#4 Nick Kefalides - Marine Raider / MARSOC Operator

In this episode of The Shawn Ryan Show, Shawn sits down with former Marine grunt / MARSOC Marine Raider Nick Kefalides. Nick has an incredibly compelling story from his 4 combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Nick also opens up about his injuries which lead him to medical retirement from the Marine Corps and how he overcame the dreaded transition from a seasoned war fighter to a professional bass fishing guide who now dedicates time educating combat veterans how to successfully transition. 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

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• 1:31Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:14Nick Kefalides?

  He proceeds to look at me and one of my other comrades and he's like, "Hey, uh, go ahead and put the body on the hood."

• 2:22Shawn Ryan?

  On the hood of what?

• 2:38Shawn Ryan?

  So you fucking took out number three?

• 2:41Nick Kefalides?

  Having that natural instinct to react and to do what needs to be done, you can't train for that.

• 2:49Shawn Ryan?

  You were hand-selected again, uh, to come on as a fucking operator.

• 2:56Nick Kefalides?

  A car bomb was driven into one of our vehicles on the convoy and we did what we were trained to do.

• 3:03Shawn Ryan?

  They were taking kids and filling their bicycle tires with explosives and they would have the kids ride their bike towards the convoy and start detonating their fucking bicycles.

• 3:16Nick Kefalides?

  I got up on the top of the roof and, uh, you know, started engaging, you know, targets and you can see the guys were running back and forth. Sure enough, they're still coming and, uh, you know, I just engaged, single round to each guy. They were from all different directions. Um, you know, we cut out murder holes in the walls.

• 3:38Shawn Ryan?

  You're 19 years old and you just got in your first engagement and shot your first man.

• 3:48Shawn Ryan?

  Your fucking service record is amazing. I've worked with a lot of different operators from all different branches, especially when I was at CIA.

• 4:01Shawn Ryan?

  If I could go back and operate with somebody, um, that I didn't get to before, you would be fucking top of my list, dude, and I don't say that shit to very many people.

• 4:19Shawn Ryan?

  Welcome back to the Sean Ryan Show. I want to kick things off and say thank you to all our patrons on Patreon who've been supporting the show behind the scenes. Because of your support, we've been able to upgrade all of our equipment and you'll see the benefits of that as you watch the show. Also, I want to give a big thank you to everyone who took the time to go to iTunes, hit the subscribe button, and leave us a review. If you haven't done that yet, please go to iTunes, hit the subscribe button, leave us a review, even if it's just one word, that's what we need to get this show up in the top charts.

• 4:59Shawn Ryan?

  If you're watching this on YouTube, and you're going to want to, because there's real gunfight footage of our next guest in combat in Afghanistan. Hit the subscribe button on YouTube, hit the like button, share it with all your friends, leave us a comment. And with that being said, I'm ready to introduce my next guest, number 004. He's a United States Marine with four combat deployments. He spent some time in the infantry on the front lines in Iraq back in the early days.

• 5:38Shawn Ryan?

  He was hand-selected to become a plank owner of MARSOC, which is the Special Operations Unit out of the United States Marine Corps, and became a Marine Raider. He shot and killed the number three high-value threat in Afghanistan in his time. Guys, if you think you have what it takes to become a Marine Raider, you better fucking think again. At the end of this, there'll be a debrief covering the entire experience. We also interviewed his wife while they were here. Everyone, this is better than entertainment, this is the real thing. Please welcome, my very good friend, Mr. Nick Kephalitis.

• 6:30Shawn Ryan?

  Nick, it's an honor to have you here, man. Welcome to the show.

• 6:36Nick Kefalides?

  Thanks, man. It's truly an honor to be here, to just be able to sit in this chair, knowing the guys that have sat here before me.

• 6:44Shawn Ryan?

  Some bad motherfuckers have sat in that chair.

• 6:46Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, it's a privilege, truly.

• 6:48Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'm just super stoked you guys got out here. I know it's a little out of the way, but you know, the last time we saw each other was what, two or three years ago? Probably teaching on the fucking gun range and then we kind of split and you went to Tampa and I stayed on the fucking range for a while, but anyways, now you're a professional fisherman and that's fucking awesome. I'm like, super stoked. So I got you a present.

• 7:28Nick Kefalides?

  Oh shit.

• 7:28Shawn Ryan?

  That might help you take your fishing to the next level. So if you reach over there on the... yeah, there it is. Oh, what's in there?

• 7:40Shawn Ryan?

  No peeking.

• 7:41Nick Kefalides?

  Hey, no peeking.

• 7:42Shawn Ryan?

  No, none.

• 7:43Nick Kefalides?

  Okay. Want to go and open it?

• 7:45Shawn Ryan?

  Go ahead.

• 7:47Nick Kefalides?

  Oh god. Dude.

• 7:53Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. These will come in handy. I love to snack when I'm out on the boat. Like, it's just like feeding is continuous, so.

• 8:02Shawn Ryan?

  So those are actually great bait for bass.

• 8:06Nick Kefalides?

  Oh, no shit?

• 8:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, and there's different colors in there, so you can use them.

• 8:10Nick Kefalides?

  Okay, cool.

• 8:11Shawn Ryan?

  Some colors work better for different seasons.

• 8:13Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:14Shawn Ryan?

  I know the red ones, they like, you know, responding.

• 8:19Nick Kefalides?

  I really appreciate it, dude. I'll try to make sure that these make it till tonight.

• 8:24Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. But getting kind of into it, I've been really looking forward to this one because I have, we haven't had a marine on yet and so I'm excited about that because my personal opinion is I think the Marine Corps is probably...

• 8:44Shawn Ryan?

  The most effective self sustaining unit or branch of the military.

• 8:53Shawn Ryan?

  Because they're so they're self sustaining, I think you guys are probably the most eager to get in there and get to war. You do. You guys are very fucking effective.

• 9:06Shawn Ryan?

  Extremely violent and hungry for it and definitely the biggest libel risks out of.

• 9:16Nick Kefalides?

  I'd have to agree with that.

• 9:20Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, where there's Marines, there's definitely fucking trouble.

• 9:23Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, I've I've told people before, you know, if you haven't partied with a group of Marines before you you really haven't experienced. It's just a whole nother level, man.

• 9:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but um, and I'm excited because you are actually you might you're one of the only guys I've ever met. Who actually has real ground combat time in a in an unconventional unit when

• 9:52Shawn Ryan?

  you were soft and in a conventional unit when you were a grunt and I kind of want to go into the differences. That you saw on both being a grunt and a a Marsoc operator. So. But anyways, let's start with your childhood. So where'd you grow up?

• 10:15Nick Kefalides?

  I grew up in South Florida, Palm Beach County area. So my mom and my dad were actually both Marines. I can actually say my mama wore combat boots.

• 10:24Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 10:25Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, so mom and dad were both Marines. They were stationed together in Hawaii and that's where I was born there in Konaoli Bay, Hawaii. At a young age, we moved from there shortly after my mom and my dad got out of the Marine Corps. They both did an enlistment and got out, moved back to Florida, which was home for them. That was my first time as a baby, you know, when we moved from where I was born to Florida. And then I grew up there, you know, all through grade school and high school and everything. So South Florida is what I would essentially call home.

• 10:58Shawn Ryan?

  So your parents were both Marines, but you weren't necessarily a military brat? They were out like at a very young age?

• 11:03Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah, pretty much. But you know, anybody that's been in the Marine Corps kind of knows that that mentality and that lifestyle, it sticks with you. You don't really, you know, they have that saying, once a Marine, always Marine. And I feel like it kind of holds true because you keep that regimented lifestyle, you know, that discipline and they passed that down to me. I mean, my childhood, man, I remember getting like chores in my house consisting of like white glove inspections to make sure I dusted my bathroom correctly and shit. Like shit that I had no clue was actually going to be relevant during my time in the Marine Corps because you actually get inspection, like you get inspected on how you clean things and stuff like that.

• 11:44Shawn Ryan?

  Like you guys have the worst inspections.

• 11:48Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah. Whether it's a uniform inspection or field day or, you know, field day is the term that we use to to clean, you know, it would be like every Thursday would be field day. And there's times I can remember, dude, we've had inspections, you know, our company gunny would come through and the inspections would go, we just keep failing till like three o'clock in the morning. And we had to be up for PT at five. And I think there was a kind of a method to the madness, if you will, like it wasn't just to make us, you know, just to be, you know, mean to us and be like, no, you suck at cleaning. It was to see how we would perform with sleep deprivation, you know, being up all night and then having to perform two hours later, you know, on a strenuous, you know, PT exercise

• 12:30Nick Kefalides?

  or doing a ruck march or a hike or something like that.

• 12:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. What, so what did your parents do in the Marine Corps?

• 12:38Nick Kefalides?

  So my dad was a combat engineer. My mom was an administrative clerk and then my stepfather, he, he's a Vietnam era Marine, Marine Scout sniper. He did multiple tours over Vietnam and, you know, saw some pretty, pretty hairy shit.

• 12:54Shawn Ryan?

  So no shit. So when did? When did your stepdad come into the picture?

• 13:00Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, how old was I when my stepdad came into the picture? Uh, I wanna say it was like probably twelve, eleven, twelve years old when he came into the picture.

• 13:09Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 13:09Nick Kefalides?

  So I was still fairly young, you know, almost a teenager.

• 13:13Shawn Ryan?

  Were you close with uh your biological father?

• 13:17Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah, I've always been, my dad and I have always been close.

• 13:20Shawn Ryan?

  Are you close with your stepfather?

• 13:23Nick Kefalides?

  Um, I mean, close in a sense like we could go months without talking and then pick up right where we left off kinda thing like we're not like, you know, close as my fa- my biological father and I are, but I mean, we get along good. There were some times uh during my childhood where we didn't get along. Um, you know, just for, for, you know, random reasons, but that's just, you know, childhood and parenting, you know, in general, that's how it is.

• 13:49Shawn Ryan?

  So he was a fucking scout sniper in Vietnam with multiple tours?

• 13:55Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah. He saw some shit. He had some kills under his belt and stuff like that. And I think I, I kinda, you know, like a lot of teenagers, you kinda go through that phase where, you know, you don't really wanna, you know, follow the rules and that shit. And he was just like, hey, you're gonna fucking live here. You're gonna live by my fucking rules. And him and I fucking butted heads quite a bit. Um, but you know, you get past that shit, you know?

• 14:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Nick Kefalides?

  As, as I've gotten older and I've matured, him and I've gotten closer and closer.

• 14:23Shawn Ryan?

  The Vietnam era is like,

• 14:27Shawn Ryan?

  I'm in fact, that's, that's the whole reason I even joined the military to begin with.

• 14:31Nick Kefalides?

  Oh, no shit?

• 14:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, like I just, I, I, I feel like that, that era just got, I mean, those were some hard dudes and they did not have like, they didn't have the backing of the country like, World War Two did. Not to take anything from World War Two, cause that was, you know what I mean? But, but, coming home from Vietnam, you definitely weren't getting a fucking pat on the back.

• 14:57Nick Kefalides?

  Hell, no.

• 14:58Shawn Ryan?

  And uh, and I, and I think that Vietnam is like really where, uh, special operations and, and unconventional warfare really started to.

• 15:10Nick Kefalides?

  Absolutely.

• 15:11Shawn Ryan?

  Come into play.

• 15:12Nick Kefalides?

  I agree.

• 15:13Shawn Ryan?

  And uh, yeah, I mean, so would he?

• 15:17Shawn Ryan?

  Tell you things that happened over there or?

• 15:20Nick Kefalides?

  He, he didn't really advertise stuff. Um, he wasn't a big drinker, but if he, you know, had a couple beers on a random occasion or whatever, he'd loosen up and some things would kind of slip, especially if it was like, you know, me and one of my stepbrothers were around. It was just us and it was kind of, you know, that, that environment where it wasn't a bunch of family members and people around. Um, he had said some things, but, um, you know, he, you could tell he had been, he'd been through some shit. Like he has pretty severe PTSD. I mean, we knew it like, I, I, I was exposed to that as a kid before I even knew what the fuck PTSD was.

• 16:01Nick Kefalides?

  You know, even when I joined the Marine Corps, I didn't really have a true understanding of kind of what he went through. Uh, but I just remember like waking up in the middle of the night as a kid and I could like, you know, my, my bedroom was kind of right down the hallway from our living room or our family room. And he had a, uh, like one of those lazy boy recliners. And I remember waking up at night and this happened multiple times where I could hear the rocking chair squeaking. Like somebody was sitting in it and I just thought it was really bizarre. I'm like, you know, as a kid, you're like, oh my God, is there a ghost in the house? Or whatever. And I remember waking up in the middle of the night and just not being able to resist going out there and see why this chair was squeaking.

• 16:40Nick Kefalides?

  So I'd get up like I was going to the bathroom and, uh, he'd be sitting there like in the dark with his three fifty seven Magnum sitting on his lap.

• 16:49Shawn Ryan?

  Fuck, man.

• 16:49Nick Kefalides?

  And like, I don't know what kind of state of mind he was in, you know, or what he was doing. I didn't ask. I just remember going out there, seeing it and him be like, what are you doing? And I was like, oh, I had to go to the bathroom, you know? And so I didn't know at the time. I thought it was really strange, but years later, as I came to understand what PTSD was and kind of some of the things associated with having PTSD, I kind of realized, well, you know, he was just kind of having one of those moments, you know?

• 17:16Shawn Ryan?

  I mean.

• 17:19Shawn Ryan?

  You probably you probably fucking saved his life by coming out of your room.

• 17:22Nick Kefalides?

  There's there's no telling dude.

• 17:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:24Nick Kefalides?

  There's no telling.

• 17:25Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 17:26Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 17:27Shawn Ryan?

  Uh. Do you see like a lot of similarities between? What you've gone through and like looking back what he was doing?

• 17:38Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, absolutely, man.

• 17:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:40Nick Kefalides?

  You know, a lot of the isolation, yeah, isolation, the, you know, anger, stuff like that. You know, you're you're trained, you know, to act with violence, like, you know what I mean? And you come back, you know, and you're put into civilization and you're expected to act as, you know, a normal.

• 18:03Shawn Ryan?

  Forget everything you know.

• 18:04Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah, and um, you know, so I can I can surely relate to seeing how he had reacted at certain times and the way he was and, you know, surely does uh, does relate to, you know, the way I've kind of dealt with it.

• 18:19Shawn Ryan?

  So growing up, did that, did those stories, is that what inspired you to become a Marine yourself or? Walk us through that.

• 18:29Nick Kefalides?

  Not really, because I mean, well, in a sense, yeah, like, he did tell me a lot of cool stories about like, the Marine Corps and, you know, uh, like, you know, some of the experiences he got to, you know, got to enjoy. Uh, and my dad did the same thing, you know, they, at the time, they wanted me to join the Marine Corps. They knew that it was gonna be a good thing, it would set me straight, it would set me up. Even if I did one enlistment, they knew that the Marine Corps was gonna be a good thing. So they had always kind of pushed, you know, hey, you're gonna join the Marines, right, you know, you know, my dad just kind of make, like, he just kind of was like, you know, well, the Marine Corps, you know, sets you up, you know, you get free college and,

• 19:10Nick Kefalides?

  you you teach a discipline and, you know, you'll be regimented, you'll meet some really good people, uh, but. I don't know, man. It was in the back of my mind. I kind of always knew that I was gonna join.

• 19:21Shawn Ryan?

  What age would you say like it became like? Very apparent like, well, this is uh where I'm going.

• 19:29Nick Kefalides?

  Honestly, man, nine eleven.

• 19:30Shawn Ryan?

  Nine eleven?

• 19:31Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, like I I always like even as a kid growing up like I watched, you know, like Full Metal Jacket and you know, different war movies and stuff because I found that very intriguing. And as a kid, I was always like a little shit. I was always getting into fights and beating people up and stupid shit, you know? Um, so I was always, I just love that adrenaline, you know, and I wanted to serve my country. I wanted to, you know, protect the people and that's essentially what, you know, you were trained to do and um.

• 19:59Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you uh? When the towers went down?

• 20:05Nick Kefalides?

  I was.

• 20:08Nick Kefalides?

  I want to say I was sixteen years old. I was sitting in. I was sitting in math class. And uh. You know, it's it it's kind of vague to me and how it happened, but I just remember. Uh, the phone ringing in the classroom. My my teacher's phones ringing and he answers the phone. It was like like as if like he never stopped, but he stopped like as if it was an emergency. And next you know, uh, he hangs up and he had a TV in his classroom. A lot of us, you know, growing up, you remember you had like some days you would watch like movies or documentaries or history or something like that. He had a TV in his classroom and he rolls the TV out

• 20:49Nick Kefalides?

  and he plugs it in and he turns on the TV and we just are watching, you know, the towers had just fell. Uh, you know, chaos ensued and, you know, we're all kind of like, we're kids, man. We're looking at each other and we're like, the fuck's going on? What just happened? Slowly but surely like, you know, this picture is being painted as to what just happened, you know, to our country, you know?

• 21:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:15Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, and I had some time to kind of really, you know, ponder the whole thing that was going on. And uh, that was kind of the. That was kind of the moment, man. That was the moment for me. I knew right then and there I was like, I'm fucking going.

• 21:30Shawn Ryan?

  No shit. So like as it's happening in like

• 21:34Nick Kefalides?

  Oh dude, I was

• 21:35Shawn Ryan?

  time, that's when you're like, this is, I'm fucking going.

• 21:39Nick Kefalides?

  I was so fucking enraged, dude. Like, I was so enraged. I just wanted to get in on the fight, you know?

• 21:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 21:44Nick Kefalides?

  I knew that, I knew who was responsible for that attack on our own soil and I just wanted, I was out for blood.

• 21:52Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. That's pretty heavy for a sixteen year old.

• 21:58Shawn Ryan?

  So when did you wind up, when did you actually enlist in the Marine Corps?

• 22:02Nick Kefalides?

  Well, it's kind of interesting. I didn't enlist till I was eighteen, but I had moved out of the house at the age of sixteen.

• 22:08Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 22:08Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, I was, I was living on my own at the age of sixteen.

• 22:12Shawn Ryan?

  All on your own?

• 22:13Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, like I literally was in high school and I had a fucking apartment and a job.

• 22:19Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 22:19Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. So from that age of like sixteen to eighteen, there was a lot of fucking off in between there.

• 22:29Shawn Ryan?

  Boozer?

• 22:30Nick Kefalides?

  Oh dude, like not really booze, but just like adrenaline junkie, like just. I used to street race a lot. I had a couple of the Fox Body style Mustangs and I was into muscle cars. I was into street racing. I was into going fast and uh. I'm telling you, if I, if I hadn't joined the Marine Corps, I would have ended up either dead or in jail. Like I'm convinced that I would have ended up either dead or in jail had I not joined the Marine Corps.

• 22:55Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. Yeah, I can relate to that. I could definitely relate to that. But uh, so, so you joined at eighteen?

• 23:04Nick Kefalides?

  At eighteen, yep. At eighteen, um, you know, I was talking to my recruiter, um, you know, a really good dude, Jason Batson, um. And him and I actually became pretty good friends. Like we, we hung out quite a bit. Like, I don't know, he, I, he took a liking to me and um. He wasn't one of those recruiters that was just like, you know, hey, like, you should do this. And, you know, was just worried about, you know, hitting his quota. He really did give me some tips and pointers to kind of get me pointed in the right direction, help set me up for success. Once I did, you know, graduate boot camp and all that stuff. But yeah, eighteen happened. I remember at the time that I was supposed to go, there was a huge hurricane.

• 23:45Nick Kefalides?

  Growing up in Florida, it's a huge hurricane every summer, but there was a huge hurricane coming. And I was kind of torn between, okay, do I stay and like, make sure my family's gonna be okay? Or do I go and, uh, you know, I don't know what, what's gonna happen. My dad was like, you need to go, just go. Like, don't worry about anything at home. This is your time, go.

• 24:07Shawn Ryan?

  Which, uh, sorry, let me interject here. I'm just curious, which real dad, stepdad, which one was kind of like guiding you in that direction?

• 24:18Nick Kefalides?

  My real dad.

• 24:19Shawn Ryan?

  Your real dad?

• 24:20Nick Kefalides?

  My real dad, yeah.

• 24:20Shawn Ryan?

  Your stepdad, was he like?

• 24:23Nick Kefalides?

  He.

• 24:24Shawn Ryan?

  Get in there or?

• 24:25Nick Kefalides?

  No, not really. Um, you know, my dad was probably the most impactful individual in my life.

• 24:35Nick Kefalides?

  So, you know, when, when he, you know, he was a, a father, but he's also a mentor and, and, you know, he, yeah, my dad, you know, he, he was probably one of the biggest, you know, models in my life in terms of being a mentor and a father, you know? And he, uh, and what he thought meant a lot to me, you know? I was very critical of myself and, and everything that he would say and do, like, I would try to learn from him because he's just full of knowledge. And, uh, he just, he, he told me, he's like, you, you need to not worry about what's going on here. If this is what you want to do, you need to go. Don't sit back, don't, just go.

• 25:15Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 25:15Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 25:16Shawn Ryan?

  No, and, uh, knowing, like, knowing that.

• 25:21Shawn Ryan?

  You wanted to go to combat?

• 25:24Nick Kefalides?

  I don't think it was really a reality for him at that point because this was like, I mean, it was, it was still early on.

• 25:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:32Nick Kefalides?

  And I just don't think it really registered for him.

• 25:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:38Nick Kefalides?

  Until I graduated boot camp, got assigned to my unit, you know, went through the school of infantry, assigned to my unit and started to work up to deploy, you know, we started training right off the bat.

• 25:50Shawn Ryan?

  So you went, hold on, let's backtrack just a second. So you went in Marine Corps. You go to, like, what was your contract?

• 25:58Nick Kefalides?

  Basically, I, I signed up to be a ground pounder, to be an O three eleven infantry rifleman.

• 26:04Shawn Ryan?

  What's that pipeline look like?

• 26:07Nick Kefalides?

  Honestly, man, it's, the pipeline is short. You go to, you go to eight week course, school of infantry, and they teach you just basic infantry skill sets, you know, different weapon systems, different tactics, you know, patrolling, hand and arm signals, radio communications, just basic stuff that can be built upon. Once you get to your unit, the follow on training continues. It's a little bit more advanced, a little bit more fine tuned, if you will, so.

• 26:37Shawn Ryan?

  You know, one thing that like really

• 26:42Shawn Ryan?

  that I want to say about the Marine Corps is, or I want to ask actually is

• 26:51Shawn Ryan?

  a Marine like grunt unit is

• 26:56Shawn Ryan?

  extremely fucking effective at what they do and historically, not just, you know, modern day warfare, you know, starting from nine eleven in the Middle East and to the invasion of Fallujah and shit, but you know, Vietnam, Somalia, they're more hungry than any other fucking branch than any other unit. It's a very young demographic and

• 27:26Shawn Ryan?

  What is it about that like uh that's different than the other branches? I guess is kinda what I'm asking is is at what point or what do they do in that training that motivates uh the Marines so much more than than than the other units? I mean, every single fucking Marine that I meet is I mean, they they are fucking hungry and and I can't say that for for every unit uh in the other branches.

• 27:57Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. Um, it's funny you mention that because we you know, I respect all branches of military. I don't give a shit whether you were a cook or whether you were a gunner in a turret like you were contributing to the mission in some aspect. You've got my respect, but it took me time to grow to that have that mentality. Uh, I used to be like, you know, fuck that. If you're not infantry, you're just a pogue. Pogue being the acronym we use for personnel other than grunt. Um, but we used to laugh and be like, you know, people that had never done time in the military before would ask me like,

• 28:37Nick Kefalides?

  what's the biggest difference like in the army and the Marine Corps? And by no means by bashing the army, but I used to be like, alright, so think of like meat eaters and leaf eaters. You've got the two here. Uh, we're carnivores like and uh, I don't know, man, it just, I think it it starts from the day you arrive at boot camp and you step on those yellow footprints. They literally break you the fuck down mentally, physically, psychologically to nothing. I mean, I'm seeing, I'm sitting there watching grown fucking men cry like babies to go home. You know, guys claiming that, you know, all of a sudden now their religion doesn't allow them to

• 29:24Nick Kefalides?

  You know, to be involved in the training that we're required to do.

• 29:30Nick Kefalides?

  And I basically, man, it's it's like a mentality that they ingrain into you, just the way that they train you and then they build you back up, you know, to to be what they want you to be. And I think it's just like by the time you graduate boot camp, especially in a wartime like, you know, you're hearing and seeing about all this shit that's going down and you just got these, you know, guys that just got done training their entire life for three fucking months consisted of making it so that they can go.

• 30:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:02Nick Kefalides?

  To knowing that they're gonna go to combat, you know?

• 30:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:05Nick Kefalides?

  Um, I don't know, man, I I really think it's it's a lot of tradition. The way from boot camp, as regimented it is, the way the drill instructors are, I mean, it is, it's it's, I'm gonna say like for me, boot camp from a physical aspect was not a challenge. I, you know, I was prepared. I made sure that I prepared for boot camp, you know, physically I was there. What I wasn't ready for was the psychological aspect.

• 30:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 30:34Nick Kefalides?

  And and that's where they really kind of build you up and, uh, man, by the time you graduate boot camp, man, you're just, you know, you're a machine. You're thirsty for blood, you know, and they've trained you to be this machine.

• 30:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I mean, it's fucking effective and and another thing that I find really common amongst Marines is is, uh, I mean, you guys are fucking tight and you take care of your own and and a lot of other units, um, especially in soft units, there can be, uh, we can be a little dramatic at times, but, um, I mean, it it functions and, you know, and and we're very effective, but, uh, I can't say that about.

• 31:21Shawn Ryan?

  We can flip the switch and turn it on, you know what I mean? Uh, and we can also turn it off. And that's when usually, you know, bored soft guys, a lot of fucking drama winds up, uh, happening sometimes and. But I don't really see that in the Marine Corps. And one thing I noticed when I was going through training, uh, both at, uh, in the SEAL Teams and at CIA was, um,

• 31:47Shawn Ryan?

  a lot of the other branches, like guys, like they finish their shit and they're fucking gone. And at a very young age, when I went through BUDs, I think, uh, I think when I got, I was about nineteen and, um, the guys that were switching over from the Marine, uh, grunt units, were always the last ones out. They were always the ones that were, um, helping guys with their swim times. They were helping guys with their rifles, how to clean them, how to take them apart. It was, it was always, uh, the Marines or Navy corpsmen who, uh, served with a Marine unit.

• 32:24Nick Kefalides?

  They were attached to them, yeah.

• 32:25Shawn Ryan?

  Um, they just, they had that shit down pat, every fucking one of them that I met. And, uh, they were all solid dudes. In fact, the guy that won Honor Man in my, in my BUDs class was, was a, uh, former force recon guy. But

• 32:44Shawn Ryan?

  I, I just, help me understand, like, what, what happens, like, cause it's, it really is. Every one of them that I've met is like that.

• 32:56Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, I think there is, um, you know, they, they really, uh, put a lot of emphasis on, I'll give you an example, you, you know, if you're on a, on a platoon run or something, you're only as fast as your slowest man, right? So everybody knows, like, I don't give a fuck if you can run three miles in seventeen minutes. This guy here can only run it in 22 minutes or 23 minutes. We need to up his runtime because as a, as a unit, you know, we're only as fast as that guy. And I think that crosses over into every aspect, whether it has to do with, you know, training, or whether you're in combat, or you're in schools and you're learning, just gaining more knowledge.

• 33:41Nick Kefalides?

  I think we've just always had that, you know, that mentality kind of ingrained in us to, you know, help the guys within you because it's not about you collectively. You're a unit and the success of that unit doesn't just rely on one or two people. It relies on everybody within that squad or that platoon. So. But it's also tough to say. I mean, it's part of the process, you know, just from.

• 34:05Shawn Ryan?

  Tough to pinpoint it.

• 34:06Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, they, I mean, they break you down and just everything, all the training, which, I mean, it's been so long for me, I can't even recall half the shit we did in boot camp. Um, but.

• 34:18Shawn Ryan?

  So you join at 18, get through boot camp, you go to infantry school and then you get to what unit?

• 34:27Nick Kefalides?

  I get assigned to second battalion, second Marines.

• 34:31Shawn Ryan?

  And what year is this?

• 34:33Nick Kefalides?

  This is 2000, this is the end of 2004. Uh, I want to say it was like probably December, actually it was probably December timeframe of 2004, maybe January of 2005. I get assigned to second battalion, second Marines.

• 34:52Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 34:53Nick Kefalides?

  And that's, oh, um, stationed there in Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

• 34:57Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. What, how much time has, how much time does it take to show up to boot camp? Get through that, go to infantry school. Now you're at the unit. What, how much time are we talking? Six months, a year?

• 35:09Nick Kefalides?

  Five, five months. You got three months for Marine Corps boot camp. And then the school of infantry is eight weeks and add another two months. You're looking at five months. Um, sometimes when you graduate boot camp, you might get a week of leave between the time you graduate boot camp and the time you go to school of infantry, or you might get a month. It just really depends on time of year, holidays, you know, stuff like that.

• 35:31Shawn Ryan?

  No shit. So.

• 35:34Shawn Ryan?

  In five months, you go from fucking dumbass high school kid who's racing cars to a fucking warfighter within five months.

• 35:43Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 35:43Shawn Ryan?

  Changed mindset. Everything's different.

• 35:46Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. I wouldn't say, you know, a, uh, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say that you're a, you know, full-fledged, like, ready-to-go warfighter, but I mean, you've got, you've got some training under your belt, you know, you've got that mentality ingrained in your head. At that point, you know that, like, it's happening.

• 36:04Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you're definitely a warfighter, whether you like it or not. You know what I mean? Because you're fucking going.

• 36:10Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 36:10Shawn Ryan?

  And so, how long were you at that unit until you got your first deployment orders?

• 36:20Nick Kefalides?

  Like, six months.

• 36:21Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 36:21Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, like, when I got to the unit, they had already, they were pretty much had already started a workup, you know, workup for the deployment can last anywhere from, you know, five months to nine months, depending on how much time you have. Uh, when I got there, they were already in the middle of a workup, so I got there and jumped right into training. I mean, we were going to places like, you know, going out to California and doing training there on Lejeune, and stuff like that, like, we were, we were getting ready, you know? And it was shortly after that when we got our date as to when, when we were leaving.

• 36:53Shawn Ryan?

  How long did you have before you were leaving?

• 36:56Nick Kefalides?

  Um, it was about, you're talking about for training?

• 36:59Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, for your first deployment?

• 37:02Nick Kefalides?

  Between the time I got to my unit and the time.

• 37:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:05Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, it was probably about six months.

• 37:07Shawn Ryan?

  So, okay, so we're looking at a year from enlistment to deployment?

• 37:13Nick Kefalides?

  Pretty much, less than a year.

• 37:15Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 37:15Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 37:16Shawn Ryan?

  Where did you, where were you going?

• 37:19Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, we were going to Iraq, we were going to, uh, a place called Al Kharma, Iraq, which is just north of Fallujah.

• 37:26Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, fuck.

• 37:27Nick Kefalides?

  Anybody that's been deployed to Iraq probably knows about the city of Karma or the town, the village of Karma.

• 37:34Nick Kefalides?

  It's a bad fucking place, man.

• 37:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 37:36Nick Kefalides?

  Probably one of the fucking worst places I've been in my life.

• 37:38Shawn Ryan?

  Had they already, had the Marine Corps already invaded Fallujah at that point?

• 37:42Nick Kefalides?

  Yes.

• 37:42Shawn Ryan?

  That was oh-three, I believe, right?

• 37:44Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah, the initial invasion had already taken place, um, but there was just a lot of residual, just bullshit still going down.

• 37:52Shawn Ryan?

  So you're like fucking what nineteen years old at this time?

• 37:55Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 37:56Shawn Ryan?

  What um? How did they tell you? Like where you're going? Do they, do they? I mean, I know how they do it in the SEAL teams. You kind of know like the entire fucking work.

• 38:07Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, it's different because it's like.

• 38:12Nick Kefalides?

  You know, they really utilize the chain of command and in the line company or the infantry units. Uh, so. Somebody in my position, you know, I didn't know shit. I just did what I was told. And that was it. I followed orders. The way they let us know, I guess, you know, as, as it got closer to deployment date. They called in the two sergeants and the squad leaders and they, you know, sat all these guys down, let them know where we're going roughly about how long we were going to be gone. And they were then ordered to, you know, hey, you need to disseminate this information to your guys.

• 38:48Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, with obviously a laundry list of shit that needs to be done prior to deployment, you know, next of kin and, you know, you know, living wills and shit like that shit that you normally like. You don't really think about, but that's the shit you really got to take care of before you leave.

• 39:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, did any of that shit even seem real at the time to hit you what you were getting ready to go do at all?

• 39:14Nick Kefalides?

  No, no. No.

• 39:18Nick Kefalides?

  I don't think it hit me until.

• 39:21Nick Kefalides?

  I stepped off the bus in Kuwait.

• 39:24Shawn Ryan?

  Oh.

• 39:25Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. We got, we're in Kuwait and stepped off the bus and uh. That fucking door opened dude and it was like. Think of like when you open an oven door, how that fucking dry heat just fucking hit you.

• 39:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:40Nick Kefalides?

  That sort of felt like when the door to that bus opened and we got off and we looked around and we're like. It's gonna be a long fucking summer, boys.

• 39:47Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking whole nother world.

• 39:49Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:51Shawn Ryan?

  What did they, did you have any fucking clue how dangerous, how bad it was where you were going? Did they give you a briefing or were they just, I mean, this is where we're going? Get your shit ready. This is when we leave.

• 40:04Nick Kefalides?

  Dude, honestly, man, when we got there, I can't remember the unit that we, that we did left seat, right seat with, but they went out with us for a few days, you know, on some convoys and stuff. And they were like, yeah, man, we've gotten like two engagements in the last six months. It's been really quiet, you know, uh, not really much to report, you know? They gave us what info they had, but it was really not that kinetic of an environment at that time.

• 40:33Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 40:34Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. And then if you fast forward to a month or two into our deployment, we were getting engagements every fucking day, getting blown up by IEDs, rocketed. I mean, you name it, dude, it was happening. And there's a reason that that, that took place.

• 40:50Shawn Ryan?

  But, uh, no shit.

• 40:52Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 40:52Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's take a quick commercial break and we'll pick up right where we left off on your first combat deployment.

• 41:08Shawn Ryan?

  Sometimes these episodes can be pretty long and they will always keep you on the edge of your seat. Rather than sit here and watch it alone, why don't you head over to vigilanceelite.com, buy yourself some company and get some Vigilance Elite gummy bears.

• 41:39Shawn Ryan?

  Not bad.

• 41:50Shawn Ryan?

  All right, we're back from the break and we left off, you're on your first combat deployment with the infantry unit, you guys did a turnover and they told you that everything's been pretty cool and calm and collected in the city and pretty inactive. So, let's go from there.

• 42:11Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, so they basically tell us, hey, you know, we were just trying to gain the atmospherics as to what's going on and they told us, you know, hey, it's been uneventful. You know, and they showed us, you know, different, different areas and, you know, in our area of operation, you know, points of interest and things like that. But, you know, for the most part, when they were like, all right, you guys got it, you know, they were like, you guys got nothing really to worry about, everything's good, you know, just, you know, mind your Ps and Qs, keep your eyes peeled, kind of thing. It wasn't, wasn't even a week into the deployment where, you know, we got our first engagement, you know, it just happened like that, you know, and at the time you had, Al Qaeda was, was in the area, that's kind of who we were fighting

• 42:54Nick Kefalides?

  at the time was Al Qaeda. And, you know, they're always going to test the waters, they know when new units are coming in, you know, so they're going to test the waters, they're going to see what, you know, what, what they're dealing with here. So, long story short, I think we were convoying from 1OP to back to Camp Fallujah at the time or something like that, think we were like transporting, that's what it was, it was our company commander needed to go from one of our observation posts back to Camp Fallujah for a big meeting with the general, and we were the ones that were going to be transporting him and providing security. So, you know, we mount up, we're going on this convoy, and we're approaching, you know, we're going down MSR Chicago, which is like the main route, you know, to get back to Camp Fallujah,

• 43:37Nick Kefalides?

  and there was an abandoned building, you know, kind of off to our right flank, and a guy basically just jumped out of the, you know, one of the doorways of the abandoned building and just starts, you know, lighting up the convoy with an AK. And, you know, we smoked his ass, it was just like, you know, he, he's done. Stopped the convoy, CO decides he wants to get out and check out the situation, so we, we cleared the compound, you know, the abandoned house where that guy was in, make sure the guy's, you know, dead and all that stuff, and...

• 44:12Nick Kefalides?

  He proceeds to look at me and one of my other comrades and he's like, hey, uh, go ahead and put the body on the hood.

• 44:20Shawn Ryan?

  On the hood of what?

• 44:21Nick Kefalides?

  On the hood of the number one Vic, which was his vehicle.

• 44:26Shawn Ryan?

  He put a dead body on the hood of the lead vehicle?

• 44:31Nick Kefalides?

  He, I was just as shocked as you are, man. I was like, sir. And he's like, do what I fucking said. Put that dude on the fucking hood of my vehicle. And so at that time, you know, we're rolling around in, in up armored Humvees and uh, we had, we would do random vehicle checkpoints. Like if we were in an area where we wanted to start searching people, we would have fifty yards of, or fifty feet of uh, Constantina wire, uh, you know, compressed, you know, essentially it's razor wire, barbed wire, whatever you want to call it. We'd compress it, you know, coil it up, put it on the hood of the Humvee and strap it down. So this way when we need it, we just cut the straps, pull it out and we now, you know, we got our vehicle checkpoint.

• 45:13Nick Kefalides?

  And uh, so we put this dude on the hood. You had this dead guy, he's bleeding all over the place. He's all kind of tangled up in the, in the C wire.

• 45:19Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, let's backtrack here. So how many fucking cars are in uh, in infantry?

• 45:25Nick Kefalides?

  At this point, I think we had four, maybe five vehicles. Typically when we roll around as a platoon in that deployment, it was four, four Humvees, but I think we had an extra one because it was the headquarters vehicle, which was, you know, the CO, uh, and then his personal radio guy and all that. So.

• 45:41Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. I was expecting like twenty, thirty cars.

• 45:44Nick Kefalides?

  No, this was a small convoy. That's how we rolled around. It's pretty small.

• 45:47Shawn Ryan?

  And then this guy was just, it was just a loner, just getting fucking.

• 45:50Nick Kefalides?

  Just a dude, I don't know what, like, honestly, man, I don't know what the fuck was going through his head. Like, you're one dude and you got a convoy of fucking four or five Humvees, but it didn't end well for him.

• 46:00Shawn Ryan?

  How, how close was he to the convoy?

• 46:02Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, man, he was close, dude. He was probably, I mean, he's less than a hundred yards. Man, if I had to guess, I'd say probably about seventy, seventy, eighty yards.

• 46:10Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, that's far. So.

• 46:14Shawn Ryan?

  I'm guessing it was like, usually when that happens, everybody wants to pull the fucking trigger.

• 46:20Nick Kefalides?

  Everybody pulled the trigger.

• 46:21Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 46:21Nick Kefalides?

  So he had a lot of. We had just gotten into country. It hadn't been a week and you've got young PFCs and Lance corporals who've had all this training for the past year and finally have the opportunity to utilize it. So, yeah, everybody pretty much, you know, it all happened at once. I mean, it didn't last long, but nonetheless, yeah, it was a little bit of overkill, but.

• 46:46Shawn Ryan?

  So you're nineteen years old and you just got in your first engagement and shot your first man and then threw him on the hood of the lead vehicle.

• 46:58Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, we had boners up until we were told to put them on the vehicle.

• 47:01Shawn Ryan?

  That's where you draw the line, huh?

• 47:05Nick Kefalides?

  Well, we were like, wait, what?

• 47:07Shawn Ryan?

  Guys, this was a lot of fun, but shit's getting a little weird.

• 47:11Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 47:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:12Nick Kefalides?

  And from that day on, now, mind you, this is a seven month deployment. This is not even a week into it. From that point on, that entire deployment, we were engagements every single day.

• 47:24Shawn Ryan?

  Every day?

• 47:25Nick Kefalides?

  Every day. If it wasn't a firefight, it would be in rocketed or RPG or IEDs. It just, it, there was always something, mortars, incoming mortars, like, it definitely stirred the pot, if you will.

• 47:39Shawn Ryan?

  How long is a, how long is a deployment with the inventory?

• 47:44Nick Kefalides?

  Seven months.

• 47:45Shawn Ryan?

  Seven months?

• 47:46Nick Kefalides?

  Seven months.

• 47:48Shawn Ryan?

  Seven times thirty, what's that, two hundred and ten? That's two hundred and ten engagements at a minimum.

• 47:54Nick Kefalides?

  At a minimum, dude. I mean, sometimes, there's times where, yeah, we, like, we would convoy. I remember there was one day where we, my, my vehicle, how the fuck I have all my fingers and toes to this day, I don't know, because I remember a specific day, my vehicle, I don't know how, but by chance, my vehicle got struck by an IED three times in one day.

• 48:18Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 48:19Nick Kefalides?

  Three fucking times in one day.

• 48:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yep. What the fuck kind of vehicle were you riding around in?

• 48:25Nick Kefalides?

  Well, there's a lot of different variables that go into play with, you know, IEDs. Sometimes they bury them too, too far. Trigger man's not on, you know, the, you know, detonation devices, there's a lag in it. It's not, you know, as accurate as they're hoping for it to be. So we just lucked out, man.

• 48:41Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 48:42Nick Kefalides?

  I mean, there was guys that definitely took shrapnel and got injuries and stuff, but, and those were some of the smaller IEDs, I guess, that I've encountered throughout my, my time over there. But, uh, I remember that, man. It was like, it was kind of a running joke, you know, as my career progressed, um, you know, and I got to different units. It was kind of like the running joke, like, yeah, I don't want to be in his vehicle. Cause I was done for getting blown the fuck up.

• 49:06Shawn Ryan?

  Man, that was, when we were running, uh, vehicles overseas, especially in Iraq, that was, that was the one thing that fucking scared the shit out of me. And I think,

• 49:20Shawn Ryan?

  I think that was because you, you have no control.

• 49:23Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, that's, that's right, dude. You have no control. And, you know, people ask me all the time, you know, hey, what do you think was worse, Iraq or Afghanistan? And I'm like, depends on what, you know, what we're talking about, but in terms of like,

• 49:43Nick Kefalides?

  you know, people getting wounded or killed, I felt like Iraq because it was just, they didn't really have much of a desire to fight you. Now granted, they would, they would initiate an ambush by detonating IED and then follow up with some pop shots and a couple of rounds and then they'd be gone. And Afghanistan, I mean, you, you know, just as well as I do, those fuckers will sit up there in fucking man dresses and flip flops and fight you in the mountains.

• 50:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:10Nick Kefalides?

  For days on top. You'll be in a tick for hours.

• 50:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, they were dedicated.

• 50:15Nick Kefalides?

  But the IEDs are really like, that was for me too. Like you roll through a marketplace and all of a sudden you see it's just a straight ghost town.

• 50:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:24Nick Kefalides?

  Like you know shit's about to go down. And at the time we're riding an up armor Humvees, like the high back Humvees.

• 50:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 50:31Nick Kefalides?

  Which were. You know, their armor about that thick. Now granted, it's supposed to be titanium armor. It comes up on the back of the Humvee. You're sitting essentially in a pickup truck with armored sides on it. But the armor only came up to about yay, like about this high. So your head's still kind of sticking up.

• 50:48Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 50:49Nick Kefalides?

  So you roll in, you hear them, you know, on the mosque, on the microphone of the mosque, they're praying. Town is just a complete ghost town. You know shit's about to go down and you're just like.

• 51:00Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have translators?

• 51:02Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah, we had some translators at the time.

• 51:05Shawn Ryan?

  So were the mosques, at that time where the mosques, uh, putting out, hey, the Americans are running a convoy, come kill them. Cause they were doing that all over, uh, all over every AO as far as I know.

• 51:18Nick Kefalides?

  Yep.

• 51:19Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, especially in that timeframe. And that's when the EFPs, I believe oh four was when EFPs made an appearance, which were

• 51:28Shawn Ryan?

  the worst fucking ID.

• 51:29Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:30Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, ever at that probably still to this day, but well, Nick, I did a lot of research on you. Uh, before you got here, as much as I could, it's kind of hard to research it because you don't post any of this shit anymore, but

• 51:47Shawn Ryan?

  I talked to, uh, a guy who was there with you and he told me a story that you guys were held up in a building and look at you, you don't even know what fuck I'm like, yeah, which building?

• 52:02Nick Kefalides?

  It's funny dude, because like, there's a lot of shit that I've like, I don't remember about like, you know, my time overseas, stuff that I, but I'll get around guys that I've served with or buddies of mine. And when they start talking, like some of them's memories a lot better than mine, you know, maybe it's part and part to do with my TBI, but they'll start talking and shit starts coming back to me. I'm like, holy fuck, I remember that.

• 52:26Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let me refresh your memory.

• 52:29Shawn Ryan?

  So you're taking fire from another building and you were in one of those bombed out, fucking half-built Iraqi houses. And there was a small group of guys that was going to go to the house that you guys were getting hit from and, uh, kill those fuckers. They needed cover fire. Apparently the Marines that were on the roof at the time, uh, on the machine guns were being pussies. And

• 53:03Shawn Ryan?

  You ran up the stairs swatting the Marines off the fucking stairs.

• 53:09Nick Kefalides?

  Oh shit, I remember that.

• 53:11Shawn Ryan?

  And manned the machine gun and, and then they went over and killed those fuckers. So.

• 53:21Shawn Ryan?

  Your buddy Dan.

• 53:24Shawn Ryan?

  Instagram handle zero three OG.

• 53:27Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 53:27Shawn Ryan?

  Ring any bells?

• 53:28Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah, Dan and I go way back, man.

• 53:31Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I got him on the phone here.

• 53:33Nick Kefalides?

  Oh, no shit?

• 53:36Nick Kefalides?

  Oh, you said.

• 53:37Shawn Ryan?

  I got him on the phone here. Hey, Dan, how's it going, man?

• 53:41Speaker 06

  Good. Thanks for, uh, thanks for, uh, thanks for having me on there.

• 53:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, thanks for coming on. So I just gave a brief description of the story that we discussed on the phone a couple of weeks ago and I got Nick sitting here. So I'd like to hear the story from your angle and from Nick's angle.

• 54:03Speaker 06

  So, man, yeah, I just wanted to, that day was a crazy day. Um, we had, it was toward the end of our deployment and we wanted to get out of, uh, you know, out of harm's way. We had been operating in a very kinetic environment for the last, you know, seven months and honestly, every, uh, everyone on our team just wanted to make it home in one piece at this point. And, uh,

• 54:26Speaker 06

  we were, uh, we were in between patrols and, uh, we were on here for a couple of hours and whoever was watching us, whatever group, terror group was in that, uh, AO, had already gotten our times down. So when we were transitioning from one squad to the next. And so that's when they hit us when we were doing that. And, uh, you know, there was rounds flying through this old building. I distinctly remember, you know, this is, this is a testament to the kind of person Nick is is he was downstairs and there was a, a gun position on the, uh, on the roof and, uh, you know, people, the guy that.

• 55:05Speaker 06

  Was on security up on the roof, um, I won't throw any names out there, but he uh, he's scrambling, trying to get down the stairs, get away from the gunfire and Nick, you know, running full speed ahead, uh, up the stairs and he's, he tosses this guy out of the way and uh, gets on the two forty and he starts landing out to the fire. So that way, uh, my squad and

• 55:29Nick Kefalides?

  Movement to

• 55:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, the react squad did get out there and uh, takes enemy and, and uh, takes and kicks and uh, do what needs to be done. So yeah, that was uh, yeah, that was, that was pretty crazy. That's just a, that's the type of person Nick is, you know, he uh, definitely wouldn't have, I'd get back in the fight.

• 55:47Shawn Ryan?

  So were you guys uh, side by side when, when the initial engagement happened? You and Nick?

• 55:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, we might've been in like, the rooms are so small. I mean, we, we were probably within feet of each other. Yeah.

• 56:00Nick Kefalides?

  Same room.

• 56:01Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit. So you fucking run to the roof and uh, give them cover fire and uh, Dan was able to go and?

• 56:10Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, they did it. We had a, probably half a squad do a movement to contact, you know, when we took, started taking fire and I was just, you know, trying to use up as many rounds as possible that we had up there.

• 56:22Shawn Ryan?

  How many guys, Dan, if you don't mind me asking, how many guys uh, were engaging you?

• 56:30Speaker 06

  Um, probably at least

• 56:36Speaker 06

  five, five, six, two or five at least.

• 56:39Shawn Ryan?

  All in the same building?

• 56:42Speaker 06

  Um, they were in a vehicle too, so they had gotten out and they were, that they would do, they'd do like these little hit and runs almost. They'd set up multiple positions and jump back in their cars or vehicles and dodge off before, you know? Yeah, that, or they were, they, they wouldn't stay around long. So it's, it's really hard to get a grip on that type, but you know, they, they knew what they were doing. Um.

• 57:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. And you and how many guys went to go kill five or six dudes?

• 57:10Speaker 06

  I mean, we had a squad. I mean, our squads were like, we were so undermanned. I mean, we probably, at one point, we had like a, it was like two fire teams, not even, which was a squad, like seven, eight guys, nine guys.

• 57:23Shawn Ryan?

  Shut your mouth.

• 57:25Speaker 06

  So, um, yeah, we were, we were running short. We had guys in another platoon, you know, combat replacements, and those guys were getting hit. So, it was a, it was a shitty deployment.

• 57:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, sounds like it.

• 57:38Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, Dan, I think that, uh, I think it's safe to say that, that deployment probably took year, years off of our life.

• 57:49Shawn Ryan?

  Did you get that, Dan?

• 57:50Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 57:51Nick Kefalides?

  I was saying, it's, it's safe to say that that deployment probably took a few years off of our lives.

• 57:58Speaker 06

  Yeah, definitely. That deployment was one that you'll never forget, for sure.

• 58:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Nick, you showed me a video right before we came up here of your first deployment, and you guys, uh, got hit by...

• 58:19Nick Kefalides?

  It was Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda had coordinated an attack on the Iraqi police station.

• 58:26Shawn Ryan?

  And you guys found that video on YouTube?

• 58:28Nick Kefalides?

  The video actually was, yeah, it, it got released on YouTube somehow. Like, I know that our unit confiscated the, the camera. Essentially, these guys attacked Iraqi police station that was, had been abandoned by the Iraqi police, because shit had got so bad in that, in that AO. Uh, so we basically took it over and made it into an observation post. Well, we get the, all of a sudden, we get the call, QRF, QRF, the police station's getting attacked. Uh, so we roll up there, and you can see the guys playing his day. There's probably half a dozen dudes there, you know, uh, PKMs, RPKs, RPGs, you know, just laying it down to the police station.

• 59:10Nick Kefalides?

  And we roll up, you know, flank them and just, you know, do our thing. And, uh, I guess the video had gotten confiscated. Now, at what point the video went from whoever's hands to making it on YouTube? It made it to be pretty famous, you know, pretty infamous, uh, attack on the Iraqi police station, Al Khamra. So, it's pretty, pretty crazy.

• 59:31Shawn Ryan?

  If we can dig that video up, I'm putting it on.

• 59:34Nick Kefalides?

  Alright, Dan's got it.

• 59:36Shawn Ryan?

  Dan, you have that video?

• 59:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, the police station attack?

• 59:41Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 59:42Speaker 06

  Yeah, I got that one.

• 59:44Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. He's got more pictures and videos.

• 59:47Speaker 06

  That was, uh, yeah, that was that day that, I mean, that, I remember that day really, that was the day you guys and your squad reacted to that too as well.

• 59:57Shawn Ryan?

  Walk us through that if you don't mind.

• 1:00:00Speaker 06

  Ah, so I remember my squad was actually being punished, um, we were, uh, I forget what happened, but something with our squad leader said or did something, I forget what it was, but, uh, we, uh, we were filmed sandbags actually.

• 1:00:14Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit.

• 1:00:15Speaker 06

  And, uh, we thought, I remember hearing what I thought was just firecrackers, as if it was fireworks, you know, it's like, eh, that's strange, and then, I started seeing people in the far distance, um, running across alleyways, and I'm like, yeah, that's, that's also strange, but that's probably not a coincidence, there's probably something going on, and then all of a sudden they started getting radio traffic that there was an attack, um, come on, and, you know, weapons platoon had been put up at, uh, Iraqi police station at the time, and, uh, they were already combat ineffective, they had lost so many guys, so they were sitting there, you know, alone and unafraid, with maybe some small detachment, and, uh, some police force there, and police force left way early, they, they knew something was happening, and they bounced, so it's just those guys there.

• 1:01:03Speaker 06

  And, uh, yeah, I mean, it was a well thought out planned attack, they were, they tried to, uh, blow up one of the Texas T barriers with a, like a satchel charge, and it was, it was nuts.

• 1:01:16Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 1:01:17Speaker 06

  Nick's squad, I believe was one of the squads too that reacted to that, and they freaking, yeah, they, they took those guys out too, that was a pretty, pretty awesome thing.

• 1:01:28Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, uh, uh, my squad was pretty, like, they were pretty lit. Like, my squad had some problems, like, just the, the guys that were in that squad were just not, they had a couple screws loose.

• 1:01:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Nick Kefalides?

  But it really benefited us for that deployment, I can tell you that.

• 1:01:46Speaker 06

  I remember looking at pictures, I got these pictures of, uh, I'll see if I can get into somehow, but, of, uh, our platoon standing like Purple Heart at ceremonies, and some god awful fop, and it's like, you know... It was nothing to have like almost the entire platoon or half the platoon, you know, all us, couple hearts and just yeah, just kind of business as usual back then.

• 1:02:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:08Speaker 06

  Glad we all made it out there alive, that's, that's one thing I'll, I'll never forget for sure.

• 1:02:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, I really appreciate you calling in Dan and uh, you guys got anything to say to each other before I uh, end the call here?

• 1:02:25Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, hey bro, I, I really appreciate it, it was uh, it was definitely a surprise and uh, I want you to know I love you man.

• 1:02:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, and I'm glad to be on here man, glad to uh, to uh, speak a little bit about our experiences together and you know, yeah, I love you too man, appreciate it and uh, hopefully we'll plan to fish and trip, fish and trip soon, I don't know if any of the listeners out here are listening, um, I'm gonna put that plug in for you, you know, Nick runs his business and we're planning on getting out there too and getting out in the water, so if you guys are listening, you wanna find a, a good person to, you know, take you on a fishy guarantee, you can get some, some good ones, uh, hit him up.

• 1:03:03Nick Kefalides?

  Thanks dude.

• 1:03:04Shawn Ryan?

  All right on, well hey Dan, I, I really appreciate it man and uh, I'll be in touch soon.

• 1:03:10Speaker 06

  All right, sounds good, take care gentlemen, have a great day.

• 1:03:13Nick Kefalides?

  All right man, you too.

• 1:03:14Shawn Ryan?

  Later.

• 1:03:15Speaker 06

  All right, later.

• 1:03:16Shawn Ryan?

  How'd that feel?

• 1:03:17Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, it's crazy man, like, that guy, like, Dan and I, I mean, we did everything together dude, like, we were like, inseparable, like, you know, just good dude, you know, we, everything, everything, ever since we were in the same company in boot camp, we're in the same platoon, you know, all through School of Infantry, we were in the same platoon all through, you know, Second Battalion, Second Marines, that whole deployment, uh, we got some good memories man, some really good memories, you know, of, you know, that time, you know, got some, some great memories and some not so great memories, you know, with the things that we experienced, but, that was pretty cool man, I was surprised that you uh, you had him on the hook there.

• 1:03:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I talked to him a couple of weeks ago and, and he told me that story and I was like, holy shit, I mean...

• 1:04:06Shawn Ryan?

  You know, you came here and I think you were a little intimidated because of some of the guys that sat in that seat. But I mean, just that one story that he told me out of the, you know, I mean, fuck that alone. That deployment alone, what did we just say? We had twenty, two hundred and ten engagements at a minimum. And you yanked a fucking turret off a machine gun and put yourself in harm's way to, so that your buddies could go and fucking kill the insurgents that were trying to kill you. And I mean, that's, people don't do that shit. So, you know, that's pretty fucking heroic.

• 1:04:51Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, I mean, at the time, I didn't feel it was heroic. I still don't. I mean, I feel like, I mean, it's just one of those things, man. It's like instinct kicks in. And that's what I've, I've said for the longest time, like, guys that, that work in the SOF community that do like, do what you did and do, you know, what I did and stuff like, that can't be taught. You know, having that natural instinct to react and to do what needs to be done, you can't train for that. Like, it's just, you're either gonna do it or you're not. You're either gonna be the guy taking cover, or you're gonna be the guy that's suppressing fire to make sure that your guys, you know, your squad, your platoon, your team, whatever it may be, you know, doesn't get whacked, so.

• 1:05:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, for those of you listening who want to know who Dan is, you can check him out on Instagram at zero three dash O G. And there's some interesting stuff on there.

• 1:05:49Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:50Shawn Ryan?

  But, so moving forward in that deployment, I was really pumped about that phone call and I wanted to get him on here and reconnect you guys because that's probably been a minute.

• 1:06:04Shawn Ryan?

  But is there anything else that was a major event that happened on that first deployment?

• 1:06:09Nick Kefalides?

  There's so much stuff that happened, man, but uh it it all just kind of runs together. I learned a lot. That was the most important thing is that, you know, that deployment for me really helped set me up for the soft world, you know, it it gave me an appreciation that most guys that don't get to experience that lifestyle being part of an infantry unit, uh, you know, comes with. So, you know, I'm grateful for that. That's my roots. That's where I came from. You know, I didn't start out, you know, as a, as a soft team guy, started out as a ground pounder, as an infantry guy. I get dudes that hit me up all the time and like, whether it's young guys that are getting ready to go into the military

• 1:06:50Nick Kefalides?

  or guys that have done a few years in the military as infantry who are getting ready to transition. They're going to go to take assessment selection, you know, to go to Marsoc or whatever. And they'll hit me up and they'll say, hey, do you have any recommendations, you know, and I tried to tell, I tried to give them tips and pointers and stuff, but the biggest thing is you could never be too prepared. Yeah. Go prepared, you know?

• 1:07:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:15Shawn Ryan?

  So let's move forward then. So then at some point you decided you wanted to move into Marsoc and become a Raider. So let's, let's revisit that experience.

• 1:07:30Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. So, well, at the time, Marine Raider wasn't even a thing. Now granted, the Marine Raiders goes, dates back to World War II, right?

• 1:07:44Nick Kefalides?

  The Marine Corps has been conducting special operations for as long as they've been, you know, around.

• 1:07:55Nick Kefalides?

  Now, it wasn't until 2006 where we were taken under the wing of SOCOM and became what is now known as MARSOC, the Marine Special Operations Command, or the Marine Raiders. At the time, it was still just the old force reconnaissance companies, and it was a totally different format on how these companies were laid out in terms of the teams and all that. I didn't know really anything about it. I just know that my company commander pulled us like a select few from the company. You know, I don't remember how many guys it was,

• 1:08:36Nick Kefalides?

  but it was like probably 20, 30 dudes from the company. And he said, hey, there's a reason you're here. I have, you know, basically requested that you individuals come here, and it's because I want to provide you with an opportunity that's out there, and that is to go and be a part of this MARSOC unit as security platoon. And at the time, we're, you know, we're young, dude. We just got back from our first deployment, and we're looking around each other going, what's MARSOC? You know, at the time, we were already counting down the days to when our, our first term was up, because life sucked so bad on that first deployment and just with that infantry unit, like you were just looked at as another

• 1:09:20Nick Kefalides?

  number. So it's like, we had already made our minds up that we're getting out. But this opportunity had been presented to us, hey, you can take an indoc and try out to go, and if you make it, there's good things to come. So at that point, really didn't have shit to lose. I just knew that life was miserable where I was at, and I wanted to change. I wanted an opportunity to kind of better myself. And so I did, took the, you know, the little screening and indoc that they had. Ended up making it and went over to Marsoc as part of the trailer slash security platoon.

• 1:09:59Nick Kefalides?

  And essentially what our job was to do is basically provide security for the DASR platoon, which is basically short acronym, DASR being direct action special reconnaissance. We would provide security for those guys when they're going in to do raids or do a hit on a house or something. We would be the ones manning the, the heavy guns, the machine guns, you know, with our experience and.

• 1:10:23Shawn Ryan?

  So you guys were like a blocking force essentially?

• 1:10:26Nick Kefalides?

  Essentially, essentially, yep. Squirters, making sure there were those squirters, making sure if there are any reinforcements that came in while our, our teams were boots on the ground and, you know, we're, we're inside, you know, whatever compound or house that we were hitting, you know, just making sure that they could go in there and do what they needed to do without wording, worrying about the outer cordon.

• 1:10:46Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. So real quick for the audience, a squirter, get your mind out of the gutter. But a squirter is basically when a unit hits a house or a compound or whatever it may be, the people that are bad, that are in that compound that run and try to get away from destiny of blocking forces there to basically eliminate them so that they don't get away and fuck another unit up. So we call that squirted patrol or a blocking force.

• 1:11:26Nick Kefalides?

  Yep.

• 1:11:27Shawn Ryan?

  So you, so you're a blocking force for Marine Special Operations and so basically you were hand selected?

• 1:11:33Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, essentially. You know, when I got there, I mean, dude, we had the, that was the longest workup prior to deployment I have ever done. I mean, we shot, I can't tell you how many thousands of rounds of ammo, different shooting packages, the training, different training packages and stuff. It was all, you know, really great training. They ended up making me an element leader, you know, during that time. So I had, you had a fire team under me that I, you know, that we deployed together and all that.

• 1:12:06Shawn Ryan?

  Did you work with the? Spoke Ops Unit as an infantryman?

• 1:12:11Nick Kefalides?

  Yes, yeah, like while we were there, everything was kinda like, whatever training they conducted, we were conducting and we were, everything we did was together because ultimately, by the end of that workup, we needed to be meshed as one because we were gonna be, I mean, we're there helping each other, you know? So, yeah, everything and that's, that was cool for us as infantry guys that went over. We had gotten training that we had never even dreamed of ever getting. I mean, going to Hawthorne, Nevada, doing, you know, high altitude shooting and we went up to, you know, Fort Campbell and trained with, uh, yeah, I think it's fifth group or whoever it was that we were training with and, you know, training with, you know, little birds and, you know,

• 1:12:52Nick Kefalides?

  uh, Apaches and stuff like that, you know, calling for air and, you know, engaging targets and stuff like that. Just stuff that we had never really thought we'd get the chance to do and it was cool. We got to do all that stuff. The biggest difference, uh, you know, from infantry, uh, transitioning over to Marsoc was the funding.

• 1:13:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:10Nick Kefalides?

  Where, when I came up in the Marine Corps was always do, do what you can, make, do what you can with very little. Like, we always did the most we possibly could with the little bit that we had. And when we went to Marsoc, we had all the ammo we needed. We had the weapons we needed. We had the gear that we needed. You know, all that stuff. So it was a totally different world.

• 1:13:31Shawn Ryan?

  How long after the train, how long after you were hand selected to do security for, um, Marsoc? Or was Marsoc or reconnaissance at the time?

• 1:13:39Nick Kefalides?

  It was, it, when we went over is when it turned, when it was turned to Marsoc. And that was in two thousand and six.

• 1:13:47Shawn Ryan?

  Okay. How long after you got there, did you deploy again with that unit?

• 1:13:55Nick Kefalides?

  Um, well, yeah, that was, I got there, soon as we got to Marsoc, um, it wasn't but maybe two weeks and we rolled right into a workup and that was a nine month workup and I'm talking, we did everything.

• 1:14:11Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, shit. Nine months.

• 1:14:13Nick Kefalides?

  Nine months.

• 1:14:14Shawn Ryan?

  And you're working with? The operators.

• 1:14:17Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah, essentially working with the operators, um, you know, different school, we went, we had a school phase where guys were tasked out to go to different schools and learn different things. And then, once that phase was over, we come back together and we train together collectively as a unit.

• 1:14:33Shawn Ryan?

  How did they receive you guys? Were they?

• 1:14:35Nick Kefalides?

  They hated us.

• 1:14:36Shawn Ryan?

  They fucking hated you?

• 1:14:36Nick Kefalides?

  They fucking hated us.

• 1:14:38Shawn Ryan?

  You're a blocking force for them.

• 1:14:39Nick Kefalides?

  They fucking.

• 1:14:40Shawn Ryan?

  And they fucking hated you.

• 1:14:41Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, like they hated us. I'm trying to remember, uh, a guy that I later down the road ended up becoming friends with.

• 1:14:50Nick Kefalides?

  He's a very well-known guy in the community, but he hated us with a fucking passion. He's like, basically, I remember one day, he's like, you know, he's talking to one of his buddies and he's like, man, he's got, these dudes are like little fucking Iraqis. Why are they even here? You know, they just didn't want us there. And the reason being is that we didn't come up the way that they did, you know, when they graduated the School of Infantry, they may have went right directly to, you know, BRC, the Base of Reconnaissance Course, or Amphibious Reconnaissance School.

• 1:15:20Nick Kefalides?

  And we just didn't, we didn't go that same pipeline. We didn't go. And honestly, to them, like, we just were not up to par, you know, we, we didn't, we couldn't do what they did because we didn't have the training and the experience. We just weren't as good as them, you know?

• 1:15:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, but you weren't doing what they were doing.

• 1:15:38Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, man, it's just one of those, one of those things, man, the egos are flying around and, you know, and, and we just kind of kept our mouths shut. We knew that we were the new kids on the block and we didn't really, you know, have what they had and, but we knew that our time would come. Our time was going to come where we could prove ourselves and we would be looked at as an asset and that time did come, you know?

• 1:16:01Shawn Ryan?

  So you go on deployment, where are you headed?

• 1:16:04Nick Kefalides?

  Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

• 1:16:06Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, J bad.

• 1:16:07Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, old J bad.

• 1:16:08Shawn Ryan?

  It's a nice town.

• 1:16:11Shawn Ryan?

  So you're in J-Bad and what what's the mission? Cause it's a it sounds like infantry was a lot of presence patrols and and kind of PSD work.

• 1:16:22Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:16:23Shawn Ryan?

  High ranking individuals.

• 1:16:25Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:25Shawn Ryan?

  Now you're attached to a SOCOM SOF unit, which you know, mission is completely different.

• 1:16:33Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, totally different. I mean, it's uh, I mean, it's not like you're you. We're not out there doing like things like presence patrols and you patrol in the area just to kind of gain atmospherics. Every time you went outside of the wires with a purpose.

• 1:16:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:49Nick Kefalides?

  We're running missions, you know, uh, you know, very planned out, uh, you know, down to the nats ass detail missions, you know, running raids and doing, you know, big sweeps of villages where we're going through and, you know, we might be rolling through a, you know, Taliban, you know, infested village. Uh, you like that word infested?

• 1:17:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:16Nick Kefalides?

  So it was very different though, and our mission again was to provide security for the DASR platoon. That was our, pretty much our, our main goal there, uh, making sure that they, you know, could do what they needed to do. Uh, manning the heavy guns, setting a cordon, you know, all that stuff.

• 1:17:34Nick Kefalides?

  But it was for, for more, more or less direct action raids and stuff like that.

• 1:17:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, HVTs and shit.

• 1:17:42Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, focusing on the HVTs or at some point they changed to HVIs because HVTs wasn't politically correct or whatever, but.

• 1:17:50Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, I figure.

• 1:17:54Shawn Ryan?

  How did the op tempo change? Was it, were you guys still engaged getting in engagements every night? Or did it kind of change a little bit?

• 1:18:02Nick Kefalides?

  It changed. It wasn't who that deployment at first, it wasn't really quite as kinetic. I mean, we did get in some engagements, but it wasn't as reoccurring as it was. Um, we did have lots of, uh, get lots of radio traffic, um, you know, and cell phone traffic that we were tracking. They were planning on taking over our compound, um, you know, breaching the walls and taking over. So that was always there, um, in addition to, you know, being out outside of the wire when we're doing missions and whatnot.

• 1:18:35Nick Kefalides?

  But uh, we, we did get engaged um, and ultimately, you know, sad as it is to say that deployment got cut a little bit short uh, cause that was the very first uh, Marsoc company to deploy to Afghanistan. That was like, since Marsoc had been stood up, we were the first ones to go.

• 1:18:58Shawn Ryan?

  What year is this?

• 1:18:59Nick Kefalides?

  This is uh, we left in the beginning of two thousand and seven.

• 1:19:03Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:19:04Nick Kefalides?

  And uh,

• 1:19:07Nick Kefalides?

  we ended up getting kicked out of country.

• 1:19:09Shawn Ryan?

  I've heard about this incident. So, I've heard about this incident at the first, the first Marsoc unit to deploy under SOCOM and uh, I heard it was a uh, a fucking shit show.

• 1:19:23Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, to say the least, man. It was a Fox company and uh, I mean, I was working at the time under probably the most, one of the most respectable officers within the force reconnaissance Marsoc community uh, at the time, Major Fred Galvin um, was our company commander and um, you know, he, he basically, he knew what the fuck we were there to do and um, you know, unfortunately, the incident that happened that resulted in us getting kicked out of the country, it ruined careers. His being one of them, just completely ruined guys' careers.

• 1:20:04Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what was the incident?

• 1:20:06Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, so, those guys recently got exonerated. This has been years. So, think from two thousand and seven to when they got exonerated in two thousand and nineteen, that's the amount of time it took.

• 1:20:20Shawn Ryan?

  It's fucking twelve years.

• 1:20:21Nick Kefalides?

  Twelve years, dude. By this point, their careers have went down the drain and now they're just trying to save what's left of their lives. Uh, but ultimately, it was a vehicle board IED that struck our convoy and we were being engaged from.

• 1:20:40Nick Kefalides?

  You know, multiple different compounds, you know, around us and Marines doing what they are trained to do, you know, start to push out of the kill zone and engage a threat.

• 1:20:54Nick Kefalides?

  At some point in time, uh, somebody, I know, I don't know if this was a tactic that was used by the Taliban at that time, saying that there were, there were, you know, innocent civilians that had gotten killed as a result of this, but it, it went up to the top of the flagpole, man. And it was a huge investigation on why these Marines basically killed innocent civilians in Afghanistan. Everybody kind of forgot the fact that what initiated this engagement was, it was a car bomb.

• 1:21:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:29Nick Kefalides?

  You know, a car bomb was driven into one of our vehicles on the convoy and we did what we were trained to do.

• 1:21:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I, I remember hearing about that and

• 1:21:43Shawn Ryan?

  yeah, it, special operations handles shit a lot differently and it's a lot more surgical and, uh, it was very.

• 1:21:56Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. It like, I'll give you an example, man. Like for those of you that haven't been to Afghanistan before, you probably wouldn't know this, but

• 1:22:05Nick Kefalides?

  like there were times where we'd go outside of the wire to zero in different weapons, you know, go out, go out, test the, the, uh, mark 19s, test 50 cows, make sure everything was working properly, knowing that we had an upcoming mission. Dude, those little kids there, little Afghan kids, they would literally be sitting there off the side of the Humvee as, you know, we're engaging, you know, targets.

• 1:22:34Nick Kefalides?

  You know, or just, you know, at the range or whatever, and they would be sitting there collecting the brass. So I remember, you know, one of the investigators is some high ranking, you know, officer. Who didn't know what the fuck he was talking about because he had never been in combat before. Was like, well, you guys say that you were engaging enemy combatants that were firing from you. You know, we went back days later, we didn't find any spent brass on the, on the ground. And we're like, well, no fucking shit because it's been collected, you know? So somebody that hasn't been to Afghanistan wouldn't know that or hasn't been, you know, uh, in combat per se, but.

• 1:23:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, I mean, it's really easy for these fuckheads to, you know, backseat quarter, backseat quarterback an entire event and, you know.

• 1:23:20Shawn Ryan?

  They don't even know what the fuck it feels like to get rocked by an IED. Then you throw in, you know, you brought up the kids and this reminded me, I remember when I was in Afghanistan. They were taking kids and filling their bicycle tires with explosives. And they would have the kids ride their bike towards the convoy and start detonating their fucking bicycles. And you've got people that are, you know, they're wearing the, the, the man jammies attire. And they'll clack rounds at you, you know, off at you with an AK and then. Hide the AK under their, under their fucking clothes because they're so baggy. And when all this shit's happening all at once.

• 1:24:05Shawn Ryan?

  It can be real fucking hard to ID and pinpoint. Exactly where the threat's coming, especially when it's coming from fucking everywhere. And, uh, I mean, they would have guys dressed up like women. Burkas wearing a suicide vest that'll blow a fucking building down. And, uh, and then you got some fucking jag that comes in and, uh, you know. Backseat quarterbacks, the whole fucking thing and, uh, ruins careers and lives and.

• 1:24:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, fucking sucks. So, so you went home and yeah, we went home and um.

• 1:24:50Nick Kefalides?

  That was uh, it was tough, you know, after a nine month workup. You know, it was really tough to to come to terms with the fact that like, well, that was, that sucked. But also, it was kind of, it sucked for us because all of SOCOM, you know, is looking at us through a microscope at that time.

• 1:25:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:11Nick Kefalides?

  To see what are the Marines gonna do?

• 1:25:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:13Nick Kefalides?

  Like, how are they gonna perform on their very first deployment? And it was just a complete, you know, in the eyes of the time, in the eyes of SOCOM, it was a complete flop.

• 1:25:23Shawn Ryan?

  And that was in J-Bad that happened?

• 1:25:25Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 1:25:26Shawn Ryan?

  I had heard that was in Kabul, but.

• 1:25:28Nick Kefalides?

  Kabul.

• 1:25:29Shawn Ryan?

  It was in Kabul.

• 1:25:29Nick Kefalides?

  It was in Kabul, yeah.

• 1:25:30Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:25:31Nick Kefalides?

  We, yeah, we were working in J-Bad and in Kabul at the time, though. We were uh, we were operating right out of Kabul Air Base there, and that's where it happened.

• 1:25:40Shawn Ryan?

  How long were you guys in country? How, like, how long was that deployment?

• 1:25:44Nick Kefalides?

  I think from, it ended up like, from start to finish, it maybe ended up being like a hundred days.

• 1:25:51Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit, okay.

• 1:25:52Nick Kefalides?

  Maybe a hundred and twenty days, yeah, it got cut real short, man, maybe a hundred and twenty days tops.

• 1:25:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, that's still, you know, when you guys got home, how was the morale with everybody?

• 1:26:05Nick Kefalides?

  Morale was low, dude. Morale was real low. Um, we didn't know what was gonna happen with the guys that were under investigation, you know, we didn't, we really didn't know what, what the future was gonna hold for them. Um, and there was a lot of changes made, like when we got back from that deployment, they completely did away with the whole format of the company, you know, where you had your trailer slash security platoon, you had your DASR platoon that worked together. Um, that went away. That completely went away. So,

• 1:26:46Nick Kefalides?

  at that point, it was like, alright, so all you guys that came over from Second Battalion, Second Marines, don't really have a purpose for you anymore, so you need to go home.

• 1:26:57Shawn Ryan?

  So you're going back to the grunts?

• 1:26:58Nick Kefalides?

  Well, that's what most of the guys ended up doing, got sent back. There was a, a select few of us that they, I don't know, I mean, I don't know how it happened or why it happened essentially, I guess.

• 1:27:13Nick Kefalides?

  You know, some of the guys, you know, the company commander and two sergeant from that desk platoon, you know, saw something in a few of us that, you know, he really liked and thought that we could, you know, uh, you know, I don't like what I just said, but anyways.

• 1:27:27Shawn Ryan?

  I think what you're trying to say is you just got fucking hand selected, uh, for a second time to.

• 1:27:34Nick Kefalides?

  To stay, but on permanent orders.

• 1:27:36Shawn Ryan?

  As a actual operator.

• 1:27:39Nick Kefalides?

  Yes. Yeah. Now, and that was under the, um, I don't want to say agreement, but it was basically like, hey, you're getting orders here, but you're going to get schooled the fuck out. Because we understand that yes, you've got some combat experience. Yes. Yes, we feel like, you know, you're an asset to the battalion. Uh, but we need to get you up to speed, you know, things that, you know, we don't really get as infantry, you know?

• 1:28:09Shawn Ryan?

  Do you know how fucking big that is?

• 1:28:13Shawn Ryan?

  Like,

• 1:28:16Shawn Ryan?

  seriously, you got fucking hand selected to go to a essentially a blocking force for special operation, Marine Special Operations, MARSOC. You did that, you did a three month deployment, whatever the fuck you did in that three months, uh, must have been pretty badass. Because then you were hand selected again, uh, to come on as a fucking operator without going through.

• 1:28:39Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:40Shawn Ryan?

  The selection course. And I just, just to put this shit in perspective for you, like all the way up to the top level at fucking, uh, Dev Group and CAG, you screen to go there. They don't fucking, they're not out there hand selecting everybody. You might get a push like, hey, you might, you might want to fucking go screen and go to Dev Group. They had a Dev Group doesn't come fucking find you, you know, so.

• 1:29:05Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:05Shawn Ryan?

  I just want to say that. Did you ever think about?

• 1:29:09Nick Kefalides?

  At the time, no dude, and you know, it's weird because.

• 1:29:14Nick Kefalides?

  At that time, we were at a weird transition from force reconnaissance to Marsoc. So there was still a lot of unknown. We were still going through a lot of growing pains. At the time, there was no individual training course, which is like our Q course. Nine month training pipeline that you go through to become a critical skills operator. There was no course. There was no assessment selection. So there was no real option at that point. I could have went to BRC, but at that point,

• 1:29:53Nick Kefalides?

  recon battalion was going to remain as part of the second, as the marine regiment. And Marsoc was going to be a part of SOCOM. So that training at BRC was kind of, it wasn't completely relevant. You know what I mean? Because it didn't include a lot of the training that's, that you need to have to become a CSO or a critical skills operator. While I did have some of the amphibious training and stuff like that, and a land nav piece and whatnot. It just wasn't, and that's why they developed a much longer in-depth course, being the individual training course. So yeah, at that time, I was essentially, I got grandfathered and, you know, went to schools and stuff like that.

• 1:30:37Nick Kefalides?

  So, but it was, at the time, I didn't really think of it the, the way you just put it, you know?

• 1:30:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, you know, that's, most guys don't think about that. Cause we're, some of us are humble and, you know, some of us aren't. But I would say the majority of guys are pretty fucking humble and, but I, you know, there's a perspective for you that you probably never thought about and you should be fucking pretty proud that you were hand-selected to become a fucking plank owner of what wound up becoming Marsoc.

• 1:31:15Shawn Ryan?

  How long was, how many different schools did you go to and, and?

• 1:31:21Shawn Ryan?

  How long was it before you wound up deploying again?

• 1:31:25Nick Kefalides?

  Well.

• 1:31:27Nick Kefalides?

  So shortly after.

• 1:31:31Nick Kefalides?

  Shortly after getting back from the deployment with Fox Company. Uh, I basically re-injured, uh, re-aggravated a prior injury from my first deployment. I was involved in a IED rollover incident, uh, basically where my Humvee was flipped. Uh, I broke my back and I had multiple, ended up needing multiple spine surgeries as a result of it. So that kind of put a kink in the plan of that whole school phase. Well, I did manage to get into a couple of schools. Um, you know, when I re-injured, you know, I think I was at one of the schools. Uh, it was like one of my PME courses, which I don't know if you guys did that in Navy, but like your professional military education courses, like

• 1:32:16Nick Kefalides?

  the shit that you're required to have in order to get promoted to the next rank.

• 1:32:20Shawn Ryan?

  I scammed out of those.

• 1:32:21Nick Kefalides?

  Did you? And you got lucky. We had, dude, they were like anal, like you, you were going, like, didn't matter how cool you thought you were, what you had under your belt, like you were fucking going. So, uh, I re-injured my, you know, re-aggravated my injury. Um, at that, at that course. And, uh, you know, I had to go, you know, I had to get surgeries and stuff like that. So I was rehabbing, man. And, uh, you know, a lot of people didn't notice, but at the time, like my wife and I had a child who had some severe medical issues, you know, he was eating through a feeding tube and he was really young, man. He was only like three or four months old and all we knew is that he had some issues going on.

• 1:33:04Nick Kefalides?

  And we were trying to get to the bottom of that and like figure out, okay, what's going on with my son? I mean, we're traveling all over the country. You know, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill, you know, going to see all these doctors and specialists to perform these different procedures and stuff with my son and different tests and stuff to figure out what was going on. So at the time, my leadership, you know, the command thought it was in the best interest of myself and my family to get orders to the Marine Special Operations Schoolhouse. I'd be taken out of a deployable billet, put over at the schoolhouse for a term. And that would afford me the time needed to be able to, one, to rehab, to get back to full duty.

• 1:33:48Nick Kefalides?

  And then, two, to give me the time I needed to be able to take my son to these different, you know, appointments and stuff like that and to figure out what was going on with him. And dude, that was probably, I'd say that timeframe was probably the hardest time out of my whole military career. Even at some of the shittiest times during my deployments, like, I think that time was probably one of the, one of the hardest times of my, my military career.

• 1:34:12Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So you're, you're rehabbing your back.

• 1:34:18Shawn Ryan?

  You're trying to figure out what's going on with your son.

• 1:34:21Nick Kefalides?

  Oh, yeah, and I'm going through a divorce.

• 1:34:23Shawn Ryan?

  You're, you're going through a divorce?

• 1:34:25Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:26Shawn Ryan?

  And then on top of that, you're dealing with all the combat stress that, you know, comes with the, uh, with the job. And, uh, that's a lot of, that's,

• 1:34:40Shawn Ryan?

  that's a lot to deal with. A whole lot. So, what, what happened with your son? How's he doing now?

• 1:34:50Nick Kefalides?

  Huh, dude, like my son, he is light years ahead of where he was at that time. I mean, dude, they didn't think he would walk. They, they, there was a lot of unknown. Uh, he has been diagnosed with autism. He has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, which were, they were good things. We got answers. We wanted to know what, what's going on. Why is my son this way?

• 1:35:15Nick Kefalides?

  But ultimately, he's gotten the care and the treatment that he needed. He's progressed. Like I said, light years ahead of where he is and, uh, He's good. I mean, he's, he's good to go. He's come off the feeding tube. He's eating enough food by mouth to sustain his weight. Uh, he does speech, occupational and physical therapy every week. Uh, he goes to a school that's specifically for kids with, uh, special needs. So he's doing great, man. He's doing awesome.

• 1:35:42Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome, man.

• 1:35:43Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:43Shawn Ryan?

  Um, I, I can't even.

• 1:35:50Shawn Ryan?

  That's a lot to, uh, go through.

• 1:35:53Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, dude, and the thing that, that really fucked with my head the most was during that time, you know, I got sent to the schoolhouse specifically for the reason to, hey, this is going to give you the time you need to get back to full duty, take care of your son, get your life on track.

• 1:36:11Nick Kefalides?

  But people under the leader, my leadership didn't always understand that. Guys that I was close to understood what was going on, but for the guys that didn't know what was going on, you know, it was tough, man. I'd go, you know, fly up to Cincinnati Children's Hospital for two weeks with my son and my soon to be ex-wife. Uh, to, you know, go have this procedure for my son and I'd show back up to work and I'd have a guy be like, oh, cool. It's, it's nice to you to come back to work. Would your kid get sick again?

• 1:36:38Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 1:36:39Nick Kefalides?

  That shit really fucked with me, man. Like it, it, it hurt because I knew that, like, I already felt bad enough. I already had that guilt trip of not being there.

• 1:36:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:50Nick Kefalides?

  It was already bad enough being at the schoolhouse and being pulled from, you know, the team. So fuck. But, uh, you know, so there was a little bit of a gap in time between, uh, that two thousand seven, two thousand eight deployment till my next deployment. Uh, you know, I did a term at the schoolhouse and then I was sent to the regiment.

• 1:37:16Nick Kefalides?

  I ended up coming back to full duty, three spine surgeries later, I'm still jumping out of airplanes, I'm still, you know, rucking, I'm still, all the shit that, you know, doctors told me, you're never gonna be able to put an eighty pound ruck on your back again and walk, you know, it's just, you're not gonna be able to do that, and I just wasn't hearing that noise, you know. I would see some of the statements that would come back from the hospitals, like for my son's treatments and shit, and do astronomical amounts of money, like, and I'm thinking to myself, if I get out because of this injury, I'm never gonna be able, like, what are we gonna do, who's gonna pay for this, I'm not even, you know, if I get out, insurance companies

• 1:37:59Nick Kefalides?

  might not even cover my son because he's got now a pre-existing condition, so that was my motivation to come back to full duty. Physical therapy on base wasn't doing shit for me, I fucking hired a personal trainer, I had a fucking sports rehab facility that trained fucking athletes, and I went in there, fucking put my goddamn medical record on the fucking table that was about that thick at the time, and I told him, here's my deal, this is what I do, here's my situation, I need to get from where I'm at, back to this, and I paid out of pocket at this sports rehab facility to get back to full duty.

• 1:38:37Shawn Ryan?

  Had that not happened, do you think you would have separated at that time?

• 1:38:42Nick Kefalides?

  What's that, had what not happened?

• 1:38:45Shawn Ryan?

  Had, had your son been taken care of, or did not have the medical issues, do you think you would have separated?

• 1:38:53Nick Kefalides?

  It's tough to say, man, because, yeah, that my son was a big part of that decision, but also, I wasn't ready to drop my pack.

• 1:39:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:01Nick Kefalides?

  I just wasn't ready, you know, I hadn't gotten that monkey off my back yet.

• 1:39:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, so you went back to war?

• 1:39:08Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah, basically, man, at the first opportunity I was given, I was working, I was working at the, at the regiment, under a master gunnery sergeant, old good old Frank, and I told him, I said, look, I don't give a fuck what it takes, man, if there's any opportunity to get back into a team, like, sign me up, I'm ready, like, and sure enough, we had a Good, a buddy of mine who was actually deployed at the time with Fox Company who was deployed with them and he stepped on a pressure plate IED and lost his leg and they needed

• 1:39:49Nick Kefalides?

  a combat replacement, somebody to go over there, you know, quick, fast, in a hurry to cover down on his duties. So I volunteered for that. Went over, 2013, I went over, this time it was, went to Kabul Province and essentially finished out the deployment there. Shortly before coming home, the unit that was coming over to replace Fox Company, Golf Company, was getting ready to come and do turnover and I got an email from a Master

• 1:40:29Nick Kefalides?

  Guns back stateside and said, hey, we've got an 18 Charlie with this team whose wife is having some serious medical complications. He's not going to be able to make the deployment. Would you have any interest in cross decking? It would help us out tremendously. So that turned into that, you know, four month deployment. Well, what was left of that deployment anyways ended up being four months for me. That four month deployment turned into like an 11 month deployment. Holy fuck. Yeah. 11 fucking months? Yeah. With, you didn't come back once?

• 1:41:11Nick Kefalides?

  I came, I went back, at that time I didn't know I was going to be cross decking. Yeah. And I had like my house and shit back home that I needed to like, I, I just wasn't administratively prepared to be gone for that long. And I said, hey, those guys aren't here yet. Let me fly home for a week. Let me just get all that stuff, you know, under wraps, make sure it's good to go and I come back. So I went home for about a week and a half. Fuck. And then came back and jumped right into a team that I had never worked with. Now granted, I knew. I knew a few of the guys in the team. I'd been through different shooting packages and demo packages and shit like that, working with these guys. Um, but for the most part, I was like the new guy on the block.

• 1:41:56Shawn Ryan?

  So yeah, technically it went from the training house to right in the fucking thick of it.

• 1:42:02Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:03Shawn Ryan?

  As, I mean, it, it's your first, technically your first deployment as a special operations uh, operator from Marsoc.

• 1:42:13Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:17Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. So, and I was looked at, you know, like the, the guy, for the guys that knew me in that team, they were excited to have me there because they knew, you know, what I was about. Um, but for the guys that didn't know me, it was like, who the fuck is this guy? You know? So that first month of that deployment, a lot of it was having to kind of prove myself, you know, let, you know, showing that I, I was there, you know, to contribute to the team. And to do bad things to bad people.

• 1:42:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. What was the, uh, what was the op tempo on this deployment?

• 1:42:49Nick Kefalides?

  That op temp, the op tempo of that deployment was just insane.

• 1:42:52Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 1:42:53Nick Kefalides?

  We had, that's probably, I'd have to say that deployment was probably the most fun I've ever had.

• 1:42:59Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:43:00Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. I mean, it's just, that was a correlation of like the years of training and blood, sweat, tears, everything that you put into, you know, uh, you know, the training and the workups, getting ready for deployments. And then that, just having that opportunity, being presented with that opportunity, being able to utilize all that training and that's those skillsets in a real life, you know, real world life kind of thing.

• 1:43:27Shawn Ryan?

  What was the primary mission? Was it?

• 1:43:30Nick Kefalides?

  We were there doing FID, you know, we had our host nation forces, we were running commandos, we were running ANASF, which for those who are not familiar, it's Afghan National Army, but they're special forces. So we stood up a curriculum and a pipeline for the commandos that wanted to go like a special forces route and get more training. And we literally trained those guys on everything.

• 1:43:55Shawn Ryan?

  How, how many guys are there? Cause sometime, we did FID and FID was like fucking.

• 1:44:02Shawn Ryan?

  One Iraqi.

• 1:44:03Nick Kefalides?

  Oh, no, dude. We had two, we had two, uh, platoons attached to us. They were living in the same compound as us.

• 1:44:10Shawn Ryan?

  So you're, you're like doing the SF mission for the most part?

• 1:44:14Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. Now, and that turned into like that FID mission turned into more like direct action, special reconnaissance type missions. You know, our job was to be there to mentor and advise the Afghan National Army to ensure that they had the training they needed to be able to take the wheel. Uh, doesn't always work out that way.

• 1:44:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:37Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, but during that time, I mean, we were at a VSP, a village stability platform, um, kind of in the middle of nowhere in Herat Province. Right. And where we were, man, it was just surrounded by villages that were nothing but Taliban. So if we went outside the wire getting in engagements, they're rocketing the shit out of us. And, you know, doing stuff like that. So it was, we stayed busy and even like the guys in that, that team, like, they didn't like to, to have nothing to do. They want, they were always wanting to work.

• 1:45:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:15Nick Kefalides?

  Just everybody had like crazy work ethic and just was ready to go. We knew that that deployment was, that was kind of the end of the line. That, that deployment was essentially right before the plug was pulled and the majority of forces were pulled out of Afghanistan and we knew that. All the VSPs were getting de-mailed and tore down and all that stuff.

• 1:45:38Shawn Ryan?

  I know this from when we were working before and I've heard, you know, you talk about it and, uh, I've seen the video.

• 1:45:46Shawn Ryan?

  But a major event happened that you were involved in again, uh, that you can essentially take credit for. So

• 1:45:58Shawn Ryan?

  let's go over what happened there.

• 1:46:01Nick Kefalides?

  We got.

• 1:46:05Nick Kefalides?

  We basically got tasked with uh going through, you know, got tasked by Siege Sodov. They wanted us to go and do a sweep through this village. Where they had intel saying that there were some IED facilitators and guys that were running, IED and weapons facilitators and guys that were running back and forth uh from Afghanistan and Iran, guys were coming back and forth. And when they came back, that was essentially the area where all these weapons and IED making materials were being disseminated to Taliban. So we were, you know, tasked with going through, doing a full sweep of this village, searching everything. It was supposed to be like a two day op.

• 1:46:52Nick Kefalides?

  And we were gonna walk in because at that time, their EW or their early warning signals were just, they were good. They knew every, they, if we left the wire, they knew we were coming. If, you know, they would have, you know, little brevity codes, you know, the wolves are coming, the wolves are coming, you can hear on the, on the cellphone chatter.

• 1:47:13Nick Kefalides?

  And uh, so we said, you know what, fucker, we're gonna walk.

• 1:47:17Shawn Ryan?

  So you fucking humped in?

• 1:47:18Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, we, we fucking humped in, you know, we had, I mean, you're talking two days, two days worth of shit in a ruck. And you think two days, oh, I'll just pack some skivvies and socks. No, you need fucking batteries, you need chow, you need enough ammo, or if shit hits the fan, you're not gonna go Winchester. So we're loaded the fuck down.

• 1:47:35Shawn Ryan?

  Did you guys have any fucking assets? Or was it just? As far as air or?

• 1:47:41Nick Kefalides?

  At that, for that, for that mission, we didn't have, there was no QRF. We were out there on our own, dude. Like, there was, we were, I think, sixty miles from the closest base. So we were on our own. There was no QRF. Occasionally, we would have ISR, you know, and stuff like that. But for that, that one, we did not.

• 1:47:58Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 1:47:59Nick Kefalides?

  Not until the daytime.

• 1:48:02Nick Kefalides?

  So we walk in at night.

• 1:48:05Nick Kefalides?

  Once we get into the village, you know, we basically hold up in a, in a compound, wait for daylight.

• 1:48:13Nick Kefalides?

  Daylight comes, we come out of the compound, everybody goes to their positions and we start our sweep. Wasn't even 10 minutes, we started taking fire.

• 1:48:27Nick Kefalides?

  At this point, we had three elements, all three elements were split into different positions. Uh, my element, we slipped into a compound, the closest compound that we could find to take cover. And basically we, we fought from the compound, you know, they were from all different directions. You know, we cut out murder holes in the walls of this compound.

• 1:48:52Nick Kefalides?

  I got up on the roof.

• 1:48:55Nick Kefalides?

  For a lot of these houses in Afghanistan, the way that they're constructed, they're essentially mud huts. You know, they're, they're hard, not hard as concrete, but they're big mud huts and they've got these giant domes on the top. Uh, almost like fighting positions. And, uh, so that's what I did. I, I got, you know, got up on the top of the roof and, uh, you know, started engaging, you know, targets and you can see the guys were running back and forth and, you know, popping out of doorways and buildings and stuff like that.

• 1:49:23Nick Kefalides?

  So, uh, yeah, I was up on the roof. Uh, they kind of honed in on my position.

• 1:49:31Nick Kefalides?

  You know, you could see like where I was kind of tucked in between these two domes. I would pu- put my head down and you could see like rounds would be like ricocheting off the top of the dome. And at this time I had a helmet camera on and I'm just kind of, I went back and looked at the footage afterwards and it's like, I'm just sitting there laughing.

• 1:49:50Nick Kefalides?

  But, uh,

• 1:49:53Shawn Ryan?

  It is weird. Sometimes it's a good feeling when you're getting shot at because

• 1:49:56Nick Kefalides?

  Dude, it's like.

• 1:49:57Shawn Ryan?

  You know what is about to happen.

• 1:49:58Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah. So, uh, it just so happened that my team leader happened to be with my element. Uh, when that went down, he just happened to be with us as we were doing the sweep and he's down inside the compound and he's on the fucking hook with our JTAC trying to get air assets on the line to get him to come in. And, uh, he's like, dude, you need to come down. You need to come down. So I come down off the roof and, uh, we had three murder holes in a dug out, uh, different, different sides of this compound, one on each side. And, uh, so he's like, hey, if you want, you know, go in there with so and so and, you know, just, just man the murder hole. Just, you know, see what's going on. So for a while

• 1:50:41Nick Kefalides?

  there, there was a lull in fire. It wasn't really shit going on. It got quiet. Went from just like, uh, shit was going off everywhere to just stopped. So my buddy's like, hey, man, I need to piss. You mind just, you know, keep an eye on me? Yeah, do go ahead. So, you know, I'm, I'm in this murder hole. I'm just sitting here and I'm watching and all of a sudden I see two dudes on a motorcycle hauling ass. They're trying, they're coming on and they're trying to flank us this way. I don't know if they had another, another element or something that they were staged that we were trying to get, they were trying to get to or what. But I could see when they were hauling ass, they both had man jams and both had AKs strapped to their backs, which, dude, we were just in a firefight. Like you're

• 1:51:26Nick Kefalides?

  a military age male, you're on a motorcycle and you've got an AK strapped to your back, like.

• 1:51:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:31Nick Kefalides?

  Fair game. Well, as I'm in this, you know, I'm looking through this murder hole. I didn't catch the guys on this motorcycle until I got about to my, my right lateral limit, if you will, or to my, when I feel the view was cut off. So immediately the instinct kicks in again. I haul ass. My buddy's get, he's coming from using the bathroom back into the room where we were at. And I'm like, push him out of the way. I'm like move and I'm hauling ass. And I was trying to make it to the other side of the compound so I could get into the other murder hole to see where they were going.

• 1:52:12Nick Kefalides?

  So at the time, we had one of our commandos was, was, he was in that room and I go in there. I'm like, hey, let me get in here. Let me get in here. So I get in and sure enough, they're still coming. And, uh, you know, I just engaged a single round to each guy. Uh, first one launched the, the driver of the motorcycle off the motorcycle. We were at really close range. Uh, I don't think they realized that we had murder holes dug out and they didn't see anybody on the roof anymore. So I think they took that as a window of opportunity to make a run for it. You think they thought you were dead? They don't, I don't think they thought I was dead. They could have thought that. They may have thought that, but they, all they know is that there was nobody else on the roof. Returning fire because when I was up there, I'd pop up over the dome, you know, return some shots, get back down.

• 1:52:57Nick Kefalides?

  Well, a good 20 minutes went down, when it went by where I wasn't up on the roof. So I think they saw that as their window of opportunity to either try to get away or try to get to another position or whatever they were trying to do. And essentially I got, they got cut off. Yeah. So I engaged both targets. Um, and then the fire starts again, like, well, uh, let me back up. Engage both targets. You know, let our team leader know, let our JTAC know, hey, we've got two guys down over here on a motorcycle. All right. We'll, we'll check it out. What range was it? Like how close? We were probably like 50 yards. 50 yards? Not even. Okay. Not even. Now that I'm thinking of it, it's probably closer like 35 yards. Oh, fuck. It was close. Okay.

• 1:53:41Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. They were real close to the building and, uh, where the road was, they were trying to, trying to go by. And he flew off the fucking bike? The first dude, the first guy, so the first guy that I engaged was the driver of the motorcycle because that was, I wanted to stop the motorcycle. So he was the first one I engaged. Literally that was my first time ever shooting a guy, a bad guy in combat with a, uh, scar heavy. So I know we got a lot of people you either love or you hate the scar. I'm not a huge fan of it, but well, I'll tell you what it does at close range is pretty impressive.

• 1:54:16Nick Kefalides?

  So yeah, essentially kind of launched this guy off the motorcycle before the motorcycle could fall over. The guy in the back tried to stand up as the motorcycle's falling over and about the same time that his feet hit the ground is when I pulled the trigger on the second shot. And, uh, you know, it took him out as well. Shit. So you must've hit him from the side then? Yeah, yeah. They were coming from the side. So I hit them both from the side. Yeah. Fuck. And they're just one shot? One shot, dude. That's all it took? That's all it took. God damn. One shot on each. That was it. Fuck. And so moving forward,

• 1:54:52Nick Kefalides?

  we, we had a couple casualties. Uh, we had a medevac bird in route, but because we were at, it was too hot. We needed to link up with the other element who then had the casualties. We needed to link up with them, which is like probably 500 yards away, uh, to another compound to be able to provide security so that the bird, the medevac bird could land and pick up our casualties. How many were they Americans or were they? We had two, um, I want to say two Afghans and one American. Yeah.

• 1:55:26Nick Kefalides?

  There's two, two Afghan National Army guys and, uh, you know, one US Coalition guy. Yeah. Uh, none of them were severe, but severe enough to where we needed to call a medevac. So we exit the compound, you know, we, we know everything. By this point, an hour or so has gone by with no fire. We go to exit the compound. We don't make it, you know, a hundred yards. We start getting engaged again. They were just waiting. Yeah. They were waiting for us to, to move. And this time they were behind a wall and they had PKMs, RPKs. Oh shit. I mean, the whole nine. Luckily where we were at the time was close to a little irrigation

• 1:56:06Nick Kefalides?

  ditch. And so you're talking a whole, like an element of, you know, six, probably like six soft guys and then like another dozen commandos and we're all like crawling through this ditch. And I distinctly remember laying face down in this ditch.

• 1:56:28Nick Kefalides?

  And my ruck, mind you, I packed out my ruck like I was gonna need it for two full fucking days. This was supposed to be a forty eight hour mission. So I'm crawling through this ditch and I can feel rounds impacting my rucksack, which I do still have the rucksack. Oh shit. Yeah, so I could feel the rounds impacting and uh

• 1:56:50Nick Kefalides?

  right in front of me is our JTAC. They weren't hitting your fucking gummy bears, were they? Oh dude, that would have been fucking game over.

• 1:56:58Nick Kefalides?

  I kept those on my person. Yeah, first line. So uh JTAC's right in front of me and he's on the hook, you know, he's trying to get, get Apaches to come in and whatnot. And we're pinned down and I could, I'm sitting there and I remember being in bootcamp and having to go through the little course that they had with like, you know, barbed wire little things. And you're crawling through the mud and they're like, drag your face, drag your face. And you're like thinking to yourself at the time, when the fuck am I ever really gonna be dragging my face in the fucking mud? Like what? And at that time I was dragging my fucking face, dude.

• 1:57:38Nick Kefalides?

  That's how low I was. I was trying to get so small in that little ditch because I could feel those rounds impacting, you know, my ruck and I was like, man, couple inches lower and they're gonna hit me. Yeah, all of a sudden this makes sense. Yeah, yeah. So I'm dragging my fucking face um and sure enough, fucking Apaches fucking come in and just start doing gun runs. No shit. I'm talking danger close, cuz I'm, I'm literally in the irrigation ditch right behind our JTAC. And I can hear him saying, I don't give a fuck if we're danger close, fucking engage. So was this daytime or nighttime? This is daytime. Oh fuck, okay.

• 1:58:18Nick Kefalides?

  This is daytime. So two Apaches come in and are just fucking destroying everything and uh. How close? Like less than a hundred fucking yards. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that'll make your asshole pucker up even more than it already is. Yeah, yeah. So but that, that was like. So that happened. They engaged the enemy, eliminate the enemy and we keep going. We link up at the other compound. Medevac bird comes in and then we end up, you know, leaving.

• 1:58:52Nick Kefalides?

  I think it was the following afternoon, we had a team meeting and the talk and we're kind of going around the horn. Getting intel reports from our intel analysts and different things, you know, trying to just, everybody's keeping up to speed. And my team sergeant was like, yep, so just so you know, K Fed, you got dead milkmen. Everybody's like, what?

• 1:59:17Nick Kefalides?

  Dead Milkman was number three on the HVI list at the time. He'd been getting tracked for multiple deployments, multiple SEAL teams, multiple ODAs. Trying to fucking get this guy and it just so happened by chance, he was one of the guys on that motorcycle.

• 1:59:30Shawn Ryan?

  And you fucking got him.

• 1:59:31Nick Kefalides?

  Apparently I got him.

• 1:59:33Shawn Ryan?

  And you were the only shooter.

• 1:59:34Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, only shooter. Nobody else saw him because unless you were looking through that murder hole.

• 1:59:39Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude.

• 1:59:40Nick Kefalides?

  You wouldn't have been able to see him.

• 1:59:42Shawn Ryan?

  So you fucking took out number three at the time? I think number three has what like a two or three week life expectancy.

• 1:59:52Shawn Ryan?

  For a long time, but I mean, it's fucking number three. That's, how'd that feel?

• 1:59:57Nick Kefalides?

  Felt good, man. Felt really good. At that time, I had already been accepted in the team. Like I'd made friends. Those guys were awesome. Like we had been through shit together already, but that felt really good. And the only way we found out was, you know, just as well as I do, like in that culture. They're, they, they are supposed to bury their dead within 24 hour timeframe. And the way we found out is by that afternoon, after we had left, because that happened about mid morning. By late that afternoon, there was like 350 to 400 people there for a little like funeral service for the burial of dead milkmen.

• 2:00:33Shawn Ryan?

  How, how the fuck so?

• 2:00:36Nick Kefalides?

  ISR feed, basically.

• 2:00:38Shawn Ryan?

  They were able to ID him from that? You guys didn't take any skin or fucking?

• 2:00:42Nick Kefalides?

  Oh, hair, hair, yeah. You did take hair samples? Yeah, we took hair samples and stuff. So between that and then, you know, all the intel we got, you know, ISR and stuff like that, showing the funeral and everything. All the, all the cell phone chatter and stuff that was going on between the locals and the people there. We had gotten dead milkman.

• 2:01:02Shawn Ryan?

  Fuck, man.

• 2:01:03Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:04Shawn Ryan?

  Well.

• 2:01:06Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, I'll bet they're glad they hand selected you for that fucking unit. So, otherwise that motherfucker might still be running around, especially since everybody was already after him. You know, uh, and that's how it is too. All the fucking units are competing with each other. You know, it's the fucking seals are competing with Marsoc, Greenberry, everybody is.

• 2:01:28Nick Kefalides?

  We're all just competitive nature guys, you know, we're just all trying to. And it was just one of those things, dude, right place, right time. I didn't do anything that anybody else wouldn't have done or. Wasn't like I, you know, did anything special to get in that position. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and. You know, knew I was, I knew I was engaging somebody that was a threat. Didn't know who it was though.

• 2:01:50Shawn Ryan?

  It's a fucking huge threat.

• 2:01:51Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:52Shawn Ryan?

  Was it the driver of the motorcycle or the passenger, do you know?

• 2:01:55Nick Kefalides?

  Passenger. He was being, uh, come to find out it was like he was being escorted out of the area.

• 2:02:01Shawn Ryan?

  I'll be damned.

• 2:02:03Nick Kefalides?

  I think it's safe to say that that op was probably the highlight, uh, of that deployment for me anyways. For me personally, that was like the highlight of that deployment and essentially highlighted my career. I mean, it's, it's when, when everything comes together, years and years of training and. You know, dedication that you put forth to what our, what our job entails and you have the ability to utilize that.

• 2:02:26Nick Kefalides?

  You know, over there, that's like, doesn't get better than that. You know what I mean?

• 2:02:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, I mean, uh, I could definitely see how that will be the highlight, fucking getting rid of number three. But, um, you got rid of another number three.

• 2:02:40Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, we, we went on, we, that deployment, that was about halfway through that deployment and, and. Again, it was a very successful deployment. Like we did a lot of shit.

• 2:02:52Nick Kefalides?

  We ended up, you know, killing some other age, you know, high, high value individuals, um, you know, before we left. So if you, if you gauge your success by that, like we, we went there and did what we were required to do or expected to do. I should say, and then packed our bags, went home.

• 2:03:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it sounds like you guys were operating at the, at the fucking apex of what anybody, any operator could dream of and, uh.

• 2:03:21Shawn Ryan?

  That's fucking awesome, man.

• 2:03:22Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, absolutely. That's a good way to put it, for sure, for sure. It was very, uh, the satisfaction factor was definitely there.

• 2:03:32Shawn Ryan?

  You're doing everything, you put the time in and the blood and the sweat and the tears to do. And then, and then you go home. And how was that?

• 2:03:43Nick Kefalides?

  So you go home, uh, this is where shit starts to fall apart.

• 2:03:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you know, everybody, the modern day guys, the guys that are getting out, uh, more recently, they start hearing these stories about the transition and I, I think it's probably the most dreaded

• 2:04:02Shawn Ryan?

  part of your life that, that, um, that these guys have to look forward to.

• 2:04:07Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:04:08Shawn Ryan?

  When they get out, but.

• 2:04:10Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, the transition, uh, for me, it was extremely challenging. Um, you know, when I got back from that deployment, you know, a couple of months had went by and I started noticing that I was experiencing things and, you know, having just certain scenarios and situations and symptoms, I guess you could say. I didn't know what the fuck was wrong with me, you know, I didn't know what was going on, you know, I had, I mean, I would have like these fits of rage where I would just go from like zero to a hundred like that, you know, um, severe migraines, headaches, I mean, straight up like debilitating, felt like you couldn't fucking do anything.

• 2:04:56Nick Kefalides?

  I mean, I remember there was a point where just driving to work, you know, driving to, to the battalion in the morning, you know, I'd have to pull off the side of the road and throw up.

• 2:05:08Nick Kefalides?

  Couldn't tell you why.

• 2:05:09Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:05:10Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, couldn't tell you why. Now, I didn't really, all this shit was happening and, uh, you know, the depression set in and, and all that stuff. And I never said anything. It's just kind of like swept under the rug and, uh, it kind of came to a head. Um, I remember I was getting ready to go to a school. I don't remember if it was dye school or what, what it was. I was, I was getting ready to go to a school and I needed an updated physical. So I go into BAS, which is our, you know, our doctor's office, if you will.

• 2:05:41Nick Kefalides?

  And I'm like, hey, I need some signatures from the doc. I need a physical. The corpsman there is like, Roger that. Let's go ahead and get your your vitals, yada, yada, yada. And so he sits down, takes my temperature, you know, does my blood pressure and he starts asking me questions and he's like,

• 2:05:57Nick Kefalides?

  he's like, did you run here today? And I was like, uh, no. And he's like, would you drink a pot of coffee? And I'm like, no, what's up with the weird questions? And he's like, well, dude, your fucking blood pressure is like, sky high. And I'm like, what is it? He's like, your blood pressure is one fifty five over one twenty two. Holy shit. Yeah. And he's like, I don't know if you just hang here for a second. I didn't know this at the time, but he went back to the MO, which was the medical officer at the time, uh, who's a female lieutenant in the Navy and I won't say her name, but um,

• 2:06:37Nick Kefalides?

  he was back there for about five minutes and he came back up and he's like, hey, uh, he's like, it's just gonna be a few minutes. I'm like, is everything okay? And he's like, yeah, yeah. And he's like, I don't know if we're gonna be able to get you the signatures or anything right now. He's and I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? Well, I need to leave if that's not gonna happen. He's like, you can't go. And I'm like, what do you mean I can't go? And he's like, the doc specifically told me that you're not allowed to leave. So she pulls me into her office and she's like, yeah, your blood pressure, you're at fucking risk of stroke. Like, your shit's high as fuck. And this had been like twenty minutes had gone by before she had called me back. And during that time, I guess she's going through my medical record with like a fine tooth comb. She didn't know who I was.

• 2:07:21Nick Kefalides?

  When we were gone on that deployment is when she came in to the battalion. So she didn't know anything about me. There's this new guy that just got back a couple of months ago from this golf company deployment and was trying to go to the next cool guy course, you know? And uh, she sits me down and she's like, has anybody ever gone through your record with you? I'm like, nope. And uh, she started kind of asking me, you know, questions. Have you ever felt this? Or you you ever done this? You ever, you know, had this experience? And I'm like, Got to the point where I was like, yeah, what are you getting at? You know? And she's like, there's, I think there's a correlation between your high blood pressure and what I'm reading here in your medical record.

• 2:08:06Nick Kefalides?

  And that was kind of the come to Jesus meeting that I felt I think that I really needed.

• 2:08:12Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what, uh, what specifically did she read in your medical record that this is related to?

• 2:08:17Nick Kefalides?

  I had a total throughout my career, I had been exposed to 12. Either you can either IEDs or large blasts. Some of them were RPG blasts. Some of them were when my vehicle was struck by an IED. Uh, some of them were just random IEDs that went off when we were on a foot patrol and I was in close proximity. Uh, so. Recorded, I had 12 in my medical record.

• 2:08:46Shawn Ryan?

  And that doesn't even count all the, all the breaching, all the rockets on all that.

• 2:08:52Nick Kefalides?

  Oh, hell no, man. That's not like, you know, we're, we're training on the range and shooting laws, AT fours, you know?

• 2:08:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:58Nick Kefalides?

  Shit like that and doing demo packages. No. This is like when incidents happened where I could, I potentially lost consciousness or was like, I had a time where my eardrums got ruptured because, you know, uh, struck my vehicle, but, uh, yeah, so.

• 2:09:15Shawn Ryan?

  12 fucking, so basically 12 fucking TBIs.

• 2:09:19Nick Kefalides?

  Essentially. It had the potential to be that. Now, I didn't, I didn't lose conscious, consciousness 12 times. Uh, from what I can remember, I probably lost consciousness like four times, maybe five. Uh, but whether or not that categorizes it as a TBI or not, I'm not, you know, I'm not too sure, but there was 12 cases, 12 instances throughout my career where it was significant enough to be documented in my medical record.

• 2:09:48Shawn Ryan?

  Fuck, and then, and this is from first deployment?

• 2:09:52Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:52Shawn Ryan?

  That you ever made with the infantry all the way to last one with Marsoc? And this is the first time that?

• 2:09:59Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, any, but any, any kind of red flags and uh?

• 2:10:04Nick Kefalides?

  It was good because the way she approached it, you know, we're very fucking hard headed. We're very prideful like we're quick to sweep shit like that under the rug and just focus on the mission, you know, at hand and that's kind of what it was and she was kind of was like, look fuck stick, like you've got some issues, you know? And when she kind of put it that way and she, she was like,

• 2:10:30Nick Kefalides?

  uh, she, you know, asked me questions about family. I told her about my son and she's like, listen. She's like, your son, you care about your son, right? Yeah, he's, she's like, you want to make sure he's taken care of? Like, yeah, she's like, you can't do any of that unless you take care of you. And that kind of resonated with me, you know? Really kind of, kind of hit home and uh?

• 2:10:53Nick Kefalides?

  So she's like, I want you to be honest with me. She's like, go home for the weekend. I want you, I'm going to make an appointment. You're going to come back next week and we're going to do a full physical and I want you to be honest with me. And so I went home that weekend and just kind of thought about everything and I was, I was scared to talk, to say what I was experiencing because I was on that, that high, you know, we had just come off a really successful deployment and I was getting ready to go to a school that I've been trying to get for a while. And then after I got back from that school, I was going to jump into another workup and deploy again.

• 2:11:27Shawn Ryan?

  How long after deployment is this happening?

• 2:11:29Nick Kefalides?

  After that last deployment, it was probably two months.

• 2:11:33Shawn Ryan?

  Holy fuck, were you having any symptoms on deployment?

• 2:11:37Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, it actually, it, the symptoms had started even prior to my last deployment, but it was all stuff that I just, you know, dude, we don't say shit, you know what I mean? It's just, you know, you don't want to do anything that's going to remove you from your team, you know?

• 2:11:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:11:52Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, stubborn in a sense, but. So yeah, that happened, went back the next week and I, you know, I spilled, I spilled my guts, man. I told her everything that I was experiencing. I told her, I don't know what the fuck's going on with me and I've been super depressed. Uh, so long story short, she wanted to enroll me in the Spirit Intrepid Center on Camp Lejeune, which was our brain treatment facility. It's a 20 week inpatient or outpatient program, uh, where they do everything from like vestibular rehab to cognitive therapy, uh, physical therapy, occupational speech therapy, uh, all that stuff. And, and you're, you're basically going there and you're receiving treatment every day for,

• 2:12:35Nick Kefalides?

  for 20 weeks. That's, that's your sole purpose. And she thought that I needed to, to go into that program because of everything that was going on. And so they could kind of dig a little deeper and see what was going on. And that's when, that's when I found out about the TBI and they had done MRIs in my brain and shit. And, you know, it was just like, okay.

• 2:12:54Shawn Ryan?

  So when you went home for that weekend, nobody wants to be, I guess I shouldn't say nobody. Most guys don't want to be diagnosed with anything because they don't want to be separated from the team or miss a deployment or any of that shit. But on the other hand, uh, at least for, for me, I didn't want, I was also at the same time scared to, I didn't want to hear what the fuck was wrong with me. And I know a lot of other guys have that. They have that. Did you have any of that? That fear that, cause once you get it, it's fucking real.

• 2:13:33Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, dude, I was scared, you know, and, and I look back on it now and think how foolish I was, but I, I used to be that guy that was like, the fuck is PTSD?

• 2:13:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:45Nick Kefalides?

  That shit's for the weak.

• 2:13:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:48Nick Kefalides?

  That means you fucking have a weak mind. That's how I used to look at it because I was just, didn't know, was uneducated, thought I was fucking, you know, bulletproof. That age, that's how you feel. You feel like you're unstoppable, you know, and that's kind of where I was. And it was a humbling moment when I realized like, this is me. Like I'm human and the accumulation of all these deployments and all this shit, like being at a high stress level in that fight or flight mode for years.

• 2:14:20Nick Kefalides?

  You know, I was, that was me now, you know, these are the effects, all this, these things that I was feeling and experiencing and everything, it was a result of all that time that I had spent doing that, that cool guy shit, you know? So, everybody's like, you know, not everybody, but I'll get a lot of people like, dude, holy fuck, you like, the things that you did is fucking amazing, like, I would, I would kill to fucking be able to do some of the things that you did and while I'm grateful, I'm, I'm kinda like, it fucking, I came with a price.

• 2:14:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:14:50Nick Kefalides?

  Came at a real hefty price.

• 2:14:52Shawn Ryan?

  You know, have you heard of, uh, have you heard of operator syndrome?

• 2:14:56Nick Kefalides?

  Hmm.

• 2:14:57Shawn Ryan?

  They're now saying that, um,

• 2:15:01Shawn Ryan?

  I'm gonna fuck this up, but they're now, basically, what they're doing is PTSD became so broad, um, that now that they're starting to, or have started to diagnose operators, like yourself, with operator syndrome because of all the other fucking symptoms that are coming out, you know, like, your PTSD is different than the

• 2:15:34Shawn Ryan?

  admin person who had a random rocket land next to their fucking bunkhouse.

• 2:15:39Nick Kefalides?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:15:40Shawn Ryan?

  So, um, and I believe there's, uh, seven, I can't remember exactly what they are, but I believe there's like seven different, um, kinda symptoms that they, that, uh, make up operator syndrome, which is all, you know, from

• 2:15:54Nick Kefalides?

  Right, right.

• 2:15:54Shawn Ryan?

  stress and.

• 2:15:56Nick Kefalides?

  Huh, that's interesting, and I can totally see that, I remember one of the things when I was at that brain treatment clinic was, uh, they asked me if I would be interested in doing group therapy, and, uh, I promised myself that when I went there that I would go in with an open mind and I would try my best to. Take advantage of every resource that was available. So I tried it and uh, you know, the first one I went to was the only one I went to. Um, but it was like fifteen people in a room, all either Marines or Navy corpsmen and everybody had their own experience. But the thing was, some of them were combat related and some of them weren't like a guy was, you know, you had

• 2:16:38Nick Kefalides?

  a E2 or E3 sit next to me who had been in a car wreck and was suffering from TBI and PTSD, which I, you know, don't take anything away from his accident and his injuries, but it's totally different, you know? So it just was hard for me. It wasn't relatable, you know? Yeah. It was hard for me to be in that setting. I, I felt like if I was gonna do counseling or therapy, it probably needed to be better, probably needed to be alone, you know? I didn't do well with group therapies, but anyhow, so I was there, did the twenty week program and uh, during that time, it really opened my eyes seeing where I was at with my baseline, with all the different tests and shit. It revealed that I had issues.

• 2:17:23Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. And I guess as I was being uh, as I was realizing, coming to the realization that I had issues, it was really, that snowball effect was really taking place. My issues were getting worse and worse and worse. And at one point, man, I just got, I, I was in a really deep, dark place in my life. That was right before I got out of the Marine Corps. Um, I had basically been given a choice. Um, I, I was told I was never gonna deploy again, that I had a choice

• 2:18:02Nick Kefalides?

  to either do a lateral move to a non-deployable MOS, essentially an admin job, or I would be medically retired, that I had to choose between the two. And uh, that kind of fucked me up, cuz I wasn't ready to, to drop my pack. I wasn't, it was very difficult to come to grips with the fact that it was, it was over. Yeah. How did they um?

• 2:18:29Shawn Ryan?

  How do they tell you you're not to pull, you're not gonna deploy again?

• 2:18:32Nick Kefalides?

  They told me I couldn't afford another concussion. They're like, you're gonna turn into a fucking vegetable. Like you cannot afford another concussion.

• 2:18:42Nick Kefalides?

  If you deploy again in the teams, there's a very high chance you will get another concussion and you can't like, we don't wanna risk severe brain damage at that point. You know, not saying that that's what's gonna happen, but you know, they're airing on the side of caution, you know, at that point.

• 2:18:58Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:59Nick Kefalides?

  So that was tough. Uh, there was a time dude where like, there wasn't a day that went by where I didn't contemplate suicide and think it out like how I was gonna do it.

• 2:19:11Shawn Ryan?

  How were you gonna do it?

• 2:19:12Nick Kefalides?

  I had an array of different ways I was gonna do it.

• 2:19:17Shawn Ryan?

  Were you drinking?

• 2:19:18Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, drinking. How, you know, I had gotten divorced. I had a failed marriage. I was living in a three bedroom house all by myself. So I'd go home and nobody, you know, it was just lonely and I was trying to battle all these demons on my own. Not really knowing what, what the fuck to do, you know?

• 2:19:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:43Nick Kefalides?

  And I was kinda, I'm kinda, I was resentful

• 2:19:48Nick Kefalides?

  of the guys that I had served with, the guys in my team because thing I've learned about not just the Marine Corps, but you know, all branches, regardless of what, what you're doing is when you get out, that train doesn't stop rolling.

• 2:20:02Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:02Nick Kefalides?

  That, that train keeps going and it doesn't look back. It doesn't slow down. If you get off, thanks, have a good time.

• 2:20:11Shawn Ryan?

  It does exactly what the fuck it is supposed to do, whether you are there or not.

• 2:20:16Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 2:20:17Shawn Ryan?

  And that's a fucking tough pill to swallow.

• 2:20:19Nick Kefalides?

  I didn't get any calls. Nobody checked to see how I was doing. I don't think anybody really knew. I was so like isolated. I just isolated myself. And, uh,

• 2:20:33Nick Kefalides?

  Dude, I don't even know how the fuck I pulled myself out of that hole, to be honest with you, man. It was bad. It was real bad. Um, just, and for like, a solid year and a half,

• 2:20:46Nick Kefalides?

  I was not myself. Like, I did some shit that I look back on now that I'm just like, fuck, the fuck is wrong with you? You know what I mean? Just like.

• 2:20:58Shawn Ryan?

  Give us an example.

• 2:21:00Nick Kefalides?

  Failed relationships, you know, with people, different, you know, just, just the way I would act, you know? Like, I just didn't give a fuck about anything or anybody, you know?

• 2:21:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I think I know where you're going with this, but, um, I'm curious. Did you look to your, I mean, your stepdad was a sniper in Vietnam and, uh, who had come home and

• 2:21:27Shawn Ryan?

  he's still alive. So, did you look to him for any type of guidance or did you?

• 2:21:33Nick Kefalides?

  No, I didn't, man. And that's, no, I didn't, man. I was, I was partially, you know, embarrassed about it. I didn't, I didn't really know how to feel, but I didn't have like a mentor or somebody that I could talk to or somebody could be like, yeah, dude, this is normal. It wasn't like that. I just, and honestly, had I, it was probably best that I experienced it by myself.

• 2:21:59Nick Kefalides?

  Because I learned from it. I learned a lot. And ultimately, man, I think, I think my son is, is probably what kept my head above water. Cause I, I came very close, uh, on, on a couple of different occasions to, uh, you know, taking my own life and my, thinking about my son and him growing up without a father is what stopped me. So, fast forward, you know, I.

• 2:22:32Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, I get put on a med board. I'm found unfit for duty. I'm given a date to get out of the Marine Corps. I'm done. I'm being medically retired. What year, uh, what year is this? This is the end of two thousand fourteen.

• 2:22:53Nick Kefalides?

  And I feel like the fucking walls are closing in around me because I have no fucking idea what I'm gonna do. How does what I just did for the last eleven years of my life gonna translate to the corporate world? Or the civilian sector? Yeah. I don't wanna be a fucking cop. I see what those motherfuckers deal with and quite frankly, I just don't wanna do it. Yeah. I was done carrying a fucking gun, had not, didn't want anything to do with it for like a year and a half after I got out. I never even picked up a gun. Didn't carry, didn't have any. Fucking sold all my shit, dude. Sold all my guns. Where did you, did you, where'd you go?

• 2:23:37Nick Kefalides?

  Uh, I moved back down to Florida. That's where, you know, where I grew up and my dad lived there and. You know, I went, I went and moved in with my dad temporarily for a few months. He was, you know. He's been the most impactful person in my life and he was the one I felt like I need to go be with him for a little while and just kinda. Tried to clear my head, but and and figure out what the fuck I was gonna do with my life. What's next? What am I gonna do for a living? You know, I can't like I.

• 2:24:08Nick Kefalides?

  So I, I just, I didn't know what to do. You know, I was kinda lost in life. And, uh.

• 2:24:17Nick Kefalides?

  You know, so that during that time, you know, when I moved, moved back down to Florida, you know, I. I tried a few, I, I dabbled in a few different things. I tried the school thing. You know, GI Bill, that, that fucking worked out like a fart in church. Yeah.

• 2:24:32Nick Kefalides?

  Um. How, how long did you try that? I'm just curious. Uh, semester and a half.

• 2:24:39Shawn Ryan?

  That's a you gave it a good go.

• 2:24:42Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, I gave it a good go, but it just wasn't for me, dude. Like it just I tried it. I thought that was like the thing to do.

• 2:24:50Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, coming back from four fucking combat deployments, being blown up twelve times, killing the fucking number three guy. Uh, SWAT Marines that are pussies out of the way so he can jump on a machine gun and then go into a fucking classroom with a bunch of eighteen year old fucking chumps.

• 2:25:10Shawn Ryan?

  That had to be a tough pill to swallow.

• 2:25:12Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, dude. Hey, you want to talk about feeling like an insignificant piece of shit? I was just trying to figure out like what the fuck happened a year and a half ago. I was fucking like on top of the world.

• 2:25:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:25:25Nick Kefalides?

  You know?

• 2:25:27Nick Kefalides?

  I was on top of the fucking world. Um, and it was tough, man. So I did that. It didn't work out for me. Then I thought, all right, so maybe I want to do a trade school. Oh, maybe I want to go be a marine marine technician, go learn how to work on outboard motors and stuff like that.

• 2:25:44Nick Kefalides?

  You know, got everything was doing my vocational rehab, you know, packet going to that. I went the first day. And I was like, nope, this isn't going to be good.

• 2:25:56Shawn Ryan?

  Why is that?

• 2:25:57Nick Kefalides?

  I could just tell there was, you know, certain guys, there was younger guys in the class. Um, and then the between that, certain guys in the class that I knew I wasn't going to mesh well with. And then there was a personality conflict with, uh, with the instructor himself. And, uh, I was just like, yeah, I don't, I don't want to do this bad enough.

• 2:26:21Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:22Nick Kefalides?

  To, you know, to stick this out for, I think the, the course for that was like almost a year. And, uh,

• 2:26:31Shawn Ryan?

  Were you getting a lot of anxiety and shit being around people?

• 2:26:34Nick Kefalides?

  Bro, it's fucking unreal. And, and when I talk about like personality conflicts and not meshing well with some of those other students and stuff, I think a lot of that was me. You know what I mean? Like, it was just me. Like I had no idea how to fucking deal with being like a member of like civilization, regular society. You know what I mean? Like.

• 2:26:55Nick Kefalides?

  Somebody would be fucking tapping their pen on the desk while somebody's talking and you're trying to concentrate and I want to fucking slam their face on the desk, you know?

• 2:27:03Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, no, I, I think that's a big reason why people are always asking, we get a ton of emails and then one of the, a really common question is why do guys that come from special operations community or, or warfighters? Why do they always self-isolate? Why do they wind up in the middle of nowhere? And I think

• 2:27:31Shawn Ryan?

  we're all just trying to avoid confrontation because we cannot deal with it

• 2:27:40Shawn Ryan?

  the way we used to.

• 2:27:41Nick Kefalides?

  Dude, the first day I moved back down to Florida,

• 2:27:46Nick Kefalides?

  I broke a guy's jaw.

• 2:27:49Nick Kefalides?

  I don't like,

• 2:27:52Nick Kefalides?

  we had a storage unit. I was getting my stuff. I won't go into too, too far into detail about the story, but the guy deserved an ass whooping and I gave it to him. But, uh,

• 2:28:05Nick Kefalides?

  you know, hours after that deputy shows up to the house. You know, luckily I didn't get in trouble because the officer felt that my actions were warranted.

• 2:28:19Nick Kefalides?

  But that kind of was like, okay, I can't fucking do this kind of stuff anymore. Like I'm going to end up in jail.

• 2:28:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:26Nick Kefalides?

  You know, I can't, can't react the way that I normally would react.

• 2:28:31Nick Kefalides?

  So.

• 2:28:33Shawn Ryan?

  How many relationships? Well, let me rephrase this.

• 2:28:40Shawn Ryan?

  What relationships did you not ruin? Cause a lot of guys ruin

• 2:28:46Shawn Ryan?

  all the relationships with the family, wives, girlfriends, friends.

• 2:28:51Nick Kefalides?

  Dude, I, I think it's safe to say that I probably fucking ruined all of them.

• 2:28:55Shawn Ryan?

  Even with your dad?

• 2:28:57Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah. Later down the road, my dad and I kind of had a falling out.

• 2:29:04Nick Kefalides?

  Since then, we've rekindled that, you know, him and I are real close, but yeah.

• 2:29:12Shawn Ryan?

  So you said you pretty much fucked up just about all of your relationships, even with your, your dad, but you came down here and you're newly married, just like me. So

• 2:29:29Shawn Ryan?

  obviously you had at least one that worked out and was able to put up with your fucking bullshit.

• 2:29:35Nick Kefalides?

  That hey, I think that's what it boils down to is when you end up meeting your soulmate, it's that one person that's willing to put up with your shit.

• 2:29:43Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:29:45Nick Kefalides?

  I met Jillian about four years ago. Uh, we got married in October last year and she was my saving grace, dude. That, I mean,

• 2:29:56Nick Kefalides?

  when I found, you know, refound my love for fishing and taking the guys out, that made me feel accomplished, but she was that missing piece to my puzzle. She keeps me grounded, brings me back down when I'm, you know, out in left field. Uh, and ultimately she's the one that pushed me to pursue my, my goals, my dreams, my aspirations. Um, so I got her locked down now.

• 2:30:22Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that's fucking awesome, man.

• 2:30:24Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, man. We're, we're really happy and we're both in a really good place and, uh, I'm very, I'm a very lucky guy.

• 2:30:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. You guys are good together.

• 2:30:33Nick Kefalides?

  Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

• 2:30:35Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of people want to know how they can help

• 2:30:39Shawn Ryan?

  somebody with PTSD or post-traumatic stress, TBI, uh, with the, with the transition and, um,

• 2:30:50Shawn Ryan?

  I can tell you what definitely does not fucking work is when people try to relate to what you're dealing with, who's never, who have never fucking been there.

• 2:31:01Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:02Shawn Ryan?

  And but, so don't do that. But do you have any advice for people who, who do want to help?

• 2:31:11Shawn Ryan?

  Anything?

• 2:31:13Nick Kefalides?

  I mean, if you want to help, just be a good fucking American. Don't let guys that have done so much and sacrificed so much for the country feel like everything they did was for a fucking waste.

• 2:31:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:26Nick Kefalides?

  You know, do getting on social media and posting videos of yourself doing fucking twenty two pushups. You're not fucking making a difference. You're not doing shit.

• 2:31:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:35Nick Kefalides?

  You're not raising awareness. Like, you think you are, and whoever fucking started that might might have thought it was, but you're not. Okay, so just be a good fucking person, you know, be a good person. And if you by chance do come across a combat veteran. Just fucking say what's up. You know, don't don't sit there and try to ask him how many fucking people they've killed, or don't do that shit. Just, you know. Just ask him what's going on, you know, talk to him, introduce yourself. I had a guy, I remember one time when I was, I went to another brain treatment facility. Uh, in Dallas, Texas. I was working out the gym there that was right, right across from the, uh, the facility there.

• 2:32:14Nick Kefalides?

  Random dude just came up to me and he's like, sir, I don't want to interrupt your workout, but, uh, he's like, I I recognize you. Your your picture's on on OAF page. And, uh, I'm like, that's pretty fucking, or not being a trained observer, that's pretty fucking good. Uh, but the kid didn't have any expectations. He wasn't like, you know, trying to fucking find out, you know, info about like what I did. And just, hey, can I get a picture with you? He genuinely was just like, dude, I want to say I got a ton of fucking respect for you. And, uh, I don't, I don't have any clue what what you may have experienced, but, uh, I just want to tell you thank you, you know?

• 2:32:54Shawn Ryan?

  That's fucking cool.

• 2:32:55Nick Kefalides?

  I thought that was pretty cool, you know?

• 2:32:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:32:58Nick Kefalides?

  But, um, yeah, so.

• 2:33:02Nick Kefalides?

  You know, fast forward, probably a year from there, you know, I was still trying to figure out what the fuck I was gonna do in life. And I get a phone call one day from a guy by the name of Ed Salu. And he goes, hey dude, you wanna go fishing? And I'm like, you know, I always wanna go fishing dude. So he's like, uh, he's like, well, here's the deal, man. He's like, do you wanna go down to Costa Rica and go bill fishing on a private yacht? Sport fishing yacht and just hang out and relax for like a week. And I'm like, yeah, what's like, what I gotta do? Like, where do I sign up? Or, you know, what? I'm like, what's the catch?

• 2:33:45Nick Kefalides?

  And so, long story short, he's like, look, man, I got, there's this organization called Freedom Alliance. They do here, what they call the Heroes Vacation every year. And they basically select fifteen guys to go down to Costa Rica and go down for a week and basically go bill fishing, you know, for marlin and, and sailfish and stuff, you know? Once in a lifetime opportunity. And it's funny because in between missions on my last deployment, I remember we had a little internet center and I remember going in there and getting on the internet and researching about like different charters and stuff. Cause I told myself, when I get home, like that is my number one on my bucket list. I wanna go down and catch trophy billfish.

• 2:34:29Nick Kefalides?

  And the opportunity was presented to myself. Uh, I got to go down there and it was a life, life altering experience. No shit. Yeah, I grew up fishing down in Florida, freshwater fishing, saltwater fishing. Like I, I grew up doing that. But during my time in the military, I basically didn't do any of that. Like I didn't fish at all. So get, you know, when I got home, I kind of rediscovered my love for fishing again. When I went on that trip, it was just like, it was life changing dude. It really was. It was, it was a life changing moment in my life. And I just kinda, you know, a few times during that trip, I kinda sat back and just observed to see what it was doing, the impact it was having on the other guys that were invited to go on this trip. And I'm like,

• 2:35:15Nick Kefalides?

  and the fucking light bulb came on and I'm like,

• 2:35:19Nick Kefalides?

  I'm like, I could fucking make a difference. Like, I can fucking do this. I have the experience and the resources and the gear to fucking be able to get more guys out on the water and let them experience this. And, uh, so that's what I did. You know, I, I talked to the director, uh, director of Freedom Alliance, talked to the president of Freedom Alliance. I said, listen, I said, um, I love everything that you guys are about, everything that you're doing, and I want to be a part of it. I want to volunteer. I don't want any money. I don't want anything. I just want to be able to contribute and I would love to start doing more than the one time a year where the guys would go down to Costa Rica. So, um, I started running,

• 2:36:02Nick Kefalides?

  I started taking combat wounded veterans on offshore fishing trips to the Bahamas. And, uh, it was amazing, dude. The impact it was having on these guys, it was just like unbelievable. And for me, that was like the biggest thing because for that, like, year after I had just gotten out, the biggest thing I struggled with was trying to find my purpose in life again. Yeah. You know, feeling like I was just a total piece of shit and wasn't doing anything. I needed to find that sense of purpose again, like I was, and I felt like I was contributing to the mission just in a different aspect that I was prior to that. So it was really cool to do that. And that led in, you know, doing those trips and, and realizing how much of a difference it was making and how much of an impact it was having on these guys.

• 2:36:47Nick Kefalides?

  I took it to the next level. I used my GI ability to go to captain's school. Uh, so I went to a 13-week, uh, captain's course, uh, ended up graduating as honor grad, uh, from that course, got my US Coast Guard captain's license. And, um, now I've kind of found my new calling. I, I'm a full-time fishing guide. Uh, I started a business, Warrior Tabass Guide Service. I'm a full-time, uh, Freshwater fishing guide, you know, targeting mainly large mouth bass. So it's what I do to put food on the table for my family now. I really enjoy it. I get to meet people from all different walks of life and provide them with lifelong memories with their family

• 2:37:31Nick Kefalides?

  members and friends and stuff, get out on the water. But my, my biggest enjoyment is I still do the volunteer work. I still take veterans. So in between all my work, I have blackout dates where I will schedule to fly veterans in to fish for two days so that they can experience that.

• 2:37:52Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I remember, I think when we met, you were still working with Freedom Alliance.

• 2:37:58Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 2:37:59Shawn Ryan?

  And we had just started teaching together and you invited me to go on that trip.

• 2:38:06Shawn Ryan?

  And we're Baton Rouge, right?

• 2:38:08Nick Kefalides?

  Venice, we were in Venice, yeah, Venice, Louisiana.

• 2:38:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, on that tuna fishing excursion and yeah, which was fucking awesome. And I,

• 2:38:19Shawn Ryan?

  I really, I really trusted you. I didn't, before that, I didn't do any of that.

• 2:38:25Nick Kefalides?

  I know.

• 2:38:25Shawn Ryan?

  Because I just, I've seen so many fucking nonprofits, you know,

• 2:38:34Shawn Ryan?

  use the veteran card and, and, and, and the treatment card to fucking.

• 2:38:40Nick Kefalides?

  They abused it. Yeah, they abused it. I know exactly what you mean.

• 2:38:43Shawn Ryan?

  But I, you invited me and I was like, well, fuck, I mean, I, I had a lot of respect for you and I trusted you and we went and it was, it was a really good fucking experience and, and it wasn't,

• 2:39:02Shawn Ryan?

  it's therapy, but it's not, it's just nice to get your fucking mind off of shit and be around some like-minded people.

• 2:39:11Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 2:39:11Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, which is another reason I was actually a little hesitant to go is because, you know, with what we used to do, there's egos fucking run rampant and sometimes that can be pretty toxic, but.

• 2:39:27Shawn Ryan?

  But that was a really good trip and uh all the guys that were there, there was four of us and it was other than the fucking cold. That was awesome, but um.

• 2:39:41Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, no egos flying around. I remember telling my, my wife, like, I was actually kind of shocked that you said yes, like, I really, I knew your, kind of your outlook on, you know, some of the different benevolent organizations and, and how they've used it and, and didn't do the right thing. And I was shocked that you came, but I was happy that you did. I mean, that's what it's all about, man. You get out there, there wasn't, you know, like I said, no egos running around and even though it's not a therapy session, just by nature of what the trip is, it ends up being kind of that way. It ends up, everybody gets something out of it, whether it's just, you know, talking to a guy that may have similar experiences that you do, and in the end, you feel like you're not alone because that dude knows exactly how the fuck you feel. Like, that's a big deal.

• 2:40:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, well, the way you structured it too. You had guys that were fresh out, you had guys that were, had been out for a little while, and then you, like, I had been out for a little while. And I think that was,

• 2:40:43Shawn Ryan?

  I think that was really good because the guys that are fresh out, that's, it fucking seems hopeless. And then you see a guy who's been out, who's coming around, and it gives you, uh, it, it just makes you realize, you know, fuck, it's, I can overcome this shit. It's possible.

• 2:41:02Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:02Shawn Ryan?

  You know, that guy's doing great.

• 2:41:05Nick Kefalides?

  Gives you hope.

• 2:41:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 2:41:06Nick Kefalides?

  Gives you hope. I mean, you've done it, I've done it. I, I mean, how many guys have we helped kind of walk through the transition and, and multiple different facets, you know? I've had guys reach out to me and they're like, look, man, what do you, wha- what, what do you think about this? You know, what should I do? You know, guys that just don't know and kind of looking for direction, you know, guidance, and I feel like I fucking learned it all on my own. Like, I, I went, struggled through the, the transition and ultimately, I, I feel like I've had a successful transition, but if I can help anybody from going through what I fucking went through.

• 2:41:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:45Nick Kefalides?

  Like, I, I want to help them, you know?

• 2:41:46Shawn Ryan?

  It's almost like.

• 2:41:51Shawn Ryan?

  For the young Marsoc guys that are coming out now, or maybe they're not even young, you know, that shit could be fucking forty years old, but to see a guy like you who's been there and done it and admit that you've gotten help, it, it makes it okay, you know, for the next, for the generations that are coming out. And I do have a question though. Do you make, do you make everybody who catches a fucking tuna eat the heart out?

• 2:42:20Nick Kefalides?

  Yes, that's tradition. So, two things that typically happen when you catch your first tuna, you gotta get in the water with it, uh, which we didn't make you do that. But what we did make you do is you gotta eat the heart. Not the whole thing, but you at least gotta take a bite. So, uh.

• 2:42:45Nick Kefalides?

  So for those of you guys that have or have not fished aboard, uh, any of Captain Mike Ellis's boats with Relentless Sport Fishing, there's kind of a tradition, uh, that, that's kind of adhered to. And anytime you catch your, your first yellowfin tuna, um, that is, you will taste the blood of that tuna. So, uh, eat your heart out, Sean.

• 2:43:09Nick Kefalides?

  I'd spit it out and give you worms.

• 2:43:13Nick Kefalides?

  Freedom Alliance, Relentless Sport Fishing. Good stuff, guys. Good job, man. Congrats.

• 2:43:25Nick Kefalides?

  That's just a tradition, man. That's, that's, uh, come from years back and it's just fun, you know? And, and I feel like anybody in the normal state of mind would look at you and be like, yeah, that's not fucking happening. But with, with guys like us, it's kind of like, you gotta fucking do it, you know?

• 2:43:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Well, you made me do it. I was gonna finish it, but then you told me I'm gonna get fucking worms. So, but, um, so you do that, you're able to do that now with, with your charters?

• 2:43:55Nick Kefalides?

  What's that? The?

• 2:43:57Shawn Ryan?

  Take veterans out. And that's probably, that is probably even better because it's a one-on-one experience. We had, you know, we had- A captain and three other guys.

• 2:44:09Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah.

• 2:44:10Shawn Ryan?

  And then, but now you're the fucking captain and you're the combat vet that guys, you know, can look up to. And it's a one on one. It is a one on one session.

• 2:44:21Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, typically the way I'll do it is I'll, I'll invite two guys. So it'll typically be two guys and myself. But, you know, I just want to emphasize that this is not a for profit. These guys are not being charged when they come, when they're invited, you know, I, I select these guys and nominate them to come down for these trips. Based on people, not just random, like, oh, I got you and you. These are people that I feel can benefit from it, that need it. They need that reset button. What's that?

• 2:44:54Shawn Ryan?

  You verify.

• 2:44:55Nick Kefalides?

  Oh, absolutely. Everybody that I've taken, I know. I either know or have somebody that's very close to me that knows them.

• 2:45:04Nick Kefalides?

  And this is to ensure that everybody that gets the opportunity to go on these is actually deserving of it. But yeah, it's, you know, basically myself and two other guys and, and, you know, we go out and just relax and decompress and have a good time. And, you know, we catch fish, which is always a plus, but, uh, at the end of the day, it's that breaking away from the everyday stresses of life and, and the bullshit and all that stuff and letting them kind of reconnect with, you know, old comrades or, you know, just like you said, like monitored individuals who might, may have experienced similar things or similar struggles, you know, and getting them out in the water together and

• 2:45:44Nick Kefalides?

  you know, and next you know, you got two guys that may have not known each other prior to that, or they may have known of each other, but never really met, who are now lifelong friends. They had that connection, you know?

• 2:45:56Shawn Ryan?

  Building a network, which is fucking huge.

• 2:46:01Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think that's, that's fucking awesome what you're doing. And so who's covering the cost of taking these guys out?

• 2:46:12Nick Kefalides?

  Well, I, I am, um, basically, you know, I'll just, I'll put money aside, you know, when I can on my busier, busier days, uh, busier times of year, you know, I'll set some money aside and, uh, you know, I'll eat the cost, you know, they're not, they're not paying me for, you know, to take them out. Like it's just my boat, my gear, my time, uh, the money that I do put forth is to cover things like airfare, lodging, food, all that stuff. Um, so right now it's me.

• 2:46:46Shawn Ryan?

  So we, we kinda talked about this before he came up and I mean, I just think it's fucking great that you're paying for, to help and give back to the community, but I mean, in my opinion, you shouldn't be the one paying to give back to the community. So we spoke a lot about and talked a lot about business, uh, before we finally sat out and, and got you on the show. And so you can donate to Nick on Vemo and PayPal. And anything that gets donated goes to the next, the next set of veterans that you're gonna help.

• 2:47:27Nick Kefalides?

  To a therapeutic fishing retreat.

• 2:47:29Shawn Ryan?

  And, you know, we get, we get questions all the time at Vigilance Lead on, how can I help the veterans? How can I help the veterans? How can I help the guys coming back home? What can I do to give back to them? Well, now's your chance. Nick's doing the dirty work, not dirty work, but you know, Nick's doing the good work. And he's a great role model for the guys coming home and he's got a lot of good advice. And the more money you donate to what's your handle?

• 2:48:02Nick Kefalides?

  So you can find me at, uh, Warrior to Bass Guide Service. Um, it's, spell out the name Warrior, the number two, and then Bass. Uh, you can find me on Instagram, you can find me on Facebook, or you can go to my website, warrior2bass.com.

• 2:48:18Shawn Ryan?

  So all those proceeds.

• 2:48:22Shawn Ryan?

  Get veterans out there and you gotta find an example of somebody who's had a successful transition. So, check out Warrior Two Bass, although I think it should be Warrior Three Bass. But, uh, so I wanna kinda wrap this thing up here, Nick. I just wanna say, it's been a real fucking honor to have you sitting in that chair across from me and, um, you know, your fucking service record is amazing. I've worked with a lot of different operators from all different branches, especially when I was at CIA. I worked with all of them. And,

• 2:49:05Shawn Ryan?

  uh, I gotta tell you, if I could go back and operate with somebody, um, that I didn't get to before, you would be fucking top of my list, dude. And I don't say that shit to very many people. But, um, yours is solid, motherfucker.

• 2:49:23Nick Kefalides?

  Yeah, I appreciate that, man. Feelings mutual. I knew that from the time when we started teaching together, you know, doing the, the training and whatnot. I always thought to myself, man, we could've fucking wrecked some shit if we were deployed together.

• 2:49:36Shawn Ryan?

  You're damn right. But, alright, check out Warrior Two Bass on Instagram and, um, best of luck to it, man.

• 2:49:47Nick Kefalides?

  Thanks, brother. I appreciate you having me on the show. It's been an honor.

• 2:49:50Shawn Ryan?

  Cheers.

• 2:51:07Speaker 03

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