#102 Chad Robichaux - Force Recon Marine / DEVGRU

Chad Robichaux is a United States Marine Corps Veteran, former LEO, Best Selling Author, and Founder of Mighty Oaks Foundation, a peer-to-peer resiliency and recovery program for U. S. Veterans. Mighty Oaks has raised over 55M dollars for Veterans and First Responders and has served over 500,000 service members. In addition to helping U. S. Veterans and First Responders, Robichaux helped create Save Our Allies, an organization that played a vital role in assisting the United States' Afghan allies in escaping Afghanistan during the disastrous withdrawal. Now, his humanitarian work has extended to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, where Robichaux and his team are on the ground executing recovery operations. This episode documents his entire life story. Pre-Order the book now: https://www.chadrobichaux.com/mission-without-borders Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://lairdsuperfood.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://shopify.com/shawn https://mypatriotsupply.com https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://hvmn.com/shawn https://hillsdale.edu/srs https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner Chad Robichaux Links: Website - https://www.chadrobichaux.com Podcast - https://www.staydangerous.com Twitter / X - https://twitter.com/ChadRobo Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/chadrobichauxofficialpage Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/chadrobo_official TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@chadrobo_official Mighty Oaks - https://www.mightyoaksprograms.org Save Our Allies - https://saveourallies.org PRE-ORDER - https://www.chadrobichaux.com/mission-without-borders Saving Aziz Book - https://savingaziz.org Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

  Mr. President? My company tore me of the explosion on our rig.

• 0:32Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 0:34Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 0:38Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 0:46Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 0:50Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 0:53Speaker 03

  I'm not the first then.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:04Shawn Ryan?

  Chad Robichoff. Dude, welcome to the Sean Ryan Show.

• 1:10Speaker 05

  Super honored to be here, man. I've been looking forward to it for a long time.

• 1:13Shawn Ryan?

  Me too.

• 1:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14Shawn Ryan?

  I've been following you a long time online. I'm just fascinated with all the good stuff you're doing. You're just, dude, you are just a solid human being. And, um, and you're doing great stuff in the world. And, and I can't believe we haven't met before now. But hey, we're here. And I am super excited about this interview. Thank you for being here.

• 1:34Speaker 05

  No, thanks. Thanks so much. Yeah.

• 1:36Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, and then we recorded an awesome podcast last night and had a great dinner. And, uh, we're on a fast timeline here because I know you got to get to Colorado. And, um, so let's dig in.

• 1:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, absolutely. First of all, you know, and thanks for doing my show. I know you don't do a lot of them. But, uh, that was really cool to come here. And your, your staff was so awesome to accommodate us being able to record you. So I'm excited about that as well.

• 2:00Shawn Ryan?

  Well, it was an honor to be on your show, man. But, um, well, let me give you an introduction.

• 2:04Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:04Shawn Ryan?

  It's one of the longest introductions I've ever done. But, uh, but, um, so here we go.

• 2:14Shawn Ryan?

  Chad Robichaud, former Special Operations Force Reconnaissance Marine. You were a DOD contractor on a very high level, eight JSOC deployments. You founded the Mighty Oaks Foundation, which has served over 450,000 service members and first responders. You know what I love, man, is you're helping everybody. We see a lot of nonprofits. I just interviewed this guy, Johnny Wilson. He says there are 70, over 70 nonprofits that are just for special ops. And there's so many other guys out there that have done stuff and that are out there suffering. And so, thank you for helping everybody.

• 2:57Speaker 05

  Absolutely, man. Everybody has their own unique role to play in the big picture of the military as special operations guys. We kind of feel like we're the best, but once you go out into combat and operate, you know that nothing happens without the whole system in place.

• 3:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:10Speaker 05

  And, you know, from the administrators to combat engineers, all those guys, so we got to take care of everyone.

• 3:15Shawn Ryan?

  Infantry guys.

• 3:16Speaker 05

  Especially the infantry guys.

• 3:18Shawn Ryan?

  I mean.

• 3:19Speaker 05

  And the spouses, we take care of spouses too at our program. We treat the spouses, even if they're divorced, the same way we treat an active duty service member. We will put the same amount of care. We pay for everything for the spouses, just the same.

• 3:31Shawn Ryan?

  That's amazing.

• 3:32Speaker 05

  It's a commitment we made as an organization.

• 3:33Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, almost half a million people.

• 3:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:37Shawn Ryan?

  What's that even? I mean, it's, come on, half a million people?

• 3:42Speaker 05

  And I know we'll get into it. When I started Mighty Oaks, people helped me. And the only reason Mighty Oaks began was God put a deep burden on my heart to pay it forward. And that could have been the one person or half a million people. I just knew that I needed, I knew that what someone did for me, I needed to pay it forward. It was my responsibility. And then, you know, over the years, God just orchestrated this amazing team and supporters to make this happen. And I get to be a part of it, man. And we've been to really not only impact a lot of people's lives, but, and save people's lives and restore their families and change their legacies for eternity, because that's what we do. But we get to also empower them to go out and do the same thing. And that's why it's grown the way it has, because we don't just help people, we empower them to go out and make an impact themselves.

• 4:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. We're going to dive into that, but I know you guys are making a huge dent and some of the, some of the issues that are going on for first responders and veterans. And I just commend you for that. You also co-founded Save Our Allies, which

• 4:42Shawn Ryan?

  You guys started basically to go into Afghanistan. We'll get into that.

• 4:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:47Shawn Ryan?

  You're the host of the Resilient Podcast, which I was just on yesterday. You were a federal air marshal. You were worked with the State Department. You got a Medal of Valor for bravery in law enforcement. NBA about to receive another masters from Harvard. From what I understand, you're a professionally MMA fighter, fourth degree black belt in jiu jitsu with an 18 and 2 record, I believe 17 are from submission.

• 5:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, I actually, as a jitsu guy, I'm proud of those 17 submissions.

• 5:19Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet you are.

• 5:22Shawn Ryan?

  You're a Christian, a follower of Christ. You've advised presidential administrations, Congress, the VA and DOD on the effects of PTSD. You're the author of several books, some of which is The Unfair Advantage: Saving of Z's, which is a national bestseller and is now being turned into a real motion picture. Congratulations on that.

• 5:47Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 5:47Shawn Ryan?

  I know that's a huge part of your story and I can't wait to dive into that. And now your next one that is coming out, when does this release?

• 5:53Speaker 05

  August 13th, A Mission Without Borders. It's going out through Nelson, Thomas Nelson Books and I'm super excited about A Mission Without Borders. It's a very personal story between me and my son. It's about you, the backdrop is Ukraine, but it's about, it's about me, my son and I.

• 6:09Shawn Ryan?

  That's incredible.

• 6:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:11Shawn Ryan?

  And you are a husband, a father, a grandfather. You've been married for 28 years.

• 6:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:18Shawn Ryan?

  Congratulations.

• 6:19Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 6:19Shawn Ryan?

  That is no easy task.

• 6:21Speaker 05

  No.

• 6:21Shawn Ryan?

  And especially no easy task when you're deploying as a Marine and as a JSOC operator.

• 6:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 6:28Shawn Ryan?

  And all the stuff that you do now.

• 6:30Speaker 05

  All the odds are stacked against you for sure. And Kathy's a pretty strong, pretty strong lady.

• 6:35Shawn Ryan?

  You founded the nonprofit Fourth Option, which I love. We'll get into that too. What I really like about Fourth Option, that's what everything you're doing now, right?

• 6:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, everything, everything. I mean, Mighty Oaks is our recovery. We do international efforts at Mighty Oaks, but Sea Spray, who I won't say his name, but Sea Spray is my partner in a lot of the international stuff we do and humanitarian work and rescue operations. He wanted to start his own effort. And so I set as chairman of the board, I helped him stand it up and we run those international, currently running international efforts around the world and you know, Sea Spray's out. In another country right now, literally as we're sitting here rescuing on a rescue operation.

• 7:14Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I love about that, we talked about it this morning, is that's already funded.

• 7:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:21Shawn Ryan?

  You don't need to go around and, and, and, I mean, it's funded, so you can 100% concentrate on the mission, and I find those to be the most effective nonprofits.

• 7:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 7:35Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, so.

• 7:36Speaker 05

  You know, Mighty Oaks with the, you know, the effort with veterans versus responders, you know, for me, I'm always fundraising, I have to raise eight million dollars a year to do our programs, but the humanitarian rescue operations, uh, I'm very blessed to have some good relationships with people who love, love to just do the right thing for other humans, and when we come and say, hey, we have an operation and we need to pull the trigger on this operation, because if we don't act in the next 24 hours, someone's gonna live or die, and people write checks and, and, uh, and make it happen, and so it's amazing that, there's amazing human beings out there that do the right thing when, when our governments won't.

• 8:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, man, it's, um, some of the stuff you were telling me last night about what you guys are doing, and what the government is asking you to do is just, it's mind blowing. But, um, and I want to end this with, out of all the stuff that you've done, what comes to my mind is your humanitarian, you have saved over 17,000 Afghans from potential genocide, you had a major part of the Ben Hall rescue, you had a major, you have a major part going on and saving lives in Ukraine, and I know you want, you want this out there, you do not support the Biden, Zelensky, hundreds of million, billions of dollars going over

• 8:53Shawn Ryan?

  there, you're only there to, for the people, and, um, very commendable.

• 8:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:58Shawn Ryan?

  You know, it's, it's, I think it's hard for people to push their politics aside when it comes to just helping people these days, and you're leading my example with doing that, so.

• 9:07Speaker 05

  I say when I speak a lot, because a lot of people have given me a hard time about being in Ukraine, and they're like, Zelensky's corrupt, and I'm like, so are politicians in Washington DC, right, but, uh, and every politi, most politicians at the beginning of time, but if, if you let your politics get in the way of your heart for people, you should probably change your politics, uh, as humans, we have to be there for one another in our weakest times, and, uh, and, you know, if God opens the door for me to do that, I'm gonna do it.

• 9:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah, well, we got a lot to dive into, but before we do, everybody always gets a gift, if you watch the show, you already know that.

• 9:38Speaker 05

  Outstanding. You get your own gift bags like.

• 9:41Shawn Ryan?

  Hey.

• 9:43Shawn Ryan?

  It's actually just from Kroger and we slapped a sticker on it.

• 9:45Speaker 05

  You put a sticker on it?

• 9:48Speaker 05

  Well, actually, you got, you got, you got the Sean Ryan bottles and you got the coffee cup sleeves.

• 9:52Shawn Ryan?

  You know why I do that?

• 9:54Speaker 05

  It's good branding.

• 9:55Shawn Ryan?

  That's why we do it. I used to drink bubbly on here all the time and we would tag them, shout them out just because I love the brand and then they

• 10:08Shawn Ryan?

  they don't like us because probably because we're a little bit political over here. So, you know, it was like, you know what? If you don't appreciate the free, the free commercial that hundreds of millions of people have seen by now, then I'll just give my own branded stuff.

• 10:25Speaker 05

  They're not the only water, right?

• 10:27Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome.

• 10:27Speaker 05

  Yeah. Wow. I just had a cup of this. This is awesome.

• 10:32Shawn Ryan?

  I know me and you were talking about a lot about brain health yesterday and so I wanted to give you that. That's got a bunch of functional mushroom extract in there. Super healthy for your brain.

• 10:43Shawn Ryan?

  Finest ingredients. They source everything they can in the U.S. Unless they find a better ingredient, then they will put that in there. So I think we can all appreciate that, but.

• 10:54Speaker 05

  I do, yeah.

• 10:55Shawn Ryan?

  Laird Superfood Creamer and

• 10:59Shawn Ryan?

  the real good stuff. Performance mushrooms and Vigilance League gummy bears. So.

• 11:08Speaker 05

  Keep telling me what these are.

• 11:09Shawn Ryan?

  Well, they're legal in all 50 states, so you don't have to worry about popping on a drug test. But it's just candy, man. It's just gummy bears.

• 11:17Speaker 05

  Right on. Everybody loves gummy bears.

• 11:19Shawn Ryan?

  I know, right? So.

• 11:21Speaker 05

  Got some hydration packs.

• 11:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 11:26Speaker 05

  And, uh, and the stickers in here.

• 11:28Shawn Ryan?

  That's all good. Let's get on with the interview.

• 11:30Speaker 05

  Awesome. Thank you for the guest, man.

• 11:31Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome. You're welcome.

• 11:37Shawn Ryan?

  So Chad, I just, I want to do a complete life story on you. So, we got about five hours to cover it all. And, um, so I want to start with childhood. I know you had faced some childhood drama.

• 11:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:49Shawn Ryan?

  And dealt with some really tough things growing up. Get into your marine service, get into what you were doing over at JSOC. And then, at least half the interview needs to be on some of the stuff that you're doing now and, and within the past couple of years, especially the Afghan withdrawal, saving Aziz, the stuff you're doing in Ukraine, and, um, hopefully, some of the stuff you guys got coming.

• 12:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 12:12Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, so, with that being said, where'd you grow up?

• 12:17Speaker 05

  Southern Louisiana, like, really southern Louisiana, swamp people. I grew up, my, my parents and all former grandparents spoke French, so, French speaking household.

• 12:31Speaker 05

  Very...

• 12:32Shawn Ryan?

  Do you speak French?

• 12:34Speaker 05

  I could understand where I grew up. It's not French, like, in France. Cajun French, half English, half French, a lot of slang. And so, uh, I was, because I was the oldest grandchild, and there were so many French speakers where I grew up, it was forbidden to be spoken in school. Uh, so, the, uh, I was the first generation of people that, that parents were trying to stop from learning French, but because I grew up in that household, I could always understand it and, and, uh, and I think it gave me aptitude to learn languages, cause I think, I think, cause I was able to learn a language just pretty easy as an adult, like, you know, and had to, eventually went to language school for Urdu, uh, for Pakistan, for Urdu, and, and then

• 13:16Speaker 05

  I learned Dari in Afghanistan, pretty good. So I feel like I had aptitude for language because of, maybe growing up that way.

• 13:22Shawn Ryan?

  How many languages do you speak?

• 13:23Speaker 05

  Uh, I don't, I don't speak any other, right now, than English, but, uh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't claim to speak any, but when I was in, when I was in Afghanistan, I felt like I, I felt like I had a pretty good...

• 13:31Shawn Ryan?

  You could get around.

• 13:32Speaker 05

  Get around with Dari, and then, and then, uh, when I was in, when I went through language training for Urdu, I spoke it really well. But when I got to Pakistan, everyone that speaks Urdu, which is the national language, also speaks English. So they didn't, but, the tribal areas that I was actually working in, they spoke more Pashtun. And, uh, and so, English actually ended up being more, uh, helpful than, than Urdu for the areas I was in Pakistan.

• 13:54Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 13:55Speaker 05

  So I didn't really get to practice Urdu as much as I did Dari.

• 13:58Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 13:58Speaker 05

  Uh, but yeah, so grew up in southern, in southern Louisiana, and my family, on one side of my family was... Uh, like true cowboying, cattle, hay, the other side of my family were commercial cat fishermen. And, uh, and so, uh, as young as like six years old, I was out in the Prog, uh, hunting with a four ten shotgun and fishing. Like, kind of grew up that lifestyle where you kind of out on your own and, you know, just very, uh, very much like, uh, go back in time, like fifty, sixty years, and that's kind of how, how I grew up. And I, I really am thankful I grew up that way. Uh, my, my family has about eighty-four years of military service.

• 14:38Speaker 05

  Uh, so I'm told World War One, so before that, but I don't have any evidence of that, but World War Two, um, in the army, Korea, in the army. My father was the first Marine in my family. He joined as infantryman, uh, at oh three eleven, went to, uh, Vietnam in that capacity and, uh, and myself as a four recon Marine and then an Afghanistan veteran. And then both my sons, uh, my oldest son, Hunter, joined Marine Corps, be Anglico, uh, which I don't know if you know Anglico, air, air naval gunfire liaison company. It's a little four man, uh, fit, uh, uh, little four man teams that embed with foreign nationals so they have access to US air support. So they're J, J tax for air controllers.

• 15:22Speaker 05

  Yeah. So in the, in the, in fact, he went to Afghanistan, embedded with the Georgian infantry and a four man team to embed with the Georgian infantry. And actually got to, you know, do fire missions and stuff like that. No way. Taliban, yeah. So, uh, so, uh, so two, two generations of Afghanistan veterans. My youngest son Hayden is, uh, still in the Marine Corps. Uh, he actually was on active duty, got out refusing the vaccine, that he was one of the ones that got kicked out. And then as soon as he lifted it, he got back in the Marine Corps in the reserves and he's a crash fire rescue. Um, and so the firefighter side. Incredible. So, yeah, so that's, that's kind of our military service, but, you know, my father is very significant role in my childhood because my father went into Vietnam because he, he was, he went to Vietnam and under.

• 16:08Speaker 05

  I don't know if you know, like, you probably do, like, if you got drafted, you went into the, usually you went to the army. You didn't go into the Marine Corps. Marine Corps is pretty much volunteer during Vietnam. And so my, my father volunteered to go to Marine Corps. And the reason he did was he was driving to high school. And he was goofing off in his car and his best friend was in the passenger seat. He swerved off the road and hit the back of a garbage truck and, and his best friend that he was driving died. And so his, his response to that was to go in the Marine Corps, volunteer as infantryman and go to Vietnam. And so he went into the Marine Corps, already broken, probably on a death wish. And, uh, and when he got home, he was a, just a very broken person, his whole life. And so, uh, so he was a very angry man, a very violent man, a lot of physical abuse in my home and, you know, fist to face.

• 16:52Speaker 05

  He always wanted to fight me, like, uh, even I remember as a little kid, like, didn't want to, not spankings, or he, he wanted to, like, physically fight me. And so I had an older brother, he was a year older than me. And, uh, anybody's grown up in a physical abuse home like that, you know, siblings get really close. And so my brother and I, being in some, we'd always be out in the woods, in the swamps, playing, pretending to be in military, you know, that's like boys do and, uh, and, uh, we, we talk about joining the military and, and escaping that lifestyle. And I remember like, I was about 13 and he was about 14 years old. He's a year older than me. And, uh, we watched this video, you've probably seen it. It was in, it was, you know, talking, uh,

• 17:31Speaker 05

  early, late eighties. It was filmed in, on a strand in Coronado. And it was these, these, it was a SEAL video and it was kind of like a SEAL promo video. And I remember seeing this, this image of this SEAL coming out of the water. He had twin eighties on his back. He had a boonie hat on, his face is painted green, like seaweed hanging off him. He had the old M16 rifle. And I'm like, I want to do that. Like, that's, that's what I want to do. That's who I want to be. Like, just that image in my mind and I was, but I was like, I don't want to join the Navy.

• 17:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:58Speaker 05

  And, and, you know, I, I say that jokingly, but the truth is, the reason was that my father, as dysfunctional as my father was, the one thing that always made my dad like, The only thing I ever seen in his whole life that made him proud and happy was the fact that he's a United States Marine, even though he only did it for two years. You know, that two years was so significant in his life. It was like everything was about being a Marine.

• 18:20Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 18:21Speaker 05

  Like if they can make that guy, like miserable guy, happy, like I want a piece of that. And so I learned about like recon Marines and force recon Marines and as a teenager, that's I became infatuated with it. I'd read books, they had these amazing stories of these guys from Vietnam. They were force recon, they're recon company. I ended up serving at third force recon later. So that was like a unit that I read as a teenager. And so I started running and swimming and eating healthy, which I don't even know how it's inspired to eat healthy because from Louisiana, but I started really taking care of myself. About a year into me and my brother doing that, making the commitment to do that together. He was, he was shot and he was killed and it was just devastating.

• 18:57Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on Chad, hold on.

• 18:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:59Shawn Ryan?

  We've got a lot to unpack.

• 19:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:01Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go back. You know, the

• 19:06Shawn Ryan?

  traumatic childhood I'm realizing is

• 19:11Shawn Ryan?

  very common.

• 19:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:13Shawn Ryan?

  And there's a lot of people that have been on the show that I had no idea, you being one of them. Until, until we did some research on you and so, you know, and there's a lot of people going through that kind of stuff right now. And so I always like to unpack what happened to you if you're willing.

• 19:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 19:31Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and, and, and talk about how you escaped it and

• 19:38Shawn Ryan?

  and eventually if you have any advice, you know, for, for kids that are going through that right now. So let's, let's go back to, what, what age did that start?

• 19:47Speaker 05

  I keep, you know, it's crazy and you know, people think I'm crazy for this, saying this and I actually never even mentioned this publicly before.

• 19:56Speaker 05

  I had this vision of being, it's almost like I see myself in third party of being a toddler and being held under a bathtub with water while I was trying to cry and being held like drowned underwater. And I had that vision in my mind for like ever, like I'd always, I'd always see my dad holding me under a bathtub, water pouring out as a toddler crying and gasping for air because I'm like suffocating. And, and so one day at about 10 years ago, I told my mom that. And my mom started crying and she said that my dad used to do that to me.

• 20:32Speaker 05

  When I would cry, he would get so frustrated at me crying and I wouldn't stop crying as a baby. That he would take me and hold me under the water, like you wanna cry, you can't like, and so he'd hold me under the water. And um, and so I believe that I remember it all the way in that infancy age that were and and subconsciously, I remember that. And you know, my mom, my mom validated, validated that. And uh, so my mom, you know, a guy coming home from combat frustrated, can't take the pressure of a baby crying. And that was his response to that. And then I could remember being, you know, even as, you know, as four or five years old, watching my dad physically beat my mom. And I don't mean like, I mean, like slapping her out, I mean, like punching her and beating her.

• 21:13Speaker 05

  At about six years old, uh, that's when my dad left divorced my mom. And uh, and I remember like sitting on a swing in the front yard with my mom, watching my dad leave. And uh, you know, at that young, I could, I could remember that, the imagery of that.

• 21:27Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. When, when would these calm flashbacks, when will these flashbacks happen with the bathtub?

• 21:35Speaker 05

  All through my life.

• 21:37Shawn Ryan?

  Were they triggered by anything specific?

• 21:39Speaker 05

  No, I, I think it just, for me, like, I don't have, I didn't, I, I don't have a lot of things that, that even, even things like to this day to deal with. I don't have a lot of things that trigger me. It's usually ice isolation or like sitting still, which probably explains why. You read my bio and, and people are like, oh, that's amazing bio. I hear that bio and I'm like, that sounds like a very discontent person. That was like trying to stay busy and meet the next goal, like so sometimes I hear my bio and I'm, I feel like super uncomfortable because that's, that's what I hear. I hear someone that's discontent that was chasing something. And I think one of the things that I, as I'm older now, I know that I was chasing, I just had to stay busy. I had to stay moving. Cause when I, when I, when things slow down for me, that's when I have trigger, that's when I start

• 22:23Speaker 05

  um, dealing with a lot of things that uh, that come back to the surface. So like for me, busyness was like a, has, has been a battle because it's almost like addictive behavior. Like some people might drink or do drugs for me, business was a way to, to not think of those things. So when I'm isolated, when I'm still, which is being still is healthy. When I'm, when I'm still, that's when those moments would come to hear, to remember that some of that stuff.

• 22:47Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude.

• 22:51Shawn Ryan?

  Did your dad ever re-enter the picture?

• 22:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it was pretty, pretty, uh, I went about, so my dad, my dad left when my brother died. He couldn't handle a grieving wife. My mother went to live with, uh, with her parents, she couldn't handle the loss of a son. My dad left and we went to Africa and pretty much abandoned me and my sister. My sister was about 20, so I lived with my sister. She was going to college and tried to finish high school and continue that course for the Marine Corps. And, uh, and so, you know, fast forward to like adulthood, there had been gaps at times that I went and talked to my dad for like five, 10 years, he just disappear. Well, it had been, uh, it had been about 10 years that I was away from my dad. And, uh, and, and I got a call.

• 23:40Speaker 05

  This is like, and I know we'll get into starting Mighty Oaks, but this is like, my life's on track now after tons of stuff going wrong. I'm starting Mighty Oaks, uh, and, and like, I went through a major forgiveness to me personally in my life. And I get this call from the hospital saying, your dad's in the hospital. He had a heart attack, simultaneous heart attack and a stroke, and you're his next of kin. And I remember being like angry, like, why would they call me? Like, why does he even have my name associated? Like, I haven't talked to him in 10 years, like, why would they call me? Like, I'm just being real angry about that. And then, but then realizing like, this dude's like train wrecked his life. He doesn't have anybody else. And so I have to go and, and sign paperwork for him and, and, and be his next of kin for this situation.

• 24:24Speaker 05

  And that led me on a, that led me like to a real conviction point and, and because, uh, I had just come out of a situation where people forgave me. And now I'm not wanting to forgive my dad because of what he did to me. And so I ended up going and, and seeing him. And that started, and he was in, he went from that state to a very like, uh, almost like, like he just,

• 24:47Speaker 05

  what do you, what do you call the word where he's, he was just like, couldn't take care of himself. He was, he was, uh,

• 24:54Speaker 05

  He was like, had the stroke. He was stuck, he was stuck in a wheelchair. This is a guy that was like physically strong his whole life. Mean, like, like super mean, violent, and, and just physically strong to like a guy that was bound in a wheelchair. And couldn't wipe his butt. And, and so, um, I went to see him for a couple of times and, and we kind of reconnected. I felt like I had, I had some forgiveness there for him. I actually was new in my faith, prayed with him, and, and felt like, you know, he, he had, he was in a repentant point in his life. And then, then he disappeared again.

• 25:24Shawn Ryan?

  You were new at faith?

• 25:25Speaker 05

  I was new in faith at the time. Uh, maybe like two years, two years. Um, which, you know, you're kind of on fire in the first two years of your faith and, you know, I, I, I say that in the first two years, that mine had went out, but, but, uh, but, uh, but I was really like, you know. I, I felt like I have to share what I discovered with him. And, and he, he really like grabbed hold of it, but he disappeared again. And I know why he disappeared. And I couldn't get a hold of him. But then I got an anonymous call that he had hooked up with this woman and they had to put him in. They were using his social security check and they put him in this drug house and, uh, and he was just parked in this drug house in, in, in Oklahoma.

• 26:03Speaker 05

  And so I, I made some phone calls, found out where he was and, and I, I got on a plane and rented a car and went, and went and found him. And, uh, and when I went into the house, uh, it was in the middle of a like bad neighborhood. I went into the house and there was tons of people in this house. You could tell they're just hanging out like some. Um, some guys that were probably in their early twenties. And I went in, I think they thought I was the police because when I seen him, he was parked in the corner in the chair. And like a hospital gown. He was filthy. He had a, a feeding tube in him with an empty milk jug that they were pouring stuff in and they were just. And, and I'm just like, I just yell, everybody get the F out of the house. And people were like, I think, again, I think they thought I was the police because they just ran out of the house.

• 26:43Speaker 05

  And, and I went out, when I went to him, he's like, he was like, kind of like out of it. And, uh, I looked at his, first thing I looked at was his hands and his fingernails were like really long. And they were full of feces. And he was like, he was in a, he was like in a pair of underwear and it was soiled. And he was just filthy. And, uh, and I kind of panicked. I went to the bathroom and I got. Uh, I got somebody's toothbrush in his bowl that was on a table and I got some water and I went start cleaning his hands and I called 911. Start cleaning his hands with somebody's toothbrush and uh, and just washing my dad's hands and uh, and then they came, picked him up and uh, I called, and they, Health and Human Services came from Oklahoma. And they put him in a nursing home. I was trying to get him to the state I was living in at the time. I was living in California at the time.

• 27:26Speaker 05

  But because of the way the medical system was, they couldn't move him. Uh, so he couldn't be in the state I was, so he didn't have anything. He didn't have a pair of underwear, clothes, like, uh, so I had to, I bought him, you know, a TV, uh, a phone, it's prepaid cards and I start calling him. And he would call and he was like, he was like having dementia, so he'd, he'd call, he'd call me on that phone and he'd say, Chad, this is your daddy, like, I love you. And he never would say his whole life that you love me, but he'd say, and he, and he'd start crying and tell me, I'm sorry. And he'd say it over and over and then, say, okay, and then he'd hang up the phone and about 30 minutes later, he called and had the same conversation again. And uh, and so he was very repentive at the end of his life and, and I was pretty sure at that point from talking to him that he had,

• 28:10Speaker 05

  you know, that he had, you know, found his faith and, and uh, and then I got a call, not from the convalescent home, but from the funeral home that he had, that he had passed. And that was uh, that was about s- seven years ago. Shit. And uh, so yeah, so I, I, you know, of all the things that I've been through with my dad, uh, I realized in, in all the years that I hated my dad, uh, I realized that he was just such a broken person that had never had the opportunity to heal. And that really convicts me to uh, to do better for our veterans, uh, who coming home because that's, so that's a big part of my motivation of why I do what I do at Mighty Oaks for the veterans is because

• 28:50Speaker 05

  I was, not only did I go through that myself, through my own experience of combat, but I, I was the recipient of, of that hardship as a son. And, and uh, and had my dad got, had my dad been introduced when he came home from Vietnam to what we do at Mighty Oaks, you know, I would, he would have not lived the life he lived. Our family would have not suffered the way what our family suffered. And so I feel a responsibility to take those lessons into what I do every day. And uh, my dad was just a broken person that never got the healing. And I could say that truthfully and, and, and with compassion now as opposed to like hating him for what he was. He was just, he was just hurting.

• 29:27Shawn Ryan?

  Damn Chad.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  So.

• 29:28Shawn Ryan?

  That's some heavy stuff.

• 29:31Speaker 05

  That's my, that's the foundation of my childhood.

• 29:33Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, let's rewind.

• 29:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:36Shawn Ryan?

  What did he, what was he doing in Africa?

• 29:39Speaker 05

  Uh, he was working in an oil field. He, he, when he got out of the Marine Corps, he went to, he, he went to, into the hydraulic engineering field. So he'd always work in the oil field and hydraulics. And, uh, so he'd, you know, always take these jobs overseas to make, you know, make more money, tax free money. And, uh, so he was always chasing money.

• 29:59Shawn Ryan?

  How did you find out he won't?

• 30:00Speaker 05

  And he ended up, he ended up with no money at the end, right? He didn't even have a, a pair of underwear. He chased money, women, booze, and, and so much to the point that when he died, I called his sister, I called his brother, I call, I start calling people. I couldn't have a funeral for him because no, not one person would even go to a funeral for him. And so his ashes are in my house and I plan, I plan on doing something with his ashes. I still can't decide what to do with them, but, uh, but he, he didn't even have a funeral because he didn't have one person,

• 30:30Speaker 05

  that would even go to a funeral for him.

• 30:32Shawn Ryan?

  Whoa.

• 30:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:35Shawn Ryan?

  I'm speechless.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  So I, I think, I think, I speak on Marine Corps boot camp all the time and the fact that he was proud to be a Marine. I got permission already from the Marine Corps to put his ashes on the, on the, um, training grounds in MCRD San Diego, where he went to boot camp and me and my sons went to boot camp as well. And so that's where I'll probably put his, his remains. But I just hadn't, hadn't, I hadn't done it yet.

• 30:57Shawn Ryan?

  Did your, did your kids ever meet him, your wife, your kids?

• 31:01Speaker 05

  They did, my, my oldest son, uh, did, my, all my kids met him, but as, as kids and, uh, and my wife. My wife did several times, you know?

• 31:09Shawn Ryan?

  How did you find? Do you know who Victor Marks is?

• 31:14Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, yeah. I've been knowing Victor for a long time. In fact, you know what's crazy is Victor, Victor and I, so I grew up in that environment. Victor grew up in that similar scenario. We were, we, we grew up like six miles down the same street.

• 31:26Shawn Ryan?

  That's right.

• 31:26Speaker 05

  Same street from each other.

• 31:27Shawn Ryan?

  Whoa.

• 31:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, we were like six miles apart.

• 31:31Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that's, I was gonna say, man, you guys have a very similar.

• 31:34Speaker 05

  He lived on Bay Blue, Bay Blue Bypass Road, which is, I lived on the end of that.

• 31:38Shawn Ryan?

  I couldn't, I couldn't believe that he was able to find forgiveness for his dad. And so, I mean, how did you?

• 31:48Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, shit Chad, you're getting drowned as a three-year-old, as a toddler, maybe possibly before that. Physical abuse, the abuse of your mother, your siblings, and who knows what you're not bringing up.

• 32:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:01Shawn Ryan?

  How were you able to, I mean, honestly, I mean, I think I, I personally struggle with forgiveness. I know a lot of people struggle with forgiveness. And some of the things that I need to forgive people for are when I talk to a man like you, and this is what you're talking about, you were able to forgive your dad for that. The shit that I'm talking about is

• 32:29Shawn Ryan?

  so miniscule.

• 32:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:31Shawn Ryan?

  You know, comparatively, and how did you find it?

• 32:37Speaker 05

  When I, I didn't want to give it at first because I was, I was, I had held that anger for so long. But, you know, I, I believe in God's timing. When I got that phone call from the hospital, like, I was living in this, I was living in that, in this moment of grace at that, at that point because I had just had treated my family like a complete lunatic. Like, I never physically abused them, but I certainly emotionally and mentally abused my wife and, and my kids. I was having, you know, a fair, a fair on my wife. I left my family, like, had been the worst husband and, and father that I possibly could have been.

• 33:18Speaker 05

  And yet, my wife and my kids had just forgiven me and given me a second chance. And so, if, if they could do that for me in that moment, and now I get this call from the hospital to come and help my dad, like, how, like, how much of a hypocrite would I, would I be to not be able to just extend that same kind of grace that I was given? And, and to know that, you know, the grace that, and forgiveness that God gives us all, that offers for us all, that I had just been given that, this new chance at life, like, and by the way, I didn't have a second chance. I've had plenty, plenty of second chances in my life. Like, I had just went through that in that moment. And so, it was demonstrated for me.

• 33:58Speaker 05

  You know, it was demonstrated for me by, by a wife that had absolutely no reason at all to give me a second chance. Uh, I didn't deserve it. I didn't earn it. Uh, in, in, in my, in my most like despicable times towards her, she's going in a church and praying for me, falling on his knees and praying for me, saying, you know, and, and you know, God, let me see Chad the way you see Chad. Let me love Chad the way you love Chad. Let me forgive Chad the way you forgave Chad. That's what she is praying for me when she knew I was having an affair in her. Like, let me see Chad the way, not the way she sees me. Let me see him the way God sees him. And like, so just having to just experience that, like, like I knew that, that I had to build to offer that same grace to the person who I felt in my life had betrayed me the deepest. And that was, that was my dad.

• 34:44Speaker 05

  Damn. What was it like for you walking into the hospital, seeing him? I was still angry. Like, I, I, and, and I carried that, darn that rebuilding that relationship, I carried that for a long time. Bite my tongue. It wasn't like, okay, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna be happy about it. No, I wasn't happy about it. I'm, I'm a pretty, I can be a pretty strong willed person. Uh, my personality, I'm sure we were a lot like that way. I'm pretty strong willed. Uh, I was very grudgeful and, uh, uh, like super cynical. Like, I'm just gonna open this up for him to hurt me again as soon as he gets healthy. And, uh, so, but, you know, I, I knew that wasn't the reason that I needed to do it. I need, I need, I needed to do it as much for me as for him. I needed to do it for me because I, I didn't want to live with that anger anymore. Like, uh, towards him. I just needed to let it go. Man.

• 35:30Speaker 05

  And, uh, and it was really just understanding like what he had been through. And I remember when I first learned about why he joined the Marine Corps and, and, uh, and, and I met the sister. Uh, I met the sister, the, the kid that was killed in the, in the car. I was speaking at church and this, the kid, the kid that was killed in the car when, when he, when he was driving, went off the road, hit the, hit the garbage truck. She came up to me in tears. Uh, she went to high school with my dad. I remember when that happened and she's like, and she's telling me how she forgave my dad for that, for killing their brother. And, uh, and she was crying. This was like years, obviously years later, uh, you know, um. Man. Forty years, forty years later or so, but, and, uh.

• 36:10Speaker 05

  So I just, it was just something I had to do. And like I said, you know, I had to do it for me too, not just to forgive him. Yeah, yeah. I think people confuse forgiveness though with like, like sometimes it feel like, oh, if I forgive someone, I have to give them a clean slate and forget. And, and I have to, you know, allow myself to be hurt again. That's not always the case. My father wasn't in a position to hurt me again. So that was easy, right? He's not in a position to hurt me again. He's not gonna, he's not gonna physically abuse me. He's not gonna manipulate me or take advantage of me. I'm a grown man and, and so, so that's a little bit different. But sometimes we're in a position to where someone could still hurt us and be vulnerable to us. And we feel like forgiveness makes us, means that we have to get in the green light to hurt us again. That doesn't always mean the case. Forgiveness could be like, hey, I forgive you.

• 36:49Speaker 05

  Like I'm letting this go for myself, but I'm not, but that doesn't mean you're allowed to come back and hurt me again. That doesn't mean we have to be friends. Like forgiveness doesn't always mean that we're gonna restore our friendship or a relationship. It just means like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna forgive you for that and I pray that you go on and have, you know, are successful in your life and, and productive in your life, productive in your life. And don't do that kind of behavior again, but I don't have to let you back into my life. So forgiveness is one thing. I chose not only to forgive my dad, but to let him back into my life. And, and I did feel like I had the ability to protect myself from him ever hurting me again, cause I was not in a position for him to anymore. And my family, like he wasn't gonna, he wasn't in a position to hurt my family either. Let's go back to your brother. What happened?

• 37:34Speaker 05

  So very, very broken family, split family, step dads and step moms and all that stuff. So we were, we had a, we went into our, our other families for the, for a weekend. And we had just got there, like he had just got home to his other family. I had just got home to my other family. And he had a, a half brother on that other side and it was 11 years old. And they got in an argument. And apparently he had, he had got, taken a shotgun, 20 gauge shotgun off the gun rack. I don't know if he loaded it or was loaded, no one knows. And he was pointing at him when the argument, my brother was on the phone telling someone what was going on. He had a fire poker in his hand and tried to knock the gun out of the eleven year old's hand.

• 38:17Speaker 05

  And again, no one knows, did he shoot intentionally or did the gun go off? I would believe it was probably intentionally because of the fact that we all grew up around guns and, you know, just a culture, right? Everybody hunting from like five, six years old, so. But the gun, nonetheless, the gun, intentionally or unintentionally, went off point blank range in his chest. And he died instantly. And no one else was there to witness it. Someone was on the phone. The person on the phone was one street over, told his father, his father ran over in the house and he was already dead. And so, very, very, I mean, like I said, when you grew up in that kind of environment,

• 39:00Speaker 05

  siblings are who you're closest to. My brother was like every day, super close. And extremely devastating to me. I went in a pretty deep isolation and that pushed me into just really focusing on running, swimming, martial arts, like, you know, the martial arts, I was a kid, we did it together. So I just kind of isolated in that environment. How old were you when that happened? I was fourteen. I was fourteen. And by the time I was fifteen is when my dad had left. And so from fifteen to sixteen, I'm living with my sister. I get a job roofing, putting shingles on houses in Louisiana. And trying to work and go to high school and I started failing high school.

• 39:40Speaker 05

  I wasn't going to graduate. And so I went to Marine Corps recruiter names. I remember his name to this day, thirty years later. Staff Sergeant Ronald Brown. And I always joke, most people remember their recruiter's name because they hate him. I remember this guy's name because I'm just forever grateful. Like, he heard my story and I remember he just like. He was just like, I want to help you. And he helped me get in the Marine Corps without even a high school diploma. Which nineteen ninety-three, seventeen years old, you couldn't join the Marine Corps without a high school diploma. Uh, he wrote a letter to headquarters of Marine Corps and said, this kid wants to be a Marine. His dad was a Marine. Um, and this is a story and they let me in. And I, I, I didn't, I don't know how, but I took the ASFAB test, scored really high, high enough to be

• 40:23Speaker 05

  just like BUDS, you know, you have to score, you know, GT score has to be over one fifteen. So I had a one sixteen GT score. So I was high enough to be able to recon. They didn't have a recon contract. So I got an infantry contract. And I made a promise to him that when I got into infantry school that I would get my GED and, and I kept that promise. It wasn't contractual. Uh, but I kept that promise. And, uh, and when I got, went to boot camp, got into infantry school. One of the first things I did was went to, uh, Copper Mountain College in Twin Peaks, California. And I got my GED and

• 40:51Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 40:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. And all these years later, you know, I got MBA.

• 40:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  And I can't, I always joke and speak, I'm like, I can't spell MBA, but I got one. And now, uh, and now I'm, you know, about to get my second masters from Harvard, which I don't need another degree right now. I'm, I'm, I'm not getting it for the degree. I just, I, I, I love learning. And, uh, and there's some courses there that I want to learn from.

• 41:12Shawn Ryan?

  Before we move into your military career.

• 41:19Shawn Ryan?

  As a man who's been through all of that in childhood and, and like I had mentioned, there's millions of, millions of kids that are in similar situations right now.

• 41:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:33Shawn Ryan?

  What advice do you have for them?

• 41:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, uh, there's a book by, uh, I'm trying, I'm trying to remember the name of it as you're talking. Victor Frankl wrote it. Are you familiar with this book?

• 41:43Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  Okay. Victor Frankl was, was a POW in, in, uh, in the Nazi camps, the Jewish, Jewish POW. And he just talked about the, the one thing that people can't take away, you know, one freedom people can't take away from us is, is our, is our mind and our thoughts and our, and our, and our connection with God. And, uh, you know, and people that you're talking about are in a different range of that, right? You get some people go talk to a school teacher or the counselor. Some people could go talk to their pastor at church or a counselor. But some people were like, they had no one they could talk to. We could always talk to God and, uh, God knows our circumstances more than we ever could. And he knows our hardships and it hurts more than we ever can even understand. And I think, you know, when you feel like you have no one and that's, that's just a lie. It's not true.

• 42:28Speaker 05

  You could, you could always, you know, have a relationship with God, talk to God and, and, and plead your case to God that he'll open doors and orchestrate miracles to get you out of that environment and situation. If you have the ability to talk to someone, most kids in that situation

• 42:47Speaker 05

  or want, not only want to, or scared, I think most people think you're scared to talk to someone else outside of it. Most kids want to protect their parents. Cause at our core, like we love our parents. I, I still, man, what I'm doing right now, I might, I wish my dad could watch this interview because I want him to be proud of me, like, like everybody wants their dad to be proud of them, no matter how terrible they were. And so at the, at the, at your core, you want to protect your parents. So a lot of times kids will live in that environment, not because they're scared to ask for help, because they want to protect their parents and hide and shield them. And, and, and to me, the answer to this question, I would, what I would tell those kids is, uh, you're not protecting them by, by hiding that.

• 43:29Speaker 05

  You have to expose what's happening, not just for you, but for them too. They're never going to change. You're never going to get better unless it's exposed. And so you have to, you have to talk to someone. And, and, and whether it's a counselor at school, a mentor, a neighbor, someone you trust, or, or, you know, get connected in a church and a group and, and share that with someone. Cause a lot of times kids will think, I deserve this. I've been, you know, I was, I'm not a good kid. I'm, I'm stupid, I'm, I'm bad and I deserve this. You don't deserve that. No, no, no kid deserves to be physically abused. Yeah. Especially sexually abused.

• 44:09Speaker 05

  And, and I think, I thank God that I've never experienced that, but I know that most, uh, most people in those situations deal with sexual abuse as well. And, you know, you don't have to deal with that. You, you should never have to deal with that. So you gotta talk to someone. Yeah. As scary as it may be. Well, thank you for that advice. Yeah.

• 44:31Shawn Ryan?

  You know, you had mentioned, you had mentioned two things that I'm piecing together already. And so, you know, we talked about your intro and you see a guy that moves fast, always keeping busy, always one upping himself. I mean, that's, that's, that's what I thought when I read your bio too. I was like, man, this guy's, he's an overachiever.

• 44:53Speaker 05

  Which is not always a good thing.

• 44:56Shawn Ryan?

  You had mentioned you want your dad to be proud. Do you think that you've accomplished so much? Do you think that that plays a role in that as you want your dad to be proud of you? And, and, and it caused you to consistently outdo yourself? I mean, Marine Special Operations, JSOC, I know you were over at Dev Group for a while, Mighty Oaks Foundation, Save Our Allies, the new nonprofit that you guys are running, saving, I mean, 17,000 plus people from Afghanistan. You've offered, offered over three books. I don't know how many books you've authored.

• 45:38Shawn Ryan?

  You have an MBA, you're getting a masters from, from, from Harvard. I mean, is that the stem?

• 45:46Speaker 05

  I, I don't know. You know, I ask myself that too.

• 45:50Speaker 05

  One, there's a saying, you know, tell me I can't, right? And, and I had a dad and a stepdad that both told me I couldn't. I remember, I remember when I, my, my, my mom's married to this complete degenerate at, at the time and, and, and I'm like, I'm going to America. My mom, I was 17, so my mom had to sign the paperwork. And we forged my dad's because he was overseas.

• 46:15Speaker 05

  And I remember my stepdad, who was just a total, like, when she met him, he was living in the back of a pickup truck, like, just total deadbeat. And usually what deadbeats do is they try to bring everybody else down to their level so they don't feel so bad about themselves. But I remember like telling him, like, I'm going, I have infantry contract because I want to be a recon Marine. He's like, what are you gonna do when you don't make it? That was just, that was first, what are you gonna do? Cause you're, you're not gonna make it to be a recon Marine. Now you're gonna be stuck in infantry. And I'm like, and I remember, I remember like, oh, like, screw you. Like, if anything now, like, I'm gonna do it in spite, like, to spite you. And then I felt like, even though I may never made a promise to my brother, like, that I was gonna do it, I felt like. We had decided together and I needed to complete that for both of us.

• 46:59Speaker 05

  And, uh, and then my dad, he also didn't think I would ever become a recon Marine. It was like a childhood, you know, and everybody has these childhood fantasies and, you know, we know that 80% of people that go in special operations don't make it. So, you know, it's a, so, you know, they just didn't believe I could. And, uh, and, and I was like, you know, kind of tell me I can't, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, it makes me want to do it more. And then, but then there was something like that, that was so satisfying about achieving that, that it, that you want that feeling and then it's fleeting. It goes away. And so it's like, I have to get the next thing. And you see there's so much of systemic in special operations. Like this next school, what's the next certification?

• 47:41Speaker 05

  You start chasing certifications and you start chasing units like, and, and being a recon Marine wasn't good enough. Now, now I want to be a force recon Marine. Why? Cause I didn't even know what really the difference at the time was. Now I really understand the difference was by the time I just, it was the word, I went the word force on the front. Cause I knew those are the top 25% of the guys. I want to be a force recon Marine. And now, and now, you know, I heard that recon Marine, that recon Marines had opportunities to go to JSOC and, and, and serve with, you know, at either Task Force Orange or Delta Force or, or Dev Group. They had slots there. Like, I want to do that. Like that's, I went as far as I go in the Marine Corps. Like I want to do that. And so I was always like chasing the next thing. And, uh, and, and it just

• 48:23Speaker 05

  was never fulfilling and never, and never good enough. And, and, and people tell you all the time, and I know you hear like, thank you for your service. Like, man, a lot of my service, I'm a patriot. I love people. I love serving, service, serving. I know now that I'm a servant more than anything else. But a lot of that's, a lot of that was selfish. It wasn't about our country. It wasn't about people. It was about me, like.

• 48:48Speaker 05

  Filling the hole inside of me that I that I couldn't put my finger on something was missing. And and those jobs are great, by the way, but the problem when when you do that is your identity becomes tied to that. And when your identity is tied to something, when it gets taken away from you. And it will at some point, either you retire, you're gonna get hurt, or something's gonna happen, you're not gonna do that anymore. It will, it will destroy you. And my identity was so tied in that those accolades and those titles and those positions. That when I lost it, it almost cost me everything. So looking back now, like, like, it's good to do those things. Those jobs are noble and it's important and we need people that that, you know, that have the courage and and capability and the mindset to do those jobs. But our identity should never be in that. And for me, it was, and it was, and I, and, and, but.

• 49:32Speaker 05

  As you're trying to build your identity around those things, it's always fleeting and it's never enough. I mean, you name, I don't have to know any of the guys, you name a guy in special operations that's been to those units and it's the same trajectory.

• 49:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:42Speaker 05

  They're just chasing, they're chasing something, they don't even know what they're chasing. It's just that fulfillment, they're trying to, they're trying to build that identity. And and it's just, it's never enough.

• 49:51Shawn Ryan?

  Climbing the ladder, you know. But, um, you know, looking back, after you just said that, would you have changed anything?

• 49:59Speaker 05

  No, I wouldn't have, you know.

• 50:05Speaker 05

  I, I, I don't wish the things I've been through in my life on anything for anyone. But I, I think if you took one of those things out, including the childhood trauma.

• 50:17Speaker 05

  I would not be who I am today, and I love who I am today. And this, and by the way, like, I wouldn't have said that probably even 10 years ago at Sorry, Mighty Oaks. I, I was, I was ashamed of myself, I felt like a fraud. I always felt like a fraud, no matter where I was at, what unit I was at, where I was at. I felt like I didn't deserve to be there. When you don't feel like you deserve to be there, you feel like a fraud. I think it's always got to places early. I was always the young guy. I was always the guy that I was never the fast. I was never the best shooter. I was never the fastest. I was never the strongest. I was never the smartest. I was always just the hardest working. And so that got me to places that I probably wasn't ready to be at yet. But I earned my way there.

• 50:58Speaker 05

  And so in my subconscious and my, my, um, we're, we're all, uh, we're all self-conscious. We're all, you know, and, and so I think under the, underneath that you hide it. But, you know, I just never felt like I quite deserved to be everywhere I was. And so, um, you know, just like this, this kind of like under the, like under the radar, like to myself, like I just felt like I had something to prove always. And I didn't feel like I deserved to be there.

• 51:27Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. Well, Chad, let's take a, let's take a quick break and then we'll get into your entire military career.

• 51:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, let's do it.

• 51:37Shawn Ryan?

  All right.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig.

• 51:43Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

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  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

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• 51:57Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You stall, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 52:04Speaker 03

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 52:05Speaker 02

  Digger, see the trailer online, only theaters October 2nd. Rated R, under 17, not a minute without terror.

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• 52:45Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company informed me of the explosion on our rig.

• 52:48Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 52:50Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You stall, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 53:06Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 53:10Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 53:20Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Chad, we're back from the break. We're getting ready to dive into your military career. So I know you went in as infantry reconnaissance, force reconnaissance, and it just kept going up from there. So let's talk about, you know, what year did you join?

• 53:36Speaker 05

  1993.

• 53:38Shawn Ryan?

  93. What was going on in the world?

• 53:41Speaker 05

  It's peacetime. You know, we just came out of the Gulf War, Somalia. And so, you know, not only was it peacetime, but, you know, first, last major war, and not in disrespect to the Gulf War veterans, but last major war had been Vietnam, or sustained war had been Vietnam. And so, you know, the military is a lot different during the 90s when you go in a peacetime military. And I remember, but I remember going to Twin Ample Homes, California, which is where I asked to go because I'd somehow, I'd never been to Twin Ample Homes. I never seen Twin Ample Homes. But I had just had this image in my mind that the toughest Marines came from Twin Ample Homes because, you know, it gets 130 degrees in the summer. It gets down, you know, freezing temperatures in the winter time.

• 54:24Speaker 05

  Like lots of, there's tons of field ops going on. So like, I'd always heard the toughest Marines come out of Twin Ample Homes, California. So I'm like, that's where I want to go. And then I get there and I'm like, holy crap, where'd I go? And but they had all these guys that just got back from Somalia. So they were, you know, war veterans. And which, again, no disrespect to that because that was crazy. Somalia was crazy. But, but I remember going to barracks and I was like, holy crap. Like, this is like checking into prison. Like they're catcalling you from the barracks, on the top of the barracks. They're like, you're going to get raped. Like, like, oh, my gosh, like, what is going on? Like, checking into Marine Corps Infantry Unit. At, you know, I turned 18 in boot camp.

• 55:08Speaker 05

  Checking into Marine Corps Infantry Unit is a pretty crazy thing, especially back in the 90s. And a bunch of guys that just came back from Somalia, like, you know, getting some fresh. Some fresh new meat. Yeah, yeah. And uh, so I, I, I uh, my first unit I checked into, uh, which was, I was kinda, remember kinda being disappointed at first cause in Twenty and Poems, you had that, what's called the line, the, the uh, line battalions, which is uh, or line companies and in the major infantry battalions, three set, one seven, two seven, three seven, like first battalion, seventh marine, second battalion, seventh marine, third battalion, seventh marine, seventh marine regiment is there. That's where you assume you're going, but there's a few infantry guys that go over to first tank battalion. And they have these like cat patoons, which are like mech, mechanized infantry units.

• 55:51Speaker 05

  One is like a weapons, uh, mechanized weapons unit, and the other one is a scout platoon, toes and, toes and scouts, like toe anti-tank missiles. So that's where I went, cause I was a toe gunner. Uh, uh, that's my, my MOS was. And so I remember being disappointed, cause I'm like, I wanna go to one of the line companies. A weapons company ended up going to uh, first tank battalion and uh, but actually ended up being a pretty cool place to be. And uh, and I was there for a short period of time. I tried out, I tried out for recon in infantry school. Passed the recon indoctrination. I don't know why they gave it to us, because they didn't accept anyone that wasn't a NCO, which would have been everyone at infantry school that went through it. Uh, and so even though I passed it, I didn't go get accepted.

• 56:34Speaker 05

  And so when I got to Twenty and Poems, I tried out for a stay platoon, which if people don't know what stay platoon is, it's, so that's target acquisition platoon, and that's the, that's the snipers. Okay. And so you have it at the, at the uh, battalion level, um, there's, and, and in the weapons company, it was a stay platoon in there. And then also at the regimental level is a regimental stay platoon. Tried out for stay platoon. Got in, went to stay school, which is a, a five week school. There's like stay school, and then there's a divisional level sniper school where you get MOS. And uh, and so I was there for about six months, uh, in Twenty and Poems, when I, when I tried out again for recon. And uh, and, and then went over, uh, tried out at first recon battalion.

• 57:14Speaker 05

  Went through, it's called recon, now, the program's a lot different now, um, but back then, you went through what's called, you, you did indoctrination. Get in, get accepted, and then you go to a recon indoctrination platoon, RIP. And uh, and it's back, back then, it was a, it was all like E fours that were gatekeepers, and they didn't want you in their community. So it wasn't really organized training, it was just, you know, total like. Hazing and a gut check and then you make it through that and then you go to basic reconnaissance course. Nowadays they have a year long pipeline. You sign up, you go to, you go to BRPC or now they have it, it's called RTAP, Recon Training and Assessment Program.

• 57:58Speaker 05

  You do four weeks infantry school, you do RTAP, then you can be there for up to a year just in RTAP, but you could also be there for three months. And then you go to basic reconnaissance course, which is three and a half months. Then you go to preschool, combat dive, jump school, free fall school, SERE school, and then you go to units. When you go to unit, you're schooled out. Back then, when I went through, after you go to recon school and get to recon MOS, then you go in your platoon and eventually you're going to go to dive school and jump school and later on you go to free fall. Interesting. So it's a lot different now. It's the same, you know, in BUDS now you have SQT and they're doing, you know, they're showing up at the unit with free fall. We're back in, you know, I'm sure even your day. No, you didn't show up with free fall. Yeah, now they show up with everything.

• 58:43Speaker 05

  So what did you find the most challenging getting into recon? Uh, I showed up in really good shape. I mean, I was running like 16 minute three miles, doing like 40 dead hang pull-ups. I was in really good shape. I was super small. And, uh, and, uh, but the, my body wasn't as tough as I thought it was. I was in shape, but I wasn't tough. And so the school broke me. Like my IT bands were shot. I went from running, starting the school running 16 minute three miles to graduating running 21 minute three miles. Much different nowadays. Nowadays they build guys up. It just broke me. I was, I left that school like broken. And, uh, and I went to a winter class in Coronado and, uh, Nice.

• 59:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's so, you know, cold. I'm small, skinny. And, uh, so the cold was just really hard mentally. How long is recon training? Well, now, now it's a year long pipeline, uh, but BRC itself, the basic recon course is three and a half months. Okay. And that's outside, that's not the dive package. So typically you have RTAP, which should be, they'll be in there about three months and then three and a half months for BRC, two weeks for preschool, the dive phase is nine weeks and then, uh, and then the jump and free fall, that's and SERE, that's all after it. But yeah, so that core training, you're probably looking at. With RTAP and basic reconnaissance course, take out the dive portion, you know, you're talking

• 1:00:09Speaker 05

  about eight months. Add the dive portion, you know, you're getting close to a year.

• 1:00:15Speaker 05

  So you get through recon school, show up to the unit. Where'd you go? First recon battalion at first, they disbanded the battalion at that time in 94, put a platoon in every regiment. I went back to Twin Antpoles, the 7th Marines, to the platoon attached to 7th Marines Regiment. And at the time, the commander of 7th Marine Regiment was Mad Dog Mattis, he was Colonel Mattis. And we were, platoon commander reported directly to him. So we worked directly under Colonel Mattis, which was pretty awesome. Yeah. I mean, and, and so I didn't realize at the time how blessed we were because he assigned a guy, a gunner, the Marine Corps has this rank called Gunner, I don't know if you've heard

• 1:00:57Speaker 05

  this. Have you heard of Gunners? Not gunny, Gunners, and combat advisor. So this guy's a Vietnam veteran recon Marine who adopted our platoon and mentored our platoon. So we got tremendous amount of training, being in Twin Antpoles, field ops all the time. I really felt like I learned how to be a recon Marine there. I became an excellent navigator. And we went through all kinds of foreign weapons training and it was just really a good time. In fact, everybody came out of the platoon, like a lot of guys came out of that platoon. One guy switched over to Navy, went to Dev Group, a couple of guys, a bunch of guys went to force, a bunch of guys went to MARSOC. One of the guys is still in, 30, I think he's 34 years in now, he's a gunner himself. Damn.

• 1:01:38Speaker 05

  And so, like, just, we had, really had some guys that had some amazing careers coming out of that platoon. It was 24 of us that went to that, that platoon. And, you know, I was only, when I went there, I was only 18 years old. I had no idea how privileged I was to be there and learn, work directly under, you know, I had my platoon commander, this gunner, and then Colonel Mattis working. We were like, he had us reading, reading books and reading Bravo 2.0 and doing case studies on Bravo 2.0. And I'm 18 years old, I don't really know how much I'm getting pumped into me. Damn. What was it like working under Mattis? Oh, I tell you, I tell you, there's a lot of great things, because he like, he like, took a lot of personal pride in that platoon, because it was a new thing. He took a lot of personal pride in it. So we got to interact with him a lot. It was, it was, there was

• 1:02:21Speaker 05

  a lot of great things, but I watched him give off hours. Uh, to two of our, two of our team leaders. And I was like, holy cow, like, I never went to get in trouble in Marine Corps after seeing that. I was one of the other team leaders, there's four team leaders. And the two, we had to go in there and wa- he made us go in there and watch. And, uh, guys get demoted, restricted, loss of pay. I was like, oh, my gosh, like, we, we had, uh, we had did a, that, that gunner, the Vietnam gunner had, had taught us how to do some snatch missions, like snack, uh, snagging bag missions. And, you know, you, we had like recon teams of, uh, six man teams. So you had like two guys on one side of the road and four guys on the other. And like flash a flashlight, get somebody a look and you grab them and drag them off.

• 1:03:03Speaker 05

  Well, right behind the, we had a, right behind the 20 poems is a communication school. And so being, you know, young special operations guys, bullies. We were at, we're gonna, we're gonna do, we're gonna practice and then do it to one of these, uh, communication kids. We ended up being one of the instructors. We, uh, they grabbed him and, and zip tied him, put duct tape over his mouth. And he, he pissed on himself and, and was like crying, so they cut him loose and let him go. He went straight to the phone and dialed 911 and, uh, and gave a description. Well, back then, the only people with short rifles, uh, we were the only ones with shorter rifles. And so they, the MPs are smart, they went to the armory. There's only 24 guys on that whole base of, of, uh, you know,

• 1:03:49Speaker 05

  30,000 people that had short rifles and they were checked out of the armory. And so we got back to the barracks, they were waiting for us and we had, we had a, a standoff with the MPs and our platoon commander had to come and, and, uh, we all, I went, I went into, all of us went and locked, locked up in the brig all night and then.

• 1:04:03Shawn Ryan?

  You had a standoff with the military police?

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it's a whole, a platoon, a platoon of us and there's like, like 10, there's like 10 MPs that's like, and we're like, we're not going, right? And they're wanting to talk, we're like, we're not, no one's gonna rat on each other. And so finally our platoon commander to come in, but all right, guys, you have to tell them, this guy's pressing charges, you have to tell them who did it. And so, uh, the, so none of them ratted out, but the two team leaders just fessed up. They took responsibility and, uh,

• 1:04:33Speaker 05

  we called it Black Wednesday.

• 1:04:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:35Speaker 05

  It's a Black Wednesday. And so I had to go in there and watch Colonel Mattis give the, basically he was like, you guys are bullies and, uh, and I'm, and, and I'm not gonna allow it. And, uh, yeah.

• 1:04:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, something tells me Mattis had a very small tolerance for bullshit.

• 1:04:53Shawn Ryan?

  But uh, but uh, I've never had the opportunity to meet him. But um, but what's the attrition rate like for reconnaissance?

• 1:05:02Speaker 05

  It's a, it's become like a, kinda like Bud's where it's a wide front gate. It used to have a pretty narrow way to get, to get in a selection process. Now recruiter could sign someone up for recon contract. Um, it's pretty easy to get there from the fleet marine corps. You could put in for a lat move to recon. And so they get a lot of people that show up at, at there. And so about eighty percent attrition rate is what they're running.

• 1:05:23Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:05:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, so they uh, you know, I tell you one thing I'm super proud of in my community. I've, I've been the guest speaker at four now, four graduations. Uh, I just, I just learned that I'm the only one that was ever invited back and I got to do it four times. So I was like super honored to do that. And I just spoke at the last graduating class and, and as a recon marine, I'm super proud that, that all this political pressure, they, they never have lowered the standard. In fact, a lot of, a lot of guys from my generation would be like, they didn't have it like we have it. Like we had it harder and, and stuff like that. We had it different.

• 1:05:57Speaker 05

  But it's way more professional now and it's better and it, and it truly produces a better product. It produces a better, a better reconnaissance operator, in my opinion. Uh, and the, the program is very professionalized, but I don't think in that professionalization, they've compromised the standard.

• 1:06:13Shawn Ryan?

  That's good to hear.

• 1:06:14Speaker 05

  In fact, that, in fact, I would even say it's higher. Um, these kids, like I said, when I graduated, I was like a Holocaust victim. Now as graduating, you know, you hand a certificate in every one of those guys' hands. It feels like a professional athlete when you shake their hands. They're, you know, rugged from the salt and sand and it, but they're strong. And I'm like, these, these guys are studs. They're like, you know, they're like professional athletes when they graduate now.

• 1:06:35Shawn Ryan?

  That is.

• 1:06:35Speaker 05

  And I see the same thing at SQT.

• 1:06:37Shawn Ryan?

  And Bud's?

• 1:06:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, the guy, the guys, they're producing, they're producing some solid guys.

• 1:06:42Shawn Ryan?

  That's good to hear.

• 1:06:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:06:44Shawn Ryan?

  That's good to hear.

• 1:06:45Speaker 05

  Because, you know, you always, you don't wanna see it. I mean, the military itself is, has been softening and weakening.

• 1:06:51Shawn Ryan?

  I know, man. I try not to look. I talk to guys that are active still.

• 1:06:57Shawn Ryan?

  I don't really want to get into it, but uh, I mean, you hear about, you hear about the gender stuff coming in and, and

• 1:07:07Shawn Ryan?

  and it's just

• 1:07:08Speaker 05

  Well, they, they, every one of us, every one of them are trying to push through a female, right? Through every one of these schools and they tried plenty of times recon and they weren't doing it and they got a female through and uh, and I was like, my first response was is no way, absolutely impossible that a female could graduate BRC like, that was my, and then, and so I called some buddies or instructor there and they're like, she did, bro. And but, but, but she's like a CrossFit professional, uh, like Division One Water Polo. Like, like, like, I don't know all the specs, but she's, there was, she was like legitimately like a mutant.

• 1:07:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. You know, I wasn't even talking about that. I was talking about the, the, the new age gender talk.

• 1:07:55Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:56Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? Like, it seems like the woke agenda is just infiltrated everywhere, but

• 1:08:01Speaker 05

  It takes the focus off what's important.

• 1:08:03Shawn Ryan?

  It's a great, uh, you know, yeah, it's, it's weird. I feel like

• 1:08:08Shawn Ryan?

  three years ago, we were debating if women should be in special ops. Now it's

• 1:08:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Shawn Ryan?

  Now we're way beyond that, but, but what is, I'm just, what is your take on women in special operations?

• 1:08:21Speaker 05

  Well, like in a six man recon team, I just don't think, even, even, you know, not to disrespect this girl that made it through BRC, but and, and you know, the other ones that made it through Q course and, and uh, I heard a Ranger bat, they lowered the standards that there. That's what I heard. I don't, I'm not taking anything away from any of them, but it, it just complicates things way too much. I mean, I mean, if I'm sitting in a hide, shitting in a plastic bag, like,

• 1:08:45Speaker 05

  I don't want to, I don't want to do that with her there. I don't want to, I'm sure she doesn't want to do that in front of us like a, and there's the emotional thing, like men are protectors, especially the men in those communities like now, uh, I have, you know, if we're going, if we're, you know, going through a door and going in a room to kill people, like, now my focus is on protecting her because you're going to, just men are going to develop like a little sister.

• 1:09:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:06Speaker 05

  Uh, personality towards her. I mean, the people that are making these decisions never lived on a ship. They never sat in a hide for six days and shit in a plastic bag. Uh, and they're making these decisions, not looking at all the different factors. This is a Starship Troopers, right?

• 1:09:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, I think it's it's I'm not saying they don't have a place at all.

• 1:09:27Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:09:27Shawn Ryan?

  You know, when you break up a team dynamic, the other thing that people don't have exposure to is the is the camaraderie that happens within the team that builds that team cohesion. You know, and the minute a another sex is injected into that team, it changes the entire dynamic. It inserts drama, it inserts jealousy, there's sexual relations, there's all the stuff you're talking about. And it just it breaks up the team dynamic and you know, the argument is, well, the guy should be more professional. Fuck you. The president of the United States several times has had affairs. Senators have affairs, CEOs have affairs.

• 1:10:09Shawn Ryan?

  This shit goes on in every, every company, every aspect of government, all the way up to the highest level. So if you don't hold your own fucking president accountable for that shit, don't hold an operator.

• 1:10:20Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:10:20Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? Fuck you.

• 1:10:22Speaker 05

  It gets down to the fundamental level of why the military exists and people will just overlook that for all these stuff. The military exists to win wars, period. It's not, it's not a social experiment. It's not a boys' club. It's not supposed to be fair. Like, the best person for the job, the best dynamics for the team to have mission accomplishment. The military is for our national defense and protect people around the world can't protect themselves to win wars. And and that should always be the first question. Is this better to win wars? This is better. If the answer is no, then.

• 1:10:48Shawn Ryan?

  What are we doing?

• 1:10:49Speaker 05

  No, yeah, exactly.

• 1:10:50Shawn Ryan?

  It's, you know, it does, it does have a very high potential to break up team dynamic. And that is a horrible thing in a small unit like that, like you're talking about 24 people. You know, and but anyways, you know, so what, when you graduated BRC, became a recon marine.

• 1:11:14Shawn Ryan?

  We talked about making your dad proud. You've carried that with you. It sounds like your whole life.

• 1:11:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:19Shawn Ryan?

  How'd that feel?

• 1:11:21Speaker 05

  It felt like a aha, like, like more, more than a, I wanted to be proud of me like a, a, a, a prove that I could do it, right?

• 1:11:30Shawn Ryan?

  Who was your first call?

• 1:11:32Speaker 05

  Uh, I don't, I don't think I called anybody in my family.

• 1:11:35Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 1:11:36Speaker 05

  I, I, yeah, I don't think, I didn't call anybody in my family. It would have been, I was very, all my adult life until, until probably about four years in the mighty Oaks, I was very quiet, very private. The fact that I like public speaking right now, or on a, even on a show is like, I would have thought, no way in a billion years, I'm even telling anybody I'm in the military. I was just very quiet. I didn't write back to my family. I didn't call my family, tell them about military. I was like, e- even my wife, Kathy, like, I think one of the things that probably was attractive to me about her is that she never even, a- and it's not now, because it, it, it kind of backfired to being bitter towards her, but that she never even cared about what I did. Like, I could have, I, I could have been a cook in the air force and she was like totally oblivious to, she's like,

• 1:12:21Speaker 05

  oh, like, you know, she'd like, you know, even like, while we're, she's around the, you know, platoon, the recon class, she just didn't, not that she didn't, she just didn't care. It's just not important to her. And at first I was like, okay, I like that. And then later on, I got bitter towards it because I felt like disrespected and unappreciated by her. But, uh, but yeah, so I never really, I just stayed close to the guys I worked with.

• 1:12:43Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 1:12:44Speaker 05

  And that was enough. Yeah.

• 1:12:46Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 1:12:46Speaker 05

  That was, that was always, yeah, I didn't, I didn't.

• 1:12:49Shawn Ryan?

  What timeframe is this?

• 1:12:51Speaker 05

  N- ninety-four is when I became a recon Marine.

• 1:12:53Shawn Ryan?

  So ninety-four, I know you went and did some stuff down at the border. I don't know what came first. Did you become, did you go force and then go to the border?

• 1:13:01Speaker 05

  No, the border, border was as, uh, uh, as, as a recon, amphibio recon Marine, uh, they had what's called JTF six, Joint Terrorism, uh, Task Force, or Joint Terrorism Force, Joint Terrorism Task Force six, and, and that was basically the US military working with federal agencies for counter narcotics. I knew SEALs, back then the SEALs were doing a lot, you know, out of wartime, uh, and, and recon was doing it quite a bit. And we, you know, even go cross border, do cross border operations. Uh, this is real world, like, live ammo. Everything back back in it. And it's funny because President Clinton was the president at that time. And people I remember people like getting on President Trump for sending troops to the border, sending troops to the border. We did. And I'm like, I was doing

• 1:13:41Speaker 05

  that under President Clinton in the nineties. Like we're and we were catching cartel guys bringing drugs drugs across the border. And and then you have to work around the reason you have to work with the federal law enforcement is these laws called posse cum laude laws, which is where US military cannot collect on civilians or or be used against civilians.

• 1:14:00Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:14:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:03Shawn Ryan?

  That used to exist?

• 1:14:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think they I think they still do exist. They just don't.

• 1:14:07Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, they just don't follow.

• 1:14:09Speaker 05

  Laws of matter anymore. They don't follow the rules anymore. I mean, we have we have we actually have border immigration laws, too. If you.

• 1:14:14Shawn Ryan?

  We do?

• 1:14:15Speaker 05

  Look it up. Yeah.

• 1:14:16Shawn Ryan?

  Shit, I had no idea.

• 1:14:17Speaker 05

  Immigration laws. It's all kind of laws.

• 1:14:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, let's let's get out of the legal stuff. What were you guys doing down there?

• 1:14:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, cartel is bringing bringing, you know, drugs into in America. So we work a lot with the DIA. I mean, the DEA and then DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency. And and the Border Patrol, we work with the Border Patrol directly as an asset. And so they employ us and six mans, primarily six man observation teams. And we'd set up with that with some of our equipment, some of our observation equipment, and and catch people track like tracking, set observation points, track people coming across the border in places that they knew they were coming across, and then walk walk the Border Patrol or DEA DEA onto

• 1:15:04Speaker 05

  them. And and then we also were in the, I think it was called San Clemente National Forest in Southern California, where they had these they had these grows that were like like these steel capes, aircraft cables between two valleys and built basically like a false floor of the earth over them. And they had all these grows underneath. And so we were tasked with basically patrolling and finding them. And we had a methodology of we had a methodology of finding these grows grows that we had found. And so we and those those were always occupied. So now we're going and, you know, actually.

• 1:15:42Shawn Ryan?

  So hold on, they would find.

• 1:15:45Shawn Ryan?

  They would find valleys or gorges.

• 1:15:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:48Shawn Ryan?

  And put in a fake floor.

• 1:15:50Speaker 05

  Fake, fake, fake, so you can't see it from the, from air, aerial imagery. And, uh, and so what they would, what they would, and underneath there, these bees, these, these grows, these greenhouses that they'd put inside, that they'd have inside there and they grow in like, they're growing tons of weed and this is obviously in the nineties when you couldn't do that. And, uh, and harvesting and they'd be totally occupied with, you know, illegals down, illegal immigrants down there.

• 1:16:15Shawn Ryan?

  What was the floor made out of?

• 1:16:17Speaker 05

  There'd be, it'd be a, like, aircraft cable.

• 1:16:19Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:20Speaker 05

  So I remember being these steel cables made like a grid and they'd be like a canvas on top of it and then dirt and vegetation grown on top of it. So it was like a complete, like, false floor and it'd be a whole, like, underground grow underneath these. And so obviously you need irrigation to it, so one of the things we do is move perpendicular to flow, flow of water and, and look for these black tubing lines. And then, and then follow those into, into the grow, that's how, that's how we're finding them. And then, uh, and then, I mean, these things would be booby trap, like, I remember stepping and, uh, and there was like a rat trap with a 12 gauge shotgun, Black Show, like, uh, and then they have like a fishing wire with like hooks hanging in it and stuff like that, like.

• 1:17:01Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:17:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was like, yeah.

• 1:17:03Shawn Ryan?

  I had no idea that stuff was going on.

• 1:17:05Speaker 05

  I was like, you know, 19, 20 years old doing that, it was, yeah.

• 1:17:10Shawn Ryan?

  What, um?

• 1:17:11Speaker 05

  Peace, peacetime military get to do, you know.

• 1:17:14Shawn Ryan?

  Were you guys rolling guys up too?

• 1:17:16Speaker 05

  No, we, we were, we were, uh, so we basically go in, we detain, detain people. We had no arrest authority because of these laws, right? We detain people, hold them and then the DEA or, or Border Patrol, depending on different operations. That operation, we were doing the grows, that was DEA. And so DEA would come in, detain them, harvest all the stuff, pose a big picture. We'd be behind the camera and they're all like, you know, holding, holding bad guys, holding, holding marijuana, taking a picture, the DEA just made this big bust. And, uh, yeah, I, I thought that was, I thought that was kinda cool, actually, like, you know, they're, they're posing for the paper and all that stuff and, you know.

• 1:17:52Shawn Ryan?

  And you guys did it?

• 1:17:53Speaker 05

  Nobody knows that we were out there doing it.

• 1:17:55Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that's incredible. How long were you doing that for?

• 1:17:57Speaker 05

  I, I think I did like six or seven of those back in, during my time on active duty. Cause we never deployed, right? There was no deployments.

• 1:18:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:05Speaker 05

  Uh, so that's like six or seven of those and they were like 30 days at a time. Uh, so we go down. Actually, we'd stay, we'd stay in Coronado at the barracks in Coronado. And we'd leave right off, uh, we'd fly right up from the airfield, the helicopter would pick us up there, take us down to the border. And so we'd go, it was super cool for like real world training too. Like you're actually inserting, you're doing, you know, insertions and live, like, you know, so it's, you know, when you're not getting to operate in combat, really great experience. Damn. Yeah, yeah. You got an award down there? Uh, I got a, we got several like accommodations for like stipend accommodation,

• 1:18:48Speaker 05

  uh, from Colonel Mattis. So for, for the operations we did down there. Very cool. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah. Where did you go from there? I went to Third Force Recon Company, uh, on their I and I staff. That's a reserve unit, uh, but they have active duty component. And so I went there and then I, then I decided to switch to the reserves because I wanted to go to college and come back in as an officer. That was kind of my plan. And so I went to work as, as a police officer in New Orleans, uh, during that time, went to college. I was doing about 10 days a month at the reserve unit. Um, and, uh, and, and then, uh, Let's rewind real quick. Why did you go? Why did you leave? I wanted to be an officer. Uh, you know, I, I, I thought, you know, hey, I'm gonna make this a career.

• 1:19:34Speaker 05

  And, uh, and, you know, better, best way for my family. I just, I got married. Uh, I had my, I had my first son. He was born in 20 in Palms, California. And I'm like, this is probably a good career. This, I love my job. I love what I, what I, what I'm doing. Uh, this is everything I wanted. And, uh, so I want to be an officer. So I'm gonna, I had applied for the MESET program. Um, but it was, while I was waiting, I just decided, hey, I'm just gonna go into reserves, uh, and, and I'm gonna go to college. And because I wasn't in the MESET program yet, uh, I, I decided just to get a job. So I got a job as a police officer, ended up picking, that was a better, better way to do it. And then when I get my degree, I'll get commissioned. And and I'll go go back in as an officer. That was my that was my that was my plan. Interesting. Yeah. When did you meet your wife?

• 1:20:20Speaker 05

  I met her in in nineteen uh nineteen ninety four. We got married in ninety five a year later. And so she was we were dating when I went through B R C uh through recon school. And we spent the weekend on Coronado Beach because you don't get many days off. Yeah. Yeah, and. How'd you guys meet? Uh I had a friend that was in the barracks and and he lived he grew up in the same town as her. She lived in Paris Valley, if you know where that's at. I don't. Riverside County, uh California, between between San Diego and Twin Amplems. Okay. Kind of between there. He grew up there and he had he was in the barracks and he'd have a car and and he's like and I did and he's like, hey, will you drive me? Home for the weekend. I'm gonna go wanna go visit my girlfriend. And so I wasn't doing anything. So I drove him home.

• 1:21:04Speaker 05

  And then I met uh while he was at his girlfriend's house, my wife was friends with her parents. And so she came over there and and Kathy came over and and I met her right away. I was like, you know, California girl, blonde hair, blue eyes. I'm like, I'm like super interested in her. And and so I talked to her that night and then I told my friends like, hey, I wanna meet this girl again. I wanna really get to know this girl. And they and they told her and she's like, uh, I'm not interested. He's too short. So.

• 1:21:33Speaker 05

  So she wasn't interested and uh. Yeah, but and so so my friends felt bad for me. They said like, hey, we can in like two weeks come back. And we'll uh we'll set you up on a blind date. So that's that was what happened. And so they set me up on this blind date with this girl and this girl was supposed to be like pretty like wild. So they were like, you're gonna you're gonna get lucky tonight. And uh and I remember I remember I remember them saying that and anyways, they I go there and my and the girl and my friend's girlfriend in the back getting ready. I never I hadn't seen her yet. They're in the back getting their hair done and makeup and I'm sitting there and my wife pulls up, she sees my truck and realizes I'm there and she comes in and she says hi. She was talking to me. And and then she realizes like I'm about to go to a blind date with this girl.

• 1:22:16Speaker 05

  And when she realizes that she I think the competitiveness came out. She's like, I thought you were interested in me. She didn't say that, but that's what she was thinking. And so me being, you know, a young Marine, I'm like, I invite her on my on my. Blind date with us.

• 1:22:34Speaker 05

  What are you doing tonight? So this girl's in the back getting all pretty and my, and she shows up in sweats, her hair's in a, in a bun. You know, she's not, and I'm like, invite her on this date with us. And, uh, so she comes as the, and the other girl, the other girl is a fifth wheel. And we're all these young people out, out that night.

• 1:22:48Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, how does this go? How does this conversation go?

• 1:22:52Speaker 05

  She, I invited her and she said, yeah, I'll come. And then the girl comes out and realizes now there's another girl coming on this blind date.

• 1:23:01Speaker 05

  You know, and they had one girl that's probably willing to do whatever I want. The other girl, Kathy's like super, uh,

• 1:23:07Shawn Ryan?

  Not willing to do whatever you want.

• 1:23:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. She's super conservative. She's like very like, and not that way at all. And, uh, and that's what I chose at night. And, uh, and so I ended up kind of ignoring this girl the whole night and spending attention to Kathy. And we probably spent every moment that I wasn't training or doing something for the next year together. And then a year later we got married. So, yeah.

• 1:23:29Shawn Ryan?

  Awesome.

• 1:23:33Speaker 05

  Not every, not every meeting story is a romantic way to.

• 1:23:37Shawn Ryan?

  You want to come on this blind date with us?

• 1:23:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:23:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:42Speaker 05

  It's kind of typical young marine, like shenanigans, right? Like I never seen what's behind door number two.

• 1:23:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:50Speaker 05

  But I know it's behind door number one. So I'd rather take you.

• 1:23:56Speaker 05

  Now she would've said no, then, you know.

• 1:23:59Shawn Ryan?

  So you went to force. Did you, did you have to do any training to get in there?

• 1:24:03Speaker 05

  No, you, you don't do any extra training to go to force. Usually it's based on experience. You know, you like guys that, that have like been a, did a whole stint in a recon platoon, uh, kind of a standout. And, uh, in a way, if people are wondering like recon, force recon, in a recon battalion, you have Alpha Company, Bravo Company, Charlie Company. So you have three companies. The fourth company is, is force. So that's 25% of the, of the, of the recon battalion.

• 1:24:28Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:24:29Speaker 05

  Will be force. And so it's usually the guys that kind of stand out. It's been around a little longer, a little more experienced, a little older. Maybe now nowadays there's probably a couple of diplomats under their belt.

• 1:24:40Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 1:24:40Speaker 05

  Back then it was just, it wasn't a diplomats every belt. So it's just the kind of standouts.

• 1:24:44Shawn Ryan?

  How long were you at force?

• 1:24:47Speaker 05

  Two, two thou- nineteen ninety-seven, uh, as a reservist and active duty in that same unit till two thousand and three, when I went to JSOP.

• 1:24:58Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so you were, okay, so you were reservist.

• 1:25:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:02Shawn Ryan?

  You're a reservist.

• 1:25:03Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:25:03Shawn Ryan?

  So you leave, you didn't want to become, you, you, you weren't going to become an officer.

• 1:25:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, that decision came on nine eleven.

• 1:25:10Shawn Ryan?

  God.

• 1:25:11Speaker 05

  That it wasn't gonna, that it wasn't gonna become an officer.

• 1:25:14Shawn Ryan?

  You went into the PD.

• 1:25:16Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:25:16Shawn Ryan?

  Correct? Well, all right, let's talk about that.

• 1:25:19Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:25:19Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about leaving force.

• 1:25:21Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:25:22Shawn Ryan?

  And focusing more on police, police work.

• 1:25:26Speaker 05

  Well, yeah, at that time, the reason I was in the police, because I was, I'm in the reserves, gonna go to college, when I'm, eventually I'm gonna leave the police department to go, or sheriff's department, to go back in the Marine Corps as an officer, but, uh, I graduated the police academy, go work undercover in narcotics, uh, because I come from the military, special operations background, I look super young, uh, I go work in narcotics for a year, uh, move over to patrol, and then, uh, about two months out of FTO, I get in a, a, a pretty, a pretty serious, uh, shooting incident, where, you know, and, uh, where I shot and killed someone, someone on duty, and, and, uh, you know, it was a pretty significant, pretty significant part of my life, to be honest with you, it's probably one of the

• 1:26:11Speaker 05

  more, more, more like, you know, milestone, like traumatic things that I've been through in my life, even, even outside of combat, because things like that aren't supposed to happen.

• 1:26:21Shawn Ryan?

  Let's dig in. Why was it so significant?

• 1:26:24Speaker 05

  Uh, so, I, I tell you how, how it happened, so I'm, I'm, I'm at a, by the way, where, where this happened, to give you some geographical context, if you fly into New Orleans Airport, you actually don't land in New Orleans, you land in a town called Saint Rose, uh, and so in Saint Rose, that's where, right, I mean, probably like two miles from New Orleans Airport, this happened, um, I heard a guy named Steve Cantelli get a, get a call, he was working a beat over, we had beats, so I was, uh, I was working two oh three, he was working beat, no, I was working beat two oh two, he was working beat two oh. Three and I was beat two, B two or three was gone. So so I had a gap. He was two or four, actually. So there was a beat going between. I heard Steve Cantelli get this call. It was a domestic violence call. Uh, just you start paying attention, right?

• 1:27:09Speaker 05

  You just want to listen what's going on. And he's like, he was one of my field training officers. Marine Corps Gulf War veteran, uh, what like a kind of a bigger than life kind of guy. He's a SWAT team at Jefferson Parish guy. He had already, he'd been around a while. He was like, like pretty solid guy. And so, so I'm listening on the radio and I, and I hear his voice come over to radio. Uh, saying that someone had a, had a gun, uh, and, and then he was calling for backup. And, uh, when I heard his voice, I knew something was significantly wrong because he's like such a composed guy. Like something went wrong. And then the radio system, as timing may have it, was brand new for our department and it went dead.

• 1:27:50Speaker 05

  Uh, comms went down. And so I kind of like had this imminence, like I have to get to him. So going down river road across the Mississippi River and, uh, and as I'm going, got my lights on, got my sirens on. People are stopping in the road, right? They're not pulling over and, and, uh, I remember just being like panicked to get to him. And when I pulled up, it was a like, kind of like, not really a trailer park, but like a modular home. Uh, community and, uh, and, and they, so the houses were elevated and it was about 30 people outside of this house. And, uh, and, and I could see that Steve's on the porch of this, the elevated porch with this woman yelling, but he's looking inside. He's looking inside, he's yelling with this woman. So I could see he needed help, make my way through the crowd and get there.

• 1:28:36Speaker 05

  And, and I knew exactly this house before the guy had, we had been there before. The guy's name was Russell Stebbins, uh, always domestic violence, always, you know, giving the police a hard time. So it was a very familiar. Uh, place and uh, and Steve's like, get this lady out of here because uh, the guy just barricaded himself in the back room with a gun. And so I start trying to talk to her. She's being argumentative. I, I talked to some guys down. I'm like, hey, grab her. So I grabbed the lady by the back of her shirt and her pants and I pushed over the rail, like forced her over the rail and uh, and uh, some men grabbed her and pulled her over. Uh, and I remember like after she went over, she like, they were trying to pull her and she like fell in this barbecue pit and fell over and then her kids were there. The, her kids were like, you know,

• 1:29:20Speaker 05

  probably like, you know, five, six, seven years old, two, two kids right there. And uh, and they were scared and, and they grabbed the hold of her. And so when I seen that and those guys had her, I went back to the front door where Steve was and Steve went, Steve went to the window of the room that the guy was in. So he went and shoot out the window. Uh, and so he's watching the window. Uh, we're trying to get the radio working and I'm standing in there in the doorway and uh, and the, as I'm standing doorway, I'm looking into a, I'm looking into a living room to my right is a, is a, is a kitchen table and, and I remember seeing like food still, they were just having dinner. Their plates are on a table, family

• 1:30:02Speaker 05

  pictures, toys on the floor. Like this is not like the environment. This is not Afghanistan, right? This is like, I, you know, I lived down, I lived a few miles away. Like, and uh, and when Russell came out of the hallway, he, he stopped right before the end of the hallway. It was catacorne to me. So I'm in this door, living room, catacorne is the hallway. I could see a mirror. And when he came to the edge of the, I could see him. He got in the, against the, he barricaded himself behind the wall and he had the rifle in front of him and he reaches down and I could tell he press checked it. And I'm like, he's checking to see if he's, he's, he's got a round in the chamber, which you know, to me is like

• 1:30:45Speaker 05

  pretty significant. He's thinking he's gonna get in a gunfight. So I, I just, I was yelling, I'm like, hey, put down your gun. I'm talking to him like a policeman. Put down your gun, come out, let's talk. He's like, you guys need to leave. I want to talk to my wife. That's not gonna happen. We're not leaving. You could talk to your wife, but you need to put down the gun. We'll, we'll, we'll facilitate that. Just put down, like, do not come out with that gun. And uh, it, if you'd have asked me that day, like even a minute before that happened, if, if a guy pointed a gun at me, what would I would do? I'm, I'm gonna smoke him, right? Let's. Kind of like as gunfighters as we think we do like. But when he turned that corner and he came out, he had the gun over his shoulder. He didn't have his shoulder.

• 1:31:23Speaker 05

  He had it over his shoulder and his hand was holding the receiver and his finger was by the trigger. Well, I remember seeing like his fingers not the trigger was by the trigger. Well. I don't know why he was holding it that way. Uh, but he's pointing it right at me and based on lethal force, like I could have. Killed him right there, but. And, and that's what I would have probably said if you'd asked me that question like quiz me before that's why I would have shot him. But like I said, looking in this guy's home, his kids right behind me, his wife's screaming behind me as there's still food on the table. I felt like I still had control. Uh, of that situation and I felt like I didn't have to kill him in that moment.

• 1:32:00Speaker 05

  And I'm like, he had too much to drink. He's taunting us.

• 1:32:04Speaker 05

  By the way, Russell Sevens was six, three, 263 pounds. I know. Exactly his height and weight. I was about 125 pounds. I was training a lot. I've been training my whole life. And Jiu Jitsu and MMA and uh, so. Even though he's bigger, I just felt like I still was in control. And, and but, but at that point I went from being a policeman to like. Just being two dudes and, and I remember telling him like. I'm like, I'm gonna fucking kill you. That's, that's the words I used and. You know, I, you know, he recurs, I probably won't curse much on this show, but, but that's the words I said to him. I was, I wanted him to know it was serious. I'm gonna fucking kill you. Put down your gun. And he's like, you put down your gun.

• 1:32:46Speaker 05

  And I'm, and I'm like, not gonna put down my gun. And so I, I, I moved towards him and I pulled, I pulled my gun in, like my pistol in to retain my weapon. And, uh, and I grabbed the barrel of his gun and pointed it away from me. And when I did that, I kicked him in the nuts, like not like a football kick, but like a push kick to disarm him. And when I kicked and pulled, like nothing happened. He was like holding that thing so hard. And I did it a second time and my arm must've came away from my body and he grabbed my arm. Uh, and so now, now we're, now I've got this giant man. Who's mad and I'm like way smaller than him being overpowered and we're fighting over two guns. And, and I, in that moment, I remember realizing like, he's never gonna give up. Like this is, I have to kill him and, uh.

• 1:33:30Speaker 05

  And so I just rolled my wrist over to break his grip and I came over and I fired one round, boom, like right in the center of his chest. He stepped back and I pulled in and I, I fired five more, you know, six shots. Oh, you know. Right in front, right in front of me. I remember watching the rounds go in, go into him. Like hit, hit his body and Steve, I didn't even know Steve came behind me, but Steve came, he was shooting right over my, my shoulder. He shot six times as well. I could hear his, I could hear his gun. I could watch the casings come out of my, my Glock. I was watching the casings come out of the top, you know, Glock that come out of the top. I was watching them like roll out. I could hear the mechanics of my gun. I could separately hear the mechanics of his gun functioning. I never heard a bang. I just heard like a, that, that pop.

• 1:34:12Speaker 05

  And, uh, and my ears never ring or anything. And so we, we hit him 11 out of 12 times. Uh, I didn't drop the round, by the way. Always, that's important point that, uh, and, uh, you know, he, he turned, he turned and he, he landed on his knees. And he looked right back at me conversationally, like, like totally calm. And he's like, you killed me. That's what he said. He's like, you killed me. That's what he said. That's what he said. Yeah. He, I mean, it was, he wasn't, he wasn't in pain. He, uh, it was, it was emotionless. Before he was mad, angry, rattled up. It was just like total, total like composed. He just looked right at me and said, you killed me. Like he knew, he knew he was gonna die like at that moment.

• 1:34:55Speaker 05

  And, uh, I pushed him down and when I pushed him down, I, he fell and, and I pulled the rifle out from under him. And I, and I pulled his hands back to, to handcuff him. I remember feeling like his, uh, cause his, his other arm came up when I broke his wrist. His other arm came up in front of him. So one of those rounds went through his, his wrist. And so when I grabbed his wrist, it was like a noodle and it blew the bones out. And, uh, and, and I had blood, like I remember it was super slippery. I had blood like everywhere on me. And, uh, and I put, I handcuffed him and while I was handcuffing him, I heard him like breathe out like his last breath and, and die. And, uh, and then me and Steve started clearing the house, making sure no one else was in the house. Uh, some, I think some guys from down there came up and blocked the doorway. Uh, and, uh, and.

• 1:35:39Speaker 05

  But I remember looking back before we cleared the house. Actually, I remember looking back. For some reason, my first thought was look back at the wife and I just seen her screaming. Uh, and, and I wanted to like go out to her like. Like, because we were there for her, right? And, uh, but obviously she was probably hated us in that moment. Her kid, the kids were just like in shock. They, it was, it was perfect view. Everybody seen everything. Damn. And, uh, and cleared the house and then we were, there, every police seemed like at that time, every police, her sirens, all the police came and separated Steve and I, took our guns away, uh, went back to polygraphs and interviews and, and then the next day, the newspaper, you know, headline said, uh, cold-blooded murder.

• 1:36:21Speaker 05

  Sub-headlines say, police say justified, went about, uh, uh, um, a pretty long period of, uh, investigation and then I went before, because it was the DA didn't want to make a, make a position on it, election year, I went before a se- a grand jury, uh, for second degree murder and, uh, and was cleared. And then after we were cleared, then Steve and I got the Medal of Valor from the governor of Louisiana. So. Man. So, yeah. It was a, it was, I said, well, the reason I say it's such a significant thing is because, you know, think, you, you just don't think things like that would happen. Yeah. I know they do every day, but for me, like, I was mad at him that he would,

• 1:37:03Speaker 05

  that he made me do that in front of his wife and kids. I was just so like pissed that he made me do that in front of his wife and kids.

• 1:37:13Speaker 05

  Is that the first life you've taken? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the most intimate. Yeah. How do you feel about that today? Oh, I still, I still, it's still to this day, like, like, like sometimes, sometimes I'd like be thinking, like, those moments are still, still in us, right? I think about that and I'm like, why they, like, why did that guy do, like, I, I think about his kids, like, I don't know, like, how'd those kids, where'd those kids end up? They saw that, you know? I don't, I don't know who those kids are or where they ended up, but they saw that and like, why did he have to, why did he have, why couldn't he just put that gun down? Why, why did he have to do that? He knew he wasn't gonna get, he knew we weren't gonna leave, like, you know?

• 1:37:56Speaker 05

  One of the things that came back in the autopsy was that corroborated my statement of trying to disarm him and trying to save his life was that his testicles was like the size of a bowling ball kicking him. That's like what, I don't say that to say that I kick hard, but I say that to say like that's how determined he was not to give up that gun. I kicked him twice, like blasted him. And I was training Muay Thai at the time. He felt it. And but he was determined not to give up.

• 1:38:31Shawn Ryan?

  Damn Jed. What, I mean, had he had a history of this stuff?

• 1:38:38Speaker 05

  He had a history of, you know, being belligerent to the police, but never anything like that, you know. Too much to drink.

• 1:38:47Shawn Ryan?

  Do you feel like maybe there's a possibility that you saved those kids?

• 1:38:53Speaker 05

  I think so. I think I think he was a, I think if he would have got past me, he would have, that weapon was loaded. It was off safe. It was chambered. I think he wanted to shoot his wife and she was in a crowd with the kids and there was thirty, about thirty people in that crowd. And so, obviously, that's why I wasn't going to get out of the doorway. He wasn't going to get past the doorway. And, you know, and so I think about, you know, if Steve or I would have let him come out of the house and have access to those people, he would have, he would have fired a rifle at his wife or into that crowd of people.

• 1:39:33Shawn Ryan?

  How long did the investigations go on?

• 1:39:36Speaker 05

  About about four months or so, so about four months. And I was an administrative, like, working at the detective bureau doing administrative work. That's how, that's how I ended up in the detective bureau because after we got that award, the Medal of Valor, I'd already built a reputation, people like me in the detective bureau doing administrative work. And and then the chief was just like, they never promoted anybody into detective that young. I was only twenty-three years old. And they promoted me to detective.

• 1:40:05Shawn Ryan?

  Did you feel like he deserved it?

• 1:40:07Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:40:09Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 1:40:09Speaker 05

  I felt like I got it because I got an award. And

• 1:40:15Speaker 05

  But then I went in there and crushed it. You know, I mean, I mean, you got people that have been in the department like twenty, twenty-five years, putting up a detective and there was two slots open and and we get me and Steve, the two guys get the award, get it, right? And that's a and so people were obviously not happy, bitter and, you know, going to run their mouth about it. And so that made me realize, okay, I gotta go out and earn this and prove it. So I worked really hard, did a great job, ended up getting going from general investigations to violent crimes task force investigating homicides.

• 1:40:44Shawn Ryan?

  So, hold on, you kill a guy who's determined, potentially determined to kill his wife, possibly his kids, maybe more.

• 1:40:52Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:40:53Shawn Ryan?

  They put you under a four-month investigation on it, try to burn your ass, wind up giving you a medal, put you in this new unit, and you and you don't feel like you deserve it?

• 1:41:04Speaker 05

  Well, you know, doing something like that doesn't make you a good detective, you know, so.

• 1:41:09Shawn Ryan?

  What does?

• 1:41:10Speaker 05

  Good investigative work, like be intelligent, smart, and experience, experience, a lot more experience than I had. But at the same time, like I said, I had the opportunity to do that, and I'm going to embrace it. And I ended up working, you know, I worked everybody there. And, you know, in my time there, in my time there, in that year there, I worked, I think I worked like close to thirty, like violent crimes, either murders, attempted murders, shootings, and had the highest conviction rate of any detective on those types of cases. And so my last year there, right before nine eleven, I ended up moving over to back to

• 1:41:54Speaker 05

  special investigations and became the senior detective at special operations and special investigations, which is like narcotic spice, stuff like that. And so.

• 1:42:08Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, man.

• 1:42:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:42:10Shawn Ryan?

  You rise to the top everywhere you go.

• 1:42:12Speaker 05

  I just, like I said, work hard, man.

• 1:42:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:17Speaker 05

  And.

• 1:42:20Shawn Ryan?

  Lots of people work hard.

• 1:42:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:42:22Shawn Ryan?

  But um, so nine eleven happens.

• 1:42:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:42:25Shawn Ryan?

  Changed everything for you.

• 1:42:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, man, I was, I was still in reserves. I was a, you know, I was the free military freefall team leader at third force, sergeant. And so I remember watching those planes fly into our war tracts and our buildings. And I'm like, dude, my life just changed. Like, one, I, I, I want to participate, I want to participate. Uh, two, I don't want, I don't want to go back into as officer. Like, that was my, that was my goal. And that immediately changed my goal because I know, uh, and obviously, I'm very thankful and respectful to all the military officers. But in the recon community, if you're a reconnaissance officer, you're, you're, you're administrator and planner. You're, you're not a, you're not an operator. Um,

• 1:43:08Speaker 05

  those who need it, but that's not what I want to do. And so despite having the ability to get commissioned at that time, I decided to, uh, to go, within a week of nine eleven, I resigned from the police department, the sheriff's office, and was at, uh, I went to third force recon on active reserve contract. Uh, because it was the fastest way to get back on active duty. And, uh, and I thought we're going to deploy right, I, I, everybody that was in the reserves, everybody thought, everyone's going, right? And, uh, and then the attitude of the military at the time was not like, oh, my gosh, we're going to war. It was like, hey, what's up, sir? Like, let's go do this. The military was like, super motivated. The country was patriotic and, and, and charged up to do the right thing and retaliate for

• 1:43:52Speaker 05

  what happened and, and the twin towers and, and, and the Pentagon. And, and so, um, I thought we were going to deploy right away. Uh, and we didn't. And so the air marshals came, very smart. Uh, I had a friend, Danny O'Toole, who was former dev group guy, retired dev group. And he was, he was one of the first, one of the original forty five air marshals at the time. There was about forty five air marshals before nine eleven. And and so what they did, and it was really smart how they did it. They tasked those forty five guys to build a force up of, I won't say the number, a couple of, you know, a a pretty significant force of air marshals. How do you do that, right? It takes like about a year and a half to get someone through a federal hiring process through OPM, then get somebody

• 1:44:34Speaker 05

  a top secret clearance and then go through FLETC to get trained. So that's the best way to do that. Target the reserve units for guys that already have TS clearances but aren't military contractually obligated to the military. And so that's where they focused their recruiting efforts. It was pretty smart.

• 1:44:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:49Speaker 05

  And so they came to third force as well as, so that's why the first wave of air marshals were all guys reserve. A lot of team guys, uh, um, and a lot of, a lot of SF guys. And, uh, and then a lot, a lot of recon guys. That was the first wave of, uh, of, of air marshals were all those type of guys. They're gonna be able to pass the shooting standards because at that time, their marshals have what's called, they changed it after about two years, but it's called the TPC Tactical Pistol Course.

• 1:45:14Shawn Ryan?

  I've heard that is.

• 1:45:16Speaker 05

  It was brutal. It was crazy. It was a harsh pistol course I've ever, I've ever shot.

• 1:45:20Shawn Ryan?

  Can you talk about it a little bit?

• 1:45:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:45:22Shawn Ryan?

  I'm super interested in it.

• 1:45:23Speaker 05

  I think, I think thirty, thirty rounds and, and, and less than thirty seconds. And, uh, and you can only, you can, you can drop, you, you can only drop three rounds. You can't drop them off the paper. You can drop three rounds out of the, out of the center A, what do you call the A thing?

• 1:45:38Shawn Ryan?

  A box.

• 1:45:39Speaker 05

  A box, yeah.

• 1:45:40Shawn Ryan?

  Thirty rounds, thirty, and less than thirty seconds.

• 1:45:43Speaker 05

  Yep, at seven, at seven yards. And so the drills are, they're different drills from concealed holster, one point six five.

• 1:45:52Speaker 05

  Six shot rhythm drill under three seconds.

• 1:45:55Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, so it's not thirty all combined?

• 1:45:57Speaker 05

  No, no, it's every drill. Back turn, three targets. I think they back turned three targets in one point eight seconds. So pivot, pivot drill, boom, boom, boom.

• 1:46:06Shawn Ryan?

  This sounds very familiar to my qualification to get into the agency.

• 1:46:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, it, it was good, man, and, and.

• 1:46:11Shawn Ryan?

  I wonder if that's where it came. I'll bet that's where it came from.

• 1:46:14Speaker 05

  Pressure now about, after about two years, they got rid of, they dropped that to the ATPC.

• 1:46:19Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 1:46:19Speaker 05

  Um, why? Because, uh, the Secret Service took over the leadership. And so, uh, of their marshals, a, a, and, uh, you know, anytime the government gets a control of something, they ruin it. And so basically they said, instead of, instead of, they, they said, hey, this is too much. So instead of bringing the shooters up to the standard, they bring the standard down to the shooters and they want to bring other federal, federal agents in and that opened the door for people from all of the federal agencies to lateral. And and have a better paying job, something a little more sexy. So you then you got a ton of guys from like Bureau of Presidents, Border Patrol, and it wasn't it wasn't the best of them. So it deteriorated pretty quick after that.

• 1:46:58Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:46:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it was a good thing at first. And so I went through the second class of that, a couple of guys from my unit. And then and then I got to the Denver Field Office, myself and Dave Lamone, who's a Navy SEAL. We became the training head training officers, built the I built the combatants program that they started using in the beginning for the air marshals wide. And then and then Dave was primarily handling the firearms training. And although we we worked together, do both. And then um, but I still wanted to deploy.

• 1:47:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:32Speaker 05

  And I just I wanted to go and and then some buddies went and and a deployment came up for Iraq. Early deployment, like, pre invasion deployment.

• 1:47:44Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:47:44Speaker 05

  And and so I had the opportunity to do that. And and so I was that's where I was going. But then while I was preparing for that, then I had some friends from the the unit from Delta Force. I don't know if you knew the guys from Somalia, Rich Kachacho, Norm Hooton, Brian Morgan, all those guys from the original. I was friends with a lot of those guys and.

• 1:48:06Shawn Ryan?

  Tom Satterley?

• 1:48:08Speaker 05

  I don't know him.

• 1:48:09Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:48:09Speaker 05

  Pat Savage.

• 1:48:12Speaker 05

  Mainly mainly Rich Kachacho was the cue. If you watched the movie Black Hawk Down, the AFO on the bicycle pretending to be a journalist, that's Rich Kachacho cue. And and he was a really good friend of mine. And he's like, hey, that's the select selection going there looking for some certain qualification qualifications for some guys at JSOC. I think this would be a really good fit for you. I know what you really want to do. He's like, I don't think you should do it because I think you should air marshals good gig. I think you should you got you got three kids at home. But I know it's what you want to do. And so if you want to do it, it's probably the perfect fit for you. You got it. You got a degree. You have worked undercover, like, and and as a civilian. And and you know, you have all this other training, like, I think you'd be a really good fit for it. So I trained

• 1:48:55Speaker 05

  up for it. And I went to the selection. And and got selected.

• 1:49:01Shawn Ryan?

  So you went to. You basically, you're probably not going to say this, but I will. So you got recruited specifically to go to Delta selection.

• 1:49:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:49:13Shawn Ryan?

  Made it through Delta selection.

• 1:49:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:49:17Shawn Ryan?

  And got to, did you go to OTC?

• 1:49:19Speaker 05

  No. So, so I thought.

• 1:49:20Shawn Ryan?

  For those who don't know, Delta, the Delta training pipeline is called OTC.

• 1:49:25Speaker 05

  No, I thought, I thought I was going Delta selection because the Delta guys recruited me. So that's where I thought I was going to, uh, and it ended up being, it'd be a selection specifically for this program. And I didn't even know what the program was until after I got selected to get, you know, read into it. Uh, so I thought we're doing Delta selection. We did not do Delta selection. Uh, so I did not, I did not actually do a Delta selection. It was a JSOC task force. And it ended up being at the other, the other unit. That's where I went. The reason.

• 1:49:55Shawn Ryan?

  Wanted to be in a dev group.

• 1:49:56Speaker 05

  Being a dev group, yeah. The, the reason why, uh, the Delta guys did it is because they had the experience in an AFL program. And they were also, they, they weren't only tasked with recruiting for it, they were tasked with running a train, some of the training for it. And so that's how, that's how I got, and luckily, I say luckily, because had I not run Rich Kachoocho, uh, there was no way I would have got the opportunity to try out for that. So.

• 1:50:26Shawn Ryan?

  What was selection like?

• 1:50:30Speaker 05

  Basic, basic skills of, you know, being able to do all your fundamental navigation skills and stuff like that. Uh, checking for a lot of, a lot of different things that, you know.

• 1:50:39Shawn Ryan?

  Was it the long walk?

• 1:50:41Speaker 05

  It wasn't a long walk.

• 1:50:42Shawn Ryan?

  It wasn't.

• 1:50:42Speaker 05

  There's portions, portions of that, because these guys are putting it. So they want to see that same, this, they, they're looking for those mental attributes. Uh, for me, uh, nothing physical was anything. It was the interview process that I thought was very significant. Uh, like asking different decisional making criteria.

• 1:51:02Shawn Ryan?

  Give us an example.

• 1:51:04Speaker 05

  Silly stuff like right, how you stop a vehicle, right? You know, shoot the driver, right? Like, uh, stuff like that. But then, but then also putting your scenarios like, uh, like if you're, and I didn't understand all the scenarios first because I didn't know. I mean, you, you want to do something like that. So I'm thinking, I'm trying not to be an assaulter. I'm thinking I'm trying to be as, to go and be assaulter at, at the unit. And so they're sort of asking questions about, you know, being in a business environment and what kind of decisions you're making in a business environment, a foreign business environment. And they're, they're looking for your business aptitude and, and then, and basically asking questions like in a compromise scenario, like not really looking for the right answers, looking for how you process.

• 1:51:42Shawn Ryan?

  They want to know how you think.

• 1:51:43Speaker 05

  How you think, yeah. And, uh, so I was actually really like taken back like, cause I wasn't expecting those type of questions at all. And then, um, you know, and so I thought I bombed it. I thought, man, uh, cause you, you're expecting one thing, you get side, you get blindsided. And so you automatically think, I wasn't prepared for this, I totally bombed it. And then I find out that if I'm, that if, that if I'm interested, that I'll get, I could go to the read in. And I got read in and that's when I found out that it was the other unit. And, and actually what I'd be doing. And, uh, and to be honest with you, uh, uh, it was a, it was a pleasant surprise. I was, I was, I was stoked.

• 1:52:22Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:52:22Speaker 05

  Yeah, I wasn't, I wasn't like, oh man, I thought I was gonna be doing this. It was like, it was like you're, you're expecting to open, it's Christmas morning, you're expecting to open the present and get a bicycle. And it's a freaking Honda two fifty. I'm like, hell yeah. That was, that was my, that was my, my response. I was like, this is amazing. Uh, this is like a tremendous opportunity and, uh, and, and I still look at it that today. I'm like, I, every, every special operations has this, uh, competitiveness between them. And I think that probably the, the closest is because the closest recon and seals like, I think the closest compatible mission wise. And so there's always like, there's fun compared competitiveness.

• 1:53:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:04Speaker 05

  But everybody knows that, that the premier, you know, NSW unit, that's a difference.

• 1:53:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So what, what were you excited about? Were you excited that you were about to attach to development group, which is SEAL Team Six? Uh, for those that don't know. Or were you excited about the job description? That it wasn't an assaulter, that it was?

• 1:53:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:53:25Shawn Ryan?

  Some under the radar.

• 1:53:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'd say both, but the second more so. Cause I just felt that, first of all, like that AFO job, advanced force operator job, the clandestine logistics jobs, sounds super sexy, but no one wants to do it. Especially the assaulters. Like, no one wants to do it because it's a, you're not, you're not kicking indoors. Like, my job wasn't kicking indoors, shooting bad guys in the face. Like, uh, um, my job was making, the job of AFO is to go as a singleton, or maybe a small team, embed with local nationals, build a plausible reason to be in a, in a, in a non-permissive area, meaning where US military is not. You're, you're by yourself, you don't, you don't have a radio, you don't have, like, you, you're truly are alone.

• 1:54:12Speaker 05

  And, and now you have to build, clandestinely build, infrastructure and operational plan to put assaulters on target and safely get them off. Like, it sounds super sexy, but the assaulters that know, like, no one wants to do that job. But for me, I like, this is like, exactly right up my alley. This is like, exactly what I want to do. Like, I, I love the independence to build, think outside the box on my own, to build a problem solve. I, I like, I like, uh, I loved undercover work when I was working undercover. I feel like, put me in, put me in a, in a, put me in Washington DC, working in, in, uh, in the, uh, in, in Congress, like, I could talk to anybody, I could get along with anybody, put me in the projects,

• 1:54:55Speaker 05

  I could go hang out with drug dealers, like, any, any environment I'm in, I feel like I could get along with anybody and work with anyone. And, uh, so I love that environment. I love to be able to just be with different people and do different things, do different types of things. And I just loved, I loved the idea of that job and I, and I wanted that training. And, uh, and I'd always kind of somewhat heard of it, but I didn't know that job existed in a way that it did. So now I'm being exposed to what it is and they're more, they're briefing me. The more I'm like, this is, this sounds like the coolest job on the planet.

• 1:55:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:23Speaker 05

  And, and, and, uh, and the training was incredible. Uh, the guys that put together the training, you know, they had input from, input came from Green Team, on some of the stuff that they wanted us to have.

• 1:55:35Shawn Ryan?

  Green Team, for those that don't know, is the training pipeline to get into Development Group Team Six.

• 1:55:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. So we had input from Green Team on the, on our training package, and it was being built for us. For the first wave of guys that came in, it was being built for us. And then, and then, and then the, the unit guys, the CAG guys that recruited me in, they had a contract from, from our command to build that program. And so we had with high risk SEER, high risk SEER, which is like corporate cover, then all the corporate cover training, and then lone operator course, like, you know, you by yourself, the medical stuff that you need to know by yourself, the, you know, singleton operations, working by yourself with one other guy, uh, for your basic, you know, basic gun bodying skills and stuff like that. And it was really good training.

• 1:56:22Speaker 05

  And, uh, and, and I learned a lot in a really short period of time. And then, uh, and then learned the rest of it on the ground as we went.

• 1:56:29Shawn Ryan?

  How many guys showed up to that selection? How many guys have got recruited? Did you see them?

• 1:56:34Speaker 05

  No, I didn't see them. No, it's not like a lineup or anything like that.

• 1:56:37Shawn Ryan?

  No shit. The selection is just you.

• 1:56:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I couldn't tell you who was competing against her. Yeah. I could tell you the guys that they picked, um, you know, in that wave, there was 12 of us that got picked.

• 1:56:50Speaker 05

  Three, three Dev Group operators, uh, three guys from, uh, SF guys, two CAG guys, and, and four, four Shri Gun guys.

• 1:57:02Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude.

• 1:57:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. And we're the first wave of all, of all the training.

• 1:57:07Shawn Ryan?

  So you're, you're basically a plank owner of whatever you call that.

• 1:57:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Whatever they want to call it. Yeah. Yeah. We're the first ones. So. And, and it was out of necessity because, you know, Dev Group had the mission in Afghanistan. Um, at that time, Delta's focused on Iraq. And, uh, who had, who, that mission skillset was probably more capable for Delta, but Dev Group had to stand that up.

• 1:57:34Speaker 05

  Can you talk about some of the training once you got in? Once, once I got there? Yeah. I mean, we did recurrent training. Uh, we did recurrent training, but after everything else was like, as we went like, I did about, I did about, the initial training was about s- six months. And then I went right, at the end, I went right to Afghanistan. On the job training? On the job training, yeah. Figure it out. The recurrent, the recurrent training was every year we did driving training. Uh, we didn't go, you didn't go back to high risk here, uh, but you, you did a scenario based training. Uh, SDRs, we always did, we always did recurrent SDR training because that's what keeps you alive when you're operating as a singleton. Can you explain what an SDR is to the audience?

• 1:58:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, like SD, so surveillance is counter surveillance and surveillance detection. Uh, and then SDR is surveillance detection routes. Um, so surveillance detecting, detection is being able to detect if surveillance is being conducted on you, which is very important when you're operating as a singleton because of single, if, if surveillance is being conducted on you, then you're going to be able to know that the next, the next phase of surveillance is, is a, you know, is, is if you're going to be abducted or attacked or something like that, it's going to come behind surveillance usually. Uh, especially in the Taliban, Taliban doesn't traditionally, you might think like, oh, man, if, if you're out by yourself as an American and you're in Jalalabad, like you're like walking around, like the Taliban is just gonna grab you, kill you, shoot you, kidnap you, probably not, they're probably gonna go out, let somebody know you're there, hey, we see American here.

• 1:59:01Speaker 05

  Like, and they start surveilling you and then they're gonna decide, they want to make sure who you are. It's, it's a slower process. You go, you know, downtown Chicago here, you're wrong skin color, you're probably just gonna get shot, right? Like, uh, uh, so there's not really like a lot of violent crimes of opportunity in that scenario. So surveillance is usually gonna come first. So surveillance detection is being able to detect surveillance. So surveillance detection routes is using a strategy, and, and I won't get into TTPs, uh, techniques, tactics and procedures of, of, of SDR routes, but it's basically, uh, it's you, you use a surveillance detection route to expose surveillance. So you do certain methodologies and you put them in your daily agenda to be able to expose any, any potential surveillance you have on you.

• 1:59:42Speaker 05

  And so it's, it's a, it is a survival tool for people that operate in a singleton capacities. So.

• 1:59:51Shawn Ryan?

  What are they briefing on, what are they briefing you you're going to do when you get to Afghanistan?

• 1:59:56Speaker 05

  Well, um, I mean, it would be no secret to say that, you know, that command's agenda was the top 10, right? Bin Laden, whoever's on the top 10 list, they're in the menu, that's what they're going to get. That's the whole focus of that command being in Afghanistan. And so, um, the assault forces are going to have guys that are going to go in and capture or kill those guys. And so they, most of those targets are going to be in non-permissive areas, either eastern Afghanistan in the mountains of Af- in the mountains of Afghanistan, in areas that don't have conventional military, or across, over in the defatah, the federal minister tribal area, or even further, you know, across the border into Pakistan. Uh, so, our job was to, was to set up infrastructure through building a plausible reason, I won't,

• 2:00:40Speaker 05

  you could, you could probably use your imagination of how you would build a plausible reason for Americans to be in certain areas. So I have to create a reason, not a shallow one, because you got, you got to have some legitimacy to it. Create a reason to be there, create a presence there, create a footprint of traffic that you can hide real operations in. And then, and then build all the clandestine infrastructure, infrastructure to be able to put assaulters on target in a non-conventional way.

• 2:01:05Speaker 05

  You know, and, you know, when I say non-conventional, I don't mean, I mean, you know, fast roping onto, you know, fast roping into a compound, you know, with a, with a CH-46 is pretty conventional. But how, how do you do that in a non-conventional way where guys could slip in and slip out? And that requires a lot of on-the-ground, in advance, prior logistical coordination, like safe houses. Then you staging local national weapons and get, you know, procuring local national weapons, going in and, you know, buy local national weapons, procuring them, building, building safe rooms that could be fortified, it could be fought from, you know, AK-47s and PKMs and hand grenades and RPGs and building fighting positions, uh, in those safe houses, having-

• 2:01:47Speaker 05

  Money, clothes, passports, blood, like, who, the assault, it's everybody's blood type. Let's get blood, let's have blood standing by, uh, you know, a, a, you know, a cash, like, cash type facility and capabilities inside of a safe house, uh, and then all the routes to and from, like, all the contingencies, all the contingencies that could be, that could go wrong in an operation like that, all that has to be in place, uh, from the moment you move them, move them from wherever that staging area is to the target, to their, to the back off the target, to their back on Bagram Air Base safe, and we're still out there, uh, we stay out there, all, over two.

• 2:02:25Shawn Ryan?

  So you're basically, you're a facilitator.

• 2:02:29Speaker 05

  That's it, yeah.

• 2:02:30Shawn Ryan?

  You're a facilitator that sets up every aspect surrounding the actual operation with plausible deniability.

• 2:02:41Speaker 05

  Yes, yeah.

• 2:02:41Shawn Ryan?

  For everyone.

• 2:02:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:02:43Shawn Ryan?

  Foreign weapons, foreign IDs, foreign, everything.

• 2:02:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, in Afghanistan, every town you go in, uh, you, you, you probably like a lot of different areas, you got a different, different license plate, uh, you know, you go to a different checkpoint, you have to have different permits for different areas, if you don't know any of that and don't have that in place, you might, you might have the best operation in the world, but you get stopped at a diverse checkpoint, everybody gets pulled out of the vehicle, it's over, but now, all that has to be facilitated in advance, and, and by the way, you can't do that without local, local national element involved.

• 2:03:17Speaker 05

  And, uh, and a little bit, little bit of, we, I, I did with Aziz, who was my teammate and interpreter, I did about a hundred of those in my deployments.

• 2:03:30Shawn Ryan?

  You did, you facilitated a hundred?

• 2:03:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, o- operations, like that.

• 2:03:34Shawn Ryan?

  Operations.

• 2:03:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, not, not all, not, and, and I'll say, just so people don't get confused, not, not every one of them was a capture kill hit, uh, but over a hundred operations facilitated.

• 2:03:45Shawn Ryan?

  Is there anything in particular that stands out that you want to talk about?

• 2:03:49Speaker 05

  Number six, uh, we, you know, Aziz and I put, put the command on number six, and they killed him, so, uh, that's the highest I got up on the list, we tried, we tried for number two, uh, obviously, we're all after number one, and, uh, but number six we, we got, and, uh, but we almost didn't because of, because of Aziz, uh, we did.

• 2:04:11Shawn Ryan?

  You want to go into it?

• 2:04:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, um, so.

• 2:04:16Speaker 05

  Batakut, Afghanistan, Batakut's little forming village, hi- hi- everybody thinks of Afghanistan as like desert, right, like a Kandahar, but man, Afghanistan's, I- I, when I think Afghanistan, I'm thinking Rocky Mountains, Colorado. Uh, gray granite, rocks, pine trees, smell, you know, smell of pine, creeks, beautiful. Um, that's Batakut, high mountain forming villages, uh, very cold. We were there, it was, so Aziz and I had been there a couple of weeks. And, uh, to set up, set up the operation and, uh, I, we've been working together for a while. Aziz, you know, not just assigned to me as my teammate,

• 2:04:56Speaker 05

  my friend, you know, his, his brother and, uh, very like, when I say whitting, like as whitting as, as parts of the operation that I, I couldn't say here, but I could, I could definitely not say on this show, he knew. Uh, and, and seen and was aware of, um, this dude. Uh, I won't get into this story, not that I can't, but, but not to get off track, but he was, he's the only Afghan I know that was recognized by Congress for the rescue of four, four SEALs, Dev Group guys. And it was me and him, we got a call from the command to go clandestinely extract these four SEALs. Uh, not that Dev Group couldn't have went and get him, right? They could have sent a QRF and then killed everybody in the village and got those guys out, no problem, but they, they wanted to maintain the operation.

• 2:05:41Speaker 05

  And they didn't want any collateral, so any collateral damage because it was Taliban infested village. And so they asked us to go, go in and get it. And Aziz was like, it's the middle of the night. Aziz didn't know these guys.

• 2:05:51Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, hold on.

• 2:05:53Speaker 05

  I'm getting into two, they're a totally different story now.

• 2:05:55Shawn Ryan?

  Let's, let's just do this story. Let's, let's talk about the entire thing, then we'll go back to number six.

• 2:06:00Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 2:06:01Shawn Ryan?

  Actually, let me stop right there.

• 2:06:03Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:06:04Shawn Ryan?

  Why don't, I think this is a good point in time to talk about who exactly Aziz was and why he's so important to you.

• 2:06:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:06:12Shawn Ryan?

  And, and, and how he plays a role in your life.

• 2:06:17Speaker 05

  Yeah. So when I, when I get to Afghanistan, the very first time.

• 2:06:23Speaker 05

  Uh, I landed at Bagram Air Force Base. I started there. I didn't, I didn't fly. Most people might be picturing like you fly there with your unit on deployment. That wasn't the experience I had or the type of job I had. Uh, I flew an unmanifested plane out of Norfolk, uh, with a couple of other operators I'd never met before. Um, with a rafting bag with two million dollars in it. A cash that I snapped to my ankle because uh, some big Neanderthal named Mo from the command was like, "Hey, I got some, I got some Ambien right here. Why don't you take two?" They all knew I had that money. And so they were, they were, you know, they didn't know me, but they, they knew what it was and they were just giving me a hard time. You know how guys are. They give me a hard time and uh,

• 2:07:09Speaker 05

  So I curled up like a cat on top of a pallet, flew there. Those guys, you know, those guys, the Salter guys went off, did their thing. They had been in a, they were being in a, in another all the time. And I, and I was told to wait there to meet, um, the XO was coming, was coming to meet me. So I was, I was sitting there waiting. And uh, and I was standing on the edge of, this is 2003, so I'm on edge of the airfield. And there was these Hesco barriers and Konstantinou wire and, and I remember like in that moment, but being by myself in, in the dark. I remember my first moment was like, this feels like 29 poems, like something about it. It felt like familiar, like 29 poems. Uh, but then I remember like thinking like, holy crap, like this is real. They like hit me like,

• 2:07:54Speaker 05

  I'm, I'm in Afghanistan. I've never been to war before. Not, not, not, not only I'm in, in, in war now, but I'm doing this freaking crazy job that I'm just got, that, that I've never done before. I've just got training in it, but this is the reality hit me like somewhere another side of this, in the dark on the side of this Hesco barriers and Konstantinou wires of Taliban, like the enemy. And over the next few months, I'm going to try to facilitate killing them and they're going to try to kill me. And that's really what's about to happen. And like, kind of ask yourself like, am I ready to? To do this, you know, am I, am I ready to do it? The Marine Corps entrusted me to represent them at this incredible unit that I'm like, feeling like super privileged, like honored to be able to be a part of like, am I ready?

• 2:08:37Speaker 05

  And, and we were talking last night about these four pillars of resiliency and, you know, mind, body, spirit, and social, like, you know, if I'd have gave that inventory mentally, I was, I was motivated, I knew my job, I had tremendous training in my job, I really had a confidence in myself. Physically, I was in the best shape of my life. Socially, I'm with the premier special operations unit in the world. The support you get there, like, why am I excited to go there? Man, what, what, what can't they get? Like, that, any resources you need, right? You can get there. But spiritually, you know, I had to wear a Christian stamp to my dog tag, but the truth is, that was a chink in my armor. Like, I was, I, I believe, looking back now, when I got there, I made this decision, because, because my wife was like pressuring me, like, you're going, like, I'm praying

• 2:09:22Speaker 05

  for you and stuff like that. My wife was like, like pushing me towards like God, and I was like, you know what? Like, right now in my life, I have to choose, I have to choose between being a warrior or being a person of faith, because I believed that the two couldn't coexist. I believed that that was something you had to choose between, because I thought, I'm gonna have to be violent, I'm gonna have to, and, and as AFL, I'm gonna have to lie to people, manipulate people, not just the Taliban. I'm gonna like take good people, civilians, buy cars in their name, because I'm getting trained to like buy houses in their name, and, and set, set them up between my command and me and, and the Taliban, so when the chips fall, they're gonna be the ones that, some manipulating people, lying to people, like, so I just felt like I had to pick between this job, being a warrior, and, and being a person of faith.

• 2:10:07Speaker 05

  So I believe I made a deliberate decision to put God out of my life in that moment, something I could do when I get older and be a warrior. And I wish I would have knew the truth, what the truth is, there's nothing more powerful in the battlefield of Afghanistan or life than, than the men of God and people of, of God, and, and that you not only can coexist, but when they do coexist, they're the most powerful people on the planet. And, and I wish I knew that. And because I chose to put that aside, I believe that it left a giant hole inside of me that, over the years, filled with anger and rage and bitterness, and just a real darkness took over me.

• 2:10:46Speaker 05

  But to back to Aziz, like, through all that.

• 2:10:50Speaker 05

  I had a partner because while that job again might sound kind of cool to some people, some people were like, I would never want to do that job. You spend a lot of time alone. Out of those eight deployments, I spent, I probably spent two weeks on Bagram. All my time was off, I was off base. I lived out in the community. I wore civilian clothes. As awesome as the guys at the command was, and I was proud to be at that unit, I rarely got to work with them except putting them on target and putting them off target. And so Aziz was my, besides a few guys that I worked with on my team, primarily Aziz was my teammate. He was assigned to me as my interpreter, but he eventually worked his

• 2:11:32Speaker 05

  way into being, you know, a number two guy and our teammate and even part of planning operations and someone I really became the trust and lean on, on how to pull off some of the stuff we were doing. Because there's no textbook for doing it. And even if you have one, you go into a new environment, a new combat environment, and everything changes, right? You have to, you have to be adaptable and be able to, you create it as you go. And not only that, like we were given complete, like talk about enough rope to hang yourself, like, you know, they're like, figure it out, like, you know, I remember like, I won't say the name of, you know, the CEO or XO like telling me like, hey, we need to get, we need to establish a presence here. I'm like, we can't, there's no, there's no presence,

• 2:12:13Speaker 05

  like, there's no plausible presence there. And they're just like, yeah, good luck. Like, figure this shit out. Like, and you're gonna make it happen. Because that, that command's depending on you giving a plausible reason to be there. So when those assaulters get on target, they're gonna be safe. And they're gonna not only be safe, but they're gonna, you know, capture or kill whoever they're going after. And so you gotta figure it out. And, and they give you tons of like, all the leeway, you got all the resources and all the money to make it happen, but you got all the leeway to succeed or fail. And, and, you know, you gotta figure that out. And, and by yourself, and you gotta, and you sit in the meetings, you're like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I don't know why they trusted me to do this, but, but I'm gonna keep that to myself and I'm gonna figure it out. And then when they leave, and the briefing's over and they leave, you're like, Aziz.

• 2:13:00Speaker 05

  Help me out, brother. Like, how are we gonna figure this out? And every time he'd figure it out, we'd figure it out, man. So because of that, we became someone that I tremendously trusted. And I watched him, over the years, put his life on the line for Americans that he never met before. For me, saved my life multiple times. And again, we'll get into sharing the mission for number six. But one example was with those four team guys. They were doing an operation. I can't say what they were, they had an asset,

• 2:13:35Speaker 05

  a technical asset that was part of this program. Again, I can't talk about it exactly. But because they were with this asset, they couldn't leave this asset in place. And they couldn't just leave it there. So they couldn't just be moved. They had to stay with it. If they would have put a QRF in there to get those guys, the operation would have been compromised and need the operation to continue. And they probably would have killed a lot of people in that village that need to die. And so the command called us and said, hey, four team guys, they're here, they need you guys to go get them. And we're looking at that, we knew the environment. We're like, this place is like freaking a hornet's nest for Taliban. And I'm like, Aziz, how are we gonna do it? And he's like, came up with, and I won't say exactly the details, but he came up with a way to go get them.

• 2:14:20Speaker 05

  And I'm like, I trust you. And he and I got in a car and we drove through the night and scooped those guys up and got them out of there. And, yeah, man.

• 2:14:34Shawn Ryan?

  What was it like when they figured out? I mean, how were they?

• 2:14:37Speaker 05

  It was actually pretty, it was actually pretty funny. Not the most tactical or sexy scene. Like, we're looking for them where they're supposed to be. And we're like, we're like, where the heck are all these guys? And we didn't have any comms with them. And we had one of those, they're like behind this bush like a cock.

• 2:14:53Shawn Ryan?

  Are you kidding me?

• 2:14:54Speaker 05

  I'm like.

• 2:14:59Shawn Ryan?

  Here we are at death group. Kakao.

• 2:15:02Speaker 05

  Most elite guys in the world, Kakao, in a bush and.

• 2:15:05Shawn Ryan?

  If it works.

• 2:15:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:15:09Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit, that's hilarious.

• 2:15:10Speaker 05

  I'm like, don't bring kill us, because they're like waiting for them to kill us, you know? It's me. And, uh, yeah, but, but man, like, it was nothing super technical, like, you know, if you're looking for like a super technical, like operational story or that, if it's just who he was, like, like, I remember his words when he's like, I'm like trying to figure it out. I'm like, you're, you're down. He's like, those are my brothers.

• 2:15:32Speaker 05

  That he never met before. But because he felt part of the unit that he was at for 16 years, by the way, those are my brothers, like, and he was, he wanted to go get them. And, uh, I mean, it was, it was sketchy. The hair was sketchy, just going in that area. And, uh, you had to get us through, he had to get us through all the checkpoints to get us there. And we had to figure, we had to figure it out. Not, we didn't have weeks to figure out. We had a couple of hours to figure it out. Making phone calls, making it happen, putting himself at risk. And, uh, and that's why we made sure that he got recognized for that operation, that, that, that movement he got recognized by, by Congress. Uh, on the, on the House floor for, for the, the movement of those floor seals. And, uh, I was, I was super, super proud of him to see that when he got that, because I think he's the only, I think he's the only Afghan interpreter I know to be recognized at that level.

• 2:16:15Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:16:16Speaker 05

  For, for that, for that operation. And, uh, you know, he deserved it too. I, I cried when he, when they, when they were reading that thing.

• 2:16:23Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 2:16:25Speaker 05

  So.

• 2:16:25Shawn Ryan?

  That's incredible, man.

• 2:16:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. And then, fast forward, number six. We're there weeks before, setting up the operation. We're in Batacoot, again, this, you know, forming village. And I remember we parked, we parked like in these pine trees. We're in a hilux, parked in these pine trees and, and, and he wanted to walk across this field. And I remember being kind of irritated with them because it was, it was freaking cold. Windy, like snowing, and his field was like muddy. And I'm like tromping through. Wet snowy mud like I'm like, what are you taking us through this mud for?

• 2:17:01Shawn Ryan?

  Are you guys dressed in local garb?

• 2:17:03Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:17:03Shawn Ryan?

  All that stuff.

• 2:17:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I tried to just throw man jammies on and like, like it wasn't like dress up normally. I thought we dressed every day.

• 2:17:11Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:17:11Speaker 05

  Like, uh, like, I don't mean like, like some, like cargo pants and shoes and like, not all Afghans wear man jammies, right? So, but, uh, so just dressed like a normal Afghan. I had a pretty gnarly beard, like my year old and always had, I always had peanut butter from protein bar stuck in it. But, uh, and you know, those things are like super important too. Like, hey, you could wear a pukul in this area. And you're cool. You wear a pukul here and you're getting pulled over. Like, I mean, don't walk there. Don't eat that. Don't talk to that person. If you talk right now, they're gonna, they're gonna know you're not a Dori speaker and they're gonna kill us. Like, like he saved my life every single day.

• 2:17:56Speaker 05

  Do just that, right? Don't wear that hat. This little picture Masood we're gonna have hanging on our windshield, on our rearview mirror, which works in this town, but take that crap off in this town because we're gonna get shot for having it. All that stuff, like every single day, like he keeps, he got me alive. You know, not just in, in those, you know, lifesaving moments.

• 2:18:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. And so, yeah, so we were walking across this field and I'm, I'm being a total like butt head towards him, like giving him a hard time. And, uh, and we get across this field and there's this old, this old man that's like, you know, sitting on the side of the road in the middle of the snow in the wind, just squatting there. I don't know why Afghans do that. Like, just sitting here squatting on the side of the road in the snow. And, uh, and we see him and Aziz starts talking to him and, uh, and I could tell like it was a pretty serious conversation. I couldn't understand everything they were saying. But, uh, they, he had, he was telling Aziz like, you need to get him, me out of there because the Taliban was in the area and they're, they're looking for the foreigner, which was me. There's a lot of foreigners in Badakut, Afghanistan, besides me.

• 2:19:03Speaker 05

  And so somehow they didn't know I was there, uh, probably just being seen there and, and they were looking for, for, for us. And so Aziz is like, hey, brother, we have to go. Um, cause it wasn't like they're around the area like he had just seen them. And so we start walking back across this field.

• 2:19:21Speaker 05

  You warned me, I don't want to tip your table over.

• 2:19:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, we start walking back across this field and uh, you know, when you find something like that out, by the way,

• 2:19:30Speaker 05

  like, it's easy for me just to say that, but if you think about the mindset of that, like, I'm in Batakut, Bagram's, if you drove to Bagram, it would take a day and a half. Uh, I don't have a radio, there's no QRF coming to get me. I have a, I have a AKS, uh, Aziz's AK-47. We have a few magazines in our back, in our bags, hand grenade in our bags, a pistol and a waistband, that's it. Like, uh, and so imagine that, you know, that's the scenario. You're by yourself, like in that feeling and like, the Taliban's here, a couple of truckloads and they're looking for you, like,

• 2:20:14Speaker 05

  you know, and so, walking back across that field, that's a large open danger area now. And so, the first thing I tell Aziz is like, because again, these guys are in the area, like, hey man, like, if we get hit through this field, because it's a big field, if we get hit through this field, like, we had trained before together, like, we're gonna, we're gonna have to bound out of here, like, we're in this open danger. We literally were talking about that, and we're about a hundred yards from that road, and, and they drive behind us. Three trucks, and the three hawks trucks, by the way, they were so confident in being there, they had their black flags flying with the white writing on, the Taliban flags.

• 2:20:51Speaker 05

  I, I still can't remember, usually I have vivid memories of things, but I can't remember if one or two of the trucks had a PKM out on the top.

• 2:20:57Speaker 05

  But, they hit the brakes, start backing up, and uh, you know, now, butt was buckering, right? And uh, they stop and they get out, and me and Aziz are still talking. During that time, by the way, not, not that it matters, but, and no reason to get into details of, me and Aziz changed guns and gun bags because uh, that AKS was having some problems, and he felt like I was a better shooter, he's like, here, take this rifle, and I didn't argue with him, we just, we just switched guns, and uh... And he uh, we're, we're, we're talking about, you know, basically bounding out of there if anything happened. But I, but at that time, I went from being nervous to like super calm because I was thinking like, maybe my confidence overtook me, not, I wasn't complacent, but my confidence overtook me like,

• 2:21:39Speaker 05

  what I was talking about earlier, is there no random, I don't see random violence happening. They can't drive in that field, that field I was complaining about. Now I know they can't drive in it, so I felt good about that. Cause they were getting stuck. And, and they're not gonna just randomly kill us because they don't know who we are, right? So I'm like, if we just ignore them and keep walking, we're good to go. That's what I was thinking. So I hear them start yelling and, and I didn't understand what they were saying. They were definitely talking, speaking in Pashtun. And not Dari, and, and but then I heard the word stop, uh, Bosch, Bosch, Bosch. And, and they're, so now they're yelling aggressively, so they're yelling us to stop. And uh, probably the only thing I stopped is my heart, like, in, in a moment now. But I still was like, you know, we just keep, Aziz, and Aziz is just like, hey brother, just keep looking straight, keep walking. I'm trying to walk towards the, the tree line.

• 2:22:25Speaker 05

  And uh, I heard a, I don't know what I heard first, if I heard the gun go off or that, that boom, over my head, the air crack over your head. I don't, I don't know what I heard first, but I remember hearing both distinctly, like, I heard, I heard a gunshot and I heard the rock, the air crack over our heads. And uh, and in that moment, man, it's like, if I run, they're gonna kill us, uh, in that muddy field. And if we give up, they're gonna capture us or kill us. And so I, I just felt like the only option to do was to fight. And uh, that's really, really is the only option. And so I just, I told Aziz, man, get ready to move and I, and I just did a about face. And the first person I saw, I shot, like, as I, I turned and as my gun came up,

• 2:23:10Speaker 05

  I saw a guy, I saw a red Hilux truck. A bunch of guys, but I, I saw this guy, uh, standing there and he has AK in his hand. And he's just standing with a passion of door. And I just shot two rounds right center mass. And when I, when I did, I thought I missed him because the window, the first thing I saw was the window, behind him. And so I thought I missed him and hit the window. And uh, but then he fell, I think he went back and hit the window. He fell and when he fell, I fired those two rounds and I was I was kind of didn't know what to expect, but I was expecting like a gunfight. And I'm yelling for Aziz to move. I'm yelling, I'm expecting a gunfight and they all just like stopped. I think they were, I think they didn't think we would.

• 2:23:52Speaker 05

  Fight back and they got shocked them. So everybody just stopped like, like if you shoot a deer and then, and then one deer falls and all the deer are like. That's kind of what it was like. And then they all rushed, instead of shooting back, they all converged between two vehicles to go get covered behind the vehicle. And so I just went between the two, I didn't, I didn't aim at anybody. I just went to the convergence point and just started emptying my magazine in that convergence point. So I'm just yelling Aziz to move. Aziz, Aziz starts moving and I, and I. What distance are you? A hundred yards. Super close for that. Yeah. Uh, and then after they got behind the vehicle before Aziz got set, I started hearing the gunshots. It started slow. It started pop, pop, pop and then, and then just like.

• 2:24:35Speaker 05

  Chaos. And, uh, and then when I heard Aziz start shooting and he yelled, he yelled, I started moving and, uh, and I don't know how like. We're in the mud. So normally you would see like dirt flying up everywhere. I didn't see any of that. Like I've seen that before. I didn't see any of that and I don't, I can't explain how, like God protecting us, whatever. I'd never seen dirt fly up. Nothing from around us. A hundred yards away, 20 to 30 guys.

• 2:25:03Speaker 05

  Never seen any of that. And, uh, and so the third iteration of us, of us starting to move, um, I remember like. And this all happened, obviously very fast. Uh, as, as I'm shooting, I saw Aziz stop. And, you know, for those that know about a lateral Australian peel or bounding, and the reason we're going laterally is backwards was this field. We were just going down range. So we were going laterally to the tree line. We were going laterally, right, staying right in front of them and, uh. And the reason you're doing, you're, you're holding a base of fire is not just to cover the guy, but to draw fire to get attention off that guy while he's moving. And so you never stop, you never shoot, you don't shoot and move because you want the, want me to draw,

• 2:25:45Speaker 05

  I want to draw fire for him to move and we're doing it right out in the open. And, uh, and so as soon as he stopped, and I remember peripheral thinking, why is he stopping? And then I seen him shoulder his, his rifle. And I'm like, what is he doing? And then, and then he shot and, uh, and when he shot, uh, he had, he had seen something I didn't see. It was a guy come up with RPG. And, uh, and he felt like if he, he felt like if, if he would have kept moving, I was drawing the fire to me, the guy would have fired RPG and hit me. So he stopped, exposed himself and shot that guy before the RPG went off and save, and saved my life. Damn. I, I didn't see it. Uh, he would have fired it off. I would have, a hundred yards, I would, I would have been

• 2:26:27Speaker 05

  dead. And, uh, when that happened, uh, and I realized what happened, I think at that point, I seen we're close enough to the tree line and the tactics went out the window. I'm just like, run. And we just ran like, like, uh, neither one of us shooting anymore. We just ran to the tree line and we got that tree line, like got to our truck, went back to the safe house and got it, got in touch with the command. It took us a little while to figure out how to communicate, but told them what happened. And, uh, and the command was like, basically trying to decide, is this a, was this a compromise or chance contact? Right? That's important. Yeah. Right. It was just, was this, is the operation compromise or was this just Taliban out there? There's a foreigner, they want to know who it is. And, and, uh, and it was Aziz that said,

• 2:27:11Speaker 05

  he could, he could have got us out of the operation, got himself out of it. But he's like, nah, man, this guy, these guys don't know anything about what we're doing. We need to stay here. We got, we got to finish this. Not even a question. And, uh, and the command trusted his decision off that. And I don't think the command told, really, it was like, I think everybody was like, hey, let's not make it a big deal because we don't want to. Sweep this one under the rug. We don't want to let that get in the way of the operation. Yeah. And, uh, because everybody wants, you know, when you get a top 10 guy, everybody wants him. So, and so, yeah. So they, they kept going about, and about 10 days later, I, I couldn't, not exactly, but about 10 days later, uh, they, we launched it and then, uh, they, they killed him. They killed number, number six. So.

• 2:27:53Speaker 05

  So, um, yeah, and that's, that's who Aziz is. And that was one of like, three times that, probably that specifically, that he saved my life and, and, uh, but again, he saved my life every day. And, and then, you know, the unique thing about Aziz was that Aziz didn't, uh, Aziz and I, like, I didn't go back to base and, and, and when, and he went home, we were done operating. I went to his home. I lived in his home. Like, I mean, I was telling somebody the other day, like, what's the longest I've been with a shower? I'm like, probably like five weeks, like me and Aziz out in those cold mountains. Like, like, uh, you know, that's before my cold plunging days. I didn't want to take a bath in the river. And, uh, and, and, you know, when we got, when we were done, like, and you just crave like a real warm,

• 2:28:37Speaker 05

  good meal, and it was his wife, Hatra, that made that first warm meal coming out of those mountains after operating. And I didn't go back to the chow hall or anything like that. I went to his, to his home and ate there. And I held, I held Mashoud and Mashouda, his oldest son and daughter, when they were born as babies. Like, this dude's my family. Like, he's my brother. And, uh, he's one of the most important. It's like few people in, in the world that, that I would like, I mean, everybody talks about like laying your life down for somebody, but like, it's few people in the world that would like lay everything down for, like, uh, you know, just no questions asked, lay my life down for, and Aziz is one of them.

• 2:29:10Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 2:29:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, like, he's, he's one of the most incredible human beings I've ever met. And, and people talk about patriotism and freedom and democracy. This dude, I remember being like blown away, like, I'm, I'm driving. We, obviously, we're in these long drives all the time. We're living in a car together. And, uh, we'd be, we'd be driving and he'd just be talking about freedom and democracy in a way that I'd never even heard it before. And, and, and I'm thinking like, this is a guy that never even experienced it. He gets it more than I even get it, or people here get it. And he was willing so much to, to lock arms with Americans so that his daughters could, could be teachers or journalists. Uh, anything but a sex slave, right? His daughters could be free. And he's, did not want his sons to have to be forced to be, you know, Taliban fighters

• 2:29:55Speaker 05

  and, and grow up the way he grew up. And he was willing to give everything for it, and he did. And, uh, you know, and I think he's one of the most phenomenal examples of, of the allies, the wartime allies that fought beside of all of our troops, and not just special operations, but all of our troops for the last, uh, 20 years.

• 2:30:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Man, he sounds like a hell of a guy. I'd love to meet him.

• 2:30:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. He's smart, too. Uh, he speaks, I think, eight languages and- He's an incredible human being.

• 2:30:27Shawn Ryan?

  Well Chad, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll just pick right up here.

• 2:30:31Speaker 05

  Right on.

• 2:30:32Shawn Ryan?

  Cool.

• 2:30:35Speaker 00

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• 2:31:10Speaker 00

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• 2:31:44Shawn Ryan?

  All right Chad, we're in Afghanistan. We just talked about the number six, going after number six, and the gunfight you have with Taliban. Let's talk about, there's another significant thing that happened over there.

• 2:31:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:31:58Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about that.

• 2:32:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I started like, I started dealing with like a lot of, like, the pressure of it, right? I started dealing with like a lot of anxiety and stuff. But I was able to hold it together until we had what I would say is a major compromise in our operation. We had like, we had a number of local nationals working for this program, obviously because of what we were doing. And a lot of them were recruited from the Northern Alliance. They were OGA trained for a specific program and then given to our program. So, guys that were vetted, right? And so we had a number of them, and one of them flipped over to the Taliban. His name was Bashir. So Bashir flips over to the Taliban.

• 2:32:46Speaker 05

  And uh, uh, don't know why, uh, when I say like, like this guy and I slept on the side of a mountain together. Like, we built operations together. He was, he was one of my favorite guys outside of Aziz to work with. Uh, he was just super solid, tons of combat experience. Uh, but for whatever reason, you know, maybe they started his family, whatever, he flips to the Taliban, compromised our operation. Twelve of our teammates were captured, uh, held and then killed. Two Americans, contractors, uh, and ten Afghans. And, uh, you know, people listening may not, you hear about Aziz, so maybe a little more context, but may not think it's as big of a deal for these Afghans to be killed and not Americans, but man, these, these guys

• 2:33:32Speaker 05

  were like my brothers, like, uh, these guys that lived in, played soccer with their kids, slept in their homes, ate dinner with their families, like, these guys would have died for me and I would have died for them, and I do believe they did die for me, uh, in, in trying to protect our operation and, and died for everybody, every American on here listening. Um, that, that these guys were solid, solid dudes. Is, so when that happened, uh, Aziz's family was contacted and, and he was targeted. So now he's compromised. Um, and he chose, at that moment, I watched him choose to stay on the program, continue operating, and move his wife and kids into hiding

• 2:34:13Speaker 05

  and not, not have contact with his father, his in-laws, anyone. They, they chose that, uh, for us, you know, to, to continue operating. That's how committed he was. In addition to that, uh, we had a V bed driven in one of my houses and, uh, uh, vehicle, uh, born IED, uh, to blow up our house. Uh, the intent was, obviously it killed me and my friends. Uh, luckily we weren't there at the time. Um, but, uh, we, we do believe that one of our guards were there. Uh, we never heard from him again, so we assumed he was killed. And when they, I mean, the house was level. And then at that time, we had all been pulled out to be briefed. Everyone across the board was like, okay, that happened, but we're still in. Like, we were like, this is too important.

• 2:34:58Speaker 05

  And so I went back into a neighboring country that I'd been working in. I won't say the name because it's in my book, Saving Aziz. The Pentagon reviewed it and redacted it and they redacted the name of that country. But not very hard to do the math, right? I'm in this neighboring country and then I get abducted by a foreign intelligence agency.

• 2:35:15Shawn Ryan?

  How?

• 2:35:16Speaker 05

  About sunrise, I had a knock on my door. And I knew, first of all, the guy who led this abduction wasn't like a stranger. As soon as I went into that country, I started working with their countries, like Bureau of Business Affairs. And they immediately attached him to me. And I knew he was, you know, from that intelligence agency. I mean, it was very easy to figure out.

• 2:35:44Shawn Ryan?

  So this is this country's version of CIA?

• 2:35:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So basically, he would have been like assigned to me and he's supposed to be business guy. He wasn't very good at his cover. It was very obvious.

• 2:35:55Speaker 05

  And, you know, he was always, you know, coming in our house, like taking things, took a thumb drive off my desk. It was constant, constant, constant. And then I had another-

• 2:36:06Shawn Ryan?

  Sloppy trade craft.

• 2:36:07Speaker 05

  Very sloppy trade craft. I mean, like, hey, come in my office. I do the same business as you. I go in his office and like the flyers for the business is still warm. Like, the picture is like fresh on the wall, like, and the secretary behind the desk is like, like, you know, it's, you know, very sloppy. We were walking, I thought one of the most interesting things is we were walking, I had a suit on. You know, I'm wearing a suit and I'm walking across this courtyard and I walked in the dust. And my shoes got dusty and I did this.

• 2:36:41Speaker 05

  You know, like military, like you shine your shine my toes and he stopped and he goes, "Why'd you do that? Were you in the military?" And I was like, "Yeah, I was. Were you?" Like, uh, but he was just, that was like, that was like day one with him. And, uh, you know, always leaving phones, listening devices. Like, "Hey, your house, like, I'm really worried about your security here, so I'm gonna get, I have a cousin, he's a retired general, he's gonna build a, put a alarm in the house for you." I'm like, "No, no, I'm good." He's like, "No, I insist to put a listening platform inside your house." And, uh, so it was that constantly. And then I had one person corner me at, at, at, at a hotel and, and say, "Hey, I got something to tell you." Took me to an American hotel, tell me, and I'm like, "Please don't tell me." Like, "I don't want you to tell me that Jack is this guy's, that's

• 2:37:21Speaker 05

  who he said his name was, Jack. Jack is a, is a, you know, a spy. Like, and please don't tell me." And sure enough, he told me, he wanted to confide in me because he wanted something from me. And, uh, and then now I have to, now I have to act like a normal person would act. So I have to get on the phone, an open line and call and, "Hey, you know, hey, you sponsored my visa and you sent me here. Now I've got the government after me. I'm trying to do business here." And so I had to, so it was a lot of pressure all the time. And, uh, so you ask how that abduction happened. Uh, about sunrise, I had a knock on my door. It's Jack. He's got another guy with him, uh, both in suits. And when

• 2:38:01Speaker 05

  I opened the door, two big dudes, both in suits as well, come out, met us four of them, and forced their way in the doorway. And they're like, "Hey, we want to show you a piece of property." I'm like, "At five in the morning? You want to come get me, show me a piece of property? Who are these guys?" And they're like, "It's a property that we think you'd be interested in buying." And, uh, and I'm like, "No, I'm not going," right? Like, I'm just kind of refusing to go. And they're like, "No, you don't understand." Like, "You're, you're coming with us." And, uh, so, uh, you know, I didn't put up a fight because it wa, it was a fight that I felt like I could maybe talk my way out of. And, uh, but when I got in the car, we, I said, "I probably shouldn't have got in the car." And, uh, and you know, two guys in front, I'm in the back in the center.

• 2:38:47Speaker 05

  And, uh, and they start driving and started asking some questions and then they, and then they stopped and everything got silent. I said some few things and I realized we're not having a conversation now. They're driving me somewhere and, uh, drove out of the major city into the woods, you know, on the side of a mountain. And they, you know, stopped the car and, and took me out of the car. And I was, I was thinking, you know, I don't have anything to defend myself with. If a gun comes out, you know, gonna fight for my life. Uh, but, uh,

• 2:39:17Speaker 05

  but I thought, I thought that was, I thought, I thought I was gonna die right there. I, I thought they were gonna question me, interrogate me and kill me. That's, I was pretty convinced in that moment.

• 2:39:26Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever been in another situation where you thought you were that certain that you were going to die?

• 2:39:33Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:39:34Shawn Ryan?

  What's going through your head?

• 2:39:37Shawn Ryan?

  Other than you're gonna die because eventually that wears off.

• 2:39:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I, I say no, but there was moments like around that time that I had such eminence that I would, I would put sticky notes in the lid of my suitcase from my wife, telling her, loved her, give her permission to move on with her life. My oldest son, like you're gonna have to be, take it be the, the man of the house now. Tell my daughter and my other son that I love them and put those sticky notes in the lid of my suitcase. Go out on an operation, come back and I throw them away because I was, I didn't want anybody to find them. And then I do that over and over again. Uh, cause I think my personal effects are making home, so I put it in the lid. I, I was doing that. So I probably had that sense of eminence that I was probably going to get killed because things were getting so sketchy. But in that moment, like I, I knew I was gonna die at that moment, like,

• 2:40:26Speaker 05

  I mean, in a gunfight, like you might live, you might die. You shot, you, but, but I'm like, there's, I'm like a thousand percent convinced, like they're gonna kill me. Yeah, they were gonna kill me right here.

• 2:40:35Shawn Ryan?

  This is where it ends.

• 2:40:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. And it's one thing like being, it's one thing like when you know you're, when you believe that and know you're gonna die, like, and it's not happening, I'm like, it's gonna, it's, it's a pretty heavy thing. People talk about it all the time, like lightly, but like it's a pretty heavy thing. And I, and I believed in that moment I was, I was going to die. Um, that's the only time in my life I ever like believed in that moment I'm gonna die. I always like, I'm gonna work myself out of this. I'll figure it out. But I didn't feel like I could. I figured I could talk my way into the delay, but I didn't feel like I could talk my way out of that situation.

• 2:41:08Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm. At what point you realized when the conversation stopped, this is you're about to get assassinated.

• 2:41:17Speaker 05

  Um.

• 2:41:18Shawn Ryan?

  In the car ride.

• 2:41:20Speaker 05

  In, in, in the car ride, yeah, in the car. When they stopped talking and we, and we left the city. I, I knew they were bringing me somewhere to where they were going to kill me. And, and, and that whole time I'm thinking like, I'm thinking like, do I try to jump out the car? Do I try to like fight right here? And, uh, but I just didn't feel like there was the right moment. And, and like, cause like I said, I always before thought, I could work myself out of this. I kept looking, I kept thinking and looking and plotting for the right moment. But I just felt like there was never the right moment. And, uh, and so, get out, I was hesitant to get out of the car, but I'm like, if they want to kill me, they could kill me in the car. So did you get out? At least maybe I could run or something like that. And, uh, and, and they,

• 2:42:05Speaker 05

  some heavy, heavy questions, very direct questions, not so much about me, uh, about the program manager, who had been in that country before, um, who they had received them, who I, I knew they had received information and know who he was. I don't want to say how, because I don't want to get the guy in trouble. And he's a friend, but, uh, they had information to know who he was. And, and that's like, the questions were more about him. And, uh, and they were, you know, they were very direct. They knew things that they shouldn't have known. And, uh, and they, and it, and they,

• 2:42:42Speaker 05

  basically it's also invalidated and insinuated that they were going to kill me.

• 2:42:47Shawn Ryan?

  How did they say that?

• 2:42:49Speaker 05

  Well, they, they said I wasn't, you know, you're not leaving this, you're not going to leave this, this side of this mountain. Yeah. And they were sort of saying things like that. And then they but then they but then they start shifting to I know a couple of times you talk about being being in a prison. The reason I know that because I've had dreams I've had terrible nightmares about since being in a prison. And the kind of things that they they do to get information on people in a prison. They are like saying this is a kind. Interview like basically it would take you down. And in in one of our prisons, it's not gonna be the same way. And so I thought that that's what I kind of a little bit of hope like. Okay, maybe they're not gonna kill me here. Maybe they're gonna take me to a secondary interrogation in a prison.

• 2:43:28Speaker 05

  But then I might have that actually probably was probably a little bit more scary to me.

• 2:43:33Speaker 05

  But then there was just a moment at that time, I felt them kind of. I felt them kind of concede.

• 2:43:39Speaker 05

  I mean, look, you could get anything out of anybody. If people think they could hold up an interrogation, you get anything out of anyone you want. I got some missing toenails right now. I mean, imagine you start sticking pins in those missing toenails right now like.

• 2:43:53Speaker 05

  But they they never went that far. And so I don't know why they didn't. I couldn't tell you to this day why they didn't go that far. They didn't physically abuse me.

• 2:44:04Speaker 05

  It was just intimidation and threats. So maybe they maybe and so because it never got to that point, I just felt like. They don't know what they think. They don't they're not they know, but they're not certain. And they're gonna and and I started seeing this hope that they're gonna. They're gonna let me go to to to let us play out. And that's exactly what happened. They told me to get in the car, never say anything again, drop me off at the didn't say a word when they dropped me off back at my house. It was but it was like two hours. And

• 2:44:37Speaker 05

  and at that point, obviously, I went back to I went to Dubai, met my program manager in Dubai, gave a debrief. Talked to guys in CI, CI guys wanted to talk to me.

• 2:44:51Speaker 05

  Did a debrief with them. And then knowing what I know now, I don't know how this happened. But we proceeded and I went back. And and You went back? I went back and

• 2:45:04Speaker 05

  And honestly.

• 2:45:05Shawn Ryan?

  Is a compromised operative, you went back.

• 2:45:07Speaker 05

  I went back. I didn't.

• 2:45:09Shawn Ryan?

  What was the reasoning behind that?

• 2:45:10Speaker 05

  Because, because of who was next on the list. Uh, and, and the operation that was pending, it was just, it was too important to everyone. And, and, and so I'll tell you this, like, one thing I didn't know at the time.

• 2:45:22Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on. I don't understand that.

• 2:45:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:45:25Shawn Ryan?

  You're a compromised operative.

• 2:45:27Speaker 05

  The whole operation's, the whole operation's compromised, in my opinion, at that time.

• 2:45:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, me too.

• 2:45:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:45:33Shawn Ryan?

  But especially you.

• 2:45:34Speaker 05

  Especially me.

• 2:45:36Shawn Ryan?

  So what is the rationale sending a compromised operative back into?

• 2:45:42Speaker 05

  So mu- so I think so much was invested. And they were so target focused. That nothing else mattered besides. The mission, you know, nothing else mattered besides the mission. I believed that at time. The ORSO would have known, the chief of station would have known of that country. The ambassador of that country would have known I was, I was there. I later found out after this compromise, that none of them, none of them even knew I was in that country. So, which is obviously ended up being a pretty big deal. And, and pretty problematic. Uh, for the, you know, some of the people at that time in the command. That had me there operating without none of those people knew. So it was, obviously.

• 2:46:25Speaker 05

  You're in somebody else's territory, doing operations. And so for me being, for me being. We could call it interviewed or interrogated or abducted, whatever you want to call it, you know. By a foreign intelligence agency in that country and, and. And then the ambassador, chief of station. ORSO to not know that person was there ended up being a pretty big deal.

• 2:46:51Shawn Ryan?

  Chief of station's the head CIA.

• 2:46:55Shawn Ryan?

  Person in any particular country.

• 2:46:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:46:59Shawn Ryan?

  They didn't even know you were there.

• 2:47:00Speaker 05

  They didn't know I was there. And I, the whole time.

• 2:47:03Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think when you, when you get sent back in?

• 2:47:07Speaker 05

  Well, they, they did ask me.

• 2:47:09Shawn Ryan?

  What, what did they ask you?

• 2:47:11Speaker 05

  Do, am I willing to go, right? And, and, and of course, I'm like, yes, because I'm so bought in as well.

• 2:47:18Speaker 05

  I flew, I flew in through, I did a layover in Beijing. And when I landed in Beijing, uh, they came on the plane and sprayed for bird flu. And I didn't know it at the time, but I had a panic attack. Uh, I thought I was, I had allergic reaction to whatever it sprayed. And I wanted to get off the plane and it wouldn't let me in the plane. I couldn't breathe. Uh, that was the first panic attack I ever had. I landed in that country and, and I went to, I didn't go back to my house. I went, because I was, I didn't want to go back to my house because of what had happened. I went to a little hostel and like a little bed and breakfast kind of place. And that whole night I dealt with panic attacks for the first time. And I did one more operation there and, and I was in such a, I was in such distress.

• 2:48:03Speaker 05

  That I couldn't even remember what, what, what happened. And, and I called, executed a, like a E and E contingency for leaving that country. And, uh, bought a round trip ticket for in case anybody's watching. I left all my personal effects, all my operational stuff, went to, went to Dubai again. And, uh, and, and that was my basically E and E. Um, I was inside, like, I remember being at the, I remember being at the airport. And going through customs and I'm like, I was, I was, I was trying to play it off like, because I wasn't having this panic attack. I'm like, every policeman there is for me. Like, I'm like, there's more police here than normal. Like, every policeman is there for me. And then the flight was delayed. I remember like that movie Argo, like watching the clock tick, like, like. Because my flight was delayed leaving. I'm like, did the delay in the flight for me?

• 2:48:47Speaker 05

  And when I got on that plane and it cleared those mountains and, and, and I was heading to Dubai, I was like, just this relief and then. And then I get there and uh, and I think, okay, if I get there, I'm gonna be good.

• 2:48:59Speaker 05

  But, but when I land, uh, they're like, stay, sit in your hotel and stay there. And I'm like, I'm gonna die, like, right now, I'm dying. Like, anybody's had a panic attack, like, physically, like, I, I am thousand percent convinced I'm dying right now. They don't call anyone, stay in your hotel. I call my grandmother, who's like, my mom, and basically telling her, like, I'm dying. I'm not supposed to, but I did. I call my wife, a- and my wife freaks out. My grandmother comes to my house to watch my kid, my wife buys a plane ticket to Dubai, uh, somebody from the command goes to my house to stop my wife, like, trying to shut it down, and they're like, trying to calm me down over the phone. And I'm there for like, four days. I went to a little pharmacy, bought a Valium, uh, took, took some Valium to try to calm me down. I could not calm down. And, uh, and then finally, I get back to the States.

• 2:49:45Speaker 05

  And, uh, and, uh, had a CID briefing again, got polied. And, uh, and then at that time, I was no longer in the military. I was actually on a contract to my command. And, uh, after about two weeks, I got read out. Uh, and, uh, and so, I'm dealing with, uh, being read it on my program, which, for those, that means I can't do my job anymore. Um, I don't have access to that job. Not only that, but all my friends, I don't have access to talk to them about it. I get put before a clinical psychologist, they diagnosed me with PTSD, severe chronic PTSD. Uh, so, I'm dealing with these panic attacks. I literally feel like I'm gonna, like, the only way I know to describe it is like,

• 2:50:26Speaker 05

  if you're drowning to death, like, I mean, that, like, that imminence of panic, will you never die, like, that state of panic twenty-four seven, like, that's where I was at.

• 2:50:35Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 2:50:36Speaker 05

  On top of that, I was, I was embarrassed, right? Cause I'm like, I worked my whole life to get there, like, and I felt privileged to be there, and, um, you know, to be getting Marine Corps, and infantry, and recon, and force recon, and go to, go to that unit, and be there, and then get, put in this premier operation, and be, be where I was at in that operation, like, point where we're at. And then, I felt like all the eggs were in one basket on me, and I felt like it was like, if I played football, and made it to NFL, and it was a game-winning play, like, I fumbled the ball, like, I was just embarrassed, like, I was ashamed. And so, it'd be like, panic, like, shame, failure, like, I'm just, I was just freaking a mess.

• 2:51:09Shawn Ryan?

  What was the mission? Can you talk about that at all?

• 2:51:13Speaker 05

  I can't say who, but it was on the top of that list. And so my job at that moment was to do a feasibility study. And so I had just did, right before that, I had just did a feasibility study. They had a, the target was in this area of, in the Fatah region, but on the other side of Afghan border. And so he's in this area and they said, can you get in that region, basically about 20 miles from the target, get a rifle in there and fire that rifle off without,

• 2:51:48Speaker 05

  without any kind of like compromise. And so I went into, I went and got hunting permits, got all the permits, got a rifle, traveled for a couple of days through the mountains, spent two weeks up in the mountains and went on Ibeq. Ibeq hunt, killed the Ibeq in this small mountain village. And that was a successful feasibility study, which green lighted operation to go get that target. And so it was a feasibility study and I got to shoot Ibeq. What the hell is an Ibeq? It's one of the pretty prestigious like hunt for the big game hunters, big mountain sheep. Nice. It's cool, really cool horns. I didn't even know at the time that I was shooting something that people pay a lot of money to go, to go hunting.

• 2:52:32Speaker 05

  But yeah, so my job was doing that feasibility study. And then that green lighted operation. So I would have been doing all of clandestine logistics to put, you know, probably a sniper team in that same area.

• 2:52:50Speaker 05

  And so I was so vested in doing that. And we were, the whole, the whole program was so vested in doing that because we were so close. And I felt like they put all those eggs in one basket and I had to hold it together till the end. Damn. And so because I felt, you know, fell apart, I felt tremendous level of guilt to my friends, to my country, like to this operation. And it was embarrassing, man. I mean, there's no other way to like, I can't describe it any other way, but I was just embarrassed. I was ashamed of myself, like I felt like, like I, you know, I failed, you know? And for a long time I felt that way.

• 2:53:30Speaker 05

  I know now that I gave all I could give, you know. Yeah. There was nothing more I could give, but but at the time I was in for a long time, I was completely ashamed. I didn't want to show my face around any of my friends or anybody. And and and by the way, some of the guys that I worked with validated that and told me that I that I failed. So you know that you know, the community like. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, they're like counting on you. Like, yeah, I know you did like, you know, so. It was it stung like deep. Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:54:09Speaker 05

  You get home. Yeah. How's your wife receive you?

• 2:54:16Speaker 05

  My my wife, uh.

• 2:54:20Speaker 05

  She I think that's the only time in my life that my wife says she's ever seen me weak. She's always looked at me as strong as a protector and provider. And she said, I was just completely broken and docile, and she didn't know how to handle it. I mean, literally, like she would she would just play cards with me. We played cards like a game card game I grew up just to keep my mind busy because if my mind stopped, if my mind stopped, I wouldn't have straightened that panic attack. The first medicine they gave me made me feel like a zombie. The second one. What was it? Uh, uh.

• 2:54:50Speaker 05

  It's over the S.

• 2:54:52Speaker 05

  SSRIs? No, um, Seracel. Hmm. That's what I think Seracel and then and then Ativan. Uh, and they had me on Ativan like every day and and I just felt like a zombie. And then and then they put me on a on Lexapro, which, uh. Which not that Lexapro was a bad thing for me, but in my mind, my paranoia, I felt like it was I felt like it was killing me. I felt like it was poisoning me, so I'm like, I don't want to take it because it's going to kill me. And then and then and anything physical, any physical activity, I thought I was got a heart attack. And so my wife and my counselor were like trying to snap me out of it and give me to do something, and that's when they talked me into. Talk me into getting into maths and doing jiu jitsu, you know, for those that don't know jiu jitsu,

• 2:55:36Speaker 05

  Brazilian jiu jitsu, grappling based martial art. I'd say I did it since I was little, but I'm still little.

• 2:55:43Speaker 05

  I did it since I was five years old. And I was already professional MMA fighter aside. So at five years old, I started judo, traditional jiu jitsu, martial arts, trained my whole life. In 1995, I started Brazilian jiu jitsu. I'd already fought professionally MMA. So for me, like getting into maths was something that I was familiar with. And when I got into maths and grappled for the first time, it was like I found the cure. Cause you can't think about Afghanistan and do jiu jitsu, right? You gotta be mentally present. Or you get beat up and, and so I just really like felt like it was the cure. But I always say when I, and I do a lot of speaking on this, but.

• 2:56:17Shawn Ryan?

  Let's rewind.

• 2:56:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 2:56:19Shawn Ryan?

  Before we get into jiu jitsu. How bad was the home life?

• 2:56:23Speaker 05

  I was a mess.

• 2:56:24Shawn Ryan?

  Were you drinking?

• 2:56:25Speaker 05

  No, because I, the reason I wasn't is because I was, I was scared of it.

• 2:56:34Speaker 05

  I, I was scared that if I would start drinking, I wouldn't stop. And, and, and I, and if I would have, if I would have not been so like, I thought my body was failing. And so I, I thought like, if I get, if I drink too much alcohol, it's going to kill me. Like I, I was, I just felt this imminent sense of, of like death. I felt like my body was going to stop working in any moment. And so alcohol scared me.

• 2:57:00Speaker 05

  And so I'm thankful for that actually, because I probably would have, it probably would have numbed me and I would have probably stuck with it.

• 2:57:08Speaker 05

  And that's why jiu jitsu kind of worked because.

• 2:57:12Shawn Ryan?

  What was going on at home?

• 2:57:14Speaker 05

  Well, at first, you know, at first Kathy just wanted to support me, but then that, that, that, uh,

• 2:57:22Speaker 05

  that's very hard to do with somebody that's not accepting it. And my, my, my behavior, man is vested in, in was frustration, which resulted anger and, and outlashes. Even before that happened, coming home from Afghanistan, like I would yell at my wife and kids like a Marine Corps drill instructor, slam doors, punch holes in a wall, break things, like throw a temper tantrum. I remember like. Being in traffic one day and I don't even know what my wife said, but my three kids are in car seats in the back and and I like flip out and yelling, I start kicking in the dashboard. And she's trying to drive off and I, so I tried to kick the shifter off the thing, I was totally like temper tantrum, like a fifteen year old child, like my kids in the back screaming,

• 2:58:05Speaker 05

  grabbing the freaking uh visor, ripping it off. Like I would just lose control and that's not, but like anybody that knows me knows that's not my behavior at all. I'm like, I'm like a super kind, like I'm, you know, I could be a violent person, but I'm a pretty like gentle person. I'm just that way. And, uh, and so I was just, it was so out of character for me that she really had a hard time. Like she would just start crying. She didn't know how to handle it. And, and then, uh, and one time I was home for my daughter's birthday party. Um, I always love to share this story and I'd love to share it because it's super embarrassing, but it's just like, to me, one of the most grotesque uh illustrations of how I was behaving that, that, that day was that, that, that time. My daughter's having a birthday party and, and um,

• 2:58:50Speaker 05

  she's like super opinionated and she didn't like the icing on her cake, something super simple. And like grab my little girl's birthday cake and pick it up and I threw it against the wall and destroyed my little girl's birthday. And like in that moment, I remember thinking like, like who behaves that way? Like what kind of dad? Like behaves that way and ruins their little girl's birthday and, and uh, and in those moments like that I, that did that, because that was just one example, in those moments that did that, like I knew I was wrong. But it was, I didn't want to have that admission of guilt, so I would justify it and double down. Like, yeah, like, but everyone's an idiot. Like she disrespected me, like, like she should learn to be more respectful. Like you guys are idiots. Like, and so I would just double down and dig in and, uh, and so recognizing that behavior.

• 2:59:37Speaker 05

  Before that crash and during and after, instead of correcting that behavior, I just distanced myself from my family. I just figured that was a better, safer option was to distance myself from them. During, it was more deployments, training between deployments, staying busy. After, after I came home and was diagnosed with PTSD and dealing with these panic attacks, it was still like, okay, now it's the mats. I'm just gonna stay in the mats as much as possible and train as much as possible because it's gonna keep me away from them. And it progressed into, it progressed into starting to fight again, you know, fighting professionally and using that as avoidance. And by the way, like, and speaking of jiu-jitsu, like, I love

• 3:00:19Speaker 05

  jiu-jitsu. I think physical outlets are a great cure for the physical and emotional and mental stuff. But I also think you could have medicine for being sick and abuse that medicine. And that's kind of what I did with jiu-jitsu. Like, man, even now to this day, like, being in Veterans Ministry, like, man, I have a bad day because it's so difficult dealing with frigging veterans. Like, I go to the gym and I find some 20-year-old stud and then choke him out and it makes me feel better. Like, you know, I love jiu-jitsu. But at that moment, I just used it as a place to hide and not get better. And my family, because of that, my wife, who was trying to support me, it became more and more distant. And she became more and more bitter towards me and meaner. I

• 3:00:59Speaker 05

  was still being mean and spiteful to her. And eventually, the distance grew. And I'd sleep in the gym. I'd sleep at friends' houses. I'd sleep in my kid's bedroom. Probably the loneliest place Kathy and I have ever been is in our own beds with our backs turned toward each other and just this dead marriage. And we were just, we both would have said at the time that we just despised each other and hated each other. And we're there for the kids and just coexisting for the kids. And How old were your kids? At that time, they would have been seven, nine, and 12.

• 3:01:35Speaker 05

  Seven, nine, and twelve. Uh, that's So they remember. In the time range. They remember, yeah. And, uh, especially my oldest son, cause he's like, always been like my best friend, like attached to my hip. And I was coaching them at the time. They were doing jujitsu. They've been, they've done jujitsu since they could walk. And so they were always around me. They were at the gym all the time. And, uh, and, and, um, I mean, you know, when you get in an environment like that, it's, it's not, there's a lot of girls around. And I'm starting to be successful. My jujitsu school ends up very quickly with like a thousand students in two years. And opened a business and just crushed it. Uh, and then I started fighting professionally again. I win a world title. I'm ranked number six in the world. I'm fighting on Showtime and MTV and, and NBC Sports and fought in all these big shows and, uh,

• 3:02:20Speaker 05

  ended up being eighteen and two as a professional, like, uh, you know, so on the surface, it looked like everything was successful. But below that false facade of success was still just broken home and broken person. And, and, uh, and then, you know, with this broken marriage, it wasn't hard to start stepping in relationships with other women. Ended up in a full blown affair. And, uh, and when Kathy found out, instead of saying, let's fix this, I said, you know what? I'm glad you found out because now I could, gives me a reason to, to leave. We sold our home, filed for divorce. Uh, signed two separate twelve month leases on two separate apartments. So we're pretty committed. I remember like packing our house.

• 3:03:00Speaker 05

  It's pretty like, sounds pretty twisted probably. We're packing our house. Our family sits together. We're crying together, holding each other, supporting each other. And, and, and they're leaning on me as a dad and a husband. And I still feel put stuff in at U-Haul. And, and, uh, and, and separate our family. And, um, cause I, I, I, I thought the problem was, you know, I thought the problem were different things. I thought she didn't understand and I'm too destructive and this can never, you know, be sorted out. And, and, and it was better for the kids. That's what I was, I was screaming, it was better for them. That's a lie that most divorced people think, right? This can be better for the kids. They're not gonna have to get to Christmases and I got to deal with the fighting anymore. They got to be exposed to all these things, it's gonna be better for them.

• 3:03:46Speaker 05

  We all know that's a lie. The statistics show that's a lie. Unless there's violence in the home, it's usually not better. It's, it's better to, to fight for your family and work it out. But we did it anyway. And so my wife and I had two very different responses. My wife went to a church. She switched churches to a small church where she felt she could be connected. And that's when she started praying for me. That's when she went and went, and I mean on Sundays, she went like almost every day of the week praying, you know, that prayer, you know, God, let me see Chad the way you see Chad. Let me forgive Chad the way you forgive Chad. Let me love Chad the way you love Chad. Despite what I was doing to her. Meanwhile, I set up this apartment. And within two or three days, I had my bachelor pad. Like, it's all decorated, stuff on the wall.

• 3:04:31Speaker 05

  It's actually makes me very embarrassed to say this and super disgusted to say this about myself. But I think it's important for me to be transparent about it. Like, I didn't even put my family pictures out in the living room because I didn't want girls to come in there and see that. Like, I put, I had a shelf in my closet that I put all my family pictures on because I didn't, I wanted to look like a single guy. That's, that's pretty, that's pretty, that's, that's, that's the state of selfishness that I was in. And I wanted to be, I signed up for a fight on Strikeforce because I wanted something to work towards. And I took that fight. Tim Kennedy and I were fighting. Daniel Cormier was on the, it was an amazing card. Like, Daniel Cormier is on the card. That's when the UFC owned Strikeforce and it was like a pretty big deal. I focused on training for this fight.

• 3:05:17Speaker 05

  And I fought a kid named Roberto De Leon. I was undefeated. He was like a stud coming up and, and I had submitted everyone at a time. So they wanted, they were talking about me not being able to strike and Tim, and, and so I, I fight Roberto and I decided I wanted to stand in the middle of the cage and, and strike with him. And, and 10,000 people in there, Toyota Center, Houston, Texas, and every round, like, if you like fights like this, like my Rocky bubble, like, every round, I kicked him in the face, knocked his mouthpiece out, knocked him down. He punched me in the head, knocked me down, it was back and forth. And so for the first time in my professional career, I go to a decision. And, and I'm asking my corner, like, who won? And they're like, I don't know. It was close. And, and one judge, the first judge calls for Roberto and I'm like,

• 3:05:59Speaker 05

  I just lost my first professional fight. Second judge calls for me. This can be a split decision. The third judge calls for me. My hands raised and, it's, it's a very surreal feeling, right? You're in the middle of that cage, 10,000 people, it's super loud, everyone's screaming. All the weight's off because I just won this fight and been training for it for three months. And, and then,

• 3:06:20Speaker 05

  I remember like having this moment where like time somewhat stands still and everything gets quiet and I remember looking around thinking like of all these people here, my family's not there, Kathy, who had been in my fights before, the kids, like Kathy's not there and, and, uh, and I remember thinking like, I just fought so hard to win this stupid fight. I love the sport, right? But stupid in context. And meanwhile, you know, I didn't, I hadn't been fighting for my family. And I probably walked out of that cage and my head held low that night and Tim Kennedy and I had an after fight. He fought Jaco Rey that night. He lost a very controversial, I thought he was robbed decision. So we had an after fight party, Ranger up through after fight party for us at Buffalo Wild Wings. I stopped in and, you know, and, uh, said hi to Tim and, you know, told him that I

• 3:07:05Speaker 05

  thought he won the, you know, thought he won the fight and tried to lift him up and, and everybody's congratulating me, congratulating me on my win and, and I just wanted to go home. So I got in the car, went home by myself and I remember like I got, I got home and I got in bed and, and, uh, and I'm laying in bed and my mind starts spinning. And I'm thinking like of all the damage I caused, like everybody in my life I was mad at, like my father, uh, people in the military, right? For the way I left the command and, uh, and, you know, people that didn't understand or, or, or trying to make me feel guilty. I was like just mad and my wife for never understanding me, like everyone's an idiot. That was my mentality. But in that moment, I'm like, you know what the common denominator is? It's me. Like I'm the problem. And, and in that moment, I'm, I, I, this thought came over me that, that maybe my family would be sad without me, but they would be better off,

• 3:07:50Speaker 05

  right? Maybe my family would be sad without me, but they'd be better off. And I think probably everybody listening to your show probably knows that the same hopeless thought finds a home in the hearts of, you know, whatever the stat is, 17, 22, 40, 45, you know, one a day is too many, but that same hopeless thought finds a home in the hearts of people every single day. That maybe my family and my loved ones would be sad without me, but they'll be better off. And veteran suicides are kind of a weird thing. Like a lot of people say that it's a coward's way out. How selfish could you be to take your life? I do believe, and, and I'm not defending it by any means. This must have been my life, uh, committed my life to fighting against. But I do believe a lot of people, and I, I say this, not just in my situation, I'm just talking to survivors. I believe a lot of people believe that.

• 3:08:34Speaker 05

  They are the problem and if they remove themselves from the situation, it's gonna be better for those around them. This Marine Pete that I know, you know, stood in the back of his pickup truck, surrounded by police. And the last thing he said was, "Tell my wife I love her and I'm doing this for her," and he blew his brains out. And Heather, Heather, his wife, you know, talked about, you know, putting her head on his chest at the funeral, demanding to see him, even though he had shot himself in the head and they didn't want her to see him. At the, not funeral, at the morgue. And, uh, and she said something that really stuck out to me. She said, "Pete thought he was taking away the pain, but all he did was transfer it to everyone who loved him." And that really stuck out to me because in that moment, that's what I believed.

• 3:09:14Speaker 05

  I believed that I was gonna take away everyone else's problems by taking my life. And I thought that was a solution for my family. That's the best thing I could do. Like, I had my time. I, I did something cool and important, but that season's over. I can't do that job anymore. The MMA thing's fun, but it's not,

• 3:09:36Speaker 05

  you know, it's nothing that's significant in the world, right? It's a sport. I'm never gonna be able to do something as important as I did again. And I don't have a purpose anymore. And I'm just ruining the people that love's lives, that I'm ruining the people's lives that I love most. And, uh, and so I made the decision and, uh, I had a Glock 22 pistol, a forty caliber pistol. And I was sitting on the floor of my closet and I pulled those pictures of my family off that shelf. And I'd put them on a circle on the floor around me. And I would just stare at them for a while and I tried to build up the courage to, to pull the trigger. I put, I was so deliberate about it that I didn't even think about the angle. Like, I didn't want, I wanted to be fast. But I, I do believe this was divine because every time I put that gun to my head,

• 3:10:21Speaker 05

  I would have a vision of who was gonna find me. Because someone's gonna hear it, or you're not gonna show up somewhere, or you're gonna start smelling, right? So eventually someone's gonna, gonna find you. And the only other person that had a key to my apartment at that time was my oldest son Hunter. He was thirteen at that time. And, uh, the thought of my son being part of finding me that way was enough to pump the brakes. But I was in such a dark place that, uh, I was in such a dark place that, that I would be back like that day or the next day. And for a period of almost two weeks, I was just battling back and forth, trying to make the decision. And there was one morning, I was, I was in that closet. I didn't have the gun to my head. I remember having it on the floor.

• 3:11:03Speaker 05

  Like kinda holding it on the floor and I was and I had those pictures and I was looking at those pictures and I was just my mind was just spinning. And I heard a knock on my door. And I wasn't gonna answer it. I was just getting to her. I didn't know who it was. But when I heard Kathy's voice announce herself. I I I totally panicked. She would have never came in my apartment. She didn't have a key. She certainly wouldn't have came in my closet. But uh, I think I was so ashamed. That I that. That I hid the gun under under a blanket. Even though she would have never came to see I I hid it. That's probably how ashamed I was of what I was doing. And then my next reaction was. And this probably sounds pretty twisted. To people, but it's just what happened. I I was just so mad. That she interrupted me killing myself. Like, how dare her come there to my apartment? That I didn't ask her to come to and interrupt that.

• 3:11:49Speaker 05

  And I ran to the door. And I was just like, open the door and totally berated her. And she was standing there. She's not a very calm argument, by the way, but in that moment, I think God gave her like this calmness and she was super calm. And because she was so calm, I was trying to get her out of there. And I literally like, uh, I grabbed her purse out of her hand.

• 3:12:07Speaker 05

  And and I took it and I threw it over the balcony, like out in the parking lot, like just to get her to leave, like. All her stuff went everywhere. Total like. D-bag for doing, you know, doing something like that. And I was just trying to get her out of there. I was telling her to leave. And uh, and she asked me a question. Again, she's like super calm, which is totally out of character for her. Now I'm now I'm the I'm the calm one now. She just she's like. How could you do everything? That I've seen you do in your life? I mean, we were seventeen and eighteen when we met. She saw me go to B R C. You know. Like, you've been through, that's like what it takes. She saw that, right? She saw me. Writing eighty page patrol orders on my only day off, like she saw me. Doing training for for operations and pre-deployment stuff and going to schools and training and and how committed I was to do stuff. She told me.

• 3:12:52Speaker 05

  Get my MBA when I was working, when I was already working eighty hours a week. Like she saw me like train for fights and cut thirty five pounds of weight and the discipline it takes to do that. And when no one's around, I won't even lick the nacho cheese on the back of my chip because I'm like. Like that kinda discipline, like she's like seeing all this stuff of. Uh, of of my professional work and she's like. How could you do all of that? And when it comes to your family, you'll quit? And uh.

• 3:13:17Speaker 05

  You know, I don't know about, you know, people listening, but man, to me, there's no more soul cutting word than to be called a quitter. And she was absolutely right. I had been successful at professional things, but when it came to the most important things, like being a husband, being a father, being a young seventeen year old kid that raised his hand and made a commitment to do something important, I quit and all those things, including my will to live. And I'm a pretty radical decision maker and in that moment I made a decision to get back in the fight. But I knew I couldn't do it alone and I knew I couldn't do it with the people I'd surrounded myself by. And I had, in that jujitsu gym, black belt, winning MMA fights, everybody told me everything I wanted to hear and not what I needed to hear.

• 3:14:02Speaker 05

  I had systematically pushed accountability out of my life and I had no one to tell me the hard things I needed to hear. And somehow like inside of me, I knew that. And so I asked Kathy, is there someone at this church you're going to, some man that could hold me accountable to trying to put my life back together? I didn't care about God, I didn't care about her church. In fact, I wasn't, I didn't want anything to do with that, but I wanted someone outside of my circle. And she called the church and there was an elder on call named Steve Toth. He is not an MMA fighter, he's not a jujitsu, like jujitsu guy or military guy or anything like that. In fact, he was gonna meet me to connect me with a retired SEAL named Mike Charbonne. I don't know if you know who Mike Charbonne is, but he's a retired SEAL, his sons are

• 3:14:47Speaker 05

  SEALs. And, uh, and, um, he's a, he was, he's also a pastoral counselor. So that's who he was gonna meet me to meet, but I ended up never meeting Mike. I know Mike Charbonne now, but I ended up not getting counsel by Mike because I just, me and Steve just clicked. I met Steve at a Starbucks coffee shop and, and while he wasn't a retired SEAL or anything like that, what Steve had was the gift, he's, he's got ADD, like really bad. And that was a gift, that was a perfect gift for me. And when I say he's got ADD, like when you go eat lunch with Steve, like still to this day, I hang out with, he's, he's worked together a lot. He, he'll like go to eat, eat lunch at a restaurant, you know, as he's getting up, he's pulling his keys out of his pocket, his pocket, and he runs across the parking lot because like his, his attention deficit is so bad that he, he feels like walking's a waste of time.

• 3:15:31Speaker 05

  And so the reason that was, that's his personality, he's a total weirdo, but the reason that was such a gift for me is because I had already decided in my mind. My new goal was to get my family back. So I was like, what do I have to do to manipulate this situation? Sweep everything into the rug and get a clean slate. So I wrote a five paragraph order, op order of how I was gonna fix my life. It was super good. I'm kind of academically like orientated with stuff. And it was super good. It was very impressive. And I went to this meeting with Steve prepared to do that. But because he's freaking got ADD, he wouldn't even look at it. Like I put it on the table. I slid it over to him and I'm like, hey, check this out. Show it to my wife so I can get her back. She knows I'm serious now. She's gonna forgive me. Everything's gonna be good.

• 3:16:15Speaker 05

  He puts his hand on that paper without even looking at it, slides it back over to me and tells me I'm gonna fail. And I remember being like, who is this jerk? Like, you didn't even look at it. And he tapped on that paper and, uh, and he said something that was probably the most important thing I ever heard in my life. He said, if your plan doesn't have anything to do with your relationship with God, I'm not gonna waste your time and I'm not gonna let you waste mine. The person that Steve had mentored right before me, I didn't know this till later. The person he had mentored right before me, he had been passive with and the guy took his life. Uh, and he, I'm the next person. And he knows he has to be direct with me and bold with me. This plan does everything to do with your relationship with God. You're gonna fail. You're gonna fall on your face. You're gonna end up right back where you are. And you know, in that moment, Sean, I, I had, I had tried everything, man.

• 3:16:59Speaker 05

  I, I'd been through counseling. I'd been on medication. I'd been through VA counseling, Svanian counseling, programs, medication, jujitsu, wedding and MMA, making money. Some of those things are good. Some of those things are bad, but none of those things changed my situation. And, and from that, we have a saying at Mighty Oaks Foundation now. It's if what you're doing isn't working, then why not try something different? Right? Everything I tried didn't work. Why not try something different? So this guy's telling me, you know, um, that I have to have faith. And, uh, back when I, Airfield and Bagram, standing on that fence, I knew that was the one thing I didn't have. There was a chink in my four pillars of resiliency. The chink in the armor was I didn't have that, that, that spiritual pillar. And I'm like, you know, thinking like, what do I have to lose? I tried everything else. What, what do I have to lose? Why not try?

• 3:17:45Speaker 05

  And so I made a decision at that moment to trust this guy, Steve, and I surrendered my life to Jesus, uh, became a Christian. I didn't really even understand what that meant. But beyond that decision, Steve discipled me, or you know, for those that aren't familiar with the disciple word, Christian, Christian disciple word, uh, mentored me for a year in biblical living. And what was, what was so profound for me, looking back at that was, at the end of that year, what I realized was that all these bad things that happened to me, losing 15 friends over my eight deployments, Foster Harrington, who served in my, my wedding and was there when all three of my kids were born, we did three units together, we were on Black Wednesday together, with Colonel Mattis, where he was standing there across from me when Colonel Mattis gave those office hours, like, you know, Foster was like one

• 3:18:30Speaker 05

  of the greatest people I knew and, and, uh, and, you know, when he died and we were both on our first deployment and just being so angry and that was one thing. And then, like, all these bad things that happened in my childhood, Afghanistan, all this stuff, as bad as those things were, those things didn't lead me to be in a closet and pissed on my hand. What led me there were the choices that I made in response to those things. And I never lost the power and ability to make choices, I was just making bad ones. And so what the Bible had taught me, and it's the mentorship that Steve gave, it taught me was how to make better choices. And, and, uh, and I think we were talking about this last night, right? The Bible doesn't, I mean, people say life doesn't have a handbook, it actually does have a handbook, we just don't read it. And that's the Bible. Uh, it's, it's, it's our handbook. And, and, and by reading that, like, yeah, man, and, and learning, did

• 3:19:13Speaker 05

  I still get anxiety? Did I still get depressed at times? Did I still get angry and frustrated? Of course I did. I've been through a lot of stuff and, and I'm human. But I was able to have a blueprint to make better choices in response to that. And by making better choices and being super intentional about biblical living, the result was restoration in my marriage and my family. 28 years of marriage now, three kids that are married, uh, three granddaughters, grandson on the way, uh, my, my brand new daughter, uh, Summer, that we just brought into our home and adopted, uh, and into our family, this is my, my, you know, is my daughter now. And, uh, and, and, uh, two of my kids went to Bible college, two of my, my two sons went in the Marine Corps and served honorably, they're in ministry

• 3:19:55Speaker 05

  now full time. Like, like I had restoration, my family had restoration, it's PTSD, anxiety, depression, those things were able to be resolved. I found hope again. And ultimately, I found purpose and, you know, purpose is what we were creating. Where people listening, they agree with my faith or, or believe in God or not, like. The truth is you were created to have purpose. And if you don't have purpose in your life, like wither up and die. That's why, that's why veterans kill themselves. Not because we're seen or dead. It's because you had important purpose, a mission. You get out and that purpose is gone. And a mission is gone because your identity was tied in a job and not who you were created to be. And not, you know, something deeper in a foundational relationship with your Creator. Like, and it wither up and die because we have to have purposes. Mark Twain is one of my favorite quotes.

• 3:20:40Speaker 05

  The two most important days in a person's life are the day that they're born and the day that they find out why. And when Steve Tote introduced me a life that I believe I was created to live, I found out the why. And I put a deep burden on my heart to pay that forward to others. And that manifested in what I do today and the founding of Mighty Oaks Foundation.

• 3:20:58Shawn Ryan?

  That is incredible, man. That is incredible.

• 3:21:02Speaker 05

  That's why when I say I have second, the second chance I have, like, I'm just blessed for it, man.

• 3:21:08Shawn Ryan?

  We're doing a hell of a job. For somebody that is veteran, first responder, just anybody, you know?

• 3:21:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:21:15Shawn Ryan?

  That's going through a tough spot in life. And, you know, there's, there's a lot of people nowadays that are turning towards faith. The Bible, Christ, God. And they don't know where to start. But there is a wave happening. I'm part of it. I mean, I'm, I'm recent, you know? And, um, but you've been here a lot longer than me. What advice would you have for somebody that's, that's looking to dig in? Where do they start?

• 3:21:53Speaker 05

  It's one-

• 3:21:54Shawn Ryan?

  How do they build the relationship?

• 3:21:57Speaker 05

  One, there, there is no real faith unless through a relationship with Jesus. Like, that's, that's, and, you know, everybody, there's millions of faiths. I don't know how many, it's thousands of different faiths around the worldwide Christianity. And I'd point to people, uh, to someone I told you about, Vody Bakum has an incredible message. Uh, Vody Bakum's a Christian apologist. He has an incredible message called, Why I Choose to Believe the Bible, Why I Believe the Bible. I'd, I'd point people to go listen to that. It's one of, I, I can't tell you in a few words what that message. If you're, if you're questioning why to believe the Bible, why to believe Christianity, that is the most powerful succinct message on why the Bible. Uh, secondly, uh- Faith is sustainable in those pillars, right? You could have the mind, body, spirit, social. You could have all those other things, but faith is a sustainable one.

• 3:22:42Speaker 05

  I believe there's a million ways in this world to get injured, to get hurt. Veterans do not have a monopoly. Firstborns do not have a monopoly on trauma. I believe there's only one way to get well, and that's through a relationship with Jesus and aligning your life systematically with the life you were created to live. Most of the problems we have in our life are because we're not living a life the way we were intended to live it. And it's like if I had a, you know, a brand new Corvette and I went, drove it off, off-road in the mountains, and you're like, this thing's a piece of junk. It's a piece of crap. No, I'm not using it for what it was meant to be. It was meant to be on a, on a, you know, hardball road and, and, you know, and so you're not using it for, you're not living your life the way it was meant to be lived. And so when we align it, that's why I say when you align your life, and the only way you're going to align your life with the life you're meant to live

• 3:23:26Speaker 05

  is to read the handbook, and that's what the Bible does. So I'd start there, because you don't need anyone else to do that, right? You could start by reading God's Word and understanding it.

• 3:23:35Shawn Ryan?

  Where would you start?

• 3:23:36Speaker 05

  I would start in-

• 3:23:37Shawn Ryan?

  It's 2,000 pages.

• 3:23:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, I would start, I would start in the Book of John. And the, and the Book of John is, is 20, 21 chapters? Because it's the most succinct message of the gospel. So I do, I did the Book of John, and then maybe read a Proverbs a day for a month. Because Proverbs is, is 31 Proverbs, one for every day of the month. And, and by the way, you could go back and do it every month for the rest of your life, and you're going to get something out of it.

• 3:24:05Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 3:24:06Speaker 05

  It's called the living word because it's going to be different every time you read it. And that's where I would start reading. And then you need to get connected to someone who has, like you said, hasn't been on that path a little bit longer, someone that's trustworthy, that they can mentor you along that path and share that journey with. And, and I could tell you the one thing that I've learned through my faith journey is that I will never do it alone. I had put myself alone plenty of times, and, and, and I don't trust myself enough to ever do it alone, especially in my faith journey. When I was a young recon Marine, I learned this thing called plus minus equals. And the analogy is that I always train with someone better than me. That's the plus that I could learn from. I always train with someone a little bit below me so I can pour into them because it makes me,

• 3:24:51Speaker 05

  anytime you teach something, you're going to be better in giving back. So you're not just building yourself, now you're building in the community and next generation. And you always have that equals, someone that you go neck to neck with because they push you to be in a competitive realm, push you to be better. And so I actually carried that in the jujitsu. When I go train every day, I find someone that's better than me, that's going to smash me. I don't want to just walk out of the gym winning all the time. I want somebody that's going to smash me, someone that I could, I'm better than because I could refine my technique and I feel better, like builds my confidence up a little bit and I'm investing in the team and the next generation. And then someone equal to me that I'm like, before we go, I like wipe the sweat off my palms and slap hands because I know we're freaking about to go to war, like Tina Martinez in California, Jared Chafian. Like I know my guys and everywhere I train, like that's the guys that we're going to,

• 3:25:36Speaker 05

  you know, Sam and Rob in Prescott, Arizona, like we're going to, we're about to get after it and we just like push each other and grind like, like. And so I took those things into my Christian walk. And so now in my life, I have someone that is always that plus person to me, mentoring me, something I can lean on, discipling me, someone that I can pour into and that person I'm just like doing life with. I want to have those three people in my life all the time. And that's a rule that I'll probably never till the day I die, not implement in my life.

• 3:26:05Shawn Ryan?

  Man, do you mind if I add something?

• 3:26:08Speaker 05

  Please.

• 3:26:09Shawn Ryan?

  When you, when you decide to take that leap, you have to remember always, because people get really judgmental

• 3:26:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:26:18Shawn Ryan?

  in this, in this realm. And it's about your relationship with God and your relationship with Christ and your relationship with the Holy Spirit, not anybody else's. Shouldn't be feeling guilty, shouldn't be feeling judged. It's about you.

• 3:26:37Speaker 05

  And your Creator, and that's it. It is, and you have, like, people have to understand, like, you can't be who you created to be unless you have a relationship with the Creator. There's no shortcuts around that. And so it starts there, like, a lot of people look at churches and you say, like, "Man, the church is full of hypocrites. Hospitals are full of sick people." Like, I mean, that's what they're there for. Like, church is full of broken people. Don't look at the church, don't look at the pastor, look at humans to evaluate your view of God.

• 3:27:11Speaker 05

  Like, those are good things to be a part of, and the community, we're supposed to be part of community and a community of other believers. And I know last night we talked about different ways to do that, but the primary and fundamental relationship should be your relationship with Jesus. And that comes through prayer and studying God's Word, and then surround yourself with like-minded believers that are gonna challenge you and take you to the next level. Thank you. Ah, man, I'll say it again, man, your profession of faith, like, encouraged so many people, I hear it all the time, and I'm super proud of your courage to do that. Thank you again. Yeah, yeah. The Mighty Oaks Foundation. Yeah. How was it born?

• 3:27:55Speaker 05

  Well, it was born out of that, it was born out of that desire to pay it forward, like, really, so, I'm in this dark place, and when you're in a dark place like that, you feel like you're all alone, like, no one could be struggling like me, no one could feel the way I feel, no one's marriage could be so bad, no one's life could be so bad that they don't live anymore. And I realized coming out of the side that I wasn't the only one, you know? People were killing themselves every day, people were divorcing every day, people were in depression every day, I'm like, not only am I not the only one, but this is an epidemic. And I found the solution, and I believe that I found the solution. And it was like, if you were dying of cancer and someone gave you the cure, you know, just keep that for yourself, you get in the rooftop and you tell, "Hey, man..."

• 3:28:37Speaker 05

  The cure is in here, like, come on, like, come, come get some. And, uh, and, and that's why I felt like, uh, I felt like I, I was obligated to share that, uh, with people from my community and, and everybody who might be infected by this belief and system that, that they, you know, are gonna make permanent decisions, temporary problems, take their life and destroy their families and, and lose hope. Like, I wanted to share hope and God just really burdened me to do that. And, and so I felt like the best way to do that was to walk away from everything I was, I was doing in my life. I'm at that pre-peak of my MMA career. Uh, I'm making money in my gym, but I, I didn't want to do dabble. Uh, I figured if I dabble with it, there was a safety net to fall back to.

• 3:29:19Speaker 05

  I wanted to cut the tether, jump in the deep end, and, uh, and, and, and, and go all in with this. And, and so we started Mighty Oaks Foundation, and, uh, that was 12 years ago. And, and for those that don't know what Mighty Oaks Foundation is, we do really 12, we do four things that we, we stay pretty narrow focused and we do four things really well. We do resiliency events where primarily I go to bases around the world by request of the active duty military. I speak on resiliency, suicide prevention, uh, spiritual resiliency, that spiritual pillar of those four pillars. Uh, and, and I've spoken to over about a half a million troops over the last 12 years. Um, one, one of the places being Marine Corps Boot Camp every quarter for the last almost 10 years,

• 3:30:04Speaker 05

  nine years or so at, at San Diego, I've spoken in Marine Corps Boot Camp. And now for about two, three years now, I've been in, in Paris Island. Uh, been to tons of SF groups, all the recon infantry battalions. I've, I've spoke at the highest level, First Marine, Marine Division, did a division, division wide all hands, but commanded by CG event, uh, and, you know, NSW, done, done, done tons of, tons of, uh,

• 3:30:29Speaker 05

  Different types of commands and it's just been incredible. And then we've written several books, have three book series that you got in your bag called Path to Resiliency, The Truth About PTSD, which is a creation perspective of PTSD, and Not the Solution, Winning the Battle Against Suicide. Those three books, we've given away about a half million, about 400,000 copies to the troops and equipped them. We make them to wear like 45 minute reads, it can fit in your cargo pocket, and we distribute those all over. In fact, just this morning, we had a bunch sent out to, not just in my speaking, but we sent events, but we send them, we just sent a bunch out to Korea. I got a text this morning to Korea, some troops there. And so that's the prevention plan. And I really

• 3:31:12Speaker 05

  believe in that because I like ounce of prevention beats a pound of cure. If you stop it in the front end by inoculating people, by being resilient and being ready. Then we have a recovery program, which is where we have our camps and we have ranches in California, Ohio, Virginia, two in Texas. And we bring activity service members, veterans, first responders and spouses. We pay for everything, including their travel. We do about $8 million a year in programming. And that's, you know, just a grateful nation of patriots. Donate to Mighty Oaks as a nonprofit, and we make that free. And those programs are a week long, and they're non-clinical peer-to-peer mentoring, teaching people essentially how to make good choices, take responsibility for their situation, and make better choices

• 3:31:55Speaker 05

  every day in response to their trauma, not just relying on medication. We're not like saying no medication ever. We're saying that if medication is the only part of your plan, it's probably not a good plan. You got to take responsibility, you got to make better choices and take control of your life. And that is the ultimate solution through, you know, aligning your life with the life you're created to live. And then beyond that week, they can sign up for our aftercare program. And we have about, we manage about 80 outposts around the country where people can meet weekly, but we have partnered with about 1,000 that people can meet weekly. And then we have a leadership program that graduates, alumni could come through, get trained by us to pay it forward, whether in their communities or through our program. And about 28% of our graduates sign up to that leadership program

• 3:32:40Speaker 05

  and paying it forward. So we have that. By the way, we've had 5,500 graduates over 12 years, but now we're doing about 1,000 per year. So we've had exponential growth. We have a, we're building our global headquarters in Texas. The successes we've had faith-based program have allowed me to go to DC, testify before Congress and Senate. I've advised, I was, President Trump appointed me as the chairman of the, of a White House Faith-Based Coalition for Veteran Affairs. And, and I was able to consult with like Deputy Director of VA. We got executive order signed. We got, we worked in the prevent bill for President's Roadmap to empower veterans in the national tragedy of veteran suicide. We were just really impactful with getting faith-based programs available to active duty service members of veterans.

• 3:33:25Speaker 05

  Cause without getting into the super history of it, like President Bush made the Opportunity of Faith Initiative, brought faith-based programs and community programs available to veterans. President Obama signed executive order in 2009 that killed that. And, and, and then, so in 2016, when President Trump was on the campaign trail, I, General Boykin, if you know who General Boykin is, he's been a great mentor and friend of mine. He had a, he was leading a, a town hall for veterans and candidate Trump was coming through. And he's, and he, and six veterans were going to get to ask candidate Trump any question they wanted. And so he, I was selected to be one of them. And so I could ask any question I wanted. And the question I asked was that, and the reason I asked this is this,

• 3:34:10Speaker 05

  because when President Obama signed that executive order, the suicide rate was 16 a day. They killed the community and faith programs. They dropped, put billions of dollars into, into add 1,500 new clinical programs. And, and, and, and the suicide rate went from 16 a day to 22 a day. Between, from two years from when he signed the executive order, it spiked. And so for me, I'm like, and we're, faith-based programs work. We know they work. And even if they don't work, veterans, if anybody should have an option, right? They should have the freedom to choose that, that route. And so when I got to ask candidate Trump any question, it was that, if you become President of the United States, will you overturn this executive order? And he said, yes. And, and then he kept talking, right?

• 3:34:54Speaker 05

  And, and, and so the media kind of twisted it and I had the opportunity to. To defend him, I went on Bill O'Reilly, defended what he said on Fox News. And then General Flynn called me, they put me together with the team. I was part of the VA transition team when he took office. And eventually was able to come in and help get some of those things done. For the, for that executive order mainly. And so our advocacy side in Mighty Oaks has been very impactful for policy. And then the last thing we do is our international program. And that's where we, we take some of our Mighty Oaks graduates, train them and allow them to go around the world and pay it forward to our ally partners around the world by teaching them how to do the same programs we do. And we've done that all over the world, Peru.

• 3:35:39Speaker 05

  We just got a team come back, my son was on it and they just trained. I think right now they've trained and certified about a hundred chaplains in Ukraine because they don't really have a chaplaincy. And so you've got all these civilian conscripted soldiers. And now their pastors from their community want to be able to go and provide a chaplaincy service to them, but they're just pastors from Orthodox Church and will understand chaplaincy or how to work with military trauma. And so we're going in and training those chaplains and in certifying them through Mighty Oaks.

• 3:36:08Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 3:36:10Speaker 05

  So that's, that's Mighty Oaks in.

• 3:36:12Shawn Ryan?

  Amazing work.

• 3:36:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:36:13Shawn Ryan?

  Amazing work, man.

• 3:36:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:36:17Shawn Ryan?

  You know, it's, wow. You're really making a dent and not just a dent, you're.

• 3:36:26Speaker 05

  Well.

• 3:36:27Shawn Ryan?

  Four hundred and fifty thousand plus people have gone through there.

• 3:36:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, through our, through our Z and C programs and then recovery programs. We, I think we're approaching about six thousand now in recovery programs. And that's our, you know, our guys that come stay with us.

• 3:36:44Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:36:45Speaker 05

  And again, we, we pay for every bit of it. And you know, there's no strings attached at all.

• 3:36:51Shawn Ryan?

  How can people help?

• 3:36:52Speaker 05

  Well, I mean. MightyOaksPrograms.org, people could donate there. And as important, actually probably more important than people donating is if any veterans, first responders, or spouses are listening and need that help. You don't have to do it alone. You're never meant to do it alone. And again, you don't have to reach out to us. Apply, apply online. There's an application, homepage, application button. MightyOaksPrograms.org, click the application button. The application is super simple. We make it simple and purpose. We'll get everything we need later. And one of our team will contact you and we have, I think this year we have almost, almost 50 programs going. So there's lots of dates to choose from. If anything, you're gonna go to amazing facility.

• 3:37:36Speaker 05

  Our facilities are insane, insane, so nice. And the food's amazing. So if anything, you're gonna, you're gonna go to an awesome place for a week and you're gonna get fat with amazing food. And, but you can be around good people who've been where you've been and, and, and maybe a few steps ahead and can, and help you lead the right direction, lead you in the right direction. I find it hope again.

• 3:37:57Shawn Ryan?

  Solid work, brother.

• 3:37:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:37:59Shawn Ryan?

  Very solid work.

• 3:38:00Speaker 05

  Yeah. One of the most incredible things, to tie all those, all those four things we do in perspective. Remember I mentioned this guy Pete that stood in the back of a pickup truck and shot himself. He was in a church service when, when I gave invitation. I was in, I was in church service in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. I gave invitation for somebody, for all the veterans that community to come to Mighty Oaks. Pete turned, his wife, I went on a pulpit, it's about talking. You say something like that, you see the wife snudging the husbands. So Heather probably nudged him and was like, you need to go to that. But he told his wife that, I know I need to go to that because he's diagnosed with PTSD, but somebody needs it more. He chose not to go. He killed himself.

• 3:38:40Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 3:38:41Speaker 05

  And in that, in that same congregation was a guy named Reed Hasty. Reed chose to come. Reed came to Mighty Oaks. It took us, it took us months to get him there. Because he couldn't fly because his panic attacks were so bad, he couldn't fly. And most, he spent usually like one day a week, he'd go to inpatient VA. He talks about how humiliating it was because he was like a sergeant in army, responsible for millions of dollars of equipment and men. But when he'd go into VA inpatient, they'd take away shoelaces because he couldn't be trusted with them. And how humiliating that was. And so through his, through his anxiety, we were able to get him on a plane, got him to California. He comes to our program. Has a radical encounter with, with Jesus, becomes a Christian.

• 3:39:21Speaker 05

  Comes back to our program, flying no problem, becomes a team leader, does fifty programs, becomes a team leader, instructor, trainer, starts training our team leaders, goes home in his community, builds one of those weekly outpost, starts building it. He said some weeks he would go there to be one person, some weeks he'd go there, there would be no one. Talk about endurance, like, and he just reads Bible by himself, he studied by himself. Another week he'd go there, there'd be two people. Today, this is eight years ago, he has thirteen outposts in Brooklyn, Oklahoma. Three hundred men meet once a week there. He's still team leading for us, team leading, instructing for us. He's broken into Tulsa Police Department. Hundred and thirty police officers from Tulsa Police Department have

• 3:40:03Speaker 05

  come to Mighty Oaks because of him and the people he's brought through. The chief said it's changed the culture of that complete department. On top of all that, this guy, who couldn't get on a plane to come California program, last year, gets on a plane with me from Houston, flies to Kow Polin, gets in a car. We drive across, when everybody's coming out of Ukraine, he drives across the border into Ukraine. We go all the way across, eighteen hours across to Kiev, spend the night in Kiev, then drive to Kharkiv, which is under attack every single day. We drive into Kharkiv, I remember driving to Kharkiv in the middle of the night and Reed and I in the car, and the Ukrainian guy with us said, the radio, he comes across the radio and he says, "The only thing that lives in

• 3:40:46Speaker 05

  Kharkiv is Will Smith and his dog." Everything's just blown up and dead, and it's like the end of the world. And we spend the night in this, in this old bunker, and we get IDF, indirect fire, in the middle of the night, hits about four hundred yards from us, and I wake up and I go out and Reed's cool as a cucumber. The next day, we go out behind, behind Russian lines to speak to these Ukrainian troops, and Reed pulls up a chair and starts sharing his testimony in front of these Ukrainian troops. I was sitting there watching them, thinking, "This guy couldn't fly to Califor- California, he went all the way over there to share his testimony and with these guys in Ukraine." Like, that's the full scope, of

• 3:41:27Speaker 05

  like, find a purpose again, a mission again, what we want to do. And I've seen that, that was like the most full circle moment for me to watch Reed do that.

• 3:41:36Shawn Ryan?

  That's incredible, brother.

• 3:41:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's, that's super cool, super cool. I get to work for some amazing people, man.

• 3:41:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I'll say, wow, that's, um.

• 3:41:48Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that's one of the most impressive organizations that

• 3:41:56Shawn Ryan?

  that's that's after the suicide epidemic that I've ever heard of. Congratulations.

• 3:42:02Speaker 05

  Thank you, brother. It's it. It really is like we've always said from the beginning, we want the hardest cases.

• 3:42:09Speaker 05

  We want the guys that when the wounded warrior battalion from Marine Corps calls and said, hey, man, this guy tried everything. He's going to kill himself. Instead of locking him behind a glass, a piece of glass, like we want to send him to you to have that confidence from the Marine Corps wounded war battalion. To know that they could send him to the psych ward or send him to us and trust him with us like that's that's a that's that's a privilege.

• 3:42:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:42:31Speaker 05

  We have. We have a one, you know, to reference one of one of your guys, a SEAL, a guy Colin Fields.

• 3:42:37Speaker 05

  You will get so many judges that send people to us, wives and judges. And, you know, he was he was his wife and the judge said, you go to this or or you go into jail and you're getting divorced. He's facing jail and divorce. I don't know if you know Colin Colin Field, a SEAL.

• 3:42:50Shawn Ryan?

  I think I do.

• 3:42:51Speaker 05

  So he he.

• 3:42:52Shawn Ryan?

  Was he an East Coaster?

• 3:42:53Speaker 05

  What's that?

• 3:42:54Shawn Ryan?

  Was he an East Coast guy?

• 3:42:55Speaker 05

  He's an East Coast guy and a and a corpsman. He was a corpsman. Well, he's been Ukraine a lot with us, but but he so and he would allow me to share the story. But he he tells the judge, tells his wife, tells the judge for his wife and tells his wife for his kids, but he's so he's gonna drive to Madiel. We want the flying, but he but he he said he didn't want to fly with the drive. The reason he wanted to drive is because he was telling them that, but he was gonna crash his truck into a tree on the way there. And make it look like he killed himself, make it look like he accidentally died and he was kill himself. Took a seatbelt off, left and drove 10 hours to our ranch and looking for a tree the whole time. He said, I kept looking, kept looking, and ended up at this ranch. And and he was a he was a graduation speaker at our class and became one of our best team leaders.

• 3:43:39Speaker 05

  And and has been going to Ukraine with us and sharing that story. You know?

• 3:43:45Shawn Ryan?

  God is definitely working through you, brother.

• 3:43:48Speaker 05

  I never hit that tree.

• 3:43:50Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:43:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:43:52Shawn Ryan?

  Let's move into the Afghanistan withdrawal.

• 3:43:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, yep.

• 3:43:58Shawn Ryan?

  You brought out, not just you, I don't wanna, I don't wanna make you uncomfortable by giving you all the credit, but you guys, a very small number of you guys evacuated over seventeen thousand Afghans when the US government had completely failed and decided they're gonna start working with the Taliban.

• 3:44:21Speaker 05

  Crazy.

• 3:44:23Shawn Ryan?

  I, I just, it feels...

• 3:44:28Shawn Ryan?

  I can't even believe this is coming out of my mouth, you know, and, um...

• 3:44:35Shawn Ryan?

  But it was the veterans that served there that, that made shit happen, and you were a huge part of that.

• 3:44:46Speaker 05

  It was, um...

• 3:44:49Speaker 05

  I'll start off with saying, yeah, like, crazy to think

• 3:44:55Speaker 05

  that the entire international community

• 3:44:59Speaker 05

  were participating in, in, in the fighting Taliban in Afghanistan. Bagram Air Force Base, unarguably, is the most strategic place in the globe between Iraq, Iran, Russia, and China in today's current climate, right? That is the most strategic piece of land. The entire international community were participating there, supporting and advising Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police to fight the Taliban. So this all stems in this lie that the American people in the mainstream media, the American people were told by the mainstream media in the, in the White House, that America was in a twenty-year war, in this endless war, and we have to withdraw from Afghanistan immediately. The right thing to do, if they actually cared, would have been to claim a victory.

• 3:45:40Speaker 05

  The war on terror is over, and share, and continue to share that Bagram Air Force Base with the international community, turn it over to the international community, and continue to support and advise the Afghan National Army, like, you know, like we do in that, all over the world, right? We had twenty-five hundred troops there at one time, we had four thousand at the time of the withdrawal. I can name twelve places right now that we have twenty-five hundred troops, all over Africa, everywhere, right? So they lied to the American people and say, "We have to, we can't keep killing America's sons and daughters." Total, total bull.

• 3:46:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, we can't keep killing America's sons and daughters. Let's start two more wars.

• 3:46:10Speaker 05

  Let's start two more wars, right? We, I mean, in, in contrast to people that, if people, some people may listen, be listening and be like... Or you just want to stay in Afghanistan like, or look, there's eighty thousand troops still in Japan since World War II, forty thousand troops in Germany since World War II, forty five thousand troops in South Korea, sitting on that thirtieth parallel, keeping the North Koreans from coming over. America having contingencies like this doesn't keep us in wars, it prevents wars. It creates international stability. And it's very important, uh, for America's leader. And we want to be a leader or not, not we are. Uh, and, and, and we, one of the things you said was, you know, we worked with the Taliban. We didn't tell the international community we were withdrawing. We didn't talk to the Afghan government about

• 3:46:53Speaker 05

  it. We, we coordinated, when I say we, the White House coordinated with the Taliban, and they signed what's called the Doha Agreement, uh, which means the Taliban will not allow terrorism to happen in Afghanistan, in exchange for us leaving Afghanistan. Now, that's a conflict, uh, of terms, right? Because the Taliban is a terrorist organization. If I go, if I go over there and, and, and give the Taliban a bag full of cl- cash to do, to move SIV out of Afghanistan, I'm going to jail, because I'm funding a terrorist organization. But, but the White House is able to say that they're a legitimate government. So they, they play in both ways. And so we should never have left Afghanistan. We could have declared a war, we should never have left Afghanistan. Uh, and I believe the American

• 3:47:38Speaker 05

  people were lied to. And, and the only beneficiaries of that, and I know this would be a whole separate episode, the only beneficiaries of that were Iran and China, and, and, uh, you know, all of our, you know, the world, the enemies of the United States and, and of freedom. Um, you know, China wanted this Hindu Kush, the Hindu Kush mineral rights. Uh, I said it, I said it in, in twenty twenty one, the beginning of twenty twenty one, that that would be the beneficiary of, uh, they would be the beneficiary of this. And I was called the conspiracist, uh, by-

• 3:48:06Shawn Ryan?

  I said it too, man.

• 3:48:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then what happened? The day we left, the Taliban gave China the mineral rights for the Hindu Kush, trillions of dollars worth of, worth of lithium. They were able to, they were able to move sanctioned oil-

• 3:48:16Shawn Ryan?

  When we're trying to do a green initiative.

• 3:48:18Speaker 05

  Right, right. Yeah, exactly.

• 3:48:19Shawn Ryan?

  We could have used that.

• 3:48:20Speaker 05

  Yeah. And and and now

• 3:48:23Shawn Ryan?

  It shows who's pulling the strings there.

• 3:48:26Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 3:48:26Shawn Ryan?

  At the White House.

• 3:48:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, China is.

• 3:48:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:48:29Speaker 05

  I mean, they would have moved, they moved sanctioned oil from Iran through Afghanistan that was blocked by US billiarders, not now, into into China. So China's able to move sanctioned oil, uh, you know, without having to do it by ship. So there's, there's lots of things that I was upset about with the withdrawal. And I think everybody who gets it or pays attention was. But I couldn't change any of that. But the one thing I could do is not allow my friend Aziz to to be there, be left behind. Him and his wife and six kids. I had been putting through the SIV special immigrant visa process for six years to give them their visas. And, uh, by the way, then in two thousand nine, we, we had an agreement, a contractual agreement with entrepreneurs that if they've committed,

• 3:49:13Speaker 05

  completed their commitment to service, that they would be in a nine month process to have, to have, uh, access to United States under special immigrant visa. We did not uphold that promise to them. And, uh, and Aziz had been in a process for six years. Someone who served at a tier one special operations units for sixteen years, saved Americans' lives, American lives was, was not given that. So I knew people in Congress, I know people in Senate, I was pulling all the strings I could. It wasn't going to happen. And so I made a decision that I was gonna go get Aziz's wife and six kids. And, and in that decision, I, I knew that the people I had to call on would be veterans that I trust from the special operations community that had a couple, and there's a couple of criteria I was looking for.

• 3:49:55Speaker 05

  Mature guys who already had their combat lust sown and, and cared about actually going and getting Aziz out and not going there and, and getting in the fight with the Taliban.

• 3:50:05Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 3:50:05Speaker 05

  And that was, that was super important to me. Uh, the first person that I called was, you know, you know, who recently came on the show was Tim Kennedy. And, uh, you know, and Tim, I've known Tim for a long time. A lot of people don't know, Tim's like not just a Green Beret, ASO level three guy, has done clan log stuff before, very mature human being, very mature, uh, combat experience. Tim, everybody thinks Tim like is a big braggadocious guy. Tim does not brag because if Tim bragged, you would probably wouldn't believe half the stories and some of the stuff he's done. He's, he's, he's got some amazing like experience in combat. And, uh, man, he just, I remember calling him and he had, he's, I knew like he was getting asked to be

• 3:50:46Speaker 05

  like some jobs with Afghanistan. He was turning stuff down because he has so many businesses he runs and he's busy. And when I told him, I'm going to get Aziz and his wife and family. He was like, I'm in. Where do you need me to be? Let's go get him right away. No questions asked.

• 3:51:02Speaker 05

  And we ended up putting a team together, probably about 12, 12 guys initially built over time. I don't know exactly how many at that time. Uh, and, and, uh, Sarah Verrado, contact Sarah Verrado, uh, of, uh, she runs the Independence Fund. Her husband was a catastrophically wounded, uh, guy from Afghanistan. She knows a lot of people in DC. Started putting this plan together. We'll get Aziz, his wife and six kids. And, and as we're putting it together, uh, one of the guys, uh, brung up the fact that there was these 3,000 orphans that were being left behind. And that was kind of a game changer of information because, uh, everybody was fleeing, you know, people were surviving, uh, because that thing was happening faster and faster. And, uh, and, and we knew at that moment that we had to do more than help just Aziz's family.

• 3:51:45Speaker 05

  I think everybody that was involved in this thing was, was, uh, people of faith. And so we all felt like God really burdened our hearts to, to help as many people as we could. And, uh, and, and, and that's what we originally called it, you know, Mighty Oaks started the Saber Allies Coalition, which ultimately we, we used the Saber Allies Coalition from Mighty Oaks and founded Saber Allies as his own, own entity. But it started as that in the operation force that we called, we called it Task Force 68 from Isaiah 68. Here, here am I, send me. And that's why we called it that because we all felt God just burdened our hearts to, to go help those people. And we made a decision like, hey, let's just lean in and see what happens. Let's help Aziz's wife and six kids.

• 3:52:24Speaker 05

  But as many Americans, as many interpreters, their families, women, children, Christians, every person, let's see how many people we could, we could help. And so the first thing was see, can we get on H Kaya, Amiri Karzai International Airport? And, and built to go outside the wire and rescue people. Because right now we know that the White House took the Neo operation, noncombatant evacuation operation away from the DOD and gave it to the State Department, which were, by the way, that should never have happened. If you want to know why a lot of problems happen, it's because of that, because now the, the State Department treats H Kaya like an embassy. Uh, and the military is used as a. Protective force of the embassy or the airport and then the outer perimeter is given

• 3:53:06Speaker 05

  to Taliban. Well, when the Taliban was given out of perimeter, anybody knows combat knows that whoever controls out of ground space controls access to that ground space. And so now they have the White House telling Americans, if you want to leave, go to the airport. Well, you got some 21 year old girl who went there to teach English or be a humanitarian aid worker or be an evangelist, and she's going to show her blue passport to the Taliban who's executing people in the streets because that's what was happening. Of course not. Right? So, so, so that's, that's the environment. And then the military is not being allowed to go outside the wire to go rescue their own civilians. And so how are they going to allow us? It's an impossibility. So, the reason I say that is this, and I appreciate

• 3:53:51Speaker 05

  you saying that, you know, about not putting the onus on me about doing this. Like, we, we felt that burden and we were obedient to lean forward. But what happened in rescuing Aziz's wife and six kids and 17,000 other people, I want to make sure everybody in the area hears me talk about this knows this. Like, I am not smart enough, capable enough to pull that off. Logistically, it's impossibility. There were so many obstacles that made this thing impossible. And the only thing I could point to when people ask, how did we do it? It was a modern day miracle from God. God orchestrated something that was completely impossible. Starting with us being able to have access to the airport. So many, so

• 3:54:32Speaker 05

  many amazing veterans and organizations wanted to move people and a lot of people did a lot of great job, great jobs doing that. But for some reason, we were the only ones that got access to get on the airport and go outside. And the reason why is because we had got permission from the Joint Chiefs office to do that. And again, I don't know how you would think, why would they not allow the military to do it? Why would they allow us to do it? Maybe Sarah Verardo has pictures of General Milley in high heels. I don't know.

• 3:55:03Speaker 05

  I don't know why.

• 3:55:04Shawn Ryan?

  She's probably not the only one.

• 3:55:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't know why, but we got, we got the permission to be able to do that. And, and you know, Sean Gabler and, and, and sea spray on the ground, able to get our own air, airstrip to be able to move people. Uh, all this stuff was happening at one time, but now that we have permission to do this, right? And, and not only that, but, but, but, but vet people, manifest people through those protocols. Uh, now we have to move people who don't have visas outside of, across the other country's border. That's illegal, right? I get people in airport, wants to get in the airport, what good is it? The US government's going to be there for a little while, right? Eventually they go leaving those people that we got inside the airport to be gone. We have to be able to move them out. And without visas, I can't move them.

• 3:55:50Speaker 05

  A lot of people gave us a lot of crap in the beginning because everybody's arm track quarterback. You guys are moving people? Who are you bringing to the States? Like, we don't even know who these people are. First of all, I'm not the State Department. I don't have any authority to bring anybody to the United States. I could get somebody out another country, but I don't have any authority. State, only the State Department could do that. So, secondly, we vetted more people than the US government did. So, the people we were moving, we're vetted. Uh, the people that are going on those planes that you, you, the DOD are moving, no fault to the troops, fault to the White House and State Department, they were not vetted. So, we're moving people that we're vetting. We had a process to do it and, uh, and, and we had, we're doing our due diligence, but now we have to move them across border. How do you do that? We need to be able to find another country. The only place you can move people across border without a visa is Laredo, Texas.

• 3:56:35Speaker 05

  And, uh, but in the real world, you have to have, you have to follow rules and laws. And so, so we, uh, we, we contacted the UAE, the country of UAE. We had a connection there. We had two connections actually, but Joe Robert, who's a recon Marine that I knew, uh, and then Sean Gabler had another backdoor connection. Joe Robert. Uh, grew up with the royal family, with the prince. And, uh, and, and we, it was able to secure me a phone call. I got a phone call, uh, guy named, uh, Santa Six, God's name Santa Six. Dan, Dan O was on a phone call. Joe Robert was on the phone call. Uh, we had, uh, I think Sean Gable was on the phone call. We had a couple of senators and congressmen that I got on for credibility.

• 3:57:16Speaker 05

  And we, we got on the phone with the UAE and, and, and, and the, uh, officials there and royal family and presented the plan and they listened. And at the end, they said, not only will we support you to bring them here and give you a humanitarian center, we're going to give you a C-17 plane and pilots. Uh, let's, let's help.

• 3:57:32Shawn Ryan?

  You've got to be shitting me.

• 3:57:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:57:34Shawn Ryan?

  That, that plane was a UAE plane.

• 3:57:37Speaker 05

  The, the, the main plane that we had was UAE two, and we got two. And then, and so now we have, we have ability to go rescue people. We have a place to bring them. We have aircraft to do it, but we knew the problem's going to be bigger. And so we need it, we, this is not going to cost thousands of dollars, it's going to cost millions of dollars, uh, to be able to pull something like this off. We don't have time to ramp up for this, it's happening like now. And, uh, and, and, and I'm going to need more aircraft. And those aircraft, by the way, are like 500 to 800,000 dollars a flight. Uh, so, uh, I'm like, now how do I solve this problem? And all this happened in three days, by the way. I get a random call from someone I've known for a while, Glenn Beck. He had heard, uh, he had heard I was getting involved. And so Glenn called me and, and Glenn, Glenn said, Chad, I want to do something. I didn't know what to do.

• 3:58:21Speaker 05

  I just felt like it was wrong, what was happening. I got into radio to raise money. I thought I'd raise a few thousand dollars. He's like, I already had 21 million dollars come in.

• 3:58:31Shawn Ryan?

  Those of you that have been around SRS for a while know that we take mental health very seriously here. So seriously that in almost every episode, you'll find a segment where we discuss how to improve your mental health. And part of improving your mental health is keeping your mind sharp. And part of keeping your mind sharp is giving it the fuel that it needs to balance energy, focus, cognition, and?

• 3:58:59Shawn Ryan?

  Just regenerating your brain. That triggered me to go on a journey to find the supplement that supports brain health with the cleanest of ingredients on the planet. And I found it. I was actually going to start my own company and do this, but I found Laird Superfoods, I've partnered with them. Now I'm a partial owner and I really believe in these products. Here's my favorite product. Performance Mushrooms by Laird Superfoods. Brain Fuel. You can put this in your coffee, you can put it in your tea, you can drink it raw, you can mix it with their greens, you can do all kinds of stuff. Bottom line is, this is the best possible supplement with the cleanest ingredients,

• 3:59:40Shawn Ryan?

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• 4:00:24Shawn Ryan?

  These are the finest of ingredients. Check it out. lairdsuperfood.com, promo code SRS, 20% off.

• 4:00:35Shawn Ryan?

  I want to give a big thank you out right now to all the Vigilance Elite Patrons out there that are watching the show right now. Just want to say thank you, guys. You are our top supporters and you're what makes this show actually happen. If you're not on Vigilance Elite Patreon, I want to tell you a little bit about what's going on in there. So, we do a little bit of everything. There's plenty of behind the scenes content from the actual Sean Ryan Show. On top of that, basically what I do is I take a lot of the questions that I get from you guys, or the patrons, and then I turn them into videos. So we get, right now, there's a lot of concern

• 4:01:16Shawn Ryan?

  about self-defense, home defense, crimes on the rise, all throughout the country, actually all throughout the world. And so, we talk about everything from how to prep your home, how to clear your home, how to get familiar with a firearm, both rifle and pistol, for beginners and advanced. We talk about mindset, we talk about defensive driving. We have an end of the month live chat that I'm on, at the end of every month, where we can talk about whatever topics you guys have. It's actually done on Zoom. You might enjoy it. Check it out. And if Zoom's not your thing, or you don't like live chats, like I said, there's a library of well over 100 videos

• 4:01:58Shawn Ryan?

  on where to start with prepping, all the firearm stuff, pretty much anything you can think of, it's on there. So anyways, go to www.patreon.com/vigilanceelite, or just go on the link in the description, it'll take you right there. And if you don't want to, and you just want to continue to watch the show, that's fine too. I appreciate it either way. Love you all. Let's get back to the show. Thank you.

• 4:02:30Speaker 05

  Like what do I do with it? Ultimately, he had over $40 million come in. I said, "We need to start chartering planes." And so Mercury wants his organization. They partnered with us at Mighty Oaks. They've been a great partner at Mighty Oaks. And a guy named Rudy Atala started working aircraft for us. And so that was, a lot of the other NGOs and veterans that were working, they were getting people in aircraft, were all in those aircrafts, like coordinating through us to get on those aircraft. And so, man, everything happened so fast, but when I say like a series of miracles happened, none of those things independently are possible, and they all had to happen in the right sequence. And that allowed us the ability to be able to logistically pull this off. And we got in the UAE. And we're in the UAE, in Abu Dhabi, at the humanitarian center running operations.

• 4:03:14Speaker 05

  We have a team back in Washington DC taking people that are sending in information. People are coming in, help us get out. Veterans are hearing about it, so veterans are sending their interpreters. We're telling them, hey, this is the paperwork we need. And they're getting the right paperwork on the ground. We're doing the bona fides and making sure there's the right people. Our ground team on the ground at Haya.

• 4:03:35Speaker 05

  Sean Gabler, Tim Kennedy, Dave Johnson, C-Spray on the ground. You know, C-Spray and Sean Gabler are like the, the main like heroes of this thing. They're on the ground going outside the wire. Like literally, like from the guys in Abu Dhabi to the ground force, to the guy. If anyone stopped for five minutes, like you were literally trading five minutes sleep for someone's life. Like that's how fast everything was happening. Like C-Spray, he lost 37 pounds in 10 days. He just would not stop. And, you know, talking to the guy, like, you know, I told you a little bit yesterday, I can't say in details, but traded his career that he worked his whole life for to stay on the ground and help those people that he didn't know himself. Like the level of desperation, like people seeing airplanes, people falling off airplanes.

• 4:04:20Speaker 05

  The best description I have is, is imagine a thousand, a hundred thousand people swarming a gate. They get in, that kind of chaos. Women get trampled to death. Not everybody was, you know, not all Afghans are good, right? Not all, not all everybody's anywhere is good. So you got the men pushing to the front. It's just chaos. Taliban are in there shooting people. It's total chaos and women are so desperate that their babies won't grow up to be sex slaves as little girls. Or Taliban as little boys and they take their baby, kiss it goodbye, knowing they're never gonna see it again. Put in a crowd of 10,000 people, crowd surf it like a beach ball to the wall.

• 4:05:02Speaker 05

  And then someone grabs that baby and throws it as hard and as high as they can, hoping a US service member catches it. On the other side of that wall. What they didn't know was on the other side of that wire was six feet high and about 20 feet deep of Konstantinov razor wire. My buddy Joe counted six babies that were blood to death in that wire. Like, that was the level of like desperation on the ground there. And, and we just kept, kept pushing to get as many people as we could. And then at day 10, we didn't realize at the time, we had got 12,000 people out by day 10. And a suicide bomber hit Abbey Gate. Thirteen of our service members were killed. And the US military was forced to weld the gate shut.

• 4:05:45Speaker 05

  And the ground evacuations there were over. I remember when that happened, Tim was just at that, Tim and Steve were just at the Abbey Gate. And we thought, you know, and then we got a thumbs up, they were good. But at that time, we, you know, when that ends at H KIA, I thought, man, like, the US military is being forced to leave, but hey, we don't have to. And my big thing at that time, you know, because Aziz is already out, his wife and kids are out. But at that time, like, the White House is saying there's a hundred Americans left out there. And I knew, anybody on the ground knew, there was thousands of Americans still out there.

• 4:06:27Speaker 05

  In fact, the White House before had said there was 16,000 Americans there, which they were guestimating because they don't register, no one registers with the State Department. They were saying 16,000, but we got 6,000 out. So I'm not that great at math, but 6,000 minus 16,000 isn't 100. And but the truth is, even if there were 10,000 or 100, you don't leave one American behind, like ever, anywhere, like. This America does. Yeah, not me. And not where we came from, right? Like, I mean, man. I can't believe how much the country's changed, Jed. Where I come from, like, we're scarfed to earth to go get an American. Yeah. Like, you trade, you know, like, if there's Americans somewhere, right? You know, like a team run, like, hey, we're gonna lose, we could probably lose somebody. Yeah. Let's go get them.

• 4:07:11Speaker 05

  Like, that's the promise that every American should have. That was another time. Yeah. Well, I mean, the president had got on television and said that right before. We're not leaving an American behind. Well, had that changed so fast? Like, you know, so I don't know how those numbers were okay. And 100 would be acceptable. But we knew there were thousands. And by the way, it came out later in the Senate hearings, there was thousands of Americans we left behind. And that's not to mention our allies, right? How do we ever have, how do we ever defend our position in the world again? When we come into a place and say, hey, we're gonna be in this region and we need wartime allies. We're gonna do you right. You won't. Your word means nothing.

• 4:07:58Speaker 05

  Like you did it right for the for the people in Afghanistan that you fought beside for 20 years. We so we chose to stay and everything shifted to a place called Mazza Sharif. We led a coalition there, amazing organizations, Task Force Argo, you know, um, uh, Scott Mann, Pineapple Express guys, like, oh, everybody was participating, um, and in helping to get people out and we ended up getting another, I think, total on the coalition, got another 5,000 people out. That's what, you know, total number of 17,000 people, but but when that was over,

• 4:08:32Speaker 05

  we had heard that the northern, the the resistance force, Ahmad Masood's son, was uh, was leading a resistance force and they were moving all the women and children to a place called the Panjshir Valley and they want to cross them over into uh, into the country of Tajikistan. And when I heard that, I was, I'm very familiar with that region, I operated in a region before, and mountain, mountain peaks like 20,000 foot peaks. Uh, there, uh, you might make it through a valley and get to the Panjshir River, which is the border, and that might be a thousand foot cliff. Uh, if you make it in the river, it's category five rapids, ice melt water. Afghan women, by the way, don't swim, and they're going up, you know, in the bikinis on the weekends and usually they're pregnant or have a kid. So like geographically to belt across that river would be like impossibility for Afghan women.

• 4:09:18Speaker 05

  And then in addition to that, the Tajik Border Guard was there, the Taliban saturated there to prevent that, exactly, that. And then the Russian military was there in force, that wasn't on the news. The Chinese military was there, Chinese special operations was on that border. So what what I knew, we had to, that was the best thing we could provide, was to go on the other side of the river, come into Afghanistan and and help provide information of where to cross and how to cross and, you know, in my, in our world, that's called forwarding reps. Forwarding rep is how to, you know, telling people how to cross, the information needed to cross a river and uh,

• 4:09:54Speaker 05

  So there's a guy named Dennis Price, who's a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps, Force Recon Sniper. And he really wanted to be involved and he was, he was really bugging me to be involved and, and he, I felt like he had the right skillsets to do it. And, uh, and so, uh, but the problem was he was still in the reserves. And, uh, and cause he had just switched from active duty to reserves. And I'm like, man, you're not going to go because you're in the Marine Corps still. And, uh, so I called this commander, I know his commander well, Lieutenant Colonel Tommy Waller. He was commander of third Force Recon Company. And I was like, hey, sir, like I get this Marine. Force Recon Team Leader of the Year, like he's a stud, like he really wants to get involved and help. What's the chances you cut him loose? He's like, impossible, like he's, Marine Corps is not allowed to send anybody. So like, I, I kind of went in a little bit longer and he's like, you know what?

• 4:10:39Speaker 05

  Just put it in writing. So I did and, uh, and he approved it. God bless him. He approved it. Oh shit. So, uh, so Dennis Price came with me to Tajikistan. In fact, he's, he's, uh, he got, he's been nominated and he's going to get the Marine Navy Marine Corps Medal, which is the highest non combat award, uh, for military service. And, uh, for this, so Dennis, Dennis Price and I fly into Tajikistan. And, uh, and we go about 12 hours through the Tajikistan mountains. And get on that border and for 10 days, we did about 97 miles of border reconnaissance, route reps, spot, lots of spot reports. Uh, I had to border a deal with our intelligence agency to say, hey, I need imagery for, on that river.

• 4:11:22Speaker 05

  And they, because they wanted, they wanted spot reports, uh, of the Russians and Chinese there. Uh, and I'm like, I'll, I'll give you spot reports, but, uh, I want, I want something in return. I want imagery. And, uh, so we were able to get some imagery of, of, you know, where that river, uh, and get some good real time imagery of where the Taliban checkpoints were and stuff like that. So we had that going into it and, uh, and able to trade that information back to, you know, to our intelligence agencies. And, uh, and then provide it to other NGOs and, uh, and to the, um, To the resistance force that were trying to get their women and children out. And, and so for over those 10 days, we, we, every night we went, we, we'd identify a spot that we thought was a good crossing.

• 4:12:04Speaker 05

  And, and when, under darkness, we, Dennis and I would swim across the Panjshir River in Afghanistan and do a floating rep, you know, figuring how, how deep the river is, how fast the water is, how cold it is, how wide it is. Where's the cover and concealment on both sides? What do the entry points look like? Where are all the bad guys? Uh, what's the routes to and from? And, and where the anchor points are for, for rope bridges and, and then if we identified that as a crossable place, then we'd stage the right equipment for them. And give a, you know, 10 point, uh, 10 degree coordinates of where that equipment was staged with instructions how to cross. And, uh, so we did that every night for 10 days. Wow. And it's close, like sometime, you know, I mean, we've had some, it's, it's in the book, kind of outlining the book, "Saving Aziz."

• 4:12:47Speaker 05

  We had some very close, uh, proximity within 30 yards of the Taliban at one point. Uh, and, uh, it was, it was a, it was a pretty, it was a pretty, uh, the buildup to doing that was, um, I had to really like, uh, deal with Afghanistan from the first time in dealing with that. Go and get Aziz, uh, you know, that, by the way, who actually grabbed Aziz, um, was a PJ unit. So we were able to, we, we were walking, it took Aziz like eight, eight attempts and you gotta hear from Aziz's side of the story of him getting to the airport, uh, and, and his personal story with all this, his, his perspective and stories are amazing.

• 4:13:31Speaker 05

  But when we had got Aziz to the gate, uh, Sean gave, there was an other side of the airport, Aziz went to the wrong side and, and he was not going to be able to make it. His wife was bleeding, she had a, a ruptured appendix surgery. The kids were scared to death because they were getting shot at. And, uh, and so we had a PJ unit, uh, that was working with us and went, went outside the wire and got him and through the gate. And so getting Aziz was like one thing. But staying there was something else on me personally and especially on my wife. Uh, because at my original intent was just to get Aziz's wife and kids. This all kind of grew and developed and as God kept opening doors, I'm like, man, God's opening these doors, creating this opportunity. I gotta keep helping. I gotta keep helping.

• 4:14:12Speaker 05

  And it just kept growing and kept growing. And then it came point to where uh, we're going, we're, we're just moving forward. Uh, and, and we're going to cross that river and my wife's driving me to the airport for Dennis and I to go to Tajikistan. And she's like, what are you doing? Like, why are you doing this? You got Aziz, you got his wife and six kids. Like, you guys got seventeen thousand people out now. Like, what are you trying to prove? And, and uh, and, and she was scared. What do you, and uh, and why are you doing this? And I'm like, we, if God's opening these doors, we have to, we have to keep helping. And she just couldn't understand that. And I said this, um, and this is best way I know to explain. What if it, I was like, what if it was us? What if it was our sons that would be forced into madrassas to become Taliban? What if it was our daughter Haley that'd be raped and sexually enslaved the rest of her life?

• 4:14:57Speaker 05

  They'd already start taking girls who was nine years old to be sex slaves the rest of their life. Twenty million women and little girls left in Afghanistan to be subjected to that. Like, like, what if it was us? Wouldn't we be praying that someone, somewhere would come help us? I, I know I would be. Like somewhere, some, there's a, there's a dad, there's a mom, there's a little girl praying that we're gonna come. And as long as God opens these doors, we're gonna walk through them. And if the door gets shut and it feels like I'm making it happen for my own pride or ego, or my own desire to do something, then I'll stop. And, and she, and she actually had that moment. She's like, you know what? Like with that, she's like, you need to go. And uh, I got on a plane and because of what she was saying, I'm re-flying and I had this fear come over me.

• 4:15:40Speaker 05

  And, and you know, anybody that's dealt with anything like that knows when fear starts creeping in, if you let it take root, it'll destroy you. And, and, and I started, the, the fear was, what if I get out there in those mountains and I have a panic attack again? And Dennis is out there with, what if I have a stroke, like, right? Cause I've been in ER with blood pressure 200 over 130 than when I was having those panic attacks. What like, what if Dennis's wife and with four little kids at home, like, I started thinking that. And then when that fear came in, that pillar, right? That pillar, that fourth pillar, I said, man, I've been for 12 years, or at the time 10 years, I've been going based around the world, speaking hundreds, thousands of troops, selling in this story that with the four pillars, you have all four of those pillars,

• 4:16:21Speaker 05

  mind, body, spirit, social, that you're able to endure anything. And, and, and I talk about a time when I was in Afghanistan, I had just the mind, the body, and the social, but I didn't have the spirit and it almost cost me everything. But now if I had the fourth pillar, right, I could do it. And I'm like, now here's my chance to test it. And my mind's not quite where it used to be. My body certainly isn't. I tore my freaking muscle off the bone right before this operation, by the way, my longest muscle off the, off the groin, off the pelvic bone. So I'm going out there injured. Uh, you know, mind's not there, body's not where it used to be. Socially, I love Dennis, but he's not J-Soc, right? And, uh, but the only pillar I do have is that spiritual pillar. And in that moment, I just said, I just prayed in that, in that fight, I'm like, God, if you're

• 4:17:04Speaker 05

  burden of my heart, like you're burden of my heart to do this, I feel called by you to do this. If you want me to be here to help these, these women and little girls, like, you need to take away this anxiety. I need to be able to do this without fear, without hesitation. I need to be able to be focused and do this. I'm not gonna sleep on there. I need you to give me energy, keep us safe. And, and when I prayed that, like, I just said, just tremendous peace come over me. And I told Dennis, in that moment, like, we landed, and I told Dennis what had happened. I wanted to share with someone. He's like, bro, I'm dealing with the same thing, like, let's pray. And we prayed together. And we got in that plane and we flew there. And, uh, and then there was one moment, we were gonna swim across, and, uh, you know, I know, there's arm track quarterbacks everywhere. Somebody listen to this and probably tell us we were stupid for doing it. I've heard it all before.

• 4:17:51Speaker 05

  Uh, but we were, we were, we were about to swim across and, and there was a point in the river. Like when you're doing a four rep, it has to be that Goldilocks spot because the road bridge has to be, it has to be close enough that the road bridge should work. It's too far, right? Then it's too far, it's too far for the road bridge. If it's too narrow, the current's too strong. It has to be a Goldilocks. So this was like the perfect spot, perfect covering, consuming on both sides. It was like a little mud wall and there was a tree line. I mean, this spot's perfect. But right now, in this moment, there's, there's three Taliban on this roof, about a hundred yards from that crossing. Uh, to the left, to the right, on this side of the river, there's a Chinese BMP with a PKM. Have a machine gun on the roof and a spotlight for people swimming across the river. We have to get this information now and when that BMP moves and Taliban aren't there,

• 4:18:32Speaker 05

  this can be the perfect spot to cross. And, uh, so we're gonna have to swim between these people. And, and that was the first, that was the only time during that whole week that I felt that, that fear creeping back up. And I, and I walked off by myself and I stood on the bank of the river. And I didn't have my Bible because you don't want to bring a Bible, obviously at that point in the world. And I had a burner phone and so my Bible app, my, my, my Bible verses that I have, this little verses on there. And so I went to memory and I also always tell people like Victor Frankl talks about in the book I said earlier, you gotta memorize God's word, uh, because if it's in your, if it's in your heart and it's in your mind, your soul, then nothing can take it away from you, right? Cause you control that. And, and I recite it, Psalm 23, uh, Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing.

• 4:19:15Speaker 05

  He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me in the right path for his name's sake. And even though I walk through a darkest valley, I will fear no evil because he is with me. His rod and his staff, they comfort me. And he prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies and he anoints my head with oil. And my cup overflows and surely his goodness and level pursue me all the days of my life and I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. And, uh, one of my favorite parts of that verse is, is the very first word is like, the Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. I don't need anything else, right? If, if he's my shepherd, I don't need anything else. And, and that gave me this tremendous peace. And Dennis and I swam across the river that night in our underwear, uh, clothes and rafting bags. And did that route and that ended up being, from what I know, best of my knowledge, the route that ended up being the most fruitful.

• 4:19:59Speaker 05

  Damn, damn, man. And, uh, so that's why I went out. That, that pillars your resency to me.

• 4:20:07Speaker 05

  Four days after I came out of the water, I went straight to a speaking event at Marine Corps Boot Camp San Diego and gave that same speech that I gave all those times before. And I felt like this isn't theory anymore. I'm telling you something I know. I just came out of that river like a few days ago. And I'm sitting at Marine Corps Boot Camp like, I feel just fine. I'm fine right. I'm not shaken up. Like I'm here telling you something I believe that's real. The Lord is your shepherd. You lack nothing.

• 4:20:37Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you, man. Wow. That's, um...

• 4:20:46Shawn Ryan?

  You did what no government could do.

• 4:20:50Shawn Ryan?

  You were a team. You guys as a collective. I mean...

• 4:20:54Speaker 05

  You know what?

• 4:20:56Shawn Ryan?

  You saved so many lives. What did it feel like when you saw Aziz here in the US and you guys reconnected?

• 4:21:06Speaker 05

  Well, I first saw him in Abu Dhabi. I came back from that. I came back from... There was a time in between. I went there. Nick Pomashano was with me. And I went to see his... We coordinated it. Knocked his door. He answered the door. And we just grabbed each other and hugged each other. He's a big old dude. And we just both start crying. And then his son, Mashkor, who calls me Uncle Chad, and we've been teaching each other English over the phone for a while. And he comes. He's like, Uncle Chad. And he wraps his arms around me, his legs around me, gives me a big like monkey hug and puts berries in my neck. And man, I just start crying more. And the other kids came, hugged me. And then Hatra stood in the backside of the room.

• 4:21:51Speaker 05

  Here's an interesting part about that. When, back in time, when I'm in Afghanistan, Aziz sees my wife on WhatsApp Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, which was a big deal for Afghan to see someone else's wife. To him, it was a big deal. He felt very thankful and privileged. And she just said in passing, like, hey, take care of my husband. And he's like, oh, like that's... I have to protect your husband now. He took that very seriously. And he felt indebted for me to see his wife. And which is, if you know anything about Afghan culture, like, not only... Not only any of the Afghan, especially a foreigner, especially like an infidel, right? To see your wife. He wanted me to see his wife. So it was like a big deal, like orchestrated this. He's nervous, I'm nervous. She's at the end of the hall in a bedroom. She's got

• 4:22:35Speaker 05

  a burka, like not a burka on, but like her face is covered. She's got her eyes showing. And, and so she pops out and I see her and she's gone. And everybody's nervous. And I'm like, oh my, I'm like super uncomfortable. I'm like, I just committed a law, like a crime, like, like, and, and that's, that's how I first met her. And then it was super funny. So over the years, I seen her more and more. And then she like sneak out, make us some food. And, and I'd see her and her face. And she like, you could tell, like, let you see her face a little bit and cover it up. Like she was, it was just pushing the limits. So, so, so now, I come there and I'm in Abu Dhabi, give Aziz a hug, his kids are there. And she's on the other side of the room, in the back corner, stays, stays in that back corner. Her face is uncovered. And she's huge smile. And she puts her hand

• 4:23:17Speaker 05

  over her heart and says, Tasha Kerr, which is thank you. And I said, Tasha Kerr Nest, which is you're welcome. And, and she holds her hand over her heart for a long extended time. And that was like the, even though all those years, that was the closest we ever been. Fast forward, uh, they go, they, they finally land in Texas. I'm, I'm coming back from Ukraine. I rushed back from Ukraine. Almost didn't, I did almost like a week there without a shower. And I'm like, I'm like, I have shower time to get a shower to make my flight. And everybody's got to smell me on the way home. But I had enough time, I got a shower, flew back to see Aziz and them, because they had just got back. My staff picked them up there for intercepted them from USCIS. So they wouldn't get stuck in that freaking horrible process they had. My staff picked them up, took custody of them,

• 4:24:00Speaker 05

  brought them to my house. And sort of waiting on my driver when I come back from Ukraine. And, and Aziz comes out and hugs me. And little Mosh cars running, running through my yard with my Vishla dog playing in the front yard of Texas home. It was so cool to see that. And, and Hotra comes up and throws her arms around me and gives me a giant Texas hug and says, thank you, brother. Like. Man, that's, that's the, and, man, she's so fun. Like this woman's been caged up her whole life. I was telling you earlier, like, she's like, I want to ride a roller coaster. Took her to New York, New York, we're on a roller coaster, her hands up. She's like,

• 4:24:40Speaker 05

  wants to do zip lines and like everything. She just wants to enjoy America and freedom. She's so cool. Yeah.

• 4:24:48Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I loved hearing that.

• 4:24:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Aziz is working for my deokes. He's in our international team. We, uh, one of the things that, so you said earlier, right? We did what we did what the American government wouldn't do. Yes. Uh, and when the governments of the world failed, especially around, uh, good people, good patriots stood up and did the right thing. And I was upset at first. I remember sitting in a meeting, Minister of Interior for UAE, all these lawyers, all these generals. I'm like super like, I'm very patriotic and proud and I'm having to apologize for our country. I'm having to thank them for helping me get Americans out. And, and, and, and Ken Isaac from Samaritan's Purse told me, you know what? Like, yeah, our government did this, but look who's here doing it right.

• 4:25:33Speaker 05

  Like this is this, our government did this, but Americans are doing it or, or, or doing the right thing in spite of our government. And I was like, you know what? I was embarrassed about government, but I've never been by more proud to be an American in that moment to see Americans coming up and doing the right thing in spite of our government. It was really like a kind of paradox thing for me to see that.

• 4:25:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:25:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:25:55Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 4:25:55Speaker 05

  And, and, oh yeah. So I wanted to say that one of, one of the other faults of our government in the SIBs that we did get here, that especially I'm gonna be so like Aziz that did get here. You gotta think these, you did, you know, 20 deployments. I did eight deployments. Like my, you know, Ian did, my buddy Ian that works for my deokes, 16 deployments at Delta Force, like all these deployments with, but the Afghans, like, they didn't do deployments. They did 20 years straight of war.

• 4:26:22Shawn Ryan?

  They did one deployment.

• 4:26:23Speaker 05

  One deployment, yeah.

• 4:26:24Shawn Ryan?

  It was 20 years long.

• 4:26:25Speaker 05

  In their backyard, right? One of the most disgusting things Joe Biden said was when he said, if they can't fight for their country, why should we be there fighting for them? 60,000 of them died fighting for their country. 60,000 of them like died fighting for their country. And so when they come here, they don't have a, they don't have a VA. They can't go to the VA. Who's gonna help them deal with PTSD, combat trauma? Not to mention that the withdrawal, losing their home, losing everything and not have to start a new life in a new culture. There's nothing for them. And so when we recognized that at Mighty Oaks, we said, you know what? No one's gonna fill that gap. And that amazing donor step in and support this big time. We're gonna start an SIV program. So Aziz, for the last year, helped build the SIV program. And so we just ran our first program. We took seventeen double zero CIA interpreters through our program.

• 4:27:10Speaker 05

  All but one, seventeen Muslims, one Christian, all went through our Christian Mighty Oaks program. And it was phenomenal results. And they're all sending, when they went back, they sent tons of other people. So we got all kinds, we had a huge demand now for, and we're gonna keep serving those guys and loving those guys. They can't go to VA, we're gonna, we're gonna have a place for them to help integrate them the right way in America.

• 4:27:34Shawn Ryan?

  Damn Chad.

• 4:27:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:27:36Shawn Ryan?

  You're an amazing human, brother.

• 4:27:38Speaker 05

  I mean, I'm.

• 4:27:38Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you, the people working with you, like everybody that's put this together.

• 4:27:46Shawn Ryan?

  I wish there were more people like you in this world.

• 4:27:49Speaker 05

  I mean, I feel the same, feel the same for you, man. This, especially with the, you know, everything you're doing with this platform. And in his, man, I tell you with that though, my son Hunter, who's on our international program, you know, he's, Afghanistan's close to his heart as a combat, as Afghanistan veteran. Aziz, our team there, man, they just knocked out of the park with this, they, they worked so hard to build that program.

• 4:28:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:28:14Speaker 05

  As a quote, Mother Teresa said, God will never give you more than he can handle. I just wish she didn't trust me so much.

• 4:28:23Speaker 05

  That's, that's, that's been the last few years of my life.

• 4:28:27Shawn Ryan?

  Well Chad, I want to, I want to sit here and dwell on that and talk about all the positivity, but we're running out of time. And I want to get to your next book, which is coming out, A Mission Without Borders. Some of the stuff you guys are doing over in Ukraine.

• 4:28:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:28:41Shawn Ryan?

  Especially the rescue mission.

• 4:28:44Shawn Ryan?

  You know.

• 4:28:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:28:45Shawn Ryan?

  So.

• 4:28:47Speaker 05

  I want to start off with that. So first of all, this is the first time I'm mentioning this book. So I thank you for allowing me to. It's a, we're, you know, pre-sales on books or everything. If you can't pre-sell a book, you're not gonna, you're not gonna sell, sell opening day. So pre-selling books are important to the success of a book. And why I care about the success of any of my books is because it's tied directly to our mission and what we do. This book, I even did an author's note because it's about Ukraine and a lot of Americans, myself included, are frustrated with Ukraine. Hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars are going to Ukraine in a prolonged war that could be ended in a week. If we had the right leadership in our White House.

• 4:29:30Speaker 05

  Meanwhile, our southern border, you know, and all the things that we have in our country.

• 4:29:34Shawn Ryan?

  It's a disaster.

• 4:29:35Speaker 05

  Disaster, right?

• 4:29:38Shawn Ryan?

  How does this even get cleaned up?

• 4:29:40Speaker 05

  I don't, I don't know if you can.

• 4:29:41Shawn Ryan?

  Eventually, the herd's gonna be thinned.

• 4:29:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:29:44Shawn Ryan?

  That's how it gets cleaned up.

• 4:29:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, I do not support that money being sent there. Not a, it's corruption in Ukraine. Ukraine's been corrupt for a long time. But so has Washington DC and a lot of the corruption in Ukraine is directly tied to Washington DC. But we said it earlier, right? Like, like, I'm not gonna ever let politics get in the way of my compassion heart for people. I was in, I went into Ukraine. Seaspray was in Ukraine a few days before because we knew it was gonna happen. When the Russians came across, Seaspray was already there. I went there to meet him there. Initially, we went there, not in the capacity of what Mighty Oaks does. We went there to help get Americans out because our White House had pulled our embassy, pulled our troops out, which green-lighted the Russians across, by the way, in my opinion.

• 4:30:31Speaker 05

  And, and so we were there to help move Americans that were stuck there out. And that's what we did. And, you know, I get into all the different, different things that we've done. But, but one was the rescue of Benjamin Hall. But, and I'll share that, I'll share that, that, that story. But when I started this, Hunter, my oldest son, had really, was really a little sour with me because he wanted to be more on the ground involved in Afghanistan evacuations.

• 4:31:02Speaker 05

  When he wanted, when he first wanted to come to Abu Dhabi with me, took him to Abu Dhabi with me. He ran the, the, the operations center there. Uh, he was like, I want to go, I want to go there. I'm like, no way I'm taking you. You're my son. Like, he's like, I'm an Afghanistan veteran. I had interpreters important to me too. And I'm like, okay, well, I'll keep you where it's safe. And then, and then he wants to come to Ukraine with me and I'm like, not happening. Right? And, uh, why am I doing that? Cause I'm his dad and, and, and I love him and I want to protect him and I care about him and, and I fear for him, man. When he went to Afghanistan in 2018 and deployed to Afghanistan, I knew he was getting, he wasn't going as a supporting advisor role. He's getting embedded with the Georgian infantry. Like he's going to see combat and he did, uh, kinetic combat.

• 4:31:41Speaker 05

  And he shot, he shot a V bit, he, and then that, his old, his old sergeant, sergeant major was, oh, recon re with me. So they're like, right me bragging, your son just shot a V bed. And I'm like, I'd rather not know that, like, like, I appreciate that. I'm proud of him, but I appreciate not knowing, knowing that, like, uh, so like, uh, and you know, he's just, he's very much like me. And he wants to go out there and get after it. So I'm like, I gotta put the reins on him. And, and so all that really is, is fear. I mean, when he was in Afghanistan, I, that's my only time I ever had a panic attack again, outside of coming home and resurfacing again. Because, and, and I, but look, look, I got amazing people around me at Mighty Oaks. I leaned on them and, and, and I addressed it and, uh, and I use the same thing. I, I'm not ashamed to say that either. As I found there of an organization that runs that, I struggled again. Why?

• 4:32:26Speaker 05

  My son's in combat and I'm worried he's going to die. Like I've been buried for 15, 15 friends from there. Probably something would probably be wrong with me if it didn't bother me. And, uh, but I had, I just leaned into what we do at Mighty Oaks and, and just use the support I have. And, you know, snapped me back out of it. And, uh, but there was this realization that I had during that time that I, that my, my friends mentored me to is like, hey, you love Hunter. But as much as you love Hunter, God loves him more. And yeah, as a dad, you could protect Hunter, but God can protect him more. And Hunter could die driving to the grocery store, or he could die doing what God burdens is hard to do in Afghanistan. And, uh, and, and I had to really accept that as a father, but I was still in the fence about it.

• 4:33:09Speaker 05

  When things I had control over being a, you know, the, you know, running Mighty Oaks foundation. And I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm going to keep you safe because it's my job. So I wasn't letting him come to Ukraine. So he, he, he, we ended up building this network, this communication network all Ukraine, which the, which ended up being pretty profound. We, we are able to connect all the NGOs and, and, and everybody through the building this communications network. Cause we were like, what's gonna happen? How could Russia really take them out and they've not got the communication network? None of these NGOs could get fuel, they could get food, they could move people. So we need to build a clandestine communication network. So we built that right out, right out of the gate. Uh, and we got thousands of, uh, comms packages all over Ukraine developed so people could communicate. And, uh, and I needed someone to, that new comms equipment to be able to go around the US and procure that equipment. Cause you can't go buy, you

• 4:33:54Speaker 05

  can't go buy 200 sat, uh, radium sat phones. You gotta, now you gotta go around and get them, especially whenever I was buying them up. So I tasked Hunter out to do that. He's a comp. He showed up in Ukraine with, I think, I think 21, 21 of those big duffel bags. He flew, he got all that equipment, went on a country ball, that equipment, flew that stuff there himself, gets there and all that equipment said there. And I'm like, all right, thanks. Go home and, and C Sprays, C Sprays like, you gonna set this stuff up? Like, I'm not setting this stuff up. So Hunter's like, I'll set it up. So he's, works his way into staying and setting all that comms equipment up. And, uh, and then now he's building our talk. Got the, the flat screens. You could track all this equipment. Now I could watch all this equipment real, real time going to Ukraine as we're distributing it. Uh, we could see,

• 4:34:37Speaker 05

  hey, somebody needs to be moved here. Now I don't have to go get that person. They got somebody else right here, right there.

• 4:34:42Shawn Ryan?

  I'll be damned. Just like his old man, huh? The work ethic.

• 4:34:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. He's just out there.

• 4:34:47Shawn Ryan?

  Got him in there.

• 4:34:48Speaker 05

  He's grind, yep. He's just grinding, man. He's just grinding it out. And C Sprays like, you know, you can't send him home. But we need him now. I'm like, God dang it. But we're in Poland, right? So I'm like, we're good.

• 4:34:57Shawn Ryan?

  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, huh, Chad?

• 4:34:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. He's like a little mini me. Uh,

• 4:35:03Shawn Ryan?

  You'd mentioned, that's how he got into all these places, was the work ethic.

• 4:35:08Speaker 05

  It's true. It is. It is. He just earned it. He earned, he earned it. He earned his right to stay there. And then the call comes in for Benjamin Hall.

• 4:35:19Speaker 05

  Um, I know you, you were interested in.

• 4:35:25Speaker 05

  When the US government can't do, can't or won't do something, they could use surrogates. A surrogate would be someone outside the government, being not paid, so there's no attribution to the US government, and they could do it. And there's patriots all around the world that do, use their companies, use their other things. The nonprofit world, if you think of government organizations, right, the government institutions, and then you have NGOs, I'm not telling anything that's a secret here. Government organizations, NGOs, not government organizations, nonprofits, do things outside the government. The government could at any time request an NGO to do something as a surrogate for them. And it happens all the time, especially the intelligence agencies do it all the time. And so, as we're there,

• 4:36:08Speaker 05

  you have relationships and friendships and people know you. And so as we're there setting up, we had got a request from Special Operations liaison offshore, you know, the Central Intelligence Agency, to go get Benjamin Hall. At the same time, simultaneously, we had a call from the Pentagon, from Fox News correspondent, because Benjamin Hall worked for Fox News. And that request was to go get Benjamin Hall. For those that don't know, Benjamin Hall's Fox News correspondent, he was in Kiev at the time of the heavy attack. And so when Kiev was under a heavy attack, his vehicle got hit, whether it was intentional or not, his vehicle got hit, and the two Ukrainians in the vehicle with him were disintegrated.

• 4:36:53Speaker 05

  His combat correspondent, Sasha, lost everything, the only thing remaining of her was her arm. Pierre, his 25-year-old, 25-year Fox cameraman, amazing guy, covered a lot in Afghanistan, just one of, everybody talks about him, talks about him, incredible human being, he was killed instantly, and Benjamin Hall was catastrophically wounded. Lost a foot, lost a leg, should have kept his hand, but it's pretty bad, lost an eye. They didn't think he was gonna make it. Brain, traumatic brain injury, he was blown up really bad. Ukrainian troops saw him, they took him to a military hospital. And so the call was, and I remember,

• 4:37:37Speaker 05

  I remember we're in the living room, there was nine of us in the living room.

• 4:37:41Speaker 05

  And and the C sprays on the phone and we see him start to write like everybody be quiet. Something serious is going on, you know, everybody knows right away like everybody's laughing, goofing off, but something serious is going on and C spray starts writing stuff down. He hangs up the phone and he's like, hey, Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall been catastrophically wounded. He's got a wife, two little girls at home. U.S. military is not going to go get him. The agency is not going to go get him. If if we don't go get him right now, he's going to die. Yeah, who's in? Nine people in that room. Eight former military guys, one professional baseball player just happened to be in the room at the time, Adam LaRouche. And everybody's like, let's go get him.

• 4:38:26Speaker 05

  Not not one person hesitated, including my son. Let's go get him. And, you know, I always talk about these things being miracles, but you can't argue when God does something, set something up. An hour before that phone call, we had just got two ambulances, yellow EMT vest, badges made and paperwork to make us look like EMTs because we knew that was the only way to pass through checkpoints at night, an hour before that call. If we wouldn't have had those assets in place, we were building those assets in place to be able to have access, you know, access and placement. If we didn't have those assets in place at that time of that call, we wouldn't have been able to do it.

• 4:39:07Speaker 05

  An hour before that call, Dakota Myers was there. Radek, Dr. Radek, like all these guys, like the right, we had Dr. Radek was a surgeon, a trauma surgeon who ran a ran a, I think he was at J mile unit, like, like all the, all these, everybody, everything was in the right place to be able to pull the trigger and just say, grab your bags, let's go. And I believe God orchestrated that. We, within about 30 minutes, we got in the vehicles and loading up. And as we're loading up, I seen Hunter throw his bag and I'm back in that ambulance to go. And uh, and C-Spray looks at me and goes, is Hunter coming? And I'm like, if you say he's coming, I'm not gonna make that decision. If you say he's coming, he's coming.

• 4:39:52Speaker 05

  I was gonna relinquish that. And C-Spray said, man, I need somebody to run the talk. Shawn's gonna stay back and run the talk. The solo from the J- this solo guy uh, is gonna come sit in the talk, but I need, I need Hunter here. Cause he knows how all this stuff works. And I'm like, if I tell him, he's gonna think I'm holding him back. He's like, I'll tell him. And uh, and so C-Spray told him he had to stay back. And I could tell, he was just like, hey, I'm, I'm, he, he said, you know, where you need me? That's where I'm gonna be, but he wanted to come. And uh, and you know, it tore my heart out to, to see him. I know he wanted to be there. And we, we drove, we got in the vehicles, we drove across. Uh, the A, A vehicle, B, A vehicle. C-Spray was leading one vehicle, I was leading the other. Me, Adam and Dakota was one.

• 4:40:34Speaker 05

  We, we stopped outside the city uh, as a, as a kind of backup element, QRF backup element. C-Spray then went in the city, grabbed Benjamin Hall. I can't say exactly how it all happened.

• 4:40:48Speaker 05

  Because uh, there's some things that I, I don't think I'm, I think I'd probably get in trouble for saying. But uh, but got him, got him in the vehicle and got him eventually, I mean, he, he was, his feet were gone.

• 4:41:02Speaker 05

  He's strapping all through his throat.

• 4:41:05Speaker 05

  His brains, they have a tube in his brain. Uh, his hands blown off, uh, not blown off, bone pretty bad. And uh, and, and he's like, doctor addicts, like, he's, he's, he has, we have to move him. And uh,

• 4:41:21Speaker 05

  we uh,

• 4:41:24Speaker 05

  we, we knew, we knew in that moment, like, if, if we didn't get, if we didn't move him then, like, he was, he was, he was going to die. Uh, and, and C-Spray and him had to, had to move him out of the hospital and the, and the hospital was like, hey, we can all release him, so they, they just stole him. Just stole him at the hospital because they were like arguing, are you guys doctors? Who are you guys? And we're just like, just took him out. And, and, and so got him across the border and, and when we got him across the border, the eighty second airborne was waiting in a, in a helicopter. Uh, sea spray and, and, and Beau, uh, loaded him on the helicopter. And, and then flew him to a air medical C one thirty. Got him on an air medical C one thirty and flew him to launch dual Germany and eventually to, uh,

• 4:42:06Speaker 05

  to Brooklyn Medical Center in Texas, where he, where he recovered. The next day, uh, we were asked to go get the body of Pierre. And, uh, and I was like, I'll make the call like, no, we're not gonna go get a body. Uh, Kiev still like getting rocketed, it's under a heavy attack, the Russian, Russians trying to, they were circling the city, they were trying to close in on it. We're not gonna go and, and, and, uh, I mean, we've been to other cities since then, but we're not, we're not gonna go in, well, just for a body. Yeah. And then his wife, Michelle showed up and was like, I want my son, I want my husband. And we were like, yes, ma'am. And, uh, and we went in and I actually drove, I, I actually drove, uh, Pierre's body out in a, in a, in a hearse. He was in a hearse and the guy was trying to use the hearse to get out of.

• 4:42:48Speaker 05

  He's like, hey, like, uh, I, I need to drive him out, it's my hearse. And I'm like, hey, uh, you, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna buy your hearse from you. And he's like, uh, no, I'm not selling my hearse. And I'm like, yeah, you don't understand either you're selling your hearse or we're gonna steal your hearse. We're, we're taking this, we didn't want to remove that casket from the, uh, from the hearse and, uh, and, and I was putting them on, I'm like, hey, get on the phone, Fox News, make the deal of your life, they're gonna pay you for whatever you want for this car. And they'll transfer you money and, uh, and we got that hearse. But I remember like going in the back and we had to open it and verify it was his body. And, uh, and at this moment, they had a, uh, he's, he's from Ireland and they had an Irish flag. And they had, they had really set him up like dignified, but they had Irish flag in the back.

• 4:43:30Speaker 05

  And, uh, and I remember like, it made me realize like our guys, right? When they come home and how on the casket, we put the blue at the head and the stripes go down to the feet. And so I quickly Googled like, how's the Irish flag go? You know, green, it's a green orange of the head and, and, uh, and so I looked it up on Google real quick and I, and I started putting it over and I actually got like really frantic and, and, uh, and I was trying to tape it on and Seesprig came back and grabbed my hand and he's like, "You all right, brother?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I just want to do this right, man." We were taking him to his wife and we, uh, and we, we took, he took, took our time, we put it, put it, put the flag on and we drove, I drove the hearse and Seesprig never in front of me, an ambulance and we got him across the border, border and, and, uh, delivered him to his wife.

• 4:44:16Speaker 05

  And, uh, and, you know, in a dignified way. And, uh, you know, since then we've gotten some other bodies. Dan Swift, the Navy SEAL who, um, his mother reached out and the US State Department were total, total terrible, terrible, treated it terribly, treated her terribly. Uh, some conflict with his service and it's like, who cares? He's a Navy SEAL that is there trying to help people. We're gonna, we're gonna get him out and get him home to his mom and his, and his kids. And so we got his body out and then, um, you know, we've gotten to do so many amazing things and our team's been all over. I mean, um, but through that, through that process, I was, I was, I kind of fast forwarded this. There was a moment, uh, where things progressed and Hunter eventually got to come across the border into Ukraine. He and I went

• 4:45:00Speaker 05

  and I was like, "It's a pretty safe kind of trip." And I took him, just me and him and, uh, and I watched him, his composure. I watched how he handled it. I'm like, "You know what?

• 4:45:09Speaker 05

  God's, God's done just called me to do these things. Like, he's called other people to, including Hunter. And if God has a, has a calling on Hunter's heart to do these things, who am I to keep him from doing these things? Right? Uh, I don't want to spend my whole life keeping him from doing the things that God's called him to do. I wouldn't want anybody doing that to me." And so I had to relinquish it. I had to go back to the promise in 2018 to realize God loves him more than I can. God can protect him better than I can and, and God has a call in his life too. And, and I made the decision to relinquish that as hard as it was as a dad to do that and, and, and let him kind of run. And, uh, and, and man.

• 4:45:42Speaker 05

  We got asked to go to a place called Azum, Seaspray and I.

• 4:45:48Speaker 05

  Azum, Ukraine, and the Russians had occupied Azum for about six months. And Ukrainians were claiming that they had executed about fourteen hundred women and children and put them in a mass grave. And the the agency was worried that that was propaganda, that they were just using it for propaganda for for the, you know, get more money. And so we were asked by a solo, hey, will you make sure that this is for real? Make sure this is real. And in that same area, there's a Marine that was fighting for the Ukrainians. He got shot in the stomach and we had, we heard that he was captured and we potentially could get him.

• 4:46:32Speaker 05

  So we, me and Seaspray started heading that area to do those two things. The Marine went MIA. We couldn't, we couldn't find him, we couldn't find out where he went. And then Hunter, at the same time, went to a place called Bakhmut. Bakhmut, probably since the invasion, is every minute, on the minute since the invasion, has been bombed. And he was going there to bring some medical equipment, some troops there. As four, four guys, like a CAG, a CAG guy, Hunter, a MARSAG guy, and a, I think a force recon guy, like all pretty experienced guys. They were going, and Hunter was leading that team into Bakhmut. And so me, so I'm in, I'm in Azum, Hunter's in Bakhmut, two separate things, about three hours apart.

• 4:47:13Speaker 05

  And we go and we identify those mass graves, which, those were mass graves, by the way, there. And then we go to this other place with the National Chief of Police for all of Ukraine. And while we're there, the Russians closed the line behind us. And when they closed the line behind us, we get caught in the middle of them. Probably the most kinetic, some of the most kinetic stuff I I I had ever seen. Uh, we were driving and I seen two MiGs fly over and I was like, and I was in a TOS. Well, those MiGs and he's like, yeah, I'm like, that ever, you ever see that before? He's like, no, bro. There was a MiGs and they, and they hit, they did a bombing run like, I don't know how far away, but enough, we seen the plume come up and then I started having IDF.

• 4:47:57Speaker 05

  And, uh, and then we were caught by this building and, uh, and then it got pretty, pretty like within a hundred, two hundred yards indirect fire. I mean, dirt flying over, like dirt landing on us, we got against this building, the windows got blown out of the building, like literally like, I was showing you some of the pictures earlier, some of the Russian troops that was that day, like, like I could hear the, I remember here, I could hear the buffer springs in the, in the AKs, like, uh, like as, as the rounds were, as they were, they were functioning, like, like I could hear, I could hear the, no weapons functioning. Damn. And, uh, it was, it was, and so I called Hunter on the phone, on the sat phone to, to tell him what's going on. And when I called Hunter, uh, I could hear the indirect fire

• 4:48:36Speaker 05

  landing around him. And so at the same time, uh, me and him were taking indirect fire and about three hours apart. And, uh, and I went to being worried about me to being worried about him and, uh, and, and, and then seeing after how he handled himself in, in that situation and, uh, just instill the confidence in me that, uh, that I'm carrying with me right now. He just got back like a few days ago from another trip in Ukraine. I think he's been there thirteen, thirteen to fourteen times now. And, uh, and he just, you know, does an incredible job at what he's doing. He's leading a team now. Now they're doing more, taking people out to train chaplain teams and stuff like that. And at this point, we've reached a point to where we've done everything we could do there. Now it's train the trainer and let them have it. So, uh, it's, it's pretty much a mission complete

• 4:49:20Speaker 05

  for us there and, uh, and focusing other areas of the world, but, but, uh, he, he's made me just extremely proud and, and, uh, and so this book is, is telling that story. It's a story of fear to faith, the fear is a father to the faith in saying, you know, sometimes there's things we have to let go and that we can't control and we just have to have faith that God can control them better than us.

• 4:49:45Shawn Ryan?

  Man, A Mission Without Borders is for pre-sale right now?

• 4:49:49Speaker 05

  For pre-sale right now, and I would so much appreciate people, people supporting it. Uh, it, everything I do, by the way, all my books and stuff like that supports the work that we do. Um, and so that's-

• 4:50:00Shawn Ryan?

  It all goes to the Mighty Oak Foundation?

• 4:50:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, supports the work that we do and, and, uh, and, you know, so let's get mine to support. And, you know, when you preorder a book, a lot of people are like, "Oh, I don't want to wait for it." But you, you, you, any, not just me, any author are like, I mean, I know you, whenever you do something one day, and, you know, any of these guys you, you support, when you preorder a book, what it does is tells the vendors that, that people are interested in the book, and it helps get that advance purchase, which gets to, they put more marketing behind it. So one of the best ways to support authors, especially in, in our community that wanna, is always preorder the book for them. Yep. So, yeah, and, you know, I wanna close with a, one thing on this. There's, there's a lot of verses I love in the Bible.

• 4:50:44Speaker 05

  There's, I probably have a different, a different favorite verse all the time. But I think the most powerful verse in all the Bible is Genesis 1:1. I have all the Bible, and I've read the Bible cover to cover, right? And it makes, makes some pretty bold claims, by the way, all of which I believe are true. And I've read it cover to cover.

• 4:51:00Speaker 05

  But the most powerful verse in all the Bible to me is Genesis 1:1. The first 10 words of the Bible. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth." Like, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth." So why would I say that's the most powerful verse in all the Bible? Because if you believe that, I can believe, if you believe that first 10 words, that God created all, then you have to understand that God has authority over all. And if God has authority over everything, well, then he's sovereign. And if God's sovereign, then he holds all of our fears, our insecurities, our, he holds everything in the palm of our hands. And, and that knowledge of knowing that God holds all in the palm of his hands, would, would, what actually do we have to be scared of? Right? If God's in control of all?

• 4:51:44Speaker 05

  So, to me, that's the most powerful thing, to understand that God created the heavens and earth. He created all. He has authority over all. He's sovereign, and he's good, and he loves us, and cares about us. And, uh, and, and he loves our, cares about our, our kids too. Uh, even if they're in a place like Ukraine, right?

• 4:52:05Shawn Ryan?

  God bless you, Chad.

• 4:52:08Shawn Ryan?

  You're doing amazing stuff. God's working through you, and, uh-

• 4:52:14Shawn Ryan?

  It's a real honor to have you here.

• 4:52:16Speaker 05

  Oh, man. I appreciate it being here. This is something I've looked forward to for a long time, and I'm glad it's... And I believe, podcast aside, I like it. I believe it's the beginning for a friendship, so...

• 4:52:28Shawn Ryan?

  Me too.

• 4:52:28Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 4:52:29Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. Thank you for coming out.

• 4:52:31Speaker 05

  Absolutely, brother. Absolutely.

• 4:52:33Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh...

• 4:52:36Shawn Ryan?

  Link will be in the description on that. If you want to support Mighty Oaks Foundation, link's down there, too. Everybody check it out. Very apparent, you are doing amazing things. So, thank you. And, uh, and once again, Chad, it's an honor.

• 4:52:53Speaker 05

  God bless.