#252 Matt Bissonnette - SEAL Team 6 Operator’s First-Hand Account of Operation Neptune Spear

Matt Bissonnette is a former United States Navy SEAL known for his participation in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden, as detailed in his bestselling book No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden (2012), written under the pen name Mark Owen. A DEVGRU (SEAL Team Six) operator, Bissonnette served multiple combat deployments and was one of the SEALs who entered bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The book, which became a New York Times bestseller, sparked controversy for not being cleared by the Pentagon, leading to a 2016 settlement where Bissonnette agreed to forfeit royalties and speaking fees. He has since advised on the CBS series SEAL Team (2017–present) and maintains a low public profile. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Buy PSYOP Now - https://psyopshow.com Preorder Now - https://callofduty.com https://americanfinancing.net/srs NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-781-8900, for details about credit costs and terms. https://tryarmra.com/srs https://aura.com/srs https://betterhelp.com/srs This episode is sponsored. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. https://bunkr.life – USE CODE SRS Go to https://bunkr.life/SRS and use code “SRS” to get 25% off your family plan. https://shawnlikesgold.com https://hillsdale.edu/srs https://ketone.com/srs Visit https://ketone.com/srs for 30% OFF your subscription order. https://mypatriotsupply.com/srs https://patriotmobile.com/srs https://prizepicks.onelink.me/lmeo/srs https://ROKA.com – USE CODE SRS https://tractorsupply.com/hometownheroes https://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://gemini.com/srs Sign up for the Gemini Credit Card: https://Gemini.com/SRS #GeminiCreditCard #CryptoRewards #Advertisement This episode is sponsored by Gemini. All opinions expressed by the content creator are their own and not influenced or endorsed by Gemini. The Bitcoin Credit Card™ is a trademark of Gemini used in connection with the Gemini Credit Card®, which is issued by WebBank. For more information regarding fees, interest, and other cost information, see Rates and Fees: gemini.com/legal/cardholder-agreement Some exclusions apply to instant rewards; these are deposited when the transaction posts. 4% back is available on up to $300 in spend per month for a year (then 1% on all other Gas, EV charging, and transit purchases that month). Spend cycle will refresh on the 1st of each calendar month. See Rewards Program Terms for details: gemini.com/legal/credit-card-rewards-agreement Checking if you’re eligible will not impact your credit score. If you’re eligible and choose to proceed, a hard credit inquiry will be conducted that can impact your credit score. Eligibility does not guarantee approval. The appreciation of cardholder rewards reflects a subset of Gemini Cardholders from 10/08/2021 to 04/06/2025 who held Bitcoin rewards for at least one year. Individual results will vary based on spending, selected crypto, and market performance. Cryptocurrency is highly volatile and may result in gains or losses. This information is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Consult with your tax or financial professional before investing. Matt Bissonnette Links: YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@mattbissonnetteofficial Website - https://mattbissonnette.com IG - https://www.instagram.com/mattbissonnetteofficial IMDb (for SEAL Team) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6473344/fullcredits Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:34Shawn Ryan?

  Matt Bissonnette, welcome to the show, man. Thanks, man. It's been a minute. Glad to be here. Yeah. It has been a minute. But, man, I just, first off, I just want to say thank you for coming down here. I know this was a big, big, big decision for you. You've never revealed your identity before. This is the first time it's on, and that includes 60 Minutes and a lot of, a lot of big publications that, that, that wanted your story and especially about, you know, the Bin Laden raid and all that stuff. So, like I said, I know this was a, was a major decision for you, and I just want to say I'm honored to be able to, to be the one to bring it out. So, thank you. I'm only doing it here, so, so I appreciate it.

• 1:19Shawn Ryan?

  It's, it's, it's my honor. So, so, what are we here to talk about today? We're here to talk about, you got a new book coming out, and we're going to talk about, you know, how the DOD basically went after you unjustly for the previous book, No Easy Day, written by Mark Owen. But, um, but, um, so, we're going to talk all about that, some of the names of the people that were involved in, in going after you from, you know, coming out of the darkness and trying to fuck you over. And, and, uh, you know, I just want to say, these are my favorite interviews to do. I, as much as I hate what happened to you,

• 2:01Shawn Ryan?

  we've done, we've done this with Brad Geary. We've done this with the Blackwater guys. We did this with a Canadian sniper that held the world record for the longest sniper shot. He was on the team. Who else have we done this for? Our mutual attorney, our, our best buddy here, Tim Parlatory's going to be making an appearance. Who else have we done this for, Tim?

• 2:26Shawn Ryan?

  Eddie Gallagher. J Cal. J Cal. So, these are, these are my favorite ones to do. Somebody with an amazing life story, who's dedicated their entire fucking life to government service. And now the government's trying to fuck you over and we get to name the names of the people that are doing it and make them and their entire fucking bloodline ashamed to ever have been associated with these pieces of shit. It's my favorite thing to do. They just want to make them.

• 2:58Speaker 02

  It's a crazy story.

• 2:59Shawn Ryan?

  Eight going in public. Because, because, so anyways, everybody starts off with an introduction. See, I'm excited about this shit, man. Matt Bissonnette.

• 3:11Shawn Ryan?

  Former Navy SEAL who served with SEAL Team Six and was part of the historic raid that took down Osama bin Laden. Author of the bestselling book, No Easy Day, under the pseudo-name Mark Owen, giving the world an insider's look at the mission that took bin Laden down. Stepping into the spotlight with your new book, No Easy Way, and your YouTube channel, sharing unfiltered stories from your life and career. Consultant and executive producer for the CBS show SEAL Team. Faced legal battles with the government over your writing, but you're still pushing forward with your message of resilience, family, and faith. You're a husband, a father, and most importantly, a Christian. So, once again, welcome to the show.

• 3:56Shawn Ryan?

  And Matt, you've stayed under the radar for, how many years has it been now?

• 4:01Speaker 02

  Twelve.

• 4:01Shawn Ryan?

  Twelve years.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Twelve.

• 4:03Shawn Ryan?

  Staying under the radar for twelve years, never revealed your identity, your face, your name, nothing. Why, why now?

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Why now? Um, well, as you know, I, I called you to talk about my next book and, and possibly coming on here to, to talk about that book. And through that discussion, um, we had a real honest discussion and, and you asked me some straightforward questions like, why, why are, why are you still doing this? You've done it for ten, twelve years. Um, why not? And so, uh, through that, through the discussion with you, I thought about it, prayed about it, and, uh, and said, hey, maybe it is time, right? It's been twelve years. I've, I've fought this battle that I've been in very, very.

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Privately and very quietly to the best of my ability and it's got me to this point. And, and the point was where I had to write the No Easy Way to, to tell this story. And, um, and so to then get this story out there and actually make sure people heard this, the, the true story and, and how I was treated, um. This, this is part of that journey.

• 5:13Shawn Ryan?

  So where, where is, uh, No Easy Way? Where are we in the, in the process of?

• 5:18Speaker 02

  The Easy Way book was submitted for government review, right?

• 5:21Shawn Ryan?

  You have to submit that one for government review?

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Yes, absolutely. And any book, anybody who's signed a, a top secret clearance has to get any and all works reviewed. Uh, now is that enforced across the board? Absolutely not. They just go after who they want to, but.

• 5:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Didn't McRaven just do a special on this on Netflix or something Admiral McRaven?

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Get me started on McRaven.

• 5:43Shawn Ryan?

  Didn't he just?

• 5:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:44Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that's way bigger. That's a Netflix thing, right? So he doesn't have to do it.

• 5:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think there's a double standard here.

• 5:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that's a natural. He doesn't have to do shit like that. But, um. So, well, hold on though. Wait, why do you have to write? Why do you have to get the next book approved by the government? Are you talking about tactics?

• 6:04Speaker 02

  It, it is a long story, my friend. Um, and it's, I'm, I'm telling the story of what the government did to me over my first book, No Easy.

• 6:12Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, you have to get approval to tell the story on how the government fucked you over on your first book?

• 6:19Speaker 02

  Yes. And, and it's been, and it's been six months.

• 6:22Shawn Ryan?

  And it hasn't been approved yet?

• 6:24Speaker 02

  They won't, they won't approve it. I've heard nothing. They keep slow rolling me, which to, which to me means, right, that the DOD swamp, right, that's there, wants to crush my story, doesn't want it out. And so again, that's part of the reason I'm coming on, sitting down with you here is to start telling the story and maybe shake the tree. So people hear a little bit about of what, what these people did do to me.

• 6:48Shawn Ryan?

  Geez. Well, like I said, I'm excited to do this. So.

• 6:53Shawn Ryan?

  Um, so what I'd like to do is I'd like to do a life story on you, starting from childhood through your SEAL Team careers into development group and then, you know, the book and everything that happened. I know there's a lot. Well, it's, it's basically two interviews in one, uh, because of, of, of the shit you're dealing with now. But, um, but before we get going, I got a couple of things to knock out for you. So I got you some gifts, Matt. Here you go. Everybody gets those.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Very excited about these. I've got a lot of people asking for these. If I got some today, they wanted me to bring and share with them. So, thank you.

• 7:28Shawn Ryan?

  We'll load you up. And then every once in a while, we give one of these out on the show. So I got a buddy over at SIG. His name's Jason.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  You got a good buddy over at SIG.

• 7:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, he's, man, he was really excited about this interview. So I thought it would be a good idea to, to present you with one of those. So that's the SIG Sour P365 Legion. You like that? Do you already have one?

• 7:56Speaker 02

  Yes, of course.

• 7:57Shawn Ryan?

  Son of a bitch. Well, now you got two.

• 7:59Speaker 02

  But the Legion is my favorite.

• 8:03Speaker 02

  The Legion's, the, the duck's nuts. So, thank you.

• 8:06Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, you're welcome. You're welcome.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  And then, wait, wait, I got something for you. Okay. Um, Eagles and Angels. You ever heard of the brand? Started my former Delta buddy of mine, uh, right? He uses our old camouflage. We donate a uniform. He cuts them out. Uh, I had these made with a God Who Trusts because I knew you were a fan. And, uh,

• 8:29Shawn Ryan?

  These are awesome. Thank, oh, man. Thank you. Love it. These will go in the studio. Thank you. This is your uniform, right?

• 8:41Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 8:41Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  It's pretty cool. They're right. They do different operators and they, they, you know, borrow a set of camis, they cut them up and then they, they sell them and it's kind of cool collector's items.

• 8:53Shawn Ryan?

  Very cool. Thank you. Thank you.

• 8:57Shawn Ryan?

  And then, um, all right, one last thing. So I got a Patreon account. We've turned it into one hell of a community. They have supported me since the very beginning and they're the real reason that we even get to sit down and have this discussion today. So I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. This is from Matt Stockton. How do you keep your faith with so much opposition? And how did you find so much solid solidarity after war fighting?

• 9:28Speaker 02

  So the first part again, how'd I keep my faith?

• 9:31Shawn Ryan?

  How do you keep your faith with so much opposition? And how do you find so much solidarity after war fighting?

• 9:40Speaker 02

  I would say I keep my, my faith is easier to keep when I've been in the trenches. When I've been in the fight, because it's much more, I'm in the fight and I need to remember, right? Where I've had my biggest struggles is where I'm not in the fight and it seems kind of quiet and there's not a lot of stuff going on. And that's, that's where I've struggled. So in the most emotional experiences, or when we dealt with a lot of death in the teams, or whatever it was, that was where I was able to understand that my faith and there, there's a plan, right? Um, dealing with the government stuff. I was in a very, very dark, negative place. Getting out of the teams, I mean, I was in a very dark place after the way the government was treating me. And, uh,

• 10:27Speaker 02

  and, and I guess I realized that, um,

• 10:32Speaker 02

  it's the anytime you're challenged in your face, it's God testing you. That's the way I looked at it, right? Was maybe God just challenged me through the whole thing that I've been through with the government to see if I was going to turn into a little bitch or not. Right? Was I gonna, was I gonna man up and deal with this the right way? Or was I gonna fold, melt and, and, and, and become somebody I wasn't proud of? And so.

• 10:54Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man. Well, you definitely didn't fold.

• 10:57Speaker 02

  So it's been a long fight, man. It's been a long fight. I'm still in it. I've got, I've got, yeah, I'm still in it. I got, I got a payment plan for the next 15 years.

• 11:06Shawn Ryan?

  Talk, let's tell me about that. So give me a brief snapshot of what happened.

• 11:12Speaker 02

  Uh, okay, we're jumping all over here. You want to jump in where the book?

• 11:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna go, we're just a brief snapshot of what, what you're going through. Let's say 90 seconds or less, and then we'll, we'll cover that in detail when we get to it.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  I've been, I've been fighting my own government for 12 years.

• 11:30Shawn Ryan?

  You wrote a book on the bin Laden.

• 11:31Speaker 02

  I wrote No Easy Day, right? The government immediately came after me for writing that book without a pre-publication review process being done. They, they came after me legally with unlimited attorneys for a whole bunch of time. Ultimately, they said, hey, look, there's nothing classified in the book. We just want all the book money back. Well, I had spent a million and a half of that book money on my lawyer fees defending myself against these baseless accusations. And in the end, the government said, we want it all back. So I gave them all the money book, the, the, the book money that I had left. And I said, look, you're, you're still missing 1.5. We want that back too. So I sued my attorney. I won, went back to the government with a winning malpractice case saying, hey, I'm

• 12:12Speaker 02

  relied on the advice of counsel to publish my book without a review. I know the government didn't want to look at this, but I sued my attorney and won. Will, will you relook at this case? They said, no. I said, well, I can't pay you a million and a half in three years. Give me some sort of payment plan. And so they said, give us all the money your malpractice suit made, your winning malpractice suit, and then they put me on a payment plan. So I pay $3,800 a month for the next 15 years. They said if I miss one payment, they'll charge me back taxes and come after me again. I only served for 14 years, right? I served for 14 years. I got a plaque with my name misspelled when I got out. Right? One, one T and Matt.

• 12:51Speaker 02

  But yet they, they want me to, to pay back more money than I ever would have made in my service for longer than I ever served. I only served for 14. I got a 15 year payment plan. So that, that and the story behind that is what, what I wrote about in No Easy Way. That's the story that the government's trying to slow roll in the review process right now. And it's the reason that I'm sitting here with you now is so I can start sharing this story a little bit more publicly. I've been very private about it. I've just tried to duke it out with them the, the best way I could through the legal system, and it's got me to here.

• 13:24Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 13:25Speaker 02

  Here we are.

• 13:26Shawn Ryan?

  Matt, we gotta talk about how to set up a better straw man, Mark Owen.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Mark Owen.

• 13:32Shawn Ryan?

  Too easy to find.

• 13:33Speaker 02

  The Mark Owen name didn't last more than two seconds. And it was actually a, it was a Fox News producer, like one of their online producers, who actually ran my real name.

• 13:43Shawn Ryan?

  Are you fucking kidding me?

• 13:47Speaker 02

  Never would have guessed that, but okay, it was an online producer. So, right, it's pretty easy to find people's home addresses online these days. Right, it's pretty easy.

• 13:55Shawn Ryan?

  Figure that out.

• 13:56Speaker 02

  So I, I've got some friends that, uh, they set up a whole bunch of online personas. If somebody's trying to find me. And, and all of the home addresses that are linked to my fake accounts are all that Fox News producer's home address.

• 14:12Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, that's fucking genius. Nice work.

• 14:17Shawn Ryan?

  Nice work. I do, I do one other question before we get on the life story. Why did you, I mean, another famous SEALs come out, you know, about this raid, Rob O'Neil, everybody knows. I'm just curious, why did, why did you decide to conceal yourself? When you came out, when you wrote the book, when you did, I mean, 60 Minutes did a piece on you, they did it. I mean, probably a better disguise than you've ever seen throughout your entire fucking career. Definitely throughout my career, I've never seen a disguise that, that well done. I mean, it was like Hollywood production.

• 14:55Speaker 02

  It was, uh,

• 14:56Shawn Ryan?

  It was wild.

• 14:57Speaker 02

  It was Hollywood level makeup people that came out and did it. Uh, but to answer your question, A, I was a kid who, I grew up reading books. I grew up reading books about the community. That's why I wanted to join. I read books about the SEALs in Vietnam.

• 15:10Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Boom. Um, had my, had my, right, my service. Um, I knew, I knew the president had authorized the movies and the books, right? I knew all of that was happening, right? Three weeks after the bin Laden rish, and we go to Leon Panetta's retirement ceremony from Langley, Virginia. He's gonna go over and be Secretary of Defense. He gives a great speech onstage, gets offstage, Langley, Virginia, right? Um, and he literally brings over Catherine Bigelow and Mark Bull, Hollywood producer, screenwriter, director for Zero Dark Thirty.

• 15:46Speaker 02

  Panetta introduces them to us and says, hey, look, they're gonna make you famous. So, so within three weeks, less than a month of the mission.

• 15:53Shawn Ryan?

  For those who don't know, Leon Panetta was director of CIA at the time.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  Yep, right, so he, uh, full, full access for Hollywood for that movie. Right, I knew that firsthand within a month of the mission. Right, I got out of the Navy, right, I hurt my neck in the crash, it was the last mission I was ever on. I get out of the Navy later that fall. Um, I'm contacted by the author Mark Bowden. Mark Bowden wrote Black Hawk Down. He wrote a book called The Finish about the bin Laden raid. And he contacts me, he's like, hey, Matt, I've already interviewed President Obama. I got the White House perspective of the raid. I've already interviewed Admiral McRaven. I got the JSOC perspective of the raid. We would love to interview you for your ground truth perspective. Fascinating, I already knew the movie, right, movie was percolating.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  I'm like, when do you want your book to come out? It's like, well, we're trying hard to get it out before the election.

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Okay, so, I'm an enlisted guy, right, I work for a living. Right, I'm not the, I'm not the Admiral, I'm not the, the general, I'm not the president.

• 16:57Shawn Ryan?

  Not the director of CIA.

• 16:59Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm sitting in my position, watching every single leader from this country be willing to talk about their heroic actions for their, right, reelection campaign, whatever you wanna call it. It, it pissed me off. All right, it made me mad because none of the 24 operators that were on the mission, um,

• 17:22Speaker 02

  were getting any credit for it, right, it was all the heroic decision-making in Washington DC. And so, so that's when I, I knew I was getting out. I, uh, a whole bunch of us had been to Ground Zero, right, I'd never been to New York City before. We went to Ground Zero after the bin Laden raid. Crushed me, right, I stood there at Ground Zero and, and, and, uh, I'm pretty, pretty good at locking out the emotions, it crushed me. And I knew I had hurt my back pretty significantly on the, on the Hilo crash. I was getting a divorce, I was, had done 13 straight tours at that time, and, uh, And it just felt like really good bookends. My very first deployment nine eleven happened.

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Last thing I did is crash into his compound. I'm now so senior, they're gonna take me out of the operational side of things.

• 18:10Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 18:11Speaker 02

  Um, and I didn't, I didn't join to be the troop commander. I didn't join to be the officer. I joined to stay enlisted, right? I had my degree. Stayed enlisted the whole time.

• 18:20Shawn Ryan?

  You were on the invasion.

• 18:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:22Shawn Ryan?

  You were on the invasion. Holy shit. So your career kicked. Wow.

• 18:27Speaker 02

  So my, my whole career, I saw it happen. I saw it evolve and then I saw it, I saw it spiraling towards the end, right? I saw, I saw the, the, the officers and the self-promotion side of things. I just, by the time I got back from the bin Laden mission and, and I knew I was hurt at that point. We went to ground zero. I was like, man, I'm, I am cooked. I was done. Came back from that and uh, called it.

• 18:53Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. Why did you conceal your identity?

• 18:57Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry. I missed that part. Um, because why not?

• 19:02Speaker 02

  If somebody can tell me the upside of being out there and, and being famous or, or trying to be, right? I, I very much enjoy my anonymity. My, my neighbors where I live, you know, 20 feet away. I have no clue anything about my background. Um, and I like it that way. I didn't, I read all these books growing up, right? I served 13 straight tours and none of it did I do by myself.

• 19:29Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:30Speaker 02

  So, so why would I then now all of a sudden write a book talking about all my heroic actions? I just, I never saw it that way. I was like, okay, well, if I'm gonna write about it, I'm, I'm gonna do it in my terms and I'm not gonna show my face because that's irrelevant, right? The story is what it is. Has nothing to do with what we look like.

• 19:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:49Speaker 02

  Um, and so, yeah, that's when I was like, okay, I want to tell the story. I want to do it uh, accurately, authentically, and then I don't want to be the center line of the story. So I'm gonna remove myself from the equation and uh, and that's where it started.

• 20:05Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, I think it's pretty damn smart idea. I mean, one of, how many guys were on the raid? 25 or 24? 24 people out of the entire world on the raid that takes out the fucking world's most wanted man and.

• 20:22Shawn Ryan?

  Pissed a lot of people off.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  But I didn't want the story to be about me. It's irrelevant who wrote the book. It's like, let's hear the story. Who are these type of people? Where do they come from? Where do, you know, who are these guys? What are seals? What are they all about?

• 20:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  Right? And, and I think Hollywood does a pretty shitty job in portraying it, right? They, they, they think we all look like Jaco Willink, but I'm sorry, I don't look like Jaco. I, I, I don't run like Goggins, right? Like, sorry.

• 20:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, glad to, uh, glad you're here once again. So let's, let's get into it. Where did you grow up?

• 20:57Speaker 02

  I grew up in a remote village in the middle of Alaska. My parents were missionaries, Christian missionaries. A village called Anniak, Alaska, 350 miles northwest of Anchorage on the Cusco Quim River. 500 people.

• 21:14Shawn Ryan?

  Whoa.

• 21:14Speaker 02

  Drove a snowmobile to school in the morning. Graduated high school with three people in my senior class.

• 21:21Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 21:22Speaker 02

  I was the valedictorian.

• 21:25Shawn Ryan?

  Congratulations.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  The, uh, our high school mascot, and you can Google it still to this day, right? Anniak's the name of the village. Our, our high school mascot was the half-breeds.

• 21:37Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 21:38Speaker 02

  The Anniak half-breeds, the mighty, mighty half-breeds, right? Our high school cheerleaders. And, and, and everybody thinks it's a derogatory term, right? I, I say bullshit, right? In, in the village in Alaska, right? I was one of the few white kids that were in the village, right? Um, most everybody was a half-breed and, and everybody was proud of that heritage. And what was the moral of the story? Nobody cares what color you are. Don't be an asshole. That's the way I grew up, man. I grew up in a village as a minority, as the white kid, um, appreciating the fact that everybody was a half-breed, right? I drove a snowmobile to school. I bought my first AR-15 from my history teacher after class.

• 22:18Shawn Ryan?

  Get the fuck out of here. What?

• 22:20Speaker 02

  After class, I gave him, I gave him 700 in cash. He, he reaches under his deck, pulls out my, my Colt, uh, AR-15, A2. And, uh, boom, I put it in my locker till the end of the day.

• 22:34Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 22:34Speaker 02

  School ends, I slung my new rifle, walked out of school, got on my snowmobile and drove home.

• 22:38Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  So, yeah.

• 22:42Shawn Ryan?

  What's the name of this town?

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Anniak. A-N-I-A-K.

• 22:46Shawn Ryan?

  Love it.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  So, yeah, man, it was, it was a middle school.

• 22:50Shawn Ryan?

  Dude, well, hold on. So you're the only, you're the only white kid in a town of?

• 22:55Speaker 02

  No, there's probably-

• 22:56Shawn Ryan?

  Did you say 300?

• 22:57Speaker 02

  Five hundred. There's a handful. I'm not, yeah, not more than a hundred.

• 23:02Shawn Ryan?

  I guess what I'm asking is how the hell did your family wind up here?

• 23:06Speaker 02

  Missionaries. I was born in California with two sisters, right? My parents was, my dad was a teacher and had an opportunity to move to Alaska and teach for some of these remote villages. And, and, right? They were always Christian and knew their faith and so moved to the village. Um, my dad ultimately became the village magistrate. So like the, the law in town, right? Log cabin courthouse. Um, right? A hundred percent of the rules broken in town were alcohol related. So, right? You get drunk, beat up your old lady. My dad would arraign you to three weeks in jail. Well, we didn't have a jail in our town. So you'd have to fly a little Cessna down to the next bigger village, do your three weeks in the drunk tank or whatever you're doing, then you'd fly back to our village

• 23:49Speaker 02

  and you're trying to get back to yours. Well, the, the weather would roll in and you couldn't fly from place to place. So you just got sent to jail for three weeks. The only person you know in my village is my dad. So you show back up at the courthouse, knock on the door, "Hey, Mr. Terry." "Oh, hey, Sean. I see you're out." "Well, yeah, well, I'm trying to get back to my village, but the weather rolled in. We can't travel." "You know, uh, can I stay at your house?" So my dad would be like, "Sure, but you gotta stay for church on Sunday." So we'd literally have a guy that my dad sent to jail. He's back three weeks later. He literally stayed on our, slept on our couch in our living room. And then on Sunday morning, you know, we'd have kind of a small church service at the house and there's, there's my dad's buddy.

• 24:31Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. Wow. That's, that is-

• 24:36Speaker 02

  I never, I never wanted to leave the village, man. I, I thought the village was, as a young man, right? Hunting, fishing, running around. Sixteen years old, I'm taking a boat up the river for a week at a time with a fishing pole and some, some guns, a dog and you know, a buddy.

• 24:51Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  We'd come back a week later, right? I, I barely trust a sixteen year old to valley park a car these days.

• 24:56Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  Alaska was, it was just a whole different deal.

• 24:59Shawn Ryan?

  So you spent your entire childhood up there?

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:02Shawn Ryan?

  Damn near anyways.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's it. Graduated high school and then all I ever wanted to do, right? I read these books in middle school for a book report.

• 25:09Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Uh, found the book, Men With Green Faces, sealed book from Vietnam.

• 25:13Shawn Ryan?

  I read that book.

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Gene Wentz is the author.

• 25:15Shawn Ryan?

  Dude.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  I've met him. That was pretty cool.

• 25:17Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, yep. Uh, that was the first book I read and, uh, a man was hooked. Like, man, I, I kept reading more and more books, more and more books and it's like, I don't, I told my dad one day, he's like, "No, you don't want to join the military." I'm like, "No, this is what I'm doing." He's like, "Well, would you go to college first?" You know, all you know is this village in Alaska. Go to college. I'm like, "Sure, okay, but I'm still going to the Navy." They were hoping I'd change my mind. So I went to school in Los Angeles. Same school my parents had went to, so I, I didn't know anything about, right? I went to, I went to college.

• 25:49Shawn Ryan?

  And talk about a fucking culture shock.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  I'd never driven on the freeway. I had never worked a gas pump at the gas station, right? Like before ATM cards, put a twenty on pump three.

• 25:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:00Speaker 02

  Right? We had a, a barge that would come up the river and deliver fuel to like a seven hundred gallon fuel tank in front of our house that we would use for the year. Right? I went to college. I showed up in Southern California with a flannel, work boots, like, "Hey, I'm, I'm here for school." Like.

• 26:16Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 26:16Speaker 02

  Who's this knucklehead?

• 26:18Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 26:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd, I'd never been on a date. I'd never driven on the freeway. I'd never done anything, man.

• 26:23Shawn Ryan?

  You'd never been on a date?

• 26:25Speaker 02

  It's a village of, high school class of three.

• 26:27Shawn Ryan?

  Gotta go to the next village over.

• 26:28Speaker 02

  Village of Alaska. Where are you taking them?

• 26:32Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. You've never been on a date?

• 26:34Speaker 02

  Not done with the college.

• 26:35Shawn Ryan?

  No girlfriend, nothing? Okay, Jimmy, get, hold on, I gotta hear the first.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  I had a slight girlfriend from down the river, the village down the river.

• 26:42Shawn Ryan?

  Down the river? Holy, what, what did you guys do for a date?

• 26:46Speaker 02

  Well, the, well, okay, so we, for basketball, right? I played basketball. It was Matt missed the net when I played basketball. Um, we would, you'd, you'd fly a Cessna from village to village and that's how you'd. You know, compete with other schools. And so when you'd fly to the other schools, there was always like a a dance that night. So, you know, whatever. So that was, that was it, man. Fly, fly from village to village, you're there for the weekend, play some basketball, find the locals, make some friends.

• 27:12Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man. I, let's talk about the four Fs. That sounds like that was, was a something that's

• 27:21Speaker 02

  Straight from my father.

• 27:22Shawn Ryan?

  With you.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Straight from my father.

• 27:25Speaker 02

  That he demonstrated. Right? A lot of people talk. My dad demonstrated. And, and he demonstrated his four Fs were, were what guided him through life. That's his family, his friends, his fun, and his faith.

• 27:41Speaker 02

  And so that's, that, uh, my dad passed last December. And, uh,

• 27:44Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man, I'm sorry to hear that.

• 27:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, about thirty year battle with Parkinson's. So, long, long spiral. Never heard him complain once. Not once. So, I, I, that's, that's rubbed off on me as, as I've dealt with my situation. Right? Whether I was gonna turn into a little bitch and start complaining, or if I was gonna put my head down, get to work and deal with it.

• 28:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. What about your mother?

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Mom, still here, doing fine.

• 28:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  Miles an hour.

• 28:13Shawn Ryan?

  You guys close?

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Very.

• 28:15Shawn Ryan?

  You grow up close?

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, cuz you're in a village in Alaska, not much else to do, right? Um, I went to college, after college, joined the Navy, right, enlisted. Um, I thought they, my parents thought I would have lost focus on the, on the SEAL thing. And, uh, no, I was just as, as amped up. I, uh, I tried Army ROTC in college, so they sent me to jump school. Right? Army ROTC, so kinda got a little sidetracked thinking, okay, maybe, maybe I'll do this ROTC thing. I was an officer in the Army. And I went to jump school as a cadet. And, and I'm at the chow hall in, at jump school, and I'm sitting across from, right, these SEALs. Little did I know, they just graduated BUDs, right? But I think they're hairy-chested frogmen.

• 29:00Speaker 02

  And, uh, and they're making fun of my stupid Army haircut. And I was devastated. I was like,

• 29:08Speaker 02

  These guys are making fun of my hair. Like if I, if I continue with this army thing, I'm, I'm gonna go have to do the haircuts and boots and like, that's a thing. And I, I had read all these books about the Navy. I was like, no, man, I, I came back from jump school, my cadet status. I went to my little ROTC boss and I'm like, hey man, I can't do this. I, I've always dreamt about the Navy and that's what I'm gonna go do.

• 29:28Shawn Ryan?

  They made fun of my fucking hair. I'm out.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  I'm out.

• 29:31Shawn Ryan?

  This is bullshit.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, that was it. Left ROTC, graduated and then enlisted in the Navy.

• 29:38Shawn Ryan?

  So you did, you got your degree?

• 29:40Speaker 02

  Yep, yep.

• 29:41Shawn Ryan?

  What's your degree in?

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Social science.

• 29:43Shawn Ryan?

  Nice, nice.

• 29:44Speaker 02

  Waste of time.

• 29:45Shawn Ryan?

  Waste of time.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  Waste of time. Never used it. Um, but I had it. I went to the recruiter's office, enlisted. They're like, great. You have a degree. You can join as an E3. So, E3, torpedo man. It's the shortest A school I could find, right? Uh, all my buddies did gunners mate and they're like, oh, six months. Don't do that. So, torpedo man. I think it was six weeks, nine weeks, something like that. And then straight to BUDs. Just class 226.

• 30:14Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Uh, and then I, I made it straight through. So that was.

• 30:20Shawn Ryan?

  And you were the honor man, correct?

• 30:24Speaker 02

  As they say.

• 30:24Shawn Ryan?

  Why'd you get honor man? Do you know?

• 30:26Speaker 02

  Well, somebody else picked me.

• 30:27Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, right. Come on. You got a good inclination.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  I like to work hard. That's it.

• 30:33Shawn Ryan?

  You like, did you find BUDs challenging at all?

• 30:37Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, of course, of course. BUDs is challenging. I'm not gonna say BUDs is not challenging, but I had read six million books and, and set my expectations here. And so I think I had set them so high. Maybe it was a little, little down from where I had set them at. Um, didn't mean it wasn't hard, right? One of my best friends, every morning he'd wake up, he's like, fuck this, I'm quitting today. And then he'd never quit, but every morning he'd tell me he was quitting. Where, where me, I was like, okay, if I, if I allow myself to think that, every morning, every morning he's like, Bess, I'm out of here. Fuck this. And he'd never leave. I'm like, listen, you gotta fix this cause you're really, you're really rubbing me wrong.

• 31:17Shawn Ryan?

  Lying to me.

• 31:18Speaker 02

  Every morning, you're fucking with me and you're not quitting. Uh, I was afraid if I ever entertained those thoughts, I'd quit. So I was like, no, not quitting. Never entertained them and went right through.

• 31:31Shawn Ryan?

  What did your parents think?

• 31:34Speaker 02

  I don't think they knew what to think. Um, I think that's the part when I started lying to my parents, right? As soon as you graduate, uh, it's like, what they know is what they know and they don't really need to know anything more for right now. Um, right? I graduated, nothing going on, still pre nine 11. Um, and then on my very first deployment, I was sitting in Okinawa, Japan. Watched it all transpire on my barracks television.

• 31:58Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, we were, we were like, holy shit. Like, think about it. Your first deployment, brand new guy. Nobody in your platoon seen any combat, like, you know, there's the stories of guys going around and maybe the little grenade, paying them all here and there. But nobody's really done anything. And then now we're, we watched nine 11 unfold on my television. And, right? The rest is history. I mean.

• 32:24Shawn Ryan?

  What did you think when you saw that? Were you?

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Um, the first one had hit by the time we had turned on the news and by the time the second one hit, you know, we watched that live and there was all sorts of speculation between the first and the second, hey, wha- what was this accident, whatever, who knew? But by the time you watched the second plane fly in, it was the gut punch that you were like, okay. This is real. Something's happening. If that doesn't give you goosebumps and think you're going to work, something's wrong. So, I mean, I, I probably would have got out of the teams had we not gone to, had nine 11 happened.

• 32:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  Right? I would have done my time and, and got out. Um, but now I was smack dab, new guy. Nine 11 just happened. We finished that deployment, came back, did another workup and then the next, uh, my next deployment, we deployed right to Iraq for the kind of initial invasion up into Baghdad.

• 33:14Shawn Ryan?

  Man. Dude.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  So still, still running like thin skin Humvees, like before the IED threat, way, way, way.

• 33:23Shawn Ryan?

  What a, what a, just what an arc of a career. So your first deployment, you're watching nine 11 happen. Your last deployment.

• 33:32Speaker 02

  Well, we don't count as a deployment.

• 33:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I guess your last, your last mission, I mean, fuck, you take the, I'll be.

• 33:39Shawn Ryan?

  You're taking the guy out that orchestrated, it's just fucking wild to me. That's, and you're on the invasion. So you what? So first deployment, you watched nine eleven happen. Second deployment, you're on the invasion and you're a team five, correct?

• 33:50Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 33:52Shawn Ryan?

  How did it feel going on the invasion?

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Hmm, well, I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna upset my team three fellows that were there before us, right? They had done the, the oil platforms and, and moved up inland by the time five came and swapped out with three. We were just now taking Baghdad and so we, we took Baghdad and then moved into one of the palaces and spent the next, the rest of my deployment running ops out of Baghdad. Which was, okay, like living the dream, right? Young frog man, we got a, we got an enemy, we're going to take the fight to them and you're new, impressionable and gung ho. So away we went.

• 34:32Shawn Ryan?

  Was it pretty kinetic?

• 34:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, for that, for, for going from zero before, um, yeah, I mean, my, my first shootouts, my first, everything. Um, was that deployment. Um. There were a lot of learning happened that deployment, but it's still learning because it's a, it's a team five platoon that's pretty new. Um. Yeah.

• 34:57Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's talk about, what was your first, what was the first shootout? What was your first gunfight like? Was it what you had expected, reading all the books?

• 35:06Speaker 02

  Not, it's never as expected, right? You can think what you're gonna think and it's never plays out that way. At least that's in my opinion. Um, shot through the door, shooting through the door. That was the first, first, first. Oh my gosh, they're shooting back at us right now, right? We just assaulted a target, um. Just hitting houses, hitting houses. Um, and it was at the front door and they just started pumping rounds through the front door. And, and that was the first time I was like, oh, okay, all right. Something's happening here.

• 35:36Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  That was it.

• 35:39Shawn Ryan?

  What else were you guys doing that deployment?

• 35:43Speaker 02

  That was it, right? We lived in the green zone, lived in one of the palaces out by Biop, Baghdad International Airport, uh, worked for the different intel agencies, kind of giving us targets and, and we'd go do our best to roll them up, right? Uh, I thought we were pretty cool at the time, little, you know, and then every night you'd see these cool black helicopters flying over and I'd go to my boss, like, hey boss, why don't, why don't we have those little birds around? There's some, why are we in thin-skinned Humvees right now? Why, why aren't we in like a, why aren't we flying to these targets? Those little birds look really cool. They're like, well, you don't get those assets here. So that's when I started learning a little more about the big leagues and, and the different assets that came with different units and, and so I had screened

• 36:27Speaker 02

  for, um, my previous command before my second deployment. So I got word on the Iraqi deployment that I'd, I'd got picked up to go to training, uh, to see if I could make it into Damned.

• 36:42Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. So for those that are listening that don't know what Damned is, that's where SEAL Team Six Development Group is at.

• 36:49Speaker 02

  So I've heard. I don't know anything about it.

• 36:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:53Shawn Ryan?

  You better be careful. These admirals might come after you.

• 36:56Speaker 02

  They will.

• 36:57Shawn Ryan?

  So, so Team Six pops on your radar because all the assets, such as all the cool toys that they get, you're seeing that.

• 37:03Speaker 02

  And all the guys I knew at five, right? Some of the, the bigger studs that I knew would like disappear and then they went off to go see if they get screened. And so I'm like, all right, well, if I'm here, I need to try this. And so.

• 37:16Shawn Ryan?

  So you got word, you got word that you got accepted to.

• 37:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd screened before the second deployment and then I got word, what, six, nine months later that I'd been picked up. Um, I barely passed my PT test.

• 37:30Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 37:31Speaker 02

  Bro, we were, we were doing a SR in Fort, uh, Camp Pendleton. And literally they called us two days prior and they're like, hey, your screening test is like tomorrow morning. I'd been eating MREs, face painted, living under a tree for like three days. And literally three other dudes got pulled out of the field, drove down to San Diego and the next morning we had our PT test.

• 37:53Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  And, and I barely passed my pushups.

• 37:59Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, a little worried about that. Like, all right, are they, are they even gonna, you know, they even gonna pick me up? Cause I was a slip knot and barely passed my pushups. They, uh, I got picked up and, and then I made sure my pushups were good for the, you take a screening test, day one of, of training. They show up and give you a hard one. So.

• 38:17Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  I had to make sure I was ready for that.

• 38:19Shawn Ryan?

  So you pass the screen test, you get it, you get in there. Let's talk about showing up for training. How was that?

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Pretty cool. Different, right? Um, right. You go to BUDs, you have the, I'd read a whole bunch about BUDs. I hadn't read much about this. I didn't know much about this. I knew BUDs was more of a, hey, don't quit. Check. I've got, I don't have that word in my vocabulary. Now it's okay. How, how can, can you? And it's a selection and training, probably more selection than training, right? So they want to know you have it or you don't. And, and day one, it's shotgun blast to the face. And then it's, uh, I thought getting into that unit was twice as hard as BUDs.

• 39:03Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 39:04Speaker 02

  BUDs was simple enough where it was like, you get the deal, right? Yell, you run that way. Don't quit. Okay, check. I got that. The selection was okay. How good are you at what we've trained you to do? And can you make really good decisions under stress and pressure? And can you do that? Right? It's not just about just quitting anymore.

• 39:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So you found that to be a lot harder?

• 39:26Speaker 02

  Um, I loved it. It was much harder, right? Because now the selection process in which they are judging you on has nothing to do with, you just didn't quit. Now it's okay. How good are you at the game?

• 39:39Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Right? BUDs was, don't quit. We'll train you some basics. Now you've been a SEAL for a handful of years. Now we want to put you to the test of what you know, and we're going to put high expectations on you. And then if you don't cut it, you're out. So I loved it, but it was, um, very demanding.

• 40:00Shawn Ryan?

  Can you say how many people you started with? Do you know?

• 40:03Speaker 02

  I don't remember the exact number. I would say rough, rough numbers, 50% washed out.

• 40:08Shawn Ryan?

  50% washed out.

• 40:10Speaker 02

  And what, and, and no disrespect, no, hey, you're an asshole. You don't cut it here. It's like, hey, you just don't cut it here. Go back to a team. Depending on what you failed out for, you may have a chance to kind of reapply and screen again. Or, or you just go back and, and that's it.

• 40:24Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  50% ish.

• 40:26Shawn Ryan?

  So when you say it's mostly selection, a little bit of training. So I mean, are, so they, you have a baseline when you show up there that they, they, they have an expectation from, from the baseline that they, you know, I mean, so are you not learning in the training pipeline?

• 40:43Speaker 02

  You are, and they will learn, they will teach you something new every single day. Every single day you're getting something new and it's, it's, it's just, it's, it's amazing. Every single day. And if, if you're the guy who didn't pick it up the day prior, the next day there are, okay, now they stack something new on top and you weren't getting what they got yesterday. Okay. The next day is something more. And if, if you're, next thing you know, you got three of these things stacked up above you and you're not keeping up. You're not, you're not going to last too long.

• 41:10Shawn Ryan?

  So what, what, what, what did you find to be the hardest part of Green Team? For those who don't know, Green Team is a training, it's the training regiment to get into, into development group.

• 41:22Speaker 02

  I think it's, it's an individual operator's ability to identify a situation, right? It could be an elephant, a big, big elephant. And be able to be like, okay, I'm going to eat that elephant one bite at a time. I'm going to prioritize those bites smartly and I'm going to start eating. Right? And, and the hardest part of training was, was that they were constantly putting big elephants in front of you. Stressing you out, wanting to see how you dealt with that size of that challenge, the complexity of that challenge. Did you quit because the elephant's too big? Or did you say, okay, check, I'll eat that elephant. What size bite size piece can I take? I'm going to start prioritizing those bites and start eating.

• 42:03Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 42:03Speaker 02

  Like the tactics were what they were. They're constantly throwing something new at you. If, if you're into it and, and like that type of stuff, it was, it's the best training you'll ever get. Every single day you're learning something new and getting faster and better and better. And, and if guys weren't cutting it, they were gone.

• 42:19Shawn Ryan?

  Do you get an honor man of this too?

• 42:21Speaker 02

  They don't give an honor man in green.

• 42:23Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. Alright. So what, what, what is the, I've never really talked to anybody, we've talked pretty extensively about what green team is, what the, what the, what, what, what the, what the different cycles are of the, of the program and all that kind of stuff, but what, what is the graduation like?

• 42:44Speaker 02

  There isn't one.

• 42:45Shawn Ryan?

  There is no graduation? How do you know where you're gonna go?

• 42:48Speaker 02

  It's like the last couple of months of training, they'd be like, hey, you guys are going to this color, you're going to that color, you're going to that color and you just, I mean, I remember guys who, uh, the guys who went to one, one of the squadrons, I won't mention the color, but the, the guys in my class that were going to the next squadron that were deploying, they literally left green team two weeks early, checked into their squadron and deployed.

• 43:10Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 43:11Speaker 02

  So they were like, you're, you're graduating and integrated into your second deck squadron and for them, they, they deployed. I waited three months and I deployed three months after my, I graduated.

• 43:21Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  So it's, it's, the pace is insane at that facility.

• 43:26Shawn Ryan?

  And you went to red squadron?

• 43:28Speaker 02

  I went, yes.

• 43:30Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you want to go? Did you want to go to red?

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Doesn't matter. I wanted to graduate and be assigned to one of the squadrons.

• 43:36Shawn Ryan?

  You didn't care which one?

• 43:37Speaker 02

  I think when you're going through and you, you're envisioning up on what the differences are and how you, you want to make believe that there's something special and different. In reality, they're not, and whichever one you land in, you're going to be happy and content and welcomed.

• 43:52Shawn Ryan?

  Are there different cultures for different teams?

• 43:56Speaker 02

  I didn't think so. May, maybe little nuances, but not, not, not significant enough to speak about.

• 44:01Shawn Ryan?

  How would you describe the culture of red?

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Put up or shut up? I don't know, like, uh, very cut and dry, black or white, right? Like.

• 44:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, no, uh, no quarter, right? It was, standards were this high, and if you didn't cut the standard, we're not gonna give you a break on it, right? Here's the standard. You either meet it or exceed it, or we're gonna have problems. I loved it because everything was very black and white, and you were either on one side or the other, and, and... Yeah, and then, and then, of course, right, the, the op tempo was, was through the roof, right? I had done two deployments at Team Five, which were the longer, slower ones, and then you get to that command, and they're more often and, and quicker.

• 44:55Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 44:55Speaker 02

  And so then,

• 44:58Speaker 02

  showed up and then just started, started deploying every six months or less, or whatever it was, it was just constant.

• 45:03Shawn Ryan?

  Who's the leg showing up to red?

• 45:07Speaker 02

  Everything that I'd always dreamt it would be, it was.

• 45:11Shawn Ryan?

  Let's, let's talk about-

• 45:12Speaker 02

  It's a bold statement.

• 45:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, let's talk about, let's just describe it, day one.

• 45:17Speaker 02

  Uh, you go up to, well, now it's all different, but, but, uh, we went up to the second deck, right, which is where all the squadrons are stationed. You, you show up with your case of beer, and you introduce yourself, and right, the whole squadron's sitting around, like, all the new guys are standing there like, "Okay, Bish, you know, stand up, tell us about yourself, and you know, where are you from?" You're like, "Hi, my name's Matt, and I do Team Five." They're like, "Shut up!"

• 45:41Speaker 02

  "Oh, no, no, keep going." You're like, "Okay, well, I was at Team Five." "Shut the fuck up, new guy!" You're like, "All right, check, all right, here's my beer." The next guy goes and they yell at him. They're like, "Great, we don't care anything about you. Welcome to the team, you're new, doesn't care what you used to do in the past, you're now part of the team, let's go." That was it. And then, and then we went to work, man, and we went to work.

• 46:01Shawn Ryan?

  What's the team room like?

• 46:05Speaker 02

  Um, in what way?

• 46:07Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know, do they have any artifacts in there from previous missions?

• 46:10Speaker 02

  It's like this on steroids, right? It's, uh, cool, cool artifacts from, from missions all over the place. Um, how much computers around the walls of the room? Right, we got a new command by the time I left, so it was updated. The one I moved into was the old school, the OG building. Um, it's been updated a lot since then.

• 46:30Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. Any, any, any particular artifacts that stick out in your mind?

• 46:39Shawn Ryan?

  Nothing?

• 46:40Speaker 02

  Uh, they're all artifacts, nothing, nothing, nothing that cool.

• 46:45Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 46:47Shawn Ryan?

  Well, Matt, let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll get into some of the different operations that you were on before the Bin Laden raid. Cool.

• 46:57Shawn Ryan?

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• 48:57Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Matt, we're back from the break. We just kind of talked a little bit about Green Team showing up over at Red Squadron over at SEAL Team Six and kind of what that was like. So what I'd like to move into now is basically your career over at Development Group, what the pace was like, where were you guys deploying, stuff like that. So let's just start with, what was your, what was your first deployment with Red Squadron?

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Man, first deployment with my former squadron was, we deployed to Afghanistan. I was actually there for about a month of deployment. And during this period of time, right, our Army counterparts were very focused in Iraq, and the Navy team had leadership in Afghanistan. So, you know, most of the Navy guys were deploying to Afghanistan, the Army had control of Iraq. Well, Iraq had been picking up, right, from the tier one perspective. So I did about a month of deployment in Afghanistan. And then I got a call that a handful of guys

• 50:03Speaker 02

  from our squadron were going to move over to Iraq and integrate with a Army counterpart unit.

• 50:11Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 50:12Speaker 02

  You said it, not me.

• 50:13Shawn Ryan?

  Why would they pick a new guy?

• 50:14Speaker 02

  Oh, my whole team went.

• 50:16Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, your whole team?

• 50:17Speaker 02

  My whole team. They pulled the whole team. So my team leader, all the way down to me being the new guy, they pulled the whole team, moved us over to Iraq, and then they farmed each one of us out to a different Army team. So I was integrated as a new guy into a, into a Army unit, as a new guy on one of their assault elements. You know, other guys on my team were another, another team, another team, another team. We all lived together, operated together, but we, we fully integrated with an Army unit.

• 50:45Shawn Ryan?

  With Delta. So did they, did Delta send guys over to Six to integrate in Afghanistan?

• 50:51Speaker 02

  At that point, it was because they, they had, they were taking some heavy casualties, right?

• 50:56Shawn Ryan?

  Is this when that IED factory blew up and killed a bunch of those guys?

• 51:00Speaker 02

  I mean, there was, there was a lot of stuff going on. Iraq was getting hotter and hotter, right? I had done my Team Five deployment there. I screened, I went to Dam Neck, and now my next deployment was Afghanistan. I was there a month and then they moved us over to Inbed and I worked out of Baghdad again with with the Delta team.

• 51:17Shawn Ryan?

  So who was who took your guys' slot in Afghanistan?

• 51:21Speaker 02

  They just they just didn't backfill us with anybody. They went lighter. The squadron that stayed there was light a team. A team went over and augmented the army guys. Phenomenal deployment, right? Um, I'm still very, very good friends with the army guys I worked with there. Phenomenal individuals.

• 51:39Shawn Ryan?

  Um, can we rewind just real quick? So were you guys, did you guys do anything in Afghanistan or did you get farmed out because it was just not? There just wasn't a lot going on.

• 51:50Speaker 02

  No, we were doing ops. I was I was out of Jalalabad and we're running missions out of Jabad. Um, it just, they weren't as kinetic. It was it was different, right? Iraq, everything was just kicking off. Afghanistan was still. Afghanistan's been through its phases, right? I've been there 10 times, but um. At that time, Afghanistan felt a little slower. They were still hitting ops. They were still running missions. It was just the the priority was, okay, let's move some extra assaulters over here. I I think the the Delta guys had already lost a couple guys before we got there. And then while we were there, they had lost a couple more uh out of one of their other units. It was. It was pretty, uh.

• 52:31Speaker 02

  Right? I I rode around on a little bird, right? As much as I dreamt about the little bird thing, I we were black, uh, we were Baghdad SWAT. Right? Well, cruise around on little birds. Once, twice, three times a night, whatever it was, uh, all over Baghdad.

• 52:46Shawn Ryan?

  Um, so hold on, hold on. This was a lot to unpack here. I'm I'm I'm really curious. You know, before, but let's let's just keep it Afghanistan for your one month.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  Got.

• 52:55Shawn Ryan?

  Over there. So, I mean. What was your impression of? The difference between? Regular SEAL teams. Now you're over at SEAL Team Six in Afghanistan with Red Squadron. Did you see anything right off the bat? We're not talking about, I mean, you're only two deployments into your 13 deployments. So you got 11 left over at Six. What was the first, your first month like in Afghanistan with Red?

• 53:25Speaker 02

  Great question. Um, a lot more toys, a lot more assets, and then the guys I was working with were all older. I think our regular teams are all new. Age groups younger because you're newer, right? You get to damn next, a lot of older guys have been there a long time. So A, just from a maturity of force, I noticed that. B, from a mission planning perspective, right? Just maturity of force, guys who've been around a little bit. Um, the mission planning, what type of targets were just all of that. Um, the technology was a huge, right, differentiator. We had different toys, different assets, different stuff that we could use to target our, our guys that we were going after. So that was, that was kind of the biggest eye opening. Hey, I'm now in this big league unit

• 54:10Speaker 02

  that has some additional resources and tools and wow, this is cool. I'm a new guy playing the breacher, new guy, just carrying the heavy shit and uh, loving every minute. But, right, we're only there a month and it was, you know, you're chasing your phones and your bad guys and doing your normal thing, but Afghanistan terrain is not like Baghdad, right? You know, unless you're in Kabul. Right? I operate in the mountains of Afghanistan, so just the rural missions to urban missions.

• 54:42Shawn Ryan?

  Was it everything you thought it was cracked up to be from the very beginning or were you a little disappointed?

• 54:48Speaker 02

  I gotta be honest, man. It, it, everything, everything I dreamt about and read about and wanted to get to, I saw and I experienced and I was like

• 55:00Shawn Ryan?

  Right away.

• 55:01Speaker 02

  Fuck yeah.

• 55:02Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  It was, it was pretty legit, right? The, um, the caliber of guys you're working with are just next level, right? You're, yeah, it's, it's, you know, everybody's tightening each other, making yourself bigger and better and, and uh,

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:18Shawn Ryan?

  Nice, nice. And so what was it like jumping over to Delta? I mean, you had, you have a month taste in the training pipeline of development group. And then, I mean, shit, less than a year over from, it sounds like it's less than a year from when you showed up to green team to.

• 55:37Speaker 02

  Deployed with an army unit.

• 55:39Shawn Ryan?

  Now you're with Delta.

• 55:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:40Shawn Ryan?

  Who's the, who's the, you know, the, the army counterpart.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:45Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 55:45Speaker 02

  They were, they were phenomenal. I, I had a great time. I figured there'd be more, you know, the rivalry shit talking, none of that, none of it at the operational level that I experienced. Like I said, I'm, I'm still very good friends. Some of my best friends were the army guys I worked with on that deployment. Um. Pretty cool, right? We're working out of Baghdad with all the, all the sexy assets that, that, right? I'd been in Baghdad, a, a deployment and a half before. Dreaming of all these fun assets and toys and what it would be like. And now here I'm back. Now it was a tier one unit. It wasn't, you know, army navy, but it was army unit and a whole bunch of navy guys were still there and, and now we're, we're hitting shit every night. Um.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  That was, that was right. Yeah, that was, that was a steep learning curve.

• 56:31Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet it was. I mean, what, what are some things that are different? What, what are some things that you noticed that are different between the two?

• 56:39Speaker 02

  I mean, let's, let's just start with the assets that you're given.

• 56:43Shawn Ryan?

  I'm talking the difference between development group and Delta.

• 56:48Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 56:48Shawn Ryan?

  What are the differences that you noticed between?

• 56:51Speaker 02

  We swim more.

• 56:53Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 56:55Speaker 02

  And, and, and if you get, if you get honest with the army guys, like half of them be like, yeah, if I could swim better, I would have went to Bud's. Like, well, thanks for being honest. I appreciate that.

• 57:05Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 57:06Speaker 02

  Um, no, great guys, right? I've worked with, I've worked with operators from around the globe. Right, German, Israelis, Brits, Aussies, all very similar like-minded individuals, right? Their KMO may be different, their technology on their gun may be a little different, the funding they got for training is definitely different, but uh, from an individual operator, all very similar. Very similar. And I would say that for the army guys, our army counterparts, very similar, same mindset, sure they hadn't been through BUDs, they have a different selection of pipeline, but, but from the operator themselves, the way they're structured, the way they operate, right, the tactics were all pretty similar, nothing that you couldn't assimilate into easy enough.

• 57:50Speaker 02

  So you didn't get over there and go, "Oh fuck, I'm gonna have to go through another selection." I should've stuck with ROTC. Yeah, fuck. I never had to do this detour, damn it. They uh, again, they were super cool, they opened me up, um, opened up everything, allowed me in, and uh, and respected my talents on their team, I was arguably the outsider and a new guy. Mm-hmm. So what kind of stuff were you doing over there? Baghdad SWAT, right, little birds to the roof, uh, pandas, ground assault force, squish them in the middle, right, night after night after night, right, intel finds bad

• 58:31Speaker 02

  guy, we show up at the house, um, I can remember a good one where we uh, right, these little bird pilots are shit hot, right, they are what they say they do, they deliver on every single time, and we're hitting, you know, it's downtown Baghdad, thousands of rooftops, right, how do you find the one rooftop in the masses that you need to land your helo on? And every single night, they were perfect, every night, always, boom, boom, boom, nailed it. Right, well, one night, we come in, and we land on the roof, but it turns out, our pilot had landed one too far, by accident. Right, landed one too far. We get on the roof, one house passed our target building,

• 59:16Speaker 02

  ground assault fort hit the ground, they start coming up, big shootout in the stairs, right? One of my buddies Jeremy shot in the leg, um, right? They're throwing hand grenades down the stairs. Turns out there was eight guys in the top floor that me and three other dudes would have landed and made entry into that space, right? Cause we were little bird team to the roof, four man team, we would have gone top down, we would have entered on the eight dudes and that probably wouldn't have worked out too well, right? I got a lot of big guy upstairs, uh, scenarios where, right? You don't understand it in the minute, right? You're like, oh fuck, we landed one house too small, too far, we should have been there. Well, had we landed on the right roof, the odds are it would have, you know, maybe we wouldn't be here, right?

• 1:00:00Speaker 02

  It'd be a whole different story. Um, so yeah, that was, that was a, an average night in Baghdad, that, uh, that, that mission was actually the first night I ever killed anybody. No shit? Yeah. Um, right? I'd done two, first deployment, no, no combat, second deployment into Iraq, we'd done some shooting, but nobody that I had ever like engaged in saw type thing. Um, and there was that night, there was a whole bunch of dudes trying to climb out the back window and, uh, we lit them up and then we ended up, we ended up, uh, a couple of army guys ran in on the first floor of this building. They were all sandbag bunkered positions on the second floor.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  And, uh, so we pulled a Bradley fighting vehicle into the front, front door of this, right, right in front of the house and literally had the 18 year old kid behind the chain gun to start unloading into the house. And so like 20 millimeter chain gun in the front yard of this house just blasting away and they all started trying to pile out the back window. Shit. And, uh, so shot them, a whole bunch of them and then, uh, How many of them? Probably four or five tried getting out. Um, the, uh, we ended up sending an EOD guy in on the first floor of the house and they set a big thermobaric charge, right? Ran out of the house, right? The army guys like, okay, 30 seconds, it's gonna go 20, 30, no boom.

• 1:01:30Speaker 02

  Right, alright. You're the demo guy. You just said the demo. You just said it should be blowing up now. It's not blowing up. What's up? Did you dual prime it? You said dual prime it. What kind of demo guy doesn't dual prime something? So, okay, now you're sitting there. There's a thermobaric charge that has been

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  actuated. The clock's ticking.

• 1:01:53Shawn Ryan?

  I'm finding the difference between Delta and Dev Group.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  Always dual prime. The, uh, so anyway, we waited, we waited, we waited, and we're like, alright, somebody's gotta go back in the first floor and hook another initiator to that charge. And you have no idea where that initiator's at, if it's hung up or what's going on, because you're the demo guy said it should be off. So, the same demo guy had to run back in the house, set a second initiator to it, ran out and clacked it, and the whole house fell down. And that was, that was, that was, that was a big, very significant moment for me in two ways. One, yeah, it had actually engaged somebody and, and for the first time. Um, but more importantly, right, I was pissed because we missed our landing spot.

• 1:02:38Speaker 02

  Right? And, and you do enough of these, in hindsight, you're like, well, we're very blessed. We missed that landing spot. Right? So, you know, it's not always bad, right? A little perspective, look at the situation. And yeah, we got really lucky there. So I probably shouldn't be mad that we missed the target.

• 1:02:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. What did it feel like to take an enemy combatant's life for the first time?

• 1:03:04Speaker 02

  Zero emotion, zero anything.

• 1:03:05Shawn Ryan?

  Nothing?

• 1:03:06Speaker 02

  No. Easy.

• 1:03:07Shawn Ryan?

  Didn't bother you one bit?

• 1:03:09Speaker 02

  Nope. To me, I've never had any issues with that. Um, right, I'm on the right side of this. They're on the wrong side and, and I had zero issues.

• 1:03:20Shawn Ryan?

  Did you feel accomplishment?

• 1:03:22Speaker 02

  No, not really. Because what, what sense of accomplishment per se, right? There's a whole bunch of people there. Probably three of us shooting at the guys climbing out the back window. It wasn't, I just, I went and did some crazy jujitsu move on him or something. Like, it was just part of the team and part of the mission and how it goes down. So I, I've never been like, well, I did that and that was me. And that's just never been

• 1:03:48Speaker 02

  me.

• 1:03:50Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about, um, let's just talk about, before we get to the bin Laden raid, let's just talk about any significant events that happened at Dev Group prior to the bin Laden raid.

• 1:04:05Speaker 02

  You covered it with Pete pretty good in your last couple of episodes. I was on the Captain Phillips rescue with him.

• 1:04:09Shawn Ryan?

  You were on there?

• 1:04:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:12Shawn Ryan?

  Let's hear your perspective. How'd that go down?

• 1:04:14Speaker 02

  I thought Skabel did a, did a great job describing it. Uh, I wasn't there. I wasn't one of the shooters. Um, I'll say there's way more than three shots, right? Anybody who saw the movie and believes it was three heat-seeking sniper bullets, I got to island to Celia. Um, I would say, right, the other misconceived notion is right after the guys took the shots, there was one AK-47 round fired inside the life raft. I don't think that's in the movie either. Right? So, talk about hero-to-zero status, right? The shooters thought, okay, well, we just missed and they, they offed the captain.

• 1:04:54Speaker 02

  So, I think probably the sexiest move that night was, was a couple of the, the snipers that were on the back fantail the, the ship, right? They put their long guns down. They still had their pistols, but they, they climbed off the back of the ship, right? Ocean waves, little rope that goes out to the life raft and they did the commando crawl like the Oak Horse, right? Down the rope on their stomach, all the way to the life raft, you know, climbed to the back, stuck their hands, guns in, and then everybody was dead. Um, so, that's, that's, that's the piece that, that I always share that's not in the movie. Um, other than that, right, we, uh, I wasn't one of the shooters. I wasn't intimately involved in it. I was there with almost a hundred others that if, right, if they got their captain to shore,

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  we would have had to go hit some of the, the training camps or some of their, their facilities on shore. A lot, lot more booger eaters than, than the three we were.

• 1:05:45Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit, so that's how that would have went down?

• 1:05:47Speaker 02

  There was almost a hundred of us that jumped in, right? We didn't need a hundred to deal with four booger eaters on the, on the life raft. Um, but had they got to shore and they were within a hundred yards of shore, right? But they, they realized that that stretch of beach was of different tribes. They would have made landfall. They would have offed them taking their captain. So, we were able to literally convince them to tie a rope to the life raft and tow him south. The fourth pirate right had got wounded in the hand during the initial assault so they had pulled him off the life raft and he's literally standing on the back of the Bainbridge with a buddy of mine.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  There he's got his hand bandaged, right? They're smoking cigarettes, right? He's lighting his cigarette for him and they were trying to get the pirates in the life raft to see. Right, I'm lighting cigarettes and he's got his hand bandaged and then my buddy's like, hey. Tells one of the Navy guys, go in and get a soft serve ice cream cone. I guarantee the Somali's never eaten soft serve ice cream. So literally, there's the Somali with his hand bandaged with a cigarette and his soft serve ice cream on the back of the ship. And that was us trying to say, hey, look, you know, look at your guy. He's getting treated very fairly. He's got medical attention, smokes and ice cream. You know, give up the captain and you can have some too. That clearly didn't pan out for him.

• 1:07:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, man.

• 1:07:08Speaker 02

  And arguably.

• 1:07:08Shawn Ryan?

  What other tricks?

• 1:07:09Speaker 02

  He's the lucky.

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  He's the luckiest out of all four of them, if you think about it, because he's in federal penitentiary in New York right now. Right? The others are dead, right? He never got air conditioning in Somalia. He certainly didn't get heat. I guarantee he's got free college. Eye care, dental care, three meals a day. He's living the dream in the federal penitentiary compared to where he would have been.

• 1:07:32Shawn Ryan?

  I mean shit up there, they probably have his whole life planned out for him and donations and everything for when he gets out, right?

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  For sure.

• 1:07:38Shawn Ryan?

  So.

• 1:07:39Speaker 02

  Wow, wow.

• 1:07:41Shawn Ryan?

  Bud, what else? What else?

• 1:07:43Speaker 02

  That was the only real, right? There's the standby where something happens, you go. That was the only real spin up for a true standby mission. Which was a, you know, okay, boom, go fly away, do the jump package in. That was the only one of those I did during my time.

• 1:08:03Shawn Ryan?

  Did you lost anybody throughout your career?

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  A lot of it.

• 1:08:06Shawn Ryan?

  Anybody close?

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  Um, if I, if I go through the contact list of my phone.

• 1:08:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:11Speaker 02

  Forty-three names in my contact that are dead.

• 1:08:15Shawn Ryan?

  How many operational?

• 1:08:18Speaker 02

  Almost all.

• 1:08:18Shawn Ryan?

  Almost all of them?

• 1:08:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, a couple suicides, but yeah, almost all.

• 1:08:24Shawn Ryan?

  Who was the first person that you lost in combat?

• 1:08:27Speaker 02

  Uh, Mike Coke. He's in my green team class. Um, then, uh, the Badger. There's a, there's a list. All the guys I went through green team with. Nope, nope. Uh, di- different squadrons. Um, Red did pretty well, right? Squadron I was in. Um, we dodged a lot of bullets and a lot of different situations, right? A lot of my friends in different squadrons, not so much. Um, Yeah, right? I mean, it's all fun and games and these deployments are great, but they're not the most safe and right, uh, You, you guys get zipped. Just about every deployment, every other deployment, right? Um,

• 1:09:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, tha- that was,

• 1:09:10Speaker 02

  Talk about faith and, and my journey. Um, right? From nine eleven, Through everything, though, all of basically the global war on terror. I, I saw a lot of it grow and change, and I saw a lot of really good people not come home through it. And, uh,

• 1:09:30Speaker 02

  And, and that,

• 1:09:34Speaker 02

  The way I dealt with that, right? Without going crazy was I chalked it up as that was God's plan. Right? I, I knew that if I got shot in the face tomorrow going to work, that was it. That was God's plan. That was what it was. Um, I had done enough of these deployments, had seen enough of, uh, you know, guys not coming home for one reason or another, being bad luck, Uh, or whatever. And so I, uh,

• 1:10:03Speaker 02

  Think the more I dealt with the death, the closer I was with the, with the God connection of like, okay, that justified it for me. In some weird way, that was the piece, the Band-Aid I put on it in the moment to, to chalk it up as okay. Well, it is what it is and I gotta get back to work.

• 1:10:19Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting. So you never really lost faith going, you know, within, within the SEAL teams?

• 1:10:25Speaker 02

  A lot. I, I lost most of my faith when I was challenged, when I got out by our own government and when I didn't understand it and I was confused and I didn't have a community and been cut off. Right? When I was in, dude, like, how do you deal with death? Like, you do the same job I did? You know, the deal, right? It's part of the job. And, and certainly you're gonna keep deploying and do this for as long as I did. If you're not, if you're not absolutely comfortable with where you're going, if you get shot in the face tomorrow night, um, maybe you're not gonna be as good of an operator as you should be. Um, and, and so for me in those moments, I always was, was much

• 1:11:04Speaker 02

  more, I, I tried to place my confidence in, okay, well, that was, I don't understand it, but that is, uh, since I don't understand it, somebody else must. I'm hoping, I'm betting on it and, and, and hopefully I'll have some, some understanding of this at some point.

• 1:11:23Shawn Ryan?

  Were you married during this time?

• 1:11:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:25Shawn Ryan?

  How was your wife handled in the operational pace?

• 1:11:28Speaker 02

  I'm divorced. It's, right? It's tough. Um, before I got married, I was like, hey, look, uh, just so you know, if, if work isn't my first priority, I'm probably not gonna come home to deal with any of the other priorities you, you and I may have. Um, and so I was, I was married for nine years, home for less than one. Both my kids are born, uh, three years and a week apart. So I was clearly home on the same deployment cycle. Um, divorce rates through the roof in the community, right? Uh, I think everybody does fine with, oh, your husband's in the nay, or there could be stuff happened after extortion, right? Couple of months after the bin Laden raid, everybody's on the high.

• 1:12:13Speaker 02

  Then extortion goes down. Twenty-two friends in one night. You talk about, we call it pink squadron. That's the wives and girlfriends. And you want to talk about some, some social pressure of it's time to retire, time to get out, time for you to move on. Think of that, uh, A, the amount of loss. Think then the, the pressure from the wives to the other husbands that are in the command. You know how many RPGs I've seen come by a ramp on my forty-seven? A lot. Every single one, you're like, oh, man, glad that didn't hit. And then one hits. So, um, that puts it in perspective really quick, certainly for your loved ones.

• 1:12:56Shawn Ryan?

  How about your kids?

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  Too young to understand.

• 1:13:00Shawn Ryan?

  How are you? How's your relationship with them now?

• 1:13:02Speaker 02

  Good, because I got out, right? Um, I got out. They were young enough that, right? They, they knew dad went on long trips. Those were deployments or short trips were training trips. Um, I've done the math. I never put them to bed for more than like fourteen days in a row without another trip.

• 1:13:20Shawn Ryan?

  Fuck.

• 1:13:21Speaker 02

  Right? Never home, more than about fourteen days for fourteen years plus.

• 1:13:28Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think that, I mean, this is, I've done like two hundred and fifty of these now at this point-ish.

• 1:13:37Shawn Ryan?

  At least fifty percent of these interviews have been military guys. Talk about the same things every single time. You know, there's, there, I mean, it's every, every story is obviously unique to that individual, but, I mean, the arc is, is damn near the same every single time. I mean, what are, what are some, would it even be fucking possible? Especially in a, in a command like that, you know, to where you can be home for more than fourteen days in a row to put your kids down. You can be home for more than fourteen days.

• 1:14:09Speaker 02

  There were those options. You, you could raise your hand and say, hey, I need to come off the speeding train, but think about it. There's only a handful of people on this job doing this job. And and the numbers are not good, right? The the year I left the SEAL teams, the SEAL community had a net gain of one new operator.

• 1:14:26Shawn Ryan?

  So that's going well, that's what I'm I know that I know the operator, the individual isn't going to be like, hey, guys, I need to take a break because I didn't get to put my kids down, you know, last week. But I mean, when you see the you just said it, the fucking net one, net plus one that year. That's it. In the middle of of the longest fucking war that the US has ever been in, we got a fucking net one.

• 1:14:50Speaker 02

  That's a problem.

• 1:14:50Shawn Ryan?

  Plus one. And so what I'm what I'm kind of getting at, you know, somebody that that was over there and just, you know, my own career in the regular SEAL teams, which was you're still fucking gone all the time. And in, you know, the retention sucks. People are getting out left and right. I mean, how how I guess you see what I'm getting at like it would have to come down from the top. Do you do you think there is a way for for the sake of retention that guys can get more time with family, with their kids?

• 1:15:22Speaker 02

  For sure. I'll give you an example. I did right. I'd never asked for anything. Longest break I had in my career was selection and training to get into my former command. That's not a break. That's nine months of just kicked in the nuts. That was my longest break, right? I had 13 straight tours, raised my hand every time, volunteer, volunteer. At the end, right? Post bin Laden mission, hurt my neck. I go to my master chief and I'm like, hey, master chief, I need a break. My family's imploding, like medically, something's wrong. I can't drink a beer without my arms going numb. Something's off from the crash. I don't know. But something's off. Um, look, will you send me to go be a green team instructor

• 1:16:07Speaker 02

  or something? So I can I can take a rap off for 18 months. I'm like, look, I'll even go, I'll go get my master's degree. I'll pay out of my own dime, professional development, whatever. I just I need to be home. I need to do something for me. I'm getting divorced. Like, I I've got to I got to figure out how to slow down.

• 1:16:27Speaker 02

  He's like, listen, I've got to move somebody to this other squadron and I got your name on that billet. I'm like, I know, but that's not a, that's not a stay at home billet. That's a deployable billet. He's like, I know, but I gotta put somebody there and we don't have enough people and I've got your name earmarked for that. I'm like, well, Master Chief, look, I've never asked for anything. My family's melting. My neck is broken. Like, I got some shit going on. I need to figure out. Can you please find something? He came back a week later and was like, no, it's the only option you got. So that's part of the reason I got out. Fuck, man. So, so can it be fixed? I hope so. Right? Could it be fixed? I think

• 1:17:08Speaker 02

  so. Um, the priorities at the time were mission success, not Sean Ryan's mental health, Matt Bissonnette's personal wealth and any of that.

• 1:17:20Shawn Ryan?

  How do you think that worked out in the long term? You think that worked out?

• 1:17:23Speaker 02

  It crashed and burned. You always take care of your people first.

• 1:17:25Shawn Ryan?

  That's right.

• 1:17:26Speaker 02

  And they didn't take care of their people. Right? 9/11, I saw a lot of changes. Lot of changes between here and here. And I saw the tactics change. I saw the leadership change. I saw, I saw, by the time I got out, right, every, every major officer I knew was writing themselves up for their own awards and they were going to get promoted off the number of missions they ran, not off the number of bad guys they caught or doing the right thing. It was, okay, number of missions, amount of awards, all this nonsense. And then I saw the rules of engagement slowly starting to change, right? Making things more dangerous for us. Right? So you'd have the Admiral McRavens coming in saying, okay, well, you

• 1:18:08Speaker 02

  can't use your dogs anymore. You can't go at night. Like, wait a second, we only go at night because it's safer to the force. We bring our dogs because our dogs save our lives nightly. But now the leadership saying, "Don't bring your dogs because the locals are complaining about dogs being unclean."

• 1:18:24Shawn Ryan?

  What? What? That's... Are you fucking kidding me?

• 1:18:28Speaker 02

  That was Admiral McRaven? We had so many different officers and congressional delegations, right? We'd have congressional delegations come over. They would ask us, "Hey, are these new rules of engagement, uh, prohibitive, costing you more danger on target?" And our officers would be like, "Nope, nope, all good." Our senior enlisted Master Chief, I can remember a Master Chief, I'm not gonna name his name, but he stood up in the, in the meeting with the congressional delegation and said, "Well, with all due respect, I don't, I don't believe what the officer over here is telling you. I'm the one going on the ground, and yes, it is making it more dangerous for us."

• 1:19:05Speaker 02

  Nobody was, nobody was communicating those things. I, I saw that slowly happening over and over and over, as we're sent back to Iraq and Afghanistan, right, risking our lives. Well, well, the leadership is making it harder and harder for us to do our mission. And all of that was adding up to part of the reason why I was like, "I'm, I'm no longer signing my name on the dotted line to work for the idiots."

• 1:19:30Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, man, I thought the leadership over a dev group was...

• 1:19:35Speaker 02

  Oh, it has its strengths and weaknesses. I'm not, I'm not saying it's, it's perfect, I'm not saying it's shitty, but I'm saying we've definitely had our less than stellar. Right? Um, when, when we get into talking about all the, the book drama, right? When, when that all hit, right? I reached out to my commanding officer that I had just left the squadron. I'd known, known him for eight years. Right? I'm like, "Sir." Right? The only thing I've ever been taught, if there's an issue, you communicate with leadership immediately, and that's exactly what I did. You, you know what that SEAL officer in charge of the SEAL community did? He replied, "Delete me."

• 1:20:15Speaker 02

  That's the only conversation, that's the only correspondence I've ever gotten from any leadership in the SEAL community since I wrote my book. Or, or anything, period.

• 1:20:24Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:20:25Speaker 02

  So, you know, talk about leadership issues, I'd say the, the community has a few.

• 1:20:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I'm not gonna argue that. Jeez. All right, well, let's move in, let's, let's go to the bin Laden raid. Let's talk about, when did, I mean, just from the, when did that pop up on your guys' radar?

• 1:20:44Speaker 02

  We just got home from a deployment. We just got home from Afghanistan, like, eight days prior. They pulled 24 most senior of us in, in the squadron, and, and briefed us up. Said, hey, look, we, we think we found him, we want you guys to plan the, the ground assault option.

• 1:21:01Shawn Ryan?

  Eight days after deployment?

• 1:21:03Speaker 02

  Yeah. Right after eight, 10 days, something like that, just come home, I should have been on leave. They pulled, uh, pulled us in from leave, and, uh, pulled the 24 most senior in the squadron.

• 1:21:15Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have any idea that's what they were gonna talk to you about?

• 1:21:19Speaker 02

  Um, no, no, I had no idea, and I actually had a, a medical appointment that I couldn't miss, the morning that they were pulling these guys down to this other facility to read them in, and I'm like, hey, guys, I've got this medical thing at the doctor, I've set up, you know, is it cool if I miss this, or do I need to miss the doctor's appointment to hit this brief? And they're like, no, you're good, just drive down when you're done. So I, I finished my appointment and drove down, and then when I showed up at the facility, they'd already given the guys the brief, and said, hey, look, we, we think we found the guy, um, we want you guys to plan the, the ground assault option. Boom, so then we got to work.

• 1:21:54Shawn Ryan?

  How do you plan that?

• 1:21:55Speaker 02

  Just like we've done any other mission, right? Uh, the enlisted guys at the bottom who actually do it, start coming up with the courses of action. Um, we're somewhat limited on, on the way we could tactically action the target, based off where it was, right? In Afghanistan, we'd grown very comfortable with not flying the helicopter to the compound, right? Landing 20 kilometers away and patrolling in, so, right, we're gonna... Pick the lock on your door. We'll get you while you're sleeping. Um, don't wake up anybody in the neighborhood. That was, that's much more of what we like to do. Um, but because of where his compound was in the city,

• 1:22:35Speaker 02

  the odds of us landing five kilometers away, patrolling through the city, remaining undetected was, was low. So had we been compromised on that patrol, right? He would have left the building. So, so based off the, the building, everything we were seeing that drove us to say, okay, well, let's, let's go straight to the target.

• 1:22:53Shawn Ryan?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:22:53Speaker 02

  Fly the helicopters and that's, that's where that plan was, was started.

• 1:22:59Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know that you had those, the new latest and greatest Blackhawks?

• 1:23:04Speaker 02

  I don't know anything about any crazy Blackhawks.

• 1:23:09Speaker 02

  Okay. You can talk about them all you want, but I'm not saying anything.

• 1:23:12Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know you were gonna get fancy helicopters to fly in for the mission?

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  Not immediately.

• 1:23:20Shawn Ryan?

  Walt's not gonna come after you anymore after this fucking releases.

• 1:23:23Speaker 02

  Not immediately.

• 1:23:24Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking to you that.

• 1:23:27Shawn Ryan?

  Or any of these other guys, but, um, so you had no idea? When did, when did you have an idea those were coming?

• 1:23:34Speaker 02

  In the mission planning. During the mission planning, they told us about certain assets that we could use that had certain skills that we needed. And so some, some discussion whether we truly needed it or not. And, and ultimately it was yes. So.

• 1:23:55Shawn Ryan?

  How long did you guys have to plan the, the operation?

• 1:23:58Speaker 02

  Two weeks.

• 1:23:59Shawn Ryan?

  Two weeks?

• 1:24:00Speaker 02

  Long as I've, I've never, I've never rehearsed for any mission. Right? 13 deployments, never rehearsed for a single mission. Every deployment, every, go, go do your plan, brief the team, roll out the door and go. The only mission I ever rehearsed for was the bin Laden.

• 1:24:16Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 1:24:17Speaker 02

  Ever had time.

• 1:24:18Shawn Ryan?

  How, how, so can you talk about the, about the two weeks from when we got briefed to execution? I mean, what was the pace like? What was?

• 1:24:28Speaker 02

  Came up with our plan and then just started, started rehearsing our plan. Um, we had a mockup that we, that we trained on. Um.

• 1:24:38Speaker 02

  But again, even rehearsing on a mock-up where you don't know the inside of it is kind of irrelevant, right? We knew kind of the outside layout and so you could go get a false sense of security, running a dry run on a compound for time. But if you don't know what's in the house and what's going to happen in the house, you're getting a false sense of security of, "Oh, we ran this in three minutes. We cleared it in three minutes." But you're clearing a structure with paper targets and without any interference, right? So yeah, we spent a week, week or two doing that, went out to another state, did some more rehearsals with the helicopters and then came back. I can remember, um...

• 1:25:20Shawn Ryan?

  Is this like, you wake up, rehearse all the way through the night, rehearse just all hours of the day?

• 1:25:27Speaker 02

  Yep, day, night, day, night. And then when we weren't there, we'd give the people like, "Hey, can you update this on the mock-up?" They'd update it. We'd come back the next morning and hit it again, or whatever it was, and just constant rehearsals. Yeah.

• 1:25:43Shawn Ryan?

  What did it feel like to get that brief? Especially not have no idea. You come back from a medical appointment and it's, "Look at your buddies, the 24 that are going on," and they're like, "Hey, we're fucking hitting the number one guy."

• 1:25:58Speaker 02

  That doesn't get you excited. Something's wrong.

• 1:26:00Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I'm fucking saying.

• 1:26:03Speaker 02

  You're like, "Holy fuck. Let's go." Right? Um, I'd been involved in one other spin for Bin Laden years prior. So this one felt much different, right? The one years prior, right? It was flowing white robes, were seen on ISR feed and he's coming back into Afghanistan to make his final, you know, take the fight to the Americans. And so it was this whole... It was a big shit show is what it was. All the officers, everybody wanted to get involved to be involved. It was the closest spin of any intel they'd ever had on bin Laden. And so they just delayed, delayed, delayed. This big force got built. They flew in like B1 bombers from the States. They bombed the shit out of an empty hillside.

• 1:26:48Speaker 02

  Um, right. Like three days before they're going into the mission, right? They're gonna take out bin Laden. They send me and another guy over to Pakistan to do some stuff there. So I'm literally on the Pakistan side of the border, dressed in Pakistani uniforms with a, with a Pakistani element. And my guys are on the other side of the border. They're dropping bombs on a whole bunch of empty mountains. And you know, two weeks later, they're like, okay, bin Laden wasn't there and they call us off.

• 1:27:13Shawn Ryan?

  Right, right.

• 1:27:13Speaker 02

  That, that was the previous spin. This one felt much different. This one was a lot more under the radar. It was quiet. It was like, okay, whoever lived there was significant. Right? It was none of the intel that I saw was a hundred percent proof positive it was bin Laden himself, but it was somebody significant.

• 1:27:31Speaker 02

  So, okay, whoever lived there was gonna have a bad night, but we would, we would figure it out. Um, I remember in one of the intel manuals, right? I don't even know who put these together, but I'm breezing through it. The first couple of days, like on page one or two, I see a statistic where it says you have up to a 70% chance being shot down on the heli ride in or the heli ride out.

• 1:27:56Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:27:57Speaker 02

  Not, and I don't know who came up with that statistic. There was intel people at all levels throwing out different numbers and statistics. But I'm like, I'm not a numbers guy here, but 70%, that's, that's just the heli ride. That's not dealing with the guys with the guns once you're there.

• 1:28:10Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:28:12Speaker 02

  Um.

• 1:28:12Shawn Ryan?

  Did you guys think it was a suicide mission?

• 1:28:16Speaker 02

  I, I've never thought any of my missions were a suicide mission. I refuse to think that way. Right? I don't care what, who, I'm not, I'm not allowing myself. It's like my buddy and buds who every morning was like, fuck this, I'm quitting. I'm like, I can't allow my mind to go there because I'd actually quit. So I'm like, I'm, I'm not gonna allow my mind to go anywhere other than we're gonna move through this target and figure it out.

• 1:28:40Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm. What was, can you, can you run through the plan of what you guys developed for the night that it happened?

• 1:28:47Speaker 02

  I love my Mike Tyson quote, right? Somebody interviewed Tyson after a fight. They're like, "Mike, didn't you have a plan going into tonight's fight?" And he looks at the reporters like, "Yeah, everybody has a plan till you get punched in the face."

• 1:28:59Speaker 02

  I love that quote, right? "We had a great plan, super simple, like we did in Baghdad, top down, bottom up, right? We're gonna squish them in the main house." That was the plan, pretty straightforward. Um, we got punched in the face soon as we got there, right? Um, these helicopters, helicopter pilots are amazing, right? I cannot say enough good about them. Rehearsals, everything, perfect. Everything to the second. I'm uh, I'm sitting in the left door of the helicopter, right? I'm gonna be the first one out, chalk one on the left side. My buddy's on the other side. Um, right, ropes hooked to the helo, 40 feet up, we come to a hover. It feels like four hours, it's probably two seconds,

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  and, and immediately the helicopter goes 90 and starts going in. I'm sitting in this door. Fuck. Um, helicopters crash very ugly. Right? A plane maybe can come skidding in. My little chicken legs are hanging out the side of the helicopter and we're going in this way, to the side. Um, buddy mine's holding me in. I'm literally falling out of the side of the helicopter as we come in and we hit. Um, nothing goes boom. Clear out your shorts, whatever you need to do to get back in the game. Holy shit. Man, the, the way we hung up on the wall, right? The helicopter propped up against the wall.

• 1:30:22Speaker 02

  There's a, a wheel on the back section of a Blackhawk and that wheel's the only load bearing for the back half of the helicopter. That wheel landed on the wall.

• 1:30:33Speaker 02

  Right? Had that wheel been 10 inches this way or 10 inches this way, tail section would've broke, I wouldn't be here, right? The uh, the height of the wall was 10 feet. Our helicopter hit, if you watch the Zero Dark Thirty movie, the main rotor hits the ground, comes snapping off. That did not happen. Right? We hit. I jump out this door and run away, turn around and look, and the main rotors are still turning. They were within about a foot of hitting the ground.

• 1:31:01Speaker 02

  You want to talk about the big guy? Right? When your time's up, your time is up, and it was not our time. Inches, inches. Landed perfectly. Helicopter didn't roll. Main rotor blades didn't snap off. Nothing. Forty feet up.

• 1:31:20Speaker 02

  You tell me how that happened.

• 1:31:22Shawn Ryan?

  Why did the helicopter crash?

• 1:31:24Speaker 02

  Great question. Okay. So...

• 1:31:29Speaker 02

  Do you know what was happening in Washington DC the day before the mission? That the president would have wanted to be at?

• 1:31:38Shawn Ryan?

  I don't remember.

• 1:31:39Speaker 02

  A White House Correspondents Dinner. So... The day we had originally planned to launch our mission was, was the day before we actually went. Right? It was a weekend, zero alum, so... Good, good time to go. President got involved. It was like, "Hey, can you guys push this one day to the right?" "Push to the right?" "Well, I want to hit my dinner." Okay, so... So we, we moved the OP to the right. Not, not me, it was well above my pay grade. The OP was moved to the right. The next day, the temperature was roughly eight degrees warmer than the day prior. You know, how weight, uh, temperature affects density altitude? How a bullet flies, uh, over a mile? It affects how much lift a helicopter can have.

• 1:32:23Speaker 02

  So, hypothetically, if, hypothetically, if our, because I'm not speaking in real terms of weights. Right? The, uh, i-if our helicopter could carry, say, a thousand pounds? Say we were at eight hundred pounds a load? That's fine, we operate within those margins. Normal. The next day, eight degrees warmer. Temperature, we didn't have the lift. So, what I've been told is, we got into the, to the target area. Our, our pilot was at full throttle, and we settled with power, because he didn't have enough ass to keep the helicopter in the air. So... Why did we crash? Because President Obama needed to hit the White House Correspondents Dinner.

• 1:33:03Shawn Ryan?

  You've gotta be fucking kidding me.

• 1:33:06Speaker 02

  Eh, it's a portion of it.

• 1:33:09Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:33:12Shawn Ryan?

  Unfucking believable, man.

• 1:33:18Speaker 02

  The, the only political shots I take in, in, uh, No Easy Day, right? I, I make two political shots. I guess I, I hate all politicians. Uh, Biden, right? He was VP at the time. We meet him after the raid and, and he's like literally handsy, like trying to rub guys shoulders and like tell them bad jokes in their ears. Like you're, we're not teenage girls with ice cream here, dude. Like, God, it's like, who's the drunk uncle? That showed up at Thanksgiving like, oh, that's the vice president. Like, okay, that makes sense. Oh shit. And then, and then Obama, Obama was great, right? Super smooth. We, we all stood up there, got our photo with him, you know, uh, gave a great speech. And then he invites us all to the White House, to the residence for a beer.

• 1:34:02Speaker 02

  Okay. I'm very apolitical, but if a sitting president invites me and my team that just risked our lives for whatever, to the White House to have a beer with the sitting president, you go, right? You, you're gonna go. Right? He invites the freaking women's World Cup soccer team, whatever. Like, everybody goes to the White House. Here's a sitting president inviting us to the White House for a beer right after we probably got him reelected. Do you think he ever followed up with that invite? Probably not. Nope. And so I put, I bet you voted for change too. Like, that's my only one liner in the book of like, yeah, I bet if you're still waiting for Obama to invite you to the White House for a beer, I know you just risked your life for him and, and you probably got him reelected. He invited you for a beer, but you think he's ever gonna follow up with that? No.

• 1:34:47Speaker 02

  Wow. Not surprising though. Not surprising. So, uh, yeah, all my buddies are jumping out the other side of the helicopter and going to work. And I'm like, they're gonna fucking make fun of me later if they see me over in the corner. So I couldn't run around the front of the helicopter. The main rotor blades are still turning. I literally had to run down along the wall. Underneath, there was like three or four of us on our side, but we all ran underneath the helicopter, joined with the team and breached one. Second helicopter, there was no radio call between dash one and dash two that we'd gone in. Were you gonna be on the top or on the bottom? We were, we were fast roping 40 feet down into the compound. My team was clearing and securing, uh, one of the southern buildings and then we'd all wrap into the bottom floor and go up.

• 1:35:29Speaker 02

  Chalk two was supposed to go to the roof and work down. As chalk two came into a hover. Right, you're flying a really expensive helicopter, looking through toilet paper tubes. Night vision, right? Um, and that pilot looks and he happens to see we've got a parked helicopter in the compound. He doesn't know if we've been shot down, a mechanical, what's going on? He just knows there's a parked helicopter in the compound. So, um, he makes probably the best decision of the night that nobody will ever talk about, right? He could have pushed a bad position, tried to do the game plan and land on the roof. The odds are he would have crashed.

• 1:36:07Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you say that?

• 1:36:09Speaker 02

  Well, I'll explain why we crashed. Our hover was at forty feet. The compound was mostly fifty feet, right? That second helicopter would have had, hold a hover with the same weight at fifteen feet higher. If we couldn't hold a hover at forty feet, there was no way Chalk Two was going to be able to hold a hover at sixty feet and, and lip land to let his crew off onto the roof. The odds are they would have crashed. So, that pilot immediately sees, says, okay, I'm gonna do the safe, safe thing. And he hovers his helicopter outside the compound into a field across the street and lands them out there. They thought they were going to the roof. Now they're outside the compound, outside the wall in a field across the street.

• 1:36:48Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:36:52Speaker 02

  So, yeah, we ran, somebody ran to the door, let him in.

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• 1:39:37Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Matt, we're back from the break. We had just left off. Helo crashed. The other one landed outside the compound. I think you guys are getting ready to link up.

• 1:39:47Speaker 02

  Yep. Um, my team was tasked with securing this, this building to the south of the compound. It was one of the other, he had been on that two facilitators that, that lived in the compound. And one of them lived in this southern little building inside the compound. So my team was tasked with that. All the rest headed to the first floor of the main building.

• 1:40:11Speaker 02

  The, uh, we got to the door, a little, little southern building. Door was locked. I know we'd made a little noise crashing our helicopters, but we're professionals here, right? We didn't want to make too much noise if we didn't have to. So my, uh, my buddy, uh, that was there with me carried a sledgehammer, right? He starts banging on this metal door, trying to get it open up and it's, it's not going to open. So, okay, we're not going to spend five minutes banging on this thing. We gotta get in. So I was going to use my, my explosives. I commented, one of the first times I ever got shot at was through a door. Right? And I've had that happen multiple times now. Um, we just crashed into their compound. We just beat on their front door with a sledgehammer. The last thing I'm going to do is stand in front of their door, setting my charge there.

• 1:40:57Speaker 02

  So I literally got on my knee as low as I could, setting my charge. And as I'm setting my charge, just above me, AK-47 through the door.

• 1:41:05Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. Are you serious?

• 1:41:08Speaker 02

  Um, wow. I picked up a little bit of frag in my shoulder. Nothing crazy, but I carry a set of bolt cutters on, on a pouch on my back, right? Each handle can kind of come up. I can pull it out, cut my little bolt cutter setup. We got back from the mission. I was going through my stuff. There's a bullet stuck in the handle.

• 1:41:23Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 1:41:25Speaker 02

  So we, we got lucky with the crash. We got lucky with 30 seconds later at the door. Um, myself and my partner returned fire through the door blindly and everything goes quiet.

• 1:41:38Speaker 02

  Wow. All right. I gotta go back up. I gotta get my charge on the door. I gotta clap this thing off. We gotta get in here, right? We gotta, time, time's ticking. Um, my buddy spoke Arabic, right? So he starts calling into the house in Arabic. And I swear to God, not five seconds go by and you hear the metal latch on the door inside. And they're getting ready to come out. Like, why didn't we try this when we got here? This would have been way simpler, right? Just come on out, guys. Door opens up. It's a female holding the baby, two kids behind her, her husband laying dead just inside the door. Perfect Arabic to my buddy. You killed him. He is dead.

• 1:42:17Speaker 02

  Talking about her husband. Wow. Um, pulled her out, right? Women and kids away, cleared the guns, cleared all the, the area, left them there. Left the dead guy there and then we rolled into the, to the main house. While all that was going on. Did you guys know where he was gonna be? Who? Bin Laden. The assessment was assessed that he most likely lived on the third floor of the compound. Assessed, right? Assessed was Khalid, his son, lived on the second floor. And another facilitator on the first and another facilitator in this outbuilding. That was, that was the lay down of what they assessed. Um, right? The guys from Chalk Two had landed outside the wall. They came, they got let in the compound.

• 1:43:02Speaker 02

  Now everybody's hitting the, the bottom of the main house, right? Are you guys hitting the main house simultaneously or did you? One, one door on the house. The way the house was rigged, it had had multiple doors to go in. But it had been configured on the inside to secure the stairwell going up, right? And we got in one side of the house and there's a reinforced metal door at the bottom of the stairs. Shaun may be hiding somebody upstairs. If you have a reinforced metal door at the bottom of your staircase, right? The, maybe a sign that you're hiding somebody upstairs, right? So all of these things you're thinking through, you're like, okay. Shots fired at the first building. They're, they wanna get jiggy, right?

• 1:43:44Speaker 02

  We've got reinforced metal doors at the bottom of their stairs. That's odd, right? Couple of charges and that went away. Uh, no power.

• 1:43:54Speaker 02

  Pitch black, good night vision. It's not like you see in the movies with, you know, Team America here to kick your ass and clear left, clear right. Right, we're, we're very calmly and quietly clearing the space.

• 1:44:09Speaker 02

  Got up to the second floor. But there'd been an adult male and his wife engaged on the first floor.

• 1:44:16Speaker 02

  In the stairs up to the second floor. What I remember, right? Seal in front of me. It just shot Khalid up the stairs. Right Khalid was Bin Laden's son. We, we'd been told, we think Khalid lives on the second floor. We're literally standing on the second floor, there's a ladder, stairs that go up to a landing and up. A little head pops down looking at us. On the ceiling.

• 1:44:40Shawn Ryan?

  How did he, did he hear you guys?

• 1:44:42Speaker 02

  He had to have, right? I mean, the, anybody inside the house had plenty of time to wake up. They heard helicopters hovering, helicopters crash. They'd heard muffled gunfire, some explosions. Right, outside buildings, first floor of the main building, and then now we're in the house. So they had had more than enough time to go, to assume there's somebody here that's.

• 1:45:07Shawn Ryan?

  Is it true that somebody yelled to Khalid in Arabic? He came out and then was popped?

• 1:45:13Speaker 02

  Didn't yell, whispered. It's the sexiest move I ever saw on the SEAL teams. Whispered Khalid's name. You're on the second floor. You see a head peek down the, peek down the wall, look down at us. Trying to see who's down there, couldn't, couldn't tell, right? It's pitch black, we're quiet, we're not, hey, it's America, none of that. And, uh, that same seal, right, sat right next to me in the Hilo crash. Right, um, in front of me on the stairs, and he literally whispers Khalid's name.

• 1:45:46Speaker 02

  Khalid Khalid Khalid had heard gunfire, all this stuff. Then he hears somebody whispering his name. Not yelling it, nothing aggressive. Peeks around the corner and gets popped in the head. Holy shit. Falls down, rolls down a couple sets of stairs, AK-47. Right, he was literally right around the corner of the stairwell with an AK-47. Had we made our way up the stairs, alright, he would have popped the point man point blank as we rounded the corner. Uh, maybe the rest of us. More importantly, he would have slowed our assault down. Right, we'd given ourselves 30 minutes on target with a 10 minute window to spare.

• 1:46:28Speaker 02

  And, uh, yeah, had he stood at the top of the stairs shooting down, that would have slowed our assault up the stairs. I've, I've had to, I had to assault years ago, uh, there was a guy at the top of stairs shooting down at us. And literally we threw a whole bunch of hand grenades up the stairs and then ran up right behind him. Um, it's not, not the prettiest way to assault a set fixed position.

• 1:46:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:52Speaker 02

  Um, so thankfully, right, from a, from a historical move standpoint, that was epic.

• 1:47:00Shawn Ryan?

  Was that rehearsed or that just fucking happened like on the run?

• 1:47:04Speaker 02

  Pull it out in the midst of stress and pressure and send it and that is what I love.

• 1:47:09Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, that's amazing.

• 1:47:11Speaker 02

  That's just, come on, who'd think, I wouldn't have thought of that.

• 1:47:14Shawn Ryan?

  Did you say anything?

• 1:47:16Speaker 02

  No, I wouldn't have thought of any of that.

• 1:47:18Shawn Ryan?

  That was fucking genius.

• 1:47:19Speaker 02

  I didn't think of any of that. But you gotta think, right now you're just, you just heard some guy answer to the name Khalid. Right, we've heard all the guys downstairs got guns, right? I got shot out at the first floor, so okay, whoever is in this house is putting up a fight and trying to hide. Right, so, so, okay. Significant, at least chalk that up in the back of your mind as you're moving through the target. That, okay, maybe the intel folks are correct for once, right? There was a ton of different intel people involved in this. The girl from the Zero Dark 30 movie, she was always a hundred percent, right? She wasn't a hot redhead, but she was always a hundred percent.

• 1:47:58Speaker 02

  Um, there was other intel people we had there, some of them be 50%, 70, she was always a hundred percent. Um.

• 1:48:07Speaker 02

  So yeah, you're thinking, okay, all these little pieces, these are all little signs that are adding up in the back of your head. Step over Khalid and head up to the third floor.

• 1:48:18Speaker 02

  How much, how much interaction did you guys have with the woman? The CIA chick? Yeah. Tons, tons. She was there when she briefed us in. She, I sat next to her on the flight over.

• 1:48:28Speaker 02

  The, the movie does a great job portraying how like feisty, smart she is. She was wicked smart. Yeah, I'll leave her that. All right. So you're moving up to the third deck. Third floor, point man in front of me again. Same guy? Same guy, same guy whispered Khalid. Head pops out the door, the top. Point man takes a couple of shots and the head disappears into the room.

• 1:48:55Speaker 02

  We don't, uh, right, we kind of skipped over my, my, my 13 deployments, right? One of the, one of the biggest things that we had learned and evolved through was right, the, the tactics we were taught. CQB, right? It's hostage rescue clearance. When you're in a building, right? It's all about speed. Well, over time, we were, were using these old school hostage rescue tactics to assault buildings where there was no hostages in. Right? So, so why do we need to throw a flash crash in the room and then immediately run in here and do our clear left, clear right, you know, old school CQB stuff when there's no hostage in here? Wouldn't it be much safer to stay at the door of the room and like

• 1:49:40Speaker 02

  pie the whole door from the space where you're much safer and less chance of getting shot back? So we, we had started, uh, evolving our tactics, right? It was no longer hostage rescue clearance. It was combat clearance and combat clearance meant we're slower, much more methodical. There was no reason to just run in the room and, and clear things. So it makes a hell of a lot of sense. Right? Much safer and, and, and trust me, the, the. The swamp in the uh, in the community didn't want to evolve to those tactics, but over time it was, it was saving lives nightly. By not rushing into the room, right?

• 1:50:17Shawn Ryan?

  Um, who, who do you call the swamp? Of the teams?

• 1:50:21Speaker 02

  Uh, any, any of the old school guys that are still there?

• 1:50:26Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, are they, are the, is the swamp at? Dev group as well?

• 1:50:30Speaker 02

  There's a swamp everywhere. Yeah. I think there's swamp or just the.

• 1:50:33Shawn Ryan?

  So there, there's.

• 1:50:34Speaker 02

  The bureaucrats.

• 1:50:35Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that, that, I mean, that's where all the, that's where all the teams tactics come from is from development group, but I mean.

• 1:50:43Shawn Ryan?

  Well, at least when I was in, when we went, when you go to assault cell, all of that come, it just comes down from you guys. And so, I mean, it just.

• 1:50:53Shawn Ryan?

  Just fucking shame to, to hear that there are people over there that are.

• 1:50:57Speaker 02

  Not, not everybody, but any organization, there's, there's the old school guys in the organization that don't want to change. Right? And, and they want to do things the way they've always done it. And what they've always done is fine. And that's, that's fine by them. No judgment. I, I'm somebody who likes to evolve and adapt and, and when there's people dying. Because of a tactic, I, I really think we should evolve that tactic.

• 1:51:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, right. I would share that sentiment.

• 1:51:21Speaker 02

  Kind of makes common sense.

• 1:51:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. Where did that change come? Where did complex combat clearance come from? Was that?

• 1:51:27Speaker 02

  Guys, guys like me and, and other operators that were operating and we just continually go to our leadership, right?

• 1:51:35Speaker 02

  I don't know, eight years at the command and you're just deploying, deploying, deploying. And so I wasn't a senior guy yet, kind of middle management and.

• 1:51:42Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's just so different than, you know, it's completely different than everything that I've been trained. I've never done. Combat clearance. I was out before that got to, you know, the vanilla side, but.

• 1:51:53Speaker 02

  One of the missions we did with the, with my army counterparts, right? And a, a good SEAL friend of mine was right there when it happened. Right? They blew the door. As soon as the breach goes, you run in. Right? First four guys, four man entry, right? Breach first four. First three went in. They had a sandbag bunkered PKM at the end of the hallway. So everybody ran right into the PKM bullets. Uh huh. Right? My buddy, I won't mention his name, but he was literally standing there at the door and all three fell right in front of him. Fuck, man. Right? So you tell me how many times you need to be like, hey, guys, it's this tactic of like blowing the door and running in.

• 1:52:34Speaker 02

  If there's not a hostage in there that we need to save, why are we taking that risk to force? Yeah. Simple question. So we had, we had evolved to that, right? So, so this, the bin Laden mission, we knew there was no hostages, right? They're not holding somebody on the third floor. So, so there was no reason to be to rush, right? To, to do the old school tactics of run into the room. And so, um, cleared to the door of the room, looked in and he's basically twitching at the foot of his bed. There's two women in the room. Bin Laden's just twitching. Foot of the headshot from the guy coming up the stairs. It's two women standing there in the room, right? So is he still alive or is it just nerves?

• 1:53:19Speaker 02

  It's pretty, pretty, pretty twitchy. I'd say he's done. Headshot.

• 1:53:26Speaker 02

  Cover the headshot, right? We didn't want to shoot him in the face. Nobody wanted to. We wanted the photo, right?

• 1:53:33Speaker 02

  The rules of engagement were capture or kill, right? None of this was go in and kill everybody. I've, I've never been on a mission in the SEAL teams where they said, go in and kill everybody. Never. It's always capture or kill. And we had 30 different lawyers show up and brief us on this. Why was he engaged while we were coming up the stairs? Cause the only thing he exposed was a head. Stuck his head out the door to look at the guy coming up the stairs and was engaged. Within the rules of engagement for that point man, why? Because he could have produced a gun around the corner, right? Khalid down the stairs had had a gun in hand. Guy in the first room I cleared had a gun in hand. So third floor had more time to set up a defense than anybody on the second and the first.

• 1:54:17Speaker 02

  And everybody else had got a gun on the first and second. So for the point man to think, okay, bin Laden's armed, well within the rules of engagement. We'd been briefed, part of the, you know, the intel packages was, hey, they have the house rigged to blow. Or they're all wearing S vests and when you get in there, they'll martyr themselves and kill you guys too. So again, rules of engagement, point man coming up the stairs only sees the head. Well, within the rules of engagement to take that shot. Now he's laying the foot of his bed, two women in the room, right? Same point, man, grabs the two chicks and pushes them back against the far wall.

• 1:54:56Speaker 02

  Right, had they had a vest on or something, he would have taken the brunt.

• 1:55:02Speaker 02

  Turns out they didn't.

• 1:55:04Speaker 02

  Pushing back against the far wall and, and that's basically target secure, right? Finished clearing the third floor.

• 1:55:12Speaker 02

  And it's okay. Question the women and kids, right? Trying to get a name for the, for the guy.

• 1:55:20Speaker 02

  The women gave us an alias.

• 1:55:22Shawn Ryan?

  Did you shoot Bin Laden?

• 1:55:24Speaker 02

  On the ground, yes.

• 1:55:25Shawn Ryan?

  You did?

• 1:55:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:55:27Shawn Ryan?

  How many times?

• 1:55:28Speaker 02

  Couple.

• 1:55:29Shawn Ryan?

  Where at?

• 1:55:31Speaker 02

  The body.

• 1:55:32Shawn Ryan?

  In the body?

• 1:55:35Shawn Ryan?

  How did that feel? Don't fucking tell me like, ah, just doing the job bullshit. You just fucking killed. You shot.

• 1:55:44Speaker 02

  I didn't kill Bin Laden.

• 1:55:44Shawn Ryan?

  You shot.

• 1:55:45Speaker 02

  I've never said I killed Bin Laden.

• 1:55:46Shawn Ryan?

  I'm, I'm correcting myself. You shot him as he was twitching at the fucking edge of his bed and you didn't feel anything?

• 1:55:53Speaker 02

  For, but.

• 1:55:56Shawn Ryan?

  Come on.

• 1:55:59Shawn Ryan?

  You didn't feel anything? No sense of accomplishment? Retribution? This guy fucking brought down the twin towers?

• 1:56:06Speaker 02

  We had a long way to get home still, right? We, I think everybody was still very focused on, okay? Right, we're, we're, we've got one helo down. All right, let's, let's think big picture here, where we are in this situation. Yeah, we got knucklehead down, but.

• 1:56:20Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know it was him?

• 1:56:22Speaker 02

  Man, looking at him, it looked like him, right? The women gave us an alias, the kids confirmed it, we went back to the women, the women then confirmed it. We all carried photos of him, right? And all the photos we carried, his beard was gray and his little gray hair. I searched his bathroom, on the shelf, just above his sink, just for men, hair dye.

• 1:56:43Speaker 02

  Get the fuck out of here. Are you serious? He's dying his beard, that's why his beard's pitch black in all the photos. Oh shit. So, uh, yeah, right, we got a helo down, we got a lot of stuff going on, we're very far from home. Right, you got an hour and a half helo ride into a country that's, that's got surface-to-air missiles and they're way different than what's going on in Afghanistan. And so, okay, we got the, clock's ticking, thirty minutes on target, so, uh,

• 1:57:14Speaker 02

  um, I started taking the photos, a buddy of mine was there, we, we literally, he had a camelback. Took the hose of his camelback and dripped water on his face, we took the sheets off his bed, washed all the blood off his face. Um, I had bought, I was the supply guy, so I bought everybody in the squadron digital cameras. Right, it's because we knew, right, if I, if we had the body going out in our helicopter and then we got shot down on the way out, how do you have proof on your helicopter, right, so, di- multiple digital cameras, taking photos, uh, DNA samples, different helos, and then, uh, and then they're like, alright, you guys bag him up. So we, we had the body, um, drug him down the stairs by his feet. Nice.

• 1:57:58Speaker 02

  Right, I, I can shut my eyes and I can remember the sound of his hollow skull bouncing down the stairs as we drug him down. Drug him over his son's dead body, down to the first floor and shoved him in a body bag. Nice. Um, at that point, right, uh, officers getting on the horn saying, hey, confirmed, we've got him, they're, uh, our EOD guys, we had one EOD guy on the mission, he starts running around, he gets on, somebody gets on the radio, says, hey, prep it to blow. So our EOD guy starts running around the house, setting thermal barrack charges in all these rooms. What are you doing?

• 1:58:43Speaker 02

  He's like, well, they said prep it to blow. Like the house? I'm pretty sure they're talking about the helicopter. He's like, what helicopter? Like, dude, you need to go look in the car courtyard. We had crashed so quickly, there was no radio call between chalk one and chalk two that we'd gone in. The whole target gets complete. And then some of the people in chalk two found out that we had crashed in the assault. They did not know. Are you cheating? Everything was happening so quickly that that hadn't been communicated. Um, so our EOD guy grabs his thermal bear, charges right, runs out to the helo. Starts rigging that to blow. Uh, we're moving all the women and kids around the compound to safety.

• 1:59:22Speaker 02

  We're doing the thirty minute or thirty second shopping spree at Walmart, whatever, you know, running around grabbing anything we could. Um, phone drives, computers, anything you can find. Um, I remember our master chief getting on the horn and be like, X fill the building now. Like no more, hey, two minutes, like everybody out now. Wrapped everything up. I remember running out of the building. I'm carrying a whole bunch of stuff and I look over and it's the most uncomfortable weird thing you've ever seen. These helicopter pilots that are never on the ground and they've got these big like aviator helmets, these big black dark helmets. And there's like two pilots and two crew chief and somebody had handed them suitcases of like intel.

• 2:00:04Speaker 02

  So they're, they're a big helmet. They're looking around, no guns. They've got suitcases. I'm like, come on, guys, let's go. Um, pulled them out. Uh, we were down a helicopter, right? So leadership called one remaining with two backup CH47s with backup seals and backup fuel. One of the CH47s flew into the compound, right? Um, landed, picked up the other guys since, since we had the body. They sent my team out on the one remaining Black Hawk. So we, uh, helo lands, we go booking out through this field, carrying the body bag. Get to the helo, throw the body in, we jump in.

• 2:00:46Speaker 02

  And I may be a little sensitive because I've already been in one helicopter crash that night and the whole cockpit is flashing red. Oh shit. Whole thing's flashing red. I'm like, I don't know what that means, but I don't think that's healthy. Right? Um, it's our gas gauges. So we've given ourselves thirty minutes on target with ten minutes to spare. When I lifted off, we're at thirty eight minutes. So we were running on fumes. Our helicopter still had to fly eight, 10 minutes to our other refueling helicopter. We landed. We got gas, right? Uh, everybody thinks it was the 24 seals that pulled this off.

• 2:01:24Speaker 02

  There's some army refueler out there who joined the army to refuel helicopters, right? Not be Delta Force or anything crazy to refuel helicopters, probably for college GI Bill. And that night, that army kid refueled us up, right? None of us would be back if it weren't for the army kid who refueled us. We got gas for 20 minutes. Right now, we've, we've blown up our helicopter. So now all the radars are coming up, right? Everybody's looking in Pakistan for what's going on. And, and you know, you still have a hour, hour and a half heli ride to the border.

• 2:01:56Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, man.

• 2:01:58Speaker 02

  So sat on his body the whole way, cleared, uh, cleared into Afghanistan. Landed. Turned over the body to, to McRaven and the crew. Then we, we all flew up to Bagram. Turned over the body. We were all still in our uniform when President Obama came in and gave his whole spiel on the TV. Like we're literally watching Obama, the body's laying right there.

• 2:02:22Shawn Ryan?

  Let's keep going with the deep. There's a lot that's about to come out. That's important in, in the debrief on items that were kept. I mean, this is all rolling into what you really want to talk about. So I'd just be as descriptive as you can.

• 2:02:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, we, we did our debrief and, and that was it, right? Um.

• 2:02:42Speaker 02

  Did our debrief, flew home.

• 2:02:45Speaker 02

  On the way home, they're like, guys, really good job tonight. You get two days off.

• 2:02:50Speaker 02

  Like what? We showed up at the, we landed back at the beach, right? Uh, nobody ever meets you when you come home from deployment, but half the command is standing there with pizza and beer. And of course the Navy bus. Get on the Navy bus back to the base. Um.

• 2:03:06Shawn Ryan?

  Why was, why was Bin Laden's body thrown into the ocean?

• 2:03:10Speaker 02

  I don't know who made that decision. It was somebody way above my pay grade. I agree with it. I like it.

• 2:03:15Shawn Ryan?

  You agree with it?

• 2:03:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:03:17Shawn Ryan?

  Why?

• 2:03:17Speaker 02

  We turned over the body to some army counterparts, some army rangers, and they're the ones who flew it all the way out to the carrier and, and dumped it. I like it cause it's, uh, there's no shrine, no memorial. He's just simply gone. There's no, even Al Qaeda has not said, hey, he's still alive and we've got him. Like prove, prove you've got him. He's gone. Done. Erased. Deleted. Never to be seen again.

• 2:03:42Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 2:03:42Speaker 02

  I, I, I kinda like that, right? If there was some memorial or, you know, shrine to where they buried him.

• 2:03:49Speaker 02

  Maybe that would be a little different, I don't know.

• 2:03:51Shawn Ryan?

  Makes sense.

• 2:03:54Shawn Ryan?

  But it also created a lot of conspiracy theories, but, you know.

• 2:04:00Speaker 02

  Government's got the photos. They can release them. They can do whatever they want.

• 2:04:03Shawn Ryan?

  Was that, that photo, there, there was a photo that was circulating around. That was bullshit. He didn't take that photo? Alright, alright.

• 2:04:10Speaker 02

  All the, all, yeah, any of the stuff online is not accurate. That's all.

• 2:04:18Shawn Ryan?

  So, we were talking about, you know, the, the helo ride back where you had to think about, you got to think about putting a bullet in Bin Laden. Now.

• 2:04:30Speaker 02

  I think everybody processed it when we landed in Bagram, right? We landed in Bagram, we did our debrief. And, and then we left the hangar, right? Downloaded all our gear, like we were flying back a couple hours later. So, literally, download, debrief, download. Okay, all that was done, and we had a couple hours. And, and we went to some of the, some of the old area that we could hang out at Bagram. Um, and hung out there, and there were some TVs that guys were turning on, and that's where the story was breaking in the States, right? Like Bin Laden had given, or Obama had given his spiel, right? There's the stuff, university guy, universities going crazy. There was some like ticker tape at like a baseball game or something. All these things were, were breaking.

• 2:05:13Speaker 02

  And, and I would say that was the first time everybody sat in the room and was like,

• 2:05:24Speaker 02

  take a breath.

• 2:05:27Speaker 02

  I hadn't had a chance to do that until then, right? We still getting back. We still had something to do. We just got done like now it's out. Only thing you're waiting for is a plane ride home and you got a couple hours to kill and we all went and into like this area and just hung out, watched some TV until like, all right, guys, plane's ready. And then we, we hopped the flight. They, uh, you know, you typically stop in Germany. We air to air refueled on the way home, flew all the way back to the beach, landed and good job, guys. Two days off. I went to work both days because what, what do you do when the world has just exploded in such a way? Right? And what? You're going to go hang out at home and feel like you're normal?

• 2:06:07Speaker 02

  No way. Everybody showed up at work, right? I, I see one of my good friends. I went through green team with him. Spent eight years. I saw him more than I saw my family. Right? I see him the day after, two days after the mission in our cage area at the command.

• 2:06:24Speaker 02

  Like, hey, Pat, are you? He, he, he looks at me. He's like, hey, man, can I ask you a question? Yeah. What do you got? He, he looks around, make sure nobody else is there. And he's like, hey, are you sleeping? Like, fuck, no, I'm not sleeping. I haven't slept in days. He's like, okay. All right, good. I feel normal.

• 2:06:43Speaker 02

  That, that was the single most emotional conversation I ever had with any teammate in 14 years. No shit. That was it. Are you sleeping? Nobody ever got, nobody talked about it. Nobody talked about mental health or how you were doing. There was none of that. It was, um, so that was, that was two days after the mission. One of my best friends like, hey, man, are you sleeping? Cause I'm not. Like, fuck, no, I'm not sleeping. He's like, okay, good. Good. I feel normal too. Fuck, man. It was a lot. It was a lot. It was crazy, right? And the media just hypes it up and makes it want to be crazier and

• 2:07:18Speaker 02

  it was us just doing it. Yes, it was a very historical, significant event. I get it. I'm more proud of the Captain Phillips stuff and I wasn't even one of the shooters. Right? We saved somebody, not just killed a whole bunch of knuckleheads. I, I get that bin Laden's a significant figure. I'm not knocking it. But it was, um,

• 2:07:34Speaker 02

  That was a lot. It's a lot. All the, all the stuff SEALs training gives you, right? We can go sniper, shoot, you know, homemade bombs, all the, all the stuff we've been trained to do. Not one second. And hey, what do you do if your friend gets shot in the face? What do you do if you do a bin Laden mission and it's, it's fucking you up at home and you can't sleep? Nothing. So, yeah, that's tough. Damn, man. If you, if you're always going to revert to your training, in a bad situation, there was no training to revert to. It was just, and the, the, the, right, from, from my first

• 2:08:13Speaker 02

  deployment to that, lots of missions in between. And, right, what do you, how are you evolving, adapting? What was changing in between that? I, I saw it all change, man. I saw from the beginning to the end. Um, yeah, yeah, it was tough. Not, not any of that. Not any section, not any second in there was any leadership ever worrying about the individual operator.

• 2:08:43Speaker 02

  Brand new, everybody was excited to be there. Right? Okay. Eighth deployment, ninth deployment, 10th deployment. Nobody was ever checking in, like, hey, Sean, are you okay? Yeah, you got another three 12 divorces in the squadron last year. Your family okay? Nobody ever asked that. Nobody once ever said, hey, your family okay? Your kids okay? Are you home enough? No way. And then if you did mention, hey, I got some stuff going on at home, it's like, oh, boy, we're losing this. So it was, uh, the, the expectation and the pressure, certainly at, at my former command, grew and grew and grew. And with the success of Captain

• 2:09:24Speaker 02

  Phillips, and then with the success of bin Laden, all of this, the expectation was, okay, you're going to be fine. And if I'm the officer in charge, we're going to do all this great stuff. I'm going to look good and I don't have to worry about the side effects it's having on my crew. Um, but yeah, the, the, and then shortly after the bin Laden raid and then all the high of that, we had extortion. And you want to talk about a gut punch, right?

• 2:09:55Speaker 02

  That was crushing.

• 2:09:56Shawn Ryan?

  How long after the braid was extortion?

• 2:09:59Speaker 02

  What, August, uh, May to August?

• 2:10:02Shawn Ryan?

  Couple of months.

• 2:10:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:10:06Speaker 02

  Heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy. Um.

• 2:10:11Speaker 02

  And yeah, I mean, that, that was kind of one of the final straws for me, right? I knew my enlistment was coming up in December. Um.

• 2:10:20Speaker 02

  I had been talking about, I didn't like the, the decisions being made in, in Afghanistan, taking away our dogs, saying no night missions, all this nonsense.

• 2:10:31Speaker 02

  I had, I had joined and stayed in because of nine 11 and I did all these deployments and I saw all this change happening throughout this stretch. And as the longer I stayed in, the more I saw our, our leadership, right, was, was promoted based off writing their own awards and the number of missions they ran. Not how they took care of their guys or evolved what we were doing, right? Name a, name a general or an admiral in Afghanistan. Who said the, the way we were doing it was wrong and survived. There aren't any. There's not one. There's no leadership in our military who said, hey, the approach we have in Afghanistan is wrong.

• 2:11:13Speaker 02

  We should be doing this. No, you're relieved and we're going to bring in another yes man to, to deliver my policy of what I want you to do. And so I, I just kept seeing more and more of that. Um.

• 2:11:25Speaker 02

  And, and yeah, I knew, I knew that, uh, the leadership, uh, whether Panetta, Admiral McRaven, President Obama, all giving interviews and all their stuff for their own hype. Um, and, and that's, that's what finally hit me.

• 2:11:45Shawn Ryan?

  That disgusted you.

• 2:11:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11:47Shawn Ryan?

  What was McRaven's position at the time?

• 2:11:50Speaker 02

  I don't care about that guy. I could give two shits about McRaven.

• 2:11:53Shawn Ryan?

  Was he, I mean, what was he though?

• 2:11:56Speaker 02

  He was, uh, Commander JSOC.

• 2:11:58Shawn Ryan?

  He was the JSOC commander. Okay.

• 2:11:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know.

• 2:12:07Speaker 02

  I'll just put it this way, McRaven was at the command years ago, right? Before he was the commanding officer, he was not well-liked at all. Everybody always saw him as a horrible boss, at least from my level, my perspective only. He gave it when he left the squadron, he like had this big plaque made that hung in the team room for years. Years later, he becomes the position he was in. Nobody liked him. Nobody liked the position he was in. He was very involved in trying to take away the dogs and the night missions and all the stuff that helped keep us safe on these very dangerous missions. So, I may or may not have been there when his plaque was removed from the team room

• 2:12:52Speaker 02

  wall. We cut it in half, we shipped it overseas to a forward operating base in Afghanistan that we were working out of, and we burnt it in the fire pit. Now, we can, we can keep going with the McRaven references here because I'm not a fan, right? You know, I, I wrote, "No easy day."

• 2:13:16Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, before we get there, I'm just, we'll get there. I know, I know, we've got a lot to cover there. Just want to rewind just a little bit. You know, when you, how long was it after the bin Laden raid where you just, you were, you left the Navy?

• 2:13:32Speaker 02

  The raid was in May. I got out in December, end of December, January 1st, on the terminal leave.

• 2:13:39Shawn Ryan?

  Seven months. When did you decide you were getting out? How, how fast did you know this is it?

• 2:13:48Speaker 02

  I'd been talking about getting out before my last, I told you, we came home from the last deployment and 10 days later, we were spinning up on the bin Laden thing. So, I'd been talking to a lot of my guys on that deployment because that deployment had slowed down, all the new rules were kicking in that were making it more dangerous for us and, and I as somebody who'd been there this whole, I was, I was not an officer, I was an enlisted guy who stayed there and operated the entire time, right? Our officers bounce in and out and in and out and back and forth. I was there. So I saw, I saw a lot of changes and the more changes I saw, the less and the more senior and the more mature I got and the more, the older I got and the more dead friends I earned

• 2:14:30Speaker 02

  are gained, I was like, man, maybe I'm not putting myself in the healthiest position here, being sent to war by, by some of these, these idiots. And, and so I was very open and honest with my team that, hey, I, you know, I don't, I don't know about this. So when I got back from that deployment, maybe probably after the bin Laden mission now, but that's when I went and sat down with my master chief and I was like, hey, I, I need a break, right? I was done in operational in the squadron. There was no longer staying there. I'd done, very few guys stayed there that long. They're like, okay, you get, you gotta move out of the squadron and go do something different now. I'm like, okay, well, I, I need a break for 18 months. If I'm leaving the squadron, give me a break. And that's when they were like, no, the only other billet we're going to give you is an operational billet at a different squadron.

• 2:15:12Speaker 02

  I was like, okay, well, if those are my options, if you're, you're my master chief telling me my only option is this, okay, thank you for that clarity. I already knew what was going on at the senior ranks and in the military and what was going on in Afghanistan and I saw them making it more dangerous for us doing our jobs. I was like, I, why, why am I going to continue to volunteer for these knuckleheads? Well, I mean, what did the other guys think? Were they on the same page as you? Depends on where your enlistment is. You know the deal, right? Are you at 16 years or are you at 20? You know, how close are you to that retirement? Right? I, I never joined for retirement, right? I, I joined because I wanted to serve and then I stayed. And then I just stayed and stayed and stayed because there was a war going on and very

• 2:15:56Speaker 02

  few of us were doing it. So I stayed. Um, I didn't stay for the paycheck. You know, there's not much paycheck there. Retirement, right? I could do 20 years and retire at the same amount the, the trombone player in the Navy Band does 20 years and retires, right? So it's not about the money. Um, like I said, I got out with a plaque with my name misspelled. That's all I got. So it's never been about, um,

• 2:16:24Speaker 02

  I don't know what it's been about, but it hasn't been about...

• 2:16:28Speaker 02

  It was just, it was, it was time for me. The, the other guys, other guys that I worked with, you know, maybe they're sitting at 16 years. I was at 14. Maybe they have two years left on their enlistment. They get them to 18 and then, you know, they were, they were trying to get us all with the big enlistment bonuses at 19 years. If you stayed at 25, we'll give you some big money, tax-free. So they were, they were definitely courting a lot of the guys at that level. And the hook is, if you do pass 10, well, why not stay till 20 and get your retirement?

• 2:16:54Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:16:55Speaker 02

  Right? I was at 14. Why not stay six more? Well, what are the odds I make it six? It's a pretty, pretty good odds I made it at 14, based off the amount of friends that aren't here, right? What are the odds I make it another six? And then these six years, I'm not going to be operational where I like? You're going to put me in the leadership with all these clowns that I, I don't trust and respect now? I'm out.

• 2:17:20Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking amen. Damn.

• 2:18:20Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:20:45Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have any aspirations to write the book before you were out?

• 2:20:52Speaker 02

  I had talked to, well, we knew, we knew, uh, the movie was being made within three weeks of the mission. So the, the movie idea and everything that the movie was happening was, everybody knew that.

• 2:21:04Shawn Ryan?

  You mean, what, what do you mean within three weeks of the mission? You mean, you mean the movie was fucking being discussed before?

• 2:21:11Speaker 02

  Bin Laden dies, three weeks within the mission, we go to Panetta's retirement ceremony and he has at Langley, Virginia, full access to Langley. The screenwriter, producer, director. So we all knew that. Very, very loud and proud that, okay, they're making a movie out of this.

• 2:21:31Shawn Ryan?

  But how the fuck does the government sue you for seven million dollars?

• 2:21:35Speaker 02

  They didn't sue.

• 2:21:36Shawn Ryan?

  For writing a book, or whatever the fuck they state. Whatever you call it. Prosecuted you. They fucking took your money. They took your, they took seven million dollars that you earned from the book. But the director of CIA has given full access to CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia to make a fucking movie.

• 2:21:59Speaker 02

  They gave the female CIA woman, they gave her permission to talk to the producers to give them the movie. That's the reason, the reason the movie's so accurate.

• 2:22:09Speaker 02

  So, so we all knew, plain as day, right? We, we, we knew this was happening, we knew this was coming and, and honestly, it wasn't much of a surprise.

• 2:22:20Speaker 02

  Right?

• 2:22:20Shawn Ryan?

  Um, did your team know you were gonna write the book?

• 2:22:23Speaker 02

  Not everybody, but I talked to a crew that, that, uh, that I respected. And said, hey, here's what I'm doing.

• 2:22:31Shawn Ryan?

  What was their take?

• 2:22:34Speaker 02

  Mixed, mixed results. Um.

• 2:22:37Speaker 02

  A key piece to explaining what I was doing was, hey, look, I'm not putting my name on it. I'm not getting out in front of it. And, and I think they were like, okay, that makes sense. If you can do that, we get it. Cause everybody else we'd seen was beating their chest, taking credit, right? Um, and I was like, look, I'm, I don't want any of that. Um, I'm not using my name. I don't, I don't have any plans on showing my face. I want to tell the story. I'm a kid who read a book. I read a whole bunch of books growing up and it's because of those books that I voluntarily did 13 fucking tours. Right? It was those books I read about, right? It wasn't, uh, so yeah, I, I don't think writing books is bad. Um, you know? I, I think if you're a SEAL who's done, and there's some out there, right?

• 2:23:21Speaker 02

  Uh, that have done very little and written about it a lot. Those, those kind of give a bad, uh, but those are also guys saying, hey, look at me at the same time. So I, I took a very different approach. I've, I've been there, did it. I don't want the, I don't want the press publicity and I'm gonna, I'm gonna tell the story and I'm gonna do it under the radar. At least that was the, that was the approach. That was the plan until I got punched in the face.

• 2:23:46Shawn Ryan?

  Where do we go from here?

• 2:23:48Speaker 02

  A book came out? Well, let me back up. Next question, right? So I get out of the Navy, I'm gonna write a book. I've never written a fucking book before. Where do you, how do you do this?

• 2:24:00Speaker 02

  Like, okay, I, um, um, I met a, a, uh, a literary agent who does the book stuff. Um, talked to her. I'm like, hey, how do I do this? I, I need an attorney, whatever. She had represented a former Delta Force author by the name of Dalton Fury. That was his, uh, that was his pseudonym. Right? Delta Force officer, wrote a book called Killing Milan.

• 2:24:28Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 2:24:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Interesting, but okay. Um, he's, he now died of cancer, so, um, Dalton Fury writes this book. Literary agent had represented him. So she's like, hey, I can help you. I, I helped him through the whole process. I'll get you in touch with the same lawyer we used to, to do his book. Amazing. Great. That's exactly what we need. So former SOCOM JAG.

• 2:24:55Speaker 02

  Now civilian practice represented other military authors like, okay, great. I think I've got the perfect, I got a lawyer. I got my literary agent. We go get a publishing deal and, and I'm like, okay, how do we need to do this lawyer? How does this work? Okay, well, I can review the book. I've got my clearances. I've done this for other people. I'll review the book and set that that's how it works. Like, okay, check. Did I know anybody who'd write a book could create some waves in the community? Sure. But as long as my lawyer was telling me I was legal and I'm, I'm referencing that against the movies and everything else coming out from the administration. I'm like, okay, seems to make sense. This guy's a former SOCOM JAG.

• 2:25:38Speaker 02

  He's represented a former officer who wrote a book about bin Laden and did a 60 Minutes episode. I've got the right legal advice.

• 2:25:45Shawn Ryan?

  Seems like the perfect fit.

• 2:25:46Speaker 02

  So boom, knock out the book. Book finishes, right? We get it published and, and the book comes out, right? And as the book comes out, that's when the government hears it, reads it, whatever. And they go high and right. Right now, mind you, my book came out before the presidential election and it came out before Obama's movie, right? Before the Zero Dark Thirty movie. And I want to say it might've come out before the finish, which was the book that they'd all given interviews for. So my, my book was a surprise to the White House and everybody else. So the DOJ is sent after me.

• 2:26:29Speaker 02

  Um, man, holy shit. You, you think getting in a gunfight's bad. I've never seen anything like, I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know that this world existed. Um, and then, and then my real battle started, right? Uh, three years.

• 2:26:48Shawn Ryan?

  So this really happened because Zero Dark Thirty, the president's in Panetta's movie wasn't out.

• 2:26:57Shawn Ryan?

  Their book wasn't out.

• 2:26:58Speaker 02

  Interesting timing to all of this, right? If I, if I look at somebody who's running for president for a second term, right? Who's gonna run very much so on his movie that he's promoting, that's promoting his heroic decision-making to take out Bin Laden, right? Right? You want to make sure that narrative is, is out there. Well, if a nobody presents a narrative that could counter yours, whether you've read it or not, what do you do? You crush the competition, right? If you have a Hunter Biden laptop weeks before a presidential election that could upset the election, what do you do? You have a hundred former intelligence officers write about the fact that this isn't a real laptop and this is all fake and they crush the other news. Same difference.

• 2:27:40Speaker 02

  I was just a nobody and so they came after me and legally, right? So legally, so lots of lawyers throwing all sorts of threats. My original attorney, right? The guy had given me all the advice that says, "Look, I can review it." He's like, "Look, they're wrong. There's nothing classified in the book." He's like, "Wait till they read it, they'll leave you alone. There's nothing wrong." I'm like, "They seem pretty angry here." It's like, "What's the deal?" He's like, "Ah, you're good." Like, "I don't, I don't like that vibe from my attorney when I got a whole bunch of pit bulls over here yelling at me." So I hired a second attorney. First attorney continues to tell my second attorney that we had no obligation to get the book reviewed, that he had the prior authority to, to review it, to vet it, to

• 2:28:23Speaker 02

  make sure there was nothing classified in it and, and check the box. New attorney is like, "Man, I don't know that that's accurate." So, remove attorney one, bring in attorney two and go to the pit bulls at the DOJ and say, "Look, I'll give up attorney-client privilege. I didn't do any of this maliciously. I'll, I'll answer anything you want." Like, "Please don't be so mad. Look, this is exactly how we got here. I'll go through my emails with my attorney for the past nine months. This attorney's been guiding me through this process to this moment. So if you have a, if there's a legal problem here, let's, let's, let's all sit down and discuss this, right? That was when, when all this hit, right? All the drama in the press hit when the book came out.

• 2:29:07Speaker 02

  I've been taught, right? Communicate with leadership. If there's a problem, communicate with leadership. I'd done that every time in the teams, right? There's a problem, go hit up leadership and communicate. So our single biggest asset is our ability to communicate through the issues. I text messaged my former commanding officer, commanding officer of my squadron who'd moved up to be commanding officer of the whole team, said, "Hey, sir, this has gotten out of hand. I would love to talk with you about this and explain what's going on, open up communication." He responds back with two-word text, "Delete me." That is a perfect example of the leadership inside NSW, right? Delete me.

• 2:29:50Speaker 02

  No, didn't want to talk to me, didn't want to ask what happened, didn't want to say, "Hey, Bess, you're one of our top performers, you've been here for years, you just left." Like, what's going on? There was none of that. It was an immediate, "We're gonna fucking crush this dude." And so, I had done some, like, my first got out, I did some video games, I helped with a video game company shoot some, like, advertisement-type content. Well, I'd hired some buddies that were still in, they went after them, the command did, they went after any one of my friends. They absolutely, one of my friends, they told him not to even come back into work for his last year in the Navy.

• 2:30:26Shawn Ryan?

  "Are you serious?"

• 2:30:28Speaker 02

  Officer, one of my officer friends that I'd actually emailed a copy of my book to before it had come out, and when they, I gave up attorney-client privilege so they could look through my computer and see the advice I got, they went through my computer and dug up everything they could, and they saw that I'd sent a copy of this book to an officer friend who was enlisted and became an officer in the community, and they went to him and were like, "Hey, uh, why didn't you report him?" He's like, "Report him for what?" Like, "Well, he was writing a book, and you should have reported him," and they fucked him, right? They screwed over probably 12 other of my friends.

• 2:30:58Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, what did, what, what did they, do they say, "I don't know, I didn't know this was wrong, I mean, we just had the President Leon Panetta, the Director of CIA, fucking have Hollywood and open the doors to Langley."

• 2:31:10Speaker 02

  They didn't care, the hypocrisy is so in-your-face and sick when you're sitting through it. I'm like, "Hey, um, what about the movie?" They're like, "Well, you're not Panetta, you couldn't authorize that." I'm like, "Okay, what about Admiral McRaven and Obama giving interviews for this book to finish? Like, did anybody approve what they could talk about or not talk about? Well, they know what to talk about." I'm like, "Okay, well, what's the review authority? We're all operating off the same..." Like, "Come on, guys." Right? So, so for, for three years...

• 2:31:44Speaker 02

  Three years, they came after me. I've, I've never written. Thankfully, the book made a ton of money. Right? The book, all the book money went into savings account. Um. I've never written a $50,000 check in my life. I was writing $50,000 checks a month. For my attorney's fees. Cause if you're the government and you have unlimited attorneys, what do you do? You outspend them. So immediately they're like, yeah, felony. Felony for what? Oh, all sorts of threats, every threat under the sun. I'm like, I gave up attorney-client privilege. They called me in for two separate, I'll call them interrogations. They weren't questionings. They were 12-hour sessions in the basement of the NCIS headquarters in San Diego. Right?

• 2:32:29Speaker 02

  Where they, no seals in the room. Just some asshole NCIS guys. And, and literally going through every step in my book, like, well, right here, right here, you talk about, you guys launched the mission out of Jalalabad. Did you know there was a mortar attack in Jalalabad? A week after your book came out and an American service member was killed? That blood's on your hands.

• 2:32:51Speaker 02

  I'm like, I'm sorry, did you just say? Jalalabad was mortared? Like, have you ever been to J-Bad? No. Like, okay, well, I've been there like 12 times. Do you know how many times it's been mortared? Every time. I'm like, uh, hate to break it to you, but we have Russian contractors cooking our chow. And we have Afghans pumping the shitters. Like, it's nobody's surprise that we have an American base in Jalalabad. Right? Didn't matter. That was them just trying to poke me. They, they pulled up a picture of my book of the four-tube night vision goggles. Like, right there, highly fucking classified. How could you, you're such an idiot. How could you leak this stuff? Like, do you get internet down here in the basement?

• 2:33:31Speaker 02

  Like, please, please Google GPNVG night vision goggles and the manufacturer's website will pop up with all the specifications.

• 2:33:38Shawn Ryan?

  In fact, you can buy them for 40 grand.

• 2:33:41Speaker 02

  They're on sale now. Anybody can have them.

• 2:33:42Shawn Ryan?

  The, the Canadian. Tier one unit tried to pull that shit with us.

• 2:33:47Speaker 02

  That the four tubes were classified.

• 2:33:49Shawn Ryan?

  That the, that the, that the quads were.

• 2:33:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:33:52Shawn Ryan?

  Were classified. So we sent them the article. Actually, they said all of the equipment that was used to take the wor- the, the world record sniper shot was classified. So we actually sent them the article in Ballistic Magazine that I believe, was that like two years old, Tim? Two years old? Said, oh, you mean all of this co- equipment that you guys had Ballistic Magazine fucking put in the article about you?

• 2:34:14Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:34:14Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, that's classified?

• 2:34:16Speaker 02

  They, they picked and choose.

• 2:34:17Shawn Ryan?

  So we put four dildos over the NOD tubes and sent it back to them. We said, there you go, Canada.

• 2:34:23Speaker 02

  Yep. They, they'll pick and choose the hypocrisy. They, they kept saying, look, it's tactics, techniques and procedures, TTPs. It's the same bullshit. They just went after Pete Scobell on, right?

• 2:34:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Who's that? Who's the guy? What's the guy's name that?

• 2:34:37Speaker 02

  I'll say, well, I won't say his last name, but his first name's Walt and he had the balls.

• 2:34:40Shawn Ryan?

  Walt Allman. He's an admiral, right?

• 2:34:43Speaker 02

  I don't know what rank he is.

• 2:34:44Shawn Ryan?

  Is Walt Allman an admiral, Tim? Yeah, Walt Allman. He's the guy. Yeah. He went after, he went after Pete Scobell and like threatened him and said that he's gonna, he's gonna fucking ruin his reputation in the SEAL teams because he came on the Sean Ryan Show and talked about an operation.

• 2:35:02Speaker 02

  Look, I love, I love Walt, but I think people change when they get into positions of leadership and I, I think that's, that's what we, that's why I left the community is because I saw these great officers moving up into a, into a realm where they became po- politicians. And sorry, I'm not a fan of any politician.

• 2:35:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah. Walt came, he got in touch with, with my attorney, you know, who's sitting right over here at Ten Parlor Tore and is telling him that Pete, Pete needs to, that Sean needs to take the episode down or whatever because Pete released classified information about the weight of the boats. He said the wrong fucking weight of the boats.

• 2:35:43Shawn Ryan?

  It's like Walt.

• 2:35:45Speaker 02

  Here's what I would say to that, right? The leadership has the balls to to call Pete, who who absolutely bared his soul on that episode and crushed it. Right? Um, but NSW has the balls to call a guy like that and and and harp on him. But right, recently, there was a Netflix documentary, right? A Netflix documentary that came out in the past six months on the on the bin Laden raid. This is a great story.

• 2:36:09Shawn Ryan?

  On the bin Laden raid?

• 2:36:10Speaker 02

  On specifically about the bin Laden raid, only about the bin Laden mission Netflix special six months ago.

• 2:36:15Shawn Ryan?

  Same raid that you were on and wrote a book about.

• 2:36:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:36:18Shawn Ryan?

  And then took seven million dollars from you.

• 2:36:21Speaker 02

  Producer of the show calls, gets ahold of me. Says, hey, Matt, we're doing this, we're doing this interview. I've already interviewed Admiral McRaven. We're doing this whole bin Laden thing. I'm like, listen, A, hasn't this been done already? We he dies in the end, let's get over with the story. They're like, no, but Netflix has never done it and we're going to do our version. I'm like, OK, great. He's like, listen, we we've interviewed all the intel folks and out of DC. We just sat down with Admiral McRaven at his house for like four hours. And and look, we we'd love some of the operators on the ground to come in and share their story. And I'm like, really? You Admiral McRaven just talked about it? I'm like, what what authorities, any clearances, anything that we went through to that it's OK to talk about this?

• 2:37:01Speaker 02

  And that's when I explained to the the producer, I'm like, listen, I explained my situation, how the government came after and we got to finish it. But how the government came after me and put me in debt and all this stuff. I'm like, look, I got a I got a payment plan for writing a book and talking about this mission. Now it's been 10 years and it's supposed to be OK for me to go sit down next to Admiral McRaven?

• 2:37:21Shawn Ryan?

  Well, this obviously didn't go through, right?

• 2:37:23Speaker 02

  Well, no, I I talked to the producer.

• 2:37:25Shawn Ryan?

  Walt would never allow Walt Alman would never allow this to happen.

• 2:37:28Speaker 02

  So I'm like, hey, can you get me in touch with the Admiral? Right? Nobody inside the SEALs has ever talked to me about anything. But I'm like, can you put me in touch with the Admiral? And the producer does. I get a call set up with Admiral McRaven. Like, fuck, yeah, let's do this. Call McCraven, he's in his car, he's driving. Okay, sir. Hey, Bess, how you doing? What are you up to? I'm like, well, yeah, I'm a little conflicted. A little bit of conflicted here, sir. Let me explain my situation. I wrote a book, hired a lawyer, wrote a book. Government came after me for that book. I now have a payment plan on that book for the next 15 years and the government is gonna fucking kill me if I say anything about this book. But, but, but now it's, they're asking me to get on a Netflix documentary next to you.

• 2:38:13Speaker 02

  He's like, oh, Matt, Matt, don't, don't feel obligated to be on that. Like, what, what do they want you to do? We'll take all the credit, man. Don't worry. What do you mean, don't feel obligated? I'm like, sir, they, they want the operators to get on and tell our version of the story. And to be perfectly honest, sir, if you're okay doing it, then I guess it's okay for us to do it. You could literally hear him shitting himself through the throat. I'll bet you could. Right? Oh, Matt, Matt, no, no, you don't need to... Don't feel obligated. I'm like, sir, don't, don't worry, I'm not, I'm not gonna be involved in this. I still got a payment plan for talking about it. Like, was there some authority that allowed you and, and other people to participate in that interview? Well, Matt, I, I know, I know what to talk about and what... I'm like, okay, great, I'm sure you do. Oh, he knows, he knows. Yeah. Oh, okay.

• 2:38:58Speaker 02

  So, he then switches gears, he's like, well, Matt, maybe I can connect you with somebody who can help with your situation? Yeah. Like, oh, sir, that'd be amazing. It's so thoughtful of him. Amazing that now, all of a sudden, when... He's been thinking, Admiral. When you don't want me to go on the Netflix documentary, you wanna now try and help me. So, he sets me up with a civilian, former SEAL, he's now a civilian aide to the sitting Admiral. So, I'm like, great. I get on the phone with this guy. This guy takes my call. This guy's actually was phenomenal. Former, former Team Six commander, older guy, now a civilian. Long conversation with him, broke down the whole thing, everything I've been through. He's like, man, can you back this up with documentation? I'm like, absolutely, stand by.

• 2:39:40Speaker 02

  Blasted him all the documentation with everything to back up everything I've been through. And everything goes quiet.

• 2:39:48Shawn Ryan?

  Why, why would Walt Alman allow Admiral McRaven to do a Netflix special?

• 2:39:54Speaker 02

  That's my question.

• 2:39:54Shawn Ryan?

  Wouldn't let Pete Sco Bell come on and talk about.

• 2:39:57Speaker 02

  I'm, I'll get a call after this interview. Pete Sco Bell got a call after his and they're trying to, to, to smack us on the wrist, but who's calling Admiral McRaven and telling him to shut the fuck up?

• 2:40:08Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet Walt isn't calling him.

• 2:40:09Speaker 02

  Bet Walt's not calling.

• 2:40:11Shawn Ryan?

  Wonder why?

• 2:40:13Speaker 02

  Further up the food chain, alright?

• 2:40:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 2:40:15Speaker 02

  So, un- unfortunately, right? I'll, I'll give you another example. In the height of my, my issues, I contacted a former SEAL. I won't name names, but he has an eye patch and he's a congressman out of a state.

• 2:40:27Shawn Ryan?

  You mean Dan Crenshaw?

• 2:40:30Speaker 02

  I'm not naming names.

• 2:40:31Shawn Ryan?

  Another one of my favorite people.

• 2:40:33Speaker 02

  Sir, here's my situation.

• 2:40:35Shawn Ryan?

  You know, Dan?

• 2:40:38Shawn Ryan?

  Dan actually sent me a message. I should fucking read this to you, but basically he tells me I brought something up about him and I never even met, I gave him the courtesy of not even mentioning his fucking name. It was about his birthday party, where he hired Steve Aoki to, to DJ his birthday. I mean, that can't be fucking cheap, right? Especially on a congressman's sal- salary. And I brought that up and Dan sends me a message that says his boys over at six are really upset with me that I brought that up and they're gonna, they might come beat me up.

• 2:41:12Speaker 02

  Boys at six?

• 2:41:13Shawn Ryan?

  Boys over at six.

• 2:41:14Speaker 02

  Well, to infer he's got.

• 2:41:15Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know why a congressman would be threatening me with SEAL Team Six, but I'm still fucking waiting. This is actually a couple of years old. I still have not had my ass kicked by a couple of guys over at six, but Dan Crunch, he fits with all these fucking people you're talking about.

• 2:41:31Speaker 02

  So I called him, right? He's a sitting congressman. He's a former officer and drum roll please, he was getting ready to release his book. So I call them up. I get a conversation with them. I said, sir, here's my situation. I hired an attorney. The attorney gave me bad advice. Book was published. I've given up attorney-client privilege, cooperated everything I can to fix this. They've still come after me. We can get into all the other stuff that I'm dealing with. Said, sir, can you help me out with this? He's like, well, you know, I'm about ready to publish my book and I'm not getting it reviewed. I'm like, well, sir. Same, same letter of the law that they came after me for. Failure to seek pre-publication review.

• 2:42:16Speaker 02

  I didn't get pre-publication review because my lawyer told me I didn't have to and he could do it. Like in your case, you know you have to get it reviewed. I'm here telling you, confirming you have to get reviewed or the government's gonna come after you. He's like, yeah, nah, but I'm not gonna write anything classified in my book. I'm like, there's nothing classified in my book. They, they said there was, they went through it. They said, nope, there's nothing classified in it. You just failed to seek review. I'm like, so if I, only thing I failed to do was seek review. You're willingly going around that obligation and you don't give a shit. He's like, yeah, but I, I'm not gonna write about anything classified in my book. That was the answer. Never talked to him again.

• 2:42:53Speaker 02

  So he published his book, no review, nothing's happened. He's kept his money. He's a sitting congressman. I got a payment plan.

• 2:43:00Speaker 02

  So, so to say I've been a little-

• 2:43:02Shawn Ryan?

  So I guess, I guess, uh, you're not one of Dan's boys over at Six.

• 2:43:06Speaker 02

  Definitely not Dan's boys at Six. That's a pretty ridiculous statement if I've ever heard one.

• 2:43:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:43:15Shawn Ryan?

  You have been targeted, man.

• 2:43:17Speaker 02

  So, so the first two years, right, that came after me. Um, I signed an agreement called a proffer agreement and the lawyers can explain what that is, but it's basically like, hey, listen, I'm gonna, I'll give you full disclosure. I'm not lying about anything and unless you find some sort of smoking gun. Like, we're good. So they're like, okay, cool. So I've folded everything, talked, what, anything they wanted to answer, anything they wanted to hear about, whatever, went through it all. Lie detector tests, two interrogations in the basement where they're accusing me of all this nonsense. And they finally come back after about two and a half, three years. They're like, okay, we'll leave you alone. But. You, and there's nothing classified in the book. You just failed to seek pre-public review. And we want a hundred percent of the money back.

• 2:44:01Speaker 02

  I'm I'm straight suicidal at this point, right? I've got a gun in my mouth over this. I am fucking. I've lost my community.

• 2:44:09Shawn Ryan?

  You've you've legitimately had a gun in your mouth, or this is a figure of speech?

• 2:44:13Speaker 02

  No, legitimately in my mouth.

• 2:44:15Shawn Ryan?

  Not that bad.

• 2:44:15Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, I got out of the teams, my whole community, my world, everything was ripped from me. Right? Every single one of my friends, I didn't have friends outside the SEAL teams. Gone, boom. And if you talk to me, I was getting comms from guys on their wife's phone or some prepaid 7-Eleven phone saying, yo, dude, when I get out, I'll come up for air. But if anybody's hot even talking to you from the command, they'll kick us out of the command. So it was this big. This big, hey, anybody connected to this got fucked.

• 2:44:46Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, what the, you know, I mean, this is just.

• 2:44:51Shawn Ryan?

  An hour ago, we were just talking about retention and recruitment and how development group had a what plus was that development group or the entire SEAL?

• 2:45:00Speaker 02

  NSW, what?

• 2:45:01Shawn Ryan?

  NS out of the entire fucking SEAL team. We had a plus one SEAL for the entire fucking year.

• 2:45:09Shawn Ryan?

  And now they're just, and now that now they have allowed, they've allowed a movie, they've allowed books, they've allowed everything, they target you. They target you for what it, because your fucking book went out before the president's movie and.

• 2:45:25Shawn Ryan?

  And they are going to, they are going to fucking lynch people in the SEAL teams just for associating with you. So.

• 2:45:32Speaker 02

  All right.

• 2:45:32Shawn Ryan?

  Over, over, but over what they say is classified.

• 2:45:37Speaker 02

  But there was nothing classified in the book.

• 2:45:37Shawn Ryan?

  They can't even fucking run the classified operations because they don't have the manpower because their, their fucking egos are so, it's just, it's fucking, and they're going to burn dudes. For for even associating with you.

• 2:45:52Speaker 02

  All the headlines.

• 2:45:53Shawn Ryan?

  When the exact same material went out and all these other avenues.

• 2:45:56Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 2:45:57Shawn Ryan?

  And they're going to destroy the Navy's tier one unit over making a fucking example out of somebody that's that's a double standard.

• 2:46:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, so to say-

• 2:46:08Shawn Ryan?

  I think you made the right fucking call getting out at fourteen fucking years. What a joke, what a fucking joke.

• 2:46:14Speaker 02

  You saw, you saw what I saw, right?

• 2:46:17Shawn Ryan?

  Shit makes me so fucking angry. Do you know, oh man, and nobody fucking, nobody fucking said shit, nobody fucking, nobody, nobody challenged it. This is like, this is like this, oh man dude, what the fuck? Like, do you know who this J Cal guy is that I've interviewed? He's an SAS guy, he's being charged with murder and so-

• 2:46:37Speaker 02

  Yes, I have.

• 2:46:38Shawn Ryan?

  And, of, you know, I, I thought it would be a good idea to cover it, maybe we'll fucking get this. He's really good buddies with, with DJ Shipley, works at GBRS and now he's fucked and he can't do it. So I thought it'd be great to expose it all. Do you know how many SAS guys have come out and like spoken up for this fucking guy? Yeah, zero. You know what they're fucking, do you, this is, this is the best part. Do you know what their motto is at SAS? He who dares wins. How fucking hilarious is that? They can't even stand up for their own fucking guys. They can't even stand up for their own fucking guys.

• 2:47:16Speaker 02

  It's, it's the same-

• 2:47:18Shawn Ryan?

  And their fucking motto is he who dares wins. What a fucking joke. Like, what a joke.

• 2:47:25Speaker 02

  I, I'm not smiling because I get it, I'm smiling because I've, I've been, I was in a very dark place, right? I got out, I had everything ripped from me. Zero, I got divorced, like everything gone. Right, any community I ever had, gone. Like, i- i- if you talk to me, no, can't talk to you best, they're gonna get me, I can't, nothing. Gone. And that's when I was absolutely, I'm like, fuck this, I'm out. I'm like, right, okay, so, they're like, okay, we want all the book money back. Like, okay, great, here, here's all I got left. I had spent, close to, just under a million and a half dollars in my legal defense in about three years.

• 2:48:06Speaker 02

  I, I don't have that money, right? I got a plaque with my name misspelled, no retirement, no pension, nothing. So the only way I could defend myself was with the millions of dollars the book had made that was sitting in my savings account. So I'm writing checks to them, wrote them a check, they're like, whoa, you're missing some. Like, yeah, here's my receipts. You've never charged me with anything. Never, no ever charged me with a crime, never, anything. They're like, we want it all back.

• 2:48:33Speaker 02

  Like, okay, like we want it in three years. Like, okay, I don't know how I'm gonna go make a million and a half or two million and make pay taxes on it to then give you assholes the rest. So I was like, hey, I'm gonna go sue my attorney. He gave me the advice. I gave up attorney-client privilege. Go through my emails and look at the advice I got from counsel. This was not me maliciously going around my legal obligations. Like, we don't care. So I wrote him a check, every bit of money I had, and they gave me three years to pay the rest back. I sued my attorney. Okay, I figured this out when you sue somebody. The first casualty of a lawsuit is the truth. And that's fucked up, right?

• 2:49:18Speaker 02

  The first casualty of a lawsuit is the truth. The truth is irrelevant. It becomes about statute of limitations and where did you file it? And so for two and a half years, we fought all this nonsense until we get to a court date. Two and a half years in, we get a court date. And the day we get a court date where we're gonna go to court, I'm gonna actually get a chance to sue my attorney. He settles. Says, okay, you won. I gave you bad advice. We'll settle. Okay, so problem is the lawyers make all the money in that that space, right? He writes me a check. Okay, I gotta pay my attorney. And then I gotta pay taxes on it. So I don't have the million and a half that the government needs. I go back to the government with my half a million dollars and my and my winning malpractice case.

• 2:50:01Speaker 02

  And I say, hey, look, I got a winning malpractice case. I know you assholes, right? And and through the malpractice case, um, we did a discovery, right? And in this discovery process, we were able to question my attorney. Did you know that the DOJ, right? They came after me two 12-hour interrogation sessions, three years long. They had one phone call with my original attorney. One phone call, 15 minutes. The DOJ called him once for 15 minutes and my attorney was like, no, I told him he had to get a book review. Lied to him. Never looked in the emails, the hundreds of emails with all of his advice. None of it. So the government took that, didn't care. The, uh...

• 2:50:48Speaker 02

  Won the malpractice case, went back to the government and said, hey, will you relook at this? Right? This proves, I've got a winning malpractice case that proves I relied on counsel to publish this book without a government review. And if this is the only thing they got me on, is I failed to seek pre-public review, then he told me, I like, look, here it is. He's culpable in that decision-making. Government was like, we're not opening it up again.

• 2:51:13Speaker 02

  Don't touch it.

• 2:51:15Speaker 02

  So then I went back to them. I said, okay, I, I can't pay you a million and a half dollars in three years. Will you give me a payment plan? So they disappeared. They wanted all my tax returns. I sent in a whole bunch of junk. They came back a couple of months later and said, okay. This is just this last January. Said, okay, give us all the money that, uh, that you made from your malpractice. And then we'll put you on a payment plan. So $3,800 a month for the next 15 years. All right. I only served for 14. There's no way I made over a million and a half dollars in my service. So I'll pay back more money for longer than I ever served. They went through my computers. They deleted every photo from my career.

• 2:51:59Speaker 02

  Gave me back a computer with no photos on it. Uh, basically zeroized my whole career. Um, that is when, right? And, and I've been very, been in some dark spots through this, right? Um, that's why I said, my, my faith, my journey of faith has been much more locked in when I was in the fight with friends and people and whatever. And it was like, I understood, hey, seal shit's gonna be hard and it's gonna, I never expected the civilian world to be this hard and to hit me this way. And I got freaking jumped. And, and I was not ready for it. I didn't have a community around me to help me.

• 2:52:41Speaker 02

  Um, I was alone and in a dark spot, right? I went to the VA, right? Bad neck and back issues all through this time. I'm going to the VA for my medical care. Right? The DOJ is fucking me, trying to kill me. Um, and, and I go to the VA. I'm like, hey, man, I, I can't drink a beer without my arms going numb. Uh, the, uh, pain meds. Pain meds. Pain meds.

• 2:53:07Speaker 02

  Never even got an MRI in a year and a half. Holy shit dude. Right. My, my final trip to the VA, I came back with a bag of pain meds, no MRI. My parents were in town visiting. I remember showing my parents the pain meds and my mom just broke down. She's like, what the heck? Um, so I wasn't, here I am, right? Getting no help from the VA and I don't know if it's because they said, "Hey, don't help this guy. Fuck him." I have no idea. I just know they, I was getting no help at my only medical help that was there to, right? I have no, I had to pay for my own insurance, right? I, I served, so I get my VA and VA's doing nothing for me. Um, so yeah, I met a neck and back surgeon in California, former air force guy.

• 2:53:49Speaker 02

  Dr. Robert Bray, Disk Surgery Center, um, former air force trained surgeon that started his own practice. I, I met him and he's like, "Bis, come on out." He gave me x-rays and MRI and I met him in an hour and a half. He's like, "Listen, man, you need to clear your schedule. Your neck's basically broken." Like, "What are you talking about?" He's like, "Yeah, your C4 and 5 are like 8 millimeters offset and if you hit a speed bump the wrong way, you're never walking again." Ooh. He's like, "Clear your schedule." A week later, he operated on me. Fusion, he's done five surgeries, hasn't charged me a penny.

• 2:54:24Speaker 02

  I'd still be going to the VA for help. That's a hell of a dude. Yep. He's operated on probably, he operated on the guy who held me in on the helicopter on the crash, right? He's probably eight of their of my friends now he's operated on. No shit. Yeah. What's his name? Dr. Robert Bray. What a fucking badass. That's awesome, man. Yep.

• 2:54:46Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:57:04Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Matt, we're back from the break. So it sounds like there's, it's not just one investigation. There's a second investigation coming. So how does this happen?

• 2:57:15Speaker 02

  Right, the first one, three years, that was over no easy day. That was getting that money back. Okay, that finished. I started suing my attorney. And while I'm suing my attorney, one of the days I'm, we're doing our, our stuff with him. I get a call from my ex-wife and she's like, hey, some FBI agents just showed up at the front doors. The kids are leaving for school. Real good, real nice, Mike. What are you talking about? She's like, well, they confiscated your old computer you had that we had when you were in. I'm like, okay, what? They'd say what? And they're like, yeah, something about your consulting, gear consulting work you did when you were in. I'm like, oh, my gosh. So, okay. Upstarts another investigation. Gear consulting? Gear and equipment.

• 2:57:57Speaker 02

  Okay, so this new investigation is out of the Department of Justice Norfolk Field Office, not the Department of Justice San Diego Field Office that we'd been dealing with for three years. Right? This was all new. Oh, surprise, surprise. Now they're pissed at gear consulting I did when I was, when I was in. Right? I was always a gear guy. I mentioned that earlier. I love my gear development stuff and I was very involved in that. My, uh, actually my former commander that ultimately said, delete me. Um, first name Wyman. Um, last name rhymes with coward. Um, Wyman Coward, uh, came by one day and he's like, hey, you're really good at this gear stuff. You know, you ought to go talk to the JAGs, get some approvals so you can do it the right way.

• 2:58:40Speaker 02

  But, you know, a lot of your designs have some good cross. You know, maybe you designed this flashlight, Marines can buy it, whatever. So, okay, I went to our JAG at the command, got approvals to do consulting for, for companies on the outside, shoes, hats, guns, whatever, just any of the stuff I was into. Outside of work, the very little time I had at home that was outside of work. And it was approved by the command.

• 2:59:03Speaker 02

  So, here we are. I hadn't done any gear consulting for years. I've been out of the Navy and now all of a sudden I find out they're coming after me for gear consulting. So, okay, soul spin up again. Now, instead of the 12-hour interrogations in San Diego, 12-hour interrogation, 12-hour interrogation in Norfolk. New set of assholes.

• 2:59:25Speaker 02

  Run me through the rig. Oh, you, you did all these things. You broke the law, whatever. You need a plea to a misdemeanor.

• 2:59:32Speaker 02

  I'm like, a misdemeanor for what? Like, prove any of this you're throwing at me. Prove that I made money off any of my designs through, I had the, I, I, I'm not the purchasing agent. I can't affect anything that I design. I can't buy. We have contracting departments, so there's no conflict of interest there. But they're like, oh, no, you made money off this stuff. We're coming after you. So, for another year, they came after me. They kept trying to throw, throw anything at me to get me to, they were like, if you don't plead to a misdemeanor, we're going to try and push a felony. I'm like,

• 3:00:04Speaker 02

  Where? What? How? So about a week before they're trying to get pressure me, I go to the shot show in Vegas and the press hits and all across the press said Matt Bissonnette retained photos of Bin Laden.

• 3:00:20Speaker 02

  I had photos of Bin Laden. I told them about it in my, all of my interrogation stuff. Nobody knew that but the government. So then the government leaks that the same week that they're trying to pressure me into taking a misdemeanor because they wanted so bad to get me on something. And I just kept saying, fuck you, prove it. Now granted, I have to pay legal bills to get that to work. Um, so that's when I've written my second book. I'm paying, I'm out of money from the first one, right? Giving all that back. I'd written No Hero. I'm using that money to continue to pay my legal defense. This goes on for a year. After a year, they're finally like, okay, you didn't do anything criminal. Just give us all the money back you

• 3:01:02Speaker 02

  ever made. So it became a financial shakedown. So I wrote them a big check and they went away.

• 3:01:11Speaker 02

  That was, that was, uh, the last I heard from them. Um, and then I've just been dealing with the, trying to get to the, the financial closure of paying them back for, for No Easy Day. That is, that is why I wrote No Easy Way. Um, um, now what's crazy about that, right? I've, I submitted that book for review. That book has been into the government for six months.

• 3:01:37Shawn Ryan?

  So what is that, what is, what is that book about?

• 3:01:40Speaker 02

  Everything we're talking about right now.

• 3:01:41Shawn Ryan?

  So you have to get, I just, I just.

• 3:01:44Speaker 02

  It's all takes place since me getting, I'm a civilian writing this whole book, but I have to get it reviewed based off the agreements that I've signed. Now, the guy with the eye patch doesn't and he just blows it off, but, but I have to because they came after me for the first one. So I'm going to submit this one for review, but now they've sat on it for six months and they don't want it to get out. Right? They, they don't want my version, this story that we're telling, right? They don't want this out in written form because it makes them look bad. And so six months they've been sitting on it.

• 3:02:17Shawn Ryan?

  But there's nothing classified in the book, correct?

• 3:02:20Speaker 02

  Unless they don't want me talking about something that they don't want me talking about.

• 3:02:24Shawn Ryan?

  So what if you were to write a book on, I don't know,

• 3:02:29Shawn Ryan?

  fixing up your

• 3:02:31Speaker 02

  Have to submit it.

• 3:02:32Shawn Ryan?

  1950's truck.

• 3:02:34Speaker 02

  Have to submit it.

• 3:02:37Speaker 02

  Based off how they've come after me, I wouldn't dare not get it submitted. Think of all the drama I've been through because my book did not get submitted. So, so I'm not about to submit another book or to publish or without getting it reviewed. Well, but now they're, they're sitting on this. Why would they sit on this? It's not because it's leaking tactics, techniques and procedures. It's because it's exposing their hypocrisy and they don't want it, right? They don't want the story of

• 3:03:01Shawn Ryan?

  So how would they come after you? How would they come after you if there's no?

• 3:03:05Speaker 02

  They just won't review the book. They'll just sit on it, let it die. And they know I, I owe payments every month. And if I miss one payment, they've told me to my face, they'll come back and charge me back interest and fuck me.

• 3:03:15Shawn Ryan?

  What would they, what could they get you on? If you bypassed?

• 3:03:19Speaker 02

  I have no idea.

• 3:03:20Shawn Ryan?

  Could they get you on anything? I mean, I know they can fucking get you.

• 3:03:25Speaker 02

  If they could get me on something, they would have.

• 3:03:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:03:27Speaker 02

  If they could have got me on something, they tried for four years straight to get me on anything. And the only thing they could do was break me financially. And, and so I've got to this point and now I'm like, okay, I'm telling the story. Nobody's going to believe it. I, I, I've shut up. I've fought my battles with the government. I fought the legal battles. I thought the justice department was going to be just. It's not. I, I've waited 12 years now for some sort of adult supervision to step in and be like, hey,

• 3:03:58Speaker 02

  this is fucked up. We need to fix this. Now, now I will say, I will say we may have some potential, good momentum, literally last week, my attorney got a call. Um, and, and there's some, there's some potential that this administration is getting involved. And, um, and hopefully I don't want to speak, I don't want to think too optimistic because I've been shot in the face every time, uh, an, an opportunity comes up. But, um, there is an option, opportunity that the current administration is getting involved and, and gonna help fix this. So we'll see.

• 3:04:33Shawn Ryan?

  Well.

• 3:04:33Speaker 02

  But I'll, I'll believe it when I see it.

• 3:04:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that would be great. Let's bring on, let's bring on our attorney and. So we need to clean anything up here. Great idea. Cool. Tim, Tim Parlatory.

• 3:04:46Speaker 03

  How are you, sir?

• 3:04:47Shawn Ryan?

  It's always good to see you.

• 3:04:48Speaker 03

  You too.

• 3:04:50Shawn Ryan?

  Man, so are you representing Matt?

• 3:04:54Speaker 03

  So I have represented Matt for a number of years.

• 3:04:59Speaker 03

  And I want to be clear, yeah, I'm here to talk about his case. I, I don't represent him on his current dealings with the department. Uh, and that's a decision that we made because as he goes, you know, to try and negotiate a better deal with the department. It made sense for me to take a step away from it because since I also, you know, have represented the secretary.

• 3:05:25Speaker 03

  We want the decision to be made based on the merits as opposed to having anybody sit there and say, oh, well, they just made a decision based on how his lawyer is also the secretary's lawyer. So, um, for that reason, I've stepped away from that piece of it.

• 3:05:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, however, you know, look, I, I maintain long relationships with all of, all of my clients. So, um, yeah, I consider Matt a friend and a client and anything he needs, you know, I would help him with.

• 3:05:59Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, Tim, we met under similar circumstances.

• 3:06:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:06:03Shawn Ryan?

  So we met through the Dallas Alexander, the Canadian sniper.

• 3:06:07Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 3:06:08Shawn Ryan?

  When they came at me saying that, oh, there's all this classified material in there. What, you know, and then we found out what it really was is they're fucking humiliated because they fired one of their legendary snipers over a COVID vaccine and not wearing a mask.

• 3:06:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:06:23Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, they didn't want that out there. So we gave them, we gave them, you know, very politely, gave them the finger and said, fuck you. The episode's going back up.

• 3:06:33Speaker 03

  You were very polite about it though.

• 3:06:34Shawn Ryan?

  But, uh,

• 3:06:38Shawn Ryan?

  But, uh, you know, the, the, the shit just keeps happening, you know, and Matt's, uh, Matt was actually, though, I think the first person that I've heard about this shit happening to. Now it's happening again, obviously, with the new book, but it, you know, look, I mean, it was, we've just seen so much corruption from the government, you know what I mean? And, and, and, I mean, I was gonna bring up Eddie Gallagher and the, and the, um, and the Blackwater guys and Brad Gary, but I think those fall under, you know, different, different circumstances, all just as, you know, even, probably even more fucked up than this, but, um, but you know, it's, it's the shit, it's Dallas Alexander, I mean, couple

• 3:07:20Shawn Ryan?

  of weeks ago, we had a couple of Delta guys reach out, wanting their episode pulled because Delta made a statement, basically scaring the shit out of all their guys, "Oh, you can't go on here, we're gonna fucking come after you legally," and I had to tell them, "I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm fucking tired of playing this game." Yeah. I am fucking tired of this shit, of, of playing this game, and they're freaking these guys out, they're not allowed to talk about, they think they're not allowed to talk about their own fucking life, you know, and, and I'm, I'm not pulling it, I'm not doing it anymore, I'm not playing these stupid fucking games, and so it's, you know, it's Chris Fettis, we had to get involved with Chris Fettis because we had people telling us that

• 3:08:03Shawn Ryan?

  they're gonna, they're gonna sue Chris, and they're gonna do this, and they're gonna come after him, and they're gonna ruin his reputation, and it, it just got to the point where, I mean, on that one, I don't, nobody even knows this, but that one, I called you and I said, "I'm, I want to fund Chris's legal battle, and I want him to fuck whoever's making this shit up about him, and coming after him, and trying to ruin his fucking life, we are going to sue them, and then we're gonna sue him again, and then we're gonna sue him again, and then we're gonna sue him again, so they don't have anywhere to fucking live, so their kids can't go to school, so they're, I, I'm just, I'm so fucking tired of people fucking with these guys for coming on here, telling their story, and because they tell their story, it jet launches their business, and they're able

• 3:08:48Shawn Ryan?

  to get out of the, of the, of the fucking, the Navy SEAL. Operator mindset and move on with their fucking lives.

• 3:08:56Speaker 03

  This is a problem that we keep seeing and a lot of it is viewpoint or content based. Because we are treating people differently based on what they have to say, whether people like it or not, and also, quite frankly, what their rank is.

• 3:09:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 3:09:14Speaker 03

  And I do want to clear up one point, if you don't mind. Walt Alman has only been an admiral for a few months.

• 3:09:22Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 3:09:23Speaker 03

  And he was, you know, he was the common denominator shipment at the Naval Academy before. He recently put on one star and then he became the acting Warcom commander when Jamie Sands got fired. So a lot of the things that you were talking about with Matt that involved, you know, where you were talking about Walt, the reality is that was before he transferred to that position. So it is the Warcom commander that you were referring to, but a lot of that was Sands, Keith Davids, Wyman Howard, you know, Matt's, you know, good friend who said, delete me. And then some of it even going back to Colin Greenham before.

• 3:10:02Speaker 03

  But, you know, what you have here is you have these, you know, people that once you get above a certain rank, it does become political and they are doing things, you know, not all of them, but a lot of them are doing things to just try and get another star and to try and move up, up the ladder. And so anybody who puts out information that may make them look bad or, you know, may upset somebody, they want to try and crush that. It's not right. And what they've done, I think Matt's case is one of the most extreme

• 3:10:37Speaker 03

  of this, where because his factual unclassified book embarrassed President Obama, that created this situation where they had to crush him. And you have these people, you know, making decisions, saying, I want to hurt this guy. I want to crush this guy because he embarrassed me.

• 3:11:02Speaker 03

  These people have never been to any form of combat like Matt's been.

• 3:11:06Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I'm saying, is that?

• 3:11:08Speaker 03

  They have, but they don't care. And this is, this is the common thread that I see, you know, that I am going to pull back, you know, to Eddie Gallagher and Brad Geary and J. Cal and all of those things where they pursue these vindictive prosecutions because they are angry at the individual as opposed to thinking about what is fair. And so because they're angry and because they have power, you know, they will have NCIS go after people and do these type of things. Or Air Force OSI or CID or FBI, whoever, or whatever the, you know, the British equivalent is for J. Cal.

• 3:11:50Speaker 03

  And ultimately, you're unleashing complete incompetence from these investigation investigative agencies to try to pursue, you know, what is a political persecution. You know, NCIS was so bad years ago, it used to be called NIS, Naval Investigative Service. They had to do a whole rebrand and restructure because NIS had become such a politically driven organization to go out there and anybody that the admirals didn't like, they would, you know, trump up these investigations, you know, usually trying to accuse somebody of homosexuality because that's the easiest way to get rid of somebody you don't like.

• 3:12:33Speaker 03

  It used to be called the Admiral's Gestapo. Okay, they, they went through a reorganization, a rebranding. And yet, in a lot of ways, they're still doing the same thing. They did the same thing to Matt. And I sit here and I look at it and I say, you know, they take a guy who has given his entire life.

• 3:12:57Speaker 03

  To this, he's given his youth, his health, everything, put it out on the line to try and keep us safe, to try and to go out there and continuously deploy. And when he gets to the end, they try and throw him away. It's something Eddie Gallagher and I talk about all the time where you sign up knowing that you're expendable, but they treat you as if you're disposable. And so, what Matt went through of being excommunicated from the community, and you know this better as well as anybody else, when you go through that train, you become a SEAL. That is, for a lot of people, that's your identity, that's your tribe, that's, you know, what you are connected to. And

• 3:13:43Speaker 03

  when you're then removed from that and excommunicated from it, it has so many more negative effects. You have PTSD is something that is exacerbated through a feeling of abandonment. And yet, the command, the military as a whole, the, the leadership, is taking not just a feeling of abandonment, they're creating actual abandonment. Yeah, and so many other clients that I've represented that you've never heard of, that because the command is angry with them, they will not only kick them out, but they'll take their Trident on the way out. And they'll say, you were never a SEAL. Okay, guys who've done plenty of deployments,

• 3:14:28Speaker 03

  and I have clients like this where you look at their DD 214 and they've done, you know, 15 deployments, Purple Heart, Silver Star, no Trident, not a member of the community. And so when they then go to try and go to a veterans event or something, you know, they want to go to Navy SEAL Foundation for help because they're having difficulty. Navy SEAL Foundation says, nope, you're not a SEAL. You're not a part of us. You can't even attend reunions.

• 3:15:03Speaker 03

  And you know, Matt is lucky that he got out and then they got angry at him after he already had his DD 214 because had his timeline been a little bit different, I have no doubt that NSW would have wanted to take his trident away from him. So he'd be out there as one of the guys that put bullets into Bin Laden's body, but they could say, oh, he's not a SEAL.

• 3:15:32Speaker 03

  They tried to do it to Eddie Gallagher. They tried to take his trident away.

• 3:15:37Speaker 03

  It's, it is bad for our people. It goes right back to what Matt was saying about leaders should be taking care of our people and not focusing on writing up their own awards and, you know, chasing their next promotion. And what they do is they see these people as an impediment to their next promotion. And so if somebody makes them anger or embarrasses them in any way, well, we have to destroy them because they hurt my ability to get another star. So that's, that's kind of thematically.

• 3:16:14Shawn Ryan?

  How, how did Matt hurt somebody's ability to get another star?

• 3:16:18Speaker 03

  Ah, because his superiors now have to answer to Obama of why did you let your guy put out his book before my version of events?

• 3:16:34Shawn Ryan?

  It's that petty?

• 3:16:35Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. And when it comes down from the top of, I want you to take care of this.

• 3:16:45Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 3:16:49Shawn Ryan?

  So if that's true, how, how were all these other people? Leon Panetta, Obama. I mean, I, I mean, I get it. It's, I know what it is. I know what it is.

• 3:17:01Speaker 03

  It's the content. It's the content.

• 3:17:04Shawn Ryan?

  It's the, it's the rank.

• 3:17:05Speaker 03

  It's the rank.

• 3:17:06Shawn Ryan?

  Only fucking thing that matters.

• 3:17:07Speaker 03

  It's the rank and it's the content. We like what their rank is and we like what they have to say. Therefore, we're going to let them get away with it. John Bolton, perfect example, former national security advisor. He goes out and writes a book. He doesn't get the pre-publication review. They start to go through, putting him through the exact same process that they did to Matt. Investigations and everything. But the election happens. And so all of a sudden, the White House turns over to Biden. Well, Biden liked what Bolton had to say because he wrote that Trump was bad. So therefore, all of a sudden, the Biden DOJ puts the brakes on and says, oh,

• 3:17:51Speaker 03

  we're gonna let Bolton go. Let his book that has classified material in it, go right ahead. Let him keep all of the revenue from his book that has classified material in it. But at the same time, we want to make sure that we still crush Matt, whose book doesn't have classified material in it, but has content that we don't like.

• 3:18:20Speaker 03

  You know, when,

• 3:18:23Speaker 03

  when his attorney, you know, Kevin Podolsky was the attorney that had given them this bad advice. When he settled that lawsuit, one of the biggest impediments that that Matt had during this process was that the attorney had lied to DOJ. He lied and he said, I told them he had to get it reviewed. And that was their lynchpin. Because his whole defense is, my attorney told me this was okay. And they could say, well, we talked to him and he said, that's not true. So now they have a witness against him.

• 3:18:59Speaker 03

  They get him to take this settlement, and I didn't represent him at the time, by the way. He then gets this, gets this malpractice settlement. And in the malpractice settlement, you know, I gotta give him a lot of credit. I didn't handle it, but whoever handled it got him a great settlement where Podolsky actually admitted in the settlement that he had given him this advice. Usually settlements have one of those, you know, neither side admit that they did anything wrong. But he actually admitted what he did. And that was something that, you know, I then came into this and I was able to take that back to DOJ and say, see? You brought this whole thing based on a false premise. You had a witness who lied to you.

• 3:19:44Speaker 03

  Which is a crime, by the way. You have a witness who lied to you and now you have proof that everything Matt did was on the advice of counsel. And one thing to understand is that the consent decree that he entered into on this, the cause of action was breach of contract. He breached the contract that says before you submit something, or before you publish something, you have to submit it for pre-publication review. If he was relying upon the advice of counsel, that's a defense that he would have had, had it been litigated at the time. Because we finally had this information, I went to the court and I tried to file a motion to vacate the consent decree

• 3:20:28Speaker 03

  and to change, you know, the result to match the actual facts. DOJ opposed me. They said, "Too much time has passed. You know, this should have been done, you know, within, you know, whatever it is, six months of the, of the consent decree being entered." Even though the statute does say, yes, there's a timeline, but it says, "And it can go after that for good cause shown." The good cause shown, from my perspective, is this is something that he didn't have at the time. As soon as we had it available, we brought it to the court. But the problem is that the courts don't really like to change things. You know, they like finality in the judgments.

• 3:21:11Speaker 03

  And so ultimately DOJ opposed us, not factually, just on, well, they should have done this earlier. And the judge agreed and said, "Well, too much time has passed, so we're going to leave this judgment in place."

• 3:21:26Speaker 03

  That, at that point, that left me with no op, no real options, other than to try and negotiate down for him. And the only way that we could really negotiate down at that point was based on an ability to pay. Now, there's a key aspect of this financial settlement that you need to understand, which is taxes. Because when he got the money from the book originally, he paid taxes on it. The portion went to his attorney. Now, you have, you know, 1.5 million, as he said, he's got, you know, a little bit under $4,000, he's got to pay back a month.

• 3:22:06Speaker 03

  But, he's not allowed to claim that as a deduction or an expense on his tax return. So in order to make the $4,000 payments, he's got to earn $6,000 a month pre-tax, just to pay that. So that $1.5 million figure, he really has to earn, you know, more like $2.5 to $3 million just to be able to pay it. And that's not something, you know, the IRS is not going to give him any, um, any break on that. He's essentially paying tax on this thing twice.

• 3:22:47Speaker 03

  He paid the tax on it when he first got the revenue, and he's paying tax on it a second time to try and pay it back. And all of it goes into the US Treasury. So between the taxes and the forfeiture, the Treasury is making a ton of money off of this guy.

• 3:23:08Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. Why are they holding his book up?

• 3:23:17Speaker 03

  Pre-publication review is a messed up process. Okay, I've done it with other clients. And, you know, he's right. Anybody who has signed one of these agreements has to have their book submitted. Now, if it's a cookbook, nobody's going to really, you know, throw a fit over it. Some guys do actually, you know, are that careful with it. But, and for him, I would definitely be that careful with it. If he was going to write a cookbook, he should submit it. What happens is it goes to the main office at, at DOW, Department of War, that does the pre-publication review. They do a first read of the book.

• 3:24:00Speaker 03

  They then decide, okay, how many different agencies have a stake in this? And then they'll send the portions off to those agencies. And so, a big portion of this obviously goes to Naval Special Warfare Command. Some of it may go to the CIA. Some of, for his portion of it will definitely go to NCIS.

• 3:24:23Speaker 03

  Because of the content of this third book. There's nothing classified in there. You know, there's, there's nothing that NCIS has to be concerned about. And the, you know, the government is not allowed to edit your book in any way, or to, the only two things that they're allowed to object to is classified material and a misstatement of government policy. Those are the only two things that they're supposed to remove.

• 3:24:58Speaker 03

  But the way that they do this, where they farm it out to all the different agencies, and, yeah, I, I don't want to defend them on this and say that they're not holding it up, because I think that they probably are. But the reality is, when you send it over to Naval Special Warfare Command,

• 3:25:14Speaker 03

  there are just so many SEALs writing books that they have a backlog there.

• 3:25:18Speaker 03

  I mean, it's, it's just a fact.

• 3:25:20Shawn Ryan?

  That actually doesn't surprise me.

• 3:25:22Speaker 03

  You can publish a Green Beret book a lot faster than a SEAL book.

• 3:25:26Shawn Ryan?

  Does anybody read those, though?

• 3:25:28Speaker 03

  Well, they're not as interesting.

• 3:25:29Shawn Ryan?

  I'm just kidding. I know there's at least one person out there.

• 3:25:34Speaker 03

  You could publish-

• 3:25:34Shawn Ryan?

  I'm just fucking around.

• 3:25:36Speaker 03

  You can, you can publish a surface warfare book really fast.

• 3:25:42Speaker 03

  So, so there is that, yeah, I do think that there's probably some element of dragging their feet and, you know, once, once you get it back, you know, they'll have a whole bunch of stuff blacked out, uh, and some of it's silly, like some of it, you, you know, it's like, you know, if, if anytime, you know, for a book like his, anytime you see a number somewhere between five and seven, that'll be, you know, a little black box. Um, you know, green team is something that'll be blacked out, you know, things that are, you know, certainly public domain, um, that they'll still black it. Eddie's book, when Eddie Gallagher submitted his book, they tried to redact out portions of it because they were embarrassed about the name of the

• 3:26:27Speaker 03

  Iraqi unit that his unit had been assigned to. And they tried to say that was classified. And I went back to them, I said, you know, how is that possibly classified? Well, that's what they said. So, yeah. Here's the transcript where the prosecutor said the name of that unit seven times in his opening statement in front of a courtroom full of media. So if that's classified, you need to prosecute the prosecutor. Oh, okay. You can put that in the book. So there is still a negotiation process at, at that stage, but yeah, it does take a long time. And it takes even longer when, you know, somebody, you know, doesn't

• 3:27:11Speaker 03

  want this book to come out. And that really goes back to the original problem that Matt had is his publisher wanted his book out before the election. That's why the publisher gave him a lawyer who said, I can help you do this so it gets out before the election. Because if he had done it the right way, if he had been advised by a different lawyer who said, this is what you legally have to do, the book would have been published after the election. It would have been published after the movie. It would have been published after the, the other, you know, the Mark Bowden book. He wouldn't have had any problems.

• 3:27:53Speaker 03

  He would have been able to keep a hundred percent of the revenue. But, you know, it wouldn't, it would have been timed the way that the administration had wanted it to be timed.

• 3:28:07Shawn Ryan?

  Makes sense, unfortunately.

• 3:28:13Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think, do you think Matt has anything to worry about with the new book?

• 3:28:17Speaker 03

  No, no, not at all. And, you know, with the second book, with the third book, he's got nothing to worry about there because he's following the process. He's not doing what the original lawyer said. And so as long as you follow the process, you have nothing to worry about.

• 3:28:37Shawn Ryan?

  Is there any time limit? Or can this just drag on for years and years?

• 3:28:42Speaker 03

  At a certain point, if it is clear that the government is dragging its feet, you can file a lawsuit at that point.

• 3:28:50Shawn Ryan?

  How can you, how can you know?

• 3:28:54Shawn Ryan?

  What, what amount of time will go through, will go with Matt's book before his attorney advises him to fucking file a lawsuit?

• 3:29:03Speaker 03

  It's no specific timeline, like it's, it's, there's no specific deadline. But if it's sitting there for 12 months and it hasn't been acted on and he decides to file a lawsuit, here, here's what's going to happen. He'll file a lawsuit.

• 3:29:20Speaker 03

  DOJ will get it. You know, DOJ is the agency that defends every other government entity. They will all of a sudden spit out the fully reviewed book before they, before their deadline to respond to the lawsuit comes.

• 3:29:38Shawn Ryan?

  How did I know you were going to say that?

• 3:29:41Speaker 03

  And then they're going to put in a response saying, we don't know what he's talking about, Judge. You know, we've, we've complied with our obligations and so therefore we move to dismiss the lawsuit.

• 3:29:54Shawn Ryan?

  So why couldn't he have just filed one right now?

• 3:29:58Shawn Ryan?

  It's still a little bit early.

• 3:30:01Speaker 03

  Can you just file the lawsuit with the review?

• 3:30:04Shawn Ryan?

  By the way, if this isn't done next week, I'm gonna sue your.

• 3:30:07Speaker 03

  It's, it's difficult because again, the timelines for seal books are so much longer just based on the, on the volume. Now, it would be worthwhile potentially, uh, cause I don't think that they publish these numbers. It would be worthwhile potentially to file a FOIA to find out what is the average length of, um, reviews. And then, once you can, you know, through the freedom of information, I get what the timeline statistics are on, you know, books in general, seal books, green beret books. Compare those and then once you have that timeline, you can see, okay, if it takes

• 3:30:48Speaker 03

  an average of, you know, two months for a green beret book, six months for a seal book and eight months for a map bassinet book. Now you know that they're delaying you.

• 3:31:00Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha, gotcha.

• 3:31:04Speaker 03

  But ultimately, the people that are administering this are career GS civilians. This process is not something that any of the political appointees, you know, really, you know, have, have that much visibility on, cause it's something that's kind of, it's administratively handled at that lower level, which is of course where all of the, you know, the deep state lives. And so, um, it's the kind of thing that once you kind of bring light to it, then maybe people up above say, okay, maybe we need to fix this process.

• 3:31:42Shawn Ryan?

  Man, I'm just so, so fucking tired of people fucking with these guys just for telling their story.

• 3:31:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'd have to go back and look, I think it took Eddie about seven or eight months to get his book reviewed. And everything in his book was stuff that had happened in an open courtroom.

• 3:32:05Speaker 03

  Now, we, we thought, you know, this book will take two weeks to review. All you have to do is read through it real quick and see that he's not talking about any operations. Everything happened in an open courtroom, so yeah.

• 3:32:20Speaker 03

  But no, it still took a very long time.

• 3:32:28Shawn Ryan?

  Man, this shit is pissing me off. You know, I mean, Matt just said it. I mean, I we me and you have talked, especially with the Chris Feta stuff.

• 3:32:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:32:36Shawn Ryan?

  Like, that really fucking pissed me off.

• 3:32:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:32:38Shawn Ryan?

  And, you know, and we had had discussions that I had I was said, this is a, this is a reason why these guys are fucking killing themselves.

• 3:32:45Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 3:32:45Shawn Ryan?

  Because they're not allowed to share their story.

• 3:32:47Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 3:32:48Shawn Ryan?

  And if they do, they get ostracized by either the leaders at the command or the operators at that command. And when when that happened to Chris, I just want to clarify because I was pissed and I don't think I said it properly. But first, the first thing was, oh, the CIA's pissed because they don't want that getting out. Then it was some of the operators over at Dev Group. Then it was, then we knew exactly who it was.

• 3:33:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:33:15Shawn Ryan?

  And, you know, it's always these fucking people who are lurking in the shadows, who never want to be revealed.

• 3:33:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:33:21Shawn Ryan?

  We found out who that was. And it was, if you, if there is any defamation, any fucking non-truths, and whatever's going to come out about Chris, I am going to fucking sue your ass.

• 3:33:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:33:34Shawn Ryan?

  For defamation.

• 3:33:35Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:33:35Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and and and then magically, we never heard another fucking word about it.

• 3:33:40Speaker 03

  Correct. Correct.

• 3:33:43Shawn Ryan?

  I'm just sick of this shit. And then we get fucking Walt Almond coming on about Pete, about Pete Scobell, talking about some shit that happened 15 fucking years ago, on about equipment that they don't even use anymore.

• 3:33:55Speaker 03

  It's another thing that I've seen where people that leave before they retire, you know, you know, when I left the first time, you know, I left as an O3. And I see a lot of veterans that that leave and they kind of mentally freeze at that rank. And so what happened with Pete is very consistent with what I've seen with other people where they'll have a high ranking officer, reach out to a veteran of a certain rank and treat them in the same as that, as if they were still a lieutenant, or, you know, or a junior enlisted

• 3:34:33Speaker 03

  guy, and, you know, use that positional authority over them. And, you know, some veterans, they still fall into that. I mean, that's, that's one of my beliefs when it comes to, you know, our friend, the one eyed congressman, is that

• 3:34:53Shawn Ryan?

  And Crenshaw.

• 3:34:54Speaker 03

  Right, because when Warcom wants him to do something like stay out of the Eddie Gallagher case, they'll send a flag officer to talk to him and, you know, tell him, hey, Lieutenant Commander, this is what it is. And he just nods and salutes and says, you know, oh, yes, sir. A video of him committing murder. Yes, sir. I won't, I won't support him, sir. I mean, that's, that's my belief is that just seeing how he blindly parrots whatever the senior leaders want him to.

• 3:35:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that they take advantage of that. I, I think there was an element of that of, hey, if we call up, you know, Lieutenant Scobell and just, you know, tell him, hey, you need to do this.

• 3:35:42Shawn Ryan?

  Harass him? You mean fucking harass him?

• 3:35:45Speaker 03

  Yeah. There are certain things.

• 3:35:48Shawn Ryan?

  I want to get somebody to.

• 3:35:50Speaker 03

  I know.

• 3:35:52Speaker 03

  There are certain things.

• 3:35:53Shawn Ryan?

  Just like they're trying to make an example out of these guys. I want to find one of these fuckers and make an example out of them.

• 3:36:02Speaker 03

  There are things that we don't want people to say. You know, there are obviously classification issues. We don't want people going out and revealing, you know, secret missions and things like that.

• 3:36:13Shawn Ryan?

  I get that, but you know what? We're talking about, people aren't even clearing fucking rooms anymore. They have drones for this shit now. We're talking to fucking dinosaurs in here. This is, this is no different than me talking to Don Graves about Iwo Jima.

• 3:36:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 3:36:29Shawn Ryan?

  Like, good job. You cleared a fucking house. We don't do that shit anymore. We have robots that do this for us, but let's still attack them. You know, for shit that we don't even, let's, let's, let's still attack them for fucking giving up tactics that we don't even fucking do. We don't even have humans on the fucking battlefield barely anymore. Give me a break, man. Like, fuck off.

• 3:36:52Speaker 03

  And part of the problem is that the people that are trying to hurt these guys are ones that they don't, they don't really fully understand the rules themselves.

• 3:37:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, because they've never been on the fucking battlefield.

• 3:37:03Speaker 03

  Well, there's that too. They don't understand, you know, they may not fully understand what the law is on these things, what the regulations actually say that people can and can't say. You know, when, you know, for example. While you have to get review to talk about operational stuff,

• 3:37:23Speaker 03

  any military member can go out there and talk about their personal experiences. And so, the morning after the verdict in the Eddie Gallagher trial,

• 3:37:34Speaker 03

  Eddie went on Fox and Friends and did his first ever media interview. I was with him, and it was Pete Hegseth that did the interview. And he talked about his personal experiences of going through this trial, all of which happened in a room that was full of media. And wouldn't you know it, within an hour, I get a call from the Warcom JAG saying, "We're thinking about charging him, you know, for having done this interview." And I said, "Really? Okay, what do you think he did wrong?" "Well, he didn't get approval. He's talked about..." "No, no, no. Okay. Why don't you pull out the Warcom Public Affairs instruction? We'll read it together." "What paragraph are you looking at?" "Uh, well, uh..." "No, no, no. You pull up the instruction. I'll wait."

• 3:38:21Speaker 03

  "Well, um, it's not really in..." "Yeah, exactly. It's not in there." "So you're threatening him for violating a instruction that you didn't even read before calling me up and threatening that you're gonna charge him with?" "I read it first. I know what he was allowed to say, and I set up the interview so he could talk about the things that he was allowed to talk about, and so he wouldn't talk about the things he wasn't."

• 3:38:51Speaker 03

  "So take your threat,

• 3:38:54Speaker 03

  and go fuck yourself."

• 3:38:57Speaker 03

  That happened. But, and that's what happens frequently, but people maybe aren't able to push back at the introductory stage like I was. And so, they'll call Pete Scobell and threaten him. Though, you know, somebody may be dumb enough to try and, you know, threaten Matt here. They'll send threats to Chris Fettis. Tom Satterley. You know, you called me up about him, that somebody, you know, was telling him he should try and take down the interview from three years ago, talking about what he did in Mogadishu back in the 90s.

• 3:39:39Shawn Ryan?

  It's classified, Tim.

• 3:39:40Speaker 03

  No, it's people that are just trying to control and they don't even know what the rules are themselves.

• 3:39:52Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I just.

• 3:39:55Shawn Ryan?

  I don't think there's more to cover, is there? With me and you right now? Is there anything else we need to cover? Then what, what I want to ask you is, I mean, because it's my fucking podcast that, you know, that is getting everybody in trouble. So it's my fucking podcast. So, you know, what, what, and all these guys watch my podcast. And so, you know, what I want to ask is, you know, for the, for anybody who's wanting to tell their story or share their experience or document history or get their business off the ground or whatever, whatever their motivation is for coming out and sharing their story, when these fucking assholes come after them, whether that's their, you know, uh, former

• 3:40:40Shawn Ryan?

  colleagues or, you know, the head shade of the command, I mean, what, what steps should they take? If for the next guy that comes on my show and gets harassed by some other fucking adm- admiral or general or whoever, I mean, what steps do they need to take?

• 3:41:00Speaker 03

  I wish I had a better answer than this, but the reality is that the best answer is to get a lawyer who knows the system and push back. No.

• 3:41:14Speaker 03

  And.

• 3:41:17Speaker 03

  You know, now you're giving me an idea that you and I should sit down.

• 3:41:20Shawn Ryan?

  This could have been a better advertisement for yourself, Tim.

• 3:41:23Speaker 03

  I'm just. I'm not here to promote my business. I'm here to, I'm, I'm not here to promote my business. I'm here to help, help out a friend than a client. But you know what? You're giving me an idea. Why don't you and I sit down, you know, later? And pull all the public affairs instructions and all the rules from the various services? And we can put together a little bit of a guide. You know, it's something that, you know, I had actually suggested to Walt Alman as, as an idea of, you know.

• 3:41:55Speaker 03

  People need guidance. If they don't know the law or the rules, they need to be trained on it. But you know what? You know, just simply, you know, what they did in the wake of Matt's, you know, first book where they just started, you know, going out with the whole, "Oh, we are supposed to be quiet professionals. I do not advertise the nature of our work." That's bullshit. Okay, it doesn't help anybody. You need to give specific actionable guidance. This is where, this is what the law is. The law says, "You're allowed to talk about these things." The law says, "Don't talk about this." Okay, so maybe, maybe you and I should sit down and I'll, you know, create a little guide on this because if, you know, if the commands are not going to properly train their people on it.

• 3:42:41Speaker 03

  And the reality is so many of these guys are out. You know, they've been out for 10, 15 years and so, you know, they're not going to, you know, WarCom is not going to be sending

• 3:42:52Speaker 03

  a training PowerPoint to Pete Scobell at this point. But, you know, maybe it's something that we should do. And, you know, to educate people because the reality is, these stories are important. They're important not only for everybody who, you know, who watches this and listens to this, but they're important for the people telling the stories.

• 3:43:16Speaker 03

  Because it's therapeutic for them. And then it's also therapeutic to other veterans who listen to this and watch this and they see their own story reflected there.

• 3:43:27Shawn Ryan?

  And it's probably the biggest recruiting tool in the fucking country.

• 3:43:30Speaker 03

  True.

• 3:43:31Shawn Ryan?

  To come on this show.

• 3:43:32Speaker 03

  True.

• 3:43:32Shawn Ryan?

  And talk about all the badass shit you did.

• 3:43:34Speaker 03

  True. So, um... So the answer is I need to do some homework for you, Sean. And I'll, I'll write something up.

• 3:43:44Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I appreciate you, Tim. It's always good to see you.

• 3:43:48Speaker 03

  You too. You too. Do I get gummy bears here?

• 3:43:52Shawn Ryan?

  I'll definitely, we will load you up.

• 3:43:54Speaker 03

  I was gonna say.

• 3:43:55Shawn Ryan?

  You don't look like you're eating any of the gummy bears lately, though, Tim.

• 3:43:57Speaker 03

  No, it's for my wife. My wife gets mad at me if I don't come back with gummy bears.

• 3:44:01Shawn Ryan?

  We will load you up. We got some other stuff, too. So, but, thanks for coming on, man.

• 3:44:07Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 3:44:11Shawn Ryan?

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• 3:44:53Shawn Ryan?

  Plus, exclusive offers from our partners you won't find anywhere else. So subscribe to the Vigilance Elite newsletter right now.

• 3:45:46Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Matt, we're back from the break. Just got done chatting with Tim.

• 3:45:49Speaker 02

  But I got, I got to interject here. He, he said, you know, what the SEAL community does very maliciously is they try and go after your SEAL trident after you've served and you're now out. They, they did that to me, too.

• 3:46:01Shawn Ryan?

  They did?

• 3:46:02Speaker 02

  Of course, I've been out five years and they came back and were like, hey, as part of this, we, we're going to, we want to take your trident. Like my lawyer represented me at the time. He's like, I don't even think they can do that. You're you're out of the Navy. How do they retroactively go back and take away a warfare insignia that you earned and you got out of the Navy with? He's like, that's not even legal.

• 3:46:21Shawn Ryan?

  You still have it, right?

• 3:46:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, well.

• 3:46:23Shawn Ryan?

  Still have it?

• 3:46:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I don't care. But the uh, in in the Navy paperwork, do I have my SEAL try to? Yes. Did they try and take it away retroactively to be spiteful and little bitches? Absolutely.

• 3:46:37Shawn Ryan?

  So they they just literally just spew out whatever bullshit they feel like, whether they have any legal recourse or not, to try to fucking scare you, piss you off, ruin your day. I mean, whatever. They just they'll just spew it all out there.

• 3:46:51Speaker 02

  It's the SEAL mindset, when it all costs, right? And if it doesn't, you know, crush the other guy.

• 3:46:57Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking hell, man.

• 3:46:58Speaker 02

  So, yeah, it was it's been a it's been my life's biggest struggle for sure, right? Getting into BUDs, making it in the SEALs is one thing. I thought that was hard. Getting out kicked my ass. Um, not the getting out part, because I was I was ready to get out. I was cooked. I was done. But what what came after getting out was was single-handedly my biggest challenge. And and again, I would talk about faith. Um, I was in my lowest when I got out and didn't have community, didn't understand why I was being put through everything I was being put through. And and that's where I was furthest from my faith. Um,

• 3:47:38Speaker 02

  as I've got through this experience, it's really reminded me that, hey, there is a reason behind this. I may not understand it. I may not know it right now. It may take me years to understand why and and uh,

• 3:47:53Speaker 02

  so it's really been more like, hey, I'm going to trust that this is all part of God's plan, right? I I uh, I I dealt with a decent amount of survivor's guilt, having done what I did and and getting out. Um, and then I dealt with a ton of questioning why I went through everything I went through. And again, the only way I can, the only way I sit here and smile and think about it now is thinking that, okay, maybe this was God just challenging me yet again. Right, maybe he wanted to see if I was gonna turn into a little bitch. Maybe he was gonna see how I acted, how I let my actions. And so I'm big on my actions over my words, right? So, uh, yeah.

• 3:48:32Shawn Ryan?

  Has this entire experience changed your opinion of the teams?

• 3:48:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 3:48:39Shawn Ryan?

  How so?

• 3:48:41Speaker 02

  Man, I would have given anything for that team, for the teams, the community, right? I was, I was that guy that they had hook, line and sinker. I would have done anything, died for them, no questions asked. Easy, check, had Friday, done. Then I get out and I'm like, well, wait a second. This isn't the, where's the, this brotherhood? It seems more like a, a, a school of sharks. And if there's blood in the water, they're coming after you like. This isn't the brotherhood I, I remember or was sold. Right? Now,

• 3:49:12Speaker 02

  that community is the SEAL community, whatever it is, it's, it's, it's, it is whatever it is. I, I care very little about it now, right? My, my community that I've gotten reacquainted with are all, a lot of my favorite operators that I worked with. They've now gotten out, right? And, and I think we all collectively have a perspective that, that we respect each other for what we did. But, but it's not about the, the SEAL community or about this world. I got the, the Delta guys I worked with, they're saying the same thing. They're like, fuck the leadership, I'm over it, we're over it, right? We were, we were sent into harm's way by leadership. For what? Right? We, we got sent a lot, right? Few of us didn't come back.

• 3:49:53Speaker 02

  And that same leadership that, that arguably left millions of dollars of military equipment in Afghanistan. They've got promoted and retirement and everything. And somehow I have a payment plan.

• 3:50:05Speaker 02

  It's hard, it's hard to process, it's hard to justify in my mind. The only way is knowing that, hey, there's a plan, he's got a plan, I may not understand it right now. Keep the faith.

• 3:50:18Shawn Ryan?

  It's a good way to be, man. It's a good way to be. So what else is in the new book?

• 3:50:25Speaker 02

  The new book is me telling this story. The new book is me venting about this because I haven't. I've kept my mouth very shut and quiet. I've been very private about it. I tried to fight this battle as best I could through the legal system. And when that ran its course, I was like, I've got to tell this story. But then through this story, I don't want it to be a Debbie Downer and woe is me. And this is over there just bitching and moaning. I can't have it, right? I, I, I try to be very optimistic in, in shitty situations. And so I, I, we talked about the four Fs earlier, right? I learned that from my dad, family, friends, fun and faith. Um, I sprinkle some of that into the book because I don't want it to come across like, uh, it's just some former SEAL bitching and moaning, right?

• 3:51:07Speaker 02

  It's some former SEAL who's been through some shit and is going to share a little bit of, of what helped him out when he was in his

• 3:51:15Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 3:51:16Speaker 02

  Darkest times.

• 3:51:17Shawn Ryan?

  What is in there about the AAR?

• 3:51:20Speaker 02

  The AAR of the bin Laden made? Only thing I put in there is, is that there's an audio recording of it.

• 3:51:29Speaker 02

  And that's, I, I mentioned that because that's, that's where my flow of the mission comes from.

• 3:51:33Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 3:51:34Speaker 02

  My, what I saw, what I experienced, and then what I sat through in a debrief and, and what I remember hearing on that debrief and what was audio recorded. And I've confirmed with other people what they heard on that radio, on that, um, recording. So that's the only thing I get into, just that there was existence of it and that, that that's where my version comes from.

• 3:51:54Shawn Ryan?

  And the name of the book is?

• 3:51:55Speaker 02

  No Easy Way.

• 3:51:57Shawn Ryan?

  No Easy Way.

• 3:51:58Speaker 02

  It's a playoff, no easy day because it turns out the day is not long enough, right? You're going to get kicked in the nuts. Life's journey is a little longer than that and takes more than a day.

• 3:52:05Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we, we, we will, we will help you promote it.

• 3:52:10Speaker 02

  And, and I'm not, I'm not using a publisher on this one, right? I used the publisher on the last two. Guess who kept all their money in the process?

• 3:52:18Shawn Ryan?

  Go, go figure.

• 3:52:19Speaker 02

  Publishers, literary agent. Everybody kept their profits, uh, except me. So, so this book I am, I'm not using a publisher. I'm going as most direct that I can. Um, if, if people want to help me, they can go to my website, mattbissinett.com and order a book. And that cuts out all the middlemen, that cuts out all the fluff, that cuts out all the nonsense. And then when the book finally gets reviewed, um, goes straight to you.

• 3:52:48Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you, man. Good for you. What are you doing with the YouTube channel?

• 3:52:53Speaker 02

  YouTube channel? That's, that's an interesting one, right? I, I kind of parachuted into Hollywood for this, uh, the SEAL Team Show on CBS, right? I, I had an opportunity to sit down with, um, with the president of CBS. He says, hey, Biss, what does Hollywood do wrong with military content? Pretty easy. You don't hire enough veterans to make sure the veteran content actually gets across, right? I said, look, I did 13 deployments and it's, it's not about the Rambo shit. I did plenty of that. I was married. I tried to have kids, like all of these things. And it's a balance. It's not, it's not just the shoot them up stuff, right? There's way more to being a SEAL than, than what's in combat. And he's like, okay, would, would you help me put this together?

• 3:53:37Speaker 02

  Sure. So, so started hiring a handful of vets. Um, then they, then Hollywood stepped in. They're like, no, no, no, no. Well, you've got, you've got three involves, like three, we need like 300. So I went back to the president of CBS. I'm like, sir, this, this isn't the deal we got. Like this, you have to put a lot of them in here, right? There's only three of us so far. And, uh, and of course, right, what he wants and the lieutenants below them, they always change what he wants. Probably like the military. Um, so I, I kept butting heads, but every time I'd go back and talk with the president, he'd say, okay, Biss, okay. And he'd, I'd win. And by season seven, right, what's seven seasons?

• 3:54:19Shawn Ryan?

  Seven seasons of this?

• 3:54:20Speaker 02

  Seven seasons. 200 vets employed on the show.

• 3:54:23Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, congratulations, man.

• 3:54:25Speaker 02

  Directors, editors, we had two former SEALs and a former Marsoc guy in the writers room, writing the episodes with, with the crazy Hollywood types to write the episodes, right? Otherwise we'd be throwing nuclear hand grenades, episode two, right? It doesn't work. Um, they, they, they clearly pulled a whole bunch of stuff from my books and put it in the, in the show. We, we talk a lot about mental health, right? Um, mental health was never brought up at all, ever during my time, ever was dirty word, right? So to have the ability to, uh, have an effect on a show.

• 3:55:04Speaker 02

  That that can tell a real story. That was it. So SEAL Team seven, seven seasons, learned a lot. It's super expensive. It's slow and and it's and it's a dying breed, right? Um, so, uh, I've got a farm in North Carolina, which is where I am moving to in my next phase of life. Going to be a farmer, grow raising some wagyu beef.

• 3:55:27Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 3:55:27Speaker 02

  And

• 3:55:28Shawn Ryan?

  Send some of that up here. I'll trade you gummy bears for wagyu beef that ain't fucking dead.

• 3:55:32Speaker 02

  Deal. Um, so yeah, through through that process, right? It's an old cattle farm that my wife and I bought 10 years ago. We've been cleaning up and I'm like, you know what? We we should share a little bit of the story of, hey, where our food comes from. Right? I'm a little bit of a prepper, so we'll be getting off the grid with some solar and whatnot. And so we're like, let's let's put a little show around this and then and then, you know, I bring bring buddies out and bring them through the show.

• 3:55:58Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 3:55:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, you'll have to come.

• 3:56:00Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 3:56:01Speaker 02

  We set up a thing called the Farm Olympics with my son. Now, it's when you come, we'll have you do it, but it's shooting out of an ice bath, sporting clays, right? Paddle boarding, side by siding with axe throwing with Winkler. Like, we got a whole bunch of stupid fun stuff to do around the farm.

• 3:56:16Shawn Ryan?

  Dude, that's awesome.

• 3:56:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:56:18Shawn Ryan?

  Sounds like a total man camp. That's fucking amazing.

• 3:56:21Speaker 02

  It is.

• 3:56:21Shawn Ryan?

  Well, congratulations, Adam. I'm, uh, really happy for you. And, um,

• 3:56:28Shawn Ryan?

  so, couple more questions.

• 3:56:31Speaker 02

  Send it.

• 3:56:33Shawn Ryan?

  One, what is the, what is the, the, the, the one thing that stuck with you the most out of your career in the SEAL Teams?

• 3:56:46Shawn Ryan?

  A positive.

• 3:56:46Speaker 02

  One, a pa- a positive. Okay. A positive from my time in the SEAL

• 3:56:51Shawn Ryan?

  Before all the bullshit happened.

• 3:56:55Speaker 02

  Man. And you've lived it. So so I'm speaking to the choir here.

• 3:57:02Speaker 02

  There's something about working with a group of people. I'm not talking about the officers and all the people around. I'm talking about the operators that you worked with, right? And the fact that each one of them, right, would would give of himself for the team. Right? And I loved that, right? I love the fact that I worked in an environment where the team was all rowing in the same direction and and it was great. I absolutely loved that. Um, I loved the black and white nature of it. Right? There's very little gray area. You're either all in or you're not. And, uh, I was all in. So I loved all of that. Uh, problem is you get out and you miss it. I have a Delta Force buddy who's on the on the SEAL Team Show.

• 3:57:45Speaker 02

  Uh, Delta guy playing a SEAL. That's weird, but, um, Tyler Gray. And he's like, look, Bess, we don't have PTSD. We have L T S D. Have you heard this one before? No. Cause I'm like, Tyler, what's L T S D? He's like, we have lack of traumatic stress disorder. Okay, explain it to me. And it's the best way I've ever heard it explained. Okay, Bess. He's like, for a decade straight, our day job, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, on average, was to creep into the house, pick the lock on the door and come deal with you and 10 of your friends with me and 10 of my friends. Right? We're gonna be, we're gonna be very calm in that chaos because that's what we do Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and for a decade. All right, it's kind of our normal night. That's our norm. That's our baseline. I don't get, I don't get adrenaline rush

• 3:58:29Speaker 02

  in a shootout. I slow down and make smart decisions. Adrenaline will get you killed. So, so if that becomes our norm, I turn to my I D card, I left the base. I never got shot at again. I haven't been skydiving. I haven't, I've had lack of traumatic stress in my life. And and Tyler's like, he explained that to me. I'm like, holy shit. It's the best way ever. I have, I don't have PTSD. I have L T S D, right? I did it long enough that that was my happy place and my norm. It made, it gave me purpose. It gave me all the things I needed in life. And then one day I turned in my I D card, I left. And now I have lack of traumatic stress disorder. Now, why do vets step into drug and alcohol issues? Maybe they're trying to recreate the chaos.

• 3:59:12Speaker 02

  Single-handedly, the best way I've ever heard it explained to me.

• 3:59:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, maybe, maybe. I don't know.

• 3:59:21Shawn Ryan?

  Lot of other symptoms going on while in service. Like you saying you're not fucking sleeping while in service.

• 3:59:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I didn't sleep for more than four or five hours a night for almost a decade. Right, I was like, there's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of combined stressors that add up and add up. And you think about it again, I was at the command for eight straight years. And, and that pressure never got relieved for anybody. I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about the command in general. That pressure just got more and more pressurized, more and more pressurized, more and more pressurized. Oh, big success at Bin Laden, Rich, and okay, boom, we got gut punched with all of our friends died.

• 3:59:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:00:00Speaker 02

  Right, like.

• 4:00:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, man.

• 4:00:07Speaker 02

  I got one other crazy story for you.

• 4:00:09Shawn Ryan?

  What do you got?

• 4:00:09Speaker 02

  So when my kids were little, I would go volunteer at their school. Right, I, they use their mom's maiden name, so nobody knows, they're just trying to stay under the radar. Certainly, nobody at the kid's school knows my background. But there's a program called watchdogs, dads of good students. Dads can go to the school, volunteer for the day and whatever, so I'm gonna be a watchdog. I show up at the school, like, yeah, you know, I'm Ava, Dad, you know, I'm here for my volunteer, like, okay, well, you know, here's your T-shirt. Um, would you go work the crossing guard? Uh, as the buses show up, here's a reflective vest and a stop sign. Like, I'm probably overqualified for this, but it's gonna be a really safe intersection. I got my, my Navy SEAL hand and arm signals, right?

• 4:00:54Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm working the intersection, reflective vest, stop sign.

• 4:00:59Speaker 02

  In the middle of this, I see this guy walking up with a couple of kids and he's got a SEAL Team Six hat on. The type we don't sell.

• 4:01:07Speaker 02

  Right, we have squadron hats, we don't have Team Six hats. So he walks across the intersection, I give him a look, you know, he gives me the tough guy nod and walks into school. Holy shit, I gotta talk to this guy, maybe he was at the command. So I, uh, I let him come out, I get out of the street, I let the traffic go. And I'm looking, I'm like, hey, man. See the hats, were you in the teams? I was, I'm like, oh, no shit. I'm Team Six. Those are the guys that got Bin Laden, you know, you weren't a part of that, were you? This guy looks around.

• 4:01:39Speaker 02

  I don't like to talk about it, but I was.

• 4:01:41Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 4:01:45Speaker 02

  Oh my god, I can't believe what he just said. I just keep staring at him. I'm in my reflective vest. I got my stop sign. I'm like, no shit? So was I. And that's all I said. I just.

• 4:01:56Shawn Ryan?

  Oh my gosh.

• 4:01:57Speaker 02

  And he's looking at me. I'm looking at him.

• 4:01:59Shawn Ryan?

  The two crossing guards are out there beating the shit out of each other.

• 4:02:03Speaker 02

  I'm like, I'm gonna kill him with my sign. My wife's texting me. She's like, you know, the kids are at school. Don't kill him with the stop sign.

• 4:02:10Speaker 02

  Choice words. I'm like, who is, who is the master chief on Chalk One? What Bud's class were you in? Alright, this guy had nothing. Like, listen, I got, I got a lot of dead friends who'd be really upset that you're coming in here acting like you are. Once you beat it. How about that? What are the odds of that?

• 4:02:25Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 4:02:26Speaker 02

  Twenty-four dudes in the world and he's lying to the wrong crossing guard at the wrong time.

• 4:02:29Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, wow, wow.

• 4:02:34Shawn Ryan?

  People never cease to amaze me. Well, Matt, we're wrapping up the interview. Last question.

• 4:02:39Speaker 02

  Send it.

• 4:02:40Shawn Ryan?

  If you had three people to recommend for the show, who would they be?

• 4:02:44Speaker 02

  Two, three guys to come on this show. Great question. They probably wouldn't want me dropping their names on this right now. Um, I could think of a couple of operators that I worked with who would be phenomenal to help round out a whole bunch of stuff for you. Um, whether they will, will come here and, and be on the show, I don't know. Like I said, I wasn't gonna do any of this until I talked to you. Um, know, knowing you, knowing what you've built and, uh, the type of person you are, that's why I was willing to come sit here. Uh, so I, I appreciate that. And I think, uh, I think there will be some others that will follow suit.

• 4:03:27Shawn Ryan?

  Well.

• 4:03:27Speaker 02

  And so I won't drop names, but, uh, they, they will be phenomenal interviews if I can encourage them to come out.

• 4:03:34Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you, thank you. Well, Matt, it was an honor.

• 4:03:37Speaker 02

  We can, uh, I wish the best for you.

• 4:03:40Shawn Ryan?

  Hope that book gets, gets the blessing soon, so.

• 4:03:44Speaker 02

  Appreciate it.

• 4:03:45Shawn Ryan?

  God bless, brother.

• 4:03:46Speaker 02

  Thanks, man.

• 4:03:47Shawn Ryan?

  Cheers.

• 4:03:59Shawn Ryan?

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