#20 Justin Hughes - Navy SEAL/Modern-Day Da Vinci

Justin Hughes the type of American that we can all look up to. His pride for America runs deep, all the way back to grade school. After moving back the the United States from living abroad he could not understand why his fellow Americans would bully him. In the long run it forged him into what he needed inside to become a Navy SEAL. Justin's talks in great detail about his experience fighting the Islamic State on the front lines of Mosul, Iraq. After leaving the SEAL Teams Justin has pursued becoming an artist, a hidden talent he recently discovered. Some say he is a modern day Leonardo Da Vinci. 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

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• 0:29Speaker 01

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• 0:46Speaker 02

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• 0:50Speaker 01

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• 1:30Shawn Ryan?

  I just want to say thank you all for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. I hope you take something valuable from each and every episode produced. And if you do, please take a moment and leave me a review on Apple and/or Spotify. Reviews really help me reach a wider audience. And to be honest, it helps me grow my business, which enables me to provide for my family. I love you all. Please enjoy the show.

• 2:06Speaker 04

  You have to realize that life is precious, right? And it doesn't matter if you're wearing a flag on your shoulder, and it's red, white, and blue. Or red, white, and black. Whatever it is, right? Life is precious. And those people in that city are suffering. They're being persecuted. Ideas of stuff that they believed in.

• 2:53Speaker 04

  I just want to do bad things to bullies. I want to find bad people that hurt good people.

• 3:27Speaker 04

  Walked downstairs, and three of my good buddies, all who made it, they put their arms around me. They say, "Don't worry, Hughes. We're your brothers now." And, like, "Let's go do another revolution."

• 4:10Shawn Ryan?

  Justin Hughes.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  Sean Ryan.

• 4:12Shawn Ryan?

  Welcome to the show.

• 4:13Speaker 04

  Thank you so much.

• 4:14Shawn Ryan?

  So you're a former Navy SEAL, former BUDS instructor, which is a SEAL training instructor. And now you're an artist documenting history. That's one thing, we had this discussion. And that's kind of what we do here is document history. Document, you know, modern warriors and sacrifices that the people have made on the show. And it's just an honor to do it. And you do it with your painting.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, I try to.

• 4:52Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you do it. You have a good job.

• 4:53Speaker 04

  Thanks, man. Thank you so much.

• 4:55Shawn Ryan?

  So because you do such a good job, I got you a present.

• 5:03Speaker 04

  Thanks, Sean. This is dense.

• 5:07Shawn Ryan?

  You got any guesses?

• 5:08Speaker 04

  Dude.

• 5:11Speaker 04

  This is like, what? Some plastic.

• 5:14Shawn Ryan?

  It's not socks.

• 5:14Speaker 04

  There might be a cup, mug, shirt.

• 5:22Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  This is...

• 5:26Shawn Ryan?

  All right, open.

• 5:27Speaker 04

  Gummy bears. Oh, boy. Some V swag, man. Thanks, Sean, dude. All right, so with the gummy bears, these are the softest, most delicious gummy bears. I have to put them on the top shelf in my house. And at 5:00 a.m. in the morning, the first time I came to visit you, I put all my gummy bears on the top because I don't want my kids eating them. I wake up, two bags gone. I'm like, where did my gummy bears go? I had to check my, my house camera. My kids are like pulling up chairs, putting them in the pantry, sneaking into dad's gummy bears,

• 6:12Speaker 04

  snagging them, you know? I get them in the height line, chew them out. Dude, this is sick.

• 6:18Shawn Ryan?

  They have good taste.

• 6:20Speaker 04

  They do have good taste. They're the best gummy bears. And I...

• 6:25Shawn Ryan?

  You're probably wondering why the hell there's a paintbrush in there. And I'm gonna tell you why.

• 6:29Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:30Shawn Ryan?

  So, I wanna trade you.

• 6:32Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 6:32Shawn Ryan?

  If, if you still have the brush, or a brush that you painted those two paintings.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  Yup.

• 6:41Shawn Ryan?

  That you, that, that, that we exchanged.

• 6:45Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:45Shawn Ryan?

  I would love to get two of those brushes and put them on the back of each painting.

• 6:51Speaker 04

  I got them. I keep every brush.

• 6:53Shawn Ryan?

  Really? You actually know which one?

• 6:55Speaker 04

  I know exactly which ones.

• 6:57Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 6:57Speaker 04

  They're print, yeah, I won't give.

• 6:58Shawn Ryan?

  Are they big enough to where you can sign them?

• 7:01Speaker 04

  Yup. Yup, I mean, I, I'll use like, in the span of a painting, I'll probably use like six or seven brushes. So... I could just bring them on and just tell you which ones, which ones do you want.

• 7:13Shawn Ryan?

  I would love that.

• 7:14Speaker 04

  So, dude, thank you so much. And I, being a fan of the show and watching it pretty regularly, I brought you something. I got you a small gift.

• 7:24Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 7:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, you know? So...

• 7:30Shawn Ryan?

  I love presents.

• 7:30Speaker 04

  Throw me to you. I'm flipping around. So, I remember your old platoon, or at least seeing pictures of you in helos with your, your patch, with the, with it, with your shield on it, right?

• 7:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 7:42Speaker 04

  It was kinda like the logo with the Spartan helmet. And so I looked up, I think it's Greek, ancient Greek. The phrase that the Spartan women would say to their men before they'd leave is that with it or on it, and they'd hand them their shields. And so I just wanted to create something that like kinda commemorated that platoon, that patch, that time in the team for you. And make you a little one of a, one of a kind piece. It's still a little matte, so I need to varnish it. When we, uh, when I come in to do the other one, I'll do it, bud.

• 8:14Shawn Ryan?

  This is incredible, dude.

• 8:16Speaker 04

  Thanks so much, man.

• 8:17Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  You, Sean.

• 8:19Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. Yeah, we did, uh, have a patch, and that was kind of our platoon motto was... Come back either with your shield or on it and then

• 8:30Shawn Ryan?

  and then after that platoon, that saying kind of went everywhere.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  It's fire.

• 8:33Shawn Ryan?

  But it originated with our platoon.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  That's rad.

• 8:37Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude, thank you. This is awesome.

• 8:41Speaker 04

  Thanks. I actually had the helmet, the helmet was made by a company in Italy that still makes like the original Corinthian helmets. And I ordered one in bronze. So I photographed it, painted it all from my own references and created it. It's pretty sick.

• 8:57Shawn Ryan?

  This is very cool.

• 8:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks.

• 9:01Shawn Ryan?

  One more time for the, for the audience.

• 9:06Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. Thank you.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  Thank you, man.

• 9:13Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, so you ready to dive in?

• 9:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, let's get into it.

• 9:16Shawn Ryan?

  Ready?

• 9:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:17Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, it's gonna be a long one.

• 9:19Speaker 04

  Alright.

• 9:19Shawn Ryan?

  But starting off, we I give Patreon, I tell them who's coming on the show. I told them about you. I've been waiting for you to come on here for a long time. As you know.

• 9:31Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 9:32Shawn Ryan?

  And it's an honor to have you in the room finally, in the hot seat. And so anyways, I give Patreon the opportunity to ask questions. As you know, we just did a behind the scenes piece. And so, but I wanted to save two that I thought were, were good questions for the actual, for the actual show here. So this is from Jeffrey Kalman.

• 9:57Shawn Ryan?

  How has his combat experience influenced his artistic expression?

• 10:03Speaker 04

  Jeffrey.

• 10:06Speaker 04

  You know, I think for good storytelling and accurate storytelling, you have to have some kind of experience with the subject that you're handling. Right? I think that's why we see a lot of filmmakers go to different locations to do research. Writers dig into certain subjects and study law so that they can be accurate in the things that they're talking about. Right? And for me, in art and combat, I think it helps with my subject matter that I enjoy painting, which is

• 10:37Speaker 04

  Kind of around that warrior archetype, specifically modern warfare in our military now, just to capture some of those intricacies and details that might get lost if another artist painted it, right? So for instance, the last painting that I did for you, the one of you guys in the sniper hide, the mesh that's shielding you guys from public view, another artist might not know what that's for and they might have painted it blocked in or it might not have had the detail that I think was necessary for it, right? Because you're shooting through it and it shields you from them at a distance, but not enough for you to be able to look through it

• 11:22Speaker 04

  and see what's going on. So I think that it's influenced my artistic expression in that I can capture some of those intricacies of the job and highlight what's important in what we're doing versus the details that don't necessarily matter as much. Does that make sense?

• 11:41Shawn Ryan?

  It does.

• 11:41Speaker 04

  Hopefully that helps Jeffrey.

• 11:42Shawn Ryan?

  And you do a phenomenal job at it.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 11:46Shawn Ryan?

  So one more question. This is from Mark Dow. After hearing you talk about missing the people you're in the ship with, does paintings like this make you miss these times more? So I'm not sure if that question was directed at me or if that question was directed at you, but you go ahead.

• 12:06Speaker 04

  Let's do it. Let's both do it.

• 12:07Shawn Ryan?

  You go first.

• 12:08Speaker 04

  All right. Does it make me miss the guys? Absolutely, you know? And I'm often looking through old pictures of me and the guys and thinking about, you know, what kind of story could I tell here? And...

• 12:27Speaker 04

  And a lot of the guys that I worked with are still serving. So I know that maybe that's a story that I'll have to save for another time and with their permission, of course. But I can't help but look at the images that even that I've captured for you. And despite that we were in different countries, or really, same both Iraq and Yemen, right?

• 12:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  We're in different countries, different times. I can't help but remember going into Yemeni cop markets, right? Or like being on rooftops in Iraq and having those same memories with guys and coking and joking on. And maybe a little bit situations that should be very, very serious, but you know, finding laughter in the small things.

• 13:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 13:12Speaker 04

  So, yeah, it makes me miss them greatly, but I'm also very happy with where I'm at now. And I think it's important for guys like us to kind of remember the community, but also figure out a way that we can, we can move on from it and tell a different story, right?

• 13:32Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good answer.

• 13:33Speaker 04

  And do something different. Yeah.

• 13:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I look at that and two guys I'm with right there, I don't miss them.

• 13:43Shawn Ryan?

  But that was about, when were you in Yemen?

• 13:46Speaker 04

  Uh, 2014.

• 13:48Shawn Ryan?

  2000, we might have been there at the same time.

• 13:51Speaker 04

  Really?

• 13:52Shawn Ryan?

  That photo may have been taken when you were in country.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  I was like next door buying bullets in the weapons market.

• 14:00Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 14:00Speaker 04

  While you were buying cop.

• 14:02Shawn Ryan?

  Drugs?

• 14:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. But.

• 14:05Speaker 04

  That's crazy.

• 14:06Shawn Ryan?

  But no, it did, you know, and then the one behind me with my two sniper partners, the guy next to me. Uh, both of those were very good friends of mine. And I don't know, you know, kind of like what you just said, I've been out for a long time. You know, it's been, it's, we're creeping up on damn near 20 years since I was in the SEAL teams. And, and I used to miss it a lot, you know, but like you, I'm, I'm in a good place now. And I really enjoy what I'm doing and, and I think what we're doing here is really important. And so I don't know if it really makes me miss them that much. Sometimes I miss the feeling.

• 14:49Shawn Ryan?

  But I will say, when I look at your art, you know, that you've done of me, those two pieces, it it takes me like right back to that very moment. I can remember exactly what we were doing, both on that rooftop, and I can remember exactly what we were doing when we were in that cop market. So it just it just reminds me of good times, you know?

• 15:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:18Shawn Ryan?

  Good times, hard times. It's kind of like a whole slew of emotions and memories and and just a in the snap.

• 15:26Speaker 04

  You go back, yeah.

• 15:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  Quick.

• 15:28Shawn Ryan?

  And it's it's it's really cool. All I would say the emotion isn't is is it's all good.

• 15:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 15:35Shawn Ryan?

  You know, it's I'm it was a good time in my life, but it was a different time in my life.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. I think that's something that a lot of guys struggle with. Maybe they don't struggle with it as much as you hear that a lot, right? I miss I miss the guys. I miss the community. But at the same time, the the same guy saying that also chose to leave the the community, right? For a reason. And there's there's a lot of different reasons behind. I think everybody's story is a little bit, maybe a little bit different. There's I'm sure there's similarities on a lot of fronts, but when you make that decision, guys aren't doing it whimsy-nilly. Like, they know what they're leaving behind. So I miss the guys. I miss the community. I miss the camaraderie, joking around. I miss working with that kind of team.

• 16:26Speaker 04

  But I'm I'm happy, man. I'm glad I'm I'm glad I left.

• 16:30Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 16:31Speaker 04

  You know, so.

• 16:32Shawn Ryan?

  I'm happy to hear that. Since we're on the subject, before we dive into your backstory, I think that is something that a lot of guys, I think, myself included, when I got out, it wasn't just traumatic experiences and and all that kind of stuff and the addiction to adrenaline. But you're also you're operating at the highest level. And and there's a lot of with with that comes a lot of external.

• 17:00Shawn Ryan?

  Influence from, you know, people.

• 17:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:04Shawn Ryan?

  Society as a whole, I mean, they make TV shows about what we used to do. SEAL Team. You know, they make movies about what we used to do and, and people just respect that level of where we were at so much that it kind of, it kind of gets to you, you know, it kind of, it kind of gets to you and when you leave it, it, there's almost like this worry that it's like, how am I going to reach the level that I was at in, in, in another aspect of life that's not necessarily as an operator? And, and I think, you know, we've both found it.

• 17:47Shawn Ryan?

  You've found it through your art, which is, I keep saying it, but it is fucking amazing. And, and I found it through this show and, and, and well, that's it, the show, you know, and, and so did, I think that that plays a big role in, in some of the stress that goes on after the lead. Would you agree with that?

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, finding purpose.

• 18:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Speaker 04

  I think to the man and they have a bunch of programs now for SEALs, other soft guys getting out of the community to kind of reintegrate them into the, the business world or whatever world they're kind of interested in, you know, kind of helping them to transition and finding what they're interested in. And I think almost to the man, the hardest, the hardest spot, thing, not to the man, but most men, the hardest thing they find is not their work ethic or their ability to do it, do a good job at something. It's how do you find fulfillment and purpose in something outside of the teams?

• 18:56Speaker 04

  Cause, cause you leave and you want to have passion about. Some other job as much as you had about the day that you knew that you wanted to be a Navy SEAL. Right? And you feel like I'm lea- I feel like called to leave the teams. I should have have that for something else, but it just doesn't, it doesn't happen. And it's hard to pinpoint, so. But we, I mean, I have my own journey with that, you have yours, I'm sure. Everybody has their own thing, their own stuff. But I'm, I'll get into the details of mine in the, when we get to that point in the interview, if you want.

• 19:29Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:30Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's start the interview.

• 19:31Speaker 04

  Sweet.

• 19:32Shawn Ryan?

  So, you know, kinda how we wanna do it is start with childhood, get into the SEAL teams, get heavy into your combat experience with ISIS. I can't wait to dive into that. I haven't really explored that with anybody. We did a little bit with Eddie Gallagher, but you have a lot of experience dealing with ISIS and, and I can't wait to dive into that. And, cause I didn't fight them like you did. It was the old school enemies when I was in and then, you know, ISIS developed. And then into your transition and, and to the arts, so.

• 20:08Speaker 04

  Art stuff.

• 20:10Shawn Ryan?

  Let's start with where, where'd you grow up?

• 20:12Speaker 04

  The very beginning, when I was, the fore time, when I was speckle in my father's eye.

• 20:17Shawn Ryan?

  A wee little lad.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, just a wee little lad. Well, I was born into a military family. My father was an Army Huey pilot and he flew in Panama and Desert Storm, Desert Shield in the late eighties, early nineties. And so as a young kid, my dad was gone a lot and I grew up with just him kind of in and out. But definitely, I remember looking up to him, coming back into his flight jacket, you know, as like, I remember five, four or five years old or something.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  And during some mission, I've, I don't really know the details, but there was some kind of malfunction in, in his engine, had a hard landing, destroyed his back and he got out. My father felt kinda called towards, you know, missions or, or some higher calling and he ended up going to seminary to be a pastor. And while he was at seminary, uh, my family felt called to go to Southeast Asia.

• 21:20Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you?

• 21:21Speaker 04

  At this time, I wanna say when he started seminary, I must have been six, probably.

• 21:29Shawn Ryan?

  Was he religious before that?

• 21:31Speaker 04

  He was.

• 21:32Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, so it wasn't from a specific event that happened?

• 21:35Speaker 04

  No, no, yeah, he was, he was religious before that, but he would tell you even like, he, he wanted to do some kind of missions work, but he was, the, the missions organizations that he was trying to work for weren't hiring young men that weren't married. So he's like, you know what, God, just give me, give me five years to do it, to join the military or something. And he'll admit like that, it's, he joined out of like, kind of anger and selfishness and, but ultimately, well, like, his, his story's completed. Everybody, he ended up going, getting out, going back into chapel and see and, um, back in the army, just retired out of the army. So, yeah, crazy. Um, that is your question?

• 22:17Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  So, kinda going back, going to seminary, we do like these family meetings every night, you know, after dinnertime, we'd get together and I remember my mom and dad sitting down and was like, guys, your dad and I are thinking about going to Southeast Asia and moving out there and helping some people. I'm like, that sounds kinda cool. They're like, nobody's gonna speak our language. We're gonna be the only people like us there. I was like, okay. And like, it'll be dangerous. Like, I like danger. That sounds exciting. And, uh, you know, I'm completely naive. I don't know what any of this means. And, uh, like,

• 23:01Speaker 04

  the food will be different. I'm like, okay, I kinda like foreign food. And, uh, and so far, and so far, they're like, so, you know, we don't want this just to be a decision about us. I have an older brother, a little sister. Like, if you guys, if this isn't something that you guys think that you'd wanna do, like, we, we don't want to do it, but we want this to be a kind of a family decision.

• 23:27Speaker 04

  And I'm thinking, this sounds just like Tarzan. You know, like this is like, I am gonna be, you know, Mowgli wandering around the bush like pet tiger, like toucan on my shoulder or some, I don't know. And of course, you know, like a little kid, like you tell me we're gonna move over to this place, it sounds awesome, you know? So of course, a month later, my parents come in, hey, guys, what do you like, have you guys thought about this stuff? And I'm like, amen. Little sister, yeah, I think that's, that's a good idea. We're all, you know, older brother, we wanna do it. So we're like, alright, we're gonna do it.

• 24:08Speaker 04

  And so at age seven, about to turn eight, we moved to Southeast Asia. And it was so cool, dude. It was awesome, childhood. The kind of stuff that we were doing, a lot of it, looking back, it's kind of crazy at my career field now, but a lot of it was just going out into villages, mapping villages that were not documented or mapped, doing population, like checking populations, roads in and out, routes, like backpacking routes to these villages, and then bringing in medical supplies, dental supplies to some of these villages.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  And so as a kid, you know, I'm out backpacking with my brother and my sister and my mom in small teams.

• 24:57Shawn Ryan?

  You're out there doing the Green Beret mission.

• 24:59Speaker 04

  With my family. Yeah, how cool is that? So at a young, at a young age, my family and my brothers and sisters, we were all kind of forced to adopt a calling that was like, pretty high level, right? Because what we were doing was definitely not, like, not actually legal. And the government was not very pro what our mission was. If that makes sense. And, and I remember police raids on our house.

• 25:34Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 25:34Speaker 04

  Searching, yeah, I remember our lights being wiretapped and going into hotel rooms and them being wired, staying in different places. So it was, it was, it was an environment where... Just starting out, like as we, as we were about to leave, you learn as a kid not to say certain words. Right? Like you, somebody asks what your parents do. You have a cover, like you, you say something else, right? And, uh, and people would test you in these, like these, they, they, we go to like a little training camp. People would, random people would come up to you in the lunch line like, hey, what are your, what do your parents do?

• 26:12Speaker 04

  And, you know, if you messed up, you, somebody told your parents, parents came, talked to you and kind of guided you and trained you through this. Cause you get over there and you get wrapped up for some of the stuff that you're doing. It's like espionage.

• 26:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  And so that was kind of, kind of my childhood, starting out at eight to 10.

• 26:39Shawn Ryan?

  So at eight years old, you're learning how to live a cover story?

• 26:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, man. How crazy is that? It wasn't, it wasn't all that, dude. It was, it, there was a lot of fun. My father is a great outdoorsman. And he was a hunter, but guns and firearms are illegal here. So my brother and I are making like blow dart guns and crossbows to try to go out and hunt. And really the only thing in our environment is one of those things from that TV show, like rodents. Like rodents of unusual size, R O U S, R O U S. You know what I'm talking about Princess Bride?

• 27:14Shawn Ryan?

  I haven't seen it.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  Oh geez.

• 27:16Shawn Ryan?

  Princess Bride, the movie?

• 27:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. You know the movie? It was like the giant rats that attack and eat people. Like that was the only animal we could hunt out there was just like these huge, huge rats. And so my brother, dude, we got very resourceful and we went full indige. We had blow dart guns. We were setting snares and we were catching these rats and we got like really good at it. And it got to the point, I think in like the span of like three or four months, we'd killed like 200 plus rats.

• 27:47Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 27:47Speaker 04

  It got so good, like we got good that like the local government was hearing how good we were and came to ask if we could go in and, and help clear out some rats from the government, dude. In like the, in the capital, bro.

• 28:01Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 28:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was sick. And our courtyard was like lined with skins, you know, we were like putting them on stretch racks, stretching out these rats. Yeah, dude, we went full in weird. It was like Lord of the Flies meets.

• 28:16Shawn Ryan?

  So how many, how many Americans were there? Was it just you guys?

• 28:21Speaker 04

  When we first moved there, it was us and I think there was one other family. American family that was located, not like in the same area, but like out in another, in another village.

• 28:34Shawn Ryan?

  So where were you guys passing information to then? If you were mapping these, these villages and documenting population and where does that information go?

• 28:45Speaker 04

  So these are like kinda details that I wasn't really privy to. But I know that they had like their own, like people would come in country and visit and you'd essentially, it could be word of mouth, letters, or I think the internet was kind of around back then. So they had some kind of way to pass information. I remember internet being in its like very infancy, my dad having a computer and doing some of that stuff. So I don't know what, like if they were at VPNs or what that looked like back then.

• 29:18Shawn Ryan?

  Do you know where supplies came from?

• 29:20Speaker 04

  Smuggled in country.

• 29:22Shawn Ryan?

  Smuggled?

• 29:22Speaker 04

  Yep, a lot of them.

• 29:24Shawn Ryan?

  What was the cover?

• 29:26Speaker 04

  It was like random. People would drive stuff in, different rat lines. A lot of it was just like bibles, little tracts in, in the, in the local language. And one of the, in the village that we lived in, a lot, in a lot of these places, different villages have different dialects. So a lot of what one of the families was doing was just trying to learn the language so that they could translate the bible into, into their language that people could actually have and read a bible. So that's kinda what that looks like. Or it could just be a medical office and sometimes they could come in under, you know,

• 30:08Speaker 04

  they were like doing medicine in, in a village, nobody really cares. But you do medicine, pull somebody's tooth and they'd be like, why, why are you here? Like what are you doing? My own government doesn't do this for me. You know, it's like, well, you know, we believe that. Jesus loved you so much that he came and died for you. And he taught us to love God and to love people. This is just our way of loving you, you know? They'd be like, okay, bye, thanks for the tooth pull. Or they could be like, tell me more about this, Jesus.

• 30:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, interesting. I didn't realize that, I mean, I've heard a lot of people that, you know, that go on the missions and stuff. And I didn't realize it was that you were that embedded. I kind of thought it was just a well groomed, well greased machine. You know, I didn't realize it was, that's cool.

• 31:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I debated when I was first kind of jotting down all these notes. I was like, I can just talk openly about it all. And then I went on, I said, surely somebody else has written a book or talked about this stuff. The details. And I Googled it and I'm looking at the area that I lived in. And all the images are like of old dead people and they're in black and white. So it's a very secretive community. And I, I mean, I'd just grown up kind of taking it for advantage, I guess. I didn't really realize how quiet like they all were, right?

• 31:38Shawn Ryan?

  That's very interesting.

• 31:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I don't, and I don't think it's always that case for every group. I know some countries are more open to it than others. Like I lived in Thailand, you could openly practice your religion. You know, they had churches there that you could go to and they open. But where I was, it was definitely like, can't say Christian, we don't say missionary.

• 32:01Shawn Ryan?

  What was the primary religion there?

• 32:04Speaker 04

  Where I was living?

• 32:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:07Speaker 04

  Buddhism.

• 32:08Shawn Ryan?

  Buddhism?

• 32:08Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:09Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 32:12Shawn Ryan?

  How long did you do that? Did you, was it from eight to 18?

• 32:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I came back for college.

• 32:21Shawn Ryan?

  You went to college?

• 32:23Speaker 04

  After. Yeah, after the mission.

• 32:25Shawn Ryan?

  What were you studying?

• 32:26Speaker 04

  I studied international relations first, yeah.

• 32:29Shawn Ryan?

  Go figure.

• 32:30Speaker 04

  We can go into that, we can go into that a little bit. But, so going from there,

• 32:36Speaker 04

  to, I had an incident where me and my sister were racing. I was running back to the house. There, the, the door to, kinda like the compound that I was living in was, it was like a glass door, and you know those pushbars that like lock?

• 32:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 32:52Speaker 04

  You know what I'm talking about, it was one of those? I pushed, pushed on the door with my left hand. My, at the same time, my sister, we were like dead sprint, kinda stepped on the back of my shoe and I slid forward. And my hand went through the glass door. I grabbed the glass, ripped my hand out, looked down, and my hands just split open. And I think my parents at the time, the town had just gotten a washing machine or something, so they were going to check it out, see if they could buy it. And immediately, I'm just like, look at my sister, I'm like, this is bad, you know? I go in, and fortunately, there were two nurses that were visiting, a couple that were, that were there.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  And they came out right when it happened, dude. And he immediately saw, just blood like covering down my arm. He fortunately got a cloth on it, started applying pressure to it. We ran out into the, the local hospital there. And the medicine there wasn't very advanced. So I remember them saying, word had gotten to my parents. They came, met us at the hospital, they were kinda like cleaning it, the doctors were assessing it. Doctors told my parents, hey, like, we don't have medicine to put him to sleep. So we're gonna have to do this under, was it like local anesthesia? Were you just, not in the area? Like, we're gonna have to put him under local anesthesia, and we're gonna have to do this, like, while he's awake.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  And dude, they pulled out like the, this wooden cork dowel, put it in my mouth. I had like a band go around my neck. Back on the other side, they put like a little oxygen in my nose.

• 34:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 34:37Speaker 04

  And we got on the table, he opened it up, dude, it's just like arterial bleeding, squirting out of my hand. And I pass out.

• 34:46Speaker 04

  And I come to in the surgery, I'm yelling and screaming dude, and I look down and I see this guy's pulling on like this white thing on my wrist and I'm seeing my fingers moving like that. He's like pulling on my like ligaments and tendons and stuff messing with stuff. And I look at my mom, my mom's in, she's in the room with me, I'm like, Mom.

• 35:11Speaker 04

  And I'm just out of like, is it my right hand or my left hand?

• 35:15Speaker 04

  She's like, it's your left hand. I said, oh, I can still draw, you know, and uh,

• 35:24Speaker 04

  pass out, wake up, bleed, and I just see blood all over a towel. I'm like, Mom, my mouth is so dry. Am I gonna die from this? She's like, I don't know. You know, like, how hard must that have been for my mother? Sorry.

• 35:44Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, how old were you?

• 35:46Speaker 04

  Ten.

• 35:46Shawn Ryan?

  Ten years old?

• 35:47Speaker 04

  Ten years old. So I wake up, my hands like wrapped up in this cast, and I just remember my mouth just being so dry. It's just like water. My dad comes over, he's like, buddy, hey, here's some water, you know, gives me some water. He's like, hey, don't worry, we're gonna get you out. Like, we're, we're going back, we're going somewhere, we got good doctors. It's like, what happened? I don't know, like, that was not cool, you know?

• 36:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  And so he's like, we got a plane, you know, we're gonna get you, we're gonna fly you out to Hong Kong. They have really good doctors, they're gonna take another look at this thing. It's like, it's not over, you know, and uh,

• 36:30Speaker 04

  fly out to Hong Kong, they open it back up, make sure everything's good. It cut the artery and like some of the ligaments and stuff, so fix up some of that stuff.

• 36:43Speaker 04

  Because of that, I needed like a little bit of rehab. So we hung out in Hong Kong for a bit. And my family was like, you know, maybe, maybe we could start getting our kids in the school system. Getting them socialized with some other kids. It might be a good break for them. So they were looking at kind of international schools around the area. And they decided on Penang, Malaysia. And so we moved out to Malaysia and I went to an international school there. And it was really cool, very tropical, on a little island and good community. Lots of Canadians, you know, just people from all over. Malaysia used to be British territory.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  So there was a lot of British influence. It's very modern. And this school that I was going to was just kind of a melting pot, just all sorts of people. They spoke English there, which was great. And then nine 11 happened.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  And Malaysia has a heavy population of Muslims. And I remember seeing, you know, the tower. My uncle calls, he's like, hey, he was in the country at the time. Uncle calls, he's like, hey, tell your dad to turn on the TV. Turn it on. Tower's on fire. I'm like, dude, what is that? Why are their buildings on fire? I think I'm in sixth grade or something. Yeah, sixth grade.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  And my brother is watching. He's like, that's a terrorist attack. I'm like, what? What are terrorists? You know? And he's kind of like, they're people that like, you know, kind of just described it like a tenure. I don't really remember.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  And right then, boom, the next hour hits. I'm like, I gotta tell my teacher. She's American. And so I call her, I'm like, hey, Ms. Tice. Look at the news. There's a terrorist attack. And she turns it on, she's like, oh my. And because of the Muslim population and our school being an international school, immediately, we started getting bomb and terrorist threats on our school. And so our school- You started getting bombed? Bomb and terrorist threats at the school. So our school shut down for a week. And they were kind of assessing the situation. The embassy was kind of like talking to, you know, everybody was kind of like trying to figure out what, what happens next.

• 39:18Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I remember school opening back up and this kid coming up to me, he's like, hey, Justin, dude, there's Marines here. I said, what? Like, is that like the Army, you know? He's like, no. He's a Canadian kid. Like, no Marines, man. They're like, you know, I'm, I've grown up overseas. I know like Army, Navy, my grandpa was Navy, but I didn't really know too much about the military. He's like, no, they're like over there. Went over, went over to him, I'm like, sir, why are you here? He's got his American flag patch on his shoulder and he's like, I think he's got like a dip in. I don't know what it is at the time, but he's like, you American kid? And I said, yes, sir.

• 40:03Speaker 04

  He's like, I'm here because of you. I said, me? What did I, I didn't, I didn't do anything. He's like, no. I said, a lot of people don't like us, buddy. I said, I'm here.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  It's funny because this stuff doesn't hit you when you're a kid. Like, you're like, oh, cool. It's like, I'm here in case you need to be rescued. Damn.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  Dude, they were doing like maritime ops, because my school was located on the beach. Like, they were doing maritime ops, like doing dry runs on the beach. Getting ready, in case they ever needed to pull Americans out.

• 40:42Speaker 04

  And I just remember thinking,

• 40:45Speaker 04

  "They care about me? They don't even know me." Why do I, like... This place was owned by British. The British aren't here. There's Canadians here. The Canadians aren't here. Malaysian government's not here. Americans. That means something. Right? Yeah. So immediately, dude, I'm like, I'm fired up, dude. Like, "Whoa, I love being an American." You know? The Marines are here. Like, talk to my grandma next time on the phone, like, "Grandma, I want you to send me anything that's American." "I want American flags. I want American t-shirts." You know, and I'm like, so freaking proud.

• 41:27Speaker 04

  Because like, these dudes didn't know me, and they were willing to risk their lives to come rescue me. You know? Little six-year-old. And it's funny, because like, back then, I remember being like, super proud, but now I get like, I get choked up, because it's so, it's like, you know, I'm proud of that shit.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  And, uh...

• 41:45Speaker 04

  And so my grandma sends me a box, you know, it's like, American flag, t-shirts, little flags that you wave. And I stick one in my backpack and go into class. Canadian teacher's like, "Justin, come here." "Yes, ma'am."

• 41:58Speaker 04

  She says, "Do you see the memo that..." I don't know, his accent's terrible. She's like, "Do you see the memo that school put out? Did your parents get that?" I said, "I don't know." She's like, "Well, look, it's saying that you need to be careful wearing paraphernalia that has your country and..." "...that says where you're from." And I'm like, "Where?" I look down, and it's like, "American flag," and it says, "These colors don't run under anything." You know? I'm like, "Can I have that?" She said, "Yeah." Take it home to your parents. Take it home to my dad. I'm like, Dad, my teacher says that I can't wear stuff with American flags on it, you know? He's like, give me that. He looks at it and he's like, alright, here's the deal. Don't wear it out in town, but you wear as much stuff as you want between home and school. You know?

• 42:42Speaker 04

  I was like, yeah. Like, America. You know, you don't really care. I'm just stoked.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  So that was Malaysia after a couple of years living there. I mean, how long did it take for that to die down? Or did it ever die down? I remember like for months after, like talking, the school was doing contingencies for if something happened. I remember like building weapons with my friends and like storing them around the school, you know? We were thinking like, dude, if somebody comes, we're not going to the basketball court like they want us to. You know, we're like, we're going to the tree line. We're gonna create these baseball bat, like it's like, dude, we were coming up with all sorts of stuff. We're gonna steal baseball bats from the gym and then we're gonna get like nails. We're gonna stick them in the baseball bats and we're planting weapons around the school.

• 43:37Speaker 04

  You know, like, we're gonna go out into the trees and we're gonna like, we're getting out of the school. We're not hanging out here, you know? And you're just talking, talking trash and making plans, you know, dreaming as a kid. And I think it died down. You get comfortable and you kind of lose track of time. And you kind of forget a little bit of that stuff. But I want to say like my whole last year, it was kind of in the back of everybody's mind. Everybody was like, from that point on, I remember in Malaysia, just being a lot more alert and being a lot more aware of my surroundings. And it wasn't so much anymore about the government. It was just about like more suspicious about everybody. Yeah.

• 44:21Speaker 04

  So your whole outlook just changes on the entire population now. It's not just government officials or people wearing a uniform or certain buzzwords. Because I'm a white face in a place where there aren't a whole lot of white faces, right? And that's, you're instantly a target.

• 44:42Speaker 04

  That answer your question? Yeah. So, from there, we, I think we lived there for like three years and then I moved back to our previous house.

• 44:53Speaker 04

  And after so long on the mission field, you're, you get, uh, it's called like furlough. So depending on the amount of time that you spent, you either get six months or a year. And so my family, based on the amount of time we spent, we were granted a year back in the States to go back, and this is my freshman year in high school. For some reason, we went to some small town in Alabama and I was so excited because I'm going back to America and I'm, I'm pumped to be there, you know, back on the homeland. I can say Christian, I get to go to church, I get to worship in public, I can talk about anything I want in America and we're all on the same team, right? And I get to public school and I'm bullied, you know?

• 45:35Speaker 04

  And, and I remember thinking like, we're all on the same team, you know? It's like, what the, like, what on earth? It's like, you're, you're an American, I'm an American, like, why, why don't we value each other, why don't we like have compassion for one another? Like, what are, what are you picking on me for? Because I'm smaller than you, you know? And I, from, dude.

• 46:04Speaker 04

  I hate bullies, right? And I promise, I remember leaving after my final year, just being like, if I ever see that shit and I can, I'm gonna stop it, right?

• 46:26Speaker 04

  So, my parents, you know, they, they see kind of like that, that that, that experience like affected me.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  And they're like, you know, maybe like secluding him and like getting him alone isn't necessarily the best thing, like putting him back in that environment is the best thing. Maybe like should get him back in an international school. That would be good for him when we move back. And so I moved to Thailand. I went to boarding school in Thailand. My parents kind of went out in the mission field and I lived away from them for about a year. And I got in a little bit of trouble with the school. I just felt like I had a like a lot of mobility and freedom in my youth and the school system was like very controlling and manipulative and I didn't jive well with it. So my parents like this, actually, this is not a good environment for him. Maybe

• 47:25Speaker 04

  we'll just move to Thailand for a little bit and and we'll kind of finish out our time in the mission field here until he goes that like our kids are all off in college. And then I went into college. You met your wife there, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry. Very important part. Yeah. So my wife's family was missionaries to India and her story was kind of like the same as mine. They kind of sent her to the same boarding school in Thailand and we kind of crossed paths. We were completely different social groups and we didn't really interact until like my senior year. And we dated our

• 48:06Speaker 04

  senior year and then ended up going to the same college, just because the college that I went to had a special program for missionary kids because our parents made nothing. They pretty much give you a nice scholarship as long as your parents are serving overseas. And so we both kind of ended up in the same spot because of like the financial issue. And I knew that I wanted to serve, but I just didn't know what that looked like or like what that what capacity. My father was very adamant about me going to college. I was interested in enlisting, but from a young age, I was like, I think it's, I think it'll

• 48:51Speaker 04

  be really good for your, your growth and your maturity for you to go to college first. Kind of give you an opportunity to figure out the states again and then kind of make a plan when you're doing that.

• 49:04Speaker 04

  And with the college, with the, with the scholarship, me not paying for anything, it seemed like a, like a pretty good deal. You know?

• 49:13Speaker 04

  And so I went to college in Virginia. And

• 49:21Speaker 04

  I was, I was looking at the degree of studying international relations and

• 49:28Speaker 04

  I remember like not being a good student and I really didn't want to study anymore. It wasn't really a good environment for me.

• 49:38Speaker 04

  Cause I knew I just wanted to join the military and I didn't know how some of these, these things that I was studying was gonna like really translate and I'm naive, of course, but I know it all, it all has its, has a purpose.

• 49:56Speaker 04

  But I went to, I was talking to my dad, kind of wrestling with this, like dad, I kind of really want to just join the military. He's like, well dude, why don't you look at ROTC? I said, oh, what, what is that? Is it, it's like, he's like, it's officer training. So you go to the, you, you do like college classes, you do some like military training while you're in school. You get a contract and they'll even pay you. And then when you finish, you're a commissioned officer. I was like, that's sick. So I went onto the, you know, website, we had Army ROTC. I was like, dude, I'm gonna try out Army ROTC.

• 50:36Speaker 04

  And started the classes and before, before I joined, I'm looking at all these jobs in the army. And I'm like, special forces, you know, this, this looks like, this looks like my childhood, you know, it just seems like a perfect fit.

• 50:53Speaker 04

  With the language, the foreign experience, like this might really work. But I was a terrible student. I wasn't in good shape. I wasn't an athlete.

• 51:06Speaker 04

  And I remember going into, like, it was like the first day or whatever, you know, there's a ton of other students.

• 51:14Speaker 04

  And them going around, it's like, hey, you know, we'd like to get to know you guys. Everybody, if you wouldn't mind, stand up and tell us about why you're joining the military? Why you want to be a part of the military? And I have nothing against, like, if you sign the line and you join and you served in this nation's military, absolutely honorable, you know, like, like, I'm freaking proud of you. But when most of these classmates of mine stood up, it was, oh, I want the job experience. I need the college money. It's like, I, I think that this career will help me when I get out in the business world.

• 51:58Speaker 04

  And I think maybe two or, two or three other guys that were in my class with me just said, I want to do good things for my country and I want to do bad things to bad people, you know? I was like, shoot, man.

• 52:16Speaker 04

  Where, where are all my people at, you know? Like, where's my community? Cause I don't think this is,

• 52:23Speaker 04

  I don't really connect like that, you know, I only, like, I just want to do bad things to bullies. Right? I want to find bad people that hurt good people.

• 52:37Speaker 04

  So I was like, alright, well, maybe I just really gotta push and try to be special forces. And the more I'm like looking into it, and I'm looking at the rating system that the program was built off of, I'm like, dude, even if I get the job, the chances of me becoming an officer in that community, slim to none. You know, and I'm like, I don't want to bet that. It's like, I think I might just have to enlist. And it got to the point where my father and mother were coming off the mission field, so my scholarship was gonna drop. So I knew I had three options. One, I go into massive debt, finish my degree, try to commission somehow.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  Two, I could get a scholarship with ROTC, they'd pay for the rest of my schooling, and I'd risk it to try to go SF.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Three, I get out and I just enlist. And I remember a summer break, during the summers in college, I was a raft guide. And actually, right here in Tennessee, on the Pigeon River.

• 53:46Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, really?

• 53:47Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I'd go out and raft guide. Well, one summer, I was linking up with one of my buddies before I went out in Alabama. He's like, dude, and I was telling him my situation I'm kinda looking at, you know, and he's older than me. He's like, oh, man, you're looking at that? He's like, you gotta read this book. I was like, what, what is it? He's like, it's called Lone Survivor. It's about Navy SEALs. Said, I think I've heard of them, like Navy SEALs. I just had not, like Navy was never an option. It's like, I think I remember like somebody talking about Navy SEALs once. And he's like, oh dude, you gotta read this book. And I was like, okay.

• 54:31Speaker 04

  And I went, he gave me his copy of the book, and I just like downed it. And I was like, dude, the way, the way that these men compose themselves, fricking the bravery, how tough Danny Dietz was, right? Axelson, Murph, Latrell, dude, like, like...

• 54:56Speaker 04

  It's like, that's tough, you know? That's what men are. I said, and then, you know, of course, you're like, what do you have to do to do this? So you Google like Navy SEAL training, what is that? And then you see the training, you're like, that's the, this is the hardest thing in the world. And I'm like, if it's the hardest and the toughest, that means that the men that want to be there are the men like, like they're like me, right? I said, if they're the strongest,

• 55:30Speaker 04

  then they win the most, right? And I was like, they can, they can kill the most bullies. Yeah. And so that was there and like that seed was planted.

• 55:43Speaker 04

  And, uh, so I, I went back to college, it was kind of like my last semester to decide. And I was telling some of my classmates and I remember being in a car and they're like, everybody's talking about what they want to do in the army. And it was, it was the first time I kind of verbalized it to this group. And this girl's like, how about you Hughes, what do you want to do? I was like, I think I want to be

• 56:08Speaker 04

  a SEAL or Special Forces. And she looks at me, she looks down at me, kind of scrolls me. She's like, you know, that's really hard, right?

• 56:20Speaker 04

  And I was like, I want to be a Navy SEAL, like my, the point was made. Like now I want, that's all I want to do. Like I'm going to do this, you know? It's like Team America, he's like, I promise I will never die, right? Dude, I was like, like F what everybody else thinks. Like I'm going to do everything I can to do this job. And so I started training that semester and I'm talking to my brother who's out of college now. He's RAF guiding at the, uh, in Charlotte, the US National Water Center. Like dude, I've signed up for classes for next semester, my senior year. And I was like, but I'm not, I'm not going.

• 57:04Speaker 04

  I said, I'm on the list, I'm talking to a special forces recruiter. I'm been, I know that there's like, like SEAL contracts now, I think I'm going to try it out. I'm gonna like, you know, I'm gonna, I wanna talk to him and see what the best option, what they think the best option is for me. And uh, he's like, dude, come on down to Charlotte, you can be a ref guy at the, at the Whitewater Center. And uh, and you gotta figure it out, man. Hang out with me. I'm like, alright, cool. Cause he was looking at the intelligence community and, and going the officer route and either the Navy. Like preferably the Navy, he was kinda leaning to.

• 57:42Speaker 04

  And I was like, alright, yeah, we can go talk to the recruiter together.

• 57:47Speaker 04

  And so, I remember walking in to the recruiting office. I'm like, alright, first I'm gonna go into the, the Army office, office. I'm gonna talk to them. I'm gonna go talk to the Navy office. Walk into the door, Army office is on the right, Navy office is on the left. Army office is closed, hard left to the Navy office dude, and I never looked back.

• 58:09Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding?

• 58:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. My brother's in there chatting with them. And uh, I'm kinda like sitting in the back on my phone waiting my turn. And he's like, yeah, honestly, man? Is it GM1 Ramos? Frickin' awesome. Like, if you had a recruiter that was cool, GM1 Ramos was like just a character. And uh, he's like, we're not really like recruiting like officers right now. He's like, frankly, like, he's like, honestly, like what the military really want, like what the Navy really, really wants? It's like SEALs, EOD. And I was like, oh, that's what my brother wants to do. And he's like, you know, look at, you, come here. You wanna be a Navy SEAL? So I'm interested. Yeah, I'd like to talk about it.

• 58:54Speaker 04

  He's like, you swim? I said, I'm okay. He's like, you run? I'm like, yeah. I wanna be a Navy SEAL. Or, you know, talk about it. And uh, he's like, alright, let's uh, let's do the PST tomorrow. Okay. He's like, you wanna do it? Looked at my brother. My brother's like, yeah, I'll try it. And so, dude, we go do the PST and...

• 59:21Speaker 04

  I had been swimming, but I don't know if it was the pressure, the tides weren't right, but I felt like I was going to drown. Like it was miserable experience. It was like a total gut check for me. I was, I mean, you can ask my wife what I was, I'm a skinny dude, you know, and I'm a hundred and forty pounds at this point, tiny. And, uh, and I passed, I passed everything, but it hurt, right? And I was like, dude, I suck, you know, I'm like trash.

• 59:55Speaker 04

  And I'm like, hey, man, listen, like you kind of kissed me on the first date. It's like me, I need to like go train a little bit for this if I'm gonna like really take it seriously. And I got in the car with my brother and I was like, dude, that sucked. And he's like, yeah. My brother's like, dude, I kind of want to do this too.

• 1:00:15Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 1:00:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. And he's like, he's like, should we do that? Like, should we do this? And I said, dude, it'll, it'll be hard. He's like, yeah, I know. Said, no, it's gonna be really hard. I know. He's like, it'll be dangerous. Like, I know. And he's like, nobody's gonna speak our language. Yeah, same deal. And, uh, the food's gonna be different. And, and he's like, let's do it. I said, let's, let's be Navy SEALs. And that was like Rocky montage number one, right? Every day I'm in the pool, we're on the versa climber, you know, lifting weights,

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  trying to get into shape. And then, you know, end up getting our contract, shipping off to BUDS.

• 1:01:05Shawn Ryan?

  Both of you guys?

• 1:01:06Speaker 04

  Shipped off to BUDS together, same boot camp, division, same BUDS class.

• 1:01:10Shawn Ryan?

  Get the hell out of here.

• 1:01:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:12Shawn Ryan?

  So your older brother, just on a whim, decided in that moment like, yeah, fuck it, I'll give this a shot.

• 1:01:19Speaker 04

  No, I mean, he, he had the same sense that I did, right? And, and loyalty to our country and a desire to do great things for this nation. And, and he wasn't sure what capacity he was gonna do it at. I knew that I wanted to be some sort of SOF.

• 1:01:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:35Speaker 04

  Um, and I knew that I was drawn towards the training of the SEAL teams. I didn't do a whole lot of research, but I knew I really like, that was very appealing to me that it was so hard.

• 1:01:47Speaker 04

  And he, he was interested, but it wasn't something that like for years he had been kind of working up towards to go into that community. And so, yeah, it was just kind of like, you want to do it? It's like, yeah, let's go.

• 1:02:03Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  Full send, man.

• 1:02:05Shawn Ryan?

  That is a hell of a childhood to Bud's story. Wow, I totally wasn't expecting any of that.

• 1:02:14Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:02:15Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, there's nothing out there on you I could have researched, you know?

• 1:02:18Speaker 04

  It's black.

• 1:02:19Shawn Ryan?

  You're, you know, you'll appreciate this, you're a black, you're a blank canvas.

• 1:02:25Speaker 04

  Dude.

• 1:02:25Shawn Ryan?

  So, you know.

• 1:02:27Speaker 04

  See what you did there.

• 1:02:28Shawn Ryan?

  But hey, before we get into Bud's, let's take a quick break.

• 1:02:31Speaker 04

  Right on.

• 1:02:35Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, so we had a nice little break there.

• 1:02:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:38Shawn Ryan?

  Let's get into you and your brother are getting ready to show up to Bud's.

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  Yep. So Rocky One montage done, going to the fight, right? We're going to Bud's together. Ship off to boot camp and boot camp was nothing like I expected.

• 1:02:59Speaker 04

  Fortunately, you know, my brother's just a couple of racks away from me. So, starting out my time in the Navy, it was, it was awesome just having like that touch point, right? At the end of the day, we could always debrief, debrief each other and be like, dude, friggin' GM One Ramos totally fucking lied to us, this totally sucks. Like, this is way worse than what we thought it was gonna be like. I think this instructor cadre is like beating, like abusing us. Like it was, it was like dark, you know? We went to a dark place. I don't know, maybe it was just completely out of our element, but it just wasn't what I expected from boot camp. And, um, you know, I joke, it's like, dude, I would rather do.

• 1:03:42Speaker 04

  BUDS again, then boot camp. It was just so freaking stupid and monotonous. And I think like, a lot of times when I bring that up to students, they're like, "Yeah, boot camp's stupid." You know, it's like, I don't know, maybe it's just like the creature comforts that you're giving away. And at least in BUDS, I know like, on the weekend.

• 1:04:00Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you see the-

• 1:04:01Speaker 04

  A little bit, yeah, maybe you chime in a little-

• 1:04:03Shawn Ryan?

  You see the, I know what you mean. You're there, you're there to go, it's almost like purgatory.

• 1:04:10Speaker 04

  Dude, yeah.

• 1:04:11Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? Like, you're there to go and train to become the most elite operator in, in the country.

• 1:04:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:19Shawn Ryan?

  And you're learning how to iron fucking clothes.

• 1:04:23Speaker 04

  Bro, and fold my socks.

• 1:04:24Shawn Ryan?

  And you're learning how to fold sheets.

• 1:04:25Speaker 04

  And the most nervous I've ever been is writing my name on the back of my t-shirt. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, I think that's like the main thing is like, the whole time, you're thinking about this other thing.

• 1:04:37Shawn Ryan?

  You're looking for some kind of motivation.

• 1:04:39Speaker 04

  And I'm getting chewed out because my shirt doesn't have the perfect 45. You know what I mean? And I know it's like attention to detail stuff, but it, it was just like a limbo.

• 1:04:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you're looking-

• 1:04:52Speaker 04

  It's like a means to an end.

• 1:04:54Shawn Ryan?

  You're looking for like some, something that has anything to do with being an operator, even just, not even being an operator, anything to do with combat and it doesn't, it just doesn't come. So you're not getting anything to feed that motivation. The only motivation you have is, "Holy shit, if I quit, this is life."

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Shawn Ryan?

  And, and, I mean-

• 1:05:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, you're doing some kind of workouts with the dive motivators and stuff, but you're kind of getting out of shape. You're not really doing good workouts. You're not really eating good food.

• 1:05:36Speaker 04

  And so, you know, you go through boot camp, check into BUDs, and the floodgates open, you know, you're all of a sudden, you're there, you're like, dude, the grinder's right there. There's helmets on the grinder. You see your first brown shirt. It's like, dude, it's all real. You know, this isn't just some book or some documentary. Like, this crap's real. And then you see the blue and golds, the instructor staff, and like, holy shit. And I remember doing my first surf torture with my brothers, like, at the end of the line. And you know, they're always like, head back, head back. They want your ears to fill up with sand and water.

• 1:06:19Speaker 04

  And I was like, alright, head back. I'm gonna do perfect, you know, this is gonna be perfect. And I got up, dude, and I thought I was going to throw up all over the place. Like, you get up and you're like stumbling, you know, and you're like, ah. Everybody's like, what the fuck was that? Like, I look at my brother and we both look at each other like, not chill. Like, that was not, like, not what I expected. But, coming back, he was always a touch point. You know, he's always like that continuity for me.

• 1:06:51Speaker 04

  And we went through in-doc together. The instructor staff thought I was funny because my brother's like a foot shorter than me. He's my older brother. Like, Hughes and Hughes, brothers in a BUDs class together? What? They let you do this? And we're like, hoo-ya, you know?

• 1:07:11Speaker 04

  Like, you guys are swim buddies and dive buddies and you're gonna be together all the time. Like, we never want to see you guys apart. No shit? They put you guys together? Put us together. Swim buddies. And I'm faster than my brother in the pool, faster than him on runs. But dude, he was like hurting injury-wise and boot camp and stuff, and I was like feeling fresh. And then we got to BUDs and the roll switched. He was like fresh and my legs were like falling apart. And I'm like, bro, what happened? So all of a sudden, he's feeling good on these runs. And I'm like, I might have to take this one a little bit slower, bro. But we were on a swim one day. We're swimming, the instructor's circling us in his jet ski.

• 1:07:56Speaker 04

  Hurry up, you're not gonna make the time. Hurry up. And I'm like, Josh, hurry. Hurry up, man. He's right behind me, he's kinda like on my heels. I'm like, dude, we cannot, I do not want extra butts. Right, and I'm frickin', I'm tired. The night before, at the end of the day, you do grinder cleaners, right? Where you sweep all the sand off the grinder, you clean up the instructor's office. You get everything ready for the next day. And two students had been caught walking as they were taking out trash. And so an instructor came out, he saw it, he's like, guess what? Tonight, you're all gonna be writing, "I will not walk."

• 1:08:41Speaker 04

  While at basic underwater demolition school, 1,000 times. And so we're cherry rigging all these pens together, like, every student has to write this 1,000 times. Damn. Dude, it was brutal. So by the time I finished writing this, I had five pens together and I was writing it down. I had, it was like five minutes to muster. Close my eyes, wake up, sleep in my, put my boots on, go downstairs, get ready for the swim. So I'm like, poop, bro. Josh, I don't want extra butts today. It's week one, Wednesday.

• 1:09:16Speaker 04

  Like, you better, we better not fail. Kicking, I'm kicking, I'm kicking, he's kicking, he's kicking. We get past the finish line, I think we're like the fifth swim pair.

• 1:09:26Speaker 04

  Calls out our time, and we're like five minutes under the time that we needed. And I'm like, nice, you know, like high five, and he's like looking at me.

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  He's like, dude, I think I'm done. I'm like, what do you mean? You think you're done?

• 1:09:47Speaker 04

  Think I wanna do something else. It's like, "No, no, no, no, no, no. Let's talk about it at lunch." I said, "Just wait. We're gonna, we're gonna do this. We got a little admin time, and then we're gonna, we can talk about it at lunch."

• 1:10:00Speaker 04

  And, uh, he comes over. He didn't finish his writing assignment the night before. He's like some instructor on the bullarm. "If you didn't finish your writing assignment last night, report for, you know, report to the goon squad, whatever." And so I'm like, and he's like,

• 1:10:20Speaker 04

  goes over, does his little extra buds. I go back, start changing on my wetsuit. And then, uh, get to lunch, and I'm like, I'm just sitting down with him. I'm like, "All right, dude, like, really think about this." And he's like, "Listen, man." He's like, "This isn't what I've always wanted."

• 1:10:38Speaker 04

  He's like, "This was kind of a means to an end for me." He's like, "I wanted this so that I could do something else when I get out." And he's like, "I don't necessarily have to do this to do that." And, and I was like, "Dude, I, I get it, dude. This is hard, you know?" He's like, "But I got nothing else."

• 1:11:02Speaker 04

  It's like, "You go. I'm gonna stay for one more evolution. I'll see you later."

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  And so he disappeared.

• 1:11:12Speaker 04

  And, uh, we go back to the pit.

• 1:11:17Speaker 04

  Go upstairs, call my mom and dad. "Guys, Josh quit." Like, "Wow, how are you?" You know? "I'm okay. I think I'm okay." A little bummed. "Okay, hang in there. You're good." And, uh, this is like the first time in my whole life that there's no more family, right?

• 1:11:40Speaker 04

  My brother was gone. Parents couldn't help. It is me. And I had to make a choice, right?

• 1:11:49Speaker 04

  "All right, I'm gonna do another evolution." Walk downstairs. And, uh, three of my good buddies all made it, all who made it, they put their arms around me. They say, "Don't worry, Hughes. We're your brothers now."

• 1:12:09Speaker 04

  And they're like, let's go do another evolution.

• 1:12:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:13Speaker 04

  Dude, went out, never thought about it, never thought about quid. It's like, from then on, dude, I was like, this is it?

• 1:12:22Speaker 04

  Doesn't matter what happens anymore, I'm all in.

• 1:12:26Shawn Ryan?

  Did that affect your guys' relationship?

• 1:12:28Speaker 04

  That was a good, yeah, I mean, there was definitely, you know, we joke, the instructor staff afterwards is like, gonna make an awkward Thanksgiving for the Hughes bros, you know, and like, coking and joking. And it didn't, it didn't, cause, no, cause my brother was the guy, he's like, you know, yeah, dude, fricking hate the cold, wasn't for me, and he owns it.

• 1:12:50Shawn Ryan?

  He owns it?

• 1:12:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, totally owns it. And to me, that's one of like, the most annoying things, like, you know, my Achilles hurt, and they told me pretty much that I had to quit because,

• 1:13:06Speaker 04

  because they weren't gonna roll me, so I quit.

• 1:13:10Shawn Ryan?

  Are you talking about in general?

• 1:13:11Speaker 04

  No, I'm talking about in general, a lot of dudes do that shit, you know, they just like, make up reasons for why they quit, and they just don't own it, like, they have tons of excuses, right?

• 1:13:20Shawn Ryan?

  You never meet an actual Bud's quitter, you just meet everybody that got med dropped.

• 1:13:24Speaker 04

  Dude, yeah, you know.

• 1:13:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:26Speaker 04

  And, and so, he's not that guy, I mean, it's a cool conversation that we can have, and,

• 1:13:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Speaker 04

  and you know, he kind of reflects back on some of those stories.

• 1:13:36Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's definitely respectable.

• 1:13:38Speaker 04

  We're super, we're, yeah, we're still super cool, I call that guy every single day. We chat all the time.

• 1:13:43Shawn Ryan?

  Good, I can see where that could definitely get in the way, but on the other hand, he made it, it sounds like he made a very calculated decision, and it wasn't, you know, I mean, he didn't, whatever, he didn't quit in the moment.

• 1:13:57Speaker 04

  I mean, yeah, to an extent, right, but, my brother's definitely one of the dudes.

• 1:14:05Speaker 04

  He is undoubtedly one of like, the most intellectual people that I know. He's now an army chaplain, and like, to me, he's like, like, levels above.

• 1:14:23Speaker 04

  Like wisdom and knowledge and information that I could ever attain, you know? So a lot of times in my life, even like this interview, you know, I call up my brother. I'm like, hey, man. I don't know what I'm gonna talk about, bro. I was like, I don't, I don't really know. He's like, listen, build like a story, you know, and he kind of like talks me through it. He's like, this is, you know, he helps you navigate some of those like intellectual challenges that I really struggle with. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it doesn't, it hasn't really, to answer your question, it hasn't. Good. It's been pretty. That's cool, man. It's kind of, if anything, it's kind of built us cause like we both went our own ways. And it like, we didn't have to like piggyback off each other's careers and there was no like

• 1:15:07Speaker 04

  competitiveness in the team, you know what I mean? And, uh, it's just like, dude, you did your thing. I'm doing my thing. He found his calling. Yeah, he found his calling. Wasn't being a seal. Exactly. Nothing wrong with that. Exactly, man.

• 1:15:19Speaker 04

  And, uh, so yeah, to go back, um,

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  dude, I remember, uh,

• 1:15:28Speaker 04

  kind of closing out, I guess, the buds portion. That was kind of like the highlight, like the hard part for me of buds, but other than that, it was like injury stuff. I was dealing, I remember my Achilles tendon just was like so swollen and just getting to the point where I'm like, I'm, I don't know if this can hurt more. I think the next level of pain that I can feel with this is like my foot falls off, my bone's sticking out, right? Like, I remember running and chasing freaking Eddie Gallagher. He was one of my instructors. Eddie Gallagher was one of your instructors? Yeah, and he is fricking fast, bro. What was he like as an instructor? Um, he was hard. Was he? He was tough.

• 1:16:14Speaker 04

  Was he? He was a hammer. He was the asshole? Yeah, he was a quiet asshole. Oh. Yeah, he was the asshole that like doesn't have to say very much. He's the night shift? Dude, yeah, Eddie, Eddie is the night shift. Yeah. I could see Eddie being a night shift. I remember chasing Eddie and my ankle's like on fire. I'm like, dude, I'm just gonna catch him and I'm gonna stay with him. And I'm like, I don't care what my tendon feels like. I catch up and I'm like right next to Eddie and get closer and closer. And then I just like kind of looks over.

• 1:16:46Speaker 04

  And I'm like.

• 1:16:50Speaker 04

  He rips off, we circle back, you know? And he knows I'm just like, kinda being a smart ass, like just trying to catch up with the instructor staff. And he's like, "Duce, get over here." He's like, "Can't wait to see you quit, like your brother." And I'm like, "Hoo-ya? Like, I don't know, dude." He's like, he's just, you know, he's getting in my head. And, uh, yeah, and so I ended up having a stress fracture, like an eight centimeter stress fracture in my left tibia. After Hell Week, and I ran it through to second phase, got rolled day one to second phase and rolled back into future class and finished out BUDs.

• 1:17:32Shawn Ryan?

  I got a question.

• 1:17:33Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:17:34Shawn Ryan?

  You said three guys after your brother left. Three guys came and said, "Boy, your brothers, now did they make it?"

• 1:17:40Speaker 04

  All made it.

• 1:17:41Shawn Ryan?

  All of them made it?

• 1:17:42Speaker 04

  Every single one of them.

• 1:17:43Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 1:17:44Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:17:44Shawn Ryan?

  That's amazing.

• 1:17:45Speaker 04

  How cool was that?

• 1:17:46Shawn Ryan?

  That's cool.

• 1:17:46Speaker 04

  It was really sick. I actually, I got to do a, uh, a driving school. It was like, we hadn't seen each other, they all went east coast and I was a west coast guy. And two of them were at it. It was just, it was like a huge reunion, you know? But I was like, dude, cause we hadn't connected in so long. And, uh, you know, you end up going to different teams and, and you just kinda drop. Like, you look at your old BUDs picture and like, "I don't know, dude, I don't know a lot of it. I don't, I have no clue what these people are doing now."

• 1:18:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17Speaker 04

  It's always cool to reconnect with them, but yeah, all of them made it. I think one of them's out now and then the other two are still in.

• 1:18:25Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 1:18:25Speaker 04

  Crazy, right?

• 1:18:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, so...

• 1:18:30Shawn Ryan?

  You got any Hell Week stories before we move on from BUDs?

• 1:18:33Speaker 04

  Oh geez, Hell Week stories, man. Gosh dang. Dude, I remember there being like weird stuff that was going on. I remember like, uh... I remember them playing like music that was like for children and just constant baby crying, you know, music and we went the first day, you know how you get the rollback word, right? You're always looking at the rollbacks like, so what, what's this look like? What's day one look like? And all the rollbacks had told us like, okay, so we're gonna do breakout, we're gonna do log PT, you know, the base tour or whatever it is. Some nerds gonna be like, base tour is on take three, you know? I don't know, I don't know what the exact schedule is.

• 1:19:19Speaker 04

  I'm like, okay, okay, cool, cool, cool. I got this.

• 1:19:23Speaker 04

  And dude, it was like breakout, log PT, and then we got our boats and ran down like, I think, eight miles to the stick. And we spent like the first three days down at the stick away from base, eating MREs. And uh,

• 1:19:40Speaker 04

  doing the whole spiel. I remember at one point, one of the instructors like dumping sand on us day one, you know, where like we had won a race and him looking around and like saying, hey Hughes, look around in this class, how many people do you think are gonna quit? It's like, I'm like, I don't know, man. Everybody seems pretty solid. And then I'm like, but my brother quit, so I have freaking no idea, you know? I don't know, bro. How many people are gonna make it through this pipeline? But uh, I don't know, yeah, weird bud, weird, weird head, hell week stories.

• 1:20:19Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, well, you don't have to.

• 1:20:20Speaker 04

  I don't know, man. Yeah, I probably think of something and come up with it, but it's all a blur to a extent, right? Like you remember bits and pieces. I remember dudes, I remember doing, what is that one, uh, around the world? There was this one kid, he was always falling asleep and. And you take your paddle and you're like, dude, wake up, start paddling. We're in second place. We don't want to freaking lose second place. They're just like letting us take a break at the end. Somebody sneaks out and like throw a bag of the full-size Snickers bars in our boat. We're like, alright, man. Listen, if you're not gonna paddle,

• 1:21:01Speaker 04

  all you have to do is unwrap these Snicker bars and you're gonna feed us, right? So I remember like paddling and then just feeling like a Snickers bar, like.

• 1:21:13Speaker 04

  Dragging my mouth, dude, and I ate so many Snickers bars. And I was so pumped because it was like, tasted good. One meal finally tasted good. And dude, we got to the break and I was just dying, man. My stomach, I was just like curled over. I was like, too much, you know, like, no. Like, I'm not eating any more Snicker. Dude, my stomach was so messed up. So messed up. And then, you know, it goes like you're taking dumps in the surf and you're like, how do I poop in the ocean? I've never done that before. So you like pull your pants down. You're trying to like take a dump and the waves and the sand are like brushing your butt crack.

• 1:21:58Speaker 04

  And then you're like, I think I went poop. And you look down, there's no turd. It's just like sand. You're like, where is it? Like, where is it? I don't want to like pull it into my pants. Dude, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Just weird stuff. It's just a weird time, man.

• 1:22:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:14Speaker 04

  It's all a blur.

• 1:22:16Shawn Ryan?

  Well, moving on.

• 1:22:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, sorry.

• 1:22:17Shawn Ryan?

  So what team are you going to?

• 1:22:19Speaker 04

  So.

• 1:22:21Shawn Ryan?

  When you graduate?

• 1:22:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, uh, get done with BUDs, go to, I end up getting orders to SEAL Team Five. And right before SEAL, uh, right before checking in, that's when my wife and I got married. My wife, whom I met in Thailand, we kind of talked and she was going to nursing school. I was looking at doing the SEAL thing. She was my girlfriend at the time.

• 1:22:46Speaker 04

  I was like, I don't want any distractions. You don't need any distractions while you're going to nursing school. I said, let's just like, let's not talk for a little bit. And maybe we can link up when all this is done, you know? And so I got rolled, kind of started, got a little lonely, started texting her. So rekindled some stuff. And when I graduated, Bud, she was like, oh, I'm gonna come out and be a nurse in Southern California. So, well, how convenient. And so we started dating again when I was in SQT, decided to just get married. So we got married right before I checked in. I think I just finished SERE. Oh dude, I, I had just finished SERE.

• 1:23:30Speaker 04

  So it was like, we did the FTX. And I remember the same thing, brown shirt, passed down. Like dude, how long is this FTX? Cause it's like right before Christmas break and that's the only time I can get married. You know, it's like the only leave that you're pretty much, you know, you're gonna get when you're in training. And he's like, oh dude, I think it's like you get, you start it on Monday, you finish it on Wednesday. And then you get like a day or two off. He's like, I'm pretty sure that's it. And dude, I remember it being Wednesday and watching the sun go down and being in this like little shell sail. Somebody like hosing me down and being like, son of a bitch dude, my wedding's in two days. And I'm still in this jail, butt naked.

• 1:24:11Speaker 04

  And dude, like we secured Thursday, got on a plane Friday, got married Saturday. And I'm have, I've like, you know, they slap you around and stuff. And I have like bruises on my cheek. I'm all like skinny and I got a cold, cause you know, you've been out living in hosed off woods. It's just like, you know, malnourished. So I get married, get orders for SEAL Team Five. And then with all my experience and where I lived, like, hey, I speak this language. You know, I can help here. Like, you should learn Pashto. I'm like, what the frick is Pashto? You know, they're trying to send all the SEALs to language school.

• 1:24:56Speaker 04

  This little sliver in Afghanistan, you want me to learn this language? So, went to Pashto school while my platoon was coming back from Afghanistan. And they had a really good deployment in Afghanistan, gotten into a lot of combat. And I was a new guy coming into a platoon with a pretty great reputation. So, you know, you just try to be the good new guy. And so, you know, that's kind of like where I started out at SEAL Team Five. Hopefully that was comprehensible. I know it kind of bounced around, but. That's good.

• 1:25:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, so checked in SEAL Team Five, start ULT, I'm a comms guy, which is for those of you who don't know, unit level training. You go into your unit, everybody kind of gets their jobs. Some guys get specialty training if there's billets that are open up. And our platoon's performing pretty well, and I'm like, hey, you guys are going to go to Yemen. And I'm like, oh, that's, that's a cool country. Like that, there's definitely some bad guys there. Like, we might actually get to do some work, you know? And you're kind of getting hand down and you're, you're learning about who you're going to be working with. And we were going to be augmenting with, our platoon's going to be augmenting with development

• 1:26:19Speaker 04

  group and helping with their mission there. And, uh, and so, you know, everybody's fired up to do this deployment. What year is this? 2014, I think, or 2014, 2015. The way that the rotation worked, it was always like a Christmas and then a Christmas off and then a Christmas off on deployment and, you know what I mean? Yeah. So, so we're there between 2014 going into 2015. What part of Yemen? Uh, we were kind of, I don't know if I should. All right. I don't know if we go into like the details of like exact locations because of the guys

• 1:27:00Speaker 04

  that we were working with. But primary mission there was vehicle interdiction, VI. And so they're, you know, tracking dudes. And our job was to train and handle the Yemeni's like premier counter terrorist unit. And so this was probab- You always hear the stories about expectation management and expectation management, you know? Go into it, whatever happens, happens. If you get to see some action, you get to see some action. And you get there and you start kind of seeing what the op tempo is like and you're like, wow.

• 1:27:46Speaker 04

  I'm, we might not do any good work, you know? And this is the first time in my career where I realized, dude, there's SEALs that have never been in combat. Yeah. You know? Like, there's a lot of people who spend their whole careers. And maybe you get shot at once, right? Or get to shoot their guns once, maybe?

• 1:28:10Speaker 04

  So you're like, dude, I gotta figure out how I can chase the fight. You know, you're like, I don't, I don't want to miss it, you know? This is, how long has this war been going on? Did I miss it? Yeah. And so this is the first time this is all connecting with me. And, and fortunately, it wasn't an uneventful deployment, like a couple. The way that the rotation for our platoon worked with handling these dudes is they would do, there was kind of like a, like a lottery, like this week, two dudes are the handlers and then the next week, two other guys are the handlers. And if an op pops off and you guys get to go, like you two are on the list, you're on the, you're on whatever chalk.

• 1:28:51Speaker 04

  And so, you know, some of the guys were super fortunate and got to do an awesome, awesome mission. Handlers for? Yemeni special forces. Okay. Yeah, so the way that a lot of these countries like to work it is they like to put the face of their nation on the operation. So you include them in the operation. Sometimes you do, the Americans do most of the work. And pretty much just try to make sure that the Yemenis don't shoot themselves or us. I didn't realize that the, that was, you know, same thing with us in Iraq and Afghanistan as well. I didn't realize they were doing that in Yemen.

• 1:29:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's uh, that was my first deployment, man, and honestly, like, we got rocketed. But you come back and you're like, man.

• 1:29:44Speaker 04

  It was a good bonding experience with the guys. I learned a lot from working with the guys that we were working with. But it's kind of disappoint like, I'm kind of disappointed that I didn't get to do the work that I've joined the military to do, right?

• 1:30:02Speaker 04

  And so you try your best because the way that the platoons work and the way that the unit level training cycle works is, you know, whoever's the top performer gets to go to whatever the most dangerous operation, the most dangerous theater is, right? So I guess the way that trade at works is as you're going through all these training pipeline, like these SEAL training, right? This deployment training, you do, they kind of grade you and there's whispers and talk. I don't, I don't know, man, it's like all over my head, but they, they essentially grade you, your platoons. You know, like, hey, this platoon needs to go here. This platoon is definitely better at the MAROP stuff.

• 1:30:45Speaker 04

  They'll go to PI or something and then, you know, top performing platoon, like they're going to Syria or Iraq or whatever the mission, whatever the missions that is.

• 1:30:58Speaker 04

  So.

• 1:31:01Speaker 04

  I, we start out our platoon. I get the opportunity to go to JTAC school, Joint Terminal Attack Controller. For those of you that don't know what that is, it's uh, anytime there's aircraft in the air, not anytime, but most of the time, that there's a soft component on the ground. There's usually a ground, somebody on the ground talking to the, to the aircraft and coordinating what we're saying, what the GFC is the Grand Force Commander, what his intent and what he wants. And telling them essentially what to bomb, when to bomb and where to bomb. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I went to a JTAC school.

• 1:31:46Speaker 04

  And it's very cookie cutter. Very book, study heavy. You go out to the range. It's sanitary. Got your map out, got your radio. You can see the aircraft. Everything's like very controlled. Essentially, the way it works is you kind of coordinate with them. Make sure you're both looking at the same thing. There's kind of a contract that's ginned up in verbal form. And then you give them permission to strike, right? With your GFC's approval. Ground Force Commander's approval. So I did the schoolhouse, man. And did okay. I felt like I did really well. But you get to the platoon.

• 1:32:29Speaker 04

  And as we all know, like the op tempo in the platoon is completely different than how the schoolhouse does things. And so I remember we start ULT. We start mobility was my first block where I was practicing as a primary JTAC for our platoon.

• 1:32:49Speaker 04

  And dude, I was a shit show. It was as complete as that. Like I go in, we go into the simulator. And fortunately for me, man, my, my platoon chief was a very, very good communicator and had a great reputation for being a good JTAC.

• 1:33:09Speaker 04

  We go into the simulator, my first block, I'm like, all right, I'm going to show them, you know, all the things that I've learned in the schoolhouse, you know? And you start and they're, he's like, oh, mortars coming in. And the simulator is like a huge dome. And you got like your kind of your compass and your tools that you can use. And there's a guy back there pretending like he's the aircraft and you got your radio. So you just walk it all out, right? And you see, okay, I'm getting mortars. And you're And so you start like, okay, I'm going to get my little map out. And like, all right. And then it's like, like somebody's shooting. You see them kind of walking towards you like, oh, okay. So maybe we're gonna, I'm gonna focus on that thing, right? And it's like, somebody else is shooting at you now. And you're like, oh, which one do I focus on?

• 1:33:53Speaker 04

  Like, this is way more than I knew how to handle from what I was learning in the schoolhouse. It was always like so easy. It's like, hey, man, I want you to hit this building right here. Just tell them to blow up that. And like, that was it, right? And now like the stress was on. And I remember being done, dude. And I'm like, this is what? And I feel out of breath and I'm like, that was not chill. And I look back and instructor cadre, like the trade cadre was kind of like rubbing his chin, looking at me. My platoon chief was kind of like looking at him. And I'm like, I am so sorry. I was like, I am so sorry. And my platoon chief was like, come on, come here. He's like, don't worry. We're gonna get you up to speed.

• 1:34:38Speaker 04

  And Rocky montage number two, man. I start like it is on the mic, eight hours a day, going constantly. Every single operation, like every training op we're doing, I'm doing runs. And for me, it was one of those things where in this community, I felt pretty comfortable and confident. But it was extraordinarily humbling experience just to be like so bad at something. But to have guys again come in and say like, hey, man, here's how we do things here. Here's how you work this. Here's, here's the priority here. And just to have that support system and such good mentorship

• 1:35:20Speaker 04

  in my platoon was extremely beneficial. And I know a lot of guys don't get that. But I think it's just a testament to how like how our platoon was formed, how my leadership was in my platoon. And we'd really built a great family that was all about bringing everybody up to speed and making sure like we were as lethal as possible, right? Eliminating the kill chain to as small as it needs to be to get bombs on heads. That's awesome. And so, yeah, man, they brought me up and you know, I remember sitting down and I was like, all right, man. Like, we're going to Iraq. And our platoon's splitting up. You know, your mentor, J-Tech mentor is like one of my older guys.

• 1:36:05Speaker 04

  He's like, he's gonna be with us and you're gonna be alone and afraid, you know? And he's, he said, you ready? I said, yeah. He's like, I know you are. He said, "If you have any problems or questions, you come to me." I said, "Okay." And, um, GFC? It's like the, you know, like the classic, "Before we deploy, these are our expectations." Like, "This is, this is what it's gonna look like for you." And they're like, "We have full confidence in you," you know? And so, dude, um, we start turning over with SEAL Team One, who's currently deployed to northern Iraq. They're dealing with the ISIS piece.

• 1:36:51Speaker 04

  Chuck Keating gets killed during our turnover. And all of a sudden, it's like, "Wow." Like, SEALs are dying. And we're about to be there. You know, this is, this has become a lot more real.

• 1:37:08Speaker 04

  And so, you know, for the first time, you,

• 1:37:15Speaker 04

  you try to, not for the first time, you try to manage those expectations and, and train to the highest level, right?

• 1:37:27Speaker 04

  But at the same time, you're so hesitant because you don't want to be disappointed, right?

• 1:37:31Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 1:37:32Speaker 04

  And it's like, how do you pace, how do you pace yourself for that? And like, how do you do that? You just shoot for the stars, man. You just do it, do the best you can all the time. And that's what the teams demand of you. And so, the whole platoon was in, we were ready to go, chomping at the bit. And we tried to maintain our expectations, but it's impossible for them not to be that high when you have an enemy like them.

• 1:37:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:00Shawn Ryan?

  You know you're going to the shed now.

• 1:38:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, we feel, we really feel like we are.

• 1:38:07Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 1:38:10Speaker 04

  You gonna take a quick, can we take a quick break?

• 1:38:14Shawn Ryan?

  Let's do it.

• 1:38:15Speaker 04

  Before we go to Iraq and start war stories?

• 1:38:17Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a break.

• 1:38:20Shawn Ryan?

  Mosul, ISIS, take us there.

• 1:38:25Speaker 04

  Foreign countries, it's dangerous.

• 1:38:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I'll start from right off the bat, initial impressions. We kind of work through the progression of the op tempo and kind of like how life looked there. Is that cool? So, day one, I think. So, the way the flights work is the platoon's kind of broken up. And people arrive at different times. You do turnovers with your counterparts that are on the platoon that you're leaving. And so, being the JTAC with my OIC, we're on the first flight out.

• 1:39:06Speaker 04

  We get into country, you know, check out our house. Start meeting some of the guys that we're going to be turning over with.

• 1:39:15Speaker 04

  And they say, "Hey, SAS lives down the road. They want to have a barbecue with you guys, meet you tonight." So, sweet. He's like, "I think they're just kind of like a three day out."

• 1:39:29Speaker 04

  And I'm like, "Cool, yeah, we'll head down." So, you know, we got our guns, drive down the road, go over to their house. They're like grilling, you know, they got like sweet Land Rovers. And they're all just like kicked back, relaxing. It's like the scene that you'd expect, you know? We just start sitting down and talking with them and they're telling us about their day and their time on the flot, which is the four line of troops. And, you know, I'm like, "So, how'd it go?" He's like, "Oh, mate, it was, uh, it was pretty good till the V-bid showed up." I said, "Well, what happens, what happens when the V-bid showed up?"

• 1:40:15Speaker 04

  And he's like, "Well, he tried to shoot it." I said, "Okay, and then what?" And, "Have you guys had any success like blowing them up?" He's like, "Not really." He's like, I said, "So, what happens when it gets close?" He's like, "You fucking run, mate."

• 1:40:33Speaker 04

  And I'm like...

• 1:40:37Speaker 04

  Look over at my OIC and I'm like, we run? Like, is that a, is that like a back left call? Or like, what does that look like? If I'm not turning in, run, run away? And, uh, and dude, I, I remember just being like, okay, this is a little different than what I like, expected. And the way that the battlefield is set up is more like World War I than a modern warfare scene that you would expect SEALs to be fighting in.

• 1:41:21Speaker 04

  Uh, where we were working with the Kurdish forces, who's the Peshmirga, also refer to them as like the Pesh for short. The Pesh had built up a flot, four line of troops. And it was essentially berm and trenches with outposts all along their territory. And then ISIS had controlled villages that, you know, they killed most of the people or when they moved in, a lot of the people ran away. But essentially these villages were completely deserted. Um, maybe a couple of other families would stay behind.

• 1:42:05Speaker 04

  And they had dug in intricate tunnel systems and built rat lines in and out of these villages. And so when we first came into country, our typical job was to develop, understand, and find and fix, hopefully kill ISIS in these villages. So for instance, you go up to the four line of troops. You ride in, you know, early morning. And you kind of get all your gear set up, get your mortar set up.

• 1:42:46Speaker 04

  And then almost every single time you get up there, you start receiving mortar fire.

• 1:42:56Speaker 04

  So, um, the best way I can kind of describe what that sounds like to people is you, you get, you get used to kind of like knowing what, what is mortar and what isn't. But you can tell when somebody launches a mortar, it almost doesn't matter how far away because it sounds like a car door slamming. So you hear a car door slam.

• 1:43:21Speaker 04

  Our SOP was like, you know, you close your car door, you yell, "car door." So people knew it wasn't an enemy mortar. So you get up to the flot, set up your mortar, um, launch a Puma, which is like a,

• 1:43:39Speaker 04

  um, our own ISR, little ISR platform with a short battery life. Where's ISR? Can you describe that? Can you describe ISR? Essentially, it's just a, it's a platform. Some of them are armed, some are not, but it's a platform with a camera. Some of them have, um, FLIR, which is white hot, red hot. It's a drone. Yeah, it's a li- it's a tiny little cardboard drone. ISIS would call it the cardboard airplane. So whenever they called it out on comms, they'd be like, "They sent the cardboard airplane." And so we'd throw out our little drone and start scanning these villages and just developing a pattern of life.

• 1:44:22Speaker 04

  And it got to the point where you start to recognize people. You start to notice when vehicles come and go, start to notice what buildings they go into. And if you're lucky, you start, you get right up to the flot, you start getting mortared, you identify a PUS site, hopefully you can get aircraft on station, we can call in a strike. It's a good day, or you identify the PUS site. It's impossible to get aircraft because they're located somewhere else. And your boys set up their mortars and you just start like this mortar battle. Or lob 50 cal rounds at them and try and hit them. But a big struggle is locating an enemy PUS, like mortar PUS site.

• 1:45:06Speaker 04

  For those, sorry, I didn't go into what a PUS site is. It's just a point of origin. And I can get you some, I have some pretty good footage of what that looks like. If you want to run it, you can, uh, Absolutely. You can show, and then I can show like a strike on a PUS site. It's pretty cool. Absolutely. So we'll give you some of that stuff too. Before we go into the, those, the PUS site, the flot, what does that look like? Yeah. I mean, is it like a line of, of coalition forces? No, so, uh, it's all pretty much manned by Peshmerian forces. Okay. And then coalition forces would deploy to different parts. And just support different elements of the flot.

• 1:45:51Speaker 04

  So you're always receiving intel like, oh, this section of the flot might be, you know, they might push this section of the flot. And so we'd go and reinforce that section of the flot and be ready. So it's a moving line? Uh, it's not, it's, it's pretty built up. Like they have some nice structures, but there are burms, like bulldozers pushed in, sandbags built up. It's very like fortified and it's held up. And, and essentially we're just kind of waiting. How long, how long is it? Mile, miles and miles around the city of Mosul, like, like hundred, like hundreds of miles. Okay. It's like all the way around Mosul. Wow.

• 1:46:32Speaker 04

  And Mosul is still, you know, 50 miles away from where our position is. So it's a good distance. Like you can't even see the city from where we are. So you go up to it and the Pesh are super friendly. They're a great fighting force, a good partner force, very motivated. And they loved to kill ISIS. So we loved working with them, building a relationship. You know, they, they have like their tea time, chai. And, uh, we do a little key leader and get KLEs with their leadership, regular chai meetings. But, um, our

• 1:47:11Speaker 04

  They fought really well with Chuck Keating and his platoon. Built great relationships that turned over to our platoon. And we just kind of nursed that and built really good camaraderie. So anytime we showed up, everybody was excited. And they had some good intel for us like, hey, this building right here, that one right there. There's bad guys in it. It's like, all right, cool. We're gonna go check it out. We're like, hey, we've been seeing, they'd always give us a pretty good pass down on the local area.

• 1:47:43Speaker 04

  And so you're building up this pattern of life on these villages. You're taking notes, bringing it back and you're typing in, you know, what time somebody left, what time somebody went in. And hoping that you see a gun, you know? And essentially, if you saw that gun, or they tried shooting at our drone, like you were gonna, you were gonna kill them.

• 1:48:12Speaker 04

  And, and a lot of times you get creative, right? You're like, oh, we're gonna get, like, there's a guy. I bet he looks like he's up to no good, you know? And you get close, like closer to him, you try to get him low. He rips off his backpack, starts dumping rounds. You're like, gotcha. All right, bring it back, calling an aircraft and we'll get eyes on him and hopefully can drop. And because the forward line of troops was so long, man, these aircraft were like all over the place. You're dealing with French RFIAs, you're dealing with like every CAS platform under the sun essentially. But there's only so much to go around. So sometimes if, if, almost if you were lucky, you'd get a CAS platform.

• 1:48:58Speaker 04

  But some strikes took like two or three hours to develop just to get aircraft to drop on some of these guys. And so there's frustrations in that, you know? In and of itself, just like, it's not necessarily what you thought you were gonna be doing. You still feel like you're contributing to the fight, right? But you're like, ah, I'm kind of getting restless, this is kind of monotonous. And I'm kind of getting used to getting mortared and ready to do something a little different. And so there's like a little tick. I think everybody felt it, like, all right, we're ready to do some more Navy SEAL stuff and not just.

• 1:49:36Speaker 04

  Shooting people, shooting people with 50 cal's and dropping mortars and watching Kill TV and dropping bombs on people. Yeah. And I think part of that was like, I feel really fortunate because I was at JTAC and I was constantly, I was constantly working. Even when we came back, they'd be, they'd say, hey, you have 16 hours of watch on this ISR platform. I'm like, damn dude, I just got like two days off the flot.

• 1:50:02Speaker 04

  Okay, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit here and watch the screen, talking to, on the phone to this ISR platform. And we're developing better and better life on this village together. And so it got to the point where I put like new guys or other dudes like, hey, I'll, I'll take a shift and, and watch. I'm like, all right, you know, you're training with like, this is what we're looking for. If anybody asks this, this is how you respond. I said, if you see anybody with a gun, come get me, you know, or doing something nefarious. And that could be transporting ammunition, moving a V-bid, um, find, like digging a cave.

• 1:50:44Speaker 04

  And cave, the cave system was insane. So just come get me. So, you know, I'd be asleep and it'd be like, Woody, there's a guy with a gun.

• 1:50:55Speaker 04

  All right, you know, go over, type, hey, you know, you guys got in the air? Yeah. We can get, we can get you help fire. All right.

• 1:51:05Speaker 04

  Right. Do the little contract, bring a couple of guys in, they're like, boom, watch them fly up in the air 70, 80 feet. Like, hey man, let me know if there's anything else. I'm going back to bed, you know? And that was kind of like it for, I think we got there in August, August through September. Okay. And, and beginning of October. So about two months. Yeah, about two months. And, and honestly, it was really not like having, it wasn't, I wouldn't say it was like fast paced.

• 1:51:40Speaker 04

  We were always gone, like we were always going to the flot every day, every other day. Maybe one, two days, sometimes three days, if there was something really going on or something, some kind of collection that we needed. But.

• 1:51:56Speaker 04

  It was, it was pretty constant and it was just enough action to like keep us on our toes. But also sometimes not enough, the mortars were just inaccurate enough. So you're kind of like, you get a little bit complacent. You're like, ah, another mortar. Yeah. You know? And we talked about it a little bit, like, um, we got to work with some Delta guys. And those dudes were doing their mission, but they couldn't really do anything because of the nature of the flot. And what ISIS had posted up, all the roads are V-bitted, are IED'd.

• 1:52:38Speaker 04

  And ISIS had like anti-aircraft stuff, capability. So, um, you know, our budget was kind of smaller. We have to conserve our Javelin rocket system, which is essentially an anti-tank rocket. It launches up in the air, locks on to a heat signature of some sort, drops down and, and blows up whatever you're trying to, to shoot. So we had, you know, we have a limited number of Javelins. We have to kind of like work, like conserve our mortars, right? We don't have a huge budget. And these guys are like, hey, man, we got like 70 Javelins and we just, we just want to go out and do some good work.

• 1:53:23Speaker 04

  We're like, let's go, you know? And so they land on their Chinooks, we'd pick them up, offload a ton of Javelins. We'd go to the flot, destroy anything with a heat signature, essentially that was doing something bad. And, uh, head back, re-outfit. They'd hit us up on the phone, hey, man, got some Rangers over here that needs some mortar experience. Bring them out, bring out a hundred mortars, whatever, get in a little mortar battle and then, and then head back. No shit. Yeah. And so, you know, the whole time, we all know, like Mosul is right there. Yeah. And so we're all chomping at the bit, like, we want to do more.

• 1:54:07Speaker 04

  Like this isn't, this isn't enough. Like, let's go. You want to get up close. Yeah, you want to get close. Yeah. And you hear rumors, you know, hey, it might happen, it might happen.

• 1:54:22Speaker 04

  And then it's like, hey, it's probably gonna happen.

• 1:54:28Speaker 04

  You're like, if it happens, like, are we gonna get the third A? You know, advise, assist in a company? We were afraid it was just gonna be the advise and assist, right? Where you're like, oh, we're gonna tell the generals what to do. And then we'll hang out at our house. And you can come to us with any questions and we'll kind of keep doing our job from afar. So we were kind of nervous, like, dude, if this really goes, like, can we get the company? Like, we want to be there. We want to be with them.

• 1:54:58Speaker 04

  And dude, overnight, comes out. We're going to Mosul.

• 1:55:06Speaker 04

  It's like, and it's happening in like two days.

• 1:55:10Speaker 04

  Maybe 24 hours. And so it's like,

• 1:55:16Speaker 04

  hey, guess what? We got the third A. I go, fuck. Like, we're gonna, like, we're gonna lead an invasion, dude. You know?

• 1:55:29Speaker 04

  We're gonna be part of, like, taking the city.

• 1:55:33Speaker 04

  And it's cool.

• 1:55:36Speaker 04

  I mean, everybody hears about what ISIS is doing. And, and the crap that they're doing to women and children, anybody that doesn't believe in them. And it kind of took me back to, you know, Let's, let's, let's refresh everybody's memory. What are they doing?

• 1:55:54Speaker 04

  They are going into pretty much every village. Anybody who isn't, it doesn't conscribe with their religious beliefs. Either taking women and children as slaves, publicly assassinating their men. How? Oh, dude, they're just lining them up and taking them out to the river and just popping them, dropping them in rivers. Pop them, drop them in river, like cattle. And slaughter, like slaughtering people. Public executions, beheadings. I mean, you name it, dude, these, it's, they're as bad as they get. Burning people alive. Drowning them alive. In cages. Yep, wrapping deck cord around their heads.

• 1:56:39Speaker 04

  Deck cord is basically a rope. That is an explosive. Yup. For those that don't know. Lining up Christians on the beach, wrapping deck cord around their heads, clacking it off. I mean, and, and putting this on, on the internet, you know? And so, you know, as a young kid, you was growing up in the church. You think back to my chil- I think back to like my high school and dealing with the struggles of, like, why aren't all of Americans on a team? And why don't we all unify? And how come we can't get along? And I moved to this foreign country and I'm like, dude, like, what, what does it mean to be

• 1:57:23Speaker 04

  an American? And, and what makes, what makes us, what makes us like value? Like, why do we fight for the things that we fight for? Like, right? And, and like, you gotta come to turn, like, at the end of the day, you have to realize that life is precious, right? And it doesn't matter if you're wearing a flag on your shoulder and it's red, white, and blue, or red, white, and black, or whatever, whatever it is, right? Life is precious. And those people in that city were suffering. They were being persecuted because of stuff that they believed in.

• 1:58:08Speaker 04

  And, and I think that's something that makes, that makes our country so wonderful, right? Is that people are willing to go. And like, that I was willing to go. And, and my friends were willing to go. To risk their lives for, for people that they didn't know, you know? And dude, even the Peshmerga, you know, like, they had tribal territory that they considered theirs, the Kurdish people.

• 1:58:46Speaker 04

  Like, they were gonna go clear these villages that, of areas that they had no relation to, you know, just because it was their country. And they were sick and tired of fricking what ISIS was doing, you know? They were motivated. And so, you know, you start getting hyped up, and you're so freaking stoked to just like, in honor, you feel honored, like, dude, I am... This isn't news, this isn't CNN, I'm not watching this on Fox News. Like, tomorrow morning, I'm gonna line up, we're all gonna go to the flot together. We're gonna, there's gonna be a bulldozer, it's gonna knock down that wall,

• 1:59:30Speaker 04

  and we're going in, we're going into the city.

• 1:59:36Speaker 04

  So you wake up, early morning, our platoon, who was separated,

• 1:59:42Speaker 04

  split in half, right, to cover this flot.

• 1:59:47Speaker 04

  We got together, get a mission brief, EOD comes up, talks about the IED threat, Vipen threat, very high.

• 2:00:00Speaker 04

  And, like, hey,

• 2:00:06Speaker 04

  first thing in the morning tomorrow, we're going out, or, our mission brief was that morning, said it's pretty much as soon as sunup comes, this is still nighttime, early morning, it's like, pretty much as sunup, we're pushing, like, the Pesh are gonna break the line, and we're rolling in with them. So it's a daytime op.

• 2:00:27Speaker 04

  What was the actual mission? So at first, it was to essentially encompass and clear a lot of these villages that were outside of Mosul. Okay. And because of the the sensitivity in time, right, as soon as you break that line and they know you're coming, they're gonna start like fortifying, right, so you don't have a whole lot of time to clear all these villages. So what ended up happening was is you kind of cordon them off and then deal with them as you can, but we're pushing as quickly as we can to get to the city.

• 2:01:12Speaker 04

  And that kind of causes some problems later and we can go into that. As far as like enemy tactics and ambushes and that kind of stuff.

• 2:01:24Speaker 04

  So day one up,

• 2:01:27Speaker 04

  day one of the invasion, our, my half of the platoon is gonna start from the north side. The other half is gonna break down on the east side. We're gonna push, we're gonna kind of cordon off this section of villages. We're gonna create a, essentially encompass this section of villages and then meet up and then go and push into the city and then the passion are gonna like kind of clear out a lot of the villages.

• 2:01:54Speaker 04

  And man, we get to the flat and I'm telling you, it is crazy. There are thousands of fighters lined up on this burn. It's, it's like World War One, man, just like thousands as far as you can see. Everybody's gun carrying, there's families there. Mothers and sons were gonna, you know, guys would go out and fight. They'd come back, they eat with their families, go back out and fight. No shit. It was wild, bro. It was wild, like parents were running food, you know, out to their, their sons who were fighting. It was, it was something else, man.

• 2:02:36Speaker 04

  So we line up, we're getting ready. You see like these nineteen year old kids loading up in these Mad Max armored bulldozers. And they just look mean, man. Those are some like the toughest people that we see, dude. They're just like the first ones in. You know, taking a ton of, ton of bullets and mortars and RPGs. And they open the door. It's like, they're sweating, like somebody's handing them water. And it's like an eighteen year old kid driving this thing, you know? It's crazy. But, uh, so anyway.

• 2:03:09Shawn Ryan?

  So ISIS is literally just like right on the other side of the, the berm?

• 2:03:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:03:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, all these buildings, they have tunnels. Dude, their rat lines are so long and they run so deep. Like they have tunnels that go out, like out of the city, out of these like little towns and stuff. So I think,

• 2:03:30Speaker 04

  a lot of them, when they smelt what was in the air, a lot of them cleared out. So maybe you'd find like two, three fighters in these villages. More or less it was like a lot to harass. But there was definitely a couple of these villages that had like pretty solid fighting positions set up.

• 2:03:49Speaker 04

  And, uh,

• 2:03:51Speaker 04

  and people ready with V-beds.

• 2:03:57Speaker 04

  So we're, we're lined up, we're ready to go. And you hear people start chatting and yelling. And everybody's looking up to the sky. And we look up and it's a little drone flying around up top. And some guy's like, ISIS. It's like, oh man, ISIS knows we're coming. Like, because they had drones too. They were flying. Like, it's go time. Like, and then dude, everybody starts shooting at it. The entire, like, you, what a sound, bro. Like thousands of rifles shooting at a little, tiny little drone in the sky, bro.

• 2:04:40Speaker 04

  It was insane. Everybody's like, what? You know, thousands of guns going off. Just tracers.

• 2:04:51Speaker 04

  Going and you're watching this little drone and then you see smoke spark and then drive it and everybody's just like it's like a football stadium.

• 2:05:02Speaker 04

  You know, we're all like.

• 2:05:05Shawn Ryan?

  You know, like it's like some Braveheart.

• 2:05:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, dude, it was it was insane. And then you look back and way in the back is Kansoff, our Canadian friends and they're like throwing their hats on the ground, throwing their hands up in the air. It was a Canadian drone. And it's like, bro, fratricide on day one, you know, like, not a good start. Should have de-conflicted.

• 2:05:32Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, shit.

• 2:05:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:05:36Shawn Ryan?

  That's I was not expecting.

• 2:05:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:05:39Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, shit. Good one.

• 2:05:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, dude. Oh, my gosh. Those dudes were crafty, man. With the drone stuff, even when we were at the flot, I would like set up a hammock, you know, between our armored vehicles sometimes. And like, I'm gonna take, we don't, there's nothing to happen. I'm gonna take a little nap.

• 2:05:59Speaker 04

  And then the next day at that same spot, drone crashes, lands, and the French are at that at that post. Two Pesh guys bring it over like, look at this drone we got. They crack it open, take some pictures. And it detonates. One of the French dudes lose a leg. One of them had like shrapnel to his to his arm. And they had rewired and repackaged explosives as like batteries on on the drone. So the Pesh thought, you know, ISIS crashed their drone that they were trying to spy on us with. And it turned out to be booby trapped.

• 2:06:44Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:06:45Speaker 04

  And and we were dealing with the IED thing, even on the friendly side. We can go, I have an interesting story about that one, too, if you're going to it. Is it okay? We go back back and go back in time a little bit before the invasion? Yeah.

• 2:07:03Speaker 04

  So it was actually, we were doing the flot route. You know, we were driving out to the flot route and there's really only one road that we could take to this one OP, this outpost. And vehicles, supply vehicles kept getting IED'd on that route. And there was a couple instances where they had suicide bombers that they killed on that route. And our EOD and us would go up, we'd disarm the vests and then they'd get rid of the bodies. But so they had one route that was specifically getting hit by IEDs a lot. And we're like, all right, well, this is our route. You know, like we take this all the time. Like, let's see if we can find out who's doing this, you know?

• 2:07:47Speaker 04

  And there's this little tiny village right off the route. It's the only village in the area that runs right up against this road that we take. So we're like, whoever it is, they're in this village, right?

• 2:08:01Speaker 04

  So we're thinking, all right, what if before light, we send up a recce element? They'll post up. We'll see if we can find out where they're, if they're reporting our movements, right? And maybe we can get, maybe we can find out based off their location, a ping or whatever, where they're at and we can find them.

• 2:08:27Speaker 04

  So send out the recce, they get set up. And my job was, I was gonna get out of my vehicle, I was driving up on the road. We were supposed to stop in the middle of the road. I was gonna get out, mess around with some stuff in the back and see if like, hey, you know, the Americans have stopped on the road because you wouldn't really stop on there for any normal reason. So, you know, we assume something, we did something, something's broken in the back or something. So we get out, I'm messing, I mess around with stuff in the back, load up, see what we get when we get back to the flot, continue our mission, whatever.

• 2:09:03Speaker 04

  So they get set, real, this is real time now. We pull up, my new guy, D is driving and I have a EOD guy in the back.

• 2:09:14Speaker 04

  I'm like, alright, man, this should be a good spot. It's like, you can just stop here. So he kinda like pulls over to the side of the road, doesn't pull off the road, stops. Like, alright, here we go. Open my door, there's maybe a foot between the dirt and the paved road. Jump down, walk around the vehicle, climb up the tire. This is me facing, walk up the vehicle on the village side.

• 2:09:40Speaker 04

  I'm in the back, my LPO's in the back, he's in the vehicle behind me. Mess around for a minute. He's like, alright, man, should be good. Okay, hop down, walk around to the front of the vehicle. It was early morning, beautiful sunrise coming up, and I just heard something like in the back of my head say, "Stop, look around." You know, just like that moment where it's like, just pause. And I stop, I freeze.

• 2:10:11Speaker 04

  And I'm like, looking? And dude, from my feet to your feet, I see, right off the paved road, a little ball of wires and a battery pack sitting right above the ground, covered in dust.

• 2:10:33Speaker 04

  And I'm like,

• 2:10:35Speaker 04

  "That's a fucking IED right in front of our vehicle."

• 2:10:42Speaker 04

  I looked down the road, like, safe in, safe out, right? And I walked to the back of my vehicle, or to my door, climb up. And Dan, who, well, probably bleeped out his name, but he says, "What is it, Woody?" I say, "There's an IED right in front of our vehicle, man." And his face is like, "Oh." You know, stay right there, you know, I get in the vehicle. He clears, he clears around. Turns out, he's like, Woody, you almost died today, man. He's like, there's a crush wire all the way against the side of the road where you got out.

• 2:11:24Speaker 04

  And so I kept like this little strip of wire where, dude, I mean, if I would have stepped off and stepped on this wire, like that ID was like right there in front of our vehicle. If, if we pulled off the side of the road, it would have clacked off, you know?

• 2:11:40Speaker 04

  And so, you know, now all of a sudden, we're like, all right, we actually have to fix this because if somebody drives through and this thing goes off, like, you know, somebody's gonna die. So we cordon off the road, EOD clears behind us. The other vehicle breaks down, comes down towards us. You know, we just stop any kind of traffic. EOD comes up, clips it. We attach it to a pull line, pull it back with the vehicle. EOD goes to clear the hole, brushes his hand over it. And there's like a secondary switch. It didn't go off with a secondary charge under it, man. Talk about a miracle, right? He's right on top of it, like touches it.

• 2:12:26Speaker 04

  And another ID, had to deal with that one. And, and so, yeah, that, I mean, like, that's the kind of stuff that,

• 2:12:35Speaker 04

  like, you go to the flat and you're still doing stuff, but like, there's still, you know, there's still some danger there. But, yeah, sorry, we digress from the Mosul thing. I thought, I just thought that was a kind of a cool story. Yeah. It's like the near death thing, but.

• 2:12:51Speaker 04

  So should we go back to continue Mosul?

• 2:12:57Speaker 04

  So we go into.

• 2:13:01Speaker 04

  We break past the frontline, right? That's where we're at.

• 2:13:06Speaker 04

  Shot the drone down. Killed the Canadian drone. Now we're ready to charge in to finish this off.

• 2:13:16Speaker 04

  So we go in. Bulldozer busts the line. And we're like vehicle number five in line on the start of this. On the start of this train of vehicles. There's like hundreds of vehicles. I just, and immediately dude, mortar, small arms fire. And it's like, that vehicle or that building over there, it's like dumping on it. It's that building over there, dumping on it.

• 2:13:44Speaker 04

  Taking fire from, dude, confusing.

• 2:13:48Speaker 04

  It's fuck. It's everywhere. Like dude, like there's no way to describe it. Like it's just, there's so much. There's so many places. And like you cannot. You cannot point them all out. And I remember it being so frustrating because like dude, it was just everywhere. It's like, dude, where, I mean, where aren't we getting shot from? You know? And dude, we start driving, we get close to this village where we're supposed to, you know? Get around to and all the vehicles stop.

• 2:14:25Speaker 04

  Like where we stopped, where we stopped? What's going on? Hey, Turp, go run over to the general's car and ask him where to stop. He gets out, goes over to the general car and he's like, uh, we are doing tea time.

• 2:14:44Speaker 04

  We're like, no, we're not. Like, we're not doing tea time? Uh, he's like, we're doing tea time. And I'm like, alright, let's grab a MRE. We're doing tea time. You know, nobody's going anywhere.

• 2:14:58Speaker 04

  And dude, like we stopped, we're eating MREs in our mat Vs. And you're seeing dudes kind of like running around their vehicles. I'm like eating my mac and cheese or whatever. And I see like, you know, in front of our vehicle, 25 yards in front of us, there's guys eating. Something slams in the ground. I'm like, RPG. These dudes like look over. Go back to drinking their chai, man. And it's just like.

• 2:15:26Shawn Ryan?

  Are you fucking serious?

• 2:15:28Speaker 04

  It was, it was insane. It was absolute madness.

• 2:15:33Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking tea time.

• 2:15:34Speaker 04

  Dude, tea time, man. Gotta have your chai.

• 2:15:39Shawn Ryan?

  They're shooting RPGs at you.

• 2:15:41Speaker 04

  Dude, I'm not joking. This RPG probably landed like 20, 15 to 20 feet from where they're like huddled up. And it's literally like a...

• 2:15:55Speaker 04

  Maybe scoot towards the tire a little bit and then sip in their tea, man.

• 2:16:01Shawn Ryan?

  And fill up, right?

• 2:16:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:16:03Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:16:03Speaker 04

  So out of nowhere, General and a couple other vehicles start like peeling off. One of our vehicles follows them. And the way that this village is located, there's like a main road that cuts. There's a village and then there's this kind of like large hill behind them. And that's where the forward line of troops was, like it kind of curved, right? Kind of curved around. Forward line of troops was there and they were going to kind of overwatch as we were pushing around this village. Does that make sense?

• 2:16:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:35Speaker 04

  Kind of draw a picture? So the General started going towards this main road that led towards this village. One of our vehicles followed it.

• 2:16:45Speaker 04

  They got up a little ways with maybe 10 or 20 other vehicles.

• 2:16:50Speaker 04

  And the, I think it's French intel were on the hilltop. And they said, they called my OIC. He's like, hey, there's a V bed moving towards the convoy that's currently just on the road to the village. And my OIC is like, hey, like, you know, I don't know what the General's doing. He's kind of like doing his own thing right now. Like, hey, bring it back, reconsolidate, and we're all going to push it together, you know?

• 2:17:24Speaker 04

  And our vehicle was like, alright, check. They whip around, a couple other vehicles follow them. And my vehicle is the frontmost element, covering down on the section. When they, like, ready to receive them when they come in. Does that make sense? So our guns pointed towards the village where the supposed V-bid was coming to. And we knew that there were some, like, it kind of put us in a weird position because we knew there were some friendly vehicles still, that might still come back. Right? We don't know how many the general took exactly. So we're like, alright. Our vehicle came back, turned around, right, kind of like right next to us.

• 2:18:06Speaker 04

  And I'm looking down at my little tablet and I'm like checking out the layout and I'm trying to figure out what the road that the French are saying that this V-bid's coming from. I'm looking down and my new guy's like, "Car on the road. Car on the road." I'm like, "Click up, 800 yards." Like, what? Is that a pet? Is that a pet? Is that a car? Do we have cars? 700 yards. I start seeing smoke behind the car, billowing out. 500 yards. I'm like, dude, I think that's a, that's the V-bid. And you can see it, man.

• 2:18:50Speaker 04

  And it looks like something from Mad Max. It's all, it's just like this Sudan that's plated up. It's got a small window, armored window, maybe two feet by one foot. And it is just friggin' plowing right towards my vehicle and our other vehicle here. 400 yards. Tim, light it up.

• 2:19:19Speaker 04

  All our vehicles.

• 2:19:24Speaker 04

  I'm seeing around skipping, hitting it, seeing rounds pinging off the roof of it. I see around hit the glass, shatter it. This vehicle, 200 yards. And I think back to that meeting with the SAS dudes. Fucking run mate, right? And as soon as I thought that, I hear break contact on comms. Immediately followed by back right. We turn our vehicles around dude, gunner's still shooting.

• 2:19:56Speaker 04

  As we're turning, there's two

• 2:20:03Speaker 04

  light-skinned vehicles. One's a medic truck.

• 2:20:08Speaker 04

  Right behind us. We're driving away from it. I see the vehicle, V bit, 100 yards.

• 2:20:17Speaker 04

  75. And there's, there's people all over the ground. Like there's people running away from this thing.

• 2:20:27Speaker 04

  And then 50 yards, maybe inside, clacks off. Goes I order. And I, I see eight people just vaporized, man. Missed it, gone. Nothing. See a hand fly over the front of our vehicles, you know?

• 2:20:51Speaker 04

  And I remember like thinking, whoo.

• 2:20:57Speaker 04

  We're okay. And I was like, what? And then you look around and you hear one up, two up, three up, four up.

• 2:21:09Speaker 04

  It's like, we're taking the hill. So, you know, fall of the before, we're gonna take this hill. We pull up to this hilltop. And what are all the Peshmerian doing? What's everybody do? They're all running away. Like, everybody is running back to the plot. And, uh, tanks peeling off out of there. And we're like, we're gonna hold the hill. And so, we post up, we get a little bit of cover. There's another one. I hear behind me, there's another one behind us. Like, how close? How close? Like, where is it? And then Gunner's like, I got it. I see it. And then you hear our guns, all four vehicles going off.

• 2:21:54Speaker 04

  And he's like, you know, I hear

• 2:21:59Speaker 04

  the Gunner in the turret, he's like, it looks like it's trying to, like, it looks like it's trying to get covered behind a berm. He's like, he might, he might be stuck. And then, pffft, number two goes off. And when that happened, you know, you see people out in the field that were running away, like, look back. They saw us shooting. They're like, alright! And they all came charging back. Bulldozer comes back, starts putting up berms, man. And dudes start, like, digging in. And, uh, we dismount. We're kinda getting the lay of the land. Uh, sniper's located right on the side of our map.

• 2:22:43Speaker 04

  Be kinda hunched down, looking, looking at the village. Another vehicle comes ripping out, man. Holy shit. Dude, I mean, these guys were Armed to the teeth. Blowing themselves up to kill us. How, how crazy is that? Right, like, do you ever think, like, how many of us are convicted enough to do something? And literally kill yourself to kill somebody else? Do you ever think about freaking much dedication that takes?

• 2:23:15Shawn Ryan?

  I think about it, I used to think about it all the time. And it's, it just shows you how dedicated that enemy is. Way more dedicated.

• 2:23:24Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 2:23:25Shawn Ryan?

  I mean.

• 2:23:26Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And they, you know, we'd go into their caves and you'd find antipsychotic medication, man. Like, these guys had been in these caves so long that they were taking antipsychosis meds. Right? Because they'd been living in a cave in the dark. It's like, do you know somebody? Are you dedicated enough to do something so much that you're willing to go crazy for it? You know? Wow, that's, that's an enemy, you know, that's. That's something you need to be careful of when you go to fight them.

• 2:24:07Speaker 04

  So, yeah, man, comes around, back of the line, clacks himself off on. It was, I think it ended up being a father and his two sons, you know? In a, in a vehicle, kind of coming out to the flot or where we, wherever we were. So that's three, another one came from behind. Luckily, the Pesh got him. And I think in total that night, we had like five V-beds coming down on our position. And it was just a start, and so, no air. No air assets at the time. They were locked up with a tick. And it's starting to get very dark.

• 2:24:52Speaker 04

  My OEC calls me over. It's like, hey, man, I'm having trouble with SatCom. Comms guy's trying to work it too. He's like, I just heard a night line come out. I said, okay. And he gave me, he's like, they read off, you know, those, sometimes, depending on the SOP, some, some people like doing some, no, but it doesn't really matter. They read off his last initial and his last three. And, you know, you, you hear the F and you're thinking, how many, like, okay, it could be him, could be him, could be him, like.

• 2:25:32Speaker 04

  Who was like, whoa, okay, the nine line, what, what's the word? And he's like, expectant.

• 2:25:38Speaker 04

  And for viewers that don't know what happens when somebody's called in expectant, it means essentially you're not expecting them to survive.

• 2:25:52Speaker 04

  That's my platoon.

• 2:25:56Speaker 04

  And uh,

• 2:25:58Speaker 04

  like, we're gonna hang out here the night. We're gonna hold, we're gonna hold this spot all night and then uh, and we'll, we need more ammo. We need, yeah, we need more water, like, we'll, we'll ride back, we'll refit, and then we'll come back out. And so, stayed up all night long.

• 2:26:19Speaker 04

  You know, pucker level, 5,000, alone and afraid. And uh, sun, sun started coming up, driving back, man. You're driving down the road and you're kinda like looking out the window thinking,

• 2:26:34Speaker 04

  what just hap- like, what happened? You know, you're kinda like,

• 2:26:39Speaker 04

  we're not back yet, but what, that, that was not what I expected. Like, I felt like it would be a lot more organized than that. You expect it to be. But dude, the enemy has a say.

• 2:26:53Speaker 04

  The enemy always has a say. And so, driving by, there's these like planted fields. I'm looking down and I see, like, there's this like little ring around all these plants and I see like 155 rounds around a bush. I'm like, hey, stop, you know, hey, let EOD know that there's a huge IED here. So, you alert the partner force, alright, keep driving. So we get back to the house.

• 2:27:23Speaker 04

  And

• 2:27:26Speaker 04

  you're like, hey, are you OD? JJ, find it instead.

• 2:27:42Speaker 04

  And, you know, I wasn't close. I won't lie and say I was like best friends with a guy.

• 2:27:50Speaker 04

  He was in our platoon during ULT. He was an excellent UOD. In fact, he was, a lot of, I think a lot of guys like try to train you and coach you, but JJ was the guy that was like, "You're not taking this seriously enough." Like, "This shit will kill you."

• 2:28:10Speaker 04

  You know?

• 2:28:12Speaker 04

  Like, "You need to check doors before you enter them."

• 2:28:18Speaker 04

  And, and I remember I was sticking like, "Dude,

• 2:28:22Speaker 04

  JJ's serious." You know, JJ's good. He, he means business.

• 2:28:29Speaker 04

  And his story and what happened with the rest of my platoon, I don't feel his mind to tell. But, what I can say is that

• 2:28:40Speaker 04

  two of my very, very good friends in the SEAL teams, and two guys that I like, I love very much, would tell you that JJ saved your life that day.

• 2:28:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:53Speaker 04

  And so,

• 2:28:57Speaker 04

  we were, day one, 1KIA.

• 2:29:03Speaker 04

  It's kind of a shit show. And, and we're going out the next day.

• 2:29:10Speaker 04

  You know?

• 2:29:12Speaker 04

  So it's like, "All right, we're going out the next day."

• 2:29:17Speaker 04

  And, uh, they were gonna clear that village that we were talking about, that we were initially pushing into, and we were gonna be up on that hilltop as the Overwatch element. And calling out movement, enemy movement, to the bastions they cleared, and, you know, hopefully giving our snipers some, some business. I don't know if it was just kind of like, "Hey, we need you guys, but we don't want to just like throw you back down there right away."

• 2:29:46Speaker 04

  But like, we were going back out there tomorrow. So we re-outfitted, went out. One of our guys got a javelin kill, blew up a V-bid. And that was like a huge win, um, just seeing that. And, um, the push continues.

• 2:30:07Speaker 04

  Was it all IEDs?

• 2:30:10Speaker 04

  So, so much IEDs in V bits. Like so much IEDs in V bits. And a lot of small arm fire. It was, I mean, you, you know how it's not always up close. It, it, most of it.

• 2:30:28Speaker 04

  Pretty much all of it was just like, you know, muzzle flashes.

• 2:30:33Speaker 04

  Or it's the, it's the only building there. Like that's the only building and we're getting shot from that direction. It's coming from that, you know what I mean? And then you just dump slap rounds into it until the shooting stops.

• 2:30:46Speaker 04

  And the shooting stops and you keep driving. And then, you know, you put, you let the Pesh run in.

• 2:30:55Speaker 04

  That's kind of how that first day went. Shit. We talked about kind of cordoning off these villages. We talked about the push into the city. Well, I think it was around the, geez. Novem- November or December timeframe, when we're actually like into the city. And

• 2:31:24Speaker 04

  as we're pushing up.

• 2:31:29Speaker 04

  As we're pushing up, essentially what we're doing is we are located right behind. Anytime like the Kurdish or when we got to the city, the Kurdish pulled back. They're like, hey, we have the land that, you know, is our ancestral right. And we don't feel like we need to push into Mosul. And then Iraqi forces kind of took over and started the initial clearance from the south and east and, and kind of held off at the north a little bit. And so our platoon was kind of stopped at the northern section of the, of the city.

• 2:32:09Speaker 04

  So getting into, into that.

• 2:32:14Speaker 04

  I mean, I can just give you kind of like what.

• 2:32:19Speaker 04

  I'll just give you kind of like how crazy some of these situations were. I don't know if I can describe every day, because every day was different, right? You'd go, some days it was pretty chill and there wouldn't be a lot happening. Every day you're getting mortared, right? But I remember like Christmas, we're kind of holding back, we're doing some ISR. The line's kind of at a standstill, so we're trying to figure out where the enemy is and like what buildings they're holding up. And it's like Christmas Eve or something and we're doing shifts and rotations and and you do security, like a guy will do security on the roof or a couple dudes will do security on the roof.

• 2:32:58Speaker 04

  Couple dudes sleeping down and we're just moving from house to house to house as the flock, as the flock gets closer and closer. And you spend one night in one place and it's freezing cold. So you're going through these people's stuff and you're like, what burns? You know, you're building like small fires to try to keep warm. And then packing up, going to the next house the next morning, pushing up. And I remember, dude, it would be like you'd be sleeping and

• 2:33:31Speaker 04

  and the house rattles, wood board from the ceiling falls, hits your buddy, you like look up. You're like, you all right? Yeah. And then you like crash again, you know? And I mean, it was just like constant barrage of mortars. How many guys per house? That we were staying in. Yeah. It got to the point where our platoon would kind of post up. We'd try to find a spot that had like a pretty large courtyard and we just kind of maybe picked two houses. But we were there so temporarily that a lot of times it was like, we're going to hold up in this house. We might be there for. Five, six hours, or we might be there for a day or two.

• 2:34:15Speaker 04

  It just depended on if we could find a way to maneuver around the enemy and push the enemy back. So maybe eight per house? Yeah, I would say eight, eight, nine. We had a lot of support, you know, we had CCT guys. CCT, CTT? Yeah, CCT. Yeah, geez, CCT guys, we had EOD guys. We'd bring the techs out sometimes with us. We had a ton of, I mean, as you can imagine, comms issues. Yeah. And a lot of stuff that we were running, we'd even bring out, you know, satellite dishes so we could do chat with the SODIF.

• 2:34:53Speaker 04

  And those dudes would kind of like pop that stuff up. It just depended on what, what, what was happening in that region, in that side of the, of the fight, how long we would stay.

• 2:35:07Speaker 04

  But I do remember one night,

• 2:35:12Speaker 04

  going back to the problem that it creates clearing these houses or these villages. At a later time, we were in northern Mosul.

• 2:35:22Speaker 04

  And it was probably two, three in the morning. And then an eruption, a fire starts.

• 2:35:33Speaker 04

  Guys start moving up to the roofs, we're starting to move around, and then louder. The volley comes up more and more and more. Mortars start coming in.

• 2:35:44Speaker 04

  Tracer rounds are just like whipping and hitting like poles, bricks in front of us. Like dudes are just, you know, getting, getting low.

• 2:35:56Speaker 04

  And dude, it was like, that night was a barrage of gunfire, gunfire for like three hours. We have guys down below. We're like tossing up our little drone, trying to figure out what's going on. We have some, the... The ISIS or the Iraqi force in a house just in front of us. And you know, they're reporting stuff to us, what they're seeing. And there's like a bulldozer that's pushed up on the on the flot. They had put a bulldozer or we had built up a berm around kind of like the section of houses that we're at. There's a bulldozer trying to push in. So we're dumping mortars on this thing.

• 2:36:40Speaker 04

  We're we're watching to see if we can can get positive hits. We get a hit with our mortar. Dude runs out of it. And there's a lull. And then all of a sudden, from the south. It was a coordinated attack from ISIS forces to the north and the south. And I remember being on the rooftop and I'm kind of reporting down to my OIC who's who's down below talking to working, you know, essentially with the SOTF and telling them the situation that we're dealing with. We're trying to get air assets.

• 2:37:23Speaker 04

  And I remember going down there and being like, yo, you know, M, you want to come up and have some fun with us, dude? And he's like, oh, man, I'm sorry. Yeah, I'll be up in a second. Balls deep in this, you know, chat thing. I was like, all right, man, come on up when you're ready. And there was like 10 minute break of fire. And I'm looking at my A-PAS. It's still pretty dark. A-PAS is like a little tablet. I'm like, kind of like zooming in on the buildings, kind of like, all right, over there, there. And then M comes over and he's like, Habibi, tell me what's going on over here, man? I'm like, all right, check it out. And he's looking over my shoulder.

• 2:38:07Speaker 04

  I'm like, so the bulldozer's right here. It's like this is that's where we're taking and I hear. And my.

• 2:38:19Speaker 04

  He says, "Fuck." Falls down on the ground. I feel something just charlie-horse my collarbone. And I just like drop. I like fumble my tablet and I'm like, "What was that?" And I'm like, "We're hit, like, we're hit." Guys immediately grab Mike and I'm, I don't know what getting shot feels like, you know? Something just slammed me, like, am I in shock? And I'm like, "Feeling, what was that?" And dude calls back, it's like, "What, are you okay?" I was like, "I think, I think I'm okay. I think I'm alright."

• 2:39:01Speaker 04

  And, uh, yeah, and had taken around right through the lip. Knocked out a bunch of his teeth. And they couldn't find the bullet. So they didn't know if it was lodged lodged in his throat. He was conscious. But we didn't know like what the extent of the, the, in, like, the damage was in his mouth. So we're like, "Alright, we gotta, we gotta get him out of it." Like, "We gotta medevac him." And so now we're dealing with that whole piece. I'm up on the roof still. Guy comes up, he's like, "Hey, man." Medic comes up, he's like, "Hey, man, let me check you out, make sure you're good." I'm like, "Dude, I'm good. I don't know what it was."

• 2:39:42Speaker 04

  And, you know, jokes start, it's like, "Oh, Woody got shot, but didn't get shot," you know? It's like, "He's hit." And, uh, we coke and joke and laugh about it, but, uh, Mike, he's down there. Somebody comes up, he's like, "Hey dude, he is high AF. You gotta get down there." He's funny. And I was like, "He's, he's good?" He's like, "Yeah, I think he's gonna be fine. He's joking around with us, but he's missing a bunch of teeth."

• 2:40:20Speaker 04

  And it's funny because it's well.

• 2:40:23Shawn Ryan?

  Is this your AOC?

• 2:40:25Speaker 04

  This is my AOC.

• 2:40:26Shawn Ryan?

  AOC?

• 2:40:27Speaker 04

  Yeah. He just dude, if everybody in the teams was like him, I I don't know if I could ever leave. He was awesome, dude. Just a great dude. And a great personality, great sense of humor, stellar team guy.

• 2:40:44Speaker 04

  And he's like, you gotta go down and joke, tease on tease on him a little bit. I was like, alright, I'll go down and check on him.

• 2:40:50Shawn Ryan?

  So this guy gets shot in the fucking face.

• 2:40:54Speaker 04

  Yup.

• 2:40:55Shawn Ryan?

  And then five minutes later, he's down there joking around with everybody.

• 2:40:59Speaker 04

  Badass. Awesome.

• 2:41:01Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:41:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's good, dude. And so I go down, I'm like, Mike, where? I'm sorry, dude, I'll keep saying like, Mike, where are you? He's like, I know where I am, with my best friends, you know?

• 2:41:22Speaker 04

  And I'm like, yeah, you are, buddy. Yeah, you are. And he's just an awesome guy, man.

• 2:41:30Speaker 04

  And and so the day continues, this crazy fog rolls in, morning comes.

• 2:41:38Shawn Ryan?

  So hold on, hold on. So what the hell hit you?

• 2:41:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, a bullet.

• 2:41:42Shawn Ryan?

  It was the bullet that went through his face, hit you in the chest?

• 2:41:45Speaker 04

  So I heard like a ping, like a zip, a ping, and there was a ton of rebar in this building that was in front of us. I think what may have happened was it hit a piece of rebar, fractured. I got hit by some kind of like small piece of shrapnel or something. I don't know. And then he took, he took the the big piece, you know, or something. I don't know, man. But I don't know, how do you describe it? Something hit me. I don't know.

• 2:42:13Shawn Ryan?

  And the plate?

• 2:42:15Speaker 04

  And it was like right above my plate.

• 2:42:18Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 2:42:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, couldn't find anything, little red mark, but there's nothing. Crazy, man. I don't know. Who knows where I was? Maybe I'm, maybe I'm just being dramatic. I don't know, dude. I don't know. Something hit me.

• 2:42:35Speaker 04

  So.

• 2:42:38Speaker 04

  So I'm like, everybody's, we brought this like portable propane tank with us and we, there's like a little skillet that we'd bring. Somebody brought some eggs to us, one of the Iraqi guys or something brought some eggs. I don't know. And I was sitting there like cracking some eggs, about to eat. My help yo was like, hey man, need you up on the roof in a second. Said we might break down and go to a different spot. I said, okay. Walks out the door, I hear, "Medic!" I'm like, "What?" All of a sudden, two guys come in, pull him in, and he's like, "My arm."

• 2:43:22Speaker 04

  You know, I'm like, "Dude, two?" Shit. And they start getting him checked out, through and through, in his, in his right arm. I was like, "All right, we're breaking it down." So, I guess we're, we're breaking it down. "Where do you, where do you need me, coach?" So we just start breaking things down, moving houses. We get both of them evac'd. One of them has to go through some serious surgery, gets sent home. And M has like two days. He's gotta let his bleeding stop and like some gaps in his teeth scab a little bit, but he's right back out there with us, two days later. Damn.

• 2:44:06Speaker 04

  Back on the hop. Yeah, man. Fucking badass. That's kinda like, that's kinda what it looked like. And, and don't get me, like, there are, there were days that were super boring. There are days like that, that are kind of more eventful. And I don't want this to sound like the most, it what? There are parts that were disappointing, there are parts that I'm proud of. But, it's my deployment, you know? It's kinda like, that was my general experience with.

• 2:44:43Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what were you most proud of?

• 2:44:46Speaker 04

  Uh, by the time we, by the time we ripped out February, around February, I think mid-January, the entire eastern side of Mosul had been like cleared essentially. And dude, the Iraqis did that heavy lifting, like they really did. And they were taking heavy casualties. I think the projection was, but there was a big lull halfway through. I think ISIS was much more fortified than we, we had anticipated. Go figure. And I, there was a projection

• 2:45:31Speaker 04

  that the initial force had started the push. By the time that we cleared the entire eastern side of the city would be at 5%.

• 2:45:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Do you have any idea how many, how many bombs you dropped?

• 2:45:47Speaker 04

  On that deployment?

• 2:45:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:50Speaker 04

  I, I could, I can't, I couldn't count. Like more than, more than I, yeah, probably, probably.

• 2:46:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, it just depends, like some of them, and like not every single one of those were on people. It might, dude, I don't know, because there's other work, like there's C C Ts with us. So I wasn't doing all the heavy lifting. We do, we do shifts. So it was,

• 2:46:22Speaker 04

  sometimes it was just a planted V bid that we found parked on the street. Nobody's in it, you know, you bomb it. Or a tunnel system, you'd be striking it. Or sometimes you'd find a cave and a dude that was just shooting at you. Or your little cardboard airplane would run into it. You couldn't get air, another dude would run into it with an A K. Five, six more dudes would run into it with an A K. Your aircraft comes in, you're like, perfect. Thanks for piling up all your buddies for me, you know, and you'd strike it. And you'd see a bunch of secondary and stuff blowing up on the inside of the mountains. So you knew that they were storing stuff in there. And uh, sometimes it was just blowing up cave entrances, shutting, shutting down

• 2:47:07Speaker 04

  their, their ability to maneuver.

• 2:47:11Speaker 04

  Dude, what's crazy is some of these caves, they would, they'd use car batteries and bring out tools to dig these things. And I remember one time going or looking on ISR and just seeing this pile of dirt outside this cave and they had just built up this like fortified position outside the entrance of this thing is all these big white rocks. I was like, dude, that is like a, that is, the helms deep, man. That is, that's a base, you know, that they had built. I was like, that's a really bright white rock. I wonder, and you know, I go on Google Earth and I look and I zoom out on this mountain range and dude,

• 2:47:52Speaker 04

  it's like, white rocks, white rocks, white rocks, white rocks, white rocks. And I'm like, go to this coordinate, slew over, cave entrance, go to this coordinate, cave entrance. I'm like, alright, label targets, you know, one, two, three, and you're building a whole target package on all these cave entrances, just shutting them down. Thanks, Google. Yeah. So, crazy. Yeah, man. I mean, use the tools that you can, that you can. Yeah. But I, dude, I don't know how many, I don't, I don't think it was quite a hundred. Well, whatever. But yeah. It's a lot. Between all of us, yeah, it was easy.

• 2:48:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. Easy. Lot of tech. Lot of what? A lot of tech. Yeah, dude. Yeah, it really was. It was busy. Everything's condensed. You're in these small buildings and you're just kinda like, it's confusing. Why weren't you guys working at night? Cause none of, our partner force had knots. Okay. They couldn't. There's just, it wasn't possible. Oh, I'm just curious. For them. There were, there were gunfights at night, but they, it would have been awesome to be able to maneuver and move around and we did most of our moving at night. But for them, their fighters were just, they just wanted to fight in the day.

• 2:49:22Shawn Ryan?

  How about ISIS? Were they well equipped?

• 2:49:26Speaker 04

  They were very well equipped.

• 2:49:27Shawn Ryan?

  Was it all our stuff?

• 2:49:29Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:49:30Shawn Ryan?

  That we loved there?

• 2:49:31Speaker 04

  And, you know, you'd find ammo cans with foreign Asian writing and stuff on it. I don't know if that's actually where they get all their ammo, but I assume that they were getting a lot of stuff. And they're resourceful, man. They were making their own chemical weapons.

• 2:49:49Shawn Ryan?

  They were making their own chemical weapons?

• 2:49:51Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, you know, you get mortared, you see, a lot of times it's just like the dust cloud, a little black smoke.

• 2:50:01Speaker 04

  And when it's chem, it's always just big yellow cloud. And luckily, it wasn't very like concentrated because it dissipates quickly. And the rounds that they were lobbing at us weren't, or at least those chem rounds weren't very effective. So it never got so close that we were, we were actually like ripping on our masks. There were a couple of close calls where like, alright, I'm gonna put my mask in my pocket. In case this one gets, it's getting a little uncomfortable, they're really walking them in on us, but.

• 2:50:34Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, in the intel briefings that you guys were getting, were they telling you, you know, what they were equipped with? That they have all of our, our old equipment that we had left there?

• 2:50:44Speaker 04

  Everybody, we already knew.

• 2:50:46Shawn Ryan?

  You already knew?

• 2:50:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, we, we already knew. You're seeing tow missiles. Guys are, they're shooting anti-aircraft Gustaf rounds at helos.

• 2:50:57Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:50:58Speaker 04

  And, yeah, so that was a great gas platform that we got to use a lot was the Apaches.

• 2:51:06Shawn Ryan?

  You think we would have learned a fucking lesson?

• 2:51:08Speaker 04

  We don't. Look at us, still doing it, man.

• 2:51:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Did you see them like with our vehicles and Suburbans, Humvees, Night Vision?

• 2:51:18Speaker 04

  Not, not so much vehicles because they, they had built all these tunnel systems in the city. And so they were maneuvering mostly by foot.

• 2:51:27Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:51:27Speaker 04

  So if they were, if they were in a vehicle, it was a V-Bid.

• 2:51:31Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:51:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that was, oh, most engagements and fights that we got into was like always initiated, initiated by V-Bid.

• 2:51:40Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:51:41Speaker 04

  So if you hear V-Bid clock off, it's like something, okay, well, we're going that way.

• 2:51:45Shawn Ryan?

  But they were built, they were, see, when I was over there, I mean, V-Bids and I mean, it was always, it was always a threat, but they, we didn't, we weren't worried about armored car bombs coming after you. Were they all kind of, were they all armored?

• 2:52:04Speaker 04

  They look like Mad Max vehicles.

• 2:52:06Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:52:07Speaker 04

  All of them, every single one of them. They had like factories built there just for these V-Bids. I can try to get you some, some pictures and stuff. I'll send you some stuff.

• 2:52:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that would be cool.

• 2:52:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, so the V-Bid thing, and then they had also booby trapped, IED'd, like, most buildings.

• 2:52:29Shawn Ryan?

  Most, the majority of buildings?

• 2:52:31Speaker 04

  Not most, but like a lot of buildings had IEDs in them. And so our UOD guys were freaking busy, man. They were busy. There was always like, there was always something. Okay, man, you gotta go over there and check out that, there's like a boot over there that looks weird.

• 2:52:49Speaker 04

  And you go over and there's a boot and there's like a mortar round laying there.

• 2:52:52Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:52:53Speaker 04

  You know, strapped up or they do, it's like constantly dealing with the IED thing. And, and luckily the part, our partner force was really good at identifying them. So it'd be like, that's an IED. Or like, hey, we need to get, like, we have an IED over here. So they kind of like point us most of the time in, in the direction. We'd find them, but we tried to like, if, we tried not to be the ones to step on them. If, if they could, you know, let them, you need to let them fight for their country because as soon as we get super involved, like, they'll let us, they know they'll just, we'll get into it and, and they'll let us do all the work.

• 2:53:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:34Speaker 04

  So you, there's like this give and take, right? Like you want to be helpful, you want to contribute. And you want to provide support, but you don't want to come in so aggressive that they're like, oh, the Americans are gonna do it now.

• 2:53:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:47Speaker 04

  So it's kind of a weird balance that you have to, you have to work with.

• 2:53:52Shawn Ryan?

  It's hard to have that kind of discipline.

• 2:53:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, it is, cuz you wanna, you wanna be the first dude.

• 2:53:59Shawn Ryan?

  You wanna get after it.

• 2:54:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:54:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, man.

• 2:54:04Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's take a quick break. We just got done with a hell of a fucking deployment fighting ISIS in Mosul. You're on your way home, so let's pick up right there.

• 2:54:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, so maybe backtrack a little bit while we were on this deployment. You're always kind of talking about what's the next step in your career? What is the platoon doing next? Where are you going? And

• 2:54:31Speaker 04

  you hear rumors about you like who's staying in the platoon, who needs to go somewhere else, who's going, who wants to go to shore duty? You know, who wants to do another platoon? And they start asking you these questions. Well, I don't know if I mentioned, but 10 days before my first deployment,

• 2:54:51Speaker 04

  before I deployed the first time, I had my firstborn son. And 10 days deployed, came back, kind of learning how to be a father, and then.

• 2:55:02Shawn Ryan?

  How old was he when you got back?

• 2:55:05Speaker 04

  I guess what, like six, six months?

• 2:55:07Shawn Ryan?

  Were you guys doing six month deployments?

• 2:55:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was a six month deployment. We did rip out early. So it was, it was shorter than that, but he was around that age.

• 2:55:17Shawn Ryan?

  So about five, five months.

• 2:55:18Speaker 04

  Five, six months.

• 2:55:20Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:55:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, so coming home to my little five month old buddy or six, what, four, five, six, seven, eight, however old he was at the time, he

• 2:55:31Speaker 04

  coming back, so I'm learning to adapt to, you know, a whole new dynamic in my marriage. My wife had kind of developed a system and now I'm stepping on that. And

• 2:55:45Speaker 04

  so I have my firstborn three months before my second deployment. I have twins. So yeah, you're drowning and somebody hands you two babies. Now I got twins. Luckily, I got to spend some good time with them before I deployed.

• 2:56:04Speaker 04

  Come back.

• 2:56:09Speaker 04

  I've had my experiences. My wife's had her experiences dealing with, you know, hearing what's going on on deployment. Especially all the injuries, you know, guys kind of coming back. Lost in our platoon. And so I'm having this conversation with my command on what I want to do next. And my wife's having this conversation with me on what she kind of wants to do next.

• 2:56:37Speaker 04

  And it comes down from the head shed that, hey, it's looking like we might split your platoon up. And shed some of this experience to the other platoons. And I remember hearing something along the lines of, you guys will probably go to the PI because we need to share the love, right? We want to get other guys' experience on these deployments. I was like, man.

• 2:57:00Speaker 04

  If I deploy, this is what I want to, I want to be doing this stuff. Yeah. You know, I don't want to, I don't want to, if I'm going to leave my kids and my wife again, I need to, I want to go for a purpose. And not that what you guys were doing in the PI doesn't serve a purpose. It's just like, it wasn't the work that I wanted to do at the time.

• 2:57:19Speaker 04

  So I'm having this talk with my wife and she's like bouncing babies and like screaming. She's like, hey, so, uh, you know, do you, do you think maybe you'd be interested in doing a shore duty instead? And I'm like, let me see what's, let me see what's out there. And I had a couple buddies that I'd worked with on my first platoon. My sister platoon chief was a second phase platoon chief or second phase chief. And I kind of called him up and emailed him and we had a good chat. And he's like, hey, man, if you, if you want to come to Bud's, it's a great opportunity. The work schedule is more balanced. You can kind of get your, your home life in order, learn how to be a dad.

• 2:57:59Speaker 04

  And, and it's a great, it's a great job and a good way to give back to the community and kind of come full circle with your career to this point. Like, all right, you know, I think I can do.

• 2:58:13Speaker 04

  If I did a shore duty, I'd do my, I'd try to cut it, I'd do it as short as I could, get my home life in order and get to spend some time with my kids, get to know them, build a relationship with them and uh, and then I'd be able to go back to the platoon. And, and probably I'd be able to see what the different teams were doing, what the different platoons were doing and maybe kinda like jump in on a platoon that's deploying somewhere interesting.

• 2:58:45Speaker 04

  And none of that went as planned.

• 2:58:50Speaker 04

  So you get home and I look at these kids and I'm not the dad that I thought I, I pictured I'd be. Come back from deployment and you tell yourself like, you know, I've had this experience. I did a good job, but for some reason, my patience level and my frustration and my mercy and grace that I expect to have with my children is just like not there.

• 2:59:28Speaker 04

  You know, I feel completely disconnected from them.

• 2:59:33Speaker 04

  I'm always angry. I have no patience for my wife.

• 2:59:40Speaker 04

  And I'm like, this isn't the dad I wanna be. You know, like this isn't the marriage I want.

• 2:59:48Speaker 04

  And you, and you're like, what, like why? Why don't I wanna be home at all? I just wanna work, like I wanna be, I'd rather be a second, like I'm gonna try to be at second phase as much as possible, you know? I just like focus, I wanna, I have all like work dives and stuff.

• 3:00:11Speaker 04

  And come home from the job, no patience for my kids, short tempered, raise my voice way, way more than I should. And you know, we kinda talked about that yesterday at dinner. It's just like, man, I wish I was, I wish I was more patient with them.

• 3:00:29Speaker 04

  How old was your oldest at that time? So he was born in two thousand and fourteen? And this is two thousand and seventeen four. So like three and a half, yeah.

• 3:00:43Speaker 04

  And dude, I'm like no pay like for three year old, bro, like.

• 3:00:49Speaker 04

  And I'm like something not something's not right here, you know, I need to talk like. My wife's telling me I'm super angry all the time. I'm like, well, I don't know. I'll just I'll appease her. I'll go talk to the psych and that way at least she knows like. I'm get hey, I'm talking to somebody, you know? So I go into the psych and we start talking. And I'm just like telling him, kind of explaining like what I'm I am to you. And I'm just like sobbing, you know, like I don't love my kids. I'm never happy at home. And he's like, dude. This happens way more than you think. I'm like, lock it up, man. Like I don't like, I'm not supposed to be like this, you know? And.

• 3:01:36Speaker 04

  I'm crying and and I'm like, why are we talking about it? You know, like, why aren't we talking about like our home life and working this stuff out in our community? It's how how prevalent is divorce? And how many guys? You like your rumors or these stories about, but like, nobody ever talks about it. Nobody.

• 3:01:59Speaker 04

  And um.

• 3:02:02Speaker 04

  And it was nice because for the first time, I feel like I got to like kind of get back into a community. I got to start talking to some like get some mentors that weren't in the teams, you know, guys in my church that were like I considered like very wise. And I remember one of them telling me. He looked at I was explaining these feelings that I was having. And like, I was like, oh, man, I can't be like, I'm not really an angry person. I'm not an angry person. I'm just, I don't, I can't like navigate my home life for some reason. And I'm just trying to hack it. And he's like, let me tell you something. There's this guy named David. You know, the guy that killed the Goliath, right? He's telling me about the story with him and Nathaniel.

• 3:02:46Speaker 04

  And he tells us, Nathaniel's telling David this story. What had just happened was is David had had an affair with one of his soldier's wives. He had sent his soldier off on pretty much a suicide mission to die so that he could take Veshiva, you know, this woman. And he had told Nathaniel this story and Nathaniel was like, let me tell you this story. He said, there's a shepherd and he has one sheep and he takes care of it and he eats at his table and he bathes it and it like, you know, it sleeps in his bed and he loves this sheep.

• 3:03:29Speaker 04

  And he's like, and there's a rich man and he has a huge flock of sheep and, you know, he has more than he needs and he, you know, he takes care of them, but when it comes time to sacrifice one of them, he steals the sheep of the other man and he slaughters him and keeps his sheep safe. It's like, what do you think of this man? He's like, oh man, he should repay him, you know, hundredfold and curse it is this man. And Nathaniel leans in and looks at him and he's like, you are the man. Right? He's not like, you are like him. He said, you know, this isn't like a situation that you're in. It's like, you are the man.

• 3:04:14Speaker 04

  And to me, what that said is like, dude, I can say that I'm not an angry person all I want. I can say I'm not selfish. I can't say that, I can say that like, you know, I can balance my family life and this like desire for ownership in my community and, and my obsession for my reputation in the teams. But like, I am an angry man, right? Like this is something that I've done and, and it's affecting my family, right? And if, and if in my ownership of the community and in doing this job that I love.

• 3:05:00Speaker 04

  I destroy the thing that I'm trying to protect. Like what needs to change? Right? Like if in protect in it, if going out to these places, I'm claiming that I'm protecting my family. And I'm protecting those that I love. But I, but when I come home, I'm destroying it. Well, how do I, how do you balance that? You know?

• 3:05:28Speaker 04

  And so that's kind of like, it's like, I need to set, I need a lot more work than I thought I'd need for my family. And

• 3:05:39Speaker 04

  I'm like, I love, I love these kids. I love my wife. And I need a, I need a reset. Right?

• 3:05:50Speaker 04

  And I, I feel, I know, and I know that there are great guys in the community that have awesome families, you know, and they make it work. But I just felt like there was this level of obsession for me that I was like, I just want to keep going and doing that job.

• 3:06:08Speaker 04

  But I could see that I was, it was damaging my home. You know what I mean?

• 3:06:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:06:15Speaker 04

  And so I knew if I go back to the platoon and I start chasing that again, it's just gonna, it's gonna get worse at home and I don't, and I don't know how to balance. I don't know if I'm, I have the self-control to, to balance it. You know, so I felt like I really just had to make a choice.

• 3:06:37Speaker 04

  And

• 3:06:41Shawn Ryan?

  It's, it's, it's a tough line, you know?

• 3:06:43Speaker 04

  It, it really is.

• 3:06:45Shawn Ryan?

  On one hand, you, you're feeding an addiction, you're feeding an obsession, you love what you do. On the other hand, you're destroying everything at home. And then

• 3:06:59Shawn Ryan?

  the same, you know, the same token, you justify it because you're doing what needs to be done for the best of the country.

• 3:07:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:07:07Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? And, and so you have that to carry with you to justify why you want to go back.

• 3:07:16Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 3:07:17Shawn Ryan?

  More, more, more, more. And

• 3:07:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:07:25Shawn Ryan?

  It, it, you know, it just.

• 3:07:28Speaker 04

  It's a cycle, man.

• 3:07:29Shawn Ryan?

  It never ends.

• 3:07:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:07:30Shawn Ryan?

  It's never gonna be enough.

• 3:07:32Speaker 04

  You, you can have, you can do the coolest hostage rescue mission in the world and you'll want to do another one.

• 3:07:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:07:38Speaker 04

  And that's something that I feel like I had a taste, like a good taste of combat, right? And in Iraq, and I think a lot of guys, if I, they hear this story, they'd be like, dude, I just, I would like a deployment like that and I'd be good. I'm like, no, you will not.

• 3:07:55Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 3:07:55Speaker 04

  You will always want more. Like, you always want more, man. And, and I recognize that in myself. I'm like, how much of this is actually about me doing this job as opposed to me just being selfishly wanting more?

• 3:08:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:08:14Speaker 04

  Right? And you have to get real with yourself. And I'm like, okay, like, I'm checking myself a little bit here. And so I have a conversation with my wife. It's like, you know, hey, I'm gonna look around and see what it looks like. And I'm gonna start to, I'll talk to some people, but I don't know if I can get out, like, I don't know if it's, I don't know if there's anything else for me. You know?

• 3:08:40Speaker 04

  Because every, every team guy

• 3:08:47Speaker 04

  that gets out, I, I say every guy, that's an exaggeration perhaps. I know a lot of guys know something that they want to do. And so they switch and they get out, like, I want to be a doctor now. So like, I want to be an astronaut.

• 3:09:01Speaker 04

  But I think for a lot of guys that feel that calling, that pull to like, maybe it's time to do something else. They have a really hard time finding something that they're as passionate about as they did when they knew that they wanted to be a Navy SEAL. Or they wanted to like, do great things for their country, you know?

• 3:09:21Speaker 04

  And so for me is I was thinking, you know, if I can find something like that, like, like, I'll put my hands out there and if God puts something there, then like, like, I'll, I'll take the sign, you know? But it's like, I just don't know anything. So we can talk about it, but if there's nothing that comes our way.

• 3:09:46Speaker 04

  So I guess I have to provide for my family too, you know? I can't just get out without a plan and

• 3:09:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:09:55Speaker 04

  mess everything up even more. It's now I'm miserable, right? And working a job I hate. I haven't figured anything out. But uh,

• 3:10:07Speaker 04

  so I start instructing, doing this instructor deal. And I was driving a bus or something and I remember I back like, I backed up and I kind of clipped a vehicle.

• 3:10:22Speaker 04

  Some like random parked car and that was like parked in the middle of the road or something. And I went over, looked at the vehicle, the taillight was busted, found the guy, I was like, hey, man. I, I hate your car. And he's like, oh dude, don't even worry about it. I think that it's pretty messed up already anyway. It's like, okay, cool. I went back. You know, I'm doing damage control. I'm like, all right, I don't want, I want the master chief now. I want my chief now. Start reporting to him. I'm like, hey, chief, just want you to know I clipped a car. I'm gonna write a little report for you. What happened? So like if, you know, how crappy that stuff is with Jeep, like, like the, what is the vehicle debt?

• 3:11:03Speaker 04

  They get super poopy pants if they hear something or a report or whatever that they didn't know about. So I go to the master chief's office. I'm like, hey, master chief, just want to let you know I had a little fender bender. Guy's totally cool with it. I'm writing a report for it. I'm gonna let um, transportation know. Um, base security knows it's all clear. And he's like, all right, man. Cool. Thanks. And I look over on his desk and he has this like sick trident statue. You know, it's a big old like kind of bronze eagle and his wings are wrapped. He has this, he's holding a trident in the front lock. And I was like, that's a sick statue.

• 3:11:40Speaker 04

  And I left his office. I was like, man, that's really cool. I wonder where he got that thing. It's like I could never have a some, I don't have a place for a statue that big. I said, but I wonder if I could draw it or paint it or something, you know? I've been like, kind of thinking about getting back into a hobby.

• 3:12:00Speaker 04

  It's like, I'm gonna try, I'm gonna try painting it, you know? I don't know. It was just like this thing in my mind. I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna do it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna get back into some painting or something. And on the way home, I swung by Hobby Lobby, bought a bunch of acrylics, bought a little canvas. While my wife is watching Netflix, I'm Googling like eagle picture, like finding a trident. And anchor and I'm just kind of like, lodge podge, draw this thing out. I painted this picture and yeah, it was like two nights of watching Netflix or something. And I kind of hold up, I'm like, dude, I painted a picture, you know? And it felt like awesome. Like I made something.

• 3:12:43Speaker 04

  And I showed my wife, she's like, that's pretty good, you know? I was like, thank you. It's like the cat that killed a bird, you know? It's like proud of the little bird that I killed. I'm like showing my wife. Sending a picture to my, you know, my buddy, my dad. Like, nice work, man. That's sick. And I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna bring it in the office. I'm gonna put it in the office. So I stick it to my office table. As I'm sticking it there, when my other instructor buds walk in and he's like, that's a sweet picture. Where'd you get that? I'm like, I painted that. He's like, you painted that? I said, I painted that, you know? He's like, bro, that's pretty good. And somebody hears us out in the hall and he's like, who painted something?

• 3:13:26Speaker 04

  And I was like, I painted this picture. He's like, dude, I want one. I said, sorry, man, there's only one. And he's like, well, let me get a print. And I was like, uh, what do I do for that? He's like, well, you get a nice picture of it. And then you can hire somebody and they'll print out like a high quality photo of it. I said, okay, okay, I'll do it. And I was like, just pay me whatever it costs to print it. Like, all right, I'll pay you more than that, man. I was like, nah, just, you know.

• 3:13:56Speaker 04

  So I take a picture of it, I print it out.

• 3:14:01Speaker 04

  And I give, you know, I bring it in the office, like, here's a hundred bucks, man. I was like, what? He said, yeah, dude, take it. I'd pay you more. I said, dude, thanks so much. That's really nice. You don't have to pay me a hundred bucks, a hundred dollar bill, you know? I'm like, thank you. He's like, dude, take it. He's like, I'm not taking it back. I said, okay, thank you. Put it in my pocket. Another guy comes in, we're kind of like talking about the picture and he's like, where'd you get that picture? I'm like, I painted it. And he's like, he painted this? He's like, he's like, I want one. You know? And so dude, before you know it's like, the team guy Grapevine and I have like a stack of these things at my house. And it, well, he's like, well, how much are they?

• 3:14:45Speaker 04

  I look at him, he looks at me, I'm like, a hundred bucks? He's like, alright, you know? I'm like, alright. So I started printing, dudes would come to me, they're like, hey, you're the guy selling the Trident pictures? I'm like, yeah. He's like, you really painted that thing? I said, yeah, I did. Like, nice, man. He's like, I want one. And then, you know, the wives are like trying to pick them up for their husbands, or seeing them at parties or something, reaching out on the wives', you know, little pages and stuff. And so I start kind of selling these things. And one day, my wife's like, hey, this lady just bought one and she said her husband's like master chief or something.

• 3:15:26Speaker 04

  And I'm like, dude, that's master chief so and so. I was like, oh, shoot. And.

• 3:15:36Shawn Ryan?

  But was he like the master chief of the command?

• 3:15:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was, well, yeah, he was master chief of BUDS. And then he switched over and he was like, they were looking at him for like Mick Pahn.

• 3:15:48Shawn Ryan?

  Master chief of the Navy?

• 3:15:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, master chief petty officer of the Navy.

• 3:15:51Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, shit.

• 3:15:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, so he's like kind of a big deal in the community.

• 3:15:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:15:55Speaker 04

  I'm like, shoot, dude, what's this guy gonna think?

• 3:15:59Speaker 04

  And dude, that day, I hear knock, knock, knock at the door, look at him, I'm like, who's that? And he's at my front door. And I'm like, oh, man, here we go. I'm in trouble. Or sorry, I like painting these, I don't know. I don't know what I did wrong, you know, and I'm like, all right, go over. Open the door, I'm like, hey, Master Chief. He's like, are you Hughes? I say, yes, Master Chief. He's like, you painted that picture, huh? I said, yes, Master Chief, I, I did. I said, did you get one? He's like, yeah, my wife just got home for me. He's like, can I come in? I said, yes, Master Chief.

• 3:16:40Speaker 04

  He steps in, he's like, dude, that is badass, man. And I'm like, whoa, you know, I was like, you like it? He's like, yeah, man. He's like, what? He's like, have you always been able to do this? I was like, dude, I started drawing and this is like the first thing I've ever painted. He's like, you gotta do something with this, man. I said, you think? He's like, yes. He's like, you need to do something with this painting thing. I said, well, thank you. It's like, what else are you working on? Like, well, I just started this painting of the Dell, you know, checking out. He's like, that's amazing. Like, dude, I don't know what your plans are. If you ever get out, you gotta do something with this pain stuff.

• 3:17:24Speaker 04

  And I was like, it clicked. It's like all my childhood, drawing, you know, it, my experience in the teams. It's like, dude, I gotta do something with this painting thing.

• 3:17:35Shawn Ryan?

  You got that painting?

• 3:17:37Speaker 04

  I got the paint, can I, yeah, now it's time to show it.

• 3:17:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, let's see it.

• 3:17:40Speaker 04

  So this is it, man. I don't know what the, I don't know what the best camera angle is. Or if people could see it. But, uh, yeah, man, it was like, you know, kind of threw it together, like, turned out way better than you'd think, right? For a dude's first painting.

• 3:17:55Shawn Ryan?

  So that painting basically represents a life-changing event.

• 3:18:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like, this is where it all started.

• 3:18:03Shawn Ryan?

  That's incredible.

• 3:18:04Speaker 04

  And, uh.

• 3:18:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, dude, it set me on a frickin crazy path.

• 3:18:12Shawn Ryan?

  That is awesome.

• 3:18:13Speaker 04

  Definitely a lot of, I mean, yeah, dude, it's crazy. It's a blessing. Like, I can't, like, I don't know where this stuff comes from. Like, the only thing I think is, is, you know, in my worldview, the way I view is like, dude, this is like a gift from God for me, you know? And I felt so blessed that I was like, dude, I have a direction. You know, now what, now what do I do with it? Like, how do you become an artist? And do I say I want to be an artist? Like, is that a real thing? Like, I don't really, what does an artist as a team guy look like? I can't talk about being a Navy SEAL and be an artist, you know? That's not, that's taboo in my community.

• 3:18:57Speaker 04

  It's like, I don't think I can make a living off this. I don't think any, can you make a living off of being an artist? Like, what is, like, this whole world opened up to me.

• 3:19:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:19:06Speaker 04

  That I was suddenly interested in.

• 3:19:12Speaker 04

  And, you know, I whispered to my wife, I'm like, maybe I could paint or do some kind of, something artistic.

• 3:19:20Shawn Ryan?

  Well, uh, why don't we get into some of that right now? Let's see what your work is.

• 3:19:27Shawn Ryan?

  All right, so this is the first masterpiece that you painted. And, um, so just real quick, I just wanted to tell the audience, you know, I picked this picture, this was a real tough decision, uh, for me because there's so, I got a ton of good pictures and I wasn't, it was either this one or there's one of me in a helicopter, like, looking out in Afghanistan. But, which is actually, I think, a better photo. But I picked this photo because I think this is a very good kind of story description.

• 3:20:07Shawn Ryan?

  It's a good visual of, of what goes on, on a SEAL mission, at least the ones I've been on, you know? And I'm just being like totally honest here, but this is like your typical sniper hide, you know? We did, my platoon, we did a lot of sniper stuff in Baghdad and...

• 3:20:28Shawn Ryan?

  90% of it is, actually 99% of it is being bored, watching a target, keeping each other awake, fucking cracking jokes, playing grab ass. That's exactly what's happening here. And 1% of it is actually killing bad guys. You know, and so I just, I thought this was like the perfect depiction of what happens. You know, I got our AW here, Automatic Weapons guy. He's literally grabbing my ass, trying to give me a smile for the photo. I'm looking back at the camera. My other sniper partner is taking the picture.

• 3:21:10Shawn Ryan?

  I still keep in touch with this guy and he's yawning, probably getting ready to fall asleep. There's gear, you know, around helmet with nods on over there. This is Smitty's whoops gun. Have to bleep that. But, um, but yeah, that's, you know, this is just, this is how it is. Nobody's watching the target. Yeah. Nobody's watching the target, which is back here. And, uh, and this screen, you know, this screen is basically it's, it's concealment.

• 3:21:50Shawn Ryan?

  You know, you can't really see through that looking from afar, which means nobody's going to think anything suspicious. And it doesn't look like a screen is just hanging there. It just looks like shadows, you know, from a distance. But I just, you know, I thought that was a good depiction of what a SEAL operation is. And it's, it's a lot of dark humor, a lot of grab ass, a lot of keeping each other awake and everything I just described. And, and man, you just painted it perfectly. You know, once I want to put up the picture, the actual picture that I sent you. And this looks. Ten times better than the picture that I sent you. The picture I sent you was all washed out, overexposed and.

• 3:22:35Speaker 04

  Made it a little bit more dramatic.

• 3:22:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but it's all, I mean, the detail, it's just, I mean, the brick, the right, everything.

• 3:22:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:22:46Shawn Ryan?

  You can even tell, I mean, the camera picks up on facial recognition.

• 3:22:51Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 3:22:52Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and this guy right here, like, the faces are just, it's insane.

• 3:22:58Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 3:22:59Shawn Ryan?

  I mean.

• 3:22:59Speaker 04

  Thank you, man.

• 3:23:01Shawn Ryan?

  But just tell me a little bit about painting it.

• 3:23:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, so for me, first looking at this image, you know, resonates and it was really cool just to capture this moment where, you know, this is, team guys always find a way to kind of like coke and joke and find the positive in like kind of a crappy situation. So it's just cool to kind of capture and paint like the dynamic of moods, right? Cause you're a little bit more like, this is like a more of a dramatic pose. You're hunched over, you're looking back at the camera, almost candid, right? And it's like, you're just catching the side of it and these two guys are like, kind of getting you, getting you in the picture.

• 3:23:44Speaker 04

  It's just this moment that seems like it's so, that it's so improvised, right? And then painting it, man, dude, it was a, it was a grind on this one, just because the amount of detail, right? And everything from the bricks to the drapery over his legs, to the camo pants, man, the boots, it's like the rocks, the backpack, the gosh dang gum see-through mesh, you know? And I, you, I don't know if you can probably see it on the camera, but you perhaps saw it on the picture, is like, there's vehicles driving in the background here.

• 3:24:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:24:22Speaker 04

  And just as an artist, it was very challenging to capture that without like losing the detail, right? Cause the temptation is just kind of like, I'm just gonna paint it one color, kind of paint these vehicles and then I'll mix it, mix, mix up some kind of mesh design. But just really doing the picture justice and what you guys were doing up there was like really important to me. So just capture as much of it as I could and that was the goal setting out and I think,

• 3:24:50Speaker 04

  I think it turned out pretty, pretty dang good.

• 3:24:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:24:52Speaker 04

  I'm pretty proud of it, man.

• 3:24:55Shawn Ryan?

  I'm proud of it. I mean, I didn't even do it. I'm proud of it. And I, everybody that comes in here, I'm like, look at this. Look at this shit. Can you believe this guy painted this? He's only been painting for a year. Yeah. And it's just, I mean, and it's cool. It tells, it tells, to me, it doesn't get any more accurate than this with, with the detail and the story behind it. It's just, it's just incredible. Yeah. Sorry, man. That's what it's all about. Let's move on to the next one.

• 3:25:27Shawn Ryan?

  So I gave you this picture. This is me at CIA. This is Yemen. And I just thought it was really cool because it's in the moment. And this is at a cot market. Those of you that don't know, cot is like cocaine in Yemen supposedly. And, right? Yeah. And it just, the detail you did on this is phenomenal. I could see the outline of my gun right there. And, you know, a lot of people think, working for the agency, that you blend in perfectly with the populace, you know, no matter where you're at.

• 3:26:05Shawn Ryan?

  And that's just not the case, you know? And so, a lot of it's finding a different cover to work under, whether you're a business guy, whether you're working for another government agency, maybe you're an arms dealer, maybe you're a drug smuggler, you know? And, and a guy with my skin complexion and tattoos and, you know, I'm not going to blend in. I don't speak the language. Even if I did speak the language, I'd have a horrible accent. And so, you know, it would be worthless for me to kind of dress up like that and blend in and conduct espionage, you know? And so, I thought this picture kind of painted a more accurate.

• 3:26:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:26:48Shawn Ryan?

  Painted a more accurate picture.

• 3:26:51Speaker 04

  Nice, I like it.

• 3:26:52Shawn Ryan?

  But.

• 3:26:53Speaker 04

  Paint humor.

• 3:26:54Shawn Ryan?

  Of what it is, you know, over there and, and, you know, some guys do dress up in the garb. You know, I've dressed up in a tube, but usually when you do that, it's kind of, you know, you're just trying to get by first glance. Maybe you're in a, in a car that's.

• 3:27:09Speaker 04

  Driving by quick.

• 3:27:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, nobody's gonna pay. You know, it's just a quick glance and nobody's gonna notice the difference, but when you're out on the street, that shit is not gonna count it because the minute you get stopped and plus it's so cultural over there.

• 3:27:22Speaker 04

  Right.

• 3:27:23Shawn Ryan?

  You know, the, we won't pick up on things like you're like that knife that they carry over there, the jamboree, you know.

• 3:27:32Speaker 04

  This guy, it's right here, it's tucked in, you can see it.

• 3:27:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you carry it the wrong way and it's like a dead giveaway. It's like that guy definitely.

• 3:27:38Speaker 04

  Doesn't belong here.

• 3:27:39Shawn Ryan?

  Doesn't belong here.

• 3:27:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:27:41Shawn Ryan?

  And so.

• 3:27:42Speaker 04

  The way they wear this, like the way they fold it and wrap it and tuck it, it's all.

• 3:27:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:27:46Speaker 04

  It all means something.

• 3:27:47Shawn Ryan?

  Mirror, you might not know.

• 3:27:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:27:49Shawn Ryan?

  But they know.

• 3:27:50Speaker 04

  They do.

• 3:27:51Shawn Ryan?

  And so, and so can, it could be more detrimental to try to look like them than, than like that.

• 3:27:59Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 3:28:01Shawn Ryan?

  But anyways, how was it painting this?

• 3:28:04Speaker 04

  Man, this one, just compared to the other, you can, you can already tell that there's elements to it that are much more, not abstract, but more impressionist, right? So you got like the, these curtains here, like the, the tent roofs. You, I mean, just trash all over the ground. You got these bags of cot and when you get an image that is a little bit more like, there's a lot more white and less contrast between some of this, these elements. It gives you an opportunity as an artist to use a little bit of texture to tell the story instead of just, you, you know, in a digital image, it's just flat color, right? So it is, for, for me, it was a lot of fun just getting to mess with some of, some of those elements, right?

• 3:28:49Speaker 04

  Even in, in the texture in your, in your shirt here or this guy's jacket. So, you know, you started out just painting kind of a monotone. Color, just getting everything in placement and you build layer upon layer upon layer. And, and for this one especially compared to the last one, I felt like I could cut loose a lot more. And use my paintbrush and show some of those bolder paint strokes. And it made it an absolute blast to paint. And I mean, there wasn't a moment when I was painting this that I wasn't like excited to get on the easel and get to working on it. And like you said, dude, it's like so candid.

• 3:29:33Speaker 04

  The look is so similar to the other one, so it ties them together, you know? And the fact that it's you in two separate work environments is pretty rad. But you can see the similarity, like if you put them side by side, like that's Sean Ryan. You know? And, and that's pretty sick. And just the, I feel like the cultural element too.

• 3:29:56Shawn Ryan?

  Dude, it just captures.

• 3:29:58Speaker 04

  It like, there's so much there, man. It just seems so, yeah, it seems so natural. Yeah, that is.

• 3:30:04Shawn Ryan?

  Like that is Yemen and the cop markets. This whole thing went up like right after the, I bought that too.

• 3:30:11Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 3:30:11Shawn Ryan?

  Like some argument and it was like. But, um, but dude, I'm just like amazed at the.

• 3:30:19Speaker 04

  Thanks, man.

• 3:30:20Shawn Ryan?

  At the talent and the detail and it's just, it's, it's, it's incredible. Like every time I look at this and the other one, it's just, it's insane.

• 3:30:32Speaker 04

  Thank you, Sean.

• 3:30:32Shawn Ryan?

  That you're able to do that.

• 3:30:34Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 3:30:34Shawn Ryan?

  So, yeah, I want to put like the actual raw image of what I sent you on the screen right now.

• 3:30:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:30:41Shawn Ryan?

  So that everybody can see, so this is the raw image. This is the actual photo that he painted and then, and then this is what he turned it into. It's, it's, it's amazing, dude. But which one did you like painting more?

• 3:30:57Speaker 04

  Dude, I like different elements of each, right? So the first one, I loved that there were team guys in the picture. I love that there were some kind of tradecraft elements with the screen.

• 3:31:11Speaker 04

  Dude, this kind of stuff's fun to paint, like these faces are really cool. And I kind of got a bigger portrait of you, so that was really fun to paint. But I have to hand it to the other image is my, I think it's my favorite. Like seeing them both here, side by side.

• 3:31:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:31:28Speaker 04

  I think, yeah, it's just because like that seems like my group, you know?

• 3:31:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:31:33Speaker 04

  And maybe it's just because this wasn't my experience in Yemen as much. Like I, I got to go down to the cotton markets and the weapon market and, and dabble a little bit, but

• 3:31:44Speaker 04

  it wasn't as dynamic of a experience for me.

• 3:31:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:31:47Speaker 04

  As it was for you, like my Yemen time was kind of like not as exciting.

• 3:31:52Shawn Ryan?

  I spent a long time.

• 3:31:53Speaker 04

  So I, I see this and I'm like, I can relate a lot more with that, you know? So it's kind of.

• 3:32:00Shawn Ryan?

  I could see that. This is, this is, it's too like, they're so similar, the two careers, but so, so different.

• 3:32:08Speaker 04

  It's wild how just a point to two separate countries can totally change the operation, right? And like completely change the dynamic

• 3:32:19Speaker 04

  of how you work, right?

• 3:32:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:32:21Speaker 04

  Like you're kind of doing the same thing, but it's completely different.

• 3:32:25Shawn Ryan?

  It's, yeah, that and then, and then just the difference from being a SEAL to working for the agency. It's like, there's a lot of similarities, but you can't even compare the two because they're, they're still so different.

• 3:32:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:32:39Shawn Ryan?

  But dude, once again, I mean, amazing work.

• 3:32:44Speaker 04

  Thank you, Sean.

• 3:32:45Shawn Ryan?

  That's incredible.

• 3:32:45Speaker 04

  It was an absolute pleasure to do and thanks for trusting me with a part of your history.

• 3:32:49Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thank you for, for doing it.

• 3:32:53Shawn Ryan?

  Well, Justin, your art is, I'm just blown away by your raw talent. It's, I mean, it is. It's just fucking incredible.

• 3:33:07Shawn Ryan?

  That that all came from that that small trident painting and now. You've got stuff that's, I mean, there's not a doubt in my mind you're gonna be in a museum, but.

• 3:33:19Speaker 04

  Thanks, man.

• 3:33:20Shawn Ryan?

  What, so where are you going next? What's next for you?

• 3:33:24Speaker 04

  Um, man, right now I'm working on my first real series of paintings. And I I kinda hope to be done with that by the end of next year. I have a couple of commissions lined up that I'm really interested in, but uh. But really, I'm trying to kinda take some of that that warrior archetype that I'm coming from. And and seeing if I can translate that and tell tell a story through another another medium, right? And. I think that. With paint, sometimes it's hard to like, uh, like if I could write it or like if I could.

• 3:34:07Speaker 04

  Put a script together or something. I I'd probably do it that way, but like paint is just my medium for storytelling, right? And in passing legacy. And in telling history, right? And so if I can do that for some of the guys in the community. Uh, specifically guys that I've worked with. Then that's kinda like the direction that I that I wanna head with my art. And so I'm kinda working on a series of paintings based loosely of kinda what what that looks like and. To me. And telling that story if I can.

• 3:34:50Shawn Ryan?

  I can't wait to see what you come up with.

• 3:34:52Speaker 04

  Thanks, man. I'm really excited about it.

• 3:34:54Shawn Ryan?

  Your work is phenomenal.

• 3:34:56Speaker 04

  Thanks.

• 3:34:56Shawn Ryan?

  And uh, and I I just. You know, well.

• 3:35:02Shawn Ryan?

  I just want to say, your journey just blew me away, the childhood stuff.

• 3:35:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:35:08Shawn Ryan?

  I totally, I was not expecting any of that. And I think that that could be an entire, I think that could be an entire episode in itself. And then to see how things have kind of come full circle for you. You know, you went from that to, I mean, which sounds like, in your childhood sound, it's like, it was the life of a spec ops guy. And then you go into spec ops, you become a SEAL. Your deployments, you know, especially the one in Mosul, where you're JTAC fighting ISIS right on the front lines. I mean, that's, that's some heavy shit.

• 3:35:51Shawn Ryan?

  And then to come home, get through that. I've, I've been watching you, I interacted with you and your wife last night. Your kids seem really cool. And I mean, you've just got a great family life. And the art that you're producing or that you're painting is just, I'm just really happy for you, man.

• 3:36:13Speaker 04

  Thanks so much, man.

• 3:36:14Shawn Ryan?

  You know, it's, it's really cool to see. I love watching people succeed and you've definitely found your passion and.

• 3:36:21Speaker 04

  Thank you so much, man.

• 3:36:22Shawn Ryan?

  And I just, you know, it's, it's, it's really cool to watch that.

• 3:36:27Speaker 04

  It's a blessing, yeah.

• 3:36:29Shawn Ryan?

  How can people find you?

• 3:36:31Speaker 04

  Uh, right now, I'm most active on Instagram, Justin Hughes Art. And I also have a website, justinhughesart.com. If you're interested in commissions, you can hit me up on Messenger, on Instagram Messenger. Or I have a little page on my website that is probably like the best section because you can write more on what you're interested in having painted. But yeah, reach out to me, connect with me out there, I'm pretty active.

• 3:36:57Shawn Ryan?

  All right, well, once again, I just, it's, it was a real honor to interview you. I've been looking forward to this for a long time and. That's quite the story.

• 3:37:09Speaker 04

  Thanks so much, Sean. Dude, it's an absolute honor to be here. Thank you so much for having me. An honor to, you know, paint these pictures of you and, and create a legacy for your future generations, right? Your kids and, and help tell your story in a, in a different medium.

• 3:37:26Shawn Ryan?

  Those will be passed down from generation to generation in my family.

• 3:37:29Speaker 04

  No doubt, no doubt.

• 3:37:31Shawn Ryan?

  It's crazy to think about.

• 3:37:33Speaker 04

  It's cool.

• 3:37:34Shawn Ryan?

  Well, best of luck to you.

• 3:37:36Speaker 04

  Thanks, Sean.

• 3:37:37Shawn Ryan?

  Cheers.

• 3:37:52Speaker 05

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