#133 John "Shrek" McPhee - The Sheriff of Baghdad

John "Shrek" McPhee is a distinguished former Army Ranger and served as a Sergeant Major in the Army's elite tier one unit, Delta Force. His military career was marked by intense training and high-stakes operations, earning him a reputation for leadership and effectiveness in counter-terrorism and special reconnaissance. During the Global War on Terror, McPhee became known as "the Sheriff of Baghdad," where he played a crucial role in stabilizing the region and rebuilding local governance. His hands-on approach and ability to engage with local communities helped foster trust and order in a challenging environment. After retiring from the military, McPhee founded SOB Tactical, a company that provides tactical training and consulting services for military, law enforcement, and civilians. His extensive experience informs the training programs offered, focusing on practical skills and crisis management. Through SOB Tactical, McPhee continues to share his expertise and influence in the field of tactical training and public safety. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://preparewithshawn.com https://shopify.com/shawn https://trueclassic.com/srs https://bubsnaturals.com/shawn - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://hillsdale.edu/srs https://moinkbox.com/srs https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner John "Shrek" McPhee Links: Website - www.sobtactical.com SOB TV App - https://watch.sobtactical.com FB - https://www.facebook.com/sobtactical IG - https://instagram.com/sobtactical X - https://x.com/sobtactical Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@sobtactical 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

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

• 0:03Speaker 01

  On October 2nd.

• 0:04Speaker 00

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

• 0:09Speaker 01

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

• 0:16Speaker 02

  What would happen if I stopped doing it? You're stalled, you're freezing there, that's what.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 0:24Speaker 02

  I'm not the first then.

• 0:25Speaker 01

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

• 0:30Speaker 03

  There is so much NFL on ESPN right now. Monday Night Football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live, NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week. Unbelievable. And now, NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on, all season long, on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app.

• 1:05Shawn Ryan?

  John Shrek McPhee, welcome to the show, man.

• 1:08Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 1:09Shawn Ryan?

  It's been a long time coming, huh?

• 1:11Speaker 05

  I thought I should have been the first guest. If you ask me. I know you got hundreds of requests from people. I know, I know you had to over the years from people. No? Yeah?

• 1:23Shawn Ryan?

  Oh yeah, we get a lot of requests.

• 1:25Speaker 05

  I bet.

• 1:25Shawn Ryan?

  You're one of the top requests.

• 1:26Speaker 05

  I bet.

• 1:27Shawn Ryan?

  So, here you are.

• 1:28Speaker 05

  Makes me feel good.

• 1:29Shawn Ryan?

  Here you are.

• 1:29Speaker 05

  Just so you know, like, probably my people were hitting you. You know what I mean? Like, why is my boy not in there?

• 1:35Shawn Ryan?

  You got a lot of them. You got a lot of, you got a lot of them.

• 1:38Speaker 05

  Thanks, man.

• 1:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I've been ironing you up for, kind of tracking you for, man, I don't know, probably, probably close to 10 years now. When did you, when did you get out?

• 1:50Speaker 05

  11.

• 1:50Shawn Ryan?

  11?

• 1:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, like, spring, summer 11.

• 1:53Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, yeah.

• 1:54Speaker 05

  I've been tracking you since you left your last job.

• 1:56Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:57Speaker 05

  Uh huh.

• 1:57Shawn Ryan?

  What was it, which job?

• 1:59Speaker 05

  I know your bosses.

• 2:00Shawn Ryan?

  Oh. Which ones? Ninja?

• 2:04Speaker 05

  Uh, Toby.

• 2:05Shawn Ryan?

  Toby?

• 2:06Speaker 05

  New Toby.

• 2:06Shawn Ryan?

  What's his other name?

• 2:09Shawn Ryan?

  Toby? Like, okay, yeah, man, I haven't seen him in a long time.

• 2:16Speaker 05

  I know, I know.

• 2:19Shawn Ryan?

  Like Toby that was a contractor, now is staff?

• 2:23Speaker 05

  Now back to contract.

• 2:24Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, is he? Man.

• 2:26Speaker 05

  Beltway's rough.

• 2:27Shawn Ryan?

  That guy was switched on.

• 2:28Speaker 05

  He's awesome.

• 2:29Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sure he still is.

• 2:30Speaker 05

  Actually, me and him, when he was in group, he was my, uh, we hit all the competitions. Pistol, sniper shit, we just crushed. Like, we were doing the sniper comp one time, and they're like, the silly stage was like, they had all these pictures hung at like 20 yards of like, so they're gonna show you a picture, you had to pick it, shoot it, and then once you shot, right, uh, the second guy had to like shoot some steel with the pistol. Kind of lame by today's standards, but it was as good as a god back then, right? And, uh, like literally the fastest time in the middle, you know, was like a minute 30 and like,

• 3:09Speaker 05

  so To, we talk about it, and he's like, he is a little slightly faster with a pistol than me, although he missed that. That wouldn't have happened with me, but he missed one. But we made up the time. Anyway, uh, yeah, they're like, they show him the picture, and he's like, fourth one from the left. I'm like, pow, he turns around, he's like ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, you know, and then like, the guy's like, 12 seconds. I was like, is that good? He's like, uh, the winner was at a minute 30. It was like, yeah, rock on, you know what I mean? And then like, uh, yeah, we just crush these comps all the time. Great guy.

• 3:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. I thought he had left to, uh, kind of go your route, but, um...

• 3:53Speaker 05

  So, yeah, he's kind of National Guard in it right now, helping the guys, uh, he's in and out, uh, you know, you know how it works. Kind of trying to do it all still.

• 4:02Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man. God bless him.

• 4:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, hey, yeah, I'm at it.

• 4:06Shawn Ryan?

  Well, if he's not listening to this, tell him I said hello. But if you are listening, Toby.

• 4:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 4:11Shawn Ryan?

  Hello.

• 4:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, what's up? What's up? Hey, what's up? I'm like, I'm saying hey to the microphone like he's up there.

• 4:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but uh, well, you got quite the extensive career to cover. And uh, so we're gonna hit as much of it as we possibly can.

• 4:30Shawn Ryan?

  Thank God he didn't go Air Force, huh? How different your life would be if that would have happened.

• 4:34Speaker 05

  Dude, I'd be a jet mechanic at the airport, you know what I mean? Maybe I'd have a nice vest on. What if I got the cone lights, like? You know what I mean? You don't know, I could be good at that.

• 4:45Shawn Ryan?

  That's right, that's right.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  And then the cone lights could have spore, spawned me like dancing in the cage and gay clubs, you know what I mean? Then I'm rich. You know what I mean? Like, it actually, that wouldn't have been bad either, I think. Now that I think about it, that's a pretty good route.

• 5:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I guess so. But um, quick introduction, not that you'd need one, but uh, here we go.

• 5:12Shawn Ryan?

  John Shrek McPhee, you are a master instructor and subject matter expert, also known as the Sheriff of Baghdad or Shrek. You are a retired US Army Special Operations Sergeant Major with over 20 years of distinguished service. You've specialized in various special minute unit, special mission units, accumulated extensive combat experience across multiple theaters. You are one of, if not the only one, to pull off, pull off a successful solo raid in Afghanistan. Aside from the Singleton mission into Tora Bora, you've had hundreds of solo missions in Iraq and was a taxi driver in Baghdad. You also burned a lot of cars.

• 5:57Shawn Ryan?

  Can't wait to get into that.

• 5:58Speaker 05

  My favorite pastime. If anyone's out there and got a picture of me burning cars, yo, hit me with that shit right now, like. Through divorces and stuff, I don't care. You know what I mean? So, there's guys out there, got these pics, I want them.

• 6:13Shawn Ryan?

  You are the former boss of Tim Kennedy and called one of the greatest warfighters of all time by Kennedy. Since retiring, you have been a trailblazer in video diagnostic training, analyzing shooting techniques with unparalleled precision through a specialized app. You created SOBTV, which is the number one online platform for military law enforcement and civilians interested in leadership, gear reviews, mindset, firearms training, home defense, and military history. Your mantra is efficiency is speed and accuracy applied simultaneously with perfect technique. You realized after years in the military, you weren't the funny guy anymore

• 6:58Shawn Ryan?

  and wanted to change that. So today, you strive to be funny and positive every day of your life.

• 7:05Speaker 05

  Amen.

• 7:06Shawn Ryan?

  Amen, amen.

• 7:08Speaker 05

  Couldn't have said it better.

• 7:09Shawn Ryan?

  And you're a family man.

• 7:10Speaker 05

  I am, I am, yeah. Yeah, I do a lot of things, man. Like, I tell people all the time on the range, like, this shooting shit is like 3% of what I could do. The other 97%, like, we should talk about that. You know what I mean?

• 7:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 05

  But I never get to showcase that because we're just on the range, you know?

• 7:27Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I bet that's an eye-opener for them.

• 7:30Speaker 05

  I don't think, I think anyone, when I say that, I think most people just laugh, think I'm talking shit. But like, I'm kind of serious, you know what I mean?

• 7:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, so before we get too in the weeds, and what I want to do is do a complete life story on you, starting a childhood, going through your career, and into what you're doing today. But before we dive into that, we just got a couple of things to go through. One is, I have a subscription account on Patreon. There are top supporters that have been with us since the beginning. It's a, it's a, it's just a growing, awesome community to be a part of. And one of the things that I give them the opportunity to do is ask each guest a question. And so...

• 8:14Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 8:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, here we go.

• 8:16Speaker 05

  Fan questions? I love this. Let's go.

• 8:19Shawn Ryan?

  All right, so this is, this is from Greg.

• 8:21Speaker 05

  Greg.

• 8:22Shawn Ryan?

  What's the scariest moment you've ever been in outside of war?

• 8:30Speaker 05

  Scariest moment I've ever been in outside of war?

• 8:37Speaker 05

  Man, I don't think, I don't think that's a thing. You know what I mean? Like when you're a badass, you got it like that. Like fear is obviously not a problem for me.

• 8:49Speaker 05

  I don't know. I think I was scared of a lot of stuff as a little kid. Scared of the dark, right? But I don't know if I, if, if I have a fear. I have one fear and I don't like shots.

• 9:04Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it could be farting on a first date. I don't know what it is, you know? Shots?

• 9:08Speaker 05

  I don't care about that. Shots, man.

• 9:10Shawn Ryan?

  Not a vaccine guy, huh?

• 9:12Speaker 05

  Well, I don't like anything piercing my skin. I think, I think that's the, anything that pierces my skin and blood might come out. I'm not sure if I'm super cool with that. You know what I mean? So shots is always a big deal, you know? And yeah, I've been married and you know, like you gotta go get your shot. And I always allow somebody to administer medicine on the inside of my body. You know what I'm saying? Like I'm allowing you to do this, so let's get it. You know what I'm saying? Uh, but shots, man, I don't that at all. You know what I mean?

• 9:49Shawn Ryan?

  I do, I do.

• 9:50Speaker 05

  I just didn't know the whole needle thing is a, a turtle. Like, and it's not painful. It's not like, I'm like, oh my God, I hurt so bad. Like I do jujitsu grown men and try to pull my head off my body every day. It's not the pain. It's the.

• 10:05Shawn Ryan?

  It's the anticipation.

• 10:07Speaker 05

  Of you're puncturing my skin maybe and blood's coming out. I don't know, but that's, that's my, one of my, you know, like that.

• 10:15Shawn Ryan?

  Roger that. Next question, this is from Alex.

• 10:21Shawn Ryan?

  Out of these 20 years of war and all the blood, sweat and tears and heartache we all went through in this conflict. How do you feel when you found out that we were going to pull out of Afghanistan completely?

• 10:32Speaker 05

  Yo, if you didn't read the fine print when you went in, which said we were gonna this up on the way out. Not shocked, no shocker. Man, we had, dude, I can't tell you how many conversations we had before we went in. This is where empires go to and die. No shock, I'm not shocked. Anybody who's shocked, you're.

• 10:53Speaker 05

  Check your pride a little bit and don't be more mad than your bosses when this shit goes down. Like, because the reality is, is like, I knew it was gonna end poorly the day I stepped foot on that dirt.

• 11:06Shawn Ryan?

  Did you really?

• 11:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. Who didn't? You thought that was, first day you got there, you thought it was gonna go well over there?

• 11:13Shawn Ryan?

  I didn't think it was gonna go well. I don't think it was going to. I didn't, I mean, I'd never envisioned the withdrawal, but I will say that I am enraged at how that went down.

• 11:24Speaker 05

  Oh, I mean, it's, it's a tragedy. We'll be fighting that equipment forever.

• 11:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 05

  Like, that equipment just went to Iran, you know what I mean? You know the deal. We're, Iran, China, the bad actors, get all our shit, one up it, and then we gotta figure out how to one up them. It never ends. But the reality is, is like, this is exactly how I expected it to end my first day in combat, even though I loved every day I got rocketed and mortared. You know what I mean? Like, I knew it would end like that.

• 11:54Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. How did you know? I mean, I'm just curious.

• 11:57Speaker 05

  I just felt like everyone in the team rooms knew, you know what I mean? We're getting ready to go to Afghanistan, we're training, we're waiting for somebody in the government to do something, you know, cuz from September to December, there's time in there to can get in some reading, you know what I mean? Do some training, learn some shit, you know, read the Russian AARs. What is it? The Bear Over the Mountain is the Russian book or whatever. Read that shit and you'll see, like, we did the same as them. The only thing that we succeeded over the Russians in Afghanistan was cleanliness, cuz that's what killed the Russians. They didn't wash their hands, you know what I mean? They're out raping people, then licking their fingers. I don't know what they're doing, you know what I mean?

• 12:40Speaker 05

  But, but dirtiness, dysentery, like, that's what killed the Russians, not the Afghans.

• 12:47Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. I don't know a lot about that. But, um, so you talk a lot about military history. Maybe we should start paying attention to whatever that TV show you got is. But, um, we'll get into the weeds on that. So, last thing before we get started, everybody gets a gift?

• 13:05Speaker 05

  Yes, I brought some for you, too.

• 13:07Shawn Ryan?

  Ooh, I love gifts.

• 13:07Speaker 05

  So this is an exchange. You want me to do this first?

• 13:10Shawn Ryan?

  Go ahead.

• 13:11Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 13:11Shawn Ryan?

  Go ahead.

• 13:14Speaker 05

  These are the gummy, okay, so, real talk, I don't watch podcasts.

• 13:19Shawn Ryan?

  All good.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  I have no idea what you normally talk about. I've probably caught about, maybe 10 seconds to maybe 30 seconds of your podcast and like different clips of different people saying stuff over the years. I do know about the gummy bears. I just got one question. Is there weed in these or anything?

• 13:38Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want there to be?

• 13:39Speaker 05

  No.

• 13:40Shawn Ryan?

  Well, there isn't.

• 13:41Speaker 05

  Then I, it's candy.

• 13:42Shawn Ryan?

  It's candy, it's just candy.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  So, first off, this shit's gonna get crushed. Hey, hey, I got a friend, I'm not gonna name any names. He might be with me right now. This is all he's been wanting and talking about from, at Machado camp, like, man, we're gonna get these gummy, can I have some gummy bears? So, I couldn't be happier with this, thank you. Thank you so much.

• 14:06Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome.

• 14:07Speaker 05

  Uh, let's see, both of these the same?

• 14:09Shawn Ryan?

  Both the same, that's it.

• 14:11Speaker 05

  Boom, and then there are some stickers in the bottom or something?

• 14:14Shawn Ryan?

  Is there some stickers in there? Nice, nice, nice.

• 14:19Speaker 05

  Be like, shameless plug.

• 14:23Shawn Ryan?

  You put that on your helmet.

• 14:25Speaker 05

  I will, I will, I'll put it on the back of my body armor, like.

• 14:33Speaker 05

  Love it. I couldn't be happier about these gummy bears.

• 14:35Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 14:36Speaker 05

  I was like, if there, if there's weed in them, like, I don't really... Gummy bears with weed, like, I could eat the whole bag, it doesn't do shit to me, I don't know why, so like, they're worthless to me, you know what I mean?

• 14:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 14:49Speaker 05

  But candy, I love candy, so, my inner fat kid is strong, super strong. Okay, I brung this for you, there's a ton of shit in here, right? So, um, have at it.

• 15:04Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 15:04Speaker 05

  So, Team SOB backpack, right?

• 15:07Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 15:07Speaker 05

  Uh, we give these out like at the members' parties and stuff, like, we also give out like shot glasses where you can wear it around your neck, so you know, you always got it at the parties, like, so, uh, we give out a lot of stuff, man. Uh, okay, so, that is a cooling schmog, right? So you know schmogs, right? Wear it around your head. I made them out of cooling material.

• 15:29Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 15:30Speaker 05

  My, I bet, I look, I'm on the range all the time. We talked about this, right? So it's big enough to where it'll hold enough water. Where if you wear it like a schmog, I just dump like it'll, it'll hold a lot of water so it stays cool longer. You know what I mean? Like most cooling towels are like this big. And it's like you can barely tie it around your neck. And then it's like one layer and it just dries quick. Right? So I just do the, the kind of diamond fold. I tie a small knot in it around my neck and I just dump water in the back when I'm on the range. And they work great.

• 16:09Shawn Ryan?

  What else do we got in here?

• 16:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. The team SOB T-shirt. Welcome to the team. That's a good looking shirt.

• 16:18Shawn Ryan?

  That is.

• 16:19Speaker 05

  One of my favorites. Classic. Clean lines.

• 16:22Shawn Ryan?

  Another one.

• 16:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, just in case.

• 16:24Shawn Ryan?

  Just.

• 16:25Speaker 05

  I didn't know what size you were.

• 16:26Shawn Ryan?

  Two is one and one is none.

• 16:28Speaker 05

  So, yeah. Hey, you got one where you could cut the sleeves off it to your hero shots. You know what I mean? Cigar in your mouth, M60 like, hey, people.

• 16:38Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, nice, a sling.

• 16:39Speaker 05

  Rifle slings, yeah. I, so we're on Amazon Prime now. You can get these on Prime. 100% made in America. I make this myself. I've made it myself. Basically two point sling adjustable. And then I make my own QD. So you can see I have a machined. The reason I make my own QD is the older QDs with the, like the barrel ring. You know what I'm talking about? This crimp crimps the ball bearings in. So when you pull it out, the whole thing comes out of the rifle. Once that thing's together, it'll never fail unless you break the socket or something. There's no way you can get them ball bearings out of there with our manufacturing process.

• 17:23Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 17:24Speaker 05

  So 100% Berry compliant, made in America, baby.

• 17:29Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 17:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:30Shawn Ryan?

  Made in America. You don't hear that very often anymore.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  Yeah. Well, I was hoping maybe one day if the army's listening, you know what I mean? It's Berry compliant, guys. 100% Berry compliant.

• 17:42Shawn Ryan?

  Those gummy bears are made in America too, so.

• 17:47Shawn Ryan?

  Maybe the army's listening to that.

• 17:49Speaker 05

  There you go, people. Get this in that MRE. Okay, so I gave you a SIG holster. I know you're a SIG guy, so that's the little SIG condom holster, also on Prime, made in America. Actually, an ex-police chief makes those for me. And then basically, leather. Why leather?

• 18:10Shawn Ryan?

  I love leather.

• 18:11Speaker 05

  I love leather, right? And then we kind of started, when I was early as a commando, we started with leather and like items. And then somewhere we transitioned to holsters to like that nylon piece of shit. You know, the old, I don't know, Eagle, I don't know who made it. I'm not naming any names, sorry Eagle, if it wasn't you, or it was, I mean, it is what it is. But that holster lost more guns than any other holster, because the nylon won't stay tight, and the gun's too heavy, and it'll just pop out. That's where the lanyards came from, right? And then KIDEX came along, and I started using KIDEX.

• 18:53Speaker 05

  And then what would happen is, I'd use the KIDEX, I'd run the O course, and I had this really nice KIDEX EDC. I'm running the EDC, running the O course one day, and it cracked. And this is when I knew I had a fupa, you know what I mean? Because it pinched my fupa, you know what I mean? It cracked and pinched my fupa, and I had to pull it off of there. You know what I'm saying? Before then, I didn't know I had a fupa, you know what I mean? I thought this was of legends, and it fucking cracked. And then I was like, fucking done with the KIDEX inside my pants. Outside my pants, fucking fine. Inside my pants, I went back to leather. So the KIDEX holster that pinched

• 19:38Speaker 05

  my fupa, I made a copy of it, and out of leather, and that's all I've been wearing ever since.

• 19:44Shawn Ryan?

  Man, this is, this is cool.

• 19:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, and we call it the condom, because it's minimalist.

• 19:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. And I don't know anybody else that's making leather, uh,

• 19:53Speaker 05

  Well, that's cause, that's cause it's always, you'll shoot yourself in the Walmart parking lot. Cause if you Google leather holsters, this is what all the KiteX manufactures propaganda. This is what they'll all tell you. The guy shot himself dry firing, waiting on his wife to go shopping in Walmart. It's like, yo, time the fuck out. Let's ask a real question. Why the fuck is this guy dry firing in the Walmart parking lot? While he's sitting down. Can we ask that question first before we blame the fucking holster? And then if you're gonna do that, what's this guy's level of fucking training? Can we ask that? Like, I got some questions before we blame the gear. You know what I mean?

• 20:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. What else do we got?

• 20:33Speaker 05

  Oh, boot kits. So, your shoelaces, you, you feed them through the thing? And then you put the clamp. So all you gotta do is pull it and go to tie your shoes.

• 20:44Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 20:45Speaker 05

  Kinda like a Solomon, but, uh, normally I put those, you know, the big Solomon quests?

• 20:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 05

  The quests, uh, the, the boot in the picture. That's what I use it for.

• 20:57Shawn Ryan?

  Literally all this stuff is made in the USA?

• 20:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• 21:07Speaker 05

  Yeah. Hey, I give you some pens. I got, I made purple markers this year, cause I just got my purple belt. Thanks, Hickson. If you're watching, Coach Hickson. Uh, I gave you a couple pens. Those pens write really nice. You know what I mean? I figured you could use a impress your friends with a Sheriff of Baghdad pen.

• 21:23Shawn Ryan?

  Some stickers?

• 21:24Speaker 05

  Yeah. I gave you the, the kinda gamut of swag. You got some super push in there. You got that prison wallet. You know what I mean? You got the stop sucking dick for beer money. They're all in there, man. Like, yeah, the slaughterhouse, uh, chaos is my jam. That's real talk.

• 21:42Shawn Ryan?

  Nice. Is that it? Oh, we got one more. One more.

• 21:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. Slaughter things.

• 21:47Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 21:48Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 21:49Shawn Ryan?

  A beanie. Slaughter things. Nice.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  You look like you could keep your head warm, just like me. Like, you know what I mean? I don't got too much insulation, just like you up there. I'm just not brave enough to do what you do yet, but I'm, I think I'm there.

• 22:03Shawn Ryan?

  Just get it over with.

• 22:05Speaker 05

  You think so?

• 22:06Shawn Ryan?

  Best decision. Well, I don't know if it'll be the best decision you've ever made, but it sure saves a hell of a lot of time in the mornings.

• 22:13Speaker 05

  Amen. Yeah, I kinda, I kinda do the one size. Top or bottom myself.

• 22:19Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 22:20Speaker 05

  Ain't got that much, but.

• 22:22Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's get into your life story. Ready for this?

• 22:25Speaker 05

  Go, yeah.

• 22:26Shawn Ryan?

  Let's do it. All right, so once again, start at childhood, move through your career and into what you're doing now. And thank you for, thank you for all the gifts I'm lacking.

• 22:37Speaker 05

  Thanks, man. Yeah, well, you need anything, just hit me. You know what I mean? I'm easy.

• 22:40Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect, I will. So, where'd you grow up?

• 22:44Speaker 05

  Chicago. Or Chicano, however you want to say it. Uh, I grew up on the South Side. Um, we lived by this, as a little kid, I lived by the steel mills until the steel mill shut down. Uh, all my grandparents, my mom, like, we lived in one of them row houses where it was like my aunt, my grandparents, us, uh, they all walked to the steel mill, walked back at the end of the day. And then one day, the steel mill was locked. And like, you know, fucking South Chicago, that's all it wrote.

• 23:15Shawn Ryan?

  Man, what, uh, what were you, do you have any siblings?

• 23:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, I have an older brother.

• 23:21Shawn Ryan?

  You guys?

• 23:21Speaker 05

  Couple of years. Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He'll probably watch this, he watches, he loves this shit, like, actually, he tells me all the time, I say the same, no matter how many years I've been telling these stories, they're always the same. That's what he tells me. He's like, I heard you on the show. I'd be like, what'd you think? You're always the same. I'm like, thanks, man. At least I'm fucking consistent, if not any fucking thing, you know what I mean? But yeah, me and my brother, Chris, I talk to him all the time.

• 23:45Shawn Ryan?

  What were you guys into as, as kids?

• 23:47Speaker 05

  Man, uh, what were we into? We fucking played in the woods, we wrestled, we didn't wear helmets and rode bikes. We jumped ramps that were sketchy and wiped out. Uh, let's see, as teenagers, we drove drunk, just like everyone else, like.

• 24:05Speaker 05

  Typical fucking shit, you know what I mean? Like, just boys being boys with kinda no guidance, you know what I mean?

• 24:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. What were you, I mean, were you into sports, student?

• 24:16Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, I was, uh, yeah, I've always been that seventy, like, what's the passing seventy percent? Is that where you pass? Cause that's like where I like to hover, you know what I mean? Like, so as a kid, like, I'd come home with like one D and all Cs, you know what I mean? Um, they're buying me ice cream, you know what I mean? This kid's gonna catch another beating, cause he gotta be, you know what I mean? Like, this kinda wasn't fair, but, uh, I don't know. I didn't really ever complain.

• 24:45Shawn Ryan?

  What were you, I mean, what was your passion as a kid? Was it sports, was it wilderness, hunting?

• 24:50Speaker 05

  I worked. I was a mechanic, I worked. That's all I did, is I worked on trucks.

• 24:54Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 24:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:56Shawn Ryan?

  You grew up, when did you start working?

• 25:00Speaker 05

  I probably started working when I was like eight, ten. Uh, my stepdad was a truck driver, he owned his own truck, and I would just, uh, I'd service it, adjust the brakes, grease it weekly, like, I'd do the kinda weekly services or monthly services, you know? So by the time I was like fucking ten, I could service a semi truck.

• 25:22Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, good.

• 25:23Speaker 05

  And then I pumped gas in a gas station where he worked out of with his truck, and then I kinda worked my way up, um, until like, you know, I mean, I kinda did it all. And then, uh, later I got another job at another shop where I just welded. Basically what I did is, there's a lot of gravel hauling trucks where I grew up. So like these gravel hauling trucks, like, the bed goes up, and they're on unstable ground, they'll, they'll flip over. The truck may not always flip, it'll break the frame, crush like part of the wall of the trailer. I just, it'd take me like two, three weeks, but I'd rebuild the truck and trailer, make it look exactly like it was, it just, that part would be clean, and the rest of this fucking thing would be dirty.

• 26:07Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 26:08Speaker 05

  That's what I did as a kid.

• 26:10Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you started working at eight, was that out of necessity, or you just?

• 26:14Speaker 05

  I just, I think my stepdad seen I was pretty handy mechanically, and just started showing me stuff. You know what I mean? And then, after a little bit, I could do it myself, and then he kinda, that's how I got allowance.

• 26:27Shawn Ryan?

  Did you like it?

• 26:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, fucking loved it, yeah, I loved mechanical shit.

• 26:31Shawn Ryan?

  What got your interest into the military?

• 26:34Speaker 05

  You know, I knew everyone in my family had been in the military. I kinda didn't know to what level at that point. I knew I would join.

• 26:45Speaker 05

  I was just making so much money as a welder and a mechanic that like,

• 26:51Speaker 05

  does it make sense, right? Cause until I was an E7,

• 26:56Speaker 05

  I took a pay cut to join the army.

• 26:58Shawn Ryan?

  No shit? What age were you when you joined?

• 27:00Speaker 05

  Twenty-one.

• 27:01Shawn Ryan?

  Twenty-one?

• 27:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I was a welder and mechanic. I made good money. I mean, I was a, I asked my boss one day. I was like, hey, how come I'm the guy that always gets these fucked up trucks in this fucking two-week, three-week rebuild process? Like, I want that easy shit. I wanna be changing these tires, in and out shit. And he's like, you're the only one with the mental capacity here that could probably pull it off. And I was like,

• 27:25Speaker 05

  well, that sucks.

• 27:28Speaker 05

  And he's like, back to work. I'm like, okay, boss, back to work.

• 27:32Shawn Ryan?

  I think I read something that said that you, there was a lot of fighting as a kid.

• 27:38Speaker 05

  I fought, yeah. Uh, high school, I fought a lot.

• 27:41Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 27:43Speaker 05

  Uh, I was the only white guy, so I just got, people just wanted to beat me up all the time. Every day on the bus.

• 27:52Shawn Ryan?

  Every day?

• 27:52Speaker 05

  Every day.

• 27:53Shawn Ryan?

  What age did that start?

• 27:55Speaker 05

  Freshman year. Uh, yeah. Uh, I had to ride a bus to school. I was the only white kid on the bus, only white kid in my school. Um, kinda like school for bad boys for fighting in other schools. Um, so I was the only white guy and like, you know, imagine being on a bus with 72 people who don't like you. You know what I mean? So I just got beat up every day. And at some point I realized, I'm never gonna win, per se, right? But I can start doing better. And then what I started doing is, uh, if you were gonna jump me today, I'm gonna make sure one or two of you are going to the hospital for a couple of weeks. That's two less people I'm gonna deal with tomorrow.

• 28:40Speaker 05

  And if this goes on on a daily basis, you're gonna be 10 or 12 people down super quick. Sure, you beat me up every day. Sure did. I just focus on one person.

• 28:50Shawn Ryan?

  Where'd you learn how to fight?

• 28:52Speaker 05

  On that fucking bus.

• 28:55Speaker 05

  On that fucking bus is where I learned to fight. And then eventually the school paid for a cab. Cause every morning the cops had to pull us over, broken seats, broken windows, broken arms, broken noses, broken. And then um, it just got so expensive for the school. They just like paid for a cab in this cab. Some rando would pick me up. Every might see the cab. I'd go get in it. They'd drive me to school.

• 29:17Shawn Ryan?

  Nice. Wow. Wow. Same for your brother?

• 29:20Speaker 05

  Uh, no, my brother was smart. He went to like smart guy's school.

• 29:23Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha. So this, what was this like a disciplinary school?

• 29:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:27Shawn Ryan?

  What got you in there?

• 29:29Speaker 05

  Fighting.

• 29:30Shawn Ryan?

  Fighting at the other school?

• 29:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:32Shawn Ryan?

  Who were you fighting over there?

• 29:33Speaker 05

  Uh, you know, stupid high school kid shit. I don't even remember.

• 29:38Shawn Ryan?

  So you just liked to fight?

• 29:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'll fuck you up. If I think you wronged me, I will come fuck you up. I don't talk shit or nothing. I will tell you exactly what I'm gonna do. Don't fucking test me. And I'll tell you a funny story. I had a, you know, he's probably listened to this. There's a warrant officer one day, right? Like, I don't know, giving me shit, my, me and my team, like, whatever, we're doing whatever. He doesn't like it. He's a warrant officer. And I was like, if you don't get the fuck out of my shoot house, I'm gonna kick you in the fucking ass. And he's like, you can't touch me. I'm an officer. And I had a big like quest boot on or big scarpa boot. I fucking Muay Thai kicked that motherfucker in the ass so hard, he dropped, fucking couldn't breathe.

• 30:24Speaker 05

  I think Timmy was there. I think Timmy watched this, you know what I mean? And like, he dropped, he couldn't breathe. And I'm like, say another word, motherfucker. And I will fuck you up now. And like, he never said a word after that.

• 30:37Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet he didn't.

• 30:38Speaker 05

  So, yeah, even as a kid, like, I don't talk shit. I'm telling you what's gonna happen and this will happen. And I'm just waiting for the start point.

• 30:47Shawn Ryan?

  So you were never an instigator?

• 30:49Speaker 05

  No, no, I ain't gonna start shit.

• 30:52Shawn Ryan?

  It was all self-defense?

• 30:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, you fuck with me, I'm gonna take it to you. You know what I mean? Like, I don't fuck around. And then, I think I was a little less ruthless in regular high school before the bus. After the bus, like, yo, fuck you. Fuck this, I'm not in the mood.

• 31:08Shawn Ryan?

  So whose decision was it to put you in that school? Was it parents or was it the school district?

• 31:13Speaker 05

  School, parents, they all hated me.

• 31:16Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 31:17Speaker 05

  But, you know, I mean, I had a dicey childhood to begin with, so like, I didn't give a fuck what my parents thought.

• 31:23Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 31:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it, I think both me and my brother, like, by the age of like, I don't know, he was maybe fourteen, I was twelve. I think we both knew we were more mature than my mom and my parents.

• 31:35Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you say that?

• 31:38Speaker 05

  My parents were young people, they were young when they had us, they drank all the time, they wanted to party, you know what I mean? Like, they weren't really great parents.

• 31:46Shawn Ryan?

  Are you, are they still alive?

• 31:49Speaker 05

  No, I don't have any fam- my family dies early.

• 31:52Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 31:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, I don't have anybody but my brother.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  So they're all dead.

• 31:58Shawn Ryan?

  Do you mind if I ask what happened?

• 32:00Speaker 05

  Uh, let's see, my dad died at like fifty, already outlived him, uh, of some like weird fucking shit I don't even know about. And then, uh, my mom died, uh, she's a smoker, so she had lung cancer, kinda died once from that. Came back to get brain cancer later, to die later, you know what I mean?

• 32:20Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 32:22Speaker 05

  So, uh, but yeah, they were young, they were drinkers, my mom was divorced, just like most women, once they get divorced, some, you know how some women, after they get divorced, they just stay bitter?

• 32:32Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 32:33Speaker 05

  That was my mom. But she became bitter with everybody, she argued with her sisters, she argued with her parents, she, you know, she hated everybody, right? And then me and my brother were like, there's gotta be a better way than this.

• 32:45Shawn Ryan?

  Man, so was there, I mean, when you left home, was there any dialogue with them?

• 32:50Speaker 05

  Man, uh, I left home at like, we left home at twelve and fourteen and then, we just did crime to eat till I was older and then I, I worked.

• 33:01Shawn Ryan?

  What do you mean you did crime?

• 33:02Speaker 05

  We did crime for food.

• 33:04Shawn Ryan?

  Like what?

• 33:05Speaker 05

  Fucking robbing shit, fucking stealing food, fuck, anything, you know what I mean? Targets opportunity.

• 33:10Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know what you mean.

• 33:12Speaker 05

  We fucking stole shit. I mean, I can't be more clear.

• 33:15Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, were you stealing, you were stealing food to eat, or you were stealing stuff to sell?

• 33:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, stealing stuff to sell for food, or, yeah. Yeah, that's what we did.

• 33:25Shawn Ryan?

  What did that, what age did that start?

• 33:28Speaker 05

  Twelve.

• 33:29Shawn Ryan?

  Twelve?

• 33:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:30Shawn Ryan?

  So you started working at eight?

• 33:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, I worked till about this point. Me and my brother kind of went on our own. And then later I came back to working, probably when I was about,

• 33:42Speaker 05

  I don't know, fifteen. I realized I had to put myself through school, so no matter where I lived, like, we lived in a brothel for a little bit, but, um.

• 33:50Shawn Ryan?

  You lived in a brothel?

• 33:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:51Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 33:54Speaker 05

  Not a lot of places for a twelve-year-old to go.

• 33:56Shawn Ryan?

  How does a twelve-year-old get involved in a brothel? And get able?

• 34:00Speaker 05

  Uh, these are the people and your neighbors in South Chicago. These are, these are your neighbors and family, you know what I mean?

• 34:10Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I want to hear about this.

• 34:12Speaker 05

  Uh.

• 34:13Shawn Ryan?

  How did that, I mean, how did that happen? Did you get invited into the brothel to live?

• 34:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, this lady took care of us, the lady that ran it, kind of deal. She was like a hooker and a junkie, and I was just a little kid, when I was twelve.

• 34:26Shawn Ryan?

  Well, how was that conversation?

• 34:28Speaker 05

  Uh, nicest human being I ever met. She was great.

• 34:33Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, what instigated that to happen, though?

• 34:35Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, my, my, you know, the, the beatings will continue till morale improves. Even as a twelve-year-old, that's fucking, you know, why are we fighting again? So me and my brother thought we could do better on our own.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  And we did.

• 34:49Shawn Ryan?

  Did she approach you?

• 34:51Speaker 05

  Who? No, it's like a family friend, you know what I mean? Like, literally family and friends, like, when you grow up, your parents, like, you have cousins, uncles, people that know people. South Chicago's a little place.

• 35:06Shawn Ryan?

  How long did you live in the brothel?

• 35:09Speaker 05

  I don't know, man, probably a couple of years.

• 35:12Shawn Ryan?

  Have you talked about this on anywhere else?

• 35:14Speaker 05

  I've never told anyone this.

• 35:16Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I guess your brother's in for a surprise now, huh? So.

• 35:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:22Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sorry, how long did you say you lived in there?

• 35:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, like a year, two, I don't know, I don't even remember, but a little while.

• 35:28Shawn Ryan?

  What was, I mean, can you describe maybe a little bit about daily life?

• 35:32Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I woke up, went to school, um, came back from school. Um, and then like there'd be ladies in the house getting ready for work. They were normally gone all night. Um, we lived with this, this old guy actually owned the house. And as long as he got whatever he wanted, he didn't give a shit what they did. It's, I don't know, I don't get it. It seemed weird. I'll never be in that situation, but I'm not judging. Um, and then, yeah, it was just kinda, kinda regular. Like no different than where I lived, except we were a little poor. Which we didn't have money to begin with, you know what I mean?

• 36:12Shawn Ryan?

  Would you guys have a room there?

• 36:14Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, we shared a room.

• 36:18Shawn Ryan?

  Customers coming in the house or is?

• 36:20Speaker 05

  No, normally they would go, go wherever, do business.

• 36:23Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha. Did you realize what was going on at the time?

• 36:25Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 36:26Shawn Ryan?

  You did.

• 36:27Speaker 05

  I mean, I could have been shooting heroin, doing heroin, doing, I could have been doing it all. I just, I was a kid, I just wanted to get through school, put myself through school, right? And then figured I'd do something after that, I didn't know yet.

• 36:42Shawn Ryan?

  Shit. What was your relationship with your stepdad like? Was it?

• 36:45Speaker 05

  Um, you know, my mom was bitter, so he was only around when I was little. And then he was gone. And then it was like boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, fucking guys, man.

• 36:56Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 36:58Speaker 05

  So, that's my childhood, little dicey.

• 37:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I'm sure there's a lot more to dive into there.

• 37:05Speaker 05

  Huh?

• 37:05Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet there's a lot to dive into.

• 37:08Speaker 05

  It's a long time ago.

• 37:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:10Speaker 05

  You know what I mean?

• 37:11Shawn Ryan?

  So when you left, I mean, you left at 12.

• 37:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, lived on my own, uh, till I was like, I don't know, maybe 16.

• 37:23Speaker 05

  And then my mom kinda like, I don't know, kinda started to get her shit together. So I moved back with her. I lived with her. And then I lived with her until I joined the army.

• 37:34Shawn Ryan?

  How'd she get her shit together?

• 37:36Speaker 05

  Um, she just stopped being so fucking mean and drinking so, I don't know if the drinking stopped. But, uh, I don't know. She was just better. I don't know what that means. I don't know what her better was. I was just a fucking kid like, why I gotta be the fucking adult here all the time? You know what I mean?

• 37:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:59Speaker 05

  So, uh, yeah, I lived with her, um, put myself through school all those years. Went to school every fucking day, no matter what. Walked myself fucking down the tracks in the fucking snow. You know what I mean? Like, I wasn't barefoot and then I didn't have to walk uphill both ways. But like, I had shoes and I walked to fucking school and miles to school every day just to make sure I went.

• 38:25Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of drugs was your mother into?

• 38:27Speaker 05

  She just did alcohol.

• 38:29Shawn Ryan?

  Alcohol, no injectables?

• 38:31Speaker 05

  Not that I'm aware of, no. I don't think she ever did anything like that.

• 38:35Shawn Ryan?

  Abusive?

• 38:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, of course. Alcohol, you know what I mean?

• 38:40Shawn Ryan?

  I got a question.

• 38:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 38:41Shawn Ryan?

  There's a lot of kids that are in this situation right now today.

• 38:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:45Shawn Ryan?

  So what would your advice be to a kid that's going through that?

• 38:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, fucking do you. Go to school. Look, you're not gonna go anywhere if you don't go to school. Go to fucking school every day. School was a break from the bullshit in my fucking life, right? I didn't like school. I didn't learn. I still got Cs. I still slept, you know? Why? Cause this is, sometimes I was fucking tired, cause who knows what craziness went out of my house last night, right? So I'd tell you, go to school, conduct your life. If you see you're the fucking adult in any situation, I don't care your age.

• 39:20Speaker 05

  You're now the adult, fucking act like it. You don't got a choice. You know what I mean? So you might as well embrace the life you think you want. So I went to school. I knew I didn't want to stay in a fucked up South Chicago my whole life.

• 39:35Speaker 06

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 40:04Speaker 00

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

• 40:08Speaker 01

  On October 2nd.

• 40:09Speaker 00

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

• 40:13Speaker 01

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

• 40:21Speaker 02

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

• 40:25Speaker 01

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 40:28Speaker 02

  I'm not the first daddy.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  Digger, see the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R, under 17, not a minute without parent.

• 40:35Shawn Ryan?

  So you get in, you go to boot camp. How was that?

• 40:40Speaker 05

  Fucking easy.

• 40:41Shawn Ryan?

  Was it easy for you, all that structure from?

• 40:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:44Shawn Ryan?

  A broken home life?

• 40:45Speaker 05

  Easy, yeah.

• 40:46Shawn Ryan?

  Did you like the structure?

• 40:48Speaker 05

  No, fuck no. I don't like structure. I don't like fucking, I don't like leadership. I don't like being managed. You know what I mean? Like, I don't like any of that. But basic training was easy. Wake up, do your shit. Pretty fucking simple. You know what I mean? The garbage cans only going across the floor because it's scripted, and they probably do this every fucking month. You know what I mean? And as a guy who loves talking shit and being funny at the time, like, these obscenities were new to me, and I thought that was great. And like, they'd yell at somebody, and I just, I'm over there trying to hold back my laughter, and then, you know, my drills are gonna be like, do pushups. I mean, I, yes, yes, I'm done. You know what I mean? Why? Because I'm laughing again, because I think his obscenities are funny.

• 41:32Speaker 05

  Even when he'd yell at me, I thought it was funny. You know what I mean? So I thought basic training was great, man. I had a great fucking time. Loved every minute of it. Where'd you go from there? Uh, RIP. Back in the RIP, not rasp, the RIP days. Uh, well, airborne school then RIP. That was airborne. Joke. Yeah. You did airborne school, right? I did. It's a joke. I thought it was a joke. You thought it was a joke? Thought it was a joke. It's a fucking joke. I was just hungover all the time. And then I get in trouble for buying beer for people and, uh, but yeah, airborne school was just a joke. Besides getting out of the plane the first time, the rest was a joke. And then you went to, you went to real?

• 42:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. And like literally those motherfuckers showed up at like your air, you know how you graduate? You get that airborne beret. Yo, I got it ripped off my head. I never seen that bitch again. You know what I mean? I would have liked to have had that now. You know what I mean? What the fuck is this? And then literally they're like, load the fucking truck. So you throw your like two duffel bags on the truck. They don't say shit and the truck drove away. We had to fucking run this truck down across post to the fucking RIP barracks. Like what the fuck? If it wasn't for the stop signs and the traffic, like we'd have lost them, never been able to, and these motherfuckers just took off. It was like, what do we do? I was like, I think we follow our bags. And I just started like, that's everything the army gave me. I can't just let these guys drive off with it.

• 42:57Speaker 05

  Like, and then we ran to the RIP barracks.

• 43:02Speaker 05

  And then those guys were fucking serious. Like, the army was a joke till then. And that's when I realized like, the armies might be a joke. If basic training airborne school might be a joke, but these guys ain't fucking around at all. You know what I mean? Like the first time I seen a guy run the airfield at five minute miles and I'm supposed to keep up like,

• 43:25Speaker 05

  what in the fuck is this? You know what I mean? Like a dude took off so fast, I couldn't even, I just stood there and everyone's like running. I'm like, oh, oh, fuck. Now I'm like waste. I'm never gonna catch up now. You know what I mean? Did you?

• 43:44Shawn Ryan?

  Because I shouldn't make assumptions, but I would think that you didn't have a lot of respect for anybody, any adults in your childhood because of your upbringing.

• 43:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, I wouldn't say that at all. I respected people that earned respect. I didn't respect people who are just fucking, you know, fucking Karens out there doing whatever the fuck they do or whoever these, you know what I mean? Like, I learned real quick, people were who they were and at face value, you're a fucking asshole or you're not. And I could figure that out quick.

• 44:20Shawn Ryan?

  Well, kind of the reason I'm asking is, I mean, you grew up fighting. Obviously, the home life wasn't great. And so when you get to Ranger Battalion and you see all these guys, these studs, you, you respect them, huh?

• 44:39Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. I knew I was home. It was the first time, like, I actually fit in somewhere in my life.

• 44:44Shawn Ryan?

  You fit in. What about it made, what?

• 44:48Speaker 05

  Guys did what they said. You know what I mean? We're running the airfield in fucking X time. We come in at X time. Clean your fucking room. Your room's clean, no issues. You know what I mean? Like, it was the first time, like, people acted with responsibility. You know what I mean?

• 45:07Shawn Ryan?

  I do. Do you feel, did you feel challenged?

• 45:10Speaker 05

  Fuck, yeah.

• 45:10Shawn Ryan?

  At that point?

• 45:11Speaker 05

  Daily, daily. And then I was 21. I was able to drink on the weekends. They fucking hated me for that because like, everyone drank because I was drinking. You know what I mean? So, and then I'll tell you one day, this is the best thing. I ZenRip, we get the hotel, we get the weekend off, we get the, like, we go down to the hotel next to the Chickasaw Club or whatever the fuck it was, so we could just walk over there, party, get back to the hotel, crack. I fell asleep by the pool and got sunburned, like...

• 45:45Speaker 05

  Bad sunburn, right? Cause I'm like, I know I'm like three shades above pasty white right now, but it's only because I was at my buddy's pool in Oklahoma City in his backyard. You know what I mean? So it doesn't, you know, 10 minutes in the sun and like my skin's gonna come off two days from now, actually three minutes, but I'm, I'm trying to be nice to myself. So, uh, I get sunburned bad, right? And then my sunburn, the skin's coming off and, uh, the cadre, what did they tell me? Like they were gonna give me an article 15 for damaging US property. And I'm like thinking, oh no, right? So what they do is in the morning on like the long runs, they'd make people pick me up and carry me for miles. So there'd be a guy

• 46:28Speaker 05

  on each ankle, just rubbing my ankles raw. You know what I mean? It's got, skin's coming off anyway. Just rubbing my ankles raw, guy under each hip, my shoulders, rubbing my shoulders raw. So like I had to do reps, sunburned for like a week or two and they abused me with that sunburn in every way they could.

• 46:47Shawn Ryan?

  Shit. What, how long is rep?

• 46:51Speaker 05

  It's three weeks back then.

• 46:53Shawn Ryan?

  Three weeks?

• 46:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:54Shawn Ryan?

  What would you say the most challenging portion was for you?

• 47:00Speaker 05

  Just staying hydrated.

• 47:02Shawn Ryan?

  Staying hydrated?

• 47:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, they didn't fucking train us. They'd be like, alright, we're gonna learn map reading. Anyone got any questions? Dumbest fucking question I ever heard. Everyone outside, we're gonna smoke you guys till we get a heat casualty.

• 47:17Speaker 05

  That's it. And then like you'd come back like someone would, mm, but, you know, like, yes, someone passed out. I couldn't take too much more of myself. You know, you don't want to tell anybody.

• 47:27Shawn Ryan?

  So it was, so it's basically, it's just a beat down session to see who wants to be there?

• 47:32Speaker 05

  I'll tell you this, the old rip.

• 47:36Speaker 05

  That selection created guys that would not fucking quit. You know what I mean? Now, when I got to Ranger Battalion, I didn't know shit about shit. You know what I mean? Like that map reading class was mostly pushups out in the sun till someone passed out, you know? So like, I felt like I didn't know shit when I got to Ranger Battalion, but the reality is, is like, fucking smart like tractor, strong like bull, man, I got this, you know what I mean?

• 48:05Shawn Ryan?

  So when you, I mean, how was the, how was the sense of accomplishment when you completed RIT?

• 48:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, fuck, hardest thing I ever done, hardest thing I ever seen done in my life, and I just finished, you know what I mean?

• 48:17Shawn Ryan?

  Who'd you call?

• 48:19Speaker 05

  I don't think I called anybody.

• 48:20Shawn Ryan?

  Didn't have anybody?

• 48:24Speaker 05

  No.

• 48:25Shawn Ryan?

  Not your brother?

• 48:26Speaker 05

  No. Yeah, I didn't call nobody.

• 48:30Shawn Ryan?

  So you show up to which Ranger Battalion?

• 48:33Speaker 05

  Uh, first, I went to first.

• 48:34Shawn Ryan?

  Where is it?

• 48:35Speaker 05

  Savannah.

• 48:38Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about walking in there for the first time.

• 48:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, I get to my platoon, right?

• 48:47Speaker 05

  I don't know, it's pretty good, you know? They made fun of me, I guess I had a, a Chicago accent. I didn't know there was one, but guys would make fun of me and they'd be like, oh, Adrian, you know what I mean? They'd make fun of the way I talked, uh, no one really liked me.

• 49:04Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 49:04Speaker 05

  I don't think I was too popular, like, who likes the new guy?

• 49:07Shawn Ryan?

  Were you, was it like that back then? There was only a couple of new guys?

• 49:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, like, the platoon would get like two new guys and like, you're on shit detail till they get another one, you know? And then, yeah, I just, you know, like, there was times where my squad leader's like, I'm gonna send the head private in here to square you away, yeah, I just knocked that fool out in my room, you know what I mean? Like, walk out in the hallway, you got another private boss? Like, uh, and then, like, you know, as I...

• 49:37Speaker 05

  Put in my time, you know what I mean? I became like, you know, one of the, you know, you know how it goes. You progress through the platoon, you know?

• 49:45Shawn Ryan?

  Who did you gravitate towards? I mean, you had to have somebody that kind of took you under the wing, correct?

• 49:50Speaker 05

  I don't gravitate to anybody. I roll alone, I stand alone, no matter where I am. I don't care if I'm with fifty other guys. And that's kind of the way I always seen it. And the whole mentor thing is lost on me.

• 50:02Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 50:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:03Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 50:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, everyone's flawed. How are you gonna have a mentor? You know, there's guys that showed me shit, but like, I never really-

• 50:11Shawn Ryan?

  Aren't you mentoring people at SOB Tactical?

• 50:14Speaker 05

  Um, I would say no.

• 50:18Shawn Ryan?

  No?

• 50:19Speaker 05

  I mean, I think I'm a great role model, but I'm not like trying to convince you of anything. I want you to be the best you you could be. Uh, so, I don't know, maybe I do mentor, maybe it's just the way I see it. But, um, yeah, in the platoon, like, you know, and then like as I got up there, you know, as, uh, you know, I went to the sniper section. I was the company sniper forever. Like, what a fucking great job that was for me.

• 50:43Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take you to get to sniper?

• 50:45Speaker 05

  Long time. Probably like three and a half years. Took me like a year and a half to get to Ranger School. Our platoon had so many guys on the list. You know what I mean? And then, and then you could jump the list. Like, once in a while, they'd be like, okay, random PT test. Highest score amongst the private gets the next slot. I'm not the, I'm not the fastest guy. Even though I could probably do the most pushups and situps. I'm not gonna be the fastest guy on the run. So like, some fucking little guy running that fucking, you know, eleven minute, two miles is gonna fucking crush me.

• 51:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:21Speaker 05

  So I had to wait till my time.

• 51:25Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about, I mean, did you always want to go to sniper?

• 51:30Speaker 05

  Um, fuck, I didn't know. No one knew. I didn't know what that shit was back then. You know what I mean? They're like, you want to be a sniper? I'm like, yes. Why would I say no at that point? You know what I mean? I didn't really know what it entailed. But I can tell you this, like, great at navigation. I never get lost. Like, I'd lead the company, like, and then, you know, like, I don't know, like, just company training one, one year, we're like in Eglin Air Force Base. Like, I'm the sniper team, so I gotta recon the route for the company. Like, I'd walk to the next creek and get in and just sit in for a little cool down. Like, get up. You know what I mean? And then I was like, and then I would start giving the company, like,

• 52:10Speaker 05

  where I got in the water and cooled down. I'd give that to us, like, hey, this is where you need to move to next. You know what I mean? Like, and they get to like, he told us to move to a creek, like, you know what I mean? Uh, I don't know. And then, like, some days when it was super hot, the commander would be like creek to creek, just like that. I'm like, okay, I need to tell everyone, get in the water, cool down, keep moving, right? But, um, yeah, I liked the autonomy of it. I'll do my job. You ain't gotta worry about me. I'll get this shit done. You know what I mean? You guys just make sure you do your shit.

• 52:44Shawn Ryan?

  What, what, um, did you deploy with them?

• 52:48Speaker 05

  Rangers?

• 52:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:48Speaker 05

  Man, I jumped in Iraq in 91.

• 52:52Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 52:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, fucking compound fracture my fucking leg right here. Yeah, I jumped in.

• 52:59Shawn Ryan?

  Was that pre-sniper?

• 53:02Speaker 05

  Uh, I, oh, as a private, as a private when I jumped in.

• 53:06Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man, I gotta hear about this. So how long were you a Ranger battalion for?

• 53:10Speaker 05

  About five years.

• 53:11Shawn Ryan?

  Five years?

• 53:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I wanted to stay, like, it was my, it was my jam. It's where I thought I fit. And then, like, we had some asshole SARM major that was like, Like dudes that were like five and a half years were coming on orders to like Korea. I don't want to go to Korea. Like I have nothing against, nothing against Koreans. You know what I mean? Like, uh, like it's cold there. Like, I don't know what they do there. You know what I mean? Like no interest ever in going to the DMZ for the army. Like zero interest from this guy. Maybe that makes me a bad army guy. So fucking be it. But I was like, how can I control where I go? So I put in for the special forces selection.

• 53:53Shawn Ryan?

  Well, before we get there, let's go to the jump in Iraq.

• 53:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 53:56Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it sounds, so you joined the military to become a mechanic.

• 53:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:00Shawn Ryan?

  First, that didn't work out. So then you went airborne ranger. I mean, did you, was combat on your mind at all?

• 54:10Speaker 05

  Fuck, yes. It's all you talk about as a young private in Ranger Battalion. The news is like, there's trouble in Haiti. You're like, let's go. Airfield jump. We mow everybody down. Like, you know what I mean? Like you're riding this roller coaster and then they're like, there's trouble in Sierra Leone. Like, let's go. We're gonna jump on it. You know what I mean? Uh, so like as a young guy, fuck, that's all you thought about. You know what I mean?

• 54:37Shawn Ryan?

  When is the, did you see any combat in Iraq?

• 54:40Speaker 05

  No, um, it's a fucked up jump. Thirty knot winds. Uh, uh, General Grange, then Colonel Grange was the, matter of fact, I just did a water jump with him last year. I had beefed out with him. I was like, I got beef with you. You're the only motherfucker to puncture my fucking body in 20 motherfucking years, right? And then I J M P item in a static line shoot and I'm just like, mm, mm, snatching shit. And then my buddy Danny's like, yo, you done jerking the general around? I'm like, I feel better. Like we, we beefed it out. We're best friends now. Like, so General Grange was the commander then, but I had a great time with him last year.

• 55:22Speaker 05

  He's a friend of mine, but at the time, uh, I'm just a private in the back of the stack, you know? Static line up, my fucking shit on combat loaded to the fucking teeth. Who knew how much I weighed mortar rounds in my backpack? Fucking everything, the whole Ranger combat fucking loadout thing, you know? And then we jump in, thirty knot winds. I landed off the airfield. My backpack. Hooked on this like bombed building with like rebar, like hooked on a rebar and literally kinda set me down and then this leg hit rebar. And I was kinda laying there when I landed and I'm like, okay.

• 56:07Speaker 05

  And then I, I learned this from the Brits, you know? Okay, this hand seems good, this hand seems good, this leg and foot seems good. And I lifted this one up and it was like this in the sand. So I dumped some water on it and that water got in there, burned immediately. I'm like, and then uh, like a big J on my shin, compound bone was broke. So I kinda push it in, pinch the skin in. Back then, we didn't have like, I think I did a double pressure dressing. You know what I mean? Like with the dry bon rags is like really what they gave us for meds. Uh, I did a double pressure dressing and got up, got my shit, uh, walked through the minefield

• 56:50Speaker 05

  on the outside of the airfield, jumped the fence and then walked the airfield to make link up. And then I got to link up, you know, I'm just a private, I got to link up. Uh, we had this first sergeant, coolest like Mexine guy ever day, ever like this guy and his name is Ivan, I don't know, but blame his parents. Uh, and Ivan's like, eh, god damn it, you made it, you know? And I'm like, thanks first sergeant. And he's like, put your shit down. And like one of the first guys to make it too. And he's like, I was like, hey, is the medic here? And he's like, uh, yeah, what's happening? And he was like, oh, something happened? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, doc, get over here. Medic comes over, you know, cut that off. So I cut it off with scissors.

• 57:33Speaker 05

  They look at it and, and then, and then the first sergeant's like, oh, god damn it. You know what I mean? The medic was like, uh, who did the dressings? I was like, well, I did sergeant, I said double, I did a double pressure dressing, one and then another to try to close the gap, uh, cause it was too big. And he was like, goes in his bag, throws me more shit, put that back on.

• 58:02Speaker 05

  I'm like thinking, fucking, this all this goes, you know, so they like had to do some road march, whatever the mission was gonna be, kind of petered out. They end up walking like 50 fucking miles for no reason with all this heavy shit. So all I missed was like a fucking heavy tactical road march, which I would have crushed anyway, because road march is what I do. But, um, yeah, and then I was just kind of broke. And they were supposed to cast my leg and then my squad leader, because I'm a private, you're not going to see the medic. Can I see the medic? My leg hurts. You're just being a pussy. So I went through that for a while. And then by the time my squad leader was gone, one day I went to actually see the medic. They're like, how come you didn't come back for your cast?

• 58:46Speaker 05

  I'm like, I tried. Like, I tried. Well, it's too late now. And then, and then the Ranger Doc, this guy Doc Donovan, he was a, he's a Ranger legend, right? And he was like, he's like, he's talking to me like, I'm gonna get out of the army or be med boarded because of this. And I'm like, I'm not getting out. How do we fucking fix it? So there's less pain. And he was like, what? I'm like, yeah, I don't want to get out. I'm not here to bitch over this. I'm here to fucking figure out like, how I can get back to running in the morning without so much fucking pain. And then, like, I was like, it was weird. Like, I didn't want to get out. You know what I mean? That's not why I was complaining about

• 59:29Speaker 05

  it. I was complaining because it fucking hurt, which is why I thought you'd go to the medics, but that's not always true. So, um, yeah, so I just fucking sucked it up for a while and eventually it got better.

• 59:44Shawn Ryan?

  Did you say you're still a private after five years?

• 59:48Speaker 05

  Me? No.

• 59:50Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. I thought you said it took five years to get to combat, or to this jump?

• 59:57Speaker 05

  No, this is when I, this was like 91, when I was new, new in Ranger Battalion.

• 1:00:00Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:00:01Speaker 05

  I was a new guy. Yeah. It took me five years. I did five years in Ranger Battalion, and then I went to SF.

• 1:00:09Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:00:12Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I just, I'm curious.

• 1:00:16Shawn Ryan?

  So what, how long were you at Ranger Battalion before you jumped in to Iraq?

• 1:00:21Speaker 05

  Uh, a year, max, like, yeah.

• 1:00:25Shawn Ryan?

  So what was, I mean, what was your, how did that brief come down?

• 1:00:30Speaker 05

  Fuck, man, the whole regiment, there's a fucking war going on. We're going to fucking war, baby. Everyone's like, ah, who wants grenades? You're like, I do, I do. Who needs another claymore? You know what I mean? The fucking, as soon as they start throwing grenades and claymores around, you know this shit's fucking real. You know what I mean?

• 1:00:51Shawn Ryan?

  Were you pretty pumped about it?

• 1:00:53Speaker 05

  Super pumped. And then it was like, it was exactly like every airborne school fucking song, you know what I mean? Like C-140, you know, 64 jumpers, whatever the fuck. I don't even remember the songs. I'm doing this poorly, right? But like, we got on the planes, we flew to Iraq, we fucking rigged up, we jumped the fuck out. It was great. But it was 30 knot winds and it fucked up a ton of dudes. I think there was like, man, it had to be like, I don't, I don't know, man, there was a lot, like 80 backboards out there with dudes taped to them, you know what I mean? Like, and then like dudes, because the winds were so high, dudes got drugged.

• 1:01:33Speaker 05

  I see like, remember the old like LBE thing that held the magazines, like three magazines? And like the lid came off with like the plastic buckle on the front. Remember those? That would be ground in half and you could see every bullet in the magazine still and like, so like when I got to the, the medic point, when they're like, hey, you're not going on the road march, you know, you're medical, these are backboards. You guys gotta go to the hospital, right? Uh, dudes raped me for my gear. Like raped me. So here I am injured, having to just carry all my shit in a fucking ball. I don't even have a backpack, so I took my shit.

• 1:02:13Shawn Ryan?

  So you come back from that, you do some sniper, you go to sniper school?

• 1:02:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:17Shawn Ryan?

  How was sniper school?

• 1:02:18Speaker 05

  US Army sniper? Fucking joke.

• 1:02:21Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:02:22Speaker 05

  Ridiculous. Yeah, the stocks, you had to get like thirty meters from a fucking truck and you're shooting an M fourteen blank, you know what I mean? You know how much fucking gat, they like, the gas probably touches the fucking truck, you know what I mean? Like, it's fucking ridiculous. I mean, I did well, I passed, I, you know, I shoot well, but like, I thought it was a joke and they like tried to smoke us one morning and it's like, you're regular army, you're fat, you're out of shape, like, why even add two hours of fitness in here? It only makes you look bad, like, teach us something, you know what I mean?

• 1:02:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Speaker 05

  So I thought, although, it's the mark of the man, you gotta pass to have your job, even though you're already a sniper, right? You gotta know the basics.

• 1:03:07Speaker 05

  I, I thought it was a little unrealistic, which made it harder than it needed to be. I think it could be a little more realistic and guys would learn more and do better later instead of only thinking like, I gotta get thirty yards on a stalk.

• 1:03:24Shawn Ryan?

  Good point, good point. Did you do any other deployments in Ranger Battalion?

• 1:03:29Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, tons, like, I think we were in Egypt during, you know, Mogadishu, we were in Egypt at the Sinai waiting on the word. I done a ton of shit in Ranger Battalion, fucking jungle school so many times in Panama, like, I don't even wanna talk about it, like, I'm a jungle expert, I don't know how many fucking times over, it's not even funny, you know what I mean?

• 1:03:51Shawn Ryan?

  Right.

• 1:03:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, I did a ton of shit in Ranger Battalion, tons of shit.

• 1:03:56Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what caught your interest in SF?

• 1:03:59Speaker 05

  I didn't wanna end up in Korea.

• 1:04:02Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 1:04:02Speaker 05

  Sit. It's all I knew. I mean, think about it, in fucking, in the nineties, there was no internet, like, I didn't know, I didn't even know what a fucking Ranger was and I did that and then like, these guys are going to Special Forces selection, like,

• 1:04:19Speaker 05

  what was it like? And then a buddy of mine that was like, there's nothing you can't do every day, I'm like, I think I'll try this out. And that's what I told myself the whole time, there's nothing today that I can't do.

• 1:04:30Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll dive into that.

• 1:04:32Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

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

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  On October 2nd.

• 1:04:40Speaker 00

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

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

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

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

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

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:05:00Speaker 02

  I'm not the first, Danny.

• 1:05:01Speaker 01

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

• 1:05:11Speaker 06

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, theHouseMajorityPac.com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 1:05:45Shawn Ryan?

  All right, John, we're back from the break. Getting ready to go to SF selection. That came across your radar. You don't want to go to Korea.

• 1:05:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:05:55Shawn Ryan?

  So, how did it come across your radar, though? Just curious.

• 1:05:59Speaker 05

  Man, like, other guys in my platoon went. So, you know, this is an interesting thing. Like, back in the 90s, no fucking internet. People these days ask me, like, "I want to follow your path." You know, "How did you know?" You're... There was no fucking path. Like, it's a... Roll the fucking dice, man, you know what I mean? You just fucking went, you tried, like, mark of a man, you know? But, um, guys that went to the unit disappeared forever. You never seen them in Ranger Battalion. Like, gone.

• 1:06:33Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:06:34Speaker 05

  You're never gonna see them again. Why? Unit didn't do nothing with the Rangers back then. You know what I mean? Uh, and then those guys were just gone. So, the SF guy, the guys that go to SF selection, would come back and, like, be around a little while before they left or something, so you'd get to talk to them. You know what I mean? The guys that went to the unit were gone within the month. Like, you never seen them again.

• 1:06:55Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 1:06:56Speaker 05

  So, like... The time I went to SF selection, I figured I'm not married and I'm too young for the unit. And that's kind of what guys thought back then. Gotcha, gotcha. Mature, married guys, this is who they take. So I figured, well, I'm still just a single guy, whatever. I'll do SF or I might've been married at the time, but I figured I'd do special forces. A buddy of mine went, said it was, he's like, it's nothing you couldn't do every day. Oh, fuck, that sounds like me right there. You know what I mean? So I went. How was it? I was on the fucking worst team ever in the history of special forces selection. I'm pretty fucking sure of it.

• 1:07:40Speaker 05

  Oh shit, why is that? Dude, like,

• 1:07:46Speaker 05

  I was just on a team with a bunch of fucking pussies, you know what I mean? Fucking, let's just say it like it is. Like, you know, like the smokings are only for so many hours. You can only do so many fucking pushups. This isn't a fucking thing. This is daily shit in Ranger Battalion. You know what I mean? And like, guys like, huh? And like, we're doing log. I had a nickname zero for a while for, for selection and like the mandatory log day where it's like, huh, what? You know what I mean? Like you do the log or you lift it up. You, you know, it's like 12 people on a fucking log, right? Okay. If all 12 people actually lifted the log, the log ain't fucking heavy. But when everyone's bitched up like,

• 1:08:32Speaker 05

  like it makes the heavy end a lot fucking heavier. Right? It makes the light end a lot fucking heavier. So like,

• 1:08:43Speaker 05

  we're doing the log PT and like my team is just fucking like, except for like one or two guys on my team. Like we might as well be the fucking, you know, the retard squad out here. I don't fucking know. You know, it's, it's fucking sad. So it's like one, you know, and they count the K's like one, two, three, four, and then you yell the number like one, you know what I'm saying? I just started yelling zero, fucking zero, motherfuckers, zero, right? So I yelled zero so many times, one of the cadre came up to me and he was like, yell zero again and you may not make it through selection. I'm like, Roger that, Sarge. One, two, three, four, fucking zero again, motherfuckers. Like I yelled zero again, you know what I mean?

• 1:09:27Speaker 05

  So there he's like you with me. So he brings me to the front of everybody. Everyone gets a break while they're fucking with me. So anyone in my selection course, you're fucking welcome, especially you fucking pussies. You know what I mean? Anyway, um, so they gave me my own six foot log. The six foot log is worse than the big log. You know what I mean? But at this point, I can't be the fucking, I can't be weak here. You know what I mean? I got myself into this position and you know how you get out of this position? You fucking rock star that shit. I grabbed that log. One, two, three, fucking zero. One, two, three, zero. I just kept yelling zero. There's the pathway for everybody that's asking. There you go.

• 1:10:11Speaker 05

  And then, uh, so everyone called me zero in selection.

• 1:10:16Speaker 05

  But like that little log was no joke. I literally had to like do shit, be strong, fucking breathe. You know what I mean? Probably a lot girthier than the other logs, eh? You would know you're in the fucking Navy. You know what I mean? Yeah. So anyway, yeah. Uh, and then like, you know, like you start first thing in the morning and then you gotta do like your selection event or whatever the fucking craziness they throw at you during the day. And like most teams are getting done around like three o'clock with their first event. And there's a couple nights we came in like bedtime. And they just let us out there walking with these fucking whatever bullshit we're fucking doing that day.

• 1:10:57Speaker 05

  Like I was on the worst team ever. And then, uh, I thought this was interesting. The final road march for selection, like literally you walk, they line everybody up, you know, and I think there's like a gunshot or someone yells go or air horn or something. You know, like go, everyone takes off like a fucking bat out of hell. And I'm just thinking, you ever been on a fucking 20 miler or 25 mile road march? Like that is not the speed you start at. You start slow and you taper off. You know what I'm saying? That's how you win. And like all these people take off. So I'm just like,

• 1:11:35Speaker 05

  So I just start walking, right? And then about two miles in, there's a creek you gotta cross. Right? And I never seen this before, like dudes would stop and they're trying to put a garbage bag over their leg and over their sock. Bullshit. I seen tons of fucking dudes doing this. I so I just walked right fucking through this. Gave me a major lead on all them fucking assholes. You know what I mean? Are you, are you serious? Yeah. They're putting trash bags over their pants so they can, so they don't get wet? Yeah. Holy shit. Wow. Wow. I never even seen that. You know what I mean? I haven't seen that.

• 1:12:17Speaker 05

  I just walked through. And I think later I had to take a shit and I changed my socks because they were a little wet. You know what I mean? But it's only because I had to take a shit. Uh, but I just walked through and when I came in, you had to turn in like, you gotta have like the star cluster, you know, the star. I don't know what you guys call them, the star cluster. And it goes, right? Yeah. You had to carry a couple of those. So if you get lost, you know, part of the procedure to find you, right? Well, you get done, there's a guy sitting there with a box and he's like, throw your, throw your shit in the box. I was like, okay. So I throw them in the box and the box isn't like empty. I was like, in this box?

• 1:12:59Speaker 05

  And he was like, yeah. I'm like, there's nothing in it. He's like, yeah, throw them in the box. So I dropped them in the box and I was like, there's nothing in the box. How many guys are done? He was like, there's another guy just hit the showers. That's what he told me. So me and another guy finished like first. And it's not like I walked fast or hard. I just fucking walked through the water. You know what I mean? It wasn't magic. You know what I mean? I just kept a good pace the whole time. So I thought the team part, I thought special forces selection.

• 1:13:34Speaker 05

  The premise of it's fucking stupid, right? Because you're gonna do all this shit all day long, all this physical shit, and then they're gonna put you in the barracks at like dark, and you can't sleep till 10:00. And then you're gonna get major points if you fall asleep. Motherfucker, you walked me all day long. The only thing I'm gonna do is fall asleep. You know what I mean? Uh, so I thought, uh, the premise of the SF selection was kinda flawed even then. Um, but I passed, so fuck everybody else. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So where did you go from there? Seventh group. Seventh group? Yeah. And your first deployment was, well, actually, how was it showing up to seventh group? Versus Ranger Battalion? Yeah, my team sucked. It sucked.

• 1:14:19Speaker 05

  You didn't like it? Fuck, no. Like, we had no bullets. We didn't fucking shoot. We didn't do shit. You had a fucking, it was like more army than the Ranger Battalion was. No shit? What year was this? Fucking mid 90s, like 95. So what were you guys doing? Nothing. Unless we went to like, we went to El Salvador. And then, uh, we did like, we trot like, uh, basic like leadership for like E5s, whatever they would call that. We did like land nav, some leadership, basic shit. Uh, but when we were at Brag, we didn't do shit. That's why I was like, this fucking sucks. So very unimpressive for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:02Speaker 05

  Especially leaving like the Brotherhood of Ranger Battalion. You know what I mean? Like, we had shitty days together, a lot of us. You know what I mean? And that just builds those bonds. You know what I'm saying? I don't think SF got good till 2001. Wow, wow. You know what I mean? In my opinion, and then I don't think it's any good right now. The SF baby program just ruins it, in my opinion. Really? Why is that? Cause there's never been one fucking outstanding SF baby as a leader than I know of. No shit?

• 1:15:39Shawn Ryan?

  How long's that program been around?

• 1:15:41Speaker 05

  Fuck, man, it was on and off in the 90s and then they turned it off. And now it's back on. For the SF baby program, I would say this, you gotta be in the army and you gotta know what it's like to truly suck. Because what happens is, seen this through the war years, especially as a sergeant major, is the SF community, there's so many new guys rising through the ranks and combat super quickly, as fast as the army will let you. Right? That guy was never in the army, so he creates a parallel universe of suck that is just like the army. But he thinks he's cool, but he's doing all the same stupid shit.

• 1:16:19Speaker 05

  Guys that came from Ranger Battalion, the army that knows what it's like to be fucking, you know, my first first sergeant reached in my toilet, elbow deep, pulled his hand out, "What's this?" I said, "Shit, first sergeant."

• 1:16:34Speaker 05

  What else to be in the fucking toilet? Do fucking pushups, you know what I mean? Like, not clean enough. Like, if you ain't ever seen that shit, you're prone to that shit. You seen that shit once and know you don't want that in your life and you're not gonna be like that. Right? You create this, another parallel track, which is the fucking adult network of the army.

• 1:16:57Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting, interesting. What were you guys doing in El Salvador?

• 1:17:03Speaker 05

  We just taught like a basic leaders call, course, navigation, basic leadership, PT, shit like that.

• 1:17:11Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, nothing of any, any real importance?

• 1:17:16Speaker 05

  No, I mean, a couple of the quartels we were at had been overrun and guys had died in them, you know, late 80s, couple of years before.

• 1:17:26Speaker 05

  You know, FLMN just kinda, that whole thing just died down, you know, but, you know, I was 18 Charlie, the 18 Charlies that I hung out with, like, we're on the LANAV course, I'm with like the guy I'm supposed to be with, my like counterpart or whatever. We're at this fucking rando intersection and he's like, "Yo, we haloed in just over there, came to this, fucking ambushed, killed a hundred dudes like right here, right here." And he's like, "Yeah," and I'm just thinking, "Y'all, this guy's supposed to be learning from me? He haloed in, claymore dudes, killed hundreds." Like, what am I gonna teach this guy?

• 1:18:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:02Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? Uh, so we did basic leadership. It was a good time. And then, um, I just,

• 1:18:12Speaker 05

  I did 10 months in group and I just wasn't impressed.

• 1:18:15Shawn Ryan?

  That's it? You were only there for 10 months?

• 1:18:18Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:18Shawn Ryan?

  And then you screened for a Delta?

• 1:18:20Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:20Shawn Ryan?

  How did that come across?

• 1:18:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was at a, uh, I was at this guy's house at like 1:00 in the morning drinking, smoking cigars. And he handed me a piece of paper, which was a, uh, an old dirt track across from the prison on Bragg. And he's like, it said 6:00 AM at this field. And I'm like, the fuck is this? He's like, you're taking a PT test at 6:00. I'm like, I'm fucking hammered. It's 1:00 in the morning. We're drinking, I'm at your house drinking cigars. I am not going to a Delta Force selection tomorrow morning at 6:00. He's like, yeah, you are.

• 1:18:57Shawn Ryan?

  What? Who is this?

• 1:18:59Speaker 05

  It was a Mogadishu guy. His code name's Elvis.

• 1:19:04Speaker 05

  He was in my Q course and like just sat next to me. So me and him were Ranger buddies. But at first I thought, who the fuck is this random E7 in the Q course? That is good at nothing we fucking do. You know what I mean? He's not good at the charges. He's not good at reading. He's like, who the fuck is this crazy old guy in the Q course? You know what I mean? And then, well, turns out he was a unit guy. You know what I mean? Crossing over.

• 1:19:32Shawn Ryan?

  So he was coming from the unit into SF?

• 1:19:34Speaker 05

  No, he was going from 11 to 18 to get promoted in the unit.

• 1:19:39Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 1:19:40Speaker 05

  Back in the day, special forces guys used to get promoted a lot quicker. So the infantry guys would go to the Q course, pass, right? If they pass, now they're a special forces guy. They go back to the unit. And then they get promoted on the special forces track instead of infantry.

• 1:19:57Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:19:58Speaker 05

  And back in the day, that was just quicker for guys.

• 1:20:00Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. So this guy coaxed you into taking?

• 1:20:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I went home. I told him fucking not only no, but fucking hell no. And then curiosity killed the cat. You know what I mean? I showed up anyway.

• 1:20:14Shawn Ryan?

  Did you get any sleep that night?

• 1:20:16Speaker 05

  None. And he said, he did tell me that. I was like, I'm in no shape to take this fucking PT test, you know? And he was like, all you gotta do is pass the army standard to get in.

• 1:20:28Speaker 05

  Which, that's pretty fucking

• 1:20:29Shawn Ryan?

  What is it that you think he saw in you that he wanted you to, to, to, to try out, to screen?

• 1:20:37Speaker 05

  Fuck, I'm squared away. I'm good at every fucking thing. And if I ain't good, I'm gonna practice till I am good. You know what I mean? So of everybody, like, why not? And then, you know, turns out later, a bunch of the guys from IQ course ended up in the unit. You probably talked to a couple of them, I think.

• 1:20:53Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 1:20:55Speaker 05

  I would not doubt that. Um, but yeah, uh, I don't know what he saw, you know, I just, I'm gonna say, when you give me a written test, it's gonna be 70%. You let me put my hands on shit? I'm really good at that, right? I was a mechanic. I can figure it out. And I'm really handy at a lot of shit.

• 1:21:14Shawn Ryan?

  So you show up at, at unit selection?

• 1:21:20Speaker 05

  Six AM.

• 1:21:21Shawn Ryan?

  No sleep. What's, I mean, just describe that experience.

• 1:21:27Speaker 05

  I show up, some fucking rando dude, like, and when I say rando, doesn't even look like a fucking army guy, rando, you know what I mean? Like, rando dude with a clipboard, like, what's your name? All right, pushups, go. Situps, go, right? And the run, um, there was two of my, um, team leaders in Ranger Battalion in, and at that PT test. And they're like, what the fuck you doing here? You're not gonna fucking pass. And then I made sure on the last lap or two, I lapped them. You know what I mean? I wasn't gonna lap them, but then I was like, meh, you know what I mean? I got a little gas in the tank.

• 1:22:09Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, by the way, I'm hungover.

• 1:22:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. By the way, I haven't slept. Um, and then, um, yeah, I passed and, um, you know, I got my selection date, went to select, unit selection.

• 1:22:26Shawn Ryan?

  How long, how much time are we talking between the screen test and going to selection?

• 1:22:33Speaker 05

  Month?

• 1:22:34Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 1:22:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, not even.

• 1:22:36Shawn Ryan?

  So you just, you go back to seventh group and then hang out for a month? How was that at seventh group waiting to go?

• 1:22:44Speaker 05

  Dude, when I got orders for that Delta four selection, you know what I mean? Like, they wanted to give me scuba school. They wanted me, you know what I mean? They wanted to give me everything at that point.

• 1:22:54Shawn Ryan?

  Why? Why did they want to give you everything if they're just gonna lose you?

• 1:23:00Speaker 05

  Well, they didn't want to lose me, so they're trying to like, "We'll give you scuba school, we'll give you like," they're trying to keep me around.

• 1:23:06Shawn Ryan?

  I gotcha.

• 1:23:07Speaker 05

  And, and they're like, "Well, we'll give you pre-scuba, and you could do that as your train up, you'll be in super good shape before, before selection," which would have been a true statement, but my feet would have been soft for walking all those fucking miles. You know what I mean? And that's why I didn't go.

• 1:23:27Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting, interesting. So you show up to OTC?

• 1:23:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:23:32Shawn Ryan?

  What does OTC stand for?

• 1:23:35Speaker 05

  Operator Training.

• 1:23:36Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, okay.

• 1:23:38Speaker 05

  Ain't no magic in unit acronyms, you know what I mean?

• 1:23:41Shawn Ryan?

  So how was, how was that showing up there?

• 1:23:46Shawn Ryan?

  You're now at the, at the, at the top.

• 1:23:49Speaker 05

  Yo, you show up, there's like fucking 10 kit bags. Everything is perfectly sized to you, has your fucking name on it. Like, all you got, already packed. All you gotta do is throw them on your shelves and start fucking training. Like, I'd never seen that, you know what I mean? And I'll tell you another thing is like, when you pass selection, which selection was great, by the way, no one fucks with you. They just let you walk for days and miles and days and no one talks to you and like, it's fucking great, it's the best thing ever.

• 1:24:22Speaker 05

  When I put on them GSG9 assault boots, so when you get done and you pass, you go like in the next room and they had all this gear laid out where you gotta try on your sizes, so when you show up. They got all your shit, the right size and everything, and you just start fucking training, right? So I put on them GSG9 assault boots, remember those? There was a day where those were like, hot, like, you know what I mean? I had only seen, I might have seen one picture with a dude with those boots, but I heard they wore them, and that's kind of all I knew. So, fucking fuck you internet for ruining the mystique of fucking walking into something blind, you know what I mean?

• 1:25:07Speaker 05

  But, uh, I put on them boots and that's when I was like, holy fuck, the army don't do this, you know what I mean? Like, uh, and then you get there and it's just like all the bags, your sizes, pack, I mean, fucking tip top, man, top notch.

• 1:25:28Shawn Ryan?

  Let me rewind just a, just a minute, back to selection. It sounds like you pretty much breezed through every tryout you've been through up to this point. How was selection?

• 1:25:43Speaker 05

  Unit selection?

• 1:25:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:44Speaker 05

  Fucking loved it.

• 1:25:46Shawn Ryan?

  Was it challenging for you?

• 1:25:50Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:25:51Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 1:25:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:53Shawn Ryan?

  The first person I've ever heard say that.

• 1:25:54Speaker 05

  But I fucking loved every minute of it. But this is the premise or the core of what makes me me. Leave me the fuck alone, point me in the right direction, so, I, I just did that every day.

• 1:26:07Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want to describe selection?

• 1:26:09Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, so, selection's kind of an easy fucking process, there's no real magic to it, you know? Uh, you start out, they teach you navigation. If you fucking listen to the classes, were the best fucking classes I've ever had on navigation, if you just listen to what the fuck they told you, you could fucking pass. But guys in the map reading classes think they fucking know it all. So they don't pay attention to the detail, right? Um, and then, so you get your map reading classes, you do a couple of weeks of fucking walking around the mountains, you know what I mean? Like, little kind of warm up, whatever you call it, right? And then fucking, it hits you, you're in the field and like, you got fucking 10 maps and

• 1:26:53Speaker 05

  you're like, I'm here, one map sheet, two map sheets, three map sheets, I'm going here. And it's like, have a good one, and you're fucking off. Um, so.

• 1:27:05Speaker 05

  The thing that really fucking, I think I liked, but the army doesn't like is no one tells you shit. There's no encouragement, there's no disencouragement, right? And then they're like, you know, they'd write on the board, eight o'clock, be at the truck. And that's all it'd say. And guys like, well, I mean, what, what do you think you gotta have? Like, well, they also say, don't be late, light, or out of uniform. So bring your shit, make sure it weighs right, and fucking let's go. I mean, I just thought selection was all skill level one tasks. And I had a great time walking through the mountains. I loved every fucking second, man. Well, no, there's one day I didn't love so much. But other than that, I fucking loved it. What was that day?

• 1:27:48Speaker 05

  Man, uh, I started to get a little chafed, like my inner thighs started getting chafed, right? And I knew I needed like Vaseline or something to walk during the day so I wouldn't get chafed. I didn't want to go to the medic, because the thing is, is you go to the medic, you're automatically out. That's what guys think. So like, I didn't want to go to the medic. So finally, one night, you know, you gotta put up like a poncho hooch, like knee high, you gotta lay, you gotta sleep under it, out in the field, right? So I'm under my poncho hooch. And I was like, I'm just gonna walk over to the medic thing and just ask for some Vaseline or something. Vaseline gauze, any type of lube, you know what I mean? So I go to the medic station, I knock on the Humvee, he opens the back of the, you know,

• 1:28:33Speaker 05

  the old medic Humvee where the stairs came down and the doors, right? So I go up in there and it's me and him in the back of a Humvee. So we're like two feet apart, you know what I mean? And I was like, hey, my, my legs, inner thighs are a little chafed, kinda like bottom of my butt cheeks also, like, could I get some Vaseline or something? He's like, drop your drawers, show me.

• 1:28:58Speaker 05

  What? We're like this fucking far away in the back of a Humvee, the medical Humvee, you know what I mean? I'm like, what? And he's like, drop your drawers, show me. And I'm like, this motherfucker right here. So literally bent over, spread my ass cheeks and made sure I got as close to his fucking face as possible, you know what I mean? He's like, looks like you're a little chafed.

• 1:29:25Speaker 05

  Yo, Captain Obvious, like you're crushing it over here, like, keep going, you know? So, he's like, "Looks like you're a little chafed, um, I'm gonna give you some stuff. Here's what I want you to do, go back to your hooch. Clean yourself off really good, the areas with, uh, the wet nap from the MRE." I'm like, "Okay, I got MRE." He's like, "You know, they give us to it, they gotta feed us." Uh, "I got those." And he's like, gives me this stuff, "Rub this on, it'll go away." Okay, so I walk out of the Humvee, I look at what he gives me, and it's analgesic balm. So, I don't know what the fucking analgesic balm is, you know what I mean? I don't know what that means, but I know this.

• 1:30:09Speaker 05

  A-N-A-L is the first words, and that's exactly where I'm smearing this shit. So I figured, "Yo, this is, this is something for your ass, it's analgesic balm." Why else? "My ass hurts." He gives me something that says "anal" on it. It just seems like, if this is Latin or something, it seems like, "This feels right," you know? So I go in my, you know what fucking analgesic balm is?

• 1:30:31Shawn Ryan?

  I don't, but I, I guess we're about to find out.

• 1:30:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's not fucking funny, I'm gonna tell you that right now. Uh, this doesn't, this doesn't end up funny. So, I do the wet naps, I wipe my shit, I clean my shit, his bastard, "I'm a good soldier, clean your shit." He said, "Clean your shit," I clean my shit, right? And then, "Analgesic balm," like, "And I'm raw too, so I might as well fucking use this whole tube." You know, I wanna save some for later if it works, but like, I need most of it right now, cuz I'm really chafed. So I get a good amount on my fingers, and I'm rubbing my shit, you know what I mean? And at first, like, the cream was like, cool and cold, you know what I mean? So it went on, it was cooling, it was like, "Ah." "Analgesic balm is fucking Bengay."

• 1:31:17Speaker 05

  He had me rub fucking Bengay on raw meat on the inside of my ass, my asshole, my thighs, like, "Bengay on my fucking raw shit, are you fucking sick?" You know what I mean? "What the fuck is wrong with this guy?" This is what I'm thinking, you know? So I'm in, I'm in my poncho hooch, screaming in fucking pain without making a noise. Till it was fucking done burning. When it got done burning, it didn't chafe again.

• 1:31:49Speaker 05

  Not cool. You know what I mean? And then when I got to my squadron, my troop had run selection. So I went to the selection. I went to the troop that ran my selection. That dude was my medic.

• 1:32:04Speaker 05

  My first medic.

• 1:32:07Speaker 05

  And I was like, hey, can I? And then I'm a new, I'm a new guy on a team. Luckily, the, this like mid level guy to like next to be leadership guy on my team was in Ranger Battalion and we were really good friends. So I'm like, yo, what's up with this fucking medic dude? You know what I mean? And he was like, his nickname was Ass Wound. Another story, right? And he was like, you mean ass wound so and so? I'm like, he wounded my ass. He's like, uh, no, he wounded someone else's ass. And I'm like, oh no, he wounded my ass too. Right? And then I had to tell him this story. And every time I'd see the guy, I'd be like, I need whatever.

• 1:32:50Speaker 05

  Like, I got no patience for you anymore. You know, anal jizz, a bomb. Fool me once, fuck me. You know what I mean? But, uh, yeah, he was my first medic.

• 1:33:01Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about when you, when you left selection. When you knew that you had made it into OTC.

• 1:33:08Speaker 05

  I was in group one month and I was in OTC. Thirty days max.

• 1:33:13Shawn Ryan?

  How was OTC for you?

• 1:33:15Speaker 05

  Fucking great.

• 1:33:19Speaker 05

  I sucked at a lot of shit.

• 1:33:23Speaker 05

  I was probably, um, I was, I think the first time I ran the O course, it was so fucking, I didn't know how to run an O course. Do you go over the rope or under the rope? Do you fucking?

• 1:33:36Speaker 05

  I didn't know any of this. And in Ranger Battalion, in Ranger School, you do the Darby Queen, but like.

• 1:33:42Speaker 05

  I don't fucking remember that. You know, it wasn't a time. It's just kinda like, this is fun and they're feeding us, you know? Um, so like I had done O courses, but like I didn't know how to do an O course. So like my time was like, I don't even remember what my time was like the worst time in history. And my counselor's like, you know, we've never failed anybody out of the unit for the O course, but you could definitely be the first person for this, for sure. I'm like, thank you. In my counseling, yes, sir. Thank you. Can I have another? You know what I mean? Uh, and then through the course, if I was weak at something, I was there early in the morning. On the weekends, I got with guys that threw out the bill.

• 1:34:25Speaker 05

  I got with my cadre. I got with them to ask their buddies who were like CT Olympians, guys that like have orangutan arms that just fucking make the O course look like easy. I did that on weekdays after work with these guys. Show me these techniques. And then like the end of the, end of it, I came in like second or third on a rainy day where guys were busting their ass. Why? My technique was fucking tight. It could have rained. It could have anything. I'd have ran the same thing because now I knew how to do it right. So, uh, I put in extra miles. I came in early. I did the work. Cause it's, I think as soon as I got to the building, I knew I didn't want to be anywhere else.

• 1:35:07Shawn Ryan?

  Can we talk about the shooting package a little bit?

• 1:35:12Speaker 05

  What about it? What do you want to know?

• 1:35:14Shawn Ryan?

  Everything.

• 1:35:15Speaker 05

  Um, you know, it starts out kinda easy.

• 1:35:20Speaker 05

  Um, uh, basic rifle marksmanship, whatever the army calls that shit. You start shooting your rifles, your zero. They teach out of zero. Shoot some bullseyes, you know, do your 100, 200, 300. And then before you even go shoot a round with a pistol, you'll do a lot of hours of fucking dry fire on a sticky. Before you even get one bullet with that pistol. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of days of dry fire before you even get your first round. And then as the pistol starts,

• 1:35:54Speaker 05

  you know, you're kind of far along as the pistol starts, right? And then there's a progression to it. And really, it's like, uh, I don't know, it's a bunch of different topics that they got to put together. So, you know, one of the topics is like helicopters, riding in helicopters, rappelling, fast roping, like all that shit. Like, that could be a module within itself. So you do like a little marksmanship, another module, back to marksmanship. You know what I mean?

• 1:36:20Shawn Ryan?

  They break it up throughout the day?

• 1:36:22Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 1:36:22Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:36:23Speaker 05

  They're throughout the, the, the, the whole total time. But the marksmanship standards are no fucking joke.

• 1:36:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that's what I hear.

• 1:36:31Speaker 05

  They're not fucking playing.

• 1:36:35Speaker 05

  I sucked. I fucking sucked with a pistol when I first started. Uh, and then, I don't know, I probably, I was probably winning the shooting program for probably most of my O T C class. And then I had like one fucking day where I dropped like 10 points, like one bad string.

• 1:36:56Speaker 05

  And put me in third and I couldn't recover. It's so competitive, there was no way to get back to the top.

• 1:37:03Shawn Ryan?

  What did you find to be the most challenging portion of O T C?

• 1:37:09Speaker 05

  Of O T C?

• 1:37:15Speaker 05

  I would say the most challenging thing in general is not going out when your other place is training in training is not going and fucking partying.

• 1:37:26Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:37:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, fuck yeah, man. You're gonna show up tomorrow hungover like, uh, when I got to O T C and I am the party guy, right? Like, I'm the good time guy, I'm the fun panda. I will go buy beer, I'll bring my own alcohol, you know?

• 1:37:41Speaker 05

  I didn't go out, I didn't do any of that in OTC and a lot of guys thought I was a plant. Like they wouldn't talk in front of me, they wouldn't anything. And then like guys that knew me are like, what's the deal? And it's like, this is the only place I want to be. I don't need any of that shit. You know, so I would say the, the thing that fucking trips guys up more than anything is like, let's say, for example, you're out in Nashville, you know what I mean? And you could go to bed at eight o'clock and come in tomorrow and be really good at what we gotta do. Or we ended up till three in the morning out partying, you know what I mean? And like, at that level, it shows.

• 1:38:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:19Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? Like when, you know, you're in Ranger Battalion with a hundred guys and you're at the top of the pack. I could show up hungover and still be in the top of the pack. When it's that competitive, you show up hungover like, yo, take a last place today. You'll never recover from that. You know what I mean? So I think the most challenging thing is young men being men.

• 1:38:40Shawn Ryan?

  How about performance wise in, in training? What did you find the most, the most challenging portion of the course?

• 1:38:51Speaker 05

  I don't even know, man. I didn't think it was really challenging.

• 1:38:55Speaker 05

  In the sense that it's very professionally ran. So like they tell you what you need to do. And if you need help, some guy will fucking show you, you know, not like other places in the army or for even green team at the SEALs. There's no selection, right? And then what happens is you get to a spot and we're going to train you, but we're also hazing you to weed you out at the same time. Right? That doesn't lead to a good product. The Rangers do that, you know, the, you know, SEALs do that. I mean, it ends up being a lot of times, that's how things work. Right? Is we're training here, but you're also going to get weeded out by this training also, right? So when you get to the unit, it's.

• 1:39:39Speaker 05

  If I, if you're gonna be the world's best, the world's best is gonna show you how to be the world's best.

• 1:39:46Shawn Ryan?

  So there's.

• 1:39:46Speaker 05

  And this is a different thing, you know?

• 1:39:48Shawn Ryan?

  So O T C, they, by the time you get to O T C, they want you. They don't wanna get rid of you.

• 1:39:54Speaker 05

  No, no, they want everybody. It'll never be full. You know what I mean? I don't care how big D O D is. It's not a big enough pool to keep the ranks full. So they want every person. You, you already walked the walk. There's no hazing. It's first name, like, you need help. Hey, Bob, like, fucking show me that pistol thing again.

• 1:40:15Shawn Ryan?

  No shit. So it's, it's a, would you consider it a gentleman's course?

• 1:40:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, in the sense that no one's gonna fuck with you. Now, if you're getting fucked with, you're fucking something up. You know what I mean?

• 1:40:29Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

• 1:40:32Shawn Ryan?

  How did it feel when you graduated O T C?

• 1:40:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was, I was one of the first guys drafted and that felt good.

• 1:40:39Shawn Ryan?

  What does that mean, drafted?

• 1:40:44Speaker 05

  It's a draft. The squadrons need bodies. One squadron might need more. There's a rotation, you know, you know, this squadron gets people this, you know, you got your squadrons taking people, but what if they need more? There's a rotation. They might have the priority, but these guys get more guys. So it ends up being a draft like the NFL.

• 1:41:05Speaker 05

  And then the earlier drafted, the more you're wanted.

• 1:41:10Shawn Ryan?

  Are you, are you there at the time of the draft?

• 1:41:14Speaker 05

  Oh, oh, yeah, they'll fucking call your name.

• 1:41:17Shawn Ryan?

  No shit, so everybody's there?

• 1:41:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:41:21Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:41:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, and you'll know who number one is per squadron, first guy they ask for.

• 1:41:29Shawn Ryan?

  What number were you?

• 1:41:30Speaker 05

  Oh, two.

• 1:41:31Shawn Ryan?

  Number two?

• 1:41:33Speaker 05

  I'm not a number one guy.

• 1:41:34Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 1:41:35Speaker 05

  I'm gonna win from the bottom.

• 1:41:40Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know where you wanted to go? What squadron?

• 1:41:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, I know I didn't want to go to fucking B squadron. That's for damn sure.

• 1:41:47Shawn Ryan?

  Why not?

• 1:41:48Speaker 05

  Fuck those guys.

• 1:41:50Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what's the, what is the culture in each squadron?

• 1:41:56Speaker 05

  Uh, I would say A squadron, where I was, is the older, mature brother. Like, let's not do anything stupid. Let's kinda

• 1:42:07Speaker 05

  two bulls on a hill, an old bull and a young bull. The young bull says, hey, Bob, let's run down and fuck a cow. And the old bull says, no, son, we're gonna walk down and fuck them all. I felt like we were the older bull in that situation. Um, uh, B squadron was very much like gung ho, like a Ranger squad back then. They wanted to wear their BDU's and they wanted to fucking run the old course and they're we're fucking got six packs over here, you know what I mean? And we're fucking intense. Pat McNamara was a B squadron guy.

• 1:42:39Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:42:40Speaker 05

  Prime example. Um, and then C squadron, like, I don't know, from, from the A squadron perspective, C squadron was the little brother. After Mogadishu, they took hits, they couldn't kinda recover from and it, it kept them more junior than the other squadrons for a while.

• 1:42:58Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:42:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, like, I mean, after Mogadishu, this fucking squadron was, I think, almost decimated, right? Like, I don't remember how many people died or whatever, but like, uh, that'd decimate a squadron. And then think about this, like, some of my buddies were, you know, team leaders in four years, troops are majors in six. And like, I was the first one to get promoted and take a team, and it took me like fucking six or seven years. You know what I mean? So think about that for experience between the squadrons, right? But, uh, from my perspective in my squadron, that's kinda how we saw it.

• 1:43:32Shawn Ryan?

  So did you know this, did you know this prior to graduating OTC?

• 1:43:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, because when you walk down the hallway to Chow, if you knew a guy in B squadron, he wouldn't say hi to you if he's with other B squadron guys.

• 1:43:47Speaker 05

  But the guys I knew in A squadron, like, what's up? I hope you're doing good, like, you know what I mean? Like, regular people.

• 1:43:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:53Speaker 05

  So you just kinda like see it, you know what I mean?

• 1:43:55Shawn Ryan?

  So how does it go when you graduate OTC?

• 1:43:59Speaker 05

  You cross that hallway with all your shit.

• 1:44:03Shawn Ryan?

  Is there a board? Do they, do they talk to you at all? And, and?

• 1:44:07Speaker 05

  There's a draft.

• 1:44:08Shawn Ryan?

  There's a draft.

• 1:44:09Speaker 05

  Pack your shit, move the fuck out.

• 1:44:11Shawn Ryan?

  No, like, sense of accomplishment? None of that? Just time to move on?

• 1:44:16Speaker 05

  You got your foot in the door. If that ain't good enough for you at this point, you probably shouldn't fucking be here.

• 1:44:21Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 1:44:23Speaker 05

  Right?

• 1:44:24Shawn Ryan?

  So you show up to A Squadron, and how are you received?

• 1:44:27Speaker 00

  Mr. President, my company told me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd, causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all keep the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

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

• 1:44:43Speaker 02

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

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:44:51Speaker 02

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:44:52Speaker 01

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R, under 17, not a minute without parent.

• 1:44:57Speaker 07

  Bonjour, compadre. It's the

• 1:45:01Speaker 07

  How do I negotiate so many great travel deals? My greatest gadget, the Priceline app. It's got hotel deals, flight deals, rental car deals, all of those deals in a bundle. Deals, game day deals, concert trip deals. No one deals more deals than Priceline. Hold your horses, there's more. The app lets you filter hotels by neighborhood, vibe, star level, and amenities like pools and spas and beachfronts. And, wait, I'm not done. Stop cutting me off.

• 1:45:27Speaker 05

  Uh, pretty good, man. Um, yeah, I mean, I was a new guy, like, for a while. My boss told me, keep my mouth shut. For a while, I did. One day, he was like, why ain't you saying nothing? I was like, he's like, because I told you to keep your mouth shut? I nodded. He's like, you probably do well here. I didn't say nothing like, mm. Um, but, yeah, um, yeah, I don't know, man. I was received just fine. I definitely felt like I was fucking trained and ready to go. And for the first time, I felt like I was close to being on par with these guys. You know what I mean? Um, instead of like, what do we do here? You know, I felt like, I'm fucking ready. Let's go.

• 1:46:11Shawn Ryan?

  Were you on par at that point?

• 1:46:14Speaker 05

  Almost.

• 1:46:15Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:46:16Speaker 05

  I think so.

• 1:46:17Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:46:18Speaker 05

  I think so, like, look, true skill won't come later, you know, until you're a boss and you don't got time to shoot and you're like, hey, guys, what are you doing? Like, I hate when you show up and beat us. Have more experience at this. You know what I mean? Uh, so, you know, experience is the time is the, uh, the end of the day, I think, for that. Experience, whatever you call it.

• 1:46:44Shawn Ryan?

  What, um, what year is this?

• 1:46:47Speaker 05

  Ninety-six.

• 1:46:48Shawn Ryan?

  Where were you? When September 11th happened?

• 1:46:52Speaker 05

  Fucking trying to get jump numbers to go to, uh, Free Fall Instructor School. I was out at Rayford jumping.

• 1:47:00Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have any deployments with Delta prior to nine eleven?

• 1:47:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:47:05Shawn Ryan?

  What were you guys into?

• 1:47:07Speaker 05

  All kinds of shit. Bosnia, Bosnia for one.

• 1:47:12Shawn Ryan?

  What were you doing there?

• 1:47:13Speaker 05

  Uh, I did PSD there. Um, amongst other shit. Tons of shit.

• 1:47:20Shawn Ryan?

  Were you impressed?

• 1:47:22Speaker 05

  With Bosnia?

• 1:47:23Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:24Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't know, you know what I mean? Bosnia was a fucking shit show. Um, you know, even then, we sided with the Muslims. Uh, that wouldn't happen after two thousand and one. Uh, we'd go to these fucking, you know, camp Turkish army camps, you know, fucking Al Qaeda camps. Nothing we could do about it, but the Serbs were the bad guys, right? Is that how the, it's kind of like how the war went.

• 1:47:52Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:47:53Speaker 05

  Um, and I would say Bosnia, I fucking love Bosnia, man. I thought it was great. I had a great time. It was, uh, it was my first taste of chaos and making my own rules as I go.

• 1:48:08Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? And then I was a new guy. I had to hang out with like, I don't know, the guy who complained all the time or the guy who talked all the time, like you with him. And he's like, why do I get the guy that never shuts up? You know what I mean?

• 1:48:21Speaker 05

  I'm the new guy, you know what I mean? So, um, but no matter who they paired me with, I had to, you know, do my job. And I worked fucking hard in Bosnia. I made everything I was asked for. I achieved, um, I think I got one of them.

• 1:48:36Speaker 05

  Defense meritorious ribbons in Bosnia, whatever the fuck the. You know what I'm talking about, like defense meritorious service or some shit. I got some fucking award for Bosnia, it's pretty good.

• 1:48:49Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. Where were you when nine eleven happened?

• 1:48:54Speaker 05

  Brag. Yeah, I was a brag, I was skydiving for free fall instructor, had to have like two hundred fifty jumps, so I go out with the knights. I go out with the accuracy team and them motherfuckers are jumping like eighteen hundred feet. The first time I got out the plane, I was like, what? And the thought is going, why the fuck are we doing this, right? And then like, we're waiting to jump and then.

• 1:49:19Speaker 05

  What the fuck? So like one guy's like, let me go in the team room, I don't know. And the planes were grounded and then like, someone crashed an airplane into the tower, you know what I mean? And like the first plane you see crashing to the tower like, is that pilot fucking drunk? You know what I mean? Like, that's what I was thinking, drunken pilots or something, you know what I mean? And then the second one and you're like, hmm. So, uh, that day I had to go back, my squadron was deployed, the only reason I was back was to go the free fall instructor. And, uh. I was basically the squadron commander, like I had a, I had a fucking man up on these BTCs like. You know, I'm like sitting in these meetings and like, I don't know what to do, like, well, you're the senior representative from A squadron, like.

• 1:50:04Speaker 05

  Yo, I shouldn't be in this meeting, you know what I mean? Like, we need a representative from A squadron, like, fuck, uh, okay. So I'm like sitting in this meeting and like luckily the B squadron commander at the time was like. B squadron's ready and standing by, ready, you know, ready to go worldwide and you know, like, I don't know. Whatever the fuck officer shit he said, you know what I mean? I just said the same thing as him. What about A squadron? My men are, you know, oh, uh, we, my guys were somewhere in Europe already. So I was like, my guys are, you know, cause like the squadrons are always trying to angle out angle motherfuckers on missions, you know what I mean? So I was like, my guys are already pre deployed. I know all the airplanes are shut down, but my guys are pre deployed, you know, ex-location and you

• 1:50:47Speaker 05

  know what I mean? Trying to like, we're better than these motherfuckers, you know what I mean? And then, uh, the B squadron guys at nine 11, like they were driving gun trucks around the compound. It's like, yo, we got a fence. We got guards. Like, why I gotta be on guard duty too? You know what I mean? Uh, but yeah, I was, uh, I was the A squadron commander for a little bit, you know what I mean? And then the word that came down in those meetings was be patient. We gotta figure this out. Don't do anything rash. Don't do, don't start spinning. Let's be very methodical.

• 1:51:26Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have any idea what you were in for at that point?

• 1:51:31Speaker 05

  Man, I was hoping it was something good. You know what I mean? Like I've been around this long, like I ain't never, we ain't never done anything. Like hopefully, you know, cause there's whole generations of guys don't even get a mission, you know, especially my day, you know, the nineties and shit. Uh, so like I was hoping like hopefully something good comes of this.

• 1:51:55Shawn Ryan?

  When was the, when was the first team deployed?

• 1:51:59Speaker 05

  Um, I don't know. I was on the ground in like November, something like that. I don't even remember.

• 1:52:05Shawn Ryan?

  Were you the first team to deploy from that unit?

• 1:52:07Speaker 05

  Hmm. I don't remember how it went down, but yeah, we were basically the first guys on the ground.

• 1:52:14Shawn Ryan?

  In Afghanistan?

• 1:52:17Shawn Ryan?

  And what were you doing there?

• 1:52:20Speaker 05

  Fucking killing Bin Laden. Battle of Tora Bora.

• 1:52:25Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go into that.

• 1:52:26Speaker 05

  All right.

• 1:52:29Shawn Ryan?

  You start.

• 1:52:29Speaker 05

  Man, me and a couple of other guys controlled every fucking asset. In the eastern, western hemisphere for fucking 10 days. Every fucking bomb, every pound of ordance. Me and a couple of other guys dropped. And we killed a lot of people. We killed so many people on my fir- fir- fucking first day, like I just stopped counting then and there like hundreds, like it's too many to count, you know what I mean?

• 1:52:56Shawn Ryan?

  How were you going on?

• 1:52:58Speaker 05

  Radios, uh, took some 50 cal sniper shots, shot some guys. Um, but mostly just fucking moving up, bombing them, moving up, bombing them, right? Because you can't get there from here. And if they shoot at me from that mountain, like I'll just level it, you know what I mean?

• 1:53:17Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go to the brief, like what was the, what was the mission briefing for Tora Bora? What were you guys doing? Like what was the?

• 1:53:26Speaker 05

  Bin Laden's there, go get him and kill him. End of discussion. Wanted dead or alive.

• 1:53:37Speaker 05

  That's it.

• 1:53:38Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you insert?

• 1:53:40Speaker 05

  Uh, fucking Toyota trucks, man. We drove up, drop a daisy cutter. Man, I had the old fucking trusty rusty. I had this red fucking Toyota truck, like I would attract mortar fire like you read about, man. It's fucking awesome. And we just drive right up in that bitch, right into the fucking middle. We get out of the truck on my first day. I'm with this other guy, he was like a Panama guy. He was the guy that, uh, in Panama, he shot the machine gun in the barracks and killed all the guys before they got out of bed. Uh, so like he had been to combat before. I drive my truck to the top of the mountain, past the tanks. There's fucking savages, the tanks shooting, like total fucking chaos, right? There's press, we had to fight our way through the press.

• 1:54:24Speaker 05

  We had a guy almost shoot the press. It was great, like this is the best thing ever, right? I'm thinking, so we get to the top of the mountain and like. We're just getting watered like you fucking read about. And I was like, I asked that guy, I was like, is this incoming or outgoing? Like, what's going on here? Right? Like, he's like, why? I'm like, this is fucking great. And then, and I just standing there, right? So he kind of like walked back by the truck and just left me there, right? And then like, I don't know, 10 years later, he was like, hey, remember that day on the top of the mountain? And I was like, yeah. He was like, yo, those were incoming, but you had such a fucking smile on your face. I didn't want to ruin it for you. I was like, I asked you incoming or outgoing? You said they were, I thought it was like the tank firing, kicking up the, I didn't know what the fuck was

• 1:55:09Speaker 05

  going on. So like, and at the same time, like in the book, Kill Bin Laden, like the, the fucking savage commander guy, I don't even remember his fucking name, but he's just like, yes, those are your men. And like, you know, Dalton Fury's like, yes, those are my men. You know what I mean? And he's thinking, what the fuck are they doing? You know what I mean? And I'm just over there like, this is fucking great. And like the savage commander, like, your men are very brave. Like, your men are brave. Like, they fucking love me. You know what I mean? But yeah, that's kind of what it was like. Total chaos. No idea what was going on all the time. Let's just make the best thing happen right now. We can.

• 1:55:46Shawn Ryan?

  So was that your first kinetic deployment?

• 1:55:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:55:50Shawn Ryan?

  As an operator?

• 1:55:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:55:51Shawn Ryan?

  Through Ranger, through SF?

• 1:55:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:55:53Shawn Ryan?

  And it sounds like several years over a Delta?

• 1:55:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:55:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So, I mean, how did that feel?

• 1:56:02Speaker 05

  Fucking amazing, man. Amazing. And then like, typical team shit. I got two guys arguing, who's gonna be in fucking charge? One senior by, by time, one's actually in charge, but he's junior by time to the senior guy. So these guys are arguing, I just leave them argue. I'd be like, yo, you know, call for a fire mission, linear sheath, fan them out, you know what I mean? Half air, half ground. I'm just fucking working it. And then it'd be like, you know, uh, you know, be like, hey, they asked you for danger close. Say, hey, stop arguing for a minute. Hey, how far are we from the bad guys? 400 yards. They said 600. Yeah, send it.

• 1:56:47Speaker 05

  Get behind a rock.

• 1:56:50Speaker 05

  I'm like, I'm gonna drop it, you know what I mean? And then, uh, yeah, so these guys argued and I just took the time to just focus and kill as many human beings as I could. They fucking shoot at us, we'd fucking level it, we'd move up. They'd shoot at us, we'd level it, we'd move up, like, pretty simple.

• 1:57:07Shawn Ryan?

  Was that affecting you at all that, that, I mean, that's your first, let's talk about your first kill. You said you were on the 50. Do you remember it?

• 1:57:16Speaker 05

  Yeah. Fucking McMillan 50, we shot dudes like, I don't know, 2,500 meters. The problem is, is like, look, this is why I'm not fucking claiming a million of these fucking kills, because you can't get there from here. But I'll tell you this, the motherfuckers never shot again. How do you know?

• 1:57:35Speaker 05

  So is this confirmed kills? So like, yeah, we shot people, man, with that 50, it was fucking great.

• 1:57:41Shawn Ryan?

  2,500 meters?

• 1:57:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:57:43Shawn Ryan?

  That's your first?

• 1:57:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:57:46Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:57:48Speaker 05

  First 10 days of the war.

• 1:57:50Shawn Ryan?

  And that's your first engagement with a?

• 1:57:52Speaker 05

  Yeah. Later I'd have to go to special forces sniper school, because I thought I was gonna be a, a sniper team leader in the unit, because I'd been a sniper for so long in the unit. And, uh, uh, like, I'd already had kills, had a big beard, they hated me over there, you know what I mean? Like, no, that's not right. Like, that's, but, uh, yeah, first 10 days of the war.

• 1:58:16Speaker 05

  And then we just killed and captured so many people, like, I don't think guys really understand, like, you know, the, the lone survivor story, right? The Taliban, you know, on the Navy SEAL team, you know what I'm saying? And, and it didn't go well for the SEALs. Okay, yo, bring 400 of your friend, tell them to bring their fucking trucks, tell them to bring their machine guns, and like, we would just kill all comers. All comers. You know what I mean? And you'll hear other guys, there's other times we did even more of this in Iraq. We just killed everyone that shows up. So it's like, the, the lone survivor story, like, I don't even understand it, because we would kill hundreds of people in a fucking day.

• 1:59:00Speaker 05

  Like, yeah, show up, we'll kill you too. We don't even care, like, I didn't understand how those things really happened. You know what I mean? Compared to my experience and what I saw, you know what I mean? And then, so. Literally, man, I can't tell you how many days I got where we just killed so many people you can't even count.

• 1:59:22Shawn Ryan?

  So what is, I mean, no, basically zero rules of engagement, just kill anything that shows up.

• 1:59:29Speaker 05

  I used to call it State Department by Shrek. I'm the fucking State Department here. I make the decisions. Kill everybody. Let's go.

• 1:59:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, I love chaos. It's my jam. I gave you chaos as my jam sticker.

• 1:59:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yep. What, um, let's talk about some of your singleton missions.

• 1:59:50Speaker 05

  So the first one, I had to go back into Tora Bora.

• 1:59:55Speaker 05

  Because I had been there.

• 1:59:58Speaker 05

  The, the premise of going back into Tora Bora is there was a guy who supposedly him and his sons brought Bin Laden out. Right, they escorted him into Pakistan. Right. And then the goal was the goal, find him. So I had to go out alone. I was out for days, taxis, trucks, hitchhiking, whatever you want to call it. I get to the area, I, you know, I had a Kent cigarette bag with a fucking, you know, a super eight VHS, I think it was super eight, uh, or maybe it was six mil at that time, but eight or six mil like cassettes in the little recorder, you know what I'm talking about? In a Kent cigarette bag and like a sat phone.

• 2:00:41Speaker 05

  And I just fucking took a cab out of Jalalabad towards Tora Bora Mountains and hitchhiked all the way till I got there.

• 2:00:48Shawn Ryan?

  All by yourself?

• 2:00:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:00:50Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:00:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. Uh, and then.

• 2:00:54Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, how the fuck do you blend in?

• 2:00:57Speaker 05

  You wear savage stuff?

• 2:00:59Shawn Ryan?

  And that worked?

• 2:01:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:01:01Shawn Ryan?

  No terp, no nothing?

• 2:01:02Speaker 05

  Just shut the fuck up.

• 2:01:05Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? He's just shut the fuck up. Um, yeah. And then like I had to act retarded at a couple of checkpoints. You know what I mean? Like got the AK to the chest and you know, it's like if I open my mouth, I'm dead. So that's not an option. You know what I mean? And then, uh, uh, I just figured I'd Mongoloid voice at volume 11. So the guy's like, la la, la la la. I'm like, and the guy's like, get the fuck out of here. And that's how I got through the checkpoints. And that's how I got the assault force through all those checkpoints as well.

• 2:01:46Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, your adrenaline had to be going a million miles an hour.

• 2:01:51Speaker 05

  Yeah. I would say this is any guy who is or girl who was abused as a kid can control that really well. Right? Cause you know, you're going to get beat by dad when he comes home drunk. Right? So it's always about controlling that. Um, I think anyone who's been abused could handle those situations just fine, you know?

• 2:02:13Shawn Ryan?

  How did you get picked for this?

• 2:02:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was in Assadabad. Uh, that's where I was stationed and we were doing like all the northern valleys, like the Korengal Valley. Like I've been in there with just two fucking guys. We didn't have no problem until I seen that Restrepo movie. You know what I mean? And I was like, I didn't even know that place was dangerous. Uh, I also used to drive through Ramadi by myself all the time while people were getting hung on bridges. Um, but yeah, I think in Afghanistan, um, man, I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know if I have any words to describe it.

• 2:02:47Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, did you volunteer for it or?

• 2:02:49Speaker 05

  Uh, I kinda, I didn't know I could say no. I didn't volunteer. Uh, so.

• 2:02:58Speaker 05

  In Assatabad, basically, one day, we ran out of beef jerky and Pop-Tarts. I like them Pop-Tarts, you know what I mean? Like, I eat them brown sugar Pop-Tarts. You just keep them coming, everything will be fucking fine. So, like, we're eating, like, fucking vegetables and, like, fucking go on the local economy in Assatabad. And I went to my boss, like, yo, we're the fucking depot, man. You know what I mean? I know in Bagram, they got more fucking beef jerky than they could ever fucking eat. They got all the poggy, like, let me go fly back, fill my truck and bring it back. And my boss is like, schedule those airplanes, do whatever the fuck you want. I was like, got it. So I did all the coordinations.

• 2:03:43Speaker 05

  Next night, fucking Chinook comes in, driving it alone on my Toyota truck, flies me to Bagram. I get out at Bagram, I drive to the chow hall, to our, my squadron guy. And I'm like, yo, and the cook, the squadron cook, always make that guy your best friend. I'm like, yo, fill my truck, man. We ain't got shit in Assatabad. He's like, oh, yeah, I got you. And then I see Dalton Fury and the S.A.R. Major for him. And they were like, hey, what are you doing? I'm like, stealing fucking poggy from the chow hall. What does it look like I'm doing here? Like, you know what I mean? And they're like, you want to go on a mission? I was like, have you asked my boss? And they're like, we will. And I was like, yeah, I'll go on a mission. What is it? Right? And they're like, come this way, right?

• 2:04:28Speaker 05

  And then, so they want me to go out alone. And the reason I had to go out alone is the general at the time said, we could only hit targets if there's USIs on. But you can't leave the wire.

• 2:04:47Speaker 05

  So when I came to Bagram, technically, my status was in transit. So they kept me in transit through the whole mission. And then when I got back, they showed the video, USIs on, and they launched.

• 2:05:06Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 2:05:07Speaker 05

  Well, that's the kind of shit we had to do to fucking make change.

• 2:05:10Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take you to get up to Tora Bora?

• 2:05:12Speaker 05

  Fucking ten fucking days, seven fucking, the whole thing was like, I was out there like ten days or two weeks. Like, you ain't getting anywhere quick, you know, you know what I mean? Riding in fucking savage taxis and fucking Jenga trucks.

• 2:05:26Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, could you just describe that mission in as much detail as possible?

• 2:05:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, I left out of a cab, the, out of the safe house. I left out of a cab in Afghanistan and a fucking cab drove to wherever the fucking cab drove. I got out with the rest of the fucking savages. There's a goat in the car, people are sitting on my dick, like fucking people smell like shit. I want to fucking throw up, like.

• 2:05:52Shawn Ryan?

  How were you communicating? How were you telling them?

• 2:05:54Speaker 05

  I don't say shit.

• 2:05:55Shawn Ryan?

  How were you telling them where you need to go?

• 2:05:56Speaker 05

  I don't say shit. I just fucking ride and then I got a truck.

• 2:06:01Shawn Ryan?

  So was the cab an asset or was it a local?

• 2:06:04Speaker 05

  Um, I think, I think the safe house.

• 2:06:08Shawn Ryan?

  Coordinated?

• 2:06:08Speaker 05

  Coordinated for the, a cab that goes that way, right? And then the cab gets to a place and the dude just gets everybody out and turns around. And then you kind of wait there for another thing. You know what I mean? But, uh, I ended up.

• 2:06:26Shawn Ryan?

  Was it all coordinated?

• 2:06:27Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:06:28Shawn Ryan?

  So it was legit.

• 2:06:30Speaker 05

  Once I got out of that cab, I was on my own.

• 2:06:33Shawn Ryan?

  And so how did you communicate to get in?

• 2:06:36Speaker 05

  I found a, I found a jingly truck. Well, first off, all you gotta do is stand out there. Someone's gonna pick you up. That's how they do it. They'll just give you a fucking ride. You know, they're just fucking picking up randos out there all the time, like, you know what I mean? So picking up people ain't a thing. So I just kind of walk and I walk with the people, just kind of hang out. Fucking truck would come by, we all get in that truck. And then I kinda knew my way. I knew where Torabora was. I had already been there, right? So I knew, you know, which way, you know, truck's going that way. No good. Truck's going that way. Fuck it. Let's see where it goes. I could always fucking yell, make noise and fucking jump out at any time I want. But um, I didn't really have to do any of that. Where are you sleeping?

• 2:07:22Speaker 05

  I fucking slept in a taxi or in the fucking jingly truck. You know what I mean? With the savages, like people sitting on my lap. When I was in the fucking truck, I had to sit in the middle. Every time the guy shifted, he like fucking handed my balls. I'm like,

• 2:07:38Speaker 05

  yep, grabbed another gear. That's fine too. You know what I mean? Holy shit. As, as fucking legit as it gets, man. Um, and then the truck driver had a route and he drove the valley to the end of the valley. He'd crash at this house at the end of the valley. And the next day, he was, he had a logging truck. And the next day, he'd drive out of the valley and they like bring trees, cut down trees, whatever, logging trucks. Anyway, uh, so when I rode with him, we passed the target house. Literally, it's just kinda like me, him at that point. I kinda under my arm out the window and fucking got that dude. Luckily, he was,

• 2:08:22Speaker 05

  I think he was standing on the fucking front porch when I made the video, like it couldn't, PID and the building at the same time. It was fucking, the video was great. It wasn't. Uh, that dude, fuck, I don't remember his name. You know what I mean? But he was the guy where him and his sons are supposed to bring Bin Laden out of the mountains. Right? So, um, I do the recon. We get to this fucking house at the end of the thing, at the end of the like valley. And you know how it's all terrorists and shit? It's a fucking riverbed. They're all terrorists. Um, so we go to this house at the end of the valley and I'm just with this driver guy and uh, we go in this house and there's dudes and like,

• 2:09:06Speaker 05

  they start drinking tea. They give me the black tea, which I had learned earlier and tarragon count will put you to sleep for three days. Cause that's the opium tea, right? They're all drinking clear tea. They give me black tea. I kinda knew the difference. Drank it anyway. Soon as it was bedtime, the lights were out. I took my speed so I wouldn't go to sleep. And then in the middle of the night, I dragged that truck driver into his truck at gunpoint and fucking pointed the other way, like vroom, vroom. And he's like looking at me like, what the fuck? Because I think he actually thought I was crazy before then. You know what I mean? And then we got in the truck and drove away. And then at that house, I thought either they were gonna kill me,

• 2:09:51Speaker 05

  they had like this little boy they were abusing or some shit. I didn't even want to know what was going on in the next room, never seen any females. And then as soon as I got that video, I wanted out of there. This is fucking mission success. I already every second you are out there at this time, I am risking mission failure because I already reached what we needed. So I wanted to get back as soon as possible. And I'll tell you this, being out alone versus being in a troop or with other task force, thirty, sixty, twelve, whatever, however many people. I fucking learned a hundred to one what the fuck to do that day. You know what I mean? Because I can only count on me. You know what I mean?

• 2:10:34Speaker 05

  So my learning curve was through the roof. And ever since then, it's changed the way I see, think, do everything I do.

• 2:10:42Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have any did you have any type of communications with anybody back in the rear?

• 2:10:52Speaker 05

  When I got back to the safe house in Jalalabad is when I made my first radio contact.

• 2:10:58Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. So ten days, did you, was it ten day mission? Or was it ten days up to Tora Bora?

• 2:11:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, probably about seven.

• 2:11:06Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so.

• 2:11:08Speaker 05

  Couple of days, get back.

• 2:11:09Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 2:11:10Speaker 05

  And then the assault force came in. We went back and got the guy. There was another couple of days. The whole thing, maybe two weeks.

• 2:11:16Shawn Ryan?

  So you actually had to personally get back with that video? There was no way to send the video?

• 2:11:23Speaker 05

  Nope. Wow. And send in video was like in its infancy then. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like if I could send the video, it would only been like it took six hours to send a three second clip. You know how it was back then on Satcom and shit like kinda existent, but really like not like it is now. You know what I mean? Yeah. Uh, so I had to get back with that video. Shit. So.

• 2:11:51Speaker 05

  How was the one you got back? Got back to the safe house in Jalalabad, uh, contacted the rear, talked to, you know, Commander Fury. Drew. I drew the fucking assault plan on like a napkin or fucking piece of paper and it was like stick figure dudes to trucks to house to trucks to like home. And then that one option, we just drive in, we hit the house, we drive out, right? That'd take forever. Next option, drive in helicopter out airplane to Bagram, right? So it was like, you know,

• 2:12:34Speaker 05

  airplane, helicopter, truck, house. Uh, later like whatever general like called me Picasso, I seen your drawing and everyone made fun of me, but like, yo, Chicago public school education, you can't take your books, can't leave the school. Like, of course I'm drawing fucking sticks figures here. You know what I mean? Like you didn't send me with a proper reporting format. I don't fucking know what to say or do, right? So like literally the assault plan was a Trojan horse based off of my fucking stick figures. Um, but what happens? I get back, I, I rented, uh, I got more trucks. Like now I got a terp. We talked to the driver, like I handed the driver like this wad of cash

• 2:13:17Speaker 05

  when we got back and he was just like, ah, it's like fucking eight dollars, you know what I mean? Like,

• 2:13:25Speaker 05

  and then I driver, everyone got paid, but, um, we filled the trucks with.

• 2:13:31Speaker 05

  Like them savage like mattresses, you know, it's not really a mattress. It's just like foam, like twin bed size, literally knee deep in the back of the trucks for guys to hang out. And then they were doing the Trojan horse. So what I didn't know is while they were at Bagram, they built facades for the back of the trucks that looked like water bottles. You know what I mean? So if you lifted a thing, it was water bottles, cases of water. But it was a facade on a piece of plywood, so they couldn't see the assaulters. And it was like one box wide or something. Uh, when they, so the guys flew in the Jalalabad, met me with the Jingli trucks,

• 2:14:12Speaker 05

  got off the trucks, on the Jingli trucks, five or six hours, five or six checkpoints, couple sketchy ones, uh, to get through.

• 2:14:21Shawn Ryan?

  Why sketchy? What happened?

• 2:14:23Speaker 05

  I'm gonna tell you sketchy fucking, I'm gonna tell you what sketchy checkpoints look like in Afghanistan. They'll have that one little string in the middle of the road on like a two bricks on this side and two bricks on this side. You seen that before? Yeah, fuck with that string. And there's a 50 cal over here that's just gonna gun everybody down. You know what I mean? On the top of a hill over here, right? So, oh, and when I say gun everybody down, they'll gun down the other Afghans because once they start shooting, it ain't gonna fucking stop. Uh, and they'll kill everybody. And then they'll be like, oh, we shot Ahmed.

• 2:14:58Speaker 05

  But, um, yeah, these checkpoints are just fucking, you can't fuck with them. You're not gonna run it. You're not gonna fuck with them, right? And they want something, right? So one of the checkpoints, a guy was shaking me down. I just grabbed a dirty fucking blanket, kind of off the floor on the bottom of the truck. And the guy snatched it from me and like waved us through. So when we came back through, I bought a bunch of blankets and I just hanging handed blankets to the guys. And everyone's like, ah, because it's a cold night, middle of the night. Everybody loved them blankets. That's how I got the assault force through. And I had already been through with my truck driver a few times. You know what I mean? So like, I was a familiar face.

• 2:15:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah. So you get in.

• 2:15:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, so assault force comes in. One of the sources, the source that gave this guy up, only gave him up because he wanted to fuck one of his wives. And when we raided the house, there was a super hot one that is not the one he wanted.

• 2:16:01Speaker 05

  Anyway, uh, he led the assault force to the house. I kinda as the sniper sealed the backside from the village, right? They're raiding the house. Um, villagers start to kinda like, a lot of villagers were coming about to overrun us, right? And, um, I just fired over their heads with an AK, cause I had an AK, that's what you carry, right? What I didn't know is every fucking laser on the assault force is on my body. Like, yo, it was me, motherfuckers, go back to work. You know what I mean? Like, these lasers over AK fire, right? Everyone's like, what the fuck is that? Right? It's just me. Um, and then, uh, we raid

• 2:16:42Speaker 05

  the house, get the guy and his sons, like, his kids were sleeping with a fucking water buffalo. Like, I'm trying to open the shed. We're clearing the outbuildings later, trying to open this, it's fucking dark, like, trying to get in, open this door, finally shine a fucking light. It's a water buffalo. Like, he's laying on the ground and I'm pushing against his face and he's just like, ah!

• 2:17:07Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit!

• 2:17:08Speaker 05

  And then like, hey, and then like little kids stand up from like behind him, like, and like they're sleeping with this water buffalo to stay fucking warm.

• 2:17:17Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:17:17Speaker 05

  So the kids slept with a fucking water buffalo. I think there was a donkey in there too. It was like, fucking bizarre, like, anyway, first time I seen a water buffalo. Fucking surprise, you know? Um, yeah, we cleared the house. Um, and then I left the next morning, helicopters came in, they exfilled, went back to Jalalabad Airport with them. That's our first snatch of the war, right? And then, um, I had to make my way out with the trucks later. And then I got to Jalalabad Airport a couple of days later.

• 2:17:52Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. Let's take a quick break.

• 2:17:55Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:17:59Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.

• 2:18:20Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Shrek, we're back from the break. We just talked about the Singleton mission in Tora Bora. I want to move into you working with the Pakistani commandos.

• 2:18:31Speaker 05

  Mmm.

• 2:18:32Shawn Ryan?

  Let's start that.

• 2:18:33Speaker 05

  Love that. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I was a major in the Pakistani Special Forces. What's up?

• 2:18:41Shawn Ryan?

  How'd that happen?

• 2:18:43Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, I got told like we were crossing the border, going in for, to control both sides of the border, right? And, uh, we were supposed to go with the Pakistani Special Forces guys, right? And, uh, basically me and another guy, we were like company commanders. We're in charge of a company. Um, and we did other side of the border shit.

• 2:19:07Shawn Ryan?

  Why were you securing that border?

• 2:19:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, because they thought Bin Laden might cross at some time. You know what I mean? Like, we all know that was bullshit, but like, we're securing the border, right? Like, so, uh, I had been other, like, they call it AFO, right? Advanced Force Operations, right? Uh, back then it was like black magic, you know what I mean? Like, who's gonna do this? Like, first off, war requires bodies and what everyone doesn't know is everyone's gonna fucking have to do it before too long. But, um, at that point, you know, like, AFO, like, this was a new thing. And then they, we had the opportunity to put guys on the other side of the border also. Why the fuck not? You know what I mean?

• 2:19:47Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:19:48Speaker 05

  Um, and then, yeah, basically, super easy job. Like, we'd get intel, we'd fucking drive them to point X, definitely not tell them anything, you know what I mean? Uh, and then, uh, be like, go raid that compound. And they'd be like, "Major, how did you know there'd be so many landmines in that compound?" Like, I never told them, but like, I could read the GPS. That's what I wanted to say, but like... Be like, I just left it a mystery. You know what I mean? Like, uh, but yeah, we fucking did all kinds of shit on the other side of the border.

• 2:20:20Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of stuff?

• 2:20:21Speaker 05

  Well, you know, the, the fucking Pakistanis, first off, don't want Bin Laden or Al Qaeda in their fucking country. And I know this might sound hard to believe, and this was hard for me to take, but like, the Pakistani special forces guys are as proud as Pakistan as we are America. And they want what's right for fucking their country. You know what I mean? Now, it's hard for me to grasp, like, wait, you guys are patriots of Pakistan? That kind of sounds ridiculous to me. But the reality is, it's, it's where you live, it's where you work, it's where you grew. You're a special forces guy? Of course, you're a patriot of Pakistan. You know what I mean? And these guys wanted to do, they're on the side of right.

• 2:21:04Shawn Ryan?

  What is a mission that stands out that happened over there in Pakistan more than the rest of them?

• 2:21:14Speaker 05

  Man, we'd run up on these Al Qaeda compounds and like, they would want to surround them and like, wait them out. And like, in the middle of the night, they'd come out guns ablazing and disappear into the dark. You know what I mean? They'd be like, yo, let us level the compound right now. And like, they'd be like, no, we wait them out. Really not much happened on the other side of the border, per se, like gunfights in the frontier provenances. So it's pretty boring in that way, but we did get fucking rocketed and mortared every fucking night, just like Afghanistan, probably worse. Um,

• 2:21:52Speaker 05

  I will tell you, uh, one of our first missions, uh, we were at Hakani's house, looking for Hakani, and supposedly he dressed up like a girl. He was one of the girls. And they're like, no, we can't touch the girls. It's like, one of these girls is a fucking boy, but you can't touch girls in general. Um, that's the same place where Bird Doll was. I raided the place that they fucking housed him. How crazy.

• 2:22:18Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 2:22:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, Hakani's place, across the border.

• 2:22:27Shawn Ryan?

  What about, what about after Pakistan? Where'd you go?

• 2:22:31Speaker 05

  Uh, I left Pakistan.

• 2:22:36Speaker 05

  I was shitting in a fucking hole, in a fucking compound in fucking Pakistan. And I got the word, my team had moved to Baghdad. And I was out of there that day, literally. I got on a fucking, a bird, a helicopter.

• 2:22:54Speaker 05

  Went to Islamabad. Got on a civilian plane, flew to Kuwait City. Got off the plane in Kuwait City. And like, I don't speak the fucking language, but there's a C-130 on the tarmac waiting for me. I'm trying to get to there, so I'm trying to tell all the fucking man dress guys in Kuwait City, I need to get to that plane. And finally, some dude walked me behind customs, everything, fucking fired up some, like the big ass airport buses. I'm the only one on it. Drove me to the plane, I get to the back of the plane and the dude waiting for me is like, "You're fucking late." You know what I mean? It was like, "Motherfucker, you ever tried to tell a dude, "You need to get to that plane without knowing how to tell a dude?" Like, "Come on, I did my fucking best."

• 2:23:39Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? So like, I get on a plane, we combat land in the buy up, and then that's where my job was. I was in, uh, I was at the VVIP for a while.

• 2:23:50Shawn Ryan?

  So, when you get to, it's, when you get to Baghdad, at some point in time, you'd been named the Sheriff of Baghdad. How did that come about?

• 2:23:59Speaker 05

  Uh, no, that didn't come till much later. Much later, yeah. Yeah, much later.

• 2:24:04Shawn Ryan?

  Well, how did it come about?

• 2:24:05Speaker 05

  Uh, this guy, when I was a SAR major, we hired a guy who was a retired SAR major, worked for the State Department. He worked the Crisis Action Center for the Embassy in Baghdad through the war years. Got paid a ton of money to handle crises for the State Department, but you know what kind of crisis you handle while there's a war going on? None. There's a war going on. Like, he didn't do shit. Finally, one day, his wife told him he had to come home. He couldn't stay gone no more, but he's killed it for money, worked for the State Department. So he retired out of Bragg, looking for jobs on Bragg, comes to work at JSOC. He's like, hey, Sergeant Major, what size shirt you wear? I'm like, I'm a double, triple X. What's up?

• 2:24:48Speaker 05

  You know, and he's like, I got a bunch of Sheriff of Baghdad t-shirts that, you know, when I was at the State Department, you want them? I'm like, look, you know, for PT, for Jiu-Jitsu, like, I ruined t-shirts. I was like, bring them, I'll wear them. I just started wearing Sheriff of Bag- I had a ton of them. I wear Sheriff of Baghdad t-shirts everywhere.

• 2:25:07Shawn Ryan?

  That's how it happened?

• 2:25:08Speaker 05

  That's how it happened.

• 2:25:11Shawn Ryan?

  That is not what I was expecting.

• 2:25:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then, you know, Dave Kramer, works for Magpul. He was like the archerics guy forever, Solomon's son too. Anyway, he's like, like, only guy I knew that knew like about big business at the time. So I was like, hey, you know, I was thinking about, you know, I gotta have a business name or whatever. What do you think? He was like, the funniest thing I ever heard is you and that Sheriff of Baghdad. If you don't just name, and your business is Sheriff of Baghdad, I don't know what name you should name it. And I was like, well, if he says that, I'll do it. And I did it.

• 2:25:47Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 2:25:49Shawn Ryan?

  So tell me about Iraq.

• 2:25:51Speaker 05

  Man. So, yeah, so I land in Iraq, I get to the VVIP, like, my fucking desk is a marble table, 60 fucking feet long. I'm in this ornate room with bath party symbols on the ceiling. It's wood, it's marble. We got like a fucking four, six head gold shower, like, I'm like, yo, this is war, that fucking thing hitting me in the nuts, the gold thing that's low? Like, this is how you fucking war right here, not fucking shitting in a hole. So on one day, I went from like shitting in a hole to like fucking gold showers. Loved every fucking second of it ever since then.

• 2:26:34Speaker 05

  It's fucking great.

• 2:26:35Shawn Ryan?

  How was the op tempo over there?

• 2:26:37Speaker 05

  Iraq is amazing, man. We do ten hits, twenty hits, fuck, I don't know how many a night. You know what I mean?

• 2:26:44Shawn Ryan?

  Ten to twenty hits a night?

• 2:26:45Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:26:46Shawn Ryan?

  How the fuck do you do ten to twenty hits a night?

• 2:26:49Speaker 05

  Well, not only that, but during the Saddam fucking days, we might have to clear a whole village. Like, that could be a hundred houses tonight, like, door to door, looking for these fucking Saddam sightings, you know what I mean? It was fucking amazing. It was amazing, man. I mean, you know, in, uh, in the unit, I think they call it like a, like a shred fest, where you do like twenty-four, thirty-six hours, target after target after. As many as you could do. There's another one we could hit, somewhere else, another one, another one, another one. That's what Iraq was, shred fest. And then my squadron, you don't wanna, you don't wanna sitting around the house tonight, cause we're gonna get drunk and break shit. So, uh, fucking, we don't care if it's Joe shit, the fucking rag man, let's go get that

• 2:27:34Speaker 05

  bitch tonight, keep me fucking busy. And I think a couple nights, like, guys fucked up the house. And the commander from then on was like, okay, you guys don't get any days off. And it's like, that's what we've been fucking saying the whole time. Like, no one's dying at brag. We wanna go out every fucking night. You know what I mean? So, we, my squadron, man, we were, in the beginning, I believe, way more aggressive than other squadrons, like, by far. You know what I mean?

• 2:28:02Shawn Ryan?

  Can you talk about, I mean, let's just talk about some of the operations that you were a part of there?

• 2:28:10Speaker 05

  Uh, let's see. Saddam was captured nine days after I left country, and me and another guy worked the intel on Saddam, like, the whole time. I rolled up his tailor. You ever see the, the video where Saddam shoots the Mauser in the air?

• 2:28:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:26Speaker 05

  And he's got that, the, the fox fur hat on. I own that hat.

• 2:28:31Shawn Ryan?

  No way.

• 2:28:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, I own that hat. Nice. Yeah. Um, but, uh, I rolled up his tailor, like, I had all his clothes at one point, right? And, uh, I got this Italian sweater and it's like blue and like a red stripe or some shit. I wear it on Christmas Eve. I look like a fat man in a little coat. Like it's, it's like a large, you know, my belly, my beer belly's hanging out the bottom. You know what I mean? Like, I normally wear that on Christmas Eve. I got a sweater from him. You know what I mean? Um, but yeah, we rolled up his tailor, everybody that fucking washed his dick. We rolled them up like we were fucking, we were, you know, climbing it. And then nine days after I left, C Squadron got him.

• 2:29:16Speaker 05

  And like, I think we already had the intel and it was already in the works. We had to go home for Christmas.

• 2:29:24Speaker 05

  So they caught him nine days after I left, but, you know, man, we fucking, one of those like kings or one of the deck of cards, you know what I mean? Like I paid no attention to it other than getting the X off the poster on the wall. Uh, but like, you know, one of those guys, we fucking low vis shotgun breached the front door. Right? Fucking held his family hostage, told his family, contact them. Till he gives himself in, fucking guy turned himself in like three days later, a mazel or some shit. You know what I mean? We took his family hostage, just fucking in his family home. Like we got his sisters, his grandma, his mom, like, um, yeah, we did a lot of weird shit for Saddam.

• 2:30:08Speaker 05

  Um, we captured Saddam's, Saddam had a favorite piece of ass, like. Really? Oh yeah. He had this, his favorite fuck was this lady and like, she was not hot, but she was married. Uh, so we figured maybe she knew where he went. So we rolled up her husband one day, right? Uh, I had him go to the Saddam's tailor store. Had the tailor tell him to come to the store. And then I had, uh, we had these Mohawk guys, you know, the Mohawks? Uh-uh. Uh, we had locals that helped us and we trained them. And then they, they ended up becoming later the, the CT force, right? Okay. We had a couple of guys we trained, we trusted, right? So I told my guys, I was.

• 2:30:54Speaker 05

  I was in a surveillance van out front, my minivan. If you ever see the picture where I'm all sweaty in the back of a van, this is me kinda watching over what's going on. So I didn't tell anybody. I didn't have time to tell my boss or anybody. And then my two guys, I was like, hey, if this, if we can't get this guy, quick, go start a fight on the streets to get them all out of the store. So had my two mohawks start fist fighting in front of the store, just like anywhere in the world, right? Everyone comes outside to see what's going on. Literally, the guy comes out to watch and like the assault team, like he's standing his back to the door they're gonna snatch him with. And literally, shoot. Oh, nice.

• 2:31:37Speaker 05

  Fucking drive away. And then they're like, where'd the guy go? He disappeared in the crowd. My boss is like, he disappeared. I'm like, no, assault team's got him. He's like, who the fuck are the guys fighting? Those are our guys. Did you tell them to fight? I was like, yeah. He was like, you should have fucking told me. You know what I mean? I'm like, yeah, this happens so quick sometimes, you know? But yeah, we captured his favorite piece of ass husband, thinking that might help. It didn't. But in capturing everyone in his inner circle, what I would tell you is they were all Christians. Were they really? If you touch Saddam, I don't care if you touch his dick, or you fucking put clothes

• 2:32:17Speaker 05

  on his body. If it touches him, it was Christians. Because Christians martyr themselves. They go to hell. Muslims martyr themselves. They're fucking going to heaven. So his inner circle, the people that fed him, clothed him, fucking washed his dick, we rolled them all up. They were all Christians. Interesting. Very interesting. And that's why there was always Christians in Iraq. And that's why Iraq was fairly Western. Because he had no beef with Christians. And he knew as human beings, less likely to kill him. That's all he wanted around him, his inner circle. Now, all the military commanders or whatever, fucking sheiks, I don't know, whatever the fuck they were doing. They were all savages, but.

• 2:33:01Speaker 05

  His inner circle was Christians. Oh, be damned. I did not know that. And then we snatched the guy who used to give Saddam baths. I was inside the tailor's house on the roof. I went to the tailor's house and I knew he was supposed to be coming. I was kind of early setting shit up. He showed up early. Me and another guy had to go to the roof. I called the assault force, right? Whereas he was driving away, literally ran into the Humvee of the assault force.

• 2:33:38Speaker 05

  Snatched that guy. Yeah, we did a lot of the unique snatches for the Becca cards, like, should be its fucking movie on its own. You know what I mean? We did a lot of great shit. I mean, I gotta be honest. People always try to thank me for my service. I'm not, I'm not the motherfucker you should be thanking. You should thank the kid that was like grinding. I did whatever the fuck I wanted, like, and it was amazing, like, all the time amazing. And it was this, I learned in Afghanistan, we needed to be much fucking smarter if we wanted to win. And I also knew there's not, there's not, we can't do enough hits to win this war. We can't. There's no fucking way. You know what I mean?

• 2:34:25Speaker 05

  What did you think of Iraq?

• 2:34:29Speaker 05

  Strategically, taking out Saddam? Fucking horrible for the world. Look where we are now. Should have left that motherfucker. I'd have pumped him full of all kinds of shit to fucking beat Iran again. You know what I mean? However, we gave it all away. It's a fucking shit show, just like Afghanistan. But the reality is, is this is how it fucking goes. You know what I mean? Don't get upset. It's the fine print. Should have read it. Do you think we should have ever been there on the first place?

• 2:35:01Speaker 05

  I think there's no benefit to fucking taking Saddam out. I also thought there was no benefit, you know, Afghanistan, Mullah Armar came out years later and said, George Bush gave us 48 hours and invaded at hour 40. He said if he would have gave me full 48 hour, his answer was give up Bin Laden. No shit, I did not know that either.

• 2:35:27Speaker 05

  This shit, the fucking media doesn't like to put out. How do you know that? Cause I read. What did, where did you read that? Oh man, I don't even remember. But yeah, he wanted to give up Bin Laden and we attacked too soon and then he was like, fuck him. Interesting.

• 2:35:48Speaker 05

  It's almost like we wanted the war.

• 2:35:52Speaker 05

  Imagine that?

• 2:35:55Speaker 05

  Now, I wanted the war too, don't get me wrong. I was 100% for that shit. Rocket mortars, fucking send it, let's go, no one dies on brag, you know? Uh, so I was all for it, but strategically, meh, you believe in your bosses, sometimes they get it wrong, you know what I mean?

• 2:36:15Speaker 05

  Did you experience loss of a teammate, ever? Yeah, fuck yeah, all the time, even in training, man, like, uh, man, the guy I was partnered with in Bosnia all the time, fucking rotor blade took the top of his head off one night, like Thursday Night Live fire, you know? Holy shit. Yeah, yeah, people die. Did that affect you at all? No. It didn't? Fucking, you died doing what you love, I'd fucking high five you for that. I'd high five myself for that, you know what I mean? Like, you died doing the one thing you're here for, not a better death. How many teammates have you lost? Fuck, I don't know, man, so many now, uh, fucking cancer.

• 2:37:00Speaker 05

  Cancer. If you'd have told me, join the Delta Force and be fighting cancer the rest of your fucking time, or your buddies are gonna die of cancer, I made a state in South America banging Colombian girls, you know what I mean?

• 2:37:14Speaker 05

  So lots of guys, everybody dies. I'm gonna die. I'm not gonna let it ruin my day.

• 2:37:20Speaker 05

  You know?

• 2:37:20Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

• 2:37:24Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you run into Tim Kennedy?

• 2:37:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I left the unit. I was kinda like in the CIF company.

• 2:37:37Speaker 05

  We really hadn't broke down into troops yet, so I was a team sergeant, Timmy's team sergeant. Well, before that, he was just, I was in the Dojos at Bragg for something to do at night as a single guy. Just go down to the Dojos at Bragg and just fucking roll jets with people. And then back then, being a blue belt, like, they're like, "Oh, sir, are you teaching today?" Like, "Hell, no. I just came here to choke some of you lazy fuckers." You know what I mean? Like, "I'm not teaching shit." You know, and they're like, and the instructor back then was a fucking purple belt. You know what I mean? Like, so like, this kid's in the dojo and literally, like, he's just fucking sitting on me. And I'm like, thinking, "This ain't a move. How the fuck do I defend that? Do I put a foot? Like, do I lock a... What the fuck?"

• 2:38:22Speaker 05

  And he's just kinda like sitting on me like, "Come on, let's do something. Let's go." You know what I mean? I'm like, "Who the fuck is this kid sitting on me?" So then that happens a couple times. And finally, I'm like, "Hey, who the fuck are you? Where did you learn jets? Like, no one around here is at this level." You know what I mean? Like, "Where do you come from?" And he's, you know, "Grew up in California, fighting Chocolatelle," write his backstory. So he tells me that, and I was like, "Fuck, man." I was like, "You know, you're in the Q course? What group, do you know what group you're going to or where you're going? Like, where are you at in the, kind of, like, the pipeline or whatever they call it?" And he was like, "No, you know, it's kinda early on in the process."

• 2:39:07Speaker 05

  So I was like, "Well, you know, I'm in the CIF company. How would you like to come to the CIF company?" And of course, like, it's the most advanced company. I can't just get there as a new guy at the time. So he was like, yeah, I do that. So literally I went to my SAR major, right? And I'm like, hey, I want to get a kid out of the Q course. And they're like, why? Out of all the people in group, you want a kid in the Q course? Why? What? Pick someone else. Like, we got fucking hundreds of guys. And I'm like, hey, I think he's a black belt in jujitsu, right? Like, this could really be great for our hand to hand program. At a minimum, we don't even have to put him on the team. Just let him be the fucking hand to hand guy here. We got slots like.

• 2:39:53Speaker 05

  So my SAR major was like, well, the guy who runs the Q course, my best friend, let's call him. Like, so he's on speaker like, hey, we want to get a kid over here out of your, out of the Q course. And he's like, why? Ain't got enough dudes in seventh group over there? What the fuck you want with the kids over here for? Like, that was the answer, right? And they were like, well, there's, there's not a rule why you can't take him. But like, why do you want him? You know what I mean? Um, and then, you know, uh, yeah, they said I could have him. And then he came right to my team. And then I thought he would help the hand to hand program, right? But kind of didn't, you know what I mean? Why? Cause we were busy, you know? Uh, but yeah, he was just fighting in the dojos at Bragg, fucking just sitting on me.

• 2:40:40Shawn Ryan?

  Why did you leave? Why'd you leave Delta?

• 2:40:43Speaker 05

  Um, a couple of reasons, divorce, messy, messy, fucking divorce. Uh, they don't, they don't like that. They don't like that at all.

• 2:40:53Shawn Ryan?

  Why? That's, I mean, that's pretty fucking common, isn't it?

• 2:40:57Speaker 05

  Fuck if I know, you know what I mean? Like, uh, I would say this is.

• 2:41:04Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 2:41:09Speaker 05

  If your divorces get messy, they'll fucking cut you.

• 2:41:12Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 2:41:14Speaker 05

  If anything's messy, they'll fucking cut you. So.

• 2:41:18Shawn Ryan?

  What were, what was your position over there when you left?

• 2:41:21Speaker 05

  Uh, team leader.

• 2:41:23Shawn Ryan?

  Team leader?

• 2:41:23Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:41:24Shawn Ryan?

  Did you ever go back?

• 2:41:26Speaker 05

  No. I ended up getting promoted to SAR major. That's why I went to the J staff. I kind of went back, but I was already kind of too senior to backtrack.

• 2:41:36Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 2:41:36Speaker 05

  So I worked on the J staff.

• 2:41:39Shawn Ryan?

  What is the J staff? I don't know.

• 2:41:40Speaker 05

  J SOC.

• 2:41:43Shawn Ryan?

  What were you doing there?

• 2:41:44Speaker 05

  As the money sergeant manager.

• 2:41:47Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha. How was it transitioning from Delta back into special forces?

• 2:41:53Speaker 05

  Man, it was crazy for a minute there because I joined the army when it was a paper army. And I didn't exist to the army.

• 2:42:02Speaker 05

  So here I am, a new team sergeant, but I'm getting paid from the army. But the army think I doesn't, I don't exist, that I couldn't do anything until they could prove I was actually in the army.

• 2:42:14Speaker 05

  So I had to go back to the unit, go to the personnel section, have them unfuck my records into the army side. Cause I was, I was never in the army when they crossed over digitally.

• 2:42:27Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:42:28Speaker 05

  So it like took three weeks. They're like, are you sure you're in the army? Like, you think I'd fucking be here? Like, you know what I mean? Like, what the fuck?

• 2:42:37Speaker 05

  Yeah. And then magically, when I got the seventh group, we got orders to work under the unit in Iraq. You know what I mean? Why? The task force commander was my jujitsu partner, you know? Uh, and then we went to Iraq and worked under the unit.

• 2:42:53Shawn Ryan?

  How'd that go?

• 2:42:54Speaker 05

  Fucking awesome. Are you kidding me? Like, uh, man, we got Zarkawi's number two one night. We were with B squadron. They were all out. Commander came to me, my number two's on the grid. Can you get him? Like, don't fuck this up. I was like, I got this. You know, like, I think we got his like number two or three guy, uh, one night just because everyone else is fucking busy, you know? And then it goes back to what I already said, there ain't enough of us to hit enough targets to win this fucking war today. So they needed SF teams. They needed Rangers help. They needed, fuck, there was times we had whole brigades tasked to a seasonarian. Just door to door that bitch, especially in the fucking Saddam days, right? So.

• 2:43:37Speaker 05

  That's just kinda how it worked. So my troop goes over, works under, we were under Blue Squadron, fucking SEALs, for a while, complete fucking ass wound.

• 2:43:50Speaker 05

  Why's that? Oh, those guys are fucking horrible. Wyman and the boys, you know Wyman? I don't. Anyway, uh, yeah, it was fucking horrible. Like, we had to work under him in Al Asad. The compound in Al Asad was built by the Delta Force. How do I know? Because I was part of the crew that built these pre-staging bases. So the unit could go anywhere en masse and fucking hit targets now and have a place for guys to sleep, helicopters, fuel, war logistics, like. And they're like, can't use our gym, you know, you special forces guys, you can't use our gym, you can't fucking use our laundry. And it's like, I built this motherfucking place. And they're like, so what? So, yeah, we worked under Blue.

• 2:44:36Speaker 05

  So what we did is, we took all their shit targets. Fucking dumped them on our lap. And I ran it just like I would have in A Squadron. We fucking hit targets every night. We pulled every thread. We didn't, we didn't go out and kill everybody. That's how you get intel. You'll never get anywhere going out and killing everybody. Uh, so we basically climbed the fucking ladder and like, one night, fucking their number one, we worked our way up to like their number one guy. And then like, they told me no helicopters tonight. So I thought there was no helicopters. They jumped on the bird and hit our target, which was their number one guy. And we worked ourselves up.

• 2:45:22Speaker 05

  So like the next day, day later, they told us they're bringing the boats and they wanted us to ride the rivers. And like, I was like, boat assaults? Bucket list? Check. You know what I mean? So I was like, I don't give a fuck. Boat, fucking truck, helicopter, I gives a fuck. You know what I mean? We're getting some. Uh, and then the task force commander came down, was like,

• 2:45:47Speaker 05

  He was like, you know, hey, we captured blah, blah, blah. And I was standing there with him. And he was like, uh, the task force commander was like, he's like, we're bringing in the boats. We're gonna have the SF guys in the boats. And he's like, let me get this straight. You are the premier SEALs in the world. And you're gonna put your special forces guys on boats?

• 2:46:10Speaker 05

  And he was like, these guys worked their way up through the bottom of your target deck to make you successful. You're gonna put them on boats? He looked at me and he was like, John, you're going under B Squadron in Baghdad today. I was like, okay, boss. So then we worked under B Squadron. And that was just fucking great. Just fucking great.

• 2:46:31Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? Because, you know, you don't know what targets you're gonna get. Because if they rolled on another target and another priority comes out and this might be the only time, you know what I mean? It's fucking great under B Squadron, right? And then, uh, B Squadron left, A Squadron killed Zarqawi that day, one of those days. Uh, and then A Squadron came in and we killed like whoever was next after fucking Zarqawi in like a month or so. I don't know. It didn't take long. Uh, but yeah, we were with B Squadron when they got Zarqawi.

• 2:47:05Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 2:47:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, we were all, so was Timmy. We were all out that day.

• 2:47:08Shawn Ryan?

  Nice, nice. Yeah, Tim talked, uh, pretty extensively about that.

• 2:47:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, if you look at like the who killed Zarqawi picture, where are the guys in the DCUs?

• 2:47:18Shawn Ryan?

  Nice. Nice.

• 2:47:24Shawn Ryan?

  You know, with

• 2:47:28Shawn Ryan?

  did all the killing that you were a part of ever, do you feel like that ever affected you?

• 2:47:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, fuck yeah, man. Like, I've had every fucking symptom of PTSD, like all these guys, ah, whatever their fucking symptoms are, right? Like guys cry about this shit. I've had every fucking one of them. You know what I mean? Like?

• 2:47:52Speaker 05

  And you know what I mean? The problem with the getting hung up in that is it makes you one chapter of a book. Your book ain't over. There might be more chapters. There might be better fucking chapters. Get over yourself, move the fuck on. I used to always tell guys to let it go, right? And I tell you right now, say, let it go. Let it go. How do you feel? Feel great. Imagine doing that for 10 years.

• 2:48:20Speaker 05

  This is how I got rid of all that PTSD shit. And then I found out some of my PTSD, fucking the forgetfulness, you know, guys, I'm driving. I don't know where I'm going. Like, that's a common one I heard all the time. Same here. Yo, first and foremost, I went and bought a fucking Tom Tom. I don't need to know where I'm going. This motherfucker is gonna take me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then I realized, uh, this is a brain cognitive function issue. Has nothing to do with TBI. Has to do with your brain getting the proper proteins. MCT oil.

• 2:48:54Speaker 05

  Fix your brain, you're less forgetful. Now, is this a symptom of PTSD? Or is this a fucking symptom of life? The next thing, fucking drinking. You know what I mean? Hey, what are you drinking? Two bottles, five bottles a night? Yo, five bottles a night? Like, I'm not gonna tell you not to drink, but I'd tell you tonight, cut it down to two and a half. The reason you're fucking mean in the morning is you're actually hung over and used to it. That just makes you mean. Cut it down to two and a half bottles. You know what I mean? I'm not gonna tell anyone to quit or not do something. I just say, fucking use it wisely. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So I've had every symptom of PTSD, TBI, like the VA gave me a zero. Right? And why is because I learned to let it go.

• 2:49:38Speaker 05

  And I learned that some of this shit was diet. Some of it was brain function. Some of it was fucking drinking, you know? The fucking hall pass. Okay. And this is the, you know, I did this with Timmy. This is why Timmy doesn't have PTSD. Or no one that's ever worked for me. Cause if a guy made a kill for me today, that night, we're having drinks and on the spot, I told him, this is exactly what I expect you to do. You did a great job. Fucking end of discussion now. As your boss, I'm gonna cut off the shirt and we're gonna look at your fucking shot placement because marksmanship is my problem, not yours. But let's go look at those shots and I check fucking bullet holes all the time.

• 2:50:18Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 2:50:18Speaker 05

  Fuck, yeah. I'm in charge of the marksmanship here. If we're fucking this up right now, this shit's fucked up. We need to fix it right now.

• 2:50:26Shawn Ryan?

  So you would go on target, cut all the shirts off everybody that you guys had just killed?

• 2:50:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, and show the guys their shots. And I'd tell them they did a great job on the spot. And when we got back later, I'd make sure we all had a drink and everybody came by and fucking said, "Thank you" and shook this guy's hand.

• 2:50:45Speaker 05

  You think you'd ever have a problem if someone did that for you?

• 2:50:48Shawn Ryan?

  What was, what were satisfactory shot placement for you?

• 2:50:54Speaker 05

  Everybody's shots were perfect. I never seen bullshit shots. My marksmanship works.

• 2:51:04Shawn Ryan?

  Roger that.

• 2:51:05Speaker 05

  I've never seen any bad shots.

• 2:51:08Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? They're all kind of good center mass shots. You know what I mean? And then in doing that, what I realized is height above bore for killing people, fucking doesn't matter. It's two and a half inches.

• 2:51:22Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? Okay, if I was supposed to shoot here and I hit there, would anyone ever know when they cut the shirt off? Fuck no. So there's that, you know what I mean?

• 2:51:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:33Speaker 05

  Um, but yeah, guys shot good shots and I'd make sure on the spot, I told them, "Good job, man." You know, because that's the time when you're questioning this shit. But what happens is if someone doesn't do that, you're gonna walk away. You're gonna drown it in alcohol, right? We're gonna celebrate with alcohol. You're gonna drown it in alcohol and then it's like a fucking hall pass. But the problem is the hall pass is fucking five years old. And now you've got to unfuck all of this to get back to that, to unfuck all of that, to make all of this good.

• 2:52:03Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you learn that? Where did you learn? Did you come up with that, ripping the shirts off?

• 2:52:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, just something I did. Something I always did.

• 2:52:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:52:17Speaker 05

  I wouldn't rip them off. I'd cut them with my shears or knife. You know what I mean?

• 2:52:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:21Speaker 05

  I'd be quick about it. And then there's sometimes you can't do that, but if we could, I would.

• 2:52:27Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. I'd never heard that before.

• 2:52:30Speaker 05

  Yeah. It fucking works. I mean, and then I could tell you this, the guys that work for me, I don't think any of them have PTSD like that.

• 2:52:39Shawn Ryan?

  That's great.

• 2:52:41Speaker 05

  But it's a, I don't think PTSD is a war thing. I think it's a humanity thing. I think you could be a kid, see your fucking cousin get hit by a train. You can be fucked up since that day.

• 2:52:54Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:52:54Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? So I don't, I don't think it's a war thing. I don't think it's a soldier thing. You know what I mean?

• 2:53:01Shawn Ryan?

  I do. I know what you're saying. What are some of the differences that you saw between your time in Afghanistan and your time in Iraq?

• 2:53:15Shawn Ryan?

  How would you differentiate those?

• 2:53:17Speaker 05

  Yeah. Uh, I would say this, the beginning of Afghanistan, fucking Rangers, the army, all of them just fucking sucked. Like, the first hit in Iraq, the Rangers like fucking shot up some old people. My squadron fucking Sergeant Major is like, puts me on brain detail. Why? Because I had a fucking pickup truck because I drove from the fucking VVIP fucking Ken Block with a fucking map to meet the squadron fucking downtown. On a hit that's like 16 guys that look like Saddam with mustaches. You know what I mean? It's like whoever called this place in, they were right. There's 16 motherfuckers in here that look like Saddam. You know what I mean? Only because like, that's a popular look, right?

• 2:54:02Speaker 05

  Uh, so I drive my pickup truck, squadron raids the house, Rangers shoot up the blocking positions for no reason, like fucking skipping 50 to cow rounds down the Baghdad street. It was awesome. Uh, until I was on blood and guts detail. I wasn't happy about that. Not my kill. I don't want blood. I don't want that blood. I make the kill, I'll get bloody. I don't make the kill, blood's yours. You know what I mean? So this kid in the turret, he's like, get him the ceasefire. What the fuck are they shooting at? As I go over there, I'm like, hi, ceasefire. Finally the kid, I'm like, hi. And he looks down and I'm like, come here. And he leans over, I junk him out of the turret. I'm like, your fucking mess, your kill. Put them in the back of my fucking truck.

• 2:54:45Speaker 05

  And like, they killed old people and then the medic, you know, like these fucking old people are in pain. And I'm like, hey, the ranger medic, give them morphine, right? And he's like, I'm not allowed to give morphine to the enemy. I was like, do these old people look like enemies to you? And he was like, I can't give morphine to the enemy. And I'm like, you're gonna give these fucking people painkillers or I'm gonna fuck you up in the back of this truck. Right fucking now. And he was like, he gave them their morphine, right? And then they end up, you know, we got them to the cache, probably end up dying anyway. Right. But the beginning of the war, they were like just ate up later towards Iraq. Total professional force, 100% value added.

• 2:55:29Speaker 05

  Right. So I would say the beginning of Afghanistan, the army was not ready for this. And I would say we weren't either, but we were more capable to adapt than the army.

• 2:55:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:38Speaker 05

  And I think like that initial raid in Iraq, I think they fired those kids. On, on my squadron's recommendations.

• 2:55:49Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? And that's when like, we were like in the beginning Iraq, like, why are we even bringing the Rangers? Fuck them. They're fucking, they're casualty producing weapon. At times we don't need casualties.

• 2:56:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:01Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? And then, um, you know, later it became a more professional force, like fucking. Just killing it later. So Iraq, I really believe professionalized most of our special operations. In a much bigger sense.

• 2:56:18Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting, interesting.

• 2:56:23Shawn Ryan?

  What about?

• 2:56:26Shawn Ryan?

  Just regular operations?

• 2:56:30Speaker 05

  What about it?

• 2:56:30Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think the differences were? What were the differences for you? Work in Afghanistan versus Iraq?

• 2:56:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, Afghanistan, you're always a distance, always far away. Iraq is more like real warfare. You know what I mean? I'd also say this is the big army wanted none of Afghanistan. I didn't want to fight in the mountains. Helicopters don't fly there. You can't drive tanks there. So the big army is like, whoa, Afghanistan's for you special forces types. You know what I mean? That's really how they played Afghanistan, right? I call that bullshit card on the fucking army for that. They're just fucking pussies and didn't want to jump the fucking mountains like we were. Uh, and then Iraq comes and the army is like, whoa, this is our fucking war. Why? Cause you could drive fucking tanks down the street?

• 2:57:20Speaker 05

  Right? So the army, which was much more into Iraq than Afghanistan ever.

• 2:57:29Shawn Ryan?

  Let's move into your time. You went back to Delta as a sergeant major, correct?

• 2:57:34Speaker 05

  I went to the J staff, yeah.

• 2:57:36Shawn Ryan?

  How was that?

• 2:57:37Speaker 05

  Being a sergeant major, fucking ass.

• 2:57:40Shawn Ryan?

  You hated it?

• 2:57:41Speaker 05

  Fucking hated every single day.

• 2:57:42Shawn Ryan?

  You strike me as a person that would hate that position.

• 2:57:45Speaker 05

  Fucking ass wound every fucking day of my life. I fucking hated my job.

• 2:57:52Shawn Ryan?

  How did that happen?

• 2:57:53Speaker 05

  You get promoted to sergeant major.

• 2:57:55Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, did you want to get promoted?

• 2:57:57Speaker 05

  I didn't put it in a packet. I didn't put, I didn't do, you know how like you gotta take a picture, put in a packet, like there's, you know, you're, as an NCO, there's your professional stuff. So you get promoted in that? Yeah, I didn't do any of that shit. I didn't give a fuck. I didn't want none of it. But I made, I fucking got promoted anyway.

• 2:58:16Shawn Ryan?

  So you hated it?

• 2:58:18Speaker 05

  Fucking hated it.

• 2:58:19Shawn Ryan?

  Then you left.

• 2:58:20Speaker 05

  I retired as soon as I could. Yeah.

• 2:58:24Shawn Ryan?

  And so when did you start your training company?

• 2:58:31Speaker 05

  Started training in probably 2005. I retired in 11. So I had been doing some classes on leave and I'd just go to the bosses and be like, hey, these guys want me to shoot with them for like a week. Can I take some leave days? And they'd always approve it. Cause fuck, I never took leave. I never wanted to leave Iraq or Afghanistan. I, I, I looked at it. I should have stayed there till the war was won or over.

• 2:59:00Shawn Ryan?

  How's your company developed?

• 2:59:02Speaker 05

  Man, I fucking crush it. I crush this shit. I'm the undertow of the gun world. You know, all these fancy motherfuckers have rise and fall off the top of the gun world. Yo, I'm still here fucking doing this fucking since 11 now.

• 2:59:20Speaker 05

  Filling all my classes since then, you know what I mean? I'm just crushing it.

• 2:59:23Shawn Ryan?

  How many classes do you run in a year?

• 2:59:25Speaker 05

  Man, I on an average, probably, probably 60 to 70 to 100.

• 2:59:36Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:59:38Speaker 05

  I fill them all.

• 2:59:40Shawn Ryan?

  That's incredible. How many people do you take a class?

• 2:59:44Speaker 05

  Uh, 10 or less generally, but there's some ranges where the range could hold five. I do five, you know, range holds six, like smaller ranges, but never more than like 10. I think I do 12 once in a while if I have to, but never more than that.

• 2:59:58Shawn Ryan?

  Is it just you instructing or do you?

• 3:00:00Speaker 05

  Just me, yeah.

• 3:00:01Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding? So who is your, who's your target customer? You looking for people with experience? You looking for, for people that are? You don't care?

• 3:00:13Speaker 05

  Bring it. I do the video, the video don't care. I don't care what gun you got, what fucking holster. All that gear shit is bullshit. It ain't gonna fucking help you shoot better. You know what I mean? So anybody can take my class from fucking skill level, nothing to, you know, I do pro shooters, the video, only way to get that two tenths of a second, which could be the difference between first and fucking 10th in some of them matches. You know what I mean? So like I do pro shooters, I do fucking housewives, guys, wives, couple classes, like, you name it.

• 3:00:48Shawn Ryan?

  What, what videos are you talking about? Can you describe what you're talking about?

• 3:00:51Speaker 05

  Like average day for me on the range is I videotape, I see what you do, right? I just wanna see what you do, what your habits are, what the fuck, you know? And then this is point A.

• 3:01:04Speaker 05

  Right? This is the whole thing in the gun world. If you're not doing videos, you never have a start point. How the fuck do we know where you're gonna end up?

• 3:01:14Speaker 05

  So, first thing in the morning, I take a video, beep, shoot your three rounds. I take a video, and then from that three rounds, I'll tell you where your bullets go, why, exactly how you get them there, how you not do that to get them all in a circle. And then, no matter what my class is, average day pistol class is forty-three rounds. In forty-three rounds, I can get anyone in a three inch circle.

• 3:01:40Shawn Ryan?

  No shit? At what distance?

• 3:01:42Speaker 05

  About three, five yards.

• 3:01:44Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 3:01:45Speaker 05

  Anybody.

• 3:01:46Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 3:01:47Speaker 05

  Bring me your lame, crippled and crazy, I got it. Shaky motherfuckers, what do they call that? Y'all got them too. Blind, old guys, don't see so good, I got you.

• 3:02:02Speaker 05

  Fucking simple.

• 3:02:03Shawn Ryan?

  Is it all pistol?

• 3:02:04Speaker 05

  Pistol, rifle, I don't even care. I do it all.

• 3:02:08Shawn Ryan?

  Do you do tactics?

• 3:02:10Speaker 05

  Um, you know, I do with like SWAT teams when they hire me, I'll show them shit like that. But the average day on the range for me is like a one day pistol, one day carving, you know, two day class, stuff like that.

• 3:02:23Shawn Ryan?

  Any mindset type stuff?

• 3:02:26Speaker 05

  All I teach is mindset, because if I give you a model to get better at pistol, you could use that model to get better at anything you do. You know what I mean? So it's all kind of mindset without mindset. And the premise of everything I do is, I don't wanna, I don't, I don't wanna tell you what to think. I wanna show you how to think, so you can make those decisions for yourself.

• 3:02:50Shawn Ryan?

  Very cool, very cool. How many people do you think you've trained?

• 3:02:54Speaker 05

  Abby told me fifteen thousand.

• 3:02:56Shawn Ryan?

  Fifteen thousand people?

• 3:02:58Speaker 05

  In the past, yeah, since eleven or something like that. And I think that doesn't include like, people we don't count, like, military guys, special forces guys, some SWAT teams. But I think she told me like fifteen thousand. I'd have to text her, but I think that's what she said.

• 3:03:14Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. That's a, that's a city.

• 3:03:20Shawn Ryan?

  That's incredible.

• 3:03:21Speaker 05

  Team SOB is the undertow of the gun community.

• 3:03:24Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you come up with Team SOB?

• 3:03:27Speaker 05

  Uh, fuck if I know, man. Like, I don't know. Someone up, someone, um, I think it kinda came about is I started the app, SOB TV.

• 3:03:41Speaker 05

  And then we had a Facebook group, right? And then back in the day, like, guys talked about guns and stuff on Facebook. No one cared. And then like, Facebook started to ban me into existence. Like, Facebook fucking hates me. You know what I mean? Like, Zuck, if you're listening, it's true. Like,

• 3:04:03Speaker 05

  I can't even log in. Like, you know how you go to log in and they're like, we'll send a code to your phone? That code will never come and my phone number is correct.

• 3:04:14Speaker 05

  So, uh, I just got banned out of existence. So we kinda switched to another, you know, platform where the guys could actually talk. And as soon as we got off Facebook, all the fucked up behavior from the guys went away because they're not trying to piss off Zuckerberg every day because he's fucking with us. So they want to fuck with him back. Once we got in another place, like, the guys were great. We just talk about guns again. And then I started building a community. So then it was like, fuck, man, we're more of a fucking really big fucking team than anything else. And then I started making the Team SOB shirts and like, fucking guys love it.

• 3:04:51Shawn Ryan?

  Very cool. Very cool. What's coming for you? Anything new?

• 3:04:56Speaker 05

  Um, man, I'm just mid-grinding it right now for work. Kind of summer, summer, no real classes. So I'm kinda chilling till fall. So what I'm gonna do this summer is I think I'm training for Worlds.

• 3:05:16Shawn Ryan?

  Worlds.

• 3:05:17Speaker 05

  Jiu Jitsu.

• 3:05:18Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 3:05:20Speaker 05

  I think I want to go first off, Master Worlds. So I'm going to fight old guys my age this year. If it goes well, next year I might just fucking go for the open.

• 3:05:32Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 3:05:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, but um, yeah. And then I told myself, I was like, you know, well, the average like shooting thing is like, I go somewhere for four days and it's like a one day class, like a two day class and a one day class or whatever, whatever the classes are. I told myself, I was like, man, I'm on the road sitting in these fucking hotels anyway. I should just hit a dojo and try to get a day of Jitsin, you know? And then it started like that and then it was like, I want to, I want to be there every day. And then, you know, here I am.

• 3:06:08Shawn Ryan?

  Very cool. What about your company? You got anything new coming out?

• 3:06:12Speaker 05

  Man, we're on Amazon Prime. You could get all your SOB shit on Amazon Prime. I can't tell you how happy I am about that. You gotta, gotta look it up right now because we're kind of new, right? But um, you know, we have a company that's supposed to do the marketing somehow. I don't know how that works. You know, they talked to me, I have no fucking clue. So hopefully there will be more and more on fucking Amazon. You can get shit from us, from Amazon, like fuck. You know what I mean?

• 3:06:42Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect. Well, Shrek, I really appreciate you being here. It was an honor to interview you and all your social media and website and all that stuff will be in the description and.

• 3:06:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, thanks, man.

• 3:06:55Shawn Ryan?

  And I just, I wish you the best of luck.

• 3:06:59Speaker 05

  Thanks, man. Hey, you didn't even ask me any serious Timmy Kennedy questions. What's up? I didn't see this coming.

• 3:07:05Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want me to?

• 3:07:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, you, you know, Timmy, you should be asking me. He talks massive shit, wrote a book, you know, although I thought I was the best 40% of his book.

• 3:07:16Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I were, you know, I already interviewed him. What do you want me to ask you about?

• 3:07:19Speaker 05

  I don't know. You know him, like ask me, ask me, I don't know anything about him. We haven't talked about that, so.

• 3:07:25Shawn Ryan?

  Well, if you want to, well, what can I ask you about him? I mean, how was Tim when he showed up?

• 3:07:32Speaker 05

  You know.

• 3:07:33Shawn Ryan?

  He's a very confident guy.

• 3:07:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, overconfident, right? And that kind of led to the big thing in his book where, you know, I beat him up.

• 3:07:43Speaker 05

  I would say this, he was good at a lot of things. But he lacked what the army should have taught him is by the time he got to us, he should have had a really good appreciation for where he was, the gravity of the situation. I mean, he comes to me and then we instantly work for the Delta Force.

• 3:08:10Speaker 05

  Think about that. And then he's gonna have to do his rest of his career. He's seen the big show. He see how good this shit works, how fucking well this works and all that. And then he had to progress to seeing some fucked up shit later with lesser people. You know what I mean? So I think he didn't understand the gravity of where he was. I know he talked about like me being a hard boss. But like, I would only say like, I knew the value of his life at a time where he didn't have a value.

• 3:08:42Speaker 05

  Especially as a young kid, you know what I mean? So I may not be the perfect guy to work for, but like, I run a tight ship and we're gonna fucking train. You know what I mean? We're not just gonna fucking sit in the team room and call ourselves trained. Turn this shit on, make a radio fucking call. Can you do that? No, well, let's figure that shit out now. These guns, can you shoot them? Yes or no? If no, let's do this better, right? So I just felt like, you know, in his book, he kind of talks about me as like, you know, I don't know, like maybe a bad boss in a little bit of light. But the reality is, is like.

• 3:09:23Speaker 05

  Yo, I had already done all this shit. You know what I mean? I valued everybody's life and I know the war takes bodies and I had already seen loss and I had already learned the solo mission stuff. You can't kill enough people to win today, right? You just can't. The Nazis tried it. It doesn't fucking work. Stop saying that. You know what I mean? Like, guys say that all the time. Stop fucking saying that. The only way to win a war is preserve life, whether it's yours or the people's lives that need to be preserved, right? So I think I was just in a much more experienced place when Tim came on. You know what I mean? And like, he's a great friend of mine. I was just at his house in Austin the other day. Like, I love his kids, his family.

• 3:10:04Speaker 05

  We're good friends, but like, as a new guy, you know, in the Q course, he was probably the fucking baddest dude in the Q course. And then you come to a place where you're now bottom. That's hard for somebody with high confidence to deal with. You know what I mean? Yeah. And then, you know, I would just say like, you know, here he is as a young guy giving me shit. I should be on every mission. A helicopter got shot down today. There's one fucking helicopter left. You know what I mean? Okay, I gotta cut one fucking helicopter as the boss. Don't take that personal. Your helicopter got shot down today. You're staying home today.

• 3:10:48Speaker 05

  What, how you want me to, you know what I mean? How else we gonna slice this, right? So he would take that as like a personal attack. You know what I mean? Like, oh, he's making me stay back because I'm the new guy. Well, yeah, because a helicopter shot down and instead of bringing thirty-six, we can only bring, I don't know, fucking twenty-four. Who the fuck knows? You know, twenty-nine. I don't know. I don't know the numbers, but, uh, you know what I mean? And like, I know like, him having to stay back on missions sucks. I've been there, but the reality is, is like, you can't just be fucking poopy and kick rocks while we're gone. Yeah. Right? You should be prepping them trucks, loading them machine guns. What if we need help? You should be coming in guns ablazing. You know what I mean? So it's like...

• 3:11:34Speaker 05

  I think all that is he felt as a new guy is we were trying to keep him down. But what he kind of missed because he really didn't do any army time was this is just the way it works for sometimes, you know what I mean? Yeah. No like malice here, no one wanted to keep Timmy down, you know? And then he got so bad at like talking shit and being poopy that like the commanders, the officers are like, get him under control or we're gonna make sure he's out of special forces forever. Wow. And that's when I started to fucking get on his shit. So I know he might have to hate me a little bit, but it was only to to protect him. I mean, he's a decent guy. He's got great intent.

• 3:12:18Speaker 05

  He's fucking talented. He's just immature. What do you do, right? And that's when, uh, that's when we told him, my commander's like, he needs to go to Ranger School. Maybe this will learn him a little bit. You know what I mean? And so I told him he was going to Ranger School after Iraq and like, basically he fucking cried about it a lot. Mr. Valedictorian of fucking Ranger School was not fucking happy and was totally verbal about it. And like, the commanders are like, if he says another fucking word, he's fucking, I get this, I got him, like, it's cool. You know what I mean? So I was the bad guy, but it was to protect him at the same time. You know what I mean? And then we were right.

• 3:13:03Speaker 05

  He went to Ranger School. He passed. He did fucking great. He learned, guess what he learned in Ranger School about him? And what he could take. You know what I mean? And then, uh, I don't know, uh, maybe a year ago, maybe longer, he called me and he was like, he's actually in where he's now a team sergeant, right? Like, he's where I was, right? But he's 40 and he was like, hey, you know, now that I'm where you are, I kind of appreciate you, you know, stuff like that. And I was like, I just want to know when I was the old man, I was 34. You're doing it at 40. Come on, who won? You know what I mean?

• 3:13:46Shawn Ryan?

  So you did have to tune him up?

• 3:13:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, I put him down in the dirt one day, yeah.

• 3:13:52Shawn Ryan?

  What instigated that?

• 3:13:53Speaker 05

  Man, it's just a fucking incessant talking shit about kicking everybody's ass. You know what I mean? And then like one day I was just like, yo, you're gonna kick all of our asses. Yeah, all of our asses. Yeah, I was like, yo, meet me at the fucking dojo at midnight. You know what I mean? And then what he didn't know is while he was all poopy out kicking rocks or mad at whatever he was mad at, all the guys are like, yo, I'll be at the dojo. I want a piece of this action. And like, it's easy to fill the dojo that night. And then I was just like, look, we're gonna fight in the order of rank. Now, the new guys didn't like it and I'd say Timmy did well for, I don't know, two, three, four guys. I don't fucking know, but he couldn't beat us all.

• 3:14:39Speaker 05

  And a couple of the senior guys like me, like, uh, one of the senior guys was a Golden Gloves boxer. You know what I mean? And he was just throwing it at him.

• 3:14:49Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? And then like, I was second to last because the captain went last, right? And then generally, captain, you know what I mean? Like, one of my best friends ever, not a great fighter. You know what I'm saying? Kind of like puss arm a little bit, you know what I mean? And I was like, well, this is it. It's gotta be on me. And I just made sure in the time I had, I bloodied him up and I made sure he was down. And then all I did is I whispered in his ear like, I hope we don't have to have this talk again. And I walked out. Me and the guys walked out, left him in there laying on the ground, you know what I mean? But what I tried to teach him was you can't beat us all. This is a team sport. We're a pack.

• 3:15:35Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? This is how we work, right? Now, we should be a dozen lone wolves, but when those lone wolves come together as a pack, you got a dozen alpha wolves as a pack. Any one of them wolves can handle themselves. This is gonna be better than one lead dog and, you know, X other dogs. Does that make sense?

• 3:15:56Shawn Ryan?

  It does.

• 3:15:57Speaker 05

  Uh, and that's really where I was going, you know?

• 3:16:00Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet you didn't have to have that talk again, huh?

• 3:16:02Speaker 05

  We did, no, never again.

• 3:16:04Shawn Ryan?

  It's funny how that works.

• 3:16:06Speaker 05

  And then...

• 3:16:08Speaker 05

  In Iraq, if I would have said, he's fucking gone, he'd have been gone today. And there's no recovering from that because you got booted out of combat. Your career is over. You know what I mean? I didn't want to ruin someone's career or I don't know, you know, if he's going to be a lifer or not. You know what I mean? Like, we used to, we used to joke, like, the guys that were, you know, like, when I was a senior guy, my senior guys, we used to call ourselves lifers. And the lifer has a different attitude about this than the guy who does one rotation.

• 3:16:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:16:42Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? So, we always tried to keep him, you know, in a good place. You know what I'm saying? And then, you know, the other new guys, right? They've been around, they were on other teams. They're in the same boat as him. He ain't never done shit or been anywhere. You know what I mean? And that's kind of what some of the guys thought. So, I would say this is like, I just wanted to groom him. Like, why kick out a fucking good guy? Like, the war requires bodies. I needed more bodies than the army would actually give me. Every fucking day I was in war, in my opinion.

• 3:17:29Speaker 05

  So, yeah, that's my, my Timmy stuff. But, you know, I mean, I think he's great. He's a good friend of mine. But, like, I don't think he really understood or knew my experience level. Because I didn't talk about any of that. Them guys didn't know about my single team missions or anything like that. They just knew and like, I knew everybody. You know what I mean?

• 3:17:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:17:55Speaker 05

  And General Miller comes around, he's asking, he doesn't want to talk to my boss. He's asking for me by name. You know what I mean? Like, that's kind of really all they knew about me.

• 3:18:05Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 3:18:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. So when I went to SF, no one knew that worked for me, what I had already done.

• 3:18:13Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 3:18:14Speaker 05

  No. I had a fucking, I looked like a Mexican general. I got so many fucking medals, bronze stars, a fucking wards, V devices. I had so much shit when I was in my, when we had to take our death photos. You know what I mean? You know your death photo? I think there's a picture of like, even with Timmy in it, as we got our class A, our dress jackets with all the ribbons on and like, I was just like, I don't care what pants you wear. It's a fucking picture mirror up. Like, put your jackets on, right? So when we took the death photo, right? Guys are like, wow, you got a lot of ribbons and stuff.

• 3:18:49Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? Like, it's the first time guys are like, wow, you already got a bronze star with me? Cause those guys had never even been to combat yet.

• 3:18:56Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 3:18:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, Seventh Group was kinda out of the war till then.

• 3:19:00Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, wow.

• 3:19:03Speaker 05

  But, um, yeah.

• 3:19:05Shawn Ryan?

  How long did you work with him?

• 3:19:07Speaker 05

  Him?

• 3:19:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:19:08Speaker 05

  Um, I don't know. Not that long total time. Like, he kinda came before we deployed. After we deployed is when I went back to the dark side and then I ended up getting promoted after that.

• 3:19:23Shawn Ryan?

  And you guys kept in touch this entire time or reconnected at whatever?

• 3:19:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, like, we've been in touch on and off of, he like, like, I don't know. I think I've had the same phone number the whole time. Uh, but like, he changes numbers occasionally and like, hey, I changed numbers. Like, don't give no one my no number. Like, I didn't give no one my last number. Uh, but, um, yeah, I've been in touch this whole time.

• 3:19:45Shawn Ryan?

  I know, man.

• 3:19:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. I'm hoping to get down to Austin and train with him because he trains with the fucking biggest guys in the world right now.

• 3:19:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:19:53Speaker 05

  You know what I mean?

• 3:19:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, I'm sure you'll make that happen.

• 3:19:58Speaker 05

  I hope so.

• 3:19:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:20:00Speaker 05

  But, uh, yeah, I mean, like, look, I mean, As new guys go, uh, probably the worst new guy I had, not the worst human in the world, not a bad person, just, I just think guys that previously were in the army, understand the things that he hadn't learned yet. You know what I mean?

• 3:20:25Shawn Ryan?

  Doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense. What's your advice for new guys showing up to a team?

• 3:20:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, man. First and foremost, you get to a team, shut your fucking mouth, just for a little bit. No one cares about you. You're fresh meat. You know what I mean? They don't care if you live or die. You haven't earned your fucking keep yet. Shut your fucking mouth. The next thing is there's only one thing you gotta do and the only thing, I would say the only thing you're given that you can't change is your name. You fuck that up, you're fucked. Don't fuck up your name. You know what I mean?

• 3:21:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I'd say that's damn good advice.

• 3:21:09Speaker 05

  The next thing I'd say is try to be technically proficient at anything people throw at you. As dumb as it is, read the instructions for the fucking little radio. You know what I mean? Like, so you know how to use it when the time comes. You know what I mean? Whether that technical proficient is shooting rifles, pistols, using a radio, fuck medic. I mean, think about this. When I went out alone, I had to be my own medic, my own commo guy, my own weapons guy, my own explosives guy, like, name all the different guys on a team. When you're out alone, you gotta do all that shit. So I would say be technically proficient and it's not fucking hard. You know what I mean? Like, even hungover, just pay attention.

• 3:21:53Speaker 05

  That's all you gotta do. Attention to detail, you know?

• 3:21:56Shawn Ryan?

  Did you like the singleton missions more than working as a team?

• 3:22:04Speaker 05

  Uh, first off, I loved having my own fucking task force in Iraq and the autonomy to do whatever the fuck I think is right. I love that. I love the Singleton missions in the sense that like, I didn't get stuck with anybody fucking stupid. I didn't have to do anything stupid. I could do this my way. I could do this, you know, um, how I wanted to do it without anybody hindering or fucking stepping over the top of me. I like that I'm not political. So when I go out and do this fucking mission, when I come back, I'm gonna tell it to you like it is, instead of like, trying to hype myself of

• 3:22:47Speaker 05

  how great I am. Like, look, this is what I followed. This is what I saw. You know what I mean?

• 3:22:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah. Well, Shrek, is there anything else you want me to ask you?

• 3:22:59Speaker 05

  No, I think I'm good. I mean, if you can't think of anything, I'm good.

• 3:23:04Shawn Ryan?

  I'm good. Well, it was an honor to interview you and, uh, wish you the best of luck and I hope to see you again.

• 3:23:12Speaker 05

  Thanks, man. Yeah, you'll see me again, for sure.