#68 Tyler Vargas-Andrews - Marine's Horrific Account of the Disastrous Afghanistan EVAC

The United States withdrew the last of its troops from Afghanistan in August of 2021, signaling the end of a nearly 20 year conflict that cost 8 Trillion dollars and the lives of 900,000 people, including over 7,000 U. S. Service Members. The U. S. exit from Afghanistan resulted in the Taliban reestablishing armed control of the country and created a refugee crisis as over 1.5 Million Afghans fled. The withdrawal has been widely considered a disaster and a gross display of incompetent leadership from the President down, echoing similar failures seen at Saigon nearly half a century earlier. SRS is honored to present the story and view point from one of the Marines on the ground in Kabul, just days before the last U. S. Embassy fell–Tyler Vargas-Andrews. On August 26th, Vargas-Andrews was gravely wounded by a suicide bombing at the gates of Kabul's Airport, ultimately losing two limbs as a result of his injuries. This premeditated attack killed 60 Afghans and 13 U. S. Service Members. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://babbel.com/srs https://shopify.com/shawn https://drinkAG1.com/srs https://bubsnaturals.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" Tyler Vargas-Andrews Links: Instagram - https://instagram.com/whistlingdeath Linktree - www.linktr.ee/whistlingdeath Business - Flatline Hardgoods Instagram - https://instagram.com/flatlinehardgoods Web - www.flatlinehardgoods.com Download Tyler's Testimony to Congress - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lF-8_5jwRc5eAhzDkqqCOp-6yvd05vAw Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Shawn Ryan?

  Ladies and gentlemen, here at Sean Ryan Show, we are rapidly becoming known as the outlet that brings truth that nobody else will talk about. And this episode is no different. Today, I have a 24-year-old Marine who's had his arm blown off, his leg blown off, more surgeries than any of us can even count, all due to incompetent leadership, all the way up to the President of the United States. It's one of the toughest interviews, probably the toughest interview I've ever sat through. It's enraging that the President of the United States is this incompetent.

• 0:43Shawn Ryan?

  We're talking about the withdrawal in Afghanistan. And I'm going to tell you another thing. This story has been suppressed. The media won't cover it. They tried to suppress this congressional hearing, and the list goes on. We are one of the only outlets that will actually cover this topic. And on top of that, two of our previews have been slapped with demonetization in 18+ which means they're not going to get any views. Because you know why? They don't want how incompetent this administration is to get out.

• 1:19Shawn Ryan?

  We had to edit this video, this entire episode. We pulled all the real footage. Tyler gave us more real footage that happened that day than anybody has ever seen. So, what we did, once again, there's a link below. You can go to SeanRyanShow.com and see the uncensored version there with all the footage you can handle. This is some of the most disgusting stuff I have ever had to cover, all because of the incompetence of our President in the leadership in the military. It's been a downward spiral for a long time, ladies and gents, and we're going to uncover it right now.

• 2:03Shawn Ryan?

  I took this interview for two reasons. One, somebody has got to get the truth out on what happened that day. Two, this man needs to build a new life.

• 2:16Shawn Ryan?

  24 years old, one arm, one leg. He's got a knife company started.

• 2:24Shawn Ryan?

  These are his knives. I got some of the first ones.

• 2:29Shawn Ryan?

  That he's ever made. That link's also on the website. Go buy yourself a fixed blade knife from this guy. They're amazing knives. He's trying to make a new living. Let's help this guy build a new career because nobody else is going to help him do it. Ladies and gents, I've seen a lot of you out there making content off of our episodes and I really appreciate it. This one is more important than just about any of them. So below, there's another link that has hundreds of raw reels for you to take, build what you want, be creative, get them out on every social media outlet you can, make money, monetize

• 3:11Shawn Ryan?

  it, do whatever you can. All we ask is just tag The Sean Ryan Show or link the show so that other people can watch the full episode. Please go to Apple and Spotify, leave us a review on our audio platforms, like, comment, subscribe to The Sean Ryan Show channel below. I love you all. Thank you. This is going to be a hard one to stomach. It enrages me just filming this intro. But ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, please welcome this hero, Tyler Vargas-Andrews, to The Sean Ryan Show.

• 3:59Shawn Ryan?

  Tyler Vargas-Andrews, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me, Sean. Very, very happy to be here. I can't even believe you're sitting across from me right now. It's amazing. I could say the same. We had, we had a little conversation at breakfast, but I gotta give credit, my buddy Carter Gaddis was, we saw your testimony on the news. He's like, Sean, you've gotta fucking get this guy on the show. And I was like, look, man, I'll try, but I know this guy's getting blown up by about 50 news agencies and every podcast on the planet right now. And I was like, but whatever, we'll, we'll give it a whirl. And we messaged you. I got a message right back about shit my pants. I was like, holy shit, he messaged back. So

• 4:42Shawn Ryan?

  seriously, man, I wanna, it's, it's a real honor to be sitting here with you. And, you know, I've, I've said it on the show many times before.

• 4:53Shawn Ryan?

  Marines are just on another level, man. Um, especially infantry Marines like you. Some of the most horrific stuff I've ever heard in my life come from Marines. And even the guys that were Marsoc that have been on the show.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:10Shawn Ryan?

  Man, all the, all the, their, their, their, the worst trauma happened before they got to Marsoc when they were, when they were in the infantry and, um, dude, just, seriously, it's an honor. And to all the Marines out there, I don't think you guys get near the credit you deserve. And, and I want to give it to you.

• 5:30Speaker 01

  Well, thank you very much.

• 5:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, thank you for being here. It's seriously, it's a real honor.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  It's an honor for me as well. You've had a, had a lot of great men in this chair before me, so very happy to be here.

• 5:40Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you're one of them.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:41Shawn Ryan?

  So, I appreciate it. But, uh, if you don't mind, I'd like to kick it off with a little introduction about you. So Tyler Vargas Andrews, you joined the Marines at age 19. You were a PIG radio operator. First Marines Camp Pendleton, California. Crisis response team in Saudi Arabia prior to Afghanistan. You had aspirations to become a Marsoc operator. You deferred sniper school two times, uh, to make that happen.

• 6:16Shawn Ryan?

  You were blown up by a suicide bomber during the Afghan withdrawal. You lost your right arm and your left leg. 13 service members were killed, 11 Marines, one sailor, one Army soldier. 170 Afghans were killed and 45 US military personnel were wounded.

• 6:39Shawn Ryan?

  Like I said, you lost your right arm, your left leg, missing parts of your organs, 43 surgeries. You were given 54 units of blood and you still have 13 ball bearings and two pieces of shrapnel stuck in your body. Testified in front of Congress. We'll get to all that. But, um, wow, short but incredible career, man.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  I appreciate it. Thank you.

• 7:03Shawn Ryan?

  So we have a lot to talk about.

• 7:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, just dive in.

• 7:06Shawn Ryan?

  All right, well, before we dive in.

• 7:11Shawn Ryan?

  As you know, everybody gets

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.

• 7:14Shawn Ryan?

  A little something.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  It's awesome. I, uh, I will have to tell you that I had a friend of mine from back home send me some of your gummy bears when I was in the hospital.

• 7:24Shawn Ryan?

  No way.

• 7:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, and, uh, I couldn't figure out who it was for the longest time. I just found out a couple of weeks ago who it was. But yeah, she sent me some gummy bears and I have to tell you, these are the best gummy bears I've ever had.

• 7:35Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 7:35Speaker 01

  To be honest, that's not me blowing smoke up your ass. These are the best gummy bears. Thank you very much. That's awesome.

• 7:41Shawn Ryan?

  I appreciate that.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  I look forward to sharing those. I have a gift for you as well.

• 7:48Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, don't want to come in empty handed. My, uh, kind of briefly talk to you about my two buddies who are Winter Warriors. We started a knife business, so we each wanted to, they're big fans of the show as well. Wanted to give you something from us to you.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  If the knots were tied poorly, it wasn't me.

• 8:07Shawn Ryan?

  I'll tell you what, man, these damn Marines and 550 cord, you guys just,

• 8:13Shawn Ryan?

  it's incredible.

• 8:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, my buddy, uh, the National Guardsman I was telling you about, he, uh, he made that, uh, knife roll too. Used some, uh, parachute rigging and cordura, so.

• 8:21Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, damn, dude.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, just started that. That's the first one.

• 8:29Shawn Ryan?

  Nice. How many you got? What is your, what's the name of the company?

• 8:32Speaker 01

  Flatline Hard Goods.

• 8:33Shawn Ryan?

  Flatline Hard Goods.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:35Shawn Ryan?

  We'll link that in the description.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.

• 8:43Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah, that's got an edge to it. Beautiful work. How long have you guys been doing this?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Um, man, since, uh,

• 8:53Speaker 01

  August of last year, and it's been very, uh, very spotty, so, um, kind of, kind of all working through getting out of the military and, um, or not, well, not all of us, but myself getting out of the military and other jobs and stuff, so it'll be a lot more time dedicated here soon.

• 9:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well.

• 9:14Shawn Ryan?

  There's no doubt you're gonna do very well. I'm not gonna use these, I'm gonna frame these and they're gonna go right on this wall over here.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.

• 9:21Shawn Ryan?

  So, for everybody that comes in to see, thank you.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:25Shawn Ryan?

  I really appreciate that.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 9:27Shawn Ryan?

  We'll link this into the description and...

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Appreciate it, thank you very much.

• 9:29Shawn Ryan?

  Hopefully that'll get you guys started in business.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 9:33Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, well Tyler, the way I wanna do this interview is, you know, at first, I just wanted to make it about the Afghan withdrawal, what you experienced there. Then we kinda dove in a little bit deeper into your background and, you know, I want to start with your childhood.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:52Shawn Ryan?

  So, I know you were raised in Folsom, California, near Sacramento. Raised by a single mother, your mom is the top family law attorney in California. Your biological father, is it okay if I go here?

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:09Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, is a child molester. You had a very traumatic event at age 12 that changed your life and gave you a new purpose to protect innocent. And you consider yourself a very spiritual person. So,

• 10:29Shawn Ryan?

  we bring a lot of hope to the hopeless in this podcast, uh, whether that's military veterans, children, now we're starting to dive into sex exploitation and sex trafficking and, um, and in all of these realms, people that experience this amount of trauma, this, they feel hopeless. And so,

• 10:53Shawn Ryan?

  let's start with your childhood with your dad or, and, and I'm unfamiliar with the event, so...

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, no worries. So, uh, so my mom got pregnant with me, um, from, from my dad, uh, at 19, had me at 20. And to start, uh, kind of giving some background on him, uh, he tried to force her to have an abortion, uh, really tried to, you know, get her to get rid of me, uh, and, uh... Treated her horribly and left, left a picture. My mom was like, I'm gonna fucking raise this kid. And she did and had me. He came back around when I was about six or seven, I think seven.

• 11:40Speaker 01

  Kind of trying to get to know me and be involved and I might have been five, excuse me, they, they got married, I think when I was seven. Got back together and stuff. He was around for about four or five years.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  And I mean, he was now today, knowing what it is, you know, domestic violence and domestic abuse. I mean, screaming, throwing Christmas trees across the room, breaking all the ornaments, putting holes in dents.

• 12:14Shawn Ryan?

  You remember all those?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:16Shawn Ryan?

  And how old were you when you started?

• 12:18Speaker 01

  When I started recognizing it, I mean, I was probably

• 12:23Speaker 01

  maybe nine or so, eight or nine.

• 12:27Speaker 01

  Never saw him put hands on my mom. She never talked about that or anything. And, but I mean, he would fucking scream and scream and scream. Do it, do it to me.

• 12:41Speaker 01

  And just, I mean, uncontrollable temper.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  And kind of just progressed from there.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  You know, I was, I wanna say, you know, my older sister, my older brother was born in 2010. My older sister would have been born.

• 13:03Speaker 01

  Two thousand eight, I think, something like that. Two thousand, I was nine, two thousand seven, two thousand eight or two thousand seven, I think.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  And so she was born first.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  And about, she was about two or three. Um, my little brother had just been born. He was a baby, uh, newborn. And, you know, I'm sitting, uh, he had come to find now, um, you know, I've got like seven or seven like half siblings out there from him. Really? Found out he's kind of, one of the things he gets off on is like impregnating women and things like that. And, uh, he's got kids all over the place. And, um, so I knew about a half brother at the time. And so he, he would bring him around here and there into the family. Um, when we were little, we were connected. I went, I don't know if close is the right word, but we were siblings.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  And, uh, he was, he'd get him on weekends or for a week or two at a time. Um, we were sitting in my, in my room in our house in Vacaville, California. And, um, it's like playing on a, on like a PlayStation two or PlayStation one or something. And, uh, that day, uh, you know, kind of

• 14:22Speaker 01

  can, can, I don't want to share too much of other people's stories, but, uh, you know, some things were said, um, by one of my family members that day. Um, that he was touching them, sticking things up them.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  You know, anything you can imagine, it was from, and it was from the mouth of uh, a very young individual and things that a child would have no idea of unless these things happened. And he comes in and my mom confronts, confronts him and he's a

• 15:01Speaker 01

  just like stark white, just like, looks like a ghost. And she was like, this is what they just said. What the fuck? And along those lines, I can't remember the exact conversation, but I'll never forget the look on his face. He was just like a, oh, fuck, they caught me look. And he was like, holy shit, like it just rolled him crashing down. And, uh, called the police.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  On top of that, he worked for CPS, for Child Protective Services. He worked for Child Protective Services? Worked for Child Protective Services. Friends with all, worked at the police station, friends with all the local police and stuff. Um, obviously, my mom called the police. And, uh, there were his buddies coming to the door, pretty much. And separated, uh, him from the house. I think she went down to the police station that day, if I remember right. Um, and I hung out the house, I hung out the house with a family member. Um, and then from there, it just kinda kept spiraling. Um, you know, I went, Wetton was questioned.

• 16:10Speaker 01

  Um, you know, uh, if he'd done anything to me, which he hadn't. Um, but then, you know, the stuff started coming up about me witnessing the domestic abuse, domestic violence and stuff. Um, and I was, so I was like 12 or 13 at the time when that happened. Um, and from there, it was like, they kept them separated for quite a few months, uh, trying to figure this out, my mom trying to protect us. Um, you know, I mean, she, and she struggled financially. I mean, just suddenly being a single mom, taking care of three kids and a mortgage. And, uh, she made it work. I mean, uh, I don't know how, honestly.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  I mean, I remember there was times she just struggling hard, but she made it work. She filed bankruptcy, um, at one point. And, I mean, today, she has her own business. She's fucking kicking ass, runs her own law firm, uh, multiple offices in different locations, things like that. But, um, going into this more, you know, they started, uh,

• 17:18Speaker 01

  I was conflicted, obviously, because I was, you know, old enough to be consciously aware of what was going on. But in the situation that was happening with going to court and things like that. And things started happening. He started, he tried coming to the house one time when the, we had like the metal, like kind of grated door closed, like the screen door, but it was metal. Had it closed and locked and like the main door was open. And my little sister's in the living room, my mom and I are in the kitchen. And I was doing homework or something. And he came to the house after there was like a no contact order, a restraining order at the time. Trying to like coerce my little sister into opening the door and stuff to get into the house.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  And she called the police again, pulled him away and just little things like that. He started doing, we started really seeing who he was then. Even more so, started doing things like driving around, following, following us around. I caught him like following me around a few times. Cause he, where he moved to, I mean, he was still in the area, but following me around. I'd like go to the park with friends or whatever. And they started forcing us because this, some of these, you know, him molesting, raping, it was so far away that when they started taking physical evidence

• 18:41Speaker 01

  and going to court about it, there wasn't enough physical evidence to convict him and put him in jail. But there was enough evidence and like damning evidence psychologically and through the domestic abuse and domestic violence that the judge was able to, you know, give full custody to my mom. But forced us to go to supervised visits for a while. Are you serious? Yeah, forced us to go to supervised visits. My sister included, my little brother included, myself, all, like all the kids included. And I, I mean, I'm like, here I am, you know, 13 years old, whatever.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  Just like, oh, I love my dad, but he's this horrible person. What the fuck's going on? I'm being forced to go to these visits. And then I started, you know, as, as I was getting older and understanding like, what he did was really understanding what he did was fucking wrong and horrible. My mom was trying to do her best to protect us and, um, I mean, my mom is a hell of a woman. She, you know, was like, I'm trying to protect the kids, but if you want a relationship with your dad, I'm, I'm not going to stop you. He's your dad. Uh, and like, I love you. I want you to do what you want to do pretty much. And she's always been like that to this day for all of our, all of my siblings and I and, uh, but trying to protect us at the same time. And so she's having to pay for these supervised visits, having to go through this while paying for an attorney to

• 20:01Speaker 01

  protect us from him at the same time. And there, she's fighting, you know, custody battle and, and, you know, child molestation case. And here they are making, making us go to visits with him. And it got to the point where I was just like, he started, I, I started catching him in lies over and over. And I was, you know, 13. I, I was intentionally asking him questions that I knew the answer to. Um, you know, I knew he had others, other, uh, like other half siblings and stuff started reaching out when this was going on. And so I knew about these things. My mom knew about these things and I was a nosey kid, like looking through my mom's stuff because it was a, it was a strange time in my life, you know, going through that traumatic event and, uh,

• 20:45Speaker 01

  trying to make sense of everything that was happening. And, uh, so started finding out about these other kids. And so I would start confronting him at the visits and stuff. And I was like, you know, is there, uh, do I have any other siblings, any other half siblings or anything? And he was like, no. Just like to my face. And I was like, okay, so you're lying to me because I know I do. And then came back and then started trying to say, oh, well, yeah, you do whatever. Um, and just over a couple of weeks or months, you know, I was, I was catching him in lies over and over and over. And that finally

• 21:24Speaker 01

  made me realize what a monster he was. And, uh, you know, everything kind of solidified in my own mind of what kind of person he was, um, the lack of humanity that he had and, uh, I told him, I was like, I don't, I'm not gonna go to these, these visits anymore. Like, I, I will not go. And they're like, you have to, it's court ordered visits. And I'm pleading with my mom and she's trying to do everything she can to take care of us. And she said, I can't, they won't let me not let you go, pretty much. And they're forcing us to go. And I remember one night, I just like broke down in tears in our, in our house. And I was like, well, what would happen if I just fucking hit him in the visit? Or if I like, you know, tried to kill him or something?

• 22:09Speaker 01

  Cause it was at that point where I was like, I wanna fucking kill him for what he's done. And, uh, I mean, he deserved, he, he deserves worse than that. Um, and my mom's like, you, you don't know what he's gonna do. Like, he, he might hurt you, don't do this. Like, just trying to take care of me, be a mom. Um, and I was like, if they send me in there, like, I'm gonna fucking kill him. And like, I, I, I schemed to do that. I was like, if they make me go in there one more time with them, like, I'm gonna fucking kill him. How old are you at this time? Fourteen, maybe, thirteen. Um, yeah, so thirteen or fourteen. And, uh, just got to that point where I, and I, I was, I was set. I was like, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna kill him if they put me in there. And so then they're forcing me into the visit.

• 22:53Speaker 01

  And I like get into the building and they have like back rooms inside the building that where they have the visitation at. And, uh, I told the, like, the, the supervisor for the visit. I was like, if you make me go back there, I'm gonna fucking kill him. And, uh, she just like laughed it off, thinking I'm just a, you know, just a little obnoxious kid. And I said, I hope you put me back there with him, cause I'm going to kill him. I'm going to try and kill him if you put me back there and I want you to. And then I really was like, go ahead, please, please put me back there and I'll kill him. And, uh, she finally took me serious and she's like, well, nope, go back out. Like, I remember I sat in the waiting room out there, they brought my mom back.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Came back and then from that point on, fucking the courts listened and cut visitation for me. Um, didn't have to go anymore. And, uh, they still made my, my siblings go. They were, I mean, they were really, really little. Um, and continued like that for many years, just, just recently, like, maybe, maybe like.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  Two to three years ago, or something like that, uh, maybe about three years ago, I think they they stopped visitation finally. My mom was, they, my, my siblings are old enough now that they were like, I don't want to fucking go. Like, this guy's a monster. And my, my little brother, he's, he's 12, about to be 13 now. Um, he's a little asshole, but he's, he's super intelligent for his age. And my old sister's the same way. She's about, she's 15, about to be 16. And, uh, I mean, they can, they can think for themselves well enough to understand and recognize what a horrible human being he is. And, uh, Woman beat her? I don't think so. Not, not to my mom, maybe. Um, she, she never said anything about

• 24:36Speaker 01

  that. Um, but he's, he's done a lot of things. I mean, he wrote anonymous letters, um, things that my mom tried to keep from me. I, being the kid that I was, started looking through things in the house and whatnot, wrote anonymous letters when the court, like, trials were going on, trying to frame her for what he had done, and wrote in all these different, um,

• 25:02Speaker 01

  pretty much she got these letters, these anonymous letters, and took them to the court, or took them to, uh, like, a forensic analyst or something. And it showed that he had written in, like, multiple different personalities. And, but it was, like, enough to show that it was from him, but that he had, like, different versions of himself, like, split personality disorder, things like that, came out in that letter, trying to frame her for it. And it was this absurd anonymous letter, you know, trying to frame her for the things that he had done. And, uh, started kind of showing that he was, like, a real psychopath. And,

• 25:41Speaker 01

  just, kind of from there, things went on. They, uh, you know, my mom had her, had her lawyer, and then she also hired a lawyer for my siblings and myself. And, uh, and they were awesome. And, you know, they asked me, you know, do you want to testify in front of him in, in the court? And, uh, I said, yes. And, you know, I testified at 13 years old, in front of him. Um, You know, with his, his piece of shit attorney fucking harassing a thirteen or fourteen year old on the stand, uh, you know, like, things like, oh, did your mom yell at you? Or, you know, did she reprimand you? And, uh, like, oh, well, was it too many times to count? Is that how bad it was? And just stupid shit. How, how lawyer, some lawyers are.

• 26:23Speaker 01

  Um, and, uh, you know, I went out there and I, I testified and laid out, I mean, I did it through, you know, tear streaked face and, and, uh, cracked voice, but sat there and testified in front of him and told the courts what he did and what I had seen and witnessed as a kid. And, I mean, he's, he's still, my mom told me stories of, you know, when he's tried to come back in her life at like very pivotal moments, like when she graduated from law school. Um, and then when I came home for the first time in July, uh, he knows, I mean, he, he knows, like, from other times when I was young, um, not to come around me.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  And he chose, when I came back home, uh, to California for the first time last July, he chose to show up at the airport. I had a really big welcome home, uh, with the police motorcade and my, my city, I mean, my hometown showed out for me. They did a lot for myself and my family and, uh, a couple hundred people or thousands at the airport and like welcomed me home and stuff, really awesome. Um, and I'm sitting there inundated with news and stuff coming up to me and, uh, he, he, he chose that moment to show up and come and pat me on the shoulder. And my buddies, I mean, my, my friends know what, what happened and my buddies chased him down and he ran away. And, uh, just things like that, little things like that to like show he's crazy enough, like, hey, I'm still here, just so you know.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  But, um, yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of the story.

• 27:58Shawn Ryan?

  Did any of your half siblings, did they go through the same stuff?

• 28:02Speaker 01

  I've stayed, I've stayed, um, apart from them. I personally, I haven't had any interest to build relationships with them. Especially as I grew up, I mean, many of them reached out. I think maybe one or two of them had, I know, I know the parents of, of my half siblings like, came forward and testified about the things that he's done in the way, like the horrible ways that he's treated them and their family. I don't know specifics other than just, I don't want to say just, but other than like domestic violence, domestic abuse, screaming, yelling, harassment and things like that. I don't know much more past that because I've stayed apart from them.

• 28:43Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you stay apart from them if you don't mind me asking?

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, um, honestly, I, I just wanted that part of my life to, I wanted to move on with my life. And, uh, you know, I told my mom, you know, she was worried for a long time because I, you know, I kept a lot of hate in my heart for him. And I told her, I was, I remember one time I was like, mom, I was like, I have, I have enough room to hate him in my heart, but I don't, uh, I don't let the things that he's done and how he's treated my family, uh, and what he's done, you know,

• 29:13Speaker 01

  negatively impact my life. I don't let it weigh on me. I don't let him have any control over me and what I do.

• 29:20Speaker 01

  I, I wouldn't hesitate to put him down in some pretty horrible ways, but, um,

• 29:28Speaker 01

  yeah, I don't, I don't let him take any space up in my brain.

• 29:32Shawn Ryan?

  So this guy's still running around out there?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:37Shawn Ryan?

  How? I mean, the courts just?

• 29:39Speaker 01

  The court system is, I mean, we have supposedly, you know, the best, the best justice system in the, in the world right now, but it still has its flaws and some good things that have come of that, um, situation. And what he's done is my mom has worked, she's gotten legislation passed to protect kids, to do better background checks on, on CPS and their social workers and things like that. And, uh,

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Used the worst moments of her life to to help pass better laws in the US. And it won California specifically. And she does a lot of work for for child abuse and and domestic violence and things like that.

• 30:21Shawn Ryan?

  Is this is this what drove her to become the top of family attorney in California?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  I would I would say so. I you know, she's she's talked about and shared, you know,

• 30:33Speaker 01

  what what's what we went through has has definitely pushed her to to help others and to be damn good at what she does.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  I mean, she, like I said, she filed bankruptcy during paying for all of the attorney's fees and going through what we did. And I mean, now she's a successful businesswoman, more than successful. Yeah.

• 30:58Shawn Ryan?

  What's your mom's name?

• 30:59Speaker 01

  Tiffany Andrews.

• 31:00Shawn Ryan?

  Tiffany Andrews?

• 31:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:06Shawn Ryan?

  So you've experienced a lot as a kid. A lot of kids unfortunately experience very similar situations as you did.

• 31:18Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of advice do you have for somebody that's in that situation? Whether it's a parent being abused by their spouse or or kids?

• 31:28Speaker 01

  You know, I'd

• 31:32Speaker 01

  first thing I would say is that it's OK to talk about it. You know, a lot of people are scared, I think, when they experience those traumatic events to scared of backlash from the person, the abuser, scared of, you know, all of the what ifs that come afterwards. And I think people need to understand that it's OK to talk about the, just as we talk about everyday things, the good, it's OK to talk about the bad. And people need to be aware of this because there are not

• 32:04Speaker 01

  there are not ways to help individuals going through those those things if they don't speak up about them. And

• 32:14Speaker 01

  I mean, coming personally speaking, it's a hard thing to fucking talk about, but the hard things need to be talked about.

• 32:23Shawn Ryan?

  Who would you recommend they talk to? I think, I think maybe some of them will be willing to talk, but maybe they're scared and they don't know who exactly to talk to, who can they safely talk to? Who would you recommend they talk to?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  I would say if they feel they can't trust their, their local police, they don't want to listen to them, I would start there. I would start with, I would start with going to the police.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Going to the hospital, because I think, I think if I'm correct, you know, doctors and providers are mandatory reporters as well. I might be misspeaking, but.

• 33:07Shawn Ryan?

  Actually, that makes perfect sense. Call 911, report an injury. Get to the hospital, tell them what happened. They take care of the rest. They should take care of the rest.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  They're not, I know hospitals aren't going to release individuals going through that back to the person unless there's police involved post, post that. So I would, I would start with, I would start with the police and hospitals, honestly.

• 33:31Shawn Ryan?

  That's a damn good piece of advice.

• 33:38Shawn Ryan?

  Marine Corps.

• 33:41Shawn Ryan?

  What led you into the Marine Corps?

• 33:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, so funny enough, I, I'd actually, growing up, started with aspirations to be an astronaut. I think as a lot of young kids do, but really wanted to be an astronaut. And then it went into, wanted to serve my country and being a fighter pilot. And I was, for a while, I was dead set on joining the Air Force and becoming a fighter pilot. And before I moved to Folsom, California, I was down in Vacaville, Fairfield, going to.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Middle school and high school and the first half of high school.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  All my friends, we're down there around Travis Air Force Base and so many of my friends came from military families, had family in the air force. And so I, from an early age, I didn't, the only person in my family who's in the military is my great uncle and he was in the air force, but it wasn't something that we talked about really. I mean, I knew it and he, you know, mentioned it before, but the military was never in my face through my family or anything like that. It was friends at school and I, you know, I would have friends come and leave all the time, make new friends all the time because they'd come for a year or two or whatever and then change duty stations and whatnot. And my high school, it literally went, high school, the street next to the high school, air force base.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  And so we had air force JRTC in high school. And my freshman and into half of my sophomore year, I did, I did air force JRTC, kind of set on still becoming a fighter pilot. Prior to that, when I, when I was in eighth grade, I did civil air patrol, which is pretty similar to like JRTC, but they do it on Travis Air Force Base. And kind of trying to find my way through that while still navigating, you know, what my family was going through and really just, you know, the traumatic events that I experienced made me want to help people and help the innocent, help those who couldn't help themselves.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  And that was very important to me and I knew that I could do that through the military. And just seeing my friends and their, their parents serve and interacting with, with their parents and stuff, seeing the kind of people that they were, the men and women that they were, people to look up to, kind of set my sights on that. And when I was five, I was, I was in kindergarten, I found out I was color deficient. And so I'm not colorblind, but my reds and greens are pretty, pretty the same and quite a few other colors, blues and blacks and things. And went to, went to talk, talk to recruiters about going to be a fighter pilot and found

• 36:31Speaker 01

  out cannot be a fighter pilot with being color deficient as I, how, how bad I was. And

• 36:39Speaker 01

  So I was like, well, that's that. And then, uh, moved up to halfway through my sophomore year, my mom took us and moved us up to Folsom, um, get away from my, my biological father. And, uh, put my kids into better schools, or I mean, her kids into better schools and myself and, um, moved to a new high school. And I mean, that was kind of the start for me of

• 37:04Speaker 01

  a lot of, um, what I guess now would be, uh, depression and just anger. I was like, why did you take me away from my friends? Like hated, hated the move. It was horrible. Like in my mind, it's the worst thing that could have happened to a fifteen and a half year old kid, a fifteen year old kid. And, uh, I was just hated school, didn't want to make new friends. I was playing soccer and baseball at the time. Uh, my, my club soccer coach, actually from my first hometown, he reached out to some, uh, club coaches up there and got me some tryouts. He was like, if you want to stay on the team, you can. He's like, I know it's gonna be hard for you to make practices, but if you want

• 37:44Speaker 01

  to keep playing and you should, you know, make, you know, work to be at practices and be at all the games. He was like, I'll, I'll reach out to some club coaches up there and get you some tryouts, which he did. And, uh, tried out for, um, a soccer club up there. Uh, they wanted me and that was like one of my first weeks up there. And, uh, started making friends that way. And, um, still really wanted to, wanted to join the military. And, you know, the, I mean, I'm sure as you know, I mean, the Marines are in your face all the time with, with advertisements and Oh, yeah. crisp dress blues. Um, the old, the old ads of them fighting the dragon and turning

• 38:26Speaker 01

  it around, uh, wearing dress blues on the spot. But, you know, I mean, it, modern day warfighting shown on TV. And I'm like, man, that's fucking badass. And, you know, I'm fifteen at the time. And the more I looked into it, I was just like, you know, oh, the Marines on the front line, the Marines are first to the fight. That's what I want to be. That's who I am. And, uh, it just, it grabbed at me in a way that being an air force fighter pilot and, you know, doing JRTC never did. And, uh, I just knew, I was like, I'm going to enlist in the Marine Corps. And, uh, I think I was like sixteen when I told my mom that. And at this point now, I um.

• 39:12Speaker 01

  I got to the point, probably within a year of of the move.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Where I told my mom, I was like, you know, I'm sorry for the way I acted moving here and. I mean, I I I was just like that shitty depressed kid, just didn't want to be there and. I was like, I'm glad we moved. I was like, I think this is the best thing that's happened to me. And made a lot of great friends, met a lot of people. It took some time. It took some time, but. I mean, the saying, you know, the those. If it was easy, everyone would have it and started really understanding and becoming who I was more into my later teen years. Up there in Folsom and just making great relationships, meeting awesome people.

• 40:02Speaker 01

  And I told her, I was like, you know, I'm sorry for the way I acted, but this is, I think, the best thing that's happened to me and I'm I'm glad. I'm glad we moved and I know that for her probably was just the best thing that she could have heard. Cause she knew how how much I did not want to be there and. And then I told her, not not too long after that, we moved. We were in an apartment, we moved up there, moved into a rental house, then moved into our house now, where did they, my family still lives. And we were walking upstairs in my mom's room. And I was like, all right, today's the day I tell her I'm going to enlist in the Marine Corps. And like I had briefly like joked about it just to kind of see her reaction before that and.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  You know, I I went up to her room and I was like, all right, mom, I was like, I'm going to enlist in the Marine Corps when I'm out of high school. And she was like, what? And I was like.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  I was like, I'm gonna enlist in the Marine Corps and the Marine Corps Infantry. And I mean, she just balled her eyes out. She just, she knew and she just balled her eyes out. And she was never like, no, you're not. She was supportive. But I think that was my end of my, or maybe junior year that I told her, my junior year of high school, that I told her that. And I was like, hey, this is where I'm going. And yeah, she, she took it pretty hard. And, but she was supportive. And then she, you know, she was like, my mom is very academia oriented. And not so much now, but she was. And she was like, listen, she's like, go try college for a year. You can, you know, you can still play it. You can still play soccer for college.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  I know her at that time, trying to get me to like, go, go to college, go to college. And, and I was like, Mom, I don't want to go to college. She's like, just, just give it a try. She was like, I'm not gonna force you to anything. I can't force you to do anything. She's like, but go give college a try. You can still play soccer. You love soccer. It's your passion. And give it a try. And I was like, all right, you raised me. Been through a lot. I love you. I was like, I'll go, I'll go give college a try. And I was like, but I was like, as soon as I'm done, I'm still going to the Marine Corps. And whether that's a year or that's four or more, I was like, I'm still going in the Marine Corps. She's like, all right. She's like, in the back of her mind, she's hoping that I'm just gonna latch on to college and not go to the military. But it's like, all right, I'll go play for the local junior college

• 42:29Speaker 01

  and start majoring in kinesiology. And Kinesiology? Yeah, kinesiology. What is kinesiology? Uh, sports medicine. Okay. Yeah. So I mean, I had, I had always, through the late years of high school, I was very interested in, you know, kind of that young timeframe where I feel like young men start getting into the gym and working out and stuff. And I had a buddy, Ryan Chafee, one of my best friends growing up. He

• 42:55Speaker 01

  He, I'll never forget, I think it was my junior year of high school, he's like, "Come to the gym with me, man." We went to, I went to one high school in our hometown, he went to the other one, but we played on the same soccer team. And, uh, he's like, he's like, he's like, "Just come work out with me after, after school." And I'm like, "Dude, I do not wanna go work out with you." "Why, why would I go to the gym? I don't wanna go to the fucking gym." And he's like, like, quit being a, quit being a bitch, pretty much. And, uh, finally, he suckered me into going into the gym with him. Um, and then it just spiraled and I was like, all about going to the gym all the time, getting on a routine, being healthy, and, uh, just being young and dumb and mixing Diet Coke and coffee like, YouTube, old YouTube, uh, friggin' bodybuilders and stuff,

• 43:40Speaker 01

  uh, doing that kinda hyphy mud pre-workout stuff and, uh, horrible for my heart, but, um, yeah, things like that. And he, he is the one who really kinda started my, uh, my fitness journey at that age. And, uh, and then it was just, that, it was, it just took off. I mean, I was, I was about, I was like, "All right, I'm going to the military. I need to be as fit as I can be." And it helped with soccer as well. And, um, so I'm in college now.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  And first semester's going by and I'm like, "This fucking sucks." And I did not, I just was not, school was not for me. School, I never, like, I could always take tests really well, but I never had the diligence to just like, sit down and do my homework or do anything like that. Um, I did not, just didn't wanna do it. I didn't wanna be in school, I wanted to be out. I mean, I remember I would, I would, I was eighteen for quite a majority of my senior year of high school and I would just like, I was old enough to call myself out of school and like, go and do whatever. And, uh, there'd be days I'd skip periods just to go play soccer at the park or like, go work out and stuff. I hated, hated going to school. And, uh, I'll never forget, I got a, you know, I got a true and seal letter in the mail.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  My mom was like, "Get your ass home right now." And I'm like, "Oh, fuck." And I mean, uh, my mom was strict enough, growing up, you know what I mean, right? And, uh, She was hard on me, but in a good way. And, uh, and she, she was like, you got, you know, bad grades, like soccer's gone. Like you're not playing. I mean, she came out onto my soccer field one time in the middle of practice because I had poor grades. And I'm like, Mom, what the fuck are you doing here? Because she told me, she's like, if you, if you go to practice, I'm gonna walk, I'm gonna walk out onto the field and pull your ass out in front of all your friends in the middle of practice. I'm a senior in high school. And, uh, I was like, I called her bluff. I was like, no, the fuck you're not.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  No, you're not, Mom. Go to practice. I hear Tyler Andrews. I'm like, oh, no way. And I turn around, I'm in goal at the time, I was a goalkeeper. Turned around and, and she was like, get your ass over here right now. And like, we're in the middle of like a scrimmage and I'm like, oh, I'm like, Mom, and I'm like, I'm like, Coach, I gotta go, I'm so sorry. And he like stops and he comes over and I'm like, Mom, like, like, uh, like, I'm sorry. And she was like, I told you I was gonna fucking take my ass out here if, if you came to practice. She said, get your ass, get your ass home right now. And my coach came over and he was, uh, he's like, what's going on? He was like, you know, he's got really bad grades. He's not doing his homework and stuff like, and he, my coach was cool.

• 46:21Speaker 01

  He was like, he said, all right, well, we'll figure it out. We'll get him, we'll get him on track. And, uh, so he worked with me and my mom to get me to practice, but also make sure I was doing my homework and stuff. So good on them, but I was just, I hated school. And, uh, kind of another thing for the military and, and high school, my, the first half of my senior year of high school, uh, my government teacher, he, I can't remember if he was a vet, but he was, uh, the old JV soccer coach, if I remember correctly. And, uh, he was always all about, you know, he's very patriotic and, and bring it, letting the recruiters, when they'd come to the school, like, come talk to us during government class. And it was always really cool. And, uh, I mean, I would pay the most attention to the Marines. They'd come in and listen to them.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  And he gave every government class the opportunity to, uh, like, they, they would come and, uh, test, like, take the ASVAB at the school. And so like, he was like, all right, you guys are all gonna go take the ASVAB. He's like, you don't gotta do anything with it, but just so you have that in your back pocket, just another, you know, tool for the toolbox. Um, and so.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Senior year, I had taken the ASVAB, I think the beginning of my senior year and I got like a ninety-one on it. And um, I was like, alright, well, this is cool. I don't gotta take it when I go to the recruiter. And um, you know, I go, go to college and I was like, alright, mom, this semester's gonna be over. Um, I'm going to the Marine Corps. And she's just kinda saying things sad, but alright, alright, we'll get you on the right track. But your, your grand uncle's coming out here, your Uncle Cam, he's coming out here. And uh, he's the only one who is in the military. And he's gonna take you to every single recruiting station. And uh, you're gonna talk to every branch's recruiting station.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  And I was like, alright, I was like, I'm still gonna, we can do this, but I'm still gonna go enlist in the Marine Corps. And she's like, well, we'll see about that, but he's gonna take you to every branch's recruiting station first. So we started uh, you know, I'm nineteen or end of eighteen, going into nineteen years old. And uh, he um, he flies out from Long Beach, California. And we're going around the sack, local Folsom recruiting stations. And the Army and the, or the Air Force and the Navy's one, we're right next door to each other. And so, we, we go in the, we go in the Air Force one. And they're like, so what do you wanna do? And I was like, I wanna be a Marine Raider.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  And uh, like, oh, well, you can come, you know, you can come be a PJ or and you can, you know, you can look into uh, being a SER specialist and stuff. And the SER stuff was pretty, pretty like cool. Um, when I was looking at it, I was like, oh wow, this is like, I loved, I mean, my whole childhood was spent. Soon as I got a license and I wasn't working or like, working out or doing soccer, I was in the mountains. And this year in Nevados, I was hiking and taking my friends camping and hiking and backpacking and stuff. And I loved it. That was like, my go-to was doing that and doing all the survival stuff, making bug out bags. Teaching myself how to start fires, any way I could think of.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Um, just teaching myself how to survive. It was kinda my, my thing as a, as a young kid and uh, um.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  I remember like I would anytime I would do chores when I was younger, I would go and uh or like try and like work for people around the neighborhood and make some change. I'd go, I wouldn't be old enough to like buy a knife or an axe or something. So I'd go and scrounge up any change I could get. Go to like Walmart or like the Ralphs down the street and uh buy like a Visa gift card and then go my mom's uh ancient laptop and uh uh order knives and like axes uh with with a Visa debit card because I wasn't old enough. Like I had to have like ID proof or whatever and uh or if I went into stores, I had to like show them that I was 18.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  And so I'd buy like knives and axes that way. And my mom would be like, what the fuck is this? Like, where did you get this from? It like an axe or something would show up on the doorstep or like a whatever. And uh I'd be out throwing them at trees, throwing knives at trees and just doing all that stuff and uh and then like I remember taking our old cabinet boards and like breaking down an old desk and using them to throw at in the backyard and stuff. And so uh this year stuff really, I was like, oh wow, this is pretty cool. I was like, but you're not getting me it. And uh it's like, all right, let's go to the Navy. My uncle was like, all right, well, we'll go to the Navy. He's like, maybe you'll like that. You think about it and they're like, all right, well, come back, you know?

• 50:56Speaker 01

  And they really liked that my ASAP score was as high as it was and uh like, why, why are you gonna go? For me, I, you know, I wanted to uh, I, I knew I wanted to go into the infantry and then be a raider. And that was very important to me to kind of start where I knew Marines would be in the shit, at least in my mind. And uh so I went to the Navy, uh, and their recruiting office and like, again, what do you want to do? I was like, I want to be a Marine Raider. Uh, I want to be in the infantry and um like, oh, no, don't worry about that. You can come be a SEAL. And uh they uh, the, I was, I never, I never uh

• 51:36Speaker 01

  being a SEAL, like I had always seen it. I'd always seen it kind of like how the Marines on your face, like we know like, oh, Navy SEALs like, like they're hard. And uh but I still, I just, I was like, I don't want to be in the Navy. I really, I just, I don't want to be a Seaman and uh I don't blame you. Yeah. And uh, yeah, I was like, no, I was like, it's pretty cool. And like, listen, you can come and we we swim more than they do. And and uh, yeah, we're like, we're amphibious too, and all that stuff. And uh, no, I was like, it's all right. Like, I'm, I want to be a marine. And then now we go to the army's office. We go to the army and the army and the marine corps next to each other, uh, their offices. And um, going there, first thing I wa- I see when I walk in is

• 52:19Speaker 01

  a bunch of out of shape unfit dudes. And I was like, wow. And on top of that, I had been in a, I had been um,

• 52:29Speaker 01

  in a mar- marine recruiting office once before, or gone by it, that one that was there and like, saw how they had all the, all the motivational stuff in there and had the pull up bars out front and uh, inside and out back. And I go in that army office and see a bunch of them out of shape, a bunch of these recruiters and uh, they have a pull up bar in there. And uh, like, yeah, we got, I was like, why do you have a pull up bar in here? And because they don't do pull ups. And uh, they're like, well, you know, the marines do pull ups, but we can, uh, we can do pull ups. And I was like, okay, I was, he was like, you think you can do pull ups? Is that why you want to be a marine? I was like, yes, I can do pull ups. And uh, like, why don't you hop up there and do some pull ups? And I was like, why don't you hop up there and do some pull ups?

• 53:08Speaker 01

  And they like, no, like, we don't need to do that. You should hop up there and show us how many pull ups you can do. I was like, no, I was like, I'll save that for the marines. I was like, if you hop up there and do pull ups, I'll do pull ups. Didn't want to hop up there and do pull ups. And I was like, all right, well, that's it. I was like, I'm walking out. And the army was the fastest one. I was in the door and out. And uh, went to the marine corps. Let my mom know, hey, I'm going to the marines office right now. And uh, gonna talk to them about enlisting. Sat down with uh,

• 53:34Speaker 01

  my recruiter, actually, he was, he was the one who uh, recruited me, but um, sat, sat down with him. Uh, at the time, Sergeant Wallace, sat down with, with him. And he's like, all right, he's like, he's like, so why are you here? And, you know, something along the lines of that. And I was like, well, I was like, I want to be an infantryman and I want to be a marine raider. I said, okay, he's like, well, have you thought about recon at all? And I was like, I hadn't even ever heard of recon at that point.

• 54:04Shawn Ryan?

  You have never heard of recon?

• 54:05Speaker 01

  No, and I just had only heard of raiders. And surprisingly now, I mean, the reconnaissance community is way more in your face than the raiders are. And I don't even know how I first heard about raiders. I think I just, being a marine was, it just seemed special to me. And I was like, well, does a marine have special operations? And I looked that up online and they're like, yep, MARSOC, Marine Special Operations Command. And I was like, looked at what they did and it really appealed to me that they did a mix of kind of everything, you know? FID, counter insurgency, like just a little bit of every, every branch's stuff. And I was like, well, that's, I feel like that's who I am.

• 54:49Speaker 01

  I'm a try and be as versatile as I can be and that, that seems really appealing. And that's where I want to go. And so I told him that and he's like, all right. And he's like, well, he's like, we can get you scheduled for an ASVAB if you, if you really want to move, move forward with this. And I was like, I do, this is what I want to do. So he pulled out these, these cards, like plastic cards and they all have different things on them. And it's like the whole like honor, courage, commitment, but it's also like, um, physical fitness and like heroism.

• 55:23Speaker 01

  Bravery, courage, like, uh, like intellectual stuff, all these different, um, you know, adjectives of like, what makes a person a person, what appeals to them. And they're like, what are the most, what are like, at first he asked me like, what are the 10 most important to you? And so I'm picking them out and I don't, I don't even remember all of them, it was so long ago. But picking them out and he was like, all right, he's like, now pick three and. Strength was one of those, or um, uh, strength and, and mental fortitude was one of them. I can't remember how it was worded, but one of those and uh, picked out the three. I don't remember the other two, but that one stuck out to me.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  And uh, he's like, alright, and like, you know, what does that mean to you? And obviously, at that point, my, my background had been going through the traumatic experience I did when I was a kid. Um, I mean, I was still a kid, but going through that with my, my dad and stuff and what he had done. And um,

• 56:26Speaker 01

  he was like, you know, this is the right place to be.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  Poured in my ASVAB scores, or he pulled them or something. And the day that he did, it was a, a week or two later, he was like, you're not gonna be a grunt. And I was like, what do you mean? I was waiting for this. Yeah, he's like, you're not gonna be a grunt. And I was like, yes, I am. What do you mean? He's like, he said, you got a ninety or ninety-one on your ASVAB. He's like, you could do anything else. You could do literally anything else. He's like, let's look at some other options. And I was like, no. I was like, this is what I wanna do. And he's like, dude, he's like, he's like, you could do anything else in the Marine Corps, like anything at all. And I was like,

• 57:03Speaker 01

  this is the only thing I wanna do. I, I wanna be an infantryman and I wanna be a raider. And tho- those are the only things that I wanna do and that's where I'm gonna go. And he was like, you serious? He was like, and he like pulled up the list of everything. And he's like, explaining stuff. And he's like, you could do literally anything, any one of these jobs. I was like, I don't wanna do anything else. And he was like, alright, he was like, I'll leave it alone. He was like, this is what you wanna do? He's like, well, let's get you on a good path. And uh, he briefly brought up again, like the, how you can kind of do, uh, I think at that time, there was still, um,

• 57:40Speaker 01

  there, there's always like weird contracts in the Marine Corps where you can like, bullshit contracts to kind of, in any branch to suck, suck dudes into something, but there was like, oh, you can be a, a team leader, like a team leader contract or something like that. And I was like, alright, well, I'll do that. And it was just like a basic, it was like a bullshit name just for the same exact thing of like O three XX. So I'm an O three eleven, O three one one rifleman. And it was just like O three XX, like team leader. And that's not how the fucking infantry works. Like you started this shit and you. Pushed through the shit to get, you know, get to be a team leader and things like that. That never, uh, nothing else ever came of that, uh, doing that contract.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  But I, so I, I kind of, uh, got on a path where I became a poolie, um, with them. And then, uh, started working out all the time with them. I was still going to work. I was working at, uh, Target, actually. And, uh, working at Target and, um, working out and just preparing to leave.

• 58:41Shawn Ryan?

  Real quick, I want to backtrack.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:43Shawn Ryan?

  And this doesn't have anything to do with your story. But what I'd like to do is call out, look, back to the recruiting stuff, especially the army.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:54Shawn Ryan?

  You know, just think about how many people went in there and were unimpressed with that first impression of these guys who can't, who can't lead from the front.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:05Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? And think of how many people that thought about joining the US Army that walked into that office and saw those slobs representing the United States Army there and walked right the fuck back out.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:19Shawn Ryan?

  And we have a major problem with military recruiting right now. And if they don't unfuck that, they're never going to get anybody in there.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, it's.

• 59:29Shawn Ryan?

  That's ridiculous.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  It is ridiculous.

• 59:31Shawn Ryan?

  To put some shit like that to represent the United States Army to these kids that want to serve the fucking country.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:39Shawn Ryan?

  And that's what, that's their first impression they have to look up to. Whoever fucking made that decision, good job.

• 59:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:47Shawn Ryan?

  Good fucking job.

• 59:48Speaker 01

  No, I agree. And, uh, it's definitely, uh, I mean, I've got, I've got buddies who are marine recruiters. And I mean, fit, strong leaders of men. And, uh,

• 1:00:00Shawn Ryan?

  That's good to hear.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  That's who they were in the infantry and that's who they were as recruiters. And the recruiting life, any branch, I'm sure it's not easy, but I know Marine Corps recruiting specifically because I, I know marine recruiters and, uh, it's a tough, it's a tough life. And I've never seen any of my buddies who are marine recruiters or the marine recruiters that I worked under as a poolie going into the Marine Corps. I've never seen one that I was just like, you're disgusting, you know? I've, it's like, man, I want to be like you. And, uh, it's always been that way, at least for the Marine Corps.

• 1:00:37Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 1:00:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:40Shawn Ryan?

  Continuing on.

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so uh.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  I uh started started going to the pool events and stuff. Um, I had my senior high school, I had or junior year, I had taken, so I was a goalkeeper and I had taken a uh a block off my wrist weirdly, my right, my right arm. And it had sprained uh my wrist pretty badly. And I was just like, well, wrap it up, keep playing and just did that for years. Every game I would wrap my wrist and just play and just keep beating on it, beating on it. Finally got to the point where I could barely move my wrist and uh. I was like, man, this is uh, this is bad and it hurts a lot. And I could feel like it was always swollen, it was like permanently swollen on my wrist. And so I was like, all right, mom, I need to go to the doctor, like I'm about to leave for the Marine Corps.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  I need to get, see if I need surgery or something before I go. And uh.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Um, I go to get an MRI and they're like, well, you've torn some tendons in your wrist and uh. You have a ganglion cyst. And so I had a cyst in my my wrist, I don't remember how big it was, but uh. It was like pushing all my joints apart and it was fluid filled up all inside my wrist. And they're like, yeah, like this is really bad. Um, you know, how long has it been this way? And I was like, oh, like two years or something like that. And uh like, why didn't you come in sooner? And I was like, oh, I mean, just young kid playing sports and uh. Went and got surgery on that while I was already in the like the delayed enlistment program. Um, so I was a poolie already and I told my recruiter, I was like, hey, uh, I gotta go get surgery. And he's like, what the fuck?

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Like, that is the last thing that one recruiter wants to hear. I'm like, I gotta go get surgery on my wrist, like it'll be all right. They've assured me it's gonna be okay. Um, and sure enough, they went in, uh, so a short procedure that went in repaired some of the soft tissue and tendon damage. And uh, removed the ganglion cyst, they like, cause the options were is they could. They could leave it and like put me in a brace and stick a needle straight through my wrist into the cyst and drain it. But if you drain it, there's about a 90% chance that it's just gonna come back. And uh, or I could get it cut open and it would be a longer recovery process, but it would be like a 99% success rate.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Well, I was like, I mean, I know if you guys drain it, I knew in my mind, I was like, if I just let them drain the cyst in my wrist, that I'm not going to take the recovery seriously because I never had with any other injuries. Like, I'm just gonna go back to injuring it again probably pretty soon after.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  And if I get the surgery, I've got a higher chance of it being successful. And I'm going to be forced to not move it and in a cast. And so I chose to go that route. And went in, cut it out, did the repairs and had me in a cast for like two weeks. And it wasn't that long, but had me in a cast for like two weeks and then put me in like a a hard brace. I could, I could like take it off, but they put me in a brace and had stitches in for another like three weeks. And I couldn't push, I couldn't like really twist my hand much. But pushing was just painful and I still wanted to be around the poolies and go to the, you know, go to PT and stuff.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  And the one thing I could do is I could pull and so I could just crank out pull ups. And that's the only exercise I could really do with my wrist. And fortunately for me, that's what we need to do for PT. So for the physical fitness test. And so I was just cranking out pull ups with my brace on and didn't, didn't damage it anymore fortunately. But cranking out pull ups and then did a few events. And my now best friend, I'm the goddaughter to, or godfather to both of his daughters.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Christian Ritter, we're both, we're both in the, the pool together or the DEP. And his recruiter, my recruiter brought us in, they're like, or we might have the same recruiter, but they brought us in and they're like, "Hey, you guys are leaving on the same day to bootcamp in a couple of months. You know, do you want to do the buddy program?" And like we had just kind of said what's up in passing, didn't know anything about each other. And I looked at him and I was like, "Sure." And he's like, "Sure." And so the buddy program kind of set you on the track where we had the same O3XX contract. So we'd go to bootcamp together, go to infantry school together, and then hopefully have a pretty good chance of going to the same unit.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  And we both wanted to be riflemen, so that was, that was a plus too. And so from that point on, we just got to know each other. Dude became my best friend through boot camp. Went to boot camp on.

• 1:05:33Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, let's backtrack before you go to boot camp.

• 1:05:38Shawn Ryan?

  Extremely traumatic childhood. How old are your brother and sister when you left?

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  I think twenty seventeen.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  My little sister would have been ten, I think. My little brother would have been six.

• 1:05:57Shawn Ryan?

  Six?

• 1:05:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:58Shawn Ryan?

  Was that, was that hard, was that a hard decision for you to make to leave your mom and your siblings, knowing everything they'd been through, what they could possibly go through again to go serve your country?

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  It, it definitely was and I, for me, I had, I, I had this conversation with my mom a few times, you know, I was worried that, worried about me not being there in case my dad showed up or something and not being able to be there to protect them. And I mean, as I, as I grew up and got older from that and away from the traumatic events of my life, it was, I took like being the man of the house very seriously.

• 1:06:43Shawn Ryan?

  I could imagine.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  More so just like protecting my family, that was all that mattered to me. And I, you know, made sure my mom knew, like, with the firearms that we had in the house, like that she knew how to use them properly and stuff and, you know, my siblings, I remember my little brother was, like cried a little bit. And I definitely, I definitely worried, but I was very excited about going and I was like, well, I was like, if I go be a marine and I get all this training and stuff, I'll be able to protect my family even more, you know, and that's how I viewed it. And.

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think definitely, definitely nervous about leaving for them, but I knew it was the right decision. Were they nervous about you leaving? My mom definitely was. I don't know if, you know, my siblings fully understood what was going on. They knew I was leaving for a few months, but actually I take that back. My little brother,

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  I remember talking to him about leaving, you know, he's six or whatever and

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  he was like, well, Ty, he's like, you, you wanna go to the military, but what if you die? And I was like, I'm not gonna die. I was like, I'm not gonna die, buddy. Like, I'm gonna be okay. I'll be all right. He's like, yeah, but what if you die? And, you know, I didn't really know what else to say other than like, I'm gonna be all right. And obviously I know that today, I'm here now, but yeah, that kinda, that hit me pretty hard. I was like, damn. I, this definitely is, is weighing heavy on them. And yeah, I mean, I have, I have a close relationship with my siblings and I'd die for them today if I had to.

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Did you have a plan on how you would protect them? I definitely did. So when we moved into our house, I, I mean, I remember even talking to my buddies about, about leaving, you know, just kinda look after my family and stuff. And my, all my friends were close with my mom and my siblings. They, our house is like the house all my buddies and I would go to to hang out. My mom was very much about like, oh, if you wanna, if you wanna hang out and stuff like, I don't want you being idiots elsewhere, so all the boys can come over and be idiots here. But, so that was definitely the place and. I know for me, um, I was the only bedroom downstairs in our house and I begged my mom

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  for that room. Uh, and she was like, yep. She's like, I, I mean, I, I wouldn't want anyone else downstairs. Like I trust you to protect the family and that meant a lot to me. And uh, I would have done it if I had to, but yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:44Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome, man. That's, that's, that's growing up fast and uh, you handled it perfectly from what I could tell. But on that note, let's take a quick break before we get into your Marine Corps career.

• 1:10:02Speaker 02

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• 1:10:36Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Tyler, we're back from the break, picking right up at the very beginning of your Marine Corps career.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, uh, so I left, um, August 27th, I believe it was, um, of 2017 for boot camp. And, uh, did the whole, went, went to MEPS, doing the naked crab walk and stuff. Um, things went well. They took my, they took my paperwork for my surgery and, uh, went smoothly, surprisingly. And leave for MEPS, or leave for boot camp, uh, with Ritter, my buddy. And I think it was just, it was just the two of us leaving together from our recruiting station that day. Uh, got put up in like a DoubleTree Inn in Sacramento, um, the night prior, do

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  the like one last final check in at MEPS and, uh, Do like pull ups, crunches, uh, just to make sure that they kind of make sure like the guys who are about to leave are like fit enough to go. Um, leading up to that, I mean, while you're in, in the pool, you do like ISTs. It's like, uh, individual strength test or something like that, just like a, a, uh, kind of slimmed down version of the physical fitness test that you do for the Marine Corps, um, to prepare you. And do that last test, uh, before you leave, um, they put us on a plane flight to,

• 1:12:09Speaker 01

  I know my mom, my mom was funny. She's, she, uh, was like, oh, we'll get you a bunch of all these extra things to take with you to boot camp. And I was like, I'm just gonna have to fucking throw it away. Like, like I don't want to get in trouble or like more attention brought on me than necessary. She's like, we'll get you all these like, like toothbrushes and basic bullshit. And, uh, you get to, um, you get a small, I think, I don't even think there's really a, a list, a big list of stuff you take to boot camp for the Marine Corps. It's like your ID, like your shoes, like the clothes you're wearing and, uh,

• 1:12:48Speaker 01

  almo- almost nothing, like stuff you carry in your pockets, if I remember correctly. And, um, you get to boot camp. And we, we flew, so we flew into San Diego and then we got bussed to, uh, I think we flew in, drove from the USO. We waited at the USO for a couple hours, um, in San Diego. And MCRD, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego is like, here's the airport, here's the recruit depot. And so the whole time you're at boot camp, you're just, whatever you're doing, no matter if you're having a bad day, you're just watching those planes take people wherever they're going all day long. And, uh, definitely, definitely a tease, but, uh, yeah, we.

• 1:13:29Speaker 01

  Ritter and I, um, we actually had another buddy, actually, uh, Kevin Cago, I think was his name, who went with us that day, but, uh, get shipped to, or driven to MCRD and, uh, do the whole drone instructors run on the bus and start fucking screaming at you, get off the bus and grab your stuff. Um, I mean, I know for me, even the plane flight there, I was just like, man, what the fuck is this? Like, what am I doing?

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  And I didn't, I wasn't like regretting anything. I was like, man, I'm really fucking doing this.

• 1:14:03Shawn Ryan?

  Here we go.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, when you're at the, um,

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  when you're at the recruiting station prior to that, I mean, they show you all the motivational videos and you see Marines and like 29 Palms blowing stuff up and shooting and running gunning on ranges. And so I'm just like, all right, like that's just where I gotta get, I just gotta get to that. And, uh,

• 1:14:23Shawn Ryan?

  At this point in time, there's been 17 years.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:29Shawn Ryan?

  Of two different wars. You guys took Fallujah, you guys took Helmand Province. I mean, the infantry Marines did a lot of shit, took a lot of casualties. I've heard a lot about it on this show. I've seen a lot of it. What is it like, you know?

• 1:14:53Shawn Ryan?

  What are you, 20?

• 1:14:54Speaker 01

  20.

• 1:14:55Shawn Ryan?

  20 at this, at this timeframe? What's it like being a 20-year-old drinking from the fire hose from somebody with that much experience? I mean, I'm, I would hope that they're utilizing that experience.

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, they, they definitely are. Um, our combat instructors who had been, you know, been overseas and been in hostile environments would, would share things with us and they'd get on guys, not the way that drone instructors do, but like, you're fucking dead. Your buddy's fucking dead because of what you just did. Like they, they definitely instill from the get-go, the day you walk, you step foot in SOI, like, and pick up with an infantry school, like,

• 1:15:35Speaker 01

  These are lessons that have been learned and paid in blood. And uh, don't waste that, you know? I mean, we had to

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  had to figure out a lot of shit to, to get to where we are, but it's like, why do we clear rooms the way we do? Why do we throw grenades the way we do? Why do we say the same things that we say, you know, on ranges? Preparing for combat the way we do because these things have been learned and earned in blood. And uh, definitely some big shoes to fill. And for me, I know, I just, I mean, I couldn't wait to get to it. I, I, I took everything I could as seriously as I could. And uh, you know, the first four weeks are teaching you how to be a basic rifleman. Um, and you know, doing basic room clearing. Um, working together as, as a fire team and as a squad, just very basic stuff.

• 1:16:30Speaker 01

  Um, fire maneuver and then learning, um, the, you know, I mean, you, you already in bootcamp, like you, you learn how to take apart an M16 and you lay it out on a little map that has like a piece and a name where everything goes and stuff. And um, you, you do that and you do like weapons classes and stuff. So you get all, you get taught. So if you're not in the field, you're not doing ranges and stuff. They, you're, you're in classes and they're teaching you stuff and uh, they're teaching you, you know, like max effective ranges and um, you know, how weapon system works, why, why, you know, infantry is the way it is today. They're showing you videos of, um, of combat and stuff.

• 1:17:12Speaker 01

  And uh, here and there you'll get a speaker or two, um, that comes in. And you know, they'll talk to you about their time in, um, and their time in combat. And so it's, I think, I think the school of infantry does it well. Um, you know, breeding young, young warfighters.

• 1:17:34Speaker 01

  They definitely, they definitely get the point across that you do have big shoes to fill, but you, you can have the feet to fill those shoes. And, you know, that they're giving us the tools to be successful and get prepared for the fleet.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  I mean, you definitely learn the most, like, coming out of infantry school. Infantry school gives you a good foundation of being, being a grunt. The first four weeks are, are everyone learning the same thing, being a basic O three XX, like O three eleven. And then it's the split. And so the, if you want to go be a mortar man, they basically ask you one day like, hey, you know, this is a split, you're done at this phase of infantry school. Now we're going to ask who wants to be a mortar man, who wants to be a machine gunner, who wants to go to recon. Cause at that point, at the four weeks, you can go to like, like go to reconnaissance pipeline.

• 1:18:28Speaker 01

  You can try at least and, or you can stay a grunt and, or be an assault man or an anti-tank gunner. And so at this point now, um, I was just like, I want to be a fucking door kicker. Like Ritter and I are both on the same page, like we, we want to, we want to be in the shit.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  And try and get there as fast as we can. And, uh, obviously we know like, at this point now, you know, the war has died down a lot. It's not, it's not what it was in the early 2010s and before that. And, uh, we're just, but we're not really thinking like, oh, we're not going to deploy to a combat zone. We're kind of thinking that's how it's going to be the whole way through. And so, uh, to be, they needed like one, one more machine gunner. So I, I, we stayed, like they ask who wants to go where, and they have you out in front of the big, you know, in the building, it's called the H, like just on the concrete slab. And, uh, they're like mortars over here, um, anti-tank gunners like come upstairs, assault man over here. Or actually assault man was a thing.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  I had, I had thought about wanting to be an assault man as well, cause he'd still be like a rifleman, but, um. You'd be using like smalls and stuff and uh doing demolitions and um like as your job, but they they start they were starting to phase them out, so they didn't have that available our cycle. Um, say, all right, well, like, I still want to be be a rifleman, so I'm staying here. And then they go, all right, we need a, we need a one more uh anti-tank gunner and like one more cat guy and um one more machine gunner. And to be either of those things, you had to have passed all the tests and have or like have like really high scores or whatever it was. And uh myself and

• 1:20:20Speaker 01

  like two other guys were the only three out of like hundred people left that had passed all of the tests and um but none of us wanted to be a machine gunner or an anti-tank gunner. And they called the three of us out to the middle in front of everyone. And uh so we've got like multiple platoons, like a couple hundred people, just like we're in the middle of them. And they're like, all right, well, one of you is going to be a machine gunner, machine gunner, and uh one of you is going to be an anti-tank gunner. And uh one of the guys like caved and went, I think the yeah, there was four actually. Uh one of the guys caved and he went to go be an anti-tank gunner.

• 1:21:04Speaker 01

  There was three of us now. And uh they're like, all right, well, uh one of you, one of you is going to be a machine gunner. And I was like, I told him, I told my combat service, like, I'm not going to be a machine gunner, like, I want to be a grunt. And so they sat there, they made us sit there and come up with a speech on why we wanted to be an O three eleven rifleman, why we wanted to be a door kicker. And I don't remember everything that I said, but it was convincing enough that they're like, all right, go back, like, you're going to be a rifleman. And they took the other guy and he went to go be a machine gunner. And uh it was, it was funny, because I was like, oh, fuck, I'm really having to do this in front of everyone right now. And so we had to

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  like say our piece in front of everyone and uh convinced them. So uh here I am today. But um being a young, young junior marine, I had uh I had been out in town with like a bunch of guys.

• 1:22:02Speaker 01

  intoxicated and one of my buddies let him uh kind of scratch off part of my ID and to like to to get in uh to like like the club and stuff and not really like thinking appropriately.

• 1:22:18Shawn Ryan?

  Marines trying to drink to to sneak into the club to get drunk?

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:22Shawn Ryan?

  Oh my.

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:24Shawn Ryan?

  Never would have put that together.

• 1:22:26Speaker 01

  But uh so that so that happened and nothing I never even used that ID to do anything with it but about nine or 10 other guys did it too and one dude wrote with like Sharpie on the back of his cat card and went in uh this is like month one that we're with the unit maybe and went in uh to IPAC to get a new ID and they're like you fucking altered your ID and wrote on it with Sharpie like nope you're not getting your ID back or a new one we're calling your unit and you're paying it paying for it and so then they called the unit let them know what happened and it's like a Sunday and my at the time like my first team leader they hit us up and they're like hey like this just happened they the whole whole platoon was like does anyone else have alter IDs or anything like that?

• 1:23:10Speaker 01

  And I was like well fuck I was like it's a little bit like it's almost not even noticeable but I'm gonna like be honest about it and I told him I was like hey I do this is what happened I told him the truth told him what happened he's like alright it doesn't look that bad like just tell him you you had your keys in your pocket or something and you you like had your ID in your pocket and it got scraped up and I was like you sure and uh not really known any better and he's like yeah he's like you're fine he's like they're not gonna take your ID he's like I wouldn't even have noticed it if you hadn't said anything and uh so the next day it's like a Monday they bring us all in uh into formation and they told us what was going on that they had you know someone had an altered ID and they're like alright

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  all the fucking new joints all the boots get the fuck over here and they're like alright you're gonna hand over all of your IDs and there was I don't know like 30 of us or something and uh everyone handed over their IDs this uh the staff sergeant at the time staff sergeant Cypher he was definitely uh

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  Definitely looking out for the boys. He looked through all the IDs and he didn't, they had, they had already like pulled out that Gunny at the time, who also was kind of on a power trip. He, he had already had like the IDs that were like sharpied and like really bad. And he just hated everyone anyway before that. And just because we're new and that's just how it goes. That's how the Marine Corps is. And so he didn't, I didn't see him pull out any more IDs. And so I'm like, oh, thank God. Like, I'm okay. Like, I'm good. Thank God. And that Gunny comes up, he's like, let me see the IDs. And that Staff Sergeant's like, I already checked them. Like trying to just like be a good dude. He's like, I already checked them. They're good. And he's

• 1:24:59Speaker 01

  like, no, he's like, let me check them. And he's like, I already checked them, Gunny. Like, they're good. And he was like, no. He's like, let me check them. And so he handed over the stack of IDs, pulled out like three more. And then they start calling names, handing IDs back. And I'm standing there with like two other guys and our IDs have not been handed back. And I'm like, oh, fuck. I was like, ah, my career's over. Like, my career's over. And calls into the, the company office. And I mean, just start laying into us. I think I had every, every First Sergeant and like the Sergeant Major, every single senior enlisted in there yelling at me at one point. Just, I was going from room to room, getting screamed at, just like upstairs, downstairs, down the hall. Like, I was just like, oh, man.

• 1:25:43Speaker 01

  And I didn't know anybody. I was like, oh, I was like, ah, my, my fucking career's over. But I always remember my mom telling me, if you ever get in legal trouble, request a lawyer. Don't say anything. Don't do anything. No matter what happens, whether you're in the military or you're a civilian, like, request a lawyer and talk to a lawyer. And so I'm there and they're like, you're gonna get fucking court martialed, you're gonna get blah, blah, blah. And they're like, they're like, all right, you're gonna get NJP'd. Like, if, and you have to like come in and accept, you can accept or deny the NJP. Like, they read you your rights or whatnot. You can come and accept or deny the NJP. And Everyone accepted it, like on the spot, accepted it. And I'm like, Jesus, here's this big old, like, all these papers with all this legal stuff.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  And uh, I was like, alright, well, I was like, I'll, like, they told us, like, yeah, you can also request a lawyer, but like, no one did that. And uh, like, none of the other guys. And so now there's like eight Marines who are like, accepted N J P and like, in trouble on the spot. And I was like, I'm, I wanna request a lawyer. I wanna go speak to a JAG. And uh, they were like, what? And I was like, I wanna request a lawyer and I wanna speak to a JAG. Um, they're like, are you sure you wanna do that? Like, if you do that, you're gonna get in more trouble, pretty much. And I was like, yes. I was like, I wanna make sure I make a good choice, a good decision here. This is like, you know, legal punishment. I want, I wanna make sure I, I know what's going on fully. And so, I get taken over to the uh, it's like the fifty-one area on Camp Pendleton where

• 1:27:10Speaker 01

  all the JAGs are. And I've got this like, fresh, fresh lieutenant, uh, as a JAG. And I told him the whole story. Told him exactly what happened, told him the truth, word for word. And uh, he's like, well, look at this. He's like, right here on the N J P, it says, you altered your I D. He's like, you didn't alter your I D. He was like, your buddy did. Deny the N J P, and you won't get in trouble. He's like, you can't get in trouble, uh, like, they can't N J P you for this because the N J P says you altered it and you did not. And I'm like, are you sure about that? And he's like, yeah. He's like, at legal terms, he's like, this is why you come talk to us. He's like, it says you altered the I D, um, you know, but you didn't.

• 1:27:52Speaker 01

  And, you know, didn't, or deny the N J P. I was like, fuck. I said, okay. I was like, are you sure? He's like, yeah. And I just texted my mom, I was like, hey, just wanna let you know, like, I'm getting in some trouble for some things. And uh, she's like, oh my gosh, just like, of course. And uh, you know, same thing. She's like, go talk to a lawyer. And I was like, already talking to a JAG. And so I go back to the unit, and I go and I deny the N J P. And they told us, like, yeah, if you deny N J P, it could like, come back on you harder. But I'm like, alright, here I am, trusting this JAG who's been afforded to me. I go back and deny the N J P, and then uh, and then they asked me, and they're like, like, no, you're not getting out of this. Like, why are you denying N J P? And uh,

• 1:28:37Speaker 01

  And like my Jag, I think my Jag was there, or he like, like, he had like caught, talked to them and I was like, well, I was like, you're trying to NJP me pretty much. Like I had to explain like why I denied NJP, like that it wasn't me that altered it. And they just like tore up the NJP, typed up a new one, this Marine altered his ID, or this Marine let another individual like knowingly alter his ID. Just like tore up the first NJP and I was like, fuck. I was like, alright, well, it's like so much for that. And now these dudes who are already like, this happened over like a week or two. And so these dudes had already been NJP'd and uh, you know, they're on like two weeks restriction or something. And uh, just like stuck to the base cleaning the, the, the command post and um,

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  I go upstairs and like this, the Sergeant Major's talking to me. And this, uh, this is right before they tore up the NJP, uh, and he just like calls me into his office. I'm like, fuck, I was like, I'm going to the Sergeant Major's office? Like, oh man, like what is, what is this? I go in there and he, he's like, close the fucking door. And I close the door. And uh, there's like another Marine in there and he just like pulls out my ID and he slams it on the table. And uh, he like pulls out a razor blade out of his desk and he's just like running it over the one little like scratch in the ID. He, he had like a super heavy accent. He's like, he's like, you think me, a stupid fucking Sergeant Major? If I can figure this out, he's like, you think NCIS will fucking figure this out?

• 1:30:03Speaker 01

  He's like, what the fuck? And he's like, tell me what happened. And I'm just like, sitting there, I'm like, I'm done. I was like, I'm getting kicked out of the military, like not knowing that, you know, I can receive punishment, but not, not getting kicked out. And uh, I told him, I told him what happened. He's like, alright, he's like, I appreciate your integrity, Marine. Um, I'm gonna push for this NJP to, he's like, I'm gonna, you know, push for it to be like a sixty-one oh five. Um, you know, not, not, not a, not an NJP. And so I go down there and that, that company gunning was like dead set on NJPing me. He was like, nope, all these other guys got NJP'd like, he's like, no, he's like, it's not up to the Sergeant Major, it's up to the company commander. And he's there whispering in the company commander's ear like, nope, NJP this dude. And so I had to get a bunch of character witnesses from these guys who barely know me.

• 1:30:48Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  You know, yeah. And get a bunch of character witness from these guys who barely know me, who now think I'm like, these dudes think I'm like the biggest scumbag in the world.

• 1:30:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  And uh, I remember going to my

• 1:31:00Shawn Ryan?

  Just a young Marine trying to get a beer.

• 1:31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:03Shawn Ryan?

  What the hell happened?

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  And I'm trying to, yeah. I, I remember going to my, um.

• 1:31:08Shawn Ryan?

  I hate you. You wanna, you wanna drink a beer under 21?

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:12Shawn Ryan?

  I'm gonna fuck you up.

• 1:31:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:31:14Shawn Ryan?

  Jeez, man.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, I go to, uh, my, he was my squad leader at the time, later platoon sergeant. Uh, Staff Sergeant Adamopolis, I hope he watches this. He, uh,

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  I'm telling him just like, I'm fucked, like I'm screwed. And he was like, he's like, yeah, and I'm, I'm sitting there, I remember like tears in my eyes, like my career's over. Like I just got here and I'm, I'm fucking done, like. And he's like, he remember telling me, he's like, listen, he's like, he's like, you can only do good from here, you know, he's like, just don't fuck up anymore, pretty much something along those lines. And he's like, you just have to eat it, you just have to take this punishment. So then they gave me like a, a month of restriction and like, um,

• 1:31:58Speaker 01

  I think like restricted, like a little bit of restricted pay for a couple of weeks. And, but I didn't, it was just a, um, company NJP, it wasn't a battalion, so I didn't lose rank fortunately, but I was on promotion restriction. So I'm a, a PFC at this time. And it was like six months promotion restriction or like

• 1:32:17Speaker 01

  a year or something, I can't remember. Um, to where I couldn't get promoted to E3. And from that day, like I took that NJP and I just, it was probably like the best thing that happened to me in my Marine Corps career. Cause I like sat that night and I was just like, man, like this really happened? I can't change it. It's like, but I have to be like, and, and it's what I planned to do, but I really just like hammered down on myself. I was like, I can't fuck up from here. Like I've, I had this stupid page 11 that they don't really care about, but in the Marine Corps eyes, above you, it's like paperwork's paperwork, you know? And, uh, I've got this page 11, I've got this NJP. I was like, but that's not who I am.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  Um, I have to, you know, be on my, my Ps and Qs. Like I need to dottle my I's and cross all my Ts from here on out and be the best version of myself that I can be. And I was like, that's, that's who I am and I have to show them that that's who I am, that I care and I'm here to, here to do work. And, uh, I did that. I, um, I, I took every training, every bit of knowledge they gave me as seriously as I could. Um, tried to be as physically fit as I could. I remember that was like a big thing is you get to a new unit and like your seniors, your, your senior Marines, senior Lance Corporals and stuff, you know, they're, they're, uh,

• 1:33:40Speaker 01

  training you hard, um, training you very hard and the majority of it's because you're not as fit. You know what I mean? And you, they've, you know, been doing this for a few years and know how to run around with weight and had some experience. Um, but I was already a fit dude and going to the gym all the time, working on myself. And I was like, well, I was like, I can start with, I can, I can control a couple of things. I can control how strong and how fast I am and I can control how I think, you know, I can control my attitude. And, uh, you know, the whole, the whole positive mental attitude crap, I, I took it seriously. I was like, well, um, I'm gonna, I am gonna be, you know, be the best grunt that I can be. And, uh, you know, I had some really good leaders see that.

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  You know, my, my, uh, one of my best friends, Dalton Hannigan, who he was my uh, squad leader after that, they kind of moved around squads and like finally solidified them for, for training and through the deployment and stuff. And, uh, throughout training, he really, him and my team leaders, uh, really saw like how much I was trying to, how much good I was trying to do and how hard I was working to be like a stellar Marine, a stellar infantryman specifically. And, uh,

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  It really, it really, I had it in the back of my mind every day. I was like, already got in trouble. I can't fuck up, can't fuck up. And every bit of knowledge I got, I mean, I would sit at night and just read it over and over and really try and understand it and look things up on my own. Know all my max effective ranges, know all, you know, these different tactics and strategies and read, and I love to read, which is great because all of these older guys who are getting out were like, here's, you know, this MCDP one on like warfighting and like all these Marine Corps doctrines like that they, you know, that they have and all these guys were getting out in our platoon, like just handing out books left and right. And I'd be like, please, like, I'll take them. Um, you know, I wanna, I wanna be, you know, be the best. And, uh,

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  I definitely, um, definitely shine in my platoon, I think. Um, and my guys saw that. And, uh,

• 1:35:48Speaker 01

  I, fortunately, my promotion restriction, it lined up to the day almost. It was like the same exact month that I was supposed to get promoted to E3 was the day, or was like the month or day that my promotion restriction ended. So it didn't set me back really. I got promoted to E3 on time. Um, I was like one of the first, like junior marine, like boot squad or boot team leaders. And then, uh, and that was pretty awesome. That was like, uh, all right, like, they see that I care and they see that I know what I'm doing and I'm, I'm taking everything that they gave me. If I didn't know something, it was because I wasn't taught it, you know? And that's something that I learned early on. You know, you can't, especially being, being a young leader after that, you know, I can't, I can't get mad at dudes if they don't know something.

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  If they don't know something, there's, there's one of two reasons. It's because they don't care to keep working on it on their own, or I haven't taught it to them. And, uh, I, you know, I noticed that early on. And so every time, like, like Dalton, he, he would see like, all right, this guy can handle this. And so he'd go to like advanced schools or my team leader would go to an advanced school. And they'd like feed me a little more like, hey, we'll just prepare you for advanced school and stuff. So like, Teaching me call for fire and stuff like that as a really junior marine like picked it up like that. And they're like, okay, now we'll teach you like close air support and like picked it up like that and just worked at everything that I could as hard as I could.

• 1:37:10Shawn Ryan?

  They really took you under the wing.

• 1:37:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, very much so. And you know, a lot of guys don't have phenomenal leaders in you know, in their careers, I think. But I definitely had some solid leadership and guys that I'm thankful for today, you know, for molding me into more of the man that I am now and the marine that I am today. And you know, saw some good leadership at a young age, a young time in my career.

• 1:37:35Shawn Ryan?

  That's good.

• 1:37:37Speaker 01

  I got to see the good and the bad, you know, that I got to see the kind of leader that I wanted to be and the kind of leader I did not want to be. So.

• 1:37:43Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you. Well, Tyler, let's take a break and when we come back, I want to push towards August 26.

• 1:37:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 1:37:59Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Tyler, we're back from the break. You just finished infantry school. You're getting ready to go on your first deployment.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so my squad leader at the time, you know, I was a team leader with being a junior marine with a couple with majority. I had maybe one or two other guys who were my peers in the platoon and different squads who were junior marine team leaders as well. The rest of them were senior guys per se. And so my squad leader actually went to ISOC Infantry Small Unit Leaders Course. And that was like a couple, couple weeks before, a couple of months before deployment, like right before deployment, just enough time

• 1:38:46Speaker 01

  to get back and deploy with us. And so I was his assistant squad leader over my, over my seniors. He pointed me and.

• 1:38:56Shawn Ryan?

  Over your senior?

• 1:38:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, over my seniors. And right when he was leaving, you know, like the day before he was leaving for that course, he said, listen, he's like, no more.

• 1:39:09Speaker 01

  You know, no more, no more answering to, to your seniors like you're below them. Um, not that I was ever that way, but you know, you're the same rank as them.

• 1:39:20Speaker 01

  You're holding billet over them. He's like, take this shit and run with it. He's like, you're gonna be acting squad leader until I get back. And I was like, take this shit and run with it. Got it. I got it. So I, uh, did what probably any Lance Corporal would do in that position. I, I grew out a nice big old mustache.

• 1:39:37Speaker 01

  None of my peers had mustaches.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  Grew a nice big mustache and, uh, just did my best to run the show from that point on. And, uh, we did our, uh, McCree. So Marine Corps Combat Readiness Evaluation. It's what each unit goes through right before to, I don't, actually they might not do them anymore. But up until that point, they did them for deployment to pretty much, uh, see if the entire battalion was ready. If they could use air and sea assets, um, if they could maneuver troops appropriately. And all the way down to the team level, um, you know, operate in, in a hostile environment. And so you go all over Peloton and, uh, like we got Hilo inserted and, uh, you know, into different places in Peloton. You hike, go on a mission. It's like, it was like four or five days long.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  Uh, much more difficult than the crucible, but, uh, they, they, I mean, hiking up the fire breaks on mountains and stuff. Breaking brush that you need machetes to break, like really testing, testing the abilities of, of a Marine infantry battalion. And so I was like, this is fucking awesome. This, um, I can show, you know, what I'm capable of and what my, my squad's capable of. And, uh, I just took it and ran with it. I mean, even, even all the way down to, you know, making a fire, like, like a, a fire sketch, pretty much, you know, of, of the area. I mean, I, I put as much detail as you could in it and, um,

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  I now I got acknowledged for the way I performed during during that McCree.

• 1:41:16Shawn Ryan?

  I was just gonna ask, how do you think your peers received you as a leader?

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Definitely, definitely challenging, but they knew that I was about my shit. And my guys in my team who are all my peers, I mean, I was leading all of my peers when I was a team leader. And I get into that with them, but at the end of the day, they knew like they had to respect what I needed to say and needed them to do. And they did. And I mean, it's a two way street for that relationship, but it was good. And

• 1:41:52Shawn Ryan?

  Generally, it goes like this.

• 1:41:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:54Shawn Ryan?

  Until you do something to prove yourself. Did you do something to prove yourself?

• 1:41:58Speaker 01

  I think just being thrown those tasks, being thrown the McCree really, really kind of helped me shine. And show that I knew what I was doing and that I was just as capable as due to deploy one, two or three times before me. The challenge was definitely like my seniors, the, you know, the Lance Corporals who had been Lance Corporals.

• 1:42:22Speaker 01

  Had been in my shoes, but now I'm in their shoes and I'm a lot farther behind them as far as military careers go in the infantry. And they that was they were probably the challenge. Over over that first deployment.

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  Definitely grew closer with them, just being kind of that guy. I was always in on the meetings. I was always in on on the briefs and stuff because that's what my role was as a as a leader of, you know, of a fire team.

• 1:42:52Shawn Ryan?

  So did you did you fall over them? Were you over them?

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:42:56Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So I was I was over them. I so we went on that first deployment. Thirty first Mew, it was to, uh, we went to Okinawa first, uh, Camp Hanson and then got on ship for a couple of months. Went to South Korea, spent some time near the DMZ. Where were you guys, was? Primarily. Presence in South Korea? Big show of force, cause at that time, right when we got there, they started launching the ICBMs, um, into the ocean. And so then Warthogs and started doing gun runs on the DMZ, like mock gun runs and all the, all the tanks there started doing live fire ranges.

• 1:43:37Speaker 01

  So we, we, I mean, we went to, it was, it's a, I think Camp Rodriguez is what it's called. Uh, and it's like specifically a live fire, like training facility and it's up in the mountains in South Korea. And so you go there and, uh, it's all live fire stuff, um, shoot houses, things like that. So we did a lot of that out there. Um, I had been told, uh, earlier in that deployment that I was getting put up for, uh, Meritorious Corporal Board. And so took like a picture on ship in my Chucks, my Charlies and, uh, didn't really think much of it. And then, uh, it was just kind of like a paper board. So I didn't, other than like speaking to my direct leadership, I didn't have to go in front of anyone.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  So I, I didn't really think much of it cause I'm like, well, I've got this page 11, I've got this NJP in my past on the board. I mean, my physical fitness scores are phenomenal. I have, I've done a lot. And so they did like character statements from leadership and stuff. And, uh, there's one thing in the Marine Corps, there's, there's always, uh, there's always people watching. No matter what you're doing, the good and the bad, there's always people watching and, uh, come to, come to have learned that after this, but. Uh, we're in, we're on a live fire range, just, just finished running it. Um, Dalton, he let me take the squad on, on a run for the range. And, um, did that, did that live fire run? Um.

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  And they call, they call us in, uh, they call in our, our platoon to formation. And you hear stories of guys who get like NJP'd in front of like the company and stuff. Who like they'll bring them in and NJP them in front of everyone and whatnot. Um, and they act, they were acting really serious, like really, really serious. Our platoon sergeant was, and so they're all right, it's like, I'm gonna get the fuck over here, get in formation. Um, and I was like, oh shit. And then they, they said my name and I'm standing in formation and I'm like, my heart's just racing. I'm like, oh fuck, like what did I do? Just thinking, I'm like, alright, I didn't do anything stupid or drunk in Okinawa. I didn't do anything like this, I'm, I've been good, like what the fuck's going on?

• 1:45:45Speaker 01

  Come out of formation, go to the front and uh, read off my meritorious corporal promotion, uh, in front of, in front of all my buddies and our, our platoon. I think the company, entire company might've been there, but read it off in front of everyone, promoted me. And I was just like starstruck, just like, just like stunned at what happened. And it didn't really process in my brain, I was like, oh my God, I thought I was getting in trouble again. And uh, everyone came in, gave me a hug, uh, and that was a cool moment. Cause I, I was the, uh, I was the first, first person out of my entire peer group to get promoted to corporal in our battalion. Um, in our entire unit, and I got promoted to corporal above, uh, before, um, and above a lot of my senior leadership.

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  And that's a hell of a redemption. Yeah, it was, it was an awesome moment. I mean, there was, there's definitely, um, the majority who were like one year above me pretty much, like one cycle above me in the Marine Corps, um, that I had, I had surpassed and it was, it was like a moment where I was like, man, like, this, this is, you know, the, what I've earned from, from what I've put in. And uh, I mean, I, I, I was still hungry. I, um, that didn't, that didn't satisfy me, but in a, in a positive way. Um, I was extremely thankful and still, I mean, I couldn't believe it. It probably took like a year to settle in and uh,

• 1:47:15Speaker 01

  so we, we went on that deployment, came back, um.

• 1:47:21Speaker 01

  And then I went to advanced infantry course, um, just more another follow on school. Um, they typically send like squad leaders too. So I took over, um, Dalton went to platoon sergeant. I took over as the squad leader. They sent me to the advanced infantry course. Um, it's pretty much like the squad leaders course and fortunately him and my other team leaders when I was younger had kind of pimped me out with their knowledge and stuff. So everything at advanced infantry school was stuff I already knew. And it was stuff that I was very good at. Um, so that was a lot of, a lot of just kind of going through the suck, you know, carrying heavy packs, carrying a lot of weapons, a lot of ammo and uh, still learning a lot, but um, kind of getting to see, you know, some, some older,

• 1:48:06Speaker 01

  some older combat instructors, some older combat vets really share their stories with us from Ramadi and, um, Helmand province and stuff and, and really talk to us about, you know, the, the reality of the Marine Corps. Um, cause a lot of, a lot of our direct leadership wasn't a, there's only so many combat vets at that time, you know, they're, they're, and it was very, very much the minority of them in, in the unit. Really? Yeah. And uh, That's surprising. My, in my platoon of like 35, 40 people, um, coming back from that deployment, not a, not a single person had been to combat. Are you serious? Yeah.

• 1:48:49Speaker 01

  Not a single person. Um, it was typically, there was like onesies and twosies here and there, like in the mortar section. I think, and then like more senior like staff NCOs who had been like a couple of the platoon sergeants, um, our platoon sergeant at the time, um, Adam Opelis, he was, he was a younger guy too and had to fill some, some big shoes.

• 1:49:13Speaker 01

  But like the two platoon sergeant before him or two, like he was a combat vet. But yeah, there, there was not many few, I don't know if few and far between is the right phrase, but yeah, it was a small amount. And so obviously we're doing our own thing, training how we know how to train and what we're taught. And fortunately, those like.

• 1:49:35Shawn Ryan?

  Where, where did they go? Had they advanced up into the higher ranks or they separated?

• 1:49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So some of them had, had advanced into the higher ranks or, you know, been cut orders, got sent to the like advanced infantry training battalion or like to be combat instructors and stuff. A lot of them had gotten out. But most of the more of the combat vets were like advanced infantry training battalion, which is like where I went to advanced infantry course at. And there's like all the follow on advanced, more advanced infantry courses. Like all those guys are seasoned veterans.

• 1:50:12Shawn Ryan?

  That's interesting. I would have thought that some of that knowledge would be in the, in the platoons.

• 1:50:20Speaker 01

  It was more in, definitely in the staff NCOs. I think there's.

• 1:50:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like that for the majority of the platoons. Like maybe the platoon sergeant had been to combat, but everyone else pretty much now. And so then I got my first wave of fresh Marines, you know, straight out of infantry school. And I was like, all right, well, now it's my turn to really step up and be a leader because I've been, I mean, I've been leading my peers, but

• 1:50:51Speaker 01

  really my turn to see if I know what I'm doing and mold, mold some, some great men, some great young men. And they are, those guys are all squad leaders now on another deployment, which is cool. And I was still at this time of that deployment, I was preparing for assessment selection for Marsoc. I was, I was set on going, very excited and well-prepared physically and mentally, I felt like.

• 1:51:17Shawn Ryan?

  Speaking of Marsoc, at what point, at what point in your career did you turn, you turned sniper school down?

• 1:51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:24Shawn Ryan?

  Two different times.

• 1:51:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:26Shawn Ryan?

  Why did you turn that down?

• 1:51:28Speaker 01

  Because, so there's a big, um, so I was, I was in the, I was a rifle squad leader for about a little under a year. And then Dalton said, hey, I'm going to the sniper platoon. They're running an indoc. And I'm like, well, fuck, I'm up. They're about to make me try and re-enlist because I, um, I want to go to ANS, but I'm, I need to have like a backup for them. Like they wanted something just like another contract ready in case that fell through.

• 1:51:52Shawn Ryan?

  What's ANS?

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  Assessment selection.

• 1:51:54Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:51:55Speaker 01

  Um, uh, for Marsoc. And so I was like, damn dude, he told me, he, uh, we were just on a field op and he told me, uh, on a Thursday, he's like, hey, you're the only other person that knows this besides our LT. Like I'm going to, I'm going to sniper indoc on Monday and like the screener. And I was like, fuck. I was like, damn dude. I was like, I should have, I should have fucking done it. I was like, it's too late. And, uh, this whole, that, cause the, one of the, the backup to my, my plan that they, that I was going to do would be the squad leader development program. You'd spend another at least two years in an infantry battalion. And then I would go, um, if I didn't go to Marsoc, I would go on to like another unit or to be a combat instructor or something and get a pretty good bonus. Um, but they

• 1:52:39Speaker 01

  kinked them. Like they only grandfathered in people who had already had them signed and they didn't do them anymore. And I was like, okay, that's fine. Like I'm, I'm going to make it like, going to get selected. That just solidifies it even more for me. I can, cannot not get selected. And, um, I was cool with that. And then he told me that and I was like, damn dude. I was like, I, I would really like to go with you, but it's too late. There's deadlines and stuff for filling out packages for, for, uh, for snipers. And he's like, well, CHAZ is a. You know, the Chief Scout Sniper, my former team leader, he's the Chief Scout Sniper of the platoon. I'm buddies with him, like, let me hit him up and see if, you know, if he can like squeeze you in.

• 1:53:20Speaker 01

  Cause I had a bunch of buddies in the platoon and they had wanted me to come for a while. Guys I've been in advanced infantry course with and guys in the platoon were like, you need to fucking get over here. And when I was a fresh Marine, got NJP'd, I had tried to go actually run a sniper in dock. And they're like, nope, you just got NJP'd, you have to wait a year. And so I never got to do it. And so he hit up Chaz, Friday came around, he was like, alright, if you can fill out a packet and the entirety of Friday, which is normally takes like a week to get done and like get all the signatures and stuff for it. He's like, and you can get him this packet by the end of like closed business today. Like you can like show up Sunday or Monday morning, whatever it was for the screener. I was like, fuck, I was like, great, I need new boots too.

• 1:54:02Speaker 01

  And so got the packet filled out, turned it in, they're like, alright, show up Monday at like 02 or whatever it was. And it's kind of how I fast-tracked into that. Showed up, you know, 2am with the packing list, started doing the, I mean, it's all physical and mental stuff, but it's, they definitely try and break you off with the physical stuff. And so, let me ask you, what was the question you asked me? I was trying to lead up to it with that.

• 1:54:32Shawn Ryan?

  I asked you why you turned down sniper school two different times.

• 1:54:37Speaker 01

  Okay, so.

• 1:54:38Shawn Ryan?

  For more suck.

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  I, so passed the screener. We started with, I think like mid to late 30s of guys or something like that on day one. And then by the end of it, there was like maybe eight of us of that week. And there's like eight of us or seven of us and then like four or five of us got selected. Dalton and myself being one of them or two of them. And so.

• 1:55:08Speaker 01

  I told them, uh, we had to go where our Charlies go in front of them and they interviewed us, um, right? Like to figure out if they wanted to select us for the platoon. And, you know, they're like, you're coming from a position of, you know, being a squad leader, you know, kind of being at, uh, you know, one of the top spots in your platoon.

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  Do you think you could handle having someone above you and, you know, not being necessarily the leader of the team again, or the leader of the squad, you know, having, having a team leader above you? I was like, yeah, like I'm, I'm here to work. I want to be with more proficient individuals and guys who really do give a fuck. Cause they're, I mean, you get those guys in infantry, it's like, 70% of them, 60%, 5% of them like really care, but there's a good chunk who are just kind of getting by. And, uh, you're not going to go put yourself through the suck if you don't want to be there. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so, um, I told them that and I was like, and then they told me they, they wanted, they, after that, they came back and told me that they wanted me.

• 1:56:09Speaker 01

  And, uh, I told them, I was like, listen, my intent is to go to assessment selection for our SOC.

• 1:56:17Speaker 01

  I want you to know if I come to the platoon, I'm going to go there.

• 1:56:22Speaker 01

  Uh, it doesn't mean I'm going to work any less, um, in any capacity, being here because I'm going to go there. It's like, honestly, I'm probably going to work harder because that's where I want to go. I want to go to a better place. And being around better individuals is going to help push me to be a better version of myself. And so,

• 1:56:42Speaker 01

  they're like, all right, I understand. Like you can come to the platoon and we'll, we'll let you go. That's not going to be a problem. We want guys like you. And I was like, awesome, cool. And then right away, they offered Dalton nice spots to sniper school. And, uh, I had, I had orders already, um, like in hand to go and like two, uh, in like two months to go to assessment selection. And

• 1:57:06Speaker 01

  There are maybe like a month and a half. And so they were like, hey, sniper schools like during selection, like we, and we want you to go. Do you want to like, asking me if I want to go pretty much. And I was like, no, I want to go to assessment selection. I want to be a raider. And it was more important to me. I mean, you see it and I've, I've, I've saw it even more as my time went on the sniper platoon, but respect to all my, all my hogs out there, hunter of gunmen, scout snipers, but it's definitely more of a pride thing. Wearing that, wearing that hog's tooth, that seven six two bullet around your neck, you know, a necklace and a title for me is not gonna make me a better man. Me, my actions and, and how I choose to, how the Marine I choose

• 1:57:48Speaker 01

  to be is, is what matters. And so that title wasn't important, wasn't important, as important to me as becoming a raider. Um, so I turned it down. Uh, and then I had around, around the fourth of July, selection was the month after. Um, I gave my, I, I just was way overtraining. Like I was running really hard, rucking really hard and still lifting weights. Um, and, uh, I gave myself a hemorrhoid like the size of a quarter, almost right on my, my asshole. And, uh, I could barely walk. I was waddling around. I couldn't sit down. I always had to lay down. And I remember going, so our platoon corpsman at that time, our head platoon corpsman, he was

• 1:58:31Speaker 01

  a SARC. Um, uh, so he, uh, he had gone through like the basic reconnaissance course pipeline and, uh, and, and I'm like, hey, like, I might not be able to go to selection. Like something's wrong. I've got like, something wrong with my ass. He's like, what the fuck did you just say to me? And I was like, I need you to look at my asshole. And he was like, oh my God. He's just like, what the fuck? And so he's like, are you serious? I'm like, yeah. And he's like, all right, drop your pants and like, spread your cheeks. And I did that. And I'm bent over, cheeks spread and he's staring at me. And all that comes out of his mouth, oh my fucking God. And I stand up and I pull my pants up. I was like, are you serious, dude? That's your response? I was like, you're my doc.

• 1:59:17Speaker 01

  You could have taken volunteers, Styler. Oh, man. And so that, that was his response. I was like, that's, that's your response is oh my fucking God. He was like, yeah, that's bad, man. And he's like, all right, you need to go to medical right now and then got like sent to the actual hospital because it was a pretty bad one and got some antibiotics and some medicine and stuff and it was like for it to even go away um to the point where I could like I wasn't allowed to work out like it hurt really bad but even if I wanted to push through the pain it um I could have like burst it or made it worse give myself a hernia and stuff and so they're like

• 1:59:55Speaker 01

  you can't do anything for like five weeks and that was like the like a week into selection and so I could have could have pushed it uh talked with my marshlock recruiter about it and he was like you could do it but it might just fuck your chances up of everything and I was like fuck man and I at that point I mean I had I was a capable infantryman and being in a cyber platoon I mean I was I was fit and capable to go I was ready for selection but it was just like I you know I don't want this to be my one shot and then not happen because I'm hurt and so I had to get my orders uh drop my orders and then um we're in the middle of doing our pre sniper course too and so I would

• 2:00:39Speaker 01

  go and do like stock lanes with them uh as I was still healing up and I would like start halfway and like set up like FFPs like final firing positions because I couldn't actually like crawl around so I would like start halfway and set up my positions and stuff and still do training and stuff because I still want to be involved and fortunately I could still I could still go and shoot I just could only stand Neil or like prone I couldn't sit so I was still able to like participate in training and stuff and I wanted to um and then we went to 29 palms for training leading up to that deployment and they're like hey you guys are you guys are going on the SP mag to half sent calm like you're going to the Middle East and this is end of 2020 like October November of 2020 and

• 2:01:22Speaker 01

  Like excited as shit. We're like, wow, we're actually like they started. So they solely kept the Middle East rotations to Seventh Marines for a while. And, uh, and then I think Fifth Marines as well, maybe for a little bit, but they moved them back to the rest of the Marine Corps so that everyone would get a chance to like, go to the Middle East, go to Okinawa and, and go to every, everywhere we deploy. So they told us that. And then at the end of that training cycle in 29 Palms, uh, I had another date to go to selection again and also to go to sniper school. And they're like, all right, you like, do you want to go to selection or do you want to go to sniper school? Like, we want you to go to sniper

• 2:02:04Speaker 01

  school still. And, um, it's like, I want to go to selection. Like, I'm good. Like, I'm, I can perform, I'll perform a lot of scout snipers in this platoon. Like, I'm, I'm good. I'm, I'm, I'm good where I'm at. And this is what I want to do. So I turned down sniper school again. Uh, and we had a training event to come up and I was like, hey, I need to go to this eye, eye appointment for some depth perception issues. Uh, if I don't go, you know, kind of tell my command, if you guys don't let me go and miss this like one day of training, um, you know, I, I'm, I'm going to miss my opportunity to go to selection again. And they're like, no, you'll be fine. You'll have time to get it when you get back. Naturally, I didn't have time to go get this appointment done and get these like depth perception

• 2:02:47Speaker 01

  glasses. When we got back, uh, my timeline overlapped by like two weeks. So I missed that selection date again because it didn't let me go get that, uh, that appointment that I needed while we were in training. And, uh, and then I'm, I'm, I missed school as well because I turned that down too. Um, so then we deployed and then I was like, all right, well, there's another fucking, there's another course that's after, uh, deployment and, uh, I'll, I'll go to sniper school this time and then I'll go to selection. Yeah. Um, that was kind of the plan after that. And so jumping into this deployment, um,

• 2:03:26Speaker 01

  You know, we were told we were going to Kuwait. So the SP MACDAF is Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force, and we were the CR, so Crisis Response, sent us to Kuwait and Al-Jabbar, Kuwait originally. I guess I should jump back real quick. So that February, we deployed in April 1, I think, of that year. In February, I was at a non-lethal weapons instructor course, and we were, the guys in my platoon were telling me, we had already been told we were awaiting a brief on Syria, going there and kind of pulling out of Syria, which obviously didn't

• 2:04:08Speaker 01

  happen. And they're like, hey, the battalion commander and the sergeant major are gonna come talk to us about it, and like, one of the colonels or something. And so I'm like, okay, and I'm at this course, and they're like, hey, you need to show up to like, the range, our guys are on the range, and I was at this course, and they're like, hey, show up to this course this afternoon. So I had them contact my instructors at this course, and like, told them something, he kind of like, made a weird face looking at me, and they're like, alright, yeah, we'll send them over there this afternoon, and go to the range. And I pull up to the table, like, the range table, one of my buddies was sitting at, and everyone, everyone's on the firing line, behind the long guns, and my buddy,

• 2:04:49Speaker 01

  Adam, he's like, comes up to me, he's like, hey, brother, congratulations on the promotion. I was like, what? And I just see like, a rock come flying out of nowhere, and like, Adam, you stupid bitch. Like, he doesn't fucking know that he's getting promoted. And then I was like, oh shit, like, what the fuck? And so I had actually, when we were in Twenty-Nine Palms, that prior year, I had been put up for a meritorious sergeant board, and I won. And like, I remember my platoon sergeant, I mean, my platoon commander asking me, like, I want to put you up for, you know, I and everyone else wants to put you up for a meritorious sergeant board. Um, you know, you think you deserve that? And I was like, I think I can handle it.

• 2:05:33Speaker 01

  And so he's like, all right, Roger that. And so they put me up for that. Not much more came of it. And then, uh, yeah, they, they come over to me like, all right, well, when the B C and like Sergeant Major get here, like you got to act surprised because like it's supposed to be a surprise. And so got meritoriously promoted to sergeant. Um, and that was pretty cool. I was with all my boys again. Uh, at this point I had, it's funny because I told Dalton when I was a young, young, young guy, like a PFC or a Lance Corporal, I was like, like giving him shit as much as I could, him being above me. I go, uh, I was, he was pinning me to, to Lance Corporal, I think. And, uh, I was like, you're going to be pinning me to sergeant one day when you're sergeant still, I promise.

• 2:06:17Speaker 01

  And then it came and he was like, you motherfucker. But, uh, yeah, that was, that was a cool moment. So he, he promoted me to, to sergeant as well. And, uh, then we deployed shortly thereafter. Uh, went to Kuwait and obviously now this is the, you know, almost, it's like the end of the first quarter of 2021 and we see things in Afghanistan wrapping up and, uh, with the Taliban and, you know, everyone, the entire world, if you got two eyes and you're not blind, you can see what's going on in Afghanistan at that time. And, um, we push out to Kuwait.

• 2:06:58Speaker 01

  We're getting all these briefs on Syria and stuff and we end up, um, getting prepped to go to Syria and then like, all right, nope, you guys are going to Saudi Arabia now. We were in Kuwait for like a month or so, get sent to Saudi Arabia as a show of force for Iran and, uh, started getting told about like briefs on Afghanistan and this is now March, April.

• 2:07:24Speaker 01

  Like May and June, it was like two months before we ever left to Afghan.

• 2:07:32Speaker 01

  Maybe like three, two or three months before we ever left that we were like really getting briefs like, hey, like the government's collapsing and they're and our Colonel of the SP MagTAF, we had a good working relationship with him, us being like sniper, sniper platoon, sniper teams, their battalion level asset. So they're not controlled by the companies, the infantry companies. We answer directly to like the battalion commander. And at that time where we were in Saudi Arabia was with the flagpole. So the Colonel and everyone was there of the SP MagTAF. And so he was always letting us know what was going on. We were getting briefs on Afghanistan and they were pushing for us to go like the Marine Corps was pushing for us to go.

• 2:08:12Shawn Ryan?

  So you guys, you guys went to withdraw Syria, then you go, that doesn't happen. Then you go to show force to Iran.

• 2:08:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:22Shawn Ryan?

  And then you get pulled from that to go to Afghanistan.

• 2:08:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:27Shawn Ryan?

  So this leads us into you guys going to Afghanistan.

• 2:08:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:08:32Shawn Ryan?

  For the withdrawal and the incident on the 26th.

• 2:08:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. About two, two to three months prior to us going, you know, they, our Colonel told us, he's like, I'm pushing for us to get over there. We were told the Marine Corps was pushing for us to get over to Afghanistan as well. And they instead, us being the closest to Afghanistan, that, that was the original, one of the reasons too, for us, you know, being in, not just being a show of force for Iran, but we're the closest to that action and closest to Afghanistan. And then we started getting told, hey, you guys aren't going right now. They're spinning guys up in the States who have no preparation or anything going on right now to go to Afghanistan. Like, why the fuck are you not sending us? Like, this is what we, so what we're here for.

• 2:09:18Shawn Ryan?

  Did you guys know you were going to Afghanistan to do the withdrawal at this point?

• 2:09:22Speaker 01

  No, they were, we knew that our Colonel and the, um, the Marine Corps was trying to get us to go, but we didn't have any dates set, didn't have like, okay, you guys are going.

• 2:09:31Shawn Ryan?

  What I mean was, did you know the administration was going to withdraw all forces? Or was it just because of the civil unrest?

• 2:09:41Speaker 01

  So the civil unrest and then it, uh, we were getting briefed on how the president, you know, and the administration talked about, um,

• 2:09:51Speaker 01

  Pulling out by like, like September 11th, pretty much. And so we were told about that. And so we knew that that was like, hey, he, that's when he wants to withdraw. Why are we going now? Why are we not going now when we can prepare before everything collapses even further than it already is? And so guy, other guy, other units, other troops are getting spun up in the States. We're waiting to go. And we start, you know, getting told, hey, this is going to be like a noncombatant evacuation operation, which is essentially pulling refugees out, you know, clearing them, vetting them, looking at special immigrant visas, passports, citizenships. And no one really knew what that was other than a passport.

• 2:10:36Shawn Ryan?

  Noncombatant pullout, huh?

• 2:10:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:40Shawn Ryan?

  What all was going, what were you guys' intel briefs that were being reported?

• 2:10:44Speaker 01

  Uh, collapse of the government, Taliban fighting, heavy fighting, uh, with the National Resistance Front.

• 2:10:55Shawn Ryan?

  So how would this have been a noncombatant withdrawal?

• 2:10:58Speaker 01

  I think, uh, we all wonder that to this day.

• 2:11:00Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, good.

• 2:11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:11:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, doing what the Taliban does best, raping and murdering, um, tyranny. And that's what it was, but

• 2:11:14Speaker 01

  we did small scale on the, the little LSA airbase that we were at in Saudi Arabia with like the soldiers and air, airmen that were at that base. They would come through our lanes, pretty much that they'd set up like very nice, neat, organized lanes and like Marines would have to search and fright, like potential threats, search for citizenships and stuff, passports primarily. None of us knew what a special immigrant visa was even until we got to Afghanistan. And even then it was three days before the bomb went off, before the suicide bomber detonated that we, that I even knew what it like special immigrant visa looked like for the first time.

• 2:11:54Speaker 01

  I knew what passports looked like, we all did, but that was about it, not anything else. And, uh,

• 2:12:00Speaker 01

  so.

• 2:12:03Speaker 01

  Those months pass, Afghanistan further collapses in on itself with the Taliban closing in on Kabul. And we're still waiting, we're still just sitting around waiting and just trying to get the president to let us go, pretty much. And finally, when it's at the point where the Taliban are surrounding the entirety of Hamid Karzai International Airport, they're already, they've taken the rest of Afghanistan and they're, you know, in the capital. We've, you know, the decision to close Bagram Air Force Base was made, not sure why, because that's where we should have pulled out from, what we were told we were gonna pull out from. And we, I mean, we got sent in-

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  You were told you were gonna withdraw from Bagram? Yeah, that that was the better place to withdraw from. And that was the weeks leading up to it. And then a couple of weeks prior, said that we're going to Kabul to pull out from there. Why do you think that decision got changed? Poor planning, honestly. I think just, just a lack of preparation, a lack of planning. The State Department weighing over their heads. I mean, I'll dive into that when, when it gets to it, but yeah, just everyone in way over their heads with that. We, so, we start prepping, getting combat loadouts ready, and this is now, we're in Kuwait,

• 2:13:32Speaker 01

  and we're in Kuwait for training, using some of the army sniper ranges there, and they tell us, you know, we're going, we're going to, like, hey, you're going to Afghanistan in two weeks. And they only told our team. And I'm like, well, you guys are fucking crazy if I'm not gonna talk to my buddies. So, the unit that we got, or the company that we got attached back to, our team, was the company that I came from to go to snipers. So, it was all my buddies who were platoon sergeants and squad leaders, and I was like, you guys are fucking crazy if you think I'm not gonna help these guys prepare to go in two weeks, because they were gonna wait another week to tell them. And so, we started letting the guys know what was up. And so, obviously, we're, I mean, my team, we were stoked, we were fucking stoked, like,

• 2:14:16Speaker 01

  alright, finally, like, we get to do our jobs, hopefully. And it really hit us when maybe a couple, couple of days prior to us, like our date set to leave that our team corpsman Jorge Mayo, he came in and he was like, all right, guys, it's real. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, got my med pack and you know, he's got everything in it. He's got all of his drugs, all ketamine, everything. Um, I'm like, oh shit, like it is real. Like you're not, they haven't let you touch that shit unless you're in a hospital. Um, like we're going. And so, uh, they made us send a rep from our team, uh, with one of the platoons to Afghanistan.

• 2:15:01Speaker 01

  Um, so Dalton went a day before the rest of our team. Um, and Chaz and I went into the, the command center to, to watch the drone feeds of them getting in safely and flying in. And I mean, Chaz and I, uh, spent hours and hours and hours watching those drone feeds and, and the dazing up to it as well. And I mean, all you saw was the Taliban outside the gates, just bam, bam, bam, just civilian after civilian after civilian.

• 2:15:28Shawn Ryan?

  How many civilians do you think you saw executed by Taliban from drone feed?

• 2:15:32Speaker 01

  From the drone feed, probably, probably like 20 or 30 at least. And, uh, and that was just in the short moments I was in there, saw a lot more in person.

• 2:15:44Shawn Ryan?

  What did that feel like seeing that on drone?

• 2:15:47Speaker 01

  Um.

• 2:15:52Speaker 01

  Uh, what's the right word? I would say.

• 2:15:54Shawn Ryan?

  Those are our allies.

• 2:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I, it was, it was saddening to watch. It was horrible to watch.

• 2:15:59Shawn Ryan?

  What is the leadership saying? Were they disgusted?

• 2:16:03Speaker 01

  They wanted us to get the fuck over there to do something about it. Um, I mean, everyone in, in our unit and our kind of echelon of command and, and that SP magtaf and that side of it, like they're ready, we were ready to go, like.

• 2:16:17Speaker 01

  Or what we thought would be ready anyway, like ready to go help is is what I mean.

• 2:16:23Speaker 01

  I mean, we're all disgusted by what we saw. And then that day them coming in, so they flew in on that plane and that's the day that uh I mean, we we were watching the feed and there's just tens of hundreds of thousands of people just collapsing in on the airport and you can see it from every angle. There's just crowds as far as the eye can see. And just going to the going to the airport because they know that that's the only way out. And uh

• 2:16:53Speaker 01

  Dalton gets there with that platoon, I think it was fourth platoon and they start. They get there, we watched them get in safely. I think they might have taken some well, a couple of the birds were taking rocket fire and machine gun fire in as they were coming and uh they got they touched down, we made sure they did and we were supposed to leave the next night and so

• 2:17:14Speaker 01

  that day was when you see all those videos of the guys holding on to the landing gear and the wheels and them falling out of the sky and crushing. I mean, my guys were on the ground there watching those people firsthand drop out of the planes. I mean, I know Dalton and my, you know, my buddy Jake, like they they wa- they watched those bodies hit the pavement. They watched them hit the runway. They they were there and had to control tho- that crowd of thousands of people that broke into the gates and just all of these unknown individuals rushed them.

• 2:17:46Speaker 01

  They were, they spent, I think, like thirty something hours like clearing the airfield

• 2:17:52Speaker 01

  of all those people and we have no idea who they are. Some are the, some are allies, some are not, you know?

• 2:18:02Speaker 01

  And so they got that under wraps right when we went to touchdown and so we we loaded up at the runway. What day did you get in? We got in August fifteenth, I think.

• 2:18:14Speaker 01

  I think we flew out the 14th, they got in on the 15th.

• 2:18:19Speaker 01

  So August 15th, 2021 is when we got, we touched down. Give or take 12 hours, but.

• 2:18:27Speaker 01

  Touchdown and they're like, hey, it's gonna be the fucking Alamo. You guys are getting off the bird. The last bird of you guys that got here. I mean, they were fighting the crowds coming out of the plane, throwing tear gas and, which they were, and uh. You guys are gonna, you know, fight, fight them coming out of the plane and stuff and, and uh. A funny moment was we, we come off the bird and it's the middle of the night. And everyone's running out immediately setting up at 360. And I'm just looking around and there's like, just calm as can be, like right there on the airfield. And uh. Just in that immediate area where we landed and this like army soldier or this airman walks up with her Kevlar, like strapped to her, her pack or her plate carrier, walking up to us with a clipboard. Hi guys, welcome to Afghanistan. I'm like, what the fuck?

• 2:19:12Speaker 01

  And, and uh. Remember Cooper, one of the guys in our team, uh, at the time, one of our, our only junior marine in the team.

• 2:19:21Speaker 01

  He was posted up on security. I'm like, Cooper, get the fuck up. Like, I don't know what the fuck this is, but it's not a. It's not, not what, what we thought it was gonna be when we landed. And so they come to find out now our guys had already secured the airfield and we just had them in past that intel.

• 2:19:37Speaker 01

  And so we get up, we immediately push uh with that platoon to uh this, this abandoned gym in H Kaya. And we're just anxious to get to work. We go back, grab our rucks, cause a few of our rucks were palletized and um, or like our main rucks were palletized. And I mean, I, I came in, I was carrying, we, we like Chaz, Chaz carried in, uh, I think like a Mark 13. It's like during a win mag and then I, I carried, I was primaring a SAS and then had my M4A1 as well. Um, so we took a couple of long ones with us on the bird and palletized a couple of other ones.

• 2:20:14Speaker 01

  And had it, had a can or two of ammo as well, but. Got there, got off the bird, uh, grabbed our stuff, went to the gym, ran into another sniper team from uh, from 18 and they were trying to talk to us, but they're, they're trying to, the other guys were trying to usher us into our little area in the gym. And so we get there. And we're like, all right, well, let's get to work. Like, let's find a job. That's what we do best. So our other, another sniper team of ours from our platoon just got in there like that morning or something. So they were there with our platoon commander. And so like, all right, let's go find LT.

• 2:20:53Speaker 01

  And we got there, we go over to where they're staged by like the Joint Operations Command and the rest of our weapons company. So like snipers are organic to like the weapons company, pretty much. And then we got, it's like,

• 2:21:12Speaker 01

  Echo Company, Fox Company, Golf Company, and then like Weapons Company. And so Weapons is like heavy machine guns, CAT, snipers,

• 2:21:26Speaker 01

  like heavy mortars or medium mortars. And then, so we got met up with the rest of our guys, said, what's up? And we're like, hey, like, we want to, let's get to work. And everyone was still kind of trying to figure out what was going on on the ground. And they're like, all right, well, we're going to send you out in the morning, early morning for a, to observe the Taliban on the civilian side of the terminals on the airfield. And so we go out there that next morning, didn't have any rides or anything. So we're trying to just, guys are stealing cars and stealing, literally guys are driving around with like the luggage vehicles that like put the belts on to the plane. Cause they needed rides around the airport and stuff. We didn't have any UTVs to rely on or anything like that.

• 2:22:12Speaker 01

  And it was quite a ways away. So we were like, fuck, we got a, we got a lot of shit and we, we'll hump it if we have to, but let's, let's try and source some vehicles. So we had someone with a Gator pick us up, got taken out there to this, this radio, like radar site with a satellite and.

• 2:22:29Speaker 01

  One eight had their sniper team up there already in like a, a small hide. And so we, we went up there, swapped out with them. And they were kind of updating us, just saying they were seeing people firing off rounds, like Taliban firing off rounds in the terminal and

• 2:22:47Speaker 01

  talking on phones and stuff, but I mean, everyone out there now has phones, so. You know, it is what it is. Um, but we got up there, swapped, ripped out with them and then, uh, guys started setting up more of a perimeter around, around the airport, literally just like, almost entrenching along the airfield. And, um, we observed the Taliban for, for that whole day, uh, maybe a little bit into the next day and.

• 2:23:14Shawn Ryan?

  What were they doing?

• 2:23:16Speaker 01

  Uh, some of them were, were executing people in the civilian terminals on the far side. Um, a couple of our guys had got, not our, our team, but a couple of the guys from Echo Company had gotten shot at. And at the time, it was like, if you get shot at, shoot back. Like that's what the ROE is what we were told. And then those ROEs just started, just dropping or going to the wayside. They were like, all right, don't do anything.

• 2:23:39Shawn Ryan?

  Don't do anything?

• 2:23:40Speaker 01

  Unless, yeah, yeah. Unless you, unless you're like, getting shot at or you see someone's life threatened, like, don't shoot. And like specifically for us, cause we're like.

• 2:23:48Shawn Ryan?

  So you, so, so hold on.

• 2:23:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:50Shawn Ryan?

  ROEs are, don't shoot unless you get shot at.

• 2:23:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:55Shawn Ryan?

  You're literally, you showed me videos of this.

• 2:23:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:23:59Shawn Ryan?

  You're literally witnessing people get executed from all angles.

• 2:24:04Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:24:05Shawn Ryan?

  And then they make the ROEs even more strict on you.

• 2:24:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they go.

• 2:24:11Shawn Ryan?

  Who's telling you this? Where's this shit coming from?

• 2:24:14Speaker 01

  It was a mix, uh.

• 2:24:16Shawn Ryan?

  But I mean, what is the leadership saying?

• 2:24:19Speaker 01

  But.

• 2:24:19Shawn Ryan?

  As they tell you this.

• 2:24:20Speaker 01

  So it's like battalion and higher and for us, we were like, okay, well, so obviously we're in a more unique situation, being in a cyber team. You know, what are we doing if we perceive a threat? And so now we have to request permission to engage. Um, if we see someone getting shot or executed, we have to make sure that they're, like they are like an American citizen or an ally. And like, how the fuck are we supposed to know that when they've got someone on their knees with a gun to their head? Um, and so we're there.

• 2:24:51Speaker 01

  Um, and I'll, I'll jump more into the ROEs when we get to the Abbey Gate, but we, uh. How many people do you think you saw executed in person? Myself, uh, probably at least fifty. Fifty people? Yeah. Yeah. And it was all primarily like at Abbey Gate, about ninety-eight percent of it. Um, we, so I, myself and Jorge, we went to. Women? Yeah. Children? I didn't see any children. Um, but I did see dead children because of the Taliban forcing these civilians to be so scared that they'd throw their babies over the wall or they would get trampled to death. Um, yeah.

• 2:25:36Speaker 01

  You have a lot of video of this. I'm gonna put the video. Yeah. In, in the episode. Definitely. Um, so myself and Jorge at this satellite tower, we go to find a place to, uh, use the bathroom and we do that. We find this ship. There's a few, bunch of shipping containers next to this where we're at, where our hides at. And so we start breaking them open. Um, and he's like, hey, there's one over here with like a bunch of tools in it. And I'm like, like power tools or what? And he's like, everything. And so we go in there and, uh, he's like, oh, he pulls out this like three and a half, four foot tall, um, pair of bolt cutters out. And he's like, oh, we need these. He's like, oh, we can toss them this bobcat. And we had just found a, a bobcat with like a forklift and a bed on the back,

• 2:26:21Speaker 01

  uh, that we hotwired. And like maybe an hour or two prior, I was like, we'll toss them in the back of the vic. And then he's like, oh, here's just like two foot, like tall pair of bolt cutters. Like, what about this? I was like, oh, hell yeah. Like, I'll keep those on me. So I put them on my kit. Um, we pull off of that position that day and they're like, hey, you guys are going to Abbey Gate. Um, Abbey Gate forward and they're gonna open the gate and start like letting people through. Is this the twenty-sixth? This is now like the eighteenth, I think, of August. Um, cause we were,

• 2:26:58Speaker 01

  maybe the seventeenth. We were there at Abbey for like almost ten days, uh, leading up to the, the suicide bomber. And, uh, we get there.

• 2:27:09Speaker 01

  And, you know, pretty much Dalton and Chaz went up in the tower, like our sniper tower that was there. And there were some, uh, some Brits up there. The gate was still closed and there was a company of, a golf company, I think, of their Marines that were there at the gate because they were going to be the ones with us to like, push the gate open and start working on the crowd. And, uh, Dalton and Chaz go up in the tower to scope it out. I'm waiting down on the ground with the rest of the team. And

• 2:27:41Speaker 01

  you're like, hey, come up, like, we'll set up a position in here. This is a good spot. We can see the entire neighborhood to our left. We can, like, there's windows on all sides and they're, they're bulletproof windows. Um, at least rated for seven, six, two, because when we got shot at it didn't, uh, it didn't break, it just cracked. And, uh, so we had windows on all four sides and the middle of them like slides open. And so we go up there and this may be the bottom of the tower is like, twelve by twelve feet maybe or so. And then same with the, the second story is twelve by twelve feet and just the ladder well on the right side. And so we can see the neighborhood, the canal is next to us, uh, this way. And then in front of us is like,

• 2:28:20Speaker 01

  the big part of the, that's of like Kabul City right there. And the right side is like the gate entrance and then like the airfield. And like the wall to the airport. And, um, we go, uh, we set up the position. They're like, okay, we're gonna open up the gate here in a minute. And at this point, I mean, there's a couple thousand people outside the gate, um, and more still coming.

• 2:28:46Shawn Ryan?

  Why are you, hold on, let's, let's backtrack just a second. So you're about ready to open this gate? Are people being executed right outside of the gate?

• 2:28:57Speaker 01

  So the Taliban had a checkpoint. So from our gate, the Taliban had a checkpoint right past the Baron Hotel where the British were at. And they had gotten blocked by the crowds. They couldn't get through the crowds from the Baron Hotel. The Taliban were about hundred and fifty-five, hundred and sixty-five yards in front of us. So that's where they were killing people and

• 2:29:14Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, good.

• 2:29:14Speaker 01

  and doing stuff. And it, those killings and beatings were happening more before we got there and then died down a little bit because we could see them. And then shipping containers were moved out to set up like a blocking position for V-bits to not be able to come through. Um, once those shipping containers were set up, it, it put a great, Great Wall in front of the Taliban that they couldn't be seen, at least by the guys on the ground. We were in an elevated position, so we could see everything that they were doing. And uh, it was probably about three days or two, three days into that, being at the gate that they put those shipping containers out there. Um, so we're getting ready to open up this gate.

• 2:29:56Speaker 01

  And I'm, uh, I was like, I told Chaz and Don, I'm like, hey, I'm gonna go down on the ground cuz uh, they pushed out a platoon in riot gear out through the crowd, just like sent out a platoon, just through this crowd of hundreds of people. I mean, any one of them could have fucking detonated a bomb. And uh, I, I mean, I've got video of this too. And so they pushed the, they pushed the platoon out to cordon off like a couple hundred of the people in the crowd. And um, to, we started opening the gate a little bit and they just collapsed. And I mean, dudes were coming out. The funny thing is, is it's like,

• 2:30:32Speaker 01

  it sucks about the allies that we left behind, but what sucked even more in seeing the women and children suffer through that is seeing the military aged males just running, not, not trying to stand up and fight for their country. And that was a big majority of who was coming through the gate. Yeah. Um, and 90% of them, you know, didn't have, they just didn't have the opportunities to get, um, you know, passports or citizenships or visas and stuff. And so, uh, those people were coming through and I mean, pretty much the military aged males, they were, those ones would come through and they would just be throwing haymakers and fighting us, uh, I mean physically fighting us all day, um, trying to like get past us into, into the airport. And so finally, um,

• 2:31:18Speaker 01

  Cooper and Adam are like down where at the entrance of the gate and they get sucked into the crowd and they're like pulling them into, like all this crowd's pulling them into them and they're like holding on to the gate. And so I go down there cuz we were looking for them and uh, I helped pull uh, Cooper out, find Adam and then uh, they kind of closed up the gate a little bit and then bring up two SUVs to, uh, two SUVs and like an outward V to funnel people through those SUVs so they can't, um, Just started mauling us pretty much, um, or trample us. And so when that gate was first opened, I mean, there was, I pulled out one lady who like they, they, the crowd just broke over the top of her and just trampled her to death.

• 2:32:01Speaker 01

  And like, we tried pulling her out and I was there and pulled this lady out and she was, she was gone. She got trampled to death. And, uh, that happened a lot. Um, I witnessed it probably four or five times just myself at that gate.

• 2:32:16Speaker 01

  You know, quite a lot with babies too, cause they'd get suffocated in the crowd. Damn. Yeah.

• 2:32:24Speaker 01

  What were you guys doing with the people when they got in? Started searching them. Um, we hadn't, we didn't have a safe way to search at yet. Uh, I mean, as safe as can be in that situation, but, uh, we, you know, they'd come through in onesies and twosies and we'd search them and then, uh, try and link them up with the state department, uh, and get them processed. And a lot of the time it would just be the state department saying, nope, they can't come through, send them back. And, uh, we'd send them back straight out to the Taliban. And a lot of them who get sent back, I mean, on the spot, I remember we watched this lady who walked around the ship, one of the shipping containers. Metal pipe just comes and just straight into the forehead and just out, gone, just like that.

• 2:33:10Speaker 01

  And, I mean, they'd like, at night it was the worst. They'd, uh, you know, they knew there weren't as many eyes on them at night and, um, they'd line people up along the wall and just fucking execute them. Um, I, you know, there, there was, uh,

• 2:33:29Speaker 01

  like flashbangs that had to be used and stuff to try and crowd control. And, um,

• 2:33:35Speaker 01

  we, we got the first couple hundred people set in place and then we're slowly pushing into like the main part of the canal. Off of like the left edge of our tower, there was a chain link fence that ran out about a hundred yards. And so then the canal was on the left side of that. And, uh,

• 2:33:53Speaker 01

  You know, I don't remember what day it was, but uh, they brought their shipping containers out. And then they brought the ground force commander out um

• 2:34:04Speaker 01

  to speak with the Taliban. I don't remember who specifically did it, but we were told that they paid the Taliban off to stop fighting us pretty much, to stop like getting in our way.

• 2:34:18Speaker 01

  And there, what we were told is the rules in place were

• 2:34:23Speaker 01

  leave us alone, we'll leave you alone if you let us take these people out, but there was nothing like hey, to the Taliban that hey, stop like if you fucking kill these people or execute them, we're gonna do the same to you. And uh, there was none of that in these agreements. So they they had free will to do whatever they wanted out there.

• 2:34:49Shawn Ryan?

  I'm fucking speechless right now.

• 2:34:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it was a lot, it was heavy. I mean-

• 2:34:54Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of people spent a lot of time over there and a lot of those Afghans had our fucking back.

• 2:34:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34:59Shawn Ryan?

  And for the president of the United States

• 2:35:05Shawn Ryan?

  to allow this shit to happen is fucking absurd. And it gets worse.

• 2:35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does.

• 2:35:14Shawn Ryan?

  And it fucking gets worse.

• 2:35:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, we uh-

• 2:35:19Shawn Ryan?

  You know,

• 2:35:22Shawn Ryan?

  I'm gonna try to, never mind.

• 2:35:28Speaker 01

  So-

• 2:35:28Shawn Ryan?

  This is what happens when you fucking vote for somebody that cannot put a sentence together. This is what fucking happens.

• 2:35:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, we uh, I mean, you know it, we like-

• 2:35:44Shawn Ryan?

  And it was right in front of everybody's fucking face on that first debate.

• 2:35:52Shawn Ryan?

  It was right there in the open. You voted in an incompetent fucking moron to run this country and this is the shit that happens.

• 2:36:04Speaker 01

  I think you know-

• 2:36:04Shawn Ryan?

  You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.

• 2:36:09Speaker 01

  I think you know firsthand too, like a lot of us have bled for a lot of those allies over there, but it's the same on their end. A lot of them have bled for us too. And, uh,

• 2:36:23Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 2:36:25Speaker 01

  we,

• 2:36:28Speaker 01

  yeah, those shipping containers were put up.

• 2:36:32Speaker 01

  I typically would stay up on nights because, you know, I thought, all right, if they're gonna do something, they're gonna try something at night. If they're gonna try and shoot us, attack us, blow us up, like they're gonna do it at night. That's when I would do it. And, uh,

• 2:36:46Speaker 01

  so I stayed up almost every night from sundown to almost sunup. And, um,

• 2:36:55Speaker 01

  at one point, I got, I mean, I got so fed up, I was, I was counting bodies over the net, like, the Taliban have killed two people, the Taliban have murdered three people, they've executed four, five, six, like, I got fed up and, uh, kept requesting engagement authority, um, letting them know, like, what are we doing about this? And just like, you know, go about your job. That was what was passed down from the battalion or above the battalion. And I took, I took four of our guys up to the Baron Hotel, like right next to the Taliban checkpoint to, to get some footage of, like up close of like the bodies and what they were doing over there. And so, uh, we walked up to the Baron Hotel and there's just like this British version of a PFC or a private,

• 2:37:40Speaker 01

  and he's just like standing guard out front. And he's like, what's your business here? And I was just like, I mean, we got like a bunch of cameras and shit in our bags. And I was like, it's classified. He's like, okay. He just like opens the door. And, uh, so, all right, well, that worked. And so we go in there and it's like all of the British command. And I'm like, fuck, all right, just gotta look like I know what I'm doing. Just like turned right, walked up on top of their Connex boxes there. And, uh, set up the guys on security and started taking pictures from this tower. And I have, I have pictures of this too, of me doing this.

• 2:38:12Speaker 01

  And started taking pictures of the piles of bodies that were on the ground. Uh, the guys lined up on their knees against the wall. The women lined up against their knee, on their knees against the wall and stuff with guns pointed at their head.

• 2:38:28Speaker 01

  And then

• 2:38:29Shawn Ryan?

  And still, the Biden administration would not allow you to save these fucking people. They're literally on their knees, facing the wall, getting shot in the back of the fucking head, one after another, and our president is not going to allow you to fucking engage.

• 2:38:46Speaker 01

  And we turned, uh, we turned, uh, that footage over to, uh, the Joint Operations Command and to our intel assets that night, and got given a new SD card. And we're like, "All right, go back out to the gate." And that was, that was that. So, went back out. Nothing came of it. No one made any decisions on, um, dealing with the Taliban executing people. And, I mean, that was just finally the pinnacle of it. I mean, it had been going on for days prior, many, many days prior. And, uh, you know, I, um, I mean, one, one,

• 2:39:29Speaker 01

  one memory of, of these, how desperate these people were to escape the Taliban is this lady, we had to send her back out, out of the gate, and I don't remember who did it, um, but some individuals were taking her back out of the gate, go back into the crowd, and she jumps, like leaps at the razor wire and starts trying to cut her throat with the razor wire. She was like, "If you send me back, they're gonna rape me, they're gonna fucking torture me. Like, kill me, kill me." And like, a couple Marines grabbed her and prevented her from killing, killing herself. But, I mean, that's, that's how fucking bad it is there. Like, she was willing to just slit her fucking throat on razor wire. Can

• 2:40:08Speaker 01

  you imagine that? It's, it's, uh, it's not shit I ever could have made up, you know? I wouldn't have, I couldn't have dreamed about this shit. And, I mean, it was unreal.

• 2:40:25Speaker 01

  Like I said, those crowds, the crowd just continued to build up next to our tower.

• 2:40:33Speaker 01

  Finally, I want to say two days before the suicide bomber and the gunfight, um,

• 2:40:43Speaker 01

  And of the morning of, we, we took two impacts uh from the neighborhood on our window like got shot at. Like impact, impact, and then crack, crack and uh. Shut the door. I climbed up the tower. Cooper was up there and like right where his head was, there was two. Seven, six, two bullets had impacted right next to him. Fortunately, the glass was bulletproof. I have pictures of that as well.

• 2:41:10Speaker 01

  And you know, we told, told command what was going on. Nothing came of it. You know, guys can said, keep operating, keep pulling people out, keep, keep doing what we're doing. So we continued to search for a shooter. Couldn't find one. I mean, that neighborhood was two and three story buildings, just able to see everything that we were doing and. I mean, you could have hidden in a hundred different rooms.

• 2:41:39Speaker 01

  The morning of the 26th.

• 2:41:42Shawn Ryan?

  What, what is, what are the discussions between you and your team?

• 2:41:47Shawn Ryan?

  Are you guys wondering why you're not engaging? I mean, how much chatter?

• 2:41:50Speaker 01

  I mean, it's, it's a lot. We're just like. Honestly disbelief of what the situation is and uh.

• 2:41:58Speaker 01

  And disbelief at the lack of leadership.

• 2:42:04Speaker 01

  The lack of decision making on what was going on. I mean.

• 2:42:10Speaker 01

  This is shit we're gonna have to live with for the rest of our lives. You know, every single person out there saw the things that we did. That's shit we're gonna have to live with for, for the rest of our lives. And. There's. In combat anywhere, there's, there's hard decisions to be made and, and outside of combat, but.

• 2:42:30Speaker 01

  It's the, it's the la, it's the lack of decisions that. That caused these things to happen.

• 2:42:36Shawn Ryan?

  It was a complete. It was in it. It was absent leadership. Nobody's there.

• 2:42:44Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:42:44Shawn Ryan?

  Not one fucking person is stepping up to the plate.

• 2:42:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:42:49Shawn Ryan?

  All the way from the President of the United States down. Not one fucking decision was made.

• 2:42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's um.

• 2:42:59Speaker 01

  The uh.

• 2:43:01Speaker 01

  So we get, we get close, it's the 26th now and at this point, we had, we had a few ID probes. So guys had come into the crowd with the same kind of make and model backpack and dropped them in the crowd. And uh, we called it up to EOD, halted operations and stuff. And we're witnessing this firsthand. I mean, we're letting them know like, hey, there's guys in the crowd and they would, there's so many people that they'd come in, drop a backpack and just duck into the crowd because there's thousands and thousands and thousands of people. And um, they'd go out and they'd pull out the same backpacks and all right, well, there's nothing in it. It's clear.

• 2:43:40Speaker 01

  And then be like, all right, well, go back to operating. Um, and so that we had gotten, um, we got confirmation on a couple of E-bids, uh, like a, like a gold Corolla or like, um, two or three different vehicles. And uh, like a green Mazda and fortunately we had those shipping containers set in front of us. So we were, we were good on that end. Um, they couldn't, car couldn't drive through the fucking crowd on, on the canal. Um, and so waiting for that. And as the days are going on, the Taliban's building up more and more in front of us at that position. First it was like a couple of vehicles and like guys with, with guns and, and their own kit.

• 2:44:23Speaker 01

  Excuse me, their kit and our guns. Um. The, the guns that we left. Yeah, M27s. That we abandoned. Yeah, like HK, um. 416s. 416s and uh, M4s, M16s, P mags. I mean, I saw, I saw a lot of guys out there with the same fucking gear that I was using, other than my plate carrier. I mean, they had plate carriers too, but same RCOs, helmets. Vehicles. Yep. Up armored LCs. Yep, bringing over, they drove over a fucking MRAP at one point, um, like a Matvey or whatever it was. Um, and they were slowly just building up with gun trucks in front of us as well with PKMs and Dishkes on the back and stuff. And, um.

• 2:45:06Speaker 01

  Uh, the, I think it was the 25th or the morning of the 26th. I can give you the dates after this because I have the timestamp on my phone. Uh, they brought the Taliban up to our gate. And they brought a few of them up to our gate to crowd, to crowd control. They, the ground force commander out there, um, the leadership out there allowed them.

• 2:45:30Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sorry, what?

• 2:45:31Speaker 01

  They allowed the Taliban to come up to our gate.

• 2:45:33Shawn Ryan?

  U- US leadership invited Taliban to come to the fucking gate?

• 2:45:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45:40Shawn Ryan?

  To do crowd control?

• 2:45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:45:42Shawn Ryan?

  Who, who is this? Do you have names?

• 2:45:44Speaker 01

  Uh, the only, the only commander that I know about there was, uh, was General Sullivan at the time.

• 2:45:51Shawn Ryan?

  So, General Sullivan?

• 2:45:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know, um.

• 2:45:57Shawn Ryan?

  He sounds like a fucking genius.

• 2:45:58Speaker 01

  I don't know who gave that okay, but he was the ground force commander out there. Um.

• 2:46:06Shawn Ryan?

  Well, then he gave the okay.

• 2:46:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, and we got, um, I mean, I've got.

• 2:46:14Shawn Ryan?

  That was the plan.

• 2:46:15Speaker 01

  I've got footage, video, and, uh, I've spread it around to ensure that it, something doesn't happen to it. Um, of Taliban, I mean, from me to my leg, that close to Marines. Um, hitting civilians with sticks next to them. Just beating civilians right next to them. We were told not to do anything. Right outside our tower.

• 2:46:46Speaker 01

  Um, and that for some of the senior guys who had been to combat, not, not even just the senior guys, but the senior guys who had, who had been there and done that, who had watched their brothers get killed by the fucking Taliban and them brutalize and terrorize these people for the entirety of this war and since, since their inception.

• 2:47:05Speaker 01

  I mean, I saw grown men break down because of, it's like, what the fuck are we doing? Literally grown men, staff sergeants, yunnis, breaking to tears in, in a private space. And the, the bottom of our tower became like the go to spot to fucking let your fucking tears out. I mean, I saw countless Marines come to the bottom of our tower and just fucking bawl their eyes out because of what they were seeing, because of the dead fucking children, because of the dead women, dead men, because of the Taliban coming up, the guy who just killed this fucking, this, this senior NCO's buddy back in the day, now allowed to be working next to, working and beating civilians next to Marines.

• 2:47:44Shawn Ryan?

  So now we're allies with the Taliban who are killing our, our previous allies.

• 2:47:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:47:50Shawn Ryan?

  For twenty years.

• 2:47:51Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:47:54Speaker 01

  And uh.

• 2:47:54Shawn Ryan?

  This is America. This is the fucking United States of America now.

• 2:47:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it, uh, and like I said, Sean, it's, uh, it should, I, should I couldn't even fucking have ever made up, other than having experienced it.

• 2:48:11Speaker 01

  And, uh, I mean,

• 2:48:15Speaker 01

  yeah, there's a lot, uh, there's a lot to unpack there. And I mean, every, everyone, everyone who is out there has stories like that, like similar to mine in, in regards to the, the terror, like the terror and the brutalization of, of the populace out there and the Taliban's actions. Um, a big thing is the State Department. So we would process civilians throughout the whole day. We'd be stuck all night. So for us, our team slept in our tower. We slept there and we operated for us. Obviously Sniper, like, operations are, are twenty-four seven, they're continuous operations. So we, we were always up then, nonstop. And, uh, obviously cycling guys out through the team. There were seven of us there and, um,

• 2:49:02Speaker 01

  Cycling guys out and um guys, the guys, like the grunts on the ground. So for us, if we weren't, if we weren't like observing or weren't reporting, we'd go down and we ourselves, like my team, the guys not doing anything, we'd be pulling out civilians, we'd be helping everyone on the ground, we'd be day in and day out doing down there in the shit with the guys because we wanted to help. And our corpsman, I mean, I don't even think he, Jorge, I don't think he fucking slept. He was just rendering aid all day and all night long to civilians who were dying from heat stroke, suffocation, malnourishment, stomped to death. I mean, beaten and bloodied and bruised. The people who'd come to

• 2:49:47Speaker 01

  the Taliban checkpoint, the ones that they let through, they'd be fucking bloody and have cuts and bruises all over them from the Taliban, having beat them 20 minutes prior. I mean, and so he was, he was down there doing that the whole time. Dude, he would come up and, and conduct observation to take a break from, from fucking seeing all of that shit and, and then go right back to it. And I mean, there was countless orphaned, orphaned children out there, getting ripped away from their families or their families would get fucking killed.

• 2:50:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, that uh, so we What do you think happened to those kids? Some of them, uh, I know, I know, like a lot of, the State Department would tell us, like, send them back out. And finally, like, I don't remember which commander at the, at the company level did it, but it might have been the Echo Company Commander, but someone like, someone did at the lower level, like of leadership above me, but was like, put their foot down and fucking like, like was like, we're not sending these fucking children out. Like, we're gonna create a spot for them. And a lot of them were the orphaned children. There was finally like something set up for them to where like even the ones, I, I've pulled out orphaned children, like, they

• 2:51:07Speaker 01

  would wait by the bottom of our tower and like the extra vehicles that we had there and they'd sleep until we could process them in and then they'd get, uh, they got sent out to other allied countries and um. And processed, but it wasn't all of them.

• 2:51:22Shawn Ryan?

  You wanna know what happened to the kids that got sent back out there? You know what happened?

• 2:51:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51:27Shawn Ryan?

  They got raped.

• 2:51:28Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 2:51:28Shawn Ryan?

  And then they got killed.

• 2:51:30Speaker 01

  Yep, that's exactly what happened. Yeah.

• 2:51:36Speaker 01

  The, uh...

• 2:51:39Speaker 01

  Or they got, um, taken under the wing of an extremist and were looking to kill Americans.

• 2:51:49Speaker 01

  So, the 26 rolls around.

• 2:51:52Shawn Ryan?

  Let me, uh...

• 2:51:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:51:53Shawn Ryan?

  Refresh the audience with some facts on the 26th. So,

• 2:51:59Shawn Ryan?

  suicide bomber detonates near Abbey Gate. Thirteen service members killed. Eleven Marines, one sailor, one Army soldier. A hundred and seventy Afghans killed.

• 2:52:17Shawn Ryan?

  Just in the blast. Forty-five US military personnel wounded. You lost your right arm, your left leg, missing parts of multiple organs, forty-three surgeries, fifty-four units of blood. And you still have thirteen ball bearings and two pieces of shrapnel stuck in your body.

• 2:52:41Speaker 01

  Oh, that is correct.

• 2:52:45Shawn Ryan?

  So, let's roll into the 26th.

• 2:52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, uh,

• 2:52:50Speaker 01

  the night, like, early morning, excuse me, yeah, early morning of the 26th, about 1:00, 1:30,

• 2:52:58Speaker 01

  we had gotten intel from the Joint Operations Command and our assets, uh, coming from, from the JSOC assets that were out there that, uh,

• 2:53:09Speaker 01

  there was a confirmed suicide bomber in the area, traveling with another individual.

• 2:53:15Speaker 01

  And they had given us the exact that they had that they told us that they had the exact description of it. And so I'm getting this word from our intel assets, me and a couple of guys on the team, Chad being one of them. And it might have been our whole team, actually, because at one point they, we didn't want to leave the tower because we were just trying to help as much as we could. And our our leadership was like, hey, like, come, come off the tower for like an hour or two, like, go back to the packs, fucking like, chill out for a second and then like, go back, we'll send, they had extra guys on the team, they had uh, over TO team, like eight guys or something, just like nine guys, so some extra dudes to go up to the tower and like, hold, hold our position for an hour. And we're like, no, we're good, but they're like, just fucking go back for an hour and like, decompress.

• 2:53:59Speaker 01

  And uh, all right, so we did that, went and really just fucking got some, grabbed some more MREs and uh, intel. And so they're like, he's a, a younger individual, probably clean, clean shaven, uh, wearing a brown mandras with uh, some like black outer garb of some sort in a black bag. And uh, traveling with an older individual who um, is probably the guy kind of guiding him to do this. And my first reaction, I was like,

• 2:54:35Speaker 01

  how the fuck do we have an exact description of this guy? I was like, who, if we have an exact description of this guy and we know that he's coming to Abbey Gate, that means you have a motherfucker watching him. You have someone watching him, someone operating in the AO, or who knows where he's going to be, why are we not stopping him before he gets to us? And we were just told the intel asset couldn't be compromised. And uh,

• 2:55:02Shawn Ryan?

  Unfortunately, that's the only fucking thing I agree with so far.

• 2:55:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:55:05Shawn Ryan?

  But the, the, the, that's the only decision, decision I agree with because you know why? Because he, the intel never stops. He's an insider.

• 2:55:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, and uh,

• 2:55:20Shawn Ryan?

  That's why.

• 2:55:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:55:22Shawn Ryan?

  It's our job.

• 2:55:25Speaker 01

  To eliminate the Yeah, hard, yeah, hard. Those hard decisions have to be made. But like, that's a great way to put it is we're told these things so we can stop these, stop what's happening. But our leadership denied it. Yeah. And so we go back out to the gate. And obviously at the time, you know, we're all kind of thinking like, for us, it's like, why the fuck wouldn't we do something? What when they do something earlier? But that's a great way to explain it. And so we go back out to the gate and I mean, we're not that we weren't hyper vigilant before, but I mean, even even more so now.

• 2:56:06Speaker 01

  And as much as we could be looking for, looking for this dude. And we let everyone, all the ground forces know like, hey, this guy's out here. This is what he looks like. This is who he's probably going to be with. You know, keep an eye out and obviously we're up in an tower in an elevated position. Scanning this crowd of thousands and thousands of people. And the morning of the 26th, they sent back. What was it? Yeah, they sent like some of us back to prep our packs to to bounce out of Afghanistan. They're like, hey, you guys are probably going to

• 2:56:50Speaker 01

  like, you need to either prep to like thermite your packs and stuff. If things like get really bad and it's a hot exfil. Or just make sure everything's tight. All the extra weapons and ammo and whatnot are are in a good spot. So someone can throw it on a bird for you if we got to fucking get out of here quickly. So myself and one or two of the guys went back and then early that morning and then around man, like.

• 2:57:29Speaker 01

  Twelve in the afternoon, um, around there, twelve to one. We see this guy who fits the exact description, probably about, about three hundred yards back in the crowd. And he's traveling with an older gentleman. This guy's the only guy that's clean shaven and is not that dirty. Um, he's sweating a lot, but he's, he's definitely the anomaly in the baseline. And, um, he's wearing a brown man dress, black outer garb, like a vest or something in a backpack or backpack or duffel bag. Um, we're like, man, this looks like this guy. And he was, he was quite a ways back and, and I mean, to get through that crowd, it would

• 2:58:13Speaker 01

  take, it takes all day unless, I mean, you're pretty fucking, unless you start really pushing people out of the way and fucking hurting people and stuff. Um, takes, takes a few hours to get from where he was at to the base of our tower. And, um, like, okay, fuck, we get one of the, some of the psyops, the psychological operations guys, individuals, uh, the army guys, they, they come up to our tower and we show them, show them the pictures that we have and who he is. And I mean, this whole time he's working closer towards us and we pass over the net like that we've got this, you know, this possible threat and, uh, that we're linking up with the psyops guys to get, you know, another set of eyes on him.

• 2:58:58Speaker 01

  And for us, we're like, this is the fuck guy. The psyops guys are like, yeah, that's him. That's the exact fucking description that we have. Like that's, that's who we think it is too. And we're like, okay, cool. And so we pass over the net that too, we're, you know, requesting engagement authority. I, I mean, me, I was, I was spotting, Chaz was on the gun and then someone else took over for spotting and I was on the net. I was just on the radio, you know, requesting engagement authority for this individual, giving them the description, getting denied and, uh,

• 2:59:32Speaker 01

  Then the counter intel guys, uh, some counter intel individuals, they came up to our tower and we showed them the photos as well. So now this is the third, third group of, of individuals. This is like 12 sets of eyes now on, on these pictures. 12 PIDs. Yeah. And they're like, yep, that he fucking fits the description. And so does the older guy, older guys traveling with. Like that's who we think he is too. And we're like, all right, well, that's fucking three separate fucking entities that, that think the same exact thing. Um, you know, fucking Dalton, he's always got a saying like, if it walks like a duck, it acts like a duck, it's probably a fucking duck. And, uh,

• 3:00:15Speaker 01

  I passed it over the net again, like, hey, we have confirmation for three separate entities. Um, we need to, I'm requesting engagement authority on this individual. American lives are going to be at stake if he continues to fucking come up here. And we had, we had watched him. I didn't get to portray it fully in front of Congress, but we were watching him for a couple hours. Like quite a few hours, still continuously requesting engagement authority. And finally, it's like, no, um, like, like, like engagement authorities denied. And I was like, who the, like, who has it? Or we don't have, they're like, we don't have the engagement authority to give you. And I was like, well, send the battalion commander up here because we're going to shoot this guy if you don't.

• 3:01:00Speaker 01

  And obviously in our eyes, right? And I said, I said this to Congress too. I said,

• 3:01:08Speaker 01

  even if this was a potential, if this was possible, if it wasn't the guy, the fucking bomber in the crowd is going to think twice about fucking doing what he's about to do because he watched some dude's fucking chest get caved in. Because he watches the dude just get taken out. He's going to know that we're watching. He's going to know that when he does come into view, we're going to fucking deal with him. We're going to put him down because bad people need to be put down. That's what our job is. And not what our job is, but that's what we're supposed to do in that situation with those individuals and.

• 3:01:41Speaker 01

  Three hundred yard shot is an easy shot to take from a stable platform with high powered optics and fucking long guns.

• 3:01:49Shawn Ryan?

  Not to mention with everything else that's going on around it.

• 3:01:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:01:54Shawn Ryan?

  All the executions, dead babies, women trying to cut their own throats on razor wire. That's how bad it is. And, and and they're denying you permission to take this guy out.

• 3:02:08Speaker 01

  On top of allowing the Taliban to come up and work next to Marines. And so they say, all right, the battalion commander's on his way. At this point, I mean, this dude's closer. He's within like two hundred yards, hundred and fifty yards now, or maybe even, maybe even closer than that.

• 3:02:27Speaker 01

  And

• 3:02:30Speaker 01

  the battalion commander comes up. Lieutenant Colonel Brad Whitehead and

• 3:02:37Speaker 01

  he comes up to the tower, we show him the photos and he's just kind of sitting on, you know, the heels of his feet like, well. And we're like, well, sir, do we have your permission to engage? Like, we've had counter intel, psychological operations and, and ourselves. Positive ID on this guy. This is the description. And he was like, well, yeah, it does look like it, but I don't have that, I don't have that authority.

• 3:03:03Shawn Ryan?

  What's this guy's name?

• 3:03:05Speaker 01

  Lieutenant Colonel Brad Whitehead.

• 3:03:08Speaker 01

  It's like, I don't have that authority to give.

• 3:03:12Speaker 01

  Like, what the fuck?

• 3:03:14Shawn Ryan?

  What the fuck is he doing there then?

• 3:03:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. We're like, what the fuck?

• 3:03:17Shawn Ryan?

  What rank is this guy?

• 3:03:18Speaker 01

  At the time, he was a lieutenant colonel.

• 3:03:22Speaker 01

  And I say,

• 3:03:25Speaker 01

  um, myself and Chaz are, both have a, have a intense conversation, like who the fuck does have the authority, sir? And he goes, well, I don't know. Like, what the fuck do you mean?

• 3:03:40Shawn Ryan?

  He doesn't know his chain of command?

• 3:03:42Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:03:43Shawn Ryan?

  And this guy has to live with this for the rest of his life. And I'm fucking glad you do, Lieutenant Colonel. You fucking piece of shit.

• 3:03:50Speaker 01

  And the thing, the thing is too, is

• 3:03:54Speaker 01

  we got, um, So he said, I don't know. And, uh, you know, we, Chaz and I both reiterate, well, you need to find out because American lives are at stake. And if this is the bomber, a lot of people are going to die. And he leaves the tower, leaving us with the sense that he's gonna go get us an answer. And now at this point, it's later in the afternoon, it's like, 2, 3 PM, um, and this guy disappears into the fucking crowd. We don't get an answer back. It's like I said, the, uh, like I said in front of Congress, I'm not, I didn't just

• 3:04:35Speaker 01

  throw his rank and name out there to destroy this guy's career, but he's who it started with, and it ended with General Sullivan. And we were told, General Sol- and this is me quoting him, he said, "That request never got to me." So somewhere between here and here, someone didn't give a fuck.

• 3:04:53Shawn Ryan?

  You know what you're doing, Tyler, is you are exposing how weak United States leadership is in the US military. It's that fucking weak now. And you know when it got that weak? Right after this last election. Everybody that was worth a shit, either got fired, or pulled out, or fucking left, because they knew this shit was gonna happen. That's what you're doing. You're exposing how weak military leadership is now, because of who's in office. And it's good you're doing that.

• 3:05:30Speaker 01

  I appreciate that, Sean. It, uh, it's definitely, like I said, in between, in between the battalion commander and, and the General Sullivan, it, someone didn't give a fuck enough. It's, we get taught, it's our job to push down as leaders, as marine leaders, as leaders in any, any sense of the word. It's our job to push down our subordinates, but it's also our job to push up. You mind if we take a break for a second?

• 3:05:56Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a break.

• 3:06:03Shawn Ryan?

  Hey guys, let me tell you about this subscription service that I've been working real hard on called Vigilance Elite Patreon. Basically on Patreon, we have it broken up into three different tiers. We've got Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3. Let's dive in. Our Tier 1 patrons get all the behind the scenes footage of the Sean Ryan Show. That could include behind the scenes photos, that could be side conversations that we have in between breaks, that could be specific questions that our patrons give us for the guests on the Sean Ryan Show, and a ton of bonus content that doesn't really fit into any specific category.

• 3:06:44Shawn Ryan?

  For our Tier 2 patrons, they get access to our Tactical Training Library, which consists of well over 100 videos. We've broken those videos up into separate categories, and those categories are Rifle Fundamentals, Pistol Fundamentals, Drills, Tactics, Driving, Gear and Weapon Setups, and everybody's favorite, Mindset. Also on Tier 2, you will get a live update from me on the 1st and the 15th of every month, where we talk about the upcoming guests on the Sean Ryan Show, plus all the benefits of Tier 1.

• 3:07:26Shawn Ryan?

  Our top tier, which is Tier 3, gets full access to all the other tiers, plus they get full access to me, where we do video teleconferencing, VTC, once a month, we discuss anything from tactics, to current events, to who's coming on the show. I take suggestions, and it's very interactive. No matter what tier you choose, the support is greatly appreciated, and it is the only thing that makes this show drive on. So, thank you for all the support. See you on Patreon.

• 3:08:04Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Tyler, we're back from the break. I'm sorry, it's getting, it's getting pretty heavy and I am, I'm having trouble controlling my thoughts, my words and my feelings and,

• 3:08:21Shawn Ryan?

  and I'm sorry. You got a lot more self-control than I do.

• 3:08:27Speaker 01

  No need to apologize. I've had a, had a few opportunities to talk about it. So it's,

• 3:08:33Speaker 01

  yeah, it's, have to, we talked a little bit earlier, but I think I have to be myself, but portray things appropriately so people listen. So.

• 3:08:46Shawn Ryan?

  You're a wise man.

• 3:08:47Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 3:08:48Shawn Ryan?

  So we left off Sullivan was promoted for the superb job that he did being the, what was he, the ground force commander over there or something? Whatever, whatever. He was in charge and he got a promotion. So let's continue.

• 3:09:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so our battalion commander left us with that, without an answer as to shooting this PID and about 30 minutes after that, after him leaving, this individual and, you know, for a little bit, they were sitting, you know, they, at one point, they, I mean, they were doing everything differently than everyone else in the crowd. They were handing out small white cards to everyone throughout the crowd. The older gentleman who was seemingly coaching the bomber, trying to keep him calm and they, I remember at one point, they sat on the edge of the canal for a little bit and then continued moving around. And after

• 3:09:52Speaker 01

  our battalion commander left, I want to say within 30 minutes of that, they disappeared, like just completely disappeared into the crowd. And we were like, well, fuck. And we, again, we were updating everyone on the ground right at our tower, like, hey, this individual's disappeared. And when we initially called in.

• 3:10:16Speaker 01

  You know, these individuals, like, we halted operations for a little bit. Like, they halted operations on the ground. They, the guys on the ground fucking took us seriously.

• 3:10:26Speaker 01

  And then they were told to fucking continue. And after we told them that these individuals had disappeared into the crowd, they were told to continue pulling people out, putting themselves in harm's way. And now, half of our team, the other half of our team went back to our packs. Again, how I was talking about, um, making sure their gear, making sure the gear was tight and ready to punch out if we needed to. And so, myself and Andrew Valencia, our joint fires observer, we stayed back. We were the two senior pigs in the platoon. Guys a little bit of experience and very competent individuals. So they trusted us to stay at the tower by ourselves and he and I continued conducting observation. And, uh, the other guys went back.

• 3:11:13Speaker 01

  Taking two vehicles and half of our, half of our team came back, or, uh, Jorge and Adam, they came back first from the packs. And Adam came up to the tower, Jorge went down and continued helping people and triaging people. Chaz, Dalton and Cooper.

• 3:11:34Speaker 01

  Were still over at the packs and getting ready to punch back. And so, they were creating a plan to, to demo everything if, like, that became necessary, um, because they're like, it's gonna be the fucking Alamo getting out of here. Like, we're gonna be taking rocket fire and fucking machine gun fire and like, the Taliban's gonna try and fucking blow us up as we come out of here and shit. And so, we were prepping for that. I'm at the, uh, I'm at the tower and Adam's up there, Andrew's up there, and at this point, we had been waiting for, um, we had been waiting for an interpreter from, uh,

• 3:12:13Speaker 01

  It was, it was one of the, one of the, a group guy, uh, I don't remember what group, but, uh, they reached out to us about pulling out an interpreter, uh, for them that they had worked with. And we're like, and that's what a lot of it had been. It was like, hey, um, you know, these guys helped us back in the day, like Raiders, old fucking SF got like buddies of ours, other people just reaching out through Instagram because they knew we were out there, um, and other social media platforms and, you know, texting and stuff. They're like, hey, the like, can you pull this dude out and his family? Like, he's got documentation. He was, and that, you know, they've fucking bled for us and, you know, sweat, tears, blood for us.

• 3:12:56Speaker 01

  And just like likewise for up, for them. And, uh, they're going to be here on this day. And we're like, yeah. And so a lot of that, what we were doing is processing those guys who'd reach out to us, who would pull out their interpreters and allies of ours who helped us in the past 20 years. And, um,

• 3:13:15Speaker 01

  Dalton had specifically had contact with that, those individuals and, uh, said that,

• 3:13:24Speaker 01

  he, he asked one of us, he said, hey, I gotta, like, I'm gonna go back to the packs and make our, make sure shit's good. If we got a demo or just stage it, can one of you guys go down and, and get this interpreter when he comes out? Cause he might be here when I'm gone. And, uh, I was like, yeah, dude, I got you. Don't worry. Like, I'll, I'll go down. And, um, so we had told him to hold up a sign, uh, that said, like Dalton two slash one STA on it, like surveillance and target acquisition platoons. That's what our sniper platoons are. And so, uh, you know, about five, five PM, five 20 PM or so, um,

• 3:14:06Speaker 01

  Staff Sergeant Darren Hoover, a friend and mentor of mine, a guy I looked up to for sure. And one of the, one of the few, one of the few guys in, in the battalion and in the company who had been to Afghanistan before and who had combat experience. So definitely someone a lot of people loved and looked up to because of that and passing on his knowledge to everyone. He came up to the base of the tower and I'm on the gun at the time. And he goes, "Hey, Snipes." And he's like yelling up from the bottom. And I'm like, "Yeah, what's up, man?" And he's like, "Hey, uh, there's a, there's a guy down here, I think he's an interpreter. Uh, he's got, he's got a sign that says Dalton 2/1 STA on it." I was like, "Oh yeah, that's exactly who we're looking for."

• 3:14:49Speaker 01

  And I was like, "Give me a sec, I'll come down, uh, with you." He was like, "All right, Roger that." So I pull, uh, Adam, he gets on the gun, or Andrew gets on the gun, and Adam's on observation, uh, behind the spotting scope. And same thing, we're still just fucking scanning the crowd for these dudes. And so, throw on my Kevlar and grab my, uh, my rifle and go down. And so we walk out and Hoover and I are just kinda talking like, you know, these, like, what the fuck is going on here? Like, what is, what is this? And Hoover's like, "Man, this is not like anything I've ever experienced before overseas." And he said, "I can't fucking believe this shit." And obviously, I start, I started talking about how they brought the fucking Taliban

• 3:15:32Speaker 01

  up to our gate next to the Marines and stuff and, uh, how that was affecting the guys. And so we're walking out and this, that hundred yard chain link fence that I was talking about, they cut a hole in it about seventy yards down and there's like a Jersey barrier there. And so we walked through the hole to get into the canal faster. And at this point, so at one point, um...

• 3:15:57Speaker 01

  There was dispersion in the crowd for about 300 meters, all the way down the crowd. There was a marine for dispersion on this side of the canal. And it was like that due to our recommendation of, hey, if there's a bomber in the crowd. And this was four or five days prior to the 26th. You know, we need to, the only thing that's gonna fucking protect us is dispersion. I mean, that's one of the first things you're fucking taught is standoff distance from IEDs. And so they had that dispersion for about 300 meters. And someone that morning, someone on the ground, I don't know what leader, but someone on the ground decided to okay the collapse of all of that dispersion. And so now that 300 meters of dispersion collapsed down to the base of our tower, right underneath our tower.

• 3:16:43Shawn Ryan?

  Are you s-

• 3:16:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:16:45Shawn Ryan?

  So there's a suicide bomber threat. You guys PID the suicide bomber. He gets lost in the crowd.

• 3:16:55Shawn Ryan?

  And they collapse the standoff-

• 3:16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:16:58Shawn Ryan?

  From the IED.

• 3:16:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:17:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, so they, they collapse a standoff.

• 3:17:05Speaker 01

  Like I said, they're at the base of our tower. If we looked out the left window across from the neighborhood, there's like another two jersey barriers. And then this now bunched up group of a platoon of Marines almost. Like, and I'll, I'll share the pictures and the videos, but I mean, fucking 20, 30 Marines in one fucking spot. And uh, it sucks. There's a lot of bad that comes, a lot of bad that has occurred in this, but

• 3:17:38Speaker 01

  it's shit like that. It's just like that fucking eats at you. It's like, why? Why? And uh, we brought it up multiple times, like, hey, who fucking okayed this? Like, why is there not dispersion down here still? Why did you guys fucking collapse your dispersion? That we had, the guys, like Echo Company guys had worked for fucking days to get hours fighting this crowd back just to get this fucking dispersion. They just were like, nope, fuck it on the morning of the bomb. And uh-

• 3:18:10Speaker 01

  So it was majority golf company down there. It was that morning. Yeah. Yeah. So immediate feedback. Yeah. On why you do not do that. I woke up. Happened. Yeah, I I went to I went to sleep at like six AM maybe that morning and I woke up at like fucking eight and because it was the first time and we it was like seven days of just constant like like from the crowd, just really fucking loud, just nonstop screaming, people crying, babies fucking sobbing. And there was like a couple of days where it wasn't as loud at the base of our tower and then I woke up because it was fucking loud again, like really fucking loud right next to our tower. And I'm like, what the fuck? And looked down and the whole fucking crowd was collapsed.

• 3:18:53Speaker 01

  And just hundreds, thousands of people in this small fucking area.

• 3:19:00Speaker 01

  And so I'm I'm walking out there with Hoover. I walked through the hole in the fence. Um, at this point, I'm kind of like coming back. I'm coming, we're coming back down this way in the canal. So it's like chain link fence. About a twelve foot, fifteen foot gap, little two foot high canal wall, like maybe knee high canal wall. And then like the actual canal drop off like seven feet in the shit water and sewage water. And then the wall, two feet high. Uh, dirt twelve, fifteen feet and then like chain link fence and neighborhood. And the chain link fence ran all the way across the neighborhood and there was holes all over it and you could see there were buildings above it, looking through the top of it. And, uh,

• 3:19:42Speaker 01

  another, another way to show how desperate these people were to escape the fucking tyranny of the Taliban is uh, at first people weren't, there was like one onesies and twosies coming through this shit water because that's what it was. It was a sewage canal. And, uh, there was like one or two people coming through. And then by the twenty sixth, I mean, there was fucking thousands of people in the sewage water. Like coming across to to escape and try and get processed through. And I mean, literally just waiting through shit and blood and piss and, uh,

• 3:20:14Speaker 01

  Like fucking families, everything. And I, I, I went down there. Uh, and I look across, uh, the canal and I see this dude holding up the sign and like point to get in the canal and like come across. Cause at this point, it's the only way he, they can get across is through the water. So for us, it was a good thing because it was like, okay, they have to cross this canal now to get to us as long as we keep. As long, like that crowd that's on the left side is kept at bay. And, uh, he came through, I, or he like came beneath me and, um,

• 3:20:50Speaker 01

  checked, he had, uh, he had American passport and, um, he had his brother with him and had American passport. And I guess they had, they had, he had been an interpreter, uh, with, with group or something for, for quite a while. And, uh, so he was, he was legit, pulled him out, just haste, just search on him, search on his brother. I'm like, all right, hey, I'm gonna take you guys over to the main search area, which is right at the base of the tower almost. Um, you know, we can get you guys processed through to the state department.

• 3:21:22Speaker 01

  And, you know,

• 3:21:27Speaker 01

  this, this dude, he, he spoke pretty decent English and he was like, like, wait, wait. He's like, my family, my family. And I was like, yeah, like what's up, man? Your, your brother's right here. Like you got your family. And he's like, no, no, no. My, my wife and four kids. He's like, there's seven of us. And I was like, what? And Hoover's standing next to me. He's like, what the fuck? He's like, no, there's two of you. He's like, no, my wife and four kids, they're still back in the canal. They're still back in the crowd.

• 3:21:52Speaker 01

  I was like, dude, I was like, you were given very specific instructions, like come with your whole family at one time because in our eyes, like we know

• 3:22:02Speaker 01

  the gate's already supposed to be shut at this point. It was supposed to be shut that, that morning or something. And it's still open. We're still processing people. We were told that it was going to be shut by the 26th or like the morning of the 26th and it still hadn't been. And now it's almost, it's like 5:30 PM or almost 5:30 PM and, um,

• 3:22:21Speaker 01

  I pull, you know, I I'm like, all right, well, do you have fucking paperwork for them? And he fucking has paperwork for all of them. They're good. And I'm like, fuck, I'm like, okay. I was like, listen, man, you know, do you have a phone? Like, can you call your wife? Does she have a phone? He's like, yes, yes. Like, I can get ahold of her and, uh, okay, like, call her and see where she's at. And so he calls her and he's like, saying she's at like, the bend in the canal or the corner, which is like, where he was describing her at was like, six thousand people away, like, so far away. And I'm like, fuck. So, all right, dude, tell her she needs to get her and the kids and get into the sewage water and start working their way up. Because if not, there's not a great chance of you guys fucking getting through together. And so he relays that to her.

• 3:23:04Speaker 01

  And he's just like, thank you, thank you. And I sit them down on the, on the chain link fence. I'm like, listen, I'll stay down here for like twenty or thirty minutes and help you guys out and wait to see if your family can make it up here. If not, I'll make sure another marine helps you guys out and knows your situation. And he's just like, thank you, thank you so much. And so I'm like, waiting on the side of the canal, uh, wall, like, standing against it, facing across the canal. And, uh, I'm like, fuck, I don't know what these people look like. Like, they look, to me, they look like everyone else out there. And so I'm like, hey, man, like, come here. And I don't remember if it was him or his brother. And I'm like, hey, come here and help me spot them. If you see them, like, we, we can pick them, you can help me pick them out easier. And he's like, yeah, of course. And I like, stand him up on the canal wall. And,

• 3:23:48Speaker 01

  like, ten minutes goes by and just flash and just get hit with this massive wave of pressure, just like, sh- straight on. And, uh, and then I'm like, my eyes, my eyes are closed, my vision's black. And I'm like, slowly coming to,

• 3:24:06Speaker 01

  my right ear is just like, super high pitched ringing. My left ear is muffled and I can just hear people screaming in the distance. And I, I just, I knew right away, as soon as I like, was coming to, I was like, holy fuck. Like, I just got fucking blown up. And I just, my brain knew instantly and I, I, my immediate thought was just like disbelief. I was like, there's no fucking way this just happened. And I can't see it and I'm just like struggling to open my eyes. And later to come to find out, I mean, on top of a fucking, you know, twenty, thirty pound bomb detonating like five meters away from me. Someone's CS gas canisters that exploded on all of us. And so on top of the bomb, there's all the CS gas cloud that we're engulfed in.

• 3:24:49Speaker 01

  And so none of us can fucking see and are struggling to see. And so I was just like, holy fuck, like I actually just got blown up. And I finally can open my eyes and I'm just like laying on the ground in the dirt, looking to my left. And like really close to the fence, like I had almost gotten thrown to like to the fence. And uh, I'm like looking to my left and I mean, there's just where this crowd of hundreds of people was is just flattened like nothing at all. And like it's still people just fucking screaming in the distance and yelling. And I looked to my left and I mean, one of the first things I see is just fucking Marines laid out, just fucking desert marpat fucking next to me. And uh, I was just like, oh, fuck.

• 3:25:33Speaker 01

  Like this really just fucking happened. And uh, before I fully like, my brain fully registered everything when I woke up in the hospital. Like my mom said, I talked for like nine hours straight, but I, I thought uh, um, I was crawling away from my leg and it was someone else's fucking body part, just like laying in front of me. I mean, there was fucking body parts and dead bodies everywhere. And the people on the other side of the canal, just immediately in front of me, just got fucking evaporated. Just eviscerated, just gone, just in an instant, gone.

• 3:26:10Speaker 01

  And then outside of, outside of that, just bodies, body parts, fucking guts and pieces of people and human beings. And uh, I was laying on the ground and I mean, I felt like I was on the ground for like a fucking hour. I felt like forever and uh,

• 3:26:30Speaker 01

  Almost immediately after the bomb, I was, I was trying to stand up and I couldn't stand up. I could like move my head forward and like move my arm a little bit and I kept trying to stand up. And like, fuck, like, why can't I stand up? And I was like, I'm fucking hurt. And then it just like crack, crack, crack, crack, fucking right across from us. So I'm now facing like, kind of like the tower, like our, the way I'm looking, like my tower, the tower's kind of to the left. The canal's like right here and then the neighborhood's right here. And we start taking fucking shots from the neighborhood. And like almost immediately after the blast and my first thought, I mean, I always say like, we all want to be the hero in our own story, but my first thought in my brain was like, fuck, I'm hurt.

• 3:27:11Speaker 01

  And I looked down and I'm hearing us getting shot at and hearing fucking cracks and impacts behind us and over us and I'm like, fuck, I can't fire my weapon. I'm fucked up. Like my, my, I mean, I had come to find out I had gotten hit with a hundred to a hundred and fifty ball bearings and

• 3:27:31Speaker 01

  A hundred and fifty ball bearings? Yeah. And, and I mean, I took them everywhere but my neck and my head and my knees down because of that, that wall.

• 3:27:43Speaker 01

  And so

• 3:27:46Speaker 01

  I was like, well, fuck, I don't want to get shot. I can't fire back. And I just knew the hole in the fence was behind me.

• 3:27:52Speaker 01

  And I tried, I tried my fucking hardest to crawl backwards towards that hole in the fence. And I kept trying to get up, couldn't get up. I don't know how fucking far I got, maybe a couple of feet and

• 3:28:07Speaker 01

  I, I was moving backwards and all I could do was like put my left arm on the ground and I kept trying to lean over onto my right. And I'm just like, fuck, like, why is my right arm not working? And I remember lifting it up. I just seen it. It's there, but it's just like fucking shredded up at the elbow and bloody and I'm, I'm just fucking red everywhere. And I was just, all that, my thought in my brain was like, my arm's fucked up. I was like, okay, that's why it doesn't work. And like just kept fucking going. I wasn't fully processing like, hey, let me fucking put a turning kit on my arm. I was just like, fuck, I'm, I'm fucked up. And I need to get to the hole in the fence because that's where my friends are and Finally, I just, I couldn't move anymore and I, all I could do is kind of lift my head up.

• 3:28:49Speaker 01

  And I mean, I took, I took ball bearings into my fucking chest and like right around the cut of my plate carrier. Into my shoulder, all over my fucking arm, obviously. A ton into my abdomen, all over my stomach. I mean, I had, I mean, they were practically from what I've been told, just fucking dumping ball bearings out of my intestines. And all down through, shot out throughout my leg, caught, shrapnel into my hand, ball bearings. I mean, they were burning so fast. That ball bearings just like burned through my radius, like perfect hole through my radius, didn't even break it. That's how fast they were going.

• 3:29:30Speaker 01

  And from the force of the blast, burned through my radius, all into my arm and shoulder and um.

• 3:29:39Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, the army fucking burned my kit. I didn't get to keep my kit, but uh, I took three ball bearings in my, in the lip of my kevlar. Like right above the lip of my kevlar, right into my forehead. And uh, that's, that's not a fucking reason to wear your fucking gear, then I don't know what is.

• 3:29:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:29:58Speaker 01

  I mean, that would have fucking killed me, like for sure would have fucking killed me.

• 3:30:03Shawn Ryan?

  I gotta be honest, man, I can't believe we're sitting here right now.

• 3:30:06Speaker 01

  I, I can't believe it either, honestly. Um, some, some incredible individuals in my line of care.

• 3:30:18Speaker 01

  You know, and uh, it's, it's been a fucking journey, but uh, thankful to be here and. You know, I'm, I'm on the ground and I can't, I can't move. And I mean, all of this is happening. It's like three minutes, but to me, it feels like fucking forever. And I'm on the ground. And I I'm just like, wow, I can't move. I can't even really yell. I'm like, man, I'm dead. It was like, that's it. I could feel myself starting to fade, starting to pass out. And I was just like, I knew I was fucking bad. I could see myself covered in blood. And I the pain hit me probably like a minute or two afterwards. And I was just like,

• 3:31:00Speaker 01

  when it finally hit me, because for I I couldn't feel it for a while, and it finally hit me, I was like, I was in so much pain, I just wanted to fucking die. Like, I remember laying there on the ground, and I was just like, please fucking kill me. Like, I'm in so much pain, just please fucking put me out of my misery. That's like all I was thinking about. And then I I just kept trying to move, and I couldn't. And as I'm fading, I'm like, man, yep, I was like, well, that's how it goes. And that's like all I really thought. I was just like, well, I'm fucking, I'm dead, but uh, I'm proud of what I've done and who I am. And I remember thinking that on the ground and

• 3:31:40Speaker 01

  it was like, this is how it is. And and I was I was I was in disbelief, but I wasn't scared. I just was like, wow, I was like, well, this is how fucking is like, I'm I'm gonna die here on the dirt in Afghanistan. And uh, I just hear chat or hear Tyler, Tyler, Tyler, coming buddy. And I like, like come to again. And I'm like, oh, fuck, it's Chaz. Like, he's gonna fucking get to me. I'm not gonna die. And they were coming back from the packs. Dalton was driving. He just pulled up to the gate, and one of the combat engineers were like, hey, like, move, move away from the tower a little bit, turn the vehicle around. So he turns and like puts it in park. Fucking blast goes off.

• 3:32:24Speaker 01

  And they him and Chaz look at each other like, that was like, Chad was like, that was a fucking ID. He was like, what? He's like, that was a fucking ID. And they just hop out of the car. And we had this SUV that we had fucking ripped the seats out of and tore the license plate off of because there was um, The command that was just sitting back at like near the fucking army command had all these vehicles and none of us at the fucking gates actually operating had fucking any vehicles. And so we I I was asking everyone around like, oh, you guys got any extra vehicles like, oh, no, we only I remember asking someone like, oh, no, we only have one. And so me and my buddy just went and fucking acquired a vehicle from from them. And rip the license plates off, spray painted the fuck out of it and.

• 3:33:05Speaker 01

  Like put Pig Pride Reaper two like STA on it. And we're like, all right, this is ours now. Fucking thank God we did because we ripped the seats out of the back of that to fit our gear and and our guns and and shit and. But the the back doors are fucking broken. And so Cooper's in the backseat fucking trying to kick the doors out, trying to get out of this fucking SUV. He gets out. Dalton's the assistant team leader, so he runs to the tower to get accountability of people and gear and.

• 3:33:32Speaker 01

  They go up there. He gets up there and. Or Chaz is up there. Dalton gets up there and fucking he or has is like, I see Tyler. And because like I think Adam, Adam saw me like when I was still trying to stand up, like reaching my hand up. And I remember I remember seeing someone in the tower, like one of my guys in the tower and like that's why I was trying to get up and I could just see him, but I didn't know who it was. I couldn't make out who it was. And turns out it was Adam and. There were so many fucking people killed that Andrew was on the gun. And like on the SAS when the blast went off and he got they got fucking rocked. I mean, that whole blast wave was right next to the tower and it.

• 3:34:15Speaker 01

  And they aimed it at us and the tower. And that's what happened. So all that overpressure from the blast ran through the fucking tower. We had two windows open. It was just like boom fucking. Instantly just fucking. I don't know, shook the brains, instant concussion and.

• 3:34:31Speaker 01

  They were rattled. Andrew like barely held on to the SAS hanging out the window and. They thought that their fucking faces were bleeding and it was just so much blood and guts from the people that had gotten blown up because they were fucking like at the window that it was just covering their fucking face. And I mean, the the SAS was fucking caked in blood. They had to clean the fucking they had to clean fucking brains off our SAS after that. Because of how many fucking people were killed. That's it coated our fucking rifle. One of our rifles and.

• 3:35:04Speaker 01

  I mean, that I'm sure that fucking haunts him, you know? I mean, that's some heavy fucking shit. And so Chaz and Dalton like had the briefest engagement of like, Chaz is going out there to get me because he's the most fucking proficient medically. And like as he saw me, he's like, hey, I'm going out there or whatever. And fucking that's when he was yelling for me and I was like, wow, I'm not going to fucking die. Chaz is going to get to me. And I remember hearing him run behind me along the chain link fence and hearing him yell my name. And then I remember seeing him stand over me and he, he told me like, he thought I was dead because I was just like looking at him.

• 3:35:45Speaker 01

  And I said something along the lines of like, take off my fucking belt, take off my fucking Kevlar. And for, for a little bit, um, I thought like I had moved really fucking far. Like I thought I had crawled really far and I was just like, kind of confused in my brain. I was like, man, how did I move so far? But I know at one point I couldn't move anymore. But I also remember moving really fast. He's like, no motherfucker, like I dragged you like 30 fucking feet. Like I grabbed you and dragged you. Um, I was like, ah, it makes a lot more sense. And then, uh, I mean, started throwing fucking tourniquets on me right away. He, I mean, he, he fucking just disregarded like, we had guys shooting back and he just fucking sprinted for me.

• 3:36:29Speaker 01

  I mean, he like, I, I brought him up in front of Congress because he had never been acknowledged for saving my life that day. And there was other individuals involved. Now, now he is, I got, um, my girlfriend, actually she, when she was doing a shoot for the Secret Service, uh, met the assistant commandant and his assistant and was like, hey, this is my fucking boyfriend. Like this is who he is. You guys need to reach out to him. And, uh, he did, he called me, the general called me, General Smith. And, uh, since then, um, has, has brought up, uh,

• 3:37:08Speaker 01

  certain things about acknowledging and acknowledging him, but I, I acknowledged him in front of Congress and no one, uh, nothing came of that. And, uh,

• 3:37:22Speaker 01

  You know, he's a humble guy. He's not gonna be like, hey, I saved Tyler's life like he. Any one of us would have been like, yeah, I was doing my job. Like, he's my buddy. I was doing my fucking job, but. A year and a half later and. This man who fucking helped save my life is not acknowledged for doing so. I, uh.

• 3:37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was, it's pretty shitty, but. He, um, started throwing tourniquets on me and, uh, trying to fucking plug holes, but I mean. I had so many fucking like holes in my body that it, and a lot of them, those BBs from the, the ball bearings were so small that like. That my skin was just like closing right back up on top of them. Um. And.

• 3:38:10Speaker 01

  Uh, another, another individual, um. Eric Emmett, uh, one of the platoon sergeants, um. Got another man I looked up to. He came over, started taking control of everything at the gate, taking control of the situation. Um, I'm sure he's not been. You know, awarded for those, his actions that day either, um, cause most people weren't.

• 3:38:34Shawn Ryan?

  You guys are gonna be rewarded.

• 3:38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:38:39Shawn Ryan?

  They will be.

• 3:38:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, they will. Um.

• 3:38:45Shawn Ryan?

  Somebody's gonna get in there. And see what they did, see what all you guys did and you're gonna be rewarded.

• 3:38:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:38:52Shawn Ryan?

  There's not a doubt in my mind. It's just not gonna come from these fucking assholes.

• 3:38:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been, I've been working on some things and pushing, pushing on some people. Um. So. It was kinda cool, you know, my team leader, Emmett, uh, mentor and friend that I looked up to and. Couple other individuals who were really good buddies of mine, uh. Mitchell Seles and Sajun Smith, they all fucking got to me and were working on me. It was all my buddies fucking working on me and uh just trying to fucking stop the bleeding. I'm fucking writhing around screaming, moaning, trying to talk, can't fucking talk because I'm in so much pain, just like mumbling and moaning and they're trying to keep me from going into shock and uh

• 3:39:40Speaker 01

  I just remember the whole time, just like, I just wanna fucking die. I'm in so much pain and uh Chaz, right before he ran out there, he's like in the tower and he's like, give me Tyler's bolt cutters and fucking threw my bolt cutters to him. He ran out there, got to me. When they were trying to move me, they realized they couldn't fucking like carry me how he was gonna carry me because my fucking whole stomach's ripped open and how bad my injuries were, they're like, alright, I can't fucking just like, can't just pick them up normally. So he cuts open a hole in the fence close to the tower and cuts down the casualty carrying distance by like 200 fucking yards and um

• 3:40:17Speaker 01

  Mitchell Seles, um, good buddy of mine, they're looking for something to fucking carry me on and he runs over and uh kinda how I was talking about your, your patch, you know, with your shield or on it. They fucking threw me on a riot shield and carried me out to the CCP and uh

• 3:40:37Speaker 01

  just so happened that fucking one riot shield was lying around and they fucking dragged me out there on it and ran me back to the ba- behind our tower to cover and um I don't remember being carried there. Um, I've been told that I was just cussing and fucking screaming. Sounds about right. Um, but I remember being on the ground and I'm going in and out of fucking consciousness and uh I remember them like cutting open my pants and then I remember hearing Chaz say it and I didn't think he, I, I thought I had made it up in my brain, but then he told me he did say it and he was like, he was like, wow, he's like, nice dick Tyler. Like cutting open my pants and uh

• 3:41:19Speaker 01

  Uh, I'm laying there and I can see our tower like up, up in my vision and I'm just screaming for fucking drugs, like fucking, just like someone fucking put me down or give me some fucking drugs. And, uh, I see Jorge, our team corpsman, he runs over. And he's like flipping me over, looking for exit wounds and stuff. And, uh, cause he, so what's crazy is he had walked out there. So I was on this side of the fence. Jorge walked out and right in the fucking cone of fire of the blast zone and the ball bearings. He had just walked past it when the blast went off. He was walking out there to meet me. And he got fucking knocked out on his feet. All the pressure hit him. Fortunately, he didn't get hit with ball bearings or shrapnel, but he got fucking thrown on his ass.

• 3:42:04Speaker 01

  Got up and forgot that he was going out there to meet me and, cause he like went to the tires, like where's Tyler at? And I'm like, oh, he's down there. And so Jorge fucking was, got, got thrown off his feet. And first thing he gets up, he's just fucking doing what he does best. And that's fucking helping people and starts triaging Marines left and right. Like immediately gets up, people are fucking, he like, I think he threw a tourniquet on someone's arm who, who's like arm was fucking just losing a lot of blood. And then immediate, like sees someone else on fire from the fucking blast. And I mean, he just goes, he just goes into fucking work mode. And then after like five or six patients, he's like, and I mean, he, he ended up, uh, he ended up, you know, working on, um,

• 3:42:45Speaker 01

  uh, Max and Soviak and, uh, I think, I think Deacon Page as well, who were both killed in action and died out there. Um, but, and you know, he called, called their fucking times of death on, on, on them. And, uh,

• 3:43:03Speaker 01

  then he was like, oh, fuck, I was going out there for Tyler. We're like, where the fuck's Tyler? And he's yelling for Chaz and, uh, Dalton's yelling for him, trying to get accountability of the team still. And so he runs back to the base of the tower and he's flipping me over. And I'm like coming to and I remember seeing him, he's like Tyler, Tyler, he was like slap me in the face like trying to wake me up. And I see him and I'm like Jorge, Jorge, I was like fucking Jorge's a doc, Jorge has drugs. Like, and I remember like I was trying to reach for him, I don't know if I grabbed him, but I was trying to. And I'm just like Jorge, give me fucking drugs, I'm like, give me fucking drugs Jorge. And he was like, I gotta fucking finish triaging you Tyler, and I'm just like, fuck you Jorge, god fucking damn it, give me some fucking drugs.

• 3:43:42Speaker 01

  And uh, he's, I mean, he was doing what he was supposed to, he's fucking going through, just trying to, you know, put chest cells on and make sure every, you know, everything's plugged up. And uh, got, you know, they put chest tubes in me right there and I was like barely fucking conscious for it. Um, I mean, I was fucking bleeding out and like almost completely bled out at that point. And so he was drawing out ketamine to administer to me. And the medical officer that was there was like, nope, like we gotta fucking send him, like if we don't get him to the hospital, like he's dead. Like, we gotta go now and so, never got my fucking drugs. Uh, they threw me into the back of our SUV, our Pig Pride SUV and

• 3:44:23Speaker 01

  uh, I bled out all over the fucking back of it and one of my buddies, um, I don't know who drove, but a buddy of mine Castillo was back there holding me down, trying to prevent me from swinging my arm, my fucked up arm around and hurt myself more. And the majority of that ride, I don't, I remember like being put in to it. And I don't remember, uh, I remember seeing like the, the ceiling, but I don't remember like being held on to and held down. I just remember, um, like fucking moving around and just like, I need fucking drugs, like are we there? Like I need fucking drugs, like please, like give me fucking drugs, are we there yet? And uh, he was just trying to comfort me.

• 3:45:05Speaker 01

  And uh, you know, it's like a four or five mile drive around back to the hospital. I get there, um, you know, my surgeon, he's, he's checking on a, on, on Deegan Page and.

• 3:45:21Speaker 01

  Uh, at the roll two and you know, he, he passed already. And he was just going from patient to patient to patient, trying to do what he could to keep the, you know, people alive and do his job. And uh, after he, you know, made sure Paige had, you know, he confirmed that Paige had passed. My like right foot was on top of his left shoulder and or vice versa. And uh, he was like, well, he's like, I'm going to him next because he's right here. And so just because of that, he happened to happen to work on me next. And um, you know,

• 3:46:01Speaker 01

  he was disbelief at how I uh, how I was still alive. Um, and how I was still breathing on my own and my heart was still beating. Um, went into surgery for like ten to fourteen hours. Um, him and other, other nurses working on me and another little girl. And so I know they couldn't, they couldn't stabilize me for forever, for, for hours. And uh, they're, you know, giving me blood and, and warming it up, obviously, and putting it in me. And I remember, you know, they were like, can't figure out why he's not uh, stabilizing. Why he's not taking this blood pretty much. And so he was the one who was like, I'll get him, let's get him fresh whole blood.

• 3:46:46Speaker 01

  And as soon as I did that, it was like, I just fucking took a fucking jump and started climbing again. And I was, I was doing a lot better. Um, you know, cleaning out my intestines. He cross clamped my aorta to stop myself from bleeding out into the rest of my body. Um, and uh, now I had a, I had an artery stint put in, um, in my femoral artery. My leg was just so shredded and there was so much to work on here that, you know, was told that they had to make the decision to, to let my, my leg go to save my life. And uh, something that I said to them is that that was the right decision to make. You know, I wouldn't be here today if he hadn't made that decision.

• 3:47:33Speaker 01

  So I'm thankful to him for that. But yeah, I uh got flown on like the night of the August 28th. He, I mean, he continued to work on me and there was a lot more wrong, but. Got flown to Germany from there. Um. Now I'm in Germany and uh.

• 3:47:54Speaker 01

  On August 28th, the guys pulled the casualties in from the gate. The rest like made sure all the casualties were in and closed up the gate. And uh, you know, Dalton, Dalton talks about um. Just the sea of bodies that was there. And I mean, I've seen photos and videos post blast. Um, post moving the casualties and just fucking hundreds of people just. Taking their last breaths on the ground and he talks about it. You know, sitting up in the tower and um. After, you know, after the North One got hit and they're searching for the, for the shooters still um.

• 3:48:30Speaker 01

  You know, one of, one of the Marines, Christian Sanchez. He got shot through the shoulder after the blast went off. And he fucking picked up his rifle and put him, put that fucking ISIS fuck down. He put him down and uh.

• 3:48:45Speaker 01

  You know, a lot. There was a lot of people, um, and then the army investigation, it was said that we didn't get shot at, that no one got shot. Christian Sanchez got fucking shot through the shoulder. He fucking put. One of those ISIS ISIS fucking gunmen down. My buddy David Trailer, he got shot through his fucking thigh. And I mean, it literally, it went through, I got hit with hundred, a hundred and fifty ball bearings and they just. You know, bore little tunnels in me. He got shot through his thigh and the whole backside's fucking blown out. I mean, it's pretty fucking obvious what happened. Um, he's got a, he's got a cone shaped indent in his leg from getting shot. And.

• 3:49:30Speaker 01

  You know, in that Army investigation, it was said, uh, you know, they were concussed and unreliable because of what happened, that the somehow forty, fifty, sixty witnesses, Marines, sailors, soldiers, what they witnessed didn't happen because of the blast.

• 3:49:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that's Army Brigadier General Lance Curtis backed all decisions made by commanders at Abbey Gate on that day. End quotes, "Based on our investigation at the tactical level, this was not preventable."

• 3:50:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, uh, certain individuals, um, recently testified in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee saying that, uh, you know, they were asked by a congressman if they, they regret what happened and how the evacuation was handled, and they said, "I don't regret what, what happened," or, "And I don't regret the way the evacuation was handled." And, uh, that's pretty, you imagine being the family or the friend of one of those thirteen service members killed in action, hearing that?

• 3:50:47Speaker 01

  I couldn't fucking imagine. I know how much it pisses me off hearing that shit. Yeah, yeah, going back to, to the, to the gate, Dalton talked about, um, watching this dude in, in the canal choke on his own blood. He was sucking for air, just choking on his own blood in his throat because he was continuously just bleeding into his throat from the blast, and he had to fucking sit there and watch, watch this dude just fucking take his last gaps, gasps of air, blood into his lungs and suffocate to death. At that point, we had closed up the gate and obviously trying to deal with casualties and prevent a second, second ID blast. Um.

• 3:51:34Speaker 01

  So they pulled out uh two days later after that um or be right before that they started going around destroying all of all the equipment and all of everything they could think that would be useful destroying and spray painting everything across H Kaya and came back from uh from the ground force commander that the vehicles that had been flipped over and the spray paint that said fuck you Taliban fuck ISIS needed to be covered up the vehicles needed to be flipped back over they needed to fix the damage

• 3:52:14Speaker 01

  like to those vehicles and things that they had done so after after these thirteen service members are killed after they're tasked with destroying everything so the Taliban ISIS don't have access to it they're then told by ground force commander to fix that damage are you serious? Yeah, I wish I wasn't I wish I wasn't

• 3:52:42Speaker 01

  so they went back told the fucking cover it up with spray paint told the fucking flip those vehicles back over and uh I mean man it's just like it's one fucking thing after another post that and it it I just I can't I can't fathom why you can't we can't change the fact that these thirteen service members were killed so why the fuck do you have to lie about what happened why do you have to lie about what happened what what we experienced what everyone out there went through what we saw how

• 3:53:17Speaker 01

  how can how can John Kirby stand and say as the as the press representative from the White House how can he stand there and being a former Admiral in the Navy how can he stand there and say that he didn't see any fucking chaos from his perch and that's quote I didn't see any chaos from my perch who the fuck talks like that from your perch who talks like that who fucking says that thirteen Americans were killed and you're gonna speak like that and say that everything was done right that you couldn't see any fucking chaos from your perch it's fucking disgusting

• 3:53:52Speaker 01

  I'm sorry man it's not your fault I'm sorry but it's someone's

• 3:54:06Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a break.

• 3:54:10Shawn Ryan?

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

• 3:54:31Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Tyler, I think, I think we left off, you're in Germany.

• 3:54:35Speaker 01

  Yes. So I'm in Germany now, uh, from, from Af- uh, from Afghan, um, getting to that ROL2, they, they sedated me. And, uh, I actually, I forgot to say this, but I, um,

• 3:54:52Speaker 01

  I got to the ROL2 and I was asked, you know, what I, what I remembered about getting to the ROL2 facility in Afghan. And, uh, I was like, you know, I remember getting there and like being on the operating table and, you know, the individuals working on me were saying like, we need to intubate him right now. We need to sedate him. We need to do this, this and that, and this whole conversation. And, uh, I remember, I told him, I was, I remember being intubated and all of this. And, you know, I was kind of responding to with, wow. Like, you, what's crazy is that happened, but you were not awake for that. Like you were barely alive. You heard all of that. You heard that whole conversation in your brain, remembered that. You weren't actually awake. And so, it's just pretty,

• 3:55:37Speaker 01

  pretty, pretty strange thing to fucking hear and remember being unconscious. But, um, I'm in Germany and right now, you know, they're telling my mom, like, hey, like, he's been hurt. He's been hit. And it was actually my little brother who was like, Mom, like a bomb, like an explosion just went off in Afghanistan. And my mom was like, what? And they like had the TV on and pointed it out. And she got a call on like the 27th or in the States, I think. And they're like, he was hit. He's going to Germany. Um,

• 3:56:10Speaker 01

  Don't, don't fly here. Like the mil- and the military, they called my mom and said, there's been an explosion at Abbey Gate. Um, there was gunfight, there was gunfire, people were shot. They said this on the, like that phone call recording that you get, like your family gets home from, from a service member wounded. Like they told my mom, like there was gunfight, there was gunfire, they, they were, they were shot at, there was an explosion. And your, your son is very critically injured. She, they told her that she, that I was very ill, very critically ill. And not to, not to go to Germany because she'd probably be passing my dead body in the air, coming back to the States.

• 3:56:52Speaker 01

  And, uh, my mom was like, fuck that. Like I'm gonna be there. I don't give a fuck. And they're like, well, if you fly here, like we can't. They told her this too. They're like, we can't, we can't promise that we're gonna, you know, we can reimburse your flights or pay for your flights. She's like, this is my fucking son. Do you think I care about that? She fucking bought her flights and went on her way to Germany. And, uh, I, she met me in Germany, um, at Landstuhl. And so I'm there now. They still had me sedated, just operating on me. They took my leg there. They took my arm there. And, uh, my mom, she was like in the operating room the whole, like in the, they would let her stand there as they were operating on me. Um, and you know, they're working on me and, um,

• 3:57:39Speaker 01

  they told, like, the doctor came out and told my mom actually that they, they're like, yeah, the nurse almost fell over when they, we handed your son's leg to her. Like that's how heavy it was. And, uh, they were like telling her how, just like funny, funny things, like trying to, trying to cheer her up a little bit. Um, and they were telling her how like, at the time, my neck was so thick that they were struggling to get the fucking like IV, like the drains into my neck. Like they couldn't get through like the, the muscle in my neck and, uh, just like random things like that, which is pretty funny, but they, like, they told her there in Germany for the first time, like.

• 3:58:19Speaker 01

  He's not supposed to be alive. Like, we have no fucking idea how he's alive. And the only reason that he's alive that can be because he's alive is because of how healthy he was, how physically fit he was, is what saved his life. I just fucking happened to be able to take the entire impact of that and all, all of these injuries. I mean, I showed you the pictures at breakfast of how much weight I lost, but I was 208 pounds, 210 pounds, and I got blown up and pretty lean.

• 3:58:48Speaker 01

  Not a huge dude, but I was definitely a muscular dude. And for me, I had, I had, I've always, for as many years as I can remember in the Marine Corps, I've lived with the mantra of like, you know, you can, you can never train too hard for a job that can kill you. And I, I took that fucking seriously. I really did. And I always tried then still at my Marines. And that was one thing as like a young squad leader, I never had to, I never had to really fucking haze anyone. I, I could just run them into the ground and be like, listen, just be fucking fit. And that, that was something that I lived by. And it fucking saved my life.

• 3:59:29Speaker 01

  And that's, you know, that's why I, when I speak now and I talk to people and I, I, you know, I'm look, looking to open my gym and getting certified right now with CPT and stuff. It's, it's important to me and it's, uh, it always will be physical fitness because it's what saved my life. And I mean, a lot of, a lot of modern day issues, like physical problems and diseases can be solved with, with having good physical health. And, uh, you know, to, to hear that, it was like, I, I was training hard because it was important for me, um, to be fit. One, I wanted to be able to be the one to fucking, if I need to fucking run with someone on my back for a mile, I'll fucking do it.

• 4:00:13Speaker 01

  If I need to carry the heavy rock, I'll do it. And I also had aspirations to go be a writer. And so, I mean, it was quite a number of things that led me to that, but, um,

• 4:00:28Speaker 01

  knowing that.

• 4:00:32Speaker 01

  You know, there's that saying of like, everything in your life leads up to one moment. And for me, everything I had done up until till getting blown up was right because I'm here today. And not perfect by any means, I've made my mistakes in life, but I can say that I was prepared for the worst moment in my life. And that's something that I try to pass along to others is be fit, be mentally and physically fit. Doesn't matter if you're in the military or you're civilian, you could get hit by a car tomorrow. I mean, being prepared is is important. You know, you don't know when your your bell is gonna be rung. And fortunately for me, I was able to withstand that.

• 4:01:15Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, I'm in Germany and at one point I I flatlined and, uh, I I did a few times, but they brought my mom in and had her say goodbye to me because they're like, he's not gonna make it. Like, he's he's probably not gonna make it. And, um, I mean, I couldn't imagine being in my mom's shoes. My mom, you know, she was like, I'm just, you know, I'm so sorry this happened to you. And and my buddies also have said that to me too. And they don't feel they don't feel sorry for me, you know? I told him like, you feel sorry for me, I'm gonna kick your fucking ass. Like, I'm I don't feel sorry for myself. And, uh, Your mom sounds like a very special woman.

• 4:01:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, she she is a fierce woman and I. From childhood to now. Yeah, I I've always said, you know, my mom is my hero and it's fucking true.

• 4:02:10Speaker 01

  I I wouldn't be the man I am today without her and the way that she raised me. And I mean, seeing her go through the struggles that, you know, we did as a family. And how she lost everything and built it back up even better. It it always proved to me, I was like, my mom fucking got through it, so can I. And I always, every time I had a hard moment in my life, I'm like, my mom went through all this shit to give me a good life. Like I'm gonna be successful. I will be successful and uh I'm very thankful to her for that.

• 4:02:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, she came and said goodbye um and then uh the regimental commander um he was he was great. My mom, my mom was there uh Colonel Graham and they were like, what do you need? Like to my mom and she's like, you get his best friend here right now. If you want him to live, get his fucking best friend out here. And so they fucking cut ritter orders. Um I got flown to to Andrews Air Force Base. And he was flying, they flew him out to Walter Reed um to DC and so he met us at Walter Reed. But some, I don't remember this, but another Marine was saying uh in the Wounded Warrior Battalion, like the liaison, who was there for my mom was saying that uh they were trying to liflight me to Walter Reed.

• 4:03:29Speaker 01

  And I like woke up and I don't I don't know if this is true or not, but this is this is what he said uh.

• 4:03:36Speaker 01

  That they were trying to liflight me to Walter Reed and they were and I like woke up and they were talking to me. Uh or they were talking over me about like flying me and talking about putting the Marines on the bus. And he said that I was like, I want to ride on the bus with these guys and like turn turn down the fucking flight. I was like, no, I want to fucking ride on the bus with the Marines going to Walter Reed. And uh so they they put us on the fucking bus with them and and drove us drove us to Walter Reed. And then uh which I feel like would only make sense because I don't know why else I would not be liflighted over with how critical I was. So now I'm at Walter Reed. It's like four or five days post post blast. And uh it's like August thirty first or something like that or yeah.

• 4:04:20Speaker 01

  And they like wake me up, they pull me off of out of intubation, pull the sedation off me and um.

• 4:04:32Speaker 01

  I woke up and um you know my mom my mom's there my my buddy Ritter he's there and my mom's like hey sweetheart how you doing my mom she knows me really well like she she took photos and videos the whole time from the time she got to Germany to me she took photos and videos of all of this shit and threw fucking tears and one of the first things I said when I woke up was like did you fucking take pictures of this or what and she was like like yeah I took fucking pictures motherfucker like she knew I would want pictures and videos of like my surgeries and stuff and and uh I mean that's that's a testament to her fucking strength as well but um before I jump into this she on the way back to to to Andrew's Air Force Base from Germany

• 4:05:17Speaker 01

  they actually had put her on a plane with all of the refugees so a few of us who were injured and like a hundred and something refugees were on this plane my mom was saying obviously she grew up you know twenties in her twenties uh

• 4:05:34Speaker 01

  when nine eleven happened and I was like three or four years old and I remember singing on TV but she talked about you know having a lot of biases a lot of Americans did after that for uh Middle Easterners and her first thought when she realized that all these refugees are on the plane she thought oh fuck is this plane gonna blow up like this just happened like is this plane gonna fucking blow up and then uh she looked over at some point during the flight and saw this Afghan woman standing and holding like these three onto these three medical beds and it was three of her kids and uh who had been one of them had been like in the operating room with me and

• 4:06:10Speaker 01

  she like went over to her and like tried to converse with her and she like pointed like are these your kids pretty much and and like the lady nodded and then my mom like pointed over to me and was like this is my son and they just like held hands and cried and uh she just like let her know that she was there for her and not alone so that was pretty cool to hear um and she told me she's like you know being on that plane and seeing what happened and seeing all those refugees she was like People don't get to see this shit. That was the first time that I realized this is, this is why this happened. This is what my, my son and all these men and women serving were out there doing. They were rescuing all of these families, all these thousands and thousands of families. This is, this is why this happened.

• 4:06:54Speaker 01

  Um, like, well, this is why, this is what they were out there doing. This is what they were there for. And, uh, it was pretty cool to hear her talk about that. Um, yeah, so I'm, I'm at Walter Reed and

• 4:07:10Speaker 01

  uh, first things I say when I wake up, like first words out of my mouth, I was like coming to and just really fucking high. Obviously I'm like, fuck me. She's like, what? I'm like, fuck me. She was like, what's wrong sweetheart? Like other than the obvious. And I was like, right away, I was like, those motherfuckers blew off my fucking leg. Like said that right away and she's like, well, no, they didn't blow off your leg, sweetie. I just knew, like, I remembered, like, almost immediately when I woke up, like, I had remembered, uh, most of what happened. Um, and she said, I talked for nine hours straight, just like about everything that happened, like the fucking, the gunfight, the fucking bombing, the fucking interpreter, going down to the gate, everything leading up to it. And, uh,

• 4:07:54Speaker 01

  you know, that, I, I was awake for like two days. Um,

• 4:07:59Speaker 01

  and on like, on, or, yeah. They started bringing in, uh, generals and like all these fucking people to do fucking photo ops and shit. And, you know, like come meet me and stuff. And I'm, I don't know any better. I'm really fucked up and really high and a few people came in, a few generals. I don't even remember who, honestly. Um, and then they're like,

• 4:08:27Speaker 01

  You know, do you, do you wanna see the president of the United, did you wanna see the president? And I was like, I was like, what? It's like, the president? Like, yeah, the, yeah, the president. And I was like, the president of the United States. Like, yeah, the president of the United States. Like, it was like, the president wants to see me. Like, yeah, he wants to come see you and like, thank you and meet you. And I was just like, what the fuck? And I was like, my, my buddy, my buddy Ritter, he's, he's a, he's a black Republican. And, uh, I'm like, yeah, I wanna fucking meet the president. He was gonna meet the fucking president. And he's like, looking at me like, what the fuck? And, uh, it kinda makes sense a little later, but, uh, I was like, okay.

• 4:09:05Speaker 01

  And so I told him, I was like, hold all of my, hold, hold all of my, uh, opioids, like, hold all of my narcotics, narcotics and stuff. Like, I wanna be coherent when I, when I meet him. And they're like, no, we can't do that. I'm like, you're gonna hold all of my fucking drugs, other than my antibiotics. Like, I want to be coherent when I meet him. So like, okay. And my mom's like, fucking listen to him. And, uh, they held all my, my pain meds. They're like, he's, you know, when, when is he gonna be here? And like, he's gonna be here in about an hour. Well, one hour goes by, nothing. Two hours goes by, nothing. I'm still, I keep coming in, like, do you want, you know, it's time for your meds? You want your meds? I'm like, nope, hold them, hold them, hold them. And, uh, like, three hours goes by. It's like, four hours at this point. And my mom's furious.

• 4:09:50Speaker 01

  Like, she's like, what the fuck? Like, where is this guy? And, um, you know, I'm, uh, she finally, she like, kinda sits up and I see her get, get a little anxious. And she's like, okay, like, like, the Secret Service are coming into the floor. Um, he's probably gonna be here in a few minutes. And then this, uh, average looking white dude with brown hair, uh, comes in the room, like, presidential seal on his shirt and a ma- and a black mask on with a presidential seal. And I'm just like, looking at this dude. And he like, passed down my mom, passed down my buddy. And I'm looking at this guy, and I'm like, looking at my mom, my, my buddy. And this dude's just like, standing in the corner of the room. What the fuck's going on? And he's like over there and I'm like, Mom. And she's like sitting to my right.

• 4:10:34Speaker 01

  Mom, Mom, she's like, what, what? She's nervous, you know? And I'm like, is that the president? And like they are, everyone in the room starts laughing and uh, the Secret Service agent starts laughing. And he like pulled down his mask and he's like, no, he's like, but I work for him. And I was just like, what the, what? I was like, this isn't the president. It's like, what do you mean you work for him? And uh, I was like, oh my God. Who's the fucking president? And just so much had happened, just had so much trauma on me. I had no idea who the president was. I didn't think it was Trump. I didn't think it was Biden. I just, my brain couldn't make the connection. I couldn't, I had no idea who the president was. And I'm like, holy fuck, like this dude's gonna be here in here any minute.

• 4:11:18Speaker 01

  I have no idea who the president is. And uh, I look over at my mom like, Mom, Mom. She's like, what, like what, what's up sweetheart? And I'm like, who's the fucking president? And she's like laughing and she's like, what? I'm like, who is the fucking president? And she's like, are you serious? I'm like, I have no idea who the president is. And she's like, she's like, sweetheart, it's like, it's Joe Biden. And uh, this is just me talking about what happened, but I just leaned back and I was like, oh my, oh my God. And uh, this, I was like, oh my fucking God. And that's what I said.

• 4:11:58Speaker 01

  And the secret, Secret Service dude just like beat red and like trying not to laugh. And uh, I was like, fuck. And this dude, like two minutes later, he walks in with him and Jill Biden and their little entourage of people and like photographer. And uh,

• 4:12:20Speaker 01

  Right away, like, remember him coming up to me, um, trying to shake my hand? Like, I should try to shake my right hand. And I look at him, and I'm like, I don't have an arm. And my left arm is in this big ass cast with this giant orange fucking foam block around it. I completely immobile. All I can do is move my head. My arm's gone. Like, I don't have an arm. And he says, oh, and like, kind of stands up. And then like, goes over to reach for my fingers, because about an inch of my fingers are showing, and just like, grabbed my fingers. Doesn't say, doesn't greet me or anything, just, that's what happened, just grabbed my fingers. And, uh, I was like, okay, that's weird. And,

• 4:13:06Speaker 01

  you know, almost immediately starts talking, like, about how their son served in the military. Doesn't say anything about what happened, starts talking about how their son served in the military. And, uh, my mom is just like, she's furious at this point. And they're like, taking pictures and stuff, and, uh,

• 4:13:30Speaker 01

  she goes, she was like, my mom said that, she was like, I don't give a fuck, say, I don't care what you guys fucking do, she's like, you better take care of him for the rest of his fucking life. And, uh, like, she said that, and, um, I'm sitting there, and he comes over to me, and he leans over me. And I have, I have a picture of this to prove it, I'll show you this picture that I have, um, it's a pretty funny picture.

• 4:13:57Speaker 01

  He leans over me, and he's like, this close to my face, and he's like, what do you want? What do you want? Yeah, he said, what do you want? I said, what? He said, what, what do you want?

• 4:14:11Speaker 01

  And I'm just like, confused, I just got blown up, just fucking saw my friends die next to me, and like, I just want to be myself. And he's like, huh? And my mom's furious, and she's like, he said he just wants to be himself, he just wants to be him. He said he just wants to be me. And he goes, oh, okay. And they just continue to talk about everything but what just happened. And then, um,

• 4:14:40Speaker 01

  They just ushered him out of the room. He didn't know what to say. They ushered him out of the room and that was that. And uh. My mom tried multiple times to get help from. From, from them. Reaching out to the first lady and try to get some, some legislation passed for caretakers like herself who own businesses who. Don't get any financial support for helping their fucking service member that just got his whole life torn apart. And uh, she wanted to help other caretakers in the future have, you know, cause they didn't. There's caretaker. There's certain amount of money that you can get as a caretaker depending on what you do.

• 4:15:19Speaker 01

  And uh, or help, but it's, it's a process. And so she was working through that, but she wanted to pass legislation for future caretakers to. To help get, you know. Like, hey, if you run a business and you need to come take care of your son who fucking, you know, served their fucking country and just got blown up. Like you can do that and not have to worry about financial shit for a little bit. You know what I mean? And so she was trying to get help with that and they just. Pretended to help. They kind of just fucking brushed her off. And uh. Pretended like they were connecting her with the right individuals and didn't fucking help her at all. And so. Um. Obviously because of the congress stuff now, my mom is since, you know, going to be moving forward with some, with some stuff with some individuals who are actually going to help. But.

• 4:16:05Speaker 01

  Nothing came of that. And uh. Yeah, that was uh, two days after that. I'm, I'm in the uh. I'm just in bed and I'm telling, I'm telling the doctors and nurses for a couple of days, like two days. I'm like. I can't breathe, like I can't fucking breathe. And uh.

• 4:16:27Speaker 01

  My, a buddy of mine, um.

• 4:16:32Speaker 01

  A doctor works at the hospital. He um he's a resident right now. He was a reserve uh he's in a reserve sniper platoon and now he's in the army as an officer uh being a trauma surgeon to be a trauma surgeon and uh as soon as it happened, he fucking came in and he connected the recon and sniper foundation guys like got them to send out a flag and like decorate my room really nice and shit and be there for my mom and family. So he was there as a friend um also like working on me and stuff too, but uh or like helping with that and also put a marine corps flag like right on the ceiling and so.

• 4:17:05Shawn Ryan?

  That's the marine con the marine recon sniper foundation?

• 4:17:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, the yeah, the recon sniper foundation.

• 4:17:10Shawn Ryan?

  So it's a nonprofit doing good things?

• 4:17:13Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah, very much so. And uh so they sent out a flag just to cheer me up and you know, fucking give me something to smile about. And so I'm I'm like, hey, I can't breathe. Like, I'm struggling to breathe. And they're like, oh, you're fine. Like, you're good. You're good. Your pulse ox like is ninety eight percent. Like, you got like ninety eight percent oxygen in your blood. Like, you're good. I'm like, I can't fucking breathe. Like, I can't breathe. And they're just brush brush it off. And they're like, you're fine. You're good. Next thing I know, two days later, I'm fucking tunnel vision staring up at this American or at this marine corps flag on the ceiling and then just blackout. And uh I wake up and I'm in Inova, Virginia now. And I had a double pulmonary embolisms, one

• 4:17:56Speaker 01

  each along. Couldn't sure shit couldn't fucking breathe. They were racing back to my heart. And uh didn't fucking listen to me and passed out, flatlined. Between there and getting to Inova, I've flatlined like three or four times. Um they came in, one of the marine corps liaisons came in when there was a doctor literally straddling my fucking chest in the room, just fucking doing chest compressions on me, trying to fucking resuscitate me. And uh brought me back, started moving me out to the helicopter to lifelike me there because I needed ECMO to like clean out my blood. And the only place I had ECMO is is was over there in Virginia. For some reason, Walter Reed doesn't fucking have it. Um state of the art facility. It's a great place, great people, but there's some things that are

• 4:18:41Speaker 01

  perfect. Um and so, of course, the one thing I needed, they didn't have. And uh. They moved me out to the bird and then I fucking crash again. I fly on again. They bring it back in. They resuscitate me and now they're looking for a machine to fucking connect to me. And I fucking, they take me back out to the bird and then fucking crash again. And then finally they get me stable, get me on the bird, fly me over to Inova, get me on ECMO and I'm good. I'm good. They clean out the fucking, get the blood clots out, clean out my blood and I'm awake in Virginia. And it was, it was, uh, and they had to put in like tubes through my groin and my leg and stuff and like straight into my heart and whatnot.

• 4:19:22Speaker 01

  So I like wake up and on top of the 52s I've already gotten me, I've got these massive tubes going through my groin and stuff. And, um, you know, my, my, uh, I lost, uh, obviously I lost my, my right arm a couple inches above the elbow. I'm hip disartic, or disarticulation. So I don't have any in my leg. I sit and I walk on my pelvis. Um, and you know.

• 4:19:48Shawn Ryan?

  A couple inches bu- above the elbow?

• 4:19:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:19:51Shawn Ryan?

  So can you show me?

• 4:19:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, I'm like right here. This is about the height of my, of my arm. So enough to be able to allow me to wear this socket and move around and use it and open it and stuff. And I mean, I fucking, I work out, I fucking shoot rifles. I can still fucking C clamp a rifle with this. Like I, I work to, like I told you at breakfast, to be as proficient as I can and do the things that I love doing now. Or that I did before today. But, um. Yeah. The, uh, the prosthetist at Walter Reed fucking crush it. They fucking kick ass and.

• 4:20:26Shawn Ryan?

  I want to ask you a question.

• 4:20:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:20:33Shawn Ryan?

  It's a tough question to ask, but I'm gonna ask it.

• 4:20:42Shawn Ryan?

  People get very uncomfortable being around amputees. They don't know how to act around you. They don't know whether to feel sorry for you. They don't know what the fuck to do, man.

• 4:20:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:20:56Shawn Ryan?

  How do you like to be treated?

• 4:20:58Speaker 01

  Like a regular fucking person. I think it, uh, it definitely benefits me. People underestimating me, because I can do my thing, you know? But I like to be treated like a regular fucking person, because I am one. You know, I've been, been through, been through a lot, but there's people have been through worse. And, uh, I mean, it's definitely, the kids I love, the kids are, kids are honest. Kids, uh, you know, they'll, they'll be like, "Dad, where's his leg?" Like, I mean, I've gotten that so many times. I've been in the bathroom, and there'll be a little kid, just like jaw dropped, just, just taken aback, like.

• 4:21:42Speaker 01

  I've had a little kid come up to me, and they'll literally just like walk in front of me and like check me out from every angle. I'm like, "What's up?" And they're like, "Where's your arm?" And especially like if I'm in a wheelchair, I'm not wearing my leg or something like, where, like this one little girl, I was fishing and, uh, fishing with my former team leader, and I'm passing her and she's fishing with her dad, and she was like, "Where's your leg?" And the dad's like, "Oh, my God, I'm so sorry." And I'm like, "Dude, it's, it's good. Like, it's, it's, it's okay, it really is." And I thought it was hilarious. And I was like, "Well," I was like, "It, it's gone." And she's like, she, she was probably like six or seven.

• 4:22:15Shawn Ryan?

  That's what she said?

• 4:22:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:22:17Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah. It's gone.

• 4:22:19Speaker 01

  She was like six or seven, and she, she, she goes, "Yeah, I know." She's like, "Where is it?" And I was like, "Damn, I wasn't prepared for that one." I was like, "Well," I was like, "I got hurt, um, you know, I got hurt and they, they cut it off of me and threw it away." And she's like, "Yeah, but where, what did they do with it? Where did they throw it away at?" And I was like, "Oh, my gosh." I was like, "It's in Germany." And she's like, "What do they do with it in Germany?" And I was like, "They, they burned it." I was like, "They burned my leg." And she's like, she's like, "Oh." And she's like, so I kind of nodded her head and then turned around and went back to fishing. And I was like, "Okay." But, uh, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a normal fucking dude. You know, this is, uh...

• 4:23:03Speaker 01

  It's just how my life is. There's no way around it. I mean, there's no way but through. And can't feel fucking sorry for myself. There's a.

• 4:23:11Shawn Ryan?

  Would it be appropriate for somebody to joke around with you?

• 4:23:16Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:23:16Shawn Ryan?

  Like Tyler, hurry up and get up those fucking stairs. You're taking too long.

• 4:23:21Speaker 01

  Oh, most definitely. My buddies, uh,

• 4:23:25Speaker 01

  my buddies, um, you know, make it very clear to me and they know, like I told my friends and they know me anyway, but I'm like, I'm still me. I'm still Tyler, you know?

• 4:23:38Speaker 01

  You know, don't, don't, don't feel bad for me. I was like, if you, if you don't fucking treat me like I'm a piece of, the piece of shit that I am, then like you always have, then I'm be upset. So, uh, yeah, they definitely joke with me or they'll, uh, the whole, the whole, uh, OnlyFans thing, you know, they tell me I need to, need to create one and make it Only Hands.

• 4:23:58Shawn Ryan?

  Only Hands?

• 4:23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, uh, funny, funny jokes. My buddies have come up with some pretty funny jokes and I, I love it. It's, I'd be doing the same shit if it was, if it happened to them. Um, yeah, it's, uh, yeah. I mean, it's, it's, I'm a normal person. I mean, maybe there's some people who would be disrespected by it, but I, I think coming from a, a service member, most service members who are wounded in action, um, like this and you know, they, they just want to be, even other amputees, um, in the military who, you know, wounded in other ways, but uh, or injured in other ways, you know, they, they just want to be treated like regular fucking people because that's what, that's what they are.

• 4:24:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:24:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:24:42Shawn Ryan?

  I'm glad we had that discussion.

• 4:24:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, definitely.

• 4:24:45Shawn Ryan?

  Tyler, let's take a quick break.

• 4:24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:24:47Shawn Ryan?

  When we come back, let's, uh, let's hit what happened at Congress.

• 4:24:54Shawn Ryan?

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

• 4:25:38Shawn Ryan?

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

• 4:26:21Shawn Ryan?

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

• 4:26:49Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Tyler, we're back from the break. What is that, like, six breaks?

• 4:26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 4:26:55Shawn Ryan?

  Something like that. But, um, all right, so let's get into Congress. How did you? How did this all come about? You testifying or giving your testimony in front of Congress?

• 4:27:07Speaker 01

  So, um, had an individual at the, um, good friend and someone who's helped me along through my recovery journey at Walter Reed, connected me with, um, a former patient of theirs who's Congressman, Congressman Brian Mast, double MPT.

• 4:27:27Shawn Ryan?

  He's from Florida, right?

• 4:27:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, he's a EOD and, uh, really great guy from what I've gotten to know of him, genuine. And he-

• 4:27:39Shawn Ryan?

  I've heard great things about him.

• 4:27:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, he's, he's a phenomenal individual and I got, got the awesome opportunity to meet him in person as well. But, uh, probably about three or four weeks, um, before the, the, these first hearings in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the evacuation, um, you know, he reached out to people at Walter Reed, like, hey, is there anyone from, you know, the evacuation there who's wounded? Um, you know, I want to present them with, you know, kind of what's going on, these hearings and stuff, and just give them a heads up so they know. And, uh, obviously I'm, I was the only one there and, um, connected with me, gave me a call same day, um, gave me a heads up that they were doing these hearings because not

• 4:28:24Speaker 01

  a single hearing had been held on the evacuation of Afghanistan and how we, how we pulled out. Um, but as soon as it was a Republican majority, as soon as Chairman McCall became the chairman, Congressman McCall became the chairman, he called for these hearings, he called for some answers and, uh, started getting the ball rolling. And so Congressman Mast, you know, kind of-

• 4:28:49Shawn Ryan?

  You, hold on. You had to, nobody gave a shit until the, the Republicans took control of the House?

• 4:28:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:28:56Shawn Ryan?

  Democrats didn't give two shits about what happened?

• 4:28:59Speaker 01

  There weren't any hearings held, nothing, no answers asked for, searched for, um, when it was a Democratic majority, so-

• 4:29:06Shawn Ryan?

  I fucking hate hearing that. I really hate hearing that, but I know that's par for the course.

• 4:29:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:29:15Speaker 01

  So those uh, he, he, he kind of, you know, shared his story with me. Told me about a little who he was. Obviously, I shared my story with him.

• 4:29:25Speaker 01

  And a little bit about who I was and just gave me kind of a heads up like, hey, you know, these hearings are happening. I wanted to make you aware because no one's probably going to tell you. Which is, which is pretty cool. And uh, he's like, you know, you, you can testify if you want. But I want to, you know, recommend that at least, you know, coming from, coming from a former service member, I want to recommend that you wait. He's like, not coming from a politician. I want you to think about maybe waiting on doing that just so you don't get any backlash for it. But he's like, you know, if you want to do anything, let me know.

• 4:30:02Speaker 01

  And, you know, we'll, we'll help you out. And so,

• 4:30:08Speaker 01

  nothing really came of it. I just kind of kept that in the back of my mind.

• 4:30:11Shawn Ryan?

  Let's rewind a minute.

• 4:30:17Shawn Ryan?

  Did he talk about?

• 4:30:20Shawn Ryan?

  What implications might happen if you test, if you testify?

• 4:30:24Speaker 01

  He didn't.

• 4:30:25Shawn Ryan?

  Or why would you?

• 4:30:26Speaker 01

  More, more so implying that uh, the government, um, the military might not like me speaking out against the way we pulled out.

• 4:30:40Speaker 01

  He definitely, he alluded to that, you know, not, no specifics, but alluded to, you know, trying to protect myself and, you know, my, you know, what I'm, what I'm, while I'm processing out of the military so that they don't try and screw me over.

• 4:30:58Speaker 01

  Fortunately, uh, come to find out that there are whistleblower protections in Congress that I never fucking knew about. None of my buddies ever knew about, but there's protections against testifying in front of Congress and telling your truth, telling your story. You can't get in trouble for it as a service member. If you come on the record and you tell what happened, obviously say, I can't say, you know, can't go on and say all these negative things about the administration and the government, but coming on and telling your story and about what happened to you, you can't get in trouble for testifying in front of Congress like that. And uh, that, that was news to me, but um. I, a couple of days before, I, maybe the week before that hearing, I had an individual

• 4:31:41Speaker 01

  reach out from the House Foreign Affairs Committee to me directly, saying, hey, these hearings are going on, we'd really love to hear from you if you have some time. Um, you know, you have, you have, uh, you know, you can maybe have a phone call with us or an interview or something. And I had, I had a really busy, busy schedule at that time, so I got on a phone call on a, on the Saturday. So Wednesday, March 8th was when that hearing was, got on a phone call that Saturday and shared my, my story with them, um, with a few individuals from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and let them know, um, you know, my, my story and what happened, you know, what actually happened out there and how things were handled. And, um, I mean, they were, they were awed, they were blown away.

• 4:32:24Speaker 01

  And it's just, it's just another testament to like, how much the truth has been fucking kept from all of America and the world, the truth of what happened out there. And, you know, to hear these people who are working in Congress not have any idea, to be told, shake my hand by a congressman and congresswoman and them to tell me, the, the people who are in charge of the State Department, um, and tell me, uh, I had no fucking idea any of this happened. That's, that's pretty fucking telling. And, uh, you know, they shared, I shared my story and, uh, you know, they, again, they

• 4:33:05Speaker 01

  said, uh, you know, we'd really love to have you, um, testify if you want, you know, no one wants to push you to do anything, but, you know, you probably have the most unique, and I know this just because of what happened, you know, you know, they, you have, they're like, you have probably the most powerful story that's been said in front of Congress for this, that's going to be told in front of Congress for this. And, uh, you know, if, if you want to testify, let us know, we'd love to have you. Um, you can do, you can come and testify orally, um, or you can just do written testimony, um, or you can do both. Well, you have to, you have to do it written if you do an oral in front of them, um, and the written can be as long as you want. So I wrote like nine or 10 pages for that.

• 4:33:46Speaker 01

  Um, but yeah, they, that Sunday night, I, I really sat down and thought about it and was like, well, this is, uh, this is Wednesday morning, um.

• 4:34:00Speaker 01

  Not a single fucking person has come forward about what's happened. And the the four individuals that are testifying, you know, they uh were not at Abbey Gate like I was, you know, three of them were individuals who went out of their own way and use their own money and funding to, I think you had a Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann on here. I did. Yeah, he was one of those individuals who testified. Did you meet Scott? I did, yeah, yeah, um. And the other individuals, they all, you know, worked through Operation Pineapple Express and went out of their way to pull these Afghans out. And uh help our allies like we should have. They shouldn't have had to do it the way that they did and um.

• 4:34:43Speaker 01

  You know, continuing to help and helping the National Resistance Front, but I uh.

• 4:34:50Speaker 01

  Sunday night, I was like, well. If I don't fucking do this, no one else will. And I owe it to my, you know, my my buddy of mine Hoover, he he, you know, died in arms, fucking reach away from me. And um, you know, I had another buddy Hunter Lopez, who was also killed in action. And out of the thirteen and fucking out to them, I everything that I do today, everything that I've done up till today. I do for fucking them and uh.

• 4:35:23Speaker 01

  You know, I it's it's a it's a cheesy mantra of of, you know, the whole if not me, then who? But I really took that to heart and I was like, if I don't, if I don't do this, no one will. And uh I was at the point where I don't care about getting, I didn't care about the the repercussions of that. It it it was something that needed to be done and needed to be said, fortunately. Had to vet it through the Marine Corps all of Monday and Tuesday and uh working on what I wanted to say Wednesday and so. You had to vet it through the Marine Corps? Yeah, like going in front of them, there's a proper way to like. Did you have to talk to them about what you were gonna say?

• 4:36:02Speaker 01

  Uh, no, so I I did give them my first like brief summary of my oral statement. Was there any pushback? No, they they were supportive. They were supportive? Yeah. That's good. Yeah, um. All the way up to the Commandant himself, they were supportive. Wow. Yeah, and uh. Obviously, I was like, well, we'll see what happens. But um, you know, they sent out reps from the Pentagon. They sent out um, a Master Sergeant Naguni to come help me out and uh,

• 4:36:34Speaker 01

  could the, you know, two, those two individuals who kind of bridged the gap between Congress and the Pentagon and work with some congressmen. And so they were, they were really looking out for me. Um, but yeah, they ran it up through there. Um, they were, they were good with, obviously stressing out about it. I know the Marines, the Wounded Warrior Battalion, the staff was getting calls from the Pentagon nonstop, like, what the fuck's going on? But um, they never once said, no, you know, they didn't say, you can't talk about this, you can't do this, you can't do that. Um, they just offered for me to protect myself and uh, you know, really, just really wanted to make sure that I, I had help. Um,

• 4:37:18Speaker 01

  it's definitely something that I'm thankful for, uh, cause I've been very, very wary of, you know, obviously what, what might happen through the military. But regardless of the politics in any branch, the, the Marines, the Marine leadership at the top has, has helped me. Um, and I'm thankful for that. It's good to know that there's fucking good leaders at the top. Um, regardless of everything else, with the one fucking thing that mattered, they, they helped with. And um, so obviously, you know, testified and uh, kind of told, you know, there was a point where the House Foreign Affairs Committee said, all right, your testimony is, is too long.

• 4:38:00Speaker 01

  And you know, my, my legal aide kind of came back and like my oral testimony was too long. And I told her, I was like, listen, I was like, I've known what I needed to say since the day I fucking woke up at Walter Reed. I was like, you tell them if they want me to testify, then they're gonna have to let me say what I need to say. And I can do my best to get through it quicker. So I rote her that and so didn't hear anything after that. And like, all right, you're good to go for Wednesday. And come to find out, here I am with a, um. Two day, you know, two day prep of this and meeting an influx of people. And, you know, they're like, yeah, you know, typically, uh, like the Marines that I had, uh,

• 4:38:42Speaker 01

  helping me out, they were like, yeah, typically, um, you know, you have quite a few weeks or a month or so to prepare for these things. Um, so this is the fastest turnaround that we've ever seen. And obviously that's why the Marine Corps was stressing about everything going on, but I, uh,

• 4:39:02Speaker 01

  just like I'm, you know, I, I enlisted to serve my, my country and my brothers and sisters in arms. Those congressmen are there to fucking serve us and serve the American people. And I was going to make sure they heard what I had to say, and they did.

• 4:39:15Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 4:39:16Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 4:39:18Shawn Ryan?

  Let's, um, so have your entire testimony right here in this folder.

• 4:39:24Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:39:24Shawn Ryan?

  And I'm going to put this in a downloadable file in the description next to all the links, your knife company and everything that's going on, everything that you're doing. Also, let's just go ahead and roll the entire testimony.

• 4:39:38Speaker 01

  Good morning, Chairman, Ranking Member Meeks and members of Congress. Thank you for inviting me to speak to you all about my Marine Corps Scout Sniper Team's experience during the evacuation in Kabul, Afghanistan. This is my perspective. This is my account and not the DOD's. I'm Sergeant Tyler Justin Vargas Andrews. I'm 25 years old and from Northern California, a professionally instructed gunman and radio operator for my team. My sniper team was Reaper II, part of Victor II One Weapons Company, attached to Echo Company, Second Battalion, First Marines from Camp Pendleton, California. In June of 2021, after having just left Kuwait, we were deployed to Saudi Arabia as a show of force. We practiced a few small-scale, noncombatant evacuation operations in the event we were needed in Afghanistan. August came and two weeks later, we left for Kabul.

• 4:40:22Speaker 01

  Reaper Two and Echo Company had a close relationship with the Colonel of the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force. He kept us informed of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and we were ready to go, so we thought. An infantry platoon of roughly forty Marines and my assistant team leader left for Kabul on August fifteenth. They eventually faced Afghan civilian crowd that overran the Hamid Karzai International Airport. The rest of us arrived on August sixteenth. All the Marines linked up and staged inside a gym in H. Kaia, not far from the airfield. We connected with our command and received our first mission later that night. From August seventeenth to the eighteenth, we surveilled and reported on Taliban activity from the top platform of satellite tower near the civilian airport terminals in H. Kaia. We reconnected with another sniper team and moved back towards our staging area that night.

• 4:41:05Speaker 01

  Our team traveled to Abbey Gate Forward in the afternoon of the nineteenth and set up a position in the tower as Marines in riot gear were sent through the crowd to cordon off a couple hundred people as we tried to begin some form of processing. Hundreds of people came in waves surging through the gate multiple times physically fighting us. Living out of our tower, we conducted twenty-four-seven operations at the gate. The next seven days were surreal. Nothing prepared us for the ground experience we were about to encounter. It was chaos, but we worked together to figure out the next best steps. Tens of thousands of people descended upon Abbey Gate. We were looking for anyone with a blue passport first and foremost. People were suffering from extreme malnutrition, dehydration, heat casualties, and infants were dying. Afghans were brutalized and tortured by the Taliban, flocked to us pleading for help.

• 4:41:49Speaker 01

  Some Afghans turned away from H. Kaia, tried to kill themselves on the razor wire in front of us that we used as a deterrent. They thought this was merciful compared to the Taliban torture that they faced. With only shipping... They thought countless Afghans were murdered by the Taliban, one hundred and fifty-five yards in front of our position, day and night. With only shipping containers between us, the Taliban would routinely murder people under our observation at their checkpoint. We communicated the atrocities to our chain of command and intel assets, but nothing came of it. The troops on the ground had to tirelessly work to control the crowds, day and night. Department of State staff in H. Kaia would completely shut down processing Afghans every evening and into the morning, leaving ground forces with a nightmare.

• 4:42:31Speaker 01

  They did not work in reasonable rotations and very much presented an unwillingness to work in other situations as well. No matter our health or condition, the Marines stood watch and engaged with disorderly and dangerous crowds. State was not prepared to be in H. Kaia. In fact, State would not want to deal with the Afghans unable to be processed, weakening the security of the perimeter. State would take us away from our mission to walk Afghans out to meet the fate of the Taliban, condemning them to death. The Taliban grew in numbers and strengthened their position around H-Kaia with gun trucks while having occasional visits by Taliban leadership. On August 22nd, an improvised explosive device, IED, probe took place down in the canal running along the perimeter of H-Kaia. This was ISIS or the Taliban performing an IED test run. We reported this to our chain of command.

• 4:43:13Speaker 01

  Days later, we received word to be on the lookout for two vehicle-borne IEDs, described as a gold or white Corolla and a green Mazda convertible. Around 2:00 a.m. on August 26th, intel guys confirmed the suicide bomber in the vicinity of and nearing Abbey Gate, described as clean-shaven, brown-dressed, black vest, and traveling with an older companion. I asked intel guys why he wasn't apprehended sooner since we had a full description. I was told the asset could not be compromised. Throughout the entirety of the day on August 26th, 2021, we disseminated the suicide bomber information to ground forces at Abbey Gate. He was spotted somewhere from noon to 1:00 p.m. by myself, then Sergeant Charles Schilling, and another.

• 4:43:55Speaker 01

  The anomaly in the crowd, who was clean-shaven and fit the description exactly, traveling with an older gentleman. The individual was consistently and nervously looking up at our position through the crowd. The older of the two wore a black silky hijab that was covering his face most of the time. They both had obvious mannerisms that go along with who we believed him to be. They handed out small cards to the crowd periodically, and the older man sat calmly and seemingly coached the bomber. Over the communication network, we passed that there was a potential threat and an IED attack imminent. This was as serious as it could get. I requested engagement authority while my team leader was ready on the M-110 semi-automatic sniper system. The response: "Leadership did not have the engagement authority for us. Do not engage." I requested for the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Brad Whitehead, to come

• 4:44:40Speaker 01

  to the tower to see what we did. While we waited for him, psychological operations individuals came to our tower immediately and confirmed the suspect met the suicide bomber description. He eventually arrived, and we showed him our evidence, the photos we had of the two men. We reassured him of the ease of fire on the suicide bomber. Pointedly, we asked him for engagement authority and permission. We asked him if we could shoot. Our battalion commander said, and I quote, "I don't know," end quote. Myself and my team leader asked very harshly, "Well, who does?" "Because this is your responsibility, sir." He again replied, "He did not know, but would find out." We received no update and never got our answer. Eventually, the individual disappeared. To this day, we believe he was a suicide bomber. We made everyone on the ground aware. Operations had briefly halted, but then started again.

• 4:45:24Speaker 01

  Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety. About 17:30, Staff Sergeant Darren Hoover, friend and mentor,

• 4:45:42Speaker 01

  came to get me from the tower to go help find an Afghan interpreter in the crowd. We found the interpreter and his brother, born with American passports. They told us five, told us of five family members still in the canal. I stayed there, waiting for the family members standing against a two-foot canal wall.

• 4:46:24Speaker 01

  Ten minutes passed. Then a flash and a massive wave of pressure. I'm thrown 12 feet onto the ground, but instantly knew what had happened. I opened my eyes to Marines dead or unconscious, lying around me.

• 4:47:04Speaker 01

  A crowd of hundreds immediately vanished in front of me and my body was catastrophically wounded with 100 to 150 ball bearings now in it. Almost immediately, we started taking fire from the neighborhood and I saw how injured I was with my right arm, completely shredded and unusable. I saw my lower abdomen soaked in blood. I crawled backwards roughly seven feet because I thought I was still in harm's way. My body was overwhelmed from the trauma of the blast. My abdomen had been ripped open. Every inch of my exposed body, except for my face, took ball bearings and shrapnel. I tried to get up but could not.

• 4:47:49Speaker 01

  Laying there for a few minutes, I started to lose consciousness. When I heard Chaz, my team leader, screaming my name as he ran to me. His voice, his voice calling to me, kept me awake.

• 4:48:25Speaker 01

  When he got to me, he dragged me to safety and immediately started triaging me, tying tourniquets on my limbs and doing anything he could to stop the bleeding and start plugging wounds with the help of the other Marines. I was awake through most of it, screaming, moaning, and cursing. "Please ask, uh, I ask you to please ask me about getting shot at the tower in Abbey Gate and how no one wanted my report post-blast." Even NCIS and the FBI failed to interview me, asked me to elaborate on my ordeal post-blast, and asked me about this one little girl and her family that I reunited. Our military members and veterans deserve our best because that is what we give to America. The withdrawal, the withdrawal was a catastrophe in my opinion, and there was an inexcusable

• 4:49:08Speaker 01

  lack of accountability and negligence. The 11 Marines, one sailor, and one soldier that were murdered that day have not been answered for.

• 4:49:20Speaker 01

  Thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak.

• 4:49:24Speaker 03

  Thank you Sergeant for the very powerful and courageous testimony. I want to turn to you, Mr. Sergeant Vargas Andrews. You described the scene as chaotic, that the State Department was not prepared, that they would completely shut down processing every evening and into the morning, leaving you and your colleagues with a nightmare, you called it. Could you describe that?

• 4:49:56Speaker 01

  Yes, I can Chairman.

• 4:49:59Speaker 01

  So for us, obviously, ground forces at Abbey Gate were routine. And I'm sure it was like this at other gates as well, but at Abbey, you know, helping process between, you know, seven of us and our sniper team. We would go down and if we weren't on the gun or we weren't catching a few winks, we would be down processing nationals and civilians and, you know, talking with everyone down there. And from us, we were passed from our chain of command, you know, throughout the evening to halt processing Afghans, to stop searching them.

• 4:50:34Speaker 01

  They, we, you know, we kind of had to keep, keep control of the crowd that was left over in the evening throughout, I would say sundown to sunup.

• 4:50:43Speaker 01

  There was no, there was no plan in place throughout the evening and the State Department would not take Afghans that we processed or searched. So eventually we just stopped throughout the evening.

• 4:51:00Speaker 01

  I'll go back to you.

• 4:51:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think, because you're correct, there was no plan. There was no plan. And then the plan was to leave the Taliban in charge of this evacuation, which led to the chaos and the bloodshed that ensued after that. I want to focus specifically on what you saw on August 26.

• 4:51:26Speaker 03

  I know be on the lookout and intelligence bulletin went out identifying two individuals as a potential IED threat.

• 4:51:36Speaker 01

  That is correct.

• 4:51:37Speaker 03

  To the Abbey Gate.

• 4:51:38Speaker 01

  Yes, we routinely would send two or three guys back to collect intel from our intel assets over in the Joint Operations Command. And that morning around 2:00 a.m., we were passed that a suicide bomber was in the vicinity and in the surrounding neighborhoods, potentially moving towards the gate. We were told that he was wearing a brown man dress, a black vest. He would look clean shaven and be younger with an older man traveling as his companion. And we saw just that on the 26th, around 12:30 in the afternoon.

• 4:52:19Speaker 03

  And in fact, you said you passed along the communications network that there was a potential threat, an IED attack imminent. And in your words, this was as serious as it gets.

• 4:52:33Speaker 01

  That is correct. We had eyes on these two individuals that fit the exact description that we were given from our intel assets. And we had pictures, we had them. It clears day to be able to see through our scope with ease of fire on both individuals as well as through our spotting scope. We have high powered optics with quality lenses on our cameras to take clear cut pictures of everything that we see. That is an enormous part of our job.

• 4:53:02Speaker 03

  Do you still have those photos?

• 4:53:04Speaker 01

  They were taken on an S D card when we turned them over to intelligence.

• 4:53:07Speaker 03

  Then you said you requested from your commander, Lieutenant Colonel Brad Widded, to come to the tower to see what you saw. And the psychological operations came to the tower and confirmed that the suspect met the suicide bomber description. Is that correct?

• 4:53:27Speaker 01

  That is correct, yes.

• 4:53:28Speaker 03

  So you had him?

• 4:53:29Speaker 01

  We did.

• 4:53:32Speaker 03

  And then you showed this evidence and you asked your commander if you could shoot.

• 4:53:39Speaker 01

  We did Chairman. Both myself and my team leader asked for engagement authority and he responded with he did not have that authority. So we asked who did. He told us he did not know and would go find out in that time. In the time of talking with him and keeping eyes on this individual over the course of 30 minutes, the two individuals both disappeared into the crowd of thousands as shown on the slides as I was talking. I mean, I think everyone can understand by looking at some of those pictures that I had up there, how enormous the crowd was. I mean, it was unfathomable. Very easy to move through and conceal yourself and that's what happened.

• 4:54:23Speaker 03

  So you asked for engagement permission and your commanding officer says, "I don't know."

• 4:54:29Speaker 01

  That is correct.

• 4:54:30Speaker 03

  He doesn't know if you have permission to take out the threat?

• 4:54:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:54:34Speaker 03

  There are no rules of engagement on the ground?

• 4:54:37Speaker 01

  We were told to pass our command if we saw any suspicious activity or hostile intent and that's exactly what we did. We were not returned with an answer.

• 4:54:48Speaker 03

  And then you asked, "Well, who does know?" And he says he doesn't know but would find out and he never got an answer to you?

• 4:54:57Speaker 01

  He never did.

• 4:54:58Speaker 03

  And the individual disappeared?

• 4:55:01Speaker 01

  That he did.

• 4:55:01Speaker 03

  And you believe that that was a suicide bomber?

• 4:55:04Speaker 01

  We do.

• 4:55:05Speaker 03

  And then you said, "We made everyone on the ground aware. Operations had halted, started again. Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded and then lastly, no one was accountable for our safety that day."

• 4:55:23Speaker 01

  That is correct Chairman.

• 4:55:24Speaker 03

  No one was accountable, no one was held accountable.

• 4:55:26Speaker 01

  No one was and no one is to this day.

• 4:55:28Speaker 03

  Did your battalion commander run that request up the chain of command?

• 4:55:33Speaker 01

  He should have, that was his responsibility to, I don't know if he did.

• 4:55:37Speaker 03

  Wouldn't that be the normal protocol?

• 4:55:39Speaker 01

  That would be the normal protocol Chairman.

• 4:55:40Speaker 03

  But we don't know and as a result, we have 13 dead servicemen, women. We have 170 Afghans killed and 45, including yourself sir, injured.

• 4:55:53Speaker 01

  That is correct.

• 4:55:55Speaker 03

  Because that threat could not be taken out because your commanding officer couldn't give you the order.

• 4:56:01Speaker 01

  That is correct.

• 4:56:03Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 4:56:04Shawn Ryan?

  So that testimony was about 10 minutes long.

• 4:56:09Shawn Ryan?

  How did you fit, we just talked about this incident that took about two hours I believe.

• 4:56:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:56:15Shawn Ryan?

  How did you fit that into 10 minutes?

• 4:56:18Speaker 01

  It was hard, it was really hard.

• 4:56:24Speaker 01

  Because I didn't want to take away from what I had to say. I didn't want to take away from the important details about, about what I, you know, what I did say and

• 4:56:36Speaker 01

  I, you know, I had some, some congressmen kind of let me know that I could, one, I could word, I could word things towards the end of my testimony, you know, asking, asking the, the committee to ask me questions. So that, that helped a little bit. I think I put in like three things for the congressmen and women to ask me about and fortunately they did.

• 4:56:59Speaker 01

  I just, I picked out the most important things. You know, us, our PID on the suicide bomber.

• 4:57:07Speaker 01

  Us being told no by our battalion, or us not being given an answer from our battalion commander or anyone above him. And, you know, the absolute fucking chaos that was the Afghanistan evacuation.

• 4:57:22Shawn Ryan?

  How do you think it was received by Congress?

• 4:57:25Speaker 01

  I mean, there was quite a few congressmen and women in tears.

• 4:57:32Speaker 01

  I think there's some of them who probably just are there for to be a fucking puppet, like a lot of politicians are. But uh, and you could kind of see who they were by the way they spoke about why, by the way they spoke when they had the opportunity to speak, but.

• 4:57:50Shawn Ryan?

  Is there any specific congressman in particular that stands out to you?

• 4:57:55Speaker 01

  Um.

• 4:57:56Shawn Ryan?

  Good or bad?

• 4:57:57Speaker 01

  I'd have to go, good would definitely be um Congressman Mast and Congressman Mills. Um.

• 4:58:07Shawn Ryan?

  Where is Mills from?

• 4:58:08Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 4:58:11Speaker 01

  Tennessee, maybe? Might be wrong. He might be from Tennessee. Uh.

• 4:58:18Speaker 01

  I I could be wrong, but I'm not, I'm not too sure. Um, and then, you know, the, the last Congresswoman, uh, and the last out of any of the Congress, Congress members there to ask me a question, uh, to ask me anything. She came on, she came, uh, you know, she's the last one in there and uh,

• 4:58:40Speaker 01

  came on her like time slot, her five minutes to speak and spoke directly to me. Um, I can't remember her name, but she, she wears a, a starfish, like lapel pin almost, it's pretty big. Um, and she's, she's on the Democratic side and she gave me her time to speak about, you know, um, uh, a little girl that I reunited with her family and on the first chaotic day at Abbey Gate and helping resuscitate a little baby. So she, she gave me her entire time to speak about that day and that was, that was pretty fucking cool.

• 4:59:21Speaker 04

  This is painful, powerful testimony that is important for us to hear. So I'm glad you're here. I thank you for being willing to go through this, uh, repeated pain. We owe a tremendous debt to all of you. We owe a tremendous debt to the more than 800,000 servicemen and women who served our country over the course of 20 years. More than 2,400 lost their lives, more than 20,000 wounded, and I'm not even beginning to touch those who will never be the same in spirit and following post-traumatic stress. We've lost so many, as you've cited, to death by suicide.

• 5:00:04Speaker 04

  I come to this hearing awash with awe in all of you, sadness with the reality of this war and other wars, of course, but I also come to it with great humility, knowing that I can't get near what you do, what you've done, what you've sacrificed. I can't get near it. But I do think this is important to bring out the facts, the truth of the end of this war, as some have cited, it is not over. So I'll start with Sergeant Vargas Andrews. Thank you for your service, your sacrifice.

• 5:00:43Speaker 04

  It's inadequate to say I'm sorry, but man, oh, man, we are proud of you. I wanted to follow up on two of the questions you wrote in your testimony that I had read, and then you also mentioned it again. You said, "Ask me about one little girl that I reunited with her family." Would you tell us that story?

• 5:01:04Speaker 01

  I would. Thank you, ma'am. You know, I think what I can say is for a lot of people out there, the actions that they had, specifically at Abbey Gate and around the airport, there were a lot of moments to them that were worth the mental strain to the servicemembers. For myself, that first day at Abbey Gate, after we were working to push back the crowds, I was on the ground, and a little girl had squeezed her way through the crowd of about seven or eight years old, holding a four-month-old, I would estimate a four- or five-month-old baby in her arms, and holding the hand of, who I assumed to be her little brother, who was about four or five years old. And they were all dirty and bruised, I mean, tear-streaked faces, and kind of in this chaos, it was just like...

• 5:01:51Speaker 01

  I had tunnel vision and saw her and I was like, I need to help them. It was just a very odd sight to see.

• 5:01:58Speaker 01

  And I picked up the baby and the little boy and she followed me, like motioned for her to follow me.

• 5:02:05Speaker 01

  And to get to, get to a safe area away from the crowd. I noticed the baby's face was blue and purple. And so I went to the nearest person that resembled a medic. And I started asking if they had a small, small breathing bag, a BVM to, to conduct CPR because I, you know, I didn't know if the baby had already passed, but assumed it wasn't breathing. And didn't want to, you know, injure the baby by trying to perform CPR on it myself. And the individual, I don't know who it was. You know, I sat there as, watched them resuscitate, helped resuscitate this baby. And face flushed pink, started crying and then the little girl started asking for her dad, just crying and tugging on my uniform.

• 5:02:50Speaker 01

  I took her back to the gate and could tell that she was asking for her father. And climbed up on the SUVs overlooking the razor wire and held her up. And was just trying to ask her, you know, do you see your dad, like Abba, like trying to, you know, make her understand what I was saying and she, she understood and we sat up there for a minute or two and in this crowd of hundreds of people below us. She just pointed in the direction, you know, maybe thirty, forty people back. And there, there's just all these hundreds of people holding up papers, documents, whatnot. And there's this one individual just holding a bunch of family's luggage with his hands on his head. Just crying and looking at her and I was like, that, that is her dad.

• 5:03:32Speaker 01

  And I let the troops down right there at the opening of the gate, know to help get this guy through, pulled him through. And the little girl hopped off the SUV and ran to him. And hugged him and he hugged her, both cried, took them over, took and reunited them with. The other two children and he had paperwork for all those families showing their pictures and whatnot. And so for me, that was a moment that my, my personal injury was worth it. And, you know, I know those three little kids will have a life of freedom and opportunity now because of that. Thank you.

• 5:04:09Speaker 04

  You know, there's an expression in the Jewish tradition that I always lean on, even though I'm a person of Catholic faith, and it is to have saved a single life is to have saved the whole universe. So many of you have done that. You're in the process of it. Help us make sure we live up to our obligation to the remaining people whom we must save, rescue, get on with their lives.

• 5:04:35Speaker 01

  A lot of, I mean, a majority, a majority of the, of the Democrats, you know, they came on and were like, well, we don't want to make this about the Trump administration, but let me make it about the Trump administration and would proceed to talk about that. And like I said, you know, earlier breakfast, I don't give a fuck who's in, in office, but whoever is in office, it's their responsibility to make those sound and right decisions. It's their responsibility to take action and be a good and strong leader. That's what matters. Doesn't matter what your, what your party is, it matters that you take care of the American people.

• 5:05:17Shawn Ryan?

  Politicians are getting real good at passing, passing the blame.

• 5:05:27Speaker 01

  The, yeah. The, the most important thing besides Congress and the nation hearing what happened out there and making them aware of what happened, for me, coming out of that was asking for accountability and.

• 5:05:51Speaker 01

  You know Congressman Mills, um, accountability for the lack of decision making in Afghanistan, the lack of, um, the lack of leadership out there. And, you know, I know the chairman, you know, he said he's gonna subpoena, you know, um, spent some time with him afterwards, said he's gonna subpoena our battalion commander to get some answers on who he passed that intel and that PID to after him. So I'm gonna keep, keep riding, riding these congressmen about these answers. Congressman Mills just drafted recently articles of impeachment for the Secretary of Defense. Um, I won't say too much more than that, but yeah, he did that.

• 5:06:32Speaker 01

  And, uh, quite a, you know, a few congressmen came up to me and said that I don't care about getting reelected. They looked me in the eye and said, I don't care about getting reelected. I care about getting you some fucking answers and holding people accountable. And I'm gonna do everything in my power to ensure that they hold true to that because it's, it's easy to fucking, it's easy to say bullshit, but it's, it's the actions that matter.

• 5:07:02Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think anybody's gonna be held accountable?

• 5:07:09Speaker 01

  I don't know. I would like to say yes.

• 5:07:11Shawn Ryan?

  Are these guys keeping in contact with him?

• 5:07:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I will say that the few, a few of the congressmen, um, that have made some promises have left me with some genuine hope.

• 5:07:26Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 5:07:26Speaker 01

  And, uh, dare I say trustworthy politicians, but, uh, have, you know, there are quite a few of them are, are veterans as well and, uh, are trying to make a change. And I mean, that's what I'm trying to do too.

• 5:07:44Shawn Ryan?

  Um, that's what we're trying to do.

• 5:07:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you, you do that, you do that with every episode. You definitely do.

• 5:07:52Shawn Ryan?

  Um, that gives me hope.

• 5:07:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:07:56Shawn Ryan?

  I think that's gonna give everybody that's watching some hope. Let's, let's hope that these motherfuckers are held accountable.

• 5:08:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:08:05Shawn Ryan?

  For what they did.

• 5:08:09Speaker 01

  It's a, it was a, some, an opportunity I was very grateful for.

• 5:08:16Speaker 01

  I mean, I never, you know, when I, when I woke up and I was in the hospital, I, I told myself, I was like, everything I do from here on out is gonna be before those killed in action to, to advocate for what happened. And man, I never, I never thought it would, I never thought I would be in front of Congress. I never thought I'd be sitting in front of you here today. And so I want to say thank you for giving me that opportunity to do so. It's an important, important message and what happened out there is important. And I thank you for the platform.

• 5:08:47Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome. It's Tyler. It's, it's a real honor, man. Really. It is a real honor to have you here.

• 5:08:55Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 5:08:57Shawn Ryan?

  I mean that.

• 5:08:58Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 5:09:03Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about what happened after your testimony at Congress. How many media outlets picked this up?

• 5:09:11Speaker 01

  A lot.

• 5:09:15Speaker 01

  I mean,

• 5:09:17Speaker 01

  we went on our first break in, in Congress after like four or five hours and I had already had like 12 media requests to, to do things. Um, I've since been on CNN with Jake Tapper. Um, and I was kind of skeptical, skeptical about going on CNN. Um, for obvious reasons, but the chairman, Chairman McCall, um, he's the one who reached out to me about doing so and kind of let me know that Jake Tapper,

• 5:09:46Speaker 01

  you know, cares about veterans and the service members. And it was actually very, uh, he even told me himself, he's like, yeah, you know, some of our viewers have some issues with us covering the Afghanistan hearings, but it's, it's what needs to be done. And, and when they covered the Afghanistan evacuation itself, he's like, but it's, it's what needs to be done. So I was very thankful for that. I think I'll, uh, at some point in the future, I'll be going on with Chairman McCall to, you know, to talk about, um, on, on like Fox and Friends as well. But it's working through right now with my, you know, my kind of team on keeping this message relevant and, um, finding.

• 5:10:30Speaker 01

  You know, continuing to work on ways to um actually have action taken, not just repeat the same stuff over and over and keeping keeping close, close eyes on and in close contact with some of these congressmen and women is is the first step in that and ensuring that what they promised me on record in front of Congress, in front of the nation, that that is what they will do. So the um, there was another congressman, a couple seats to the left of Chairman McCall in the committee that um, put in for an official, an official inquiry on why our request was not dealt with. So um, he put that on record.

• 5:11:15Speaker 01

  Um, so I'll, I'll be following up about that as well.

• 5:11:20Shawn Ryan?

  At breakfast, we had talked about Good Morning America, I believe. How did that go?

• 5:11:26Speaker 01

  So ABC News, Good Morning America, uh, obviously they reached out and that was sometime in, in 2022. Um, I don't remember exactly when. I think, I think it was like right around the year mark.

• 5:11:41Shawn Ryan?

  Who was the interviewer?

• 5:11:47Speaker 01

  It was, it was, it was a lady. I don't remember her name. Um, it kind of goes to show how important it turned out to be, but uh, you know, they sat me there for like seven hours and my mom included and spoke with us. And I think five seconds to 10 seconds of what I had to say was broadcasted.

• 5:12:11Shawn Ryan?

  So they had you, they interviewed you for seven hours?

• 5:12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:12:16Shawn Ryan?

  And they rolled five seconds, five to 10 seconds of what you had to say and that's seven hours?

• 5:12:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 5:12:23Shawn Ryan?

  Just goes to show you, it just goes to show everybody how censored and controlled.

• 5:12:30Shawn Ryan?

  The news is.

• 5:12:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:12:31Shawn Ryan?

  On, and I'm not talking about right and left. I'm talking about all of it.

• 5:12:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:12:37Shawn Ryan?

  All of it.

• 5:12:38Speaker 01

  I was looking at a diagram, like a Venn diagram of how every news, no matter if it's left or right, how every news, majority of every news outlet or news media is like leads back to like two or three, like organizations that control them all.

• 5:12:53Shawn Ryan?

  It's all bullshit.

• 5:12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is.

• 5:12:55Shawn Ryan?

  All of it.

• 5:12:56Speaker 01

  Yep. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you've seen it, the videos of them linking like a hundred news stations together saying the same exact thing.

• 5:13:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:13:04Speaker 01

  And shit, most Americans don't realize, I don't even watch the fucking news.

• 5:13:09Shawn Ryan?

  I don't either. Like, it's, it's, it's completely irrelevant at this point.

• 5:13:14Speaker 01

  It is.

• 5:13:15Shawn Ryan?

  It's, it's, it's just inviting yourself to be brainwashed.

• 5:13:18Speaker 01

  Yep, that it is. I will say, um, I did the Washington Post the next day with Dan Lamothe and, another, another lady on his team, um, and they kind of did a podcast slash, um, you know, production of it. And that was good. Dan, Dan really, um, it was heartfelt. I mean, they had tears in their eyes listening to my story. You could tell that they really, they really cared and were serious about it. Um, I'm actually going to be going to, uh, the Marine, uh, like Marine Corps Heritage Foundation Gala with, with them. And, um, he, he digs for the truth and he put it front page, Washington Post. And then recently after this Congress

• 5:14:02Speaker 01

  hearing, um, same thing, front page. He's getting, he's getting an award for, for front page, like news on his reporting and stuff. And, um, he's a genuine, genuine guy who, who just wants the fucking truth to be heard. And he's been covering the war in Afghanistan since like 2003, something like that, 2003, 2004. It's a long time and he, he fucking cares about the service members and about America. So that was, that was cool to see that he, uh, he took everything I had to say down and listened.

• 5:14:36Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 5:14:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:14:37Shawn Ryan?

  That's good to hear.

• 5:14:41Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have anything else you want to say about your experience with Congress, the press?

• 5:14:47Speaker 01

  Um.

• 5:14:48Shawn Ryan?

  August 26th?

• 5:14:51Speaker 01

  I don't think so. I think, uh,

• 5:14:55Speaker 01

  just that I'm thankful for the team of individuals that have helped me, you know, through, through this and, and individuals I've met through Congress, my, my legal aide,

• 5:15:05Speaker 01

  or leave unnamed, but, uh, big thank you to them for, for the help that they've given me up to this point. And, uh, same goes for my mom, my uncle and my entertainment lawyer. They've, they've really done,

• 5:15:19Speaker 01

  guided me where, you know, I've, I've just lacked some knowledge in some areas. So it's been nice.

• 5:15:25Shawn Ryan?

  How are you doing? How are you doing getting through all this, dealing with the trauma?

• 5:15:31Speaker 01

  I think I'm doing pretty well. Um, you know, I've, I, I, I've said it before and it's, I have, I have my hard days, you know, there's, I mean, what's happened has happened and I think, uh,

• 5:15:43Shawn Ryan?

  What does a hard day look like?

• 5:15:45Speaker 01

  Man, I, uh, I have, I have an ostomy, so I had my, my intestines rerouted through my stomach. Um, so I have like a bag that I shit into and, uh, there's days where I'll get out of the shower or whatever and go to fucking change my, my medical supplies and I just fucking poop all over myself and shit like that. And that, uh, that'll definitely do it in for me, but I'd say a hard day would be, or hard, hard moments would be, um,

• 5:16:16Speaker 01

  sometimes just struggling to do certain tasks because I'm missing a leg and an arm. And, uh, even with prosthetics, some things are hard, you know, some, some things are hard and, uh,

• 5:16:29Speaker 01

  it's definitely, it's just like, God fucking damn it. Like, why did it, like, not why did this happen, but it's just like, Like fucking, it just sucks. Honestly, I guess, you know, it, it, it, there's some days it just sucks. But every, every single time I have a moment or a time I wanna cry or I wanna just, where I almost feel sorry for myself. I, uh, I remind myself that there's thirteen service members killed in action. And I'm so, I should have been number fourteen. And, you know, I'm here today and they're not, and their families and their loved ones have to live without them. And, you know, I've said it before, but I get to struggle through the things that I do and I'm thankful for that.

• 5:17:17Shawn Ryan?

  What are you doing to get better?

• 5:17:19Speaker 01

  Finally getting, getting back to, uh, my roots, I would say, uh, getting back to fishing, getting back to hunting. Getting to the out, getting into the outdoors, um, again, spending time with family and friends.

• 5:17:35Speaker 01

  Working on knives has been great, being, being with my, my two buddies and working on that small business. Um, it'd be nice to dedicate a lot more time, but, I mean, you know, we each have our own design and for me, it's, it's nice, like, I, uh, it's nice to be able to make something, um, with my own hand again. And make something of value and worth and that, I mean, it's, it's, I don't know, it's kinda like cleaning your weapon, you know? It's, it's just, kinda brings me a little bit of peace being able to do that and just know like I'm putting my sweat into something again and, uh,

• 5:18:13Speaker 01

  it's not perfect because I'm making it with one hand, but it's, uh, it works and it's, it's, uh, it's a really, it's a really therapeutic thing, honestly. That and, that and the gym, um, getting back into trying to be physically fit. I mean, my body wears down a lot quicker now just because of my injuries.

• 5:18:31Speaker 01

  Obviously, I mean, people really only see the, the leg and the arm, but I've, you know, I've got countless injuries and my, uh, you know, my, my rotator cuffs are fucking fried and just damaged everything. It, it definitely takes a toll. But, um, yeah, doing, doing those things.

• 5:18:47Shawn Ryan?

  Are you doing any therapy?

• 5:18:50Speaker 01

  No, I, uh, you know, I had quite, I had the behavioral health individuals, um, bug me a lot in the hospital, uh, the mental health team and I finally got to the point, I was like, please just leave me the fuck alone. I was like, I'm not, I told him this. I was like, told the therapist, like, I'm not gonna fucking kill myself. Like, just leave me alone. I'm all right. Like, I, I, for me, um, that's not to knock on physical therapist, or I mean, uh, you know, mental health therapist and whatnot, but, uh, for me, you know, my occupational therapist, like, she's been with me since I got to inpatient in the hospital and she would come and literally just like bend my fingers and move them herself, cause I couldn't, and just like

• 5:19:30Speaker 01

  excruciating pain, like bend my hand backwards and stuff to get my tendons to stretch out again. And she'd be in there for an hour or two and I would just sit and talk, just sit and talk with her and one of my physical therapists, I'm there, you know, doing physical therapy, I'd sit and talk with her, and my prosthetist, I'd sit and talk with them and my TBI therapist, sit and talk with her and talking with, um, for me, talking with people, you know, like my friends, um, that's a big one. Talking with people that are close to me and people that really genuinely care, um, not that therapists don't, but like the people who are in my direct, you know, line of care, like PTs and OTs and whatnot, um,

• 5:20:12Speaker 01

  my prosthetist and my buddies, that they're people I know that care and people's opinions and, uh, people's opinions that I value and they see me for who I really am, I think. Um, and that's been really helpful to talk with them, cause it's my, my, my physical therapist, I mean, she's been at Walter Reed, I think, for like thirteen years or something. And so she's seen the war, you know? She's seen the guys, the men and women come through there, um, some worse off than me and, uh, it's definitely, that's definitely how I go about, you know, talking about things is, is talking with, with those closest to me.

• 5:20:56Speaker 01

  So, that's kind of my therapy.

• 5:20:59Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever thought about psychedelics?

• 5:21:02Speaker 01

  I have, I have definitely. I would, uh, love to hear some about, you know, about your, your personal journey. Um, something I would love to look into post-military.

• 5:21:14Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'll tell you this much, we can talk offline about it, but, um,

• 5:21:21Shawn Ryan?

  Tyler, I'm reluctant to talk about it because I've not experienced what you've experienced. But I will tell you that post psychedelics, it changed my life in a lot of ways. And they were all very profound and all good. And I came to peace with a lot of things. And maybe you will too. And if you want, I'd love to connect you with some people that can help.

• 5:21:57Speaker 01

  That'd be awesome. I really appreciate that.

• 5:21:59Shawn Ryan?

  Trevor Miller runs Ambia Life and that guy's changing lives every single day. And that's who I want to. And I'd love to connect you. I'd also love to connect you with, do you know who Nick Laver is?

• 5:22:18Speaker 01

  Yes, actually, it's kind of funny. I had not, I had not ever heard of him until maybe like six months ago. And I'm glad I did hear about him. But yeah, it was probably about, probably about six months ago was the first time that I had heard of him. And you know, his story, which is an incredible one.

• 5:22:38Shawn Ryan?

  I'd love to connect you with him. That guy's really, he's done extremely well for himself. Post military career, fellow amputee. And I just, I think, I just think you guys need to connect.

• 5:22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would very much appreciate that.

• 5:22:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it would be my honor to do that.

• 5:22:59Speaker 01

  Thank you very much.

• 5:23:01Shawn Ryan?

  You know, there's another thing I want to talk about.

• 5:23:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:23:06Shawn Ryan?

  And there's a reason I want to talk to you about it. Let's talk about the movie deal.

• 5:23:13Speaker 01

  All right. So.

• 5:23:19Speaker 01

  I got, I got the offer to do, um, to be a part of a documentary on the war in Afghanistan. And through, you know, through Steven Spielberg's production team, um, and Paramount Pictures. And, you know, I kind of, uh, talked about my entertainment lawyer a little bit and my, my family and, uh, those closest to me. And I was like, yeah, I think, you know, I think I'm gonna do this. This would be cool. And, you know, I wasn't, I'm not naive to the fact that the more I share my story, um, potentially puts it out there to, putting it out there, you know, can devalue it.

• 5:23:57Speaker 01

  And, uh, but also good things can come of it. And that's why, you know, I chose to sit here, sit here in front of you today when you asked me to be on the show. And, uh, I think you have a phenomenal platform and Thank you. You, you always put out a great message. Thank you. Of course. And so

• 5:24:16Speaker 01

  I think pos-, a lot of positive things will come of this, but when I said yes to doing it and we, we, we even got up to scheduling a date. And, uh, really close to that date and this, I, I sat on it more and more and more and, uh, you know,

• 5:24:34Speaker 01

  they weren't, it's just like, you know, Paramount Pictures and all these people, it's, it's a millions and billions of dollar industry. And, you know, I asked, asked about, were they giving, you know, were they paying these veterans? Cause they had a lot of veterans coming on to be a part of this documentary. I was like, we're, we're, are you paying these veterans to, you know, talk and share their story? Cause you're making way more money off of this than they are gonna ever make. And the answer was no. Uh, you know, are you giving back to any foundations or anything like that? The answer was no. And I, I mean, like nonprofits that are doing good work for, you know, for veterans and active duty, you know, service members and wounded warriors. And not that I'm someone out for money, but

• 5:25:20Speaker 01

  if I'm gonna, you're gonna have, you're gonna come to me the way that they did and saying, we've got all these, these, you know, Steven Spielberg's production team and Paramount Pictures. Well, why, why would you not pay these individuals to do that? You know, that, that they're sharing their trauma and their story and everything that they've been through. And that's all that's probably gonna get done out of it because the only other thing that's gonna come out of this is the money that you're gonna gain. And I'm all for speaking about my things, you know, I look forward to continue my speaking platform, you know, whether it's motivational speaking or sharing my story in positive ways

• 5:26:02Speaker 01

  to better people's lives, you know, I don't need money for that, that's not what I'm here to do. But when you're throwing out all these big names and you're kind of showing your ass saying, hey, we've got a lot of money, we've got a lot of big people behind this, but you're not doing anything to give back. It was, it was probably, and they probably think I'm an asshole for it, but it was like the day before, I was like, sorry, I'm not doing this. Like, sorry, not sorry, but I can't get behind that. And like I said, you know, the more I share it with them, it's, the more I share it in improper, my story in improper ways and my messaging in improper ways, the more it will devalue that. And I want people to listen to, you know, what I have to say.

• 5:26:46Speaker 01

  And for right now, people care about, you know, the things that I've experienced and the men and women that I've served with and what happened in Afghanistan and the evacuation. And I hope it continues that way until I get some answers, until we all get some answers, until those 13 service members are accounted for, until someone's held accountable for the 13 Americans that were murdered that day, for the 13 families that have to live without their sons and daughters.

• 5:27:19Shawn Ryan?

  I want to talk to you about something, and this is veteran to veteran.

• 5:27:27Shawn Ryan?

  And it's my opinion. Can I share it with you?

• 5:27:30Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 5:27:36Shawn Ryan?

  I think you made an awesome judgment call with that movie deal. Because those pieces of shit, that's why that movie should have been fucking made. None of those people probably served. They're only there to make money. Yeah. They're selfish fucking pieces of shit. That's Hollywood. That it is. At breakfast, we were talking about all the things you wanted to get into with the speaking, maybe doing a documentary, all these things, and it sounded like you want to donate all of that to these foundations and the families. And I want to tell you something.

• 5:28:16Shawn Ryan?

  You've fucking given a lot. You've given your leg. You've given your fucking arm. You've given your time. All the mental trauma. All your other injuries. It's somebody else's turn to fucking donate.

• 5:28:33Shawn Ryan?

  And it took, it took me a long time to figure that out. Because here's what's gonna happen. This is how, this is how it works. If you don't fucking take care of yourself, nobody's gonna take care of you.

• 5:28:50Shawn Ryan?

  And it's good to give back. And I spent probably the first five years of my business, and I've only been in business for eight years. I've, I spent the first five years giving every fucking thing I made away to nonprofits, to families. A lot of it is to people that don't even give a fuck about it. Because it wasn't maybe as significant as a big donation.

• 5:29:18Shawn Ryan?

  Take care of you.

• 5:29:22Shawn Ryan?

  Always, always give back. Always give to the little guy. Always fucking give to the guys that are coming out. I mean, that's why the, that's why I started this show, was to give people that don't have a fucking voice, that should have a voice like you, a voice. That's what I do here. You know, I do consulting. But at the beginning, it was donating all the money I made off of apparel to some organization that doesn't even give a shit. Or it was wasting my fucking time.

• 5:29:56Shawn Ryan?

  Donating tactics courses and all these things and nonprofits that didn't give a fuck. You know, all they care about is the money. And I'm not saying all of them are like that, and I'm not saying everybody doesn't appreciate it. But what I am saying Tyler is make sure you fucking take care of you because nobody else is going to do that. And look at everything you've given. Look at everything you've given this country.

• 5:30:21Speaker 01

  I really appreciate that.

• 5:30:22Shawn Ryan?

  Take care of you, man. You have, you've given enough. It's somebody else's fucking turn to pick up the ball.

• 5:30:30Shawn Ryan?

  Set your ruck down and set your life up, man, because nobody's gonna fucking do it for you. And if you give everything away,

• 5:30:40Shawn Ryan?

  there's not gonna be anything left for you.

• 5:30:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'll definitely heed those words.

• 5:30:45Shawn Ryan?

  Please do. Because that shit can build a lot of resentment and take you into an extremely fucking toxic place, man. And, uh, and you're probably skirting that line right now, you know?

• 5:30:58Speaker 01

  I appreciate that advice.

• 5:30:59Shawn Ryan?

  Take care of yourself, please.

• 5:31:01Speaker 01

  I will. I, uh, think my mom would agree with you.

• 5:31:04Shawn Ryan?

  Good. It's okay to be a little selfish.

• 5:31:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:31:07Shawn Ryan?

  Especially after everything.

• 5:31:08Speaker 01

  She said that as well.

• 5:31:10Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 5:31:11Speaker 01

  I really appreciate that.

• 5:31:12Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 5:31:16Shawn Ryan?

  So what are you getting into? We got the knife business?

• 5:31:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:31:20Shawn Ryan?

  You're trying to get into public speaking? Who do you want to speak to?

• 5:31:24Speaker 01

  Man, I, uh,

• 5:31:28Speaker 01

  think, uh, the younger generation, honestly.

• 5:31:32Shawn Ryan?

  They need it.

• 5:31:33Speaker 01

  There's a, yeah, there's a, there's a lot of bad in society today, a lot. And, uh,

• 5:31:41Speaker 01

  you know, I'm very much, the way I grew up, looking at my mom, it's like, well, if she can do it, so can I. And, uh, not to make, not to be Mr. High and Mighty on my horse, but showing some of these people what you go through, it's not that bad. And I look at my situation, I'm like, this fucking sucks. My buddies are dead. It's not that bad. Sucks, but I'll get the fuck over it. And, uh, Helping people who feel fucking sorry for themselves. It's uh, you know, I, I, I've, I've maintained the mantra um since, since I uh, I think I got to inpatient in the hospital out of the ICU. And I really kinda got a clear head off of, of the, of the drugs and stuff.

• 5:32:25Speaker 01

  I told them to take me off of my, my opioids and narcotics. Um, you know, I told, I told myself that I, I would never be a victim. I'll never be a victim of what happened to me. And uh, I try to, I try to show others that, you know. I um, it's a choice. I think, I think uh, I think weakness is a choice. And uh, you have to go through the hard, you have to go through hard things to become strong. You, you know, you, you have to, you have to struggle and you have to deal with pain and go through the pain and struggle and strife in life to become strong. And no matter what happens in your life, it's your choice.

• 5:33:10Speaker 01

  No matter how fucking hard it is, it's your choice if you wanna be a victim or not. And for me, my choose to never be a victim. And that's, that's the message I wanna put out to people. It's your choice to, as bad as, as bad as things can get, someone has it worse. And it's not to diminish anyone's pain or what they go through because everyone's own pain and experiences is relevant to themselves. And that, that should not be overlooked. But it does come to a point where feeling sorry for yourself is not gonna get you anywhere in life. You're not gonna be successful if you feel sorry for yourself. I know that. I'm, I'm missing two of my limbs. I'm, I'm not gonna get anywhere in life if I feel bad for what's happened to me. And I, I don't choose to be strong.

• 5:33:53Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you, man.

• 5:33:54Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 5:33:56Shawn Ryan?

  You know.

• 5:33:59Shawn Ryan?

  You are never gonna understand how many people you've impacted, how many lives you've saved, how many people you've walked off the edge, how many lives you've turned around. You're never gonna feel it. You're never gonna understand it. You're never gonna comprehend it. And it gets frustrating, but you're gonna help hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions. And I'm fucking proud to know you, man.

• 5:34:33Speaker 01

  I appreciate that. That really means a lot. Likewise.

• 5:34:37Shawn Ryan?

  Keep after it.

• 5:34:38Speaker 01

  I will.

• 5:34:39Shawn Ryan?

  And take care of yourself.

• 5:34:40Speaker 01

  Thank you. You do the same.

• 5:34:41Shawn Ryan?

  Don't forget that.

• 5:34:43Speaker 01

  I appreciate that. Keep putting out a great message.

• 5:34:47Shawn Ryan?

  I will.

• 5:34:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. I hope that you don't get censored by anyone. I saw the episode with Dallas Alexander, so good for you.

• 5:34:57Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 5:34:58Speaker 01

  And good for him.

• 5:34:59Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. It'll happen, but we'll keep going.

• 5:35:04Speaker 01

  It's all I can do.

• 5:35:06Shawn Ryan?

  It's an honor, man.

• 5:35:08Speaker 01

  Thank you very much. It means a lot. It does. It means a lot to a lot of the people that I've shown love to as well.