Storytime - Inside the Navy SEALs Team Room

It's been a long time since we've done a good story time... Here it is! Shawn Ryan tells Travis Howze a story about a joke played on him in the Team Room when he was a young SEAL on his first platoon. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:07Shawn Ryan?

  Anyways, so do a quick warm-up, then we'll get right into the show. Uh, so I did a ton of research on you, and not just you. Uh, I listened to a lot of your podcasts. A lot of them were very similar. And, um, I don't really know much about being a firefighter, so I was also doing research on kind of like the life of a firefighter. And, um, I wanted to kind of try to be able to relate being a firefighter to being, uh, in a SEAL team or at the agency. And, uh, one similarity that I thought was pretty funny was, I mean, you guys eat, sleep, shit, fuck, and live together.

• 1:52Shawn Ryan?

  And, uh, and eat together. And so when you guys are at the firehouse, it sounds like there's always a common meeting area where all the jackassery happens. And, uh, we have that too in the SEAL teams. We call it the platoon hut. And, uh, there's, if I could be a fly, if anybody could be a fly on the fucking wall for the, and listening on the conversations that happen in that room.

• 2:21Shawn Ryan?

  You'd be a fucking instantaneous billionaire because you could write a book about it, it would go viral.

• 2:28Speaker 04

  Might change some civilians' minds of their ideas of the people in this profession.

• 2:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, they might not think we're the stand-up human beings everybody thinks we are.

• 2:40Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 2:41Shawn Ryan?

  But anyways, it sounds like you guys all meet in the kitchen or the dining area. And so is there any conversations that come up? That you can think of that are fucking hilarious?

• 2:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, over the years, man, there's tons of conversations when we're sitting there where you're breaking bread with your brothers and sisters over the table. And it's kind of like what happens in the house stays in the house. And you know, it's like we're a bunch of children, we're a bunch of grown children waiting for that for that bell to go off. And when it does, you gotta run out of there with a plate full of spaghetti in your face. And I think that's where the difference would lie with the SEAL teams. Like when you guys go on an op, you're planning to go on that op. You don't just jump out of your bed and fly to the op immediately without having any planning or any knowledge of where it's going to be. That's the difference with the fire service. We'll be sitting around talking about inappropriate shit at the table full of spaghetti and goddamn garlic bread.

• 3:37Speaker 04

  And before you know, you're on a fire scene trying to put your mask on, but you gotta vomit before you do, before you go in. Because it's like literally you have a full stomach and you run out and you're throwing up all over the place. It happens. But yeah, to answer your question, sorry I got long winded. To answer your question, all of the inappropriate shit happens right there at the kitchen table, man. It's all the good stuff, all the bad stuff, all the ball breaking, that's where it goes down. No one thing comes to mind other than a funny emergency call that we, they went on years ago. And I talk about this extensively and I'll probably talk about it during the episode of a conversation that took place. And it was about breaking a new guy in over experiencing his first death on the job.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  And it was funny to all of the old guys, but not the new guy.

• 4:27Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's hear it. Or I'll give you an example if you want to save that for the show. So, we're sitting in Germany in the platoon hut. That's what we call it, the platoon hut. And there's always like a, a long table, you know, where all the, the enlisted scum like me hang out and fucking talk about who the, who we kicked the shit out of, who we fucked, who we, how much ass we got, how much ass we didn't get. All that kind of shit. And, uh, you know, all the fights happen, everything happens in the platoon hut. And then, uh, you know, the platoon chief and the O's and the leadership have their offices and they kind of, you know, leave the boys alone. But, um, ever since I was

• 5:11Shawn Ryan?

  a teenager, I've been like scared shitless of STDs. I fuck, they scare the fuck out of me. Herpes, AIDS, syphilis. And anytime anything happened, even if there was no penetration,

• 5:29Shawn Ryan?

  I would get fucking paranoid and think I'm gonna die. Just a handjob. You can get it from a handjob. Yeah, handjob. You think I'm gonna die. Oh my God, I got fucking herpes and that probably means I have AIDS and blah, blah, blah. And, uh, so anyways, I'm in a platoon hut. We're in Germany and, you know, we have to get an HIV test, but once or twice a year, I think. Uh, you know, for obvious reasons. You can't sleep at night waiting on your results. Yeah. And I'm like, fuck. I always get fucking stressed out when this happens, you know, and so we go to, I go to medical, I'm getting my blood test and I'm fucking sweating bullets and they're like, you know, what's, you okay? And I'm like, yeah, you know, I'm fine. I'm fucking dying here.

• 6:13Shawn Ryan?

  They're like, are you sexually active? But I'm like, who the fuck is it sexually? Of course I'm fucking sexually active. What the fuck? I'm on deployment. It's fucking Germany. I'm a SEAL. Can we get this shit over with? Like, how long is it gonna take for the fucking results to get it? Did you get the board punched? We'll talk about that another time. But uh, so they draw the blood, you know, and then, you know, that was what, probably around 2003, 2004? And uh, you know, the results didn't come back that quick, so, maybe a week. So I've got like a week of running around. I had like 100% convinced myself that I have the HIV and I'm gonna, I'm gonna fucking die. You're planning your funeral.

• 6:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So the fucking, the uh, our medic comes in, cause he's, you know, he, everybody has their duty, like mine was ordinance. Uh, the medic comes in and uh, Chad Wilkinson, who um, went on to Dev Group and uh, unfortunately is not with us anymore. But uh, Chad like, he fucking, he always had it out for me. He always, he was just always fucking with me. He beat my ass. Uh, we skipped the whole hazing thing and just knocked the shit out of me. And uh, and uh, so anyways, we're always going back and forth. Well, he go, he comes up to me. Like first thing in the morning and the whole platoons there are like 16 of us sitting around this fucking table.

• 7:41Shawn Ryan?

  And he like nudges me and he's like, hey, he's like, Sean, uh,

• 7:49Shawn Ryan?

  your HIV results came out.

• 7:53Shawn Ryan?

  And I'm like,

• 7:56Shawn Ryan?

  okay. Well, what the fuck are they? You know, and he fucking sets my medical record down on the table. And he has this piece of paper, you know, and uh, so when you get your HIV test, it says HIV results. And then there's a fucking long dotted line that goes to the other side of the page. And then it says, you know, positive. It's like this long buildup to the fucking results. So he's got this fucking paper over, over it and I, alls I see are HIV results. And he runs the paper like he's covering the results. So he runs the paper like real slow across the fucking dotted line. Nobody in the platoon knows

• 8:40Shawn Ryan?

  what's happening right now. And uh,

• 8:44Shawn Ryan?

  I fucking passed out.

• 8:47Speaker 04

  You fucking passed out?

• 8:48Shawn Ryan?

  I str- I went fucking tits up, just like that. I'm like, I couldn't handle the anticipation and I, or the suspense and he's running it across this line and I'm like.

• 9:00Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking tits up, fall out of my chair, wake up and I was only out for like a second, I think. I fucking fainted, I guess, and uh, nobody else knew what the hell's going on. And they're like, dude, what, are you alright? Chad is laughing his fucking ass off. And I'm like, what the fuck are they? What? I'm like, what? Do I fucking AIDS? Jesus Christ, you know, and uh.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  He's like, no, all the dudes you fucked are clean. You're good.

• 9:29Shawn Ryan?

  So I'm not gonna tell you the results.

• 9:31Speaker 04

  That's fine.

• 9:31Shawn Ryan?

  No, I'm just kidding.

• 9:32Speaker 04

  Can't catch it twice, come on.

• 9:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. But, yeah, I'm negative, but uh, yeah, so. There's my uh, platoon hut story. You got anything?

• 9:43Speaker 04

  This is gonna be quite a shit show.

• 9:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:45Speaker 04

  Um, no, I don't have a, an exciting AIDS story. I do have a funny story though.

• 9:49Shawn Ryan?

  I don't have an exciting AIDS story.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  Um, my, this one's just kinda quick and to the point. I started dating this girl and she was a fitness model. And uh, when I was a firefighter and I was on ladder five in Charleston, so it's on the west side and we'll talk about that. But in my firehouse, we had two companies. We had engine ten and ladder five. And when I first got there, we had an old captain. This old dude, he's uh, named Captain Gino. And he uh, he, he would kiss you on the mouth when you come in. He was just one of those dudes and he'd, he would call you baby girl. He's like, hey, baby girl. And if you tried to fight it, he'd grab your head and, and fucking, he's like, big cock, strong man.

• 10:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 10:26Speaker 04

  And he'd force a kiss onto you. You can't do that shit these days. And that's why I turned, I was like, I ended up being that guy at the firehouse and I loved it. But Gino would grab your hand when you would sit down at the table. Uh, he'd hold your hand while you're trying to eat dinner and he had these big fucking bear paws. And if you tried to like pull away, he'd just squeeze tighter and then he'd start stroking your hand with his thumb, like you were his, you were his girl.

• 10:48Shawn Ryan?

  He's like the guy like, no, you could hit him in the head with a fucking bat and he's just gonna look at you like, you shouldn't have done that.

• 10:53Speaker 04

  You just submit to Gino. It's like, hold my pocket. You know what I mean? Like a prison thing. And uh. I just remember one day I start dating this girl and we on ladder five, we caught a call for a vehicle accident with entrapment and engine ten, they didn't have a call. So we got up from dinner, Brooke, it just walked in to see me. And so we, we run out ladder five, we go on the call, we get seventy-seven, which means canceled. Yeah. Literally right when we got out of the firehouse. And I was nervous because Gino is quite the ladies man. And I was like, oh, man, what is this poor girl getting into when I'm not there? And we, we turn around, we back our rig back in and I get off the truck in a hurry and I walk in and this girl is standing there in this nice black dress. She was getting ready to go out for the night. I mean, she is, is, is nice. Yeah.

• 11:39Speaker 04

  And when I walk in, Gino has the biggest handful of ass.

• 11:45Speaker 04

  I've ever seen. Like he was just squeezing and he looks back at me, he goes, hey, bubba, this thing got a fat ass on it. Holy shit. And she's standing there, she'd never met him and she's just standing there with this deer in the headlights looking like, what do I fucking do? And I'm like, God almighty, but that's, that's how it is. And so that's the end of the story. That's good shit. That was it, though. I mean, that's just how it is. I mean, what, did they help up? No, no. Fire, the firehouse is loving like that. Yeah. And any, and when firemen watch this, that they'll get, they'll get that. They're like, yeah, that stuff goes on and some other wild shit. Yeah. We can't go into everything. Yeah, we can't go into everything. What stays in the house, stays, what's said in the house stays in the house, what happens in the house stays in the house. Yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 04

  Anyways, that's the warm up. Uh, let's get on with the fucking show, man. Let's do it. Let's get real.

• 12:51Speaker 05

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