#339 Christian Craighead - The Uncensored Story of the Nairobi DusitD2 Attack

Christian Craighead is a former British SAS operator who served with the Parachute Regiment, Pathfinder Platoon, and 22 SAS during a career focused on counterterrorism and high-risk operations. In 2019, while in Kenya, he responded to the al-Shabaab attack at Nairobi’s DusitD2 complex, helping rescue civilians and engage the attackers, actions that later earned him the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross. He is also the author of One Man In, where he recounts the attack. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Privacy Isn't Paranoia. It's Protection. Download Glacier - https://srs.site/glacierapp Sign up at DraftKings in all 50 states with code SRS, spend $5, and get $200 in rewards within 21 days Try ZipRecruiter to post your job FOR FREE at http://ziprecruiter.com/SRS 4 out of 5 employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Visit https://betterhelp.com/srs #ad Go to https://helixsleep.com/SRS for 27% off sitewide Christian Craighead Links: One Man in - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982177330 Meyli Chapin Links: Terrorist Attack Girl - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QNLDXWY Trauma Brace - https://www.traumabrace.com Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/meylichapin Website - https://meylichapin.wixsite.com/meyli-chapin 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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• 1:00Shawn Ryan?

  Christian Craighead, welcome back, my bad.

• 1:04Speaker 03

  Thanks, Sean.

• 1:08Shawn Ryan?

  I'm nervous. How are you feeling?

• 1:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm feeling, I'm feeling all right about it. I'm just gonna roll with it.

• 1:15Shawn Ryan?

  It's a good nervous. It's gonna be powerful.

• 1:18Speaker 03

  Yeah. It seems like everyone else is more nervous about this than I am, but maybe I'm just in denial, like always, and then afterwards, then I'll realize the gravity of it all.

• 1:29Shawn Ryan?

  I saw you pacing around out front there earlier, so.

• 1:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I spent doing my whole thinking, pacing.

• 1:37Shawn Ryan?

  Well, this is gonna be a powerful interview, but you know, you've been on the show once. We did a life story on you. And, um, and believe it or not, you made a promise on there that said, if you ever did, you know, recount the actual day, that it would be here. And you kept the promise. Thank you.

• 1:57Speaker 03

  Here I am.

• 1:58Shawn Ryan?

  And ironically, we're basically neighbors now.

• 2:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:04Shawn Ryan?

  Which is really cool.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, we live like 20 minutes, 15 minutes away from each other now.

• 2:10Shawn Ryan?

  And last time you were here, you were still in UK, so.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  I was back and forth, yeah. And then I haven't been back to the UK for a few years now. But yeah, well, pretty much straight after that interview, that was more or less the last time I was in the UK.

• 2:25Shawn Ryan?

  How does that feel?

• 2:31Speaker 03

  It's a weird feeling because I cannot say how much I love this country. I love it so much in every way. Obviously, there's, there's some things that I'm not keen on or whatever, like everything in life, you can't be happy. But I love this country so much, and I love being here, and it's such a privilege. And I've said this lots of times. I only wish more Americans could see that. It's why everyone's trying to get in. No one's trying to get out, no matter how bad they say it is. That's a, it's one of those things where people say, it's the United States of America is so good, even the people who hate it won't leave. So, um, so there's that.

• 3:14Speaker 03

  So I love, I love, actually love being here. And what the strangest, um, it's strange how things work. So in my hometown, which is in northern England, there's a small village where I was first baptized into the Church of England. And then, um, and I, that's my thinking spot. I'd go there and every time I was in the country or times were hard, I'd jump in the car, drive from Hereford up to northeast England, go to this spot and just walk around and kind of get energy off it. And just, I love, I love that place so much as well. And the last time I was there, I went to this thinking spot, like a bunch of trees,

• 3:57Speaker 03

  and something came over me of thinking, this is the last time I'm ever gonna be here, which did not make any sense because at the time I'd had a, had a plan to come back. I think it was only three, four weeks later to pick up some more stuff because I was getting, moving all my footprint over to the United States. So I was planning on coming back, but something is sure as, sure as I knew it, something said, you will never come back here. So me being as dramatic as I am, I was thinking, oh, maybe I'm gonna have a car wreck and die or maybe there's gonna be a, um, something catastrophic happen in the UK. But I was sure that I was never gonna visit this place again

• 4:41Speaker 03

  amid no sense. Then it's funny how things turn out, and now that's true.

• 4:46Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 4:47Speaker 03

  Um, I'll never, I'll, at this point in time, it's likely that I was right. I can't go back to my, um, to my country where I was from. But now America's my home.

• 5:00Shawn Ryan?

  Is, uh, our relationship continues to develop, you know, now that you're 20 minutes away. We're 20 minutes apart and, um, gone to mass together. Went to mass together this morning. Got to eat together. Here at my son's and my daughter's baptism. Um, you know, one thing I've noticed about you and your life are just how many odd synchronicities, um, unexplainable synchronicities happen in your life. And I have, I have a lot of those happen too. But, um, I want to dive into some of those, you know, as, as, as we go through the interview. But I want to start with an introduction. So Christian Craighead,

• 5:45Shawn Ryan?

  you're a former British SAS operator who joined the military at age 16, served with the parachute regiment and Pathfinder platoon, and went on to spend nearly 15 years with 22 SAS on high-risk operations around the world. In 2019, while training forces in Kenya, you responded to the Al Shabab terrorist attack at Nairobi's Dusit D2 complex, helping lead over 700 civilians to safety in engaging the attackers, actions that later earned you the conspicuous, actions that later earned you the conspicuous Gallantry Cross. Now with your, now with your memoir, One Man In,

• 6:29Shawn Ryan?

  you're telling the full story of that day and the fight that followed. And one of the survivors that's here today because of your actions in Nairobi is going to join us for the interview, Maely. And I can't wait to get her account. And I know you guys are close. It was, it was really cool to have breakfast with you guys and, um, see how, how your guys' relationship has developed and, uh, and, and how thankful, you know, she is that, that you were there that day. It's, it, uh, I don't tear up often,

• 7:08Shawn Ryan?

  but, but seeing you guys at breakfast was, was pretty emotional. So, um, everyone gets a gift.

• 7:25Shawn Ryan?

  So I wanted to give this to you.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 7:30Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome. You know, I think, um, we talk a lot about spiritual battles, spirituality, faith, Catholicism, all the problems with it, all the good things about it. And, um, not to insert my journey, but you know, I'm going through some stuff, and I know you're going through some stuff with the UK government. And, um,

• 7:57Shawn Ryan?

  a guy, Dr. Dan Schneider, gave that to me the first time I've interviewed him, and, and I keep it on my big side table. Uh, I have, up until, this will be the first night without it. So, uh, I want to pass that on to you.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 8:12Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome. And, um, and I figured we could start this off with a prayer.

• 8:20Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 8:20Shawn Ryan?

  Is that good?

• 8:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:25Shawn Ryan?

  Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  That's, that's my second one in this interview because when you were just getting set up before we went live, I was seeing one under my breath. So it's good.

• 8:52Shawn Ryan?

  I was gonna start it with a different one, but, um, you said that prayer right before you engaged two of the attackers. And so I picked that prayer specifically because of that. And.

• 9:12Shawn Ryan?

  I would just would like to start this with that question. Being a Catholic, there's a lot of prayers out there that we say. You could have said any prayer, you could have made up a prayer, you could have just talked to God.

• 9:26Shawn Ryan?

  Out of all the prayers out there.

• 9:30Shawn Ryan?

  Why did you choose the Hail Mary?

• 9:34Shawn Ryan?

  To say that before you went into that specific fight that day?

• 9:38Speaker 03

  It it was a quick reaction. So it was like, would I have done, would I do again? Yes. I mean, there's, there's the top three would have been Hail Mary, Salve Regina, and then Saint Michael, the Saint Michael. But, uh, but at the time, we just, that was the first thing that had sprung to mind and.

• 10:00Shawn Ryan?

  I thought you would say that.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  But that was just the. I mean, it's the prayer of praises, I think. It's, I don't know how many times a day I see it, but I see it a lot, especially when I'm driving.

• 10:14Speaker 03

  Um, um, so it's, it's, it's as often the whole, um. And even from my journey becoming a Catholic, that I always have a, I've always seemed to have had a very strong connection to Our Blessed Lady. And Father Anthony, who was my mentor, he, he highlighted that and I think he took a lot of, a lot of joy in it. And he, um, he said this good story of, I think it was a, uh, an Anglican priest or Anglican vicar said to a Catholic priest, you, oh, you, you all seem to be going on a lot, a lot about,

• 10:52Speaker 03

  the Virgin Mary, uh, but we don't talk about her and revere her and, you know, what, what's going to happen if you go to, when you go to heaven and Jesus has just stood there? What do you think is going to be said? And the, the Catholic priest said, what I hope he says, he comes up to me goes, my mother's told me so much about you and I'm so pleased to meet you.

• 11:15Shawn Ryan?

  I love that. You know? I think where we kind of left off, uh, with the last interview.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  I've got gifts.

• 11:23Shawn Ryan?

  You got gifts?

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've got a gift.

• 11:25Shawn Ryan?

  I love gifts.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  So here's a. America is good, isn't it?

• 11:36Speaker 03

  America is great. And for all the, uh,

• 11:42Speaker 03

  internet RSOs out there, this gun has been cleared before the show. So, um, but I just want you, I present you this, it's a Steyr ATDC. Um, it's the new, the new automatic pistol. And, um, it's just, so let me, so I'm working with Steyr right now to help promote this gun. Uh, and what's important that this comes out is I reached out to them. So I'm not shilling, I'm not saying, oh, this is good. I was lucky enough to get first hands on because of a, um, a friend in the company. And I, and it impressed me so much. I said, look.

• 12:20Speaker 03

  You know, this, if you don't clean up in America with this, you've got yourself to blame because it's a bold statement and I'm, this is how confident I am. I'm going to say it. Millions of people will see me say this. I think it's one of the best handguns ever made. That's why I want to promote it. It's double action, single action. You'll hear more about it, but, um. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's just such a, an amazing firearm. It's been in development for a long, long time. So if you like the Heckron Cock USP, uh, USP, if you like Sig Sauer, two, two, nine, two, two, six, this is going to absolutely amaze you. It's such a good gun. So.

• 12:59Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 13:00Speaker 03

  I present that to you.

• 13:03Shawn Ryan?

  Beautiful.

• 13:18Speaker 03

  And it's double action, single action. So you have a decock lever on the side as well.

• 13:28Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 13:28Speaker 03

  So enjoy. I hope you like it as much as I do. But it's like you say, I think it's, it's, this is the base plate gun. So it's, when I say it's the, one of the best handguns in the world, if not the best. I'm not like, if say, oh, well, this particular spec, this is, this is the V1, this is brand new, they're not even in wide release in America just yet. But it's, so it's only going to get better and they've just, it's been in development for years and years by Steyr in Austria.

• 13:56Shawn Ryan?

  This is beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. We're going to break this in out back here on a break. Does that sound good?

• 14:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:04Shawn Ryan?

  In a hundred and ten degree weather. But thank you, man. Seriously. Thank you.

• 14:13Shawn Ryan?

  So.

• 14:16Shawn Ryan?

  Where we left off last interview is we were talking about purpose and what your purpose is and you, you know, you, you, I don't want to say confused, but you didn't know what it was and it sounded like you were having a lot of trouble finding that. And so I'm just, I'm just curious. Couple of years later, you know, here we are.

• 14:41Shawn Ryan?

  Have you found your purpose?

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Um, it's becoming, it's becoming clearer. And life's strange and things change from in, in, in a heartbeat. But.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  It's, what is strange is how you're asking me this on the Sean Ryan show all those years ago, and I'm not sure. And you could argue that because of that interview. That pushed me towards my purpose. And my purpose, the, the way I was, I was thinking about best way to frame it is, is my, is the role I'm going to play or I'm playing in the spiritual war.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  That's, that's where I see I'm, where I'm sitting right now. And from, from your, from your interview and the amount of people who've, and I, I don't know who's reached out to you. I imagine thousands, but like so many people have reached out to me to this day. They're reaching out and apologies, I never reply, I never reply. Uh, that's how it is because so many comes and I haven't got a team to, to help, but. How I've helped people through that last interview and getting through tough times. And also finding Jesus and.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Well, as we're going to talk about earlier, it's like, I'm not, people who might have known me in the past would go, well, I, I can't remember him being this religious. Those who know me well will go, yeah, he was, he was kind of low key about it. But, uh, but that's not the point is the point of everything ebbs and flows and sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down. But the amount of people now who have reached out to me about, like finding faith, especially young men in the United Kingdom. Because people, I don't know how it is now, but people did not go to church in any, any way. And it's like saying, whoa, you kind of, I'm opening people's eyes and, you know, I, if you said this to me, yeah, like in some ways you're going to become some sort of evangelist.

• 16:51Speaker 03

  I'd have just laughed. I'd have laughed the other room, but it's, it's kind of been, I'm being pushed at the, pushed that way and it's, it's, it's an. I'm just like, always like play things down and I'm thinking, I did an interview, it's no big deal. But it is a big deal to a lot of people and, and maybe these little things that were pulling at people about going to church or finding God and because of what the system's been doing and the devil's been working very hard at this since the 1960s of making people think they're weird or it's, or people like scoffing at people who are going to church or talk about their faith and it's been repressed.

• 17:34Speaker 03

  But it's always been there and now people like me and you are seeing. Being a Christian, you are like, it's part of being a warrior.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  And it's, it's, it's not, you're not Ned Flanders. You're not, you're not the weak person that the movies want to say or whatever. You, you're, you're the badass. And I think that's opening up to a lot of people going, I knew it and it was just in there waiting to come out and now they're going to, to church. One of the most worrying ones though, was I, I, I meant, I've, so I've got the, like on Instagram, there's the timer. So if I don't acknowledge and then because so many people message it, it like clears itself, but a young soldier in the British Army, and I really wanted to reply. And then when I got around to it, I couldn't. Um, he said to me when I, I watched the Sean Ryan, uh, show and I just want to thank you for me, for leading me to God.

• 18:28Speaker 03

  There's a small group of us in our unit. He was in a, um, British infantry battalion. There's a small group of us in our unit who, who, who formed like a, a Christian group. But we have to go to church way outside of the, uh, garrison because if the chain of command find out, we'll be persecuted as, or we'll be named as white supremacists.

• 18:49Shawn Ryan?

  We, we, we were chatting about this at lunch the other day.

• 18:52Speaker 03

  And so now we've got, now we've got this system. This is going on in the UK where

• 18:59Speaker 03

  guys want to go to church, but they're scared if they go, they'll be labeled as white supremacists. And it's like, so it's this Christians worshiping in secret again. And it's, it's, it's, it's crazy to think this is what's happening.

• 19:12Shawn Ryan?

  Was that like that at all when you were there?

• 19:14Speaker 03

  Uh, no, because like I didn't know anyone who, who went to church. From when I started going to church, um, in 1999. And then I was the only, I was always the youngest person there. There was no one used to, used to go. Then I, my faith didn't fall, but the whole religious thing fell away and I wasn't going to church. I was still praying, but still just doing my own thing, so to speak. And then became a Catholic, but again, going to, going to mass.

• 19:50Speaker 03

  There wasn't, there wasn't people there. I didn't know any of my peers, any of my friends back from my hometown. No one went to church. It's like a thing. Then you move to Texas and then Tennessee. People don't ask you if you go to church. They go, ask you where you go to church. And so it's, and it's interesting how they've, they've morphed that and probably from the 1960s where it used to be everyone go, now, now if you go to church, you're considered weird. Oh, he's weird. He goes to church. So that, and that circles back to what I was saying before is there's the number of people out there who, who probably want to go to church, who want to express their faith, but are just scared because of what people say and what, and, and maybe, and even worse, the impact it might have on their jobs or their profession.

• 20:34Shawn Ryan?

  How do you think they should be acting? Do you think they should be going in secret?

• 20:39Speaker 03

  No.

• 20:39Shawn Ryan?

  Secrecy?

• 20:40Speaker 03

  I think strength in numbers, start doing it. The, the trouble is especially with the military. If one person of note does it, then it's going to be, then, then the, the rest will follow. But it's like, if you're like young in a unit, if you've got, especially if you're eyeing up promotion and things like that, that's, that's a factor where people are going to go.

• 21:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's too, too much to, to risk. And it's easy for me to go, no, just do it. But I, I'm, I get it. I get it. So it's easier said than done than saying, you know, you know, wear your faith on your, on your, wear it out loud and, or say it out loud and tell everyone, but you, you may or may not get career failed for it. Or, um, so there's, there's that element and I, and I get it. But I think if people start doing it, more, more will do it and then it'll become back to, and I, but remember the system, especially in places like Australia and, uh, the UK.

• 21:41Speaker 03

  They're not your friends. They don't want you to be Christians. They don't want any Christian values. They will, they will hurt you if they can. And we're seeing it now. We're, we're seeing it now. Um, so, yeah.

• 21:56Shawn Ryan?

  I know they're coming after you hard.

• 21:58Speaker 03

  But.

• 21:58Shawn Ryan?

  The book release, releasing on September 15th, correct?

• 22:01Speaker 03

  Right, yeah.

• 22:02Shawn Ryan?

  I think is when we're airing this.

• 22:04Speaker 03

  I think it's, yeah, tomorrow, but I think, so, so it's, I think it should be the 14th this end of the year.

• 22:10Shawn Ryan?

  But, um.

• 22:13Shawn Ryan?

  And they've been after you for years.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's.

• 22:16Shawn Ryan?

  For doing what you did.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:18Shawn Ryan?

  Leading over 700 people to safety from one of the worst terrorist organizations in the world, if not the worst.

• 22:30Shawn Ryan?

  What is that?

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Islamic terrorist organizations, I should add. But, um, which I think I now broke the law in UK again, because I think under the new blasphemy law, if you say, I might be wrong. So apologies if all the, again, all these barroom lawyers are watching this saying I'm wrong. This is how we interpret it. If you said on the 15th of January 2019, Islamic terrorists raided the Dusit D2 Hotel, you are breaking the law. Cause what you should say is on the, uh, 15th of January 2019, terrorists stormed the Dusit D2 Hotel. You can't say what, it only works on that

• 23:15Speaker 03

  religion as well. It doesn't matter any other religion. They, they don't matter. But by calling it Islamic terrorism is kind of not, not, not right.

• 23:24Shawn Ryan?

  That's interesting. When did that happen?

• 23:27Speaker 03

  Uh, very recently.

• 23:31Shawn Ryan?

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• 25:14Shawn Ryan?

  I know we're going to get into, you know, more why they're coming after you, why, why, why you think they're coming after you because it doesn't seem like there's a logical explanation anywhere.

• 25:23Speaker 03

  There is no logical, well, there is logical actually when we, when we dissect it later on. It, it, um, it makes sense. And, or not, or doesn't make sense.

• 25:33Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want to talk to, do you want to talk about not

• 25:40Shawn Ryan?

  the synchronicity that happened? Maybe not a synchronicity, the, the unexplainable. Let's talk about some of the synchronicities, synchronicities that you've, you've, you've had in your life, leading up to that day on the side of the road.

• 25:59Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have any ones that stick out in particular to you?

• 26:03Speaker 03

  Um, man, um.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Uh, well, there, there is one. I've got the evidence right here. And it's kind of

• 26:15Speaker 03

  strange. I'll show you. So.

• 26:20Speaker 03

  So we've got this, this cross. So we, uh, I had this epiphany or was, I was on, after I had a bad road accident and I was in recovery and I was kind of on this self-destruct, um, journey, drinking, fighting, just, and I wasn't in any ship state, uh, any like fit state, but it was just like, that's it. I always remember, it was a Tuesday night, went out drinking with some friends, got, got into like a, not like a scuffle at a bar, it was bad. It was, and everyone was just, it was all good at the end. It was back in the day when, you know, fine

• 27:00Speaker 03

  was no big deal. And then I went back to my room and then fell asleep, woke up just after 3am and it was kind of a message in my head is go and find the brigade padre.

• 27:14Speaker 03

  You need to come and see me. You need, you need to find me. So the next day I get up, burning in my mind, I go to Five Airborne Brigade headquarters, find the padre's office as a lieutenant colonel in there, knock on his door and I said, oh, padre, this is going to sound weird, but like something kind of told me to come and see you today. And he smiled. He went, that's not weird. And it happens a lot more than you think. So then he, uh, he said, well, come to, come to St. Andrew's church, which is the Church of Scotland in Oldershaw and come, come to, come to, come to the service. And I met him, was talking, become very good friends and sadly lost contact after I left

• 27:54Speaker 03

  Oldershaw, um, in Southern England. So on the last, the last, the day I'm leaving Oldershaw, it was a Sunday and he said, oh, it's his last day. Would you mind reading, reading in church? I said, I've done it before. So, so yes, yes, uh, padre. Yeah, absolutely. So do the reading. It's on Remembrance Day, which is Memorial Day in, in America. And at the end of the service, we're having, he presented me with this, this cross. And, uh, on one side it's got Remembrance Day, 14th of November 99, 1999. And on the other side, it says, may God always guide you.

• 28:37Speaker 03

  So that's, so that sits on a shelf in my, in my room.

• 28:44Speaker 03

  The future happens, Kenya happens.

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Do with that. And then

• 28:53Speaker 03

  November

• 28:55Speaker 03

  twenty nineteen, I'm in Brooklyn in New York and I get a phone call. It's commanding officer and he says, hey, just so you know, you've been awarded the conspicuous gallantry cross for your actions in Kenya. All right, Colonel, thanks a lot. Bye. That's kind of that. I then go back to Kenya, wrap up in Kenya and then go back home. And I'm in Hereford and I'm looking and and the cross is there and I look at it and something, this is the other weird thing, something makes me look at the date. So then look at the date. So I said, turn it around. Fourteenth of November, look at my phone and I'm like, so on the twenty years to the day,

• 29:39Speaker 03

  that's when I was awarded the gallantry cross for my actions in Kenya. So so what's also strange is that what something made me look at the date, some said like, look at, look at the date, look at the date. And so that's a kind of, that's is it coincidence? I don't know. I don't think so. May

• 30:02Speaker 03

  may God always guide you.

• 30:05Shawn Ryan?

  And he did on that day too.

• 30:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:09Shawn Ryan?

  What were you doing in Kenya?

• 30:11Speaker 03

  I was a liaison officer to the Kenyan military. So part, the main, the main role of it, there's lots of little tasks, but the main role of it in essence was to train Kenyan military units out there.

• 30:24Shawn Ryan?

  Is it one man? I mean, you were the only

• 30:27Speaker 03

  So typically, there's one operator and there's, there's support elements, but there's, there's one S E S guy.

• 30:36Shawn Ryan?

  How long were you down there?

• 30:39Speaker 03

  It was supposed to be a two-year job, but I arrived in December twenty eighteen. So when the terrorist attack happened, it happened exactly a month after I'd been there.

• 30:55Speaker 03

  So I hadn't been there long.

• 30:58Speaker 03

  And then with Christmas in between, I hadn't get a real feel of things because yeah, basically from the, I got there eighteenth of December, then everyone stood down for Christmas and knew, yeah, so I hadn't really got the feel for anything and meet many people or even know my way around and know how things work.

• 31:20Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want to talk about before the incident, but the day of? We covered a little bit of this the last time I interviewed you, but I'd like to, I'd like to get a refresher because what happened right before is

• 31:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:41Shawn Ryan?

  Being guided by God.

• 31:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the, that, that morning, I got up at zero four thirty. And the reason why I got up that early is I wanted to do some, some shooting and checking on some training. Because the traffic, the traffic in Nairobi is super bad. I got up that early to drive into the countryside to a training camp. And then I just do my own, my, my own shooting, my own drills and things and then pop in to see the the guys who I was training or overseeing the training and introduce myself because I never met them. From then on, I'm driving back to my home.

• 32:20Speaker 03

  I pull out onto, it's rough going and pull out on what we call the main, but it's really a dirt track. And as I pull onto this dirt track, I see a guy on the road and what's unusual about him is he's dressed in a like a beige safari, like a business suit, highly polished shoes. When you ever see anyone on this main, they're either Maasai tribesmen or maybe workers working on the, the Chinese rail track that was being built across the country.

• 32:53Speaker 03

  So it's like, wow. But not only is it like, he looks out of place, but I break all procedures

• 33:02Speaker 03

  and reel down the window and say, hey, buddy, do you want a lift? Something compelled me to ask him if he wanted a lift, completely breaking, I don't, I don't pick up hitchhiking. He wasn't hitchhiking, but I don't pick up strangers, especially when I'm in another country on a, on a military presence. But something compelled me, gets in the car and then

• 33:22Shawn Ryan?

  With only one month on the ground, you're not even that familiar.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  It could have been really embarrassing. It could like, something could have like

• 33:28Shawn Ryan?

  Been more than embarrassing.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  But it would get, would get, but something compelled me just like, ask him if he wants to live. Gets in, starts talking and stuff and then he goes through some, he goes, what's your name? Some Chris. He said, oh, I'm, I'm Simon. And they said, how old are you?

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Forty-three at the time, I'm forty-three. He goes, I'm forty-three. When were you born? I'm like, September. I was born in September. What day were you born? It's like fifteenth. It's like, I don't know what day I was born in September, but this is a good sign. That means in September nineteen seventy-five, Simon and Chris were born and then he like chuckles, drive along a bit. He says some other things and then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a dagger. Again, my spider sense doesn't flash red. I'm cool with it and I just smile and go, you're not going to try and kill me with that, are you? This, this blade, so we'll, we'll clear some things up here. So it was a curved blade with a double point. Now,

• 34:33Speaker 03

  I, I now learned it's called a Chris, the knife. And it's, and well known now because of the film Dune. Because that's kind of what they've got, the

• 34:46Speaker 03

  the, the good guys and that.

• 34:49Speaker 03

  And, and it's double point and my belief is that the double point was maybe because it, the tip was broken and it's just been filed into adjusted to a double point, who knows? But it was like, but it's very similar to St. Michael's, when you see the imagery of St. Michael. That's what it looks like. So it's kind of the blades about so long.

• 35:09Shawn Ryan?

  This is a local guy?

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Yes. So he's, he's like, like a round black guy. And

• 35:18Speaker 03

  then he pronounces Chris, Chris, Mr. Chris. So

• 35:22Shawn Ryan?

  Is he sitting behind you?

• 35:23Speaker 03

  No, next to me.

• 35:24Shawn Ryan?

  Next to you.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  And so we're driving and, and I, and I said, oh, you're not going to try and kill me with that. And he goes, no, no, I, I carry this in case I come across any, any demons or evil spirits along this road. And then he chuckles to himself and puts it away.

• 35:39Speaker 03

  So then I turned to him and say, hey, judging by how you're dressed, I take it you're going into the city. And he's like, no, no, please drop me off at the, the first spot you come to outside of this village. Remember, this is an African village, so it's like, I'm like, this one coming up. He's like, yeah, yeah. So as I stop,

• 35:59Speaker 03

  he, he opens the door and then when his foot hits the ground, everything changes. And in, in his voice, it's like a bit like if I upset you, if I said something insulting to you, you got like your face turned serious. His first face turned serious. And he's like, Chris, and his voice,

• 36:23Speaker 03

  although quiet, filled everywhere, felt like it was coming from every direction. Said, Chris, may God bless you many times this day. And then snaps out of it. So thank you, thank you, Mr. Chris. Thank you, thank you. And then gets out of the car and then I drive off.

• 36:41Speaker 03

  As I get about a hundred, a hundred yards or so down the road, I look in the mirror, can't see him. I don't know if he's run left or right or whatever, but, but at the time I was like, oh, that's a bit

• 36:52Speaker 03

  like, if, if I could feel it

• 36:56Speaker 03

  thirty hours later, after the most remarkable day of my life, before I'd even, as I was walking out of the compound or the complex, I could hear that, may God bless you many times this day ringing in my ears.

• 37:10Shawn Ryan?

  Did you think anything of it?

• 37:12Speaker 03

  Not then. I just thought, oh, oh, okay.

• 37:15Shawn Ryan?

  But when you talk about his voice filling the entire car.

• 37:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was just like, you know, did I, you know, when you think, do I, did I imagine that? Did I just, that just happened? And it was just like every, and then, but, but it's straight after that, I not I'm walking out of the complex and that's what I'm thinking of, can hear it, like, man. As if to say, remember this, look at the date, that, that same thing. You're never going to be here, you're never going to visit this place again. Look at the date, may God bless you. There's like these

• 37:50Speaker 03

  pokes and prods and, you know, one wonders throughout your life of how many times you meet, you get a message, some way, shape or form. And you, you, you just don't, you might pick up on one or two. Maybe they're happening to us every day, every other day, all the time, but we just, we just don't see it.

• 38:08Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think they are?

• 38:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think, I think we are. Maybe, maybe, maybe one time you'll get, you'll get shown all of these things of, you know, I tried to tell you,

• 38:19Speaker 03

  whatever the message is, you, you should have known. And some of it is your gut, you know, when you think, you know, your gut feeling and a lot of people dismiss it. Sometimes they don't, but most of the time you do. And it's like, how many times is even a stranger, someone, someone close to you even says something to you and you just didn't, you just didn't get it. You didn't pick it up. But all the way through your life, you're being guided or you're getting messages or you're getting even just, even just like kind of like a notional slap on the back. You're doing the right thing.

• 38:50Shawn Ryan?

  And this was like a complete attitude change in this guy, like, like out of, like from what you know of him, out of character, out of tone.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:57Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, just like, like something came over him.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:02Shawn Ryan?

  Hey, Chris, may God bless you many times this day.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:05Shawn Ryan?

  And then back to like

• 39:06Speaker 03

  It wasn't like how you said it. It was like, I, I can't imitate it. But it's like me talking to you, having a good time. And we were just talking like this, this is our volume level, all's good. And I was like, Sean. And you're like, Sean, may God bless you many times this day. Anyway, mate, I've got to go. Catch you later on, all right? So like, that's kind of the level, it'd be like, as if he was like

• 39:30Speaker 03

  Like pay attention to this, this will and and and and true in classic style, it's like, yeah, yeah, I heard it. Okay, that was a bit weird. Didn't dwell on it.

• 39:39Shawn Ryan?

  A breaking pattern.

• 39:40Speaker 03

  But then later on, it's it's so profound that later on, it's your mind is saying you have to remember this.

• 39:47Shawn Ryan?

  Jeez. I mean, looking back, do you would you would you obviously think about it a lot?

• 39:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, I I I this is my thing. Um.

• 39:57Speaker 03

  I think he was. I think he's a real human being. And but I think he was given, he was given a message from God. And and it's not something I'm willing to share on the interview. But I I I know about I kind of experienced this before. Sorry, I was experiencing after where

• 40:21Speaker 03

  he's probably thinking, why, where did that come from? He might go on, I remember saying it, I said it, but where did that come from? Okay, and it's like, so I I I think I think he was delivering a message from an angel. Someone, God, again, it's all open to everyone. Someone can look at this and go, oh, that's a bit, that's a bit like pretentious thinking it was from God and whatever, but it's like a message from God. Or or like.

• 40:51Shawn Ryan?

  Do you do you feel like you are

• 40:56Shawn Ryan?

  more open to receiving those kind of things now than you were?

• 41:00Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 41:01Shawn Ryan?

  Do you see him more often?

• 41:02Speaker 03

  It's a bit like conspiracy theories. Once you once you see, you can't unsee and you start seeing more and more patterns or conspiracy theories or conspiracies really nowadays. Where you, once you open your eyes and you see it, you see more and more of it and it starts, man, it's everywhere. It's very, I think it's a similar with all all sorts of things.

• 41:29Shawn Ryan?

  What happened after you dropped him off? Where did you go?

• 41:31Speaker 03

  I I went and got my haircut and then so I went to a barber shop, got my got my haircut and then I went for lunch. I had Moroccan beef and then um and a Dawa, which is the Kenyan cocktail. Uh, really, I I I'm still, I still find it hard to believe that they don't, you can't get Dawa's. I've never seen one in London or in anywhere in America and it's, I think, again, people would clean up in in the drinking world with these Dawa's. It's such delicious cocktail and easy to make, but someone's probably listening. I don't know. Any any people who own bars and things, there you go, you're welcome. Um, and had a Dawa, um.

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Um, which is vodka, vodka, lime juice and honey. Um, and you have a Dawa stick and you mix it up. It's very refreshing and hot weather. But anyway, so I had a drink and then I went home, drove drove home.

• 42:32Speaker 03

  Um, and that was it for the day. I was just gonna try and because I was still finding my feet still moving in, maybe um do some slight bits of work on the computer and then and then buy some supplies and things for the house. Just a normal Tuesday afternoon.

• 42:47Shawn Ryan?

  You're living by yourself?

• 42:48Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 42:56Speaker 03

  And all right, at that moment from when the from, you could say from when he says, may God bless you many times this day, the clock was ticking. Five Al Shabab terrorists were now set or getting set to launch their attack on the Dusset D two hotel complex in Nairobi.

• 43:16Speaker 03

  And the clock was ticking.

• 43:18Shawn Ryan?

  What time did that happen?

• 43:20Speaker 03

  Um, but the attack, um. Uh, the suicide detonation was at uh three seventeen P M.

• 43:30Shawn Ryan?

  Three seventeen P M.

• 43:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 43:32Shawn Ryan?

  How much time had passed?

• 43:33Speaker 03

  And I I again, I shouldn't do this, but you know, I overthink things what people think. Anyone who's watching going, oh, well, I've saw the videos and the times are different on the video footage. Um, for your information, all of the security cameras in the Dusset area, all the times are out of sync. So don't, so I'm telling you what time happened, seventeen minutes past three.

• 43:58Speaker 03

  Uh, do you want to know another strange um coincidence?

• 44:03Shawn Ryan?

  What room was Miley in?

• 44:05Speaker 03

  Uh, she was in three sixteen.

• 44:14Speaker 03

  But that's not the coincidence.

• 44:16Shawn Ryan?

  What is it?

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Um, so ten years before, remember the the landing on the Hudson?

• 44:25Speaker 03

  Um, so the when the uh aircraft taking out of New York had the bird strike and then the um Sully, the pilot, did some amazing flying and landed on the Hudson. Um.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  So that's the story. This is going all over the place, but after Kenya Kenya happens, I'm back home just just recent. So it's happened, um, this is the weekend after because I'm getting my hearing things checked. So we're going to be in the like the Monday or Tuesday now. I decided to watch the um the movie directed by Clint Eastwood uh with Tom Hanks. It's about it's about that incident and I'm watching it. And there's a bit in the movie where he's done the landing and he's, everyone's talking to him saying, you've done a great job. And part of me was like, man, this is so like, it's so familiar to me. It's like, was like me back on camp, the the the

• 45:23Speaker 03

  what people are saying to him, you are the man for the job, blah, blah, blah, you did a great job. And I was like, so I I took an interest in the incident.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  I and I look at it and I'm like, damn, it happened on the fifteenth of January. Um, two thousand and nine, ten years to the day. So I'll buy the book about the incident, get it the next the next day from Amazon and read it. It's a really good uh book uh by by the pilot. And at the end of the book, there's the the annex and it's the flight recording log.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  And I'm looking through it and that's when I'm like, and I think it's mentioned, I can't exactly remember, it might be mentioned in the book, but on the slot, I confirmed it with the slot flight log. Bird strike, three seventeen P M. So exactly this, I know we're on those sides of the world, but at three seventeen P M on the fifteenth of January, the aircraft that landed on the Hudson had the bird strike. And three seventeen on the fifteenth of January, ten years later, was the suicide detonation in um in Kenya.

• 46:32Shawn Ryan?

  Jeez.

• 46:32Speaker 03

  And and it's what's strange about um uh that the pilot, Sully, his story is that everything in his life was taking him to that moment. The the the the experience he gained in the air force and other things, whereas any other pilot would have maybe catastrophically tried to land at a different airport or done something else. But through everything in his life had taken him to that moment and he was like, no, got to land on the got to land on the river.

• 47:06Speaker 03

  And it's a sort of strange sort of coincidence or you could say.

• 47:11Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think everything in your life prepared you for that moment?

• 47:13Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. Yeah. And and and I'm very like grateful for this is that because most people live their whole life not to get this opportunity to look back and go, this is why everything happened, everything that I should be angry about, I'm kind of thankful for in some things even and it and it and it's like, because that shaped me. I was training for this day in Kenya. From the moment I was born, my training started, day one, that's when it all started and everything shaped me and pushed me, bad things, good things, whatever, everything to that point. And and even just from a very shallow point of view and things when career things didn't go you well, you go, oh, I should have got that job or I should have done that.

• 47:58Speaker 03

  That's when you're like, well, if I hadn't, I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have been in Kenya, let alone all the personal things where it's like abuse or shitty relationships or anything. It's like that's shaping me into the person I need to be at that moment. And it's the same for everyone and the same for people think, oh, well, why is this happening to me or what's that? I know it sounds patronizing sometimes. When you think, oh, and it's saying it's it's it's part of the it's it's the system. And even to the point when go, if someone's there going, I haven't done anything in my life or whatever. You don't know and hopefully hopefully one day you you get to see that. Because even remember that, like

• 48:44Speaker 03

  someone does an amazing thing, but it wasn't just you. It's like everything that everything that your your parents did, their parents, their grandparents, all of that leads up to that point. And then and and it moves on and everything you do for the future generations from what you have, whether it be whether it be children that you have or some something you just say to one person that that changes the whole, the whole world.

• 49:12Speaker 03

  It's something to think about of when people are looking at the thinking about their value. And like, oh, I'm a nobody. I hate once, I really hate it when someone says, I'm a nobody.

• 49:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, me too.

• 49:23Speaker 03

  It's like, no, nobody's a nobody.

• 49:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. You know, I know, uh, I want to talk about this at the end, but I I don't want to lose the thought. You know, we're talking at the beginning and last, you know, it it sounds like you found found your purpose, but the last time you were really struggling with it. And and so, I mean, what you did on that day, you know, in Nairobi and you just said it yourself, you think everything in life led up to that point and and shaped you and who you into who you needed to be that day.

• 49:59Shawn Ryan?

  After that happened, did you feel a

• 50:08Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it's such a significant thing would happen that day and, and, and what you did and how many people are alive because of you. And so when you think that, you know, everything that you've been through in life, military service, childhood abuse, all of it, you know what I mean, was to essentially rescue over 700 people in, in a 22 hour period. What left is there in life? Did you have that thought? Did you have like, like I've, I've, I've completed my life's purpose? What else is there?

• 50:48Speaker 03

  Well, that's on the, so on the last interview, I said, that was one of the things I was struggling with. It was maybe, maybe I'm a tool that was made for that job. Now you use a specialized tool. It's useless and should be discarded. That was like my mindset that day when I was talking to you. If I, maybe that's it. I'm now I'm useless. They made me into this tool that is useless for everything else other than that one thing. And now what I've come to realize was that, that day in Kenya, it isn't, is another mech, it's, it's, that's just part of the plan. That, because without that day in Kenya, now I can't go on to,

• 51:33Speaker 03

  to do all of the, all the other things I'm doing now. So that was the thing I, I needed to do to, to help with whatever it is I do in the future, whether it be, like, leading people to God, supporting President Trump, whatever, whatever the, the things could be in the future. That's, without, without Kenya, there's no, that's the, it was a gateway moment of moving on to the next things.

• 51:58Shawn Ryan?

  That's kind of what I think. I mean, it, it, I hate to say it this way, I don't, but I do. But, you know, it, it, it shaped you into a, a role model. You know, you, you, you did something that nobody experiences ever, generations, you know, I mean, there's, there's nobody that experiences that. And, and, and then, you know, I still, I still remember the day that, um, I always wondered who it was, you know what I mean? And I remember,

• 52:40Shawn Ryan?

  I don't remember exactly what it said, but I remember the post that, uh, that came, I believe it was an Instagram account. And, and you had kind of said like, I, I never wanted my identity to get out, but here I am.

• 52:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:53Shawn Ryan?

  You know, something along those lines. And, and with that comes a tremendous amount of influence. And you had just mentioned, you know, after our last interview, the thousands of messages that you received, that you couldn't even keep up. And, and, you know, you didn't need to keep up. I mean, it all pointed to one thing. And it sounds like the majority of them listened and, and they wouldn't have if it was, if it wasn't for you, you know? And so you led thousands and you'll never even be able to count them all, you know, people to, uh, to Christ, to a better way of living, to really the only thing that's

• 53:37Shawn Ryan?

  important. And you continue to do that. And we just talked about also at the beginning that people are scared to, they hide it, you know? And so you're becoming a role model for them to not hide it. And then, uh, you just have to face the repercussion, the repercussions, if there are any. And a lot of times, you know, they don't see them. Well, they don't happen.

• 54:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:05Shawn Ryan?

  What they, it's not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. And so I just wanted to, um, say that. But let's, um, let's take a break. And when we come back, we'll, we'll get into 317.

• 54:21Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 54:25Shawn Ryan?

  When we've hired for this show, we've had people apply by sending us short form content that they made of our own show episodes, clips they cut themselves, showing us exactly what they do with that job. And I'll tell you, that gets my attention. When you're hiring, it's always helpful to know who really wants the job. But you don't need unusual stunts. You just need ZipRecruiter. On ZipRecruiter, qualified candidates can add a personal note to tell you why they're interested in your job. So you see the most motivated people right away. And right now, you can try it for free. It's ziprecruiter.com/srs. And ZipRecruiter

• 55:10Shawn Ryan?

  has a new feature that shows you the most interested, qualified candidates first. So you meet the right people faster. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. ZipRecruiter makes it easy for amazing candidates to get your attention. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free. It's ziprecruiter.com/srs. That's ziprecruiter.com/srs. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

• 55:49Shawn Ryan?

  Pick up your phone. Look at it. Count the number of companies you've never heard of that know where you slept last night. Nobody can. And that's the point. Apps you're not even using are calling out to servers all day and all night, reporting where you go, what you look at, and what you buy. Glacier Security DNS cuts those calls off before they connect. Not after, before. It's the same grade of protection people with clearances carry, built by the guys who used to build it for them. And you don't manage it. Open the app once, hit the button, close it. Glacier. Download it today on the App Store. And remember,

• 56:33Shawn Ryan?

  privacy isn't paranoia, it's protection.

• 56:43Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that was an interesting break. Talk about synchronicities, huh?

• 56:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:48Shawn Ryan?

  So we're over here talking about spiritual battles, things are gonna get in the way from keeping you to do shit.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:55Shawn Ryan?

  We walk out of here, you check your email, and the UK files an injunction and wants to serve you here in the US.

• 57:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:07Shawn Ryan?

  On the break.

• 57:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:10Shawn Ryan?

  But, look, man, I, um, you know, I kind of said it out there, but, um, you're good.

• 57:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:19Shawn Ryan?

  Because I've been through a lot of shit on this podcast. And the attorney, Tim Parlatory, one of my best friends and my attorney, there is nobody better for this shit. And that dude will fuck these people up. He's had my back more times than I can count on this show. Kansoff tried to mess with us, told us all this shit was classified, shit that was, that they put in Ballistic Magazine with Dallas Alexander. He's like, he, he was on the sniper team that got the world's longest sniper shot, the world record. It's like 2.1 miles.

• 58:01Shawn Ryan?

  He fucked them up, like fucked them up, went all over the press, and then they ran away like cowards.

• 58:12Shawn Ryan?

  A congressman out of Texas tried to sue me, Dan Crenshaw, destroyed their people. Cana Cook tried to sue me, came, came after me, they sent me a cease and desist, or gave me a threat, or I'd got to do a public apology. He fucking destroyed them. So, you know, the fact that, that, and you know what's ironic is, you get the email right before we're supposed to, right before we walk in the door here to cover the actual incident, the thing, the main thing that we're here for, to get your story out and talk about what's happening to you. And you happen to get the email, not before we start the show, before we start that specific segment.

• 58:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:56Shawn Ryan?

  And we're in here talking about synchronicities.

• 58:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:59Shawn Ryan?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 59:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, it stings. I knew, I knew this would come, but it, it still stings. I mean, the, as people have been involved with legal before, the, how they word the letters is very like a bullying tactic and such. So it still hurts. It makes it real. But, but I knew this, and this is too big to, this is, this, this whole story and what they're trying to stop and everything is, I should add, it doesn't break the Official Secrets Act. It's just, they just don't want me to tell the story. We'll get into why later on. Um, but it's, it's a story that most of the world saw. It was on all the newspapers. It, like I said, this does not break the Official Secrets Act. And they just, they're

• 59:44Speaker 03

  just desperate for me not to tell the story. Why? Why? It's becoming bigger than the, it's becoming bigger than the incident itself is the reasons why. Why would you want to try and stop this?

• 59:55Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I just want to let you know that, like I said, you are in, this is what you're supposed to be doing. And to me, what just happened out there proved it, the timing of it proves it. And like, I know what it's like, man. Every time I see a FedEx truck around here, I'm like, oh shit, here comes another one. But, uh, but like I said, um, there is nobody better for you than Tim Parlatory. That man is a force to be reckoned with. So I, I just, I hope that puts you at ease a little bit. And, um, like, that dude is not

• 1:00:38Shawn Ryan?

  gonna let anybody fuck with you. I guarantee it. So anyways, I'm sorry that happened, man. But it is, we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. And that, that email proves it, that it came in right then.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:57Shawn Ryan?

  And that you checked it right then, right before we walk in the door, after the break. So, man, wild, wild. I can't believe that. I can't believe I'm saying I can't believe, but you know what I mean? It's just, it's just.

• 1:01:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Shawn Ryan?

  Synchronicities. But, well, Christian, we're getting ready to get into the incident.

• 1:01:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Shawn Ryan?

  And I know this is gonna be heavy. And, um, but I got you another present.

• 1:01:31Shawn Ryan?

  Before it gets heavy.

• 1:01:32Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:33Shawn Ryan?

  Alright.

• 1:01:43Speaker 03

  Man.

• 1:01:46Shawn Ryan?

  Have you seen one of these?

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  Yes, I have, yeah.

• 1:01:48Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you know, I-

• 1:01:49Speaker 03

  I haven't had hands on with one, but I, uh-

• 1:01:52Shawn Ryan?

  Well, it's the, uh, SIG MCX Spear 6.8

• 1:01:57Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:01:57Shawn Ryan?

  Version, and, uh,

• 1:02:00Shawn Ryan?

  it's gonna come with the optic, and, uh, you know, you were talking about all the tinnitus and the hearing loss-

• 1:02:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:06Shawn Ryan?

  From the grenades, and, uh, so, Silencer Shop sent a suppressor to put on there too.

• 1:02:14Speaker 03

  Alright.

• 1:02:14Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, you know,

• 1:02:18Shawn Ryan?

  just like you're saying, you own a shell, I've been carrying SIG for eight years.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:02:22Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, and I carried it, one of the SEAL teams too, and, um, they wound up luckily becoming a partner of mine, and, uh, we've done some amazing stuff together. We, uh, we actually did a, uh, uh, episode on Roblox, which is a bunch of horrific stuff that's happening to kids on there, and, uh, one of the things they did was, um, they recreated all the active shooter events that have happened here in the US, probably more. Maybe Nairobi's even on there, but, uh, but, um, what they did is they, they even, you, so you reenacted, and they even put the kids' names up top

• 1:03:04Shawn Ryan?

  as you murder them on the game, and they were using SIG weapons in the game, SIG, SIG, SIG rifles, SIG pistols, and, um, so I told my friend Jason over at SIG about it.

• 1:03:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:18Shawn Ryan?

  They got their legal involved and told Roblox, "Get their shit off that platform immediately." Um, they've also donated all the, there's a county right next to where we live, and they donated brand-new rifles to the entire SWAT team, and suppressors, and optics, and flashlights, so it's a good company, you know what I mean? It's a good company, they make great stuff. I've got buddies over at Silencer Shop too. They, um, they just won,

• 1:03:46Shawn Ryan?

  um, um, I don't know the court case or anything, but they won it up against the federal government, and, uh, and they won, so now you don't, you don't have to do the typical paperwork for suppressors, and, uh, and they, I, I thought there's not a chance in hell they're gonna win that.

• 1:04:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:05Shawn Ryan?

  And they won it, and, uh, we called them up and I was like, "Isn't this kind of, uh, counterproductive with, with what you guys do as a company? Like, aren't you kind of...

• 1:04:17Shawn Ryan?

  You're, you're kind of screwing yourselves here," and they're like, "Hey," but like, "Yeah, we are, you're right." But, um, that's how much we believe in, in this fight, and if it destroys our company, then it destroys our company, and, um, so they're, they're, they're going to fight the federal government, knowing it might significantly, significantly damage their business. So anyways, this is the, uh,

• 1:04:41Speaker 03

  SIG MCX.

• 1:04:45Shawn Ryan?

  6.8 Spear

• 1:04:49Shawn Ryan?

  with a SIG suppressor from Silencer Shop.

• 1:04:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's got like all the, it's, I mean, great gun, and everything, you know, it's good with it, I like the, like, uh, True North concepts, they're a good, and unity on the, on the light, and then, yeah. Well, thanks, man.

• 1:05:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:13Speaker 03

  I'll wait to run this out, we'll run this out in a little bit, I suppose.

• 1:05:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, maybe next break, we'll, uh, run out and-

• 1:05:19Speaker 03

  Shoot some stuff.

• 1:05:21Shawn Ryan?

  I'll test the stier, you can test that, and-

• 1:05:24Speaker 03

  Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom.

• 1:05:29Speaker 03

  No king but Jesus.

• 1:05:31Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, that's right, man.

• 1:05:32Speaker 03

  Um, well, thank you.

• 1:05:35Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome.

• 1:05:42Shawn Ryan?

  And you got something that you wore that day on, right?

• 1:05:45Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:05:47Speaker 03

  Um...

• 1:05:48Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you brought a couple things.

• 1:05:50Speaker 03

  Well, this, the... Oh, yeah, I, I misunderstood your question. So, yeah, we'll get what you, we'll do first, do, we'll do this first, since I've got it out.

• 1:05:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  I was, I got, I went, I, uh, I went rogue, so this is, uh, this was in, on the rear pouch of my, uh, belt system, which had the Blackbeard flag on, there was my med kit and also this bible.

• 1:06:12Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:06:12Speaker 03

  And, as I said earlier, when the, I went to the padre, um, after one of our first meetings, he gave me this camouflage, uh, New Testament, and he said, "Oh, this is, it's an American issue one at the time."

• 1:06:27Shawn Ryan?

  Who gave that to you?

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  The padre who I, who I, when I first knocked on his door in 1999, and he gave me this, and then from that moment on, I carried this in my, in my equipment, in my belt kit, for the, for the rest of my career, and it, so it's done over a thousand high-risk missions-

• 1:06:44Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 1:06:45Speaker 03

  Across the world, and it's, it's got, yeah, so it's, it's been through, and, um, that was the-

• 1:06:51Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 1:06:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:53Shawn Ryan?

  I still got the one you gave me the first time you were on the show, right here.

• 1:06:56Speaker 03

  Armor upgrade. And then, um, yeah, and then the other thing is, this watch, Skarmann watch, so, this is the watch and strap that I wore on that day, and I thought, it's kind of, we'll, we'll wear it for this. Um, I haven't really worn it, so I turned it on the other day to charge up, it's the first time since nineteen, sorry, since 2019, I think I wore it, and then because,

• 1:07:27Speaker 03

  um, something to consider in how things evolve and develop, um, I was wearing this, I mean, they're great watches and handy, and I was wearing it, but when I went into the incident, as things moved on and into the nighttime, I was looking at my watch, and everyone knows how it ends now, but at the time, I didn't know if this was gonna go on for days and days and days. Um, the, the battery lives on these are phenomenal, but I didn't go in with it fully charged, so part of my sort of thinking was, "Man, I hope this watch

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  doesn't run out of power in, in two or three days' time, because, or however long it's gonna go on for, so you never know how long it's gonna be." Um, so from, from that moment on, even when I was still involved with the incident, when I came out, it was like, "Yeah," I was back onto my old setting, everything comes around in a circle, where I'm wearing an automatic watch for everything I do after this point. Um, because, I mean, people don't understand how valuable a watch-

• 1:08:33Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:08:34Speaker 03

  -and time is, so I, I'm a big, big fan of automatic watches from, for combat, for everything, because when you run out that door, who knows when you're gonna be, the next time you're gonna be, how long you're gonna be away for? Uh, especially if it's an end-of-world scenario, you know what I mean, so-

• 1:08:52Shawn Ryan?

  Why did you pick that watch?

• 1:08:54Speaker 03

  Uh, uh, this was the watch I was wearing all the time, anyway, it's handy, it's got the compass, it's got everything, lots of, uh, military guys use these, uh, and, and, but it's strange how, you know, how thinking changes, tactics change, mentality changes, and it's like, "Man, I need to go back to how it was in the 90s, where, hey, use an automatic watch."

• 1:09:14Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have, does that have a GPS?

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:09:18Shawn Ryan?

  Is the coordinates and all that stuff still loaded on there?

• 1:09:20Speaker 03

  Uh, I didn't, I didn't-

• 1:09:22Shawn Ryan?

  You didn't use it?

• 1:09:22Speaker 03

  I didn't use it to its full potential either, it would have been good to monitor your heart rate and things like that all the way through, but it, but if you start, the more you use it, it's kind of obvious, but the more you use it, the more that it degrades the battery life, so... But, yeah, I mean, I mean, battery lives on the, on these watches are really good, but like I say, you don't know how long it's gonna be, is it gonna be two hours, two days? In some, you know, how the world works now, two months before you get to charge it, or get to the resupply or whatever, again. Um, but it, but it was a legitimate, um, thought of mine, is, "I don't know if this watch is gonna last

• 1:10:03Speaker 03

  the duration," remember, I didn't know when it was gonna end, so in my mind, this could go on for days and days.

• 1:10:10Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that's cool that you have those two things, especially the Bible, man, that's.

• 1:10:16Speaker 03

  Um. I had a rosary in my pocket as well. I wear my rosary these days, but in um but I had a rosary all the way through that as well, but I don't have that rosary anymore, so.

• 1:10:29Speaker 03

  But every we need all the help you can get these days, so.

• 1:10:32Shawn Ryan?

  That's right. That's right. We just found that out. But.

• 1:10:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:38Shawn Ryan?

  You know, even even the fact that, you know, it's a Friday mid afternoon, after lunchtime, going into a long weekend and just the fact that he answered the first phone call, you know what I mean, the first time we called, I mean, it's just, you're good, man. You're good.

• 1:10:58Shawn Ryan?

  So let's go into it. Three seventeen P M.

• 1:11:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, so.

• 1:11:05Speaker 03

  Let's uh let's just go, so three seventeen P M. There's a suicide detonation. So prior to that, minutes prior,

• 1:11:16Speaker 03

  the the terrorists, the Islamic terrorists, set themselves up. So on the on the road leading in, the spur road leading to the hotel, stationary at the start of the road, there were four terrorists armed with automatic um A K forty seven style rifles, hand grenades, and hand grenades. They were in position. Inside the the complex was a another terrorist in a smart business suit with a suicide vest underneath these, underneath uh uh under the suit. He then moved to position, which was outside the Secret Garden Cafe,

• 1:11:54Speaker 03

  which was a popular meeting place for for diplomats, businessmen, um uh high powered people, if you like, or people of influence, they'd they'd meet in this open air cafe and he positioned himself just outside it. Uh um s- seconds before it all started, he was on the phone and he was said, he said, are you ready? Are you set? And then um and then at three seventeen, he deton- the suicide deton- detonation happened, which was the which was the go signal to initiate the attack. So the suicide detonation happens, kills everyone who's in the cafe instantly.

• 1:12:35Speaker 03

  And the um and the car, the Toyota, starts motoring it towards the gatehouse with the terrorists firing their automatic weapons out of the out of through the windows at anyone fleeing. The detonation at the ho- at the Secret Garden Cafe, that killed an American, um a British guy, an Australian and two Kenyans. And sadly, the the American who lost his life that day was at the um Twin Towers on nine eleven, helped kill survivors from the from the rubble on that day, only to be killed by Islamic terrorists years later. Um and all the people in that cafe were there to make a difference, to support Somalia, to support

• 1:13:21Speaker 03

  um people in need. They were there, all there on a humanitarian sort of nature, and they were all cowardly ki- killed coward in this cowardly act of terrorism. Uh so the four guys in the in the Toyota um coming down the road, shooting at people, um it lost control of the they lost control of the car somehow and went to into a ditch. They then got out of the um car and then moved at sta- speed into the complex, again firing anyone fleeing and then throwing hand grenades once they got into the complex. They walked straight past the security office by the main entrance,

• 1:14:01Speaker 03

  walked straight past that and then split into two two man teams, splitting off at an angle. And their M O, as is the way of um Al Shabab, was just to kill and maim or kill or sorry, let's not say kill, murder as many people as possible whenever they came across. And the the one of the teams, as they went went past the first entrance, there was a guy crouched down in there and they just went up and executed him immediately. Um and so they split up into the into the um complex. At about that time, I just I just got out of the shower and I lived uh round about three miles ish from the um from this hotel.

• 1:14:46Speaker 03

  And my just put my jeans on and got a phone call from a friend. So again, think about like something, I wasn't going to answer the call. I was like, I'll I'll I'll get dressed and then I'll call him back, but something really pulled at me and said, answer the phone. So I answered the phone and he was like, Chris. Oh, sorry. The first thing he said was Jen. So Jen in in Royal Marines and Royal uh Navy speak is like, if you say Jen, it means it's it's not a lie. So you could say, oh, there's, if you say Jen, an alien spaceship landed outside. That means, hey, I'm telling the truth. It also means pay attention, because the way he said it was like, Jen. And then he went,

• 1:15:29Speaker 03

  Chris, there's a complex attack happening. You need to get, I I haven't got, I'm laying low. I haven't got a weapon. I'm laying low. You need to get down here with your boys right now.

• 1:15:39Speaker 03

  And I was like, okay, I'm on my way. And um he he was an ex uh an ex ex Marine who who'd who'd got the the nation's highest award for gallantry a few years earlier in Kenya. Um he was retired. Um but yeah, he called me. So him, and so he said the word complex attack, which means a multi dimensional attack using mono one on one or more weapon system, typically explosive device and then gunfire. So I was like,

• 1:16:13Speaker 03

  okay. And I just said, yeah, I'm on my way. And I said it like that, but my heart kind of feels like it feels like now after getting a legal notice. It's like, it's pumping pumping away. And uh and I'm like, okay, let's go. So I change, I was gonna put a T shirt on, but now I'll put a a gray um like outdoor shirt, put my approach shoes on and grab my gear. My gear was ready. And when I mean ready, it was ready. So some people might say, oh, yeah, my my gear is good to go. Is it really? Can you just grab your bag and throw it into your truck and go? Or do you go, oh, I just need to grab this or this?

• 1:16:54Speaker 03

  I had no int- there was no intelligence to suggest that this was gonna happen. But something, again, when I turned up in country, kind of made me think it could happen. I don't know why. I just said, I want to be ready if it does. So I, because I I know that every second counts when dealing with terrorists. So everything was good to go. So I was just, yep, grab my bag,

• 1:17:18Speaker 03

  throw it into my pickup truck, grab my weapons case, put it on the backseat and like put fourteen rivers I drive into my Google Maps. That's telling me thirty odd minutes, which is which is a joke, which is never going to be the case in in Kenya. And then I go into the into the bathroom,

• 1:17:40Speaker 03

  looking in a mirror and it's kind of throw cold water on my face. It was like, right, let's fucking do this. I go out, I go outside as well. There was a crucifix by my doorway and and now down, said, Hail Mary,

• 1:17:56Speaker 03

  and got in the truck. And um and then as I was leaving, there was on the like, we had a group, there was a group chat for the people who lived in the area and it said, oh, there's a bank robbery happening in uh in the area, but I knew that not to be true. I didn't reply. And as I was going out of the complex where I lived, um like I said, on Google Maps, it said something like thirty eight minutes or so. And um I've done I've done that same route afterwards, just out of interest, on a Tuesday afternoon at exactly the same time, just to see how long it took would take me. And it took me uh well over an hour to do it on a normal Tuesday. But now what you're gonna remember

• 1:18:38Speaker 03

  is there's been a major, there's a major terrorist attack happening and Nairobi is coming to a standstill. So as I pull out of the complex, I say it's like the the the traffic is just stationary and I'm like.

• 1:18:51Speaker 03

  And I'm just thinking, you've just got to go, got to go for it. This is, this is you, your it. It's, it's me. Um, so I'm like, right, so I pull onto the oncoming traffic. And just start caning it down and flashing my horn, sorry, flashing my lights, using my horn, going into the spaces where so I'm in and out. Onto the sidewalk, doing the work where I could, just trying to get there as quickly as possible. So I'm like, like, and, and strangely, there was not, like I said, I didn't have blue lights or anything, but.

• 1:19:30Speaker 03

  Maybe people picked up when I needed to be there and where normally people wouldn't give me the space or let me in. A lot of people were being, let me go. Um, but also what I'm doing is, so I'm driving there.

• 1:19:43Shawn Ryan?

  Cause you're counter flowing traffic.

• 1:19:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, on like, sometimes with the floor on the, on the right side, but then there was more. Uh, the traffic, cause the traffic was heading to the incident, so that that's why it was more solid leaving. If you imagine being stopped over, leaving was pretty, pretty much free. Um, so I was going sometimes on to a coming traffic. It was like.

• 1:20:06Speaker 03

  Yeah. Have you ever seen the French Connection?

• 1:20:08Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 1:20:08Speaker 03

  There's a fit, well, it's a movie with Gene Hackman and there's a famous driving scene like that, but this is, this is the French Connection driving scene times 10. It was like that, but also I'm driving, remember I haven't been here long. This is a brand new truck, so I don't know my way around it. Which will come apparent in a little bit. Um, but I'm, what am I there for? I am a liaison officer.

• 1:20:33Speaker 03

  So part of me is like, I'm getting to the incident, but part of me is thinking as well, I'm not going to get stuck in. I don't think whatever happens is going to happen. I'm thinking, well, I'll get there. And do my job as a liaison officer first and foremost. Um, so I think, right, well, I need to, I need to let people know what's going on. So I call. The UK to the ops room and it rings and this never happens in the movies, but remember this is. Round about three thirty on a Tuesday afternoon in, in Kenya, that means it's twelve thirty. In UK. So most of the people in the ops room were at lunch.

• 1:21:13Speaker 03

  So I'm phoning and then this guy answers like, hello, he, he was a new guy, um, probably a comms guy or something like that. Where it, it was so new, he didn't know that the, the, uh, receiver had a push to talk button. So when he's saying stuff, I can't hear him, cause he's not pushing the push to talk. So I, I can't hear anything. I'm like, hey, it's Chris. There's a terrorist attack happening in Kenya, in Nairobi. I'm on route. Hello? I can't hear anything. So I'm trying to turn the volume and everything. So I went, yep, sending blind. That means if you say sending blind, it means I'm saying it. I don't know if anyone can hear me, but if they are, here goes. Saying terrorist attack happening at fourteen Riverside Drive. I'm on route. Hang up. That's that.

• 1:21:59Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:22:02Speaker 03

  So then I think, right, well, I'll speak to the Kenyans, the Kenyan military. So I start at the top with the commanding officer. And then work my way down. Cause I phoned up and most of the phones are either turned off or just ring out. Majority of them are turned off. So I'm not getting, going down all the list. Of people who I've got on my phone book, nothing. This does not faze me because in my mind, I'm thinking. Well, there's a major terrorist attack happening in, in Nairobi. So all of these people are probably involved or dealing with the situation. So I just need to get there. So right now I haven't spoke to anyone.

• 1:22:39Speaker 03

  And as I didn't know the car somehow, in all of this messing around, trying to turn the volume up, trying to do stuff, all of a sudden, I'm trying to stay alive driving. All of a sudden, um, my playlist, cause I've got a classical music playlist on my phone, starts playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. And it's like, like not just loud and I don't want to turn it down. Cause I'm, I'm trying to, at this point, I'm trying not to die. So I'm just like driving in and out. And we've got all these cascading violins and like, and it, it's kind of, although I had the classical music playlist to try and calm myself when driving and. Dealing with other drivers, especially in Africa.

• 1:23:18Speaker 03

  But this is just like, and I'm actually sort of laughing because it's the, I'm thinking in my mind, this is like, I'm watching my own movie. This is a movie scene doing this driving with the, or like I say, this classic Vivaldi summer playing. And I'm driving, I'm kind of laughing at the, how absurd it is, but and there's a moment where there's two, like we'll call them the tattoos are like small buses. And there's just, just passed the round, uh, roundabout turning circle and they're coming together and I'm like driving. I'm like, okay, I'm going to floor it. And I'm like, oh, and I'm committed now. I'm like, ah, and it's so tight that even when I go between the two buses as they're closing, I like.

• 1:23:58Speaker 03

  Kind of like breathing to try and make not just me smaller, but the whole vehicle smaller. And it must, it just misses through, but I was committed. And I'm hitting bursts of about eighty, eighty miles an hour in this thing. And, and when you do advanced driving. Uh, advanced driving isn't just about driving fast. It's about knowing when to make the moves and when not to. Because what they teach you on day one is when you're responding to an incident, yeah, you've got to get there fast. But getting there slower is better than not getting there at all. And if you kill someone on the way there or die or crash your car, therefore can't achieve your mission.

• 1:24:38Speaker 03

  Then there's no point. So I was very thankful for the, the people who taught me that in the past. Then, anyway, so then get to a certain. Point on the road and that it's complete gridlocked. Luckily I had a four by four in a truck. And the opposite side, the, the, the dual carriage we're on the other side is free. So I just go over the, over the median. And scream straight up to the top and it, and at that point there's a, there's a cop directing traffic and he runs out. Like stop. Again, I don't know why I said it, but I did. I put the window down and I said, with a lot of conviction, I'm here on orders of the president.

• 1:25:16Speaker 03

  And he's like, oh, okay, go through. Like, thanks. And then just pull through here. And as I pull through here, it's alerting me that I've got to my destination. And I'm like, all right, I'm here now. So all of that phase there, not just from the erratic driving, but cause I need to be there. I am, I am nervous. But now I get there or get to that spare road where the terrorists started their attack. I'm kind of chill because I've, I've got here now. So it's like, okay, I'm here now. And I actually become much more relaxed because I'm now I've just got to worry about what's going on. As I slowly drive down, I don't know where I'm going. I've never been here before and I see burning cars along the road.

• 1:26:00Speaker 03

  And I'm okay, I'll use those burning cars as a, as a demarcation line. And those cars had been set on fire when the terrorists had thrown hand grenades that, that caused these, uh, these. Three cars to, to catch fire. So they were burning. So I stopped the truck. And now I'm going to get out. And as I get out, I can hear gunfire and explosions, but I'm completely chill with this. The reason being, I think those gunfire and explosions are the, is the Kenyan military or security forces dealing with the incident. For some reason, I think, I think I'm late to the party. I think everyone's here now and they're just dealing with it.

• 1:26:40Speaker 03

  So get out the truck and, and, and I look down the road where I can see.

• 1:26:46Speaker 03

  Police officer, not many, but a lot of people milling around or walking, not many people really advancing towards. The area, but from my, from, right, I know it's down there. I can hear the gunfire explosion. So that's where I need to go. And I decided to put, so I've got to go down there. Now I could have just walked down kind of like this. But also thought, I don't want to just turn up and go, hey, you know, I'm, I'm here. I want to kind of look official. So that's why I put my, I put my assaulters belt on. Put on my body armor and put a balaclava on my, over to cover my face, knowing that the media are likely to be here as well. To hide my identity and I'll take my, and the only reason.

• 1:27:27Speaker 03

  Um, why I do this is to look kind of official. In that bag, my ready bag, that wasn't all my gear. I had in a helmet. Ear protection, eye protection, night vision goggles, my full uniform, other bits and pieces. Because in my mind, if we'd been doing this as a simulation or an exercise, typically what would have happened, would have went down. Would have went into a planning cycle. I would have, they would have got permission if they needed me. I would have got permission and that's in that. Time gap, I probably would have went back to my car, put all my uniform on, got all my gear. Then we would have went into a planning cycle and then we would have dealt with the terrorists. That's typically how it would work or how people say, if you can, if you can war game this scenario, what's, what's going to happen?

• 1:28:10Speaker 03

  So I think, so I leave all that gear here in the bag, cause I think I'm going to come back and have a chance to grab it. So I take a can of, down the road, I tried to call, um, ops room and things again. Can't get through to anyone. And I get, and as I turn up to the, the threshold, if you like, which is the gatehouse and like the gateway. I see the, the press are already here. They're on the right, oh, sorry, the left hand side and they've got. Body, they've got the body armor on, they've got the cameras, they've got helmets on. So they, they got there before me. I don't know how, but they did.

• 1:28:49Speaker 03

  And, um, so they're set up therefore, and I'm looking around and there's the gatehouse or some people are like. Suggest the gatehouse are open up and inside there's eight to 12 guys and they're, they're hiding and they're not stood around, they're hiding. They're under tables and chairs are keeping low. And I looked down at one of them, say, what's going, I was a British SES, what's going on? Or special forces SES, what's going on? They're like, al Shabab, al Shabab. I'm like, I know that. And then he, more grenade gunfire and I'm like, Kenyan special forces in there, Kenyan police in there. Uh, again, there's, there's multiple people in there and someone says, no.

• 1:29:34Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 1:29:35Speaker 03

  No one's in there yet. At the same time, I hear a woman scream. And I hear automatic gunfire, cut the scream off. It fires on the scream and I realize that woman has just been murdered. So, so right there, I look at them and say, right, I'm going in. You guys coming with me? And then one guy looks up and goes, no boss. And then, then I leave the office and then commit into the hotel.

• 1:30:08Shawn Ryan?

  This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. I got asked a question recently. If you could wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing, what would it be? For me, it's unplugging from work. When you love what you do, the switch never really flips off. There's always another episode, another guest, another idea at 2:00 in the morning. But getting better at actually shutting it down for a day, I'm working on it. That's the kind of thing that therapy is for, and BetterHelp makes it simple to start. It's entirely online. You fill out a short questionnaire, get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time at no extra cost until it's the right fit. Better is a feeling, defined by you, and for BetterHelp, it's a BetterHelp therapist who really gets you.

• 1:30:51Shawn Ryan?

  It's a focus on global emotional wellbeing with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries. It's progress, and it's getting better at unplugging to focus on the things that make life great. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com/srs. That's better H E L P dot com slash S R S.

• 1:31:16Shawn Ryan?

  Before we move on, I'm just...

• 1:31:19Shawn Ryan?

  When you got the call from the ex-marine, I mean, you've had... How much services you had up to this point? I mean, we covered a lot of it in your other interview.

• 1:31:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30Shawn Ryan?

  Not a lot of it, but different incidents. So where I'm going with this is...

• 1:31:38Shawn Ryan?

  This could be considered just another day with a lot of the places that you've been. Afghanistan, Iraq. I don't know everywhere you've been, but I've been in multiple places where it's, you know...

• 1:31:54Shawn Ryan?

  A hospital blew up, a school blew up, shopping mall blew up, convenience store blew up, gas station blew up, terrorist attack at the market, murdering tons of innocent... I mean, this is... It's a weekly occurrence. Sometimes it's a daily occurrence. You know, depending on where you're at and what timeframe you were there. In Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, like, this stuff happens, you know, on a... It's almost routine. And so I'm sure you've been at those places when that has happened and not felt a responsibility to respond.

• 1:32:34Speaker 03

  I think the difference with this one was because Kenya is a beautiful country. It's very developed.

• 1:32:48Speaker 03

  It has happened in the past in Kenya, but it's not a daily occurrence. And so when it happens, it's big, and it's... So it's not like, say, it's not a war zone and people go on holiday.

• 1:33:03Speaker 03

  It's very popular tourist destination, everything. So when it happens, that... Sorry, we always highlighted the gravity of it because these don't things happen often, but when they do, they're normally pretty serious and pretty big.

• 1:33:18Speaker 03

  But it was just, yeah, I'll go. But it was... And again, I didn't know... In my thing, in my mind, I think people are there before me responding, doing stuff, whatever. So it's...

• 1:33:29Shawn Ryan?

  But you still had the sense of urgency, and it wasn't... It's not... I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but... They're not your people. They're not your comrades. They're not your friends. They're not your family. They're not your loved ones.

• 1:33:42Speaker 03

  I think it's just...

• 1:33:42Shawn Ryan?

  They're not even your countrymen.

• 1:33:44Speaker 03

  Remember, and also going there to be... At this point, I'm going there to be like the liaison officer. So I'll get in my mind, they'll be dealing with it. The security forces are dealing with it. I'll be there to report, help if possible, or if they want my support. So from finding out it's happened and then to getting to that gatehouse, that's why I said I was kind of chill when I got there was because I... Well, the Kenyans are going to be dealing with it, and I'll do my job as a liaison officer and help if I need to and blah, blah, and all that. So that... So driving there, I didn't think it was like, although it's like, I've got to get there because it's my job. There's no sense of like, oh, it's all up to me.

• 1:34:26Speaker 03

  I'm kind of saying it's me to get there because of pride even, just because of pride. And maybe this is the highest form of formal of, like, I've got to get there. But it all changes when they're like, just the look of the guy looking up to me saying, no one's in there. No one's here yet. And then hearing a woman scream, it's like, okay.

• 1:34:50Speaker 03

  It's all on me now.

• 1:34:53Speaker 03

  And it was... It wasn't... When I went... From him saying that to me saying, right, I'm going in, is probably less than two seconds reply. It wasn't... I didn't dwell on it and all that. Maybe, again, that's maybe my fault. Maybe I should have thought about it. I went, oh, right, maybe I need to assess the situation and phone in, get permission, do all these things like you would do on maybe a simulation. But then it was like, go. Let's go. So I'm going. You can either come with me, like I say, are you coming with me? No, boss. Okay.

• 1:35:26Shawn Ryan?

  And you have no idea...

• 1:35:27Speaker 03

  Didn't try and persuade them, didn't do anything. It was like, right, well, I'm going. Because if I'm not going to do it, no one else is, and someone's just been murdered. And that's what, you know, I'd expect other people to think the same way. I know, I now know that that's maybe not the case, but... And then I commit into the hotel.

• 1:35:54Speaker 03

  And here's the thing, what people forget, like...

• 1:36:00Speaker 03

  People might see a different side on me in this interview because what I'm trying not to be is too humble. And the book, which you can get now, if you're watching this, is...

• 1:36:16Speaker 03

  It is very forgiving. If I could redo... Like, again, I wanted to be that way when I wrote it and finished it in the United States.

• 1:36:27Speaker 03

  Is that, you know, it's... I should have been a bit more harsher, but, you know, it's good.

• 1:36:35Speaker 03

  But I'm committed in. Once I'm committed in, remember, I don't... I've never been here before. I do not know this hotel complex at all.

• 1:36:45Speaker 03

  I don't know how many terrorists there are, but I do know I can hear multiple gunfire shots. I can hear grenades going off. I don't know what they look like. So now I'm gone into neutralized terrorists.

• 1:37:00Speaker 03

  And like I say, I don't know what they look like. So I now have got to do split second thinking when I see people. Because they could be the terrorists, but they also could be a police officer, if there's any in there. There could be a security guard. There could be a civilian. There could be an emergency worker. There could be a... Like, anything. And I've got to make that split second decision when I see them, whether to shoot, not shoot. The terrorists, on the other hand, who have got

• 1:37:31Speaker 03

  automatic weapons and grenades, they don't have to think about who they shoot. They're killing everyone. So they... So but, but as I said, I didn't think I was at a disadvantage, though. Because I was an SAS commando going through that way. I've been trained. I luckily had an extremely unusual career leading up to this, so I have a lot of experience.

• 1:37:55Speaker 03

  And I'm going in there as a member of Britain's top unit. No one else comes close. No one. It's the SAS, and I'm in there. So people will go, oh, were you not scared? I'm like, no, because these are just shahed Islamic terrorists. And now they've met a threat, and I feel ready for it, and I feel ready to bring it on.

• 1:38:26Speaker 03

  So I'm in there.

• 1:38:28Shawn Ryan?

  That's a level of confidence that nobody has.

• 1:38:32Speaker 03

  But...

• 1:38:38Speaker 03

  Move into the complex. My mindset is search and destroy. Kill, not capture. I want to neutralize these terrorists. But I have no idea where I'm going. So I have a look around. I see an open doorway, which was the entrance into the storeroom of the cafe, I found out later on. I move into there, clear it, clear through it, no one in there. There's another door, which I now know leads into the kitchen of the Secret Garden Cafe, where the suicide detonation was. And as I move closer to the door, I can hear mourning, crying, groaning behind the door.

• 1:39:20Speaker 03

  So again...

• 1:39:22Speaker 03

  If it was a simulation, I would breach through the door and clear the room. But now I'm thinking on my feet, which is a thing that separates the highest level of of operators to average operators. It's like, yeah, you can do everything you've been trained to do. Now we've got it. Now you're working outside of the outside of your comfort zone and outside of the box. You've got to think on your feet. So my level of thought straight away is, well, if I there's more, I know there's injured people in here. What does that tell me? One, it's unlikely that there's a terrorist in there.

• 1:39:55Speaker 03

  It's never, it's never not possible, but it's unlikely. But who else could be in there? Well, maybe there's a guy like me who's been wounded, who's got, who's got a weapon. So if I burst through the door with a balaclava on and a rifle, I could get lit up. And I don't want it. So I just bang on the door and say, hey, security forces. Um, I'm coming in. So I announce my arrival, arrival to try and mitigate against anyone shooting me because I don't know what the situation is yet. Uh, breach into the, into this room. Still clear it. And but what I can say is lots of blood and gold in the room. Lot of visibly injured people.

• 1:40:36Speaker 03

  So straight away, look around and then I'm like, okay, so two seconds ago, it was killing capture. Now I've got to make this quick assessment. Right now it's hostage rescue. Because my thought was, I could just go, right, the terrorist on here, I'm going to move and try and find them. That's one, we've looking at it. But remember, as far as I know right now, it's only me. And at that point, it is only me.

• 1:41:02Speaker 03

  But if I leave these wounded people, one, they need medical assistance, some of them urgently. And two, I don't know if the terrorists are going to come back into this room and then execute everyone. So my duty now is to, my, my priority is saving the lives. I know you can argue this, again, it's this about of killing the terrorists saves lives. But it's like, what can I do? Right. It's the here and now. Right. I can save these people here right now. So it's like, right, I'm going to get you out. So I grab one person. They don't want to leave. Look, I'm going to get you out. But before I start dragging them out, I'm like, what have you seen? What have you seen? I'm trying, straight away, trying to gather intelligence of how many attackers there are. Some people say two, some people say four, some people say six.

• 1:41:46Speaker 03

  And so I'm trying to get a grip of the situation and then I start evacuating the people. Pulling them towards the gatehouse. As I'm getting to the gatehouse, this entry point, which is only about forty yards away, thirty, forty yards away. There's more and more police authorities turning up. And I'm pulling them towards the gatehouse. I'm like, hey, come and help me, come and help me. And no one does. So at certain points of the night, for the first few, I just or first couple, I like leave them in sight and so someone can come and run and grab them. And then I run back in and I'm dragging people back.

• 1:42:23Speaker 03

  After about, uh, four people. Then armed civilians come start helping me. And in the book and in all previous briefings, I call these people free radicals. So it's, so it's an armed civilian. Now, the thing about a free radical is you do know what, you do not know what you're going to get. It's, yes, it's someone in civilian clothes with a, with a weapon. So you could argue me, I'm a free radical. But I'm a a member of the SAS and I've got over a thousand high risk missions under my belt. And I was being, I was the lead CQB instructor for, for the SAS.

• 1:43:07Speaker 03

  So that's me. On the right at the other end, you could have just a guy who's got a gun, who may be fired at once with no training. So there's that.

• 1:43:18Speaker 03

  Then you've got

• 1:43:20Speaker 03

  plainclothes, police officers, then you've got security contractors, you all have varying levels. So some could be benefits, but more likely liabilities. Um, but, but what I am thankful for is these guys stepped forward. They didn't have body armor like they, they only had pistols. They didn't have body armor like me. They stepped into the, into harm's way to start evacuating people. And so they start helping, helping evacuate people. Once we get everyone, everyone out, or then there's about, again, I think like six, six to eight guys. Um,

• 1:43:59Speaker 03

  uh, and we're in the storeroom and I'm like, guys, do you know this area? And these, all of these people knew this hotel well. And, and, um, and I'm getting, also getting the measure of people.

• 1:44:12Speaker 03

  So, um, so there's one guy in particular, um, a Norwegian, I believe, super, um, yeah, happy with you. Another guy, Kenyan, bald head. Uh, sorry, like, uh, um, of Indian heritage.

• 1:44:29Speaker 03

  Yeah. All talk, and I was just like, a firearms instructor. Incidentally, this guy is also a liar because he went on to fabricate stories afterwards. Um, so, uh, in my opinion, a bit of a piece of shit. But, um, anyway, but I'm thankful that he's helping at this point, anyway. So, and I'm like, hey, we need to keep the pressure on. We need to keep going. At the same time, at that, that moment, I'm like, look into the secret garden cafe. I can see the devastation, I can see the dead bodies. But I take a photograph. So I take, and the reason I'm taking a photograph of it is straight away, I'm, again, it's being at the, operating at the highest level. I'm there, I'm going to take a photograph because people are going to want to see this, as in

• 1:45:14Speaker 03

  it's all part of report, reporting and filling in the intelligence gaps. So I take a photograph. At that same time, my phone rings. I answer it. It's the ops room back in the UK. And the guy on the other end of the phone is a, was a long term, friend of mine. He's like, Chris, do you know there's a terrorist attack going on in Kenya? And I'm like, yeah, mate, I'm there, I'm there right now, um, evacuating people. And there's a long pause, a very long pause. Apparently at that same time, I started coming up on all the screens in the ops room because I went on Sky News and stuff and all the world media was showing me. And someone shouted, apparently, he knows there's an incident going on because he's on the fucking TV.

• 1:45:57Speaker 03

  And people started laughing. Um, but there's a long pause and he's like, okay, mate. Keep your head down.

• 1:46:06Speaker 03

  Keep going and keep us informed. And that was it. So now I know that the UK knows I'm there.

• 1:46:14Speaker 03

  What I don't know is that the UK is not happy that I'm there, but. Um, immediately. Yeah. Um, um, and that's not, that's not focused on the command of the SAS. This is focused on the higher levels. The government. The, the government, the foreign office. Certain elements. Obviously, some people are overjoyed on there. But the powerful majority are going, what is he doing there without permission with all that hardware, running around, saving people's lives? I mean, it might have been different. I was running around just firing, firing at windows and indiscriminate or whatever, I could get it then.

• 1:46:58Speaker 03

  But the only images, the only information they can see of me now is me pulling out wounded people out of a hotel. And they're not happy about that. Which we'll come on to later on, um, when we're talking about the book.

• 1:47:10Speaker 03

  But so, so, but anyway, but it was good to hear a friendly voice on the phone and he's like, good words as well from him, cool as a cucumber.

• 1:47:19Speaker 03

  Um, okay, mate, good effort. Keep your head down, keep going, keep us informed. Um, but I'm saying to these free radicals, right, we've got to, we've got to push on, we've got to push on momentum. I know that momentum is key. So we all say, oh, the hotel's down that way. They, they point out to me because I don't know where I'm going. We then step out from the, from the doorway we entered towards where the hotel is. At that point, as we've, uh, moved about ten yards, there's a long burst of automatic fire from an elevated position that hits the ground just to our left and arcs up and arcs up into the secret garden cafe and hitting the, um, the glass panels or the panels.

• 1:48:03Speaker 03

  It does two things. So the first thing it does is it lets me know roughly where the threat could be. So to me, it's somewhere up there.

• 1:48:15Speaker 03

  The other thing it does, it pushes all of these free radicals back into that storeroom.

• 1:48:21Speaker 03

  Because it's like what Tony Soprano says. Everyone wants to be a gangster till it's time to do gangster shit. So they're not playing anymore. Um, so I, I, I, uh,

• 1:48:34Speaker 03

  Move, take over by the corner of the building. I then look back towards where the gatehouse is, I can see more and more like armed, armed personnel turning up. So I quickly run back to the hotel. This, all, this element here where this sits is kind of vague in my memory. But I've tried to piece this together as back, but there's video evidence to back this next bit up. I then go back to the, this bit is all on, there's all video evidence of this. Um, I go to the, um, gatehouse and I'm talking to the security officers, I'm like, hey, I think I know where the shooters are. I think I know where they are, just give me four men. And then I, I think we can neutralize it. And they're like, no, we can't go in without permission. We have not get permission to go in there. Which in some ways it's, it's fair enough.

• 1:49:18Speaker 03

  These are Kenyan police officers. And if they break the rules, yeah, they might do, but this, this job is extremely precious to them and their family. So they're going, no. So I'm like, okay. So then I run off and like all this, there's all this is footage. You can see, you can see me run off back into the complex by myself. What you can't hear is when I run off, I shout, go fuck yourselves. And then, and then I run to the entrance of what was the hair salon. As I get outside, a proper flashbang, which is like a distraction grenade. Throw that in and start clearing into this hair salon, which there seems to be no people in there. I'm in this hair salon, I cleared through, it's quite a large area inside. But there's, there's, doesn't seem to be anyone there.

• 1:50:03Speaker 03

  Not long after I make entry and clear it, two Kenyan police officers, the GSU, General Service Unit, um, come in and they, they, uh, they come in armed with AK-47s. And they're like, it's clear, it's clear. I went, it's not clear. They're calling the entire. No, no, this, this room, it's clear, it's clear, let's go. It's when, it's not clear. And then it's clear, it's clear. And that point I, like changed my way and like, like put it down on them, like, it is clear. I'm in charge, I'm in charge here, blah, blah, blah. I am a major and blah, blah, blah, blah, the, like, this is, this is the, um, it's clear. It's sorry, it's not clear. We need to clear this. And they're like, oh, okay.

• 1:50:47Speaker 03

  So I move around and I go to the first door and I try it and it's locked. It's like a storeroom. Uh, and then I could hear whispering behind it. So I bang on the door and I'm like, hey, and I've got my gun up, ready to, ready to rock if I need to. And I'm like, security forces, hey, if there's anyone here, come out with your hands up, come out. No answer. I can hear talking and I'm like, okay. I know there's people in there. Come, like, come out. And, um, and this is the difference between being trained and untrained. Imagine being an erratic, untrained person. Could have just unloaded into that thing, thinking there may be a terrorist. But, but even then I'm thinking about protection of the civilians.

• 1:51:28Speaker 03

  Cause I'm thinking, I then say to them, if I know there's someone in there, if you're by the door, step back, cause I'm about to kick it in. Same thing again, it's, it's threat assessment. If I can hear whispering and talking up, it's unlikely that it's a terrorist. I don't think it's going to be the terrorists themselves. It could be, it could have been, but I don't think so. Um, so then kick the door in, donkey kick, swing, swing round, gun up. Everyone get your hands up. Get your fucking hands up, hands up. And then as they come out, I'm searching each, I'm like, passing them to the police, but giving them a pat down. Then what am I doing? Asking them questions. Where, how many terrorists? Where are they? Have you seen them? Trying to build up this picture.

• 1:52:10Speaker 03

  I then go around and then the, the, um, police officers tried to go to evacuate them straight away. And I'm like, no, stop. Do not put them out there. Because what I don't want, remember, I've just taken heavy gunfire from outside. So what the worst case would be to put the civilians telling them to go out and then they get gunned down. So I look around, there's like a large open area and like, uh, like a room. Uh, it's like open plan. I say, put, everyone who comes out, put them in there. So it's like a holding pen. And then I go through every, and everyone was hiding in like, whether it be bathrooms, storerooms. There was about a hundred and fifty people in this hair salon. And that's not because there was a hundred and fifty people in this hair salon when it was attacked. It was because if you think about it, suicide detonation happens.

• 1:52:55Speaker 03

  People start making their way to the, to the front gate. Then they hear the gunfire. So this kind of was one of the last places where they could have taken refuge. Yeah, this is where they all ran to. So the war went to, that's why there's so many people. So now we've got all these people. You're sorting through a hundred and fifty. Round about that is a, and so then we've got to evacuate them. So like, so I then, then said to the Kenyan, Kenyan police officers, as a whole, were, were great throughout this whole incident. It's like, right, this is what we're gonna do. You, and I say to this, everyone, you, one, a police officer is gonna grab you, take you out and then run you to the gate, to the gate.

• 1:53:37Speaker 03

  Once you see the gate, he'll let you go and then you run, you'll come, we'll come back and get everyone. I will firstly, I will step out and cover the high ground, cover where that gunfire came from. I've got the training, I've got the better weapon system and I will cover it. Everyone happy? Okay. So get to the doorway, they've got two people, ready, like, ready, set, go. Step out. Kenyan police officers have run, run out. At some point, a woman pushes past and tries to run towards the hotel. I then grab her. And then run, run her to the gatehouse. And there's a picture of me. And actually on one of the pictures, you see me holding, you can see the three radicals, they're still in the doorway. So I'm running past the three radicals.

• 1:54:19Speaker 03

  Uh, I haven't quite got to them, but I'm gonna run past them and they're looking up to where that gunfire was. Um, just in case anyone decides that I'm not telling the truth. And then, um, and I run her to the gay house. I run back in and the, the, we do it one more time. And then I realize this is gonna take forever. And I'm always thinking momentum, it's all about pace and momentum. We've gotta, we've gotta keep going, keep the pace going. So Kenyan police officers come back after evacuating another two. I'm like, all right, hold it there. Okay, everyone listen to me. This is what we're gonna do now, is I will go outside and I will count you out, I will throw you out and you'll go.

• 1:55:02Speaker 03

  Get in the line and just follow the person in front. At a certain point, I will stop it and then you just hold there, we will get you out. So, cause now I need to get as many people out as possible. Follow, follow the person in front and when you see the gate, run for your life. Happy? Happy. So ready, set, go, boom. Out quickly, then one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, well, up, like eight was probably the maximum. Uh, get them out there. That, that's the, and we started doing that and that starts working really well. Again, every now and again, someone would run, turn the opposite direction. Just pure panic, whatever. And I'd grab them and sometimes accompany them back and just push on.

• 1:55:45Speaker 03

  We'd done it a few times and we're getting near the end of it. I think we had two, roughly two more groups. The three radicals who were in the, who were with me earlier, then decided to turn up. But when they break, come into the room, they start screaming and shouting, everyone get out, get out. This time their tone is different. I'm like, shut the fuck up. We're dealing with it, you can help. This is what we're doing. And again, I'm grateful to them to start helping. And we, again, we only do our two more groups after that. Get back into them and then we, we form again with the three radicals. And again, the same, I know why I did, like, again, I, I'm just conscious that they know the way around here. So I'm like, okay, what we're gonna do, do you know, and they said, oh, we'll go, we can go around, there's like,

• 1:56:29Speaker 03

  an alleyway there, we'll go through there. Okay. So we're going through, as, so we set off, the two, they pretty much dismissed the two Kenyan police officers who did an amazing job. And we set off, uh, on, so there's a group of like, I don't know, what, right, six, six to eight, I can't. And then we're moving down. All the way along, this idiot who I mentioned earlier is barking asinine at us. And he apparently has said, I was leading Chris in Craighead. Now, if you mean shouting asinine orders and saying stuff about covering areas, well, yeah, that's it. It's only a few minutes. So, but as we go through this underpass and we're going through,

• 1:57:08Speaker 03

  we hear, had first, heavy footsteps behind us and the two Kenyan police officers who were helping me clear, come around, they go, Mr. Chris, Mr. Chris, Mr. Chris, Mr. Chris. I'm like, yeah, more people up here. I'm like, okay, I'll, I'll come with you. So I just peel off and say to the three radicals, I'm going with them. I'll catch you all later on. They didn't, they don't acknowledge it and I didn't care anyway. So I then leave them. And that's the last time I see those people. I see one of them later on, have a quick chat, but it's the last time I ever certainly work with them. Uh, again. But I'm, for all of like my negativity, not that there's much of it, I'm still, credit to them for putting themselves in the line of fire to help evacuate people.

• 1:57:51Speaker 03

  And, um, so I follow the two Kenyans and they, we go upstairs to, to where the hair salon owners are just over from it. And they're pointing to a room and their doors open. I have a quick clear from the outside. And then, uh, I can hear crying coming from under the table. Again, something comes over me, not a tactic I've ever thought about, nothing I've ever done before or since. But I take a step back from the doorway and then I run into the room. And there's a, I, I remember I've cleared it from the outside and I can hear the crying. So I think the threat is low. I run into the room, it's got like a fancy marble floor. I then scared on my ass, under, under the table.

• 1:58:35Speaker 03

  And as I appear under the table, the women under there scream. And I pull off my balaclava up and show my face, go, Jambo, Abari. And they like scream, start crying. Then they start laughing and start crying. I goes, come on, I'm gonna get you out of here. Let's go. And then, and I, I don't know, it's like one of those things where you, why, people say, why did you do that? I'm like, I'm sure everyone's got it in them. It's, it becomes a thing when the whole world's collapsing. But you still have to make a joker or an inappropriate joker or joker or something. And it maybe was just annoying, it's got a light and the tension make them more manageable to get out rather than come out. If I'd walked in and went, right, get out, get out, get out, get out. They might be like, uh, frozen in fear.

• 1:59:19Speaker 03

  So I'm breaking this tension to make them more manageable. And maybe it worked, maybe didn't make any difference, but, but it was, it makes for a good story. Um, so get them out, get them evacuated. We then go back through where we were going and I didn't know this then, but I can, I can see, so I can see the multi-story car park, multi-level car park in front of me and it's attached to the hotel. Now, I look at the, and again, this is where it becomes like being a grown up. I look at the multi-story car park and think.

• 1:59:56Speaker 03

  The terrorists, we took it from an elevated firing position. I don't think it was from the top of this car park. I mean, it was ju- incidentally, it was just next to it, but it could have been. And someone's got to clear this. I'm, we're here right now, so let's just do it. So I could have thought, oh, let's get into the meeting to the hotel, but I'm like, no, this is my responsibility. I can't just. It, it's a, a route of failure if I just dismiss a thing and assuming, ah, there should be nothing in there. So again, I was like, right, I'm going to clear the car park. So now we start clearing the car park. So it's like a spiral, like you, you park car that goes up multi-level like that. And in the middle, you've got the elevators and, um, and stair shaft.

• 2:00:40Speaker 03

  So how we're doing it, we go in, uh, we only go up one level. And when I go up one level, I see a guy, he's coming in and he's got body armor with, um, uh, agent written on it. And this guy is, uh, a guy called Daniel Pastaro, who is a Slovenian security guard and he's got an M four and a pistol. And I looked to him and say, I saw three radical and I say, hey, do you know CQB, Close Quarter Combat? He goes, yeah, a little bit. I went, come and work with me. And it's a strange thing of just from, you know, when you look at people, without them actually doing anything, you get a measure of them. I was picking it. And straight away, I got the measure of this guy and was like, actually, I think this guy's going to be, going to be good.

• 2:01:23Speaker 03

  So he joins with me straight away and, um, and I said, right, this is what we're going to do. We're going to use it with the Ken, two Kenyans. We're going to go up. I'll make entry into the next level onto where the, on every floor where the elevator, opposite the elevators is three lockers that you can't lock. They're just small lockers that you can fit a human being inside. And there's three lockers. I said, we'll get on the floor. I'll clear and then, um,

• 2:01:52Speaker 03

  Daniel, you, you cover me as I open each, got cover the, the lockers as I open the door. He's like, so bam, bam, bam. And then the Kenya, and then two Kenyan police officers, you come up. Once we've seen clear and then I will then push out into each floor on, onto where the cars are, sweep round, sweep low, you guys cover the other way. And I'll give a call. I'll go on, hey, security forces, if you're hiding in your cars, come out. Go to the other floor, do the same and then go up. So we do that and it's just a made up drill. It's nothing I've been taught before and nothing, but it was just like trying to make it work. So we do that for about the first, first, the, the floors and working well for floors. And this is a, this, by the way, this is a 12 story car, car, car lot, car park.

• 2:02:37Speaker 03

  By the fourth one, I'm like, right, we've got to do this a more efficient way. So then I just say, um, I said to the, to the two Kenyans, you hold the floor, we're clear. And then Daniel will, Daniel and, uh,

• 2:02:52Speaker 03

  Daniel and I will s- sweep up that way, run up the, where the cars are parked. And then clear that next level, clear the, and then you come up the stairs and join us. Happy. So we, so we're just making it more efficient. So we, we, we do that. And there's people on nearly every floor hiding in the cars and one or two people will get them out and send them down the stairs. As we get higher, as I'm, as we're running around, I can see more people coming. It's got a view of the gate entrance. I can see more and more free radicals and police officers flooding in. So now I'm again, thinking about the protection of the civilians. I want to make sure they just don't get shot.

• 2:03:31Speaker 03

  So I'll shout, I'll shout, I shout like friendlies or eagle eagle as it was, not that made sense to anyone, but I like friendlies. Security forces clearing up. Civilians coming down, civilians coming down, just to let everyone know this civilians come, everyone coming out of here should be a friendly. So they don't get shot. They'll then, they'll then move up. And it's a good lesson in, in this. On the, we get to the last floor without going on to roof. It's the last set of lockers. By that time, we're getting pretty complacent with these lockers because there's been nothing inside them.

• 2:04:06Speaker 03

  Daniel's not even covering me and I'm not bothered because I'm just opening myself with my, my gun under, under the shoulder like.

• 2:04:13Speaker 03

  And I get to the last locker on the last floor.

• 2:04:18Speaker 03

  And I open the locker and in there dressed completely in black with body, like, like with the vest on and everything is a female security guard.

• 2:04:27Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:04:28Speaker 03

  And I, and she screams as I open it as well. And I jumped back fractions away from shooting her in the face. And look, again, it's all that training, everything. I was just like, I'm not going to lie. My safety catch came off, was like jump back, safety off. Finger moving down and then luckily that time to process the target was like, yeah. Safety catch back on. And then she screamed and I was like, what the fuck are you doing? And started laughing and then she said something in Swahili to this police officers who started laughing. And then I was like, get out of here, like, and, uh, but it's a good lesson to go, never let your guard down. And if I'd done that as a training serial, if I was training law enforcement or military or whatever,

• 2:05:09Speaker 03

  and put that, made that scenario, people would have went, that wasn't realistic. You were just trying to get me to shoot a civilian. But it happens. No matter how unusual it might seem or how unlikely, anything can happen in combat. So there's that. And then we go on to.

• 2:05:26Shawn Ryan?

  Are you still hearing the terrorists at this? How much time has gone by?

• 2:05:29Speaker 03

  At this point, this is coming up to nearly an hour.

• 2:05:33Shawn Ryan?

  An hour?

• 2:05:33Speaker 03

  Just over an hour into it. You can hear sporadic gunfire. There's gunfire going off. What, what had happened at that point, when I'd made entry, there's something had happened. Someone may have been given intelligence to the terrorists. Because once I made up, the message would have gone on, oh, special forces have made entry. And the terrorists moved to do, moved to their, I'm not going to be spoilers yet, moved to their position. So they went, so they, at this point, they weren't roaming free. They'd done as much damage as they can and then went to their fallback positions at this, by this time. Um, so get to the roof. Again, I was just about to go on the roof to do the.

• 2:06:10Shawn Ryan?

  Are you on their trail?

• 2:06:11Speaker 03

  No.

• 2:06:12Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you know what I mean? Are you following their path?

• 2:06:14Speaker 03

  No, no, because I, I have no idea. I have no intelligence. I have no support. I don't know.

• 2:06:19Shawn Ryan?

  I didn't know if you could see casualties.

• 2:06:21Speaker 03

  No. And this is why, it was, that's why I come back to what I said earlier about, I think it's unlikely that they were at, on, in this car park, but someone has to clear it. And I'm right here, so it's got to be, so I'll just do it rather than waste, yeah, you could, you could have argued, maybe if I'd committed in, I would have found the terrorists before they got to the fallback positions and killed them. Who knows? But, but it was like me being like from my instructed, like being instructed to being uh, doing, doing team leader stuff and everything. It's just like, no, this is here, clear it. It's all about the here and now. Not assuming that it's cleared, assuming that the terrorists might not be there. And I know, and, and I was, I was working, I was going to be a bit quick. It was quick. We did it. We did it in short order, but I thought we might have been a bit quicker.

• 2:07:06Speaker 03

  Um, we get to the top, spider sense kicks in and I'm like, now we need to,

• 2:07:13Speaker 03

  something's not right about this. And then I hold back the, the, uh, Kenyan police officers who want to go up there and they're like, don't touch me. And I'm like, ha- have to like really rein in on them, like, no, you're not going up there. Let me go up there. And I, as I go up, take gunfire that comes from, I assess it came from the, from the Kenyan helicopter. There was a military helicopter in the area. Whether be, whether they had a dedicated sharpshooter, whether they had just had a gun, guy in there with a gun, who knows? But I looked around at the area post incident and there was no more elevated position, but the rounds definitely came by. I then, which was my worry that would, I had this threat that we could take up, like,

• 2:07:56Speaker 03

  I didn't know the lay of the land, but I was concerned of being exposed then taking friendly fire and I was right.

• 2:08:03Speaker 03

  Phone the UK, they miraculously managed to speak to the, uh, or they spoke to the Kenyan, uh, the High Commission, which is like the British Embassy. Bizarrely, the guy who, well, in the helicopter, who was working to the helicopter or had communications with the helicopter, knew a guy in that ops room, one of the Kenyans. And usually these things would take hours or days to get through, but it happened in minutes and went, yeah. Friendly's on the roof and the message got passed and they said, yeah, you can go on the roof now. Um, and that was kind of spoken to the, the High Commission. I, I thought they called me and said, you can go on the roof with, that's how I got this information. And then went on to the roof and then evacuated a load of people off the roof.

• 2:08:47Speaker 03

  Then going, and as we're going down the stairs, I'm shouting, friendlies coming down, friendlies coming down. Always thinking about protection of the civilians. Once we got back to the bottom of the car park, there's like a gradient hill about hundred, hundred and fifty yards to the, to the, maybe a bit, ru- roughly, I'm working on memory here, to the gatehouse. And I, again, thinking about friendly fire, I take off my balaclava or pull it down. Put my gun out the side like that, walking, going friendlies, friendlies, friendlies, just so I look like no risk. Um, Daniel was escorting a young, a young woman. Um, and that's the last time I saw him. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye, didn't see him again.

• 2:09:30Speaker 03

  He then linked up with those free radicals and helped clear some more people out. And he did, he did an amazing job. We became friends. I kept in touch with him. I only worked with him for, it must have been like 15, 20 minutes clearing that car park, but he, but he was a huge asset that day. Um, and I get to the, as I get to the gatehouse, I can see lots of people flooding in. I'm trying to say, people, get, people, get out. It's not clear. It's not clear. There's some guys with suits with a walkie talkie and pistol and got body armor on. I'm like, get out, get out. I'm quite aggressive about it. And then I say to one of them who look quite old and senior, I said, hey, are you in charge? He's like, no. I goes, who's in charge? He's like, come with me.

• 2:10:13Speaker 03

  So then I follow him, we go through the gatehouse and then there's an old man there and he's covered with a security detail. This man, this man is a very senior figure in the Kenyan police force. And he looks at me, he goes, who are, who are you? I'm like,

• 2:10:30Speaker 03

  um, UK Special Forces, SES. Do you want to know what's going on? He's like, yes. So I then given my assessment of the situation, say, we've had a suicide detonation. Um, and we've, a suicide detonation and we have active gunmen, estimated two to six people. Still hadn't seen them yet. And I was asking people, so I said, two to six, two to six terrorists are still active with automatic weapons and hand grenades.

• 2:11:00Speaker 03

  Casually, as I said, casually, my estimate at the time, I said at least 15 dead and, uh, multiple injuries.

• 2:11:09Speaker 03

  He then says something that changes the outcome of the day, which was the assessment. He then says, can you lead my men?

• 2:11:19Speaker 03

  The reason that such a was assessed to be such a game changer was if he hadn't have asked me to do that, when eventual units turned up, it was like it was likely that they would have went as far as the gatehouse and went into a planning cycle, and that would have then changed the whole situation into like a siege situation, which was similar to the Westgate Mall thing would happen in two thousand and twelve or thirteen. And but by him asking me to lead the men carried on the momentum and the we had the initiative and carried on the order,

• 2:12:00Speaker 03

  just carried on that momentum, which changed everything. And I said, yes, yes, sir, of course. So then we had a bit of a talk and then turned on my heel and then I set off into the complex with with basically a squadron of GSU. These guys had armed with, in some cases, G three assault rifles, in some cases, Heckron cock, wearing the maroon berries. Very few had helmets on, but they had their berries and some had helmets on. And and I'm walking down the hill. The reason why I go down the hill, I have no idea where I'm going to go. But when I turn around, I can see buildings to my right and there's there's

• 2:12:44Speaker 03

  like Kenyan Red Cross ambulances by the side and and GSU police officers to our side. So I'm looking, those initial buildings, I'm presuming are cleared. So I'm just going to carry on walking down to come to uncleared buildings. Two plainclothes police officers accompany me to escort, to try and stop people from taking photographs or do that and lead me to where the next where I need to be. And my band of merry men are behind me. And so I'm walk I give a quick call to the the UK and just say, I've been asked to help. I'm clearing through with Kenyan police. They acknowledge that and I carry on. As

• 2:13:23Speaker 03

  I'm walking down the hill, they've got a young guy comes up and he's holding a sledgehammer. Sorry, he's not I don't see the sledgehammer. So he comes up, he's wearing a luminous dress. He's like, Mister, Mister, I'm like, well, he goes, can I come with you? I went, what? He said, can I come with you? I'm like, no. And then he holds up a sledgehammer and says, I can smash indoors. So I'm like, okay, come and join the party. You're the breacher. So now I've got a breacher and a young man called Julius, who I think is one of the bravest men of that day. He joins in, steps in behind me. As I get near the bottom, two guys who are like kind of journalists, but one had a pistol, but they were journalists and they

• 2:14:06Speaker 03

  said, we're going to come with you. I went, no, you're not. He goes, yeah, we are. He goes, no, you're not. And he was, yes, you are. Yes, we are. There's nothing you can do about it. And I'm, okay, well, just join in, slay yourselves in, just keep out of the way and try and make me look good if you can. It's a joke, obviously, I said in their laugh. But and then at the bottom of the hill that I met where there's a large group of police officers, and that's basically the line, the forward line of where things have been cleared to. And there's the photograph of me looking at a piece of paper. So they hand me this piece of paper, which again, my memory is kind of vague on this, but it was kind of saying that this businessman and people are still located in the the building

• 2:14:49Speaker 03

  to my front, which was when I'm looking at a paper, it's behind me. But as we're walking down the hill. So there's that cool picture. I've got the balaclava on, I'm hanging there, like looking at the the paper. And it's a cool photograph. But what it doesn't show is, or what it doesn't tell you is, I'm looking at a photograph. There's police sirens going off. There's people shouting, there's sporadic gunfire. There's fire alarms. There's helicopters. All of that ocean of noises going on. And I'm the man. I've got to make a plan. I've

• 2:15:33Speaker 03

  got a squadron of guys behind me. So like, that's thirty to sixteen men who do not know CQB, close quarter hostage rescue. And now the difference is, it's always on me. But now, if but if they kill someone, or if they shoot something they're not supposed to shoot, yeah, they'll probably get in trouble. But it all comes back to me. So now I'm in charge. There's this, and I'm looking at this piece of paper, thinking, what the hell am I going to do? So I've got to make a plan. And I make a plan there and then. And the plan is this. I turn around to everyone and say, right, this, this is what we're going to do. We're going floor by floor, room by room. I will make entry alone into every room. No

• 2:16:17Speaker 03

  one is to come with me. Because I'm thinking about protection of the civilians. And I know this is where I'd rather me get killed by the terrorists than a Kenyan shoot a civilian and me get blamed for it. I'd rather that mission failure was unexpected. The only the only acceptable mission failure for me is my death. Everything else is unacceptable. And so I'm like, I'll go in. If I shout a number, that means that's a number of men I want. So if I shout one, I want one person to come in. If I shout five, I want five. And then we can just cover doors and help me out and search and evacuate people. They

• 2:17:00Speaker 03

  were brilliant. Like I said, the Kenyan police were brilliant. They were like, yeah, okay. They were no, no egos, no nothing. They were like, we are, you're the man. We're going to follow, follow your orders. And it was that. And that's great. And I said, if I need, if I need doors, Julius, you're up with a with a with a hammer. Yeah, yes, boss. Brilliant. Let's go. So we then clear room by room, floor by floor. As we get civilians, we pull them out, search them, pass them to the Kenyan police, and they take them down the line. So we successfully evacuate this whole building. And then the which is the Arlington building. We get to the last floor, to the top floor. There's this big reinforced

• 2:17:43Speaker 03

  door. Julius, the breacher, has a go. He can't get through. I have a go. I am. So what I have to say at this point, this is kind of like two hours or so, over two hours into the incident. And I had been hard charging all those way through. So I am soaking wet with sweat. I'm breathing like I'm sucking air in from China or somewhere. I'm like, really like dying. Kenyans start laughing at me. I'm like, hey, you buggers, like, I'm probably older than you think. And like, you have a go then. So they have a go. No. Eventually, Julius is hitting it. Even the press have a go. The whole wall calls out of the whole, like, segment comes out. That falls down, go through, and then there's

• 2:18:27Speaker 03

  a barricade behind a glass door. But the keys are on the other side. So I'm like, barricade up. There's no movement. It's kind of a good sign for me. Because what this says to me is, oh, there's a barricade. So that I'm like, guys, there are civilians in here, because they made this barricade. There's civilians in here. No one shoots unless I tell you to. Throughout that clearance, there'd been times when they all opened up. And I'd be like, stop firing. But that's another thing. We then but then I say to Julius, all right, with your sledgehammer, with your sledgehammer, smash the glass and I'll open the door. Okay. For some unbeknown reason, he had his sleeves rolled up like me. Instead of hitting the

• 2:19:09Speaker 03

  glass with a sledgehammer, like at the bottom of the sledgehammer, creating distance, he uses the sledgehammer like a battering ram. So when he goes through the glass, all the sheets of glass just fall straight down onto his arms and open up all his arteries on his arms and blood everywhere, claret. And he is evacuated. I never see him again. I never saw him. He did. He survived. But like I said, he was from his actions of stepping up, a very young, or appear to be a young man from the Kenyan Red Cross, but willing to put himself right at the front of the stack to breach doors. What a brave individual.

• 2:19:48Speaker 03

  But he was evacuated. But he left the sledgehammer. So we've still got that. And now we break through into this. And in that last office with Japanese businessmen, we evacuate all these Japanese businessmen out. So that's that building pretty much cleared. We then go down the main stairs. So we use the service stairs. And we're going to and as I get to the to the main, the bottom of the main stairs, we come down, we see a guy dressed in black, Kenyans in black, obviously, police, we've got all those police down here. And I think they're Kenyan Special Forces, but they're not. They're the Reiki Squadron. So they're the the GSU guys who I've been with. These are the elite of the GSU, trained by Americans,

• 2:20:33Speaker 03

  well trained, well equipped. So they're in black, some in green, with M4s, Glocks, ballistic helmets, look the part and are the part, really good, good operators, individuals. But I say, are you Kenyan Special Forces? Like, no, we're Reiki Squadron. Okay. He's like, who are you? I'm like, I've just asked to lead these guys. Okay, you are no longer in command. We've got, we are, we are running things now. We're evacuating everyone out. So just way down here. He asked, he asked for my credentials. I had my ID. He showed him it. And it's like, and they were using the armored vehicles to evacuate everyone who didn't have a part of place. So all the free radicals, all of the press, paramedics,

• 2:21:15Speaker 03

  police officers unassigned, all getting evacuated to take control of the situation, which is super good.

• 2:21:23Speaker 03

  And um so I'm like, okay, that's cool. Cause in my mind, I'm like, all right, I'll get evacuated to the main gate and then I'll just resume role as a laser officer. It's all, it's all cool. I see one of the Free Radical, the, the, the Norwegian guy who was, um, who I thought was a good guy of that original group. I talked to him. He told me some of the shenanigans that went on, which I won't repeat on here, but again, my suspicions were confirmed of some of them being absolute idiots. Um, but it was good to see him and get the, um, get the lowdown off him. He was evacuated. But this is the first time, so this is about two and a half, half hours into the incident, starting to get dark.

• 2:22:08Speaker 03

  And, um, it's a first time where I'm not hard charging and thinking on my feet. And it's also the first time I think, damn. Like I've acted a lot on my own, off my own bat here. I might be in trouble. So I then try and start calling people like, hey, what's going on with the, the, the, the. I had the number of the, um, the Director of National Intelligence for Kenya on my phone. And I'd been in communication with them at Christmas time. And I just send a message saying, General, I've been at the incidents pretty much from the get go. If you need to know what's going on, give me a shout. Credit to him. As soon as the WhatsApp messages went blue, phone rang.

• 2:22:51Speaker 03

  Answer the phone. He's like, was that, yes, General. He's like, Chris, my boy. Thank you so much for being there. What's going on? So I gave him my interpretation of events, which is still the same as what happened early. Whereas before I had no reason to change it. There's a long pause, which to me said, in hindsight, anyway, this is different to what I've been, been told on the ground.

• 2:23:18Speaker 03

  I'm sorry. And what I should add as well, he said, oh, I'm, I'm sat next to the president right now of Kenya. What's going on? So I should have that factor in. And there's a long pause, which like I said, seems to me like, it seems like this is different to what he's been told. He then changes my world once again and says, Chris, you, can you stay there and report directly to me and the president?

• 2:23:45Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:23:47Speaker 03

  Um, again, thinking on my feet, cause that's what we do. I then say to the general, I said, look, could you please relay this request to the British government? And he's like, yes. And credit to him, he did it straight away, which again now made me kind of like legal. So now it was authorized military intervention, um, so to speak. He then, he then followed through. He was absolutely, and is a brilliant man and follows, he's su- super like swept away and everything. I, I don't know if he, what he does now, if, if he's still in position, but dialed in, keyed in. As soon as I asked him to do that, he did it. And, um, and then my phone comes to life and, and now I'm reporting to lots of different people from this moment on.

• 2:24:30Speaker 03

  So now I'm sending, I'm sending updates to him, the British High Commission, to UK and to other people about what's actually going on. Um, the, the, the guys from the Iraqi Squadron who were there, they kind of worked out who I was speaking to. And I said, do you know who that was on the phone? They were like, yes, sir. And I went, they went, what do you need? I said, I need to be where the command post is. And they got on the radio and then an armored vehicle picked me up from this building and took me to the hotel, which is now that now we're into the D two hotel, where the terrorists have ended up running to their fallback positions, if you like.

• 2:25:09Speaker 03

  So I then get into the hotel, walk in the foyer and they put position guys out. So the security is on the ball. Again, sending messages to me, these guys are swept, swept up. In the bar area or the, or is kind of, when I say command post, it's uh, police inspectors with a phone from the unit, from the Iraqi Squadron Elite Unit. So I go there, make my introduction. They know who I am. And they're like, um, and as soon as I get there, I didn't know I was thirsty or fatigued, but as soon as I got to the bar and I saw all the drink and liquor there and, and I was like, all of a sudden my body's like, you need to drink right now.

• 2:25:50Speaker 03

  So I went one minute, I just went to the bar, opened up a can of Red Bull, knocked that, that back. Then got loads of water, cans of water, bottles of water, just chugged it down. Cause I'd been hard charging. I was absolutely soaking wet. And now like, as soon as my body knew it could drink, it was like, have a drink, as in water and stimulants or whatever. Um, so knocked that back and then so speak to the two, uh, guys in charge, so to speak. Say, right, what's going on? And this is the message I get, word for word is, there's four terrorists on the seventh floor. We have an assault team on the floor below and a small team on the floor above them.

• 2:26:32Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 2:26:34Speaker 03

  And so I send that message to everyone, hang around for only a few minutes. And then I'm like, bear in mind, and I should add in this, just to add the vibe, is the fire alarms going off in this hotel. So there's a wailing fire alarm going off all the time. So the noise is immense. So it's, it's, I'm like, okay. So I then said, hey, do you mind if I go up to the assault team? Cause in my, in my mind, I'm like,

• 2:27:00Speaker 03

  well, I'm not doing anything here.

• 2:27:04Speaker 03

  Uh, and I need to be where the action is. One, to get a grip of the situation and see what's, one, for an information standpoint and two, where I can best help. So I say to the guys, do you mind if I go up with the assault, to link in with the lead assault team? They went, oh, please do. And, and again, it's funny cause then they say, oh, can you send a message to the general, letting us, letting them know that we're in charge here?

• 2:27:25Speaker 03

  And I knew it was like the, this was the, the good relationship. It was like, yeah, I'm going to send General, your message that you're in charge, cause it makes you look good and everything, but I'm reporting to him. And they realized that they can't hide anymore. So like, not that they wouldn't, I'm going to say, not, I'm not saying they were going to. But they're thinking, if we make any bad decisions or do anything and it's not to my satisfaction, the general and by proxy, the president is going to find out. So it put me in a position of power as well. But I was like, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm good. And as I go up to the stairs, they posted sentries on every floor, again reinforcing that these guys know what they're doing. I get to the sixth floor.

• 2:28:10Speaker 03

  And it's kind of this weird angle where you come up the service stairs and it's like a cups round. And then the lead assault team was like a stack of about six guys stacked up. And as I turn up to the stack, who are, they are facing a staircase directly in front and an open area, open area in the staircase. And the, the terrorists are on the, on the floor above.

• 2:28:33Speaker 03

  Um, as I turn up, two hand grenades come down the stairs, explode. And then as soon as, as the hand grenades come down, we push back up just a little bit, just a few feet. So out of direct line of sight, they detonate. And then there's automatic gunfire rakes the area. The two terrorists or the terrorists on the floor above had positioned themselves where they could, it allowed them to be in a position where they could see and post hand grenades into the, and fire guns into this killing zone in front of the elevators. But, but out of sight and therefore without a shot going on. So it was a well-recognized, I should add that, position.

• 2:29:14Speaker 03

  Even though the official report says they got pushed there by Kenyan forces. I think that's pretty um, hard to believe. Um, but anyway, so they're up there and it all grenades go off gunfire. And I look to the guys and say,

• 2:29:33Speaker 03

  do you think they saw the white dude turn up and then smile? And then they and then, and then, and then I add, welcome to the party, Muzungo. And Muzungo is a derogatory term, which is used in east, eastern and some parts of Southern Africa for people of European descent. In South Africa, it's Malungo, which, uh, is the Swahili word for the scum that you find floating on the water. So in essence, where the white scum that came from the sea. Um.

• 2:30:02Shawn Ryan?

  That's what you called yourself.

• 2:30:04Speaker 03

  And I said, do you think, I goes, welcome to the party, Muzungo. And they started laughing and they all started repeating, going, yeah, welcome to the party, Muzungo. And, uh, and it, and it's good. Cause it's like, I don't, I don't, like I said in the book, I don't get upset. It's, it's a really derogatory word. But ultimately it's only a word. So therefore I choose not to get upset by it. But, um.

• 2:30:24Shawn Ryan?

  It's a media camaraderie built.

• 2:30:26Speaker 03

  Yeah. Straight away. It's like, they know. And then they say, oh, are you an American? I was like, no, I'm, I'm British. And they're like, SAS? I'm like, yes. Like, oh, that's awesome. So they knew who the SAS was. And it, and it straight away was a, it was a good bonding session. Nothing bonds a group of blokes like a good grenade attack and grenade and not one with a gunfire attack. Really like, anyway, so now we're all brothers from different mothers. And, um, as I say, and, uh, and we're all getting on. Uh, the, um, I lost my train of thought with my attempt at comedy, but, um, the, yeah. So I turned to the team leader and I'm like saying to him, he's a big, big guy. And I said, hey,

• 2:31:09Speaker 03

  what's going on? So I want to get an update from him. Same, same, but different. He's like, there's four terrorists on the floor above, but this time he adds, two of them are injured. One's really badly injured and one's not so bad. And then the other two are active. Okay. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know how he knew that and I didn't ask. So I was like, okay. Then I ask a golden question. Are there any civilians up there? No. Why is that important? Because for me, that changes this mission from hostage rescue to search and destroy. And, um, um, so I'm like, okay. So I report to people the situation.

• 2:31:55Speaker 03

  I say, so what's, so I said to the team now, what's your plan? He goes, well, when they come down the stairs, we're going to kill them.

• 2:32:03Speaker 03

  Is that it? Yeah, yeah, that's it. When the terrorists come down the stairs, we're gonna kill them. Okay, yeah, that's a plan. And I smile, I'm like, okay.

• 2:32:13Speaker 03

  It's a plan. But in my mind, again, having a lot of experience, but operating at the very highest level. It's not an acceptable plan. Because I do not know what the terrorists are doing.

• 2:32:27Speaker 03

  I don't know, I don't know what's up. It was a gym, but I didn't know what was up there. I didn't know if they had explosive material. If they, if there was parts of the hotel in that thing where if they damaged it, it could destroy or stop a fire that would be catastrophic to everyone in the, in the hotel. So, so my line is, I, we need to get this wrapped up. We need to push on, we need to, I need, we need to solve this, we can't just wait. So then it's like thinking about how we can do this.

• 2:32:55Speaker 03

  Uh, uh, and then, so I'm working it and, and I asked about snipers. Have you got snipers? They said, yes. So I said, well, whereabouts are they? Well, they're not doing anything. Okay, well, let's get them up on the building across and see what's said. So they go through the radio, hey, wants to put snipers up. Everything I said is always, is well received, put the snipers up. So it take, everything takes long, a long time, because it's a process of information, people in position. So it's gonna be about an hour before the snipers get up into position. And in the, in the meantime, there's, trying to dis, like, say, there's the main, the mainest in that assault team is split into three teams.

• 2:33:35Speaker 03

  There's a group on the left who we, who we have no interaction with, because it's all of that open area is now a killing zone. So there and then, most of them are in their rooms, there's only two of them holding, holding, holding the corridor, so to speak. Then there's the corridor to our right, and we, throughout the night, we swap between the two positions, the, the majority, so six to eight people, it's always six to eight in the story. Six to eight are in this, the main, like, looking straight at the, the stairs. And sometimes we'd just be able to scurry across, it's just a very short distance, two yards or so, to the next corridor. Um, and then, uh, because on the, on the main bit, there's a little ledge, so you could sit at the back and take your, take your leg, rest your legs for a second or two, or a minute or two.

• 2:34:21Speaker 03

  But every, every now and again, when we tried to swap positions, and I went into the one to look around, we, they could see us, so they take, so they either throw a grenade or open fire into the area. So that would be going on. When I was in the other corridor, it's funny, and I, uh, I, I, this is the fir-, I think this is the first time I've said it. Uh, it's in the, it's in the book, but it's good in case anyone, if, if they managed to retrieve any, you know, I doubt it would have come out by an hour or so, but it's a funny thing for me was, I was in the corridor, I was looking down the corridor. There was, still had a guy on each end of each line looking down, but I was looking down the corridor. And for some reason, the guy at the front of the stack just decided to let loose a load of rounds

• 2:35:06Speaker 03

  at the, at the stairs. He opens fire, so he's like, bub, bub, bub, bub, bub, bub. I jump about five foot into the air. I'm like, ah! And I, I, I, I, in my mind, I thought the terrorists had snuck down and that opened up and that gunfire was like that. And I like jumped, there was no cool, there's nothing cool about it at all. I was just like, and here's what my face looked like. And I was like, jumped, and as I jumped, I spin round until I, and then they're just looking at me, and they're just like, looking at me, smiling. And I burst, and then everyone burst laughing, so I all burst laughing. And I said, next time you wanna start World War fucking Three, let me know about it, all right?

• 2:35:47Speaker 03

  And the, and, and the guy, the, well, the big guy, um, like, like, one of the officers of the group, he was on his horns, he's just laughing, crying, we laughed at me. Cause I just like, ah! And, uh, so that was that. And then, uh, anyway, snipers get up. Um.

• 2:36:03Shawn Ryan?

  How sure are you that these are the, or, or, I, I mean, are you guys thinking these are the last four terrorists?

• 2:36:09Speaker 03

  This, I'm just working on what we know, so they're just saying there's four terrorists. It's four ta-, like, I didn't question it very much that there's four terrorists on the, on the, on the top floor. Okay.

• 2:36:19Shawn Ryan?

  And there's no discussion of any terrorists anywhere else?

• 2:36:21Speaker 03

  No discussion anywhere else, no one, like, that's all that's been said. And I, like, even when they said they're wounded, I'm like, I don't know how you know, I don't care. I like, don't know, don't care. Um.

• 2:36:33Speaker 03

  Because, so the snipers get up.

• 2:36:36Speaker 03

  Then it comes on the radio, oh, we can see the terrorists moving round. They can see two, which fits in, if two of them are wounded, they're not moving, so they can see two terrorists moving round. I'm like, okay. I said, and then it's like, what, we're gonna do a sniper initiate assault? And they're like, okay. And they go happy, and they said, and then they reply back, we're going to do a sniper initiate assault, which is kind of like the sniper shoots the guys, and then we run up the stairs. And that's what I say, so snipers get hit, and then we're gonna run up the stairs. Yeah? Okay? So music to me is a report. We're waiting. And then all of a sudden, like, snipers have the shot.

• 2:37:20Speaker 03

  And then you hear the, the gun, gunshots go off almost simultaneously. And the next thing we hear is, oh, sorry, next thing you know, is a grenade come down the stair. Oh, sorry, sorry, re- rewind that.

• 2:37:35Speaker 03

  Shots, the next thing we hear is automatic gunfire coming from the stairs, not at us though, but across where the snipers may have been, the building, the building across. So they're raking the area, firing at where the snipers could have been. I doubt they would have saw them, but they're just firing at the building across the street. Um, then we get grenade down the, down the stairs, and automatic gunfire to tell us. Basically, that was their way of saying, you tried to take us out with snipers, you failed, and we're still, we're still here.

• 2:38:04Speaker 03

  So that's that. Um, the, the terrorists, um, oh.

• 2:38:13Speaker 03

  So they're, they're gone, so now, well, I, now what we're gonna do? So it took, every now and again, we're still getting grenade fire, and then say, have you got explosive method of entry? Which, using explosives to blow hole through, uh, walls. So we say, yeah. Um, I said, well, why don't we blow a hole through the ceiling and then use grenades to, once we've got a hole above them, we can throw grenades down there or something. Do you carry grenades? Yes, brilliant, let's, let's do it. They, they pass that message on, they're happy to do that, so now we, now we're going into that. So we gotta make the cha-, they gotta make the charges and get them to the team above. Now, the pro- difference is that the team above, what I got told was, it's the floor above. So I didn't question that.

• 2:38:56Speaker 03

  So I think it's a floor, but the team above is really the roof. And the difference between the roof and the floor can be several feet of concrete. So I didn't know this. But the charges go up. Again, this takes a while.

• 2:39:12Speaker 03

  Again, thinking ahead of things, I'm like, okay, I need to make sure everyone knows what was, so I tell everyone who I'm informing to, this is what we're gonna do. And it was very prudent, and it'll come onto that once we, once the detonations go off. So tell everyone we're gonna do an, try an explosive, uh, breach. We put the, uh, charges set, detonation goes off, failed breach. So failed breach, yeah, we're gonna make some more charges and get through, grenade come down the stairs, automatic gunfire.

• 2:39:43Speaker 03

  Um, but why it was prudent to let everyone know is because the people who needed to know know we're doing explosive entry, but as soon as that explosion went off, all the world's media who were reporting on it, was on the news that car bombs, they were them reporters, car bombs were going off inside the complex, and it was a terrorist counter-attack. So the information was wrong, but the people who needed to know via me, they knew that was just, that was just like noise, it's not car, so they could then tell, whether it be families, friends, other governments, it's not car bombs, it's actually our strike force using explosives. So that's that. Um, I then say, what, what do the, what do the snipers see?

• 2:40:27Speaker 03

  And they're like, oh, the snipers, they're not there anymore. And it's like, what? Oh, yeah, the, the, tried their shot and they failed. Yeah, but they should be back up there. And they're like, oh, and I went, okay, tell them to get back up there, and if they see the terrorists, shoot, and they can report on it.

• 2:40:43Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:40:44Speaker 03

  But, but this is the, so this is two ways of looking at it. You could look at it, if, like, people could look at it from outside and going, armchair worrying, going, oh, that's outrageous, blah, blah, blah. And you know, but these guys were pro, the reason why they were pros is they didn't know that. But when I told them, I'm like, of course. So there's, there's no ego, there was no excuse, there's no lies. They were like, learning from it.

• 2:41:06Shawn Ryan?

  They just didn't know.

• 2:41:07Speaker 03

  And they were just like, of course, makes sense now. And it, so the way I view it was, was, they were, I was, I was just coaching them. Like, uh, yeah, because it's like this, remember this is the first time they've done this? And, and, and the American mentors weren't allowed to go into the complex. So the American mentors would be advising them normally, but they'd been restricted from going into the, um, into the complex. So that, because I saw the kind of, so when I'm, I, there was no resistance, and everything I was saying, and I wasn't going, oh, you idiot. It was like, oh, man, and they're like, why don't you do this, like? And, and they were, it, it, like I say, it was, it was absolute pleasure working with them, because they were just learning on the job, and they were receptive, and there was no egos, and I'm like, brilliant, so.

• 2:41:51Shawn Ryan?

  You don't know what you don't know.

• 2:41:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, and they were going, okay, so the snipers went back up, and then they're saying, and as soon as got into position, they were like, the lights have turned off, so the, credit to Al Shabab, they turned the lights off. But what this had done, and I kind of, I don't know how I knew this, but it, it maybe it's just common sense to a certain point of,

• 2:42:12Speaker 03

  what this is doing though is restricting the, so before we turn, before I turn up, they've got all movement of upstairs, they can shoot down, whatever. Other in between, we shot out the glass, that there was a mirror, so I shot the glass, and some of the Kenyans chipped in. There's a big glass mirror, and I was, worked out that, that's how they could see us. So we shot the glass, big, large glass mirror on our floor out. Uh, but now, we've had snipers try and shoot them, so through, through the glass bit, so now that's restricted the movement here. Now they can hear a charge above them. So now, from having a lot of, like, real estate to move around in, now, they've been put into this really small area, which will have an effect on your morale and your fighting ability, eventually.

• 2:42:58Speaker 03

  So it's all, all of this is chipping away. Charges go up again, fails, then this time, it's failed while they make a charge, take sledgehammers, so guys go up there with sledgehammers and start pounding, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, just trying to, to breach through. So they're in between charges going off.

• 2:43:20Speaker 03

  Time's now pushing on, um, and my phone is about to die. I've been operating with my mobile phone all day. Um, luckily it was fully charged when I turned up because it was plugged into the vehicle and stuff. So it's fully charged, but my phone's about to die. So then I have a thought, I'm like, okay, we've got a guy on it on the end of every line looking down the corridors.

• 2:43:43Speaker 03

  All right, to the team, right, let's clear these, let's clear all the corridors. Let's clear all the rooms on the corridors. He's like, why I goes, two reasons. There was three, but I didn't tell them the other one. The first reason is it will free up a, a, a member of the stack. So he doesn't have to look down the corridor. Second reason is I need, I desperately need a iPhone charger. So there's got to be one of these rooms somewhere. The third reason, which I didn't tell them, it would give me a good look of how they do their room clearances. So we set off and we start clearing the rooms and two things, first thing is on the first room we go to, there's a phone charger in there. So I'm like, yes, take my phone out, plug it in. And secondly is watching the guys clear the rooms.

• 2:44:28Speaker 03

  They're good. Yeah, they, they, they're not like perfect, but they, they, they're more than workable and that they're well-trained, well-versed in room combat, and they just need a little bit of direction here and there, but they, they're good. So I'm like, man, my confidence of these guys is, is really high. Um, so we clear all the rooms. And the other thing I noticed in there is the minibars and the fruit and snacks. I then get to the, um, to the team leader and say, right. Have you guys had anything to eat since you've been here? No, no, nothing's happened. All right, tell the guys, making sure we've got eyes on the threat to get into these rooms and help yourselves to the, to the food and drink. And he's like, looks at me and went, oh, well, we can't really do that. That's, that wouldn't that be classed as stealing?

• 2:45:14Speaker 03

  And I was like, that's credit to them, to the Kenyan police, because

• 2:45:20Speaker 03

  there's allegations from the West Gate years before that the, the, the Kenyan army just looted everything and done. But the Kenyan police were like, can we do that? Isn't that stealing? I was like, I'm telling you, I said, I have in, in, in effect, overall command here. Go into the bars, do not touch anything other than food and drink. And if anything comes back to you tomorrow or the day after, or whenever this ends, then tell them, I, I ordered you to, you could do it. And like that, boom, everyone just bomb bursted and everyone was grabbing food. Cause again, I, for me, I'd been on the move since half past three. This is now getting into the early hours of the morning.

• 2:46:00Speaker 03

  So now I'm like going, I didn't really want to eat anything, but Red Bull was always the hot commodity and everyone went for the Red Bulls and then, and then drinking, drinking fluids and everything. And like just thinking about sustaining the troops because we don't know how long this is going to go on for.

• 2:46:16Speaker 03

  So we do that, things are going on, sledgehammers are going, uh, then, um,

• 2:46:25Speaker 03

  we get the, uh, so then we get the, um, I'm, I'm having a mind dump. I'm, I'm getting one event mixed up on the other side, but let's go with it. And if people read the book saying, oh, he was,

• 2:46:38Speaker 03

  he said this either way around in the book is right now, I can't, I can't, I have a, I'm having a bit of a mind dump on it. But, um, but we'll just carry on with the breaching, get the good breach. They said, good breach. I'm like, brilliant. Going to attack with grenades? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 2:46:56Speaker 03

  There's a pause, goes on longer and longer. I'm like looking going, then eventually we hear a grenade go off upstairs. And I'm like, is that it? So yeah, and then all of a sudden we get a grenade down this hour stairs and raking gunfire. And then this point, some of the failure I have to take, because I just said to them, blow hole through an assault with grenades. Now, what I meant was blow hole through immediately after you get a good breach, throw a whole load of grenades down there and deal with the threat. But they did exactly what I said. I didn't tell them when to do it, the, the blow hole. They eventually threw a grenade down there and it was only one grenade. I didn't specify for so, it's another lesson to everyone. If you, you know, whatever sort of role in leadership is,

• 2:47:42Speaker 03

  whatever you're thinking, make sure you articulate that well. Because people will follow the, the instructions to the letter. And if your instructions aren't exact, then you won't get exact actions. So there's that. So that's the end of that. At about five thirty or so in the morning. So yeah, the breach must have happened. So now we're getting right. So the breach must have happened, failed breach, sorry, good breach. And then around about five thirty, we get a message saying, oh, there's terrorists, two terrorists in the basement.

• 2:48:14Speaker 03

  So I report that I'm not that worried about it because the terrorists, if I'm finding out there's terrorists in the basement, that means other members of the assault group have found them or are dealing with them. My threat is up these stairs. So pass it on and now we're going to deal with the threat at hand.

• 2:48:31Speaker 03

  So yeah, so my, so my thought is upstairs and I'm kind of, I'm out of ideas now. So now it's the, well, it's around about five thirty is not first till, not much time till first light. So my thought is maybe at first light, they're going to try and break out.

• 2:48:49Speaker 03

  Um, and first light comes and it's fairly uneventful. And then, then, uh, it doesn't seem to be that long that, and since hearing that there's terrorists in the basement, we still get the occasional grenade and gunfire attack. And, but like I say, we're kind of, I'm kind of out of ideas.

• 2:49:14Speaker 03

  Like I say, first light happens and then something significant happens. We then hear them praying. You hear them praying? Praying, loud call to pray. Now this is more significant because we haven't heard them at all, all the way through the night. We haven't heard them talk. We were just, the only thing we've heard is the gunfire and the, uh, grenades going off. So now we can hear them, they're giving it what for with a call to pray, some sort of prayer. So I turn around to the Kenyans around me and go, guys, get ready, it's coming. And the guy across on the corridor cross goes, how do you know? I'm like, because they're getting ready to meet their god.

• 2:49:55Speaker 03

  And, and then it's like, so at that time I'm number two in the stack and the guy in front, they was, okay, okay, boss, let's change, let's change. And I'm not bothered about this. So I'm number one in the stack. I've got the, I've got, at this point, I'm not even wearing my balaclavas just around my neck.

• 2:50:13Speaker 03

  And I'm just waiting and I'm like, am I, am I scared? No, am I apprehensive? Yes. Cause I kind of know it's, it's like now I'm pretty sure it's, it's kind of, it's going to come. So this was like, ah, and then, um, um, and then they, they stopped praying. It goes on for a while, I should add, and then they stop and something again comes over me and I raise them a Hail Mary. So I just say, Hail Mary, and I'm saying about this level, I'm like, Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with you. So I'm, and so I'm rolling off the Hail Mary. And there's no exaggeration of this for entertainment purposes or whatever.

• 2:50:54Speaker 03

  But now at the hour of our death, dink, dink, dink, dink, dink. Four hand grenades come down the stairs. This is it. It's the final battle starts right on the end of the Hail Mary. So good, good, all four, four grenades come down the stairs or push back. Like big explosions and stuff, um, and then the, uh, um,

• 2:51:24Speaker 03

  then we search forward, terrorist number one, fast on his feet. He's already at the bottom of the stairs, spraying with automatic gunfire. So I take, kick him immediately, like send three shots in, into his chest. But not only do I shoot, everyone's shot shooting. Kenyans leaning over me, I'm sure left, right, left over my ear, over my shoulder, who knows? Huge way of fire, but he's not going down. Remember this is only, this is fractions of seconds. But he doesn't, it doesn't go down. I immediately take, take him up and, uh, whack him in the, um, face, but it comes up, goes at the back of his ear. Um, drop, he drops. Number two, not so fast on his feet and been thinking about this all through the night.

• 2:52:08Speaker 03

  And he just comes running down the stairs, we just shoot his legs away and he falls and then sheer weight of gunfire kills him. Um, and then something really strange happens.

• 2:52:19Speaker 03

  They, they're all firing. I'm like, ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire. They all stop and as soon as like they stop firing, all of the Kenyans run into the killing area. And, and the big guy shouts, you don't fuck with Kenya. And they all start cheering and dancing. And I was like, it, it, it's a wrong, uh, it's a wrong vocab for me, but I sprint past them. And I'm like, infill, infill, infill. And I, cause I think in my mind, there's two more upstairs, we need to get up there. So they were like, oh shit, they all like tag on and then jump over the bodies and run up the stairs and then peel into the, into the, into the gym where there was no one else.

• 2:52:59Speaker 03

  It turns out when we come back downstairs, the the recce squadron boys are already prepping their bodies and taking, doing stuff.

• 2:53:08Speaker 03

  I'm like, I thought we're two wounded people up there. And they're like, no, like, no. I thought there's two more. Oh, no, no. And again, I remember it's English, not a first language. So I'm just putting it down to maybe a bit lost in translation. But, but it turns out there was no wounded, no, there was only two terrorists up there. There's a two, now there's a two terrorists in the basement. But again, thinking on my feet, like I take mug shots of the, so I take photographs of the dead bodies and the faces. Send that to my link to people saying, hey, who wants these? Who wants pictures of the dead? A lot of people say yes. So I send them straight away. They can start building up intelligence. Take the photographs of the dead.

• 2:53:50Speaker 03

  I then turned to the team leader and said, okay, what's the score with the two, with the people in the basement? He's like, yeah, we've got to, we've got to go down there. We're sorry. Yeah, we've got to go down there and get them. All right. And then he says, and first we've got to clear all the hotel as well. So I'm like, okay. So it seems like this assault group has now grew now that terror, now that threat's been neutralized. That's, there's a lot more people. But now we've got to clear a hundred and two rooms to the basement. So we now start going to work on all, we've done the top floors. Now we're just going room to room. At the same time, I get a message and they're saying, you need to go to room three, one, six as an American citizen there and secure her.

• 2:54:33Speaker 03

  So I then peel off. See, I'm going to three, one, six.

• 2:54:38Speaker 03

  She'll make a bail line for that. And I start heading down towards room three, one, six, where the American melee chipping was located.

• 2:54:48Shawn Ryan?

  Who's there today?

• 2:54:53Shawn Ryan?

  Shit, man.

• 2:54:58Speaker 03

  There's elements of the story that you'll, when you read the book, there's more, there's some things that I've said that aren't in the book. And there's some things that I've haven't said that are in the book as well. So there's a mix of. So when you buy the book, everyone, you're going to get the, you're going to get some, there's going to be some other information and things. And, and also this, this compliment, complements the book very well, this interview, but we'll talk about more, we'll talk more about that later.

• 2:55:22Shawn Ryan?

  We're going to buy the book, but I guarantee you that this is one of the most descriptive accounts I've ever heard. And it's

• 2:55:32Shawn Ryan?

  wow. Wow.

• 2:55:36Shawn Ryan?

  Those grenades come out right at you, said at the hour of our death and the Hail Mary.

• 2:55:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, just think, think before, but that was it.

• 2:55:44Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 2:55:48Shawn Ryan?

  Want to take a break?

• 2:55:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 2:55:53Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:56:38Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:57:14Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:57:34Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:57:54Shawn Ryan?

  Meili Chapin, welcome to the show.

• 2:57:57Speaker 04

  Thank you. I'm really honored to be here.

• 2:57:59Shawn Ryan?

  I'm honored to have you and I really, I really appreciate you making the trip. It's, you know, it's already a very special interview and to have somebody else who was there that day who was rescued and another perspective is it's just, it's

• 2:58:20Speaker 04

  It's always funny when people want to talk to me because I didn't, I didn't do anything special that day, right? I, people say like, oh, we want to hear your perspective. And my perspective is about just sort of surviving.

• 2:58:34Speaker 04

  But the reason I, the reason I like to, to answer these questions when I get them or to, to talk to people if I can, is because I wasn't the only person he saved. Do you know what I mean? Like he, this is hard for, it's hard for me to even say I'm in my first sentence, but he saved 700 people that day, right? And so if I can come and show I'm just one of those 700, but I'm a real person with a real life and a real family. And he gave those things back to me. And then you multiply that by 700. I just, I want to do justice to being a tiny symbol of what he saved that day, to make that real for people. Do you know what I mean?

• 2:59:15Shawn Ryan?

  It's, it's

• 2:59:18Shawn Ryan?

  indescribable. I mean, not only was it 700 plus people that day. It's the kids that they're going to have. It's the kids that their kids are going to have. I mean, there is a entire lineage of people that will experience life

• 2:59:39Shawn Ryan?

  because he was there to leave that mission that day. People that will never even know him will, will experience life on earth because he was there thousands of years from now.

• 2:59:50Speaker 04

  I can't, I can't put into words what it's like to wake up. I got married, for example, after he saved my life and to, to get to walk down the aisle and marry my now husband because Christian gave that to me. Like, that's a gift that he gave me. I would not be here. I would not be alive. I would not have married my husband. And as you're saying, that continues generationally. And again, multiply by 700 and then multiply that outward. That ripple effect is it's hard to even fathom. It's so, it's so powerful what he did. And he's just one man. He's just one man. It's, yeah, indescribable was a good way to put it.

• 3:00:31Shawn Ryan?

  So could you kind of, can you tell me what it was like in the building when it hit? When the first bomb went off?

• 3:00:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I can try.

• 3:00:41Speaker 04

  I use a lot of words and I still don't know that I can ever do this justice. I think that the first thing I would tell you is I didn't have any experience with anything like this. I had never been in a dangerous situation. I had never been near an explosion or even gunfire, really. And so I was, I was actually getting into bed in my hotel room. I was really jet lagged. And I'd been up since 3:30 that morning. And so I just figured I'd take a quick nap before the research team got back and make a debrief. And I crawled into bed. And this, the sound of this explosion, which I now know was the suicide bomber in the courtyard detonating his vest right outside my window.

• 3:01:25Speaker 04

  It was so loud, but my ears were ringing and I didn't even know that I was screaming. That's how loud it was. Like it was so loud. It shook the building. It literally shook the bed and I, I, I sort of leapt from the bed and just moved instinctively toward the noise. But I, I knew already, I mean, I knew, I think in that moment that I was dead.

• 3:01:48Speaker 04

  It was the scariest, I can't explain to you, I can't explain to you the way it shook the building and, and how dangerous that feels in that moment to have that happen so close by. And so I, I ran to the window and I, my hands were shaking so much, I couldn't wrench the curtains open to look down into the courtyard. And I finally got them. And it looked, it looked like a dystopian movie, like a scene from it. I, I remember like blinking my eyes over and over because I couldn't get my brain to acknowledge what I was seeing. I, I just kept thinking like, I'm hallucinating. That can't be real. There's just smoke rolling through this courtyard. And

• 3:02:32Speaker 04

  blood spatter, just this spray of, of blood spatter. And I, I'm blinking and I'm looking at this object lying on the pavement in this blood splatter. And I, my brain won't admit what it is. And I'm staring at it and I'm staring at it. And finally I see there's still a boot on the end of this leg and it's, it's a chunk of a human leg. And I just started sobbing. I, I, I knew in that moment, I didn't know that that was the suicide bomber's leg, but I knew a bomb had gone off. And I knew it was on purpose. And I knew that they, I knew they were coming to kill us. It was so, I, I knew it with every fiber of my being. I had just been talking to my driver that morning

• 3:03:17Speaker 04

  about the history of terrorist attacks in Nairobi and the motivation behind them and how they like for them to be these very large events, often lasting many days. And so I, I knew immediately, oh, this is, he said, you know, we all go through our lives wondering when the next one will be. And I looked down in the courtyard and said, this is the next one.

• 3:03:42Speaker 04

  And so I was still standing there when the two gunmen, I, I heard cars start to explode and car alarms are going off. And so, you know, I, I know now so much information, but standing there, I didn't know if they had surrounded the building. I didn't know if they were inside. I knew some sort of bomb had gone off.

• 3:04:00Shawn Ryan?

  You don't know how many?

• 3:04:01Speaker 04

  I didn't know. Exactly. I didn't know how many. I knew some sort of bomb had gone off. Then I knew cars were exploding and car alarms are screaming and the fire alarm starts in the building. And then I see these two gunmen walking through and I'm, I'm probably almost trying to convince myself like

• 3:04:20Speaker 04

  maybe those aren't terrorists. Maybe they're here to help, but they were so.

• 3:04:27Speaker 04

  I don't, maybe the word would be resolute. They, they were just walking, right? They weren't running. They weren't trying to help anyone. They were walking through this blood splatter like it was nothing and coming toward the building. Yeah. And I, I thought.

• 3:04:41Speaker 04

  What I thought was, I hope I have enough time to say goodbye to my family. That was it. Yeah.

• 3:04:48Shawn Ryan?

  So you were what, two floors above exactly where the bomb went off?

• 3:04:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I was on the third floor. So it was like just high enough that I could look sort of down, I mean, right at the, the initial site of the explosion through my window. And, uh, and you can see, when you see the CCTV footage online, you can see the people run through in the immediate aftermath and then the gunman come through.

• 3:05:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:05:15Shawn Ryan?

  And you could hear them shooting?

• 3:05:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:05:17Shawn Ryan?

  Could you hear the screaming?

• 3:05:19Speaker 04

  Actually, at that point, I couldn't hear screaming. But throughout the ordeal, I heard, I heard screaming at different points, some of which actually I think was the terrorists when they came in the building and started working their way up the stairs.

• 3:05:34Shawn Ryan?

  How long were you in there?

• 3:05:36Speaker 04

  Seventeen hours.

• 3:05:37Shawn Ryan?

  Seventeen hours?

• 3:05:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:05:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it's, it's a tough thing, right? Because it's certainly the longest seventeen hours of my life.

• 3:05:48Speaker 04

  But it, seventeen hours was a, was a, a grace that was given to us. Like, that would have lasted days. That would have lasted days. That would have been just like them all. It would have lasted for so, so much longer.

• 3:06:04Speaker 04

  It only lasted seventeen hours, which was a gruesome amount of time for anyone who was in there because someone came and did something about it. So it was long, but not nearly as long as it would have been.

• 3:06:21Shawn Ryan?

  So you didn't move rooms? You didn't, what, I mean, what was your, did the initial shock ever go away?

• 3:06:31Speaker 04

  No, that's an interesting question. In a way, it didn't. And I, there are interesting things that happen in retrospect where, you know, I was discussing with my now husband and he'd say, oh, you know, sometimes you'd go silent for an hour and that was really hard. I, I wouldn't have said that was possible, but if you look at the timestamps on my texts, it is. And I literally, I would go silent because I was literally on the floor shaking and just sobbing. And like, I didn't, you don't register the passage of time in the way that you do when you're living your real life. I had no idea how much time was passing. I literally was just, I mean, I was lying on the ground, just waiting, just saying like, let them kill me quickly, let them kill me quickly, let them kill me quickly. And, you know, you don't realize that you've done that for an hour.

• 3:07:12Speaker 04

  But that, that level of fear and adrenaline and, and terror in a way that redefined the word for me. Like, I didn't, I didn't know what terror meant until I was standing there in that room, shaking, trying to dial my phone to just like send one last text to my parents. It, it's, it's like nothing I've ever felt before. And that level of terror and fear was with me the whole time. I mean, there were, there were really brief moments where I thought, maybe someone was coming to save us. And then you'd hear more grenades, more explosions, more gunfire. And you'd think, maybe not. Hope felt, hope felt really dangerous. You almost don't want to believe you're going to be saved because then the gunshots start

• 3:07:57Speaker 04

  back up again. And it, it feels even more crushing to have to reckon with your own death again and again and again and again than to just accept it and wait.

• 3:08:09Shawn Ryan?

  Who was your first text?

• 3:08:11Speaker 04

  My first, I had been texting with my dad right before the explosion, right before I was going to take this nap. And so he was the most recent text. So he was my first text. And I, I said, terrorist attack on the hotel. I love you. And that was it, right? I, I wasn't dead yet. I figured I was going to be dead imminently. And I thought, I want you to know what's happening and, and that I love you. And I remember thinking, I hope, I hope when I'm dead, they take a little bit of comfort in the fact that that was my last thought, that like, I love you. That's my last, the last thing I said to them. And I, I truly believed in that moment, Sean, that those were the last texts I would ever send for, like, for the rest of my life.

• 3:08:56Speaker 04

  And then I texted my mom separately, the same thing. And then I texted my now husband, the same, the exact same words, terrorist attack on the hotel, I love you. And I, I'll never forget that moment. I just stared at the screen for a minute and I thought, gosh, that sounds so empty. Like, I really, he's a really good man. He's a really good man. And I love him more than I can put into words for you. And I looked at that text and I thought, that's it? That's all I'll be able to say to him? And so I just, I just typed out a couple more words. I said, more than anything. And I sent that off.

• 3:09:39Speaker 04

  I, I remember thinking, I hope he knows. Like, I hope when he gets that, he understands all of the gravity that I was trying to put into that. I hope he knows how much I wanted to marry him. And just like, how much he meant to me. I don't know. You don't think about trying to tell someone in a really fast text what they mean to you until you're standing there, hands shaking, waiting to die and thinking like, man, I hope that gets it across. So that was what I sent. I thought about texting my, my little brother. He was eighteen at the time. And I thought, I don't know. I just thought, I don't want him.

• 3:10:25Speaker 04

  I, I had just visited him for the holidays and I just thought, let that be his last memory, you know? We were sitting around and playing games and laughing together. And I just thought that was a better last memory than some traumatizing, sad text from his sister right before she was murdered on the other side of the planet. So those were the three texts.

• 3:10:45Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 3:10:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:10:48Speaker 04

  And then, um, you can't call 911, right? But I had been given a work sort of security number. So that was the next thing I did was called this work security line and basically asked them what I was supposed to do.

• 3:11:06Shawn Ryan?

  What did they say?

• 3:11:07Speaker 04

  So I got put on the phone with this woman named Melissa, who I think this was probably the most unusual day in her career as well. But she was amazing. I, I don't know how she had these answers or what exactly the process was like for her, but she very quickly started giving me instructions, which was, it was the best thing you could have done for me in that moment. Because I, I was literally, I mean, not literally, but I was frozen to the, I was standing in front of that window, phone in hands, shaking. I sent the three texts and that, I mean, that was it. I don't know, I couldn't come up with anything to do. I had no training. I had no experience with anything like this.

• 3:11:46Speaker 04

  I, I hadn't, I hadn't the faintest idea. You could have, you could have asked me right now, like, what's the best next thing to do? I still would tell you, there are really different approaches to this. But she said, let's make it look like no one's in the room. So we're going to close your curtains. We're going to turn off your lights. I want you to lock your door with the, like, physical, you know, the, what's that called? The door lock as well. And then I want you to barricade it with the heaviest things in your room that you can physically move, barricade your door. So I, I said, okay. And suddenly it was this, there was a very slight comfort in someone else has some good idea, someone else can help me maybe live? I don't know, right? But I'm at least going to try it.

• 3:12:28Speaker 04

  So I moved like some nightstands and some chairs and anything else, my, my bags, anything I could move to put in front of the door. And then she said, can you find a good hiding place?

• 3:12:40Speaker 04

  And so I'm sort of taking stock of this hotel room and I, I look in the bathroom and I see sort of, you know, like, there's your vanity, your sink, your mirror, and then there are these open shelves underneath. And I thought, it doesn't really look like a person could fit in that very bottom shelf, but I bet if I crushed my body in there, I bet I could fit. And I thought, hey, maybe that's a good hiding space because it doesn't look like someone would be there. So I went in the bathroom, locked the door lock. You know, those are the, you just push with a single finger and they're like, dink. And I remember, like, froze for another moment, thinking, that's not going to keep out someone who has an AK-47. I just, I remember being like, that's the lock?

• 3:13:27Speaker 04

  And then actually, I, I did melt down for a moment. I sort of slid down the door, back to the door. And I remember my whole body going ice cold.

• 3:13:36Speaker 04

  And I, I, I thought, as nice it is, as it is that she has these ideas. And I, I think it was that door lock moment that really made me think, this isn't going to work. These, a few suitcases and a door lock are never going to keep them out. They have explosives. Like, I just saw this in the courtyard.

• 3:13:54Speaker 04

  And I, I, I just sank down against the door and I was shivering. And I thought, one bullet between the eyes. Just one, like, please, please, please, please, just one bullet between the eyes.

• 3:14:09Speaker 04

  Because, I'm sorry. Well, because if, if they take me, if they film me, if they assault me, my family's going to have to watch them.

• 3:14:26Speaker 04

  And I'm still going to die, right? Like, I'm going to die one way or the other.

• 3:14:31Speaker 04

  But if they draw this out, my family will be tortured by that for the rest of their lives. And so I'll never forget that moment of just like, back against the door, sinking down onto the floor and thinking like, please, please, please, just one bullet, one bullet between the eyes. I just, it's okay, just let it be done and let it be quick.

• 3:15:00Speaker 04

  And then the, the woman on the phone, I think had to kind of shout my name finally. And, and say like, go to that hiding place, go to that hiding place. It's not over. Go to that hiding place. And so I, I pulled all the towels out from that shelf and I like crushed my body and I actually ended up with a huge bruise on my hip. For many, many days afterward, but I, I don't remember, like, I don't remember hitting my hip hard enough to, to cause a bruise that large, but crushed myself into these shelves and I pulled the towels back in. And there was this moment where I thought,

• 3:15:36Speaker 04

  that, I mean, I don't, if, if you're in a hurry and you're trying to kill as many people as you can, I guess, and you're just blowing these doors down and spraying gunfire at anyone you see.

• 3:15:48Speaker 04

  Maybe, maybe I'll live, like, maybe they really won't see me. And then a few minutes later, thinking, I barricaded the door. So they know, they know someone's in here and they're gonna look until they find me and like, this is not a, this is not a foolproof hiding place.

• 3:16:08Speaker 04

  And so then I just started telling myself, don't scream. Don't scream when they walk in here. Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream, because you're gonna be so scared. But if you scream, they'll know exactly where you are. So just don't scream. And that more, that was one of those times where like, so much more time passed than I realized. Almost an hour passed, I think, before I even gave any more updates to my family.

• 3:16:33Speaker 04

  And so then,

• 3:16:36Speaker 04

  I was, I was sitting out there listening to Christian tell it from his perspective and I was crying because,

• 3:16:47Speaker 04

  geez.

• 3:16:50Speaker 04

  Because he was, he was literally the difference.

• 3:16:55Speaker 04

  Between what I pictured happening and what actually happened, like, they would have come into my room and they would have killed me. There is no question about that. You can't argue that that's what they came to do. They came to systematically execute everyone in that complex and that's what they were gonna do.

• 3:17:15Speaker 04

  And then he gets in his car and like, uses all of this training. He has this training about how to drive tactically and live through that and get to the destination, you know, quickly and effectively. And he does that. And then he even says what he has to say to make sure he gets all the way to the hotel complex so that he can come save all of us. And it's like, it's almost incomprehensible to me. Who, who does that? But

• 3:17:46Speaker 04

  that's what he did. That's what he changed. He, he took the reality I was so sure was going to happen. And he, he saved us instead.

• 3:17:56Shawn Ryan?

  It's pretty incredible. You know, even, even just,

• 3:18:03Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know. The intuition to go.

• 3:18:06Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 3:18:06Shawn Ryan?

  Like, well, I was, like, before we got into the incident, I was, I was like, man, we, we'd been,

• 3:18:13Shawn Ryan?

  I've been in lots of places.

• 3:18:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:18:15Shawn Ryan?

  Sure, he's been in lots of places, or much more than mine than I have, where, where hotels, hospitals, schools, I mean, things get hit.

• 3:18:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:18:25Shawn Ryan?

  It can be a daily occurrence.

• 3:18:26Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 3:18:26Shawn Ryan?

  And it's so often, I mean, you, you couldn't even begin to respond to them. And you don't respond to them all. And you don't respond to really much of any of them because they're not your people. You know, and I, I hate to say it like that, but um, you know, it's not your mission, it's not your people for, but for him to, you know, and I, I mean, I get what he says, oh, well, this is a semi-permissive environment. That still is, is,

• 3:18:59Shawn Ryan?

  well, I mean, you heard the coincidences that led up to this and, and, you know, I think it's

• 3:19:09Shawn Ryan?

  pretty obvious, you know? There was a lead up.

• 3:19:14Speaker 04

  I, I always joke with him, so he knows this well, but he joined the military in September of 1992. And I was born in September of 1992. And so I always think of it like, in a way like, though we didn't know it yet, our lives had already intersected all the way back then. And then 26 years later, he shows up in this hotel and saves me because he had spent 26 years training and building up all of this experience that, that he put to use that day, that, you know, that he says he feels like his whole life led up to that day. And I, I know you had said it to him and you just said now that, that they weren't his people, they weren't his comrades, they weren't his colleagues.

• 3:19:53Speaker 04

  They weren't even his countrymen largely. And to me, it's part of what makes the story so

• 3:20:04Speaker 04

  meaningful, so meaningful, right? Like, he didn't save us because we were British or this or that, anything. He saved us because

• 3:20:17Speaker 04

  I, in my words, he couldn't bear to let evil win that day. That was it. He just, we were human beings. We were innocent human beings who were being systematically executed to make a point by this organization and he,

• 3:20:35Speaker 04

  I think he couldn't bear for that to happen.

• 3:20:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:20:43Shawn Ryan?

  Seventeen hours.

• 3:20:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:20:46Shawn Ryan?

  You are thinking you're gonna die in any minute.

• 3:20:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 3:20:51Shawn Ryan?

  Lots of things can go through people's heads. Life reviews, regrets.

• 3:20:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:20:58Shawn Ryan?

  All the stuff you just described. How it's gonna happen.

• 3:21:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I thought that would happen to me. That mostly, I, I would replay, there was this sort of almost like vision in my head over and over and over of what it would look like when I died. What it would sound like, what it would feel like, you know, what I, okay, will I still have consciousness for a few minutes after they shoot me? Two minutes? Will I feel myself bleeding out? You know, what will that be like? But it was two things. It was funny. I, I remember thinking, I thought I'd be braver. I remember thinking, I thought I'd be braver. I, I don't know why, but I thought I would have said, oh, you know, if I have to face death, I'll, I'll face it staunchly with a brave face. I don't know why I thought that about myself. And I can't tell you

• 3:21:46Speaker 04

  how not brave I felt in there, shaking and sobbing on the floor and how helpless. That was part of what was so frustrating was feeling like there was nothing I could do. I didn't have any training. I didn't have a weapon. I didn't have a, a plan. I didn't have anyone to call, like, nothing. And so I just remember feeling so, so helpless. And then thinking, I, I would have thought I'd review my life or like the happiest moments, or maybe I'd look back at old photos and cry.

• 3:22:15Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have any regrets?

• 3:22:17Speaker 04

  No, and I didn't, I, it didn't feel that way either. The regret was, I'm, I'm so sad that I don't get to finish my life. Like, I'm only 26. And I love the man I'm engaged to and I love my family and I love my job. And I'm so, I, I have led such an amazing life and I've loved every minute of it. Like, I, I truly didn't feel like I had taken my life for granted or my relationships. But I was so sad, like devastated, that I wouldn't get to go back to them. I remember, I remember sobbing, thinking, I really wanted to marry Paul. Like, I really, really wanted to marry him. And so it wasn't about like past regrets. It was about the future that I was gonna miss.

• 3:23:02Speaker 04

  And I was so sad to miss it.

• 3:23:03Shawn Ryan?

  Did you think about what happens after death?

• 3:23:08Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't think so. I don't remember having a thought like that. I, I think it was, as much as I felt like I had accepted dying,

• 3:23:19Speaker 04

  I was so sad. I was really caught up in being sad, sad to die, sad to, to miss out on this future that I had been looking forward to living. And so I didn't, it was really, I was really caught up in sort of grieving the things I was gonna miss.

• 3:23:36Shawn Ryan?

  And you never hit acceptance.

• 3:23:37Speaker 04

  I don't think.

• 3:23:38Shawn Ryan?

  You never really hit, this is just.

• 3:23:41Speaker 04

  I felt that it was inarguable. Like, it was, there was nothing I could do. I was going to die.

• 3:23:48Shawn Ryan?

  But that didn't bring a calmness over you?

• 3:23:50Speaker 04

  No, definitely not. I, I wanted it to be quick. I, I was certain I was going to die. And I was certain there was nothing I could do about it, but it's a hard thing to accept, you know, death. And that's the human condition, right? Like, we wanna fight, we wanna live, we wanna survive to see another day and

• 3:24:12Speaker 04

  I, I wanted to see another day.

• 3:24:18Shawn Ryan?

  Did you hear gunfire, grenades? I mean, was it all 17 hours?

• 3:24:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, I mean, there would be short respite, especially toward the end. And you've heard it a bit from Christian's perspective. I didn't know what was happening. But toward the end, there would be these bursts of like explosions and gunfire. And then it'd go quiet for a minute or two. And then more, what I know now are grenades and gunfire. But in the beginning, it was such an assault on the senses. It was like the cars exploding, the fire alarms, or the car alarms, the fire alarm inside the building, including inside my room. Right, so just wailing right above your head. The explosion that had been in the courtyard, the gunfire from the two terrorists who had split off around the back.

• 3:25:02Speaker 04

  It was, yeah, it's hard to put into words how much that overwhelms your senses. And, and it felt like it was coming from everywhere, from everywhere. I remember, I remember saying to my parents, like, there have to be dozens of these guys. Because it is, they, this gunfire is all around me and it never stops. Like, it never stops. So the beginning was just, it was just constant. And what I know now, too, that I didn't know then, was I thought, I thought people had arrived at the scene and were engaging the terrorists. So I thought the police were there or the Kenyan Special Forces were there long before anyone was actually engaging the terrorists. Because I could hear like gunfire and then gunfire from a different location.

• 3:25:47Speaker 04

  And so I thought maybe that was them trading gunfire. But actually, it was this group of two terrorists gunning people down. And this group of two terrorists gunning people down and they had split off. And so I, I, I got a lot of different stories throughout the 17 hours. But at one point, there was a report that it wasn't terrorists, it was a bank robbery. Yeah, so this is a big, a big story.

• 3:26:11Shawn Ryan?

  Where are you getting these reports from?

• 3:26:12Speaker 04

  At the time, well, that actually went all the way through Google Security. They were like, it's confirmed, this is a bank robbery, you're actually not in any danger. And so that was the first time I came out of my like hiding place. And I was trying to tell myself, okay, okay, okay, okay, this is really good news, right? These aren't terrorists, they don't want anything to do with me. I mean, I understand I could die accidentally in the crossfire. But these are not people hunting, you know, down all of the people in the hotel. And I was trying so hard to ignore the voice in the back of my head that was saying, why would a suicide bomber detonate as part of a bank robbery? Like, what, how, what was the plan there? And then, you know, later, these tweets went out that the property had been secured.

• 3:26:55Speaker 04

  And so my parents texted me, oh, my gosh, okay, we've heard it's official, right? The property's been secured. And I, I could still hear gunfire from multiple directions. And I was like, I can't imagine the property has been secured. I can still hear quite a lot of gunfire. And then there were more explosions after that. And so I remember saying, I remember saying to the woman on the phone, I was, I was crying and I was saying, Melissa, isn't anyone coming? Like, doesn't anyone care that this is happening to us? And it was such a, it was such a naive thing to say, right? I was in another country. Nobody owed me anything. But it was hard for me to believe.

• 3:27:39Speaker 04

  And I think especially as an American, it was hard for me to believe that like, no, no one was coming. And that was the case at that time, no one was coming. And I always think if you could, if you could watch our lives unfolding side by side, you'd see Christian getting this call and getting in his car and like, probably getting to the complex right as I'm sobbing, saying, isn't anyone gonna come? And he did, like, someone did. And that, that literally made all of the difference. That made all the difference.

• 3:28:12Shawn Ryan?

  How did they approach your door? I mean, when, when it was...

• 3:28:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I...

• 3:28:18Shawn Ryan?

  And how did you answer? I mean, you're thinking, I mean, I would think that, other than the bomb and probably the initial gunfire, to hear a knock at your door.

• 3:28:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:28:28Shawn Ryan?

  Who's not, not an American?

• 3:28:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, actually. So it was an interesting thing because the whole time, right? You're hearing all these sounds and your, your brain is working so hard to try to understand, where are these people and how much danger am I in? And is it changing, right? Like, oh, are they getting closer, am I in more danger? And then I got all of these different reports through the security team. And I talked to Marine Post One at one point. And so I had been told all kinds of things. Fill the bathtub with water because we're worried the whole building is gonna catch fire. And that might buy you a couple of minutes. I had been told Kenyan Special Forces is at your door, literally right now. Go answer the door, they're here to save you. And there was no one, no one in the hallway, no one at the door, nothing.

• 3:29:13Speaker 04

  I had been told, obviously, like, the bank robbery. I had been told the, the property's been secured. And so you just start to, you start to unravel, kind of. It's a hard thing to explain, but you don't know what to believe, right? What's true, how safe am I? But the one thing that had been reiterated to me over and over was, you don't leave your room. And you don't open your door for, anyway, I don't care if they have an American accent. I don't get, you do not open your door unless they tell you who they are and who sent them. Like, you know, what, what, what group they're with. And so actually, a few hours in, the, I could hear the card reader on my door. A card, a hotel key card went into the card reader.

• 3:29:56Speaker 04

  And so you can hear it, you know, ding, ding, ding. And they opened it and slammed into that lock. And like shook the door a few times, never said anything, closed it again and went. And I could hear them do it at the next door. And I still, to this day, Sean, I don't know who that was. I think about that still. I don't know who that was. I, that was like one of the first questions I asked Christian. I was like, did you have a hotel key card? Who was coming through? And it could have been a Good Samaritan, I don't know. I don't know who that was. But I remember thinking, I remember thinking that I was going to die of a heart attack. And how ironic that was going to be. Because my heart was pounding so hard. I remember thinking, there's no way your heart can pound like this for very long before you die, I think. It, it felt like my heart was exploding out of my chest.

• 3:30:41Speaker 04

  And when I heard that, the card in the card reader and then the door against the deadbolt, I, I remember thinking that the fear was going to kill me, that I was gonna die. I was so scared. And then, a little bit after that, Christian talked about how they, the terrorists fell back to that position in the gym. Well, they went up the stairs in the building and they were screaming, like, in a language I don't understand. And so I could hear their voices, my room was very close to the stairs and the elevators. And so I could hear their voices get louder and louder as they came up the stairs. And then there was this explosion, huge explosion of glass. So the whole stairwell in that hotel was made of, of glass.

• 3:31:23Speaker 04

  It, it just, natural light could shine in onto the stairs all day long. And I, it was so loud, there was so much glass shattering. I remember thinking, that was the windows. The windows in that stairwell just got shot out. And they cascaded into tiny shards. And I, I started sobbing and I texted my family and said, they're on my floor. Like, I can hear them, they're here, they're on my floor.

• 3:31:48Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 3:31:49Speaker 04

  And so I, I mean, I knew, and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt. And that was, again, it was one of those moments where like, it had been, you know, I'm definitely gonna die. Oh, no, the Kenyan Special Forces are at your door. Oh, no, it's a bank robbery. Oh, wait, no, you're gonna die. And like, so many times, I had already believed I was gonna die and believed I was gonna be rescued and believed I was gonna die and believed I was gonna be rescued. And, and that was another one of those moments where it just, you think, I remember thinking to myself, how naive. I can't believe there was a little part of me that thought I might make it out of this alive. Because they are right there. They're in the stairwell, they're here. And it makes sense, because they're gonna do what they came to do. They're gonna murder as many people as they can get to,

• 3:32:31Speaker 04

  even if there is some sort of response force here, because I have no idea who's on the ground. They're gonna murder as many of us as they can. And unfortunately, I'm on the third floor. So it looks like they made it here.

• 3:32:45Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:32:47Speaker 04

  And then, and then they kept going. They kept going up the stairs. I know now, they were trying to make it to those fallback position, that fallback position in the gym, up on the very top floor. But they kept going and screaming and glass was shattering. And I don't know, all I knew was they were getting closer. And now their voices are receding again above me, but they're in this building. Like, I could hear them upstairs.

• 3:33:17Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 3:33:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. But then I did get a message, a message got to me that said, this is hard to say.

• 3:33:36Speaker 04

  A message got to me that said, "US and UK Special Forces are on the ground." And for me,

• 3:33:45Speaker 04

  through the ebbs and flows of everything emotionally I had been through up to that point, that was the turning point for me. That was the first moment that I thought.

• 3:33:57Speaker 04

  I don't know, you don't hear a lot of stories of US and UK Special Forces showing up and just like, turning around and going home, you know? That was the first moment I thought.

• 3:34:09Speaker 04

  Those people might save us. Like, if they're here, if they came,

• 3:34:17Speaker 04

  we have a chance. We have a, like, a real chance. And I'll never forget, I'll never forget till the day that I die. I'll never forget seeing that text.

• 3:34:28Speaker 04

  And it's hard to explain what it's like

• 3:34:33Speaker 04

  to be on the far side of the world.

• 3:34:37Speaker 04

  And to think like,

• 3:34:42Speaker 04

  geez, ah, sorry. To think like, they came for me.

• 3:34:50Speaker 04

  They came for me anyway. I'm not, I'm not on American soil. And they don't know me.

• 3:35:00Speaker 04

  But they came for me. They're here to like,

• 3:35:05Speaker 04

  to risk their lives for mine.

• 3:35:10Speaker 04

  It's, it's, I'll never be able to put into words what that feels like, that kind of gratitude. When you think, when you think you're on your own, when you think you're being left in a building to be murdered by terrorists, and you get a text that says, "I know you're in Nairobi, but US and UK Special Forces are here."

• 3:35:38Speaker 04

  That was the turning point. I'll never, never be able to put into words the gratitude I felt. And, and he was there, and that was the turning point. I'm gonna need a second tissue.

• 3:35:55Speaker 04

  Okay, sorry.

• 3:35:58Shawn Ryan?

  You're doing great.

• 3:36:00Speaker 04

  It's tough. It's hard. You feel like you can't really put words to that kind of feeling, you know? I have tried and tried, but I, I'll never do that justice. I'll never do that justice.

• 3:36:13Shawn Ryan?

  I think you just did.

• 3:36:15Speaker 04

  Trying. I think I had lived my whole life

• 3:36:23Speaker 04

  taking my safety for granted. Because I could. Because that's,

• 3:36:33Speaker 04

  because I had always been safe. And so it was almost unfathomable to be caught in this attack. And then it was even harder to believe that no one was coming.

• 3:36:44Speaker 04

  And then,

• 3:36:46Speaker 04

  and then they did. Someone came, and it just,

• 3:36:54Speaker 04

  I think, if I had to try to explain it, I'd say,

• 3:37:00Speaker 04

  I stood between, I physically stood between the two extremes of like, what humanity can be. There were literal strangers who wanted to murder me in cold blood, who I didn't know, and who would have done it without hesitating. And who were like, quite literally willing to give their lives to do that, to, to kill me and a bunch of other strangers. And then

• 3:37:27Speaker 04

  there was this man and the people who were helping him, who was also a complete stranger to me, who was willing to give his life

• 3:37:39Speaker 04

  to stop, to stop them.

• 3:37:44Speaker 04

  And so in the same day, I think I saw the absolute worst of what humanity can do and be, and the best.

• 3:37:54Speaker 04

  And that changes everything.

• 3:37:58Speaker 04

  It changes everything.

• 3:38:00Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 3:38:02Shawn Ryan?

  So good.

• 3:38:03Speaker 04

  Just gonna cruise through these.

• 3:38:09Speaker 04

  But yeah, eventually,

• 3:38:12Speaker 04

  there was a, what actually started happening, he discussed a meeting with some people in the lobby. And so what that was like for me was that my, you never think about the physical phones that are still in hotel rooms, right? But most hotel rooms have a phone both beside the bed and on the wall in the bathroom, almost always.

• 3:38:34Speaker 04

  The, the phone, I was in the bathroom, so, which was where I was told to sort of hide out. And so I was in the bathroom for basically all 17 hours. The only time I would leave the bathroom was when I would have to swap my phones. I had a work phone and a personal phone, both of which I was just, you know, using the whole time, but when I would have to charge one. The only outlet that would take my kind of plug was in the main bedroom. So I'd have to army crawl out there to try to stay below the level of the window, which was almost the whole far wall. Army crawl out there and like, take one off the charger, put the next one on, and then army crawl back, because they said to stay, stay below the level of the glass. But I spent almost the whole time in the bathroom.

• 3:39:17Speaker 04

  And so I was in the bathroom, and the physical phone started to ring, which was actually really startling to me and very distressing, because I had spent, they tell you constantly, right? "Don't make any noise, don't make any noise, don't draw any attention to yourself." And so when this phone started ringing, my initial desire was to make it stop. Like, I, I almost picked it up and hung it right up, because I didn't want it to be making all of this noise to draw any attention to the room.

• 3:39:41Speaker 04

  But I called Marine Post One back and asked them, like, "This phone is ringing, do you want me to do something about that? Am I supposed to answer it?" And I heard them have a discussion, and he came back on the phone and he said, "Yeah, if it rings again, answer it." And write that, I mean, literally, the sentence came out of his mouth and the phone started ringing again. And I said, "Okay, I'm gonna answer it, hang on." And I, I should clarify that I never spoke to my family members. I only texted with my family members. I spoke to the security line from work and to Marine Post One, and then when I answered this phone. But I, I didn't, I felt like if I talked to them, if I heard their voices, I was gonna break down and there would be no, like, I wouldn't be able to do anything else.

• 3:40:24Speaker 04

  So I was only texting them, and then I was talking to these different people who had information. So I said, "Okay, I'm gonna answer it." And I picked the physical phone up off the wall, and probably in a barely audible voice, you know, it was like, "Hello?" And dead calm, dead calm, American accent, you know, man comes across the line, and he says, "Oh, hey, Maile, how you doing? You know, I'm down here in the front lobby and we're checking in with everybody. Are you injured? Do you need anything?"

• 3:40:53Speaker 04

  And I think I just went silent. It was so strange to get this call on this physical phone. He, this man, I don't know, says he's in the lobby. As far as I'm concerned, the lobby is imploding down, I'm not really sure, does the lobby still exist? And like, "Yes, I need some, I would really like to leave," you know, what am I supposed to say? I remember being really startled. He said he was my security liaison, and I said, "I don't know what that is, but okay." And he said, "You're doing a great job." Which I remember thinking, "I don't know how one does a good or bad job in this situation. I'm just sitting here in my room, you know, crossing my fingers and crying."

• 3:41:32Speaker 04

  And he said,

• 3:41:34Speaker 04

  "You're, I wanted to let you know that your floor has been secured, but it is of the absolute, you know, utmost importance that you stay where you are. The building has not been secured, but like, your floor is secure." And I probably continued to cry. I remember asking him to repeat himself, "Can you say that again? Can you say that again?" And he said, "Yeah, your floor has been secured."

• 3:41:59Speaker 04

  And he said he would call back with more updates. And so I hung it up. I texted my parents and my then fiance, now husband, and said, "They said my floor has been secured." My husband responded immediately and was like, "That's great news, you know, it probably means that the, the battle is not taking place there, and, and they know there are no terrorists on your floor, so let's take that as a win for now."

• 3:42:23Speaker 04

  And then when I got, I think there were two more calls in between, but the next big piece of information was, he said, "We're gonna start the final assault. It's going to be loud and it's going to be long. And I just wanted to give you that heads up. But try to remember, it's a good thing, like, we're gonna neutralize the terrorists." And I hung up, and there were a couple moments of that, like, near quiet again, and then that was when the grenades just started going off so much above me. The, there had been like a, a pounding sound coming down from above me, just like repetitive, that I finally, when I met Christian, learned was them sledgehammering the ceiling, trying to get in to throw the grenades into the gym.

• 3:43:06Speaker 04

  But yeah, the grenades and the gunfire, and that's when it started just being like, exchanged over and over and over and over. And every time I thought it was done, it would start again.

• 3:43:18Speaker 04

  And I, by then, the, he was saying this too, but the sun was coming up? And I can't explain to you how strange it is. I mean, they had started the attack in broad daylight. And we had gone all through the night, so it had gone, you know, pitch black in the room. I remember the lights of the helicopter shining in at one point, but mostly pitch black all through the night. And then the sun starts to come up the next morning, and the, the birds come back, and they're, they're tweeting in the trees outside my window. And then they all scatter as these grenades start to explode again. And it was like, it, it was unreal in so many ways. It didn't feel real. There was something so violent going on.

• 3:44:03Speaker 04

  And I still didn't know if I was gonna live or die. And I remember them saying to me, "At this point, the biggest fear is that the whole building is gonna come down on you guys, that the building will collapse onto you. So that's what we're most afraid of at this point." And of course, what I didn't know was there were still two terrorists in the basement, so.

• 3:44:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was, even as I was living it, it was hard to process that it was really happening.

• 3:44:34Shawn Ryan?

  Who came and got you out of there?

• 3:44:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:44:38Speaker 04

  I was just, it was the most casual knock. I don't know what kind of knock I expected. Maybe like, maybe it was a similar thought to Christian's, right? We don't want to freak out the victims inside these rooms.

• 3:44:48Speaker 04

  But it was just this really casual, like almost light knock. I, I almost felt like I had imagined it. And I remember leaping off the floor. I was on, I was on the phone with the security line still from work. And it was the third person, because they change shift every eight hours. And so I was on the phone with a third person at that point. And I said, they're at my door, they're at my door. And I started running, running for the door, like throwing the door open to the bathroom. And like, I was so, I wanted nothing, nothing, nothing more than to get out of that hotel. And he, he was very adamant on the phone. He was, you know, urgently saying, hang on, hang on, you can't just open the door for anyone. Like, we can't verify who that is until they disclose, you know, who they are. So like, don't throw the door open.

• 3:45:30Speaker 04

  And so I'm sobbing and I'm saying like, okay, I'll try to ask them. And I'm, I'm ripping all the furniture away from, from the door that I pushed in there. And I'm, I'm shaking. And, and he, you know, reiterates yet again, you can't just, you can't just open the door. Meili, do you understand what I'm saying? And I, I was like, okay, okay, okay.

• 3:45:54Speaker 04

  Hey, can I, I said something to them about, you know, is it, is it safe to open the door? Can I open the door? And they said, yes, Meili, we're here to get you. We're here to take you out. Again, these calm, American voices, we're here to get you out. It would be great if you could open the door. And he said one more time, they have to say who they're with. And I was like, okay, can you just, can you say who you're with? I don't even know how to ask that question, right? But that's what he said, can you say who you're with? And I started to reach for the door handle to just throw it open. And as I, as I got my hand almost there, it's like, can you tell me who you're with? And this gruff, American voice came back from the other side of the door. And he said, don't worry about it. And I remember my hand just freezing in midair. And then, honestly, I, I was like, seems fine.

• 3:46:38Speaker 04

  And I hung up and threw the door open. I know, it was not a good, it was not a good response. I think I was.

• 3:46:46Speaker 04

  I think I was so desperate to leave, so desperate.

• 3:46:51Speaker 04

  That I would have, yeah, it's, it truly could have been a disastrous mistake. It was not a great moment of judgment, but luckily, they were two American guys, button down shirts, very calm.

• 3:47:05Speaker 04

  They asked if I was like physically injured. I said, no. And they asked me a couple more times just to make sure. They got, they asked if I had like sort of a little bag packed, which the security line had told me to do at one point. So I did have like a small bag with my passport. And they got that. And then they asked if I could walk. And I said, yeah, I could walk. And I tried to start stepping out into the hallway with them. And there was so much broken glass on the floor that I was literally slipping. Like I, I mean, my feet were, I had sneakers on and my feet were going out from under me. I remember one of them having to like prop me up under his arm as they made it down, down the stairs. And I looked up at the window and I thought, yeah.

• 3:47:48Speaker 04

  They, they brought down all, like the windows in the staircase, there was so much blown up glass. It's hard, it's hard to even put it into words. I was talking to Christian about it last night. And I was like, do you remember wading through broken glass? And he said, yeah, I was literally slippery because there was so much broken glass everywhere. And they had told me, the, the very first person I had spoken with on the security line, the very first time they thought I was getting out, which was about an hour in, she had said, when they take you out, don't look around. She was like, it's horrific, don't look around. And so that's, I remember just like training my eyes on all of this broken glass on the stairs. And that was all I saw with this arm under me as they like half carried me down the steps

• 3:48:33Speaker 04

  and into the lobby. And they, they announced themselves to the force downstairs. I think they said, blue, blue, blue, or something like, I remember jumping because he shouted. And I thought it meant something bad. But he was announcing himself and then we came down into the lobby. And they sat me on a couch and said they had to go get the other American. And I, I remember saying to them, are you sure it's safe? Are you sure it's safe? I, I can just sit here in the middle of the lobby on this couch? And they, they, another guy from the group, whatever group that was, stayed with me.

• 3:49:07Speaker 04

  And they said, yeah, we're sure it's safe. We're gonna go get the other American and then we're gonna get you out of here.

• 3:49:14Speaker 04

  And I,

• 3:49:17Speaker 04

  as someone who often chooses the wrong words, I, I took out my phone. They wanted to let my family know, like, I think I'm gonna live. I think, I think I'm being rescued. And I texted on the group chat, they got me. Which was probably the worst words that I could possibly choose. So I said, they got me. Put my phone away. And then a few minutes later, I sort of gasped and turned to the man next to me and was like, am I allowed to get out my phone? Because you know, you're not supposed to reach in your bags or like do any sudden movements. And I was like, can I get my phone out one more time? And he said, yes. And so I got it out and I was like, I'm so sorry, the good guys, the good guys got me. And I think that was the moment that it hit me too, as I was typing that out, like,

• 3:50:04Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm out of there, I'm out of the room where I literally thought I would die, where I, I imagined bleeding out thousands of times. I'm out. I got out of there.

• 3:50:17Speaker 04

  And,

• 3:50:19Speaker 04

  and I think I'm gonna live. Like, the good guys got me, they're here, like,

• 3:50:25Speaker 04

  it's like, it's like living inside of a superhero movie. Where they really do, like they show up and they save you and they take you out of what literally felt like hell, like the worst thing I had ever been in.

• 3:50:40Speaker 04

  And they took me and the other American out to an armored vehicle and drove us off the property. And it, it must have been, I don't know, you'd have to ask him, but not an hour later? Maybe a little more than that, that, that Christian walked into my room and it was empty.

• 3:50:57Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 3:50:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:51:00Shawn Ryan?

  Watching that video, he showed me the video of you and your mom.

• 3:51:04Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 3:51:05Shawn Ryan?

  At the airport when you got home.

• 3:51:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:51:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, you can see like,

• 3:51:13Speaker 04

  I think that video is really powerful to me because again, when you think about

• 3:51:18Speaker 04

  700 people getting home to their families, 700 mothers sobbing as they get to hold their child again, who they truly believed they would never see again. And, and just as much, you think about the 22 mothers who lost their child that day, you know, before he could get there, before the good guys came to save us.

• 3:51:42Speaker 04

  It's, yeah, it, it's, it really demonstrates that that was life or death. Like that was every second, that was life or death. He talks about like getting there as fast as he could. And every second that he saved on that drive and clearing the buildings saved someone's life.

• 3:52:05Shawn Ryan?

  When did you meet him for the first time?

• 3:52:07Speaker 04

  I met him almost exactly a year later. So he saved me in January of 2019. I got married about halfway through that year. And then my husband and I met up with him at a hotel in Washington DC. And it was to, to have had the worst experience of your life in a hotel. And then later that same year, to be like, sitting in a hotel room, shaking, crying, tears of like gratitude and, and joy. Because you get to meet the man who saved you is like, I don't know. Reality is, is stranger than fiction sometimes, I think. We, we knew of him, right?

• 3:52:49Speaker 04

  Obviously, I finally got out and I finally get back to the US. And there are these stories on the internet where everyone's saying, there's this guy, Obi-Wan Nairobi, you know, he was our only hope. He came through in this like button down and saved everyone. And there are these videos of him literally carrying wounded people out of, of the complex. And we didn't know, and he's wearing a ball of clothing, right? We didn't know anything about who this was. There are all these theories circulating online. And I, I remember seeing the blackbeard patch that he had on that day. And I ordered everything I could find with a blackbeard patch on it. I had like a water bottle and a thermos and a patch and just anything I, I could find that had the blackbeard patch.

• 3:53:34Speaker 04

  And I, I just, I was, it's, I think to me at that time, he was like this myth, right? He was this mythical person, I'm sorry, I'm still like tearing up. He was this mythical person who had come and saved us. And in a way, he almost wasn't real, right? Like, I don't know, there are these photos and these videos of this man doing this like superhuman thing and saving everyone and, and

• 3:54:00Speaker 04

  it, it didn't, I knew he was a real person, obviously. But to me, he was so much larger than like, it was like Superman came and saved us, right? And now the whole internet is saying like, oh, Superman saved you. And, and I'm like, well, that makes sense because he, he saved so many of us. And so he still was this like mythical figure in our lives. And I, I had these patches and they felt like these little, I don't know, talismans. I was obsessed with them. I would take this thermos everywhere and say like, I don't know, it was odd. It just like, it felt like these little charms I could take around with me. Like if I had one, I was safer because it made me feel almost connected to this mythical person.

• 3:54:44Speaker 04

  And, and so when we got the opportunity to meet him in real life.

• 3:54:50Speaker 04

  It was, it was humbling to, it was humbling to put my arms around him and think like, somehow I never thought about the fact until that day, until I was hugging him in that room. I never thought about the fact that he was a real person, like who, who also may have never made it home to his family that day, who also, like, everything in his life was on the line, except he did it voluntarily. Like, I would have given anything, anything, anything to get out of that hotel, anything. And he chose to walk in, like, and so it wasn't until I put my arms around him and like, gave him this hug, that I, I think

• 3:55:34Speaker 04

  that really hit home for me, that I thought, you're, you're a person, you're, you're a man, and you could have chosen not to save us. You could have never joined the military, right? And then I'd be dead if you never joined the military. I'd be dead if you drove slower that day. I'd be dead if you didn't, you know, risk still going in alone.

• 3:56:00Speaker 04

  And so I can't, I can't explain how humbling it was to put, put my arms around him that day and like, thank him.

• 3:56:10Shawn Ryan?

  What's the first thing you said to him?

• 3:56:13Speaker 04

  The first thing I said was, thank you. I was sobbing. And then I, I handed him a letter. I had written him a letter. And in the letter, I said, I hope that you never forget that you didn't save me. You gave my parents back their daughter, my brother back his sister, my husband back his wife. And you did that 700 times. I just like, I wanted him to know every day that, that there were real people, like that I'm, I'm just one real person. But I have a real life. I wake up every morning and I go live it. And there are people that I love that love me.

• 3:56:58Speaker 04

  And he, he gave us that gift. Like, he literally gave me the gift of my life. So, yeah, there I was, again, trying to put words to something that I don't know that you can put words to that.

• 3:57:15Shawn Ryan?

  Man.

• 3:57:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:57:16Shawn Ryan?

  When you guys are still close today.

• 3:57:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, very. I try to, I don't know. It's a hard, it's a,

• 3:57:27Speaker 04

  you think about your life very differently when it's been given back to you, right, for a second chance, a second time. And so I try to, I try to do what I can in a very different life from, from his, to honor that gift that he gave me, to like, put good back out in the world, or try to help other people where I can. Because I, I wouldn't have had any of these days. And I feel like that's, that's how I try to pay tribute to his legacy, to like, what he gave me back.

• 3:58:06Shawn Ryan?

  And you wrote a book, Terrorist Attack Girl?

• 3:58:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:58:10Shawn Ryan?

  And you came up with an app for PTSD.

• 3:58:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:58:13Shawn Ryan?

  What's the name of the app?

• 3:58:14Speaker 04

  The app's called Trauma Brace. And they're both just efforts to

• 3:58:21Speaker 04

  give a lifeline to people who are suffering from PTSD. I didn't, I didn't know what it really felt like until I went through it. I didn't know that civilians could have PTSD. But it's, it's really dark. It's really lonely and ugly. And it's filled with so much guilt and shame. And I thought, I don't know that I've ever heard people describe it that way. So I wanted to, I wanted to say what that really looked like, and, and how not proud of myself I was. Like, I, I was, I had these bouts of rage for the first

• 3:59:02Speaker 04

  time in my life. I was not being very kind to the people in my life. And I wasn't sleeping. And, and I wanted to write about that so that people knew they weren't alone, and that they could get better. And that's what the app is about. Like, if you don't have another option, now you do. You have something that you can try. Because I think

• 3:59:28Speaker 04

  the worst feeling that I felt in all 17 hours was hopelessness. When that ice cold feeling hits you and you think, there's nothing I can do, there is no hope left, that is the worst feeling. And I think that can hit you afterward, too. In, in those deep, dark moments of PTSD, you think, like, what's the point? I remember thinking, what's the point? And I think, I think if instead, you can remind yourself that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, that, that no matter how dark it feels today, there's hope.

• 4:00:13Speaker 04

  That can change your life. And it, it can get you back to a point where it's not so dark. Like, you can crawl, climb, fight your way back to a place that doesn't feel so dark. And I just, I want everyone to know that's possible.

• 4:00:34Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you. Well, Maylie, we're wrapping up your end here. But, you know, you had said something at breakfast that I'd like you to reiterate here.

• 4:00:45Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 4:00:46Shawn Ryan?

  You know, that the event's been massively politicized.

• 4:00:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:00:52Shawn Ryan?

  The UK government is going after him. You heard what happened on the break.

• 4:00:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:00:58Shawn Ryan?

  They're trying to serve him.

• 4:01:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:01:02Shawn Ryan?

  They're trying to keep him from telling his story. They've treated him like shit.

• 4:01:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:01:08Shawn Ryan?

  You know, and, and you said something at breakfast that I'd just like you to reiterate.

• 4:01:14Speaker 04

  I was trying to say, I don't know that I do it justice when I express it this way, but I was trying to say that if you're politicizing this story, if you're trying to use it for some agenda,

• 4:01:33Speaker 04

  then you missed the whole point. You missed the whole point of what he did. Because

• 4:01:42Speaker 04

  Christian didn't go through that hotel, opening doors and saying, are you this? Are you from this nation? Are you this religion? Do you look like that? He went through every door and saved every person because they were innocent. That was it. Because it was the humane thing to do, because it was good against evil. And that's what he did. He went through that hotel and he saved every person in the whole complex, all 700. And if you hear that story, and you twist it to be about some agenda, or some story he

• 4:02:24Speaker 04

  was or wasn't trying to carry on, or you're mad about what he did,

• 4:02:32Speaker 04

  that's a personal insult to every single person he saved. And it, it hits me really hard when I hear people doing that, because this is the most pure, kind, beautiful, human story there is. He didn't know us. He didn't have to save us. But he did, and he didn't do it because of any political belief or agenda. He did it because it was the right thing to do. And that's the end of the story, period. So I hope people let that story be what it is.

• 4:03:08Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you.

• 4:03:12Shawn Ryan?

  As you guys know, once upon a time, I was a Navy SEAL. And then I contracted for CIA. We were hunting ISIS, Taliban terrorist organizations. China was there, Russia was there, the Iranians were there, and everybody's kind of collecting on each other. One thing I learned is how important encryption and protecting your data is. That experience has just always made me extremely paranoid about what's being sucked out of my phone, what information are people getting. I wanted something that could protect everybody. And so we turned it into an application. We call it The Glacier App. We have secure DNS. Now, what's secure DNS? Well, very simply put, secure DNS keeps your phone from being

• 4:03:56Shawn Ryan?

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• 4:04:27Shawn Ryan?

  Do you ever wonder what it takes to make an episode of the Sean Ryan Show? In this exclusive studio tour, I'm taking you behind the scenes for an in-depth look at every part of the operation. From the editing room in the main studio to the spaces where we film Range Day, content and more. You'll see how the show comes together, meet some of the people behind it, and get a closer look at the work that happens off-camera. When you become a paid member of the SRS Patreon community, you get more than just the podcast. Watch new episodes early alongside other members, join monthly live shows with guest Q and As, and submit questions, just like you see on the show, for upcoming guests on the Protector tier. You'll also unlock exclusive Range Day videos,

• 4:05:12Shawn Ryan?

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• 4:05:23Shawn Ryan?

  Join the Patreon community today and get access to the full experience.

• 4:05:32Shawn Ryan?

  What was it like watching that?

• 4:05:33Speaker 03

  I wasn't watching it.

• 4:05:34Shawn Ryan?

  You didn't watch it?

• 4:05:35Speaker 03

  I went in and out and I was just like making phone calls and pacing as I do. A lot on my mind right now, so.

• 4:05:43Shawn Ryan?

  I can imagine. I'm telling you, you're in great hands. Don't worry about it.

• 4:05:48Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 4:05:49Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, well, she crushed it.

• 4:05:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's a natural, so.

• 4:05:55Shawn Ryan?

  Man. Man. She loves you, man. Very thankful. Very thankful. Lots of gratitude.

• 4:06:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, she's good. She's a good one, so.

• 4:06:14Shawn Ryan?

  So let's talk about where we left off. You head down to room 316.

• 4:06:18Speaker 03

  So, so just to put, just to do the recap, so we've neutralized the terrorists on the sixth floor. Um, and now we're on our way down to the lobby and then the basement, but we have to clear all the rooms. I get the message, "Hey, 316, can you check out 316?" I can't remember the other room number, but was it where the other American was? And get her out. There's a kind of mess-up in communication because what had happened was, somewhere along the line where we've said we've neutralized a terrorist, to the security liaison who had, through the night, came out, who positioned themselves outside the foyer in their armored vehicle, the security liaison team got told that the building was clear.

• 4:07:02Speaker 03

  And not, so they didn't, as far as I'm aware, didn't know that the basement, there's still terrorists in the basement. So they thought the whole building was clear, not, the real information was we just neutralized the terrorists on the top floor, on the sixth floor. So we move around and it was only minutes. We, like, when they, when merely the guys had knocked on the door, escorted merely out, it was just a gap of like minutes before we got there. Um, and when we got down to the, um, so we cleared, she wasn't there, we searched the room. Um, then we went to the other room, wasn't there. And then, um, cleared the rest of the floor, got to the, to the, um, to the foyer.

• 4:07:45Speaker 03

  Uh, I saw the, the American, the security liaison guys were outside in the, in the armored vehicles. Because at that point, I think they'd been informed that, yeah, the building's not clear, there's, there's stuff in the basement, so they, they are following their, their rules. Um, like, okay, building not secure, get back into the armored vehicles. And that's all good. Um, but then we got the issue with the basement now.

• 4:08:10Shawn Ryan?

  You know, just, I'm sorry, before we move on, I just wanna, I'm still processing everything that she said and, you know, I have never heard, um, I don't think I've ever heard somebody with an innocent civilian mindset that had been through something like that. You know, everybody I've ever talked to, you know, that has been through an event like that is a a mindset like you, or like myself, or somebody that's been through

• 4:08:55Shawn Ryan?

  training to get them out of that, or, you know, the thought process on, that was really interesting to hear, you know, somebody that, somebody as innocent as that and stuck in that kind of a situation, who doesn't have, uh, an instinct or a mindset like, like an operator, and, um,

• 4:09:21Shawn Ryan?

  it's scary, man.

• 4:09:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, it's bad enough for people when, you know, there's people training, go on the range and say, "I'm gonna respond," and that's good for them. And it's one thing for that, when they hear like real gunfire at them, and explosives in an enclosed place without hearing protection, without all this, it's a, it's an ordeal. But in some ways, they're preparing, they're prepared for it, or they're preparing for it, so it doesn't hit as hard. But you imagine that with people who've got no interest in the military, not into guns, not into things, and the sheer calamity of this terrorist attack, or any terrorist attack, or traumatic event for that matter, when it hits. Man, that's when you see real,

• 4:10:06Speaker 03

  you know, when we talk about post-traumatic stress disorder and effects, that's, that's when we need to like go, these, this is, this is gonna, people don't take that into consideration. Like violent attack, whatever, it's like, it's combat times, times a hundred, because you're not prepared for it at all, and don't anticipate. And it, like, physical violence, especially whenever it involves carnage, bombs and bullets and things of that, man, that hits people. That's devastating.

• 4:10:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, never, uh, I mean, it just instantaneously gave me a, uh, perspective that I just, I just never thought about it from, from a mind, uh, from, from, from that angle. You know, I'd never thought about it from that angle, and, um, and I'm not, I'm not, uh, saying I've been in situations like what you were just in by any means, but, uh, but I mean, I don't know, I just, uh, it just gave me a different perspective and shit, man. I mean, she was terrified. She couldn't think, she couldn't move, she couldn't.

• 4:11:17Speaker 03

  Yeah. But, but she did a great job.

• 4:11:21Shawn Ryan?

  She did an amazing job.

• 4:11:22Speaker 03

  Because what, what a common factor is in these sort of, uh, in this, what happened on this, is people get freaked out when they're on, when they're on their own, and they will sacrifice, and this is something for everyone to listen to if, God forbid, you're in this sort of situation, and you're not armed, and you're just hiding, is people will sacrifice a safe hiding position for human company, and that's when they run into terrorists or bad guys. So if you're in a relatively, what you think's a secure place or do, so she, she was, she plays it down and whatever, she, she did an amazing job because she, she didn't scream, shout,

• 4:12:05Speaker 03

  demand rescue, like, not follow orders and like get out and run out the hole, "No, I'm, I'm just gonna leave, I'm just gonna leave," or whatever. She's, she did exactly what she was told to do, and that is calmness under pressure. So she plays it down, "Oh, I was terrified, I was out of that," that's typical, her playing it all down. Um, but she did an amazing job because she did what she was supposed to do. She followed, followed, followed the, like, the instructions and remained cool, and she did remain cool. Yeah, in her mind, she thinks she's gonna die, she's processing it, whatever, but she's still cool. She's not like crying or whatever, being, being weak. Not seeing crimes being weak, but what I'm saying is, just like,

• 4:12:49Shawn Ryan?

  I know what you're saying.

• 4:12:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, she was, she was, she was, she was solid. She, and, and I think, like you said, she, she deserves a lot of credit for that, because.

• 4:13:00Shawn Ryan?

  It's a really good perspective. Uh, I mean, it's just, it was, uh, it really painted the picture of what, you know, for lack of a better term, an everyday person experiences when that happens, and, um,

• 4:13:15Shawn Ryan?

  And then to have the, you know, the complete opposite you sitting right in the same like from one conversation to the very next and like it's just a total perspective change and and um really yeah, I just wanted to acknowledge that. So to the basement we go.

• 4:13:33Speaker 03

  Yeah. So we're in the in the foyer. I meet up with the um the the chief inspectors who are like in charge of the recce squadron. Tell them, I said, hey, do you want photographs of the uh of the of the dead? I'd already passed them on to to other people, but they went, oh, yes, please. Give them to give them to them, pass the two um mug shots over. And then I'm like, hey, we need to, we need to get down the basement. We need to go. So we're gonna need at least at least six people to get down there. So start giving the the call out, hey, we need six guys. I'm the, hey, six guys, let's go. Like, start stacking. And this is into where the um, so it's like the um dining area that leads into the kitchen. The kitchen leads to, we call it the basement. It's

• 4:14:16Speaker 03

  technically, it's not a basement. It's like the service area, service corridors from from where you would deliver where all supplies and laundry and things come and go. But uh but it's kind of looks like a basement. But we, I for just for ease of description, I call it the basement. And um and and credit to the to the this, the four guys, the four guys who always put themselves, who were always like rotating in the in the stack upstairs, the four guys who are who are always burning in my memory. They were the four, first four to stack up. I'm looking around and there's a lot of guys milling around. I jump in at number five. I said, like, come on, guys, we need six, at least six. We

• 4:14:56Speaker 03

  need one more. But as soon as I, it was kind of, I really like, like, made me feel good is when I when I stepped in, then everyone felt like a load of others fell in behind me. And they're like, okay, I'm involved. Let's go. And it's a good example of stepping up to be a leader. Um and sometimes you don't, I'm kind of play things down. I'm very humble. And I didn't realize that at that moment then, how much effect I was having on the troops of like being there, making the decisions and pushing and and and uh so when when they all fell in behind me, I was like, well, this is good. So right, let's go. So we move off into the into the dining area. There's like a the bathrooms, first two guys peel off to clean, clear them. Then there's like an

• 4:15:37Speaker 03

  office or storeroom or something, two guys. So I'm number one again. And as we're heading to the kitchen, and I'm like, okay, here we go. Um just shortly um of the kitchen, there's like a elevated, there's like dead ground behind a counter. And I I I'd already done it in that day and all the CQB experts would be like, oh, I don't know about this. But I call it the, in the in the book, I call it the Patrick Patrick Swayze maneuver maneuver, Patrick Swayze maneuver. And it could be, I on the edit, I removed the Neil McCauley because I didn't want to confuse it, but it was a Patrick Swayze or Neil McCauley uh from Heat, that maneuver. And it's where I just jump up on the high ground and walk along, scanning into the dead ground because it was just fast. And if anyone's there to shoot, I'm gonna try and I'm

• 4:16:20Speaker 03

  gonna try and beat them to it. But it was just a way of instead of like moving, slowing down the momentum, I did it. So I was just, and they looked at me like I was a lunatic, but I was like, and then jumped down, went to the um door to the uh kitchen, said, one of the guys, okay, open. And when I opened the door, that was the shock. Because I cleared the door, cleared it from what I could from the outside, then made entry. This was different. Because what they say when there's a terrorist attack, run, hide, tell. And that's what most people do, run, hide, tell. If you're a chef in a five star hotel

• 4:17:02Speaker 03

  and a terrorist that happens, you run, hide, tell. What you do not do is turn off all the hobs, turn off all the other ovens and run, hide, tell. So all of this food, what's been going on in the kitchen has been cooking off for fifteen hours. So first factor is, when they opened the door, the heat pit was like, wow, it was like hot, like really like intense, insanely hot. Then there was everything had been, so there was low, I'm five foot ten, so it was just at the top of my head. So there was low lying um smoke. And then this pungent smell of all this food added to that with all like kitchen, white, chrome,

• 4:17:43Speaker 03

  black. It was just an intensive place to start clearing through and and and potentially meet uh meet the terrorists. But we cleared through the kitchen and um uh there was no one there that's led in down into the basement area. So the basement was like a rat run, like a rat. So there's open, there's like an open courtyard and then connected to it was like a rat run. And then one of the runs ran all the way down. So I was number one, I punched into the uh down the corridor straight out. And I went to go a left with one other. And I was, and then there was like a delivery office. And I went in, cleared

• 4:18:24Speaker 03

  into the delivery office with another guy. At the at the same time, so when as we're moving, sorry, as we're moving, and then three others within the corridor. As we're moving down the corridor, a terrorist stepped out around the corner and like fired a long burst of automatic fire. Miraculously, didn't hit any of the three operators. They spun round, the terrorist went behind cover, fired but fired a quick volley and then ran back to the uh to the entry point. I was I was in the um office as one of the uh, there was a bit of a exchange of like loose exchange, gas firing. And then I could hear the terrorist firing because he was just because it

• 4:19:05Speaker 03

  was on automatic. And I leaned out of the um office, saw the muzzle flash and just like um sent five rounds um just to the left of the muzzle flash. And then went in. Didn't know at that time that I'd hit him or not, but it was seemed to me like, okay, that makes sense. At that point, after the shot, then guys come out of the entry point, which was the indication because they'd seen what happened. So they'd seen me hit him. So I'm just like, I'm not sure if I did. So they run past me and they're like, oh, so so then me and the other guy tag on behind, we go into the courtyard. And then to go look right down to the other into the other the court, like parallel corridor. And

• 4:19:46Speaker 03

  it's like a rat run. As we run into the other corridor, so there's about this uh four plus like me plus three, so that's four. As we run into the corridor, we move a bit further down. And all of a sudden, a grenade comes lands at our feet, detonates.

• 4:20:03Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 4:20:04Speaker 03

  And when I say at our feet, it's about the distance between me to you away, detonates. None of us pick anything up from it. And then there's a burst of automatic fire in this little funnel and none of us get hit.

• 4:20:17Shawn Ryan?

  Nothing?

• 4:20:18Speaker 03

  And it's just like, nothing. It's like not nothing, no shrapnel. He's firing a burst of automatic fire. And we're kind of not not mass together, but where there's not much room. The the width, incidentally, is about the width of this platform. So what's that about?

• 4:20:34Shawn Ryan?

  Five, six feet?

• 4:20:35Speaker 03

  Five yards or something, yeah, like.

• 4:20:37Shawn Ryan?

  The width?

• 4:20:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, about five yards.

• 4:20:40Shawn Ryan?

  Six, seven feet, maybe?

• 4:20:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, seven feet. But it's so it's that sort of basement type fuel to it. None, none, none of us pick anything up. So we quickly pushed, well, when we say pushed to the outside back in the courtyard, this is only again, two or three feet. So we push out and then there's an exchange of fire. The terrorist had positioned himself behind these glass doors and he'd left a gap. And his ammo was he could post, send a grenade through it and fire through the gap. But this glass could stop five, five, six bullets. And he knew it. And the reason why I know that he knew that I know it could stop the bullets is because when we'd fire, it hit the glass and he was behind it going like that.

• 4:21:23Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 4:21:25Speaker 03

  Bearing in mind, it's a two way range. So we weren't hanging around there looking and firing. It was just quick fire. And it went and it went on for for a while. When I say a while, it went pretty like, but it's going, we're trying to, in hindsight now, I know that sheer weight of fire would have compromised that glass. But like I said, wasn't too sure. And it was a two way range. So again, every time we're exposing, we're we're putting ourselves out. So it was just a quick shot, shot and volley. Um recce squadron guys were firing, I was firing now and again, pushing back, trying to get information about what's going on. Um and then at some point, they bring down a shotgun and fire some CS rounds down the corridor. I didn't know they did that. I said, what are you doing firing the shotgun? And they went, oh, we're trying

• 4:22:10Speaker 03

  to, I'm trying to breach it. And I was like, I don't understand that. And then my eyes were streaming. And I thought, um, I need to add a bit of information that I've missed out. When we breach into the corridor, it's another unusual operating environment. Because the in the corridor, all the all the lights had been compromised by grenade detonation. So all the lights were out and the only ambient light was from the courtyard. And all the pipes overhead had been compromised. So hot water was pouring from the ceiling. So when I breached into the corridor, it and because it was hot water, there was steam coming off from the floor. So this ankle deep water of hot water, coming on, burning the top of my head as it was coming down. They all

• 4:22:53Speaker 03

  had helmets on still. And that was by burning my head as as into the corridor. So again, it's an unusual operating area. But back around to if I'm in this volley. But I, I didn't know that they were firing CS rounds. And my eyes started scream streaming. And I just thought, oh, maybe it's chlorinated water. So I just thought that was chlorine. But it was

• 4:23:14Shawn Ryan?

  CS gas.

• 4:23:15Speaker 03

  And and I I kind of because the fact that they didn't put anything over their mouths, I think maybe didn't know it was the CS rounds. But it was fine. But then we're like, hey, we've got to get through that. And then.

• 4:23:27Speaker 03

  Then it came up in conversation that they had a, uh, an M seventy two law up in the vehicles. And I said, and I was joking saying, go and get the bazooka. And like, cause I was like laughing and I was, and I went, you know, the law, go and get a bazooka. And, uh, and they went, cause I was like, yeah, let's get this down and just fire that down in the, down the corridor. Not sure distance would, would have been armed or it could have detonated gas or whatever. But I was like, hey, just bring it. My point to them was bring it down. If we need it, we'll use it. So they went to get it. As, as the bazooka turned up, um, there's a bit of it, one of the Kenyans shot and he went, he's hit, he's hit. So it compromised the glass.

• 4:24:09Speaker 03

  Uh, terrorists went, but the same thing again, I was right on the edge and I went to step out, but everyone just ran out and just fired. As it was, the, the terrorists had fallen behind a lot of cover. So everyone, they were firing pretty much into nothing. As in there was, they couldn't see him, but everyone's firing. So I was like, I couldn't step out. Cause I was like, but the same thing happened. I was like, okay, stop firing. And they all started singing and dancing. And I was like, come on, let's go. So I went down the corridor again. Um, couldn't see where the, where the terrorists, cause he's done my cover. Credit to him. Next thing grenade comes up, gets flown over some boxes, lands not far from us. He fires a burst of automatic fire, but none of it is to into the roof.

• 4:24:53Speaker 03

  That detonates, we don't get hit, but I go, right, let's come on. So we go back out. I said, two men stay here, cover it, even though they can't see him. And then we moved back round. As I moved past the guys who were holding the entry point, the, I was like, they, I was now was about, I was number five in the stack, not about, I was number five. And as we come around, we see the blood on the, on the wall where, um, I'd hit the guy. Like when I aimed left of the, um, as I'm looking at it, left of the mother. Shot up to the wall. So I'm like shot bub bub. And there was like, there was blood and splatter away. Hit the wall, like pushed back or fell against the wall and slid down it. And then as we got round, again, there was a, uh, everyone's on torchlight now and weapon lights.

• 4:25:34Speaker 03

  And, um, and they're moving and then there was like, um. And all I got then I had the magic words, they're dead, they're dead then. And the, the, the two guys had like bled out, like they both like bled out or died. Uh, the, the one, uh, and then I was just saying, make, make sure they're dead. Just pay, don't assume it, make sure they're dead. Um, because there might be risk or whatever. So just a Kenyan, um, recce squad, I just made sure they were dead. And, um, as in check that they were still alive. Sorry, check that they weren't still alive. So they were made sure, I said, oh, just walk away from them. Are, are they, are they dead? And I said, but bear in mind, risk of suicide, um, detonations.

• 4:26:17Speaker 03

  And they just got, yeah. And then, and then so that, that's that went, all right, came over, clear and secure. So I get my phone out to take mug shots and the guys are literally pulling me away. They're going, and that goes, hey, I need to get mug shots for the, for everyone. So I'm taking the mug, mug shots of these two guys who've been taken down and they're like pulling me. And then that's, so that's, um, clear and secure. By the time we get to the, to the, uh, foyer, which been conservative three minutes. By the time we get back there, the whole of the, uh, command element, entourage of the Kenyan police is already there. And we're just, and, um, turn, turn to us and say, okay.

• 4:27:00Speaker 03

  They say something in Swahili and then they say in English, we just want to thank, um, Mr. Chris, who's from the British SES. We want to thank them, thank them for everything I did for us tonight, or everything I did last night and let us and. Without him, it wouldn't have been possible. All the good, giving me a chuck up, and which I was surprised it would happen, but they were like, thank you. And they said, oh, do you want, and then the boss man was like, do you wanna, do you wanna say anything? I turned to all the guys and went. It's been an absolute honour working with you guys throughout the night. But don't ever forget what we all did for Kenya today. And without the old shade, and then they got in their vehicles and drove off.

• 4:27:45Speaker 03

  Meanwhile, I had, there was a, uh, like the manager of the hotel had a list of papers and all these people are still unaccounted for. Can you go and find them? So I took the list and then I back cleared the hotel. So I went up to the top floor, just went in every corridor. I didn't go in every room. I was just in the corridors going. Security forces, the building is secure. If you're hiding, come out. No one came out, but I was just like going, going through. And the problem with that, what, what happens there in these incidences? Someone, terrorist attack happens or incident happens, they phone their wife or husband and say, oh, this terrorist happened. And then they escape. So the wife, husband, next of kin tells the authorities, they're in the hotel.

• 4:28:29Speaker 03

  They escape, then tell the husband, oh, I've got out. But then said family then forgets to tell the authorities that they're out. So the, so that was why there was, they thought there was a lot of more people still in the hotel. Um, and there were some people still hiding that were discovered in some cases days later. Um, but, um, but I did the back clear and then when the, the Kenyan. Uh, police turn up and the, the U S F B I turn up to do help with the investigation. I then went round as like a scene of crimes officer saying, okay, this is. Went through each, put like all the terrorists at the top. Okay. He died here. He was coming down here. He got shot from over here.

• 4:29:10Speaker 03

  By this, this is why we shot him, da, da, da. So I went through all the legal stuff with them about how and why they were, where they were all shot. And went, and then in the basement, they kind of didn't want to get their feet wet. So they got, I just gave them a outline of what happened and they were, they were happy with that. And then I went home. And then, and then I, I hang run for a bit, hang, I, that came out really jolly, hung run for, run for a bit. I hung around for a bit. Um, and I met like the, the owner or owners of the hotel and their staff, and they were very helpful. Some friendly faces turned up, talked to them. And then eventually, so it's coming up over, past lunchtime now on the sixteenth.

• 4:29:53Speaker 03

  I then say, right, there's nothing more I can do here. No one, and checked with FBI and other people, don't need me anymore. No, okay. Uh, just walked up back to the way I'd parked my car, my truck and hoped, hoped it would still be there. And miraculously it still was. Uh, that's, that was on my mind and, but one of the, another touching moment was as I was walking out. Incidentally, just before this moment, I was thinking, may God bless you many times this day. I was thinking of those words. You already thought about that. And as I was coming to gatehouse, there was a, a, a young Kenyan police officer. And he came up and he grabbed my arm and he went, sir. I, I would just want to thank you. And I was like, yeah. And he was like, I, I saw that you were here yesterday.

• 4:30:39Speaker 03

  And you were here till the very end. You were here for Kenya. Most people, they come, most white, most white, white, he said, most white men. They turn up, rescue their family, rescue their friends and then go home and leave, leave us to deal with it. But you were here from the start, you were here till the finish, you were here for Kenya. Thank you. And I was like, thanks, man. I goes, I'll probably have a beer tonight. And then, um, but it was good that I wasn't, what, what, why that hit hard was this was no, it wasn't a diplomat. It wasn't an officer. This was a grunt who was still was like, thank you for what you did for Kenya. And, uh, and I, I got in my truck, drove home and had a cup of tea. Better cup of tea.

• 4:31:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:31:27Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah. It was interesting when I got home, it was just, um, got home, took off my clothes and stuff, had a shower. And then I, um, wore a kikoi, which is like a Kenyan, east, east African, like basically like a sarong. And, um, made a cup of tea, sat on the sofa and then. Put music on, and the song that came on was Searching by NXS. And again, it's, it's a song that I'm a big NXS fan, but I'd never really heard that song. But it was the first song that came on and I was like, um.

• 4:32:08Speaker 03

  And then at the same time, I had the, the TV on and it was images of me on Sky News. Pulling, pulling people out of the hotel and it kind of hit hard then. It's like, it was like, I'm like kind of emotional at that moment. And then, um, yeah. And that's the end of that.

• 4:32:27Shawn Ryan?

  Thirty-three hours.

• 4:32:29Speaker 03

  Twenty-two.

• 4:32:30Shawn Ryan?

  Thirty-three hours awake, right?

• 4:32:31Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah. And I didn't sleep. That night I didn't sleep. I thought try, I went to bed a few hours later to try and sleep and my mind was just like, and of course, by the time I woke up, or like not woke up, I maybe dozed, but I didn't really sleep. And I looked at my phone and it was still like, this is now like five o'clock in the afternoon and there's like a hundred and like hundred messages, whatever, everyone just like messaging and like, and then um, yeah, uh, went for dinner with some friends at night.

• 4:33:06Shawn Ryan?

  You went to dinner?

• 4:33:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, some nice pasta, nice Italian restaurant and then.

• 4:33:12Shawn Ryan?

  Who'd you go to dinner with?

• 4:33:13Speaker 03

  Just some friends, so.

• 4:33:17Shawn Ryan?

  You just went to dinner?

• 4:33:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:33:19Shawn Ryan?

  After?

• 4:33:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:33:20Shawn Ryan?

  Twenty-two hours saving seven hundred plus people,

• 4:33:25Shawn Ryan?

  killed four terrorists.

• 4:33:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:33:28Shawn Ryan?

  Two died in a suicide bombing.

• 4:33:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:33:32Shawn Ryan?

  Let an entire.

• 4:33:34Speaker 03

  I mean, what am I supposed to do? I'm just like, well, so I went so.

• 4:33:37Shawn Ryan?

  I don't know. I don't know anybody that's been through that.

• 4:33:40Speaker 03

  Beef capaccio for starters and then some puttanesca for my main.

• 4:33:46Speaker 03

  And then.

• 4:33:47Shawn Ryan?

  What was the dinner conversation like?

• 4:33:49Speaker 03

  I was uh, just talking about that stuff. At that, at that conversation, I did get a phone call from the military liaison officer to the Defence Secretary, Minister of Defence in UK. He said, can you take a call? And the Minister of Defence um, in the UK called and just said, just well done for what you did, blah, blah, blah. But he got his knuckles wrapped apparently for that. He was, he was just flying by wire sort of thing and, you know, and then, but he just said, oh, well done for what you did and.

• 4:34:23Shawn Ryan?

  Thanks for saving seven hundred people.

• 4:34:25Speaker 03

  And that was the first and last time anyone from the British government ever said anything to me.

• 4:34:30Shawn Ryan?

  That's it.

• 4:34:31Speaker 03

  Other than like now saying, we're gonna, we're gonna, now they just wanna ruin my life, but we'll get onto this in a moment.

• 4:34:38Shawn Ryan?

  Did these people at dinner know what you just did?

• 4:34:40Speaker 03

  Yes, yeah.

• 4:34:41Shawn Ryan?

  They did?

• 4:34:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, they were friends of mine, so.

• 4:34:46Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 4:34:46Speaker 03

  So they just, they just arrived in country in response, so um, yeah, so they, we talked about that and talked about some stuff.

• 4:34:58Speaker 03

  And then, uh, yeah, and.

• 4:35:00Shawn Ryan?

  How do you process that?

• 4:35:02Speaker 03

  Well, this is, so then a few days later, so this was on, so this is the Wednesday and then on the Friday, I get a phone, phone call from the doctor saying, is your hearing all right? And I said, yeah, I think so. And he's going, well, actually, how would you know if it's all right? He goes, you need to get back. We need to do an emergency treatment. We need to check your ears and then maybe do an emergency treatment because you've just had sustained gunfire and the grenade explosions going off for our ear protection in close quarters. So I then got on a flight to um, to the UK. And then on the Sunday, I got the, on the, got there on the Sunday, so that was the Friday. I flew on the Saturday, got into London on the, on the Monday

• 4:35:44Speaker 03

  and then went straight to Birmingham where the hospital is. And the uh, the consultant there checked my ears and was like, yeah, you've, you, one ear took a huge kicking, but luckily they've got, it's developed quite a lot now. I don't know where it is, but there's a, a treatment where if the, if you have any hearing damage, if the, if they catch it within a certain time, they can inject it with steroids and it's, your hearing is repaired. But it's only got a, it's got a very short timeline to do this.

• 4:36:15Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 4:36:16Speaker 03

  And it was still relatively expedient. So she then took a, so they took a, like a spinal needle through my eardrum and injected my ear with steroids, which was not pleasant. And then um, uh, but part of the thing with that was, that was, so that was on the Sunday evening. I laid down on the, and it was, the whole room spins because it's knocked all your balance off. And I was like, no dignity, I just laid on the floor, trying to stop the room from spinning. And then that's when it all hit me. Well, I hadn't really slept until that moment. And then I just fell straight asleep in this deep sleep. And the, and the consultant, she said, she was looking at me sleeping on the floor. And she said, it was really like haunting because I was

• 4:37:00Speaker 03

  like whim, whimpering and jerking like I was, cause I looked like a dog sleeping and dreaming. And um, uh, so there's that. And the other thing I said to the doctor, I said, doctor, this is kind of embarrassing, but I keep bursting into tears. And I said, I'm not, I'm not even thinking about anything. I'm not, I could be listening to music or driving and nothing's happening. I'm not thinking about the incident. I'm not thinking about anything traumatic. And all of a sudden, I just can't help but just burst into tears. And he, he, he said, oh, that's something to do with like adrenaline dumping. And he goes, you were just running, you, you body just must have been pushing all out. It, it stopped now, but it went on for quite a while after the incident.

• 4:37:40Shawn Ryan?

  How long?

• 4:37:41Speaker 03

  I, I would say about three months.

• 4:37:45Shawn Ryan?

  Three months.

• 4:37:46Speaker 03

  But, but I wasn't all right after the incident and I, I was really like suffering. But you know, I needed, you get paid extra for being overseas and I needed the money. So I didn't say anything to anyone. So I just knuckled on and um, and one of the, and this is no criticism to my friend. So my friend who was like my sergeant major at the time, it was like one of my peers, um, he was back in UK and he, and he called me one day and this is like a few, few months into it. And he, he goes, look, look, Chris, I, I've known you for, I've known you for years, so I know you're all right, but I've got to do these checks. Are you, are you like, are you all right? Are you suffering? Are you doing all right? And I was like, yeah,

• 4:38:29Speaker 03

  mate, I'm, I'm good. Just, just plodding along. The reality of it is, I was like thinking to myself, I wanted to say, I need help. I, I'm dying here. I need, I need help. And um, and I think the moral of this is like, see, this is no, my friend who called, it's, there's no, there's nothing against him at all because I would have done the same if it was the other way around. But from that, what I've learned from that is if you are, whether it be, whether it be as a parent or as a friend, when you ask if someone's all right, make sure you can see their face. Because I, I wager that if he'd saw my face, especially if he'd been in

• 4:39:11Speaker 03

  person, he would have went, you're not all right. You need to come home. But I was just like, yeah, I'll just, I'll just soldier on. So, yeah.

• 4:39:23Speaker 03

  But that's what a lot of people do.

• 4:39:26Shawn Ryan?

  So shit, man.

• 4:39:34Shawn Ryan?

  From a stranger on the side of the road saying, God bless you many times today to.

• 4:39:41Speaker 03

  I mean.

• 4:39:42Shawn Ryan?

  A full-on terrorist attack by Al Shabab.

• 4:39:44Speaker 03

  I always consider myself unlucky.

• 4:39:45Shawn Ryan?

  Seven hundred people. Unexplainable how that grenade and those shots didn't kill you or anybody or even injure anybody around you. No shrapnel wounds, nothing.

• 4:39:57Speaker 03

  No.

• 4:40:02Speaker 03

  So.

• 4:40:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:40:10Speaker 03

  But from may God bless you many times this day, everything was perfect. The timing, even if something was just off saying, it would have changed the whole day, but everything seemed to be in my favor.

• 4:40:24Speaker 03

  So.

• 4:40:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:40:29Speaker 00

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• 4:40:58Shawn Ryan?

  Mr. President, my company for me of the explosion on our rig. On October second. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 4:41:07Speaker 00

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

• 4:41:15Shawn Ryan?

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

• 4:41:19Speaker 00

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 4:41:22Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not the first then.

• 4:41:23Speaker 00

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October second. Rated R. Under seventeen and a minute without parent.

• 4:41:30Shawn Ryan?

  What's it like seeing that footage now?

• 4:41:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it was, there was a lot more of it. I, I captured some of it. People were sending me like days after, but when, we're very, not long after the incident, it was getting removed and removed and removed. People do not want it. This incident is quite a hot potato. And we'll get into this, why, you know, some of the theories, why they've got such a, such hatred of it and why they do not want their story to come out. It's out. I, I mean, I say it as if it's a secret and they treat it like it's a secret. They, the, the British government think it's a super secret operation that no one ever heard of. And it was on all the front pages of all the newspapers and everything and everything.

• 4:42:09Shawn Ryan?

  Everywhere.

• 4:42:10Speaker 03

  Everywhere. But they, um, they, they just don't want this. And it's not, they just don't want the story. The story's out. This is just my version of the story. That's what's crazy about it. The, all the information is kind of out there. Just not the, the real information, the, the detail, the real information, the true story is in this book. And it's my, my story on an unsanctioned mission. It wasn't, it was me chipping in. It wasn't, it wasn't a military operation. It wasn't, and let me get this, let me get this point and we'll address this in a bit.

• 4:42:49Speaker 03

  I have never been on any podcast or any interview. I talked about my service in the SES. Never have, and I have no intention to.

• 4:43:00Speaker 03

  I only talk, and the only reason, and if I, if Kenya had not happened, I wouldn't be on social media trying to put, posting pictures or whatever, or trying to make a name for myself. Because that's not me. The, the, the reason why I'm on social media is because this, this kind of forced me into that, this pushed me into the public. So I don't talk about SES operations. I don't talk about anything and never will talk about, at this point, never will talk about any SES operations. I haven't even talked about selection, like, which I, which is fine.

• 4:43:34Speaker 03

  But, because I think it's not my story to tell. But this is my story to tell and the whole world saw it. But it doesn't, it, it doesn't sit well with certain people and the, you could say the establishment.

• 4:43:49Shawn Ryan?

  Why? Why doesn't it sit well?

• 4:43:51Speaker 03

  Well, there's a.

• 4:43:52Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, they had one of their own.

• 4:43:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:43:55Shawn Ryan?

  Save seven hundred people.

• 4:43:57Speaker 03

  Right. So here's the thing.

• 4:43:59Shawn Ryan?

  Take the Kenyan.

• 4:44:00Speaker 03

  We're gonna.

• 4:44:00Shawn Ryan?

  Special forces under their wing.

• 4:44:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:44:03Shawn Ryan?

  Well, to help them save the day.

• 4:44:05Speaker 03

  There's a lot of strands to this.

• 4:44:06Shawn Ryan?

  Kenya's.

• 4:44:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:44:07Shawn Ryan?

  Saying thank you.

• 4:44:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:44:09Shawn Ryan?

  Or at least the people that you worked with.

• 4:44:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:44:11Shawn Ryan?

  And the, the, the, the police chief.

• 4:44:13Speaker 03

  I, I met someone from the, from the DRC.

• 4:44:16Shawn Ryan?

  Secretary of Defense or whatever, the, the equivalent in the UK is thanking you.

• 4:44:22Speaker 03

  And then I, I met someone from the, um, DRC a few months back, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And he, he met me, obviously he's of a senior position. When he met me in Washington DC, he started crying.

• 4:44:41Speaker 03

  And was like, you are the most famous white man in Africa.

• 4:44:45Speaker 03

  And I was like, what? And he, and he FaceTimed his mother and she was on the, he goes, can I, can I talk to my mother? And, and he put it there and she started crying and went, because it's like that, that, that guy said to me, he goes, you, you stepped, you didn't see color. You didn't see anything, you just, I just helped the innocent.

• 4:45:07Speaker 03

  And I, I didn't, I didn't go, I'm gonna, I'm just here for my, for my white friends and family and then everyone else can go fuck themselves. Didn't matter. I'm not here for the, I'm here for everyone, Christian, Muslim, everyone. I'm just here to save people. If you've, if you're innocent, I'm here to help. If you're not, you better watch out. But, and, and that's why the, a lot of, like, people in Africa, like, they, they, they love me. Some don't, because this is the problem, that, that, I mean, we're gonna go through different strands, but look at it from this point of view. So I heard a term in, when was it? Twenty twenty, the end of twenty twenty, or like October, September, October, twenty twenty.

• 4:45:52Speaker 03

  I got called a white savior. I never heard that. So I know, and all the time I lived in Kenya after the incident, no one ever called me a white savior. But, but ironically, it was a university educated white woman who called me that.

• 4:46:05Shawn Ryan?

  What does that mean?

• 4:46:06Speaker 03

  It, it means because I'm saving black people. So they couldn't do it themselves, so it took a white man to do it. That's kind of the vibe. So they're saying, oh, but it's a bit of a white savior story.

• 4:46:17Speaker 03

  And I was like, it hit me hard because I never heard that, never heard it from an African, never heard a, never heard a black person call me that.

• 4:46:25Speaker 03

  But the, that's the first time I heard it was about September, October, twenty twenty of what the, oh, it's a bit of a white savior story.

• 4:46:32Shawn Ryan?

  Where's this person from?

• 4:46:34Speaker 03

  UK. But, um, so, so look at it like this. So there's all these elements, there's, one, there's the element of, there's maybe people in the military of a senior, of a senior position. Well, maybe there are, I mean, some of them are retired now, who obviously didn't like what I did. The classic line of Christian Craighead is a bad example to young soldiers. His mutiny attitude promotes lawlessness in the military. That's what someone said. So there's that element of me not having orders, going in, doing it, oh, it could be bad. So there's, there's that element, which is a tiny little element, but that, the, those people are invigorated by the other stuff to then try and stop, stop me, stop the book.

• 4:47:19Speaker 03

  But if you think about it, there's this element as well. There's, if you think of modern Hollywood TV commercials. Hey, there's this guy did this thing. Oh, it's a cool story. What does he look like? Oh, he's middle aged white guy with blonde hair, blue eyes and promotes Christian value and supports Trump. It's like, bleh, bleh. It's probably the way, I can hear all these blue haired liberals kept like vomiting right now. Um, because it doesn't, that, it doesn't, it's a bad image. And so when you, when, so when we're speaking, like, peers and people like you and people with the common sense.

• 4:48:03Speaker 03

  And we go, this would be a great story. This would be great for PR. Yeah, for us it would be, but if you think about all the people who are dictating and pushing where advertising, movies and everything goes. Kind of not a good, kind of not a good PR story, because it's like, well, he's, that's not what we're pushing right now. We need, we need white guys to look weak and effeminate or they're bad guys. We can't have them to be the heroes. That's, that's so nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties. So the.

• 4:48:32Shawn Ryan?

  This is why the UK is coming after.

• 4:48:34Speaker 03

  That, I mean, these are, these are theories. This is not.

• 4:48:37Shawn Ryan?

  This is theories.

• 4:48:38Speaker 03

  But, but this is, this is not me, this, I don't know this, but I, I, I think what I'm going through now is like, maybe of some of all of its parts, there may be elements of this. There's the jealousy, there's the, just, it's not a good look. Not to mention that I'm working class, didn't graduate high school. So it's like, so when, when they're bottle feeding officers and stuff going, you, you lead, without you, soldiers can't do anything. And then you will say, well, that guy has got no education, but he ended up being a sergeant major in the SES and, um.

• 4:49:13Speaker 03

  Or warrant officer, for anyone who's gonna pick holes, but it's a warrant officer, so it's like, um, of, um. And he, and, and the whole, and people in Russia love this story. People in Ukraine love this story. People in China love it, Brazil, France.

• 4:49:29Shawn Ryan?

  Africa.

• 4:49:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, Africa. And so everyone in the world loved this story, but it's, hey, it is just, but remember, he's just a scumbag, not a, not a good look. Because it goes against everything that everyone's been fed. So, so there's that element could be, it, it doesn't help. There's also, um, the, the, the other way of looking at it is the destruction of the SES.

• 4:49:55Speaker 03

  So it's not conspiracy theory. We can see that the UK is being destroyed. It's being destroyed. You can't dress up, they are destroying that country. So why stop at our premier fighting force, the SES? Because all they seem to promote now, they don't have any stories out, they don't do, they don't want to speak highly of it, but they'll allow negative stories about these, like. Wild claims of war crimes in Afghanistan or whatever, complete bullshit, all that kind of stuff. But they want to suppress this, completely suppress it. Why? I'll tell you another theory, because when you want to destroy something, which they will.

• 4:50:38Speaker 03

  It's easier when no one knows anything good that they've done. So like, oh, we can't, like, and I think, and we're seeing it in Australia. We're seeing the same, the same thing, same woke, crazy government destroying Australia from the inside.

• 4:50:54Speaker 03

  Allegations against the Australian SES. And yeah, there's the, the footage that people saw, but there's left and right of it. And it's just like, oh, because remember, if you're seeing this, it means you, the one, that's what they want you to see. You don't see the whole story. You don't see everything else. Um, and, um, Ben Roberts Smith.

• 4:51:16Shawn Ryan?

  We just talked to him.

• 4:51:17Speaker 03

  They say, again, trying, why, they're trying to break him down because, again, he's, he's a, he's, um. He's a hero. It's an element of strength. So it's this feminization of the, of our premier fighting forces. Again, it's all, it's all kind of woven into each other when I say about, oh, yeah, well, we don't, you're not, he's not, he's kind of the most undiverse person we could ever ask for. Because of everything, these things, it's breaking down the strength of these units. So when they just, when they, when they come, when they want to destroy it, which I'm sure they will in the future unless, unless left unchecked. It's easier for the public to swallow, because all you've heard is bad things about them, you haven't heard good things.

• 4:52:03Speaker 03

  And, and then the, the, the other thing is that the picture of me running into the hotel. That famous picture, which is, that's taken from that picture, that image of me going into the, the hair salon. What is it? What's that picture? Well, you could look at it, the first level is, it's a SES commando running into a building to clear it. Pretty cool picture. Everyone loves it. Okay, that's one way of looking at it. But what, what else is it? Well, it's also a guy, a, a white, working class male who seemed to have no opportunity in life, but managed to, he joined the army.

• 4:52:47Speaker 03

  Thrived in the army, joined the premier fighting force and then saved the day.

• 4:52:55Speaker 03

  That, that is, that's such a powerful thing that one, it could be used for, uh, for recruitment. But also what else is it? So let's have another, it's also a white, working class male who saw evil and tyranny. And decided to act when no one else will, or no one else would. So a few times that by ten, a hundred, a thousand, a million, then you've got problems. Uh, because then you've got revolution.

• 4:53:27Speaker 03

  And I think that photograph is kind of a, an image of revolution. And what's the worst thing that could happen, or the best thing, depending on how you look at it? Well, I'll tell you what would happen. We're sitting in it and through, through, um, through young men standing up to evil and tyranny. Out of, and, and acting when no one else would, the greatest country on this planet was created. The United States of America. That's, that's power. And that you don't, and people do not like that.

• 4:54:06Shawn Ryan?

  It is very interesting to see how much of an effort they're putting into coming after you.

• 4:54:17Speaker 03

  When you, when you take it into perspective, I haven't talked about anything to do with SAS operations. This, so there was a checklist when I said, right, I'm just going to publish it in the United States anyway. Firstly, this book, this version of this book was written in the United States of America. Two, doesn't break the official secrets act. It's got less in it than the other version of the book, which was in the judicial review. But it, even that version did not break the official secrets act. So I'm a kind of a team player. If it broke the official secrets act, I wouldn't have released it, but it, but it doesn't. So. And all it breaks is this disclosure agreement where I said, where they, I could write a book saying the grass is green and the sky is blue. And they could look and go, we're not letting you publish that. We don't have to tell you why. We just don't want you to publish it.

• 4:55:02Speaker 03

  So that I, but it doesn't break the official secrets act. And it's a story about what a whole world saw, which was no SAS operation. It's only me. So it doesn't even give any, any tactics because none of it was based on. Oh, the squadron doing this or, or I'm doing this. So it's not, nothing about the SAS in there other than that I'm in it. And I did selection. It doesn't talk about selection. I just filled it and then passed it. Uh, but they're, they're pushing and every, and there's like, but they're trying their damnedest to stop it. That it's a, this might make some people uncomfortable, but it's, it's the truth. The cherry, there's a cherry on the top of it all. And that cherry is President Trump.

• 4:55:46Speaker 03

  Because I am a, since medium, I am a big supporter of President, President Trump. And I think that especially for people in the UK government is just too much. And dare I say it, I think it might have been, they might have tolerated this had I not met President Trump in two thousand nineteen. No support him later. I, and not, there's a chapter in the book about me. Um, if that wasn't in, I think they might have just let me publish it.

• 4:56:16Speaker 03

  But, but there's that, and I should, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention the Christian element. It's making, this is gonna, um, which we'll go back on it, but the President Trump. Is I'm a supporter and I think that is just too much for some people in the UK from up top. It's like, nah. And remember this is the same government. There's two things, like three things now, this, the same government whilst I spoke for, had the privilege to speak for President Trump to a hundred and twenty thousand people. In his campaign for, for the presidency. At that same time, the same government who wanted to destroy my life illegally sent.

• 4:56:57Speaker 03

  Uh, over a hundred, I think it was a hundred and twenty members of parliament to the United States to canvas for Harris.

• 4:57:06Speaker 03

  And you're telling me there's no bad blood? I doubt it.

• 4:57:10Speaker 03

  So TDS runs, runs, runs thick, runs deep and thick. Um, but the other thing as well, when, when, when the shooters came down on this all those years ago in twenty twenty one. A, a very close friend of mine said, you know, I, have you ever considered that forces of evil might be trying to stop this book?

• 4:57:32Speaker 03

  And I hadn't given it a thought then. I was still kind of reeling. But now I look back and go, absolutely.

• 4:57:38Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I was getting at at the beginning of this.

• 4:57:40Speaker 03

  Forces of evil trying to stop this book. Why? Because this is the story, like I say, of it's, it's a story of good versus evil. It's a story of standing up to tyranny when no one else will, will. And it, this will, um, I think a lot of people, young men will, and women will read this book. And it will make them look in a Bible or make them consider their faith as well. And I think that is just something that evil cannot tolerate.

• 4:58:11Speaker 03

  Bearing in mind whilst there's an injunction going to get launched against me next week, maybe in the UK. At the same time, the same, the, the council of Birmingham are doing another injunction. If you put the national flag up on a lamppost, you could also get two years in prison for doing it. If you put a Palestinian flag or Pakistani flag up, that's fine. But if you put the flag up of the country you're in, so, so when, at some times when I think.

• 4:58:36Shawn Ryan?

  They're allowing, they're, they're turning a, turning a blind eye to.

• 4:58:48Shawn Ryan?

  Islamist raping women over there.

• 4:58:50Speaker 03

  That's just, and, and this is when you hear about everything.

• 4:58:52Shawn Ryan?

  Totally ignoring it.

• 4:58:53Speaker 03

  When you hear about everything that's going on.

• 4:58:55Shawn Ryan?

  Into coming after you.

• 4:58:56Speaker 03

  When I get the legal notice saying, oh, you, you're going to get served in America for this injunction, which kind of expected. It hurts, it hurts, it still hurts like hell, even though I'm expecting it hurts. But then I look at the news and look at what's going on in the UK and think, why, why am I even surprised? They're willing to invest time on putting, people putting flags up, saying things on Instagram. Um, or me telling the story that everyone's heard, but if you, if you gang rape a girl, film it on your, on your phone. You're probably going to get less time in prison than I would get if I went back to the UK. The country's fallen. Another reason why they don't like it is like, this is a modern story. Make no, make no doubt about this. This is Christian warriors.

• 4:59:41Speaker 03

  Fighting against Muslim cowards. That is this book. So, and if anyone thinks anything else, that's not true. I'm getting, I'm getting angry. But that's what this is. And in the UK, like everything, we know it's fallen. We know that, we know that they, they dance and skip to Islam. That's what they do. It's a, the, the country has fallen. So having me. Looking as I look, as I am, even though I help, I help other Muslims, I help everyone, I help blacks, I help anyone, Japanese, everyone. The, the fact that I killed Islamic terrorists is just too much for them to bear as well. They will never stop.

• 5:00:23Shawn Ryan?

  I think the whole thing comes down to good versus evil.

• 5:00:26Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 5:00:28Shawn Ryan?

  Same stuff we were talking about at the very beginning.

• 5:00:31Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 5:00:33Shawn Ryan?

  Same stuff we talk about offline.

• 5:00:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:00:43Shawn Ryan?

  I think it comes back to what's your purpose?

• 5:00:48Speaker 03

  But, you know, hopefully soon, yeah, I'll be a US citizen. Um, as a permanent resident, I mean, by the time this comes out, I could be a US citizen, who knows? Um, but, but as a, as a permanent resident, I'm protected by the constitution. Obviously I can't vote. Maybe if I voted Democrat, I could. I think, I think that works. But, uh.

• 5:01:11Speaker 03

  Um, um, but I, yeah, I can't vote, but I'm protected by the US constitution. This is a book that was written by me in America. And it's only being published in America by an American company. So I think any attempt to stop it is one, foreign overreach and two, a breach of my first amendment.

• 5:01:37Speaker 03

  But that's a job for Tim.

• 5:01:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:01:48Shawn Ryan?

  You know what's weird is um.

• 5:01:58Shawn Ryan?

  This is just by coincidence.

• 5:02:02Shawn Ryan?

  All the people around me that are protecting me for some reason wound up being Catholic.

• 5:02:12Shawn Ryan?

  Temporal authorities Catholic.

• 5:02:15Shawn Ryan?

  Rob Lona, who does all my business and financial work, Catholic.

• 5:02:25Shawn Ryan?

  Hendo, the guy that protects my family, who you who you know now, Catholic.

• 5:02:36Shawn Ryan?

  Laura, who knows everything about me and my family, everything.

• 5:02:42Shawn Ryan?

  Catholic. And I didn't even know, I didn't even know any of this.

• 5:02:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:02:48Shawn Ryan?

  Until fairly recently.

• 5:02:54Speaker 03

  So I was I was a convert, so I I became a Catholic in two thousand thirteen, I believe. I I became a Catholic then.

• 5:03:06Speaker 03

  Which fine, but so I'm I'm saying this to to young people watching and thinking, oh, I want to explore my faith. Is any faith, any any Christian faith is better than no faith. Find and feel. And then, but the the Catholic Church is the is the source point, is is the is the church, is the church. And you but you you you go, when people are looking going, where do I go, just find it, find a vicar, find a priest, explore it, and then ultimately you'll find your way home, whatever that looks like.

• 5:03:42Speaker 03

  So sorry.

• 5:03:42Shawn Ryan?

  Find a Bible.

• 5:03:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then and then just let it take its course, and so I'm not saying everyone, oh, you know, you should be, you know, you it will, you'll find it all out and do what works for you. But it's real, this is real. And if you've if you've sat through however many hours this has been so far, and you you're doubting going, they're all just talking shit, there is no God or whatever. Then maybe consider consider what you just watched.

• 5:04:13Shawn Ryan?

  You know, the people that are coming after you now are even more cowardice than the ones who fought in Kenya.

• 5:04:17Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:04:19Shawn Ryan?

  They don't even have a face.

• 5:04:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 5:04:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. They they just look at it, and and that's what I said, a good friend of mine is very senior in the British Army, and I was hoping you could help or make them see sense. Said, this is still, you can still retrieve this, this is it's a good story, it's good P R and everything. I said, but let's look at it this way. What is success for you now, what is success for the for the whether you frame it as the British government, it's really the the government or Ministry of Defence. What is success? It's basically just destroying my life, that's it. Books out. That's it, you just want to destroy my life. And it's a I haven't broke the official secrets act, I've just broken a civil disclosure agreement. But you want to destroy my life. People will be talking about this story

• 5:05:08Speaker 03

  long after I'm dusting the ground.

• 5:05:12Speaker 03

  And we're and everyone now, and they have the opportunity to stop this, because they will say, oh, have you read the book One Man In? Or have you heard about the story, but hopefully everyone's bought, everyone's bought the book, reads it, it's a bestseller. Have you read One Man In and that story, oh, brilliant. The next words out of everyone's mouth, probably for as long as the story exists, will be, yeah, but it's a shame what the British government did to him. Or tried to do to him. Um, what a great American, what a great American.

• 5:05:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, he is. And and they had the and the opportunity, and the other thing, which is kind of frustrating, is

• 5:05:54Speaker 03

  two thousand nineteen. Sorry, two thousand, sorry, twenty twenty, not two thousand nineteen, twenty twenty. That's when I kind of like make the decision, I may I may get out, and there's a whole load of checklists of me getting out and and um coming to America and then retiring, going to America. And and just for full disclosure, from about two thousand thirteen, fourteen, that was when I decided to come to America. I thought, right, when I retire, I'm going to move to America. And I didn't leave the I didn't leave the U K because of this or because of what they're doing. I would I would, even if U K was some tax haven utopia, I would still be in America, it's just coincidental timing.

• 5:06:37Speaker 03

  But um, but but I was, I had two years left in the army. And I knew that I wasn't going to do another, I knew that they would force me out after that, and and maybe they could have extended, but at the time I was saying they're not. So there's a checklist, I asked, I asked very senior people. When I see me senior, me senior officers, can I write the story about this book? Yes, just work with disclosure, which I did. If they'd said, no, you can't, whatever you do, you can't write this story. I wouldn't have went, just like on that day, if they'd phoned me up before I'd got there and said, you cannot go in, under no circumstances go in. There's a good chance I would have followed the orders and not not went in with this book, if they'd said, you cannot go in.

• 5:07:22Speaker 03

  Um, you cannot go into the, sorry, you cannot publish a story about this under no circumstances. I would have went, no it, and I would and I and I would not have, would have not down it, went down it, but they said, you can write the story.

• 5:07:36Speaker 03

  And the sad thing is, in the judicial review, which was that head job, um, some of these officers lied and said, oh, we we told him he could write a book, but we didn't know it was about Kenya. What do you so what you were happy about me writing about my life or whatever, that and that and and and they approved the, even they approved the for the image, which is not, it was different to that, but it was very similar. Um, oh, we didn't know it was about Kenya. And and and and so they just backtracked, but if they told me that, if they'd said from the get go, no, you can't, you can't tell the story, I wouldn't. But then you set me on this motion, and the genie can't get put back in the bottle.

• 5:08:16Speaker 03

  And it's like, what the the the the pension, if they they probably stop that soon. But it's it's pittance, I can't even live off it. So it's this thing of, what am I, what am I supposed to do, and then, so they see you can, I can, so I I invest all this time effort writing the book, trying to do it. And then and then I have to, then they throw down all this legal, and you or you can challenge legal, it's all bully tactics, you can challenge, no one's ever done it. So I challenge it, absolute head job. Government, and it's a and it's a cautionary tale, because it's happened in the U K now, of this is what happens when you get rid of jury service. When you have a government, no ju, no ju, uh, no, no jury, and a government appointed judge, and you're challenging the government. So even when your legal team's going, we've got this, there's no way we've lost this.

• 5:09:01Speaker 03

  And then they declare, no, no, we will win in favor of the government. That's what happens in this Orwellian society that is the U K and Australia. Um, and and I and I like, and then it comes down to the whole thing of, I sold, I had to sell my medals, I sold my medals in um, what year would it be, in twenty twenty two. I had to, because like we had the two weeks to flatten the curve and couldn't really do much in there. And then I've got legal fees, I've got, I I and I have to plan thing, I I don't know if I'm gonna have to, I've got to pay mortgage, mortgage and things like that. And I'm like, I've got, I've got, I can't, I've got to think to the future about these legal battles. So I sold my medals to pay for my legal fees.

• 5:09:46Speaker 03

  So so so when you talk about a pound of flesh that the British government's got, this this book has cost me personally over a hundred and thirty thousand dollars to to publish so far.

• 5:10:00Speaker 03

  And that's that's that's my own, that's my own money that I paid on that. It's also, also because of, if I ever go, I can't ever go back to the U K, I'll be arrested. And it's like, and and and as it stands, I'm not making money from, I I again, it's if they want to take the money off me and everything, it's just like, what, like, that's what I'm saying, your their mission is just to destroy. Not to like work or whatever, we could do a regain. It's, yeah, it's it's um, it's cost me a lot in.

• 5:10:30Speaker 03

  But I'm thankful. Because I think it's part of the plan. And it's a lesson forever, it's like the Streisand effect, if this, if they just let the original book come out in twenty twenty one when it was supposed to. You know, this book is far better, it's much more streamlined, it's a fast read, it's entertaining. But if that if they'd let that book come out, yeah, it would have done well, it would have sold, and then it would have just, it just would have been a thing. But I tell you something now, there's a lot more people gonna buy this on the fifteenth than probably ten times as many people are gonna buy this on the fifteenth that would have, if it had been sold in July twenty one when it was supposed to be sold. And and that's all because of you're trying to stop it, everyone wants to know about this.

• 5:11:14Shawn Ryan?

  It's gonna work out, man.

• 5:11:15Speaker 03

  So and when you buy this, when you all buy this book and read it, and you'll read a fast, most people smash this in twenty four, forty hours, it's a fast read. Um, it's a real page turner. When you read this book, you will finish it and go, why the hell did the British government try and stop this book? Because that is a night, it's a good story, there's no, I don't talk about, there's very, there's very little negative in there at all, there's no negative at all to the British government or the military. It's like, that's, people will go close it and go, why are they trying to stop this? And obviously, the the the theories and reasons I've I've uh, I've given you already.

• 5:12:00Shawn Ryan?

  I think you're dead on. I think you're dead on.

• 5:12:05Shawn Ryan?

  You're doing a good thing, man.

• 5:12:11Shawn Ryan?

  You're doing a good thing, and you're a good man.

• 5:12:20Speaker 03

  Well, we'll see what happens.

• 5:12:22Shawn Ryan?

  You wanna end this with a prayer?

• 5:12:24Speaker 03

  Sorry?

• 5:12:24Shawn Ryan?

  You wanna end this with a prayer?

• 5:12:31Speaker 03

  You want me to say it?

• 5:12:34Shawn Ryan?

  I'll say it.

• 5:12:34Speaker 03

  Oh, I can say whatever, but...

• 5:12:42Shawn Ryan?

  Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

• 5:13:02Speaker 03

  Amen. Amen. I was, I was going to say the same. Right, I was, I thought, oh, I, I thought I was just like, oh, if he'd said Saint Michael, I would have said it. Do you say safe, do you, do you say, I notice that people do you say, uh, Prince Michael, the, the Archi, defend, Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in the, defend us in this, in the day of battle.

• 5:13:23Shawn Ryan?

  I say defend us in battle.

• 5:13:25Speaker 03

  I say, we, I was, was taught, defend us in the day of battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, Prince of the heavenly hosts, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all evil spirits that wander the earth seeking the ruin of souls.

• 5:13:43Speaker 03

  Amen.

• 5:13:45Shawn Ryan?

  I think that's a pretty fitting prayer.

• 5:13:47Speaker 03

  But...

• 5:13:48Shawn Ryan?

  Especially for right now and for what we just discussed.

• 5:13:53Shawn Ryan?

  Christian, it was an honor, man.

• 5:13:55Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 5:13:56Shawn Ryan?

  It's such an honor just to be your friend and to know you and, uh, and to be able to do what we did today

• 5:14:04Shawn Ryan?

  with you and Mealy, um, thank you. God bless, bud.

• 5:14:18Speaker 03

  So, the interesting thing about, well, it's interesting to me about the incident is most people in the military will know that, and you, you've probably seen this, if you do something great or good, you get shit for it by, from your colleagues and your peers, they're like, they give you, oh, man, I can't believe you did that, or you should have done this, or whatever, and it's all, it's all with love. It's banter. But with this incident was different and it caught me off guard and when I was back to the UK, my peers, even people who I didn't see eye to eye with in the past,

• 5:14:53Speaker 03

  they treated this incident and my actions with, with total reverence. It wasn't bad mouth, it was all just like,

• 5:15:01Speaker 03

  thanks for what you're doing. In December of 2019, I briefed not just, uh, my unit, but support staff, civilians who worked on camp, everyone about the incident into minute detail, far more than I ever went into detail in any of the, any, any, any podcast I have done or will do and or in the book. But I went into every detail and finished it and everyone loved it. Um, so what is unusual is to get praise. So not only afterwards did my peers come up and praise, they actually sent me messages of praise, which is, for me, that's like totally unusual and so unusual, I, I, I took note of all these messages

• 5:15:47Speaker 03

  because it, because it did hit me off guard, like hit me off guard, I was like, man, this is unusual. Um, and it wasn't disrespect to them, I, it, it meant so much to me, that's why I kept the message, I didn't think, oh, in whatever, how many years, seven years' time, I'll go on a podcast and bring these up. It was more of like, man, that, that, that moved me, but I, I saved them in my notes and, and forgot about them. And it's only in the past few months that I, that I came across them and I was like, damn, because as humans, we forget. And, and what I'm trying to get to, where this is leading to is the discontent of like how the establishment, the senior leadership did not like what I did that day. So, getting my phone out here.

• 5:16:33Speaker 03

  And I'll read some of, I won't read all of them because some of them are just praise, but it just highlights the, um, the feeling, what guys in 2019 knew. So here we go. Um, well briefed, mate. It goes against the clean image and worries them that you have so much influence and reach that they can't control or manipulate for their own means. So someone from my unit messaged me that in 2019.

• 5:17:01Speaker 03

  Um, mate, I just wanna say how proud I am to know you. Every time I hear you speak, I remember why we do what we do. You're a true iconic legend within the geezers. Geezers is like a high compliment in, in, um, in the SES, if you're a geezer, it means you're a dude. Like, it's not like American. So, you're an icon, you're, you're, you're a true iconic legend within the geezers. Never change and always keep doing what you're doing. Um, great presentation, mate, you did the regiment proud. Fuck all those negative cunts. So, even, so why that's important is it's saying that they knew that there was a whole load of negativity surrounding this.

• 5:17:45Speaker 03

  And then on point, so, um, last night, a friend of mine, uh, within the, within the SES, messaged me saying, how's it going? And I just said to him, dude, the, the MOD UK government are trying to destroy me. Cause that's what they're trying to do, they're not trying to stop the book, they're trying to destroy me and what I represent. And he, he previously hadn't, he's not in any of these messages, but how on point is this? So this is less than 24 hours old. History tells us that, that people fear what they can't control. Oh, sorry, history tells us that people fear who they can't control.

• 5:18:27Speaker 03

  So it's well, um,

• 5:18:32Speaker 03

  sort of indicated within the regiment that a lot of the senior people don't like what I did or what it represents. So I just wanna say, same as the, the previous Sean Ryan Show interview, I just wanna thank everyone who's just taken the time to go through this interview and, and listen and, uh, and hopefully from hearing this interview and buying the book one man in,

• 5:19:01Speaker 03

  then all I ask is your support because the establishment, so to speak, certainly from a European point of view, do not like what I stand to, what I stand for and what I represent.

• 5:19:25Shawn Ryan?

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