#32 Jason Redman - Navy SEAL Talks Near Death Experience and Seeking Redemption

Retired Navy SEAL Lieutenant Jason Redman sits down with Shawn Ryan to discuss his electrifying experiences! He’s lived through it all at the highest level in his Navy SEAL career: From failures as a young leader that resulted in him almost being kicked out of the SEAL teams, to redemption and leading teams in intense combat operations in Iraq, to being shot eight times, including a round to the face, and nearly dying during an enemy ambush, Jason has lived the OVERCOME Mindset he now teaches others. You have never heard anything like this! Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors : 🚨USE CODE SHAWN🚨 https://www.mudwtr.com/shawn https://goodranchers.com/shawn https://www.kachava.com/shawn https://www.bubsnaturals.com Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 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.

• 0:29Shawn Ryan?

  Mr. President? My company tore me of the explosion on our rig.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  On October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami.

• 0:37Shawn Ryan?

  They all heap the blame on me.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 0:46Jason Redman?

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 0:53Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not the first then.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:03Shawn Ryan?

  I have been waiting a long time for this one. This episode, we go deep. We hit just about every single emotion in the book. And, man, there are a lot of life lessons in here for people. Doesn't matter if you're going in the military. Doesn't matter if you're in the military. These are just life lessons that everybody can take, especially young Americans. Everything from how to overcome the worst-case scenarios to what happens when you do not keep your ego in check. So I hope you all are paying attention. This is a real important one. Jason is one hell of a guy. It was an honor to do this interview.

• 1:47Shawn Ryan?

  And thank you all for being here. Love you guys. Hope you enjoy the episode. Please head over to iTunes, leave us a review, and sign up for our free email newsletter. Comes out about once a week. It's free. Gives you updates on what's going on. And there's exclusive content in some of those emails that you're not going to get anywhere else. So.

• 2:15Shawn Ryan?

  Anyways, enough about that. Love you all. Enjoy the show. Everybody should get something out of this one. Cheers. Hey, everybody. One last thing I thought I would share with you today is six months that I have not had one drop of booze in my system. And if you're thinking about going down that road, I would highly suggest it because it feels fucking amazing to not be a slave to that shit anymore. Anyways, best of luck to you. Love you all. Enjoy the show.

• 2:53Shawn Ryan?

  I love to talk about my meat. And so what I'd like to do right now is show everybody what I'm packing. Don't get too excited, ladies, because I'm talking about Good Ranchers. You see, Good Ranchers has premium meat cuts. So, how many of you are tired of going to the grocery store and you look at the meat aisle and it's empty, or it just looks like garbage? Because that's what it is. It's garbage. That's why you get Good Ranchers. It gets mailed, you get meat, premium meat mailed right to your front door. So ladies, you can get excited about that. Who doesn't want meat mailed right to their front door?

• 3:36Shawn Ryan?

  Like on, on call, literally, on delivery. Anyways, comes to your door, they're all individually packaged like this. Some good looking meat, right? Throw it in the freezer. You thaw them out. You never run out of meat for dinner. So, so you can have meat every single night. That's right, carnivores. So what I need you to do is go to GoodRanchers.com/Sean. You're gonna get $30 off your first order and they're gonna ship you your meat for free. It's like a dream come true. So anyways, once again, go to GoodRanchers.com/Sean and

• 4:21Shawn Ryan?

  get your meat shipped to your front door today.

• 4:29Shawn Ryan?

  Jason Redmond, welcome to the show, man.

• 4:32Jason Redman?

  Sean, honored to be here, man. Thank you for having me.

• 4:35Shawn Ryan?

  My pleasure. It's been a long time coming. So Navy SEAL, SEAL Officer, author of two books, you got a nonprofit, you're a speaker, you've got, you're everywhere.

• 4:49Jason Redman?

  Sometimes too much.

• 4:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but now I'm really excited for this interview.

• 4:57Shawn Ryan?

  It's been a long time coming and I'm just, it's an honor to have you sitting across from me. So thanks for making the trip down.

• 5:02Jason Redman?

  Dude, glad to be here and it was great having dinner last night, learning more about you and the family. I like, I like seeing any team guy successful and, you know, like you and I were talking, I love, I like your interview style, you know, deep thinking, getting deep, that's my language. I like that.

• 5:19Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we're gonna get deep today.

• 5:21Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 5:21Shawn Ryan?

  But everybody gets a gift, almost everybody.

• 5:27Jason Redman?

  Dude, awesome. Thank you. So I, should I open it now?

• 5:32Shawn Ryan?

  Absolutely.

• 5:33Jason Redman?

  Hell yeah.

• 5:38Jason Redman?

  So, you know, I had some people I mentioned that I was, you know, coming on your show and they were like, "Oh, I don't know if there's gonna be any gummy bears because we already sold out." But outstanding, I appreciate that.

• 5:49Shawn Ryan?

  That's the private stock.

• 5:51Jason Redman?

  And then awesome, thank you.

• 5:54Shawn Ryan?

  My pleasure.

• 5:55Jason Redman?

  I look forward to robbing that.

• 6:01Shawn Ryan?

  My pleasure. So just real quick warm up here. We had a good conversation about some of the stuff that you're doing last night and I had, actually had no idea you were starting to teach courses and you were getting into, I didn't know you were a survival instructor. And a lot of people, a ton of people are worried about where we're at as a country and the economy, everybody feels the rug is about ready to get pulled out from under it, to include myself. And so when you mentioned you're teaching courses on how to prepare for, for what a lot of us think is coming, you know, I found that really interesting and I think a lot of people will.

• 6:46Shawn Ryan?

  So what are some things that you're telling?

• 6:51Shawn Ryan?

  People to get ready for.

• 6:53Jason Redman?

  Yeah, the biggest thing, I mean, you know, goes back to one of the things, let's talk about how all this developed.

• 7:01Jason Redman?

  I, so yes, when I was an instructor at SEAL Team Four, I taught survival, evasion, resistance, escape, communications, basic warfare, marksmanship. So I would not say I am an expert in survival, you know, like, like Glover, you know, I would definitely say he's probably got deeper knowledge than me, but I have enough to take care of myself and my family and, you know, all those things I had implemented into my life. And, you know, being out there, just like you and I do, I meet people, whether it's at events and people will talk to me about, you know, hey, I have this gun. Do you have any recommendations? Hey, what would happen if this happened? Hey,

• 7:44Jason Redman?

  if this happened, I would just say, well, this is what I do. And more and more, people kept saying, man, if you ran your own course, I would sign up for it. So last year, at the very end of the year, the second round of COVID hit again. December, January, I saw a whole bunch of events vanish.

• 8:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 8:06Jason Redman?

  So my wife and I were like, gosh, we kind of need something to fill, you know, what can we do? And we were like, man, we've been talking about this course. Let's see, let's see. Everybody said, you know, if we did it, you know, they'd, they'd come. So we threw it out there and sure enough, man, a lot of people came from my internal coaching group, they overcome army, but they said, yes, I will sign up. And we, we did a pretty low price point for the first one. We crammed it into one day, but it really was focused on several different things. I kept meeting people across the country who would say, hey, man, I have a gun, but I'm afraid of it. Or,

• 8:47Jason Redman?

  yeah, I've only shot it a few times, or I don't keep it loaded. I would hear that frequently. Yeah, I have it next to the bed, but I don't keep it loaded. That way it's safe. You know, which I would say to them, that kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a gun. You know, if you have to go find your bullets or load it when you need it, you know. Things happen very quickly in an emergency situation, you know, you don't need to add in an additional step. Um, then talking about survival, I mean, I just talked about the things that I do for myself. So one is just what level of preparation do you have against um immediate problems like storms? You know, that's probably going to be the biggest thing you're going to encounter. So if a major storm rolled through, whether it was a hurricane or a tornado,

• 9:31Jason Redman?

  or I don't know, a blizzard, whatever it is, you know, how well are you stockpiled to take care of yourself and your family? And you look at what's going on over these last couple of years with, you know, with COVID, we saw the, you know, the, the, the toilet paper debacle.

• 9:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 9:48Jason Redman?

  Um, you know, the cleaning supply debacle. Um, you know, but that's now transpired into other areas of supply chain problems and things like that. So I just said, hey, what about food? You know, we live in a day and age where we all rely on grocery stores, myself included. I don't do all my own hunting or anything like that. Um, I could if I needed to, you know, but for me, that's a, that's a further step down the line. Um, so I just talked about what are the things that you would have in your house? Water or at least some type of water purification system. Uh, that's going to be the biggest thing that's going to take you out the quickest.

• 10:29Jason Redman?

  Uh, depending on the time of the year, what level of warmth do you have for you and your family? If it's winter, uh, or if you're having to move in a winter environment, that's going to kill you the fastest. Uh, you know, water, those two are going to be tied close together. Food becomes third. So what level of food do you have? I mean, you know, you've got a lot of preppers out there who talk about stockpiling and canned goods and all that kind of stuff. And to me, that's a lot of time and effort that I don't have time to do. There's a lot of good companies now that are creating uh freeze dried stuff. So I have a six month supply worth of uh containers uh that becomes part of my blowout that, you know,

• 11:11Jason Redman?

  if, if it's a, if it's a storm, we reach decision points. And this, some of the things that I talk to people about, the, all this planning should be done at least a little bit ahead of time.

• 11:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:23Jason Redman?

  Um, if there is a major storm coming, you should already be thinking about. Hey, what is our decision point to leave? For most people, it needs to be far in advance of when you think it's going to be. Because most time, people wait too late, and then when they decide to leave, it's too late. Now you're trying to go against the traffic of everybody else who waited for the last minute to leave. Yeah. Um, I use the Ukraine example as a good example. If you look at Ukraine, the Russians massed on that border for five or six weeks before they finally invaded. I probably would have been gone in the first two weeks with my family. I would not have waited, um, to be in that situation. Yeah. I would have taken my, all my go-bags, my guns, everything.

• 12:08Jason Redman?

  Um, I even have a vehicle that I have a, I have a Z71 off-road Chevy Spurbin. Nice. Definitely designed that I can get wherever I need to go. Um, and I know all my stuff will fit in that and, and my family, and we are gone if we need to get out. But it's all about timing. It's all about preparation and awareness. And then the third point is action. You have to take action. You can't wait too long, uh, where else you'll be behind the power curve. So it's a lot of this stuff that we're, we're teaching in the, uh, we call it the Overcome and Survive, uh, course. And, um, it's just built on, how do I take the average, everyday American?

• 12:51Jason Redman?

  And prepare them for worst-case scenarios. Um, not teaching you, I'm not teaching you to be Bear Grylls or John Wick. Yeah. Instead, how do I teach you to be, to think ahead and be prepared and to be comfortable where you can at least get away and survive or avoid bad situations before they develop into a bad situation? 90% of the time, there's enough indicators that something's happening that you should have been making decisions long before it fully became a problem. Most people wait till it's too late. Now they're reacting instead of proactively addressing the problem. So these are the things that we talk about in the course. So, basic marksmanship.

• 13:37Jason Redman?

  I'm not, if you've got a lot of gun experience, you're gonna find my course boring. So you are not the person I'm looking at. You know, if you're Johnny High Speed that wants to train, you know, and clear rooms and, you know, you know, running mag change drills and transition drills, my course is not for you. Um, my course is for the average, everyday person that I want to give very good fundamentals in shooting. I want to teach you how to, um, properly carry a gun, grip, you know, stance, uh, you know, everything related to effective shooting. I want to teach you how to handle a malfunction drill. I want to teach you how to do a magazine change effectively. And then if we get to the point, I want to teach you how to draw from a holster.

• 14:21Jason Redman?

  That's probably the highest level I ever intend to go. Uh, there are other great guys like, you know, DJ and Cole that are teaching at much higher levels, you know, hopefully at some point, if you want more, I'll just hand you off to guys like that.

• 14:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:35Jason Redman?

  But, uh, and then survival, and then of course, uh, we want to teach advanced first aid, trauma first aid. You know, so many people think that, hey, if something bad happens to me or my family, I'm just gonna call 911. Well, I gotta tell you, if, if the world is collapsing around us, one, if there's a major storm, most of the 911 people are gonna be tied up, or they're not gonna be able to get to you. Two, if it's a major, now let's take it to a Ukraine scenario, if ever, God forbid, the US folds or falls, um, 911's not showing up for you.

• 15:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:11Jason Redman?

  So you've gotta be able to take care of yourself. So how do you do the first aid and all that kinda stuff? So these are all the things we're teaching.

• 15:17Shawn Ryan?

  What, what do you think is some of the most basic things that people miss for, for what may be coming, like in, like, or maybe not even what's coming, what is just some major, some, the most basic things that people could touch, just completely blow off and look over?

• 15:39Jason Redman?

  I mean, super basic stuff is, yeah, how much water do you have in your house on reserve? I mean, at a minimum, you should have, at a minimum, a gallon of water per person in your house and, and some sort of water purification system. So I'm a fan of the Pure Water Pump. There are other more advanced systems that are out there. I'm not, I, I like the Pure Pump because it's simple. I know it works. I will never forget when I was a new guy, SEAL Team Four, up in the mountains of Virginia, Fort Pickett. Our, our instructor's name was Andy Scott. He's no longer with us.

• 16:18Jason Redman?

  But Andy took us out into this field, this cow pasture, and there was this big nasty puddle filled with cow shit and stunk. And Andy was like, drop your Pure Pump in there, pump your water. He's like, now you're gonna drink it. And man, it reeked and we all drank it and none of us got sick. He's like, I want you to know what you're using works. Dude, to this day, like everywhere I go, anytime tactically, I mean, in my go-bag, I have a Pure Pump.

• 16:48Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 16:49Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 16:50Shawn Ryan?

  No pun intended.

• 16:51Jason Redman?

  Yeah, because it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it works. And, and water will be the big, it will be 90% of the time, it's gonna be the fastest thing that kills you. If you can't get water, I mean, you can only go a couple of days without it.

• 17:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I find two things, finances, number one, I think, you know, because there's always a progression, right? And to like an, an economy collapse and, and I see, you know, I think stress is a big, try to mitigate as much stress as you can. And I, I tell people, like, you gotta get your finances in order. Like, you're drowning in debt right now and they're going to come for you no matter how bad it is if you're not paying, you know, you're dead off. And I find that to be something that the majority of people overlook and.

• 17:50Shawn Ryan?

  And then medical, you know, I'll get these guys, you know, and I don't teach this stuff anymore, but get these guys, used to get these guys and they'd have like five, you know, three to $5,000 rifles set up, just immaculate, beautiful rifles and, but they're 150 pounds overweight.

• 18:12Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 18:12Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and, and I'm like, you know, that's great. You just showed me $25,000 worth of hardware. Do you have an AED? You know, with the number one killer, you're like, you're prepped for all this stuff, you know, the, the, the, you know, whatever you want to call it, the economic collapse where pure chaos takes place, but it's like, right now, the number one killer of human beings in the United States is heart attacks and heart disease. You're 150 pounds overweight. Do you even know what an AED is? You know, because it's a fraction of the cost of every one of those rifles that you've invested in to save your life.

• 18:54Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 18:54Shawn Ryan?

  But you don't have an AED and that.

• 18:56Jason Redman?

  Where they're unwilling to invest in a, a coach.

• 19:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:00Jason Redman?

  That's what blows me away. I watch all these people who, yeah, they'll drop all this money on guns and cars and all this great stuff, but they're unwilling to invest in a coach that will help them with nutrition, fitness, be the best physical version. So I, I, I touch on it in my survival course. That's a lot more in the self-leadership I teach. I teach something called the Pentagon of Peak Performance and the base level of the Pentagon is physical leadership. How do you take care of this machine you walk around in? Because everything builds on that.

• 19:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:31Jason Redman?

  Like, and you nailed it. If you are not physically taking care of yourself, you know, God forbid the world goes to hell in a handbasket. Now you're already 10 points behind the power curve because now you're trying to lug your fat ass all over the place when the world has collapsed.

• 19:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 19:47Jason Redman?

  Um, but bring it back to a basic level when the world's just normal, you know, physically taking care of yourself. And I, I talk about it in three different areas. So you should, number one, fitness, move your body, move your body. This Ferrari that we all walk around in is amazing. And if you take care of it, it'll do amazing things. Most people don't. As we get older, you know, it starts to break down. Um, it's amazing to me. We tend to, um,

• 20:20Jason Redman?

  As we get busier in life and we have more and more responsibility, more and more people push physical leadership to the back burner. Oh, I'll get to that later. Oh, I don't have time for that. When in my opinion, it should be one of the most important things you do. Because if you are physically taking care of yourself, your immune system is going to be stronger. So you're going to be able to fight off. You know, everybody with COVID, nobody wanted to talk about it, which was dumbfounding to me. But the majority, I don't want to say all, there definitely, I know some healthy people, healthy fit people that got COVID. But the majority of COVID people had compromised immune systems. They were overweight. They basically were not talking, taking care of themselves, which made them at a higher risk

• 21:02Jason Redman?

  for COVID. Well, the same is true for almost any other disease out there. If you have a weaker immune system, you're more susceptible to whatever diseases out there. The flu, cold, whatever. So move your body to build your immune system. You're gonna have more energy. That's a huge thing. I mean, if you're trying to run your own business, if you're trying to do anything in this life, we need energy. And if you're out of shape where you're just barely getting through the day, and now you come home, you slump into your chair, and you're like, I'm so fucking tired, I can't even move. Let me grab a, you know, a microwavable meal and sit on this couch for a couple of hours and watch Netflix and then go to bed

• 21:41Jason Redman?

  and do it all over again. Dude, like, your Ferrari is breaking down. Nutrition. Like, we have probably the worst diet in the entire world. The Western diet, you know, and dude, it is sad, because in my opinion, it's a, it's a, it's become about money. It's so much cheaper and easier to create processed foods. So if you look at many of our poor, they are some of the most susceptible to poor nutrition, poor diets. Why? Because cheap, because processed food is very cheap. Whereas if you go to the grocery store and you want to buy good quality whole foods, organic foods, it's the most expensive stuff

• 22:26Jason Redman?

  in the store. If you want to buy meats, proteins that have not been injected with every fucking

• 22:36Jason Redman?

  You know,

• 22:37Shawn Ryan?

  Steroid.

• 22:37Jason Redman?

  Yeah, steroid and stuff. You want to get organic, grass-fed stuff, it's the most expensive stuff you're gonna buy. So there's almost this demographic, you know, paywall that exists where we're impacting, you know, your ability to get that. But that's what you should be putting into your system.

• 22:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:54Jason Redman?

  It's like putting premium gas into a Ferrari. You need the premium gas. It's designed to run on that. And then the last big one, sleep. And I love Jaco. I don't agree with his sleep is the enemy. It's just not true. I'm a huge, I, I've become a huge

• 23:15Jason Redman?

  fan of studying sleep and science is more and more, we're figuring more out about sleep and how incredible it is. I mean, up to twenty, thirty years ago, scientists didn't really fully understand sleep. And more and more, they're figuring out that your body, almost every gain, reset, rebalance in your body occurs when you're sleeping at night. And your ability to go through that sleep cycle of light sleep, into REM sleep, into deep sleep, and back through that multiple times in the night, is when your body is recalculating. And for the average human, the average, eight hours is what you need. If you're getting less than that, that means you're cutting off those critical, the REM and deep sleep,

• 23:58Jason Redman?

  which is where most things are happening to rebuild your body and to make you feel the best.

• 24:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:03Jason Redman?

  Yet, we live in this world where, one, people, it's like a source of pride to them. I got many people at events that come up to me and they're like, Jay, like I get by on four hours of sleep a night. And I'm like,

• 24:17Shawn Ryan?

  I can tell.

• 24:17Jason Redman?

  Yeah, I'm like, congrats, man. Like, you are chronically fatigued and you are nowhere, nowhere near your optimal self.

• 24:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:26Jason Redman?

  So.

• 24:27Shawn Ryan?

  Are you a day napper?

• 24:28Jason Redman?

  Sometimes.

• 24:29Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 24:30Jason Redman?

  Yeah, if, if I really got crushed the night before, I would, because we, we can see it, we prove it. I wear a Whoop. I'm a big fan of Whoop. I'm a big fan of technology. So what are the things that I can do to track myself to make sure I'm optimizing?

• 24:44Shawn Ryan?

  What is a Whoop?

• 24:46Jason Redman?

  So Whoop is a company. It's, it's kind of like a Fitbit on steroids. So it tracks heart rate, heart rate variability, your body temperature, O2 saturation.

• 24:58Jason Redman?

  And uh, uh, shit, one other thing. But the biggest thing for me is it tracks your sleep.

• 25:06Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 25:07Jason Redman?

  And it lets you know exactly how much sleep, how much REM, how much deep sleep. And all of that, you know, it also tells you how much strain. So how much strain did your body take that day? Um, it goes from zero to 21. Most of the time I log in about a 12 is an average day for me. An average workout for me is between an eight and a 10. Um, I'm training for this Navy SEAL G I go swim. Uh, I did a 3.2 point mile swim, uh, uh, off the coast of Florida last week. And it was a, it was a ballbuster. It was choppy, it was windy. Uh, I hit an 18.1 for that workout alone. That's pretty high.

• 25:47Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 25:47Jason Redman?

  But that level of strain impacts your sleep and then your cr- your recovery. So it actually tells you how well your body recovered from the strain the day prior. If you had a great recovery, it's in the green and it says, hey, man, your body did a great job recovering. So your nutrition, your hydration, your sleep all play together that you're operating on optimal. Um, I told you last night at dinner, I had a rough night the night before. I did not sleep well. Um, so I was in the red. So I actually did not work out yesterday. I took the day off and I went to bed early last night and today I'm back in the green.

• 26:26Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 26:26Jason Redman?

  So I like it. It's no different than a car. It's no different than a weapon system. I mean, what are you doing to make sure you're operating it optimally? But most people don't talk, don't take care of their most, the most important weapon system you have.

• 26:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing all that. So with the interview, getting into that, uh, we'll go. Childhood, what made you join the teams? Your career? I know you have a lot of lessons learned and, um, and, and all of that. Then we'll move into, you know, what you're doing now, so.

• 27:05Shawn Ryan?

  Let's start with childhood. Where'd you grow up?

• 27:07Jason Redman?

  I'm a mutt. I was born in Ohio, a place outside of Columbus called Koshakton, Ohio.

• 27:15Shawn Ryan?

  Small town?

• 27:16Jason Redman?

  Yeah, small town. My, my dad, my, my family on his side owned a real estate company that unfortunately kind of fell apart when I was a young kid. Collapsed and um, um, we ended up moving to another town called Medina when I was young and about that same time my parents divorced. Um, so I was about three years old when they divorced and kind of a weird, uh, doesn't often happen. My dad actually got custody of me and my sister. And, um, so, you know, somewhat unremarkable. We were, you know,

• 27:57Jason Redman?

  probably, I don't know, lower middle-class family at that point. Uh, but then my dad lost that job and he had ended up remarrying and my stepmom was from a small town in North Carolina, Lumberton, North Carolina. And they had owned a tobacco farm down there and still owned a decent amount of land. So we ended up moving to North Carolina when I was maybe five or six. We moved down there and I lived in the, in the country at that point. Um, and just kind of grew up down there. We were, we were pretty poor. You know, we moved in with my stepmom's, uh, mom and lived in their house. Um, but I don't

• 28:39Jason Redman?

  know, kind of growing up down there, um, bouncing back and forth. I'd go visit my mom, go back to my dad. Uh, I definitely learned a lot of things. I mean, I was, uh, nothing remarkable as a kid. Um, you know, like I said, we didn't have a whole lot. We didn't take a lot of vacations. Um, lived on this, uh, non-working tobacco farm at that point, but I kind of grew up playing outside, real big and, uh, uh, G.I. Joe back then.

• 29:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 29:09Jason Redman?

  Always fat- infatuated with the military. Uh, my grandfather.

• 29:16Jason Redman?

  My dad's dad, who I never got to meet, was a decorated WWII pilot. He was a B-24 pilot. Flew all his missions, got shot down over Yugoslavia and crash-landed the plane with the whole crew in. It was winter and they crash-landed it onto a snow field and then evaded back to Italy. And, uh, and made it back and he got a Distinguished Flying Cross for that. And I think he earned maybe seven air medals over his career.

• 29:46Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 29:46Jason Redman?

  Died of a heart attack, um, before I was ever born.

• 29:50Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 29:51Jason Redman?

  So, um, so I always grew up with this love of the military and from a young age, I said, that's what I wanted to do.

• 30:00Jason Redman?

  So growing up in backwoods country in North Carolina, ran around the woods playing GI Joe and, you know, saying that's what I wanted to do. Um, when I was 11, uh, my mom had moved to the Virgin Islands.

• 30:16Shawn Ryan?

  No shit, Virgin Islands?

• 30:18Jason Redman?

  Mm-hmm. Yeah, she moved to, uh, uh, St. Croix. For a period of time, we went to St. Thomas and then back to St. Croix. So I left and went and lived with my mom for a while. And lived down in, uh, and lived down there. And I mean, I'd be, I'd been going down there with her even before I moved down with her. And so I got a big appreciation, obviously, for the ocean and the water and snorkeling and, got into body boarding and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Um, so just got real comfortable in the water. And, um, in, uh, uh, 1990, I would have been, um,

• 31:01Jason Redman?

  I would have been 10, 11. Hurricane Hugo hit, uh, 90 or 91, I can't remember. Uh, Hurricane Hugo hit St. Croix. And my mom, we knew the storm was coming, you know, kind of like we were talking about. You see the indicators, you gotta take action before. Uh, my mom was smart enough that she sent me off the island back to my dad and she stayed. To this day, we don't know what happened to my mom. Our house was destroyed, totally leveled right off the foundation. My mom sustained a head injury. She wasn't in the house when it happened. She had left and gone someplace else, but we don't even know where. The National Guard found her wandering around with this massive head injury. They flew her off the

• 31:45Jason Redman?

  island to Miami, and she got to Miami. They took her to the doctor, and the doctors x-rayed her and were like, holy shit, it's a miracle you survived the flight. She had a massive brain bleed in her head from this blunt force trauma she took. Damn. And they did emergency brain surgery, and, you know, she came out okay. My mom's almost 80 now. Wow. But, um, but I was back in North Carolina at that point with my dad and continued to want to go down this road. I, probably about 14, still wanting to go in the military. I

• 32:28Jason Redman?

  was getting interested in special operations. I was interested in Rangers and Green Berets and, you know, Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow and all that, all that shit. And my dad, when I was about 14, sat me down and said, hey. My dad was a, my dad was in the Army. He was a, um, he was an airborne instructor and a rigger at jump school. And, and at this point, he was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky at this point. And he said, hey, we had these guys that came through training with us. They were called SEALs. And he said, you know, he said they were tough as nails. He said they jump out of planes, they blow shit

• 33:11Jason Redman?

  up. He said, really good in the water, little crazy. He said, you should look into that. And, um, and man, I was probably the most unlikely candidate ever, you know, at this point, 14 years old, I was the proverbial 90-pound weakling. I didn't play any sports, or not, not really. I mean, I think I might have done one little thing or two in, in middle school, but I didn't play anything. You know, I didn't work out. Yeah. Um, and I don't know why, my dad telling me this, I like started.

• 33:47Jason Redman?

  I started researching, trying to, about SEAL teams and back then, this pre-internet, there's nothing. I really couldn't find anything. The only thing I could find was that the common theme was hardest training in the military and, you know, do some of the most dangerous missions out there. You know, and as a young kid, G.I. Joe wannabe, I was like, man, that's really romantic, you know, this romantic nature of warfare and, you know, probably not really having a clue of what, what I was getting myself into. But I said, that's what I want to do. And started, I said, okay, well, what do I need to do to get ready for this? I guess I need to start doing some physical things.

• 34:30Jason Redman?

  So I went out for the football team, just got my ass kicked right and left. But I'll be honest, it was actually a really good thing because it taught me a lot. It taught me how to be a part of a team. Taught me how to take disappointment, taught me how to take a beating, because I got my ass kicked a lot. Kind of frequently encountered, I was not like this popular kid or anything, you know, I probably fell more into the nerd class, you know, I was, I was smart, I was in a lot of the honors classes, but, so, on, you know, the football team, I usually got a lot of shit when I was this little tiny

• 35:11Jason Redman?

  dude. I wasn't very athletically gifted. So frequently, I got a lot of shit. So it also was kind of the first time I encountered, you know, having to stay involved in something despite people saying, hey, we don't want you here, which I think helped build thick skin for me and just to say, well, I don't really give a fuck what you think. So I just kept pushing and grinding. I also, my sophomore year, I went out for the wrestling team because I'd had some buddies say, hey, man, wrestling's really good. And I was like, all right, well, let me try this. And I was a little better at wrestling than football, although. When I stepped in, I started out at one twelve and then I rolled into the one nineteen

• 35:56Jason Redman?

  class and our one nineteen pounder was a guy by the name of Vincent Crump. Vince is probably still out there. He ended up going in the Navy and we crossed paths many years later, but he was our state champion in North Carolina and a phenomenal wrestler. Dude, he just used to wipe the fucking floor with me. So that's who I normally wrestled. And but once again, it taught me a lot. It taught me resilience. It taught me how to keep grinding forward despite losses, you know. So these were all things that kind of built me. And yeah, I said, I'm gonna be a SEAL. So about sixteen, I went to the recruiting station in Wamington, North Carolina. And I walked in, I said, hey, man, I'd like to be a SEAL.

• 36:41Jason Redman?

  You know.

• 36:42Shawn Ryan?

  At nineteen?

• 36:43Jason Redman?

  Sixteen.

• 36:44Shawn Ryan?

  Sixteen.

• 36:45Jason Redman?

  Sixteen years old. I said, hey, I'd like to be a SEAL. You know, I heard I can enlist when I'm seventeen. Will you give me information? I'd like to learn about it. And the lead recruiter was an old crusty Boatswain's mate. And I mean, you know, we don't have many people like this in the Navy anymore. I mean, he was like the post Vietnam era. I mean, just covered in tattoos, just crusty as fuck. And just the pirate Boatswain's mate from the days of old in the Navy. And like, he took one look at me and was like, get the fuck out of here. He's like, you skinny little runt, you'd never make it through BUDS. Beat

• 37:27Jason Redman?

  it. And he chased me out of the office. So I came back a couple of times, chased me out every time. But something clicked inside me where I was like, fuck that guy. Like, I am going to do this. And I kept trying and he kept chasing me away. So at one point, probably I was almost seventeen, or I might have turned seventeen at this point.

• 37:58Jason Redman?

  I was trying to go back and the army recruiter was kind of watching all this with amusement. Their offices were all together. He was like, hey, man, I know you're interested in being a SEAL. Have you ever thought about being a Ranger or Green Beret? I was like, yeah, I've given it some thought, but I heard the SEALs, you know, I just kind of was interested in that. He's like, well, it doesn't look like you're having much luck with that, so why don't you, uh, why don't you, why don't you come join the army, man? You're old enough. I can send you up to MEPS. We can get you slotted. And he said, you can become an Army Ranger and go down that path. I was like, alright, you know what? My dad was Army, why not?

• 38:33Jason Redman?

  So I, uh, I initially went down the road of going into the Army as a Ranger. And when I went to MEPS, they did my airborne physical. And when I was a kid, I ruptured my eardrum. So when the doctor looked in my ear, he saw this scar tissue and he failed me. He's like, nope, failed. And, uh, so I was like, what do you mean I failed? So I can't go through airborne school? And he was like, no. And I was like, alright, well, I'm not joining the Army. And, uh, they were like, what do you mean? You gotta, you're here at MEPS. You have to sign the line. You just gotta pick something else. And I was like, no. Like, all or nothing, baby. Like, if I can't go through that, then I'm not gonna do this. And I said, besides, I know I can equalize. I said, I've dove in the Virgin Islands. I know I can.

• 39:15Jason Redman?

  So you're saying I can't, but I know I can. So I kind of turned into this big shit show. The recruiter from Lumberton had to drive up to Raleigh and get me. He was all mad at me. And, uh, trying to convince me that, hey, even though you can't go through airborne school, you can still be an airborne, you can still be a Ranger. We have Rangers who aren't airborne qualified, which isn't really true. That's kind of a lie. You can go through Rangers, well, even Ranger School has airborne in it. So it's a total lie.

• 39:41Shawn Ryan?

  Wait, are you saying a recruiter lied to you?

• 39:43Jason Redman?

  I know. Can you believe that? He was probably the only one in history.

• 39:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:47Jason Redman?

  Yeah. So, uh, so anyways, I, I went home, kind of bummed, uh, a little bit of disappointment. But, um, my, my dad said, well, why don't we go, why don't we go see an EMT? He can look at your ear and, uh, and, you know, he can, we can get a letter.

• 40:10Jason Redman?

  It says you can do this. So we did that and about that same time, uh, the Navy recruiters had switched out and there was a new recruiter by the name of Henry Horn. If anybody knows Henry Horn from Lumberton, North Carolina, I've never been able to thank this guy. I've never been able to find him. Uh, but that guy was awesome. Like he was like, hey, man, you want to be a SEAL? Like, let me help you. And brought me in. They had this video back in the eighties. It was cheesy as fuck called Be Someone Special. And, uh, you know, it had like these guys flying in with the, you know, the old green uniforms and they're jumping out of the helicopter with Uzis and taking down. I think, uh, Mass Chief Denny

• 40:52Jason Redman?

  Chalker was one of the guys in that video, um, who ended up being one of my BUDS instructors. Oh, really? Yeah. But, um, but, uh, man, I watched that video all the time and, and Henry Horn would be like, hey, man, here's what you need to do. So I just focused on training, getting myself in shape. I knew there was no BUDS pipeline back then. Um, you just basically went to boot camp and you raised your hand and you said, hey, I want to try out for the SEAL teams and you got one shot to try out. What year was this? Uh, 92. Okay. Yep. So, uh, so yeah. September 11th, 1992, I signed to go in the Navy. I was

• 41:34Jason Redman?

  still in high school and, uh, signed in the delayed entry program and, uh, finished up high school and soon as I graduated, I headed off to, uh, boot camp down in Orlando, Florida. And just like Henry said, about three or four, I don't know, maybe the third or fourth week of, uh, boot camp at the pool, you know, big SEAL instructor walked through and says, anybody want to try out for the SEALs? And I was like, yep, I do. And, uh, you know, they were like, you, you skinny fucking runt, you know? And I was like, yep. And there were like 10 of us, uh, that, uh, tried out and there was only three of us

• 42:13Jason Redman?

  that made it. So one guy, uh, did an entire career, uh, and the other guy ended up being kind of one of my swim buddies and roommates. And unfortunately he didn't make it through training. But, um, but yeah, that kind of started the path and it just, I am the, um...

• 42:31Jason Redman?

  I don't know, my whole life and career, I've been the underdog. Everybody's always said, "You can't do it." Frequently, I've done it to myself. But, you know, I think, I guess, one of my superpowers is just continuing to grind through until I figure it out.

• 42:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. It seems to be a commonality with a lot of, with a lot of SEALs is kind of got rejected from a lot of the other ones and then slide in there and same, same here.

• 43:00Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 43:01Shawn Ryan?

  Same, you know, similar, but.

• 43:03Jason Redman?

  It's a good quality. I've also come to realize sometimes as I get older, I'm realizing it can also be, it can be a blessing and a curse. You know, the, the, the fuck you, I'll do it my own way.

• 43:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Jason Redman?

  Um, as I'm getting older, I'm realizing, okay, that's not always the best way.

• 43:23Shawn Ryan?

  Me and you both.

• 43:24Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 43:26Shawn Ryan?

  So you get to BUDs. How was that? What was it like? I mean, so this was early 90s?

• 43:32Jason Redman?

  It was 95. So when I, uh, when I, I went, so I went in the Navy. I went to ISA School in Virginia Beach, Virginia. And, um, and then there was a delay. Uh, I had to wait almost a year, a little over, well, it ended up being a year and a half because three weeks before I was supposed to head out to BUDs, I wrecked my motorcycle in Virginia Beach, uh, right in front of Lynn Haven Mall.

• 43:59Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 43:59Jason Redman?

  Yeah. Wrecked my motorcycle and broke my shoulder and that gave me an additional three or four month delay. So I, I headed out to BUDs in January of 95 is when I started uh, with Class 200. And, um, um, you know, BUDs, so funny things. I, um, I was really immature. Uh, I was 18 when I headed out to BUDs and, and, and for the, the first part of my career, I was really immature. Uh, and one, I think the teams allowed that somewhat, if you will, uh, because.

• 44:38Jason Redman?

  Coming out of the Vietnam era, up until nine eleven, there wasn't a whole lot of combat. And we really, man, we lived the ethos of work hard, you know, work hard and play hard. Or sometimes even work hard and play harder. And as a young kid who came from, I, I, I, I wasn't in any kind of clique. I didn't do much partying when I was in high school. So I was kind of exposed to the world of partying. When I got into the SEAL teams, I was like, this fucking awesome. Like, you know, I want to be a rock star. This is great.

• 45:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 45:09Jason Redman?

  And, um, and probably went way too far down that path. Not even probably.

• 45:14Shawn Ryan?

  In BUDs or when you got to the team?

• 45:17Jason Redman?

  All, all of the above. So it started, yeah, it started. Dude, I drank every weekend and sometimes nights. And I wasn't even of age. I wasn't even of age, but I had a buddy who was old enough that I would, that I, it's a miracle. I made it through training. But I think I was hard. I was dumb and hard and was able to do it like I, uh, so the buddy of mine, who was my roommate, who did not end up making it through training. He was, he went through ISA school with me. We were roommates. We trained together. We drove across the country together. Uh, ended up partying, um, the night before we got to San Diego. And I ended up drinking so much, um, that I literally vomited all over myself.

• 46:02Jason Redman?

  I think he found me in the bathroom with my head resting on the urinal. Um, just a shit show. I sprained my ankle somehow to this day. I have no clue how. Uh, so I, I roll into BUDs the following day, looking like an absolute shit sandwich. I'm like hobbling across the quarter deck. And like one of the instructors was like, you ain't gonna make it very far like that, son. And in my mind, I was like, fuck you, I'll show you. Which, you know, was kind of my mindset back then, which like I said, was good. It was also bad. So, um, training, it was what I expected. I didn't, I knew it was going to be hard. You know, that wasn't, and, and you know, I don't, I wasn't a badass.

• 46:47Jason Redman?

  You know, I, I don't ever want to convey that. Um, I was just, uh, I was just a tenacious kid, man. I had a dream and I was going after that dream. Often I talk about, I think I probably had a little more romantic view of what warfare is. And I think. If I had had a more realistic view of warfare at a young age, I probably would have not partied as much and probably been much more laser focused on how to be, how do I be the best operator I possibly can be, which that probably didn't happen till later in my career. But as a young kid, you know, buds, it was tough, but it wasn't anything

• 47:27Jason Redman?

  that I didn't expect. I almost quit. The only time I ever thought about quitting was on Thursday night of Hell Week. And there were a couple of reasons for that. One, like all of us, Hell Week's the big crucible. And I remember there are several critical stories about the, how hard and overwhelming Hell Week is. And like, I already had like an imprint of this because when I, Class 201, when I was in PTRR waiting to class

• 48:08Jason Redman?

  up, the PTRR students were Hell Week. So I was sporting Hell Week for Class 20, for Class 199, before I was waiting for Class 200 to class up. And I remember, you know, one of the students quit Tuesday night or something. And it was, it was cold. I mean, it's like, this was January. And this young kid, I was assigned to escort him back to his room after he did his medical checks. And dude, he's in that navy wool blanket and he's kind of got it over his head. He looks like a fucking monk. He's not saying a word. I walk him back to his room and like, I want to know, like, I'm like blowing up on the inside, like, dude, why'd this guy quit? And you know, you know, I mean,

• 48:50Jason Redman?

  what was so bad about this? So finally, as I drop him off in his room, I'm like, I couldn't keep it inside anymore. And I was like, hey, man, like, what was he like? I mean, why did you quit?

• 49:04Jason Redman?

  And he, he's standing on the other side of the door, like looking at me. We're about this far apart, maybe a little closer. And he goes, bro, I was so fucking cold that I would have done anything to get warm. I would have sucked a big fat dick just so the hot jizz could have hit me in the face so I could be warm. And then he slammed the door in my face.

• 49:28Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 49:28Jason Redman?

  And I was like, I'm an 18 year old kid. I'm like, what?

• 49:37Shawn Ryan?

  Must have been cold.

• 49:38Jason Redman?

  Yeah, exactly. That's a, that's a hell of a statement.

• 49:41Shawn Ryan?

  Or maybe it wasn't that cold.

• 49:45Jason Redman?

  Um, so, fast forward to my hell week, you know, uh, roughly two months later in March. And I remember I'd asked a friend who had made it through class 199. I said, Brian, dude, you got any tips or tricks? And he said, yeah. Uh, he said, make it to Wednesday morning. He said, if you can make it to Wednesday morning, it's all downhill after that. I was like, okay, Roger that. So Wednesday morning came, sun came up. I'm like, dude, we made it. Like it's all downhill. It gets easier now, but it really doesn't. You know, that's kind of a, I, I think you've crossed that threshold where, um, you can probably endure anything. You'll just go to your death.

• 50:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:27Jason Redman?

  Um, and, and it doesn't necessarily get easy. I've gone back and I've watched hell week now. Things just slow down because when you've gone without sleep for three or four days, you know, in your mind, you know, you look like chariots of fire when the reality is you're, you're barely doing a shuffle. And, um, so Thursday night, I'm, uh, I'm in the Smurf crew and the Smurf crew is like losing every race and it got pretty cold that night. It had dropped probably down into the, the 40s that night in San Diego. And we were doing stuff at the pool, winds blowing off San Diego Bay. And, you know, as you well know, pays to be a winner.

• 51:08Jason Redman?

  So if you win, you know, you get to sit out. If you lose, you get extracurricular activity. Well, we were losing every fucking race. So they, um, they, um, you know, every race, we had some kind of extracurricular activity. Um, so at one point the instructors decided, hey, this will be fun. It's really miserable and cold and windy. Let's have these guys go stand up on the 10 meter dive platform. Um, you know, we're wearing these little nothing try shorts and stand out there with your arms and legs outstretched. And you guys are going to stand out there until A, somebody quits or B, you know, we decide to bring you down. And I'm standing up there just jackhammering, man. I mean, I had no body fat.

• 51:51Jason Redman?

  Um, when I completed Hell Week, I had dropped to 117 pounds.

• 51:57Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 51:58Jason Redman?

  Yeah, I'll, I'll give you the picture. I look like I just stepped out of Oswich. Uh, I mean, I was only 135 when I started, but.

• 52:05Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 52:06Jason Redman?

  So I was 117 when I completed Hell Week. Um, so I'm standing up there just jackhammering and I remember like in my mind, like make it a Wednesday morning. It gets easier. And I was like, fuck this. And, uh, you know, the bell follows you around and I remember looking down at the, the deck below, you know, the, the, the truck was parked right out by the decon. And I was like, fuck this man, I'm going to go down and quit. And thankfully I stopped. Um, I took a breath and was like, what are you doing? Like, yeah, that this ends your, you know, if you do that, it's all over. Like you just gotta suck it up and endure.

• 52:48Jason Redman?

  And, uh, and I did, I managed and I don't know how much longer we were up there. It probably wasn't that long, seemed like forever. But yeah, that was the only time I thought about quitting. So.

• 53:00Shawn Ryan?

  Did anything give you any trouble? Uh, after that.

• 53:03Jason Redman?

  Pool comp.

• 53:04Shawn Ryan?

  Pool comp.

• 53:05Jason Redman?

  Yeah, swims and pool comp. So I broke my arm or let me rephrase this. I, um, I, uh,

• 53:15Jason Redman?

  I got rolled, I got double rolled during BUDs. So I was in, I made it through Hell Week with Class 200. I made it in the dive phase and I got severe tendonitis in my feet. It was so bad, like I would curl my toes and it sounded like tendon, like shit was snapping, like from across the room. So the medics rolled me and so I was in PTRR waiting and at one point I got permission to go down to Mexico, once again, partying and being stupid. I was down in Rosarita, I believe, me and another team, not a team guy, but a BUD student. And I was so drunk and stupid.

• 53:58Jason Redman?

  I walked outside to get some air from the bar and we were right, wherever we were, this bar nightclub was right across the street from the beach and there was, you know, the pier. And there were some young kids that were doing flips off this pier wall down onto the sand below. It was about a five foot drop. And in my drunken state, I was like, I can do that. And I totally tried to bust this flip, got sideways, stuck my arm out and landed on my arm and broke both bones.

• 54:31Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 54:33Jason Redman?

  So had to go back to San Diego. I had a Mexican doctor set it, which he set it wrong, and started having issues with my hand. Had to go back to, I went to Balboa and the doctors had to re-break my arm, which is, they didn't give me any, I think they knew I was young and stupid and I told them I broke it in Mexico. So I think, I think the doctor was like, I'm gonna teach you a lesson, young sailor. So no pain meds or nothing, you know, they put my hand up into what's called a finger trap. There's like, it's like these springs that hold on to your hand and they pull and then that doctor just.

• 55:13Jason Redman?

  And re-broke it and then pulled it down and set it, uh, but reset it. And of course, you know, I had to go back to Bud's and say, hey, I broke my arm. And I knew if I told him I broke it drinking, that I'd be out of training.

• 55:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:29Jason Redman?

  So I lied and said, hey, I was down in Mexico and I was rock climbing and fell off this rock. And the instructors, I'll, I'll never forget, man, they kind of looked at me like, rock climbing? Right.

• 55:42Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 55:43Jason Redman?

  Sure, but they let me stay.

• 55:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 55:46Jason Redman?

  They let me stay, although they told me, um, class two oh two was going to class up. And I believe August or something, which was only three weeks after I got my cast off. And they were like, we don't care. You're classing up class two oh two. So, you know, three weeks after your cast gets off or not, you better do everything you can to be ready. So, um, so it started back up with two oh two. And the biggest thing, so I was able to run, I was able to do, you know, I was doing one arm pushups and everything. But where it really hurt me was in swimming. When I got back after, you know, with this gimp arm, uh, my swim times were really slow.

• 56:27Jason Redman?

  Um, so thankfully I got partnered with, uh, you know, Jim Hoy, if you're out there, man, you're a stud. Uh, Jimmy was a strong swimmer and he helped me, you know, so that I, I passed. So that was the only hard thing. And then pool comp was the other thing that, uh, that almost got me.

• 56:45Shawn Ryan?

  Gets a lot of people.

• 56:48Jason Redman?

  Yeah, yeah. I, I, I failed the first three attempts. Uh, those first three attempts were on Friday. Uh, so they said, okay, Monday, you guys have one last shot. If you don't make it, you're out. So me and my, uh, swim buddy at the time, we both had failed. We spent the entire weekend just doing breath holds in our room. It's all we did all weekend long.

• 57:11Shawn Ryan?

  Is that what it was getting you, the breath hold?

• 57:13Jason Redman?

  Uh, well, I think time was getting me and, and probably panic. And, you know, so our mindset was if we can hold our breath longer, you have more time to deal with the problem and to stay calm. And it did, it worked. I crushed it on Monday.

• 57:29Shawn Ryan?

  Just for, um, the audience that doesn't know, pool comp is, pool comp is. In a nutshell, you do all these procedures underwater. You're on open circuit dive equipment and you're at the bottom of a pool. You do all these procedures. The final one, they pretty much beat the hell out of you underwater, tie your hoses up, da-da-da-da-da.

• 57:53Jason Redman?

  Slam you off the bottom.

• 57:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it's a disaster and then you have to basically get all your equipment back together and uh.

• 58:02Jason Redman?

  And there's a series of steps and you have to follow them step by step. And if you do one of them out of sequence, you fail.

• 58:08Shawn Ryan?

  With nowhere and the, you know, they punch you in the gut. That's like the first thing they do to make sure you have nowhere. And uh, so that I just wanted to paint that picture of what it is.

• 58:18Jason Redman?

  Yeah, it's like getting your ass kicked underwater while you're trying to do calculus.

• 58:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. That's a good way to put it. So you got through it the third time?

• 58:29Jason Redman?

  Got through it, the fourth time.

• 58:30Shawn Ryan?

  The fourth time.

• 58:31Jason Redman?

  Yeah, fourth time on Monday, got through it and so, and that was the only other, that was the only other hiccup I had going through BUDs. Other than that, it was good, man. And you know, good class. I, like I said, I drank all the time, which probably set myself down a path when I was a young enlisted guy. I mean, I was, I, I was a good SEAL. I uh, probably partied way too much.

• 58:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Jason Redman?

  You know, it was something I finally had to come to a reckoning with years later.

• 58:59Shawn Ryan?

  I mean,

• 59:01Shawn Ryan?

  that's kind of part of it, you know, but at least back then, it was like that when I was, when I showed up too, it was, it was encouraged.

• 59:08Jason Redman?

  It was.

• 59:09Shawn Ryan?

  It was encouraged to do that. And if you didn't do it, then you were an out, you know, you were an outsider.

• 59:16Jason Redman?

  Yep.

• 59:16Shawn Ryan?

  At least, at least where I, where I went.

• 59:19Jason Redman?

  The same, same for us.

• 59:21Shawn Ryan?

  You know, so, but um, so you graduated BUDs. They didn't have SEAL qualification training then. They had STT.

• 59:29Jason Redman?

  Correct.

• 59:30Shawn Ryan?

  What team did you go to? And how, actually, how did they decide what team you were going to?

• 59:35Jason Redman?

  So I had been assigned, so I worked when I was stationed on the East Coast and I had uh, Before I went to BUDS, I had that period of time that I was waiting that year and a half. So I got assigned to Naval Special Warfare Group Two, the Headquarters Command for the SEAL Teams, and later got shopped over to SEAL Team Four and ended up working there for, I don't know, four or six months, which was a cool thing. I got to learn a lot before I went out to BUDS and got to meet some of the people. So when I was out at BUDS, I actually really grew to like San Diego. So I actually requested West Coast. But the warrant officer that I had worked under at SEAL Team Four, I guess, had said,

• 1:00:19Jason Redman?

  "Hey, bring this guy back to SEAL Team Four," which actually was a blessing. I'm glad I went back there. So ended up going back to SEAL Team Four. SEAL Team Four, at that point, had a lot of, uh, I think they had had a lot of guys leave, so they needed quite a few guys. So a big chunk of our class ended up going to SEAL Team Four, like probably 20 of us, which the rest of the class kind of got dispersed amongst all the other teams. But that created this problem for Team Four because SEAL Tactical Training, STT, was actually run through the Headquarters Command Group Two. But we had so many bodies that they were like, "Man, it's gonna take years to get all your guys,

• 1:01:03Jason Redman?

  you know, we don't have enough slots to put all your guys through." So what happened is SEAL Team Four ended up running their own STT.

• 1:01:10Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:01:11Jason Redman?

  Yeah, so they pulled some of the instructors from training. They basically created, you know, a duplicate curriculum. And we went through our own STT up at Fort Pickett, Virginia.

• 1:01:25Shawn Ryan?

  Back then, when you, when you went to Team Four, was that back when the team still had their areas of operation? I think Team Four, well, I know Team Four was jungle warfare, South America, right?

• 1:01:36Jason Redman?

  Correct. So, yeah, everything we focused on was South America, counter-drug related. I learned Spanish, so, which was really cool. I loved the jungle. I loved the jungle. I loved Central and South America. I spent a lot of time in Colombia.

• 1:01:55Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:01:55Jason Redman?

  I loved Colombia. I loved the people. Kind of my first introduction to combat occurred in Colombia. Although, funny, we did not...

• 1:02:07Jason Redman?

  Our idea of combat back then was, you know, hey, I'm toe to toe in this vicious gunfight.

• 1:02:14Shawn Ryan?

  Well, before we get into that, before we get into your first combat experience, let's take a quick break.

• 1:02:26Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:03:07Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:03:51Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:04:13Shawn Ryan?

  I want to take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon. Patron support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one-of-a-kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com/vigilanceelite and support The Sean Ryan Show today. All right, Jason, we're back from the break. We're going to Colombia and we're about to get into your first combat experience.

• 1:04:42Jason Redman?

  Yeah, so Colombia was, I loved Colombia, it was amazing, I really enjoyed the people. We got assigned to, so kind of my first introductions to combat and also the first introduction to like, oh, this isn't all rock star party and being cool, like, yeah, there's some dangerous parts of this job. And we went down to San Jose del Guaviare, which is in southern Colombia, there was a lot of coca production down there. So, we had been assigned to go work at one of the special forces forward bases that were down there, work with them and help them.

• 1:05:24Shawn Ryan?

  US Special Forces or Colombian?

• 1:05:26Jason Redman?

  Colombian.

• 1:05:27Shawn Ryan?

  Colombian?

• 1:05:27Jason Redman?

  Yeah, we were working with Colombian Special Forces and a side job we had, so one part was helping to train them to execute counter-drug missions. And the secondary part was to train the conscripts they had at the camp, so we were kind of running those two jobs.

• 1:05:46Jason Redman?

  So, several things happened on like this six-week, you know, mini-deployment, you know, we were launching out of Panama then, so it was part of our larger South America deployment. But we were living, you know, literally you were living right on the San Jose del Guaviare River and...

• 1:06:07Shawn Ryan?

  That's way down there.

• 1:06:08Jason Redman?

  Yeah, yeah, it's it's close. We're pretty close to Tracy Skinas.

• 1:06:12Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:06:13Jason Redman?

  So, um, but I remember there were several things like, hey, heavy FARC-controlled territory. Uh, for those that don't know, the FARC was the, uh, guerrilla outfit that basically wanted to overthrow the Colombian government. And what happened is the FARC frequently would support the cartels and the drug trade, provide security and stuff like that.

• 1:06:36Shawn Ryan?

  They're still active, I believe.

• 1:06:38Jason Redman?

  Uh, they're definitely weakened. I I didn't know that they were still, you know, I've heard, I mean, Colombia definitely has done a pretty good job from what I've heard of creating better stability there. I mean, back then, it was a wild west.

• 1:06:49Shawn Ryan?

  I'll bet.

• 1:06:50Jason Redman?

  Um, so multiple things happened like, like that made me realize, hey, this is the real deal. Like, um, probably one of the first things that happened that I remember, um, oftentimes when you're overseas and there are Americans someplace, people know that the Americans, typically we have medical care, we have, and and we want to project, hey, Americans, we're good people, we're here to help. So oftentimes you would have individual that would hear that and they would come, you know, to where you're at and say, hey, will you help us? So a guy brought a little girl, probably three years old, to the camp, and she had been severely burned from like the waist down, kind of from her knees to her midsection.

• 1:07:35Jason Redman?

  It was really weird, but I mean, severe, like third-degree burns. And, uh, it was almost like she had been set into a boiling liquid. And the guy that brought her, he was kind of squirrely, he was, he was her uncle or something. So anyways, we wrapped her up and our medic was like, dude, this girl is gonna die if we don't take her someplace. So we loaded her on our boats, you know, we had the special boat teams down there with us, and we headed up the river to the closest little town from there. And I remember us taking her in and dude, it reminded me. You know, everybody wants to, right now, there's this idea, this, this narrative that America is such a terrible place, which just infuriates me, because you and I have both

• 1:08:19Jason Redman?

  seen how much we've tried to do and help other countries and other people, and also how good we have it in our country.

• 1:08:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:27Jason Redman?

  And this was my first introduction to poverty at a level that, I mean, I, I grew up relatively poor, but like, nothing, like, my, you know, we're talking cardboard shanty houses, and when we went into this medical facility.

• 1:08:41Shawn Ryan?

  They're literally building houses out of trash.

• 1:08:44Jason Redman?

  Yes, and living in it, and like, hey, these trash fields that they're living in, and people, like, no clothes, naked.

• 1:08:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:50Jason Redman?

  Eating off the street. But this medical facility, uh, facility is like a stretch of the word. It reminded me of something out of a horror movie, like, paints peeling off the walls, the lights are flickering, um, and we took this little girl and the doctor came to look at her, and they ended up, uh, he was like, hey, we don't have enough bandages, like, we're not gonna be able to do much, so, they, they kinda irrigated her wounds, um, and then we gave them the dressings to bandage her, and they bandaged her up, and, um, I remember looking at some of their medical tools, they were like, rusted. I was like, holy shit.

• 1:09:33Shawn Ryan?

  There was rust on the?

• 1:09:34Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:35Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:09:36Jason Redman?

  So, um, and then, then we left, and I don't know if she ever survived, I, I doubt it. I mean, if they didn't have the, I mean, I would imagine she probably unfortunately would have gone septic, you know, with that level of injury, right, in, you know, your groin area, if they're not changing those dressings on a regular basis, so, that was kinda my first introduction to, dude, like, this is a hard world, uh, and there are people who are really struggling. Um, I think, second introduction in Colombia, I remember we were planting sensors, uh, along the river to monitor activity at night. And we went back to recover some of those sensors.

• 1:10:19Jason Redman?

  And my senior chief was like, you know, we pulled up to the river and, or pulled up to the bank and my senior chief's like, Red, go recover that sensor. I'm like, okay. So I'm starting to go get it and the Colombian special force guy that was with us was like, hey, just be aware, if the FARC finds anything, they booby trap everything. So they're like, we're gonna pull offshore while you get it. So in my mind, like dude, I'm like walking up to this tree where I knew we had put this sensor and in my mind, like every step, every vine, every leaf is a fucking booby trap.

• 1:10:57Shawn Ryan?

  What, what, what were they using for booby traps?

• 1:11:00Jason Redman?

  Uh, they didn't really say at that time. So all, you know, I'm a young kid and they're just like booby, all you hear is booby traps. So I'm, I'm in, I'm in my mind, I'm hearing everything from, I'm gonna fall in a punji, punji pit, uh, to, you know, something that swings along and snaps me in the chest to a pressure plate, which, you know, I wasn't even fully, uh, aware of all of that back then. I just, I'm not gonna blow up trying to get this.

• 1:11:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:26Jason Redman?

  Uh, and it ended up nothing. There was nothing there. So I got it, but I think that was kind of the first time like, hey, this is for real. And the fact that the boat pulled off, like, hey, we don't want to be close to you in case anything happens. So recovered that and that was kind of the second like, hey, like this is no joke. Third thing that happened, Colombians came to us at one point and were like, hey, uh, one of our guys got shot. We need you to treat him. So we went over to the other side of the camp and sure enough, they had a guy with a, a, a head wound and he's laying there and he's barely breathing. And we're like, what happened? And they're like, we don't know, you know, they're just totally, uh, we don't know.

• 1:12:10Jason Redman?

  And they were like, maybe somebody from outside the camp shot in, which did happen sometimes. Uh, but uh, there was no, we couldn't find an exit wound. So looked like small caliber. Uh, which this is all new to me. I mean, it's the first time I've ever seen, you know, gunshot wound. So our senior chief, who was a medic and our other medic were like, yeah, this guy's not going to make it. But the Colombians are like, fix him. And we're like, there's not fixing this guy. You know, the senior chief was like, well, let's, let's at least save face. We'll, we'll at least make it look like.

• 1:12:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46Jason Redman?

  So, uh, they were like, let's crike him. Um, and, uh, so that was kind of the first time. Um, and I, I was interested in becoming a medic at that point. So they were like, hey, Red, you know, you can do it. So I learned, one, this tissue is really thick. Like it's, you know, it takes a lot of pressure to cut into.

• 1:13:06Shawn Ryan?

  You craked him?

• 1:13:07Jason Redman?

  Yeah. And, uh, so we, we, we craked him and they let me do that. And then, you know, we took him and yeah, he didn't survive. He passed away. So that was kind of the first dead person I saw and just first gunshot wound I'd ever seen. So, uh, then the last big thing that occurred is we started getting intel that there was a 400 man FARC force moving on our camp.

• 1:13:30Shawn Ryan?

  How many guys did you?

• 1:13:31Jason Redman?

  Oh dude, we were, we were, uh,

• 1:13:37Jason Redman?

  we weren't even a platoon. I think we were a squad.

• 1:13:41Shawn Ryan?

  Including the Colombians?

• 1:13:42Jason Redman?

  Uh, no, the Colombians probably had, I don't know, 50, 60 people, but not many. I mean, yeah, we would, we would have been overrun by a 400 man force. So, uh, we kept getting updates that they were coming closer and closer. And I remember, I remember, you know, the senior chief sitting us down like, all right, let's go over our E and E plan. Um, cause yeah, the, the, we were getting word SOCOM was starting to say, hey, be prepared. You know, if this gets any closer, we don't want you guys there. So.

• 1:14:16Jason Redman?

  I remember for the last couple of nights, like it was like sleeping your cammies, gun at the ready, like we're ready to roll in case anything happens. And I remember, you know, one night laying in bed and all of a sudden, the middle of the night, man, the fucking world erupted and just gunfire everywhere, explosions. So I jump out of bed and it's just chaos. Everybody's running in all the different directions. So came out of our, we were in these like little metal Quonson hut, like World War II style huts. Came outside and there was kind of a retaining, you know, wall right outside and got down behind that and our senior chief was there and I'm like, hey, what's going on? And he's like, I don't

• 1:14:59Jason Redman?

  know. Sounds like somebody shot into the camp. They basically opened up on all four perimeters and were just crushing the jungle with 40 mic, mic and machine gun. And he said, I'll find out. And but he handed me two thermite grenades. It was like, hey, go in there to our radios. And if I tell you, you're going to destroy our radios and we're going to go on E and E. And I remember like, you've got to be shitting me. Are you serious? So went back inside, you know, made sure all my stuff was ready. And he came back a few minutes later and was like, ah, he's like, I think it's a real, it sounds like somebody had shot into the camp. So they had just responded with, you know, just

• 1:15:40Shawn Ryan?

  Everything?

• 1:15:41Jason Redman?

  Everything. And they sent out a patrol and they didn't find anything. So that 400 man FARC element left after that. So what we wonder is, did they send some skirmishers up to test the security? And they definitely saw a very robust security posture and said, okay, we're not going to mess with that.

• 1:16:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:03Jason Redman?

  And went on. So, so that was kind of a, an interesting thing. It was funny. One of the conversations after it happened was, hey, should we submit for a combat action ribbon? And we were all like, fuck no. You know, we, that wasn't, we weren't in combat. We weren't directly in a firefight, you know, somebody shot at us and they shot. So, which is funny though, because years later, now when you look at if by the definition to earn a combat action ribbon now, it would have met that definition.

• 1:16:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, now you, I think if you're

• 1:16:37Shawn Ryan?

  On a ship that fires a missile, that's.

• 1:16:40Jason Redman?

  Well, they, that is true. But for us, it's if you are in enemy territory and you are in high threat of a enemy encounter, that qualifies for a combat action ribbon.

• 1:16:54Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:16:55Jason Redman?

  So, because for us, who do a lot of missions where we're patrolling in or in that situation where we were pretty deep.

• 1:17:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:02Jason Redman?

  Deep in, you know, dangerous territory and to be, you know, somewhat engaged. So, so anyways, that was kind of my first introduction to, you know, combat and to realize, you know, wow, this is, this is for real. And I'd love to say it changed my mindset. It did. And I was still young. And, I mean, I don't ever want to say that I didn't train well, because I, I was, I don't think anybody out there that can say I was not a good SEAL. I trained hard. I just partied really hard. And sometimes I think, I look at, when I got older, that mindset changed, I think.

• 1:17:42Shawn Ryan?

  And you really beat yourself up about that.

• 1:17:45Jason Redman?

  I do. Well, because I think it makes a difference. It's the, it's the foundation of a lot of what I talk on now. You know, what is your primary focus in this life?

• 1:17:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:54Jason Redman?

  There should be a balance in everything we do. I think I was too far out of balance the other way. And it ended up, it ended up hurting, damaging me, damaged my reputation as a young officer years later.

• 1:18:08Shawn Ryan?

  Well, we'll get into that later. But, I mean, that, like, I don't know everything, but you know, like I said, that was, that was pretty much par for the course when I came in several years later. And, and if you didn't partake in those festivities, then you were ostracized from the platoon, you know, and that, that's, I'll probably get some hate for saying that, but I don't care. That's how the fuck it was when I showed up. If you did not do that, you were ostracized from the team. And not only that, they didn't even trust you. You know, was you are not trustworthy because you're not.

• 1:18:52Jason Redman?

  Partying.

• 1:18:52Shawn Ryan?

  Partying with the team.

• 1:18:54Jason Redman?

  Which thankfully I saw after nine eleven, that started, that started change because they realized and it's something that I talk to young guys about. You know, now, like, all they care about is are you, are you a good operator? You know, when they're talking about, do they bring somebody into a platoon or a troop, you know? You know, it's usually not like, well, how well does he drink?

• 1:19:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:18Jason Redman?

  You know, that may come up, but it's gonna be like, dude, he's a solid operator. Fuck yeah, across the board. Guy's a rock star at everything he does. He doesn't drink. All right.

• 1:19:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:29Jason Redman?

  So what? Uh, but I, but yeah, when we were younger, I will admit, and I bought into that. The problem is, there's a time and place for it. As you become a leader, and that was my problem. I started carrying it with me as I got older and as a young leader, I was still running the exact same way I was as a young enlisted guy. And that's what's really started to be a problem. And I think if I had figured that out a, a little better. It's one thing for you to go out and party. It's another thing for you to be a liability. If people are having to babysit you, if you're showing up to work late because you're fucked up and hungover. Um, you know, and, and there were too many times that I bled on the other side.

• 1:20:12Shawn Ryan?

  I a hundred percent agree with you. I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just saying, that's, that's just, I mean, even after nine eleven, when I showed up, that's how it was. And, I mean, you spend, I mean, you spend years, you know, trying to become

• 1:20:30Shawn Ryan?

  a SEAL, and then you do it, you know what I mean? You get there with all the blood, guts, tears, sweat, you know, all that. Uh, you know, internal drive to become that, then you get there and that's, that's the culture.

• 1:20:43Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:43Shawn Ryan?

  And so of course you're gonna buy into it. I'm not making an excuse for myself because I was right there. I was a partying motherfucker, you know?

• 1:20:53Jason Redman?

  It was a great time. I loved it. Man, I mean, some of the best years of my life, my, my wife laughs because we met later. I was an instructor at that point. And she was like, I'm glad I wasn't around the first part of your career.

• 1:21:07Jason Redman?

  So I'm like, babe, we would never, we probably never would have survived. I mean, I was, I was just, I was young and immature and, and living, I mean, what an amazing job. I mean, as young men.

• 1:21:18Jason Redman?

  You were, you were, you were given a job where we're gonna, we're gonna entrust you with millions of dollars of equipment to go around the world and do, you know, tactical operationally, even sometimes creeping up into strategic level things.

• 1:21:35Jason Redman?

  And, and, you know, patch your ego because, you know, hey, you're one of the best of the best and it's easy to get caught up in that. I did. As a matter of fact, later it started to build into a level of ego and arrogance that that's where it became my downfall.

• 1:21:49Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, you couldn't switch it off?

• 1:21:51Jason Redman?

  No.

• 1:21:52Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 1:21:53Jason Redman?

  And as a young officer, you know, fucking that became a real problem.

• 1:21:57Shawn Ryan?

  Well, how many, what did you do after that deployment?

• 1:22:01Jason Redman?

  So I did three, uh, South America deployments, um, so, um, three South America deployments with SEAL Team Four, and then I went on to become an instructor.

• 1:22:10Shawn Ryan?

  You did how many deployments?

• 1:22:12Jason Redman?

  Three.

• 1:22:12Shawn Ryan?

  All to Colombia?

• 1:22:13Jason Redman?

  Uh, I did, uh, no. So multiple, so two to Panama, and then I did a, almost a four-month deployment to Peru as part of a, uh, a counter-drug school we were running. It was me and one other SEAL, Special Force Eighteen, some Coast Guard people, but we were working with the Peruvian Special Forces and it was awesome. I loved it. We were in Quidos, Peru, um, and, and just training these guys and just out in the middle of nowhere. I mean, my, my Spanish is so bad now, but back then, I came back from that trip and I kept the college Spanish test for 12 credit hours.

• 1:22:54Jason Redman?

  I almost aced the DLPT, um, you know, three, three back then was the highest you could get. I got a two plus three.

• 1:23:03Jason Redman?

  So, uh, yeah, I just enjoyed it, man. I was young. I was doing well.

• 1:23:10Jason Redman?

  So, uh...

• 1:23:11Shawn Ryan?

  When you went to Panama, you weren't... Were you in that, uh, platoon that blew the bridge?

• 1:23:16Jason Redman?

  Yes.

• 1:23:17Shawn Ryan?

  You, well, let's, how are you gonna breeze over that?

• 1:23:21Jason Redman?

  We gotta hear about that.

• 1:23:21Jason Redman?

  I don't know, we've had a lot of, uh, well, how do you know that story?

• 1:23:25Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know, I actually don't know the story, but when I was a new guy at SEAL Team Eight, and I showed up to my platoon, I remember one of the guys that was on that op, everybody kept saying, there was like the rumor going around amongst, one of the rumors going around amongst all the new guys was, oh, he was on the, he was on the op that blew the bridge.

• 1:23:47Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:47Shawn Ryan?

  And I was, uh, yeah, I didn't.

• 1:23:49Jason Redman?

  The bridge in, uh, you know, at the jungle warfare school up at Fort Sherman.

• 1:23:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I don't know the story, so let's, what's?

• 1:23:56Jason Redman?

  So Fort Sherman was, uh, shutting down, I mean, the Panamanians had decided they didn't want the Ameri-, you know, Panamanians decided they didn't want Americans there anymore. This also happened in Puerto Rico later. Interestingly enough, every single time this has occurred, uh,

• 1:24:14Jason Redman?

  years later, they're always like, God, we wish we hadn't let you guys leave, because it impacted the economy, it impacted all these different things, so, um, anyways. So, so we were working up, we were doing jungle warfare training up at Fort Sherman, which was on the northern side of Panama, and, um, and it's where the Army Jungle Warfare School was. So, um, pretty cool. Um, they had these old bunker complexes, and I guess were part of the post-World War II, uh, they were, they were fallback, like, bomb shelters, basically, for government leadership and stuff like that, so we lived in these old bomb shelters as we were going through training, and, uh,

• 1:24:56Jason Redman?

  one of the things that was decided upon is they wanted to destroy this bridge on Fort Sherman. And, uh, so we, the instructors, our land warfare instructors, turned it into this big, uh, FTX, you know, full mission profile exercise, so we, uh, we, um, we, we, we came up with our plan, and, uh, unfortunately...

• 1:25:23Jason Redman?

  Young and often with demo with demolitions and C4. You know, really, you don't need a whole lot, you know, if you can strategically put it, you can do a lot of damage with a little bit, but we they wanted this bridge destroyed. So we were like, well, when in doubt overload. So dude, I have a picture of myself. We created, uh, so we figured out, okay, we're going to take out these support beams on the bridge. Um, and we made like these C4 diamonds that I'm not kidding you were like four feet tall by three feet wide.

• 1:26:04Jason Redman?

  I mean, they probably weighed, I mean, it was probably 30 pounds of C4 in this diamond. We had it all rigged up and it was designed that we could put it up against and then tape it on to the support structure. So I have a picture, I, I, I rigged like this harness to carry this thing. I look, I look like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. You know? So we, we patrolled in and we put this on and then we, um, we fell back to what we thought was a safe spot. And dude, we cranked this thing off and, uh, there was the first explosion and after, you know, the ringing and the sound went quiet for a minute. All of a sudden we started to hear.

• 1:26:46Jason Redman?

  And dude, there's like pieces of metal like ripping through the trees. It's like raining chunks of metal down all around us. We're like, holy shit, like get undercover, like we're climbing under vehicles and stuff. Trying to, trying to protect ourselves. But, uh, yeah, we, we vaporized that bridge. I mean, we probably used hundreds of pounds more of C4 than we really needed, but.

• 1:27:11Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:27:11Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:12Shawn Ryan?

  Well, if you got pictures, send them, send them, I'll throw them in this.

• 1:27:14Jason Redman?

  Yeah, I'll have to go back and look at some of the stuff, but I definitely, I have that picture. I know for a fact I have that picture. I don't have any pictures after, uh, the bridge got blown, but I had the pictures that were taken before we went out.

• 1:27:27Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:27:28Jason Redman?

  So.

• 1:27:29Shawn Ryan?

  So three, three deployments to South America.

• 1:27:32Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:33Shawn Ryan?

  And then?

• 1:27:34Jason Redman?

  Then I became a, uh, instructor. So I was, uh, I was a communicator, uh, in my.

• 1:27:41Jason Redman?

  Second platoon and then a primary communicator on that third deployment. I was good at, you know, I mean, I was definitely.

• 1:27:50Jason Redman?

  I'm a thinker. I like understanding how things work. So, you know, I was pretty good at making comms. So that led me to, as an instructor, getting put into what back then we called basic warfare. So we were teaching communications, marksmanship, survival,

• 1:28:09Jason Redman?

  evasion, resistance and escape. I think that was everything we taught. But, um, so I got put into that cell. And for the next year and a half, that's what I focused on. So a lot of times people think, oh, you were a SEAL instructor, you were out of buds. But what a lot of people don't realize is

• 1:28:29Jason Redman?

  active duty SEALs, after they've done several operational tours, we need them to instruct, you know, training never ends. I mean, as you well know, but a lot of people don't understand that. Typically, when guys are put into a platoon, now they go into almost a a long period of training before they get ready to go on deployment. Well, it's

• 1:28:54Jason Redman?

  it's experienced SEALs who run that training, who become the training instructors for the, the team. And that's how I was an instructor. So, and it was fun. I learned a lot. I learned I like to instruct. I learned, um, it was fun to put courses together. I mean, we did everything from basic marksmanship courses all the way to, um, I got turned over from another guy. A really cool course. It was my favorite thing we ran. It was a long range evasion and tactical movement course up in the mountains of Virginia, where basically we simulated like guys were deep behind enemy lines

• 1:29:37Jason Redman?

  and you were having to evade through non-permissive territory. Non-permissive means it's enemy territory that if people see you, they will report you and you'll be captured or killed.

• 1:29:47Jason Redman?

  So, um, um, we would insert guys and they would be in two man pairs and they would be given, you know, an initial point and they would have to move anywhere from five to ten clicks, twenty clicks sometimes. Um, and they would get to a point and usually there would be a friendly agent or there would be something they would have to do, you know, obviously getting more into the challenge and reply world, we'll stay away from that. But, uh, things they would have to do to, um, you know, help them move through whatever pipeline to get out of this, uh, area. And it was a lot of fun. We worked with the sheriff's

• 1:30:28Jason Redman?

  department up there and a lot of the locals participated in this. Um, and I made a lot of really good friends. I, I ended up, uh, my wife and I ended up getting married up there to bed and breakfast that we worked out of. That was kind of our base headquarters. But all the way up into the, um, up into the, uh, mountains, up into the Blue Ridge Parkway and all the way down into the lower side of the valley. So, I mean, it covered, you know, at least a twenty by twenty mile radius. So, uh, and some pretty steep, arduous terrain. So, um, there were interesting things that, you know, funny things that I remember in

• 1:31:09Jason Redman?

  that course. Um, one of our guys who was, ended up being my team leader, uh, in, in Iraq. So, you know, the story that Jay, or DJ Shipley told, um, our team leader years before in that course. One, uh, night the platoon had gotten together and they were laid up. The morning came and, uh, and Jay was a communicator and he stood up in the early morning light and, or maybe he was seated. Uh, let me take this back. He was seated and, uh, a hunter, a fifty cal black powder rifle saw something rustling in the bushes and fired, uh, not really knowing what it is. And dude, if it wasn't for Jay's

• 1:31:53Jason Redman?

  radio, fifty cal ball hit that radio, which saved Jay's life. And all of a sudden, this entire platoon of dudes with automatic weapons stood up. This hunter shits his pants. Uh, but thankfully they called the sheriff and the sheriff, uh, arrested this guy for, you know, how can you shoot if you don't know what you're shooting at?

• 1:32:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:15Jason Redman?

  One of the funnier stories, and God rest his soul, he's no longer with us, but Colin Thomas was one of the newer guys. And they had to move, and one of the link-up points was up by the main highway, Highway 33, right by the park ranger shack at the entrance to the National Park up there. And so they had to link up, and then they would have to cross this four-lane highway to get to the other side, because their point was like five or six clicks down. So ideally, you should be doing this at night.

• 1:32:56Jason Redman?

  Well, they ended up being behind, so by the time they did their link-up, it was early morning, so they would have had to lay up an entire night, and they decided they didn't want to do that. So they said, screw it, we're gonna take our chances, and they crossed the highway, this four-lane highway, at like 8:00 a.m. in the morning. So needless to see, people saw them and called. So at their next link-up point, I had the sheriff arrest Colin and his partner, and we took him to jail, and we interrogated him, and we had a lot of fun. And, oh my God, Colin was so angry, man, he was so furious. We had mugshots, guys got a hold of the mugshots, and we're putting them all over the team.

• 1:33:40Jason Redman?

  Have you seen these men? And so, that was, that was a good, a good story. And Colin went on to be an amazing SEAL. I mean, he was stud of studs, went on, served at six, and ended up dying on a mission in Afghanistan.

• 1:33:56Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:33:57Jason Redman?

  So.

• 1:33:58Shawn Ryan?

  Didn't know him.

• 1:33:59Jason Redman?

  Yeah, good dude, good dude. So, I learned a lot, I learned a lot, although I will say this, what was kinda happening is...

• 1:34:08Jason Redman?

  I was good at what I did. Uh, I was good. I was, I was always ranked pretty high, uh, but I was also developing an ego. Uh, I was getting pretty arrogant. Um, it was about that time, this is 2000, 2000, nine, the end of 99 to 2000. And, um, there wasn't a whole lot going on in the world, so I was kinda at a decision point for my career. Option A was to go over to Dan Neck. Um, and option B was, um, I had had a lot of people say, hey, man, you should think about putting in a commissioning package. Our training officer had been a mentor for me, was really encouraging me to do that. And I was like, well, nothing's going on in the world really right now. Maybe this is a smart move.

• 1:34:52Jason Redman?

  Um, I would get my degree. Um, I had just met my wife and we were talking about getting married, so I was like, maybe this would be a good time to do all that. So I put in, um, my first commissioning package. Um, and I didn't get picked up. That was in 99. I didn't get picked up that year, I was told. Uh, I, I made it, I was an alternate. So I said, well, what, what do I need to do to be more competitive for next year? It was a program called Seaman to Admiral. So at that point, they only picked 50, uh, members out of the entire Navy.

• 1:35:26Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:35:27Jason Redman?

  So they said, well, you need to do this, you need to do this, we'd like to see some more awards and stuff like that. So I said, okay. So I talked to my leadership in training and said, hey, can you give me more responsibility? Can you give me more opportunities? And they said, yes. Um, so, applied again the next year. The next year, the Shield Team Four had decided that the chiefs wanted input on who became officers, which I agree 100% with. Um, although the chiefs disagreed on me becoming an officer. Um, and, and I know this had a lot to do with, I was a partier. I was a partier. I was out there burning it down. Um, and...

• 1:36:11Jason Redman?

  And for anybody out there who is a young military member who's like, oh, God, does this mean that if I'm a leader, I can't party? No, doesn't mean that, but you have to be very smart. You have to pick and choose, and there is a fine balance when you're leading people and how much you party. And unfortunately, I was definitely on the, I was too far. And also I had a chip on my shoulder. I was, I was, I was, I was getting young and arrogant. I was, you know, pretty big in my bridges. And so when the chief said, we don't think you should be an officer, you know, I was kind of like, well, fuck you, I'll show you. So I got fortunate that the commanding officer and my training officer both lobbied and said,

• 1:36:54Jason Redman?

  hey, well, we think this guy should be an officer. And they actually went against the chiefs, which I know that probably made a lot of the chiefs not like me. Yeah. But I got picked up that year. I got picked up for a commission. So headed off to school to Old Dominion University, ROTC, which at that time was the largest ROTC unit on the East Coast. It was called a consortium. So you had Old Dominion University, Norfolk State, and Hampton University. All three schools had one large ROTC unit. And it was probably the largest unit in the country for the amount of X enlisted because for

• 1:37:37Jason Redman?

  the Seaman Admiral Program or the enlisted commissioning program was one of the other programs. The Marines had MESEP, Medical Enlisted Commissioning Program. So there were multiple programs that because we were all enlisted and lived in the Hampton Roads area, a lot of people came to that. So there were almost at that point 320 midshipmen and officer candidates as part of this unit. And I reported to it in July 2001, checked out a SEAL Team Four.

• 1:38:13Jason Redman?

  I want to back up because I want to tell another story about my level of arrogance. Because, you know, I think some people are like, "Oh, you're really tough on yourself." I'm tough on myself, but I'm also very honest.

• 1:38:25Jason Redman?

  And this final story occurred when I left SEAL Team Four. And I'm kind of ashamed of it, but it's also, I don't pull any punches on who I am or what I've done and mistakes I've made. So, at the end, at SEAL Team Four, when I was in Training Instructor, my commanding officer came to me and said, "Hey,

• 1:38:47Jason Redman?

  risk assessments," back then, I don't know if you remember,

• 1:38:52Jason Redman?

  and it's probably a little bit before your time. Risk assessments were this stupid, complicated thing that, obviously, some officer, probably with an engineering degree, came up with. That, you know, it was like a matrix and, you know, like 2.1 is extremely difficult. And what was happening is guys were just kind of going through the motions of doing these risk assessments. You know, you would have to do them for every evolution, but they were so complicated and a pain in the ass that guys would just gun deck it. So, RCO, who was one of the best leaders, in my opinion, I ever worked for, said, "We need a better system. We need a simple system that just makes guys look at..." And he said, "I want it to work in both training and combat,

• 1:39:38Jason Redman?

  but I want something that is just a step-by-step process that guys can analyze. What are all the big pitfalls, that things we should think about and say, 'Hey, we've checked that box, we've thought about this.'" So he said, "Red, you're a smart guy. Go think about this and come up with something." So, ended up coming up with something called SEVORTEX. And SEVORTEX was an acronym that basically covered every aspect of operation, training, combat, environment, enemy threats, whatever it was out there. And it was just designed, it was a simple acronym-based

• 1:40:17Jason Redman?

  risk assessment tool that you pulled out right before you went out on a training exercise or a combat mission. And you would go through and you would check these things. Then it ended up getting adopted with SEAL Team Four. And later it went on, I think it's used all throughout special operations now, which is pretty incredible. So I got submitted for a Navy Commendation Medal for that. And I was pretty excited. I was like, because I was in E6. Usually E6 didn't get Navy Commendation Medals. Usually got put in for a Navy Achievement Medal. And I was really excited, man. I'm in, you know, I worked hard on this. You know, cool. So, right as I was leaving, I was checking out.

• 1:41:01Jason Redman?

  I was getting that award and they gave me the award and it was a Navy Achievement Medal. And I was like, I didn't say anything at the time. I bottled it up and got the award, said thank you. And I went back into admin to do my final checkouts. And the guy behind the counter was kind of a annoying, kind of annoying guy. And he's like, hey, man, you know, too bad that comm got downgraded, huh? And dude, I snapped in this, you know, arrogance, frustration. I literally had the award in my hand and I fucking slung it at him. And it was like, fuck you and that award. And kind of stormed out of admin. You know, SAG, I got called back in and had to go sit in front of the commanding officer.

• 1:41:46Jason Redman?

  And he was like, you know, I gave you that award. He's like, you might as well have thrown it at me. And he's like, I'm sorry it didn't come in at what you thought it was going to. But, you know, this is what it is, you know? You did a good job. You got recognized. So.

• 1:42:03Jason Redman?

  And I'd love to say that I, you know, that it should have been a wake up moment for me. Like, hey, bro, your ego needs to get back in check. Like, you did a good thing. You got recognized for it. So what it wasn't at what you thought it was going to be. No excuse for that kind of behavior, especially as a young leader. You're going off to be an officer. You can't pull that shit. But I didn't. So, went toe to you.

• 1:42:28Jason Redman?

  Excelled, you know? I got toe to you and there were certain things. One of the things right off the bat, there was, there was clubs for each one of the communities. But it was kind of built around regular Navy. So there was an aviation club, there's submarine club, there's surface warfare club. They had a medical club. I was like, hey, man, where's the special operations club? And they were like, there isn't one. I was like, all right, well, let's fix that. Let's create a club for special operations guys. And we did, um, which was great.

• 1:42:58Shawn Ryan?

  Was it a one man club?

• 1:43:00Jason Redman?

  No, no, we actually, so one, there were quite a few, uh, SEALs that were there.

• 1:43:05Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 1:43:06Jason Redman?

  Yeah, so there were seven of us. Uh, actually, there were more than that. There were nine of us. There were seven of us who were, uh, coming up around the same time. Uh, two of the guys ended up becoming my best friends who are still active duty today. Um, pretty amazing. They're both assuming command this year, which

• 1:43:27Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:43:27Jason Redman?

  I'm excited to go to their change commands. Um, but we created this club. Um,

• 1:43:36Jason Redman?

  uh, but I will say over the three years that we created it and ran it, um, no one went on to be, um, no one went on to a successful career in the SEAL teams. We had one of our guys make it through. And the reason being now I look back on it, we treated those guys like they were SEALs. And I talked to buddies that actually one of the guys who made it through the training. Um, he said, yeah, your guy's good, but he's like, he's super arrogant, which I'm sure, I mean, I was arrogant and I'm sure, I don't know. We didn't treat them like they were students and I think we probably should have. I think that was a mistake we made to get them ready for training because I think a lot of these guys showed up thinking they had already made it.

• 1:44:19Jason Redman?

  And then when they got to training, if they did have the ability, like this one guy, the instructors hated him. They're like, yeah, he acts like he's already a SEAL.

• 1:44:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:29Jason Redman?

  So lesson learned along the way. Um, I ended up, uh, I, I volunteered for every leadership position there was. I ended up, uh, ending up as the battalion commanding officer. So the number one position for the entire battalion, got ranked number one out of, uh, the graduating class. Um, graduated, uh, summa cum laude. So the highest academic standing you can get. And, uh, stepped back, graduated with honors. Um, and came back into the SEAL teams in May of two thousand and four. Um, there's a lot more details to that. I know, you know, we're, we're going kind of long.

• 1:45:15Jason Redman?

  Obviously, nine eleven happened while I was at school.

• 1:45:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I was that was actually, I was gonna ask that.

• 1:45:21Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:22Shawn Ryan?

  That had to be kind of a weird feeling. You're now a college student.

• 1:45:27Jason Redman?

  Super hard.

• 1:45:28Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody you know.

• 1:45:29Jason Redman?

  Was going to war. It actually happened only a couple of months after I'd started school. And I went back to SEAL Team Four, to my old commanding officer, and I said, I'd like to get out of this program. I'd like to come back to the team. And, uh, and, uh, he said, no.

• 1:45:49Jason Redman?

  And prophetically, he said, Red, this war is gonna go on for decades. He said, I guarantee it. He said, go back to school, finish. He said, we're gonna need good leaders. You need to come back and, and be ready. Um, although, young, immature, arrogant. I was like, I don't wanna hear that. I wanna, man, I wanna go. I wanna go fight. Um, but I did. I went back to school and focused and the, the war kinda developed kinda slow. Um, you know, as you well know, cuz you were operating during that time. Oh two, oh three, oh four. Uh, we were seeing combat, but it wasn't super heavy combat. You know, some places were, but really, I think things started to ramp up a lot. Oh four, oh five, oh six, oh seven.

• 1:46:35Jason Redman?

  Um, but I was at school. I got commissioned and was ready to come back. And, you know, I graduated first and all these things and, you know, I think one of the problems with success in young men is it easily, if you're not mature enough or you don't have a good background network or really good mentors, success quickly becomes ego and arrogance.

• 1:47:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:01Jason Redman?

  Uh, you see it a lot in professional sports. Um, I think you see it in special operations.

• 1:47:07Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:47:08Jason Redman?

  Um, and I know I, I, I drank it hook, line and sinker, man. And I came back thinking, I'm gonna be God's gift to the SEAL Team, so I'm gonna be this amazing leader. And, um, and a lot of, I kinda stepped back into a perfect storm when I came back. So several things had happened. The SEAL teams had fundamentally changed since nine eleven. So, prior to nine eleven, we were still operating off a lot of old Vietnam era tactics because that was the last time the SEAL teams had really seen long sustained combat. So even though we've been into some skirmishes, a lot of the lessons learned and a lot of

• 1:47:49Jason Redman?

  the tactics we were using were still based off years of combat in Vietnam. So obviously, when guys got into Iraq and Afghanistan, we quickly realized, hey, man, a lot of things we're doing don't work. We weren't doing a lot of mobility ops, so obviously, we quickly figured out mobility needs to become a part of what we're doing. We need to plus our guys up on close quarters combat and urban operations. Obviously, in Afghanistan, we need to get better at the mountain operations. So, I came back and a lot of the tactics that I had grown up thinking, man, I'm really smart, I've got all this experience, was totally different. Not only that, you know, I was one of the more experienced guys when I left.

• 1:48:33Jason Redman?

  Well, I came back and now I'm stepping into a platoon where half the guys there have combat experience.

• 1:48:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:39Jason Redman?

  And instead of humbling myself and being like, hey, Sean, man, you've got experience, I don't really know how to do this, can you work with me and show me? My ego wouldn't allow that, you know? I was like, hey, man, I, you know, I'm a prior listed guy, like, you know, I'm the man, like, I know how to do this. And I didn't. I was kind of stepping on my dick, frequently making mistakes, which was damaging my confidence, but it was also hurting my credibility. And I, when I was younger, had a bad habit of, when I messed up, to turn inward instead of outward. So, that made me look more aloof, more like, you know, a non-team player.

• 1:49:24Jason Redman?

  On top of that, like we were talking about, when I came into that platoon, I originally was part of SEAL Team Ten Echo Platoon, which was Mike McGreevy's platoon, who I had known Mike from Team Four, phenomenal SEAL, great guy. Man.

• 1:49:44Jason Redman?

  A lot of the guys that I knew from prior Team Four days in my days, which as a young officer, they don't try and do typically with an officer what they want to do. If you were prior enlisted, they typically want to move you to the opposite coast. And it's a smart thing to do because you don't know the guys as much. So.

• 1:50:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I can see how that makes a lot of sense.

• 1:50:06Jason Redman?

  And they didn't do that. The other thing that they do now that they didn't do with us is if you're gone for the community more than two years, they have you go back through an abbreviated SQT. You don't have to do all the shit show stuff that the students are doing, but it's at least getting you back up on track with the newest tactics and stuff. They didn't do that for us either. That probably would have been something good. Because what happened, I stepped back into this platoon with all these guys that I knew, guys that I'd been enlisted with, that I partied with, and what I started doing, started going out and partying with these guys. After a few months, I got moved into Foxtrot Platoon.

• 1:50:47Jason Redman?

  Foxtrot had a very young OIC and had a more senior chief, who was a really good SEAL, but he definitely was, he could be a bull in a china shop.

• 1:51:01Shawn Ryan?

  Why did you get moved?

• 1:51:03Jason Redman?

  Because of that reason.

• 1:51:04Shawn Ryan?

  You got moved because of the junior OIC?

• 1:51:06Jason Redman?

  Because of the leadership. That's what they told me.

• 1:51:08Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:51:10Jason Redman?

  So I got moved in this new, and me and the chief, we butted heads right from the beginning. I, I think he probably wanted an ensign that just kept his mouth shut and said, Roger that, chief. I wasn't that guy. So frequently, I didn't always agree with the way he did things, so we would butt heads, which created tremendous amount of friction. And unfortunately, it created a lot of dysfunction in the platoon. The OIC.

• 1:51:42Jason Redman?

  You know, tried to balance that and but frequently what would happen is the chief would come to him and be like Redmond's a problem. I'd come to the OIC and say the chief's a problem. But I was also a problem. You know, I really was because I was struggling with the tactics, fucking drinking like a fish, kind of ostracizing myself because I'm in my own head on not doing well, plus these relationship bullshit issues that are going on. So, all of that was damaging my credibility, you know, as a young leader.

• 1:52:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:17Jason Redman?

  I didn't realize it was as bad as it was. When we got tasked to deploy, we were told, hey, Echo Platoon is going to Afghanistan first. So, we were all bummed about that. We wanted to be the first ones into combat. And Foxtrot Platoon, you guys are going to Germany. And then, you know, we were doing what was called the RIP back then, rotate in place. So, one group would do half the combat tour, and then the other group, they would rotate. So, Echo Platoon in the middle of deployment would go to Germany and we

• 1:52:57Jason Redman?

  would rotate into Afghanistan. So, I remember when we got chosen to go to Germany first, everybody was upset and we were trying to figure out why. And there were several reasons. I won't, I won't sling mud at anybody else, but one of the reasons was Redmond's a drunk.

• 1:53:22Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. You found that out?

• 1:53:26Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:27Shawn Ryan?

  How did that feel?

• 1:53:29Jason Redman?

  Uh, it hurt, but my ego would not allow it at that time. I was still too arrogant, like, fuck you.

• 1:53:38Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:53:38Jason Redman?

  And that's kind of the mindset that I had.

• 1:53:41Shawn Ryan?

  How did that affect, did, did the team know that that was part of it?

• 1:53:44Jason Redman?

  Dude, my relationship unfortunately at that point probably wasn't that great.

• 1:53:49Shawn Ryan?

  With any of the team?

• 1:53:50Jason Redman?

  There were a lot of guys that didn't care for me. I mean, come on. If, to be a good leader, you need to step up and be a good leader. And if you're not a good leader, you well know in the SEAL teams, like, we're not going to give you much of the time of day.

• 1:54:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:03Jason Redman?

  Like I said, ego and arrogance, so. You know, the, the fuck you, I'm gonna keep driving attitude is good, but sometimes, you know, sometimes you need to take a step back and say, why is this happening?

• 1:54:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:14Jason Redman?

  And I'd yet to do that. So, um, so we, um, we were gearing up, we did our, we did our Germany deployment and, you know, I, I continued to just drink like a fish while we were over there and continued to do shit that just hurt my reputation. Um, um, you know, train, you know, we did, you know, I still, hey, man, I'm gonna try and do the best I can to train and, and do what needs to be done, but, um, so we were getting ready to, uh, you know, we were only like a week away from, you know, we had packed everything up and we're only about a week away from rotating into Afghanistan and Echo was gonna come back.

• 1:54:58Shawn Ryan?

  Just backtracking real quick, I'm just curious.

• 1:55:02Jason Redman?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:55:03Shawn Ryan?

  If you don't wanna answer, that's fine, but if you're in a platoon, I mean, and then, and I remember how war, like, everybody wanted to, I mean, you don't become a SEAL to go to Germany.

• 1:55:16Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:17Shawn Ryan?

  You know, you've become a SEAL, no matter how much you like the party, to go to, to fucking war. And so to get that explanation of we're not going to Afghanistan first because Redman is a drunk.

• 1:55:33Jason Redman?

  I wasn't the only reason. There were, there were other reasons. I'm not gonna sling mud at the other people.

• 1:55:39Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:55:39Jason Redman?

  There, there were other reasons why. I was told that the decision was.

• 1:55:43Shawn Ryan?

  Then you go to Germany and you're still boozing, who, who are you boozing with?

• 1:55:49Jason Redman?

  Guys in the platoon.

• 1:55:51Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:55:52Jason Redman?

  Yeah, I had friends.

• 1:55:53Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:55:54Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:55Shawn Ryan?

  So you did have.

• 1:55:56Jason Redman?

  Yeah, I mean, I had friends in the platoon. I mean. I I am hard on myself, so it probably wasn't quite as bad sometimes as I make it out to be.

• 1:56:03Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:56:04Jason Redman?

  Although hindsight's always 2020, and you well know, the little things add up to become big things.

• 1:56:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:09Jason Redman?

  And um, and they did, they totally added up to become a big thing when the, when the axe finally fell. But no, because I think all of us were, we wanted to be in Afghanistan. Yeah, we all wanted to be in the fight and uh, you know, we were obviously, you know, staying on, tracking what Echo Platoon was doing on a regular basis. Uh, we did different exercises while we were over there. We did training while we were over there. Uh, but a lot of times we were on standby. So what do you do when you're on standby? We're allowed to drink.

• 1:56:45Shawn Ryan?

  Did you get any leadership training?

• 1:56:47Jason Redman?

  So the OIC would try and talk to me. Uh, I didn't listen. And believe it or not, the chief tried to talk to me a couple of times, uh, and I sure didn't listen to him. You know, I had my walls up. Uh, so I was, uh, you know, we, we had, we had, you know, he, he tried to tell me and give me good advice. Hey, man, you need to cut back on the drinking. If you're gonna go out with the boys, you should have a couple of drinks and then you should leave. And he's right. It's the advice I give to guys now. You know, you, if you're a leader, if you really want to burn it down, you need to go do it in a uh, a protected place. You know, you really, you really can't do that in front of, you know, with the guys, unfortunately.

• 1:57:27Shawn Ryan?

  I found that out the hard way running business.

• 1:57:29Jason Redman?

  Yeah, it is. It's true. There is a, there is, no matter how much people say they want their leaders to be friends, at the end of the day, they want you to be a leader more than a friend.

• 1:57:39Shawn Ryan?

  It doesn't work. Yeah.

• 1:57:40Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:40Shawn Ryan?

  Does not work.

• 1:57:41Jason Redman?

  So, um, so yeah, man, it was my own ego, arrogance, stubbornness, all of it. You know, all of it kind of led me, um, to, to kind of the final point.

• 1:57:57Jason Redman?

  So a week before we were leaving, uh, we got word that a helicopter had been shot down and that uh, we had not heard anything from any of the guys. Um, we had heard that, um, you know, that the team had been on the ground. And dude, we were waiting just, just like anybody else.

• 1:58:22Jason Redman?

  I don't know, maybe after a day or two. Or maybe it was a day later. Obviously not in the news. Marcus's survival radio pinged. So that was kind of the first news and they started tracking that. A couple of our guys, including our chief, flew over there immediately. The rest of us continued to get all our gear together to get ready to go. Because now we were accelerating like, hey, we're going to be leaving earlier.

• 1:58:55Jason Redman?

  Got word a few days later that, you know, everybody on the helicopter had been killed. So Mike McGreevy.

• 1:59:07Jason Redman?

  The guys who were part of our troop was Mike McGreevy, Jeff Lucas, Jeff Fontaine.

• 1:59:14Jason Redman?

  I'm sorry, Jacques Fontaine, Jeff Taylor and Eric Christiansen. So who was my troop commander.

• 1:59:24Jason Redman?

  So.

• 1:59:27Jason Redman?

  And they had recovered Marcus and they had recovered Danny Dietz and Mike Murphy's bodies. And they had flown them back to Lawnstool. So myself and a couple of other guys drove up to Lawnstool to see those guys. And a couple of the guys from Echo Platoon were there and we talked to them. Just kind of heard. I met Marcus for the first time. I saw Danny and Mike's bodies in the plane and we relieved the guys for a while so they could go get some food. Who were escorting the bodies home. And then we drove back from Lawnstool that night.

• 2:00:09Jason Redman?

  And I think the next day or day after that, we flew to Afghanistan. Recovery operations were still underway for acts.

• 2:00:19Jason Redman?

  And about that time, you know, maybe a day or two after we'd been there, they found Ax and recovered him, brought him back. And like, the first thing we did while we were in Afghanistan was the memorial ceremony for all these guys we lost. We did the ramp ceremony for Ax, and then we did the full-blown memorial ceremony for the 11 SEALs we lost out of, you know, all these guys that I had served with. And that was, that was pretty eye-opening. Like, this shit's for real.

• 2:00:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:00:54Jason Redman?

  That was kinda, you know, aside from Columbia, this was my first introduction to combat, and it's buried 11.

• 2:01:04Shawn Ryan?

  SEALs.

• 2:01:04Jason Redman?

  Yeah, 11 SEALs.

• 2:01:07Jason Redman?

  So, you know, started driving forward on that deployment, and we, we wanted payback, all of us. We were like, man, we want to get out into the fight. But we, we were really stalled. There were political things that were happening in Afghanistan in 2005. A lot of the senior leadership at the political level, things were slowing down a bit, and there were leaders who felt like, hey, let's not, let's not stir the pot, let's not poke the hornet's nest, let's, you know, let's try and let things settle. So they didn't really want a lot of

• 2:01:47Jason Redman?

  operations occurring. So we weren't really allowed to go out. One of the turnover ops we had was for a senior Taliban leader who had been rocketing the Bagram camp.

• 2:02:00Shawn Ryan?

  Before we go into that, what was that turnover, I mean?

• 2:02:03Jason Redman?

  It was tough, man. Those guys were-

• 2:02:05Shawn Ryan?

  Was anybody still there?

• 2:02:07Jason Redman?

  Yeah, Echo, so-

• 2:02:10Jason Redman?

  So what happened when, um, when the QRF launch for Red Wings, um, you had Echo Platoon there, but it was also a conglomerate, it was also add-ons from SDV Team One and SDV Team Two that made up that reconnaissance element that Mike Murphy, Danny Dietz, Axe, and Marcus were a part of. So some of those guys who were there, um, you know, they, they wanted to be on that QRF, which was, um, Dan Healy, James, um, Shane Patton. I think

• 2:02:51Jason Redman?

  that was it. The rest of the guys were, were ours. Um, so everybody else was on the other helicopter. So when they flew in, you know, sometimes I talk about the fact that, you know, one of the lessons learned, there were a lot of lessons learned that came out of Red Wings. Um, but one of the lessons learned was the, um, when the Quick Reaction Force was launched, when Mike Murphy finally got that SatCom call, um, you know, they were like, we gotta go immediately, like as quickly as possible. So, um, you know, and, and no,

• 2:03:35Jason Redman?

  you know, backseat quarterback, whatever, who knows what would have or could have happened. But, I mean, fact is the MH47s, the Chinooks fly faster than the Apaches. And they outflew the Apaches, the gunship escorts, um, to come in there. So that's not SOP, you know, we should, you know, obviously we want to let the gunships go in first and hopefully clear anything, especially after something hot like that happens. But I think those guys were like, we have to get there as fast as possible. So who knows, who knows what would have happened. But, um, the rest of Echo Platoon was in the other helicopter and literally

• 2:04:14Jason Redman?

  watched out the window as that, uh, as, as that helicopter got shot down. And they wanted to be put down immediately. They were like, put us the fuck down. And, uh, headquarters said, no, absolutely not, you know, get the fuck out of there. So I think that really... Messed with those guys. I mean, they, they, uh, they were really struggling, needless to say, when we got there.

• 2:04:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:41Jason Redman?

  I think all of us were, you know, and we wanted to get back out. We wanted to get at it. Uh, and I think our, you know, the leadership definitely recognized that. Um, but we, you know, weren't really, we kept submitting missions and we weren't allowed. Finally, the very first mission we did was going after this senior Taliban commander. And, um, and we submitted to go in nighttime operation, fast rope, breaching, dual compound. And, uh, finally got approval to do this. We'd probably been there a month by the time we finally got approved, the very first mission we did. So we, we flew in, landed, um, uh,

• 2:05:24Jason Redman?

  moved up to the target. Uh, first time ever, I think I probably got a, a TBI that night. Um, when we breached, uh, the building that I was going into was kinda, it was kinda this building was this way at a T and our building was this way. So when that breach went off, man, they, their breach, they clacked it off probably a couple of seconds before ours. So we got, we got the full blast of the breach. And I remember, I remember making that entry, like seeing stars, like, you know. Um, but we went in, um, took down the target. The guy ended up being there, captured him. Um, we had vehicles that had come from

• 2:06:06Jason Redman?

  base that came in after the target was secure and locked down the target. The, um,

• 2:06:11Shawn Ryan?

  Was there any engagements or was it?

• 2:06:13Jason Redman?

  Not yet.

• 2:06:14Shawn Ryan?

  Not yet?

• 2:06:15Jason Redman?

  Um, no, it was all pretty quiet. Um, what, so one of the political things that was occurring was the local tribes were basically saying, hey, we don't want the Americans just to come into our village. The village elders were saying, you need to notify us 24 hours in advance if you're going to come into our village and take down a building, which of course, okay, yeah, then the guy's gonna be gone. So.

• 2:06:40Jason Redman?

  Word spread that we were there, obviously, and this large crowd started to develop around the building as the sun is rising and we're processing people. And, um, and the village elder came up and he talked to our XO, the executive officer of Team Ten, flew in to take, um, Eric Christensen's place. So, our XO was the ground force commander for that mission. And he's basically talking to the village elder and the village elder's like, we should have been notified and, um, everybody's all up in arms and angry. And, uh, basically, things are starting to implode.

• 2:07:21Jason Redman?

  Uh, you know, we're basically getting enough of a crowd that a riot's about ready to occur. So, um, they basically said, and I was, as part of the SSE, kind of assistant SSE commander, I think. So, um, uh, basically, they said, take the prisoners, bring the helo in, secure that LZ and fly out of here. So, we loaded them on the helicopter and we flew back to Bagram. So, the guys still on the ground were basically evacing when gunfire started to erupt and little shootout occurred and they drove away. Nobody was shot or anything, but, you know, things were now really tense and hot.

• 2:08:03Jason Redman?

  So, this crowd followed, um, the group back to Bagram and basically rioted outside the gates. They're like trying to tear the gates down. So, this leader, um, this Taliban leader apparently was friends with Karzai. So, obviously, his network of people call and say, hey, the Americans arrested your buddy.

• 2:08:25Shawn Ryan?

  Karzai is the president of Afghanistan at the time, for those that don't know.

• 2:08:28Jason Redman?

  Thank you. Um, so, you know, runs up the flagpole and even though we found, uh, IED-making equipment, we found explosives, we found all this stuff, mortar equipment, you know, the, you know, this guy had been accused of launching mortars into, uh, Bagram and we found all this stuff. Um, yeah, it went up the chain of command and, uh, and within 24 hours, he was released. And on top of that, we came to find out-

• 2:08:57Shawn Ryan?

  Are you shitting me? They've released him?

• 2:09:00Jason Redman?

  Released all of them. All ten guys who were bad.

• 2:09:04Shawn Ryan?

  This is the kind of shit that makes me wonder what the fuck we were ever doing there in the first place.

• 2:09:09Jason Redman?

  Yep, so we risked our life for this mission.

• 2:09:15Jason Redman?

  To have this guy released because of political shit. And then on top of that, what happened unbeknownst to us.

• 2:09:23Jason Redman?

  So the general in charge of Afghanistan at that time had apparently put out an order a week, maybe two weeks prior to this mission, that there would be no more nighttime breaching, fast roping operations without his direct approval. And apparently he was on leave and it made it up the chain of command and got approved without his approval. Well, I think because of the political blowout from this mission, he was furious. And we basically got put in hack. You know, like, you know, our XO had to go report and got his ass chewed and and we were not allowed to operate.

• 2:10:06Jason Redman?

  We, I mean, for two months, we sat in Afghanistan and every mission we'd submit was denied.

• 2:10:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, we relieved you guys and same shit happened to us.

• 2:10:18Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:20Shawn Ryan?

  And then we went south.

• 2:10:23Jason Redman?

  That's what we did. We left and went down to Kandahar.

• 2:10:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:27Jason Redman?

  Kandahar was kind of where I got myself in trouble. Was kind of the final nail for me as a young leader and where I started to reinvent myself. We went down to Kandahar and started conducting operations down there. And on September 23rd, we ended up doing a a take, a large takedown of this really big valley that every time

• 2:10:52Jason Redman?

  American aircraft flew over that valley, they would get fired upon. Which was pretty unusual. Most of the time Taliban were smart enough to like, hey, we're not going to fire an aircraft because you guys will come in and just blow us away. But these guys in this valley, for whatever reason, were pretty brazen and were just like, don't come into our valley. So they were like, we want you guys to go in and flush out this valley. So it was us and the Canadians that went in and we basically locked this valley down. We landed guys on the, the valley ran north, south and on the eastern ridge line and western ridge line, kind of high ground that went down in between, probably 2,000 yards apart between these two ridge lines, probably ran about a mile.

• 2:11:36Jason Redman?

  And then it teed and there was a northern ridge line wall down there and we put people on that northern ridge line wall. And then we inserted an assault troop that basically swept through from the south to the north, down through the valley and, you know, just kind of pushing with us in an overwatch position. So I was in charge of an overwatch team on the eastern side, a sniper team, a javelin team and a machine gun team. And we inserted early in the morning, you know, 4 a.m. or so. And right off the bat, there was some skirmish gunfire that occurred. And, and then as the sun rose, it got real quiet. There was nothing.

• 2:12:18Jason Redman?

  Started seeing all kinds of activity, signs that the enemy had been there, we were identifying caves as the guys continued to push through the valley. Got, we had a hard extract time of, I don't know, right before the sunset or something. So they were like, you have to be done by this time because the aircraft were all stacked up for all their missions. So they're like, in order for us to pick you up, you have to be ready to go and extracted by this time. So it's late in the day, it's like 4 p.m. We're like, all right, let's, let's finish our push and we're gonna have to wrap this up. When the guys on the ground in the valley, they had at this point made it right to that

• 2:12:59Jason Redman?

  T intersection at the north side of the valley. And as they made that turn, they ran into Taliban fighters and they started to get into a pretty good gunfight. They turned and started to push and they found, you know, quite a few fighting positions in a rather large Taliban force.

• 2:13:19Jason Redman?

  Some of the guys had started to fall back towards the extract point. So because of the, I mean, it was probably at least a thousand, 2,000 feet down in the valley below the ridge line. So the guys that had moved back no longer had positive communications with the guys on the ground. I was still forward with our team and we had good comms. So I'm now relaying between the guys on the ground and headquarters, which is back behind us, which was our XO and my chief, who we did not get along with, my senior chief at this point. So at one point, guys get into big gunfight and the, my OIC who was down there basically called back and said, hey, we need

• 2:14:04Jason Redman?

  immediate reinforcements. So this is where ego arrogance and really I wanted to get in the fight. I mean, that's, that's the pure truth of the story. And that's a really dangerous thing, you know, if you don't really think through that. I mean, it's one thing if you want to get in the fight and everything's lined up and you should be. It's another thing if you don't think through it. I didn't really think through it. I was just like, fuck it. I'll be the cavalry. You know, let's go. They need reinforcements. I'm the closest one. I got comms. Let's go. So I told our machine gunner, I said, hey, you and me, we're going down there. We're gonna go support these guys. Cause already our snipers and the, the guys with the javelin had

• 2:14:45Jason Redman?

  moved back. So it was just him and I forward because we were doing the comms relay. So I called back and told my senior chief what we were doing and he was like, fuck, no, do not do that. And I was like, fuck you. And went, dropped down into that valley. And as soon as we dropped off, we lost all comms. So here we are moving down into this steep valley, into this unknown position. You know, we got guys in a gunfight. We're now an unknown maneuvering force. It was a terrible, terrible decision on my part. And we're super lucky. We're super lucky that we

• 2:15:26Jason Redman?

  did not encounter Taliban forces on the way down that didn't smoke check us or, you know, some cave that I didn't even notice that we get down below and they just kind of smoke checked us without us ever even seeing them. So.

• 2:15:41Jason Redman?

  We, we finally get down to the bottom and I'm, you know, trying to maneuver and the comms come back up. And at this point, they're like screaming into the radio like, where the fuck are you? I'm like, I'm down in the bottom of the valley. And they're like, we are trying to call in an airstrike. We don't know where you are. Get your ass out of the valley right the fuck now. So I kind of realized, oh, I think I fucked up. And I said, hey, we gotta get out of here. So scampered back up the north side of the valley, um, got up. One of the helicopters picked us up. In that time that they recovered us and knew where they

• 2:16:21Jason Redman?

  were, they called in an airstrike on this large fighting position that the Taliban were fighting on, dropped a whole bunch of bombs on that. They had, uh, one Afghan commando that had been shot up. So they got him medevaced out. Our guys were okay, but they, they, everybody kind of reconstituted on the north side of the valley at this point. But at this point, now it's late. So we've missed our extract. On top of that, uh, the, the, on the way the helicopters were in, one of our helicopters got shot down.

• 2:16:53Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 2:16:54Jason Redman?

  So we lost, um, one of the helos on top of this restricted airflow. So they were like, hey, guys, you're there for the next several days.

• 2:17:04Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:17:05Jason Redman?

  So we-

• 2:17:07Shawn Ryan?

  How long had that gunfight been going on?

• 2:17:09Jason Redman?

  All, I mean, I mean, it probably lasted four or five hours, I would say.

• 2:17:13Shawn Ryan?

  So did you guys even have, I mean, obviously a lot of ammo had been expended.

• 2:17:17Jason Redman?

  Only, only, only the guys down in the valley didn't have ammo. The rest of us, obviously, reconstitute, but I, when I got to the top of that valley, dude, like the cold, like guys looked at me like, what the fuck is your problem?

• 2:17:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:33Jason Redman?

  And I think-

• 2:17:36Jason Redman?

  I knew, like, yeah, fucked up. But, once again, you go on arrogance. Um, so, when I got up there, the XL came to me, and I was like, "What the fuck were you doing?" And I was like, "What do you mean, what am I doing?" I was running. I was running to support guys. I went down to support guys. Guys were in trouble, I went to support them. He's like, "You had no fucking clue. We're trying to bring in an airstrike, and I can't call it in, because, you know, we don't know where you are." So... So, yeah, three nights. We slept on that mountaintop. The next day, guys went down and did a BDA. We, we, um, you know, we had killed quite a few guys. Uh, an interesting story. I was in an overwatch position. I don't think anybody wanted me walking with them.

• 2:18:21Jason Redman?

  Um, but I was in an overwatch position as guys pushed down into the valley to do the BDA. And one of the interesting things, um, the, uh, two things happened, which I thought were rather interesting. One, um, one of the bombs, 500-pound bombs they dropped, was a dud. And it, it hit the ground and skipped. And a Taliban fighter had been shot and was trying to crawl away. And the bomb hit a fucking tree and crushed this tree down on this dude that was trying to, trying to crawl away. So, fucking karma got him in the end, uh, anyways. Uh, and then the other thing, they found another wounded guy, and we ended up calling in a medevac

• 2:19:07Jason Redman?

  for this wounded Taliban fighter. And, uh, you know, all these people that want to downplay the US and say, "Oh, we're such terrible people." And I'm like, "You know what, man? I watched as we risked major lives. I mean, this, this Blackhawk had to fly down into this valley. Dude, there were at least five, 600 yards of cliffs on either side. Anyone with an RPG could have fired it down into that rotor and taken that helicopter out. But we took the time to risk to save this guy. You know, because that's how we follow the rules of engagement. We, you know? So, those were the two things that kind of occurred, aside from me stewing with...

• 2:19:51Jason Redman?

  I think you really fucked up. Um, we got back and my XO pulled me aside and was like, you're fucking out of here. I'm sending you back to Bagram to meet with the commanding officer.

• 2:20:02Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:20:04Jason Redman?

  And that, uh, is probably, I think at that point, I realized how much. And so if you think about it, ego and arrogance, you know, we say, hey, we all drank. But all that adds up.

• 2:20:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:18Jason Redman?

  All that adds up. And if you continue to make poor decisions and you don't fix yourself, at some point, there's going to be a big one that they say, all right, no more. My big one occurred on that mission. And the guys were like, we don't want to work with him. They were calling me Ranger Red. You know, I'm sorry, they were calling me, uh, Ranger Red was my name before that. They were calling me Rambo Red.

• 2:20:42Jason Redman?

  Uh, Rambo Red, which, uh, you know, for those who think that's a cool thing, it's not.

• 2:20:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:47Jason Redman?

  You know, uh, SEAL teams are about teamwork and Rambo is not. And I basically showed that at that time, I really wasn't. So, um,

• 2:20:57Shawn Ryan?

  That's fucking tough.

• 2:20:58Jason Redman?

  Oh dude, well, I flew back to Bagram. And, uh, I was like, I guess my career is over.

• 2:21:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:21:06Jason Redman?

  And, um, had to report to my commanding officer that night. I remember standing in front of him with the command mass chief and several other of the senior leaders who were back at the, uh, TALK, the Tactical Operations Center, headquarters in Bagram. And, uh,

• 2:21:23Jason Redman?

  it was a, uh, pretty, uh, animated conversation. I think the guys flew home a couple of days later and then we all met. And, uh, yeah, it was an animated conversation, like, he's dangerous. He's gonna get fucking people killed. Um, and, and finally my CO kind of stopped it and was like, enough. Like, hey, Red, go back to your room.

• 2:21:46Jason Redman?

  Uh, they were talking about Trident Review Board. They were talking about taking my Trident. Um, so went back to my room in Bagram and, and, and, uh,

• 2:21:57Jason Redman?

  um, yeah, I, uh, I, I pulled my pistol out. I said, I was sitting in my room and I put my pistol in my mouth and I was gonna fucking blow my head off, cause I,

• 2:22:09Jason Redman?

  lowest I've ever been. I, uh, none of my friends that I had would talk to me. No one. Uh,

• 2:22:19Jason Redman?

  And, uh, yeah, I mean, you know how hard it is to, to become a SEAL in this job, to be told you don't measure up, to be told, you know, you're dangerous, to be told you don't earn, you don't, you, you, you, you don't, you don't deserve to wear that emblem. That was tough. So I, um, so anyways, you know, fucking getting ready to shoot myself. And, um, um, I don't know, something stopped me. I, uh, I had the gun in my mouth and I looked across at the desk and there was a picture of my wife and my kids.

• 2:22:55Jason Redman?

  Uh, my son was, uh, five and my oldest daughter was three and my youngest was one. No. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Five, three, one. So, um, and like, someone was like, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing? Like, like, what are you doing? Like, what kind of message is this gonna send to them? So I put my gun away and I went and, uh, found the special operations chaplain on the base and talked to him. And, uh, and he was a good dude and he was like, all right, so let me get this straight.

• 2:23:37Jason Redman?

  You fucked up. He's like, you know, you're, you're, they haven't told you what they're gonna do yet. You know, they're gonna tell you tomorrow morning, right? I was like, yeah. He's like, but you were gonna kill yourself tonight. I was like, yeah. He's like, seems a little premature, doesn't it? I'm like, yeah. So he's like, why don't you wait, wait till you find out what they say? And then, uh, and then you can come back and see me. So went back the next morning and, uh, basically my CO, which, you know, thankfully, kind of saved my career, you know, he basically said, hey, Red, you're a good SEAL. You're arrogant. You know, you sometimes do things that make us question you.

• 2:24:22Jason Redman?

  He said, uh, so here's what's gonna happen. We're not gonna take your try on it.

• 2:24:27Jason Redman?

  He said, "Three things are gonna happen. Number one, any of the awards you got from this deployment are gone. You won't receive a single award from this deployment." He said, "Number two, we've written this letter to reprimand." He said, "If this was to go in your officer record, it would end your career. It would be over. You'd never make the next rank." He said, "It's not gonna go in your record. Instead, it's gonna go in my safe in the commanding officer's office. The new commanding officer that turns over will get it." He said, "You're gonna do another tour as assistant platoon commander. If you do a great job," which I know you will, he said, "this letter gets shredded." He said, "If you don't do a good job, this will go into your officer record and it'll end your career." And he said, "And we're gonna send you to US Army Ranger School."

• 2:25:11Jason Redman?

  He said, "I think Ranger School would be good for you. He said, "I think you need to be humbled, and I think it'd be a good opportunity." So I left that meeting, and I'd like to tell you that I walked out of there like, "Yes, I dodged a bullet," but I didn't.

• 2:25:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:24Jason Redman?

  I was still bitter. I felt like a victim. And that's why I talk about the victim mindset, you know? It was like the world was against me. Like, "Hey, I did things right, and you guys are just throwing me under the bus."

• 2:25:37Shawn Ryan?

  If you were that commanding officer looking back, what would you have done?

• 2:25:40Jason Redman?

  I would've fucking gotten rid of me. Then I sold my career to him. And then there's another point that I'll tell you even deeper, because I continued to dig my hole.

• 2:25:53Shawn Ryan?

  Jesus Christ, dude.

• 2:25:55Jason Redman?

  Dude, I'm a slow learner and dumb and hard-headed, you know? And finally, I kinda grew up. So, went home. I learned, you know, I learned even though, so, I learned at the very end before we were flying home that the guys had voted on who they wanted to serve as their next OIC chief, stuff like that, and like, guys had written on there, "I do not want to serve with Redmond." You know, which, that hurt, but I was just kinda like, "Fuck off." Got home, went home in October, and just had a chip on my shoulder and was bitter,

• 2:26:36Jason Redman?

  and just fucking drank myself. You know, basically, I should've been enjoying my time with my family and just drank. Scheduled to go to Ranger School in February, and so I left in February and checked into Ranger School.

• 2:26:55Jason Redman?

  I had a major chip on my shoulder. I was angry about being there. And I also underestimated, you know, I was like, hey, I'm a SEAL. You know, this school will be easy. Ranger School is no joke. It's not as hard as SEAL training. A lot of people want to know that. It's not as hard, but Ranger School is no joke. It's a legit, it is a hard school.

• 2:27:16Jason Redman?

  And I checked into it thinking I was gonna kick it in the ass and right off the bat, I'm like, wow, this is no joke. This is tough. Um, so on day four of Ranger School, you know, I think I started February 3rd or 4th, so February 7th or 8th.

• 2:27:33Jason Redman?

  We had the land nav course and I taught land nav when I was an instructor. It's part of what base school for that was the other thing I taught. And I prided myself on being a really good navigator. And uh, so I'm like, this will be easy.

• 2:27:51Jason Redman?

  Got uh, started this course and the instructors were basically like, dude, it was like freezing. It was like 20 degrees. And the instructors are like, no jackets, no hats, you know, you're taking all this shit off. You know, coming from the teams, it's like, hey, you know, big boy rules apply. And I, dude, I don't know why I just had such a bad attitude. Like it just set me off. I was fucking furious. On top of the fact, the Ranger instructors didn't really care for me. Uh, so I got a lot of grief for being there. Uh, all the time, you know, I was the only SEAL in the class. Um, so between that and this, you know, you know, freeze your ass off. Let's go.

• 2:28:33Jason Redman?

  So they inserted us for this course. It's like 4am and I'm like, fuck it, man. I'll wait till the sun rises. I'm not gonna go running through the dark. You know, I know that I'm a good enough navigator that I'll, I'll knock out all six points in the time I have. Well, sun rose. I finally started navigating. I ran out of time. I failed.

• 2:28:54Jason Redman?

  So I failed and checking in, the instructors are totally heckling me like, "Oh, you're the Navy SEAL. You know, you failed the course. It's not surprising you guys can't navigate. You guys suck, you know? If we'd given you a boat, you probably would have made it." And I lost it. I was like, "Fuck you guys, you know? You can take this course and shove it up your ass." And they were like, "Are you quitting?" I was like, "Fuck yeah, I'm done." So they were like, "Roger that." So they loaded me in a van and took me back to headquarters. And they were like, "You have to see the Ranger Colonel before you check out."

• 2:29:35Jason Redman?

  So, um... Turns out I couldn't see the Colonel till the next morning. So, um, I remember calling my wife that night and I was like, "I think, I think my career is over." Um, huh, I was like, "I think I fucked up too much." So, uh, I was like, "Yeah, there's no way they're gonna allow me to stay." Um, you know, I mean, I said, "But I guess for the good news, I'm coming home." I said, "I'm coming home." I said, "I'll probably be home tomorrow, the next day." I said, "I gotta go see the Colonel in the morning." That night, dude, I couldn't sleep at all. I was so ashamed of myself.

• 2:30:20Jason Redman?

  Like, we don't quit anything, you know? I was like, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" And, uh... So the next day, I went and saw the Colonel. And, uh, and I basically laid out this sob story that I was a victim. I got thrown under the bus and all this bullshit, this lies that I'd been telling myself to try and, I don't know, appease my ego and make me, myself feel good or whatever it is. And the Colonel listened, his name's KK Chin. He went on to become a two-star general and retired. I reached, I found him and reached out to him and, and years later. But he listened and he was like, you know, he said, "I think you need to talk to somebody in your community." And I was like, "I don't want to talk to anybody."

• 2:31:05Jason Redman?

  Like, I was so ashamed. I didn't want to tell anybody what I had done. Like, dude, just process me out of the military and let me go on my way. And he said, "No, no, no, no." He said, "I've got a good friend. He's a really respected SEAL leader. He's like dialing the phone. And I think you should talk to him." And, and, and I won't give his real name. I promise him I never would. But in the book, I call him Vince Peterson. Probably one of the more respected SEAL leaders that are out there. And, and if it would have been anyone, I wouldn't have talked to anyone else other than him. But he was my commanding officer who recommended me for a commission when I was at Team Four.

• 2:31:46Jason Redman?

  He was my commanding officer who I went and saw after 9/11, who said, "Hey, stay in this program. This war is going to last for decades." I would have followed that guy anywhere, anywhere. And he was the only guy. God works in incredible ways. This is where I sometimes, when I, when I struggle with my faith, I'm like, dude, sometimes things, it's impossible for things to happen this way if it wasn't, unless someone was making it happen. Because I'm not kidding you, there's no one I would have talked to. And, and he handed me that phone and was like, "Hey, you know, Captain Vince Peterson." And I got the phone and, and basically, he was like, "Red, what are you doing?"

• 2:32:31Jason Redman?

  And I was like, "Ah, you know, I screwed up. I got thrown under the bus, all these different things." And he was like, "Have you ever thought about that maybe this is an opportunity?" He's like, "Maybe this is an opportunity. Maybe you can learn something from this down at Ranger School." And I was like, I don't know. He's like, I said, I feel like I've messed up too much. You know, I don't know if the guys will ever follow me again. And, uh, and he gave me the leadership advice, which has now become the foundational level of everything that I teach in leadership. And he said, Red, guys will follow you if you give them a reason to. He said, that's, that's leadership. He said, so go back to that course, kick it in the ass, come back to the SEAL teams and give the guys a reason to follow you.

• 2:33:17Jason Redman?

  And, uh, I was like, and then he said, cause if you don't, he said, I'll have you out of the Navy in less than 24 hours. And he said, and what are you going to do to take care of your family if that occurs? He said, I know you can do this. Go back and finish this course.

• 2:33:34Jason Redman?

  So I hung up and I asked the Colonel, I said, hey, would you put me back in my class? And he was like, nope. He's like, absolutely not. He said, once you're out of your class, you're out of your class. He said, so you're going to go sit in Ranger School jail. Uh, for the next month. He said, no, I'll, I'll let you get back into the next class. But for the next month, won't you think about everything? So for a month, that next month, man, I was locked down at Fort Benning. And I walked around Fort Benning with a stick and a bag and I picked up trash.

• 2:34:09Jason Redman?

  Fucking 13 year SEAL, 28 years old, combat, picking up trash. And, uh, but it was what I needed. Cause for the first time in my life, I finally came to grips with, dude, why are you here? Cause of you. All of this has been you. It's been poor decision making. It's been not acting like a leader.

• 2:34:37Jason Redman?

  Yeah. You know, you want to make yourself a victim? Yeah, it's bullshit. You did this to yourself. So for the first time, I think I started to really come to grips over that next month, man. I started reading a lot, all the books I could find on leadership. I started focusing on, hey, man, you are gonna have to crush this course. And this is gonna be a hard road. And it was. And so it became my goal to become the Honorable Man of that Ranger School class. And, and came into it that next time around, man, just gangbusters. I had an awesome Ranger buddy. He was a Sergeant First Class, and funny as shit. We really connected. And I told him my whole story, how I got myself in trouble. So frequently,

• 2:35:22Jason Redman?

  when we'd be going through hard evolutions, I'd be like, why am I here? And he'd be like, cuz you fucked up. And I'd be like, Roger that. So, but we would, we would just grind, man. And I'll be honest, I actually enjoyed it. I actually enjoyed it. Because I grew up finally. And I think finally, you know, I mean, nothing's perfect. No road's ever perfect. But, you know, I had ups and downs. But figured it out. I didn't, I learned about three quarters of the way in the course, that if you get rolled, you can't be Honorable Man. So you can only, you can only be Honorable Man if you go through one shot. So I graduated high. I don't know if I would have been Honorable Man or not. I don't know. But, but still

• 2:36:06Jason Redman?

  finished strong, and came back to the SEAL teams and stepped in knowing it was gonna be a big uphill battle. Like, I walked in, I got assigned to a new troop. And I remember the first day I walked in, man, the guys were sitting there. And dude, the second I walked in, man, it went silent. And dude, just guys were looking at me like, get the fuck out. And I felt like, I felt like the, you know, the Forrest Gump scene when he gets on the bus. Six taken.

• 2:36:39Jason Redman?

  But thankfully, my OIC was an excellent listed guy. Awesome SEAL, awesome leader. And he sat me down that first day and he said, Red, heard about what happened in Afghanistan? I don't care. He said, all I care about is where you go from here. He said, I'm gonna help you. He said, you know, I'm gonna need you to, to, I'm gonna give you opportunities to lead. And sometimes you're gonna follow. He said, you know, just continue, stay with me, watch my lead. He said, I'm gonna help you be successful. And he was right, dude. He was awesome. Everything that I hadn't been as a young leader. Super humble, very balanced, just a really good leader. A great mentor.

• 2:37:24Jason Redman?

  Frequently, and, and I think he was really astute. He was, he was like, your confidence is fucked up. And obviously the confidence of the guys is fucked up in you. So let me figure out ways to fix that. So he would look for opportunities for me to lead that he knew would build my confidence. And I just focused on every day. How do I show up and try and do the best I can? Cut back on my drinking. You know, I won't say I didn't drink at all, but I didn't, I didn't drink myself unconscious anymore.

• 2:37:58Shawn Ryan?

  Were you out with the boys?

• 2:38:00Jason Redman?

  Yeah, but I was much more balanced, much more balanced. Started to heed a lot of the advice I'd been given earlier. Just watched my OIC and took his lead. And frequently he'd be like, all right, man, let's go. Roger that. Whereas before I would have been like, yeah, I'm good, man, leave me alone. So, um, he, he was so good that frequently at times we would be doing stuff where there'd be a really complicated training evolution. Where it was really designed for the OIC to run. But he, having been prior enlisted, having been an instructor, he saw the opportunity and would be like, you know what? And he'd tell the training instructors, I'm gonna step out. I don't need to do this. Red, you're in charge.

• 2:38:41Jason Redman?

  And we'd go through this really complicated evolution, which, you know, I would do well. And, you know, I think guys were like, okay. So, took a while, you know, probably, uh, probably after eight months to a year, definitely some of the guys started to warm up with me and I started hanging out with more of the guys in the platoon. And then, um, um, you know, by the time we deployed, definitely a lot more. And I'll tell you, it was probably the best troop I've ever been with my entire, my entire career. Best camaraderie, best talent pool, um, just amazing group of dudes, um, you know, our, that entire troop.

• 2:39:23Jason Redman?

  So, you know, your picture up there from, those are the guys from Bravo.

• 2:39:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:28Jason Redman?

  And, uh, I loved it. It was awesome. And, uh, basically, we got word in early spring, um, "Hey, you guys are going to Iraq." And Iraq was imploding. Uh, '06, '07 was just a shit show.

• 2:39:43Shawn Ryan?

  Well, before we go to Iraq, let's take a quick break.

• 2:39:45Jason Redman?

  Okay.

• 2:39:51Shawn Ryan?

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

• 2:40:12Shawn Ryan?

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

• 2:40:53Shawn Ryan?

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

• 2:41:34Shawn Ryan?

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

• 2:42:16Shawn Ryan?

  Alright Jason, we're back from the break. That... I had to take a minute to process some of the stuff you were telling me, and um... That takes a lot of courage to just even show back up to a platoon after everything that had happened, and um... Man, that's a lot of shame to carry around. Yeah. A lot of shame to carry around, and um...

• 2:42:48Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. That's, that's, uh, that's a tough spot to be in.

• 2:42:55Jason Redman?

  Yeah, a lot of people today, uh, almost always people will say, oh, man, when you were wounded and everything you went through, that must be the hardest thing you ever did. Fuck, no. Making those mistakes and, and being told you don't, you don't measure up, like you don't deserve to wear that emblem and, and slowly earning back that trust and credibility, uh, by far, by far is the toughest road. As a matter of fact, once again, you know, God works in interesting ways. I, I think I sailed out of my injuries because, you know, I mean, not immediately. I mean, it probably took seven to 10 days where finally I was like, hey, man, you've

• 2:43:40Jason Redman?

  been through worse, like, let's go. And definitely look back on that road that I had been through. So.

• 2:43:46Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, to have your, have your guys, you know, tell you,

• 2:43:53Shawn Ryan?

  I don't want to work with them, you know, I don't want to work with you. That's the fucking nightmare. That's, that's the nightmare of the special operator.

• 2:44:04Jason Redman?

  Right.

• 2:44:04Shawn Ryan?

  Across the fucking board, you know, is, is to hear that said about you and, uh, I don't think a lot of people would have made that, made it through that.

• 2:44:14Jason Redman?

  When we were in Bagram before we flew home, after I, you know, after I'd been told, you know, so by the time we got home, I think we left right at the very beginning of October. So it was about a two week period from the time I flew back from Bagram and the time we flew home and, you know, I had been, you know, gotten in trouble and ostracized, I guess. Um, like I said, nobody really talked to me, um, during that, that time. We had a checkout board on the, uh, you know, uh, on the wall before you left where our bare, you know, where our rooms were, you know, you had your name and hey, I went to chow or I'm at the gym or whatever it is. And, uh, somebody wrote next to my name, why don't you go kill yourself?

• 2:44:58Jason Redman?

  Um, and I'll, I'll never forget reading that, like.

• 2:45:03Jason Redman?

  Really? I just erased it, but.

• 2:45:08Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude.

• 2:45:09Jason Redman?

  So, you know, teams are a, uh, we're a tough place.

• 2:45:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:14Jason Redman?

  You know, and hey, rightfully so. It's a tough job.

• 2:45:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:18Jason Redman?

  You know, you gotta be able to step up, but, uh,

• 2:45:23Jason Redman?

  definitely some hard lessons learned. And the biggest lessons learned were about me. And really, at the end of the day, that's what I tell people. If you can conquer yourself,

• 2:45:34Jason Redman?

  nothing else matters. Nothing else matters. You know, this, this is the most dangerous battlefield you'll ever walk on.

• 2:45:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:44Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's get back into it. So, you're in a new platoon, you're doing your workup. Did you show up at the beginning of the workup?

• 2:45:52Jason Redman?

  No, because I made, uh, I made my awesome decision with the Land Nav course to, you know, try and quit Ranger School. It knocked me back, so I actually showed up right in the middle of, uh,

• 2:46:08Jason Redman?

  what have you, mobility?

• 2:46:10Shawn Ryan?

  So, for the listeners that don't know what a workup is, so in the SEAL teams, there's a cycle. And if I remember correctly, it's about a year and a half of training with the guys that you're gonna deploy with or go to combat with. And so, it's that 18-month cycle, then a six-month deployment. So it's basically a two-year cycle. So how far into the 18 months?

• 2:46:34Jason Redman?

  We were, so I went to Ranger School during, um, the first part. So, we hadn't really started. Guys were doing individual training. Guys were doing, you know, so sniper, breacher, stuff like that. And when I was at Ranger School, I just added a month, you know, with my, you know, hiatus in Ranger jail.

• 2:46:54Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:46:56Jason Redman?

  Before I came back. So the workup, so the, the, the actual, you know, we kinda call it the workup, the actual part where you're working together and you're going through all your training together. So, I think it was probably only a couple of weeks in, so I showed up a couple of weeks late to start the workup.

• 2:47:11Shawn Ryan?

  What team is this?

• 2:47:12Jason Redman?

  Team 10.

• 2:47:13Shawn Ryan?

  Still, Team 10 still?

• 2:47:14Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 2:47:14Shawn Ryan?

  So you, I mean, you, you fucked up really bad, several times. And then, it's almost. Sounds weird, especially to the audience, but it's almost like they reward you because you're going back into a platoon that's going to Iraq, which at this time, I would say, what, oh five to oh eight was, was, was a, I mean, that was a real fucking hot time.

• 2:47:46Jason Redman?

  It was.

• 2:47:47Shawn Ryan?

  You know?

• 2:47:47Jason Redman?

  And we would not have been no different than, we weren't selected to go to Afghanistan because of some of the issues we had in our platoon and some of the personalities. The first time we were selected to go to Iraq because we were front runners. So I had recovered myself and, and really had stepped back up and, and, and came to learn. I mean, I don't want to say I was this great officer, there's plenty of much better officers and operators than me out there. But that troop, we just gelled. We just gelled, man. The leadership was phenomenal. We had amazing pipe hitters like DJ. And we were just good.

• 2:48:32Jason Redman?

  It was just a great, great troop. And I think the team saw it and said, you guys are going to, you guys are going out, out west, you guys are going to Fallujah. And then another, another one of the troops ended up going to Baghdad.

• 2:48:47Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's dive in. Where do you want to pick up?

• 2:48:51Jason Redman?

  Yeah, so, um, yeah, I kind of got everything back on course, like we said, and we found out we were going to Iraq. And I got to tell you, for me, it was a, um, it was a huge thing. Cause I knew that, um, I knew I could do well in training, or I was doing well in training, but I knew until we got back into combat, that was the final test. Cause you know, I mean, you know, you can train all you want, but until you're in the, in the crucible of combat, that's when things really matter. And that's when you truly prove that you have the ability to do this job. So I kind of knew that was like the final box I needed to check, if you will.

• 2:49:34Jason Redman?

  But instead of when I was younger, where I was like, man, I want to get into a fight, it was much more of how do I best support the guys? How do I best fit into whatever we're doing? And, um, and I just, kind of what I had done all along, I'm just going to focus on one mission at a time, one day at a time. And so interesting setback. Um, we were a month out from, oh, even less, a couple of weeks out from deploying. And my wife and I, the long haired admiral, decided to go back up to the place where we got married up in the Shenandoah and we were gonna stay at the bed and breakfast and just

• 2:50:16Jason Redman?

  relax for the weekend before I came home, spent a few more days with the kids before I deployed. And we're driving up there and I'm, I'm in all this pain, like all this pain in my side. And, uh, I'm just like, oh, you know, I don't know what this is, you know, hopefully it'll go away. We get up there, we go visit with a buddy of mine, that's the sheriff, he was the sheriff, uh, well, he was the, uh, he wasn't the sheriff yet when I used to run the course, but he later went on to be the sheriff. So now he's the sheriff up there. We go visit with him and I'm like, oh my God, I'm in all this pain. And he was, he was building his house up there when we went to visit. So we went to see his house, his building.

• 2:50:59Jason Redman?

  And, uh, and I'm like dying at this point. I'm like, oh my God, I am in so much pain. I'm like sweating. And, uh, he's like, oh, well, our next door neighbor is like this doctor, let me call her over. So he calls his doctor over and literally it's like dark, he's got lamps up and he's got a door laying on sawhorses. And she asked me like lay on this door and starts poking and prodding. She's like, yeah, she's like, I think you might have, uh, appendicitis. She's like, you know, you need to, you need to get home. Uh, you either need to go directly to the hospital before it ruptures or, you know, and I said, well, I can't do that. I need to go home, you know, I can't go to a hospital here. And I was like, do you think I can do the drive home? And she was like, yes, but you need to leave now and you guys need to go straight to the emergency room.

• 2:51:44Jason Redman?

  So we, we drove straight home, three hours and I'm like just sweating bullets and. We go straight to the emergency room and they're like, hey, uh, cause you're active duty, we need to send you over to Portsmouth. So they sent me to Portsmouth and uh, turns out I did not have appendicitis. I had uh, infectious colitis, um, which to this day, they don't know how I got it or what it is. Um, but I was fucked up. So they had to keep me in the hospital for a few days, put me on these heavy antibiotics. Well, I'll never forget they came in the room and they were like, hey, uh, sir, you're not going to be

• 2:52:23Jason Redman?

  able to deploy, um, you know, until we do a colonoscopy and make sure you're good to go. And I was like, oh no, that's not happening. I was like, I'm leaving. You weren't excited? I was not. As a matter of fact, I threw, uh, it was the, the head resident that came in and told me this and the poor guy, I basically threw him out of the room and said, go get me a real doctor. Um, which now I understand the medical profession a lot better. No offense to anybody out there. You're a real doctor when you're a resident. Um, so the head doctor came in and was like, you know, Lieutenant, I know you're not happy, but you're not deploying, you know, you're the, you know, we have to make sure that

• 2:53:08Jason Redman?

  your, um, you know, infectious colitis and infection of your intestines. And he said, when they get infected and inflamed, they can easily perforate. He said, which now creates much bigger problems. So he said, we have to make sure that all that has gone away before I can let you deploy. So here I am, I'm thinking, oh my God, like I need to like, I finally, I'm getting my career back on track. I'm getting things on course. If I don't deploy, what's going to happen? So I went back and talked to my OIC. He was like, look, Red, gotta get well. No big deal. He said, we'll get over there. We're going to get settled. You're going to be back here. Just, you know, we'll be talking every day.

• 2:53:49Jason Redman?

  And uh, so he said, I'll be, I'm probably going to be telling you stuff we need. So that's kind of what I did over that next, you know, three weeks or so. I just was stockpiling stuff for us that we realized, hey, we need this, we need that. We need this for the Iraqi scouts we're working with. Um, I was stockpiling Copenhagen, obviously. Um, so I wanted to be able to take care of the boys and uh, and then finally got, you know, thirty.

• 2:54:18Jason Redman?

  Thirty-two years old, got my first colonoscopy and got a clean bill of health and jumped on a flight and headed over there and met the guys and joined. So landed and they were like, dude, shit is hot and heavy. Like, we're going out almost every night, sometimes twice a night. And the way they were doing it was one platoon would run mobility, so they would run the vehicles, and the other platoon would run the assault. And it was just, it was everything you ever dreamed of doing as a SEAL. Like, it was nothing but direct action, target takedowns virtually every

• 2:54:59Jason Redman?

  night. You know, capture, kill. Here's your target set. Here's a target. You're gonna go in, you're gonna lock it down, take this building down, capture or kill. And so, amazing. I stepped in and they said, okay, hey, Red, we're gonna let you, you're gonna run either as a mobility force commander, so meaning I'm in charge of all the mobility vehicles, so our external security, all these things when we're running mobility ops, or you'll be running as an assault force commander, meaning you'll be in charge of an actual target takedown. So these are the two jobs you're gonna be doing.

• 2:55:40Shawn Ryan?

  But these are working simultaneously?

• 2:55:43Jason Redman?

  Uh.

• 2:55:44Shawn Ryan?

  Like, is the, are the vehicles?

• 2:55:46Jason Redman?

  Correct.

• 2:55:46Shawn Ryan?

  The mobility, is that a blocking force, squatter control, all that kinda shit?

• 2:55:50Jason Redman?

  Correct.

• 2:55:51Shawn Ryan?

  Do you wanna explain what that means?

• 2:55:53Jason Redman?

  So, when you, if we were doing a mobility operation, meaning we were coming into a target by vehicles, the mobility force commander's job, along with our point men, reconnaissance guys, along with our EOD, explosive ordnance disposal, our guys that defuse bombs, we looked at our routes. And we looked at, okay, what's gonna be the best way to get there, what's gonna be the lowest IED threat, how do we get in, what's gonna be our egress, all these different things we looked at. Once we got to the target, we then looked at, how do we lock this thing down? How do we create a perimeter around this target so that now

• 2:56:37Jason Redman?

  the assault force will leave the vehicles and go in and take down that target? And we were that blocking force to prevent external people from coming in to take down the target. So myself and another one of the junior officers rotated back and forth. So on one mission, he would be the mobility force commander and I would be an assault force commander. And then we would flip flop. And we basically, the way we ran it throughout the entire deployment is, you know, our platoon would run assault one week, the other platoon would run mobility, and we'd flip flop. Now, if it was a helicopter insertion, then everybody was on the assault. And it would play out a little different in how we would do that.

• 2:57:22Jason Redman?

  So I stepped in and, you know, typically the way we do things is you'll run alongside a guy that's doing that job. So you're not necessarily, you don't just jump in and do that job. You get it, you know, overseas and the combat zone, in this case Iraq, and you'll run with that individual. So, and this guy was our third, we got assigned a third officer in our platoon. So I was running with him. He was doing a great job and he was showing me the ropes. So I stepped in the first night to do my turn to be the mobility force commander. And I kind of, I learned a valuable lesson and I, and I screwed up a little.

• 2:58:06Jason Redman?

  But it, A, it shook my confidence a little, but I, I recovered very quickly. So we were doing a takedown in the, in the western part of Fallujah called Jolon, which was a really dangerous area. It was a real Al Qaeda hotbed area. Some of the most fierce fighting and the battles of 2004 kind of occurred in that area. And we had a target there. And so we had our mobility plan and we were driving in and.

• 2:58:42Jason Redman?

  I'll just say that I won't get into the details because I don't want to talk about equipment, but the bottom line, our navigation system kind of fritzed out for a specific reason, but I'll leave that alone. So it put me a little bit behind because there was a delay in the system because it wasn't working. So it put me behind on my turns. So lesson learned for me from that point forward, I always had multiple, not only did I have the computer, I had turn by turn, I had massive amounts of imagery with me so that I didn't care if I had a computer or not, I could navigate to the target. But it was my first op and we ended up taking a wrong turn. Took a wrong turn, which became

• 2:59:25Jason Redman?

  another wrong turn, which ended us right in front of Blackwater Bridge. Oh shit. Which was the bridge in Fallujah that in 2004, the Blackwater contractors were ambushed and hung on the bridge. Scott Helveston, former SEAL, was one of the guys there. And the road that led out to the front of Blackwater Bridge was like four or five story buildings on both sides, super channelized, really bad place to be. And yeah, so the guys are all chirping on the radio, get us the fuck out of here. Where, you know, what is this? And it was just, it was a bad situation. We had to kind of navigate around and get

• 3:00:09Jason Redman?

  back on course, but for a short period of time, we were in, I mean, it was an ambush haven. I mean, anyone with an RPG could have just fired straight down into our vehicles. So, so yeah, I got a little bit of grief about that. Not, not good for the very first mission I ran. Yeah. Thankfully, you know, so there was a lot of chirping because obviously there was still a little bit of resentment from some people like, hey, Red's problem. And so there was a little bit of chirping and the debrief. And I don't remember who it was, ROIC or somebody was like, hey, anybody could have made that prob, anybody could have made that mistake. He said, here's what happened. He said, I guarantee that won't happen again. And so he kind of stepped in and I was like, Roger that, that will definitely

• 3:00:54Jason Redman?

  never happen again. So, you know, lesson learned for me. But, um, yeah, we, we were just running. I mean, almost every night, um, started to get into, you know, skirmish gunfights, nothing, nothing really big yet, but quite a few gunfights throughout that. Uh, and then, right at the very beginning of the deployment on the turnover op, uh, I was not there yet, I was still recovering, you know, from my colitis. Um, for the first time, the guys had gone into Kharma, Iraq, which is northeast of Fallujah.

• 3:01:32Jason Redman?

  And, uh, Al Kharma, um, first battle of Fallujah in 2004, second battle in 2006, a lot of, um, a lot of Al Qaeda and insurgency got pushed out of Fallujah. And they were really heavy in the Kharma area. And, um, the Marines are out there, we're like, dude, you know, they were getting into gunfights all the time and the ID threat out there was like off the chain. So, we tried not to drive out there that often. The very first mission they did was a turnover op between 10 and 4. And that was the op that some people have seen out there that Mike Day got all shot up on.

• 3:02:12Jason Redman?

  Um, we lost Petty Officer Clark Swedler, um, he was, he was with, uh, with, uh, Team Four. Uh, but it was part of that turnover op. One of our guys got shot, uh, on that mission and Mike obviously got all shot up. So, that was going after the number one leader for Al Qaeda in the Anbar province. And that was kind of the first time our guys had crossed paths with him. So, he was somebody that we were kind of tracking our whole deployment, like, all right, when do we find this guy again? But we started going back into Kharma. Um, probably the first month or so I was there, we just kind of stayed in and around Fallujah, but then we started branching out more and, um, started doing.

• 3:03:00Jason Redman?

  You know, targets there and it seemed like almost every time we were going into Karma, like things were happening. On June 22nd, we went into Karma for a, a multi-target takedown. It was a, um, it's kind of a compound with three groups of buildings. And, um, we had broken it up into three target sets. So you had, um, you know, you had assault team one, two, and three. And I was in charge of assault team two. And, um, uh, DJ talked about this gunfight when he was here. Um, there was a lot of activity. We were, we were patrolling up. It was late at night. Now it's 2:00 AM in the morning and we're just being

• 3:03:45Jason Redman?

  told there's all kinds of activity on this target. And that's unusual. Um, you usually don't see that. Most of the time, people are sleeping, you know, unless they're bad. So we're, we're listening and we're moving up closer. We got to our final set point, um, which is about 60, 70 yards. There's a house and then there's kind of this little structure before the main house were taken down. So as we're going, as we're patrolling by this last house, we noticed that there are several sleepers outside. So, um, I, uh, said to either our team leader or whoever it was, I said, hey, kick a couple of guys off. Let's wrap these sleepers up. Um, you know, so we know that they're not going to

• 3:04:30Jason Redman?

  be a problem. So he grabbed a couple of the Iraqis, said, hey, wrap these guys up. And we moved up to the final set point. We got to the set point and coordinated and we moved into, uh, to the door. Um, as we're getting ready to go in, uh, you know, our guys, uh, DJ being one of them says, open, open, open. So front door was open. So they start going in, but as we're going in, we notice off to the left in the courtyard, there's like 11 women and children sleeping there. So right as the guys make entrance, we say, hey, kick, kick some people, grab these women and children. And it was right about that time that a couple of grenades were dropped

• 3:05:13Jason Redman?

  off the roof and all of a sudden gunfire starts erupting from all around. So grenades go off, a couple of guys get fragged. Our interpreter really gets fragged. He takes the brunt of it up the side of his body. He takes a big piece in his neck. He's screaming on the porch. We're trying to shuffle all these women and children in who are now screaming and chaos. Push them into the house. I went in, started making entries, started making entries. That was kind of the time that DJ and them went up on the roof. And as soon as they made entrance on the roof, three fighters, one directly engages DJ. They smoke

• 3:05:56Jason Redman?

  check him and they fall, come back down the stairs, but they realized, hey, you know, we got a embedded, you know, we got a machine gun on the roof, that that machine gun was lighting off now on the two other buildings. We also started taking fire from another building about, I don't know, 75 yards behind this house. So for me, as a, as a assault force commander, like chaos, like, you know, screaming women and children, I got a guy that's bleeding out, guys that are all, you know, seals that are hurt, but not bad, just minor frag. But still checking on them, making sure they're okay. You know, DJ and them

• 3:06:41Jason Redman?

  come down the stairs and they're like, hey, man, we got this embedded machine gunner. And we're taking fire from the back. So my first thought is, okay, we need to let, let's, let's kill these guys behind us. So we had some helicopter gunships. So I said, okay, I need a full, I need a full head count first. So it's kind of chaotic. Our medic, I said, hey, casualty collection point, let me know what you can do. And I started moving around the target to kind of make sure I got a count to see where everybody was. So some of our guys were still outside pinned down that were laying down fire. Came around the corner at the rear of the building and like.

• 3:07:24Jason Redman?

  Three of our guys are like, so there's kind of the back porch is like right here. And this is like a brick wall that you could stand behind. And the three of them are like in a one, two, three, like just out in the open. Like, like shoot out at the OK Corral. And I'm like, hey, like dudes, get some cover. Like, you know, you ain't gonna stop bullets. And so they, they, they got back behind the wall. And at this point, dude, like it keeps raining grenades. Like these dudes on the roof just keep dropping grenades down on us.

• 3:07:57Jason Redman?

  So I finished coming around the building to try and get this full head count. And I'm down one every single time. And I'm like, dude, where is this other guy? So I'm like, like this is a problem. I can't call in this fire mission until I figure out where this guy is. So talking to the ground force commander, I'm like, hey, man, I'm navigating this out. He's like, hey, man, we're ready. We'll release this fire mission. I'm like, I'm down a guy. Like, you gotta wait. So suddenly it dawns on me, how many guys stepped off for those sleepers at that other house? 60 yards away. So, cause I was counting them. I was counting too. So I'm like, dude, I need somebody to go like check this.

• 3:08:42Jason Redman?

  And then I'm like, who the fuck's gonna do that? Like we're in the middle of this gunfight. So finally I was like, I guess it'll be me. So came out the door, told my team leader, I'm like, hey, man, I'll be right back. I'm going to this other house to get this head count. And I, we had two guys that were kind of out next to this little building, this concrete building that they were behind laying down fire. One of them, a machine gunner. And I said, hey, I'm going to that other house 60 yards away. I need you to lay down fire on that rooftop. And, uh, which they did. And dude. Uh, I don't, I don't know what it was like. I felt like my gear weighed 500 pounds. Uh, I feel like that's the longest run I've ever done in my life.

• 3:09:26Jason Redman?

  Um, I don't know if because there was all this gunfire, but I was just like, I felt like I was running in slow motion. But, and I was expecting to get shot in any minute. Um, but I finally, uh, got to the other house, sure as shit, three guys and not two. Had my full head count, ran back and, uh, we released the first fire mission, uh, on the house behind us. I get back, still chaotic, our medics trying to, and he's like, hey dude, you know, the, our terp's gonna bleed out if we can't get them out of here soon. So, uh, guys on the rooftop still dropping grenades and firing in all directions. So I'm like, hey, we gotta take these guys out on the roof.

• 3:10:04Jason Redman?

  And, uh, uh, Mark Weiss, who no longer is with us, uh, Mark ended up crazy drowning in a diving mission. Or in a diving, he was on vacation and drowned diving, uh, on leave several years later, but good fucking dude. Um, so Mark was one of the more experienced guys on the target. I come back in, I was like, Mark, we gotta take these dudes out on the roof. And he's like, yeah, I agree. I was like, we need to send guys up there and take them out. And, uh, and DJ talked about, we sent this, um, when we started to take the, when we started trying to take the roof the second time.

• 3:10:45Jason Redman?

  Um, we grabbed, uh, uh, I don't know, this, this 15, 16 year old kid. And we were like, do you know who's on the roof? And he was like, yeah, you know, it's so and so. And we're like, you need to go up there and tell them that if they don't stop firing, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna come up there and kill them. And, uh, and he was like, okay, okay. And we're like, all right, go up there. So you know how in a lot of the Iraqi house, you have the stairwell that comes up, it's kind of a landing and then it comes back up onto the roof.

• 3:11:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:11:17Jason Redman?

  So we were standing down at the bottom of the stairwell. He went up to the landing and literally I'm standing.

• 3:11:25Jason Redman?

  From here, I mean, maybe a little further than where you are. And he went up to that landing and took two steps up and man, they unloaded on him with that machine gun and literally cut that kid in half. So he drops. We, uh, we back up at this point and I'm like, Mark, we, dude, like, we gotta, we gotta take this, these guys out. And, uh, he was like, no, man, that's a suicide mission. Yeah. And I was like, okay, yeah, you're right. So I thought, then I said, okay, here's what we're gonna do. I said, we are going to get everybody out of this house and we are going to fall back to the house that's 60 yards away because we already got our Iraqis over there holding

• 3:12:10Jason Redman?

  it. Um, and I said, and then we're gonna crush, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna crush, uh, we're gonna drop this house with a fire mission. So, but we had all these women and children and like, you know, couldn't leave them on the target. So I said, here's what's gonna happen. Everybody's gonna grab a woman and child. You guys that are out there, when I tell you, you're gonna lay down, you're just gonna fucking rain hell on that rooftop. And, uh, so all of us grab these women and children and we started basically, you know, bounding back, laying down fire and just crushing this rooftop. So got back to that other house and, uh, got inside and got up on the roof and, you

• 3:12:53Jason Redman?

  know, at that point, called in the, uh, gunship that just hammered, hammered this rooftop. And we got a whole bunch of secondary explosions. So we had been told these guys, uh, so I don't know if that was, we were joking, did they have a giant duffel bag full of grenades? Cause yeah, they kept, they dropped a lot of grenades on us. Damn. So we don't know if it was a bag of grenades or if it was suicide vests. We had been told that these guys had suicide vests. So, but we had kind of a big secondary explosion and, uh, and that took that target out. So everything went calm and, but that, that night was probably the most chaotic night we'd had on that deployment.

• 3:13:31Jason Redman?

  So we extracted, uh, went to, um, I flew myself and the OIC and I think our chief went to, uh, Fallujah Medical, took our two guys that had been fragged and our TIRP who they worked on. And we stayed there and then, you know, before we came back, but that was kind of my, uh... Guys were like, dude, Red did a good job.

• 3:13:56Shawn Ryan?

  I was gonna ask that.

• 3:13:58Jason Redman?

  Yeah. And dude, that was, uh, it was pretty awesome for me. Like, it was kind of the full circle to finally say, hey, man, you got this. Like, you can do this.

• 3:14:09Shawn Ryan?

  How did it feel to you, not, not from the acceptance yet, but how, how did it feel to you to finally?

• 3:14:17Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it, it obviously had clicked and you had pulled yourself from the platoon as a leader. You know, and instead of,

• 3:14:28Shawn Ryan?

  you know, you're leading men. You know, you're actually fucking leading men now. You're not trying to do their job because you want to get in the fight. You're leading fucking men. How did that feel? Did it click for you that you?

• 3:14:40Jason Redman?

  It did, 100%.

• 3:14:42Shawn Ryan?

  Into a leader at this point?

• 3:14:43Jason Redman?

  Uh, yes, but I think the implications, I, I think before that, that had come into place. I think this was kind of the final, like, hey, man, this is how this works. And I think such a great point was, I think the old Jason Redman, young and mature Jason Redman, when he said, hey, man, we gotta take that stairwell. And, you know, the guy had said, no, man, that's a suicide mission. Hey, fuck that. Get off the stairwell. You know? But it was, it was totally a good call. It was the right call. I mean, we would have got guys killed trying to send guys back up that stairwell. So, you know, kudos to Mark. Uh, he was 100% right. I mean, just trying to process all this information. I'm like, yes.

• 3:15:23Jason Redman?

  So, um, and, and, you know, it wasn't, you know, the thing I tell people, leadership is not like this perfect road. You're gonna fuck up. I don't care who you are.

• 3:15:33Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that's a lot of shit going on. I mean, you got women and children. You got a SEAL been shot in the chest, DJ. You know who's okay. You got fucking a missing head count.

• 3:15:47Shawn Ryan?

  Two people at another house. He got a fucking fire mission waiting on you.

• 3:15:52Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, and you got a, a turb fucking bleeding out of his neck.

• 3:15:56Jason Redman?

  Yep.

• 3:15:57Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that's a lot of, uh, shit to process and an ongoing threat on the roof.

• 3:16:04Jason Redman?

  Yeah. But it was good, man. The guys did an amazing job. I mean, it just further showed me what an amazing group of guys we had to work with. Um, yeah. But that was kind of the most chaotic night we had, and the night that I kind of felt like the tipping point had occurred. Um, so we saw a lot more. We had quite a few more engagements. We had a lot of close calls on that deployment. I don't, I don't know. We, um, we made entry into a house one night, um, outskirts of Fallujah someplace where, um, we went in, we, we had made entry into the target, uh,

• 3:16:48Jason Redman?

  and, uh, and we noticed that the carpet and everything had been pushed up against the walls. And, um, houseborne IEDs were becoming a very big thing. So, uh, a houseborne improvised explosive devices where guys are rigging houses with explosives to blow up the house when, when friendly forces, you know, US, other allies get into the house. So as we're going through, our EOD guy noticed it immediately and quickly looked over and sure enough, there was a command wire that was running out the back of the house off into the field. So immediately yelled out our call for get the fuck out of the target and,

• 3:17:33Jason Redman?

  and, uh, and I won't use the word, but that word got yelled and man, it made your heart freeze. And dude, all of us like, you know, hundred yard dash, man, as fast as you fucking could. Cause I mean, we didn't know if the house was going to blow up any second. Um, some of the guys from Dam Neck, um, got caught in a, in a houseborne IED a few years earlier and it killed the EOD guy. Um, and, and fucked some dudes up. So we got away from the house, um,

• 3:18:03Jason Redman?

  I don't know if nobody was on the end of the command mire, or the guy was asleep, but the house never blew, but we ended up calling in two 500 pounders and huge, actually it was Kyle Milliken, who called in that airstrike that night and who's no longer with us. But, uh, big, big secondary explosions.

• 3:18:23Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 3:18:23Jason Redman?

  So, we had that. We, um, we took down some other really complicated targets that just very hairy, but guys had done well. We had a night, another real close call. So, we were, we were going to take down a target. It was a mobility op. So, we were, we were in our Humvees getting ready to lead base and we were racking our weapons, getting everything ready and the 50 cal, uh, something broke on the 50 in the lead vehicle. And, um, we were like, hey, you know, all right, well, we gotta fix this. So, they were like, yeah, we got repair stuff in one of the rear vehicles. We need to go get it. We need some time. Okay,

• 3:19:05Jason Redman?

  Roger that. So, we pulled over on the side, waiting for them to repair this. Um, as we're waiting, a Marine Corps convoy drives up next to us and, uh, the platoon commander talks to me and says, hey, man, where are you guys going? We're like, hey, we're heading, uh, we're heading, uh, west. And, uh, I'm sorry, east. And he said, okay, Roger that. So are we. I said, okay, just be advised, you know, we're gonna be leaving. We're gonna be coming up behind you guys, you know, at some point. He's like, okay, no problem. So, they were brand new in country. Like, they had only been there like a week or something. So, they went out and turned down, uh, Michigan and started heading same path we were gonna go.

• 3:19:46Jason Redman?

  Get our gun back up. 10 minutes have gone by and we leave. We're heading down the road and, uh, you know, we've been driving maybe 10 or 15 minutes and big explosion down the road in front of us. So, the Marines hit an IED. Like, so if our gun had not gone down, that would have been us. And we, we came up behind them and the kid in the rear vehicle all amped up, fucking shot at us with a 50, uh, which thank God he, he missed. He went wide, uh, but he skipped rounds under, uh, our Humvee, my Humvee, the number one. Uh, so, so we had just had

• 3:20:25Jason Redman?

  all these crazy close calls, um, leading up to the, the end of the deployment. Um, um, but for me, it was awesome. It was an amazing deployment. Like I had gotten everything back on track. Um, I was up for orders in my next position. So I had a couple of choices. One of those choices was, uh, to screen and go over to Dambnek and I, I, I requested. I said, Hey, I'd really like to do this. And I didn't know if they'd give me the thumbs up after screwing up, but I got a positive thumbs up cross board. So I was approved to come back and screen. Um, you know, which is, you know, it's a first step, but even

• 3:21:09Jason Redman?

  just to get the CO to say, Hey, I'm gonna let you do this is a big deal. So, uh, so I had that. Uh, I had a couple of other leadership positions that were my secondary choices and we were just kinda working on wrapping things up. Um, I also, we were waiting for, um, our next level of missions. We had kinda shelved some of the missions so that we had turnover ops with the next team that was coming in, uh, which I believe was two. And, uh, so, um, my boss came up to me and said, Hey, Red, this next mission, you're gonna run as the GFC, as ground force commander. So, um, I had been running assault force

• 3:21:51Jason Redman?

  commander, mobility force commander. Your next position, which is the senior position, leadership position on the ground is ground force commander. So, which is a big deal. I mean, they're, they were grooming me for that next level leadership. So I was like, wow, man, this is awesome. Like I finally, like I did it. Like you got your career back on track. You did the impossible. Um, all my marks were really high. Um, we were working on awards. We were working on flow to get guys back home. Everything was good. And, uh, literally we were, we were, we were one week from sending the first wave of guys home. And I was on the last bird, which is fine, cause I had come late anyways. Um, so we were just, you know, everything was good, but we.

• 3:22:36Jason Redman?

  We got word that the leader, the Al Qaeda leader who they had gotten in the big gunfight at the beginning, who had, you know, killed Clark Swedler, was going to be in Karma. As a matter of fact, not far from where we had gotten into that big gunfight in June. It was only a couple hundred yards away, which wasn't far from where Mike Day got shot up also. So, um, there was a lot of, um...

• 3:23:03Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting they would put the top guy in an area where you guys had been fucking up, you know what I mean? Not fucking up, but bringing it to them. It's just interesting that an area where there's so much SEAL activity, you know, going after bad guys and killing them, that they would put the leader right in that same vicinity.

• 3:23:25Jason Redman?

  Well, I don't think he stayed there regularly. I think he came in for a meeting, is what it was. So, because it was a time-sensitive target, we got word that he was going to be there for a small period of time. So, I did not think that mission was going to go. There was a lot of amplifying info that is classified that I'll leave, but I just didn't think that mission was going to go. So, um, it was, I think we first heard about it around 4:00 PM in the afternoon and, you know, right about the time we woke up and we're starting to gear up, you know, because we slept during the day and then just worked at night. So, um, got, um, you know, kind of heard the rumblings and the murmurings and because

• 3:24:10Jason Redman?

  of some of the things in the background, it had to go all the way up the chain of command, the Iraqi chain of command, you know, senior leadership chain of command in order to get approved. I also thought maybe another unit may take that mission. So, that's why I just thought this probably is not happening. So I went to the gym and was working out. When one of the guys came in, like eight o'clock or so, and he's like, hey, man, like, this mission is a go. So went back, we started mission planning, and about midnight, we launched, and it was a pure helicopter insertion, and we were going to land right on the X, right on the target itself.

• 3:24:52Jason Redman?

  So I was, I was the assault force commander. So originally, I was supposed to be the ground force commander, but my boss came to me and he's like, Red, like, I don't know, he's like, this could be a very hairy mission. You know, because we were told this guy ran with a pretty heavy security detail. We were told they wore suicide vests, that they had been trained to clack themselves off if we got too close to him. He was like, I know you're up for the GFC, but why don't you, he said, I'm going to take GFC. He said, you'll be the assault force commander for the target take down. I said, okay, Roger that, no, no issues. So we flew in and we ended up having three groups.

• 3:25:35Jason Redman?

  We had the assault team, we had an external security team, and we had the headquarters team. And we had briefed that the assault team, that we were going to come in and we were going to land directly across from the gate, and we had stacked our, our breachers and our, you know, initial entry team and our point men, all on the left side door of the helicopter, so that they can land. The pilots got turned around somehow, and we ended up coming in the opposite way. So instead of all our, you know, initial entry team, it's myself, my team leader and our communicator, sitting in the door on the opposite side of the helo. But, you know, you don't have time, you know, it's not like, oh, rejock, rejock, it was

• 3:26:19Jason Redman?

  like, fucking go time. So already, my team leader was, I mean, at about four feet, he was already out of the bird running. I jumped out after him, and we're running to the door, look back, the guys are all behind us. He is number one, I am number two. So I start prepping a crash. Flash crash grenade is a grenade designed to stun, create a bright light and a loud bang to stun people inside of a room. So I had the crash in my hand, he gets up, tests the door, door's open. I crash it and he and I go to make entry with the other guys behind us and I

• 3:27:02Jason Redman?

  I didn't, you know, I'd probably done, I don't know, 100 combat entries at this point. But I think that's probably the first one where like literally

• 3:27:14Jason Redman?

  my ass was puckered so tight, it was probably up in my chest. I just, I don't know, something in me was like, you're about to get shot the fuck up. And we entered and fully expected to be riddled as soon as we made that entry and nothing happened. Entered into a very large room. You know, we called a few more guys in. Ended up clearing the entire building and no one was there. We could tell someone had been there recently. There was a lot of activity, you know, cigarettes had still had a little burn. Things like that that let us know somebody had been there. But a lot of anti-coalition propaganda and stuff like that, but that was it.

• 3:27:55Jason Redman?

  So called the targets cure and started our search and we started finding weapons buried in the walls. We started finding explosives, IED making stuff. So we're like, okay, we missed the guy, but obviously this is probably the place where, you know, he would be, someone's here with him. So it's probably 2 AM in the morning at that point, our EOD guys are grabbing all this. There was a car parked outside. We put all that stuff in the trunk and we were gonna blow it in place and that was gonna be it. We were gonna call it, it was gonna be a quiet night, you know? So myself and the team are waiting for EOD to finish. And then we were gonna get off target and that was gonna be it. So we're just sitting there waiting.

• 3:28:39Jason Redman?

  And my boss comes up to me and says, hey, man. Snipers are watching and we just watched five guys run out of a house about 150 yards away. And run out of the house and run across the street into some vegetation. So.

• 3:28:58Jason Redman?

  I want you to take your team and go up there. Let's wrap these guys up and find out who they are. Cause that's unusual, you know, if you just flew in on helicopters and took down a target. People aren't moving at night like that.

• 3:29:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:29:13Jason Redman?

  Uh, especially if they're running and hiding. And we had seen that before. Uh, we had seen that on other targets. So I got our guys online. There were nine of us, uh, DJ being one of them. And we pushed up from the south, going north towards this house. And there was where our house was, there was a road and it kind of made a S. Um, the target house was kind of here at the first bend. And underneath that curve was kind of this large vegetated field. And on the north side was nothing but thousands of yards of desert. So we're, we're pushing through the vegetation. We pushed, uh, we had a gunship, um, overhead.

• 3:29:56Jason Redman?

  As a matter of fact, things had gotten so hairy, we had been getting into so many engagements and had so many close calls. The gunship became a go no go criteria for us at the end of that deployment. Like if we didn't have a gunship, we weren't going. So we had the gunship overhead and we're, um, you know, I was talking to them, hey, what do you see? Uh, we just see some guys that are laying there. So any movement, any guns? No, we're not seeing anything. Okay, Roger that. So we pushed into this vegetation and dude, it was so fucking thick.

• 3:30:30Jason Redman?

  Loud, crackly. Um, so it was almost, it reminded me of like a bamboo grove. Um, but it was so dense, like your night vision didn't work at all. You couldn't see shit. You just had this green blob, uh, and we're trying to crack through this stuff. So my spidey sense is like going bonkers and, um,

• 3:30:49Jason Redman?

  And this is, I tell a lot of people now, and I try and tell young leaders, man, listen to your sixth sense. Um, I wrongly chalked it up as fear. I was like, it's just fear. This is a hairy situation. You know, this is just fear. This is how we, this is our tactics, you know, continue to push through and, you know, everybody's online, we're good, you know, gunship doesn't see anything. But, uh, but I didn't listen to that. I should have. Hindsight being 2020, I would have grabbed my team leader and said, hey, man, my spidey sense is going nuts. How's yours? What's going on? Um, and maybe he would have said, hey, bro, I think it's just fear, let's drive forward. Or he would have said, yeah, dude, let's, maybe we should approach this a different way. So we kind of kept pushing forward.

• 3:31:33Jason Redman?

  As we're driving through, the gunship comes over and says, hey, you're going to miss those guys. You need to turn to the northeast. I said, Roger that. So we, we make this turn. On our left, we're two new guys and our EOD guy. Um, so apparently, uh, those guys weren't monitoring the right freak. So they didn't hear the call to make that turn. So when we made that turn, they kept going straight. So as we're pushing, we realized, you know, it was, the interpreter was off to my left and he said, Red, hey, the guys aren't with us anymore. I'm like, what? So we stopped, took a knee and we're waiting, can't really hear them.

• 3:32:16Jason Redman?

  Um, at this point, we had moved up to the northeast and, um, I don't know who was on the far right flank, but they, they were like, hey, I'm on the edge of a field. Why don't we push out? Let's get out of this vegetation and then we can push up to the north. Uh, at that point, our EOD guy came up and said, hey, yeah, we, we missed you guys somehow. He said, I can push out to the west. I said, yeah, do that. Let's, you know, cause now, you know, all I'm thinking about is we have two maneuvering elements and an unknown enemy force. So I'm like, Roger that. We're pushing out to the east, you guys push out to the west. Let's move up in the open area. Let's reconnect and then we'll, we'll go in and wrap these guys up from the north.

• 3:32:59Jason Redman?

  So as we're pushing out that corner, I was now closer to the front, myself and the interpreter, DJ, our medic, one of the other guys, Matt, is behind me and our team leader. And it was about that time, I'm now out in the open, myself and the interpreter, and pushed to the left to start moving down, you know, to the west to link up with those three guys. And right as our medic is coming out of the vegetation, he literally stepped right on an enemy fighter. This enemy fighter rolls over and goes to engage him, and he shoots him.

• 3:33:41Jason Redman?

  So at this point now, I'm out front, interpreter's out front, there's at least one other guy with us that's out front. And what we didn't realize is we were directly in the kill zone.

• 3:33:50Shawn Ryan?

  You fucking, who stepped on him?

• 3:33:53Jason Redman?

  Our medic. Stepped on an enemy fighter? Yep. So what we didn't know, so what the gunship saw was only a few guys. What actually was there was almost a, what we estimated to be a 12 to 15 man element that had an ambush line set up about five yards back in that vegetation, facing north. So what we think probably happened was the leader had been in the building we took down earlier and then moved up to this house, you know, 100 yards away to the north to sleep for the night.

• 3:34:34Jason Redman?

  And probably had his security detail set up so that if vehicles came in, because our vehicles would have to pull right in front of that vegetation, or if helicopters landed in that open field, either way, they would have been in perfect position to engage us. We ended up coming up from the south.

• 3:34:55Jason Redman?

  Very disciplined force because man, we were cracking all kinds of brush behind them and they didn't, they didn't engage us from the south. They waited until we were in the kill zone. So, um, yeah, uh, Luke engaged that guy and that started that gunfight. The whole world erupted at that point. Um, uh, Luke was the first one shot, took a round right below the knee. Uh, he had a, um, uh, compound fracture. Uh, bone came out and, and anchored him right into the ground. Uh, he's screaming, pin down. Um, that's when Matty ran forward, grabbed him. The only thing behind us was this, uh, large John Deere tractor tire in

• 3:35:40Jason Redman?

  that tree that I guess DJ got behind. Um, I was out front. I'm, I'm laying down fire and I'll be honest. Um, what happened next was I started yelling out ceasefire, ceasefire. Because I knew the angle we were at, like we were in this corner and those other guys who off, uh, to the, to the west. So I'm thinking, dude, we're fucking totally going to shoot each other. Um, so I was initially yelling ceasefire, which I quickly realized, okay, we're in the middle of a gunfight, like we can't ceasefire. So then I started yelling, make sure you know who you're shooting at. Um, but yeah, at this point, we're getting

• 3:36:20Jason Redman?

  all shot up. Um, Matty had been stitched up the leg and in the, in the arm. He, he still managed to get Luke back behind that tire. Um, I guess by yelling and shooting, I attracted a lot of attention because at this point I had both machine guns turned on me and, uh, I was stitched across the body armor. Two rounds in the left elbow. I took rounds off my gun. Um, rounds off my helmet, had my left night vision tube shot off. Um, Holy shit. Turned to try and move back to the tire at this point. And I guess that's when I caught the round from behind that hit me in the face. So it caught me right in front

• 3:37:04Jason Redman?

  of the ear, traveled through my face, blew, took off most of my nose. Um,

• 3:37:11Jason Redman?

  Vaporized my orbital floor, broke all the bones above my eye, shattered the head of the head of my jaw, broke the head of my jaw and shattered my jaw down to my chin and and knocked me out. And and Jay and those guys saw that, they saw me fall. So they thought I was dead. So I'm unconscious at this point, not aware of that. And and this gunfight's now raging, like they're behind the tire and the tree and they're just, you know, raging gunfight about, I don't know, fifteen, twenty yards, fifteen yards. I mean, it was pretty close.

• 3:37:52Shawn Ryan?

  Apart?

• 3:37:53Jason Redman?

  Apart, yeah, from where the tire and the tree was to this vegetation where these guys are, but we can't see them. All you can see is muzzle flashes. So I come to at whatever point. The the gunfight we know lasted thirty to forty minutes, thirty-five, forty minutes. I don't know how long I was unconscious, maybe ten minutes. So I come to at this point and and I was, I knew I was way fucked up. Like when I got shot in the arm, like that, that fucking hurt a lot. As a matter of fact, I thought my arm was shot off. After I'd been shot in the face, when I came to, I really wasn't feeling any pain.

• 3:38:38Jason Redman?

  I just was fucked up. I was trying to like, okay, where am I, what's happening? And then kind of the world started to open back up and like I could hear the gunfire. I also started to notice rounds traveling over me, the the tracer fire literally traveling over me. I was, at this point, I was laying flat on my back and I'm like, okay, holy shit, like you're still in this gunfight and that's tracer fire, like do not sit up.

• 3:39:10Jason Redman?

  At, at one point, I don't know why, I took my helmet off. I'm laying there and I unclipped my helmet and took my helmet off. And that's when, at some point, I heard it.

• 3:39:22Jason Redman?

  I took that round through my helmet that now is drawn in my skull. So right through the forehead of my helmet. I took another round while I was laying on the ground off my right side plate. And the interesting thing about side plates is I normally didn't wear them. I, the only reason I wore side plates at night. One, a little boys before that mission was like, wear your side plates. I was like, I don't normally wear my side plates. You know, I want to be lighter. I normally only wore them on mobility ops to give me more protection against IEDs. But, I don't know, little boys was like, wear your side plates. So I wore my side plates and I took a round right off the right side plate.

• 3:40:02Jason Redman?

  So shit show, chaos, shooting. And I remember there was a lowland fire and I called out to my team leader. And was like, how long till the medevac? And he was like, Red, you're still alive? I was like, yeah, how long to the medevac? And he was like, five minutes. So I like focused on, you gotta stay awake to stay alive. Like, like, um.

• 3:40:33Jason Redman?

  Yeah, you gotta make it to the medevac. Like, if you're gonna get out of here alive. So I tried to get, I knew my arm had been fucked up. I tried to get my tourniquet on my arm. And I'll be honest, I'd lost so much blood, I couldn't even break the rubber bands on my tourniquet.

• 3:40:48Shawn Ryan?

  Oh my God.

• 3:40:49Jason Redman?

  So, which is a lesson learned. I used three of those really thick rigging rubber bands we use for our parachutes.

• 3:40:58Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I used to use.

• 3:40:59Jason Redman?

  Yeah, well, lesson learned. When you're really weak, I couldn't break them. I couldn't, I couldn't get enough leverage with my good arm to break them.

• 3:41:09Jason Redman?

  So I'm laying there, bleeding out. This gunfight continues to rage and more time goes by. And I ask our team leader again, hey, how long to the medevac? He's like, five more minutes. I'm like, you said that last time. So.

• 3:41:29Shawn Ryan?

  Were you by yourself over there?

• 3:41:30Jason Redman?

  Yeah, I'm out front. I'm literally pinned down about 10 yards, 15 yards in front of the guys. So.

• 3:41:40Jason Redman?

  And, and what I realized though is dude, you know, there's nothing they can do. You know, they've, they've got to win this fight. They can't run out and get you. They're going to get all shot up. So you've just got to be patient, uh, which is a hard thing to do.

• 3:41:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:41:53Jason Redman?

  You know, when you realize you're, you're bleeding out.

• 3:41:56Shawn Ryan?

  Fuck, man.

• 3:41:57Jason Redman?

  Um, so, uh, at what point, um,

• 3:42:03Jason Redman?

  Jay, you know, calls me or yells out, hey, so, well, let me back up for a second. He asked for a fire mission and the gunship is like, absolutely not. He's like, you guys are so close, we'll fucking kill you. Like we were, we were well within danger close parameters. So, um, they're like, you have to figure out a way to fall back from these guys. And Jay's like, dude, there's no place for us to go. It's like thousands of yards of empty desert. It's like, not only that, you know, I got two dudes all shot up. One, you know, super shot up and you know, we can't even get to him. And, uh, they're like, you gotta figure something out because we can't bring this fire mission in. We'll kill you guys. So period of time goes by, he calls back again.

• 3:42:48Jason Redman?

  They're like, no, absolutely not. So the third time he calls back and he's like, look, like, and I don't know how long this has been. And this had been probably 25 minutes at this point in a very intense gunfight. He's like, we are running out of ammo. He's like, nobody's going to be left if you don't bring this fire mission in. So finally they said, okay, well, uh, what's your JTAC number? So JTACs in the military are guys who've been officially trained to, it's called a joint tactical air controller. So that means they have been blessed by special operations to have the skills to bring in gunfire from aircraft.

• 3:43:28Jason Redman?

  And, uh, and they have to know all the different parameters and all these things so that we don't mistakenly kill friendly forces, which we have done with fire missions from the sky. So, um, They they say to Jay, what's your JTAC number because they wanted to put the onus on him. That if they accidentally killed us, it would be Jay's fault and not the gunship's fault. And I mean, I respect that. I don't know, sometime anyways. Um, so he gave it to him and I remember him yelling out to me, hey, incoming. And I remember laying there and and you can hear the gun go off and you know, there's a, there's a delay. You know, there's a period of time before the rounds hit the ground. I mean, decent amount.

• 3:44:12Jason Redman?

  And I remember waiting and waiting and all of a sudden, boom, it was forty mic bike. And it literally hit the ground directly in front of me and well, you know.

• 3:44:23Jason Redman?

  In front of me enough that it blew up and I felt the concussive blast and the dust and debris. And immediately the machine gun in front of me went cold. And I heard the guy yelling out. Ah, alagwa. And I was like, Roger that, stand by, bro, because here he comes. And sure enough, they called in the next couple of fire missions. So in between those fire missions, Jay ran forward and got me and dragged me back to the tire. Um, so there was, they were still engaging and fighting. So some of the things I don't remember to this day, I found this out years later. Uh, we were all hanging out one night and our medic was like, hey, man, do you remember when you yelled at me for throwing that grenade?

• 3:45:07Jason Redman?

  I was like, what? No. And he's like, yeah, like we're in, you know, we were back, you were by the tire, you were totally fucking unconscious. And I said, hey, I'm gonna throw a grenade. And dude, you sat straight up and we're like, put that fucking grenade away before you kill us all. Um, and the reason being is because we were at, I, I guess it's a training lesson from SEAL Team Four back in the day. You don't throw grenades into vegetation. Because it'll bounce off vegetation and come back at you. Um, so, um, I don't know. But he was like, yeah, man, like, like, dude, I didn't, he was like, dude, you like bark thunder and then you laid back down and went back unconscious.

• 3:45:52Jason Redman?

  So I don't know, I don't, I don't remember that story at all. I mean, I don't remember anything about that. Um, but, um.

• 3:46:02Jason Redman?

  Finally called in additional fire missions, got the, took the enemy out and they called in the medevac and the medevac landed about 75 yards from us. And my team leader started to drag me and it was at that point I suddenly felt all the pain. I was like, holy shit, this hurts. So I stopped him and I said, no, hey, stop, let me, let me get up. And I still believe my arm had been shot off and I had taken my helmet off. So I was like, Jay, grab my arm and grab my helmet and I'm going to the helicopter. And so I, I walked to the helicopter and I remember like I was walking like this and literally blood's just pouring out of my face, all over my buddy arm.

• 3:46:46Jason Redman?

  I mean, I still in my mind can see it, like just blood pouring out of my face as I, as I walked to the helicopter. I remember getting to the helo and grabbing onto, you know that metal handle? Yeah. On the 60 door? I remember like just vividly grabbing that handle and, and the flight medics, it was a 160th bird, the flight medics like helping me to get up into the helicopter. And then they loaded Matt and Matty and, and our medic onto the helicopter. And I don't, so there are parts of this story I learned later. And then there are parts of this story that I, what I remember, it was just being in the

• 3:47:30Jason Redman?

  helicopter, like stay awake, stay alive. There, there, there, there was a miracle moment that I tell people that occurred and you know, you and I last night, we were talking a little bit about faith and struggles in faith and I have always struggled at times with my faith and, and I'd love to tell everybody at this moment on the battlefield, like, you know, rock solid faith forever, but I still struggle sometimes. But right before that second fire mission, I

• 3:48:08Jason Redman?

  I was dying, like, no doubt in my mind. Like, I was laying there, this gunfight's going on, like, you know, we learn all the aspects of

• 3:48:19Jason Redman?

  trauma. You learn, you know, hey, man, this is what happens when you go into shock. You know, and I've, all the signs were there, like, you know, I was losing feeling, I was getting cold. It was getting harder and harder to breathe, it was getting harder and harder to think. And I was like, dude, you're, you're getting ready to check out, like, this is it, this is where you go. And, and that was, that was hard. I'll be honest, at, at first, I was kind of angry. Like, I was angry that I had allowed us to get into this position. I also was angry that the enemy would have the victory of killing me.

• 3:49:03Jason Redman?

  And then I started thinking more about my family. And that I was never gonna see my, you know, my kids again. And, and I talked to a lot of people about this, that, hey, man, you know, we worry so much about stuff in this life, and I gotta tell you, when I was laying there dying, I didn't think about any of my stuff, I didn't care about that. All I cared about was, you know, my, my, my wife and my kids, and just saying, hey, I love you one more time. So it was in that moment that I, I don't know, I called out to God, I said, I need your help. I need strength to go home. And, like that, like I had it, I just suddenly felt this surge of strength.

• 3:49:48Jason Redman?

  So, pretty amazing to go from I couldn't move a muscle however many minutes before, that I got up and I walked to that helicopter and got on. On that ride back, all I focused on, stay awake, stay alive, stay awake, stay alive.

• 3:50:03Shawn Ryan?

  How the fuck were you breathing?

• 3:50:05Jason Redman?

  I was leaning forward. They had me set up, they had me in the helicopter. They had me up against the wall and, and I was leaning forward like this. Um, and I learned later, so I, um, so I was a TF-160 medevac crew. So years later, I tracked down, uh, that crew. Cause I wanted to thank them. I also managed to track down a lot of people that were in the OR that saved my life.

• 3:50:33Jason Redman?

  But a friend of mine, who actually lives in this area now, uh, retired 160 pilot, helped me track down and found the crew that flew that mission that night. Um, so, um, I didn't get to meet the pilot, but I talked to him on the phone and he was like, you know, man, I've flown like 200 medevacs. He's like, never once have I had somebody track me down and say, thank you. I was like, well, I am. I said, I'm, I'm thanking you, man. Me and my family. So, um, and, and, uh, so then later I actually got to meet the crew chiefs, um, and the flight medic. So, um, and we were hanging out and they were telling me things about that night. Like they told me that,

• 3:51:17Jason Redman?

  uh, they were not rigged for three wounded. They were only rigged for two. So they weren't able to shut the doors, uh, or the door. So, and dude, they flew the rotors off that helicopter and we're all, I mean, you know, I mean, I've been shot multiple times. Matt had been shot multiple times, you know, uh, Luke almost had his leg severed. So we're bleeding everywhere. And, uh, he told me by the time they landed, uh, they got us off the helicopter. They didn't know if we survived. He said that they had me, the flight medic had me in the helicopter. I was, I was leaning, I was next to, uh, the crew chief door gunner. And what they did is they had me put my thumb on my chest.

• 3:51:56Jason Redman?

  I don't remember this at all, but, uh, if I slumped, they, he, the medic said, hey, hit him, wake him up. And I'd come to and put my thumb back on my chest. Um, so that's how, you know, part of the way that there, he was keeping an eye on me and he'd come over and try and keep my airway clear, uh, while he was working on the other guys.

• 3:52:18Shawn Ryan?

  Could you see?

• 3:52:19Jason Redman?

  I could see. Uh, even though I could see out of this eye. I don't, I don't, yeah, I mean, uh, this was all fucked up, but, um.

• 3:52:31Jason Redman?

  They said when they landed, they got us out of the helicopter. I remember, I was too weak, I didn't, I didn't climb out of the helicopter on my own. They offloaded me and put me on a stretcher car. And I remember, but it's weird what your mind remembers. Like, I remember driving. And I remember, we went over, we went under like this, this wooden bridge. And there was a, there was a guy up on top, smoking, looking down at me. I remember that. I remember getting into the outer area where they take all your gear off. And I remember them tugging on all that gear and like, starting to cut everything off. Body armor and weapons and all that stuff.

• 3:53:14Jason Redman?

  So, they got me into the operating room. And I was like, alright dude, you made it. Like, you can die and, and they'll save you. I remember watching like Bagdad, Bagdad E R, I think was the show. And there was a statistic on that show that if you made it, if you showed up at the combat support hospital, the emergency room there with a pulse, like, the doctors had a 90% chance of saving you. So I was like, I'm good, man. Like, I can let go and, you know, they'll jumpstart me and do whatever they gotta do. But like, I'm good, man. 90%, I'll take those odds all day. And so I, I let go.

• 3:53:58Jason Redman?

  Cause man, it, that, everything in me to stay awake, like, everything in me wanted to let go. It was like, it was like swimming with 100 pound weights tied to my ankles. Like, everything said, just let go, just go to sleep. And like, I knew, like, if you go to sleep dude, you'll never wake up again.

• 3:54:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:54:16Jason Redman?

  So, you know, we were talking about that last night. I fought like hell to stay alive. So they get me into the operating room and... And all these doctors and nurses come, come in and they're barking out orders and um, and I'm like drifting into nothingness and there was a nurse on my left side. So on my first line gear, I used to carry a grenade in a pouch right here. And I guess they missed that grenade when they were cutting all my gear off. So this nurse finds it and she yells out, hey, he's still got a bomb on him. And like instantly like everybody runs out of the operating room.

• 3:54:58Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 3:54:58Jason Redman?

  I guess that was their, you know, their emergency action plan, like clear the operating room. So I'm laying there and I'm like, oh my God, you've got to be shitting me. I'm like, I'm dying here. And that's like, you know, I remember thinking like, oh my God, what a bad day. And then that's like the last thing I remember. So obviously they came back in and somebody got that grenade. I've actually met that nurse, we connected with her and she remembered that night. But yeah, that started a whole new road.

• 3:55:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I'll bet.

• 3:55:36Jason Redman?

  Whole new road. So when I, when I came to,

• 3:55:45Jason Redman?

  I remember waking up and my commanding officer and CMC were there. And we were in, we were in Baghdad, which that was where our headquarters element was. So I remember and I, first thing I did is I tried to say something and I could, that's nothing, air. And the nurse was like, you know, Lieutenant, you've been, you've been shot in the face. She's like, you're trached. You're not going to be able to talk. So I was like, okay, give me, give me something to write with. And I don't know, my first thought was I was just ecstatic to still be alive. I'll be honest. I also remember looking down and being like, holy shit, I still have my arm.

• 3:56:30Jason Redman?

  Cause I didn't, I thought my arm had been shot off.

• 3:56:35Jason Redman?

  So I asked for a pen and paper and. I wrote down three things to them. I said, um, I said, are the guys okay? And they said, yeah, uh, you know, Maddie and Luke are out of surgery. They're good. They're gonna be fine. I said, okay. I said, has my wife been notified? And the CO said, yes.

• 3:56:56Jason Redman?

  How she got notified is kind of an interesting story, but uh, he's like, yes, I talked to her. And uh, I don't know why I wrote this, but I said, okay, do I still look pretty? And uh, they were like, no, no, this will probably be an improvement.

• 3:57:15Shawn Ryan?

  How did your wife get notified?

• 3:57:18Jason Redman?

  So my uh, yeah, my wife is a trooper and uh, that's one of the great things about the Trident is I get to tell our whole story from the very beginning, from the day we met to, you know, throughout my career and, you know, a lot of, a lot of special operations spouses don't get a lot of credit. And uh, it's a huge, uh, it takes a unique breed of, of woman, uh, to be married to soft guys. Um, we're,

• 3:57:50Jason Redman?

  we're a tough group of people to

• 3:57:51Shawn Ryan?

  We're a pain in the ass.

• 3:57:53Jason Redman?

  Yeah, we're a pain in the ass. And she was a rock star all through our relationship. So um, so uh, my wife had left her phone that morning and had taken the kids to go someplace and got home around noon and noticed that on the answer machine was US government, US government, US government, US government, all these, you know, like 25 missed calls. And she's like, that's weird. But, you know, technology was a little better. I mean, if we weren't running missions, I would call her and it would be a US government number. So she's like, huh, that's weird that Jay tried to call me so many times, you know, but we were weak from coming home. So she's like, maybe you want to, you know, coordinate

• 3:58:34Jason Redman?

  our vacation or something like that. So she didn't think anything of it. So then the phone rings again. She answers it and it's my, you know, commanding officer, Gus. And uh, he says, Erica, it's Gus. And immediately the call drops. And like, at this point, like her heart sank in her chest. He's like, oh my God, like 25 missed calls. Why is the CO calling me? And uh,

• 3:58:59Jason Redman?

  She's like, now she's like in panic mode. Cause she's like, well, if he was dead, they'd be at the door. But what if they came here this morning and they, I wasn't here and I forgot my phone? What if they've already shown up? So she's like panicking. So he dials back in, takes about 10 minutes to get through again. Erica, it's Gus, drops again, second time. Oh my god. So now she's like beside herself. So she tries to step outside so she's not freaking out in front of the kids. And finally, on the third call, he gets through. And I was still in surgery, so he said, he said, Erica, I, she said, your husband's the luckiest guy I know. He said, he, he's been all shot up.

• 3:59:46Jason Redman?

  You know, he's been shot in the arm, and he said he's been shot in the face. And he said, we don't know. What is, we don't know, he's not out of surgery yet. So she didn't know what my mental faculties were. Yeah. So she's trying to process this, she's got, you know, my kids were young. My kids were three and five, and she also had some of our neighbors or our teammates' kids over. She's got these kids running around, she told them they were gonna take them to the park. So she's trying to deal with these screaming kids while she's processing all this information. And so, so she immediately starts coordinating and like, hey, what's next?

• 4:00:30Jason Redman?

  And basically started planning for people to come over, her family to come in, take care of the kids, so that she could head up to Bethesda to be there when I arrived. I mean, they said, hey, J L B here, and believe it or not, from the day I was shot to the day I was in Bethesda, it was only four days. Wow. So when I got to Germany, they did some more stabilizing surgeries. And it was at that point that one of the guys had flew home with me. I said, "Hey, man, can we call my wife?" And he was like, "Yeah, yeah." And I said, "Okay, well, obviously, I can't talk, so you're gonna have to talk for me." He's like, "Okay." So I got Erica on the phone,

• 4:01:15Jason Redman?

  and I think one of the first things I told her was, "Hey, babe, I got all shot up, but my wang's okay."

• 4:01:24Jason Redman?

  Because that was like, that was like a running joke. Like, that's the worst thing. Like, you know, what if you get your, you know, your dick blown off? And, but for her, she was like, it was like the greatest thing I could hear, because she was like, and he was like, so funny, because when I wrote it, he was like, "I'm not reading that." I was like, "Come on, man, you gotta read it." And she was like, "It's what I needed to hear." Because she's like, "I knew your sense of humor was still there."

• 4:01:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:01:49Jason Redman?

  So.

• 4:01:52Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a break.

• 4:02:02Shawn Ryan?

  You know, guys, the older I get, the more obsessed I get with the maintenance of my own lawn. But it's a big job. So I started paying somebody to do it, and I would love when they would put these little designs in my lawn. But one thing I started noticing is I started missing all the little nooks and crannies. And that's an equipment issue. Then I found Manscaped.

• 4:02:31Shawn Ryan?

  Thanks to the Lawn Mower 4.0, it's real easy to get those wide-open spaces, and it has light on it, so now I can mow my lawn in the dark.

• 4:02:44Shawn Ryan?

  Then there's those hard-to-reach things.

• 4:02:48Shawn Ryan?

  Thanks to the Weed Whacker,

• 4:02:52Shawn Ryan?

  I'm no longer standing in the front of the mirror on one foot with the other foot above my head, trying to get all those hard-to-reach places, when my wife walks in and you have that awkward look on your face.

• 4:03:06Shawn Ryan?

  Get 20% off and free shipping with code Shawn, S-H-A-W-N, at manscaped.com. That's 20% off with free shipping at manscaped.com. Use code Shawn. It's time that you enjoy the finer things in life and get yourself a Platinum Package for your Platinum Package.

• 4:03:30Shawn Ryan?

  Shave your balls, be a man.

• 4:03:38Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, we're back.

• 4:03:41Shawn Ryan?

  This just gets heavier and heavier.

• 4:03:44Jason Redman?

  Well, it comes up.

• 4:03:47Jason Redman?

  We're coming up.

• 4:03:49Shawn Ryan?

  So you're home now?

• 4:03:50Jason Redman?

  Not yet.

• 4:03:51Shawn Ryan?

  You're on your way home. You're writing in the, you're writing on the board, your buddies. You just told your wife that your wang is okay.

• 4:03:58Jason Redman?

  My wang is okay.

• 4:03:59Shawn Ryan?

  It's still intact.

• 4:04:00Jason Redman?

  So, uh, they, they flew us home on the medevac bird and, um, and that was a miserable flight.

• 4:04:10Jason Redman?

  I have so much respect for people out there that have been trached. You know, oftentimes people are like, "Oh, what was the worst part of your injuries? Wearing a trach for seven months and two days sucked." Traches are nasty. You know, they, they, because you have damage to your breathing structure in your face, they insert a plastic tube into a hole in your throat that basically goes down right above your, you know, your trachea. Hence a tracheotomy.

• 4:04:44Jason Redman?

  What you don't know about it is your body sees it as a foreign object and oozes all this mucus to fight against it. So it gets totally nasty and it gets plugged up and you constantly have to clean it. And if you're not constantly cleaning it, you can suffocate. Or suck a big piece of mucus into your lungs.

• 4:05:08Jason Redman?

  So on the flight home, I'm trying to deal with this trach and the nurse is dealing, I mean, we had a lot of fucked up guys. So you had the ambulatory wounded guys who basically sat in the seats. And then you had those of us that were like in the ICU, uh, who were like in beds with all the beeping, everything. And, um, and the other problem I had was I was wired shut. So they had a pair of scissors because if I vomited with your wired shut, you also can aspirate. So.

• 4:05:43Jason Redman?

  Nasty, messy situation. But she was trying to deal with everybody else and I was really having problems breathing. So, just a measurable flight home and thankfully I kept feeling like I was gonna, I was gonna die on that flight home. But got home and I remember landing, it was at night, and they unloaded us and they put us on like these school buses. They were blue. And they, they had racks inside that they hooked your, your bed onto. And I remember them driving, I don't know where we would have flown into, I guess Dover would have made sense, close to Bethesda.

• 4:06:28Jason Redman?

  But I remember driving and, and man, all these, all these people out here that bashed the United States. Like the second, just to be on the road and to look at how clean our country is compared to third world countries you and I have been to. The infrastructure we've built, not to knock any other country that's out there, but like, I don't know, it made me feel good, like just to be home, like I'm home. And so I remember driving to the hospital, but the, I had this growing fear. There was a fear growing inside me, probably the most I've ever been afraid in my life.

• 4:07:13Jason Redman?

  And it was, I knew my wife was at the hospital. And I was really terrified how she was gonna handle. I had not seen myself in a mirror, I'll be honest, I was terrified to, to see what I was gonna see. I knew that my nose was pretty much gone. They had, they had these orange tubes sticking out of what was left of my nose. I, obviously I'm wired shut. I had the trach. I, my, I had no use of my left arm, so I...

• 4:07:54Jason Redman?

  I can't remember if they had put the external fixators in yet or not, but that's the metal hardware that sticks out of your body when they're replacing severely damaged bones. So I can't remember if I had that or not. But I'm just, I'm a fucking mess. And I, in my mind, I felt like a monster. Like, like what's gonna happen when she walks in the room and sees me? Like, you know, this is what you married and now you're gonna have to live with this disfigured freak. Uh, so I was, I was afraid. Uh, I was afraid of how she was gonna react. Uh, I had definitely, I read a lot of stories about Vietnam and I'd read about, uh, wives coming to the exact same hospital, Bethesda, and walking

• 4:08:39Jason Redman?

  into the room and seeing guys who had been blown up or burned and like, taken off the ring and putting it on the end of the bed and walking out. And we had a strong relationship, but I don't know, man, that's, that's a hell of a test.

• 4:08:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it is.

• 4:08:55Jason Redman?

  I don't know if I was carrying the scars of, uh, you know, what had happened years before when, you know, you were told, hey, when I was told, hey, you don't measure up, you know, or we're gonna kick you out. I don't know. I don't know what was going on in my mind, but I was fucking terrified. And they, they brought me into the hospital and they took me up to my room. And the nurse started, you know, uh, trying to clean me up a little bit. And I don't know, at some point I realized, like, I still had blood caked in my hair. And I was like, you gotta clean me up. Like, I mean, like, it would have made a fucking difference. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm hooked up to breathing devices

• 4:09:37Jason Redman?

  and everything else. Uh, but I was like, you, you gotta like, clean me up. And they're just like, well, I know, you know, your wife's outside the room, you know, are you ready for her to come in? And I was like, no. And like,

• 4:09:49Shawn Ryan?

  You're like, look, I'm a fucking Navy SEAL and we all have perfect hair.

• 4:09:56Jason Redman?

  Yeah, this, this blood doesn't work like hair gel, alright? You gotta, like, I need some good shit.

• 4:10:03Jason Redman?

  But I was like, fucking terrified. And she's like, "Your wife's outside." And I'm like, "Yeah, I'm not ready yet." So I kinda kept stalling. And finally, she's like,

• 4:10:15Jason Redman?

  "You need to let your wife in." And I was like, "Okay." So, uh, so yeah, finally, I was like, "Okay." I don't know how long that was, but my wife was like, she was beside herself. It felt like hours outside the room. So finally, they let her in, man. And dude, my wife is such a saint, 'cause man, she walked right into that room. Dude, she did not pause. She did not like, you know, like, any, everything that I was expecting. Like, you know, uh, dude, she walked straight in, walked right up to me. She like pushed the fucking tubes and shit out of the way, kissed me right on the lips and was like, "We're gonna be okay." And, uh,

• 4:10:59Jason Redman?

  dude,

• 4:11:01Jason Redman?

  like, I needed that.

• 4:11:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:11:05Jason Redman?

  I needed that a lot.

• 4:11:11Jason Redman?

  Yeah, 'cause, uh, I, I literally, in my mind, I was like, "Dude, you're gonna be disfigured forever."

• 4:11:20Jason Redman?

  So anyways, man, my, my wife, she came into that place and she definitely earned her name, the long-haired admiral after that. 'Cause dude, she like took that place over. Like, you know, she was tracking everything. And, and, um, because of all my injuries, I had an entire team of doctors. And there was a, there was a lot of amazing things that happened.

• 4:11:42Jason Redman?

  One of probably the most amazing things that I get to give tribute to is my arm was destroyed. So I took a, uh, so I took a PKM round right here. Which blew out the entire back of my humerus and shattered a huge shard of, took out a huge chunk of my humerus. And then I took a round on the inside, which blew everything out the back. So it effectively destroyed both bones, the heads of both bones all in a radius. I mean, the doctor said, like, you couldn't have done a better job destroying your elbow if, like, you tried.

• 4:12:24Jason Redman?

  It damaged my nerves to where I had no use of my left hand. And it was so bad that the orthopedic team was like, we should amputate his arm. Like, there's nothing we can do, you know? Massive nerve damage, elbow totally destroyed.

• 4:12:42Jason Redman?

  The head surgeon at Bethesda at the time, a guy by the name of Dan Velek, was a former SEAL from SEAL Team Two. And he was the head of orthopedics. And even though his team was like, hey, we should take this guy's arm, Dan was like, no, I'm gonna work to save this guy's arm. And he came into the room and told me that. He's like, you know, my team is saying that we can't save your arm. He said, I'm gonna save your arm. I don't think if it had been a team guy, he would have done that.

• 4:13:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:13:12Jason Redman?

  So another amazing god, fate moment. Like, hey, man, I mean, there's a lot I can't do with this arm, but I have an arm. Like, I can type, I mean, I can ride a motorcycle, you know? I can hug people.

• 4:13:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:13:26Jason Redman?

  So, so that, that occurred and, but just a really,

• 4:13:34Jason Redman?

  the start of a, a hard road. And,

• 4:13:43Jason Redman?

  I'll be honest, in the beginning, I really struggled. For the first week I was in the hospital, I'll be honest, I, I was angry.

• 4:13:52Shawn Ryan?

  What were you angry about?

• 4:13:54Jason Redman?

  I was angry because I had worked so hard to get my career back on track. And, and like that hit it, you know, come on in, you know? And, So I was angry about that. And I also was kind of kicking myself, like, you know, you made a bad call. Like, this is what put you in this situation. So I was kicking myself about that. I kept saying, man, if you would move left, or if you'd move right, or if you had done this, or if you had done that. And finally, at one point, I was like, stop it. You can't change what's happened. What's happened has happened.

• 4:14:39Jason Redman?

  All you can do is change what happens from this point forward. And I asked myself, I said, did you do everything according to how you'd been trained? And the answer was yes. You know, we, the SEAL teams have changed how we're doing things now because of that mission, but we didn't do any, we did things according to our SOPs. There are definitely heavy lessons learned out of that operation, which gladly we've changed. But up to that point, we did things based off our SOPs. So I told myself, dude, you did, you executed that mission how you were trained. Stop kicking yourself. And then I also found solace. I told myself, you know, you're the worst wounded.

• 4:15:23Jason Redman?

  And I'll be honest, that gave me, like, if Matty or Luke had been the ones that were all shot up like I was, I mean, they were shot up, but like, if they were, it would have bothered me. Like, or if we had lost someone. And I said, everybody came home, you're the most wounded, like, let's go. And I started thinking about all the leadership lessons that I had learned over those last two years. Hey, man, you gotta grind forward, you know? Lead yourself, lead others, lead always. Like, you can't sit here and feel sorry for yourself. Like, fuck does that accomplish you? So I'm kind of grinding through all those things in my mind, and...

• 4:16:07Jason Redman?

  It was around that time, like I said, about seven days into the hospital, that I had some people come into the room and, and they were like, they were having a conversation off to themselves and I had been talking to them and I guess started to drift off. So, but I was in that in-between phase of consciousness and totally asleep where you can still hear things going on, but you're not really totally engaged. And they started to have a conversation about the hospital and how hard the hospital was and, you know, what a shame. All these young men and women that are all blown up and battered and they're never going to be the

• 4:16:48Jason Redman?

  same. They're never going to be able to have a great life, you know? What a shame. We send all these young people off to war and they come home broken. And I was hearing all that and they left and like it was stewing inside of me. Like, you know what? I'll be honest, I think it's what I needed. Because it was kind of like, you know what? I'm not going to feel sorry for myself and I'm not going to let anybody else come in here and feel sorry for me anymore. Like, guess what? Like, you need to, you need to get up and go. Like, maybe not getting out of this bed, but mentally, you need to get up and go. And when my wife came back in, I told her, I said, hey, nobody's allowed

• 4:17:31Jason Redman?

  into my room ever again if they're going to come in here feeling sorry for me. Because I said, from this point forward, I will not feel sorry for myself. And that's when I wrote out that sign. And the sign said, "Attention, all who enter here. If you're coming in this room with sadness, sorrow, don't bother. The wounds that I received, I got a job that I love, doing it for people I love, defending the freedom of a country that I deeply love. I'll make full recovery when it's full. That's the absolute utmost. Physically, I have the ability to recover and I'm going to push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you're about to enter is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regrowth. If you're not prepared for that..." Go elsewhere. And we signed it to management.

• 4:18:15Jason Redman?

  So, I don't know why. But signed it to management, I said, hey babe, put this on my door. And like, nobody's allowed in this room until they read it. And originally, it was on a eight and a half, eleven piece of printer paper. Cause that's what I was writing on. I have an entire ream, like five hundred sheets of conversations from the, you know, eight weeks I was in the hospital and I couldn't talk. And it was originally on that. She put it on the door and I said, hey. A couple of days later, I had somebody else come in the room and they were definitely beside themselves. A lot of pity. And I said, okay, I need this sign. We need something bigger. And she went to the exchange and found a big, bright, orange piece of poster paper.

• 4:19:00Jason Redman?

  And we transcribed it word for word on that paper. And I said, put that on the door. No one's allowed in until they read that and they need to understand it. So it, it, it kinda took on a life of its own. Probably the day or maybe two days after it went up, a team guy came to visit. And as he was leaving, he read the sign, he took his trident off and put it, tacked it into the bottom of the door. And I gotta be honest, man, that was a huge thing for me too.

• 4:19:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:19:33Jason Redman?

  Cause after I go, after I'd done this crazy journey of failure and redemption, and now I'm kinda faced with this, my career over. To have a fellow team guy say, this is what being a team guy is about. Tacked it in the door and it took on a life of its own. A New York firefighter had come to the hospital. John Vigiano, who I later became really good friends with. John was a legend in the New York Fire Department. He was a Marine. He lost both sons on nine eleven. One was a cop, one was firefighter. And John started coming to the hospital after that to visit with Wounded Warriors. And came to my room and visited and saw the sign on the door.

• 4:20:17Jason Redman?

  Took a picture and wrote a blog about it and it went viral. It went everywhere. National news was doing stories about it. Blogs started getting written about it. And we started to get a little too much attention. So, and my name wasn't out there yet. And I was like, no, I'm not doing interviews. Cause in my mind, I was still. I'm coming back operational.

• 4:20:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:20:40Jason Redman?

  So, um, but the sign kind of took on a life of its own. So over the next six weeks, you know, they continued to put me back together. You know, I had a surgery probably every other day. I probably had 20 surgeries in the first, um, two months I was there. And then I was released and they sent me home. And that started all the outpatient surgeries. So over the next four years, I had about 40 surgeries.

• 4:21:12Jason Redman?

  And, um, you know, what a lot of people don't realize is when you get wounded, it's not a clear path. Battlefield injuries are super dirty. So, uh, a lot of guys, I mean, I'm really fortunate that they didn't amputate my arm. There's a lot of guys that come back that have injuries and they may still have their limb, but infection sets in and they end up having to amputate to try and stop the infection.

• 4:21:38Jason Redman?

  So, um, and I ended up getting infection in my face, uh, which became a major issue. Um, this, the nose that I have is the third nose they built me. Uh, the first two totally failed. And at one point when the second one failed because of the amount of necrotic tissue and infection, they ended up cutting everything out. So I literally just had this hole in my face. I felt like Skeletor. I, and I just, I wore like this gauze patch over my face, um, during that time. And dude, that was a hard road to ride. You know, I mean, our faces as humans are, you know, it's what we look at.

• 4:22:24Jason Redman?

  It's how we communicate. And so I attracted a lot of attention, which, um, was tough. Um, and, and, you know, some of my fuck it mindset worked and sometimes it didn't.

• 4:22:37Jason Redman?

  But, um, you know, just, um, continuing to grind and drive forward as all of this got put back together. There was another fortunate thing that occurred. And that is at Bethesda, they were talking about how to put my face back together and, uh,

• 4:22:57Jason Redman?

  I want to give a shout out to all the amazing doctors and nurses in the military. Most of them are incredible. The oral maxillofacial team at Bethesda at that time, we did not get along very well. And I kept trying to bring together all the different teams of doctors from ENT to eye to oral maxillofacial, to plastics, to orthopedics, to everybody that was working because we had a Air Force Special Operations guy, medical guy who was assigned over our case from SOCOM. And he basically said from the beginning, hey, man, make sure everybody's on the same page. He's like, it's just like a mission. Everybody needs to be read in so they understand all the different parts. I was like, okay.

• 4:23:41Jason Redman?

  So I kept trying to get the OMFS team in and they were like, no, we don't need to do that. We're good. We know what our part is. And I'm like, hey, man, like, I need you to be talking to plastics. I need you to be talking to everyone so that everybody knows how their part fits together. And, um, and, and they wouldn't do it. So finally it started getting a little hostile, you know? I'm like, look, man, like, you guys want to do things, like, I don't trust you to do them. Like, you need to show me pictures of people you've put back together, you know, because I'm beginning not to trust you. And, uh, so it kind of got more and more hostile. So finally I had caught wind, they had told me after they had put me back together, they

• 4:24:24Jason Redman?

  were going to send me to Chicago to get my, um, to, um, send me to this doctor who was like one of the world's best on nasal reconstruction, a civilian doctor. And, um, so one day in the hospital, I called him. I found his number and I called him and I said, hey, you know, I'm a Navy SEAL. I got shot in the face. My nose got blown off. Uh, I've got some massive facial damage. This is what these oral maxillofacial doctors are telling me. What would you do? And he was like, why don't you come to Chicago and see me? So I called, you know, the command, uh, or I called Naval Special Warfare and I said, hey, can I get permission and orders to go to Chicago to see this doctor? And they were like, yes. So.

• 4:25:07Jason Redman?

  I went and met him and he was like, no, what they're talking about is old technology, medical technology. I want to connect you to my partner who I work with in Chicago, who I went and met with. And that guy said, you know what? He said, you're more complicated than most cases. He said, I want to send you to Baltimore. There's a doctor there who is probably one of the best in the world for facial reconstruction. So flew to Baltimore, probably a month later, and met this guy, Dr. Eduardo Rodriguez. And as soon as I met him, dude, I walked into the room, like, I showed you my no-bad days. Well, the skull, so this was taken off the acrylic model of my skull, which I ended

• 4:25:49Jason Redman?

  up carrying around everywhere I went to meet doctors as they figured out how to put me back together. And I remember walking into Dr. Rodriguez's office, and the entire office was lined with skulls that looked like mine. And right off the bat, he was like, hey, man, like, you know, I worked on a couple Delta guys. And he pulled up pictures and was showing me guys who had been shot in the face. And he's like, this is what I did for them. I was like, dude, I need you. So he ended up doing all my facial reconstruction. And then later, I went back to the nose guy, Dr. Robert Walton, who did all my nasal reconstruction. But Ed Rodriguez is probably, I mean, so I'm really fortunate. I got out of the military

• 4:26:33Jason Redman?

  medical system. And I mean, I've had a miraculous outcome. I mean, to take a high caliber machine gun round to the face and, and, and look like this now is incredible. And Doc Rodriguez is probably, in my opinion, and I think most people would agree, probably the best facial reconstruction dude on the planet. I don't know if you remember, probably 10 years ago, the woman that got her face bit off by a baboon and they did the first facial transplant? Damn. So Dr. Rodriguez led that surgery. Wow. So, so just fortunate as things unfolded.

• 4:27:11Jason Redman?

  I hung on to getting back operational. And I ended up finishing my time at SEAL Team 10. And I, when I was coming back, you know, from being wounded, I was screening to try and go over to the development group. So I got permission and they allowed me to go over there.

• 4:27:38Jason Redman?

  To be able to serve there and I worked in operate, or I worked in ops, I worked some special projects and things like that. And and my goal was hopefully to get back operational though, so that I could finish my career over there.

• 4:27:55Jason Redman?

  Unfortunately, that didn't really ever happen. You know, so originally my arm was totally fused, so I couldn't bend it at all. I finally got, you know, through a lot of rehab. I still have some nerve damage with my ulnar nerve.

• 4:28:13Jason Redman?

  But I kept trying to find doctors who could give me more movement.

• 4:28:22Jason Redman?

  Found a doctor at Johns Hopkins, Andy Eglesetter, who was one of the premier hand and arm guys out there. And he went in and rebuilt my elbow. And got me so I can bend this much and I can extend this much. And, and he was like, that's the best you're ever gonna have.

• 4:28:44Jason Redman?

  Which, after I recovered, I quickly realized doesn't work. You know, it's really hard to grab things on your side. I mean, it's even pretty difficult to clip my helmet or do things like that.

• 4:28:57Jason Redman?

  So I, you know, the command was great about helping me. The medical department there was incredible and we kept searching across the country to try and find somebody better. And I would, I would meet literally some of the best hand and arm guys anywhere. And, and, you know. Orthopedic surgeons and high level surgeons, they can be an arrogant bunch. Yeah. Yeah, I'd meet them and they'd be like, oh yeah, I can definitely fix your arm. And I'd throw that X-ray up dude and it'd be like they had the wind taking out of their sails. It'd be like, oh, I'd be like, yeah, man, I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do for this. They're like, we don't even know how, we don't even know how your elbow is functioning. Wow.

• 4:29:38Jason Redman?

  So I called back, Andy Agel said to her and I said, hey, man, I need, I need more movement. I need like at least 10 more degrees. And he was like, not only no, but hell no. He's like, going into your elbow was like going into hell. He's like, he's like, no. He's like, it's amazing the outcome you have. He's like, I'm, he's like, not only that, he said, if you allow somebody to go back in there, he's like, there's a high chance you'll have a negative outcome. He's like, you could be in chronic pain and you know, your arm may not work right. He's like, so I sure as hell, I'm not going back in there and I'd recommend you not either. You not have anybody do it either. So, once again, stubborn, didn't listen to that.

• 4:30:23Jason Redman?

  Kept looking, kept looking. I finally, probably the 10th doctor was a really esteemed guy out of Duke University. And this was probably two years after my injuries at this point. And I'd gotten myself back in some kind of shape. And you know, was, I was like, man, this is the last thing. If I can get my arm right, you know, I can go back and be operational. You know, hopefully qualify, go through green team. And yeah, he sat me down and he was like, listen. He's like, you have an amazing outcome. He's like, what you can do with this arm is incredible.

• 4:31:05Jason Redman?

  He said, I don't think there's anyone on this planet that can do any better than what you have. And he said, that other guy that told you you're gonna have a negative outcome, I agree. He said, if you were my son, I would not let you get this surgery. He said, and I highly advise you not to look anymore. So I remember walking out of that and I had gone down there by myself. My, my wife had not gone on that trip. And I remember walking out of there, it was late in the afternoon, like the sun was setting. And I remember, I don't know, I think for a while, reality had started to set in. Like I kind of knew.

• 4:31:41Jason Redman?

  That, uh, I don't know, that that chapter was closing. So I kinda came to grips with it and was like, alright, man, this it, you know? That, that, that story's over. So, came back and, uh, and, uh, I asked the command, I said, hey, I wanna, so I, I was at probably, what, seventeen, eighteen years at that point? And I said, I wanna finish my career. I wanna do twenty years. I came in to do twenty years. And I said, okay, Roger that. So I, uh, stayed, like I said, I got to work ops, I got to work special projects, I got to work on some other unique things, which was cool for me to be able to play a part in that command, even though I wasn't operational.

• 4:32:26Jason Redman?

  And then, uh, and then we started the process of, uh, medical retirement about nineteen years, which took two years to go through that whole process. Um, so I retired, uh, twenty year, twenty-one years, August thirtieth, uh, two thousand thirteen. And, uh, I probably would've kept going if I could have. Um, although what I started to realize was, so in the SEAL teams, we have no, like, the Army has administrative leadership positions. In SEAL teams, we don't. Like, you have to fill operational billets to make the next ranks. Um, so I could've made lieutenant commander, but I never would've made commander.

• 4:33:09Jason Redman?

  Cause I had, I would've had to fill an operational billet in order to make that next rank. So, I don't know. Uh, and several things were starting to happen in the background. I'd launched our nonprofit, and I was working with Wounded Warriors on our nonprofit. Um, that was starting to take more time. Um, I had started to write. Um, although I'd never intended to write a, the Trident, I never intended to write a book. What, what happened, how the Trident came to be, was during all those surgeries, um, when I couldn't talk, people would be like, what happened? So I wrote out the entire firefight. And, and then...

• 4:33:51Jason Redman?

  I like to write, so it started to become like this cathartic thing where after surgeries, I would just write. And I started writing about Afghanistan. I started writing about all my leadership mistakes I'd made in Afghanistan and about the missions and about growing up and learning. So by the time I was done, I had like 200 pages. And books are, as you well know, a double edged sword in our community. And I was at the development group and went to one of my Master Chiefs who had been my Master Chief at 10 and now was Master Chief, Command Master Chief over there. That's super, super, I respect the hell out of that guy.

• 4:34:32Jason Redman?

  And I went to him and I just said, hey, I've been working on this. I said, I wouldn't do anything without the community's permission, but I've written this. Would you read it and let me know your thoughts? He said, yes. So he got back to me and he was like, Red, this is great. He said, it's humble. You write about your mistakes. He's like, this is good. He's like, let's send it up to WarCom. Let's let them decide. So, sent it up to WarCom and WarCom blessed it and said, hey, no, this is good. We give you the thumbs up. So, at that point, you know, Marcus connected me to his agent and, you know, negotiated

• 4:35:17Jason Redman?

  with John Bruning to help me write. And we finished putting it all together. The deal with the Navy was I had to retire before the book was out. So, all of that kind of led me to decide that it was time to go. So, yeah, nonprofit book and starting to realize, hey, man, being a SEAL, that chapter's closed. So, what's next? You know, how can you help people? And that was also what I was beginning to see. The sign on the door really motivated and was inspiring all these other people and that message behind it of this mindset of overcoming, this mindset of driving forward despite adversity, this mindset of not being

• 4:36:01Jason Redman?

  a victim and not having pity for yourself. That was gaining a lot of traction.

• 4:36:08Jason Redman?

  You know, we, we, um, the sign, we had it framed, President Bush signed it. And, uh, and it hangs in the Wounded Ward at Bethesda. So I was getting this traction, being asked to come out and speak and share my story, both in military units, nonprofits.

• 4:36:29Jason Redman?

  And I, I was learning, man, I think there's power in this. Like,

• 4:36:37Jason Redman?

  I've got a unique story and most people are afraid to talk about failure. They don't want to talk about their failures, they only want to talk about their successes. And, I mean, that book, it's about failure. It's about failing, it's about crash and burn, fucking torch still in the rails, bottom of the barrel, failure. And, uh, and I'm living proof that it's not too late to come back from any failure you're ever in. So many of us buy into those lies. And this is where guys end up killing themselves because they think there's nothing left. I almost did. And I'm living proof that that's not true, that that's a fucking lie, uh, that you're being told.

• 4:37:20Jason Redman?

  So I was like, well, how do I get out and I help other people with this? How do I help other people overcome failure and tragedy and, you know, adversity and all these things that all of us are struggling with? So, um, so yeah, retired and got out and continued to work the nonprofit.

• 4:37:40Jason Redman?

  Learned a lot, uh, learned a lot, uh, about business, uh, both negative and positive.

• 4:37:49Jason Redman?

  And, uh, slowly started to grow in our speaking company.

• 4:37:54Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take for you to start to be able to talk again?

• 4:37:59Jason Redman?

  Seven months and two days.

• 4:38:01Shawn Ryan?

  Seven months, you were writing shit down?

• 4:38:03Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 4:38:03Shawn Ryan?

  That's how you communicate?

• 4:38:04Jason Redman?

  They could, uh, they could cap my trach so I could talk, but I wore that trach for seven months and two days. I would have to, you know, we would put it on for me to talk and then I would take the cap off.

• 4:38:16Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take for you to look at yourself in the mirror?

• 4:38:20Jason Redman?

  So that was, uh, so it kind of happened by accident in the hospital about two weeks after I was there. Um, I, I don't know if I was ready, my wife would ask me, you know, and I was like, nah, I don't, I don't need to see myself yet.

• 4:38:35Jason Redman?

  So one day, actually, interestingly enough, it was the day they did the, they figured out how to do the acrylic model for my skull and they put you into this machine that does this 360 degree scan. So when they put me into this machine, and I was still really weak from all the blood loss and everything, so it took a lot in me to just get up. So it took everything in me to get up into this machine and yeah, as soon as I got in, there was a mirror directly across and my wife was fucking livid. Cause yeah, it was the first time I saw myself and I looked rough, man. You know, 10, 12 days, my, um, my face was so fucking swollen, um, like all the way

• 4:39:20Jason Redman?

  out to here, like everything, like I had just, the stitches looked like they were ready to bust, you know, almost no nose, you know, just these tubes sticking out of my nose. I had scars all the way down to my lip, my lip was all pulled up like this.

• 4:39:38Shawn Ryan?

  What was your, what was your thought when you saw yourself?

• 4:39:43Jason Redman?

  I looked like a freak.

• 4:39:47Jason Redman?

  But I also, I guess the good news was I was on the flip side.

• 4:39:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:39:53Jason Redman?

  I was on the flip side of this, hey, whatever happens, I'm gonna be positive and drive forward. Like, they'll figure out how to put me back together. There was another amazing moment that occurred, um, right around that time. And, uh, it, it might've even happened before this, cause I was pretty positive about like, hey, I look like a freak, but I know there's light at the end of the tunnel. So there's a wounded warrior out there by the name of Clay South. Shout out, much love to you Clay, if you hear this. Clay was a Marine who got shot in the face in Fallujah in 2004. He made entry into a room and literally on the other side of the door was a terrorist with an AK.

• 4:40:35Jason Redman?

  Clay stepped directly into the line of fire and the guy pulled the trigger, probably only six inches from Clay's face. Like he was so close, he had powder burns all over his face. The round hit him right in the lower jaw. Destroyed his entire jaw and the bullet lodged in in his throat. He drops and the rest of the guys come into the room. A huge gunfight breaks out. They think Clay's dead.

• 4:41:06Jason Redman?

  One of the guys frags the room, so Clay now gets blown up and fragged. And when they come back in, they realize, holy shit, he's still alive. They call in the medic. The medic, one of the first things he does, young inexperienced medic, is uses Quicklot. You don't use Quicklot on. So, you know, now his throat's burning.

• 4:41:28Jason Redman?

  But they they saved Clay and rebuilt his face. So, two thousand four, so this is three years later. So, I got connected to Clay and I remember my wife had pushed me outside and, you know, somebody somebody said, hey, Clay's gonna come visit you today. Now, I was sitting outside in the courtyard at Bethesda, and I'll be honest, I was kind of struggling that day. And I remember from across courtyard seeing him, he's a pretty big guy, pretty big jack guy. And he was walking across courtyard, he's probably, I don't know, fifty yards from me and, you know, I only had the one good eye to see with it, this, you know, this eye was kind of messed up still. And I remember thinking, man, look at that, that, look at that young buck.

• 4:42:12Jason Redman?

  Got his whole life in front of him and, you know, here I am, I'm sitting in this wheelchair all fucked up. And then he he walks up to me and I can see as he gets closer, he's got a lot of facial scars, but he looked good. And he's like, what's up, man? Clay South. And I was like, holy shit. Like, okay. Like, I know what happened to him, so I know I'm gonna be okay. So, sometimes you just need to see somebody on the other side to realize, okay, man, I can, I can walk this walk.

• 4:42:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:42:42Jason Redman?

  So.

• 4:42:43Shawn Ryan?

  Did you care about what anybody thought other than, I mean, your family?

• 4:42:49Jason Redman?

  Uh, not really.

• 4:42:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:42:51Jason Redman?

  You know, Mike, I was worried about my kids. Uh, that was one of the things and a lot of people ask about that. Um, I would not let the kids see me for the first several weeks. And my wife and I both agreed on that for a lot of reasons. But I also think this was something that set them up for success and my kids are amazing now. Um, there were a lot of things. I, I looked really rough in the beginning. Like when I saw myself in that mirror, I looked rough.

• 4:43:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:43:22Jason Redman?

  Uh, that would have been very scary for them.

• 4:43:26Jason Redman?

  I also was too weak to get up and walk.

• 4:43:31Jason Redman?

  I didn't want to see them in the ICU. I didn't want them to see me in the ICU where I'm hooked up to all this wires and everything. I couldn't get out of bed. I still looked bad. So I said, I want to wait. I want, I want to be able to walk into the room where the kids are when I see them. And I want some time for the doctors to do some work to hopefully make this look a little better. So I think I saw him for the first time like three weeks later. And, uh, and there's a little family room in Bethesda. And, you know, there was four or five rooms down from my room. And, uh, and yeah, carried my little IV pool and

• 4:44:12Jason Redman?

  walked in the room for the first time and, you know, that was, uh, my wife had gone out and bought like toys for the kids that they wanted. My son would have been eight. Uh, my younger daughter, my middle daughter would have been five and the youngest was two, almost three. So I think it was a baby doll. I think it was like a medical kit and she got my son a Nintendo DS. So she gave these for me to give the kids. And, um, and I was kind of afraid of how the kids would handle me. And yeah, they were, they seemed happy to see me. My, my middle was like daddy looks funny, but he's good.

• 4:44:55Jason Redman?

  So, um, you know, and that's, um, that journey with my kids became, um,

• 4:45:04Jason Redman?

  You truly learn what unconditional love is with children.

• 4:45:09Jason Redman?

  Kids haven't let all the bullshit bias of the world get into them. They don't care about the color of skin. They don't care about scars. They don't care that somebody's different because they're missing limbs or they have a disease or they're whatever. Like, kids just see the world for what it is. Hey, Sean, you know, maybe you're all burned, but hey, Sean's a fun guy. Let's go play together. And you see that, you know, I saw that with my kids. You know, they didn't care.

• 4:45:42Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome.

• 4:45:42Jason Redman?

  You know, that's dad, dad, come play with me. Dad, read me this book. Dad, play the Nintendo DS with me. And that was probably one of the biggest things that helped heal me also.

• 4:45:55Jason Redman?

  To grow and learn. And yeah, I think I got to a point, man, I got an amazing, beautiful wife who she still loves me. She was such a saint. And that was the other thing as we moved forward. I mean, you know, almost forty surgeries over four years. I mean, she was my biggest nurse, especially in the first year when they sent me home. I mean, they sent me home in a wheelchair. They sent me home with all this external hardware sticking out of my body. I was still trached. I was still trached. I'm eating out of the stomach tube. I'm wired shut. My wife was literally grinding meds in a mortar and pestle to feed them to me through my stomach tube. I mean, that's above and beyond. She was cleaning my trach.

• 4:46:39Jason Redman?

  I mean, that's way, that's a heavy lift.

• 4:46:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:46:43Jason Redman?

  For anyone. And dude, she never, she never ever complained, man. And that would have crushed me. You know, if my wife had ever said, how could you have done this to us? You know, you and your stupid career.

• 4:46:58Jason Redman?

  That would have crushed me.

• 4:47:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:47:00Jason Redman?

  And I don't know if she ever felt it, but she sure never said it, man. My wife was just positive and awesome, so.

• 4:47:08Shawn Ryan?

  That's, that's, that's amazing. I mean, you got a strong family.

• 4:47:15Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 4:47:16Shawn Ryan?

  That's.

• 4:47:17Jason Redman?

  Blessed, man.

• 4:47:18Shawn Ryan?

  That's fucking beautiful.

• 4:47:23Jason Redman?

  Yep. So, uh, yeah, man, we're blessed. I mean, hard to believe, you know, it's been

• 4:47:34Jason Redman?

  15 years. This will be 15 years now. So, um, and we've, we've got an amazing life. You know, we're, um, I'm now, um, ran the nonprofit for 10 years with my wife, grew it to almost a $3 million organization and, um, ran into some shit show along the way, learned a lot, um, finally decided to phase it down for several reasons. But one of the biggest one is we did not focus on mental health. Uh, and we were losing too many wounded warriors and I was losing too many friends to suicide.

• 4:48:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:48:16Jason Redman?

  And I think the final, um, we had created a leadership program for wounded warriors called the Overcome Academy. It was a very expensive program, so it was really hard to raise the funding for that. Um, and I had gotten a friend of mine, Ron Condry, was an EOD guy who really was struggling with demons. Um, and I had convinced Ron, hey, he wanted to go through the Overcome Academy, this leadership program. I said, not, hey, man, yes, but I think you should do some other stuff first. So we ended up doing other things. He called me up after he graduated one of these programs, like, man, I'm so excited to come to your Overcome Academy. Um, that course was supposed to run in October.

• 4:48:58Jason Redman?

  He got out of that other program like the end of September. Like two days later, he killed himself in front of his wife. And, uh, that, that kind of made me realize like...

• 4:49:14Jason Redman?

  Dude, until we can figure out how to fix this, like, nothing else really matters. I mean, there's a lot of groups that are out there that are trying to figure out how to give guys jobs, and they want to take guys fishing and all that, and all that stuff's great, man, and kudos to any organization that's doing that. But I said, okay, we don't need another nonprofit. You know, what I was doing, there's 43,000 nonprofits. Like, I had developed a little bit of a name. I said, I'm gonna phase mine down, and I'm gonna go find organizations that are helping on the mental health side and on the traumatic brain injury side.

• 4:49:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:49:51Jason Redman?

  So that's how I got involved with Concussion Legacy Foundation, supporting Project Headstrong, another group that's doing mental health. I work with the Gary Sinise Foundation, and recently I got involved with SEAL Future Foundation, who's doing a lot of really good stuff for our guys, any of our guys. So, yeah, man, it's been kind of an incredible road. You know, now, speaking, wrote a couple more books.

• 4:50:25Shawn Ryan?

  How'd the book do?

• 4:50:26Jason Redman?

  Trident became a New York Times bestseller, which is pretty amazing. That's a whole nother story in that the agent, who's no longer with us, he ended up passing away, did not like the book. We butted heads quite a bit. It almost didn't get published because he didn't want me to tell the failure story. He was like, just, he's like, write more combat. He's like, that's what people want. And I was like, that's, you know what, man, there's plenty of guys that have written that story.

• 4:51:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:51:01Jason Redman?

  I was like, that's not my story. I was like, this is my story. You know, this is the story of a guy who failed and managed to come back. And like, and I said, and I'm proud of that. And I think it'll resonate. And he didn't, he didn't believe in it. He didn't like it. Um, so because of that, I don't think it got a lot of the love and attention that it could have. Although what's interesting is it continues to sell after all these years. And it, I didn't even know it made the New York Times Bestseller list. I found out when we were working on Overcome. Um, the publisher for Overcome was like, hey, you know, do you want us to write New York Times Bestseller on Overcome?

• 4:51:41Shawn Ryan?

  That's how you found out?

• 4:51:42Jason Redman?

  Yeah. I was like, no, that's not true. And she's like, what do you mean it's not true? Yes, it's true. I was like, I'm not a, I, we never made the list. And she's like, yeah, you did. You made it on this date, like a year and two months after it came out.

• 4:51:55Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 4:51:56Jason Redman?

  So, um, it's been, it's been pretty amazing. Um, um, Overcome, tried in as the story, and there's a lot of leadership lessons and people really like it. I mean, Jon Brunin, I gotta give him a hand. He really, uh, people that read it, the greatest thing I always hear is, wow, that wasn't what I expected. It was so much better. Cause I think what people are expecting is like this hardcore combat rah rah rah book. And that's in there. But it's much more a story of leadership and growing up. And it's a love story. And it's, you know, it's all these things that are much more human than somebody who just wants, you know, the hardcore warrior shit's out there.

• 4:52:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I, I mean,

• 4:52:41Shawn Ryan?

  there's a lot of that shit out there. And it, you know, it's interesting. But I find just with the, I mean, you're, I've only done

• 4:52:53Shawn Ryan?

  thirty interviews, you know, in, in two and a half years, but so my knowledge is limited.

• 4:53:02Shawn Ryan?

  But all of the all of the episodes that seem to do

• 4:53:10Shawn Ryan?

  the best, you know, um

• 4:53:14Shawn Ryan?

  our failures, insecurities, overcoming things, you know, it's not I've never had a chest pounder, you know what I mean, on here and um and all of them do really well. But the ones that really, really take off are the are the the men that come in here and women soon that, you know, that come in here and they and they talk about failures, they talk about insecurities, they talk about overcoming obstacles and and that's what

• 4:53:50Shawn Ryan?

  that's what resonates, you know, I mean, everybody has this idea of what a SEAL is or what a special operations guy or badass business guy. And what it does is it's it's the ones that really humanize themselves that resonate because, you know, people fucking relate to that shit.

• 4:54:09Jason Redman?

  Because we're all human.

• 4:54:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 4:54:11Jason Redman?

  You know, I've met people who are like, oh, man, you know, SEALs are superhuman. No, we're not.

• 4:54:15Shawn Ryan?

  Nope.

• 4:54:16Jason Redman?

  We're just like everybody else.

• 4:54:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:54:19Jason Redman?

  We have, we have our, we have doubts and we have you know, I think the only thing that makes us different is I think the one common thing, we can endure pain and discomfort longer than the average person.

• 4:54:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:54:33Jason Redman?

  Probably, I would say at the higher level, you can process information faster than the average person. That's probably the other thing that really makes, I see what break, you know, what makes a difference between a guy making it through training or not.

• 4:54:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:54:50Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'm gonna link both of those in the description and and um

• 4:54:55Shawn Ryan?

  Hopefully they pick up again.

• 4:54:56Jason Redman?

  Yeah, amen.

• 4:54:58Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, which I'm sure they will. So what are you doing with the coaching and you got into speaking and you got a lot going on?

• 4:55:07Jason Redman?

  I do, probably too much. But you, you learn. You know, you learn where you and I were talking a lot about that. You, you throw a lot at the wall. You figure out what works. You figure out what you like. You figure out what you don't like. I like coaching. Coaching's super time consuming. That's the only thing for one-on-one coaching. So I'm probably scaling that back. I have a coaching group. I, I'm, I relate to the underdog. So there are a lot of people who are really targeting high level. I want to do this high level executive coaching. And sure, I'd like to do that. That's one, it pays well. But, um, bigger than that, I want to connect to the average person because the average person can't afford high level executive coaching. So I created a group called the Overcome Army.

• 4:55:52Jason Redman?

  And it is for the average, everyday person who's struggling to overcome. Who wants to be the best version of themselves. Like, how do I? How do I set goals and accomplish goals? How do I create more discipline in my life? How do I come to grips that I'm fucked up, but that's okay? And I can still drive forward and be successful and not buy into the lies that I'm fucked up and I'll never be successful. And it's been pretty neat, man. We have about a hundred people. Thirty-nine ninety-nine a month. I've got other coaches and, and, um, just helping people overcome trauma, really themselves. I mean, like we talked about earlier, I mean, man, overcoming yourself, that's the greatest victory you'll ever have. You know, if you can come to grips with yourself and, and despite the doubts you have,

• 4:56:35Jason Redman?

  still drive forward, victory. So Overcome Army, that's doing well. Speaking is really doing well. I mean,

• 4:56:48Jason Redman?

  Like you said, I pride myself on being relatable to any audience. Um, I think the SEAL thing is nice. It's a shiny thing. Um, but that's not what connects people. What connects people is a story of leadership and failure. It is a story of resilience. It's a story of how I figured out how to create balance in my life as a leader. It's sharing my insecurities and my problems and the, you know, sharing that story of sitting in that chair and putting a gun in my mouth, thinking it was the end and, and coming to learn that it really became a new beginning, a better me. Um, teaching people how to get off the X, uh, with the, you know, the X me and the point of attack incident,

• 4:57:31Jason Redman?

  the, the lies in your head that everybody gets told. And it's been cool, man. It's been neat to see people who relate and say, I needed that. Like I, I, I was stuck, you know? I bought into those lies that I was a failure that would never be worth anything again. So, uh, that's rewarding. That, um,

• 4:57:58Jason Redman?

  I, you know, you and I were talking about death and, uh, uh, it's the one, all of us have to die. Um, so I think the only goal you could have in this life is how do you make the biggest impact with the gifts you have? And we've lost a lot of friends. I mean, in this room, there are people that you and I knew who are no longer here. And I, I, I try and live my life, no bad days. Like the idea behind no bad days is dude, if you're still alive, then guess what, man? It's a good day. You have the opportunity to make something of your life, to make an impact, do something positive for someone.

• 4:58:39Jason Redman?

  Cause you're still alive. Cause the alternative is those days are gone. Like, like our buddies who are no longer here.

• 4:58:49Jason Redman?

  They would give anything to still be here. Their families would give anything for them to still be here. So, you know, these people that squander their lives.

• 4:58:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, they would want you to have your best day.

• 4:59:00Jason Redman?

  Exactly. And I think it's up to us to live for that.

• 4:59:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:59:03Jason Redman?

  You know, we're, we're buried in negativity out in this world today. Fucking social media and the media. So I don't watch it.

• 4:59:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:59:13Jason Redman?

  I don't, uh, uh, I use social media just to put content out and I try to engage with the people that follow me. But I try not to scroll very much. Because usually it's nothing but negative, you know, negative information.

• 4:59:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:59:29Jason Redman?

  So if I'm still here, it's a good day, you know? So that, those are all the things that I'm speaking on. I'm, uh, just trying to get out there and spread that message. Um, got the, um, a lot of people have been asking me, hey, man, when can I come here? You speak and most of the stuff I've done has all been private. So the, uh, very first ticketed event I am doing is up in Chicago. September 1st through 3rd called the Roger Up Event. And I'm pretty excited. We got some high level people, uh, Nick Kumalatsis, uh, a fellow SEAL, Will Branham, uh, myself, we're going to be doing, it's a personal development. And, um, and we're, we're throwing in jujitsu.

• 5:00:12Jason Redman?

  Some of, some of the top jujitsu practitioners in the world are going to be some of the instructors. And some people may say, well, dude, I'm not a jujitsu guy, but at the end of the day, getting out of your comfort zone is one of the biggest things you can do for personal development. So even if you're not into jujitsu, come, get on the mat. It's going to get you out of your comfort zone. And, uh, and then we're going to be talking on leadership. We're going to be talking on emotional leadership. We're going to be talking on, uh, how do you build good structure and discipline in your life to be successful? Um, and we just got word, fingers crossed, that a super high level, very prominent former special operations guy, uh, may join us. So I can't say his name because we're not there yet, but.

• 5:00:57Jason Redman?

  So it's going to be an amazing event. People can go to Roger Up, uh, RogerUpEvent.com to learn more about it. And then, um, I'm doing the, um, I'm doing the overcome and survive defense workshop. You and I were talking about that, that, uh, I, um, there's a lot of guys out there, um, that are doing amazing, high level tactical training for government, law enforcement, and even individuals who are looking for super high level, you know, room clearance, you know, vehicle egress, all kinds of stuff like that. The average person doesn't really need that. Um, what I started seeing was I kept meeting every, average, everyday Americans who were

• 5:01:40Jason Redman?

  like, hey, the world is burning down around us, like the major cities are imploding, this defund police movement, um, how do I protect myself and my family? I have this gun, but I'm afraid of it.

• 5:01:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:01:52Jason Redman?

  I don't keep it loaded, um, cause they're, they don't know it well enough. So we created the overcome and survive workshop to A, how do I teach you to be a, a base level, um, functional and safe with a weapon, where you understand, uh, grip, firing, backstop, malfunction, magazine change, if you need to do that, um, those things so that you can be comfortable in defending yourself in your home. Um, we teach survival. What are things that you can do to make sure A, you could survive at the basic level of storm? B, God forbid that, you know, a city imploded to where there was mass violence that was

• 5:02:34Jason Redman?

  occurring, anarchy, that, you know, now hopefully you're seeing these things and you have the things in place to be able to survive and take care of your family. Food, water, shelter, you know, things like that. Uh, first aid, you know, if the world implodes, uh, you're going to be hard pressed to find a paramedic to show up to help you if something happens. So you should know how to do that, you know? So I've got former special operations medics and, uh, 20 year licensed firefighters who are teaching that. And then we've partnered with a super high level, uh, personal defense, martial arts, Sifu Allen Baker. Uh, Allen's like a black belt in 25 different martial arts.

• 5:03:17Jason Redman?

  Um, and he has developed a custom program.

• 5:03:22Jason Redman?

  At the beginning, it's much more about situational awareness and how do we de-conflict a situation because I think there's a lot of people who wrongly teach, hey, man, I'm going to teach you to be a badass. You know, if this guy comes at you, I'm going to teach you to kick his ass. Well, I was a SEAL for 21 years. I don't consider myself a badass. The smarter move is trying to avoid the situation altogether.

• 5:03:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:03:47Jason Redman?

  Now, if I get pushed into a situation, at that point, then I have to decide how am I going to escalate it and how am I going to attack. But I'm not going to take the average person off the street and teach them how to be John Wick in a weekend or even in a year. Instead, how do we teach them how to see what's happening and hopefully, A, avoid it, B, de-escalate it, C, last-case scenario, we give you the tools to hopefully be able to defend yourself to the best you can. So, so that's our Overcome and Survive workshop.

• 5:04:15Shawn Ryan?

  I think that's awesome that you're doing that, you know. I used to be in the tactical game, you know, and, uh, the, and I trained John Wick.

• 5:04:27Jason Redman?

  Yes, you did.

• 5:04:28Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, the most fulfilling thing that I...

• 5:04:31Jason Redman?

  And you got thrown under the bus for doing it.

• 5:04:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, whatever. Another, who cares. But, um, the, the, the, the most fulfilling students that I have were, I used to teach all women's course. And to see, and a lot of those women had been sexually abused or raped. And, and when that happens to a woman, a lot of them carry themselves in a, in a, uh, a different way.

• 5:05:01Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 5:05:03Shawn Ryan?

  And to see the empowerment that they get when they start to get the weapons down, you know, and they start to build their fundamentals and that, and that toolbox with just basic... Skill, I mean, it's just, it's really, it's, it's, it's the best feeling in the world.

• 5:05:24Jason Redman?

  I agree.

• 5:05:24Shawn Ryan?

  To empower somebody, you know, who is weak, you know, who's weak because they've, they've been abused and, and, and then they, you start to see that empowerment building them and it's just

• 5:05:39Shawn Ryan?

  one of the best feelings in the world, man. And, and you don't get that training fucking John Wick or people that want to learn how to clear a stairwell or, you know, you don't get that shit with that. That's, that's fantasy shit.

• 5:05:53Jason Redman?

  Yeah.

• 5:05:54Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? There's very few people on the fucking planet that need to know how to do that, but everybody needs to know how to defend themselves and their family and, and I think it's fucking cool, man, that you're doing that. It's a big,

• 5:06:08Shawn Ryan?

  it, that's a big need that needs to be filled.

• 5:06:11Jason Redman?

  I, I, I hope to do more. Um, like I said, I like it. How do, how do we?

• 5:06:18Jason Redman?

  This, this world right now is off its axis. It's dangerous.

• 5:06:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:06:23Jason Redman?

  You know, the, the, you look at the mass shootings that are occurring, you know, I mean, there's a lot of people that want to point at the guns, but it's not, it's not a gun problem. It's a people problem.

• 5:06:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:06:32Jason Redman?

  It's a lack of accountability. There's a mental health crisis in this country. We're desensitizing young people to death through video games, massive violence and, uh, movies and everything else. Um, so yeah, how do you counter that? There's a lot of different things, but I know for me, I want to make sure that my family and hopefully my friends would feel comfortable to defend themselves if they had to, God forbid.

• 5:06:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:06:59Jason Redman?

  You know, but, so, I don't know. Hopefully we can do, do, uh, hopefully we can do more of that.

• 5:07:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I'm sure you will.

• 5:07:09Shawn Ryan?

  But, well, Jason, I'm just fucking blown away by

• 5:07:16Shawn Ryan?

  the last five hours of however long we've been sitting here, but, um, yeah, I just,

• 5:07:23Shawn Ryan?

  there's a lot I wasn't expecting and, um, I just, that's.

• 5:07:28Shawn Ryan?

  It can be tough to share that kind of, you know, that kind of stuff and, and, and, man, you just, what a phenomenal interview, man. It's been a real honor. It really has, and I just wish you the best of luck.

• 5:07:42Jason Redman?

  Brother, thank you. I'll challenge anybody to get out there and share, share your darkness. You'll learn, so many people are ashamed of trauma, mistakes, failure, but, and they let it on them.

• 5:08:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:08:03Jason Redman?

  And when you, when you, when you get comfortable sharing it, you begin to learn you have power over it, and how much of a difference it makes to other people.

• 5:08:16Jason Redman?

  So, but, but, thank you.

• 5:08:19Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you. Cheers.

• 5:08:21Jason Redman?

  Cheers.

• 5:08:27Speaker 03

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