Army Special Mission Unit Operator | Erick Miyares (throwback ep)

original airdate 4/15/22 Erick Miyares recounts his path from the Marine Corps and 7th Special Forces Group into a highly secretive Army special mission unit, conducting intelligence and advanced force operations across Afghanistan, Iraq, and other sensitive environments. He also opens up about being shot in Colombia, hunting high-level targets in Ramadi, singleton missions, hostage rescue work, and the psychological toll of spending two decades operating in the shadows. Support the show & get ad free episodes here: https://www.patreon.com/c/TheTeamHouse 00:00 – Start 02:38 – Erick’s Cuban-American Upbringing in Miami 04:18 – Joining the Marine Corps 06:13 – Airborne, Pathfinder & Becoming a Scout Sniper 07:20 – Leaving the Marines for Army Intelligence 10:12 – Becoming a SIGINT / Electronic Warfare Operator 12:42 – Getting Assigned to 7th Special Forces Group 14:32 – Life on a Special Operations Team Alpha 18:37 – Mission on the Ecuador-Colombia Border 23:13 – Ambushed by Guerrillas 27:04 – Getting Shot in His First Firefight 34:31 – Discovering the Secretive JSOC Intelligence World 35:19 – Getting Hog-Tied by Rangers During a JSOC Exercise 41:22 – Selection for a Special Mission Unit 44:06 – What Makes the Right Kind of Operator? 47:18 – Living With Ambiguity & Controlling Aggression 51:04 – The History & Mission of the Unit 58:44 – Straddling Special Operations and Intelligence 1:04:28 – 9/11 Changes Everything 1:06:01 – Early Global War on Terror Missions 1:09:10 – Afghanistan & Advanced Force Operations 1:11:20 – What AFO Operators Actually Do 1:19:33 – Hunting a High-Level Target in Ramadi 1:23:23 – Going Up Against State-Level Tradecraft 1:26:01 – Infiltrating a Cordon-and-Sweep Operation 1:28:03 – Finding the HVT and Leaving Him in Place 1:29:31 – RPG Attack & Hours of Fighting in Ramadi 1:34:44 – Building the Final Target Package 1:35:48 – Rangers Raid the Target & Seize Everything 1:39:02 – Sitting Face-to-Face With the Man He Hunted 1:41:24 – Espionage Inside a War Zone 1:41:40 – The American Hostage Rescue Mission 1:46:07 – The Psychological Toll of Constantly Switching Missions 1:49:31 – Compartmentalization, Secrets & Family Life 1:53:38 – Activating an Emergency Destruction Plan 1:57:23 – Destroy the Gear and Escape 2:03:03 – The Fear of Being Captured on a Singleton Mission 2:07:41 – When the Entire City Went Dark 2:09:40 – Treating PTSD With a Stellate Ganglion Block 2:15:05 – Helping Special Operations Veterans Get Treatment 2:18:47 – Leaving the Clandestine World Behind 2:20:25 – Opening Pandora’s Box After 20 Years 2:22:49 – Suicide, PTSD & Finally Asking for Help 2:24:24 – Becoming Erick Again After the Military 2:27:10 – What Special Operations Does to Families 2:30:26 – The Nightmare of Forgetting Who You Really Are 2:36:11 – Why Army “Spies” Struggle to Tell Their Stories 2:38:20 – Classified Trauma & Getting Help From the VA 2:42:00 – Why Secret Careers Are So Hard to Translate to Civilian Life 2:47:27 – Is This Line of Work Better for Single Men? 2:51:19 – Politics vs. Operating in a War Zone 2:55:25 – Cuban-Americans in Special Operations 2:57:03 – Why These Stories Need to Be Told 3:01:34 – Where to Find Erick & 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.

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• 1:01Speaker 06

  Tonight, we are here with a special guest, Eric Miyares. He served as a Army Special Mission Unit Operator. Just as a way of introduction, I'm just going to tell a little bit of a funny anecdote myself about when I was a young Ranger and we went out to the border of Pakistan in 2004. And when we got out there, there was already an American where we were there to set up camp up on a hilltop out there by himself, one American with an Afghan interpreter. And they're looking down at the border control point with Pakistan. And when we'd go up there to bring him like some food and water, this dude had like a big beard. He was wearing,

• 1:42Speaker 06

  I think, like, blue jeans and maybe a camo top, had all these like necklaces on and everything. And we were just, as young Rangers were looking at this guy like, who is this dude? And what in the world is he doing up here? And he was like, super chill, like, oh, hang loose, my dude. And but it was clear that he'd been left out in the sun a little bit too long. It's like, hey, maybe this guy needs to be brought back to chill out in the fob and watch some DVDs like, like a normal soldier deployed to Afghanistan. But I always tell that funny little anecdote there to allude to the fact that JSOC has these operators who are deployed sometimes in singleton missions in highly compartmentalized operations.

• 2:25Speaker 06

  And even within the military, even in the special operations community, oftentimes very little, if anything, is known about those guys or what they do. So I'm very pleased to have Eric on the show tonight and just pull back the curtain just a little bit and tell Americans about what it is that some of these guys in these programs do. So Eric, thank you for joining us tonight.

• 2:49Speaker 07

  Absolutely. Hey, it's, it's fun. I'm excited to be here. You guys are great. I love watching your shows. I love getting into the spec ops and the intel side of the this world. So thank you very much for having me.

• 3:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, absolutely, man. And could you start off with telling us, as we ask all of our guests about their origin story, about your origins, growing up in Miami as a kid, and kind of the path that eventually took you, well, first into the Marine Corps, right?

• 3:18Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. So I came to America, if you would, and my mom's belly, my mom is pregnant, and her, my grandmother, grandfather, and her siblings left in, I want to say it was May of 1971. They were able to catch essentially the last flight, one of the last flights that was leaving Cuba into the US. So very fortunate that we got that plan and that we got welcomed to the United States with with open arms. Since essentially like, you know, most Cubans, they either go to Hialeah, Miami, or they head up north, I want to say it's like New Jersey somewhere. But we ended up, obviously, in the Hialeah

• 3:58Speaker 07

  area. So born and raised there until I was 18. Essentially, you know, I went to private school, which was a bilingual Cuban-American school. So my upbringing was all this sort of that, that dual US Cuban heritage, you know, speaking Spanglish in the streets of Hialeah. And then, you know, just to mention raised by essentially was my stepdad, my mom never married, but for our terms of calling Mr. Clean, he kind of raised me and instilled sort of this level of patriotism and this, this vision of wanting to do this unique

• 4:39Speaker 07

  sort of cloak and dagger type work to keep it simple with what he had done in sort of the Bay of Pigs aspects of it. And so in 1991, the year earlier, I joined the Marine Corps, originally was supposed to be active duty to go into infantry. I think I also had seen that, you know, force recon video, and that's what I wanted to do. But I wanted to leave Hialeah, or I would have ended up either, you know, in jail, in trouble. And so I went off, I went off into the Marine Corps to do infantry. So I'll go ahead and stop there.

• 5:15Speaker 06

  Well, you spent quite a bit of time in the Marines, too, didn't you? Served as a scout sniper, if I recall correctly?

• 5:22Speaker 07

  Yeah, so I ended up doing just shy of six years, which I'll cover why I didn't finish that full contract later on, as we talked to the reasons going into into the Army. So, you know, I got finagled by by my recruiter, which, you know, 29 years later, I've learned from other, you know, folks that I've talked to that they also got hosed by their recruiters. And so my, my, my contract ended up being in the reserves with the promise that once I came back from basic training, or from School of Infantry, or my trade, that I would then go on active duty. And so for those five and a half years, I spent just about every day trying to get back, get onto active duty, or do as much active duty schools

• 6:06Speaker 07

  or or floats, or whatever I can be part of, in order to kind of earn a spot to be able to, for the Marine Corps to bring me back on. And so essentially, I was a tow gunner in Miami, which I didn't even know we had that capability. Interestingly, those guys, I just came back from the Gulf War. So my first checking in was, you know, to being a tow gunner, which a highlight was, I did get to shoot, you know, a Hialeah kid who got to shoot a tow missile. That was really cool. Did that for a little bit. And then I found out, as I was trying to continue that process, that there was an ability to go to airborne, and an organization in West Palm Beach, that was an Anglo air naval gunfire

• 6:49Speaker 07

  liaison company. And so that's where I first went to airborne school as a Marine. And actually, ironically enough, I got to go to Pathfinder as a Marine, because of that organization. So I did forward observer naval gunfire for a little bit, and then really found what I what I really enjoyed in my time in the Marine Corps. I went to a state platoon, civilians, target acquisition, up in the New Orleans area. So I was with them in and out for about three or four years. And that's actually where where I worked as a regular spotter. And then I became a scout sniper, and then spent the time doing work with the JTF Six doing counter narcotics missions.

• 7:33Speaker 06

  That's pretty cool. So yeah, we've had a few people on that did JTF Six Ops. Yeah, that was big money before nine 11. That was like the cool thing to do before nine 11. Yeah, that was where all the action was.

• 7:46Speaker 07

  Yep.

• 7:47Speaker 06

  And then how did you make that transition over to the Army? What was that kind of point? And what kind of led you to that decision?

• 7:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, so when I was in state platoon as a Marine, I was young, dumb, not focused in college. You know, just I want to preface that, that a lot of the reason and sense of urgency to get back on active duty is I ultimately wanted to kind of cut my teeth into Marine. And I had aspirations when I was in high school, and I knew I wanted to join the military, in particular, the Marine Corps, that ultimately I wanted to either go to CIA, or I wanted to go into the FBI. I think the FBI was more because one of my uncles was just scared that I'd be killed for some reason. So I threw in the hat, I'd go to the FBI, right? But I knew where I wanted, what I wanted to go do. And so the path was, you know, go to the Marine Corps, do your college, and then, and then go apply.

• 8:40Speaker 07

  Because I didn't see, I didn't think I was going to be in the Marine Corps that long. And so when I was in New Orleans, there was a whole lot of partying, a whole lot of, you know, and I almost got to a point where I was like, man, I'm going to lose my liver or whatever else that's back there. So I'm like, I'm going to come back to Miami so I can at least get back to school, because you don't have all the great influences that you did in New Orleans. And so when I came back to Miami, I think I was going back to the Angloco unit, then I met my my first wife. And then it was kind of a relationship of friendship. And at that point, she was looking to go into the National Guard, as most people did in that timeframe, this is 97, for college money. And so she's like, I'm going to be this linguist in the Army and do this intel stuff. I'm like, okay,

• 9:25Speaker 07

  that's cool. Where are we going? Monterey, California? And I was like, okay, that'd be cool. So I went as a military spouse to essentially to Monterey, Fort Ord. And then I was like, are you kidding me? Is this what the Army does? Right? So I saw a DLI from a spouse perspective. And then I started to do my research again. And as I'm over there, there wasn't, I think, the only closest unit was like, Reserve Force Recon Unit up in Nevada. I'm like, man, I don't want to travel over there. And then I just, I did some, some thinking, some soul searching, really. And I was like, okay, well, maybe, how about going to the Army as an option? Let's do this military intelligence, because I thought that that would align best at that point with going to the CIA, right? Or going to go do intel

• 10:08Speaker 07

  work, as I had planned, and that I would ultimately focus, focus on school. And so I made a mistake, joined the National Guard for a month, same thing, horrible contract aspects. And then just the next day after I joined active duty, and then signed in some port somewhere with a bunch of other former Marines that were learning how to be in the Army.

• 10:35Speaker 06

  And you went into the Army on, what was your, what was your MOS? I mean, it was an intel job this time, right?

• 10:42Speaker 07

  Yeah, it's 98 golf. So that was the SIGINT Electronic Warfare Interceptor.

• 10:50Speaker 06

  And that, I'm, do you want to talk a little bit about, you know, what that job entailed and where you got assigned?

• 10:58Speaker 07

  Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. So when I came in, uh, just because it'll probably come up later, you know, I was a proud E5 in, in, in the Marine Corps. Uh, and part of this whole negotiation too was like, hey, you're going to be an E4. I'm like, oh, get to be a corporal, right? Now you get to be a specialist. I'm like, I'm a specialist of what, right? So I started off my army career. With a, you know, a bunch of other Marines get a sea bag full of clothing that they didn't even teach me how to wear. Uh, and then, and then, and then, uh, you know, flew back to DLI, which was, by the way, phenomenal. I learned so much. Uh, cause I was a careerist, so I didn't have to apply to all of those, um, rules that were there. And actually, uh, interestingly, I met.

• 11:43Speaker 07

  Uh, what would later on would be three other former unit members that I would then go through selection with. Um, I think it's the conversations we had earlier that just kind of jarred that memory. So that was pretty neat. It was an amazing time. Uh, and so I, I, I DLI from timing with my, my former spouse who was still learning, I, I finished the Spanish. And then went to Goodfellow Air Force Base to go learn at that time to be a 98 golf. Uh, and then that started my career really with. Ironically, Russian, Russian warfare, that's what we learned. Uh, and then I want to say that they sprinkled on initially. Some of the counter insurgency and maybe some of the counter narcotics was part of that intel school. And so.

• 12:28Speaker 07

  I just loved it, right? Coming, um, as a Marine who had been, you know, a sniper, had done some stuff in JT at six, but. Just that combination of infantry and jumping out of planes and everything that I had done. And then I got to. Focus kind of back into, I've always liked academia. And so I really loved. Being an intel guy, right? Like it was just so, I guess, just because I was fortunate to have that. Hard skill, young hard skill background and then learn to be an intel guy. I think it's a really deadly conversation, uh, or a combination, excuse me. Um, and as I was finishing school of infantry, or not, excuse me, I was finishing Goodfellow.

• 13:07Speaker 07

  Um, I got kind of got hooked up and someone came up to me and said, hey, you know, what are your plans? I'm like, I've got no idea how this army thing works. I don't know where I'm going to go. And they're like, hey, we're, there's this thing called seven special forces group. Would you like to go? I'm like, okay. Sounds good. So I've got the word special in it so far, you know, this, this looks good.

• 13:26Speaker 06

  I was going to ask you that because I didn't know if, when, you know, when you went in, if you went in and active and. And DLI was basically your AIT and, and Goodfellow, you know, the follow-on. Because you had an infantry background, these hard skills, I, I imagine you would have been pu- plucked out for like a SAD A team because.

• 13:46Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 06

  They, because they're desperate for people like you.

• 13:51Speaker 07

  Yeah. And, and you know, and it's interesting that you, you did say that because I remember it and may have been DLI or maybe in, in that transition of both that they had started. I remember doing, and I still think I have the resume. It was horrible writing, horrible. I don't even know how I, I went to seventh group, you know, God bless that they, they did take me, uh, but I, I had to put in their head. I was in 11 Bravo and 11, I think Hotel also. Um, and then I had some of these hard skills, you know, airborne, right? So. As an E4, I, I guess it all aligns, Spanish, um, you know, uh, all the G, the scores you gotta have. Um, it just aligned perfect. And then there was also that, that, that buddy hookup, right? Somebody called somewhere and say you, to, to branch or whatever that was.

• 14:32Speaker 07

  Uh, hey, you may want to pull this guy. So I had direct orders from there, straight to group. So ended up spending. Two years in seventh group, which, you know, for you guys knowing, now, now this is not the conventional army. So. Um, I'd never spent one day in the conventional army, good, bad or indifferent. Uh, that was literally my world is, you know, leaving the Marines. Coming through the, the training seventh group, and that was fast and furious. And then straight to where I ended up at.

• 15:02Speaker 06

  So just for our viewers who might not know, so you, you went to a SAD A team, right? So, uh, so, uh, SAD As are a special operation teams, Alpha. Uh, they are sort of the SIGINT side of special forces. They don't go through the Q course. They're their, their own element. How was that for you being in group? Like. How was that being with Green Beret? How did they treat you? How was the reception?

• 15:30Speaker 07

  I want to say that I, I, you know, and I only just, because I saw in a photo the other day. Um, I had my gold wings on, right? Um, you know, so I was on my gold wings.

• 15:41Speaker 06

  Right.

• 15:42Speaker 07

  I think I stood on E4, E5 and you know, I may have been a little bit cocky. Uh, cause I'm a, as a native, I was excited. I was probably more gold lucky than anything, right? Um, and. I, I want to say, you know, I, I, I had a really good relationship with the, the ODAs. Never really had, uh, and I looked at it in retrospect as I went back in time, as I was retiring, I was looking at. All the awards and the write-ups and they were all written by and I'm like, man, I gotta find this guy. Captain so-and-so and Master Sergeant so-and-so. And you know, as I wrote, you know, posted just the other day, the dude who shot the guy who shot me. I'm like, man, I gotta go thank these guys. Like I'm an asshole. Like. You know, they were really good. Now, when I was in the SAD As, it was an interesting time because it was pre-G1.

• 16:28Speaker 06

  Right.

• 16:28Speaker 07

  So a lot of the, I don't think any of those guys were former anything else but army. And so when they were in a SAD A. Unfortunately, what I perceived is that a lot of those guys wanted to be ODAs. They wanted to be Green Berets.

• 16:42Speaker 06

  Right.

• 16:43Speaker 07

  I'm like, I don't, I, you know, no disrespect to anyone, but I'm like, I, I didn't want to be a Green Beret. If not, I would have. I think I'd gone down that route, but I kind of had plans, uh, my future. And at that point it, I had. Greater ambitions, right? So I was very happy to be in, in a SAD A. Um, and you know, I got exposed that seventh special forces group at that time had some really good connections with the IC. So we were very fortunate. We were across the street from Yususak, you know, Army Special Operations Command. So we got all the capabilities. My first mission was Panama. I learned and cut my teeth, uh, with one of our, um, SAD A, you know, the detachment sergeant.

• 17:24Speaker 07

  Uh, he taught me some ropes, you know, going in and out of the roads of, of Panama. And if you guys have been there, you know, you keep going the wrong way. Skip, you better find your way back. And that, that's how I grew up. And then the next couple of missions were integrated with Green Berets. Um, and I brought the languages. I brought my hard skills so they didn't have to worry about me necessarily shoot, move and communicate. I already knew how to do that. But I brought my, I think I brought my technical proficiency. Um, and, and I, I was just happy to do my job. Um, so yeah.

• 17:55Speaker 06

  How, how many people at DLI were confused and, and further on in your army career were confused by your gold wings?

• 18:04Speaker 07

  Oh, a lot, a lot. Yeah. They were, uh, they, they, they, you know, so it was funny because I did see. Someone else at some point, I remember it was somebody that had, you know, maybe two or three rockers, right? So it looked more like than my little three wings on, on, on my. My sergeant and they were wearing it. They were prior service. And it was that same whole long thing. If you put a 4187 and you put it in. But anybody who's ever read an army or military regulations, there's like 50 ways to read it.

• 18:32Speaker 06

  Right.

• 18:32Speaker 07

  Right? And at the end, you're just like, it, it doesn't say you can't because there's no equivalent on it. And for a while, somebody I think told me something and it, and it wasn't the, the military, the MI guys. It might've been, and just to keep a lower profile. When we started to go travel and sanitize for training, then we took it off anyway. So then for the longest time, I just didn't even wear anything on the uniform because we were training or going forward. To do, you know, the fit missions and stuff like that. But yeah, it was at the beginning, it was kind of a.

• 19:00Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 19:00Speaker 07

  I was like, oh crap, I, I shouldn't do that. And then after I left group, it, it just really didn't matter because.

• 19:06Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 19:07Speaker 07

  I stopped, I stopped doing any of that. So.

• 19:09Speaker 06

  Tell us about this operation, uh, down on the Ecuador-Columbia border where you guys ran into ELN.

• 19:17Speaker 07

  Yeah. So that, well, that, that was a, that was interesting. And that was kind of the start of a lot of things for me. And I want to say that was my. Second mission in seventh, seventh group. Um, it was your, your typical fit mission, flying into. Uh, Quito and from Quito, we were going to do this, uh, it's to the Putumayo area. So it was probably, I don't know, like a 12 hour, 11 hour drive with. An entire, uh, company of, you know, everything that we can take to support. Uh, the police over there in, in that training. And so my mission, um, was to do force protection as a SAD A. So I was in the, the lead vehicle with the commander, the sergeant major.

• 19:59Speaker 07

  And I think like a commo guy, it was, it was a commo SF guy. And then it was, you know, token me. Um, and my responsibility was, you know, essentially do the, the intel guy, do the SIGINT stuff. Um, obviously I had a, a, a pre-brief prior to leaving of what potentially could be threat. And I think it was like that 18 box. Kind of working with him and, and, uh, so yeah, it was your typical, it was, it's a really good mission because at that point it wasn't just flying in somewhere. And then just training the guys, like you had to do a movement and through. You know, it isn't, it, it isn't, it was in Afghanistan at the time, but it's still, you're in the, you're at that, you're at that border area. And you're a bunch of gringos transporting, you know, million dollars worth of capability. So you, you are a moving target.

• 20:43Speaker 07

  Uh, and so I'm in the lead vehicle. We're going town to town to town. Uh, and I think I've mentioned it before, like.

• 20:50Speaker 07

  I knew my, my, my trade. I was pretty decent at it. Uh, but obviously I relied on the skills. A lot of the Green Berets that were there, right? These guys have been long, long tooth guys in seventh group. I traveled in and out of Latin America more than I did. So they really understood. So I kinda, uh, I wanna say the combo got the combo SF guy that was next to me kinda helped me in, in that perspective bounce. What I was interpreting from an intel side and what he did from, from just his skills and his experience. Uh, and so we were kinda bounced that off as we would go town by town. People stopping to take piss breaks. Uh, but then, you know, here's where, uh, in that convoy, a lot of the, my skills now in the streets of Miami helped me, right?

• 21:31Speaker 07

  Like that definitely had, I, I've, I've, I've always listened to that little voice. For, uh, for, for the longest time throughout my entire career. And so two or three towns, two little, three little towns prior to where we got hit. Uh, where the ambush, uh, that was already something, uh, an engagement going on. It was just desolate, right? Like you kinda see in the movies, you pull it in and you're like, where the hell is everybody at? Like, it's not supposed to be, right? I can see that there's cell tower, it's the oil pipeline. There's all of these, you know, met T type stuff. You're like, okay, this, this is not right. And so you kinda get that indication. And then as you get to the next one, there's a little bit of traffic. Sort of on the Siget world and, and Siget's pretty easy, right? And a lot of it belongs there. It doesn't belong there. You rather listen to it and you can tell.

• 22:14Speaker 07

  Um, I think at that point that, you know, a lot of that comms in there, um, is, uh, which they will later survive. You know, they, they can say like, hey, there's three, three blue cows in the truck. Well, that's not what that means, right? This is just a nefarious talking where generally a regular, uh, you know, a person who learned Spanish may not understand that. Someone who's from the streets is gonna understand, you know, some of that. And so that's really what I was queuing on. Uh, cause this wasn't like, you know, Cuban, you know, order of battle and Russian order of battle. And this was more thug level or whatever can happen in there. And so as we get to the, the last town, as we're leaving and it's starting to get, you know, uh, get dark and it's kinda the whole thing. The road goes along, um, to our right.

• 22:58Speaker 07

  If you would, as we were moving to the Pulte Maya area, uh, there's the oil pipeline that just runs all the way across, right? And as we're coming around a bend and we turn left, it's kind of a huge blind spot. And as we come, come around and then now we can see forward down the road and then the S turns, uh, it's a little, it's a, it's like a bridge, a wooden bridge. And there's a bus, a school bus there. And that was like your atypical, the dudes are robbing them. They were really kidnapping, uh, um, a politician that was there. And I guess they didn't know we were coming or they may have known we were coming. As I'm coming around, I, I get that, that unique break of squelch, right? That follows, um, with some, some spoken language. But as we come around, I, I give an indicator.

• 23:43Speaker 07

  And as soon as we come around, we start getting shots fired. Uh, you know, and there was that big, oh crap, like, this is not supposed to be happening. Um, which was, you know, part of that. So I'll, I'll stop there for a second.

• 23:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, that's, I mean, this is a pretty big deal too. I mean, prior to nine 11 that you have Americans on, I don't wanna say clandestine, but it's kind of low visibility. You're not trying to make your presence known. And then you run into, uh, the enemy and start taking fire.

• 24:15Speaker 07

  Yeah, you take fire. I mean, you, you stumble across, you know, their activities, um, you know, and to go forward originally was, it was, uh, they were declared to be banditos. Uh, but that was really also because of the host nation. Uh, as you know, you know, the U, Americans are coming with Fed money. There's lots of money. They don't want the US to pull out because it wasn't assessed that there's bad guys, right? So you're gonna downplay as if you're in any of these, you know, I don't wanna say terrible countries, if you're any of these other countries and you're supporting that nation and something happens, you know, they can look bad. They don't want the US to pull out, you know, and then ultimately I get shot or, you know, and so that means now somebody's down and this is gonna go up the, essentially go up the flagpole, right?

• 25:00Speaker 07

  Um, so yeah, so initially it was, it was banditos later on as they're processing everything from the intel side and as, you know, the heroic actions from the Green Berets and everything that happened. And then, you know, they're, uh, the MI side and this, uh, USAC side is looking, hey, do we give this guy a Purple Heart? Or we not give this guy a Purple Heart? Do we give this guy, you know, what awards are we gonna give for these actions? Cause it did happen.

• 25:26Speaker 06

  Right.

• 25:27Speaker 07

  Then the information surfaced and USAC was amazing. I mean, I got a lot of the general officer notes, um, and, and everybody was very supportive. And cause they're like, hey, it did happen. People did get shot at. We killed people, you know, they saved lives of guys that were about to get taken as hostages. And then they found out, yeah, hey, these are dudes that were ill in or far, they're training down there and they're doing this as part of money. And then it goes back to the order, you know, the information that we knew about the way that they operate. Uh, but that was a, for me personally, well, I'd imagine, and I left group shortly after that. So I don't know what, how, you know, SF group or at least seventh group changed in time because I was gone shortly after that.

• 26:11Speaker 06

  I mean, that was a problem, uh, that seventh group was having a lot, I think during like the eighties and, and like, uh, the early nineties, right? As they weren't getting recognized, they weren't getting combat infantry badges. They weren't getting Purple Hearts. They, you know, that, because the, because they weren't in an official war or whatever.

• 26:30Jack Murphy?

  We've talked about that with Greg.

• 26:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, that, that they were being kinda left out, uh, you know, left out to dry.

• 26:38Speaker 07

  Yeah. I mean, the, the threat was there. I can tell you that. Cause I, I would then go

• 26:43Speaker 07

  to Columbia, the next mission, and then we ramped up force protection. My force protection was kinda one of those things like, ah, okay. A lot of the old timers in the team were like, no man, hey, there, there are people that are gonna wanna rug us. We're Americans. We bring nice fancy stuff. You're out there and you're also training the police or the military. We're gonna come after them. You can see where that cycle goes. It doesn't need to be war. Essentially is a war, right? War on drugs or war on, on, on, on their neighborhood. If you were like a turf war. So yeah, I remember, uh, and again, at this point I was young where I learned a lot from the, you know, the, uh, the team sergeants there and, you know, we were carrying the fanny packs and we would go to the gym and we would

• 27:23Speaker 07

  protect each other. Where's your gun? Where didn't you keep your gun? Because there was that threat level. Uh, it wasn't, it wasn't like it is like if you would go to Afghanistan, but it was there.

• 27:33Jack Murphy?

  How, how, how did that go down though? Where, uh, on that operation where you got shot and, and had to be evacuated?

• 27:41Speaker 07

  Yeah. So, um, as the vehicle came around, we took, I wanna say maybe the first two shots, they, uh, the driver went forward a little bit and then the determination was to, to bolt back. Cause there was nowhere to go forward, right? So we needed to get some, some distance between the bridge, the hard bridge, cause it was dark at that point. And then I, uh, I wanna say they can see or acknowledge cause of the, the, the beams of light from, from the vehicle. They can see the first two guys and then there were some guys on, on the, uh, on the hilltop or along the hilltop. And so we backed up, uh, and for you guys that have been in those little crappy one-way roads. You know, luckily the guy who's driving, no, don't go too far back. Cause then it's a cliff down or you're gonna hit the pipe.

• 28:21Speaker 07

  So we got enough, you know, lucky just pulled back enough, um, that when the two, the commander and, and the charge major opened the doors to start engaging. We were then in the back and I think the combo guy had his radio up, his, was able to get to his weapon faster. I had all of this crap on me, right? Uh, lesson learned for the rest of my career, how to keep everything tidy. Uh, and so as we open up now, there's only, again, it's a one-way road, you know, hill, hill on the left. And then a, a drop, a dark drop down, which you would potentially hit the oil pipe that was there. And so we could not, we cannot engage because we had the other two guys in front of us.

• 29:01Speaker 07

  And so my thing was to come out, I came out the back rear door was essentially I knew to, to jump over and try to get into sort of the ditch. I just didn't know how, how deep the ditch was. So as I'm untangling, getting ready to move and to jump, as I'm jumping over, you know, I get nicked in the inner thigh and it goes out the exterior, uh, of my right thigh and then just kinda come crashing down. And then, you know, it was like, oh crap, right? You know, I feel the heatness in, in my leg. There's a lot going on. This is my first engagement in, in, in combat. Uh, and I think I've mentioned it before, like it was, it was interesting for me to mentally go from, okay, I'm gonna do my job as the, the SAD guy, right?

• 29:46Speaker 07

  Yeah, I'm gonna do some, some typical be a team member, but that's what these guys are here for. But once I got shot, now it's kinda like, okay, this is personal, right? And that adrenaline kinda kicks in. And so that, that marine in you comes out and you're like, okay, got it. Now, now I'm going to be part of this team, part of this, this, this aspect of it. As I hit the ground, as I do that quick, you know, that quick combat lifesaver check, if you would, like, all right, I'm okay. Go for my, I think it was like a nine millimeter at the time.

• 30:14Jack Murphy?

  Boys are still there.

• 30:16Speaker 07

  What's that?

• 30:16Jack Murphy?

  Make sure the boys are still.

• 30:17Speaker 06

  There.

• 30:18Speaker 07

  Yeah, right. Well, yeah, that's just like, okay.

• 30:21Speaker 06

  It's a package, package check.

• 30:23Speaker 07

  You know, you you shot my brand new North Face pants or are you, I think they were North Face pants. I'm like, fuck. I'm still paying for those things. Uh, and then I go look up and then now this ditch is really high. And I'm like, okay, this is now I'm gonna have to either crawl up and then, you know, obviously you alert your team and say, hey, I'm I'm hit or whatever I said. Uh, and then it it appeared within within seconds a minute that that then either the medic or maybe one of the guys that was in the back vehicle actually came came to see me, kind of double check and he had the comms to be able to relate back. Uh, hey, you know, he he's been he been hit.

• 30:56Speaker 06

  How how far, if that was your inner thigh, how far was it from your femoral artery? That's a really dangerous place to get shot.

• 31:03Speaker 07

  Really, really, really close. Uh, I'm very lucky. Uh, when I've, again, in I don't think I even looked at the x-rays or even cared when I got back to, um, Walmac, is it Walmac? Whatever it is, is that?

• 31:18Speaker 06

  At Bragg.

• 31:19Speaker 07

  I never looked, yeah, at Bragg. I never looked at it. Um, I only till I was retiring that now you're making the case to the VA. I got shot.

• 31:26Speaker 06

  Right.

• 31:27Speaker 07

  How how many percentage can I get that they they looked at all of that stuff and they're like, hey, man, you, that was really close. I was like, yeah, I never. I never really went back, but I I mean, as I feel it, it's really right. It's gotta be centimeters that it went through it.

• 31:40Speaker 06

  That's crazy.

• 31:40Speaker 07

  I do know that the medic wanted to try to put like some rod. He's like, I've got to, you know, first combat. He's like, I gotta do all these procedures for you.

• 31:49Speaker 06

  Right.

• 31:50Speaker 07

  Yeah, you're not doing that, dude.

• 31:51Speaker 06

  Right, right, right, right.

• 31:52Jack Murphy?

  And and of course, you you got a CI B if out of all of this and a combat patch, uh.

• 31:59Speaker 07

  I I didn't get anything out of that. Yeah, I I get I get a, yeah, they they all got their, I mean, they're all, you know, they they got their awards. They were they were world tech and it was both documented. They they did their part. Uh, I think I left out of there, obviously, my the the first Purple Heart, um, which, again, lots of respect for for the professionals. I saw the paperwork that they had to do to get that to get that filed in that time. And and forever, I took two things out of that. It is take care of your people when it comes time to award, because I saw, you know, from captains to, you know, E sixes, all the way to three stars, pushing this paperwork forward. So I believe in the process. Sorry to kind of hijack that a little bit, but that.

• 32:44Speaker 06

  No, yeah, no, no. It's it's your show, so you're not hijacking.

• 32:47Speaker 07

  Oh, you're good.

• 32:48Speaker 06

  Uh, and actually, talking about a package check is a good segue. It's a good segue to our first sponsor of the night, which is Chill Boy Undies, because you gotta keep the boys chill. Right? Um, check out chillboys.com. They sell great boxer briefs, uh, socks, long johns. Um, they make them out of bamboo cotton, which is, I mean, you've been like in hot areas down in Latin America, over in the in the desert, like keeping keeping the boys chill is a primary, you know? You don't want that from under growing. So, uh, so check out chillboys.com. Very comfortable boxer briefs. I really like them. I I mean, they're super.

• 33:33Jack Murphy?

  I I really like their socks also.

• 33:35Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 33:35Jack Murphy?

  And they're wearing them right now. They're.

• 33:37Speaker 06

  Lot lighter and it's a lot more comfortable than than regular cotton. Um, promo code TEAM15 for 15% off. That's chillboys.com. TEAM15 for 10 or 15% off your first purchase.

• 33:52Jack Murphy?

  And then our second, uh, sponsor for tonight's show is Boyki's. Bill Tong, uh, Dave and I eat this. I was eating this on the last show. People got mad at me.

• 34:02Speaker 06

  Oh, really?

• 34:03Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 34:03Speaker 06

  Uh, it's because you had your elbows on the table.

• 34:05Jack Murphy?

  Because of my lack of profession.

• 34:06Speaker 06

  Had you been refined and had something.

• 34:08Jack Murphy?

  By wearing a bow tie, yeah.

• 34:10Speaker 06

  Um, yeah, we love this. I mean, we we truly love this. Uh, if you're a fan of beef jerky, if you're a fan of beef snacks, you'll love Bill Tong and especially Boyki's Bill Tong. It's, uh, better for you than beef jerky. It's tastier than beef jerky.

• 34:25Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, it's really good. And there's also the there's the normal one that Dave, oh, no, that's the chili.

• 34:29Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 34:29Jack Murphy?

  The chili is really hot. It's even hot for me. Um, but then there's also the normal, non-spicy, traditional.

• 34:35Speaker 06

  You're Irish. What do you mean even hot for me?

• 34:37Jack Murphy?

  Dude, I love spicy food. I do. I grew up eating Portuguese food.

• 34:42Speaker 06

  Eric, have you have you had Bill Tong before?

• 34:45Speaker 07

  I've not, but I will.

• 34:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, we'll we'll send you some of the Boyki's. Like, it is good, good stuff.

• 34:49Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 34:49Speaker 06

  Highly recommend it.

• 34:50Jack Murphy?

  So, boykies.com, use TEAM10 to get 10% off your order. Uh, the that's the promo code TEAM10 for 10% off off your order at boykies.com. So, back to you, Eric. Um, you obviously, thank God, survived this encounter down on the Colombian border. You said you had another, uh, fit mission down to Colombia with Seventh Group. When does this idea or when do you even first hear that there's this secretive JSOC intelligence unit? Um, I mean, I I think especially at that time in the in the late 1990s,

• 35:28Jack Murphy?

  uh, no one even knew these guys existed, really. When did this idea or what when did when did knowledge, uh, of this unit's existence even creep in into your awareness? And what made you make that decision to kind of take the jump over?

• 35:42Speaker 07

  You know, there's something you just said that just jarred my memory, uh, and I'm gonna make a joke here probably to you is when I got hogtied by a bunch of Rangers on an abandoned airfield on a on a JSOC exercise. So, true story. So, how I actually even came to understand what JSOC was and even, I didn't even know what the tiers would be. I didn't know any of that. While while while in group, I think the only thing I participated in was at the SEER school. Right? So they need they needed bodies. I think they, I don't, uh, maybe they needed a little brown guy to play a part. I I did go be like an extra at at SEER school, uh, there at Port Bragg. And so I kind of saw a world that I wasn't, I I didn't, I wasn't aware of when I was a Marine.

• 36:28Speaker 07

  Um, and and definitely not while I was in MI or or ASADE or or in group. Um, and then there's a couple of guys that came in, you know, typical, came in the little blue blazers with gold buttons. Uh, and, you know, my dead sergeant tells me, hey, man, you need to go report over here because they're doing a casting call, uh, interviews for an exercise. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. You know, and then he's a Spanish speaker. So there was something that they said that then I felt, all right, cool. I can be, I can be of use. And so I went through this interview process and they made me talk. They wanted to know, made me read these lines and essentially, ironically, I then end up playing a park, a commander for a, uh, you know, Latin American terrorist group

• 37:10Speaker 07

  for an exercise. So I, it's the first time I get to grow my beard. I get to, you know, and as an intel guy, it was interesting because I could then go to the skip if you would have been looked this up. So I I got to really rehearse rather than just being like somebody random that they got a group to play a character in one of these JRX exercises. And so I then during that, um, the, you know, backside of being a target, so I was essentially the number one target or the number two target for this exercise. So JSOC brought everything to bear. And I got to see it from that perspective, right? I got and I got to see it because I had my lines and then I I got to go to like the little talk where

• 37:55Speaker 07

  they're orchestrating. And then I remember this one guy, um, just kind of to your story of the hippie, you know, in the mountains. He just looked different, right? This guy just carried himself different, long hair, that blue coat. It seems like he wore that everywhere, right? And he was just authoritative, just telling everybody he knew everything what he was doing and capabilities and assets and the boys. And I'm like, oh, man, that guy's pretty cool. But then I get told to go off and then they're gonna capture me and have this little piece of paper on you. Don't say anything and talk on the radio. And subsequently, I didn't know what a direct action hit would be or a hostage, you know, I didn't know what that would be. But I felt the fucking concussion grenades, right? And I then quickly learned backwards.

• 38:40Speaker 07

  Uh, I knew that they were assets, uh, because I was as a, as a, I was at that time, I was just a Sade. There were capabilities at hand that didn't make sense to what I knew, right? As in, as a, as an E5 and a Sade, um, you know, with with a Sig and gear or capabilities. Um, I knew so much. But when this exercise was unfolding, I'm like, how the hell are these guys gonna do that? Who the hell are these two? How the, right? Like, I was really inquisitive of how they were gonna find me. And there was things being brought to bear that I had no idea. And obviously, a guy with the the the blue blazer wouldn't tell me, uh, till, you know, at the dead of night,

• 39:22Speaker 07

  they found me. It happened to be in this one with the Rangers and all due respect. Those dudes came in, they stormed in, hogtied the crap out of me. I was still with the concussion, whatever they they threw in there and I'm hogtied. Uh, and finally, one guy finally found that little piece of paper. I'm like, dude, if you if you did all that to me, you better have found that. SEC, right? You better have found that fucking thing. Other lesson learned. And so from that, when I went back and went through the debriefing, I I talked to that one guy. He was he was a sergeant major at the time. He was a sergeant major. And then all I know was to the effect of, hey, guys are gonna be coming um, in the months to be to show up for the, uh, the pitch, the recruiting pitch.

• 40:05Speaker 07

  And so I then went back and told somebody that was in charge of me. I was like, hey, I'm interested to do this. Um, between training and stuff like that. And I and I went and then it was two guys that ended up being forever, uh, two of my greatest mentors, right? Uh, uh, you know, just really quick, hopefully, a lot of organizations, when they send folks to do the recruiting, you send your best to the best because that impression lasts forever. Uh, and it was, in fact, it lasted forever. Uh, A, the guy that ran the exercise or that aspect of the exercise, I would then work for him or know who he was. And then the two guys that came for recruiting. Uh, I don't remember much, but I, whatever they pitched, I wanted to do it because I just remember being hogtied

• 40:50Speaker 07

  and and and all of that. So that mystique, again, I knew there was no videos. There was nothing. Um, and then I applied. Um, and they would basically said, here's a card. We'll call you. Don't contact us. And then that's it. And then then I and then I went and that's when I got shot and came back. And I was like, oh, crap, I know I gotta go through some selection process. And then at that point, I had heard bits and pieces, but there was nothing being talked about at group, nothing. Um, I I want to say that there was one guy that was a former guy that hey, came back. There were some incidents, uh, unfortunately, uh, fatal, uh, that I didn't know that this guy did come from somewhere.

• 41:33Speaker 07

  But he was pretty dinged up mentally and I filed that later on, which is what what I do now for a lot of the vet and suicide.

• 41:42Speaker 07

  After I got shot, came back and then I knew I just needed to train and then did did end up getting that magical phone call. Hey, here's some information, show up and you're going to go through your selection process.

• 41:54Jack Murphy?

  What can you tell us about the selection process? Because I've had some conversations with people who actually actually said they had a good time at the selection course and thought it was a very challenging experience where they were kind of asked to think outside the box.

• 42:08Speaker 07

  Yeah, for simplicity, that that is, you know, and I'll Eric will just speak on his personal, which is going to probably qualify a lot of that.

• 42:17Speaker 07

  I went every time I went through something, I knew more and more than that's where I wanted to be. Again, I never saw it in the Marine Corps. I never saw it at group. I didn't even read about it in a book, right? During that time, I didn't. Maybe I could have correlated it to a movie or something. It was every time something was done, I was just enamored by it. I was enamored by the the preciseness, the timeliness, the exactness. The no feedback, right? The no feedback aspect of it. I don't know, it might have been something from my childhood. It's just the way it was, right? Like, and so it just, it was hard. It was physically. It was physically hard, mentally hard. I think it was the good piece. Very individual aspects of it, which I enjoyed.

• 43:02Speaker 07

  And then there was always that mystique, right? You know, you start with so many and then one day so many are gone and you keep on going down and you're and what that told you is if you're going through all of this, you want to be part of an organization that has high standards. Right? And so I remembered that in all and it's just the way things rang, the littleness. I was just, I was just attracted to that compartmentalization, to that mind challenging, to that you're not going to figure it out, right? Like you, nobody, nobody talked about it. Nobody knew and the people that said some stuff, I remember in my class, you're just like, okay, you need to get chapped out of the army because you're just talking wacky shit. Right? Like, we're not here looking for aliens, like.

• 43:48Speaker 07

  So, so it, it forever, I was, you know, obviously really proud to have been selected. But many times in my career, and I think we talked about this earlier, as we transitioned into GWAT and then as certain organizations changed in time, I would always revert back to selection as the core of why they select people. And that in essence is

• 44:21Speaker 07

  your selection is an indicator of what you may have to do and the possibility, because in those selections, you're going to be tested across the spectrum and that spectrum is tied back to obviously an organization's requirements for the people that they need to do certain missions.

• 44:39Jack Murphy?

  What do you think that core is that they're selecting for? Like, well, I guess I guess I'm kind of asking that question of like, what is the quintessential operator, which I know is kind of a broad and maybe unfair question in some ways. But what do you think that that those qualities are?

• 44:53Speaker 07

  You know, the ability for ambiguity. Right? The ability, and it's been said many times to live and think in the gray is very difficult. That ability, again, I, you know, I'll do respect to everyone, but every Marine, every rifleman, every SEAL, every other operator, every, you may not have the mindset to take off and do what is needed, right? And Dave, you can relate to it, which is that, you know, at the in the IC world, in the tradecraft world is, hey, come back and fight another day. Right? And they always depending your, you know, the old instructors from the old Cold War will tell you,

• 45:36Speaker 07

  you know, don't be that ranger who has to take that hill. You might have to make that determination. You evaluated and you said, I will come back tomorrow. And a lot of by DNA, if you would, you know, the infantry people, the the more of the special operations, dragon, you know, dragon knuckles, knuckle draggers are going to want to use that adrenaline. And so the type of people you need is that person who's able to think emotional intelligence. Right? It is critical. That ability to go, nope, that compartmentalization, intelligence, to be smart, thinking out of the box. Yes, you know, that those things, those are, those are key.

• 46:18Speaker 07

  And then there's things you're just not going to be comfortable, right? That a lot of people are going to be like, hey, I didn't join the military for that. But that's great. Thank you for your, you know, we saw that a lot. Thank you for your patriotism continuing. You're going to leave here and you're going to do great things. But this may not be for you and because this world, we're actually not going to tell you about it. And so there aren't very many people that are going to go do something. Not being told because you knew when you guys went to Ranger School, what Ranger School was about. You knew about SF, you knew about probably the agency might be a little bit different, but everything in the military. But this world, no, because that's the type of world you're going to operate in, right? And so Singleton, two, three, four ambiguity. So that ability really, it's simple

• 47:00Speaker 07

  to operate and be trusted. And so there's a integrity is huge. Yeah. Your word, your word is it. And and then so your analytical process to process the information. Not only as an individual, because you work in team and you you're able to talk to each other and then an analyst is going to take it, but it all starts with that trust that that guy really go do that he did he self assess, how many people really know to self assess. Hey, man, I'm hurt. Yeah, it was one thing to muscle through a long walk than to go. I may need to stop. It's okay for me to stop because the mission I got to do tomorrow is going to take me 18 more hours to do. And then I don't know what's going to happen. So I need to have some reserves, right?

• 47:43Speaker 07

  So that hopefully that answers the mindset of it. And then, and then the last one, and if I would is I mean, you, you gotta be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Right? Like you've seen some of the pictures and there's, there's, I mean, I'm not the only one that's done this, right? This can relate to guys doing other sort of intel intel work, which requires more of that mindset. But is, hey, you don't know what you're going to need to be tomorrow and that can be in a variety of ways, which I think you'll probably cover on later on, but it starts there.

• 48:15Speaker 06

  And I, you know, it's interesting because one of the things you said is, is, you know, the ability to do what it takes. And I think a lot of people think when they think of that, they think of like from a shooter perspective to kill a bad guy or to, you know, take the shot. But sometimes it more like in a DEA scenario, it's like not taking down the bad guy, knowing they're doing harm, but waiting to collect on the bigger picture. Like that type of thing is hard for people to walk away from. You know, it's like

• 48:49Jack Murphy?

  Tactical patience.

• 48:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, it's, so sometimes doing what it takes isn't, isn't like the the gung ho, yeah, I'm gonna sue Espante or, you know, just charge in here and blast this person. I'm okay with killing bad guys.

• 49:05Jack Murphy?

  Leroy Jenkins.

• 49:06Speaker 06

  It's living. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's living in a, in a much more

• 49:13Speaker 06

  you know, kind of obscure world of I know this person is actively hurting people, but it's not my job at this point to stop them from hurting these people because there's a larger picture that that's being taken in.

• 49:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, you, you guys both said something and, and again, you're, and now I'm fortunate that post-processing and when I went to NYCO, the National Intrepid Center of Excellence for traumatic brain injuries, it's generally here that in Walter Reed area, we get a lot of special operators that that come that are, you know, 15, 20 years into career and these guys are burnt out and the command sent them to this one month program. And so one of the key things about NYCO and traumatic brain injuries and PTS, if you would, is based on triggers, right? And so when we did this exercise really quick on triggers, I was, it's going to kind of almost be like a joke.

• 50:08Speaker 07

  Like I was there with the SEAL, I was there with a guy from Fort Bragg, and I think it was another SF guy and then there's me. And interestingly, and the SEAL came from, from a higher tier level. And their triggers and the mentality, again, nothing, nothing wrong with any of them, but it's just that, that by default. By default, they're going to, their triggers are different than our triggers. Our triggers are very suppressed. You know, if you bump into me, I'm just going to go away. If you hit my car downtown, you know, the streets of Patientville, Haiti, I'm just going to keep on, because the mission is more important. You have to be able to control that adrenaline. And yes, I can pull out my gun and I can shoot them. And yes, I can pull out my knife. We can do all of that.

• 50:52Speaker 07

  But it is that emotional ability in in in those triggers. So when we did this exercise, all my triggers were different than theirs.

• 50:59Jack Murphy?

  That's interesting.

• 51:00Speaker 07

  Because my requirement was to be for us to be gray. And gray is not, you know, that only cloak and dagger, but it's those emotions.

• 51:11Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 51:11Speaker 07

  Right? Like you're, I'm not going to, if you, you know, as you know this from a FISPER spent a foreign intelligence service, someone is going to probe you. Well, a lot of these Marines, right? You know, these wound up guys are they're they're gonna, they're gonna, you're gonna fail that test. You're gonna show that you're an aggressor where you have to be able to be able to control that. You just go, okay, I got something else that I gotta protect.

• 51:34Jack Murphy?

  So Eric, you did get selected, of course, and I was wondering if we could take a moment here because I know you're a bit of a a student of the the history behind it. If you could tell us a little bit about the unit history now that, you know, you're getting read onto the mission and onto the unit. And I know there's plenty of things you're not able to speak about, but are you able to talk to us a little bit about the the unit history, why it came about, why it exists? How it developed over time?

• 51:59Speaker 07

  Um, yeah, I'll do my best to navigate. Uh, and and so obviously there was a a unique requirement a long time ago when a lot of these other um organizations came, right? And so there's a from my background and just to to keep it simple, obviously, you know, you know, special operations and intelligence and the importance of intelligence at at a tactical operation and strategic requirement. And in a particular strategic, right? That very hard on the ground intelligence with certainty. Uh, you know, to be enablers for people who have another job, right? Another another tier organization who has something to do. And and so that's a, that's a kind of an origin story of the requirement, right? For unique special operations intelligence that keeps it simple.

• 52:43Speaker 07

  Um, and then the history. So I always found history in in that regards, A, as a childhood growing up because of my stepdad and sort of uh, the Cuban background and and what um, why pay a big, you know, the the Bay of Pigs? I didn't understand it in high school, but I did ironically, when I went to Goodfellas to be a military intelligence, that was something that I learned. I learned the insides and out from the intel of the Bay of Pigs and and the requirement for intelligence. And so when I, when I start getting to the unit, you know, these things start to kind of combine, kind of my my life at being at at at Seventh Group, which is special operations and then being an intel guy.

• 53:23Speaker 07

  And then some of the things from my childhood uh with my stepfather at that kind of Bay of Pig world. And so getting into the unit and um I was a young guy. So as in any of these organizations, they skip, they go to the corner and draw, right? Like you gotta earn your keep, right? Like it's, and so you know that because that's kind of part of selection. That's part of the course. And so when you you step in the first day, you know your place, right? Uh, and then they bring you in wo- wo- open arms, but then you just, there's just so many things going on and things that you won't, you won't be exposed to in training. Uh, obviously, because if you're not selected, then then just like anything should be compartmentalized. And then when you get in there

• 54:05Speaker 07

  and depending where you go and you do kind of like the uh a a unit history, they're very good at at at uh at at um corporate level, if you would, at an organization uh sharing its history, where we come from. So now you understand because you're inside, excuse me, you're inside the fold, right? So you get some of that. And then I happen to be that the teams that I went into were full of history, full of the guys that did stuff, some of the the the, you know, the the ninjas, as we call them, these are the skills wise. And so when I think I mentioned it to you, when when you're sitting in there and you're having some of your briefings or you're you're you're getting in there or you're having some of your team talk, right at the team room and you're having a drink, these stories come on and you're like, you fucking kidding me? Like, we did that? You did that?

• 54:50Speaker 07

  And everybody's just humble, yeah, we did this and we did that and we were part of this. You know, a lot of it wasn't the, hey, my, you know, my, my, my sock is bigger than yours. It is, hey, man, start learning because you got to get into those shoes quick. And you've got to be able to understand the spectrum because they don't teach you this in schoolhouse. You gotta be ready for the spectrum of what the the possible is. And so, yeah, you're seeing, you know, and I think that time we didn't have, we didn't have computers. So I remember part of my day was come in, work out, go do combatives, go do some technical stuff. And then as if I was getting ready to go, I'd have to read on paper, the daily sit reps. And so you're reading these sit reps and it's got to be like reading a, you know, a Jack Carr book. You're just like,

• 55:36Speaker 07

  are you serious? Like, these dudes are out there? Like, you you didn't even meet these guys and you're like, oh, my God. And then you read the other folder of some, you know, there's 10 things going on in the world. And then all of a sudden, and there's this drawer of all of the other stuff. So I got to read them. Right? And then there was a lot of history. So I learned early on of of people. I mean, we we would celebrate what individuals did because they became myths. And it was okay. It's kind of, I think I mentioned it once. It's kind of like being like on a the Indians who sit around the campfire and talk about how they slayed, I don't know, whatever, and how they did something. And then that instilled in me, I I I don't think the 20 years I were there, I I learned all the history. I was fortunate. Uh, a lot of the the gray beards brought me in and and and talked to me about

• 56:20Speaker 07

  these stories and there was kind of a passing on of the history. Um, which is an honor to be sort of bestowed just this this information, which unfortunately it got, it's got to stay in your head.

• 56:33Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 56:33Speaker 07

  Uh, till you talk to, talk to others. But uh, yeah, that's, that was my, go ahead.

• 56:37Jack Murphy?

  I I was just wondering, how was that for you from going from the Marine Corps, which is very focused on Esprit de Corps, very focused on history? I mean, you get history classes during boot camp, you know? Um, uh, and then going someplace where the history is so fragmented and threaded that you really have to track it down on your own if you want to know it?

• 57:07Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's a good point. I I don't, uh, that that kind of probably, you know, answers, answers some folks' questions like, hey, why why does it seem that you're so much more passionate uh about being a Marine, right? That whole once a Marine, always a Marine. Uh, but that's where I started. And and that's how, when I left the streets of Hialeah and I went into the Marine Corps, I got indoctrinated into the Marine Corps history. And so in and out was Marine Corps history forever. And then my time in the Army and the right in the in Seventh Group was too quick, right? It was fast and furious. I was in and I was out. And then when I came to the unit, it was all based about history, uh, because of its origins. It's about, there's also this piece of, hey, buddy, this is for real.

• 57:47Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 57:49Speaker 07

  Your actions, home, forward, back, left and between, what you say, who you marry, who you talk to, what you purchase, what you wear, affects the organization.

• 58:00Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 58:00Speaker 07

  And so that ties back into the history and into the why and it and in in in simple places in into the level of what you're operating at. And it sinks in sometime. It really does sink in, right? When you start going up the ranks, I think by time guys are E89s, you know, you start understanding more of the inner workings of money of um of uh charter, you start understanding uh authorities.

• 58:28Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 58:28Speaker 07

  And once you look at these authorities, you're looking across, right? And and I always studied also uh intelligence um as the intelligence community. So I knew, oh, wow, okay, this organization, not only in the hallways, but in documents, like you're for real, right? You're given a lot of money. You have a lot of uh your requirements are are at that level. Uh, and then I experienced that, you know, and we'll get into where I did the typical tactical mission, you know, running around the the mountains of Afghanistan to a strategic mission, which is there's serial chance, you know, there's, hey, there's no rigor room for compromise. I mean, which is different than being shot in the leg or getting hit by an RPG compromise. In essence, it's really not an option. So history was important to understand.

• 59:12Jack Murphy?

  When when you say the the spectrum of the possible, I mean, it sounds like uh, a lot of the guys at the unit had really everything thrown at them uh as as far as mission profiles, types of missions, that that you mentioned the title authorities. Um, in in one sense, it sounds like the dream job that you can kind of do whatever it is you need to do. I that's maybe the wrong term to to use, but I mean, you have different means to accomplish your missions and and probably you guys have a a wider left and right limits to do that than probably some of the other units. Um, but I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the difficulties or

• 59:51Jack Murphy?

  or maybe not of straddling that world between special operations and the intelligence community and sort of existing in that in that gray area?

• 1:00:01Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. Um, so by definition, there isn't, and maybe it's changed since I've been out. I always referenced, you know, hey, I got out two years ago and the world could have changed since then. Um, nor do you see a lot of special operations as we relate it to, you know, and we talked about this earlier, you know, the direct action, HALO, SCUBA, SEALs, you know, uh, what was the old term? I fixed finish or whatever, uh, find, fix, finish world to this, um, which has always been more on sort of the agency side, go collect intelligence espionage, right?

• 1:00:41Speaker 07

  Um, worlds. And then when you, when you get to put that potentially on, on one plate,

• 1:00:50Speaker 07

  to something you said earlier, it is, is very unique, right? To, to be able to, um, and I want to probably go back because I got a little bit lost here on, on the, on the mentality side of it. Um, I was fortunate just to, from a groundwork, when I first got there, I did the atypical, um, uh, mission that was going on. So that was good for me and my peer group. When, when we came in, um, I got to go into that real mission. Um, and that was, you know, everything that I trained for, everything that we had done, every preparation, we were doing it, uh, even to have, you know, the, the subsequent risk levels that came with it and, and exiting, exiting out. So had that under my belt.

• 1:01:32Speaker 07

  And then, and then the global war on terrorism kicked and then we, you know, everybody's going off and doing Afghanistan, AFO work. You're going out looking on the mountains. You're doing all of this type of work. Um, but when you got back, um, you may or may not go back on that rotation. You may have skills that you've developed. You may have certain characteristics, languages, technical, uh, other hard skills that you may have, uh, or plain and simple, what happens in our world is you're by name. Hey, I want, I want, you know, Joe or Dan to come on this mission. Um, because of whatever reason. And so then you're going off and you're doing that. And so for me, 20 years later, and you're probably going to, you know, pull, pull the strings on a little bit of it.

• 1:02:15Speaker 07

  That was a lot of jumping around and that literally is a lot of jumping around between all of those different skill sets, the things you had to go learn to do. And then all of the crap that I call indoors box that is part of it, which you have to put away because you're not bringing that stuff on to mama. Cause mom and the family really don't know what you're doing.

• 1:02:34Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna rely on like some cliches and some Hollywood to, to try to, um, I hope paint this picture and you can tell me if you agree or disagree, but I, I, it sounds like people like you were bouncing very much between like being a character in, um, let's say like American Sniper or one of those types of films. Uh, and then jumping into the next mission, which is more like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. And you're having a kind of like jump in between these two very different worlds. And, and I can only imagine the amount of stress that that puts you under.

• 1:03:14Speaker 07

  Yeah. Um, you know, the neat thing is, uh, the sanity part is we had really good mentors, right? And so I hope that I was a good mentor. Uh, I think I was, you know, the, um, and so I had really good mentors that guided you. Right? And so when you step in for you guys, you, you step into a team room and that team room functions a certain way, then it becomes, becomes normal. And so that, that became quick, quickly became normal. Uh, and in particular, after the global war on terrorists, organizations still struggle. We're like, oh my God, this is not what we're supposed to be doing. You know, that typical stuff. Uh, but after a while, the, the, these units are resilient and they adapt. And then,

• 1:03:55Speaker 07

  you know, I think we mentioned it before, you have NCOs, NCOs are the, the backbone of a lot of these, uh, special operations units and the NCO that, that gray beard is going to go, nope, got it. Suck it up. This is what you're going to go do. Go put your, you know, go put your dry suit back in your cage, go get your suit. Uh, go freshen up, uh, you know, literally go freshen up your language, go do this tradecraft, go get your shots. Um, and study up on the mission and get out completely to the different side of the atmosphere. And by the way, the protocol for this one is, you know, tell mama, you're, you're not going to talk to her for three months, right? And then by the way, Skippy, have your shit in order and don't fuck up.

• 1:04:37Jack Murphy?

  Cause you know, No pressure.

• 1:04:39Speaker 07

  That, that was, yeah. Well, the pressure really was like, you can go do really good. But if you fuck up on the day you came back, like that's it. You fucked up that day and you're just like, that's not fair. But, uh, you know, there's unique cultural things. Um, yeah. Hopefully that answered.

• 1:04:55Jack Murphy?

  I, I'd like to get into, um, well, of course nine 11 happens, the war on terror kicks off. It changes the unit you're in, changes a lot of these units and how, how they operate. Um, I'd like to kind of get into that and, and, and start getting into, um, you know, some of your time getting deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq. And, um, do you want to lead us into that before we kind of, I, I'd like to ask you about Ramadi.

• 1:05:18Speaker 07

  Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, it took me a little bit to Ramadi. So the first one I, I did was again, as I mentioned, that, that typical mission, um, was a good mission, came back. Yeah. I think that one, you know, same thing, long hair, beard, uh, and shortly after that was when I met my wife. So my, my poor wife and it is a you know, get to bring in the family because without my family, I don't, I don't know if I would have been able to do this, uh, this long, especially my, my spouse, my, my current spouse, uh, of 19 years. And so that's when she met me. She was a foreigner, met her on the streets of DC. And Dave, you can relate to it like, hey, crap, this is a foreigner. I'm in a, you know, a special unit, right? Like, oh God, this is just, why couldn't you just meet an American, right?

• 1:06:03Speaker 07

  So much easier to date and, you know, and I'm like, all right, you know, love at first sight, I fall in love. And then, you know, and so she was a foreigner, didn't really know anything about the military. Uh, she was from Brazil, came into the US, probably been in the US, not even a year. Her parents had been here for a while. That's where she met me. Uh, and then I was off to do training at Fort Bragg or something like that. Um, and then went into GWAT. The first thing I did for GWAT, uh, I was fortunate, again, my mentors, uh, one that is now one of my lifelong mentors and, and good friends, uh, is a lot about, uh, um, selecting by names. Uh, they select me to go, we set up like essentially like an AFO cell,

• 1:06:45Speaker 07

  um, overseas somewhere. I think we were like, uh, Dubai or Qatar, one of these places, right? Where the task forces were setting up, uh, points, points. And so we was an officer, senior guy, and then I went in there. And so from there, that was me then, I think I posted somewhere, I went to like five different countries. I went from an embassy to transporting money to transporting prisoners on, on helicopters that the task force had just got in to landing in these dusty AFO somewhere to meet my buddies and hand them crap that we bought them at REI, right? And so that was my like, holy crap. I came from, you know, somewhere, you know, it was, um, completely different focus

• 1:07:28Speaker 07

  to the, I finally got into the global war on terrorism. I got into the global war on terrorism, probably like a year, year later. Uh, because we sent all our guys out and, and as Jeremy and some of the guys that, that you had had in there, they got burned out, right? Like they, they were doing stuff that they weren't designed to do. And those guys have, uh, that, that, you know, the, those elements, those other SMUs have the ass behind them to do that. And they were tiring out. So we were

• 1:07:55Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:07:55Speaker 07

  in smaller numbers.

• 1:07:56Jack Murphy?

  This unit was never created to like produce at, at that kind of tactical level in, in support of, of so many ongoing tactical operations.

• 1:08:06Speaker 07

  Now, I, I, I want to say, and again, and this is only me putting my, my GHDD Sardar Major hat. You know, 19 years later, it's because of our creativity.

• 1:08:14Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:08:15Speaker 07

  It is because of our problem solving abilities from the lowest, you know, E5 operator, uh, uh, you know, at where, where Jeremy came from to wherever I came from. And, and then just the, the, the missions that these units have, if people present a problem and a solution, you're going to get the resources. And so anyway, um, that was the first thing I did, the, the, that mission, which again, took me onto the ground. I went and grabbed prisoners, but it was that atypical. I think we talked about it, Jack is like, uh, you know, a commander's looking at you going, hey, we need one of you guys, it's either from your element or a Delta op, you know, or another operator. We got this sensitive thing. Go pick up this prisoner or go take this gear, go take this money. And so you're doing stuff. You are that trusted entity

• 1:09:00Speaker 07

  that can take care of whatever. And so when we traveled, go ahead.

• 1:09:05Jack Murphy?

  I was just gonna say, the problem, I mean, the problem with your ability to be flexible and to get it done, not just yours, but the unit in general is that that just generates more work. Right. Having a tend to attitude. Right. Right. Right.

• 1:09:21Speaker 07

  Well, it, it became that we're like, well, I'm glad they think we can do it. Okay. How the hell are we going to do it? Right? Like I live my life. And a lot of the guys that were my bosses were like, all right, buddy, we're going to go to the whiteboard. So we would go to the whiteboard with markers and figure out how to do this. Um, so anyway, so I did, I did that. And then, um, my, my real first time into sort of the, the. Um, the hard skill side of it was doing, um, I joined the SEALs in Kabul. Uh, for a PSD type AFO work. So, um, that was just being another enabler in sort of that joint world, right? I think that's key for folks to understand, um, that in the joint world.

• 1:10:06Speaker 07

  Uh, you know, one element's in charge, but there are other many people that make that capability, right? Uh, everybody's got a key job regardless of what you were, especially at these levels. Uh, but someone always has the primary responsibility. So I was, I was embedded, um, uh, for about a month in, in Kabul. Uh, which was good. However, then I get that magical phone call as we always do, uh, cause we pack. Everything we can possibly pack for contingencies like, okay, you're going to go into the mountains. Of Assadabad and now you're going to go do AFO work and you're going to replace your buddy over there because he has to come home. Cause he's going to have his first child, which by the way, then we end up knowing, you know, our friends' children.

• 1:10:47Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:10:47Speaker 07

  Till like they leave off to high school. So anyway, so I'm going to go replace this guy and probably. You know, the guy you met in the mountains might've been there before. Uh, so I'm now dumped in, you know, whatever Assadabad was at. Joint base with the Rangers, OGA, SF Group and our guys. And doing stuff along the border and, and that was literally, um. You know, operator slash human technical, right? For, for the intel special operations world. It's not really an int. You're just a person who can get stuff done. And I think that's very key to articulate the difference. That folks want to go, well, you're a keyboard monkey. That's all you do. Well, no, we're, we, we get things done.

• 1:11:29Speaker 07

  It's just you, you know, like an ODA team, you may have a specific.

• 1:11:34Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:11:34Speaker 07

  Skill, but at the end you're still a Green Beret or you're still a SEAL or you're still right.

• 1:11:39Speaker 06

  You're the problem solver.

• 1:11:39Speaker 07

  That answer is that.

• 1:11:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:11:41Speaker 07

  Yeah. Problem essentially a, a problem. So, so that took me to like two thousand, two, three, but let me know how you want to.

• 1:11:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, Eric, real quick, just for the people who, uh, you know, listen and, and may not be following along that well. Can you tell us what AFO means and then what you do when you're AFO? Cause you know, you, like you said, that your first job. Was, uh, you know, was outside of theater, was outside of the, the combat area. But then you went into a combat theater and did PSD, uh, and AFO. So can you tell us about AFO?

• 1:12:15Speaker 07

  Yeah. So like advanced force operations in, in Essen, it's in the beginning of at least for GWAT. And in this particular case, right? There was other elements that, you know, I've written books or guys have written book in, in how they were. Down in the mountains doing advanced force operations, but there's also this. Uh, administrative side that has to get done, right? Like special operations doesn't have bases all over the place. We're a very, very small little tick in the beginning that we have to find land. We have to find war resources. We have to do, um, administrative stuff. And, and in some instances be able to get into the fight beyond what we were tasked for. So. That aspect of it from a liaison perspective was going, setting up, uh, from an advanced force was.

• 1:12:59Speaker 07

  We were helping, uh, all kinds of stuff from vehicles to how to bring planes, how to get houses, how to get weapons in. How to get, you know, all, all of that aspect of it, which when you're, you know, it doesn't matter how special you are. When you're going to someone's base, you, it's at the, that's a relationship. Like, hey man, I'm going to have to go, you know, I need those barracks, right? And here's all I can tell you, right? And so that's a lot of legwork to facilitate. People coming in and/or the other one is providing options. So we have to sometimes provide. Multiple options. So it's just not like you went to go do one thing. Sometimes we're doing that thing one, two times and three times. Cause option number one and number two went to shit and now you gotta go do number three.

• 1:13:42Speaker 07

  And that's really what you're running around with the flexibility to just jump on a C-130 and fly and go to this country. And then go to that other country, right? And that's at the admin in the non-combat area. And then in the combat area, it is just these. Enabling all of these other activities that the regular conventional mechanism can't do fast enough.

• 1:14:04Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 1:14:04Speaker 07

  Right? Like, hey, these guys went in there, they took, got this hit, but those prisoners need to quickly go. From this little shitty, not even a FOB to this interrogation, because now they're doing it at this new place. Cause someone set up a capability, but they, you can only go, you know, entrusted. That's a lot of that work. And then the, the typical stuff is. Then you're out operating out of FOB X and you know, this entity is. Uh, assigned to do special reconnaissance is assigned to do AFO work up in the mountains looking. Right? That's different than doing more of the. Major combat operations. You're doing three, five, you know, small elements.

• 1:14:46Speaker 07

  With other IC partners, with other indigenous at that level. Um, and, and, and just really quick, I mean, a lot of it was really possible because we were able to. Thank God there was a lot of, you know, really cool, you know, the Rangers and the Marines and National Guard that helped us. Accomplished a lot of the work. Cause when you're doing a lot of the AFO work, you're not taking a full package. Like you're taking whatever you can put in trucks. And then when you get there, as many of you are the guests, say you're like, oh, I guess these trucks aren't going to work. Crap. All right. Can you buy those Jingo trucks? All right. We're going to buy these Jingo trucks. No authorities needed, right? Give or take. Now we're buying these Jingo trucks and now you're, you're continuing forward.

• 1:15:25Speaker 06

  Right. Right. Yeah. It's, uh, you know, I think that it's interesting that, you know, when, when we watch movies. You know, somebody, a team shows up and you know, there are all these weapons waiting for them or there's a safe house waiting for them. And people don't understand that doesn't just happen.

• 1:15:44Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:15:44Speaker 06

  Like, like the US military and the CIA and, and these other organizations. Don't have hit teams staged everywhere and safe houses staged everywhere. And you know, all these things.

• 1:15:55Jack Murphy?

  That kind of gets left out of the books and the movies because like, are you going to make a movie about logistics?

• 1:16:00Speaker 06

  Right. But, but the thing is, is the logistics. Can be very, very spicy. Like you say, when it's just you and three other guys or two other guys and five indige. In the, you know, out, out, you know, out in the, the mountains outside of, you know, Orgoon or whatever. Uh, you know, and it's like, okay, well, you know. How do we get trucks to navigate these? I just can't go to the local Toyota dealership and buy a bunch of Hiluxes.

• 1:16:29Jack Murphy?

  And that, that operation, uh, like a lot of people don't understand, including, you know, the operators, dare I say, Rangers, SEALs, et cetera. Don't understand that like, yeah, you went on this operation, did kicks the ass, got HVT number one. But there is like a whole cluster of enablers around that shit that made that operation actually happen. I mean, we, we were just kind of like the guys that kicked in the door the last 30 seconds of it.

• 1:16:55Speaker 07

  Yeah. You got, I mean, you guys bring us a point. It's something you had said. I mean, we, uh, and it was somebody that, that you knew did that we know in common. Um, and so that peer group was out forward, right? And so one of the things that we were doing. Uh, back at home station was monitoring, because they were out first with. Who, you know, organically with the guys that they went out to go do, like you, you've had the guy on, on your show before. And those dudes were, you know, the point that I'm going to get, they were freezing their ass off.

• 1:17:20Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:17:21Speaker 07

  Because we didn't have that gear.

• 1:17:23Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:17:23Speaker 07

  We had gear for, those guys had their gear for their specific missions. And yeah, they were able to get up. I think they were doing, doing a training mission somewhere, take that package and get to Afghanistan. But there's, that terrain was different. There's a lot of unknowns. And so when they're getting ready to do, they're buying a lot of crap. On the economy, but they had that reach back power, right? And so they had, that's the uniqueness that these organizations do have. Is you're picking up the phone and you're sending an email and it gets prioritized. But that takes time to buy this stuff.

• 1:17:56Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:17:57Speaker 07

  And then get it in. And, and if, you know, and nobody really is going to wear gear. That you haven't trained with, because that's pretty dangerous, right? To, to just take. Especially some of the more critical kind of capabilities, but we had guys that. You know, took certain gear that we had on the shelf, but we had a pretty wide range of gear. From across all the other SMUs or, or entities, we would get. Similar of their capabilities and then we would have ours. So we can be interoperable, uh, for lack of better words. But then those guys are like, dude, I didn't think I was going to go from here to 10,000 feet and I'm fucking freezing my ass off because. So we would literally, you know, and you hear maybe sometimes these things in movies or books.

• 1:18:39Speaker 07

  Guys are going to REI Hudson Trail and we're buying, and we don't know, we're going to, you know, this 18 year old. We're like, hey man, if you had all the money in the world, what would you buy for your buddy? Who's stuck in the mountains of a really high mountain, freezing his ass off. It needs to be really light because he's. Carrying a lot of vital stuff. And they're like, well, you know, not, there's this Sartaric $800 jacket, right? And people are like, well, you guys are overspending with, that's the only thing that was available in 2001.

• 1:19:07Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:19:07Speaker 07

  And so we quickly had to get that gear because that's time.

• 1:19:11Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:19:11Speaker 07

  That's time that those guys on the ground are like, hey man, I know how much. You know, how far I can hump, how much gear I can take. I know how cold I can be, but after a while, you're just going to be. I don't care how badass you are. Those mountains of Afghanistan in that time will eat you up.

• 1:19:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:19:29Speaker 07

  Right? Your boots. That's why quickly on soft went and ditched whatever boots we had and we were buying. You know, whatever high speed boots were available, but these elements were able to get that done. To, to your point. That was critical to be able to get this gear and, and this stuff to these guys' hands.

• 1:19:46Speaker 06

  I was thinking that those, uh, REI co-op rebates on those big purchases must've been nice for the guy going and making the purchases.

• 1:19:55Jack Murphy?

  Yeah. The government impact card. Uh, yeah.

• 1:19:58Speaker 06

  Yeah. But if it's on his account, it doesn't matter what credit card he's using.

• 1:20:01Jack Murphy?

  Uh, so let's ju, let's jump then over to Iraq and Ramadi. I, I, I think you talked, we were talking a little bit about this mission. Um, before we started the episode, before we started streaming here tonight. I, I think it's really interesting. Some of the, some of the details and how you accomplished what the job you were assigned to do out there. Can you, can you kind of walk us through that?

• 1:20:22Speaker 07

  Yeah, absolutely. So that was when I got there was probably November of 2006. And so my, my, a good friend of mine was taking lead on, on that requirement. He had been hand-selected to, to lead certain aspects of it. And so that target set had been in the works for about a year prior. So from about 2005, it was essentially one of the number one target sets that, you know, the top 10 that we were looking for. And I mean, the greater.

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• 1:22:28Speaker 07

  You know, enterprise was, was looking for in Iraq. And so they had gotten closer, they were narrowing down. I mean, this was going after, you know, a very elusive, so one-off from, you know, senior Al Qaeda. You're, you're trying to get to them by their communications, their facilitators, key folks. And so this person happened to have an extreme amount of level of tradecraft training and just what they were doing with very, very key. It had a lot of the agencies allude to how they were essentially communicating. And then the way that they were doing things, it just, I mean, again, we can throw everything at it, we just couldn't figure out

• 1:23:14Speaker 07

  to the simple terms, where the hell this person was and who they were, right? And so by the time I got there, I had been hand-chosen, I was operating somewhere else, came back.

• 1:23:26Speaker 07

  I think my kid was like a year old. And then I'm back out the door, I go to replace, and then I'm taking on this other capability. And so we end up working for the task force commander as a unique capability for him, right? He's got his elements of, at that point, was the SEALs there, that, that team is there, they're doing their work. And it was a joint effort. And so essentially, my task was to lead some efforts leveraging IC capabilities and, you know, intelligence community capabilities and just kind of pulling together how to get to this entity. And so we had done several, you know, operating into Ramadi, as you guys know, in November of 2006 was extremely dangerous.

• 1:24:11Speaker 07

  I think there was a huge flurry of, of activity going on in the, in the summer of 2006. I mean, I think there's like movies and books written about it. But by the time I got there, I knew that it was a hostile environment. And so I had ran a couple of operations going in, essentially from the task force in and out of Ramadi, looking for my whole mission was just find this individual and then give the task force commander and the overarching, you know, special operations commander on the ground, options, right? That's what, that's essentially what we do is just provide those options. And the one really big mission was there was going to be

• 1:24:56Speaker 07

  a cord on sweep by the Marines and sort of the Army going from, you know, one side of Ramadi all the way across. And we provided to the task force commander, we're like, hey, we, we believe this entity, which has a very unique high level of tradecraft, like this enemy is employing high levels of tradecraft. And it's just, you're just not going to, you know, send Rangers in there and find them. It's just not going to work that way.

• 1:25:24Jack Murphy?

  Eric, if I can interrupt for a moment, I mean, tradecraft implies training, professional intelligence service training. Was there any indication or any idea of where the bad guys picked this up from?

• 1:25:43Speaker 07

  There, there is. And I'm probably going to refrain a little bit, but it's definitely at the, at the state-sponsored level.

• 1:25:51Jack Murphy?

  Holy shit.

• 1:25:52Speaker 07

  Like, it was good. It was good. And, and it was stuff that, I'll preface it, I ended up having to go into the interrogation room with the Gators at that point, because of the dynamics and the relationship, ultimately, I'll get to this point. But when they started to peel the onion, it was just like, oh crap. Okay, that, this is at another layer, which made sense. But when you're starting to see technical, you know, and, and it's kind of shit you see in movies, this person wasn't who they were. Yeah.

• 1:26:22Jack Murphy?

  So we're up, you're, you're up against a state-sponsored terrorist organization.

• 1:26:26Speaker 07

  Your state sponsor, this is state sponsor running around in, in the open, you know, in the open, in Ramadi amongst the other crap that's going on, right? So you've got the regular task force going across, you know, and that includes the Brits and everybody else going against high-level targets. And you've got the Marines or the regular SEAL, you know, everybody else. But then you have this other little spots that were state-sponsored. There's always another layer of stuff going on all the time. It's just if that's your responsibility, you're aware that in the other building, there's something at the strategic level where you're looking at it at the tactical level.

• 1:27:03Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:27:04Speaker 07

  Again, this, this had been.

• 1:27:05Jack Murphy?

  On the other side of that, that onion and that other little spot, you were the adversary that, that pops onto that battle space to find that one guy.

• 1:27:14Speaker 07

  Yeah. And, and you know, it, I, I, you know, we talked about this earlier. The harder part is navigating the political piece.

• 1:27:21Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:27:21Speaker 07

  Right? Like, it's somebody else's face.

• 1:27:23Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:27:24Speaker 07

  So people think it's like, oh, the Marines just went in there, or the SEALs went in there and they, they tore down this door and got the bad guy. But before that even happened, there are layers of, for good reason sometimes, that that house, that building can't be taken down.

• 1:27:39Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:27:40Speaker 07

  Because there are other things at play, right? So that ability to also understand, hey, wait a minute, what is actually also going on here, a block away, two blocks away, right? So we got the approvals, you know, I presented the, the, the option to be embedded. There was a cord on sweep that was going to happen. So that means then when these things happen, the populace knows that the Marines and the military are going to come through. So they're going to hunker down, right? And activities are going to go down. And we're going to do all of this PR kind of stuff. So quickly grabbed my kit,

• 1:28:18Speaker 07

  flew over, embedded a, I want to say they're the second ID, their scout routine, right? Because then this is the Colonel that was in charge of them, knew somebody from the task force, which again, it's usually who you know. These friendships that go a long way that help facilitate these operations. So, you know, I got my, my little rucks full of kit, my guns and stuff and my uniforms. And actually on that one, that's the one that I took, two uniforms, I took an army uniform and a marine uniform. Understanding what, you know, possible courses of actions, what some, you know, lines of operations could be. So I flew over there.

• 1:28:59Speaker 07

  At that point, only the Colonel knew. And then he brought on the, the senior staff sergeant that was in charge of the scout team. So essentially, I, I became one of their team members. So we went in, in the darkness, just like the scout team would do, providing overwatch for the greater cord on blue, which gave me then the opportunity to sneak and peek in and out of the houses as they were going in Ramadi. So we weren't the official work coming party of the cord on sweep. We were more of the overwatch, but that gave me more of the ability to look for what I was looking. So all they knew is, you know, Eric, you know, that your hippie is going to be tag teaming with them, right? And so the, the neat odd conversation there was,

• 1:29:41Speaker 07

  hey, do you want to be with us when we go into the, you know, we find your guy or direct action? Like, no, dude, that's, that's your job. But, but, but, you know, and I'm like, no, no, dude, like, you do your job. I got my job. If shit goes bad, I'll, I'll step in, but this is your primary job because I've got two or three other things that if something happens, I got to be able to do. So anyway, we went in the cover of darkness, in and out of these houses, till we found, so we found one of the houses where then there was indicators that clued me in that that was a spot. My overall mission was, you know, obviously this person, we've been looking for them for about a year, was leave that person in place.

• 1:30:23Speaker 07

  Right? This is the greater, that's how that operates. You've found them, you've confirmed it visually, right? And the whole goal was not, not let that person realize that he had actually been targeted, that we were looking for him. So success in that mission was leaving this HVT, this high-level guy, believed that he had skirted us, while at the same time, there were culverts, there were covert stuff that was done, right? To, to activity, to, you know, certain things that were done, confirmation, leaving them in there, and then we moved on. However,

• 1:31:03Speaker 07

  Because there were then, we were there, the Marines were around, the Rangers were around, we hit a nerve. But you hit a nerve not only for him, maybe the cell that was around him didn't even really know who that, who he was. But they were, you know, they were just other, simple terms, other bad dudes, they reacted to us. And as I was coming out, I was literally about to put my Peltors on, uh, cause I was sending a note back, you know, a quick note to confirm, uh, kinda like a jackpot, if you would. And as soon as I come out of those metal gates, we get hit by an RPG. And it was a real shock, cause you weren't expecting it, we weren't hearing gunfire. Again, like I said, you hit that kinda nerve. And as we were coming out of that one house, that RPG hit,

• 1:31:48Speaker 07

  you know, the other side of the block, which is, I don't know, meters. And I went from putting on my, you know, checking back on the team, being the first guy that gets out, uh, and then just being slammed by the concussion onto that blue gate. And then the next five hours was just a gunfight. I just movement back and forth, should I say.

• 1:32:08Speaker 06

  So, and, and this is sort of behind the main advance or within that main advance?

• 1:32:13Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, we were just one little small piece, again, hidden within that greater card on sweep that was going on. Um, and, you know, interesting then, by the time we secure, I think it was like, two hours into it, not even that long, we had secured a rooftop and then I had helped the JTAC, um, with supporting fire, calling in tasks, some other activities at the same time. He had the radio, so I reported back to the task force and like, hey, I, I found, we found the guy. What do you want me to do? And I, and I, and I love the commander at the time, he posed like, hey dude, you, you think you wanna bring him back? I'm like, uh, okay, sir, like, we, we can.

• 1:32:54Speaker 07

  This is what just happened. And, and the task force, the Jock had seen the explosion. So they, we had odd eyes, like on, on, on my little team had all eyes, uh, to protect this, this movement. And so, um, that, that was, you know, at that point, he, he said, hey, just leave him there, um, and to some of the mental health kinda stuff that we talked about. I just remember finalizing that calls with the commander, cause that was my priority. Not the gunfight, not the, cause all of that kicked in instinctively, if, if you would. But it was providing that message, getting that commander to say, all right, man, I'll see you when you get back. Go back, do all your hot wash. And then just only remembering waking up at the Jock,

• 1:33:36Speaker 07

  at my little, you know, little cot at the, at where the task force is at, what felt like two days later. Uh, because I had just, I did not remember. Uh, and again, I would only come to find this out, you know, whatever, 20 years or not even that, 15 years later, when I retire.

• 1:33:55Speaker 06

  What, when, um, like when you're working in somebody's battle space like that, I, I'm sure you have sort of a cover for action for the, the, the, the troops that you're around. But are the battle space commanders, are the battle space owners generally clued in to what your actual mission is? Or does it even bypass them?

• 1:34:21Speaker 07

  You're gonna love, you know, the answer. It, it depends. Uh, I think at the level where, um, you know, calculated risk, if somebody's gonna get hurt, you're gonna, you're gonna break something, you're gonna potentially do something. Uh, if you can do it underneath the radar, right? And, and obviously higher moral ground, not violate anything ethically, right? And not put, uh, because my authorities, my authorities may be different than the people that, uh, were, were catching a ride or they're using us. Um, at the reality where you, you know, the individual guy, operator, whatever team, any other team who's doing a similar activity, will assess, am I putting somebody into risk? Because hey, man, that, you know, you don't look like them. I've taken a lot of, we've taken a lot of measures to look just like them. In that particular operation,

• 1:35:06Speaker 07

  uh, this really quick, like I went in wearing, uh, army, regular army uniform, which I don't even know why I even took them. I think I took them so I can get out of country if I had to go to Qatar. Right? Like I'd never wore them, but I wore them to go be like the scouts, because that's what they wore. So I had their, I had everything that they wore, except I had a big beard. But then the whole story was, I was like, I look like a turp. So you can play that for those, those 10 minutes. You got that, that gray area of 10 minutes. Uh, but you would tell the guy, hey, man, you know, you would trust somebody here. This is, here's what, here's what's going on within left and right limits. Cause you don't wanna put somebody to put their ass on the line. And in particular, where you're, you're reaching that scout team leader. And now,

• 1:35:50Speaker 07

  what happens is they're like, oh my God, this guy, this task force guy, no dude, like, don't worry about me. Worry about your team because I'm gonna be gone.

• 1:35:59Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:35:59Speaker 07

  And I don't want, you gotta keep that rotation, you gotta keep on going. And then also you want people to feel part of a greater something.

• 1:36:07Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:36:07Speaker 07

  So I thank them, I would bring them in, you know, you're like, hey, that's the guy. And they're, you know, they're like, they don't know, there's so much shit going on. And then a month later, to this story, there's 15 hits across two major cities. So the dudes are probably like, okay, I was part of that.

• 1:36:27Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:36:28Speaker 07

  Right? And, and hopefully their commander went back and said, you were part of it. And, and I've seen that to be with a lot of my other former friends that they had built these relationship with these, these commanders or these sergeant majors or these people that helped us. Um.

• 1:36:43Jack Murphy?

  I, so you're alluding to sort of the aftermath of this operation that there, there, down the line, there was an action taken against the, the high value target that you were after that night.

• 1:36:53Speaker 07

  Yeah. So that night, night, by the time I got back, I think I got back like a day later, uh, or when I, when I woke up and I got back. Uh, we then went to work for about another month. And this was just intense, uh, you know, development of, of a target, uh, at the, at, you know, at, at the levels that you, you know, you kinda read about where all capabilities are brought in. It was just, it's just amazing. Like the teams, the teams, right? Like just, we brought in all kinds of experts, we brought them in into this joint and just developed, developed, developed, provided a variety of options. Um, and then the target sets grew and grew and grew. So when it's done, you know, it isn't just going, as you guys know, and go and just take out that bad guy, just because it's the time is right.

• 1:37:38Speaker 07

  You, you leave it up to other echelons to figure out what the best way to do it and when to do it. And then there's all kinds of authorities and, and stuff that happens. So there's some patience. So a month, essentially a month later, then, uh, the Rangers, um, you know, I went, and then at this point, I went in with specifically to go get that guy with a Ranger, a Ranger element that was with us there. And those guys were amazing. Uh, the funny, funny story is I went to the team leader, uh, and I briefed him, like, all right, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna be one of, you know, 15 other hits. I, when you go in here, I'm gonna go confirm and then I need you to pull everything out of there. And he's like, hey Eric, uh, you do know that these are Rangers. And if like you tell them to pull everything off of that hit,

• 1:38:24Speaker 07

  they're gonna pull the fucking microwaves, they're gonna pull the lamps, they're gonna pull shade.

• 1:38:27Speaker 06

  Right, right.

• 1:38:29Speaker 07

  Okay, thank you. Like only take anything that's electronic. Anything that's electronic, I'm like, take anything that's electronic. So if someone can draw a picture of Rangers hitting, you know, these two-story house, taking these bad guys out, which is one thing, but literally carrying microwaves, carrying computers, carrying lamps. Because again, as you mentioned, you alluded Jack, at that level, they're, you know, you're taking everything because you're, you're looking at it at a state level.

• 1:38:58Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:38:59Speaker 07

  It is so important. That was a huge SSC effort, like it hadn't been done in a long time, but the Rangers were just, they were just so happy to go do that, right? Like they went in there, dude, and they were so happy. Like I got the microwaves, well, I got the lamp. They didn't know, you know?

• 1:39:14Speaker 06

  Uh, they got five, they got five guys, like we all in the fridge out.

• 1:39:18Jack Murphy?

  Dude, I'm having like, I'm, I'm, I'm having flashbacks to an operation we did in Balad for some reason, even though we were task force north. And then the same, same kinda thing, they want us to pull all the electronics off of that mission. And we pulled, uh, we pulled everything. And then when we walked, because the, the target was right next to the fob, we walked back out of the fob and then, but there weren't trucks to, to meet us and drive us to the airfield to get on the 160th birds. And the sun's coming up and 160th doesn't fly at night during daylight. So the whole platoon of Rangers and we're holding like computer CPUs and shit like that, like full tower computers, like running full sprint, like a mile down, down the road to the airfield. So we can get on the birds and go back to our base.

• 1:40:02Jack Murphy?

  Uh, and really I think the whole reason is just because we don't wanna be stuck in Balad for a day. We wanna go back to the chat hall and get some, get some Red Bulls and, and whatever else. But yeah, that's, that's really funny.

• 1:40:14Speaker 07

  It, it, it was a great mission. I mean, all of that stuff came back. And then I'm like, all right, mission complete, right? And this kinda goes to something that we were talking about earlier. I'm like, they, they captured all of these people. Now it is the, the next level of, you know, of, of, of folks that are working this mission set. They're gonna start the interrogations, they're gonna start gathering the intelligence and they're gonna do all of that. But I gotta get home, right? Like it's not, you know, like my time is up, but that was my mission. And I'm already getting indicators that I gotta train up for, uh, other, other things to go do, which I did. I ended up deploying literally three weeks later in a completely different hemisphere for a hostage rescue type thing,

• 1:40:56Speaker 07

  uh, which had been going on for a long time, which I was very happy that I got to go do. But when I got back, I, it then came to the higher powers and go, hey, you've built a relationship with this person and the entity and you know them so well. I had psychiatrists that actually worked for us, that were just understanding how these people think, breathe and the, and with that, that hole was fusing on a whiteboard, right? We had this whiteboard of depth and everything was being put in there. And they're like, yeah, the boss wants you to go and you're gonna go and, and hang out with the gators for a week. Because you have built a relationship with this individual, uh, because ultimately you, you guys have figured out. And that's really simply how you can, um, get a little bit more cooperation.

• 1:41:40Jack Murphy?

  Oh, that, well, so you, so you actually had that scene like in the movie, The Battle of Algiers, where they're sitting in the back of the car like, I feel like I know you because I've, I've tracked you for so long.

• 1:41:50Speaker 07

  Uh, it, um, yeah, I mean, I had to go back in there. And so I, I got to sit and watch a day of the process going. And then the next day I was in the booth for, uh, about two or three days, um, in that cycle.

• 1:42:06Jack Murphy?

  How, how, how did, how did, how did this gentleman respond, uh, to, to having you there?

• 1:42:12Speaker 07

  It was kind of checkmate.

• 1:42:14Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, we got you.

• 1:42:15Speaker 07

  It was it was that sense of uh it was checkmate at at the level of um you know i i if you would Dave, the you know, the the IC officer to the IC officer, right? At that trade craft at that at that level, you're like, okay, you got me.

• 1:42:33Speaker 07

  You know, and that that's actually been later on, it we used it in in again to to you talk about at at the schoolhouse of what's and then we didn't know this was gonna happen. But this is what we can do. This is what people can do. These are the ideas we bring out. And because you're trusted at this level, well, you're gonna move forward with it. And again, I I was packing to go home and and but then we went and we did it and it it was successful. And it's not, and obviously, I I was a small fraction of it. There are just so many other professionals and mechanisms that helped us facilitate. But we're just those out of the box thinkers that say, how about this? And they they're going, okay, well, you know, if this this dude thinks we can do it, then let's give it a try.

• 1:43:17Speaker 07

  And and that's awesome.

• 1:43:19Jack Murphy?

  That's wild, man. And I mean, that's just an incredible um and and kind of rare story, I think, of of espionage taking place inside a war zone.

• 1:43:27Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:28Jack Murphy?

  Um, could you tell us a little bit? You alluded to uh being next sent on a completely different mission and a completely different AO um to locate American hostages. Um, I was wondering, you know, what can you tell us about that? What was it like kind of bouncing from Ramadi to a a totally different AO?

• 1:43:46Speaker 06

  Because you had been working on this all prior to, right?

• 1:43:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, um, you know, I'm gonna keep trying to keep that one simple. And so there had been, like I said, a few of them, there's probably one that's a little bit more noticeable, a lot closer to home for folks, right? And and uh I, we, uh, the greater soft community was one part of it. But when you've got um Americans captured hostage, I I've seen the energy that goes behind taking bad, you know, bad people off the streets.

• 1:44:23Speaker 07

  I have seen a different level of dedication and passion um to go rescue our Americans. It's just a completely different world. And so probably, I don't want to, I I'm gonna kind of speculate, maybe two years prior to that in and out. Uh, and it was just as opportunities were seen. Again, you were doing something else, studying, learning, whatever, you were gonna go do that. And then you can come back and do another one. So that one, I I still hadn't even again known that what a what a traumatic brain injury was. I had no idea what that was. Uh, but there was, uh, as everything happens, uh, new information, new developments, new equals new opportunities. And then you're you're sent to the fight. Uh, I had nothing to do with in that aspect.

• 1:45:07Speaker 07

  Part of the planning is just, again, one of the folks that by name said, all right, Skippy, here's what we're gonna go do. And then it went from leave Ramadi, and I've talked about it this before, is putting everything that went on from a year prosecuting that target uh in all the combat trauma, all of that, and and even also acknowledging uh, and I I I'm remiss if I don't say it, all the all the service members that were killed in that time in Iraq and Ramadi, that weighs heavily. And unfortunately, you see it, but you've got to put it away, or if not, it's hard to operate sometimes at those levels.

• 1:45:46Speaker 07

  Uh, but I put Ramadi into that my little folder, and I put it at the safe at my team room and locked it up and prepared for the other one. And that literally was get back into the mission, understand where it's going. You know, you're gonna go and dress completely different. You're gonna go do completely, it's all a literally a different world.

• 1:46:05Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:46:05Speaker 07

  And there's higher, there's higher level of, I don't want to say it's risk or compromise, but sensitivities

• 1:46:12Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:46:13Speaker 07

  uh, that are in play with it. So you got to check your mind, you got to check where you're at, and then went off and did it. Uh, and I want to say that that point was it wasn't successful, which a lot of times in our world, there's a lot of things are they don't lead to success at that moment, but they do later on. And so you're kind of used to, hey, I move that football just a little bit more forward for the next option. And so we did, we did go down, integrated. I think we went down for maybe two or three weeks. Um, and then, hey, there's nothing else to do because of other things have to come into play. And it takes that world to rescue folks. It it it isn't black and white. It's not like dropping a day JDAM. I this is a, this is a chess game, right?

• 1:46:56Speaker 07

  And there's things that have to be put in place, and sometimes they'll take weeks. So, okay, back you go, and and then you're doing it something else. Uh, ultimately, um, that did culminate into a success. I want to say I was probably in the Horn of Africa or somewhere um when that um, you know, those American hostages were rescued. And I can tell you, everybody, anybody that was involved in it, just easily shed tears, just some joy to know that our folks came back um and that we had a part of it to a a part in it. Um, yeah, that that owes those are some of the greater highlights.

• 1:47:39Jack Murphy?

  I I'm not gonna, I won't drop any dimes here, Eric. I'll I'll just say, I think it's fascinating that officially the role that you and many others played in in recovering those American citizens is completely unacknowledged. People have no freaking idea.

• 1:47:56Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:47:58Speaker 06

  Eric, you know, we, when we talk to a lot of service members and intelligence professionals, you know, one of the challenges they have, which gets mixed in, I think, with post-traumatic stress, like it all joins together and in including the TBIs, but but is also the shifting of gears, right? Going from, you know, a hundred miles an hour in a combat zone with with no decompression, no like sort of venting function from the government to back to civilian life. And that that's very hard to go to do this ramping. And even that creates its own sort of low-grade post-traumatic stress in a while with one foot on the brake, one foot on the gas all the time.

• 1:48:44Speaker 06

  But for you and others like you, it wasn't just shifting gears from going from operational at, you know, a hundred miles an hour, killing what's in front of you or whatever, to back at home, trying to fit in with people at, you know, TGIF or whatever, TGIF Fridays or whatever, or Outback or whatever. But but you were actually also going on operationally, still still in a high-stress environment, but with a completely different focus and a completely different. So how how hard was that for you? Did you?

• 1:49:26Speaker 06

  Did you, because this is this, I'm gonna make this a bigger question. Because one of the things you mentioned when you talked about sort of your um uh expression of post-traumatic stress or or these things being different than like a DevGru guy or a CAG guy. Do you feel that guys in your world compartmentalize and detach a lot more? Because that's sort of part of the job. And then so you almost have the sort of anhedonia, you know, this this lack of feeling uh that that becomes your survival mechanism?

• 1:50:06Speaker 07

  Uh, yes, and um, you know, not and and and those guys, I'm, you know, I'm not an assaulter. I don't come from those organizations. I've worked really close with those organizations. Uh, uh, I've made friendships with a lot of them early on when when I started my career in 2000 in this unit and across the timeframe. And and I've seen a lot of them suffer uh from post-traumatic stress and and traumatic brain injuries. The what I will say is then um, you know, and and each organization protects um their activities differently. Um, you know, and I'll say this simply, but you know, a SEAL is a SEAL, so a SEAL does SEAL stuff.

• 1:50:52Speaker 07

  Okay, so the I'm I'm assuming the spouses and the children of a SEAL and every SEAL know that those dudes are gonna be constantly in danger because that's what they do. And that's what they're really good at doing. Special forces, same thing, the Rangers, the Marines, and then um however, guys from CAG uh and however that world. Um, but there are cycles in the way that they train and the way that they deploy. Um, you know, in in and again, I'm just generalizing here, in in in three to four month rotations, that kind of stays in par with what, you know, the the special operations is doing for deployment. Now, in the world of um sort of intelligence, special operations, and in a unique world, for a lot of unique small organizations,

• 1:51:37Speaker 07

  is that then we don't have those same cycles. And what happens at work literally stays at work. Because I I've been and it's nothing because it's super sexy and you know Jane's Bond crap. Well, because it's classified work. Right. And so anybody that works in the IC in the intelligence community. They leave their work there and they can't talk about it. And so we have a large aspect of that. And I would say this in general, in in sort of military intelligence and then mix that with special operations. So we tend to compartmentalize a lot. And I've mentioned this before on a personal level. And I will say that I did wrong. Uh, I probably had a lot of opportunities to tell my family

• 1:52:19Speaker 07

  that I got hit by an RPG that I almost feared getting imprisoned. That I, you know, stomped my head and passed whatever, all of these really bad things that happened, as well as even share accomplishments. Hey, man, I just came back from a rotation and something really good happened.

• 1:52:37Speaker 07

  Why you, my son went to the hospital when I left and you had to deal with the bills? There's a good outcome, but we didn't even share good, bad, or different.

• 1:52:46Jack Murphy?

  Hmm.

• 1:52:47Speaker 07

  Right. Because you compartmentalize a lot of that in a selfish perspective. Um, I didn't want, you know, my wife to take away my kitchen pass, right? And and and go you're done. Or I'm going to divorce you because we have high rates of divorce. And a lot of divorces were I don't know what you're doing, but I know it's not good for the family. And so we tend to compartmentalize. Hopefully it's getting better that that it has to get better. Where folks that are doing this level of work or any level of work in the military um, learn to deal with PTS and TBIs upfront when you get back from a rotation. And so we tend to compartmentalize more because of the type of work that we do. And again, it it doesn't come home. For me personally, the way I always conditioned myself

• 1:53:32Speaker 07

  with the ways my mentors taught me, I I never took anything home. There was nothing home. There was no souvenirs when you came home from a trip. You know, there's just set rules. You leave it in your in your in your wall locker and maybe you bring it home five years later because Joe went to Africa and he brought you that elephant.

• 1:53:49Jack Murphy?

  Hmm.

• 1:53:49Speaker 07

  It's just the way it is because at the end you're you're protecting not only the organization and as we've all talked about it, you're really protecting that person to the left and to the right of you. By these little things, because in this level where there's less room for error. You you you gotta check that eagle, right? Uh, you gotta check it at the door. And so there is a lot more compartmentalization. Now, the mental aspect of it is I don't think anybody when GWOT started thought that getting hit by grenades and RPGs and being shot at or being compromised or being singleton stuff or going in and out um, moral injury is another one that people think, well, maybe only assaulters have more injury because they killed a bunch of people.

• 1:54:32Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:54:33Speaker 07

  Moral injury extends to, you know, I told my wife all the time, I said, I I didn't on the purpose that I I I never lied to you. But I didn't tell you the truth.

• 1:54:44Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:54:45Speaker 07

  Right? There's a lot of moral injury that today I don't remember.

• 1:54:50Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:54:50Speaker 07

  Really what I suppressed, when I suppressed it, where I was at till I'm looking at photographs going oh, fuck, I was, I couldn't sleep. I was talking, I was over drinking, I was an asshole. Right? Or something happened and I left it in the team room in the safe because that's how I learned to deal with it. So I'll stop there just in case you.

• 1:55:13Jack Murphy?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:14Speaker 07

  I wanted.

• 1:55:14Jack Murphy?

  No, I I mean, it it sounds, it sounds like a cliche, but um, I I can imagine here how like your mind becomes a labyrinth over time. And just the psychological pressures, it must be so immense. And I I want I want to get into um the the the kind of toll that doing this line of work takes on people in a bit. Um, but I I did also want to hit up some of these other stories that we had talked about. Um.

• 1:55:42Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:55:42Jack Murphy?

  You had mentioned one where you had to initiate the emergency destruction plan of your equipment.

• 1:55:48Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 1:55:49Jack Murphy?

  And uh, I was wondering if you could tell us a- as much as you can about that operation and why you had to go down the that I mean, maybe you can also explain what the emergency destruction plan is for people who don't get it.

• 1:56:01Speaker 07

  Yeah. And uh, you know, it was, man, I I think it went over almost against every fiber in my body uh, to even acknowledge that or even again, now I'm I'm realizing that if I did, didn't say anything to my family. That's kind of my Lintas test, right? Uh, and then again, there was other people involved in these things. Uh, and then there's other folks that have had similar scenarios that I hope they're listening. And I hope that they figure out that you you need to work through it, uh, the things that we've or anybody else has gone through. So in in particular, this one, um, I actually did put it in my you know, PTSD paperwork at the VA, took a little bit because of the sensitivities involved around it.

• 1:56:42Speaker 07

  Uh, but I did get help figuring out that, oh, yeah, I had to do, which is right classified, classified for the five Ws of it, uh, except the how or why or whatever, you know, what actually transpired. Uh, and so it was, um, you know, it's since it it was an operation um, doing uh, intelligence work. Um, and what an emergency destruction plan is, is kind of like a an O shit plan, right? And and so if you're gonna get compromised, one man five man, ten man, and their plane, wherever you're at, uh, you you you you gotta send it, guys. You know, in a tactical world, I remember uh, at least formatively as a SAD, that would be take a thermite grenade. You put it in your backpack.

• 1:57:26Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 1:57:26Speaker 07

  You would hope that that thermite grenade would go down, right? I think I I pretended to do that one time in a JRX and I kind of passed that one. Uh, well, sometimes you don't get to carry thermite grenades, right? So the level of some of these operations, you you gotta be way more creative. Um, and at least in my experience and the experience of the folks that um were in involved in this inception of this mission line. And guys that had taught me, I don't think anybody else had had done one. I later on I did come to find out and maybe somebody did something similar because you're always going to have these hairy scenarios, but uh I'm so glad I I didn't have to pay the bill because I destroyed a lot of stuff.

• 1:58:09Speaker 07

  I I think I was like, what is it, a fifteen six or whatever it was, I I got back and I thought.

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• 1:59:23Speaker 04

  Nine one one Nashville returns. It's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. Hell since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins nine one one Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:59:44Speaker 07

  I I done good and then like you're getting investigated. I'm like why the fuck does that work out? Anyway, so there I am. Uh, you know, we're we're we're working in in an environment that has very little room for for error. Um, and it meets meets the threshold, something uh, uh, an activity uh, meets the threshold with uh two, two guys that I I um I think the world of uh, for their actions and then funny stories later on. I have to kind of process how I say them, but I get a phone call, right? There's that dreaded phone call with, you know, you see this in the movies with, you know, yeah, hey, the the red cow is about to take a poop. Well, that means

• 2:00:25Speaker 07

  you need to go do A, B, C, D, E, and and and and go. And that means that then turns into muscle memory. There's no thinking that has to be planned. That's methodical. That's timing. And so I get the phone call, uh, and I go through the process. Uh, I think at that point, we hadn't thought about only doing it with one person. Um, there was this little, uh, uh, you know, a gray area there. Um, it was manageable, but um, there was a lot of things to break, sanitize, right? And and then and then you in in part of the destruction, emergency destruction plan is also an escape and evade aspect of it. So part of that is twofold. It was destroy and get the hell out of there and go. And then go means there's a plan. And I think

• 2:01:11Speaker 07

  my plan on paper was like two days. And later on, I'm like, I don't know, I couldn't walk that far, right? Like, it was one of these elaborate, like go downhill, get on a boat, go across this river. You're in another country and now you're just gonna go that away. I think I I I just did the uh huh, uh huh. I I know what to do. Like, it's never gonna happen, but it happened. However, in this aspect, um I'm then halfway, I get the bag, I destroy everything, do everything I need to do within protocols. Um, one part of it that we didn't know is um, it's really hard sometimes to destroy things when you don't have thermites and you've got to take your hands to it. And now you've got this adrenaline, right? We know what adrenaline is. We know how your eyes are gonna go down and you start ripping.

• 2:01:56Speaker 07

  But now your hands start getting bloody, right? And because you're breaking plastic and plastic starts to cut. And after a while, you you've got your your your bodies and your heart rates going, but now blood in your hands is really slippery. Right? And not only is it making a mess, at that point, I'm like, I'm not even worried about DNA. I'm not even thinking about it. I'm just thinking about I can't hold crap in my hands and there's blood everywhere. So I'm destroying stuff. My hands are getting bloody. Uh, I wash up as best as I could. I I sanitize as best as I could. Um, and then I start moving out and then I get a phone call, hey, man, it's you you you gotta come back.

• 2:02:31Speaker 07

  Wasn't thought about in order to make everything go back to green, right? Uh, if you would, simple is green, yellow is you're you're kind of in danger, red is you're in danger. So to get back to green, you need to get back. And so that's not quite anything I ever thought about. So I literally have to come back uh and just accommodate things in order to get back to green. And so that took a lot of creativity of why at the end, you know, just like you see in the, what is it? The the uh ID channel, you know, why did the murderer have blood in his hand? Well, why the hell do you have blood in your hand? Because you say you're doing X, but you're really doing Y. And so that ended up being good.

• 2:03:13Speaker 07

  Uh, I had some creativity on the spot to um explain why I have blood in my hand, why they were crap. But I had to reenact and put kind of things back in place. And then, you know, my, my, my, uh, essentially, you know, everything got back to green uh and then but a couple of days later, we wrap up, we get out of there and go kind of back to what we were talking about. And we didn't get to go home. Then subsequently, there's that, you know, that fraggo. Hey, man, I know you you kind of destroyed everything, but you guys need to stay here for another month because we need you for something else. The answer is, okay, let us figure it out. So that's that story.

• 2:03:49Jack Murphy?

  That's crazy.

• 2:03:49Speaker 06

  That is, that is, you know, it's interesting because on the show before we've talked about

• 2:03:56Speaker 06

  the weight of decisions you make that you have to make, right? Like when you're on patrol and you see a guy with a cell phone, do you shoot him or do you not? If he's triggering an IED and you haven't shot him, you you just failed your team. If you shoot him and he's an innocent, then you just committed a horrific act. I mean, we saw, was it in two thousand one when the EP three went down or uh, right?

• 2:04:26Jack Murphy?

  In China.

• 2:04:27Speaker 07

  In China, right?

• 2:04:28Speaker 06

  And they didn't.

• 2:04:29Speaker 07

  At the same time, right?

• 2:04:30Speaker 06

  And they didn't destroy the equipment because and people go, how could they not do that? They had procedures in place. That's a lot of weight on them. If they destroy that equipment and then our government turns around and tells them, why did you destroy that equipment like, you know, whatever? Like, that's a lot of weight. Those are heavy decisions because you, like you said, you're glad they didn't make you pay for it. Right? Or or?

• 2:04:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, I I I try to make kind of funny, even though it is a true story, you know, and later on into the future, I would always think about that. And then I'm like, okay, that's kind of silly, right? Like, I need to make sure when I do a mission back brief. If we got to do this, you're not fucking going to go and go chase these people because they did what you just agreed we're going to do.

• 2:05:16Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:05:17Speaker 07

  Track, like lessons learned, because sometimes we get so procedurally used to what's going to go wrong till things go wrong. And then unfortunately, it always ends up in an investigation. Good organizations, good companies learn from that and change everything so it doesn't happen again. So then the folks are going to do it. They're not like, hey, man, you remember what happened to Eric? Or what happened to these guys?

• 2:05:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:05:37Speaker 07

  Fuck that. And what what happens is you compromise the system.

• 2:05:40Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:05:40Speaker 07

  You compromise the integrity of how you're supposed to work.

• 2:05:43Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:05:43Speaker 07

  So continue to A, take care of your fricking people all the way to the end because they're going to give you, they're going to give their lives for you. They're going to go to jail, they're going to fricking, you know, sit in a cell somewhere. And, you know, but be there to back them up because, you know, those, you know, being an American hostage, and there's been very many of them, that's a world I never wanted to be in. Like, I'd rather have, and I've never told my wife, like, I'd rather have been shot, blown up, killed, but to be captured.

• 2:06:16Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:06:16Speaker 07

  I still have, I still have nightmares about that, like.

• 2:06:19Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:06:20Speaker 07

  It still goes into that hyper vigilance that folks that have been, and it doesn't matter what you did in the military, or if you were even an undercover police officer, you don't want to get ratted, you don't want to get found, like. You're just not going.

• 2:06:35Jack Murphy?

  I was wondering if you could tell us about some of those times where you were afraid of being captured? Because I know, you know, you had mentioned doing singleton operations on a few occasions. And again, I mean, back to the amount of psychological stress you're under. I mean, that's a very different scenario than being part of a Delta Squadron or a Ranger Platoon or or a conventional infantry company. Um, what were some of those uh, some of those instances that, you know, really stick with you?

• 2:07:04Speaker 07

  Yeah, and I mean, I'll say I'm not, I'm not the only one that's ever, that's ever done that. A lot of, a lot of folks, um, you know, have been tasked to do things. And what essentially is a singleton, you're by yourself there, but in the shadows, and if you would, that's a bad word. In in the background, there's people helping, right? Like, there's no, you're just going to go to yourself generally in this country and do stuff by yourself. You're going to have an element, but it is your ass on the line by yourself. You don't have a buddy to your left and to your right, right? It's just you and what and what you're doing. And so um, I I did have one in sort of mid two thousands, uh, post Ramadi, post some of the other stuff that I did.

• 2:07:47Speaker 07

  And at that point, I was already kind of worn down a little bit. Um, and so one of the, in that rotation, I uh, um, you know, essentially found um, and then entrusted to do some placement and access, if you would. So the ability to develop, gain access and kind of work my way closer. Um, while in the, you know, while in the back, I I knew the same elements you just mentioned would would be there to to to take care of me. Uh, um, but there there was an instance going in and out uh, of a facility that I worked at was was that high level of stress, right?

• 2:08:28Speaker 07

  Just getting bags in, developing the relationships to have people not blink an eye, right? That took, that took weeks to to develop, and then you're going in and out. And essentially, you're you're sleeping there by yourself, you're living your life every day uh, uh, as uh, as you need to. And then you're, and then you're operating when when it's the right time to do things. Uh, kind of that wave of the hand, if you would, to to keep it simple. And so I had been doing this uh, several days, about a week. Um, and there were, like always, there's always something going on around you. And this was citywide, so citywide, the the, and this was a hostile, this is literally a hostile environment.

• 2:09:08Speaker 07

  Uh, it was in Iraq and Afghanistan, and so there wasn't a lot of uh, US uh, entity just running around. It's very select folks running around. And so in that one and working, I had um, not only a weapon, but I had some other capabilities and things that I was doing across the spectrum of the ins. Um, and then um, there was one time that the lights in the city went off, right? And before that, I was getting, I would do a com check with sort of another, another operator uh, that was back in an area, I would do my com shots, if you would, communicate, get my instructions. Here's what I'm going to do, you know, here's my, you know, updated emergency plan. If something goes on, here's my schedule for the day. I'm out, right? And that's how you kind of work.

• 2:09:54Speaker 07

  Um, and it was a part that, hey, hey, man, by the way, here's the front level. It's going up, right? We're going from, we're going to red and what really matters is they're targeting Americans, right? Still American, uh, however, little brown guy that you look like, you're still, you're not from there. Sorry, you're not from there. And so at the same time, I was getting closer and closer and and kind of creating some uh, some uh, avenues into what I needed to facilitate. So when I come back, then you're always, you know, you get tired. You start to do your checks and balances. Okay, I don't remember that person, I don't remember this, this person's new, I've never seen that person in my car.

• 2:10:37Speaker 07

  Right? Like, all of this starts to build up, which there are always multiple things going on around you. It is just identifying which one is focused on you, right? Like, there's criminals, there's other intel work, there's always a multitude of things going on. It's just having that clear mind. And so one night, I'm uh, um, I'm, I'm at the site that about where I was living. Um, and at that point, I had a big toll. So unfortunately, I had probably been drinking a little bit more than I need to, needed to. And and I was exhausting myself to go to sleep in order to continue to operate day to day, I was reaching that really bad threshold. And the entire lights in that city go off, like all of it, there's no power. And so the critical lifeline that I had was Kamal.

• 2:11:22Speaker 07

  And as you guys know, when Kamal's done, I don't care how many guns you got, I don't care how fast you can run. I don't care what what indigenous clothes you're wearing. You got no Kamal, man, that's when you feel, that's when that gut feeling. And so the power had gone down and I was essentially probably within minutes of packing up and making a run for it, right? Because I would have met certain time windows and then there were slightly uh, elements uh, that they were doing their own stuff around that that knew, hey, if this happened, you're going to go help this one knucklehead doing his own thing. So that ended up being to get to a point in a variety of ways. Um, one of a major PTS for me, uh, because I I I slept with my pistol

• 2:12:08Speaker 07

  um, at my pillow um, for various nights, you know, in a nice soft bed. But I had a pistol, I had all the measures to know if the door was open. I shouldn't have been doing that, right? Like, that pistol should have been a tertiary thing to get to, should have been kind of more concealed. Everything else would have been more of my protection. My gun was the last, but the gun was the first thing. And so when those lights went off and at the level that I was at, that that was really hard um, to be in that scenario. And so till today, uh, not that to today, I think, you know, it took, it took probably going back a couple of months and even recent, the SGB, Segal Glavin Block, to kind of take that fight flight

• 2:12:51Speaker 07

  because that ramped me up really, really high. And there was no one coming down, there was no one coming down because I really didn't talk about it when I got back home. Never talked about it to our docs, never talked about it to my spouse. It went back in that envelope and that was mid, mid, you know, two thousands. Um, and then it just kept on, kept on working.

• 2:13:11Speaker 06

  Eric, can, I I I, I mean, I hopefully we'll talk a more, a a broader spectrum about post-traumatic stress after this because it's it's a big deal and we tried to talk it on the show, talk about it on the show. But can you tell us a little bit about the um, about the uh, what is it? The Stellate Ganglion Block, right?

• 2:13:32Speaker 07

  Yeah. Yeah. So it's a like lion block. Um, yeah. And again, I'm not a doctor and I

• 2:13:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:13:38Speaker 07

  Don't don't know anything, you know, so this is my, my fourth one. I just did uh two of them uh the last week um with uh Doc Mulvaney, former Navy SEAL turned uh Army Doc extraordinary. Um, and so the SGB, I want to say I'm going to throw a number out there. Probably about 10 years ago, 10, 13 years ago, became something that was then being used in, in at least a special operations community to help with post-traumatic stress. Essentially what it does is they put uh, I want to say it's lidocaine on the sympathetic nerve going obviously up to the brain and essentially it just numbs it. Well, what does that do for us?

• 2:14:19Speaker 07

  Who've been in these fight or flight syndromes, these high stress levels. And again, it's not only veterans, it's not only military, it can be unfortunately, you know, uh, uh, uh, someone who got raped or had a really bad stressful environment. They got, they got stuck and they couldn't make the loop of coming off the fight or flight. And what it does is essentially for me, from a higher understanding, it just, it's stopping it, right? It's allowing you to reset. And what it did for me that first time where this is 2019. So again, I got shot in 1999. Came into the unit, had all, you know, just about, it seems like every trip I had an incident. There's something was going on till 2019. So that's a lot of fight,

• 2:15:00Speaker 07

  fight or flight syndrome. And so what that did to me was take off what felt, you know, like an 80 pound ruck. Just your body feels alleviated and your emotions just, you know, what do we do with most of our, you just start to cry. You just start to release um and, and you start to feel. I know most guys who have PTS or girls. Um, at, at least in this line of work, stop feeling, you stop being able to be sympathetic on the stuff that you're going through. So that SGB has been, and hopefully this answer it, uh, just an amazing uh therapy or procedure to help, you know, alleviate and grow post, post-traumatic stress.

• 2:15:43Speaker 06

  And I, I like, how long uh after you receive a shot, do you, does it last for, for you?

• 2:15:52Speaker 07

  Uh, they say it's typically six months and I would say that that's about right. So my first one was um right after uh the two guys, uh, two friends of mine that committed suicide in 2019. So I got that one. And then six months later, almost to the T, when I was really getting into the medical aspect of retiring, which is now I'm understanding all the shit that's broken. I did my second one and that was about six, seven months ago or six, uh, six months prior to the, the first one. And so they typically say it's about six months.

• 2:16:26Speaker 07

  Past the first one. Um, and then I went along on this last two, it was probably about a year and something. Uh, because I, the first two were on, on active duty and unfortunately the VA and civilian healthcare isn't paying for it. So it took me a little while. And so the last ones I just did a week ago were on the, typically they do it on the right side. And now they're also doing it on the left side that um, um, is also um helping for traumatic brain injuries.

• 2:16:54Speaker 06

  So, so the VA is not covering this?

• 2:16:59Speaker 07

  They won't cover out of pocket. In other words, they won't send you uh from my research and the research that has been done with a nonprofit that I'm working with. The VA won't say, okay, go to, go to the Stedelijk, you know, the, the, this institute to get it done. There, they are certain VA hospitals that will do it. From my understanding from folks that have tried, it has just been horrendous. It's been very difficult for them to get an appointment in a timely manner.

• 2:17:26Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:17:26Speaker 07

  To go get an SGB.

• 2:17:28Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:17:28Speaker 07

  And so, right?

• 2:17:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, I, I not to say anything about the doctors and the medical staff at the VA, because I, I generally think they're good, but the administration. I think their plan is to wait out vets, like let them die before we have to pay for anything. Let's delay stuff as much as possible.

• 2:17:46Speaker 07

  The, the hardest part, just really quick on this is if we do it on active duty, why are we not doing that at the VA side?

• 2:17:53Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:17:54Speaker 07

  Like if a soldier, marine or service member, that was part of their get well plan on active duty. A year prior to getting out and they're diagnosed with PTS, a traumatic brain injury, and all of a sudden you literally are spitting them out of the active duty tracker system. There's a gap.

• 2:18:13Speaker 07

  Yeah, into the veteran system and then you're not following up with that care.

• 2:18:18Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:18:19Speaker 07

  I think you're, you're, you're, that's, you know, you're, you're causing more issues uh and that can probably hurt that person.

• 2:18:25Speaker 06

  Do you, do you want to plug the nonprofit that you mentioned that you're working with?

• 2:18:30Speaker 07

  I, I can if you don't, uh, you know, thank you. Uh, so right now I'm, uh, I got brought in as a team member to the Military Special Operations Family Collaborative.

• 2:18:38Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 2:18:38Speaker 07

  Essentially what they do is they, they focus on research, education and connection, right? And so what, um, and there's a, a huge uh team or a huge uh grouping of other nonprofits. Uh, All Secure uh Foundation, uh, uh Warrior's Heart and, and Healing. And there's a couple of other ones, really key ones right now, unfortunately it's invading me. Um, but what they'll, they, what they're focusing on is, is taking research from these in, in institutes or these other nonprofits and these things that are working. Going, okay, this is proven medically, this is proven peer wise, this is proven across, you know, various other in, institutes.

• 2:19:20Speaker 07

  And then we, uh, they provide education, they're providing education at certain commands at special operations, which is good. So these special operations command are, are, are bringing in uh these entities to uh allow us to share what we've learned from those outside of active duty, right? Cause there's, there's, you know, a, a different aspect to that. And then they connect and there's a lot of connecting of, just like what I did with, with SGB. And in particular, uh, they just had a couple of soft, uh, soft team room health uh events that we had online. And there's another one coming on May where we had uh Dr. Lynch, Dr. TD and uh two other doctors um, um, talking about SGB and psychedelics.

• 2:20:04Speaker 07

  So again, the reason we're sharing this is because they've done the research at, at a high level to go, okay, this is, this is being proven at multiple commands.

• 2:20:14Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:20:15Speaker 07

  The SEALs, the Rangers, whatever. And so that's essentially um, who I'm, I'm teaming up with, uh, with a lot of these fronts.

• 2:20:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, we've had a couple of that's on the, Sam Wan and a couple of others who have talked about the benefits of like psychedelic treatments uh down like, it was UT Austin where they

• 2:20:33Jack Murphy?

  There's a couple of different places.

• 2:20:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, but, but where like people are having great effects from it. This, what, what you're talking about, the uh, uh, the, uh, the game, the basal, or what is it? The G, GB?

• 2:20:46Speaker 07

  SGB.

• 2:20:47Speaker 06

  SGB. Um, I've heard about that before and I've heard that people had really good effects, uh, at least like short-term relief from it. You know?

• 2:20:55Speaker 07

  Yeah, there's no, I mean, I'll, I'll tell you, besides the funkiness and you guys come, you know, from an environment where like, okay, we put a needle in your neck. Okay, well, that's about it. Like they're not removing anything, they're not putting anything in. Like I've yet to, in the research piece of it, go, somebody grew something out of their forehead.

• 2:21:12Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:21:12Speaker 07

  It hasn't happened. The most is, and the, the quick test within minutes is that eye. Um, um, so on my right side, your right eye literally freaks out. Um, and so that's the test to go, okay, it worked.

• 2:21:28Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah. Um, so for those of you who are listening and watching, the organization that he mentioned is you can find it at MSOF C dot org.

• 2:21:42Jack Murphy?

  I'd never even heard of that one.

• 2:21:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, I haven't either. It's the Military Special Operations Family Collaborative. MSOF Foxtrot C Charlie dot org, if you guys want to check that out.

• 2:21:54Jack Murphy?

  And so Eric, there's a whole bunch of other stuff you did in the military that we're not, I don't think we're going to have time to get to tonight. Uh, we'll have to, we'll have to, we'll have to do this again sometime. No.

• 2:22:05Speaker 06

  Yeah. Damn you for having such an amazing.

• 2:22:08Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, I, I mean, I know you spent a lot of time um doing like force modification work, developing the new generation of technologies for uh, for the special operations community. Um, I, I would like to um take some time to talk about getting out of the unit, getting out of this clandestine world. Um, and I, I had mentioned to you previously that, you know, we interviewed um Sarah Carlson on the show once, who was a CIA analyst. And she really talked to us about how an analyst can have PTSD. I mean, and, and I think the public thinks like, how can somebody who sits behind a computer all day have PTSD? And they don't understand the type of pressure this person is under to get it right

• 2:22:51Jack Murphy?

  a hundred percent of the time, which of course is impossible, right? Um, I, I think that the public understands at this point that we have these soldiers, we have these hardcore dudes who we send into combat overseas, they shoot and kill bad guys. Sometimes there's collateral damage. Um, sometimes they see their teammates killed and this leads to this phenomena that we call post-traumatic stress disorder. Um, but I think the public has a harder unders, uh, harder time understanding, um, people like Sarah Carlson, the, the analyst side. Or people like yourself, Eric, who are uh on sort of the technical intelligence side, not necessarily pointing a gun and shooting people.

• 2:23:31Jack Murphy?

  With it, I, I think that there's, there, I, I'd like to take a little bit of time to kind of unpack your experience for people. I, I think this entire interview has done that a little bit, but to further uh go into your path, getting out of the military and, and sort of some of the issues and the unique aspects of your job that lead to a different type of post-traumatic stress.

• 2:23:55Speaker 07

  Okay. Yeah, so a lot of it was acknowledgement, right? So there's the what, again, as I mentioned, kind of putting it in Pandora's box, just so I can, I can go out to another trip. And I can pass the test with the doc or the psych who says, okay, Eric's clear to go out. Right, that was literally the, that was literally my, you know, five meter night fight for 20 years or whatever. And most guys and girls in a variety of things that they went through a lot of and they saw a lot of stuff that you just lose sleep. It's just not normal, right? And then you can't talk about it. There's no, there's also this stigma. So I think part of it, maybe what you didn't mention is it is a huge stigma about a vulnerability

• 2:24:39Speaker 07

  that, you know, bombs dropping on people and people getting killed or, you know, we're saving stuff, then you should be able to, no, we're still freaking human beings. This isn't a video game, right? And, and the GWAT has been going on for a long time and it's been nonstop, right? And so that's another, a key aspect of it. And so for me personally, reaching 2019, there were several key aspects of it and, and hopefully it relates to others who are in similar positions, getting ready to retire or EPS or have gotten out and now can look back and go, man, you know, maybe that's a good idea is if you have a family and, you know, and that can be a significant other or your children or even

• 2:25:24Speaker 07

  your mom and your dad, you, you, you want to give back to them. You want to be able to say, here's what I was doing for all these years, because I know you suffered, you saw me, right? There's a key thing, perspectives, like I can tell myself I was okay till I'm starting to look back at those pictures going, dude, you look like shit. Like you were beat down, you were having issues medically, marital, family, friendships. When you start to retire, you're, you're really coming to a, hopefully, most boots, people come to come into Jesus and go, I need to close this chapter and I need to go to the next one. Because if you've learned anything from reading or watching some of these podcasts is, I don't

• 2:26:08Speaker 07

  care how bad of an ass you were or how tough you were, you're gonna have some remnants of what you went through, right? And so for me, it was, all right, I, because of the suicides, that was literally what tripped me and I fell flat on my face. I went into a dark corner and said, I went back to the, those skills that I did have of self-assessment and ability to self-adjust and go, all right, the right thing to do right now, Eric, is ask for help. And I asked for help. And so part of asking for that help, as I was getting ready to retire, was hey, you, you need to open those Pandora's boxes and figure out all of these things that you went through and how did it really affect you? The PTS, TBIs, moral injuries.

• 2:26:50Speaker 07

  Oh yeah, aho, you weren't around when your wife needed you, your children needed you, your family needed you. And for me personally, one of the aspects of it was I cut away from a lot of my family 29 years ago, when I came into the military. Again, you know, for simple terms, they were Cubans and I didn't want any of that to hinder my family or hinder my ability to serve this nation. So I cut ties with my family. So there's a lot of guilt associated with that. So when I started to look at my transition, there is a selfish aspect, which I hope some folks take to it, which is, hey, man, you, you've done a lot to serve this country.

• 2:27:30Speaker 07

  If you're entitled to VA benefits, then take the time and focus on that. Because going through that VA process will also help you find care and help, because you're gonna acknowledge you're broken somewhere and then you're gonna get treatment. So as I started to open that box, identify that I had issues, and started to document it, then I would start working on that aspect of it. And importantly was, okay, what kind of person am I going to be post-military? Doesn't matter how cool, you know, all the cool stuff you do, how am I gonna provide for my family post? Because literally when you get out, I got out 30 September, one October, I'm a civilian.

• 2:28:15Speaker 07

  I'm no longer Sergeant Major Meadis. I am now Eric Meadis and that's it. There's nothing else that matters, but I'm now Eric Meadis, who's responsible for our family and I gotta get my, I now have to really get my head straight, because I gotta be a civilian and take care of them to what they want, because they weren't, they didn't sign up to serve this country. So there's a lot of aspects of transition, especially if you're married, if you're married, that now that weight, and you gotta work through a marriage and you gotta, you gotta fix a marriage, heal a marriage, post that service. And, and what you've heard, you know, in the last two, three hours, is that in all of that, who really suffered are the family members that have to endure all of this.

• 2:28:58Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:28:58Speaker 07

  Hopefully that kind of answers Jack and David, which you were.

• 2:29:01Jack Murphy?

  It's an overview for sure. Yeah. Scratching the surface.

• 2:29:03Speaker 06

  And we've, you know, we've talked about this before where, you know, there, there's this big, you know, thank you for your service culture, which is appreciated, but at the end of the day, especially for people in special operations, we, we were doing it because we wanted to, like there was no draft, right? There was no, we were all in it for our own reasons, that we're ultimately selfish in some ways. And the people who really, and I'm not like, you know, we all have our demons and, and post-traumatic stress is real, but also the people who really suffered were, were the wives and the kids and, and the husbands in some cases, but the, but the families that

• 2:29:47Speaker 06

  were left behind, that weren't out there living their dream. You know, weren't out there doing the cool guy stuff that they.

• 2:29:54Jack Murphy?

  And they're living with the uncertainty.

• 2:29:56Speaker 06

  You know, you know, yeah, you know, at any, any moment, you know, somebody could kick in your door and, you know, when, when you're in some, you know, non-permissive environment and taking you hostage, but you signed up for that. You want, like, that's the life you wanted on some level. And we suffer from that, but, but the families didn't sign up for that. And, and we forget sometimes, and the divorce rates in special operations, and, and I'm sure in your unit, are astronomical and you cannot blame spouses for feeling left behind when, when we just go do our thing.

• 2:30:38Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, that can be an entire conversation on it. I, I would say that mean, we took advantage of knowing that our family would be there for us, right? Like, those one, there's a few things that I told my wife, and the one thing I, I, I would say I promised, because I had awful intent, literally was to walk home. Because walking in special operations is a core of what we do, right? That mindset that I can walk back, it's a car break. So I, I would always promise I will walk back if at any case, and that against means being compromised and if I, I've got to fight my way, chew my way out of somewhere, I'm gonna walk back home.

• 2:31:23Speaker 07

  But what does that mean to them?

• 2:31:24Speaker 06

  Right, that's not something a spouse wants to hear.

• 2:31:28Speaker 07

  They don't want to hear that. They want to be able to hear like, hey, as soon as you leave, your kid's gonna get sick and the mortgage is gonna come in and that bill's gonna, because here's, I know what we were doing.

• 2:31:36Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:31:37Speaker 07

  And I mentioned this and I, and I think I hadn't said this, is I was always, I came home to be on TDY and I went home to deploy.

• 2:31:45Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:31:46Speaker 07

  I lived 20 years, at least more so till I figured it out, forward, either in missions, training, embedded in some agency, doing something. And then I came home to TDY, hoping to hurry up and get, and get out of here.

• 2:32:00Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:32:01Speaker 07

  Now the reality, and, and it's, it is probably the hardest thing I had to deal with, because again, a lot of my friends have gone everywhere for good, bad reasons, because you're just like, I mean, I, I gotta leave you guys alone. I gotta, I have my, my family. So I don't have the team room anymore. I don't, I have some really close friends that we maintain. But now it's just you and that family to, you know, to, to work through it. And I think there was something that you had asked as part of that transition is, how do I want to unfold my story? How do I want to say what I did? How do I want to do, right? I, I know what to say. I, I got my master's degrees, I, I can be a technician, I can be an executive, I can go freaking build.

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• 2:34:15Speaker 07

  Log cabins, um, but there's a process that then I have to worry about. What am I going to disclose in what I did? You know, it was really hard to get to this point.

• 2:34:26Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:34:27Speaker 07

  There was a lot of thinking in retrospect, but my purpose is. Two foes really quick. It's I want, I don't want another suicide.

• 2:34:35Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:34:35Speaker 07

  I don't care if I served with them, I didn't serve with them, law enforcement, military, family member, first responder, I don't care. Not for having to go through things like this. And because people aren't talking, I will share that I went through this as much as I can share. Of the really cool missions that I went through. Um, you know, and that was important. And really I'm giving back my family and my close friends their life.

• 2:35:01Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:35:01Speaker 07

  Because I took away their lives, unfortunately. Because I, we, what we had to protect. Organizations always have to protect OPSEC, just in basic OPSEC. Every military person has to do OPSEC. The family is who takes the brunt of the OPSEC because they don't understand it. They don't do that fricking every yearly OPSEC class. Their OPSEC class is you telling them not to put anything on social media and they're like, but why? Right? So anyway.

• 2:35:29Jack Murphy?

  Eric, something you told me once that really stuck with me. Um, there's something you told me about the unique. Issue that people in your line of work have, um, and it reminded me, I just to juxtaposition this. I have had the nightmares in the past where I, you're doing a halo jump and you pull your ripcord and nothing happens. And you go through all the performance measures to try to fix it and, and none of, none of it works. Or where you're in a firefight and you're shooting your M4 and the gun goes down. And you go through sports, you know, do all the corrective measures, the gun still will not go off. And I remember my dream literally breaking down the gun and field stripping it and trying to fix it and it still would not go off.

• 2:36:12Jack Murphy?

  I think that's a dream every, every ground guy goes through, every ranger, every SEAL probably has those same kinds of dreams. You told me once that. A nightmare you would have is that you would wake up in the morning and you would not know who you were. That you would not know what your identity was because you've been traveling. And all over the world doing these different missions under different aliases, living as different people. And then you come home and you're going to wake up in the morning and you're not going to remember who you actually are. And that's something that really stuck with me.

• 2:36:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean. You know, the complexity of just in special operations, it's, uh. For good reasons, it has to be very protective. Uh, the element of surprise, right? And protect the organizations that do special operations. And then, and then there's that aspects when you're doing intelligence work, obviously more so. And then you mix both of them in that. And then if you're a, a military service member versus an intelligence officer. That's different because they have, uh, you know, different authorities and different protective measures. I'm still an E9, uh, but I'm struggling this world. And so at least from 2000 to maybe 2018.

• 2:37:33Speaker 07

  Uh, at least traveling and doing stuff, um. There was so much stuff to be involved in. Um, not to sound cliche, but so many secrets that have secrets, right? Um, yeah, things, you know, it's funny, things that happen in Vegas, stay in Vegas. Well, they're similar. Right? Things that happen forward, stay forward. And then that's protecting the mission itself. And then there you have your moral injuries. And then you have, you know, um, what aspects, um. When mechanism, um. Facilitated my ability. To conduct the missions I did, or we did at a turn, at a certain time and place.

• 2:38:17Speaker 07

  Right? And there were key to the success, uh, to keep it simple. And so those things weigh on you, um. Extensively, right? Uh, it's one thing to constantly say, I'm an infantryman, I'm an infantryman. And that's what I do. However, when you start getting into the grayer areas of where. You know, and, and hopefully for the audience, I know you guys kind of reflect to your audiences. You know, this, this shit isn't a video game. Uh, but there are pieces that are in some of these, you know. These books and these movies that draw from reality. Um, and some of the things that the guys and girls in various echelons have had to conduct. Stand by, can you hear me?

• 2:39:02Jack Murphy?

  Yes, we got you.

• 2:39:04Speaker 07

  Hold on.

• 2:39:17Jack Murphy?

  That's how hardcore, how hardcore this dude is. He has his pace playing for the podcast.

• 2:39:23Speaker 07

  Of course you do, bro. You got to have a pace plan. And so.

• 2:39:28Speaker 07

  Sorry, man, it's second nature, you know, there's actually a pair of hardwired.

• 2:39:33Speaker 07

  Uh, and so in this world of having to do all of these things and they're just not all black and white. Man, you wake up sometimes, you go to sleep. And you, and nightmares are nightmares for a reason. You're like, what did I do? Why can't I talk about it? Who the fuck am I? And sometimes who the fuck am I? Isn't like this Jane Bond shit. Is what was my mindset at that time?

• 2:39:56Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:39:56Speaker 07

  Was I hunting people?

• 2:39:58Jack Murphy?

  Right.

• 2:39:58Speaker 07

  Was I lying to people? Was I just, did I go on this trip? Because I wanted to avoid my family?

• 2:40:08Speaker 07

  That's a fucking nightmare. That's a nightmare that now you kind of think about. At least for me, when you're retiring going, hey asshole. Did you really get hurt? On that mission because someone sent you or because you volunteered?

• 2:40:23Speaker 07

  That's still a nightmare that I've got to in this, I have a spreadsheet. Cause I had to figure out a way to do it. And I'm like, okay, line 101. Hey asshole, you volunteered because your spouses at some point are like. All right, dude, I'm going to make up a name. Did Andy? Say you needed to come? Or did you volunteer? Because I heard the other spouse say that Joey volunteered for that mission, right? So, and hopefully that kind of ties back to, but there's a lot of. That who was I and that person last one did it.

• 2:40:56Jack Murphy?

  Eric, can you just, uh, change the, uh, microphone on Zoom? I think maybe it's using the microphone on your headphones. If you can change it to the one back in your computer like before. Um, and I, I'm going to go ahead and use the opportunity to jump up on my soapbox for, for a moment here, if you'll permit me. Um, because I do want to. Address something else that I think is unique about the position that folks like you have. Where. In the Central Intelligence Agency, we've interviewed a lot of these folks here on, on this podcast. There is a process for their cover to be lifted and for them to reintegrate back into the civilian world. Um, so that alias, that cover persona, whatever that was, there is a process for it to be lifted.

• 2:41:40Jack Murphy?

  And then that person can come forward and say, hey, I was in the CIA. And maybe they can't reveal all the details. That's frequently the case. They may not be able to say what country they were in. Of course they can't say who the sources were that they developed. But they can tell a lot of their stories. And if you look back at a lot of the interviews we've done with, uh. Douglas London, Mark Palomaropoulos, I mean, many people, uh, that we've interviewed. They're able to tell quite a bit of their story and say, I was a CIA officer. This is what I did. But for people who are, for lack of a better term, are army spies that work in this kind of clandestine world. It, it sounds as though you folks are kind of just expected to maintain your silence forever.

• 2:42:25Jack Murphy?

  In perpetuity. And, and I think that's kind of unfair in a number of different ways. Um, including the, the pressure. That we put on the soldiers themselves, the veterans themselves and their, again, as you mentioned, their families. That we're just expecting this guy to just hold it all inside, all of it. And I'm not saying that they all need, need or should or want to come on a podcast like this. But I think it's an unrealistic and unfair expectation to expect them to just. Not talk about any of it with, you know, their, their immediate circle if nothing else.

• 2:43:00Speaker 07

  Yeah. Um, contract really quick. Can you hear me better?

• 2:43:03Jack Murphy?

  Not really.

• 2:43:14Speaker 07

  Can you hear me now?

• 2:43:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, that sounds better.

• 2:43:17Speaker 07

  All right, let's do this. Okay.

• 2:43:22Speaker 07

  So no, we don't have a mechanism to do that, unfortunately. You good? Okay.

• 2:43:31Speaker 06

  No, we, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:43:32Speaker 07

  Yeah, good. Priorities have to be priorities. And so with regards to that, you know, and I won't focus on anything from an organizational perspective. But I will tell you that then there is a sense of difficulty at the humanistic level when someone is, hey, man, I got hurt. Oh, I've got PTS. I've got PTS for an explosion and then the other. You know, I will share that out of my PTS claims, there's eight of them, I want to say, or 10. Eight of them, eight or seven of them were classified.

• 2:44:15Speaker 07

  Okay, Eric, well, why were they classified? And now I am out of the military. How do I incorporate my family into my great get well plan? Well, part of my gate get well plan is why the hell are you scared of sleeping in a hotel room? Why do you have to have a gun? Why can't you fly in an airplane and you think it's going to fall out of the sky? Because all you say is if it isn't one of your pilots and you don't have a parachute on your back, you're not trusting that aircraft, right? It isn't just anodolally because that airplane is going to fall. It's because we've been in some shitty airplanes that have literally, if they would have fallen, you would have been eaten by sharks or you would have been held hostage. And so then there's the administrative aspect of that, right?

• 2:45:00Speaker 07

  Okay, where are all these certifications for all this training, for all of these things that you did? And then if I choose to articulate in LinkedIn, which has become a staple for right, your network is your whatever worth your net worth. Well, if you don't know what to put on LinkedIn, because it's all hush, hush.

• 2:45:22Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:45:23Speaker 07

  I'm sorry, 20 years as a sergeant major in the, or you know, 29 years or anybody else. Yeah, you're going to get only certain jobs, contract work.

• 2:45:32Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:45:32Speaker 07

  Or you're going to get something that maybe when you came into military, and I think you mentioned this earlier, Dave. You know, you might have wanted to be an, I don't know, you had other ambitions in life, but you came into military for patriotism to serve this nation, in particular, guys who came in and goes right at September 11. But now in this world, when you're trying to articulate and you don't have, for lack of better words, as we always get an SOP, right? Because we look at SOPs for MFF jumps or whatever we do, there's a checklist, there isn't a checklist. That to me, and again, and it's not pointing feature, pointing feature, at this point as a veteran, I don't need to bring that, nor do I need to make any excuses anymore for my family. I need my life back.

• 2:46:16Speaker 06

  Right, right.

• 2:46:17Speaker 07

  We need.

• 2:46:18Speaker 06

  And that, that's the tough thing is that when you have that, you know, 22 year, 20 year, or 14 year, or 10 year, whatever it is, blank spot on, on your resume. That looks like a generic military resume or whatever. How do you go to, you know, Google for a head of security, head of site, you know, whatever, whatever kind of job it is for an executive level position, which you've been doing? You know, and say, I have this skill set when you can't back it up with, you know, with anything.

• 2:46:55Jack Murphy?

  Well, and again, I'm going to get on my soapbox a little bit, probably because I've had like three or four Scotches. But there, there's, there's that off ramp, I feel like for the officers, for like the blue badgers in the CIA, for the military officers in the army, that they have that sort of off ramp and it's all set up for their career progression. But for the NCOs, for the contractors, they get fucked.

• 2:47:18Speaker 06

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:47:20Speaker 07

  I think that, you know, and we've kind of, you know, briefly talked about it.

• 2:47:28Speaker 07

  You know, the intel world in the military and in depending what you did, it just doesn't translate easily. Right? And that's not even saying, hey, you were a, for lack of a better word, an assaulter, a ranger, a SEAL, a recon guy. Those are things that at least you can put in your resume and what really what, and I've been on the corporate side where I'm looking for people that I need to hire. And I'm like, okay, what skills did you get? Where did you apply that training? What level of leadership did you do and what were the outcomes? But a lot of young folks are like, oh, my God, I did all of this stuff. I don't know how to translate. And I can tell you, TACS, that program has, again, my experience, very little knowledge of how to translate

• 2:48:12Speaker 07

  soft experience, which is very ambiguous. The stuff that the Green Beret SEAL has had to do in the last 20 years isn't part of the standard recruiting checklist of what, of what you're going to do. And then in where I come from, in some of this intel and activities, right? There's a lot of programs, for lack of better words, that have been created in the last 20 years that guys have, guys and girls have gone to do that don't have an exit plan, right? Some folks, hopefully they're smart, and this is what I learned from some of my mentors is like, all right, man, take that training course and find the equivalent in, in English civilian speak. Right? I think we talked about it, like I went and did computer network operations.

• 2:48:55Speaker 07

  So I got trained to do computer network operations at the IC and high levels. While I was in the organization, taking some of that advanced training, I use that to translate to civilian speak, because I had learned from people prior to that. They're like, hey, man, I don't know what, how to say that I did this six month course in whatever training, even though it is marketable, but it doesn't have a code to train into.

• 2:49:21Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:49:22Speaker 07

  So, yeah, it's a, it's a burden. And I'm sorry, and I'll just take the second that there's a lot of folks that are, I don't want to say suffering, that don't quite know how to go back and, and, and share or articulate, you know, what, what they've been part of

• 2:49:42Speaker 07

  for multiple reasons.

• 2:49:45Jack Murphy?

  Eric, we've taken up a ton of your time. I'm going to try to run through some user questions here really quick.

• 2:49:51Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:49:51Jack Murphy?

  Brad says, any big difference between what you did and a CIA paramilitary officer? Also ever work with any body centered therapy or know anyone who did?

• 2:50:05Speaker 07

  Okay, so the first one,

• 2:50:09Speaker 07

  different capacity, I'm a DOD guy, that's a CIA intelligence officer. Even though, and Dave can help me out, right, we're two different things. I'm enlisted inside the military. However, when you start deploying, there are authorities that certain military intelligence organizations have access to, to be able to conduct intelligence operations. So at the end, doing operations potentially similar in the back as roles,

• 2:50:44Speaker 07

  different entities, but there is some overlaps.

• 2:50:50Speaker 06

  And then have you ever done any body centered therapy or know anybody like havening? Maybe or EMDR or?

• 2:51:03Speaker 07

  I've done what's a whole bunch of acupuncture. So we had some of our, you know, former 18 series deltas that came on as PAs. We're pioneering a lot of really cool acupuncture for us. I think Hoffman cocktail they were doing on us, which really, really helped. And then on my way on, as I was transitioning out, there was some EMDR, some stuff with the eyes.

• 2:51:31Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:51:32Speaker 07

  That was really good for, for sort of therapy on the PTS side. I am, full disclosure, looking at some of the psychedelics.

• 2:51:40Speaker 06

  Yeah. So. Well, I mean, honestly, like I said, I mean, we should, we should connect you with Sam, with Sam. Cause like she's done a ton of research into it and it's, it's helped her out tremendously.

• 2:51:56Speaker 07

  I'm open to it.

• 2:52:00Speaker 06

  Yeah. And then EFT is also another sort of, I guess, more body centered therapy that people have had success with. Joe's gotcha. Thank you very much for the donation. Semper Fi, EDC guy. Thank you very much. Jean Pierre, thank you. All you guys, BPA Izzy, thank you for your donations. Hillbilly Lives Matter. Hey, we're not going to ask this question about the SAPS. So if you want to ask another question in chat, please ask it. We'll, we'll credit your, your donation to another question. Hillbilly Lives Matter, is it better to do the job as a single man? Because I hear it as a single man's name all the time, but sometimes I wonder if it's better not to be.

• 2:52:44Speaker 07

  It depends. So there are times that, again, as I mentioned earlier, you're really never by yourself, you're, you're always have, you know, a network of people behind you from communications to emergencies to actually the largest part that ever helps the singleton or folks committing or conducting an act, what appears by themselves is a support infrastructure. Without those support infrastructures, you're not going to be able to do it. So there are times that sometimes doing things as an individual, doing things as a couple. It's what makes sense at that level to be able to accomplish that, that mission.

• 2:53:26Speaker 07

  Some of them obviously have to do six man or squads or teams. Hopefully that answers it.

• 2:53:32Speaker 06

  I, I also think that Hillbilly is asking about relationship status. Do the single guys fare better?

• 2:53:40Speaker 07

  Got it. I'm so sorry.

• 2:53:41Speaker 06

  No, that's okay. But do the single guys fare better or?

• 2:53:47Speaker 07

  You know, I, I, I would say I've seen, again, in the 20 years, at least in this, I, I've seen a lot of guys come in single, a lot of guys married, and those that had a stronger foundation was the married guys.

• 2:54:02Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:54:03Speaker 07

  Because, you know, you can be as tough as a badass as you are, when you come home, you're like a little wimp and you are going to mama to help you.

• 2:54:13Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:54:13Speaker 07

  Right? Because at least in my world, for my family, it was a circle of trust. And that circle of trust, that first onion, or that, you know, lowest part of that onion ring, was me, my wife, my son, and my dogs. That was it. And so when I came from whatever, they were my support network. And what we noticed a lot with the singles, um, we worried about them because they would go back to their apartments, or they're going, and we, we would have to pull them in. And so ultimately, no one can endure, I don't think I know very many people that stayed singled and did this line of work.

• 2:54:50Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:54:50Speaker 07

  If not, you start broaching very risky behavior.

• 2:54:54Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:54:54Speaker 07

  Uh, because you don't have somebody to check you.

• 2:54:56Speaker 06

  Right. I mean, and, and really, the guys who have like this, sort of,

• 2:55:03Speaker 06

  uh, the stronger wives who will call them out.

• 2:55:06Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:55:07Speaker 06

  And.

• 2:55:07Speaker 07

  Yeah. No, you're right. Yeah, they, they are your foundation. They're your reality. Even though, again, everything I mentioned that you may not share, you may not, but they know you inside and out.

• 2:55:17Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:55:17Speaker 07

  And you've got something to come home. So, you know, that's my hope. And, and you know, when you go to SER school, and you think about getting interrogating or captured, you've got to have something that you put in your mind. And mine was always, if I'm gonna break out of here, I'm gonna figure a way to walk, right?

• 2:55:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:55:33Speaker 07

  I maybe didn't have a tangible, but I knew I was gonna walk home to my wife and to my son. And one hard thing to take away from anybody is hope.

• 2:55:42Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:55:42Speaker 07

  And, and the hope that I would get back to my family. So unless you have something that powerful as a, as a, as a single person, is very difficult.

• 2:55:51Speaker 06

  Yeah, I, it's interesting.

• 2:55:53Speaker 07

  And most guys, sorry, are, are older in life anyway. Most of our, our guys are 30 and above. Right? So we're, we're, you know, there are no young, young folks in these units doing this.

• 2:56:05Speaker 06

  Yeah, I, in Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote about that in the concentration camps, that, the people who had something to live for were the ones who would make it. Yeah.

• 2:56:18Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:56:18Speaker 06

  Uh, Jackie, thank you very much. Uh, love what you guys are doing and keep it up. By the way, uh, go Navy. Uh, T-Bar, thank you. Uh, what's harder, blending into a civilian population or navigating all the politics of a war zone when running a strategic mission?

• 2:56:37Speaker 07

  The navigating the strategic, because you would think it would make sense. You would think that everybody's on the same ship for the greater good of the mission. And unfortunately, the greatest heartbreaks and disappointments that I've ever had have been home, have been going back, you know, at, at work or going, you know, to downtown, to some entity where, for lack of better words, we had to get, "Mother, may I? Can I go operate?" Or can we get the go, uh, or the funding? And then just be shot down

• 2:57:12Speaker 07

  for stupidity. Uh, and, you know, you kind of figure it out. You're like, hey, man, I got it. Listen, I'm gonna, you, you will get promoted, right? You gotta do that reverse kind of intelligence work and go, you will get promoted, lead us to our mission. So the, to the answer, blending in is hard, but you, you, you, you figure out there's, it's just you in that environment. The political has been, I think, in my perspective, the hardest thing to navigate. Um, is just getting after it sometimes.

• 2:57:40Speaker 06

  How, how did your unit, uh, deal with officers who were very protective of their careers and wanted sort of the no-failure options?

• 2:57:54Speaker 07

  Ooh. Uh, so, there's a lot of breeds. There's a lot of, uh, you know, there's a lot of, um, kind of like Jedi, I don't, it's, I'm like, I don't have the right word, like Jedi mind tricks, but there's.

• 2:58:09Speaker 06

  A lot of NLP.

• 2:58:10Speaker 07

  Uh, well, there's a lot of like guerrilla warfare, right? Like, I'm gonna get this guy, and I'm gonna get this person to believe the cause. And then that person tells somebody else, and that person gets to someone else. Again, as an enlisted people, the enlisted folks that stay there for a long time, we don't ever, and this goes across a lot of organizations, you're like, oh, God, I know what this person unfortunately is in their mind. They're worried about their career, they're gonna ride this pony to the end. Hopefully, they listen to us. And what we're gonna need to do as professionals is provide it in a way for them to make the right decision-making process.

• 2:58:46Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:58:46Speaker 07

  We're gonna provide it in a way, we take out the, hopefully, we take out the emotions and we get to the facts, and we're able to present the case for them to do the right thing. And when they, unfortunately, they don't, there are times that they're like, hey, bro, I told you so.

• 2:59:02Speaker 06

  Right?

• 2:59:02Speaker 07

  Yeah. And then, and, and if you're young in the career, in the unit, in any of these units, you are ultimately going to come back when you decide to go from, you know, I don't know, a captain or a major, and now you're gonna, you know, like, we will see you again.

• 2:59:16Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:59:17Speaker 07

  I will probably be here, that guy will be here, and that person that was your teammate and enlisted will probably still be in this unit. So please make the right decision, because at the end, we're all trying to get to the, we're trying to get to the same end state.

• 2:59:31Speaker 06

  Because, I mean, I, I mean, you guys have these guys coming in from NSCOM. I like, where are these guys?

• 2:59:36Jack Murphy?

  We, we'd have them come back to us in SF as like battalion commanders, and some of them are like, like, yeah, you don't really know anything about SF at all. Why are you here?

• 2:59:47Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:59:47Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, we, we, we, we get them from, from all over the places. It's not intel guys. I mean, you know, you get all breeds of people that come in at the officer level. And I really don't care where they come from at the end, because of the selection processes and all of that. At the end, you, you start, you should start with a clean slate, right?

• 3:00:05Speaker 06

  Right.

• 3:00:05Speaker 07

  And then when we start creating those conversations, and just like, you know, just like me or anybody else, it's, you're only as good as your last, your last mission and what success you had. And so as you start, you know, you, you don't want to build that hallway file.

• 3:00:19Speaker 06

  Right.

• 3:00:19Speaker 07

  You have that hallway file.

• 3:00:22Speaker 06

  Yeah. Uh, Connor, thank you, man. She said, thanks for the content, gents. Uh, Semper Fi EDC, uh, Semper Fi, Eric. Um, uh, Hassan116, thank you. Have you run across any other Cuban-American, sorry, uh, Americans in SOF, JSOC? Great episode.

• 3:00:40Jack Murphy?

  Hey, go check out a previous Team House episode with Ruben Garcia.

• 3:00:44Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 3:00:44Jack Murphy?

  Served in Vietnam, Cuban immigrant.

• 3:00:47Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 3:00:47Jack Murphy?

  And, uh, and then was involved in SOT. Yeah, amazing interview.

• 3:00:52Speaker 07

  Oh, I, you know, I, I haven't even seen that. Actually, ironically enough, I have not.

• 3:00:58Jack Murphy?

  Really?

• 3:00:58Speaker 07

  Um, I, I think, yeah, not, not just anyone that I've had to work with, right? Like, either on a mission forward, anybody from another tier, or anything that I, I build a relationship, or even, I did Google, when I Google, in the IC Google, you know, at the, whatever, the, the search, I've like Googled my last name to see if there was anybody else. I think I, I popped up like two people. So I stopped searching my last name, uh, to see if there was any other meadoses. I never found anybody. Um.

• 3:01:29Jack Murphy?

  I, I know, I, I know another Eric. He'd be mad if I, if I mentioned his name here, but I, I'd, I'd be happy to introduce you guys.

• 3:01:37Speaker 07

  Eric, there was a lot of them. Meadoses I, I, I hadn't found. Cubans I hadn't. I, I have been blessed with a whole bunch of Puerto Rican, Mexican, all kinds of other, I've got Egyptian brothers, you know, all of the other dudes that we get, but no, not, not, not Cubans.

• 3:01:56Speaker 06

  Uh, did Hillary ask another question? Did you see him?

• 3:01:59Jack Murphy?

  I don't think so. I think that was the last one. And, um, listen, we're almost like three hours in at this point. Eric, I really appreciate your time on a Friday. I know you're, you're out doing family stuff right now. Uh, this has been an awesome interview. I hope that we can have you back at some point. Um, this is like a really unique, uh, perspective to have.

• 3:02:18Speaker 06

  We, yeah, we really appreciate it.

• 3:02:21Jack Murphy?

  And.

• 3:02:21Speaker 07

  Hey, I, yep, sorry.

• 3:02:23Jack Murphy?

  Go ahead, go ahead, Eric. I'm sorry.

• 3:02:25Speaker 07

  No, I, I just wanted to, you know, um, thank you, but, you know, openly also, I, I do appreciate, um, you know, this, that this isn't about me, like, I've never, I didn't come from a world where, um, Eric, um, really mattered. It was great, the, the greater mission. Um, you know, and this isn't about the organization I came from. And we, we both have talked about it, is the folks that do this line of work. Um, and I think you guys are getting at it. You're getting at sharing these stories. Uh, some of them are cool. I wish, you know, I'd love to come back and share um, aspects of, of other things that I've been involved with and been involved in, or even have knowledge of, uh, without compromising anything. And again, it isn't, it isn't about the unit,

• 3:03:09Speaker 07

  and hopefully, people don't worry about where you came from, but they worry about the individual. And for you guys, as a podcast, you're doing just an amazing job at sharing that history and capturing it and formulating it in a way that, that is fun, um, and hopefully, new generations of people who want to do this line of work. And just as importantly, family members and children or friends that have had someone involved in, in anything that you guys cover, glean something, because I think you guys have done an amazing job uh, uh, at, at getting at it and providing that information. So I thank you. I know my family thanks you, uh, for being able to share, uh, my ability to share the stories, answer these questions, and, and obviously, not compromise, uh, anything, uh, into the future.

• 3:03:54Speaker 06

  Well, we appreciate it. And for a lot of our viewers, I don't know if they understand, like, the amount of pressure that a per, like a person like you, like, that, that we have on ourselves, you have on yourself, you know, and, and, you know, you, you want to be loyal to your, your people. You don't want to, um, you don't want to be the person who, who talks out of school, but there, there are also stories that deserve to be told, need to be told. Um, and these communities have had a horrible, horrible rate of, you know, uh, suicide, self-harm, alcoholism, and.

• 3:04:37Speaker 06

  And we really appreciate you like making yourself vulnerable and, and, and letting other guys who might be in your position know that it's okay to come out and talk about this.

• 3:04:50Jack Murphy?

  And American.

• 3:04:51Speaker 06

  You know, about, about what we're going through.

• 3:04:52Jack Murphy?

  The, the American public can't support a capability that they don't know we even have. So to talk to the, the public, to talk to the taxpayers out there and let them know that, yeah, we do have these guys and we should support them and make sure that they're taken care of. It's an important and it's a healthy conversation.

• 3:05:08Speaker 06

  And make sure they're taken care of, you know, like you, you, it can't be so absolutely 100% secret that you, you can't, you, you can't even talk to the VA and get the support that you need.

• 3:05:20Speaker 07

  Yeah. And I think that's the key, you know, and that's the silver, you know, again, and it doesn't matter what level or the, the individual's perception of what they can and can't talk. And sometimes we are our worst enemies, right?

• 3:05:34Speaker 06

  Right.

• 3:05:35Speaker 07

  Like we would drown ourselves in a freaking shallow pool because we weren't well informed. However, what we can do, those that are now veterans, uh, is illuminate the path, not compromise anything, but we, we're smart about this, right? Folks that come from our community, we're smart people, we can get at it. And I think the way we're, we're addressing these topics and we're illustrating, and at the end you're, hey, I'm not, I'm not talking about any TTPs. I'm literally telling you what the life.

• 3:06:02Speaker 06

  Right.

• 3:06:03Speaker 07

  Is of people who've done this work across the spectrum, what their families are, and hopefully someone's living who works at the VA, who works somewhere and just we, we move this forward to take care, so we can, at the end, actually really become a stronger nation and take care of our people because the next generation is coming. And in this world of, you know, uh, I don't want to say Google, but Facebook and all of this crap, we've got less people who want to really serve this nation.

• 3:06:29Speaker 04

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• 3:07:59Speaker 07

  Right. We need them to be prepared to do it.

• 3:08:02Speaker 06

  Right.

• 3:08:03Speaker 07

  And we kind of need to adjust a little bit, our biases and, and help them move forward.

• 3:08:08Speaker 06

  Yeah. So check out, um, um, Military Special Operations Fan.

• 3:08:14Speaker 04

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• 3:09:16Speaker 01

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• 3:09:22Speaker 04

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• 3:09:43Speaker 06

  Family Collaborative, that's M.S.O.F. Foxtrot, uh, ccharlie.org. Um, you know, they're, they're doing great work.

• 3:09:53Jack Murphy?

  Eric, where can people find you?

• 3:09:54Speaker 07

  Yeah. So the key one is on Instagram, so.

• 3:09:59Speaker 04

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• 3:11:28Speaker 07

  Echo nine axiom is the primary, um, when you can find me on Instagram and it's on Facebook, uh, and if you Google, uh, now Eric Mead is on Google, you can find me. Uh, but really on Instagram is the first one on Facebook, there's echo nine, uh, E.C.H. O nine dot axiom.

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• 3:12:58Speaker 04

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• 3:13:20Speaker 07

  And from there, really, there's a link tree that'll lead to and a lot of these videos and a lot of.

• 3:13:25Jack Murphy?

  That, all, all that information is also going to be down in the description of this video. Um, also down in the description, you'll find a link to our Patreon. If you guys want to support this live stream, we really appreciate it. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't already.

• 3:13:39Speaker 04

  Forget whatever plans you have this weekend because you're staying at home and playing on Spin Quest and there's never been a better time to sign up than right now. New users get $30 coin packs for just $10. All the table games you love with hundreds of slot games and real cash prizes. That's at spinquest.com. S.P.I.N.Q.U.E.S.T. com.

• 3:14:01Speaker 02

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

• 3:14:08Speaker 04

  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 plus by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star Trust Pilot 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.

• 3:14:36Speaker 03

  911, what's your emergency?

• 3:14:39Speaker 01

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 3:14:45Speaker 04

  911 Nashville returns. It's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. Melonson swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe. 911 Nashville, all new Thursdays on ABC next day on Hulu.

• 3:15:06Jack Murphy?

  Pretty, leave us a review on iTunes. All that stuff helps and we really appreciate that. Next Friday, we're gonna have Ben Milligan. He should be here in the studio. He wrote By Water Beneath the Walls. I'm reading this book right now. It's complicated, but it's a history of amphibious warfare.

• 3:15:25Speaker 00

  Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, Lady Luck?

• 3:15:30Speaker 01

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

• 3:15:43Speaker 00

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

• 3:15:47Speaker 02

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

• 3:15:55Speaker 03

  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. 911, what's your emergency?

• 3:16:28Speaker 01

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder warnings.

• 3:16:33Speaker 04

  911 Nashville returns. It's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. All since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues for Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville, all new Thursdays on ABC next day on Hulu.

• 3:16:54Jack Murphy?

  Air and amphibious commando operations and what led to the creation of the Navy SEALs. There's some heresies in here about William Darby. We'll talk about that.

• 3:17:03Speaker 07

  Uh oh.

• 3:17:04Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, Ben Milligan.

• 3:17:05Speaker 07

  Spicy.

• 3:17:05Jack Murphy?

  Special Ops apostate, you know, and Ben is a former SEAL, so we're gonna break his balls a little bit.

• 3:17:12Speaker 01

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

• 3:17:37Speaker 02

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

• 3:17:43Speaker 04

  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.

• 3:18:14Speaker 03

  911, what's your emergency?

• 3:18:17Speaker 01

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder warnings.

• 3:18:21Speaker 04

  911 Nashville returns. It's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. All since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues for Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville, all new Thursdays on ABC next day on Hulu.

• 3:18:43Jack Murphy?

  About hair product and things like that. But no, he, this, honest, honest to God, this is a really good book and I got learning things in here that I didn't know anything about. So I highly suggest people go out and get a copy of this and give it a read. Really good stuff.

• 3:18:58Speaker 07

  Also get some wakis.

• 3:18:59Jack Murphy?

  And I'm excited, we're excited to talk. Happy birthday, America. It's time to celebrate and play your favorite Las Vegas casino games by American-owned spinquest.com. What's better than fireworks and American pie? Hitting a blackjack in the palm of your hand and you won't lose your fingers. Over a thousand games, including slots and live dealers and $30 coin packs are on sale for 10. Spinquest.com. Buy American players for American players.

• 3:19:26Speaker 02

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

• 3:19:32Speaker 04

  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.

• 3:20:00Speaker 03

  911, what's your emergency?

• 3:20:04Speaker 01

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder warnings.

• 3:20:08Speaker 04

  911 Nashville returns. It's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. All since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues for Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville, all new Thursdays on ABC next day on Hulu.

• 3:20:30Jack Murphy?

  To Ben next week. And Eric, again, man, thank you so much. Taking some time out of your Friday evening.

• 3:20:36Speaker 07

  Yeah, we really appreciate it. Gentlemen, thank you so much.

• 3:20:39Jack Murphy?

  And I want to do it again. I want to have you on again sometime because.

• 3:20:43Speaker 07

  We want you in studio next time where we can tip a few back.

• 3:20:46Jack Murphy?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:20:47Speaker 07

  Oh, we will. Sweet. All right.

• 3:20:51Jack Murphy?

  See you next Friday.

• 3:20:51Speaker 07

  I don't know how this works, but I'm gonna say cheers, darling.

• 3:20:55Jack Murphy?

  Happy birthday, America. It's time to celebrate and play your favorite Las Vegas casino games by American-owned spinquest.com. What's better than fireworks and American pie? Hitting a blackjack in the palm of your hand and you won't lose your fingers. Over a thousand games, including slots and live dealers and $30 coin packs are on sale for 10. Spinquest.com. Buy American players for American players.

• 3:21:19Speaker 02

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

• 3:21:25Speaker 03

  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.

• 3:21:56Speaker 03

  911, what's your emergency?

• 3:21:59Speaker 01

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder warnings.

• 3:22:03Speaker 04

  911 Nashville returns. It's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. All since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues for Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville, all new Thursdays on ABC next day on Hulu.

• 3:22:25Speaker 07

  Let's see you next time.

• 3:22:44Jack Murphy?

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

• 3:23:07Speaker 02

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

• 3:23:14Speaker 03

  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. 911, what's your emergency?

• 3:23:48Speaker 01

  Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder warnings.

• 3:23:53Speaker 04

  911 Nashville returns. It's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. All since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues for Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville, all new Thursdays on ABC next day on Hulu.

• 3:24:37Speaker 02

  You know what? It sucks to be bored. But when I get on my phone and play real casino games on spinquest.com, the time flies by. That two-hour wait at the DMV seems like 10 minutes. Play your favorite slots, live blackjack, live craps with a live dealer. New players, $30 coin packs are on sale for $10. Play spinquest.com and you'll never be bored again. Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 3:25:07Speaker 03

  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.

• 3:25:39Speaker 03

  911, what's your emergency?

• 3:25:42Speaker 01

  Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 3:25:46Speaker 04

  911 Nashville returns. What's a homicide detective doing here? Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. I will send swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues from the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Ryan Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 3:26:35Speaker 01

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

• 3:26:59Speaker 02

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

• 3:27:05Speaker 04

  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.

• 3:27:34Speaker 01

  911, what's your emergency? Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder hornets.

• 3:27:42Speaker 04

  911 Nashville returns. What's a homicide detective doing here? Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. I will send swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues from the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Ryan Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 3:28:04Speaker 00

  Oh, I have had no luck lately. Wait, Lady Luck?

• 3:28:08Speaker 01

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

• 3:28:22Speaker 00

  $10 for 30? I'm adding it over to spinquest.com right now.

• 3:28:26Speaker 02

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

• 3:28:33Speaker 03

  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.

• 3:29:04Speaker 01

  You're halfway through your to-do list, iced matcha in hand, and the day's still not slowing down. Good skincare should keep up without overcomplicating things. Overuse of active ingredients can damage your skin's moisture barrier. New Aquaphor Hydrating Daily Lotion helps repair your skin's moisture barrier. It's lightweight and fast-absorbing on skin. Even though your afternoon's packed, your skin's moisture barrier is unbothered. Grab Aquaphor Hydrating Daily Lotion at your nearest retailer. There's before, and then there's Aquaphor.