“I’d Die For It Today” - Ex Navy SEALs Reveal Truth About Osama Bin Laden & Future of War | PBD Podcast | Ep. 573

Navy SEALs DJ Shipley and Cole Fackler join Patrick Bet-David to discuss war stories, Bin Laden’s death, Seal Team culture, sacrifice, marriage, and the mental discipline it takes to serve at the highest level. Raw, unfiltered, and powerful insights from real warriors. ------ Ⓜ️ MINNECT WITH DJ SHIPLEY: https://bit.ly/4lpjgVC Ⓜ️ MINNECT WITH COLE FACKLER: https://bit.ly/42ABsUF 👕 GET THE LATEST VT MERCH: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3BZbD6l⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3BZbD6l 📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/41rtEV4⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/41rtEV4 📰 VTNEWS. AI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3OExClZ⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3OExClZ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g57zR2 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A 📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7 🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! 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.

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 0:42Speaker 02

  Pricing participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 0:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, I've never said that on camera. Really? Mm-hmm. Do you remember where you were when we heard that Osama bin Laden was caught?

• 0:51Speaker 04

  Conducted an operation.

• 0:52Patrick Bet-David?

  He was killed.

• 0:52Speaker 04

  Killed Osama bin Laden.

• 0:54Patrick Bet-David?

  May 2nd, 2011. And then we hear the story that the body's being dumped in the middle of the ocean.

• 0:59Speaker 05

  And if you do that, you end up making him a martyr even more and growing his following even more, like, look what he sacrificed for the cause.

• 1:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Was it ever a point where it was so close that if this thing happens and this triggers this, we could be in a World War III overnight?

• 1:12Speaker 05

  Potentially. Potentially.

• 1:14Patrick Bet-David?

  I want to believe that our military is already ready for the 2045 war, not the 2025 war. What new threats are we gonna have 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now? We've seen it. Terminator. When I heard that, I'm like, it's a little weird. I'm questioning it.

• 1:30Speaker 05

  And I'll be honest, Trump canked us when we were on the ramp getting ready to go. He solved it however he does, whatever he does. He called and literally stopped us on the ramp.

• 1:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Who would love to be on those phone calls just to hear what he says?

• 1:43Speaker 05

  He'd break the internet. I hate when people bad mouth the president.

• 1:46Speaker 06

  There is something special about fighting for America, and I agree with it.

• 1:49Patrick Bet-David?

  How was it for you with your father? He was a SEAL. So was he gone all the time and you still had a relationship with him?

• 1:54Speaker 05

  Gone.

• 1:54Patrick Bet-David?

  But it still made you want to be a SEAL?

• 1:57Speaker 05

  It's the only thing you know.

• 1:58Patrick Bet-David?

  What is it with this occupation that makes it so difficult to keep your marriage intact?

• 2:06Speaker 05

  You can take that one unless you want me to surrender.

• 2:07Speaker 06

  In town long enough to get in a fight, then go out of town and forget about it? MySpace ruined DJ's life.

• 2:12Patrick Bet-David?

  MySpace?

• 2:14Speaker 05

  This is what happened to me, dude.

• 2:17Patrick Bet-David?

  The way you're talking.

• 2:36Speaker 07

  My handshake is better than anything I ever signed, right here.

• 2:41Patrick Bet-David?

  You are a one of one?

• 2:41Speaker 06

  My son's right there.

• 2:42Speaker 07

  I don't think I've ever said this before.

• 2:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Alright, listen, we're getting started. We started off with, you know, when you're around military guys, they're typically shit talkers, jokes, prank the whole night. But anyways, today we have a special treat.

• 3:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Podcast DJ Shipley and Cole Fackler. So, and you're not brothers, just to make that clear, right?

• 3:08Speaker 05

  Kinda.

• 3:09Speaker 06

  As far as we know.

• 3:10Speaker 05

  As far as we know, might as well be.

• 3:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Might as well be, right.

• 3:14Speaker 05

  We grew up in the same area. I mean, separated a couple of miles from each other's high school, joined the Navy at the same time.

• 3:19Patrick Bet-David?

  How, how long have you guys known each other? Since what age?

• 3:23Speaker 05

  I met him when I was 18.

• 3:24Speaker 06

  22.

• 3:25Patrick Bet-David?

  So, since 18?

• 3:27Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 3:28Patrick Bet-David?

  But you guys didn't know each other, like, and you grew up two miles apart?

• 3:32Speaker 06

  About 20 or so. I mean, we, we met in buds and we weirdly enough had a very mirroring career the entire time.

• 3:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Were you guys typically stationed at the same place or no?

• 3:44Speaker 06

  Same team, same command, same.

• 3:47Speaker 05

  Everything.

• 3:48Patrick Bet-David?

  So, that's the part that's like SEAL Team 10, 17 years, like same hats, same watch, like best, best buds outside. I mean, obviously buds is one thing, but best of buds as well, friends. And in business together.

• 4:01Speaker 05

  Roommates, been each other's best man multiple times now, thanks to Cole.

• 4:04Speaker 06

  He's been mine twice.

• 4:07Speaker 06

  You know, I had to try a couple out.

• 4:10Patrick Bet-David?

  But you kinda got it down now? You feel pretty confident about this one?

• 4:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, she's actually outlasted both of them combined.

• 4:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 4:16Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 4:16Patrick Bet-David?

  So, what is it with that, by the way? You know, my friend was, when I was in the Army, I wanted to go, I interviewed at 18 Delta, to be in 18 Delta at 5th Group at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. And I wanted to go with Sears and go to DLI because I spoke five languages. So, they said, you're gonna go to, you know, Fort Oar, that's where the DLI was back in the days, you know, uh, they called it, what was it called? The Planet or something like that, right? I think it was in Carmel. And so the orders come back, I decide to get out, he gets the orders, he leaves. He ends up becoming Delta for 12 years, loves it, the project, operations, all this stuff. I don't talk to him for many years, I thought something happened to him, finally we link up, he tells me what's going on, I said, let's meet up, we go to Madrid, we meet at El Clasico,

• 4:59Patrick Bet-David?

  soccer match between Messi and Ronaldo. And I think at the time when I met him, he was on his third marriage. What is it with this occupation that makes it so difficult to keep your marriage intact?

• 5:14Speaker 05

  You can take that one unless you're a minestrone. I barely squeak by.

• 5:19Speaker 06

  I mean, I think the schedule's super challenging. Normally you're gone at least 300 days a year, over, probably. We're terrible at communicating, great at bottling everything up. In town long enough to get in a fight, then go out of town, forget about it.

• 5:37Patrick Bet-David?

  In town long enough to get into a fight with your wife and then you leave?

• 5:40Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, so you never settle anything. You just kind of rinse and repeat and I think this, again, the schedule, our entire time in the military was all war. So you're losing friends, that kind of stress, you're a single mom, working mom. And you kind of travel like a rock star, so.

• 6:04Patrick Bet-David?

  You, you travel like a rock star while they're behind.

• 6:07Speaker 06

  Well, I mean, when 20 of us that look like us walk into a bar. Tracks my attention.

• 6:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so, because when I went through the recruiting, the guy said to me, he says, "Go interview three guys before even think about doing this." I said, "Okay, no problem." So I go in, first guy says, "You want to get married and have kids?" I said, "Yeah, absolutely." He says, "That's not the career for you." I said, "Why not?" He says, "Because this is your wife, your career, you're going to be gone, you're going to be traveling, you're going to be there." Go to the second guy, "Do you want to get married and have kids?" "I do." "Well, this is, you're not going to be able to do all this." So they're scaring you away from being, getting married, building a family. Is that also what you guys went through, orientation wise, where some of the guys are telling you about getting married, or they're saying, "No, support it, get married, it's fine, it's going to work out."

• 6:56Speaker 06

  No, I mean, there were definitely rock stars and you look back at some of the guys, they've been married 20 plus years, DJ, Patsy Hitten, over 15.

• 7:03Patrick Bet-David?

  You've been married 20 plus years?

• 7:05Speaker 05

  Fifteen.

• 7:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Fifteen years?

• 7:06Speaker 06

  So, I mean, there are definitely guys that have solid families. It's like, I don't, I don't know how they did it. But then there's kind of the reverse where they get divorced a lot. But the support, family, family definitely, say, came first, but I think the hard, hard part for us was switching it off. That's why we kind of talk about dials and switches. The work required you to be 100% on all the time and everything else took second.

• 7:31Patrick Bet-David?

  How'd you make it work? Fifteen years?

• 7:33Speaker 05

  I didn't. I married a unicorn. That's the only reason. I was an idealist and I grew up in the SEAL teams. My dad was a SEAL. The only male influence I had my entire life were Navy SEALs and most of them were divorced. And that was just the culture. This thing comes first. You come home, drop off a bag of dirty laundry, grab new clothes and leave again. And that's exactly what I did. I just, I got really fortunate because my wife was already married to a SEAL. Unfortunately, he was killed. So she'd been through the entire gambit already. And I think that was a lot of my hesitation is I didn't want to stop doing that job. Training's so hard. It's so long. It's so arduous. You don't ever want to leave it. It's like, you know, you're playing professional sports. I don't want to take any time away. I don't, as soon as I leave, I can't give you any bandwidth right

• 8:18Speaker 05

  now because it's not going to help me overseas. You have to start compartmentalizing and that just builds up a resentment time and time again. And when you come home, you're so stressed out and two-hand texting, you're in the group chat, I've got to get ready for this trip. You're missing ballet recitals and anniversaries and birthdays because none of it truly matters at that point because you're trying to lay a foundation. And unfortunately, you realize you're never going to have that foundation you want. You just keep adding layer after layer after layer and you're never building time for them. So that's why we do talk about dials. You know, if you're brand new. Brand new guy gets on the team and you have no external commitments, no wife, no family, no picket fence, no Labrador. I can roll that dial all the way to a ten and I can be that Kobe Bryant. I can live this one thing at a hundred percent until I do have a rock

• 9:00Speaker 05

  solid foundation. Then I add in a girlfriend that turns into fiance, but I have to operate on dials and for us, we just rolled that whole thing over and never backed it off. Now we just started stacking stuff on top of it. And it's really hard to, it's really hard to split your time and focus. And a lot of them, they're just not meant to do it. Guys marry their high school sweetheart, you've never been apart for two weeks before, now you're gone for nine months.

• 9:20Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you do that? I mean, it's the

• 9:22Speaker 05

  You love that job so much, you've literally just walled it off. You don't even think about, I never thought about it.

• 9:27Speaker 06

  You just compartmentalize it. Both of us are, are firstborns. We both left on separate deployments, three weeks after they were born. And both of those deployments that we were on were probably our worst. So we came back to a five month old and just super kind of torn up from the deployment too. And not easy.

• 9:48Patrick Bet-David?

  How was it for you with your father, if he was a SEAL? So was he gone all the time and you still had a relationship with him?

• 9:53Speaker 05

  All the time. Gone.

• 9:55Patrick Bet-David?

  He's still your hero though?

• 9:56Speaker 05

  I mean, up until a certain point he was. I mean, when he graduated BUDS, my mom was nine months pregnant with me. So his entire time in the SEAL teams, I was with him. But he's just gone. I mean, I think he did like thirteen, thirteen deployments, each one six months long, and there's no break in between. Six month workup, home for a while, gone, gone, gone. And then all the training trips in between. Every one's a two or three week trip. You're home for two days, geared up, send it again, send it again.

• 10:24Patrick Bet-David?

  From the day you were born till you were, you know, thirteen, how often would you see him?

• 10:30Speaker 05

  If you went combined total, less than three months out of the year?

• 10:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Less than three months out of the year, you see him?

• 10:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 10:39Patrick Bet-David?

  But it still made you want to be a SEAL?

• 10:40Speaker 05

  Well, it's the only thing you know. And when you come home, you have him, you see all the guys and, you know, you've seen the movie Navy SEALs with Charlie Sheen, that was my childhood. That is exactly what I grew up with and I loved it.

• 10:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was Charlie Sheen?

• 10:54Speaker 05

  I mean, he was one of the officers, but I mean, just not, everybody, everybody who was in that movie, that represented what the nineties Navy SEALs were like. Drinking, partying, training, deploying, just over and over and over again. And it became infectious, like, I mean, to us. I mean, I'd walk right past the Rolling Stones or some high-level athlete just to get near a commando. Like, they just have such a polarizing presence, you just can't get away from it. So when you grow up with it your whole life, that's the only thing you want to emulate. I just want to look like that. I want the tattoos. I want to look like that. I want to be able to perform like that. And that's just what you chase.

• 11:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Your, your wife, her first husband passed away. He didn't make it. So was she part of a family, military family growing up? How did she marry two SEALs?

• 11:37Speaker 05

  Her dad was a SEAL.

• 11:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, so that, okay. So that makes a lot of sense. So then, you know, you know what it reminds me of? You ever seen the movie with Mark Wahlberg where he's, it's him and Jennifer Aniston? I think he's a rock star and maybe the movie is called Rock Star. What's the, is it called Rock Star?

• 11:52Speaker 05

  It is.

• 11:52Patrick Bet-David?

  And then they, they have the two buses and the other wives are training her on what it is to be married to a rock. Do you remember that whole scene? You're like, look, here's what's gonna happen. This is normal. This is what it's like. Sometimes you're gonna wake up, it's gonna be weird. And then there's this one scene where they wake up in the hotel. What did we do last night? I don't know what happened last, is it almost a little bit of that where you have to know who you're marrying to know what comes with the territory? Like, some of these things that come with the territory?

• 12:19Speaker 05

  I think, yeah, because a lot of the guys, you know, Cole married one of his high school sweethearts too. She's never been exposed to it. So when you get in around those people, they knew you when you were in high school. They knew you when you were 21 years old. Now you leave for four or five years, you rekindle that marriage, and you are a completely different person. Your mannerisms, the way, the way you carry yourself, the people you associate with, everything else is different and they don't know how it happened. And a lot of them, they don't see it until it's too late. Like, now we are married and it's like, this is not the guy he was in high school. He can't be. You can't be because of the job you have. You have to elevate and you have to transform. You can't be that same guy and do that job at 100%. There's no way. It takes too much.

• 12:58Patrick Bet-David?

  That is wild. So what advice do you guys give when guys are coming to you? What do you tell them? Do you say, get married? Do you say, don't get married?

• 13:04Speaker 06

  Don't get married.

• 13:05Speaker 05

  Don't get married.

• 13:06Patrick Bet-David?

  You tell them, don't get married.

• 13:07Speaker 05

  I tell them, don't get married until you've done at least four years, optimally, you've done eight years. Four of those completely single, just isolating, polishing your craft. Now you find her, you test her out, meaning you make her do a couple deployments as your fiance. That way, if it doesn't work, there's no divorce, there's no strain on the fours.

• 13:24Patrick Bet-David?

  The fine doesn't work. How do you check if it doesn't? Because I remember in the army, like if you're in the army, there was a, uh, uh, uh, stories you would hear. Where guy would go, come back nine months later, he finds out his wife's with somebody and hey, the, the, you leave the broom outside. There was this whole, uh, uh, I don't know if you remember these different things. I don't want to kind of give some of those stuff away. And guy would come out one day, this guy, I won't say his name, but I clearly, clearly remember this. You go to the hotel, he walks in and he sees it. He's devastated. He's going through suicide watch. He's not talking about it for 30 days. How do you test it out when you're gone for that long? What do you do? Do you have a friend come and check him out? Do you say, to the club, was she at the nightclub? How do you, how do you, how do you check them out? MySpace?

• 14:07Speaker 06

  Uh, MySpace ruined DJ's life.

• 14:09Patrick Bet-David?

  MySpace ruined this.

• 14:11Speaker 05

  What happened to me, dude?

• 14:12Patrick Bet-David?

  What happened with MySpace?

• 14:13Speaker 05

  Same thing. I was dating my high school girlfriend, went over to Iraq. You know, I'm 19 years old, we're stormtrooping through Baghdad, doing the whole thing. And I didn't even have an email account at the time. I mean, I set up a Hotmail in 2005 and we were over in Iraq. And then MySpace popped up, made a little profile. Nobody knows what it is. The social media is not even a thing yet. You're typing in different names. I type my sister's name, it pops up, typing random people's names, they pop up. I type my girlfriend's name, hit enter, it pops up, she's got a profile. I'm like, oh, this is cool. It's got a little bio, like this is my name, I'm crazy in love with my boyfriend, his name's Brian. I'm like, my name ain't Brian. Like looking around like, what is this?

• 14:49Patrick Bet-David?

  You're joking.

• 14:50Speaker 05

  No, the whole thing. She'd been dating a guy, living in my house, the entire time I was.

• 14:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop it.

• 14:55Speaker 05

  Oh, no, really. So what do you do? Call him. Better pack your shit and get out of my house right now. Never talk to you again. But it's the same thing, like they'll start complaining about the deployment cycle being gone. You're not making enough time for me. I can't. I don't have wifi. And then it just becomes a huge burden, a huge mental taxation. Is this improving my performance overseas? No. Well, I gotta get rid of you. Get away. Or you marry a unicorn, like my wife, who's just an absolute gangster. She gets it. And I can count the times on one hand.

• 15:26Patrick Bet-David?

  That's tough to marry somebody like your wife, whose father was like, it's like marry, you know, a guy. Uh, uh, I'll never forget, my wife, we're getting married. I take her to meet different, uh, uh, wives to shape the mindset of, do you know who you're really marrying? And the best person that she sat down with was, uh, our pastor's wife. Okay. And she goes and spends time with them and she says, are you ready to share your husband with the world? And she says, what do you mean? Says, well, look, I run, my husband runs a church with 20,000 members. Guess what? Everybody wants to talk to him all the time. Call, this person died, funeral, this is that wedding, this. Are you ready? Because that's what's happening with you. It says, well, yeah, I guess I'm okay with that. So let me tell you my 10 affirmations. And she starts kind of going through the affirmations.

• 16:10Patrick Bet-David?

  And then, you know, sometimes your husband's gonna come home, you're not in a mood to do anything. If you ask for it, you gotta find a way to make the time to please you. All these things that she's going through. She comes back, I said, so how did it go? Well, she said this, she said that. I said, this is a rock star wife. This is great, right? It's like shaping the mindset of it, right? She had it, but it's tough to find somebody like that.

• 16:29Speaker 05

  It is, and you really saw in the old school garden. You know, I say the wives really cut their teeth during GWOT during the early days, no support, brand new in the war. We didn't know what was going on. Deployment cycle just kept increasing over and over. So you've got this batch of, you know, a couple hundred wives that are really, really bought in. And then you get this new generation starts to spill in and they've never seen it before. It's really nice to be able to bounce it off you. So you check in as a brand new guy and you've got your platoon chief with seven deployments and he's got his wife, who's done nine total. She's like, this is what it is. He's never gonna tell you what it's really like. This is what it is. You are on your own the entire time.

• 17:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you ever meet Brian?

• 17:06Speaker 06

  I didn't meet Brian, but I did, uh, yeah, well, I've talked about that off camera. Yeah, I played a little prank on Brian.

• 17:12Patrick Bet-David?

  You did play a prank on Brian, okay. I think some happened with Brian. Well, listen, thank you, MySpace, for the recon and the private investigative work you did. But, uh, so question, since I wasn't expecting us to start off with a topic. I had three topics to start off with. We're going into marriage right off the bat. But question with this, so you're doing your job, okay? And while you're doing your job, you know, you hear the phrase signal versus noise, right? Focus on the job, focus on signal, noise. What's going on with the family? What's going on with the wife? What's going on with the kids? I'm gone nine months. What happened here? What are they doing over there? What are you doing with? To be a SEAL and to do what you guys do, how do you stay locked in to not allow the noise to rattle you?

• 17:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Because in that moment, while you're supposed to stay focused, you're thinking about something else. How do you mentally get yourself in a state where you stay focused on the mission?

• 18:08Speaker 06

  You block out the noise. Doesn't matter. You are 100% committed and locked in.

• 18:14Patrick Bet-David?

  But how do you block out the noise?

• 18:16Speaker 06

  You don't communicate, like you don't intimately open up. Like the emotions are second to the family, everything else.

• 18:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that what they tell you to shape your mindset that way? Or is that like a cultural thing? Is that what it takes? Is that the part of the job?

• 18:35Speaker 06

  I think it's 100% what it takes. Because if you're not on your game, like the results could be you die, you drop something and somebody else gets killed for it. The repercussions and results of not being locked in and showing up 100% on your game are deadly. And like, there's no question about it. And the emotion of the patriotism and what you're doing and what you're fighting for, just outweighed it. There was nothing.

• 19:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, let me ask you, were you like that in high school?

• 19:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Like, were you an athlete in high school? Did you play sport?

• 19:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was an athlete in high school.

• 19:17Speaker 05

  And yeah, I was definitely compartmentalization on the noise. To be hyper competitive and perform at a super high level, it took discipline and dedication and wherever you wanted to take it. And I wanted to take it as far as I could.

• 19:32Patrick Bet-David?

  I guess my question becomes, my question is, do they recruit guys who are already like that? Or do you come in and after you make it through BUDs, the training, everything that they have, then you become this person? Which one is it? Is it finding the person and identifying that this guy has what it takes? Or is it, no, we're going to shape your mindset into this?

• 19:53Speaker 05

  I think, I think you find that person

• 19:59Speaker 05

  just through the initial process. It's so hard to get into BUDs. It's so hard to make it through that selection. You're already a little bit selfish anyway. You have to be. In order to just prepare to go to BUDs, you really have to live in isolation. And then it's not really a team sport. I know it is, but going through selection, it's individual performance. You have to be able to perform the entire way. And anything that is a distraction, you just naturally block it out. You just have to, you roll an ankle, you get this, you get an injury, you just override and just keep going. And you do that, it becomes your routine. If you don't like the way things are going, you just block it out.

• 20:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Have you ever been on a mission where one of your peers maybe was getting distracted and allowing the noise to get to them? How did the team handle it when someone went there?

• 20:41Speaker 05

  It becomes a big issue, they remove you. Like, it's very common if guys are going through a, if guys are going through divorce, it's so common. I mean, the SEAL teams are well over 100%. I mean, they have been my whole time, over 100% divorce rate. If it becomes nasty to where you can't make a deployment, you can't make trips, like you're in court custody battles, they just remove you.

• 21:00Patrick Bet-David?

  They remove you?

• 21:01Speaker 05

  Yep. They'll remove you, put you on the sidelines for two years, clean up your divorce, figure it all out, and then come back.

• 21:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 21:06Speaker 05

  They'll put you in a training slot or an admin slot. Yeah, pretty common.

• 21:10Patrick Bet-David?

  So sometimes if they put a guy in training slot, It's not a favor, it's not a promotion. They're putting you there because you're going through something like, look, go handle your stuff in personal life, then when you're ready, come back to it as well.

• 21:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, you've put in so much time and energy to get to the organization. You're so critical to its overall performance. Right now, if you're not at 100%, they have to pull you out and put in somebody else.

• 21:28Patrick Bet-David?

  So how do you view that? Let's just say I go through that and I'm put there. For me to come back and there's four of you and I'm the fifth one coming in. Are you guys a little bit worried whether I've changed or not? Or I'm still, I still have some of the old tendencies or no? You, you allow me to show up and represent and show you guys that I have changed. How, how does that work?

• 21:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, you definitely get a chance to come back and perform. I think everyone's pretty open at that. It happens all the time.

• 21:54Speaker 06

  But they're watching. You, you gotta earn your seat there every day. And there are mistakes you cannot come back from. And at such a high level, either you'll get kicked out or they'll, they'll set you out. And, and let you be 100% when you come back. You can't be 98%.

• 22:10Speaker 05

  It's the exact same thing with injuries. We have guys with some colossal injuries. They just, they override it. And you ever been at like a bull riding show? You ever seen the guys get taped up?

• 22:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course, yeah.

• 22:21Speaker 05

  Taping their shoulders in place? You'd be surprised, you see a, a special operations, you know, team room. The injuries these guys are able to just push through. KT tape all over their body, cortisone injections, just everything to get through because they don't want to get pulled off. And eventually those injuries stack up so bad, you can't hide it anymore. I mean, we're doing some brutal physical activities and you cannot keep up. You gotta get surgery. And they don't want to, like, they don't want to jump off that train. And sometimes you have to push them off the train. Go get surgery, do six months of rehab and come back here. I can't have you at 45% right now, I can't. You gotta go the whole way. Go get surgery. I was one of those guys, he's been that guy. Like, you have to get surgery right now, okay?

• 22:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Due to an injury, due to whatever that happened, due to on a mission, so slowing somebody down, so that would be another, but that part to me makes sense still, right? It's like sports, hey, you, you're not given your best right now. Go do the surgery. I don't want to do the Tommy John surgery. Look, I, you gotta do it, you're gonna sit down to season or Achilles, whatever that happens. I can see that part, but the, the, the noise versus signal, there is not a formula. Like, is there a formula or are you just something you do? Like, if, if you were to talk to right now, 100 corporate executives that are money managers, Who are have a billion hours under management, they're going on the road all the time, they're traveling here, traveling, they're going, meeting with this client, meeting with that client. And they have the wife and the kids and all that stuff and say, hey, man, guys, I'd love for you to give me a formula on how to stay locked in.

• 23:43Patrick Bet-David?

  I want to find a way to get locked in. I'm a performer, I work my ass up, but I got a wife and two kids. How do I stay locked in so when I go into that meeting to negotiate a deal and roll over that money, I'm gonna get it? What would you say to me?

• 23:52Speaker 05

  Dials not switches. Dials not switches every time. So switch meaning, you know, I joined the Navy at seventeen years old, Cole eighteen, nineteen years old, I just flicked that switch, Navy SEAL. It's the only thing I care about. Now you start stacking all the other stuff and you can't give it equal bandwidth and that's where the resentment comes in. So I imagine a literal switchboard. I've got my family dial, I've got my, I've got my, my operation, my, my passion, my profession, whatever that is, as soon as I wake up in the morning, I'm powering down the family dial all the way. I'm not thinking about you when I'm driving in, not thinking about picking up kids off the bus, none of that matters to me right now. All I'm thinking about is my next two hours. As soon as I complete those two hours, I re-operate my dials, recalibrate, whatever I have to fully focus on.

• 24:33Speaker 06

  I think it's a mindset too, they definitely will pull it out of you. And if you ultimately don't perform, you won't be around there. But yeah, the dials and switches for sure. You want to dial down family, dial work up a hundred percent. I think too, it's a sacrifice wherever your goals are and where you're, wherever you want to go. If you're good just being a big fish in a small pond, cool. If you want to get out of that pond and become a small fish in a bigger pond at a higher level, the sacrifice, you may have to leave the work a hundred percent on and then honestly be able to turn that back off, but realize you're sacrificing time to reach your goals.

• 25:10Patrick Bet-David?

  You got two daughters, but you got three boys, right? With your boys, are any one of them super athletic where they're playing like sports where they could go to the next level?

• 25:21Speaker 06

  They're, you know, young. They're 12, nine, and six. The two older ones are super passionate about soccer. The oldest one is getting ready to start travel soccer and I'm all about supporting them wherever they want to take it, however, however far they want to. I grew up swimming on a competitive club team year round. And I had aspirations to take it to the Olympics.

• 25:45Speaker 06

  I got burnt out. And I just want to support my kids. If they want to take it all the way, I'm happy to go over with them, the sacrifice and what it'll take to get there. But ultimately, it's on them. I just don't want to push them and burn them out.

• 25:59Speaker 05

  Do you, do you, would you support if they come and say, Dad, I want to, I want to go, I want to be a Navy SEAL? Would you support that? Or you, would that be like, oh, my God, I'm so proud. My kids want to become Navy SEALs? Or no? Whatever they want to do, they do?

• 26:11Speaker 06

  I'd 100% support them. I want them to be happy with whatever they choose, but if they wanted to do that, I'd support it, but I'd give them a very honest conversation of what they're getting into.

• 26:22Speaker 05

  Got it. Get married right after that, you know, marry your high school sweetheart, you know, make sure you befriend a guy named Brian. Stay off MySpace, maybe use, you know, TikTok instead. It's so funny when you're going through this stuff. When you're in it, it's so interesting watching how everybody handles it with business, you know, you're coming up, you size everybody up, you're like, dude, I thought that guy had it, but I thought he, he's more mentally tough than, that's such an interest, no way in the world I thought it, that whole competitive side where you don't know, sometimes it just takes time to see how they're going to handle themselves. You know the movie Fury? Where the new guy comes in and then Brad Pitt, whoever he's playing,

• 27:01Speaker 05

  and the guy starts peeing, it says, you know, you remember that scene where it's like, hey, you lock it up, like get in, get in place, and he was panicking, he was worried? Sometimes you're never going to know until you're in that situation to see if they got it or not. But you talk about communication. So yesterday we get word, and I want to get your thoughts on this. Yesterday's story comes out, Rob, if you want to pull this up, the whole Signal Gate, whatever they want to call it, right? The Signal chat with Pete Hexit, you know, Pentagon Inspector General opens investigation into exit, Signal chat scandal. The White House said this week that the case has been closed on the Signal scandal. The Pentagon's Inspector General opened it back up. And then, Rob, is this the one where six people got fired yesterday? Can you go? That's a separate article?

• 27:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, that's this one right here. Trump fires six national security staffers after meeting with far-right activist Laura Lumer. This is with The Guardian. Trump ally presented with the opposition research against a number of officials that she followed their disloyalty. Can you go a little bit lower, Rob, to see who it was? Fired six national security staffers on far-right activism. The firing encompassed four staffers who were fired overnight after the meeting and two who were removed over the weekend. Created extraordinary situation. Lumer appeared to have more influence than the national security advisor, Mike Walz. Okay, so now this is what they're going through with communication. Mike Walz is creating a group chat on Signal where they're communicating about a decision that's being made. And then accidentally, the individual that gets added to the chat, Rob, is somebody from...

• 28:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Jeffrey Goldberg from The Atlantic. From The Atlantic. He gets into it. Accidentally, he's in it. Some are saying, you know, the way that it happened, it is what it is. For you guys, you're out there. How are you communicating yourself? What apps were you using when you're communicating? What apps are being used today? And maybe what different angle do you guys have here that maybe we're not looking at?

• 28:50Speaker 05

  The fact that everybody in there is a human. We use Signal, we use Silent Circle, we had all the same thing. And people do get, and people have the same name. And as soon as I first saw that, we were on the gym talking about him. That looks like you're a normal person scrolling down on the phone and you click one wrong name and you don't realize there's two John Davises in your phone. That's what it looked like to me. Nobody said you checked it and you start communicating. I mean, we've launched out really detailed stuff on Signal chats. I mean, business stuff, I mean, all kinds of stuff. Things happen. I mean, there definitely been some checks and balances, some things need to be sanity checking that. But that's, that's real world. That's what they do. That's what everybody does. You have a, you have a group chat, you have a Signal thread, and I'm sure you're on them too, that if that thing gets leaked and the photos that you share with your old buddies, something you don't want out there. It's the same thing.

• 29:34Speaker 05

  It's just on a huge public scale now. That seems very normal to me, that someone messed up a Signal group chat.

• 29:42Patrick Bet-David?

  At that level?

• 29:44Speaker 05

  Well, no, you know, you shouldn't have it at that level, but at the end of the day, people are human. They're brand new into that job. They haven't done that job. I mean, he didn't have any experience doing that before. Like, how many people are in that? I don't know. I, I don't think it was malicious by any of those guys. I don't, most certainly don't think anybody would add a reporter into a Signal chat and start talking about business knowingly.

• 30:05Patrick Bet-David?

  No, for sure not knowingly. To me, it's more, you know, one, how it happened? Two, do I trust Signal? Three, if a mistake like that happens that could lead to something with the enemy finding out before we're doing something, that's massively problematic, right? And what should the punishments for something like this happen? Like, if that happened in Bud's, is there a high level of... Not Bud's, if that happens, you're sealed, you're out there, you're talking to each other, you accidentally add somebody else that gets leaked to the market. One, did it ever happen? And two, if it does, how do they handle that?

• 30:44Speaker 05

  I can't remember time for it actually happening, like an actual thing, you know? Business being leaked out to anybody?

• 30:51Speaker 06

  Nothing pre, always post.

• 30:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Nothing pre, always post?

• 30:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, nothing previously before something happened, but definitely after.

• 30:59Patrick Bet-David?

  What did you guys do? Like, when you're being added to group chat, like, was there... Especially nowadays, would they train you to say, anytime you're being added to this, first look at this, and look at that, and look at this? Because like right now, emails, for us, guy sends an email, one of our guys responds, this literally happened two weeks ago. That person wired a hundred thousand dollars to somebody that was fraud. This just happened to us, we just lost a hundred, we're never gonna get this hundred thousand dollars back. It's happened two weeks ago. Why? Here's the email, it looks like a legit email, change the password, they log in, boom, boom, boom, hundred K, out. Two or three weeks ago, this happened to us, right? So, these types of things happen, and you train. When you're getting an email, when somebody says this, actually check the email. Do you guys get trained on that? Or no, it's pure common sense, they leave it to you?

• 31:41Speaker 06

  You get trained on it, yeah, you get trained on it. And there's definitely been some occurrences where

• 31:47Speaker 06

  human error or malicious will happen, and then, pretty quick fix on the IT catches.

• 31:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Fired or not fired?

• 31:56Speaker 05

  Depending what it is, you definitely get fired.

• 31:58Patrick Bet-David?

  So, in a situation like this, somebody's getting fired?

• 32:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, something like that, heads are gonna roll.

• 32:03Patrick Bet-David?

  So, Mike Waltz, what you're saying is, Mike Waltz's favorite song on repeat right now is, "I'm only huuuuumen." He's listening to that, hoping he doesn't get fired, but, at that level, he might get fired.

• 32:17Speaker 05

  I'll date myself. It was probably 2011, 2012. It was either Silent Circle or Signal when it was first coming out and it was literally everybody sitting inside the team room. Everybody, because you can't bring your phones upstairs. Everybody get on stairs. We're all going to download Signal. That's going to be our new unclass or, you know, unclass chat for the whole group. So if we have to pass anything, movements, you know, training trips, whatever, we'll put it out on Signal. That way we get in real time. It's not just a, an Apple text communication. These guys have Android and Apple, all the other stuff. So, yeah, I mean, we transitioned over to Signal for a lot of the stuff. But, I mean, yeah, I mean, you have IT guys making sure everybody's above board. I mean, there's always issues with it. Who owns Signal? Who owns the backside? All that kind of stuff. It's

• 32:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you trust it? Do you guys trust it?

• 33:01Speaker 05

  I trust it for stuff that me and him are doing. I wouldn't trust it at that level.

• 33:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So what did they use now at that level?

• 33:08Speaker 05

  I'll be honest, I would have thought there was some proprietary thing that Elon Musk has come up with now, by now or something. The fact we're just downloading something off a, a regular app store on that level, kind of surprises me if I'm being honest.

• 33:18Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree with you, bro. I actually agree with you.

• 33:20Speaker 05

  But I also know a bunch of guys who were in the Beltway, senators, congressmen. That's how they normally communicate.

• 33:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 05

  They just have, you know, an unclass, we'll just call it unclass chat. Me and Cole are texting back and forth and we just do everything on Signal. That way it's, it's secure.

• 33:33Patrick Bet-David?

  So even you guys, when, you guys don't text each other? You Signal on everything?

• 33:36Speaker 05

  I mean, we normally text, but we all, I'd probably have 50 Signal chats. From the trainings we do, you know, SWAT teams we're going to go train, everything's on a Signal chat.

• 33:44Patrick Bet-David?

  So out of all of them, you trust Signal more than some of the other guys? Telegram, WhatsApp?

• 33:49Speaker 05

  Definitely more than WhatsApp.

• 33:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. Got it. So Signal's at the top for you. Okay. So for some people that don't know, what tours have you guys been on? They can share with, like you said earlier, Baghdad. But what, what other tours have you been on? What places have you guys served?

• 34:03Speaker 05

  Kind of all over. Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Middle East. Yeah. East Africa.

• 34:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Okay. So I got a list of topics. One of the ones that really, you know, up till today, I have a hard time with this to follow. I want to see what you guys are going to be saying about this. So do you remember where you were when we heard that Osama bin Laden was caught? You know, uh, he was killed. I think it was, uh, if I'm not mistaken, Robert O'Neill i- is, is the story that we always hear about. We've all seen the podcast. We've seen the stories. May 2nd, 2011. Uh, and then we hear the story that the body's being dumped in the middle of the ocean. Do you guys remember where you were at when that story was released?

• 34:41Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 34:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes, okay. So what do you think about when we are told that Osama bin Laden's body is dumped in the middle of the ocean at Northern Arabian Sea? Did you guys at all sit there and say, uh, it's kind of weird? Did you say, no, this is okay? Makes sense.

• 35:01Speaker 05

  At first glance, you would think it is weird. And then you think about the reality. Are we going to bring his body back to the US and do a John Dillinger where we post up photos of him? They're not going to do that. And if you do that, you end up making him a martyr even more and growing his following even more. Like, look what he sacrificed for the cause. Don't do that. Like, do you want a tombstone in the US? Do you want some, some new Mecca where all the other crazies kind of go to pay homage to him? I don't. I don't think that benefits anybody. So I think putting him in the ocean is exactly what they should have done.

• 35:33Speaker 06

  From my understanding too, um, based off of the religion, um, they have to be buried within 24 hours. So that was kind of, from my understanding, a respectful way to, you know, kind of honor his religion. Not saying they're honoring him, but just honoring and respecting the religion. But yeah, not, not having a grave, but since he was, he was moved out to that ship, burial at sea.

• 35:59Patrick Bet-David?

  So you know, when I, when I heard that, I'm like, it's a little weird. I'm, I'm questioning it. So I said, guys, why don't we do this? How many times, can you pull up chat GPT, right? How many times in the history of US have we dumped a body of the enemy in the middle of the ocean? Okay. How many times in the history of US have we dumped a body, an enemy's body in the middle of the ocean? In the ocean. Okay. So it's gotta be 50 times, 25 times, maybe 18 times, maybe twice. No, only once.

• 36:36Patrick Bet-David?

  And it's only Osama bin Laden. And we've had a lot of other bodies. Now then I sat there and I said, okay. Let's have some fun with this one here. Okay, in our family, we love the movie Transformers. It's a great movie, okay? And can you type in the Transformers where Megatron gets dumped in the middle of the ocean? Okay, which, which, uh. It's in 2007, okay? Where in 2007 film Transformers, Megatron's body along with the remains of other Decepticons was dumped into the Laurentian Abyss, a deep sea trench in an attempt to keep them dormant and prevent them from being revived. That's 2007, right?

• 37:18Patrick Bet-David?

  And then four years later, in May of 2011, we're dumping Osama bin Laden's body in the middle of the ocean, something we've never done before. Makes the average guy who kind of wants to question some of this stuff and say, yeah, yeah, it's a little strange because they could have buried the body in different places, but to do something like this, and we've killed a lot of different people in the history of America, but we've never done this before. Is there something that happened with the body? Is there something that we don't know? The timing of it's a little bit weird. I mean, if they were inspired by it, at least what I could say is whoever came up with the idea to put this story out there, I give them credit because they have good taste in movies. At least they like Transformers. You gotta respect that part of it, right? But, uh.

• 38:02Patrick Bet-David?

  For me, I'm still skeptical about this, right? When, you know, you guys were in the, you're in this world, you guys talk to each other. Uh, and, and based on what you're saying, you're saying it was a faith-based thing that they dumped it because that respect that of 24 hours. And you're saying it was a way for them to not give any more martyr bringing it back here. But what do you think about this comparison, the four years apart? I'm sure you seen Transformers one when Megatron's being dumped and we all watched Transformers one, of course, for the movie, definitely not for Megan Fox, but it was a very good movie. But what do you think about this?

• 38:34Speaker 05

  Coincidence.

• 38:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Coincidence?

• 38:36Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 38:36Speaker 06

  Nothing tying it.

• 38:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Nothing?

• 38:38Speaker 06

  Nothing.

• 38:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Zero?

• 38:39Speaker 06

  Zero.

• 38:40Patrick Bet-David?

  So you think his body's gone, he's dead, he's good? Do you guys have a relationship with Albert O'Neill? Like, are you guys friends or are you guys pals?

• 38:47Speaker 05

  He was my team leader.

• 38:48Patrick Bet-David?

  He was your team leader?

• 38:49Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 38:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. Were you guys involved in this? Or no, you were not on that mission at all?

• 38:54Speaker 05

  I was not.

• 38:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, got it.

• 38:55Speaker 06

  I was.

• 38:56Patrick Bet-David?

  You were?

• 38:56Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 38:57Patrick Bet-David?

  You were there?

• 38:57Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 38:58Patrick Bet-David?

  What was that like?

• 39:00Speaker 06

  I'll say my role, I really didn't do much. Um, I was there.

• 39:06Patrick Bet-David?

  There was four of you?

• 39:07Speaker 06

  No. No, I won't get into the specifics. Um, but I wasn't in the assault team, but I was a part of the team.

• 39:15Patrick Bet-David?

  So did you see a dead body?

• 39:17Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, so you did see a dead body?

• 39:19Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 39:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Was it in pieces?

• 39:21Speaker 06

  No.

• 39:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, but it's dead?

• 39:23Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you want to say anything else?

• 39:27Speaker 06

  No.

• 39:29Patrick Bet-David?

  The way you're talking is like so...

• 39:33Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 39:33Patrick Bet-David?

  But so...

• 39:34Speaker 06

  No, I've never said that on camera.

• 39:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 39:35Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 39:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 39:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. Yeah, because, uh...

• 39:42Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the... I mean, Robert's been very open about the whole story. When, you know, he goes through the whole thing and what happened. What is the process when that happens?

• 39:52Patrick Bet-David?

  What is the process? Is it, you take the body, you ship it back, you take it with you? What is the process at that time? If it's not like an explosion, a bomb explosion, where it's the bodies all over the place? You're not gonna go pick up body parts? When it's something that you see a shot, boom, done? What's the proper procedure there?

• 40:10Speaker 05

  Leave him.

• 40:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 40:13Speaker 05

  Leave him.

• 40:13Speaker 06

  I mean, they wanted to bring him back for a DNA test and confirmation.

• 40:17Speaker 05

  I mean, we used to take DNA swabs back in the day, depending on who it was, depending on what they look like. I've never personally taken anybody off. I've never seen it.

• 40:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, how far is it from the place he was killed to where he was dumped in the middle of the ocean? Can you find out?

• 40:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Like, how far is that distance?

• 40:38Speaker 05

  I wonder how many US Navy sailors we've buried at sea?

• 40:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Two thousand five hundred and ninety-six kilometers.

• 40:49Speaker 06

  That is a good question.

• 40:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you check that, Rob? So how many Navy SEALs have we dumped?

• 40:56Speaker 05

  How many sailors?

• 40:57Patrick Bet-David?

  How many sailors?

• 40:58Speaker 06

  Service members?

• 40:59Speaker 05

  Yep, have been killed overseas and we buried them at sea because you can't get them back. Can't fly them off. Before, there were helicopters, before you could do all that.

• 41:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, but that was on land and then they dumped them in the middle of the ocean? That doesn't make you...

• 41:11Speaker 05

  Not a...

• 41:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, look, I mean, if there's some, if you're there and you saw him dead, you know.

• 41:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:16Patrick Bet-David?

  So no matter what we're saying, you know.

• 41:19Speaker 05

  Oh, I mean, if there's a question whether or not we actually killed him, there shouldn't be a question about that.

• 41:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  Yeah, there shouldn't be a question.

• 41:27Patrick Bet-David?

  But if there's a question about whether we still have the body or we dumped them, that could be a question because you weren't there for that.

• 41:34Speaker 06

  No, I wasn't there.

• 41:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 05

  I mean, I hope he's not in Area 51 with all the aliens.

• 41:39Speaker 06

  Hanging out with Biggie and Tupac.

• 41:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, just hanging out. He's in Vegas somewhere.

• 41:43Patrick Bet-David?

  That's a whole different conversation right there. Okay, so let me transition to the next story here. So what is this east coast, west coast Navy SEAL? You know, the, you know, the west coast SEALs are soft and the east coast SEALs are, you know, tougher and, you know, like the Biggie, the Tupac, the whole thing that's... Is that, is that a real thing, the east coast, west coast SEALs?

• 42:04Speaker 06

  It's a good camaraderie rivalry. Yeah. We were talking about earlier, you know, just being able to bullshit and have thick skin and not take stuff personal. I definitely would say that they're an amazing west coast team, guys. Some are just a little, little sense, a little thinner skin. So you can't, you can't joke with them how you would with the east coast guy. It's a much tighter knit on the east coast because it's not so spread out in San Diego. And so it's like we see each other kind of 24/7, really, same neighborhood, same, same kid's school. And he's shit talk.

• 42:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, like, on the east coast, there's nothing to do. Like in San Diego, you can do anywhere. You can mountain bike, you can go to Red Rocks, you can do Vegas, you can Scott, you can do whatever you want to. Virginia Beach, outside of being a Navy SEAL, there's not a whole lot of extracurricular things to do. And that means you just spend more team time. In my opinion, every time we go to the West Coast, like, hey, everybody want to grab a beer? They're gone. They live so far outside because it's so expensive. Virginia Beach, I mean, everybody's within 15 miles of each other. Every place you go to get your haircut, there's four or five guys in there. Every place you go to eat, you look around, you just know everybody. So it feels like you're in one big family. And I know a bunch of West Coast guys, and we have guys that worked with us now that have transitioned over to the East Coast, they say the same thing. They're like, man, everywhere you go, the boys are here. There's nowhere else to go.

• 43:18Speaker 05

  It's like, you really, you really feel like you're part of the team on the East Coast because there's nothing to distract you from it. Which isn't a good thing or a bad thing, it's just a thing.

• 43:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I just typed up, who are the most well-known West Coast SEALs, right? You got what, SEAL 1, 3, 5, and 7 that pops up. Chris Cow, who is no longer with us, I had his wife on a podcast, we had a great conversation together. Jaco Willink is a West Coast guy. He's done very well for himself in business.

• 43:48Speaker 05

  He started on the East Coast.

• 43:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Did he? So he started, so OG is East Coast, then he went to West Coast, better lifestyle.

• 43:53Speaker 05

  He was enlisted guy on the East Coast.

• 43:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you guys ever serve together?

• 43:56Speaker 05

  He served with my dad.

• 43:58Patrick Bet-David?

  He served with your dad?

• 43:58Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow. What was that like? The stories your pops would say about him?

• 44:02Speaker 05

  I mean, he was a new guy back in the day.

• 44:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, okay.

• 44:05Speaker 05

  I mean, which is ironic for me, because most of the guys, we went through training, mostly instructors I knew. Like, I grew up with them. Like, I remember when they were new guys, and now I'm, you know, now I'm getting my, I'm getting pushed in on the beach with these dudes that I've known in my whole life.

• 44:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was an instructor that maybe the rest of us would know?

• 44:20Speaker 05

  Nobody.

• 44:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, okay, got it. So it's not like some of the bigger podcasters, the business guys today. Okay, got it. Then it says David Goggins, okay, SEAL, he's a West Coast guy, okay? He's done well for himself, he's a podcaster speaking. I see Rob O'Neill, who was... He's a west coast guy. You're talking shit about your guy.

• 44:39Speaker 05

  I don't think he was a west coast guy. He was a team two with my dad.

• 44:42Patrick Bet-David?

  It says SEAL Team Six. It says SEAL Team Six. It says west coast.

• 44:45Speaker 06

  All evens are on the east coast.

• 44:47Patrick Bet-David?

  All evens are on the east coast?

• 44:49Speaker 06

  Odds are on the west.

• 44:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so then guess what? Chat GPT got it wrong.

• 44:52Speaker 05

  Exactly. Just like that.

• 44:54Patrick Bet-David?

  That's it, buddy. We can't trust this thing here right now. Okay, all right, so we got Marcus Luttrell. Is he a west coast guy or is he east coast guy?

• 45:02Speaker 05

  Hawaii guy, then west coast. Now he's living in Texas.

• 45:05Patrick Bet-David?

  What would you, so Hawaii, is Hawaii considered west coast, right? It's a nice place.

• 45:09Speaker 05

  That's about as far west coast you can go. That's about as far you can go, brother. You got Hawaiian t-shirts and Maggiore P I mustaches.

• 45:15Patrick Bet-David?

  So I see this last one here, Mikey Mansour.

• 45:17Speaker 05

  Mikey Mansour.

• 45:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Mikey Mansour. So who are the east coast guys?

• 45:22Speaker 05

  Nobody. Nobody knows anybody on the east coast.

• 45:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 45:27Speaker 05

  I don't know. Do you know anybody?

• 45:29Speaker 06

  Famous east coast guys.

• 45:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Who are the famous east coast guys? Now I'm just kinda curious.

• 45:34Speaker 05

  I'm gonna say Rob O'Neil.

• 45:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, by the way, the first one that comes out, this is funny.

• 45:37Speaker 06

  McRaven?

• 45:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you type in east coast guys and see what comes up? First one comes up is DJ Shipley.

• 45:41Speaker 06

  Oh, God.

• 45:43Patrick Bet-David?

  The second one comes up is Cole Fank.

• 45:47Speaker 06

  You preloaded that.

• 45:48Patrick Bet-David?

  So, did you type in east coast?

• 45:50Speaker 06

  I did.

• 45:51Patrick Bet-David?

  It's so funny. I typed in west coast and it came up. Rob O'Neil came up as a number six on my west coast. Number four on my west coast.

• 45:57Speaker 06

  Not Marcinco.

• 45:57Patrick Bet-David?

  So I see Matt Bissonnetti, Mark Owen, Eddie Gallagher, which I think we've done something with Eddie in the past before.

• 46:06Speaker 05

  Eddie was a west coast guy.

• 46:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Eddie was a west coast guy?

• 46:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, he actually trains with us now. He's a great dude.

• 46:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, wow, very cool. Yeah, Eddie's a, he really enjoyed my time with him. Son of a guy. So, so it's more of a fun part. It's not a, it's not, nothing, uh,

• 46:22Patrick Bet-David?

  just purely for shits and giggles. You guys talk this shit to each other.

• 46:25Speaker 05

  It's the exact same training, same workup cycle, same dude sitting around the same team room tables. It's just... Yeah, like east coast, west coast rap, just something to make fun of.

• 46:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me ask you this, so, you know, you hear some of the stuff that comes up where, and this is within every space. Happens to me all the time, guys make videos about, hey, let me tell you what Patrick did and how he made his money and what he did. It's a very normal thing. The moment you get more eyeballs, you're gonna get guys that are gonna be targeting and saying things about you. How, how competitive is it where sometimes, you know, the combative side, well, let me tell you, he doesn't really have the stories like I did. He didn't serve like I did, and this guy didn't like that, because we see that and we don't know that. How much of that happens in your world?

• 47:06Speaker 05

  Hey, what's going on, guys? DJ Shipley and Cole Fack from GBRAS Group. Want to talk to you real quick about Manak.

• 47:10Speaker 06

  Retired Navy SEALs, entrepreneurs, and co-founders of GBRAS Group.

• 47:14Speaker 05

  Cover everything from flat range shooting, mental health, mental resiliency, physical education, anything you guys really want to drop into. Search us on Manak, find us on there, and I'd love to connect with you guys.

• 47:24Speaker 06

  Look forward to hearing from you.

• 47:25Speaker 05

  Appreciate you, guys. We'll talk soon.

• 47:30Speaker 06

  We don't really get into it.

• 47:32Speaker 05

  Exactly. We don't play that game, but it happens a lot, especially now with veterans. It seems like a lot of veterans just attack each other all day long, and we just, you know, kind of made a silent oath that we were just never gonna do that. Like, we're never gonna hold anybody's hand under water. We're just trying to make everybody better than we are. And we say it quite a bit, like, if we're holding baseline, if we're holding the minimum standard and you're all better than us, we're on a super team.

• 47:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, if we're comparing who did what, or, you know, who's got the bigger dick, sorry, I have to edit that.

• 48:01Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, that, you just gotta...

• 48:03Speaker 06

  But, yeah, what we're doing now, it's like, it means a lot to us, and, you know, affecting people's lives and passing on the knowledge. Does shit talk what we did or didn't do or someone else did 10 years ago?

• 48:15Speaker 06

  Doesn't define any of us.

• 48:17Patrick Bet-David?

  I wonder how united, um, how united, because, you know, when, when I was part of this one insurance company,

• 48:25Patrick Bet-David?

  nearly half the company, they were Mormons. And they were so united. It was so amazing watching how united they were. And sometimes in a Christian community, you would see kind of Christians gonna take shots at each other. And obviously, of course, Mormons are an element of being Christians, but non-denominational.

• 48:41Patrick Bet-David?

  You would see Mormons, they were like this. And one day, this is when I realized these guys have issues. Uh, in a both positive way and a crazy way. One day a guy comes out, this lady says, "The best movie of all time just came out, the guy's gonna win an Oscar." I said, "Really, this guy's gonna win an Oscar, he's gonna win an Oscar." "Who is this guy?" "This movie came out called Napoleon Dynamite." I'm like, "Napoleon Dynamite?" "Yeah." "This may be the greatest movie I've ever seen in my life." She's saying this to me. And I'm a movie guy. So I said, "Listen, you better have credibility with movies, I'm gonna go watch this movie." I go watch this movie, "It's the worst movie I've seen in my life." And I'm like, I'm so, I come that back the next, I said, "Can I ask you, what was unique about this movie? This movie was horrible.

• 49:26Patrick Bet-David?

  What was so special about it?" "Oh, he's, what are you talking about? He's gonna win an Oscar." Later on that afternoon, somebody told me, "The main actor is a Mormon." I'm like, "Oh, okay, I got it, so you guys are supporting each other." I can respect that, you know, "Hey, this is the movie, this is that." So, is that the vibe in the SEALs? Is that kinda how it is with SEALs, where everybody kinda backs each other up and defends each other?

• 49:48Speaker 05

  I'll tell you what, when you're in, it most certainly feels like that, to a certain extent. You know, the brotherhood is real for a little bit, and I feel like, it ebbs and flows, some, some years it is so strong, my god, it feels like you can get through anything. And in some days, it really feels like it's unraveling. And I don't know if it's a cultural thing, if it's an age thing, a maturity thing. I think you saw the best of the teens at the height of the G1. And then, you know, I don't wanna say around the Obama administration, but kinda towards the tail end of the war, we start talking about pulling out, you really saw a cultural change. And some guys just really weren't on board with it.

• 50:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Interesting. So, uh, recruiting, when you guys were in, who was president when you were in?

• 50:30Speaker 05

  Bush.

• 50:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Bush, when you went in, and then Bush, Obama?

• 50:33Speaker 05

  Bush, Obama, Trump.

• 50:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Bush, Obama, Trump, so when did you, when did you TS? When did you get out?

• 50:38Speaker 05

  Uh, 2019.

• 50:40Patrick Bet-David?

  2019, so Bush, Obama, Trump. Was there a, in, I was an E4, so for us, it was just, I'm a regular enlisted guy. You know, I was in when you, some guys you see how they feel about the president, "Well, he's there, he supports us, he's this, he's that." And you see recruiting going up and down and all this other stuff, and sometimes you see raises being given, I think at one point under Obama, like the enlisted got a raise of 1% over like four, five, six years, there wasn't a big raise that was being given. But for you guys, specific to SEALs, are you, do you care who's president? Does it impact you at all? Or because of the unique position you guys are at, where there's only a few of you, Obama, you know, president, left, right, center, doesn't matter, we have a mission,

• 51:23Patrick Bet-David?

  we're gonna go get our job, and we're not affected by the president? Is that kinda how it is with SEALs?

• 51:29Speaker 05

  Your political views do not matter whatsoever. I don't care if you're Republican or a Democrat, as long as you're not trying to use the military as like a social experiment, or trying to decrease funding, that's really where it gets us upset, because the job and a threat don't ever change. But now, you look at pilots, now they're chopping flight hours, you're not as good as you were five years ago. Do you still need to be as good as you were five years? Absolutely, the threat doesn't change. So when you see that, it really does take the wind out of your sails a lot, because you're sacrificing everything for this one thing. You're like, "We need more money, we need more manpower, we need this," and you're not getting the support, and the mission set doesn't change. But no, I mean, that is the one thing, I call it, echoes the same thing, I know it. I hate when people badmouth the president. I don't care if you're Republican or a Democrat, that is a dude sitting at the pinnacle of

• 52:13Speaker 05

  the greatest country in the world, and if you are not supporting him right now, what are you doing? Just stop. I never heard anybody in that team room ever talk bad about the president, no matter who was in it, never.

• 52:24Patrick Bet-David?

  I love that, and there was Democrats and Republicans.

• 52:26Speaker 05

  Yeah. Everybody's really, really diverse, and at the end of the day, the only thing you can control are the guys inside of this room. That's it. Anything external to that, you're never gonna meet him, you're never gonna have a chance to bend his ear, break his will, so it doesn't matter, you can't change the outcome, you can only control what you can control, and that's the only thing you focus on. Focus on the team right now.

• 52:45Patrick Bet-David?

  So, does it, at that level, so, you know, you know the saying of, "I'm willing to run through the wall for XYZ," right? Is it a, did you have a leader in, when you were a SEAL, where you said, "I'll run through the wall for this guy"? Did you have somebody that you worked with, did you have, who would that name be?

• 53:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Who would that person be for you?

• 53:13Speaker 05

  My first introduction was probably Barrett Johnson. He was our third platoon chief. So me and Cole did three deployments to Iraq, back to back to back. And my third platoon chief came over from development group with him and it was like the second coming of Christ. When he cleared that threshold, man, I got goosebumps. I got super emotional. I didn't even shake his hand. I wrapped my arms around his neck. Like, I've been waiting for you for eight years, dude.

• 53:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Why? What made him so special?

• 53:35Speaker 05

  He was everything you ever wanted to see. Looked a part, acted a part, he got in the flat range, outshot everybody. When he did CQB, it was the best you've ever seen. His jumping was better than everybody else. He held the standard. When you saw it, it was like watching Kobe Bryant on the court. You're like, my God, you have every reason to let your foot off the gas and you haven't for 20 years. How long can you maintain this? The entire time. He never let his foot off the gas and it showed everybody who's 19, 20 years old, like, you can achieve mastery in this sport if you just keep going. And he did it, man. I wore, to this day, I'd do anything for that guy. Anything. I've had phenomenal leaders. That dude was my first taste of seeing what a pro is and it changed my entire existence.

• 54:14Speaker 06

  He really raised the bar and he provided resources and skills and training for the, for the entire team to, to meet that bar and, and really raised kind of that performance elevation, culture, environment.

• 54:26Patrick Bet-David?

  What was his name? Barrett Johnson?

• 54:28Speaker 05

  Barrett Johnson.

• 54:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Barrett Johnson. Is he, is he a known guy or no? Like, the average person doesn't know who he is?

• 54:34Speaker 05

  No. No, you'd never find this guy. I mean, he's got a historic past. I'd love to be able to sit down to an interview with him. His mindset changed everything.

• 54:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that him?

• 54:43Speaker 05

  That is him.

• 54:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you zoom in on the picture, Rob? Is he a big boy?

• 54:48Speaker 05

  Uh, probably my height, yeah. 5'10", 180 pounds, just.

• 54:56Patrick Bet-David?

  What was his, what was the style of leadership when conflicts would come up? Like, was it, was he more of a guy that he led by example? Or was he the one that could get you to do things that others couldn't get you to do?

• 55:08Speaker 05

  He led by example, but he was one of those guys that, I mean, he really embodied, I'm never going to ask you to do anything I haven't done. I'm not currently doing or I'm not willing to do. And then he did it. Okay, like you walk into the gym, he's in there before you. He leaves after you. You go to the range, he's already been there. All right, this guy sees the importance of this because a lot of times, if you don't have that example, you kind of adopt a nine to five mentality. Like I show up, I do training with everybody else.

• 55:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Even in the SEALs.

• 55:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, like, it's a normal, it's a normal job. I mean, you wake up 5:00 AM, you're doing fitness, you're lifting, you're fighting, you're training, you're eating, training, eating, going home, rinse and repeat every single day over and over. Well, there's guys that show up earlier and they stay later and they do more polishing and on the weekends they're training, they're messing around with kit, they're developing new tactics, new procedures, just trying to make the overall collective better. And I thought he just did it better than anybody else.

• 55:56Speaker 06

  I mean, you really had a sense and feeling that he had your back. Like, no one was going to come between him and us and the team. Even if we made mistakes and failed, obviously he held us accountable, but it was very much coaching and making us better and grow.

• 56:09Patrick Bet-David?

  What, what does he do now? Can you pull up his LinkedIn profile? I'm curious.

• 56:14Speaker 05

  I'm sure he's doing some consulting now. I was texting him the other week, but.

• 56:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Go a little bit lower to see what is his most recent, okay, so program manager, Taloom, Director of K-9 Operations because contract, independent contract, go a little bit lower. He doesn't even put his military stuff probably there. Go a little bit lower.

• 56:32Speaker 05

  Probably not.

• 56:33Patrick Bet-David?

  No, he's not going to put his stuff there. Wow.

• 56:36Speaker 05

  Yeah, so he was doing guided hunts for a little bit. That's what the hunt is. Yeah, there it is.

• 56:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Senior chief, 22 years.

• 56:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, he was at, he was at Team Two with my dad, too.

• 56:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow. Wow.

• 56:51Speaker 05

  It's kind of cool, just full circle.

• 56:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, is, is in, in, is the, do you feel the loyalty is whatever he says I do? Or is it more president? Commander in chief, man, I'm willing to run through the wall for this president. Now I'm willing to run through the wall by chief. It's more chief?

• 57:08Speaker 05

  Chief.

• 57:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, because it's the day to day guy.

• 57:11Speaker 05

  It is. At the end of the day, when you're out there alone, your political views don't matter, your religious views don't matter.

• 57:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you guys watch politics when you're out there? Do you, because when I would talk to my friend who went to Delta, you know, he would say, we would watch the news and we would say, why are they lying? That's not what's happening. We're here right now. Did you, did you guys watch the news at all? You're like, no, we're not from there.

• 57:33Speaker 06

  Nah, not really. We watch a lot of episodes.

• 57:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Watch a lot of episodes?

• 57:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 57:37Speaker 05

  TV.

• 57:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Really? Yeah. Not politics and news at all?

• 57:41Speaker 05

  No.

• 57:41Patrick Bet-David?

  What did you think about people that were, you know, telling the news or they're working for CNN or Fox or MSNBC or NBC? Did you have an opinion of them? You're like, nah, it's just, we mind our own business.

• 57:52Speaker 05

  Did you see if what it is, you're trying to push an agenda? You know, a lot of you are trying to breed fear into people, trying to make it seem like it's something it's not. Yeah, I mean, you're over there on the ground, you're watching it on TV in real time. Okay. And then your parents start calling you, wife start, I'm seeing this on the news, what's happening? None of that's actually happening.

• 58:10Patrick Bet-David?

  So, you know, one of the ambassadors, I don't know who it was, Rob, that was here yesterday, trying to negotiate on behalf of Russia, Ukraine, all the deals that's going on behind closed doors. And, you know, the peace deal, you know, Zelensky, all that, he's in town, I think he's in DC yesterday. I don't know what his name is, but Tony knows who it is if you want to text him. Actually, just go to news, type in Russia-US peace treaty. That's not, that's not the guy. Russia-US peace treaty, DC, type in DC. Yeah, let's see, and then go to news, zoom in. Seriously? Okay, just have him text it to you for you to know. So during the 17 years you guys were in,

• 58:54Patrick Bet-David?

  was there ever a moment where you guys were so deep that you had intel, where we were this close to possibility of a world war, something really nasty? Was it ever a point where it was so close that if this thing happens and this triggers this, we could be in a world war three overnight? Was there ever a moment like that in your 17 years?

• 59:16Speaker 00

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• 1:00:07Speaker 05

  There were a couple scenarios under the Trump administration, right before I retired, we were spinning up to do a couple of things that if they would have went, potentially, potentially, and I'll be honest, Trump canked us when we were on the ramp getting ready to go. He solved it, however he does, whatever he does, he called and literally stopped us on a ramp.

• 1:00:29Patrick Bet-David?

  You vividly remember that?

• 1:00:30Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. I mean, we spun up to go, we were gonna go do the thing and got in midair and got ready to do the whole process and we got canceled and spun around and came back home.

• 1:00:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so this has gotta be 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, this is that time?

• 1:00:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:49Patrick Bet-David?

  And if this were to happen?

• 1:00:51Speaker 05

  I mean, potentially, I mean, could have been an active engagement with a bunch of Russians, could have been dicey, you just never know.

• 1:01:00Patrick Bet-David?

  So you're on the ramp, you're ready to go, everybody's, you know, strapped, you boom, get the phone call, nope, it's quarter, we're not going on it.

• 1:01:09Speaker 05

  Huge letdown, huge letdown.

• 1:01:12Patrick Bet-David?

  You wanted it.

• 1:01:13Speaker 05

  Oh, I mean, everybody wants, everybody wants to go. And you start to think about the ramifications, like, what if this goes south? What if this does spike off the whole thing and now we're stuck here, we can't get back home? What if it, what if it does go nuclear? Now, everybody's back home and we're stuck here in the middle of nowhere. I mean, it gets dicey.

• 1:01:29Patrick Bet-David?

  But, but is, is it like, okay, so, yeah, let me ask a question, different way, is, is it like, you ever seen, you've seen the movie Hurt Locker, I don't know if you, with, what's his name, who's in, he's phenomenal?

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  Jeremy Renner?

• 1:01:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Jeremy Renner, Renner, some name like that, right? What's his name? Jeremy Renner. Renner, I'm sorry, Jeremy Renner, yeah, phenomenal actor. And you watch him just go up and he shows almost the addiction with the adrenaline and the life on how close, you're always on the edge and he always wants to go back, every time he comes back, he's around his wife, he's like, he just wants to go back and doesn't know how to be a father. Is it like you're, you're always itching for something to be a part of, like, give me the next mission for me to go on?

• 1:02:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, and what Jeremy Renner does in that movie is he's operating on switches and not dials. He's flipped it, he fell in love with it, he gets a taste of the adrenaline, you can't get it out of your system now, now you just chase it. We call it chasing the dragon. You can chase it the entire time. Be careful what you wish for. You'll eventually find it. But a lot of times they spend their entire career chasing the one thing and they never stopped them. You don't enjoy it.

• 1:02:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Was this mission to take somebody out?

• 1:02:42Speaker 05

  I can't get into all the specifics, but yeah, I mean, it was a a lot of people going through international waters that shouldn't have been. Potentially possibly carrying some stuff they shouldn't have been. And we were going to intervene. And he solved it.

• 1:02:57Speaker 05

  Which is a good thing and a bad thing because you want to go to work. You want to do the thing.

• 1:03:00Patrick Bet-David?

  The way it was presented that was solved. Was it like, yeah, I made a phone call. I spoke to him. Did he publicly say how he solved it or no? This was all behind. So this is not even anything that publicly has been disclosed.

• 1:03:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, we don't even get a phone call. Just they literally turn around like can't get going back home.

• 1:03:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Was Barrett your, was, was he your commander at the, the chief at the, okay, no. So he got out in 2024, no. 92 is to 2014. So no, he wouldn't have been in. I thought it was 92 to 2014, 22 years and a month, I think. Yeah, he would, he wouldn't have been in. He got a 2014, 22 years and a month. Yeah. So, okay, interesting. So

• 1:03:41Patrick Bet-David?

  today, what we're seeing right now, right? You, and maybe let me go while we're still on that topic there. Qassem Soleimani. Do you guys remember Qassem Soleimani? And when that, that happened, that was a were you guys part of that at all or no? Do you guys know a friend? Okay. So you obviously have peers that were part of this, who were on this mission. This was a crazy one. No? I mean, this was a January 3rd, 2020, we take out Qassem Soleimani, who is the guy who manages all the you know, Islamic Revolutionary Guard. He's the guy that's dealing with all the proxies. He's the guy that's dealing with Houthis, with Hezbollah, with all those things. And he could potentially be the guy that's running Iran.

• 1:04:29Patrick Bet-David?

  When this happened, were you guys like, holy shit? This could turn into something? Or was it like, okay, this is a statement. Knock it off. Stop. Don't do anything. And if you do, this is what the US is capable of doing.

• 1:04:45Speaker 05

  I see that as like a show of force. Like how committed we are. How far you're willing to go for the whole thing. No different than, you know, the Israelis after Black September. I don't care if it takes a decade. We're gonna go the entire way. And I think we've shown that as a country, a lot. Take us 10 years, 20 years, we're gonna keep going the entire way just because we said we would. Then it's what it is. You can go wherever you want. You can hide as much as you want. Your tradecraft can be phenomenal. We just have people that are gonna sit in this room all day long, do nothing but hunt you. And we'll find you. It's a superpower.

• 1:05:18Patrick Bet-David?

  That we have.

• 1:05:19Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. And you have people that just sit in a room all day long, do nothing but just pick you apart. They'll unravel your entire existence right now. It's all they do. And there's endless manpower of them.

• 1:05:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Us. US.

• 1:05:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, anybody, we have to go after any target we have. I mean, there's just, there's people, that's all they do.

• 1:05:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so let me, let me ask you this question. So, uh, uh, you know, I lived in Iran almost 11 years. So I, I was born in 78. We left July 15th of 89. Went to Germany out of a refugee camp, and then we came here. So, but I'm in, I lived there, so I know the environment, the climate, how, how it is. And when you're in business, you have enemies. You have a lot of competitors. And you have to know whose threats are real threats and whose threats are just, you know, hot air. I'm gonna do this to you. They're gonna do nothing. But if that guy says, I'm gonna do something, you're like, hey, listen, we have to pay attention to this. You guys sit there all day, watch tape of who the enemies are.

• 1:06:19Patrick Bet-David?

  You study Iran, you study, you know, uh, what happened with Yemen, you study what happened with, you know, Gaddafi, or, or Saddam Hussein, or Putin, or all that. That's the business model. I'm assuming, I'm just speculating, I'm not in it, that's your world. And do you guys talk about, yeah, those guys are not gonna do nothing to us. Their threats mean nothing. And, or to say, no, when that guy says that, listen, we have to really be ready that they're capable of doing something. How did you guys, 17 years, you're tier one, how do you view when Iran makes threats?

• 1:06:56Speaker 05

  For me personally, I look at it just like Osama bin Laden. Threatened it for a long time, said he was gonna attack the homeland and didn't take it serious. And I think after that, you gotta take every threat serious. You just have to. Especially now with open borders. There's so many people pouring in this country and if they wanna spin it on and turn it on, they can really, really fast. So I think now, after nine eleven, I think everybody is taking every threat serious. At least you should, because they proved it. I mean, we've had to adopt a lot of cultural changes since nine eleven. For the good, I think it's made us better overall. Now, I mean, you can't look at guys like that and just, oh, he won't do that. Well, we've already said that before. We said that multiple times. We said that as long as I can remember. We said that through World War II. We said it with Japanese. We said it with everybody. Oh, they won't do

• 1:07:41Speaker 05

  that. Yeah, they did. Yes, they did. They drove, they flew his plane straight over here, crashed him in Pearl Harbor, and then kicked off the whole thing. They will. They will do that. Yeah.

• 1:07:51Patrick Bet-David?

  So don't underestimate the power of any threats.

• 1:07:55Speaker 05

  Especially not threats that have actual money and resources.

• 1:07:58Speaker 06

  I think after nine eleven, it was a complete switch. You can't just pass off threats. And the communication technology that's evolved across the world on intel, and I think there's different ways to defeat them, even if it's not a missile. But I don't think they're missing any of it now. I mean, they're catching everything, and they probably got AI involved as well. And, you know, part of the problem, from my understanding with nine eleven, is none of the intel were talking to each other. And now it's like all the intel's are talking to each other.

• 1:08:34Patrick Bet-David?

  All the intel's are talking to each other, so?

• 1:08:38Speaker 06

  Like all the different intelligence agencies, whoever's collecting and picking up.

• 1:08:44Patrick Bet-David?

  From different countries? Or, okay. So you're saying like a more of a united front of a CIA, Mossad, MI6 than it was before?

• 1:08:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:08:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Or you're saying more at your level?

• 1:08:56Speaker 06

  Definitely at our level. Definitely at our level than our inter-agency partners and all our allies, like our closest allies.

• 1:09:03Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what I'm saying. So, yeah.

• 1:09:04Speaker 06

  Yeah. We're all pointing in the exact same direction, which is the source of our strength, really, is how good our allies are and how much we really do support each other.

• 1:09:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. So when you say that, like you guys, you do you see Delta as a team? Do you see 18 Deltas as a team? Do you see Delta Force as a team? Do you guys see each other as equals? You do. So, okay. Was it more competitive pre 9/11? Where it was a little bit more lax and now it's like, listen, no one's gonna ever do a 9/11 again under our watch?

• 1:09:37Speaker 05

  It certainly fell into 90s. You know, I was in active duty in 90s, but I grew up in 90s. A lot of it was training. You deploy to Germany, you do interagency ops with Poland. All our, all your European counterparts, they deployed a, they do cold weather training in Alaska for six months. I mean, everything was just a big training mission, waiting for one big thing to pop. And now that it has popped and we've seen it, we've come so far tactically, technologically in the last 20, 25 years. But I think now we're in such a good spot to defend the nation. And now with our allies too. I mean, 9/11 was the worst thing that's ever happened to us, but in a lot of ways, if it wouldn't have happened, we'd be in a stone age still. I mean, we, you look at body armor, AI, just digital communications, everything that had to elevate and grow so fast.

• 1:10:22Speaker 05

  If we wouldn't have had 9/11, we wouldn't. We would have stayed the same way. And I look at it like, and this will sound messed up. But if you look at Black Hawk Down, October 3, 93. Look at the gear they're wearing and then look at when they stepped on the ground in Afghanistan. Not much change. Same body armor, same carbines, same helmets, nothing really changed because they didn't have a reason to evolve. Now you step, put on Afghanistan, like, oh my God, this is not the same. This is very, very different. Then you teleport that same crew in Iraq three years later. Oh, wow. Oh no, like these IEDs are a serious issue right now. They're detonating them 50 different ways. Like, we can't stay ahead of this. How are we gonna do it? Engineers attack this problem over and over and over. EOD, everything you come across, pump us the info. We've got to be able to solve this.

• 1:11:07Speaker 05

  And that's what they did. I mean, we think about it like, if we only would have hit Afghanistan, no Iraq. There are so many lessons we learned from Iraq that if we wouldn't have invaded, we wouldn't have had them. Like, we would not have evolved to where we are right now if we wouldn't have hit them both. I'm not saying we should have hit them both, but I'm saying the benefit of doing them, it really, I mean, the learning curve.

• 1:11:30Speaker 05

  Tactics, techniques, procedures, just everything, it really, really evolved during the height of the war and all our allies really benefited from it.

• 1:11:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me, let me ask you, so has, because technology's advanced on all levels, right? So the way they did nine eleven, you know, and now afterwards, like whoa, no, it's not gonna happen again, what, what, what did we make a mistake? Boom Communications, okay, great, so we knew, we had science, yes, we knew, okay, airport, who was able to get in? The enemy, their technology's advanced as much as us, our technology's advanced, right? Is it easier for the enemy to, the, the, the level of advancement to be able to conduct another nine eleven in a more creative way? Has that advanced more than our ability to prevent it from happening? What, what do you think has advanced more?

• 1:12:20Speaker 06

  I mean, I think with, with growing in technology threats, I'm not gonna say that you can't keep up with them. I mean, it's kinda like, I say hacking, you're, you're always like stepping up that code to, to protect your systems, but as technology evolves, you're always kinda playing that cat and mouse game of maybe the technology hasn't evolved as fast, but your defense is higher and kinda vice versa. But I think they're always evolving every year in the new threats.

• 1:12:46Speaker 05

  I mean, it's no different if, if you and me are both professional boxers, you're doing your training camp, I do a secret training camp with some ninjas and I'm just training in isolation, you have no idea, there's no training footage leaking, you have no idea what I'm doing, I step out, bell rings and I hit you with something you've never, ever seen before. Okay, now I have to go back to the drawing board, now everybody else sees that. I think a lot of this time, it sucks, but you're almost in a, you're almost in a defensive posture, like we've prepped for everything we know right now, we have contingencies for the unknowns and if they happen, this is how we're gonna, this is how we're gonna combat it.

• 1:13:18Patrick Bet-David?

  So which one are we though? Are we the one that's trained and improved without anybody seeing it or is that the enemy?

• 1:13:22Speaker 05

  Both.

• 1:13:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so that's, that's a little bit intense.

• 1:13:25Speaker 05

  It is, because, yeah, I mean, it's spy on spy, I mean, you're trained, you're perfecting, advancing as much as you can, but you have to do it in secrecy and that's where a lot of the general public, they wanna know everything you're doing. The Area 51's release all the documents, we wanna have full, open source to everything the military does, you can't do that. You shouldn't have any right to do that, because if you know it, everybody else knows it. Well, they're doing the exact same thing. Just a lot of time their tradecraft is better. Like they don't have cellphone communication. They just do it in straight isolation. They bring in all the parties from all the other countries and train them up on bomb making and all this other stuff. Now they're doing isolation. They're not putting out propaganda videos so you don't know how far ahead they are. You hear rumor mill.

• 1:14:05Patrick Bet-David?

  There's a community that said, hey, you know, Trump has forced four years when he was president, there was no wars, ISIS was gone, you know, a bunch of different progress that took place. And then Biden comes in, Ukraine, Russia, you know, you got Israel, Hamas, all these things that are taking place all over the place, not Trump is in. Day one, peace, you know, deal between Ukraine and Russia. Day one, we're gonna have Iran, Israel is gonna be done, that's not gonna happen, Hamas, boom, okay, great. Now it's a slightly different energy. If you do this, we're going to do this, okay? And you better release the hostages. They don't. You better release the hostages. They don't. You better release the hostages. They don't.

• 1:14:50Patrick Bet-David?

  What is your position? Because some are saying, I'm a fully anti-war. If Trump, I swear to God, if Trump goes out, then we go to war. I'll be the first one to come out and say that I make the biggest regret of my life ever to, you know, vote for Trump and I should have never done it. We cannot be going to war and we're getting closer to war. What's your position with that?

• 1:15:15Patrick Bet-David?

  He's putting it on you, Cole.

• 1:15:17Speaker 00

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• 1:15:58Speaker 02

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• 1:16:06Speaker 06

  I'll say the limited foreign policy that I somewhat know, you know, we've always helped fund our partners internationally to protect, whether it's just a partnership or there's a mutual benefit between those. And we've become kind of taken advantage of on that, on how we help support and fund those. And where their countries kind of just depend on us no matter what. I appreciate Trump's approach on kind of getting or trying to get those wars to stop. Understanding both sides of why they're angry, why they're

• 1:16:47Speaker 06

  fighting. I don't know the conversations that go on behind closed doors on how they get, Trump pushes them to get the treaties, but I think it's great. It would definitely be something different if we were attacked here and we were having to attack a different country. But really trying to minimize and stabilize the countries and environments. And I say, there's always a winner in war, but it's like no one's winning. I mean, both sides are losing people. So it's not strategic. And I mean, I think it's just good that he's able to try and create peace on those.

• 1:17:26Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think?

• 1:17:27Speaker 05

  I think if you haven't fought in a war, if you haven't given up your children to fight in a war, I don't really care about your opinion. And I know that sounds bad, but we've been doing this for a long time. And if I didn't think it was a worthy cause, I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't. And if Trump did a recall right now and I had to slap it all back on, I'd go. Because I think it's worth it. I watched him for four years avoid all these major conflicts. He is not one of those dudes, some war monger just trying to push. He's not. If he was, he would have done it. He had every reason to do it. The most powerful dude in the world. If you wanted to spend your first four years just laying hate and waste to everybody who ever did you wrong, he could have done it. He didn't do it. I watched him be really diplomatic and solve a lot of issues with just a phone call that I hadn't seen before.

• 1:18:14Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, my foreign policy is not as good as it probably should be. I mean, there's a lot of backdoor conversations that are happening. But at the end of the day, if you say you can't ever do that thing ever again, and they continue to do it, at what point are you gonna send it? Gonna go the entire way? That's where it gets dangerous. You call their bluff. If you don't release hostages, I'm doing X, Y, and Z. They don't release them.

• 1:18:34Speaker 05

  Well, now I've kind of painted us all in a corner, and that's where it gets kind of dicey. Well, you have to go now.

• 1:18:39Patrick Bet-David?

  You have to go.

• 1:18:40Speaker 05

  You have to go. And I don't know what he says on these phone calls to get them to change their mind. I have no idea, but it's working. I mean, he's done it successfully multiple times. I don't want us to go to war. I definitely don't want us to go to war with China, with Russia, with any of these people. But at a certain point, we cannot... You can't give them an inch. If you do, it'll take a mile. I think a lot of times, just like Cole said, I mean, we become the blanket of coverage and support for everyone else. And Ukraine's a perfect example. We have to fly over quite a few countries that are really close to Ukraine in order to give them support. And I feel like not a lot of other people are. Okay, we say that, like, well, if they take Ukraine, they're just gonna keep going. What are you guys gonna do about it?

• 1:19:26Speaker 05

  Like, I shouldn't have to fly from our country over all of your countries and land there and try to solve that for you. We should all be trying to solve it together. And I feel like we always have to be the big brother to step in first and kind of draw that line in the sand. And it puts a lot of people against us. And then it serves up a lot of hate and discontent inside of the own country. It just does. People don't want to go to war. They want to go to war. They see this, they see that. A lot of times, it's a lose-lose.

• 1:19:54Patrick Bet-David?

  When you're in it and they're given a mission, they're not explaining why. They're just saying, here's the mission, go. Right?

• 1:20:04Patrick Bet-David?

  For you, we're gonna go take out...

• 1:20:08Patrick Bet-David?

  That's Ansari money. We're gonna go take out, you know, you know Osama bin Laden. Does the chief, does the leader sit there and say, here's why we're doing it? Because of this, this, this, this, that, or no? Guys, get ready, we're leaving at, you know, eighteen hundred, boom, I'm leaving at this. Is that how it's communicated? Or do you guys ask the question, why are we doing this?

• 1:20:30Speaker 06

  They always provide an intel package and why. They go over it from start to finish. I mean, it's a complete picture. Everybody knows why. Every contingency.

• 1:20:40Patrick Bet-David?

  And then when they do say why, are there side conversations saying, I don't know why we're doing this, it's not even worth it? Or no, it's like, no, we're locked in, let's go.

• 1:20:49Speaker 06

  I think the side conversations are more on the logistics and the timing.

• 1:20:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 1:20:54Speaker 06

  That more environmental.

• 1:20:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. You said something earlier, you said, at times I felt like we were being used. What did you mean by that?

• 1:21:06Speaker 06

  You mean the US?

• 1:21:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you said, sometimes I feel like we're being used by other countries that...

• 1:21:11Speaker 06

  Yeah, that they're expecting we're always gonna step in and cover their back. We're gonna fund it, we're gonna support them. And there's no real thought of their internal defense system. It's always like, they're the little brother and they're like, I have my big brother and I know he's always gonna show up. And the day he doesn't,

• 1:21:36Speaker 06

  what's gonna happen?

• 1:21:38Speaker 06

  But I mean, I think, again, our resources, our technology are used genuinely in partnership, but some of the countries, I feel like, expect it. And they have no kind of responsibility almost.

• 1:21:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you talking, because you're talking kind of like Ukraine, is that...

• 1:21:57Speaker 06

  No, I have zero perspective on what their their perspective or expectations of with us, but if Russia's invading their country that... I mean, you had eighty, ninety year old grandmothers grabbing AKs to defend their house. I think we'd have the same if somebody, some other country was trying to invade us. Like, we're gonna protect where we live. And whether they're politically involved or not, have some political stance, or they have family in Russia, I think there are quite a few stories of, you know, families fighting each other on the Russian side in Ukraine. But it's like, I would one hundred percent defend my own. And I think that's what they're doing.

• 1:22:36Speaker 05

  I mean, do you think if, um, I'll just ask it over to you. Do you think if Trump was president, Russia would have invaded Ukraine?

• 1:22:43Patrick Bet-David?

  No.

• 1:22:43Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:22:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh-uh. Not at all.

• 1:22:46Speaker 05

  I don't think so either.

• 1:22:47Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't think so at all. Yeah, no, I think it, it, no, I don't think so now. Um, well, you kind of said it's not, the negotiation now, now he says, give me the hostage, give me the hostage, give me the hostage. You don't do anything. It's like Putin, when he's been said, if you guys do this, I have a nuclear weapon to use. If you got, because Putin's the last few years has threatened nuclear. He's gone straight up and said that, right? That's a pretty big threat. And you said, take every threat seriously, right? So, what I said a few times, I'm like, dude, you can't keep threatening and not doing anything.

• 1:23:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Either don't make the threat, or if you do, be ready that if they don't back down to your threat, you have to actually execute the threat. So, use your threats accordingly. You know, you, you, you don't want to be threatening every month. You lose the power of the threat. So, I, I feel like what happened with Putin, kind of, Trump's been put in that situation right now a little bit. With Hamas and the hostages and Israel, which, you know.

• 1:24:01Patrick Bet-David?

  The slippery slope, well, you said something, you said about the phone calls. You don't know what he says on the phone calls, but whatever he says, he gets them to do something. Who knows what those phone calls are about? Who would love to be on those phone calls, just to hear what he says?

• 1:24:12Speaker 05

  It'd break the internet. There's no telling what he's saying, but it's working.

• 1:24:16Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you imagine he says on these calls?

• 1:24:18Speaker 05

  I, I bet he's saying, I'm just going to play golf.

• 1:24:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you imagine like a purely a fun conversation? It's not even like a. Hey, listen, I swear to God, if you do anything, your golf memberships are done permanently. Never again. Mar-a-Lago, done. The meatballs will suck. We're going to give you two week old meatballs.

• 1:24:37Speaker 05

  He's doing something. He's saying something on that phone that is scaring him.

• 1:24:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Does a commander in chief like that make you want to fight for him? Cause you just said right now, if something happens, there's a recall, you're in, no problem.

• 1:24:47Speaker 06

  Hundred percent.

• 1:24:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Seriously?

• 1:24:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:50Patrick Bet-David?

  How old are you guys?

• 1:24:51Speaker 06

  Forty-one.

• 1:24:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, yeah, you still okay, yeah.

• 1:24:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Sick. I love that. I love that energy though. Like, we're ready. Look at you. You have a smile like this, the entire podcast.

• 1:25:02Speaker 06

  I'm just saying that.

• 1:25:04Speaker 05

  Bro, you stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready.

• 1:25:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, brother.

• 1:25:08Speaker 06

  I'll throw it on real quick, dude.

• 1:25:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Real quick.

• 1:25:11Speaker 06

  There's something special about fighting for America and our freedom.

• 1:25:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Tell me what that is.

• 1:25:17Speaker 06

  I mean, patriotism. Like, I don't have to know you. We don't have to have the same beliefs. But I love this country. I love the choices everybody gets. I love the freedom, the opportunity. I'll die for it today. Fighting for it. Absolutely. Our kids, our kids' kids, like, I want them to have the same choices, chances that we enjoy.

• 1:25:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Gotta love that, man. I'm in the army, first time, I'm like, I joined the army for the GI Bill, originally. None of my parents were from Iran, so it's not like I went because my dad was a 99 cent store cashier, so it's not like I'm going because of that. You go in, and I joined, uh, April 15th, give or take, whatever the dates were. I go to, um, uh, uh, what do you call it? Before you go to boot camp, that one week where you get the vaccination, the air gun vaccinations lined up, and you know, you get a scab, all that stuff, you go MEPS? Is it MEPS? I think it's MEPS. And you get to the unit, and then you're in boot camp, and then Memorial Day, whatever is end of May, Memorial Day. Yeah, so Memorial Day happens, and there's a ceremony.

• 1:26:21Patrick Bet-David?

  And I look at these guys who are decorated, uniform, everything, in tear stand, guys that are tough. And they're standing like this, and you just see tears. I'm like, whoa. I say, "Dro Sarn, what's going on over here? Do you know what those guys did? Do you know what that guy did? Do you know his story? Do you know what happened to him? These guys love their country." From that moment on, 4th of July came, because that's right after it. And you're just standing there, dude, this is... And then we go to our unit, 101st Airborne. I get there September of 97. Can you look, Rob, when Saving Private Ryan came out? They take us, they said, "There's a movie coming out about your unit. You guys get to watch it first." We go there, 600 of us in the unit. We watch Saving Private Ryan. What year did it? It's gotta be 97, 90. Okay, yeah, so, so that's so weird. So movie comes out in 97, 98. We see this movie in 97.

• 1:27:07Patrick Bet-David?

  And we watch this movie. This is about your unit. This is the 101st. It was done after that.

• 1:27:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:27:13Patrick Bet-David?

  That the pride of wearing that, you know, the badge and, you know. I, I, I got out because I wanted to get into business and I got one phone call. But it was a unique experience of having that pride and loving your country. Were you brainwashed a little bit? Probably, but I don't mind who's washing my brain. You know, sometimes you have to be asking yourself, because, you know, that can go many different ways. The negative side as well. Having the level of pride in your country, there's nothing like it. I don't know if we helped at the last four years. I don't know if the last four years, we sold America and our military the way that we typically do. You're seeing the recruiting numbers that are coming up right now, which is a beautiful thing. But I love seeing your level of patriotism. Pete Hex said, "Did you guys ever serve with him? Did you guys ever work with him?"

• 1:27:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:27:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Never, never had any interaction. How do you think he's doing?

• 1:28:04Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you think he's doing? Not his hair, because his hair looks good, okay?

• 1:28:06Speaker 05

  Hair looks great.

• 1:28:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Hair looks great. How do you think he's doing? Because when he got the job, you know, you know, out of nowhere, Pete Hex said, Pete Hex said, Pete Hex said. Given a big job like that, how do you think he's doing?

• 1:28:23Speaker 05

  I think right now it's pretty young, pretty new into it. I think he's going to develop right. I think he's surrounding himself with really good people. And I think the fact that he is down to earth, he is one of the boys. I just classify him as that, not a politician, not going to be bought, not going to be paid for. And I know a bunch of people that really, really know him. And they all classify him as a dude. He's a dude's dude. He's a good guy. He really cares and he is a fucking patriot. And I honestly, that's, that's what I want to be around. I want a dude that walks the walk, talks the talk, and really, really cares. And I think he really, really does. I think right now, I mean... All signs right now show me that he's gonna do a great job.

• 1:29:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you know, the, the, the, the, the idea of having moral authority where the guys are willing to say, this guy understands me. Sometimes a guy telling you what to do, you're like, you don't even know what we've done. Like, you don't even know our life to really appreciate and respect us. Like, I've been a sales guy my entire life. I understand the value of somebody that sells. It sucks. Gotta make the phone calls, gotta get rejected. You're gonna have days where you're not gonna make any money. You guys run a business, so you know what it's like when things are not going your way. Uh, how, how much does that matter when the guy that's gonna be at a level like this, especially nowadays, is younger, none of the woke stuff, has served before? How much does that matter to the guys that are now following his lead?

• 1:29:44Speaker 05

  Well, I'll be honest, I never had that opportunity. I would love to have that. A guy that's actually doing PT with you, a guy that comes out, you know, first month on a job, he's standards equal across the board. I'm sick of the social experience. We're done. If you can't do 15 pull-ups, you're out. I don't care if you're a male, a female, brown, white, black, Chinese, I don't care. If you can't meet the standard, you're not here. Thank God. Finally, somebody said it. I mean, outside of the Marine Corps, everybody basically lowered the standard. Everybody did. I'm so glad he brought it back. No more of that. It doesn't make us better. It doesn't.

• 1:30:15Patrick Bet-David?

  To, to do the DEI stuff that we were doing?

• 1:30:17Speaker 05

  No. Weeding the force does not help anybody. It doesn't. Lowering the standard. I mean, we pulled up one the other day. I have a, we had a world-class strength and conditioning coach, Vernon Griffiths. He's supposed to five days a week, been with him for seven years. He's the world's best. And we talked about it, just if you look at, in the 40s and 50s, high school gymnasium class, what they were doing. Rope climbs, every single person, the monkey bars, oh, of course, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, running, like, they don't even do a mile run in school anymore. The physical standard has dropped so far and there's no reason for it. Because now we have the best athletes that have ever lived. It's not a matter of nutrition, science, data, exercising. We have all the data here to make superhumans and for whatever reason, we just don't wanna do it.

• 1:31:02Speaker 05

  I'm not about that life. Everybody, in my opinion, everybody should be walking around looking like Dolph Lundgren off Rocky IV. Like, your physical presence matters. When you see guys go through a threshold, they should be the most intimidating people on the planet.

• 1:31:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, it's funny you're saying this. Do you remember the clip of John F. Kennedy when he was talking about fat kids? You ever seen that one where he, you've never seen this? You got it. Rob, can you pull this up? This is John F. Kennedy talking about, "Nothing more unfortunate than fat children." Uh, and this was a speech. When did he give this speech? Rob, I'm gonna send it to you. Uh, there's two of them. I send you the first one and the second one. If you can pull up the second one that I just, uh, is this, uh?

• 1:31:42Speaker 02

  This is the first. Give me one second. I'll get this.

• 1:31:43Patrick Bet-David?

  This is him on-

• 1:31:44Speaker 05

  You are so fast on that computer. God, I need one of you.

• 1:31:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Genius. Rob is, uh, very quick with this. But the other one, Rob, that if you pull up, this one's 23 seconds. Watch this here. Go for it.

• 1:31:55Speaker 05

  Hey, what's going on, guys? DJ Shipley and Cole Factor from GBRAS Group. Want to talk to you real quick about Manak.

• 1:32:00Speaker 06

  Retired Navy SEALs, entrepreneurs, and co-founders of GBRAS Group.

• 1:32:04Speaker 05

  Cover everything from flat-range shooting, mental health, mental resiliency, physical education, anything you guys really want to drop into. Search us on Manak. Find us on there and love to connect with you guys.

• 1:32:14Speaker 06

  Look forward to hearing from you.

• 1:32:15Speaker 05

  Appreciate you, guys. We'll talk soon.

• 1:32:22Speaker 01

  There is nothing, uh, I think, uh, more unfortunate than to have, uh, soft, chubby, fat-looking children who go to, uh, watch, uh, their school play basketball every Saturday and regard that as their week's exercise. I hope that all of you will join and everybody in the United States to make sure that our children participate fully in a vigorous and adventurous life, which is possible for them in this very rich country of ours.

• 1:32:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you imagine saying that two years ago? Fat children, chubby fat children, offensive, you know? Uh, is this continuing of that, Rob?

• 1:32:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is, uh, the longer clip. It's about three minutes.

• 1:33:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Let, let me just, let's just hear the first minute, Rob. Fast forward if you could a little bit when he starts talking. Go for it.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  To speak to the people of America-

• 1:33:11Speaker 07

  about a subject which I believe to be most important and that is the subject of physical fitness and I speak not only as president of the but also as a parent of two children who I hope will grow up with those qualities of vigor and energy which we identify with the best of America. This should be a matter of concern to us all. A country is as strong really as its citizens and I think that mental and physical health, mental and physical vigor go hand in hand.

• 1:33:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Vigor.

• 1:33:44Speaker 07

  I hope that we will not find a day in the United States when all of us are spectators except for a few who are out on the field. I hope all Americans will be on the field. They will concern themselves with the education of their children, with the physical development of their children, with the participation in the vigorous life and then also as their children get older inculcating to them a desire to maintain that vigor through their normal life. Our citizens are living longer and we want them to participate fully in that longer life but they can only do so if they give some of their time and some of their effort to maintaining that vitality.

• 1:34:27Patrick Bet-David?

  You can pause it. Gotta love this. How do we get to a point where now, you know, we are where we are with physical fitness? How does that happen?

• 1:34:36Speaker 06

  Entitlement, no accountability.

• 1:34:39Speaker 05

  Low in the standard.

• 1:34:40Speaker 06

  I mean, we've been saying this for a couple of years, there are too many kids that never got punched in the face on the playground that have now grown up and become adults, getting trophies for losing, everybody gets a trophy, not working for anything, expecting everything and now it's spilling over to the kids. The parents are offended. You can't say that to my kid. I'm not sure exactly how old you are. I know you're older than us, but it's like how we grew up was like, there weren't always here, take this medicine. You're bouncing off the wall like you were held accountable. Schools dealt with you. They weren't just like, oh, he's their problem. Like they can't be here. And the schools had become softer.

• 1:35:23Patrick Bet-David?

  There's no question about it. I mean, you get kids that get suspended or not allowed to go to school, annual trips because they were play fighting with the kids, boys specifically. You want this boy to be a man, but you're making him soft. What are you doing? Sometimes this happens that, you know,

• 1:35:39Patrick Bet-David?

  private schools and the challenge with that is, you know, is, man, I read something about how boys used to be raised by men and a lot of times now there's teachers, most of them are, you know, purely through professions. It's a lot of them are women. So, the way they raise boys is the way they would raise girls and they think they're doing a good job, but they're making them softer. And how do you balance that out? It's a very complicated situation where we've been in this for a long time. To change this is going to take a minute. It's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a minute. It's going to be the involvement of fathers being there to, you know,

• 1:36:21Patrick Bet-David?

  shape them up and challenge them and let them know, hey, this is normal. This is what life looks like. You're going to get punched in the face. Sometimes it's going to suck at times. Trust me in business, you get punched in the face every day and you don't have a choice. Sometimes you get punched in other places where your voice changes. So you've got to be braced for impact when you're getting kicked. But yeah, no, I'm with you there when it comes down to that. But it's funny that John F. Kennedy gave that speech. John F. Kennedy, imagine you're like a job. Is them, the John F. Kennedy was a Democrat giving a speech that direct, your kids are chubby and fat. Get your act together, parents. What are you feeding them? I can see Trump giving a speech like that. Okay, very easily. Okay, let me go to the next story here. So,

• 1:37:04Patrick Bet-David?

  PMCs, right? We've had Eric Prince on a couple of times, private military contractors, and we've had that conversation with them. It's almost as if movies are portraying what's going to happen in 20 to 40 years. Okay. And you watch them, you're like,

• 1:37:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I don't know. Maybe. Seriously? That'd be crazy. It's no longer crazy. It's not crazy. It's normal. Yeah, a movie thirty years ago, that was crazy. Wow, even I said that was crazy. Now I've accepted it as the norm. Huh. So, let me, let me kind of take this in a different. So I'm watching Iron Man one and two. We're going through it, the whole, we had Terrence Howard the other day on the podcast. So we went through watching Iron Man one because he's in it. So now Dylan is like, that I want to watch Iron Man two. So we're watching Iron Man two. In Iron Man two, whoever's the Mitch McConnell role or the Chuck Schumer role is asking Robert Downey Jr.

• 1:38:06Patrick Bet-David?

  to give up the Iron Man robot to the government. He says, I'm not going to be doing that. He says, look what Iran is doing. He shows this clip, the robots that they're building in Iran. And look what Russia's building. And look what this is building. Showing the fact that everybody is building their own form of a superhuman Iron Man machine that you get to use, fly, travel, all this other stuff, right? Okay. And then this guy's a billionaire. He's very wealthy. He has the ability to build this stuff. He's super smart. He's super brilliant. And then you bring it to today. Elon Musk has given a speech about robots. And Rob, if you can pull up the speech, he says, you know, in, in the next ten, twenty years, the average person is going to be able to buy robots for twenty or thirty thousand dollars. And I believe there's going to be, you know,

• 1:38:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Tesla's going to have ten or twenty percent of the robot market. Okay, he's talking about. When you're sitting there and, and processing future threats of military, I'm curious if this even happened or not. How much of the conversation is, uh, that's the one. Rob, if you can play that. No, you just added, Rob, the one right there. Yeah, play this clip if you could. Is there an audio to it? Oh, perfect. Go for it.

• 1:39:11Speaker 06

  And even the most optimistic estimates that I've seen for, for Optimus, the Optimus optimist. I think under, under account, the magnitude of, of what this robot will be able to do. You know, as I said at the beginning of the, of the presentation, I, you know, I agree.

• 1:39:39Patrick Bet-David?

  With the Ark Invest analysis that autonomous transport is called sort of a five to seven trillion dollar market cap situation. Optimus, I think, is a 25, literally 25 trillion dollar market cap situation.

• 1:39:58Speaker 00

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• 1:40:27Speaker 01

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• 1:40:39Speaker 02

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• 1:40:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, that's not it. There was another clip that says, there we go Tesla. It says there to be $30,000. Here it is. Is that the one? Yep. Play that clip, Rob.

• 1:40:59Patrick Bet-David?

  I think, I think everyone in the world is going to want one. Like literally everyone.

• 1:41:05Patrick Bet-David?

  And, and then there'll be obviously robots in industry.

• 1:41:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Making stuff and so, I mean, I, I think the ratio of humanoid robots to humans will probably be at least two to one. Something like that. One to one for sure. So which means like somewhere on the order of 10 billion humanoid robots.

• 1:41:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Maybe, maybe 20 or 30. And so then it's like, okay, well, let's say, you know, you kind of make, let's say the build rate is, I think the build rate will be probably something ultimately like a billion a year. Humanoid robots, like actually. A billion a year? And if Tesla just has a 10% share of that, and it might be. A lot more than 10%. And there's, you know, we make like 100 million Optimus units a year. I just, I mean, for reference, the auto industry is roughly 100 million vehicles per year. So that, you know, sort of similar ballpark, at least within an order of magnitude.

• 1:42:09Patrick Bet-David?

  And I, I, I think we could make one for a cost of maybe at, at, at really high scale of about $10,000. It's, it's, it's smaller, it'd be less expensive than a car. You can pause it right there. Okay, so check this out. 10,000. So for me, if I'm in the, if I'm the chief of, you know, put me as the, you know, sergeant major of the army, you know, sergeant major of whatever navy, whatever the, that position is, or the four-star general, whatever this is. Are my enemies to worry about officially governments that I have to worry about? Or do I have to worry about free-market billionaires that are soon to be trillionaires?

• 1:42:51Patrick Bet-David?

  They're gonna be able to have a million robots that they can build and deploy that how do we regulate them? What, what new threats are we gonna have five, 10, 15, 20 years from now? Where that could be taking place? Do you guys talk about that? And when you went for those 17 years, at what level were those conversations coming up? Or was no, it's just more here, here's what China's doing, here's what Russia's doing, here's what this is doing? What were those conversations like?

• 1:43:16Speaker 06

  I mean, I, I think the worst world war that ever happened be between AWS, Google, Apple. Like, we've seen it. Terminator.

• 1:43:27Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't think it's unrealistic at this point.

• 1:43:31Speaker 06

  For sure. With AI, the, the speed it's evolving. I mean, everybody will have one in their house, just like Alexa or, or whatever, Amazon kind of, it'll be in there, out of convenience. Do your laundry, pick your kids up, get groceries. They'll make it affordable. Own it for five, 10 years, lease it, buy it, get new models. It'll be a problem when they can't control them.

• 1:43:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, short wire, kill the dog, attack one of the kids, like you know. We've all seen the movie. I don't put a whole lot of faith in that, but I mean, that is a serious concern, though. I mean, he has an ungodly amount of money. And if he wanted to build an entire robot army and deploy it, he most certainly could. I mean, you see the same thing with some of the drone stuff now. They can throw out a couple thousand drones. Do these huge parades and all this stuff, all they can do is put a little bit of armament on them. It's a very hard thing to combat. And the robot stuff was scarce, but I mean, it never came up in conversation. The only thing we're trying to do is solve the human problem.

• 1:44:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Dude, I think it's about to change.

• 1:44:31Speaker 05

  So do I.

• 1:44:31Patrick Bet-David?

  I think it's about to change.

• 1:44:34Patrick Bet-David?

  And.

• 1:44:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, because to me, the PMC side, I kind of support, right? Because you need more competition, which is good. You, you need like private military contractors. Now, if the PMC is deploying business to our enemies and us, it's kind of weird. Conflict of interest. So then I have a problem with that. So you're sending eighty-eight former military, whatever, guys to help Russia and to help Ukraine and to help this. So then do you sign NDAs and say, we'll do this two-hundred-and-thirty-eight-million-dollar contract with you, but you can't do with my enemy, Russia, for the next three years? Is that kind of how the deals are going to get done? Hey, free market, we're selling cars, I'm going to sell robots. Guess what? Russia wants to buy a million robots from us.

• 1:45:20Patrick Bet-David?

  This person wants to buy two million robots from us. Now there's robots that travel, now there's robots that fly. Now one guy comes in, battery ends, drops, six people die.

• 1:45:30Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know. I, I don't know. I don't know, like, again, everything is about anticipating a future war. I wonder how much of us, I want to believe that our military is already ready for the 2045 war, not the 2025 war. I want to believe that. Do you believe we are working towards that? Or you guys are in it? What do you think?

• 1:45:54Speaker 05

  I mean, we're not in it anymore, but.

• 1:45:58Speaker 05

  They were always talking about the next reg line, always. Even when Iraq was brand new, they were always foreshadowing, always looking for the next obstacles that's going to come up. You know, if this happens, these two countries align, we'll be dealing with this. And you've got a lot of people in the US military that are just looking at future conflicts. I have no doubt they're trying to actively combat that, but that is not going to be an easy thing to crack, especially, I mean.

• 1:46:21Speaker 05

  People with ungodly amounts of money can just do kind of whatever they want to at a certain point. Yeah, if you don't hold them accountable, if you don't make them sign on dotted line like you cannot provide this tech to our adversaries. If they're not willing to do that, then I think you shouldn't be able to get support from this country.

• 1:46:36Speaker 06

  I mean Lockheed Martin, I think.

• 1:46:41Speaker 06

  Definitely didn't sell F-35s to Russia, but I know they sent sell them internationally. At least what Oracle said is they don't get our version. So they may look the same, but internally and how they're they perform, ours perform better. So if we sell or they sell F-35s to Thailand, it may look like the same F-35 we have, but ours is more capable.

• 1:47:04Patrick Bet-David?

  How certain are we of that?

• 1:47:06Speaker 06

  That's the trust we have in the government and the State Department and ITAR.

• 1:47:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, can you pull that up? Can you can you just search it and see?

• 1:47:13Speaker 05

  Gotta ask ChatGPT.

• 1:47:14Patrick Bet-David?

  If you said Lockheed Martin, right? If Lockheed Martin sells F-35s to us versus what country do we want to say?

• 1:47:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Russia? Nah, they don't sell to Russia versus who?

• 1:47:30Speaker 05

  Anybody.

• 1:47:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Give a country, anything versus?

• 1:47:34Speaker 06

  UK?

• 1:47:35Patrick Bet-David?

  UK. How different are the models or are they identical?

• 1:47:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Great question. F-35 is designed to be multi still not to remain a variant. There are notable differences between the Lockheed Martin sells to the US and the UK, especially. So the variants are three things. F-35 conventional takeoff CTO used by US Air Force F-35B, short takeoff, vertical landing. Used by US Marine Corps, UK Royal Navy and Air Force. F-35C carrier based version used by the US Navy. US models are F-35A Air Force, F-35B Marines, F-35C Navy. They are also receive top tier hardware, software, full access to mission data files, proprietary electronic warfare. Unrestricted access to source codes to deeper integration, full control over weapons.

• 1:48:27Patrick Bet-David?

  The UK models use excessively F-35 variant. Queen Elizabeth, it's the only tier one partner in F-35 program and has. Okay, can you ask the follow up question to say? Which countries does Lockheed Martin not sell F-35s to? Lockheed Martin.

• 1:48:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Not sell F-35s to, F-35s to, yeah. Let's see what it says.

• 1:48:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Actually curious now, like if the US government gets involved, Lockheed Martin does not sell F-35 to several countries primarily due to US exports, geopolitical concerns, lack of alignment. Countries not allowed. Russia, obvious conflict, China. Okay, good. Iran, North Korea, all four make sense. Syria, Cuba, makes sense. Venezuela, makes sense. Turkey, interesting. That's gotta be recent. Was a partner, but kicked out of the program in 2019 for purchasing the Russian S-400 missile system seen as a security risk to the F-35. Huh. Just six years ago. Countries not currently approved, but may express interest.

• 1:49:38Patrick Bet-David?

  India, Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, who is approved to buy NATO allies, close allies. So the NATO and then Japan, South Korea. See, that's, that's interesting to me, to have that kind of a system. To me, my question is not countries moving forward. Really isn't. I'm not, you get a guy who has all the money in the world and decides to build real weapons, and then the government tells him to do something, no.

• 1:50:08Patrick Bet-David?

  And then the government needs him for the products that he's producing. So they also don't want to do anything to him because reliability is on that guy as well. It's gonna be very interesting. The next 20 years are gonna be, potentially, many of these movies we watched the last 20 years. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:50:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:50:28Speaker 05

  It's sketchy. It's just, it's so much easier fighting a human. It just is. It's so much easier fighting a person than it is.

• 1:50:34Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what I'm saying, though. Like, for you guys, you're like, listen, if I fight a human, guess what? If you kill me, you beat us. You know what? Cool. But you going up against robots? We're talking about robots. Alan Iverson would say, we're talking about robots here? That's a very different situation.

• 1:50:55Speaker 05

  Just fight them on the water.

• 1:50:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Do what?

• 1:50:57Speaker 05

  Fight them on the water.

• 1:50:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Fight them on the water?

• 1:50:59Speaker 05

  Robots don't do good.

• 1:50:59Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you feel the safest? Like for you guys got families, like if you were to add a guy here, his name was, he's the only guy that we brought on the podcast back to back within a month. What was his name, Rob?

• 1:51:09Speaker 02

  Peter Pry.

• 1:51:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Peter Pry, do you guys know Peter Pry? This guy was the expert in EMPs and nuclear weapons, Peter Pry. We brought him two times in a month. It was so interesting and then second time around, we brought him, the guy ended up passing away months later. If you remember that it was such a tragic, suddenly all of a sudden we're like, wait, what happened? We just had to go on a podcast twice in a month. And I asked him, where do you feel the safest to live, to have your kids? You guys are military. If this is the direction that's going, you got kids, you got family, you have the resources. Where would you feel building something to feel the safest in case shit were to hit the fan? You got family, what do you do with your two girls?

• 1:51:49Speaker 05

  Move to Montana, get off the grid.

• 1:51:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, definitely move inland.

• 1:51:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Inland?

• 1:51:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:51:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, you're not there yet. You're not, you're not thinking about it yet.

• 1:51:59Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:52:00Speaker 05

  Now the business on the east coast can't leave it now.

• 1:52:03Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:52:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, kind of stuck there. I mean, in a perfect world, you'd be more inland.

• 1:52:06Patrick Bet-David?

  So in other words, what you're saying is maybe in the next five years, you're going to employ 200 robots. And they're going to be, yes, sir.

• 1:52:13Speaker 05

  Put them right on the ocean, just look outwards.

• 1:52:16Patrick Bet-David?

  I dare you to come in and do something here to us. Um, okay, so another question, okay? The, uh, um, when, when I was in Iran, you know, when we came here, they're talking about marijuana. They're talking about weed, you know, smoking weed and all this stuff. We would hear, you know, Teddyok. We would hear about, uh, opium, you know, uh, diff- opium and different things that guys would do, right? In Afghanistan or maybe any of these other places, how much was the drug epidemic? Was there a drug epidemic going on? The poppies, the protection of the poppies? Have you seen those pictures where the poppies are being protected? You want to pull up some of these pictures here? Were you guys ever around this? Were you guys ever seen any of this stuff?

• 1:53:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Why is this so important for us, the US military, to protect some of these places?

• 1:53:06Speaker 05

  It's how they make all their money.

• 1:53:09Speaker 05

  It's how they do it, it's how they fund everything.

• 1:53:10Speaker 06

  I mean, their number one export is that.

• 1:53:13Speaker 05

  And marijuana too, there are fields of it.

• 1:53:16Patrick Bet-David?

  In Afghanistan.

• 1:53:17Speaker 06

  They would burn bricks. Like, we would use wood for fires to stay warm. They burned bricks and marijuana to stay warm.

• 1:53:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Bricks of marijuana? That here you could sell it for god knows how much?

• 1:53:28Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, they're probably five-pound bricks. Easily. Yeah.

• 1:53:35Speaker 05

  And you got the guys chewing the cotton. Africa.

• 1:53:38Patrick Bet-David?

  What is that right there?

• 1:53:40Speaker 02

  That's a cannabis field in Afghanistan.

• 1:53:43Speaker 05

  Far as the eye can see. There's a bunch of really cool pictures. We didn't hit a bunch of those things. There's a ton of photos, like, green berets. Neck-deep in it, just armfuls of it, like, what are we doing? They're telling you to burn the entire field. Now, through kerosene, setting the whole thing on fire, just get upwind of it and send it.

• 1:54:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you ki... like, you're talking about second-hand high at the highest level if you're burning all this stuff? If you're angled properly with the wind coming your way?

• 1:54:08Speaker 05

  Yeah. Set it, set fire, get on a helicopter.

• 1:54:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, guys, snap over there, the wind is coming.

• 1:54:12Speaker 05

  Everybody's all blasted out. But yeah, I mean, like, that's what they have to do with it. That's how they make all their money. And they have endless supplies of it. That's how they're funding terrorism.

• 1:54:21Speaker 06

  I mean, I remember one time in Afghanistan, it blew my mind. They literally had drug rehab facilities there. For heroin.

• 1:54:27Patrick Bet-David?

  For us or for them?

• 1:54:29Speaker 06

  No, like, for them. In Afghanistan, you know, treat it like a drugstore. They just had a drug rehab place for heroin for Afghans. Blew my mind, I had no idea.

• 1:54:39Patrick Bet-David?

  What is the stat, Robert? Do we know any stats with the drug issues in Afghanistan, like?

• 1:54:49Speaker 05

  Oh, that's a good one. How much of the world's opium comes from Afghanistan?

• 1:55:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 1:55:01Speaker 05

  There you go buddy.

• 1:55:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Damn.

• 1:55:03Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:55:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Holy shit. Are you joking?

• 1:55:08Speaker 05

  Tell me, man, it's our national pastime.

• 1:55:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Ninety percent? Twenty twenty-two cultivation Afghanistan was estimated at two hundred thirty-three thousand hectares. Marking thirty-two percent increase from the previous year. However, the following the Taliban ban on opium cultivation, they pretend there was a significant reduction in production by twenty twenty-three. Opium cultivation has decreased by over ninety-five percent. That's a lot. It's a lot of money being lost despite ninety percent increase cultivation on the cultivation in twenty twenty-two. As a result of Afghanistan. Wow. Wh- wh- when you guys were there, would they ever try to bribe you? We made a video this week on blackmail. How blackmail is uh, one of the oldest currencies that a lot of people in power use. I mean, the whole Epstein stuff, you hear blackmail, all this stuff.

• 1:55:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Would they ever try to bribe you or win you guys over? The locals, when they see guys like you? No.

• 1:56:01Speaker 05

  You don't have a chance.

• 1:56:02Patrick Bet-David?

  No. Why not?

• 1:56:03Speaker 05

  Because there's no conversation.

• 1:56:04Speaker 06

  There's no conversation. We're not there. Us specifically are not there to have a conversation.

• 1:56:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Not the regular guys. I'm talking about specifically. Not at all. You come in to do a job and you're out.

• 1:56:14Speaker 05

  There's nothing you're gonna say to stop it now.

• 1:56:17Speaker 06

  Put your hands up, lay down, or...

• 1:56:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:56:19Patrick Bet-David?

  That's it.

• 1:56:20Speaker 06

  We can speak a universal language.

• 1:56:21Patrick Bet-David?

  How fa- how?

• 1:56:22Speaker 06

  It would be interesting to go over that when you talk about uh, the decrease of ninety-five percent of opium. Remember what else was kinda going on around there when we pulled out and China came in and made a deal with the Taliban? They're super rare earth mineral rich.

• 1:56:40Speaker 06

  It's just been impossible since there's a war been going on to be actually, actually be able to mine them.

• 1:56:45Speaker 05

  What is that rare?

• 1:56:46Speaker 06

  Um, it ties into electric vehicles and batteries.

• 1:56:49Speaker 05

  Like lithium or something?

• 1:56:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it lithium or is it uh, what's the other one? Not cobalt. Is it co- uh, uh?

• 1:56:56Speaker 06

  Might be a mixture, I'm not sure.

• 1:56:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Afghanistan estimated approximately 1.4 million minerals globally. But what specific, what specific rare earth element is it? Because if it's cobalt or?

• 1:57:12Speaker 00

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• 1:58:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Aircraft engines, always batteries, catalytic converters. Makes sense. By the way, I just looked it up here. In 2021, it was estimated that the opium related activities accounted for nine to 14% of the country's GDP.

• 1:58:40Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:58:41Patrick Bet-David?

  That is wild for them to have that going on. That's absolutely insane. Leaving Afghanistan, the way we left, okay? You know, that was obviously a big story here. I think it was, what was it? Was it May of 2020? May of 2020, I think it was. When, when was it when we left? What month was it when we left? Was it?

• 1:59:06Speaker 02

  Says August 30th of 2021 completed. The United States Armed Forces completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan on August 30th, 2021.

• 1:59:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh, okay. So we stipulated the fighting restrictions from US and Taliban and return Taliban's counterterrorism provided from withdrawal NATO from all Afghanistan by May 1st, 2021. Got it. So, okay. When this happened and you're seeing it everywhere, we're hearing about it. Your initial reaction on how big of a screw up this was?

• 1:59:39Speaker 05

  Kind of devastating, just devastating. You gotta think, most of the people that joined, think like the Pat Tillmans of the world, the people who just stopped everything they were doing to pick up arms and serve the nation, that's why you did it. I understand, well, I don't side with those people, the guys that didn't want to get involved with Iraq. I get it, you can't tell me the same thing for Afghanistan, you can't. But when we went there, I mean, me and Cole, I'll say we got stuck in Iraq for three rotations. I wanted to go to Afghanistan so bad I could taste it. I know he did too. It was like, that felt like that's where you're supposed to be.

• 2:00:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Why is that?

• 2:00:16Speaker 05

  Because you flew planes into the Trade Center, killed thousands of our people, that's why. It's like, we're going to get vengeance for nothing else. I'll be honest, I'm not there to liberate anybody. I'm only there to get even, that's it, it's the only reason I'm there. And then when you pull out, you think about all the people that sacrificed their lives for that entire war. That's the way you're gonna pull out? Like, we've already seen it before, we saw Vietnam, we've done this before, we should have done this much, much better. It made it just seem like all for nothing.

• 2:00:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, it disheartened me for sure.

• 2:00:50Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was tough to watch. I mean, it felt like there was no respect for the people that had paid their lives,

• 2:00:58Speaker 06

  the US lives, and fighting there and being dedicated. It felt like, I know a lot of families that lost loved ones, brothers, sisters, sons, fathers, daughters, moms. Like, it just felt super disrespectful. And the people that were the last to leave, you know, they felt like they were left to hang out.

• 2:01:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Good luck.

• 2:01:20Speaker 05

  I mean, you ever see the documentary Restrepo?

• 2:01:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Uh-uh.

• 2:01:24Speaker 05

  You should watch it.

• 2:01:25Patrick Bet-David?

  What's it called?

• 2:01:25Speaker 05

  Restrepo.

• 2:01:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:01:27Speaker 05

  I believe it's an army unit, top of, I think it's in a corn gall. Just a nightmare, but it documents the entire deployment. When we pulled out, you should definitely watch it. You'd love it. Really, really good.

• 2:01:38Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm gonna watch it tonight.

• 2:01:39Speaker 05

  They, uh, when they pulled out, Taliban released them inside of that camp, running on the treadmills, you know, living in their beds. We just left everything.

• 2:01:49Patrick Bet-David?

  All the technology.

• 2:01:50Speaker 05

  Why? You don't think they can fly a C-130? Of course they can. They'll figure it out.

• 2:01:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Couple of videos of them trying.

• 2:01:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, I don't know, man. When you're coming back from Vietnam, you see them pushing the Hueys off the edge of the ship, like it costs too much to ferry them back. We're just gonna sink them all. Why are we not just blowing all that stuff in place? I get it. Math, it makes, it costs too much money to fly them all back here. We have too much reserve. It's cool. Why are we not blowing them all up or selling them to the allies? You're just gonna leave them all for them? That makes no sense to me.

• 2:02:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Why do you think we didn't?

• 2:02:24Speaker 05

  I have no idea.

• 2:02:25Patrick Bet-David?

  A shitty plan?

• 2:02:26Speaker 05

  I'm a very logical person. Logically, it makes no sense. You left them all the armor, all the weapons, all the night vision, everything that makes us superior, you gave it to them. Why? I mean, we've been training thousands of these guys. I mean, there's some serious forces in Afghanistan we've been building the last 20 years, and you just left them there. What's gonna happen? They all get killed. Taliban knows who they are. They just wiped them all off the face of the earth. Just what they do. That's why there was such a big push. You saw a bunch of SF guys who were going back to Afghanistan and try to pull these families out, the interpreters and all of that. It's because we dumped so much time and energy into them. Like, they were trying to make their country better, and now we just left them. That's not gonna work. And it didn't. Yeah, to me, it was very disheartening to see that whole thing happen.

• 2:03:12Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you, how do you think Ukraine and Russia is gonna end? How do you think that's gonna end? You think it's gonna end soon, or you think that that's gonna continue?

• 2:03:21Speaker 05

  I hope it ends soon. I think if anybody's gonna end it soon, Trump will. I don't think, if he doesn't get it solved by mid-year, it's not a good sign. If we get into the summer months and this thing still is going on, I think somebody's gonna have to step in, intervene.

• 2:03:39Speaker 06

  I mean, if Trump gets Putin to kind of withdraw, and they get a ceasefire and a treaty, that would be ideal. It's definitely concerning if we get involved, you know China's gonna get involved, and it's kind of a domino effect after that. I definitely see China backing up North Korea too.

• 2:04:01Speaker 06

  But hopefully, I mean, Trump's been doing pretty well at it.

• 2:04:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you guys see what Zelensky said about Putin two weeks ago?

• 2:04:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, do you have that clip?

• 2:04:13Speaker 02

  Yes, let me find it real quick.

• 2:04:15Patrick Bet-David?

  So about two weeks ago, Zelensky is up there just kind of openly talking about, we don't know if Putin's gonna be alive or not. You know, we don't know if he's gonna make it or not. Is this it, Rob?

• 2:04:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:04:24Patrick Bet-David?

  I think this is it. Go for it.

• 2:04:26Speaker 01

  But it also, it also depends on his age. He will die soon, and that's a fact, and it will come to an end. And it could be come to an end even before.

• 2:04:38Speaker 01

  He ends his absolutely safe, and losing, historically losing life, historically lost life.

• 2:04:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you hear what he said? Just play the first seven seconds and lower the audio a little bit, Rob, so we can, because it pops because both of them are speaking. Just play the first seven seconds again, if you could.

• 2:05:05Speaker 01

  But it's also, it also depends on his age. He will die soon, and that's a fact, and it will come to an end.

• 2:05:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Continue four more seconds.

• 2:05:15Speaker 01

  And it could be come to an end even before.

• 2:05:20Patrick Bet-David?

  When you're in the military, you hear something like that, a world leader who's in war right now, say something like that, how do you interpret that?

• 2:05:27Speaker 05

  Wishful thinking. I think you hope that's gonna happen.

• 2:05:33Patrick Bet-David?

  This is a leader of a country that's at war with Russia, saying he will die soon.

• 2:05:43Speaker 05

  I mean, was your take on it that he was gonna die of old age? Or from violence?

• 2:05:47Patrick Bet-David?

  How old is the guy? Putin's only seventy years old.

• 2:05:51Speaker 05

  Is he only seventy?

• 2:05:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I'm at seventy-two. I don't know how old Putin is. He's not seventy-two years old, yeah. And he looks pretty good. He doesn't look like he's a Biden, you know? He's seventy-two, he looks healthy, he's training, he's doing his thing, but to make a comment like that? See, to me, um, I don't know if you, you know, uh, again, you said something, you said, "No, we don't watch the news. We just kinda watch shows or whatever," you said, "You guys just kinda hang out and do your thing," right? I watched post-game interviews more than I watch games.

• 2:06:26Patrick Bet-David?

  And you hear a guy speak, and I'm trying to catch to see what he's saying. If they're speaking sign language, you know? And every once in a while, you're like, "Oh, he said something," and that was, "He's talking about X, Y, Z." I got it, right? Is it that detail where you're kinda looking to see what a world leader is saying while a war is going on? There's an active war between the two? Are we paying that close attention to what they're saying? Or not really? Like, "Ah, it's just another media interview that's taking place. Who knows why he said that?"

• 2:06:54Speaker 05

  Talking about a high level or?

• 2:06:55Patrick Bet-David?

  At a high level, at your level.

• 2:06:58Speaker 05

  I'm sure a lot of guys are. I mean,

• 2:07:02Speaker 05

  the media puts such a twist on things that when you're over there, a lot of times it ruins your confidence.

• 2:07:07Patrick Bet-David?

  If you, if you listen to what they're saying?

• 2:07:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. A lot of times it makes you think you're there for the wrong reason. Like, I'll just say it because we cut our teeth in Iraq and those are some rough deployments. I never once heard anything outside of WMDs until it was too late. I didn't care. We start talking about oil and I don't care about any of that. None of that matters to me. It doesn't stop that IED from going off. Doesn't matter. It doesn't put a tourniquet on that guy when he gets shot. I don't care why we're here. Doesn't matter, 'cause I'm here. I can't leave. So it doesn't matter to me. Your political views, I don't care. You're not gonna come over here and do it for me. So right now, everything you're saying, it's just, it's really making me second question what I'm doing, and that flag isn't to be second questioned. I'm here for that.

• 2:07:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Now that you're disconnected from it, and you see WMD and you're reading these things and you see the documentaries, does it change anything for you now?

• 2:07:55Speaker 05

  For me, it doesn't. Just... I take it for someone who just, you know, put yourself in Bush's scenario. You know, reading, reading books to a couple of elementary school kids and next thing you know, they tap you on the shoulder and say they're flying planes in a World Trade Center. Now you have to act, now you have to go. And then you have, I'll just call Saddam a psycho, known for killing thousands and thousands of people, saying he has this. Are you going to question him? That was my justification, like, if he says he has them, better go find out, whether he had them or not. Personally, with the information I had at time, I didn't second question anything. Say, we gotta go, we gotta go. But I also said that the entire time.

• 2:08:37Speaker 05

  If, if it would have been some random country, if it would have been Dearborn, Michigan, we'd have said the entire thing, it's inside the US, the entire city's gone corrupt, we have to invade and take it all over. I wouldn't have batted an eye. If they're all a terrorist organization, same thing with the cartel. Okay, let's go. Like, I don't have time to second question it, it doesn't matter to me. And at a certain point, it can. I'm not there, I'm not a policymaker. It's not what I do. I'm only here for that.

• 2:09:06Patrick Bet-David?

  That makes sense, because that also matches up with what you're saying at the beginning when you said when Kobe gets locked in, um, you know, what was the word you used? The switch? Did you say the switch? Where you, once you're locked in, you're in, you go, you don't need anything else feeding you to throw you off from the mission that you're on. And the average person's not gonna understand that, right? With, there, there needs to be a maniacal level of focus and selfishness on the mission you're on. Let the other guys debate it out, see whatever you're doing. I've been told to do this, I'm just gonna go do my job and I'm out. This is what I'm doing.

• 2:09:38Speaker 05

  I do the same thing, like, I'll go out and I'll do, uh, talks for SWAT teams and performance teams, and I was talking to NHL guys not too long ago, and I was talking about the level of loyalty it takes to like, really commit to a team, like, nothing else matters, just the 25 guys inside this room, and one of the guys kinda spoke up and he's like, it's hard when you can be drafted any moment. I get it. Same thing for us. We'd be kicked off that team tomorrow. You'd be switched positions. You can get pulled out. It's the same thing. I would just tell you to lean in and give them that loyalty because they're giving you the opportunity to showcase your craft. You're not playing for any other team. And the moment you do, they get the full loyalty. So as long as I'm wearing this, I'm fully bought in. My individual hopes, dreams, wants and wishes don't really matter. Not above that.

• 2:10:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Post, I remember one, one time, Ballin, what's Ballin's first name? He's a, he's a very good content creator.

• 2:10:34Speaker 05

  Do you see?

• 2:10:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Mr. Ballin, what's his first name? Jonathan. John Ballin, yeah, real nice guy. And they were doing something in Dallas that was for high level guys, paratroopers, you know, Ranger, you know, Green Beret, Black, everybody was, you know, somebody. It wasn't just like, oh, I'm air assault or I'm airborne. No, it was like you did something, right? And you were in a room, you look at everybody, everybody looks like a stud. Like literally, everybody in the room looks like an absolute stud, like people you'd want to hire, right? But everybody was also dealing with an element of PTSD, okay? When you get now trying to disconnect from it. That high you're talking about in Jeremy Renner in Hurt Locker, right?

• 2:11:19Patrick Bet-David?

  And you're getting out and you're like, oh my God, you're gonna switch all that stuff. You're getting back, I want it again. I want the next rush. I want the next rush. When my friend was ETSing and getting out after his 20 years, there was a moment he and I had to have a conversation together. It's like, hey man, I really need to talk to you. Boom, what's going on? I don't know what to do. I'm dumb, dumb, dumb. It's like, Pat, it's a real thing. I'm really, and by the way, this is not a guy that would ever complain about anything. This is a G, this is a legit, real guy. This is not a, you know. But it says, I'm telling you, I'm going through, you know, some weird thoughts of me trying to make this transition. How hard is that? How long does it take?

• 2:12:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Does it ever get to a point where you're so disconnected that you're not moved on? And is there a mechanism on how to disconnect from? Because, you know, when you look at sports, you know, historically, when a guy was a professional bodybuilder or professional athlete, there's, I don't know what the statistic is, but it's pretty high. The moment they retired, they get a divorce. Because now the enemy becomes the wife. You're coming and seeing her more and more and more, right? They don't know what to do, the ETSing part. PTSD. How do you deal with that when you're leaving after you're done with your 17 years?

• 2:12:35Speaker 06

  I mean, I think any transition to military is extremely tough. We were fortunate or unfortunate enough to be doing our military transition in the middle of COVID.

• 2:12:47Speaker 06

  You leave an environment that you've known so well, and it's a new introduction to the world as a civilian. Everything from your schedule, choice, I mean, imagine doing something for 20 years, now you have to go reinvent yourself. You have three little ones, you got a next wife, a new wife, and you, none of your family's around. What am I gonna do? I graduated high school 20 years ago. And just the uncertainties.

• 2:13:17Speaker 06

  The accountability to your family. Not knowing. There are some great programs out there that are really helping veterans transition. And get exposure professionally, and there's a lot of really, really smart people that can add value completely outside of the industry that we're in. But it's a mentorship and showing those individuals, you can have a great life afterwards.

• 2:13:42Speaker 06

  But it's extremely challenging, the PTSD, being around groups, being in front of people. I mean, this, this, like, we avoided cameras, we avoided social media, and now all of a sudden it's like, I gotta be normal in front of cameras. I mean, that's the scariest thing right there.

• 2:13:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it, is it though?

• 2:13:59Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:14:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you serious?

• 2:14:01Speaker 06

  Yeah. It wasn't natural. The natural thing was to avoid it. And luckily, we had each other going, going through it in the transition, and it wasn't easy for us with everything we had going on. There are some different treatments that have definitely helped. We did the psychedelic treatment down in Mexico through vets, and that was a great reset. I think both of us, it saved both of our lives going down there and doing it. It was a really good eye-opening reset. But having a good community and support network around you is key.

• 2:14:41Speaker 06

  We were always confident in our abilities, put our, put our heads together and not having to reinvent ourselves, being able to pass on our knowledge and what we're passionate about and our experiences on to the next generation. So you didn't have to learn the same lessons we did in blood. We wanted to pass on that knowledge. I mean, that was something that bugged us sometimes. Different teams would do ops and they would go, well, or bad, but nobody would, would talk about it. They wouldn't pass on the knowledge. And we, we really wanted to do that, kind of going through that and doing that. Nobody would talk about emotions. No one would be like, hey, like, I'm going through a nasty divorce, or we're going through a low point. We started talking about it. DJ's way better

• 2:15:23Speaker 06

  than me about talking about it, but addressing those kind of topics that nobody ever talked about. And the amount of people that gave a reaction, I felt alone. I felt like I was the only one going through this. Pretty much any experience in any life, outside probably a few, so many people have gone through it, so many people go through it afterwards, but being able to talk about it, that's been a huge kind of key thing and realizing that you're not alone. And everybody has low days, high days, just managing them.

• 2:15:57Patrick Bet-David?

  DJ, what would you say?

• 2:16:01Speaker 05

  I'd say that transition is so much harder than everybody makes it seem. You get these guys that get out and like, "Oh my God, when you get out, every job's gonna pay you 350 grand a year. They're, they just want you to sit around. They're just gonna pay you because of who you..." And then people get out. And those jobs aren't there. That's not a real thing. And then you've left the only thing you've known, the only thing you've ever loved, you've left it. And on a Tuesday, you're out of the group chat. There's no email. There's no body armor to put on. There's no one who needs you, really. And you haven't built a relationship with your family. Now you're stuck with them. I, I use Tom Brady as an example. Tom Brady's a Navy SEAL. You did that one thing at full capacity the entire time. The moment you left it, you're like, "I can't leave it." It's like, "You have to leave. You have to retire."

• 2:16:45Speaker 05

  Nope. Gets a divorce. Can't do it. Can't get off the train. Cannot do it. If you don't think Tom Brady laid in a fetal position and cried after he fully retired, I promise you, he did. Everybody does it. Some of the darkest moments have just been just leaving it in the moment you're out. "Man, I don't know how to do anything else. I feel like I'm, I feel like I'm empty. I don't have anything." That's what we talk about when I tell guys now, like, my physical fitness, my, my mental health are really at the forefront of my priorities. I wake up in the morning and that's what I knock out first because that gives me the bandwidth to take on everything else throughout the day. I feel like a lot of people lose that. They leave the military. You've been on the same structured routine. I don't care if you're on the 82nd Airborne,

• 2:17:29Speaker 05

  some SFT team, a SWAT team. You've been doing the same thing the entire time. You wake up, you all do PT, you eat breakfast, you go upstairs, meeting, training, deploying, blah, blah, blah. It's the same thing. If you just keep that first morning routine the same, it feels so familiar that now between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., you can do whatever you need to now. Because my first morning, it feels so repetitive. It feels like I've been doing it my entire life. I wake up the exact same time I did when I was in. I do the same fitness, hang around the same people, same protein shakes, same 20-minute walk, same everything. So the first part of my morning, it feels like I'm still in the team. I mean, we're surrounded by nothing but team guys now. It feels the same.

• 2:18:05Patrick Bet-David?

  What percentage of your employees are former vets?

• 2:18:08Speaker 05

  Uh, with training, cat, former vets.

• 2:18:11Speaker 06

  Thirty-five, forty percent or so.

• 2:18:14Speaker 05

  Training cadre, I mean, they're all team guys.

• 2:18:16Patrick Bet-David?

  By the way, when you, when you, when you get out, like, I remember how much money I got out with, but I wasn't in there for seventeen years. I was there for three, twenty half years. When, when the average SEAL gets out, how much money do they have in a bank?

• 2:18:27Speaker 05

  Well, it depends, because we got medically retired. That becomes an issue that no one ever gets you prepped for. So we'll say, you know, E-seven, the SEAL teams, I'll say you make ninety grand a year, everything all in. As soon as you start that medical retirement board, they take away all your special pays. Die pay, jump pay, demo pay, hazardous duty, AIP, you lose it all. And depending on how messed up you are and how long that whole process takes, you go to fifty percent of your pay. So for me, when I started that medical retirement, it took about a year. So I have to bridge that with all my savings. So when I retired, retired, like when I got it, I got electrocuted right before I retired. So now I couldn't work. I couldn't do anything. I mean, I'm laying on the bed in double slings, can't make any money, and I've ate up every ounce of my money market,

• 2:19:12Speaker 05

  every ounce of savings. Put the kids through private school, because nothing changes. Now I just don't have the income. And now physically, I can't make it.

• 2:19:21Speaker 05

  That's where everybody hits rock bottom. Now you feel like a total failure. Like, I've done this one thing. I've sacrificed so much for this one job.

• 2:19:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Deserves a medal, bro.

• 2:19:28Speaker 05

  Exactly.

• 2:19:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Holy shit.

• 2:19:30Speaker 05

  I put her through absolute hell. Absolute hell. Yeah, me and her story is, yeah.

• 2:19:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 2:19:36Speaker 05

  It's not a Hallmark movie, but.

• 2:19:38Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not a Hallmark movie.

• 2:19:40Speaker 05

  It's not.

• 2:19:40Patrick Bet-David?

  And, and what business are you guys in? What do you guys do now?

• 2:19:44Speaker 06

  Now, we started GBS Group back in September sixth of twenty nineteen. And just over five and a half years old. Have close to forty employees now. And, and house.

• 2:19:58Patrick Bet-David?

  No shit.

• 2:19:58Speaker 06

  Another fifteen, ten ninety-nines. Bunch of different verticals within the company. You know, it, it started from a lot of emotion and passion of passing on the tactile knowledge that we learned to, to the next generations. And being open and honest and, and just really trying to pass on what we had learned. And not have to reinvent ourselves.

• 2:20:20Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the product?

• 2:20:21Speaker 06

  So we have a few different verticals. So.

• 2:20:23Patrick Bet-David?

  If you go to GBS Group gear dot com, it'll pull up.

• 2:20:25Speaker 06

  Yeah, there, there's what I'll call hard goods. So mounts that, that.

• 2:20:32Speaker 06

  Take red dots and you put them on the rifle. And a few different kinds of variants in that. That's one of the mounts right there. Some tactile nylon, so gun belts, slings, but everything that we've designed. There's a number of that have patents on them now, but everything we designed, whether it was an invention or making a product better. We were trying to solve for a gap and the problems that we experienced. Super simple weapon sling, but we designed our weapon sling. Could tell you every reason why we did it. The naked eye may not look any different, but all of our products, we're trying to solve a problem, be 100% dependable and enable the end user.

• 2:21:11Speaker 06

  And so that hard goods, soft goods, kind of branded t-shirts, hats, subscription apps, workout, Patreon and training.

• 2:21:21Speaker 06

  We have an international dealer network from Thailand to Poland, everywhere in between. So we've grown a lot in the last five years. Going from zero employees to over 35 now.

• 2:21:34Patrick Bet-David?

  That's so cool.

• 2:21:35Speaker 06

  We learned, we learned everything kind of just on the fly and figuring it out. We had zero business background.

• 2:21:44Speaker 06

  And just kind of figured out, got 401ks, health insurance. Oh, yeah. All the fun, fun parts, but.

• 2:21:51Patrick Bet-David?

  That's cool.

• 2:21:51Speaker 05

  Like the irony is that was never the goal. So I was, right when I transitioned out, Cole was doing real estate, super successful. And I was going to contract with the agency and go off and just do private military contracting. It's all I wanted to do. Just keep doing the same job. A bunch of guys that were in that same organization we had worked with before and everybody was getting shot. Everybody was getting blown up and dudes were dying left and right and COVID just happened to happen. I got really, really hurt and we had a little bit of downtime, had to get a bunch of surgeries and kind of rebuild back up. So I missed my class update and in that process, I was still training, training with the air force, teaching CQB, still skydiving, still doing all that. And we're sitting down one day and he's like, what's it going to take for you not to go do that?

• 2:22:37Speaker 05

  Well, I don't know how to do anything else. When I had my retirement, if I could squeeze out a hundred grand a year, that plus retirement, I'm done. I think we can solve that. So we decided we were going to teach CQB and flat range to SWAT team guys and, you know, military dudes. And what, three weeks later, COVID? Everybody's on lockdown and now you can't make any money. So now what do you do? We all quit our day jobs and now we're stuck. Yeah, man.

• 2:23:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Ah, that's great.

• 2:23:01Speaker 05

  And somehow we, somehow we made it happen.

• 2:23:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Good for you guys, man. Respect. Salute. First of all, thank you for your service.

• 2:23:07Speaker 05

  A pleasure.

• 2:23:07Patrick Bet-David?

  At the highest level, Rob, can we put the link below as well?

• 2:23:12Patrick Bet-David?

  This has been a blast talking to you guys. Of course, I've seen your stuff before out there. And, you know, the, the military community, highest level of respect. But when you hear the stories, and specifically sitting down now, learning about you guys, likable patriots, straight up, honest, you know, values, principles, you gotta love it. I'm not surprised by you guys are growing. Thirty-five, forty employees, the way you guys are going right now. Who knows how big this thing can turn into, right? You got two driven guys that the fire's gonna go from there to here. By the way, who do people say you look like? I'm curious.

• 2:23:48Speaker 06

  A mix between Jake Gyllenhaal and Bradley Cooper.

• 2:23:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Bradley Cooper?

• 2:23:52Speaker 06

  If they had a kid, that's what I'd be.

• 2:23:54Patrick Bet-David?

  I would say if Billy Baldwin and Sean Penn had a kid, it's you. And we've had multiple of the Baldwins on it. You know, the Baldwins. These guys were good looking. Billy, Billy was in, what was the movie Billy was in? Was it Sliver? Was it Sliver? He wasn't with Sharon Stone? Is that the one?

• 2:24:15Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 2:24:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Billy? Yeah, a little bit of Billy and a little bit of Sean Penn, you have Cole here. Anyways, maybe I'm off, but that's kind of how I see it. Fellas, thank you so much for coming out. Appreciate your service. We're gonna put the link below to your website. Gang, go to their website, support what they do, and we will see you guys soon. Next time. Take care. Bye bye, bye bye.

• 2:24:36Speaker 05

  Hey, what's going on, guys? DJ Shipley and Cole Fack from GBRSC Group. Want to talk to you real quick about Manect.

• 2:24:40Speaker 06

  Retired Navy SEALs, entrepreneurs, and co-founders of GBRSC Group.

• 2:24:45Speaker 05

  Cover everything from flat range shooting, mental health, mental resiliency, physical education, anything you guys really want to drop into. Search us on Manect, find us on there, and I'd love to connect with you guys.

• 2:24:54Speaker 06

  Look forward to hearing from you.

• 2:24:56Speaker 05

  Appreciate you, guys. We'll talk soon.

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