest we got to combat was, I think we confiscated their steak knives. And then we drove it to Oman. And then we finished that platoon. And then we timed another platoon. And, um, I did a Yukon this time. So I went to Germany.

Were you getting discouraged at all? Or, no, because I thought I was getting real work. I mean, we really went in with loaded weapons. We really took down ships. And not a lot going on. Yeah. And then, uh, I knew we'd get to, we'd do a pump in Kosovo on this one for sure. And I'm like, okay, that's, I mean, there have been a couple shootouts there. I will get to, uh, to try out my hide side skills. Because I guess a lot of, a lot of the SEALs, a lot of that, we're getting compromised, um, by farmers. And that's how you start learning, okay, you're in someone's backyard. They, they're gonna recognize you. Yeah. And so we learned about that. You know, I did a couple hide sites in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel. Ate really good food. And then we left. Um, back to Germany. And now we're, oh, I've been to Kosovo. I'm, this is my third platoon. You know, I can be the [ __ ] at JB's Gallery of Girls when I go home or whatever. Is that place still there? I have no idea. I love that place. It was called Stopless. Go, not topless, because they had little things on. Wasn't it right next to the, uh, what was that bar right next to it? It was right next to it. The Brass. The Brass Bell. The Brass. I wonder if, I don't know if it's still there. I haven't been back there. But yeah, we, so we're back in, uh, at Unit Two up in Germany, just finished Kosovo. And then I was in the, um, uh, operations room. Type. We did have email at the time. Because it was September 2001. And, um, we saw the TV come on. And they had a picture of the Twin Towers. The North Tower was on fire. And they said, um, "Obviously, this is breaking news. A small plane has hit the World Trade Center." And we're looking at it. And, you know, we're trying to think through it. Like, that's a, that's a nice day, man. That's clear. And that is not a small hole. Because that's a huge building. That's a big [ __ ] hole, man. And then the second one hit. Yeah. And we're kind of, and someone did say, "That's Osama bin Laden. That's Al-Qaeda, man. Everything, everything that we know just changed right now." So we're deployed. And it's like, well, all right. I mean, where do you want us to go? We're overseas. And it didn't happen. Um, they did obviously send guys right in. And then we went back. And I, I put in, that's what I put in my, um, uh, my package for, um, Green Team. Do I want to go to SEAL Team Six now?

So when you saw the, when you saw the planes hit the towers, did you have any recollection of Bin Laden's name from before when you were gone? Oh, yeah. Yeah, cause we talked about Al-Qaeda just in some, some briefs here and there. Okay. Yeah. And we knew they were a threat. But we never knew it was that. When they first hit, we're thinking we're going to Sudan or something where we fight in Africa or whatever. And then they obviously figured out where they were. And I put in my package. And I had to, I had enough time between going, going to Green Team, um, to do another deployment. So I got on another, another MARG deployment. And I'm like, this is going to be sweet because we're going to go in with the Marines through Turkey. And we're going to, because now it's 2003. I mean, that's kind of a jump, some time there. But we're gonna, now we're invading Iraq. And we talked about this earlier. Like, for whatever Iraq was worth, I was excited because we're going to invade a country. I'm a Navy SEAL. And we are going to, we're going to kill. Yeah. And I want to. Because we're all still fired up about, I mean, that's that's how we got away with invading Iraq because of what happened on 9/11. Um, and then with me being the, I don't know what it is about me, but there, this turned out to be, um, a problem in Monrovia, Liberia, with the embassy. There was a civil war. And they wanted to evacuate the embassy. So they literally turned us around. So the Marines are off. Oh, shh. And they're going, man. I mean, and they, and we did talk to them afterwards. And they invaded Iraq. I mean, that's [ __ ] an invasion. So, um, but we went back. And, and, um, so instead of going into a gunfight, I did my, my first and only real world hydrographic reconnaissance. So. And the, what the, the funniest part of that was, because, you know, you always get, um, um, briefed on dangerous marine life. But whatever. I don't give a [ __ ]. That's, they're not going to hurt you. But this one, we paid attention to. And said, because you're going to be swimming in on the coast of Africa. And there's every man-eating shark you can imagine is here. And, um, I, there shouldn't be any. But, um, if you see saltwater crocodiles, they're 20 feet long. They'll eat you. And then now, there aren't any. There aren't any hippos. But those are the deadliest animal in Africa. They kill more people than anything. Oh, and here's your landing point. It's called Black Mamba Point. The reason it's called Black Mamba Point is because it's full of black mambas. And they're very aggressive. They'll chase you and they'll kill you. After that, it's like, all right. So. And then even when we flooded the the well deck of the of the USS LaSalle to get off, there were hammerheads like swimming into the ship. Holy [ __ ]. What the [ __ ] is this? Yeah. Like, can we just go to the [ __ ] inventor? Can we go to Iraq? Yeah. But I know we went into the, did a hydro recon. It was kind of cool because we did the the no [ __ ] thing. And the Marines did come. I think the Marines came in by helicopter. It's like, you're welcome. Oh, man, dude. But yeah, then we, um, so we didn't have time to invade Iraq. And then we went back. And then I was a Master at Arms at SEAL Team Four for, like, January to March. When Green Team started. So I ran PT. And then went to selection. And so then you go over there. And it's like, all right, here [ __ ]. Because I mean, Green Team is, um, you're putting your Trident on. You're betting your Trident right now. Because you'll either be the guy that made it or the guy that tried and didn't. Yeah. That's a lot of, I mean, that's a lot to to deal with. And you can get kicked out of selection for anything. Like, I've seen really, really good dudes just [ __ ] something up and they're gone. Yeah. Have a bad day. And everyone has a bad day. Throw the wrong shot, though, you're [ __ ] out.

Back when you went through, though, there probably wasn't as many guys going to Green Team. No, I don't think so. How many guys were going in? Um, we went with about 60. We got like 30 through. Okay. That's half. I think 60. But I mean, they did spin up to the point where they did two, they were doing two Green Teams a year. Yeah. And that was just a different animal. Because you're not going to get quitters. You usually won't get quitters. So they're trying to, they're trying to find guys who can think through problems, who can think, who can, who can make decisions, you know, rapidly, who's not going to freeze at the door. And I've seen dudes do it, you know, in a in a close quarters combat situation. You got a breaching problem. I've seen guys freeze at the door. Like they, they forget to look for the hinges. They forget which goes where. And it's all right. And it's sort of the, "If you want to be fast, slow down. If you want to deal with chaos, breathe." And I tell people that now, at boardrooms, if you're having a shitty meeting, stand up and breathe. And that's so, you know, learning the, uh, the slowest smooth is fast. And you'll get through it. And I, you know, I've had days where, because CQB is notoriously the hardest part of Green Team, where you're because it just, they really just hammer you for, um, I've had days where I can do no wrong. Three runs in a row, everything's smooth. It's [ __ ] easy. To the point where the last one of the day, they have me carrying a broom because they told me I'm not safe with a gun. Just getting in your head. And what they will do there is, uh, punish you for things you didn't screw up, but hammer you for it. Like, what can you give me an example? Um, over-penetration. You, you're supposed to be six, six inches from the wall. You're four inches from the wall. Get outside. And they just are hammering you. Tire drags, sweating, dehydrated, getting in your own head. What did I do? I know I didn't [ __ ] that. They know you didn't [ __ ] it up. But you don't know that they know that you didn't [ __ ] up. Because, and as soon as you're done getting beat, they put you right back in the front of the train. And you're, and this is when you haul ass through that. You're not slowing down on this. You're running fast. Because what they're telling you is, um, we've just punished you for something you didn't [ __ ] up. Can you get over it? Or is it going to stay in your head? Okay. And some of the best advice again in life is, whatever it is, get over it. Learn from it. And get the [ __ ] over it. Uh, you know, you're not getting that playback. Learn and move on.

What, how would you compare Green Team to BUD's? Is it, is it harder? Harder, different. Because you're doing the 10-mile run in the morning. But then it's just, it's just tactics with skydiving. It's just a lot of [ __ ]. Uh, hey, HO's, HALO's, combat jumps, all that stuff. Um, and then the CQB is just, it's repetition. And it's just, it's the constant scrutiny. It's, it's so many instructors hammering you at once. And it's just, it's a mind game. I mean, it is the best time of your life. It's just hard.

What, uh, would you say there's like a certain attribute they're looking for in an operator to get over there? Or, you know, it's, it's hard to say because you, it's like BUD's where you can't pick who's going to make it and who's not. I mean, I mean, you can. He's going to make it. He's. But I don't know about these guys. Like the gray man. He's going to the gray man wins there too. Um, um, I think, but the Green Team's more of a, if if they like you from the beginning. Or if, like, it's kind of a good old boy network too. Like someone says, "Hey, you do want this guy." They're going to, I mean, you know, they're going to hammer him. They're not going to know that they're kind of looking out for them. But if they don't like you, you're [ __ ]. Like if, like they'll, if they pass your picture around the the the team rooms and someone knows you from C-Shuckers, well, [ __ ] him. That's it. That's all it takes. Could be damn. That's how it was. I think then, uh, and I was fortunate. I was, I was liked by a few, a few guys. And, um, you know, I [ __ ] things up. I mean, everyone [ __ ] things up. But, uh, I think I kind of got it, um, just slowing it down. The realization. It's like with a golf swing. If you watch yourself swing, how fast you bring it up. Slow the [ __ ] down. Keep your head still. Let's, uh, let's take a quick break. And then we'll get into the rest of it.

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All right, so we kind of got through Green Team. Yep. You're showing up, you're done. How do they figure out what squadron you're doing? Once, once you do realize that SEAL Team Six exists and it's not a, you know, a development squad. It is, I mean, you're developing [ __ ], but then you're shooting people, um, with it. Um, the squadrons at the time, or the two original squadrons were, um, Blue and Gold for Navy. And, and actually, the reason it's called SEAL Team Six is because Mars, Dick Marsenko, just a phenomenal ultimate Navy SEAL who was the commanding officer, he called it Six because he knew Russia would say, "They're SEAL Team One, Two, and Six. Where are Three, Four, and Five?" Not, you know, just a hat rack. Yeah. Um, but we, we, there were, so when I got there, there was, there was Blue and Gold. And Gold, uh, they absorbed into Red Squadron, which is the one I wanted to go to.

Why did you want to go there? Um, that, well, because of Neil Roberts. Okay. Uh, he was, he was obviously Roberts Ridge. And that was Red Squadron, Red Team at the time, that went into Tora Bora. And he fell out of the helicopter. And that, that's the first time it really sunk in that, um, we're fighting some [ __ ] animals. This is Al-Qaeda. And they're not going to just kill you.

Did you know Neil? I did. He was one of the first Navy SEALs I met. I met Don Shipley. I met Neil Roberts. Neil Roberts took me and my friend Matt to lunch at Arby's. I'll never forget that. Brand new guy, SEAL Team Two. And he was just always so willing to help you with anything. From the finance rate you're getting on that car at that stupid used car lot off base to, "Here's where you put your 60 pouches." Okay, look, come here. This girl's crazy. Get away from her. Neil Roberts is the guy. And, you know, his name is Neil Roberts. Robert O'Neill. Uh, and he was a red hair. I mean, a complete stud. Like he was way better than me. Like, I think his obstacle course time is on his headstone still because he had the record for so long, which I think is [ __ ] awesome. Yeah. But he was just, he was a one-percenter. Um, and, uh, but in, in every way, salt of the earth. Nicest guy in the world. He can murder you with a knife. Like, just awesome guy. And just because of the the fight at Tora Bora, the, the story of what happened, everything from Chapman to to Slab, what they did on that Mount Bagrani, the guys, how they, how they just never leave anyone behind. And they went back and they got into one of the worst gunfights you could imagine, close, close quarters with PKMs, getting shot at you at night. And just to hear, and I'm not going to tell their story, I wasn't there, but just to hear them, um, debrief us, I was like, "Okay, I want to go to." I mean, the bones, man. Blue Team, awesome. Gold Team, doesn't take [ __ ], awesome. But I just wanted Red. Um, I mean, I'll, I'll go to the other ones because, just, I mean, it was even cool to go through Green Team because the instructors were all at squadrons. And as a new guy looking at the Trident, I felt like that, looking at the bones, looking at the at the Crusader. Yeah. Looking at the the Red Man. And I just wanted Red Team. I just, I felt it.

Did they give you a choice? Or no? That you get picked. They have, um, they, uh, they actually have drafts. And every year, one team is first. And then they should rotate. And then every, every time you're at your pick, one troop or one team gets their first pick. So you actually go through, uh, you actually go through a process. I actually picked DJ Shipley. And I'll never forget when it was my turn to pick, I was like, "That guy's still available? Our team just got better." No [ __ ].

So how's it, how's it work then? Do they, do you, Oh, the instructors are giving you. Yeah. Yeah, because you had inside. Yeah. You're, you're playing the good old boy network. Like your Red Team instructors are coming up to Red Team saying, "I'm not going to say anything. You want this guy. Here's the order that you want to go. And we want him in the squadron. But like, if your team can get him." Um, yeah, it's [ __ ] awesome. So I just, I got Red. And I don't know why. But I remember that they posted the, uh, uh, lists on the on the cork board. And it's like, okay, you see the guys. It's like, "Oh, sweet, man. No, um, Reeves got Gold. And that's awesome. And, um, uh, my Coke is going to Gold. Oh, look at me and Nate, Red. And this." And it's just, I mean, it's interesting. You all made it. So you're going to know each other. We call it the second deck. Once you get to the second deck, is when you're part of a squadron. And then going into the second deck for the first day is, um, [ __ ]. I'm a new guy again. And the first thing I remember walking into the Red, Red Team room was, uh, obviously, it's the way it's just the the way it's designed. The memorabilia. [ __ ] Neil Roberts. [ __ ] Bent Saw is up there in a frame above the desk where he used to sit. Wow. But it's like, it's from reading history to being now you're a part of it. But now it's like, holy [ __ ]. I'm scared of these guys. Um, what impressed me the most was how fast they could do CQB. Like, like if you're not in the front, you're, they're gone. They're gonna dust this place. But the second thing was how funny they were. The humor and the camaraderie. Like, oh my god, I thought I was funny. I gotta step up because these dudes are funny. And they're just good dudes. Like, uh, and I, I maintain that, uh, up until the last day, my last day at SEAL Team Six, I was lucky because every single day, I got to go to work with people who were better than me. And we didn't necessarily undermine each other. We would, we would ask each other questions. "Well, you did this. Why? Why does that work? And what do you think about that? How should I carry this?" I got to a point where I was telling, uh, telling my guys, "You don't need to carry a pistol." And they're like, "Why is that?" I'm like, "Well, if you get into a room and you, your primary goes down, your buddy already killed him. And if you go outside with a pistol, just [ __ ] bring a cleaning rod or throw rocks at him. Clean your [ __ ] gun. This pistol's not doing [ __ ]. It's weight you're carrying. Wait. Take that [ __ ] off your gun. It's not a space gun. You need, you need your EOTech and a laser and an extra battery for your NODs because it's gonna fail. Yeah. Change your batteries every day." Yeah. But, uh, yeah, the first day, they're just watching them work. And then seeing how, how they work together. And the humor and the camaraderie. And that's what I think makes a great team is morale. They always made sure morale was high. Um, little things like, "You guys have anything to do? Go home. Be with your kids. We're not doing [ __ ] today. Leave." And it was, um, it was a, uh, big boy mentality. Like, um, "Our first muster is going to be 10 a.m. I'm, I'm just assuming you will have gone and worked out by then." Yeah. And we did. And it wasn't like organized PT or march to the surf zone. It's like, "Do your thing. Can you, can you carry me if I get shot in my body armor? Are you doing those workouts?" Then we have no problem. And then, and then you do that. You know, we got there. We're doing a work. And it was just like, now it's like, over there, it wasn't new guy. It was like, newer guy. And instead of like, "[ __ ] you idiots." Like, "Here, let me show you how that. Come on. Let me, let me show you a quick way to make that seven-foot charger C6 watches." So it's actually pretty [ __ ] welcoming. Yeah. It is. Green Team, they [ __ ] hammer you. Yeah. But it's, they all, they all go through it. And then once you're through, like, I, I saw, um, Green Team instructors that I thought were the the meanest [ __ ] in the world. Once you get to the second deck, it's forgotten. It's a game. Which is, "I want you." Uh, it's the same in BUD's. They're [ __ ] hammering you because I will have to go to war with you. I might. Can you, can you do it? Yeah. But then you get up there. And it's like, I mean, you got friends everywhere. You know, everybody. And, um, and now we're going to war. And I mean, other than a couple things, um, we weren't losing a lot of fights. So we didn't really hit, you know, my first deployment. Well, that's when it hit. Because my first deployment was to, um, Jalalabad, Afghanistan. We were running a safe house, which is, um, some guys cooler than me and probably a three-letter agency carried a briefcase full of money and bought a small hotel. And then hired locals to be security and plumbers and [ __ ] cooks. And then here's your safe house. And you're, it's a safe house because you're, you're stimulating the economy. You're paying the guards. And they will work for money. Um, you're shopping in the bazaars. You're eating shawarmas out in town. And then, you know, the Taliban around you doesn't want to get mortar. So they'll make sure that Taliban doesn't come in. That's my first one. And I didn't, um, I'd never been to war. And I'd only seen it on TV. So I assumed it was as bad as it was on TV. I assumed there's a suicide bomber around every corner. Everyone's going to be shooting at you. It's going to blow up all the time. And it took a while to realize that in a war zone, most of the people just want to get on with their lives and raise their families. Most the people are not combatants. They're just [ __ ] over it. Um, but the first few times we were doing some new technology in Jalalabad, we're doing, uh, um, so it's now we're doing MOUT. In J-Bed. So hold on, just for the audience. MOUT is Military Operations Urban Terrain. So it's, uh, urban, urban fighting. So it's like everywhere. It's a, it's a not just a 360 range. It's everything ranging. You can get shot at from anywhere. And you don't even know why. Something can blow up. Everything next can blow up. Um, and I remember thinking that I'm, I'm kind of wasting my energy jumping behind [ __ ]. And, you know, there's, I think we have four dudes. That's four guys from Red Team. Two included. So three, uh, SEALs, one EOD. But at that time, EOD was going through Green Team with us. So I mean, they're shooters. And I remember jumping around like looking. And I looked at my, uh, my boss, who was, uh, he was involved in Operation Anaconda where, uh, Roberts Ridge happened. And he'd been awarded a Silver Star for some of the [ __ ] they did. And I was watching him. And I remember looking over. And he's got like body armor, short sleeves, big old beard. Like he's got one of those, one of those cop radios. And just, and I remember looking at him thinking, "I want to be cool like that. I want to look cool like that." And we got, we got back. And I, I told him, "I'm not kissing your ass, but how weren't you afraid?" And he goes, "Well, how do you know I wasn't afraid?" I said, "Because you didn't look like it." And he goes, "That's right. You don't know if I'm afraid. But if I show you that I'm calm, you'll be calm. Calm is contagious." And, and that's how you learn it. It's like, "Okay, that's [ __ ] cool. I just got to look cool." And so we did a couple things here and there. Like one of the, one of the funniest things I saw was, um, we learned that if you run into a, a foreign fighter, is, uh, anyone not from Afghanistan. Or if you're in Iraq, anyone not from Iraq. So you got Jordanians or Saudi Arabians. If you run into them, they look different. They speak Arabic. They're there for one reason, right? They're not teaching school. They're Al-Qaeda. Yeah. We ran into, uh, I was, uh, I got a very short course on how to be a battlefield interrogator. So my job was to, and we invented these tactics as we went along. As soon as we took a house down, shots fired or not, whoever's surviving, we're interrogating them right now. You know, put the interpreter behind him. I'm interrogating you. Because you catch them with their pants down. They're nervous. They don't know how to, how to act. I ran into a Saudi Arabian, big fat dude. And I instantly started laughing. I, I said to him through the interpreter, I said, "You don't know what that t-shirt you're wearing says, do you?" And he had no idea. His t-shirt said, "It's not a beer belly, it's a fuel tank for a sex machine." And so I'm like, "You just, you just saved yourself a beating because that's awesome. I wish you had a picture of that." Yeah. Oh, I, I wish I had that shirt. If I'd known him better, take it from him, made an FT out of it. Um, but yeah, I mean, so we were doing that kind of stuff. And, and, um, it was, it was that's what we do. I'm getting to know the locals. I'm getting to know a little bit of the traditions. How you do this. Getting another local food. Um, you know, even driving to Assad, about up to Konar River at the time, because we were doing it right. And we didn't, we hadn't pissed off everyone yet. But there's IEDs. But, um, one, one night, we, we would drive dirt bikes around town. Locals that we would purchase the the local bikes, you know, put on the the protect. Drive to this is when the airfield wasn't built up. This is like, there was still Russian [ __ ] there. And like the Rangers stayed there, the Ranger sniper teams were there, a couple Marines were there and stuff. And we, they're putting up a few tents here and there. And they said, "Hey, some guys, uh, from the East Coast just flew in." Some helicopters. I was like, "[ __ ]. Let's go see him." And so we drove over there. That turned out to be Turbine 33. And I bullshitted with some of those dudes. Talked to Dan Healy about, um, Sam Adams. Uh, I went to sniper school with Dan Healy. And he loves Sam Adams. He's a New Englander. And we're like, "What's the, what's the deal?" And they said, um, "We just inserted four snipers into, um, the Korengal, the Congo Valley. They're looking for a Mod Shaw. And then once they find him with eyes on, um, we're gonna go hit the house." And we were like, "[ __ ]. Yeah, can we go?" And so we were, we were trying to work at scheme because our headshed from from Six was in Bagram. And they told us, "No, no one from SEAL Team Six is getting on those helicopters. We think there's missiles." And we're like, "Yeah, cool, man. [ __ ] have a, have a good fight." And I had some of my guys were down from that. So we took them back to our, uh, our safe house. And we had some contingency funds that you're supposed to use to build up the, um, the, um, the infrastructure. So we had some dude build this stupid cold tub, like the size of a hot tub, but it's cold. And we were just sitting there. We could get Heineken, um, over there. So we were sitting there having, actually, the, the Heineken story is funny because when I first got there, they had a place where we could send the interpreter to get booze for us. I mean, obviously, no one drinks overseas. But, um, we sent them there. And the, the price was, um, I want to say $20 for a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka. And $30 for a case of Heineken. And so we sent the terps out. My terp was Larry, because we couldn't pronounce his name, so he's just Larry. And we sent him out to get some stuff. And I'm, I'm the newer guy there, but I'm now, you know, I'm, I'm over there. And he came back with nothing. He said, "Yeah, the, the guy running the shop said, 'I know who you're selling this.'"

To these, are for the Americans, and the prices went from 20 and 30 to 50 and 60. I'm like, "[ __ ] this, are you kidding me? Get your [ __ ] on."

So we roll over there. We go to the guy, "Look, I can appreciate inflation. Uh, 20, 30, you go 25, 35, that's fine. You raise it that high, you can't sell booze in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. I'm going to take it all for free and put you in jail." And he goes, "25 and 35." He's fine. My friend, I'm like, "[ __ ] couldn't we just done this in the first place?"

So we're, um, we're in the, we're at the safe house and, um, we were actually technically a Ranger Major was in charge of us. We did have a senior enlisted guys with us, but the Ranger Major was kind of running it between Jalalabad Airfield and our safe house. And he came out, we're so weird drinking Heineken in this, uh, tub, and he said, "Hey, your boys just got [ __ ] up. We got to go."

"Oh [ __ ]!" And we're like, "Whoa, what do you, what do you mean?" He goes, "Yeah, they shot a Hilo down and we, we gotta, we gotta, we gotta go."

"That was your first deployment over there? That first one?"

"How long were you in the country?"

"I was almost done. So three and a half months. And that was, this is June. And, um, we, we rolled over. I ran into a few guys I knew from, from SEAL Team Two that put me through training, Master Chiefs that were there. And, you know, and, uh, the other helicopter that got that missed, and I don't know if it was three, four, or three, two, uh, got missed. The pilots landed in the wrong spot on the, on the, uh, a different base on in Jalalabad because they were, something happened. So other guys were coming in. They didn't get shot down. And I remember they said, "Yeah, it just, it just came out of the valley and turned and it, it, it hit and it went down."

"3-3 went down. And, and one of them missed us. Damn."

So we're talking to guys that just got shot at by surface-to-air missiles. Even though technically that's not what happened, they're telling me face-to-face missiles were coming out of that valley. And it was so, it was more of a, "Holy [ __ ]! The, I mean, it's good to see you because the world's still a decent place because you're still alive or whatever the [ __ ] we're saying."

And they, they came out and said, "Look, um, we need, there's a crash site, we got to get up there. And they're not going to fly us because they're shooting down helicopters now. So figure it out."

And we're running around this makeshift airfield. And I'll, there's a, there's like a B-hut full of Rangers. And we're like, "Hey, we, we, here's the situation." And we told them. And we're like, "Um, I need five guys." And, uh, all 20 of them jumped up and said, "We should, you know, we should take us 10 minutes to get ready, we'll be out in three."

And then they came out, the, we decided, "Go get whatever vehicle you can steal, [ __ ], commandeer. We're driving as far as we can. And then we're humping up into the into the valley."

And, um, we, you know, we, we didn't know, we didn't know if there were survivors. We didn't know what happened. But we knew Taliban was up there. And so we, um, we drove as far as we could. And then we started walking, um, up, up. And this is daytime. It's, I don't know, 90 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, humidity. And we're humping up to the point where there were dudes like, "I carry too many mags." Um, because it's so, there were dudes passing [ __ ] back to like, like, "Who's taking it? Just drop it." So keep water, maybe we can get air-lift or something.

And, and then we, you know, we humped up for, um, for 10 hours. So we're not quite there yet. And I remember looking around saying, "Hey, did any of you guys call home before we left on this thing?" And they're like, "No. Why?" It's like, "Well, all our families know is a bunch of SEALs from Virginia just got killed and they haven't heard from us." And so that's going through your mind too.

We're, we're sticking each other with IVs, hanging them in trees and stuff. And I remember looking at a guy saying, uh, "You know, this is why training is so hard. Because if we were going to quit right now, where the [ __ ] are we going to go right here?" So we, we kept going up.

They did fly in, um, they did fly in a helicopter from Bagram, more of Red Squadron. They got to the crash site first. So they, I mean, I don't know who wants that job, but they got the job. And they're going to go to the crash site, find, find it. And, um, you know, some of the stories that I've heard were like, Lou Langlais was looking at the crash site and he said, "I'm going to go, um, um, try to get some intel from the village." And he looked over and said, "I just never want to die like that." You know. And Lou was on Extortion 17. Damn. And you just hear safe stories about, you know, it's life is fragile, man. And, uh, um, so we started humping back down. We're trying to leave. The sun's going down. And then we spotted some, um, some Taliban on the opposite ridgeline. And, you know, we're like, "[ __ ] it, let's call in who wants to hit him."

And the cloud cover was coming in. And nobody, nobody wanted to, to, um, uh, to get under it. [ __ ], you're in the Western Himalayas, man. This is a new [ __ ]. But the A-10s would. And that's the first time I've seen an A-10 get called in. And it just, it was so low. And, and, um, it came over us. And the an A-10 obviously shoots, what is it? How many rounds? Three thousand rounds a minute or something? So I don't know, someone's gonna correct me. But that's a lot. It's so much. It sounds like a growl. And when it, when it came over us, the first thing we heard was the bullets going supersonic. Then we heard it. No. So we saw the smoke, heard him, supersonic, heard him hit, then we heard shoot. So it's. And like that's when he, there was a Marine. I know people have heard this, seen the meme. But I'm pretty sure it was coined that day. There was like a Marine or a young private in the Army that said it, "Is it true what they say? But doesn't kill you makes you stronger?" Except an A-10. An A-10 will [ __ ] kill you.

"Oh [ __ ]!"

So well then, well then we, we walked down. And, um, we're closer to Asadabad than we are. And we should have been maybe two days. And we're closer to Asadabad than we are to Jalalabad. So we're gonna go to Abad. Um, and we're gonna rack out there. They've got beds. Um, or floor, I don't give a [ __ ]. We've been awake for so long. And that's when the dude that got the note from Marcus, um, he showed up. So he's got this. You were there when that guy showed up? The guy showed up. And because we had an argument with the, um, you know, I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers here, but we had an argument with the agency because they don't, they never want to burn a source. Which is fine, that's a thing, gathering intel. But this guy knows where Marcus is. And you're taking us there right now. And, and I don't give a [ __ ] if they kill you. What's worth thinking? Their agency's yelling and they, something along the lines of, "Well, we're not sure if this is him because he didn't cross the T's in his name, Latrell." And we're like, "Yeah, but it's on TAC notes and he got his [ __ ] social right. It's him. We're going."

So there was a big argument there. I'm pretty sure I know a guy got fired for that. Um, one of the Rangers got fired, I think banned from the country. But he made the call. We're gonna go. So then we got back in the car. We drove around Patch River Valley. Um, you're going around about up to Pesh, which now you're in in no man's land. And, um, Marcus, I guess, had gone from the Koronal into the Shariak Valley, which are two, I mean, these are two neighboring valleys. And people don't understand in Afghanistan, there have been families living in these valleys for 10,000 years that I've never met. Yeah, like they don't, you don't, you're not allowed in. And hate each other. Hate. Yeah, they'll cut your head off and put like, old school Dracula, put it on the steak type [ __ ].

So we're driving in there. And this is a part where I've seen Afghanistan's a different world. And people don't understand that if they, if they, when I first got to Red Team, I was asking guys, "What's Afghanistan like?" They said, "You just have to see it because you're not going to believe me." Yeah. And so we went up there. And it's, they don't have water. And I remember seeing that there's, K, I'm a father. And I've seen these kids. I remember handing a bottle of water to a little girl. She opened it, dumped it out so she could play with the plastic.

So then we're pumping up again, um, another mountain. And it's just steep terrain. And then we, we knew he was up and over. Marcus is down in this village. And we got up, um, almost to the top. And one of my guys said, um, one of my guys said, um, "I gotta sit down. I can't, I can't, I can't go anymore. We've been awake for three, three and a half days. I can't go." And I said, "That's okay. We'll just tell Mrs. Latrell, Marcus's mom, that we didn't, we were this close, but we didn't get him because you got tired." And he goes, "Yeah, you're right." And I said, "Do me, I said, do me a favor. Tell that [ __ ] to me in one minute because I don't think I can go any further."

And so we're just, whatever, trying to get up to the top. And that's, you know, Rangers came in helos. They did get Marcus out. And then, um, now we're just in the Shariak Valley. It's like, "All right, well, let's try to live our way out of this one."

"So wait, you weren't with the Rangers? It was just for you guys?"

"No, no, no. We, we were with Rangers. And we were, there were Marines and [ __ ] there too. I'll never forget seeing Marines because like, we got to choose what we would wear. I had no body armor, a couple mags in a, uh, shirt. They're wearing full like fur. Sergeant told me, I need to wear all this [ __ ]. Like I said at the beginning, Marines are [ __ ] bad [ __ ]. They will, they will take shitty gear and make it suck even more. Semper Fi, baby."

"But yeah, the Rangers flew in. And, and that was ballsy too because one of our options was, um, I mean, we, well, I, let me back up. When we had that dude, Afghanistan might as well be the 13th century. We showed this guy an aerial photo of his village on an iPad. I might as well have just showed him an actual picture of Allah. This dude looking at an iPad like, one minute you're [ __ ] your animal, now you're looking at an iPad. So we were gonna fly in. He couldn't really pick it up. But we, they, uh, we, we thought this could be a mud suck. We're just gonna walk. Brain, just [ __ ] being Rangers, man. We'll do it." And they did. And they got. And then we lived our way out. And then the, you know, the remaining two or three weeks is a miserable deployment. We lost so many great guys on that, on the Gila. Yeah.

"And then, so that's deployment number one."

"Damn, dude. Yeah, that's, uh, it was intense. I mean, because we, I mean, at first, we were just having fun. And it wasn't real. I mean, it was real, but like the fighting's over. Army, the Green Berets and CIA took care of that [ __ ]. They bought the [ __ ] out. And we're just, we're gonna rebuild or something. And then Delta's gonna find Bin Laden. We're just gonna do this. The food was great."

"Yeah. So what were you guys doing before that?"

"We were just testing new technology. Trying to find, um, we found a few minor Al-Qaeda guys in town. We, we actually, there's a video online where we found, we put these, um, there was an Al-Qaeda guy working at a gas station. He was laundering money and funding [ __ ] because that's one of the major ways. There's only a few roads, obviously. And, um, we, the RRD Rangers, the, uh, and they're awesome dudes. Um, they went out on an RNS and they really watched this damn gas station in it for five days, which just sucks. Like in the heat. And then we, they know, they had eyes on whatever they, and we rolled from the safe house, 30 seconds, grabbed the dude and rolled out with them. There's a video that they made of us rolling up. We wear this ridiculous HOGIE gear. I mean, I don't blend in. I don't know if you know, you don't blend in. No. We go to war with Scotland. I'm in there. But, um, we, you know, we roll up, we run in, we run out, we got this dude. The van takes away. They made a video. If you, if you can find it online, it says, 'A Snatch and Grab at the Grab and Go.' And it's literally a 30-second mission. And that, that was, we just rolled him out, threw him and flew the ball. But we were just, we were using technology to track Al-Qaeda and see what they're doing. And mainly, I mean, we're just rolling them up to get intel. We're trying to, to build the network to find. There's not a lot of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan at this point. They all went to Pakistan. Okay? So not a lot. I mean, a couple dudes and up in the Koronal. But most of them went over to the Federally Administrative Tribal Area, the FATA. And they're all over there on that side. And that's another story that I have. Uh, two deployments later."

"Let's go and do it. Okay. Well, I mean, we did go to Iraq next. We'll go, we'll, we'll jump to this and then we'll go to Iraq. Okay?"

"Um, so my, uh, next deployment to Afghanistan, I would, instead of being a member at the JBAD safehouse, I was in charge of the Asadabad safe house. So I'm the team leader there, which means I have one other guy with me from, from Red Team. Uh, and then we have a few augments that are, that are probably going to screen for Dev Group, but aren't there yet. So they come over to learn what we're doing. And then, and we're working with the agency, running sources back and forth. And mainly this is just for drone strikes so we can get intel, hit these guys, or whatever. And we, we were getting bored. And a very important lesson I learned on this deployment is never die because you got bored. Do everything like you do anything. And always follow your rules. People die because they take shortcuts or they get bored. I got bored. And, uh, I came up with a plan with this, the Chief of, of base, who was, uh, he had actually been with the agency fighting, um, with the Mujahideen against the Russians. So this dude knew the area. And so he and I, over, over cocktails, I think the agency calls it fellowship, over fellowship, we came up with a plan that we know as per rules of engagement, uh, if we have troops in contact and positive identification on the border, we can pursue, I want to say 10 clicks inside of Pakistan. So we knew there was about a click and a half. And there were two Al-Qaeda safe houses. So we figured if we go up there on the border and sort of show ourselves, they'll shoot at us, we'll call air support, we can hit these houses. That's gonna be a good mission. Cross border. Up. This is badass."

So that's the plan. And everything went to [ __ ]. Because we get up there, I got a couple, um, a couple Army guys and then a few Afghans. And we had actually, we had put on, um, the brown tiger stripe stuff. And I don't even know if that's legal. So we don't look like Americans. So we're trying to, if the, if the, if Al-Qaeda or the Taliban sees us, they're not worried about air support because this is simply, you know, a, a Afghan Army. Yeah, we'll kill them. We didn't, we didn't put that together. Because that, like a truck came up and some dudes got out. And it's like, it's like I'm almost a flash checkpoint. And they walk up and they're yelling us to come talk to them for tea. And I was like, "Yeah, you guys go talk to him. Don't, don't tell him there's Americans here." Whatever. So they went down there and they kind of came back and they said, "Yeah, they wanted tea. But we're not falling for that." So they went to this thing. We got the high ground here. It's, it's 11:30 in the morning. We, we stayed overnight. We're up there. 11:30 in the morning. And then another truck came up full of guys. And then another truck came up full of guys. And then another one. Now we have a little bit of high ground, but there's a lot of dudes down there. And this is some serious [ __ ] ambush [ __ ]. I'm in charge. I'm, I'm, you know, an E637, but I'm the ground force commander of this one. It's my call. It's like, "Well, I mean, we can get the [ __ ] out here right now. They want me. They might not notice." So I'm like, "Yeah, you know, we're gonna beat it."

So, uh, we had some guys below us, a semi-mortar team, but they, you know, whatever, they weren't US Army. We didn't know if they could do it. So we're running down to them. I'm explaining what's happening. And we gotta haul ass or maybe we can, we can get ex-fil. And that's when one of the Afghan guys I was with said, the first words I ever heard him speak in English, he pointed up and yelled, "Bad guys!" And I remember looking up. And, uh, now this is gonna be a real gunfight in the mountains at high noon. And watching dudes run that fast in in the had brown, brown [ __ ], like brown uniforms almost on. So these are, these are, it turns out to be a mix of, uh, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and Pak-Mil, Pakistan military. No. And we're looking up. And they're surrounding us. And they're falling ass. And they, they just start zipping ring rounds at us. And you can, you can hear them, you know. And the scariest ones were the, the ricochets. So we're like, we're like, "We can't move now. We're pinned." Then they got us on like three sides. Um, we had separated. I had a new guy. It wasn't, he was a, he was a SEAL Team Four, uh, he, he had, he was my radio guy. He'd never, ever called in real world close air support. And I need him now. And he's out. He's maybe 100 yards away.

I had heard up to this point some of our standard operating procedures that originated from Vietnam were lines of gear. How you wear your gear in lines. First line, second line, third line. Your first line gear is your most important. It's closest to your body. It's on your belt. It's, it's, it's, um, you know, an extra mag in a pocket, in Copenhagen, whatever, cash. Second line gives your second most important stuff, magazines, grenades, maybe some more water. And your third line gear is your least important stuff and your rucksack. So that's your sleeping bag and ground pad, extra socks, foot powder. The reason, so I've been told, you keep it that way is because if you need to run, you can start ditching your [ __ ] in order to get lighter. Now, that's the first time I've ever, ever heard anyone do it. I dropped my ruck. I sprint over to Tony. I gotta get to him because he, you know. And people just eating dirt. I lay next to him. And, um, I said, "Okay, here's the deal. That what up on the thing where they set the flash checkpoint, hit that first." And he said, "I can't. We don't have any air support." I'm like, "Okay, this is bad. Get, you got to get some, whatever it takes." You know, we've been up there for a day and a half. They lost interest in whatever. And the other people, whatever. So we're laying there. And I'm just right next to him. And, and, um, the rounds are getting so close that they were hitting air bursts above us with RPGs where explosion. And they're shooting mortars at us too. Uh, you'd hear an explosion and look back to, "Are my legs still there?" [ __ ] yeah. I mean, nothing was hitting. I don't know how. I don't know how it got so bad. Um, we did, we did this for an hour. Where it's not even there. The worst feeling I've ever had in the world is having someone shoot effective fire at me, but realizing I can't shoot back because my rounds probably won't reach him. And if I lift my head up, I'm done. Like we were seeing tracers, uh, right between us.

"And how many of you guys were there?"

"A total of six. Five or six Americans. That's it. Maybe 15 Afghans."

"How about the oppose?"

"The, oh, I don't know. There was a lot. There was three or four truckloads full of them. [ __ ]."

And so, so we're up there. This is all happening. And they, they now they were to the point they were so close that I had a dude shooting at me. He looked like me. He had a red beard, a white guy shooting a PKM. But he's yelling, "Allahu Akbar!" God is great in Arabic. Now I'm seeing this [ __ ]. And again, we don't have, I don't even have night vision because I don't need it. It's daytime. It's semi, whatever. And that's when you start to think, "Okay, not only is that Al-Qaeda, that's a Chechen. This is where you save at least one bullet for yourself." Yeah. I'm not the, those guys will skin you alive. And we, and, and this is all happening. And finally, Tony said, "All right, I got one. I got one." I said, "Austin, hit that [ __ ] checkpoint. Get it in here now." And he said, "Okay, I can't. The batteries in my radio just died because we had been out there and it had been on and they just, they died." And so one of my jokes about this is, um, um, I don't believe in micromanaging. You teach your people how to do it, let them do it. But right now, I figured it was a proper time to micromanage. I said, "Change the [ __ ] batteries." And he said, "I can't. I'm not carrying the spares. Remember you are. They're in the rucksack." So I said, something, I mean, I don't have a choice at this point. I said something along the lines of, "Don't tell Mom I did this." And I ran. So I'm running to that thing. And I don't know, I don't know. It's, I'm saying 100 yards. And I don't know how I hadn't been hit at this point. And naturally, I know where they're packed. They're probably at the bottom of this [ __ ] thing. There's an opening. Stamp thing. Grabbed the two old school batteries. Now I'm running back. [ __ ] the rucksack. I have the batteries. And I, I chucked him to him. And now we're calling it air support.

And, uh, there was a funny story. Something, uh, okay. No. What what he said was, uh, "Bombs away. Two minutes out." And I'm like, "Two minutes? What did he, [ __ ] drop this from the space shuttle? Is that the first? Nothing takes two minutes to fall anywhere." Well, it turns out it was, I think it was a, it was a B-1. And he was at 60,000 feet. And he just dropped three JDAMs. Three, two thousand pounders. Shh. And it's danger close. But like, whatever. And, uh, uh, one of the guys said to me, um, "This is dangerous. What do we, what do we do if it hits us?" I said, "Not a problem. Plug your ears." And then they, they don't, they don't, they don't whistle. They sizzle. It sounds like bacon. And then we let the whole hillside lit up. And like, I'm watching dudes on fire running around. That we just hit with. That's, that's the first time I was like, "I will never make another joke about the Air Force." That is the, thank you. That I heard. That was America. Just that's. And now, now they're running. Al-Qaeda. And I'm not finally getting some shots off. I think I killed the Chechen. They're running up the hill. We're [ __ ] lighting them up. Um, uh, and it turned the tide there. And then we called them in again. It actually got to the point where we bombed Pakistan for four hours. One of the guys we called in, his call sign was Dude 12, which I thought was just awesome. And he was, you know, now we're calling him. Where he's flying upside down. And he's, he's like, wanting us to describe what we see. And it's like, you know, "Can you see the, the peak with the snow?" "Yes." "Can you see the, the intersection, the river?" "Yes." "That's one unit of measure. I want you to take two of those units, please, at zero nine seven magnetic." All this [ __ ]. But like the first thing that, the conversation I had with him was so awesome. He, cause, you know, we had adrenaline going. He wants you to calm down. So he said, "Just talk to me like I'm a man." And I said, "I see why women find you attractive." So yeah. So we, so we get done with that. And we can find. And then at this point, you know, we got more fast movers. The Coyotes showed up. And they're just bad [ __ ]. And then we can call in to, um, a couple 60s. We have some Army pilots coming. They're gonna pick us up. We're gonna, we're gonna bounce. Uh, so I, they called us in. I got on the starboard side, the right side of this, this, uh, this Black Hawk. And we're now, we're leaving. And it's, it's a, maybe a 10-minute flight back to Abad. That's how close we were to this, right on the border. And that's the first time I saw the, um, the battlefield that we just created. And it is scorched earth. And I'm thinking, "Oh man, we just bombed Pakistan. That is an international incident." Yeah. Then I thought, "I'm in charge. I'm probably going to hear about this." Oh [ __ ]. And I was right. Because we landed at Abad. And they had already flown a two-star general in there to meet with us. And he said, and I'm in a good mood at this point. I was gonna die for the past six hours. Now I'm gonna live. And I'm in a good mood. And he said, "Hey O'Neil, you realize we're not at war with Pakistan, right?" And I said, "Yeah, man, but we were today. And you should have." "Yes, sir." And then he, and he said, "Yeah, there's gonna be an investigation, obviously. And you're either going to get a Silver Star or you're going to spend the rest of your life in Leavenworth. [ __ ]." And you think waiting an hour for a bomb is a long time? Try waiting three weeks for that decision to be made. We got lucky though. And the footage is still on, on, on the internet where Pakistan was saying it was an unprovoked attack by American forces, like they always do. Because it turns out Pakistan [ __ ] lies to us. Um, they had the footage. As they're getting the stuff. Okay, well, really now look at this. Here's your guys attacking my guys. And they said there were some like a 21 martyrs from the Pak. We killed like 21 Pakistanis that were fighting us. Wow. So that's like a. So I did get a Silver Star. You did? Yeah. Yeah. That was my first Silver Star. What's actually funny is I've been, I've been lying to my mom my entire career. Because it's easier to go to war than to send someone that you love to war. But they're worrying is not gonna affect how you do. So don't make them worry. Just lie to them. "No, we're not doing [ __ ]. Don't worry, Mom. Iraq's not what you think. We're not ever." My mother came down to, um, to Virginia Beach for my, the presentation of the Silver Star. And they actually read the unclassified version of what happened. And she's sitting there listening. And I remember saying, "Mom, I promise you, I'll never get another Silver Star." Now fast forwarding to the day after the Bin Laden raid, I said, "Mom, I think I lied to you. I think I'm getting sick of Silver Stars." Yeah.

"Damn, dude. That's crazy. And that was just because, um, another rule in life, you don't need to go looking for it. Don't go looking for it. No. If it's meant to find you, it'll just find you. Don't like, uh, well, like thanks to jiu-jitsu, don't fight anyone in a bar. You don't know who's a black belt. Very true. Don't go looking for it. If you get in a bar fight and someone starts with a leg kick, apologize. I'll buy him a drink. No, my bad. I was wrong. Exhale through the nose. Damn."

"Yeah, well, let's, uh, let's take a quick break. And then when we come back, we'll talk about, we'll get into Iraq. Cool. So, okay. All right. So we're back from the break. Let's talk about Iraq."

Iraq again was one of those things where, um, I, I hadn't been. And, and I knew it was, it was more dangerous than Afghanistan at the time. Because foreign fighters had realized it'll be easier to kill Americans in Iraq because we can get there a lot easier than to go to Afghanistan. And, and they, and they, they had learned our tactics. They, they knew what we were doing. They knew that one of our tactics was, um, if there's an open door, we're gonna run into it. Because a lot of this stupid, not stupid, but just arrogant special forces, not special forces, all of us were there. There's gonna be a fight anyway, let's just get it over with. That was the mentality at the time. I'll kind of knew that. So leave the door open, have machine guns inside, and then just drill the first four guys in the room. And they, they did that.

And so we went over there. Um, our, our Army counterparts took some pretty heavy casualties. And, and that's when we kind of, um, started to learn that one of the worst things you can have. Nothing on them. Those guys are complete studs. Um, but one of the worst things you can say when you're running a team is, "Well, this is the way we've always done it." It's like, "Wait a minute. Why are we running into? Why are we running in there? How about we just, how about we stop? Why don't we just clear the room from the door? We invented combat clearance. Why are we sprinting at night through houses with white lights when we can put our NODs down and own it? And why are we yelling? Stop yelling when you turn a corner and you point your gun up. I don't need to hear you yell, 'Stairwell!' I'll assume there's a stairwell. Shut the [ __ ] up."

Quite. So we started training on, um, um, silent runs. And we learned when we were silent, not only were faster and more efficient, we were communicating at the highest levels simply by reading off each other. You don't, you know, there's no reason to, to give someone your position. And, and then we, so we just started reinventing tactics. Not just we at Red Squadron or SEAL Team Six. Delta was on board with all this stuff. And then we're all. And what we were really good about too, I mean, I mentioned a cross, a rivalry type thing between services. That wasn't us or Delta. We would cross-train with each other. And then most importantly, the guys who just got back would debrief the guys about to go over. And we would take them on, um, even when we got like, when we're leaving our, our relief squadron, we would take them on a shakeout op. Like, here's what we're doing, here's how it works. Everything from intel, uh, to workout schedules, to here's what you should do. And here's the dangerous part. Here's what we're looking for. You know, we did a lot of that stuff. And, and, um, it was everything from, uh, snipers realizing that they're, they're climbing the roof. So they, um, okay, I don't, I mean, I'm not saying I agree with this in Iraq, but I don't need body armor. I need to be light. I don't need this many magazines. I haven't shot that much. Um, but again, too, be careful what you wish for. We had, I had a sniper mind that I was telling him because he's climbing, he's climbing every building. And he's, you know, he's the first one out there, leading the patrol. And we're doing, you know, we realized that you don't need to land on the X. Land over here. We'll walk in. And when they figure that out, we'll take motorbikes. And then we'll walk in. Um, I had one sniper that I was saying, um, we had an argument at Six. I was a sniper at Two. But then I, I said, "I want to be an assaulter or a sniper at SEAL Team Six." And I said, "I wanna be an assaulter." My joke was, and again, joking, but not seeing the future, I said, "I know snipers are gonna kill more people, but I think assaulters are gonna kill more famous people."

"You said that?"

"Yeah. It's a joke. It's like the thing with my mom. We're not doing anything. Snipers will kill more people. Assaulters will kill more famous people."

"Damn. Talk about throwing some [ __ ] out into the universe."

"That's what I'm saying. So we had this one sniper. And he, he got to the point, I think, where he was carrying one mag of 5.56. He loved the 5.56 with the, with the, the 14-inch upper. And then one mag in a harness. And like, no water. Like that's his loadout. That's it. And I'm like, "Dude, I know we're, I, I know our plan is to only be here during one cycle of darkness, but you're gonna eventually, you're gonna want more bullets than that." And I think our last gunfight on that trip to, uh, to Iraq, he was, we were in a weird gunfight. And this snipes were up top. And he was blasting out. And he, my nickname was Nisro. Navy SEAL Rob O'Neill. Nisro. That's some of my friends at the bar. Could you, what up? Mine is Nisro. Uh, and he yelled, "Daddy goes, Nisro, I need a mag!" And I said, "No, dude, I told you to carry more bullets." And he literally goes, "Come on!" I can still hear him screaming. But, but we were, we were learning stuff like that. We learned you don't need to rush the first kill. The first kill that I ever got was in on that Iraq deployment. Is when we just decided, because we were still in between the NODs up or even look under him, white light, fast. We said, "We're gonna go slow. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna go in quiet. We're not gonna blow the door. We're gonna pick the lock." We figured out ways to break the glass quietly and open it and just go inside. Wake them up. You know, catch them when they're sleeping. See how many guys you can touch while they're sleeping. Well, we started having competitions. How many Al-Qaeda guys can you check for a suicide bomb and then wake him up by saying, and then watching a grown man [ __ ] his pants. That was one of the greatest things ever. But one of the nights we were going into this thing, we had a, we had a lane, a hallway. And like the first time we're trying this quiet. And we're walking in. This Al-Qaeda dude hops out. He's got an AK-47. He could have killed every single one of us. But he couldn't see us. So we hop back in the room. And now we, okay, there's [ __ ]. We had a guy with us, Andy, who is a Special Boat Service guy. In SBS, and Brits are the [ __ ] best. They're as funny or if not funnier than we are. But I compare them like, we're the normal keys. They're the sharp keys on the piano. Like, it sounds good, but it's a little off. Um, he had a cloud of death over him. The other Brits said, "You're going with Andy." He, he gets in fights like he just, it follows him. You will get, like, you're gonna get in a fight. And so Andy happened to be with us. And then one of our guys goes through, we clear the room. And one of our guys, his first kill, blast this guy, splits him wide open. And then we're kind of looking over there. And Andy, who's been in fights since the invasion, like, Andy, can you go check that guy? He walked over with a white light and goes, "Oh, he's [ __ ] mates."

So at this point now that they heard us shoot inside, um, we got the D-boys hitting another target. Our snipers are going hot. So, myself and, and one of my guys were like, "Let's, we got to get out and get into the ice." This is these are our first kills. This actually turned out to be the sniper who initiated the fire to rescue Captain Phillips and Smalley pirates. We got our first kills together. We went outside and we did this cross pan that we'd always been working on. Like, if you're on this side, you cover this way. He comes this way. And then you wave and move or whatever. So we're out here. These two dudes pop up like pepper poppers. So we get our first two kills. And I'm like, "[ __ ] I just killed that guy." And he goes, "Yeah, I just killed that guy." Go, "Okay, what do we do now?" And he goes, "Maybe we should try one of those bounding things." And then it kind of sinks in. And that's that another, you know, we finished that off. We killed a bunch of dudes. We got, that was our first major fight in Iraq where the tactics were using worked. But how did they adjust to us? How do we, we might need to readjust to this? And, and that was another thing where, um, now CO Team Six was getting and fighting, getting kills. And it was just sort of, "Okay, now I have my first kill. Now I'm part of the club. And this is it. I'm in." And then, you know, we finish Iraq and we learn stuff. And then we go back and we train. And then we keep talking to the other guys that are over there, learn new tactics, what's working, what's not working. Do you like, which barrel, which magnifier you're using with your optics? Um, um, we had to tell some Army guys like, "Look, that, that that laser, this thing, that pistol grip and all this is great in Iraq. When you get to 10,000 feet in Afghan, you're not gonna want that because weight is measured in ounces and ounces equal pounds and it's gonna suck. What do you need? You need a N-E-O-T-E-C and an iron sight. You're good. That's it." Um, so yeah, so that was Iraq. So we bounced from Afghanistan, Iraq, um, Afghanistan, Iraq. I was, um, I was part, my fourth deployment was, we call it the deployment that never was because we had, um, so the commander of SEAL Team Six just got us authorized. For some reason, we were not authorized to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. We were supposed to go only after Al-Qaeda. Really? Yeah. It was weird. It was, you know, and it's, I mean, it makes sense sort of. You want to just send the Tier One guys after the Tier One targets. But you know, we're getting bored. And there's a lot of fight in Kandahar. So that, so they authorized Team Six to start targeting Taliban. That's when Blue Team went in there and just [ __ ] crushed them. Gotten fights like epic [ __ ] that you can, I mean, there's books out there. MOB Six by Chef. That's [ __ ] amazing. I mean, he's just a [ __ ] stud. And, um, just, and so our group went. They wanted to all go to Afghanistan to include the headshed. So the bosses, the CEO of the whole team. And they're all there. And they sent like a troop of us, 15 news, to Iraq. And our boss, his name is Rich Davini. And I can say that because he's made himself public stud too. He was a guy that taught me, nobody ever worked for me, they were with me. And he agreed to work for Delta. Like a lot of arrogant team guys wouldn't want to work for them. He's like, "You know what? If we're gonna get work, it's gonna be for them." Because like it or not, the Army runs the show. So we started working for Delta. And it happened to be during the surge of the Awakening. When when, um, Stan Crystal, General, excuse me, McChrystal realized if we start killing Al-Qaeda, which are Sunnis that are hijacking Sunnis, we can get them to rise up and help us and we can win this war. And they did. Guys like, um, uh, Stan McChrystal, Bill McRaven, they were on the right track. And they were, you know, I would follow those guys to hell. But we started hitting those targets on basically kill missions, uh, every night. And we were to a point where with, if we only killed 11 dudes, it was a waste of our time. No [ __ ]. Yeah. It was insane. We're targeting, uh, Al-Qaeda in places where they've never seen guys like us. Like even in terror. We learn how to interrogate people. Like, you cocky Al-Qaeda guy. It's like, "I've seen Americans before." And you say, "Really? Do they look like me?" And they kind of look at your tattoos. I had a demon hunter patch, a beard. Like, "I'm not here by accident, my friend. I'm here for you." Like, "Just [ __ ] awesome [ __ ] psychological warfare." And we called it the deployment that never was because everyone's in Afghanistan from our crew and they're fighting. And they don't give a [ __ ] about us. So as long as we keep doing this, um, it's on. And that was, I mean, I think the Iraq War was completely [ __ ] up. But that was one of the best summers of my life. Because at the time, um, we were warriors. And that's where we're here to kill you. Yeah. And we [ __ ] them up. We, we, I, we didn't have one of our guys hurt. I don't know how many kills we got. But it was guys like Rich that were running the team. Like, like we would hit a target. And because of the intel on target, the battlefield interrogation, we would hit a follow-on target. So it's like, and so we would go over Rangers. And I love working with them because, you know, you got, they're obviously capable of doing all this. But they generally would put like a machine gunner and they're kind of blocking as we hit the point target. Once you hear the Rangers going hot, and you know, Rangers know like two things: ruck hump and [ __ ] kill. So they're just awesome guys. Obviously, they're better than that. I'm just, I love Rangers. Um, but once you hear them outside, they can hear the 240 going hot. It's like, "Okay, it's, it's a fight." So we would go from house to house. And I'm talking, we're getting, we're getting kills in every, every room. Um, and we're doing a quick, like, a quick brief to the boss. Like, "Okay, here we go. Hit this building right here." And I think, you know, I'm talking too fast. I talk fast. It is. And I.

Look at Rich and said, "All right, you know what, sir? I'm sorry, you're in charge." And he looked at me and said, "Oh, make no mistake, I'm not in charge, I'm responsible." And that's a great [ __ ] leader right there. Yeah.

And so we would do that. We had, we had missions where, um, so you were, hold on. So you were just, you'd go hit a house, you would do an interrogation, and then immediately from there, depending on what we found. But we generally found, we generally found the guy we're looking for in the first house, or someone that knew who was. There was, Jesus, there was one guy, and you've been to Iraq, how it's a [ __ ] up place too. We were going after a guy called, uh, like Mullah Muhammad One Arm, because he's a Mullah and he's got one arm. We grabbed a Mullah, pulled him back, his name was Muhammad One Arm, but he was missing the wrong arm. There was another one, we'd grab the wrong guy. Holy [ __ ].

Um, but we would do stuff like, uh, um, the way that it worked for us is, we, we started in Al Assad, out west, and we were hitting targets up into Syria, and then we cleared it to, you know, we got into Fallujah, got into Ramadi, got into Baghdad, north of Baghdad. And it's not just us, but we're working with the Army, with the Air Force, with the Marines, and, and we're getting [ __ ] done, and we're really winning this war. And, uh, like there were times too, what I love about special operators is they really know how to solve problems. They came to us with, um, there was a problem, um, north of Baghdad, I think it was called Bakuba, whatever. And it, but it was a peninsula, and it was a small peninsula. And, but there, it hadn't been touched since the invasion in '03. So this is 2007, this place hasn't been touched because there's 19 Al-Qaeda guys there, and they're IED makers, they're improvised explosive device makers. We haven't gotten to them because there's one road in, no one wants to drive that road, they're going to blow you up. We're not going to carpet bomb them because there are so many innocent civilians there. And I mean, you do have certain collateral damage, but we're not going to kill that many innocent people. Plus, they're getting bullied by Al-Qaeda, tortured. Like, we can't fast rope, they're going to shoot us down. So they came to us and they said, "Can you guys solve this problem?" And being Navy SEALs, we're like, "Well, yeah, it's gonna suck, uh, but we can swim in." And it's not a swim like a BUDS ocean swim, it's like a swampy, shitty, nasty, whatever. And, you know, there's water in Iraq, and people don't realize that, but we did. And we went in with, um, 17 SEALs and two dogs, two Malinois. And they're important to the story because we got in there, immediate gunfight, but we cleared 10 houses, we killed all 19 guys, didn't hurt one woman or child. Then we left, swam out. Uh, the next day, the locals woke up, and, you know, they're the usual terror reigned by these Al-Qaeda [ __ ]. But now there's no one, they're dead, they're gone. And they had a block party. So we have assets above, and they're watching this because you want to see who, you know, I'm not going to give away tactics, but you want to see what happens after, yeah, for follow-on. And there's this block party going on. The block party got so big, um, a reporter from Baghdad, went up there and interviewed the people in the houses that we had taken down, and asked who came last night. And the headline on the newspaper said, "They were ninjas, and they came with lions." No [ __ ]. Yeah. [ __ ] lions. How cool is that? That's pretty badass. Yes.

So, but that's what we did for that. We, um, we got, I mean, I mean, watching what I was, you know, just proud of my guys. That's when I realized that, that right now, and this is probably me just being arrogant right now, Red Team is the finest fighting force in the world. There's no one that does, I mean, obviously there are guys that do it like that, but I'm here, I see it now. This is my bubble. These, but I [ __ ] love these guys. Yeah. And I think that was the most combat that, that we'd ever seen. And that was that 2007 deployment to Iraq. Damn. How long are the deployments over there? Four months. Yeah. And you guys were just hitting it every night? Yep. Son of a [ __ ].

We were in places where, uh, we put up makeshift tents to sleep. Like, not, not like, but I mean, it's not secure. Like, there's, there's concertina wire, maybe in some Iraqi guards. Like, you're, you could be in it every, you know, but like, no internet, no TVs. Uh, the chow hall is a mile and a half away or whatever. And, uh, there's so, nothing to do. Like, I remember guys singing. I learned the Cincinnati Bengals fight song because I was sleeping in between two dudes from Cincinnati. Still know it.

Let's go into a little more detail. So you swam in? Yeah. Which, I mean, it's not so much even a swim, it's just a really shitty swamp where you're grabbing the dogs by the, by their, um, their handles and just inserting to, like, you get under palm groves and the big grapes with the huge rats running across it. Yeah. And, you know, the closer you get to target, the dogs are barking, they know you're coming. And then you get through, their snipers start climbing. And then, uh, once the snipers get up there, and you just, you hear them go hot. Um, it's just on. But I mean, it was, we were, we were good at it. So we're, we're moving quickly through houses. Um, I mean, not too, but like, we were killing dudes in, in, in houses, clearing one man, blast him, and then moved down the thing, and you're killing other dudes. Um, and at the time, it's cool. Yeah. You know, the further you get away from, from that, it's, you know, you start wondering what you're doing. Yeah. Does that bother you? Yeah. Yeah. There are certain guys I think about. Uh, there's, there's one guy in particular that I think about that I killed. Uh, he was the second guy I killed in this house. I entered the house, killed the guy in the front. I went into a bedroom, I did a one-man entry because I'm an idiot. And there was a guy that was, um, in bed with his wife. And he, I gave him the courtesy of, "Calm down, you know, you're waking up. Just, you know, obviously a guy with a green face is in your room, and it's scary. Calm down." And there's a [ __ ] AK-47 next to him. Like, "Come on, don't do that." He went for it. I blasted him, killed him. And, uh, and then his wife sees it. So I just shot this guy next to his wife. And, um, you start to wonder, like, now, the only reason I shot that guy is because I am in his house. And we were born on two separate parts of the planet. Yeah. And I don't know, I don't know him. And then he's, I mean, the further you get away from it, it's like, um, what if we had met somewhere else? Like, in, in a coffee shop in France? Would we have shared a joke? Was he funny? Didn't matter. Damn. Yeah. If I, I think I found, the further you get away from war, the more it starts to sink in. Um, that a lot of guys are killing each other because a lot of narcissists that are in charge have you do it. Do you think? I, I often wonder that too. What would we have got along? Or I don't, it's crazy. I feel like I would have liked half of those people, probably more than, more than the people that I'm around. You probably have a lot more in common. Yeah. It's crazy, isn't it? Yeah. It is [ __ ] crazy. It's insane to think about it. I mean, because the, the, um, the humanity of it. People don't realize the, the humanity that, uh, um, this, I mean, this is, uh, people in, there's these are dudes in their house with their families. Okay, he's going for a gun, he's got a gun, he's aiming at me. Now, is he protecting his family? And that's not, is he, is he a carpenter? He needs an AK because he lives in [ __ ] Ramadi. Oh, and again, it's be, I think it's just because, uh, one thing I started with, the more senior that I got, one thing that I disagreed with was, uh, um, patrol to contact and strike to develop. It's like, look, man, you're gonna go to a house and and find someone with a gun and kill him because you went to it. You're in his house. I, I mean, I remember, um, one of the things that, where I started to not turn, but like say no more, um, was I went into the wrong house. And I'm on, I was in a swamp, and I, I was walking across this white carpet. And these, only two people in the house were a woman and her ten-year-old daughter. And I looked down at their white carpet and I remember thinking, "I understand why they hate us. Imagine someone doing that here." You know? Yeah. So, I mean, it's the shitty thing is, you get, you get a lot. The more time you get to think about it, the more you think about it. And you start to realize, like, it's, it's, it's a, it's a big planet. It's a small world. And, you know, it's just a couple people sending us. I mean, he believed in his cause, I believe in my cause. That's, yeah, that's where I was gonna go too. Is it's, you're, I mean, I don't know what the percentage of people that actually stand up for what they believe in. But I thought it was a lot better, a lot bigger until, until 2020 came around. And then I realized, man, the majority of these [ __ ] people are just sheep that would just do whatever they're doing, whatever they're [ __ ] told. And they turn it, they, they turn it political. Yeah. And more, and, and, and, and we're going up against the, the, whatever percent, let's just call it the top one percent that actually stands up for what they believe in. And it's just on the other side of the world. And they just believe something different than what we, that's what they just, and they believe it. And, uh, they just believe in their cause. I mean, yes, they're the bad guys to us, but we're also the bad guys to them. Yeah. I mean, they attack us because we're the Great Satan. Yeah. And they, and I, you know, I tell, I, I like think about the crazy aunt you have at, um, Thanksgiving dinner that is so religious that she knows everything. They're just like her. They just believe something else. Yeah. I mean, the more, the more deep you get, it's so frustrating. Yeah. Because you start to wonder who's calling the shots. But I mean, that's, that's what we did. Like I said, at the time, 27, 30 year old, 32 year old [ __ ], bring it, I'll fight anybody here. And then you start to to question. I mean, I, I've had guys say, "Do you think, you know, are we, are we going to get past this? Like, are we going to be good, like, with life?" So, and, you know, that's, you know, and the P, I think the PTSD comes, it comes with it. And that's real. Yeah. It's unfortunate. And a lot of guys, um, and a lot of men and women went through a lot of [ __ ] because some politician told them they had to. You're absolutely right. That's, I think that's a, why they recruit them young too. That's crazy. But even, even now, thinking about Iraq, I can just, I can sometimes sit there and think, "So, Iraq, the [ __ ] was that all about?" I think about that too. I think it was all Halliburton. It was Hollywood. Someone's getting paid. Someone's getting paid for the anthrax vaccinations, smallpox, all the, all the vehicles that we left, the [ __ ] we brought over, every single round, all the body armor. Someone's getting paid for. Oh, that's a big contract somewhere. Yeah. Well, I mean, Halliburton did what they were, oh, yeah. They were everything. They were, they were the carpenters, they were the chefs, they were the trash people, they were the fuel people, they were, they were the cleaning crew. They were everything. Every aspect of life in Iraq that was on an American base was held together by Halliburton, who was tied to Cheney. Yeah. You know? So, but, but anyways, moving on. Yeah. Moving on.

So, so where did you go after Iraq? So we did Afghanistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq. And then I did, the rest was Afghanistan. I'm trying to think of which ones I went to where we sent a small team. And so then it reversed. Um, the majority went to Iraq because they got the debriefs on what we were doing. Now, the fighting center, actually, they sent a small group of us up to Bagram. And I'm talking a small group, um, eight guys. And we were just, um, we had the ability to augment other groups. Um, and we would, like, if we went out on hits, which were rare. We got, we did find some IED guys, we did get some shootout, uh, shootouts there. Um, winter time, Afghanistan. So not a lot to do. We, um, got to know each other really well. We, you know, held training, reaching charges, how to get better at stuff, working out. A lot of, um, MMA stuff, which is a pain in the ass when you, when you're sparring with guys that are bored, that know how to fight. Yeah, because they just want to get after it. Um, you know, a couple things here and there. We, um, uh, wasn't very exciting, but we kind of did that. I'm trying to think of the other ones. Um, well, let's talk about the Alabama. Okay. So that, so that was in 2009. And, um, we were sort of aware of, um, the Maersk Alabama getting hit by Somali pirates, but we didn't know what was going to happen. And I was actually, so we're stateside, and we were, we were the national mission force for it, for something like that that would happen. I happened to be at my daughter's Easter tea party at her preschool on my birthday. It was Good Friday, April 10, 2009. So it was an Easter tea party. And we were just giving the kids treats. I had a pink plate in my hand, I'm giving her cookies and cupcakes. And, um, we got the call. Um, Captain Phillips. They gave, they sent us a code that we knew what it was. And basically what they're saying is, "Okay, he got captured. You go and get him right now. So your [ __ ] had better be ready. You have a certain amount of time to get in there and a certain amount of time to take off." And we had been, SEAL Team Six was designed to do this, to rescue American hostages at sea. It had never been done. Not one time. It was [ __ ] like this. The first one, one in eight years, it had never been done. And we had been selling that we can take, I don't want to give away the timeline, but we can take off in a certain amount of hours. And we had the commanding officer of SEAL Team Six on my bird. And we took off at, you know, 59 minutes to, you know, whatever. 59. Like, I could see that. Okay, we did it. And certainly now we're taking, now we're flying. And, um, in that amount of time, we, not just me, but we as SEAL Team Six, had thought of everything. Every imaginable at-sea rescue, uh, a nuclear problem, a yacht, whatever. We had never thought of a, a lifeboat, a fully enclosed orange lifeboat being towed by a Navy destroyer. No one thought of that for some reason. So we, okay, we're like, "Well, we have, um, we have 15 hours to come up with something." So everybody, I don't, the newest goddamn guy on this plane, think of something. Ram it with one of our birds, more boats, or heal. Think of something. And we're going to list all of them, and then we're going to start crossing them off, and we'll take the top five. Then from there, we'll get to the best one. And, um, we, we did not go over there to kill those pirates. We, we went there to get Richard Phillips. Like, we're just gonna, we, if we can, we'll just negotiate. I mean, we didn't, you know, they're already negotiating. They didn't send an entire squadron negotiating. We're, plus, we, you know, we've been killing people all over the world. So we, but we didn't, we put the snipers down when we got there to, um, watch them, make sure nothing unsafe happens as we're preparing for the rescue. And as we were preparing for the rescue, something very unsafe. And they shot. That's, that's how it happened. There was, there was no three, two, one, execute. It was just boom, boom. So it was all just bam. Someone shot me. Read off each other. Like, the plan that I thought was gonna work, that we came up with was, uh, and I thought this was brilliant. This is why I was actually getting coffee in the Chief's mess, because we're going to do this plan was, uh, yeah, I didn't do [ __ ] on that [ __ ] thing. Hold on. You didn't. That was that was off camera. So you were getting coffee? I was, I had just made Chief. And I was so happy to be in the Chief's mess on a Navy ship that, I mean, they're bullshitting with like the bosses made Chief, but we're talking about, uh, who the Redskins gonna draft or some [ __ ] or they just, whatever. And the snipers took the shot. The plan that we came up with, meaning me and my team leader, was these are not terrorists. These are criminals. And now they're scared and they're seasick, which they don't like. And they're out of cot, the drug they take. Yeah. All we got to do is bring them some water and some radios, get them some radios to the village elders, let them talk and tell them we're going to bring them in. They just want to go home now. Now we get them close, you know, the sun comes down, jam the comms, pull them a couple clicks up, and my team will be on the beach. And once they get off, we'll handle it. We either, hey, we're friends, beat it, or we shoot him. And then we take him. So that's, that's the plan that I thought was gonna work. So I'm talking football with BMC. And, uh, we got a message that someone said, "Yeah, we got him." And I was like, "Got who?" "Dude, we got him. But we got Captain Phillips." Like, "Holy [ __ ], good you guys are awesome." Yeah, they got him. And, and, uh, yeah, they took the shots. Um, I think one of the coolest stories that doesn't get enough credit is, is, uh, you know, the slide for life, the obstacle we have at BUDS. Yeah. Where you climb up and you slide down a rope. And like the Marines have it, Army has it. I remember seeing that thinking, "The [ __ ] is the use of this? No one is ever gonna need to know how to do this." One guy needed to do it one time. And it was after they shot, that sniper needed to go down and pull Phillips out. I'll tell you a story now. This is not my story, it's just a good story. So I'm assuming it happened this way. The sniper said, um, and he's probably full of [ __ ], but he said, um, when he was going in there, he had to go to his pistol. And he did carry a pistol, thank God. And he said, "But I'm going into the small space. And this is the only time in my life that I get to rescue someone. So I got to think of something cool to say, right?" Do I say, "We're a SEAL team?" And he said, he went in there, and they've been using this entire boat as a toilet for like four days, and it's in the African heat. And now there's three dudes laying in it, and their heads are split open. And he said that he kind of thinks something cool to say. He looks at Richard Phillips and said, "I'm definitely gonna need therapy after this [ __ ]." That's what I say. I need therapy. Holy [ __ ]. But I mean, the thing about that though, was, um, from Virginia Beach, 15 hours and 46 minutes later, we had a full headcount in the Indian Ocean. We rescued Richard Phillips on Easter Sunday. The thing that people don't think about is, I mentioned we hadn't done that in 28 years. So imagine this, those snipers were in their own beds in Virginia Beach four days before that on a long weekend. Um, it's a long weekend. We've never done this. I'm gonna skip work and I'll sign in my gun on Tuesday. You know, their guns did not need to be sighted in for the most difficult shots of their lives, but their guns were sighted in for the most difficult shots in their lives because they were prepared. Well, crazy. Those snipers are just complete badasses. How many snipers were there? I, one. I mean, we, we jumped in with 103 people. Like, this is the only, everyone just jumped in with 103. I think. Yeah, I think we had 98 canopies, five tandems, or some [ __ ]. Um, yeah, I mean, everybody, every swing and dick that was in Virginia Beach was going on this mission. Um, and just because everybody wanted to go, everybody wanted to be on the op. This is a real jump. Yeah. The first one. Um, I want to say, I mean, you brought 108 people. We had dudes, I swear to God, for riding desks that were like, "Yep, I have a Trident. I haven't operated 12 years, but I'm jumping. I can still remember this stuff." Um, we had dudes, um, their first, that was their first jump. They were tandem in, um, con guys. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, I mean, there's, there's a sniper team there. But I, I, there was three. I want to say the shot. [ __ ] I thought it was like five or six of you guys. I didn't realize you brought everybody. There was, there was dudes, there was dudes there before us, um, from, uh, from a more advanced squadron that I'm not gonna get into. They were sort of there, but then they, you know, we, they were already overseas. They, they brought us in from Virginia Beach. Okay. And those, I mean, the snipers, that's just, I think this is cool. Yeah. So was it three simultaneous? You know what? I don't think so. But that's what the debrief said. All right. I wasn't there. I was, I mean, I wasn't there. Yeah. But they, I know they got them. Well, it's cool that you're a part of it. Yeah. Yeah. It's actually pretty [ __ ] funny. You're in the Chief's mess, [ __ ] in Belfast. I think it's awesome because if people say, um, you know, "You're telling stories that aren't true." It's like, "No, I really wasn't the Chief's man." Like, "What do you mean?" Holy [ __ ].

So, but yeah, then that was that. And, um, so now that's the pinnacle. We've done the hostage rescue. We've been in the gunfights. We've done this. And then, um, we're going to go, I'm going to go to Afghanistan again. And this time, so I'd been at an outstation, I'd been on the strike teams, I'd run the outstations. Now I'm the senior enlisted, um, running all of them. I'm the senior enlisted for all the outstations. And my job simply now is to work with the agency, get intel from these different places, try to frank, um, um, cross-border operations again. Um, and so at this point, Osama bin Laden is a ghost. And I'm not, he's not even on my [ __ ] radar. Oh, I, I was at the point, just being at SEAL Team Six, I was, I remember thinking, "I hope I get to meet the guy from Delta that kills bin Laden." That's, I, this is as close as this is. Awesome. I hope I meet him. So like, one of the big, we did a, um, we, the biggest thing we did on this one was we found an Al-Qaeda guy, Abu Iklaus al-Masri, or some [ __ ] like that, who was the tier one target in Korringa. And we did a snatch and grab on a, on a highway and got him. Um, this other strike team, we're doing, we're doing stuff. One, one of the newer guys, first deployment with Red Team, actually got six kills at once with a SAW, which I thought, like, that's, that's pretty cool. Yeah. But we're watching this. And then, but it's so, this is, uh, this is, um, uh, January of 2011. And that's all we're doing. And, you know, trying to develop [ __ ]. But I'm more planning, uh, training trips before when we get back, making sure the guys on my team are running their trips the right way, where we're going to go. And we planned, uh, the first, um, trip back for my team, my troop, actually, was to go to Miami to dive. Or because our biggest concern is more piracy. The pirates have been adjusting to what we're doing. They had mother ships. Can we do open water dives on a ship that's not a ship that is anchored? How do we find it? What can we do? And we're just coming up with [ __ ]. But we're done with deployment. And we're also in South Beach. So I want guys to have fun. We're going to train, but then we're going to go to happy hour. You know, hang out on the beach, have some drinks. And we're going to train tomorrow. And, um, we were down there. We're staying at the Courtyard Marriott near South Beach. And we're outside. Well, before we went on this trip, our boss, the, the commanding officer, Red Squadron, was coming on the trip. And we're kind of like, "That's a drag because we can't have as much fun with the CO there." But he got pulled. They're like, "Yeah, you've got to go to DC for something." So we're good. We didn't know why the CO and the Master Chief went to DC. But we're down there. And then my boss got a call, uh, my, my troop commander. And he said, "Hey, um, we gotta go. We gotta go back to Virginia Beach. So pack your ship as soon as you can. We're gonna get the first flights out of here." Look what the hell. All right. What's going on? What the [ __ ]? I don't know. So we flew back, um, to Virginia Beach. And they brought 28 of us into a room. Now we've got guys on different trips that got pulled in, senior guys from like, there was a rock climbing trip in Nevada, but they got the senior guys got called in. And then other guys came in from Arizona. And we're here. And other dudes are junior guys at SEAL Team Six are there, but they're not into this secret room. And they, they said, uh, "All right, you guys are here because this is not a drill. This is real. We found a thing. And this thing is in a house. And this house is in a bowl. And this bowl is in a country. And you guys are gonna, you're gonna go get this thing. And you're gonna bring it back to us and show it to us." And we're like, "Okay, no sweat." First, we're wondering why. Asked, but okay. Well, what's the thing? Well, we can't, can't tell you. Okay. Well, uh, how are we getting there? Can't tell you. What country is this? We can't tell you. How are we getting there? Can't tell you. How much air support? None. Like, all right, that's an answer. No air support. So let me know. And they said, "Also, we, we're not, we're only bringing shooters. Only SEALs are going on this." Um, so we can't bring our kick-ass Air Force CCT, the radio guys. We can't bring the PJs, who are paramedics or [ __ ] medics. So if you know any medical [ __ ], you bring some medical [ __ ]. If you know how to use radio, you're the radio guy. And, uh, keep it light because we only have a certain. So we're like, "What the [ __ ] is going on?" And so we would walk around, we're trying to get our [ __ ] ready. We, we knew there would be two, two birds. That's all we knew. We assumed it would be Ospreys off of a flattop going into Libya, because the Arab Spring had just started. And they're, we're going to go get Gaddafi. And they want to enter or interrogate him. So we're going to get him. It's got to be that. But we're walking down, we're in the new building where the, all the cages are together on the bottom. And we're running into guys from other squads. And they're like, "Hey man, what, we heard something's going on. What's going on?" And we're literally like, "I have no [ __ ] idea." And they, they got mad at us because they thought we were lying to them. It's like, "I, I, and we'd run into them when we'd go out at night." Like, "Guys, I don't know what we're doing, but we're getting our [ __ ] ready." This went on until Friday. And, um, they said, "Okay, everyone go home, be with your kids. And you're coming back on Sunday. And we're going to drive you somewhere and we're going to read you in on what this is." And we're like, "Okay, what's, who's going to be there at the read-in?" And the tired bosses were like, "Oh, probably the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Navy." And we're like, "Oh my God." And then they're going down the list. They said, "Something, blah, blah, blah. They said CTC, PAD, blah, blah, blah." They're going down the list. I'm like, "See, CTC, PAD. That's CIA Counter-Terrorism, Pakistan, Afghanistan. If we're going to Libya." And I didn't say anything. But, you know, we went home, hung out with the kids. We came back on Sunday. And they split us up into vans. We had four guys in my van. Got my buddy driving, my other buddy up front, my troop commander, my boss is right here. And then I'm sitting here. And I explained to that on the drive down, we're going somewhere in North Carolina. And I explained to them exactly what I just said here. And I said, um, "This isn't Gaddafi. They found bin Laden." And my boss looked at me. And there was no chairs. He goes, "That's exactly what I was thinking." So we just start talking about this. And, um, my buddy driving in the van, I'll never forget the way he looked at me in the mirror. And he said, "Man, O'Neil, if we kill Osama bin Laden, I will suck yo dick." And we had to laugh about it. Then, um, you know, fast forwarding, obviously three weeks to the day, we're looking down at bin Laden in his house. And I said, "Well, now's a good time as any, I guess." He's like, "Oh, [ __ ] you." And I'm like, "Your bet." But, but we got down there. And, um, they, they put us all into a room. And, um, the commanding officer of SEAL Team Six. So each squadron had a commanding officer, but Six was like a group. So that commander, that CO came in. And I'll never forget the way he said, "The reason you guys are here is this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden." And I mean, it sinks in. But there's, you know, we're professionals. And we're like, "Okay, are we going right now? We, I mean, we're ready." And they, they explained to us, they brought in the agency team, which is mostly women. And explained to us, if they went into such depth of how they found him in these long briefs. We're all almost like, "Look, it, we believe you. I don't need to know this [ __ ]. Just, you tell me where he is. I'll carry the gun in the sledgehammer." And, um, they, you know, they were very cool the way they talked to us. And, and then they had a, they told us that the President had, he had about five options to get him. And they said, you know, obviously, um, carpet bomb the [ __ ] out of it. Hit. And I think the Air Force wanted like 22 JDAMs to make sure. And it's like, "All right, holy [ __ ], you're gonna kill everyone around." Yeah. So that's a, I mean, we'll never know if we got him. There was something of a, they called him the pacer. They could see him walking outside. We can hit him with one bomb. But I mean, we know how that works. You [ __ ] up that one, you, you'll never find him again. They, we actually laughed at this one. They said, "We can do a joint op with the Pakistanis." And it was like, "Oh, yeah. Tell them about it." Yeah. He's [ __ ] out of there. Um, or you're an option. And then you guys can figure out a way. And so, you know, we're thinking everything. Jumping in? No. Can't do this. And whatever. And, um, but, and, and even the, the President didn't know about the, I guess that the Chief of Staff of the Air Force said, "Well, there is one more option." And he told him about the helicopters that no one knew about. And so then we just started training. And that, that was an option. So we trained there. It wasn't to, uh, it was, you know, obviously to get to know the, the exterior. But don't tell me about the interior. I'll figure that out when I get there. Don't, don't tell me there's seven men and 10 women and 16 children. You tell me how many people you think are there, and I'll figure out what they are when I get there, type [ __ ]. And we're just kind of coming up with contingency plans. We wanted to prove to them, the powers that be, that we are a good option, that we know what we're doing. And he even got to the point where, uh, President Obama said, "I was never 100% convinced bin Laden was there, but I was convinced you guys could go in and find out and come home." And so we trained on that. And we tried to think of contingencies, trying to brainstorm everything. Uh, you know, "What if the cars leave? What if we get squirters? Who's doing what coming up this?" And, and then we would go back to the hotel or whatever we're staying at. And somebody at the CIA had made a two-scale model of bin Laden's house. I'm talking to the, oh [ __ ]. And so we're talking about it. Um, just, and we're, you know, we're training 12-hour days and talking about it every night, then doing it over helos. Fast rope so much. I, I have severe, uh, tendinitis still from just grabbing that damn rope. Almost to the point like, "Can we just simulate? We fast rope. I know how to do it. I can fall." Yeah. But one night, um, one of the bosses said, "All right, what's the worst thing that could happen?" And the youngest guy in the room said, "The helicopter could crash in the front yard." And we're like, "What the [ __ ]? Why would you bring that karma here?" Yeah. And he goes, "I don't know. Shouldn't we talk about that for 30 seconds?" So we did that. And then we went out west to a, a certain place. And I, we were even to a point where, uh, like, I'm, I'm known for morale. I want to keep morale high, crack jokes, have fun. But guys were joking, uh, around the table one night. I said, "You guys realize this is a one-way mission. You should take this a little bit more seriously. We're not coming back from this one." And then, yeah, they're like, "Yeah, yeah, [ __ ]." And so we get out there though. And they brought us into the, the, you can, the movie Zero Dark Thirty kind of plays it right where the, the SEALs walk in. They see those helicopters. And I remember I started laughing. And they're like, "What's so, what's so funny now?" And I said, "Well, before, I thought there was a 90% chance we're gonna die. But I didn't know they were sending us, uh, in on Transformers." And that was kind of it's like, "Well, these, I mean, and these things, someone designed it." Um, the pilots that came out, they gave us the four best pilots in the world, Army pilots. They had never flown these things. And they, we trained on those for four days. And then, um, then we, uh, went one more time home to see our kids. And then we forward stage to Jalalabad. Because if they, if President Obama gives us the green light, um, we want to be right there. So. And, you know, you still can't. And the reason they picked us is because, um, we had a team already in Afghanistan. We had the National Mission Force, which is for a contingency. But if, if that team in Afghanistan stopped working and just started training, someone might notice. If the National Mission Force leaves, someone might notice. This squadron is supposed to be leaving. No one's going to care. That was us. So it's better to be lucky than good. So we went over there. There was a squadron over there. And we came in to do the bin Laden raid. And they knew it. Can you imagine? And they, I'll tell you what, I cannot say enough good about them. I would have been, [ __ ] you guys, we're SEAL Team Six, and we're, and you guys come to do it. They could not have been more welcome, welcoming to us. You know, I mean, they were pissed, but they, they were complete pros. Wow. And, um, and then we waited there. Uh, we would play poker with those guys. And they said, "We actually weren't fun to play poker with because like, [ __ ], I'm all in too. I'm gonna die tomorrow." Just, you know, dark humor. Um, but then we did, we did get the green light. Um, and we're gonna launch. We have Saturday or Sunday to launch because that's our, um, 48 hours of zero percent illumination. And if we miss that window, though, we got to wait 30 days. We're going in zero percent. And we got lucky because the rumor was that bin Laden was, was going to leave on September 11th of that year to a new place. That's the rumor. It could be false, but that's what I heard. Um, so we got the green light. We didn't launch on Saturday because of the Correspondents' Dinner. And we figured if, if, um, the entire cabinet and the President in a room with the entire press corps, and they all get up and leave, the press goes like, "Huh? What's that all about?" Yeah. And I guess even Hillary Clinton was like, "Wait, we're not launching on Saturday because of [ __ ] those guys? We launch." Yeah. Which I, I mean, Hillary Clinton, you know, I never vote for her, but I take her in a foxhole. But then, yeah, we did on, so we did on Sunday. We're gonna go Sunday. And it's, it's, uh, it's 100%, we're going. And we went to, um, we went into a hangar to get the final brief. We're going over everything that we're gonna do. And, and we, I mean, we're good. We know the exterior. We know who's supposedly there. We talked to the intel analysts. They're with us still in, in JBAD. Um, uh, Admiral Bill McRaven, he, he's given us the last speech. And he said, you know, "Guys, last night, I watched my favorite movie, Hoosiers. And the best part of that movie is when this team from Hickory, Indiana makes it to the state championship. And they walk into this gym, and it's an arena, and they're starstruck. And they're just looking around. And coach had, um, one of the guys grab a tape measure and say, 'What's the distance from the back of the rim to the free throw line?' He said, 'It's 15 feet.' Coach, all right, get on his shoulders. Gets on the shoulder. 'What's the distance from the hoop to the floor?' And he said, '10 feet.' Coach. And he goes, 'I'm sure you'll find these are the exact measurements in your gym in Hickory. This is just a bigger arena.' And he goes, 'You guys do this every night. This is just a bigger arena.'" And then we were leaving. I remember we went, assuming said, "Hey, Admiral, you're so [ __ ] busy, I doubt you watched Hoosiers last night, but you were born to give us that speech right now." Yeah. And so then we left. We took a team picture. And then, uh, we had our gear on. And like, you know, said, uh, said goodbye to the guys that were there. And we, we actually, um, you know, we're going with, uh, the, the shooters to the first two birds. And it's, you know, instead of, uh, instead of like giving them a fist pound, it's giving you guys hugs. And it's like, "I see you see on the ground." And, and then, you know, we left. Do your last thing, take a piss or what? Like, one of my concerns was, how are we going to pee, um, on the way? I don't want to get out and have to pee. Like, and they actually, someone came up with these little, I don't know what they have now, they're probably common, those little diapers you unfold, you can pee in them. But I, I actually, I don't even trust these things. I'm peeing in a bottle. And I'll throw up. I actually kept the damn bottle of piss on my pocket the whole mission. I forgot about it. I mean, to the point where we were, um, we were, um, we were, um, we were given access to everything. Like, didn't even need to be approved for use yet. The, if it works, uh, you can have it. And we, uh, but we're now, we're measuring, like, we're trying to cut guys off for like, "You're too heavy. These two guys don't carry that." Because certain pounds of fuel to get there, because we don't have refusal. It wasn't that calculated. We were trying to keep it to to that 32 minutes on the ground. We had a dude come in this, I don't remember what the hell he was trying to sell us. But he said, "Here's this box that, uh, it jams everything. Like it jams cell, but like it can, it can jam landlines, jams this [ __ ]. And it weighs, and it's like the, uh, um, kilometer radius." Wow. And one of the guys goes, "Has it been tested in a helicopter?" And he goes, "No." And he goes, "I have a better idea. Can you invent something that's only 30 pounds? Uh, it's the radius of this room. And it jams bad ideas." Anyway. So, so we went out there and we got in the birds. Um, and then we took off. And we left. And we had, um, we had a 90-minute flight into into his house. Now, we actually had, we had more birds behind us. There was actually, uh, blue team guys in 47, the Chinooks behind us, 45 minutes. And then there was more on the border with Rangers. And then there was more. Oh, wow. Because the word I got, I wasn't there, and this is some South Side Chicago [ __ ] politics, was when they told, um, President Obama our plan that like, "Yeah, they're gonna get here. The first, if they get contact with the PAC Miller, the PAC police, we're gonna hardpoint. We don't want to get in a shootout with them because they're not our enemy. And then you can send someone to negotiate with the Pakistanis and pull them out." And he goes, "That's interesting." And then he looked at the Chief of Staff of the Air Force and said, "What do you need to reign hell on Pakistan? My guys aren't [ __ ] surrendering to anybody. No [ __ ]." That's what I heard. And that's pretty cool. And that was, so this is a mission now where politics is out the window. And then you got to figure, President Obama, he's gonna lose re-election if we all die. And that, not that that matters, but does to him. Yeah. But he's making the [ __ ] call because this is what we're gonna do. So, um, so we have birds behind us. Like, if we need to get, um, if we need a QR, an IRF, and a QRF, we got our guys coming in.

And we're [ __ ] we're fighting and we, I know we have [ __ ] above us, but they didn't really tell us because we got enough on our plate. Like, I'm assuming someone that's invisible has some bombs up there. So we're flying in 90 minutes to get into Bin Laden's house and, um, um, we can get shot down now at any time. We don't know if this technology works. We don't know if the, the most high-speed Pakistani new guy is manning the radar system pointing that way and they'll shoot us down. And we can't even even be mad at him because we're invading. Yeah, but worrying about that missile isn't going to stop it. So if you're worrying about something that it doesn't stop worrying, you're wasting your energy. If we die, we die.

And so I'm looking around at other guys in this bird, how are they handling it? And, dude, you're sleeping. And I remember thinking, you were asleep on the ride to Bin Laden's house. You have ice in your veins, man. That's just [ __ ] insane. Uh, and I'm, I'm sitting next to Cairo, the dog. And then she's, he wrote the book, "No Ordinary Dog." Uh, they're back there and Cairo is just, you know, being a good boy. And, uh, I was counting to keep, I learned in Kosovo as a sniper to count when you're, when you've got, when you're glassing something and just count zero to a thousand, thousand to zero, and then change your cadence, keep your mind working, but keep focused. And, um, you know, we're about, we're like 90 minutes in or 80 minutes into a 90-minute flight. We bank to the, to the south. And I don't know how I remembered it, but I, I was counting, "556, 557."

"Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended." You know, you know politics, whatever. That's what George Bush said at 9/11. And I was like, [ __ ], I'm going to keep saying that. And then it's like, wow, we're, I'm on this mission. We're on this mission. We're going to [ __ ] kill him. So we, we did another bank. And then, uh, the air crew guys opened the door. And now we're looking out. It's not even, and that's something they don't get credit for, the air crew guys. They put their asses in those seats too. If we get shot down, they're dying as well. And their job was to keep the bird flying and open the [ __ ] door. What if we couldn't figure out how to open the door? Something that simple. You know how to do it. He opens it up. Now, it's, it's about, about Pakistan is a resort town and there's electricity. This is not a training area. This is not Afghanistan. This is some serious Navy SEAL [ __ ] we're about to do.

So the perfect plan was, I was in the second bird. The first bird is going to go right in between Bin Laden's house and the, and the, um, guest house. They're going to fast rope everyone out. We're going to insert a sniper, um, some snipers, a dog, an interpreter, a machine gun. Then my team's going to go to the roof. We're going to fast rope down onto the roof. And then we're going to figure out how to get to the balcony. And basically, that's, I'm gonna [ __ ] jump and I'm gonna shoot it out. There's probably a window there. Bin Laden's in the, the woman told me, third floor, Bin Laden is in this house. And that's what's gonna happen. And then it went to [ __ ] because I guess there was an updraft. There was the weather was different or something. And the, the pilot realized that if he, um, if an inexperienced pilot would have tried to power it up, and that would have flipped it or something. He explained that later. He said the safest thing now, if I can, if I can pin it to the ground and that put the tail on the, on the fence, we could live. So he did that and he saved everyone's lives just making that decision. Yeah, and it was on purpose.

Um, and then our, so we took off to go to the roof. But our pilot, now the communications is kind of sketch here. Um, our pilot saw him do that and he realized that [ __ ], if he can't hover, I'm not trying up there. So he just went back down. So all we know is we went up and we came down. And the pilot's basically saying, "Get out." And I remember putting my, my first foot came out. I'm looking at Bin Laden's house. And I remember thinking, [ __ ], I guess we'll start the war from here. And I knew damn well there's a, um, there's a wall. Just because we train so much, there's a door on the wall, northeast corner, which is off to my left. And so the breacher decided to go up and put a seven-foot charge of C4 on it. So we're, so now because we're hitting this side, they're somewhere in there. I think we're going to go into the house this way and we can just, we can go up with them. He blasted the door. It opened like a tin can. And there's a brick wall behind it. So on the wall, there's a wall. And the breacher said, "All right, failed breach. This is, this is bad." He said, "No, this is good. That that's a, that's a fake door. Nobody does that." He's, he's in there. So then we know there's another door over here, which is the carport, which we know opens because the cars go in and out. And we didn't know what hap, we heard them saying, "Dash one going around." But what they were saying was, "Dash one going down." So we just gave him a courtesy, "Hey, we're gonna blast the carport." And they said, "Don't blast it. We'll open it." And the door opened. And the thumb came out with a glove that I recognized. And that now we're to a point in life where it doesn't matter why you're here, you just are. Yeah, I tell football teams that all the time. It doesn't matter why. It's second and fifteen. It just is. Time's kicking. Let's move.

So we walk in. Um, it didn't make sense to me why they're in there. I saw the air crew standing there. I saw American flags, but different, um, you know, different gear. I remember thinking, "Who the [ __ ] are these guys?" Whatever. And so there's already gunfight, stuff's going on, uh, explosions. We go into the main house. There's guys going down the hallway. This first floor of Bin Laden's house. And we're backed into this, uh, into this room. And I'm like, looking around for bombs. Like they're gonna blow this house up. If anyone's gonna martyr himself, it's Bin Laden. I don't see any. But I'm seeing guys knowing that they could blow up, but they're not. It's not affecting them. They're doing their jobs. And being proud of them. Like, this is just, you guys are [ __ ] cool. And, uh, the guy next to me in the room, he whispered, he said, "Helicopter crashed." And I said, "What helicopter?" And I thought some of the birds behind us had crashed. But he said, "Bro, our helicopter crashed in the front yard. You walked right past it." Holy [ __ ]. That's like, okay, that that makes that makes sense.

Let's take a break. Let's take a break. So I'm watching guys do their jobs, even though we are in, this is an extremely high, high threat situation. Um, and dudes are dealing with problems. But what I remember seeing, you know, they just, the guy just told me the helicopter crashed. I'm like, "What helicopter crashed?" And I thought, uh, one of the other helos had been shot down. And he goes, "Bro, our helicopter crashed in the front yard. Like, you walked right past it." And I remember sort of trying to justify my, I'm like, "Well, I must have been looking this way because that's Bin Laden's house." But I'm watching dudes run from different rooms to grab kids that have been separated from their families to bring them back to their family. So those kids would would not be as afraid as they are right now. And, and I remember thinking, you know, being proud of the guys, but then thinking, "That is what the good guys do." Yeah, Al Qaeda is not doing that. When they come to our house, no, you're going to shoot it out. They're going to cut people's heads off. We do that because we're the good guys. And I'm sure you've seen it in combat. Yeah.

But now we're in, we're on the first floor. And then they've reached the second, to the second floor. The woman that found Bin Laden said, "I don't know what it looks like inside, but there will be a stairwell going to the second floor. And you will run into Khalid Bin Laden." And he's 20 years old. That's Bin Laden's son. And that is his last line of defense. He will be armed on the stairwell. And she was so badass. She said, "Here's the way she put it. If you can ace him, you get a shot at the big guy." And that's just, that's a cool brief right there for a badass, you know. Um, so she was right. And it turns out, um, she was a hundred percent right on every single person in and out of that house. Oh, she nailed it.

But when we get to the stairwell and it comes up, it comes back. So the stairs go this way. There's a little area. And then it comes this way. And Khalid was there. And he, he jumped behind a banister. And I'm at this point now because I've, like, I had the front row seat to the coolest hit mission in modern history. I'm just watching cool guys, right? And they're going up the stairs. And he jumps back. And I'm a certain amount of guys back. And normally in an urban setting, if we're fighting up, I will pull guys out. I only want a certain amount of guys on there, just to avoid uncertain, I mean, unnecessary deaths. If he starts dropping [ __ ] on us, like grenades and whatnot, or takes a shot down the stairs. But I figure we're going to die anyway. So I want to see how this goes down. And I'm just standing. I don't have a shot. And now we're back to being quiet. And it's dark. And, um, the point man said something like, and I'm going to [ __ ] this up, it was something like, "Khalid, irfa, idek, Khalid, Delta, Rasha." Something like that. But it was basically, "Come here, come here" in two different languages that he knew Khalid spoke. Which I think is incredible, because I would have thought he would have pinned and try to get a shot off. And Khalid simply got confused. And he leaned over the thing and went, "What?" No [ __ ]. That is the coolest thing I've ever seen in combat. How tactically savvy are you to think of doing that? Like, well, he doesn't know. He doesn't know we might be Pakistani. He's here to move him. He doesn't know. I'll just call him out. And he did. So he, and he was armed perfectly within his rules of engagement.

We step around him. We go up to the, the last, the second deck, the last set of stairs. And I moved from this point from like eight, the eighth guy to the second guy because everyone else went to the right, to the left because they're gonna, you want to clear obviously, the area before you move on. But now we're down to two. And we're pointing at the last set of stairs. And above it, there was a curtain. It looked kind of like a shower curtain, but it was like a green olive drab type thing. And we can see they're sort of backlit. There's people moving. Uh, and we assumed those are the suicide bombers. But Bin Laden's in there. And I, the guy in front of me took a shot before we got there. And they're moving around. And I'm the two-man. And my job as the two-man is to, is to hold him and wait. His job is to simply look forward. Don't drop security. And I got you. And through effective communication, when it's your time to go, I will squeeze you. It's on. I'm just telling you through effective communication. We have enough guys, but we don't have enough guys. We're out of guys. It's two of us. And, um, I, I want, I want four more. I'll take two. But he starts saying, "We gotta go. Come on. We gotta go." He doesn't know it's me. He knows it's one of his guys. And what he's saying is, uh, is, um, those are basically suggesting those are the suicide bombers. But if we go right now, we can beat him. And I remember taking a deep breath. And, uh, it wasn't, it was no by no means bravery on my part. It was more of a, "Okay, we're gonna blow up now. And I'm tired of, I'm tired of thinking about it. Let's [ __ ] get over with." So I get to squeeze. He goes up. And he, he moves the curtain. And there are, um, there were three people standing there. He didn't have even enough time. He just jumped on him. He, how he doesn't have a Medal of Honor beyond me. He jumped on the grenade. So the guy behind him can get the shot. Damn.

So he, and I, and simply because he went this way, I turn this way. And standing three feet in front of me is Osama Bin Laden. And he's got his hands on a mall, his wife's shoulders. And I don't know what he's doing. He's not surrendering. He's, he's maneuvering somehow. His hands are on her. And I remember thinking, he's taller than I thought. He's skinnier than I thought. So you knew it was him right away? Turning in a corner? Yep. His, he's not surrendering. He's, he's got to have a suicide belt. So I shot him twice when he was standing up. I shot him again on the floor. And then I moved Amal out of the way so I can, he, I can hear Bin Laden taking his last breath. When I shot him, he fell to the foot of the bed. Where'd you shoot him? I shot him in the face three times. Um, I moved Amal. And, uh, and his two-year-old son is now standing there. And this is the humanity of everything. This kid has got nothing to do with this. I'm a father. And I picked him up. And I move him. I moved him to the back of the bed. And she'd been shot. And, and, uh, I turned around. And, um, I kind of froze. And I'm, okay, other Navy SEALs are now coming in the room. A lot of guys are in there. And one of my guys came up to me. And, uh, he said, um, "Are you good?" And I said, "No, no. What are we supposed to do now?" And he said, "Now we find the computers. We do this every night, hundreds of times." And I said, "Yeah, you're right. I'm back." Holy [ __ ]. And he said to me, "Yeah, you just killed Osama Bin Laden. Your life just changed. Get to [ __ ] work." And so we did.

Um, we, we, uh, they started. We, you know, we actually took. We do have pictures of Bin Laden. It's actually my gloves in there was putting his head together for the picture, dumping water on him. And like he was, I think the pictures haven't been released because it's, it's one of those things where you, you really don't need to know how justice looks when it's served. It just, it just is. So those pics on the internet? No, they're fake. It's split from, from, he split from here to here. Okay. I mean, he got hit three times with a, I'm shooting 77-grain hollow point at three feet. Oh, it's a devastator. Yeah. And, um, so they're dressing him up. Guys are doing SSE. And I, I went down to the, sensitive site exploitation. We're finding intel. I went down to the second floor. I had two other dudes with me. And we're going through. Now we found these huge offices with, with, I'm talking computers, hard drives, uh, like the old school towers. Um, we were pulling big kit bags from underneath the bed. And we're opening them. And I thought it was, uh, uh, freeze-dried steaks. And it's like, "Wow, these guys are in it for the long haul. This is." And it's like, "Wait a minute. No, this is raw opium. They're trying to make money off this." And so we're finding all that [ __ ]. And we, we were finding so much stuff from, from pictures to hard drives. Like, we're cracking those up and pulling the hard drives, CDs, um, papers, handwritten letters. Um, and we're just shoving it into these. It was to the point where we wanted, you know, we wanted 32 minutes on the floor. I think we were there for 47. And now it's like, "Okay, come on. We, now it's, let's, let's get the [ __ ] out of here." Uh, I went back upstairs. I actually carried. I helped two, three other SEALs carry. We carried Bin Laden down all the stairs we just came up. And I remember yelling at guys, "Guys, [ __ ] them, we're leaving. Get out. We're figuring this out." Uh, outside, I think the ground force commander coordinated a way for, um, another bird to, um, to come in to get us. We're going to put him on the, on our bird. The first team's going out on that. They're going to go refuel with another bird on a mountaintop. We went out with the body. We actually sat down next to, uh, the lead sniper from the Captain Phillips raid. And said, "Here's your guy." And he looked down. He goes, "You got to be [ __ ] me." I'm like, "No, we got him." He goes, "Let's, let's [ __ ] leave." So they took off with them. We went around, um, to the other, you know, I think it's to the east side of the compound. We're calling in, uh, 47. But we don't, like I said, we don't have our CCT guys. So we're calling it. And we're rusty. Yeah. And I remember seeing the, there's a guy on Twitter who was tweeting. He was live-tweeting. "Why would they be doing helicopter operations on a Sunday?" Or some weird [ __ ]. And I remember seeing him thinking, "If we were in Iraq, I'd blast this dude because he's outside of a target with a phone." But we're in Pakistan. They have no [ __ ] idea that we're here. So then we're calling this bird in. And I remember we're saying, "Hey, so we have to blow up the, um, the bird inside. We don't. We're going to leave it. We're blowing it up." But I asked someone, like, "What, what was the, the time fuse on that thing?" And they're like, "Well." I'm like, "Holy [ __ ], abort." We had a, we had to actually call off the, the bird coming in to get us because we were going to blow it out of the sky. So they absorbed it and turned. Then the [ __ ] thing blew up. Like we almost blew our own helicopter out of this guy. Then they came back in. We get on that thing. And then we take off. And, uh, now we're leaving. Now on a mission where we're supposed to die, but now we're leaving. And if we can live for another 90 minutes, if we can cross the border to Afghanistan, we get to see our kids again. We get to live another 50 years. But they know they gotta know we're here. And they can shoot us down, probably with an F-16 that we sold them, the Pakis. But worrying about that is not gonna stop it. So I'm not gonna worry.

So we're sitting there in this bird. I have the, um, the lead sniper from the Captain Phillips raid. There was a weird thing with, um, with jealousy. Um, when, when this sniper initiated the fire, um, because sometimes when people are so close to doing something, they get angry. And they were giving him a lot of [ __ ], talking about firing. And I remember saying to him at work, after the Phillips raid, "Hey man, don't pay attention to that [ __ ]. You're a [ __ ] hero. Don't you ever forget it. Take a Copenhagen for me. Take mine. You're a hero." And I would remind him that he was going through a really rough time. We're sitting on this bird flying out. And I'm trying to absorb what the [ __ ] just happened. And I see this Copenhagen come in front of my nods. And he said, "Take one of mine now. You know what it feels like to be a [ __ ] hero." Which is just insane. A dude next to me from the other squadron, Blue Squadron, was there. He's from New York. And he asked a question that every SEAL asked when they found out Bin Laden was dead. He said, "Who got him?" And I said, "I think I did." And he said, "On behalf of my family, thank you." So now it's deep. And we gotta, you know, can't worry about the [ __ ]. We're so, we'll just start our watches. And so we're counting. Got to live the 90 minutes. But it's been 10 minutes now. It's been 20 minutes now. It's been 30 minutes. And now it's 40 minutes, 50 minutes. We got to get to 90 minutes. But it's been 60 minutes. Then I start thinking about like, uh, all the weird sports analogies. Like watching a, a no-hitter at the top of the seventh at Fenway Park. Like, I'm not going to say anything. I don't want to jinx it. You know? But it's been 70. Now it's been 80 minutes. Then I start thinking about, um, one of the greatest games ever played, when the Team USA hockey team beat the Russians in Lake Placid. A team they're not supposed to beat. But now they're winning four to three. And you can hear the crowd counting down. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six. We got to 85 minutes into the flight. And the pilot came over the radio. And just as cool as ever, said, "All right, gentlemen, for the first time in your life, you're going to be happy to hear this. Welcome to Afghanistan." So yeah. So I mean, and that now it's like, "Holy [ __ ], we did it." We land. The, now the other bird had to go to a mountaintop and refuel there. And the other stealth bird with another 47, they're still coming back. And so it's like, "Okay, come on, guys." They land. And like, no one's hurt. And then Bin Laden's over here. The, the guy that was in front of me to go up the stairs in the independence room were like, "Hey man, you and I need to talk." And we go over into the corner. And he's like, "What the [ __ ] happened on that stairwell?" I'm like, "It was just down to us. I don't know." I mean, and then he looks over to the woman that found Bin Laden and said, uh, "Well, there she is. You got to go give her something, man. You own this." Like, "Yeah, you're right." And I walked over to. And I pulled the magazine out of my gun. I jacked the last round out. And I said, "You have room for this in your backpack?" And she said, "I think I do." And then I said, "Well, we have something to show you now." In the movie "Zero Dark Thirty," they brought the woman over to Bin Laden's body. And it was like a moment of pause. And they opened it. She looked. And she was all thoughtful. And she cried and left. That's not at all what happened. Here's what happened. I gave her the mag. And said, "We have something to show you now." It starts to again, moments were sinking in. But it's like, you know what? This is historic. Like, this will be in the history books. You know, she found him though. She's the reason this happened. She gave up her life for this. She doesn't have a husband. She doesn't have kids. And she's been working on this 20 hours a day for years. And then, and then I'm like, uh, you know, this is, this is like, this could go down with Iwo Jima. Um, but then as being the arrogant Navy, I'm like, "Put the pressure on myself. [ __ ], I gotta think of something cool to say." So we're walking over to the body. And I thought this would have been good enough. I looked down and I said, "Is that your guy?" And she looked down for a second. "One, I guess I'm out of a [ __ ] job." And left. You got to be [ __ ] left at that. Yeah.

So then we, um, we, uh, McRaven was there. He actually, uh, he, there. That now they're in the process of. We do have some DNA tests. We got a lot of pictures. He was talking to, um, to the White House. And he had one of our snipers lay down next to him. Because our sniper was 6'2". Our tallest guy was 6'2". And he said, "Yeah, I just, uh, I just had one of our tallest guys laid down. And he's shorter than I think it's him." And the President says, "Let me get this straight. You can blow up one of our $200 million helicopters, but you can't afford a 99-cent tape measure?" So they're doing that. We fly them up to, uh, to. And I remember Craving, just, we're standing there. He came up to me. And he kind of just put, he didn't say anything, but just put his hand on my shoulder like this. And it was like, just a [ __ ] yeah moment. Went up to Bagram. I mean, everyone, we're still looking around at each other. Now we got everything laid out. The, the smart Bin Laden's body is laying there. Um, uh, we're laying out all the stuff in order of which room, which floor, which building. And they're going through it. There's a dude doing DNA tests. And, um, we're just kind of standing around. The army brought in these, those big green tubs full of breakfast sandwiches. And we have the news on. There's a big TV on. And you can hear it kind of, um, you can hear it building up. Like they know what's happening. Geraldo is out there with people in front of the White House. And our guys are on the phone with, with the White House. And they're just trying to, the President wants a full count. How many were wounded? How many are killed? What's the total? And we're just standing there. Bin Laden's right here. And, um, I remember everything quieted down. The President is on TV with a red tie, walking down, red carpet, came up very presidential to the podium. And said, "Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world, the United States conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda." I hear the President of the United States say, "Osama Bin Laden." I look at Osama Bin Laden. And I thought, "How in the world did I get here from Butte, Montana?" Damn, dude. And that, and that's it.

And then we, um, and then here's where it gets cool. I mean, I mean, just camaraderie thing is like, "Well, you know, well, we should shower up because we're flying home. And I could use a drink." "Where the [ __ ] Seabees? You're going to find everything. You're going to find showers. You're going to find pizza. You're going to find beer. And probably some whiskey." So we went over there. And, uh, and it was, you know, that's when it started to get a little awkward because we, we, they do have the internet over there. We're getting, and everything. "Seal Team Six, Seal Team Six, Bin Laden." You know, that's it. This is gonna be bad. But for now, it's gonna be good. And, uh, actually, the, the ground force commander, when we went back, the ground force commander, who is probably the smartest guy I've ever met, photographic memory, could operate on an hour's sleep a night and be fine. And he's by the book. But he pulled the appointment of me into a room. And he poured us a shot. And we all took a shot together. He's like, "Great job, boys." We hop on a plane. We leave. Pop an Ambien, which, you know, was awesome. And we slept to Virginia Beach. We landed there. And then it was almost like a scene where there were people waiting for us. Other SEALs were there with a couple buses, coolers full of beer. And cheers and high fives. And then we went to the command. And, and that was, that was it. I was like, "We're going to be the best friends in the world forever, man." That's [ __ ] that's insane. Wow.

I need to tell a part that I didn't. You can edit in if you don't mind. I'm just gonna hit it. Okay. Um, so we're having this conversation when I asked what helicopter crashed. And he said, "Dude, our helicopter crashed in the front yard." Because I thought it was something else. As we're having this conversation, one of our snipers was running around the compound with Cairo. And his job was to circle it twice to make sure no one squirted, um, you know, ran out of the, the building. And he, when we're having this conversation inside, he ran into the point where the pilot had the, the tail on the fence. So he's looking up and sees this tail. He didn't know they crashed either. And he came over the radio and said, "Guys inside, be on alert. They are ready for us. They have a training mock-up of our super-secret helicopter in the front yard." And there was a weird silence. And the boss came over the radio and goes, "No, jackass, that's ours." Because we crashed. And he said, he, and he said over the radio, "Yeah, that makes a lot more sense." In the [ __ ] I was just saying, "Carry on." Holy [ __ ]. Damn. Yeah.

We got to Virginia Beach. And then, and then it just, you know, turned into, as opposed to being in the shadows, everybody wants to come down and meet us. They want to fly us places to meet us. Secretary of Defense came down. And it was just, it started to suck because there were dudes that had been at Red Squadron for 16 years that moved on to operations. And then they wouldn't let them in the debrief with the Secretary of Defense. And it's just like, this is gonna, there's some bad blood's gonna start. Yeah, because of this [ __ ]. And, you know, and a lot of guys, a lot of guys do want to be the 30-year Navy SEAL who retires and then lives in Coronado undercover forever. And they kind of got that violated. One, I mean, one of the, one of the funny stories though, is, is, like I was mentioning earlier, when, when people, the first question people asked was, "Who got him?" And they would say, "Nizro got him." And I guess the most common answer was, "Oh, [ __ ], we're never gonna hear the end of this." Damn, dude. That's, um, man, that's an awesome, crazy [ __ ]. I don't even know what to say. Yeah, I mean, it's, but it's like, it's like it was written that way or scripted. It's just the way it worked. Great team. The pilots that got us in and out. I mean, that takes balls to fly a Chinook that far into Pakistan to pick up guys that are already in gunfights with Al Qaeda. And I think we killed, like, three of the top four that night. No, if we hadn't, we did within the next few days. And there was like, 11 other ops that Jason did that night in Afghanistan. Like, it was a, I mean, it was, it was part of being part of something great. And I couldn't be more proud. That's insane. Yeah, that's insane.

Let's take a quick break. That was heavy. All right. So we just covered the whole raid. Everything that happened. There's a lot of conspiracies out there. A whole lot of conspiracies out there on whether, whether it was a double. Yep. But why, why did they dump the body into the ocean? We, they had told us that's what's gonna happen even before we left. And I remember we were asking, "Why is that? You're going to dump them in in the ocean?" And they said, "Well, because we don't want a shrine to him where people can worship." And I remember explaining to them, "You don't understand Sunni Islam. Um, you don't, uh, there's one God. You worship Allah. That you not false prophets. They would not do that to Bin Laden. You don't worship him because they don't believe in that [ __ ]. Um, you can do something else with him." But they were convinced they wanted to do that. Um, there are pictures of them that I've heard are in cabinets at Langley. I don't know. But, uh, yeah, all I know is we, we handed him over to some senior guys from the Army. And they flew him to the USS Vincennes, I believe. I said that right? It could be wrong. But it's that ship. And that they have the coordinates of where they dropped him. And I didn't see it. Um, I believe it. I mean, I know he's dead. I know we have pictures. I wish they would release them. But I didn't see it. So as far as I know, he could be freeze-dried somewhere too. Huh? I mean, I don't know. I just, they, they told you that before you even went on the raid? They're like, "Okay, we're going to dump them in the ocean." Yes. Why would they even? I don't know. I mean, why not? I had a lot of different options for them. But that was it. They, that was, that's going to happen. Just bring them out. And I mean, they, they labeled it. They did the test. They have the test. But they, someone took the body away. And then we never saw it again. Interesting. Yeah, it is. Have they ever done that with anybody else? I'm not, as far as I know. But yeah, I've never heard anything. Yeah, they were, they were saying they brought him to that ship. They gave him a proper burial. And then they threw him over. And no one was allowed to watch. A proper burial, huh? Well, probably. Let's see. As far as getting thrown over the side of the ship, kicking off the [ __ ] fantail, that's about it. But yeah, they broke down the coordinates. And they, they apparently marked the, uh, the pad eye on the ship. Which means whatever. But, yeah. And there are guys that said they were on the ship that they know what happened. But I don't. I mean, I've never seen footage of it. So I mean, I can understand to the conspiracies around it. Like, why, you know? I mean, it's definitely odd. There's no doubt about that. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, like I said, there's not going to be worshipers for him. And, and even now with that, it kind of is the mystique of, "Did they really get him?" type [ __ ].

So when did you, when did you decide you were going to come out and say you're the, you were the shooter? I didn't. I didn't do it at first. But, um, my name did go around really quickly in Virginia Beach and Coronado and in DC and New York because people just know people around there. And I was getting calls that next night from people saying, "Hey man, tell us what happened." All this, you know, [ __ ] like that. Um, you know, and there was a, people kind of knew. And, and, um, they would single me out in different briefs. And I really didn't care for that because I've always said it's a team effort. It's not me, guys. It's the, look at the pilots. Thank them because they're the smart guys. Thank the intel officers that found him. Uh, and then it just started to get, uh, it started to get awkward. And I decided, you know, it's, um, I'm gonna, I might move on. And then, uh, we, we went from the, the best time in our career to the worst time because soon after on Extortion One, August 6th, the Extortion One Seven was shot down. We lost 31 Americans. And we went from planning missions to planning funerals. And it's like, you know what? It's time to leave. I need to, um, I want to see my kids get married. But because we lost so many guys at Gold, we need to backfill. So I'm going to do one more deployment. So I actually left Red Squadron and went to Silver Squadron to go immediately to Afghanistan. Because my entire point was, uh, I'm, uh, I came in through the front door and I'm going to leave through the front door. I'm going to do one more deployment to prove you got, you know, I'm not in this for the fame. I'm not trying, I'm not writing a book. There were rumors that I'm writing a book. Like, someone actually pulled me aside and said, one of my officers said, "I heard you just got a $17 million advance to write a book." And I said, "Well, I don't think you know how books work because you don't get a $17 million advance unless you're a president." But, uh, yeah, but there was just, you know, rumors flying around and all this [ __ ]. I did go to Afghanistan. And, uh, you know, extended. And I got out in, uh, August of, of 2012. Um, and then, um, you know, I started work. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what the hell I was qualified for. No degree. I started working in, in Washington D.C. on Capitol Hill with different people. And I met, I met a Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney from New York. And she said, "You know, you, you should probably, um, donate something to the 9/11 Memorial." Um, and I did. Because it's, if you haven't been to the memorial, you got to go. It's, it's insane. It's a chronological order of what happened on 9/11. And at the end, I anonymously donated my shirt, uh, with an American flag. Just so people could see this shirt was in the room with Bin Laden. The CIA analyst donated a coin that she had. And it's kind of there. But when I donated it, I went into a room where there were 30-some people. I didn't realize I was going to be speaking right then. They had all lost someone in the towers. And, um, and I'm up on stage. This is the first time in public. I told the story. And to see their responses to, um, crying in their hands, um, you know, wanting to give me a hug. And they were saying that, uh, there's never going to be closure, but this helps with the healing. We can put a face with what happened. Because like we just said, we buried him. And see, you don't really know. But I'm telling you what happened because I was there. And I said, I actually had a film crew there to document, um, me donating it for historical reasons. But I was like, if I can, if I can help 30 people with the healing, I can help thousands if I tell the story. And then, uh, it was a tough decision. But I, I got my story approved. The only one approved through the Pentagon. And, uh, and I, when I came out with a story, just, you know, I've assumed risk before. And I'll do it again. It's, it's worth it.

Yeah. What, so you went to Silver after that? I did. What were you guys doing over there? Um, another, another winter deployment to Afghanistan. Okay. I actually, um, uh, Bin Laden wasn't the last guy I killed with that gun. No, she just kept it with me. Yeah. Well, actually, we did a, we did, uh, my, I think my last mission was my very first L ambush, which I think is cool because, yeah. Well, when we were trying to sell it, because you're selling it to staff officers, basically, that I don't know how they don't know. We saw this truck would leave this place, go around a mountain, and drive through the snow and wait to ambush Americans. And they did it like on Tuesday. And Intel saw them. And then they did it on Wednesday. And then they did it again on Thursday. But they're not finding anybody. And my troop chief and I were like, "Hey, if they do this on Friday, the day of prayer, they're definitely doing on a Saturday." So we came up with a plan. Like, "Well, we'll just insert where they drive, get behind these rocks, put snipers up." And we're selling it to them. And then, and we sold it to this army officer. Like, "Then we're gonna set up an L ambush." And the officer said, "What's an L ambush?" And I said, "Sir, an L ambush is the second thing they teach you in the army, right after that. This is an L ambush." And he goes, "Well, who invented it?" I said, "I think Sun Tzu invented the Art of War." Um, and he goes, "Well, which?" I said, "Well, we're going to set up an L. I'm going to form a line of death. I'll be in the middle here. And when he's coming at me, I'm going to stop him." And he goes, "What if he doesn't stop?" I said, "I'm going to shoot him." This, what planet are you? Wow. Yeah. So, so we did. We set it up. And naturally, like the ISRs watched them. They can't get their car started. And, you know, because it's that Murphy's Law. And so we're literally smoking cigars. The sun's up. And we're waiting for this dude to drive around. No one's gonna be there. And, you know, and we kept it simple. Like, ISR is gonna tell us, um, green light, yellow light, red light. That's when you jump out. You stop them. And it's in the wide open area. And, uh, sure enough, they're coming. They finally got the car started. You know, green light, yellow light, red. We hop out. And then I'm looking at this guy. And he's driving this, uh, a car, not even a truck. And I think this is the first words he ever spoke in English where he put in reverse and just goes, "[ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ]." And the car's peeling out. And I'm looking at this dude. And there's a, you know, two days in front, three dudes in the back. And I'm like, "Hey man, get out of the car. Get out of the car. You need to get out of the car because we got snipers." And, uh, one dude hopped out to go to the trunk. This guy's head blasted off. And then it turned into just a shootout. We killed all of them. And, and it's like, "Well, that's an L ambush." That was my last mission. And then I, you know, I got out. And then, you know, transition out. And learn. You got to learn that there's a lot of life after the military. You know, military is unique because you can get in at 18 and retire at 38. And at 38, you got a lot of life, I hope, left in you. Yeah. And then that, that's when the, the real work starts. What do we do now?

What was it like, you know, getting out? I mean, you killed the most wanted man in the [ __ ] history of the world. Everybody wants to meet you. Everybody wants something from you. Everybody wants to hear the story. I mean, there couldn't have been any time for just you. No, there's, there's, there's not now too. And, you know, I'll get [ __ ] on the internet. They're like, "Why, hi, I'm Rob O'Neill. I haven't talked about Bin Laden for five minutes." It's like, "Yeah, you know, stop asking and I'll stop." Yeah, I'm saying it. You got to figure, every person I ever meet wants to hear that story. They want to know what happened. And that's fine. That's great. I mean, if I helped this country and our cause, whatever that was, um, then I mean, obviously what that was, um, I'll, I'll do it. And it, it's always in person. It's a good thing. I mean, the only issue I have in person is we'll be at an airport bar and someone will recognize me and want to do a shot. Like, "Yeah, cool." And it's, but someone else will see me and they want a shot. And then, you know, all of a sudden it's like, "Okay, you 10 guys had a shot. I had 10 shots. This is bad." Damn. But no, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it was uncharted territory because, you know, even I was talking to different agents about speaking. And he said, "I'm trying to figure out if, you know, trying to price the guy that killed Hitler." And I'm like, "Well, Hitler killed himself." And he goes, "Exactly." And so it's just, you know, it's everything's been new. And I don't know at first what's gonna happen. I don't know now what's gonna happen. Um, but, you know, I mean, it's been.

It's people have been good, yeah. I mean, it created a lot of animosity, you know, obviously throughout the community. And, uh, you know, we kind of talked a little about that a little bit off camera. But how, how are you? Because there's a, there's a lot of hate in this community.

Oh, there's a lot of hate. You know, no, it's, it's tough at first because, um, you want, you want to be liked, and your reputation means everything. But then you got to realize that what, you know, what someone thinks about you is none of your business. Stop wasting the negative energy on what they're thinking of you. And if they're pissed, there's nothing I can do about it. If they ever want to work with me, I'll work with them, that's fine. If you want help, ask, I'll help. Um, but if you're, if you're just hating, then, you know, take it somewhere else. You, I mean, there's a point where you just got to stop caring. I don't care.

Yeah. Um, but, you know, and it's like, there's even been points where they're like, well, you know, you know, we hear you didn't kill Milan. And unlike some days, I wish I didn't. I'm just telling you what happened.

Yeah. How long did it take you to get to that point?

Uh, a couple years. Yeah.

I bet. Because all, you know, all you know in the SEAL teams is the SEAL teams, and you're in that bubble. I mean, even when you, you know, um, you know, other SEALs and, you know, the bartenders and everyone around you is doing the same [ __ ] I mean, as far as work. And, and, you know, I found myself in a spot where I'm just in a spot where anyone could have done it. I just happened to turn the corner. And it's just, um, I mean, it sucks, you know, you want to be liked. But there comes a point where what you worry about isn't going to stop it. So, yeah, get on with it.

Well, I think a lot, the reason I'm asking is I think a lot of guys need to hear that because, you know, I don't, I don't [ __ ] care. I'll just say whatever. Something. No, that's probably the nicest thing I've ever done. It's, it's, it's in this community. You know, it seems like, like I said, we talked about this earlier, but I want other guys that are coming out to hear this [ __ ] is, you know, in this community, everybody likes each other until you're feeling better than they are. Yeah. And then you're the [ __ ] hate target. You're the target. And, and, you know, there's, I mean, it's 2022 now. Guys are getting out with full careers. You know, first time ever where guys have been in combat their entire career. They're gonna get out, they're gonna write books, they're gonna start companies, and they're gonna get a lot of hate from the guys that are in. And, and, uh, it seems like as soon as you come out public with anything, it's like, um, use your resume. There's nothing wrong with that. And my, I remember my one of my first days at Red Squad, and the CEO of Red Squadron said, you know, when we got out, we could all be millionaires, we could take over the world, but we're never gonna. Because he recognized it as well, just the, just the, uh, the animosity for some reason. Like everyone's successful, but then they hate success. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't get it. I mean, it bothered me for a while, but I'm not losing sleep over it now.

Well, that's good. Yeah, that's good. But, um, well, yeah, let's talk about what you're doing now.

Yeah. So I transitioned out of the, um, the military, and what I realized is that I didn't know what to do. I had no idea. Am I gonna sell sunglasses or t-shirts? Am I gonna do whatever? But I learned that a lot of people want the traits that we have as Navy SEALs, as special operators: effective communication, problem-solving, the ability to have the difficult decisions with people, to run a team, to, uh, promote who needs to be in, fire who needs to be. So I started a foundation. It was, uh, at first called Your Grateful Nation, but now it's called Special Operators Transition Foundation. And it's help special operators find out where they want to live, what industry they want to be in. Because I've had employers now, with some of the products coming out of universities, they don't want that [ __ ]. They said, give me one of these guys, men or women, and I'll teach them how to do this job. I want that attitude in the boardroom. Uh, so I've done that transition, um, foundation. And then I just, I got myself into public speaking. I've been on TV analyzing different stuff. I worked for Fox News for quite a while. Um, I started an apparel company, RJO Apparel, stuff like "Front Toward Enemy," which to me kind of summarizes everything. Front toward your problem. Yeah. And on the, guess what's in the back? The back, like even the hoodies we have says "Front Toward Enemy." And the back says, "Back." It is a, it's not a hoodie. It's, it's an instruction manual on how to wear a hoodie. Um, so, you know, we did that. Um, uh, I'm involved with a beer company now called Armed Forces Brewing Company, which is veteran owned. Me and a couple of SEALs, Mike Teams, and Ray Casteel. Um, we, we, uh, have different beer for different branches. Army, we actually for Army-Navy game, we had "Beat Army" and "Beat Navy" cans. We sold out at the Army-Navy game. Uh, we're getting distribution in 50 states. Just because it's a, it's a cool, and it's a beer, and it's for veterans, not just for veterans, but for Americans. Veteran owned for American and Americans. Americans like beer, and they like veterans. So, uh, anything like that, just entrepreneurial stuff. Um, like I said, you know, the more special operators, more Navy SEALs I can work with, the better, because we're gonna do better. Yeah. And it's just, um, it is what you're making. I mean, you can sit at home and feel sorry for yourself, or you can go do it. Yeah. That's, that's, that's for damn sure.

So what about the new book, "The Way Forward"?

"The Way Forward." I wrote with Dakota Meyer, who is a Medal of Honor recipient, Marine. Gangal Valley, one of the worst fights I've ever heard. His story is incredible. I'm not even gonna tell it. Read the book, it's amazing. He is similar to me shooting that guy in the room. He got a fight where he's rescuing, uh, his entire team died. He's pulling him out, and he got hit in the back, a butt stroke from a Taliban guy. And he actually got into a fistfight to the death with a dude. Uh, to the point where he was getting choked out. And I don't know if he faked being choked out, but he ended up turning around, he shot him with a 40 Mike Mike. That was so, you know, it didn't arm, but it hit him. And then he ended up killing this guy with a rock. Oh [ __ ]. And it's the point, and again, I don't want to tell his story, but it's like he says, there's a point in a man's life where you're looking him in the eyes, and you both know it's coming. And then the book's called "The Way Forward" because it's now, what, you know, we did all this fight, and we did all this killing. Uh, you start to question why we're killing these people. And what's the way forward? Everything from anxiety to abusing the bottle to suicides. What do we do next? And I think, you know, everyone, everyone has, what do we do now? We talked about the CEOs that have their first day. Uh, what next? And, uh, that's what it's about. Dakota is awesome. Uh, but, but again, with the animosity, like he's got stories where he's got, I mean, I thought the Marines were the tightest group. That's what I think. Are they not? He, no, he, he's gotten the Medal of Honor physically ripped off of his neck at a Marine Corps ball. You got to be shitty. And so it kind of addresses the, what the [ __ ] guys. So, I mean, it's a great book. The stories are, um, incredible because I talk about everything from, it's the transition from the military to the adventures that I get into. Uh, the story about my wedding that Kid Rock is in, how we lost the wedding rings, and I had to get my buddy Shorty to find him. And how he, I had brand new security at, I'm at a church in, um, in Massachusetts at Cape Cod. And I hired local cops to be security. I have some celebrities there, like I said, Kid Rock was there. And I'm, I don't know who's gonna show up because it's a public wedding. This guy found the rings. And what I told these cops was, what you got to look for is their hands. And especially if a vehicle screams up. My buddy was screaming up to the thing after he found the rings, hops out, reaches for the rings out of his pocket, he's getting drawn down on by these cops. And sprints and hands me the rings. And then it goes on to other Kentucky Derby stuff. But the one story I have in "The Way Forward" is, I'm not gonna ruin it at all, but it's a hunting story with me, some guys I grew up with, my father, my nephew, my brother, and some Boston police officers. And I have been called out more on that story being [ __ ] than the Bin Laden raid. Oh [ __ ]. The story's hilarious. But you don't, let's, let's hear it.

Well, um, the way it started, I don't want to ruin the book, but, um, I brought my brother with me. My brother's a DJ, a morning show DJ. He's not a hunter at all, never been a hunter. But I brought him out to the Powder River in Eastern Montana, which has some of the best hunting in the world. And we're gonna split up. I sent my brother Tom with my buddy Smooth, and they're gonna go this way. What I didn't realize at the time is Smooth is a former Army guy. He loves to hunt, like he's, he's hiking. Tommy's not. He doesn't like to do that [ __ ]. So he's humping up this hill. Um, we're on the other side. I got some of the Boston police guys there. And another truck went up there looking for elk. And, uh, I guess my brother was lagging a little bit far back. My buddy Smooth said, you know what, you stay here. I'll keep you in an eyeshot. I'm gonna keep walking up. And all of a sudden, my brother Tommy started roasting a bowl. Uh, wait. And he comes back. My buddy Smooth comes back because, what the [ __ ] are you doing? And he goes, what do you want some? He goes, what about the deer? And he goes, [ __ ] the deer. I didn't bring enough for the deer. So they're, they're doing this. I'm on one end, and we're trying to set up another ambush. We have radios, which is totally illegal. Um, now my, my buddy, um, Swift and Ed are in a truck driving up. On the way out here, they, they had stopped at a gas station, and Ed decided to buy, um, a Reuben at a gas station that had probably been under the heat lamp for a solid three days. Not a good idea. So we got these radios. He immediately got some really bad diarrhea. And I hear over the radio, "Oh my God, Ed just shot himself." And I said, "What? He, he shot himself?" And he goes, "No, Ed just [ __ ] himself." And I'm like, "Well, how bad is it?" He goes, "Pretty bad. He filled his socks." Suck. They're driving down. My buddy's [ __ ] his pants. My brother's getting high. I'm over here. I'm like, look, we're gonna call this a day. Get out of the mountains. So we go back to the cabin, break out the whiskey. And I said, the next day, um, we're gonna hunt the whitetails because we're in the mountains looking for mule deer and elk. Now we're gonna go to the whitetails. They're down by the river. That's, you know, a couple hundred meters this way. Me and Smooth are gonna walk through here. We're gonna push these whitetails out. They're gonna see the bend in the river. Some will cross, but some will come to you. So I send my, my father down to one end with my nephew. And I said to my dad, Dad, here's the deal. All you gotta do is nothing. Just sit here. Nothing. So we go out there. We put the cops out here. We're pushing them. We're now we're doing a sort of an ambush. Again, the deer come out. They run to the cops. They, they blast a few. Um, we get in here. A buck comes past me. I shoot him. And then, uh, my buddy, uh, Smooth, who just couldn't get a break on this trip. I, I see this monster whitetail buck. And I can see Smooth pointing at it. And he just kind of puts the gun down and yells, "God damn it." And I said, "What? Why didn't you shoot?" Me? Because the only two things I saw in the scope was that huge buck and your [ __ ] dad. My dad got up and was just walking through there like a geriatric or whatever. And he felt so bad. He, my dad just goes, "Next time, just shoot." So, so it's like, alright, cool. Whatever. Um, no, before we do this, sorry, Tommy was worn out. My brother Tom from the hump the day before. So when I was knocking on the door, I was like, "Come over hunting." He's like, "No, we aren't doing anything. I'm sleeping." So I go to my, um, the deer that I killed. We're gutting a man. Smooth and then Swift comes out on a four-wheeler, obviously with Coors Light, because it is seven in the morning. He said, "Hey, congratulations." "Oh, Tommy got his buck too." And I said, "No, that's, that's not possible. Tommy's asleep." And he goes, "No, Tom shot a buck." And what turned out to happen is, uh, Swift was on the, as we started this ambush, Swift saw these bucks running towards the thing. And he'd already filled his tag. And so he, he's knocking on Tommy's door. He's like, "Tommy, get, get out here." And so Tommy came out, probably a joint in his hand. And, uh, he said, "Well, [ __ ], someone handed him a gun." And, and he shot this buck that was coming. Whatever. And, well, Tommy, how'd you shoot that buck? And he goes, "He was coming right for us because I was in my best porch camouflage." Holy. And he goes, "So what do I do now?" And they go, "Now you put on orange and we go get the damn thing." Damn dude. So yeah. But people said, there's no way that happened. But that's, that's one of the stories.

Well, I'll link, uh, I'll link all the everything below, you know, for people to go buy it. And, um, hey man, I don't, you know, we've been going for quite a while, so might as well end it. But awesome, man. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thank you for coming and sharing it for all those firsthand accounts. And my pleasure. Best of luck to you.

Appreciate it. You.