#2 Travis Kennedy - Navy SEAL / BUDS Instructor

In this episode Shawn Ryan sits down with Travis Kennedy, a former Navy SEAL, BUD/S instructor, and currently the CEO of KDS (Kennedy Defensive Shooting). We start off discussing the tension and unrest within the United States in regards to the president's response of an attack on US Embassy in Iraq to coordinate a drone strike on the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. Shawn then gets into the details of Kennedy's broken home childhood, and how he overcame all odds in becoming one the United States' elite Navy SEAL Operators. Travis takes the audience into the details of what combat looks like as an elite operator. Shawn then digs into Travis's transition from military life to civilian life, how the FBI decided he was not a qualified candidate to work for the organization and how he moved passed that denial. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:43Shawn Ryan?

  So you're going out every day. You get in a gunfight outside of your fob. Then you come home, and then you gotta deal with the base getting hit. How many engagements would you say you were a part of in that eight months? Do you have any idea?

• 2:00Speaker 05

  I lost count. It was that many.

• 2:02Shawn Ryan?

  Just to put that in perspective for you, because most guys don't think about this. That's 180 fucking engagements.

• 2:11Speaker 05

  Our very first op, the Hilo crashed.

• 2:14Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 2:15Speaker 05

  Killed everybody. One guy survived.

• 2:17Shawn Ryan?

  I want to take a call. I have your dad on the line, Jim. Hey Jim, how's it going? This is Sean Ryan.

• 2:23Speaker 06

  I was always curious how he really felt when he actually landed in Afghanistan with his team for that first point there.

• 2:27Speaker 05

  I kind of just in the back of my mind hoped that you understood, or at least somewhat understood, what I was actually going to do.

• 2:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, that was definitely an emotional day for me. I didn't realize, I still remember that call clearly. I didn't want to bet on him. How emotional it was.

• 2:41Speaker 05

  Fucking every night, right when sundown, these dudes would just smash us with small arms and it would be effective.

• 2:48Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of times when you lose guys in a combat zone and you know them, it'll create a type of ritual.

• 2:55Speaker 05

  Did I do anything?

• 2:56Shawn Ryan?

  I'm going to take another call. We've got a mutual friend on the line who was there that whole second deployment with you, Jeff Reed.

• 3:03Speaker 07

  Dude, I am doing great. How are you doing?

• 3:06Shawn Ryan?

  And there's a picture of you and Jeff and another guy's face that's blurred out.

• 3:11Speaker 07

  Do you remember shooting the goose nuts off on that mount, up at the mountain?

• 3:16Speaker 05

  Hell yeah, I do.

• 3:24Shawn Ryan?

  Welcome back to the Sean Ryan Show. I hope everybody had a good Christmas, good holiday, a good New Year. We released our first episode on midnight on Christmas Eve. Out of 800,000 podcasts and an estimated 30 million episodes. We ranked number 73 on the top charts overall, right off the bat. Thanks to you guys for heading over to iTunes, listening, subscribing, and most importantly, leaving us a review.

• 4:03Shawn Ryan?

  If you get a chance and you haven't done it yet, please go over to iTunes, leave us a review, even if it's only one word. That's all I'm asking for doing these. With that being said, I'm ready to kick off episode 002. We have a 13-year combat veteran, Navy SEAL with multiple combat deployments. He was a BUDS instructor. This one really strums the hard strings. We get deep, it gets emotional.

• 4:38Shawn Ryan?

  Guys, this is better than entertainment. This is the real thing. Please welcome Mr. Travis Kennedy.

• 5:01Shawn Ryan?

  Alright Travis, I've been dying to meet you. You're finally here in Tennessee. We're in my studio. I can't fucking wait to get started. Jeff Reed introduced us, what, a couple of months back, over the phone. And, um, anybody that's a friend of that guy is a friend of mine. And I just want to say it's a real pleasure to finally meet you and, and to have you on the show.

• 5:28Speaker 05

  Thank you, man. It's been a long time coming, for sure. True pleasure to even be sitting right here and spending the weekend with you.

• 5:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah, that's, this is awesome. I want to dive right in here, and I'm going to give you a tough question. Right now, the hot topic on the news is Iran. We just killed Soleimani. And, without going too far in depth into your background yet, you're a team guy, you're a SEAL, you're an operator, you've been on multiple bases, maybe embassies, FOBs, but you've been on government facilities, in combat zones that have been hit numerous times. I want to hear your take on our president's decision to fire up that drone strike and

• 6:19Shawn Ryan?

  take out Soleimani.

• 6:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's been a definitely controversial topic, at least from what I've seen lately. However, my opinion is that these decisions aren't made rationally. They're not made hasty, they're very strategic and thought out. Especially with a guy like Soleimani. This is someone that's been on our list for a very long time. So, the president had to make a difficult decision, but a decision that, in my opinion, needed to be done. And at the end of the day, we're getting rid of a terrorist that has been responsible for...

• 6:59Speaker 05

  Hundreds of thou- oh, close to thousands of deaths, you know, Iraqis and American lives. So, we're doing the world a favor by getting rid of this guy. Yeah, we maybe, there is always risk on the table. And these, these decisions are made every single day. Some don't even come to the spotlight, but all these risks are weighed. They're not just made blindly, so.

• 7:22Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, as a guy that's 13-year Navy SEAL, multiple combat deployments,

• 7:29Shawn Ryan?

  well over 100 engagements, fighting off terrorists that are trying to kill you. I mean, what, what is it like to hear people say that they're upset that we killed a guy who's responsible for thousands of US lives? And, you know, and, and they don't support it. They don't, they don't think that we should have retaliated. And, and me personally, I had friends that died in Benghazi. And we saw what the fuck happened when we don't do anything, when we don't send help and when we don't, you know, stand up for our guys that are over there fighting

• 8:14Shawn Ryan?

  for the fucking freedom that these Americans have at home.

• 8:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's really, honestly, it's truly mind-blowing. I try to ignore stuff like that, all these people online.

• 8:27Speaker 05

  But it's hard to miss, especially with this. It's the reaction of people getting mad because he may stoke another war, another conflict with Iran. We've already been in conflict with Iran for a very long time. We'll still continue to be. We have no good relations with them. They're not a friendly country whatsoever, but so. But just one incident because it's been blown up so much and most likely because he's such a high-level guy that people want to go high and right knee-jerk reaction and think, you know, this was so horrible that he was going to cause a war possibly. But I think people just need to...

• 9:09Speaker 05

  Understand, educate themselves and why these decisions are made because this isn't like these are made all the time.

• 9:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 05

  And they just don't, people don't know about it.

• 9:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:19Speaker 05

  But I just hate, I hate seeing online, I hate seeing people going uproar over stuff like this.

• 9:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I think, you know, it seems like, you know, you'd never hear anybody who actually did anything for the country speaking out against things like this. It's always the people that are sitting on their fucking ass back in the rear enjoying the freedom that we fucking give them. And, uh, you know, maybe those people should just shut the fuck up and enjoy what they have.

• 9:46Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 9:48Shawn Ryan?

  But, alright, enough about politics. I hate them. I get pissed every time I talk about them. But, uh, I want to dive right into your childhood and, uh, you know, kind of where you grew up and, and how you grew up and, and eventually what led you to become one of the world's most elite operators as a Navy SEAL. So, where did you grow up?

• 10:11Speaker 05

  So, growing up, Southern California. Grew up in a city called Huntington Beach.

• 10:18Speaker 05

  It's a beach town. Living in California, I mean, I was just a punk kid growing up. Skateboarder, just doing shenanigans at a younger age.

• 10:28Speaker 05

  Bouncing back and forth between mom and dad. They were divorced. Typical, you know, broken home. Sharing time.

• 10:37Shawn Ryan?

  When did they get divorced?

• 10:40Speaker 05

  I don't even remember. I was an infant. I mean, I was so young, I can't even remember when they were divorced. I can't remember when they were married. It was that long ago.

• 10:48Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so you never saw them together?

• 10:51Speaker 05

  I've never even experienced living, at least from what I did, but at one point when I was a baby, but even remembering living with them in the same household, married. So,

• 11:00Speaker 05

  I grew up like that. It was a normal, that was a normal for me. But so, going back and forth between mom and dad, growing up,

• 11:09Speaker 05

  was normal. It was a pain in the ass. I actually liked spending more time with my mom than I did my dad when I was younger.

• 11:16Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 11:16Speaker 05

  And I have no idea why. Even looking back, I was just...

• 11:20Speaker 05

  I like to call myself an idiot because now me and my dad are like we're we're me my mom and dad are super close but me and my dad are super tight. But I think it was because at the time my mom was dating someone who had a son, he was a little bit older than me and we're like brothers.

• 11:37Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 11:38Speaker 05

  Did everything together, always hung out, we were skateboarding, always fucking off. So naturally I was inclined just to wanting to be there all the time. Um, so. Never wanted to go to my dad's. I did, but not often without bitching.

• 11:53Shawn Ryan?

  That's surprising to me because I've researching you on social media and listening to your previous podcasts, I can tell that you're you and your father are extremely tight. My question is, if you were so tight with your mom, what is the thing that kind of um drew you closer to your father?

• 12:15Speaker 05

  As I got older?

• 12:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:17Speaker 05

  I think as I matured more, I just

• 12:21Speaker 05

  kind of realized that

• 12:24Speaker 05

  he was my father, you know, as a father figure and I just wanted to be around him more, you know, I was like probably around fourteen, thirteen, fourteen. I wanted to spend more time with him. And we became closer. Because my mom was just dating this guy, they ended up separating. So that older, his son, we all like parted ways. So that kind of got broken up. Um, so then I was kind of left with without him. And then I just kind of leaned towards, kind of naturally just went towards my dad.

• 13:02Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 13:03Speaker 05

  Um, and we became a lot tighter. I spent a lot more time with him, especially when I was in, once I hit middle school and then going to high school.

• 13:12Speaker 05

  But still the same things, still sharing time throughout that whole process.

• 13:17Shawn Ryan?

  What were you like as a kid? Were you, were you like a nerd? Were you studying, making good grades, or were you a hellion out?

• 13:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, growing up. Terrorizing the town. Growing up, I was like a punk kid younger, like middle school.

• 13:33Speaker 05

  Just a punk skateboarder, just doing shenanigans, fucking around. I was, I was a mediocre student. And elementary, mid school, middle school, junior high.

• 13:46Speaker 05

  Probably just mediocre. I didn't really try that hard in school. I was more focused on, especially when I was younger, just fucking off. And then towards the end of, I'd say, middle school, going to high school, and then I started, I started tightening up. I was never really an overachiever in school, as far as grades are concerned. But I got into sports, and that kind of changed my mentality. It wasn't really until I got into high school and started playing lacrosse and started, and a couple other sports, that I really started maturing.

• 14:22Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 14:23Speaker 05

  Kind of seeing what the next move was in life.

• 14:26Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I heard on some of your other podcasts as well, they assumed that you were from a great family, it sounded like. And I think I heard one say like, you know, oh, you know, a lot of guys that go into special operations or even the military from broken families. And you didn't say a fucking word. They just breezed right over it. And my wife actually picked up on that first. And so you're not from a picture-perfect family in Huntington Beach, California, like everybody thinks. You've had some shit.

• 15:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, most people think it's fine that people from SoCal, especially those beach cities, because they are wealthy cities, you know, born with a silver spoon in my mouth.

• 15:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:11Speaker 05

  Got everything I had, perfect family, everything, all our shit together. Far from it.

• 15:19Speaker 05

  We were good, but definitely not a normal family. Broken home. But that was normal for me. So I was used to it. Maybe if it happened later in life, it probably would have had more of a profound effect on me. But being that it was, and I was such at a young age, not even realizing, that was just normal. I was just so used to it. It didn't really have really too much of a negative effect on me than my parents being separated.

• 15:47Speaker 05

  But yeah, definitely, we were just lower middle-class family, like in just struggles. My dad was struggling, starting his own business. Poor, but still providing, you know, my mom, same thing. So definitely, definitely not the typical what you think of Southern California, that's for sure.

• 16:07Shawn Ryan?

  At what point did you start to realize you wanted to become a Navy SEAL? Or join the military? How old were you?

• 16:19Speaker 05

  I was about 16. 15 going on 16, I knew I wanted to be in the military. Because in the beginning, when I started weighing all these options, I knew I wanted to be in the military. Then I was really sat down, like, what I want to do? I wanted to do something above the norm. Like, I didn't want to just join and be a grunt, or just the regular sailor. I was more focused on Navy. And I just wanted to join and just be on the ship and just do whatever job. I wanted to do something great.

• 16:46Speaker 05

  I did, at the time, think about Naval Academy. So I was talking, this time I was discussing with my father, what I should do. At first, he wanted me to do college. Then he's like, Navy, think about Naval Academy. I thought about fighter pilot. That thought came in and out of my head pretty quickly.

• 17:06Speaker 05

  I think it was more of this, like, the stigma was like, oh, that sounds great, that sounds fun. You know, it sounds like a cool job. But the whole...

• 17:15Speaker 05

  Naval Academy, that just wasn't for me. And honestly, now being an officer was not my personality, so I'm glad I didn't do that. But-

• 17:23Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking cake eaters.

• 17:24Speaker 05

  Yeah, that would not, that's not me. Then I, you know, going on with SEALs, my father was a big influencer, major influencer for the SEALs. You know, he's the one, and you've heard this on other podcasts, that he, he's the one who brought the information home for me. Because at the time, there was minimal, minimal information online or whatsoever. You know, he brought home a pamphlet, like those little trifle pamphlets, that had SEALs, all little blips of information, not much, but just like, this is Navy SEALs. And I was like, holy shit, you know, like, that was it. Especially him giving it to me.

• 18:06Speaker 05

  That was more maybe a subconscious thing for me, like, at the time, I look back, like, maybe that was, you know, seeing him give me this, like, hey, you need me to do something great.

• 18:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:14Speaker 05

  Like, that set the tone.

• 18:16Shawn Ryan?

  That's pretty surprising. You don't hear that very often about their parents push their kid into special operations. I think that's cool, but you just, you don't hear that, ever.

• 18:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've never heard of it.

• 18:28Shawn Ryan?

  It's very surprising. What, did you know, I mean, when he gave you the pamphlet, what that was, or what that would entail?

• 18:35Speaker 05

  I knew what they were, but I didn't know what it entailed. I mean, I've heard of them, but just vaguely, I didn't know all that, like, just a glimpse into that kind of pamphlet thing of what they're about. Because at the time, before that, I didn't research them, I mean, I've heard of it on, like, a little bit, but that, once I got that in my hands, then I dove, you know, I deep dived into it. I just became obsessed, because even just looking at that, getting it from him- Just in reading it, I knew that was gonna be a good fit. That was more my style, who I was, my personality, where I would see I would fit and do good and be successful.

• 19:17Speaker 05

  And after that, I was like, that's it. Like, that's what I'm gonna do. And the merit, especially with the water aspect too, because I really, that's why it drove me kind of the Navy, the maritime aspect, and that was like, perfect. It's like SEALs would be a perfect fit for me.

• 19:32Shawn Ryan?

  You liked the water, growing up?

• 19:33Speaker 05

  I agree, yeah, I did.

• 19:35Shawn Ryan?

  Do you like it now?

• 19:36Speaker 05

  I have a different relationship with it now.

• 19:39Shawn Ryan?

  I think a lot of guys have a different relationship with that after a while.

• 19:42Speaker 05

  Takes me about 10 minutes to get in the water, man.

• 19:44Shawn Ryan?

  You just look at it like, oh, fuck, I hope it's not cold.

• 19:47Speaker 05

  Slow crawl into it.

• 19:49Shawn Ryan?

  You signed up at 17 years old. I mean, you can't even legally do that by yourself. What was that like and why didn't you just wait till you were 18?

• 19:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, for me, I knew in my core that I wanted to do this so bad. I was like, I need to sign up and make this happen. Because that, when I did that, that even stoked the fire even more, because now I had that goal. I already made that commitment. And there was no turning back, in my mind.

• 20:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:19Speaker 05

  But I was so set in that time, because I enlisted this summer going into my senior year, because I wanted to graduate and go.

• 20:27Shawn Ryan?

  So you enlisted before your fucking senior year of high school?

• 20:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, so I was already in the Navy, the DEP program throughout my senior year. So I knew for a fact I was going. I already knew when I was leaving for boot camp, like halfway through senior year.

• 20:41Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 20:42Speaker 05

  I left literally a month later, after I graduated high school, one month later.

• 20:48Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. So, looking back now, after all you've been through, did you, do you think you had any idea how big of a fucking decision that was that you made at 17 years old to go? And this is post 9/11. What year is this?

• 21:05Speaker 05

  06.

• 21:06Shawn Ryan?

  06.

• 21:07Speaker 05

  So yeah, post 9/11. So, no. I definitely, I knew I was making a major commitment, because I knew SEALs, Special Forces, like, this is big time, this is...

• 21:20Speaker 05

  But being at a young age, like just knowing the minimal knowledge I knew about it, I didn't know the magnitude. I mean, that was way bigger. I didn't really, it didn't really come to life till I actually got there.

• 21:30Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 21:31Speaker 05

  But I definitely knew I was making a life-changing decision. A difficult one, hell of a challenging one too, but the magnitude didn't really hit me till I actually got to BUDS. And that's when reality struck. But I knew what I wanted to do. That's why I joined so early, because I wanted to leave right away. I didn't want to, I didn't want buffer time, because I knew myself was like, if I dragged this out,

• 22:00Speaker 05

  then I'm gonna create excuses or something.

• 22:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 05

  Because I had locked tight my training, like over a year out when I enlisted. I was like so 100% front-side focused.

• 22:09Shawn Ryan?

  You were locked on.

• 22:10Speaker 05

  Locked on like 100% training on that thing. That was my life. I didn't give a shit about anything else. Like, I played a little bit of sports that helped me, and then trained. And then was, I didn't care about, I finished school, passed. I wasn't exceptional. Because I was so, all I cared about was SEALs.

• 22:31Shawn Ryan?

  As, Bs, Cs, or below on your grades?

• 22:34Speaker 05

  No As. I got like a couple Bs, Cs, and a D in math. I wasn't a math student. I got like a D in math. Not a math guy. Now, actually, I believe in decent math now, but at the time, I think, because I, I think I just didn't put effort into it. I don't know why, but I, the interest wasn't there. I was so focused on something else.

• 22:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So how long after graduation did you go to boot camp?

• 23:00Speaker 05

  Graduated June of '06, went to BUDS, or, excuse me, boot camp in July.

• 23:06Shawn Ryan?

  You went to boot camp?

• 23:08Speaker 05

  Went to boot camp in July. Graduated high school in June, so a month later I left for boot camp in July of '06.

• 23:16Speaker 05

  And then boot camp is boot camp and then I went to corps school after boot camp.

• 23:21Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit. I joined July of 01. That's weird.

• 23:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, July 18th was the day I went there.

• 23:27Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 23:30Shawn Ryan?

  When you joined, you, so you joined, you had the SEAL contract or whatever they were calling it at that time. And at that time, did they have, did they make you go through NA school to fill the, a job with the Navy if you quit? Or did you go straight to BUDS?

• 23:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, they did. I had to pick a rate. I had to pass the SEAL PST before I got to try out for BUDS. Prior to even boot camp and then I had to pick a rate and I ended up picking corps school because at the time there was only an approved list. It wasn't any job in the Navy. They gave me a list like of five jobs, like ordinance, radar, corps school. When I looked at it, I was like,

• 24:10Speaker 05

  uh, maybe I'll just pick something that's practical, you know, that's gonna be useful in my life. Medicine.

• 24:18Shawn Ryan?

  So you did that?

• 24:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, I had no, I had no idea like I would be interested in it. It just sounded, it's like, okay, medicine, that sounds more useful than an AO or something that loads this ordinance on ships.

• 24:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:30Speaker 05

  So I picked that and that kind of paved the way.

• 24:35Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you when you got to BUDS?

• 24:38Speaker 05

  19.

• 24:39Shawn Ryan?

  19 years old.

• 24:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, I turned 19, yeah.

• 24:42Shawn Ryan?

  So you did all this preparation from age 16, you made that decision, 17?

• 24:48Speaker 05

  17, really locked tight, yeah.

• 24:51Shawn Ryan?

  You get to BUDS. Did you think you were prepared when you showed up?

• 24:55Speaker 05

  I did.

• 24:57Shawn Ryan?

  Were you prepared when you showed up?

• 24:59Speaker 05

  I thought I was. I mean, I, everything up until that point, I really thought I was, did everything I can, had all the tools.

• 25:09Speaker 05

  Thought I knew everything I needed to know about training and to be physically mentally ready. But, once I actually started BUDS, I knew there was things that I wasn't ready for. I mean, it was gonna be a surprise.

• 25:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:22Speaker 05

  Things you just can't train for.

• 25:25Shawn Ryan?

  What was that like for you? I mean, you'd seen, I'm assuming you watched every damn

• 25:33Shawn Ryan?

  piece of content you could get your hands on. Discovery Channel, History Channel, books, whatever you could get your hands on. And so, you thought you knew the whole process, you saw it all on, you know, or well, you thought you saw it all, and then you're there. And, you see the bell, and you see the grinder, and you see the instructors, and you see the classes. They're already classed up, going through Hell Week, second phase, third phase. What was that like when you showed up and you saw that shit for real, for the first time?

• 26:06Speaker 05

  Definitely nerve wracking. It was a surreal experience. So I remember checking in, I checked in with like, a handful of other guys. We walked into the quarter deck, checked in, and then they marched us through the grinder, and there was a class going on the grinder, getting beat. They were doing a PT. And that was definitely a surreal experience for me. Nervous as hell, scared.

• 26:28Speaker 05

  Also, very excited too. Like, I had all kinds of emotions in me.

• 26:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:32Speaker 05

  I know how to act. Just stoic face, but internally, I was... Because I was just like this frail, skinny, nineteen year old out of boot camp, lost so much weight. So I was just like, I looked probably so, I looked so damn young.

• 26:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 05

  But, and...

• 26:48Speaker 05

  Like I said, prior to that point, I thought I knew what I was gonna get myself into, until I saw it, and I was like, holy shit, you know, here it is.

• 26:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you see.

• 26:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:55Shawn Ryan?

  You see guys that are mid twenties, early thirties.

• 27:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, because I saw first phase guys, see like, second, third phase guys running around, these like, brown shirts, these dudes, got long hair, looked like... You know, more mature, older, like, fuck. You know, I was taken back.

• 27:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, shit, some of them have already been to combat and back from other branches and decided they want to try out for a SEAL.

• 27:17Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 27:18Shawn Ryan?

  And, you're a nineteen year old, punk kid.

• 27:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:23Shawn Ryan?

  From Huntington Beach, California, I mean, did you... Did that intimidate you seeing guys like that quit?

• 27:30Speaker 05

  It didn't intimidate me. I didn't really notice it at first. I mean, I didn't really pay attention to people who quit. I was just, especially in the beginning, there was just so many of us that you wake up and there's lost like 10 guys.

• 27:45Shawn Ryan?

  How many did you start with?

• 27:47Speaker 05

  We started around 140, I believe, something like that. And then I ended up graduating BUDs with 31, 32.

• 27:55Shawn Ryan?

  Shit, so that's, they say it's like an 85% attrition rate, and that's, I mean, well above that. So, must have been a tough class.

• 28:09Speaker 05

  Last hardest class?

• 28:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I hear that all the time too. When you showed up,

• 28:16Shawn Ryan?

  whether it's Selection or BUDs, a lot of, a lot of guys showing up to those kind of training curriculums, they have one evolution, one famous evolution in mind that they're scared shitless of. Like, a lot of guys go to BUDs, it's the, you know, the 50-meter underwater swim,

• 28:36Shawn Ryan?

  or Selection is the land nav. Did you have anything that you were really worried about?

• 28:42Speaker 05

  Me was the boats on heads. I saw it and know how,

• 28:47Speaker 05

  I went to that point, like, I knew I had to do a four-mile run, I knew I had to do the swim. I wasn't really sweating that. I heard about the 50-meter.

• 28:54Speaker 05

  Wasn't really sweating that, but

• 28:58Speaker 05

  seeing, watching the videos and stuff like that, seeing like the log PT and the guys sprinting with his boat on their head, ended up being right, because that's, in my opinion, is still the worst evolution in BUDs. I mean, it's definitely mentally and physically the most taxing. Running with that thing on your head, especially when people around you aren't holding their weight in the beginning. When you're all collectively holding your weight, then it's manageable, but when people start slipping, then it's brutal. For me, that was one of the most challenged, in the beginning, probably one of the most challenging things.

• 29:34Shawn Ryan?

  Was that as bad as you thought it was gonna be? The boats on heads.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  It was worse.

• 29:40Shawn Ryan?

  Was it worse?

• 29:41Speaker 05

  I didn't even know, I just saw it, I didn't know how bad it was gonna be. Those are things you can't prepare for, like boats on heads, rock, I mean, log PT. You know, those, watching guys on the video, it just doesn't really do it justice.

• 29:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it's a little bit different watching somebody with a rubber boat on their head and you're like, ah, you know, how bad can it be? And then, your head's under that boat with a bunch of sand in between your scalp and that boat weighs, I don't know, a couple hundred pounds full of sand and water. And then, you know, it takes your scalp with it. And.

• 30:16Speaker 05

  Crushes your neck.

• 30:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's an eye opener, for sure.

• 30:22Shawn Ryan?

  Did the thought of quitting ever cross your mind, going through? Never once?

• 30:26Speaker 05

  No, and I can honestly say that, no, never thought about it one time.

• 30:29Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 30:31Speaker 05

  Definitely struggled through, through BUDs on, on certain physical evolutions and challenged, definitely a lot. But the thought of giving up, no.

• 30:41Shawn Ryan?

  What did you struggle with?

• 30:43Speaker 05

  Running.

• 30:44Shawn Ryan?

  Running?

• 30:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. Running was my kryptonite. As it progressed, in the beginning it was okay, and then it got progressively a little worse and worse, and then it kinda, it set me back.

• 30:58Shawn Ryan?

  Did it, did you get rolled back, or?

• 31:00Speaker 05

  Second phase, I got rolled back for runs.

• 31:03Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit. How was that? Did that just crush your mindset?

• 31:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was embarrassed, for sure. Especially over runs. I just felt like, what the fuck, Travis, like, over fucking runs, this is what we do. You know, I maybe I would've taken it better if I like failed pool competency or something like that, or a dive. Cause that's a difficult task. But a four mile time run that I've been doing for the past eight weeks, or longer. I thought I would, I would, I never would've saw myself failing runs, cause I failed one before pool comp, past pool comp, failed another one after pool comp, which is a major milestone in the second phase. And then, I ended up getting rolled back into another class. But post pool comp, so I didn't have to do that all over again.

• 31:55Shawn Ryan?

  For you civilian types, pool comp is a major hurdle in BUDs, which is SEAL training. And basically, long story short, it's scuba diving here with open circuit tanks. And you have to go under and basically what happens is you get the shit beat out of you and you can't breathe and you have to go through all these procedures before you can resurface and get air. Did you have to do that over again?

• 32:23Speaker 05

  No. Thank God.

• 32:25Shawn Ryan?

  That's good.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  Thank God. That was a tough evolution, too. That was probably one of the toughest I did in BUDs, if not the toughest. But I luckily got to be able to roll back post that. So I classed up with another class and then finished BUDs with that class.

• 32:46Shawn Ryan?

  No more hangups?

• 32:47Speaker 05

  No more hangups. Actually, came back stronger and healthier. And I wasn't even rolled back for that long month, month and a half.

• 32:54Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, God.

• 32:55Speaker 05

  So not very long. But I came back stronger, healthier. So I was just focused on, I trained, I rehabbed my body. Because I still felt a little broken down, too, after Hell Week, first phase. But, so, maybe that was a blessing in disguise, I don't know. But I was still ashamed of myself, like I didn't want to fail and then see my first, my class pass me up, which is a shitty feeling, too.

• 33:26Shawn Ryan?

  So you graduate BUDs, you go to SGT, and then, just doing the research, I already know you became a medic. You went to 18 Delta Course, correct?

• 33:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:39Shawn Ryan?

  In Fort Bragg. That's a hard thing to do because that's a long course. And so the guys that you were in BUDs with are already at the team. Some of them are already going off to war. And you're still in the schoolhouse.

• 33:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:57Shawn Ryan?

  How was that?

• 33:59Speaker 05

  That was definitely... Being a corpsman already, right when I got my bird, they just immediately pointed at me like, "Hey, you're going to 18 Delta." Or SOCOM, which is the Special Operations Combat Medic, the short course of the 18 Delta. It's six months. Still a very long course. And yeah, I was kinda like taken back. I was like, "Okay." You know, not really knowing what the hell that was, really. And still, I was a little irritated because I was eager to go to the team and start working. Get out of the student kinda mindset and actually show up to the team and start doing the job and training with the other team guys.

• 34:43Speaker 05

  But I took it on the chin, "So, let's go." And I went. But we'll get into it, but it was the best course I've ever attended in my entire career.

• 34:55Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 34:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:57Shawn Ryan?

  Just backtracking just a second. Get through BUDS. I mean, I know how influential your dad was in your life. And he originally gave you that pamphlet, which was the initial idea of you becoming a Navy SEAL. At the end of SQT, which is SEAL qualification training, when you got your Trident, how good did that feel? Knowing that your dad, I mean, he must have been so proud.

• 35:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was an incredible feeling. I mean, not only for me, I know for him, he was there, so was the rest of my family.

• 35:37Shawn Ryan?

  He got to see?

• 35:38Speaker 05

  He did, yeah.

• 35:39Shawn Ryan?

  You get penned?

• 35:40Speaker 05

  He did, yeah, he was there.

• 35:42Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome.

• 35:43Speaker 05

  So, it was really cool to have him there and the rest of my family as well, mom's sister. So, that was unbelievable. Best feeling I ever had, best feeling in my life, number one moment in my life up to this point. And everything coming to fruition after all those kinda steps leading up to this point and now it's actually coming true was great. And I knew it was great for him too because, you know, he could just see the result.

• 36:14Shawn Ryan?

  That must have been really cool.

• 36:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:17Shawn Ryan?

  So, you're at 18 Delta School. You're a little bit pissed off because... The boys are at the team already, you're in the schoolhouse, an Army schoolhouse nonetheless, which is always kind of a pain in the ass for, um, to do the cross thing with the, with other branches. And I know how frustrating that must have been, but looking back now, now that you know, the medic is probably the most important job on the team, would you have changed anything?

• 36:45Speaker 05

  No. No, like I said, it's...

• 36:50Speaker 05

  I became passionate about medicine, like that's where I fell in love with it, there. At the school, I didn't, even after Corps School, I didn't know shit about it. I mean, they just teach you bare bones. And then actually, deep dive into this course,

• 37:04Speaker 05

  I developed a love for it and a passion for it, and I enjoyed every minute of it. And it definitely, do not regret it because it paid dividends throughout my entire career.

• 37:15Speaker 05

  Everywhere you go, you need a medic. Every op, you need a medic. And there I was, a guy that's a medic, because there's not many medics in the, far few in between the platoons. Because no one wants to go. Because it's too long, too hard. But being at Bragg, where the schoolhouse is located, Army base, massive, and it's joint command, so a bunch of different units, majority Army, but there's a bunch. Navy guys definitely stood out, and we're under the microscope for sure.

• 37:45Speaker 05

  And it was really important to me to perform, because I didn't want to be, I've heard horror stories at that point, like I didn't want to be the team guy showing up to the platoon saying he failed 18 Delta. Just straight up turd. That's the first impression. I don't want to be that guy. They're expecting you to be a medic and show up here. And as soon as you do that, you're screwing over the platoon, essentially. And you know, now you just look bad as a SEAL and as a man. So, I definitely didn't want that. Um, I wanted to crush it.

• 38:21Shawn Ryan?

  How did you do in that course? I mean, that's a probably, that's gotta be one of the most academically challenging courses in the military going through eighteen Delta. I mean, it's, I mean, it's so much information condensed into what? Six, seven months?

• 38:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah, it was the most challenging course academically. I ended up surprising myself. I ended up graduating that course as Honor Man in my class.

• 38:50Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 38:52Speaker 05

  Which I kinda blew my own, myself away doing that. Cause I never graduated Honor Man, anything before that.

• 39:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 05

  But after graduating that class, finished Honor Man. Because I, leading up to that point, like I said, I was passionate about it. I loved doing, I wanted to be a good medic. Cause it was important to me. It was damn near like being in college, even never had college experience up to that point. But it was like being in college. I was in the books twenty-four, seven, seven days a week, learning the shit in and out. Especially in the first three months, first half of the course. Second half is when you actually get to do the real stuff, the live tissue training, surgical skills, T-triple-C. So it was a gut check for sure for me.

• 39:39Speaker 05

  But again, and part of the motivation was to, I wanted to outdo the Army.

• 39:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:47Speaker 05

  Because up for that, it's always like some Army guy getting Honor Man or outdoing the Navy guys, cause there was only like six of us. So I took it upon myself, I was like, you know what? I'm gonna show them what SEALs are all about. We're fucking, we need to, we need to dominate here. Cause we're such on the microscope all the time.

• 40:07Shawn Ryan?

  That's always a pain in the ass doing any type of school with a, with a different branch because of that competitiveness or come, what's the word I'm looking for?

• 40:19Speaker 05

  You're under the microscope as other units and there's the pissing contest between the two.

• 40:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, pissing match.

• 40:25Speaker 05

  Pissing match with all the branches, you know, and they see you, especially there's only a few of you. You know, we always hung out together and then when we were in ranks every morning there, we're segregated. And there's only a little, small unit of us and, I mean, all this staff there hated the Navy guys.

• 40:43Shawn Ryan?

  It never goes smoothly, that's for fucking sure. But, but you graduated Honor Man, which is kind of funny considering you were a subpar student in high school. You're still, I mean, you're only a couple of years older now in, in 18 Delta School, correct? And you graduate Honor Man. That's, I mean, that's fucking impressive.

• 41:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was 21 when I finished.

• 41:06Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 41:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, I turned 21 while I was there at the end.

• 41:09Shawn Ryan?

  So you graduate 18 Delta, you're a combat medic, you're showing up to SEAL Team...

• 41:17Speaker 05

  Four.

• 41:17Shawn Ryan?

  You show up to SEAL Team Four. I mean, that's a lot of schooling and preparation for a kid to go through. You're finally at SEAL Team Four, 21 years old.

• 41:29Shawn Ryan?

  What was that like?

• 41:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was a long time coming. I mean, towards the end of that, once I graduated, the schoolhouse even asked me like, "You got Honor Man? Since you got Honor Man, we want to offer you to stay longer." Like, "Hey, you want to stay for additional seven months and be up, be here for over a year?"

• 41:46Speaker 05

  To do the long course, they call it the long course. And at the time, I was like, "No." I was like, "I want to go to the team." So that's how hungry I was at that point. I was ready. Ready to finally be there and do the job. I was finally, I was prepared. I knew medicine to be a good medic and I was ready to just actually do the, to be a SEAL. Because when you're in SOCOM, the med school, you're just, all you are is inundated with medicine. You're not learning anything SEALs, operators at all. It's just 100% medicine.

• 42:22Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 42:23Speaker 05

  Which it has to be that way to make you a good medic. So you get removed a little bit.

• 42:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 42:28Speaker 05

  So I was so eager to go to a team and just start operating. Like, I wanted to be a SEAL. So I was ready. I was ready to get after it.

• 42:35Shawn Ryan?

  What was it like walking in the platoon hut that first time? I mean, I know you showed up to SEAL Team Four. I know you jumped in a platoon that was coming back from war.

• 42:46Shawn Ryan?

  And here you are, green, probably overly motivated, as most new guys are. And these guys are coming home from, was it Iraq?

• 42:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was going to one troop, these dudes were in Iraq. And they were just on like their last month of being there, about to be coming home.

• 43:03Shawn Ryan?

  And they were getting it over there.

• 43:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, and majority of those guys have already been there two times, some three.

• 43:10Shawn Ryan?

  So was that intimidating for you?

• 43:12Speaker 05

  Very intimidating, because I was only, at the time, I was only, me and the couple of the new guys were the only ones going into one troop, which was the CENTCOM troop, the guys that were getting out, going to war.

• 43:23Shawn Ryan?

  So you knew as soon as you showed up, you were going to war?

• 43:27Speaker 05

  I was going to one troop, Iraq, which is responsible for the A.O. CENTCOM. So I knew inevitably I was going to go to Iraq, that was kind of in the back of our mind. They didn't say for sure at that time, when I first checked in, but I knew I was going to one troop.

• 43:42Shawn Ryan?

  It's happening.

• 43:43Speaker 05

  It's happening, that's where I'll be going in the future. And definitely nerve wracking, I was super intimidated to even go and be, go into SEAL Team Four. And then let alone like going to the platoon space, which is like sacred territory for the old guys. You know, so definitely nervous, especially when they got there, when they started trickling in. And then, because when I first showed up, it was like, we got our gear, we just got a locker, quarter deck watch, new guy duties, you know, just new guy stuff all the time. So not really much of anything until they actually showed up. And then they start showing up, and then we actually get to see them, you know, these dudes are

• 44:28Speaker 05

  vet, war veterans, man, these guys have been there, done that, and I'm just, we're just over here, just new and green.

• 44:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 05

  Not knowing shit, you know, just keep my mouth shut.

• 44:38Shawn Ryan?

  I imagine then, they probably weren't the most welcoming bunch of guys.

• 44:44Speaker 05

  Definitely not, not at first. No, they're, they, they didn't all show up at once. They kind of just all half came in and the half and they all trickled in. They all went on leave pretty much almost immediately when they got back, but yeah, once, once they saw us, it was just like blood in the water.

• 45:01Shawn Ryan?

  So, did you get to do a full train up before you went out the door, or?

• 45:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I did. Full workup.

• 45:07Shawn Ryan?

  A full workup, that's, workup's about, a workup is a year and a half about.

• 45:12Speaker 05

  About a year and a half, yeah.

• 45:13Shawn Ryan?

  So, you did a year and a half train up on top of all the training you just did to get out the door. How long do you think it took to gain the respect of your peers?

• 45:27Shawn Ryan?

  Your, your, your new teammates that you're getting ready to go to war with, who they've already been to war. I mean, that's.

• 45:34Speaker 05

  It took a while.

• 45:35Shawn Ryan?

  You gotta man the fuck up and prove yourself to these guys to blend, you know, to, to get accepted.

• 45:39Speaker 05

  It was like, show up buds, you know, but I'm showing, now, showing up to the team as a new guy, everyone's done what you've done and more. Now, it's like prove yourself all over again. So, it was, that whole stress was again happening and it was just every single day, just putting out, putting out, putting out. Make sure I'm right place, right time, right kit, and I'm always performing, trying to outdo even the new guys. Trying to stand out, you know, just prove myself, I'm worthy. And I don't think it was until damn near deployment that we got some, we're pretty much got, got respect. Like, hey, okay, full workup.

• 46:19Shawn Ryan?

  I like how you just said that. You showed up and, and at the same time, you're feeling on top of the world because you just got your trident. You're a SEAL medic, you're checked into SEAL Team Four. The fact that you just said, "Everybody's already done what I've done, plus more." I mean, that just, just what you've done already by age 21 is fucking impressive. And to have that attitude going in, I mean, that's, kudos to you.

• 46:52Shawn Ryan?

  Because it is, that's very real.

• 46:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:55Shawn Ryan?

  You show up, you think you're the shit. And then every single person at that team has already done every fucking thing you've done.

• 47:02Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 47:04Shawn Ryan?

  Tenfold.

• 47:05Speaker 05

  Exactly. And I first, when I first showed up there, yeah, I was new guys were like on top of the world. It didn't really hit home until we saw our, these seasoned fucking warfighters coming in the doors like, okay.

• 47:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:17Speaker 05

  Maybe we need to step the fuck back.

• 47:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:20Speaker 05

  Humble ourselves a little bit. And it did, we it's not like we're really arrogant, but we just got to see it and just feel like, okay. We know our place. We need to prove ourselves now.

• 47:32Shawn Ryan?

  Were you glad you were, you knew you were going to combat?

• 47:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 47:36Shawn Ryan?

  Right off the bat?

• 47:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was glad. Because that's what we did, that's what we trained to do. I mean, I I think I'm lucky. And I'm grateful that I had that, be able to have that opportunity, even as my first pump. Able to go to war. I mean, not many SEALs. Even some of the older SEALs that were in my platoon could even say that.

• 47:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:56Speaker 05

  So, that was even rare at that time.

• 47:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:00Speaker 05

  Most guys, my LPO at the time, has never even been in combat.

• 48:06Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 48:06Speaker 05

  His whole career, you know, so guys going to combat was far between, you know, it's kind of luck of the draw. So I was very grateful and lucky to be a part of that platoon.

• 48:15Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that was a very interesting time in the teams, I feel like. Um post nine eleven. Up to about that point because there really wasn't a whole hell of a lot going on between Vietnam and nine eleven, a couple of things here and there. And it created a lot of animosity in the community with the, between the older guys and the newer guys who were coming in and going straight to fucking combat and other guys, I mean, some guys have retired out of there, you know, and

• 48:44Speaker 05

  Right.

• 48:45Shawn Ryan?

  Never got a chance to do that. But you went right there.

• 48:50Shawn Ryan?

  Do you feel like you were ready?

• 48:52Speaker 05

  I feel like after workup, everything up to the point I was. Definitely my mind was right. I wanted to go. I felt confident. I felt comfortable with being a part of the platoon.

• 49:05Speaker 05

  It felt solid. At first, I thought I was going to Iraq.

• 49:11Speaker 05

  And was all geared up for that and then I ended up switching troops.

• 49:16Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 49:17Speaker 05

  I needed a medic and I ended up going Afghanistan.

• 49:20Shawn Ryan?

  You switched troops or switched platoons. They needed a medic, which means you're the fucking primary medic as a new guy going to Afghanistan. Correct?

• 49:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:32Shawn Ryan?

  That's a shit ton of responsibility. How do you think you handled that?

• 49:36Speaker 05

  I felt I handled it pretty good. I mean, I was mentored up by solid individuals in my trip, my original platoon. Solid medics, senior medics and older guys, because there's only like five of us new guys. Majority of the platoon was all senior guys. They had, you know, multiple combat or if not just one. So seasoned and they, they brought us up right and definitely gave me the

• 50:05Speaker 05

  the confidence to succeed and do my job well. And that's how I felt. I mean, I was more, I was actually

• 50:14Speaker 05

  a little bummed and torn that I had to leave my platoon. But then at the same time, I was like really excited to go to Afghanistan because that was a spot.

• 50:22Shawn Ryan?

  What, at what point in the train, in the workup, did you switch platoons?

• 50:26Speaker 05

  At the very end. I was in, I was done with workup.

• 50:28Shawn Ryan?

  So you just spent a year and a half proving yourself to a new team, only to get removed, put in another new team where you have to prove yourself as a new guy again. And you're the fucking primary medic. I mean.

• 50:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, me and two other guys.

• 50:45Shawn Ryan?

  Those are some big shoes to fill.

• 50:47Speaker 05

  It was, it was intimidating because I didn't know anybody besides, there was two other guys that came with me, the snipers.

• 50:53Speaker 05

  One was a sniper. So they kind of were a buffer, a little conduit.

• 50:58Shawn Ryan?

  They were a little more protective of their new guys.

• 51:00Speaker 05

  I was their new guy.

• 51:03Speaker 05

  I knew some of the new guys they had, but.

• 51:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, same thing. I had to prove myself because they didn't know who I was. They had some, my other guys kind of vouching for me, but same token, I still gotta prove myself.

• 51:17Shawn Ryan?

  How do you think your dad felt when he found out? I mean, he gave you the pamphlet to become a SEAL. You become a SEAL. Now you're getting ready to go out the door and do the shit for real.

• 51:36Speaker 05

  It's honestly hard to say because I never asked him how I really truly felt, but

• 51:41Speaker 05

  I'm sure he was nervous because I did tell him upfront. I, I thought about just like lying and just bullshitting my parents and telling where I was just gonna make up just say I was going to Europe or something, just to be, be fine, I'll be good, I'll be able to call you whenever. That crossed my mind, but at the end of the day, I was like, no, I'm just gonna tell them where I'm actually going because this is what I signed up to do. I felt it was right. I mean, what do you expect? We're Navy SEALs, this is what we do.

• 52:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:10Speaker 05

  We go to war and handle it. But I'm sure he was nervous. He was excited because I actually doing what I wanted to do, what I love to do. But I'm also certain that he was probably scared shitless. I know my mom was.

• 52:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Did you try to shelter him from what was actually happening?

• 52:28Speaker 05

  Yeah. I never, I, I kept it vague.

• 52:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 52:32Speaker 05

  I didn't, I didn't go to nitty gritty and I kept it very vague. I said I was going to Afghanistan, that was it. I didn't say like where, you know, I obviously didn't tell them really what I was doing. Even when I was there and I reached, I called them, emailed them, or even I tried to call them once in a while on the sat phone we got to call them. I just didn't even talk about what the hell I was doing. It's more of this, you know, how's it going? I'm good. You hear my voice like I'm doing well type of conversation.

• 52:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. It's funny, you lose almost all emotional communication.

• 53:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:06Shawn Ryan?

  Somewhere along that pipeline, it seems like almost all guys do. There's

• 53:13Shawn Ryan?

  no more sense of emotion.

• 53:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, you put up a shield like

• 53:17Speaker 05

  not really realizing it, it just happens innately because it's work. You know, you gotta

• 53:24Speaker 05

  It's all business, you know? You can't bring motion into it and you can't. And I didn't want to do that to my family. Like, they're gonna be worried sick.

• 53:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 53:34Speaker 05

  Like, putting undue stress on themselves because I'm over there. You know, I didn't want that to happen. So, I'm sure it still did anyway, but I didn't want to fuel that fire.

• 53:47Shawn Ryan?

  You're getting ready to leave for combat as a brand-new medic to Afghanistan with your new platoon. As a new guy.

• 54:00Shawn Ryan?

  Going back to your dad, who you're extremely, extremely close with. Do you think his, uh, do you think his mindset changed at all? Did he get worried that you were? Now that it became very real, like, "Hey Dad, I'm going to Afghanistan for six to nine months."

• 54:19Speaker 05

  I would say so, yeah. I mean, at the time, he didn't, they didn't really express their worries to me that much because they wanted me to remain focused. But I knew, because after the fact, I spoke to him, but I knew their, the stress was high. They definitely were worried. I'd say more fear of the unknown, for them at least. Because I was the first one in the immediate family going in the military and they had no experience of anyone in their family going in the military. So, this is all new to everybody.

• 54:52Shawn Ryan?

  So, on your family, you're the first one

• 54:55Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 54:56Shawn Ryan?

  that's going in the military. And you're going to war at the highest level.

• 55:02Speaker 05

  Exactly. And they, so they knew, "I want to be doing some things."

• 55:06Shawn Ryan?

  I want to take a call. And, um...

• 55:12Shawn Ryan?

  I have your dad on the line, Jim. Hey Jim, how's it going? This is Sean Ryan.

• 55:17Speaker 07

  Hey, hey Sean.

• 55:18Shawn Ryan?

  I've got your son sitting here. And we're talking about, right before he leaves on his first combat deployment at SEAL Team Four as a new guy. And I was wondering if you have any questions you'd like to ask him.

• 55:34Speaker 06

  Hey Travis.

• 55:35Speaker 05

  Hey Dad.

• 55:37Speaker 06

  I do actually, I remember the day he called me to kind of say goodbye to me when he was getting ready to head out for that deployment. I wonder just how he felt when he landed in Afghanistan. After all the years of training for that.

• 55:50Speaker 06

  Ever get led up to that moment? I know it was a big deal for him, he's been thinking about it ever since high school and I was just always curious how he really felt when he actually landed in Afghanistan with the team for that first deployment.

• 56:00Speaker 05

  How I felt about it?

• 56:02Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 56:04Speaker 05

  I mean, I was scared, I was talking to Sean about this, I was definitely nervous as hell. I think those nerves turned into more with the excitement. And the motivation, but definitely scared as shit, because I knew exactly, I was doing it for real. I mean, I wasn't going to Europe or South America, I was actually going to war. All that training and hard work coming to fruition finally. I couldn't even figure, it's hard for me to even explain in words to, obviously you guys, what I was gonna be doing, but... I kind of just in the back of my mind hoped that you understood, or at least somewhat understood, what I was actually going to do.

• 56:43Speaker 06

  No, I for sure did, yeah, it was an emotional day for me when you said goodbye, but...

• 56:49Shawn Ryan?

  Jim, I got a question for you.

• 56:53Shawn Ryan?

  So you were really supportive of Travis going into the SEAL teams and doing that job. How did it feel for you when he checked into SEAL Team 4? And you realized, holy shit, my son's going straight to combat? After we've already been at war for seven years?

• 57:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was definitely an emotional day for me, I didn't like, I still remember that call clearly, I didn't want to vent on to him. How emotional it was for me actually, but... It wasn't a big deal. But I know he was so driven, he did all he ever thought about and worked hard towards, so I was just so proud of him. But at the same time, you know, I was definitely nervous too, you know, knowing he was going to Afghanistan. I never knew, didn't really know what would happen. Actually, didn't know when I'd actually talk to the gang, because I knew he'd be going on missions. And he said he would check in when he could, I just never knew when that would be, so. It was definitely a real emotional day for me with that last call.

• 57:51Shawn Ryan?

  How was that? How was that six-month deployment for you as a father? Was that compared to all the other time in your life? Was that, would you say that was probably one of the most stressful moments of your entire life?

• 58:05Speaker 06

  I guess it was just the six months, especially the first like three months. I heard from them very seldom, and pretty much every day you're thinking about your son being over there and having no idea what you're up to. So, as a parent, it's tough, you know, it's tough. But at the same time, you can't be more proud of him.

• 58:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:28Speaker 05

  That's a difficult.

• 58:29Speaker 06

  It was something emotional, I can't even talk about it, it's crazy, it's been years now, it's like crazy to think about it, but it wasn't a big deal.

• 58:38Shawn Ryan?

  You got anything?

• 58:38Speaker 05

  I'm blown away.

• 58:39Shawn Ryan?

  You got anything for Dad?

• 58:41Speaker 05

  No, I mean, I'm glad that you, I guess, after you saying that, you have a good mindset about it. Because at the time, I was given vague information. Because I didn't know either, I mean, I didn't know when the hell I was about to even call, or what type of connectivity I was gonna have there, etc. Or I kinda had an idea, I knew what we were doing, but I didn't know the, how, you know, important or much we were gonna be doing. So, it was even hard and difficult to me explain to my family what exactly what I was getting to. And I purposely didn't, I purposely, I kept it vague, I said, "Hey, this is where I'm going." I actually almost thought about...

• 59:22Speaker 05

  Lying and be like, I'm going somewhere else.

• 59:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:25Speaker 05

  Like, I'm just gonna go to Europe. I'm going to Europe for six months. I'll call you when I get there or something. Just keep it really vague, keep it comfortable. But at the end of the day, I felt like I would be doing a disservice. I'd be like, no, this is where I'm going.

• 59:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 59:39Speaker 05

  So this is what I do.

• 59:41Speaker 06

  We were always proud of him. He definitely worked his ass off to get there. You know, even through high school, he was driven to be a SEAL. He got into BUDS. He used to call me and tell me, I'm never gonna quit, they're never gonna break me. He put his pride there. So I knew he was a driven young man and, you know, I couldn't be more proud of him.

• 1:00:00Shawn Ryan?

  Jim, I got one last question for you before we jump off the line here.

• 1:00:05Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:00:05Shawn Ryan?

  What made you hand Travis the brochure on being a Navy SEAL?

• 1:00:13Speaker 06

  I just...

• 1:00:13Shawn Ryan?

  You remember that?

• 1:00:14Speaker 06

  The way Travis would always talk. He'd always just talk. He just wanted to, you know, to be something special, make a difference in the world. I just saw the drive in him and I felt like just the drive it would take to actually become a SEAL would, you know, push him through all the limits he could be pushed through. So I just knew that was out there. The way he would talk about what he wanted to do in life. I've just never seen a person more driven at such a young age. I thought, well, I think this could be perfect for him with the drive that he has. This is exactly what I think might be his calling.

• 1:00:44Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. So you knew he was gonna make it right off the bat?

• 1:00:49Speaker 06

  I did. It was amazing. I mean, literally, I don't want to go too much of it, but even through high school, he was out, his buddies would be out at the party the weekend. He'd begin up early doing ocean swim, beach runs. I mean, he was doing BUDS training while he was in high school. He wanted to be a scuba diver when he was 16. I said, all right, let's do it. You know, he was like training for BUDS all through high school. I just saw the drive in him. I thought, this is his calling. I just saw it.

• 1:01:15Shawn Ryan?

  Where do you think he got his drive from?

• 1:01:20Speaker 06

  I just think, I guess maybe as a young dad, maybe he saw how I was just pushing and pushing and pushing to make sure we made it in life together. Because I was 20 years old when he was born. So, you know, he just saw the drive and need to be a good father to him. And I think that's kind of carried over into his life.

• 1:01:38Shawn Ryan?

  That's incredible.

• 1:01:39Speaker 05

  Definitely. And businessman, having him run his own business.

• 1:01:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Speaker 05

  And so definitely.

• 1:01:47Shawn Ryan?

  Well Jim, I really appreciate your time and for the call and we'll be home soon.

• 1:01:54Speaker 06

  I appreciate you checking in. Have fun, John.

• 1:01:57Speaker 05

  Alright Dad, thanks.

• 1:01:58Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, bye bye.

• 1:01:59Speaker 06

  Be good. Bye.

• 1:02:02Shawn Ryan?

  How did that feel?

• 1:02:02Speaker 05

  That was a pleasant surprise and very unexpected.

• 1:02:06Shawn Ryan?

  Was it? Did you know all that stuff before? How he felt and?

• 1:02:10Speaker 05

  Uh, no.

• 1:02:13Speaker 05

  Because I honestly never really asked, so. But I knew they probably did feel that way, like I said, but I just, I mean even to this day I haven't asked him.

• 1:02:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Speaker 05

  But it's good. I mean, he had the right mindset.

• 1:02:28Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you guys are obviously very close and that's really cool to see. But enough of the mushy stuff. Let's move on to combat. So your boots on the ground, Afghanistan, what year?

• 1:02:43Speaker 05

  2010.

• 1:02:44Shawn Ryan?

  2010. A lot of shit happened right around then, like Bin Laden got killed. Where'd you land? Did you land in Bagram?

• 1:02:55Speaker 05

  Landed in Kath, Kandahar.

• 1:02:58Shawn Ryan?

  No shit. You went straight to Kandahar?

• 1:02:59Speaker 05

  Yeah. Went to Kandahar and then from there, we loaded up and shipped out to a place called FOB Lane. At the time, still Team 3 was there. It's a little tiny FOB and back in the day was owned by an SF unit. And team guys took it over. It was in southeast Afghanistan. A province called Zabel in the area called Argandab. So it was definitely a little hotspot of the time in the area. But we ended up getting, arriving there and then SEAL Team 3 was there, like I said, and we ended up doing, you know, once we hit boots on the ground, dudes were fired up, motivated, getting checked in.

• 1:03:41Speaker 05

  We kind of, pretty quickly, I'd say within the first week, we started planning for our first turnover up. So fairly fast.

• 1:03:52Shawn Ryan?

  Just for reference, southern Afghanistan down in Kandahar is one of the hottest zones and always has been throughout the, what, almost two decades of combat going on or wartime in Afghanistan. And how long were you there before, how long, I mean, did you guys even have time to settle in? Because I

• 1:04:16Speaker 05

  In Kef?

• 1:04:16Shawn Ryan?

  Did a lot of research and I talked to some of your friends and, I mean, you guys were getting it. So.

• 1:04:22Speaker 05

  And once we arrived to our FOB?

• 1:04:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, like I said, it was pretty quick. We got half, I would say half SEAL Team 3 platoon kind of left as we arrived. And then the kind of leadership, more senior guys stayed on board to do turnover with us. But it was fairly quickly before we started turning and burning and have that nice, that good battle rhythm. And just started going because our, honestly, the leadership that I had was eager and hungry.

• 1:04:50Shawn Ryan?

  What, backtrack real quick before we get into the details. What were your living conditions like? How many people, a lot of people don't understand what a FOB is. A FOB is not like a big base. It's a small fortified, a lot of times you're using sandbags as cover.

• 1:05:13Shawn Ryan?

  Can you kind of describe your living conditions? How many guys you were with? Were there locals?

• 1:05:18Speaker 05

  We had, so we had our entire platoon, so about, we actually went there with, I would say,

• 1:05:26Speaker 05

  18 SEALs, 18, I think it was 19, 18 or 19 SEALs, and we had another handful of enablers, plus SEAL Team 3 there, so we had almost 60 guys, I would say, on this FOB. We only had one, we had no locals that slept on our FOB with us.

• 1:05:40Shawn Ryan?

  None?

• 1:05:41Speaker 05

  None, or a partner force.

• 1:05:42Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:05:43Speaker 05

  So they had their own, own little FOB. I was sleeping and we had like little B huts, little wooden rooms. So this FOB, honestly, was pretty well, it was decently built up because it's been, it had been there for a while. Like I said, an Army SF unit, ODA unit ran it and established this thing, so it, pretty well, built up. It wasn't very big, but it was decently built up.

• 1:06:12Speaker 05

  So, living conditions, honestly, my first point, weren't bad. So I was, we were all pretty, decently comfortable.

• 1:06:19Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:06:20Speaker 05

  As far as sleeping is concerned, but we, we would get attacked on a nightly basis, so that comfort wasn't, went out the window.

• 1:06:27Shawn Ryan?

  Every night you're getting attacked?

• 1:06:28Speaker 05

  Pretty much, yeah.

• 1:06:29Shawn Ryan?

  What are you getting attacked with?

• 1:06:30Speaker 05

  Small arms. Indirect.

• 1:06:32Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:06:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, indirect fire.

• 1:06:34Shawn Ryan?

  Any close calls?

• 1:06:36Speaker 05

  A few. Some would get into the base, but not near where we slept.

• 1:06:42Speaker 05

  But it was mainly just, kind of sporadic fire. They were definitely aiming at us and getting close, but nothing, I wouldn't say effective, at least on our FOB.

• 1:06:53Shawn Ryan?

  Well, were you having to defend the base at all, or was it all pretty much indirect?

• 1:06:57Speaker 05

  No, we got, every time we base defense, we had a good, we used our RGs, we had some RG31s with the 50 cal's on it, and we also had a...

• 1:07:05Shawn Ryan?

  Which is?

• 1:07:06Speaker 05

  The up armored, um, all terrain vehicle.

• 1:07:10Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:07:10Speaker 05

  So it's big beefed up, like an all terrain and we had a 50 cal, they have 50 cal weapon system, a remote weapon system, they call them RWS is on top of those things. So we, we placed those in position. We also had a huge tower with the 50 on it, uh, that we'd use as well. And then we also had a mortar pit too.

• 1:07:29Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:07:30Speaker 05

  So we would send our own indirect fire.

• 1:07:32Shawn Ryan?

  What point, um, so how long were you there before you started leaving the wire and going out on, on your own ops? And what, what was your mission there?

• 1:07:41Speaker 05

  So our mission was a strike force. We ended up just doing the straight, um, village clearance and direct action.

• 1:07:51Speaker 05

  But our very first op that we did, our turnover op was one that was pretty impactful for everybody that was there. We did a turnover out with SEAL Team Three. Only few, very few guys in my platoon actually went, went on it because it was mostly SEAL Team Three doing a turnover, um, just to kind of see how they did business, um, kind of SOPs. And they left late that night and before, you know, the sun even rose, we, I got woken up in the middle of the night, loaded the helo because the helo crashed.

• 1:08:29Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 1:08:30Speaker 05

  Killed everybody. So we lost team four guys, three guys, all the, the whole crew, everybody in the bird, uh, went down. We lost, one guy survived. Andrew Dow. He survived.

• 1:08:47Shawn Ryan?

  Fuck man.

• 1:08:48Speaker 05

  Miracle. But, so the bird ended up crashing on the hillside, going down. It didn't, it didn't get shot down or anything, but it was going, because we did a lot of overwatch positions. We called them SE positions. And then we had the main element down on the ground during the village and we had the overwatch positions, which we call supporting element up in the mountains. So we did a lot of that at night. So the helos would land at these peaks and sometimes they wouldn't even touch ground. They would just hover over the, because they couldn't land on these mountain tops. They're so, the terrain was rugged.

• 1:09:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:22Speaker 05

  So this bird ended up just clipping the side of the mountain and.

• 1:09:29Speaker 05

  Lost everybody, except one, so. So that, I go woken up in that, loaded the bird, went over to hover over it, cuz they, there was nobody there, there was only, cuz the other bird was getting dropped off somewhere else, on another peak. So.

• 1:09:45Speaker 05

  Got woken up, loaded the bird, grabbed only med kit. I mean, that was like something, hey hello, like fucking reality check, bird just went down. Let's expect everyone to be dead. Jesus. Get your fucking med kit, get your litters now. Fucking grabbed all my shit, I had it all staged, and God, all ready to fucking go, but. I loaded as quickly as I can, jumped in the bird, and then, we took off. By the time we get there, we hovered over it, by the time we got there, the PJs were there. They started the recovery.

• 1:10:18Speaker 05

  So, that was our very first. Op as a platoon. Jesus Christ. Lost dudes right off the bat. That's, um. That's fucking tough. Yeah, that was a definitely huge. Kind of wake up call.

• 1:10:35Speaker 05

  For the boys.

• 1:10:37Speaker 05

  Yeah. That was tough, too, that was.

• 1:10:41Speaker 05

  Because we, we haven't, like I said, up to that point, we haven't done anything. Yeah.

• 1:10:44Speaker 05

  We haven't even gone on an op. We're still fucking trying to get our feet wet, figure shit out. Next thing you know, we lose fucking. Five guys. So it's, it's.

• 1:10:55Speaker 05

  It's real fucking real. Yeah, that's real, this fucking, this is reality now. So, it was definitely, that put a, a damper on things. I, I wouldn't say, not for a long time, actually, believe it or not, probably, I would say for a few days. Yeah. It was tough.

• 1:11:14Speaker 05

  But, the turnaround, we had really good leadership. That, they understood that it was important to. Fucking, keep the guys moving. Yeah. Keep the mind focused.

• 1:11:29Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of times when you lose guys in a combat zone and you know them, it'll create a type of ritual, or maybe not a ritual, but something that you'll do to prepare yourself before every mission.

• 1:11:45Speaker 05

  Like a superstition?

• 1:11:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, I would say like a ritual. Did I do anything?

• 1:11:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, did that specific incident, because it happened so fast once you got in country, did that, did that create any kind of routine before you would go on, on a mission? Like some kind of superstition? Or?

• 1:12:05Speaker 05

  I didn't develop, we all, as a platoon, we all like took a knee and prayed before we went out. That was kind of a mutual agreement and I've never done anything like that at that point, but I did it with them, just, just to fucking keep the mind right.

• 1:12:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:26Speaker 05

  Every time we stepped out the door and I, I think it helped to stay focused. But after that event, you know, that, the boys were, everyone was locked tight because they knew that, I mean, that doesn't get more real than that.

• 1:12:41Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 1:12:42Speaker 05

  You know, most guys go to combat, you know, they may not experience it, you know, some, a lot do, but you're going in expecting not to experience it, you don't want your boys to fucking die.

• 1:12:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:53Speaker 05

  You don't want you to lose teammates, yeah, that's the worst possible scenario, but you still, you hope for the best, you don't want that shit happening to your own teammates. But I think after that event, everybody just fucking locked the fuck on.

• 1:13:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:08Speaker 05

  Everyone was already locked on, but that just a whole nother level.

• 1:13:12Shawn Ryan?

  So that over the top.

• 1:13:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Shawn Ryan?

  Now you're chomping at the bit.

• 1:13:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. Now that motion's a little angry.

• 1:13:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:20Speaker 05

  You know, we're in bad guy country. So now like the motivation's even more to fucking just get after and take it to them.

• 1:13:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, a lot of, myself included, use tragic events or the loss of friends to kind of build that anger and fuel your mindset before going on ops, which is, and that's why I asked that question.

• 1:13:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:48Shawn Ryan?

  What was your guys' op tempo like?

• 1:13:51Speaker 05

  Few times a week. I would say three to four times a week we'd be out the door. All we did was flyaway ops, leave in the middle of the night, helos, go into villages.

• 1:14:03Speaker 05

  Majority of them were 24 hours to 48 hours. We did longer ones, 72. So, we didn't do, the only time we did local, we would just walk to our little local village or something like that, but 95% of them were all flyaways, like I said, three, four times a week, village clearance.

• 1:14:24Shawn Ryan?

  Were you guys looking for something specific? Were you stirring up the hornets' nest? What was the, if you can talk about it?

• 1:14:31Speaker 05

  A little bit of both, targeting, a lot of a presence and establishing more of a green zone for us and just showing face. We would clear the village, but at the end of the day, the mission was, hey, clear the village, let's get the elders together, let's establish rapport and build relationships. But we're all, at the same time, we're filtering out the bad guys. That's kind of the underarching, but the overarching mission was, hey, we need to build, make sure, increase our green zone, build relations, and show more presence.

• 1:15:13Speaker 05

  That was our main focus. And I spent the majority of that deployment, if not all that deployment, on top of mountains.

• 1:15:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Were you guys getting after it? Were you engaging? Every time you left the wire, was it hit or miss?

• 1:15:27Speaker 05

  I wouldn't say not every time.

• 1:15:29Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:15:31Speaker 05

  Definitely hit or miss. I'd say about 50% of the time we were getting tics.

• 1:15:39Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:15:39Speaker 05

  We'd get in contact with the enemy.

• 1:15:40Shawn Ryan?

  And you're doing flyaways, so you're getting in a tick on foot?

• 1:15:45Speaker 05

  On foot.

• 1:15:46Shawn Ryan?

  You don't have any, you guys aren't bringing any vehicles, maybe some dirt bikes?

• 1:15:49Speaker 05

  No, on foot. On foot. We'd get small arms and indirect.

• 1:15:53Shawn Ryan?

  And how many guys are going on ops with you roughly?

• 1:15:57Speaker 05

  Entire platoon, so we're...

• 1:16:00Speaker 05

  Almost thirty guys with enablers.

• 1:16:02Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:16:02Speaker 05

  And partner force. So we'd roll out the door with partner force as well and platoon, you know, that's eighteen guys, nineteen guys, plus our enablers and other five, so we're up there. We had a decent force. But we ended up having two supporting elements with at least four guys. And then the main element was the big element in the ground, which was doing the clearance. We had two overwatch positions, so.

• 1:16:24Shawn Ryan?

  And where were you?

• 1:16:26Speaker 05

  I would end up always being on the overwatch.

• 1:16:28Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:16:28Speaker 05

  A few times I'd go down there on the main element.

• 1:16:33Speaker 05

  But more often than not, I would just volunteer to go on the overwatch position. They would put me on there. My leadership would put me up there, too.

• 1:16:43Speaker 05

  So I got very familiar with the mountains of Afghanistan.

• 1:16:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Were you watching your guys get into engagements?

• 1:16:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, but actually more often than not, we would get in the tics.

• 1:16:55Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:16:56Speaker 05

  They would see us up there. Because this is where these dudes are hanging out.

• 1:17:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:00Speaker 05

  They're not hanging out on the ground.

• 1:17:02Shawn Ryan?

  We talking night, we talking day?

• 1:17:03Speaker 05

  Day. We would go in at night, insert at night, and then execute during the day, just at sunrise.

• 1:17:11Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so the helos, when you guys would take off for an op, you weren't landing right in the village. You would land...

• 1:17:18Speaker 05

  We would offset from the village, the main element, not far, maybe a click.

• 1:17:23Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:17:23Speaker 05

  And then they would patrol in, and then right at first light, they would,

• 1:17:28Speaker 05

  you know, break that last line of cover and start conducting clearance. And then they would insert us at some peak. We would do some false inserts and then insert us at a certain peak, and then we'd patrol up to the top of the mountain wherever we needed to go. But believe it or not, I've been in a lot of times where we ended up being very close to where the enemy's hanging out.

• 1:17:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:50Speaker 05

  These guys aren't on the ground. They didn't, from my first deployment, my experience then, they didn't have the balls to go face to face on the ground with SEALs, with us at least. They would occasionally, but it would be more sporadic and they would be at a distance. Wouldn't be super effective. I got more effective fire when I was up in the supporting element than I ever did when I was on the ground.

• 1:18:16Shawn Ryan?

  No shit? That's interesting.

• 1:18:22Shawn Ryan?

  Did you utilize your training as an 18 Delta on that deployment?

• 1:18:29Speaker 05

  I did only medical treatment. I didn't, after that deployment, we didn't get any, no serious injuries. Yeah. I did a low, minimal stuff for Partner Force. We ended up doing med caps every weekend for the villagers. So I would do a lot of treatment for that. But as far as combat care, no. Cause we didn't have any serious injuries post the Hilo crash.

• 1:18:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So let's wrap that deployment up. You're coming home as a new guy. Or I guess you're not a new guy anymore, but I mean shit, that's, I mean, that's pretty fucking real. Right off the bat to cut your teeth into. What was it like for you coming back, going back to the team and seeing the next batch of new guys enter into your platoon? And you're going straight back to combat again for the next one.

• 1:19:28Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was going right back into one troop again, staying there. And I knew, damn near right away, we knew we were gonna go to Afghanistan. Cause Iraq kinda stopped and now they had, they needed to, actually at the time, all the troops were going to Afghanistan this next go around. It was that much of a demand. So all of them were going.

• 1:19:48Shawn Ryan?

  Everyone?

• 1:19:49Speaker 05

  Yeah. The south, even the retreat with South Compliments, some of the guys were even getting filtered out and going too. So that's how much the demand was. So we, I knew I was going, coming back home from deployment, you know, was, I don't even know how to describe it, but it was, I was relieved. I was kind of ready to come home at that point. Nervous too, cause I've been gone kinda for so long, it seemed like.

• 1:20:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:16Speaker 05

  Being my first deployment, so I really didn't know how to act or behave once I got back. I mean, I wasn't married or had kids or anything. So I came back and it was just me. So I just pretty much just continued doing work again.

• 1:20:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:36Speaker 05

  I mean, I did go home like a month later, took some leave, took like two weeks. Came back here to California, hung out with the family.

• 1:20:44Shawn Ryan?

  Was it hard?

• 1:20:44Speaker 05

  But.

• 1:20:47Shawn Ryan?

  To interact.

• 1:20:48Speaker 05

  A little bit, because I felt like they wanted to ask stuff. They didn't, they didn't know how to ask it, and they didn't ask it, and they really didn't know how to like.

• 1:20:59Speaker 05

  Because I know, I notice this now more than in the past when I was a new guy, like as soon as you're around people that are very unfamiliar with military in general, let alone SEALs and like the point, they just, they think the things that you've done may have messed you up or something, or may have, they put this stigma on you.

• 1:21:19Speaker 05

  Maybe no fault of their own, because that's just like kind of the mentality, but I felt that way, like, you alright? You know, you, everything good, you know, how's, how was deployment, you know, you doing good, etc. But, I, over time, it was fine, like I kinda just got back on, on the grind of being on the, back on the team again. And it was a good, it was actually a good feeling once I kind of platooned up again, and I was an older guy, if you want to say that.

• 1:21:49Speaker 05

  And then now I got to work with my new, you know, mentor, new guys, and, you know, watch them prove themselves to me and the rest of the fucking guys that, you know, been there and done that.

• 1:21:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:59Speaker 05

  As well.

• 1:22:00Shawn Ryan?

  Did you find out you're going back to Afghanistan, how fast after you got back from your first pump in Afghanistan?

• 1:22:07Speaker 05

  I would say

• 1:22:09Speaker 05

  we found out officially probably halfway through, but I, at the beginning, we always knew that we were gonna go back.

• 1:22:15Shawn Ryan?

  So maybe a good, maybe a good six months where you were kind of like iffy, and then six months later, so you

• 1:22:23Speaker 05

  Six months later, like, hey, no shit going to Afghanistan, now it's, where, where are we going in Afghanistan?

• 1:22:29Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, okay, so you did know that, you knew like right away?

• 1:22:32Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it's like, okay, we knew, because I, like I said, everyone was gonna go there, but it was more of the question of where exactly in Afghanistan are we going? Because the other troops ended up going like CAF, major bases.

• 1:22:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:46Speaker 05

  So this was kind of, again, ends up with that competition, we need to be the best performing fucking platoon to get the best mission, because at the time, VSO was coming about, Village Stability Ops, what we called it.

• 1:23:00Speaker 05

  And that was the mindset of, we need to win the hearts and minds, kind of win over the people. And that was the mission to be on, because that was, we were getting, you wanted to be sent in the most remote areas.

• 1:23:12Speaker 05

  More chance to get in the tank.

• 1:23:13Shawn Ryan?

  You wanted to be out there.

• 1:23:14Speaker 05

  We wanted that. More chance to get in the firefights, get after it. Less stress of the flagpole. You know, we're on our own. You know, we're do- we could do our own thing and be effective. You know, we're not, we don't have our hands tied if we're like the units at CAF. We're all like, that's like a major hub. Which the other two troops end up doing. So. We ended up getting the VSO mission at the end of the day and the workup. We had a solid headshed, a lot of experience, dev group guys, and they really groomed the troop well. And we had strong chiefs and, you know.

• 1:23:57Speaker 05

  All that leadership was, was really tight.

• 1:23:59Shawn Ryan?

  So your immediate reaction when you found out you're going right back to Afghanistan in a year, year and a half, depending on how long your workup is. Were you?

• 1:24:12Shawn Ryan?

  Did you want to go back? Were you excited to go back? Did that become home for you?

• 1:24:18Speaker 05

  I was excited to go back.

• 1:24:19Shawn Ryan?

  You were?

• 1:24:20Speaker 05

  Yeah. I was hungry to go back again. I was, especially after my first experience. I felt I was way more experienced and more prepared. And I knew what I was getting myself into. So I was ready to go back.

• 1:24:38Speaker 05

  And at that time, they're like, hey, guess what? You're also going to be staying eight months, maybe you could be up to 10 months.

• 1:24:45Shawn Ryan?

  10 months?

• 1:24:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, so it was like eight to 10. Because before that, still Team 10 went out there and they ended up staying there for 10 months.

• 1:24:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:51Speaker 05

  Right before us. So. That was a change as well because with this new, new VSO mission, they required us to be on the ground longer.

• 1:25:02Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:25:02Speaker 05

  To build relationships, that was kind of the mindset, the strategy behind it. So we knew we were going to be there longer.

• 1:25:09Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:25:10Speaker 05

  So it was going to be rougher. And being that VSO mission, we knew we were going to be. This deployment was gonna be rough. It was too, it was unlike, nothing like my first one.

• 1:25:21Shawn Ryan?

  The second one was worse?

• 1:25:22Speaker 05

  Second one was, yeah.

• 1:25:24Shawn Ryan?

  Were you and Jeff together on?

• 1:25:25Speaker 05

  This one, we were together.

• 1:25:27Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, did you guys know each other before then?

• 1:25:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, we did a little bit, but we were in different troops.

• 1:25:31Shawn Ryan?

  Where do you fly into for your second deployment? Let's skip the workup and let's just go straight back over there. What, where did you fly into this time?

• 1:25:38Speaker 05

  Same place, CAF.

• 1:25:39Shawn Ryan?

  Right back to an outer base?

• 1:25:41Speaker 05

  Right back to CAF. And then, we had to

• 1:25:46Speaker 05

  fly to, I ended up going to the same area, southeast Afghanistan, again, Argandab River Valley where my first deployment was. But I was just a little further north of where my first FOB was, because that FOB had been going away, so we established, SEAL Team 2 was here. They established this VSO site, when we got there, it was nothing. It was like three, two tents, Alaskan tents, a couple HESCOs, I mean, this thing wasn't even a base, it wasn't even fully, it had a little, I could throw a football to one end, it was less than a hundred yards.

• 1:26:19Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 1:26:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was small.

• 1:26:22Shawn Ryan?

  So you're, this base is less than a football field?

• 1:26:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:25Shawn Ryan?

  And like, smaller than a football field in size?

• 1:26:28Speaker 05

  Smaller than a football field.

• 1:26:29Shawn Ryan?

  With two tents?

• 1:26:30Speaker 05

  Yeah, when we got there, it was two tents.

• 1:26:34Shawn Ryan?

  What the hell were you guys using?

• 1:26:35Speaker 05

  No running water, no shitters. They were right next to a village, and then their partner force owned a compound that they took over right next to the, the team guys' little site.

• 1:26:48Speaker 05

  And these guys were rough. I mean, when we got there, we were like, holy shit. You know, like, these guys were fucking roughing it. And this was like, real deal.

• 1:26:58Speaker 05

  So, that was unexpected. We got, we had a little, kind of, they told us a little bit, but we had no idea it was like, like, that magnitude, that level. But, yeah, these guys were roughing it, they didn't have anything, because you couldn't drive there.

• 1:27:16Speaker 05

  No, no helos would hardly ever come, because every time they would come in here, they would get shot at, every single time. So, you know, upper level was like, no. We can't bring any helos in there, so it was like, very rare that they would even, for us even getting there was a pain.

• 1:27:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:35Speaker 05

  Even to change out crews.

• 1:27:39Speaker 05

  It was a pain in the ass.

• 1:27:42Shawn Ryan?

  Can you walk us through a little bit more about how many people were on this FOB? Was it just your troop?

• 1:27:50Speaker 05

  No, it was just a platoon.

• 1:27:52Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so there's like 16 guys?

• 1:27:55Speaker 05

  With enablers, but pushing 20, a little over like 21, 22 with enablers. And then SEAL Team 2 was there, a platoon.

• 1:28:05Speaker 05

  They had minimal guys and we showed up because they already shipped some guys off. So I think they had like 12 guys. So it was tight. We were sleeping on top of each other. We ended up making another tent so we could all pack in. We're sleeping on cots. Literally right next to each other, just racked up jam as many as we can in there. Until we got more gear, more equipment, because we didn't even have any more tents. There was nowhere to sleep. We had to sleep on top of each other.

• 1:28:32Speaker 05

  Until SEAL Team 2 finally get out of there, but we did a couple turnover ops, which ended up going pretty smooth.

• 1:28:39Speaker 05

  So that went well, and then they ended up leaving. And then from there, the whole time was like literally build up shop. We needed to establish some sort of living, but we, the whole time I was there, we had no running water.

• 1:28:53Speaker 05

  We always slept on cots. We didn't have a kitchen. It was in like a dirt hut. They would drop us food via airdrop. Because no helos would come in hardly ever.

• 1:29:05Shawn Ryan?

  Were you living with locals?

• 1:29:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, we lived, we had locals, a partner force, living on our FOB.

• 1:29:11Shawn Ryan?

  How many?

• 1:29:13Speaker 05

  There was about six of them.

• 1:29:15Shawn Ryan?

  What was that relationship like? Did you guys have any confidence in them? A lot of units have different.

• 1:29:20Speaker 05

  I had confidence, so I ran actually these guys. The role I was in, I ended up being like their handler, paying them, make sure they had their gear, you know. Those guys actually were good. They were our counter IED kind of partner force. They were solid. So we didn't really mind. They're trustworthy. We felt comfortable with them walking around on our FOB and they had weapons.

• 1:29:47Speaker 05

  The partner force, our real partner force, the ANASF guys are with us that lived in the compound, probably like 50 yards away. We're decent at first and like towards the middle of the point, we had some hiccups, we had to get rid of them because we lost confidence.

• 1:30:03Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 1:30:04Speaker 05

  That, because they were, we, I think, we ended up doing something that they didn't like and then we had to call in counterintelligence guys to interview them and there was some red flags with kind of attitudes towards us, maybe possible like signs of attack or aggression.

• 1:30:27Shawn Ryan?

  This happens a lot with a lot of different units and a lot of different agencies. When you guys got rid of them, where did they go? Did you guys just cut them loose and send them back to their town because that can create an entire new enemy?

• 1:30:43Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:30:44Shawn Ryan?

  Towards you.

• 1:30:45Speaker 05

  The ANASF was kind of somewhat of established for us somewhat, so but they just, we got them, they got out of there. So we, they didn't, we didn't say, hey, walk away from the FOB and just go find your own path. They got on a bird and we shipped them out of there, got a whole another unit.

• 1:31:00Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, good.

• 1:31:01Speaker 05

  So it was, it was fairly easy, but at, up to that point till they left, it was like we didn't trust them, like, hey, don't, you can't come over here with, you can't even approach our, our FOB, our little VSO site with a gun.

• 1:31:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:14Speaker 05

  Do not. You can come over here, no weapons though. We searched them, just a lot of animosity was building up.

• 1:31:21Shawn Ryan?

  So you're dealing with that and then you said it was hotter your second deployment, so were you guys getting hit on the FOB too?

• 1:31:28Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:31:29Shawn Ryan?

  All the time?

• 1:31:30Speaker 05

  Once we got there, I mean, it was damn near every night.

• 1:31:33Shawn Ryan?

  Every night?

• 1:31:34Speaker 05

  We call it tick 30. Fucking every night, right when sundown, these dudes would just smash us with small arms and they would, it would be effective and indirect. It would land, it'd be in our, coming through our tents, small arms with P cam rounds and then indirect fire as well. Landing in our fob and just right out of it. Fucking one fucking blew up our kitchen, damn near killed a dude. He was in there, lucky he dove into our little, our little med center was attached to our kitchen. So he ended up luckily diving into that. Got some frag in his back, but he came out unscathed. But, but there, that would happen on a nightly basis. I mean, at first dudes were not expecting that. I mean, tensions were high.

• 1:32:19Speaker 05

  We were like at night going to bed, you know, we're relaxed. Our shit's ready to go, but you know, we didn't, we weren't expecting that. It took some time to fucking get used to. And then before you know it, dudes were in their racks with like full cami, full kit, just ready to go. Cause we knew it was coming.

• 1:32:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:39Speaker 05

  This every night would just be the same fucking thing.

• 1:32:41Shawn Ryan?

  Shit, man. So what, I mean, what was your, what was your op tempo like this deployment compared to?

• 1:32:48Speaker 05

  More, we were going on a daily basis on this one.

• 1:32:50Shawn Ryan?

  Daily, but every day you're going out? And are we doing foot patrols?

• 1:32:56Speaker 05

  We're doing, yeah, we're doing foot patrols to local villages. Maybe further north, a little bit south, presence, increase, again, increasing that green zone. Cause we only go so far, cause we, we didn't do any type of flyaways. It was all because we, so we needed to stay local. Did a lot of ones, the village near us. But every time, it seemed like every time we went out, we were getting new tech.

• 1:33:21Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:33:22Speaker 05

  Every single time.

• 1:33:23Shawn Ryan?

  So you're going out every day, you get in a gunfight outside of your fob. Then you come home, or maybe, maybe this had already happened, but, and then you gotta deal with the base getting hit. So, I mean, that's.

• 1:33:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, it honestly was like that. I would say all the way up until December, it kind of died down a little bit because it got cold. So we were kind of expecting that. But it's even still, like they still would fucking, every time we would, the base attacks would lighten up. But every time we went out the door, those would be the same.

• 1:33:59Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:34:01Speaker 05

  They just, it knew what, where the fuck we were going. They could see us before we were coming. That was just hard for us because we were just. We didn't do any night ops, it was all bright, middle of the day. They knew we were going there to fucking meet, just meet key leaders. Shake hands and establish rapport and just hold up security. We weren't necessarily targeting individuals, we did it a few times. We ended up, I ran intel, so we ended up going on missions purely driven off the intel that was found via myself, sources and my other teammate, that was, we were partners together in it. So we would gather our own intel and target that way.

• 1:34:45Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:34:46Speaker 05

  And then other missions we would get from higher as well. And we got creative with it.

• 1:34:51Shawn Ryan?

  That deployment you said was roughly 10 months? Nine to 10 months?

• 1:34:55Speaker 05

  It was, yeah, almost, it was like eight.

• 1:34:57Shawn Ryan?

  How many engagements would you say you and/or your team were a part of in that eight months? Do you have any idea?

• 1:35:08Speaker 05

  I don't. I mean, I lost count, it was that many. I mean, I don't know a hard number.

• 1:35:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:15Speaker 05

  It was a lot. I would say pushing 100.

• 1:35:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean...

• 1:35:22Speaker 05

  With all the ops, FOB attacks, and even just going out the door, like, damn near right around the corner, next village up, or even our own village.

• 1:35:32Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, just a six-month deployment alone is 180 days. And if you guys were taken, if you guys were taken fire and getting into tics almost every day, and you did longer than six months, just to put that in perspective for you, because most guys don't think about this, that's 180 fucking engagements. That's a lot of engagements.

• 1:35:53Speaker 05

  At the time, I didn't even look at it like that, because you just, you don't pay attention to it.

• 1:35:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:56Speaker 05

  You know, you just...

• 1:35:58Shawn Ryan?

  You're ready for the next one.

• 1:35:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, ready for the next one. And then before you know it, you know, I think the leadership did keep track of it, but guys didn't really focus on it, but it was, it was a lot. I mean, it felt like, like you said, it felt like every damn night, and almost, at the beginning it was. They wanted to fucking try something.

• 1:36:16Shawn Ryan?

  You've never thought about that until just now, so what's that sound like to you when I put that in perspective and I say, "You took part in over 180 fucking engagements in less than eight, in eight months."

• 1:36:30Speaker 05

  A disbelief.

• 1:36:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that's a lot of fucking combat.

• 1:36:34Speaker 05

  I've never really thought of it like that.

• 1:36:37Speaker 05

  Because at the time, you're just doing your job and you're not thinking of it as a tick, like a check in the box, like, oh, I got one, two, three. That's how many ticks I got.

• 1:36:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. What range are you guys fighting at is always different? Is it up close and personal? Or is it...

• 1:36:55Speaker 05

  Throughout that deployment, it was...

• 1:36:59Speaker 05

  Everything.

• 1:37:00Shawn Ryan?

  Everything and...

• 1:37:01Speaker 05

  In between.

• 1:37:01Shawn Ryan?

  Do you guys have air support?

• 1:37:03Speaker 05

  We had some air support occasionally with little birds. And we had, sometimes we had some F-18s, fast movers would come in.

• 1:37:13Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:37:14Speaker 05

  But mainly just the helo support. That was like the only platform that would really be available even to come in to help us out. So, but not often, not every time.

• 1:37:25Shawn Ryan?

  Because you're really out there hanging out there.

• 1:37:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was just us.

• 1:37:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:29Speaker 05

  It was really just us. We had some army guys attached to us, little army unit that we utilized for FOB security and some other support. So it was really just us doing our thing out there.

• 1:37:44Speaker 05

  It was a blessing in disguise, I think. I mean, it was... We got so much out of it and I don't think we would have the experience we had if we were wearing it else. I wouldn't have that deployment if I went, say, went to CAF or anything like that. I mean, really, truly, it was just us. That was our deployment. We were fully controlled over it and definitely learned a lot and had a shit ton of experiences. I mean, for God's sake, helo... We had another helo crash at this FOB. Thank God it wasn't as horrific as the first one I experienced. Hilo coming in, a 47, came in, crashed on our FOB.

• 1:38:22Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:38:24Speaker 05

  Came in nose down, because our HLZ was kind of a slope. Came in nose down, dusted himself out.

• 1:38:34Speaker 05

  Slow rolled into the corner of our HESCO barriers, which HESCO barriers are filled with dirt on the border of the site. Hit that, completely destroyed that 47. Split the front end in half, destroyed every blade. There was a Mark 19 in that corner, so grenades are going off.

• 1:38:51Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:38:52Speaker 05

  Like, it sounded like we just, like, everyone was inside at this time. It was midday, only two people were out there.

• 1:38:59Shawn Ryan?

  Thought you were getting hit.

• 1:39:00Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. I could run out there, oh, I was like in my tent, I remember, and I heard this huge explosion, grabbed my med bag, fucking ran out there, looked, and I see a 47 just blowing up. I mean, this thing was shreds. Believe it or not, the two, the crew survived. I was like, holy, it was fucking amazing, yeah. These guys were crushed up into the, the front end. The, the two side door gunners were smashed up into it, into, because the whole front end nose crunched. And these dudes, they're, they're beat to shit, but they survived.

• 1:39:39Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:39:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was, it was unbelievable.

• 1:39:42Shawn Ryan?

  Did you guys lose anybody on that deployment?

• 1:39:45Speaker 05

  Only, we didn't know. No team guys, no American forces. We lost our, one of our close partner forces, the, one of the guys that lived on the base with us. Our counter IED guys, their head dude, their leader, was shot in the head, killed during the, during the tick. Lucky shot. I mean, it was, it was actually kind of, it was a hard loss, even for us, because he, we became close with them. Because there was only six of them, and these guys were northern Afghans. And these dudes fucking hate Taliban.

• 1:40:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:19Speaker 05

  The Pashtun people that live in the south. So these dudes were really, truly there for the right cause, right reason, fighting for their country. And they're fucking good at what they did.

• 1:40:28Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking motivated.

• 1:40:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're fucking, it was good to see that, and motivated us.

• 1:40:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:33Speaker 05

  If we could just work with them, we were like, we're just taking you guys, fuck everyone, everyone else.

• 1:40:37Shawn Ryan?

  That's one thing I've noticed about the Afghans versus my personal experience with the Iraqis is... The Iraqis, when we had those guys attached to us, most of them were fucking lazy and they didn't really want to be there. But, on the other hand, the Afghans, I mean, those are some fucking dedicated fighters.

• 1:40:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:40:59Shawn Ryan?

  And they want to make shit happen and they want to fucking be there. And, which is really cool to see, you know, to see a host nation, you know, wanting to, you know, do the right thing. But...

• 1:41:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was humbling to see that shit, because it makes you want to do your job harder. Like, because you're there helping them out, fighting for their country and your country, and you see that, it's good shit. It was hard for their team, the loss. They actually quit. They all left, because they didn't want to work anymore, because they lost their commander. But eventually, talked them back into coming back to us.

• 1:41:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Speaker 05

  So, it was a difficult time. But, overall, experience for the books, man.

• 1:41:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Sounds like it.

• 1:41:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:41:52Shawn Ryan?

  I'm gonna take another call.

• 1:41:57Shawn Ryan?

  We got a mutual friend on the line, who was there that whole second deployment with you. Jeff Reed.

• 1:42:06Speaker 05

  About time.

• 1:42:08Shawn Ryan?

  Jeff Reed, from Frozen Trident, how the hell are you?

• 1:42:12Speaker 07

  Dude, I am doing great. How are you doing?

• 1:42:15Shawn Ryan?

  Pretty good, man. So, I got a buddy of yours that I think you might know on my show right now, Travis Kennedy.

• 1:42:25Speaker 07

  Hell, yeah.

• 1:42:26Speaker 05

  Hell, yeah. Good to hear your voice, man.

• 1:42:29Speaker 07

  Good to hear you, bro. How you doing?

• 1:42:31Speaker 05

  I'm doing good, man. Glad you got to call in.

• 1:42:35Shawn Ryan?

  So, I got a question for you guys. There's a, I was scouring through both your Instagrams before you got here, and there's a picture of you and Jeff and another guy's face that's blurred out. And you're sitting against a mud wall with a big shit-eating grin on both of your faces. And you're talking about a big engagement that just happened the whole night before. And I was wondering if I could get both of you guys' perspective on what happened that night.

• 1:43:05Speaker 05

  Kick it off, Jeff.

• 1:43:08Speaker 07

  So, that off, I believe, my first... First off, man, every, pretty much where our base was, anytime we crossed the, anytime we went out on an op, we had to get wet. That was given, so when we went out, which was a lot, it was in and out, man, we were usually wet from the waist down. And I think if, I don't really remember that picture, but, uh, well, our, our deployment was really broken up in two different, two different, uh, areas because of, we started out in, uh, kind of a remote area, and then we finished it in, uh, more of a urban area.

• 1:43:48Speaker 07

  Do you know what picture you're talking about, Travis?

• 1:43:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, I do, man. It's that one, that picture was on the very end of the op. I mean, this, the insert X fill, it was over, it was damn near 15K in, throughout the night.

• 1:44:00Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. I'm looking at that one now. And then, we, did we find any, um, IEDs and mortars that, that op?

• 1:44:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, we did, on, on the way there, and then we cleared, did a village clearance. We ended up just laughing because that's where we did a VDO.

• 1:44:18Speaker 05

  We were waiting for our VIX to come in, and it was just so damn long.

• 1:44:22Speaker 07

  We had a lot of aircraft overhead for that op. I remember, like, it was driving me crazy, all the voices in my head from all the different aircraft we had.

• 1:44:31Speaker 05

  That was one of our biggest, one of the biggest ops I, I think we did, that deployment, because it was just so long.

• 1:44:36Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:44:36Speaker 05

  And we had a lot of people with us. And again, yeah, Jeff said, every time we went out, literally, we were wet. And then we, I think at the end, we were just, everyone was just at such exhaustion, like, so fucking tired. We were leaning, posted up against this wall, me and Jeff, and then two of our buddies. Actually, two guys next to us were the, our EOD guys, I know you remember them. But, uh, we were just fucking bullshitting the shit, just fucking suffering and laughing at the same time, because we were so fucking beat to shit. We just patrolled in fill all nighter, cleared this big ass village, gotten some ticks, cleared IEDs. We had a lot of overhead, Jeff was dealing all the overhead.

• 1:45:12Speaker 05

  And then we X filled back, humped it back, and that took us all damn day to hump that, back that far. And then, we were just posted up waiting, sitting there for hours, just for our VIX to come get us. It was, it was almost, it was pretty funny.

• 1:45:28Shawn Ryan?

  Jeff's been dealing with voices in his head ever since I've known him, bud.

• 1:45:34Shawn Ryan?

  But Jeff, when I talked to you and asked you to give a call in, you had a question for Travis about some Carl Gustaf rounds. And for you civilian types out there, Carl Gustaf is basically a big ass rocket launcher that's shoulder fired. So, why don't you go ahead and fire that question off, Jeff?

• 1:45:54Speaker 07

  Oh yeah dude, so I don't know if you remember this, but one of the first things when we got to our deployment, it was like the, we were there for maybe five days and we had that crazy base attack. Do you even remember shooting the goose nuts off on that mount, up at the mountain?

• 1:46:15Speaker 05

  Hell yeah, I do. Cause everyone thought a mortar hit me.

• 1:46:21Speaker 07

  That is the start of my hearing loss, right there. Next to a Carl Gustaf without any pro in.

• 1:46:27Speaker 05

  Oh shit. Yeah dude, I remember that because our LPO thought a fucking mortar hit me. Me and Blake were shooting it. I shot it, he loaded it for me. I staged it right outside in the little tri-wall, little cardboard box, outside of my tent. Cause I couldn't, there wasn't any room. So I ran out, I knew I staged it, grabbed the Gustaf. He grabbed the rounds and we fucking ran to the corner of the fob and fucking launched that thing right at the mountain, the same mount we always got hit at. Literally the same exact mountain every time.

• 1:47:00Shawn Ryan?

  Did you get hit from there again?

• 1:47:03Speaker 05

  I think so. That was, yeah, we got hit there again.

• 1:47:05Speaker 07

  Well yeah, we call it a tick thirty and it usually always happened like right at sunset. At dusk. And so we were like, oh, it's getting close to tick thirty, let's stay frosty.

• 1:47:15Speaker 05

  Let's get our kit on, keep your boots on.

• 1:47:17Shawn Ryan?

  How many rounds did you fire?

• 1:47:20Speaker 05

  I think just a couple.

• 1:47:21Shawn Ryan?

  Just a couple?

• 1:47:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I used that more than once.

• 1:47:23Shawn Ryan?

  Well, just a couple Carl Gustaf rounds to take out a fucking shopping mall, but...

• 1:47:28Speaker 05

  Cause our LPO was up on top of that little deck above the kitchen. He looked down and saw like this massive explosion. And he told me afterwards, he said, "My fucking heart stopped."

• 1:47:37Speaker 07

  That base attack got tensile, got shot up. So I remember having... Where it's going by like holy crap there's boars in the the

• 1:47:45Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, that was a big one, dude. That was they thought they had had up on us because we were fresh.

• 1:47:50Speaker 07

  Yeah, they were. So our base was along the Argandop River and there was the river kinda high. It's it's like a We call it the green zone, right? Because it's it has a bunch of trees and vegetation. They snuck in through there and actually were getting Close enough and were launching RPGs at us. And it was a pretty crazy base tech.

• 1:48:09Shawn Ryan?

  No shit. Well, Jeff, Travis tells me this was probably the most

• 1:48:16Shawn Ryan?

  The most eventful deployment of the three That he did. What

• 1:48:24Shawn Ryan?

  What would you say about that?

• 1:48:25Speaker 07

  Oh, definitely. Hands down, because I felt like when we left the wire, when we went right, when we crossed the river and went right, We got shot at every single time. When we made a left, we found IEDs about 75% of the time. So it's like, what do we want to do today? Do we want to go blow some IEDs up? Or do we want to go get in a go get in a scrap?

• 1:48:50Shawn Ryan?

  What'd you guys do? Flip a coin?

• 1:48:52Speaker 07

  Well, we got to make sure our route, like if we didn't keep a presence south, there'd be IEDs everywhere. So we still had to maintain a You know, push out, have have our control of that area too. But we preferred to go actually get in the fight. No one likes messing with IEDs.

• 1:49:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. And we were debating whether we wanted to get our boots wet.

• 1:49:15Shawn Ryan?

  That's the toughest decision of the deployment right there.

• 1:49:18Speaker 07

  When it's 20 degrees and you're going to do a river crossing and you're going to be up in the mountains for a day and a half doing an Overwatch? Man, that's honestly some of the coldest I've ever been and the hardest I've ever spooned with another man.

• 1:49:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, if it was worth it, I bet it was worth it to dish out some love to the, you know, Local haters.

• 1:49:40Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:49:41Shawn Ryan?

  But.

• 1:49:41Speaker 05

  Oh, he did.

• 1:49:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, Jeff, thanks for calling in, man. You got any words for Travis before we end the call?

• 1:49:49Speaker 07

  Oh, dude, keep crushing it, man. I love seeing what you're doing.

• 1:49:52Shawn Ryan?

  And awesome talking with you, bro.

• 1:49:55Speaker 05

  Thanks Jeff, it's good hearing your voice, brother. Hope you're well.

• 1:49:58Shawn Ryan?

  Alright Jeff. Cool Sean, brother, it was awesome talking to you too, dude. You too, man. Tell the wife, tell the kid I said hello and especially dancer too, that's my favorite one, so. Yeah, I'll go out and get her some treats for you, man. Alright, be safe Jeff. Later guys. Bye bye.

• 1:50:14Speaker 05

  It's good hearing his voice.

• 1:50:15Shawn Ryan?

  That's the last call, I promise.

• 1:50:19Shawn Ryan?

  But, how's that? Did that take you back?

• 1:50:22Speaker 05

  It did, yeah.

• 1:50:23Shawn Ryan?

  Did it make you miss it? A little bit, maybe?

• 1:50:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, made me miss being around guys like Jeff.

• 1:50:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:31Speaker 05

  Honestly, it's been awhile since I even talked to him, so it's good to hear his voice and reminisce. I don't get to do that often.

• 1:50:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, and none of us are as good as we'd like to be at keeping in touch and sometimes the best thing for us, in my opinion, is to, you know, separate yourself, at least for a little while, from, you know, the majority of the community to kind of find your new way, but... So we've already established that your second deployment was a really eventful one. You come back home, again, for the second time.

• 1:51:08Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know you were going back to combat again for a third time? Or...

• 1:51:14Speaker 05

  No, I wasn't go- I knew, I was, at that time, I was going to Bud's instructor.

• 1:51:18Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, okay. You want to become a Bud's instructor?

• 1:51:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:22Shawn Ryan?

  Did you want to do that?

• 1:51:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:25Shawn Ryan?

  You're ready for a break?

• 1:51:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was ready. They asked me if I wanted to do something different and that was the only way I was gonna leave. They were trying to force dudes out to go to trade at, at the time, and I was like, no. I was like, I'm not going there. If I'm gonna do something, I want to do, I want to be

• 1:51:42Speaker 05

  a Bud's instructor. I want to be at the forefront of the training.

• 1:51:46Speaker 05

  And I knew I wanted to be Bud's instructor at first phase. That was like my goal. Yeah, I was first phase, and that was my goal.

• 1:51:52Shawn Ryan?

  You were a total fucking dickhead then?

• 1:51:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:55Shawn Ryan?

  Alright.

• 1:51:56Speaker 05

  I was like the quiet, the quiet fucking dickhead, not the outlandish instructor yelling and screaming, but...

• 1:52:01Shawn Ryan?

  That's like the worst kind. You never know what the fuck they're thinking.

• 1:52:04Speaker 05

  Yeah. So I said, I had the opportunity, it was hard to get because the guys going from east to west, it was, it's a fate, you know, it's kind of hard to do. Leadership's not really prone to let guys do that, but I guess they're...

• 1:52:22Speaker 05

  Said screw it and let me do it.

• 1:52:23Shawn Ryan?

  You went to, so you come home from deployment. It was a rough one. You guys did a lot of good shit, got a lot of combat in. You go, did you go straight to BUDs as a first phase instructor when you got back?

• 1:52:38Speaker 05

  Got back, did, obviously did some break, some leave, cool down, a little R and R. And then as soon as I was done with that, it was literally I got orders to go to BUDs. I called them ahead of time, was like, look, I'm coming there, I want to go first phase. And they're like, alright, you got it.

• 1:52:56Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 1:52:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I just checked in, simple as that.

• 1:53:02Shawn Ryan?

  Well, this is interesting because you were so motivated to become a SEAL and, and talking to your dad that, I mean, he had no doubt you were gonna make it. And then you go to combat, or you make it through, you go to combat, you do two pumps. You had some, you took some heavies, you got a lot of combat time. How did your mentality change towards, I mean, you show up and you got 200 men. You know, some of them are still fucking kids. Others are, you know, a little older, trying to, you know, prove to themselves they can make it. What, I'm always curious, like, what do you think of the, what do you, when you see 200 people

• 1:53:47Shawn Ryan?

  that all want to be exactly what you are, and none of them, almost none of them have any fucking idea of what they're about to go through, if in the unlikely event that they make it. What do you think of the, what do you think of the class? Are you?

• 1:54:05Speaker 05

  Right away, I know, you know, 80% of them are not going to be there. And I don't say that overtly, but I just know.

• 1:54:17Speaker 05

  But I take it, what I've learned when I was instructor, I was able to, it was definitely a growing experience for me. I would say professionally and maturity, for sure. Just being, once you walk into that, it's just like a bubble, its own world, like as an instructor, even as students, like even but as an instructor, you're held, you're like, you're on a pedestal, whether you think so or not, you know, you're a god to these students, you know, in their mind, they want to be you. So, it's definitely upholding the standard and exceeding the standard. But when I look at students, I just, whenever I saw a fresh class, I've always took it as

• 1:54:59Speaker 05

  a fresh start. I mean, they needed to prove themselves to me. Blank slate for them, until proven otherwise.

• 1:55:07Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, good.

• 1:55:08Speaker 05

  We had, sometimes we classed up, looking at them, sometimes I, as classes went on, I became inherently just, I could look at a guy and be like, no.

• 1:55:20Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 1:55:21Speaker 05

  Not happening.

• 1:55:22Shawn Ryan?

  Were you ever wrong?

• 1:55:24Speaker 05

  Couple times.

• 1:55:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah?

• 1:55:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:55:26Shawn Ryan?

  The nerdiest looking fucking dweeb sometimes makes it, huh?

• 1:55:29Speaker 05

  I mean, nine times out of 10, fucking makes it. And that's, people think, you know, so concerned about size, weight, strength, etc. It's those guys that put out more than, I've seen D1 athletes, guys with everything, like supposed to be athletic studs, just quit day one.

• 1:55:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:49Speaker 05

  So, it's just, there's no, you can't pinpoint it, what I've learned. You can't pinpoint like, he's gonna be good, he's not, he's solid, he's not, you know, it's so broad, you know, you just never could tell who wants it more. So as time goes, it's all proven in action. It's like...

• 1:56:08Speaker 05

  Someone could say they want it, but that doesn't mean shit until you're out there.

• 1:56:12Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you've been through a lot at this point, and I mean, did you have any animosity towards the students? Did you want them to quit? Or did you, did you, like, talk to me about when you look at a class and you have just come from what you've come through, and you're still at a young age, I mean, what are you, are you thinking, I'm gonna fucking crush you? You're going to quit, or are you thinking?

• 1:56:41Speaker 05

  No, I definitely had that mindset with certain individuals, not everybody. I could tell I would get really fucking pissed and angry at certain students just based off their performance and just lack of mental strength and just the want to be there. Because you hear everything in the wind of why they're there, you know, why they're not performing, etc., or quitting. So it was just frustrating to me as well as the other instructors, and I worked, I got to work with some seasoned instructors too. They've been, majority of them, if not all of them, all combat.

• 1:57:16Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:57:16Speaker 05

  And all the leadership were damn near.

• 1:57:18Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:57:19Speaker 05

  So seasoned guys. So the tolerance for not putting out or not wanting to be there was zilch for everybody. The patience were. So I got, I, it was so easy, what I learned as an instructor was so easy to see the negative in somebody too. Like, we were so quick, that's how we, we spoke about it, like eating your own so fast.

• 1:57:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:42Speaker 05

  We were so fast, I found it, because I did it, just to find so negative performance in somebody. And they may be doing okay, but as soon as they slip up just a little bit, we're on it. He may be okay, he may be like overall decent, like up to that point, but maybe just having a bad fucking day or something. But as soon as he has a bad fucking day, we're on him, trying to get him out of there. You know, we're just very, it's, I found myself jumping to... The negativity so fast. By looking at everything, like is this guy performing? Is he, what is he doing up to this point? What's his reputation in class, etc. Looking at the bigger picture. I was always front sight focused on making dudes quit.

• 1:58:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:24Speaker 05

  At first. Which I found out that was kinda like, that was the wrong approach. I shouldn't, I shouldn't have done that like right out the gate. You know, our goal, our goal isn't just to fucking make dudes quit. We wanna get rid of the guys that wanna be there. And the program gets rid of the guys itself. It's, hasn't been changed, a proven system. Guys are gonna leave because the curriculum is what it is. Instructors are just there to uphold the standards.

• 1:58:51Shawn Ryan?

  Did you, did your mindset start to change while you were current, while you were at first phase as an instructor? Or did your mindset change like after you left, thinking back on how everything went?

• 1:59:05Speaker 05

  It changed while I was there. I would say it changed when I became a proctor of a class. And I was like the lead instructor of class 305. And I really got to get to know the class. I was their guy, I was their conduit between the rest of instructors. I would meet with them, talk with them, make sure they have all their shit squared away for the next day. Meet with them on the weekends. You know, I became close and built a relationship with the guys. At first, I'm just, I'm there to help with scheduling and just help the class and weed out the people that don't wanna be there. But as time goes on, you build a relationship because you, you're with them the entire seven weeks.

• 1:59:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:46Speaker 05

  Of first phase. So I grew, that's where I think I definitely grew as an instructor and as a SEAL. As far as maturity is concerned.

• 1:59:56Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 1:59:57Speaker 05

  Because that responsibility too. Because you're the go-to guy. You're not just another instructor out there yelling and screaming.

• 2:00:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:04Speaker 05

  You know, at another student. They're looking up to you. Like hey, they're meeting with you every night, they can go to you to talk to you. And I would meet with them at night and tell them, hey, you're, this is what you're fucking up. This is what you're doing good. This is what you need to be squared away. Or I'd remediate them to let them know that, hey, you've been fucking up this whole, this whole day. So I definitely.

• 2:00:27Speaker 05

  Definitely grew during that that one class and then after that point, the rest of the class I was there. I was there for another six, seven classes.

• 2:00:37Speaker 05

  It definitely carried with me throughout.

• 2:00:38Shawn Ryan?

  Would you say, maybe not right off the bat, maybe this came later, maybe it didn't come at all, but would you say there is,

• 2:00:47Shawn Ryan?

  is there any specific common denominator that

• 2:00:52Shawn Ryan?

  you're looking for in the guys that are coming through the training?

• 2:00:57Speaker 05

  I'm looking for that strong why.

• 2:00:59Shawn Ryan?

  That strong why, why they want to do it?

• 2:01:01Speaker 05

  Yeah. And everyone has their own and there's not some blanket statement that's gonna be good enough, but everyone has their own reasons why. But it has to be, for me, what I saw a lot of, it wasn't about the job. It was more about, I just want to do BUDs or I just want to try it, challenge.

• 2:01:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:21Speaker 05

  That was it. That was like the sole focus. And yeah, in itself, it is a challenge. Yeah, you should want to complete BUDs. But that's just a stepping stone to becoming a Navy SEAL. That's not the end all be all. And I found a lot of the students didn't really know why the hell they were there. Vice just being there just because they saw it online or, you know, they woke up one day and started to prepare six months or less than that for BUDs.

• 2:01:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:50Speaker 05

  And yeah, they met the standards to get there, but that's it.

• 2:01:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:54Speaker 05

  Just because you could pass a SEAL PST doesn't mean you're gonna make it through. And honestly, when you have a week, I tell these guys, people all the time, if you have a week why, or that trickles down in your motivation, everything, you're gonna get weeded out quick. That why is not gonna hold up against all the demands that especially first phase requires of you.

• 2:02:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:14Speaker 05

  That's gonna get in and out of your mind quick. So if you don't want to be a SEAL and do the fucking job down range, you know, when I was there, weren't too many people still going overseas.

• 2:02:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it kind of died down there.

• 2:02:29Speaker 05

  Yeah, it died down right when I got back because my last point, I finished in 2013. And then we're slowly kind of. Removing guys from Afghanistan, especially the team guys.

• 2:02:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:40Speaker 05

  So barely anyone was going there when I was an instructor. So I don't think that maybe just didn't have a clue or didn't really think about it, but again, this is not a blanket statement for every student, but for the people that quit or I saw a lack of performance and when I, especially when I was a proctor and spoke to them, it was that. It kind of all boiled down to that. It wasn't like, oh, my legs hurt, I'm tired. It was like, I always, why the hell are you even here?

• 2:03:07Shawn Ryan?

  Makes sense. Is there,

• 2:03:11Shawn Ryan?

  as much as we eat our own, and we do eat our own, and we're probably the best out of it, out of all the, all the other branches, which I don't necessarily think is a fucking good thing, but

• 2:03:24Shawn Ryan?

  at the same token, we're also extremely fucking tight-knit and we have each other's back on deployment. We might not, I might not like you, I might not want to be around you, but when you're on deployment, things change and you have to have that fucking teamwork. So as an instructor,

• 2:03:50Shawn Ryan?

  do you teach that or

• 2:03:53Shawn Ryan?

  is that something that you think that guys come to the table with it? It's just like in their heart?

• 2:03:58Speaker 05

  It comes, I think guys show up with that. They come to the table with that kind of mentality already. That's why they're there. That's what kind of drove, part of the reason why it probably drove them to the program. We don't give them no PowerPoint on being a team player, teamwork. It's just, it's driven into them like right away. Even before they even phase up to first phase. It's like you're in boat crews, you're in a class, you're part of a team, you're part of a, you need to work together. Otherwise, you're going to fail. You know, so that, the program does it inherently and then we're there to reinforce it. And make sure that, that standard's held.

• 2:04:36Shawn Ryan?

  When you have guys that show up that...

• 2:04:39Shawn Ryan?

  Aren't team players and a lot of times these are your division one types. Division one athletes, Olympic athletes. Sometimes it's guys from other branches that are just crushing the fucking runs, crushing the swims. They're the top performers, but and then they want to gloat and they want to be fucking praised for how well they're performing. But they're not a team player. How do you, is it hard to get those guys to quit? Do you try to get them to quit? I've always seen them. It kind of, just like you said, the program kind of takes care of its, takes.

• 2:05:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:05:20Shawn Ryan?

  You know, takes care of itself. How do, how do those guys wind up washing out?

• 2:05:27Speaker 05

  I think the majority, they, they do wash out. The program will expose them and then so will the class, to be honest with you, because they see right through that shit. And they're not, and even the class leaders and the boat crew leaders, they may be in charge, may not be. You know, even they may be just a lower ranking, but a D1 athlete or something, or maybe an officer. But even still, they're going to get exposed and they'll be ousted by the, by the class pretty quickly. When I see, when I was an instructor, we touched on it, that social pressure. And if you're not a part of the team, you're going to be quickly cut out of the team.

• 2:06:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:06:06Speaker 05

  Cause that, and that happens quick too. And then instructors will kind of help reinforce that as well. We help, we help, hey, what's up with this guy? You know, why, he's going to do something about it? Talk to the class leader, maybe he's a boat crew leader, or maybe he's an officer. We talked to the class OIC to talk to him. So there's ways to expose that if we see, because maybe he'd be crushing, passing every test, but again, he's standing out because he's not being a part of the team. He thinks he's above the rest. Those things you can see quickly in buds. Those little discrepancies in people.

• 2:06:46Shawn Ryan?

  Even as an instructor?

• 2:06:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:06:48Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think you see it faster as an instructor as you do as a student?

• 2:06:54Speaker 05

  This class would see it before us.

• 2:06:57Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:06:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, his own boat crew would definitely see it before us. Because in those occasions, that arrogance, that entitlement, you know, may not show because he could be passing tests. He could be passing all the runs, the swims, so he could kind of slip by a little bit because he's performing. Just on a performance standard. But as soon as we start doing team evolutions, the boats, the logs, rock ports, surf passes, etc. That's when people like that start showing.

• 2:07:32Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:07:33Speaker 05

  Because he's not putting out. He's just in the same position all the time. He's not moving, holding his weight, he's not shifting, like for the boats. Boats on heads, like number two spot, which is directly in the middle of the boat, the heaviest spot. Where all the water goes, kind of rests in the center. And it bows too, so all the weight kind of centers in the boat. He'll never go to that position. Or if he's on the logs, he'll never go to the end of the log. Where all the weight lies. Everyone tries, all the turds or people who don't want to put out, don't want to be part of the team, go to the center. Where they could pretend like they're carrying something.

• 2:08:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:07Speaker 05

  Because everyone else in the end is carrying the weight. So there's, they know, they find out these little tricks that we know of. The instructors see this, we see it all the time. And we pick up on it because we see the same faces. And the class will see it too, but we notice the same exact faces, the same spot every time.

• 2:08:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. How do you deal with that as an instructor? Do you give them like a little extra?

• 2:08:30Speaker 05

  Give them extra attention.

• 2:08:31Shawn Ryan?

  Extra benefit?

• 2:08:32Speaker 05

  Oh yeah.

• 2:08:33Shawn Ryan?

  To entice them to ring the bell?

• 2:08:36Speaker 05

  We'll give them some extra motivation.

• 2:08:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. How would you do that?

• 2:08:40Speaker 05

  If we notice them during the evolution, we'll shift them to the spot where we think it's the toughest.

• 2:08:45Shawn Ryan?

  Would you humiliate them in front of the entire class?

• 2:08:48Speaker 05

  Humiliate them, no.

• 2:08:49Shawn Ryan?

  No?

• 2:08:51Speaker 05

  Not humiliate.

• 2:08:52Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:08:53Speaker 05

  We would tell him, if he was doing what I just described, we'd tell him to go back to the position. To the two spot at the end of the log and stay there.

• 2:09:00Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:09:01Speaker 05

  And you're going to stay there until you either quit or you start putting out for your boat crew.

• 2:09:09Speaker 05

  More often than not, they tend to fall out.

• 2:09:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:13Speaker 05

  Or start collapsing their whole entire boat crew because they're not holding their weight and everyone else starts carrying the more load, more tired. It's just like a snowball effect. Everyone starts dying off.

• 2:09:22Shawn Ryan?

  So I've always been like really curious about, like, you get these guys sometimes, and I've never was, you know, an instructor, so this is why I'm so curious is, you get these guys that they just can't fucking hang, they don't put out, the boat crew is basically, you know, carrying them through hell week especially, and nobody seems to be able to force these fuckers to quit. And, but, they do wind up disappearing. So, if you got a guy and you're an instructor who, he's not cutting it, his boat crew's suffering,

• 2:10:03Shawn Ryan?

  he's not a team player, he's hanging on by a thread because he just won't ring the fucking bell, like, how, how does he like disappear?

• 2:10:15Speaker 05

  We, it's pretty easily, actually, for, we just write him up performance-wise.

• 2:10:21Shawn Ryan?

  You just performance drop him right there?

• 2:10:22Speaker 05

  Performance drop him.

• 2:10:23Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 2:10:24Speaker 05

  He's over a series of evolutions, not just one time, but over a series of evolutions, over a couple of days, maybe a week, of just not performing or hacking it after being warned, done, and we just pull him from the class.

• 2:10:40Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:10:41Speaker 05

  Sometimes people do squeak by, though, that being said, you know, but, yeah, performance drop.

• 2:10:48Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:10:49Speaker 05

  Would be the way to get, we get rid of these guys.

• 2:10:51Shawn Ryan?

  I have another question, too. I've never actually met a BUDS quitter.

• 2:10:59Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know if you have this too, but everybody seems to get

• 2:11:02Speaker 05

  Oh yeah.

• 2:11:03Shawn Ryan?

  medical dropped, you know, I mean, I've, I've met a ton of BUDS quitters, but nobody ever admits it. They always say, oh, I've been med dropped. And I know when I was going through BUDS, they would actually give,

• 2:11:15Shawn Ryan?

  they would give them a choice like, well, you know, would you like to be med dropped? And is that, is that how that goes? You just tell them, ah, yeah, you don't have to ring it, just.

• 2:11:28Speaker 05

  No.

• 2:11:28Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:11:30Speaker 05

  Nope. If a student clearly just wants to DOR or drop, drop on request, he has to ring the bell.

• 2:11:36Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:11:37Speaker 05

  Cut and dry. But if it's for a medical, it's the only reason he's going to get med dropped if it's for a severe medical issue. I'm talking severe because right now they, at least when I was there, my experience has a very good medical system there. And they'll rehab you up.

• 2:11:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:54Speaker 05

  They will rehab the student back to full health and put him back in the class. If he injured, stress fractures, or whatever that was like kind of induced because of the training. They'll rehab you up and get you back in the class.

• 2:12:07Speaker 05

  If your performance dropped, your performance dropped. It's not like, hey, do you want just to write down a med drop? But you really got performance dropped? Or are you DOR'd and we just wrote down you got med dropped? No way.

• 2:12:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:18Speaker 05

  You quit, you quit. I think it, and I've come across that too myself. They're lying. They're just, just straight up, just, they don't want to admit to themselves or others that they just quit.

• 2:12:27Shawn Ryan?

  Just a flat out liar.

• 2:12:29Speaker 05

  Just a flat out liar. And I have met a couple of guys where they approached me like, no, I quit. Or they just straight up, and those are far few in between. But I respect that more than.

• 2:12:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:12:38Speaker 05

  You know, I don't hold it against them. I don't give a shit, but.

• 2:12:41Shawn Ryan?

  It's not for everyone.

• 2:12:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's not for everyone. But if you're a straight up, that, those people who do that are just straight liars. So they're lying to themselves, but, because we don't give a shit.

• 2:12:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I've met a ton of med drops. I've never met a quitter.

• 2:12:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, so, yeah, same here.

• 2:12:56Shawn Ryan?

  This is kind of funny. Let's dive into the infamous hell week. You went through it, I went through it.

• 2:13:05Shawn Ryan?

  When you go back as an instructor, and you see what these guys are going through in Hell Week, and you've already done it, I mean, does it look as bad as when you were going through it? Does it look worse? Does it look the same?

• 2:13:24Speaker 05

  As an instructor, it's like that behind the curtain look. But it definitely looks worse as a student.

• 2:13:30Shawn Ryan?

  Does it?

• 2:13:31Speaker 05

  As an instructor, it's not that bad. But it's, by no means has it changed. It's tough as hell.

• 2:13:41Speaker 05

  But, I don't know. When I look, I can hardly remember. When I look back, think back at my Hell Week, I can hardly remember some evolutions.

• 2:13:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:51Speaker 05

  As an instructor, I mean, I can remember it because I work tons of them. But working them as an instructor, so I remember everything.

• 2:13:58Shawn Ryan?

  Would you say that was your favorite evolution to work as an instructor?

• 2:14:01Speaker 05

  Camp surf.

• 2:14:03Shawn Ryan?

  Camp surf?

• 2:14:04Speaker 05

  Camp surf, yeah. We call it camp surf. It's like Wednesday night. So midweek, kind of Wednesday night dudes made it. Because that following day is like messing around. Then you're doing the round the world till you're done. But camp surf's like middle of the night, by the old course, build this huge fire pit. And then huge pit right next to it where all the students lie. And it's like we make a little stage and they tell us jokes. And their jokes shit. We send them to the surf zone, laugh at them. And if they're good, let them go stand by the fire for a couple of minutes, warm them up. And then kind of the whole class will go through it and then we'll punish them. Occasionally, we had a tradition where we brought them food.

• 2:14:44Shawn Ryan?

  Punish them how?

• 2:14:46Speaker 05

  If they've fallen asleep, we fucking wake them all up, send them to the surf middle of the night. Surf hit after surf hit after surf hit. That's the worst thing in Hell Week. We would just do hundreds of hit the surf, hit the surf, hit the surf. I mean, these guys are just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

• 2:15:01Shawn Ryan?

  And that water's freezing ass.

• 2:15:02Speaker 05

  Freezing ass in the middle of the night. 50s.

• 2:15:06Shawn Ryan?

  50s?

• 2:15:06Speaker 05

  Yeah. Mid 50s at night. Summertime, it's a little bit warmer. I would say it's like low 60s to mid 60s. Even then, whether it's summer, winter, doesn't matter because we just keep you in the water longer. And trust me, you're going to freeze just as much as if you froze in the wintertime, even in the summer.

• 2:15:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. You know, like... You watch Discovery, you watch, you know, all the Hollywood class and the documentaries and you read the books and now they see all the pictures on social media and stuff. But these guys watching Discovery Channel, they see, they see guys rolling around in the surf and carrying logs and carrying boats, but what they don't, what they don't see is, is the shit that you can't see that you know as an instructor and, and you find out real fast as a student, like the chafing from the sand and, and your armpits, on your groin,

• 2:16:05Shawn Ryan?

  and your junk, and, uh, you know, from the sand rubbing back and forth and that dries. And I feel like the instructors know it dries and that's, camis are like stuck to the side of your sack. And as soon as the class is dry, it's like, hey, we're gonna go for a run. As soon as you run, those pants are crusted to that chafing and it rips the skin right off, everything. And then, so that burns like hell and then it's, hey, get your ass back in the water and then you're throwing an open wound into the water. And are, do you guys, I mean, do you guys take, do you realize, you remember that shit when you were going through? Do you know that's going on with the class?

• 2:16:49Speaker 05

  I mean, oh yeah, I know, we know what's going on because it's happening. When I was a student, I knew what was going on because I was living it. So it was the class. Some got it worse than others. Um, and like I said, when we, every morning they get med checks. So we, they get seen by a doctor and if it's horrible, they'll get it treated or they'll get it bandaged. But again, as instructors, we're not holding up training because we know some students have chafing. Some may have it way worse than others. I mean, I haven't seen students that were literally covered in chafe. Arms, armpits, chest, waist, groin, legs. I mean, looked like they just fell off a motorcycle on the street. I mean, it's horrible how bad some people get affected. Some people get affected more than others.

• 2:17:29Speaker 05

  I don't know why. Um, but it doesn't, we don't alter, alter training because students are experiencing some burn pains because of chafing. If anything, that's just part of the process and hey, man, if you can't handle that, then get out of here.

• 2:17:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I got a burning sensation of my groin. Can you help me out? Welcome to the SEAL team.

• 2:17:53Speaker 05

  I think that's just, that's part of the process of welcome to the Siltin University.

• 2:17:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. In Hell Week, is there a specific evolution where guys start dropping off immediately? Or is it always random? Like, is it breakout when you're breaking them out of the tents? Is it log PT? Is it, or?

• 2:18:12Speaker 05

  It's not breakout, to be honest. We're gonna lose a lot of guys. If we're gonna lose a lot, only time we ever lose right when Hell Week starts is before it even kicks off. Cause we lock them down into a tent or a room before Hell Week kicks off, like three hours prior. Then we'll get some stragglers that will just walk up and ring out before Hell Week even, because they can't handle the stress. And not even do anything. They're just watching a movie, laid up, eating.

• 2:18:38Speaker 05

  So we'll get some stragglers. But it's not until maybe that night. We're doing base tour, boats on heads. Running all over Bud's compound, then across the street, to the dry side, running all over there. And then maybe doing also another one, Steel Pier. We call it, which we just, the whole evolution's just all about freezing the students.

• 2:19:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:00Speaker 05

  Just a mental, mental gut check.

• 2:19:03Shawn Ryan?

  What happens when a student gets hypothermia? Is that end of the evolution? Or is that end of the evolution for that specific student?

• 2:19:11Speaker 05

  Depends on the severity, but it's just that, the evolution continues on. We just pull him out.

• 2:19:16Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:19:16Speaker 05

  Rewarm him if we can. If it's something we can deal with, if it's severe, then we'll, with our ambulance, drive him back to the clinic. But nine times out of 10, we can just handle it on the spot. Get a quick temp, warm him up, put a blanket around him, dry him off, beanie coat, etc. for a little while. Which I feel is like the worst thing, because we warm him up. And then as soon as he's good to go, like he's coherent, he's back to normal, he's like all cozy and falling asleep. We're like, hey, wake the fuck up, go hit the surf.

• 2:19:46Shawn Ryan?

  Get your ass back out there.

• 2:19:47Speaker 05

  Get your ass back out there. Start training if you want to be here.

• 2:19:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:52Shawn Ryan?

  Would you say the majority of the quarters come from the first night?

• 2:19:58Speaker 05

  See the first, yeah.

• 2:20:00Shawn Ryan?

  First 24 hours.

• 2:20:00Speaker 05

  Yeah, first 24 hours, 24 to 32 hours, say, you get the majority. By the middle, end of the middle of the week, end of the Wednesday night, you have, you pretty much have what you're gonna have at the end of Hell Week.

• 2:20:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:12Speaker 05

  Whether someone gets hurt, then you get some, but as far as quitters are concerned, pretty much stop Wednesday night, go into Thursday morning.

• 2:20:19Shawn Ryan?

  When Hell Week is secured as an instructor, do you, and you're looking at 20 guys out of 150 who just made it through, what's only what, three or four fucking weeks in? Do you feel any sense of pride for those individuals that have gutted that out as an instructor, looking, looking at them and knowing what they're getting ready to go to next?

• 2:20:46Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, definitely a huge accomplishment on their end. And they've earned a level of respect, at least how I viewed it. And then other instructors did too when I was there. And it, it kind of proved to me that they're, that for one, they want to be there. For two, they're ready to get trained. Up until that point, now we can start, we have the core of guys that want, in this class, that want to be here, because we just, they just passed the most grueling part of selection. Now it's time to kind of put them to the test other ways. But we have a solid foundation of the guys that, that want to be here. Because you're not gonna get any quitters after that, very, very rare.

• 2:21:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:27Speaker 05

  It's mostly just performance or medical issues. But that, it's definitely a level of respect and they've proved to us that they're ready to be trained.

• 2:21:36Shawn Ryan?

  After Hell Week, it becomes, man, I don't want to word this wrong, but it's, a little bit of pressure's off. You just made it through, you know, the hardest, it is the hardest evolution in BUDs, in my opinion. And it is a night and day difference coming from Hell Week into, into.

• 2:21:58Shawn Ryan?

  Post Hell Week, you know, one day you're wearing a white shirt, you graduate Hell Week, you're a brown shirt, and then you get a little bit more respect, at least when I was going through, you get a little bit more respect. Is it hard to like switch that mindset as an instructor, or is it still like that?

• 2:22:17Speaker 05

  No, it's still like that. You do get a little more of a level of respect from the instructors, because like I said, after that, we, the training kind of shifts. They break up into squad, their own squads, and we start kind of building that platoon mindset, and actually train, started teaching them kind of some core skills of being a SEAL. But that is a real fine line, though, because sometimes students take it a little too far, like they've been, made it, they're fucking, they're good to go, but then we quickly crush that, if they're getting a little too arrogant.

• 2:22:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:51Speaker 05

  So I've seen that happen a lot with classes, you know, they finish Hell Week, they think they're fucking good to go, they made it, they got the brown shirt, or fucking a Cloud 9, but we squash it and it never happened again. It's usually the proctors that sniff through that shit and they hammer it.

• 2:23:11Shawn Ryan?

  You're looking at one. I got squashed right after Hell Week. But, you know, and looking at these guys as they're going through, I mean, you always have in the, in the back of your mind, you might be, you might be with that guy that you're instructing in, I mean, fuck, what, a year, in combat, taking fire, engaging the enemy, and that's always in the back of your mind. Have you ever worked with any of the guys you put through BUDs when you went back to the team?

• 2:23:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, I worked with a couple.

• 2:23:42Shawn Ryan?

  How was that relationship?

• 2:23:44Speaker 05

  It was good. I mean, it was definitely knowing them when they're instructor, it was a different dynamic, but it ended up being some of them, their LPO.

• 2:23:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:56Speaker 05

  So it was actually a good relationship, it wasn't...

• 2:24:01Speaker 05

  Uncomfortable, but at first, they saw me as like an instructor when they got to the team and in my platoon. So they already had that mindset like, holy shit, you know, that's instructor Kennedy. But that quickly faded when I just set the tone of, hey, you're a new guy, I'm your teammate, you know, I'm your LPO. But it didn't, it wasn't a negative thing at all. I actually kinda liked it. It was kinda, it was kinda really cool to see them there and BUDS.

• 2:24:30Shawn Ryan?

  The progression.

• 2:24:31Speaker 05

  The progression. Now they're actually with me. And actually, I have the team doing the job. So it was cool to see that process. That's why I liked first phase a lot. That's why I wanted to go to first phase, because that growth.

• 2:24:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:43Speaker 05

  Through all that, the meat of the selection and then the outcome at the end. So that's, that's the reason why I like that phase a lot.

• 2:24:52Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, shit, it's pretty fucking cool. I mean, you're, I mean,

• 2:24:58Shawn Ryan?

  you're basically like the gatekeeper of the community, being a first phase instructor. Or the, you know, the biggest, I mean, that's the biggest hurdle.

• 2:25:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:25:08Shawn Ryan?

  Being an instructor and going back, when these guys graduate, BUDS and SQT, I mean, because you're part of that entire pipeline, at least a little bit.

• 2:25:20Shawn Ryan?

  Do you feel like these guys are ready?

• 2:25:22Speaker 05

  Once they finish BUDS or SQT?

• 2:25:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, I do.

• 2:25:25Shawn Ryan?

  Are they ready to go?

• 2:25:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I feel like they're ready. The end product is solid.

• 2:25:33Speaker 05

  Even while I was instructor, I know today it is too. So the program is what it is for a reason, and it produces really good team guys. That's my opinion, and that's what I've seen, and that's what I know is true, but the outcome's great.

• 2:25:53Speaker 05

  Here and there, you know, get some stragglers that get to the team and don't perform, and they kinda look back and like, what the fuck? BUDS, why'd you let this guy slip through? But

• 2:26:04Speaker 05

  that's small, you know, that happens sometimes. We can't really, we do our best to mitigate it, but it can only do so much.

• 2:26:13Shawn Ryan?

  Is there anything?

• 2:26:16Shawn Ryan?

  You would like to see implemented in BUDs that you think will prepare guys more for showing up to the team, or prepare them more for, like the mindset?

• 2:26:30Shawn Ryan?

  They make a better SEAL. Is there anything you would like to see implemented

• 2:26:35Shawn Ryan?

  in the BUDs program as an instructor that would make a better team guy an end result?

• 2:26:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, I would say

• 2:26:44Speaker 05

  for the leadership, let the instructors do their job, which will produce a better result as per a student. Because you give them restrictions, they're not going to be able to enforce the standards, which then trickles down to they're not going to have the right mindset going forward. They're not doing well with the teamwork, you know, that team mentality, etc., mental toughness. So, when your hands are tied from the top, that's going to trickle down into the class because the class is a direct reflection of the instructing staff and how much they uphold the standards and all the physical aspect and everything else, so.

• 2:27:29Speaker 05

  What I do like, when I was there at the very end, they did implement the mentors. I think they need to hammer that a little bit home more. They assign instructors, they split the class up into squads and they assign an instructor to each squad as like a mentor.

• 2:27:46Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 2:27:47Speaker 05

  So, they kind of hammer down, go full force on that. That way, you build relationships with these guys and I got to do it one time because they started, it was a fairly new thing. But those guys that I mentored were later on in my platoon, working for me.

• 2:28:02Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 2:28:03Speaker 05

  So, I thought it was a really cool tool. You really get to like get in the mindset, they could ask you questions and you're actually out there teaching them kind of the fundamentals of being a SEAL and building that relationship. And it paid dividends, which I saw throughout the rest of the phases.

• 2:28:21Speaker 05

  Because like you said, you know, you're going to be working with majority of these guys.

• 2:28:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:27Speaker 05

  Most instructors, if they leave buds and go on to the team or something, you're gonna be working with these guys, so you need to have, and you get to understand where they're at too mentally. You know, are they in the right mindset? Do they have the right characteristics? You know, whether we, that's how we get to know these people. You know, some psych exam they took before is not like a good, very good marker whether they're gonna be a good team guy or not. They're still trying to figure out how to find the best candidates today.

• 2:28:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:54Speaker 05

  They still can't, and I don't think they ever will, but being more intimately involved and like knowing the guys, that's gonna help.

• 2:29:01Shawn Ryan?

  Getting to know actually who they are as a person.

• 2:29:04Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 2:29:04Shawn Ryan?

  What's inside there.

• 2:29:05Speaker 05

  Yeah. Who they are, that you understand like why they're here.

• 2:29:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that makes a hell of a lot of sense.

• 2:29:10Speaker 05

  Where they come from, you know, what they used to do, what are they into? Why do you wanna be a SEAL? You know, what are you interested in doing?

• 2:29:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:18Speaker 05

  And I think, cause SEAL, which I like the SEAL community, like we're from everywhere, you know, so many different backgrounds, so many different professions.

• 2:29:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:27Speaker 05

  And that's what, you know, come together is for just one purpose, that's why I like these teams a lot, one of the great aspects of it, but they just hammer home on that a lot more, and I think they still are, but just really focus on that post hell week and the first phase.

• 2:29:42Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that's, you know, that's actually very refreshing to hear that you're, you as an instructor, as a combat, that are comfortable with the product that's coming out of the training center and showing up to the teams, I mean, that's like, that's, I mean, shit, that's all you can ask for, you know, is a solid individual coming out of that pipeline ready to fucking go to work.

• 2:30:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, 99% of them are freaking solid. It's the 1%ers that mess up and then they make everybody look bad, and that's just how it's always been, that's how it always will be.

• 2:30:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:22Speaker 05

  Soon as someone messes up, then everybody looks bad. Then they start spotlight, it's like what kind of product you've given us, when one turd shows up into the team not performing, when the 15 other team new guys are, that showed up are doing solid, and all of a sudden we're producing bad people.

• 2:30:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:39Speaker 05

  It's just a numbers game of probability at that point, but like I said, we're going back again, we're always so quick to...

• 2:30:47Speaker 05

  Talk about the negative or bring that about.

• 2:30:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:30:49Speaker 05

  Advice, you know, hey, let's handle it internally. So that's going back again, that's what I've learned as an instructor. Like just take a bigger picture, like, hey, let's get to know these dudes. And that'll leave you a lot of problems in the future, a lot of issues when they get to the team out and leave liberty, etc. Like their personal time, getting in trouble with the law, etc. Like all these little things. Probably could have got caught going through the program, knowing where this guy is, what he's been doing. Maybe he has all these fucking red flags throughout BUDs, like drinking, etc., which there has been. So that could have been found a lot earlier before they showed up to the team, causing a scene.

• 2:31:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:29Speaker 05

  So.

• 2:31:30Shawn Ryan?

  So moving along, you finish up your time at BUDs and then you go back to the teams. What team did you go back to?

• 2:31:40Speaker 05

  Four again.

• 2:31:41Shawn Ryan?

  You went back to four. And where were you going this time?

• 2:31:47Speaker 05

  This time I got assigned to three troops, so I knew it was Southcom.

• 2:31:51Speaker 05

  At the time, it was one troop was going to Africa, two was UCOM, and three troop was Southcom. So team four went back to its roots. Southcom was its AO.

• 2:32:02Speaker 05

  Cause all CENTCOM kinda died off. East Coast teams were not going there at all. The most kinetic place was Africa. And even that wasn't nearly as kinetic as Afghanistan when I went there. So I ended up going to Colombia, did my LPO tour, and went to Southcom.

• 2:32:22Shawn Ryan?

  How was that deployment?

• 2:32:25Speaker 05

  I liked it. Honestly, it was a really good deployment. I enjoyed it. It was very, very different than the first two I experienced. I mean, it was a little night and day difference.

• 2:32:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:37Speaker 05

  Working with the embassy, other, you know, host nation partner forces, a lot of FID. Those who don't know, foreign internal defense, we're just training the local special forces a lot. That was the main, kind of main gig there. We're working with a lot of inter-agency. There was DEA, CIA there. So we worked alongside of them. We helped train their forces. So a lot of joint advise and assist ops.

• 2:33:06Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of ops? Were they counter drug?

• 2:33:08Speaker 05

  Counter drug. All of them were counter narcotic and local.

• 2:33:14Speaker 05

  Within like their city. They utilized their military special forces to do

• 2:33:21Speaker 05

  basically police work.

• 2:33:22Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:33:23Speaker 05

  In the city. So it's a little different dynamic than we had.

• 2:33:27Shawn Ryan?

  Like investigation type work or undercover work or?

• 2:33:31Speaker 05

  DA's. I would just go in and have a target and like, hey, we're gonna go and arrest this guy.

• 2:33:35Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so they're hitting houses.

• 2:33:37Speaker 05

  They're hitting houses, yeah.

• 2:33:39Shawn Ryan?

  Cool. Are you with them?

• 2:33:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, we're parked a block over in the street.

• 2:33:45Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, you're command and control. You're?

• 2:33:47Speaker 05

  Yeah. We did advising and assisting them. We're not up there on the train or anything. We're just sitting in our up armored Vic a block over. Doing overwatch.

• 2:33:58Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:34:00Speaker 05

  Make sure everything goes smooth.

• 2:34:02Shawn Ryan?

  Are you proud of these guys? Do you get attached to them?

• 2:34:05Speaker 05

  Towards the end, I did.

• 2:34:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:06Speaker 05

  We helped, also helped develop their whole selection process as well for their special forces unit. So I myself, being like the lead, lead guy down there in that part of Columbia, had a lot invested in this. And I was proud of the product because we helped stand up their course, which produced their quote-unquote operators.

• 2:34:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:34:30Speaker 05

  So, and I was pretty pleased on how motivated and effective it was and how much time and effort they put into it. They took it seriously.

• 2:34:38Shawn Ryan?

  So this is like a whole new, this is a completely different mission than what you're used to being overseeing foreign nationals operate in their own country and training them what to do and how to do everything. And it sounds like you really enjoyed that. And it was a nice change from

• 2:34:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was.

• 2:34:58Shawn Ryan?

  The Middle East.

• 2:34:59Speaker 05

  It was definitely a a complete 180. I did a little bit of FID when I was in the Middle East, just a little bit. But this one was, that was kind of the main focus to give us access and placement in that country. Regardless, and that's, that's what SEALs do. I mean, that's what we do, majority of the job. When we're not at war, that's what team guys do. So we gotta have, fit is important, it's part of the mission. Guys don't like it, but it needs to be done. So we did a lot of that, but I enjoyed my time there. I mean, it was, being in that AO was pretty comfortable, Columbia, so.

• 2:35:39Shawn Ryan?

  And that was your last deployment?

• 2:35:40Speaker 05

  That was my last one, yeah.

• 2:35:41Shawn Ryan?

  How long after your last deployment did you leave, decide to separate out of the community?

• 2:35:49Speaker 05

  So I finished that deployment, and then went to TRADAT, Training Command, for two years.

• 2:35:56Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:35:58Speaker 05

  I ended up being, I made chief, I ended up being the chief of SAUC, Special Operations Urban Combat, just another, it's just a training division in the, the big umbrella of all of the divisions. Just, I just taught, was in charge of one of them. And I did that for two years. Spent a lot of time in Kentucky, that's where our, our training was, out there, so.

• 2:36:22Shawn Ryan?

  So Mount for you civilian types is basically urban warfare. It's moving as a team, small unit tactics in and out of urban environments, downtown cities, stuff like that.

• 2:36:36Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. Heavily focused on that, leadership skills, communication. We did a lot of shooting, CQC.

• 2:36:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:36:44Speaker 05

  Close quarters combat. That was kind of the culmination of the workup for guys, the assaults block. Kind of what everyone, all the team guys look forward to, because it's the best block, all, all the team guys want to do assaults. They all want to do CQC, all want to shoot shit, all want to do DAs. So that's what that block is.

• 2:37:04Speaker 05

  But, so I learned a lot. I, I learned a hell of a lot. You know, things about being a SEAL, new skills, sharpen my skills.

• 2:37:13Speaker 05

  Learn a lot more leadership stuff. Just big, kind of bigger pictures. Kind of staff stuff, being in that role, being like a chief of a cell.

• 2:37:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:22Speaker 05

  But it was two years.

• 2:37:24Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, for our generation, that block of training. CQC, hitting houses, urban movement, all that kind of stuff, I mean, that is the. I think without a doubt, the single most important training block that we have. Uh, with what's going on in the world today. And I'd love to hear your take on, I mean, you've been out, you've done it three times. Now, you were a BUDS instructor, now you're teaching and you're seeing. You're, you're seeing the final product do what they want to do and what they do best. What does that look like, uh, from the outside, kind of looking in? I mean.

• 2:38:06Shawn Ryan?

  Are you like, holy shit, like, these guys are fucking good? Or, we've got a lot of work to do.

• 2:38:13Speaker 05

  I think it's. Majority are pretty solid, but again, we need, more time needs to be spent on it. We don't spend enough time. Uh, they, they took away. A week from the training, the training's three weeks long.

• 2:38:31Speaker 05

  Salk was, assault blocks is two weeks long, so a total of five weeks. Total assault block. But more time is needed.

• 2:38:42Speaker 05

  Because that is like the, the meat of. The skill set.

• 2:38:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:48Speaker 05

  And if we're focusing more of attention on. Diving or mobility, or we're taking away. If they, people higher up see that maybe more of a priority, then they're going to take away. They took, they have taken away time from the assault block because they don't see that. It's necessary, we need to focus our efforts maybe on more maritime.

• 2:39:11Shawn Ryan?

  Were you impressed with the product coming out of that? The team's going through.

• 2:39:15Speaker 05

  I had mixed feelings sometimes.

• 2:39:17Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 2:39:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, I think it was.

• 2:39:21Speaker 05

  I could name the teams, I'm not going to, but I can name the teams that I liked. That really impressed me, but I can, the teams that were like, ugh, like, they need more work. They just need more time. They just didn't do it enough. They didn't do enough. What happens is, they just don't do enough prep work prior to the assault block on their own time.

• 2:39:38Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:39:39Speaker 05

  So they're not taking it upon themselves to go run out the kill house. To do runs with older guys teaching new guys. And just doing those reps before they get there to set themselves up for success. And it shows.

• 2:39:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Let's move on towards transition. And, I mean, there's all this preparation that goes into going to combat. Doing the job right. Making sure you're a team player, all that stuff. And when I was in, there was no preparation for guys that are leaving.

• 2:40:13Shawn Ryan?

  That kind of a job, that kind of, you know, the things that you see and the things that you do. There was zero preparation for it. And...

• 2:40:24Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think about that? And how was your separation? Were you nervous?

• 2:40:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was nervous. I knew about a year out, that I was gonna make the decision. So I've already stuck to what I felt was right for me. So I knew I was gonna get out. But as far as like knowing what to do, are people helping me? None. I mean, very limited. Other than I really had to seek out. And more often than not, it was people outside the community, not inside.

• 2:40:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:40:55Speaker 05

  Because if I told, the first time I ever, I told my leadership, I mean, and jaw about dropped to the floor, like, "What the hell are you doing?" You know, it was more like... And then afterwards, I felt more like, hey, they're like, "Hey, fuck you, like, you leaving?"

• 2:41:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:10Speaker 05

  So, that stigma is still floating around. There are, it's just kind of, what I've noticed is based on person to person. It's not in general, but... But about a year out, I prepped, tried to line everything up myself, get as much information as I can. At the time, I was thinking, I was like, really going back and forth what I wanted to do with my life after the teams.

• 2:41:34Shawn Ryan?

  Before we get into that, before we get into after you're gone,

• 2:41:38Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:41:40Shawn Ryan?

  I heard you say in another podcast about, you talked about going and seeing psychiatrists and docs on your way home from deployment.

• 2:41:55Shawn Ryan?

  We didn't have that when I was in, and even if we did, I don't know that any of us would have opened up. Maybe it would have helped us, maybe it wouldn't have. Do you, what kind of questions were they asking? Did they seem genuine? Were they there to help? Did you open up to them?

• 2:42:14Speaker 05

  The ones post every deployment, I didn't really feel they were genuine, is more of a check in the block.

• 2:42:19Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:42:19Speaker 05

  Because we, after the Afghan deployments, both of them, we stopped in a town to take a weekend break before, it was in the States. We just took a weekend break, and then we had, every morning, we'd wake up, meet like a certain type of doctor, and it was more of a check in the block for them. Like, hey, you feeling good? Check. Always, alright, get out of here. It wasn't until like, I was actually getting out, now they have programs set in place, they have war concussion clinic, you know. So they have like, these clinics set up for guys, especially special operators, that they really dive deep and get a full body, like what's going on with you, open it up. They, you know, everything from head to toe, they do.

• 2:43:02Speaker 05

  And honestly, it's a really good program, and they, they take it seriously now, because in the past, they didn't give two shits about this stuff.

• 2:43:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:09Speaker 05

  It's, they didn't even think about it, nor paid attention to it, so nowadays, it's more prevalent. So they did, I went through that, saw the psych a handful of times. At first, I was, I don't think I ever really opened up. I mean, I talked a little bit, the beginning, the first couple of times I went, no, I didn't at all.

• 2:43:32Speaker 05

  I only went five times, but the last three times I talked a little bit and I opened up some more. I progressively opened up a little bit more, but by the time I was already out. You know, I was already like front sight focused on, I wanted to get this done. It was part of the transition to go through this medical exam. It was like a month long.

• 2:43:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:43:50Speaker 05

  So I needed to get that done before I got out.

• 2:43:56Speaker 05

  But that being said, I felt it did help me though.

• 2:43:58Shawn Ryan?

  It did.

• 2:43:58Speaker 05

  Because it's part of that program to see all these different doctors and talk to them.

• 2:44:03Speaker 05

  It did help me.

• 2:44:05Speaker 05

  And there was a whole other.

• 2:44:08Speaker 05

  I had to go out to do a physical thing for physical rehab plan. Got to see chiropractors, massage therapy, float tank therapy.

• 2:44:17Shawn Ryan?

  Shit, they really stepped it up.

• 2:44:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, so that's a whole nother month long too. So there are these programs to really kinda, before you get out to kinda just get your head right.

• 2:44:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:29Speaker 05

  I felt like it did for me. It helped, it got my head right a little bit. Got me back on level ground and kind of kept me focused on my next move. Because before that I was like, I thought I knew what I was gonna do, but we'll get to that. But it's like, I'm really grateful that they have that now.

• 2:44:49Shawn Ryan?

  You got out, I know you tried out for a law enforcement agency, I'm not sure which one. You didn't make it. And why don't you tell us a little bit about who you were trying out with? And why you think maybe you didn't make it?

• 2:45:07Speaker 05

  So I applied for the FBI. I would say damn near a year before I got out. Me and a couple of other guys did. About, I would say about the last 10 months. I went through the entire, not the entire because I didn't make it, but three quarters of the process. And I thought, this is it. This is what I want to do. Great job, do good things, serve my country still, just in a different capacity. So I was really stoked about this. I thought I was gonna be the exception to the rule. I've told you this about having issues transitioning. I thought it was me, boom, just transfer right over. Like, get out, get right back into a federal job, simple. I tried to time it just right, so there's no lag time whatsoever.

• 2:45:52Speaker 05

  I went through all the process, and it was after the background check, all the background stuff, I got a letter saying no. So it had something to do with the background for me, probably the polygraph. Don't know why, they don't tell me.

• 2:46:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:46:11Speaker 05

  They don't tell you there. It was more, I just took it, did all the background check, paperwork, everything. And simply, I didn't know until about a month after I actually got out and moved to California. Actually, well, I drove to California just to visit. No intentions on staying, because I still had the foresight of, I made it, like, I'm good, I'm gonna get this job. Because I thought at that point, because I crushed everything up to that point, and I thought my polygraph and background was pretty solid, it was solid. But then I got an email saying, nope.

• 2:46:50Speaker 05

  It was a formal thing, I can't remember what it said, but it was very vague, it was like, hey, you didn't meet the requirements, etc.

• 2:46:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it's always interesting to me, because so many guys from special operations community, I mean, there just aren't the many jobs that translate, I mean, there's barely any to what our experience is and what we can offer. And a lot of guys seem to flock to the federal side of law enforcement or other government agencies, and, you know, state and local law enforcement agencies, and it seems like it's the same story over and over. These guys get out, just like yourself, they apply for some type of law enforcement organization, and then...

• 2:47:42Shawn Ryan?

  They get the letter that says they're not.

• 2:47:47Shawn Ryan?

  They don't have what they're looking for.

• 2:47:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, some bullshit.

• 2:47:51Shawn Ryan?

  Which I find really odd. You know, you're. You're a shooting instructor now. You teach tactics. And you teach law enforcement. Don't you find that kind of odd that so many guys come out? They apply to law enforcement agencies. The law enforcement agency tells them, hey, thanks, but you're not good enough.

• 2:48:13Shawn Ryan?

  And then, six months later. They're fucking calling you up. Wanting you to come and train their top fucking tier guys. At that agency to do their job. Don't you find that a little odd?

• 2:48:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's mind blowing, actually. And I didn't really think about it till I. Trained my first group of law enforcement.

• 2:48:36Speaker 05

  But you're right. It's like, it's unreal to me that they would pass up such. In my mind, solid individuals that would do good things for. Their community.

• 2:48:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:48Speaker 05

  So, I don't know their agenda on that one, but again, yeah, fast forward today. I train cops all the time.

• 2:48:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:48:55Speaker 05

  But yet. These, even state department would say no. Cause I've actually, after that, after I got that letter. And I was like internally humiliated and ashamed. Cause that was like a huge blow to my ego. I didn't tell anybody. At first.

• 2:49:12Speaker 05

  Cause it was at my dad's. And he was standing right there and I was like, I didn't want to tell him, but he's standing right there. I was like, well. Here we go. No go on this. And I was like, kind of like.

• 2:49:24Speaker 05

  Damn. Like, now what? Cause I didn't have any plan.

• 2:49:28Shawn Ryan?

  At that time, you put all your eggs in one basket. You were going. To work for FBI. You thought you were a shoe win. Only to find out. According to them.

• 2:49:40Shawn Ryan?

  You're not good enough. And I heard you on a podcast also, I think it was right before that happened, maybe. You. They asked you about transition and you're, you were like, oh yeah, it's a fucking breeze. And now. You've got nothing. No plan. Nothing going on. You've been denied. I mean.

• 2:50:07Shawn Ryan?

  You're living with your dad.

• 2:50:08Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was horrible.

• 2:50:09Shawn Ryan?

  And you're a fucking thirteen year veteran Navy SEAL.

• 2:50:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was embarrassed. I mean, cause I didn't have anywhere to go. I moved out of my place in Virginia. I left some things there, but I brought the majority of my, you know, I had some stuff here. I just drove across country to spend some time with him. That was my intention. I got the letter saying no go. Then I was there at my dad's, living there. I was living at my dad's, like I'm thirty-one years old. Just did almost thirteen years of service SEAL. Had everything going for me. And now I'm like, now what? So it was it was pretty tough, like mentally for me.

• 2:50:47Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:50:49Speaker 05

  So I was like scrambling.

• 2:50:52Shawn Ryan?

  How tough on a scale of one to ten?

• 2:50:55Speaker 05

  Probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. Probably ten, nine to ten, yeah, way up there. As far as mentally.

• 2:51:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:03Speaker 05

  But just like ego, just cause I thought I had my shit together.

• 2:51:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:09Speaker 05

  I like to think I still do, but at the time I was like, damn, like, um, I, I never would have thought in a million years I'd be like at thirty-one, living at my dad's.

• 2:51:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:20Speaker 05

  I didn't live there very long, but I had to live there because I had nowhere to go.

• 2:51:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:24Speaker 05

  And I had no job. So, and I had no idea what the hell I was gonna do. Um, so I was living off savings. I had money, but I was living off my savings just from work and stuff like that. I was in the service. But again, me being who I am, I was stressing.

• 2:51:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:51:42Speaker 05

  And again, I applied for another local law enforcement. I don't know why I did that, but I did because I was like, what's the quickest thing I could do here?

• 2:51:53Speaker 05

  Applied for the Orange County Sheriff's. Then I, I didn't go through the process. I just didn't even show up. I got invited to do an interview and all that. I just didn't even show up. Cause I was like, fuck that. I just in my gut, I had a gut feeling it just wasn't for me. So I just didn't go.

• 2:52:12Speaker 05

  But now I am, or am now, but that, that little, I would say, two-month window from April, May, end of March, April, end of May

• 2:52:24Speaker 05

  was tough because that's when I was staying with my dad.

• 2:52:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:52:26Speaker 05

  And I, I didn't have my shit. I didn't even know what the hell I was gonna do.

• 2:52:31Shawn Ryan?

  So what did that lead to?

• 2:52:34Speaker 05

  That led to,

• 2:52:37Speaker 05

  fast forward to my business now, but only reason being is I was just there, you know, one day it was like, hey, my dad has some friends that are some gun owners. He's known him forever. One's a firefighter, the other one just works alongside him. And they wanted to go shoot. They knew I was in town. I know him too, but so I was like, alright, let's go. Take me to your range. Went out there with him. Had a blast, shot all their guns, and I ended up just teaching them. Just a couple of things here and there, like how to hold it properly because they were all assed up on just the basics. So we had fun. I think literally that night I came back. Because before this, I interviewed a couple of jobs.

• 2:53:17Shawn Ryan?

  What other jobs did you interview with?

• 2:53:20Speaker 05

  I interviewed for another instructor job.

• 2:53:25Speaker 05

  I worked a security job for like a week and I fucking quit that. This other instructor job for firearms training. That was another,

• 2:53:37Speaker 05

  that at the end of the day, I just didn't like it. And after that range day, I went with my friend, my dad and his friends. I was like, I could do this. I kind of like, I don't know, I just had like this epiphany like slap in my face like, I always loved it, enjoyed shooting. I mean, I don't know if you ask any team guy who doesn't fucking enjoy shooting because that's what we do. You know, we shoot all the damn time. But I really enjoy it.

• 2:54:03Speaker 05

  It's a really good stress reliever for me, but, and also like being a buzz instructor, that being a teacher and a mentor, that grew on me too. I like teaching people. Do things and watch them grow into a better person, etc. New skill set. So that, on top of that experience, it kind of like, hey, I could do, I want to make a business of this. You know, I could do this on my own. I don't need to go work for someone else who's already doing it, put my time and effort into that, or some other company. I could focus my 100% of my attention and energy onto something of my own. Which I felt way more comfortable about.

• 2:54:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:54:38Speaker 05

  It's just way, I don't know, I just, because I also wanted that freedom too. That's part of the, one of the reasons I got out too. Freedom maneuver. You know, building to do what I want, set my own schedule. Just have a regular life.

• 2:54:53Shawn Ryan?

  Have a family.

• 2:54:54Speaker 05

  Have a family, yeah. A good relationship. So.

• 2:54:59Speaker 05

  Working for someone else for eight to 10 hours a day.

• 2:55:05Speaker 05

  In an office or wherever or standing doing security. I was like, no.

• 2:55:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, there was no way. I tried it.

• 2:55:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:14Speaker 05

  I tried it for one of those jobs for a week and I said, I'm out because I just and it was actually a pretty good job. But as. At the end of the day, I was like, hell, no. I couldn't do it. So the business idea dawned on me and I just went full force into it. Hundred percent that night, literally just me and my dad brainstorming because he he started his own business too. And he has a successful one. So he on top of that meant again, fast forward to today, now he's sitting there mentoring me on business too.

• 2:55:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:55:42Speaker 05

  So it was kind of kind of funny to see how all the things worked out like that.

• 2:55:48Speaker 05

  But then I invented this company, the company I have now. So and I'm in full force with this.

• 2:55:54Shawn Ryan?

  So Kennedy Defensive Shooting is born and.

• 2:56:01Shawn Ryan?

  Brand new company, just a baby right now. I mean.

• 2:56:07Shawn Ryan?

  I think that's what pulls a lot of guys out of the.

• 2:56:13Shawn Ryan?

  The darkest part of the transition, which a lot of times.

• 2:56:19Shawn Ryan?

  You know, leads to suicide, addiction, all that kind of stuff. Actually, before, did you deal with any of that before?

• 2:56:29Speaker 05

  Living the last year, like when I was at Trade Ed.

• 2:56:33Speaker 05

  Part of the reason why I got out because.

• 2:56:36Speaker 05

  I mean, I was single, no intention. I was like hundred percent focused on work. And every time I was out drinking all the time when I was home, even on trips, I would be out fucking drinking every weekend. I just saw where I was going while I was still in like the last year and a half or so in my personal life. I didn't want that to continue. So I knew I needed to separate myself because I was all I cared about was work. And then when I didn't work. I just was home, partied all the time, I drank.

• 2:57:05Shawn Ryan?

  Fighting.

• 2:57:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:57:08Speaker 05

  Rarely, occasionally. I wasn't like a fighter, but I would just go out and booze all the time.

• 2:57:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:12Speaker 05

  Um, and then just fucking wake up with hangovers every fucking day, three, four days a week. And I was like, what the fuck am I doing?

• 2:57:20Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:21Speaker 05

  Not getting anywhere, just repetitive and then rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat every trip.

• 2:57:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:27Speaker 05

  And it just, it took a toll, dude, for sure. And I saw where I was going and where I would go to because if I stayed in, I would have just probably continued to do that.

• 2:57:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:38Speaker 05

  And just push kind of, I had some friends, but just relationships, if I wanted family, probably wouldn't have happened because I would just cared about work. Because I was always so fucking nervous to like be gone.

• 2:57:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:50Speaker 05

  I always wanted to be there, be that guy, like I would let everyone else go. I wouldn't even come home for like holidays because I was like, I didn't want to leave.

• 2:57:59Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:58:00Speaker 05

  Because I was like, I just want to stay.

• 2:58:04Shawn Ryan?

  So do you think that uh, your business kind of drew you out of that cycle?

• 2:58:10Speaker 05

  It did. It gave me, I'd say they gave me a purpose. Because once I got that, that bug, you know, dawned on me, I was like all in, front sight focused on it, pulled me out of that rut. You know, I was still at the time, still living my dad. You know, but I was like, alright, run it, got the name, started doing all the backend stuff, established the website and just kind of just building somewhat of a business foundation. So actually get out there and get clients.

• 2:58:37Shawn Ryan?

  It's a new addiction.

• 2:58:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, it ended up being a new addiction for me. And now it is still addiction.

• 2:58:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:45Speaker 05

  But

• 2:58:46Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, a lot of guys. Sorry, go ahead.

• 2:58:49Speaker 05

  It did bring me out of that hole, like you said.

• 2:58:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:58:52Speaker 05

  Before that, I was literally just sitting there in my dad's house, like twiddling my, my fucking thumbs, like no purpose, no. No reason to even be there. Just like I'm just sitting here because I'm a bum.

• 2:59:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. It's almost, you know, I see a cycle and this is my own theory. It could be just a bunch of shit. But, you know, what I see, what draws a lot of guys out of that downward spiral, uh, which a lot of times doesn't end well. Um, you know, you're, you get that addiction to adrenaline being a SEAL. You're kind of like, just like we talked about, you had over a hundred and eighty fucking engagements, you know, in less than a year. And you become addicted to that. And then that addiction, a lot of times, I believe, gets replaced with drug addiction

• 2:59:43Shawn Ryan?

  and alcohol, which are also coping mechanisms. And then, just from my own personal experience and watching guys like you and other close friends of mine, the business becomes the new addiction, which pulls you out of the, the, the drugs and alcohol, a lot of, and/or adrenaline. And, uh, I mean, and you're fucking crushing it now. You're already training Huntington Beach SWAT team, which is incredible.

• 3:00:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was a, that was kind of a surreal experience for me. The, the city I grew up in, now I'm training their SWAT team.

• 3:00:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:26Speaker 05

  So, and those, the seasoned, seasoned officers too, not young, all of them probably had six, seven years on me.

• 3:00:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. What do you, what would you say your most challenging, um, thing is in business right now?

• 3:00:43Speaker 05

  It's client acquisition.

• 3:00:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:00:45Speaker 05

  Getting new clients and just, and content creation. Just constantly just, and grow, and developing new ideas for growth. And I always, I don't want to just be stagnant. I don't want my sole purpose just to do, in my business, just to do private lessons.

• 3:01:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:00Speaker 05

  I want to be a little bit, I want to be bigger than that. And it can be. I just...

• 3:01:05Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have any idea what you'd like it to grow into?

• 3:01:09Speaker 05

  I would like to grow into more, in the works of developing some courses. To expand outside of just privates, possibly doing group classes, 10 to 15 people. Or in multi-day courses, which I'm developing now with one of my close friends of mine. And then, work more with law enforcement, too. I'd like to work with a lot more law enforcement. Maybe a little bit more heavy on law enforcement, a little less on the civilian. I got more fulfillment out of training the HB SWAT than I did, you know, not, it's just those, in my mind, people like that, they need to learn the skills.

• 3:01:49Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 3:01:50Speaker 05

  That I have to offer, because they don't get it enough.

• 3:01:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:53Speaker 05

  Hands down, any department, SWAT or not, like, they don't get to be on the gun enough.

• 3:02:00Shawn Ryan?

  You're either SWAT.

• 3:02:01Speaker 05

  Or you're not.

• 3:02:02Shawn Ryan?

  Or you're not.

• 3:02:03Speaker 05

  But that's, in my, that's true, you know, like, I train cops on their own dime, they, you know, they come to see me and pay a private lesson from, with me. Not, they're not getting the department paying for it, they're paying for it out of pocket. So, focusing more, maybe I could work with more departments and work with them.

• 3:02:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, that's definitely understandable, because training a law enforcement guy, I mean, he might, I mean, shit, he might put what you just taught him into, or at least has a higher chance of putting what you just taught him into a real-world situation, like, within a couple hours.

• 3:02:40Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 3:02:41Shawn Ryan?

  And, and I'm sure a lot of them probably do, but... Well, Travis, I know you got a flight to catch. Is there anything else you'd like to cover, before we wrap this thing up?

• 3:02:56Speaker 05

  No, I think we touched it all. Again, thank you, for your mentorship, and I attest, your mentorship and advice, to the majority of my success in my business, in the beginning, and even to this day, brother, seriously. So, thank you.

• 3:03:16Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, you're welcome. Thank you for coming, and I don't think, after the experience you just shared with us, I don't think you're gonna have any fucking problem filling an open enrollment course, or finding private lessons, or training law enforcement, in any part of the country. So...

• 3:03:35Shawn Ryan?

  Guys, check Travis out on Instagram. What's your handle?

• 3:03:39Speaker 05

  You can find me at TravisKennedy267 or KennedyDefensiveShooting as well.

• 3:03:47Shawn Ryan?

  And you're starting a YouTube channel up as well.

• 3:03:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, YouTube channel at KennedyDefensiveShooting, Facebook, and then website as well, KennedyDefensiveShooting.com for all the information.

• 3:03:56Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'll be sending everybody I know over there. So, I just want to wish you the best of luck and I want to thank you for coming out and I know some of that stuff that you shared is not fucking easy to do and I just want you to know that me and the audience really appreciate it and thank you for your service.

• 3:04:15Speaker 05

  Thank you, brother. Appreciate inviting us. It's been a true pleasure being here.

• 3:04:19Shawn Ryan?

  Cheers.

• 3:04:20Speaker 05

  Cheers.

• 3:04:41Speaker 03

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