From Navy SEAL to Army SMU Operator | Drew Mullins (throwback episode)

original airdate 7-22-22 Drew served as a Navy SEAL before assessing for an Army Special Mission Unit. He was deployed as a part of the Advanced Force Operations to Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion. TrueWerk ⬇️ https://truewerk.com/house use code "HOUSE" for 15% off! For ad free video and audio and access to live streams and Eyes On Geopolitics... JOIN OUR PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -live shows and asking guest questions -ad free audio and video -early access to shows -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Support the show here:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse ___________________________________________________ Subscribe to the new EYES ON podcast here:⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/@EyesOnGeopoliticsPod/featured __________________________________ Jack Murphy's new book "We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History" ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/We-Defy-Chapters-Special-History-ebook/dp/B0DCGC1N1N/ —————————————————————— Or make a one time donation at: ⬇️ https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouse Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: ⬇️ https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: ⬇️ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSample "Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio" [00:24] - Host Introduction and Welcome of Guest Drew Mullins [02:47] - Drew Mullins' Early Life, Childhood, and Motivation to Join the Navy [05:03] - The Process of Joining the Navy (at an older age) [09:54] - Assignment to SEAL Team Eight, the Move to Virginia Beach, and Team Culture [14:35] - Discussion on Deployments in the 1990s and Early SEAL Team Kit/Culture [27:32] - Drew's Involvement in Consulting on the Movie Navy SEALs (1990) [31:10] - The Story of the Navy SEALs Film Beach Party with Demi Moore [50:00] - Discussion of the Transition to the JSOC Special Mission Unit (SMU) [01:45:00] - Detailed Discussion of the AFO Mission in Iraq (2003) [02:56:48] - Transition to Discussing Domestic Counterinsurgency (COIN) and the "Information War" [02:58:34] - Thoughts on American Political Polarization and the Need for Civility Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

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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• 1:32Speaker 04

  Special Operations.

• 1:36Speaker 04

  Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park.

• 1:53Jack Murphy?

  Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 156 of the Team House. I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park. We got D producing. And we have a special guest tonight, Drew Mullins. And I want to apologize first off to Drew for wasting some of his time last night and also everyone else who tuned in. We take a lot of pride in doing a consistent, well-produced show every Friday, 8pm. We're there. And last night we screwed up. It's not Drew's fault. It was totally us. We had some, we moved into a new studio. We have some technical issues to iron out. But I'm really glad that we did. We did a lot of work today, got a lot of things accomplished and I'm just glad we're all here. And I'm really glad that Drew is here with us. Drew is a former Navy SEAL.

• 2:37Jack Murphy?

  He went through BUDS class 156, which coincides with this episode. You'd see that back there, his helmet back there in, on, in his office. And Drew went on to serve in a JSOC Special Mission Unit. Did some of the AFO mission over in Iraq in 2003 with some other previous guests of the show. So we're really excited to have you here today. Drew, thank you so much for taking some time out of your Saturday.

• 3:05Speaker 06

  Hey, hey guys. Thanks. Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate it.

• 3:08Jack Murphy?

  Absolutely, man.

• 3:09Speaker 07

  And, and thank you for joining us even after we consistently blamed you for all of our problems last night. It turned out to be us.

• 3:17Speaker 06

  I thought it was me. I did. I thought, you know, what a shit show. I was, you know, representing, you know, like, like he said repeatedly. This has never happened before. So I felt good. Thanks. Thanks.

• 3:29Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 3:29Jack Murphy?

  Sorry, man. No, it, it, it has. We've never had to reschedule a show like that before, but hey, shit happens.

• 3:36Speaker 07

  Jump through so many hoops.

• 3:40Jack Murphy?

  It was, it was definitely not on Drew's end. So Drew, to kick off the show, I'm going to ask you, kick, kick to you the same question we ask really most of our guests is about your origin story. If you could tell us a little bit about your upbringing, how you grew up and sort of what that path was that took you towards military service.

• 4:00Speaker 06

  Okay, so having listened to some of your other guests, I won't go through the whole retirement speech type version of what got me here. But grew up in California, on the beach in California, and I was born and raised there. My dad was in the Navy in the 60s for about eight years. So I was born on a Navy base, as were three of my other brothers and sister. And just had a kind of a normal childhood, I guess. But then my parents got divorced. And so there was four of us. And just as, you know, life would have it, we kind of had to fend for ourselves. But

• 4:44Speaker 06

  great, great upbringing, played a lot of sports, and worked in the oil fields for a while. And in the mid to mid 80s, I was a young man and kind of drifting. I was playing rugby with, I started playing rugby after college, and had a lot, had a lot of fun. I met some, some of the guys on our team just happened to be Vietnam era SEALs. So, and I didn't really know what a frogman was. I mean, back then, you didn't know anything about it, UDT or any of that stuff unless you knew someone. And except for that book, Men with Green Faces, or whatever it was. And I was kind of, I was had gotten into an early marriage. I had a son, kind of out of wedlock. I was feeling

• 5:28Speaker 06

  pretty much like a deadbeat dad kind of thing. And was trying to figure out how to, how to navigate the waters as a, as a young man. And one of the, one of the games we had, we were down in San Diego, and this, my mentor, the guy who saved my life, basically Eddie Farmer, shout out to Eddie Farmer, he'd get together when we play the other team, and there'd be other guys he knew from Vietnam, and they start telling these stories. And I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? You know, like crashed helos with.

• 6:01Speaker 06

  OGA stuff in it that they had to get out and ambushes and all those kinds of things. And, you know, they tell all these stories. I thought, wow, tell me more about that. Well, it was what it was. And I, and I thought, that's, that's pretty cool. And then one day, Ed pulled me aside and he kind of had the, the father talk with me because I didn't really have a strong father figure at the time. And I didn't want to repeat some of the same mistakes my, that happened to me when my parents broke up. So I figured at least if I joined the Navy, I could take care of my son, you know, pay a child support and all that kind of stuff. So I went to the recruiter.

• 6:42Speaker 06

  And I was a little bit older. I was 24, I think. And he starts, you know, going down the list. Hey, so tell me about, you know, what education you have, what do you do, what kind of job do you have? And he gets to the part where it's just like, did you ever do any drugs? I'm like, I looked at him like, are you serious?

• 7:03Speaker 06

  And I, and he said, yeah, I mean, you know, did you, I had to choose a rate at the time, you know, it wasn't the pipeline is now. So before that I'd asked him, well, what do the, what do the SEALs need? And he said, they need corpsmen really bad and they need radio men right now. So I said, oh, I'll be a corpsman. I get hurt, I can take care of myself. But then when he got to the drug screening part, he's, he's like, he asked me that question. And I said, and then he said, wait, wait, wait, stop before you answer that. If you've experimented with anything more than five times, you might not be eligible for a program. Ah, okay. Thanks. Yeah. I experimented with pot five times, whatever.

• 7:49Speaker 06

  And anything else? I'm like, come on, dude, really? He's, and I said, okay, no. Anyway, I joined, I made it through that. But I was, let me just say that, you know, it was the 80s. And I was kind of sweating the piss test when I went through MEPS. But, I mean, and I made a deal with myself. Hey,

• 8:09Speaker 06

  Self, you're not gonna do that shit anymore.

• 8:13Speaker 06

  Your, your career. Yeah. For that kind of stuff and it wasn't a big deal. It was just kind of like the usual west coast stuff. But I went to BUDS or actually I went to corpsman A school and then went to BUDS.

• 8:27Speaker 06

  Class up in the winter of 88.

• 8:33Speaker 06

  With class 153, that was my hell week class. Had 100, you know, the typical numbers 160 something, 66, I think, guys. And I think 40 made it through hell week or something like that.

• 8:46Speaker 06

  And I'll talk more about it later about like, you know, some of the bud stuff, but.

• 8:52Speaker 06

  Made it through hell week. I got rolled back because I got, I got hurt, but ended up graduating with class 156. And then, you know, start the pipeline, went to airborne school and. I had a funny story is I was the only corpsman to graduate. From my class and when orders came out, you know, you probably do the same thing in the army. You fill out a dream sheet, like where do you want to go, right?

• 9:21Speaker 06

  And I had this girlfriend at the time I was trying to. You know, put distance between and a nice person. I just, just wanted to be free. So I put down every east coast SEAL team I could on my dream sheet. And of course I didn't get orders to the east coast. I got orders to the west coast, but.

• 9:42Speaker 06

  The orders were weird because it wasn't like SEAL Team 3, SEAL Team 1, SEAL Team 5. It was like some weird name.

• 9:51Speaker 06

  And, you know, the instructors are looking at me like. Hmm.

• 9:58Speaker 06

  How'd you get those orders? I'm like, dude, I don't even know what this is. And so I went and talked to the phase master chief and he said, hey, that's. That's the cover name for red cell, right? So I don't know if you know what red cell is, but that was the second Marsenko. Command that he created and they were basically the real world kind of up a red team. For security, for defenses and things like that for bases. And that kind of went sideways a little bit right after that, but. So they sat me down. They said, hey, this is, these are pretty awesome orders, but.

• 10:35Speaker 06

  If you want my advice, I mean, you'll, you'll have a lot of fun. You'll get a lot of really high-speed schools and you'll get a lot of calls and a bunch of things that you'll really enjoy. But you won't get the opportunity to learn how to be a good frogman.

• 10:55Speaker 07

  Ah.

• 10:55Speaker 06

  Okay, good seal. Cause you know, the pipeline was STT, which is now that SQT. I mean, back then, most of us, as you probably know, went, would go to our team. We'd be on probation for six months or year and a year, sometimes longer depending. And you went through advanced training, SEAL tactical training, and you're evaluated by your peers, basically. So it was, it was one of those kinds of things, which I think is a really good way of doing it. But anyways, they said, yeah, if you do that, you know, you're not going to get the opportunity to really cut your teeth in the traditional way. And back then, the, the teams were kind of geographically specialized. So I said, okay, sounds like good advice.

• 11:40Speaker 06

  But then when I talked to the detailers, like, yeah, you're going to SEAL Team Five. And I'm like, it's like right next door, right? You know, in Coronado. And SEAL Team Eight had just

• 11:53Speaker 06

  come on board. They just commissioned it and they needed corpsmen. So I swapped with a guy and went out to SEAL Team Eight, drove my Volkswagen bus all the way across the United States with everything I owned, straight to airborne school and subsequently

• 12:11Speaker 06

  to Virginia Beach.

• 12:13Speaker 07

  And did that create the distance with the girlfriend that you needed at the time?

• 12:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, I think it did. I don't know how much further I could have went. And to be, to be quite honest with you, she was a great person. I just wasn't, you know how women.

• 12:26Speaker 07

  Sure. You were young. You were a frogman.

• 12:29Speaker 06

  I was young and, yeah. And hot.

• 12:31Speaker 07

  Right. Muscular. Yeah.

• 12:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, definitely.

• 12:36Speaker 07

  You're like, a lot of, like, a lot of women deserve all this. Like, I can't be selfish and just.

• 12:42Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, deprive them of this little slice of heaven. Yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, there was, there was a lot to conquer still. Um, so, but it was, it was good. Um, yeah, there's along the way, I had some pretty cool adventures, just, uh, Airborne School was one, getting from, getting from there to Virginia Beach was another and et cetera. So, that's, uh, nothing real outstanding, I guess.

• 13:07Jack Murphy?

  Well, that's, that's okay. I mean, let's, let's hear a little bit more about, uh, what it was like at SEAL Team Eight. I mean, you said you were one of the plank owners of that team since they were just standing it up when you got there.

• 13:18Speaker 06

  Yeah. And that's something I didn't really realize at the time because I always thought plank owners were like the people that were on the roster when they actually broke the champagne bottle of ship, right? But it, but technically if you're one of the first people to go there within a, I guess it's within a year, first year or whatever, you know, where they're filling out the roster, um, the billets, uh, you're plank owner. So, um, I haven't really pursued that. Like, I'd like to get, you know, some certificate or a piece of wood or something. But, uh, yeah, so I show up at Virginia Beach and, you know, back then, I don't know if you've ever been to Naval Amphibious Space Little Creek, but

• 13:55Speaker 06

  it's changed a lot, of course, but it was just SEAL Team Four, uh, Team Two and SDV Two were there. Um, Team Eight was brand new and I remember going through the gate and asking someone, hey, where's SEAL Team Eight? And the guard said, go down here and make a left all the way to the end, make another right, you'll be right there. Turn the corner and I see the signs and I see the compound on the left and it's the right, it's the teams, but on the right is a bunch of like a chain link fence and a bunch of trailers, trailer park. And that was Team Eight.

• 14:32Speaker 06

  Went in and, um, checked in and was, it was an interesting time back in eighty-nine, ninety, because a bunch of the guys who were there were, had just come back from, um, Virgin Gulf. So they did the Iran Ajar and, and, you know, those ops that. That a certain guy named Malcolm says he did, but he didn't. Yeah, so we had this really kind of a unique mix of folks there. Some, basically it was known as Dump Eight at the time, right? So that's where you kind of like cast off all your, you know, uh, free agents that, um, that you want to get rid of your problem kids.

• 15:16Speaker 06

  At the same time, there was a bunch of guys who were really solid who volunteered to go because they wanted to be part of creating a team. So, um, we had this really eclectic mix of folks. And to give you an example of what I, what I mean by eclectic, um, we're in, we're at ranks for most, for quarters one morning and XO is up there doing, giving the plan of the day. And all of a sudden you hear some of these guys like yawn and all of a sudden whack. I look down the line, there's, these guys are in a fistfight, right? You know, like at the end of the line, just beating each other up. And, you know, it's over a woman, of course, you know, that's how it works. And I'm like, oh, wow, this is awesome. What did I get myself into?

• 15:58Speaker 06

  But, you know, over time, um, you know, being in the first platoons, uh, was, it was fun. You know, it was really cool to learn from some really great, uh, talented guys and, uh, started deploying.

• 16:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. What, what were the deployments like back then? I mean, like some of the, I mean, you're talking about, uh, 1990s now, late 80s, early 90s.

• 16:21Speaker 07

  That's when Charlie Sheen was a SEAL, 1990.

• 16:23Jack Murphy?

  So some of the guys a little bit before that would say that, you know, back, back in those days, the SEAL teams were basically, you know, a mask, a pair of fins, a snorkel, a weight belt and a K-bar knife and not, not a whole lot else. But what was your experience like when, when you started deploying with SEAL Team Eight?

• 16:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, it, it actually, uh, my first platoon was, uh,

• 16:45Speaker 06

  Was a a marg. So we actually got spun up to go to Desert Storm, Desert Shield, Desert Storm. So that was, uh, what 90, 91, right? 90 was Desert Shield. Yeah. And meanwhile, um, at the same time, uh, was the invasion of Panama. So some of the other teams were, you know, SEAL Team Four was was doing that. And we had some, some guys get killed down there. Uh, my roommate at the time, uh, was a 60 gunner and one of the squads that took Patea Airfield. Uh, he took a round. Luckiest guy in the world. I mean, he took a round, like, imagine you're running and you got your, your legs hot up in the air.

• 17:29Speaker 06

  And the round went underneath his thigh, missed his balls by an inch and came out the other end of his of his ass. Um, and, um, when he came back, of course, I like telling the story because I had to like change his dressings all the time. So I could stick my hand in his ass the whole time. Changing it. Uh, but, uh, yeah, so we were, we thought, oh, darn, we missed our chance to go to war. Cause that's what the mindset was back then. It's like, dang, are we ever gonna go? You know, that kind of thing. Like everyone. Um, and we scrambled, we deployed to go to Turkey. And the they started the shock and awe, I guess it was, you know, the air war part. And by the time we get to Insarlik, it was over.

• 18:13Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 18:14Speaker 06

  So it was like we handing out MREs to Kurds and not trying to step on mines and stuff like that. Pretty uneventful, but we had a fun time in the Med for the rest of the six months. Um, so you're basically on a marg, you're with a Mew Marine Expeditionary Unit. And, um, we got off the ship a lot because we had things bilats and J sets and training set up. So, uh, we had a lot of fun. We we trained a lot with, uh, other counterparts, the French, Spanish, Turks. Uh, we did Bright Star in Egypt. What a shit show that is, man. Um,

• 18:53Jack Murphy?

  On the Sinai.

• 18:55Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. There's a.

• 18:58Speaker 06

  We did a jump, you know, one of the, one of the things you do is that kind of combined thing where you do parachute jumps, static line jumps in the desert. And this might've been in another platoon, but I remember we were in a C-130 and it, the Egyptians must've just like said to, on their base said, hey, uh, go get a parachute. You're going to jump with these guys. Right. And so we get up there, everybody snaps in because it wasn't free fall, it was just regular static line. And you could tell none of them had ever jumped before.

• 19:27Speaker 07

  Oh, boy.

• 19:28Speaker 06

  And they were literally kicking them out the back of the plane. Right? It was hilarious. Right. Um, and of course we went out too. And, um, yeah. So we had, you know, those kinds of shenanigans. Um, but it was, it was good. That's when you, back then you felt like a sailor, which I think is kind of cool.

• 19:44Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 19:44Speaker 06

  It's a lost art these days. Um, you know, you, we didn't have internet, you know, the, you know, mail call was a big deal.

• 19:51Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 19:52Speaker 06

  Perfume and other things inside.

• 19:55Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 06

  Packages and, and, um, selling Copenhagen for $20 a can to ship. Stuff like that.

• 20:03Speaker 07

  Getting a big package of rum cake, you know, that's, it's like doused in rum.

• 20:09Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. Or like my sister would send me Listerine.

• 20:12Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 20:12Speaker 06

  But it had Jim Beam in it.

• 20:13Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 20:14Speaker 06

  So it was Lister Beam, right? You know, that kind of stuff.

• 20:18Speaker 06

  So, I mean, you know, typical shenanigans, but, uh, got it, got to experience part of the, the part of the world and, uh, maybe a story or two pop into my head from then, but I just felt, you know, it was, it was.

• 20:33Speaker 07

  Yeah. You were living the life.

• 20:34Speaker 06

  Yeah. That was my first deployment. So, um, and then spun right back around.

• 20:42Speaker 06

  And got ready to do another one. And so the second platoon was a strike platoon. Uh, at the time it was, uh, which. Was based on a carrier instead of what the Marines. Um, and so we all got freefall qualled. We all, I was a bunch of high speed guys. I mean, it was stacked platoon of, you know, they already had two, three, four.

• 21:10Speaker 06

  And we were on the John F. Kennedy deployed on that. And you probably don't remember this, but the Saratoga was the

• 21:19Speaker 06

  this carrier we were leaving and they were off station off of Insulik, I believe. No, yeah, they were off Turkey. And they're doing some kind of exercise. And this is when someone on the Saratoga, like fire control guys shot a missile and hit a Turkish ship. You know, it killed some dudes. And so when we get there to do turnover, we hung this big sign off the side of, of the Kennedy saying, you know, don't shoot us kind of thing. Made out of sheets and um, uh, we just had a blast doing that. We ended up doing some fun stuff in Africa and just tooling around, but uh, living on a carrier was, was, was a pretty good life. Actually can consider

• 22:03Speaker 06

  compared to living on a, on a ship that, you know, a barge. Yeah. And figure ship.

• 22:09Jack Murphy?

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• 25:25Jack Murphy?

  Drew, kick it back over to you. Like somewhere around this timeframe, there was, well, we already mentioned Navy Seals with Charlie Sheen and Michael Bean, but there was another Navy SEAL movie coming out with Demi Moore called G I Jane. And you'd said that you had a G I Jane story to lay on us.

• 25:47Jack Murphy?

  Oh, you're muted.

• 25:48Speaker 06

  How about that?

• 25:49Jack Murphy?

  There you go. I got you.

• 25:51Speaker 06

  Getting to use this, this board here. Well, first, maybe, maybe I should tell you my Navy SEAL story first.

• 26:00Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 26:01Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 26:01Jack Murphy?

  Go for it.

• 26:02Speaker 06

  Because that was, you know, let's be chronologically accurate. So I'm a new guy, McCormick.

• 26:09Speaker 06

  Lot to learn and paid for it dearly. A lot of the things I did wrong during STT.

• 26:16Speaker 06

  I don't know if you're allowed to say hazing, but that was rites of passage, maybe, you know.

• 26:21Jack Murphy?

  Physical correction.

• 26:23Speaker 06

  Yes, exactly. So I was cocky, to say the least. I had a Jeep CJ seven, you know, lifted and everything. And I thought, oh, it'd be cool to like, get a personalized license plate, you know, real, real smart move.

• 26:43Speaker 06

  E5 and as E4, I think. So I got this plate that said SEAL Doc.

• 26:53Speaker 06

  And I go driving into work one day. Didn't last long.

• 27:04Speaker 06

  Let's have a talk. So about an hour and a half after being in the dip tank, rig is taped up, breathing through a snorkel. Kind of thing. Got the message. I don't know if you've ever seen that or not, but yeah. You know, you can dip your rig in a dip tank and see if it's, see if it's leaking air. It also works. You can put a guy under there and you just rigor tape a snorkel to his mouth. So you can breathe.

• 27:34Speaker 06

  Yeah. So I got rid of that. But, um, so it's, this would be in, I'm going back a little bit. This would be 89. This was the, I was, I was in this bar watching the world series as the A's and the Yankees. And I'm sitting at the bar, just paying attention to the game. And I looked down at the end and I'm like, fuck, I know that guy from someplace, right?

• 27:54Speaker 06

  And it turns out it was, uh, trying to rack my brain is who he was at the time, but it was Michael Bean. If you know him or not.

• 28:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, he was. He played a SEAL in like.

• 28:05Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 28:06Speaker 07

  Eight different moves. He was Corporal Hicks in Ilios. Yeah, exactly. Come on, the guy's a legend.

• 28:10Speaker 06

  Yeah. So Michael Bean's down there and, uh, I don't know, we're only like two stools away and we're talking about the game and whatnot. And he says, hey, so what are you doing? I go, I'm in the Navy. He goes, oh, really? What are you doing? Yeah. I'm at, I'm in the teams. Oh, really? And I said, yeah. What are you doing? I said, I'm a corpsman. And he goes, really? I'm, he introduced himself and he said, uh, you know, we're talking more and I just finished like the short course 18 Delta at the time, right? So I know how to stick things and you know, the, the gold, the gold lab portion. Because back then we didn't have the pipeline. So it was like.

• 28:47Speaker 07

  The trauma. It was the trauma.

• 28:49Speaker 06

  It was a trauma.

• 28:50Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 28:51Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you're carrying around this awesome, you know, med bag and just hoping people have car crashes in front of you.

• 28:59Speaker 07

  So you can crank them.

• 29:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly.

• 29:01Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. Interosseous. Oh, you're getting two.

• 29:04Speaker 07

  Do a cut down.

• 29:06Speaker 06

  Yeah. Two large bore IDs. Anusel pharyngeal, whatever. Um, yeah. So he says, um,

• 29:13Speaker 06

  You know, after we talked for a while, he says, Hey, would you mind like, like meeting us over at our hotel coming days? I want you to look at this script we're doing. We're doing a film, a movie, and it's just they had lost their director or changed their writers or something like that. So it was said, sure, you know, to do a little, you know, real reality kind of check on, because what's his name? Rick Rossovich was playing, played the corpsman. Remember Rick was from Top Gun, right?

• 29:41Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 29:42Speaker 06

  And he was Iceman's.

• 29:44Speaker 07

  Yeah, he's Iceman's. Yeah.

• 29:46Speaker 06

  Yeah. So I go there. I remember reading the script and I'm like, it was just cheesy. Like this is when the chief gets shot or somebody gets shot and they, you know, they do some bullshit stuff and then they close his eyes. He's gone. No, kind of stuff like, well, that's not exactly how we do it, right? We do this, this and this. And I kind of demonstrated, you know, full sweep and airway and all that kind of stuff and made some, they made some script changes and, and you know, that kind of comes out later on in the, in the film to a degree. I mean, some of it got cut, but, but prior to that, back to the bar, in comes Charlie Sheen. That's right. I forgot this part. In comes Charlie Sheen with his freaking entourage of people and they're, you

• 30:29Speaker 06

  know, women and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, hey, what's up? You know, you know, typical like, yeah, who are you? I don't care. Right? You know?

• 30:37Speaker 06

  And it was, I think, because I didn't like care. I mean, I knew who he was, but you know, we kind of hit it off and, and one thing led to know that then I went the next couple of days, went over to their thing and rewrote, helped them rewrite some of the scenes in the script. And so that's, that's, that's my contribution to Navy SEALs. I didn't, you know, when there's a gun, running gun battle and a couple of guys get killed, you know, Rick at least tries to do the right thing, right? He used the right verbiage and all that kind of stuff.

• 31:11Speaker 06

  So there's that. And I never told anybody about that because I was already in kind of on the on the fence anyways with The SEAL Dock Vanity My own, yeah. Yeah. I was giving you enough trouble. You know.

• 31:24Speaker 07

  Right.

• 31:25Speaker 06

  Fix the ammo home on accident. Roommates like, what the fuck is this?

• 31:33Speaker 06

  Sorry for the language. Yeah, so.

• 31:36Speaker 07

  It's an adult show, so don't hold back.

• 31:39Speaker 06

  Okay. I just got it. What are you drinking tonight there, Drew? Well, I didn't plan on drinking Sazerac, but. Okay.

• 31:48Speaker 07

  Sazerac, right.

• 31:50Speaker 06

  I was gonna do one of those other ones up back there. Looks good. I might.

• 31:53Speaker 07

  Oh, you have a nice collection back there.

• 31:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's a tip of the iceberg, bro. I mean, this is. This is this is my wife's office. Okay, I had to like throw shit in props in here like to so you wouldn't see all the World Bank development.

• 32:11Speaker 07

  All the New World Order stuff?

• 32:13Speaker 06

  Yeah. Throw up some pinups. Corruption. Actually, to be honest with you, she's she's a rock star at the World Bank. And I probably shouldn't say that because now she's.

• 32:24Speaker 06

  Kill you. But she's an expert in fraud and corruption, anti-money laundering, lives an exciting life.

• 32:31Speaker 07

  I bet.

• 32:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, so back to that actually happened before Second Deployment, I think. And then coming back from the Second Deployment, J I G, that movie came out, I think it was early 90s. Yeah.

• 32:49Speaker 06

  And we knew that they were shooting some scenes in Virginia Beach, a couple of them. And so every year, the SEAL community, Naval Special Warfare, including SWCC and everybody who supports them, they do a reunion on both coasts, different times, but.

• 33:08Speaker 06

  It's at, it's, and it's like, starts on the meeting house on Friday. You know, it's the Chiefs Club. That's where everybody meets and, you know, there's a whole lot of good times there drinking. And then Saturday is, um, you know, various events like, um, uh, there's a demonstration, there's a run, there's a swim, you know, where kids and everybody can run in that, different classes and then categories. Saturday night is a, oh, and we do a Capex kind of demonstration, you know, where we did a bunch of those where bass rope in and snipers come out of the water and, you know, things like that. Uh, for the, for the families. And, um, then in the evening on Saturday is the, the beach party.

• 33:49Speaker 06

  So it's at the officer's beach, I think. I don't know if it still is anymore. I think it's Fort Story now, so uh, might be different. But, um, and we'd heard rumors that that she was gonna come. What's her name? Demi.

• 34:03Speaker 07

  Demi.

• 34:03Speaker 06

  Demi Moore. Demi, Demi Moore.

• 34:06Speaker 07

  Oh, Demi.

• 34:07Speaker 06

  It's like Kamala. I can't say it right.

• 34:08Speaker 07

  Right.

• 34:09Speaker 06

  Whatever. Um, Demi Moore was coming and so sure enough, you know, at midnight or 11:30 or whatever, we're all kind of like hammered anyways. She ends up showing up and she's got like four older frogmen, retired dudes who are escorting her around, kind of their bodyguard escort kind of thing. So she can navigate the, you know, the environment. And let's just say it wasn't real popular, right? I mean, people weren't real excited.

• 34:40Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 34:41Speaker 06

  To see her.

• 34:43Speaker 06

  And, uh, you know, so I remember looking at her, I was with some guys and I said, I'm gonna go get her a beer.

• 34:52Speaker 06

  So I went over and got a beer, a red solo cup. Brought it over to her. I said, hey, Demi, and I was smoking cigars or something. If you're gonna be a, uh, if you're, if you're gonna be a SEAL here, have a beer, you know, drink a beer with me. And she's like, oh, I don't, I don't drink.

• 35:15Speaker 06

  And, uh, oh, really? So I just had it and I wanted it at her and I just turned it upside down and dumped it on her feet, dropped the solar cup and walked away, right? Now, I mean, I don't think I meant to drop it on her feet. I meant to just pour it out there, but I was kind of wobbly. Um, and, uh, walked back to my guys and, uh, you know, that was it. Um, and then later on, you know, I kind of came back years later, a couple of years ago where other guys were talking about that and they said, you know, yeah, I heard about that. I didn't know if it was true. And yeah, it was true. Um, but I, you know, nothing happened. I didn't get in trouble or anything, but I just feel like

• 35:56Speaker 06

  that's, you know, if you're gonna be, if you want to be a team guy or team gal or whatever it is, you gotta, you gotta play the part, man.

• 36:05Speaker 07

  Right.

• 36:06Speaker 06

  Yeah. So.

• 36:07Speaker 07

  Did you tell her that like her not drinking was, was more, was more unbelievable? It was more unbelievable than her being a woman for all this.

• 36:19Speaker 06

  Yeah. It, I wish I could remember more. There was more to it, but, uh, uh, I think I might've even been, I'm probably being kinder now and retelling the story and.

• 36:30Speaker 07

  Kind, yeah. About the kind of yourself, you mean, or?

• 36:33Speaker 06

  To her.

• 36:34Speaker 07

  Oh, to her. Yeah.

• 36:35Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. Cause there was more dialogue, but, um, you know.

• 36:39Jack Murphy?

  Some sword language going back and forth.

• 36:41Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, it was respectful, but you know, still, you know, what it was.

• 36:45Speaker 07

  What, what did you think of the feature film, Drew?

• 36:49Speaker 06

  You know, I don't remember if I watched the whole thing or not. Um, cause it was so, I mean, at least Sheen and Beans, Navy SEAL, there was, there was things that were accurate.

• 37:00Speaker 07

  Right, right, right.

• 37:01Speaker 06

  The thing about that movie that's, it's generally accurate is, um,

• 37:10Speaker 06

  We pride ourselves on the East Coast. Let's just put it this way, the West Coast SEALs, right? And there's a lot of, they're all great. Everybody's the same, but they like to surf. You talk about hair gel, you know, that's them.

• 37:24Jack Murphy?

  Croaky's.

• 37:25Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. They're, you know, they're, they like to do all that kind of stuff and they even put out a calendar. This was hilarious back in the like early nineties.

• 37:37Speaker 06

  This calendar and it had all these beefcake shots of these guys, right? And we just never let them live, live it down, right? Cause it was like a fundraiser deal. And a bunch of guys I went through Buzz with were in it. And, and of course we made fun like, hey, if you're on the East Coast, our calendar would be picture of a guy jumping out of a second story bedroom window. Cause the, you know, the boyfriend came home or, you know, up against the wall, getting arrested by the cops or pulled over for a DUI or something like that. That's, that would be like more of the East Coast stuff. And, um,

• 38:11Speaker 06

  yeah. So

• 38:14Speaker 06

  that, um,

• 38:17Speaker 06

  I forgot what I was going to say about that. You know, your question.

• 38:19Jack Murphy?

  That, that, that the Navy SEALs.

• 38:21Speaker 07

  About the Navy SEALs.

• 38:22Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. SEAL team or the Navy SEAL movie. So, you know, they do a fairly, because that was written by Chuck Ferrar, I think, you know, so who, who used to be in the tees.

• 38:35Speaker 07

  Oh, was he? I didn't know that.

• 38:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 38:37Speaker 07

  Cause he also, he also did, uh, Dark Man or no.

• 38:40Jack Murphy?

  He, he wrote a bunch of books.

• 38:41Speaker 06

  Yeah. He did. He did. Yeah. And, and it's, it's not his fault that the movie turned out the way it did. Cause you know, it's always budget. It's always director. It's always, you know, a bunch of other people can, can influence things. But there were some things that were, you know, I don't think, and little, little, you know, clip, clav and worthless bit of information.

• 39:02Speaker 06

  The scene where Charlie jumps out of the back of the CJ seven going across the bridge to Portsmouth into the water. If you, if you watch that again, you can see it, the stunt man kind of didn't enter the water the right way and ended up getting hurt pretty good.

• 39:16Jack Murphy?

  Oh, really?

• 39:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, or his back or something like that, but uh, you know, just kind of like, and then the golf course stuff is classic and all that. But um, G I Jane just seemed to be just way too contrived. I mean, they couldn't even simulate Bud's right.

• 39:32Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 39:34Speaker 06

  It was, it was terrible.

• 39:35Jack Murphy?

  Crazy Vigo Mortensen in that movie.

• 39:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 39:38Jack Murphy?

  Confronting dummy in the showers.

• 39:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, it's like, yeah.

• 39:44Speaker 07

  So you've seen the movie, Jack?

• 39:46Jack Murphy?

  I have seen the feature film, yes. There's a whole Seer School scene in there.

• 39:51Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 39:51Jack Murphy?

  But I digress, I digress. Let's get back to.

• 39:54Speaker 06

  No one wants to hear this stuff.

• 39:55Jack Murphy?

  Let's get back to Drew. Drew, what was, what was deployment number three like? Are we getting towards a point where the Balkans are starting to come up on your radar?

• 40:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, so um, let's see, second platoon, Balkans, yeah, so it was early nineties. So that was a full scale war going on. We actually did the G and C.

• 40:20Speaker 06

  The, uh, the, the carrier did sorties into the war zone at the time, right? Into the Balkans while they were still fighting. And we did, you know, a couple of little vanilla kind of recon things, but they were just, they were nothing to speak of. Thinking, but mostly we were there for trap. You know, like if a plane went down, we were supposedly going to be the, the crew to go help get the pilot. And uh, there was a pilot shot down, but the Marines did that, that mission from us.

• 40:57Speaker 06

  Oh, what's it called there, right? The Air Force Base.

• 41:00Jack Murphy?

  Was that a, was that, was that one? Scott O'Grady got shot down?

• 41:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, Scott O'Grady. And so we didn't get to do that, but that was like, as your partner can attest to, that was a

• 41:16Speaker 06

  suitcase full of cash kind of exchange. You know, the movies say, you know, do have one version, but the

• 41:24Jack Murphy?

  Oh, really?

• 41:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean,

• 41:26Jack Murphy?

  I didn't know that.

• 41:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's more of a more of a greed kind of thing. But, you know, prior to that actually taking place, there was some, you know, real world stuff going on. People looking for him and everything. So that second deployment on the carrier, we didn't,

• 41:46Speaker 06

  we did a lot of that, but so Balkans was on my radar.

• 41:50Speaker 06

  Yugoslavia came back, then that was SEAL teammate.

• 41:55Speaker 06

  I screened for damn neck at the time.

• 41:58Speaker 06

  And got selected, but I was also, let's see how, let's make sure we get this right.

• 42:07Speaker 06

  Yeah. So I didn't know what I was going to get and the orders came out to go to Gray Green, which would have been the boats, but I was on deployment. So I was on the carrier and

• 42:24Speaker 06

  they have a policy at the command not to take guys off mid deployment to come, you know, so that, you know, just luck of the draw at that point.

• 42:34Speaker 06

  So I got back, re-screened and got a positive screening, but at the time I was at E6 corpsman, they had just kind of retooled the whole pipeline for becoming a chief, you know, had to have 18 delta qualification or Navy IDC school, independent duty corpsman school.

• 42:56Speaker 06

  So I went out to, actually, I went out to DLI first. That's right. I came back and screened. But I went out to DLI, I learned French-ish.

• 43:05Speaker 07

  How amazing is DLI when you're an enlisted spec ops guy?

• 43:10Speaker 06

  Dude, I tried every way to extend out there I could, right? You know, it's like, oh, can I take intermediate French? Or no, can I take advanced or whatever? Can I break my foot or whatever? But I learned a golf out there and it's just, it's so beautiful.

• 43:27Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 06

  You know, it's Monterey and Carmel are just Pacific Grove are just awesome.

• 43:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, that came back and that's when I guess that's when Haiti happened, 94.

• 43:40Speaker 07

  Yeah, 94.

• 43:43Speaker 06

  Went to SEAL Team Five, or I'm sorry, SEAL Team Two. So I went from teammate and in the, in the process, in the meantime, teammate had, they had a proper compound built. You know, we, we'd be, you know, we were normal by then, you know, by, by the end of our deployments. My deployments there had proper compound, establishing a reputation. It was all good.

• 44:08Speaker 06

  Checked into Team Two and that was like, I'm really in the teams now, you know, it was awesome.

• 44:15Speaker 06

  The, uh, it just Rudy Bosch was the Command Master Chief, you know? And it was like, you know, he'd walk around and be like, uh, check the watch bill, you know? Cause if your hair wasn't cut right, you're, you're on weekend duty and shit like that. I mean, it didn't matter where you came from, even in, even a, a regular team guy. I mean, they were gentle, gentler in welcoming you than, than a brand new guy, you know, with.

• 44:45Speaker 06

  That was always fun at quarters to see a new guy check in and trust blues and. It's like the command master chief in the XO would like say, hey, so and so walk up here and introduce yourself. And they say, I'm seeing it. And they're shut up, you know, that kind of thing. And then they walk away. And it was this game. Welcoming, welcoming them to the command. But yeah, team two was, to this day, I, it's, it was the lore and, you know, one of the original two teams, they have a great Vietnam history. And I was just, just stellar performers. It was like the triple A club for, for Dam Neck, basically, you know, so recruited out of there

• 45:25Speaker 06

  heavily. And, and they had like a pipeline going. So guys would rotate from, from Dam Neck to training and platoons and then pass the knowledge on. But my first platoon there, let's see, in between that platoon, and after the ally, I did a JCO mission in the Balkans. I don't know if you know what that is, Jack? Wait on us. Joint Commission Observer. So they had just declared the ceasefire, okay, in Yugoslavia,

• 46:06Speaker 06

  Serbia, Serbia and all that. So NATO or S4 was going into, you know, carve it up. And they had that British sector, Italian sector. Oh, yeah. I think Giacconi did one of these. Yeah. So it was, it was really an SF 18 mission, right? But they didn't have enough guys. So they, they would, you know, let us play. So one or two of us per house would, would pair up and go live in a, in a house in the different sectors, Bonja Luka, everywhere, Tuzla, you know, all the, all the different places. And the SF guys did their SF, you know, IW stuff. And what was cool about it, while everybody else in the whole AO was in full battle rattle and.

• 46:53Speaker 06

  Kevlar and helmets and body armor and all that. We were driving around thin-skinned vehicles with terps, just wearing camis with no ID on them. And maybe a pistol. And we'd go anywhere we want. We blew past every checkpoint in that country, just did whatever we wanted to do. And then they did their collection and stuff. And it was, it was basically, um, the mission was, you know, collect information that might be intel and establish relationships, you know, kind of figure out stuff. And then, you know, a precursor to, um,

• 47:29Speaker 06

  some stuff that our cousins were already doing, you know, kind of in the open, helped them out with that. But it was a great time. 10th group, again, that was my first exposure to those guys. I wish I could remember their names. But we were in the Sarajevo House, which was actually on the Srpska side. So I don't know how familiar you are with that conflict or not, but what was telling, what was really amazing about Sarajevo, when I went there is, uh, that it was, they still had snipers and they still had the occasional stuff going on. But you could really tell who had the most arms by the condition of what side of town you were in, because it was just destroyed. And being on the Serbian

• 48:14Speaker 06

  side, you know, they did what the, what the Serbs did is they displaced a lot of people. They just basically came and said, hey, we're taking your house. You can go live in Croatia. Beat it. You know, that kind of thing. And some family would take it over. Um, but, uh, it was, it was a really interesting time, you know, run, just driving around with those guys and working with them. And at the same time, we, um, you know, got to move around doing other things. Um, so that was a, that was a fun time. The JCO mission. Sometimes I forget about that. Uh, but that really kind of.

• 48:54Speaker 06

  Open my eyes to kind of what was really going on, the ethnic cleansing and then, you know, the post Tito world and, you know, the influence of this, you know, Soviet Union, once the Soviet Union had fallen, just how, how that affected different parts of the world. So, um, let's see. So back to team two, did a deployment there, uh, went, we actually left early for that. This is when Mambo To Se Se Seco, okay, he was the leader of what used to be called Zaire. Uh, there was a civil war going on and, um, the embassy in, uh, Sierra Leone, no, in,

• 49:40Speaker 06

  capital of, uh, Zaire.

• 49:43Jack Murphy?

  Oh, gosh.

• 49:45Speaker 06

  Yeah. Why can't I think of that? Having a Sazerac moment right now. Um, anyway, we had to go early because there was that going on. It was unstable. They're thinking about doing a Neo. And then also Sierra Leone was, was a shit show too. So, um, I mean, that's just like everybody who's been an SF guy or, or team guy in the, in the nineties has been to either Sierra Leone or Liberia, right? You know, um, because they kept collapsing. Um, so we went early. We got on the USS Kier Sarge, my squad with, uh, six, eight other, uh, seven other guys in the, in the LT. So the way they broke up, a SEAL platoon is 16 guys. You have an AOIC, who's usually a tenant,

• 50:30Speaker 06

  oh, three, and then an AOIC is going to be an O2 or, you know, usually, or a hard charge in O1. And then you have a chief and, uh, leading petty officer. So I was leading petty officer, which is E6, LPL. So I pair up with the lieutenant, my squad, Alpha Squad, and then Bravo Squad. It was, you know, they paired up with the chief, the chief and, and the, uh, AOC. So my squad leaves two weeks early. We get on the Kier Sarge and steam full speed over to, um, West Africa to Zaire.

• 51:10Speaker 06

  And we wait for, you know, what we're gonna do. We did a intel mission, which is kind of training, but no one knew where the guy was, right? He had left the country because he was, was wanted by the Hague and everybody else. But, but things were going south. The Marines were planning a noncombatant evacuation operation across the river in Brazzaville,

• 51:35Speaker 06

  in Cote d'Ivoire. And the, we were wondering what we were gonna do. So remember Divids? For Divids, the Satcom thing where you could go and take photos and then blast them back over?

• 51:49Jack Murphy?

  It was like, it was like a very early form of.

• 51:52Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we just had to get off the ship. So we, we just convinced, we convinced the Ops Officer, hey, look, you know, let's go do this thing. And in, in Pointe de Waire, it's just like this little town right on the Atlantic, to this airfield. And we go there and land, you know, we get some, some Marine helos bring us to this place and drop us off. We're taking pictures, all these old MiGs, like MiG-15s, MiG-17s, or, you know, just rotting away on this airfield. And they were bored. Bored Frogman's a dangerous thing. So my Leatherman, I broke into one of those cockpits and took a bunch

• 52:37Speaker 06

  of gyroscopes and instruments out of there, souvenirs. But while we're sitting there, you know, okay, we're gonna do our training, we take some pictures, our intel specialist guy on the team has got his big camera out and this 707, I think, or 760, I don't know what it was, some big plane lands on the other side of the airfield. And he's looking through his, his camera and he sees they opened the door and it's like all this gold stuff's inside there, like gold handles and, you know, really ornate. Well, it just turns out that that was

• 53:18Speaker 06

  the president of the country, the dictator of Boto's, his plane. And we accidentally found where he was because he, you know, he's leaving the country and they were getting fuel or whatever. We sent it back and. And so it's happenstance, but that was the extent of what we did there. Marines actually did more, but, but in the meantime, stuff started going sideways and, and I always get them mixed up, I apologize, Liberia or Sierra Leone. So we had to zoom up there and evacuate the embassy and brought a bunch of people off to the neo there. But the fun part, the interesting part of this whole thing is right. So the MAGTAF, the Mew commander is a Marine,

• 53:59Speaker 06

  he's 06. And the Navy guy who's running the ship is, you know, obviously an 06 too, as well. So in the Navy, if you're at sea for more than 30 days, you get a beer ration, right? And we were at sea for 65 days. We're only people to get off the ship. By the time we did get off were, or before that was our squad and the Marines that actually went to the embassy. And we crossed the, if you cross the equator in the Navy, you're what's known as a shellback. Have you heard of that ceremony? Yeah.

• 54:39Speaker 06

  Okay. Well, we crossed the equator at the prime meridian. So we crossed at 0000, which makes you the most unique shellback in the world, right? So you have a special Neptune, you have a special ceremony. And that's, you know, another fun time. But for whatever reason, they didn't want to give us a beer ration. So now we're like, hey, we're 2 and 1/2. What the, what the F, you know? We do all our work, ship cruises north. The first place we're going to pull into port is the Canary Islands.

• 55:26Speaker 06

  So it's like the way they do it in the Navy, right? You they they set, I don't know if you guys ever been on ship, but they set what's called C and anchor detail. So that's, you know, you have the crews divided up into two or three ships and C and anchor. Those are the guys who man the ship and and take care of when it comes into port, getting it all tied up. And then they do, you know, they have to have certain manning on the ship and and then embarked company can they get liberty call. And I thought, ah, you know, my, my squad was like, yeah, we're gonna go out. I'm like, I'm gonna stick around. Me and a couple of guys are just gonna stick around. We'll go, we'll go on the next liberty. So the canaries are are just like sick. You know, that's where

• 56:11Speaker 06

  everybody goes. You know, that's where all the reality kind of shows or film from England, you know, the all that stuff, real destination place. And so I thought I'm gonna go down to the sick bay and work with the junior corpsman down there. Because I'd already finished independent duty corpsman school, which was a year long, basically your PAs, so to speak.

• 56:35Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's a course that people don't know about that much, but it's

• 56:38Speaker 06

  They don't.

• 56:38Speaker 07

  Like, it's, it's, it's like the 18 Delta course, only it's geared more for like civilized medicine and not so much like what you might encounter in a village, but it's very comprehensive.

• 56:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, to that point, it's so I'd done the, at the time, we didn't know, and the teams, we didn't know, you know, it's all, it's all fixed now. You go to JFK, you know, you go to the schoolhouse, you know, get the same training. But we, they sent us the 91 Bravo, right? Early, because they didn't know it. And it was like, basically going to corpsman A school all over. So I'm in San Antonio for that as a young guy with three other, two other frogmen, junior guys. In fact, I don't even know if I had my Trident at that time or not yet. Maybe I did. Anyway, San Antonio is the wrong place to send

• 57:27Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 57:28Speaker 06

  you young SEALs who, you know,

• 57:32Speaker 06

  Who already know this stuff. Right. It's a medical campus. Right. Oh, my God. Right. But it's, but it's also just the most target rich environment in the world because it's That's what I meant. Yeah. It's like everything from med school to every MOS that teaches any kind of medicine in the Air Force and then in the Army is there, right? And while we were there, it's, I remember, um, you know, first couple of formations, you know, have that, you know how they have that, um, formation for a formation in the morning? Hmm. It's like you, like you wake up and you're there and you're like, what's going on? And they're like, they're just going to tell us when the next formation is and we'll go to child. I'm like, what the fuck do we get up for? You know, just tell us the time to be ready to go, that kind of thing.

• 58:15Speaker 06

  And then one day it's like, we look outside, it's raining, so we put on our gourte.

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• 59:34Speaker 06

  Jackets, jackets, go outside and it's raining. And everybody else is like, doesn't have anything on. Why don't you have rain gear on? And they're like, because no one told us to put our ponchos on. And I'm like, what do you mean? No one told you to put your poncho on? It's raining. You know, it's like, did people have to tell you that? You know, it's a lot of junior guys. So it was just kind of like our introduction to it. So essentially it was like, at that point,

• 1:00:00Speaker 06

  we figured out, okay, this is how we get around this. We went to the first sergeant of our company, I guess it is.

• 1:00:09Speaker 06

  Dave?

• 1:00:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, probably. Trading company, yeah. Cause it was, cause it was basically you were going, you were already a corpsman.

• 1:00:18Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:00:18Speaker 07

  So you were going to basically the A I T or A school of the army for their medics. And you're like, what, what is going on here?

• 1:00:27Speaker 06

  Right. Like you're not teaching me anything.

• 1:00:29Speaker 07

  Right, right.

• 1:00:31Speaker 06

  So they had this pool, outdoor pool there. And it was at the wintertime, so it wasn't open. So we convinced that first sergeant, hey, we have to maintain our swim, our swim calls.

• 1:00:47Speaker 06

  And he's like, well, okay. Yeah. So well, we'll just, what we're going to do is, you know,

• 1:00:55Speaker 06

  every morning or we're going to go swim in the pool and then we'll just meet the company at the chow hall. Right?

• 1:01:03Speaker 06

  Which meant we would just could stay out later and then just, you know, take a shower and go to chow hall. Like that, you know, normal civilized hour. We actually tried, we actually tried to do it actually for real, but it was so damn cold. Like he had to wear a wetsuit. We were like, now we're just going to just milk this thing. And the other thing I remember that, that I can speak about openly is

• 1:01:33Speaker 06

  the one thing about the army back then is there's a lot of smokers, right? And

• 1:01:40Speaker 06

  So whenever we take a break, you know, all these guys would rush outside and start smoking. And we're like bored, you know, what are we going to do? Pushups, you know, whatever. So one weekend we're like, okay, let's, let's go build some pull up bars outside the place. Right. So we went to Home Depot and bought four by fours and some cement and some TV or some pipe, dug holes and put two different height pull up, pull up bars right outside.

• 1:02:10Speaker 06

  And it was like, remember that scene in Planet of the Apes when, um, when the monkey see the, the apes see the monolith?

• 1:02:17Jack Murphy?

  Oh, that's, uh, 2001.

• 1:02:18Speaker 06

  2001, 2001. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Uh, 2001 where they're like looking at like, what the, you know, they're gonna touch it.

• 1:02:26Speaker 06

  And it was like Monday and people were like, looking at these pull up bars like they, where'd those come from? And so we, you know, on breaks, we'd go out and do pull ups, you know, we're young, young guys. Still like in the best shape of our lives, just out of buds and everything. Um, but yeah, that was, that was, that was a fun time. Ended up getting out of there. And then anyway, getting back to, um, back to the story, um, I'm in the Canaries and I'm an IDC and I'm in these quad zeros, you know, that's a, that's just a corpsman in the Navy who doesn't have, um, any particular specialty, like radi, like radiology tech.

• 1:03:02Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:03:03Speaker 06

  Respiratory therapist or whatever. And I swear to God, we set sea anchor, we were at, uh, the, the brow, the gangway went down at like two o'clock, between two and three. By six o'clock, shore patrol was bringing drunk Marines and sailors back. Okay. Cause we'd been at sea for 65 days, right?

• 1:03:25Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:03:26Speaker 06

  And people just were like, I'm getting hammered. Right? So people were coming back and they were passing out. So we just were like, yeah, bring them to sickbay. And I was teaching, teaching these young guys. Okay. What's the unconscious protocol? I don't know what that is, right? Cause you don't know what's wrong with this guy. Right? He could be a diabetic. He could, you know, he could be on drugs, whatever. So I'm going to teach you the unconscious protocol, which basically was, I'm going to teach a patient not to do that again.

• 1:03:53Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:03:54Speaker 06

  So, um, two large bore IVs, nasal, barangial.

• 1:04:00Speaker 06

  Uh, ureth- catheter, you know, urethra catheter.

• 1:04:05Speaker 07

  Well, it starts with that sternal rub, right?

• 1:04:07Speaker 06

  Oh, yes.

• 1:04:08Speaker 07

  Rub.

• 1:04:08Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:04:08Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:04:09Speaker 06

  Right. You do that, you know, assess, uh, whatnot. And, you know, of course they're gonna throw up or whatever.

• 1:04:15Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:04:16Speaker 06

  So the captain, the surgeon comes in, this O six naval medical, uh, Navy officer's doctor comes in. He's like, hey, uh, what are you doing? I go, hey, we're just doing some training, sir. What do you mean training? Yeah, well, you know, these guys are coming back and they're unconscious and, you know, they're drunk and whatever. I'm teaching the young guys how to do IVs and, you know, how to

• 1:04:38Speaker 06

  do catheters and nasal firing airways and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And he goes, I can't do that. You can't, you can't, you can't do invasive. You know, this is what you do in the teams, right? You do it to, to each other, right?

• 1:04:51Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:04:51Speaker 06

  All the time. But, uh, I mean, I didn't get in trouble or anything, but he was like, yeah, good, good initiative. Bad, maybe not quite the best.

• 1:05:00Speaker 07

  Good news report judgment.

• 1:05:02Speaker 06

  Yeah. So anyway, uh, that, that story goes to where like, okay, it's like, you had to be back depending on your rank at a certain time on the ship. You know, if you're a chief, the chiefs went out, those E sevens, they went out and rented hotel rooms. So, you know, they had, they had a base of operation out there. They did it right. Chief's mess always did it right. Everybody else had to be like, if you're E six, you had to be back by two or something like that. And the next day, of course, you have to submit a muster, muster report for your guys. So, you know, I wake up and like four of the racks, four or five of the racks were empty. Like my guys didn't come back. I'm like, fuck, you know?

• 1:05:45Speaker 06

  But I ran into some chiefs and at breakfast and they're like, hey, man, we ran into your guys. You know, they're awesome. We party with them all night. You know, they're blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, okay, you know? So I knew they were alive. But I, I had this dilemma, right? Do I fill out the? The muster report.

• 1:06:04Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:06:05Speaker 06

  That, you know, the guys are here, present or not, right?

• 1:06:10Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:06:13Speaker 06

  So I thought, yeah, all present and accounted for, handed it in, you know, because they, you know, otherwise balloons start going up and everything.

• 1:06:23Speaker 06

  And I, this guy, this friend of mine, Paul, who ended up going to the command and doing like 15 years there, Paul, let's go do, we're gonna find those guys. And went out in town and found them, you know, they were still drinking and everything. And they could see me coming from, from a way down the street and they're like, oh, Andy's pissed.

• 1:06:49Speaker 06

  And I'm like, motherfuckers, man, I had to falsify my muster report. And you're, you're lucky you're alive because you wouldn't be if, if I, you know? And I said, here's the deal, you're my bitches for the rest of the deployment, right? That's how it's going to work. And, uh, you know, it was all good, um, after that. And they, and they were, I mean, these guys, you know, they paid the man.

• 1:07:11Speaker 07

  I mean, to, to give us some context, it puts you in a predicament because, you know, you don't, you don't want to rat your dudes out for just being out drinking all night. But if one, if one of them got seriously hurt or had gone missing and you say, yeah, he's present and accounted for. And then all of a sudden he ends up like dead in some alley. Oh, you know, then it comes back on you.

• 1:07:36Jack Murphy?

  So let's, uh, Drew, I want to ask you, uh, you're making your way through the SEAL teams here. Yeah. And you kind of, you, you kind of, um, I don't want to say got screwed over, but I mean, as far as like where you were at in your career, it was very difficult for you to make that transition over to damn neck without really getting kind of screwed over. So you kind of missed that opportunity. What, when did this thought come into your mind or this realization that like, hey, there's this entire other endeavor out there in special operations that I could potentially go and assess for?

• 1:08:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm glad you reeled me in. Jack, that's a good point because I don't want to sound like someone who's making people jump off your channel right now. But when that happened, I had some good, good senior guys at the command, at the team who had been over, over to, to, or to Dam Neck. And they said, hey, you know, there's other places you can go. So just to give context, and then I'll move, I'll jump into that.

• 1:08:40Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 1:08:42Speaker 06

  My second time after this deployment, I'm talking about right now, this was my fourth deployment, fifth, actually. When I got back, it was like, hey, I went back to the command and they're like, yeah, you're an E6, you're a corpsman. But here's the thing, if you go through green team, we're not going to cut you loose to go to 18 Delta. Because even though I was an IDC, to get advanced, you know, you had to check other blocks because you're competing against every other corpsman in this, in this field.

• 1:09:15Speaker 06

  They said, we're going to need our two years of, of use before we can, you know, and they might put you off cycle for chief.

• 1:09:22Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:09:23Speaker 06

  And, and that's kind of like when I'm like, ah, you know, and they were, you know, they're like, you know, it's one thing to, and you know how it is, they like to grow their own enlisted dudes before they become chief because then you're a boat crew leader, you know, and if you've not cut your teeth on, you know, a bunch of deployments as, as a, a team guy, a team member, you know, a unit or a squadron member, or troop, troop member, then you know, you're kind of like not, you don't have the corporate knowledge to be troop chief.

• 1:09:57Speaker 07

  So just out of curiosity, I don't mean to derail you, but I'm curious, how did Dam Neck deal with corpsmen then at that time? Because it's really hard to grow your own corpsmen, especially since you can't really, it's tough to make E7 as a corpsman without IDC or whatever. Like, so how did they do that? How did they manage that?

• 1:10:20Speaker 06

  That's a good question, you know, and a lot of guys didn't care, you know, some guys are like, hey, okay, I want to be a soldier, you know, so it didn't, it didn't matter.

• 1:10:28Speaker 07

  So they wouldn't compete for promotion in order to go to Dam Neck, basically?

• 1:10:31Speaker 06

  Well, I think, I think you definitely got looked at differently.

• 1:10:38Speaker 06

  By the, because Navy wide, back then it was, it was the Navy Chiefs, senior master chiefs, whatnot, who picked people and for advancement to chief.

• 1:10:52Speaker 06

  It still is, but, but now we have our own special operations, special operator MOS. So, but so those guys, some of them would be like, yeah, I'm just going to be a salter. I don't care. And then at some point someone would say, hey, you're, you know, you've been in ESIX too long, you need to go to punch this ticket and get it and you can, you know, because we want you to be a chief, we want you to be a leader.

• 1:11:14Speaker 06

  But back then it was just kind of, it was in between the scene, kind of seams of advancement. So it was, you know, you had to kind of make your own decision on that.

• 1:11:23Jack Murphy?

  And yeah.

• 1:11:24Speaker 06

  I talked to some guys who told me about this unit back at the time, it was called Torn Victor.

• 1:11:30Speaker 06

  That was its biograph name or whatever you call it.

• 1:11:34Speaker 06

  And, you know, they go back, the unit goes back to the,

• 1:11:40Speaker 06

  what do you call it?

• 1:11:41Jack Murphy?

  Not 1980, Operation Eagle Claw.

• 1:11:44Speaker 06

  Eagle Claw, exactly. Right.

• 1:11:47Speaker 06

  And even, you know, some make the case back to the OSS. So they told me about that and, and up until that point, they said, yeah, if you go, because these were guys who were at Dam Neck and they knew about it because they worked with them. They said, you'd be, you'd be a good fit up there, blah, blah, blah. So I, I've made chief that year, 98, went to SOCOM or to SOCCER as a J33 chief, the C liaison up there.

• 1:12:17Speaker 06

  And then found out, and then I applied, I applied before, filled out a package for that, for that SMO.

• 1:12:25Speaker 06

  And I thought I was going to come back to the team and be a platoon chief, whatever. And they, they selected me to go to assessment selection. So I went in 99, early 99. So March, went out to, went out to,

• 1:12:44Speaker 06

  To Nevada and did the long walk and stuff and

• 1:12:52Speaker 06

  had a real good assessment selection got picked up by that by that at that time there'd only been one other seal who was there before me there was there'd been a couple of other guys but they were like liaison guys or whatnot so yeah so 99 went to the went to the unit and

• 1:13:13Speaker 06

  did a year worth of what we call CQ to CQT you know

• 1:13:22Speaker 06

  it's been called a bunch of different acronyms but it's basically the you know a year long tradecraft slash stuff so you it was a really I must say to this day I love buds I loved everything about it it was hardest thing I ever did at the time but the assessment selection aspect of screening for the for the unit was the most rewarding thing I've ever done because you don't get any feedback on any decision you make you know and a lot of people try to G2 it and you can tell they're G2 it because I late years later I ended up being

• 1:14:07Speaker 06

  cadre right so you're you're that wizard of oz guy behind the screen right you know how it all works right and then you you're able to see you know how people try to game it you know when they're when they are not but yeah it was it was awesome

• 1:14:29Speaker 07

  Now, did you say that you were the first I was second or second seal because I also know around that time that they started taking like Rangers and they hadn't in the past it was it at the time had been sort of a kind of an SF pipeline or whatever pipeline do you know did you ever get any insight into why this particular SMU decided to like broaden the the recruiting pool?

• 1:14:57Speaker 06

  It's a good question. As to why they did, I think they realized that, you know, the 10th Group Mafia was strong in that unit, for good reason. But they also realized that they were having a hard time finding the right candidates just in the Army, right? So they opened it up to the sister services. And, you know, of course, it leaps and bounds after Desert Storm took off. I mean, after 9/11, just a lot of Marines and, but Rangers, yeah, you know, and some of the best guys I worked with were former Rangers or Rangers still, you know, at the unit, but not.

• 1:15:40Speaker 06

  You could see the pedigree in the senior NCO guys were Rangers. So, yeah, I'm going to speculate on that. But I believe it was just kind of like Manning issue. They wanted to grow more, more troops in the squadron. They have, you know, they have various levels of capability,

• 1:16:03Speaker 07

  you know. You know, and it's, it's interesting because we've also heard of another Army SMU that, you know, used to recruit, or like RRD, for instance, or RRC, that used to only recruit Rangers and then started, then made it like Army wide in the sense of, you know, sometimes the best people can come from places that we don't necessarily expect them to come from.

• 1:16:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think so. Especially when you, you know, you're dealing with frogmen. Because we're pretty nonplussed about a lot of things sometimes. You know what I mean? Like, eh, whatever, you know, that kind of attitude. And that can be misread. You know, like, you don't care. And

• 1:16:49Jack Murphy?

  Right. I wanted, I wanted to ask you about that, Drew. Like, what was it like for you coming from being a frogman to suddenly learn all this different types of tradecraft? I mean, it sounds like you had a little bit of exposure to clandestine operations, but moving into that and also moving from SEAL culture to JSOC culture, was that sort of difficult or interesting to try to navigate that?

• 1:17:12Speaker 06

  Yeah, so that's a great question. I felt like

• 1:17:17Speaker 06

  You know, I was always, see, this is the story of my life. I'm always the older guy, the guy who comes in late, the guy who learns things differently, but I also have a different level of life experience. So, you know, that is a plus and a minus a lot of times from a perception base, because point of view, it can be negative because people think you just come across as no at all. But, but I was also a criminal at heart, right? I mean, a lot of the things I did before I joined the Navy were survival mode stuff, right? You know, just getting, getting by. So when I got to the unit, it was still, it wasn't a JSOC

• 1:18:00Speaker 06

  unit or a JSOC smooth then it became one shortly thereafter for a number of reasons.

• 1:18:09Speaker 06

  But definitely had to adapt to a strong Army culture. But this is a very unique Army culture, right? And a long history of things that the country doesn't even know about that they did. And they, you know, great men and women. I mean, I'm not talking about just men. There's some awesome stellar operator women who've gone through that whole pipeline, who've done amazing things. But to your question, I guess I did have to adapt to that. And then when you realize that suddenly you were an asset and everybody wanted your opinion, except for the fact it was an Army manned unit, when it came to advancement,

• 1:18:54Speaker 06

  like I many times was the de facto troop chief or troop sergeant major.

• 1:19:03Speaker 06

  For whatever reason, but I'm never going to get selected to be the troop sergeant major because it's an 18 series billet. It's an 18 X-ray billet. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Now that might've changed over the years. And I imagine it has.

• 1:19:18Speaker 06

  But, you know, that's kind of one of the things you have to wrestle with. But the good side of the, the upside of it was to go there, you go to, you're actually

• 1:19:29Speaker 06

  covered under a different.

• 1:19:33Speaker 06

  Place in the Navy.

• 1:19:34Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:19:35Speaker 06

  So when it came to advancement, I was one of one all the time. And all my OERs or fit reps were signed by CNO. I mean, I almost busted them out. Because it's hilarious to read them, you know, Admiral Mullin, Admiral this, Admiral that. You know, promote this guy, you know, blah, blah, blah, make him an officer, all this kind of stuff. So, you know, as a time I was a chief, then I made senior chief there, E8. So on the inside baseball part, I didn't have any problem for advancement. It just, you know, you kind of discount that because it doesn't really matter. When you're, when you're at a tier one element, a tier one organization, it's about performing.

• 1:20:19Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:20:20Speaker 06

  You know, it's, it's not like I need to bank rank to, so I can, you know, go teach people how to blow their freaking pants or something like that. It's, it's, you just want to operate.

• 1:20:31Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:20:32Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:20:32Speaker 07

  And the thing is, is that honestly, like getting, getting promoted is almost like a detriment to that because it has the possibility of taking you out of that operational status.

• 1:20:43Speaker 06

  Absolutely. And, and the, the army guys in particular had to deal with that.

• 1:20:47Speaker 07

  Right. Because of the upper out type of stuff and everything else. Yeah.

• 1:20:51Speaker 06

  Now, what, what, you know, they, they fixed that for those guys because they would rotate out, punch their ticket as a fifth group, you know, sergeant major, come back, you know, be the S3 or, I mean, the whatever.

• 1:21:06Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:21:07Speaker 06

  Yeah. So you're, you know, you're cycling that, you're, you're taking care of your troops. Well, yeah. So the army guys, you know, they had to deal with that, but, but once you're in, you're in, you know, you, you just come back. And, and interestingly, if I were to name names in the army right now. All the key leader GOs or a big handful of them are guys that I worked with, right? And I went through CTQC with or deployed with, you know? And there's a reason why those guys are leading, you know, two stars and three stars.

• 1:21:48Jack Murphy?

  So you, you assessed in 99, I go through your training pipeline for a year plus. And I would like to ask you the question that I mean, I think so many people went through. I assume you were probably focused on the Balkans again, even though you were in JSOC. You correct me if I'm wrong. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that and then how things changed when nine 11 happened? How that changed the, as far as what you can say about operations and also the culture, the orientation of the unit and how that changed after September 11?

• 1:22:27Speaker 06

  You know, first of all, I want to say, Jack, you're awesome. You recognize I've got ADD and OCD at the same time, so I appreciate you.

• 1:22:37Jack Murphy?

  Been doing this for a while.

• 1:22:39Speaker 06

  On track here. But yeah, okay, great question. And so again, to be fair, to be accurate, prior to nine 11, we weren't, we were still an army smoo. Okay.

• 1:22:56Speaker 06

  SAP. I mean, it's, I'm not going to say any more than that.

• 1:23:00Jack Murphy?

  Sure.

• 1:23:02Speaker 06

  But the writing was on the wall. Okay.

• 1:23:08Speaker 06

  And I'm trying to remember the, the order, whether the other commands created their own counterpart to what we were doing, you know, I'm talking to the other squadrons.

• 1:23:18Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:19Speaker 06

  Each particular tier one unit created their own.

• 1:23:24Speaker 07

  Everybody, everybody said that they could do that. Yeah.

• 1:23:27Speaker 06

  Yeah. And that's the thing, everybody said they could do it. And I remember going down to Dam Neck, me and, and the other guy who's, you know, senior to me, they're a SEAL. And we're like, hey, and Mike, you know, the master chief for that squadron, you know, he was my honor man in my bud's class.

• 1:23:49Speaker 06

  And, and we said, look, dude, we can tell you how to do this. So you don't make the same mistakes. You know, when it comes to all these other things you gotta do approvals, docs, covers, all that kind of stuff.

• 1:24:01Speaker 06

  You know, in typical fashion like, yeah, we got it. We don't need your help. Yeah. Even though they were receptive, it was what it was. But, um, so it was an army unit manned by jointly manned. And, um, as far as the Balkans go, so I get out of our advanced, our, our, our pipeline training. And this is, this is an interesting little side note. So we start out with 22 dudes, 22 people, because they weren't all dudes. And at the end, there was 10. We go to the board. Um, I'd had a really good final exercise, I thought.

• 1:24:34Speaker 06

  And you probably know what I'm talking about.

• 1:24:38Speaker 06

  We do real world stuff. I mean, just the best training in the world, the best exercises, you, the most realistic stuff. And I went to the board and, um, they caught, they murdered five people right there at the board. Yikes. And I would have been number six because I go into the, in the room and they're all like, yeah, they run down the list of stuff. And we just don't think, I mean, you did this and that good and blah, blah, blah. And see right before that, my fact was telling me like two weeks. Hey, just keep doing what you're doing. You're great. You're fine. Everything's gonna be fine. So I'm like, okay, I got one little exercise left.

• 1:25:15Speaker 06

  You know, chill, um, go to the board and, uh, they're like, yeah, but we just not sure that you're suitable for the. Like, okay. Got up and walked out. And, uh, so I would have been number six, but then the, uh, command sergeant major comes out and he goes, after a bit, and he said, hey, uh, they, they just don't, they think you, you know, they don't understand your, you know, your affect. They, they think you're like.

• 1:25:43Speaker 07

  Like you don't give a fuck.

• 1:25:45Speaker 06

  Like I don't give a fuck. Exactly. In fact, at one point they said, at some point during the actual course is like, hey, man, if you, if you don't like it here, we can just send you back to the SEAL teams. I'm like, dude, send me the fuck back to the SEAL teams. I did that for 14 years. I loved every fucking day I went to work. It didn't matter how hung over I was. I love my job. Okay. Go right ahead. You feel froggy jump. Send me back. I don't care. But, you know, you know, it was a little more frank than that. But, uh, yeah. So it was like, oh, threaten me with sending me back to something I like to do. Right?

• 1:26:18Speaker 07

  Right, right.

• 1:26:19Speaker 06

  But, you know, he said, hey, you know, I'm gonna, you know, anyway, long story short, uh, you know, he, he basically had the overriding, the vote and I'm glad he did. You know, if I said his name, you probably know who it was. I just don't want to do it.

• 1:26:32Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 1:26:34Speaker 06

  Ended up being, uh, JSOC, Sergeant Major.

• 1:26:36Speaker 07

  But that's interesting that he kind of saw through that. Like this is just a super laid back guy, but he has his shit under control.

• 1:26:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's this one, there's this one exercise they do all the time when you're out, out west and you're, you know, they bring you into this room, you sit in a chair and then, you know, they got a you,

• 1:26:56Speaker 06

  shoe, uh, what do you call it? Horseshoe shaped layout of everybody.

• 1:27:01Speaker 06

  And they ask you, hey, go rank these five priorities, you know, family, God, country, unit, whatever.

• 1:27:08Speaker 06

  And you do it and they tear into you about what your priorities were. And it's, there's no right answer. Right? It's like, how much do you believe what you're, what you believe, you know? And, uh, that was the same kind of carried over to the end, you know, the, the board. The final thing, but, but I, but I knew my work was good. So anyway, uh, I don't want to sound like I'm bragging, but fortunately for me, he was there, uh, and, and it all worked out. Now, that's 99 and we're full bore going looking for, you know, JSOC, blue and green are, and OGA are, are over in the Balkans hunting.

• 1:27:51Speaker 07

  War criminals.

• 1:27:51Speaker 06

  Persons indicted for war crimes, you know, Karadch and Milosevic and all their minions. And so we immediately started deploying over there and I did like, I think I did four deployments over there from varying degrees of 60 days, 90 days, you know, um, 99, 2000.

• 1:28:11Speaker 06

  And that was awesome. I mean, that was just like the most fun stuff. You know, you're running around doing tech stuff, doing surveillance.

• 1:28:23Speaker 06

  Just

• 1:28:25Speaker 06

  I'm sure

• 1:28:27Speaker 06

  your partner can talk more about that if he knows more about that.

• 1:28:31Jack Murphy?

  Well, I mean, we've had a number of people on the show who've been over to the Balkans, uh, hunted war criminals at this point. Uh, and yeah, it's fascinating. It sounds like you were living the life, Drew.

• 1:28:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was, it was, it was cool. I mean, I wish I could go into like kind of details. I mean, I will, I will say this one.

• 1:28:49Speaker 06

  This one day. Um, so

• 1:28:53Speaker 06

  some of the guys that I were at my team and team two that were my counterparts went over to Dam Neck and one of them was, um, Neil Roberts. You know, Roberts Ridge.

• 1:29:04Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:05Speaker 06

  And Operation Anaconda. Um, and, um, I'm over there with the unit doing, doing stuff and, and this.

• 1:29:21Speaker 06

  A bunch of guys from Red, Red Squadron came over and they had just come back from there and they were the,

• 1:29:31Speaker 06

  the unit, the team that was going to like do the hits, you know, go round up dudes. Um, and one of them was, um, Goody. You know, Goody? Dave?

• 1:29:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, I know what you're talking about.

• 1:29:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, okay. Anyway, those guys, you know, were awesome. Um, so I was getting ready to time for me to rotate out and, um, we had a bunch of cars and we just got this new Audi A8 in, right? Um, and I was like, oh, I wanted to drive that thing. So I said, hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take the A8 out. I'm gonna see if I can set the record to whatever that town was in Serp'ska. And I did zoom, zoom, you know, full, full speed, blowing through checkpoints and everything. Get there in like 55 minutes. It's, it's normally an hour and 45 minute drive or whatever it was, right? And I remember driving through town, cruising through town, past the Italians or the Dutch or whoever they were.

• 1:30:27Speaker 06

  And I look over to the right and I see this car, it's BMW, a red BMW sitting in a driveway and there's someone out there barbecuing. And, um, I called back, I said, hey, you know, you know, texting is, uh, you know, what kind of car does Joe drive? No, he drives a red. I said, you know, oh, okay. Is it, you know, license plate, blah, blah, blah. It turns out I accidentally found this one guy that was, um, that we were looking for and, um, passed it on PID to them. They came, we came back, I came back and then it turned out that those guys ended up going and getting them. And it's kind of one of those.

• 1:31:10Speaker 07

  Oh, wow.

• 1:31:11Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. They set up with, uh, you know, they had a setup place and, you know, it's, it's a classic story where they wait for it because he washed his car every Sunday, right? In his driveway. And, and so they just rolled up one day with a van and, and did the, did the thing, you know, punch him, punch him in the mouth, threw in the van.

• 1:31:32Speaker 07

  Black hood over the head.

• 1:31:33Speaker 06

  Yeah. I don't know if there's a black hood. I don't think they even gave them, you know, they didn't give the shit, you know, like disrupted this family barbecue and took this guy off the street. And I, and I always thought that was pretty satisfying. Um, just like, again, luck, total, total luck, right? But, but we did a lot of really fun, cool things that, that, you know, we, we performed instead of having surrogates do it or whatever. Um, very satisfying. Um, I went out after that, I went out to the bundle course, tandem bundle course out in, out west in Tucson and Marana. And while.

• 1:32:07Speaker 07

  That must've been a guess of a time. I mean, it's like a 600 pound bundle, right?

• 1:32:13Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. We were jumping, they were doing everything motorcycles, cruise boxes. You know, sono tubes, you know, those things full of, like you see, uh, full of kit. You know, they've gotten, they made it, you know, you see your tandem bundle muster when you get out, but, but here's, here's the cool thing about nine 11. If you want to know. Um, so me and a buddy back up to 90, this is going to be the year 2000.

• 1:32:42Speaker 06

  We go down to this course. We got invited by our cousins to say, hey, if you want to go to this course where we got, where you can learn all these boats, different kind of boats and different kinds of diving. And you can come down here and, and take this course. It was a month long. So we learned all kinds of different dissimilar vessel driving and, and whatnot. And, and then you mix tradecrafting with that. So you're using, you know, you're learning how to do that. And, and then we did mixed gas diving, get our little certificate, you know, our little diver card. So we, you know, we could do any kind of mixed gas diving and whatnot. And so I made friends with these guys that

• 1:33:26Speaker 06

  were down there. And later on, they invited me up to this barbecue up in, up in

• 1:33:32Speaker 06

  Arlington. And we're sitting outside, you know, you know, if I said their names, I mean, I know you know them. But one thing led to another and Mick, who was there at the time.

• 1:33:44Jack Murphy?

  Mulroy.

• 1:33:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, Mick Mulroy, as well as

• 1:33:50Speaker 06

  Thomas was the last name. Anyway,

• 1:33:54Speaker 06

  they're like, hey,

• 1:33:57Speaker 06

  we're getting ready to go do this thing, this thing called the Nile, right? In Iraq.

• 1:34:04Speaker 06

  And we're going, we're taking these tent group guys and pilot team dudes and we got, we got extra slots, you know, what do you think? You want to come? You want to do it? I'm like, yeah, sounds good. You know, what's his name? Who's the famous CIA guy who wrote the books?

• 1:34:25Speaker 06

  Before that, about that, they made Serpico, not Serpico.

• 1:34:31Speaker 06

  Anyway.

• 1:34:32Jack Murphy?

  You're talking about like, like, like Bob Bear?

• 1:34:35Speaker 06

  Bob Bear. Yeah, Bob Bear. Okay. So Bob Bear was like one of the legacy guys who rotated in and did that some prior to you.

• 1:34:45Speaker 06

  But it kind of, I don't know the actual, you know, timeline of whatnot. But, but by this time, it was after nine 11, it was game on.

• 1:34:55Speaker 06

  You know, things were going to happen. So, you know, I kind of skipped past nine 11 because I don't need to talk about that. Everybody knows about that.

• 1:35:01Jack Murphy?

  Sure.

• 1:35:03Speaker 06

  The

• 1:35:06Speaker 06

  Just realized I need to plug in power here. If you can, we take a real short break.

• 1:35:12Jack Murphy?

  Absolutely.

• 1:35:13Speaker 07

  Hey, everybody. Please check out our Patreon. It's listed in the link or underneath the thing. We just moved into a new studio. We still drink a lot and we could really use your money to, uh, to pay the rent and to buy booze.

• 1:35:27Jack Murphy?

  And I'll just take that segue to say that we really appreciate all of you who support the channel. I in, in various different ways and we have to, like Dave said, we just moved into this new studio. We got really big plans for it. We're in a much better place here and it's because of you guys, literally.

• 1:35:45Speaker 07

  It's a safe space.

• 1:35:47Jack Murphy?

  It's a safe space for, for bros to drink some scotch and into war stories.

• 1:35:51Speaker 07

  And even if, you know, you don't contribute to our Patreon, please, uh,

• 1:35:57Speaker 00

  Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying yep to VYETI, Eptinezumab, JJMR, an IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive if allergic to VYETI. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure

• 1:36:25Speaker 02

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• 1:36:31Speaker 00

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• 1:36:38Speaker 02

  Say yep to VYETI. Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, lady luck?

• 1:36:46Speaker 00

  Brett, see, I got you. I've had so much luck on spinquest.com. They have all of my favorite games, slot games, live blackjack, craps, and bubble craps. You can even get a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.

• 1:37:00Speaker 02

  10 bucks for 30? I'm headed over to spinquest.com right now.

• 1:37:04Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 1:37:11Speaker 07

  Subscribe to our YouTube channel, like the video and get the alerts and share our videos when you can. It really helps us out. We have just hit 50,000 subscribers, which is really a milestone for us.

• 1:37:26Jack Murphy?

  And if you subscribe to the Patreon, you get access to bonus episodes that we do. And also you'll get access to all these episodes ad free. So like if you listen to the podcast or you watch this on YouTube, you will see some ads. If you're subscribing to the Patreon, you'll get the episodes completely ad free.

• 1:37:44Speaker 07

  So when we were at 10,000 subscribers, we actually shaved Jack's head during an episode. We said at 50,000 subscribers, we would do cosplays. Now, we realize at this point that doing cosplay during an episode would kind of be insulting to our actual guest. But I don't know, man. I mean, maybe we can be talked into like getting done up for a bonus episode on the Patreon and only if you're Patreon subscriber can you see Jack and I in cosplay. Maybe that'll happen. I don't know.

• 1:38:19Jack Murphy?

  Well, Comic Con is coming up in October, right?

• 1:38:21Speaker 07

  It is. Comic Con every year, October. Yeah, we, I took Jack to his first Comic Con.

• 1:38:27Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, my first New York Comic Con.

• 1:38:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, first New York Comic Con.

• 1:38:31Jack Murphy?

  That was a fun time.

• 1:38:33Speaker 07

  So anyway, and welcome back.

• 1:38:38Jack Murphy?

  Next, next, I'll also tease, next episode, if you want to grab that book behind you there, Dave, Chris Cox, Fire Force. Chris served in the Rhodesian Light Infantry and he wrote this book Fire Force. He's going to be on next week's episode. I've read a lot of war memoirs. This is one of the better ones. It's incredibly well written and just a horrific and terrifying account of war. If you haven't read this book, I highly suggest you guys go and check it out. So we'll have Chris on next week's episode. So Chris Cox, Fire Force, One Man's War in the Rhodesian Light Infantry. I highly suggest you guys go and check this book out. Drew, how are we looking?

• 1:39:23Speaker 06

  Can you guys hear me?

• 1:39:23Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah, we hear you.

• 1:39:26Speaker 06

  Okay, technical difficulty on my end. Can you see me?

• 1:39:29Speaker 07

  Yeah, we got you loud and clear.

• 1:39:32Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:39:32Speaker 07

  Lima Charlie.

• 1:39:42Speaker 07

  Jer, before we go any further, I just want to say that I was a Navy corpsman. I was a dive med tech. So I was a corpsman in the dive community. I feel your pain when it came to promotions in, in a, in a specialized field with, when you had to compete against corpsmen worldwide. I feel your pain.

• 1:40:02Speaker 06

  Well, that makes me feel a lot better, to be honest with you. Um, so I think I having, I'm having an issue with Zoom on my end.

• 1:40:12Speaker 07

  We see you like, yeah.

• 1:40:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it's all good on our end.

• 1:40:16Speaker 07

  Dee, did you do something? Break yourself.

• 1:40:19Speaker 06

  Hang on a second.

• 1:40:22Speaker 06

  That's a little attractive, isn't it?

• 1:40:27Jack Murphy?

  Uh, well, yeah, what, what, what's the issue? Cause it all looks good on our end here.

• 1:40:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's, it's, uh, I plugged into, uh, power and, and, uh, I think I'm okay.

• 1:40:38Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 1:40:38Speaker 06

  I think we can, we can continue. I might, I just see the split screen anymore. Cause I, I might have disconnected from, uh, my version of the zone. So.

• 1:40:46Speaker 07

  Okay. Oh, well, we see you, we hear you. So what's up? Well, could you, if you could jump back into it and pick up, pick up, pick up, uh, pick up your story.

• 1:40:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, I fixed it.

• 1:40:58Speaker 07

  Okay, great.

• 1:40:59Speaker 06

  I'm not all effed up. Okay. Thanks for, thanks for coming for me.

• 1:41:03Speaker 07

  Yeah, no worries.

• 1:41:05Speaker 06

  All right. Where were we? What, what am I, what am I telling you?

• 1:41:07Speaker 07

  You were talking about, uh, after nine 11, you were talking to Mick Mulroy. He was saying that there's this thing popping off. Do you want to get in on that?

• 1:41:18Speaker 06

  Well, because we had a really good relationship with, um,

• 1:41:24Speaker 06

  with our cousins, um, our unit did, we were real tight. Um,

• 1:41:32Speaker 06

  he told me about it. They, they gave me the details. He told me who to talk to and everything. So I, I ended up scribbling it down on a, like a piece of paper. Some numbers and names. And I remember going, I went back to the, to the, to the command, to the unit. And, uh, a friend of mine who's now

• 1:41:50Speaker 06

  in charge of

• 1:41:53Speaker 06

  the Death Star, um, he was, uh, one of my,

• 1:42:00Speaker 06

  Teammates, but he was also the squadron commander at the time. And I said, hey, sir,

• 1:42:07Speaker 06

  here, what do you think of this? Want to do this? They're asking us if we want to do it. We want to be part of this. They're going in before the war, one in 2002, right? And long story short, phone calls were made, relationship, you know, things were vetted and

• 1:42:28Speaker 06

  that's the reason why our unit got into

• 1:42:35Jack Murphy?

  The AFO mission.

• 1:42:37Speaker 06

  Into the, into the, the deal before, you know, we, we are part of the Nile team. We went in in October of 2002 and it started doing OPE, AFO, whatever you want to call it. And it was just, again, you know,

• 1:42:56Speaker 06

  God loves fricking promptment and lucky, right place, right time.

• 1:43:04Speaker 06

  The rest is kind of history. How we actually got into the whole war beforehand.

• 1:43:10Jack Murphy?

  Your, your story intersects with some of our previous guests. You brought up Mick, Mark Giacconia with 10th Group was out there. Who else have we interviewed? Sam Fattis was out there. I think we've interviewed a number of people who are, who are out on that, that initial, you know, OPE mission into Northern Iraq. Could you tell us about how that went from your point of view? As far as like infiltration and then what the operation, what, what the mission was like?

• 1:43:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, sorry. I'm getting myself in the fuck here.

• 1:43:43Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, no worries.

• 1:43:45Speaker 06

  Yeah. So, so we

• 1:43:50Speaker 06

  Had a really interesting journey over there to Turkey and then into the Our whole thought process was we're going to be the gateway for the Northern Front. We're going to set the conditions, do the collection.

• 1:44:04Speaker 06

  AFOOP for fourth ID. Was going to come in. Through the North, and of course, we know that we got the Heisman, they got the Heisman from Turkey. That didn't happen. So it ended up being that it was us, you know, us and the Kurds. And Tenth Group, which, you know, had a role in the initial invasion anyways, but they ended up taking a bigger piece of the pie because that was it, you know, and then of course, we all know about Viking Hammer, which what those guys did, we did. Actually, we planned it. It was Uncle McLandy and some other Nick and some other guys. Along with, you know, and then the Tenth Group guys came in and fine tuned it to their

• 1:44:48Speaker 06

  order of battle. But it just, it was, it was a good time because for three months, we were, let's see, November, December, October, November, December of 2002, we were in there by ourselves, running around doing recons. I mean, I ended up lazing 62 Dimpies for that. Not just myself, but you know.

• 1:45:09Jack Murphy?

  Sure.

• 1:45:10Speaker 06

  It was, you know.

• 1:45:13Jack Murphy?

  Like lazing to get grids or lazing for airstrikes?

• 1:45:16Speaker 06

  For, for Tomahawks.

• 1:45:18Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, so when they, when they fired those cruise missiles, Mark talked about that when we had him on here. It was like, what, they fired like 120 Tomahawks that night?

• 1:45:28Speaker 06

  Yeah, so the 28th or whatever it was. Yeah, so there was 62.

• 1:45:41Speaker 06

  Tomahawks fired at least sixty something, like two, three, four, whatever. Um, they were launched from subs, ships and whatnot. Um, and it was just, it was just most awesome because we were at this Ford and place that Mark probably talks, talks about too. I can't remember the name of it, but, um, and it was like this light show.

• 1:46:03Speaker 06

  Jets flying over, but they weren't jets. They were, you know, Tomahawks. And then we just watched them hit, and, and just waylaid all these, all these targets. Um, and then, then within a day or two after that, we, let's see, tenth group might've already been in. Yeah, they were. They were already in. Um, and we had planned the four prongs for Viking Hammer. And then we launched that assault afterwards, but prior to that, we also had this, uh, C C T guy. The, the, the true hero of the whole Viking Hammer thing was, was the Air Force C C T slash, um, combat controller guys.

• 1:46:48Speaker 06

  They just were like composers of an orchestra. It was amazing. Like when we did our assault on Viking Hammer. Uh, I will call this guy Jack. Um, he, um, he had aircraft stacked up like Los, like LAX.

• 1:47:06Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:47:07Speaker 06

  From, you, you, you probably heard the story. And it was poetry in motion.

• 1:47:13Speaker 07

  We, we, we have talked about the talent of J-Tax and C C T guys before and how they are, are operating at a level that most of us can't possibly understand. Controlling so many different assets at, at a time and being able to guide them on like calmly, coolly collectively, just like rolling in asset, like it's just amazing to see them in action.

• 1:47:41Jack Murphy?

  So for, uh, folks out there who haven't watched those previous episodes we've done, I hope they will, but Viking Hammer was an operation between US Special Ops. And the Kurdish Peshmerga to go and fight Ansar al Islam in northern Iraq in 2003. They're Islamic terrorist organization. The fear was that this terrorist organization could kind of bog down our invasion of Iraq. So we had to have kind of a northern front in that conflict during the invasion.

• 1:48:14Jack Murphy?

  Drew, could you tell us a little bit about what you did? You sent me some pretty cool pictures, actually, of you out there in the field with the Peshmerga. Could you tell us a little bit about what your role was and what you were helping facilitate at that time?

• 1:48:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, so it was broken up by, I wish I knew the actual order of battle for 10th Group. So I don't want to misrepresent that, but it was evenly divided amongst the FF, was it 103 or 102? Tobos Battalion and the SF guys and then various levels of Peshmerga and myself, like a counterpart of mine and a combat controller. And I was paired up with with Waffle, no, no, with Jalal, no.

• 1:49:05Jack Murphy?

  There was a Pilat Taliban, Lashor Taliban.

• 1:49:10Speaker 06

  Lashor, yeah.

• 1:49:12Jack Murphy?

  Lashor, yeah. He became the intelligence chief, I believe.

• 1:49:18Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, so I was paired up with him and Jack and I, and we were on the

• 1:49:24Speaker 06

  yellow or green prong, I forgot, but we ended up being with the guys, the snipers from 10th Group that were taking out.

• 1:49:31Speaker 06

  They did some great stuff.

• 1:49:32Jack Murphy?

  With the with the barretts.

• 1:49:34Speaker 06

  What's that?

• 1:49:35Jack Murphy?

  With the 50 cal's?

• 1:49:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, with the barretts, yeah. In fact, I think one of the pictures I sent you, we were, that was taken from that, those that day. That both those were, but. Yeah, so we fought our way uphill through, you know, we had pulverized a bunch of positions with AC130s the night before. Uh, fought our way uphill, uh, were taking effective fire. And the thing that struck me about that whole thing was these, uh, Ansar Islam were clearly not just some, forgive my terminology, raghead, you know, just amateurs. These people were, they were trained, right?

• 1:50:14Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:50:14Speaker 06

  They actually had, uh, defense in depth. So, so as they, they knew, you know, graduate, you know, obviously we're going to fire our way uphill. So they would just leapfrog back to fortified positions where they had weapons and

• 1:50:29Speaker 07

  And it was suspected they had a chemical weapons facility in that valley, right?

• 1:50:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. So Kermall, uh, was a suspected weapons, uh, chemical weapons facility. And that just, we just pummeled that with 20 or 30 frigging Tomahawks, but, uh, I'll leave that up to historians to decide what, if there was interesting things found, let's put it that way. Um, yeah, as we fought our way uphill, these guys leapfrogged back and then they rained down scunion on us and, and, uh, we had to call in closer support. Um, and I distinctly remember this one episode where we had, uh, Navy pilots off of Roosevelt or something. It was a female and Jack's talking to her and she dropped her bombs and then he's like,

• 1:51:16Speaker 06

  hey, I need you to do some strafing runs along this ridge line. And so the ridge line essentially on the other side of it was Iran. Right? So, um, she came in and just fricking laid scunion on, uh, took out some machine gun positions and we were able to advance forward.

• 1:51:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, but it was interesting to get shot at all day long and, uh,

• 1:51:37Speaker 07

  What was it like working amongst, like not everybody had the same, uh, you work with different elements and not everybody had the same sort of actions on type of maneuver, right? Not everybody had the same sort of TTPs when it came to maneuver and fire. What was it like working with a disparate group in an actual firefight when you're moving towards target and trying to like coordinate that?

• 1:52:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, I got this great picture of, uh, uh, Lahore. I know I'm butchering his name.

• 1:52:12Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm sorry. I probably did. To was sure.

• 1:52:17Speaker 06

  Both his brother, basically.

• 1:52:20Speaker 06

  And so it's like, hey, you know, it was a bomb rush with the Kurds, but the SF guys, I don't know how it worked out, but it's just, it just worked. You know, we just, you know, we passed the, passed the, you know, we leapfrog up to, you know, some, some cover and, and, you know, those guys were, were charged up. The, the Kurds were charged up and

• 1:52:45Speaker 06

  commands were passed and, but, but the, the game changers were the air cover and the test. I mean, I was, I was so frustrated that day because I decided, because I had brought my SR25 with me. And I was like, do I want to hunt this fucking?

• 1:53:04Speaker 06

  And all these, these magazines and whatnot, or I'll just take my M4, right? And I regretted it to this day. It's like, because I was like lobbing shots at these guys 400, 500 meters away, right? Having to like, you know, Kentucky.

• 1:53:21Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:53:23Speaker 06

  And

• 1:53:26Speaker 06

  and of course we're fighting uphill. So it's like, at some point I was like, carrying a bunch of shit. So I took my rear plate out and just, you know, toss it on the ground and get it later. So, but yeah, to this day, I was like, never go anywhere without a 762 rifle in the open.

• 1:53:44Speaker 07

  You know, it's funny because we were just talking about the SR. Lunch today. We were just talking about it today and like my experience of it in the late 90s, it didn't have a forward assist at the time. I don't know if that changed and I fucking hated it because of that. You know?

• 1:53:59Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'll be honest with you. I, you know, like everybody else I knew was a sniper. I wasn't, but I was, I'm a real good shot or was back then. And I, let me put this, I got a Jerry Barnhart shirt, hat.

• 1:54:12Speaker 07

  Oh, nice. With Jerry Barnhart was like one of the, you know, he's an amazing shooter and one of the principal teachers for a lot of the soft units. And you had to shoot first in his class. Did you have to outshoot him or you just had to?

• 1:54:26Speaker 06

  No, you just had to be the best of the group.

• 1:54:28Speaker 07

  You had to be in the best of the group to get the hat, right?

• 1:54:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, I probably should be wearing that shirt right now.

• 1:54:34Jack Murphy?

  So from what you experienced out there that day, I mean, I reflect back on what J R Seeger said when we had him on that the combination of US Special Forces, CIA, paramilitary and American air power was just a very deadly combination.

• 1:54:51Speaker 06

  Absolutely. It was. I just remember, like I said, I, you know,

• 1:54:58Speaker 06

  it was like I was a spectator half the time, right? Other than rounds. You know, and the thing that the interesting part is I want to sound like there I was, you know, me deep in grenade pins. But, you know, they were shooting at us and the rounds were hidden, but they were also shooting from far away too. So, you know, it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like Blue Jer or Ramadi or anything like that. But I remember this one a curd taken around the chest right up right next to me, kind of in between me and Jack. And I went to him and pulled open all of his, you know, because he had layers of clothes on, right? Because it's like March, right?

• 1:55:39Speaker 06

  A rack of snow on the mountains, right? It was cold. And I pulled all these layers of clothes out and the round, the seven six two round was like sticking out of his chest. It wasn't even like, it hardly even penetrated.

• 1:55:52Jack Murphy?

  Because it's so, it bled off so much velocity.

• 1:55:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. Right. You know, I should have made it more dramatic, you know?

• 1:56:02Speaker 06

  It was just, it was just kind of funny. But yeah, it's, you know, we did that. I ended up clearing some caves and getting some guys that were hiding some caves. Yeah, a couple, a couple of curds. And, and I remember leaving that at the end of that day, I'm like, gosh, am I going to, do I need to write a report on this? Am I going to get, you know, it was like the dilemma. Now I'm not gonna talk about it.

• 1:56:27Speaker 06

  Because I don't, I don't want to do the paperwork.

• 1:56:29Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:56:29Speaker 06

  You know, so I'm gonna like, you know, back then it was like, you're gonna get in trouble.

• 1:56:34Speaker 07

  Why, why were you put yourself in harm's way kind of thing?

• 1:56:37Speaker 06

  Well, it wasn't that. It was more like, you just didn't know. Everything was new, right?

• 1:56:42Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:56:42Speaker 06

  Unless you, unless you were Afghanistan, you were, you know, Afghanistan was, was ahead of us by a year, right?

• 1:56:49Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:56:49Speaker 06

  Happy year. So, um, a year or more. Um, yeah, yeah. So that was, that was, that was a really good time. That was only the beginning too, because then we did other things. Kirkuk, you know, we had to take Kirkuk with the Kurds. Uh, it just kept going and, uh, it was, um, a real good time with, uh, with 10 group.

• 1:57:16Speaker 06

  And I'm looking forward to the reunion, you know, I think I gotta do a 20 year, uh, anniversary of that Viking Hammer coming up here. Next year, early, early, early next 23, in 23.

• 1:57:28Speaker 07

  Were there, um, you know, you said that Afghanistan was a year ahead of you at this point in time. Have there been, were there, were there visible changes at your particular unit? A- as a result of nine 11? Did things change? Did they morph, evolve?

• 1:57:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, I, I mean, they did, of course. Um. You know, nine 11 changed everyone's life. I mean, for me example, I was on a, on a, um, my, this one trip I did after doing a bunch of Balkan trips was, um, to a, a country. To Georgia, actually. And I remember taking off, I just, I, my, I'd just gotten married at the time to, to.

• 1:58:19Speaker 06

  I just got married, just leave it that way. Um, the, um.

• 1:58:25Speaker 06

  A few weeks before and was getting ready to leave on September 9th. And so September 9th, I get on the plane, fly to, fly out there to the Caucasus and, um.

• 1:58:39Speaker 06

  Land, you know, because you lose a day when you're flying that way, right? So.

• 1:58:47Speaker 06

  Check into our place, turn on the TV with another teammate and they were watching CNN. And he's like, hey, man, check out the TV. There's like a plane just crashed in one of the towers. And I'm thinking, you know, World War Two, when that B-25 hit the Parstian building. And I'm watching it and then we, like, everybody in America has a story, same story. We watched the second plane hit the towers. So at that point, it was like, holy shit. We're at war with someone. Right? So, you know, we're on the horn, we're talking to the chief. At the base, at the station, and next thing you know, we're doing stuff, so.

• 1:59:29Speaker 06

  From that point on, it was, everything was like laser focused. It was awesome. Great times to be alive.

• 1:59:37Speaker 06

  You know, we just got everything we needed.

• 1:59:42Speaker 06

  Did a lot of great stuff. I just feel like it was, you know, a blessed time to be an American.

• 1:59:52Speaker 06

  So.

• 1:59:54Jack Murphy?

  What came for you then after Viking Hammer, that whole 2003 invasion? What was the next step for you in the, now in your army career, so to speak?

• 2:00:06Speaker 06

  Yeah, so Viking Hammer happened and, you know, it was kind of like the, you know, you didn't really think of it as Viking Hammer. It was like, it was like, okay, it didn't work.

• 2:00:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, another deployment.

• 2:00:15Speaker 06

  Right. We did a bunch of SSE, you know, we went to all these different places and the stuff we pulled off of all these different little villages. And I mean, we took this, this one particular, I should have sent you the picture, man. It's a, it's a kind of famous picture, actually, sitting in. Sitting in a conference room up at another office, it's with myself, Mick, all the guys from our, our, our team. After we just took this little town and me and Mick are holding the American flag up.

• 2:00:48Jack Murphy?

  Oh, I think I have seen that one.

• 2:00:50Speaker 06

  Yeah, you probably have. It's, it's actually in all the Viking. If you go to Wikipedia and all that kind of stuff, you can see it, you know, all the Viking.

• 2:00:56Jack Murphy?

  And you're, you're wearing Oakleys in, in most of them.

• 2:00:58Speaker 06

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 2:01:00Jack Murphy?

  Oh, you're a SEAL, so you know, we understand.

• 2:01:04Speaker 06

  What's that?

• 2:01:04Jack Murphy?

  I said, you're a SEAL, so we understand, but I'm, I'm honest, I was kidding.

• 2:01:07Speaker 06

  Yeah. Not that cool, dude.

• 2:01:10Jack Murphy?

  Always look cool.

• 2:01:11Speaker 07

  Right. And, and for your, for our viewers who don't know, SSC is Sensitive Site Exploitation and it's, it's the phase after an assault where you basically.

• 2:01:21Jack Murphy?

  Search for evidence.

• 2:01:22Speaker 07

  Search for evidence, but like search like, like the FBI looking for like you search like.

• 2:01:28Jack Murphy?

  I would, I wouldn't quite call it what the FBI does on a crime scene. It's more like, it's what a, it's what a Ranger does on a crime scene.

• 2:01:36Speaker 07

  Well, I mean, it's not like you're not wearing gloves and dusting for prints, but you're ripping.

• 2:01:41Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, ripping everything apart. Yeah.

• 2:01:42Speaker 07

  You're looking for everything you can.

• 2:01:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, you get souvenir too.

• 2:01:46Speaker 07

  Yeah. And you find other porn, you know, all, all, all the, uh.

• 2:01:49Jack Murphy?

  Indeed.

• 2:01:50Speaker 07

  All the mullah.

• 2:01:51Jack Murphy?

  Indeed.

• 2:01:51Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:01:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah. So we did that SSC stuff. I went to, to the, uh, Carmel place and I was just devastated. Um, you know, and then some other folks came in and we just shifted focus to, to the, uh, the Iraqi Republican Guard, uh, in Kirkuk, um, and taking that place with 10 group again, again. Um, so, uh, I ended up getting the, uh, third Republican Iraqi Republican Guard Division flag, took it down from, uh, whatever that base was there. Um, and what's funny is like, you could see these guys as they left their base, they were like literally taking their clothes off and throwing them off, you know,

• 2:02:37Speaker 06

  in the street, their uniforms and putting on, you know, civilian clothes. Um, and this flag was, it had to be 20 feet long or something like that. I ended up giving it to someone in some general.

• 2:02:50Speaker 06

  But yeah, we found a bunch of really interesting things there, missiles and things that were interesting. To put it mildly, it's just, it's too bad that the political narrative is what it is. As far as the level of evidence, but you know, there's cases to be made on both sides of WMD. You know, finding sarin is one thing, finding effective sarin rounds is another thing.

• 2:03:19Speaker 07

  Right, right, right.

• 2:03:21Speaker 06

  I would say there's, you know.

• 2:03:23Speaker 07

  Right, and, and you know, sort of, and again, you know, if the premise is yellow cake, then WMDs may not fit that definition, but finding, you know.

• 2:03:37Jack Murphy?

  UXO.

• 2:03:38Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, finding, finding toxic gases or finding what, you know, chemical weapons does get downplayed in, in, you know, in, in certain narratives, for sure.

• 2:03:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, there was enough evidence prior to that of, you know, Megs being buried in the desert.

• 2:04:00Speaker 06

  And, and you know, we were, we were played too by, by a lot of sheiks.

• 2:04:05Speaker 07

  Right, right.

• 2:04:06Speaker 06

  So regardless, that's, that's out of my pay grade.

• 2:04:09Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, what, what, what came after that deployment, though? What was the next step?

• 2:04:14Speaker 06

  Okay, so I came back from that.

• 2:04:18Speaker 06

  Well, before I left.

• 2:04:23Speaker 06

  I had to go down, so we were, we were also planning how we're going to get into buy up, get into Baghdad first, just conditions for the guys who were, you know, first ID and, or no, one MAF and third ID.

• 2:04:38Speaker 06

  And I ended up going down there with a group of guys that Mark was running.

• 2:04:48Speaker 06

  And linking up at Baghdad International, that was the same airport where it was called.

• 2:04:56Speaker 06

  And doing a little bit of stuff in Baghdad before I, I got shipped out. By that point, I'd been there like six plus months.

• 2:05:07Speaker 06

  So I left. Came back home, that's 2003.

• 2:05:17Speaker 07

  And at what point in your career, how many years did you have in the military at 2003?

• 2:05:25Speaker 06

  See, that would have been, uh, enlisted in eighty seven, so, but do the math, maybe fifteen, right?

• 2:05:34Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:05:34Speaker 06

  Sixteen, sixteen years. So I ended up coming back to the unit and, um, taking, uh, oh, okay. So I'm, I'm a senior chief, right? So here's, here's the, the rough, the interesting part of Iraq. I'm up for Master Chief.

• 2:05:53Speaker 06

  And at the same time, I was married, so I'm thinking about, yeah, Master Chief, E9 retirement after twenty years, twenty-five years, thirty years.

• 2:06:03Speaker 06

  As opposed to like putting in a commissioning package.

• 2:06:05Speaker 07

  Right. It's a big pay difference for retirement.

• 2:06:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, any difference, right? So I put in this, I put in a package for commission, a Mustang commission. And you get to, you can check a block for warrant officer or just line officer, right? I'm like, fuck, I'm a warrant officer. Nothing wrong with warrant officers. They're awesome, right? But I didn't want to run a chain stuff, right? Um, so I just thought, yeah, I'll just roll the dice, line officer. So the message comes out, I'm on, I'm on objective overnight. It's, you know,

• 2:06:36Speaker 06

  December of two thousand two, and I'm selected for Master Chief, right, for E9. Then I might have the order backwards, but I also got selected for LDO, for, for commission. Um, so I come back and I have to make a decision and, um, I went to the boss, to the CEO, and I said, "Hey, man, if I, uh, sir, I didn't say man, sir, if I take this commission, can I stay at the unit?" And they're like, "I don't see why not," right? Because typically if you get commissioned, you, they send you off to freaking another side of the world.

• 2:07:11Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:07:12Speaker 06

  Most of you are. So you show up as this boot and center officer. Um, and, uh, so one day I'm, I'm selected. So everybody thinks at the unit I'm gonna be at E9. And then next thing I'm like, well, I'm gonna be in O1, right? We do this ceremony and I get, you know, go from E9 to, or E8, from O2 to O1. And it was like, people are looking, well, what do we call you now? I mean, you know, you can call me Drew, right? So I stayed there for another five years and then taken one of the other troops,

• 2:07:55Speaker 06

  a different kind of troop that did different atypical stuff.

• 2:08:02Jack Murphy?

  Did some stuff in some places?

• 2:08:05Speaker 06

  Say again?

• 2:08:06Jack Murphy?

  Did some stuff in some places?

• 2:08:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, it just had different flavor to it. And I was the XO for that for a while. And then I did the

• 2:08:19Speaker 06

  pro-deb kind of, you know, stuff where, you know, I didn't like punch tickets O3, I mean, S3, I was an L and O for whatnot, but that wasn't the end of my, you know, utility. I actually did some other stuff that was with other folks, other agencies.

• 2:08:39Jack Murphy?

  So you're still deploying in support of the War on Terror, doing your thing there? And you said eventually you became cadre for the selection course, right? You kind of came full circle?

• 2:08:51Speaker 06

  Yeah. So, I mean, what happens is, you know, whether it's once a year or twice a year, it depends on, you know, the year and the time. Typically, it's twice a year. They'll do an assessment selection. They bring in candidates from military. They do, you know, you do screening, they assess them, and then you put them through a pipeline

• 2:09:13Speaker 06

  of tasks. And, you know, they pull from whoever's available within the squadron, squadrons to be cadre. And so, yeah, I was very, actually, that was very rewarding, you know, to do that, to.

• 2:09:32Speaker 06

  Teach people tasks and assess them.

• 2:09:35Jack Murphy?

  Now, you're one of the guys in that horseshoe formation around the candidates that come in and.

• 2:09:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, actually, it never got to that point.

• 2:09:44Speaker 06

  I don't think I was, you know, I'm not that. It was senior folks who did that. But yeah, yeah, I had feedback. Green sheets, pink sheets are what they're called. I had to fill out. But in this timeframe, after I came back from Iraq, that's when I went down to this special finishing school that Dave probably knows about. And I became a certified operations officer.

• 2:10:15Speaker 06

  So that, after that, that's when I started doing, you know, CO stuff in Somalia and other places. So that's when I got to, you know, really do the things that I thought was really my.

• 2:10:32Jack Murphy?

  Like strategic intelligence.

• 2:10:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, run sources. And, you know, that was a dicey, I'm sorry, dicey time in the history of Somalia and the Horn of Africa, but very rewarding.

• 2:10:47Jack Murphy?

  And Somalia, you actually, you mentioned Goodyear earlier, and that was Somalia, right?

• 2:10:52Speaker 06

  Yes, that's regrettably, that's.

• 2:10:55Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:56Speaker 06

  I mean, I just got to tell you, there are very, I love my brothers, but of all the people in the world that I know, who are just true superstar, rock star heroes who've been everywhere at the right time, that's just one guy that.

• 2:11:16Speaker 06

  The nation owes him.

• 2:11:18Jack Murphy?

  Was he, was he the Bancroft guy that was killed over there?

• 2:11:25Jack Murphy?

  Okay, I'm thinking of someone different.

• 2:11:27Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah, but just.

• 2:11:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:34Speaker 06

  You know, yeah, he, he, you know, he was one of the OPs in Anaconda and

• 2:11:41Speaker 06

  everything, everywhere he went, things happened. So and regrettably, I don't think he had any family or any children, but, but him and his wife were very involved in, um, in other, you know, mentoring,

• 2:12:01Speaker 06

  just, you know, just children that had, uh, didn't have parents or

• 2:12:05Jack Murphy?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:12:08Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:12:09Jack Murphy?

  That's incredible. I, well, I hope his story can be told in, in further detail someday. Sounds like a pretty amazing dude.

• 2:12:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, he was. I mean, I, I, I feel like I had like an average career, you know, I mean, you know, you kind of rack yourself, you kind of compare yourself to your peers. Um, and that's just the wrong thing to do because it ends up setting you up for, um, problems later on, you know?

• 2:12:32Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:12:34Speaker 06

  Question, could you have done things differently or whatnot?

• 2:12:37Jack Murphy?

  Right. Yeah, that's, that's a trap.

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• 2:13:45Jack Murphy?

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• 2:13:55Jack Murphy?

  Because you, you, you are comparing your

• 2:13:59Speaker 07

  I, you know, it's sort of like the whole Groucho Marx thing. I would never be a member of any club that would have me as a member, right? Like, like we see ourself in a different light than we see everybody around us. And so many times you're like, how am I here because of what, you know, and it's even like on this show, we have people who come on who have done incredible, phenomenal things. And they say, I don't know if I can be on your show because like you've had some legends and it's like, you're a legend too. Like, you know, it's, it's, um, you know, and I think especially and, and special operations, which is an area of, you know, high achievers,

• 2:14:40Speaker 07

  people who set goals and achieve those goals. And if you're consistently comparing yourself to the people around you, we tend to diminish our achievements and, and see and go, oh, man, then I couldn't like, like, look at what they did.

• 2:14:58Jack Murphy?

  I, I, I want to ask Drew about his, uh, about post-retirement and, or, or post-army, or, um, geez, post-military and some of the things you did. Uh, let's get into the viewer questions first before, before we go there.

• 2:15:12Speaker 07

  Uh, let me jump over this.

• 2:15:15Jack Murphy?

  People, people very much care. There's like, there's like seven, eight hundred people watching this thing.

• 2:15:20Speaker 07

  They actually give us money to ask you questions. So, uh, you know, um,

• 2:15:25Speaker 06

  How do I get on that? How do I get in, tap into that stream?

• 2:15:28Speaker 07

  Uh, you actually, yeah. And, and you're gonna, you're gonna tell us about your upcoming stuff.

• 2:15:36Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, your, your upcoming podcasts.

• 2:15:38Speaker 07

  Tap, tap into that. Um, that's right.

• 2:15:42Speaker 06

  Let's talk about, let's see what your, what your, what your group wants to know.

• 2:15:45Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, let's see what they got.

• 2:15:48Speaker 07

  So, let me, uh, do my broadcast voice here.

• 2:15:54Jack Murphy?

  There you go.

• 2:15:54Speaker 07

  Um, John Pierre, who just donated, uh, thank you very much. Darren Jones donated also. Both very generous. We really appreciate it. Uh, Jacob Wall, Drew is like the mirror image of Dale Kamsak, yet equally, if not more imposing.

• 2:16:12Speaker 06

  So what?

• 2:16:13Speaker 07

  He said that you are like the mirror image of Dale Comstock, another guest of ours, uh, uh, uh, yet equally, if not more imposing. And I think what, what he is saying is that, um, uh, like Dale is, is very much a large in life figure and, you know, uh, in the way he carries himself and, and deservedly so, like he's, you know, been there, done that. Um, and while, and you are humble and yet you are also equally, if not more imposing, is what our, what our.

• 2:16:47Speaker 06

  Well, that's, that's very flattering. Um, and, and thank you for, you know,

• 2:16:55Speaker 06

  I, I, I feel like, and this is gonna sound corny, but I really do believe that I was blessed, the fact that I came in when I did and have this, have the, the fortune to walk amongst folks that were just like me, who did amazing things, you know, it's,

• 2:17:16Speaker 06

  sometimes you just wake up one day and you realize I belong here, you know? Whether you're a major league baseball player or

• 2:17:25Speaker 06

  an actor or pro football player, whatever it is, you just wake up and go, I belong here. This is, this is where I live. I, I can do this. I, I can perform. I, I could, and it, it doesn't mean I'm any more Superman. I'm not a Marvel character. It's just that you just realize, you know, you're a craftsman. Your trades, you, you, you know what you're doing.

• 2:17:47Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:17:48Speaker 06

  Um, and, um, there's, you know, when you, when you get to that point where you, you trust your inner self, uh, I think that's what I learned going to the unit. It's like, this is, I made this decision because I think it's the right decision. And here's why I think it's the right decision. This is why I set the LZ up this way. This is why I aborted this mission. This is why I did this thing. And you're right, because it turns out right. And so when you're, when you're fortunate enough to be in that position to repeatedly over years.

• 2:18:25Speaker 06

  Make good decisions or decisions that are productive, or you know, sometimes a decision where you walk away, you know, you're not saying, you know what, right, I'm gonna get feeling about this.

• 2:18:36Speaker 07

  And it takes, it takes a mature military unit, which, which isn't always there to support you. Uh, like some units will make your decision, decision, a zero or hero decision. But if the unit trusts you, then they give you the leeway to make a decision and don't like, like hammer you afterwards.

• 2:19:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, to that point, I remember being in Somalia and you know, we had this certain type of mission. We were working with, with uh,

• 2:19:10Speaker 06

  uh, proxies, whatever. And I had this certain O six who I love, love them to death. He's like, where the fuck is my, you know, commando force? Oh, I need it now because he's answering to G O's and whatnot. I'm like, sir, you can't make Somalis in, it just doesn't have an open.

• 2:19:36Speaker 07

  Into command.

• 2:19:36Speaker 06

  Right, yeah, right. They don't even know how to read a map.

• 2:19:39Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:19:41Speaker 06

  You know, and, and so you, you have that, those kinds of challenges to deal with. But um, at the end of the day, they trust you and they can let you kind of drive the, try to train.

• 2:19:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, that's important. Hey, uh, just to add to what Dee said, we're 493 likes. Hey, if you haven't liked this video, please, please get us to 500. Yeah.

• 2:20:04Speaker 06

  Wrong.

• 2:20:05Speaker 07

  Yeah, you're wrong. Um, you're wrong. It's straight up. Um, and then, uh, Adam White, one of our beloved guests, uh, thank you for the donation. He said, great interview. We're all very lucky to have you, Drew. We, uh, and keep making it funky and keeping it spicy, y'all. Go team, go. Yeah, Drew, we are very lucky to have you. We deeply appreciate you coming on.

• 2:20:32Speaker 06

  Well, it's been my pleasure. I wish I could have been more captivating and told you some better stories.

• 2:20:39Jack Murphy?

  Next time, next time you come here in studio in New York and we'll sit down, we'll have some stogies and some whiskey.

• 2:20:44Speaker 07

  You told us some great stories. And look, I like, thank God for Jack because Jack, because you and I are, we're both like sort of the ADD. Like, we go off and I would have talked to you about like naval sea stories for fucking, you know, two hours.

• 2:20:59Jack Murphy?

  You're having a really bad day if you need me to keep you on the rails.

• 2:21:02Speaker 07

  I have a bad day every Friday, Jack. Thank you.

• 2:21:05Jack Murphy?

  I'll just say.

• 2:21:05Speaker 07

  Yeah, or Saturday. Yeah. See how bad my day is?

• 2:21:09Speaker 06

  Is there, is there, does anybody have a pointed question they want to ask?

• 2:21:14Speaker 07

  Yeah. So Anatoly Vaskevich, thank you very much. Did you guys spend a lot of time on shooting and weapons in CQT? Was it a good shooting program?

• 2:21:26Speaker 06

  Shooting weapons when?

• 2:21:27Speaker 07

  During CQT, like during your training for the SMU.

• 2:21:32Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean,

• 2:21:37Speaker 06

  yes, but, but part of the, part of the selection criteria was like what you brought to the team, right? So they're not going to teach you what you already know how to do.

• 2:21:49Speaker 06

  You're going to get plenty of opportunity, like to work with, work with guys like Jerry Barnhart or Pat, Pat McNamara or, or other folks.

• 2:22:02Speaker 06

  But that's just so you can just tweak and fine tune your skills, right?

• 2:22:07Speaker 06

  Mostly you could, yeah. So we did a lot of foreign weapons stuff and

• 2:22:16Speaker 06

  so, but maintaining our, our quals was never an issue. We wanted to set up a shooting course with some expert. We did it whenever we needed to.

• 2:22:24Speaker 07

  How, how was it?

• 2:22:25Speaker 06

  We wanted, we also wanted to maintain. What I've left out is that we worked oftentimes integrated as part of a combined team with our brothers and sisters in blue and green. So, you know, we needed to be able to not be a live building.

• 2:22:42Speaker 07

  Right. And out of curiosity, like, how was that different? Because in the SEAL teams, just like in the Rangers or most spec ops units, you were learning to do things as a team. And while you need to be able to do things as a team and integrate, there are also times when you have to do something as a singleton or as a pair. And that's not really something that is so often focused on in these other units. So, how did you train up for that?

• 2:23:15Speaker 06

  Yeah. So that kind of dovetails into my, one of my last jobs, where we had a special group that did those types of things. We had to travel around, be by yourself. And notably, for example, we had a particular rock star who went on a trip. And as soon as he landed, he, his spidey senses went off and he realized that, hey, he thinks he's, might have coverage. And sure enough, you know, it could have been criminal. I

• 2:23:59Speaker 06

  mean, that's one of the things you neglect. We always want to look at things to, from the standpoint of, you know, as a voice.

• 2:24:06Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:24:07Speaker 06

  Or foreign intelligence.

• 2:24:08Speaker 07

  Like espionage. Right, right.

• 2:24:10Speaker 06

  Right, right. But a lot of times, it's just criminal, like, too.

• 2:24:13Speaker 07

  Right. Because you're an American in a country that's not, yeah, that likes tourists. Yeah.

• 2:24:18Speaker 06

  And regardless of what it was, you know, he had the awareness, situational awareness to recognize the situation. And sure enough, a van pulls up, guys jump out, someone puts, sticks a gun in his chest, and he does the fucking swim move, takes the gun away, takes a round.

• 2:24:36Speaker 07

  You're right.

• 2:24:37Speaker 06

  But takes the gun away, shoots back at the guys.

• 2:24:41Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:24:41Speaker 06

  Hits, you know, hits a couple of them, and they speed off. Then he's got to do the Jason Bourne shit.

• 2:24:46Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:24:48Speaker 06

  You know.

• 2:24:48Speaker 07

  And he, right, and he can have, he could have like the embassy X, X fill him. But then he would blow everything. So instead he decides to make his own way.

• 2:25:00Speaker 06

  He, he, he just, he does the Jason Bourne does, goes to the, you know, gets his supplies from, you know, some pharmacy where takes care of themselves, does the right thing, notifies, you know, we got a procedure. And, and to that, to, to your point, you know, that's what happened. So, but it was completely below the radar, did the right thing.

• 2:25:19Speaker 07

  Yeah, well, but.

• 2:25:20Speaker 06

  That's the level of stuff that really does happen. And, and you, um, you're proud of when your guys, your gals.

• 2:25:27Jack Murphy?

  That's, that's super hardcore. Like the way that accounts published in the books is that that guy was, uh, you know, mugged in a gas station essentially by crooks. But what you're laying out is like a kind of a pretty different situation.

• 2:25:41Speaker 06

  No, it wasn't a gas station. It was, you know, he's on his way to from the airport to.

• 2:25:46Jack Murphy?

  And this, these are not criminals. These are people who know who this dude is and they want to back him up.

• 2:25:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, you, one can, one could definitely make that assumption.

• 2:25:55Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah, right. No shit. It gets off an airplane.

• 2:25:58Speaker 07

  At that moment, he doesn't know that he's just responding to the situation.

• 2:26:03Speaker 06

  Exactly. Right. And that's the, that's where the crucible and Kelly McCann and, and all that training, all the combatants. Every freaking day of the week, three times a week, whatever it was, you know, pays off.

• 2:26:17Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:18Speaker 06

  It's a, it's muscle memory. It's, it's, it's all that stuff. It's, you, you know, you fight like you train and, uh,

• 2:26:26Jack Murphy?

  Questions.

• 2:26:27Speaker 06

  becomes part of who you are. And then, you know, the downside to that is it affects you later on. You know what I mean?

• 2:26:32Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:26:33Speaker 06

  Uh, yeah. Post, post retirement, you know, you, you gotta face your.

• 2:26:40Speaker 06

  Fisher demons or Fisher frailties.

• 2:26:43Speaker 07

  Right, right. And we've talked to, you know, we've talked to a number of other people who have, you know, talked about, you know, that challenge of, of what comes up after because it's easy to sort of subsume or push down or ignore that stuff when you're still going, you know, 100 miles an hour. But then when it all stops, all of it, then what are you left with and what comes up? And did you, that's kind of it with the question. Did you, did you have to deal? Like, were there things for you, like, working through afterwards?

• 2:27:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, honestly, where I'm at in my life right now, these are the things that I really feel are important. And it surprised me, but yes, I did.

• 2:27:39Speaker 06

  Because when I got out, PTSD was a stigma. It was, uh, it was something you didn't, of course, you did, you thought, oh, only.

• 2:27:49Speaker 07

  Other people have it, conventional, so right, right. Yeah.

• 2:27:53Speaker 06

  Exactly. And, um,

• 2:27:57Speaker 06

  but, you know, the assimilation part of society, you know, everybody has to go through some sort of, well, I shouldn't say everyone, but many of us, high performers, I want to say, you know, it's like we always joke about, it's a, it's a performance league, right? You, you, um,

• 2:28:17Speaker 06

  you know, you either have a good batting average, you drive in runs, or you don't, you know, so, and you constantly measure yourself based on your peers. You get out and you have to struggle with, uh, you struggle with, um,

• 2:28:32Speaker 06

  Relevancy, like I used to always joke about my, my, uh, fresh, my sell by date, my, uh,

• 2:28:41Speaker 06

  you know, when you get out and you've cut away, you've got a, an amount of relevancy in the community that unless you strap hang on to another organization is going to keep you relevant, you're going to, you know, things are going to move past you. And fortunately for me, I was able to do that. I ended up working with Mick and some other guys for a little while. Um, and, um, although it wasn't a real long time, I made a personal trip decision not to, it, it did keep me relevant. I, I did get to go do some things that I didn't get to do in the military that were just awesome. You know, I got more trigger

• 2:29:21Speaker 06

  time afterwards than I did, you know, um, later, but, um, it, it just what it wasn't what it was, but, uh, there were

• 2:29:32Speaker 07

  Once you, once you leave, you're gone, right? Like the gates close and you might still have friends, but you're closed off.

• 2:29:40Speaker 06

  Yeah. And, and you know what it is? You think, you think it's, you, you don't know how to make, you don't know how to navigate the waters, or you find yourself, you, for many of us, we wall ourself on because we, we feel like, I don't want to call, I don't want to talk to my buddies. I want, you know, I don't want to sound like I'm going to say something that sounds dated.

• 2:29:59Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:30:00Speaker 06

  Um, uh, I don't want to, uh, bother them. And you stay, you try to stay in touch, but, but at the same time you realize they're still running a hundred miles an hour and, and you're not. So, um, you know, it, it can take a toll and, and, and, uh, for me it did, uh, it's, it snuck up on me and, um, there, when I made the decision to kind of come off the, you know, come off the field and, and, uh, focus on marriage, a new marriage and, uh, having kids, um,

• 2:30:34Speaker 06

  it, you know, it was a deliberate decision and, uh, but it also forced me to face some things that, you know, what was going to happen in the future. And at some point you real, for, I feel fortunate that I recognized that I couldn't fix it myself.

• 2:30:50Speaker 06

  And I reached out. It just turned out it was this weird thing. I, I gotta say, I was walking into Wegmans one day and I hadn't seen Rod

• 2:31:03Speaker 06

  Gonzo, this one guy, he's a IS intel guy, in a few years. And he said, hey, what's up, Drew? And we're shooting the shit in the parking lot. And maybe you could just see it. It must have been written all over my face. And he's like, hey, you're Hur Headstrong. And I'm like, no. And he goes, yeah, well, they got a lot of money. They're helping, helping guys. And just give them a call. And I looked them up. Ended up calling them, having this inject with, with someone, you know, and just kind of explaining things that I just didn't understand what was going through my head. I never thought about doing anything, you know, drastic. Some people, you know, with 22 and

• 2:31:46Speaker 06

  suicide and all that kind of stuff. But, but I realized I just, after 25 years or 27 years of doing whatever I was doing, I was suddenly I found myself waters I couldn't control. Right.

• 2:31:59Speaker 06

  Somebody else. And so I reached out and talked to this guy. Did an inject. Next thing I know, I'm like, talking to a psychiatrist. Next thing I know, I'm talking to, you know, getting help. And Headstrong was started by a Marine captain or major, who, a bunch of his major, a bunch of his platoon members,

• 2:32:22Speaker 06

  after Ramadi and Fallujah, young guys were killing themselves, suicide, because they came back to the world and, and they were, you know, they had issues and they were young, young kids.

• 2:32:35Speaker 06

  But, you know, the VA just handed them a bag of pills. Right. And so the stigma of PTSD was this, you know, before Niko, Niko was formed for the guys that the tier one units now, where you, you actually, you know, get the proper treatment, the proper trend.

• 2:32:57Speaker 06

  Transition and assessment like Mark talks about. Anyway, that was before that. I was worried about my TSSCI, TK Gamma, all that kind of stuff. Right? You know, I was worried about like, well, if somebody finds out I got, you know, issues, I won't be a case officer or whatever.

• 2:33:18Speaker 06

  So this was completely anonymous. They kept, you know, it was all done by big, big deep pocket donors. You got the help you needed without any kind of stigma and headstrong savings, basically. And that's why, you know, I'm where I'm at today. Not that, not that things would have necessarily been,

• 2:33:41Speaker 06

  you know, negative, but.

• 2:33:43Speaker 07

  Fatal, but.

• 2:33:46Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:33:46Speaker 06

  I can't do it myself.

• 2:33:47Speaker 07

  Right, right. And, and again, I get what you're saying that you're, you're not, you're not saying that maybe there were thoughts of self-harm, but it becomes sort of an isolation and sort of a downward spiral inside of that isolation that just, that just like, it's not necessarily leading to a path that is physically detrimental, but it's a path where you just sort of isolate and keep, you know, push away family, friends, whatever.

• 2:34:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, when, when you, when your,

• 2:34:25Speaker 06

  when your spouse says something innocent and you cook off, you go on this fucking tirade and you're like, you know, you're just like, you have this out of body experience where like, you don't get it. And then you realize, they don't get it.

• 2:34:41Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:34:41Speaker 06

  Why should they get it?

• 2:34:43Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:34:43Speaker 06

  No, they didn't live.

• 2:34:45Speaker 07

  And thank God they don't get it, right? I mean, yeah.

• 2:34:48Speaker 06

  You realize, wow, um, okay, I'm gonna try all these different things. Alcohol, I'll try this, I'll try that. You know, you do, you do, you go down, down all the different rabbit holes and you realize. Okay, you know, this is just an area where I need a subject matter expert. You know, I need somebody else who, you know, I need you. I need, I don't know what I need, but, but I need something else.

• 2:35:12Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:35:13Speaker 06

  And it's good, you know, I mean, there's, there's a lot more. We've, we've really progressed a lot since I went through that. So.

• 2:35:18Jack Murphy?

  Drew, um, I, um. I, I want to ask you something, and maybe this is somewhat selfish of me, but I'll go ahead and ask anyway. And I don't want to say more than you maybe want to talk about publicly, but you have told something to me that like it kind of resonated and, and, and I can relate to it on a personal level. Like there's a time in your life, like you decided to set aside this life as an operator or a soldier or a sailor, a badass, or whatever it is. And like choose to be a father and a husband and like, and like play this sort of other role in life.

• 2:35:57Jack Murphy?

  And I was wondering if you would be willing to like, talk a little bit about like the very like kind of conscious decision you made to move from one life to another. Because like, that's something that just, I, I, it really clicked with me at least.

• 2:36:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's a great question. It's like, and, and we all have these preconceived ideas of what our life's going to be like. I'm going to get out, I'm going to work for CIA, I'm going to be a paramilitary contractor. I'm going to buy land in Montana. I'm gonna do this, this, and this. I'm going to get my pilot's license, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever. And, uh, and then, you know, life throws you a, uh, a softball. You think it's a curve, but it's softball and you swing and miss. And if you just like paid attention to it and hit it the right way, it would have been the best thing. So you, you have it like for me, I, I, I felt like, uh, I met my wife, uh,

• 2:36:53Speaker 06

  and, or at the time, um, and.

• 2:37:00Speaker 06

  We were gonna go down this path that from Dave's old place. And I realized that wasn't the right fit for me. Because the organization was saying,

• 2:37:17Speaker 06

  your spouse has to basically stop her career. I'm gonna be blunt about it because it needs to be said. Yeah, I think so. She's, you know, I, I look at my, you know, she's a rock, rising rock star in her field. Right. Global. Right. And,

• 2:37:36Speaker 06

  you know, within the, the organization was saying, yeah, you know, but, but she has contacts. Right. All these foreign contacts. And I thought, I put myself in her shoes, like, what if somebody said that to me when I was in the beginning of my civil career? Yeah. What do I, what do I have? How would I feel today if I had given all that, all of what I've experienced up? Right. Right? And I felt like, that's not fair. I got to live my career. I got to do exactly what I chose to do and I had a, I had a great career and

• 2:38:12Speaker 06

  I, I wouldn't want to put that on anybody else. So I decided, hey, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna decouple. Yeah. Um, I'm not gonna impose that restriction on my significant other and be a support element. Uh, meantime, so I started doing, you know, IC work, training people, doing whatever. And it was hard. It was really hard. Yeah. It was real hard because, you know, we're talking, things were still very kinetic, very going on. And we'd been a coin advisor in Afghanistan for a year and that was very rewarding, working with Marines. Uh, working for Crystal and Petraeus. We didn't even talk about that. That's another podcast probably, but, um, you know,

• 2:38:54Speaker 06

  you, you have to like some, at some point, you just gotta make the decision to pull the cutaway pillow. Yeah. Right? And hope your reserve opens. You pull that reserve pillow and thank God the rigor packed it right.

• 2:39:12Speaker 06

  I saved my life, right? You know, and then you have to deal with everything after that. And um, uh, the transition was was a challenge, but uh, I'm I've embraced it. And now we have I have two wonderful children that I just adore. And I my wife is uh, a rock star and I'm just glad to be her XO and support structure.

• 2:39:36Speaker 07

  And you know, we've kind of talked about that before that, you know, there, you know, especially for special operations, right? It's a volunteer service. Nobody gets strapped. Then it's back ops, like then you're volunteering two times or three times. And people can say, thank you for your service. But at the end of the day, we are all doing what we love and we are living in a way a a pretty selfish life.

• 2:40:04Jack Murphy?

  You're living the dream.

• 2:40:05Speaker 07

  We are living our dream. And you know, and what gets left behind are the wives and the children when we're doing that. And you know, they're the ones who, you know, the spouses are the ones who wonder like, what's going on when we haven't been able to contact them for two or three weeks at a time? Right? Or or whatever. One more question. Okay. And and for you to make such a, I don't want to say mature, because obviously you're a grown man, but but

• 2:40:38Jack Murphy?

  It's a mature decision.

• 2:40:39Speaker 07

  It's a mature decision to say, like, I've been living my dream. And now if I like, if I want to keep living this thing that I've been living, then I have to sort of ask my wife to stop living her dream. Right?

• 2:40:54Speaker 06

  And yeah, that that was a nonstarter. Um, it it but but that it's it's a.

• 2:41:04Speaker 06

  Uh, it's a complex thing, right? I don't think I made it with a clarity. I'm, I'm, I'm relaying it to you. Okay. It was, it was a lot of uh, unknowns.

• 2:41:15Speaker 07

  Sure.

• 2:41:16Speaker 06

  Right. It was, it was intuition. It was more like instinct. It's like, I need help.

• 2:41:22Speaker 06

  Right? And I didn't even know why, because I was like, I know guys who did three hundred hits. Lost guys in their arms, you know, people died in their arms. I mean, I, I didn't have that kind of experience. I had a lot of very interesting experiences. I mean, stuff I can't talk about right now, but, but they weren't traumatic. So, so when it came time for me to deal with traumatic, the aspect of like, I don't, I mean, you know, when I'm asking people, when, when the psychs ask me the question. So what happened? You know, what was a traumatic episode? I'm like, I don't know. How many people did you kill? Well, I give the number, right? Yeah, but that doesn't bother me. It's like, I, I guess I don't have, you know, but then at the end of the day, it's like, how many people did I

• 2:42:06Speaker 06

  have disappeared because of what I did? Or how many people, you know?

• 2:42:10Speaker 07

  And, and that's the thing.

• 2:42:11Speaker 06

  I, I didn't even, I don't even care about that aspect. The, the point is, we end up at a point at a crossroads and whether we understand how we got there or not is important, is not important. What's important is what you do when you get to that, why in the road, the crossroads. And you recognize I'm lost. Okay?

• 2:42:30Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:42:32Speaker 06

  And, and I need, you know, this is the point where, you know, I gotta ask for directions or I gotta ask for help.

• 2:42:38Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:42:38Speaker 06

  Um, and you don't know what that help is, but you've got to at least ask.

• 2:42:42Speaker 07

  And, and yeah. No, we, we get that. I mean, I think that, and that's been a comment throughout too, that like, people want to think that like, whether it's post-traumatic stress or, or what, whatever it is, that there's supposed to be this big moment when your best friend died in your arms or whatever. And there's not always that moment, like.

• 2:43:03Speaker 06

  It can be a cumulative effect.

• 2:43:05Speaker 07

  It can be, exactly. You know, it can be going from a hundred miles an hour, always on the go, always like living on the edge, to nothing. And all of a sudden, like, there are these like shockwaves and reverberations that follow that, that there's, there's not a singular event. What's

• 2:43:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, so it to that point, what happens is this, uh, this is, this is why I'm a big fan of um,

• 2:43:33Speaker 06

  Andrew Hub and some other folks on our guest. There's a chemical change that happens in your body. When you're constantly used to being in a high, high stress environment and performing at a high level, your body changes, your body chemistry changes. Okay, your cortisol level changes, your, you know, your, your heart, there's so many things, I mean, you're used to fighting at night and sleeping during the day, you're about to, you're taking Ambien, you're, you know, you're doing amphetamines to do whatever, or whatever on occasion. But at the end of the day, you're just used to a different body chemistry. Your body chemistry physically actually changes. And then you come back to, to a normal life, so to speak.

• 2:44:18Speaker 06

  Um, and you're challenged by that because now all of a sudden, everything about you, you know, you look across the street, different activity, you walk into a grocery store, you're checking your corners, you know, where's the exits? Um, okay, what's this driver gonna do? You know, all these things that happen that um, it's, it's part of a chemistry thing and uh,

• 2:44:43Speaker 06

  you know, we all, we all have to deal with that in some way or another. Or to some degree or another, and, and you don't, you think you're in complete control or command of yourself. And, and then you're faced with these, then you realize one day that, you know, you're barking at your wife. You're, you know, you're doing all this weird shit, you're hyper vigilant, whatever it is.

• 2:45:04Speaker 07

  Mm hmm.

• 2:45:05Speaker 06

  Alcohol.

• 2:45:06Speaker 07

  Pulling people out of their cars on the road, you know.

• 2:45:08Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:45:09Speaker 07

  Whatever happens.

• 2:45:11Speaker 06

  I mean, you know, you're getting angry at folks or you're just thinking, you know.

• 2:45:16Speaker 06

  I can go on, but, but the point is, it's not that you're fucked up. It's that you've also been, if you know, over 25 years, you've been conditioned. Your body chemistry has changed. Your neurological aspect of your life, you know, you can't, one, you know, the guys who took down, took down Captain, you know, rescued Captain Phillips, you know, 48 hours later, they're driving through, you know, the drive-through at Taco Bell.

• 2:45:44Speaker 07

  Right, right.

• 2:45:46Speaker 06

  It's like, right, you just shot some guy in the face and, and 40 hours later, you're.

• 2:45:51Speaker 07

  Right. In, in, in a world that doesn't, I mean, thankfully, I'm not like putting civilians down for that, but, but have no concept of that.

• 2:45:59Jack Murphy?

  You went from Baghdad to your living room.

• 2:46:01Speaker 07

  Right, right. Or, or the Hooters or, or the.

• 2:46:06Speaker 06

  Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying yep to VYAPT, eptinezumab, JJMR, an IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive if allergic to VYAPT. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure or color changes, pain, or numbness in fingers or toes. Common side effects are stuffy nose, scratchy throat, and allergic reactions. Tap the ad to see how many migraine-free days you might reclaim and see the full prescribing information at vyapt.com.

• 2:46:50Speaker 07

  Hey guys, Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Cris mornings, pumpkin spice latte, and it's the best time to cozy up and play Spin Quest. They have over a thousand different slots in all my favorite casino-style games, and they're running a deal for all new players. A $30 coin package for just 10 bucks. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com and download the app today.

• 2:47:14Speaker 03

  Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 2:47:20Speaker 07

  You know, you know, scissor or whatever. Yeah, exactly.

• 2:47:23Jack Murphy?

  What's, what's the last question here?

• 2:47:25Speaker 07

  Um, the last question, thank you for Lauren Sess for both the donations. Is there any credibility to the rumors of the Kandahar giant and the Taliban fighters needing eight to nine bullets to go down due to Captagon or other substances?

• 2:47:44Speaker 07

  Beats, yeah.

• 2:47:45Speaker 06

  I didn't even know how to answer that. I will tell you this, that

• 2:47:51Speaker 06

  as far as Afghanistan goes, when a year ago, when things were going sideways in Afghanistan,

• 2:48:04Speaker 06

  I felt

• 2:48:06Speaker 06

  very betrayed as a US service member who watched a lot of

• 2:48:18Speaker 06

  who knows of, I mean, I've been to too many funerals, right?

• 2:48:21Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:48:23Speaker 06

  And when that happened, I jumped on the the the Vepro bandwagon to help get get folks out.

• 2:48:32Speaker 06

  And

• 2:48:37Speaker 06

  to speak to the the issues of PTSD, I feel like betrayal is

• 2:48:47Speaker 06

  something that people need to understand, need to check out. You know, when when you're, when you sign up, you're you're defend the Constitution, carry out the orders of the day, you know, blah, blah, blah. And you want to do your job, you kind of don't care. But you don't want what you do to be completely

• 2:49:09Speaker 07

  meaningless.

• 2:49:10Speaker 06

  discounted.

• 2:49:11Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:49:12Speaker 06

  You know, is worthless. And

• 2:49:16Speaker 06

  as far as that, you know, mean type question goes,

• 2:49:24Speaker 06

  people should

• 2:49:29Speaker 06

  recognize that

• 2:49:32Speaker 06

  when young Americans, I mean, the the thirteen Marines and and all, I share something in common with the thirteen Marines that died in I can't, it's can't.

• 2:49:44Speaker 06

  They did that because they're looking at, they believe in what they're doing, they believe in their brotherhood, they believe, you know, and and representing the United States

• 2:49:55Speaker 06

  as a true

• 2:49:59Speaker 06

  beacon of hope and

• 2:50:04Speaker 06

  Every now and then we need to take a reset and recognize that.

• 2:50:10Speaker 06

  But if we don't, if we don't have those values anymore, you know, what's going to fill that void?

• 2:50:15Speaker 07

  Right. And you know, it's interesting because our veterans have always sort of led the charge in that from Vietnam, like bringing home the Vietnamese, bringing, when I say bring home.

• 2:50:26Jack Murphy?

  Jim Morris was a big part of it.

• 2:50:28Speaker 07

  The Vietnamese, the Montagnards, Nungs, that sacrificed so much to work with us. You know, Afghanistan, Iraq, like the Kurds during the first Gulf War, we, we completely let them to their own devices after they trusted us so much. It, it, you know, it's easy to blame a, a politician for those issues, but it seems to be a trend of, of the American government, like, and generally it takes the veterans that worked with, with those indigenous forces to, to like lead the charge on, on getting them the sanctuary.

• 2:51:12Jack Murphy?

  Drew, could, could you talk to us a little bit about, what you're doing now, some of the things we have planned for the future? What, what, what's the next step? What's the next move for you?

• 2:51:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, thanks, Jack, for, again, just being a maestro.

• 2:51:32Speaker 06

  Yeah, so I've, I've, I've kind of like tried to, oh, so I got out as an imposter, a lieutenant.

• 2:51:43Speaker 06

  To be a commissioned officer in the Navy as a Mustang. To retire as an officer, you have to do 10 years as in service, right?

• 2:51:56Speaker 06

  Now, I was, I was, um, I was, I was pretty banged up by the time I got out. Um, I'd had like four shoulder surgeries, couple knee surgeries. Uh, ankle plates, a bunch of other stuff. Um, and when it came time to retire, I was like, I was all thinking about, hey, I'm gonna go and uh, work for Wexford, work for AWG, do this and that, you know, yada, yada, make money. Um, and when it came time to retire, I was doing my out, out physical and um, I was pretty, pretty effed up and my squadron surgeon, to his credit, said, hey, you know, you ever thought about a medical retirement? And like, well, that's for guys that got blown up or whatever. It's not for me.

• 2:52:41Speaker 06

  He goes, no, you're, you know, the definition is, can you do your job, right? And so anyway, one thing led to another. So he helped me do a med board, medical retirement board. And it, it just didn't turn out that I was, I was pretty effed up. I was.

• 2:52:57Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:52:59Speaker 07

  I mean, granted, yeah.

• 2:53:01Speaker 06

  Yeah. Steroids and, and, and Motrin and, and PRP injections.

• 2:53:06Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:53:06Speaker 06

  One led to another.

• 2:53:07Speaker 07

  Little vitamin M, right?

• 2:53:10Speaker 06

  What's that?

• 2:53:11Speaker 07

  Little vitamin M to get you through your day. Yeah.

• 2:53:14Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah. I was living on it. Um. So I did a med board and uh, I, you know, the medical board said, yeah, you're, you're pretty fucked up, dude. Uh, we're gonna medically retire. Well, I got twenty-two plus years of servicing. That's not gonna work. So what I thought was gonna happen is because I wasn't gonna do the ten years as, as an officer, I was gonna have to revert back to Master Chief, right? So the poor unit, they're like thinking, they're planning my retirement as a Master Chief. I had to buy the uniform, the whole thing. And then, you know, BUMED comes back and says, oh, no, we're gonna retire. When you get medically retired, you retire at a, the highest pay grade, or the highest rank you have, pay grade.

• 2:53:57Speaker 06

  So for like nine months, I was a E9. And then all of a sudden it was back to O3, right?

• 2:54:04Speaker 07

  Wow.

• 2:54:04Speaker 06

  So I retired as an O3.

• 2:54:09Speaker 06

  That was the best thing that could happen. So I retired with a hundred percent disability for a number of reasons. Not the least of which was the things we've been talking about amongst the physical stuff. But I went back to school, got, used my GI Bill, got, got my degree in history, a bachelor's into history, and then I got a master's in international affairs and,

• 2:54:38Speaker 06

  you know, turned my life around. So I'm not sure if I'm on track for answering your question, Jack, refresh my memory, but.

• 2:54:46Jack Murphy?

  You're on track and taking care of your kids, being a family man, and you told me that you wanted to start a podcast.

• 2:54:57Speaker 06

  Right. Yeah. So, so the next step was like, what am I going to do with myself? How do I reinvent myself? And I struggled with the whole, you know, IC world, paramilitary terror world, case officer world, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, meanwhile, these, I have these two great kids, you know, I'm blessed by God to, you know, meet this woman who's just so intelligent. I mean, and we have two wonderful children. And then suddenly I realized I had this wonderful opportunity to, to raise kids and be present. I know so many friends on both sides, Army and

• 2:55:41Speaker 06

  Navy, who in their, in their weren't present, weren't able to be present because they had career conflicts. And then, you know, their families were challenged by that. And if it wasn't for their, you know, real strong spouse or whatnot, you know, that was, that determined the success. But back to, you know, now I've got this opportunity and very recently I've realized that I think what I would like to pursue is, you know, the kind of the Vet TV version of what we've all learned from being in special operations and having families,

• 2:56:24Speaker 06

  you know, how the lessons learned, the pros and cons, the funny stuff. And so.

• 2:56:34Speaker 06

  I'm going to do some of what I call Combat Dad, basically come, you know, podcast. And it's, it's to talk to vets. You don't have to be a combat veteran necessarily, but what do you, you know, how do you deal with family issues? How do you deal with, you know, the challenges of, of raising children? Like, my kids don't know, know nothing about my past. Like, they're, they're eight and six years old, right? Old men, but, you know, and, and, and they, I might as well be a World War II veteran.

• 2:57:07Speaker 07

  Right, right.

• 2:57:09Speaker 06

  Yeah, but, but now they're asking questions, you know?

• 2:57:12Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:57:13Speaker 06

  And, and I realize all the mistakes I made, all the things I learned, all the things that had I been a good dad before or in the military, I would have been a better leader, right?

• 2:57:23Speaker 07

  Right. And, and how does it feel as a dad when, when your kids just won't follow the chain of command?

• 2:57:31Speaker 06

  Oh, geez. When, when, when you realize, this, this is part of the back, back story to, you know, Headstrong and, and getting help, right? When you get in the grill, you get in your kid's grill, and you're like, blah, blah, blah, right? And they're like, crying, and you realize it.

• 2:57:52Jack Murphy?

  Did I not lay out my task conditions and standards for this task? What, what is the problem?

• 2:57:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, here's the commander's intent, here are your left and right limits, get the fuck, get it the fuck done.

• 2:58:04Speaker 06

  And you, and you try everything, right? Like, okay, if you make your bed, you get to put the green check mark on the magnetic board. If you do this, you get to put the, at the end of the week, we tally all that shit up, and you get to, you get to have, you know, if you, if you met the standard, you get to have a movie night. Well, that sounds great, right? But it doesn't work, right? And then you realize, all the shit going on is a matter of me not trying to overanalyze it, but just grabbing my kid and putting my arm around him and hugging him.

• 2:58:37Speaker 07

  But, Drew, have you tried the, the, um, the dunk test? I mean, have you tried the hundred mile hour take? And the circle?

• 2:58:48Speaker 06

  The trap proofing?

• 2:58:49Speaker 07

  The dunk test with the hundred mile hour take and the circle? Like, maybe that'll get them in line.

• 2:58:55Speaker 06

  The problem is, it's not them, it's me.

• 2:58:59Speaker 07

  Right, I know.

• 2:59:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's, it's, uh, you realize it's like, you know,

• 2:59:06Speaker 06

  garbage in, garbage out. And, and when you think you're, they're not paying attention, they are, you know, so, um, I, I just, I just wanted to say I'm blessed to have the opportunity to be president.

• 2:59:18Speaker 07

  So.

• 2:59:18Speaker 06

  The fact, the fact that I can,

• 2:59:22Speaker 06

  I get to be Mr. Mom.

• 2:59:24Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:59:25Speaker 06

  I'm blessed, man. I, I just, I can't tell you. I, I learn more from my kids than, than, than anything. So, uh, I, I have no complaints. Combat Dad is coming, the podcast.

• 2:59:38Speaker 07

  Do you, do you have a channel for that? Cause we wanna, like, we wanna, like, hook you up, like, like, we wanna, we want our viewers to raid your very first podcast and, and make you a, like, you know, unlike us with our first, with our 10 viewers on our first podcast, us getting drunk and whatnot, like, how, how can we help you make it happen?

• 3:00:00Speaker 06

  Um, I, I, I wish I'd had the, um, Combat Dads is coming. Uh, you know, maybe we can do a, like a shorty in the future.

• 3:00:10Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 3:00:11Speaker 06

  Um, and, and I'll give you the links. Um, also Ajax Shrugged on Locals is going to be a, uh, a link you can post. And that's where I'm going to talk about more serious stuff.

• 3:00:21Speaker 07

  Okay, great.

• 3:00:22Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, let it, let it, let us know when the podcast comes out and I, I would love to direct people towards that.

• 3:00:26Speaker 07

  We will plug the hell out of you. Uh, we love you and we, you know, we, we wish you all the success and it's an important topic.

• 3:00:33Jack Murphy?

  And Drew, I, I know, I, I know we kind of just sort of like hit like the wave tops of your career here. And there's so much more to talk about. I, but we've kept you for like three hours here at this point. And I really appreciate you being so patient with us and coming back on a Saturday to do the show. Um, it's been great. It's been a great conversation, man.

• 3:00:55Speaker 06

  My pleasure, dude.

• 3:00:57Speaker 07

  We have one last question that came in, um, and it's from Love Star and thank you very much. And guys, please, uh, we're not accepting anymore. Like, we don't want you to, like, give us, we'll take your money, but we won't be able to ask you more questions after this. Um, many new school labor unions are using, uh, UW unconventional warfare tactics to conduct collective bargaining.

• 3:01:21Speaker 07

  How do you feel about homegrown submers- homegrown subversives challenge authority with an asymmetrical mindset? I don't know. Sorry, late question. What to make of that? And, and that could be like, any, from, from any angle, uh, in, homegrown subversives, but also challenging authority, which, you know, so go ahead, please.

• 3:01:45Speaker 06

  Okay, so, one of the things I learned, um, you know, we all come into the military, we all have our preconceived ideas of, of, um, what we want to accomplish, and then reality sets in over time. Um, I did 14 deployments, right? Um, not every one of them was combat, but, but at least, you know, many of them, 10 of them were, you know, high threat slash, you know, whatever. What you, what you learn from that kind of repetition is to recognize not what you think, but what you see, you know, get, to give the ground truth.

• 3:02:29Speaker 06

  And, um, sometimes the ground truth doesn't dovetail with the commander's intent. Um, so, I would say, um, maybe to answer this question, you gotta dig deeper than the surface level of, um, you know, how that applies to domestic aspects.

• 3:02:53Jack Murphy?

  Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying yep to vype t, eptinezumab, JJMR, an IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive if allergic to vype t. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure, or color changes, pain, or numbness in fingers or toes. Common side effects are stuffy nose, scratchy throat, and allergic reactions. Tap the ad to see how many migraine-free days you might reclaim, and see the full prescribing information at vype t.com.

• 3:03:35Jack Murphy?

  Say yep to vype t. Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying.

• 3:03:43Speaker 03

  At home and playing on Spin Quest and there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get $30 coin packs for just $10. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash prizes. That's at spinquest.com S P I N Q U E S T dot com. Spin Quest is a free to play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 3:04:09Speaker 06

  I'm inferring, I'm assuming that's what we're talking about, right?

• 3:04:14Jack Murphy?

  I don't even know.

• 3:04:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm assuming that because it's homegrown subversive. So I'm assuming we're speaking domestically.

• 3:04:24Speaker 06

  Yeah, so having seen what an insurgency is, having seen what counter, you know, what terrorist cells look like, having seen all this stuff. We're not seeing any of that level of stuff in the United States. Um, I confidently I can tell you there is not that level of concern in the United States.

• 3:04:47Speaker 06

  There are people that are disgruntled, they're upset and you know, they're making their, their note. But, but the actual scale or scope of folks that need to be dealt with on the, on, you know, that are being compared to, you know, other

• 3:05:07Speaker 06

  other elements is, is incorrect.

• 3:05:10Speaker 07

  Right.

• 3:05:10Speaker 06

  And it's, it's unfortunate that that narrative is being, in my opinion, being promoted. It's a, it's a propaganda slash political type disinformation as far as I'm concerned. Now, are there people that, that have those intents or those thoughts? Absolutely.

• 3:05:29Speaker 07

  Right.

• 3:05:30Speaker 06

  But is it, but is it a wide scale enough to be considered prevalent? To be considered, you know?

• 3:05:39Speaker 06

  An insurgency or something to be concerned about, I Yeah, it's not, it's not like AQI in America, yeah.

• 3:05:46Speaker 07

  Right, and

• 3:05:47Speaker 06

  I mean, I, I was a coin advisor in Afghanistan.

• 3:05:51Speaker 07

  Right.

• 3:05:51Speaker 06

  And at the day, it's like, I know counterinsurgency stuff like, you know, as well as I know how to kill bad guys, so.

• 3:05:59Speaker 07

  Right, and coin, and coin is counterinsurgency for, for our, our people who may not know. And, and so like what people may see, whether their, their, you know, whether their viewpoint is from the left or the right, like they see the far right or they see the far left, and they see sort of this propaganda and this information that is sort of being put out there. But, but what you're saying is that that's more of an information war that it's not, that the effort or, or the ground gained is not similar to what you would actually see in a counterinsurgency from either side.

• 3:06:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 3:06:38Speaker 07

  Is that fair, I'm asking, yeah?

• 3:06:41Speaker 06

  Absolutely, I mean, I mean, there's this, we could do a whole podcast on counterinsurgency aspects. But at the end of the day, this is garbage in, garbage out. If, if someone's telling you something and you choose to believe it without, without challenging the source or, or doing your own due diligence, then you're just, you're just, you know, a sheep at the end, you know, in my opinion. Are we at a, a difficult time in our country? Absolutely. We're, we're polarized. We, we need to go back to civility. We, we need to work hard on, you know, taking care of our neighbors, our neighborhood, our cities.

• 3:07:26Speaker 07

  Right.

• 3:07:27Speaker 06

  Or counties.

• 3:07:28Speaker 07

  Right.

• 3:07:29Speaker 06

  Um, in finding common ground, because we all share 90% of the same common ground.

• 3:07:33Speaker 07

  Right.

• 3:07:35Speaker 06

  So.

• 3:07:36Speaker 07

  Most people are just trying to put their table, make sure their kids are safe in schools like, like they're trying to live a normal life while a, a small minority on each side is sort of controlling the dialogue in a way, right?

• 3:07:50Speaker 06

  Yeah, you know, I, I want to, you know, be fair to your audience too. So, um, you know, I could, I could tell war stories all day.

• 3:07:59Speaker 07

  Right.

• 3:07:59Speaker 06

  You know, there I was and maybe, maybe that's, maybe that's better, but, but, uh, we're all Americans and, and we need to like, look for common ground and take care of your neighbors. You know, pay attention to who lives next door to you, you know, you know, know what, what's going on and just be a good person.

• 3:08:19Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 3:08:20Jack Murphy?

  Drew, uh, I really appreciate your time tonight, man. And, um, I hope we can do this again sometime. I hope we can talk you into, uh, joining us in Brooklyn sometime. If you care, if you care, if you care to join the evil, the evil empire.

• 3:08:34Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 3:08:34Jack Murphy?

  Uh, at some point.

• 3:08:36Speaker 06

  My wife, my wife, uh, just took my son, she's taking my daughter, my son up to New York twice now. She, she does these getaways, right?

• 3:08:44Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:45Speaker 06

  It was a one on one.

• 3:08:46Jack Murphy?

  You let, let, let us know, Drew, we'll talk.

• 3:08:49Speaker 06

  Yeah. And, and I, I keep saying, I don't fucking want to go to Manhattan again.

• 3:08:54Jack Murphy?

  You don't have to, you don't have to. That's the beauty of it.

• 3:08:56Speaker 07

  You know, yeah, you know, like you.

• 3:08:58Speaker 06

  I don't want my car broken into, right?

• 3:09:00Speaker 07

  No, you know, yeah, well, we'll get you an Uber.

• 3:09:02Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:09:03Speaker 07

  Leave your girl, leave your car in, in a secure garage. We'll get you an Uber and, uh, yeah.

• 3:09:09Jack Murphy?

  So folks, next, next Friday, Chris Cox, author of Fire Force, uh, served the Rhodesian Light Infantry. We'll have him on the show. Drew, thank you so much. Thank you, everyone for being with us.

• 3:09:20Speaker 07

  We deeply, deeply appreciate you coming on. Everybody, we'll, we'll keep an lookout for Combat Dads and, and Atlas, not Shrugged.

• 3:09:28Speaker 06

  Ajax Shrugged.

• 3:09:29Speaker 07

  Ajax Shrugged.

• 3:09:30Speaker 06

  All right. Hey, thanks, guys. It's been my pleasure.

• 3:09:33Jack Murphy?

  And we'll see. Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying yep to vayepdi, eptinezumab, JJMR, an IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent. Migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive of allergic to VYAPT. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure or color changes, pain, or numbness in fingers or toes. Common side effects are stuffy nose, scratchy throat, and allergic reactions. Tap the ad to see how many migraine-free days you might reclaim and see the full prescribing information at vyapt.com.

• 3:10:19Jack Murphy?

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• 3:10:43Speaker 03

  Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 3:10:49Speaker 06

  Do next Friday. All right, brother.

• 3:10:52Speaker 07

  Thanks, everybody.

• 3:10:55Jack Murphy?

  Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying "Yep to VYAPT, Eptinizumab J.J.M.R." An IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive of allergic to VYAPT. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure or color changes, pain, or numbness in fingers or toes. Common side effects are stuffy nose, scratchy throat, and allergic reactions. Tap the ad to see how many migraine-free days you might reclaim and see the full prescribing information at vyapt.com.

• 3:11:39Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Kris' Morning Pumpkin Spice Latte, and it's the best time to cozy up and play Spin Quest. They have over a thousand different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players, a $30 coin package for just $10. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com, and download the app today.

• 3:12:04Speaker 03

  Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 3:12:16Jack Murphy?

  Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying yep to VYAPT, eptinezumab, JJMR, an IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive of allergic to VYAPT. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure, or color changes, pain, or numbness in fingers or toes. Common side effects are stuffy nose, scratchy throat, and allergic reactions. Tap the ad to see how many migraine-free days you might reclaim and see the full prescribing information at vyapt.com.

• 3:13:00Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Cris Mornings Pumpkin Spice Latte. And it's the best time to cozy up and play Spin Quest. They have over a thousand different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players. A $30 coin package for just $10. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com, and download the app today.

• 3:13:25Speaker 03

  Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 3:13:37Jack Murphy?

  Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying yep to VYAPT, eptinezumab, JJMR, an IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive of allergic to VYAPT. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure, or color changes, pain, or numbness in fingers or toes. Common side effects are stuffy nose, scratchy throat, and allergic reactions. Tap the ad to see how many migraine-free days you might reclaim and see the full prescribing information at vyapt.com.

• 3:14:21Jack Murphy?

  It's big, spooky, and wicked. Spinquest.com. Grab a handful of Halloween treats like blackjack, bubble craps, and slots. All your freaking faves in one beautiful place. Spinquest.com. And right now, new monsters get $30 coin packs for 10. Visit Spinquest.com or download the app tonight.

• 3:14:45Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit Spinquest.com for more details.

• 3:14:58Jack Murphy?

  Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying yep to VYAPT. Eptinezumab, JJMR. An IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive if allergic to VYAPT. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure or color changes, pain, or numbness in fingers or toes. Common side effects are stuffy nose, scratchy throat, and allergic reactions. Tap the ad to see how many migraine-free days you might reclaim and see the full prescribing information at VYAPT.com.

• 3:15:43Speaker 02

  Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, lady luck?

• 3:15:47Jack Murphy?

  Betsy, I got you. I've had so much luck on Spinquest.com. They have all of my favorite games, slot games, live blackjack, craps, and bubble craps. You can even get a $30 coin pack for just $10.

• 3:16:00Speaker 02

  $10 for 30? I'm heading over to Spinquest.com right now.

• 3:16:04Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit Spinquest.com for more details.

• 3:16:18Jack Murphy?

  Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying yep to VYEPTI, Eptinezumab, JJMR, an IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive of allergic to VYEPTI. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure or color changes, pain, or numbness in fingers or toes. Common side effects are stuffy nose, scratchy throat, and allergic reactions. Tap the ad to see how many migraine-free days you might reclaim and see the full prescribing information at VYEPTI.com.

• 3:17:00Speaker 00

  Say yep to VYEPTI.

• 3:17:02Jack Murphy?

  Hey guys, Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Cris Mornings Pumpkin Spice Latte, and it's the best time to cozy up and play Spin Quest. They have over 1,000 different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players, a $30 coin package for just $10. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com, and download the app today.

• 3:17:27Speaker 03

  Spin Quest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 3:17:40Jack Murphy?

  Migraine makes me miss out on the moments that matter. So I asked my doctor about saying yep to VYEPTI, Eptinezumab, JJMR, an IV infusion given every three months that helps prevent migraine attacks in adults. Don't receive of allergic to VYEPTI. Get help right away for allergic reactions like rash, swelling of face, lips, tongue, or throat, trouble breathing, hives, or facial redness. Tell your doctor if you have constipation that is severe or associated with severe or constant belly pain or swelling, vomiting, or bloating. If you have increased blood pressure or color changes, pain, or numbness in fingers or toes. Common side effects are stuffy nose, scratchy throat, and allergic reactions. Tap the ad to see how many migraine-free days you might reclaim and see the full prescribing information at VYEPTI.com.

• 3:18:25Speaker 06

  Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drinking one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at Spinquest. Over 1,000 games, including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at spinquest.com.

• 3:18:48Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 3:18:55Speaker 00

  She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.

• 3:19:08Speaker 01

  Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people 1 year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects, such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems, have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair. This is an advertisement for Zolair,

• 3:19:53Speaker 01

  paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 3:19:55Jack Murphy?

  Hey, guys, Lady Luck here. I just love the fall season. Cris mornings, pumpkin spice latte, and it's the best time to cozy up and play Spinquest. They have over 1,000 different slots in all my favorite casino-style games. And they're running a deal for all new players, a $30 coin package for just $10. So this fall, grab your favorite blanket, visit spinquest.com, and download the app today.

• 3:20:19Speaker 03

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Your Saturday's packed, and overthinking's getting

• 3:20:27Jack Murphy?

  care isn't on the agenda. Simple can still be effective because going overboard with active ingredients can weaken the skin's moisture barrier. New Aqua4 Hydrating Daily Lotion is gentle enough for all skin types, including sensitive skin. It's lightweight and fast absorbing on skin. Even though your Saturday's packed, your skin's moisture barrier is supported. Grab Aqua4 Hydrating Daily Lotion at your nearest retailer. There's before, and then, there's Aqua4.