#43 Eddie Penney - SEAL Team 6/DEVGRU Operator

During his 20 year military career Eddie Penney served as a United States Marine and Navy SEAL with SEAL Team 6. In Eddie's new book Unafraid, a chapter titled 'Kill Addict' he describes desire to take the fight to the enemy and subsequent addiction to the fog of war. Among the many challenges he experienced while serving at DEVGRU the greatest loss occurred while in Gold Squadron: Extortion 17. Eddie also shares how he grew from being scared of Jesus to surrendering to God and becoming Unafraid. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://www.bubsnaturals.com USE CODE "SHAWN" Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram 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

  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.

• 0:29Shawn Ryan?

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

• 0:32Speaker 00

  On October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami.

• 0:36Shawn Ryan?

  They all heap the blame on me.

• 0:38Speaker 00

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

• 0:46Shawn Ryan?

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

• 0:50Speaker 00

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 0:53Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not the first then.

• 0:54Speaker 00

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

• 1:01Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, everybody. It's that time of year. I'm in Franklin, Tennessee, and getting ready to release episode 43. Three years ago today, we kicked off the first episode of The Sean Ryan Show. And since then, we've had 43 episodes. And in just 43 episodes, we have hit up to number 55 overall out of over 8 million podcasts. I just want to say thank you all. That's all you guys. It's the reviews, it's the likes, it's the subscribes. It's all of that. It's sharing the content. It's sharing the love. I think we've spread a very positive message here on this platform,

• 1:46Shawn Ryan?

  and we're going to continue to do that. And I just want to say Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah.

• 1:55Shawn Ryan?

  Happy holidays. Whatever your flavor is this time of year, me and the team at Vigilance Elite just want to wish you the best. We love you all. Let's get to the next guest.

• 2:07Shawn Ryan?

  My next guest, I had the pleasure of working with very briefly at my time in SEAL Team 2, before he went on to SEAL Team 6 Development Group. Guys, this is another really, really deep one. It's one of the best episodes I've ever done. If I had to say one thing about Eddie, with my time with him outside of my studio, is he's one of the few guys in the SEAL Teams that just has a reputation, and his reputation is, he's just a guy that everybody wants to be around. He's just a solid human being. He's a solid operator. He spreads a lot of love. He's

• 2:48Shawn Ryan?

  got a hell of a story. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my friend Eddie Penny to the Sean Ryan Show. Please like, subscribe, and comment to the channel. Head over to iTunes and Spotify, leave us a review. Once again, we love you all. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy Hanukkah. I hope you guys enjoy the show, and it's gonna be a hell of a year in 2023. Happy New Year too. Love you guys. Cheers.

• 3:24Shawn Ryan?

  Eddie Penny, welcome to the show, brother.

• 3:27Eddie Penney?

  Thank you for having me, man. I appreciate it.

• 3:29Shawn Ryan?

  It's been damn near 20 years.

• 3:33Eddie Penney?

  Don't, again, don't put the number to it.

• 3:34Shawn Ryan?

  Can you believe that?

• 3:35Eddie Penney?

  It's crazy. It's been a long time. It's been a long time.

• 3:39Shawn Ryan?

  So, former Marine, then you went to SEAL Team 2, then you went to Development Group, CEO of Contingent Group, CEO of Unafraid, you got a podcast with your wife now.

• 3:53Shawn Ryan?

  Who seems lovely, by the way.

• 3:54Eddie Penney?

  She's awesome.

• 3:55Shawn Ryan?

  She definitely makes you happy.

• 3:56Eddie Penney?

  She's the queen. She's the queen for sure.

• 3:59Shawn Ryan?

  But anything else? Am I missing anything?

• 4:02Eddie Penney?

  Uh, some, you know, some side hustles here for like leadership or team building stuff I do with other, other individuals, organizations, some speaking, but yeah, it kind of, I followed under the unafraid brand or that, that whole mindset piece. So that's about, that covers it.

• 4:16Shawn Ryan?

  Just getting into motivational speaking?

• 4:18Eddie Penney?

  Pretty, yeah, just recently, it just kind of, I wouldn't say walking away from a contingent group, but just kind of getting other people to take certain things on and then moving over to the encouragement side.

• 4:29Shawn Ryan?

  That's your passion though, right?

• 4:31Eddie Penney?

  Right now, yeah, it's like it's taken over and I, and I, yeah, can't fight it. It's just like, God, that's what I want to do. I like it.

• 4:38Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we've got a lot to dig into.

• 4:40Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, we do.

• 4:40Shawn Ryan?

  The first thing I noticed after not seeing you for 20 years, your vocabulary has changed quite a bit. There's no more four-letter, uh.

• 4:50Eddie Penney?

  Yes, that's a, yeah, I.

• 4:53Shawn Ryan?

  Four-letter bad words in there.

• 4:55Eddie Penney?

  About six months ago, I was, I've been trying to just better myself. I like, I don't want to do this. I just kind of noticed I'm cussing more and it'd be around my children, not even realizing it was like kind of default from the military. I mean, you know who we hang out with? We kind of have a bad, bad mouth. Uh, and I, and I don't

• 5:15Eddie Penney?

  look at other people bad for it. It's just like, God, I don't want to do that.

• 5:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:18Eddie Penney?

  And, uh, yeah, so I've been, and it's been, it's been a struggle.

• 5:22Shawn Ryan?

  You've only been doing that for six months?

• 5:23Eddie Penney?

  For about six months. Yeah. And I'd say probably like the last month, maybe month and a half that it's like, okay, I'm really doing good. I might have like one slip up a day or something, but like, oh gosh, just, just trying to better myself. I just don't want, I just don't want to do it.

• 5:36Shawn Ryan?

  Man, it's, I've been trying to do it.

• 5:39Eddie Penney?

  It's hard.

• 5:39Shawn Ryan?

  And I can't.

• 5:40Eddie Penney?

  It's freaking hard.

• 5:41Shawn Ryan?

  You don't even dance around the words. It's, it's like it was never part of your vocabulary. Doing a great job.

• 5:46Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. Well, we'll see. Here, you know, the things we're going to talk about, I'll do, I'll do my best. Uh, but yeah, I just, I noticed like certain podcasts. And again, it doesn't offend me whatsoever. I mean, I'd be a huge hypocrite if I said it did. Uh, cause I used it probably too much. It was like every other word. And, uh, I just like, man, I just. It's not a, I don't want to be known for that, especially when you're talking to other people, you're trying to encourage other people and my children, like trying to be the example, right? And that's one of the things that I need to get rid of. And it's been, it hasn't been easy.

• 6:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, we're doing a hell of a job.

• 6:23Eddie Penney?

  I appreciate that, buddy.

• 6:24Shawn Ryan?

  So, but hey, everybody that comes on starts off with a gift.

• 6:29Eddie Penney?

  This is a box of donuts.

• 6:31Shawn Ryan?

  It might be, it might be.

• 6:33Eddie Penney?

  The Sean Ryan Show. We were just talking about this.

• 6:40Shawn Ryan?

  Made in America, legal in all 50 states.

• 6:43Eddie Penney?

  So far, right?

• 6:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, right now they are.

• 6:46Eddie Penney?

  I love it, man. Thank you. I appreciate that.

• 6:48Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome.

• 6:49Eddie Penney?

  And I'm gonna probably eat those on the flight home, all of them.

• 6:52Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you. But, and we, we didn't say author. You just.

• 6:57Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, so, yeah.

• 6:58Shawn Ryan?

  Released your new book, Unafraid.

• 6:59Eddie Penney?

  And then, yeah, author of Unafraid and now working on book number two and kind of number three.

• 7:04Shawn Ryan?

  How's the book doing?

• 7:06Eddie Penney?

  It's doing good, man. We're getting a lot of good feedback. And that was kind of the beginning of like when we, in the beginning, when we, when myself and Keith Wood, the co-writer, great friend now, we started writing, I was like, hey, there's, there's one thing and that is to help others and like glorify God. Like I do not want to skimp on that piece because for me, that was my like, saved my life. It really did. And we can get into that stuff. But yeah, it's been awesome. The feedback we've gotten from it's helping a lot of people, both veterans, single parents, and people that are just struggling. It doesn't really just go for veterans. It's really for anyone and everyone. Cause I mentioned briefly, as you know, at the end of each chapter,

• 7:48Eddie Penney?

  we got the hot wash and it's kind of like a debrief or a critique of that particular chapter in my life. And I'm just kind of talk about things and it originally started to be letters to my children. Like, hey, don't make the same mistakes that I did. And, and we kind of brought this like, hey, this, this needs to be to everyone. So it's kind of dedicated to everyone. It's like, hey, and people that aren't even affiliated with the military, law enforcement, or anything that could be close to it or reaching out, uh, saying, hey, this really helped, you know, my organization or my business and that they're just hearing that. It's everything.

• 8:23Shawn Ryan?

  Definitely needed. It'll be linked in the description and everybody go buy his book and leave a review.

• 8:30Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 8:30Shawn Ryan?

  Leave a review for the book. So I'll leave a review right after this interview, but can't wait to dig into it. Uh, we're going to talk all about the book. One chapter in particular that caught my attention was Kill Addict.

• 8:43Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 8:43Shawn Ryan?

  So I want to get into that. But, um, and then the interview, we'll start with childhood. This is your biography. Here. So we're going to start with your childhood, moving into your, uh, Marine Corps years, SEAL Team, Dev Group. The dreaded transition and, and everything he got going on now.

• 9:02Eddie Penney?

  Awesome.

• 9:02Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, first, before we kind of get into the weeds. You're sitting here, I'm sitting here because of my Patreon community, the Vigilance League Patreon community. They support the show. They support everybody that works here. They're awesome. And, um, anyways, I give them, I tell them who's coming on the show. They're all excited about you. There's a ton of questions. We only have time for one because it's going to be a long one.

• 9:31Eddie Penney?

  Make it easy.

• 9:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. It's a tough question though. It's a tough question. So this is from Eric Covington. What advice is a single dad would you, would he give to help communicate to a young daughter to have a foundation of understanding on how to deal with fear? The woke world and how to keep a solid mindset growing up in today's culture as a kid and a young woman?

• 9:58Eddie Penney?

  That's a, that's a great question. And that's a great question. He said the word mindset, which I, I love, as you know.

• 10:07Eddie Penney?

  As a father, speaking, and this is based off personal experience, as I talk about the book, getting custody of my children, one was a boy, and then I had two daughters, five and 10, and then my son was a 10-month-old. And coming from an operator where you're kind of in savage mode, and then coming back and like you need to focus on these little people. And the difference between me talking to my son versus my daughters, I'm used to talking to guys like us, team guys, military guys that are getting shot at, that are shooting other people. So I kind of had to change or shift by knowing my audience. And I, and it took me a while, and, and, and I made a

• 10:49Eddie Penney?

  lot of mistakes. I, my tone, I was kind of more of a do as I say, not, you know, like I'm the drill instructor, kind of. And it was, it was completely wrong. But to answer that question, I would say that empathy, getting on their level, having those feelings, listening, this was very hard for me, was listening. You do not know it all, just because you're a father or a mother that's raising these children. We don't know it all. Those little, those little people running around can teach us a lot about just humanity, each other, yourself. They're trying to communicate. And a lot of times that I've learned, when they're at a certain age, they just don't know the words to communicate what they're feeling. They don't know what that

• 11:30Eddie Penney?

  is. Like the sadness, they don't, a lot of them don't know that that's what they're feeling. I mean, we're grown adults making mistakes like, man, I'm angry, I should probably pull myself out of this situation before I've maybe punched somebody in the face or do something I shouldn't do. But getting on their level, listening to them, processing what they, they say, take that pause, and then, you know, delivering that in a proper way by not raising your voice guilty. But

• 11:59Eddie Penney?

  Be the example. They're gonna watch you. They're gonna watch what you do. They're gonna watch how you speak. Back to the cussing piece, right? Watch how you speak, how you interact with people. How do you go grocery shopping? How do you drive? All these little things, they're like, they're just gathering their little sponges. They're just gathering all this information. And then try to develop that relationship as best you can, but like, to go off of that question from what I personally is, what I failed to do was just listen. Listen to what they were trying to communicate, get more information out of them, get on their level, and just get in their world. Get in their world, which is tough to do because we're like, we're, for the most part, self-absorbed humans. Like, we're kind of

• 12:41Eddie Penney?

  thinking about me, me, me, and you know, and I'm no exception to it. But that would be my advice is like, it's tough. It is tough. Because if it wasn't tough, everyone would be doing it, and we're not doing it. And especially we see bringing in the media, and we go to school, and like, twerking's the coolest thing. I mean, more people know about twerking than they know about like, being a good person, or morals, and ethics, or integrity. And it's sad. So the place, and we can't, we, I think a lot of us blame it on the school system, and I'm not saying that they are not guilty, but it starts in the home.

• 13:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:15Eddie Penney?

  I mean, it starts in the home. For us to become an operator, where did it start? It started in BUDS, the foundation. This is what a SEAL is. This is what an operator does. And then we just grew upon that. It's like anything with a Pee-wee football, to grade school football, to high school football, to college football, to NFL, and you're just stacking on this experience and wisdom as we go. Well, the foundation starts back when you're in Pee-wee. How to treat people, right? What is teamwork? What does it mean to lose? What can we improve upon? Learning, learning the lesson, right? But that goes back to the home. So the parents.

• 13:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:50Eddie Penney?

  It starts with you and it ends with you. Plain and simple, and I truly believe that. And I'm not gonna pretend that I make all the right decisions. I don't. I fail almost daily, I would say. I'm like, crap, I gotta fix that. I gotta fix that. I don't want my kid to see me drinking a lot. I don't want them to hear me cussing. I don't want them to hear me raise my voice to my wife. Because that's not okay. Because guess what? They're gonna do the same thing. If I think if we- Take a step back and look at we were raised, we're probably doing a lot of the same things.

• 14:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:20Eddie Penney?

  So.

• 14:21Shawn Ryan?

  Totally agree with that.

• 14:22Eddie Penney?

  So, long answer, but that's a, it's a great question. That, that is a great question. Uh, that's situation dictates per family, but great question.

• 14:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. You know, there was a lot of questions on there for you. A lot of it had to do with dev group and stuff, but I, you know, listening to your story, um, I listened to one of your podcasts from Mike Rittlin several years ago and man, you think you know a guy. And, uh, and the parent piece in there.

• 14:52Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 14:52Shawn Ryan?

  Was really, really powerful and touching. And so I thought that was the perfect question for you.

• 14:57Eddie Penney?

  That's a good question.

• 14:59Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, and then just to add to that, I do, you know, everybody's these days is looking for somebody to blame and yeah, the school system, it's all over the news, you know, what they're teaching. And I disagree with a lot of it.

• 15:13Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. So, so do I.

• 15:14Shawn Ryan?

  With that being said, you are your kid's biggest example. And if you don't like that kind of shit, they're, you're the example. Just lead by example and they're going to follow.

• 15:27Eddie Penney?

  And which is hard to do. And I, and I talk about that as you never know who's watching you. I go over like coaches that I watched, certain individuals that I watched, but I did one little thing, one certain thing that means nothing to them, but it meant the world to me that changed my work ethic, the way I treat people. It's huge. It's just one thing. There's a, there's a study out there and I, and I, and I don't know where it came from, but it's like for every,

• 15:54Eddie Penney?

  every negative thing that we do, it takes 10 positives to erase that negative. So if we raise our voice at our kids or do something we don't listen to, and we assume that we know what's going on, they're going to hold on to that. They're not going to remember that, hey, good job on your football, in your football game or good job on your grades. It takes 10 of those good ad boys to get rid of that negative.

• 16:17Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 16:17Eddie Penney?

  It just goes to show you how powerful that negative piece is. And unfortunately, my children.

• 16:26Eddie Penney?

  Growing up, dealt with more negative than positive from me. Cause to be honest with you, I was the child. I didn't know what to do. I was lost. And I turned to drinking. I turned to pills to sleep at night. And uh, yeah, they taught me a lot.

• 16:43Shawn Ryan?

  Well, before we get into that, let's start with your childhood. I know you grew up in Ohio.

• 16:48Eddie Penney?

  Yep, Cincinnati, Ohio, uh, played sports pretty much the whole time, uh, mostly football, baseball. And then, um,

• 16:58Shawn Ryan?

  Were you good at them?

• 16:59Eddie Penney?

  I was good at baseball. I was good at Pee Wee football. And then when I got to like seventh, eighth grade, uh, I was kind of late.

• 17:08Shawn Ryan?

  Late bloomer?

• 17:08Eddie Penney?

  Late bloomer.

• 17:11Eddie Penney?

  So I, I told my dad, I was like, hey, these, these guys are, these guys are too big. And I'm like, I just, I just don't want to do it. So I quit and, uh, and I'm glad I did. And when I did that, I joined the swim team, which was great for buds, not realizing that I was going to go to buds. Uh, but as a child, I was always running through the woods. I would play video games, maybe on Saturdays. I think my mom would let me have it for about an hour or two and I'd play contra, you know, up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, BA. You know, the, the good codes.

• 17:40Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 17:40Eddie Penney?

  So, uh, I would do that, but mostly in the woods, building forts, running like a madman, making spears. Um, all kinds of stuff, man. But that was like, that was my passion, just being on the woods and roaming the creeks, looking for snakes to kill them. Cause that was with a good buddy, Oz, that I grew up with and, uh, we call ourselves the snake killers. We would just go out, you know, looking for Yeti or something and killing snakes. But it was, it was a great childhood, man. It was always outdoors, fishing, just something, swimming in lakes. Uh, it was, it was a good time. It was awesome.

• 18:15Shawn Ryan?

  Brothers and sisters?

• 18:17Eddie Penney?

  I had a cat.

• 18:18Shawn Ryan?

  A cat?

• 18:19Eddie Penney?

  I did. No brothers and sisters, only child. I tortured that cat, Alex.

• 18:23Shawn Ryan?

  I don't see you as a cat person.

• 18:24Eddie Penney?

  Uh, yeah. Yeah, I don't either, but the, there he was. I think our, our neighbor had a litter. My mom said, maybe this guy needs a cat. Cause I'm not going to give him a son or a brother or sister. So we had a cat. I mean, it was, it was awesome, but I like, I would, uh, when we moved, when I was in seventh grade, I'd like drop him off the balcony. We had like a loft, kind of like overlooks. I would drop him off and we had a couch underneath and he would kind of bounce off the couch.

• 18:52Eddie Penney?

  I mean, it was out of good fun. I wasn't like, hey, let's torture this guy, but he did not like me. I would like hold him. I mean, just, yeah.

• 19:01Shawn Ryan?

  Things you shouldn't be doing.

• 19:02Eddie Penney?

  Things I shouldn't be doing.

• 19:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Were you popular growing up?

• 19:06Eddie Penney?

  Uh, I wouldn't say popular. I was friends with everybody, like the jocks, that guy was just nice to everybody. Um, never really bullied or picked on, but I mean, I was kind of into my little clique with the swim team. Uh, that was probably, yeah, I was friends with everyone. Good childhood, good childhood.

• 19:28Shawn Ryan?

  Sounds like a good childhood, tied with your parents and everything.

• 19:30Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. So my parents were divorced. Um, and I lived with my mom for, for most of the time. I'd go see my dad every other weekend and like dinner on Wednesday or Thursday night. Would go out to whatever, get some food and he would drop me back off at the house. Uh, but yeah, I mean, like my dad, when I was a child was like my little hero, always would look up to him. Uh, but yeah, my mom, my mom took care of me. She was always there. That's like been one constant, uh,

• 20:00Eddie Penney?

  for a long time, it's always her. She's always been there.

• 20:02Shawn Ryan?

  What do they do as a profession?

• 20:04Eddie Penney?

  My mom, my mom's retired now. My dad still does kind of drywall. He's in the drywall business, been in the drywall business for a long time. And then my mom does, um, she did like clerical work. I think she did like payroll or something. So she'd always drive downtown, you know, worked in like the high rises and stuff like that. And then come back after work. Uh, so she did that for the most time. She took some accounting courses on, uh, not online, but like through like the community college, I guess, or whatever it was. I don't remember what it was.

• 20:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:32Eddie Penney?

  But yeah, she kind of like a business, business-y type.

• 20:37Shawn Ryan?

  Well, where did your interest in the, in the military come then?

• 20:41Eddie Penney?

  Uh, I, I guess, you know, my, when I was, my dad's weekend, his, his way of parenting was like, hey, check out this new Sylvester Stallone movie or like check out Arnold Schwarzenegger. Check out this new guy Van Damme, right? And I would watch them all and I was just like glued to the, to the thing. I like to the, there's a TV just like glued to it. And I would watch them over and over and over again. Like looking at their gear, like what is that? What is this? And I would just like try to, and we didn't have internet. So you try to like magazines or try to figure things out or go to the library, like military, like what's, what, what's anything? And, uh, I just fell in love with it. Like just something got stirred up inside me and it like became a passion. So. I mean, gosh, as long as I can remember, I mean, grade school, I was like, dude, I want to be in the military.

• 21:26Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, so it started real early.

• 21:28Eddie Penney?

  It started real early. And then I remember a specific day, my mom took me to a night game, a Cincinnati Reds game. And, uh, you know, they just got done with the Star Spangled Banner and, and it was during Desert Storm. So I remember they had the yellow ribbons. They had like a sticker with an eagle head, support our troops. And like, I mean, very patriotic stuff from what I, from what I can remember, nothing what I kind of feel like, definitely not in the Vietnam era, which I was not around, but you can hear the stories or kind of what's going on now. But, uh, very supportive, it seemed like at my, you know, to my young eyes. And then at the end of the Star Spangled Banner, which I definitely stood for, uh, you know, took my hand down. And afterwards they had like fighter jets fly over in just that noise. I was like, dude, it rocked my world.

• 22:13Eddie Penney?

  I was like, I talked to my mom because I'm like, you know, I'm looking up at her. I'm like, that's what I want to do. And I didn't want to be a pilot. I just knew that I wanted to be in the military. Seeing that flag flow, I just felt like the, a great sense of pride in this country. And it, and I didn't know what the heck I was even asking for, what I was thinking about. But for some reason that planted a seed that just morphed inside me. It was awesome. And that's, I remember that night. It was a night game, Cincinnati Reds game. I'll never forget it.

• 22:41Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 22:41Eddie Penney?

  And that was it. That's all she wrote.

• 22:43Shawn Ryan?

  Well, so when did you start really getting serious and looking into it?

• 22:48Eddie Penney?

  So I did this, I did the swim team after, you know, for a while and I, and I thought about it. And then, you know, swimmers are going, you know, I was a freshman, you know, the seniors are looking at colleges. They're going to colleges. I'd go with them to check out the university, do a workout at their pool or whatever. You know, they would allow that to happen. And I was like, well, maybe, maybe I'll swim in college, try to get a scholarship. Cause I was starting to get a little bit better. I mean, most of these kids, guys started like when they're 10. So they were like freaks in the water. And I was, I mean, started in ninth grade. I could barely swim a length of the pool. And then towards my junior year, I started getting really good. And then I, I did not swim my, uh, senior year because my coach died. He was a huge influence on me. Uh, but I mean, there was like little segments of life where I'm like, I want to be a lawyer.

• 23:32Eddie Penney?

  Cause I watched The Firm with Tom Cruise. I'm like, I think that's a good job. I want to do that. Or I want to be a doctor because I saw whatever. It's just a flu, you know, I mean, we influence people or we get influenced by people. And, um, everything came back to the military, but a guy, when I was a junior year. A really good friend of mine was a senior and he enlisted in the Marine Corps. So he went down to Paris Island in South Carolina. And when his graduation came around, he had a brother and they reached out like, hey, Eddie, would you like to go down there for the graduation? So I asked my mother, of course, and she, she, yeah, she'd be, that'd be great for you. So I, I went down there and I like fell in love. I was like just seeing the obstacle course and they're like doing the pugil sticks and their boxing and marching and the guns. And it was cool, like the unison of them marching.

• 24:16Eddie Penney?

  I mean, I've kind of learned in the military, what, what looks cool is not the coolest. Like diving at night under a ship. That's scary, bro. Like that, like, you know what I mean?

• 24:26Shawn Ryan?

  You didn't get any enjoyment out of that?

• 24:29Eddie Penney?

  When I was done, I'm like, that's cool. But during it, I'm like, shark, what shark?

• 24:35Eddie Penney?

  Am I gonna get sucked up into the suction of the ship? You know? I mean, you know, it's the, the reality kind of hits you. Uh, but I just fell in love and I'm like, all right, like, and I wanted to be a SEAL thing. Cause I saw, you know, the Charlie Sheen movie and Michael Bean, but you know, Navy SEALs. And, um, I, I did the Marine Corps thing. I did, and just, I was like, I'm gonna, all right, I'm gonna go be a Marine.

• 24:55Shawn Ryan?

  What, what year was this?

• 24:57Eddie Penney?

  I enlisted and I went August 23rd of 1996.

• 25:02Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 25:03Eddie Penney?

  I, I left to go in the Marine Corps.

• 25:05Shawn Ryan?

  Right out of high school?

• 25:06Eddie Penney?

  Right out of high, I was 17. My 18th birthday was in boot camp, sitting in my rack, hoping no one would find out that it was my birthday. You know, you just don't draw attention to yourself, right? Be the good man. Uh, but yeah, it was, it was cool. It was, it was a good experience. I didn't fall in love with the Marine Corps's, it's all about rank. It's not so much about how you perform. It's about rank. I care more about your hair than how you operate or do your job.

• 25:34Shawn Ryan?

  You picked that up at that young of an age?

• 25:36Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, I started, yeah, I didn't know better, but towards like year two, two and a half, three years, I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like, like, let's concentrate on like working. That seems like a more important thing. Uh, like having a operational fighting force than, hey, you look good. Like, are those creases? Like, okay, cool. Cause the enemy's gonna give a crap about that. Like, it's like, who cares? I get the point of being presentable and the discipline. I understand that, but it seemed to override people doing their job and influencing other people and being like, and being a leader. And, uh, so I didn't like that.

• 26:12Shawn Ryan?

  What did you join the Marine Corps to do?

• 26:15Eddie Penney?

  O three eleven, so basic infantrymen and and that's what I wanted to do. So I did my as this funny. It's kind of funny and sad at the same time is I did my ASVAB and you know, they get the scores back and they're like, so Eddie, what do you want to do? I was like, I want to be an O three eleven and they're like, good, because that's all you're going to be able to do.

• 26:34Eddie Penney?

  Cause my ASVAB, I guess, was not the greatest. So and I was like, cool. I don't, I don't care. Like just, I wanted like, what I thought, you know, the Marines do, storm the beaches, you know, get off of Zodiacs, go do the thing, right? Be on the front lines and uh, yeah, that's, that's all I cared to do. I just wanted to be in the fight. Not knowing what that meant or what exactly came with that, that package deal.

• 26:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 27:00Eddie Penney?

  So.

• 27:01Shawn Ryan?

  So when did you leave? Did you do one enlistment and then?

• 27:04Eddie Penney?

  I did four years. Yeah. About my three year mark. So the reason for me leaving um, about two and a half, three years in, I was like, I learned about Marine Scout snipers, which everyone I saw that was a Marine Scout that they were just squared away. And Scout Sniper School was right there on Quantico where I was stationed. So I would see him like running with their ghillie suits on with packs. They had other, you know, their long guns. I was like, dude, I want to go do that. But you had to be a rifle expert. So you got, you know, you got your three quals, you got basic rifle, uh, base, basic marksman. Then you got your sharpshooter, then you got your rifle expert, just like we do in, in the Navy. Same thing in the Marines, but you had to be a rifle expert, the best one to even go to sniper school.

• 27:47Eddie Penney?

  And I was a basic marksman. So I asked my team leader, I was like, hey, can I, can I go to the range to try to, you know, up my qual? And I went and I got sharpshooter. I missed expert by one point, by one shot. And so I was like, hey, can I go again? So they sent me back like three months later. I missed it again by one shot.

• 28:09Eddie Penney?

  So I was like, just give me one more chance. And they're like, hey, we do this, you get it, you got to reenlist or extend to go to school. And I was like, I'll do that. No problem. So I didn't extend, thank God, but they, a spot opened up and I got to go at, within six months, I think I was back at it. And um, I missed it again by one fricking point. Three times, man. Wow. And I was done. I was deflated. I was, I was done. I was like, this sucks. I'm like, man, I, and I kind of chalked it up like this military thing. Maybe it wasn't for me after all. Maybe I'm not as, it's not what I've always wanted to be. So I was like, I'll go back to Cincinnati and be a cop. Like, you know, I just wanted to, I don't like evil. I just wanted to somehow fight evil the best way, the, in some way, you know,

• 28:53Eddie Penney?

  shape or form. And uh, I'd say probably around that time, I don't know how much time was left in the Marines, maybe eight, nine months or something like that. I was like, and I don't know what sparked it. Oh, I know what sparked it. We did a trip to West Virginia. Cause when I was in Quantico, everything that we did was training the officers. So officers go to OCS, Officer Candidate School. And then the Marine Corps, you go to a thing on the other side of the base, it's called TBS, the Basic School. So every Marine officer does this six month school. It's, it's all field craft. Like learning to set up patrol bases, uh, patrolling, shooting, how to do mount, military operations in urban terrain,

• 29:37Eddie Penney?

  little bit of CQB, uh, all the like explosives, grenades, more shooting, heavy weapons, stuff like that. So every officer does that, which other services don't. So I like applaud the Marines for that. That's, that's super cool. So we were like, the OP four, like the bad guys for, for all this training stuff. So I was in the woods or in the field with these guys. Like my first year, I counted the days, it was 315 days. And it wasn't like overnight, but like some would be like nine to five, like for a week, but some of them were like, all right, you're out there for three weeks straight. And you're like, you're stinking and just like, it's just, it's just bad. But I learned so much and um, and then, but everything was for them. Everything was for the officers and I get it, but you know, at the same time, it's like, dude,

• 30:19Eddie Penney?

  I have zero experience and you want me to try to feed these guys? So we just kind of played war games, but uh, we did a trip. We were going to teach some officers mountaineering and I, and most of us knew nothing. This is our first duty stations. Actually at school of infantry, took all the names that started with a P. There's nine of us, like you're going to Quantico. Like that's, you know, it's not like based off of anything. It was like, okay, alphabet, somehow the P's got chosen, which sucked. And um, so we go there, uh, to this, to West Virginia to learn mountaineering. So we spent three days out there, learning to rappel, make rope bridges, you know, tying all the knots of figure eights, how to like do river crossings, all that stuff. And I like ate it up. I was like, oh my God, there's like, like, cause it was, it was like making me better.

• 31:04Eddie Penney?

  Um, so there was like, it was training for us. And I was like, dude, this is awesome. So I fell in love. I was like, okay, where do I get more of this? And obviously the answers would have been like sniper school. Well, kind of failed that one. Marine force recon learned that their budget for gear and ops wasn't the greatest at the time. They weren't even attached to SOCOM, I believe. So I was like, all right, let's go back.

• 31:26Shawn Ryan?

  Into all that at that young age?

• 31:28Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 31:28Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, that's impressive.

• 31:29Eddie Penney?

  So I, I looked, I asked questions, I guess you could say, cause there was a, a guy that came from battalion recon. So you got battalion at the time, I, I don't know how it's set up now, but you had battalion recon and you had force or forces by like, you're kind of like more of your, the way it was explained to me, more you're like your hostage rescue, kind of like your tier one-ish type, where battalion was more just dudes that are more squared away, have better training, kind of infantry type, like. Rangers and for people that are watching that that if I butcher it, I apologize. Uh, but that's what I was led to believe, uh, by being told by guys that were there. And, uh, I was like, all right, I'm going to go with my dream way back when like, I'm going to do the SEAL

• 32:11Eddie Penney?

  thing. So not even making sniper school and then wanting to go to the hardest school that I believe the military has to offer. The feedback from family and friends was not of the most encouraging way. It's like, dude, like people don't make it. People don't do anything, but it didn't matter. Like my mind was like on it. Like it was on it. Like I, I know I can do it. I just felt it like I, I know I can do this. And so I crossed over and went to BUDS.

• 32:37Shawn Ryan?

  You. So there was no break in service? You just went right over?

• 32:39Eddie Penney?

  I had one day break. I couldn't, I tried to like sell back my leave. Like you can just have my leave, just get me there as soon as possible. I was like, I don't need the 90, cause I had like 90 days or whatever saved up. Uh, and they're like, no, you have to finish it out completely. Be out for one day to, so we can drug test you and all that stuff. I was like, yeah, I'm going to get high on this one day off before I go, before I go. It's, you had to do the whole out processing piece for the Marines. Then you gotta do the whole in processing piece for the Navy, which is a fricking nightmare, as you know. Uh, so did that and then had to go up to transitioning processing unit, which is up in Great Lakes for other services, veterans coming in. You go up there, they can,

• 33:20Eddie Penney?

  it's really like a, it's a, it's a mess. Let's just put it that way. And so we, you know, get all your paperwork and then had to do a, a school, like get a job in the Navy because there was no SEAL, uh, SO. Like there was no job. That started, I think, when we were in, like a couple of years in. And, um, so I went to gunners made school right up there in Great Lakes because it was something they, they told me it was close to infantry, which it's not, not even close. I learned about circuits and positive and negative and resistors, which I still know nothing about. I know there's red and black and positives and negatives. That's about, that's where we stop. But you had to have a school. So if you don't make it through, they have a place to put you,

• 34:02Eddie Penney?

  right? Because I didn't want to go open contract and end up on a ship painting it or something like that. So did the school and went out to BUDS. And it was awesome, man. It was everything and more.

• 34:16Shawn Ryan?

  You liked BUDS?

• 34:17Eddie Penney?

  I liked it. It sucked at times, of course, but just the learning about my body, what I can and can't do, and then the mindset piece of it all. I was like, oh, my gosh, like,

• 34:32Eddie Penney?

  we as humans have so much more potential than our goals.

• 34:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:37Eddie Penney?

  Like, we might have, like, I want to accomplish this. The truth is, you you set your, you know, the standard here, bro, you should be shooting up here.

• 34:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:45Eddie Penney?

  We see it all the time. I see it all the time. I'm sure I'm sure you realize the same thing. It's like, wait, I can do way more than this.

• 34:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:51Eddie Penney?

  Way more. You know, when you're like, something as simple as like, I can't do any more pushups. I can't do anymore. And then they're like, hey, you're you're out of here. If you don't knock out five more and you knock out seven. So it's like, we can, you know, our our brain, you know, a brain is our our worst enemy and it's our best asset. Plain and simple.

• 35:09Shawn Ryan?

  What was your, what was your favorite part of BUDS?

• 35:14Eddie Penney?

  Gosh, I really,

• 35:19Eddie Penney?

  I really enjoyed like the camaraderie of being with the boys. I really liked it. I I liked the surf torture.

• 35:28Shawn Ryan?

  You liked surf torture?

• 35:29Eddie Penney?

  I I mean, it sucked. I just, I like fed off of it. Like, I get, like, if I do sparring or something like that, or whatever, and I get my bell rung, it like amps me up. I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, like, I'm I'm stimulated by a little bit of pain.

• 35:45Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 35:46Eddie Penney?

  And that would bring on a little pain and just motivate me more. Like, you can't break me. I just had that you can't break me. You can't break me. I'm getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And that's what I thought to myself all the time and then seeing people quit motivated me.

• 35:59Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 35:59Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, like, all right, it's not made for you. It's made for me, though. And I'm just, I would give myself that self-talk. Uh, and a lot of that got me through and the guy to my left and my right, you know? I tried to hang out with the good people, the one with the good personality, the ones that tried to make you laugh.

• 36:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:17Eddie Penney?

  Not the one like, this sucks. When is this gonna end? Like, I'd like, get away from the toxicity.

• 36:22Shawn Ryan?

  So, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe nine eleven happened when you were in Bud's.

• 36:27Eddie Penney?

  Second phase, yeah.

• 36:28Shawn Ryan?

  What was that like?

• 36:29Eddie Penney?

  Uh, surreal. It was, it was weird. I remember just getting my tray, uh, I was at the cafeteria, galley, chow hall, whatever you wanna call it, getting my food. And I was, and I was walking out of the line to the table area and, you know, on the backside, they got all these, all the TVs. And like, everyone's like paused. It's like someone hit pause on the remote and, you know, the, the frame stands still. I'm like, what the heck's going on? Like, I'm not paying attention. I'm looking, looking at my food like I can't wait to devour this, right? I put my tray down and the guys that I'm sitting down with are like, just staring, they're just glued to the TV. I'm like, hey, what's going on? And they just like point up and I'm like, and all I see is one of the, I think one of the, one of the towers, I don't know if it was one or two. One of the towers was, was, was going up in smoke and then

• 37:15Eddie Penney?

  the second one came in. And I don't remember exactly what I saw, but I could, I mean, I could tell it was an attack. And right at that moment, it was like, okay. Did we just get attacked? And then, you know, the thoughts go, well, they push us through training, like, we're gonna go to the fight. It just, you just kind of knew instinctively like, hey, like, it's about, it's about to get real. Not that it wasn't real before. And, and to say it didn't change the mindset a little bit would be, uh, done a disservice of that whole event. But yeah, it kinda, I mean, you know.

• 37:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:46Eddie Penney?

  It, it's different. It's different when there's actively something going on versus something, something could be going on. Which was, which is what the case was, you know, first phase and a little bit of second phase, which is like, you know, we'll, we'll answer the call when it comes. But now it's like, okay, the threat is imminent. It's real. Here it is. Let's go. So it kinda tweaked, tweaked your brain a little bit.

• 38:06Shawn Ryan?

  Did you guys have any, did you have anybody quit? After, I mean, nobody quits after hell week.

• 38:12Eddie Penney?

  Uh, I don't think we had anyone quit. I mean, we had, you know, the basic injuries. We had to roll somebody, but I don't think anyone quit to my, to my knowledge. There was guys that got kicked out.

• 38:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:24Eddie Penney?

  You know, uh, that, that wasn't fit in the mold, I guess, but I don't think anyone quit.

• 38:30Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 38:31Eddie Penney?

  So, but I don't, I'm not a hundred percent on that. You know, it is, do you're like looking through your, the toilet paper roll.

• 38:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Eddie Penney?

  Not seeing, you know, the big picture of everything. You're like, God, just, that's like, just get me through this hour. Just get me through this minute. Just get me through the next five seconds.

• 38:44Shawn Ryan?

  Did the instructor staff change at all?

• 38:47Eddie Penney?

  Um.

• 38:48Shawn Ryan?

  After nine eleven?

• 38:50Eddie Penney?

  My memory's a little foggy, but I mean, they would have to. I know one of our instructors had a, is, is fiance or wife was a, uh, flight attendant on a flight from somewhere to New York that morning. It wasn't her flight, but I, I could see them doing stuff and we were kind of, we were kind of brought into the classroom and kind of debriefed what was known, which wasn't a lot about what was going on. Uh, but you know, you could see it in their eyes. You, you could see it in their eyes.

• 39:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:18Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. You could, you can see it.

• 39:19Shawn Ryan?

  So you finished buds. You go, did you go to team two right away?

• 39:24Eddie Penney?

  Team two right away. Yep.

• 39:26Shawn Ryan?

  You went to team two. I wound up at team two later.

• 39:29Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. Cause you went to eight first, I believe.

• 39:31Shawn Ryan?

  I went to eight first. Then I went to two.

• 39:33Eddie Penney?

  Yep.

• 39:33Shawn Ryan?

  And when I got to two, you guys as platoon or your task unit, I guess I should say was like the golden task unit. I don't know what you guys did.

• 39:41Eddie Penney?

  It was, we had the influence from our tier one guys.

• 39:45Shawn Ryan?

  We're gonna find out.

• 39:49Shawn Ryan?

  What were you guys doing over there?

• 39:51Eddie Penney?

  Uh, I mean, you know, we had our, the way it started, you know, the first couple of weeks, cause we jumped in right when workup was starting, I believe.

• 40:01Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 40:01Eddie Penney?

  For the first deployment. Uh, and you know, Iraq was, I think, or sorry, Afghanistan was going or.

• 40:09Eddie Penney?

  When did Iraq start kicking off?

• 40:11Shawn Ryan?

  Iraq started kicking off right in 2003.

• 40:14Eddie Penney?

  Okay, so I would have been, it was like during that time, both of them were kicking off. So it was like, okay, where are we going? And we, you know, we didn't know, but we're assuming we're gonna go get in the fight. But our, our leadership that came from the other side of the street, our tier one guys, they, um, they changed the whole way we did business and they made it more like them. So instead of like, hey, we got two platoons and you guys were all doing the same stuff. They kind of made it like, hey, we got our mobility guys. We got our sniper element and then we got our assaulters. And they changed it all. And so I was with the assaulting side and just kind of fell in love with the breaching. In that deployment, I just wanted to go to breaching school, but it was rare for new guys to go, thus there was a spot.

• 40:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Eddie Penney?

  Uh, so I didn't go, but I was like this secondary breacher. I would like just, I was mentored by a lot of, a lot of solid dudes. Um, and, uh, just like hung on to every word and just tried to like soak up as much as possible. And I just fell in love with the breaching world.

• 41:11Shawn Ryan?

  What did you think of the SEAL teams when you first showed up? Was it everything you thought it was gonna be?

• 41:16Eddie Penney?

  Uh, I thought it would be, it had a conventional taste to it. And I only say that after being at the tier one unit. I only say that I wouldn't have probably known better. But it was like, oh, we can't let you out until like four. I was like, are we, are we babies? Like if we had nothing to do, send guys home.

• 41:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 41:38Eddie Penney?

  Especially when you're always on training trips, you have deployments, like we have a thing called families. And I think that's a, a problem we have is we want to know why divorce rate is 90%. A lot of it's based off of stupidity. Because we think that this is the way it's supposed to be, dude. We, we, we preach this unconventional mindset, this, that we are unconventional. We, we're, you know, we do the guerrilla warfare, right? But yet when it comes to, you know, sticking to the 4:30 or four o'clock rule, like, come on, man. Like, that's, that's, we're done. We're not, we're not regular military here.

• 42:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:11Eddie Penney?

  You're expecting guys to fight and get shot at.

• 42:15Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you wind up deploying to on that first one?

• 42:19Eddie Penney?

  The first one, we were kind of like dragged around. First we were told we're going to Germany, then we're going to Guam, then we're going to South America. And we were like, what the heck? And then we were going to Iraq and then they pulled out, then we went to Iraq. So we, we went to Mosul up north and we were just like, you guys are gonna be doing DAs. We're like, really? Like, yes. Like, yes. So we went up there, uh, and our first two months was up there and it was, it was cool. It was really cool. Like, it was, it was eye opening. It's like just busting, breaching the doors down, going in and kind of like SWAT style. But the whole time we did there, I don't, I don't believe one shot was fired. I mean, cause you're not obviously getting the, the high value targets, the HVTs, you're getting kind of the lower ranking or whatever the intel says that we should be going.

• 43:05Eddie Penney?

  Uh, but it was cool. It was like in the, in the progression and the progression of my career and like in the experience, it's probably, it was awesome. Like it wasn't like boom, boom, boom right away. It was gradual. That would come later. Uh, but it was good until, and then, you know, two months in, we get the PSD piece, the, there's the security detail down in Baghdad, uh, when the interim government came in. So we packed up all our stuff, which we weren't proud of.

• 43:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:34Eddie Penney?

  And to be honest, we like,

• 43:37Eddie Penney?

  didn't even train for PSD.

• 43:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Eddie Penney?

  Really. So we were kind of like, all right, this is what it looks like. I mean, we did a little bit, uh, but not, not like, hey, this is going to be your mission overseas. Here, we're going to do a workup for it. We didn't do that. Uh, it was kind of like on the job training, but you know, we pick, you pick it up, right?

• 43:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:55Eddie Penney?

  You know, like bad guys, the way they think, all right, let's defend. But instead of, you know, up in Mosul, when you're, you know, when you're taking it to the enemy, when you're on the offensive, now you're on the defensive. You're waiting to get hit by the vehicle borne IED on the side of the road. Your guy that you're watching or constantly around is a target. Uh, I mean, when we had a lowe, uh, years before he was up in, uh, England and Saddam sent his guys up there and he got sent assassins to kill him and then, and he had scars all over his face from hatchets that they took to him when he was sleeping.

• 44:29Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 44:30Eddie Penney?

  Like it took him a year to come back, but like just seeing those scars on his face, like much respect, you know, and a lot of people say he was DC's pup, uh, puppet and he might've been, you know, now that we're learning, right? Um, about this government. Uh, I don't, I don't know, but you know, the guy was anti Saddam. I mean, especially when someone tries to kill you and probably not gonna be friends with you after.

• 44:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:55Eddie Penney?

  So, but it was, it was an experience that led to my company later. So I can't, uh, it was, it was good to do.

• 45:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:05Eddie Penney?

  Not fun at the time, but it was good to do.

• 45:07Shawn Ryan?

  Pretty discouraging, probably.

• 45:08Eddie Penney?

  It was very, especially, I mean, that's every teen guy's dream, I think.

• 45:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Eddie Penney?

  Kicking down doors, right? Taking it to the bad guy. And then you gotta go watch somebody.

• 45:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:19Eddie Penney?

  I don't wanna babysit you. Nothing against you. I just don't wanna babysit you.

• 45:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:22Eddie Penney?

  I'm, I'm trained to do more.

• 45:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Not when there's a war going on.

• 45:27Eddie Penney?

  Exactly.

• 45:27Shawn Ryan?

  But so you come home, do another workup.

• 45:32Eddie Penney?

  Yep. And during that time, my second child was born, probably three months for the second deployment. So when I was in the Marines, found out that my first daughter Kayla was born. She was, uh, when I was in the Marines. So when we went out to Bud's, I, she was two or three. So I had one, one daughter and then before the second one, my second daughter came, Samantha. So I think I left on that second deployment. She was three months old.

• 45:58Shawn Ryan?

  Was that hard for you at the time?

• 46:02Eddie Penney?

  Ah, as sad as this is to say, I don't know. I didn't wanna leave, but at the same time I wanted to leave. I wanted to be over there. Like, I was just itching to get over there. I just wanted to fight. Like we don't, you just don't go through all this training and volunteer to be put through hell, right?

• 46:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 46:23Eddie Penney?

  Pretty much. And then just not then to, to be back at home. Uh, yeah, it was, it was sad to leave and I missed them, of course, but I was like, that's where I'm supposed to be is overseas. That's, that's where this is and that's where this is. So, yeah, and then when I came back, it was, you know, she was nine months old and just like, hmm, it's ridiculous.

• 46:42Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 46:43Eddie Penney?

  So.

• 46:44Shawn Ryan?

  Was that, so the second deployment, is that the one we did together?

• 46:46Eddie Penney?

  That's the one we did together. So I think there was three or four guys from our task unit. We had to get more guys on yours. So I volunteered because I've never been to Afghanistan. So I was like, yeah, please send me and I, because I did not want to go do P- PSD again.

• 47:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:02Eddie Penney?

  And, uh, I almost said PTSD again, because it's about the same.

• 47:07Eddie Penney?

  So, uh, I volunteered. I was like, I don't care what I do. Just like, get me over there. Like, because I heard the fighting was more intense. There was, you know, was a a more formidable opponent. Uh, but I, yeah, I just wanted to be over there. So I volunteered right away to go with you guys and I'm glad I did.

• 47:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yep. It was a pretty boring fucking deployment, if you ask me, but.

• 47:29Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, but it was cool to see the landscape, kind of get to know the people. And that was like my first, like troop in contact encounter. It was nothing big, but got to shoot the two forty at some trees where we were getting shot at.

• 47:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:42Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, okay. And then it's just like what I was saying earlier, like with, uh, doing the DAs in I- in Iraq. It was just a small progression. Like, okay, you got in your first, like, troop in contact. Nothing crazy, but it was just like adding another layer of experience.

• 47:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:57Eddie Penney?

  So, um, I mean, that's just the way I, I look at it because there's no other way to look at it.

• 48:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, after that, so that deployment got cut short. We went down to Kandahar, did a little bit of stuff with the Kansaf, which didn't really amount to much.

• 48:11Eddie Penney?

  Right.

• 48:12Shawn Ryan?

  And then, then I'm not really sure what happened at the top level, but I'm fairly certain that we got kicked out of country.

• 48:21Eddie Penney?

  I believe you're right because we shut the whole camp down.

• 48:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:24Eddie Penney?

  Was it Camp Olet or something? Is that what it's called? Yeah, we shut it all down. And then we went back to, back to Baghdad.

• 48:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So what'd you guys do when you, so we split ways there. I went to another platoon in Baghdad. You went to, I believe your original platoon.

• 48:38Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. So I went back with them and they were doing what they called a mentorship for P- PSD, almost did it again. Uh, PSD and like training their, like Af- Iraqis on how to do it or other entities that were taking over. And it was. A lot of sitting down and then we were like, we had to do something. I mean, the worst thing you can do is get a bunch of team guys sitting around doing nothing. It just good things don't happen. We're like a bunch of children, which that's fine. Like we want to go operate. That's, that's what we're created to do. And that's like, that's what we feel, right? And um,

• 49:16Eddie Penney?

  finally, we started getting some of the sniper ops. Like I know Sodder City was going crazy. Some guys got lucky to, you know, drop some bombs and I think our snipers and radio man and medics got a lot of those, which I was none of, uh, but got to do a couple sniper ops. Again, no shots fired, uh, on where I was. I know a couple of guys got some.

• 49:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:38Eddie Penney?

  Um, was that who you were with that that?

• 49:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that was our, we were the lucky ones that kept getting.

• 49:44Eddie Penney?

  Okay, I thought so. Yeah, yeah, I thought so. But yeah, nothing. But it was just cool to like another mission, I guess you could say, to get experience on doing.

• 49:53Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 49:54Eddie Penney?

  But it was nothing. And then I realized like, I don't ever want to be a sniper. This is so boring.

• 50:00Eddie Penney?

  Like, I want to kick down doors, man.

• 50:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:04Eddie Penney?

  But uh, it was, it was, it was great experience. It really was.

• 50:07Shawn Ryan?

  So from there, that was your, was that your last deployment?

• 50:10Eddie Penney?

  At team two.

• 50:12Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 50:12Eddie Penney?

  So, uh, I, I, I screened or sent in my package to go over across the street to our tier one unit and um,

• 50:23Eddie Penney?

  they pushed it back. I was supposed to get back and go right into like a month later, a couple of weeks later. And I got pushed six months and start doing, uh, go to the tra- our training detachment. And then I told one of the guys that was an operator over there and he did something because he's like, hey dude, you're, you're going to, you're doing the, the, to green team like right away when you get back. And all I was doing at the point was jacking steel, like me and Jason Workman. That's all we were doing when I got to uh, Baghdad was just jacking steel as much as we could. So I put on like probably 10 pounds, like I'm taking all the supplements, have my wife at the time send over anything and everything, just like to try to bulk me out. Cause I'm like, if I'm not gonna do anything, at least I can do is like just get bigger and get stronger. Um, but definitely not faster.

• 51:07Eddie Penney?

  So I was like crap. I was like, started stressing about the run. I was like, okay, I'm gonna start running. So I kind of tapered off on the weights a little bit. And uh, so like probably two or three weeks later, once we got back home. Or total time, I had to be doing that screening test to get in. And I passed the run, like I had no problem with anything else. But the run I made by like 12 or 13 seconds.

• 51:30Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 51:31Eddie Penney?

  But it didn't matter as long as you pass, they give you a time, as long as you pass, it doesn't matter how close you are.

• 51:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 51:36Eddie Penney?

  So, but yeah.

• 51:37Shawn Ryan?

  So you went right to green team, right after that deployment?

• 51:41Eddie Penney?

  Yes.

• 51:41Shawn Ryan?

  No downtime?

• 51:42Eddie Penney?

  No doubt, maybe a couple of weeks.

• 51:44Shawn Ryan?

  How's your wife and family? I mean, what do they think of that?

• 51:48Eddie Penney?

  Uh.

• 51:52Eddie Penney?

  I was very self-absorbed. I really, I mean, I, I'm sure I asked, but my mind was made up like, hey, here's what I'm going to do. And I would justify as like, hey, we get more money if I go over there versus over here. Deployments are shorter, like I would pretty much turn into a salesman. Where I wouldn't, you know, I was like, is that cool with you? But I really wasn't asking. I was like, is that cool with you? But inside I'm like, I'm doing this no matter what you say. Um, and that was kind of it, but, but she was supportive. From what I can remember, she was supportive, but I mean. The cracks in my family life.

• 52:29Shawn Ryan?

  Had they already, had they already started before you went over?

• 52:33Eddie Penney?

  I would say. I'd say they started around after my first deployment.

• 52:40Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 52:40Eddie Penney?

  The cracks, you know, they weren't, they weren't little baby fractures anymore. They were splitting. And it was starting to get worse because. I was partying hard.

• 52:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:51Eddie Penney?

  I was drinking a lot. Mostly on trips when I come home because the kids, I really wouldn't drink too much unless we had like a backyard barbecue or something. Uh, but I noticed she was doing it more. So I guess she, she was kind of coping with her own. You know, dealing with it and I really didn't. Take her into consideration at all. Like I was like, hey dude, like suck it up. And that's just not the way to do it. And, uh, so that, that didn't help. I did not help. I, I mean, I take ownership that I really failed. I think I was definitely. Majority of that sole owner breaking that marriage apart for sure. Like I just, I was so self-absorbed. All I cared about was the teams. I cared more about the boys than her.

• 53:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Do you think that, looking back now, do you think drinking was definitely part of the culture?

• 53:42Eddie Penney?

  Yes.

• 53:42Shawn Ryan?

  At that time?

• 53:43Eddie Penney?

  Oh, of course.

• 53:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:44Eddie Penney?

  I mean, yeah, it's better than cocaine. Or heroin, you know what I mean? So I mean, and of course in our society, it's socially acceptable. What's not socially acceptable is when you're, you know, just doing it to try to go to sleep. And, and my, and my brain, and I wasn't like, cause I didn't really see too much in those, those first two deployments. I really didn't see like a bunch of dead bodies. You know, your buddies getting destroyed. I didn't see that in the first one. I mean, I think the, the biggest thing that I saw was that probably that second deployment. It was my first deployment. There's a huge roadside bomb and I remember going out to the, the prime minister wanted to go out there and look.

• 54:26Eddie Penney?

  And I remember just seeing like shoes lining the streets. Cause, and the people blown out of their shoes from the, from the overpressure.

• 54:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:34Eddie Penney?

  But their shoes remained and it was, and it was, it was a crazy sight. And I was like, ah, man. And like, it's one of those images that you like, you don't forget.

• 54:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:42Eddie Penney?

  But I really didn't see, or really experience the stuff that you're like, man, that was a close one. Or like, whoa, like, well, like, okay, that's all right, we're good.

• 54:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:51Eddie Penney?

  Not those first two deployments.

• 54:53Shawn Ryan?

  Well, before we get into the next step in your career, let's take a quick break.

• 54:58Eddie Penney?

  Let's do it.

• 54:59Shawn Ryan?

  Cool.

• 55:01Shawn Ryan?

  Serious question. Who wants to take the best shit of their entire life? Right here, I do. How do you do that? You go with Bubz Naturals Collagen Protein. You rip the thing open, you put it in your coffee, you stir it up and you're on your way. Now, if taking the best shit of your entire life doesn't interest you, collagen will also give you beautiful hair, great skin, and nails to die for. So, and

• 55:41Shawn Ryan?

  you'll recover a lot quicker in between workouts, if that's your thing. So now that we got the good shit out of the way, get it?

• 55:49Shawn Ryan?

  Let me tell you a little bit about Bubz the company. Bubz is a tribute company to Glenn Bubz Doertie, who was a Navy SEAL and a CIA contractor who died defending American freedom in Benghazi, Libya. Bubz donates 10% of all proceeds to veteran organizations like the Glenn Doertie Foundation, and 100% of all proceeds on Veterans Day. Let me tell you about Bubz's latest product that helps with energy, healthy digestion, your immune system, and your metabolism. Bubz Naturals Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies,

• 56:28Shawn Ryan?

  which actually tastes so damn good that I ate all 60 of them the first night I got them. They taste amazing, and man, I got a lot of energy now. Anyways, go to bubsnaturals.com, use promo code Shawn to take 20% off your order. Thank you, Bubz Naturals, for being a sponsor of the Shawn Ryan Show.

• 56:59Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Eddie, we're back from the break. You wrapped up your fairly short career at SEAL Team 2. You're moving on to Development Group. Let's talk about what that transition looked like.

• 57:12Eddie Penney?

  I was excited. You know, it was like, you know, you hear the stories, like they're doing these operations, and you know, they're getting these firefights. And again, I still didn't know what I was asking for. But I just wanted to be there. I was so excited. I was like, it was like Christmas. Daily being over there was like Christmas. I mean, just some great operators. They treat you like a seasoned operator. I mean, you're still learning from everyone. These guys got so much experience, and I just ate it up. Great influences, man. I mean, just the mentors that they were. And then, you know, they took you under their wing and just showed you the way they kind of operate.

• 57:54Eddie Penney?

  And it was just, it was awesome. It was super awesome. Like, I loved it.

• 57:58Shawn Ryan?

  What was Green Team like, showing up there?

• 58:00Eddie Penney?

  It was good. I mean, you're around all the guys that are, you know, are putting out to get to that, you know, the next rung on the ladder. And it was, I think, Green Team was harder than Buds.

• 58:13Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 58:14Eddie Penney?

  It seemed like there was more stress. You had more to prove. Your ego was kind of more on the line.

• 58:20Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 58:21Eddie Penney?

  You know, you could go back to the teams, back to team two as a, I mean, you would call yourself a failure. Like I failed or whatever it is. Not to say that like, and the guys that didn't make it through, they're, they're, they're great individuals, great operators, but just it wasn't, I guess what they're looking for. And it was tough, man. It was extremely tough, but you know, the main thing they concentrated on was CQB. And that happened to be my strong suit. It just like, it was like, I can just walk in a room and I can process really fast. I can't process in the relationship world, but with my children, but for some reason, you know, doing CQB, that just, I just got it. Like I just understood threat, bad guy, done. Not, you know, hostage, don't do anything wrong.

• 59:03Eddie Penney?

  Like I just, I just, I just got it. Like I comprehend the angles and doorways and windows. I just got it. And, and I say that humbly. I just, and there's so many other things that really took me a long time to get. Like I just didn't, I wasn't that great at it. Uh, I guess probably more of the passion piece. Uh, but there's nothing cooler than going through a hallway, running and gunning and like peeling off, coming back out of the hallway, going to the next room. Like, what do we got? It's like a surprise behind every door. You just don't know what you get. Uh, but it was, I strived in that. I did really good. Um, and I'd say probably, you know, the two things that I found in, in green team that they, they get rid of you for was, uh, well, minus your, if you have an attitude or you're just like, don't fit the mold.

• 59:45Eddie Penney?

  Was CQB in the beginning of it all. If you do a crazy safety violation throughout and then jumping. If you know, you're not landing on the ash, you're not deploying correctly. Because I mean, when you're asked to be at altitude at nighttime stacking to fly into wherever you gotta, you gotta be, I mean dudes die. And I remember. One, I talk about that and talk about this in the book is like, it was like our final jump, like our final test jump and I came down with strep and I had like a 102, 103. I mean, I was hallucinating. I was, I was out and they came in like one of the instructors ahead, you gotta jump. And I was like, hey, can I just do it tomorrow? Like just let me pump in some meds? And he's like, no, he's like, you have to do it now. And I was like, all right. So I went to got the medic.

• 1:00:31Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, hey dude, I don't know what you have to do, pump me up with, do something and get me on that fricking bird. And I, dude, I, I, I thought I was like, I would, I mean, if you have a strep before, and you have a, that kid sucks. And you want me to jump out of a plane, which I didn't like to begin with. Uh, and I was like, screw it, dude. And I really didn't care if I burned in. And I got up there and I even think that there was only a couple of guys that needed to pass. Like they let me alone because they knew I was sick and I like, hey, just you go, this is your shot. And, uh, I just kind of like fell out of the plane, you know, stabilized myself, pulled. And then I, I landed where I was supposed to. I was good to go. Took off my chute, dropped it right there in the DZ

• 1:01:13Eddie Penney?

  and then went right up to my rack and went back to bed. I was, I was done, man. But, uh, that was probably the hardest piece, uh, minus the runs. It's always the runs, dude. That is like, like take the knife out of my fricking back, dude. This sucks. Uh, I hate the runs. But that, those are probably the two hardest things that I thought. But it was again, the camaraderie. It was all, it was kind of like buds on steroids. Like, hey, everything's operational. Like we're doing a, you know, an F and P, a full mission profile. Uh, it was, it was cool. Like it was, it was exactly where I wanted to be. It was exactly what I wanted. It was awesome. And then the final

• 1:01:52Eddie Penney?

  stage of that, and I actually heard this on, uh, Shipley's, it was, uh, was Seer School, the final thing.

• 1:01:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:00Eddie Penney?

  And the final thing or the exercise is they drop you off wherever and you have to make your way back to the command, uh, out there, to the schoolhouse. And you have no money, you have no IDs and you have to figure it out.

• 1:02:16Shawn Ryan?

  How far are you?

• 1:02:18Eddie Penney?

  I think they said like 20 miles or something.

• 1:02:21Shawn Ryan?

  20 miles?

• 1:02:21Eddie Penney?

  She kinda like gotta schmooze yourself and all that stuff. And what we did was took a razor blade and we cut in the soles of our shoes. And we put like our ID and wrapped some hundreds around it, stuffed it in there, cause they check you. And uh, soon as they dropped us off, found a cab, went to a bar, got ripped. And I was with Marcus Capone.

• 1:02:47Eddie Penney?

  We get back, we get to the schoolhouse, like one guy is coming in with a case of beer. This is like an air force fricking school, the final stage of green team. Not paying, we're just so excited. Like we just did it. Like it's over, you know, it's, it's all good. And uh, we come in hammered. I mean, I was hammered and we almost got kicked out. Had to go see the master chief when we got back uh, to the, to our command back in uh, back in Virginia. And I was like, are you kidding me? The last day I'm about to get kicked out. Like I am a moron. Like I am an idiot. And uh, they kept us. And I was, I was, I was scared. I was like, man, like what I, what, what I do?

• 1:03:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:30Eddie Penney?

  I was like, this is stupid. What like, come on, man, grow up.

• 1:03:32Shawn Ryan?

  What did they say to you?

• 1:03:34Eddie Penney?

  Just kinda like, again, don't remember exactly the words, but like, hey, we can't do that. We represent this command. Uh, just can't be doing that stuff. You gotta do the course to get the experience, all that stuff. And I was like, I understood. And I, I mean, I was humbled. And I was like, I'm sorry. Uh, whatever. I can't, I can't remember what I had to do. I'm sure I had to do something. Uh, but there was a punishment and I, I can't recall what it is, but it didn't matter. They didn't kick me out and I got to graduate and go uh, with my, you know, with my squadron.

• 1:04:04Shawn Ryan?

  So that was literally the last?

• 1:04:06Eddie Penney?

  Last day, last event. All we had to do was fly home.

• 1:04:09Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. Damn dude.

• 1:04:14Eddie Penney?

  Dumb.

• 1:04:14Shawn Ryan?

  That would have changed a lot of things.

• 1:04:16Eddie Penney?

  A lot of things, but for some reason, man, for some reason.

• 1:04:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:21Eddie Penney?

  You know?

• 1:04:21Shawn Ryan?

  You had mentioned that a lot of solid seasoned operators didn't make it through for whatever reason. That's not what they were looking for. Do you, can you describe maybe what?

• 1:04:34Shawn Ryan?

  The SEAL Team Six Command is looking for an operator?

• 1:04:37Eddie Penney?

  I, I think um out of the box thinkers. I think that's a big thing. A team player.

• 1:04:45Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:04:46Eddie Penney?

  Um, I wouldn't say someone that goes with the flow. They just went out of the box thinkers and some of the guys that were awesome, they would just get flustered and do the same safety violation like three, three or four times in a row. Like just because it's, it's a lot of stress, man. It's a lot of stress. Uh, and then you just got this CAD, right? These instructors just like watching you and they don't miss a thing. I mean, you know, you know, from buds, right? Like they, they say it all. It's like, dude, how'd you, how'd you see that? But um, yeah, I, I, I really just think like you like, kind of put it like you didn't fit the mold or I heard in this, I believe this is probably true is,

• 1:05:26Eddie Penney?

  and I know from being up there, you get a list of green team guys and you write there like this guy's not a, this guy's a turd. This guy's a turd. This guy's good to go. And you write it down like this guy's a turd and you got to obviously give a reason. And I'm sure some of those guys still, some of those guys aren't invited.

• 1:05:45Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:05:45Eddie Penney?

  And some of those guys are invited, but watch that guy. Cause I'm sure if you got one guy saying this and another guy saying the opposite, you know, they gotta, you know, do the right thing. But there's some of that.

• 1:05:58Shawn Ryan?

  How much of that is legitimate turds versus personality conflicts?

• 1:06:05Eddie Penney?

  I can't really speak on that piece, uh, but there's, there has to be some personalities. I mean, some people take things very personal, like they had to run in, mouthing off, whatever it is. I really didn't like what you did. You were an idiot when you were drunk. You did this when you were drunk. It usually comes down when you're drunk.

• 1:06:24Eddie Penney?

  So yeah, I mean, it comes down to a lot of things and it's, it's nerve wracking. You're like, you're going to tell me I can't go before I even get there to prove myself.

• 1:06:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:32Eddie Penney?

  Uh, but you know, there's a little bit of politics I would think into it, but I don't know the grand scheme of it all. So I would, I would.

• 1:06:40Shawn Ryan?

  You saw that list come around a lot when you were.

• 1:06:42Eddie Penney?

  I saw like, you know, when new green teams would come in, if you're, if you're in town. Um, and I even think you'd get it overseas and you would just kind of eyeball, don't know anybody. All right, cool. Like whatever it is. Like, hey, we need to get this guy. This guy's awesome. Like fricking, yeah.

• 1:06:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Eddie Penney?

  It, it just depends. I mean, the same time you're like, dude, this guy's awesome. Like he's gotta get in like, and they, they, I think they, they have to take that in. It to make decisions because you know, there's always more than, you know, they only have certain, so many slots versus the guys that are applying.

• 1:07:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:11Eddie Penney?

  Or that, you know, requested to be there. So they gotta do their due diligence.

• 1:07:17Shawn Ryan?

  So you graduate, what, how do they determine where you're going?

• 1:07:22Eddie Penney?

  Uh, they have a draft kind of thing.

• 1:07:28Eddie Penney?

  And I think a lot of it is like having good buddies at certain squadrons kind of pulls you that way. I mean, I had the guys that I was a team two with. I mean, I ended up at, you know, with my, at my squadron because of those guys.

• 1:07:40Shawn Ryan?

  They're already over there?

• 1:07:41Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, they were there. They came back and, um, and so I'm sure they, you know, rallied for me to go there. But then it's like, you meet a good buddy, a good instructor that's at a different, a different color. And you're like, uh, what do I do? Cause this guy's telling me this. I'm like, I don't know. I'm like, I don't know anything. Just get me up there. But, uh, I went where I was supposed to go.

• 1:07:59Shawn Ryan?

  So you went over to gold squadron?

• 1:08:01Eddie Penney?

  Yep.

• 1:08:02Shawn Ryan?

  There are few people in the military that have experienced more loss than gold squadron in your timeframe.

• 1:08:12Shawn Ryan?

  Which we'll get into.

• 1:08:13Eddie Penney?

  Chills. Yeah.

• 1:08:14Shawn Ryan?

  But I want to say that because it is, I, I can't think of any unit that experienced more loss than you guys.

• 1:08:22Eddie Penney?

  We went through the wringer. And it was a weird time.

• 1:08:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:26Eddie Penney?

  It was very weird.

• 1:08:27Shawn Ryan?

  How was it showing up to gold?

• 1:08:30Eddie Penney?

  Phenomenal, phenomenal. Just walking in, seeing the pictures, seeing the stuff on the wall. You got, you know, Hude and Kuse's frickin' gold plated guns hanging up. You're like, there's like AK-47 chandeliers. It's just, it's awesome. It's just like, big old table in the middle. It's like Knights of the Round Table. It was, it was awesome. It was the coolest thing in the world and the people that were in that room made it the coolest place in the world. I mean, they were professionals. Like, the number one thing that was always talked about is doing your job better and better and better and better and pushing you and pushing you. And it wasn't like you're a turd, like figure it out. It

• 1:09:12Eddie Penney?

  was like, hey, let me show you how to do it. And it was awesome. Like, it was, it was a great show of leadership and camaraderie and teamwork. It was, it was the coolest thing that I've ever experienced, which is great. Being out and you see other organizations, other businesses, and they're not doing a quarter of it. It's like, man, you can really fix yourself if you do certain things.

• 1:09:33Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:09:34Eddie Penney?

  So it was, I have nothing but respect for the men over there that I served with. I mean, they were, they were true heroes.

• 1:09:40Shawn Ryan?

  Was it a welcoming environment, or was it a, what are you doing here? Who do you think you are?

• 1:09:47Eddie Penney?

  There's always a little bit of heckling, but it's a good fun. It wasn't stupid. It was, it was fun, but it's more like, hey, you're a part of the team, man. Here's your gear. We all love gear.

• 1:09:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. How many guys went over there with you?

• 1:10:01Eddie Penney?

  Uh.

• 1:10:03Shawn Ryan?

  From your green team?

• 1:10:04Eddie Penney?

  I'd say probably five or six, I think.

• 1:10:07Shawn Ryan?

  Five or six?

• 1:10:08Eddie Penney?

  I think so. Um, Adam Brown was one of them.

• 1:10:13Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, Adam was one of them?

• 1:10:15Eddie Penney?

  We were in the same green, he was, I was his team leader at green team. He was in my, uh, team. Dom, Dom went over with me. We all, we all went over together.

• 1:10:25Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 1:10:25Eddie Penney?

  And a couple other guys.

• 1:10:30Shawn Ryan?

  So what happens when you get in there?

• 1:10:33Eddie Penney?

  Uh, you know, you get all checked in, you get your cages, your, your, your beautiful cage. I heard Shipley talk about that too. It's, it's so like, you know, we got the cages, right? But just like, seems like every time you come back to your cage, there's like a little package, like Santa just came and dropped it off. More gear. It's like, dude, like, where do I put this stuff? Like, I need another cage. Like, there's just so much gear, like, for different regions, different climates, all that stuff, different missions. And I'm like, I don't even know what this is, but like, okay, I'll put it on my shelf over here, things I don't know what it, what it is I need to learn. Uh, but it, but it was cool, dude. And then you, you know, you do the, uh, again, which I talk about in here, you do the yard, yarding in, you know, we got

• 1:11:15Eddie Penney?

  the big yard of beer and they drop in a couple shots, down it, start to say a little speech. I tell you to shut up. You get your patches and those patches, man, holding those patches.

• 1:11:29Eddie Penney?

  It was like better than my Trident, getting my SEAL Trident, which was a great time. I don't want to take away from that, but it's just like, dude, this, this, since I was a kid, is what I wanted to do, is be here and finally go get to, to fight, like really fight. And I say that not knowing what really fight meant. You know, you don't realize it until you're, till you're doing it. Uh, but it was, dude, it was, it was the, it would be like if Christmas, Fourth of July, and Thanksgiving, and every other cool holiday, plus your birthday, were wrapped into one day, that would be it.

• 1:12:13Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:12:14Eddie Penney?

  It was awesome. For me.

• 1:12:16Shawn Ryan?

  You know, each one of the, obviously I never spent any time over there, so I don't know, and I am curious. I hear each, and I've picked it up, especially with Gold, um,

• 1:12:29Shawn Ryan?

  there seems to be kind of a culture or a vibe in each squadron. And from what I've been able to gather, just from knowing you and Dom and Adam Brown, and, you know, some of our other mutual friends that wound up going over to Gold, it seems like Gold's where everybody that I know went, for the most part, but seemed to be very...

• 1:12:53Shawn Ryan?

  Religious, seemed to be a very religious, God fearing squadron.

• 1:13:00Eddie Penney?

  That's funny you say that, because I've never thought about that.

• 1:13:04Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:13:06Eddie Penney?

  No, I was never, I was not a man of faith when I was in at all. But, I mean, if you look at it, the Crusader.

• 1:13:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:15Eddie Penney?

  We have crosses and a lot of those guys were, you know, their faith was strong. And, uh, yeah, but again, I don't know other ones, you know, what the other squadrons are doing, but yeah, I, that'd be fair to say. That'd be fair to say.

• 1:13:31Shawn Ryan?

  Was there a lot of praying and?

• 1:13:33Eddie Penney?

  Uh, not that I was a part of. I mean, to be quite honest with you, I'd be like, get that crap away from me.

• 1:13:38Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:13:39Eddie Penney?

  If someone was pushing it in my face, but at the same time, I was always, I was kind of like what I like to say, Christ curious. Like, what is that exactly? What does that mean? And I, I remember asking Adam and Dom a lot, like, hey, you know, I'd ask stupid questions like, what book do you like better, the Old Testament or the New Testament? Not knowing what the heck I'm even asking, like, what, what kind of question is that? And, uh, and I would ask you, and I would just try to like, get just a little bit of information before I get to, it'd probably be good to give you a little background on that, which I've kept locked up forever until this. It's when I was, my parents went through a divorce, probably when I was seven or eight years old. Um, and I was in my bed one night.

• 1:14:24Eddie Penney?

  And like, if you can just imagine a room, I'm against on the far side of, by my window, my bed was there, and then the door's on the other side. And I wake up, for some reason, I look over and I see Christ. I see Jesus.

• 1:14:41Eddie Penney?

  And I knew who Jesus was and I, and I, my mom never took me to church a lot. I went a couple of times, but you know, you always see the picture. I knew who Jesus was.

• 1:14:48Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you see him?

• 1:14:49Eddie Penney?

  In my room.

• 1:14:50Shawn Ryan?

  Where? In a closet, on the wall?

• 1:14:52Eddie Penney?

  He was standing in the middle of the room and he was transparent. I could see my bookshelf that was behind him. And he just stood there. He made no facial expressions, kind of had a, um, Like a glowing light to him, long brown hair, beautiful face, like just perfect.

• 1:15:11Shawn Ryan?

  What was he wearing?

• 1:15:12Eddie Penney?

  A white robe, a white robe. And you could, I just remember I could see my books behind him because he was like, I was like, wow. And I didn't know what to think. I didn't know, I didn't know. And I looked over and, you know, I'm looking at him and I'm just like, and I'm not scared. I'm not screaming. I'm just soaking, I'm getting chills, man. I'm soaking this in and I'm not knowing what anything is. I was awake and I saw that. And for however long he was there, he vanished. And soon as he vanished, my room was the blackest of black I've ever seen in my entire life. It was so dark and the fear that came over me was overwhelming.

• 1:15:55Eddie Penney?

  It was the scariest thing. It ruined, it wrecked me.

• 1:15:59Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:15:59Eddie Penney?

  Soon as that darkness hit and I tried to scream for my mom and I couldn't, and I finally got the courage and I guess you could say strength. I was like paralyzed and I went to her room and I really didn't say anything. I don't know if I mumbled anything or like, hey, I saw something or whatever it was. Uh, but I fricking, um, went to bed in her room and then the, the next couple of nights, just thinking about it wasn't the greatest sleep, but I was scared. So I would, I'd cover my head up, turn on, you know, my, use a nightlight, which I never did before. And I mean, a nightlight that was like pretty much Batman's fricking signal. It was so bright. I was like, dude, I don't want any more of this stuff.

• 1:16:40Eddie Penney?

  I was like, this sucks. Like that, that scared me. Um, and I was confused. I didn't know, like, and I, and I a couple of days later, probably about a week later, I think, I somehow, my arms made it out of my little protective fortress of my, of my blankie. And, uh, I felt tickling in my arm. I heard orchestra, like organ music, you know, organs or whatever at church.

• 1:17:01Shawn Ryan?

  At a church?

• 1:17:02Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. Which is the creepiest sound in the world. And I, I feel tickling and I wake up and nothing's, nothing's there, just my light. And I'm like freaking out. I'm like, what is going on? And I, the chills are ridiculous right now. I'm like, seeing it all. I go to my mom's room again and just, just a lot of weird things happened during that time, during my parents divorce. But I know what I saw and I know I was awake when I saw it. And, um,

• 1:17:33Eddie Penney?

  To me, Jesus became the boogeyman. I wanted nothing to do with him. Keep it away from me. I don't want to be near you. I don't want to see you. It was so bad, I went over to spend night, spend, uh, spend the night with a friend that I, that I met at seventh grade when I switched schools. Like I, we were awesome, played basketball together. I was just cool dude. Went over to his house, not knowing his father was a pastor. And we, and he like, kinda had a loft, uh, where, where we were gonna sleep for the night. And I was walking up the stairs and on the left, there was a picture and it was Jesus's face. And instantly, I was like, I gotta leave. I called my mom and had her pick me up.

• 1:18:14Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:18:20Eddie Penney?

  This hurts to talk about.

• 1:18:24Eddie Penney?

  I was scared to death of him. I slept under my covers until I was a sophomore in high school.

• 1:18:29Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 1:18:30Eddie Penney?

  I was scared to death of him. I'd be sitting on my couch, watching frickin' Saved by the Bell.

• 1:18:38Eddie Penney?

  And I would make myself think about Jesus busting in like a Navy SEAL and taking me away from my parents. Just scooping me up and taking me away to God knows where.

• 1:18:52Eddie Penney?

  I would have those thoughts often. I, I, I, I painted this picture that he was, he was evil. He was wrong. He was bad. And I didn't know anything about him.

• 1:19:02Shawn Ryan?

  Did he ever reappear?

• 1:19:03Eddie Penney?

  No. I mean, in other ways, which we'll get to, but, uh,

• 1:19:10Eddie Penney?

  no, that was, I mean, I didn't want anything to do with him. I did not want anything to do with him whatsoever. I wouldn't, I mean, I, you know, I, you know, got married at a church, my, my, my first marriage. And went to other weddings, but I would never go to church. I didn't want to stand, I didn't want to be around, I would drive by one and I would cringe. I was scared. I, I was scared. I was extremely.

• 1:19:36Shawn Ryan?

  What was it that helped you overcome that fear after you were a sophomore?

• 1:19:42Eddie Penney?

  That came a little later. Um, do you want to go in timeline or you want me to jump to it?

• 1:19:47Shawn Ryan?

  We'll go in timeline.

• 1:19:48Eddie Penney?

  Okay.

• 1:19:49Shawn Ryan?

  We'll go on timeline. Well, it is very strange that you had this connection to Jesus as a young, young kid all the way up, what, through high school? And then you wind up a gold team as, I mean, I was, do they call you a crusader?

• 1:20:07Eddie Penney?

  Heck, yeah.

• 1:20:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So, interesting. So you get over to gold team. We covered the culture a little bit.

• 1:20:17Shawn Ryan?

  What's the cycle like?

• 1:20:19Eddie Penney?

  Kind of like, you know, being a team two, you know, you do your, you do your individual kind of workup, going to schools. I mostly did breaching schools or lockpicking, alarm bypass, just like the fun stuff. Like I just, dude, that was, that's all I wanted to do. I mean, there's other schools you do, um,

• 1:20:36Eddie Penney?

  but mostly it was breaching stuff. Like I just wanted to be a breacher. And so you do that. Then the second, you know, few months, you're kind of working together as your team, then your troop, and then you're on standby for any real world calls. Um, your alert is what you'd call it. Where you have to be, have to be within, you had to respond, come to the command within a certain time limit to be, to be there to a real world event, anywhere in the globe. And, uh, that's a few months and then you go on your deployment and then you just repeat that cycle.

• 1:21:07Eddie Penney?

  And every, we just rotate, our squadrons just rotate doing that stuff.

• 1:21:10Shawn Ryan?

  Did you jump into a full cycle?

• 1:21:13Eddie Penney?

  I came in, I came in right when they got back.

• 1:21:15Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:21:16Eddie Penney?

  They were back for, I think they came back a week later.

• 1:21:21Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:21:22Eddie Penney?

  And then they went on their leave, did a little family time, some were, some stayed. And then we were back in the cycle. So you got, you know, guys walking around, they just got all this experience or doing, they did all this crazy stuff. They're, they're telling the stories. You're just like, ah, ah, I want to be a part of these stories. And, um, so it was cool. And they, you know, they, they all were experienced. They were all experienced. They all had multiple deployments over to either Iraq or Afghanistan. They just, they knew the deal. They knew how to fight. They, they were fighters. They were warfighters. They knew the deal. And they kind of raised me.

• 1:21:58Shawn Ryan?

  So at that point, I mean, you know, for a fact, you're going to get what you came in to do.

• 1:22:03Eddie Penney?

  You're fighting.

• 1:22:04Shawn Ryan?

  No doubt in your mind?

• 1:22:05Eddie Penney?

  No doubt in your mind. There is no, I hope we, it's when we. I can't wait to. That's what it was.

• 1:22:13Shawn Ryan?

  How long was it when you showed up to go before your first deployment?

• 1:22:19Eddie Penney?

  Six, nine months.

• 1:22:21Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 1:22:21Eddie Penney?

  Something like that.

• 1:22:24Shawn Ryan?

  How was that? Where'd you guys go?

• 1:22:26Eddie Penney?

  Uh, first one was Iraq. Western Iraq. Nothing but DAs.

• 1:22:35Shawn Ryan?

  All DAs?

• 1:22:36Eddie Penney?

  I was breaching nonstop. Nonstop breaching. Kicking indoors. Shooting dudes.

• 1:22:44Shawn Ryan?

  Every night, multiple times a night?

• 1:22:46Eddie Penney?

  I wouldn't say every night. I mean, there'd be like the stint of like, hey, we're going to, you know, it's like, hey, this is the 10th day we've gone out. And we're getting it on. I mean, there'd be like a day or two here that we, you know, there was nothing going on or we're letting something develop. But for the most part, you're going out, man.

• 1:23:00Shawn Ryan?

  So when you got, when you got over there, you got on your first deployment to Iraq. You know. In a regular SEAL team, it's. You're probably gonna, I mean, I don't know. I can't remember. It seemed like three weeks, maybe even a month before you really start. Getting into a type of groove. When you go over with Team Six. Is it like that?

• 1:23:22Eddie Penney?

  Oh, your, your targets are already developed by the guys you're relieving. They pass their target set off to you.

• 1:23:27Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:23:27Eddie Penney?

  And so you're running and gunning, man.

• 1:23:30Shawn Ryan?

  So you drop your bags and you're?

• 1:23:31Eddie Penney?

  You got about. One to three days.

• 1:23:34Shawn Ryan?

  That's it.

• 1:23:35Eddie Penney?

  To, to get it.

• 1:23:38Eddie Penney?

  To get ready for it.

• 1:23:40Eddie Penney?

  And you're, you're on. I mean, it's, it's game time.

• 1:23:43Shawn Ryan?

  Who are you guys going after?

• 1:23:45Eddie Penney?

  Usually your HVT, your high value targets. I mean, some MVTs, medium value, but, uh, I mean, whoever intel's telling you this is, you know, this is the cell we need to hit. Or this little tribe, whatever you want to call them. That's what you would do. And, you know.

• 1:24:01Eddie Penney?

  I think I can recall maybe one or two dry holes.

• 1:24:04Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want to describe your very first hit?

• 1:24:08Eddie Penney?

  I can't remember.

• 1:24:10Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:24:10Eddie Penney?

  I can remember my first kill.

• 1:24:12Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about that.

• 1:24:13Eddie Penney?

  I can't remember my first hit.

• 1:24:15Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want to talk about your first kill?

• 1:24:16Eddie Penney?

  Sure. Uh, we were.

• 1:24:20Eddie Penney?

  Remember the guy, he was wearing his white man jammies and he had like black and white peppered hair or peppered hair. And at this particular compound, at this particular compound, they were, they were sleeping outside. Usually they're up on the roof. Uh, and then, you know, in summer, it was, it was summertime. But they were in the, in the courtyard or they like outside. So there's like these little bodies and these little bodies and you can hear our, our recce guys, our snipers, you can hear.

• 1:24:47Eddie Penney?

  Their silence forty fives just taking dudes out, taking their little sentries out. And I'm like, okay, that's like cool sounding. This is probably my, my, I don't know.

• 1:24:57Eddie Penney?

  Tenth time out, maybe. Uh, never found myself in the right position. I'm like, and I was hungry. I was like, oh God. I think Dom got his first one. I'm like, God, I want to be you. And, uh, and he's like, you can just see the smile on his face. I'm like, ah, give it to me, please. And, uh, so. This dude and his, his wife was, were, were sleeping on the ground. And we're coming up and it was enough to go white light. And I just see him reach over and he, and I could see the pistol grip goes for it. And then I just dropped him. Just dropped him right there, right. But he was already down, just shot him there as he lay. And, and I remember one thing that was so crazy about that is his wife right next to him did not make any peep.

• 1:25:40Eddie Penney?

  Did not cry. She just looked over and just stayed there. She sat up. That was it. She had no emotion.

• 1:25:49Shawn Ryan?

  Are you kidding?

• 1:25:49Eddie Penney?

  And I was like. That's, that's weird, right? It's weird. It, it was very weird. It's like she knew his time was coming. She's just waiting for the night for us to hit him.

• 1:26:01Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think she was relieved?

• 1:26:04Eddie Penney?

  Possibly. I mean, who knows? And she could have been forced to be there, but she had, I mean, I would. Be led to believe that. If you have no emotion, I mean.

• 1:26:14Shawn Ryan?

  Seems so.

• 1:26:16Eddie Penney?

  I hope my wife would cry or something.

• 1:26:20Eddie Penney?

  But there was nothing, man. It was just seemed very weird. And then we just like,

• 1:26:25Eddie Penney?

  take on the targets and then that feeling of putting those bullets into them was just like, ah.

• 1:26:35Eddie Penney?

  I know crack is extremely addictive, extremely. I've never done it, but you hear the stories, right? Talked to some prior users or whatever. That feeling was like, I was like, I want my life to be this feeling. Like, I want to shoot as many bad guys as I possibly can. And that was my mission is like,

• 1:26:59Eddie Penney?

  bad guy, you're going, you're going down. Like that was, I mean, that's what we're there for anyways. Is to take it to them. And I was, I loved it. I loved it. I like, it was my oxygen. It was the blood that ran through my, my system.

• 1:27:12Shawn Ryan?

  Do you remember all of them?

• 1:27:15Eddie Penney?

  No. Uh, at times I'll think about something or I'll see something or it'll make me think of one, uh, but I can't, there's no way. I mean, there's dozens. I can't think of them all.

• 1:27:29Shawn Ryan?

  How many times was it just you engaging a bad guy versus?

• 1:27:35Eddie Penney?

  Our whole team or something? Dozens. Yeah. I mean, I never kept count. I tried to and

• 1:27:45Eddie Penney?

  not much luck. I, I mean, a lot, I mean, probably 50-ish or something around there. Solo ones. I mean, not, not including assists or whatever it is.

• 1:27:54Shawn Ryan?

  Did you, did that feeling ever start to change?

• 1:27:59Eddie Penney?

  I wanted it more.

• 1:28:01Shawn Ryan?

  You wanted it more?

• 1:28:02Eddie Penney?

  I wanted it more.

• 1:28:02Shawn Ryan?

  As time went on?

• 1:28:04Eddie Penney?

  I wanted it more. Especially when you, you know, you get into our later deployments and your buddies are passing. And it just, it stirs something up and you just want to take it to them. I mean, you want to take it to them. And just get their evil. Once you really learn what they do to women and children, to an American convoy, to other people, other contractors or whatever. We had, I mean, we had, to paint a picture for you, what I mean is we had one op where I took a shot on a guy. He was, he was reaching for his AK. He had like head in his hand. He was like about ready to swing it around, dropped him. And I don't know why I felt this way, but I felt a little bit of remorse. Like I was like,

• 1:28:48Eddie Penney?

  man, I just felt bad. It wasn't like it wasn't a justified shooting. It just, it felt weird. It felt different than the other ones. Just felt weird. And so I was curious. So I, we get back from the op and I go to the, you know, our intel shack and I'm like, hey, man, if you find anything on this dude, you know, we do our pick up whatever they have at their, at the target and exploit it. And I was like, hey, if you find anything like, please come get me. And a couple of hours later, he's like, hey, follow me. So we go to his little computer and one of the CDs we found, it's this guy that I just took out. He's got KBR contractors, truck drivers from like the Philippines, staked on the side of like this highway in Iraq. They're tied up with their hands behind their back

• 1:29:33Eddie Penney?

  and their feet wrapped around the post. And there's probably, I'd say somewhere between three and five. And this guy, these guys, where this one dude was one of them, was doing ballistics on him. He would stab him. He would shoot him in different parts, not like shoot him in the head and like take him out, but like your leg, your side. Stab him. Stab him here. And they was just, they were just, and they were laughing and they were giggling. And I was like, how could you do that? And then I'm like, you're dealing with pure evil. That's how you do it. I mean, it's pure

• 1:30:17Eddie Penney?

  evil. And that was one of the times something, a thing kind of changed. I was like, you get, you get no more remorse from me. You don't, you get nothing. I don't feel sorry for you at all. And I was like, after that, like, things upped it.

• 1:30:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:36Eddie Penney?

  I was like, if there was a way to kill harder, I sure heck was searching for it.

• 1:30:43Shawn Ryan?

  Did that, did you see that early in your career?

• 1:30:47Eddie Penney?

  What do you mean?

• 1:30:48Shawn Ryan?

  That specific incident?

• 1:30:50Eddie Penney?

  I, well, no, it was probably.

• 1:30:56Eddie Penney?

  Man, I mean, they all kind of run together. I'd say probably third or fourth deployment.

• 1:31:00Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:31:00Eddie Penney?

  Over there.

• 1:31:01Shawn Ryan?

  How many deployments did you do?

• 1:31:02Eddie Penney?

  Probably third. A total of seven.

• 1:31:04Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:31:05Eddie Penney?

  Five with, um, with Dev.

• 1:31:10Shawn Ryan?

  Was, were you always privileged to that kind of information, you know? Seeing you hit a guy at a target, or you, the team takes somebody out, or you take somebody out, and the intel team does the SSC and the target. You guys always get to see the information and, and, and, and the,

• 1:31:30Shawn Ryan?

  the, what am I searching for? The?

• 1:31:33Eddie Penney?

  Like what they find, pretty much all of it. Not all of it.

• 1:31:36Shawn Ryan?

  What these guys have been responsible for doing.

• 1:31:38Eddie Penney?

  Some we do, but it's like a, it's like Cliff's Notes version. Like a couple liners saying, this is what they were doing. They just hit this convoy last that killed, you know, five Americans. You'll hear about that. But not like the details. Like we've been looking for this guy for X amount of years. Unless you really want to know and you just go talk to them and they'll tell you, you know, you get the information.

• 1:31:55Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:31:56Eddie Penney?

  That guy I wanted to know about. And he showed me. Had I not probably asked him, I never would have known about that. I'm glad I did, but it changed up that it kind of calloused me. We hear the word calloused, right? And they'll tell you, oh, we're getting calloused. Like, yeah, you're right. We are, and there's a reason for it. And yeah, just heart of my heart. I look at, I looked at humanity a little bit differently.

• 1:32:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I can imagine.

• 1:32:22Shawn Ryan?

  So you went to Iraq for your first deployment. At some point in time, the area of operations changed for Development Group and Delta. Delta took Iraq. Development Group took Afghanistan. I don't believe there was much crossover.

• 1:32:38Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:38Shawn Ryan?

  When did that happen?

• 1:32:40Eddie Penney?

  That's kind of a jumble when all that happened, but we kind of got kicked out because the army wanted to get their, they wanted to be where the fight was. And then when we moved, it blew up over in Afghanistan. So then they're like, oh crap, we want to go there. They're like chasing it. We were just. You got it. You know what I mean?

• 1:33:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:00Eddie Penney?

  But we were still sending guys to um to Iraq. We were in both places.

• 1:33:05Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:33:05Eddie Penney?

  We're in multiple places. And I think that one, when all that was going on, I think I was back in Iraq again.

• 1:33:11Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:33:12Eddie Penney?

  I think I only did two to Afghanistan and the rest were Iraq.

• 1:33:17Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 1:33:18Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, the majority of them were Iraq for me. I mean, I did a couple like full ones over in Afghanistan.

• 1:33:24Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:33:24Eddie Penney?

  More in Iraq.

• 1:33:27Shawn Ryan?

  We came home from your first deployment with gold. How did you feel after that? You had been very busy?

• 1:33:34Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, uh, kind of numb and just went down the rabbit hole a little bit more of like, hey, this is priority. The country's priority, shooting bad guys is priority. I don't want any, I don't. And I put the kids and my family behind me. And I mean, not behind me as I like left them, but uh, you know, that like I said, there's fractures turned into cracks. They turned into gaping holes. And it was getting worse and it's getting worse. And I was doing nothing about it to try to make it better. My wife would, at the time was like, we should go to counseling. I said, counseling's stupid. I'm not going. Uh, and just wanted to be on trips. I would volunteer for any and every trip just to be away from my house. Uh, I just didn't want to deal with the emotions. I didn't want to deal with the, the noise of.

• 1:34:21Eddie Penney?

  And this, this is. This is the truth, but it sucks to say, I didn't want to deal with the school. My kid's school. I didn't want to deal with, you know, the fricking, we're having a plumbing problem. I did not want to deal with, hey, can we talk about what's going on in our marriage? I didn't want to deal with any of that. I was like, leave me alone. I'm gonna play with my gear and I'm gonna go overseas. Like, that's all I want to do. That's all I wanted to do. That's it. I mean. Things were okay, you know? Mm hmm. But you could just like, like it just, uh, the root of evil in our frickin' marriage was just coming through and it was just like, I started looking at her with disgust. Uh. Why?

• 1:35:06Eddie Penney?

  I just, she would, not knowing it, that was really me causing it. She was drinking a lot and I was getting ticked off. Like, you can't be drinking all the time. My anger started getting worse. Her anger was getting worse. I mean, to the point where she, during green team, um, she tried to commit suicide. No. During green team. So before green team, man, I'm like, and I knew, like, this has happened before. Like, it happened one other time when I was at team two. Uh, she downed a bunch of pills. I had to take her to the hospital, get her frickin' pumped, her stomach pumped, to pretty much save her life. I'm like, jeez, like, what are you doing? So before green team, I knew that this was there. So before green team, I'm like, hey, like, please, I need to concentrate on this. Like, this is like, my brain, everything needs to be into this.

• 1:35:49Eddie Penney?

  Like, I have got to be 100% all in. I have to. And she's like, of course, of course. I'm here to support you and all that stuff. And it was like, I don't, maybe a couple of months in, uh, it was a SEAL reunion, was in town for the first time I'd ever been. So we went and, uh, sitting down with a buddy and his wife and my wife, and we were having a couple of drinks and I guess she, she got irritated. She always got irritated if like she wasn't like the center of communicate, like, center of the conversation. And we're just talking about something. We're talking about green team mostly and, you know, we're interjecting and like, we're talking about other things and all that stuff. And she got like irritated. She's like, pulls me aside like, hey, why, why aren't you talking to me? Or I'm like, dude, if you want to talk, like engage in the conversation, like we're having, we're in a group setting. And she got weird. She stormed off.

• 1:36:34Eddie Penney?

  And about an hour later, I get a call for the babysitter. We had, at that time, two children, so both my daughters. And she's like, something's wrong. She's like, uh, Leah, your wife, called and said or texted, like, take care of the kids. And she's like, it really worried me. So I'm letting you know. I was like, of course you did. I'm like, here we go again. And so I get a call.

• 1:36:59Eddie Penney?

  Or text, I don't know if te- yeah, I think texting was, yeah. And um, something, she communicated to me. She's like, I'm at a hotel, you will not find me. I'm like this, and she's like, this is it. And I was like, gosh, and I really just wanted to be like, it's a cry for help. Like, let's get, like, I really just want to be here and drink with the boys. That's, I mean, so self, like, just bad things. So I started calling hotels, trying to find out where she was. It was on the fifth time. Uh, I asked if she checked in and she did. I was like, you need to go to her room? Get her out, because she's trying to commit suicide right now. So they went up there, she wouldn't answer the door. I was like, you need to get the cops there right now. So we got the cops there.

• 1:37:42Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, you need, and I gave them permission, like, you can bust down that door. I'm like, I will pay for whatever the damages are and get her. They go in there, she's in the bathtub or by the bathtub, with just blood soaked towels everywhere. She sliced her wrists. It was a bad one. It was bad enough where she got put to a psych ward for a few weeks, I believe. So her parents came down to watch the kid so I could finish off training. And it was just like, so every night I'd be done with training, exhausted, smote, and I'd go see her. So walking in, sitting down at a table, with just like, very weird. And she comes out in a robe.

• 1:38:26Eddie Penney?

  And what do you say?

• 1:38:28Shawn Ryan?

  I have no idea.

• 1:38:29Eddie Penney?

  What do you, yeah, I didn't either.

• 1:38:31Shawn Ryan?

  What did you say?

• 1:38:32Eddie Penney?

  I don't know. I was like, I mean, you can't like, what are you doing? Like, what's wrong with, like, I'm sure there was some of that. Like, suck it up was always my go to, like, suck it up, like, what are you doing? Like, it's fine, like, what are you flipping out about?

• 1:38:46Shawn Ryan?

  No compassion whatsoever?

• 1:38:47Eddie Penney?

  Zero compassion, from what I can recall. I mean, that was really me in the day, which was zero compassion. I would show some to my kids, of course, uh, not to her. Not to her at all. I mean, there'd be those rare instances where I'd be like, oh, everything's perfect, this is so cool. But for the most part, just, I want to go work. That's all I want to do is go work.

• 1:39:11Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, man.

• 1:39:12Eddie Penney?

  But that was, that was, that was rough, that week. I think a week or two, she was there and I was like.

• 1:39:19Eddie Penney?

  Thankfully, we were in town doing whatever training at the command. So it wasn't no crazy bad, but dude, it was just like.

• 1:39:28Eddie Penney?

  And all I wanted to do was leave and go get like rest to see my kids. I didn't want to be there.

• 1:39:32Shawn Ryan?

  You did want to see your kids, though.

• 1:39:33Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, I did want to see my kids like that. Yeah, I always wanted to see my kids, always wanted to see my kids.

• 1:39:37Shawn Ryan?

  Were they old enough to put together what was going on at that time?

• 1:39:40Eddie Penney?

  Uh, I don't think so. I think my oldest now she can remember things. She'll talk about it. She's like, I didn't know this after, you know, she read the book. She's like, uh, excuse me, listen to the book. She's like, I thought that when this happened, that this happened. So, but she's like, I, I, I could, I get it now. Like, okay. So she, I mean, she, she knows, but I never really told him or, I mean, I never told him about any of this stuff.

• 1:40:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:04Eddie Penney?

  Uh, until my oldest was like eighteen.

• 1:40:09Eddie Penney?

  They didn't know anything and maybe I'm thrown under the bus by their mother for years. I never said anything. Cause it didn't matter. I wasn't gonna tear their mom apart.

• 1:40:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:19Eddie Penney?

  I didn't want to do that. That's not okay. No matter what she did to me.

• 1:40:25Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you went back. You went back to, let's get back to deployment schedule. You went back. Did you go to Afghanistan, your second deployment?

• 1:40:33Eddie Penney?

  Man, I, I don't know. I, I think Iraq, I think.

• 1:40:37Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:40:38Eddie Penney?

  And I, I, I can't remember. I think this was, uh, when we lost Mike, Nate and Louis. And, and I don't know if it was, I think it was like the third or fourth deployment somewhere in there. I really can't think. They all seem to mesh together. Uh, but that deployment, that, that's the one that changed my world. Um, we did. We went to a target and our team, our troop kind of broke off. We had three different buildings to hit. And I went to one or my team went to one and then the other guys hit like another compound, maybe 500 yards down the, down this dirt road. And, uh,

• 1:41:19Eddie Penney?

  We get up on the wall because we're doing callouts because we don't want to go in because this network was known for suicide vests, a lot of them because we we shot a couple dudes and every one of them, every single one of them had a suicide vest, every one of them. And so I'm up on this wall and I thought my vantage point is I can see through the door and it's light inside, dark outside. There was maybe a couple like dim dimmer lights on the outside, the exterior of the building and I could see in there and a guy stops like right where my vision is. So I got my, not even can't even use my dot because it's light in there. So I'm going to red dot on him with my doubler and I'm just on him so I can see him. But I couldn't tell what he had. He had something

• 1:42:00Eddie Penney?

  on his waist, but I couldn't tell. And I saw kids like pretty much when I could tell something was around the way I see kids come in. I think like two or three. And he like brings them in and he clacks himself off.

• 1:42:14Eddie Penney?

  Whoa. So those kids just evaporated. He evaporated and that roof of that house lifted up. And by the time it settled down, that over pressure pressure got to me and I was knocked off onto my back. And I was like, trying to come to like what was kind of, you know, get my bearings. And I was like, holy crap, that dude just killed all those kids.

• 1:42:42Eddie Penney?

  It was another time. I was like, these guys are fricking animals. These guys are savages. They don't care about human life. They care about their agenda or what they want to do, killing the infidel. That's all they care about. Enough to where they're going to kill themselves and their children. And I was like, how do you fight that kind of enemy? You know what I mean? Yeah. It's a it was heavy. It was heavy. So that happened. So the other team sent like two or three guys to help us out because they're like, all right, this is seriously where the action is. We're calling in air support by a couple squirters. Just taking as many people out as

• 1:43:25Eddie Penney?

  we can because clearly they're like, they're not coming alive. So we're like pulling in the arsenals. And then we get comms on our radio that two guys, our guys, got shot. And that was Mike and Nate. And so we finished what we were doing. We go back and uh, Mike and Nate had passed. And I remember I walked by and Mike was on the ground. And I could see him. I could see his face. I could see the damage done by the machine gun fire.

• 1:44:04Eddie Penney?

  And that was, we saw a lot of death over there, but death seen from the bad guys and death from your guys.

• 1:44:14Eddie Penney?

  Two different worlds. And I can still picture that, every detail, everything.

• 1:44:21Eddie Penney?

  And I, and Mike, actually Nate was still struggling. He was still had breaths in him and I could hear the wheezing and hear him fighting. And then it just got quiet.

• 1:44:36Eddie Penney?

  And then we had like, had to move to Exville. We had to like dump some grenades.

• 1:44:44Eddie Penney?

  Take out as many dudes as we can. Uh, at another building, the third building, um, buddy Eric, uh, Fro. Who we just actually had on the Unafraid Podcast. Uh, he was walking into a building, he like, cause we were, we were, we were doing the pying technique. We weren't just rushing in because of these suicide guys. And he didn't see anything. And he walks into the room and I guess there were some, a stack of blankets. And the guy was like in a fortified position with blankets, kind of blocking it, like kind of concealing it. Dude unleashes a full magazine of AK. Uh, and it went all around his body. Didn't hit him. He came out of that room, from what I understand and from what he said, and then like, uh, his number two man,

• 1:45:29Eddie Penney?

  just kind of like true lies where he's like, they're checking the body.

• 1:45:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:32Eddie Penney?

  He's like checking all his body. He didn't get hit once.

• 1:45:35Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. This is not the first time I've heard that happening.

• 1:45:39Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. So it was a, it was a crazy target. Uh, and that was my first exposure to losing the good guys, our guys. And uh,

• 1:45:53Eddie Penney?

  What ensued was more drinking to stuff it, didn't know how to process it.

• 1:46:03Eddie Penney?

  You have, you have some guys sleeping it off. You have some guys can't sleep. Personally, I would get a couple hours. I was up for a few hours, get a couple hours. I like didn't know the difference between night and day. I wake up thinking it's day, it's night, go to sleep, wake up, it's day, like just everything ran together, like nothing made sense. And we were on a stand down after those, maybe, maybe two or three days. And then Adam, Adam Brown, he injured his leg prior to that, to us deploying. He back felt came out, he was, his surgery was done, he was healed. He came out and then a couple of our army counterparts came up from Baghdad to help us out and kind of see what was going on.

• 1:46:49Eddie Penney?

  And then about exactly one week later was the night of the Super Bowl. We were like, had this huge, I'm sorry, that was the night of the Super Bowl. We had this huge party like planned to watch the game, chill out, get a bunch of pizzas. But we ended up going out and then Mike and Nate, you know, passed on that one. Then a week later, same, same, um, same target set, same, same crew.

• 1:47:16Eddie Penney?

  We go to the another, the, the, the compound and we're, we're very weary now that, you know, they just took out two guys.

• 1:47:27Eddie Penney?

  You know, they're blowing themselves up. They don't care. They're blowing houses up. So extremely weary, like we didn't move up to it. So we did another call out and nothing was going on. Like one dude came out. Everything seemed to be good. Then stuff started happening in the house, started building up.

• 1:47:46Eddie Penney?

  A lot of women and children were starting to get stuffed by the front of the house. So like, if you can imagine like a comp, like a house. Front door and on the front door, there's like an overhang, a very like, almost like a carport, but the carport is like a huge slab of concrete. It's not like a tin roof. It is like a bomber with like two big stanchions at the end to keep this thing like big ones, uh, rectangle ones. I can, I can picture it all. And, uh, I, I called over to Louis, Louis Safran. And I was like, hey dude, because he was our EOD guy. I was like, hey, bro, uh, and I was taking over team leader that one because my team leader was, was down. He was sick that night. So I'd like just took over a spot for that, that night. So I came over columns. I was like, hey brother Louis, or whatever, uh, nuke zero four, I think

• 1:48:30Eddie Penney?

  was this thing, called him up and said, hey, move up and try to help out with the, uh, you know, getting all the, the women and children back and searching them, making sure they're not carrying anything. He's like, Roger that. Two seconds later, he jumps over a little three foot wall, runs up to that, one of those pillars. And it was getting crazy. Like we, by that time we had a team moved up. Um, the other team that was primary entry moved up. So on the, this wall, there's a door and then Louis is over here by this carport. Or whatever it was, front porch, whatever you want to call it. And it was getting crazy. And so I was like, crap, I need help. So I come around my wall, maybe like, uh, the wall was probably up to, up to my shoulders. Like you could see perfectly to take shots, duck down if I needed to. It was like, it was amazing spot. It was like right

• 1:49:15Eddie Penney?

  in front of the door. Somewhere in there, a dude got shot, uh, by Fro actually. Um, and so I moved up right on Louis. I, I moved up. I got my gun and I, and I, and I put my hand on his right shoulder. I was like, what's going on? He's like, oh, just craziness, man. Just fricking like, we're just trying to get this out. So, you know, we're trying to get people out and.

• 1:49:38Eddie Penney?

  I think I've told you this before. I've got serious Tom's disease.

• 1:49:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:42Eddie Penney?

  Terrified of missing stuff. I always want to put the breach on the door. I want to be the first guy in the room. If anyone's getting action, I want it to be me. When Dom got his kill and I didn't, I was like a little, little baby. Like, why does he get to play and I don't? You know what I mean?

• 1:49:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:57Eddie Penney?

  So for some reason, man, I, I can still see a bead of sweat going down his neck. I can still smell it. I can still see it. I can, I can, I can feel it. For some reason,

• 1:50:11Eddie Penney?

  I was like, there's too many people here. And it's like, I heard this voice.

• 1:50:16Eddie Penney?

  I got this feeling. I can't even describe what I got. It was, it was like everything wrapped into one saying, get away, get out.

• 1:50:23Shawn Ryan?

  Like an, like an intuition?

• 1:50:25Eddie Penney?

  Whatever you want to call it. Whatever you want to call it. Something that said, get away from where you are right now and go back behind that wall you just came from. And that is not me. I've never done it before. Besides that one time that I can remember. I've always had to be there, especially when we got to deal with some stuff. We got to work. I'm ready to work. I want to work. Something told me. So I told Louis, I was like, hey, man, I'm going to go back behind the wall. We got too many guys up here. And I'm like, are you good? He's like, I got this, bro. Like, I'll see you in a few. I was like, all right, dude, I love you. You know, we do our like little, I love you, brother. So I like had my arm on him, on that shoulder. I rolled out. Soon as I button hooked that wall out that gate and made that turn where I was covered,

• 1:51:10Eddie Penney?

  the house exploded.

• 1:51:17Eddie Penney?

  And it wasn't a baby explosion. Half the house was gone. That team that was on this side was covered. Blew a couple of guys out thirty, fifty feet against the backside of the wall, which I was behind. Dudes were covered in rubble.

• 1:51:35Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, what the heck? I got, I mean, I got hit with debris on the back of the helmet. Nothing, nothing compared to what these guys did. The dust couldn't see anything, like everything was just gone. It was like, well, you would hear the fog of war. It was the first time I was like, wow, this is, this is the real deal. Like I was just discombobulated, didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what way was up, down, left, right, didn't know. I finally, you know, got my bearings, wrapped back around and like, I'm a member, I'm in the middle of this courtyard. And the dust is just settling and I'm like,

• 1:52:10Eddie Penney?

  what I left and what I saw were two different things, two different pictures. And I felt something on my foot. I'm like, man, what the heck? And it was our dog, Digo. He was buried and the only thing that was sticking out was his mouth. And he latched on to the first thing that came and that was my foot. So I ripped out my, uh, my hiking boots out of his mouth and went back to where I thought Louie was. And he was gone. And I'm like, what the heck? And there was one of our, our augments was over on the side and I saw him like, what's going, where's, do you have Louie? He's like, yes. And Louie was underneath the slab. And so like, there was a hole held up by some rubble, uh, some rock, some boulders from the house.

• 1:52:55Eddie Penney?

  And we're crawling in there, trying to grab him. We can reach like his calf to try to grab some, some fabric to like pull him out.

• 1:53:04Eddie Penney?

  When I grabbed his calf, it felt like Jell-O. There was no bone structure. It was like, when that thing fell, it folded him like an accordion and took out, pretty much shattered all bone.

• 1:53:21Eddie Penney?

  It, it didn't feel like a leg. It felt like a Jell-O mold. Damn. Or putty.

• 1:53:31Eddie Penney?

  And he was stuck under there and we couldn't get him out. And fortunately, the guys inside the building died. I think there were some random shots by our snipers.

• 1:53:42Eddie Penney?

  Don't want containment stuff. Uh. But we finally got him out. Our PJs came over with our, I think they're called Savva or Savvy. Uh, I'll talk about more, a little bit more detail in here. But they lifted it up, got his body out and we just started ex-filling. Um, I think by Bradley. I think the QRF came. And, uh. Ex-filled out. And to this day.

• 1:54:07Eddie Penney?

  My man, what if I didn't, what if I didn't come over that radio and say, move up? Would he be here?

• 1:54:14Eddie Penney?

  Why?

• 1:54:17Eddie Penney?

  Did I hear that voice and he didn't? I'm no different than him. Why? These are questions that I

• 1:54:28Eddie Penney?

  somewhat still answer or ask myself. This, what makes, why did I hear that? Why did I tell him to go over?

• 1:54:37Eddie Penney?

  And, um.

• 1:54:40Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, it's been a, it's been a tough one.

• 1:54:43Eddie Penney?

  Sorry, man.

• 1:54:48Eddie Penney?

  It's war, right? Yeah. I mean, and, and I know Louis, I know.

• 1:55:00Eddie Penney?

  That man wouldn't want to go out any other way. I know that for a fact. None of our boys that we lost. They were, they were warriors, man. They knew what was, they knew what was at stake. They knew it. And they were, they were proud

• 1:55:16Eddie Penney?

  to do that job.

• 1:55:19Eddie Penney?

  And they would do it again. There's no doubt.

• 1:55:23Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. But, um. Yeah.

• 1:55:28Eddie Penney?

  Let's take a break.

• 1:55:34Shawn Ryan?

  I want to take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon. Patron support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one-of-a-kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com/vigilanceelite and support The Sean Ryan Show today.

• 1:55:58Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Eddie, we're back from the break. Just had an emotional ending to that last portion there.

• 1:56:04Eddie Penney?

  It was a good time for a break.

• 1:56:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, and I want to, I want to ask you because you've experienced more loss. The guys over at Gold Team have experienced more loss than anybody else that I know. And I'm always curious how you deal with loss.

• 1:56:28Eddie Penney?

  Initially and how I deal with it now are two different worlds. Before, I would drink and I would take pills or I would take any nighttime medicine I could to sleep because I couldn't sleep. It was, it was always to the bottle. Beer, wine, Captain of Cokes, just so I wouldn't feel, just so I wouldn't feel. I would stuff it and stuff it and I didn't, you know, I didn't, I didn't know you were supposed to feel. We signed up for this for that we're supposed to do this. This is just part of war. But that's not the correct way to do it.

• 1:57:10Eddie Penney?

  Because what that was doing is I'm drinking more and just stuffing is I'm drowning out my family. I was drowning out my family. I wasn't, I wasn't present. I mean, remember, I talked about this as well.

• 1:57:29Eddie Penney?

  Do you remember American Sniper? Seen the movie, right?

• 1:57:32Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:57:33Eddie Penney?

  Bradley Cooper comes, Chris Kyle, the character, comes back, I think, from, I don't know what deployment. And he's, he's sitting in his chair with a beer. And he, and the kind of, the camera pans around and it shows what he's looking at, which is a TV. But the TV is not turned on. He's just sitting there. And he's physically there, but he's mentally checked out. He's back over there and that's, that's, I saw that. And broke into tears, man. I was like, that's it. That's the realest thing I've seen out of any combat movie. That I've experienced. I was like, that's it right there. And I felt like that I'd be back home. I'm not, I'm not with you. I'm here. I remember going out to eat with my family or,

• 1:58:15Eddie Penney?

  you know, going to a pumpkin patch or whatever it is, and I'm not even paying attention. I'm thinking about stuff over there. I'm thinking about the what ifs, the should've, kudos, the why did I, the why didn't I? All those things and just replaying these things over and over and over again. Nonsense, like on a loop. And I couldn't stop it and I didn't want it to stop. It was like, I just couldn't, I, I don't know. Everything was about that. It was about the teams. It was about being overseas. It was about fighting. It was about the losses.

• 1:58:47Shawn Ryan?

  How do you deal with loss now versus then?

• 1:58:51Eddie Penney?

  And we'll get into this, but uh, my remedy has been Christ. One hundred percent.

• 1:59:00Eddie Penney?

  Saved my life. Saved, literally. Saved my life. Saved my life.

• 1:59:06Shawn Ryan?

  What is it about? What is it about Christ that you find comfort in? Or maybe comfort is the wrong word, but when you, when it comes to dealing with death, dealing with loss, friends, teammates. What is it about Christ that brings you comfort?

• 1:59:25Eddie Penney?

  I, I read, there's a, there's a verse. And it's actually Proverbs three, and I don't, I don't have verses to remember, but this one I remember, Proverbs three, five is, do not lean on your own understanding.

• 1:59:38Eddie Penney?

  Because we as humans, we just don't get why this, why that? Like, why did I miss that one shot at sniper school? I'll tell you why. Cause I was not supposed to be a sniper. I was supposed to be a Navy SEAL.

• 1:59:49Eddie Penney?

  And you know, we, we, we talk about these unanswered prayers and all that stuff, but dude, there's, there's always this bigger and better thing usually. If we're, if we're doing the right thing and we're being obedient and it just gives me peace. I can't, I can't really describe the feeling inside, what it did to my heart and my brain, my soul, I should say. I just find comfort like, hey, it is what it, it doesn't mean I don't struggle. I still struggle, but I see the loss for what it is, is I couldn't control certain things.

• 2:00:19Eddie Penney?

  And that's life, man. War, evil, good, it will always be here, always has been, always will. And he's just my,

• 2:00:33Eddie Penney?

  he is my, my pole in the ground that no matter what storm come, comes through, no matter how crazy the winds are, no matter how bad anything is, I can hold on.

• 2:00:49Eddie Penney?

  I can hold on to that pole and I'm all right.

• 2:00:54Eddie Penney?

  I know I'm all right. I, I know it.

• 2:00:58Eddie Penney?

  I know it. I know he's got me. It doesn't mean that everything's peaches and cream. It doesn't mean that at all, but I know he's got me. And I know if I go through some troubled times, I'm just gonna get stronger. I will get stronger and the life lessons that have happened, getting my kids, dealing with that struggle has only made me stronger. Didn't understand at the time. It's always hindsight. And I, I kind of, you know, I keep referring to this, but that's, I mean, that's my story. And the hot wash, as I talk about it, looking back, I should have realized this, or I should have done this. I, I, you know, thank God I did this. But it just, it soothes my soul. He does. It's just,

• 2:01:43Eddie Penney?

  I can't explain it. I ran from it. I was terrified of it until I allowed it.

• 2:01:52Eddie Penney?

  And we can get to that.

• 2:01:53Shawn Ryan?

  We'll get to that.

• 2:01:54Eddie Penney?

  We get to that.

• 2:01:55Shawn Ryan?

  I got one more question on loss. And I've never asked this, but I've always been curious of what other people's thoughts are.

• 2:02:04Shawn Ryan?

  And I don't know how to word it, but um, so I'm just gonna do my best, but when it comes to death and and loss of friends.

• 2:02:16Shawn Ryan?

  Who do you?

• 2:02:19Shawn Ryan?

  When you experience a loss and it's it's it's a friend, who do you?

• 2:02:28Shawn Ryan?

  Who do you feel worse for? Do you feel, because we have? We have two different kinds of losses happening in the veteran community. You have loss in battle. And then we have the suicide epidemic that's going on.

• 2:02:44Eddie Penney?

  Go back to the used to like a dude, I there's there was Eddie. Old Eddie. And then there's the new Eddie. Old Eddie would have been like, you're weak, you're coward. How could you not handle your stuff? You're an operator and this is how, really? You selfish piece of crap, leaving your family like that, leaving them like this. That was my thought.

• 2:03:10Eddie Penney?

  I have a different thought because I've been put in that position. So I. My mindset's a little bit different on it now.

• 2:03:18Shawn Ryan?

  What is it now?

• 2:03:20Eddie Penney?

  It's a real thing, man. It just sneaks up on you. It sneaks up on you and all of a sudden you find yourself holding a frickin pistol. And it's like, what the heck am I doing? Luckily for me, I was able to stop myself. Uh, or put it down and walk away. But I get it. It was just like everything, my world was just crumbling in. And I was always like, how could anyone do that? I mean, how could you do that? You selfish piece of crap. And I found myself in the same situation.

• 2:03:55Eddie Penney?

  And uh.

• 2:03:58Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, that'll humble you. Real fast. So I have a different approach. I take it way more serious if someone speaks about that. I know it's very real. Are some would cry for help? Absolutely. Are some extremely real? Absolutely.

• 2:04:15Shawn Ryan?

  Do you wish some of the guys that have taken their own life would have died in battle?

• 2:04:20Eddie Penney?

  I do.

• 2:04:21Shawn Ryan?

  Me too.

• 2:04:22Eddie Penney?

  Of course. It's what it's a warrior's death, man.

• 2:04:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:26Eddie Penney?

  Right? It's what we read about. It's what we watch. It's what we dream of. It's different. It feels different. It feels a lot different. But but one thing that I've realized is there's the battle that we refer to in the spec ops world that's over in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, wherever wherever the war is. But there's another war that we still fight daily. Um, there's evil present everywhere. We can see it. Pick up your phone, scroll, you'll see it. Look in the school systems. You'll see it. Look at things government officials are pushing. You'll see it. Like evil is real and it is rampant. And it needs to be crushed.

• 2:05:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:13Shawn Ryan?

  Well, getting back to deployments. Got a little sidetracked there, but I wanted to ask those questions before I lost them. Let's get into Afghanistan. Versus Iraq. You spent a lot of time in Iraq. We've talked about Iraq. Let's talk about what you were doing in Afghanistan.

• 2:05:30Eddie Penney?

  Afghanistan was awesome. Um, I liked that. A little bit better because it was a little tougher. Terrain's tougher. The fighters a little bit tougher. Um, and it really depend on the fighters, uh, where media was. Like, is are they over here or are they over here? And they would seem to really, you know, beef up their fighters in that position. But all in all, Afghanistan was way tougher. It was a harder target. They didn't care as much. They were, I mean, they have centuries of fighting. Uh, so yeah, naturally. They're ruthless. They're ruthless people. Um. We remember one, we did one op.

• 2:06:11Eddie Penney?

  And we usually go through the gate, you know, get to the, to the door, do a call out or hit them when they, if we can sneak in without them knowing we're there. And we, we get there, we, you know, we kind of do an L. We cut a couple centuries. I think the Rangers are pushed off, blocking like the next block or two over. They might be hitting another house over here. And um, we just take, start taking machine gun fire, like crazy machine gun fire, like da, da, da, da, da, da. They know they're, you know, I got talking guns over there. Grenades start coming over, things are blowing up. I'm like, holy crap. Like this is like, they've, it seems like they've, the grenades are not stopping. So we had to push back and go on this, like the other side. There was like a, like a canal, like a low canal with a little wall. It was the best cover we could have.

• 2:06:56Eddie Penney?

  So we went back and then my team leader came up and we, we developed this charge. We used to, I'm sure you've heard of the bookbag charge. You put it on the wall, but it's like 20 pounds. I carried on one up. I'm like, I'll never carry this thing again, dude. Like, like, no. So we worked on uh, making a smaller charge that can do the same effect. So we came up with like taking two blocks and the overpressure will make a cutting with C4 and we'll cut through. We can drop a thermo barrack grenade in this little hole and then that pressure will bust out a huge hole.

• 2:07:27Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 2:07:27Eddie Penney?

  Uh, so we can get guys in. So like, all right, we're testing it on this target.

• 2:07:31Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, how the hell did you figure that out? Are you the one that figured that out?

• 2:07:34Eddie Penney?

  I was, I helped. So my, uh, my buddy Travis, who was a, he was our, our master breacher. He's like, hey, we put it, start putting it together. And he's like, we, we started like testing it because we did not want to carry that 21. So he's like, if we take, it's like, if you take two blocks, the pressure from this and the pressure of this will meet and they cut because you know, there's like the science of explosives. And then we, we was like, let's try it with a thermo barrack to blow it out with the overpressure and it worked. And uh, we hit this target and the first wall I did, I actually grabbed Dom. I was like, let's go cover me. So we run up there, do the first on this, like you can see, like on the backside, there's the,

• 2:08:14Eddie Penney?

  there, there might've been some windows, but they were up top. You couldn't see, but all you could see was like a flat mud hut, like thick mud. But you could see where the rooms were divided because it was kind of sticking out from the adjacent wall, whatever you want to call it. So the first one, the one closest to us, put the charge on there, blow it and the explosives was enough. I didn't need to do a thermo and we go up there, we're clearing it and there's like a donkey in there. So like, okay, you're not like, you're just kind of looking back at us like, all right, you're, you're good, bro. So, uh, so we go to the next one and I like, I started like calling like, hey, give me my charges. Like I had them like spaced throughout the team. Like people carry a couple of them, uh, for this very reason. So we go to another

• 2:08:58Eddie Penney?

  one, a little bit further down where we think they would be, blow that one down. It was a kitchen. No one was in there. I go back because we're like setting it up. I'm running back, getting in our little canal, command detonating and this fricking. So it's like, it's crazy. There's dust everywhere. Explosions are going off. Um, I get one, one more of my charges, put it in between the two holes that I've already made. Put it up there, uh, blow it. And I believe I, I did not throw a thermo in that one either. The second one I did. Uh, but it made a big enough hole where I didn't need to do a thermo barrack. So the dust is

• 2:09:38Eddie Penney?

  going out like the, the dirt was like, kind of make a little ramp. And, uh, so Dom kind of wraps goes far as the dust is. So he was concealed by the dust go, we just kind of pan. We start plying off, like doing our cross cover and we just start seeing dudes and there's like machine guns, like grenades. So we finished, took off the couple of dudes that were still breathing. They have a couple of guys with their AKs in there just trying to take over the next explosive that was going to come. And when I walk into this room, like after we took out the dudes, like we, we call in the team and we're just kind of holding on our adjacent doors. I were going out to the rest of the compound and I'm standing, I'm like, man, this is really weird. Like the things you think about, right? And I'm like,

• 2:10:23Eddie Penney?

  it was like, like a, a perfect carpet, like a very nice carpet. I was like, huh, interesting. Like I gotta check this out later. So we, we clear the compound, come back to that room. I gotta check this out later. Put on the white light to like, cause I want to see what exactly we just did. Cause the dust, I mean, it was, it was, it was hectic, you know? Mm-hmm. And I go to where I was standing and I felt it. I put my white light down and all I see is a fricking eyeball staring up at me. So the dude got flattened by the breaching charge, like folded.

• 2:10:56Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, that was my first breaching charge kill. And I was like, that's awesome.

• 2:11:02Shawn Ryan?

  My gosh.

• 2:11:04Eddie Penney?

  But it was weird, man, because like you just see this dude flattened out, see the side of his face. And just his eyeballs just like staring at you. Totally. I mean, he's done.

• 2:11:12Shawn Ryan?

  So you weren't on a carpet?

• 2:11:14Eddie Penney?

  I was not on a carpet. I was on his insides.

• 2:11:17Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 2:11:17Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:19Shawn Ryan?

  I've never felt that.

• 2:11:21Eddie Penney?

  But dude, folded. His back had to been right on that wall. Like he had to be like on it.

• 2:11:28Shawn Ryan?

  That's I can't even, I can't even picture it, to be honest with you.

• 2:11:32Eddie Penney?

  It was a, it was weird. It was weird, but cool at the same time.

• 2:11:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:38Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. Like, don't shoot at us.

• 2:11:42Shawn Ryan?

  Or this is gonna happen.

• 2:11:43Eddie Penney?

  Right?

• 2:11:45Shawn Ryan?

  What was the op tempo over there in Afghanistan?

• 2:11:47Eddie Penney?

  It was, it was, it was big. I mean, it was, it was a lot. It was fast. It was, we went at a lot, a lot.

• 2:11:56Eddie Penney?

  And the targets, they weren't like cheesy targets. They were like, they weren't like one or two guys. They were like a lot of guys.

• 2:12:07Shawn Ryan?

  Like how many?

• 2:12:08Eddie Penney?

  We did one, these guys took over, um, whatever cell, whatever, whoever they were, uh, bad guys, took over a school. And there was probably, I think there was eleven, eleven bad guys on that one. I mean, they were just everywhere. We had another time standing right by a door and I moved positions. And about a minute later, I saw her looking down, saw thirty, I can't remember, it was like thirty to fifty men run out of the door I was standing. And like went down and went down, uh, to the draw and back up. They were getting away because they knew we were there.

• 2:12:42Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:12:43Eddie Penney?

  Poured out right where I was. I was so mad. I was like, dude, that was a lot of kills I just missed.

• 2:12:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:49Eddie Penney?

  I was like, dang it. But dude, I mean, it was, it was real. Like there was like, it wasn't, you know, ones and twosies. It was, um, like dudes like gathered together to go fight. That's who it was. It was different. It was different in Afghanistan than Iraq. I mean, Iraq had some targets where there's a lot of dudes, but not, not, not like what I saw in Afghanistan.

• 2:13:09Shawn Ryan?

  Were you on the operation that Adam Brown got killed?

• 2:13:12Eddie Penney?

  Okay, so. Before about two weeks before we I was actually gonna go to um an outstation for that one. Two weeks before is when I got custody of my my three kids. So I my command uh my head shed knew. I was like, I can't I can't deploy. I was like, I'm gonna be out of this command. They're leaving me and they just uh pretty much told me like, hey, on this deployment, figure out how to be a dad. They left me alone. I was alone, learning how to be a dad that whole time. And about halfway through, I get a call about two in the morning from my team leader, who was had to stay back too, because he had to get surgery done on knee or shoulder or something.

• 2:13:53Eddie Penney?

  And uh he's like, Adam just passed. And um and I was with Adam at team two.

• 2:14:01Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:14:01Eddie Penney?

  Green team.

• 2:14:02Shawn Ryan?

  I remember you guys were really tight when you showed up to Arlington in Afghanistan.

• 2:14:06Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, he he's just a

• 2:14:09Eddie Penney?

  good dude to be around.

• 2:14:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:10Eddie Penney?

  He was just fun to be around. His stories, uh he he I mean, nothing, some things might have slowed him down. Nothing stopped him.

• 2:14:22Eddie Penney?

  I mean, when he lost his eye, I was right at the top of the stairs as he was coming up. I was next to the guy that shot him in Afghanistan when he lost his fingers. I was the one that put his fingers back on and tried to wrap him up the best I could. Uh, I knew Adam well. He was a

• 2:14:41Eddie Penney?

  he was a dude, legend.

• 2:14:43Shawn Ryan?

  He had a great energy about him.

• 2:14:45Eddie Penney?

  Great.

• 2:14:45Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and uh he was, I don't think he was always a stand up guy, but he became a stand up guy.

• 2:14:53Eddie Penney?

  He did.

• 2:14:53Shawn Ryan?

  I never knew him previous to

• 2:14:56Eddie Penney?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:14:56Shawn Ryan?

  to when he was a stand up guy. He was just a picture perfect team guy. I was very upset all the time, uh, because I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. He had a great way of kind of mitigating that, re-motivating me. And I learned a lot from him. And we also had a conversation last night at dinner about, and I've had this conversation with several other um former work colleagues or guests on the show and

• 2:15:27Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, Adam was, he was just a, he's a great role model for any human.

• 2:15:33Eddie Penney?

  Oh, my God, yeah.

• 2:15:34Shawn Ryan?

  And he wasn't, he wasn't a shithead team guy like me, or like you, who was, I mean, I'll speak for myself, who was boozing, bar fighting, womanizing.

• 2:15:45Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:46Shawn Ryan?

  Pills.

• 2:15:46Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 2:15:46Shawn Ryan?

  Everything.

• 2:15:47Eddie Penney?

  So.

• 2:15:48Shawn Ryan?

  That you shouldn't be doing, I was doing. Adam wasn't that. Adam was a family man. Adam cared about his kids deeply, spent a lot of time with them. He was, he was, he was a man of God.

• 2:16:00Eddie Penney?

  He made you wonder why he was like that.

• 2:16:04Shawn Ryan?

  That's, yes.

• 2:16:05Eddie Penney?

  He made me Christ curious. He was one of the guys. I was like, and he, you're right. Everything you just said, you're absolutely right. He was, he was different.

• 2:16:14Shawn Ryan?

  Why him? A lot of, a lot of, it seems to me like a lot of the guys that die in combat, it's like, why the fuck wasn't that me? Or why wasn't that Eddie? Or why wasn't, why wasn't that the guy that's fucking three other chicks on the side and not paying attention to his wife? It's always the stand-up, good example to others that winds up dying. Do, do you feel that?

• 2:16:43Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, I question that a lot.

• 2:16:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:45Eddie Penney?

  I'm, I question, you know, a guy that seeks God, why, why that? But I've also learned that when we look to God and like, why would you do this? There's another, there's a thing out there called evil.

• 2:17:00Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:17:01Eddie Penney?

  That can get into evil men. And, and I don't, and it goes back to leaning out on your understanding. It's really not up to us to, or, or business to even know why.

• 2:17:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:11Eddie Penney?

  We like to think of it, but I, but I don't know why. And maybe with his book, Fearless, the lives that he's changing by his story, maybe that's why. I don't know. I don't know these answers.

• 2:17:24Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, I, I like to think about this stuff, you know, and.

• 2:17:27Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, yeah. It'll get you to go down this little thing called a rabbit hole.

• 2:17:31Shawn Ryan?

  It will, it will. And then, you know, when you think about it, and, and everybody, everybody has their time, and everybody has their, their place.

• 2:17:39Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:40Shawn Ryan?

  And they make their mark.

• 2:17:43Shawn Ryan?

  And he made you Christ curious, which kind of formed you into who you are today, which is spreading a very positive message and is impacting thousands of people. And maybe you wouldn't have gotten there without knowing Adam, you know? And now you are carrying that torch, but.

• 2:18:00Eddie Penney?

  It's a big torch.

• 2:18:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:01Eddie Penney?

  It's a big torch.

• 2:18:02Shawn Ryan?

  But can you talk about that night?

• 2:18:07Eddie Penney?

  That he passed?

• 2:18:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, even though you weren't there.

• 2:18:09Eddie Penney?

  I, you know, I know the story. I think it was like on a tree or on a fan or on a wall or something like that. And then got nailed from an adjacent building. But I don't know the details. I'm, I'm, I was told, but I don't recall. I just know on my side, got the call and we started drinking at two in the morning when I woke up and just started doing shots. And I'm like, not again, another guy and again. And I'm like, man, like it just seemed like every deployment, we were losing dudes. It's like, you know, you question yourself like, is our tactics wrong? Like, what are we doing wrong? It was just, you know?

• 2:18:53Eddie Penney?

  It's war. It's war. It's not supposed to go the way you think. It's just not. I mean, that's why we do contingencies. That's why you have multiple LZs when you infill, right? Cause if this one's messed up, we're going to go over here. Cause nothing goes as planned. We, it's, what does Mike Tyson say? Everyone has a great plan until they get punched in the face.

• 2:19:16Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:19:17Eddie Penney?

  It's very true. War is no different. You know, just like business. We're so set on this. You can't be set on this. You gotta flow. You gotta flow. You gotta move.

• 2:19:31Shawn Ryan?

  What's the recovery time after, over a development group? What's the recovery time for the next operation? If you do take a loss?

• 2:19:39Eddie Penney?

  I think the ones that I was, I'm sure it's always different, you know? Um, not long, maybe two to three days.

• 2:19:46Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 2:19:47Eddie Penney?

  I think so.

• 2:19:50Shawn Ryan?

  How do you send the guys off?

• 2:19:53Eddie Penney?

  We usually do a wood like stand, which just turns out to be a cross. You know, you put our, put their gear on it, their, uh, their carrier, plate carrier. And then we put their helmet on top. And one thing I've learned is we won't mess with it. I remember.

• 2:20:13Eddie Penney?

  With one of the guys and we'll just keep it, I mean, just the blood, you know, those pads and the Mitch helmets? They soak up, they soak up blood. If you would like press on it, blood would just seep out. It was covered. Every one of the pads, you know, you got the different pads you can move around based on your head shape and comfortability. It was just covered with blood and you put that helmet on and the, the weight of the helmet and you could just see the blood trickling down this wood stand. And it's just like, oh my God, man. And you got the rifle out there and I think we put the boots out there and we put them right by the flagpole and they stay there. After we lost those guys, they would go with us every, every deployment. We would make it, we'd bring it.

• 2:20:56Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:20:57Eddie Penney?

  And um, you lose your guy, you get the alcohol that they have. And

• 2:21:07Eddie Penney?

  the next morning, cause you're, you know, you're running ops at night and um,

• 2:21:13Eddie Penney?

  next, you know, it's daytime by, you know, by you get everything done. You get in a circle with those still there in

• 2:21:23Eddie Penney?

  bottles, just get passed around. You take it and you pass it. Another one comes, you take it and you do that until every bottle is dry.

• 2:21:36Eddie Penney?

  And the crazy thing about that is you don't feel anything.

• 2:21:42Eddie Penney?

  You don't feel it. I don't recall feeling it. I don't recall feeling the drunkenness, the buzz. It was just empty.

• 2:21:50Eddie Penney?

  Fluid.

• 2:21:52Eddie Penney?

  It was, you just don't, you're not there, your brain's not there, man. Your brain is shut off and it's like, just shuts it down. And uh, then you walk around questioning everything.

• 2:22:05Eddie Penney?

  Questioning all of it.

• 2:22:07Eddie Penney?

  Why? Why? You know, the why?

• 2:22:12Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of guys start to question why we were there in the first place. Do you question that?

• 2:22:19Eddie Penney?

  Again, at the time, no, I was like, hey, we're, we're, we're fighting bad guys. Like, we're going to get the bad guys. I was like, I was sold on it all. Now, knowing government and agendas, I question a lot of it, if not all of it. I question a lot of it.

• 2:22:36Shawn Ryan?

  I do too.

• 2:22:37Eddie Penney?

  And, and I hate saying that. I love this country more than, I mean, more than anything. But one thing I've realized is that government officials,

• 2:22:48Eddie Penney?

  you aren't the country if you're doing your shady crap. You're nothing but a terrorist. You're the exact same thing that we were hunting down over there. You're just domestic. That's why we do our oath, right? Foreign and domestic. There's a reason for that. And we can see the reason. So, yeah, I, uh, a lot of it's BS now, and it hurts.

• 2:23:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:12Eddie Penney?

  Thought you're really part of something, thought you're making a difference, which, in a roundabout sort of way, you are. You're killing, you know, you're killing the bad guys. They're not, can beef up and get stronger.

• 2:23:23Eddie Penney?

  But I, I don't, I think it's all comes down to an agenda. And, and unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to find out what that is.

• 2:23:31Shawn Ryan?

  I don't either.

• 2:23:32Eddie Penney?

  But, yeah.

• 2:23:33Shawn Ryan?

  But I totally agree with you.

• 2:23:35Eddie Penney?

  I don't, yeah.

• 2:23:37Shawn Ryan?

  Let's move on to your family life. So you missed the deployment.

• 2:23:41Eddie Penney?

  Yep. Got custody of the kids.

• 2:23:42Shawn Ryan?

  Got custody of the kids. How did you get custody of the kids?

• 2:23:45Eddie Penney?

  So,

• 2:23:48Eddie Penney?

  around the deployment storm of leaving and going, she, when we were separated, she's like, hey, her, her family lived out in Tennessee here. And she's like, I want to go out there, take the kids, and live with my parents, and get on my feet, and go to school. And I was always gone, always gone, and...

• 2:24:10Eddie Penney?

  A shooting school that we go to quite a bit was right, right by, close to where her, uh, where she would be. And I was like, hey, just let me talk to him when I want to talk to him. This, this wasn't like a, okay, sure. Like I had to really think about this one. And I was really thinking about her wellbeing and the kids. I'm like, I'm always gone. I'm like, this train ain't stopping. Which, which it did. But, um, I was like, maybe this is the best thing is for her to go. Cause I really wanted her to get on her feet. Take care of those kids, be a role model and do the right thing. So they had a good example. So she goes out there. Radio silence. Couldn't text, couldn't call, nothing.

• 2:24:54Eddie Penney?

  The only thing that I could in like a span of maybe, I don't, I don't know how long it was, a few weeks, a month, two months, maybe. As I was out, um, in Oklahoma and I drove six hours to get my kids and she's like, she's like, you have two hours. If they're not back in two hours, I'm calling the cops on you. And I did not want to deal with that being where I was. So as a good little boy, I dropped him off in two hours, drove my six hours back. I took him out to dinner or like a early lunch or something like that, early dinner. That was it. And I was like, this is enough. So I went to my lawyer. I was like, here's what's happening. This is, this is BS. Like let's, we gotta do something. So we get her to court. And she paints this beautiful picture

• 2:25:40Eddie Penney?

  for her, horrible for me of how I caused her to do this. I'm the reason for all of it. And she was probably right, but I mean, all blame was on me on the other side of, you know, of the, of the tables. And I'm like, and I was, and I'm like, that's not true. That's, and I just wanted to speak out so bad as she's, she's telling this amazing academy award winning acting scenario. And, uh, but I had one card to play. And I knew she was not clean and she was saying she was clean. And before we went in there, I told my lawyer, drug test, drug tester. And I'm like, I volunteer myself. I will totally do a drug test. I know I'm clean. Let's go. So at the end of all these stories, my lawyer doesn't say, they, they asked me a couple of questions and I said, I will stop deploying.

• 2:26:25Eddie Penney?

  I was, I was in there in court in a suit with a full beard, shaggy. I looked like, you know, the caveman from the Geico commercial?

• 2:26:33Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 2:26:33Eddie Penney?

  I pretty much looked like that dude, like trying to get my children. Just all I wanted her to do was I wanted 50 50 custody to move back to Virginia Beach. That's it. I didn't want full custody. I still wanted to work. Like I figured like I could still do, you know, get both of, both of, uh, both best worlds, both of the best worlds. And, um, so I, I tell him I'll stop. I'll do a training position, all this stuff. And, uh, he awarded her to stay out there. And he just, all he said was, hey, if he wants to talk to him, he gets to talk to him. If he wants to see him, you make it happen that he can see his children. End of story, period. And so my lawyer before was like, hey, drug, we requested drug test and the judge said, Roger that. So we both, I

• 2:27:17Eddie Penney?

  didn't even, she didn't even want me to do one because she knew better. She did it and she popped. And, um, she lied. So everything she said was BS. So the judge told the lawyers, you need to move back to Virginia Beach right now. And, uh, she refused. Her lawyer dropped her. And the judge found out about this and told my lawyer to tell I did go get his kids. I was deploying in two weeks.

• 2:27:46Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:27:48Eddie Penney?

  My command knew about it all. My command knew about, I, I, I kept him in form. I was like, hey, and no one, no one's like, team guy's not going to get his kids. I'm like, I'm not getting my kids. That was the last thing I thought would ever happen.

• 2:28:01Eddie Penney?

  And, uh, I had a choice. To get my kids or keep deploying.

• 2:28:07Eddie Penney?

  And to be transparent, I had to think about that.

• 2:28:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:13Eddie Penney?

  And it wasn't a long thought. It was maybe a few minutes, but it wasn't like, yes, awesome. I get my kids. It was like,

• 2:28:21Eddie Penney?

  my world.

• 2:28:24Eddie Penney?

  Was closing up really thing, I mean, really, really fast and it was, it was rough. That world closing up had was had sharp edges and it was hurting. And my identity as a SEAL, which I live by was, was, was dissipating really fast.

• 2:28:40Eddie Penney?

  So I asked that I asked if I could do one more deployment.

• 2:28:45Eddie Penney?

  My lawyer was like, no. So I got my kid, I went out there. My mom and my stepdad met me out there, got my kids and we drove back to Virginia Beach and went back to the house that I was gonna let, let her have. Cause it was where the kids grew up.

• 2:29:01Eddie Penney?

  Started to refurnish all that because she took everything out, like everything, like I had no birth certificates. I had no social security cards. I had no shot records. I had nothing. I had a bag per kid. I had no idea how my 10 month old, what diapers he had minus what I was in there. I had no idea what he ate, what formula, nothing. She gave me nothing. She told me nothing. Zero. I had to start fresh on everything, getting birth certificates and all this stuff and just figuring it out, refurnishing a whole house. Getting groceries. I didn't, I had to ask him like, what do you guys eat? I don't, I don't remember. I didn't know what they ate.

• 2:29:39Shawn Ryan?

  How old are your kids at this? Your son's 10 months old.

• 2:29:41Eddie Penney?

  10 months old Sammy, my middle child, she was five and Kayla was nine or 10. I think she was 10.

• 2:29:49Eddie Penney?

  So, I mean, Kayla's up to the plate.

• 2:30:00Eddie Penney?

  And she, um, she's a rock star.

• 2:30:07Eddie Penney?

  Putting those kids through

• 2:30:13Eddie Penney?

  that life. Dealing with honestly a turd dad that all he cared about himself. It's not fair.

• 2:30:23Eddie Penney?

  It was not fair at all. But they got strong, man. I had some strong, strong kids. And we did it, man. I mean, my my thought process was like, all right, just keep them alive. Don't let them die. That was everything, man. Just like, don't, don't let them die. And we made it through. And my, and the command was super cool with me. Figure it out, figure it out. Started coming back in a little bit, working in the breacher cell, like just picking locks and, you know, doing some RSOing stuff. And they let me like, hey, figure out how to be a dad.

• 2:31:04Eddie Penney?

  And, and I did, and, you know, started to come into work a little bit more. And then after about a year of that, maybe two, about a year.

• 2:31:14Eddie Penney?

  We were going back on deployment. My boys were going back on deployment and my kids, their summer break was coming up and we worked out, worked out with their mother, like, hey, since you never see them, you could have them for a few weeks in the, in the summer. Because the kids still need to see their biological mom. They just need to. And so I realized that we deploy a week after my kids are gone. So about a month out, month or two, a few months out, I talked to my old team leader or to the command, I'm like, can I, can I jump in and here? And they're like, how can you? And I explained it. They're like, okay, cool. So I started training with them. They trained locally. I tried to jump in with them, go to the range, shooting, do CKB together, do any,

• 2:31:54Eddie Penney?

  I would have babysitters come by, watch the kids. I'd go do a training exercise, come back, you know, dad's all fricking opt out. And I deployed. That, that was my last deployment. I think I was going to do a, it was like a 45 or 60 day deployment, just because my kids were coming back. They had to come back for school. And three days before I was going to rotate out to come back home, extortion happened. Oh, man.

• 2:32:24Eddie Penney?

  And um. We were supposed to go out that night. So we were in J Bad, Jalalabad, and they were in, I can't remember where they were. But they were. We had the birds or something like our, our one sixtieth guys. We had weather or something. They couldn't, they couldn't, they couldn't fly. So we didn't go. So. They couldn't get our birds. So they use National Guard ones to go do their op. And I remember being in my, you know, we got. A deployment, you got your individual rooms and you got like a common area where, you know, the coffee's made and you got the video games and you watch TV and got the couches. Remember sitting in there with my fricking feet propped up, just chilling, watching probably Rescue Me or something, something, something good.

• 2:33:07Eddie Penney?

  And uh, my team that comes in, he's like, hey, your bird just went down.

• 2:33:12Eddie Penney?

  And he's like. It's our, it's our boys' bird. Like there was two of them. One of them had all our guys, another one had just the air crew devastating regardless of which one was shot down. So obviously we're hoping it's someone without our boys, less lives lost, right?

• 2:33:28Eddie Penney?

  So we all like. Rush over um.

• 2:33:34Eddie Penney?

  And they got it pulled up. On, I can't remember if we were starting to get our gear on or we were trying to get SA situation awareness of what was going on. But I remember watching the TV screen, like this huge monitor and they had uh, the thermal uh, from ISR looking down. And you could see the helicopter down. And uh. There was bodies spilled out of the backside that of the open ramp of the, of the forty seven. And I remember seeing like on the thermal, you know, heat signatures are white, right?

• 2:34:06Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 2:34:07Eddie Penney?

  Um, and you could see their white bodies slowly, slowly turned to black. And their life was leaving them and they.

• 2:34:18Eddie Penney?

  They were gone. So we see that we finally like figure like, hey, we need to get in there. Once we finally got it like crap, that is our bird, that is our boys, like we need to go. So. We all go get our gear on, we're grabbing quickie saws in case we gotta cut dudes out. We're grabbing anything and everything that we think for this rescue operation slash keeping the enemy at bay. And uh, they wouldn't let us go out.

• 2:34:40Eddie Penney?

  They were sending the Rangers and. The decision was made by our CO and.

• 2:34:50Eddie Penney?

  At that time, I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to stick my fist through his face. I was like, how, how dare you? That's our boys. That, that, how, how dare you? But thinking about it now, always hindsight, right? Uh, he didn't want, he didn't want those images to be our last images of those guys. Uh, but you know, some of the Rangers more than capable of, of taking care of that. They did a great job. They were out there for probably, I think, three days dealing with that. Getting the bodies. So we get the bodies back and we had, you know, I think it was a total of like 38 or something like that. Um, and they had, we had two C17s to get all these bodies back to Dover.

• 2:35:33Eddie Penney?

  And it was my time to go back a three, a couple of days later. So I just, I was one of the guys that, there was like four of us, escorted all the bodies back to Dover to meet the family members of all these guys. And when I was over there, I somehow, I was told by my team leader, cause the command was, got in touch with everyone. And work, Jason Workman's

• 2:36:06Eddie Penney?

  really sneaks up on you.

• 2:36:10Eddie Penney?

  Jason Workman's wife and family wanted me to, Workman was my boy.

• 2:36:19Eddie Penney?

  Wanted me to escort his body back, uh, to Blanning, Utah for a memorial service. And then,

• 2:36:30Eddie Penney?

  take him to Arlington where he was going to be put in the ground.

• 2:36:36Eddie Penney?

  So of course I wouldn't, wouldn't refuse that. So I talked to the doctor or, or whatever who was dealing with the bodies. And I had him point out Workman's and most of the bodies were, you couldn't, they were charred. They couldn't, you couldn't tell who they were, but Workman had some tattoos. And they, they, he, he, he showed me his casket.

• 2:37:00Eddie Penney?

  So steel caskets.

• 2:37:04Eddie Penney?

  And um, I put my, my ground pad.

• 2:37:09Eddie Penney?

  Uh, next to him. Put my sleeping bag next to him.

• 2:37:15Eddie Penney?

  Sat there, laid there, ate there.

• 2:37:19Eddie Penney?

  And you know how they always tell you like on takeoff, like, please sit down, buckle up? They wouldn't dare ask that, just laid there the whole time. Next to him, put my back on his casket. And just escort him all the way back. Get to Dover.

• 2:37:36Eddie Penney?

  And then we land, the whole family's there and just seen.

• 2:37:52Eddie Penney?

  Got a whole new bucket to bust out with my therapist when I get back.

• 2:37:58Eddie Penney?

  Just to see the families, man. And their faces. And um. And the tears. And the kids that had no clue.

• 2:38:11Eddie Penney?

  That their dad's gone. Their uncle's gone.

• 2:38:16Eddie Penney?

  It was the most.

• 2:38:21Eddie Penney?

  It was traumatic.

• 2:38:24Eddie Penney?

  It was traumatic. To try to find words to comfort them.

• 2:38:30Eddie Penney?

  And those words, they were hard to come by, if, if any.

• 2:38:37Eddie Penney?

  What do you say by, I know, I know, I'm sorry.

• 2:38:42Eddie Penney?

  He was awesome. What do you, what do you say?

• 2:38:48Eddie Penney?

  And um. And Obama. Came out.

• 2:38:55Eddie Penney?

  And we, and, and I'm not a fan of his policies or anything whatsoever, not a fan of him at all. But I will tell you this.

• 2:39:04Eddie Penney?

  He greeted and shook everyone's hand in that room, and there was a lot of people. He went to every single person.

• 2:39:12Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, I was like, that's cool. I was like, regardless of what BS you're involved with. I was like, that was cool. And when we went to the hangar to offload the C17s with all these caskets, flag draped, he stood at a hand salute, a very crisp one, the whole time. That dude did not move. And we were like going on like three days in a sleep. I mean, we're sitting down because we're like exhausted. Our backs are killing us from the pain of just operating. And that dude did not move. He was just crisp, did not move for 45 minutes, like nothing.

• 2:39:52Eddie Penney?

  The whole time. And as much as I don't agree with his policies and all the corruption I think that he's maybe involved in, I, he earned some respect for me on that day, for that, for showing that right there to the respect for those men. I have to give that to him. I have to. I saw it with my own eyes. So after that,

• 2:40:20Eddie Penney?

  they have to do their autopsies and try to put body parts with whoever, I mean, gosh, however you do that. I mean, there was caskets coming back, which is body parts, like no names, just body parts, legs, hands, heads.

• 2:40:39Eddie Penney?

  Cast like, I think there was like two caskets full of this.

• 2:40:46Eddie Penney?

  So I had time, I went back to Virginia Beach. I got my blues. Stayed one night. I had my girlfriend at the time flew in from Oklahoma, stayed one night, went back up to Dover to catch an angel flight with Jason.

• 2:41:08Eddie Penney?

  And um, so we get on the bird and there's another casket that gets on him, kind of confused. I've never done an angel flight before and it was a uh, an army guy that passed at a different operation and his little escort was on there too. So we fly, we dropped them off, I think it was at St. Louis, they get off and then it was just Jason and I um, went on to landing.

• 2:41:34Eddie Penney?

  And I just remember just like staring at his casket like just

• 2:41:44Eddie Penney?

  attempting to process things and I, and I just couldn't. And uh, when I got to landing, his brothers were there. He's got uh, three brothers and his mom and his dad and they're an amazing family, amazing family and his, his wife and his son Jax, who was the same age as my son Tristan. So that made it worse, seeing that, seeing him. And um, and we had, you know, we had a memorial service out there and we, I was out there with him for two weeks because there's all these memorial services going around because there's so many guys and our command like chartered a huge bus, I think a couple buses and they're just hitting all these spots and we were like two weeks in line and I'm just sitting out there with

• 2:42:28Eddie Penney?

  his brothers and every night, what do you do? You get tore up, drinking, suppressing, stuffing. Cause I know what to do.

• 2:42:42Eddie Penney?

  There's not a, there's not a manual out there that tells you what to do.

• 2:42:48Eddie Penney?

  Because no one knows what you're feeling. No one knows your insides. We can put a scientific name to it, but they don't know, they don't know. And everyone handles things differently and mine was drinking.

• 2:43:02Eddie Penney?

  To the point of passing out every night so I could sleep because I would not sleep if I didn't have something. Or at least that's what I thought. Maybe I just developed a habit. I don't know. But I, I felt like I had to have it.

• 2:43:15Eddie Penney?

  To think about Mike, Nate, Louis,

• 2:43:20Eddie Penney?

  Adam.

• 2:43:22Eddie Penney?

  Two troop on extortion.

• 2:43:27Eddie Penney?

  Josh Harris, Colin Thomas, guys that I did training with. So, I mean, Axelson and buds with him. Like just the, just the numbers of like all these guys I went to training with and now they're all gone. And it's like, I knew before I went that that was gonna be my last deployment.

• 2:43:46Eddie Penney?

  But that was like, I was like, okay, I need to

• 2:43:52Eddie Penney?

  stop the Eddie show and think about your kids. And I did not want to do that. I did not want to get off that train.

• 2:44:02Eddie Penney?

  It's like the train was going on, the operator gets left at the train station. But the identity

• 2:44:10Eddie Penney?

  is gone.

• 2:44:12Eddie Penney?

  So, um, finally had his memorial service out there in Blanding. And, uh, one of the guys at the command, Jason loved Robert O'Keen, you know, if you're familiar. He's an awesome singer. And I didn't even know anything about him until Jason, you know, got me. He'd always come over to my trailer when we were in Baghdad, that second deployment, that was his first. We'd watch movies and, you know, drink and all that stuff. And, uh, he, we don't, we play Robert O'Keen. Someone reached out to Robert, kind of explained the situation. He shows up at the memorial service.

• 2:44:45Eddie Penney?

  Gets up on stage, sings, uh, Coming Home.

• 2:44:52Eddie Penney?

  And finish the song and everyone's in tears.

• 2:44:58Eddie Penney?

  No one clapped. No one did anything.

• 2:45:03Eddie Penney?

  He got his guitar, sat down in the most classy way I've ever seen.

• 2:45:11Eddie Penney?

  Like he um, he just, you know, gave his respect.

• 2:45:17Eddie Penney?

  No questions asked. If I understand that that conversation was like, I'll be there. There was no, oh, are you gonna cover this? It was none of that. It was like, I'm there. Like, that was one of my fans and he did that and he was doing this. I'm there. That is America. Yeah. That is America. That is respect. That is how you earn it by example. And that man is an example. He is a phenomenal, phenomenal man. Never talked to him. I don't need to. I watch, I watch his actions. The way he handled himself.

• 2:45:49Eddie Penney?

  He didn't want to do signatures. He didn't want to do anything. He just walked in with his Johnny Cash all black suit on, played that guitar. Sang a song that Jason was definitely smiling down on. Did what he came to do, left. And then after the memorial service that night, we went to a place called Spirit Cove. Drank, of course, and just talked Jason's stories and had fun. The buses were there from all the,

• 2:46:14Eddie Penney?

  all the people going to all these memorial services. I mean, we're, we're just like, can you imagine this? Like, it's just death. You're just consumed with death. I can't imagine that. You're just, you're consumed. Everyone's like crying. You drink too much. You're crying and you're not drinking. You're crying. But you don't know what to do with yourself. It's like, what do I do with my hands? You know what I mean? So you just don't know. And after that, it was time for him to go back to Arlington. So we go back to Arlington and um, we're, we're there and they've got them all lined up next to each other. All the guys that decided to go to Arlington. And Jason was right next to Milzy, who I was a really good friend with. And uh,

• 2:46:54Eddie Penney?

  Stacy and Jason had this thing for rainbows.

• 2:47:02Eddie Penney?

  And sure enough, she looks back, I'm kind of standing behind him, you know, we got Jax and I got Stacy, family. And I'm kind of behind him. And she looks back to ask a question or something and she just looks at me, she like pauses. She gets like a weird look on her face and she goes.

• 2:47:23Eddie Penney?

  There's a rainbow behind you.

• 2:47:25Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:47:26Eddie Penney?

  I turned around.

• 2:47:30Eddie Penney?

  And it was the

• 2:47:33Eddie Penney?

  brightest,

• 2:47:35Eddie Penney?

  most colorful rainbow I've ever seen.

• 2:47:39Eddie Penney?

  And that rainbow stands for one thing and one thing only. And I'll tell you this much, ain't homosexuality.

• 2:47:46Eddie Penney?

  It's a covenant that God gave. And just seeing that, I was done. I was taken out of the knees, emotions took over that I was stuffing and stuffing and stuffing. And trying to be

• 2:48:04Eddie Penney?

  a pillar of strength for his family. I was just standing behind him, hoping they would not look back at me.

• 2:48:14Eddie Penney?

  Balling.

• 2:48:17Eddie Penney?

  It took me out. It was like,

• 2:48:22Eddie Penney?

  internally took me out. I was done.

• 2:48:27Eddie Penney?

  So that we do the service, you know, do the,

• 2:48:31Eddie Penney?

  put the trident on the coffin. And a couple of extra, I have another trident, I had to do Millsies, put one on him and then put one on Jason.

• 2:48:40Eddie Penney?

  And then went back home. And

• 2:48:46Eddie Penney?

  the kids weren't home yet.

• 2:48:51Eddie Penney?

  And the rest.

• 2:48:55Eddie Penney?

  It started to go downhill.

• 2:48:59Eddie Penney?

  More downhill than before.

• 2:49:05Shawn Ryan?

  Did that rainbow you saw, did you start to believe in Christ more? That was that a sign for you?

• 2:49:14Eddie Penney?

  I didn't think about God then. I didn't think about God then, you know, I chalk it up to what a coincidence, how weird. You know, it's because of the rain and the sun and that's what happens, right? You get a rainbow.

• 2:49:29Eddie Penney?

  I didn't, I didn't put the two together. I didn't give it the time of my thought.

• 2:49:37Eddie Penney?

  I came right after that.

• 2:49:41Eddie Penney?

  I had to leave the command. I was at the breaching cell and I knew I had to do something. I think I was at my, I was like at sixteen and a half years in seventeen years and I'm like, dude, I gotta finish this out. I gotta get my retirement. Like, I'm not gonna stop. But I couldn't operate. So I found out about the coordinator position that they had around the country. Uh, are you familiar with that? I'm not. So you kind of like, you got mentors, like they're usually retired, like SEAL, SWAG, EOD, divers, uh, air rescue guys. And you, I think there's like, there was like twenty eight around the country. And the point of the whole, or the, the program was, is to help train guys up, get them some more awareness about what they're about to go do, because we were losing, the Navy was losing so much money, about guys showing up, the water's cold and they quit.

• 2:50:26Eddie Penney?

  Well, the Navy just paid for you to go out here. Now they gotta pay for you to go somewhere else. So you're like, we'll start these programs. And you kind of like, run them through the wringer, give them workouts a couple of times a week, kind of answer questions. Kind of give them some mindsets, mindset stuff, talk to them about some mental toughness. And I remember my first workout, I had like, there was, I think there was probably like ten of these, like high school, maybe like a college or two kids there. They were like in tears. And every one of them quit.

• 2:50:57Eddie Penney?

  And I was like,

• 2:50:59Eddie Penney?

  am I being too tough? And I, and I'm like, and I didn't know. And, but my job was like, hey, man, like you need to know where you're going. And if you're, you're quitting now, you're for sure gonna quit out there. Like, I'm, I'm saving you. I would like, I'm saving you. But the recruiting command is like, you gotta have this amount of number. You gotta have this many. And I sort of told him, like, that's ridiculous. Like, you cannot force these programs on individuals. They have got to have their heart and soul into it. That's, that's it. It doesn't work any other way. There is no, I think I might try that. It just doesn't work. I mean, you weren't like that. No. I know for a fact you weren't like that. You gotta be all in. You have to be all in. And, uh,

• 2:51:42Eddie Penney?

  and I didn't, you know, it was ridiculous, that whole recruiting piece. Like, you guys are like morons. Uh, to like, if you get, like, you have to, and like, you're just like, making people go like, all right, cool. Like, if you need something, like, we'll give this guy a shot. That's totally gonna wash out. And they do. They wash out in boot camp. And so we did that. So during that time, drinking got horrible because I was away from my guys and I was just on an island. I was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, no friends. Uh, I think she was my fiance at the time, my children. It seemed like the right thing to do moving out there because I could help with my kids and then try to build my business and start a contingent group.

• 2:52:23Eddie Penney?

  I worked on my degree, got my degree in security management, uh, because it was a hundred percent tuition assistant. Like, why not do it? Like, I was just, you know, trying to do anything and everything to like, to try to stay busy. To like, not think about the past that I was not involved with anymore, which, which hurt.

• 2:52:40Shawn Ryan?

  Was it hard for you to leave the command at that point or were you ready?

• 2:52:43Eddie Penney?

  I did not want to leave.

• 2:52:44Shawn Ryan?

  You didn't want to leave?

• 2:52:45Eddie Penney?

  I did not want to leave. I did not want to leave, but I knew it was the time for me to leave.

• 2:52:54Eddie Penney?

  And looking at my kids and thinking about them over me, which was hard to do, to be honest. It was, it was the right thing to do. I wasn't going to try to do more deployments. Pawn them off on this, try to figure out a sitter for this trip or the, I just like, they needed a dad. And, uh,

• 2:53:17Eddie Penney?

  I tried to step up to that and I, and I, um, messed up a lot of things as a father. I didn't know what to do. I, I just didn't know what to do. I remember the kids would come home and I didn't know what to do with them. Like, what do you do with these kids? Like, you're not going to work on my gear with me. Like, what do we do? You know, and then you just kind of, and then I like dug back to my childhood. Like, what did I like to do? Let's go play wolf a ball in the back. Let's go play tag. Dark hide and seek, um, and just like started to make sense slowly. And then my, uh, girlfriend at the time, she was a Christian, go to church all the time, would talk about God. And I would just kind of like, you know, go back to my childhood.

• 2:53:56Eddie Penney?

  When I would, we had a long distance relationship. She was in Tulsa, when I was in Virginia Beach. And when I would go out there, but you know, sometimes I'd stay as long as I could. So she'd go to church Sunday morning. I'd have her drop me off at a bar. So I could drink and watch the Cincinnati Bengals play football.

• 2:54:14Shawn Ryan?

  While she went to church?

• 2:54:15Eddie Penney?

  I wouldn't go to church with her. I didn't want to go to church with her. I did not want to go in there. I knew the things I would hear were gonna strike me like a lightning bolt. And I didn't want to deal with it.

• 2:54:31Eddie Penney?

  I, I, I, I started to feel it, kind of like, no. And, and I did that for quite a few times. I was like, drop me off. I'm not going with you. And I, I kind of told her, like, here's why. Like, she's like, that's not like that. It's, I'm like, you don't know. You don't know. I do. You don't know. I do.

• 2:54:51Eddie Penney?

  And, uh, it kind of came to a head. Once I moved out, you know, I was doing the coordinator position, starting contingent group.

• 2:55:00Eddie Penney?

  It came to a head. We went out to, uh, we left Tulsa, went to Oklahoma City for her work. Her brother, who was her boss, had a, um, like a work party. Had like a party bus. Meet at this bar at five. We're gonna go all night, have a good time. Right up my alley. So five o'clock comes, Captain and Coke. And somewhere around nine-ish, ten-ish. I guess I'm blacked out. I had one of her coworkers giving me lap dance right there in the bar, in front of her. All her colleagues.

• 2:55:39Eddie Penney?

  And she pulls me outside, and I think she pulls me outside. And, uh, she's like, you're hammered. Like, you are a mess. And I straight up said, word for word, I will cut your fucking face off.

• 2:55:58Eddie Penney?

  Classy, right?

• 2:55:59Shawn Ryan?

  You said that to her?

• 2:56:00Eddie Penney?

  I said that to her. With her brother slash boss right there. I didn't care. I didn't care.

• 2:56:09Eddie Penney?

  And of course, literally, I didn't mean that. But in my brain, that's exactly what I was doing.

• 2:56:18Eddie Penney?

  Brighten, I looked, as I looked into her eyes, that's exactly what I was picturing. And, um,

• 2:56:25Eddie Penney?

  that's one thing crazy about.

• 2:56:31Eddie Penney?

  Killing, I guess, is when you, you know, when you're engaging and some of those engagements are

• 2:56:40Eddie Penney?

  close, real close, not sniper shots at a thousand yards, but like, come here dude. And you're holding dead bodies as they fade and you see those eyes looking at your eyes. You see the whites of their eyes and uh, you just watch the life drain from their bodies.

• 2:57:03Eddie Penney?

  And you love it.

• 2:57:07Eddie Penney?

  Picturing that was not a problem. Picturing that was a joy. And I would never do that to her, but in that moment, hammered, I was doing it in my brain. And uh, the next, the next day.

• 2:57:24Eddie Penney?

  I end up at my house, uh, cause we were living in two different houses. I woke up by myself in my clothes with shoes on, on the couch. And knew this was not good. And knew this was not good. And she came over. And she goes, do you remember last night? And I go, absolutely not. And she tells me the story I just told you. And uh, we were engaged at that time. She took her ring off. Threw it at me. And she said, I want this in my life or in my family's, cause she had, she had two kids as well.

• 2:57:59Eddie Penney?

  And I couldn't say anything. She was right.

• 2:58:03Eddie Penney?

  I had some things I needed to work out. So.

• 2:58:10Eddie Penney?

  It's probably a good time for a break. Let's take a break.

• 2:58:18Shawn Ryan?

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

• 2:59:01Shawn Ryan?

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

• 2:59:43Shawn Ryan?

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

• 3:00:15Shawn Ryan?

  Alright Eddie, we're back from the break. This has been a very heavy interview.

• 3:00:21Eddie Penney?

  It's been tough.

• 3:00:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I know. I know. This is gonna help a lot of people.

• 3:00:26Eddie Penney?

  I hope so.

• 3:00:27Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, let's get, we talked about, you know, you left Dev Group.

• 3:00:33Shawn Ryan?

  You're at home, you broke up with the ex fiance or she broke up with you. What's going on with the kids at home?

• 3:00:41Eddie Penney?

  Uh, just, you know, trying to do dad life, whatever, whatever the heck that is. Trying to figure it out and I mean, this is, this took years of struggling and still drinking. Uh, I quit drinking. After that night when I told her I was gonna cut her face off, um. I quit drinking for.

• 3:01:08Eddie Penney?

  Almost a year, I think. I quit drinking and, and the reason why I quit drinking is she had me or she gave me an ultimatum to go to this certain conference. But we'll get to that in a second, but, uh, I mean, kids are at school doing their thing.

• 3:01:27Eddie Penney?

  I would do, you know, during the day I would do contingent group work or schooling or go, you know, train these kids to go to, uh, one of the special programs in the Navy and, uh, then they come home and, you know, try to figure out how to entertain these kids, make what's for dinner, all that stuff. Just all the, the mundane stuff of life, um.

• 3:01:50Shawn Ryan?

  Before you quit drinking, would you try to hide your drinking from your children?

• 3:01:55Eddie Penney?

  I would do, I think I would put it sometimes in a different cup, like just like a normal cup that I'd be using, but usually no, I didn't. And I usually did not, I would have like a glass, like with dinner or something, but usually that stuff would start when they were in bed. I would bust open the wine, usually the wine and down a bottle, sometimes two and then go to sleep. But I usually, I mean, there was times where I was like, I don't care. Like I need it. I need it, right?

• 3:02:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:02:29Eddie Penney?

  Um, so, but most of it took place when they were asleep.

• 3:02:33Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of pills were you on?

• 3:02:36Eddie Penney?

  Uh, I had to get a lot of surgeries after I left um Deva Group. So I had to get my knee done, my foot, some hernias, both shoulders, had to get some anchors put in. Um, so they'd give you, you know, oxycodone, whatever that you wanna call it. And I fell in love with that stuff, dude. I was like so happy, it was like my happy pills. And I would take those, try to get more if I could and uh, I would take it all, all the time. Until like, until the prescriptions ran out, I would just keep doing that, but that was really the only pills I would like. Like, I think I need surgery on this, like, this is bad and come to find out it is bad.

• 3:03:16Eddie Penney?

  Um, just to get some more of those pills, uh, but mostly I would do like nighttime mucinex.

• 3:03:22Shawn Ryan?

  You, you were getting, you were doing surgery just to get the pills?

• 3:03:28Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, there was like, there'd be time like I could deal with the pain, it really went bad, like maybe I'll deal with it later, but at the same time, I'm like, oh, let's just do it now. Like, I love surgery. I love being put under. Just escapes reality. And the pills, those pills are nice.

• 3:03:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:45Eddie Penney?

  But then they would always run out and um, I would do um, a lot of nighttime mucinex. Cause I learned that they would give me extremely vivid dreams. So I would do, you know, one, then I would have my dreams, next night do one, you know, one teaspoon or one little capful. And then when I wouldn't have my dreams, I'd up into two and I would do two. And then when I wouldn't have my dreams, I would up to three. And then so on and so forth. And then I was like, okay, I stopped this. But my dreams, every single night, I was killing people in my dreams.

• 3:04:23Eddie Penney?

  Buddies would die, um, I was killing bad guys and I was like, my war, my battle was like in my dreams. Just over and over again. It was always in the back of a heli- helicopter. And there's just big bodies and just like see the guys coming at me and I was just like, like a video game, taking them out. Sometimes my gun would stop working and they were like advancing and then I'd wake up.

• 3:04:47Eddie Penney?

  Uh.

• 3:04:48Shawn Ryan?

  You enjoyed those dreams.

• 3:04:52Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, I did. That was back in the fight.

• 3:04:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:04:57Eddie Penney?

  Is pathetic as it sounds to say right now, I was in the fight in my head. And, um, yeah.

• 3:05:06Shawn Ryan?

  How long did that go on for?

• 3:05:09Eddie Penney?

  Uh, quite a while, um. The drinking mixed with that stuff wasn't a great thing. And I don't know exactly when I quit drinking. Uh, I think it was after, but when after the cutting of the face thing happened.

• 3:05:28Eddie Penney?

  I pretty much had the ultimatum, eight ultimatum by my, uh, girlfriend at the time now, cause she threw me the, threw the ring back at me is she wanted me to go to this like Christian camp. Uh, which I didn't know was a Christian camp, really. I mean, I kind of knew, but it just sounded like the way it was sold to me or told to me was hey, it's a bunch of dudes, you do a bunch of shooting, uh, a bunch of food. Talk about some stuff like it's like a men's retreat. And I had no friends. So I was like, I mean, and it was kind of like, hey, you do this or else like this, there's no hope for us. I was like, all right, I'll, I'll do that. And cause I'm like, I'm in the middle of Tulsa by myself. I have her kind of. And, um, I was like, I'll go, but I didn't know. So this, this whole thing was called, it's based

• 3:06:11Eddie Penney?

  off of John Eldredge. I don't know. He's got a book called Wild at Heart. For the audience, if you have not read this book, you, and you're a man or, or even have a man in your life, highly recommend it. Um, it's a great book for men. Uh, and it kind of like, kind of tells us what we're supposed to be like, we're supposed to be the hero in the story and it gives us great thing. And, you know, I'm hearing all this crap for the first time, like what, what the heck is going on right here? Um, but, but I go to this camp, dude. Um, like I'm looking for alcohol, like surely there's like some wine or beer, like looking for coolers, open the coolers, fricking sodas, water.

• 3:06:51Eddie Penney?

  Like what? So like already, I'm like, this sucks. So I'm sitting down, you get like your little launchers, like in this open like conference area. You put your little chairs down and you got a big screen and they kind of go into it. So it's um, it's like three days. Uh, get there on a Thursday and you're done by like Sunday afternoon. And the first thing it kind of like, it goes into like, uh, father wounds. How we're the hero. You know, we're built as men to rescue the princess. Like it's in our DNA. And he kind of, John Eldredge is like on this, on the screen saying this, it was, it was gone through, done through another satellite like church out of Oklahoma City, but it was via, you know, Colorado where John Eldredge was.

• 3:07:34Eddie Penney?

  And I'm like, this is, this is so dumb. I'm like, what am I doing here? Like this is ridiculous. And um, he said something that really kind of like, it really got me, kind of hit home a little bit. And he, and I'm a big movie buff. You know, like when we go to deployment, we're watching nothing but movies, movies, series, movies, movies, like we, we've got to memorize, like we're, we're, we're the douchebags with the quotes. Right? What movie is this from? Like we, that's just what we do. I still talk in quotes. It's ridiculous. And uh, my wife looks at me like I'm a moron and she's right. But uh, but he said, if you, if he's like, if you think about movies, he's like, it's built in our DNA. Movies have three things, three elements that is in every movie.

• 3:08:16Eddie Penney?

  There's a hero, there's a villain and there's a love story.

• 3:08:22Eddie Penney?

  And right now, people as they are listening, like trying to think of movies and I can't, you can't think of any. Finding Nemo all the way to 300. There is those three components in there.

• 3:08:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:33Eddie Penney?

  There is the hero, there is the villain and there is a love story. And he takes that and he says, that's exactly what the word of God, the Bible is. There's Jesus, there's Satan, and it's God's grace that we're going for. It's that love, it's that heart. He wants to love us. He wants to be loved back.

• 3:08:55Eddie Penney?

  And he said that and I'm like, and I was really more hung up on the movie thing. I'm like, that is so true. And he's like, the Bible's all around you. We just don't realize it like it's in every single movie. It's the same thing, different characters. And I was, and so they they use, because they're trying to hit home to men to like stand up to be more manly and to like stand up for the right and lead your family, which we have a hard time in this fricking, in this country, probably across the globe. And looking at me with my children, he was right. I wasn't a leader. I was a, I was a failure. I was not doing the right things. I mean, was it right to stand up to take care of those kids? Yeah, but I wasn't the one I was supposed to do.

• 3:09:35Eddie Penney?

  I wasn't leading by example. I was leading by talk, which is BS. And um, so he teaches that and he shows movies like Braveheart, William Wallace. He had a villain, like the English, right? He was the hero. Save the Scots. And it was a love story. In that movie, love for the country, love for the woman, the patriot, Last of the Mohicans, all the Gladiator. We can see it in everything. And I was like, okay, I'm here. This is actually kind of cool. What's, what's this? I'm gonna give it a hundred percent. So we kind of go into this stuff and um, they, they have classes throughout the day. And I just noticed as these classes go on,

• 3:10:20Eddie Penney?

  there's probably like, I'd say about a hundred people from the age of like 16 to like 70, like just men, boys, whatever you want to call them. And I just start noticing every class, like dudes are getting picked off, like they just start crying. And I'm like, I'm like, get it together, bro. Like there's other dudes around, like suck it up, right? It's how you were taught. Um, that's how I was taught. Like suck it up. What are you doing? And uh, I didn't get it. I didn't understand it. And um, I didn't like shame on you. It was more like, what's, it was more, what, what, what's, what's happening? But I don't have what that is. What is that?

• 3:11:01Eddie Penney?

  And so at the end of, I remember our end of our first course, it was the first, the first class or the second class, they're like, all right, we, they give you some questions to like, think about, you kind of ask yourself like, hey, please take your notebook and your pen, and this, uh, this, these questions and just go find a place outside and you know, go pray and write down these answers. And I heard the word pray. And, and remember, if we go back to childhood, like this stuff is kind of like coming out.

• 3:11:26Eddie Penney?

  It gets me every time I talk about it. Um, and I was like, man, like, you, you, you,

• 3:11:35Eddie Penney?

  you pose. And I'm talking to myself here, you pose and act like you're a man. You can go overseas and face evil and take it to them. You can take a blade and stick it in some flesh, but you're gonna have a hard time to go outside by yourself and pray? And I had that conversation with myself. And I was like, self, you're right. So I went out there, I found a little like, uh, outcropping of some rocks and like the sun just wasn't up. It was like early, we got up like at six, six thirty, whatever. And I sat down.

• 3:12:50Eddie Penney?

  I said my first words to God.

• 3:12:54Shawn Ryan?

  Ever?

• 3:12:56Eddie Penney?

  I mean, minus the, please don't let me die on this op tonight as we fly in, or I'm getting shot at as I'm trying to be as low as possible as bullets skip over my head. Yeah. Ever. I wouldn't call that, hey, God, that's

• 3:13:11Shawn Ryan?

  Without fear.

• 3:13:12Eddie Penney?

  I need a handout.

• 3:13:13Shawn Ryan?

  You're talking to him.

• 3:13:14Eddie Penney?

  I was talking to him like he's my father.

• 3:13:22Eddie Penney?

  This gets me, man.

• 3:13:25Eddie Penney?

  This gets me.

• 3:13:28Eddie Penney?

  And I just started talking. I was like, I don't know you.

• 3:13:34Eddie Penney?

  I was like, you know my past. You know how you scare me.

• 3:13:40Eddie Penney?

  And soon I'm saying whatever the heck I'm saying, not even know what I'm saying. And it didn't matter. It didn't matter what I was saying.

• 3:13:47Eddie Penney?

  The sun breaks the top of the trees in this warm, because it was chilly. This warm sunbeam just nails my face and just warms my whole body. It just warmed like right when I started talking to him, like maybe a couple of sentences in.

• 3:14:06Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, oh, my God, it's like, that guy got zapped through my whole body. And, um,

• 3:14:16Eddie Penney?

  I chalked it up to as a coincidence. Of course, I mean, it's at the right time, at the right angle, sun, you know, comes up in the east. That's in the west. I mean, just that's just happened to be here. And that was it. That's all. That's all it was. And I, and I say all this in hindsight, knowing now everything. And I go back in, I do my thing, I write it down. And but something stirring inside me. And I was curious. I was, I was curious to see what these guys are crying about. I was like, thinking about all my past.

• 3:14:50Eddie Penney?

  I would always think about why I took my hand off Louis and, and went around that corner.

• 3:14:59Eddie Penney?

  I wanted answers. I needed answers.

• 3:15:04Eddie Penney?

  And I wasn't going to find answers from any human on this earth. I know that. And, um,

• 3:15:10Eddie Penney?

  Started going through more courses, more classes, more going outside praying, trying to get better at it. But you know, I think, I know for me personally, we always think that there's like, oh, you gotta do it this way. This is the wrong way. That's not it at all. Just like talk, just talk. God knows your heart, man. And once I learned that, it's like, it just came, it just flowed. And but I thought there was like, oh, step one. Okay, step two, now that you're clear, step three. And that's a bunch of BS. And I started just seeing guys throughout the the weekend get taken out and taken out and taken out. And then guys like, may I pray for you? And I like, I didn't tell anybody this, but in my head, I was like, I really want someone to put their hands on me and pray for me. Like, I want someone to pray for me. I don't.

• 3:15:59Eddie Penney?

  This weekend changed my life.

• 3:16:05Eddie Penney?

  I don't know why I wanted someone to pray for me.

• 3:16:08Eddie Penney?

  All that crap.

• 3:16:10Eddie Penney?

  Never thought I could be forgiven, you know, forgive of your sins. I'm like, man, I've killed more people. I've done things that most people don't even dream of, think of, can't even concoct in their brain. I've done it.

• 3:16:24Eddie Penney?

  From booze to women to pills to killing. Gun, knives, grenades, explosives, nothing, anything and everything, all of it. Like, there's no way, there's no way you can forgive me. And I wanted someone to pray for me.

• 3:16:47Eddie Penney?

  And the last night of this thing, nothing's happening to me, really. I mean, a little bit of something, but nothing monumental. At the end of the, at the end of the, they have the bonfire and like they give you this like little post-it note. Like, hey, the things that you want to get rid of, write down what you want to get rid of. And I was like, this post-it ain't gonna do it. I need like a legal pad with like 100 pages. So I like, I'd like, give me some more of those post-its. So I'm putting down, I wanted my drinking to go away. I wanted my anger to go away. I want a direction on how to be a good father.

• 3:17:28Eddie Penney?

  I didn't want to be a slave to watching porn on the frickin internet.

• 3:17:33Eddie Penney?

  I wanted to be there for my family. I didn't want to be absent. I wanted peace in my brain from

• 3:17:41Eddie Penney?

  the stuff that we went through overseas.

• 3:17:45Eddie Penney?

  I wanted clarity on my future.

• 3:17:49Eddie Penney?

  I just want to be a better man.

• 3:17:52Eddie Penney?

  I'd be happy with that. And, uh, you know, you get around this, you get a bunch of these dudes are on the fire and you got your little piece of paper. And everyone goes around, which I didn't know. And you, you say what you want to get rid of. You don't have to, but, uh, you know, about halfway through, I, I got up and, you know, I said my thing and I, I got choked up.

• 3:18:15Eddie Penney?

  I got really choked up and I threw it in the fire.

• 3:18:19Eddie Penney?

  And it felt good. It felt good. And, um, I'm like, you know, it's still in my head. I'm just like, this is stupid. It's a piece of paper, blah, blah, blah. Nothing's going to change. Questioning everything, testing everything, not believing anything. Uh, but there was still just something tugging on my heart. There was just something very small, just tugging on me. Enough to keep me engaged. And, uh, I was walking away from the fire when they like everyone went. And I was like, all right, I'm gonna get out of here. Like I just like want to be alone and just go do something, go to bed, whatever. I had no mucinex, had no alcohol. Like, how do I do this?

• 3:18:58Eddie Penney?

  Um, and this guy comes up to me, young guy. I was probably, I think I was 32 when this all happened. He was 26, Kyle Thompson. He actually has a podcast, Undaunted.

• 3:19:12Eddie Penney?

  And he, he came up to me. He's like, hey dude, that was really cool. What you said. I was like, thanks dude. And he's like, do you mind if I pray for you?

• 3:19:30Eddie Penney?

  This dude came up to me. I was probably 230. Tattoos. I was a big boy. Um, he was not. He was younger. And he had

• 3:19:49Eddie Penney?

  the balls to come up and do that. And that right there is obedience. I've seen many a man that you can, you can just see him like they're intimidated just to have a conversation with one, from one human to another. I'm not just saying me, but with many people, just because of, uh, oh, he was in this movie or he's a UFC fighter, whatever it is, you're still human. I don't care. It doesn't matter. But he did not. He came up and he did that. And soon as he put his hand on me and started praying, I lost it. I

• 3:20:23Eddie Penney?

  it was starting to make sense.

• 3:20:26Eddie Penney?

  It was all making sense to me.

• 3:20:29Eddie Penney?

  And, uh, so I talked to him for about an hour, two hours at the end of that night with the bed. And the next day was Sunday and we had like a, um, they played worship music, but not like, like, kind of like rock, you know?

• 3:20:48Eddie Penney?

  And they played it every day and it's been like, okay, can we please turn this crap off so we can like get on with this? So I can get the heck out of here. For some reason, man, I'll never forget the song. I had to look it up. It was, uh, by Matt, Matt Redmond, 10,000 Reasons. Uh, it was playing and the beat of that song and the words of that song rocked my body. It was different. Something changed.

• 3:21:17Eddie Penney?

  Something changed.

• 3:21:20Eddie Penney?

  Internally.

• 3:21:24Eddie Penney?

  I would say I don't know how, but I do know how. It just changed. And I felt different. And I started to smile.

• 3:21:39Eddie Penney?

  You know, when you're a kid, you do something you're not supposed to do.

• 3:21:45Eddie Penney?

  And you're down on yourself and your mom or dad or a family member, or maybe even a close friend comes up to you.

• 3:21:52Eddie Penney?

  And embraces you or just kind of pat you on the head and say, hey, man, it's okay. It's all right. We all make mistakes.

• 3:22:01Eddie Penney?

  That's what God did to me.

• 3:22:04Eddie Penney?

  Right?

• 3:22:07Eddie Penney?

  Right then and there, that's what he did to me. I could feel it.

• 3:22:13Eddie Penney?

  And still being the hard headed SOB I am.

• 3:22:19Eddie Penney?

  Like, it's probably another coincidence. Maybe it just, I really liked the song. It's like, dude, when do you get it?

• 3:22:28Eddie Penney?

  So I'm just like jamming out to the music and like, it's just like, it feels good. Like, so I'm like, dude, I'm like, I'm like, this is, I'm like, put my arm up. I'm like, man, this is just insane. And I was moved, like, I was moved internally, like, I was, I felt different.

• 3:22:47Eddie Penney?

  And so at the end, they kind of like thanked some of the presenters, some of the guys that give some of their speakers, some of the guys that share their testimony, because some of the testimonies, man, they're like, hey, dude, I cheated on my wife. I did this. And they're, they open up. They're very real. And I like, I really, I appreciate that. And I think that like, that conference kind of made me who I am now, where I'm not afraid to

• 3:23:10Eddie Penney?

  be real. And I will be transparent because all of us go through something, some degree. It might, it might not look the same. It's a different flavor for all of us. But we're going through some stuff. We're all going through some stuff, some way, shape or form. Relationship, work.

• 3:23:26Eddie Penney?

  Health wise, we're all, we're all going through some stuff. But they did that, but they were saying, thank you. And then one of the things is like, they, they said, we wanted to recognize the guy that we think did the most change. And I was like, well, that's not gonna be me, because I haven't really talked to anybody and all that stuff. So I'm like, just waiting to listen. And they're like, Eddie Penny. They call my name. And I'm like, wondering if I'm that guy. So I go up on stage and they're like, hey, we can tell a change in you.

• 3:23:59Eddie Penney?

  Wow.

• 3:24:03Eddie Penney?

  I always, I always explain stuff like this, man. We don't really know what's going on. Like, if you can imagine two boxers in the ring fighting each other, they're looking head on, you know, chest to chest. I have, this is my vantage point, right? The coach and the fans, they can see, looking in, right? They can see, they have a bigger picture. I just have this.

• 3:24:25Eddie Penney?

  And that's kind of what happened at that conference is, um,

• 3:24:30Eddie Penney?

  I guess they saw something that I didn't think I was doing or feeling or acting. And they gave me this pen. It was made out of a,

• 3:24:40Eddie Penney?

  an olive tree from, from Israel. And it had like a cross on it. And I still, I carry that pen with me everywhere.

• 3:24:49Eddie Penney?

  And it, and I started crying right there on stage in front of all these men. And I didn't care. I didn't care.

• 3:25:01Eddie Penney?

  I was about 80% sure that I found God. I'm like, okay, wow. Like, so this is real. This isn't, this is real. And I think back to things like Adam said and other guys that I deployed with. And I'm like, starting to think, I start to see it. I start to see these deployments. I start to see certain things, why this happened versus this. I start to see my life experiences, why? I'm getting the why answered.

• 3:25:29Eddie Penney?

  Get in the car, drive back to, uh, I got, was getting a ride,

• 3:25:36Eddie Penney?

  from my girlfriend's brother, same one, that took me, uh, he took me back to Oklahoma City to get my truck. And I drove from Oklahoma City back to Tulsa. And I called my girlfriend at the time, slash fiance, maybe depending on the day. And, uh, I called her and I tried to explain the weekend. And I couldn't talk.

• 3:26:04Eddie Penney?

  I just start crying. I cry fifteen, twenty minutes. I haven't cried like this. I mean, I stuffed it for decades.

• 3:26:15Eddie Penney?

  I thought I was good. I'd call back.

• 3:26:18Eddie Penney?

  I say a couple of words, then start crying again. I'd like, I have to call you back. I couldn't even, couldn't even get, couldn't even muster the words. And I tried this throughout and then finally I'm like, hey, I'll just talk to you when I get home. Like, I just got that out real quick and I hung up the phone because I was gonna, and I started crying again. I cried pretty much the whole drive home. I, I like, I just

• 3:26:36Eddie Penney?

  didn't understand. But in that moment, I felt so loved. Like, I just felt so loved.

• 3:26:45Eddie Penney?

  And I'm like, all those things that I'd hear, or I call you a crazy Christian, or you Bible thumper, or all these things.

• 3:26:53Eddie Penney?

  It was making sense. It was just making sense to me. It was just, I could feel it inside. And, um, and so I get back, I tell her about the whole weekend and supposedly she went up to St. Louis with her friend and she had no intention of coming back. I guess when she was out there, she went out to a bar and she was sitting on some couches and, um, a fight broke out. And some dude got pushed into her, knocked her off her, like, off of her couch, like, knocked over the couch. And I guess she got some kind of something. And it's like, I shouldn't be here. And her and her friend, like, drove back that night. And, uh, she's like, she told me that. She's like, I had no intentions

• 3:27:34Eddie Penney?

  of continuing this relationship after this weekend. She's like, I wanted you to go just to help you. And so we

• 3:27:42Eddie Penney?

  worked and I think that's when I decided to quit drinking. I quit for a while.

• 3:27:50Eddie Penney?

  But it wasn't, I think it was maybe two or three days later. I'm in my car, driving from a workout or something. And, uh, I pull up to this red light, just turns red. There's like this car wash over to the side and they have one of those like blinking sign, like the red where like it flashes, like, save ten percent or, you know, buy a car wash and come back in a week for a free one.

• 3:28:12Eddie Penney?

  And I'm, I'm sitting in my car and I'm like, show me, I, I'm like, I just got, I just straight up saying, like, show me, show me I'm saved. Show me I'm saved. And I was getting, I was getting aggressive. I was like, show me I'm saved. Like, I don't believe this crap. I'm like, almost testing him. And even though this happened, this happened, like that's, that can be explained, this can be explained, this can be explained. Like, show me, show me I'm saved. Cause I'm like, I've done this, I'm crying at this red light and I'm talking. If anybody's, you know, parked next to me at this red light, they're gonna be like, this guy's loony. Probably should call the cops before he kills, kills us or himself. And I look over to the sign and all I see is one word.

• 3:28:55Eddie Penney?

  Saved. S A V E D. That's it. One word.

• 3:29:03Eddie Penney?

  It wasn't save 10%.

• 3:29:06Eddie Penney?

  It wasn't pulling now to save $2. It just said saved.

• 3:29:12Shawn Ryan?

  That's incredible.

• 3:29:13Eddie Penney?

  I saw that.

• 3:29:16Eddie Penney?

  And I'm like, I'm yours. I'm like, sold.

• 3:29:21Eddie Penney?

  I'm like, sold.

• 3:29:23Eddie Penney?

  So, um, at the end of that conference, they tell you, um, I like to go all in on everything. Like I want to be a SEAL, I would read everything, listen to everything, watch everything to try to be the best. And they would give us some books out and they'd be like, hey, you should probably start off with this book, you know, it teaches you about prayer. And I was like, okay, if you say that's what I should start out with, I'll go buy that book. And they're like, oh, this is another one, but it's a little more, it talks about spiritual warfare. And so I heard, I heard the word warfare. I'm like, what? I'm like, what'd you say? I'm like, that sounds like something I would like. And not knowing or not believing or just not even taking the time to have thoughts about that, about the evil and, um, all that stuff. But, um, I started with this prayer, prayer life book and I was like, this is like boring, this is like trash.

• 3:30:08Eddie Penney?

  Like, no wonder why people don't want to be Christians. This is weak.

• 3:30:12Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, what's this spiritual book? And I looked at my notes, I found it and I, I ordered it.

• 3:30:18Eddie Penney?

  And I started reading it and I was like, there's, there's a whole other world. There, there, the evil isn't the evil over there. I mean, it is, but there's evil all around us. And like, just like those, like if you have, you got to question yourself, like, why, why am I having this not good thought right now? Was it provoked by something? A lot of the times it's not. Like, why all of a sudden do I want to cheat on my wife? Why did the sudden I want to leave my wife? Why are my kids, why do I want to give them up for adoption? Like, if we're honest with ourself, we have maybe not those exact thoughts, but thoughts like that. Like that guy that just cut me off, I'm going to get out and rip off his fricking head.

• 3:30:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:30:56Eddie Penney?

  Why do we have those thoughts? And if you a believer and you believe in that spiritual warfare that you got the good and evil, then there is this unseen world that you know, you got certain forces that will put these evil thoughts in your mind. Um, and you really sit down and think about it, in my opinion, it's very real. And I look back, um,

• 3:31:19Eddie Penney?

  I'll, I'll, I'll go, go this way. I did not, it was not easy. I still went back to drinking. I separated from my, when we, we ended up getting married. I separated from my wife and started sleeping with everybody I could. And I would call, I would call myself a Christian. Because I believe in Christ and all that stuff. But I was still doing not the right things. Which is where, to be honest with you, most Christians live in that world. And I was that guy. I was that guy.

• 3:31:56Eddie Penney?

  Uh, thinking I'll be saved. Um, you know, I was, I was more of the, the talker, not the walker. You know, I wasn't walking in obedience, the way I should be. And, um,

• 3:32:07Eddie Penney?

  it's kind of funny like talking about this, if I was like me, 15, 20 years ago, I'd be like, okay, so my, that future me is a fricking nut job. I'd be like, yeah, you're, you're, you're crazy. Um, but, um,

• 3:32:22Eddie Penney?

  I wasn't walking in it at all. And I was drinking and my relationship was falling apart and I was doing the wrong stuff. And then one day my kids were at school after I like moved like, we moved in, we ended up getting married, we moved into a house like,

• 3:32:38Eddie Penney?

  eight months later, I moved out of the house. Oh, man. Got my own fricking house. I was just, I was a fricking wreck dude. I shouldn't have been in a relationship. I couldn't even, I couldn't control this. Even after coming, you know, people think like, oh, you, you should be fine. You're a Christian. Dude, there's a war going on. You still gotta fight daily. It's not easy. It's not easy. It talks about it in the Bible all the time. Like you gotta fight. Like you're, there's a fight and that's where a lot of men are failing. They just, they're a pushover. And I was being a pushover. I was getting trampled on by evil. I mean, that's all you, I mean, that's the great word for it. And I found myself in my bedroom when the kids are at school.

• 3:33:20Eddie Penney?

  And I'm just sitting on my bed and there's a nightstand, my nightstand is right here in my, my good old Sig 228. Is sitting right there. And I just look over and I hear a voice. Yeah, this is a way. I've never thought about suicide in my life. That's what I'm saying. Why do those evil things pop in your brain? Because there's a different side. There is stuff going on around us that you just gotta, and people call me crazy. I don't, I don't care. Um, based off of my experiences. Uh, I picked up that gun and I remember holding it right here. I just like was thumbing it.

• 3:33:54Eddie Penney?

  Touching it, feeling the cold steel.

• 3:33:58Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, yeah. It's that time. Enough is enough. I'm done hurting. And, um.

• 3:34:10Eddie Penney?

  I had like this view.

• 3:34:13Eddie Penney?

  Of like a bird's eye view, looking down at my room and seeing my lifeless body with my brain splattered. Big old pool of blood. Very detailed, very detailed. Being, seeing all the body parts and. Mutilations and.

• 3:34:30Eddie Penney?

  Disaster I saw. It was easy to, to visualize, right? And I pictured my kids coming into my room after school with their backpacks on. Seeing my lifeless body.

• 3:34:46Eddie Penney?

  And what that would have done to him.

• 3:34:51Eddie Penney?

  And I, I put the gun down. And I stood up in a fricking rage. And I was like, what the fuck am I doing? And I'm like, my God, my God. And I, and I start cursing him. I'm like, you say you're the savior and all this stuff. And I was mad, man. I was like, how could you let me? How could you let me do this? You're supposed to be healing me. And I blamed him, which was wrong. And I got out of my house and I went to the gym, my, my therapy. And, uh. That was my, that was. The one time where. It was about that time to clock out. And, um.

• 3:35:39Eddie Penney?

  Something was wrong, man. I couldn't figure it out. I was going back to sleep issues. I'd be up for two days straight. Sleep for a couple of days, be able to sleep for a couple of nights. Up for a couple more nights. I couldn't figure it out. I'm like, what is wrong with me? And then a buddy reached out, um, Ken. And he's like, hey, there's this brain center down in Dallas, uh, called Cerebrum.

• 3:36:09Eddie Penney?

  And he told me about it like a year ago and I was like, yeah, I'm good, dude. And, um,

• 3:36:15Eddie Penney?

  and I'm like, maybe that's what I need to do. Cause when I, when I failed to mention earlier, when I was doing the RSOing, uh, when I was a breacher cell, I would, you know, watch other, like we'd have SWAT teams come in and or other units do their breaching stuff and I would just make sure they're doing it, you know, safely. And they would use, uh, just like deck cord, like not a big explosive, right? Not like a C, like, uh, C six strip or something like that. Just like a basic, like, let's get the effect of like this, of get a, of the explosive. And these, in the, in the overpressure from these weak charges would go off. And my head would be pounding. Pounding.

• 3:36:57Eddie Penney?

  Compared to the charges I was doing overseas. I mean, you know, I had part, I mean, times where I thought my, my, my pants were ripped off by being so close to a fricking charge. And I'm like, just having your bell rung. You're just like, but I fed off of it. Like I told you, like the pain, the, the, the pain for some reason. Feeling that amped me up before I, it was like the, a fighter walking out to the ring and they got their music playing. That explosion and that blast, feeling that overpressure on my body was my song. As I walked into the arena, which is some bad guy's house. That was it. And, uh, but towards the end, it started hurting. I like, I had to, I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can do it from way back here, but it was so bad. Every explosion. I was like, oh,

• 3:37:40Eddie Penney?

  it was like, almost took me to the ground a couple of times. It was so bad.

• 3:37:43Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 3:37:44Eddie Penney?

  So I, I thought about that, um, when he, when he recommended it a second time to go down there. Cause he asked how I was doing. I was like, dude, I'm struggling, man. Uh, my workouts were struggling. I wasn't eating as much as I should. And if I was, I was eating crap.

• 3:37:59Eddie Penney?

  I was angry with my kids. I couldn't take, I would start yelling at people at the gym for not putting their weights back. I mean, I was, that was a jerk. That was a punk. I was a, I was a 100% tier one douchebag.

• 3:38:15Eddie Penney?

  So I went down there and they did all their stuff on me. Did all their crap and definitely had some, some spots in the brain. And they did a bunch of like, to therapy to kind of get it back and. I got back after a two week trip down there and.

• 3:38:35Eddie Penney?

  I sat down to work the first day I was back and for the first time. I sat at my computer for like six hours and like was just knocking out work. I was starting to get my seven to nine hours of sleep at night. It wa- it was like someone pushed the reset button on my body.

• 3:38:55Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 3:38:55Eddie Penney?

  And it was just, uh, it, it helped a lot. It helped a lot, dude. Uh, so the brain. The brain definitely had some stuff going on. That I was oblivious to. I didn't realize how angry I was. I didn't realize the effect that all the drinking did. You know, I was, I was so busy. Trying to stuff my pain and think about my pain. I didn't realize the pain that I was causing my family.

• 3:39:22Eddie Penney?

  Extremely selfish.

• 3:39:25Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go back to that weekend, the retreat.

• 3:39:28Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 3:39:29Shawn Ryan?

  Christian retreat.

• 3:39:31Shawn Ryan?

  At the beginning, you talked about when you saw Jesus as a child and scared the hell out of you. Did you think about that? What were you thinking?

• 3:39:43Eddie Penney?

  I saw the reality of it. If you, if, if you remember in the way it was, was when I saw Jesus, I wasn't scared. When he left, I was very scared. My opinion and my, I believe like, no, I was deceived by the devil until I was 32 years old from that one day.

• 3:40:09Eddie Penney?

  He used the darkness and made him look to be the boogeyman. He wasn't the boogeyman.

• 3:40:15Eddie Penney?

  I believe that. I believe that with all my heart.

• 3:40:21Eddie Penney?

  One hundred percent.

• 3:40:23Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take you to do replay that in your head?

• 3:40:26Eddie Penney?

  Just now?

• 3:40:26Shawn Ryan?

  No, at the retreat. Were you thinking about that day?

• 3:40:30Eddie Penney?

  I, I, I was scared to go there, but I'm like, man, like I just gotta go, um, and do this?

• 3:40:40Eddie Penney?

  I think it happened probably. There might've been little clips of it happening when I was there, but it happened more after the fact. When I started to read. That I tried to read the Bible. And started to seek him. And listen to, to, to people that talked about him. But the thing is, man, is like that, that was this weird about, I wouldn't say weird about me, but is where I feel like my calling is now, is that there's not a, I, I, I feel like Christianity, the church is very watered down. And it, it, it's, um,

• 3:41:21Eddie Penney?

  it's like it's designed for women.

• 3:41:26Eddie Penney?

  Like I'm not, I'm not, I'm not hearing, I'm, I hear a lot, I go to church or I, or you hear something. And it's like, oh, let's love each other. We have grace. We're gonna, you know, turn the cheek, all that stuff. We're gonna, we're gonna be kind to each other no matter what happens. And that's great. That's good. That's good to have love and it's good to give grace and it's because we all mess up and it's good to give people second chances. And it's good to forgive. And that is good. But there is a warrior piece that we are called to do. And it is, the men are failing. They are failing. They are failing. They are failing. And it starts with that mindset. And I believe that men just need to be called out

• 3:42:11Eddie Penney?

  in a positive way. So they can realize their potential. Like you have got to realize your potential of what you were created to be. And I believe you're created to be to lead your family and stand up for evil. You've got to expose the evil and you've got to stand up for it. Look at our world. Look at our country. Yeah. What do you hear the most? Evil. Because the good people that really have good intentions and goodness in their heart, they're keeping their mouth shut. And the big reason is that because they're afraid. They're afraid for someone to come out and they're afraid of any tension. They're afraid to be confronted because they want to go there. Oh, I don't want to, you know, wrestle any feathers. Like, that's not your call to be.

• 3:42:56Eddie Penney?

  And they're like, oh, well, Jesus, like he was, okay, cool. Read the Bible. Jesus, starting crap all the time against all the people that were fricking, like that were more legalistic. And, um, yeah, I think that's my, I think that's like where my heart has taken me is like to bring in that warrior mindset is like from the battlefield to this battlefield. Uh, there's a lot of dudes that are good men and they just don't have the leadership or the know how. I mean, if you don't know, you don't know. And with what we're surrounded by, we are the product of what we are surrounded by. That's like it says, don't hang out with the wrong people.

• 3:43:38Eddie Penney?

  If you listen to a bunch of death metal, satanic music, guess what you're going to start believing? You start eating a bunch of donuts, guess what? You don't go to the gym, guess what? You hang out with a bunch of smokers, you're probably going to start smoking. It's the same thing. We are surrounded by, and I don't mean this in a bad way, but at the same time, I mean, in a bad way, we're around some weak people and it's not okay. It's, it's, they need to stand up. They need to rise up and they need to speak out and they need to lead by example. And I was so guilty of this.

• 3:44:12Eddie Penney?

  And until recently, I'd say probably the last year or two, it's like, I mean, since I found Christ, it's been getting stronger and stronger. It's kind of like when we were buds, right? We are this, um, oh, we're, we're, we're cool guys. We, we, you know, we, we did buds. Yeah, but we were way better after we did our next school at jump school, right? We were way better after SQT. We were way better after our first deployment. We were better than that after our second deployment. And we just get better and we get better and we get better and we train and we train. It's the same thing here in life and the same thing in Christianity world is you learn to get better. Like crap, I need to stop drinking. Like right now, I'm like, I gotta stop cussing. Like I don't, I want to better myself and I don't know what's next. Hopefully it's not sweets.

• 3:44:58Eddie Penney?

  But yeah, I got like, it's just like dudes just bettering ourselves. Like, why would we not want to better ourself? And there's that evil in the world that pushes everything but. And here, and here's an example of that around,

• 3:45:14Eddie Penney?

  around my house, it's a newer development, kind of like our area we're in right now. And they've been putting up new stores, new restaurants. In the last year,

• 3:45:25Eddie Penney?

  Marble Slab, Cold Stone, Great American Cookie, all these are phenomenal places, by the way. Nestle Toll House Cookie, Nothing Bunt Cakes, A Pie Place, A Cupcake Place, Tiff's Treats, which is a cookie place. A Cinnab, not a Cinnabun bun place, but a sort of like Cinnabun, but you get to like, put a bunch of other toppings on it. All opened up within a square mile of each other.

• 3:45:54Eddie Penney?

  Wow. You eat, and I'm just gonna use this as one example, because there's many. You eat a bunch of crap. You eat a bunch of crap and you, you know this from personal experience. I know this from personal experiences. Our listeners know this from personal experiences.

• 3:46:08Eddie Penney?

  You, you don't function good. Your energy goes down, you get that fricking food coma, you get that sugar rush and then it drops. And you just like turn into a miserable piece of crap. You don't have no energy and that filters over to your kids or to your colleagues.

• 3:46:25Eddie Penney?

  Our society is not helping our case. We preach all this stuff, well, we need to be healthy, oh, we need to exercise. But you weren't, you weren't hearing that during all this COVID stuff, were you?

• 3:46:36Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 3:46:36Eddie Penney?

  Is, is, because they want you to push whatever they want to push. We know what they want to push. They want the, the dollars, but we are surrounded by people with cruel intentions. And if you don't stand up and if we don't rise up, you will succumb and you will be a victim. Period. And we talked about this a little bit last night.

• 3:46:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:46:56Eddie Penney?

  It's, um, it's sad. It's very sad.

• 3:46:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Let's take a quick break.

• 3:47:08Shawn 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.

• 3:47:31Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Eddie, we covered a lot. We covered your, your career in the military. We're covering your transition out and how bad it got at home. How you took your kids. Where are we going from here?

• 3:47:48Eddie Penney?

  So after Oklahoma, we were getting a divorce with my, we did, we got married and that was a very, I mean, I think the total marriage was a year. And, uh, Anna, she, I, I take full responsibility for that, man. I was, I was drinking a lot. I was angry. I was mad at the world. I didn't realize what I was doing and I don't use as a, as an excuse at all. I just, I messed up, man. I messed up hard. And, um, so I had no one to help me with my kids. I started a contingent group, uh, risk mitigation, doing it security.

• 3:48:28Shawn Ryan?

  Before we get into contingent group, we talked about why you left Louis' shoulder. Why you went.

• 3:48:35Eddie Penney?

  Yeah. So that kind of goes back to the, I always wanted to know why. Why?

• 3:48:42Eddie Penney?

  Why did I hear or feel or sense or whatever? I don't, I can't even, I can't even put a label on it, what I felt or heard. Um, why did I leave that position and he didn't?

• 3:48:56Eddie Penney?

  And that was a question I asked myself forever and

• 3:49:00Eddie Penney?

  and it was, it, it, the only thing I, it's, it was God. It was God, his name, was something

• 3:49:08Eddie Penney?

  pulling me away from there. And now I question, why me and not him?

• 3:49:15Eddie Penney?

  Why didn't he hear it or feel it? Why?

• 3:49:20Shawn Ryan?

  Have you come up with that answer?

• 3:49:24Eddie Penney?

  I have.

• 3:49:27Eddie Penney?

  I gotta be honest with you, man. My life has done some twists, some twists and turns.

• 3:49:38Eddie Penney?

  And the SEAL thing was always a passion. I just knew it. I just knew it. I knew the military. I just knew it.

• 3:49:48Eddie Penney?

  Probably the last year.

• 3:49:53Eddie Penney?

  My mindset has gone from that to more of like, like my faith. Like I just want to share the word. I want to share my story.

• 3:50:03Eddie Penney?

  And show that God is real, that, that our society will do anything and everything to push it aside from the pledge of allegiance, to not discuss certain things in school. And in my opinion, taking faith away is the number one thing that is destroying this country. It ain't the people. People suck because there's evil. You take away the good, but still leave the bad? What's gonna happen? Evil will reign. And I believe that's what's happening. And I just, I have a passion. I have a passion for God. My heart is for God.

• 3:50:42Eddie Penney?

  And I mess up and I, and I don't like some of the things that I should do. I want to do some things that I want to do, not him. Um, I still fall into that trap at times and need to pull myself out, but he always pulls me out.

• 3:50:59Eddie Penney?

  Uh, but that's just where my passion's going. I want to, I'm gonna, I want to tell my story and encourage others. That's, that's where we're going.

• 3:51:09Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you're definitely doing that. There's no doubt about it.

• 3:51:12Eddie Penney?

  And it's not, it's not even me doing it. It's not even me doing it. But it's, it's awesome, man. It just makes me feel good. It makes me feel alive. It's kind of my cure. This is, is twisted as this thing still is, it's good. From where I was to where I am now, I look back, I'm like, oh my gosh. I, I almost took my life. I almost took my life.

• 3:51:38Eddie Penney?

  And that was not in the cards. It was not, it's not time. And I question sometimes, like, what, what, what, what, what do you have for me? What do you want me to do? And I feel by the certain circumstances and the people that are coming into my life and doing certain things, I know what I'm supposed to be doing. And that's, I'm, I'm his friggin warrior. I am a warrior for him. And I'm gonna lead other people to fight.

• 3:52:06Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 3:52:08Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 3:52:10Shawn Ryan?

  When did Contingent Group start?

• 3:52:12Eddie Penney?

  So Contingent Group started, uh, when I was in Tulsa. I did a contracting job with a friend, uh, that I was, uh, that we were a team two with, um, good old Joe, J-Lo. And, uh, so I started on some contract with him. I was like, dude, we could bring some more people into this. Uh, so I developed a company and got the insurance. So like, guys could fall under the, the, um, the insurance umbrella. And just started it from there and just kind of morphed. And, uh, finally got a, I got a really good client that does a lot of work down in Central America. And then we were starting to do a lot of trips and then other clients reaching out. And then we're kind of adding in driving services, armored cars, up armored,

• 3:52:55Eddie Penney?

  intelligence reporting assessments. It just started kind of like, then we're tracking money and then we're doing this and. All this stuff just started happening. All right, now we need to put this frigging huge security system into this frigging huge building, uh, and not just your cameras, but like we need drones flying around, we need this, we need that. I'm like, okay. And we figure it out and we get it done. It's got it with our network. I mean, we got all the guys pretty much on their phone.

• 3:53:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, when we were talking about contingent group yesterday, I had no idea how in-depth and technically advanced

• 3:53:32Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, it's

• 3:53:33Shawn Ryan?

  these security systems that you are putting together for these clients are I, I thought it was, uh, all right, he's probably going in and wiring up some, some camera systems on the house and, and maybe putting some reinforced doors and hardened windows in. And when you were describing me, describing to me that, that the technology, I, I didn't even know that shit existed.

• 3:53:58Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 3:53:59Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it is incredible.

• 3:54:01Eddie Penney?

  And that's not me. That's the guys that, that's their specialty do. We, I'm kind of like the bigger overall, like manager, like we need to, I, I kind of go and do the assessment. I look for the weak points. I'm very good at thinking like a bad guy. Like, are we need to fix this? We need to fix this. You probably should think about this. Like, do you travel? Okay, let's put these, you know, protocols in place. So we just developed this whole, it's not just the cameras. It's not just like, hey, making sure you got, you know, um, a license plate reader out by the street. It's all of it together. Cause not just one thing's going to protect you. It's multiple things, right? Like we carry a gun, carry backup magazine. Now we have a blade. Maybe I need to use my car. So it's just like, you know, putting those layers of protection around the individual

• 3:54:43Eddie Penney?

  family, organization, whatever it is. And it's, it's cool. It's, um, everyone's different, but they need.

• 3:54:49Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, how many, how many, you probably don't even know, but how many different aspects of this business are there? I mean, you're wiping people from the internet, you know, what cleaning it up, cleaning their names up from the internet. I mean, home security, businesses, security, travel, security.

• 3:55:08Eddie Penney?

  All of it.

• 3:55:09Shawn Ryan?

  Personal protection, everything.

• 3:55:11Eddie Penney?

  I don't have an answer for that question. I don't know how many things that we do. It's a lot. I mean, I mean, from a simple of a background check to, um, you know, putting in the most advanced technology to keep you safe based on an asset. To someone traveling overseas and knowing what what it's like over there to going with them uh to pose as a camera crew because we're going low key, whatever it may be, uh we do it all.

• 3:55:40Shawn Ryan?

  What is uh, what's your typical client base? What what type of client are you looking for with contingent group?

• 3:55:46Eddie Penney?

  Uh, more, it's more higher end. It's definitely on the upscale or or like an organization. Um, but there's some smaller things that, I mean, individuals need protection or just like, hey, let's monitor this and we need to do the right things to just protect them. It just, it really just depends. But it's more on the upper end, uh, the majority, not all, but the majority.

• 3:56:10Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. It sounds like you're kind of stepping out of contingent group. It sounds like Unafraid, motivational speaking, becoming an author, spreading the word of Christ.

• 3:56:19Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 3:56:20Shawn Ryan?

  Is your new passion.

• 3:56:21Eddie Penney?

  That's the passion, man.

• 3:56:22Shawn Ryan?

  And contingent group is, sounds like it's a well greased machine now. You don't, it doesn't need all of your attention.

• 3:56:30Eddie Penney?

  Right.

• 3:56:31Shawn Ryan?

  So let's.

• 3:56:32Eddie Penney?

  Which is hard to walk from when it's your baby.

• 3:56:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:56:34Eddie Penney?

  It's like, ah, I'll come back.

• 3:56:39Shawn Ryan?

  I understand.

• 3:56:40Eddie Penney?

  But I'm still fully engaged in there. I'm still doing things because I, because I do enjoy it still. It's just, I'm being led. I'm being led and I gotta listen.

• 3:56:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, I mean, it's contingent, when you were telling me about that yesterday, it really blew me away. I was like, holy shit, this is uh way bigger and and way more advanced than I

• 3:57:00Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 3:57:00Shawn Ryan?

  imagined. But let's talk about Unafraid now. So how did, how did that start? Did this start with your wife?

• 3:57:08Eddie Penney?

  No. So

• 3:57:12Eddie Penney?

  my wife comes in at the very end because the book was not done. So this book, the first thing that I come up with, came up with, the very name of this was facade.

• 3:57:24Eddie Penney?

  And it was, I was the facade. I was the poser. I was the fake. I was this Navy SEAL, right? But below, I was

• 3:57:35Eddie Penney?

  a bag of crap. I was, I was weak, physically strong, but weak mentally and emotionally, very weak. I wouldn't say mentally. Uh, but one night.

• 3:57:49Eddie Penney?

  Before the suicide piece, like right before.

• 3:57:55Eddie Penney?

  Wow. It was like right before. That's interesting. I never thought about this. Wow. I woke up about 2am. And I just like thought, heard.

• 3:58:10Eddie Penney?

  Should write a book. And I was like, that's stupid. I'm like, do you know how many Navy SEALs write books? I will not be a part of that category. That's exactly what I was telling myself. And I couldn't go back to sleep. And I literally was like, fine, like a little kid. Went to my office, got my legal pad, got a pen. Came back to my bed, propped up my pillows, started writing. And that night I wrote out pretty much the outline of this book. Uh, so I went into

• 3:58:41Eddie Penney?

  in depth to give it some to give it the meat and potatoes of it. And I didn't know where to start. So the one thing that I knew very well was the chapter about Luis that night.

• 3:58:54Eddie Penney?

  Um, I knew everything. I knew the details. I knew the way things touched. I know the way things looked and another way things smelt. I know how I felt. I remember everything. So I started that chapter and I did that chapter. And as I'm writing that chapter, I'm bawling. I'm losing it. And, uh, I'm like, I had to like take a break. And I went back to like my childhood. Wrote about my childhood. And I went to the Marines. And I had a specific incident in the Marines where I like turned the corner and like I'm now a man. But I learned really what mental toughness was. And, um,

• 3:59:33Eddie Penney?

  I wrote about 150 pages

• 3:59:37Eddie Penney?

  over the next couple of months.

• 3:59:40Eddie Penney?

  And I just, I don't know. What was the turning point in the Marine Corps? Uh, we were, I'm sure you've heard of like the sand fleas down in Paris Island, like these little bugs that just bite you. They suck. They are so annoying. It's just like a tick or a bee that doesn't hurt too much. It's just like, it kind of stings you. But they have tons of them down there and we were drilling and I just like had my rifle at right shoulder arm. So it's like laying like this. And we're just standing there and this one of the little sand flea kind of comes up and lands on my forearm. And I'm kind of like looking on my peripheral vision, like looking for the instructors and I think I'm clear and I kind of just do this, kind of wipe it away. And all I hear in this deep voice was recruit pity. I was like, my gosh, here we go.

• 4:00:25Eddie Penney?

  And it's like fallout. So I fell out and I just followed him and I knew where we're going and we're going to the, what they call the sand pit. There's these pits, they look like a big sandbox all over the, it's like the beach, right? For buds, but they got these sand pits everywhere. And they just beat the crap out of you in there, like side throttle hops, jumping jacks, what are called pushups, situps, sprints, A count bodybuilders. I don't think burpees were invented back then, uh, but all these different calisthenics, the things just annoying, make you sweat. It's the middle of summer.

• 4:00:55Eddie Penney?

  And I was alone with him. This is the first time I was alone with a drone instructor and uh,

• 4:01:01Eddie Penney?

  and I was like, I'll, I'll take your punishment. I don't care. It's not a big deal, dude. Like some, we're going and we were there for so long, like the shadows moved to the other side of objects. Like we were there so long. I was like, I was,

• 4:01:16Eddie Penney?

  I was like, uh, I want to file a grievance. I feel like you're abusing me. Like it was like, I was like, dude, is he allowed to do this? Like it was got, it was getting me to that point. And I, and I wasn't looking for a safe place. I'm like, this just seems awkward to me. Like it seems like I'm, I'm getting uncomfortable right now. And um, he just starts beating me and then he starts having me do these sprints like to this. There was like this shed where it like housed like, um, like lawn mowers and you know, lawn equipment for that area. So he's like, hey, sprint back here and or sprint there and come back and you've got, you know, 45 seconds, whatever. The time was never enough to go do what he asked and come back. It was by design, right? And I was getting frustrated and I got this, I was dripping sweat, it was going to my eyes.

• 4:02:00Eddie Penney?

  You know the feeling that's just burning like acid in your eyes. And I was starting to get irritated and I was starting to feel sorry for myself and I was like, give myself the victim mentality, like, oh, poor me, what'd I do? Like, well, you're the one that did that. You actually started this. And he kept doing it and he kept doing it. And, uh, I started crying. Seventeen year old, away from mommy, getting destroyed by this drone instructor Martinez. Never forget him. Wearing glasses, his Marine Corps glasses that I just wanted to rip off, punch him in the face. I wouldn't have been able to done anything because I couldn't even lift my frigging arms or move. I was smoked. And he just kept doing it and doing it. And I, I, I was like, dude, when is, and, and he can see me breaking. He can see me breaking. And he comes up to me, he stops barking orders and he comes up to me.

• 4:02:46Eddie Penney?

  And he looks at me and I was hoping that he didn't see the tears, but they, they don't, you know, they see it, right?

• 4:02:55Eddie Penney?

  And he goes,

• 4:02:58Eddie Penney?

  discipline. He goes, he goes, it might seem like a small thing to itch a bug off your arm. But in combat, sitting in an ambush, it could mean your life. And then he goes, more importantly, the guy's next to your, his life.

• 4:03:17Eddie Penney?

  And he just stared at me. And it was like he was looking through me.

• 4:03:24Eddie Penney?

  And something switched to my brain.

• 4:03:31Eddie Penney?

  I was like, let's go.

• 4:03:35Eddie Penney?

  Let's go.

• 4:03:38Eddie Penney?

  Give me more.

• 4:03:41Eddie Penney?

  That's what I was thinking in my head.

• 4:03:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:03:43Eddie Penney?

  So he steps out of the sand pit and I'm like, okay, are we done now? Like, I think you made your point.

• 4:03:50Eddie Penney?

  And he starts doing it again and we keep going and we keep going. But this time, I'm like angry, I'm mad. I was like, you will not break me. I was like, I was like, Huff, I'm like, let's go. Like, I was like saying stuff. I was like, let's go, let's, like, I was amped. It was like someone just hit me with a shot of adrenaline and I was going.

• 4:04:10Eddie Penney?

  And that has changed my mindset ever since. Probably important to throw that back in there, but that was a big deal. That was a big day for me. That is when I became a man. That is when my mindset and the kind of bird that unafraid. Oh, I think.

• 4:04:27Eddie Penney?

  That was it. That was it. I was different from that day. Very different.

• 4:04:34Eddie Penney?

  Wasn't timid or shy. I was like, let's go.

• 4:04:39Eddie Penney?

  So that was, um, yeah.

• 4:04:42Shawn Ryan?

  That was a turning point.

• 4:04:43Eddie Penney?

  That was a turning point.

• 4:04:46Shawn Ryan?

  So unafraid, let's get back to that. Started as a book.

• 4:04:49Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, so.

• 4:04:51Shawn Ryan?

  Now it is a brand.

• 4:04:52Eddie Penney?

  I had the, and I put, I put the 150 pages that I wrote by myself in Tulsa, Oklahoma up on the shelf. So. Started working with the NRA. It was a carry guard course. It was a bunch of spec ops guys. Uh, they, they pulled in a bunch of tier one guys to run these shooting courses for the NRA to give it some life. Cause the NRA is made up of like a bunch of older people and it's just, well, it's old, it's outdated. So they were trying to give it life. So we were trying to breathe it into it. So we did these shooting courses, phenomenal shooting courses. Uh, so I met Keith on one of these courses. He was actually writing for the NRA and he was writing for guns and ammo, field and stream, like he's, he's, he's, you know, does a lot of, he's a big hunter, big gun guy.

• 4:05:39Eddie Penney?

  He actually knows like the nomenclature of things. Like, I don't know anything. I'm like, dude, just give me a gun that works. Like, I'll like, I'll tell you what it does, but uh, he knows all that stuff. But, uh, I put him through that course. I was his instructor and he didn't need any instructor. He just did it so he could write about it. And he was going to do interviews with instructors to kind of talk about it, to give it like, to boost it up, to try to get some traction. And, um, That course went away and I knew Keith was writing for, did a book that we discussed last night for a New York bestseller. It's turned into a motion picture now on Prime, on Amazon Prime. He did a couple of those books. He was a big part of that. But due

• 4:06:24Eddie Penney?

  to legal issues, you won't see that.

• 4:06:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:06:28Eddie Penney?

  But I, I hit him up. I was like, hey, man. Or I did, I did the Rittlin podcast, episode 23. I think that's the one you listened to, the first one. And a lot of people were like, dude, you should write a book. You should write a book. And I talked about a lot of the things that I initially wrote about. So I was like, ah, maybe I should, maybe I should do that. It was kind of weighing on me for like a couple of weeks. And I was like, I, I wouldn't know where to, I don't know how to write. Like I, I like, like a fifth grader. So I remembered Keith and I, I texted, I was like, hey, man, can we, can we talk? And he called me like right away. And I was like, hey, man, can you do me a favor? Can you listen to this podcast? I sent him the podcast. And he's like, yeah, man, I'll do it sometime this week. I was like, cool. He calls me the next morning.

• 4:07:08Eddie Penney?

  He's like, I listened to the podcast. And he goes, that's awesome, man. And I go, um, think it's good enough to be a book? He's like, yeah. And I'm like, would you help me write it? And he goes, I thought you would never ask.

• 4:07:28Eddie Penney?

  I did not know this at the time. Keith was having a falling out with the person that he was working with at the time. And he was looking for another project. And he actually is like, I thought about you. Cause I knew some of your story. Cause we talked about it, you know, over drinks or whatever. And then when he's like, when you sent that to me, he's like, I already knew what it was. And I already knew my answer. And it was just like, wow. And, and we started working on that. Took a couple of years. He would fly down. We would do the interview. He would interview me. I gave him what I had. And then he, he, um, he put the words to it. And, and I, and I.

• 4:08:08Eddie Penney?

  Have got to give him credit for the words in this book. I told the story. But this that the man made art like it is. It is so good how he's a phenomenal. He's a phenomenal writer and he's a very dear friend, very, very upstanding guy, very trustworthy guy. And at that before, like kind of at the beginning of this. It was like pre COVID. I was kind of getting a little piece of like the motivational stuff. And I was like, man, why is everyone afraid of everything? Like I saw like the Trump, the Trump versus Biden was going on. And I heard a stat on the radio. I don't know if it's true and it doesn't matter, but it probably is.

• 4:08:50Eddie Penney?

  It said that 63% of voters are afraid to tell you who they're going to vote for.

• 4:08:56Shawn Ryan?

  63%.

• 4:08:57Eddie Penney?

  63%. I was like, that is the dumbest thing in the world. And it's because they don't want to, they're afraid of any conflict. It goes back to what we were talking about with the Christian men. Same thing. So I was like, unafraid. I fell in love with the word unafraid enough where I got it tattooed. Like it was everything. Um, and I'm like, and I just, brainstorming thing. And I found I was going through Shutterstock uh, to get a photo for a post for a contingent group or something like that. And I saw this logo. And I was, I was looking for a picture of a heart, I think it was for, I don't know what it was. It was something based around security or whatever it is. And I saw this logo. It was a half a heart, half a brain.

• 4:09:41Eddie Penney?

  And it had some like paint spouted around it or something. I was like, that is awesome. So I downloaded it, kept it on the computer, didn't really use it for anything. Um, and then when the unafraid thing is like, dude, I need to make a logo for this. So we did a T-shirt. T-shirts started to sell. People were loving it. Like, I love that. I love the way, love the way it is. And then we started putting the logo together, um, which is actually a little bit before, sorry, a little confused on that. So we did the logo and then started doing just a T-shirt.

• 4:10:13Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, man, like, people are like, hey, thanks for just that shirt like it. It it it helped me. I was like, how does a shirt help you? But then I think about the stuff that I wear. I love motivational stuff. I love motivational quotes. I was like, okay, cool. I'll just I'll do another T shirt. So we started doing more and then what I realized without realizing it is all my branding was kind of

• 4:10:38Eddie Penney?

  moving to Christ. I didn't realize this. I wanted to be a fighter. I like to be a fight, not so much like a fighter, but like to fight for what you believe to be right. And so I did like biblical verses that show tell you that you need to be fricking a fighter. Like shirts that say not passive, like I'm not going to be pushed around. Um, and just like, I'm going all in. Like, and I just tried to like, turn it into that. It just kind of morphed into this, um, this thing. And and one day I'm up in up in the shipping room, turned our movie room into a shipping room. Um, and I'm just looking around like golf stickers and then and the bands and the shirts and the pins and just all of it.

• 4:11:23Eddie Penney?

  And I'm like,

• 4:11:28Eddie Penney?

  I just gotta look up the sky. I'm like,

• 4:11:32Eddie Penney?

  you are so sneaky.

• 4:11:36Eddie Penney?

  I'm like, I've got face stuff everywhere without even realize I've got face stuff, faith stuff. I'm like, I

• 4:11:44Eddie Penney?

  it was like I was blinded to it all. Like, I'm I'm all about the warrior piece, all about the warrior piece. Like our shirts say, you know, warrior, but I'm like, well, we'll put that on a cross. Cause I believe that we go back to gold, got the cross. Yeah. It all meshes now. It makes sense to me. Comes full circle. It's full circle. It's a great way to put it.

• 4:12:06Eddie Penney?

  And then I'm like, okay, so all people were starting to reach out on Instagram and like saying, hey, thanks for posting this. And I sort of put in some just Bible verses that meant something to me. I'm like, hey, maybe I'll help somebody else. And there was one time, one time this individual reached out and I, and it was, I think it was a dude. And he goes, you posted this.

• 4:12:29Eddie Penney?

  And it just saved my life.

• 4:12:34Shawn Ryan?

  How'd that feel?

• 4:12:36Eddie Penney?

  I was like, wow.

• 4:12:41Eddie Penney?

  One quote, a few words on a little screen or wherever you watched it.

• 4:12:47Eddie Penney?

  Saved his life and I knew it wasn't like, ah, you saved my life, man. It was.

• 4:12:53Eddie Penney?

  You saved my life. I could feel it by reading the words. And it, that started happening more and more. And I'm like, that feeling I described about killing someone.

• 4:13:12Eddie Penney?

  Got trumped.

• 4:13:15Eddie Penney?

  By the feeling of helping someone.

• 4:13:19Eddie Penney?

  By encouraging someone. I was like. That is awesome.

• 4:13:28Eddie Penney?

  If it just helps one person that would have taken their life or would have gone home and beaten their kids. I was like, okay. Okay. All right.

• 4:13:41Eddie Penney?

  All right, I'll do that. And it's like.

• 4:13:46Eddie Penney?

  Nonstop, especially when this book came out, the messages. You really helped me out. I was a single father struggling. This helped me out. I've been addicted. This helped me out. Showed me light.

• 4:13:59Eddie Penney?

  And that's what it's about.

• 4:14:02Eddie Penney?

  Enough of me.

• 4:14:04Eddie Penney?

  Enough of me. It's about them. It's about him. That. That.

• 4:14:13Eddie Penney?

  Is a better feeling than putting a bullet in somebody's eyeball. And don't, don't even fool you, that is a great feeling.

• 4:14:21Eddie Penney?

  But it won. It won. I'm won. I'm sold.

• 4:14:27Eddie Penney?

  I'm all in.

• 4:14:29Eddie Penney?

  I want to keep doing it. And I'm going to.

• 4:14:32Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 4:14:33Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 4:14:35Shawn Ryan?

  What else did that lead into?

• 4:14:38Eddie Penney?

  Uh, led into.

• 4:14:41Eddie Penney?

  Some speaking stuff.

• 4:14:45Eddie Penney?

  And I was actually talking to Keith about this. I was like, I need to do more speaking. I want to do more speaking. I want to, I want to feed guys. I want to feed more. May lead into more products and, and stuff like that. It's leading into books two and three coming up.

• 4:15:03Eddie Penney?

  But as I was talking to Keith, I was like, dude, I need to somehow give these talks, but kind of, I want to interject God more. I want to talk about God more. And I don't want to talk about God where someone's like in verse, yada, yada, yada, where it's just like, cause I remember me, I'd be like, all right, I'm checked out. I don't know what that is. I mean, you lost, you lost me. And um,

• 4:15:27Eddie Penney?

  I was like, I need to do that in an attackful way. And I'm thinking of myself because man, if you said anything wrong, I'm like, I'm, I'm stiff arming you. Like I don't want anything to do with you. Like you can't force that stuff.

• 4:15:39Eddie Penney?

  But I was like, I, I want to somehow do that. I want, I want to talk about him more. And uh, cause he's a part of, he's, he's that story. He's me. And um,

• 4:15:53Eddie Penney?

  a day later, two days later, I got a call from a guy I did a podcast with a year before. He was a pastor at a church.

• 4:16:04Eddie Penney?

  And he calls me and he goes, hey Eddie, what's going on? He goes, this is, you know, so and so, I don't know if you remember doing a podcast. I was like, yeah, yeah. Like, how you doing bud? What's going on? He's like, I, he's like, I have to talk to you. I was like, all right. He's like, I have two questions or two things I need to talk to you about. I was like, okay, cool. He's like, one, do you think, you know, next year around Memorial Day or 4th of July, you come up and talk to my church? I was like, yeah. I was like, sure. Like I'd love to do that. And it kind of goes back to like, I need to interject more faith into my, my speaking, to my testimony, right? Cause I, if I leave that out, I'm not doing it justice.

• 4:16:43Eddie Penney?

  And I'm lying. And he goes, one more thing. And he goes, this is, he's like, I've been thinking about this for weeks. He's like, I've been thinking about this for two weeks.

• 4:16:53Eddie Penney?

  He said, two weeks, exactly. And uh, he goes, I don't know why.

• 4:17:02Eddie Penney?

  Why I'm even asking this, he goes, I do know why, but it's just kind of crazy. And he's like, I really have no, and he was really worried about my reaction to what he was about to say. And he goes, you've been on my mind.

• 4:17:13Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, I want to be like, that's not really how you start a conversation with another dude, bro.

• 4:17:18Eddie Penney?

  But he's like, I can't stop thinking about you. I've been praying for you. He's like, you've just been weighing heavy on my mind.

• 4:17:24Eddie Penney?

  And he goes, I have a gift of I can write really good testimonies in a good way that you can tell your testimony and how God interjected and how it does. You know, it did certain things for you.

• 4:17:40Eddie Penney?

  And he said that. And I was just talking to Keith about this a couple of days before.

• 4:17:49Shawn Ryan?

  It's crazy.

• 4:17:50Eddie Penney?

  I was blown away. I was like, what the heck? And so.

• 4:17:57Eddie Penney?

  I said, sure. I'm like, sure. Okay. Like, that's good. He's like, well, just, you know, think about it and pray about it. And like, when he said pray about it, I wasn't like, okay, what does that mean? Weird. I was like, okay, I will. And I will. And I did. And I was like, okay, I feel, I feel good. You know, I feel good about it. And he's like, let's talk, you know, next week. He texts me like, let's, let's, let's talk in a couple of days after you have time to, you know, digest and process. So we talked and.

• 4:18:25Eddie Penney?

  One thing I didn't mention, so I told you this book was called facade. And then it was like, once Keith and I started, it was within war. Just because like what I'm feeling within, like the war within side of me, there's like a fricking combat zone in here, bro. And my heart and my head, everywhere, every little piece of my body. And then the war being in Afghanistan, Iraq, you know, Africa, all that stuff. And.

• 4:18:49Eddie Penney?

  So it was within war and then it just changed when we got to the publisher to be unafraid. So I had this call with this pastor and he goes.

• 4:18:59Eddie Penney?

  He goes, hey, Eddie, I really don't know a lot about you. He's like, I listened to a couple of podcasts. I know you got the book out. He's like, I need to read that. So I really get to know you just so I can deliver a better testimony, speech, whatever you want, or sermon. And I was like, let me start right there. We're not going to call it a sermon. We're going to call it a battle cry. I'm like, we're going warrior. Like, I've been convicted. It's warrior. It's warrior to teach people warrior. We've got enough soft crap going on that we don't need that anymore. We don't need, we don't need more. And I'm not ripping on the soft crap. We need that compassion. We need that love. We do need that. But just think about it when you talk to your kid. But at the same time, when evil brings its head up into your face, you need to be ready to fight.

• 4:19:41Eddie Penney?

  And we're not, we're not equipped. We are not equipped. It's like us going overseas and we don't have any body armor. And we have a gun with no ammunition. That's how we are right now.

• 4:19:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:19:51Eddie Penney?

  I'm carrying stuff, but I can't do anything with it because I don't know how. I don't have it.

• 4:19:56Eddie Penney?

  Um, and so he goes, okay, battle cry it is. And so he goes into, he's like, here's what I'm thinking. I'm like, I was like, I've been thinking about the same thing for probably like the last year. He was like, he's like verifying every thought that I've been having. Uh, that I thought I was just like, Eddie, you're thinking, you know, you're thinking about yourself here. You're going off on your own. This is something you want to do, which I'm trying not to do. And he goes, I also want to send you my book to read, just so you know who I am, kind of what I believe, just so we, you know, before we work together. And I was like, sure. And he goes, so my, my book is called, um, The War Within. And I go, what'd you just say? And he goes, The War Within. And I was like, I was like, dude, we, the book Unafraid was going to be called Within War.

• 4:20:41Eddie Penney?

  Forever, for like years. And it changed at the last minute. And he's sending me a book now called The War Within.

• 4:20:51Eddie Penney?

  Like you can't make this up.

• 4:20:53Shawn Ryan?

  No, you can't.

• 4:20:54Eddie Penney?

  You can't make it up.

• 4:20:55Shawn Ryan?

  Another coincidence.

• 4:20:57Eddie Penney?

  Another coincidence. And I'm like, dude, okay, like, all right, so like my passion and what I think, you know, where it's taken me and being verified by individuals, not even that I know.

• 4:21:12Eddie Penney?

  You know, it's coming to life. And I read his book and it was like eye opening. Just really eye opening stuff and it was a great book. And, um,

• 4:21:23Eddie Penney?

  and so he just, just the day before we came here, before I came here, he sent me the first draft of the testimony. It was like six pages and it was like good stuff. It was like my story, cause he knows my story. He's like, you plug in this story here. He's like, we're gonna work through this. We'll change some stuff up and, and it was like,

• 4:21:42Eddie Penney?

  you can't make this stuff up.

• 4:21:46Eddie Penney?

  The timing.

• 4:21:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:21:48Eddie Penney?

  I mean, how many coincidences do we want to call out here?

• 4:21:51Shawn Ryan?

  We've called out a lot.

• 4:21:53Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, it's not.

• 4:21:57Eddie Penney?

  And I mean, I'm convicted. I'm convicted on what it is. And I really just think like my next, my next chapter,

• 4:22:06Eddie Penney?

  as I'm, as I'm fighting for God, man, I'm, I'm like gonna be that warrior and I'm going to tell people my experience, cause that's all I have to go off of, based off of his word and what I've experienced and

• 4:22:19Eddie Penney?

  how you process and what you take in is up to you and up to him. I have nothing but to tell the story. And, uh, and I'm, I'm fine with that. And to encourage people and to motivate people and to give, because I've taken

• 4:22:38Eddie Penney?

  too long.

• 4:22:41Shawn Ryan?

  How's it feel to get up there and speak?

• 4:22:43Eddie Penney?

  I like it.

• 4:22:44Shawn Ryan?

  You like it?

• 4:22:45Eddie Penney?

  I do.

• 4:22:47Shawn Ryan?

  Do you get a rush out of it?

• 4:22:50Eddie Penney?

  I wouldn't say a rush, but I feel, I feel very comfortable and I, I feel it's where I'm supposed to be. It's like, okay, this is my domain. This is where I'm supposed to be. And uh, it's just good to feel people. I can see, just seeing their faces, like it clicks like, oh. Like I'm like, oh yes, cool, rock on.

• 4:23:11Shawn Ryan?

  How do you give your speeches? Do you give?

• 4:23:14Eddie Penney?

  It's more based off like a mindset, your mindset. And I mean, I use past experiences. Why, I mean, because that's all I have to go off of.

• 4:23:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:23:22Eddie Penney?

  Of what worked for me, what helped for me. Um, and I just kind of go off of that and

• 4:23:29Eddie Penney?

  talk about the mindset piece. And now I, I, I feel, I have, I'm talking to my first church in December.

• 4:23:37Eddie Penney?

  Possibly same time, maybe before this thing comes out. Uh, and I'm excited. I'm really excited just to be in God's present.

• 4:23:50Eddie Penney?

  And I have a

• 4:23:53Eddie Penney?

  I feel when I get up there and it's my floor, being in that arena, no matter what the structure looks like or what it is, knowing what it is. I'm gonna lose it. And I'm okay with that.

• 4:24:05Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 4:24:07Eddie Penney?

  I'm okay with that.

• 4:24:08Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want this out before that speech?

• 4:24:11Eddie Penney?

  You do your thing, man. You do your thing. Um, but yeah, I think that's what I'm supposed to be. I think I'm supposed to be encouraging, talking about faith. That's what I think I'm supposed to do. I think I'm supposed to be producing the gear that helps people. Like I, I, my daughters wear this. My son wears this. Our, my sons wear this. Um, Amanda will wear it, my wife. And they'll just walk down the stairs and I'll just see I'm afraid in that, just singing that. I'm like, that's right. I'm gonna tackle everything. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna be afraid of it. I'm going to go do it. And uh, yeah, just accountability. I love it.

• 4:24:50Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 4:24:51Eddie Penney?

  I love it.

• 4:24:52Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you meet your wife?

• 4:24:54Eddie Penney?

  And so that's like the biggest, that's the big piece. So God is awesome. God is awesome. He was the savior of my life. Christ was the savior of my life. 100%. Meeting my wife is like.

• 4:25:09Eddie Penney?

  A whole nother type of awesome. I mean, you know what it is, right? Like you're, I really believe we've seen the, the, the pictures on media, you're only, the man is only as good as the woman next to him. And I really believe that. And um, I, I see, see that now. Um, when I moved down to Texas after I was at Cincinnati for a brief time, I moved down and I went into the gym. And I walked, it was the first day, I'll never forget it. And I was in a relationship at the time. And I looked over and I saw my wife Amanda. She was just a nobody at the time. And she was on the stair stepper, on her little perch, looking over the gym, doing her, on her stairs, black yoga pants, hair up in a bun, with a red tank top on.

• 4:25:52Eddie Penney?

  And I was like, stay away from that woman. That is bad news. I'm like, that is going to make me do some things that I've done in the past and I don't want to go there again. And uh, so I would see her there quite often at the gym, just her schedule would work out.

• 4:26:10Eddie Penney?

  I would be lying if I say I didn't tweak some scheduling pieces to coincide with hers. Um, but I didn't talk to her. I, I kept my distance. Um,

• 4:26:24Eddie Penney?

  I knew what would happen if I ever talked to her. And I was right. She was going through a divorce. She had two kids. I had my kids, uh, only two of them at that time. One was out of the house. Uh, two were, two were with me and I was with another, and with another woman.

• 4:26:44Eddie Penney?

  And we were going through some stuff. We were on the verge of breaking up. She was going through a divorce and we just became friends. There was, it's the first woman I've been with, that there was nothing physical. I didn't hold her hand. I didn't kiss her for like two years.

• 4:26:59Shawn Ryan?

  For two years?

• 4:27:00Eddie Penney?

  Nothing.

• 4:27:01Shawn Ryan?

  What was the initial conversation?

• 4:27:03Eddie Penney?

  I guess one of her friends. What's that? What'd she say?

• 4:27:06Shawn Ryan?

  You need a spot?

• 4:27:09Eddie Penney?

  You can get a spot. Uh, she said, I guess one of her friends came over. I don't know if she asked her friend to come over or she just did, but I'm sure they were, I could tell they were talking about me, which secretly I loved. Um, the validation, right? So she comes over, she goes, her friend, she's like, so you're in a relationship? I'm like, I am. And she goes, oh, okay. And we just started like going back and forth. And then she goes, so you're not in a relationship? And she like changed her wording. So she asked me first, are you in a relationship? And I go, yes. And then we do this conversation and I'm like looking over at Amanda, knowing why she's asking me this. I know it's because of her. I know it. You just know.

• 4:27:53Eddie Penney?

  And she goes, so you're not in a relationship? And I go, that's right. I'm not, I go, uh, no, I just say no. Or I say, or I go, I go, yeah, I go, yeah, it's just confusing. Like, and then when she left, I'm like, oh my God, I just said I wasn't in a relationship. Like I was like crap. I was so flustered knowing it was her. Cause I, like Amanda's gorgeous. Like she just, she takes it like, I understand the song, Take My Breath Away from Top Gun. I get it.

• 4:28:20Eddie Penney?

  The original. And, um, and so

• 4:28:26Eddie Penney?

  she probably goes, tells her, yeah, he doesn't have a girlfriend or is not with anyone. And so Amanda goes down, she knows a friend that works in the office at the GM and she goes, look this guy up. She like saw me come in one day. She's like, somebody that, let me see the, all the people that just swiped their card in the last 15 minutes. So they get it up. She pulls it up, sees who it is, goes to media, figures it out. And she's like, and there was, my girlfriend was attached to the account. She's like, okay, this guy has a girlfriend.

• 4:28:59Eddie Penney?

  And

• 4:29:01Eddie Penney?

  So we eventually start talking, her dad.

• 4:29:06Eddie Penney?

  She like, I can't remember how that first like, we just started making little comments to each other. Like little, little things, nothing crazy. Then we just started like talking, it was just like a friendship kind of developed. Like there was no dude, there was nothing like.

• 4:29:19Shawn Ryan?

  Like a little harmless flirting. Is that where we're going?

• 4:29:23Eddie Penney?

  I, I wouldn't even say that. I mean, it got there, but at first it was like, I, like I asked her, she like, hey, do you need a job? Like I needed someone to do background checks because I didn't want to do it anymore. And like it's something that she could do remotely as long as she knew how to do it. And so she started working for contingent group and she was just like a friend, like God honest truth, a friend. We didn't do anything, but we started working out at the same time, sort of like talking to each other. And then my relationship ended and then her divorce was getting bad and she was kind of like. Me talking to her, then she would talk to me and there was like some ups and downs with the relationships. And then we finally just said, Hey, let's um, let's, you know, let's see each other after her, you know, she was done with her situation and.

• 4:30:07Eddie Penney?

  All that stuff and we just, that was it. It became exclusive and like. That woman's got my heart, man.

• 4:30:15Shawn Ryan?

  I can tell.

• 4:30:16Eddie Penney?

  She's got my heart.

• 4:30:17Shawn Ryan?

  I love seeing it, man.

• 4:30:19Eddie Penney?

  She is my best friend. She. I know I get no judgment, judgments for her and she holds me accountable, which I can't stand sometimes, but that girl holds me accountable. She will be like, you are being a loser. Like stop. I was like, okay. Uh, I mean, just, just doing life with her.

• 4:30:40Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you, man.

• 4:30:41Eddie Penney?

  It's heaven, man. Thank you. It's a, it's the greatest thing. So we were doing the book. We got to finish it up with me proposing to her, that went and. Talked to her mother because her dad passed. Uh, who was a. Uh, green, uh, spec ops dude in Vietnam, but the army. And, uh, had a security company, like the same stuff.

• 4:31:06Shawn Ryan?

  That's weird.

• 4:31:06Eddie Penney?

  So I guess like.

• 4:31:07Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, that's weird.

• 4:31:08Eddie Penney?

  I would say a lot of the same things that he would say. I would be messing around like, okay, pumpkin. And she would be like, what did you just say? And I'd be like, pumpkin. I'm just joking around with you. And she goes, my dad used to call me that all the time. Like that was happening all the time.

• 4:31:24Eddie Penney?

  One more coincidence for you to show you or to show everyone pretty much and myself.

• 4:31:33Eddie Penney?

  We, we got, we, we did a Montana trip. We did that road trip I discussed with you and uh, I proposed to her at the Grand Tetons up in Jackson Hole and it was awesome. We, we did, you know, 13 day like kit in Montana, shooting over to South Dakota, coming back, Colorado, all that stuff. And uh, we got engaged on that trip and then so we, the venue we wanted, we couldn't get until we just had it like two weeks ago, our ceremony, but we got married, went to the courthouse, got married and uh, I was like, hey, why don't we go get some dinner, like celebrate somehow? And she goes, okay, cool. So we go to like our favorite little Italian place and uh, I, I text my son. I was like, he was the only one. I think that her kids were somewhere else and

• 4:32:19Eddie Penney?

  mine was gone somewhere. And I was like, hey dude, send me, look at the menu. Here's the website. Tell me what you want and we'll bring it home for you. We're gonna grab a bite to eat. He goes, okay. So he sends what he wants. It's like the most expensive thing. And I'm like, and so Amanda's like, he's not getting that. Like dude, my, my son's palate's like ridiculous. He's like wanting red snapper while the other kids want chicken nuggets. It's like, like it's good to have kids test or taste everything, but dude, when they start liking, it's like your bill's like now $900 when it's supposed to be $9. But he's like, he, he eats it. He eats it all. He loves sushi. He loves it all. But I was like, what did that? So we got him something else and I was like, what did that? What did he want? So I like look at the menu. I was like, dude, that does look good. So I got that.

• 4:33:03Eddie Penney?

  And it was like clams, mussels, calamari and like some pasta with some marinara. So we get it and you know, we say grace and um, right that, earlier that day, um, I did a podcast and I have to rehash past relationships, my past. And it, and it, it's hard for her to hear sometimes.

• 4:33:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:33:28Eddie Penney?

  I mean, rightfully so. I understand. I, I really do. But I tried to explain like, hey, I have to talk about my past. I've got to talk about all the bad things. Otherwise the redemption and pulling myself out of a very dark place means nothing. I've got to set the stage. And we talked, we were talking about that. And I'm like, it's all good. Like we are, it's, it's good. Everything's fine and um,

• 4:33:54Eddie Penney?

  And I felt bad for her. I was like, I don't want her to relive this. I want her to read, I want us to live us right now.

• 4:34:04Eddie Penney?

  And so I take a bite, I, I dig into a clam and I get the meat out with my fork and, you know, popping the meat. Enjoying, all of a sudden I get this crunch. I was like, what the heck? And I thought like, a molar or some kind of weird cap that the Navy put in was falling out. And um, so I, I, like a fat kid, eat all the food around whatever's in my mouth, this, this forward object. I pull it out. And I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. It was a frigging white pearl.

• 4:34:32Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 4:34:33Eddie Penney?

  It was a white pearl.

• 4:34:36Eddie Penney?

  Not a black pearl, not a piece of rock. It was a white pearl that you would see if I'm going to go pick out a piece of jewelry.

• 4:34:46Eddie Penney?

  And get it, get it for my girlfriend, fiance or wife. That's what you would pick. That's what you would, it would be one of those.

• 4:34:51Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 4:34:52Eddie Penney?

  Swear to God. I could not believe it. I could not believe it. And um, she thought I staged it. Which I was like, man, I really should have. That's a great idea. But I'm like, I'm like, what the heck? We're like, we're looking at this thing. We're just like, we're putting like a napkin and our waitress comes by. I'm like, we just found a pearl. And this waitress we use all the time. She's been there for twenty something years at this restaurant. She's like, never has anyone found anything like that. And she's like, let me see it. And we show her. She's like, oh my God. She's like, you just found that? We're like, yeah. Like, yeah. And we like, so we start Googling, right? Cause Google tells all. And it's like, the chances of finding a pearl

• 4:35:37Eddie Penney?

  in a clam or oyster is like every 10,000. Clam is more, is more rare. Uh, but usually when you find a pearl or what we would consider pearl, there, there's like multi, like five different colors. There's black ones. There's all these different colors. The chances of finding like a white pearl is like, it's just

• 4:35:57Shawn Ryan?

  That's not gonna happen.

• 4:35:58Eddie Penney?

  Doesn't really happen. Another coincidence. So I'm like, and it, and it, and it's, and we're looking up, okay, what is the meaning of this? One of the meaning, like says, you know, like, it says like new beginnings.

• 4:36:11Eddie Penney?

  Wisdom.

• 4:36:13Eddie Penney?

  And it's just like all these things. It's like, oh, my God, like, what's happening? Like, what the heck? And I go, and like, after I process,

• 4:36:25Eddie Penney?

  once again, I start crying.

• 4:36:28Eddie Penney?

  And I'm like, do you understand this? And she goes, what do you mean? I go, we just got married today.

• 4:36:37Eddie Penney?

  This is a gift from God. I truly believe that that was a gift from God. It still is a gift from God.

• 4:36:44Eddie Penney?

  I believe it. The coincidences, it doesn't add up. It doesn't work that way. It does not work that way.

• 4:36:54Eddie Penney?

  So we call our moms. She's talking to her mom on her phone. I'm talking to my mom explaining this. They're crying, we're crying. I had to like, she called her good friend. She's crying. I had to call Dom. He's starting to choke up. I'm like explaining all this, like trying to like calm down. I'm like, dude, can you freaking believe that this is insane? And it's just like, finally, out of trying to like, get my life, that was like a tangible sign, like, hey, you're on the right track to me. That's what it felt like. It's like, hey, you're doing good. Keep going. Good job. Here's your water. Here's a Cliff bar. Keep going. And it was just, it felt really good. So we took that pearl.

• 4:37:40Eddie Penney?

  And we turned into a bracelet. And we keep it, um, where we, we always have these two seats where we have coffee. And we got a little, I call it the battle box. And it's the clam, the clam that it came out of. And this pearl bracelet sits in it with a bunch of pictures. Oh, man. So anytime we're arguing with each other, we pull out that battle box and we put this on top. And it's like, do you remember this? And we hash it out. And it's really cool. Good for you, man. Minus her rings. That was the only piece of jewelry she wore was that pearl.

• 4:38:14Eddie Penney?

  This past weekend.

• 4:38:17Eddie Penney?

  It was.

• 4:38:19Eddie Penney?

  I'll make sure I give you the picture.

• 4:38:21Shawn Ryan?

  I'm really happy for you.

• 4:38:23Eddie Penney?

  I

• 4:38:25Eddie Penney?

  and only if only when I finally started to listen, I stopped listening to myself and started listening to him. And since I did, like I said, when I quit drinking, things started changing a lot. And I mentioned that pastor that reached out, he's like, I've been thinking about you two weeks ago. Exactly two weeks of the day is when I stopped drinking.

• 4:38:49Eddie Penney?

  To the day. I'm not making this up.

• 4:38:52Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 4:38:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, man.

• 4:38:59Eddie Penney?

  It's beautiful.

• 4:39:00Shawn Ryan?

  It really is.

• 4:39:01Eddie Penney?

  It's beautiful. And it's not like it's all, like I said before, peaches and cream or a walking through the field of daisies. It's still daily a fricking grind, man, to try to do the right thing, dealing with kid issues, wife issues, work issues, friend issues.

• 4:39:18Eddie Penney?

  The news, current events, it's still, it's still a battle.

• 4:39:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:39:22Eddie Penney?

  But we can choose how we handle those. And there are certain things that we can do to make this and this better. You know?

• 4:39:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:39:32Eddie Penney?

  There is.

• 4:39:33Shawn Ryan?

  Happiness is a choice.

• 4:39:35Eddie Penney?

  Oh, a hundred percent, one hundred percent. It is.

• 4:39:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:39:39Eddie Penney?

  It really is. And, um. Yeah.

• 4:39:44Shawn Ryan?

  You got it.

• 4:39:46Eddie Penney?

  I do.

• 4:39:46Shawn Ryan?

  I see it all over you.

• 4:39:48Eddie Penney?

  I do, and I appreciate that, man. That means a lot. It really does. Um, yeah, I'm very happy, man. I'm very happy with my wife. My wife is.

• 4:39:57Eddie Penney?

  I love her so much.

• 4:39:59Shawn Ryan?

  I can tell.

• 4:40:00Eddie Penney?

  I do.

• 4:40:01Shawn Ryan?

  What's this podcast you guys are doing together?

• 4:40:03Eddie Penney?

  So we have the penny, so we have two podcasts. We got the Unafraid Podcast where we kind of like talk about the chapters and we're starting to do other things now, but then we got the Penny's Podcast. Which we just started having these conversations and we're like, I was like, man, why don't we, we should do a podcast over this. Or she said it, I was like. Okay, so being true to my word, I just started ordering a bunch of stuff off Amazon. Got it sent up and just took a room that we were real like it was a sitting room, like, all right, this is the new podcast. Actually, I had. Jiu Jitsu mats everywhere that the boys and I would just mess mess around with and do fighting stuff on. So I ripped those out and made a podcast room and um we just wanted to be real. Like we just said, we want to be real. Talk about relationship things. She talks a lot

• 4:40:46Eddie Penney?

  about having to deal with deal with me, my anger, certain issues, the drinking. Uh, we laid out there. We talk about it all. We we talk about a lot of stuff, faith stuff, the struggles. We talk about it. And we just, we're just real, man. We're just, we're just real. And uh, it's, I loved on that podcast with her. We just get so close and I can just see, see her working. And I just, I think that's probably one of the the best times that I truly understand what she's talking about and what she's getting. And uh, it's good. It's really good. Yeah, it's, it's, it's fun.

• 4:41:27Shawn Ryan?

  I like watching it. I mean, you guys interact with each other.

• 4:41:29Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 4:41:30Shawn Ryan?

  Really, I mean, it's a, it's a good example, you know, for, for, there's not a lot of,

• 4:41:37Shawn Ryan?

  I don't think there's a lot of happy married couples.

• 4:41:40Eddie Penney?

  I don't think there is either.

• 4:41:41Shawn Ryan?

  You know, in, in.

• 4:41:42Eddie Penney?

  I've had two of them that were unhappy.

• 4:41:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. And you see that, at least me and my wife see it when we hang around couples who aren't happy. They get the, it's just not a good atmosphere to be in. I sense,

• 4:41:59Shawn Ryan?

  you can sense jealousy, you can sense they want your relationship to crash. They want to drag you down on your level and, and uh, so putting things out like that, like what you and Amanda are doing, it's, it's just a good example for, for, for married couples.

• 4:42:16Eddie Penney?

  I appreciate that, man. That's good to hear.

• 4:42:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:42:18Eddie Penney?

  That's good to hear. It's, it's hard to do them sometimes because the mindset's got to be in a certain place, especially for her. She's like, I really just don't feel like I just don't feel like it. And I, and I, and we had a discussion about this actually like two weeks ago. I was like, we'll, we'll be amped to do a podcast and she will like, it's time to do the podcast.

• 4:42:41Eddie Penney?

  And she'll get a real bad headache or she'll get really tired or she'll be like, I just don't want to do it. And it happened like two or three times. And like on the third or fourth time, I was like, I was like, do you realize that we will have it ready to go? We know we're going to talk about, we don't like plan. We just, we just want a free flow, right? Shoot from the hip.

• 4:43:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:43:01Eddie Penney?

  But we have a topic, right? Because of based off of something. I was like, do you realize that this has been happening? Right before we're about to do a podcast. I was like, is it possible that you're getting these feelings because? This message shouldn't go out to help all these different people? Like it's not a coincidence that you're feeling that. And it goes back to that spiritual warfare piece. And calling it out like, dude, we gotta fight this. Like, let's go. We're pushing through this. We've got to do it.

• 4:43:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:43:31Eddie Penney?

  It's helping others, man. It's helping, it's helping others. Much like this show is going to help others. Just like I watch your shows that I'm not on and it helps me. I mean, listen to Shipley. I was like, dude, man, wow. Like it was good. I mean, I hate hearing that and hate to hear other buddies go through that. But at the same time, it's like, okay, I'm not alone. It's normal.

• 4:43:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:43:55Eddie Penney?

  It's not normal, but it's, you know what I mean?

• 4:43:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, I mean, is that, is the podcast still on? It's on Unafraid or Eddie Penny?

• 4:44:07Eddie Penney?

  Uh, the podcast is on everything like YouTube, Spotify. It's on everything, but you can, if you go to eddypenny.com, I put some of them up there. But I have links to all the podcasts on all my profiles.

• 4:44:18Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 4:44:18Eddie Penney?

  I got like the link tree or whatever.

• 4:44:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:44:20Eddie Penney?

  It goes to anything and everything.

• 4:44:22Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. We'll link it below. How do you guys pick your topics? Me and my wife do a podcast to a very. Similar, but not so similar. Uh, where we just, we call ours, it's not just us and it's, it's, it's bringing up struggles and the whole point is be like, look, you know, this is what social media looks like, but that's not, that's not what we're dealing with, you know, this, there's real, there's a real, we're a real couple behind the scenes with real struggles.

• 4:44:49Eddie Penney?

  Right, not this facade.

• 4:44:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:44:51Eddie Penney?

  Right.

• 4:44:51Shawn Ryan?

  And so we put it out there, you know, in hopes of people like, oh, you know, we deal with that shit.

• 4:44:57Eddie Penney?

  Right.

• 4:44:57Shawn Ryan?

  We get advice from it.

• 4:44:58Eddie Penney?

  Oh, a hundred percent.

• 4:45:00Shawn Ryan?

  You know?

• 4:45:00Eddie Penney?

  Oh, absolutely. It's, it goes both ways.

• 4:45:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:45:03Eddie Penney?

  It goes both ways. You're just kind of starting the conversation.

• 4:45:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:45:05Eddie Penney?

  And, uh, yeah, we just kind of go over what we're honestly dealing with or struggling with. We'll go over some of that.

• 4:45:10Shawn Ryan?

  At the time?

• 4:45:11Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, like, and some of it like, oh man, we should have talked about this or we, or another couple or something. We might hear about something and we're like, let's talk about this, but usually it's stuff that we go through. Like I talked about my anger, like getting the gangland block shots did really nothing for me. Uh, we talked about that stuff.

• 4:45:31Eddie Penney?

  Talked about that vision I had about the craziness that's been going on, the coincidences, just like crazy stuff. We just talk about it.

• 4:45:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:45:41Eddie Penney?

  But a lot of the struggles, I mean, we, we, we called like the PTSD piece a lot. Cause she lives with it. She had to deal with her father.

• 4:45:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:45:48Eddie Penney?

  And now she's dealing with me. So she's, she understands it very well. That's how she would probably deal with me. And I'm much better now, but I still have my issues, man. It's gotten way better since I quit drinking, but, uh.

• 4:46:03Shawn Ryan?

  What's something you would like to work on?

• 4:46:06Eddie Penney?

  The cussing still.

• 4:46:07Shawn Ryan?

  The cussing?

• 4:46:08Eddie Penney?

  Yeah, but I mean,

• 4:46:11Eddie Penney?

  I don't want to get,

• 4:46:14Eddie Penney?

  I have a tendency if I'm upset with someone that I can kind of pretty much treat you like you're dead. I don't want to do that. I can do it with my kids.

• 4:46:26Shawn Ryan?

  I do that.

• 4:46:27Eddie Penney?

  I don't like doing that. You're almost like you're dead to me until I'm over pouting and then I can come back and we can engage like nothing ever happened. I want to get better at that. I want to look at it for what it is and be like, okay, you're a child. I'm a forty four year old man.

• 4:46:46Eddie Penney?

  That claims to be mentally tough, right?

• 4:46:49Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 4:46:50Eddie Penney?

  Like I, and like I said, man, I, I still struggle like, just like the next guy. I just fix one thing and move on to the next. Uh, but that would probably be my number one thing is like the patience and the understanding and the grace. Uh, a little bit more.

• 4:47:07Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 4:47:07Eddie Penney?

  That's, that's the, that's my battle right now. That's my battlefield.

• 4:47:13Shawn Ryan?

  Well, Eddie, I just, man.

• 4:47:18Shawn Ryan?

  I'm happy you came.

• 4:47:20Eddie Penney?

  I'm glad I got the invite, buddy. I appreciate it. It was awesome to see you, dude.

• 4:47:24Shawn Ryan?

  You too.

• 4:47:25Eddie Penney?

  And well done on this podcast. Like you've got a very good podcaster, dude. I'm very proud of you.

• 4:47:31Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 4:47:32Eddie Penney?

  And like, I'm just glad things are working out for you. Got the family.

• 4:47:37Eddie Penney?

  You're getting overrun by Californians. Uh, like I'm, I'm.

• 4:47:42Eddie Penney?

  Uh, it's, it's good to see your brothers like doing well, man.

• 4:47:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:47:45Eddie Penney?

  I lo- I love it. I love it. So just keep going, keep going. I know you will.

• 4:47:50Shawn Ryan?

  I will. You too. I got one last question.

• 4:47:53Eddie Penney?

  Yes, sir.

• 4:47:55Shawn Ryan?

  You have a son.

• 4:47:56Eddie Penney?

  I do.

• 4:47:56Shawn Ryan?

  Your wife has two sons?

• 4:47:58Eddie Penney?

  So I have a, right now I have a 13 year old son. I have an 18 year old daughter and a 23 year old daughter. She has a seven year old son. And a 10 year old daughter. So we all, we both have all these.

• 4:48:11Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 4:48:11Eddie Penney?

  That's what, that's what she brought in. She brought in two. I have three. Only ones in the house on my side right now. So we have three total in the house.

• 4:48:18Shawn Ryan?

  After everything you've been through. Would you want your sons to join the military and go to war?

• 4:48:31Eddie Penney?

  Am I allowed to pick a good government? That's.

• 4:48:35Shawn Ryan?

  Would you want your children to experience what you experienced?

• 4:48:39Eddie Penney?

  No.

• 4:48:41Eddie Penney?

  And yes. No. Cause I don't want them to have to deal with the aftermath.

• 4:48:49Eddie Penney?

  Yes, because I want them to understand evil and I want them to live. And I know that sounds kind of weird, going to war, living, but.

• 4:48:58Shawn Ryan?

  It makes sense.

• 4:48:59Eddie Penney?

  That's living. And

• 4:49:04Eddie Penney?

  fighting for a great country, this is, no matter what the tabloids say, this is a great country. The people of this country are great people. Um, what we stand for is a great country, that flag is great.

• 4:49:21Eddie Penney?

  Yes, I would want them to stand up, but only, only if their heart and soul is in it. That's it. If their heart and soul is not in it, then I wouldn't want them to do it. If they felt forced to do it, I wouldn't want them to do it, if they wanted to it, if they fiend it, if they craved it. Absolutely. And I know the baggage that comes with it, and I would be there to support them the best I possibly could.

• 4:49:47Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thanks for answering that.

• 4:49:49Eddie Penney?

  Yeah.

• 4:49:49Shawn Ryan?

  But, once again, Eddie, it was a a real honor to have you here sitting in the cross for me and, and, uh, I just wish you the best of luck with Contingent Group, with Unafraid, with your book, with your next book coming out, your podcast, your personal life and your family life.

• 4:50:07Eddie Penney?

  Likewise, my friend, likewise.

• 4:50:08Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 4:50:10Eddie Penney?

  It's good to see you where you are.

• 4:50:12Shawn Ryan?

  It's good.

• 4:50:16Eddie Penney?

  Thank you, appreciate it.