24th STS Operator | Chad McCoy (throwback episode)

original airdate 11/4/22 Chad McCoy served in the Air Force for over 22 years, 18 of which with the 24th STS. (24th Special Tactics Squadron). Chad has been on 17 deployments the majority of which with JSOC and earned the rank of Chief Master Sergeant. Check out Chad here: Foxtrot3 http://Foxtrot3.com LifeLine Rescue Tools https://lifelinerescuetools.com/ Firestorm Labs https://www.launchfirestorm.com/ Subscribe to our Patreon! 👇 https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse 00:00 — Start 01:20 — Growing up in Hawaii and chasing the special operations dream 08:30 — Pararescue history: Korea, Vietnam, and saving pilots under fire 11:00 — CCTs, PJs, JTACs, and how Air Force Special Tactics works 14:30 — Inside 24th STS: JSOC support, combat rescue, and tier-one assets 21:00 — 9/11 in Okinawa and trying to get into the war 24:20 — Trying out for 24th STS and puking through selection 27:30 — U-2 pilot rescue in Korea and recovering classified gear 34:00 — PJ pipeline: water confidence, scuba, Airborne, SOCM, and Green Team 48:00 — First real gunfight and learning lethal decision-making 53:00 — Humanity in war: prisoners, ethics, and combat medicine 58:30 — Back-to-back Iraq and Afghanistan deployments 01:05:00 — Heavy casualties, compartmentalization, and refusing to process trauma 01:17:30 — Captain Phillips, Somali pirates, and maritime missions 01:25:00 — Safe houses, low-vis work, and the “non-sexy” side of SOF 01:35:00 — Tier-one medics, Navy vs. Army units, and staying sharp 01:44:30 — Running Green Team and learning a different kind of leadership 01:53:30 — How selection changed: diversity of thought and building better operators 01:56:00 — Losing GWOT experience and preparing for the next fight 02:00:00 — Innovation, failure, and why the military struggles to adapt 02:07:30 — Army vs. Navy tier-one culture and mission differences 02:10:00 — Special Reconnaissance, AFSOC’s future, and contested environments 02:16:00 — Retirement, depression, and losing purpose after the military 02:18:00 — Building a low-cost cruise missile after leaving SOF 02:25:00 — Life after combat and why conventional troops deserve more respect 02:34:45 — Veteran mental health, VA failures, and alternative treatments 02:38:00 — Closing thoughts Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down rather than giving teens the answer. Study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 0:27Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Special Operations. Cobert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your hosts, Jack Murphy and David Park.

• 1:18Jack Murphy?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to episode 173 of The Team House. I'm Jack Murphy, here with Dave Park. Our guest tonight on the show is Chad McCoy. Chad spent his entire career really in Air Force Special Operations with 24th Special Tactics Squadron, served as a PJ, pararescumin. And we're really excited and happy to have you here in our studio tonight, man. Flying out here, we really appreciate it.

• 1:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks. I didn't get stabbed today, so I'm healthy and happy.

• 1:48Speaker 05

  It's the rocks out here that'll get you.

• 1:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:52Jack Murphy?

  So, I mean, where to begin? I mean, we kind of like shot the shit a little bit before we started the show. And I mean, your biography and career, I suspect, is too extensive to even fit in one interview, but we'll try to hit some of the highlights, yeah, and then talk, hit some of the things you'd really like to get into. I'd really like to hear, first off, you know, sort of what your path was, you know, growing up as a kid and what like sort of took you towards the Air Force.

• 2:25Speaker 05

  What was your origin story that made you the superhero you are today?

• 2:28Speaker 04

  You know, so you talked to a lot of kids of our generation, right? And we grew up playing in the woods, you know, sticks as guns, wearing camouflage, going to Armory Station for the stores and buying, you know, canteens and waste. That was the, the, the culture that was what we were enamored by. I was exactly the same way. You know, my brother and I were in the woods, making forts and throwing pine cone grenades, you know. And so you're also enamored by movies, you know. And so, you know, the movies that were kind of formative for me were, you know, the same as everyone else. You look at like, I want to be Rambo,

• 3:10Speaker 04

  right? And, and probably a lot of Navy SEALs became Navy SEALs because of the movie, you know, it was awesome. And so we kind of had a culture there for a while that was kind of glamorizing the military experience and specifically the special operations experience. And so, all I wanted in my life was to wear a, you know, balaclava, have an MP5 in a flight suit. That's all I wanted.

• 3:35Jack Murphy?

  Repel through skylights.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  That's all I wanted in life. And, you know, once I got the balaclava, it wasn't very comfortable. And MP5 wasn't very, you know, effective.

• 3:45Jack Murphy?

  The nomads is hot as hell.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  But you know, that was what I was aspiring to be as a young man and um you know, I had a normal, you know, semi-normal childhood, but as I, as I grew up, uh, I knew I wanted to join the military. And I was probably, you know, seventeen years old. I was in Hawaii. I was a surfer. I was, you know, you know, some punk kid in Hawaii, skateboarder, surfer. And um, I, I was enamored by special operations. This is before the war, right? This is before nine eleven. So I had no context of what war was. I didn't know what, how real it could be. Um, I just knew it was kinda sexy, right? And so, um, and par rescue was one of the few, um, jobs in the military that was always kind

• 4:29Speaker 04

  of employed, right? You know, regardless of, of war or not, they were rescuing people outside of mountains. They were jumping in the middle of the ocean. They were badasses to begin with. And, you know, icing on the cake was maybe if a war kicks off, I can go do that stuff too. But um, but it was, this is like nineties, right? And so, um, you know, that, that was kind of leading up into me going to the military. So not to get ahead of it, but you know, that was kind of the genesis of it was, um, I wanted to do something exciting and cool. Um, and I, and recruiters are, you know, listening to this is the things I was enamored by was, you know, guys putting their kit out there and showing me scuba tanks and, you know, guns and, you know, motorcycles. I was like, that's, that's the life I want, you know? And um, you

• 5:13Speaker 04

  can get it a number of different ways. You know, you can go be a ranger and do all the same things. You can go be a SEAL. You can be a Green Beret. Um, you know, no one has really cornered the market on, on the coolness. They all have it. It's just, you know, how accessible is it? And, and par rescue was the quickest way, just to be candid with you, was the quickest way to get all those things right off the bat.

• 5:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 04

  And it sounds cheat, it sounds like cheating, but um, you know, it was truly, um, I can go to scuba school. I can go to, you know, I went to Key West, you know, special forces combat dive school as an eighteen-year-old. You don't get that in the army, right? You're a senior guy. You've cut your teeth. You proved yourself. And you actually wanna do that crap. And I knew I could get those things off the bat. Went to Freefall School as a, you know, 18, I turned 19 at Freefall School. And so, um, that's not normal. Maybe it's normal today. You know, it's more accessible today, but back in the day it wasn't. And so, uh, that was the path I chose.

• 6:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, that was one of the big things, especially pre GWAT, is that CCT and Para Rescue, they had that pipeline, it was stacked, it was lined up, and it was the envy.

• 6:23Speaker 04

  Schools.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  It was the envy of every other special operation.

• 6:26Jack Murphy?

  It was still contentious, you know, when I went through.

• 6:29Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 6:29Jack Murphy?

  Around 2008 or 2009, because, yeah, you guys have a pipeline right in there. I mean, to have an entire special forces team, uh, uh, MFF team qualify is pretty difficult to do. It's not easy to get those slots. But, yeah, I can definitely see why it's appealing to it.

• 6:45Speaker 04

  No, so I felt that. Um, I felt that as a young guy going through SCUBA school with zero batters on my chest, right? I was a, maybe I was an E2. And, um, my, I was dive team number two in SCUBA school. It's a big deal, right? And one, two, and three. And, you know, the guy that I was, uh, my, my partner was a crusty, like, you know, special forces E7. And I'm enamored by this guy, right? I'm like, he's, he's legit. I am nothing. I'm a punk that was in high school last year, and here I am going to special forces SCUBA school, and I don't deserve to be there. And they reminded us that every day, you know, Air Force pukes, you know? And, um, Air Force got a bad rap because, you know, we'd go in there and we'd smoke these things. But it was because our selection was good. And so

• 7:29Speaker 04

  you had like really talented guys at the top of the, the food chain going through these courses, and they crushed them, you know? And, um, but we were a bunch of pricks, you know, we were young guys, we were, you know, arrogant. And, uh, but yeah, for sure, we probably deserved everything we get, you know, we had.

• 7:47Speaker 05

  You're, you're basically SEALs, but with the ability to back it up.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  No, no, man.

• 7:52Speaker 05

  That's a joke. It's a joke.

• 7:53Speaker 04

  I went through, I went through, uh, the 18 Delta course, the true 18 Delta course at Saukham, uh, with a bunch of SEALs and a bunch of 18 Deltas. And there was a bunch of PJs back when we were going through there. And, um, you know, you had the SEALs around the periphery, and they're like, you know, screw these guys. And the 18 Delta was like, screw all of these guys. And here's the Air Force guys going, we just want to get through this, man. We want to like staff, like, this is just a thing for us, you know? Uh, but...

• 8:18Jack Murphy?

  So what year did you go through selection?

• 8:21Speaker 04

  Uh, so 1998.

• 8:24Speaker 04

  Back when it was hard. I mean, last hardcore.

• 8:27Speaker 05

  Last hardcore.

• 8:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, last hardcore. You know, I was thinking about the other day. We say that about stuff and we, I think we kind of believe it, right? Cause I kind of believe that there was harder back then. I don't know if that's true or not.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  You know, we'll kind of go through the progression of my career, but like I ended up running selection training at the unit and the guys we were bringing on were better than us. They were. Was it harder? Maybe not, but were they better? Yes. Cause we were better at selection. We were better at selecting the right people. And so it's kind of funny to look back and think like it back in the day was like, who was the hardest and you could just get through hard things. But does that make the best operator? Nah, it doesn't. It makes a guy that's really good at carrying heavy things.

• 9:10Speaker 05

  Right.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  And here I was trying to blend in with those, those hardcore guys, you know, and, you know, fake it till I make it. But, uh, but yeah, so a lot of growth through the process.

• 9:21Speaker 05

  So for the people who don't know anything about Air Force Special Operations, can you sort of give us the lay? And it's changed over time too, I guess, but can you give us the layout of what it was when you were there and what it's become now?

• 9:35Speaker 04

  I'll give you a better history lesson. I'll try to, you know, someone will fact check me on it, but, um, you know, so PJs grew out of kind of necessity. In, in Korea, jumping in, uh, jumping in docks, uh, behind enemy lines and, and moving people out, kind of like the hard way, right? And so, um, there were, you know, I guess, you know, kind of a crude way to put it, just guys with big balls that would jump out of airplanes and do hard stuff. And so, um, willing to risk their lives for others. And so that was kind of the genesis of this. And so Vietnam kind of was the, uh, the galvanizing kind of, uh, environment for PJs. And they just did hard stuff all the time, man. Like you guys are in a tick, you know, a bunch of SF dudes or, or conventional, you

• 10:19Speaker 04

  know, army guys, they were, the guys are going to go down the hoist, under fire and try to take out their casualties. And, you know, Vietnam's, you know, was a good, you know, kind of litmus test for, you know, being a spec ops guy, you know, the SEALs, Green Berets, they all cut their teeth there, right? And so here PJs were, they were one offs. You know, there were these guys that just were, were kind of, uh, you know, kind of the rebels of the Air Force for sure. But their job morphed into protecting air crew. And so it became this. Kind of safety net for aviators. So I'm an F-15 pilot, I'm flying, and here's a really good example is, you know, the Gulf War. You punch out, a PJ is coming to get you, right?

• 11:03Speaker 04

  And, you know, he's gonna come with an armada, not only helicopters, A-10s flying with him. And so it's a legit package come with him. So PJs morphed over the years, and then the GWAT happened, and then it was a chance for the PJs to say, hey, man, like, what do we want to be when we grow up? Because this is no kidding the test. And so, not to get to have the conversation.

• 11:25Jack Murphy?

  No, it's great.

• 11:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. Where, did I read somewhere that a lot of the PJs, the pararescumin in Vietnam, were they former, did they draw on the smokejumpers? Is that, or am I just making that up?

• 11:40Speaker 04

  I never heard that before, maybe.

• 11:41Jack Murphy?

  I think that the CIA drew on some of those guys for some of their ops in like Laos during the Vietnam conflict.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  But I think a lot of them would kind of just floated back and forth. There was a lot of that going on. It was like, hey, man, you can do weird stuff? Okay, let's go do weird stuff.

• 11:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, a lot of like sheep dipping back then.

• 11:58Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 11:59Speaker 05

  And, but the larger picture of Air Force Special Operations also includes there's JTACs, there's CCTs. Can you tell folks out there a little bit about how that works?

• 12:10Speaker 04

  Everyone knows I got a lot of love for the CCTs. And so at the 24th SCS, you have CCTs and PJs. The Air Force is terrible at branding, so we have a lot of acronyms. You also have TACPs, right? And so as Rangers, you guys know TACPs. Conventional forces get TACPs, but there's also soft TACPs. And so we have those. They're great. They're excellent, they're excellent JTACs. But CCTs were initially designed to do kind of austere ATCs, air traffic control, basically stand up a remote site and bring aircraft in.

• 12:41Jack Murphy?

  Like out of their rucksack on a remote airfield somewhere.

• 12:43Speaker 04

  Well, you look at Desert One, right? They were the guys bringing in those aircraft. And that was kind of the genesis of it. But then it became, okay, well, there's a necessity to have these guys call close air support. And can they do it really well at a high level? Absolutely they can. And so they kind of repurposed them. And so over the, you know, over the past 20 years, they repurposed them to be excellent JTACs. And, you know, they're just badass dudes that could get the job done. They could bring in, you know, your infill, exfil, but also call CAS, you know, manage ISR, and so kind of jack of all trades as well, you know? And so. And then you got PJs who traditionally come from the rescue side. So you have rescue in the Air Force and their job is to rescue pilots. That's it. And so they do it and they're the

• 13:28Speaker 04

  best at it. You know, they come in helicopters, they jump out of airplanes, they do the NASA mission. I mean, they do the rescues off McKinley. I mean, they're everything, right? But then within SOF, you take those PJs and you say, how do we purpose these guys to support ground forces more effectively? And so in the early days, Desert One's a good example, when you start building up JSOC, they realize that, hey, man, we can use PJs and be these kind of these, this enabling force that protects our guys and provides confidence to ground force commanders to say, man, like if anything happens, you guys are going to do it. And a good example is Black Hawk Down. You know, we had PJs there that went down and guys, I

• 14:11Speaker 04

  had the, the, man, it's hard to put this into words, but like when I was a young man, I looked at, you know, these magazines and I saw guys like Tim Wilkinson and Scotty Fields and I was enamored by them. And then I got to meet them in person and, and then become, have a relationship with them.

• 14:28Jack Murphy?

  That's so cool.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  Which was amazing to me. And it probably wasn't amazing to them because I'm a nobody, right? But like for me, it was a big deal. And so, but those were the guys that put themselves in harm's way. They're kind of the lesser known portion of Black Hawk Down in the story of, you know, Gothic Serpent, but they, you know, they risked their lives to save others and cut those guys out of those helicopters. And so, you know, then the assault force understood, holy crap, these guys are really good at this. We can use them on the maritime missions. We can use them on these helo assault forces. And so they became kind of a necessity, you know, over time. Yeah?

• 15:06Jack Murphy?

  And correct me if I'm wrong anytime I say something dumb here, but 24th STS is the unit that encompasses some of these different personnel and capabilities.

• 15:17Jack Murphy?

  Unlike, you know, maybe some of the other SOF units, does this, do they act as like the force provider and they, they shoot off these attachments to SEALs, Rangers? Or are there missions they do?

• 15:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, yes and no. So, um, they do both, right? So, um, in the early days of Iraq and Afghanistan, we were basically running combat search and rescue for the task force. And so, um, like I was the team leader for those, you know, those, those task forces. And my job was to protect a certain region of Iraq. And so, you know, when you had halves going all night, you know, a lot of, a lot of helos flying back in the day and, and the 160th was very, very busy. Um, they were getting on more than anybody. And my job was to protect those guys. Not only the air crew, but everyone else is on those, you know, those, uh, you know, those infill and exfil, you know, uh, birds. And so, you know, that was a primary mission of our unit. And then on top of that, we would basically dole PJs, controllers out to the Army and Navy.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  And so, um, and that's where it gets kind of exciting, right? Because everyone wants to be part of that. You touch that magic and there's a lot of magic there, right? And so, uh, you know, PJs, controllers, you know, it sounds like pejorative, but they were commodities for a while. And so, and that's not a bad thing to me because you're on the best missions and you're with the best operators. And so, my job is to be the best PJ with them and protect them and save their lives and, uh, and think ahead of problems as they happen. And so, um, and the combat controller is running, I mean, he's, he's the busiest guy on the target.

• 16:45Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 16:45Speaker 04

  You know what I mean? He's got multiple radios going, multiple aircraft, maybe he's calling CAS, maybe he's calling, you know, a, a black HLC to bring, you know, casualties out. And the PJ has a cool job because if no one gets hurt, you got a pretty sweet gig, man. Cause you're running gun with the rest, the best of them. And then when someone gets hurt, yeah, you refocus, man. And that, and that's your, your primary task. And so. Um, so yeah, it's, it's a, it's a different, different gig, man.

• 17:11Speaker 05

  So with the Air Force with, we'll talk about pararescue because I don't know about CCT, but it, it has sort of that SEAL structure, right? There's the Whiteside, uh, pararescue who before GWAT were, were the busiest special operations folks anywhere. They're doing mountain rescue.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  Dudes in Alaska.

• 17:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, they're doing the mountain rescue. They're doing incredibly heroic stuff out at sea.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 05

  Um, like they had a real job all the time, even the guard bums.

• 17:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, the perfect storm, man.

• 17:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  Long Island, you know, guys, the guys in Alaska are, are the biggest badass PJs, right? Cause they're the guys that are going to jump through remote DZ and rescue somebody and like overland for three days and, and you know, probably kill bears with their bare hands. I don't know.

• 17:56Jack Murphy?

  A couple, a couple of them, I think just last year did a freefall jump in Alaska to go rescue some, a dude that was stranded out there, jumped right out into the snowdrifts.

• 18:04Speaker 04

  They do a lot.

• 18:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:05Speaker 04

  They do a lot. And, um, the guys here in Long Island, um, do a lot of jump missions out, out to sea. Um, you know, a lot of the, uh, you know, merchant vessels that, that call for help. These guys will hang, they, they literally risk their lives for others. And so when I joined, that's what I joined to do.

• 18:21Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  And I was hoping that the, the combat side of it would come eventually.

• 18:25Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 18:25Speaker 04

  And, um, you know, so I, I was first stationed, I think you guys want to talk about selection a little bit, but, um, I was first stationed in Las Vegas and, um, we went out to Northern Watch, which is, uh, you had Northern Watch and Southern Watch and basically it was a bracket around Iraq.

• 18:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:42Speaker 04

  For no fly zone. And so our job, Northern Watch in Turkey was to protect those fighters that were forcing that. And so in my mind, I was in combat, right? I'm in full kit. I got all these magazines. I had so many magazines. I probably, I probably had 500 rounds on me. I don't know, man. But, um, I'm kidding, but, uh, you know, I was, I, I thought I was John Rambo and I was going to go save anyone who needed me.

• 19:04Speaker 05

  Right.

• 19:05Speaker 04

  And, but the fact is, is that you're just a safety net and, um, you know, we hadn't really started yet. And so. Um, you know, it it it's kind of a interesting kind of transition to what the GWAT became. Because I didn't have any experience, you know what I mean? I wasn't nobody. And so, yeah, it's interesting, man.

• 19:26Speaker 05

  So with so and I don't, I don't mean any sort of disparagement when I call. Everybody not in the 24th, like the vanilla side or, you know, like vanilla PJs. But what is their wartime mission as opposed to the 24th?

• 19:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, so they've got a great mission, man. So they're, you know, they have dedicated assets. You have HH60s, HH being the Air Force variant of rescue, right? You have dedicated C-130s, you know, HC-130s. You have basically these task forces deployed to become stand-up turnkey rescue recovery. And so, you know, for the past 20 years, they've been everywhere, you know? They've been co-located with us. And so my job would be to protect task force assets. Theirs would be to, you know, protect everybody, right? And so if it didn't fall under our purview, they would be the ones that take care of it. And so it's not necessarily like I'm better than you. It's a different mission.

• 20:24Speaker 04

  And so, you know, you know, we use the term, you know, white side for, you know, kind of conventional SOF. Where SOF is not conventional, but that's the term we use. But they did a lot of great things, and especially in Afghanistan, you know, they did a lot of rescues. A lot of notoriety with, you know, special forces teams that they came in and saved. But when you talk about, you know, kind of the tip of the spear, when you kind of neck it down to mission. It becomes a little bit more exclusive, right? And so it's a smaller club of people. And, you know, that's by design. You know, there's a different selection process, which I'm sure we'll talk about. Um, different training and also different understanding of assets available.

• 21:09Speaker 04

  And that's usually the differentiator between Whiteside and tier one, right? It's assets. You know, operators, you know, you can teach a guy to shoot really well and do all these things, but what assets do you have available to you? And so when you have dedicated cast every, every target, when you have AC 130 over every single night,

• 21:28Speaker 05

  Right.

• 21:29Speaker 04

  Which people don't have and, and I'm used to that. I'm like, we don't have AC 130. How are we going to go out?

• 21:33Speaker 05

  Right.

• 21:33Speaker 04

  Now, how do we do this? Because you know, what happens when we get a tick?

• 21:36Speaker 05

  Right.

• 21:36Speaker 04

  You know, and um, you know, Whiteside guys are like, yeah, man, we'll just fight through it. And you know, tier one guys are like, well, we gotta just drop it and we'll move on.

• 21:45Speaker 05

  Right.

• 21:46Speaker 04

  But yeah, that's, that's.

• 21:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, everybody back off and call them strike. Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 21:50Speaker 05

  Um, so tell us about, like, did you, did anybody warn you what uh, selection was gonna be? Did you work up? Did you train for it? And what did you think when you got there?

• 22:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, so it's, it's kind of funny. Um, I'm my own worst enemy. Uh, everybody knows me knows that. And um, when nine 11 happened, I was in the uh, I was in Okinawa. I was actually with a good buddy of mine. We had a, we're having a typhoon party. It's what you do in Okinawa when you have typhoons. And my buddy Nick McCaskill is a good friend of mine. He was like an E5 at the time. And uh, I was a E4. His family was in the mainland and uh, he invited me over. We're gonna have a typhoon party. And so we're drinking these things called White Dogs. It's like yo, like Korean yogurt and like soju. And we're tearing it up, man, just the two of us, you know, no purpose, just, just that's what you do, right? And um, we watched the world trade center happen.

• 22:44Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 22:45Speaker 04

  And uh, together. And I remember sitting on the couch watching and I'm like, and I'm trying to rationalize it. I'm like, oh, it must be beacons and the, you know, towers. And I'm like, trying to make sense of it. And then you start seeing more and you're like, holy crap. And then he starts getting all these phone calls. And uh, I didn't. So I was at a rescue squadron and he was at a special attack squadron in Okinawa. And I'm like, you're getting calls. I'm not getting calls. Like, you guys don't want me? And um, here I was, this, you know, I thought I was this pipe hitting guy and um, when nine 11 happened, I assumed I'd be a part of whatever the response was. And I was in the Pacific and I wasn't. And we started doing, oh yeah, Philippines, which was a thing. Okay?

• 23:29Speaker 04

  And we had a forty seven out there that crashed.

• 23:32Jack Murphy?

  Yes, I remember it was a one sixtieth bird that went down.

• 23:35Speaker 04

  Um, I had, uh, you know, I had a couple of friends on there. Juan Riddell and Bill McDaniel. Bill McDaniel was a teammate of mine in Vegas and uh, it was a big moment for us, right? Cause it was, um, I was a young guy, never dealt with tragedy, right? And I was like, holy shit, these guys are dead. And uh, then they said, hey, we need you guys to go to the Philippines. I'm like, I'm in and I'm going to war. You know, again, probably, you know, six hundred mags, I don't know, whatever it had on me. And we go out there and we think we're going to war and it was this kind of like posture. And it was like, okay, there's things going on here, but we don't know what you guys can do. How do you contribute to that?

• 24:12Speaker 04

  And, and so it was really frustrating for me as a young guy. Because I started reading Stars and Stripes when nine eleven happened. And I started, you know, reading about these SF guys, they're going with like, uh, you know, shooting forty millimeter of the mountains and, and getting these tics and pulling back. And I'm like, that's what I signed up to do and I'm in the Pacific. And so, um, I did a, you know, I was stuck out there. I was stuck. I was PCSed out there. I had a, you know, another, I had a commitment for another year. And I was miserable and um, ended up getting an ulcer. Like I ended up getting an ulcer as a, you know, twenty, twenty year old, twenty, whatever, whatever I was.

• 24:49Jack Murphy?

  Did you think you were gonna miss it?

• 24:50Speaker 04

  I was just, I just wanted to be a part of it.

• 24:52Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 24:53Speaker 04

  And I was like, this is the war, this is, I mean, and war is romantic, you know, to a young guy who was playing war in the woods. I wanted to test my mettle. I wanted to see what I was worth. And um, so there was only one way to get there, right? I could roll the dice and PCS and hopefully go to a unit that was deploying. Or I could get out and go contract to Blackwater, right? Cause Blackwater was a thing back then.

• 25:18Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 25:19Speaker 04

  Or I could go to twenty fourth SCS, which I knew was gonna deploy. You knew you were gonna war if you went there. The problem was, I was a nobody. I had no experience. I was a young guy. I had nothing to give them. And traditionally, the twenty fourth SCS was taking like, you know, guys in their thirties, they were the best of the best. And here I was, I was, you know, barely twenty one. I was like twenty two, I think, at the time. And so I put in a package and they're at war already. And I put in this package and I was up in Alaska, actually. I was doing some rescue stuff with Alaska guys for a month. It was great. And I flew from Alaska to Fort Bragg to do selection by myself as a nobody. And you know, you like do a P T test. And actually a funny story, P T test.

• 26:05Speaker 04

  So I'm, I'm super nervous. Like I'm in, like I got no shot coming up here. They're not going to pick me. And so I wake up at three in the morning, got a P T test, I think at five. Wake up at three, I'm stretching, like doing random stretches before H P was a thing. I'm like, I'm like touching my toes. And I'm like, I need to take some multivitamins because that'll make me run faster.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  Bring you some Gatorade. I'm doing everything wrong. And I show up at five and this multivitamin in my stomach is churning. I have no food in my stomach. And I know that I know better now, but you know, you have to do this three mile run. And it's like, show what you got. And so the chief that was there was this runner. He was like a marathon guy. He's like, do you mind if I run with you? What am I going to say? No, so of course. So he's running with me and I'm running. He's talking to me the whole time. I'm like, I'm trying to run a six minute mile, which is hard for me. And he's talking to me and my stomach's churning and I gotta vomit, but I'm not gonna stop. So I keep running, I'm starting vomiting on myself and I'm puking on myself. He keeps talking to me. I'm like talking to him, puking.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  And I, I puked three times on this run and I run, I get a good time and he's just like, this kid's crazy. Right? And so I go to the other events, do all this other stuff. And then I go through this board and the board is just gets you in the door to go to the further kind of next selection. And they used to call murder boards back in the day and they were not friendly. It was everybody, it was all, everyone was in uniform, I'm in uniform and they just trash you. They rip you apart. And again, I'm a nobody, right? I'm a twenty, twenty something kid who's never done anything in my life. And I come in there and they're like, first of all, we never seen anybody vomit on themselves and just run the whole time. That's kind of weird. Like, I get it, kid. Like, you want to be here. I'm like, yeah, I do. And, um, and I told him, I was very honest with him. And I said, listen, guys.

• 27:49Speaker 04

  And I wasn't, there's no ego attached to it. There's no bravado.

• 27:52Jack Murphy?

  And it's the Air Force, so you can say guys.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  No, yeah, you can. No, you can't. Um, no, so I'm, yeah, I'm smoking a cigar.

• 27:58Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 27:59Speaker 04

  So I said to him, I said, uh, you know, if you guys don't take me, um, I'm probably gonna get out of the military. Cause I'm getting out. Yeah, I had, my service commitment was up in like eight months. I was like, I'm getting out of the military and I'll go fight somehow. I'll figure it out. And they knew I was serious. And, uh, I said, I just want to be busy. I just want to fight. I want to go to war. And, um, they selected me. And so I came, you know, so I ended up going back to Okinawa. And, um, we had a, so I had to do one more deployment. I went to Korea. It was a short deployment. It was like thirty-five days, forty-five days. And this is what I was telling you about the U2 crash.

• 28:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  And so, um, I'm out there, I wasn't on alert. We didn't fly alert for the U2s because they're like high, high stuff, you know, like very low probability of getting shot down. And so we're not alert for them. And it's like, I figured what time it was in the morning. It was like seven, eight. Maybe I'm hungover, maybe I'm not. I don't know. Don't hold me to it. And, um, they knocked on my door like, Chad, hey, U2 just punched. You gotta go rescue this guy.

• 28:57Jack Murphy?

  Oh, man.

• 28:58Speaker 04

  And I'm like, oh, yeah, cool. Yeah, let's go. And so, um, we went out there. And the U2, it's a funny story because I actually met the pilot recently. He lives in my town.

• 29:08Jack Murphy?

  Oh, really?

• 29:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. Awesome story. But, um, he basically limped his, uh, U2 across the border, ejected in a spacesuit.

• 29:17Jack Murphy?

  So, so he took ADA fire or something?

• 29:20Speaker 04

  No, no, it was a, he had a malfunction.

• 29:22Jack Murphy?

  Okay.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  One of the instances about. And he punches, he played it cool and I talked to him in person about it just recently. He was like, yeah, you know, I knew how to get it over. It was on fire, like whatever, you know, real, real cool pilot. Old school air force pilot, like the guy, the kind of guys from like World War II, right? And um, he limps it over, crashes planes with gas stations, there's fire, I mean, it's, it's, it's a mess. He's in a spacesuit, breaks his back. We go down to him, this mud field, litter him out, or put him in a Stokes litter, raise him out. You know, rescue him, you know? And then I stay behind and like, I'm gonna go like, secure this crash site. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. No one taught me how to do this stuff.

• 30:00Speaker 04

  And I end up finding this black box, this recorder, this giant reel recorder, that there's two Koreans are pulling out this apartment complex. And I got a gun on me, right? And I'm like, and Chad now knows I could have like locked these dudes up and like, zip tied them, like probably took them away, because they're probably North Korean like.

• 30:18Jack Murphy?

  Classified piece of gear.

• 30:19Speaker 05

  Right, exactly.

• 30:20Speaker 04

  There was a van waiting for it out front.

• 30:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:22Jack Murphy?

  Holy shit.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  And so I didn't know how the gravity of this at the time, I'm like a 20 something kid, you know, I'm like.

• 30:26Speaker 05

  I'm surprised that the air force didn't send like a force to, like the Ravens or.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  They sent some cops eventually.

• 30:35Speaker 04

  But uh, yeah, so we um, we, we do this and then, you know, I'm like, I high five myself, like, oh, that's kind of cool.

• 30:43Jack Murphy?

  Wait, wait, wait. So did you get the box?

• 30:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 05

  Okay. How did you get it? Did you negotiate? Did you draw down on him? What happened?

• 30:49Speaker 04

  Took it. I'm like, I'm American, you're not.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  And you know, they probably all, both knew karate, probably could have kicked my ass and zip tied me. But uh, thank God they didn't. So if you're watching, thank you for like beating me up. Um, but uh, yeah, so we recovered everything. Uh, you know, he comes out, fine. It was a big deal, you know?

• 31:08Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 04

  But um, I was thinking about the war. All I wanted to be was in Afghanistan and um.

• 31:14Speaker 05

  Did you get, did you get a recognition for that? Did you get a medal for securing the black box from Korean? Wow.

• 31:21Speaker 04

  Well, there, there's more to that. It's just kind of my career, but it's fine. It's not about awards, right?

• 31:26Speaker 05

  But.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  It just, it kind of stabs you a little bit.

• 31:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:32Jack Murphy?

  We see you go back to 24th STS and be like, I did something, guys.

• 31:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 31:35Jack Murphy?

  I did a good thing.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, you know, you, you fast forward a few months and I fly out to Fort Bragg and the unit's gone. There's no one there. It's a ghost town. And it's a really eerie feeling. Like, thinking about now, it was crazy to see. There was no one there. There were some admin folks there, but everyone was forward. And they said, hey, we don't have enough people to man this CSAR position in Afghanistan with the Navy supporting, you know, a specific squadron. Will you deploy in a week? I'm like, hell yes. I'm like, that's all I want to do. And I had no training. So you're supposed to go through training, right? You have a year of training you gotta go through. They're like, we're gonna, we want you to go now. I'm like, yeah, man, I'm in. Like, I have no gear. I have nothing. You know, they're like, we got you.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  So I go to the armory and they got this little shorty M4. And I never seen one before. Now it's normal, right? Everyone's like, eh, whatever, it's 10 inch. I never seen one before. I was like, that's the coolest thing ever.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:28Speaker 04

  And they had painted it for me. I'm like, dude, I am big rear. Like, I am, I am varsity.

• 32:34Speaker 05

  I am now Rambo.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. I can, I can kill anything. Like, I am the man. Like, this is tier one right now.

• 32:40Speaker 05

  Right.

• 32:42Speaker 05

  Right.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  And we go to the range, we sight in, and I'm like, dude, this is everything. It's a culmination of everything I wanted in my life.

• 32:48Speaker 05

  Was it suppressed? Did you have?

• 32:49Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. I didn't even see the suppressor. How does this thing go on?

• 32:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  So, you know, uniforms had all kitted out for me and I'm like, dude, this is insane. You felt like a professional athlete coming to a team and here's your uniform, right? And so, all brand new kit, which is not cool. In retrospect, it's not cool to have brand new kit down, down range, but I was that guy. All the price tags on it and everything.

• 33:11Speaker 05

  Trying to, trying to not get it dirty.

• 33:12Speaker 04

  It's like the hat with like the sticker on the front. Yeah, so, you know, so I go down range to Afghanistan and I do nothing. I mean, I, I, we, we support all these ops, was a part of the task force, I was learning. Um, I didn't do anything sexy. I didn't do anything hard, but I was exposed to kind of a new world. And I was, I was really impressed by the guys I was with. They're extreme professionals. They're very capable. And I was a nobody and it was very humbling, right? It was like, holy, you know, I, I thought I was the man before. And now I know I'm not and I know I need to grow to this. And so, um, you know, that was a, a pretty, uh, formative experience for me. And so I, I come back home from that deployment and I start green team. So green team is our selection.

• 33:57Speaker 05

  So before we go into green team, because that was the training that you should have done, right? The training selection that you should have done if you hadn't have deployed immediately. A para rescue already has just off the get go. Is it about a two year?

• 34:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, it is.

• 34:12Jack Murphy?

  I was about to say the same.

• 34:13Speaker 04

  I guess I kind of glossed over that, didn't I?

• 34:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. So no, that's okay. So when you go to para rescue, it really is maybe outside of, uh, like an 18 delta. Well.

• 34:23Jack Murphy?

  I, I mean, do you guys have the longest pipeline? You might.

• 34:26Speaker 04

  I don't know. I'm not into competition with other tiers.

• 34:28Jack Murphy?

  I, I, I, I get it, but like you said, you're getting so many things.

• 34:31Speaker 05

  You're getting so many schools that, that are all front loaded. So you do two year, two years of training just to get on the job.

• 34:38Speaker 04

  Yes. And you, and you don't know anything when you graduate two years. That's the sad thing is that. And even now you go through all this training and you're not capable to go deploy. You get, have top up training when you get to your unit. And so, um, you know, there's a, there's a breakdown there, but the, the pipeline basically is. All these employment schools and basically foundational schools to put it all together at PJ school to make you a PJ, right? And so, but before that you go to selection and I guess I kind of super glossed over this. Um, it's pretty important. So.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  Our, our selection used to be, it's not the same now. It's a completely different.

• 35:16Speaker 05

  And we're talking about just selection to get into para rescue.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  So it used to be PJ's and controllers together would go through selection together. And so you go through basic training. And if you were a guy who had, you know, basically done a pass test, which is like a physical assessment to go, hey, you want to go here. Okay. You met the basic criteria to go there. Um, you start with a lot of guys. So we started, I mean, just for. Easy math, let's say a hundred people. Maybe it was like 90. I don't know, whatever. Um, so a hundred people out of basic training come there and they're all eager to be PJ's because it's, it's sexy, right? You see this guy, he's got blouse boots, cool beret, he's jacked, you know, he's probably taken a ton of roids. Um, and he's briefing you guys and you're like, I want to be that guy.

• 35:57Speaker 05

  Right.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  And here I am, you know, scrawny like hundred and forty-five pounds going, yes. But so I came in the air force to be that guy.

• 36:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  I already made up my mind. So I had already done the passes before I came in in Hawaii and Honolulu. I did it with a prior controller. I was committed. And so the stakes are high, right? Cause you come in and a lot of guys don't make it. Most of them don't make it. And so you come to be a PJ, you're probably going to be, you know, whatever, a load master or a cop or something. My motivation was to not be that. My motivation was to be what I wanted to be. And so, um, I came in to do that. I finished basic training.

• 36:33Speaker 05

  Which got, which air force basic training, everybody knows gets you ready for.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's the hardest basic training.

• 36:41Speaker 04

  No, I learned how to fold shirts and do, um, and make my bed really well, which has not paid off in my later life. I don't make my bed. No, air force basic training is a joke. I mean, no offense, but it is. You know, and it was, you know, you atrophied through the process. You're doing the slow runs. I should have been doing, you know, hard stuff, right? And they changed it now. So now they break guys out and they actually, you know, build them up to go pre-selection.

• 37:06Speaker 05

  Okay. So they have like cohorts for selection?

• 37:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, they fixed it.

• 37:09Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 37:10Speaker 04

  Back in the day, it was like, hey, man, you better be ready from go. And so you, you go to the selections there at San Antonio. And it's a lot of running, swimming and beating your ass in the pool. Okay? Um, a lot of calisthenics and that's it. Not a lot of weightlifting. It wasn't a lot of any of that.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  Really scary instructors or a pain in the ass. Um, you know, there's a funny story about one of them. I'll tell you later, but, um. But yeah, so I'm enamored by these guys. I'm scared of them. I was a young kid. I didn't, never done anything hard in my life, you know, I was a kid from Hawaii. I was a surfer. I was good in the water. I was comfortable being, you know, uncomfortable in the water. That was my saving grace. Wasn't super fast. You think being that skinny of you fast, I wasn't fast. Uh, wasn't strong. But I would go through every day knowing that I had to get to the end of the day. And I wasn't thinking about the end of the week or the end of the month. I was thinking the end of the day. And that was the only thing that saved me through the process was that I took it very incrementally. And so I'm like, I'm going to get through this run. And then I know I'm going to go to a water, water confidence session. I'm going to get through that and I'll get to the end.

• 38:12Speaker 04

  And I'll get to eat dinner and I'll go to sleep and I'll do it again. And it got me through the whole process and I was unassuming. If you, if you had a lineup of guys.

• 38:21Speaker 06

  You would never have picked me to get through it. You know, there's no way. Because the guys are big buff guys. They all quit. They all quit. And they quit from runs. They quit from swims. They quit from water confidence.

• 38:33Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 38:48Speaker 06

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 38:58Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 39:04Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 39:10Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 39:29Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat with flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment. Get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at on

• 40:17Speaker 04

  OnDeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. And the water is a great equalizer, right? And the Navy knows that, the SEALs know this, is that when you get in the water and you're uncomfortable and you can't breathe, you're gonna quit.

• 40:35Speaker 05

  Right.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  Unless you can reprogram your brain to say, man, listen, I got this. And so, one of the things we do is buddy breathing. Buddy breathing is really hard. You pass a snorkel back to your buddy. And you have an instructor who beats the crap out of you the whole time. And the guy you're with can screw you. Because if he's a spaz and he wants to breathe, you're not getting a breath.

• 40:55Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:55Speaker 04

  And then when he gives back the breath, they cover your snorkel, you're not getting a breath either. And so, you gotta mentally prepare for not breathing. And so, I was pretty comfortable. I was like, man, you know, if you surf the North Shore of Hawaii, that's worse than any water concession you ever have in the military.

• 41:12Speaker 05

  Right.

• 41:12Speaker 04

  You know, like getting held down at sunset is a big deal. And when you get held down for two waves, you are gonna die, right? And if you survive it, man, life is good.

• 41:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:22Speaker 04

  So I came straight from surfing big waves, going to indoc. And like, they would do drown proofing, which sounds really dangerous. But like, I would like, I'd pretend like I was a dolphin, I'd make noises, and go down and take a little piss on the bottom, come back up, breathe. And it was comfortable. I was like, this is like meditation. It was early.

• 41:39Speaker 05

  Right.

• 41:39Speaker 04

  It was before mindfulness was a thing.

• 41:41Speaker 05

  Right. It's like an immersion tank. Yeah, yeah.

• 41:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, yeah, so, you know, you do that, you do, you know, incrementally it gets harder and harder every week. You do a six mile run at the end, a ton of pushups, a ton of pullups, sort of all that crap. And then you graduate. And so, once you graduate that, you're in the pipeline. And so, then you do that, two years you're describing. And so, you usually start off at scuba school. You go to, we used to go back, go to Key West. We have our own scuba school now. Um, we go to Key West with all the SF guys and we would crush it because we were so comfortable in the water. Like you couldn't beat us, man. You couldn't crush us. And these open water swims are easy. We'd, we'd crush everything, man. The runs, you know, runs were hard for me because I wasn't that good of a runner. But um, we were studs, you know?

• 42:29Speaker 04

  And um, you go from that, you get a scuba bubble, which means nothing to anybody except guys have been to scuba school. And you go to airborne school and people are like, what is that? It looks like a little astronaut.

• 42:39Jack Murphy?

  Are you a welder?

• 42:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:40Jack Murphy?

  Well, it looks like an astronaut.

• 42:42Speaker 04

  Then you get your airborne wings.

• 42:43Speaker 05

  Door gunner on the space shuttle.

• 42:45Speaker 04

  Exactly. Some stupid stuff like that. And uh, but yeah, you go to all these schools, right? So it's, you know, just really basic schools, you know, basic airborne, free fall, survival. Um, the hard one for PJs was going through eighteen delta course. So going through SOCOM.

• 43:00Jack Murphy?

  That's hard for anybody.

• 43:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, dude.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  We had a lot of guys that, you know, wanted to be PJs, ended up not staying with it. They're like, screw this, can't do it.

• 43:09Speaker 05

  Now, at that time, were you guys, were you guys doing the full eighteen delta or were you just doing the SOCOM part of it?

• 43:15Speaker 04

  No, we just did the SOCOM.

• 43:19Speaker 04

  You know, the eighteen delta portion, the backside, maybe would have been more of a gentleman's course in the backside. Uh, you know, more long-term care and stuff like that, but um, they didn't like us there.

• 43:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:31Speaker 04

  And the SF guys that were there, all crusty dudes, and they did not want us there. And so they made our lives hell.

• 43:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:37Speaker 04

  They'd fail us on stupid stuff. I mean, I still, it's like memory now, it's like BSI scene safe. Is what I used to say is like body surface isolation. If you didn't say all these things, they would fail you. And it wasn't a part of your ability to treat somebody. It was all about your ability to recite things. And um, even anatomy and physiology was like super stressful because it was like, how can you memorize these things right now? I didn't understand medicine. When I left there, I was clueless. Like if you were shot in front of me after the SOCOM, I'd be like. BSI scene safe. You're like, what do you keep saying that for? I'm like, I got my gloves on.

• 44:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 04

  You know pharmacology was foreign to me and it never made sense to me until someone explained it to me in a way that I could understand it. And the process is so much better now, man, like, and um, so everything's improved. After the war, everything improved.

• 44:25Speaker 05

  So for our viewers and listeners, the entire 18 Delta, which is a special forces medic course, has the trauma portion, which is the SOCOM. And you come out of there basically with skills equal to or exceeding a paramedic, right? Or that's the idea. And then for 18 Deltas, there's, there's the long-term care because it's based also around like being in a village, isolated.

• 44:48Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, they, as I recall, they, uh, they learn stuff about like animal husbandry. They learn things about like, what if there's a viral outbreak in the village?

• 44:56Speaker 05

  How do we sterilize the well?

• 44:57Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, that kind of stuff.

• 44:58Speaker 04

  They're excellent medics.

• 44:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:00Speaker 04

  And um, I have a lot of love for 18 Deltas. Um, they're awesome medics. They understand pharmacology. They understand wound care. They're great.

• 45:08Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:08Speaker 04

  They're, I mean, they're, I think they're better than a lot of nurses, you know? And so I was not that, okay? So just full transparency, I was not. Um, I was good enough to get by. I passed the course first try. And I was like, thank God, get me out of this place. And um, not truly it was. And so, you know, I go through all these courses. Um, and then I get to PJ school and they put it all together. They teach you climbing and some high angle rescue stuff. But it's real, it's real basic, you know, because it's hard to make someone an expert at high angle rescue in a few months. It takes years, right? Um, because that, I mean, that alone is a specialty skill.

• 45:45Speaker 05

  Right.

• 45:45Speaker 04

  But to be a good medic, to be a good parachutist, to, you know, to be able to do, you know, we do ram's jumps, which is basically folding a Zodiac up and pushing out the back of a plane. Getting the ground, you know, get to the ocean, pop it, you know, a scuba cylinder, inflate it, you know? All these things, and you're supposed to be good at all of them?

• 46:02Speaker 05

  Right.

• 46:03Speaker 04

  You're not good at any of them.

• 46:04Speaker 05

  Right.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  You're, you're, you know, you're competent, but you're not an expert. And so medicine is make or break. All these other things are like, they're all make or break, right? Because they're all dangerous.

• 46:15Speaker 05

  Right.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  But medicine is. What you're

• 46:16Jack Murphy?

  It's your bread and butter.

• 46:17Speaker 04

  It's what you're asked to do.

• 46:18Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 46:19Speaker 04

  And if you don't rocket at it, like someone's gonna die in your arms. And so when you go to the 24th, they know you need to top off. And so they start, they start, you know, kind of finessing those, those technicals or tactical skills of medicine and make you a really good medic.

• 46:34Jack Murphy?

  So yeah, tell us then about, about, uh, what is it, Green Platoon? And I mean, you've had all this, you're already dragging around Drager Systems and MC6 parachutes and all this other crap that you've been trained on. What is this additional training, you know, tacking on that?

• 46:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. So Green Team is, is really cool. So it, again, so I ran Green Team later on in my career. And it was a way better process than what I went through. What I went through was a bunch of courses. It was like really high end courses, right? The best of the best. I mean, millions of dollars of training. But there wasn't, there was never an FMP to like all put it together, right? And so it was like, hey, I went, they've sent me to Swiftwater Rescue Courses in like West Virginia. And I would become an expert Swiftwater Rescue. But what does that mean?

• 47:21Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  And, you know, they send me to these mountain rescue courses and I would do all this high end, like, you know, very complicated technical rescue. What does it mean? You know, or jump trip. Yeah, you're, you're getting very proficient at jumping. But how do you put it all together tactically? And so it, it's crazy to think my Green Team viced the Green Team today. Those guys that graduated Green Team today are fricking studs. Like they are. And I, and I can say it, it's not about me, it's about them. They are studs because they get the training. So what I went through is, you know, I go through advanced free fall. You know, we learn how to jump, you know, all kinds of equipment. I don't actually know, maybe we were jumping nods at the time, which is a big deal to jump nods. People weren't doing it.

• 48:05Jack Murphy?

  Not everyone was doing it.

• 48:06Speaker 04

  Right. I'm trying to think, we, you know, really crazy dive trip where we do three weeks of, you know, just getting back into draggers and doing, uh, you know, line dives, uh, which suck. You know, and FMP is doing CQB, which CQB for every other service is very like foundational. For us, it wasn't. And so I'd never done CQB when I came up there, you know, it was a good shot, but I didn't, CQB is very difficult. It's a different game, right? Like it's a different way of thinking, um, and processing information very quickly. And so you're learning all this stuff within a year. And so you pop out of there and, and you're a tier one operator now, right? Well, not really, because I'd never been to combat, right? So I've been to combat,

• 48:50Speaker 04

  you know, quotations, but I never, you know, fired my weapon.

• 48:53Speaker 05

  With your 50 magazines.

• 48:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, man. And so when I popped out on the backside, they send me to a tier one unit. And here I am with the best of the best and I'm a nobody.

• 49:05Speaker 05

  Now, what year is this that you get to the 24th? When you finish your green team?

• 49:09Speaker 04

  I finished in 2003.

• 49:11Speaker 05

  So to be fair, at that point in time, very few people had like, because obviously it started in 2001. So people had combat experience.

• 49:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, some guys did.

• 49:22Speaker 05

  But combat experience was not something that was like, nobody had combat experience prior to that.

• 49:28Speaker 04

  Many guys that went to Panama.

• 49:29Speaker 05

  That's, yeah, you'd see like Grenada Raiders or Pan, dudes with Panama scroll and you know, you'd be like, oh.

• 49:35Speaker 04

  Badass. Yeah.

• 49:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:36Speaker 04

  He's seen it.

• 49:37Speaker 05

  Legend. Yeah.

• 49:38Speaker 04

  But so the guys that did the initial push into Iraq, you know, I've been in these tics and I was on green team with them. They're telling me stories. I'm like, dude, that's insane. And I'm enamored by it.

• 49:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 49:48Speaker 04

  I'm like, dude, how would I, you know, how would I handle this? And the irony is, is that, you know, everyone thinks that training prepares you for combat, you know, to a certain extent it does, but there is a, there's a next step and it's under fire when the stakes are really high. And, um, that's when things get, get real, right? So my first big op, I was with the Navy and full compromised gunfight and I'm like.

• 50:18Speaker 04

  Oh man, we're, are we fighting? We're fighting now.

• 50:21Speaker 05

  Is somebody, is somebody shooting at us?

• 50:22Speaker 04

  We're shooting, I can shoot back, right? And you're looking at other people and they're shooting, I'm like, oh, I can shoot. It gets on.

• 50:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 50:28Speaker 04

  And, um, you know, people think it's, you're like, oh, I've got all this training. Like, it doesn't matter.

• 50:34Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:34Speaker 04

  Unless you're with guys that have been there, done that, and watched what they do, there's some guys that just naturally, they're that, right? We call them wangrows, right? They just want to get it on. But for the most, most of us, it's like, it's a process. And you're like, okay, this is normal. Okay, this is how you react to this. Okay, this is when you escalate force. And it's not as intuitive as you'd think. And so thank God, I was with the best of the best, right? They were the best of the best. And there were guys that had been on two rotations before of combat. They've been there, done that, and here I was, a new guy, going enamored. I'm like, holy shit. Like, yeah, I want to hang with you guys.

• 51:12Speaker 05

  Yeah, I, I think a good way to frame that, at least for me, is like, you have a lifetime of cultural conditioning of not killing people that, you know, that are in front of you. And so when it first goes down, you, yeah, you might react, but there's also potentially that thought process, am I really going to kill this human, this person in front of me?

• 51:35Speaker 04

  Am I allowed to?

• 51:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, right. Am I making the right, am I making the right decision?

• 51:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, it sounds silly, but it's true, man. Like, and the guys that don't have that, uh, that limitation in their psyche, other guys, their liabilities too, you know? Like, if a guy just is weapons free from the start, you're like, dude, what's going on your brain?

• 51:54Speaker 05

  Right, right, right.

• 51:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, it should be a measured approach. And, uh, I mean, my job is to save lives, right? And so, you know, it's also, you know, to take lives in that respect, but also, it's, my job is to save lives. And so there's a humanitarian aspect to my, my role. And, you know, so-

• 52:12Speaker 05

  You have to be both.

• 52:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, you do.

• 52:14Speaker 05

  Steely-eyed killer, but also you, guy who can hold someone's hand while they're, you know, maybe dying.

• 52:19Speaker 04

  And I take that very seriously, man. And so, you know, later on in my, my career, when I would get into other operations that were not necessarily PJ-focused, um, I never took it for granted. Like, I was like, man, humanity is important, and it's important in combat. And the guys that I saw that could balance that very effectively were guys I respected. And, um, you know, candidly, it is kind of easy to be a killer, man, like, to be that, that guy. To have, um, to be measured in your approach is a very mature reaction. And they're the guys that I respect the most. And I saw it. I saw it live. And I'm like, holy crap, you didn't do that because of this. And so you start processing this information. And so when I would talk to young guys that were like, you know, we said Whiteside.

• 53:04Speaker 04

  And they're like, well, what's the difference? I'm like, there's a difference. Because I am seeing things that are very high level, where people are making very good decisions and bad decisions. But I'm learning from it. And now I'm competent and capable to make decisions on my own. And so, you know, I, I, I said this before to some other folks is that, um, you know, being the first person to shoot is something I never wanted to do. Cause you never know if you're right or wrong. But as I got more mature, I'm like, okay, I know this is right. This is the right thing to do because we are compromised and that guy is a problem. I'm gonna shoot that guy. And, but that is not, that is not a, uh, an intuitive thing. Um, it's something that's learned. And so, uh, you know, the high level soft forces, you know, army and navy.

• 53:50Speaker 04

  Uh, the guys that are very senior, they're, they're wired that way. They understand it. And, um, they're the guys that I want to be next to because they're gonna make very good decisions. They're not gonna make erratic decisions. They're not gonna make, uh, emotional decisions. They're gonna make very, you know, deliberate decisions. And that's a very high level skill. And that's what separates Whiteside from tier one.

• 54:09Speaker 05

  It's interesting because both in, because both the fields that you were in, combat and medicine. Both of those fields, I think the easy route is to dehumanize the person in front of you.

• 54:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:25Speaker 05

  To compartmentalize and to become jaded about it. Right? That's the easy route. That, to be, like you, you mentioned mindfulness earlier, to remain mindful in those situations to whether you're in a medical situation. And don't just shut it off because here's another human being who's suffering and it's easier to just, you know.

• 54:43Speaker 04

  To live in a black and white world.

• 54:45Speaker 05

  Right. And, and just to, you know, shut off the emotion to it. And same with combat. It's easier just to shut off the emotion to it.

• 54:52Speaker 05

  As you know, then to I'm I'm in front of a human being who's suffering. I'm in front of a human being who's tried to kill me, so I'm gonna kill them first without without necessarily taking away their humanity or just

• 55:03Speaker 04

  Here's here's an example of of humanity. Um, I was at a like a really remote outstation in Afghanistan. Um, really remote. I mean, we ran out of food and water, that kind of remote, right?

• 55:13Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 55:13Speaker 04

  You guys have probably been there before. And um, we had a couple prisoners, you know, we we call them, you know, pucks. We had them off target and they were in our makeshift prison. And we would basically, you know, we'd wake up and it was like, okay, it's my turn to watch the prisoners. So I'd go in there and I'd feed them and I'd treat them humanly. We're not, we're not on target.

• 55:32Speaker 05

  Right.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  There's no violence here. There's no emotion. You're you're in captivity. I'm taking care of you. I'm not gonna, I'm gonna treat you humanly. You wanna go to the bathroom, I'll take you to the bathroom.

• 55:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's business. It's not personal.

• 55:44Speaker 04

  If you wanna, you wanna get crazy, like, we can deal with that. But like, at the end of the day, like, if you're respectful, I'm respectful.

• 55:50Speaker 05

  Right.

• 55:51Speaker 04

  And we had this guy who was there for two days. And I remember he was like, really appreciative that I would give him food.

• 55:57Speaker 05

  Mm hmm.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  I wasn't giving him, you know, benefits. I was like feeding him. I was doing what I should do. He's a human being. And it turned out he was just a legit farmer.

• 56:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:06Speaker 04

  And me and the the master chief took him down to the the gate. We gave him a bunch of money, you know, he blew his door off.

• 56:12Speaker 05

  He pulled your beard.

• 56:13Speaker 04

  No, he he cried.

• 56:15Speaker 05

  Did he?

• 56:15Speaker 04

  And he thanked us and he got on his knees and uh

• 56:17Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 56:18Speaker 04

  And I'm like, man, you know, this could have turned out totally differently if I treated him, you know, like if I had been a prick.

• 56:24Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:24Speaker 04

  Because there's group thing that goes along in the military.

• 56:27Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:28Speaker 04

  And but I knew better. I was like, man, this is a human being. And even if he is a terrorist, like, he's gonna face his punishment.

• 56:35Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:35Speaker 04

  There's no punishment I'm gonna put on him now.

• 56:37Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:37Speaker 04

  My job is to be ethical with him, right? And to watch that reaction, when it turned out he it was a mistaken identity, like, thank God, you know? Like, thank God that, you know, we treated him well.

• 56:48Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:49Speaker 04

  And um, you know, there's a lot of mistakes that happened in the early days of Iraq. I mean, we saw Abu Ghraib and all those things that were for guys that have, you know, been around for a while, like, that's disgusting.

• 56:58Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  You know?

• 56:59Speaker 05

  Right.

• 56:59Speaker 04

  Those were nobodies.

• 57:00Speaker 05

  Right.

• 57:00Speaker 04

  They did that crap.

• 57:01Speaker 05

  Right. Right. And they and they weren't even

• 57:05Speaker 05

  Like they can't even stand behind enhanced interrogation. They were just fucking around.

• 57:10Speaker 04

  Guards.

• 57:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 57:11Speaker 04

  And it was terrible because look at the repercussions from that. Things that we we face on the battlefield because of that. And so, you know, humanity exists, you know, despite combat. And, you know, as I got older and as I retired, you know, as I got more senior, I was like, you start to understand life in a different way.

• 57:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:34Speaker 04

  But when you're young, and again, group thing is is really important because that's what happens. You think that's what you should be doing, the behaviors you should be doing. If you're with a group of people that behaves that way, you're gonna behave that way.

• 57:46Speaker 05

  Right.

• 57:46Speaker 04

  Because you want to fit in. It's a it's a, you know, it's animal behaviors, right? And so, you know, for my saving grace was those mature guys that had been around for a long time. And that were, you know, I saw bad things in my career, but like, for the most part, very professional guys. And, you know, it helped me become the professional that I became and helped me lead effectively later on in my career.

• 58:12Speaker 05

  How did you maintain or how did pararescue maintain, especially the 24th? The other skills that like you, like you mentioned before, you guys had a plethora of skills that you had to.

• 58:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:26Speaker 05

  The high angle rescue, the swimming, the scuba, the all that stuff. Were you able to maintain that?

• 58:32Speaker 04

  No.

• 58:32Speaker 05

  Or did it all, it became a combat unit at that point?

• 58:35Speaker 04

  Well, it's kind of like the Navy. I mean, you know, the Navy kind of blew off diving for a long time, right? Because they were just, they were fighting in the desert.

• 58:44Speaker 05

  Right.

• 58:44Speaker 04

  And so, you know, PJs is funny because PJs are, we have so many skills that we do. And so, a lot of guys gravitate to a skill.

• 58:51Speaker 05

  Right.

• 58:52Speaker 04

  And so, you have guys that are really good at climbing and they're awesome climbers. I hate climbing personally. I hate it. It's scary to me. I hate being 100 feet off the ground and being off one, you know, freaking piece of pro and looking down like this is gonna, not only am I gonna die, but I'm gonna fall along the way.

• 59:08Speaker 05

  I'm gonna be aware though, yeah.

• 59:09Speaker 04

  And but I like jumping, right? So there's Scott Evers that really like jumping. And there's guys that really like medicine, guys who like shooting. And so you gravitate to a certain kind of discipline. You have to be good at all of them, kind of, but you're gonna be good at one really well.

• 59:25Speaker 05

  Right.

• 59:25Speaker 04

  And so, you know, we have the guy, hey, you're the jump guy.

• 59:27Speaker 05

  Right.

• 59:28Speaker 04

  You're the guy that loves jumping tan, you know, bundles. Um, you're the guy that loves medicine.

• 59:32Speaker 05

  Right.

• 59:33Speaker 04

  And so.

• 59:33Speaker 05

  You're the guy who knows all the nots.

• 59:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And and so PJ's, it's it's really hard for PJ's to, you can't be good at everything. There's not enough time in the day. Um, and also there's people that have propensity to certain things. And so, um, you know, for me, I I really, I really. I I I appreciated medicine because I knew how important it was. Didn't I didn't like it, but I knew how important it was, so I had to be good at it, right? I love jumping, right? So I was, you know, big skydiver, a couple thousand jumps, so Tana Masters, you know, AFFI, all those things. Um, I also love shooting, right? But, you know, how do you put all all those things in to become a good operator? And so what does the the customer need you to be if we're commodities? You know, what does the Navy ask me to be?

• 1:00:17Speaker 04

  They're asking me to be really good at medicine. They're asking me to be really good at rescue and not be a liability on everything else.

• 1:00:22Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:00:22Speaker 04

  And so, um, to not be a liability, you have to be good at those other things too.

• 1:00:27Speaker 05

  Were teams put together with that sort of aspect that, hey, this guy, like, he's got a high rent, uh, high angle, this guy's.

• 1:00:33Speaker 04

  In the early days, we're so, we're so busy. We had Afghanistan, Iraq. I I did back to back deployments. I would go from Iraq to Afghanistan.

• 1:00:41Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 1:00:41Speaker 04

  Um, we were so busy, it was just like, hey, man, can you go?

• 1:00:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:46Speaker 04

  And you fake it till you make it, right? And, um, you show up and you're like, holy crap. And so I remember I went to an outstation one time. Um, this was like my sixth, seventh deployment, I don't know. Um, and this OGA guy had a, uh, had a cyst in his armpit. This is like day two. I'm in this outstation, rural remote outstation. I'm like, he's like, hey, man, hey, Chad, will you cut this out of my armpit? I'm like, ah, it's like, you want me to cut it out of your armpit? He's like, yeah. I'm like, yeah, how hard can that be? I was like, I understand. Like, I gotta do minor surgery.

• 1:01:18Speaker 05

  There are no nerves or anything.

• 1:01:20Speaker 04

  I used to carry all these books with me. I had all these books and I looked at the book, I'm like. I could do that. Just do deep sutures. Okay, the ligature, I got it. And so, um, I put him down on this table. I put Chuck, uh, Chuck, which is like a basically a drape. You know, I cut it out, his armpit, clean it off real good, iodine, clean it. He's got a big old dip in.

• 1:01:42Speaker 04

  He was ex Ranger too, by the way.

• 1:01:45Speaker 04

  And so, um, he's like, yeah, man, do your thing. So I, you know, I numb it up real good. And I slice it open, just pus comes everywhere, everywhere. It's just like so much. It's like an ice cream cone, like.

• 1:01:57Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, you're supposed to remove the sack, right?

• 1:01:59Speaker 04

  Well, I did, but I'm like, I'm like cleaning everything, breathing it. I'm like, like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this.

• 1:02:07Speaker 04

  This is above my pay grade, right? I'm like, yeah, I got it. And so, um, you know, I cleaned it real well. I sewed him up, great stitches, great. I mean, my, my saving grace, I did good sutures. And, uh, I'm like, hey dude, you have to keep this clean. And we had, we didn't have great showers there. And so hygiene was an issue. I'm like, dude, you're gonna, if you get infected, I'm screwed because I probably shouldn't be doing this. And, um, you know, he's like, yeah, that's good. I catch him out the next day playing basketball, sweating. And I'm like, what are you doing, man? I was like, this is on me. You know, this is my credibility. And so, uh, but yeah, it's just how it was, man. And in the early days, it was a free for all. In the early days, it was wild. You could do whatever you wanted.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  Um, it became more regimented, more disciplined later on into the war. But in the early days, anything went. That's just the.

• 1:02:56Speaker 05

  Did you feel like a champ though? Like, like taking out assists? You'd never done that?

• 1:03:00Speaker 04

  No, I felt very nervous.

• 1:03:04Speaker 05

  Did you ever get an opportunity to do again? Like, and you're like, I got.

• 1:03:06Speaker 04

  Oh, I did a lot of stuff later, but I, I was very confident, like, you know, um,

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  I feel like I could take out your appendix. How hard can it be?

• 1:03:19Speaker 05

  I got a book.

• 1:03:20Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I love that self-confidence. Yeah. So as time goes on, you're going, you did 17 combat rotations, um,

• 1:03:29Jack Murphy?

  Serving in the squadron from age 22 to 41, and up the senior enlisted guy. And super impressive career. I'd like to talk about some of the, some of the activities and things we were involved in during that time. One of the things we had mentioned, a C-130 crash in Baghdad?

• 1:03:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, so like I said, we would do, back in the day, we had to do CSAR and then also the assault rotations with the Army and Navy. And so I would go from one to the other. And so I was in, I was in Balad, which was kind of like our hub. We had the Helos. And daytime, I get a call that a British C-130 got shot down north of Baghdad. And the, the 160th guys are like, we're not flying daytime over Baghdad, like not happening. And I'm like, well, I need a ride. Like someone needs to take care of this. It's bad. And, you know, they asked me to do it. I took responsibility for it. It's mine now. It's my project. And I'm trying to find a ride. I can't get, I can't get to where I'm going.

• 1:04:27Speaker 04

  And so there was some British, they were called Super Pumas, I believe. And so we jumped on those. And they had M60s in the door, daytime flight, and we flew down. This is when Baghdad was kind of gnarly, you know, and so we dropped on the ground, had my Ranger. We call them STS or Star Security Teams. They're basically my security perimeter. And I had my, my team, my PJ team, and I had a combat controller. And so we get down there, I'm the team leader. And, you know, long hair at the time, long beard, I was wearing Realtree cammies, which was cool because it was, back in the day, it was cool to look different. And so I wanted to be as different as I could look. And so I was doing that. So stupid to think about now.

• 1:05:05Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:05:06Speaker 04

  But I get on the ground and this wreckage is like strewn for, you know, as far as you can see. And on fire, there's fire in this river and this ditch. It's a mess. And so I'm like, okay, guys, here's what we're doing. And my, half my Rangers, we were talking about radios, half my Rangers had radios, half of them didn't. I'm like, okay, so I need radios in every BP. So we're going to split. I got heavy weapon here because that's where the, you know, most of the city is. And we're going to do this. Okay? It don't matter. We don't have security. We're going to do this. We didn't have CAS. So the controller is trying to get on-call CAS.

• 1:05:40Jack Murphy?

  You guys were the first on the ground?

• 1:05:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, first on the ground. And we, in my mind, I knew the city was gonna start waking up to what was going on and you know, potentially opportunists like terrorists, because this is back when there's like a lot of different terrorist cells, they were gonna come and like, and they were trying to punch at us, you know? And so, um, we, we get on the ground and my team was, you know, I had a great team of guys. My controller, he's got Falcon View up, back in the day, we had Falcon on top of the buck, you know? He's sitting there plotting, we had no security and, um, they're, they're bringing back bodies, right? And so, um, but it's not bodies like you think, you know, it's not bodies, it's pieces. And be super respectful to kinda, you know, because these are all British, there were some SAS folks and there's some, uh, you know, some British, uh, you know, aviators.

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  And we're bringing back these bodies and I told the team, I said, "Listen, we're gonna start putting bodies together based on like, okay, right hand, left hand is a body. Uh, you've got, you know, if you have a torso, okay, it's a body. And so we'll, we'll get accountability eventually. And I want you guys to get the weapons, all those things and we'll, we'll get this done, we'll get out of here." And it turned into a huge event and, um, it was, it was massive. And so, excuse me, um, so guys are bringing back stuff and you were talking about compartmentalizing information, I did very well. It didn't, it didn't mean anything to me. I was very professional, it was very processed, like, "Here's what we have to do, we're gonna do it." And so, we're about six, seven hours into this, the guys are doing great.

• 1:07:10Speaker 04

  Um, my Rangers are holding their positions, no one's pushed on us yet. And they bring a, uh, another, uh, Super Puma down, maybe it was a lynx, I forget which bird it was, uh, with some SAS guys, some TT guys. And they're like, you know, "Hey Mike, what do you want us?" And, uh, um, I'm like, "Hey, we have some vulnerable positions over here, some, there's some apartments or some buildings." I was like, "If you guys could go do some soft knocks, it'd be great." And they're like, yeah, absolutely. And they're guys, right? They're like, yeah, we're in. And so, you know, it didn't, they didn't ask any questions like we got it. And so they went out there in the city and they started doing their things. They all spoke Arabic. They were doing their thing. And, uh, you know, sun goes down, you know, my guys hadn't eaten, you know, in a day and

• 1:07:53Speaker 04

  I, I knew there was bodies in the ditch. So there was like a basic, you know, in, in Iraq, there was all these like irrigation ditches. And it was on fire. It was diesel burning and we're GPA, whatever. And, um, I'm like, you guys gotta get your dry suits on. It was winter time in Iraq. I was like, you gotta go in the ditch and, and, and dig for bodies. So I was like, put a line on them, you know, put a rope on them and go down there and do it. And so, um, you know, we had all our gear. And so guy puts his dry suit on, you know, young PJ, other PJ goes on top to tether him. You know, fire, pulling bodies and weapons out in the ditch. And, uh, sun goes down, um, we're, we're alone, you know? And, um, at the same time, there was an accident in Mosul,

• 1:08:37Speaker 04

  where a teammate of mine, uh, was in a pander with the army and a Ranger striker hit. That was right before I got there. They collided and my buddy, uh, Chad Gisegui was in there. And, uh, his head got rocked pretty hard and, um, he really needed to get his head drilled, uh, to relieve the pressure. And, uh, you know, Chad is still, uh, you know, he's quadriplegic still to this day, um, the accident, but it happened right when we're in the field. And so everyone kind of turned their attention to supporting that exfil and they forgot about us in the field. And so we're just north of Baghdad, we're doing our thing. And, um, and it was the right call. I mean, they needed more help than we did. We were self-sufficient for the most part. It could have gone really bad for us, but it didn't.

• 1:09:20Speaker 04

  And, but I was like, why is there no comms? You know, but the entire task force kind of went to lean on Mosul. And so, um, you know, here it was on the ground. The Brits had a, a kit bag delivered. And I'm like, oh, thank God. What is this? And we pull up and it's, it's these flasks of tea.

• 1:09:41Speaker 04

  Like, cool, man. Like, I might want some tea. I'm like, yes, I'm drinking tea. It's like creamer in it. It's delicious tea. And I'm like, it's not my thing, but yeah, let's do some tea. So we drink some tea and um, this is where it gets funny. So we, we, we survived that night. And we're still, you know, we're still cleaning this crash site. It's a mess. So day two goes in and this Marines come out, LAVs come out to me. And I'm the team leader. I'm running the crash. It's my crash site. And this Marine major shows up. And again, I look like I, you know, I'm like a hobo, right? You know, which is what you want to look in soft back in the day. It's like, you want to look as weird as you can look. And I looked pretty weird. And he comes up to me, he's like, you're in charge. I'm like, yeah. Look, here's where I want you guys, show them a Falcon view, push your, you know, your, uh, your vehicles out there, heavy weapons.

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  And basically telling him where to go. And so he, he listens, he puts his folks out there. So about 10 hours into the next day, we're still working.

• 1:10:35Speaker 04

  He starts to figure out that I'm an enlisted guy. Because the way people, the Rangers talk to me, hey, bro. And he loses his mind.

• 1:10:45Speaker 04

  Marine Corps major is a big deal, right? Yeah. And they don't take orders from enlisted guys. And he finds I'm enlisted and he goes ballistic on me. And I stay on my ground, of course. You know, I'm like, listen, this is my crash site. Like, you're in support of me. I was like, if you want to fight over rank, you can do that. But here's what I need you to do. And uh, you know, it was hard for him to process. And I'm like, listen, man, like, I'm being respectful to you. I'm not, I'm not being a dickhead. Right. I was like, I need you to help me. And here's what I need you to do. And um, it was, it was like, it was an inflection point for the operation. Like, it was like, the mood changed, right? It was like, do we want to help you guys at that point? And um, we end up spending three days out there on the ground. We end up, you know, coming back and uh,

• 1:11:31Speaker 04

  it was a, you know, it was one of those ops. It was like, it was really strange. Um, we came back and we didn't support the task force. Task force stood down off because we're out there. We couldn't support them. And um, you know, I, you talk about compartmentalizing things. And, and I, I shared this with somebody else recently is that.

• 1:11:51Speaker 04

  I did a really good job compressing or compartmentalizing my, you know, whatever I was seeing, I just did a great job of packaging it really well. You know, I taped it up and I put it in the corner.

• 1:12:01Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:12:02Speaker 04

  It didn't exist. It did not exist in my life. Didn't exist in my mind, nothing. And so we came back to the B huts, we were refeding, we just needed some sleep. We had to go basically support task force in six hours. So we're getting like five hours of sleep, get some chow. And the chaplain and the psych doc came to write, "B hut." And this is before you could talk to chaplain and psych docs.

• 1:12:20Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:12:20Speaker 04

  You know, like knocking on the door and like, "What?" And they're like, "Do you guys need to talk to us?" "Why would we need to talk to you?" That was my reaction.

• 1:12:28Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:12:28Speaker 04

  And I was the team leader and I should have been more cognizant of my guys maybe were suffering. My guys maybe were dealing with stuff that I wasn't because I was, I was maybe the problem, right? I was the guy that could just figure this stuff out in a, in a negative way. And I said, "No," I turned to Moi and, because I said, "If I'm good, they're good." And years later, I, I reached out to one of the guys on that mission with me and I said, I apologized to him. I said, "I'm sorry, man. I messed up as a leader. That wasn't how leaders are supposed to behave. I should have been cognizant of where you were at in your life and I didn't." And, um, you know, it's one of my regrets as a leader. I learned from it. But I, I also, I continue to compartmentalize things through my career.

• 1:13:11Speaker 04

  And so you say, you know, 17 combat deployments, there's a lot of compartmentalization in that.

• 1:13:16Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:13:17Speaker 04

  And when you get really good at it, it becomes your process, it becomes natural to you and it's not healthy. So it's healthy for the unit because you're still on the line, you're still deployed.

• 1:13:26Jack Murphy?

  And it keeps you, keeps you on the line doing your job.

• 1:13:29Speaker 04

  Right. The day, the day you get your, uh,

• 1:13:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, don't slow down though.

• 1:13:33Speaker 04

  You leave the military, you're like, "Oh, wow. That happened. What's all this? Well, these boxes."

• 1:13:37Speaker 05

  Yeah, there's some shit there.

• 1:13:38Speaker 04

  Oh, wow.

• 1:13:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. I needed you all for all this. Yeah.

• 1:13:42Speaker 04

  And, uh, but yeah, so that, that was the, the C-130, you know, thing in Iraq. It was, I think it was 2005. But life just got crazier from there, man.

• 1:13:53Jack Murphy?

  There was another operation where you guys, you know, another element you were with may or may not have crossed into another place we may not mention. You said it was a pretty big firefight where you guys went and took on some bad guys in a hostile area. I was wondering if you could, you know, tell us what you can tell us about that.

• 1:14:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, you know, I, so I've been in a few, like, on a few missions, like, I wasn't like the guy, you know, I wasn't like the cool guy yet. And I didn't feel like it yet. That was the first one where I was like, holy crap, this is insane. And we got compromised, we were at ORP, we were sent up ladders, and compromised dogs barking, gunfire from every compound, and it was like, it was on. And, like I said, being around competent people, they all pushed forward, and I pushed forward because they were doing it. Not because I, not because I was the man, not because I had, you know, big balls, I was like, we're going forward, we're going forward. And, yeah, we pushed up there and, you know, it was the first time I'd, you know, been in a big firefight.

• 1:14:57Speaker 04

  It was the first time I fired my weapon, you know, at another human being and, but then we had a bunch of casualties. And they're like, PJ, and I'm like, oh crap. I'm like, not only is this target chaos, now we got people shot.

• 1:15:10Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:15:11Speaker 04

  And so I go over there under fire and I'm like, oh crap. So, you know, guys are shot, two guys shot, and the target's supposed to be secure, guy comes out of the door, starts shooting from one of the compounds, it's supposed to be already cleared, I'm like, holy crap, this is insane.

• 1:15:24Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  So I'm pulling guys across a compound under fire, it's insanity, it's chaos. Other compounds are just stuff blowing up all around us, we have no clue what's going on. And we're in a hostile kind of region, and the city is waking up.

• 1:15:37Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:15:38Speaker 04

  And we had one asset overhead, and they were working it, man. And the CCT was working it. And he's a stud, he actually lives, you know, close to me in my neighborhood now, he's a stud, and he managed that chaos very well. But I started getting more casualties. Guys like, I had a guy come up to me, he's like, hey, I'm shot in the head. I'm like, huh? I'm like, where? And so I pull off his helmet, and the round struck the front of his head, bounced, stuck in the back of his helmet, and I'm like, holy crap. I'm like, check his helmet, his skull is not broken. I'm like, dude, keep clearing, man.

• 1:16:11Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:12Speaker 04

  We were so, so thin, it was like, keep clearing. He ended up spraining his ankle and he was complaining about spraining ankle and wearing his, getting shot in the head. And I got shot through legs and it's just chaos. And so, you know, it probably was only maybe an hour and a half, maybe two hours of kind of conflict. It felt like all night. Yeah. And we end up pulling this guy out. I had a, I went super light because we end up humping like eight hours to this target. So I was like super light. And this is back when none of the SEALs would carry any gear for me, right? They wouldn't carry a SCEDCO, they wouldn't carry nothing. I mean, they, they wouldn't even carry blowout kits on their own kit. It was like, hey Chad, you got it, right? And I'm like, not for everybody.

• 1:16:57Speaker 04

  And it got better through the years, right? It got better, but um, we were so lean and mean. It was like, we were pulling him out on a pole slither. If you've ever carried someone on a pole slither, it's pretty difficult. You talk about CrossFit workouts, that's the workout of the day. And we humped him down to this, this road. The city was waking up, they're coming out like hunchback Notre Dame kind of style. And the 47 almost crashed on top of us because they were so hyped up. And I could have touched the bottom of 47 when they landed.

• 1:17:27Speaker 04

  And so, and I'm covered in blood, my, my uniform is covered in blood and we get back and, you know, it's, when you get back from debris from big ops like that, it's, it's kind of like, you know, everyone's kind of chipping away at how many people they killed. And if you do the number, you're like, that's like 4,000 people. Right, right. That wasn't that many people there. But, you know, and then here I was, you know, dealing with like, you know, what could I have done better? And I could have done a lot of things better. And, and I, I have a lot of remorse from that operation for the things that I didn't do well. And I learned from it. And so I committed myself to being way better than I was on that op. And I became obsessive about it, honestly, as an operator. What were the things that you became obsessive about?

• 1:18:13Speaker 04

  Medicine. Um, I wasn't super good at it. You know, I wasn't good at pharmacology. I wasn't good at pain management. Um, wasn't good at all the basics. And so I committed myself to being great at it. And, uh, and I, and I think I became that, but that was like a really formative experience for me. And then you only get a couple, you know, in your career. And, um, you know, some guys have had a lot, and I'm sure you guys have talked a lot of studs that have had a lot of crazy experiences. But, uh, for me, that was one that I could have proved myself on and I, and I failed. And it was, you know, failure to me, I'm hypercritical. I'm like, okay, I could have done this, this and this. But, um, I, I committed myself to never making mistakes again. And, um, you know, maybe one day walk on the street

• 1:18:58Speaker 04

  in New York, maybe I'll get the chance.

• 1:18:59Jack Murphy?

  Hang out long enough.

• 1:19:01Speaker 04

  There's another operation you were involved in. I mean, I'll, you can say whatever you'd like to or not talk about, uh, on this one, but the, the Captain Phillips rescue. Yeah. So there was, um, a few, a few Air Force guys that, um, you know, we, I was with a small team of guys that jumped in early. We, uh, I was a jump master, jumped in a bunch of, you know, uh, a mixed bag of nuts, you know, into the, to the water. And our job was to basically turn the lifeboat around before it hit Somalia. Because if it hit Somalia, they were going to be gone.

• 1:19:31Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:19:32Speaker 04

  And we knew that the squadron was going to blow out and they're going to do the no killing hostage rescue. We were just going to like, we're going to fix it. Right? If they get to the hinterland, they're gone.

• 1:19:42Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:19:43Speaker 04

  And what happens with hostages in Somalia is they basically hold them for a year. They go black and they pop on the net, make their demands. But it's really hard to find them. And so we, we had very little guidance and, um, you know, uh, we, we went down, we, I was in an apartment complex. Can't tell you what country, but, um, like, hey, guys, we want you guys to go. Like, all right, we got parachutes? No. We found some parachutes in ICU 90 that were expired by a couple of years. And I'm like, parachutes don't like, they don't turn into like, you know, they don't turn into like toxic waste every two years. Like, they're probably fine. And this is.

• 1:20:19Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At The Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:20:34Jack Murphy?

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened. My explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:20:45Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:20:50Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:20:56Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:21:16Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 1:21:44Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:22:13Speaker 04

  Pretty important, let's just jump them. And so when you talk about ORM in the military, it's a nonstarter. I'm like, screw it, man. I'm the jump master. I don't know if I'm allowed to make that decision, but we're gonna do it. And we jumped, it was all fine. We got there, you know, and we were part of the solution. And so the squadron sent a really small contingent of folks to where we were already. And then it resolved itself the way it did. I can promise you it didn't go the way the movie went. Or the TV set it did. It was, it was much more, you kind of low key operator stuff, you know? There were some heroics that happened that night. There were some guys that did some pretty awesome stuff.

• 1:22:58Speaker 04

  But then the day it was, it was, you know, kind of pot shots from very, very close distance.

• 1:23:04Speaker 04

  You know, pulling him out and then what people don't realize is that when we pulled him out, I flew back to the the main aircraft with him. And Discovery Channel basically blurred my face and said I was a Navy SEAL, which is the highest praise I ever got in my career, to be called a Navy SEAL. My wife saw it. She's like, that's you walking. But when we did that, we came back, the the the pirates attacked another ship. This never made the news is that they attacked another ship in retaliation. And they just so happened to drop off their cargo. So they're sitting very high in the water and they couldn't get on the ship. And so they called us and like, hey, it was like six of us. Like, can you guys come help us? Like Mayday. And so the the destroyer were on like, can you guys go?

• 1:23:50Speaker 04

  And so the the regular squadron was going back and like high fiving each other like, you know, you know, cocktails, whatever. We were on this ship and and Phillips was with us. So he's with us on the smaller ship and we're like, yeah, we'll go. And so we went and basically did hook and clown on the ship.

• 1:24:06Speaker 05

  Wait, did you take Phillips with you?

• 1:24:08Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 1:24:09Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:24:09Speaker 04

  He's chilling on the captain's mask.

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  I was like.

• 1:24:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, so we went out to this ship and we thought there was pirates on it because there's RPGs that went lower inside of it. I mean, it was bad. It was like, holy crap, this is legit. And maybe it was a little bit of hubris. We're like, yeah, we got it. And so me and one other SEAL, we cleared the front of the supertanker, which is like conics boxes, like multiple football fields. They're insanely big. I didn't know how big these things were. And we're cleaning this, the two of us pining off conics boxes, just one after the other, thinking we're getting a tick. No body armor, catches mask, nods and. No, we had four 16s. We didn't have MP7s. We had four 16s. And the rest of the team went to go to the superstructure, which they thought everyone was locked down in. And so we're assuming we're getting in a gunfight. And there's no one on the ship. And it was the eeriest thing. And so we.

• 1:24:58Speaker 05

  It was just out there floating?

• 1:25:00Speaker 04

  No, they they attacked this thing. They couldn't hook onto it because it's so high. And we didn't know this. And so the crew had locked themselves in the superstructure, thinking they're under duress. And they called Mayday. And so here we are to save the day and there's no one there. So we had to, we had to ride back with this ship for like two days and they're like merchant Marines on this thing. And I don't know if you guys know what these people are. They're like, uh, full on like criminals, man. They're like,

• 1:25:26Speaker 05

  They're like the old foreign legion.

• 1:25:27Speaker 04

  They're making shanks.

• 1:25:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:29Speaker 04

  And I'm sleeping in this bed. I'm, I'm more scared of them than Somali pirates. And I'm like, these guys are gonna kill me and they're gonna eat me. And uh,

• 1:25:38Speaker 04

  no, it was, uh, it was in- interesting, like dynamic, but, um, there was so much more to the story. Uh, eventually it will come out. I'm assuming somebody will talk about it, but, uh, yeah, it was, it was cool. It was cool to be there. Um, I didn't know it was a big deal. It was during Easter and so, um, you know, I, I would call from the fantail of the ship on my, my Iridium phone. I had an Iridium phone because I'm a bougie guy, right?

• 1:25:59Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:26:01Speaker 05

  Too good for a Tharia.

• 1:26:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so, uh, my wife's like, she's like, what's going on out there? I'm like, uh, nothing. What, what do you hear? She's like, it's a big deal back in the States. Yeah. So.

• 1:26:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. Oh, the Tharia was the Iridium, right?

• 1:26:14Speaker 04

  Well, you had the Rias and your Iridium, different network. Yeah. But I had both. Yeah.

• 1:26:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:26:18Speaker 04

  That's how you know you really made it when you have a Tharia and Iridium.

• 1:26:20Speaker 05

  So when you guys were on this like two day pleasure cruise, did, uh, what was the command? Was there anybody going, where are you guys?

• 1:26:29Speaker 04

  No, because I think they were, so people give special operations like a lot of credibility, but like, they're hyper focused on getting the, the assault force back home. And so we were kind of like, you know, extra, you know, uh,

• 1:26:42Speaker 05

  What was the port of call? Where did you guys get off?

• 1:26:44Speaker 04

  I can't tell you.

• 1:26:45Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:26:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, but when we came back, I'd, I'd tell you that the team and I,

• 1:26:50Speaker 05

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna pretend it's Bali and you guys.

• 1:26:52Speaker 04

  I wish. Well, it'd be the wrong part of the world, but.

• 1:26:54Speaker 05

  I don't care. In this, in this, yeah.

• 1:26:57Speaker 04

  No, that part of the world's not very nice, but we went back there, had some cocktails and it was funny because it was like nothing happened. It was like, it was just another thing. And so we went back, had some drinks. Actually, we went and partied that night. Um, and, uh, had a good time. And it's funny to think how, you know, things appear in the news, um, how sensational as they are, but to us it was like, yeah, it was cool, man. We did, we went and did a thing. We wouldn't do another thing, you know?

• 1:27:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:25Speaker 04

  Um, it's you constantly looking for the next thing.

• 1:27:28Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:27:28Speaker 04

  To kind of fill your bucket.

• 1:27:30Speaker 05

  And

• 1:27:32Speaker 05

  and the next thing has to be cooler than.

• 1:27:34Speaker 04

  Has to be cooler.

• 1:27:35Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:27:36Speaker 04

  Has to be more sensational, more violent or whatever you want it to be.

• 1:27:39Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:27:41Speaker 05

  So, um, what was the next thing for you then?

• 1:27:47Speaker 04

  On that rotation, you know, not a lot. It was a lot of prep. And so my job was to kind of, this is before, you can imagine what part of the world it was, it was before things were built up. We were building things up. We were building partner forces and these things, doing really like the grunt work of it, you know, kind of the non sexy stuff, living in safe houses, true safe houses where, you know, you're eating, you're truly eating what you got, local food. You can't go outside because you have to be, if you see a white guy there, it's a big deal. Some people say they're living in a safe house. You're like, dude, when you're living in a

• 1:28:27Speaker 04

  safe house, you don't walk outside, right? So a lot of that grunt work on that, on that deployment.

• 1:28:35Jack Murphy?

  You said you also spent about seven years doing some of the more like clandestine operations.

• 1:28:42Speaker 04

  So I was doing that when the Captain Phillips thing happened. You know, we would do low vis ops. OPE is a term that gets thrown around. It's operational prep in the environment or OPB, prep for the battlefield or AFO, which is advanced force operations, just sexy ways of saying, you know, you're doing things that aren't necessarily tied to, you know, big constructs in the military. And you can do OPE, OPB anywhere, right? You could do it in Indonesia, you could do it in East Africa, you can do it in Europe. But there's not a lot of people that do it. There's people that say they do it because they go into country and they're like, hey, I have a passport and I'm wearing a suit. That's not OPE. When you're actually doing tasks and saying, hey, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna fix this problem

• 1:29:26Speaker 04

  for you. You know, those are the problem sets that are more difficult and it takes a more refined, you know, kind of team. And so it takes guys that are smarter. It takes guys that are able to work on their own. And so I did that for a while.

• 1:29:42Jack Murphy?

  And OPE can envelop like a number of different things from like intelligence gathering to identifying landing zones to all these sorts of things.

• 1:29:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's not one thing. I think that traditionally, you know, it's been in one vein of like, I'm gonna, you know, do caches in Eastern Europe. Okay, that's traditional.

• 1:30:00Speaker 04

  But yeah, that's an element, but what I, what my experience was is that when you have really talented guys, you can do anything.

• 1:30:09Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:30:09Speaker 04

  And you say, hey Chad, can you guys go do X? Yes, the answer is yes. And if I'm a PJ, can I go do an LZ service? Yes, I can. You know, if you're a really, you know, high end competent, you know, because there's different types of SEALs, right? The SEALs that we're with are very high functioning guys that are like can solve problems. Can you go do X? Yes, we can. Can you work at this partner for us? Can you build this safe house? Yes. And so it's not sexy stuff all the time, but a lot of times it devolves into very dangerous activities. And especially if you're in environments that are very nascent and there's no footprint.

• 1:30:46Speaker 05

  Semi-permissive to non-permissive.

• 1:30:48Speaker 04

  Non-permissive, yeah. Yeah, so you know, truly non-permissive and not a lot of military, even soft guys have experienced this.

• 1:30:56Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:30:56Speaker 04

  Where you're like, oh, I was in Afghanistan, I was in a remote, like, okay, that's cool. What about when you're in a completely?

• 1:31:04Speaker 05

  Behind enemy lines.

• 1:31:05Speaker 04

  When you're in a, when you're in a country that you're not at war with.

• 1:31:08Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:31:08Speaker 04

  And they want to kill you and when they do, no one's coming to get you. When you're a TIC, there's no QRF and there's no CASVAC.

• 1:31:14Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:31:15Speaker 04

  And so my job would always be to figure it out. Like Chad, well, if this happens, what do you do? I'm like, and so I would work commercial assets, trying to get, you know, international SOS to go in and like, pull us out of remote regions. And it became a thinking man's game, which was really good for me because I was intellectually stimulated.

• 1:31:32Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:31:33Speaker 04

  And I was like, holy crap, this is fun.

• 1:31:34Speaker 05

  So let's talk a little bit about OPE and OPB real quick. We're talking about operational preparation of the environment and operational preparation of the battlefield. Sometimes we'll talk about like AFO, Advanced Force Operations. And really it's, it's the guys who are going in where we might have interest, but we're not sure if we have interest. And

• 1:31:54Speaker 04

  We might be at war there one day.

• 1:31:55Speaker 05

  One day. And, and really setting up the plumbing, setting up the environment.

• 1:32:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know who the rock stars are? It's not the operators, it's the SIG guys, it's the tech guys, guys that can look, look at infrastructure and logistics. Those are the rock stars. And you know, despite how cool we think we are, without them, we wouldn't do those jobs. And so, you know, a lot of OPE and AFO is, you know, SIG and EW related and so. You know, you being able to contribute to that mission set is important. And so if you're a knuckle dragger, like, we don't need you. Like, we don't, we need another gun. We need guys that can do the gun work, but also do the, you know, the tech stuff. And so, a lot of operators became kind of dual purpose, where they had a, a basic understanding, I'm

• 1:32:41Speaker 04

  not going to overinflate my, you know, worth, but a basic understanding of how SIGINT works, of how networks work, and then how to get after those things, and how to, how to employ, you know, tactics and techniques to, uh, set conditions for other folks to come in and be successful. And so, you know, you look at the theater right now for, you know, Europe, and even PACOM, um, you know, there's a lot of prep work that has to go on to make those, those theaters successful.

• 1:33:07Speaker 05

  Now, there are Army Special Mission Units that, that's sort of their bailiwick, their bread and butter. Um, but of course, everybody does everything now. How, how did SEALs, like, get into that? That's definitely not their one through the water. Right, right. I mean, and everybody did.

• 1:33:30Speaker 04

  So you had Intelligence Collection Units that are really good at it, but basically, within JSOC, like, if you read the book Team of Teams, that was the early days of Iraq. That's very, you know, very basic construct. It grew very fast. And then everyone wanted the mission, so everyone built capabilities. And so everyone had the same capabilities. And so when you had Army and Navy, they had all the same, like, SIGINT, you know, EW, like, they had everything. They were all, you know, it wasn't joint anymore. It was like, this is a behemoth, you know, task force that can do everything. And this one was too. And so, um, you know, it became, you kind of a, a dogfight for mission, you know? And so, everyone could do it. And so those very bespoke capabilities you're talking

• 1:34:13Speaker 04

  about, um, they were important, and they would definitely be involved, it was very high level. Otherwise, they're like, we got it. And so, it is a really interesting dynamic to watch develop over the years. Like I said, I came in, you know, 2002 to selection in 2003, and then watched the whole transpiration of, of the command, and it became a monster.

• 1:34:35Speaker 05

  Right, right. And, and for you, I mean, because it's interesting that you were there, because the SEALs do have their corpsmen.

• 1:34:44Speaker 04

  No, so, well, they, they do and they don't. So,

• 1:34:48Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:34:48Speaker 04

  If you're a SEAL and you go to the green team, you're an assaulter.

• 1:34:51Speaker 05

  I see.

• 1:34:52Speaker 04

  You're not a corpsman anymore.

• 1:34:53Speaker 05

  Interesting. Okay. I didn't know that.

• 1:34:55Speaker 04

  You don't carry a med rug. You know, there's some guys that were still interested in medicine and they would help. But they're not carrying a med rug. They're carrying, you know, door charges. They're carrying, you know,

• 1:35:04Speaker 05

  MP7s.

• 1:35:05Speaker 04

  They're carrying thermobaric.

• 1:35:06Speaker 05

  Cause the M4s are too heavy or.

• 1:35:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, they are. No, they are. And so it basically relieves them from having to do that job.

• 1:35:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:13Speaker 04

  They're assaulters.

• 1:35:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:35:14Speaker 04

  With the army, you have 18 deltas and they are 18 deltas and they are the primary medic for that, that squadron. And PJs will help them, but the PJs are the rescue and recovery.

• 1:35:23Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:35:24Speaker 04

  And so that's the differentiation. And so.

• 1:35:26Speaker 05

  And for you, you know, sort of focusing on this mission for a few years, were you afforded training opportunities to, to go learn skills?

• 1:35:38Speaker 04

  Train up with these teams before you deploy? Yeah. Oh, 100%. So you're basically attached to that team. I mean, you know, you live with them, you train with them, do your workups with them. And then to get specialized training, you have to be very specific on what you want to do because you only have a finite amount of time.

• 1:35:53Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:35:53Speaker 04

  And so if you're a guy who needs to top off on, on medicine, like you, you got two weeks. What are you going to do with it?

• 1:35:59Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:36:00Speaker 04

  And so you're going to spend a ton of money and get the best medical training you can get. And, and that's the differentiator too, between Whiteside, Whiteside and tier one is that, like if I want to go, you know, to the, the best burn center in the world, like I can go there and top off on, on burn injuries.

• 1:36:18Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:36:18Speaker 04

  And, and that's the thing when you talk about going into remote medicine and some of the safe house stuff is that you have to specialize then because I would have to do pharmacology stuff in these safe houses where wasn't expected to be on the, on the assault side.

• 1:36:34Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:36:35Speaker 04

  I don't care. Like just do, just do good, you know, pain management. That's all we care about.

• 1:36:38Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:36:39Speaker 04

  If I'm living in a safe house and guy gets sick, I gotta take care of him.

• 1:36:42Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:36:43Speaker 04

  And so I would have to top off on those skills. And so guys like 18 deltas, it's very intuitive to them. They would know how to do it. But here I was, a guy that could integrate with the assault mission, go back and forth to the AFO mission. But then I just need to top off on the medicine right here and I can get, I can get there fast.

• 1:36:58Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:36:59Speaker 04

  And so I think that's the biggest, uh, one of the best attributes of PJs within that world is that they're very quick to react to needs. And so, you know, if you look at like a tech company, the successful tech companies are the ones that can react to the needs of the customers very quickly and build a, build a thing. PJs within tier one units are that and they can say, oh, you want me to be in a ropes expert? Gotcha. Let me go to Montana real quick or, you know, get topped off and I'll become a, you know, you know, elite climber, you know, AMGA certified. And it's, it's like that.

• 1:37:35Speaker 05

  And with medicine, you guys have access to some of the best hospitals in the United States.

• 1:37:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, all the best, all the best trauma hospitals in the United States are very good with working with the military.

• 1:37:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:37:44Speaker 04

  And, um, you know, there's a lot of folks that work habitually with them. When you work at, you know, big cities, like there's, you know, the shock traumas and, you know, any big city has a lot of violent, you know, I, I think New Orleans is one of them. New York's one of them, um, where you have a lot of stabbing and shootings, you're getting reps.

• 1:38:03Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:38:04Speaker 04

  And, um, you know, you know, and, and I, I don't on the Rangers a lot, but the Ranger medics, their medics became the best in the tiers. I, I, I feel like, um, they had so much trauma, whether it be internal, you know, to the regiment, also host nation. They were doing so much stuff and their PAs and doctors were training them nonstop. So when they come off the missions, when everyone else is playing video games, they were doing classes.

• 1:38:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:38:31Speaker 04

  And that's why they became so good at what they did. And so when I, I, uh, we, you had to do refreshers every two years, you know, to keep your currencies up. And every two years I would go through softness, which was at Fort Bragg. And I could have gone to like, you know, the, the Gucci ones, like and gone skiing and like done some medicine, get refreshed.

• 1:38:52Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:38:52Speaker 04

  But I, I knew it was so important that I had to go with the best guys. They were doing no kidding military medicine. So I did every single, every single refresher I did at softness, every single one of them. I never went to New Hampshire. I went skiing. I never did in my whole career. And guys were like, dude, why don't you want, I'm like, I, I want to, but I have to, have to be good at this. And what I realized was when I go there's Ranger medics, these guys would teach me a ton. And then they started becoming instructors at softness. And I was so impressed by these guys because they were so switched on and they'd seen so much and they were able to, uh, instruct very well.

• 1:39:28Speaker 04

  I was, um, I was very impressed by the Ranger medics, man. And so I, um, I, I championed us getting back into that program. Um, because we kind of got pushed out of it and we got pushed back in. But, um, I have a ton of respect for him, man. So.

• 1:39:45Speaker 05

  And they never like asked you bis, bis, what was it? Bism, bismus? The, the acronym that you used. The basic system or the systems?

• 1:39:55Speaker 04

  Oh, BSI. Yeah, I know. No.

• 1:39:57Speaker 05

  They never hammered you on that?

• 1:39:58Speaker 04

  No, man. I mean, these guys were like, you know, doing, uh, you know, buddy transfusions. They'd done them in the field and they were doing high end like, uh, you know, just very creative medicine and they were so good at what they did. And, um, I, I knew that if you want to be a good combat medic, you have to talk to the best combat medics guys who've seen it. And so, like I said in that first mission that I messed up, like that was my chance. And so if these guys were getting chances every night, man, they are going to be the best, very fast. And so when you're working with very high end soft guys, they're not getting shot all the time. You know what I mean? You shouldn't be getting shot all the time, right? So the Rangers were getting shot a lot.

• 1:40:38Speaker 04

  You know, no offense, but they were getting shot a lot because they were going on some dangerous missions. And the Rangers took over Afghanistan and they were basically a tier one force in Afghanistan and they were killing it, man.

• 1:40:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:40:47Speaker 04

  They were doing so many ups and, um, they were kicking ass because everyone else is so focused on everything else in the world. They're like, we got this. And so they got a lot of reps. And so that's why I am, um, that's why I love what they did and I, and I respect the hell out of them. So.

• 1:41:03Speaker 05

  You also mentioned, uh, there were some OTB ops that you were on.

• 1:41:09Speaker 04

  So in, in everyone's career, you want to do an OTB, right? So you want to over the B shop. It sounds cool. Um, I went to a theater and there was a team back in the States that were training for a mission. And I was already in theater and I was doing my thing. I was drinking cocktails and going to parties. And, uh, they're like, well, there's a PJ controller in theater. Like, yeah, like, okay, well, we could just use them, right? And so these guys came out and it was like, I forget, five or six guys. And they're like, hey, you guys go to this OTB. I'm like, how hard is it? It's a swim into the beach. Right. It's not rocket science. And so we did one, one shakeout swim. They'd done like weeks of workup. We had done zero, me and the controller. Like, how hard is this gonna be? It's like it's a swim.

• 1:41:54Speaker 04

  And so we, we go into a destroyer. We go into a rib. Uh, no, H6, I feel H6 are ribs, but uh, and we go to the Zodes and the Zodes kick us off and we swim in. And we swim in into the hinterland in this remote region. We walk in and uh, I'm not on a night schedule, so I was really tired. And they were doing something. There was an activity. There was like a terrorist camp right next to us and uh, it's like a recce. Yeah, we were doing something. I can't tell you what we were doing. We were doing something. And um, I'm like bored out of my mind. I mean, it was the most boring. I mean, there was like a hundred guys sleeping, like down a ridge line.

• 1:42:37Speaker 04

  You could see them and like, we couldn't do anything about them, but um, we uh, we do, we do our thing, whatever we're doing. And then we pull out to patrol out. And so I'm in the back of the formation. And if uh, if there's any Navy guys watching, this will know. Navy guys are not really good at like, uh, you know, patrolling, like the basic fundamentals of like, you know, uh, you know, line formations or passing signals back and forth. They just kind of wing it, right? So they're patrolling, everyone's got their heads down and all on MP7s. And um, I'm walking in the back and the second man is roof security. And these guys go over this ridge line and there's this uh, there's this like this animal pen.

• 1:43:20Speaker 04

  So in, in this region, they have like these, they built these walls with sticks to keep the lions out. And they have one entrance and so they know when the lions come in or whatever. And so um, and these guys rustle because these birds kick up. And they come out and I see my nods. I'm like, holy crap. So I put my laser on them and I stop and I I'm like, you know, no, no one's gonna look at this. I'm like, I'm doing this thing. And no one stops. They keep going. I'm like, okay. So it's me and him and we're about to get in a tick. And so my laser's on them. These guys get up. They got weapons and I'm like, oh my gosh, of course it's gonna happen right now.

• 1:44:00Speaker 04

  And the guy behind me sees it, puts his laser on it. So the two of us and we stop, we're holding. These guys know something's going on outside. And, you know, like, people in movies, you're like, oh, it's, you know, two or three guys. It's easy to clean up. Like, no, it could be very nasty, right? And so, but our entire, like, force has gone over the beach to get their fins on to go swim back out. And we're standing there. I'm like, ah, okay. And so we just stop and we wait. We're there for five minutes, which is eternity on an op. Those guys never came back. They didn't even notice we're already there. And so these guys finally chill out.

• 1:44:41Speaker 04

  They turn back around with their weapons and go back down and you can see a little, they have a little candle in there. And we patrol back out, go back to the beach. I'm like, dude, what the hell?

• 1:44:50Jack Murphy?

  Are they gone?

• 1:44:51Speaker 04

  Well, no, they're still there. They're like, where are you guys at? Dude, there was two, you know? And we swim back out and but there's so much like comedy within operations within SOFT that we just get lucky so much, you know? And we swim back out and it was funny when we swim back out to the destroyer. They had a, they had a dip tank on the back of the fantail. We're like dipping our weapons, you know, in fresh water and all the gear and all these Navy folks, like, you know, conventional Navy folks on the back. And this chick's in the back. She's like, I know y'all out there killing black folks.

• 1:45:26Jack Murphy?

  What?

• 1:45:28Speaker 04

  Huh? Like, we didn't kill anybody. She's like going off on us. And one of the master chiefs there just rips her new one. And I'm like, do people really say that kind of stuff? Like, we come off an op like,

• 1:45:41Jack Murphy?

  Fucking crazy.

• 1:45:41Speaker 04

  No one has no idea what we're doing.

• 1:45:43Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:44Speaker 04

  And to make that comment is like, dude, like, no, we're actually really civilized people. We're doing some very gentlemanly stuff in the hinterlands.

• 1:45:51Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I mean, she's in the same military you are.

• 1:45:54Speaker 04

  Oh, well, that's the other thing is the military is like,

• 1:45:58Speaker 04

  There's this cognitive dissonance of what the military is. Like, the military is designed to fight and kill.

• 1:46:04Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:46:04Speaker 04

  That's what it is.

• 1:46:05Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:46:05Speaker 04

  It's not there to win hearts and minds. It's not there to be show of force. It's there to kill. And if you don't process that information and come to terms with it, you're not a part of the solution. And so I think a lot of military folks, because within the past 20 years, there's only a handful of people that went to combat, right? A lot of people deployed.

• 1:46:26Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:46:27Speaker 04

  Within the people deployed, there's only a handful of people that actually went outside the wire and fought.

• 1:46:31Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:46:31Speaker 04

  And, but to the civilian that look at it like, oh, you're in the military. Thank you for your service. You're like, oh, you went to Afghanistan. No, you're in Bagram and you're a logistics person and you'd never left the wire. Like, and you had, you know, you had coffee every day, a good chow hall. And there were certain people that went and fought. And it's a very small group of people. And that's hard for people to understand. Like, it's a small group, man.

• 1:46:57Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. And now is, you know, you're going on all of these, you know, clandestine operations. You've done more conventional operations, rescue operations. Like, you're becoming pretty, like, salty senior guy in the minute at this point.

• 1:47:08Speaker 04

  And then you accidentally make rank, right?

• 1:47:10Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 1:47:11Speaker 05

  And the Air Force, I mean, I know it used to be, but the Air Force used to be very hard. It was probably the hardest service to make rank in.

• 1:47:17Speaker 04

  It is. And so if you've seen the movie, like, Pure Luck, like, dumb luck falling to things. And so I made EA and I was like, oh, my gosh. And the Air Force is a big deal. You're like, oh, your career's over. And I was like, if I can just hide as an EA, maybe they'll still deploy me and I can just hang out here for a while. And so, you know, I deployed a couple of times in EA, which is a big deal in the Air Force. And then finally they're like, hey, dude.

• 1:47:41Speaker 05

  Because you're supposed to be managing people.

• 1:47:42Speaker 04

  You're supposed to be going to Ops.

• 1:47:44Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:47:45Speaker 04

  You gotta go to Ops, man. You gotta pay your penance. And I'm like, I want to go to Ops. And so I went out and did a thing as an EA and it was like a big deal. They're like, you can't be doing that stuff anymore. And like, this is all I want to do in my life.

• 1:47:58Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:47:58Speaker 04

  This is what I'm designed to do. This is what I trained to do. This is what I want to do. And they threw me in Ops. And this is funny. I mean, it's not combat related, it's not sexy, but I went to Ops and I'm like. You know, it's like super bad or what's the movie when there's like FML. It's like, this is my life now.

• 1:48:17Speaker 04

  And so I did that for six months and they're like, hey, green team selection opened up and we needed a senior guy to go there. Do you want to go do that? I'm like, yes, yes, absolutely. Get me out of Ops. And so I went there and, um, and that, that was really formative for me as a leader. I learned how to lead in a different way. I, I had been leading in the past, leading the way I saw other people lead. And I thought that was the right way to do it and it was not authentic for me. And so, um, I got a chance to kind of reset for myself and say, listen, I'm not a hard ass. I'm, I'm not, I want to be, but I'm not, I'm never going to be. I'm a nice guy, you know, I can connect to people. And so that's what I need to do.

• 1:48:59Speaker 04

  And so when I ran selection training, I got to kind of cut my teeth doing that. And then from selection training, I went to 24th SCS and became the chief there as the, the senior, you know, enlisted.

• 1:49:10Speaker 05

  So this is kind of putting you on the spot, uh, and take your time in answering this. But if you had to pick like a fictional or a real character.

• 1:49:21Speaker 04

  Chuck Norris.

• 1:49:23Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 1:49:23Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:49:24Speaker 05

  No, but based on how you thought you were supposed to lead.

• 1:49:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:49:27Speaker 05

  And then how you actually became a leader.

• 1:49:30Speaker 04

  Well, you see hard asses and, and, you know, in TV and, and I grew up with hard asses, right? As leaders and I was, and candidly, they were, they were great, man. I was like, those guys are bad, you know, bigger in life and, and in the range of battalion, you guys know, if you're a, you know, senior guy in the range of battalion, you're a hard ass.

• 1:49:45Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:49:46Speaker 04

  But what I realized was that my superpower was, you know, connecting with folks and being empathetic and having high IQ with folks. And so I could still be just as effective, um, and not have to be that guy. But it took me a while to figure it out because I was immature, you know, and so as I became more mature and became more self-aware and comfortable in my own skin, um, I realized that I could lead a different way. And, um, you know, is that a kinder, gentler, you know, military? Yeah, maybe. I mean, you know, I still have a temper. I can still get mad.

• 1:50:22Jack Murphy?

  I think you put your, your thumb on it pretty well, that the, the screaming and the yelling, like, that's a lot of like trying to throw up a smokescreen to compensate for an inability of leadership.

• 1:50:31Speaker 05

  I, I think there, but there's also a time for that, maybe like when molding people, but you're also, but even Ranger Battalion changed dramatically from like the time I got there, when I was there, which was pre-GWAT, and when, as, from what I understand, as, you know, through the GWAT, as it became more professionalized, that, you know, people started treating, leaders started treating, it was a professional organization. You know, it was very capable when I was there.

• 1:51:00Speaker 04

  I remember the stories of Ranger Battalion where they like throw fire extinguishers at you guys, you guys are walking back and forth and they throw extinguishers. I mean, I heard these stories.

• 1:51:08Speaker 05

  But that was just Ranger games.

• 1:51:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:51:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:51:10Speaker 04

  But you under, you understand the dynamic of it's like, um, you know, it's doggy dog.

• 1:51:15Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:51:16Speaker 04

  And, um, you know, if you're a, if you're a tier one operator, you're supposed to be a little bit more mature, right?

• 1:51:22Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:51:22Speaker 04

  And so here I was, leading these guys who were very capable, and they're all extremely competent. They were all, you know, combat hardened guys.

• 1:51:30Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:51:30Speaker 04

  They didn't need me to be badass. Like, I, I had my reps, right? But candidly, it didn't matter. My job was to support them where they were at and be a good leader for them.

• 1:51:39Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:51:40Speaker 04

  And be the leader that I never received. And so, um, you know, it's easy to say that. Um, I, I will, I can be very honest with you and tell you that I did the best I could to be that guy. And I think I did a decent job at doing it. Um, but it was, it was an inflection point for me personally. And it was a big growth, you know, moment for me.

• 1:52:02Speaker 05

  Just to clarify a point, when you talked about going to ops, that sounds really sexy. But for people who don't know, ops is like operational planning.

• 1:52:10Speaker 04

  It's the worst.

• 1:52:10Speaker 05

  It's not sexy.

• 1:52:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, doing sit reps and like, and sending gear to guys overseas, like it's terrible.

• 1:52:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:52:17Speaker 04

  I mean, someone's got to do it, you know, it's an important job. I just felt like, I felt like I was the pony in the, in the, you know, the paddock that was like dancing around, kicking, and I wasn't ready to go into the stable. I was like, I want to keep dancing and that's probably the best analogy I could think of.

• 1:52:36Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:52:37Speaker 04

  You know, but for me personally, I just wasn't ready to hang it up. But in the air force, when you get to that point, you senior, you're done. And in the army, especially, you know, within the tier one unit, you can be an E nine and run a gun.

• 1:52:52Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:52:53Speaker 04

  Until the day you retire.

• 1:52:54Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:52:54Speaker 04

  And I think that's awesome.

• 1:52:57Speaker 04

  In the Navy, you can do it to a certain extent, but they're not, not the same as the Army. Because there are a lot of E nines in the Army. In the Air Force, there's not a lot of E nines. And so if you're an E nine, it's like, holy crap, we need you to go here. And we need you to manage, you know, this, this program or this unit. And, and it's not sexy, it's grunt work. We need guys to do it, we need good guys to do it. And so I, you know, when, I, I, I wasn't one of those guys who was really excited about going on the 24th to be the chief. I never aspired to be that. A lot of guys did, I never did. But when they asked me to do it, I was like, yeah, I'll do it for them. And, um, and my wife knows this, she was like, I was like, I don't know how I can do all this stuff.

• 1:53:36Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:53:37Speaker 04

  And I was like, I want to be a good leader for them. And so I really tried, I tried really hard to be what I should have been in that unit. But it was not prestigious for me. There was no like, uh, it wasn't like beating my chest, I was like, I made it. I was like, I was like, oh crap, I have this job, this is going to be hard. And I have to deal with all these people issues and like all these guys are in harm's way. And we were nonstop deployed and we never stopped deploying. Our unit, just like a lot of these units were deployed since nine 11 into perpetuity. And so until just recently, they stopped deploying, right? So you know, Afghanistan, Iraq, drawdown, Syria. Um, their home. And that's when the real problems come in, right? That's when guys are like, now you're getting DUIs.

• 1:54:20Speaker 04

  Now you're getting the guys with, you know, domestic issues. I didn't have those issues.

• 1:54:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:54:24Speaker 04

  I just had a bunch of pipe hitters that are doing great things. And they were very mature and they were capable. Um, I had the best, you know, I had the best situation.

• 1:54:33Speaker 05

  So what year did you, uh, take over like the green team?

• 1:54:38Speaker 04

  Uh, was it maybe 2017?

• 1:54:42Speaker 05

  So, and you went in 2003, 2002, 2003?

• 1:54:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:54:47Speaker 05

  Oh, not, not to green, oh yeah, to green team, right?

• 1:54:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:54:50Speaker 05

  2000.

• 1:54:51Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 1:55:05Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 1:55:16Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 1:55:21Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 1:55:27Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 1:55:47Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default and parental controls offer families additional options like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com slash parents to learn more.

• 1:56:15Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued

• 1:56:39Speaker 07

  By OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:56:44Speaker 05

  2003. How had, by the time you got there, how had it changed over those 14 years?

• 1:56:50Speaker 04

  So much, so much. So here's the biggest thing that changed, how we selected folks. And so if you guys came to us in the unit, you put your package in, you know, we're like, okay, you had a DUI here, it was five years ago, have you learned from it? Okay, keep your nose clean. Okay, maybe we'll talk to you. Okay, you get through the front door just from your package, you know, interview, come to selection. And then we do this process where we, we really get to know the person, the individual, their psyche, we understand how they make decisions. We put them in situations, ethical dilemmas. We do all these things that really breaks down the individual and how they think, which is way more important than how much you lift.

• 1:57:30Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:57:30Speaker 04

  Do we still want you to be a stud? Absolutely, you got to, right? You gotta, you gotta do the long run. Right. You gotta run fast, you gotta carry heavy things.

• 1:57:37Speaker 05

  You gotta keep up with the SEALs, you gotta keep up with the Rangers, you gotta-

• 1:57:39Speaker 04

  That's an expectation.

• 1:57:40Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:57:40Speaker 04

  But here's what we're asking you to do. We're asking you to have a very clear ethical compass. We're asking you to be, make good decisions under stress. We're asking you to have a high EQ and IQ. Like, we're looking at those things, okay? We're not taking dummies. We have very smart guys within the special, the Air Force Special Operations side. They're, they're very competent dudes. And we, we test them and we test them amongst their peers. And so, one of the questions is funny, like, I was thinking about, you know, talking to you guys about this, is that, you know, one of the questions is, would you want to be in a car with this guy for, I think it was like, eight hour car ride? And, that's a good question, right? Do I want to ride in a car with you for eight hours?

• 1:58:25Speaker 04

  What does that mean? Does it mean I like you? Does it mean I can get along with you? Can you, can you blend into a team room? Can you deal with other folks? Can you do that and also keep your moral compass? Because that's another ethical dilemma that exists going with other tiers. And so, our guys have done a really good job of, of staying above the fray, and I'm really proud of them.

• 1:58:45Speaker 05

  Wasn't that a question that Beckwith had, was, do I want to paddle upstream with the guy, with this guy?

• 1:58:50Speaker 04

  Could, could have been.

• 1:58:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. When we talked to Dan Colson, yeah.

• 1:58:54Speaker 04

  Beckwith, uh, that's a whole other story.

• 1:58:57Speaker 05

  Yeah, but, but, but that's, but that's important, right? In the sense of, outside of this person being a high performer. Like if it's just, if it's just he and I out there for three days.

• 1:59:12Speaker 04

  I don't care how fast you run. I don't. I don't care how much weight you can lift. Um, I want you to be able to carry your own weight, but I also want you to make good decisions under stress. And so that's not very, it's, it's a hard thing to tease out. And so we, we would have psychologists in there non-stop with us. Looking at our bias, right? It's because I have bias. And so if I'm hiring somebody, I want some probably to look like me. You know what I mean? And you probably do the same thing. You're like, yeah, man, he's a, you know, he's a puss. Like he's not like me. And so you're going to basically dismiss that guy, or if you're an extrovert, he's an introvert. You're like, ah, he's, he can't be like me.

• 1:59:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:59:48Speaker 04

  And what we realized was is that, um, you know, when we talk about diversity in the military and people rolled their eyes at it because it's been, it's been, uh, miscategorized. It's diversity of thought.

• 2:00:00Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:00:01Speaker 04

  And we want people to think differently and can solve problems differently, differently than me, because it makes me stronger, right? And so if we can do that as an organization, you can be successful. And all of the units are, are kind of changing their selection models to, to tease these things out. You know, back in the, you know, eighties and nineties, it was like, how fast can you run? How good can you shoot? We need more than that now and we need guys that can operate on their own. And so, uh, I think the soft operators of today are far superior than of my generation. And I think that's fair to say because I am that.

• 2:00:36Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:00:37Speaker 04

  Um, you know, I think we were pretty good and we were pretty damn hardy because we did a lot of combat. But were we prepared? I don't think we were. I wasn't prepared. We prepared these guys because we looked at all the gaps in our lives and our careers. And we said, we're going to fill those in with training. Or just fill those in with experience. And so, you know, when guys get selected to be green TV instructors, there are guys that are combat hardened dudes that can come in there and sit down with you and go, listen, dude, this is why you're messing up. And this is what you need to change. If you're a combat controller, here's what you need to think about when you run a stack. And here's why you have to think about it this way. If you're a PJ, this is why you can't do medicine this way. This is why you're going to get someone killed. And we finally, finally have the experience to sit there and say that

• 2:01:21Speaker 04

  very, uh, you know, emphatically and, and with a position of authority, which we didn't have in the nineties. So when I went through SOCOM. It was a bunch of guys never went to combat, right? They're telling me about how to treat a casualty, they never treated a casualty.

• 2:01:35Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:01:35Speaker 04

  Now, when I go through soft miss with a Ranger medic and he's saying, hey Chad, you're messing this up? I'm like, holy crap, this guy knows what he's talking about, right? I'm gonna listen to him.

• 2:01:43Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:01:44Speaker 04

  And so, um, I, I think that's a pretty important distinction, but here, here's the but is that we're losing it. And we're losing it today, because all senior guys are getting out and leaving, because they're pissed off, right? And you're gonna have an atrophied experience. And the next fight is gonna be way harder than the GWOT.

• 2:02:02Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:02:02Speaker 04

  It's gonna be 10 times harder than what we did in Afghanistan, Iraq. When you're talking about great power competition, guys fight with nods and lasers and aircraft overhead. Dude, you have to be the best. And, you know, technology will tip the scale to a certain extent. We still have to be a very competent operator that knows how to make good decisions under stress.

• 2:02:22Speaker 05

  Is there any way, in your opinion, to not lose it? Because we lost it after war, too. We lost it after Vietnam.

• 2:02:30Speaker 04

  It's already, it's already been lost. And so, you know, every service will tell you that, I talked to SEAL all the time and say the same thing. And, um, we're losing it. And we're pushing people out because we want people to comply, right? I know we're not getting political in this, but there is, there is an element of like, hey, you need to play ball or you need to leave. And so a lot of people are leaving, they don't want to play ball, like it's incongruent with their values. And so you have this, you know, in, in industry, they call it what the great resignation. And people just, you know.

• 2:03:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:03:03Speaker 04

  Or, uh, people silently quitting. You have that in soft too. People are leaving. And so who stays behind? You know, who stays in the senior positions? It's the people that, you know, really want to be senior guys, uh, to beat their chest. And not all of them, that's, that's not an absolute.

• 2:03:18Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 2:03:18Speaker 04

  Um, but.

• 2:03:20Speaker 05

  It's the people who enjoy, or who don't mind the political, the political game that, that happens at that senior level.

• 2:03:25Speaker 04

  I never wanted to be in E9.

• 2:03:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:03:26Speaker 04

  And when I got it, I was like, oh crap. I make a little bit more money, not a lot, but um I gotta be a good E9 and but if your motivation is to you know have more stripes or medals, all those things, you're you're the wrong guy. And so how do you how do you suss that out? That's a that's a hard question to answer. I don't have the answer.

• 2:03:45Jack Murphy?

  You got a questions for Chad?

• 2:03:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, we do. And just out of curiosity, before we get to the questions, like you had this real sort of breadth of experience because taking somebody that's a shooter and a medic and then all the ancillary skills, but also putting them into more of an intel oriented like the um you know, like the O P E and O P B, which requires tradecraft and is more of a thinking man's game as opposed as that it's very fluid in a lot of ways.

• 2:04:19Speaker 05

  Can you select people that or do you try to select people that encompass all that? Or do you recognize that some people are going to be good at certain things?

• 2:04:27Speaker 04

  For the for that mission? Yes. I mean,

• 2:04:29Speaker 05

  I mean, like in green team.

• 2:04:31Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, we have. We've we've found guys who are like, holy crap, that's the guy.

• 2:04:35Speaker 05

  For this job?

• 2:04:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:37Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 2:04:37Speaker 04

  And we pulled guys straight from green team. They've never done the assault side. They went straight to the other side because they're just that. They're super, you know, cerebral.

• 2:04:47Speaker 04

  You know, it's super talented, but you know, maybe they went to a school and got an engineering degree and they might be too smart for the job they're about to go do.

• 2:04:55Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:04:56Speaker 04

  And we're like, yeah, guy, listen, I get it. You want to go run a gun. You probably need to go do this.

• 2:05:00Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:05:01Speaker 04

  And so that exists. Yeah.

• 2:05:03Jack Murphy?

  That's cool that they're recognizing that so early on.

• 2:05:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:05:06Jack Murphy?

  Because yeah, I mean, as you alluded to, I mean, when I left the military in 2010, the guys who had engineering degrees who had, I mean, everyone, they were all getting out, you know, guys who had opportunities to get a full ride to med school, guys who had um putting in flight packets. I mean, all kinds of stuff happening.

• 2:05:25Speaker 04

  So innovation is a big topic is brought in the military all the time. And the folks that are like innovators and the folks that think that way usually get out after their first enlistment because they're so frustrated.

• 2:05:34Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:05:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 2:05:35Speaker 04

  And and that's the folks that we need to stay in for two enlistments to change the world, right? So it just it's the weird dichotomy of the military.

• 2:05:43Speaker 05

  And it's interesting, too, because the military resists innovation so hard.

• 2:05:49Speaker 04

  Well, they don't like failure. They like innovation because it sells, but failure is incongruent with what, you know, the model of success. And so you have to accept failure to have innovation. You can't have one without the other.

• 2:06:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:06:03Speaker 04

  Can't have, oh, we're going to innovate, but we always have to be successful. Like, you never get anywhere.

• 2:06:07Jack Murphy?

  The zero fail or risk aversion.

• 2:06:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:06:11Speaker 04

  And so I understand that now on the outside, now that I'm in industry, that, you know, all the successful tech companies are taking a lot of risk and failing, and they're going to find success because they're failing so much.

• 2:06:23Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:06:23Speaker 04

  They're learning from it.

• 2:06:23Speaker 05

  Right. Yeah. They'll start out with a product and find out that it doesn't do what they thought it was going to do, but it appeals to a different market that they never even imagined. Yeah.

• 2:06:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:06:32Speaker 05

  It's very interesting.

• 2:06:35Speaker 05

  Okay, let's get to these questions here.

• 2:06:40Speaker 05

  Anthony, thank you very much. What has been your experiences working with SOFT TAC-P? What's your take on the restructuring for TAC-P moving forward? Strike teams, recon teams? And if you can also lead off with telling us what TAC-P is?

• 2:06:56Speaker 04

  So, TAC-P is Terminal Air Control Party, and they're basically the old school guys you used to call, you know, naval gunfire and also, you know, basically, you know, the mission that CCTs do, TAC-Ps did for a long time, right? I love TAC-Ps. I love TAC-Ps. You know, some of my favorite JTACs are TAC-Ps. We had a lot of TAC-Ps at the unit. We started bringing them on, and they were super, super capable guys. They were studs. So, you know, the AFSoC is going through a kind of a reshuffle. They're trying to figure out their mission. I think all SOFT is, but specifically AFSoC. And I think a lot of the legacy missions that we're, we know are going away. And so, who will survive this kind of change? I don't know.

• 2:07:42Speaker 04

  That's beyond, you know, above my, my pay grade. I don't have a pay grade, but.

• 2:07:46Jack Murphy?

  PFC.

• 2:07:47Speaker 05

  So is Tac, so are you saying that Tac P, uh, that they're potentially like on the cutting board?

• 2:07:53Speaker 04

  No, I'm not saying that, but I will say that the GWOT model of like, you know, calling CAS is probably going to go away for the great power competition. Because it's not going to be guys in the trenches, you know, on a, on SATCOM, you know, calling in strikes. It's going to be technology empowering, you know, missions deeper into targets and illuminating them. And then making decisions with semi-autonomy and autonomy. And so if SOF doesn't embrace that, they're going to lose the next fight. That's, I mean, that's just the reality. Like autonomy is a thing and, you know, China's doing it very well. The US is doing it and the, the military is trying to embrace it, but autonomy is scary.

• 2:08:35Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it's the opposite of what we've experienced where, you know, the golden hour is going to be a thing of the past. In a lot of ways, you're going to have to maintain a casualty out in the field. You're not, there's going to be contested airspace. Comms are going to be unreliable.

• 2:08:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, GPS denied. I mean, you're talking about, you know, fighting, you know, near pier. We say it all the time. What does that mean? That means the guy you're fighting has the same tech that you do.

• 2:08:58Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:08:58Speaker 04

  We fought cavemen and got our asses kicked.

• 2:09:00Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:09:01Speaker 04

  Half the time, right? And so we need to, we always have to have a competitive advantage when going into fighting. And so we, our competitive advantage in the past has been aircraft. It has been.

• 2:09:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:09:10Speaker 04

  And every service will tell you that it has tipped the scale. Every single, you know, engagement has been aircraft.

• 2:09:15Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:09:16Speaker 04

  When things get too bad, guess what? We're calling the air force and they're going to slam this, this compound.

• 2:09:20Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:09:21Speaker 04

  Well, if we can't do that because those guys are in air-to-air fight, how do you push through?

• 2:09:26Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:09:26Speaker 04

  And, and that's a really, I don't know how to answer that.

• 2:09:30Speaker 05

  And particularly if we're looking at China, because not only do they have close to the technology, they have all the technology we have because because their industrial espionage is so great.

• 2:09:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:09:40Speaker 05

  You know?

• 2:09:44Speaker 05

  Jackson, thank you very much. What do you make of AFSoC trying to become a more unilateral force? Are you optimistic or hesitant on the transition and why?

• 2:09:55Speaker 04

  It depends. I mean, it depends who's in charge. It depends on what they want to do with it. And so what we shouldn't do is become a better mousetrap, you know, so AFSoC should basically play off their strengths. You know, we are very capable in technical forces that can, you know, kind of multiply the battlefield. And so if they, you know, if they focus on those strengths and they flip that into the next fight, they can be very successful as a unilateral force. If they try to be a better assault force, I mean, cool, man.

• 2:10:28Speaker 05

  And this sort of goes back to the question about, like, the SEALs out there doing, you know, the FO work, the, you know, the upper prep, is that every mission was sexy, right? And everybody wants the money. So when it was, when it was the war on drugs, everybody got into counter narcotics. When it was the GWAT, everybody became a strike force and then everybody started moving into the intel, the tradecraft, you know, everybody developed, even though their units specified for that, everybody became a ma- became the master of all. And is this sort of what they're talking about with AFSoC, that there are people who think that, okay, well, shooting, CQB, shooting, like, we can do that, too. We can have our

• 2:11:13Speaker 05

  own teams that do this? Or is it going a different direction?

• 2:11:16Speaker 04

  So I personally don't think that we're going into that kind of conflict. I don't think that's the thing. And I think the Navy has been a pretty good, you know, kind of, I guess, weather vane for where they're going. They're going away from some of those traditional missions, and so is SF. You know, the SF teams are going back to, you know, FID and going back to their core skills.

• 2:11:38Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:11:39Speaker 04

  The things that are, the differentiators that they're really good at. And, you know, for a long time, it was direct to action was sexy, like you just described. And everyone wanted to do direct to action because that was kind of the, the bar to pass to be, you know, the guy.

• 2:11:53Speaker 05

  The cool guy.

• 2:11:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so now that we're transitioning, you know, SF is saying, holy crap, we need to go back to our core skills, and they are. The Navy is going back to diving, go back to maritime missions.

• 2:12:03Jack Murphy?

  I've heard they have, one of the, NSW has one of the, probably the best drone program in, in special ops now.

• 2:12:11Speaker 05

  Like water drones or air drones?

• 2:12:13Speaker 04

  Both.

• 2:12:13Speaker 05

  Both?

• 2:12:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, tech is empowering those things and there's a lot of autonomous, you know, underwater vehicles that are doing great things. Tech is a differentiator and so whoever can adopt early tech is going to be successful, in my opinion. And it's not just because the position I'm in now, which hopefully we talk about.

• 2:12:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, we will. We absolutely will.

• 2:12:33Speaker 04

  But I think that, you know, for AFSoC, they have to find their way to find what's unique to them. You know, what aircraft do they have that are very unique that they can employ? They're getting rid of a lot of assets right now in AFSoC. They're getting rid of a lot of CB22s, AC130s. And so, you know, some of it's a forcing function to get to the next fight.

• 2:12:57Speaker 04

  You know, so I don't know. I mean, it's probably a better question to ask the seniors at AFSoC.

• 2:13:02Speaker 05

  I hate to see the AC130 go away.

• 2:13:04Speaker 04

  Me too.

• 2:13:05Speaker 05

  This makes me sad.

• 2:13:06Speaker 04

  And AT10s too.

• 2:13:06Speaker 05

  And AT...

• 2:13:08Speaker 04

  I mean, a lot of left AT10s. If you're a ground force, you know how good the AT10s are and how important they are.

• 2:13:15Speaker 05

  Yeah. Jackson, thanks again. As for Tier One, how would you characterize the difference between the Army and the Navy side? Did you have a preference with working with one?

• 2:13:28Speaker 04

  I think they're both amazing, right? You know, they're different, they're super, you know, in the early days, the Navy was really good at making things happen and the Army was very, very process-driven.

• 2:13:41Speaker 04

  I think the Army adopted a lot of the Navy's kind of nuances and they became just as adaptive.

• 2:13:48Speaker 04

  I gotta be honest, in the later years, it was really hard to differentiate the two. They had specific capabilities, they did really well.

• 2:13:56Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:13:56Speaker 04

  If it was a maritime mission, obviously the Navy. But the Army, dude, they are, I mean, that unit at Fort Bragg.

• 2:14:04Speaker 04

  They can do any mission on their son.

• 2:14:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:14:07Speaker 04

  And they could probably do the maritime mission too if they wanted to, but no, there's no favorite.

• 2:14:13Speaker 05

  So you're saying that if the Navy learned basic patrolling, that they would be right there?

• 2:14:20Speaker 04

  They could work up to if they cared about it. It was just, uh, it's priorities, right? But you, but a lot of the Army guys, so the, uh, the guys from that unit, um, were either former Rangers or, or SF. So they had a very fundamental, like.

• 2:14:35Speaker 05

  Infantry.

• 2:14:36Speaker 04

  Infantry background, they're all Rangers. And so they understood that it was very intuitive to them, right? Navy's not, man. It's like Navy's like Hockit. They're, they're like the full players are gonna throw a Hail Mary.

• 2:14:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:14:44Speaker 04

  Where, you know, the Army's like, okay, we can get a first down by doing this, right? Navy's like, nah, we're going for touchdown, you know?

• 2:14:53Speaker 05

  Ian, thank you very much. Oh, uh, Dave, now is your chance to ask the only, to, to ask about the only basic training you didn't go through. What questions do you have about it? I, I don't have any questions.

• 2:15:09Speaker 04

  Folding, I'm really good at that.

• 2:15:10Speaker 05

  Yeah. Did, did you guys use exercise bikes?

• 2:15:13Speaker 04

  In the Air Force?

• 2:15:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, in the Air Force.

• 2:15:15Speaker 04

  No, I wish they had them. It would've been great.

• 2:15:18Speaker 05

  That, that was the only thing I missed and apparently I didn't miss it, so.

• 2:15:21Speaker 04

  Exercise bikes? No.

• 2:15:23Speaker 05

  Defend you, defend you, CQB. So somebody with the Fair Baron, Sykes, Kelly McCann, Carl Sastori Heritage. Thank you very much for the donation. Brendan G, great guest, great stories, best wishes to you all. B, thanks Brendan. Graham, thank you very much. Thanks for the great conversation. Thoughts on SWT? Now Special Reconnaissance and what role they play?

• 2:15:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. So this was, um, you formerly like the weather career field we had, which is, uh, you know, uh.

• 2:15:57Speaker 05

  The combat weather guys?

• 2:15:59Speaker 04

  Yeah. Um, so they, they rebranded them as Special Reconnaissance, which I think is really.

• 2:16:04Speaker 05

  That sounds sexier.

• 2:16:05Speaker 04

  It sounds better, way better. Uh, the mission initially was like all over the map. It was like, we're gonna do all these things. You have to be specialized in a couple of things, right? You have to be good at a couple of things. And so it has unlimited potential to be a really great career field. And, um, you know, we need it now because reconnaissance is more important now than ever. And especially if you can overlay technology into reconnaissance. And so I, I think it's, you know, potentially. It's a it's a great pathway. Obviously, I'm biased because I'm a PJ. So, you know, I want more PJs.

• 2:16:40Speaker 05

  Um, let me just check.

• 2:16:42Speaker 04

  Was that a diplomatic answer?

• 2:16:43Speaker 05

  Yes, it was great. Um.

• 2:16:48Speaker 05

  Isaac, the Air Force is said to have the best tech. So does Spec Ops have more advanced tech than other units?

• 2:16:55Speaker 04

  The Spec Ops or Air Force?

• 2:16:57Speaker 05

  The the Air Force Special Operations.

• 2:17:01Speaker 04

  Man, no, I don't think they do. I think the Navy has been really early adopters of technology. The Army is really keen on UAS and so they're really head on that. And the Air Force, again, is going through this kind of like the teenage years of who am I? And they're looking in the mirror like, what do I want to be? Do I need this or do you need this? And so the Navy knows, hey, I need these these technologies to empower a maritime platform. So they're going to do it. And the Army is the same way. If you look at some of the the drone racing stuff they're doing, the Army is taking advantage of that big time. And they're bringing industry in. Navy is doing the same thing. The Air Force is kind of like, you know, you have you have airplanes, right? So here's the dichotomy with the Air Force.

• 2:17:45Speaker 04

  When you look at the Army and Special Forces, it's all about Special Forces, right? With AFSoC, it's not. It's about aircraft and they have really small cutout, which is Special Warfare, which is, you know, Air Force.

• 2:17:57Speaker 05

  Air Force is all about like strategic bombers and fighter jets, right?

• 2:18:00Speaker 04

  But within AFSoC, it's it's it's CV22s and like doing InfleXpo. But then you have these guys over here. They're like, hey, we want to change the world. And they're like, got it, guys. But the money goes over here.

• 2:18:10Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:18:11Speaker 04

  And so NSW is is paying to SEALs and they have these maritime programs that have a lot of money. But it's to empower the SEALs.

• 2:18:18Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:18:18Speaker 04

  And so AFSoC is the only one that's like, well, we do all this for the other services. And then we have this small component of folks that do really special stuff. But we also want to help these people. And so it will never reach their potential because they're always looking outwards instead of going, how do we empower this?

• 2:18:35Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:18:36Speaker 04

  And so the first question, how do you do it unilateral? Well, you have to stop being a service provider.

• 2:18:42Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:18:42Speaker 04

  And start saying, what do we want to do? And if you don't want to do anything, that's fine, too. But if you do, you have to do an all stop and say, listen, these CB22s exist for these guys and whatever their mission set is going to dictate. And, and that's a, it's going to take having some special tactics, guys, in senior positions, which we do. The A3 of ASOC right now is a, is a former combat controller, is a combat controller general. And that's a big deal for us, you know? It's never happened before.

• 2:19:11Speaker 05

  Um, and so that, I mean, that makes total sense because you guys have been force multipliers. You've been adjuncts in a way to the other, you know, to the other services. And without that identity of we're, we're the tip of the spear, right? Not we're part of the tip of the spear.

• 2:19:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's going to be, they're going to have to decide what they want to be.

• 2:19:35Speaker 05

  They are.

• 2:19:35Speaker 04

  It's not my decision. Obviously, I can tell you my experiences and my experience was empowering those other tiers, right?

• 2:19:43Speaker 04

  You know, do I think that I was capable to do other things? Absolutely, but it wasn't my job.

• 2:19:46Speaker 05

  If, if you could wave a magic wand and make STS what you wanted it to be.

• 2:19:54Speaker 04

  Oof, I don't know. Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a tough thing to answer right now because, you know, I have, again, biases included here in my experience and so.

• 2:20:07Speaker 05

  And, and that's fair. I mean, I'm asking you with your bias and your experience.

• 2:20:10Speaker 04

  It's, it's a numbers game, right?

• 2:20:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:20:12Speaker 04

  So, special forces, I was doing the numbers, I think it's like 8,000.

• 2:20:16Speaker 05

  It's a lot, yeah.

• 2:20:17Speaker 04

  You know, I mean, you look at the 82nd has less folks and they're specialized in the Ranger Battalion. So, the, the question I always had was what makes you special? And, um, you know, I asked folks, I, I asked this when I was going through the, uh, What is it called, GSOFC, which is the Joint Special Operations Senior enlisted thing? And I said, what makes special operations special? Is it numbers? Is it technology? Is it mission? And no one could really answer the question because when special operations or SOF, it has a lot of people. And then within, you know, the Green Beret community, there's thousands of them. And not all of them are like, you know, doing everything, right? There's like guys who are specialists in this and this.

• 2:21:02Speaker 04

  Within NSW, it's a little bit smaller, but still thousands of them. In our career full, there's, you know, there's maybe hundreds. And so, does that make you special? I don't know. I don't know if it does. It's just a numbers game. It's, it sounds cooler. But how do you get to that point? I don't think you do it without numbers. And so, if you have a Green Beret community, you want to go and do X mission, you can reorient all those people to go do that with the training and money. That's a tough question.

• 2:21:31Jack Murphy?

  So, let's hear about your transition. You finally, after running and gunning and suffering through administration and then getting to be, you know, senior enlisted in the squadron. I mean, you kind of had the career, you know, from.

• 2:21:44Speaker 04

  I had a career, yeah.

• 2:21:45Jack Murphy?

  I mean, you had the career. You went from 21 to 41, or 22 to 41 from.

• 2:21:50Speaker 05

  And you did it all. I mean, you did it all. You did.

• 2:21:53Speaker 04

  Did a lot.

• 2:21:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:21:54Speaker 04

  And you did it all. I wanted to do more.

• 2:21:56Jack Murphy?

  You talked about, you know, the compartmentalization and driving on and all of this. And then you finally hit that moment of retirement. I mean, what was that like for you transitioning?

• 2:22:04Speaker 04

  It sucked. I took a job. I was a director of an innovation institute for a year. And I learned about hiring and firing, learned about dealing with, you know, people that weren't like me. It was a transition and I was super depressed. You know, we talked about before we started this is that purpose is really important and you have it inherently when you're in the military. You don't have it when you get out. And it's a reality. So, just brace yourself for that. And I did that job for a year. What I did do was I got a call and there was an opportunity to go help some orphans from Ukraine to Poland.

• 2:22:48Jack Murphy?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:22:49Speaker 04

  And I was like, I'm in. And so I went to my boss and was like, hey, man, I was like, I need to take some unpaid leave. I'm gonna do this. And they were good enough to say, yeah, okay. And I think they knew I was probably gonna quit if they didn't let me do it. But I thought I was gonna fill my bucket, you know, my bucket and give me a sense of purpose. And I went out there and did it and it didn't fill anything. And I came back home and I end up resigning after a month. I was like, I can't do this anymore. And I told my wife, I was like, I just need to maybe go fishing every day and just be retired. And I was retired for six hours. A buddy of mine from a big company called me, he's like, Chad, he goes, you need to talk to these guys from California. And I'm like, okay.

• 2:23:33Speaker 04

  I was on my back porch, I think I was probably drinking bourbon. And I talked to these guys and they're like, hey, man, you know, just bros from, you know, California. And like, we're gonna build a low-cost cruise missile. I'm like, okay. Like, didn't expect that. I was like, all right, so what? What does that mean? How do you do low cost? And they told me, you know, their design is like modular, like Lego set for a cruise missile, added manufacturing. I'm like, I'm in. And so I joined this team and it was three of us. And it was the closest thing I felt, you know, this is called team house, it was the closest thing I felt to being back into a team, post-military. Because it was guys that I identify with, that I get along with, and that were oriented

• 2:24:17Speaker 04

  towards a purpose with. And, you know, we started this company, Firestorm Labs, and we've been doing it for, you know, six, seven months now, building a modular UAS. And it's the closest thing I've found to getting to what, you know, we've been describing this whole time. And I needed it, man. You know, because we talk about purpose. You know, purpose is really hard to find on the backside. And so the guys that get out, you know, I think this is a good opportunity to talk about is that.

• 2:24:48Speaker 04

  It's not the same and you will be isolated. You're on your own. It's it's never going to be cool again and you have to mourn that career. And so, once you move on from it, you can like grow and be better. But for me, you know, join the team that I'm on now with Firestorm, which is the company. It's been awesome. And so I've taken a lot of other jobs. I've got a lot, you know, you know, companies that I work with. One is Lifeline Rescue Tools, which is basically, it's a thing about glass break, you know, times 1000, it cuts through laminated glass, you know, first responder stuff. I'm like, that's great. I can get behind that product development. Let's do it. The other one's Foxtrot 3 is a company we started with a bunch of operators,

• 2:25:33Speaker 04

  faith, family, freedom. And so that's basically family values, getting back to making that cool again in America. And so things I can wrap my brain around and orient and and really push hard is all I need. And so, because you're not a part of a team anymore when you get out. No one gets, no one cares. You know, like, you're on your own. Yeah. You guys know that. I mean,

• 2:25:56Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I've

• 2:25:57Speaker 04

  You've forgotten very quickly. So

• 2:25:58Jack Murphy?

  I've tried, I've tried to describe to people, you know, that you could be, you know, the Sergeant Major of Delta Force, who total badass dude. You get out, you retire, walking around the streets out here. It's not that people don't like you, that they're anti military or something, but you say, I was a Command Sergeant Major of this, you know, JSOC unit. They're going to look at you.

• 2:26:18Speaker 04

  I mean, so

• 2:26:19Jack Murphy?

  What is JSOC? What is Command Sergeant Major?

• 2:26:22Speaker 04

  And it's not that, it's not that the experiences aren't meaningful. They certainly are.

• 2:26:25Jack Murphy?

  Right, right.

• 2:26:25Speaker 04

  And they're, they're meaningful in, in your brotherhood, right? And so if we sit around and we drink bourbon together, like, we can have shared experiences and we have the, the kind of common bona fides, right? But you have to get over it. You have to mourn it and move past it.

• 2:26:41Jack Murphy?

  Big time. Yeah.

• 2:26:42Speaker 04

  And if you don't, you're not going to be successful in the next life.

• 2:26:44Jack Murphy?

  You're stuck in that rut.

• 2:26:45Speaker 04

  But if you say, listen, I had a great run. It was a cool experience. I did some cool stuff. And now I'm moving on. And, you know, I do these conversations because I think they're cathartic. I think they're healthy. But at the end of the day, like, that's my old life, man.

• 2:27:00Jack Murphy?

  Exactly.

• 2:27:01Speaker 04

  It has nothing to do with me now.

• 2:27:02Jack Murphy?

  And that moving on, though, also, like, like you mentioned with the startup.

• 2:27:08Speaker 05

  There's also the issue of finding purpose. Like if you try to move on and you're just doing some menial job somewhere that doesn't fill you with that same purpose. And you know, we talk about post-traumatic stress.

• 2:27:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:27:24Speaker 05

  And then we talk about this idea of transitioning, which is this nebulous, okay, I was doing something meaningful. I had people to my left and right that I trusted with my life.

• 2:27:37Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 2:27:37Speaker 05

  Even if I couldn't stand them.

• 2:27:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:27:39Speaker 05

  Um, and now I'm out in this world where there really is no meaning.

• 2:27:46Speaker 04

  So, so here's the best way I can define it for folks that are preparing to transition or perhaps have transitioned is that I felt like life was black and white. It was kind of a gray and there was no color to it and there was no excitement. And it was a really heavy thing to deal with because you're like, holy crap, man. Like, life is boring.

• 2:28:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:28:07Speaker 04

  And, you know, some people are like, oh, you should get back into skydiving or something. And like, well, sort of go buy a fast car and go test myself.

• 2:28:14Speaker 05

  Right. That's chasing the dragon, right?

• 2:28:16Speaker 04

  Right. And that's dangerous behavior.

• 2:28:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:28:18Speaker 04

  So I, I struggled with it for the past year. And I was like, man, I was like, how do I get back to normal? And what I realized was, you know, talking to some really smart people and people I trust is that it will never be that normal.

• 2:28:31Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:28:32Speaker 04

  It's different. And so, once you embrace that.

• 2:28:35Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the Food Allergy Podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:28:49Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:29:00Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you, you're not alone.

• 2:29:05Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:29:11Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the Food Allergy Podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:29:31Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:29:59Speaker 06

  Cash Flow Crunch, OnDeck's small business line of credit, gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:30:29Speaker 04

  You accept it, you say that, hey, listen, that was a part of my life. It's exciting, it was fun, there's cool stories we can talk about. It will never be that again, ever. And you have to mourn that process. Yeah. And so that's what I'm going through right now, and it's difficult, man. And like, some guys are better than I am, some guys are more mature than I am and can find success. Maybe it's financially, they want it, maybe it's purpose in a career. But for me, I found the best kind of segue is, I have a small team of people that I trust, we're oriented around a task and a purpose, and I can make it successful, because I know how to do that. Right.

• 2:31:13Speaker 04

  And so I think that's the most important aspect to me, it's healthy for me. But I will tell you, going back to the compartmentalization, is that guys like us have been very good at doing that. And we're, we can walk down the street and no one will notice any difference. The fact is, is that we're keeping these things wrapped, and we're doing it at our own detriment, right? And so until we let those things go and process them...

• 2:31:39Speaker 04

  They'll continue to be kind of the milsner on her neck. And so I've been using conversations like this as the catharsis of letting him go. Like, I mean, I'm gonna tell you guys some cool stories. Cool, man. Like, I'm not gonna tell you classified stuff, but let's let it out. Right. And, you know, failures and successes, they're here, man. Right. But this next life is mine. It's what I make it. Right. I absolutely agree with you. And we've had, you know, I feel

• 2:32:07Speaker 05

  like I've been, first off, I'll say that, like, I feel like Jack is one of those people that's dealt really well with that transition. I mean, like, he's very well adjusted. He's wearing a sweater now. Yeah, yeah, he's Autumn. He's Autumn. I mean, he has a, he has a saltwater tank. He knows who he is. Yeah, you know, um, but, you know, through the interview.

• 2:32:29Jack Murphy?

  I've also been out for 12 years, I should say. Probably helps. So, yeah, there was, there's, I appreciate you saying that. I would also point out, though, like, I had that period of adjustment as well. That was like, quite difficult to, even though I wasn't as in as long as you were, I didn't operate on the same level that you did. But just being in the military eight years as a young man and coming out, there's definitely a period of time where I had to figure things out.

• 2:32:55Speaker 05

  Well, it was eight years, but it was, it was intense. It was, it was your, it was the formative year.

• 2:33:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, the hard years to come.

• 2:33:02Speaker 05

  Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, and we've had a number of people on the show that have have talked about whether it's post traumatic stress, or whether it's just the adaptation of life after the military. Because one of the things that a wartime military does for you, like you said, is it gives you purpose. Like, combat is pure, right? There's, you're not worrying about taxes. It's fun. It is what you dreamt of when you were, when you were a kid.

• 2:33:32Speaker 04

  You throw pine cone grenades. Yes, turns into real grenades. Yeah. And it is satisfying.

• 2:33:36Speaker 05

  The only difference is now you don't have to argue over who shot who first. Yeah. Right? But it's a very pure endeavor and then to move into a world that's very ambiguous.

• 2:33:50Speaker 05

  Where you know, the answers.

• 2:33:53Speaker 04

  So I'd be remiss not to say this is and we talked about this before we started is that. I have a really deep respect for conventional forces, right? And and here's what I'll say is that SOF gets all the fanfare. We also get a lot of the support.

• 2:34:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:34:11Speaker 04

  So, you know, when I I tore both ACLs and I got, you know, all this great care, I had great physical therapists and people surrounding me and helping me. You know, when you're a conventional troop and you're doing hard yards in Baghdad or even Afghanistan. Like, there's not a whole hell of a lot there for those guys. And so I would tell the guys that are listening, because there's probably guys that are, is that I have a deep respect for those dudes. And and their service is no less than mine. We are we are prima donnas in SOF. And so, you know, getting on black helicopters with the best pilots in the world.

• 2:34:51Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:34:52Speaker 04

  Not good pilots, the best pilots in the world. That take us to the X and put one wheel down and you jump off in a rooftop and you go slam a target and you get out in 30 minutes.

• 2:35:01Speaker 05

  And you're hitting when you know everybody's asleep.

• 2:35:02Speaker 04

  You know what you come back and do?

• 2:35:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:35:04Speaker 04

  You come back and drinking beers and playing Xbox.

• 2:35:06Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:35:06Speaker 04

  Right?

• 2:35:07Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:35:07Speaker 04

  That's what people don't get is that you're you're spoiled, right? And so and do you want to do it on a op? Hell, yeah, you want to do it on a op because because you're going to have every resource available. Those kids, those kids, men and and women did it with no resources. And I think there's a lot to be said about that. And I think it gets lost in the kind of the nostalgia and the romance of SOF in that. You know, SOF isn't any better than those guys or gals.

• 2:35:34Speaker 05

  It like you say, SOF is sexy and you and and they have the budget, they get the training. But we've had like Louis Fernandez, Ray McPatten, like we've had people on that. And we we want more conventional, you know, we're we want more conventional soldiers and Marines on because.

• 2:35:54Speaker 05

  They were living it every day. Their deployments were longer.

• 2:35:58Speaker 04

  With not a lot of care on the backside.

• 2:35:59Speaker 05

  Right, right. They didn't have the support. They, they couldn't, they didn't have, you know, an AC 130.

• 2:36:07Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:36:07Speaker 05

  You know, hovering above.

• 2:36:09Speaker 04

  Which is a pacifier for operator.

• 2:36:11Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:36:12Speaker 04

  It is.

• 2:36:12Speaker 05

  Absolutely. You know, when you hear that lawnmower, the great lawnmower in the sky, like, the bad guys hear that too.

• 2:36:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, man. I, I think it's, it's, it's pretty important to recognize and, and if you don't, maybe you're, you're tone deaf, but um, you know, I think SOF guys in general realize that, you know, we've been spoiled for a long time. And, and for a good reason, like, we've had a really hard missions. We've done most of the combat, like, SOF has done almost all the combat in the, you know, past 20 years. Actually, that's not true. Towards the end, end years, yeah, for sure. Um, but, you know, I, I don't take it for granted that those kids were, you know, walking the streets and basically completely vulnerable.

• 2:36:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:36:52Speaker 04

  When I was sitting in a safe, you know, MSS, you know, drinking beers and when I wasn't supposed to.

• 2:36:59Speaker 05

  Right, general order number one, yeah. But you weren't doing anything that any, like, major and above wasn't doing.

• 2:37:05Speaker 04

  Whatever, I can say no.

• 2:37:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:37:07Jack Murphy?

  That's factual information.

• 2:37:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, we have, uh, just, I think, uh, I need to get back to the video. We have, uh, so, a couple more questions real quick that just popped up. Um, so I just want to go over real quick while I'm pulling this up. Uh, we know about, um, launchfirestorm.com, right? That's, that's Firestorm Labs. There's also a Firestorm Labs that does games. That's not them. Um, and then you said Foxtrot 3?

• 2:37:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:37:38Speaker 05

  Uh, and then what was the other?

• 2:37:40Speaker 04

  Lifeline Rescue.

• 2:37:41Speaker 05

  Lifeline Rescue.

• 2:37:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:37:43Speaker 05

  So, uh, they're, they're all down in the link. Um, and then we had one question that was...

• 2:37:54Speaker 05

  Or one, we had like two more.

• 2:38:00Speaker 05

  Graham, a more important plans for retirement. I thank you for the donation and we got that. And then Jerry, oh, we have two more. Jerry, what would you choose? Warthog or AC 130 over your head?

• 2:38:13Speaker 04

  For what mission?

• 2:38:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:38:15Speaker 04

  It depends. I mean, here, here's a story I'll tell you about AC or AC 130s and A10s. So we were, we're doing an op and we patrolled into this like wheat field. And we're completely surrounded by compounds. And it was bad. We, we knew it was about to pop off. We knew it was about to pop off. It was coming. It was just win. And our AC 130 got pulled for an HVI for the other task force. They're like, hey, we got an HVI. We need an AC 130. They pulled our AC 130 and we're like, holy crap. So we had a, you know, we had an empty nine and we're like, we're screwed. And we're about to get in a tick. We knew it. I mean, it was coming any second and

• 2:38:59Speaker 04

  it popped off and we, we were pinned down. We were fighting our way out of there. The main assault force was way back behind us. We were a recce team and we were just getting our, I mean, we're, we're like, holy crap, we're going to die. And the controller was back with the main assault force and knew we were in a tick and we're calling back like holy shit. We're like, this is bad. And he got on call A10s. These guys came in literally, I'm not exaggerating, 100 feet off the ground. Two, two ship, 100 feet off the ground and they strafed this compound. It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life.

• 2:39:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:39:36Speaker 04

  I was like, I was on nods. I had to pull a nods because there's so much fire. Like after they came in, two came in, I'm like, why don't we use these every night? I'm like, this is amazing. Like just have these watering overhead. They destroyed everything. There was nothing left. I'm, I'm be honest. There was nothing left. I'm like, who is AC 130? What is that? Is that thing we like? And A10s, man, there's a time and place for them, but those guys.

• 2:40:01Speaker 04

  Uh, here's what I'll tell you. A ten pilots are the closest thing to operators that you will ever find in the aviation community. They are, man. They're guys that will like want the, I'll drink.

• 2:40:12Speaker 05

  And gals. We, we had a K C, yeah.

• 2:40:15Speaker 04

  That's right. Um, they'll, I'll drink you and they will, they will put that thing in the dirt to help you.

• 2:40:21Speaker 05

  They, they're amazing. And like, I love a ten, but it's, and they do fly low, like they, they, they're at risk too. But those A tens, it is, yeah. Yep.

• 2:40:33Speaker 04

  We, we have a PJ or a guy went through basic training with, became a PJ and then he became an A ten pilot. So PJ.

• 2:40:40Speaker 05

  Oh, wow.

• 2:40:41Speaker 04

  You guys should have him on the podcast.

• 2:40:42Jack Murphy?

  Would love to.

• 2:40:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. Jason Attaker.

• 2:40:44Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:40:44Jack Murphy?

  We're, we're definitely down.

• 2:40:45Speaker 04

  But he is the best of both worlds, man, because he understands the ground component. And then he is, you know, big balls on the A ten side.

• 2:40:53Speaker 05

  And, and this also speaks to, uh, combat controllers, JTACs, TACPs, that when, when those dudes are on, like, the world can be exploding around you.

• 2:41:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:41:07Speaker 05

  And they're just on their radio, controlling their stacks, like doing.

• 2:41:12Speaker 04

  Oblivious is what you want to say.

• 2:41:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. Like they're just.

• 2:41:15Speaker 04

  They're oblivious to the world around them.

• 2:41:17Speaker 05

  They are just doing.

• 2:41:18Speaker 04

  That's why they get so many silver stars, because they're standing there under gunfights and they don't hear the ground snapping around them because they have two, you know, two pelters on.

• 2:41:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. And, and I would be like, somebody kill these people, please. And they're just like, yeah. And, and calling the.

• 2:41:34Speaker 04

  Everyone's taking cover and they're like up there like.

• 2:41:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. Yeah. So amazing people. Uh, Andrew, thank you very much. And, and that's it for the question.

• 2:41:43Jack Murphy?

  Fellas, uh, on Tuesday, we're going to have Andrew Milburn back in the studio. We're going to need to buy another bottle of Scotch for that one.

• 2:41:51Speaker 05

  Or two.

• 2:41:52Jack Murphy?

  He's coming, he's coming back from Ukraine, uh, where he's been, you know, his organization, the Mozart group has been doing a lot of work. And then on Friday, uh, we're going to have Daryl Blocker on the show, who's a career CIA, um, amazing career, super interesting guy. I'm excited to have him on the show. So that'll be this coming Friday. Andrew will be on Tuesday.

• 2:42:15Speaker 05

  Excellent. Um, and so we told where people can find you. Just one quick thing for veterans out there, or anybody who might like be going through this, but particularly veterans.

• 2:42:29Speaker 05

  What's the step for them if they're feeling, if they're starting to isolate, if they're feeling bored, disaffected, done?

• 2:42:39Speaker 04

  That's a loaded question, man. I mean, it's not, it's, it's person, it's person specific. Yeah. So, uh, VA sucks. That's the first thing. Um, and you guys will learn that very quickly. So you have to find your network. Um, I think asking for help is important. Um, people say they're going to help you. There's only a few that will. And so you gotta find those folks. Um, and I think that, uh, you know, letting this, letting this stuff out is important, um, personally. Um, and yeah, I don't know, man. There's a lot of people that want to help you. It's just you gotta ask. And so I have a rolodex of folks that I contact all the time, um, because I know that, uh, potentially, oh,

• 2:43:21Speaker 04

  I know, I, I think that they need it and I hope that they'll reach out to me when, when I need it. But, um, you know, there's a network there. Um, so it's, it's different for every community. Um, but there's been a lot of suicides. Um, we, we haven't had a lot of suicides, uh, within our, our group. Thank God. Um, but the community, the community writ large has. And so, uh, there's a lot of different factors. Some of it's financial, some of it's personal, some of it's, you know, TBI, some of it's PTSD. Um, there's a ton of cool treatments out there. Um, some of the Navy guys I was talking to have been, um, really, you know, keyed up on, uh, hyperbaric oxygen

• 2:44:02Speaker 04

  therapy, which is H-Bot, um, seeing, seeing a lot of lives, uh, kind of reconnecting some of the, the, uh, the connective tissue in the brain and really mending.

• 2:44:10Speaker 05

  That's interesting.

• 2:44:11Speaker 04

  Yeah. Really mending some of the damage that's been done.

• 2:44:16Speaker 04

  And then the other one, which is a bit controversial, but like, you know, there's vets, organizations doing a lot of psychedelic stuff, it's having a lot of good effects. I've talked to some folks that I know and trust that have done it and it's saved their lives. And so I respect the process. I've never done it personally, but you know, I think that's important to kind of suss out whatever is good for you.

• 2:44:40Jack Murphy?

  It is working for quite a few people. I mean, we've had a few on the show in the past that have fed.

• 2:44:45Speaker 05

  Yes, Sam.

• 2:44:46Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I've spoken to quite a few people.

• 2:44:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:44:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:44:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:44:51Speaker 04

  Well, I don't know if I'm ready to do the ayahuasca, you know.

• 2:44:53Jack Murphy?

  You might, you might get there. There's also the DMT thing that people do down south of the border and it's, I mean, not to scare the squares. I mean, it's like monitored by doctors. It's a very professional.

• 2:45:03Speaker 04

  It's a legit process.

• 2:45:04Speaker 05

  I mean, they're doing mushrooms or doing MDMA. They're like, there are a lot of different.

• 2:45:08Speaker 04

  There is.

• 2:45:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:45:10Speaker 04

  And, you know, the VA will hand you a lot of pills.

• 2:45:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:45:14Speaker 04

  And they'll do it very, you know, very easily and very quickly. And there's other solutions, I guess would be my, my bottom line is that, you know, do your research, figure it out.

• 2:45:22Speaker 05

  Yeah. Do you notice that the VA were like the DARPA of military medicine, right? If they were out there on the cutting edge.

• 2:45:28Speaker 04

  They certainly are not the DARPA.

• 2:45:29Speaker 05

  No. They, they are the most conservative medical.

• 2:45:33Speaker 04

  They're the Jiffy Lube of.

• 2:45:34Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:45:35Jack Murphy?

  Right, right. Even DARPA isn't DARPA.

• 2:45:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:45:39Jack Murphy?

  Um, well, Chad, I really appreciate you coming out here, man, and joining us and smoking some cigars and drinking some whiskey and telling us a little bit about your, you know, your story and what you went through. I mean, it's been like really informative.

• 2:45:52Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the Food Allergy Podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:46:06Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:46:17Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:46:23Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:46:29Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:46:49Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, Study Mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:47:16Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:47:46Jack Murphy?

  Formative and interesting. And I hope people get something out of it.

• 2:47:51Speaker 04

  Right on. Yeah, I appreciate you having me.

• 2:47:52Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, absolutely. I hope you.

• 2:47:54Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At The Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:48:08Speaker 00

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:48:19Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:48:24Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:48:30Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more. Because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:48:50Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:49:18Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch on Deck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:49:48Jack Murphy?

  You'll hit us up next time you come through the city. For sure. All right, guys, we will see you Tuesday and then Friday. So take care.

• 2:49:56Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:50:10Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:50:21Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:50:27Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:50:32Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:50:52Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:51:20Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:51:55Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:52:10Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:52:21Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:52:26Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:52:32Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:52:52Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:53:19Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:53:57Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:54:12Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:54:23Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:54:28Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:54:34Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:54:54Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:55:22Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses, like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:55:58Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:56:12Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:56:23Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you, you're not alone.

• 2:56:28Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:56:34Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 2:56:54Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, Study Mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 2:57:22Speaker 01

  Cash Flow Crunch on Deck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 2:57:59Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 2:58:14Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 2:58:25Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 2:58:30Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 2:58:36Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 2:58:56Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 2:59:23Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 3:00:03Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 3:00:17Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 3:00:28Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 3:00:33Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 3:00:39Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 3:00:59Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.comPARENTS to learn more.

• 3:01:27Speaker 02

  Cash Flow Crunch on Deck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amount subject to lender approval.

• 3:02:05Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 3:02:19Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic, in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 3:02:30Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 3:02:35Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 3:02:41Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today.

• 3:03:01Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 3:03:29Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 3:04:06Speaker 07

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 3:04:20Speaker 02

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to "I'm deathly allergic," in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 3:04:31Speaker 07

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 3:04:36Speaker 06

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 3:04:42Speaker 07

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat, it's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast, on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 3:05:02Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 3:05:30Speaker 01

  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 3:06:02Speaker 00

  ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help teens learn, think critically, and grow their skills. ChatGPT for Teens supports active learning by breaking concepts down. Rather than giving teens the answer, study mode helps teens work through problems, and interactive quizzes test their knowledge and provide immediate feedback. Safety protections are on by default, and parental controls offer families additional options, like setting study hours and quiet hours. Visit chatgpt.com/parents to learn more.

• 3:06:30Speaker 02

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses, like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans, up to $400,000, help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 3:07:01Speaker 07

  Why won't she answer?

• 3:07:04Speaker 07

  She's breaking up with me. I need my vape. Is she breaking up with me? She's breaking up with me. I need my vape.

• 3:07:13Speaker 07

  Why won't she answer? Is she breaking up with me? I need my vape. Do you crave nicotine when you get anxious? She's breaking up with me. Is she breaking up with me? Or do you get anxious when you crave nicotine? Break the cycle and quit nicotine with X Program by Truth Initiative.