Delta Force Legend Reveals What War Really Does to a Man | PBD Podcast #873

Former Delta Force Sergeant Major John “Shrek” McPhee reveals what elite selection truly tests, why he says removing Saddam strengthened Iran, and how he lost faith in government intelligence. He also recalls the hunt for Saddam, his clash with Tim Kennedy, and finding purpose after the battlefield. . ------ . 👞 Get the NEW Billionaire Suede Loafer: https://bit.ly/4ym5oRA . 🪖 CHECK OUT JOHN'S SOB TACTICAL FOR TRAINING AND GEAR: https://bit.ly/4s2XR8h . 🍫 Get The FLB 1's NOW IN CHOCOLATE: https://bit.ly/4gXlv0X . 👕 SHOP THE ICON COLLECTION: https://bit.ly/3TuUU3x . Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: https://bit.ly/4kSVkso . Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP . 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 . 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj . 🇰 KALSHI: http://kalshi.com/pbd . SUBSCRIBE TO: @VALUETAINMENT @BetDavidConsulting @vtgenz @ValuetainmentComedy . ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  In beginning of war, I wanted to kill everybody. Let's just kill them.

• 0:05Speaker 01

  Did you have a reaction the first time?

• 0:07Speaker 00

  Fucking loved it. Are you kidding me?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  You loved it? So on any given day, what could be the high-low number and keep you guys to count?

• 0:15Speaker 00

  Who got time for all the counting? There's certain bad guys where like however the night pans out, like I could really care if this guy lived or died the night. I was good at it. I could save lives every day. When I would go out, I felt like God bless guys got hurt. Where else should I be? Who else needs me more?

• 0:37Speaker 01

  What's the closest call you ever had?

• 0:39Speaker 00

  I know what I can do. You guys didn't have a chance to begin with. We dealt with a lot of people, family, kids, like you come get a man of the house, he's got a family. You gotta deal with them too.

• 0:51Speaker 01

  Were they as bad as the stories we read about?

• 0:53Speaker 00

  For real, they needed to die. I don't feel bad about them at all. Felt at ease, like I knew maybe this is what I was supposed to do. I don't know, but we were decimating those guys. So I stopped counting on my first day.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  This has never been talked about before, so I know a lot of people that follow your stories closely. And you may get upset at me for starting with this, but I think it's very important for you.

• 1:25Speaker 00

  I doubt it. I doubt it.

• 1:26Speaker 01

  I want you to get upset. I want you to get angry at me.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  So here's a guy. That's a Delta Force Sergeant Major, fully decorated. I contacted my guy that was former Delta Force. I asked him about you. He says this guy's a full-on badass. All these things about you that scares the shit out of everybody, the enemy, right?

• 1:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:46Speaker 01

  And you come in today, your only request from us is Pop-Tarts? You ask for Pop-Tarts?

• 1:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  Not even, Pop-Tarts?

• 1:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  We've never had a Pop-Tart request.

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 1:57Speaker 01

  How long has that been a thing with you?

• 1:59Speaker 00

  Man, uh, well, I love them brown sugar Pop-Tarts.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  The brown sugar Pop-Tarts?

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uh, every time I talk about this, I'll get a, I got Pop-Tart underwear, socks.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Literally?

• 2:11Speaker 00

  Seriously, right? Uh, Pop-Tart t-shirts, like people send me Pop-Tart stuff, but the Pop-Tarts comes from, um, when I went out alone, I, I, I flew my pick. Started out in Assadabad and I told my boss, I was like, hey, we don't got no beef jerky, no, not, you know? We're who we are, you know what I mean? I know wherever the main hub is, right? Bagram, I know they got this stuff. And the other guys are just eating it up while we're out here, kind of like eating vegetables. I don't even know what they are and some goat, you know what I mean? Like with some dude cooking it who's sketchy also. So I was like, he's like, if you want, you want poggy, you gotta get it yourself.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  Schedule everything yourself. I'm not lifting a finger kind of deal. I'm like, I'll do that. I mean, what a good experience for me. So I scheduled the Chinook to come in, pick me and my pickup truck up. We fly us at night to Bagram, park at the chow hall, see my man, our squadron cook, like yo, fill up the truck for the boys, you know what I mean? And then, um, so, uh, that's when they asked me to go on a solo mission. I was actually kind of looting Pop-Tarts at the time, you know what I mean?

• 3:29Speaker 01

  Do you, do you miss it? Like, do you tell, when I, when I watch you here telling these stories, do you ever like, have you fully disconnected or do you still miss it in your, your?

• 3:38Speaker 00

  Uh, I don't know. I think I moved on, on a lot of stuff. I mean, uh, when I retired, I was talking to a friend and then like, you know, you know, he was in Ranger Battalion with me and we were kind of like, kind of like talking my highlight reel, cause I hadn't talked to him in a long time, what he been up to kind of deal, right? And I was just thinking like, man, what am I gonna do now?

• 4:01Speaker 00

  You know, I mean, excuse me, how am I gonna be happy now?

• 4:03Speaker 01

  Would you resist?

• 4:04Speaker 00

  It's like, uh, 11 when I retired, like right when I retired.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  Excuse me. So right when I retired, right? And I was just thinking, what do I do now? Like, you know, chasing, after you chased Saddam or done some of these things, like what do you do for happiness now? You know what I mean? Like, so, uh, and, uh, he was like, wow, I feel sad for you. And like, we started laughing, right? And then I started thinking about it and I was like, he's right. Like, what am I gonna do now?

• 4:33Speaker 01

  Was he a former guy with you? Like?

• 4:35Speaker 00

  Uh, he was in Ranger Battalion with me. He was a Ranger.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  And, and what, what helped you adjust from that life to civilian? Cause, cause my buddy, when I talked to him, I had to go visit him in Madrid. He's like, uh, you know, we called each other B. He says, yo, B, I can't handle this. So I go to Madrid, he's, uh, ETS thing after being 20. He was also Delta. I showed you his pictures.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  So he was a B Squadron guy and, um,

• 5:00Speaker 01

  he says, I don't know how to adjust.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  I don't even know how to. So what was your mechanism of adjusting from that fast life?

• 5:06Speaker 00

  Well, I think the big, the big thing for me was I was, I was working on the staff as an E9, you know what I mean? I just came from Baghdad and I gotta work on the staff, like what a smack in the face, you know what I mean? So in general, culture shock, you know what I'm saying? I get, I go from doing whatever I want, you know what I mean? Whatever I wanted to do, you know? Oh, six, oh, seven to then I was on the staff and I'm, and then like, I never had an army computer. I had a BlackBerry, you know what I mean? Like, I don't even know, I don't even have a cell phone myself yet. I never even had email yet, you know?

• 5:49Speaker 00

  So, um, yeah, so I'm on the staff and I'm just overwhelmed every day. This is incredible. Like I go from a life of being alone, going out, you know, being a leader, bringing out my guys, you know? Uh, to like, desk, um, and like, I just hated my life. Every day I was miserable. Guys would come in my office, I'd be like, state your business, uh, uh, too slow, get the fuck out, you know what I mean? Like, uh, when you can spit it out, I ain't got fucking time, you know what I mean? And then like, I just always mean, I thumbed out, like we'd have new hires and like you'd have to thumb up or thumb down. Thumb down everybody to their face, you know what I mean? Like?

• 6:33Speaker 01

  This is post, this is, this is post you no longer being?

• 6:37Speaker 00

  This is I still in the army.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you're now working headquarter. You're now working operations.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  I worked on the staff.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  And how long did they put you on the staff when you?

• 6:45Speaker 00

  Uh, I worked there for like my last, like four years.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Holy shit. So,

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Three, four years.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  So for you, it was harder transitioning within?

• 6:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  From being deployed to working on the staff?

• 6:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yes.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Okay. So then, so then that means the transition for you, when you got out, you were, did that kind of help you get ready to leave or not really?

• 7:08Speaker 00

  So, okay. This is what leads me.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  One day I kind of had fun at work. And I was like, huh, I had fun today. I get home, you know what I mean? Huh, I had fun today, right? And then, um, you know, I was like, I wonder if I could have fun tomorrow.

• 7:28Speaker 00

  Right? Because all my other days fucking suck, you know what I mean? Like, it's army strong, not army smart. Let's just be real clear here, you know what I mean? But, um, so I was like, huh, I wonder if I could have fun. So I woke up the next morning and I told myself I was gonna smile and have fun no matter what. And I, and I remembered I used to be fun, you know what I mean? Like, you know, like, uh, I'm a little brother. I talk smack, you know what I mean? Like, uh, I was a Ranger. They talk smack, right? Like we have fun. We joke with each other, right? You know how guys are.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  Uh, I realized I used to do this, but I hadn't been that person in a long time.

• 8:10Speaker 00

  So I told myself I was gonna smile and enjoy my day and be positive and try to be positive. You know what I mean?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  And that was it?

• 8:18Speaker 00

  That was it.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  And so from there, you know, by the time it came out for you to get out, did you try to go back and say, let me go on one more tour? Let me get one more thing or no? You already knew that they were kind of pushing you out.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Yo, the,

• 8:31Speaker 00

  the biggest, the biggest thing you could know about the army is to know when to say when.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Know when to say when?

• 8:38Speaker 00

  For yourself.

• 8:39Speaker 01

  And you knew it?

• 8:40Speaker 00

  It's time for me. I was burned out, you know, they burned me out. They burned everybody out. And that's why your buddy has a hard time right now. He's burned, he was burned out. You gotta recover from it, you know what I mean? Risky behavior is from burnout, you know? Concussions causes risky behavior. So like guys get out of control. It's like, well, the guy's fucking mentally suffering, but we can't talk about that. Right? We can only talk about this guy's out of control. So I knew it was time.

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Did they knock on the door or did you? Did they come to you and say, hey, uh?

• 9:17Speaker 00

  No, I was at 20. I was at 20. So really the way, the way it went down is like I had one of those days where I was over it. So I went to the retirement guy and I was like, yo, if I retire right now, right? How much money do I get at retirement? And then, uh, I think they wanted me to like stay in and pull another job, another SAR Major gig somewhere else. You know, dangling the carrot over my head with other fancy jobs you'll never get, you know what I mean? But, um, and then, you know, and then I was like, but you know, they wanted me to stay in another, you know, I don't know, you know, well, you did the SAR Major Academy, so you owe us time and you did. So, uh, they were dangling.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  E9 though. What do you do after E9?

• 10:02Speaker 00

  Uh, other, I mean, other E9 job, you just circulate.

• 10:07Speaker 01

  E9, like was there?

• 10:08Speaker 00

  You could be the SAR Major of the Army.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying. Was that in your mind?

• 10:11Speaker 00

  Shout out Mikey, who's now the SAR Major of the Army, my old neighbor.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Mikey?

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  Would you have won at that job?

• 10:17Speaker 00

  No.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  I don't think you're that guy though.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  I'm not that guy.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  It's all operations.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  And then, so I went through the retirement branch and I was like, you know, and the guy's like, I was like, tell me if I get out, like, you know? I don't know, whatever they wanted, a year or two, right? Or if I get out now. And the guy was like, come back after lunch Sergeant Major, like, I'm like, huh. And the retirement guys are dicks. I didn't know that, you know what I mean? But I guess it's, you know, the army doesn't want you to retire anyway, right? So that's what I'm thinking. So I go back after lunch and the guy like prints me two pieces of paper and he like slides them across the desk. You know what I mean? I'm like, okay, where's this going? So I look at one.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  I set it down. I look at the other one.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  I look at them together.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  We're exactly the same. He's like, there's no difference in the money.

• 11:09Speaker 01

  Staying or leaving.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  And that's when I was like, I'm out.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Did you ever in your career get demoted or no?

• 11:14Speaker 00

  No.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  What is it with some of the best soldiers that are fighters?

• 11:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Tend to have a moment of their career where they get demoted? E5 to E4 or E6 to E5?

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Super common. Look, I would say this is everyone.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  Okay. Let's just say, you know, a million people join the army.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Right? Okay, how many people separate from the army under bad terms?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  5%.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  You think 5%?

• 11:41Speaker 01

  I don't know, I'm guessing. What is?

• 11:42Speaker 00

  I would say everyone who leaves the army before 20 years is disillusioned about the army in some way. So, everybody leaves the army with a shitty story. You were burned out, you know what I mean? Like, it's the most common story there is. It is what it is, you know? And guys always like, it's like they were being bad or something, but everybody has a limit. Most guys get in trouble for saying what's right.

• 12:09Speaker 00

  That's not in trouble in my book. And then, so, I would say this for like, uh, there's, there's more, I, you know, look, especially in the E9 ranks, there's more fucking wrangling to put someone down so you get the next job. Like, so it's the age old thing. I'd say 90% of the people.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  No shit.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  I'd say 90% of the people who get out of the army have an iffy story at best. You know, it's only the commanders that leave that get to write their books. I mean, think about, okay. Let's, let me ask you the question another way. How many people leave with, uh, you know, the high school quarterback, you know, prom queen fucking story that are great? How many people leave like that? What would you say?

• 12:53Speaker 01

  How many after that? Like, you're talking about the?

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Out of the million. You said 5, 5% have a bad story. What do you think have a good story when they leave?

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Oh, no, that would be different for me. I think those guys, a very high chance have a bad story.

• 13:07Speaker 00

  Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, when you look at it, good or bad stories, you'll see that most people have.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Who's the most successful guy, like, that you went with that after the life? And I'm talking like tier one, like you.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  Mikey Weimer, Sarmajor of the Army.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  And he was Delta as well?

• 13:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  Wow, so.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's a Sarmajor.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  So, what was, what was different about Mikey? What is Mikey? So, was he as crazy as you? Like, was he as, he was?

• 13:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, Mikey's one of the guys. He's done it all.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  So, so how?

• 13:33Speaker 00

  He's legit.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  So, how did Mikey transition from that fast pace to be able to handle the office situation?

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Took years probably to get there, but, I mean, and you gotta want it. I mean, think about this. If you really wanted.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Michael Weimer?

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, Mikey.

• 13:46Speaker 01

  You guys are the same age, yeah?

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Yeah. As my next door neighbor.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Interesting. So, if you were to say, okay, this was different about Mikey than me, what would be different about his personality?

• 13:58Speaker 00

  He wanted that.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  He wanted that. Got it.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Think about this.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  He wanted that early on, like?

• 14:04Speaker 00

  Nah, he probably didn't even know he wanted. I mean, I don't know what, he, maybe he knew, maybe he knew he was born to be the Sarm. I don't know. I don't know. Mikey could tell you that. I can't answer for him. But what I could say is like, it's easier to adjust if it's something you want, ain't it?

• 14:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  It's not so easy to adjust when people are forcing, you know, orders stuffed down your throat.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  And that applies in every aspect of life.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  1 million percent.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  So, uh, uh, so I remember when I was sharing this story off camera with you, is when my Colonel came up to me and, and this E6, when I got the orders I wanted from Vicenza, from Virginia, comes back, I wanted to go Vicenza Italy, DLI, uh, airborne, uh, Special Forces, 18 Delta 5th Group. I wanted to do all that stuff. And then, you know, last minute, I'm like, I'm getting out. And I told my Colonel Peacock, I'm gonna get out. My orders went to my buddy. He took the orders. He wanted to eventually be Delta. Six, seven, eight years later, I can't find him. I don't know where he's at. I was telling the story earlier to you. And he goes in. And for about five, six, seven, eight years, we were not in touch with each other. All the information I had, never heard back from him.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  How intentional can somebody be to be selected versus, because sometimes people are like, well, there's a, there's guys that are in Delta and they don't even know what the selection process is. What is your impression of what the selection process is to get into Delta?

• 15:27Speaker 00

  It's hard.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  It's hard.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  What do they look for? What, what do they look for?

• 15:33Speaker 00

  Oh, um, I had it explained to me like this once from one of the shrinks. Um, if every human being is on a scale from like 1 to 100, right? Like, they're looking for guys at like 89.7 to 89.9. And you gotta, you gotta fit in that psychological number and/or you're out. Like, it's that simple. You know what I mean? You have the, the mental whatever that is. I don't know. I'm not a shrink or a doctor, but whatever that is, you gotta fit first. So, like, guys that don't make it, I don't think it's no harm, no foul. You didn't fit the, maybe you were 89.91.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Did you see a pattern amongst all the guys that were being selected? And were you ever in the process of selection or that you were not in that?

• 16:22Speaker 00

  Uh, I never were, I never did selection or anything like that.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  So, who does selection? Is it all ex-Delta guys that do selection or current Delta?

• 16:29Speaker 00

  They run their own selection. I mean, it's a, it's a task. You'll do it.

• 16:33Speaker 01

  So, let's just say if I do Delta and they may come to me and say, hey, Pat, we like the way you think. We want to bring you to be part of the selection process. Who gets that job? To select?

• 16:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's like the crown jewels. You know what I mean?

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Really?

• 16:48Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 16:49Speaker 01

  So, was Mike?

• 16:50Speaker 00

  It's the only secret in the army.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Are you being serious right now?

• 16:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm being serious. The only secret in the army is the selection process.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Why is it such a big secret?

• 16:58Speaker 00

  I don't know. Cause, you know, it's, uh, you're dealing with human beings at the highest level. I'd keep it secret so the Chinese couldn't steal it from us. You know what I mean? I mean, I don't know. Super soldier shit. Who, who, who the fuck knows?

• 17:14Speaker 01

  Should, when you went through the selection process, who interviewed you?

• 17:19Speaker 00

  Uh, well, the unit runs all their own stuff. So, the army, you know, they have shrinks. They have, it's all internal army.

• 17:29Speaker 01

  But is it a recommendation? Is it kinda like, we got this guy here, John McPhee, I think you guys are gonna like him. You guys gotta talk to this guy. Does a, does your E9 or your first sergeant make that recommendation?

• 17:39Speaker 00

  There's no one talking about it. First off, you, they screen your packet. And that allows you to go to selection. And then you gotta walk. You gotta do, you gotta do the whole selection. So, you gotta walk the walk first.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  How long is the selection process?

• 17:57Speaker 00

  Uh, it's like a month. Something like that.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  So, you went to Ranger School. You also went to Special Forces School. And so, is it like a school you go through or at that point they already know?

• 18:06Speaker 00

  It's a selection. It's a selection. Just like, you know, when you go through Rangers, I went through RIP. Now they call it RASP. When I went through Special Forces, they call it the Q course. You know what I mean? Like, or SF, was it SFAS back then? I don't know what it's called now, right? So, it's its own selection course.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Would, would you be able to speculate what they look for? Like, if you were to say, I'm speculating that they will look for this, this, this, and that?

• 18:32Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, not a shrink, but I would tell you, this is what they're looking for. A man who won't drive himself is not worth driving. They don't want that guy. A man that'll drive himself into the ground, they want that guy.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Tell me more.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Well, that's like one of the things they always say. You know, if a guy's not worth driving, I'm not driving him. But if a guy's worth driving himself and he's a true professional and he'll work hard and he'll do stuff, that's the guy we want. So, it's not really, I don't, you know, the, you know, the world these days, like, I get all these questions these days. What were you thinking? I was thinking fucking survive. You know what I mean? Like, so I, I don't think there was a, I don't think there's like a, maybe from a psychologist, there's some like, a psychologist could tell you deep level stuff. But I, I think it's simple. It's like, they're looking for guys who wanna be there, wanna do, you know what I mean?

• 19:29Speaker 00

  Like, doers. That's what they're looking for. I always say this is like every team I've ever been on. I'll take all, you take kids out of school, I'll take all the bored, underachievers out of school that are problem kids. I'll take every one of them.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Why is that?

• 19:45Speaker 00

  Because we'll make an army out of them. Cause they're bored, cause they're not engaged.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  Okay, so that's one. Bored?

• 19:52Speaker 00

  Bored, underachievers. There's tons of them. It was me in school, you know, I got like Cs. I didn't wanna be in school. It's stupid.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  So the reason why this is so interesting to me because I have a lot of guys, John, that their their dream was to be Delta and they did, they were gung ho soldiers, ran 12 mile, two mile, 12 minute, two miles. They did the 82 pushups, 82 situps and they did the correspondence classes. They did everything you asked them and they were early, late, you know, they did everything you wanted them to go. They had no problem going to the back 40 regularly. They would do all that stuff and it was their gym. Now you want me to get deployed to Camp Casey? You want me to go over here? Anything you said they would do, but they never got selected. So it's not like they were not doers.

• 20:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  So, you know, is there, do they?

• 20:39Speaker 00

  They didn't fit between 87.7 and 89.1, you know what I mean? They could have been one point off and they don't get the the nod, I guess. I don't know what the army does.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  So when you went in, was it like a dream or was it like, all right, it's a job? All right, this is?

• 20:55Speaker 00

  I had no idea. There was no internet. Like, I didn't know what I was doing.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  You literally had no idea what?

• 21:00Speaker 00

  I mean, like, you hear rumors, but like, no one knew back then. You didn't know back then.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  I didn't know back then at all.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  Like, no one knew. Like, the internet has changed the game dramatically, you know, but I didn't know shit about shit. I just figured, I was in seventh group and like, I don't know, these guys, but it wasn't the first guys that came and talked to me about selections, you know? There's other selections in the army and the guys that like tried to recruit me for.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  Not, not for Delta, for other things?

• 21:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 21:29Speaker 01

  What, what would be other things?

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Well, what would they be? I don't know. I didn't go. But that guy's kind of recruiting pitch sucked, you know what I mean?

• 21:38Speaker 01

  What was the second guy's recruiting pitch?

• 21:40Speaker 00

  It was like, it was like, I was like, so what would I do? And he was like, you would have great job satisfaction. I was like, I mean, I could make brake parts in a brake factory and like that too, but it doesn't mean I want to do it. You know what I mean? He was like, you would have, that's what he kept saying to me, great job. He had no answers. Like, he couldn't even tell me.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  So what sold a guy like you with the second time?

• 22:03Speaker 00

  Um, man, uh, these guys like said they kicked doors, you know what I mean? Like, at least they gave me an answer. You know, I felt like the other guy just talked in a big circle. Who wants to work for people like that?

• 22:15Speaker 01

  John, when that process happens and you're being selected the second time, what does the unit say? Do they just say, oh, John got, you know, you know, he went to a different unit? What's the language they speak at the unit? And do they tell you? Like, I got a call yesterday, a pretty big business event is taking place and this lady tells me, hey, you're going to be a part of this if you accept it. I'm on a contract with them. So, but if you do this, you can't talk about this, this, this, this, this and that. And she ran through the entire thing with me. I said, okay, great. It's like a secret, high level, secret clearance for business. Okay. So do they tell you, if we go through this process, you can't talk to your wife, you can't talk to your friends, you can't tell them this, you can't tell them that, you're going to go and you're

• 22:58Speaker 01

  going to disappear? What, what happens next once you're selected?

• 23:01Speaker 00

  All that. Yeah, you disappear. You already nailed it.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  Wife?

• 23:07Speaker 00

  I mean, yeah, your, your wife knows. Uh, I never really told my mom, because my mom would have told everybody, you know what I mean? So I never really told my mom. But she would come to my house and be like, you know, I had a beard, you know, I'm just trimming my beard at my nipples with scissors, you know what I mean? In the field. And like, I come home and she's be like, you're in the army. And I'm like, I'm in the army. Like, here's my ID card, you know what I mean? Like, so you're in the army. Your grandfather was in the army and he was clean shaven. You're in the army. I'm like, I am in the army, mom. But that's really all I told her.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  So you didn't want to tell mom, wife knew? How did, how do they know that wife's not going to say anything? Do they tell you? You can tell your wife?

• 23:57Speaker 00

  There's briefings. It's very.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Do they have a briefing with her or?

• 24:00Speaker 00

  Oh, of course.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Oh, seriously?

• 24:02Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  So first process is conversation with you. Second meeting is with you and your wife or?

• 24:10Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no, no. There were, as you are kind of like getting ingrained, there's like meetings and stuff, you know, like, you know, and then I'm sure it's, look, I was pre-social media. You know what I mean? Pre-cell phones, paper army. It was different back then. God only knows what they got to tell people today.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  Shit.

• 24:31Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Like, God only knows. Like, so, so much simpler back in my day.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  But what, what, how do they know that a wife of a soldier that's about to go Delta is loyal to the secrets that you're committing to? So let's just say the marriage doesn't work out. She's going to go out and tell?

• 24:47Speaker 00

  Not my job. I don't know. And whoever's dealing with them wives, good luck. I just want to go on the range and blow shit up. I could care less.

• 24:54Speaker 01

  That's kind of how you looked at it.

• 24:55Speaker 00

  Oh, could care less.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  I was skydiving, you know what I mean?

• 24:59Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Like, I was shooting every day, you know what I mean? And then like after we get on shooting, it's like, hey, Pat, you want to go do jujitsu? Let's go. You know what I mean?

• 25:09Speaker 01

  Was there, was there a personality pattern with guys that were in Delta? Like, were they, were they all fairly charismatic, charming, entertaining? Because even when I talked to my buddy, he says, you can tell stories better than anybody else he's met in his life. Was it kind of like, because when I sit down with mobsters and I sit down with guys that became underbossed, like Italian mafia when you talk, one of the things all of them have in common, they're all great storytellers.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:32Speaker 01

  They all know how to tell a story. They all know how to kind of walk you through what happened, why they did it. Was there a pattern with all of them having charisma and charm and personality?

• 25:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uh, you know, look, it's 88.7, 88.9. Like, it's, these guys are so similar. Like, but I will tell you, this is like, I always felt like, for me, I always felt like I had to work hard every day to be where I was. And but I did feel like those guys you talk about, they got their Boston Marathon t-shirts. They got, they do all the pushups. They do all the situps. They're faster than any human being I've ever seen. And like, you see them and you see these guys at selection and it's like super intimidating because like, well, I'm just working hard to be here, you know what I mean? And like, these guys are doing all this shit. And then when you pass selection, I don't know where they go,

• 26:25Speaker 00

  but a lot of those guys go away. But there is, I'm telling you, genetic specimens there. These guys are just, I can't say enough good about the guys they select and the guys that are in the squadrons. They're so fucking good, so talented. And I always felt like there was stuff I was good at and what I was not good at, I worked on every day. So I didn't have any weak points. You know what I mean? I did the stuff that I sucked at every.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Such as?

• 26:54Speaker 00

  Oh, man, now, okay, the obstacle course. Like, I never run an obstacle course in my life, you know what I mean? And the army has some, but it's more of a joke than like, it's run the O course. Ah, you know what I mean? It's more of a joke than anything. Uh, they got legit ones with high ropes and like, I didn't know how to do this. So I came in like last, and my counselor had to tell me like, we've never letting anyone go for the O course before, uh, you, you could be the first. Then like, I'm like, no, this ain't happening, right? So, uh, every weekend, Saturday, I'd come in and run it. And then I sought out guys that were like way better at it than me, like best

• 27:38Speaker 00

  guys in the building. And I would just approach them in the hallway. Hey, could you show me this? And then like I go run it. And I'd get like, and then what I realized is my technique was bullshit. It's not that I lacked the strength or the cardio, you know what I mean? It's just like, I didn't know where to put my hand and how to swing from here to here, like simple stuff, you know? And then by the end of it, I think it was raining and like, you know, like the end of training, like it's competitive, this is like Jedi shit, you know what I mean? It's a tight window. Like, you know, guys are mad. You, you lose a point, you're in third, you know what I'm saying? And like, I think I finished like third. It was raining, guys had like spun off the track, you know what

• 28:21Speaker 00

  I mean? Because it's wet. But I had done it so many times, I just kind of breezed through, right? So I tried to always work on what I was weak at.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  I heard one of the, when we did the air assault, the last thing I had to do was the 15 mile rock march that they do in Kentucky, you know, Fort Campbell.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  Hardest 10 days in the army.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Funny, you're so funny. Yeah. And they said, hey,

• 28:46Speaker 00

  Let's go.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  You're a big guy. Let's give you the saw. And I'm like, all right, I can, I lift weights. I can bench three plates. Give me the saw. I got it. Not a problem. And I go through this. And at the end of the guy says, look, whatever you guys do, don't lay down. Just don't lay down. Don't lay down and go to your barracks. So I'm like, my body can't handle it. I go lay down. My body is literally frozen like this. They had to come and put me in warm water to kind of loosen up. It took about 30 minutes, right? But I heard one of the things they did is, you know, maybe this is even special forces. Maybe this is not even selection for Delta. The 40 miler where they give you, you know, 13 maps or 12 maps or whatever it is, they, what is that all about?

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what that's about. Like you've got like 13 maps. I don't know. I don't remember. But yeah, uh, it's something you gotta do. And it's a lot of maps. You know what I mean? And like, they'll give you a point and you're like, and you know how big the map sheets are? I'm not joking. And you're like.

• 29:47Speaker 02

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• 32:50Speaker 00

  Oh crap. I gotta go two map sheets over to this point. You know what I mean? And I get to

• 32:55Speaker 01

  Is it in the States?

• 32:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  It's in the States. Uh, okay. So then listen, you, you're not a dummy. I know sometimes guys are like, well, I'm just a regular guy. And those are some of the most brilliant guys in the world. The guys that try to tell you how dumb they are, they're some of the most brilliant guys that are high EQ. You know, you're not going to choose Delta guys who are, oh, just go kill people. And that's all we're looking for. There's no way in the world they're selecting people like that. I'm assuming you guys are some of the most brilliant guys out there that have a balance of EQ and a balance of IQ. Would you agree with a little bit of that?

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think you're right on that. Yeah.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  It's hard to find people like that.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. That's what they're looking for. That's that window. You know what I mean?

• 33:35Speaker 01

  88.7 to 88.9.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Whatever, whatever it is, you know, and like, and I could have got the numbers wrong. He could have said different numbers too.

• 33:42Speaker 01

  So prior to being selected, did you, did you already have a highly decorated career?

• 33:47Speaker 00

  No, I was just a new guy, regular guy. You know, look, I, I've been through Ranger Battalion. I did, I did my five years. I did, well, four and then like four and a half. Like the SARM major was like, you gotta go work in the army somewhere. It was like, I didn't want to leave being a Ranger. And I didn't want to end up in Korea. Nothing against Korea, but like, had no want to go there. You know what I mean? And that's what it seems like they were sending people. Uh, cause that's where they send people, right? So I had no desire. So I was like, I tried this special forces thing. And then I've been on a team. I went through the Q course. I was on a special forces team, like not even a year. And then I was like, this looks cool. And I went.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  They told me about.

• 34:34Speaker 00

  I was like a new guy. You know what I mean?

• 34:35Speaker 01

  So nothing, like there was nothing in the past. This guy was a super soldier.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  No, no, nothing. I mean, no, had nothing.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  I remember they would say, guys who would come back from Camp Casey, they would say, there's rumors in Camp Casey. If you get a certain STD, they keep you there for a year or two years until you get cleaned up. I don't know if you've ever heard the story or.

• 34:53Speaker 00

  No.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  They would say some stuff. They would scare the shit out of me. They're like, dude, you do not want to go to Korea, you know? And if you go there, don't do anything because some of the STDs they don't have anywhere in the world. It's like an epidemic. They don't want to release it to the world. I'm like, oh my God. You know, they were scared the crap out of me.

• 35:07Speaker 00

  I never heard any of that. I heard it was cold. And I'm like, I don't want to go somewhere. Imagine being in outside where it's cold all the time. Like, we did that once a while in Ranger Battalion. It sucked. You know what I mean? I didn't want to go nowhere cold.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  So what, what was the first mission you went on where you're like, I can actually do this. I'm capable. And people saw that, you know, John Shrek McPhee is special when it comes onto the moments like that. What was the first moment for you? First one you got deployed on?

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Uh, man, I don't know. Um, I would.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  You've been on a lot of interesting.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. I would say this is, um, like when you get out of training and you get to your team, like I felt like I was personally capable. You know what I mean? Like I, you know, I could handle firearms. I could skydive. I could handle myself, right? But I didn't know how all of it worked yet. Does that make sense? So I felt like I came really well-prepared from training, but I really didn't know how to apply.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  To, to a real life situation?

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. To like any situation.

• 36:17Speaker 01

  Because speed accelerates or because it's like?

• 36:19Speaker 00

  No, cause like, uh, you know, it's like, look, I, I bet for you, it's like college, right? You go to marketing school, but when you get your first marketing job, this is where rubber hits the road, right? And like, you might have to do stuff that works that no one ever told you about. And you might, you know, the stuff they told you about may or may not work, right? So it's, it's kind of like an experience thing. You know what I mean? But I did feel like I came well-prepared from training.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  Got it. So training gets and you're selected, you're in. What happens next? Do they tell you, John, you're going to XYZ?

• 36:54Speaker 00

  Uh, well, you go to a team and then you gotta make your own way. You know what I mean? It's one thing you got in this world and that's your name and try not to fuck it up. You know what I mean?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  And is it like, here's where you're going? Or you're waiting? Are you waiting on a call? Is a team?

• 37:11Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  You're just.

• 37:12Speaker 00

  No, you're on a team. It's, yeah. You work with these five guys, four guys, three, whatever, all the time.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Are you here? Are you in the States? Are you out somewhere, you know, on a mission all the time?

• 37:24Speaker 00

  Well, you're based out of the States here. You know what I mean?

• 37:27Speaker 01

  What percentage of time are you spending here? What percentage are you?

• 37:29Speaker 00

  It's all cycles. The army does cycles, you know, like, and you know this, it's quarterly or the government cycle. You know what I mean? So it's all cyclical, just like the army does.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  What's, is it a regular schedule? Are you at a regular unit, like going to PT with everybody else? Are you?

• 37:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. So it's a regular job. There's a place you go to work every day. You know what I mean? And then, uh, kind of my day to day was I would come in around six. I would do cardio till about 7:30. I'd walk to the chow hall. I'd eat breakfast. And then at eight o'clock, we'd shoot till about 10:30, right? We'd be on the range, whether it's shooting, blowing stuff up, just some type of training, mostly shooting. Uh, and then 10:30 to one, uh, I would do jujitsu. I would sometimes work out and then I'd go to lunch. And at one o'clock, we shoot till like three or four. And then you could go back to the gym. You could go for whatever. And then I did the O course once a week.

• 38:29Speaker 00

  Generally I got in the pool a couple of times a week. Uh, man, you know what I mean? So my day-to-day schedule was cardio in the morning, shooting, then jujitsu and weights, lunch, and then shooting. And then I'd go home or do something else.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Is that all, all of you? Or that was your schedule?

• 38:48Speaker 00

  Uh, well, that's pretty much the schedule. I mean, you could do whatever you want. You could just show up at eight, right? But I would, that's kind of my personal schedule.

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Okay. Got. So it's not like it's a, is it fairly an independent, decentralized, without somebody holding you accountable? Hey, John, get off your, where were you at six?

• 39:04Speaker 00

  You are, you are accountable at all times. There is no not accountable in a job like that.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  And, and then is it a well-known military base you're at? Or are you on a?

• 39:16Speaker 00

  I live in North Carolina.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Fort Bragg?

• 39:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 39:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:20Speaker 01

  And are you going and eating with other guys from different units and just regular, like you're going to regular chow halls?

• 39:25Speaker 00

  Man, uh, oh, I had breakfast and lunch in the chow hall generally because you're right there. Uh, dinner, I usually get somewhere else.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  And when other people ask you, so what do you do for a living? What's your MOS? What do you say?

• 39:36Speaker 00

  Dirt farmer.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Dirt farmer.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Yeah. I used that for a long time.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  But then if you're talking to a couple of the guys, do they know or nobody knows?

• 39:45Speaker 00

  Um, I mean, you know, pre beards day, you know, like no, before guys started having beards, when I had a beard, like, nobody knew, like, even my mom didn't believe I was in the army. You know, after Afghanistan, when everyone has a beard, like, you could pick these guys out amongst paratroopers for sure, you know?

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Got it. So now, now, so then, so then, it's not like the army is trying to hide it as much as they claim. It's like this elite organization that nobody knows about. Like, it's not like the Fight Club, wink, wink, if you're in it, don't tell anybody, you know, it's just between us boys.

• 40:21Speaker 00

  The internet ruined it.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  The internet ruined it.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  I think so. The internet ruined everything. You can't keep a secret. Seriously, you think there's real secrets with the internet and shit?

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Was it the internet or was it that one Delta guy that wrote a book about it? Like, what it is to be, uh, uh, I don't know what the name of the book was. You know who I'm talking about?

• 40:40Speaker 00

  No, I don't read them type of books.

• 40:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:43Speaker 00

  You know what I mean?

• 40:44Speaker 01

  And then, and then guys were upset. They're like, why would he write this book? Why would he tell our story? There was some controversy tied behind it.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  I look at it this way. Um, my brother, my own family, like, once they found out what I did, they have a million questions for me, right? There's nothing I would say to them that I wouldn't say to you. You know, there's nothing, I'm not divulging secrets. I'm just telling you about my life. And, you know, the officers can write their books, but yet the guys can't talk about it? That seems ridiculous too, doesn't it? So, um, I just look at it this way, man. I just try to tell my stories. I would want my kids to hear this, you know? I would, I would hope that, like, uh, my stories and loving the army, I hope I'm spawning a whole generation to join. Matter of fact, the army

• 41:34Speaker 00

  should be paying me for recruiting. Where's this, where's these army dollars at? You know what I mean? Like, that's how much I love the army. So, like, why shouldn't I talk about it? You know what I mean? And then, look, you know, I was, I would thank everybody I ever served with. I'm so grateful in so many ways, but, you know, like, look, if I can't talk about it, who should? You know what I mean? Because there's so many guys, like your buddy, who, well, they're not well adjusted yet, you know, like, you know, there's, I hear there's, I don't know where this is, but I hear there's veterans that don't like fireworks. I used to get mortared and rocketed. Boy, I will buy a thousand dollars with the fireworks from South Carolina, where the good fireworks are, and we're gonna have

• 42:17Speaker 00

  a good time, you know, like, uh, but like, look, I hear there's guys that, that, you know, that have those things. And it's like, it's not all bad, you know what I mean? So, if, if I can't tell my stories, well, who should?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:32Speaker 00

  Who you want talking?

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Do they tell you, don't talk, or no? Do you get calls and say, hey, stop talking? You're talking too much?

• 42:37Speaker 00

  No, no. I've never, they've never messed with me at all.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  I think it was this book, Inside the Delta Force by a guy named Eric Haney, uh, O2. So, I don't know when Facebook and YouTube came out, but some of the guys you talk to, they'll say, hey, you should never talk about what's going on. And, you know, there was some criticism behind the unit selection. I'm trying to see, was this guy, can you go up a little bit? Go up the other way? Yeah, if you can. Key operations, Haney shares a first-hand book on grueling, highly selective training processes. He recounts several major deployments. Yeah. So, when I, when I talk, like, at least at that time, it was like, why would this guy talk about it? So, okay, so you're at a regular unit, you're going...

• 43:15Speaker 00

  But, but the commanders and generals can write about it, and that's okay. It seems like a double standard, which the army says it doesn't do.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  Was he a commander or a general, or?

• 43:26Speaker 00

  Uh, no, he was a enlisted guy, wasn't he? What's this thing say? Like, I don't even...

• 43:31Speaker 01

  For Special Forces Operations, more commonly known as Delta Force, in recent years, he has been riding on terrorism. Go a little bit lower to see his military career. Uh, Haney joined the army in 1970.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  B Squadron.

• 43:43Speaker 01

  B Squadron?

• 43:44Speaker 00

  We found the problem. Look no further, friend.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  B Squadron? So, what's the difference? Tell me about, what, is there anything to it, or no? Like, what is B Squadron to be a part of?

• 43:53Speaker 00

  Oh, A Squadron.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  A Squadron. Got it.

• 43:56Speaker 00

  I mean, it's the first letter of the alphabet. A number one, you know what I mean? I mean, come on, you know what I mean? Did you want to get Bs in school, or would you rather had an A? You know what I mean?

• 44:06Speaker 01

  But I get it. But is, is it, is it like, uh, joining the Navy SEAL versus being SEAL Team Six? Does that kind of look A and B?

• 44:14Speaker 00

  Take those words out of your mouth. I'm not even going there. There's no compares.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Between Delta and Navy SEAL?

• 44:21Speaker 00

  No compares.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Tell me why.

• 44:23Speaker 00

  Well, any day of the week, I keep, I say this all the time, any day of the week, a Navy SEAL could go to unit selection and become a unit guy, and a few have crossed over. Talk to them, they'll tell you. And plus, I'm an army guy. I should be giving the Navy SEAL shit, you know what I mean? It's my job as an army guy, and it's their job as Navy guys to give it back to me, you know what I mean? Like, that's the way I see it. So, uh, yeah, it's not a comparison. Come on.

• 44:50Speaker 01

  In what way, though? In what way is it not a comparison?

• 44:53Speaker 00

  It's not a comparison. And they'll even tell you. Like, read their books, you know what I mean? They'll even tell you.

• 45:00Speaker 01

  Be specific, though. Like, tell me, tell me, because you guys are more capable in, you guys show up better in...

• 45:07Speaker 00

  The unit was made to be self-sustaining. They need nothing. The SEALs were not. And this kind of weakens them, because they need augmentees to do odd jobs where we have all our, we talked about this, the engineers, the prime power, we have all these people. It's the way the army's made. You know what I mean? It's the way it was designed. It's the charter. There's a charter. It's all written down. If someone cared to read it, which I had to as a sergeant major, they would have figured all this out, but I hate to burst anyone's bubble here, you know what I mean? Like...

• 45:48Speaker 01

  Were there any Navy SEAL guys that came through to Delta and you were like, all right, good, respect?

• 45:52Speaker 00

  All of them. All of them, respect. Yeah, all of them that's crossed over. And, look, you make it to the unit, you get my respect right now, man. I love them fucking guys, you know what I mean?

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Did anybody do the opposite? Did anybody go from Delta to Navy SEAL?

• 46:04Speaker 00

  You can't do that.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Why can't you?

• 46:07Speaker 00

  You tell me. This is what I've been talking about.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  The charter?

• 46:16Speaker 00

  The charter. Yeah. So, it's just the way it is. It's the way it was built. Like, it's not my fault. I'm just telling you how it was written.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  What, what, what is the history of Navy, like, Delta? When, when did it happen and how did it happen? Was it something that...

• 46:30Speaker 00

  Probably read it in that book.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  You can't tell me you don't know how it happened? Like, you didn't...

• 46:34Speaker 00

  Come on!

• 46:35Speaker 01

  Come on, John. They didn't tell you.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  I wasn't around then.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  But did they tell you the history, like, this guy started because of...

• 46:43Speaker 00

  The desert, desert eagle, desert, basically, uh, when they went to go save the hostages in Iran during Reagan, right? The aviation, a helicopter hit an airplane, and like, burned to the ground or something. Uh, and this is what spawned, uh, we need a more professional force. Right? Um, and the unit had been training for that, but that's where, like, it all starts to come together. Now, the unit had been created for counterterrorism stuff, you know, SF teams were doing it, the unit was doing it. I don't know. I don't know how it even got there, to be honest. This is way before my time. Uh, I probably was told to read about this and forgot, so you're probably putting me on the spot, you know

• 47:26Speaker 00

  what I mean? But I probably should know, but, um, you know, it was, it was made somewhere in the seventies or something, you know? I mean, I used to look at all the old pictures of the guys who made it, you know, a lot of bad hair and mustaches through the seventies, you know what I mean? I had them all in the eighties, so I had bad hair too, but, uh, a lot of cool pictures, a lot of cool guys.

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Can you spot a Delta Force, can you spot a Delta guy?

• 47:49Speaker 00

  No.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  So, it's like, if you...

• 47:51Speaker 00

  But, hey, I could spot every Navy SEAL. You know what I mean? Navy SEALs, CrossFitters, and vegans, you know what I mean? They'll tell you. Come on.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Vegans, Navy SEALs, vegans.

• 48:04Speaker 00

  And CrossFitters.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  That's right, CrossFitters. Uh, okay, so, walk, walk me through, maybe share with the audience, the story of what happened with Saddam Hussein, where you were out there looking for him. And you, you got a bunch of things. You even had, I think, one of the hats that, that you had.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, there's a picture where he's like, shooting a Mauser in the air. Uh, I had that hat. I gave it to Zach Baggins at the Haunted Museum. Yeah, that's the, yeah, where he's holding the thing up. Um, yeah, Saddam, um, you know, one of my day jobs was to coordinate intelligence, um, between the government and us, because we just, the war requires bodies, you know what I mean? I, I, this is something no one really understands, is the war requires a lot of bodies. I mean, look, I know I talk about my stuff and what I did, but for me to even roll out the door, you know how many people it takes? I mean, you know the army, right? There's intelligence. The engineers had to build the place for me

• 49:02Speaker 00

  to stay. The, the intelligence needs to lead me to a target, right? So, so many people, but, um, I had to read all these reports and kind of figure out, you know, who's what. Um, we ended up getting, like, his tailor, his butlers, his bodyguards, the deck of cards. We got a ton of them. The other squadrons got a ton of them. Uh, the unit kind of cleaned the deck, I think. And then, um, you know, I always thought the Saddam capture was really on a timeline. You know what I mean? And the timeline was for Junior, I think, more than anything else.

• 49:42Speaker 01

  Who day?

• 49:43Speaker 00

  Huh? No, no, Junior, Bush Junior.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  Oh, Bush Junior.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  Right? Because if you start a war, but you don't get the guy you're after in your term, that don't look good. So, I always figured, like, we had to finish this for him, you know what I mean? No, I, I'd have done anything for the guy, but I always felt like that was kind of like the deal. You know, there's a timeline on this. You know what I'm saying?

• 50:08Speaker 01

  And, and timeline meaning, like, if the next administration comes, it may have shut down, and the mission wouldn't have been accomplished?

• 50:15Speaker 00

  Shut it all off!

• 50:16Speaker 01

  And all this stuff?

• 50:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, we're almost there, and they shut it all down, like they do so many times.

• 50:21Speaker 01

  How do you see the comparison with, uh, you know, Saddam, and maybe what's going on right now with Iran, and how they took out, you know, the supreme leader, and they took out all the leaders, the mom, the dad, the, you know, everybody? Do you see a correlation?

• 50:35Speaker 00

  Come on.

• 50:37Speaker 00

  I don't believe taking out Saddam Hussein made this world a better place. I loved being in Iraq. I had the time of my life. I say this all the time. However, I don't believe strategically, the test of time, it wasn't a great idea. You know what I mean? So, the test of time will show how we fuck this up. But I don't always believe we make great decisions. We do our best as, no one's got bad intent, you know what I mean? But at the same time, shit still gets fucked up. So, I don't know. You know, I don't know how Iran's gonna pan out. I don't think anyone does. You know what I mean?

• 51:16Speaker 00

  But I will say this is, the capture Saddam, I do believe, was always a timeline. Some type of timeline. And then, at the same time, you had emerging threats. You had Zarqawi growing and in the background and, you know, other stuff going on. The insurgency in Iraq. So, there was other stuff bubbling in the background at the same time. You know, we had to focus and capture Saddam.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  And would you guys get briefings and say, here's what you need to know about this? Here's what we need to know about this? Or was it, hey, this is what we need you to do? Was there a briefing of explaining who the enemy was?

• 51:52Speaker 00

  No. Look, I, there was no intelligence. There was no human intelligence. No intelligence agency had intelligence agents in Iraq. There was no intel at all.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Seriously?

• 52:06Speaker 00

  Seriously. We did operations to gain intel, which is backwards in special operations. And we used to have, I used to think about this. We used to talk about this, like, so you want us to go out there and get this guy? So we can find something out? And then, that's just how it works. And then, we, look, man hunting is like a sweater. You're wearing a sweater. If I was to pull the right thread, or the perfect thread off your sweater, the arm might fall off. I'm looking for that one thread. But how many threads are in this sweater?

• 52:43Speaker 01

  Thousands.

• 52:44Speaker 00

  And then, you know, so the intelligence agencies might say, sources are worthless, and we're not doing it. We're in the army. We're running every thread to ground. Period.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  So, a form of Delta is also playing intel? Or you also play the role?

• 53:01Speaker 00

  You always gotta have your own intel. I mean, how are you gonna?

• 53:03Speaker 01

  Are you reporting it up?

• 53:04Speaker 00

  Always. There's, there's no, this is all 1,000% oversight at the highest levels. No one wants the, no one wants unit guys running around not being checked.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  How did you guys view the CIA? Who was the CIA to you? I mean, you all obviously have strong opinions about the Navy SEAL. What did you guys think about the CIA?

• 53:25Speaker 00

  I don't work there. That should tell you something. I thought I wanted to work there at one time. And I thought that would be my future. I just work for them the rest of my life and that. And then, I won't work for the government again.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  For the government or specifically CIA?

• 53:43Speaker 00

  Any part of the government.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  Why is that?

• 53:46Speaker 00

  Because I seen them in action, in war. You know what I mean? I just know too much about how this works. So, I wasn't impressed, obviously. And I felt like all forms of government. I also feel like, not just the intel piece, but the nation-building piece. I feel like the State Department failed Iraq also. It's not the army's job to reorganize everything. You know what I mean? So, I feel like there is a lot of failures.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Okay. So, let's go there. Because what happens, you know, we say, we have the greatest military in the world.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  We do.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  What do we do if guys like you don't want to serve? Because a guy may listen to this and be discouraged to want to serve. Because like, I don't ever want to work for the government. If John Shrek McPhee is saying this, McPhee is saying this, what am I gonna be doing? Right?

• 54:40Speaker 00

  I don't know. Everybody's got dreams. Maybe someone was born to want to join the FBI. I would tell you, get in there right now. Go be the best, whatever you could. I would never discourage anybody. But at the same time, I don't want to do it. Just like, I don't watch TV. I don't watch the news. You know what I mean? It's just what I do.

• 54:59Speaker 01

  Even till today? You don't watch TV or the news?

• 55:00Speaker 00

  I stopped watching the news in the war years. They were wrong so much, I just turned it off and never looked back.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  It's funny. My friend said the same thing. The guy I'm talking to, he said, he says, we would, we would watch the news. And we're like, no, they're lying. That's not happening. We're here right now. That's not taking place.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  I, I, I just woke up, and this is what you, baby milk factory? I wouldn't call that green sludge baby milk. You know what I mean? Like, and our, our chemical guy couldn't even figure out what the fuck it was. So, it definitely wasn't baby milk. You know what I mean? And I'm like, that's it, man. You guys are wrong. It's fear-based bullshit. I turned it off.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  When's the first moment you had where you're like, these guys are full of shit? Who was it? Do you remember it? Like?

• 55:39Speaker 00

  And there was, we raided this place. It had this green sludge. We left, gave it to the army. I was, we'd been out all night. It's morning time. And then, like, my boss says, hey, we gotta turn around and go back. And I'm like, uh-uh, we're going to bed. Uh-uh. And he just starts laughing. He's like, turn around. So, I turned the vehicle around, and there's a mushroom cloud in Baghdad. Place blew up somehow. I don't think baby milk is volatile at all. You know what I mean? Do you? Have you ever seen baby milk blow up in the microwave, maybe? I don't know.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Who reported that? Who reported that it was baby milk blowing up?

• 56:22Speaker 00

  The news. Like, oh, CNN, it had to be CNN, because it's the only real news back then.

• 56:27Speaker 01

  So, they're reporting this. You guys are, now, at that time, are you guys coming home and watching the news to see what's going on? To see what's being reported or not? You are?

• 56:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  Because you're, you're doing the job. So, let's see what they're gonna say.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  They play it, you know, in the operations center. They're playing the news at all times. You know what I mean?

• 56:44Speaker 01

  At the operations center? So, people are, and why are they doing that? Are they just trying to?

• 56:47Speaker 00

  Everybody, look, CNN was on all the time back then. You know that. Everyone just watched CNN.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:52Speaker 00

  Especially in the army. You think the army's gonna tell you what's going on? We're watching CNN.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  No shit.

• 56:58Speaker 00

  But I realized they were just, it was just lies.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Did you ever have an experience with the CIA where you're like, I can't trust these guys?

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:08Speaker 01

  What, what happened?

• 57:10Speaker 00

  Stuff. So much stuff. I don't even remember, but yes.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  And, and that's what led you to not trust in those guys?

• 57:18Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 57:19Speaker 01

  The energy I'm getting from you is, there was, there is a level of frustration, or not even frustration, a lack of trust for them that's slightly above everybody else. Would you agree with that or no?

• 57:28Speaker 00

  I don't trust them.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  Why?

• 57:30Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Well, first off, like, a lot of them are, through the war years, they're just college kids. They were recruiting kids right out of college, you know, to be, you know. The next thing is, I thought, beginning Afghanistan, I think these, like, mid-level guys or station chiefs or, you know, whatever, right? Just a little above case officers. I think they thought Afghanistan and Iraq was gonna be like France after World War II. They were gonna be in chateaus, and their best clothes, and they're gonna be cheers and, and, you know, down with whatever they, I don't know what the fuck people would even say at a party like that. You wouldn't get me in those clothes.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  But that's what they thought. And then, here we are, and you're rocketed every night. You know what I mean? Like, mortared, rocketed, especially in the beginning of Afghanistan. Like, they're coming, they're rocketing you every night, mortaring you. So, they didn't get what they bargained for. And a lot of them were just kids. Like, I mean, how do you blame? I don't blame anybody, you know? Everyone had good intent. But like, you know, some 23-year-old girl, they recruit out of college. Now, she's in Baghdad trying to run sources, counter to Zarqawi, who's just gonna kill you if they even get whiffed, that you talk to somebody. You're like, come on. It's ridiculous, right? So, it's, I don't think there's anyone has bad intent. But it's several layers of, kinda, I don't think they really had a good plan.

• 58:59Speaker 00

  And you'd think like, well, who would have the good plan? Well, if they don't got a good plan, who's got a good plan? And then, you realize like, well, we're the only ones, like, kinda, doing what we say.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  What were some of the unconventional ways you got intel?

• 59:16Speaker 00

  Uh, I don't even know what that means.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  Meaning? Like, if you, if I go in, find somebody that is, like, I remember you told a story about, Saddam had this one girl that he liked a lot, and she wasn't that pretty. So, he went to the husband and, you know, you got, so what was unconventional ways you got intel?

• 59:34Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, wives, the tailor, his butlers, like, I don't know if there is an unconventional way. I mean, I, I don't even know what that means, you know?

• 59:48Speaker 01

  Just any way to get it?

• 59:49Speaker 00

  Any way to get it.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  And the reason I said unconventional?

• 59:51Speaker 00

  And if they got beef, if someone's husband wants to sleep with someone's wife, and you're gonna tell on these guys, like, okay, we're there. I don't care how we get these guys. They're on our list. We need to go get them. If that makes sense?

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  So, it's always a never-ending, we're getting these guys to answer these questions. It's a, it's a puzzle piece. You know what I mean? And we're just filling in these puzzle pieces, one guy at a time. And then, I would say this is like, everyone thinks like, you need these, these guys got these massive secrets. No. I just need to know who, who owned the truck you were in? Because we already know most of the story. Who owned the truck?

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  All these questions, what we're looking for is like, they're just silly benign questions. You're not gonna die for that. Ahmed owned the truck, like, I don't know. You know what I mean? Like, so, you know, these people think there's this like, you've really gotta get like, answers out of these people. Most of them'll just tell you if you're right to answer the right questions, because, you know, they think you're gonna... A lot of times, people think like, you're gonna kill them, or they're being robbed. Like, you know, how many, I can't tell you how many nights we raided houses in Baghdad, and the family was relieved? We weren't Iraqis, because Iraqis will also rob you. So, they're just relieved to deal with Americans, you know?

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  And the questions we ask, you know, who owned the truck? You know what I mean? Who did you meet with yesterday? Right? Like, these are nothing questions. So, when framed correctly, the guy'll just tell you. I tell you, I used to do this all the time. You know how to get a guy to tell you who he is? I'd walk up to the guy, and I'd hold my little pictures up to him, and give him a really stern look, and I'd be like, fucking Saddam! And you know what the guy's gonna say? No Saddam, no Saddam, Mohammed! And be like, mm, he's on the list, get him out of here. Next guy, Saddam, no Saddam, right? Like, the best way to do it is accuse him of being someone you know they're gonna put

• 1:02:02Speaker 00

  to death, they'll tell you who they are, but if you ask them their name, they're gonna lie to you. I used to do that all the time.

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  So, the reason why I ask this question about the unconventional way of getting intel is because CIA is not capable of doing what you guys are capable of doing. To get the intel, one must fear for their lives to eventually give the information. Would you agree, like, some of the higher level intel?

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  Um...

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• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  I mean, you know, if you're gonna play that game, you know what I mean? You better play it to the end as a terrorist, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  If you're gonna, if you're gonna play, or if they...

• 1:06:14Speaker 00

  No, they have to play that game. They're playing the terror game, they know we're coming after them, better play your part to the end, you know what I mean?

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  John, what's a one-on-one face-off you had with a guy, an enemy, that he was sizing you up, that you're like, I don't think this guy's scared, and I gotta make a statement? Did you have a lot of those moments?

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  Never once.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Never once?

• 1:06:35Speaker 00

  You ain't sizing me up, I'd already put you down. What are you talking about? Why would I let it get this far?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:06:40Speaker 00

  This is how you survive. Why would you let anyone square up on you? Such a bad idea, I already stopped this.

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  At what point? But if you're trying to get information out of him, you kill me, you didn't get anything out of me.

• 1:06:53Speaker 00

  A guy squares up on me, I'm gonna put him down, I could care less what he knows right now.

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  Guy squares up, you're putting him down?

• 1:06:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. You let people threaten you during war? It's a risk you and your guys can't take, especially in small teams. I wouldn't even let that happen. Or, if a guy wanted to square up on me, I'd already be gone. If I was alone, I wouldn't even allow it to happen. So, why even get there?

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  What's the closest call you ever had? I know you probably had...

• 1:07:20Speaker 00

  I'll tell you, the worst thing is the mortars, because you could hear them coming in, and they're coming, krump! And they get louder, krump! Krump! You know what I mean? And then, and then, you know, they'll land them in the camp sometimes, you know? Got rained, one night, I think a ranger was injured trying to pee, and mortar round came in and shrapnelled his, his man parts.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  Stop.

• 1:07:43Speaker 00

  You know what I'm saying?

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  That's rough.

• 1:07:45Speaker 00

  But, look, I think that's the worst stuff, is you're just, you know, and I got to the point where like, guys would be like, what are we gonna do? I'd be like, I'm staying in my bunk. If it hits me and disintegrates me, I'll never know anyway. I'm going to sleep. That's all you can do. So, I would say the mortars and rockets are like, the worst. You know what I mean?

• 1:08:09Speaker 01

  The mortars and rockets?

• 1:08:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  And when you say small team, how big were the teams? Three, four, five?

• 1:08:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, it depends, like, you know, war requires bodies, you know what I mean? We could be down to two, waiting for people, like, we could have however many, you know? So, always small teams. I went out alone a lot, I worked with, I would go out with other guys, you know, but generally speaking, you know, like, very small teams, couple guys here, there...

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  You prefer going alone, or would it be...

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'd rather go alone.

• 1:08:36Speaker 01

  But why, why is that?

• 1:08:38Speaker 00

  Um, because this is gonna go my way. You know what I mean? When you're with a group, I think you end up having a group dynamic, and I think you overlook a lot of things that you would look, well, you would look at very critically when you were alone. Like, when I was alone, I learned 100 to 1 over when I would go out with like, a dozen guys, and we're going to raid houses, like, who wants to oppose us? You'd be stupid, right? But, you know, when you're alone, you can't be taking those risks. So, it's always, it's always different switching of gears, for me, anyway. You know, and when I was with a group of guys, like, there's two of us, I know what

• 1:09:20Speaker 00

  I can do, you guys didn't have a chance to begin with.

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Do you remember the first time you took somebody out, took one of the enemies out?

• 1:09:30Speaker 00

  Oh, man, the Battle of Tora Bora. Like, I don't know how many people, I mean, you can probably Google how many people we killed the first day, but it was like, too many to count, for sure, like...

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  Is that, is that your first ever?

• 1:09:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, my first time in battle was the Battle of Tora Bora.

• 1:09:48Speaker 01

  Did you have a reaction the first time?

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  Fucking loved it, are you kidding me?

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  You loved it?

• 1:09:52Speaker 00

  It was great. I mean, I didn't know, honestly, I didn't know if it was incoming or outgoing. I was getting mortared, I didn't know, me and another guy, but I thought it was great, man. I kinda like, I don't know, I felt at ease, like, I knew, maybe this is what I was supposed to do, I don't know, but, uh, yeah. And then, like, yeah, we, we were decimating those guys. So, I stopped counting on my first day.

• 1:10:19Speaker 01

  And this is still with a small team, that you're taking a bunch of people out?

• 1:10:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:22Speaker 01

  It's not like you're dealing with a big team?

• 1:10:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  So, on any given day, what could be the high-low number on people you guys took out?

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  There was hundreds, there's hundreds.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  On any given...

• 1:10:31Speaker 00

  What's it say on this thing? Hundreds, like, I don't even know, I didn't count, like, I'm gonna tell you, are these guys counting? I don't even know where the fuck this comes from, because like, who got time for all the counting? You know what I mean? Like, I don't think guys that count have seen it, like...

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  Much bigger, many more bodies, mass casualties. I don't think they've seen those things. You know what I mean? Um, but like so many, it's not even funny.

• 1:11:04Speaker 01

  Did you, did you see like, are there different ways people react to it? Or is it pretty much all the same?

• 1:11:11Speaker 00

  Um, okay.

• 1:11:14Speaker 00

  I think if this goes right for you, I think you'll never have a problem with it. And I tried to do this when a guy, when one of my guys shot somebody. In the moment, I tell him, this is exactly what I expect of you. This is good work, right? You need to hear that on the spot. Okay. Next, I would try to, if I had time, cut off the shirt and look at the shot placement. Cause as the, as the boss.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  Cut off the shirt?

• 1:11:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm in charge of the marksmanship. You know what I mean? We need to see if these rounds are where they should have been, you know? So I would check the marksmanship on guys and I would show him, these shots are perfect. Keep doing what you're doing. Couldn't have done better. And then when we get back, I'd make everybody drink, even the guy that don't drink. Grab a cup, I give a little, a little drink to everybody and we toast. A guy will never have a problem after that. You know, but look, I'm telling you, it works. You don't, anyone that's worked for me, you don't see them complaining about PTSD. You don't see me screaming about it. You know what I mean? Now I've had every symptom and one, and like here I am. I live on bonus points, you know what I mean? So, uh, but, uh, you know, I don't think it's a huge deal.

• 1:12:28Speaker 00

  I think it's a human condition and there's a way to deal with it and deal with it correctly. So we can all move on.

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Is there, is there a positive natural high where you want more of it or no?

• 1:12:37Speaker 00

  Man, I tell people this all the time. You might have to do stuff sometimes you don't like. And then other times that same stuff, you might like it.

• 1:12:48Speaker 00

  Right? It's the times you like it that you should be concerned with.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  It's the times you will like it that you should.

• 1:12:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's certain guys, I could have really cared less what happened to this guy on certain nights. You know what I mean?

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  One of your guys?

• 1:12:59Speaker 00

  Uh, mostly bad guys.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:13:02Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Like there's certain bad guys where like however the night pans out, like I could really care if this guy lived or died the night. You know what I mean? And there's other times where like, man, you feel for people and you know, you gotta think like it was. We dealt with a lot of people, family, kids, like you, you, you, you come get a man of the house. He's got a family. You gotta deal with them too. You know what I mean?

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  What was that like? If you just took somebody out, the wife is sitting there, the kid is sitting there, how do you handle that?

• 1:13:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, it depends on how it's going down. Some of them wives go nuts, like they know without this man in the house, their life is over. You know what I mean? Just culturally. So like, that didn't always go great.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  What, what, what, what could that look like? When you see some of them went.

• 1:13:46Speaker 00

  A ton of screaming, trying to scratch up your face, like, I mean, you don't understand what they're saying, but you kind of know what they're going through.

• 1:13:54Speaker 01

  Did they ever take out guns themselves and come after you?

• 1:13:57Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, I seen a lady whip out an AK once. It didn't go well for her, you know what I mean?

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  I'm assuming she's no longer with us.

• 1:14:04Speaker 00

  Uh, no, no, we didn't, we just lumped her up a little bit, you know what I mean? We didn't have to shoot her.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  So most of the time you guys didn't take out the wives?

• 1:14:14Speaker 00

  No, no, we're not messing with them at all, you know what I mean? Or the kids. You know, but you gotta come get this dude out of this house. We got questions for this dude. You know, and a lot of times these, these guys would bring their families to gunfights. Bring them out on the streets and like, you know what I mean?

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  Why? What for?

• 1:14:33Speaker 00

  Cowards.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  As shield?

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, shields, coward, I don't know. Crazy, but you'd see it all the time.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  So when you hear stories about them using their own family as shield, there's credibility behind that?

• 1:14:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  Kids, including kids?

• 1:14:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:14:50Speaker 01

  How did you guys handle that?

• 1:14:51Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, you work around it. I mean, do they grab rifles? Are they combatants or not?

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Say the kids grab rifles.

• 1:14:59Speaker 00

  Well, that's their choice. You voted, you've chose poorly.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Got it. So if a, if a nine-year-old kid picks up a rifle.

• 1:15:07Speaker 00

  And he wants to shoot you, you're not gonna shoot him back.

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  What movie was it that was in one of the scenes? Americans, I don't know which American Sniper was where there's a scene where that happens with the kid and.

• 1:15:18Speaker 00

  Okay, first off, if a kid had an AK and I was 300 yards away on a roof, like I wouldn't shoot him. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  It's only if you're close and.

• 1:15:30Speaker 00

  It's only if you're a threat. Cause everyone carries an AK and every adult male should have an AK in Afghanistan and Iraq. They're not really civilized places, you know what I mean? And the policy was even, even these, you know, these generals who now say America shouldn't have guns. Even those guys' policy was you had to leave one AK per house, per male.

• 1:15:55Speaker 00

  They gotta defend themselves.

• 1:16:02Speaker 01

  Did, did moments where you had a young kid that have a, you know, AK with them that tried to defend the family? You're like, listen, if you're gonna take me out, I'm gonna take you out. Did those land with soldiers in a different way or the same? No, you, you trying to kill me, I'm gonna kill you.

• 1:16:16Speaker 00

  I mean, everyone takes it differently. I look at it this way. You pick up a gun and you point it at me and you're about to shoot. You already voted against me, I'm gonna vote against you.

• 1:16:28Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:16:29Speaker 00

  It's that simple. I mean, what, what else do you do? You wanna just stand there and die, watch it happen? You wanna just watch all the way till the bullet hits you, you know? I don't.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  Would guys ask you this question, what to do in those moments or it's instinct?

• 1:16:44Speaker 00

  Um, no, a little of both, it depends. Are we just sitting here waiting for this to happen? Or did this just happen in front of us, you know?

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  So, so there's this side of you on the podcast side, right? Where people watch you and you're extremely entertaining, right?

• 1:17:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  But the guys that you talked to who were with you.

• 1:17:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:17:04Speaker 01

  When you were in the game, demanding, pushing, challenging, high expectations. How different is the John today from the John at 30 years old? And if I'm in your unit?

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  Uh, man, uh, I was just peachy, are you kidding me?

• 1:17:23Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:23Speaker 00

  You know what I mean?

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  I don't believe in that.

• 1:17:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I was the best ever in my mind, just ask me, I don't know. Um, yeah, I was.

• 1:17:33Speaker 00

  Wherever I lost my smile is when I became an asshole and I was an asshole for years. You know what I mean? I tell people all the time, I lived at rock bottom for years, you know what I mean? I thought it was my normal. Uh, and so, uh, I would say like, uh, I was an asshole for years. I was, and but, you know, I mean, think of this, you know, I, I think what happens is.

• 1:18:00Speaker 00

  You always wanna do right. And then shit happens, maybe right, maybe wrong, I don't know. No one's got bad intent, shit gets fucked up, right? But the army will convince you that you were the bad guy here.

• 1:18:14Speaker 00

  And you know what? Sometimes that's not true. Right? And sometimes like, sometimes you are the bad guy. So I was an asshole for years. Um, you know, I drank, I hated my life, loved war, hated coming home. Pretty simple. If they would have just left me in Baghdad, I'd have been fine the whole time.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  No shit.

• 1:18:33Speaker 00

  I didn't even wanna come home, like.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  At that time, were you married with kids or no?

• 1:18:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. I had little kids, I was married, about divorced. My personal life was a shit show, so I just engulfed myself in work.

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  How'd you manage that? Like, how did you manage the scene? Forget about the wife, the kids, how did you manage the relationship with the kids?

• 1:18:54Speaker 00

  War, you mean war?

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  No, no, like while you're.

• 1:18:56Speaker 00

  You mean war?

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:58Speaker 00

  How did I manage my relationship with war? I just stayed there.

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Missing the kids, was there any, like, did you? In your mind, like, was there thoughts of your own kids?

• 1:19:07Speaker 00

  In my mind.

• 1:19:10Speaker 00

  If I don't go to war today, we're not gonna win this war.

• 1:19:16Speaker 00

  What else matters to me right now? Anyone else gonna do this? Anyone else raising their hand to do this? So the guys that raised their hands are very few. We're busy.

• 1:19:27Speaker 01

  You ever seen the movie A Few Good Men?

• 1:19:29Speaker 00

  Uh, is that that lawyer movie? You ordered the code red, yeah.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  Have you seen it?

• 1:19:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, a long time ago.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

  Right, but do, do you remember like he's saying, you don't know.

• 1:19:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:39Speaker 01

  What this life is like. You go around to an office and all this other stuff. You don't know what men like me do and da, da, da, the speech. I'm not gonna get into the speech.

• 1:19:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Speaker 01

  Do you agree with him? Like there are certain things that the average.

• 1:19:50Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, at times, I mean, you know.

• 1:19:53Speaker 01

  I'm not talking about the code red part, I'm talking about like.

• 1:19:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. Look, I look at everything as right and wrong. There's always a right thing to do. You know what I mean? Try to do that.

• 1:20:06Speaker 00

  You know, and then I would also say this in beginning of war, I wanted to kill everybody. Let's just kill them all, get it over with.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  How old were you at that time? That you wanna kill everybody?

• 1:20:15Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  26, 27?

• 1:20:17Speaker 00

  Uh, let's see, 2001, I'd have been 31.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  31?

• 1:20:21Speaker 00

  30, 31.

• 1:20:22Speaker 01

  And you just wanna kill everybody?

• 1:20:23Speaker 00

  Everybody.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  So you're.

• 1:20:25Speaker 00

  It's not even play games.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  Your eyes go two different places.

• 1:20:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  One eye you have is just a fun guy, chill. One eye you go to like you're locked in, right? The level of intensity, I can see it sitting in front of you.

• 1:20:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:20:40Speaker 01

  Was it the level of intensity 24/7 with you when you were at 31? At that phase, the first time?

• 1:20:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. Always, level 10.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  How much were you drinking at that time?

• 1:20:50Speaker 00

  Like. Oh, a man, yeah. I drank about two bottles of Crown a night and then.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  A night?

• 1:20:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then I go hit the strip clubs.

• 1:20:59Speaker 01

  Every night?

• 1:20:59Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, most nights, yeah.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  In, in, in, in Baghdad?

• 1:21:05Speaker 00

  Oh, no, when I was home.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Oh, when you were home?

• 1:21:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:07Speaker 01

  And this is, you're living with your wife, but you're going and hitting.

• 1:21:10Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, I was kinda divorced and single then, yeah.

• 1:21:13Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:14Speaker 01

  So two bottles of Crown a night and you hit in the strip club?

• 1:21:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  And then you're at the.

• 1:21:17Speaker 00

  I'd eat a few Ambien too. Yeah.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  And then you're coming to the, to do cardio at 6 AM?

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  Uh, generally I'd like, well, I, sometimes I'd, I'd, I'd drink a bottle, take my Ambien and then I'd just wake up at the strip club and it'd be time for me to go in and do cardio. I quit drinking for a little bit and my guy, the guys that worked for me were like, we need you going back to drinking because morning fitness is worse when you're sober. I was like, yeah, tough shit. You know what I mean? But, uh, yeah, I used to drink a lot. Um, when I was deployed, you know, I didn't drink as much. I'd probably only drink like, I don't know, maybe a half a bottle a night. Maybe not every night.

• 1:22:05Speaker 00

  Cause like I was the guy to go out alone, so I'd go get all the booze for everybody. I'd just go down to the Christian district, buy cases of booze, bring it back to the house.

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  Right. Rule number one, not supposed to drink. Dumbest rule ever. Someone's got to blow off steam in here. Otherwise, you end up having trouble down the line.

• 1:22:27Speaker 01

  Tell me more.

• 1:22:28Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, if you got, I mean, think about it. If, if you just, if, if there's a major battle, the army had a ma- I think about this, like 100 years ago, they'd have a major battle, right? After the battle, they're all gonna get hammered, high five, talk about their stories with each other. This is called therapy in my book. And then, and then the next day, they move on. Like, the army allows for no venting. You can't tell someone you're burned out. You can't tell someone, the army accounts for none of that. They don't care about you.

• 1:22:59Speaker 00

  Keep your mouth shut. Do your job.

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• 1:25:51Speaker 01

  Okay, so while you're out there, what are you doing with girls? I mean, if you're, were there, were there any girls? Are you finding, nothing, right? So?

• 1:26:00Speaker 00

  Who cares? No, no girls. Who needs girls? It's ridiculous. There's a war going on. You could kill people today. You're worried about girls?

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, but you're drinking. If you're drinking, like, guys get drunk, they're trying to find a girl. Were guys trying to go find girls, or no?

• 1:26:14Speaker 00

  Overseas?

• 1:26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:15Speaker 00

  No. Why would you want one of those girls? That doesn't even make sense to me.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  Tell me why. I mean, guys would go to anywhere and they would want to get a girl.

• 1:26:25Speaker 00

  Dirty. Besides, they need shoes. Like, I mean, that's just a couple factors off the top. Not that I'm a germaphobe, but like, you know, that's a first thing, you know what I mean? And then, look, I always felt like it was surreal. Like, we'd go with these towns, like Afghanistan or Iraq. It was surreal. We don't live like this. We don't, we don't live nothing like this. So it was, it was always so surreal. I kind of almost, I don't know, it's like, it almost was like it's some type of narrative play, you know what I mean? Like, it was surreal. Like, whatever, whatever happens to these people has nothing to do

• 1:27:09Speaker 00

  with my life, who I am, you know, my family, my, you know what I mean? So it was like surreal to me at all. A lot of times, like, I was just indifferent, maybe.

• 1:27:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, to, to, to stay in that, say, you know, 31 years old, specifically that John, where you're like, you were an asshole and all this stuff. What was working with you? Like, are you hard-charging throughout the day and then chill at night? Is it like two personalities? Is it three personalities? Who am I dealing with?

• 1:27:37Speaker 00

  I don't think there's any chill, you know what I mean?

• 1:27:40Speaker 01

  24/7?

• 1:27:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't think I could chill at all. Matter of fact, I didn't sleep either. I'd probably sleep like four hours, three hours a day. Why sleep? More time for drinking? You know what I mean?

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  You're not joking. You're actually being death serious, right?

• 1:27:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I used to do this all the time, all the time. I tell people this all the time. I mean, I should get that Crown Royal.

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

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  Hey, and if they sponsored me, I'd probably need like a 10-year contract to get my money back out of them, you know what I mean?

• 1:28:13Speaker 01

  Do you still drink today or no?

• 1:28:14Speaker 00

  I do drink, man. I stopped drinking for a while. Years I stopped drinking, and I didn't do no alcohol. And then, like, here's why I see it. Booze wasn't my problem. So, like, I like socially to have a drink, you know what I mean? But like, when I'm at home or anything, I don't really drink that much. But if I go out, or socially, we go get lunch, I'd love to, like, get done with jujitsu. I call it stinkin' drink. And like, go get some lunch and have a cocktail right after jujitsu with nothing in my stomach. You know what I mean? So I love this.

• 1:28:47Speaker 01

  Right afterwards?

• 1:28:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Stinkin' drink. I love it.

• 1:28:50Speaker 01

  Stinkin' drinking. So, so going back to, if I came to your unit, and I'm working with you, the unit, you're my guy. What's your expectation from me every day? How are you treating me?

• 1:29:04Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  I'm one of your guys.

• 1:29:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, first off, you're gonna get treated the best you've been treated. Like, I don't believe in stupidity in leadership. I don't believe in bad timing. I don't believe in emergencies. Like, let's just kind of smooth out the playing field, and we gotta do what we gotta do, and we gotta do it. That simple. I don't fuck with nobody. I ain't micromanaging you. Now, if you're a performer, the more you perform for me, the more slack I'll give you.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  And what does performance mean?

• 1:29:33Speaker 00

  Performance kind of works this way. Credibility equals freedom to maneuver. That's what guys used to say.

• 1:29:42Speaker 01

  Credibility equals?

• 1:29:44Speaker 00

  Freedom to maneuver.

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  Got it. So if I'm, if I'm doing a good job for you, I have a little bit more flexibility?

• 1:29:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. You could be late. You could miss a day of work. All you'd have to do is tell me, yeah, go do your shit. Get out of here. However, you habitually fucking shut up. Like, I will have some solutions for you that are gonna be cruel and unusual to you. The army says if it looks stupid and it works, it's not stupid, you know what I mean? But like, yeah, a guy couldn't pull a pin on a fast rope and he blamed it on the glove, his gloves, and made him wear his gloves like nine to five for a week. I don't care if you gotta pick your nose, wipe your butt. These gloves will never be a problem for you again. And they weren't. You know what I mean?

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Did, I, I, I read a story about Tim Kennedy. If you want to play this clip here, Tim is telling a story about who you were. I don't know if you've seen this or not. Go for it.

• 1:30:44Speaker 13

  John McPhee, former Delta Force operator, amazing warfighter, storied career at the unit. He was my boss. John was a force. He's one of those guys in garrison. He is not a fun human to work for. He's definitely not one that you want as your personal mentor about how to be a good human. But you put John McPhee in a case in glass that says, "Break Case of War Violence," and you break that, he is one of the greatest warfighters to, like, walk during G-MAN. We were a hammer in that first deployment. John.

• 1:31:13Speaker 01

  You've never seen that?

• 1:31:14Speaker 00

  Uh, I think I've seen some of it, but I've never seen this clip before. I told you I was an asshole. You know what I mean? And then, yeah, and I was good at my job. You know, like, look, my, I came from like, kind of fucked up childhood, you know what I mean? So like, not, no one ever showed me how to have good relationships, right? So as soon as war started, and my, I would say this, if you had a good marriage, you're lucky. Your marriage survives war. I mean, because think about it, it's like going to prison. You can call home, but you ain't going anytime soon. You know what I mean? And then think about what you're doing on the other end, right? And guys say this all

• 1:31:57Speaker 00

  the time, right? Like, then they come home, and they gotta sit at soccer games, and it's like, I didn't want to do any of that. I just wanted to go back to war. You know what I mean? I'm not gonna sit here and lie and say like, oh, I'm a great, I was a great father. I went to those soccer games. Bullshit. No dude wants to sit at those soccer games. Let's be honest, A. And then, B, I just wanted war. I was good at it. I could save lives every day. When I would go out, I felt like God, less guys got hurt. Where else should I be? Who else needs me more? You know what I mean? And I think people don't realize the focus that it takes, you know, but I'm not the only one to have that kind of focus. Look at these CEOs of these big companies, some of these,

• 1:32:41Speaker 00

  you know, I don't know, like, that's all they do, you know, and their kids will say they weren't a great father. You know what I mean? So I'm not gonna sit here and, you know, say I was a great father and, you know, lacked the responsibility of my focus, my thoughts, my everything was about war. And if I wasn't there, who was? And if I'm not there helping people, who's gonna help people? Right? And that's where my thoughts were.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  Did, did, did everybody need to know how to fight? Was everybody fairly a fighter?

• 1:33:12Speaker 00

  No. War requires bodies. I mean, we only need a couple fighters. You know what I mean? And we need a couple smart guys, and we need a couple mechanically inclined guys, and we need a couple, you know what I mean? I mean, this is a team sport, truly is.

• 1:33:28Speaker 01

  Got it. So it's not like, like, Tim Kennedy was in the UFC at one point, you know, he was fighting. There's stories about he was going around telling everybody, I can beat you up, I can beat you. Is that a true story?

• 1:33:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. It didn't go well.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  What happened?

• 1:33:43Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, he's like, I don't know, one night, um, like, one of the helicopters got bumped, right? And like, you know, we have packages, you know, certain teams always ride on the same helicopters. You build these habitual relationships, so the helicopter pilot feels like he cares about you enough to come get you in bad situations. So like, we build these kind of packages and like, have these habitual, kind of, you ride on this helicopter. Helicopter goes down for the night, I tell him to stay back. Right? And I was like, hey, get the gun trucks ready, just kind of, in case we need you, you're gonna have to roll in trucks and come save us, right? And, but he wasn't the only one. There's a bunch of, like, his, the whole, the whole helicopter, you know what I mean?

• 1:34:27Speaker 00

  So we lost, like, however many guys ride in the helicopter for the night, right? So we had to do, do more with less on an evening, right? So he had to stay back. And then when I get back, you know, he's kind of like kicking rocks, and he's just a young kid, you know? Um, I would say this, at that point in my career, I hadn't dealt with any, like, younger kids in the army. To this point, I'd been surrounded by what we called lifers, the guys are just, this is my life. This is what I do. I'm good at it. You know what I mean? Uh, and the lifers aren't really hip to new guys, especially younger new guys when you're more senior force. So, uh, you know, I mean, I don't mind these guys. He's

• 1:35:07Speaker 00

  a young kid, right? And, uh, like, he's really mad about it. And I was like, man, you wanna kick my butt? And he was like, yeah. And I was like, well, you meet me in the dojo tonight at like, whatever, whenever we get done. And he's like, okay. And then, you know, so he comes in the dojo, and then what I did is like, I knew he would do this, and I knew he would accept the challenge. So before I even asked him, I was like, hey, who wants to kick his ass? And everyone raised their hand. And I said, be in the dojo this time.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  Everyone literally wants to kick his ass?

• 1:35:38Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  Cause, cause why? He was being obnoxious?

• 1:35:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, just kind of like, kind of, I don't know, just a little immature then, you know what I mean?

• 1:35:46Speaker 01

  Kick your ass, I'm tougher than all you guys, like, that kind of a mentality?

• 1:35:48Speaker 00

  Well, no, just kind of like complaining about having to stay back, like, you know, immaturity is really what we're talking about. Uh, so, uh, he comes in the dojo, and like, 15 people are standing in there. And I said, we're gonna fight in order of rank. And like, he handled a few guys, like, the first few guys, handled them successfully, you know what I mean? But the lesson was, you can't beat us all, and this is a team sport.

• 1:36:16Speaker 01

  What a good lesson.

• 1:36:18Speaker 00

  And then by the time it got to me, I put him in the sand, and he's bleeding, and I just whispered in his ear, I hope we don't gotta have this talk again, you know what I mean? And then me and the guys walked out and left him in there, you know what I mean?

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  Was he the best fighter out of everybody? Cause I mean-

• 1:36:32Speaker 00

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  So you guys, he-

• 1:36:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:36:35Speaker 01

  So he is better fighter than all the guys in the room?

• 1:36:38Speaker 00

  Everybody. But he's not better than 15 guys at once.

• 1:36:42Speaker 01

  What a great lesson.

• 1:36:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  What a great lesson.

• 1:36:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  You need a team to do something big in your life.

• 1:36:48Speaker 00

  So, for real. Can't do it alone.

• 1:36:50Speaker 01

  And then what happened? What was his attitude afterwards with everybody? Did he also earn his respect from others? Or you're like-

• 1:36:55Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, yeah. He, he earned respect, and he got better after that. And he's grown, and like, I talk to him now, he's, he's great. Um, but yeah, back then, it was like, my thing was, this is a team sport. You know what I mean? Not one of us can do this alone. Not one of us.

• 1:37:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a, he's also, was he also Delta?

• 1:37:19Speaker 00

  No, he was just, uh, I was, it's when I was in, uh, seven special forces.

• 1:37:24Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. So he was special forces, he wasn't Delta?

• 1:37:26Speaker 00

  Seven, yeah, we were in seventh group.

• 1:37:27Speaker 01

  Would a personality like him ever been, uh, selected into Delta?

• 1:37:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe if he would have tried out, he could have been there, but he didn't. So we'll never know. And maybe he's not an 87.7, you know what I mean? I don't know. We don't know. I'm not a shrink, not a doctor.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  But, by the way, you know, when, when we all woke up one day, this was, I don't know, sometime last year, oh, you know, we, we officially have Maduro, and he's going to New York, and da, da, da, da, da. Well, US did this operation, and they went in, and we heard about all these different things and how they did it, right?

• 1:37:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. Uh, first off, way to go, boys. You know what I mean? I couldn't be prouder.

• 1:38:06Speaker 01

  Literally.

• 1:38:07Speaker 00

  Oh, hell, yeah.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  And was it your guys, was it, was it Delta?

• 1:38:10Speaker 00

  Well, I don't know who it was, but whoever it was, you know what I mean? Way to go, boys. This is the Super Bowl, you know what I mean?

• 1:38:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, because when I, when I read the stuff, it says Delta was involved. Two Delta Force squadrons-

• 1:38:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  -had been moved into the region ahead of a raid, one of them in the Middle East, not that one, okay? And they were flown in by the 160 Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the night stalkers, and-

• 1:38:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:38:33Speaker 01

  -of course, we, we hear the stories, but, but, a project like this, that is that successful, and then all of a sudden, he's getting all this oil and the deals and stuff that he's doing, I'm talking about Trump, then you have Iran, the right that you do. How different are those two missions for somebody that spent a lot of time in the Middle East?

• 1:38:53Speaker 00

  Oh, well, I would say this, one is in our hemisphere, and one is not. That's the way I look at it, right? Like, look, we should be working this hemisphere, we should have, we should be better friends with everyone in South America, we should be better friends with Canada, we all live on this side of the world, we should all pull the rope together, more so than sending the shit halfway around the world, right? And then geographically, they got their own issues. So, uh, I see it as a geographical issue, and a, maybe a where to stand in the world of helping your neighbors, more so than helping people

• 1:39:35Speaker 00

  that don't live in your neighborhood. That's kind of the way I see it.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  Okay, so, you know, let's just say somebody comes in, a president comes in and saying, we're shutting down all our military bases outside of the Western Hemisphere. Is that a good move?

• 1:39:50Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:39:52Speaker 00

  Uh, yeah, I don't know. You know what I mean? I would say this, we should have never gave up Balad in Iraq, we should have never gave up Bagram in Afghanistan, cause think about this, we would have a major army base on both sides of Iran right now.

• 1:40:10Speaker 01

  But that's the mindset of an-

• 1:40:13Speaker 00

  And, and I had to throw mines around it, and told the locals, mess with us, and we will just, you'll just get blown up walking through the minefield. We won't even have to shoot you. We'll save bullets, you know? Uh, and then just have these bases full at all times. Why are we giving this property back? We took it. Why are we giving it back? And, think about this, if we would have kept the base in Iraq, you think ISIS would have took it? You think ISIS would have took Iraq if we had a base there? You know what I mean? You think the Taliban would be, uh, as adverse friends to us, I, cause

• 1:40:53Speaker 00

  I know we're friends now, air quotes, but, uh, you know, why couldn't we keep a base in both one of these countries? We took that ground, and think about strategically where we'd be now. I think we make a ton of mistakes. And I think our political cycle is way too short for most of these guys to make good decisions, which goes back to the Saddam conversation of there was a timeline on it, because of politics. And we should be playing a much longer game.

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  It's, it's not possible, because presidents change. You got eight years max. Then typically, we go like this, and the next guy that comes in is like a completely-

• 1:41:30Speaker 00

  Pulls the plug.

• 1:41:31Speaker 01

  Yes. You go back and forth. So-

• 1:41:33Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, that's how the Constitution's been created.

• 1:41:38Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  If we change that, there's a lot of amendments that you need, I don't know if it's two thirds or not, but-

• 1:41:43Speaker 00

  Well, I don't think that needs to be changed. I just think someone should have a long-term strategy, and we should be following that somehow. We got all these smart people in government, yet we ain't making greater decisions, you know?

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  So are you, are you in the mindset, cause you're saying, let's just focus on Western Hemisphere, that was part of your first, you know, but then you're like, hey, we should have had one on each side of Iran, put mines, and come mess with us, you're gonna blow up, we're gonna kill you, it's done. So go ahead, if you wanna do anything, right? We should have never given up the bases, okay. Would you consider yourself a non-interventionist, or a person that protects the country, and we need to intervene at times?

• 1:42:22Speaker 00

  I'm a realist. And the, the, the truth is, if the fight's gonna come to you, you wanna fight it in your yard, or someone else's yard? It's that simple.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  But the way they fight is different than the way we fight. They'll come in, you know, like, the way China fights is they'll send spies to work in companies to get intel from us, and, you know-

• 1:42:42Speaker 00

  Well, that's a different type of war, you know what I mean? Now you're, but this is another long-term plan, I don't feel we have a good strategy on. You know, and China's a separate issue from Iran, but I would tell you this-

• 1:42:55Speaker 01

  Stay on Iran. Let's stay on Iran.

• 1:42:56Speaker 00

  I would tell you, I personally think, and like, I'm not a, I'm not anybody, this is just, I'm not a doctor, this is just my opinion, Iran's in the perfect place to get a never-ending supply of guns and money from Russia and China. They got Saudi boxed in, right? Always have, which means the Israelis are boxed in. When we took out Saddam, we took out the only opposition to Iran.

• 1:43:29Speaker 00

  So, having said that, right, it's, it's, it's a shit show. And until something changes, it'll continue to be a shit show. And then the culture, you know, and I mean, come on, they've been charting, you know, saying death to America for years. You know what I mean? That's generations of hate. You know, and I, I hope these kids today with the internet start to see that this is all bullshit. This is people playing you for power. It's not about religion, it's about money and power. Don't, don't ever forget that, you know? It's not about religion, it's about power.

• 1:44:07Speaker 01

  You know, that's not gonna change. That, that depth hatred, animosity, you killed my dad, I'm gonna seek vengeance. When you're not paying attention, I'm gonna send my kids to your country, they're true believers, when you're not looking, I'm gonna blow your shit up and kill everybody in your family, and I'm gonna go to heaven and meet my 72 virgins and meet my, that's, that's the mindset. You're going against that kind of an ideology. So are you, are you, are you in the school of thought with Iran where if we don't do something to them now, long-term, we're gonna face severe consequences, well, they'll do something to us? Or are you like, no, leave them alone, let them do their thing, IRGC, whatever they got going on?

• 1:44:48Speaker 00

  Obviously, you can't leave them alone, because they got their fingers in a lot of stuff. And that's the game they play. And if that's the game they're playing, well, they wanna play whack-a-mole, you might get hit on the head with a hammer. You know what I'm saying? Look, I don't know what the right answer is. I'm not a scholar, not an expert, but I would say this, is it's, it's not gonna end until you can somehow cut off all the guns and money that come to Iran, the support they get from these other countries. Until then, it's on. You know what I mean? And they know it. Right? Because it's, and then, you know, the next thing is, is like the religious part of the

• 1:45:33Speaker 00

  world, you got the Sunnis versus the Shia. You know? So I don't know how to win Iran, I don't know what the best answer is. I would tell you, I think one of the things we should have done already is, look, two Russian guys in Adidas track suits and a Range Rover are gonna drive in Iran with a bucket loader and try to dig up that nuclear material. Why ain't we seize that shit? Let's get that off the playing field. So it ain't, you know, 20 years from now, someone dug it up and they now have the fuel, now they just need rockets or something. I would have secured any nuclear material as soon as possible.

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• 1:48:47Speaker 01

  Doesn't sound like we succeeded the last time when they said we shut all the things down and, you know, be, you know, all the stories of, yeah, they're never gonna have nuclear weapons again, but we're back at it again. So probably that mission wasn't a successful mission.

• 1:49:02Speaker 00

  I don't know. As long as that material's out there, it's, it's, it's for grabs, isn't it? I think. Look, they could hate us all they want, you know, fly your drones, shoot at the Navy ships, like, it's all nuisance stuff. That nuclear material shit, that's gonna be a problem if it don't get fixed now.

• 1:49:24Speaker 01

  At your peak, at your peak, like I'm talking about 31, 32, 33 years old, that John McPhee, if you had a team to go in there, what, what do you think you guys could accomplish?

• 1:49:35Speaker 00

  We'd go get that nuclear material.

• 1:49:37Speaker 01

  You would get the nuclear material?

• 1:49:38Speaker 00

  And look, I, I think the whole reason they hate us is because we've been fucking around there for years, right? Like, you know, if you read some older books, Game of Nations, stuff like that, like, we were messing around with Syria, all of them, post-World War II, and I think we've kinda done it to ourselves. And that's why I'm a big fan of leave them alone, if it's not a problem.

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  Even now?

• 1:50:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, leave them alone.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  Leave, leave IRGC alone.

• 1:50:09Speaker 00

  Well, okay, you mess with our ships, shoot their ship down. Your plane flies near our plane, shoot that plane down. Mess with it at all, it's gonna cost you. However, let them go. Seize the nuclear material and let them go back to doing whatever they're doing.

• 1:50:24Speaker 01

  But seizing the nuclear material is a big mission.

• 1:50:29Speaker 00

  Okay, how many people are in the army right now with nothing to do? We're paying them right now, aren't we?

• 1:50:37Speaker 01

  You're saying put ground, troops on the ground, you're for that?

• 1:50:42Speaker 00

  I'm for getting that nuclear material, if that means putting troops on the ground to dig it up, to seize the material, I say yes.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  Do you think the president is afraid of doing that because he promised no troops on the ground?

• 1:50:53Speaker 00

  I don't know what that guy does, I don't even watch the news. I don't do politics, I could care less.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  But it's military, though, this is, this is.

• 1:51:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, but this is decisions he has to make, and that's political.

• 1:51:03Speaker 01

  Got it, so it's, but if, but if you were there, you would say, let's get that nuclear out and then leave them alone?

• 1:51:12Speaker 00

  I mean, think about this, if they had no fuel for this nuclear rocket and we destroyed their whole program, what's our beef now?

• 1:51:21Speaker 01

  If you're claiming that Russia would provide it to them, wouldn't Russia be able to provide them whatever they want?

• 1:51:27Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 1:51:29Speaker 01

  Even if you got them? It's like if you, if Russia wants Iran to be stronger because they're a good ally and they sell them the Chevy drones and all that?

• 1:51:36Speaker 00

  Well, if they were gonna sell them shit, they'd have done it before now, I'm thinking. And that hasn't happened, so whatever stopped them before is stopping them now. Here's the deal, that the material is the problem. Right? Because you could build a rocket, knowing, I don't think anyone in the world cares, you know, most governments have rockets, right? I mean, I don't own any, you own any rockets, but most governments have rockets, right? So that's not a big deal. The, the problem was the nuclear thing. Okay, let's take that off the table, now what's our beef? The reality is, what, are we just gonna fight indefinitely? I mean, come on, man, since I was a kid, we argue about the same shit.

• 1:52:18Speaker 00

  Iran, the border, fucking healthcare, the VA sucks, all these things have never changed in our lifetime, we've never fixed anything, like...

• 1:52:30Speaker 00

  Shouldn't we start to like, maybe look at these things and go, how do we fix them? How do we fix this shit? You know what I mean? If the beef was the nuclear material, well, then let's get that shit. If the beef's something else, well, then what is the beef? What are we going after? What's the goal here?

• 1:52:46Speaker 01

  If Saddam would have stayed, you think they would have neutralized the IRA G C? What do you think would have happened if Saddam would have stayed?

• 1:52:53Speaker 00

  I mean, I would have empowered Saddam to do whatever he wanted to do.

• 1:53:00Speaker 01

  Why is that?

• 1:53:01Speaker 00

  Because he kept them in check. As long as they were fighting Saddam, they didn't have the bodies, the manpower, the money to bring the fight around the world like they have. And now they're unchecked. They can just do whatever, right?

• 1:53:12Speaker 01

  I lived in Iran when he was attacking and everybody in Iran was worried about Saddam, especially after the Shah was gone. He's like, saw a massive opportunity. Khomeini does not rule a nation, let alone his military. He's not a military leader. Let's go. And he was on offense mode for I don't know how many years, like back to back to back. This is in the middle of eighties when this was taking place. And you said that Saddam had a lot of Christians around him. Why is that? What was the story about him?

• 1:53:40Speaker 00

  Martyr, martyr stuff.

• 1:53:43Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 1:53:44Speaker 00

  Uh, well, as a Muslim, if I martyred myself and you, I go to heaven. Christian kills himself and you, Christian goes to hell. Who's less likely to kill you, a Christian? So he was like, his butler, his tailor, his, if you touched him in any way, clothed him, fed him, those were all Christians.

• 1:54:09Speaker 01

  Because he trusted Christians?

• 1:54:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, uh, you know, during his time, there was a massive Christian district downtown Baghdad. They've always been there.

• 1:54:19Speaker 01

  I mean, you Syrians are old country.

• 1:54:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, seriously.

• 1:54:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:23Speaker 00

  Um, now I doubt how many are left after ISIS, but they probably didn't do well then.

• 1:54:28Speaker 01

  Did you, because you said, what, you guys captured him nine days after you left Iraq or something like that?

• 1:54:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, nine days after I went home for Christmas. Yeah, they're squandering on him.

• 1:54:40Speaker 01

  Did you ever deal with Uday, his son, or no?

• 1:54:43Speaker 00

  Uh, I only seen his body dead.

• 1:54:46Speaker 01

  You only saw his body dead?

• 1:54:47Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm. The guys that, uh, killed him, I had to watch his bodies in the hangar, him and, uh, Kuse.

• 1:54:55Speaker 01

  Were they as bad as the stories we read about?

• 1:54:57Speaker 00

  Oh, for real. They needed to die.

• 1:54:59Speaker 01

  I heard a story about-

• 1:54:59Speaker 00

  I don't feel bad about them at all. Matter of fact, the planet is way better without these two.

• 1:55:06Speaker 01

  So they were more brutal than their father?

• 1:55:08Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 1:55:09Speaker 01

  How did that happen?

• 1:55:10Speaker 00

  They're psychopaths. They just, you know, uh, man, they would just snatch girls off the street and like have them in the perfume palace. Like, I talked to a girl that when the Americans like came into Iraq, they freed her and she was like 18. She had been there since she was like 12.

• 1:55:29Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:55:31Speaker 00

  You know what I mean? Uh, so they would just rape and murder and whatever the fuck they wanted.

• 1:55:36Speaker 01

  And is that because they felt empowered by the dad? That they can get away with anything?

• 1:55:41Speaker 00

  I don't know. I don't know what these psychos are thinking. Don't be, don't be getting me inside their head. These guys are sickos. I don't know what they think.

• 1:55:48Speaker 01

  I heard about a story about, and the Syrian wedding in Iraq and the wife, the bride was the hottest girl in town. And so Uday shows up with his crew to the wedding, shows us guns. He says, I need to take the bride for one night and you guys will get her tomorrow. The groom, the husband jumps in, boom, kills him right there at the wedding, takes the girl. Next they brought the girl back. These are the types of stories you hear about this guy.

• 1:56:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's what they did, man. Like, I don't, I don't know what those guys thought, but they were bad news. They're bad news. No one needs to be treating people like that. You know what I mean?

• 1:56:26Speaker 01

  And Saddam wasn't like that?

• 1:56:28Speaker 00

  Um, I don't know. I don't think Saddam was like, I would consider them like psychopaths, where I would consider Saddam a dictator. You know, like he killed for control, I think. These guys, sport and pleasure, you know what I mean?

• 1:56:46Speaker 01

  Did you ever see this?

• 1:56:46Speaker 00

  And I believe they were drug addicts also.

• 1:56:48Speaker 01

  These guys?

• 1:56:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, like white powder, whether it's meth or cocaine or whatever.

• 1:56:52Speaker 01

  There was a movie they made about him. I don't know if you've seen, you watched the movie about Uday. Can you type in Uday Hussein movie? And it's actually by, by a pretty legit actor. It's a phenomenal movie I watched. Uh, I don't know how many years ago. Um, go a little bit lower to see, yeah, that's that one right there. The Devil's Double.

• 1:57:09Speaker 00

  What a good name.

• 1:57:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, The Devil's Double. Yeah, the military commander, Uday Hussein and his body double. I interviewed the double, by the way, like eight years ago, seven years ago, very interesting story.

• 1:57:21Speaker 00

  You talked to his body, what that guy have to say?

• 1:57:23Speaker 01

  It was, it was some like, um-

• 1:57:26Speaker 00

  I mean, I was sure that guy was scared of him also, you know what I mean?

• 1:57:29Speaker 01

  Scared shit?

• 1:57:30Speaker 00

  Everybody scared of this man.

• 1:57:32Speaker 01

  It was a, um, yeah, it was a very, uh, interesting conversation. What year is this? How long ago was this? Five years ago, okay, five years ago, talking to him and what role he had to play and how they would use him versus the other one. But, um, yeah, I mean, Uday, those guys, so you saw them. By the time you saw their body, they were dead. They were already killed. And your guys killed them? You're A or B?

• 1:57:59Speaker 00

  A.

• 1:57:59Speaker 01

  A. Okay, so warfare, how much of warfare changing do you sit there and like, the strategies for you guys would change? Everything right now you hear is drone, drone, drone. Ukraine is supposed to be destroyed by Russia. And then, oh shit, they got the best drones in the world for a couple thousand dollars. Iran, they got these drones for a couple thousand dollars. Is it changing like dramatically?

• 1:58:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think warfare like I experienced is gonna be different in the future, for sure.

• 1:58:25Speaker 01

  You think Delta Force will still be needed with the way they're doing it?

• 1:58:28Speaker 00

  One million percent, yes.

• 1:58:30Speaker 01

  Tell me why.

• 1:58:31Speaker 00

  Um, man, I mean, until you can do, get robots that can, I mean, I think the goal with warfare is robots, right? Like, why lose people? We could, we could then war indefinitely, no one gets hurt, and we could all make money on war, right? Because war is a money-making business. I'm not dumb. Um, so I think it's the way of the future. But I always think there's going to be, you know, the need for a unit to be able to pull stuff off that no one thinks is possible.

• 1:59:06Speaker 01

  And so you guys would just simply adjust with the weapons to use and whatever the- Have you heard about these new dragon drones?

• 1:59:14Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:59:15Speaker 01

  Is this it about dragon drones? Watch this.

• 1:59:17Speaker 00

  I love the sparks.

• 1:59:20Speaker 01

  So it just comes in.

• 1:59:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. This is genius.

• 1:59:25Speaker 01

  Maybe play the one I sent you, because the other one gives a, explains what it's capable of doing and how different it is the ones Russians make versus, I just texted it to you. You should have it somewhere there.

• 1:59:37Speaker 00

  So dangerous, right?

• 1:59:38Speaker 01

  Did you guys have to deal with this back in the days or not really? Yeah.

• 1:59:41Speaker 00

  Man, we had them airplanes, we crashed, no one could fly them, right? We crashed them all the time, like, uh, we had kind of similar, small stuff, but nothing like as effective as they are today. Like, nothing like this. This came after my time.

• 1:59:58Speaker 01

  Hit the audio?

• 1:59:59Speaker 15

  Dragon drones to ignite Russian positions. Thermite burns at up to 4,000 degrees, causing severe burns and spreading fear among enemy troops. It can penetrate four millimeters of armor in seconds, with each unit costing only $10. Nighttime footage shows these drones setting tree lines ablaze, a tactic used in regions like Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk, and Kursk. Russia has also developed similar drones, but initial footage suggests theirs are less effective. Ukrainian forces are deploying thermite-equipped dragon drones.

• 2:00:28Speaker 01

  I mean, this is some cool kind of warfare, right?

• 2:00:30Speaker 00

  I'm telling you.

• 2:00:31Speaker 01

  Do you look at this and say, this is cool shit?

• 2:00:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, hell yeah, it's cool as-

• 2:00:34Speaker 01

  Really?

• 2:00:34Speaker 00

  Hell yeah.

• 2:00:37Speaker 01

  The average person may look at this and say, dude, warfare is changing.

• 2:00:41Speaker 00

  Well, okay, I think the Russians are still fighting a World War II style war in the sense that they don't give a shit if they lose 20 million people. And I think that's how they think. So I think their warfare is different than the way we see warfare. You know, we're very objective focused where, you know, we take this, we take that, right? We're moving, we're on the move, right? Uh, I think the Russians are, are, you know, Stalingrad. If you take all the World War II examples, their, their, their kind of military doctrines throw bodies at the problem. Lots of bodies.

• 2:01:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like he doesn't care right now. He even said all the rules are, uh, I think Zelensky said yesterday or two days ago that the way Putin's leading, all the rules in war are off, uh, off the books now. Do whatever you want to do. They just surrender. 250 Russian soldiers just surrendered and said a bunch of things. And how do you think this one's gonna end? Obviously, this is very different than Iran. How do you think this is gonna end?

• 2:01:45Speaker 00

  Well, Putin's probably honestly like, look, ever since they found, what is it? Fifteen trillion dollars of oil or gas under Ukraine, they went from zero on the oil charts to fourth in the world in potential. I think he wants to carve off a slice of that for Russia and he needs like warm water ports and, and he needs pipelines and shit. And if he had the Don Bass, he would have a, some of that, right? So I think he's looking for a negotiation to carve out, you know, a couple trillion dollars off the top for himself.

• 2:02:22Speaker 01

  For himself?

• 2:02:23Speaker 00

  Well, for Russia, whatever, you know what I mean? You know, it all goes to his pocket. I mean, that's why he's the richest man in Europe now. Emman Zelensky, right? Two richest guys in Europe.

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  You hear people saying that, but who knows if it's true or not? Who do you trust more? You trust him or you trust Zelensky more?

• 2:02:40Speaker 00

  Man, I don't trust either one of them. It's a fool's game trusting these dudes. Are you kidding me? You know what I mean? I mean, I'm not saying we shouldn't have allies and be good to people, but like, you know, I'm, I'm saying trust, but verify always. You know what I mean? Period. End of discussion.

• 2:03:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, it'd be, it'd be interesting on what, what happens, uh, you know, with these guys and how it ends up ending between the two, because the, the days of, do you think like in the next five, 10, 15, 20 years, possibility of maybe even the next six to 12 months, any possibilities of somebody using a nuclear warhead?

• 2:03:20Speaker 00

  I think that's always a possibility.

• 2:03:23Speaker 01

  But I'm talking about like the way that it happened, like, you know, Truman eventually called the shots and we did what we did. Do you think the tensions are at a level right now where Putin may sit there and say, you guys want to play this? No problem. NATO wants to expand to the east? You guys didn't keep your promises? I'm going to show you what I got. You think it'll get to that point in our lifetime?

• 2:03:43Speaker 00

  Not with Putin. Putin's smarter than that. That's a no win. That's a no sum game. That's not how to get, that's not how to get, you know, half of 15 trillion dollars. That's how you get zero of that money, right? So I don't think Putin would do that, but I do believe any one of these rogue states, warring anywhere in the Middle East would love to detonate a nuke anywhere they could. You know what I mean? So I think it's a very, look, I, I think the world, I think the world now is crazier than the world in the seventies, in the eighties, in the nineties.

• 2:04:24Speaker 00

  Like there's so much going on these days and it's going so fast because of the internet truth, you know, uh, all of it. So I think the next five years are going to look very different, you know? I would say this is like, look, I also think we need to have good friends in this world. You know what I mean? Like good friends and we have the biggest economy in the world. It's the biggest weapon this world's ever seen. Let's pay the people that like us to do nice shit for us and let's have friends and the people that don't like us, don't give them no fucking money and ignore them. End of discussion, right? But we keep giving everybody money and we know you give Iran money, where's that money going?

• 2:05:09Speaker 00

  It's not going to the people. They're not buying, you know, blankets for babies. They're going to buy fucking weapons and they're going to go to China and get more AKs so they can get them to Yemen because they're trying to box the Saudis from every angle, right? So it's a never ending and it's a geography problem, I think.

• 2:05:29Speaker 01

  Second amendment is coming up lately where guys are saying, you know, originally when the founding fathers came out with the second amendment was for you to be able to defend yourself against a tyrannical government, right?

• 2:05:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:05:43Speaker 01

  You're not going to do shit today with M16, you know, against the government that if they become tyrannical, right? Do you agree that maybe we need to extend the second amendment? Some people want to take away your gun. Some people want to take away anything you got. Some are saying maybe civilians need to be able to have a little bit more than just M16s and, you know, good weapons. Where do you stand with that?

• 2:06:04Speaker 00

  It's America, freedom of choice. It should all be legal.

• 2:06:07Speaker 01

  Even if I want to have bombs or nuclear on any of that?

• 2:06:10Speaker 00

  Well, maybe not nukes. You know what I mean? Or maybe, maybe you need to give like fingerprints and like a background check for the nuke. I don't know, but I think, look, this is America. Everything should be legal. I don't think anything should be illegal. We're going into the future. This is freedom of choice. You know what I mean? Uh, I don't think anything should be illegal. And I think the government should be traditionally in the business of like doing stuff like this to make money more so than whatever the, the taxes. You know what I mean?

• 2:06:42Speaker 01

  Have you seen what this guy Palmer Lucky is doing with drones?

• 2:06:44Speaker 00

  Never heard.

• 2:06:45Speaker 01

  You following that or no?

• 2:06:46Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:06:47Speaker 01

  Palmer Lucky is a billionaire who all of a sudden got into it's an Andrew, uh, uh, you know, 2.9 billion dollar Navy submarine shipyard contract, days after Lucky, Palmer Lucky joins Pentagon Weapon Group. So he's creating a company that's building weapons now.

• 2:07:03Speaker 00

  Oh, is this the guy that's got like this helmet that can see dudes in the next room?

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:07:09Speaker 00

  Yo, I want that.

• 2:07:10Speaker 01

  I think this is the guy.

• 2:07:11Speaker 00

  Hey, Palmer Lucky, send, send me one of these. Yo, I need this. I've heard of this thing, but I didn't know who he was.

• 2:07:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. So some of the stuff that he's doing, if you, uh, the, the one Andrew specifically put the, hmm, go, go up a little bit, go up a little bit and see if it's that one. Go up one more. Is this the one? No, no, that was not it, but he.

• 2:07:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's like ego vision or something, right? I forget what it was called.

• 2:07:47Speaker 02

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• 2:10:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, this helmet.

• 2:10:52Speaker 01

  Eagle, uh, eagle eye helmet.

• 2:10:55Speaker 00

  Eagle eye helmet. I need this eagle eye helmet.

• 2:10:59Speaker 17

  You're gonna notice a drone picks up a guy behind that container over there. And what's gonna happen is when he walks behind that container, I'm able to continue to see where he is and what he's doing. So here's Ghost X is the drone that's watching. Just watch for a moment. So the blue force is my friendlies. So see that little right hand corner where it sees behind the containers?

• 2:11:20Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 2:11:20Speaker 17

  They're tracking where the bad guy is. They're tracking where my guys are. And then watch when they go behind the container. So I can actually see through it and watch. Now they're engaging the guy over there and he's down. So, um, this is a system that allows everybody to basically be operating as one.

• 2:11:39Speaker 00

  You know this guy? Can you hook me up?

• 2:11:41Speaker 01

  You really, you really wanna?

• 2:11:42Speaker 00

  Hell yeah.

• 2:11:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 2:11:43Speaker 00

  I'd be wearing this around the neighborhood, walking my dog, you know what I mean? Like, come and get me.

• 2:11:48Speaker 01

  If you had this in while you were out there, how different would it have been for you guys?

• 2:11:51Speaker 00

  Oh, you know how great it would be if like,

• 2:11:56Speaker 00

  you put on like your night vision, for lack of a better term, or whatever it is. And like, you see like bodies where people are even through buildings or behind dumpsters or whatever, right? And but think about this, what if all 10 guys have the same view? Like, this is incredible. This is like Star Wars shit in my book.

• 2:12:18Speaker 01

  It's unfair. Like, this is a competitive advantage at the highest level against your enemy.

• 2:12:23Speaker 00

  Well, you know, okay, you're in the army, right? I tell people this all the time. You know what an op order is?

• 2:12:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:12:30Speaker 00

  Organized cheating. Right? So when guys used to say, you game the shit out of this, you know, guys would be like, you gamed it. That's why you did this. You gamed it. Like, an op order is organized cheating. I eat gaming. Like, it's the way the army does best. Get used to it. You know, it's the way of the world.

• 2:12:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this guy, this 34 year old entrepreneur billionaire who came up with the product Oculus is now using the Oculus VR, is now using this to create military weapons for the US government.

• 2:13:01Speaker 00

  Love it.

• 2:13:01Speaker 01

  And you, this is gonna be one of the biggest players. So if you see him, right, that's a bad picture. Wikipedia could have chosen a better picture for him than that one.

• 2:13:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure.

• 2:13:09Speaker 01

  For sure. Can somebody update that picture?

• 2:13:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:13:13Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, if he's watching, you know.

• 2:13:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:13:17Speaker 01

  Let's, uh, let's get one of those, uh, one of those goggles for you. Last but not least, today with you, you know, you have kids, you have family. Are you in touch? Do you have relationships?

• 2:13:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:13:28Speaker 01

  How did that happen? How did that, um, dad was doing that? Now it's good. How did you do that?

• 2:13:33Speaker 00

  Um, man, it just takes time, you know? I mean, it's not as great as I'd like it to be, but maybe one day, you know, we'll be, we'll be good, you know? Um, it is what it is. I'm, I'm, I'm always positive. I always try to be positive. If, if I, if you call me, I'm gonna be positive. You know what I mean? So it's like, uh, the way I see my children is lead by example. You know what I mean? And but this is the way I see life in general is like, you know, the kinda, you know,

• 2:14:07Speaker 00

  living a better life is, you know, the best thing you can do, right? Cause people, uh, all the time, like, you're enemies, right? They really want, you know, we want revenge. We want this.

• 2:14:22Speaker 00

  Cool. I'm living a better life. You know what I mean? I just flew here from Tuscany. You know what I mean? I had the best time of my life. So it's like, I'm living the better life. You can be mad at me for it. And then since I've been living a better life and people see that, uh, you know, a lot of people, you know, I'm positive. They wanna talk to me, you know? I'm, uh, we'll have fun, you know? So when it comes to my kids, like, they know I'm here for them. They call me, you know? I get them cute pics from them, you know what I mean? I'm happy. But they're also of the age where they're adults and like they're in the middle of their lives. You know what I'm saying?

• 2:14:58Speaker 01

  Are you a grandpa yet or not?

• 2:14:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm a grandpa. Yeah, I got two grandkids. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

• 2:15:03Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 2:15:04Speaker 00

  Cute. That's why I say I get those cute pics, you know what I mean?

• 2:15:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's cool. That's a, uh, it's interesting going through the process. You know, we have one of the guys out there. You met him. You spoke to him. Tatted guy on the neck. He, uh, uh, one, one town, one of his daughters, she was 16 or 17, is like, look, don't call me again if you're gonna get deployed again. And he was like, shit, you know, he's always out there, right? Don't call me again. Cause we have to go through again, you know, as a kid worried about what to do and all this stuff. If somebody, if, when somebody would get into Delta, and let's just say the guy wasn't married, would you encourage marriage or would you tell him to put it off until he's done with Delta? What was your position like?

• 2:15:48Speaker 00

  Uh, it really doesn't matter. That's what they'll tell you. Most guys are married, right? Uh, you go through a divorce. They do not like that. Cause that could get messy and that's a reflection on them, right? But, uh, I would tell a guy, don't get married.

• 2:16:05Speaker 00

  I would tell most kids these days, don't get married. You know what I mean?

• 2:16:09Speaker 01

  In the military?

• 2:16:10Speaker 00

  Any kid.

• 2:16:11Speaker 01

  Any kid?

• 2:16:12Speaker 00

  Any kid.

• 2:16:13Speaker 01

  Seriously?

• 2:16:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:16:14Speaker 01

  Tell me why?

• 2:16:15Speaker 00

  Um, yo, for a man, what are the benefits?

• 2:16:21Speaker 00

  You know, someone's gonna take half, half of nothing or whatever you got later, like, it's ridiculous.

• 2:16:27Speaker 01

  Have a solid prenup in place.

• 2:16:29Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 2:16:30Speaker 01

  So would a prenup, you would do it?

• 2:16:32Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:16:33Speaker 01

  You still wouldn't do it?

• 2:16:33Speaker 00

  No, it's a waste of time. There's no, there's no reason today in my book to get married for anyone. It's just where the world is.

• 2:16:44Speaker 00

  You know, cause you live together, they're still gonna take half your shit. You know what I mean? And the way I see anything in life is I choose to be here. I choose to stand next to the people I wanna stand next to, right? And I'm ride or die. Like, I will stand next to you, you know? I think, you know, people say they're ride or die, like,

• 2:17:08Speaker 00

  I've had people tell it to me and I was like not happy to hear it from people because on the ride or die spectrum, I've chose death a couple times. You know what I mean? So I know what ride or die means and I know people say it and don't mean it. Right? So, um, I would tell people, marriage, what for? What for? You know what I mean? Or wait till you're older. Wait till you're, you know, like, no one really understands the level of focus, like, and I'm not the only one. I'm not, I'm not the only one, but guys like me, the level of focus, I mean, imagine you find that one thing you're good at

• 2:17:48Speaker 00

  and you think lives are based off of you being at work or not. We're playing a game of life or death here. This ain't like, I have to pay the IRS more money or any whatever, right? This is life or death. And when it comes to that game, like, you know, uh, I would say,

• 2:18:13Speaker 00

  once you've played that game, everything else is kinda bullshit. We don't have to take it so seriously, right? And having said that, there's, there's no advantage in these situations to being married for a younger guy who's so focused and, and so ingrained and believes so much in what he does. Go do that. Don't distract yourself with something else. You know what I mean? Stay focused. Do your shit.

• 2:18:41Speaker 01

  You're 54 years old right now.

• 2:18:42Speaker 00

  56.

• 2:18:43Speaker 01

  56, I'm sorry, 56 years old right now. What's your greatest accomplishment?

• 2:18:47Speaker 00

  Me?

• 2:18:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. What do you think?

• 2:18:49Speaker 00

  Man, I just came from Tuscany. I keep saying this. It was bucket list, man. I had the best time. Yeah.

• 2:18:55Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 2:18:55Speaker 00

  I stayed at this villa. Uh, it was the papal hunting grounds for hundreds of years. Napoleon rode his horse from one end of the property to the other. Uh, it's just absolutely incredible. So, man, uh, I've been just trying to check off this bucket list little by little every day, you know? Like, don't wait till the end of your life. Pro tip, don't wait till the end of the life for the bucket list. Do it now while you got a chance, you know? So I'm bucket listing shit yearly, man. I, I tell you, I tell people, I live on bonus points, you know? But it's a, it's a choice I made years ago to either smile and have a good day or I can frown and be an asshole.

• 2:19:39Speaker 01

  You're still young, yo. 56 is young.

• 2:19:41Speaker 00

  I know, man. I can't wait.

• 2:19:43Speaker 01

  There's a lot of living, still a lot of living to you.

• 2:19:45Speaker 00

  You know that I gotta become a world champion in this jujitsu.

• 2:19:49Speaker 01

  Is that really your goal?

• 2:19:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, I've been trying for years. You know what I mean? I ain't got there yet. Well, last year I got disqualified cause I'm too bad for jujitsu. But, uh, this year, maybe I win. Maybe I won't. You know what I mean?

• 2:20:02Speaker 01

  You got disqualified last?

• 2:20:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:20:04Speaker 01

  What'd you do?

• 2:20:05Speaker 00

  Uh, pretty much nothing, but like, the guy like rolled over, he soccer faked it. He was like, oh, my back. And I'm like, well, if this guy's injured, I'm moving on, you know? I'm healthy and like, I got disqualified. But, uh, this year, maybe I get it, you know? But it's the journey for me, you know, the, I love jujitsu. I love.

• 2:20:27Speaker 00

  I say this all the time. I think guys forget about things they love and they focus on reliving their pain. Right? Like, there's a time in your life where you were at a low point and this song meant something to you, right? Don't listen to that fucking song anymore and remind yourself of the low point. Find new songs, find a new high point. Don't relive your pain. And I'm not reliving my pain, guy. I'm moving on, right? So, uh, kids, you know, you could play peekaboo with a kid 200 times and they think it's funny every time. Right? Are we so different than kids that there's stuff that'll make us laugh over and over? Cause whatever that is, find it and go do it. Jiu-Jitsu makes me happy.

• 2:21:12Speaker 00

  I do it all the time. I hunt, I do jiu-jitsu, I do bucket list stuff. I was just at this villa, you know what I mean? Uh, so there's so much good, you know what I mean? That, uh, like, I'm just, I tell people, I'm so much good, I'm living on bonus points.

• 2:21:27Speaker 01

  Are you, are you, uh, how do you make money right now? Is it just the retirement, the pension that comes?

• 2:21:32Speaker 00

  Uh, I get army retirement, uh, and I teach people to shoot.

• 2:21:35Speaker 01

  Oh, that's right. That was in that documentary where you were listening to the heavy metal, uh, song in the car.

• 2:21:41Speaker 00

  I made that heavy metal song on an app. You know what I mean? I made a whole workout list, uh, death and destruction. I listened to it when I work.

• 2:21:48Speaker 01

  Seriously?

• 2:21:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, I made my, yeah.

• 2:21:50Speaker 01

  AI, it's not.

• 2:21:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. It's called Green Eye Devils. Just Hitler.

• 2:21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you were singing along, you know the lyrics, all of it.

• 2:22:00Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm, I had AI make it for me.

• 2:22:02Speaker 01

  That makes sense, yeah.

• 2:22:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I made a, okay, I made a, I made a ton of songs. Uh, I think this is pretty cool. Cause like, okay, all things being equal, these songs are almost as good as anything I grew up on the radio with. But it's the words I like, you know, like, you know, like helicopters coming in, snipers, night vision, guns.

• 2:22:22Speaker 01

  Is that, like, you're literally making your own playlist?

• 2:22:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:22:26Speaker 01

  Like, it's not like, hey, this is my playlist. No, this is your playlist.

• 2:22:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think there's like 17 metal songs. It's an app called Suno.

• 2:22:33Speaker 01

  No, no, I know, trust me. Like, we were one time in the car and my dad was freaking out. Vinnie, uh, uh, makes a song and my five-year-old, uh, he writes the songs. Brooklyn's like, oh my God, it said my name.

• 2:22:45Speaker 00

  Green Eye Devils, maybe it'll pop up.

• 2:22:47Speaker 01

  Is it on YouTube or no?

• 2:22:48Speaker 00

  No, I don't think, it's just on this app. I just kinda, I tell people to go to my thing on the app and listen to it if they want, but.

• 2:22:57Speaker 01

  Did you upload it on YouTube or no? Maybe you need to do that.

• 2:22:59Speaker 00

  I don't know, maybe. But, uh, yeah, I made all my own songs, right?

• 2:23:05Speaker 01

  Let me see if I can find it.

• 2:23:09Speaker 00

  I'm like John Shrek McPhee on Suno. Oh, that's it, wait. That's it.

• 2:23:19Speaker 01

  I found it. So let me send it to you. That's sick. If you go on YouTube and you type in Green Eye Devil, you'll find it.

• 2:23:26Speaker 00

  Yeah. But, uh, yeah, and there's a whole playlist of like, I call it death and destruction, but it's like workout music, like, you know, like, kinda like 90s metal-ish, you know, 2000s metal.

• 2:23:38Speaker 01

  Play the first, no, no, top left, it's a short, yeah, there you go.

• 2:23:41Speaker 00

  That's the best part. Green. Yeah, that's my jam. Devils out for the night. Oh, shit, I love these songs. The enemy called you guys Green Eye Devils. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's the best part.

• 2:24:02Speaker 01

  And then he called you Green Eye Devils?

• 2:24:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, the bad guys call us Green Eye Devils. Cause like, when you got your night vision on, you see the green glow on the face. So the, uh.

• 2:24:12Speaker 01

  So the song is called Green Eye Devils?

• 2:24:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, Green Eye Devils.

• 2:24:14Speaker 01

  That is so cool. That is so cool. And so, do you do anything? Do you write? Are you, do people follow your Substack? Is there a podcast? Are you doing anything or nothing right now?

• 2:24:23Speaker 00

  Um, man, I mean, no, not doing nothing right now.

• 2:24:26Speaker 01

  Any plans?

• 2:24:27Speaker 00

  Uh, I wrote a book, uh, a while ago. It's at a finishing editor right now. Um, but I wrote a book, it's a fiction book. It's about, it's kinda about my first deployment of how I went out alone and stuff like that. Uh, I made it a fiction book. Um, and, uh, it's kinda got like a subplot, but I wanted to write a fiction book about every deployment with like, uh, a bigger so what to it. You know what I mean? But I would like to write some books maybe, but we'll see.

• 2:25:00Speaker 01

  Through the amount of stories that you have, where you can turn into, all the stories?

• 2:25:03Speaker 00

  Well, I've had book meetings with a lot of these book guys. I had, I think 37 total. And like, I didn't find anybody I wanted to talk to. You know what I mean?

• 2:25:17Speaker 01

  I'll introduce you to somebody.

• 2:25:18Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:25:19Speaker 01

  I'll introduce you to a guy, talk to him. He's a business guy, very successful, probably worth 50 million, and he knows everybody in Hollywood agency. And I think you're gonna like the guy. And, you know, he knows all the agents and all that stuff, all the managers, all the publishers, and see where it takes you. And he's the kinda guy you would like talking to.

• 2:25:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's go.

• 2:25:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'll introduce you to you. Brother, this was amazing.

• 2:25:39Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 2:25:40Speaker 01

  Really enjoyed it.

• 2:25:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:25:42Speaker 01

  And, uh, for the audience watching this, uh, uh, stay tuned, because I think there's gonna be more stuff coming out with, uh, uh, John here. But your story's fascinating, man. This was amazing.

• 2:25:52Speaker 00

  Thank you, man, thank you.

• 2:25:53Speaker 01

  Yes, take care, everybody. Bye-bye, bye-bye.

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